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The Guardian
25-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘She killed three husbands with this teapot!' Prue Leith, John Swinney and more pick their favourite museum
It's rare to hear someone getting this excited over a teapot. But as Terry Deary tells me, with exactly the kind of relish you'd expect from the author of Horrible Histories, this particular drinks vessel belonged to the Victorian-era mass murderer Mary Ann Cotton. Believed to have killed 12 of her children, not to mention three husbands, she was finally caught after poisoning her stepson in 1872 with an arsenic-laced brew. 'And in Beamish they've got the teapot!' says Deary. 'I was blown away to hold it!' He's talking about Beamish, the Living Museum of the North, an open-air site based in County Durham (just like Cotton herself, who was eventually hanged in Durham Gaol). Featuring an 1820s tavern, a 1900s pit village and colliery, a 1940s farm and a 1950s town – all populated by costumed staff – it's something of a pioneer when it comes to immersive experiences, having first opened its doors 55 years ago. This year it's one of five museums nominated for the Art Fund Museum of the Year award, a prestigious prize that has previously been won by The Burrell Collection in Glasgow, London's Horniman Museum and Gardens and the Hepworth Gallery in Wakefield. With £120,000 available to the winner (and £15,000 to the other four finalists), it is the world's largest museum prize. Deary's love of Beamish, which is only down the road from him, extends to more than just a fascination with grizzly murders. Back in the 1980s when he was working as an actor, he would take schoolchildren there and perform educational theatre in order to teach them 'what war was about' – not the well-trodden story of the trenches but tales of bewildered soldiers returning home, and deserters. Beamish is considered important because it keeps alive memories of Britain's industrial heritage. 'But they're not too nostalgic about it,' says Deary. 'You can go into a pit, and it's horrible! When I was a lad leaving school, they said I could become a coalminer, and after they sent me down a pit in the Sunderland area I was put off wanting to be a miner for life. I think Beamish dispels some of the glamour of the industrial era too.' From the humble teapot, then, to a piece of stone – although this is no ordinary piece of stone. 'When you see it now, it glistens,' enthuses Scotland's first minister John Swinney. He's taking time out from a meeting in his Perthshire North constituency to tell me about Perth Museum and it's prize possession: the Stone of Destiny. For almost three decades the stone had been on display at Edinburgh Castle, in rather dark conditions. Now it sparkles as pride of place in this museum that only opened in March 2024. 'It's one of the most epic symbols of the nationhood of Scotland,' says Swinney. Indeed, it was first recorded as being sat on by royalty in 1249, during the inauguration of the boy-king Alexander III. Fifty years later it was taken as war loot to Westminster Abbey by King Edward I of England – but now, 700 years later, it is finally back at its Perthshire home where it belongs. The museum is located in the former Perth City Hall, and Swinney remembers its previous life as the venue for the Scottish Conservative Conference, where Thatcher would turn up in her heyday to address the faithful. Now it has been refitted as the perfect venue to tell Perth's – and Scotland's – remarkable history. Inside you'll find part of the Strathmore meteorite that exploded and scattered across Coupar Angus and Blairgowrie on a crisp December day in 1917. There's the Pictish St Madoes cross-slab, which dates back to the eighth century. And for lovers of things that aren't stones, Swinney is particularly fond of the Carpow logboat that is dated from around 1,000BCE. 'It was found in the marshes of the River Tay and as you come into the museum it looks like it's inside the river itself,' he says. Swinney thinks the museum shows us how 'Scotland's history is part of Scotland's future' and it would be hard to deny it's having an effect: Perth and Kinross Council have reported an average city centre footfall increase of 68% since the museum opened. Not all the museums on the list sell themselves on their exhibits. Cardiff's Chapter has no historical stones or murderous teapots – in fact it has no permanent collection at all. And yet, as broadcaster Huw Stephens tells me, it's been 'at the heart of Cardiff's creative scene since it opened in 1971'. Stephens talks me through the museum's importance: how Pino Palladino ('the world's greatest bassist') would go and see live music there; Karl Hyde describing it as a key venue when he formed Underworld in the city with Rick Smith; the amazing work it does today with the city's deaf community (Chapter hosts Deaf Gathering Cymru, Wales' largest festival of D/deaf-led creative activity). With writers' circles, artist's studios, residencies, theatres and a cinema showing international films 'that wouldn't get shown in Cardiff otherwise,' Chapter is undeniably centred around art. Right now you can see Sophie Mak-Schram's exploration of power structures – created with local activists, community workers and museum staff – or have a go on the Feeding Chair, a touring artwork that invites parents and carers to feed their babies and young children in public venues. But speaking to Stephens makes you realise how much Chapter goes beyond that mandate. During school holidays they provide free meals to children, the museum has a no-questions-asked food bank and – in response to the cost of living crisis – they recently expanded their 'pay what you can' pricing scheme. 