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Speaker 1: You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Tame podcast

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Speaker 1: from News Talks at me.

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Speaker 2: Michael Moore Pergo is a literary treasure. The author of

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Speaker 2: Warhorse and Private Peaceful has a back catalog of about

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Speaker 2: one hundred and fifty books and his books are loved,

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Speaker 2: most particularly by children and young people. Michael has added

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Speaker 2: to his expansive library yet again with a brand new

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Speaker 2: book called Cobweb. It follows a little dog heading to

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Speaker 2: London amid the aftermath of Britain's triumph at Waterloo, and

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Speaker 2: Michael is with us Skelder.

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Speaker 3: Good morning, Good morning to you from Devon in England.

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Speaker 2: How wonderful? How is Devon today?

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Speaker 3: Dark? And I suspect it's raining because it often does.

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Speaker 2: Yes, Although I mean that is a beautiful coastline. You

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Speaker 2: live in a beautiful part of the world. That has

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Speaker 2: to be said.

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Speaker 3: It's a lovely part of the world. It's quite empty

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Speaker 3: of people. It's actually very like New Zealand, except we

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Speaker 3: don't have mountains, but we do have lots of farmland

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Speaker 3: and it's mostly grassland and woods and gentle rolling hills

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Speaker 3: and rivers, you know that sort of countryside.

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Speaker 2: Now, Michael, that the main character in Cobweb is a

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Speaker 2: Corgy and Corgy is a drover. So can you tell

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Speaker 2: us where you found the inspiration for Cobweb and exactly

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Speaker 2: what is a driver?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I can tell you. It's like every book I've

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Speaker 3: ever written. I get luckier people tell me things, And

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Speaker 3: in this case it was a friend of ours who

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Speaker 3: decided he was going to do a two hundred and

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Speaker 3: fifty mile walk from the west coast of Wales to London,

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Speaker 3: and he was going to do it to raise money

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Speaker 3: for a charity we run called Farms for City Children,

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Speaker 3: which gets children from the cities here in England, London, Birmingham, Bristol, Manchester.

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Speaker 3: They come to the farm in Devon and they live

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Speaker 3: and work on this farm and two others at the

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Speaker 3: charity run. So he was going to help us by

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Speaker 3: raising money and doing this walk. I said, why are

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Speaker 3: you doing this walk? And you know what road would

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Speaker 3: you be taking? He said, well, I'm going on the

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Speaker 3: drover's road. And I didn't know what a drove all was,

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Speaker 3: but I had no real idea that you could walk

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Speaker 3: the same route at all. But he had researched it

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Speaker 3: extremely carefully and he set off. This was last year,

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Speaker 3: walking all the way from Pembrokeshire in South Wales up

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Speaker 3: to London, which was the route followed by the drovers

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Speaker 3: of old who for thousands of years, and I mean

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Speaker 3: literally thousands of years, it was the only way to

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Speaker 3: get your animals to market. So your cows and your sheep,

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Speaker 3: even your geese, everything that you grew on the farm,

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Speaker 3: raised on the farm had to find a market. And

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Speaker 3: where were the markets. They were always in the big cities,

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Speaker 3: the big towns. No lorries, no trains, no other way

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Speaker 3: of getting them except to walk them there. And so

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Speaker 3: what they did. They would set off with say two

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Speaker 3: hundred and five hundred sheep, and they'd have a dog

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Speaker 3: or several dogs, depending on the side of the flock,

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Speaker 3: and all these animals would have been gathered from the

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Speaker 3: farms all around and they set off on this incredible

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Speaker 3: journey of two hundred and fifty miles twenty miles a day.

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Speaker 3: They'd go, staying in inns on the way, but the

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Speaker 3: problem was that the dogs really didn't go in the

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Speaker 3: inns much. They would be left outside guarding the animals

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Speaker 3: against rustlers anyone who would like to steal anyone, and

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Speaker 3: they'd cattle themselves and the sheep. They'd be grazing the

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Speaker 3: grass and there would be a river or a pond,

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Speaker 3: so they were very specific where they should be these inns.

