What was the inspiration behind Vagabonds?
I came to Vagabonds gradually, from a PhD thesis and first book on Napoleonic song where my examiners, David Hopkin and John Barrell, pushed me towards the focus on ordinary, quotidian experience that led to my second, The Ballad-Singer in Georgian and Victorian London. These projects introduced me to some of the people – John James Bezer, Joseph Johnson, Billy Waters – who figure most prominently in Vagabonds, and who never got their due when my focus remained on the song, not the singer. I’ll be returning to song in my future work, but this book really was driven by the realisation that what really got me was how individuals survived and even thrived in the urban street – and that this might appeal to readers too. And as I wrote, my motivation began to border on advocacy for my subjects, as these incredible lives consistently tapered to encounters, negotiations, outright conflict with figures of authority – and only one side in this struggle ever seemed to conduct itself with dignity, humanity, compassion, wit, and courage.
What films, documentaries, podcasts or books would you recommend for someone who enjoyed reading Vagabonds?
Definitely go and watch My Fair Lady or Shaw’s Pygmalion – even if it’s familiar to you, revisit the Henry Higgins/Eliza Doolittle relationship with Vagabonds in mind; it should be fun! In a very different direction, if you’ve developed a taste for the first-hand, the micro-historical, the human interest, then perhaps upgrade from Vagabonds to Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie’s masterpiece, Montaillou, from the 1970s. Alternatively, if these particular stories have galvanised you, then trawl the bibliography and seek out the original memoirs of many of my subjects: lots of them have been digitised and are freely available, and deserve to be read in their entirety, especially as in many cases, their time on the street was only a small part of a remarkable life. Do see what you think of Henry Mayhew’s London Labour and the London Poor if you don’t already know it: though it’s a very tricky text, there are such riches therein. Finally, one crucial dimension of street life lost out in the edit: the experience of animals. There’s a thriving literature on animal life in the Georgian and Victorian street. Hannah Velten’s Beastly London is a glorious and accessible place to start.
Was there a particular writer, book, experience or event that first made you interested in history?
Honestly, I can’t recall a time before being interested in history, it came with the earliest stories I was told, sustained by three generations of my family. Of course I devoured Terry Deary’s Horrible Histories and, among several great history teachers, I owe a special debt to Paul Jackson. The ways in which young children tend to encounter history, and the subject as taught at primary school, seem ideal to inculcate a love for the subject – the trouble is sustaining it through secondary education, when it risks becoming a dry old slog: out with chariot races, Tudor herb gardens, and Aztec sacrifices, in with fence-sitting essays about the failures of the twentieth century. At least that’s how I remember it, though my narrative may be unreliable. Among all the other brilliant ways to sustain a child’s interest in history, never underestimate computer and video games – for me it was strategy: ancient city-builders, Age of Empires, Europa Universalis, Pirates! Gold. A lot of my love for the past was about being drawn to an aesthetic, a sensibility for costume and architecture; games are great at nourishing this imaginative engagement even in the most materially or financially deprived environments.
The Wolfson Foundation funds a wide variety of museums, historic buildings and landscapes. Do you have a favourite historical place or a place that has inspired you?
I’ve never felt happier to be in a space than atop the Palatine hill in Rome, while most recently, Bakkehuset in the suburbs of Copenhagen became my favourite house museum. But for sheer inspiration, it has to be Jelling, a small town south of Århus, Denmark. A simple whitewashed Lutheran church stands between two tenth-century burial mounds. Beside the church are two runestones, the famed Jelling stones. It is a very quiet, green, profound sort of space, and I have spent hours sitting on its mounds, talking, thinking, watching the sunset.
Read an extract from Vagabonds.
