Dominic Sandbrook: ‘The Rest is History was a runaway success – but I still drive a Volvo’
Dominic Sandbrook is a historian and co-presenter of the podcast, The Rest is History, the world’s most popular history podcast which has had nearly 200 million downloads, and counts Tom Hanks among its fans.
The 49-year-old’s best-known history books include Never Had It So Good (2005), a history of Britain from the Suez Crisis to the Beatles, White Heat (2006), which looks at Britain in the Swinging Sixties, and State of Emergency (2010), covering the period 1970-74.
He’s also presented BBC television documentary series on Britain in the 1970s and 1980s.
The married father-of-one, who grew up in Shropshire, lives in Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire with his wife Catherine and their 12-year-old son.
How did your start in life affect your outlook on money?
I was one of two boys, came from a reasonably affluent family in the Midlands and boarded at Malvern College – my dad is a chartered surveyor and my mum runs his home office.
I was a student for a ridiculous amount of time because I did a Masters, and then a PhD (on the US presidential candidate Senator Eugene McCarthy) – so at 25 I was still living on PhD funding, regularly hitting my overdraft limit.
I didn’t have what I consider a reasonable disposable income until I was 30.
Did you receive pocket money?
Yes, a pound a week. But as a kid I watched Mastermind and my parents would give me 10p each time I got an answer right before a contestant.
So I swatted up on the specialist subjects beforehand, and usually beat the contestants to an answer or two, boosting my pocket money which I spent on Star Wars figures and Doctor Who novelisations.
What was your first proper job?
I spent three years as a history lecturer at Sheffield University in my late twenties, teaching American history.
The starting salary was about ￡18,000 – I was on the most junior salary rung.
Did you always want to be a historian?
Yes, I’ve been obsessed with history since I was a boy, and read all the Ladybird history books.
I was the sort of annoying child who’d visit a historical site and pipe up from the back whenever a tour guide got something wrong.
Did success come overnight?
The first of my books to do well was Never Had It So Good, which caught people’s imagination.
But I took a huge gamble in walking away from a steady job to be a full-time writer though it didn’t seem that big a gamble at the time because I was young, naive and living on my own.
How big an advance did you get for your first book?
A five-figure, three-book publishing advance, after successfully pitching the idea of doing a British history trilogy from the 1950s to the present day.
As it happens, I’ve written three books over the last 20-plus years and I’m still only up to 1982.
Receiving the first part of my advance, ￡12,000, was a life-changing moment – it seemed a huge amount of money at the time.
How did you end up co-presenting the rest is history?
I met my co-presenter and fellow historian Tom [Holland] at a publishing quiz in 2006, we became friends and would get together to watch the Lord of the Rings films.
We were approached in 2020 about doing a history podcast and met someone from Goalhanger, the production company, in the kitchen of Tom’s student daughter’s house – and that was where we recorded our first-ever podcast.
Was it an overnight sensation?
No, the first few episodes we did were on vague themes like historical greatness, which attracted a small but loyal audience.
It was only when we got into ‘story-telling’ after doing 10-20 episodes that our audience began to grow.
It really spiked in 2022 after we did a ‘deep history’ of Russia and Ukraine, following Putin’s invasion, and then did episodes on every country in the World Cup, later in the year.
Thankfully, most people have stayed with us after they’ve started listening.
Has the success of the podcast taken you by surprise?
Yes, we thought it would make us a bit of pocket money, but never envisaged it becoming a runaway train.
We’ve officially presented around 450 episodes, plus a further 200 subscriber-only episodes.
About 30 to 40pc of our audience is in the USA, I think we’re the number one podcast in Australia, and we’re doing well in Canada and New Zealand too.
We’re also popular in Scandinavia, which is brilliant but bizarre.
What’s the secret of its success?
First and foremost, because I think people are bored with history being told in a hand-wringing, pious, judgmental and moralistic way – they want it brought to life by people who are genuine enthusiasts and love the past.
But we both work hard at what we do and are often up until 11pm researching a podcast.
Mind you, we’ve had a few comments about Tom’s shocking American accent [laughs]…
What’s more lucrative – podcasting or writing history books?
There’s a lot of advertising money in podcasts if you get it right, so it can have significant financial rewards – though I still drive a Volvo, a very middle-class choice of car.
However when you’re my age, you know that success comes and goes.
Have you experienced any lean times?
Yes, in my student days when I wasn’t good at managing my money and was constantly flirting with financial disaster.
What was your best investment?
The money I spent on seeing an osteopath in 2000 after getting horrendous back aches after spending so long huddled over my laptop – he urged me to get a proper desktop computer and office chair, which I did, and I’ve been pain free ever since.
Do you own a property?
Yes, a Victorian townhouse in Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, which my wife and I bought 18 years ago.
Are you a spender or a saver?
I consider myself a saver – I’m a very conservative person, in some ways – though I like a decent bottle of wine and must spend hundreds of pounds a year on books.
I’d be a brilliant Victorian miser!
Your greatest indulgence?
Probably my most recent holiday, earlier this year.
I took my wife and son on a three-week trip to South America, visiting the Iguazu Falls, on the Brazil-Argentina border, Buenos Aires and Patagonia among other places.
Your worst money decision?
The terrible truth is that it probably lies ahead of me…
Do you donate to charity?
Yes, I give to The Gorilla Organization and a homeless charity, Good Shepherd Wolverhampton, where my family are from.
Lastly, do you still have time to write history books?
Yes, I’ve just written a children’s history book about Nelson and will start work on a follow-up to Who Dares Wins [his British history book covering the period 1979-82] when I get a break from the podcast.
The Rest is History is available to stream on all platforms.
Dominic will appear at The Rest Is History live, Hampton Court, Sunday, June16 .
The latest in his Adventures in Time children’s history book series, about Nelson, is out in Oct.
