1 00:00:05,200 --> 00:00:08,080 Cambridge, October 1893. 2 00:00:09,680 --> 00:00:11,520 Halloween is approaching 3 00:00:11,520 --> 00:00:15,280 and literary and horror history is about to be made. 4 00:00:18,800 --> 00:00:22,880 Welcome to the Chitchat Society, where some of the brightest 5 00:00:22,880 --> 00:00:25,960 and best connected young men in the country gather to entertain 6 00:00:25,960 --> 00:00:30,240 each other with witty conversation and the reading of erudite papers. 7 00:00:34,400 --> 00:00:40,080 Tonight, our host is MR James, a fellow and Dean of King's College. 8 00:00:40,080 --> 00:00:43,800 But word has it he's got something rather unusual planned. 9 00:00:49,560 --> 00:00:52,800 Do the audience have any inkling that they are present at arguably 10 00:00:52,800 --> 00:00:56,240 the most important event in the history of the English ghost story? 11 00:00:56,240 --> 00:00:59,520 The moment when Monty James, its greatest master, 12 00:00:59,520 --> 00:01:02,080 unveils his first two tales of terror. 13 00:01:05,600 --> 00:01:12,480 The boy, a thin shape, with black hair and ragged clothing, 14 00:01:12,480 --> 00:01:14,400 raised his arms in the air. 15 00:01:15,760 --> 00:01:19,000 The moon shone upon his almost transparent hands 16 00:01:19,000 --> 00:01:22,520 and Stephen saw that the nails were fearfully long 17 00:01:22,520 --> 00:01:26,880 and that the moonlight shone right through them, and as he thus 18 00:01:26,880 --> 00:01:32,320 stood with his arms raised, he disclosed a terrifying spectacle. 19 00:01:33,600 --> 00:01:39,960 On the left side of his chest, there opened a black and gaping rent. 20 00:01:39,960 --> 00:01:42,360 SCREAMING 21 00:01:44,200 --> 00:01:47,840 Over the coming years, the mind of Montague Rhodes James would 22 00:01:47,840 --> 00:01:51,000 spawn more than 30 classic stories of the supernatural. 23 00:01:54,960 --> 00:01:58,720 Nightmarish forces that pursue their unsuspecting victims. 24 00:01:58,720 --> 00:02:01,320 SCREAMING 25 00:02:01,320 --> 00:02:03,960 Monstrous guardians with ancient buildings. 26 00:02:03,960 --> 00:02:06,040 EVIL LAUGHTER 27 00:02:06,040 --> 00:02:09,160 Horrors that lurk in the idyllic English countryside. 28 00:02:11,000 --> 00:02:15,000 Violent retribution and black magic. 29 00:02:17,040 --> 00:02:20,040 Yet all these horrors were conjured up by a man who seemed 30 00:02:20,040 --> 00:02:24,480 the quintessentially respectable Victorian, a leading scholar, 31 00:02:24,480 --> 00:02:26,680 a devout Anglican. 32 00:02:26,680 --> 00:02:30,880 How did MR James come to create such an extraordinary body of work? 33 00:02:35,600 --> 00:02:38,520 I'm going to find out the truth behind this contradiction 34 00:02:38,520 --> 00:02:41,840 and see how the strange world of MR James' childhood, 35 00:02:41,840 --> 00:02:45,280 his precocious imagination, his unrivalled knowledge 36 00:02:45,280 --> 00:02:46,960 of morbid legends, 37 00:02:46,960 --> 00:02:51,080 and his repressed sexuality all came together to produce the finest 38 00:02:51,080 --> 00:02:54,840 and most frightening ghost stories in the English language. 39 00:03:08,480 --> 00:03:12,680 To get a feel for who MR James was, I am following in his footsteps... 40 00:03:12,680 --> 00:03:14,760 or rather, his cycling route. 41 00:03:18,320 --> 00:03:22,480 Monty's idea of a perfect summer's day was riding through France, 42 00:03:22,480 --> 00:03:25,960 finding a new church or cathedral to explore. 43 00:03:25,960 --> 00:03:28,800 Such were the pleasures of a scholarly English bachelor 44 00:03:28,800 --> 00:03:31,000 in the late 19th century. 45 00:03:36,080 --> 00:03:39,000 And it was one of these excursions that brought Monty here, to the 46 00:03:39,000 --> 00:03:41,360 foothills of the French Pyrenees. 47 00:03:54,280 --> 00:03:57,000 The Cathedral of Saint-Bertrand-de-Comminges 48 00:03:57,000 --> 00:03:59,640 inspired Monty's first published ghost story. 49 00:04:01,080 --> 00:04:03,800 It must be one of the few tales of the supernatural that could 50 00:04:03,800 --> 00:04:05,760 double up as a tourist guidebook. 51 00:04:10,400 --> 00:04:15,080 Previous ghost story writers tended to favour atmosphere over detail... 52 00:04:16,520 --> 00:04:19,680 ..but Monty carefully draws the reader's attention to the 53 00:04:19,680 --> 00:04:22,440 stained-glass, 54 00:04:22,440 --> 00:04:24,680 choir stalls, 55 00:04:24,680 --> 00:04:28,080 and the dusty stuffed crocodile that hangs over the font. 56 00:04:34,440 --> 00:04:38,080 Monty had been fascinated by church architecture since childhood, 57 00:04:38,080 --> 00:04:41,400 and you can see why he would be taken with this place. 58 00:04:41,400 --> 00:04:45,400 There is also an atmosphere of heavy superstition here that's quite 59 00:04:45,400 --> 00:04:48,640 different to the strict Anglicanism with which he was raised. 60 00:04:53,480 --> 00:04:56,360 Just as Monty's emphasis on believable settings was 61 00:04:56,360 --> 00:05:01,040 unprecedented, the central figure of his story was a new, yet easily 62 00:05:01,040 --> 00:05:03,120 recognisable, kind of protagonist. 63 00:05:05,320 --> 00:05:09,720 The main character, Denniston, is not dissimilar to Monty himself, 64 00:05:09,720 --> 00:05:13,600 and other figures in the stories are cut from similar cloth. 65 00:05:13,600 --> 00:05:17,360 Fussy, bachelor academics with an interest in sacred buildings, 66 00:05:17,360 --> 00:05:22,360 medieval manuscripts, ancient artefacts and above all, an abiding 67 00:05:22,360 --> 00:05:25,600 curiosity that rather gets the better of them... 68 00:05:25,600 --> 00:05:27,480 with grave consequences. 69 00:05:34,320 --> 00:05:37,280 As Denniston wanders round the empty cathedral, 70 00:05:37,280 --> 00:05:42,040 he gets a strange sense that someone, something is watching. 71 00:05:45,600 --> 00:05:48,360 And this feeling of unease increases when Denniston 72 00:05:48,360 --> 00:05:52,640 comes across a book of pages cut out from old religious manuscripts. 73 00:05:52,640 --> 00:05:55,160 Canon Alberic's Scrapbook. 74 00:05:55,160 --> 00:05:59,120 His attention is caught by one illustration in particular. 75 00:05:59,120 --> 00:06:02,040 A demon from the Testament of King Solomon. 76 00:06:06,440 --> 00:06:11,080 The hands were of a dusky pallor, covered, like the body, 77 00:06:11,080 --> 00:06:15,200 with long, coarse hairs, and hideously taloned. 78 00:06:15,200 --> 00:06:19,800 The eyes, touched with burning yellow, had intensely black pupils. 79 00:06:19,800 --> 00:06:22,480 If you can imagine one of the awful bird-catching 80 00:06:22,480 --> 00:06:23,920 spiders of South America 81 00:06:23,920 --> 00:06:26,680 translated into human form 82 00:06:26,680 --> 00:06:30,840 and endowed with an intelligence just less than human 83 00:06:30,840 --> 00:06:33,760 then you would perhaps have some faint conception 84 00:06:33,760 --> 00:06:38,880 of the terror that is inspired by this appalling effigy. 85 00:06:40,760 --> 00:06:43,880 Monty's account of the picture is the first genuinely chilling 86 00:06:43,880 --> 00:06:45,760 moment in his work. 87 00:06:45,760 --> 00:06:48,760 His description of the demon would certainly discomfort anyone 88 00:06:48,760 --> 00:06:53,840 with a fear of spiders. Monty was a notorious arachnophobe. 89 00:06:53,840 --> 00:06:56,440 But it's a line at the end of the passage that continues to 90 00:06:56,440 --> 00:06:58,480 haunt my memory. 91 00:06:58,480 --> 00:07:01,040 One remark is universally made by those to whom 92 00:07:01,040 --> 00:07:03,320 I have shown the picture. 93 00:07:03,320 --> 00:07:05,120 It was drawn from the life. 94 00:07:08,160 --> 00:07:14,160 It was drawn from the life. Those few, simple words like a punch line, 95 00:07:14,160 --> 00:07:18,280 opening up a terrifying possibility that a mythical demon 96 00:07:18,280 --> 00:07:19,680 could actually exist. 97 00:07:23,320 --> 00:07:25,640 As the unfortunate Denniston discovers, 98 00:07:25,640 --> 00:07:28,760 when he retires to his lodgings to pore over the scrapbook. 99 00:07:32,520 --> 00:07:36,200 His attention was caught by an object lying on a red cloth 100 00:07:36,200 --> 00:07:38,520 just by his left elbow. 101 00:07:38,520 --> 00:07:42,160 A rat. No, it is too black. 102 00:07:42,160 --> 00:07:44,120 A large spider. 