This much I know: Ben Kane, Writer

My life informs my writing.

I’d worked for 14 years as a vet before I got my book deal. I was 36 so I’d plenty of life experience.

I grew up in Castlebellingham in County Louth and studied veterinary science in UCD.

I’ve always had a vivid imagination, been supremely interested in history, and I’m a huge reader — but I didn’t do any creative writing between the time I left school and my first book. It never got published — it was not good enough; my agent said ‘all they do is march’ — but it got me a deal.

If I could choose to be someone else for a day, I’d like to be Spartacus (if I could be guaranteed to live for more than one day that is).

I became frustrated with my job and interested in becoming a writer, especially during the terrible foot and mouth outbreak in 2001. I was living in Northumberland. I supervised the slaughter of thousands of animals and I killed several thousand lambs. You have to inject them into the heart. It left me suffering from a type of PTSD — not the full blown thing but a type of stress that continued for months. I had great trouble sleeping. I didn’t do very much about it, just talked to the guys I worked with. We coped by drinking our heads off — which I think is what soldiers used to do.

It crystallised a couple of years later after I’d worked all week and then that weekend I was called out six or seven times in one night. I just flipped the lid.

I miss being a vet like you’d miss a hole in the head.

I didn’t make the switch to writing full time until after my first book had been published. It was a leap of faith and my wife had to help as you don’t make much money for the first couple of years.

I have always been gregarious and enjoy the public side of my writing life. The more books I publish, the less time I seem to have for writing. There are so many commitments like being on the committee of the Historical Writers Association, blogging, doing interviews.

I used to play rugby, which was a great way of meeting people, until I popped an achilles tendon. I’d moved to a small practice in Shropshire and it was difficult to meet people, so I joined a dating website. That’s how I met my wife Sarah. She’s a kinesiologist. We have two children, Ferdia is seven and Pippa is five.

I used to be overweight — I weighed 19 stone when I was 19 and I’m 5ft 11 — and when I stopped playing rugby, the weight started creeping on again. I took up running, until a bull stamped on my foot. Then I got the idea to walk Hadrian’s Wall, in full Roman dress, for charity. I’m doing it again next week. I’ve been training since last November, wearing four stone of armour.

The locals all think I’m well mad. We will walk 130 miles in a week.

I can be a little arrogant but I hope I have a good handle on it by now.

I’m not that organised but I can deliver a manuscript in less than 12 months.

I work from home, in a shed in the garden. I can write 1,500 words a day — I’ll continue when the kids are in bed.

I plot out all my books before I start writing. I learned to do this after I went majorly astray on my second book and rewrote 25% of it several times, having gone off into what I thought was a fascinating discourse but what my editor told me was a whole load of nothing.

I admire loyalty in my friends.

So far life has taught me to place trust in very few people. My wife thinks that’s a little cynical.

Hannibal; Clouds of War, Ben Kane’s eighth book is just out. In addition to writing about the Romans, Ben also walks in their footsteps. He will be walking the entire length of Hadrian’s Wall in full Roman soldier’s dress to raise money for Médecins Sans Frontières and Combat Stress April 28 until May 4; benkane.net