Jock Macdonald is the author of Gibbon's Years. After a childhood in India during the Second World War, he went to school in Scotland and then read Classics at Oxford,  He taught for three years in the USA, in Massachusetts and Florida, before coming to Winchester College, where he was a div don, housedon, and finally Second Master.

In addition. he co-directed a six-year archaeological dig involving all the secondary schools in Winchester, a dig that shed new light on the last years of the Roman Empire. He was a key figure in the successful opposition to the planned route of the M3 through the Winchester water meadows.  He was also the parliamentary candidate for The Alliance in Winchester during the Eighties, polling 41% in 1987.  After that, when Winchester City Council was "hung", he was the Chair on the Committee for Roads ad Engineering, and Vice-Chair to the Labour Chair on Housing. 

Summer holidays were spent in a simple stone house overlooking the River Tiber in Central Italy.