Readers Place

Thanks for agreeing to be interviewed, it such a fun read, and I really appreciate the way that anyone of any age will really enjoy this enjoyable and memorable book.

The Young Chieftain is a real adventure that can be read on so many levels. However, the first question I have to ask why did you decide that your lead character, the teenager Jamie MacDoran, would be mixed -race?

I had heard of a true story of an English boy who suddenly, on the death of his father, became potential heir to the Chieftaincy of a Scottish clan. I thought immediately how interesting it would be if the boy were dual heritage. Even better if the boy was a teenager living in America and therefore knew little about this part of his dad’s family history.

Yes, but why the specific distinction, when for example President Obama recognises that people will respond to and deal with him as a ‘black’ person?

His race isn’t really the focus of the story – we don’t mention this in the cover copy for this very reason. But I did want to create a dual heritage protagonist simply because there are few such characters in novels. It’s about visibility and acknowledging that heroes can be any colour, any background.

It’s interesting that while Jamie is mixed-race the whole story hangs on the issue of pure bloodlines and the requirement to take-up one’s inherited destiny. Have you considered how that issue (pure bloodlines) might be viewed by African-Caribbeans here in the UK or African-Americans in the US when the book is published there?

What I was trying to show, and hope I have in the conclusion of the book, was that regardless of race/bloodline Jamie’s rightful place was as the next Chieftain. I wanted readers, quite rightly, to question the notion of pure bloodlines. This is further highlighted in the book when it becomes clear that Hazel, a so-called pure bloodline, is not eligible to become chieftain because of her sex.

Did you seek authenticity checks on the black characters or any other character? And what kind of changes or examples did your trusted advisors suggest that you consider?

Yes, I had really valuable help from Diana Webb, a black high school teacher in California. It was important to me that I represented both black and Hispanic American characters truthfully, and Diana read all the early drafts and really helped me not only with attitudes and speech patterns but also the arcane technicalities of basketball! In addition both my editors at Tamarind ¬– Verna Wilkins and Patsy Isles – are black. We had many discussions about how best to deal with the prejudice that is present in the book. On the one hand it exists and must be recognised. On the other, there was no need to reinforce this. Essentially the book is an engaging story about teenage leadership and that’s where the real focus lies. I hope we got the balance right.

Who did you base Jamie upon?

I wanted an unlikely hero – someone who has greatness thrust upon them. I know a lot of young people who are going through the trials of adolescence, wanting to amount to something special but without any clear idea of what that might be. There is huge pressure to conform and a fear of being ‘different’ – but of course it’s the individual differences that throw up our leaders. The extraordinary rise of Barack Obama to the Presidency exemplified to me, and so many others, the triumph of possibility – the ‘yes we can’ philosophy. I hope Jamie is Obama-like and that the book is about what we are and who we can become.

Have you discussed the book with black or mixed-race youngsters? How have they reacted to the book?

Yes. The ones I’ve discussed it with seem genuinely excited about the concept and are looking forward to publication. Several have told me that they don’t find many characters to identify with in their reading. Most heroes are white, which I find strange considering we live in such a multicultural society. Maybe we can continue to redress the balance?

What question has stumped you most so far about the book?

‘What made you decide to write a book?’ It is the same question that people asked me about song writing, or making films. Why do we do anything? Because we passionately want to, because, with some trepidation, we feel we have something to say, and because it’s more fun than playing bridge.

Who did you base Jamie’s mother upon? I envisaged a 21st century Clare Huxtable, (the mother in the Cosby Show) though I suppose many will see her as a Michelle Obama type?

I think writers often base mothers in their books upon their own, tremendously influential, parent. My mother had very much the same sort of outlook and spirit as Marcia. She had been a concert pianist, a marriage guidance counsellor, a magistrate and started the Adventure Playground movement in this country. She was warm and tough and nothing fazed her – yes, I guess much like Michelle Obama.

I particularly enjoyed that way that the highland culture of Scotland was made exotic, some would say ‘native’; who are the MacDoran’s and the clans you lovingly describe based upon?

Well, there isn’t an actual MacDoran clan, which is probably just as well since I don’t want be sliced by a claymore! But when I was at Edinburgh University I played guitar and sang with a fellow girl student. We secured a regular TV spot and used to be invited to various clan gatherings as cabaret. We’d perform in castles and great houses where guests wore kilts and highland dress and danced in formation or over swords. I loved the feeling of tradition and a culture handed down over the centuries. I was also very aware that I was in another country and often a strange land.

Which remote Island is it?

Doran doesn’t exist, but having travelled around the west coast of Scotland and many of the beautiful islands, it is an amalgam of all the wild and romantic places that I saw there. I have always loved islands and their feeling of independence and insularity – no arbitrary frontiers wiggling across a landscape.

Are the themes and characters – particularly the Scottish ones based on stories you heard as a child or as a youngster yourself?

