Author Philip Ardagh On Blending Fact And Fiction In His New History Series Of Books
"We all know pigeons can’t write, but not every reader may know that most maids couldn’t either"
I’ve loved writing stories from a very early age but my first children’s books, published over 25 years ago, were non-fiction. I do like a good fact. The Scotsman once described me as ‘one of nature’s fact-finders’, and it’s true.
I love finding things out and sharing those findings with my readers. I’ve written a guide to teaching yourself ancient Egyptian; I’ve explained why castles are castle-shaped; I’ve written books about blunders and ‘random mistakery’; history books, science books and a book with a list for every single day of the year. I’ve written pocket-sized biographies of famous folk; have explained why fish don’t have fingers; and all about space and dinosaurs.
Then, on the other side of the library, there are my works of fiction: my Eddie Dickens books in around 35 languages; my Grubtown Tales, which won me the Roald Dahl Funny Prize; and my Grunts books, illustrated by the unique and wonderful Axel ‘The Gruffalo’ Scheffler.
But my latest offering is rather different. It’s a blend of the two: the mixing of fact and fiction, in a new Secret Diaries series published by my Grunts publisher Nosy Crow in association with the National Trust.
The publisher, in the form of chief crow Kate Wilson, came to me and explained that they wanted four ‘secret diaries’ with child protagonists, one set in a castle, one in a grand Victorian house, another in a Tudor manor, and one on a rugged coastline.
They’d be packed with information about the period, and tie in with the kind of places the National Trust look after on behalf of the nation. (We went on to launch the first book in a castle, with Katie Bond from National Trust Books waving a sword above her head with glee.)
It was agreed that each diary should have four main elements. They should be fact-packed, funny, exciting and historically accurate.
As for the protagonists, they should be a medieval page, a Victorian maid, a Tudor boy – perhaps a kitchen boy – and a pirate’s daughter. The first thing to do was to make the titles sound exciting, so I decided to give each character a name and to jazz up their ‘job’ titles, so we now have the secret diaries of John Drawbridge, medieval knight in training; Jane Pinny, Victorian maid and accidental detective; Thomas Snoop, Tudor boy spy; and Kitty Cask, smuggler’s daughter (she’d swapped roles).
Hopefully the choice of names also adds to the element of fun, as do Jamie Littler’s illustrations. I seem to recall that he was signed up for the series before I was, and he’s tasked with adding silliness, humour, excitement and historically accurate detail, all with the stroke of a pen. It’s a challenge he’s risen to brilliantly.
So we had the idea, the characters, their roles, the fictional settings, and the look but two main challenges remained: the best way to communicate the information – the historical facts – and how to give each story its own voice. Fortunately, I found a way of turning an instant problem into a solution. A boy sent to a castle to be a page would certainly not have been able to write a diary. Neither would a poorly educated Victorian maid.
So, in the case of Jane Pinny, I had her be friends with Plump, a pigeon on the window ledge outside her tiny room in the attic. And when she gets a job at the big house, Plump comes too. And, because she can’t write, she dictates her diary entries to the pigeon and he writes it down for her. This emphasises that this isn’t a diary actually written in Victorian times – so no confusion for the reader here – and that the book is funny. “But pigeons can’t write!” I hear some cry. And that’s the whole point. We all know pigeons can’t write, but not every reader may know that most maids couldn’t either, so it would be far more misleading to find an excuse for Jane Pinny to be able to do so. Hence good ol’ Plump.
It’s also a good excuse as to why Jane Pinny’s ‘voice’ on the page isn’t 100% copper-bottomed authentic Victorian-speak. Because that was the final piece of the jigsaw falling into place: the very individual voice of each character in each diary, intended to give the flavour of the language without becoming too difficult to read or too serious. John Drawbridge ‘writes’ in cod medieval, Jane Pinny in a kinda cockney, and Thomas Snoop in a Tudor-ish style. As for Kitty Cask, I’m still working on hers!
Although there’s plenty of historical detail in the text and in Jamie’s illustrations, most of the facts appear in the form of footnotes. This means that a casual throwaway phrase can lead to a footnote about something which might take the reader off on a terrible tangent if it had to become part of a what-happened-to-me/what-I-witnessed diary entry. Clever, huh? They don’t call me Mr Smartypants for nothing. In truth, they don’t call me Mr Smartypants at all.
Now Tom Bonnick enters the picture, in the form of my editor. He’s another Nosy Crow. When planning a book fundamentally about castles, there are a certain number of facts that really have to be in there, some which it would be very-nice-to-include-thank-you and some unexpected little gems I’m determined to get in.
The fine art of shin-kicking as a sport in Tudor England isn’t a must for inclusion in Thomas Snoop’s diary, but I was jolly well going to make sure that it was in there. I’d only give Tom the very sketchiest of ideas as to what the actual story – plot – of a particular diary might be, and very little information as to what historical information it would contain.
Why? So that, when he read a first draft, he’d experience it very much like a reader and could say what he’d hoped for and might be lacking, and what exceeded expectation.
Interestingly, John Drawbridge, the medieval knight, went through very few changes; Tom was eager for the ‘villain’ in Jane Pinny’s diary to get more of a comeuppance; and he sent me down a new path for the ending of Thomas Snoop. I’m very pleased with the results.
One reviewer called the first book ‘like a medieval Adrian Mole but with added dung and saddle sores’, another said that ‘not since Horrible Histories has the past been brought so much to life with such accuracy and such humour’. So we must be doing something right. But do heed the warning on the covers: only the facts are true.
Philip Ardagh is a Roald Dahl Funny Prize-winning author of over 100 books. The Secret Diary of John Drawbridge is on sale now (£6.99, Nosy Crow). The Secret Diary of Jane Pinny is published this month.
Illustrations © Jamie Littler 2017
