The world's bestselling non-fiction author for children is a man from Sunderland in England, who can trace his ancestry to Co Donegal. Terry Deary, the author of the hugely popular Horrible Histories series, spoke to Oliver Callan about his new books and why he’s not a historian.
Terry’s latest book for adults is called A History of Britain in Ten Enemies (he wanted to call it Cruel Britannia, but sadly his publishers weren’t so keen). It tackles nationalism, one of his pet peeves and one of the reasons the right-wing press in the UK don’t like him, but not the only one:
"I get a lot of abuse from the right wing, who, when I was writing for children, were saying I was "poisoning the minds of children." Oh good."
The Horrible Histories books combine humour with good writing to get kids interested and take historical facts onboard as a by-product. Terry doesn’t have a high opinion of the sort of reading kids studying history have to get through:
"School textbooks are written by historians who went to university, with the language that suits universities, but doesn’t suit kids. They wouldn’t know a kid if it jumped up and bit them on the kneecap. So, I’m a children’s author with a lot of fiction titles, and I write appropriately for the children."
As to why he’s not a historian, Terry tells Oliver that he’s first and foremost a storyteller:
"I always say – and my publishers criticise me – I'm not a historian. I don’t do history, I do stories about people, human behaviour. And it’s endlessly fascinating and very often funny."
Men, Oliver tells us, are obsessed with the Roman empire, but Terry’s not a fan of one of the largest empires in history:
"Schools teach that the Romans were a great civilisation, but they weren’t. Why any civilisation would put people in an arena to be killed, with 50,000 spectators cheering and enjoying the spectacle. No other empire has done that. Killing humans for sport – how can you call them civilised?"
Oliver did a search for Terry on the UK newspaper Daily Telegraph’s website and, he told Terry, the results didn’t disappoint, as he gave us a sample headline:
"Horrible Histories author loathes the British Empire with a passion!"
And Terry has as low an opinion of the British Empire as he has of the Roman one:
"How on earth can anyone justify the British Empire? They went out and used the machine gun because they had the industrial revolution, the weapons and wiped out people. There are things that they don’t teach you in schools. For example, the Tasmanians. Would you like to ask a native Tasmanian what they think of the British Empire? No, because 60 years after the British landed, they were all wiped out. That was genocide. Nobody uses that word with regard to the British Empire, but it’s true."
One of the historical topics Terry and Oliver discussed was the invention of the guillotine by Monsieur, em, Guillotine, who wanted the process to be swift and painless. But when the device was built, it had to be tested, which was done on corpses, something which fascinates Terry:
"Could you do that? Could I do it? Pick up a corpse, cut off its head, pick up the bits and carry them back? And this is what history should be. It’s measuring yourself against people in the past. Who are you? Who were these people? That’s what fascinating about history."
That is, as Oliver suggests, empathy. And Terry’s love of history is grounded in it.
A History of Britain in Ten Enemies is published by Bantam. But Terry’s writing is not confined to non-fiction – his new novel for adults is a murder mystery called Actually, I’m a Murderer and it's published by Constable.
And Horrible Histories: Live On Stage will be in the 3Olympia Theatre from 18 - 22 June.
