William Shakespeare, Part 1: A Classroom Activity

Much has been written about Shakespeare's Stratford-upon-Avon.

This week's Time Tunnellers post will instead offer an interactive and fun classroom activity: A Jumping Quiz.

Use masking take to mark out a long line on the floor. Invite as many volunteers to participate as you can fit on the line. They should stand on it. 

Explain: A jumping quiz works in the following way.

There are ten statements which you (as the teacher) will read out. The statements will either be true or false.

Pupils should think about their answer (which may well be a guess), but not give anything away.

Then you say 'Ready, steady, JUMP!' On the command, pupils should jump forwards for 'true', and backwards for 'false'. You can then reveal the answer.

As there are ten statements, pupils can keep track of their own scores on their fingers.

Apart from being fun and interactive, jumping quizzes are great for engagement: even those watching can participate by deciding on an answer and awarding themselves points if they were right.

In addition, cheating is all but impossible: you can't turn yourself around in mid-air, can you!

So without further ado, here are ten questions based on our video!

1. William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon. (TRUE)

2. William Shakespeare married a lady called Mary Arden. (FALSE, Mary was his mother!)

3. The Shakespeare home was on Hamley Street. (FALSE, Henley Street)

4. William Shakespeare's Dad was a glovemaker. (TRUE)

5. William Shakespeare became a player and playwright in London. (TRUE)

6. William was the youngest surviving son of the Shakespeare family. (FALSE, eldest)

7. Shakespeare's son Hamnet tragically died at the age of five. (FALSE, eleven)

8. The bedrooms in the Shakespeare house were upstairs. (TRUE)

9. The Shakespeare coat of arms above the door shows a quill. (FALSE, an arrow)

10. The schoolmaster in Shakespeare's school taught Latin and French. (FALSE, Latin and Greek)

TIE BREAKER QUESTIONS (in case of a draw between top scorers):

A. Shakespeare attended the Grammar School from the age of five. (FALSE, seven)

B. Shakespeare's portrait hangs in the National Gallery in London. (FALSE, Portrait Gallery)

Barbara Henderson is one of the regular Time Tunnellers and an award-winning author of eleven books, eight of them historical adventures for children.

Find out more on her website.

One step from the workhouse - Ally Sherrick

My grandad – born into a working-class family in late Victorian England – led an eventful life. Sadly, I never got to hear about it first-hand as he died of ill-health brought on by his experiences as a gunner for the Royal Field Artillery in the First World War, 15 years before I was born. But one of the many stories my dad told us about him was that he had been born in a workhouse in Camberwell, south London. More recent research into our family tree has revealed that several of our other ancestors also spent time in workhouses during the course of their lives. 

        Workhouse record showing names of my grandad and great-grandmother

I remember learning something about the workhouse system and why it came into being in history lessons on the Industrial Revolution at school. First created through the enactment of the New Poor Law in 1834, three years before Queen Victoria came to the throne, it replaced the earlier ramshackle system of assistance or ‘poor relief’ for those who couldn’t work due to age or disability, in operation since Elizabethan times.

Victorian 'paupers' 

(Photo of original drawing in Southwell Workouse - Ally Sherrick)

Under the law, a network of hundreds of specially designed institutions were set up to give shelter to the poorest and most vulnerable in society. Commonly referred to as ‘paupers’ or ‘the destitute’, these were people who couldn’t afford to feed or clothe themselves and who would otherwise have ended up living, and in many cases dying, on the streets – forced to beg or else turn to a life of crime to support themselves. They included the unemployed, the elderly, unmarried mothers, women whose husbands had deserted them and people with physical or mental disabilities. In the absence of unemployment benefit, state pensions and the health and social care provided by the modern welfare state, unless they were granted money or help to continue living at home – ‘out-relief’ – the workhouse was their only recourse.

Elderly women workhouse inmates 

(Photo of original drawing in Southwell Workhouse - Ally Sherrick)

Workhouses were a contradictory blend of things. On the one hand they were designed to provide much needed support in the form of food, clothes and a roof over the head to those unable to look after themselves. But through their policy of separating families – wives from husbands, parents from children – and the heavily-supervised regime of dull routine and gruelling manual labour able-bodied inmates were expected to undertake – they were also intended to act as deterrents, discouraging people from regarding them as an alternative to employment and pushing them instead to do all they could to fend for themselves.