103 00:07:44,120 --> 00:07:45,640 Oh, I trust to goodness not. 104 00:07:46,800 --> 00:07:49,040 Good God. 105 00:07:49,040 --> 00:07:51,080 Oh, no. 106 00:07:51,080 --> 00:07:52,840 It was a hand. 107 00:07:54,320 --> 00:07:56,000 Like the hand in the picture. 108 00:07:56,920 --> 00:07:59,160 He flew out of his chair, 109 00:07:59,160 --> 00:08:03,040 deadly inconceivable terror clutching at his heart. 110 00:08:03,040 --> 00:08:06,560 The shape, whose left hand rested on the table, was rising to 111 00:08:06,560 --> 00:08:08,680 a standing posture behind his seat, 112 00:08:08,680 --> 00:08:11,280 its right hand crooked over his scalp. 113 00:08:15,240 --> 00:08:18,040 What's remarkable, perhaps even uncanny, 114 00:08:18,040 --> 00:08:22,520 about Canon Alberic's Scrapbook is just how fully formed it is. 115 00:08:22,520 --> 00:08:25,720 The pacing, the building of atmosphere and menace, 116 00:08:25,720 --> 00:08:29,800 are masterly for a first story. Not a word seems out of place. 117 00:08:30,960 --> 00:08:35,440 And Monty's conversational tone only adds to the feeling of veracity. 118 00:08:40,000 --> 00:08:43,480 Canon Alberic's Scrapbook may have been inspired by MR James's 119 00:08:43,480 --> 00:08:47,480 travels in France but it drew on a lifetime of experience. 120 00:08:49,640 --> 00:08:53,040 The roots of Monty's stories lie in his childhood in England 121 00:08:53,040 --> 00:08:57,200 and his fascination with history and the supernatural was shaped. 122 00:09:00,200 --> 00:09:05,080 Montague Rhodes James was born in 1862 and when he was three, 123 00:09:05,080 --> 00:09:07,720 his family moved to Great Livermere in Suffolk. 124 00:09:12,480 --> 00:09:16,560 There is a mysterious remote atmosphere here. 125 00:09:16,560 --> 00:09:19,120 And even in the 19th century it must have felt a place 126 00:09:19,120 --> 00:09:20,880 apart from the rest of England. 127 00:09:22,880 --> 00:09:26,160 The family came here when Monty's father, Herbert James, 128 00:09:26,160 --> 00:09:28,640 was appointed as the local Anglican priest. 129 00:09:31,600 --> 00:09:35,400 What kind of a congregation and a parish did Herbert James inherit? 130 00:09:35,400 --> 00:09:39,720 He encountered quite a diverse group of people. 131 00:09:39,720 --> 00:09:42,640 People who were inherently superstitious 132 00:09:42,640 --> 00:09:46,840 and Herbert wrote about his concern at the end of the 19th century. 133 00:09:46,840 --> 00:09:49,480 With all the technological innovations there have been, 134 00:09:49,480 --> 00:09:52,920 we've still got people who seek out the wise man and woman from 135 00:09:52,920 --> 00:09:56,840 the village and prefer this esoteric superstition that he called it. 136 00:09:56,840 --> 00:09:59,080 So, it's a real religion. 137 00:09:59,080 --> 00:10:02,680 It was a rural, agricultural community 138 00:10:02,680 --> 00:10:05,080 and most of the people would be working on the land 139 00:10:05,080 --> 00:10:08,720 here at the time, and the land involved both farmland, which 140 00:10:08,720 --> 00:10:12,920 would have been tilled by horses, which is effectively behind you. 141 00:10:12,920 --> 00:10:16,560 And behind me there would have been the land we know as the Brecks, 142 00:10:16,560 --> 00:10:19,920 the Breckland, which is more like open moorland where they 143 00:10:19,920 --> 00:10:23,280 would have kept rabbits and sheep. 144 00:10:23,280 --> 00:10:26,880 In fact, the Breckland, as we know it today, is the nearest thing England 145 00:10:26,880 --> 00:10:31,680 has to a desert, so we are living on the margins and so, wherever you have 146 00:10:31,680 --> 00:10:37,000 got a margin between two types of culture and two types of landscape, 147 00:10:37,000 --> 00:10:40,720 you often get a deeper awareness of the supernatural and the spiritual. 148 00:10:46,880 --> 00:10:49,120 Monty would later draw on the area's history 149 00:10:49,120 --> 00:10:52,080 and superstitions in his writing. 150 00:10:52,080 --> 00:10:54,920 But it is easy to imagine how the powerful atmosphere here might 151 00:10:54,920 --> 00:10:56,960 have fed his boyhood imagination. 152 00:10:58,440 --> 00:11:02,040 Especially when combined with the piety of religious devotion 153 00:11:02,040 --> 00:11:05,600 that characterised family life at the Great Livermere Rectory. 154 00:11:17,840 --> 00:11:21,480 The James household was a devout one but it was also close 155 00:11:21,480 --> 00:11:24,120 and loving, and remained so. 156 00:11:24,120 --> 00:11:28,520 Monty's letters throughout his life are open and affectionate. 157 00:11:28,520 --> 00:11:31,840 All that religion, though, does seem to have filled Monty's childhood 158 00:11:31,840 --> 00:11:34,960 imagination with some quite extraordinary visions. 159 00:11:39,360 --> 00:11:42,040 For a time, young Monty was preoccupied with 160 00:11:42,040 --> 00:11:46,480 thoughts of fiery apocalypses and days of judgment. 161 00:11:46,480 --> 00:11:50,240 And although Monty never claimed his tales were inspired by personal 162 00:11:50,240 --> 00:11:52,400 experiences of the supernatural, 163 00:11:52,400 --> 00:11:56,400 a short work published after his death suggested that on one occasion 164 00:11:56,400 --> 00:12:00,040 he may have glimpsed a frightening figure in the rectory grounds. 165 00:12:05,160 --> 00:12:08,160 A face was looking my way. 166 00:12:08,160 --> 00:12:11,360 Malevolent, I thought, and think it was. 167 00:12:11,360 --> 00:12:15,000 And from just above the eyes the white border of a linen drapery hung 168 00:12:15,000 --> 00:12:17,720 down from the brows. 169 00:12:17,720 --> 00:12:21,840 I fled, but at what seemed like a safe distance within my own 170 00:12:21,840 --> 00:12:24,720 precincts, I could not but halt and look back. 171 00:12:26,120 --> 00:12:28,200 There was no white thing 172 00:12:28,200 --> 00:12:30,520 framed in the hole in the gate... 173 00:12:32,920 --> 00:12:38,320 ..but there was a draped form... shambling off through the trees. 174 00:12:45,760 --> 00:12:48,000 Strange apparitions apart, 175 00:12:48,000 --> 00:12:51,160 Monty's childhood appears to have been a very happy one. 176 00:12:52,920 --> 00:12:55,520 He began his education at home, learning Latin 177 00:12:55,520 --> 00:12:58,560 and Greek from his father and French from his mother. 178 00:12:59,760 --> 00:13:03,440 His parents encouraged a lifelong love of learning in him, 179 00:13:03,440 --> 00:13:06,880 but eventually, his schooling had to continue elsewhere. 180 00:13:08,680 --> 00:13:12,000 Monty seems to have been someone with a keen sense of place, 181 00:13:12,000 --> 00:13:15,280 and this would be a theme in both his work and life. 182 00:13:15,280 --> 00:13:18,920 He would become deeply attached to a small number of locations 183 00:13:18,920 --> 00:13:21,720 so when he had to leave Great Livermere at the age of 11 to go to 184 00:13:21,720 --> 00:13:24,760 prep school in London, the wrench was profound. 185 00:13:26,240 --> 00:13:29,840 It's perhaps no coincidence that the next story Monty published, 186 00:13:29,840 --> 00:13:34,200 after Canon Alberic, centres on an 11-year-old orphan boy. 187 00:13:39,360 --> 00:13:41,760 Lost Hearts tells of Stephen, 188 00:13:41,760 --> 00:13:45,080 sent to live at the home of his sinister, much older cousin. 189 00:13:48,160 --> 00:13:51,880 The cousin turns out to be an alchemist, seeking immortality 190 00:13:51,880 --> 00:13:55,160 and the house is haunted by the spectres of two children 191 00:13:55,160 --> 00:13:58,720 he has murdered in the course of his experiments. 192 00:13:58,720 --> 00:14:02,560 Quick or we will be late. Quick, dear boy. 193 00:14:02,560 --> 00:14:06,720 Dear boy, we have so little time, the potent hour has come! 194 00:14:08,520 --> 00:14:11,480 It's one of Monty's grimmest stories. 195 00:14:11,480 --> 00:14:13,840 The lasting impression is of isolation 196 00:14:13,840 --> 00:14:15,960 and the vulnerability of children. 197 00:14:20,040 --> 00:14:22,880 Munificent engine, 198 00:14:22,880 --> 00:14:24,280 soul bread, 199 00:14:24,280 --> 00:14:27,720 strong rhythm of eternity. 200 00:14:27,720 --> 00:14:30,080 But with its occult references, 201 00:14:30,080 --> 00:14:33,840 Lost Hearts is also suffused with arcane knowledge... 202 00:14:33,840 --> 00:14:35,040 Generous boy. 203 00:14:35,040 --> 00:14:38,400 ..something which would define Monty's later childhood. 