Scooby Doo interviewed Philip Ardagh, author of The Fall of Fergal and The Awful End.

Scooby Doo:  Is there a reason why you chose to write such funny books?

Mr. Ardagh:  I've written over sixty books, which have sold all over the world, and the majority of them are non-fiction, and most of those on history.  Although I've employed 'fiction tricks' and included humo[u]r in most of them, it's a nice change to be writing funny stuff, pure and simple.  I'm a cheerful person who sees the funny side to most things in life, so it's logical to write funny books.  Not so long ago I was lying on a gurney in a hospital emergency room, having been brought in by ambulance, and was staring up at the ceiling with a big grin on my face.  I was supposed to be going on holiday to France the following day, but I realised I'd be spending it there instead!

Scooby Doo:  Why did you decide to set The Eddie Dickens Trilogy in the past?

Mr. Ardagh:  There are a number of reasons for this.  First, because I'm a fan of the authors Charles Dickens and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (who wrote the Sherlock Holmes stories), who both lived during the reign of Queen Victoria, when the trilogy is set.  Second, because I had a very old-fashioned upbringing.  My grandfather, who died in his nineties, was a knight and later a baron -- in other words a 'Sir' and later a 'Lord'.  I was christened/baptised at Saint Paul's, the world famous domed cathedral in the City of London, built by Sir Christopher Wren after the Great Fire of London of 1666.  I went to a school which was founded by St. Augustine in 597AD, which is so long ago -- over 1,400 years -- that it looks more like a number than a proper date, and was later named after Henry VIII (of six wives fame).  At school, I wore a separate starched 'wing collar' attached to my shirts with collar studs, a black tie and black jacket and pinstriped trousers.  It was like living in Ye Olden Days!

Scooby Doo:  Did you get your style of writing from Lemony Snicket, author of A Series of Unfortunate Events?

Mr. Ardagh:  If I did, I would have to have been psychic!  I wrote Awful End as a series of letters to my nephew Ben before any of Lemony's books had been published in the US, let alone in Britain where I live.  When Awful End was about to be published over here, a friend of mine sent me a copy of the first Lemony Snicket book saying 'This made me think of you!', so I can see why your question came about.  People who know me say that reading one of my books is like listening to me talk, which means I must waffle a lot and get side-tracked very easily!

I reckon Lemony's books are more of a (funny) tribute to that great American author Edgar Alan Poe, with his macabre approach and all that jokey gloom-and-doom, whereas mine are more of a nod in the direction of the English writer, Charles Dickens (which is how Eddie Dickens -- my hero -- got his name).  Snicket's books contain wicked Uncle Olaf.  My trilogy contains Mad Uncle Jack and Even Madder Aunt Maud!  (Not forgetting a stuffed stoat called Malcolm -- or Sally -- and a hollow cow called Marjorie.)  Apart from our shared love of language, though, I'd say that our books aren't really that similar on closer inspection.  I would suggest that my books are more downright silly than Lemony's!

What I find really incredible, though, is that Awful End, which was originally written for one boy, has already been translated into 19 different languages, from Polish to Japanese!

Scooby Doo:  Is there a special spot where you just like to read or write or think?

Mr. Ardagh:  Good question.  I used to do most of my writing at my desk in my (very messy) study, with only my long-haired tabby-and-white cat Beanie for company.  Beanie is eighteen human-years old now, which is good and old for a cat, and is the only living being I allow in my study when I'm working.  There are piles of books and papers on the floor and all sorts of strange objects from old fossils and African carvings to photos of my family (some dating back to the 1860s) dotted about the place.

Since I bought myself a laptop, I now find myself writing here, there and everywhere:  in different parts of the house, on trains, at friends' houses, in hotel rooms.  I've gotten very good at ignoring everything going on around me when I'm concentrating.

Oh, one more thing.  Just to be fair, I should mention Snorkel, my eight-year-old short-haired black cat (who isn't in the least bit interested in my writing career).  If Beanie gets a mention on your website, so should she.

Scooby Doo:  Do you plan to write any new books outside of the Eddie Dickens Trilogy and Unlikely Exploits series?