Gruelling manual labour was expected of all able-bodied inmates

(Photo of original drawing in Southwell Workhouse - Ally Sherrick)

Oakum-picking was a particularly tough job, often carried out by women inmates 

(Photo: Ally Sherrick)

Institutions were run by a Governor, or Master, and a Matron who was responsible for overseeing the women and children and ensuring the provision of nursing care. They reported to a committee of unpaid Guardians, elected by each parish from amongst local ratepayers, whose taxes funded the workhouse. Regional Inspectors would visit the workhouses on their patch to check they were abiding by the rules set out under the New Poor Law. Though many were well-run, there were sadly also examples of inmates, like poor Oliver Twist and his friends in CharlesDickens’ novel of the same name, being badly treated and insufficiently fed, plus instances of staff corruption too. A combination of factors – the general stigma associated with having to go into a workhouse in the first place, the loss of independence and tough conditions once inside, and stories of harsh treatment and brutality – meant that most people regarded them as a place of last resort, to be avoided at all costs.

(Photo: Ally Sherrick)

Family ancestry research has revealed that like Oliver Twist, my grandad was born in a workhouse to an unmarried mother – my great-grandmother – who was admitted when she was in labour at the age of 17 years. In late Victorian England, to fall pregnant when you were unmarried was frowned upon and meant that you risked being cast out into the world by your family with no means of support. My great-grandmother’s own mother had died when she was tiny, and for her, it seems that seeking admission to the workhouse infirmary to give birth was probably the only real option to get the help and care she needed. The records suggest that she was in the workhouse for less than a month and then left – presumably with my grandad. We don't know where they went after. Perhaps back to the family. But if they had stayed longer, what would life have been like for them as inmates? Last summer I had the chance to find out on a visit to an incredible survivor from those times.

Main entrance to Southwell Workhouse and Infirmary (Photo: Steve Smith)

Southwell Workhouse in Nottinghamshire, now in the care of the National Trust, is one of the earliest and most complete examples of a 19^th century workhouse to survive in the country. Largely unaltered from its original construction in 1824, it provided the prototype for all other workhouses under the New Poor Law system.

Workhouse rules 

(Photo: Ally Sherrick)

Visitors today can explore all aspects of workhouse life from the work rooms, exercise yards and dormitories used by the inmates, to the infirmary – where the sick were cared for and women, like my great-grandmother gave birth – and staff quarters. I could easily write a whole series of blogs on what I discovered on my visit, but as space is tight, here are just a few insights into what it was like to be a child inmate.

Inmates slept in shared dormitories 

(Photo: Ally Sherrick)

You may be admitted with your parents after they sought financial help from the parish, or else as an orphan or because you’d been abandoned – a sad reality for many children born into poverty in those days. Or maybe, like my grandad, you ended up being born there because your mother couldn’t get medical attention or support anywhere else. On admission, your clothes and any other belongings you might have with you would be confiscated, fumigated and stored away to be returned to you when you were eventually discharged. In their place you were given a workhouse uniform, usually made of coarse blue cloth.

Kept apart and sorted out

If you were admitted with siblings, you might be allowed to stay together, depending on your age. But if arriving with your parents, you would be separated from them since all able-bodied adults capable of work but who weren’t in a job (known in Victorian times as the ‘undeserving poor’) were regarded as a bad influence, including on their own offspring!

Your parents could request to see you, on a fixed day of the week, and always under the supervision of the Master or Matron in charge.

Like the adult inmates, children were divided into classes. These were:

·        Boys aged 7-12 years (later 7-15 years)

·        Girls aged 7-15 years

·        Children under 7

A strict timetable

Just as for the adults, you would be expected to follow a strict timetable. You would get up with the rising bell (6am in the summer, an hour later in winter), put on your uniform, get washed, make your bed and empty your chamber pot. Prayers and breakfast would be followed by lessons in the classroom. Dinner was served at 12 noon with time for recreation followed by work-related training in the afternoon. This was followed by supper at 6pm with a little more time for recreation, then prayers and bed at 8pm. Sunday was a day of rest as were Good Friday and Christmas Day.

