Kemi Badenoch wants to end Degrees of Fraud – but I wouldn’t have created Horrid Henry without my work Francesca Simone
I love you! When I was an undergraduate at Yale, I hated being asked what my major was. “Medieval studies? What are you going to do with that?” was the inevitable question from the non-students. When I went to Oxford and studied Old and Middle English, the question persisted. I would usually answer: “I’m opening a medieval shop” to close off further discussion.
Anyone studying the humanities, or “soft” degrees, will face the same vexing questions. The implication is that these topics have no value. In fact, we have become so narrow and utilitarian that unless a degree specifically leads to a specialized career, many view it as a waste of time, money and resources. Kemi Badenoch has pledged to end “scam” degrees such as English, anthropology and psychology because, in her view, they offer poor job prospects. (Let’s ignore for the moment the £125bn size of the creative industries Worth annually To the United Kingdom, or 2.4 million people are employed.)
Years ago, my son’s high school counselor told me that the biggest problem he faced was parents trying to force students to study STEM subjects and not humanities at A-level, thinking this would inevitably lead to a better job. However, no one knows what knowledge will be “useful” to them in their career. My degree in “plagiarism” in Old and Middle English has led to me writing 100 Horrid Henry stories, millions of books sold worldwide and countless children becoming readers. (I wrote it while holding one of the “indefinite leave” visas that UK Corrections has pledged to abolish.) Although I didn’t know it, I couldn’t have chosen a better subject to train me as a children’s author.
My love of alliteration comes from reading Anglo-Saxon poetry. Horrid Henry is full of rhyming sentences, which are not only great fun to read and write, but also help new readers who are confident in their fluency. The creation of Horrid Henry’s cast of characters with homonymous names (Moody Margaret, Anxius Andrew, Sor Susan, Lizzie Linda), each with a unique characteristic, was directly inspired by the medieval concept of the four humours: sanguine, phlegmatic, choleric, melancholy. Old and Middle English also gave me a feel for the rhythms and structures of the English language, invaluable skills for a writer.
Were you aware of this excellent job training at the time? Of course not. I did not study Old and Middle English, medieval art, literature, and history because I thought a great work awaited me at the end. I did it because I love learning, and studying the Middle Ages has enriched my life and connected me to the fears, longings and joys of the past.
It’s only by looking back that you can trace the influences on your writing. For example, my lifelong love of fairy tales, mythology and folk music inspired my novel Feral Child., About Hel, the Norse goddess of the dead, and the opera she wrote with composer Gavin Higgins based on her, which premiered at the Royal Opera House. Our cantata, The Fairy Bride, On the Welsh legend of Lady Llyn y Fan Fach, and my latest novel, Salka, It has similar origins based on legend. Horrid Henry himself had a somewhat unexpected knowledge of Greek mythology – “Were there not some ancient Greek…?”
Obviously I am not suggesting that studying Old and Middle English leads directly to a successful writing career, although I note that three of the greats – J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, and J. K. Rowling – were all medievalists. But unless you want to become a doctor, electrician, or any other job that requires specific knowledge, any “soft” arts subject such as history, English, theology, foreign languages etc. teaches you how to think critically, research effectively, and deepen your understanding of the world: vital skills in the age of misinformation, cults and artificial intelligence.
Do we want to live in a world where books and culture flourish? Or in a purely functional world where the value of education is measured only in expected earnings? Did my friend Ed blast his first physics class teaching and playing the banjo? Maybe Kimmy would be a better leader if she left engineering for religious studies or psychology.
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The motto of the University of Chicago is: “Let knowledge grow from more to more and thus enrich human life.” If you learn how to think critically and creatively, then universities have done their job. Since no one really knows what will benefit them in the future, why not study subjects you enjoy, and see where they take you. Too far!