Frank Welsh was born in 1931 in Washington, County Durham and subsequently educated at Magdalene College, Cambridge. A varied career in international business and banking followed, including service on the Boards of nationalised industries and as a member of the Royal Commission on the National Health Service. He has written extensively on imperial British history, notably Hong Kong, Australia and South Africa, and international business and banking. In common with many of his peers in the north-east of England, he grew up with and has sustained a view that real civilisation was only to be fou...