Laundry work was carried out by women and girls 

(Photo: Ally Sherrick)

Reading, writing and arithmetic

As a child inmate you had one advantage over other working-class children in the early days of the workhouse system at least, receiving a basic formal education long before it became compulsory in wider society. If you were under seven, you would be taught in mixed classes. If older, you would find yourself in a class of either boys or girls taught by a school master or mistress. The main subjects, taught for three hours each morning, were basic arithmetic, reading and writing with religious instruction given by a chaplain. 

(Photo: Ally Sherrick)

In the afternoon, you could expect to be given ‘industrial training’ – most likely gardening for the boys and needlework, cookery or working in the laundry for the girls. In this way, the thinking went, you would be better equipped on leaving to find employment, whether in domestic service or working in a factory or on the land. And the authorities hoped, less likely to end up back inside the workhouse again.

Food, but not so glorious …

Breakfast was a simple meal of bread and gruel – a type of thin porridge.

Dinner – the lunchtime meal – was usually made up of boiled meat, peas and potatoes or else soup or suet pudding with portions carefully weighed out according to the age category of the child – so the youngest children got the smallest amount of food.

Supper was a repeat of breakfast – with bread and more of that tasty gruel!

This sort of fare might sound boring by our modern standards but, provided the workhouse was well run and the inmates were given what they were entitled to, it was a reasonably well-balanced diet, though perhaps a little lacking in Vitamin C.

The only variation in the menu was on Christmas Day when you could look forward to a meal of roast beef and plum pudding.

The end of the workhouse

The Poor Law was brought to an end in 1929 and workhouses – now known as ‘institutions’ – passed into the care of local authorities. Any children remaining in them were moved to specialist homes though unfortunately this meant they often saw their parents even less than they had before. Things changed again with the introduction of the Welfare State in 1948 and many former workhouses became state hospitals in the new National Health Service.

As for the workhouse infirmary in Camberwell my grandad was born in, it is now a smart-looking residential apartment block, something he would find hard to conceive of I’m sure. 

Workhouse stories

Besides Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist, the experience of children in workhouses has also been brought to life by a number of brilliant children’s authors writing in more recent times. Two of my favourites are:

Street Child by Berlie Doherty about a young boy called Jim Jarvis who is carted off to the workhouse with his sick mother. After her tragic death, Jim escapes and ends up in further peril on the streets of Victorian London.

TheTwisted Threads of Polly Freeman by Pippa Goodhart which charts the life of a young girl called Polly, sent to a London workhouse after she and her ‘Aunt’ – a thief – are evicted and made homeless. From there it follows Polly on a journey to Quarry Bank Cotton Mill in Cheshire where she is sent to become a mill-girl apprentice.

(Photo: Ally Sherrick)

Writing Challenge

Imagine you have been forced to enter the workhouse for the first time. Ask yourself these questions:

Why did you have to go there?

Have you come in with your parents? What do you feel about being separated from them if you have? And what about your brothers and sisters?

What are your first impressions of the place? Think about things like the strict rules and routines; the lack of privacy and having to share sleeping quarters; the sort of food you’re given to eat. What do you make of having to go to school? Perhaps it’s for the first time? And what sort of work are you given to do in the afternoons? Are the Master and Matron kind to you, or do they make things a whole lot worse like they did in Oliver Twist?

Do you miss your life outside the workhouse, even though it must have been hard. And do think you might try and run away? Or is it better to stay where you’ll have a roof over your head, food to eat and the chance to learn how to read and write?

Write your thoughts down, then have a go a turning them into the start of a story, a diary or perhaps a comic strip.  Happy writing!  

Ally outside Southwell Workhouse and Infirmary

(Photo: Steve Smith)

Source material for information on the New Poor Law and life in a workhouse comes from 'The Workhouse Southwell' Guidebook published by National Trust.

Ally Sherrick is the award-winning author of stories full of history, mystery and adventure.

