In this episode we talked about the 1981 novel The Scarecrows by Robert Westall.

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countryside by brunoboselli.

Our email address is stillscaredpodcast@gmail.com and we're on instagram @stillscaredpodcast and twitter @stillscaredpod! Intro music is by Maki Yamazaki, and you can find her music on her bandcamp. Outro music is by Joe Kelly, and you can find their music under the name Wendy Miasma on bandcamp. Artwork is by Letty Wilson, find their work at toadlett.com

Transcript

Ren Welcome to Still Scared: Talking Children’s Horror, a podcast about creepy, spooky and disturbing children’s books, films and TV. Today we’re talking about the novel The Scarecrows by Robert Westall. Enjoy!

(Intro music plays)

Ren Good evening, Adam!

Adam Good evening! And a warm and balmy evening it is too, at least here in Suffolk. How is it up in Scotland?

Ren Moderately grey, I’d say. We haven’t had much in the way of heat since June, it’s mostly been raining.

Adam Gosh, it’s been clammy here. And I have a question before we really get into the thick of things with Robert Westall’s The Scarecrows. I have a question that’s arisen and I thought that Ren’s going to know the answer: Ren, what is an old-fashioned expression?

Ren (laughs) I did notice that that came up in this book. I mean, I can picture it, but I don’t know if I can describe it.

Adam What are you picturing?

Ren Something like a kind of sceptical expression, a kind of reserved expression.

Adam Oh!

Ren That’s what I think of it being at least, a kind of reserved scepticism.

Adam I assumed it must be a kind of expression that they made on the music hall stage. But it came up a couple of times throughout this book, a character making an ‘old-fashioned expression’ and I thought: ‘I have no idea what that means!’

Ren What I always think when that phrase comes up is like, a Victorian governess?

Adam (laughs) So because they are the quintessential old-fashioned person?

Ren I guess so! Or maybe someone's channeling the spirit of a Victorian governess.

Adam Right, okay. Next time I hear that expression I will think of that. If I hear someone at school saying ‘that child made an old-fashioned expression’ at me, I will assume that they’re channeling the spirit of a Victorian governess.

Ren I realise as you asked this that I have a very clear idea of what that phrase means, with nothing to back it up.

Adam Well, that is why I asked you. I was like: I’m sure Ren has a clear idea of what this phrase means! So I’m glad my suspicions were correct. But that is one phrase among many curious phrases—

Ren — In this curious, curious book —

Adam — That the brave and intrepid reader can encounter in Robert Westall’s Carneige-winning The Scarecrows, that one the Carneige medal for children’s literature in 1981, I believe.

Ren It’s an award for outstanding books for children and young people — other winners include: Watership Down, Northern Lights by Phillip Pullman, The Borrowers, The Owl Service by Alan Garner, and Goggle Eyes by Anne Fine, which is actually the book it reminded me most of, thematically.

Adam Oh, that’s not an Anne Fine I’ve read, actually.

Ren It’s only because it’s about the protagonist’s mother getting together with a new man.

Adam And presumably the protagonist of Goggle Eyes doesn’t like the new stepdad.

Ren That’s right.

Adam Because Simon Wood, the protagonist of The Scarecrows, really, really, really, hates his new stepdad.

Ren Yes.

Adam This is a book of fairly incandescent rage.

Ren Yeah. But before we go into it — what cover do you have?

Adam I do like discussing covers. I have this quite murky cover. It’s a painting of a very purple-brown-green turnip field with three scarecrows that look very scraggy and gaunt sticking out of it, with a blue cloud-strewn sky and some crows flying about. And it’s by Sophie Williams, apparently.

Ren I have a different one which is in ‘70s earth tones, and has a surprised-looking boy with a bowl cut, surrounded by three scarecrows, one behind him with a cap coming over its face but you can see straw coming out of it and it looks quite maggoty, and one facing towards him and away from the reader, and that’s the female one. And then one with its face right up close, taking up a third of the cover, with this russet balaclava and braided straw beard and moustache.

