1 00:00:05,000 --> 00:00:07,880 Cambridge, October 1893. 2 00:00:09,400 --> 00:00:11,280 Halloween is approaching 3 00:00:11,280 --> 00:00:14,920 and literary and horror history is about to be made. 4 00:00:18,560 --> 00:00:22,560 Welcome to the Chitchat Society, where some of the brightest 5 00:00:22,560 --> 00:00:25,720 and best connected young men in the country gather to entertain 6 00:00:25,720 --> 00:00:29,920 each other with witty conversation and the reading of erudite papers. 7 00:00:34,080 --> 00:00:39,760 Tonight, our host is MR James, a fellow and Dean of King's College. 8 00:00:39,760 --> 00:00:43,480 But word has it he's got something rather unusual planned. 9 00:00:49,360 --> 00:00:52,440 Do the audience have any inkling that they are present at arguably 10 00:00:52,440 --> 00:00:56,040 the most important event in the history of the English ghost story? 11 00:00:56,040 --> 00:00:59,280 The moment when Monty James, its greatest master, 12 00:00:59,280 --> 00:01:01,920 unveils his first two tales of terror. 13 00:01:05,320 --> 00:01:12,280 The boy, a thin shape, with black hair and ragged clothing, 14 00:01:12,280 --> 00:01:14,280 raised his arms in the air. 15 00:01:15,560 --> 00:01:18,800 The moon shone upon his almost transparent hands 16 00:01:18,800 --> 00:01:22,200 and Stephen saw that the nails were fearfully long 17 00:01:22,200 --> 00:01:26,680 and that the moonlight shone right through them, and as he thus 18 00:01:26,680 --> 00:01:32,040 stood with his arms raised, he disclosed a terrifying spectacle. 19 00:01:33,320 --> 00:01:39,680 On the left side of his chest, there opened a black and gaping rent. 20 00:01:39,680 --> 00:01:42,120 SCREAMING 21 00:01:43,960 --> 00:01:47,600 Over the coming years, the mind of Montague Rhodes James would 22 00:01:47,600 --> 00:01:50,680 spawn more than 30 classic stories of the supernatural. 23 00:01:54,680 --> 00:01:58,480 Nightmarish forces that pursue their unsuspecting victims. 24 00:01:58,480 --> 00:02:01,040 SCREAMING 25 00:02:01,040 --> 00:02:03,640 Monstrous guardians with ancient buildings. 26 00:02:03,640 --> 00:02:05,680 EVIL LAUGHTER 27 00:02:05,680 --> 00:02:08,760 Horrors that lurk in the idyllic English countryside. 28 00:02:10,760 --> 00:02:14,640 Violent retribution and black magic. 29 00:02:16,800 --> 00:02:19,720 Yet all these horrors were conjured up by a man who seemed 30 00:02:19,720 --> 00:02:24,160 the quintessentially respectable Victorian, a leading scholar, 31 00:02:24,160 --> 00:02:26,400 a devout Anglican. 32 00:02:26,400 --> 00:02:30,480 How did MR James come to create such an extraordinary body of work? 33 00:02:35,440 --> 00:02:38,200 I'm going to find out the truth behind this contradiction 34 00:02:38,200 --> 00:02:41,640 and see how the strange world of MR James' childhood, 35 00:02:41,640 --> 00:02:45,000 his precocious imagination, his unrivalled knowledge 36 00:02:45,000 --> 00:02:46,680 of morbid legends, 37 00:02:46,680 --> 00:02:50,800 and his repressed sexuality all came together to produce the finest 38 00:02:50,800 --> 00:02:54,520 and most frightening ghost stories in the English language. 39 00:03:08,240 --> 00:03:12,480 To get a feel for who MR James was, I am following in his footsteps... 40 00:03:12,480 --> 00:03:14,480 or rather, his cycling route. 41 00:03:18,040 --> 00:03:22,240 Monty's idea of a perfect summer's day was riding through France, 42 00:03:22,240 --> 00:03:25,720 finding a new church or cathedral to explore. 43 00:03:25,720 --> 00:03:28,560 Such were the pleasures of a scholarly English bachelor 44 00:03:28,560 --> 00:03:30,680 in the late 19th century. 45 00:03:35,720 --> 00:03:38,720 And it was one of these excursions that brought Monty here, to the 46 00:03:38,720 --> 00:03:41,040 foothills of the French Pyrenees. 