What did the presence of the British empire feel like in your household when you were growing up as a child?

That's a good question.

I mean, my father was a seaman, a master mariner.

In fact, he spent most of his life working for a Canadian company, Canadian Pacific Steamships.

He was a man of few words, but occasionally he'd launch into a story and they're always about some remote destination, usually in the Far East or Africa.

And I suppose that... roused my interest in British imperialism and the colonial period.

He was quite a distant person.

I'd like to ask you a question about the Himalaya region and what has made it such a powerful stage for competing cultures, competing empires and ideologies.