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Bionote: Kate McLoughlin was born in Birkenhead on the Wirral peninsula and grew up by the Irish Sea. She spent her childhood reading and is now a Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford. She likes hiking, learning foreign languages and - still - reading.
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This interview is featured in the book,
LETTERS FROM SANTA: an anthology of poems, short stories and interviews
available worldwide via Amazon. Here is the India link.
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TMYS 1: Please tell us about the SANTA of your life. Maybe a person who felt like Santa or a phase, a day, an event, a moment from your childhood when innocent wishes seemed granted.
Kate:
As a child, I often spent the Christmas with family in Worcestershire. One year, we went for a walk in the snow and some deer appeared on the hills before us. They weren’t reindeer, but for a moment it seemed as though they might have been sent by Santa himself.
TMYS 2: Today you are an expert in war narratives. Would you like to recollect the war stories that appealed to you most as a child and later as a researcher?
Kate:
I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for a real-life war story. At the start of the Second World War, my father, then 10 years old, was evacuated from Liverpool to a village on the Wirral peninsula. A family that was quite rich took him in. After some months, they told him he would have to leave because the mother had become pregnant again and there wouldn’t be room for him. He went round the village with his cardboard suitcase asking if anyone else would take him in. It was my maternal grandmother who said yes, so he first met my mother when they were both 11 years old.
I’ve known that war story as long as I’ve known anything. As a researcher, I have been interested in stories about war told by those who aren’t directly involved in the fighting. I wrote a book about a brilliant woman war reporter, Martha Gellhorn, who stowed away in a hospital ship so that she could see the D-Day beaches for herself. I’ve also been fascinated by the ways in which writers respond to the challenges of conveying armed conflict. Homer gives vivid accounts of the deaths of each warrior, one-by-one. Tolstoy has a marvellous understanding of how difficult it is to report exactly what happened, as opposed to the stories that people expect you to tell.
TMYS 3: In the context of War and Literature, the epics and mythological stories across cultures depict historical war. Such stories are told to the children to inspire their imagination and pride, and also to instill the ‘good wins over evil’ perspective. Do you think these traditional mediums of war portrayals could negatively affect children in the contemporary world?
Kate:
This reminds me of a poem by Robert Graves, who fought in the First World War, called “The Persian Version”. It begins:
“Truth-loving Persians do not dwell upon
The trivial skirmish fought near Marathon.”
The so-called “trivial skirmish” is better known as the Battle of Marathon, in which the Greeks inflicted a crushing defeat on the Persians. It’s usually the winners who get to tell the story of what happened in a war so ‘good wins over evil’ narratives should be treated with suspicion.
TMYS 4: The most widely acclaimed films aimed primarily at children-audience revolve around war. For instance, the Marvel series such Avengers, Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Endgame, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, etc. Again, we have the renowned J.K. Rowling who used the theme of armed conflict in the Harry Potter series and also the prequel to the Harry Potter world. Why do you think wars have been a constant point of interest especially among children?
Kate:
Children are caught up in war, alas, and it is a live and relevant subject to them. And it’s true that there’s a human fascination with violence and displays of power. But when we watch films and read books of the kind you mention, it’s important to remember that, in real life, the impact of armed conflict is devastating and lasting.
TMYS 5: As an author, are you careful with your words, language and imagery while representing sensitive topics like war, its effect, the trauma and violence? Or you allow the history to present itself unapologetically? Young minds need to know their history. They must also be sensitized. Please share your thoughts.
Kate:
I think of children across the world who have been caught up in war. They don’t have the luxury of being sensitized. I have no time for gratuitous violence, though: if horrific details have to be presented, we have to make sure that they are backed up by carefully-weighed evidence.
TMYS 6: We have known that your work on war led your interest towards the literary history of silence. That is very powerful. In every war narrative, women and children have been the most vulnerable and their experiences have been in the periphery. They tend to hold on to their silence as a lingering fire that keeps the horrors of the war experiences alive, long after it is over. Why do you think they do so? What is the power of silence?
Kate:
Too many women and children have been silenced over the course of history. But silence is also a form of resistance. Think of Emma Gonzalez falling silent for six minutes and twenty seconds in her speech at March for Our Lives in 2018. Her silence lasted for the same amount of time that it took the gunman to kill 17 of her fellow-students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Her silence reverberated around the world. Why is silence so powerful? Because it forces us to stop talking and think.
TMYS 7: If you were Santa, what would be your advice to a child?
Kate:
Read as much as you can.
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This interview is featured in the book,
LETTERS FROM SANTA: an anthology of poems, short stories and interviews
available worldwide via Amazon. Here is the India link.
***
An interview by Gennia Nuh for #TellMeYourStory, under the Story Project 11 themed on Letters from Santa.