Mr. Ardagh:Oh yes indeed!  With the third and final book in the trilogy, Terrible Times, now written, I'm currently working on Unlikely Exploits 2:  Heir of Mystery -- in Unlikely Exploits 1:  The Fall of Fergal, young Fergal McNally falls out of a window and is killed on page one. . . which is an unusual thing to happen to a hero in a book, especially when he doesn't even come back as a ghost -- but my mind is already working away at new ideas for completely unrelated books to write in the not tooooooooooooo distant future.

Scooby Doo:  Which do you enjoy more reading books or writing them?

Mr. Ardagh:  The difference between reading and writing is that I have to write. I don't mean that I have to write to earn a living (although I do; it's the only way I make any money) but I mean I have a NEED to write.  If tomorrow, all my different publishers around the world told me they'd never publish another one of my books, I'd carry on writing just for me.  I'm an author.  It's what I do.  I didn't choose to be an author.  It chose me!  Having said that, I love reading, but - except for recently, following that unscheduled trip to hospital I mentioned earlier -- I never seem to have the time to read as much as I'd like to.

Scooby Doo:  When and why did you start writing?

Mr. Ardagh:  Even when I was really little -- well, really young.  I've never been really LITTLE -- I used to love books and I loved the idea of making books.  I used to 'write' meaningless squiggles in my dad's old diaries and, hey presto, I had small 'books' with front and back covers.  As I got older, those squiggles became words, the words became sentences, the sentences became short stories.  I wasn't just writing in diaries by then, but essays in English class at school.  I even won some school essay competitions.  Because I enjoyed writing and was thought to be good at it, people encouraged me, which made me enjoy it even more, and write more.  And the more you do something, the better you become at it.

Scooby Doo:  Where did you come up with the ideas for your crazy characters?

Mr. Ardagh:  One of the starting points for the Eddie Dickens Trilogy is the fact that it is usually adults who control kids' lives, whether they're family, teachers, police officers or park keepers.  That can be annoying enough at the best of times, but what if the key adults in your life are -- how shall I put it? -- a little eccentric/bonkers/around the bend?  To get this across, I had to people the stories with characters showing different aspects of weird adult behavio[u]r and exaggerate them . . . just a little, of course!  The older one gets, the more most of us realise that most adults don't really know what they're on about; it's just that some are better at pretending than others!  (In other words, even the most 'ordinary' person is a little odd underneath.)  Despite coming from an unusual family, I can't claim that characters such a Even Madder Aunt Maud are based on specific people l know.  Imagination is a big part of writing.

Scooby Doo:  Are you friends with your illustrator David Roberts?

Mr. Ardagh:  We're great friends now, but I started out as just being a big fan of his work.  When my UK editor, Suzy Jenvey, asked to turn my letters into the book,Awful End, she asked who I'd like to illustrate it.  I immediately thought of David's scratchy old-fashioned, very individual and quirky illustrations, and I thought here's a person who'll be able to see inside my head and bring my characters to life.  I asked for him, Suzy said 'yes' and David came on board.  I was delighted; so delighted, in fact, we asked him to illustrate the Unlikely Exploits series too.  I've just got back from the Edinburgh Book Festival in Scotland where David and I appeared together on stage for the first time.  I did most of the talking and he did all the drawing . . . a bit like one of my books, I suppose!  David and I are very different.  He's very quiet.  I'm not!   AND he doesn't even have a beard!

Scooby Doo:  When will the Eddie Dickens Trilogy and Unlikely Exploits series be published in the U.S.A.?

Mr. Ardagh:  The first Eddie Dickens book will be published in the US by Henry Holt in September 2002 with, I believe, the second, Dreadful Acts, coming out six months after that, and Terrible Times six months after the second one.  In the UK, the first book was called Awful End.  The US version is entitled A House Called Awful End.  At the moment, I only have one copy of the US edition, but it looks fabulous.  I'm coming over to the US and Canada for two weeks in October to promote it.  I'll being going from the east to west coast but, sadly, won't be visiting Philadelphia.

Scooby Doo:  Could you recommend one of your non-fiction books?