204 00:14:38,400 --> 00:14:40,760 Here lies your fortune. 205 00:14:40,760 --> 00:14:43,160 Ordained by the heavens, 206 00:14:43,160 --> 00:14:45,360 sanctioned by the ancients. 207 00:14:47,640 --> 00:14:52,560 Your innocent heart must be the beating cornerstone to the gate. 208 00:14:52,560 --> 00:14:54,960 That unspeakable Gateway 209 00:14:54,960 --> 00:14:57,360 by which I will enter into it. 210 00:14:57,360 --> 00:14:58,640 SCREAMING 211 00:15:03,520 --> 00:15:07,760 When he was 14, Monty moved again, to England's premier school, 212 00:15:07,760 --> 00:15:09,000 Eton College. 213 00:15:11,080 --> 00:15:15,480 By now, something about him seemed older than his years. 214 00:15:15,480 --> 00:15:19,520 Perhaps to take his mind off being away from home, Monty had developed 215 00:15:19,520 --> 00:15:24,520 a precocious fascination with the old, the horrific and the obscure. 216 00:15:24,520 --> 00:15:28,080 Particularly medieval manuscripts, Apocrypha 217 00:15:28,080 --> 00:15:30,720 and the outer reaches of religious tradition. 218 00:15:33,520 --> 00:15:38,960 When I left Eton, it was with plenty of hobbies in the bookish line. 219 00:15:38,960 --> 00:15:42,880 I collected martyrdoms of Saints, the more atrocious the better, 220 00:15:42,880 --> 00:15:44,320 and biblical legends. 221 00:15:44,320 --> 00:15:47,600 Nothing could be more inspiriting than to discover 222 00:15:47,600 --> 00:15:51,280 that St Livinus had had his tongue cut out and was beheaded. 223 00:15:57,960 --> 00:16:01,680 With his morbid interests, Monty sounds remarkably like me at 224 00:16:01,680 --> 00:16:05,840 that age, though my teenage obsession was with horror films 225 00:16:05,840 --> 00:16:07,280 and stories. 226 00:16:10,960 --> 00:16:14,560 Monty and his fellow pupils would often pass the long evenings 227 00:16:14,560 --> 00:16:17,600 enjoying the works of Charles Dickens who had done much 228 00:16:17,600 --> 00:16:21,240 to popularise supernatural tales by giving them contemporary 229 00:16:21,240 --> 00:16:22,600 Victorian settings. 230 00:16:24,600 --> 00:16:28,200 And Monty seems to have taken an active interest in this genre. 231 00:16:31,840 --> 00:16:34,680 In a letter written in his third year at Eton, Monty 232 00:16:34,680 --> 00:16:39,240 speaks of engaging in a dark seance, a telling of ghost stories 233 00:16:39,240 --> 00:16:43,040 in which capacity I am rather popular just now. 234 00:16:43,040 --> 00:16:46,600 He doesn't say whether these tales were his own or those of other 235 00:16:46,600 --> 00:16:50,040 writers, but he clearly had a gift for beguiling an audience. 236 00:16:52,600 --> 00:16:55,440 Monty was soon exploring his fascination with ghost stories 237 00:16:55,440 --> 00:16:56,800 in written form. 238 00:17:01,320 --> 00:17:04,920 Eton's library holds his first printed work on the subject 239 00:17:04,920 --> 00:17:09,240 and his understanding of the story's fundamental appeal is very evident. 240 00:17:18,320 --> 00:17:22,240 This is The Eton Rambler, a publication set up by Monty 241 00:17:22,240 --> 00:17:24,840 and a few friends when he was in the sixth form. 242 00:17:24,840 --> 00:17:28,960 The second issue features a short essay by Monty on the subject 243 00:17:28,960 --> 00:17:30,760 of ghost stories. 244 00:17:30,760 --> 00:17:34,040 But the fourth number is of particular interest because it 245 00:17:34,040 --> 00:17:37,600 contains Monty's first real attempt at writing a ghost story. 246 00:17:38,640 --> 00:17:41,200 It's the story of a man who decides to spend a summer night 247 00:17:41,200 --> 00:17:44,040 in the northern aspect of a churchyard. 248 00:17:44,040 --> 00:17:45,200 Never a good idea. 249 00:17:46,960 --> 00:17:49,240 He laid himself down under a buttress on the north side 250 00:17:49,240 --> 00:17:50,960 of the building. 251 00:17:50,960 --> 00:17:53,000 And in blissful ignorance of the fact that he was 252 00:17:53,000 --> 00:17:56,040 surrounded by the graves of murderers and suicides, 253 00:17:56,040 --> 00:17:57,360 he fell asleep. 254 00:17:57,360 --> 00:18:00,360 After a while, he woke with a dim and unpleasant consciousness 255 00:18:00,360 --> 00:18:03,160 that something was pulling at his clothes. 256 00:18:03,160 --> 00:18:06,280 Nothing less than two glassy eyes belonging to a form 257 00:18:06,280 --> 00:18:10,240 that crouched there in the long grass. 258 00:18:10,240 --> 00:18:13,320 It was covered with what looked like a stained and tattered shroud, 259 00:18:13,320 --> 00:18:16,680 and he could dimly discern its long skinny, clawed hands, 260 00:18:16,680 --> 00:18:19,360 eager, as it seemed, to grasp something. 261 00:18:23,160 --> 00:18:27,040 So already, even in these very early attempts, 262 00:18:27,040 --> 00:18:31,480 we can recognise the familiar features of his ghost story writing. 263 00:18:31,480 --> 00:18:36,760 And the actual representation of the demonic presence is familiar 264 00:18:36,760 --> 00:18:40,720 already from Canon Alberic's Scrapbook - with glassy eyes, 265 00:18:40,720 --> 00:18:44,720 the clawed hands tearing at the clothes, the crouched form 266 00:18:44,720 --> 00:18:47,760 and some sort of stained and tattered shroud. 267 00:18:54,520 --> 00:18:56,680 In contrast to his time at prep school, 268 00:18:56,680 --> 00:19:00,560 Monty's years at Eton would be among the happiest of his life. 269 00:19:00,560 --> 00:19:04,800 He became a socially confident and academically accomplished young man. 270 00:19:06,440 --> 00:19:08,880 In true English public school fashion, 271 00:19:08,880 --> 00:19:12,480 he also learned to wear his intelligence and learning lightly. 272 00:19:18,520 --> 00:19:22,280 In 1882, Monty left Eton for King's College, Cambridge. 273 00:19:27,000 --> 00:19:30,320 University offered him an unparalleled opportunity to 274 00:19:30,320 --> 00:19:33,960 pursue his passions and enthusiasms on a bigger canvas. 275 00:19:35,760 --> 00:19:38,320 Monty seized it with both hands. 276 00:19:41,360 --> 00:19:45,240 As an undergraduate at King's, Monty managed to lead a double life. 277 00:19:45,240 --> 00:19:47,240 He excelled academically, 278 00:19:47,240 --> 00:19:51,920 transforming himself from a budding medievalist into a genuine expert. 279 00:19:51,920 --> 00:19:56,200 Yet he also became a leading light in the college's social scene. 280 00:19:56,200 --> 00:19:59,640 No-one knew how we found time to do it all but both 281 00:19:59,640 --> 00:20:02,360 sides of his life would shape his ghost stories. 282 00:20:08,400 --> 00:20:10,280 When it came to his studies, 283 00:20:10,280 --> 00:20:14,320 Monty spent much of his time at the University Museum, the Fitzwilliam. 284 00:20:18,520 --> 00:20:22,720 The museum boasted a wide range of antiquities but what drew 285 00:20:22,720 --> 00:20:26,960 Monty here was its extensive library of medieval manuscripts. 286 00:20:30,880 --> 00:20:33,600 And he didn't come just to read the manuscripts. 287 00:20:33,600 --> 00:20:38,200 Monty had an unprecedented ambition - to catalogue the collection. 288 00:20:40,080 --> 00:20:42,880 It was here at the Fitzwilliam that Monty embarked on what 289 00:20:42,880 --> 00:20:45,560 he truly regarded as his life's work. 290 00:20:45,560 --> 00:20:48,320 Compared to this, he saw his ghost stories as just an 291 00:20:48,320 --> 00:20:50,040 entertaining sideline. 292 00:20:50,040 --> 00:20:53,440 What Monty accomplished here was ground-breaking and has ensured 293 00:20:53,440 --> 00:20:57,960 his lasting reputation in the field of medieval scholarship. 294 00:20:57,960 --> 00:21:01,360 And remarkably, he did much of it as an undergraduate. 295 00:21:07,320 --> 00:21:09,520 The Fitzwilliam's collection of manuscripts 296 00:21:09,520 --> 00:21:13,600 ranged across several centuries before the invention of printing. 297 00:21:15,640 --> 00:21:19,120 Written, illustrated and bound entirely by hand, 298 00:21:19,120 --> 00:21:21,520 many were biblical and devotional texts. 299 00:21:26,200 --> 00:21:31,040 Information about their provenance was often scanty and incomplete. 300 00:21:31,040 --> 00:21:33,600 By studying and comparing the manuscripts, 301 00:21:33,600 --> 00:21:36,360 Monty sought to pin down their origins and authorship. 