What shaped your interest in the emergence of a modern Japan ?

"Well the answer to that question is a long and winding path. It really lies in my childhood and early adulthood experience. At the heart of it is an underlying passion for economic and social history."

How did that come about ?

"I left school, unwillingly, at the age of 14 to work in the grocery trade. However, I had a deep desire to learn more. I had always had a passion for history and I benefited from the public libraries, one of which had been established by the Carnegie Foundation in Stoke-on-Trent.. My mother would regularly say, "I thought you were never coming home".

"After some years in the grocery business I was fortunate enough to secure a series of scholarships which allowed me to go to the Cooperative College. From there I was granted one of the Leverhulme Scholarships that allowed me to to study at the London School of Economics. It was while I was there that I met Professor R H Thorney who was one of the founders of adult education programmes in the UK. He was also the president of the Labour Club at the LSE, of which in due course I became the vice-chairman. My lecturers included James Mead, a Nobel prize winner. It was a fascinating time to be a student. I served as the vice-president of the the LSE Student Union and as Honorary Secretary of the University of London Student Union, roles which ultimately influenced my career."

It seems that politics and activism had become a significant part of your life by then ?

"Certainly my social conscience had been shaped by my political experience and personal development to that point. When I graduated I joined the British Colonial Service, in part through an idealistic motivation, a desire to repay some of the generosity which had been shown me."

What form of contribution did that take ?

After graduating I went out as an educator to East Africa, to what was then Tanganyika and which later became Tanzania. I served as the Acting Head of the Old Moshi School and later of the Indian High School in Dar-es-Salaam. Subsequently, I was an Inspector of Schools and after independence a government adviser on education. What I am most proud of, however, was my role as co-founder of the first Adult Education programme in East Africa. At the time children were receiving an education but adults did not have an opportunity to gain literacy. We saw the need for and advantages that came with a basic education and introduced a programme to provide this. Eventually, however, we made the decision that as a family we needed to move on.

I understand that you then became an academic historian

Yes, that's right. We re-located to Australia, where I joined the Faculty of Economics at the University of Sydney. At the time courses on Japan focussed on language and history. However, I believed that studying the social and economic development of Japan as it entered the modern era was important to gaining an understanding of the events of the mid 20th century. The need to make a mark in the world, coupled with the notion of Emperor worship, help explain the path that ultimately led to the event of Pearl Harbour and the conflict in the Pacific.

How did the ideas for this book develop ?

This book explores those themes and seeks to bring to life a period in Japan's social history which led to their pursuit of Pacific pre-eminence. As part of the work I undertook researching the material for the university course I delivered I came across references to the sort of activities which formed the basis for this story. Ultimately the story developed to the point at which it was the story that was driving me on to tell it.