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Speaker 3: They had to be where animals could be safe and

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Speaker 3: safely grazed. And the next day they'd set off again

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Speaker 3: and they would do twenty miles a day, twenty miles

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Speaker 3: a day, and end up in London. And what I

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Speaker 3: discovered was remarkable is that in the South Wales the

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Speaker 3: dog they used was a corgy. The corgies in this

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Speaker 3: country are generally known as the pet which used to

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Speaker 3: be adored by our late Queen, Queen Elizabeth, who I

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Speaker 3: think had about seven of them, so they got very

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Speaker 3: well known in the country, and they were pretty well

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Speaker 3: known anyway. But hundreds of years ago, these were little

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Speaker 3: droving dogs and that's what their job was. They would

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Speaker 3: go all the way to London. And the really special

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Speaker 3: thing about the whole story, which his man told me,

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Speaker 3: was was this that when they got to London, the drovers,

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Speaker 3: who were pretty tough guys bandage, wanted to do the

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Speaker 3: business they had to do, which was the selling of

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Speaker 3: the animals, which of course belonged to other farmers. They

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Speaker 3: were just doing the droving, but they had to sell

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Speaker 3: the animals and do the business, get the money, and

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Speaker 3: I expect they want to have a good time in

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Speaker 3: London or Bermei or wherever it was. And here's the thing.

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Speaker 3: They would turn around to the dog and say go home.

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Speaker 2: Anymore, and he would go home, and the.

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Speaker 3: Dog would go back two one hundred and fifty miles

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Speaker 3: to where it came from, just like a swallow, just

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Speaker 3: like a salmon. And they had this ability. But the

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Speaker 3: interesting thing is it was sort of encouraged in a way. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: because at each of the ends on the way down

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Speaker 3: the drover had left some money so that as the

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Speaker 3: dogs went by the same route, there was food to

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Speaker 3: feed them all the way back to Wales. And I

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Speaker 3: thought that that's a story that mostly no one knows. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: so why don't you tell that tale. That's what I did.

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Speaker 2: That is extraordinary. That really is remarkable, isn't it. And Michael,

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Speaker 2: you've said that this book has what you think is

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Speaker 2: the best surprise ending that you have ever written, which

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Speaker 2: is I mean extraordinary given how many books you have

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Speaker 2: produced over these I think we're one hundred and fifty

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Speaker 2: books in So do you go about writing an ending

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Speaker 2: before you before you lay out the structure of the book,

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Speaker 2: How does that ending come about in your process?

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Speaker 3: Well, I'm a very instinctive, spontaneous writer. I don't plot

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Speaker 3: and plan very much. I mean, with this book, for instance,

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Speaker 3: I knew obviously the first part of the book was

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Speaker 3: to create the place where this dog lives, and I

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Speaker 3: wanted to have some kind of connection with someone there.

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Speaker 3: So there's a girl on the farm in which the

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Speaker 3: dog is brought up of adors the dog. The dog

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Speaker 3: gob where adores the girl, and they get split up.

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Speaker 3: Doesn't matter why, we can read the book for that,

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Speaker 3: but they get split up, and the person who splits

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Speaker 3: up the relationship between this girl and this dog is

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Speaker 3: also responsible for selling the dog to a drover, and

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Speaker 3: off the dog goes, therefore pretty much on his own

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Speaker 3: in the big wide world, except he's got lots and

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Speaker 3: lots of cows and sheep to look after, and you

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Speaker 3: follow him all the way to London. What I didn't

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Speaker 3: know what to do, and I like this really is

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Speaker 3: I didn't know how to continue the book after I

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Speaker 3: got the dog to London. And I'm very often like that.

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Speaker 3: I start something and off I go on a journey.

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Speaker 3: And what I'm always hopeful is that something, something will

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Speaker 3: lead me towards an end in which in fact the

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Speaker 3: reader isn't expecting. And I'm not going to I can't

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Speaker 3: tell the end the silly book. But what I what

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Speaker 3: I would I did do was to find out. I

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Speaker 3: found out that historically all the droving ended about nineteen hundred,

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Speaker 3: so I had to set my book back from that,

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Speaker 3: and I did when I was at school. I'm now eighteen.

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Speaker 3: And when we learned history at schools in this country

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Speaker 3: all those years ago, you really only learned one way,

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Speaker 3: and that was through dates. You had to learn dates,

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Speaker 3: the dates of this and the dates of that. And

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Speaker 3: I remembered all the way through to my eighties. And

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Speaker 3: I learned it at the age of seven. Two dates

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Speaker 3: in English history from the nineteenth century. One was the

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Speaker 3: Battle of Trafalgar, Nelson's great victory, that was eighteen oh five,

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Speaker 3: and the other one was the Battle of Waterloo eighteen fifteen.

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Speaker 3: And I did know because I have studied a bit

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Speaker 3: military history, and I knew that apart from the terrible

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Speaker 3: losses on all sides and the slaughter of that battles,

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Speaker 3: or usually portrayed on film with beautiful uniforms, and it's all.

