by Gwen Grant
Tone: Tone is the next oldest – he is sixteen. He works down the pit with his dad and wants to be a boxer when he grows up. According to his youngest sister, ‘he’s as big as a house side’.
Lucy: Lucy is about 15 and likes to dress up, go out and pretend to be older than she is. She’s still at school but is leaving soon and already has a job in a dress shop. She mostly gets cross with her little sister for embarrassing her in front of her friends.
Rose: Rose is a bit younger than Lucy and claims that she is not our heroine’s sister at all but that she was left on the Hall family’s doorstep as a baby with a note that said she was a princess in disguise. She is our heroine’s least favourite sibling which is a particular shame as they all have to sleep in the same bed every night.
Joe: Joe is the brother nearest in age to our heroine – she gets along best with Joe, though still not well. She says he is a big head but they do play and have some fun together. And like all of her brothers and sisters, he does stand up for her when she is in trouble outside the family. And she protects him too when she can.
Miss Ruby Brown: Our heroine’s dance teacher and one of her many sworn enemies, because our heroine does not like dancing very much. Miss Ruby Brown is also Lucy’s boss at the dress shop and she is engaged to our heroine’s brother Pete, so they have to try and get on. It’s not going very well.
Granny Bates, Old Flo, Mrs Elston: These are all old ladies who are the Halls’ neighbours. They offer lots of advice and sometimes help with whatever the latest thing to have gone wrong is.
Who is Gwen Grant?
Gwen Grant was born in 1940 in Worksop, Nottinghamshire, and lives there still. When she was twelve years old, she was Highly Commended in a national competition for her essay on the Cocoa Bean – she has kept writing ever since. Her many books for children include Private – Keep Out, its sequels Knock and Wait and One Way Only; The Lily Pickle Band Book and The Revolutionary’s Daughter. She is also a published poet. Gwen likes dancing, knitting, embroidery and making things, and watching live entertainment (bands, plays, poetry readings). She has twin sons, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Meet the author! Lucy Mangan interviews Gwen Grant.
1. Did you have any real life inspiration for any of the characters or incidents in the book?
I did. I have three brothers and two sisters, but one of my sisters died when she was a baby and the other one hadn’t been born at the time I write about in Private. But, yes, I did base some of my characters on my Mum and Dad and my brothers, but Rose and Lucy were both made up, as were Old Flo, Granny Bates, the Elstons and so many more. Some incidents were roughly based on real life events, such as going on the bus to Cleethorpes for the day; going to bed with a candle and my brother playing at being a ghost; dancing classes, which were always such a trial to me, particularly when we had to balance water on our heads whilst going through a hoop (for a concert) and the time I had to be a little Dutch girl! We did have to go to Sunday school and I always kept a look-out for angels, because I didn’t want to meet one.
2. Do you have a similar background to the heroine?
I absolutely do. I put the Hall family into a house, street, area and town I knew well. There was a sand quarry nearby (and I did climb up the cliffs and fall down them).
3. Were you always in trouble like she is?
I did get into bother quite a lot.
4. Was Private – Keep Out! inspired by or influenced by any other books?
We only took boys’ comics when I was a girl, so they influenced me a lot: The Rover, Hotspur, Wizard, then Film Fun, Dandy and Beano. I saw Sunny Stories (a children’s magazine written and edited by Enid Blyton), but never read it – never wanted to! There was no great Wilson, the super-athlete, in Sunny Stories as there was in the Hotspur. As I child I read At the Back of the North Wind by George MacDonald and this had a great influence on my own writing.
5. Why does the narrator have no name?
She does! She had a name in my head from the start but I wanted a little distance from her so I didn’t name her in the books. Now, I’m glad to give her the name I’ve always called her by: Alice Hall! So, thanks for the chance!
6. Did it take you ages to write?
It did take quite a long time to write. I was so new to writing books. I had only written a picture book before, Matthew and his Magic Kite, and some stories for the BBC. All on my old-fashioned Underwood typewriter – I wept when it gave up the ghost!
7. How did you go about it? Did you plan it all in advance or just start writing?
With Private, I worked on the basis of a twelve month diary, but this ran over to fourteen months and fourteen chapters. The calendar of the year helped me structure the story: Whitsun, with its new clothes and shoes; summer holidays allowed the Sand Quarry to come into the picture; Bonfire Night; Christmas. I had to plan my other books Bonny Starr and The Revolutionary’s Daughter much more than Private (or its two sequels, Knock and Wait and One Way Only) because they were much more complicated books.
9. Have you always been a writer or have you had other jobs?
I left school at fifteen and went to night school for three years to learn shorthand, typing and bookkeeping. Meanwhile, in the daytime, I worked as a shop assistant, waitress, bingo caller and for a short spell in a factory. I got a job as an accounts clerk, then went on to be a secretary (and, at odd times, a court stenographer). I worked as an accounts clerk/secretary for a veterinary surgeon, where I once opened the door to a lion standing on the doorstep. I started training to be a teacher but hated it and dropped out, then had to start writing in earnest in order to pay back the education grant, (which we’d already spent), finally studying with the Open University for a Degree in Humanities, which I loved.
