MICHAEL MORPURGO has written more than 150 books, and had achieved “national treasure” status long before receiving his knighthood in 2018. His work with and for children is renowned, and more than 100,000 urban children have spent a week on his farm in Devon or its two sisters. He writes: “Looking back over the years, I can honestly say that Farms for City Children [the charity he founded with his wife, Clare] is the best story I never wrote.”
He is now 82, and has added to the body of his work this fine collection of short essays drawn from various sources, including newspaper articles, lectures, and pieces written for Radio 4’s A Point of View.
He brings his storytelling talents to his own history, describing a childhood of interrupted pleasure. His parents were itinerant actors, whose marriage did not survive the war. His mother married again, but an idyllic period in Bradwell, Essex, ended when Michael was sent to boarding school and was then rejected by his local playmates.
After a brief spell in the army, he turned to teaching, and ended each schoolday with half an hour of storytelling, either an adaptation of a folk tale or something of his own invention. “I discovered quickly that if I wanted to keep their attention I had to mean the story. . . Above all, I knew that I must not ever patronise them.”
Essential to Morpurgo’s craft and message is an optimism that enables him to address life’s darkest moments. Essays here touch on the mistreatment of children, the shooting of a child during his visit to Gaza, and the damage to European peace that, he believes, was heralded by Brexit. But even these topics are touched by his hopefulness, summed up in the sentence: “All wars end in the end.”
He thus can defend his children’s books that touch on conflict, most notably War Horse. The essay describing its gestation and subsequent transformation into a worldwide theatrical hit is reason alone to buy this book.
The resurrection of a poor-selling 30-year-old children’s book depended on a chance hearing of Desert Island Discs by a National Theatre director’s mother. The later film came about thanks to Stephen Spielberg’s producer’s daughter. Morpurgo’s delight in such serendipity infuses this whole collection.
Paul Handley is a former editor of the Church Times.
Funny Thing, Getting Older: Reflections on life, storytelling and wonder
Michael Morpurgo
Hodder Press £20
(978-1-399-73971-9)
Church Times Bookshop £18