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Speaker 3: It was the ghastly, ghastly affair, like all wars anyway,

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Speaker 3: what I did know is that when the soldiers came

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Speaker 3: back to this country, to England where I live, after that,

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Speaker 3: having won this great victory and the country ringing bells

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Speaker 3: and celebrating in lots, when the soldiers came home there

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Speaker 3: was nothing for them. There was no work, there was

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Speaker 3: no money, and many of them starved in the streets

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Speaker 3: of London begging. And I thought to myself, if one

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Speaker 3: of these returning soldiers from that battle should meet up

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Speaker 3: with the dog, and that returning soldier had nowhere to go,

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Speaker 3: and the dog did know where to go, that might

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Speaker 3: be an interesting journey back. So that's the kind of

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Speaker 3: thing that happened. I linked up a historical fact. I'm

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Speaker 3: very keen on historical facts in my novels. That it's

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Speaker 3: the truth that interests me, revealing more truth through fiction.

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Speaker 2: And it is a truth that rold All told you

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Speaker 2: that children don't like history.

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Speaker 3: Yes he did. And I had a book called Warhorse,

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Speaker 3: which was the first book I ever had that years

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Speaker 3: and years ago, and I'm talking forty to fifty years ago.

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Speaker 3: This book was shortlisted for a big prize in this

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Speaker 3: country called the Whipbread Prize, and here was the chair

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Speaker 3: of the judges on this prize. And I went up

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Speaker 3: to London, and my publishers are enthusiastic, and they thought

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Speaker 3: I was going to win, and lots of people that

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Speaker 3: I was going to win. And I didn't win. Someone

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Speaker 3: else won, it doesn't matter who. But as I was

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Speaker 3: feeling a little bit low during the ceremony, I was

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Speaker 3: sitting there sipping my wine when Rol Dahald stood up

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Speaker 3: and kind of beckoned me over to the judge's table.

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Speaker 3: So I went over and you had to go where

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Speaker 3: he said, you know, he was god, so to speak.

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Speaker 3: So I walked towards him and he was very nicely

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Speaker 3: shook my hand and he said, yes, yes, good book,

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Speaker 3: good book. But you do know, don't you that children

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Speaker 3: don't like history, And having been a teacher for eight years,

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Speaker 3: I did know this was rubbish. And there's an awful

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Speaker 3: lot of things children don't like. Generally it's because they've

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Speaker 3: not been taught very well, or the story hasn't been

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Speaker 3: told very well. And you can teach history really well

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Speaker 3: and pass that on all the stories of history, which

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Speaker 3: are very important to all of us. You can do

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Speaker 3: that if you tell it well. I didn't like to

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Speaker 3: argue with him, because, as I told you, he was God,

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Speaker 3: and anyway, I didn't feel like arguing. But I've always

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Speaker 3: remembered it as the reason probably I didn't get the

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Speaker 3: prize is that he and maybe some other judges thought, well, actually,

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Speaker 3: why should children be interested in the First World War anymore?

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Speaker 3: And I think actually they had a point then, and

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Speaker 3: that is that a lot of people could get almost

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Speaker 3: nostalgic about the First of all War. There were a

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Speaker 3: lot of songs, there was oh what a lovely war.

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Speaker 3: There was lots and lots of sort of around it.

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Speaker 3: There was this glow well you know, we one type thing.

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Speaker 3: Well we know and New Zealanders know, Australians know, everyone

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Speaker 3: know that it was not like that at all. This

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Speaker 3: is people coming across the seas to fight this war

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Speaker 3: against an enemy and most of them didn't even know,

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Speaker 3: and it was it was dreadful. So I don't know,

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Speaker 3: I sort of feel that it's they were right to

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Speaker 3: think that if this was another book that was going

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Speaker 3: to join that kind of thinking. Well, it isn't. Actually,

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Speaker 3: it's a book which is about loss, and it's about

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Speaker 3: finding someone new and longing for that one to be

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Speaker 3: joined up with someone you love, which is what happens

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Speaker 3: to all families, and indeed horses, and it's about a

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Speaker 3: horse and a boy, and the boy going off the

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Speaker 3: wall to look for his horse, which has been sold away.

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Speaker 3: So I think he was wrong, but in a sense

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Speaker 3: I can understand why he said it.

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Speaker 2: Finally, Michael, I know we have to let you go

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Speaker 2: in a moment, but you mentioned farms for city children,

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Speaker 2: and I know a lot of our listeners will be

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Speaker 2: really interested and it. Can you just tell us how

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Speaker 2: it works?

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Speaker 3: Sure? Yeah, Well, my wife takes the credit for it.