47 00:03:54,000 --> 00:03:56,720 The Cathedral of Saint-Bertrand-de-Comminges 48 00:03:56,720 --> 00:03:59,320 inspired Monty's first published ghost story. 49 00:04:00,800 --> 00:04:03,560 It must be one of the few tales of the supernatural that could 50 00:04:03,560 --> 00:04:05,440 double up as a tourist guidebook. 51 00:04:10,160 --> 00:04:14,840 Previous ghost story writers tended to favour atmosphere over detail... 52 00:04:16,320 --> 00:04:19,440 ..but Monty carefully draws the reader's attention to the 53 00:04:19,440 --> 00:04:22,200 stained-glass, 54 00:04:22,200 --> 00:04:24,440 choir stalls, 55 00:04:24,440 --> 00:04:27,680 and the dusty stuffed crocodile that hangs over the font. 56 00:04:34,200 --> 00:04:38,040 Monty had been fascinated by church architecture since childhood, 57 00:04:38,040 --> 00:04:41,120 and you can see why he would be taken with this place. 58 00:04:41,120 --> 00:04:45,160 There is also an atmosphere of heavy superstition here that's quite 59 00:04:45,160 --> 00:04:48,400 different to the strict Anglicanism with which he was raised. 60 00:04:53,240 --> 00:04:56,160 Just as Monty's emphasis on believable settings was 61 00:04:56,160 --> 00:05:00,800 unprecedented, the central figure of his story was a new, yet easily 62 00:05:00,800 --> 00:05:02,920 recognisable, kind of protagonist. 63 00:05:05,080 --> 00:05:09,360 The main character, Denniston, is not dissimilar to Monty himself, 64 00:05:09,360 --> 00:05:13,400 and other figures in the stories are cut from similar cloth. 65 00:05:13,400 --> 00:05:17,040 Fussy, bachelor academics with an interest in sacred buildings, 66 00:05:17,040 --> 00:05:22,120 medieval manuscripts, ancient artefacts and above all, an abiding 67 00:05:22,120 --> 00:05:25,320 curiosity that rather gets the better of them... 68 00:05:25,320 --> 00:05:27,200 with grave consequences. 69 00:05:34,160 --> 00:05:37,080 As Denniston wanders round the empty cathedral, 70 00:05:37,080 --> 00:05:41,760 he gets a strange sense that someone, something is watching. 71 00:05:45,400 --> 00:05:48,040 And this feeling of unease increases when Denniston 72 00:05:48,040 --> 00:05:52,360 comes across a book of pages cut out from old religious manuscripts. 73 00:05:52,360 --> 00:05:54,960 Canon Alberic's Scrapbook. 74 00:05:54,960 --> 00:05:59,080 His attention is caught by one illustration in particular. 75 00:05:59,080 --> 00:06:01,720 A demon from the Testament of King Solomon. 76 00:06:06,200 --> 00:06:10,800 The hands were of a dusky pallor, covered, like the body, 77 00:06:10,800 --> 00:06:14,920 with long, coarse hairs, and hideously taloned. 78 00:06:14,920 --> 00:06:19,520 The eyes, touched with burning yellow, had intensely black pupils. 79 00:06:19,520 --> 00:06:22,240 If you can imagine one of the awful bird-catching 80 00:06:22,240 --> 00:06:23,640 spiders of South America 81 00:06:23,640 --> 00:06:26,440 translated into human form 82 00:06:26,440 --> 00:06:30,600 and endowed with an intelligence just less than human 83 00:06:30,600 --> 00:06:33,400 then you would perhaps have some faint conception 84 00:06:33,400 --> 00:06:38,640 of the terror that is inspired by this appalling effigy. 85 00:06:40,520 --> 00:06:43,640 Monty's account of the picture is the first genuinely chilling 86 00:06:43,640 --> 00:06:45,400 moment in his work. 87 00:06:45,400 --> 00:06:48,480 His description of the demon would certainly discomfort anyone 88 00:06:48,480 --> 00:06:53,560 with a fear of spiders. Monty was a notorious arachnophobe. 89 00:06:53,560 --> 00:06:56,160 But it's a line at the end of the passage that continues to 90 00:06:56,160 --> 00:06:58,200 haunt my memory. 91 00:06:58,200 --> 00:07:00,800 One remark is universally made by those to whom 92 00:07:00,800 --> 00:07:03,080 I have shown the picture. 