User:TwoMightyGods/Robert Carter (English novelist)

Robert has five historical novels available as e-books: Armada, Talwar, Courage, Barbarians, and Death Valley Scotty. He also has three mythic history/fantasy novels: The Language of Stones, Giants' Dance and Whitemantle published by HarperCollins, and the latest - Sheer Purgatory - a humorous examination of the afterlife.

He is now working on a new e-book project, set in more recent times - more information will be available soon.

Robert was named after Robert Carter, his grandfather, who was a Lancashire fisherman. His father, William, was one of the first men to die in the First World War. He has his posthumous medals and the bronze plaque that his widow got instead of her husband's body. His trawler, the Mary, had been sent to the North Sea to fish for German mines, but it fished up one too many.

His grandfather was left at the age of thirteen to bring up the rest of the family. He hunted cod in the North Atlantic through the 1920's and 30's, sailing by dead reckoning between Iceland and the White Sea. He rounded the North Cape and even visited Archangel, and he knew equally well the coasts of Greenland, the Hebrides and the fjords of Norway.

As a child Robert lived in Sydney. Home was Maroubra Junction in the Eastern Suburbs. He went to a junior school in Matraville, then later to a special school in Woollahra, where kids were hot-housed. He was twelve when family commitments took his parents away from the Land of Oz and back to England aboard the P&O liner Orcades. They went back to live in the fishing town where his father's parents came from. Robert was sent to the local school, but didn't fit in and couldn't settle. In those days he used to write little bits of fiction by way of escape.

Robert attended Newcastle University - the famous font of knowledge, where the students like to drink. He loved Newcastle from the moment he arrived. He loved the university, loved the city and especially loved the Geordies. Newcastle was, and is, the queen of cities. His subject was Astrophysics.

Robert graduated with a First! But no job ... So he made a decision and went to work in the USA and work in the oil industry. After a while training in West Texas, Robert was posted to various parts of the Middle East and after that into the war-torn heart of Africa and, it was both dangerous and well-paid work. More than once he came close to being killed - and plenty of good men he knew never came home. Robert went to some very remote places like the Rub al Khali and the Congo, and saw things most people don't see, or ever want to.

Robert got around quite a lot in his 20's, visiting dozens of different countries at every opportunity. He travelled to East Berlin and Warsaw an then on to Moscow and Leningrad during the reign of Czar Brezhnev. Shortly afterwards, took the Trans-Siberian railway to Japan. He worked in Hong Kong and took tea with the heir of the last king of Upper Burma near Mandalay, and on the road to Everest base camp he just happened to run into Sir Edmund Hillary.--Mnjudah (talk) 20:37, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

After travelling around most of India, Sri Lanka and Indonesia, Robert needed to get serious and responsible, so returned home and got a job with the BBC working on: Play School (first day induction!) and then Breakfast Time, Newsnight, Panorama and The Money Programme.

Then after about four years, Robert felt it was time to follow his ambitions and left the BBC to write.