About Ian
Ian’s history, background and inspiration.
Personal Life
I was born in Hendon, London in 1958 and went to the local primary and comprehensive schools. After getting my A Levels, I went to All Saints College in Tottenham and did a degree in teaching, specialising in History. From there I had a short spell working as a theatre orderly at a hospital in Golders Green and then left to take up teaching in Hackney for four years. I left to go and teach in the Cayman Islands for two years from 1985 to 1987. Coming back to England, I taught in Plymouth and Tiverton before moving to Sunderland in 1989 and have stayed here ever since.
“The more I found out about the Russian soldiers I realised it had a great potential as a story for a novel.”
Ian Ansell Marshall
My Writing Inspiration
The motivation to write my books, Today and Tomorrow, Situs Inversus and The One Percent Faction, comes from some First World War battlefield trips we would take the children to. We would visit all the well-known sites, Ypres, Hill 62, Thiepval, The Newfoundland battlefield and the Menin Gate. On my first trip we passed a domed church which did not seem to fit into the landscape. I asked at the museum in Ypres what it was and was told it was a Russian Orthodox Church and a Russian cemetery. This piqued my interest; what were Russian troops doing on the Western Front? The director of the Museum said he would find out for me, and that enquiry led to the series of letters that are below. The more I found out about the Russian soldiers, I realised it had a great potential as a story for a novel. Then life, work and family took over and the idea of a book went onto the backburner.