'This community spirit goes hand in hand with working alongside the creative sector in the city,' says Stephens. 'You feel it instantly when you walk through Chapter's doors.' In fact, so integral to Cardiff's vibrancy is Chapter that Stephens struggles to imagine the city without it. 'In many ways, it is our equivalent of the Southbank Centre. They have a busy garden, they host experimental music festivals … Cardiff would be a much duller, poorer place without Chapter.' Derry Girls star Tara Lynne O'Neill could say the same about Golden Thread in Belfast – not least because it helped her out during a difficult time. She had moved back to her home city 15 years ago following a period being a 'very unemployed actor' in Dublin and she found that the museum's free art workshops gave her an outlet to express her creativity and the chance to meet fellow art lovers. 'It convinced me that I was very much in the right genre of art form,' she laughs. 'I'm not talented visual-wise, but it was the community aspect of it, the meeting like-minded people. The accessibility was unbelievable, you know, because it was free!' Golden Thread opened in 1998, the same year the Good Friday Agreement was signed, and its collection doesn't shy away from confronting the Troubles. Paul Seawright's Sectarian Murder photography series visits spots where violent attacks took place and documents them as empty playgrounds, eerie grass verges and desolate fields. These unpeopled images, accompanied by text from local news reports documenting the attacks, serve as an act of remembrance – but also drives home the constant tension of the times and the chilling senselessness of it all. 'It's important that those stories are documented, but also that they have a permanent home,' says O'Neill. 'The kids who watched Derry Girls don't remember the Troubles. But looking at the paintings and how people expressed themselves during that time … I'd say art saved a lot of people. I think we forget a lot of the time that art isn't just for sale. It's not all about being a commercial thing.' Golden Thread, which recently moved to a new home in the city centre and boasts just one full-time staff member, is equally concerned with the city's brighter future. O'Neill remembers seeing Susan Hiller and Shirin Neshat's recent multimedia show Can You Hear Me? and thinking how wonderful it would have been to have had access to something like that when she was a working-class kid growing up in the city. 'My idea of a museum was somewhere stuffy and full of old things,' she says. 'I never would have thought a gallery would play video. It's that whole thing of 'if you can see it, then you can be it'. It makes such a difference for aspiring local artists to know that they can end up having their work on show in a gallery.' If this list contains a variety of museums, from the traditional to the experimental, then Prue Leith believes her choice – Compton Verney in Warwickshire – touches all bases. 'It's like a cross between the Wallace Collection and the White Cube gallery,' she says. 'They have this amazing collection of Chinese bronzes, probably one of the best in the world, and then you'll walk a few rooms down and find some crazy installation. I remember going there once and there were all these upside down umbrellas stuck to the ceiling.' Currently on display is Emma Talbot's multimedia extravaganza exploring the experience of life from birth to death. Leith is a fan of the museum's serious collection of folk art ('which is normally considered as very inferior') and recalls being beyond wowed by an exhibition of Picasso's drawings there ('illuminating'). During a showing of Dutch sculptor Grinling Gibbons' carvings, she was thrilled to get a peek at some of the works being transported in specially made boxes lined with 'all sorts of padding and polystyrene.' That gets to the heart of her love for Compton Verney. It may be a Grade I-listed 18th century mansion showing international masterpieces, but it's also small and friendly enough that you can ask staff questions about how the works travelled. 'They're receptive to telling you about behind the scenes stuff.' Leith says the activities for families and kids are exceptional – from stone carving to bat walks – and she raves about the grounds, which sets a sculpture park (featuring works by Sarah Lucas and Larry Achiampong) within 120 acres of Capability Brown parkland, proving once more that a great museum is about more than just what it has in its collection. 'Everybody I've ever taken has been astonished,' she marvels. 'I mean, even if you weren't interested in art, it's worth going there just for the trees!' The winner will be announced on 26 June at a ceremony at the Museum of Liverpool
Telegraph
01-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Horrible Histories creator Terry Deary: ‘What's the use of universities?'