93 00:07:03,080 --> 00:07:04,840 It was drawn from the life. 94 00:07:07,840 --> 00:07:13,880 It was drawn from the life. Those few, simple words like a punch line, 95 00:07:13,880 --> 00:07:18,000 opening up a terrifying possibility that a mythical demon 96 00:07:18,000 --> 00:07:19,400 could actually exist. 97 00:07:22,960 --> 00:07:25,400 As the unfortunate Denniston discovers, 98 00:07:25,400 --> 00:07:28,440 when he retires to his lodgings to pore over the scrapbook. 99 00:07:32,240 --> 00:07:35,960 His attention was caught by an object lying on a red cloth 100 00:07:35,960 --> 00:07:38,200 just by his left elbow. 101 00:07:38,200 --> 00:07:41,880 A rat. No, it is too black. 102 00:07:41,880 --> 00:07:43,920 A large spider. 103 00:07:43,920 --> 00:07:45,320 Oh, I trust to goodness not. 104 00:07:46,560 --> 00:07:48,760 Good God. 105 00:07:48,760 --> 00:07:50,800 Oh, no. 106 00:07:50,800 --> 00:07:52,600 It was a hand. 107 00:07:54,040 --> 00:07:55,680 Like the hand in the picture. 108 00:07:56,680 --> 00:07:58,960 He flew out of his chair, 109 00:07:58,960 --> 00:08:02,760 deadly inconceivable terror clutching at his heart. 110 00:08:02,760 --> 00:08:06,320 The shape, whose left hand rested on the table, was rising to 111 00:08:06,320 --> 00:08:08,400 a standing posture behind his seat, 112 00:08:08,400 --> 00:08:11,000 its right hand crooked over his scalp. 113 00:08:14,960 --> 00:08:17,800 What's remarkable, perhaps even uncanny, 114 00:08:17,800 --> 00:08:22,280 about Canon Alberic's Scrapbook is just how fully formed it is. 115 00:08:22,280 --> 00:08:25,400 The pacing, the building of atmosphere and menace, 116 00:08:25,400 --> 00:08:29,560 are masterly for a first story. Not a word seems out of place. 117 00:08:30,800 --> 00:08:35,080 And Monty's conversational tone only adds to the feeling of veracity. 118 00:08:39,760 --> 00:08:43,240 Canon Alberic's Scrapbook may have been inspired by MR James's 119 00:08:43,240 --> 00:08:47,280 travels in France but it drew on a lifetime of experience. 120 00:08:49,520 --> 00:08:52,800 The roots of Monty's stories lie in his childhood in England 121 00:08:52,800 --> 00:08:56,920 and his fascination with history and the supernatural was shaped. 122 00:08:59,920 --> 00:09:04,760 Montague Rhodes James was born in 1862 and when he was three, 123 00:09:04,760 --> 00:09:07,400 his family moved to Great Livermere in Suffolk. 124 00:09:12,400 --> 00:09:16,400 There is a mysterious remote atmosphere here. 125 00:09:16,400 --> 00:09:18,840 And even in the 19th century it must have felt a place 126 00:09:18,840 --> 00:09:20,600 apart from the rest of England. 127 00:09:22,760 --> 00:09:25,880 The family came here when Monty's father, Herbert James, 128 00:09:25,880 --> 00:09:28,320 was appointed as the local Anglican priest. 129 00:09:31,360 --> 00:09:35,200 What kind of a congregation and a parish did Herbert James inherit? 130 00:09:35,200 --> 00:09:39,440 He encountered quite a diverse group of people. 131 00:09:39,440 --> 00:09:42,400 People who were inherently superstitious 132 00:09:42,400 --> 00:09:46,560 and Herbert wrote about his concern at the end of the 19th century. 133 00:09:46,560 --> 00:09:49,200 With all the technological innovations there have been, 134 00:09:49,200 --> 00:09:52,680 we've still got people who seek out the wise man and woman from 135 00:09:52,680 --> 00:09:56,520 the village and prefer this esoteric superstition that he called it. 136 00:09:56,520 --> 00:09:58,800 So, it's a real religion. 