302 00:21:38,280 --> 00:21:42,040 It was an opportunity to both draw on and expand his detailed 303 00:21:42,040 --> 00:21:44,440 knowledge of the medieval period. 304 00:21:46,080 --> 00:21:48,000 How would you say Monty's approach was 305 00:21:48,000 --> 00:21:51,160 different in terms of examining these manuscripts? 306 00:21:51,160 --> 00:21:52,800 Up to that point, 307 00:21:52,800 --> 00:21:58,000 manuscript research was primarily driven by the importance of the text. 308 00:21:58,000 --> 00:22:02,120 But he was one of the very first people to pay consistent 309 00:22:02,120 --> 00:22:06,400 and considerable attention to the pictures, the illuminations. 310 00:22:08,360 --> 00:22:11,120 Monty's catalogue of the Fitzwilliam's manuscripts was 311 00:22:11,120 --> 00:22:16,160 published in 1895. He would go on to document many 312 00:22:16,160 --> 00:22:18,840 more of the country's great collections including 313 00:22:18,840 --> 00:22:21,640 those at Lambeth Palace and Westminster Abbey. 314 00:22:23,880 --> 00:22:28,760 Well, it is truly staggering and more or less unrivalled to this day, 315 00:22:28,760 --> 00:22:33,040 the sheer scale of his achievement is unmatched. 316 00:22:33,040 --> 00:22:36,480 Can we take a look at some of the manuscripts? Of course. 317 00:22:37,520 --> 00:22:41,880 This one, which is a Mirror of Sinners, 318 00:22:41,880 --> 00:22:48,240 so a highly moralising poem on what awaits you after death, 319 00:22:48,240 --> 00:22:53,120 especially if you have been a self-indulgent, lustful, 320 00:22:53,120 --> 00:22:55,560 and avaricious sinner. 321 00:22:55,560 --> 00:22:57,480 That is me doomed! 322 00:22:58,600 --> 00:23:04,000 James commented on the images in this manuscript as a very fine 323 00:23:04,000 --> 00:23:09,160 execution but most terrifying and repulsive, 324 00:23:09,160 --> 00:23:11,200 and they truly are. 325 00:23:12,640 --> 00:23:15,200 You can imagine that he had these sort of things 326 00:23:15,200 --> 00:23:17,600 in mind for his demons. Oh, easily. 327 00:23:17,600 --> 00:23:22,320 When there is such a recurrence of hair, and red eyes or yellow eyes, 328 00:23:22,320 --> 00:23:24,640 and small teeth and things. 329 00:23:24,640 --> 00:23:26,520 And the scaly nature. 330 00:23:26,520 --> 00:23:30,280 Yes, you can imagine that our Victorian antiquaries 331 00:23:30,280 --> 00:23:32,520 put their hand down and touched one of these. 332 00:23:32,520 --> 00:23:33,680 Yes. 333 00:23:33,680 --> 00:23:37,200 The one that terrifies me most is actually this one. 334 00:23:37,200 --> 00:23:42,480 Cos you see the corpse. Oh, yes. And the worms. Worms, yes. 335 00:23:44,120 --> 00:23:47,760 I suppose it really is his unique contribution to the ghost 336 00:23:47,760 --> 00:23:52,400 story form, is that nobody else had this incredible 337 00:23:52,400 --> 00:23:55,040 reservoir of material to draw on. 338 00:23:55,040 --> 00:23:58,520 You get the feeling from his notebooks alone that all these 339 00:23:58,520 --> 00:24:00,480 things came together for him, 340 00:24:00,480 --> 00:24:03,000 and this cross-fertilisation, of course, 341 00:24:03,000 --> 00:24:04,680 helped with the ghost story writing. 342 00:24:04,680 --> 00:24:09,480 The historically accurate detail that creates 343 00:24:09,480 --> 00:24:13,160 the background for the supernatural in the ghost stories 344 00:24:13,160 --> 00:24:17,160 derives from this very wide-reaching research 345 00:24:17,160 --> 00:24:20,040 and absolutely thorough understanding of history. 346 00:24:25,200 --> 00:24:28,120 Alongside cataloguing the Fitzwilliam collection, 347 00:24:28,120 --> 00:24:32,040 Monty became a Fellow of Kings and then Dean of the College, 348 00:24:32,040 --> 00:24:33,920 all by the time he was 28. 349 00:24:36,480 --> 00:24:40,200 The young academic seemed more than happy to remain in the cloistered, 350 00:24:40,200 --> 00:24:43,240 overwhelmingly male world of university. 351 00:24:49,720 --> 00:24:54,040 When he wasn't working, his main diversion was pure socialising 352 00:24:54,040 --> 00:24:56,640 and Cambridge clubs like the Chitchat Society 353 00:24:56,640 --> 00:24:58,200 provided the ideal forum. 354 00:25:01,280 --> 00:25:04,960 'Cambridge and Oxford are great places for societies 355 00:25:04,960 --> 00:25:08,880 'and particularly around the great art which is the favourite art 356 00:25:08,880 --> 00:25:11,120 'of such people which is talking.' 357 00:25:11,120 --> 00:25:14,360 So, as soon as James came here, 358 00:25:14,360 --> 00:25:18,480 he would have been a good talker, 359 00:25:18,480 --> 00:25:20,800 and people would have said, "that James character, 360 00:25:20,800 --> 00:25:23,040 "we should have him in the Chitchat Society." 361 00:25:23,040 --> 00:25:25,080 It is a place where you get together over a 362 00:25:25,080 --> 00:25:28,360 glass in the evening with people you like, 363 00:25:28,360 --> 00:25:31,680 and you would take it in turns to entertain each other. 364 00:25:36,640 --> 00:25:42,520 But for Monty and many of his peers, the perfect soiree wasn't all talk. 365 00:25:45,800 --> 00:25:49,000 As the evening wore on, Monty and his friends would often end 366 00:25:49,000 --> 00:25:52,080 up on the floor engaged in lively horseplay. 367 00:25:53,320 --> 00:25:57,760 They called this ragging and Monty was a dab hand. 368 00:26:03,280 --> 00:26:07,200 One participant recalled writhing on the floor during the rag, with 369 00:26:07,200 --> 00:26:11,400 Monty James' long fingers grasping at his vitals. 370 00:26:11,400 --> 00:26:15,560 Monty later made a point of saying, "Sex is tiresome enough in novels. 371 00:26:15,560 --> 00:26:19,080 "In a ghost story, I have no patience with it." 372 00:26:19,080 --> 00:26:21,520 So what are we to make of the peculiarly tactile 373 00:26:21,520 --> 00:26:23,560 nature of his writing? 374 00:26:23,560 --> 00:26:28,440 Hairy clutching arms, slimy tentacled embraces? 375 00:26:28,440 --> 00:26:31,240 Monty may have been a lifelong bachelor, 376 00:26:31,240 --> 00:26:34,120 but he understood the frisson of physical contact. 377 00:26:35,440 --> 00:26:39,200 What it touched was, according to his account, 378 00:26:39,200 --> 00:26:43,440 a mouth...with teeth 379 00:26:43,440 --> 00:26:46,920 and with hair about it. 380 00:26:46,920 --> 00:26:51,800 And not, he declares, the mouth of a human being. 381 00:26:55,120 --> 00:26:58,640 Like ragging, Monty's stories were perhaps an outlet for energies 382 00:26:58,640 --> 00:27:01,560 he found difficult to express elsewhere. 383 00:27:05,200 --> 00:27:09,400 Gordon Carey, a former chorister at King's, was one of a number 384 00:27:09,400 --> 00:27:12,160 of younger men with whom Monty had close friendships 385 00:27:12,160 --> 00:27:13,920 during his time at Cambridge. 386 00:27:16,560 --> 00:27:20,720 Do you think your father had a particular sort of brightness 387 00:27:20,720 --> 00:27:24,160 which appealed to Monty? He seems to have been drawn to intelligence. 388 00:27:24,160 --> 00:27:27,760 I am not sure that his brightness wasn't his good looks. But... 389 00:27:27,760 --> 00:27:33,280 I remember my father saying of him, long after his death, 390 00:27:33,280 --> 00:27:37,800 "I suppose he was what would nowadays be called 391 00:27:37,800 --> 00:27:40,920 "a non-practising homosexual." 392 00:27:42,080 --> 00:27:44,360 So, that was Papa's opinion. 393 00:27:45,560 --> 00:27:49,680 It feels like a very modern thing to place upon Monty James 394 00:27:49,680 --> 00:27:53,680 because he is a very complicated man, I think, 395 00:27:53,680 --> 00:27:58,840 but there is a strong sense that throughout his life, 396 00:27:58,840 --> 00:28:02,760 he had passionate friendships but there almost seems to be no 397 00:28:02,760 --> 00:28:04,720 evidence that anything... 398 00:28:04,720 --> 00:28:07,960 I am sure there wasn't. 399 00:28:07,960 --> 00:28:13,360 That was fairly general in those times. 400 00:28:15,720 --> 00:28:20,400 He liked young people. And chatting with young people. 401 00:28:22,040 --> 00:28:23,200 He was very genial. 402 00:28:24,880 --> 00:28:26,680 It leapt towards him upon the instant, 403 00:28:26,680 --> 00:28:28,080 and the next moment, 404 00:28:28,080 --> 00:28:30,520 he was halfway through the window backwards, 405 00:28:30,520 --> 00:28:34,840 uttering cry upon cry, at the utmost pitch of his voice. 