One day, it dawned on Terry Deary that his favourite crime novels are overrun with characters who have heaps of money, or a degree, or both. ' Agatha Christie, Lord Peter Wimsey, the golden age of crime writing – it's pure Establishment,' he says. The same holds true for his contemporary standbys, Anthony Horowitz ('That man is a genius') and Simon Brett. By contrast, says Deary – who is better known as the brains behind the Horrible Histories series for children – in Actually, I'm a Murderer, his first adult crime novel, 'only about two out of 20 characters went to university'. This will come as no surprise to anyone familiar with Horrible Histories. Those books, 70-odd titles that have together sold some 30 million copies, have enlivened great tracts of the past for generations of children by relaying with irresistible delight the viscera of history and the experience of the common man. In them, monarchs and world leaders are usually depicted as monsters or figures of fun: the Romans are 'evil'; the Tudors, tyrants. Deary reserves a particular loathing for Elizabeth I, and he is not at all a fan of the British Empire. 'I get a lot of abuse for it,' he tells me; he's even been accused of 'poisoning the minds of children. But I can't believe anyone would possibly justify the British Empire.' Thirty-two years after the publication of the first Horrible Histories book, Deary says he's done with writing children's books. 'I've written hundreds of them. There's another mountain to climb now.' Actually, I'm a Murderer is the first instalment in what he hopes will develop into a long-running series (he's already written book two) featuring John Brown, an assassin-for-hire in 1970s Sunderland, where Deary grew up. The premise inverts the classic crime thriller setup: we know whodunnit from the beginning; the fun lies in the protracted game of cat and mouse between Brown and the police who, in the first book at least, Deary paints as incompetent, sexist and bigoted. 'Only the men,' he corrects me – the hero of the novel, Aline, is a policewoman fighting her repulsive, handsy colleague for promotion. 'Female police are underrated. When I published a murder mystery for young adults 20 years ago, the editor made me tone down the incompetence of the book's bent policeman,' he adds. 'I had to make the police look better and focus on solving the mystery. I don't think you would get that today.' In fact, Deary is quite a fan of the police, despite having been 'beaten blue' by them when he was a 'naughty nipper'; his dad ran a butcher's shop and Deary says his impoverished childhood 'in a postwar slum' taught him 'how real people lived'. I ask him what he thinks of the Metropolitan Police today, hit by a string of appalling scandals. 'Police are human beings. No one can live up to the expectations that are placed on the police.' Deary, who lives in County Durham with his wife, Jenny, with whom he has one grown-up daughter, was already a successful children's author when he was commissioned to do a history joke book in the early 1990s. He had begun writing in 1976 while working as a drama teacher in Suffolk. He maintains he didn't know much history at the time, although he studied it at A-Level. But then, his intention was never to educate. 'I didn't set out to enlighten their little minds or even get them to read,' he says. 'That just happened.' His main influence was his previous career as an actor: he had spent a few years in the early 1970s with Theatr Powys, in Wales. 'The aim of drama is to answer one question only – why do people behave the way they do? I applied that to my books. Look how they behaved in the past and learn from that.' Today, Horrible Histories is part of the cultural landscape – widely read in schools and embraced by the middle classes. 'Isn't that sickening?' says Deary. 'It's like Mick Jagger. He presents himself as anti-Establishment and then he accepts a knighthood. I hope I never sell out like that.' Fair enough, but the brand is already enormously lucrative – there are theatre, film and television adaptations, and even a Horrible Histories interactive cruise along the Thames, for which Deary writes the voiceover. Is he worried that the brand's original rebel spirit is becoming diluted? 