What inspires our love of history? 6 historians give their childhood recollections on what got them started

Nicola Tallis: “When I was just four, I received an inspirational gift that helped steer the direction of my career”

When I reminisce about my childhood, one aspect stands out in my memory: my love of history. I can’t remember a time when history hasn’t been a part of my life, and my passion for it was kindled in my earliest days. I was only two or three years old when my mum began to read me tales of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, and before long they became a regular part of my bedtime routine. I was fascinated by the stories of the sword in the stone and the Holy Grail, and I was captivated by Lancelot and Guinevere.

When I was four, though, I received a gift that would prove so inspirational that – unbeknown to me at the time – it helped to steer the direction of my career: The Weetabix Illustrated British History Book. When my mum gave me this tome, published in 1989, I doubt she thought much beyond the fact that it might open for me a gateway into something or someone other than King Arthur – and she was absolutely right.

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I vividly remember flicking through the pages and admiring the pictures – and then I came to one image that really captured my attention: Henry VIII and his six wives. The idea of a king who had married six times fascinated the infant me, and I used the book to memorise the classic rhyme about their fates: divorced, beheaded, died; divorced, beheaded, survived.

Simply from viewing pictures of a king and his spouses, my love of the Tudors was born – and snowballed. That slender volume was my starting point, and soon it began to show signs of wear. I became determined to find out all I could about Henry VIII and his extraordinary family – a journey that I’m still undertaking to this day.

If I hadn’t been given that book as a child, I’m certain that my career would’ve taken an entirely different direction. It was a small thing – but one that made a lasting impact.

Nicola Tallis is a historian, author and researcher. Her books include Young Elizabeth: Princess. Prisoner. Queen (Michael O’Mara Books, 2024) and All the Queen’s Jewels 1445–1548: Power, Majesty and Display (Routledge, 2022)

Ciara Garcha: “Hearing my granddad’s experiences first inspired me to dig into histories of race and migration in 20th-century Britain”

My granddad has always been a storyteller. It never takes much to get him started, recounting an experience or an episode from decades ago and thousands of miles away. His stories have ranged across time and space. He spoke of his memories of the death trains coming into his village during the partition of India, arriving at the station carrying only devastation.

He recalled how cold it was when he first arrived in England: the biting wind and the grey skies sprawling overhead. When he moved to the West Midlands town he still lives in today, in the early 1960s, he was one of only six Indian residents.

It was these that first got me thinking about the histories that would shape my life and journey. Hearing him recall his activism, his role in the fight against the National Front and far-right racism in the 1960s and 1970s, moments of struggle and solidarity – these episodes introduced me to histories that have defined my work.

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Hearing my grandad’s memories, from meetings at the local branch of the Indian Workers’ Association to time spent in an Irish pub – the only one nearby without a ‘No Blacks, No Irish, No Dogs’ sign – introduced me to the challenges endured and resistance mounted by black and Asian communities in post-Second World War Britain.

My granddad often told his stories in a nonchalant manner, slipping recollections of incidents from decades ago into normal conversation. As I have latterly come to appreciate, though, these tales were more than mere chat: they were testimony – ways of sharing the experiences often elided from our histories.

The stories of first-generation immigrants such as my grandparents are vital oral histories, preserving details and perspectives that otherwise might be lost. It was these that first inspired me to dig into histories of race and migration in 20th-century Britain, and which sparked my curiosity for the voices missing and overshadowed in our histories.

Ciara Garcha featured in HistoryExtra’s ‘30 under 30’ list. She works on histories of race and migration, and is doing her PhD at the University of Cambridge

Alice Loxton: “I was captivated by the thought that Elizabeth I had once put her hands inside these gloves, admiring the gold embroidery”

One early experience that inspired my love of history was peering into a glass cabinet in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. Inside was a beautiful pair of white gloves made of leather, silk and gold thread. These had once belonged to Elizabeth I, and had been presented to her during a visit to the University of Oxford in 1566.

I was captivated by the thought that Elizabeth – who seemed to me like a character from an old story – had been a real person, as alive as you and I. She had once put her hands inside the objects in front of me, and probably admired the gold embroidery as I did, or stroked the leather.

This thrill inspired another visit – this time to Westminster Abbey. How exciting it was to explore this magnificent church for the first time, and to gaze upon its splendours as so many others have done in centuries past. I spent time admiring the Coronation Chair, now well over 700 years old, imagining each monarch sitting on it. Did they slouch? Or did they recline? Did some slip around in their robes, weighed down by heavy jewels?

It was the physical aspect – seeing an object or being in a space – that provided the initial spark. It is testament to the importance of museums and historic buildings, and their transformative potential

Next I arrived at the tomb of Elizabeth I. For perhaps an hour we gazed upon the large white marble effigy in the north aisle of the Henry VII Chapel. The body of the ‘Virgin Queen’ is interred in the vault below this figure, her coffin placed above that of her half-sister, Mary I.

Twenty years later, looking back on that time, such experiences remain vivid – and were key to my passion for history. Of course, I loved reading about it, learning at school, and watching documentaries. But it was the physical aspect – seeing an object or being in a space – that provided the initial spark.

It is testament to the importance of museums and historic buildings, and their transformative potential. Who knows which peculiar object might trigger the interest of a small child, inspiring a love of learning that burns bright for a lifetime?

