Andrew Roberts was born in 1963 in London. He is a historian, professor and author. He has written over 20 books including the award-winning Napoleon the Great.
What’s your earliest memory?
The moon landings. I was six and a half and I can remember my parents taking me down to the drawing room and watching the whole thing on a flickering, black-and-white television with other family members who had come in especially for it. But other than the family members and sitting around it, I can’t remember anything else.
Who are your heroes?
Admiral Nelson was my childhood hero. And adult hero, I’m afraid it always comes back to Winston Churchill.
What book last changed your thinking?
Actually, I’m reading it at the moment. It’s a book by Mark Bostridge and it’s about Adèle Hugo, the daughter of Victor Hugo. It’s not necessarily about anything to do with Victor Hugo, but about biography. Bostridge inserts himself vigorously and regularly all the way through the book until the book actually becomes more interesting about Mark Bostridge than it is about Adèle Hugo.
In which time and place, other than your own, would you like to live?
Any time really between the invention of antibiotics and the invention of television. I could only live in a period where the pain of illness and disease could be alleviated. So, it really has to be from when antibiotics were invented. And then things start to fall apart a bit when television is universal. Although, as I say, I did enjoy watching the moon landings.
What would be your Mastermind specialist subject?
I think it would be the year 1940. That moment from the beginning of the Norway debate until the end of the Battle of Britain.
What’s your theme tune?
“Downtown” by Petula Clark. It was the song that when my kids were growing up got stuck – physically stuck – in the tape machine; we couldn’t get it out. So, for six months we had to listen to “Downtown”. And it’s still actually one of their favourites.
What’s currently bugging you?
That film, Napoleon. Even though it came out last Christmas, it is still bugging me. The director had $350m. I’m writing a book about Napoleon and his marshals at the moment and I keep thinking what a wonderful movie he could’ve made if he’d only done the obvious thing, which is stick to the truth.
What single thing would make your life better?
Can’t think of a thing. My life is – actually, gout pills. Gout pills that worked faster: there you go – that’s what would make my life better. There are plenty of very strong ones but they don’t work fast enough.
When were you happiest?
I was very happy at Cambridge. But, actually, I think I’m happier now than I was at Cambridge and I spent three years at Cambridge in a sort of nirvana. As far as I was concerned, it was pure pleasure, from beginning to end. But now, especially working in this building [the Palace of Westminster’s Royal Gallery], where every brick exudes history, is just perfect.
In another life, what job might you have chosen?
I can’t bear the idea of not being a writer. If I won the lottery tomorrow and won a hundred million pounds, I’d still write books.
Are we all doomed?
No! We’re not doomed at all. Humankind has believed that it’s been doomed for the last 2,000 years and each time something has come forward to make things better, and I think technology is going to solve a lot of our problems.
A limited edition of Andrew Roberts’s “Churchill: Walking with Destiny” is published 7 November for the 150th anniversary of Churchill’s birth
[See also: Remembering Paul Bailey]
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This article appears in the 30 Oct 2024 issue of the New Statesman, American Horror Story