Mark Felton is missing fish and chips.

He is also missing his two favourite pubs, but not much else.

His new life is just too, too good. He is happily married, has a 15-month-old son he adores and is living in a city he loves. Dr Felton may still have a soft spot for Colchester, but the ex-Philip Morant pupil has no intention of giving up one of the most exciting, cosmopolitan and diverse places in the world.

Not yet, anyway. In 20 years, maybe. But, until then, he is going to enjoy every single minute of his time in what was once the opium capital of the world and which is now China's largest and most dynamic city. Shanghai.

Shanghai was in a middle of a typhoon when I rang, which led to thousands of people being evacuated from the city.

Summer, which even by Shanghai's standards had been hot (40 degrees C plus), was almost over and the weather had turned wet, windy and "cold" (30C).

"There are 22 million people living here, a third of the population of Britain," he said. "It is now a very fast, very trendy city with a growing economy and which, I'm afraid to say, makes Colchester look like a tiny provincial village."

He wasn't being dismissive, just factual. Shanghai isn't just his new home; it has, in a roundabout way, become the inspiration for his writing.

Dr Felton is 33 and a military historian. He has also always wanted to write. At first, as a student at Cambridge and Essex University, the Wild West did it for him.

But not the fairy tale that was cowboys and indians. He got beneath the myth, discovered the genocide of native Americans and was hooked. He even wrote his PhD on Sitting Bull and the Sioux indians and, eventually, pursued his passion for American history via teaching.

The books he is now writing, apart from one on the American Indian wars due out early next year, are about Japan, not China, and concentrate on Japan's role before and during the Second World War.

"The battle our fathers and grandfathers fought against the Japanese in the Far East during that war has largely been ignored," he said.

"It is the forgotten war and they are the forgotten army, just as the atrocities the Japanese committed towards the Chinese throughout the 20th century have been forgotten."

Somehow, Dr Felton's new life urged him to put the record straight. He agrees to being influenced - he teaches at Shanghai University, his wife, Fang Fang, is Chinese, and so are the majority of their friends in Shanghai - but he has enough understanding of Japanese culture and imperialism not to be partisan.

He has yet to understand the dominant language in Shanghai, Mandarin.

"I speak taxi driver and restaurant Mandarin," he laughed, "which is extremely important!"

His son, William - Fang Wei Li - is already picking up both English and Mandarin. Dr Felton believes it won't be long before he is bi-lingual like his mother, a lawyer.

"We met in 2002 while I was studying for my PhD at Essex University," he said. "Fang Fang had been studying to be a lawyer with a firm in Shanghai and had been sent to further those studies at Essex.

"I know this sounds ridiculous, but when I first met her I knew she was the woman I would marry. She, on the other hand, did not feel like that at all!"

A year later, they married at Colchester Register Office and, in 2004, travelled to Shanghai for a holiday.

"I fell in love with the place," he said. "It was where I wanted to be. Twelve months later, we had moved from Colchester to Shanghai. We now live in an apartment in Pudong, new Shanghai, which overlooks a big park. Yes, I would say we have a very good life."

But he is more than aware that he is privileged. Shanghai may look affluent but there are still areas of extreme poverty.

It is when he is away from the city, with paddy fields stretching as far as the eye can see, that he most misses the UK. "I suppose the English countryside is another thing I miss," he agreed. "But everything is changing there, especially in Colchester.

"When I last visited I noticed a huge increase in new homes, and in the poor behaviour of young people in the town centre at night."

At least the fish and chips didn't disappoint.

THE FORGOTTEN WAR: MARK FELTON BOOKS

  • Yanagi: The Secret Underwater Trade between Germany and Japan, 1942-1945
  • The Fujita Plan: Japanese Attacks on the United States and Australia during the Second World War
  • Slaughter at Sea: The Story of Japan's Naval War Crimes (publication November 15)
  • Today is a Good Day to Fight: The Indian Wars and the Conquest of the American West (publication early 2008)
  • The Coolie Generals: Britain's Far Eastern Military Leaders in Japanese Captivity (publication 2008)