Peter Stanley: Five places that changed my life

BERHAMPORE, WEST BENGAL, INDIA

I didn't have my first trip overseas until I was 30, by then an aspiring historian. I crossed the sub-continent by train for Berhampore, an obscure but wonderfully preserved British military cantonment. There I found the barracks where the "White Mutiny" had happened in 1859, when British soldiers defied the Raj to stage the most successful protest in British military history. It led to my PhD and a 1998 book, White Mutiny. Places have always inspired my understanding of the past.

CULLODEN, SCOTLAND

Encountering history in situ made me aware of the importance of what historians grandly call "field work"; what a former boss called "sniffing the ground". The most evocative battlefield I've ever encountered is Culloden, on a moor near Inverness. There, in an hour on a bleak day in April 1746, thousands of Highland clansmen loyal to Bonnie Prince Charlie died at the bayonets of King George II's Redcoats. Today, even the huge new interpretative centre can't obscure the drama and tragedy of the moor.

TARAKAN, BORNEO

In 1994, when I worked as the War Memorial's senior historian, I was asked to curate an exhibition on 1945. I spent 10 days exploring Sandakan, Labuan, Balikpapan and especially Tarakan, the obscure island where 250 Australians died in 1945, which got me in its grip. It's a hot, steamy oil island – no tourist mecca – but it inspired my 1997 book, Tarakan: an Australian Tragedy. I returned twice more – once, unforgettably, in the company of men who had served there.

GALLIPOLI, TURKEY

Amazingly, I'd worked at the War Memorial for more than 20 years before I visited Gallipoli (I'd done exhibitions about Gallipoli, but based on the collections of photos, maps, documents and artefacts.) In 2002 I finally got there, intending to write a book about Anzac medal-winners. On my first day I climbed up Monash valley, at random, and BANG! I emerged at Quinn's Post and knew exactly where I was. I also knew I had to write a book about that place. I wrote several, including a novel for children, Simpson's Donkey.

Peter Stanley is a historian and author of The Crying Years: Australia's Great War (NLA Publishing, $44.99).