David Starkey

5 April 2012
What a week! I've been rushing round London

What a week, too, for the venerable old Radio Times. Roll over the Times Literary Supplement and the London Review of Books; eat your heart out Prospect and Standpoint. For Aunty's in-house magazine has become the new journal of record for the chattering classes. This week it's Parky versus Goody; last week it was me against the wimmen historians. Or at least that's what the Daily Mail, with its sublime gift for stirring, would have you believe.

Actually, what I was on about wasn't so much female historians as the feminisation of history. By that I don't mean the academic wasteland of women's history: it would be di cult to imagine anything less feminine. Instead, my concern is with the latest twist in the story of popular history. It's history, or the quasi-history of historical novels, written by women, about women and for an overwhelmingly female readership. Some of it is wonderful; mostly it's tosh.

It's history as the new Mills & Boon. Even the covers, with simpering lips, tousled manes and heaving bosoms, are the same. And that's just the studio portraits of the authors.

The true victims, in everything but their bank balances, are the young female historians of real talent, who are so relentlessly typecast. I was doing a news debate with one of the brightest and best and, as usual, the most interesting things were said off-air. 'Would you ever write about a man,' I asked her. 'I'd like nothing better,' she replied. 'Then why not do it?' I said brightly. She became hesitant, even a little defensive. 'Well, my publishers, you know...' Then, suddenly forceful, '...and agents.' 'Agents,' she added with something like venom, 'can be the worst.'

There's another side of the coin, of course. I have a friend who's written a terrific book on the family of George II. The subject's got everything: it's royal and there's sex and violence and the twisted private and public lives of princes and princesses. And the author, let's call her Victoria, has even got the right sort of name: it ends in 'a' and is vaguely classy but not too much so. The perfect formula, in fact. Publishers and agents were all a-quivver. Then they saw her photo and realised she was a lady of a certain age. At which point interest died, never to revive.

As you tramp from studio to studio, little things become important. Like your dressing room. Much the nicest are at Cactus TV. Fresh flowers on the tables. The rococo glitz of Venetian mirrors on the walls, and gourmet nibbles and booze a go-go. Just like the good old days of the Seventies when, as a young academic, I first put my toe in the deep waters of television and entered a world where there were careers to be made and an ever-open drinks cupboard. Bliss indeed after the dour rigours of life at Cambridge.

Not that it's all luxury. For there's always BBC Radio. Here it's back to an ine able sense of dowdy untidiness. For it is the BBC and one's mind is on higher things. And the BBC, for all the oodles of cash it gets from the licence fee -aka the poll tax of the air - is part of public service culture. And public service culture is fundamentally, unchangeably, unreformably scruffy.

An old friend of mine called it the Sellotape culture: notices, dog-eared, yellowing and long out of date, stuck on glass partitions. They explain at length why things can't be done, or at least not now or in the way you want. They rehearse ancient staff grievances and rights, rights, rights. And they festoon every school, hospital, post office and police station in London. It doesn't matter how new, or freshly painted, the notice and its Sellotape creep back like some insidious disease. If a new Tory government is serious about reforming the public service, it's first step should be to ban sticky tape - now, forthwith and forever.

Henry VIII: Man and Monarch guest-curated by David Starkey opens at the British Library on 23 April 2009 (01937 546 546)

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in