Horrible Histories author Terry Deary makes sly dig at schools

Terry Deary is the man who made horrible history horribly entertaining! Since his debut book, The Terrible Tudors – the first of more than 60 non-fiction titles – was published in 1993, the former butcher’s boy, actor and teacher has sold more than 36 million copies of his warts-and-all Horrible Histories children’s series.

Meanwhile, the TV adaptations, first broadcast in 2009 and still going strong, have bagged a string of awards for their irreverent, entertaining and laugh-out-loud funny take on the past. The Pythonesque CBBC show beloved of children and parents received a Bafta special award in the autumn for its “extraordinary cultural and social impact”.

Fans have described his work as history without the boring bits.

Having turned his eye to a new audience with A History of Britain in Ten Enemies, his first book aimed predominantly at adults, readers can expect fireworks. In an age when many public figures eschew strong opinions, the 78-year-old is refreshingly outspoken and happy to challenge the status quo.

Previous targets have included schools – “They have no relevance in the 21st century. They were a Victorian idea to get kids off the street” – and libraries – “We’ve got this idea that we’ve got an entitlement to read books for free, at the expense of authors, publishers and council tax payers” – and he recently made headlines hitting out at the British Empire. Speaking to the All About History magazine recently, Deary slammed Britain’s imperial legacy claiming there was “nothing brave or courageous” about it.

“You can’t judge people by what they achieve, but only by what they achieve it in opposition to. All nations remember their successes against the odds, but they don’t remember the ones where they marched in with ease,” he said. “The British Empire, which I loathe with a passion, wasn’t won with courage but with the machine gun. The British had the machine gun, the native populations didn’t. Nothing brave or courageous about it.”

It’s fair to say he’s no fan of jingoism and sacred cows, but that’s Deary – whose favourite historical characters are “Mr and Mrs Peasant” rather than the kings, queens and prime ministers whose antics he has illuminated – and often lampooned – in his work. A self-confessed “Mr Angry”, he considers himself an “artisan”, having penned 338 books in total – by which he means a literary workman.

When I rather foolishly ask via email – albeit before publication of his All About History piece – if we’ve become too coddled as a nation, viewing our past overly critically and encouraging the young to see Britain as perennial aggressor, his response is merciless.

“There are eight unsubstantiated statements in that question so I can’t possibly answer it without a lengthy deconstruction,” he writes.

“What I will say is that ever since history has been taught in schools, it has been taught back-to-front. Teachers of all nations start with their own country’s story and see the rest of the world as a hostile backdrop. They look for what makes them different.

“They should maybe start from what we have in common with other people. The history curriculum of every school should nation should school should start with the same four words: ‘We. Are. All. Human’.” No surprise then that Deary’s interest has always been from the perspective of ordinary people, rather than historical celebrities.

“My theatre training urged me to see drama as a way of answering the question of, ‘Why do people behave the way they do?’” he explains. “People and their stories from the past allow us to study humanity, and that’s what matters, not ‘facts’ and dates and the biographies of the privileged few.”

It’s this approach, subversive to some, that has made him a multi-millionaire – a far cry from his modest roots growing up in the hardscrabble Sunderland suburb of Hendon, where his father Bill owned a butcher’s shop.

From there, he joined the electricity board as a management trainee aged 18 and then joined a drama company, qualifying later as a teacher at Sunderland’s College of Education, before teaching drama.

At some point, he came to the conclusion youngsters were being short-changed and that there was a gap in the market for genuinely entertaining retelling of he past.

“When people ask why Horrible Histories became a success, I point them to any 20th-century school textbook,” he says. “They appear to be written by academics who wouldn’t know a child if it jumped up and bit them on the ankle. School textbooks can be unreadable to the average child. The Horrible Histories series is a success because it’s written by the author of over a 100 children’s fiction books as well as non-fiction. An author who can engage and entertain children.”

Deary’s life as a writer began, he explains, in the summer of 1974 when, as a professional actor in Theatre Powys in mid-Wales, he had an idea for a story called The Custard Kid which was performed on a six-week schools’ tour. “It was a great success, but when the costumes were packed away abd those great characters ‘died’, I saw an adaptation into a children’s novel would be a way to let them live on.