137 00:09:58,800 --> 00:10:02,360 It was a rural, agricultural community 138 00:10:02,360 --> 00:10:04,880 and most of the people would be working on the land 139 00:10:04,880 --> 00:10:08,520 here at the time, and the land involved both farmland, which 140 00:10:08,520 --> 00:10:12,680 would have been tilled by horses, which is effectively behind you. 141 00:10:12,680 --> 00:10:16,240 And behind me there would have been the land we know as the Brecks, 142 00:10:16,240 --> 00:10:19,680 the Breckland, which is more like open moorland where they 143 00:10:19,680 --> 00:10:23,080 would have kept rabbits and sheep. 144 00:10:23,080 --> 00:10:26,600 In fact, the Breckland, as we know it today, is the nearest thing England 145 00:10:26,600 --> 00:10:31,480 has to a desert, so we are living on the margins and so, wherever you have 146 00:10:31,480 --> 00:10:36,760 got a margin between two types of culture and two types of landscape, 147 00:10:36,760 --> 00:10:40,400 you often get a deeper awareness of the supernatural and the spiritual. 148 00:10:46,720 --> 00:10:48,840 Monty would later draw on the area's history 149 00:10:48,840 --> 00:10:51,960 and superstitions in his writing. 150 00:10:51,960 --> 00:10:54,600 But it is easy to imagine how the powerful atmosphere here might 151 00:10:54,600 --> 00:10:56,640 have fed his boyhood imagination. 152 00:10:58,320 --> 00:11:01,760 Especially when combined with the piety of religious devotion 153 00:11:01,760 --> 00:11:05,280 that characterised family life at the Great Livermere Rectory. 154 00:11:17,600 --> 00:11:21,240 The James household was a devout one but it was also close 155 00:11:21,240 --> 00:11:23,800 and loving, and remained so. 156 00:11:23,800 --> 00:11:28,200 Monty's letters throughout his life are open and affectionate. 157 00:11:28,200 --> 00:11:31,600 All that religion, though, does seem to have filled Monty's childhood 158 00:11:31,600 --> 00:11:34,640 imagination with some quite extraordinary visions. 159 00:11:39,120 --> 00:11:41,920 For a time, young Monty was preoccupied with 160 00:11:41,920 --> 00:11:46,240 thoughts of fiery apocalypses and days of judgment. 161 00:11:46,240 --> 00:11:50,080 And although Monty never claimed his tales were inspired by personal 162 00:11:50,080 --> 00:11:52,320 experiences of the supernatural, 163 00:11:52,320 --> 00:11:56,160 a short work published after his death suggested that on one occasion 164 00:11:56,160 --> 00:11:59,720 he may have glimpsed a frightening figure in the rectory grounds. 165 00:12:04,920 --> 00:12:07,800 A face was looking my way. 166 00:12:07,800 --> 00:12:11,000 Malevolent, I thought, and think it was. 167 00:12:11,000 --> 00:12:14,680 And from just above the eyes the white border of a linen drapery hung 168 00:12:14,680 --> 00:12:17,480 down from the brows. 169 00:12:17,480 --> 00:12:21,560 I fled, but at what seemed like a safe distance within my own 170 00:12:21,560 --> 00:12:24,400 precincts, I could not but halt and look back. 171 00:12:25,880 --> 00:12:27,960 There was no white thing 172 00:12:27,960 --> 00:12:30,280 framed in the hole in the gate... 173 00:12:32,640 --> 00:12:38,040 ..but there was a draped form... shambling off through the trees. 174 00:12:45,560 --> 00:12:47,760 Strange apparitions apart, 175 00:12:47,760 --> 00:12:50,880 Monty's childhood appears to have been a very happy one. 176 00:12:52,640 --> 00:12:55,320 He began his education at home, learning Latin 177 00:12:55,320 --> 00:12:58,240 and Greek from his father and French from his mother. 178 00:12:59,480 --> 00:13:03,240 His parents encouraged a lifelong love of learning in him, 179 00:13:03,240 --> 00:13:06,680 but eventually, his schooling had to continue elsewhere. 180 00:13:08,440 --> 00:13:11,760 Monty seems to have been someone with a keen sense of place, 181 00:13:11,760 --> 00:13:15,000 and this would be a theme in both his work and life. 182 00:13:15,000 --> 00:13:18,680 He would become deeply attached to a small number of locations 183 00:13:18,680 --> 00:13:21,640 so when he had to leave Great Livermere at the age of 11 to go to 184 00:13:21,640 --> 00:13:24,400 prep school in London, the wrench was profound. 