The Dangerous Book for Boys

Conn Iggulden & Hal Iggulden

The Dangerous Book for Boys

Copyright

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2006

Copyright © Conn Iggulden and Hal Iggulden 2006

Cover Design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2008

Conn Iggulden and Hal Iggulden assert the moral right to be identified as the authors of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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Source ISBN: 9780007232741

Ebook Edition © DECEMBER 2013 ISBN: 9780007444403

Version: 2017-08-18

To all of those people who said ‘You have to include …’ until we had to avoid telling anyone else about the book for fear of the extra chapters. Particular thanks to Bernard Cornwell, whose advice helped us through a difficult time and Paul D’Urso, a good father and a good friend.

‘Don’t worry about genius and don’t worry about not being clever. Trust rather to hard work, perseverance, and determination. The best motto for a long march is “Don’t grumble. Plug on. ”

‘You hold your future in your own hands. Never waver in this belief. Don’t swagger. The boy who swaggers – like the man who swaggers – has little else that he can do. He is a cheap-Jack crying his own paltry wares. It is the empty tin that rattles most. Be honest. Be loyal. Be kind. Remember that the hardest thing to acquire is the faculty of being unselfish. As a quality it is one of the finest attributes of manliness.

‘Love the sea, the ringing beach and the open downs.

‘Keep clean, body and mind.’

– Sir Frederick Treves, Bart, KCVO, CB, Sergeant in Ordinary to HM the King, Surgeon in Ordinary to HRH Prince of Wales, written at 6 Wimpole Street, Cavendish Square, London, on 2 September 1903, on the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Boy’s Own Paper

Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

I Didn’t Have this Book When I Was a Boy

Essential Kit

The Greatest Paper Plane in the World

The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World

The Five Knots Every Boy Should Know

Questions About the World – Part One:

Why is A Summer Day Longer Than A Winter Day?

Why is it Hotter at The Equator?

What is A Vacuum?

What is Latitude and Longitude?

How do You Tell The Age of A Tree?

Making a Battery

Conkers

Catapults

Fossils

Building a Treehouse

The Laws of Football

Dinosaurs

Making a Bow and Arrow

Understanding Grammar – Part One

Table Football

Fishing

Timers and Tripwires

Kings and Queens of England and Scotland

Famous Battles – Part One:

Thermopylae

Cannae

Caesar’s Invasions of Britain

Hastings

Crécy

The Laws of Rugby Union and Rugby League

Spies – Codes and Ciphers

Making Crystals

Extraordinary Stories – Part One: Scott of the Antarctic

Making a Go-Cart

Insects and Spiders

Juggling

Questions about the World – Part Two:

How do We Measure The Earth’s Circumference?

Why Does A Day Have Twenty-Four Hours?

How Far Away Are The Stars?

Why is The Sky Blue?

Why Can’t We See The Other Side of The Moon?

What Causes The Tides?

Astronomy

Making a Paper Hat, Boat and Waterbomb

The Laws of Cricket

Understanding Grammar – Part Two

Girls

Marbling Paper

Cloud Formations

Famous Battles – Part Two:

Waterloo,

Balaclava,

Rorke’s Drift,

the Somme

Making Cloth Fireproof

First Aid

The Commonwealth

Maps of Changing Britain – Roman Britain to the Norman Conquest

Extraordinary Stories – Part Two: Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson

Building a Workbench

The Steady-Hand Tin

Five Pen and Paper Games

The Golden Age of Piracy

A Simple Electromagnet

Secret Inks

Sampling Shakespeare

Extraordinary Stories – Part Three: Touching the Void

Grinding an Italic Nib

Navigation

Naval Flag Codes

The Patron Saints of Britain

The Moon

Skimming Stones

Pinhole Projector

Charting the Universe

Dog Tricks

Wrapping a Parcel in Brown Paper and String

Star Maps: What You See When You Look Up …

Making a Periscope

Five Poems Every Boy Should Know

Coin Tricks

Light

Latin Phrases Every Boy Should Know

How to Play Poker

Extraordinary Stories – Part Four: Douglas Bader

Marbles

A Brief History of Artillery

The Origin of Words

The Solar System: A Quick Reference Guide

The Ten Commandments

Common British Trees

Extraordinary Stories – Part Five: Robert the Bruce

Hunting and Cooking a Rabbit

The Game of Chess

Tanning a Skin

The British Empire (1497–1997)

Growing Sunflowers

Questions about the World – Part Three:

How do Ships Sail Against The Wind?

Where Does Cork Come From?

What Causes The Wind?

What is Chalk?

Role-Playing Games

Understanding Grammar – Part Three

Seven Modern Wonders of the World

Books Every Boy Should Read

Imperial/Metric Conversion Table

Illustration Credits

Also by the Author

About the Publisher

I Didn’t Have This When I Was A Boy

In this age of video games and mobile phones, there must still be a place for knots, treehouses and stories of incredible courage. The one thing that we always say about childhood is that we seemed to have more time back then. This book will help you recapture those Sunday afternoons and long summers – because they’re still long if you know how to look at them.

Boyhood is all about curiosity and men and boys can enjoy stories of Scott of the Antarctic and Joe Simpson in Touching the Void as much as they can raid a shed for the bits to make an electromagnet, or grow a crystal, build a go-cart and learn how to find north in the dark. You’ll find famous battles in these pages, insects and dinosaurs – as well as essential Shakespeare quotes, how to cut flint heads for a bow and arrow and instructions on making the best paper aeroplane in the world.

How do latitude and longitude work? How do you make secret ink, or send the cipher that Julius Caesar used with his generals? You’ll find the answers inside. It was written by two men who would have given away the cat to get this book when they were young. It wasn’t a particularly nice cat. Why did we write it now? Because these things are important still and we wished we knew them better. There are few things as satisfying as tying a decent bowline knot when someone needs a loop, or simply knowing what happened at Waterloo and the Somme. The tales must be told and retold, or the memories slowly die.

The stories of courage can be read as simple adventures – or perhaps as inspiration, examples of extraordinary acts by ordinary people. Since writing them, it’s been a great deal harder to hop about and curse when one of us stubs a toe. If you read Douglas Bader’s chapter, you’ll see why. They’re not just cracking stories, they’re part of a culture, a part we really don’t want to see vanish.

Is it old fashioned? Well that depends. Men and boys today are the same as they always were, and interested in the same things. They may conquer different worlds when they grow up, but they’ll still want these stories for themselves and for their sons. We hope in years to come, that this will be a book to dig out of the attic and give to a couple of kids staring at a pile of wood and wondering what to do with it.

When you’re a man, you realise that everything changes, but when you’re a boy, you know different. The camp you make today will be there forever. You want to learn coin-tricks and how to play poker because you never know when the skills will come in handy. You want to be self-sufficient and find your way by the stars. Perhaps for those who come after us, you want to reach them. Well, why not? Why not?

Conn Iggulden and Hal Iggulden

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