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Speaker 3: Claire started the charity with me about it's almost fifty

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Speaker 3: years ago now and since then we've had one hundred

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Speaker 3: thousand kids from the cities all over this country. And

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Speaker 3: what happens is they come with their teachers from primary schools,

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Speaker 3: about thirty five forty at a time, with their teachers

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Speaker 3: and come down first of all to Devin. That's where

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Speaker 3: we started the first farm where I'm speaking to you

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Speaker 3: from in Italy, in the middle of nowhere, North Deven

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Speaker 3: and they come down from inner city London in the

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Speaker 3: first place, and they come down and they'd stay for

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Speaker 3: a week. And they wouldn't just look at the countryside

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Speaker 3: the how nice and count the eggs and count the sheep. No, no, no,

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Speaker 3: they worked alongside real farmers. The farmer on the farm

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Speaker 3: would take them out every single day. I would gout

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Speaker 3: with every single day and we will milk the cows,

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Speaker 3: and we'd move the sheep, and we'd feed the pigs.

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Speaker 3: We'd do everything that needed doing within a working farm.

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Speaker 3: The idea was really that as a teacher, when I'd

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Speaker 3: been teaching and my wife had been teaching, we realized

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Speaker 3: that an awful lot of children in this country I

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Speaker 3: don't know about New Zealand suffer from a poverty of experience.

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Speaker 3: They live in a tiny flat. They look out of

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Speaker 3: the window on concrete and tarmac and planes flying overhead.

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Speaker 3: That's the connection very often with the world outside. And

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Speaker 3: we thought, because we both had a wonderful opportunity and

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Speaker 3: a younger being in the countryside, growing up in it,

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Speaker 3: both of us, and we thought, well, this is the

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Speaker 3: right of every child to have a connection with the

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Speaker 3: world about them. This is their world. It's their world

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Speaker 3: to look after. It's the world that provides their food

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Speaker 3: and it's a place they've never been, so that was

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Speaker 3: the idea to give them a sense of what there

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Speaker 3: is out there for them, so they will value it

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Speaker 3: and understand much more about farming and about the countryside

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Speaker 3: and nature, so that when they go out walking down here,

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Speaker 3: they go on and green fields down to the river,

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Speaker 3: they see a salmon jumping, they might see a spray

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Speaker 3: that an otter is left behind. They see a heron

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Speaker 3: lifting off the river, they see buzzards eagles up in

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Speaker 3: the They hire in contact with nature, and since they

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Speaker 3: are part of nature, we thought that was pretty important educationally.

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Speaker 3: So that's what we've been doing all this time with

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Speaker 3: one hundred thousand children, and the charity goes on. It's

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Speaker 3: had a struggle or two because you know COVID and

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Speaker 3: all all sorts of things, but COVID has been the

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Speaker 3: main stop. We had to stop for a good year

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Speaker 3: and a half that because the kids couldn't come down,

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Speaker 3: but we started up again and on we go. And

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Speaker 3: as I speak to you in Devon, there's a group

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Speaker 3: of children, thirty five of them just come down yesterday

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Speaker 3: from London.

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Speaker 2: Ah how wonderful. Hey, Michael, thank you so much for

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Speaker 2: giving us your time. There's such a great pleasure to

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Speaker 2: speak with you. And you know, I, yeah, I'm thinking

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Speaker 2: for myselfie, but I know there is a seven year

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Speaker 2: old in our house who's going to be just delighted,

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Speaker 2: absolutely delighted with Cobweb. So thank you so much.

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Speaker 3: That's really good. It's very nice to speak to you

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Speaker 3: in New Zealand. I wish I was there last time,

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Speaker 3: as I went a wonderful place called Russell. Yeah, I've

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Speaker 3: never forgotten that I had the most extraordinary time. So

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Speaker 3: I have a great deal of time for New Zealand.

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Speaker 3: Except that you play rugby far too well.

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Speaker 2: Well we'll see the Northern Tour is coming up. But

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Speaker 2: thank you so much Michael. We'd love to have you

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Speaker 2: back again sometime soon and have a great day.

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Speaker 3: Be great, all the best then bye bye.

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Speaker 2: That is Michael Moore Pergo. His latest book is Cobweb.

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Speaker 2: Someone on the Texas saying Jack would be able to

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Speaker 2: ask the age range. It's it's really from eight up.

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Speaker 2: But it is a beautiful book. So if you've got

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Speaker 2: anyone younger than eight, I reckon you could read it

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Speaker 2: to them. But for young readers who are looking to

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Speaker 2: read themselves. Eight plus Jack, I grew up with Pet

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Speaker 2: Corgy say are the best family dog heroes on Little League,

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Speaker 2: says Jay. If you want to send us a message,

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Speaker 2: ninety two ninety two is the text number. This morning,

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Speaker 2: we'll have all the details for Michael Moore Purgo's Cobweb

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Speaker 2: up on the Newstalk's EDB website.

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Speaker 1: For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame, listen live

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Speaker 1: to News Talks EDB from nine am Saturday, or follow

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Speaker 1: the podcast on iHeartRadio