185 00:13:26,000 --> 00:13:29,600 It's perhaps no coincidence that the next story Monty published, 186 00:13:29,600 --> 00:13:33,880 after Canon Alberic, centres on an 11-year-old orphan boy. 187 00:13:39,080 --> 00:13:41,520 Lost Hearts tells of Stephen, 188 00:13:41,520 --> 00:13:44,680 sent to live at the home of his sinister, much older cousin. 189 00:13:47,880 --> 00:13:51,600 The cousin turns out to be an alchemist, seeking immortality 190 00:13:51,600 --> 00:13:55,000 and the house is haunted by the spectres of two children 191 00:13:55,000 --> 00:13:58,480 he has murdered in the course of his experiments. 192 00:13:58,480 --> 00:14:02,320 Quick or we will be late. Quick, dear boy. 193 00:14:02,320 --> 00:14:06,360 Dear boy, we have so little time, the potent hour has come! 194 00:14:08,280 --> 00:14:11,200 It's one of Monty's grimmest stories. 195 00:14:11,200 --> 00:14:13,720 The lasting impression is of isolation 196 00:14:13,720 --> 00:14:15,720 and the vulnerability of children. 197 00:14:19,880 --> 00:14:22,600 Munificent engine, 198 00:14:22,600 --> 00:14:24,080 soul bread, 199 00:14:24,080 --> 00:14:27,520 strong rhythm of eternity. 200 00:14:27,520 --> 00:14:29,760 But with its occult references, 201 00:14:29,760 --> 00:14:33,600 Lost Hearts is also suffused with arcane knowledge... 202 00:14:33,600 --> 00:14:34,800 Generous boy. 203 00:14:34,800 --> 00:14:38,080 ..something which would define Monty's later childhood. 204 00:14:38,080 --> 00:14:40,680 Here lies your fortune. 205 00:14:40,680 --> 00:14:42,920 Ordained by the heavens, 206 00:14:42,920 --> 00:14:44,960 sanctioned by the ancients. 207 00:14:47,440 --> 00:14:52,280 Your innocent heart must be the beating cornerstone to the gate. 208 00:14:52,280 --> 00:14:54,720 That unspeakable Gateway 209 00:14:54,720 --> 00:14:57,320 by which I will enter into it. 210 00:14:57,320 --> 00:14:58,400 SCREAMING 211 00:15:03,360 --> 00:15:07,520 When he was 14, Monty moved again, to England's premier school, 212 00:15:07,520 --> 00:15:08,720 Eton College. 213 00:15:10,840 --> 00:15:15,200 By now, something about him seemed older than his years. 214 00:15:15,200 --> 00:15:19,320 Perhaps to take his mind off being away from home, Monty had developed 215 00:15:19,320 --> 00:15:24,360 a precocious fascination with the old, the horrific and the obscure. 216 00:15:24,360 --> 00:15:27,840 Particularly medieval manuscripts, Apocrypha 217 00:15:27,840 --> 00:15:30,480 and the outer reaches of religious tradition. 218 00:15:33,200 --> 00:15:38,840 When I left Eton, it was with plenty of hobbies in the bookish line. 219 00:15:38,840 --> 00:15:42,640 I collected martyrdoms of Saints, the more atrocious the better, 220 00:15:42,640 --> 00:15:44,080 and biblical legends. 221 00:15:44,080 --> 00:15:47,360 Nothing could be more inspiriting than to discover 222 00:15:47,360 --> 00:15:51,000 that St Livinus had had his tongue cut out and was beheaded. 223 00:15:57,680 --> 00:16:01,400 With his morbid interests, Monty sounds remarkably like me at 224 00:16:01,400 --> 00:16:05,600 that age, though my teenage obsession was with horror films 225 00:16:05,600 --> 00:16:07,000 and stories. 226 00:16:10,720 --> 00:16:14,200 Monty and his fellow pupils would often pass the long evenings 227 00:16:14,200 --> 00:16:17,280 enjoying the works of Charles Dickens who had done much 228 00:16:17,280 --> 00:16:21,040 to popularise supernatural tales by giving them contemporary 229 00:16:21,040 --> 00:16:22,440 Victorian settings. 230 00:16:24,520 --> 00:16:27,960 And Monty seems to have taken an active interest in this genre. 