406 00:28:34,840 --> 00:28:38,320 And the linen face was thrust close to his own. 407 00:28:39,960 --> 00:28:42,640 So it's not hard to see why Monty hit upon the idea 408 00:28:42,640 --> 00:28:46,920 of entertaining the Chitchat Society with ghost stories 409 00:28:46,920 --> 00:28:49,080 and why he followed them up with dozens more. 410 00:28:50,440 --> 00:28:52,960 He could combine his historical expertise, 411 00:28:52,960 --> 00:28:56,560 his scholarly fascination for the strange and obscure, 412 00:28:56,560 --> 00:29:00,440 with his desire to thrill, delight, and above all, 413 00:29:00,440 --> 00:29:02,920 to connect with his friends. 414 00:29:02,920 --> 00:29:05,520 His face is not there, 415 00:29:05,520 --> 00:29:11,160 because the flesh of it has been sucked away off the bones. 416 00:29:15,200 --> 00:29:18,680 What else allows you to hold an audience in the palm of your hand, 417 00:29:18,680 --> 00:29:21,440 to manipulate their emotions and expectations, 418 00:29:21,440 --> 00:29:22,920 better than a ghost story? 419 00:29:24,120 --> 00:29:26,480 What must have made the readings really compelling 420 00:29:26,480 --> 00:29:30,440 was the rich detail and knowledge Monty brought to them. 421 00:29:30,440 --> 00:29:34,160 It sounded as if he knew whereof he spoke. 422 00:29:37,120 --> 00:29:40,160 Monty had started something of an institution. 423 00:29:40,160 --> 00:29:43,040 His stories became an annual ritual at King's, 424 00:29:43,040 --> 00:29:46,280 where he'd often present a new one each Christmas. 425 00:29:46,280 --> 00:29:48,880 But he was hardly a prolific ghost story writer. 426 00:29:48,880 --> 00:29:51,640 His academic commitments came first. 427 00:29:53,800 --> 00:29:56,080 In addition to his duties at King's, 428 00:29:56,080 --> 00:29:59,760 Monty had been appointed director at the Fitzwilliam Museum, 429 00:29:59,760 --> 00:30:03,600 even before his catalogue of its manuscripts had been published. 430 00:30:03,600 --> 00:30:05,600 Still only in his early 30s, 431 00:30:05,600 --> 00:30:08,640 Monty was very much a Cambridge high flyer - 432 00:30:08,640 --> 00:30:11,400 albeit something of a traditionalist. 433 00:30:12,480 --> 00:30:15,320 Uncomfortable with pressures to modernise the university, 434 00:30:15,320 --> 00:30:18,840 he was particularly resistant to women being awarded degrees. 435 00:30:20,680 --> 00:30:23,760 Monty may have been blessed with a remarkable intellect, 436 00:30:23,760 --> 00:30:26,720 but he wasn't exactly what we might call a free thinker. 437 00:30:26,720 --> 00:30:29,880 The modern world was being born around him here at Cambridge, 438 00:30:29,880 --> 00:30:34,240 but Monty's response seems to have been highly conservative. 439 00:30:34,240 --> 00:30:37,880 And that suspicion of change, his struggle with it, 440 00:30:37,880 --> 00:30:40,680 underlies what is perhaps his best-known story. 441 00:30:44,760 --> 00:30:47,840 SOMETHING MOANS 442 00:30:51,840 --> 00:30:52,880 Oh! 443 00:31:00,720 --> 00:31:03,080 Set mainly on the Suffolk coast, 444 00:31:03,080 --> 00:31:05,440 Oh, Whistle, And I'll Come To You, My Lad, 445 00:31:05,440 --> 00:31:08,400 is the cautionary tale of Professor Parkins, 446 00:31:08,400 --> 00:31:12,440 an overconfident Cambridge academic who represents a more modern, 447 00:31:12,440 --> 00:31:15,240 rationalist mindset than Monty's own. 448 00:31:18,320 --> 00:31:22,040 Parkins openly dismisses talk of the supernatural. 449 00:31:22,040 --> 00:31:24,720 But during a golfing holiday by the seaside, 450 00:31:24,720 --> 00:31:27,720 a terrifying encounter shakes his certainties. 451 00:31:32,680 --> 00:31:36,320 It's not surprising Monty found the Suffolk coast so evocative. 452 00:31:36,320 --> 00:31:39,840 The powerful winds blowing in from Scandinavia in northern Europe. 453 00:31:39,840 --> 00:31:42,920 The sea defences struggling to hold back the water's relentless 454 00:31:42,920 --> 00:31:44,800 attempts to reclaim the land. 455 00:31:47,120 --> 00:31:51,200 Pagan, elemental forces are at work here. 456 00:31:51,200 --> 00:31:52,640 Purposeful ones. 457 00:31:59,800 --> 00:32:02,400 Wandering back from an afternoon on the links, 458 00:32:02,400 --> 00:32:05,240 Parkins stumbles across a strange artefact. 459 00:32:05,240 --> 00:32:06,400 Give a dog a bone. 460 00:32:06,400 --> 00:32:09,280 A whistle with an engraving in Latin. 461 00:32:11,840 --> 00:32:15,280 "Quis est iste qui venit?" 462 00:32:15,280 --> 00:32:17,800 "Who is this who is coming?" 463 00:32:21,680 --> 00:32:25,080 As Parkins soon discovers, something is indeed coming. 464 00:32:29,000 --> 00:32:30,960 He can't resist blowing the whistle, 465 00:32:30,960 --> 00:32:33,440 and finds himself caught in a strange dream. 466 00:32:35,360 --> 00:32:39,040 He seems to have released some kind of power in the wind. 467 00:32:39,040 --> 00:32:40,560 In the air itself. 468 00:32:44,800 --> 00:32:46,040 Help! 469 00:32:46,040 --> 00:32:49,680 Parkins represents the aggressive modernity that Monty despised 470 00:32:49,680 --> 00:32:51,560 and possibly feared. 471 00:32:51,560 --> 00:32:54,360 The elemental menace that he unleashes is a punishment, 472 00:32:54,360 --> 00:32:57,840 not for his curiosity, but for his intellectual pride. 473 00:33:01,320 --> 00:33:04,160 The dream finally crosses over into reality 474 00:33:04,160 --> 00:33:07,800 when the bed sheets in Parkins' hotel room billow into life. 475 00:33:17,800 --> 00:33:19,920 PARKINS WHIMPERS 476 00:33:19,920 --> 00:33:23,640 The sense of being trapped in a waking nightmare was brilliantly 477 00:33:23,640 --> 00:33:27,480 captured by Jonathan Miller in his celebrated television adaptation. 478 00:33:30,520 --> 00:33:32,280 PARKINS GROANS 479 00:33:32,280 --> 00:33:36,240 The real visceral power of Whistle, 480 00:33:36,240 --> 00:33:38,880 is it really is like a nightmare. 481 00:33:38,880 --> 00:33:41,160 I think a lot of people would watch that and say 482 00:33:41,160 --> 00:33:43,840 that's the closest they've seen to someone getting, 483 00:33:43,840 --> 00:33:47,040 or representing what it's like to have a nightmare. 484 00:33:47,040 --> 00:33:52,440 Actually, everything that happened in Whistle And I'll Come To You, 485 00:33:52,440 --> 00:33:59,240 erm, he finds it hard to distinguish what he dreams about 486 00:33:59,240 --> 00:34:01,280 and what he thinks he actually sees, 487 00:34:01,280 --> 00:34:03,440 if indeed he actually sees anything. 488 00:34:04,800 --> 00:34:07,040 PARKINS GROANS HELPLESSLY 489 00:34:07,040 --> 00:34:11,640 There's a very particular sort of slowed-down groan 490 00:34:11,640 --> 00:34:14,080 that Michael Hordern makes. 491 00:34:14,080 --> 00:34:15,720 Well, that's what I remember, 492 00:34:15,720 --> 00:34:19,000 in the moments when I've had bad dreams and have woken suddenly. 493 00:34:19,000 --> 00:34:21,600 I often find it very difficult to articulate something. 494 00:34:21,600 --> 00:34:24,360 I'll say, "Er, urgh...ohh," 495 00:34:24,360 --> 00:34:27,120 and then suddenly you wake up. 496 00:34:27,120 --> 00:34:32,880 And then what has been in the dream diminishes and disappears, 497 00:34:32,880 --> 00:34:37,400 but nevertheless, it remains perhaps for a little while 498 00:34:37,400 --> 00:34:40,160 because the dream itself is very disconcerting. 499 00:34:41,200 --> 00:34:42,640 Oh, no. 500 00:34:46,320 --> 00:34:48,280 Oh, no. 501 00:34:48,280 --> 00:34:51,400 I always certainly think that that's it for Professor Parkins! 502 00:34:51,400 --> 00:34:53,400 Yes, well, I don't think it is, you see. 503 00:34:53,400 --> 00:34:56,040 I think what happens is that he would be, 504 00:34:56,040 --> 00:34:59,680 if he told the story again when he went back to Cambridge, 505 00:34:59,680 --> 00:35:00,960 he might have said, 506 00:35:00,960 --> 00:35:05,000 "I was very disconcerted by something that happened to me, but of course, 507 00:35:05,000 --> 00:35:06,560 "how could I possibly believe 508 00:35:06,560 --> 00:35:08,720 "that the sheets would get up and attack me? 509 00:35:08,720 --> 00:35:13,560 "But nevertheless, that moment, which was obviously a dream, erm, 510 00:35:13,560 --> 00:35:15,760 "I did have a dream to that effect." 511 00:35:20,040 --> 00:35:21,960 Oh, Whistle, And I'll Come To You, My Lad 512 00:35:21,960 --> 00:35:24,600 features some of MR James' most memorable images, 513 00:35:24,600 --> 00:35:26,560 captured in these illustrations 514 00:35:26,560 --> 00:35:28,720 which were approved by Monty himself. 