Alastair Barnet

I initially trained and worked in business for 16 years in various disciplines such as internal audit, change management, project management, and latterly in business consultancy for several international organisations in retail, manufacturing, IT, energy, banking, and also global accounting firms like PWC and KPMG.

I now work part-time as a Fund Manager, the investment portfolio consisting of a variety of diversified assets, including those listed on the UK stock exchange. Crucial to this is understanding the political and economic environment.

After my initial qualification as an Accountant, I gained my Masters Degree in Business Administration from Henley Management College which was sponsored by my employers after an extremely competitve selection process.

Apart from my professional financial activities, my first passion is History. I gained my undergraduate degree in 2014 from the Open University, and was keen to progress this directy onto a Phd. I was delighted when Professor Tony Claydon kindly agreed to supervise me. My subject was to ascertain whether Charles II used the English navy to boost his domestic and international power. This approximately covered the years 1659 - 1668.

I was thrilled to be appointed as an Honourary Research Associate in 2023, and am now working on converting my thesis into an academic publication.

I am also interested in whether the navy influenced English National Identity in the Restoration period, and whether Charles II used music as tool to help him remain on his throne, which was very unstable initially. This complements the work done by other eminent historians such as Anna Keay and Tim Harris, as well as that by Terry Lennaine on Oliver Cromwell's reputation as shown in print.

Music Performance is my second passion . I qualified as a Professional Musician (LTCL) in 2009, completing my music studies in 2018 by achieving the Masters Degree level Professional Soloist qualification (FTCL). I have placed a number of recordings on a public internet platform.

My third passion is writing fiction and have produced around 50 short stories, some poems and flash fiction, 15 vignettes for Christmas and two books, the first of which is about a convent, nuns with attitude and a ghost, and second is a spy thriller set in post-war London. 

Having been brought up in Bangor, the chance to study at the university is like "coming home".