BLACK  POWDER, her debut novel about a boy caught up in the Gunpowder Plot, won the  Historical Association’s Young Quills Award. Other titles include THE BURIED CROWN, a wartime tale with a whiff of Anglo-Saxon myth and magic and THE QUEEN’S FOOL, a story of treachery and treason set at the court of King Henry VIII. Ally’s latest book with Chicken House Books, is VITA AND THE GLADIATOR, the story of a young girl’s fight for justice in the high-stakes world of London’s gladiatorial arena. It has been shortlisted for a Young Quills Award.

For more information about Ally and her books visit www.allysherrick.com  You can also follow her on Twitter @ally_sherrick

The Victorian art of correspondence - by guest author Alison D Stegert with resources

 

Mobile phones, FaceTime, WhatsApp, social media… It’s hard to imagine the world without instant communications, but if you ask any older person, they will tell you that staying in touch has not always been as easy as it is today.

The Dawn of Modern Communication

Let’s go back 150 years to the middle of the reign of Queen Victoria. The 1800s was a century of change and innovation. Industry, transportation, commerce, and medicine all saw rapid advances, and so did communications. How did people stay in touch in the late 1800s?

A new communication system was Samuel Morse’s telegraph, a system of electrical pulses sent along a wire. The pulses – dots and dashes – formed an alphabet called Morse code. A specially trained telegraphist tapped the message onto the wire and, at the other end of the wire seconds later, another telegraphist transcribed the message. The number of words determined the price of the telegram, so they were often abruptly short. Delivery of the message cost an additional fee. People found telegrams expensive and inconvenient, so they didn’t take off as a common means of staying in touch in the 1800s.

In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell’s freshly patented telephone entered the communications scene. This new-fangled device allowed for instant, real-time, person-to-person communication across a distance, but it took another fifty years for telephones to become common in homes, changing forever how people communicated.

 

Sample of Copperplate By George Bickham - The Universal Penman,
published by Dover Publications, Inc., New York, Public Domain

The Heyday of Handwritten Letters

So how did nineteenth century people stay connected? They sent handwritten letters through the post. What we call “snail mail” today was then surprisingly quick – more like “hare mail.” Mid-century reforms enhanced the British postal system, making it cheap, fast, and very convenient.

Up until the late 1830s, a letter was paid for by the person it was addressed to, and the pricing wasn’t easy to calculate. In 1840, a teacher named Rowland Hill suggested big changes to the postal system: the pricing should be simplified, and the sender of the letter should pay. He invented prepaid, adhesive postal stamps called Penny Blacks, which cost one penny for a letter under half an ounce sent anywhere in the United Kingdom. Pillar boxes were introduced, making letter sending very convenient, and trains shortened delivery time across distances. From 1897, mail was delivered to houses, not just to local post offices.

 

Penny Black sheet of six (wikipedia public domain image) 

These reforms started a correspondence craze. By the turn of the twentieth century, the General Post Office handled an estimated 2,740 million pieces of mail – a ginormous increase from the 76 million pieces of mail sent back when Penny Blacks were first introduced.

The mail was delivered between six and twelve times a day in big cities like London. That’s a lot of postie visits! It meant someone could post a letter to someone across town, and they could receive it about two hours a later. There was enough time for them to post a reply, and have it delivered in the same day. It’s not instant messaging, but it’s pretty good!

International mail was a different story back then. For example, letters sent to India or Australia in the early 1800s could take months. Imagine getting important news from home – like a job offer, a birth or a death – late by a few months!

This Victorian love of letter-writing spawned things like illustrated greeting cards, post cards, and Christmas cards. Beautiful handwriting was prized, and a lovely, loopy script called Copperplate was popular. Victorian pens were fitted with metal nibs that were dipped in bottled ink.

Queen of the Handwritten Word

Queen among the letter writers of the Victorian Era is Queen Victoria herself. No one knows exactly how many letters she wrote in her lifetime, but some of her surviving correspondence has been bound into over sixty volumes (books). Between her mountain of mail and her daily journaling, it is estimated that she wrote an average of 2,500 words a day – or approximately 60 million words in her time as queen. That’s a lot of letter paper and ink!

