From the horse’s mouth

Following the National Theatre’s hugely successful productions of His Dark Materials and Coram Boy, an epic realisation of Michael Morpurgo’s War Horse opens at the Olivier on 17 October. Originally published in 1982, the book was, the author told me, ‘the first I’d written that I thought was any good’. He has since written over a hundred books for children, but this is still one which is counted by them (and by his wife Clare) as one of his best. I went to see Morpurgo at his home in Devon to talk about the original inspiration for the story and the prospect of having the book adapted for the stage.

Iddesleigh is an unbelievably picturesque village. It looks south, across to Dartmoor, one of the last true wildernesses in the country. The extremes of landscape — secret, high-banked lanes and the open expanses of moor — are fertile ground for stories. War Horse was the first of Morpurgo’s books to draw on this territory, and when he revisited the material — both the place and the subject-matter — over 20 years later in Private Peaceful (2003), that book made an equally powerful impression.

The Morpurgos moved to Devon in the early Seventies. They had both been teachers, disillusioned with the system but idealistic enough to think they might yet make a difference. They had the idea of providing an experience in the countryside for disadvantaged children that would help jump-start their imaginations. Like modern-day evacuees, the children would be coached out of cities to come and spend a week working alongside real farmers with animals and on the land. This was a rather different career from the one on which at the age of 19 Michael appeared to be set. ‘I went into the army when I left school. Sandhurst. I learnt a lot in a year although I also learnt that it wasn’t the career for me.’