"I received a Children's encyclopedia of History for my 4th Birthday. In it was the Gates of Ishtar. 27 years later, I realized I was standing under the real thing.That is part of the amazing journey that history has taken me through. In living history I have recreated The battles of Blore Heath and Tewksbury, sieged Rochester Castle at twilight, interviewed King William IV, watched Queen Victoria inspect her troops, argued with Winston Churchill and fought countless skirmishes with The Knights of Skirbeck. I established The Vault as a network of information to share with fellow re-enactors all over the world..."Stephens territory is Cranks, dicatators and nutters. "I dont condone their behaviour, I set out to find out what went wrong so that we can learn from their mistakes"
Rufus A Matthews MA; Historian
“I first came to enjoy history as a subject when I was a child at Primary School. I particularly liked reading school story books telling fascinating stories from history. My Mum loved history, so reading these books out loud was a homework task we enjoyed together. At secondary school history became my favourite subject and I went on to study it at GCSE, A Level, degree level and finally MA level.
Today I am essentially a historian of modern European political history. To varying extents I have studied British history, German history and some aspects of modern French history. Russian history, Ukrainian history, and the Soviet Union are areas of special interest for me. However, the subject of my MA dissertation was ethnic relations between Czechs and Germans in Bohemia and Moravia from 1848 – 1918. Essentially that subject is a study of how the peoples of historic states, based on territorial principles struggled to co-exist, in the age of nationalism and nation states”
Zoe is an artist, tattooist and photographer from Kent. We love Zoe's photography which graces many of our issues.