I certainly read Walter Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson as a child, as well as W.E. Johns and Enid Blyton (about who I later made a film). I have always liked child heroes, who are usually more grown-up and sensible than the adults! I had great fun working with Sue Townsend on our musical of Adrian Mole.

Do you envisage ‘Young Chieftain’ pilgrimages to that Scottish island? Do you think that they will relish the interest?

I’d be delighted if The Young Chieftain encouraged anyone to visit Scotland for the first time – particularly if they wanted to hike off the beaten track and see some of the more remote parts. I am confident that they would find the Scots welcoming and gracious.

I loved the use of the Gaelic language throughout the book, is this your original (heart) language or did you have to research it.

It’s not really Gaelic (which is still spoken in various parts and of course in Ireland too) but odd phrases and words that have survived into modern speech. Spending some years in Scotland at an impressionable age must have drilled them into my brain, since they seem to have surfaced effortlessly when I was writing. I love variations in language that confound the idea that we all speak the same tongue. It’s quite hard to put them down phonetically, however, and there are no strict rules for doing so.

Jamie’s grandmother Eleanor was certainly the most ‘bigoted’ throughout the book, though the thawing of her heart is one of the loveliest things. How did you conjure her up?

As I said before, I am attracted to the idea of change – that we all have the potential to become something or someone else. Eleanor is pretty intimidating, lonely and bitter and dragging herself around her crumbling castle. But she’s been hurt in life: by the departure of her son to America, the death of her husband and the erosion of her beloved clan. As a result she has retreated into a sort of suspended animation. Jamie arrives as an intrusion and an irritation and she hits out instinctively with hostility and prejudice. But, ironically, it is this most unlikely member of her kith and kin that will restore her to life.

Do you think that Macbeth is really relevant to today’s young people (outside of the high school curriculum or exam paper)?

Oh yes I do, which is why I introduced ‘the Scottish play’ into the story. Like all Shakespeare’s plays, it speaks across the centuries to successive generations, because its themes and characters are timeless. Do we not recognise greed, vaulting ambition in today’s society? The idea that you can grab something and hang the consequences? Bernie Madoff? Or the argument that the end justifies the means?

Why did you decide to write a book particularly for young people?

I have made a good many TV films for and about young people and of course the pop hits I wrote were aimed at a youth audience. I think that issues and problems are seen with greater clarity and pain when you’re young.

What do you think the reader will get from this book, that they would not get out of say a Harry Potter or a Twilight book?

What they will not get is vampires! I have nothing against the genre and I think Stephenie Meyer is extraordinary, but enough already.

What inspired you as a teenager?

The idea of mass communication. I was invited to the BBC TV studios as a young kid and was instantly hooked by the medium. I had an 8mm film camera when I was 13 and began making films. In a way everything I have done since has been about the same thing – coming up with ideas and reaching out to an (hopefully global) audience.

Since you have written a book for teenagers, what books did you read as a teenager yourself that you think are important?

The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, just about all of Graham Greene, Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast Trilogy, Hemmingway’s The Old Man and the Sea and many more.

Your career has grown from the production of films and TV programmes for young people, what plans do you have for the development of The Young Chieftain into another medium?

Actually it happened the other way around. I wrote the basic story of The Young Chieftain as a TV movie, and took it to Granada TV who in turn entered into co-production with Disney. We were well into pre-production when there was a call from Disney saying they had discovered a problem. They couldn’t have a parent dying. I was incredulous, saying ‘What about The Lion King and Bambi? Since the death of Jamie’s father was a pretty important part of the plot this rather torpedoed the project. I vowed then that I would turn it into a novel. Happily we are now in talks with BBC about bringing The Young Chieftain to the screen again. It would close the circle.

How would you encourage a young person to get started in a career such as yours?

I’m not sure I would encourage any youngster to emulate my disparate career! After all, I had just become a TV director at BBC when I wrote my first song, which became a number one hit. At the time BBC wouldn’t allow you to do any work outside the Corporation so it was composed under a pseudonym. When they found out, I was given the option to stop writing or to leave. I left, much to the horror of my parents who thought I was committing professional suicide. But somehow things worked out, there were lots more songs and a continuing association with the BBC. So I guess I would say to any youngster starting out in the media – do your own thing and believe in it passionately and don’t let anyone talk you down. What do they know, anyhow?

My regular question for my blog is: What question should I have asked you and what is the answer?

Several people have asked me if there will be a sequel to The Young Chieftain. If it proves popular – you bet there will!

This interview is also going into Lime magazine’s October edition. (Lime – ‘to Lime’ ‘Liming’ is to hang out in Caribbean English it a monthly arts and entertainment mag, October is Black History month in the UK and so all interviewees are being asked the following question: What does Black History Month mean to you and is it still relevant?

It’s extremely relevant. All our histories are. But it’s important to celebrate the historical achievements of each race as well as learning lessons from the struggles they have encountered. We ignore them at our peril.

Interview by Black Book News.

For more information about Ken Howard and The Young Chieftain, visit his AuthorsPlace profile.