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ENVIRONMENT

Michael Morpurgo: Black Beauty would not work for today’s audience

Award-winning author says readers do not like propaganda but instead need the chance to make up their own minds
Sir Michael Morpurgo praised a new declaration by more than 130 countries at Cop28 to adopt greener farming practices
Sir Michael Morpurgo praised a new declaration by more than 130 countries at Cop28 to adopt greener farming practices
DAVID LEVENSON/GETTY

Many young readers would recoil from Black Beauty and other novels with an overt message about animals and the environment, according to Sir Michael Morpurgo.

The award-winning author of novels including War Horse and Running Wild, speaking as the Cop28 climate conference started, said it was better to allow readers to make up their own minds.

“Most of my stories are set where I live in Devon and set on the farm. I think it’s very difficult if you use fiction too deliberately, to raise awareness. You can do it more subtly.

“I don’t think young people these days accept statements which look as though the author is trying to persuade them of something too obvious,” said Morpugo, 80, whose charity Farms for City Children has just launched an educational initiative, Grow24, about sustainable farming.

“So a book like Black Beauty, for instance, which was very clearly written to try to show people that cruelty to horses in one form or another was wrong, if you read it now — and I have read it now because I’ve just done a retelling of it — if you do it now people recoil. We do not like propaganda. What we like are interesting new thoughts we can consider.

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“So when I do write about the environment, that’s what I want the children to do, to lose themselves in the place that it’s about and then, frankly, to make up their own minds.”

Morpurgo said that a new declaration by more than 130 countries at Cop28 to adopt greener farming systems was “really important” because of the food sector’s impact. He said his generation had made “grave mistakes” in intensifying farming by “overtaxing” the land and stocking too many animals.

A still from the film of Black Beauty. The book by Anna Sewell sent a strong message that cruelty was horses is wrong
A still from the film of Black Beauty. The book by Anna Sewell sent a strong message that cruelty was horses is wrong
WARNER BROS

“What’s happened is the industrialisation of farming. What was the driving force behind that? We know it’s cheap food,” the author said. He said more intensive practices had meant more slurry on fields, which then washes off, “despoiling rivers”.

“You don’t see trout in the rivers any more, and you don’t see larks in the fields flying high because the agriculture has been so intense,” said Morpurgo, who said he was trying to make his charity’s three farms as “healthy” as possible. Each of Farms for City Children’s three farms, in Devon, Pembrokeshire and Gloucestershire, accommodate about 35 children from urban areas each week.

“When I see the children, I do not feel pessimistic because I do think that generation is the only hope we’ve got,” he said. Morpurgo said that young people were putting great pressure on politicians who were still employing only “half measures” to tackle climate change.

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“We sort of know it has to stop,” he said, referring specifically to plans to drill for more oil. However, he said he took hope from previous environmental successes, such as whale populations recovering after a ban on whaling. When it came to cutting emissions, he said: “It’s happening, but it’s not happening fast enough.”

Morpurgo said that King Charles, who opened the UN climate summit in Dubai on Friday, had used his voice to “massively good effect” on the environment.

“He and people like David Attenborough and Greta Thunberg are waking the world up, and we have to follow. Those are the people who, to some extent, are prophets. Our project is small beer, but it is an example of what can be done,” the novelist said of his farms and educational schemes.

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