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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The research that led to Blood of the Isles was a team effort. I had a wonderful team both in the
field and in the lab. Eileen Hickey, Emilce Vega, Jayne Nicholson, Catherine Irven, Zehra Mustafa,
John Loughlin, Kay Chapman, Kate Smalley, Helen Chandler and Martin Richards all criss-crossed
the Isles in pursuit of DNA, while Lorraine Southam, Sara Goodacre and Vincent Macaulay helped
to tease out its secrets in the lab. I relied on many people’s generosity in the search for our origins.
The directors and staff of the Scottish Blood Transfusion Service deserve special mention for their
enthusiastic backing and for their tolerance as we invaded their otherwise tranquil donor sessions.
The head teachers and the staff of the very many schools we visited, particularly in Wales and
Shetland, I thank for the same reasons. Talking of Shetland, I must thank Beryl Smith, who
organized all our visits there in advance. But, of course, none of this would have been remotely
possible without the consent and co-operation of the many thousands of volunteers who agreed to
having their DNA taken and analysed.
Among professional colleagues, I am particularly grateful to Dan Bradley of Trinity College
Dublin for advance access to Irish genetic data, though I should stress that I have only used
published material here and also that any conclusions are my own and not necessarily Dan
Bradley’s. So blame me and not him. I have also benefited from the publications of Jim Wilson and
Mark Thomas from University College London, who have produced very useful data from parts of
Britain. Among my friends and colleagues in Oxford, William James has, as usual, been a rich
source of ideas and creative conversation. I must also mention Robert Young, recently of Wadham
College, who introduced me to the racial mythology of the English, a subject of which I was almost
completely unaware until he sent me a reprint of his work. Norman Davies, a fellow of my own
college, Wolfson, was not only a source of bountiful historical references in his magisterial The
Isles – a History (never has a book been more thoroughly thumbed), but also helped me resolve the
tricky issue of what to call my own book.
But words are not enough. Books need midwives before they see the light of day. My agent
Luigi Bonomi has kept me going throughout with his irrepressible enthusiasm and I am, once again,
very fortunate to have in my editors Sally Gaminara and Simon Thorogood not just consummate
professionalism but great encouragement as well. Thanks too to Brenda Updegraff for her
immaculate copy-editing and, as before, to Julie Sheppard who rapidly transformed my erratic
handwriting into legible text.
But most of all I thank the Muse without whom nothing flows.