 

Queen Victoria Writing with Abdul Arim (Wikipedia. Public domain)

Queen Victoria is the HM in Her Majesty’s League of Remarkable Young Ladies, a book set in 1889 London and starring Winifred Weatherby, a 14-year-old wannabe inventor. The story includes lots of different forms of correspondence: calling cards, letters, telegrams, Morse code, news articles, and something called a telautogram.

 

Telautograph (National Museum of American History;
Smithsonian Institution, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons)

The Telautograph was an extraordinary but forgotten Victorian invention that reproduced and transmitted copies of handwriting and line drawings across telegraph wires. Invented in 1889, Elisha Gray’s Telautograph was an early forerunner of the 1980s fax machine. Read the book to discover if this amazing invention helped or hindered Winifred in her role as gadget maker for Queen Victoria’s league of young lady spies.

Writing Challenge 1: Snail Mail

Snail mail is super fun! The best way to increase your chances of GETTING a letter is SENDING a letter.

Your challenge is to write a real letter to post to someone you know. It’s a good idea to pick someone who is likely to reply. (Hint: Grandparents and older people are usually thrilled to receive a letter and to write back.)

The only rules are:

Write your letter by hand. It doesn’t have to be long!

Use traditional letter writing conventions:

A traditional salutation: Dear _____, / My dearest ____, / etc.

A message (Ideas: something about you, questions about them, something you’re proud of, etc.)

A traditional closing: Yours truly, / Your loving (grandchild), / Warm regards, / etc.

Your signature: Can you do a Copperplate style signature with lots of lovely loops? Have a go!

Address the envelope and affix a stamp. You might have to ask for help if you don’t know the address. And you might need to ask for a stamp from your parent or carer. Don’t forget to write your return address on the envelope!

Post it in a Royal Mail pillar box and smile because your letter will brighten someone’s day!

Challenge Two 2: Code Cracking

(International Morse Code alphabet (Wikipedia: Public domain)

Can you decode this Morse code message?

.. - / .. ... / ..-. ..- -. / - --- / .-- .-. .. - . / .-.. . - - . .-. ...

I  T    /    I  S   /

[It is fun to write letters]

Try writing your name in Morse code.

Alison D. Stegert has worked as an innovative school counsellor, a bumbling waitress, and an intrepid English (EFL) teacher, but writing kids’ books is her dream-come-true job.

Her latest book, Her Majesty’s League of Remarkable Young Ladies, was published in the UK in July 2023 and released in Australia by Scholastic in 2024. The book is the result of Alison’s 2021 win of the international competition The Times | Chicken House | IET 150 Prize.

Aussimerican Alison is a long-term resident of Queensland, where she serves as state director of the Queensland branch of  SCBWI Australia East and the chief scribe at the Sunny Coast Writers’ Roundtable.

Instagram & Threads: @alison_stegert_kidlit

X: @Alison Stegert

website: ali-stegert.com

Death of a Queen - the last days of Anne Boleyn

On Thursday 18th May 1536, a queen sat alone in a room in the Tower of London, waiting for her death.

Outside, on Tower Green, a scaffold stood draped in black, with wooden stands for the thousand spectators who would watch her execution the next day. A swordsman had been brought over specially from France: beheading by sword was quicker an cleaner than by axe. It was, in a way, an act of mercy.

The queen was Anne Boleyn, wife of King Henry VIII of England. She had been queen for about three years, and in that time had given birth to a girl who was to go on to become Queen Elizabeth I, one of the greatest rulers our country has ever known.

Anne had been crowned in triumph and splendour at Westminster Abbey, and had once been the subject of poems and love letters written by the king - so what had changed? What had brought her to that room, to that evening, to the sword that waited for her the following morning?

Anne Boleyn (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

Guilty as charged?

Anne had been tried and sentenced to death for the crime of adultery: being unfaithful to her husband - and because her husband was the king, this made her guilty of treason. Five men - including her own brother, George - had already been executed for their part in her crimes.

But Anne's real crime was not adultery. Most historians now agree that the charges against her were false. So why had the charges been brought in the first place? What was Anne guilty of, that she had been arrested in the first place?

