Simon Mayo
About Author
As a child Mayo grew up in the West Midlands and went to Solihull School. He studied at the University of Warwick, graduating in 1980 with a degree in History and Politics, and then spent some time at Southlands Hospital Radio and then worked as a presenter with BBC Radio Nottingham, before joining the national pop network BBC Radio 1 in 1986, presenting a two hour Saturday evening show from 7.30-9.30pm.
In October 1987 he started presenting the weekend early slots from 6.00am-8.00am and then became presenter of the weekday evening show in January 1988, which went out from 7.30pm-10.00pm. Five months later he was offered the Radio 1 breakfast show, regarded as the most prestigious presentation job in UK radio.
Today, Mayo presents the Simon Mayo Drivetime show on BBC Radio 2.
Interview
ITCH
PUBLISHED BY DOUBLEDAY
MARCH 2012
Itch is a remarkable story about a science-mad boy, an 'element hunter', who becomes the world's most wanted boy when he discovers a new, highly radioactive element. Here, DJ and radio presenter Simon Mayo talks about his first foray into writing children's literature.
"I am surprised as anyone else is to have written this. Through nine years of discussing books on Five Live, my radio show, I have formed a distrust of people who are famous in one area deciding to write a novel. Having written my own book, all I want is for people to read Itch and to love it or not, but to make their own opinion.
I started writing Itch two years ago because I wanted to write a book for my son who was ten then. Anthony Horowitz's main advice for budding writers is to 'write about something you know for a target audience', but I chose to write about something I knew nothing about and I had to spend a lot of time looking into the subject.
I was researching science, which is his favourite subject, and the periodic table. As soon as I found out that there is a small number of people who 'collect' the elements they are called 'element hunters' I knew that I had found my subject.
Because I knew nothing about science I had to go on a research trail to find out how I would piece together the story. I learned quickly that you can't introduce a new element into the existing periodic table it is complete but that elements can be added at the end although the ones they have 'found' only exist for a fraction of a second in a lab.
I had a chat with a scientist, Professor Andrea Sella, at UCL and he thought about the Island of Stability, the idea that there may be super-heavy elements that could exist for longer, a day or a month or one hundred thousand years, and Paddy Regan, the professor of nuclear physics at Sussex university, who said that element 126 could work and would be on the Island of Stability and would possibly be nuclear. If we could ever get to element 126, it could be in solid form and you could get a photo of it. This isn't sci-fi, this is an extrapolation of what we know now and throwing it forward. If we are going to invent a new element, 126 is fine, it could exist. I also saw some of the kit I describe in Itch, such as a Fluorescence Spectrometer.
I wanted as far as possible to get the science correct but this isnt a science book. A lot of people have asked why I chose to write about science but this is essentially a 'magic bean' story; boy finds magic bean and what happens to the magic bean and what properties does it have?
The community of element hunters is small and when you start the collection, its easy to get hold of the elements like copper and it gets progressively harder. An obsessive science-mad teenager can get hold of these elements, just like Itch does.
The 'baddie' in the story is a science-obsessed teacher and it was quite fun to have a teacher as the most odious character, but it was crucial that he also fitted into the oil industry. I introduce the story of the Nigerian oil spill, which actually happened, and that continues into the second book.
The first book is a very domestic story with an overarching international theme and I like that. Oil and the nuclear industry distrust each other because oil feels threatened by nuclear, and I bring that issue into the story as well.
When he makes his discovery of the new element, Itch becomes the most wanted boy on the planet all the governments and agencies and terrorist groups want to find him. At one point he is kidnapped and threatened with child slavery Nigeria has a terrible record for this, so I hope there is a genuine frisson of danger at that point.
Book two is more international, it starts in Nigeria and then goes to the Falkland Islands before coming back to the UK. It remains focused on Itch and the rocks he has discovered. At the end of the first book, the rocks end up down a very deep well and it's based on a real place, although it's below a hospital now.
I wrote the book without anyone knowing what I was doing; I didnt really know what I was doing, but I had such a fantastic time doing it, I enjoyed writing it so much, I became obsessed by it and there were many early mornings where I woke up thinking about the plot lines at 3am.
When I started at Five Live on Radio 1, I was nervous about describing myself as a journalist rather than as a DJ, which is what I had been up till then. I am not convinced that, because I've written a book, I'm an author. All the time I was writing the book, I kept questioning what I was doing but even if it doesn't sell a single copy, I've had the most wonderful experience and I have emerged into a world of science that is quite astonishing and exciting. I think science is an underdeveloped area in childrens books.
I was given a lot of advice from writers that helped me. Charlie Fletcher advised that I need to know how the story ends, to find out exactly what happens so that I could meander and enjoy the story but know where I was going. Stephen King advises writers to write 1,000 words a day and not to do anything else until it was written. Writers also use dialogue to take the heavy load, to help drive the plot. I found I developed a lot of accents for my characters and I was listening to teenagers and how they talk slightly differently. For example, 'like' has replaced the word 'said' but I couldn't bring myself to do that; I found other ways to make the dialogue believable.
There are lots of ways to get boys interested in reading but I think the new formats of digital readers are very exciting. My 12 year old boy got a Kindle for Christmas and is never apart from it. In my family we don't see it as a screen, we view it as a book. In a few years everyone will have one and children will be growing up with those as their main formats although I don't think we will ever get rid of the book as we know it today."
Itch
