Thanks to Gemma Hargraves, deputy head of the Crypt School, Gloucester, and member of Secondary Committee for this blogpost focused on building students’ sense of period and place to help them imagine a past world with joy.

With the increasing prominence of stories in history education, I wanted to make the case for the inclusion of one of Terry Pratchett’s stories in a KS3 curriculum. Raising Steam is the 40th Discworld novel and it lends itself neatly to any Industrial Revolution enquiry.  It is the story of the development of locomotives on Discworld (the planet where many of Pratchett’s novels are based. It is flat and sits on the back of four elephants, standing on a giant turtle). Industrialisation of Discworld is something of a recurring theme in the novels.

Recently I was teaching a lesson on the development of railways and whilst the students learnt what I intended, wrote well, explained and evidenced answers, and gained important knowledge, it was not a joyful lesson and perhaps even a missed opportunity. A 2016 Article from The Conversation states “…you can step onto the Discworld anywhere you like. If you enjoy wit, humour and fastly-paced plot, you will enjoy yourself immensely. Just don’t feel obliged to begin at the beginning.” And the link here would be useful beginners guide of Pratchett’s work is unfamiliar to you – A beginner’s guide to Terry Pratchett’s Discworld (theconversation.com)

Cross curricular links

Including elements of Discworld in History lessons is not just about joy though, there are clear cross curricular links here, most naturally with English. An early footnote asserts that  “wizard” was derived from the word “Wys-ars” which could be both entertaining for older students and lead to conversations about etymology in a border sense. In terms of provenance rather than content, there are also valuable links to Government and Politics at A Level as Pratchett’s first book The Colour of Magic was published in 1983, the same year as Thatcher’s second election victory, with an increased majority a year after the Falklands. This is arguably a turning point as Sir Harold Wilson retired from the Commons. New members included the future leaders of the Labour and Liberal Democrats; Tony Blair and Paddy Ashdown, and the future Conservative Home Secretary Michael Howard. Edwina Currie, Neil Hamilton and Clare Short also entered the Commons for the first time. How much these people and the political context influenced Discworld and its idiosyncratic societal peculiarities is hard to say but if utilised initially at KS3, Pratchett’s work could certainly be returned to when studying a History option such as Making of Modern Britain, or Politics, at A Level.

Extracts from Raising Steam

Considering an extract from Raising Steam – the tone, language and nuance can be enlightening.

On class and status

‘There was something inevitable about Lady’s Margolotta’s castle. As the great wooden doors slowly opened, every door hinge creaked. After all, there was such a thing as socially acceptable ambience’. (pg 23)

‘Kings don’t travel lightly or quietly. There were dwarfish flunkies everywhere alongside the chateau staff, folding things and indeed shovelling things into cases with a sense of panic, as if the bailiffs were coming’. (pg 324)

On workers and working conditions

‘The young men in the travelling work gang had crafted themselves cosy little shacks covered with oil skin. These were extremely portable and always a place where a friendly face could be certain of a hot drink, stirred with a spanner, of course.’ (pg 216)

‘The houses hastily built for the railway workers were close to the water cranes and coal bunkers so that an eye could be kept on precious coal and water supplies. They were quite small, which put some strain on the accommodation when there were children and grandparents as well, but everyone said that it was twice as good as what might be found in the big city and, after all, you were out in fresh air, at least in between locomotives.’ (pg 375)

On innovation and technological advancements

‘The fact of the matter was you had to hope and assume that a lot of capable people had done lots of capable things in a capable way, and double-checked them frequently to make sure everything was right. So worrying was stupid, wasn’t it? But worrying was never quite like that.’ (pg 330)

‘Leonard would probably get distracted halfway through the journey by an idea for using cabbages as fuel, or using the waste from the fire box to grow better cabbages, or painting a masterpiece of a nymph clad in cabbage leaves and coal.’ (pg 331)

‘As Moist slept, the train barrelled like a very slow meteor through the night, climbing up through the Carrack Mountains. Almost the only light to be seen with the moon under a cloud came from the engine’s headlamp and the glow from the furnace when the door opened to shovel in more coal’. (pg 374)

The extracts offer only the tiniest insight into the stories, wit and wisdom of Raising Steam but they build a sense of a world that could be more challenging to grasp from contemporary sources. There is an opportunity to utilise extracts to answer question stems such as “how valuable…”, “how convincing…”, “how surprising…”. It is surely an excellent interpretation to explore and the analysis of provenance would be a particularly rich mine.

Raising Steam is a book some thought should not have been published due to the author’s illness but I am grateful it was, and hope it may provide a useful resource to more History teachers, and perhaps even bring some joy.