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Simon Schama: 'I was lucky. When I graduated there were jobs galore'

Simon grew up in a loud house
Simon grew up in a loud house

We asked the historian, 72, what his younger self would make of him today... 

The Schama family was very large and full of loud people, with my father possibly being the loudest. He had an extremely roller-coaster career. He bought fabric, like a lot of Jewish men. He hated the business, though, and wanted to go into the theatre. His way of making it more exciting was to buy very dazzling oriental fabrics. He inevitably bought too much and couldn’t sell it. When we were well-off we lived in a timbered manor in Essex. Then when he became broke we moved to London where everything was more crowded.

I’d stumble my way to Liverpool Street Station after a dodgy night out in some deafening London club to be back in Cambridge to teach Peter Abelard the next morning

Simon Schama

It was a very histrionic childhood; I’ll leave the world to judge whether it had any effect on the young Simon. My parents would start the day entering from opposite sides of the kitchen singing Broadway show numbers. Thursdays were often There’s No Business Like Show Business, while I just wanted to get on with my yogurt and plough into the London fog to school. I remember my dad coming back from seeing Pinter’s The Birthday Party and saying: “There are never silences like that,” and I said: “Not in our house!”

I was taken to the theatre a lot and my earliest ambition was to be Laurence Olivier. I was a very early speechifier and also had a good memory. My father used to take me around, showing off what I knew, until I decided I’d had enough and went on speech strike for months. It’s probably the cruellest thing I’ve ever done.

simon schama
A young Simon wanted to be Laurence Olivier

Living in bombed-out London in the Fifties, history was very powerful. But when I went up to Cambridge I thought I was going to be a lawyer. It’s the famous joke, what do Jewish boys and girls who can’t stand the sight of blood become? Lawyers. Then I looked at a law book in the library and wondered how anyone could read it, let alone me. I wasn’t logical enough. In my third year I landed in medieval history and loved every moment of it.

I lucked out in many ways; I came of age when the universities were in full flower of expansion and there were jobs galore. In my early graduate period there were all these larger-than-life figures, like Germaine Greer and Clive James. We all led this rackety life, alongside days spent camped in university libraries. I’d stumble my way to Liverpool Street Station after a dodgy night out in some deafening London club to be back in Cambridge to teach Peter Abelard the next morning. Living largely was also important for history, it took you on to the streets.

I am a fanatical cook. Mum was terrible; sweetly enthusiastic but she didn’t understand the basic principles of heat applied to edible material

While I couldn’t see myself becoming him, I certainly saw A J P Taylor’s kind of history as something to aspire to. History to him wasn’t simply walks down memory lane. In that respect, I don’t think my younger self would be horrified by my tweeting. He would feel slightly surprised that I’ve had a happy married life [Schama married Virginia Papaioannou in 1983 and they have two children, Chloe and Gabriel]. I wasn’t shy of girls but I did think I was too hideous to get them. I had sticky-out ears, but as time went on my head eventually grew to match them.

The thing that would definitely surprise the young me is that I am a fanatical cook. Mum was terrible; sweetly enthusiastic but she didn’t understand the basic principles of heat applied to edible material. I used to hunger for a perfectly cooked roasted chicken. Every week we would have what my sister and I called the Friday Night Memorial Chicken; some awful grey object with a clove of garlic rattling inside. I’d love to make my younger self a roast chicken and roast potatoes in celebration.

Simon Schama is an ambassador for the Prince’s Teaching Institute (PTI) and will be speaking at its annual James Sabben-Clare lecture on June 20 at the Royal Institution of Great Britain