Terry Deary
About Author
Terry Deary was born in Sunderland in 1946 and currently lives in County Durham.
Terry is a former actor, theatre-director and drama teacher. He spends his time writing and directing for his television production company and managing his website, terry-deary.com.
Terry has authored 300 books, mainly for children and teenagers, including the bestselling Horrible Histories titles, which was was launched by Scholastic Children's Books in 1993. Today his books are read by children as far afield as Russia, Brazil, Scandinavia and China.
Deary is also involved in acting and writing for the theatre.
Author link
Interview
THE SILVER HAND
BLOOMSBURY EDUCATION
MAY 2018
Terry Deary, the bestselling author of Horrible Histories, also writes children's historical fiction. His latest title, The Silver Hand - his 300th book - takes the reader to 1918 and to a small town, Bray, near the Somme river.
Although the war is creeping to a close, the embattled German and British armies are still fighting. Caught up in the war are two children; Aimee, who is French, and a German boy, Maurius.
In The Silver Hand, resistance fighters, spies and ordinary people all have a role to play in how these final battles are played out but among them is the chilling and dangerous presence of the man with the silver hand - and he has Aimee and Maurius in his sights...
We asked author TERRY DEARY to tell us more about THE SILVER HAND:
Q: Your fiction treats history in a very different way from your non-fiction, which approach do you enjoy the most?
A: Given the choice I would only write historical fiction. I am a fiction author, not an historian. I prefer exploring human history through stories, not fact books.
Q: Why did you choose this particular town, Bray in France, as your setting for The Silver Hand? Is it an area you have visited or did you do so to research this story?
A: Bray was a lucky choice. I wanted a location that changed hands several times in the war. Bray was perfect. The skies above Bray were the main arena for the flying ace, The Red Baron, and the place where he was shot down.
Q: Why did you decide to focus on two children, one French and one German, in this book?
A: I've read too many stories where the Germans are portrayed as 'bad' and the allies as 'good'. Life is never that simple. The Silver Hand shows there were good and evil people on both sides and that if the two could get to know one another they would see that a hated enemy is really just another human being.
Q: You also draw on wartime spies, from each side of the divide. Why did you decide to introduce this element to your story and how much of what your characters do is based on things that really happened?
A: The books were carefully researched and the White Lady group - the French people who spied for the Allies - really existed. But the villains in The Silver Hand aren't trained spies like James Bond. They are just a couple of greedy people who think they can make a pot of money from the war by selling secrets.
Q: What was the inspiration behind the silver hand that features so prominently in your story?
A: My series of WW1 and WW2 books for Bloomsbury have a common theme - their titles come from plays by William Shakespeare. As I wanted a story leading up to the end of the war, I checked to see what Shakespeare said about peace and a character in his plays talks about 'the silver hand of peace'. Sometimes my books just happen like that - I have two words (silver + hand) and a setting (the end of WW1) and the story emerges from there.
Q: Is there anything that can still take you by surprise when you read about WW1?
A: I am shocked at how most EVERYTHING I thought I knew about WW1 was wrong. And the mistakes are repeated over and over again in fact books, news reports that look back and fictional tales. I'm not sure why I'm so shocked. Most of the history I've explored has proved to be twisted or downright lies. WW1 is no different. The lesson is do NOT believe everything you read or see.
Q: If you could take yourself back in time to a particular place and time in history, where would you go?
A: I have discovered that all ages were dirty and disgusting, dangerous and cruel with foul food and terrible toilets. A few rich people had quite pleasant lives but for peasants like me it was mostly misery. The 1950s when I grew up was a fairly peaceful time and I may like to take a time machine back then. But absolutely no other time.
Q: Where is your favourite place to write? Describe what would be your ideal writer's shed?
A: I have an office in my house that looks out over distant Pennine hills to the south, and I can just see the sea 20 miles to the east. It's warm and quiet while my phones and broadband keep me in touch with the world. It's great. But I've written books on bus trips and trains.
Q: What are you writing at the moment? And what's your favourite escape from writing?
A: I am writing an adult fact-book on crime as well as two plays and a television script. I am editing a fantasy novel (for release in September) with a second adult fact-book, a movie script, two more plays and a children's novel in the queue.
Escape from writing? I do road running with a running club and the odd race. I also play guitar and am about to start teaching myself 'slide' guitar.
