David Starkey
Historian
1945-01-03
Books by David Starkey
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David Starkey's Music and Monarchy
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Quotes by David Starkey
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I was born in a council house, my father left school at the age of 11, had his teeth out without anaesthetic at the age of 22.
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Walking is central to my relaxation because when I'm writing I'm stationary for seven hours at a time.
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In the early 60s, you read your essays to your supervisor rather than hand them in. I was both lazy and clever, and realised I didn't need to write essays at all, I could simply talk with some notes in front of me.
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I spent a lot of my infancy in hospital and actually started school in a wheelchair with this enormous plaster, and then into a surgical boot and callipers, none of which helps assimilation with other children.
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I was born a cripple, with two club feet, and mild polio in the left leg. I was in orthopaedic boots right through to my teenage years and, unfortunately, the fashion then was for light shoes. I discovered very quickly that I had a sharp mind and an exceedingly sharp tongue.
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I started school in the autumn term of 1949 when there was a tomato glut. We had tomatoes in every form known to God, man or beast - and they were all equally detestable. When you pushed them with your fork, a warmish liquid spurted forth. It was rather like sort of bursting a boil.
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It's one of the great mysteries to me how anybody who has ever believed in socialism can conceivably vote for Blair or New Labour, which is further to the right of any Tory government apart from that of John Major, and is taking privatisation into realms unheard-of.
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We have this extraordinarily unbalanced constitution, in which we have an elected dictatorship of the prime minister.
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Academics aren't paid very much, but as a single gay man I was never badly off. You don't have kids. You don't have a non-working wife's insatiable demand for shoes or wallpaper.
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It's very easy to front 'The Weakest Link;' it takes 10 minutes to prepare. But it takes three months to prepare an hour-long history programme.
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Since I was a child, I've gone to bed when things get too much. As a result, I have more trouble winding up than winding down in the morning. I need a second cup of coffee and then I potter around in a disgusting white towelling dressing gown for as long as possible.
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The Windsor monarchy is held in just awe. The whole process of criticism of the personal behaviour of the monarch is put in absolute suspense until about 1977, when it begins again.
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One of the reasons Britain escaped the poisonous nonsense of Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia is the sheer, absolute, middle-of-the-road, tedious banality of the House of Windsor. I don't want my politics to be passionate.
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