231 00:16:31,600 --> 00:16:34,440 In a letter written in his third year at Eton, Monty 232 00:16:34,440 --> 00:16:39,160 speaks of engaging in a dark seance, a telling of ghost stories 233 00:16:39,160 --> 00:16:42,800 in which capacity I am rather popular just now. 234 00:16:42,800 --> 00:16:46,360 He doesn't say whether these tales were his own or those of other 235 00:16:46,360 --> 00:16:49,720 writers, but he clearly had a gift for beguiling an audience. 236 00:16:52,360 --> 00:16:55,160 Monty was soon exploring his fascination with ghost stories 237 00:16:55,160 --> 00:16:56,560 in written form. 238 00:17:01,080 --> 00:17:04,680 Eton's library holds his first printed work on the subject 239 00:17:04,680 --> 00:17:09,000 and his understanding of the story's fundamental appeal is very evident. 240 00:17:18,120 --> 00:17:21,920 This is The Eton Rambler, a publication set up by Monty 241 00:17:21,920 --> 00:17:24,600 and a few friends when he was in the sixth form. 242 00:17:24,600 --> 00:17:28,880 The second issue features a short essay by Monty on the subject 243 00:17:28,880 --> 00:17:30,520 of ghost stories. 244 00:17:30,520 --> 00:17:33,760 But the fourth number is of particular interest because it 245 00:17:33,760 --> 00:17:37,240 contains Monty's first real attempt at writing a ghost story. 246 00:17:38,320 --> 00:17:40,880 It's the story of a man who decides to spend a summer night 247 00:17:40,880 --> 00:17:43,800 in the northern aspect of a churchyard. 248 00:17:43,800 --> 00:17:44,920 Never a good idea. 249 00:17:46,760 --> 00:17:49,000 He laid himself down under a buttress on the north side 250 00:17:49,000 --> 00:17:50,760 of the building. 251 00:17:50,760 --> 00:17:52,720 And in blissful ignorance of the fact that he was 252 00:17:52,720 --> 00:17:55,920 surrounded by the graves of murderers and suicides, 253 00:17:55,920 --> 00:17:57,120 he fell asleep. 254 00:17:57,120 --> 00:18:00,200 After a while, he woke with a dim and unpleasant consciousness 255 00:18:00,200 --> 00:18:02,800 that something was pulling at his clothes. 256 00:18:02,800 --> 00:18:06,000 Nothing less than two glassy eyes belonging to a form 257 00:18:06,000 --> 00:18:09,960 that crouched there in the long grass. 258 00:18:09,960 --> 00:18:13,000 It was covered with what looked like a stained and tattered shroud, 259 00:18:13,000 --> 00:18:16,440 and he could dimly discern its long skinny, clawed hands, 260 00:18:16,440 --> 00:18:19,080 eager, as it seemed, to grasp something. 261 00:18:23,040 --> 00:18:26,840 So already, even in these very early attempts, 262 00:18:26,840 --> 00:18:31,360 we can recognise the familiar features of his ghost story writing. 263 00:18:31,360 --> 00:18:36,520 And the actual representation of the demonic presence is familiar 264 00:18:36,520 --> 00:18:40,440 already from Canon Alberic's Scrapbook - with glassy eyes, 265 00:18:40,440 --> 00:18:44,480 the clawed hands tearing at the clothes, the crouched form 266 00:18:44,480 --> 00:18:47,480 and some sort of stained and tattered shroud. 267 00:18:54,280 --> 00:18:56,440 In contrast to his time at prep school, 268 00:18:56,440 --> 00:19:00,480 Monty's years at Eton would be among the happiest of his life. 269 00:19:00,480 --> 00:19:04,560 He became a socially confident and academically accomplished young man. 270 00:19:06,120 --> 00:19:08,680 In true English public school fashion, 271 00:19:08,680 --> 00:19:12,160 he also learned to wear his intelligence and learning lightly. 272 00:19:18,200 --> 00:19:22,000 In 1882, Monty left Eton for King's College, Cambridge. 273 00:19:26,720 --> 00:19:30,120 University offered him an unparalleled opportunity to 274 00:19:30,120 --> 00:19:33,640 pursue his passions and enthusiasms on a bigger canvas. 275 00:19:35,640 --> 00:19:38,080 Monty seized it with both hands. 