Q: Your other career is acting - is there anything coming up where we should be looking out for you, or are there upcoming films of your books?
A: I have a children's TV programme to record but these days I tend to appear as a presenter, rather than an actor. The TV broadcasters like to keep these things secret till they are ready to announce them, so I can't tell you what. When I do book festival appearances I do a one-man performance show. When my new movie script is finished (it's a horror movie called Ravenstone) I will give myself a juicy part.
PUT OUT THE LIGHT
A&C BLACK
JULY 2010
Terry Deary may be best known for the Horrible Histories books (Scholastic), but the author's preferred home is in full-length fiction. Publication of his latest book, Put Out the Light (A&C Black), about the start of the Blitz, has been timed to coincide with the 70th anniversary of the Blitz in September.
The novel is written from the perspective of children in Germany and in Britain. Deary says, I wanted to address the clich that the Blitz was just a British experience so I also looked at what happened to the Poles in Germany and brought the stories together.
In the British chapters, we follow siblings Sally and Billy who live in Sheffield; they have not been evacuated to the country. Their story centres on their hunt for a burglar who steals from houses while householders are in the air raid shelters. In Germany, the story is focused on a boy called Manfred who tries to save a young Polish girl, Irena, from a Polish work camp in Dachau.
By describing their lives in consecutive chapters, the reader is given a glimpse of what could have been happening in these two very different countries at the same time. Later in the book, the two stories are brought together.
Deary says, The English part of the story was fairly easy to write. I was born five years after the Blitz in a northern industrialised town so the whole social environment of that time was very familiar to me.
The German side of the story required more rigorous research. Deary decided to base the story in Dachau because it had a munitions factory which features in his story of the Blitz, as well as the work camp. While many people know of Dachau as a death camp, it was actually a work camp for Polish prisoners until 1943. Until then, it was Polish people and Catholic priests from Poland who suffered at the camp, says Deary.
He takes issue with the notion of brave little Britain battling against monster Germany. Deary says, Germans were brainwashed and bullied into the war and those that didnt support it were severely punished." During his research on wartime Germany, he learned about the group wardens, those people appointed to oversee groups of families and to make sure that they towed the party line. He says, "One teacher was reported for not giving a Heil Hitler salute and was executed; teachers had to be better Nazis than the Nazis.
He is also critical of the sentimentality that has been the tone of many British stories written about this era. It was not a sentimental age, he says. People were not all good and kind under a gruff exterior. You had villains and black marketers and tough people. We have to get beyond the sentimental view of the Blitz.
There are other myths, too, about the Blitz that Deary is keen to dispel. He points out that it was in fact Winston Churchill who was responsible for the start of the Blitz. After the Germans bombed London by accident, Churchill decided quite ruthlessly to bomb Berlin. Hitler was furious and retaliated by sending his bombers to destroy British cities, instead of bombing airfields. While the results of the Blitz were horrifying for cities, Hitlers decision gave British airfields and pilots a respite and in the end, this helped turn the war in Britains favour.
In Put Out the Light, we learn that Sheffield city was a target for the German bombers because it had the only factory in the country that made the crankshafts for the Spitfire planes. Had the factory been bombed, it could have destroyed Britains airforce. To prevent the Germans from destroying the factory during an early raid, British intelligence bent the radar beam that the German bombers were following.
Unfortunately for the people of Sheffield, the only alternative target they could use was the city centre so instead of bombing the factory, the bombers targeted the city of Sheffield. This is a true story that Deary is keen to learn more about. He says, Its a real moral dilemma. What would you have done if you were given that choice? Without that factory, we could have lost the war but what of the human cost to Sheffield?
These and other details such as the treatment of the Polish prisoners in Dachau shine a light on some very difficult but historically true happenings. Deary says, People need to understand the horror of what happened. It is shocking that when I grew up after WWII, I never heard of the Holocaust through all my school years. People told me about the Battle of Britain and I heard about some of my dads experiences as a pilot, but they seemed to want details of the Holocaust hidden under the carpet.
Deary adds, I use these historical details because I want the story to be based in reality. Having a child bail out of a German bomber in the story may be fantasy but the rest of the book is based on what actually happened.
Deary is currently preparing a Blitz Roadshow that will tour in theatres around the country during October and will include readings from the book, songs from the time of WWII, and videos.
