Russell Ash

Where were you born?
Carshalton in Surrey — coincidentally the same place as the famous children’s author and illustrator Raymond Briggs, who is a good friend of mine.

Where did you grow up?
Mostly in Bedford, where I went to school.

What were you like at school?
I am an only child, so I spent a lot of time on my own, and am still happy to do so, which means I get on with my work without too many interruptions — although I also enjoy the company of my friends. At school, I found I could make people laugh —
as a result, I often got chucked out of class for mimicking the teachers.


What subject did you enjoy most at school... and least?
Geography, history and English — which are the three subjects I did at A-level. I had a very inspiring geography teacher, who I still see, and he encouraged me to study that subject at university. Strangely, maths was my worst subject, but as numbers are important in my work, I have improved a lot since then!

What did you want to be when you grew up?
For a long time, I wanted to be a pilot. My grandfather was in the Royal Flying Corps in the First World War and my dad was in the RAF in the Second, and told me stories of the Battle of Britain. However, after a few flights in small aircraft, I found I suffered from airsickness, so I gave up that idea. At university I thought of journalism, and as I have become a writer, I have come pretty close to it.

What was your first job?
At school and university I did jobs ranging from working in shops to carpet-laying, surveying and van-driving to running a fire brigade stores department. My first ‘proper’ job was as an aviation insurance broker in the City of London, but that didn’t last long and I got into publishing very soon after.

Why did you begin writing reference books for children?
I remembered (and still have) some of the children’s books and encyclopaedias I read as a child, but didn’t think some of the books my own children had were very informative, so I began coming up with ideas for presenting facts in an entertaining way.

Where do all your facts come from?
Where can I begin?! I have a very large library (probably more than 10,000 books) I have built up over my working life, and of course I use the Internet a lot. I have also built up a network of contacts around the world with organizations and, especially, people who are specialists in all sorts of areas, from tall buildings to poisonous snakes — I am a great believer in “if in doubt, ask an expert”.

What is your ideal place and time for writing?
I am always at my desk by 9.00 am and work until about 6.00 pm — sometimes seven days a week. If I am really excited by a book I am working on I often go back to my desk after dinner and continue until far too late into the night.

What is your favourite film?
Despite being made in 1942, Casablanca still takes some beating (the screenplay has been voted the best of all time). I thought Gladiator was terrific, a return to the great epics of my childhood (I know the scriptwriter William Nicolson, whose work I admire) and the 2005 Pride and Prejudice is perhaps the best adaptation of a book for ages.

What is your favourite music?
A weird range — in the contemporary classical area, I like Michael Nyman and the Belgian composer Wim Mertens. I am keen on David Byrne, formerly of Talking Heads, and there are a number of women singers whose work I have always enjoyed, such as Joni Mitchell and Kate Bush. Among groups, I like the Swedish band The Concretes, and the Rolling Stones, who I saw on their latest tour, are just wonderful to see live.

What is the funniest joke you know?
I’m sorry, it’s just too rude to repeat it! I like jokes that come out of real events: a friend of mine just came back from New Orleans where he said he had eaten alligator sausage. I thought what a perfect chance to say to a waiter, “Alligator sausage — and make it snappy!”

What is your advice for aspiring young fact collectors?
Decide whether you want to be a ‘generalist’ (like me), who is interested in everything, or a specialist who knows all there is to know about a subject — there are good and bad points about both approaches. Either way, be very careful: on the Internet in particular, mistakes get copied and re-copied on thousands of sites, and even in books lots of what claim to be ‘facts’ are myths and ‘urban legends’ — just because they are in a book does not make them true. Whitaker’s Worlds of Facts, is, of course, 100% accurate…

Facts about Russell Ash

1.  1.  Books written: More than 100
2.  Books sold: Over 3 million
3.  Number of books in home library: 10,000, including an almost complete set of Whitaker's Almanack
4.  Number of facts in Whitaker's World of Facts: At least 20,000
5.  Favourite Author: Stephen Leacock (a Canadian economist who also wrote humour books)
6.  Favourite Book: The Dictionary of National Biography (all 60 volumes of it)
7.  Most difficult facts to find:
a) The name given to the study of towers
b) The first cat to sail round the world
c) The largest recorder orchestra*
8.  Most difficult fact to calculate: Amount of human skin shed in a lifetime
9.  Time spent researching Whitaker's World of Facts: A lifetime’s accumulation of facts; two years’ actual research and writing

    * Pyrgology; Trim (in 1800); 710

    Inspiration and Fact Collecting

    1. Favourite painting: Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, The Baths of Caracalla
      (I have written two books about the artist)
    2. Favourite animal: Pig — I am the author of The Pig Book
    3. Greatest Historical Moment: The first Moon landing — using a guidance computer less powerful that the one in my car
    4. Hero(es): The Wright Brothers
    5. Heroine: Emma Hamilton
    6. Reason for writing Whitaker's World of Facts: As a long-time admirer of Whitaker's Almanack, I realised that there was no equivalent single-volume reference book for children and their families that was both informative and entertaining.