515 00:35:30,360 --> 00:35:33,680 They were the work of a young artist called James McBryde, 516 00:35:33,680 --> 00:35:35,640 who would go on to play a pivotal role 517 00:35:35,640 --> 00:35:38,800 in the publication of the ghost stories, and for a few years, 518 00:35:38,800 --> 00:35:41,920 was perhaps the most important person in Monty's life. 519 00:35:50,600 --> 00:35:53,960 Monty met James McBryde around the time he presented his first 520 00:35:53,960 --> 00:35:55,880 stories to the Chitchat Society. 521 00:35:57,400 --> 00:36:00,920 McBryde was a student at King's, ten years younger than Monty, 522 00:36:00,920 --> 00:36:03,400 but they struck up a close friendship, 523 00:36:03,400 --> 00:36:07,320 travelling together on Monty's beloved cycling holidays in Europe. 524 00:36:11,120 --> 00:36:14,920 On one occasion in France, McBryde disposed of a particularly 525 00:36:14,920 --> 00:36:17,720 large spider that had crept into their bathroom. 526 00:36:19,040 --> 00:36:21,040 Greater love hath no man. 527 00:36:29,520 --> 00:36:32,120 This is Dippersmoor Manor in Herefordshire, 528 00:36:32,120 --> 00:36:34,320 once the McBryde family home, 529 00:36:34,320 --> 00:36:37,880 where some of Monty's letters to James McBryde have been preserved. 530 00:36:40,800 --> 00:36:42,440 Should really blow the dust off, 531 00:36:42,440 --> 00:36:45,000 there isn't really any, but it's...it feels correct. 532 00:36:48,400 --> 00:36:50,280 Ah, there's some. 533 00:36:50,280 --> 00:36:52,440 It's on King's College notepaper. 534 00:36:53,480 --> 00:36:55,080 "My dear boy, 535 00:36:55,080 --> 00:37:00,520 "long since I heard of you, but not so long since I wrote. 536 00:37:00,520 --> 00:37:04,600 "What is happening? I hope you are getting along with your exams. 537 00:37:04,600 --> 00:37:08,120 "I think you'd better keep Christmas here, had you not?" 538 00:37:10,280 --> 00:37:12,960 This is the 3rd of January 1900. 539 00:37:12,960 --> 00:37:15,160 "My dear boy, how are you? 540 00:37:15,160 --> 00:37:18,240 "I took a slight influenza on Christmas Day, 541 00:37:18,240 --> 00:37:22,920 "which has left me weak from that day to the next. 542 00:37:24,080 --> 00:37:28,120 "My principal object in writing is to get news of you. 543 00:37:28,120 --> 00:37:30,640 "I want to know that you are recovered 544 00:37:30,640 --> 00:37:35,440 "and that you have had no relapses or other unpleasant adventures." 545 00:37:37,040 --> 00:37:40,600 As many people commented, Monty's handwriting is execrable, 546 00:37:40,600 --> 00:37:41,760 almost indecipherable. 547 00:37:43,360 --> 00:37:46,960 Though at some point, in several of these letters, he refers back 548 00:37:46,960 --> 00:37:49,560 to their beloved holidays in Scandinavia 549 00:37:49,560 --> 00:37:53,840 and actually lapses into Danish or Swedish, I can't actually tell... 550 00:37:55,000 --> 00:37:56,760 ..cos I am not a scholar. 551 00:37:58,760 --> 00:38:02,320 There's nothing hear that would trouble a biographer 552 00:38:02,320 --> 00:38:04,840 trying to find hidden depths of passion, 553 00:38:04,840 --> 00:38:09,640 but there is a gentle thread of affection and solicitude 554 00:38:09,640 --> 00:38:12,960 from Monty towards McBryde which is actually very touching. 555 00:38:15,480 --> 00:38:18,160 Each of the letters begins, "My dear boy," 556 00:38:18,160 --> 00:38:22,480 and ends, "Ever your affectionate, MRJ." 557 00:38:26,720 --> 00:38:30,560 James McBryde's marriage in 1903 appears to have had no ill effect 558 00:38:30,560 --> 00:38:32,640 on his friendship with Monty. 559 00:38:35,280 --> 00:38:38,320 And that friendship seems to have led Monty to collect his early 560 00:38:38,320 --> 00:38:40,920 stories in book form the following year. 561 00:38:47,000 --> 00:38:50,760 And here it is, a first edition of Ghost Stories Of An Antiquary. 562 00:38:52,080 --> 00:38:53,320 Very beautiful book. 563 00:38:54,800 --> 00:38:58,640 Now nicely mottled and foxed with age as is appropriate. 564 00:39:00,000 --> 00:39:03,920 I feel a bit like Monty must have done with his Medieval manuscripts. 565 00:39:06,560 --> 00:39:10,360 McBryde wanted to be an artist, and Monty probably saw the book 566 00:39:10,360 --> 00:39:13,480 more as a means to promote his friend's work than his own. 567 00:39:15,880 --> 00:39:19,280 There's a very good one here. Canon Alberic's Scrapbook. 568 00:39:20,400 --> 00:39:23,360 It's probably the first visual representation 569 00:39:23,360 --> 00:39:25,040 of one of Monty's demons. 570 00:39:25,040 --> 00:39:28,440 The seated figure here was thought by many of Monty's friends 571 00:39:28,440 --> 00:39:31,520 to be a thinly-veiled portrait of Monty himself. 572 00:39:31,520 --> 00:39:34,120 He certainly looks as genial as everyone says. 573 00:39:36,120 --> 00:39:37,360 It's very evocative. 574 00:39:40,440 --> 00:39:43,440 The other thing that strikes you as unusual is the curiously 575 00:39:43,440 --> 00:39:47,960 unfinished quality of this book. There are only four illustrations. 576 00:39:47,960 --> 00:39:50,640 Monty may have meant it as a way of pleasing and promoting 577 00:39:50,640 --> 00:39:54,640 James McBryde, but it turned into something quite different. 578 00:39:54,640 --> 00:39:56,160 A memorial. 579 00:39:58,200 --> 00:40:02,760 In May 1904, McBryde, who had trouble with his appendix, 580 00:40:02,760 --> 00:40:04,320 became gravely ill. 581 00:40:05,560 --> 00:40:09,680 Despite an apparent improvement, he died the following month, 582 00:40:09,680 --> 00:40:12,480 with his wife still pregnant with their daughter. 583 00:40:13,600 --> 00:40:16,560 McBryde was buried in Lancashire on the 8th of June. 584 00:40:17,760 --> 00:40:22,480 Monty, in the words of a friend, was broken hearted. 585 00:40:22,480 --> 00:40:25,160 On the day of James McBryde's funeral, 586 00:40:25,160 --> 00:40:27,360 Monty took the train to Lancashire 587 00:40:27,360 --> 00:40:31,080 carrying a selection of flowers from the Fellows' Garden at King's. 588 00:40:31,080 --> 00:40:33,640 He waited until the other mourners had gone, 589 00:40:33,640 --> 00:40:39,040 and then threw into McBryde's grave lilac, honeysuckle and roses. 590 00:40:40,160 --> 00:40:44,600 It wasn't in Monty's nature to be demonstrative about his feelings, 591 00:40:44,600 --> 00:40:48,360 but that may well have been the saddest day of his life. 592 00:40:55,520 --> 00:40:58,040 BELL TOLLS 593 00:41:06,160 --> 00:41:10,200 Ghost Stories Of An Antiquary was published not long before 594 00:41:10,200 --> 00:41:13,960 Christmas 1904, just a few months after McBryde's death. 595 00:41:15,280 --> 00:41:19,800 The book sold sufficiently well that a second impression was issued. 596 00:41:19,800 --> 00:41:21,600 Not only his Cambridge friends, 597 00:41:21,600 --> 00:41:25,320 but the public had a taste for MR James' ghost stories. 598 00:41:28,040 --> 00:41:31,880 Inevitably, Monty was asked whether he believed in ghosts. 599 00:41:31,880 --> 00:41:34,760 He gave a somewhat evasive answer. 600 00:41:34,760 --> 00:41:37,200 "I am prepared to consider evidence 601 00:41:37,200 --> 00:41:40,840 "and accept it if it satisfies me." 602 00:41:40,840 --> 00:41:42,720 Perhaps it doesn't matter, 603 00:41:42,720 --> 00:41:45,840 because what he clearly understood was fear, and he had 604 00:41:45,840 --> 00:41:49,160 an uncanny skill for finding the exact words to express it. 605 00:41:52,480 --> 00:41:56,080 That skill is especially evident in The Treasure Of Abbot Thomas, 606 00:41:56,080 --> 00:41:57,960 the last tale in the collection. 607 00:42:04,800 --> 00:42:07,840 Drawing on Monty's expertise in stained glass, 608 00:42:07,840 --> 00:42:10,920 it tells of an antiquary who discovers a set of clues in some 609 00:42:10,920 --> 00:42:15,800 windows that led him to a trove of buried gold in a German monastery. 