Sunderland born author Terry Deary discusses the launch of his new book 'A History of Britain in Ten Enemies'.
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00:00Okay then Terry, you've got your new book there, can you just give me an overview of what's about them please?
00:05This is A History of Britain in Ten Enemies, and just like it says, it looks at the history of Britain through the eyes of the people we fought against in the past thousand years or so, from the Romans right up to the Second World War.
00:21I know like a lot of your books there's lots of interesting facts and stories people may not know about, including possibly one about our own Jack Crawford from Sunderland, can you just give me a little insight into a couple of the stories which are in there?
00:32Well Jack Crawford helped to win the Battle of Camperdown, and the thing that people don't realise, if we'd lost the Battle of Camperdown, then Britain would have been invaded, we'd have been speaking French, and Nelson would never have got to fight the Battle of Trafalgar.
00:48Jack Crawford, an ordinary Sunderland fellow, was one of the most important people in history, not a lot of people know that.
00:55I understand there's also one there to do with a hundred bullets as well, a hundred deaths is that right?
00:59A hundred million.
01:00Right okay.
01:01It's the bullet that wasn't fired that killed a hundred million people, because in World War One a private with a VC called Henry Tandy had a chance to shoot a German soldier and he declined, he told the German soldier to clear off.
01:17If he'd killed that man, the Second World War would never have happened because that man was called Adolf Hitler. Amazing.
01:24I know the launch event's going to be at your old school, can you tell me a bit about that then please and why you chose your old school for the launch?
01:30I've published 345 books, I've never launched one in my hometown of Sunderland, because I was born in Hendon, grew up at Seaburn and went to Monk Wearmouth School.
01:42So it's great to go back to Monk Wearmouth to do my first ever launch in Sunderland, and I'll be interviewed by another Sunderland Monk Wearmouth pupil, Geoff Brown. Great bloke.
01:54And if people want to buy the book, what should they do then?
01:57The book is available at any bookshop or online, and I think they will enjoy it. It's the hardback that comes out now, the paperback next summer, but really you want to buy the hardback.