You could say she was 'guilty' of three things:

1. Not giving the king a son.

In Tudor England a king needed a son to rule after him - an heir - but King Henry VIII had no heir. His first wife, Katherine of Aragon, had given him a daughter called Mary, and Henry had eventually divorced Katherine and married Anne instead. Anne had also failed to give birth to a son, instead giving Henry another daughter, Elizabeth.

In Henry's eyes this meant that God was not pleased with him, and it gave him enough reason to start to look elsewhere for a wife, eventually settling on Jane Seymour, one of Anne's ladies-in-waiting.

King Henry VIII (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

2. Supporting religious reform

Anne was very religious. At that time, the church was very powerful in England and all across Europe, but Anne disagreed with the power of the church. She, along with a growing number of people, believed that only the Bible could tell Christian people how to live - and that people should be able to read the Bible in their own language. Most Bibles were in Latin, and translating the Bible into English was counted as treason.

Supporting these changes in religion (called 'reformation') was dangerous for anyone - and maybe especially so for the wife of the king.

3. Making powerful enemies

This was perhaps Anne's greatest crime. She was a woman at a time when women were expected to be obedient to men, and worse than that she was outspoken and confident! She was not afraid to speak her mind, and frequently clashed with the men who advised the king.

One of her greatest rivals was a man named Thomas Cromwell, who had risen from humble beginnings to the role of the king's closest advisor. Historians believe it may have been Cromwell who arranged for the false charges to be brought against Anne, eventually leading to her death ...

Thomas Cromwell (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

A timeline of death

2nd May - Anne is arrested for adultery and treason, and taken by barge to the Tower of London.

6th May - Anne writes a letter to King Henry VIII, begging his forgiveness for any offence she had caused but not admitting to adultery.

12th May - Four men are tried for adultery with Anne and found guilty.

15th May - Anne and her brother George are tried for adultery and treason and found guilty.

17th May - Henry's marriage to Anne is declared null and void - which means it is as good as if it never happened. The five men accused of adultery with Anne are beheaded.

18th May - Anne thinks that she is due to be executed on this day, but it is a mistake. Her execution is set for the day after. Her captors say that she is very calm and seems ready to die.

19th May - Early in the morning, Anne is taken to the scaffold on Tower Green. She is dressed very simply, and appears very calm. She gives a speech to the crowd who have gathered to witness her death (including Thomas Cromwell). She pays the executioner and forgives him (which was traditional). She is blindfolded, and kneels upright. The executioner swings his sword, and Anne passes into history.

Anne Boleyn's Execution (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

Writing challenge

Anne was accused of crimes that she probably didn't commit. We all know what it's like to be accused of something we didn't do - how unfair it feels! But Anne was calm and graceful, and the letter she wrote to King Henry VIII was just as calm and graceful.

For your writing challenge this week, imagine you have been accused of something you didn't do. Maybe:

- Hitting someone else
- Breaking something
- Taking something that didn't belong to you

Write a letter to your accuser, explaining to them why you didn't do whatever it was. Be as persuasive and calm as you can. Don't accuse them of anything! Remember the idea is to convince them that you are innocent.

About the author

Matthew Wainwright is an author of historical fiction for young people. His latest book, 'Through Water and Fire' is set during the Tudor period and features an appearance by Anne Boleyn. It has been shortlisted for the Young Quills Award for historical fiction for young people, in the 11-13 age category.

Find out more about Matthew: matthewwainwright.co.uk

Get 'Through Water and Fire' from Waterstones

Olympics - by Robin Scott-Elliot

It took the time you have spent reading these words, and probably the rest of this sentence as well for my favourite ever Olympic moment to happen. Actually, probably these as well… I need enough to cover 9.63 seconds.

That was the blink of an eye Usain Bolt needed to win the men’s 100m gold on a warm, raucous July evening in London in 2012. I was sitting up in the media seats, just above the finish line. I’ve watched and written about sport for 25 years, all around the world, but this was the night of nights because I love the Olympic Games.

