They didn’t make Leonardo choose, did they?

Recently I’ve been thinking about how I came to be writing Science Fiction, ever since I caused surprise and confusion to a woman who, on discovering that I was a writer, asked what sort of novels I wrote. My answer was not what she was expecting. She stared at me speechless. It was as if I’d said something outrageous and that the choice of that particular genre was not a suitable one for a woman of my age. I’ve always been passionate about Science Fiction, I said, but it fell on deaf ears. She’d given up on me. I didn’t fit the mould.

It could have been so different though, if I hadn’t been forced to choose, at the tender age of 15, between Arts and Science. I chose Arts, for no more considered reason than that I was a girl and it

It wasn’t that you were banned from studying art if you were in the Science group, or visa versa, because the two girls caused a bit of a stir by choosing to study A-level art and spending all their time in the Art Department. It was just that, at the time, having taken up the arts label and being of a less bold disposition, I felt that I was duty bound to conform to it.

The upshot of this was that I felt that a whole swathe of knowledge had been denied me before I’d really had a chance to explore its possibilities. Whether it was conscious or not, I immediately became fascinated in what I thought I couldn’t have and started to devour everything ‘science fiction’ – books, films and TV. I read anything I could get my hands on – A.C.Clarke, Vonnegut, Asimov, Ballard, Philip K. Dick, all the greats, plus lots of obscure anthologies of SF short stories that I didn’t understand most of the time, but somehow it didn’t matter.

The first time I saw 2001: A Space Odyssey, I experienced a life-changing moment. I can’t explain what happened, but I came out of that film a different person than the one who went in clutching a medium sized box of popcorn, which remained largely uneaten. That film remains, to this day, one of my all-time favourites. And, although I went on to study art, I never lost my passion for Science Fiction.

So, here’s a thought. If Leonardo da Vinci had been forced to choose between Arts and Science at the age of 15 would he have designed a tank 400 years before it became a reality; conceptualized the helicopter; studied and made detailed drawings of the human body; or painted the Mona Lisa, the most famous painting of all time? I think his innate curiosity and thirst for knowledge would have meant he’d have worked something out, I’m sure.