10. Do you prefer writing serious books or funny books?
I just love writing. I’ve always wanted to capture the people and times around me. The Lily Pickle books were based on the scruffy little band I saw when I was standing on my Mum’s doorstep and they came marching round the corner. Too poor for instruments, they had combs and paper. I just fell in love with them. All my stories have something in them that is important to me. I wrote a book called Last Chance when the mines started closing, bringing such hardship around where I live, a mining area. And I wrote Gypsy Racer because gypsies were having a hard time of it.
Take the Private – Keep Out! quiz!
(Turn to the back for answers – no cheating!)
1) What does our heroine most dislike about sharing a bed with her sisters?
2) How does the skirt that Rose is trying on in the bedroom catch fire?
3) What does little Alf do at Sunday school?
4) What is the Hall family’s beloved dog called?
5) What does Lucy do to Tone in revenge for him stuffing a wet flannel down her back?
6) What does our heroine find on the beach during their day trip to Cleethorpes?
7) What does she call the police station?
8) Our heroine calls the girl who tries to burn her at the stake ‘Gorilla Face’, but what does Gorilla Face call her?
9) Why doesn’t Joe want a go on Teeny Wallop’s bike and what does his sister do to help him?
10) What did our heroine want for Christmas?
11) Why is the book called Private – Keep Out?
12) What does the heroine decide at the end she wants to be instead of a writer?
‘So I’m sat there thinking …’
Our heroine always asks questions that the grown-ups find it hard to answer – here are a few questions about Private – Keep Out! to get you pondering.
Our heroine does not think she is naughty or mischievous at all. Is she right?
Do you have lots of brothers and sisters? If you do, do you get on with them all? If you don’t, do you think they sound like a good thing or a bad thing?
Did any bits of the book make you laugh? What was the funniest? Why?
Did any of the characters us
e words or phrases you didn’t understand? What were they? Do you understand them now?
What was different about life in 1948 compared to life now?
Would you like to be a writer? What would you write about if someone gave you a whole pile of paper to write on?
Can you think of times you have been annoyed by grown-ups not answering questions properly?
Do you have a private box or somewhere you keep your treasures? What do you – or what would you – keep in it?
What does that word mean?
Mardy baby – being sulky, whiny.
National Service – at the time Private – Keep Out is set all healthy young men aged between 17 and 21 had to spend eighteen months in the armed forces. This was known as National Service.
(Thinking you’re) the cat’s whiskers – thinking you look, or are, really great.
Spitfire – a single-seater fighter plane that became one of the most famous of all the types used in the Second World War.
Shell-shock – A psychological injury suffered by a lot of soldiers in the First World War when they were stuck in trenches and bombs (shells) rained down on them. These days we would probably call it post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD.
Castor oil – a horrible-tasting oil that people used to think was good for you.
Whit Sunday, or Whitsun – this is a Christian festival that takes place on the seventh Sunday after Easter. It was always especially celebrated, usually with a trip, a fair or a church parade (a ‘Whit Walk’) by people in the north of England like the Halls.
Getting the slipper – teachers used to be allowed to hit pupils who misbehaved. They would use a wooden cane, a ruler, or a slipper.
Short-tongued – having a lisp, which means pronouncing ‘s’ sounds as ‘th’ sounds.
Courting – going out with someone as a boyfriend or girlfriend.
(Toast and) dripping – dripping was the fat that was collected when a joint of meat (usually) beef was roasted for Sunday lunch. It was spread on toast when cool, instead of butter or margarine, for a tasty snack.
A Reader Recommends
Lucy Mangan’s memoir Bookworm is all about the books she read and loved when she was growing up, such as Private – Keep Out! Here she recommends a few more of her favourite books that you might also like to try if you enjoyed Private.
The Family from One End Street by Eve Garnett
The adventures of the large family of Ruggles children who live in a time and place not too different from the Halls’ in Private – Keep Out!.
The Saturdays by Elizabeth Enright
This is about four children growing up at about the same time as the Hall family but in New York City in the United States. They decide to pool their pocket money every Saturday so they can take it in turns to explore and do the thing they each like best in Manhattan.
Just William by Richmal Crompton
William Brown is a boy who never means to get into trouble but somehow cannot help it. Although he and his adventures are very funny for readers, his family are always appalled by their unstoppable son.
Answers to the Private – Keep Out! quiz
1) They don’t cut their toenails.
2) It catches on the candle flame as she’s twirling round.
3) Wets his pants.
4) Prince.
5) She stuffs an ice cream down his shirt when he is at the cinema with his girlfriend.
6) A mine.
7) ‘The Cop Shop’.
8) Skinny Lizzie.
9) He doesn’t know how to ride a bike, so she deliberately makes him fall off.
10) Books she’s seen at the newsagent’s.
11) ‘Private – Keep Out!’ is written on the box in which she keeps her diary and other special things.
12) A lady boxer.
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English translation copyright © Gwen Grant 1978, 1999
Cover © Billie Jean
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ISBN 9781473561953
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