Still, sometimes it’s good to find things out by yourself just because you want to.ĭid you have the whole story in your mind when you started writing Opal Plumstead and did you deliberately plan its publication to coincide with the anniversary of the start of the Great War? I didn’t ever study the Victorians or Edwardians, both my favourite periods. I liked some history when I was young, but I didn’t really enjoy studying it at school, because in my day you mostly concentrated on politics and law.

Have you always been interested in history and what was your favourite period of history that you studied at school? I think I’d have wanted to be part of the Suffragette movement, but like Opal, I don’t necessarily agree with all their actions. If you had lived in Edwardian times do you think that you would have been a suffragette? I had to do some basic research, reading Edwardian novels and social history books and I obviously needed to bone up on my knowledge of the Pankhursts – but I don’t like to spend too much time on research.

How long did it take doing all the research on Edwardian times and the Suffragettes and how do you go about your research to make the historical detail accurate of Edwardians and the suffragettes so convincing?

Opal Plumstead: schoolgirl, sweet factory worker and Suffragette and star of Jacqueline Wilson’s 100th book! Photograph: Random House

Opal jacqueline wilson