Mr. Ardagh:  Wow, that's difficult.  I recently had one published by Faber & Faber in the UK called Why Are Castles Castle-Shaped?  100 1/2 Questions About Castles Answered.  I'm really fond of that.  Not only does the title tell you exactly what's in the book, but it also gave me a chance to revisit some of my favourite old castles and visit some new ones, and to write on a subject I love so much.  We're very lucky on the UK mainland.  England, Scotland and Wales have some of the best castles (many of them dramatic ruins) in the world.

If I had to choose just one of my non-fiction titles, though, it'd have to be The Hieroglyphs Handbook:  Teach Yourself Ancient Egyptian.  Why?  Because it's such a fascinating subject and one that's never been treated properly in children's books 'til now.  In the past, hieroglyphs have been treated like a code.  'Here are twenty-six Egyptian glyphs, one for each letter of the alphabet, now you can write!'  In fact, it's more complicated than that.  There are over 4,000 different glyphs (picture symbols) for starters, and they come in three different types, with three different functions, too.  Philip Pullman said of The Hieroglyphs Handbook, 'If you want to write ancient Egyptian, there's no better place to start than this.'  The Japanese edition sold 100,000 copies in the first year alone, which made me proud.

Scooby Doo:  What is your favorite children's book of all time?

Mr. Ardagh:  As a child, I read plenty of adult books as well as children's books (particularly detective stories).  When it came to books for children, I avidly read C.S. Lewis's Narnia stories and really loved the gloomy character Puddleglum in The Silver Chair.  My mum used to read me the Winnie-the-pooh stories which were even more magical to me because they were set on Ashdown Forest, where we used to go for regular walks as it was so near my gran's house.  (Although it's called a forest it's really a heath -- grassland -- with the occasional clump of trees.)  I suppose my favourite books, however, were the Moomin stories by Tove Jansson, and my favourite one of those was called Comet in Moominland.  I've re-read it and re-read it, even as an adult.  I've met many authors in my life but never Tove Jansson, which I'll always regret.  Sadly, she died last year.  I hope her books live on forever.

Scooby Doo:  Are you really two meters tall?

Mr. Ardagh:  No . . . I'm even taller: I'm two meters PLUS two millimeters, which makes me about 6 feet 7 inches tall.  I much prefer talking in feet and inches, like you do in the US, because that's how I was taught measurements when growing up . . . then they went and changed everything in the UK to the metric system, except for road signs which are still in yards and miles.  (Most confusing.)

Scooby Doo:  Do you have anything to say to potential authors out there?

Mr. Ardagh:  Enjoy yourself.  Writing is the best thing in the world.  Never be in a hurry to show someone a piece of writing until you're really pleased with it -- don't be afraid to chop and change words, characters, events and ideas -- and, if you get stuck, there's no harm in putting it aside for a while.  Coming back to something with fresh eyes can give you fresh ideas.

The hardest part is getting started; turning a blank piece of paper or computer screen into a page of writing.  Don't be afraid to write something -- even if it's only a sentence -- because once you've written something, you've something to improve and work on.

Scooby Doo:  What do you do when you're not writing?

Mr. Ardagh:  Apart from eating, sleeping, combing my beard and stroking the cats -- or stroking my beard and combing the cats -- I don't have much free time from writing.  As soon as one manuscript's finished, I'm starting work on another and probably touring or promoting yet another title.  This year, as well as October's trip to the US, I've already appeared at (or am appearing at) the Children's Book Ireland summer school in Dublin, the Hay-on-Wye Literary Festival on the English/Welsh border, the Edinburgh Book Festival in Scotland, the Wordplay Children's Book Festival in Swansea, Wales, the Cheltenham Festival of Literature in England, the Dublin Children's Book Festival (in Ireland again) plus various trips around the country.  Next year I'm off to Australia, Singapore and South Africa . . . All this touring can be pretty tiring, but it's a great opportunity to get to meet some of my readers face to face.  It's a shame that my cat can't come with me, but at least my wife does.

Scooby Doo:  Is there any other question you wish I'd asked?

Mr. Ardagh:  You could have asked 'What do you think of the website?' to which I would have replied:  'GREAT!' . . . which, I suppose, is what I've just done in a roundabout way.  I really enjoyed reading the interviews with the other authors and was delighted that 'Scooby Doo' described The Fall of Fergal as 'excellent' in the review section!  Good luck with the website.  May it continue to grow and grow.