610 00:42:19,680 --> 00:42:23,760 Although the tale was inspired by Monty's fascination with windows, 611 00:42:23,760 --> 00:42:27,280 its climax is perhaps the most claustrophobic in all his work. 612 00:42:33,280 --> 00:42:36,320 The antiquary identifies the location of the treasure 613 00:42:36,320 --> 00:42:37,800 in the monastery's well. 614 00:42:41,040 --> 00:42:44,480 One night he descends into it to find the bag of gold. 615 00:42:45,760 --> 00:42:47,720 Or what seems like it. 616 00:42:49,360 --> 00:42:55,640 The great bag hung for a moment on the edge of the hole, 617 00:42:55,640 --> 00:42:58,840 then it slipped forward onto my chest, 618 00:42:58,840 --> 00:43:01,600 and put its arms around my neck. 619 00:43:05,000 --> 00:43:06,600 CREATURE SLURPS 620 00:43:06,600 --> 00:43:08,200 MAN SCREAMS 621 00:43:09,280 --> 00:43:13,040 I believe that I am now acquainted with the extremity of terror 622 00:43:13,040 --> 00:43:17,680 and repulsion that a man can endure without losing his mind. 623 00:43:17,680 --> 00:43:21,800 I was conscious of a most horrible smell of mould. 624 00:43:23,080 --> 00:43:27,520 Of something like a face pressed closely to my own, 625 00:43:27,520 --> 00:43:29,120 moving slowly over it. 626 00:43:30,240 --> 00:43:32,760 Of several, I don't know how many, 627 00:43:32,760 --> 00:43:36,880 arms or legs or tentacles or something clinging to my body! 628 00:43:43,240 --> 00:43:46,600 The Treasure of Abbot Thomas was among the first stories to 629 00:43:46,600 --> 00:43:49,080 kindle my own passion for the work of MR James. 630 00:43:53,000 --> 00:43:55,440 But I didn't encounter it in book form. 631 00:43:55,440 --> 00:43:58,080 Rather, it was one of a series of television versions shown 632 00:43:58,080 --> 00:44:00,440 every Christmas when I was a child. 633 00:44:01,680 --> 00:44:05,120 Monty's most chilling phrases were brought to life by 634 00:44:05,120 --> 00:44:07,160 a succession of fine actors. 635 00:44:10,560 --> 00:44:15,280 I can vividly recall the BBC's MR James adaptations of the early '70s, 636 00:44:15,280 --> 00:44:17,880 and the profound impact they had on me. 637 00:44:17,880 --> 00:44:20,120 Robert Hardy's desperate exhortation, 638 00:44:20,120 --> 00:44:21,920 "I must be firm," 639 00:44:21,920 --> 00:44:24,280 in The Stalls Of Barchester. 640 00:44:24,280 --> 00:44:27,200 Michael Bryant's chillingly logical response 641 00:44:27,200 --> 00:44:29,080 to The Treasure Of Abbot Thomas, 642 00:44:29,080 --> 00:44:32,560 "It is a thing of slime. Slime and darkness." 643 00:44:33,840 --> 00:44:35,960 And perhaps most memorable of all, 644 00:44:35,960 --> 00:44:39,040 Peter Vaughan in A Warning To The Curious. 645 00:44:39,040 --> 00:44:40,440 When asked what he will do 646 00:44:40,440 --> 00:44:44,240 with his recently rediscovered crown of East Anglia, he simply says... 647 00:44:47,280 --> 00:44:48,680 I'm going to put it back. 648 00:44:50,640 --> 00:44:54,400 I beg your pardon? I'm going to put it back, back in the ground. 649 00:44:54,400 --> 00:44:56,120 Everyone's in a hurry, hurry, hurry. 650 00:44:56,120 --> 00:44:59,440 It was my love of these dramatisations that led me to direct 651 00:44:59,440 --> 00:45:02,240 my own interpretation of an MR James story, 652 00:45:02,240 --> 00:45:03,800 The Tractate Middoth. 653 00:45:10,920 --> 00:45:14,400 TRAIN WHISTLE BLOWS 654 00:45:14,400 --> 00:45:18,040 My inspiration as a director is Lawrence Gordon Clark, 655 00:45:18,040 --> 00:45:20,360 the man behind the 1970s adaptations. 656 00:45:23,320 --> 00:45:27,680 His first rendering was The Stalls Of Barchester in 1971. 657 00:45:32,280 --> 00:45:34,080 February the 21st. 658 00:45:34,080 --> 00:45:38,960 I must be firm. 659 00:45:38,960 --> 00:45:45,560 I was so excited to get this chance, 660 00:45:45,560 --> 00:45:47,440 and erm, we were fortunate enough 661 00:45:47,440 --> 00:45:51,840 to cast Robert Hardy to play the lead, and, erm... 662 00:45:53,160 --> 00:45:57,560 He was terribly enthusiastic about it, cos he loved MR James. 663 00:45:59,080 --> 00:46:00,920 He gave a superb performance. 664 00:46:03,320 --> 00:46:05,200 BELL DINGS 665 00:46:05,200 --> 00:46:07,800 Robert Hardy's portrayal of the murderous archdeacon 666 00:46:07,800 --> 00:46:09,040 who gets his comeuppance 667 00:46:09,040 --> 00:46:13,120 was wonderfully complemented by the evocative location filming. 668 00:46:13,120 --> 00:46:15,520 FOOTSTEPS 669 00:46:24,360 --> 00:46:27,800 James has a very strong sense of place and of location. 670 00:46:27,800 --> 00:46:31,160 Were you drawing heavily on that from the written word? 671 00:46:31,160 --> 00:46:32,560 Absolutely. 672 00:46:32,560 --> 00:46:36,240 He gives you freedom to exploit and explore... 673 00:46:37,600 --> 00:46:40,360 ..English countryside, English architecture, 674 00:46:40,360 --> 00:46:45,360 in a way very few people other than Dickens actually do. 675 00:46:45,360 --> 00:46:46,800 It's a joy. 676 00:46:46,800 --> 00:46:48,720 BELL TOLLS 677 00:47:10,440 --> 00:47:15,840 And it gave one a wonderful excuse to rediscover or discover areas 678 00:47:15,840 --> 00:47:22,760 and choose places where you could best impart tension and atmosphere. 679 00:47:34,160 --> 00:47:38,240 You get into your little car and you set off with MR James 680 00:47:38,240 --> 00:47:43,480 and a dog, if you've got one, and drive off for five days, 681 00:47:43,480 --> 00:47:47,400 staying in unlikely pubs and walking and looking at places. 682 00:47:47,400 --> 00:47:51,560 And finding yourselves in increasingly Jamesian hostelries? 683 00:47:51,560 --> 00:47:55,440 Absolutely, looking nervously over your shoulders. 684 00:47:59,240 --> 00:48:02,880 I think James was the absolute master. Why do you think that is? 685 00:48:02,880 --> 00:48:06,840 What does James have that others don't? He has a great sense of evil. 686 00:48:08,440 --> 00:48:11,840 He's a great manipulator, like all great storytellers. 687 00:48:13,600 --> 00:48:16,840 To make people frightened when you want to, it's a wonderful power. 688 00:48:16,840 --> 00:48:18,800 MAN GASPS 689 00:48:18,800 --> 00:48:20,840 CLAW SCRATCHES 690 00:48:20,840 --> 00:48:23,680 BODY CLATTERS TO THE GROUND 691 00:48:23,680 --> 00:48:26,760 That's basically what we're all in this for, isn't it? 692 00:48:26,760 --> 00:48:31,400 You know, it's that wonderful ability to entertain 693 00:48:31,400 --> 00:48:33,040 and to entrance. 694 00:48:33,040 --> 00:48:34,040 James had that. 695 00:48:37,360 --> 00:48:41,200 Monty would go on to produce three more volumes' worth of stories, 696 00:48:41,200 --> 00:48:43,400 usually unveiling a new tale every year. 697 00:48:45,840 --> 00:48:49,080 And while he was now better known to the wider public as MR James, 698 00:48:49,080 --> 00:48:50,600 the ghost story writer, 699 00:48:50,600 --> 00:48:53,120 his academic duties at Cambridge remained 700 00:48:53,120 --> 00:48:55,160 the overwhelming focus of his life. 701 00:49:01,480 --> 00:49:05,240 In 1905, Monty was accorded the highest honour at King's, 702 00:49:05,240 --> 00:49:08,280 he was elected Provost, or Head of the College. 703 00:49:12,560 --> 00:49:14,880 Within a decade, he was also appointed 704 00:49:14,880 --> 00:49:17,120 Vice Chancellor of the University. 705 00:49:17,120 --> 00:49:19,760 As one of Monty's contemporaries later said, 706 00:49:19,760 --> 00:49:23,120 "It really looked like he was leading a life without a jolt." 707 00:49:25,320 --> 00:49:27,720 At least until events took a turn 708 00:49:27,720 --> 00:49:31,040 that would leave no-one in Europe untouched. 709 00:49:38,760 --> 00:49:40,200 It's difficult now for us 710 00:49:40,200 --> 00:49:43,320 to realise the great traumatic psychological effect 711 00:49:43,320 --> 00:49:48,600 of war at that time, because the late Victorian period 712 00:49:48,600 --> 00:49:52,320 before the war seemed a very mellow, golden age. 713 00:49:52,320 --> 00:49:56,880 Wonderful summers and the height of the British Empire and 714 00:49:56,880 --> 00:50:00,840 we were on top of the world and everything was fine and so on. 715 00:50:05,920 --> 00:50:09,760 And then, suddenly, four years of the leading nations in the world 716 00:50:09,760 --> 00:50:11,760 tearing themselves to pieces 717 00:50:11,760 --> 00:50:15,480 really made the watershed between eras. 718 00:50:24,280 --> 00:50:28,080 The university provided a stream of young men for the officer class, 719 00:50:28,080 --> 00:50:30,440 many of whom were known to Monty, 720 00:50:30,440 --> 00:50:33,320 and many of whom never returned from the war. 721 00:50:34,640 --> 00:50:38,320 A military hospital was even set up on the King's playing fields. 