Time for change

Glance through his books and it’s easy to see why.

They massively outsell most “serious” histories and have a definite anti-authoritarian point-of-view, and take a clear view of history that can excite passions. They are for children, but they are not cuddly; they take on the grim and grisly.

They are, well, horrible.

“The one book which really winds people up, easily more than any other, is the Bloody British Empire,” says Terry, a Sunderland man who these days lives in a pleasant north-west Durham village.

“I have had the most spiteful, aggressive reaction to that book, real hate mail. They say I’m poisoning the minds of children all for suggesting the Empire wasn’t the best thing.

“I had one public schoolboy saying, ‘Those other countries were mostly empty anyway.’ I always point them to Tasmania, where the population of 20,000 was wiped out.

“I grew up in the 1950s and had The Wonder of Empire book. I’ve still got a copy and it’s jawdropping in its arrogance. You’d think the Empire was some sort of charity for bringing Christianity to the savage natives. There’s teachers who still tell that traditional, rightwing view, it is all still out there.”

It is not the only one of the 60-odd Horrible History titles that have caused controversy.

Bloody Scotland was criticised for being “anti- Scottish”, seemingly for making fun of haggis in the line “cook the haggis until it looks like a hedgehog after the 15th lorry has run over it.”

The book was reported to the Commission for Racial Equality, but the claim was dismissed.

The National Trust took exception to Cruel Kings and Mean Queens for poking fun at Prince Charles and Queen Elizabeth II.

It is not only the books that have led to national argument and debate, but the oft-repeated views of Terry himself, an amiable chatty 67-year-old grandfather.

He accepts the description of anarchist, but clarifies that he does not believe there should not be rules. Instead, his reading of history has led him to strongly believe the rights of the individual should be fiercely protected. “Some people have the job of running things,” he says, “but that does not make them superior to anybody else... Anybody in power is, by definition, an idiot.”

It is that view which has partly led him to criticise teachers in his books and encourage his young readers to question their authority.

Most of the books invite the pupils to test their teacher by asking them pertinent, tough questions. They also invite the reader to challenge the accepted view of history passed down through the curriculum.

One of the Horrible History series

In fact, he does not even think schools for many teenagers do any good at all, saying: “they don’t educate. Lots of kids would be better off at the workplace, learning from a mentor.”

It is strong views like that, combined with the huge success of the books, which has led the Daily Telegraph, far from a natural ally of Terry, to proclaim him “the most influential historian in Britain today”.

The man himself rejects the “historian” tag altogether. “It’s great not being a historian,” he says, “it means I am not constrained by the rules. I just try to find out stories about people.”

His favourite character from history is a fellow North-Easterner, “Freeborn John” Lilburne, thought to have been born in Sunderland and educated in Bishop Auckland. Lilburne was a Leveller, an ideological movement that flourished in the English Civil War, which believed all people were born equal. Freeborn John was imprisoned and tortured for his beliefs.

Asked what his favourite period in history is, Terry, who has been married to Jenny for 38 years, dismisses all the great ages – the Tudor period, the Roman Empire, and so on – as pretty miserable for most ordinary people.

“The best time to be born was when I was born. I grew up in the 1950s, it was a simpler and safer time. I know, of course there were problems, there was poverty and people could not get a job. But the war had ended, a far worse time, and children could go out and roam, get on the bike, without all these rules.”

He was the son of a butcher who worked in his father’s shop in a tough part of Sunderland, at weekends. “I learnt a lot about the tougher side of life in that shop,” he says.

“I was probably a conventional Northern lad, I passed my exams so I could get a good job. I ended up on the electricity board; it was like being mentally killed.”

THE bright, young man went off to be an actor and felt much happier. He taught at one point which, considering he has described schools as “nothing but a Victorian idea to get people off the street” is surprising.

But the author who never read a book until he was 13 (Tess of the d’Urbervilles, which he did not understand) felt more at home as a theatre director and author, who had many works published before Horrible Histories.

He explains that writing, along with hanging out with his two young grandchildren, remains his future.

He confirmed this week that there would be no more Horrible Histories, saying the series had “ naturally come to an end”. He won’t miss the books, and says they started as a joke book with a few facts “but the facts were funnier than the jokes,” and will write some adult works.

Terry Deary is the man who isn’t a historian but has sold well over 20 million history books.

He is the anti-school man who has helped teach many millions of children.

It seems sure history will record only one like Terry Deary.