Bernard Cornwell: "Television should not be novelists’ ultimate goal"

My childhood was horrible. I am a war baby, born in 1944. My mother was in the Women’s Royal Air Force and was a very clever working-class girl from east London. She met a Canadian officer and I was the result. It really fucked up her life. She was on a fast track to become an officer in the RAF and they threw her out because she was pregnant. Her father wouldn’t let her keep me. The poor darling tried to get an abortion, which was then illegal. And I don’t blame her.

When I was seven my mother said to me, ‘I wish we had not adopted you’. Something I totally agreed with

I was adopted by a family who belonged to a fundamentalist evangelical sect called the Peculiar People. And they were. There were millions of things they disapproved of – it became a sort of wish list. They disapproved of television and I ended up working in TV. They disapproved of military service and I ended up writing about Sharpe. They disapproved of alcohol, I love my whisky. They disapproved of nicotine, I’m a smoker. I remember my father frowning terribly at some blonde in high heels – and I married one. They had the good puritan suspicion of fiction and I became a novelist. You could say I rejected their doctrine.

Bernard Cornwell (second from left) with his adoptive family.

When I was seven, my mother said to me memorably: “I wish we had not adopted you.” Which was something I totally agreed with. What saved me is that they sent me to boarding school because the local school wasn’t religious. In my teens I began to realise there was a world outside the Peculiar People. They thought it was a mistake, they should have kept me at home and kept on thrashing me. My hopes were just to escape. It was a curious childhood. I never saw a film until I was 14. But I had started reading the Hornblower books and thought being a writer sounded better than working. And so it has proved.

If you were brought up to believe you have to give your heart to Jesus, you believe that crap for a long time. I became a serial heart donor for Jesus but it didn’t take. At university I realised all those things they disapproved of were waiting for me. I was on the King’s Road, Chelsea, in the early ’60s and made up for lost time. If you wish to use the word swinging, I suppose you can. But now I am a respectable married man, so I don’t recall it!

I didn’t begin to grow up until I realised my parents were not responsible for my unhappiness. I was. At that point, you take control of your own life. Oh gosh, I sound like a self-help book. I don’t want to make it sound too bad, I’m fine. Don’t waste any pity on me. But if you blame your parents for your misery, they can blame their parents and we eventually load the whole damn lot on Adam and Eve.

If you were brought up to believe you have to give your heart to Jesus, you believe that crap for a long time.

I was in Belfast from 1978 to 1980 and had a very young trainee working for me called Jeremy Paxman. I’d love to know what happened to him. Joining the BBC was an extraordinary break from my childhood. I worked on Nationwide, which was on live, five nights a week with audiences of 14 million, before becoming head of current affairs for the BBC in Belfast. I loved it. The Troubles were at their worst but everyone seemed born into the comedian’s union.

Bernard Cornwell with his favourite blonde, wife Judy.

I was in Edinburgh making a film when the hotel lift door opened and a blonde walked out. I said: “I’m going to marry that one.” And that is what happened. Judy couldn’t live in Britain for family reasons, so I went to America. I couldn’t get a work permit, so I said: “Don’t worry darling, I’ll write a book.” Just like that – and 36 years later we are 55 books in [with sales in excess of 30 million], still married, still happy.

I try not to give my grandchildren advice. Every generation ignores advice from the one before, makes the same mistakes, then starts giving the same advice. It is a never-ending circle. Love them to bits, don’t lie to them and hope they find their own way. I’m sure I’m not a perfect father but my daughter is happy so that is a success. I’ve learnt to do things very differently from my parents.

I’m sure I’m not a perfect father but my daughter is happy so that is a success

I get pissed off when people congratulate me because they’re making a TV series of my books. Television should not be novelists’ ultimate goal. It is the icing on the cake. But I’m overjoyed when actors, directors and the crew bring their own creativity to it. When people write saying they didn’t like an adaptation because it had been changed, I think, you idiot! They bitched that Sean Bean had fair hair and in the books Sharpe had black hair. If you are going to get uptight about that, I can’t help you. Sean was brilliant – I hear him in my head when I write Sharpe.

Sean Bean starring as Sharpe in the epic ITV series.

I grew up imagining my real parents but at least if you have an imagination like mine it is Errol Flynn and Princess somebody. I was 57 when I met my father and 58 when I met my mother, Dorothy. I met my father because I was being mischievous during an interview in Vancouver. The journalist looked bored, so I woke him up by saying, “I want to meet my real father”, and told him his surname, Oughtred. Two days later in Toronto, a girl came up saying: “I’m your second cousin, this is your father’s address.” He had a family tree going back to the sixth century, their ancestors were called Uhtred and were the owners of Bamburgh Castle, then called Bebbanburg. So all that stuff in The Last Kingdom is drawn from my ancestor.

When I asked my father about my mother, he said: “I can’t tell you a thing, it was a one-night stand.” I asked if she was pretty and he said: “You wouldn’t be here if she wasn’t.” But a year later, when I met my mother and told her, she said: “The bastard, it was a seven-month affair!” When I next saw him, he at least had the decency to look sheepish.

I was 57 when I met my father and 58 when I met my mother

What would my younger self make of my career? Hahahaha! He wouldn’t believe it. I’m not sure I believe it now. If I was to give one piece of advice to myself at 16, it would be to whisper in my horrible younger self’s ear: “This too shall end.” But I don’t want to ever write about my childhood. I don’t even like thinking about it.

The Last Kingdom airs Thursdays on BBC Two. Series two is available on Blu-ray and DVD from May 8, courtesy of Universal Pictures (UK).