Simon Kitchener

Simon Kitchener was born near Ely, Cambridgeshire in 1962. He lived in England until he was 12, when his parents emigrated to Vancouver, BC. He attended the University of Western Ontario, graduating with a degree in history. During his eight years in the Canadian Armed Forces, he worked extensively in Europe, learned to speak French and Russian, and attended Carleton University where he did graduate work in Russian History. Immedaitely after leaving the army, he moved back to England, attending the City University Business School where he earned an MSc in Shipping, Trade & Finance.

Literary Career:

His first book, Canadian French Commandoes, he based on his experiences as an officer leading a platoon of Canadian soldiers through a French Commando course. While Canada maintained its bases at CFB Lahr and CFB Baden-Baden, many soldiers undertook similar Commando courses and this book is a time-piece of Canadiana and memoir to those experiences. His second book, Inspecting the Unexpected, recalls his time inspecting the destruction of NATO and Warsaw Pact weapons in Europe during the early 1990’s. The opportunity to visit military sites in Eastern Europe and Russia was a dream come true for Kitchener and this book follows his exploits, revealing some startling insights into how participants on both sides viewed events in the aftermath of the Soviet Union’s collapse.

The trilogy The People of the Hansa was his first attempt at historical fiction. An epic work centred on a merchant family based in medieval Lübeck, the book places fictional characters alongside actual historic figures to create a picture of medieval urban existence in northern Europe that is both enlightening and true to the facts. The story follows the lives of two unrelated women who, in their search for meaning and value, forge a bond stronger than family and deeper than romantic love. As they wrestle with their families and economic circumstances, overcoming life’s obstacles and finding happiness in being, we are presented with a medieval world far removed from the intrigues of the royal court and knightly politics.

The Trick and the Folly, his next novel, examined how the Bank of England managed to survive its first twenty-five years of existence starting in 1695. The trick in the title refers to the sleight of hand used by the founders to convince many of the virtues of a debt-backed currency to replace a specie-based currency; the folly refers to those who remain blind to the legerdemain.

Moving away from historical fiction, Kitchener set his next three novels in the present. The experimental work, Amos, In Three Acts was written with teenage readers as the target. The three acts of the title refer to three trials (an abusive relationship, a bomb plot and a murder) unwillingly experienced by a fifteen-year old boy, Amos. Easily readable and fast-moving, the book eschews normal descriptive methods to tell the story from the point of view of a remarkably individualistically minded and creative boy through dialogue and stream of consciousness.

Two novels, Leaving Nemi Hall and Rearranging the Facts of Common Life soon followed. These are set in an eccentric art community (Nemi Hall) in rural Kent discuss the relevance of art in a person’s life.

Kitchener returned to history to write This Impatient Nettle which tells the story of the Peasants’ Revolt in 1381. Dramatizing the scarcely known legends of Wat Tyler and the young Richard ll, This Impatient Nettle takes the reader away from the intrigues of Court life and into the world of the instigators to explain why this unique event happened at all.

List of Works:

Canadian French Commandos

Inspecting the Unexpected

The People of the Hansa

The Trick and the Folly

Amos, In Three Acts

Leaving Nemi Hall

Rearranging the Facts of Common Life

This Impatient Nettle