THE FIRE THIEF
KINGFISHER
2006
TERRY DEARY, the bestselling Horrible Histories author, also writes children's fiction and THE FIRE THIEF follows the Greek god of fire, Prometheus, who is finally free after 8000 years of agony. Then the gods send the Eagle after him to hunt him down and Prometheus realises there is only one way to escape - to travel through time. In Eden City, he is free - but he needs to help his new band of friends. Using his powers, though, means that the Eagle will be able to track him down...
We asked TERRY DEARY to tell us more about his THE FIRE THIEF and his non-fiction writing:
How many Horrible Histories books have you written?
'I've written 150 books of which about 40 are Horrible Histories.'
Where did you get the idea from?
'In 1990 I was invited to write "the Big Fat Father Christmas Joke Book". You know the sort of thing: "What is Tarzan's favourite Christmas song?" Answer: "Jungle Bells, Jungle Bells!" (I didn't say they were good jokes.)
'The book was a great success so we decided to follow it with a history joke book. Joke like, "Where did the French buy their guillotines? Answer: In the chopping centre.
'The publisher wanted to sprinkle a few odd facts in with the jokes so I started doing some research. I found, for example, that when the French invented the guillotine they needed to test it. They didn't use turnips or sheep - they used dead humans who were waiting to be buried. Yeuch! Then I began to wonder what sort of person could carry a corpse to a guillotine, chop off its head and carry the bits away to bury them? That's very odd human behaviour.
'I discovered that the history bits were more interesting than the jokes. So instead of jokes books with history facts in the "Horrible Histories" series became facts about how people behave with a few jokes thrown in. The first was published in 1993 and there are now over 40 in the series. They sell in around 30 languages and total about 20 million copies sold around the world.'
Are you still writing new Horrible Histories?
'I'll be writing very few in future as I won't have the time. I need to find more time to write television, theatre and radio scripts. There may be one or two new Horrible Histories titles over the next couple of years.'
Do you also research your fiction books?
'Yes. I write a lot of historical fiction and need some background. As I'm not an historian I need to check my facts or someone, somewhere will write and complain!'
Why did you write about the Greek gods in The Fire Thief?
'Prometheus is the most "human" Greek god and the most fascinating. He suffered horribly as a punishment for giving fire to humans. The question is, was it worth all the pain? Are humans better or worse for the gift of fire? After all fire gives us the comfort of warmth but the evils of smoke and pollution - it's given us the wonders of flight but the terrors of explosive weapons. If Prometheus landed in the modern world what would he
think? That's the question I want to explore and make the reader think about. So the books aren't so much about Greek gods as about the most fascinating subject in the world ... human beings.
Will there be a sequel?
'There are three books in the series. The second one will probably be called "the Flight of the Fire Thief" - because Prometheus is not just flying for his life, away from the Avenger, but his human friends fly off in a hot air balloon. I wanted to call book 2 "The Fire Flier" but the publisher didn't like that. Huh! Book 3 is written but we are about 123 miles away from deciding the title of that one!'
Do you prefer to write about boy characters to girls?
'Absolutely not. I know all about boys. Many years ago I used to be one. So I can write about them. But there are these weird creatures called girls. They are so strange that they make great subjects to write about. I try to have a balance of boys and girls in my fiction.'
What are you writing now?
'I am writing a six-part television series called "Terry Deary's Twisted Tales" that I am also acting in, which started screening at the end of April 06. I visit about 40 old sites in the north of England and tell their weird tales with the help of a group of actors. They are funny and creepy, cruel and entertaining.'
What would you do if you weren't an author?
'I'd go back to being a professional actor ... which with all my television and radio work in 2006 I am doing anyway. I love acting far more than I ever loved writing. In a way I wish I'd stuck to acting and never got involved in books. But sometimes life takes you over and you end up doing things you never imagined you would.'
What do you read?
'I read murder mystery stories. I can't manage books with more than 200 pages. I know I should read children's books to see what other children's authors are up to but I just can't bring myself to do it!'
Did you read as a child?
'I never read as a child because my family had no books and my school didn't encourage us to read ... they were only interested in training us to pass pointless exams. I read my first book when I was about 13 years old - but only because a teacher made me an threatened to test me on it when I'd finished. Oh the joys of a cruel school.'
The Silver Hand