722 00:50:41,240 --> 00:50:46,800 All around him, not only the reports of young people who he'd known being killed, 723 00:50:46,800 --> 00:50:50,360 but also perhaps going daily 724 00:50:50,360 --> 00:50:53,800 and seeing some of the ghastly effects of the war 725 00:50:53,800 --> 00:50:59,280 and the gassing and shell shock, erm, had a terrible effect. 726 00:50:59,280 --> 00:51:01,920 And also the point of Cambridge was lost 727 00:51:01,920 --> 00:51:05,640 because you didn't have the teachers and you didn't have the students. 728 00:51:05,640 --> 00:51:09,400 As a Victorian, which he was, erm, 729 00:51:09,400 --> 00:51:11,520 he must have suddenly felt much older, 730 00:51:11,520 --> 00:51:14,760 must have felt that everything he knew, all the relations, 731 00:51:14,760 --> 00:51:17,840 all the symbols, all the myths, all the stories, all the friends, 732 00:51:17,840 --> 00:51:18,840 were gone. 733 00:51:21,840 --> 00:51:25,360 Monty never referred to the war directly in his ghost stories, 734 00:51:25,360 --> 00:51:29,120 but his later works betray a deepening sense of loss and despair. 735 00:51:37,880 --> 00:51:42,600 None more so than A Warning To The Curious, published in 1925. 736 00:51:43,800 --> 00:51:47,320 It begins along familiar Jamesian lines, a treasure hunter 737 00:51:47,320 --> 00:51:51,320 called Paxton uncovers a mythical Anglo-Saxon crown, 738 00:51:51,320 --> 00:51:53,480 said to be imbued with magical powers... 739 00:51:54,520 --> 00:51:56,280 ..and is pursued by its guardian. 740 00:51:59,200 --> 00:52:02,880 "What is to be done?" Paxton broke in impatiently. 741 00:52:03,880 --> 00:52:08,360 "The truth is that I've never been alone since I touched it." 742 00:52:11,120 --> 00:52:13,920 "There was always somebody, a man. 743 00:52:13,920 --> 00:52:17,320 "I always saw him with the tail of my eye on the left or the right, 744 00:52:17,320 --> 00:52:19,920 "and he was never there when I looked straight for him. 745 00:52:19,920 --> 00:52:23,520 "I think he's there, but he has some power over your eyes. 746 00:52:24,800 --> 00:52:27,320 "He won't forgive me. I can tell that." 747 00:52:32,880 --> 00:52:36,360 A Warning To The Curious feels like a kind of companion piece to 748 00:52:36,360 --> 00:52:38,960 Oh, Whistle, And I'll Come To You, My Lad. 749 00:52:38,960 --> 00:52:42,320 But the playfulness of the earlier story is nowhere evident. 750 00:52:42,320 --> 00:52:45,120 Paxton is a truly tragic character. 751 00:52:45,120 --> 00:52:47,240 We sense his vulnerability from the outset, 752 00:52:47,240 --> 00:52:50,160 and he pays very dearly for his theft. 753 00:52:50,160 --> 00:52:53,360 His death has a symbolic, ritual quality to it. 754 00:52:55,320 --> 00:52:57,360 We heard what I can only call a laugh. 755 00:52:59,080 --> 00:53:03,800 And if you can understand what I mean by a breathless... 756 00:53:03,800 --> 00:53:07,440 a lung-less laugh, then you have it. 757 00:53:09,280 --> 00:53:12,160 But I don't suppose you can. 758 00:53:12,160 --> 00:53:16,200 It came from below and swerved off into the mist. 759 00:53:18,120 --> 00:53:19,520 We bent over the wall... 760 00:53:20,880 --> 00:53:22,880 ..and there was Paxton at the bottom. 761 00:53:24,920 --> 00:53:27,920 You don't need to be told, of course, that he was dead. 762 00:53:30,480 --> 00:53:34,280 His mouth was full of sand and stones. 763 00:53:35,920 --> 00:53:39,640 And the teeth and jaw had been smashed to bits. 764 00:53:42,160 --> 00:53:44,040 I only glanced once at his face. 765 00:53:49,920 --> 00:53:53,560 A Warning To The Curious was Monty's last great ghost story. 766 00:53:53,560 --> 00:53:56,600 It was included in his final collection, 767 00:53:56,600 --> 00:53:59,040 published after his Cambridge days were over. 768 00:54:04,640 --> 00:54:08,440 In a strange way, his life had come full circle. 769 00:54:11,240 --> 00:54:13,960 In 1918, with the war still raging, 770 00:54:13,960 --> 00:54:17,800 Monty had been invited to go back to Eton as Provost of the College. 771 00:54:20,880 --> 00:54:22,680 He seized the chance 772 00:54:22,680 --> 00:54:27,080 and was installed as Provost just a few weeks before Armistice Day. 773 00:54:32,240 --> 00:54:35,600 Monty had returned to the place where he'd spent his adolescence, 774 00:54:35,600 --> 00:54:37,160 perhaps his happiest years. 775 00:54:38,480 --> 00:54:42,120 Coming back seems to have brought a similar contentment. 776 00:54:42,120 --> 00:54:44,240 Monty was popular with his pupils, 777 00:54:44,240 --> 00:54:46,680 largely thanks to his keen sense of humour. 778 00:54:50,760 --> 00:54:52,760 This was something that sustained him, 779 00:54:52,760 --> 00:54:55,080 even in the last months of his life, 780 00:54:55,080 --> 00:54:57,120 when his health was failing badly. 781 00:55:00,560 --> 00:55:02,480 At the end, 782 00:55:02,480 --> 00:55:07,240 he had cancer, he knew he had cancer. 783 00:55:07,240 --> 00:55:14,160 Er, he knew it was terminal unless he had an operation. 784 00:55:14,160 --> 00:55:17,000 And he decided not to have an operation. 785 00:55:19,880 --> 00:55:23,760 As a pupil at Eton in the 1930s, Adrian Carey regularly 786 00:55:23,760 --> 00:55:27,280 visited the ailing Monty, a long-time friend of his father. 787 00:55:30,280 --> 00:55:31,760 And I would find him in bed, 788 00:55:31,760 --> 00:55:35,960 in a dressing gown with the bedclothes over it, 789 00:55:35,960 --> 00:55:37,880 and I used to wonder, 790 00:55:37,880 --> 00:55:39,800 "Surely you're getting pretty hot," 791 00:55:39,800 --> 00:55:44,920 but I think old people don't get hot in the same way! 792 00:55:44,920 --> 00:55:49,680 And he would talk away, spilling tea down the dressing gown, 793 00:55:49,680 --> 00:55:54,640 there was always a cup of tea there. It must have been nearly cold. 794 00:55:54,640 --> 00:55:58,040 But he would still drink a little and then prattle away. 795 00:55:59,520 --> 00:56:02,800 He would turn to Dickens or PG Wodehouse, 796 00:56:02,800 --> 00:56:06,120 which were among his favourite reading. 797 00:56:06,120 --> 00:56:09,880 He loved the moment when Bertie Wooster, 798 00:56:09,880 --> 00:56:12,760 having been through some scrape or other, 799 00:56:12,760 --> 00:56:17,520 appears like a tramp and approaches... 800 00:56:17,520 --> 00:56:20,600 some respectable person who says to him, 801 00:56:20,600 --> 00:56:24,240 "Sad piece of human wreckage though you look, 802 00:56:24,240 --> 00:56:26,640 "you speak like an educated man." 803 00:56:27,760 --> 00:56:33,480 And Monty applied this to himself in his dressing gown in bed... 804 00:56:33,480 --> 00:56:38,760 As he lay there. ..in a feeble state. But, er, he was a lovely man. 805 00:56:41,360 --> 00:56:44,840 Montague Rhodes James died in the Provost's Lodge at Eton 806 00:56:44,840 --> 00:56:50,240 at three o'clock in the afternoon on the 12th of June 1936, aged 73. 807 00:56:51,400 --> 00:56:53,760 BELL TOLLS 808 00:56:59,960 --> 00:57:01,960 CHATTER 809 00:57:05,680 --> 00:57:10,680 'It's 120 years since Monty unveiled his first two ghostly tales. 810 00:57:10,680 --> 00:57:15,040 'He could never have imagined just how long his work would endure.' 811 00:57:16,960 --> 00:57:19,520 It was a hand! 812 00:57:19,520 --> 00:57:22,520 While Monty can be seen as very much a Victorian figure, 813 00:57:22,520 --> 00:57:25,720 something about his personality resonates through the ages, 814 00:57:25,720 --> 00:57:29,720 and I think chimes with anyone who loves horror and fantastic fiction. 815 00:57:32,120 --> 00:57:35,840 His obsessive tendencies, interest in marginalia, and, above all, 816 00:57:35,840 --> 00:57:39,840 his enthusiasm, mark him out as what we would perhaps call "a fan." 817 00:57:42,080 --> 00:57:45,360 In his writing, his wry, scholarly eye and reticence 818 00:57:45,360 --> 00:57:47,280 are immensely appealing. 819 00:57:47,280 --> 00:57:50,280 But equally attractive is his desire to go for the jugular 820 00:57:50,280 --> 00:57:54,640 when necessary, to show the horror lurking beneath the tattered shroud. 821 00:57:59,520 --> 00:58:03,400 But it's important to remember that Monty intended his ghost stories 822 00:58:03,400 --> 00:58:06,560 as entertainment, a pleasing terror. 823 00:58:06,560 --> 00:58:09,680 And that's what the work of this immensely lovable, 824 00:58:09,680 --> 00:58:12,040 talented man will continue to be.