I’m fortunate enough to have been to three, the first in Sydney in 2000. But having it in London was special – I could walk to the stadium from my house. Imagine walking from your house to see the fastest man the world has ever seen win the greatest event of the Olympic Games! When I was growing-up I loved watching the Olympics, and no event more than the one to determine the fastest person on the planet. In the moments before the starting gun fired, the hairs on the back of my neck would stand up when the commentator said sotto voce, as they always did, “the final of the men’s 100m…”

My view as Usain Bolt won 100m gold in London

(Copyright Robin Scott-Elliot)

There’s no Usain Bolt anymore – I’d have him as the greatest sports person I’ve ever seen – but there are, of course, still the Olympics and there is plenty to look forward to in Paris from 26 July. The opening ceremony will see each country float down the Seine on a flotilla of boats from Albania to Zimbabwe, the A to Z of the world (although thankfully there will be no R for Russia).

Every Games has a story of its own. There will be heroes and villains – every good story needs a good villain – there will be (sporting) tragedies and improbable triumphs all played out to the backdrop of one of the world’s great cities.

The countdown proper has begun to Paris 2024 with the arrival of the Olympic torch in France this week. This will be the third time Paris has hosted the Olympics yet it’s still 100 years since the world’s best athletes last gathered in the French capital. In 1924, only 135 of them were women out of more than 3,000. This summer there will be around 10,500 athletes in all, half of them women – the first 50/50 split in Olympic history.

Modern Olympic history begins in 1896 with the first Games in Athens, held there because the ancient games had been born in Greece. The very first is believed to have taken place in 776BC.

Paris’s first Games came in 1900 when events such as underwater swimming – take a deep breath and off you go! – cricket and pigeon shooting… with live (soon to be dead) pigeons.

The London 2012 stadium

(Copyright Robin Scott-Elliot)

The 1924 Olympics in Paris became famous in Britain as the ‘Chariots of Fire’ Games, Eric Liddell and Harold Abrahams winning gold medals. There was also gold in the pool for the American Gertrude Ederle who a year later was to become the first woman to swim the Channel. The 1924 US Olympics team were given a ticker-tape parade in New York for topping the medal table; Ederle received one all of her own for swimming the Channel for which an estimated two million people turned out.

Olympic heroes last through the ages, and often mean something beyond their sport… Jesse Owens winning four golds in Berlin in 1936, Fanny Blankers Coen winning four of her own in London in 1948, 14-year-old Nadia Comaneci producing the perfect 10 in Montreal in 1976.

There has too always been a dark side to the sport; from doping to corruption to protest, such as Tommie Smith and John Carlos with their Black Power salute in 1968. And there’s been real tragedy, the murder of Israeli athletes and coaches and a West German policeman by terrorists in 1972. 

There are, thankfully, so many uplifting stories to find in 128 years of modern Olympic history, so many well-I-never tales. Here’s one from the last time the Games were in Paris. Johnny Weissmuller was born in what is now Romania and arrived on Ellis Island in his mother’s arms before he turned one. After catching polio as a child his doctor advised his parents to take him swimming to aid his recovery. He was a natural – by the time he arrived in Paris he was already a world record holder. He won three gold medals, and a bronze in water polo, and added two more in Amsterdam four years later. After he hung up his trunks, Weissmuller switched to acting and was cast as Tarzan – he was to star in a dozen Tarzan movies (in between five marriages) and become one of the best-known actors in the world. He’s remembered today as a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and features on the album cover of The Beatles’ Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

In Sydney for the 2000 Olympics

(Copyright Robin Scott-Elliot)

Who will be the stories of this Paris Games? Let me give you a couple of names to look out for, one British – Sky Brown, who turns 16 just before the Games. She’s a world champion skateboarder and could turn her bronze in Tokyo into gold in Paris. And my other one to watch is Summer McIntosh. She’s from Canada, she’s 17 and she could win as many golds as Tarzan himself.

Robin Scott-Elliot has been a sports journalist for 25 years with the BBC, ITV, the Sunday Times, the Independent and the ‘i’, covering every sport you can think of and a few you probably can’t. He threw that all away to move home to Scotland and chase his dream of writing books instead of football reports. Once there his daughters persuaded him to write a story for them and that is how his career as a children's author began. Finding Treasure Island is his latest book and is published by Cranachan.