Watch Your Manners!

Manners, they are very important to us all. Why did you feel young people needed a reminder about using their manners? Interestingly, I didn't! If anything, The Ministry of Manners began with the opposite idea. Manners are generally a good thing. Saying please and thank you, holding doors open, treating people with kindness and respect... most of us would agree those are positive values.

What interested me was what happens when a good idea is taken too far. History is full of examples of sensible principles becoming dangerous when somebody decides they must be enforced absolutely. The Ministry believes it is creating a kinder, more civil society, but in doing so it starts removing freedom, individuality and even the right to disagree. That's where the story lives.

Were you brought up to remember to use your manners? Were there consequences if you were found not to be

using them? I was definitely brought up to use my manners. Like many children of my generation, I was taught to say please and thank you, write thank-you letters after birthdays and generally avoid behaving like a feral wolf at the dinner table.

As for consequences, I suspect they were mostly parental disappointment, which can be surprisingly effective. Children quickly learn that being told "What do you say?" usually means you've forgotten something important.

If your readers can take one thing away from this story, what would you hope it is? That it's important to think for yourself.I don't necessarily want readers to agree with the characters. I want them to question things. Alfie and Margot’s journeys are really about learning to look beyond what they’re told and decide what they believe. Whether it's governments, social media, advertising or playground rumours, it's healthy to ask questions and examine ideas rather than simply accepting them.

Futuristic or contemporary made-up worlds: is this a favourite setting for you and what makes it so exciting to use? I do enjoy it. A made-up world gives you the freedom to exaggerate aspects of our own world and examine them from a different angle.

In The Ministry of Manners, the setting is recognisable enough to feel familiar but different enough to create a sense of unease. Readers can spot connections to things around them while still enjoying the fun of exploring somewhere new. It's a bit like holding a funhouse mirror up to reality and seeing what comes back.

I couldn't help but wonder if George Orwell's 1984 was an inspiration. Was it, or did this idea simply appear one day? My elevator pitch for The Ministry of Manners is "1984 for children," but let’s not get carried away! 1984 is one of the great novels of the twentieth century, and any writer who finds themselves mentioning it in the same sentence as their own book should do so with a certain amount of caution.

One key area where the books differ is in where they finally arrive. 1984 is a profoundly bleak novel about the power of authoritarian systems. I wanted The Ministry of Manners to acknowledge those dangers, but also to leave room for hope. Not an easy victory or the sudden collapse of the system, but the idea that people can still ask questions, challenge authority and change things, even if that change happens slowly.

Children's fiction has always been good at reminding us that the future isn't fixed. That felt important to me.

I'm certain many readers find it comforting to know the siblings have one another in this story. Did you intend from the outset to make them close to one another? Absolutely. One of the things I wanted to explore was how relationships survive in a society that tries to control people's thoughts and behaviour.

Alfie and Margot don't always agree, and they express themselves very differently, but there is a strong bond between them. Having a sibling means having someone who remembers the same family stories, the same jokes and the same moments. In a world built on conformity, that shared history becomes surprisingly important.

The Extracts and Glossary are unique elements of the book. At what stage did you decide to include them, and how did you decide what would go into them? Those arrived very late in the writing process. Books are printed in large groups of pages, and sometimes when the text has been typeset you discover that there are a few pages left over at the end.  Rather than waste the space, I saw it as an opportunity to expand the world of the Ministry. Writers are always looking for ways to get information across while pretending they're not.

I was fascinated when I found myself wondering who was the most trustworthy. What techniques did you use to make this happen, is it a reflection of modern life? I think trust becomes interesting when everyone believes they're doing the right thing.

Very few people in the book wake up each morning intending to be villains. Even characters who support the Ministry often believe they're helping society. That creates ambiguity because readers have to decide for themselves who deserves their trust.

And yes, I suspect it reflects modern life to some extent. We’re in an age where information comes at us constantly from all directions, often accompanied by great confidence. Learning how to judge sources and weigh evidence feels like an increasingly important skill.

It feels as though you've moved your writing into more serious territory. Is it important for you to show that you can do both light-hearted and serious? Why? I don't really think of it as a deliberate shift. Even my funniest books usually contain serious themes somewhere underneath the jokes.

Children are already dealing with big questions about fairness, identity, friendship, family and power. Humour is one way of exploring those questions, but it's not the only way. Different stories need different tones. The important thing is finding the tone that best serves the idea.

Also, I should point out that The Ministry of Manners still contains a fair number of jokes. I wasn't ready to become sensible full-time.

When you were writing, did you envisage this as one society among many different others in the world, or a worldwide situation? There are references in the book to what has become of the rest of the world, but the sense is that this story is taking place in in a walled off society.

For me, the interesting question wasn't what every country was doing. It was what life felt like for children growing up inside this particular society. By keeping the focus narrow, the world becomes more immediate and personal. Readers experience events as Alfie and Margot do, which is usually the most powerful way to tell a story.

If you could live, or have lived, in any society, where would you have liked to be? If I'm honest, I don't particularly want to live in the past at all. Writers are always being asked which historical period they'd visit, but my answer is usually the future. I'd like to live in a world where we've solved a few problems, cured a few diseases and finally developed the personal jetpack that science fiction has been promising me since childhood. Sadly, I am middle-aged and still travel mostly by hatchback.

My thanks to David Solomons for taking the time to answer these questions with as many manners as he could muster! My thanks also to the publicity team at Bonnier Books for making this possible. I hope you've enjoyed reading this Blog and want to now go and find yourself a copy of the book - after all we need to ensure we show good manners!