Adam It sounds a bit gnarly!

Ren It’s a very intense expression on this scarecrow’s face. This one’s by Alan Hood for the Puffin Plus edition, I don’t know what Puffin Plus means.

Adam It means you’ve got through the regular Puffins and now you’re ready for the hard stuff.

Ren For the weird stuff.

Adam For the weird stuff, yeah. And you can imagine: (man you meet down a darkened alleyway voice) ‘Hey kid, you want the hard stuff? Have I got the book for you’.

I'm going to say that this is the first book we’ve discussed where we’re going to have to censor ourselves, basically, and talk around certain areas because even though this won a children’s literature award, I think it’s fair to say this has some troubling stuff in it!

Ren Yeah, uh-huh! We were talking about Roald Dahl and sensitivity readers last time and I don’t know, my copy’s a 1986 edition and I feel fairly confident that if there are more recent editions it’s gone through something of a toning-down in the process.

Adam I feel like most sensitivity readers would just say: ‘nope’, if I’m honest.

Ren And like Adam said, we’re not going to go into everything, because it’s a bit much, if I’m honest! It’s a bit much for the podcast.

Adam And it’s tricky, because there’s some great stretches of writing in this. And it’s trying to get into the head of a very angry and confused 13 year-old boy, and frankly this 13 year-old boy who is angrier than I ever was, he’s really angry! And I’m sure there are some kids who have read this and found it really comforting and relatable.

And it doesn’t shy away from really difficult weird emotions, and I think that’s something that really great children’s and young adult fiction can do. That said, I wouldn’t give this to my coming up to 12-year old stepson. I wouldn’t be okay with him reading it. Without going into it, it’s a bit of a Freudian fever-dream in places.

Ren Yeah. Also just sone off-the-cuff seventies homophobia going on. Multiple uses of ‘pouffish’ as an adjective.

Adam Yeah. This book’s a lot.

Ren Where did you get this from?

Adam Well, this old man came up to me in an alley, opened his brown mac and said: ‘Hey kid’.

I think I must have just looked up ‘scariest young adult fiction’, to be honest. I think it was just on one of those lists. And I assumed it would be a folk horror, and there are elements of that. There’s someone from outside the country going into the country, and there are eccentric country folk, to some degree, and it’s certainly about ancient secrets coming back, and the pull of the land. And turnips.

Ren It’s definitely about turnips.

Adam Definitely about turnips. Turnips are very symbolic in this book. I have no idea of what, but they’re definitely a symbol.

Ren (laughs loudly)

Adam There’s a lot of turnips. Just scattered throughout. ‘The turnip air’, ‘He sat down upon the turnip seat and nodded his turnip head’.

Ren I wondered if you related, because I know you lived near a cabbage field.

Adam That is true. But they're not everywhere. I don’t go out the door and see cabbages all the time. I might smell the cabbage field and go: ‘Urgh, cabbage-y’. They don’t occupy my consciousness in quite the same way. But anyway, shall we give the readers some sense of the mystery of this very strange book?

Ren Okay, so. 'It was the night before the Fund-raising Effort that the devils came. So it seemed to Simon Wood ever after.’

We get right into the horror with this one, beginning with a dormitory of 13 year-old boys at a boarding school.

Adam I thought we’d had enough of this stuff with Roald Dahl, last time!

Ren I know! Coming right after The Swan I was like, ‘Oh God, do we have to?’. Right in with this bully, Bowdon
who is choosing his victims, throwing various insults at other boys’ parents.

Adam Really nasty ‘your momma’ jokes.

Ren Yeah, really unpleasant stuff. Luckily the book changes direction, Simon goes away for the holidays, because I couldn’t handle a whole book of ‘orrible boys in a boarding school.

But Bowden starts in on Simon’s mum, who he saw playing tennis at a previous parent’s day, and that’s when the devils