Historian Greg Jenner: I love York - but it was right Leicester kept Richard III’s remains

Many of us of a “certain age” will recall – probably with a bit of a shudder – the tediously dull BBC Schools broadcasts. Of course they meant well, but for most of us who were compelled to listen as we sat in classrooms they managed to strangle the life out of every subject they covered.

Greg Jenner is probably too young to remember that time of torture. But he has, almost single handedly, turned learning from being a chore and a bore, into something appealing and, yes, quite exciting. “And fun,” he chips in, “don’t forget fun”.

Jenner lives in Surrey (with his wife Kate and their baby daughter Esme) but in his late teens, travelled north to read history at York University. He wasn’t, he says, smitten by the subject from an early age. “It was taught well at my school and I thought it was quite fun, but little more than that. I think I really wanted to be a lawyer for a while – and changed my mind more or less at the last minute.”

His historical influences were pretty limited. “One was being told stories of World War Two by my grandad, who had been in the RAF. The second was the fact that we lived quite near Bodiam Castle and that for me had the lot – for a start, it was built in the reign of Richard II, and it has a wonderful moat, and those incredible crenelated battlements. Very romantic.”

The third thing was Sir Tony Robinson. “He was in a TV series based on the daring doings of Maid Marian. She led the Merry Men, and not Robin Hood, and Robinson (who wrote the series with a lot of nods to Blackadder) also played the devious Sheriff of Nottingham. It was hilarious, full of puns and anachronisms. Marian was an idealistic freedom fighter, and the only thing that she and the Sheriff agreed on was that everyone else was completely stupid,” says Jenner.

“In a way, it laid the foundations for the Horrible Histories I’ve been doing for a while now. I’m truly passionate about a couple of things – history, and having a sense of humour. When those two are blended together, I’m in my element.”

He had a “wonderful time” in York and still goes back. “I am flattered that the university still asks me back every year – generally in February – to do a bit of teaching.”

The city left its mark on him. “You only have to toss a pebble in York and it hits something historic. If you’re going to dig the foundations for anything, even if it’s a moderately sized hole, you are slicing into heritage. Remember that JCB that was used on one site, which came up with that amazing Viking helmet sitting on top of that earth in the scoop? It happens all the time.”

He recalls the outcry from Yorkshire when the remains of King Richard III were discovered and then interred, in Leicester. “People from the county are very engaged with him, aren’t they?,” he says.

“But I’m sure that he was finally laid to rest in the most appropriate place. One of the arguments that came out of this archaeological find of the century was that York Minster would have been ‘where he wanted to be buried’. But, look, how do we know that? We cannot mind-read the intentions of a long dead desiccated corpse. And even though we now have his remains, we still equally can’t know – and almost certainly never will – if he was responsible for the deaths of the two Princes in the Tower. I think I said at the time that to have moved him beyond Leicester would have been to undermine the potency of his violent demise.

“What is extraordinary is that we are still talking about him and trying to put all the pieces of his life and death together coherently, even after 600 years.”

Jenner’s great talent is to be able to talk about history in an accessible and irreverent way. This is why millions of youngsters identify with him so easily.

“I don’t believe in the lowest common denominator in learning, far from it. But the odd bodily function joke never goes amiss – in the right place. I heard of a South Yorkshire teacher who was asked how he kept the interest of his class when he took them on a field trip to the Roman Wall. Standing there in a March gale must be tough, so how did he keep their interest? Apparently he replied that showing the kids where Hadrian’s men went to the loo instantly focused their minds.

“I can believe it – there have been, what, 180 billion of us on the plant over the millennia and it’s something that is common to us all, no exceptions. And I’m also convinced that the ordinary things of life, where we lived, how we survived, the tools we used and the games that we played, are the most interesting facets of history”.

His own family has a fascinating history and is part French, Italian and British, and one of his most serious (and painfully moving) blogs was all about his family’s involvement in the Holocaust.

Like many of us, Jenner is currently working from home, but he has a new project, called Homeschool History, that has been going out on BBC Radio 4. The idea is simple – fun history lessons for all the family, with lots of facts and also jokes about an eclectic range of topics.

It’s gone down a storm. “We thought that it would go okay with the kids, and some parents, and that’s the case, but in addition, people over 80 are loving it as well which has thrilled me.”

He’s also recently published a new book, Dead Famous: An unexpected history of celebrity from the Bronze Age to the Silver Screen.

“I find the whole thing about what makes people instantly famous endlessly interesting. I suggest that the first true ‘celebrity’ of our times was a Dr Henry Sacheveral, who preached a few very hard-hitting sermons in 1709, and who changed a lot of public opinion of the time. He ended up as a national figure.

“Dick Turpin is in there as well, the man who promoted himself into a legend but who, when you examine his life, was a thoroughly nasty piece of work.”

So if we could sit Greg down with one historical figure, to have a natter over a flagon of mead (or a cup of tea) who would it be?

“Leonardo da Vinci” he says immediately. “What a mind. An inventor of machines of war that have been proven to work (and that’s how he paid his bills) – an astonishing artist, a vegetarian, a lover of birds, an observer of human form and of nature. Quite simply, a genius.”  

So not a bad hero to have.

Homeschool History, BBC Radio 4, every Monday, 9.30 am, and available online as a podcast.

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