“After 23 rejections, The Custard Kid novel was accepted and I was on the road to a life as a writer. My original career plan of becoming a folk singer and actor went out of the window.”

But it was not until the advent of Horrible Histories in 1993 – brilliantly illustrated by cartoonist Martin Brown – that he was able to dedicate himself solely to writing. Taking the most gory bits of history as his starting point proved an immediate hit.

Massacres, murders and mutilations… Deary’s books have them all, presented in a uniformly anti-authoritarian way that delights young readers. Even Michael Gove declared himself a fan when he was education secretary.

Once success arrived, Deary was unstoppable, subsequently creating dozens of spin-offs. The Horrible Histories series alone has been adapted for stage, television (including a cartoon), film and exhibitions. Being a workaholic probably helps (he claims to have only managed three weeks’ holiday in 45 years).

“Television and the movie are natural developments because Horrible Histories are so much more than a collection of facts, they are some of the best stories ever told packed with human interest and great characters,” says Deary, who lives in County Durham with his wife of 48 years, Jenny.

He has occasionally popped up on screen himself in guest roles. “I dropped strong hints that I could play the occasional cameo role,” he admits. “In fact, I ended up in a few dozen of the sketches. The principal actors are so talented, I am not sure I deserved the honour of performing alongside them. My speciality in TV and film was being the victim of a violent death. Maybe they were trying to tell me something?”

Deary decided it was time to write a history book for adults, because his first readers are now in their thirties and forties.

“Readers are more important than writers.When they came to signings for their children, they asked for grown-up books,” he says. “I have to do what those important people demand! Plus, there have been other publishers claiming their new books are ‘Horrible Histories for grown-ups’ and I wanted to create the real thing.”

A History of Britain in Ten Enemies – “laugh-out-loud funny, but there’s also a love of history and story here that is pure joy”, according to historical blockbuster fiction author Conn Iggulden – looks at the UK through its relationships with other nations.

“But it tells the story through entertaining tales that are not so well known as the familiar, hackneyed ones. It concludes that 2,000 years of conflict can be brought to an end if we all look at our past through new eyes – the eyes of our traditional enemies,” explains Deary.

The die-hard Sunderland fan continues: “It came from a lifetime’s experiences of football matches I played in my youth or watched from the terraces. I used to think some victories were monumental – especially the ones where I scored seven goals.

“Then it dawned that we are only as good as the opposition. There is no glory in defeating a feeble opponent. And nations are the same. They define themselves by their enemies, not their friends. And they often delude themselves, just as I did when I thought I was a future England footballer.” One of Deary’s favourite “overlooked enemies” is the Dutch – a huge naval threat in the 1700s and our opponent at the Battle of Camperdown in 1797 when they set out to destroy the British North Sea fleet off the coast of Holland.

When Admiral Duncan’s colours were blown from the mainmast, defeat loomed. But then “a common sailor, Jack Crawford, climbed up under heavy fire and nailed the colours back to the mast”, explains Deary.

“The British went on to win and a Dutch invasion, in support of Napoleon, was averted. If Britain had lost, there’d have been no Nelson or Trafalgar. Yet Nelson was honoured and remembered with a huge column, while Crawford died in squalor and is forgotten. In history, the truth is sometimes obscured behind the cannon smoke.”

As for the differences in writing for children and adults, Deary adds: “The material is essentially the same but I can draw different conclusions from it.

“Take the Armada as an example; children reading Horrible Histories will learn about the relatable, concrete experiences of the English sailors who were discharged as redundant and left to starve on the streets once the Spanish were defeated.

“The adults though will learn about the subtle way Elizabeth I manipulated the victory to enhance her own unpopular image. Same segment of history, different focus.”

It’s horribly good, too.

A History of Britain in Ten Enemies by Terry Deary (Transworld, £20) is out now. Visit expressbookshop.com or call 020 3176 3832. Free UK P&P on orders over £25