Author's passion for the past

Philippa Gregory's novels have inspired huge interest in historical sites. Photo / Supplied

The Yeoman Warders of the Tower of London have author Philippa Gregory's contact details. When a new novel is due out they email to ask what she's writing about so they'll know what questions to expect from the influx of visitors it will bring.

With the phenomenal success of The Other Boleyn Girl - which sold seven million copies worldwide - Gregory has revived interest in both the genre of historical fiction and in the places where history actually happened. "If I go to Hampton Court now I'm treated like a princess," she tells me, "because I've brought so many tourists in."

So far Gregory's novels have spanned four centuries of British history. With her latest, The White Queen (Simon & Schuster, $40), she takes a step back to the 15th century, to the Plantagenet dynasty and its endlessly bloody Wars of the Roses.

As usual she has settled on a woman as her central character - this time the widowed Elizabeth Woodville, who secretly married King Edward IV. Great fodder for fiction: she was a scheming, beautiful woman who paid a high price for her ambition.

"Elizabeth Woodville had a very complicated and exciting life," says Gregory, explaining her fascination with the character. "She lived it very actively. There was comfort and glamour but also a great deal of struggle and danger. She was not a passive victim of her time." Since Elizabeth was also the mother of the Princes in the Tower, whose deaths remain shrouded in mystery, the Yeoman Warders will likely have their work cut out answering tourists' questions this time.

Researching these novels is a massive undertaking for Gregory, who estimates she gets through the required reading for a BA history degree each time she tackles a new era.

"Once I start writing I don't want to have to stop and check things," she explains. "So I do so much reading that I can see every detail in my mind's eye. I can imagine what Elizabeth Woodville would be wearing, eating, observing. I can describe the landscape as if I've been there myself. I'm not attempting to teach the readers or show off what I know but the history in my books has to be absolutely solid."

Once she has waded through the records, Gregory has to analyse the various historical accounts and decide which is the most accurate. "Then I think about what I'd be seeing, feeling and thinking," says Gregory. "The history gives the books structure and the fiction is the breath of life."

Interestingly history and Gregory didn't get on so well when she was a schoolgirl and she pretty much flunked her exams in the subject. "I was lamentably unsuccessful," she laughs. "But the syllabus seemed designed entirely to put off teenage girls - it was classical, pre-Roman, mostly military. I can't begin to tell you how dull it was."

Then at university she was made to study history for a couple of terms and found a teacher who brought the subject alive. "I realised then that history is as much about now as then," she says. "It's not just about emperors but women, money, commodities - it's absolutely thrilling. At that moment I fell in love with history."

Gregory went on to complete a PhD in 18th-century history. When she found herself finished with academia and unemployed at the age of 30 she decided to try her hand at writing an 18th-century novel primarily to amuse herself. That book, Wideacre, became a bestseller and since then she has combined writing historical and contemporary fiction with children's stories and movie scripts.

Gregory's own history would itself make interesting fiction. She was born in Kenya where her father had taken his family in search of a better life. There they had a grand house, servants and all the trappings of colonial luxury but her father was killed in a plane crash and, at the age of 2, Gregory was brought back to post-war Britain where life was much more difficult. Now 55, she's been married three times and lives with her family on a hillside farm in Yorkshire.

For 15 years Gregory has maintained a link with Africa through her own small charity Gardens For The Gambia. It started when she was asked to contribute £300 ($742) for a well to be dug in a schoolyard. Around it a garden was planted where food was grown to feed the poorest pupils. Now more than 140 wells have been built with money raised or provided by Gregory.

"One of the earlier schools has now got such a good cash crop of walnuts and fruit they were able to pay for an inoculation programme," says Gregory.

"I'm very proud of what we've done. It reassures me that if you make small changes big results can follow. And if I'm despairing about something that has happened or the state of the world in general it gives me great comfort to know I've done something that is making a difference to the lives of thousands of children in Africa."