'Horrible Histories is not my brand. I just write the books,' he says. 'And I take no credit for the spin-offs.' He rejects, too, the suggestion that Horrible Histories inculcate an inherently flippant attitude towards the past. 'You forget how boring history books for children were before I came along. Endless parents tell me their child never read a book until they picked up Horrible Histories. Although when people tell me that thanks to my books they studied history at university, I say 'Don't blame me, mate', because what use are universities?' Deary can come across as a bit of a throwback 1980s anarchist. He's famously against the education system, partly because he was caned repeatedly at his primary school. 'I'm against schooling. Not against education,' he clarifies. 'But you need to get rid of the muppets in Whitehall who write the curriculum which applies to every child in this country, when they wouldn't know a child from Newcastle or Sunderland if it thumped them on the kneecap.' He spits at whatever Labour might be planning to address this: it launched a review of the school curriculum at the end of last year. 'It's just tokenism, sorry. You need to get rid of it.' I assume, then, that he is not too concerned by the drop in students reading history at university? He himself never got the chance to go: his teachers suggested when he was 18 that he 'get a job down the pits'; instead, he worked at the electricity board. 'People don't have to waste taxpayers' money spending four years going to this place called university and not working when they can read my books [instead],' he says. I think he means it. 'But it's not my problem. I'm a book writer.' But surely, I suggest, the facts and intellectual rigour taught at university are important tools both for understanding the counter-imperialist view of history he favours and also for combating the growing threat of AI-generated misinformation? In lieu of an answer, Deary tells me how when people hear about a mother who lost her children in a bombing raid during the Second World War, they assume it took place in London or Coventry. 'But it took place in Dresden, too. Everyone comes up with a British-educated answer. But it happened to them as well as us.' I try again. What does Deary think about the ways in which we are rethinking our imperial past – the growing acknowledgment of the extent to which modern Britain was built on profits from the slave trade; the Rhodes Must Fall movement, which argues for the removal of the statue of Cecil Rhodes at Oriel College, Oxford? That, he says, is 'actually quite a good idea. Although they should be arguing to take all the statues down, including Lord bloody Nelson in Trafalgar Square. But it's a minority view. Imperialists are taking over the country.' Including, perhaps, in Sunderland – Deary left the city in the early 1970s, but maintains close links – where Reform won 27 per cent of the vote in the last election. Why does he think that happened? 'Because Farage is a big personality,' he says. 'People aren't voting for his policies, but for the man. So don't ask me to condemn my Sunderland friends.' Quite the opposite, I say. Isn't it only because such voters feel let down by the Establishment that they find themselves drawn to Reform in the first place? 'That, I admit, does sway people,' Deary says. 'They think the Conservatives have had their chance but they mucked it up, so we'll try Labour. Oh, they aren't doing so well, so we'll try a third option.' Deary is a tremendous force in publishing – and proud of it: he points out that the paperback edition of his recent nonfiction book A History of Britain in Ten Enemies topped the bestseller charts. 'Not bad for a lad from Sunderland, eh?' He has no plans to stop, nor any intention of toning things down. 'I'm an entertainer, not an academic. And if I don't entertain people, they won't engage.' Actually, I'm a Murderer by Terry Deary (Constable, £18.99) is out on June 12