Alice Loxton is a historian, presenter and author. Her latest book is Eighteen: A History of Britain in 18 Young Lives (Pan Macmillan, 2024)

Charlie Eve: “With an overactive imagination fuelled by the characters I saw on TV, I soon became obsessed with storytelling”

Quotes such as “This is Sparta!” and “Are you not entertained?” dominated my childhood. Although period films – 300, Gladiator, Braveheart – took dramatic licence and often forcefully bent historical facts, their booming soundtracks and gritty Hollywood actors sparked my interest in history as a young lad.

Every weekend, my dad would introduce me to some epic film or invest hours in the Discovery Channel, nurturing my fixation with the battle-scarred heroes of the big screen. I also treasured my battered copy of a dinosaur encyclopaedia, devoured the BBC show Walking with Dinosaurs, and developed a ridiculous obsession with Dr Alan Grant from Jurassic Park. Soon I could name almost every dinosaur.

I have no idea why I didn’t become a palaeontologist, but I do know how I came to love history: watching it come to life before my very eyes. With an overactive imagination fuelled by the characters I saw on TV, I soon became obsessed with storytelling and would devour any medium I could get my hands on.

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I realised early on that I’m a visual learner, so watching Roman legions march across the screen, maps light up with advances across the western front, and prehistoric giants roaming the Earth was the best way for me to soak up information. Fast forward to 2018, and I graduated from university with a degree in Television and Film, kickstarting a nearly seven-year (so far) career as a camera operator, editor, writer and producer.

Moving from my small hometown of Hartlepool to booming Manchester only strengthened my interest in history. Having so many different eras on my doorstep, I now have access to a treasure trove of tales to tell, from the original Roman settlement to relics from the industrial age and secrets from both world wars.

Today I’m a broadcaster telling stories about British history. I still obsess over the same historical heroes and villains as young Charlie did – but now I get to bring those stories to life in my own way, through my social media channels.

Charlie Eve is a broadcaster who made HistoryExtra’s ‘30 under 30’ list. He posts on social media as @thehistorymagpie

Zack White: “At HMS Victory, history was no longer something interesting but abstract – now I could reach out and touch it”

From the moment when I understood that the past really existed, it has fascinated me. Soon I was reading every library book I could find, whether it was about the Romans, the Egyptians, the Titanic or the Second World War. Yet there weren’t many chances for a child from a single-parent family on a council estate to engage with something tangible from those periods.

That changed at the age of 12, though, when a friend handed me a copy of Sharpe’s Trafalgar by Bernard Cornwell. Suddenly I was immersed in a new world: that of Napoleonic-era naval warfare. Cornwell’s fast-paced writing style and visceral combat scenes turned my bedroom into the deck of a battleship.

Yet still the past was trapped in my mind’s eye – until my mother took me to see HMS Victory, Horatio Nelson’s flagship at the battle of Trafalgar, in Portsmouth on Trafalgar Day. That experience ignited something within me. No longer was history something interesting but abstract. Now I could reach out and touch it – see the cramped conditions, smell the wooden, earthy aroma, and hear the thumps and creaks as people moved across the deck.

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History came to life and plunged me into a world where I stood gaping in wide-eyed astonishment at what it must have felt like to live and fight in this wooden behemoth. Some say that whacking my head that day on Victory’s low beams knocked the sense out of me. I say it did something far more powerful: it fired a neuron.

Two decades later, working at the University of Portsmouth, I can visit the origin of my passion on my lunch break. Though my research has drifted towards soldiers rather than sailors, my fascination with how humans coped with the horrors of war has never left. I wander those decks, drinking in the same sights and smells, and marvel at how stepping aboard that ship empowered me to make a career out of my passion for Napoleonic history.

Zack White is a research fellow at the University of Portsmouth, and host of The Napoleonic Wars Podcast

Alfred Hawkins: “I was taken to commercial excavations during school holidays – which I’m sure would no longer be allowed”

It is difficult to think of a distinct experience that fostered my interest in history. Having grown up in the 1990s, I’ve got to give Horrible Histories an honourable mention. It is also impossible not to recognise the fact that I was raised in Hastings, which is so well known for ‘the battle of’ or as ‘1066 Country’.

Some of my clearest early memories are of places or objects associated with the Norman Conquest: Pevensey Castle, Hastings Castle, Battle Abbey, the Bayeux Tapestry. The inescapable presence of this history made me keenly aware of the importance of place, landscapes and buildings in our collective memory and in helping us understand the past.

I distinctly remember not wanting to see yet another parish church but to instead visit a theme park, like my friends. In hindsight, though, it was a remarkable gift

My most formative experiences, though, stem from the fact that both of my parents are archaeologists, my mum later becoming an archivist. Because of this, archaeology, museums and heritage were permanent fixtures in my childhood. I was often taken to my local museum archive, or to commercial excavations during school holidays – the latter of which I’m sure would no longer be allowed.

During these visits, I would talk to archaeologists about what they were excavating, or to researchers in the local studies room about what they had found. My parents’ personal passion for the subject extended to our days out, during which we’d visit churches or Iron Age hillforts, all posing intriguing questions. What stories do those different phases of stonework tell? How did those ditches work? Why is this fort built here?

Unfortunately, I didn’t appreciate it at the time. I distinctly remember not wanting to see yet another parish church but to instead visit a theme park, like my friends. In hindsight, though, it was a remarkable gift. It was the experience I gained through this exposure to the interlocking stories of history that made me want to become a historian and archaeologist.

Alfred Hawkins is assistant curator of historic buildings for the Tower of London and Banqueting House for Historic Royal Palaces. He is also cathedral archaeologist at Portsmouth Cathedral

This article was first published in the January 2025 issue of BBC History Magazine