276 00:19:41,160 --> 00:19:45,000 As an undergraduate at King's, Monty managed to lead a double life. 277 00:19:45,000 --> 00:19:47,040 He excelled academically, 278 00:19:47,040 --> 00:19:51,680 transforming himself from a budding medievalist into a genuine expert. 279 00:19:51,680 --> 00:19:55,880 Yet he also became a leading light in the college's social scene. 280 00:19:55,880 --> 00:19:59,440 No-one knew how we found time to do it all but both 281 00:19:59,440 --> 00:20:02,080 sides of his life would shape his ghost stories. 282 00:20:08,160 --> 00:20:09,960 When it came to his studies, 283 00:20:09,960 --> 00:20:14,040 Monty spent much of his time at the University Museum, the Fitzwilliam. 284 00:20:18,240 --> 00:20:22,360 The museum boasted a wide range of antiquities but what drew 285 00:20:22,360 --> 00:20:26,640 Monty here was its extensive library of medieval manuscripts. 286 00:20:30,640 --> 00:20:33,320 And he didn't come just to read the manuscripts. 287 00:20:33,320 --> 00:20:38,000 Monty had an unprecedented ambition - to catalogue the collection. 288 00:20:39,840 --> 00:20:42,600 It was here at the Fitzwilliam that Monty embarked on what 289 00:20:42,600 --> 00:20:45,360 he truly regarded as his life's work. 290 00:20:45,360 --> 00:20:48,040 Compared to this, he saw his ghost stories as just an 291 00:20:48,040 --> 00:20:49,800 entertaining sideline. 292 00:20:49,800 --> 00:20:53,120 What Monty accomplished here was ground-breaking and has ensured 293 00:20:53,120 --> 00:20:57,720 his lasting reputation in the field of medieval scholarship. 294 00:20:57,720 --> 00:21:00,960 And remarkably, he did much of it as an undergraduate. 295 00:21:07,200 --> 00:21:09,280 The Fitzwilliam's collection of manuscripts 296 00:21:09,280 --> 00:21:13,360 ranged across several centuries before the invention of printing. 297 00:21:15,400 --> 00:21:18,840 Written, illustrated and bound entirely by hand, 298 00:21:18,840 --> 00:21:21,240 many were biblical and devotional texts. 299 00:21:25,960 --> 00:21:30,760 Information about their provenance was often scanty and incomplete. 300 00:21:30,760 --> 00:21:33,320 By studying and comparing the manuscripts, 301 00:21:33,320 --> 00:21:36,200 Monty sought to pin down their origins and authorship. 302 00:21:37,960 --> 00:21:41,800 It was an opportunity to both draw on and expand his detailed 303 00:21:41,800 --> 00:21:44,080 knowledge of the medieval period. 304 00:21:45,840 --> 00:21:47,680 How would you say Monty's approach was 305 00:21:47,680 --> 00:21:50,920 different in terms of examining these manuscripts? 306 00:21:50,920 --> 00:21:52,440 Up to that point, 307 00:21:52,440 --> 00:21:57,720 manuscript research was primarily driven by the importance of the text. 308 00:21:57,720 --> 00:22:01,920 But he was one of the very first people to pay consistent 309 00:22:01,920 --> 00:22:06,160 and considerable attention to the pictures, the illuminations. 310 00:22:08,040 --> 00:22:10,840 Monty's catalogue of the Fitzwilliam's manuscripts was 311 00:22:10,840 --> 00:22:15,920 published in 1895. He would go on to document many 312 00:22:15,920 --> 00:22:18,600 more of the country's great collections including 313 00:22:18,600 --> 00:22:21,400 those at Lambeth Palace and Westminster Abbey. 314 00:22:23,600 --> 00:22:28,480 Well, it is truly staggering and more or less unrivalled to this day, 315 00:22:28,480 --> 00:22:32,760 the sheer scale of his achievement is unmatched. 316 00:22:32,760 --> 00:22:36,200 Can we take a look at some of the manuscripts? Of course. 317 00:22:37,280 --> 00:22:41,560 This one, which is a Mirror of Sinners, 318 00:22:41,560 --> 00:22:47,960 so a highly moralising poem on what awaits you after death, 319 00:22:47,960 --> 00:22:52,920 especially if you have been a self-indulgent, lustful, 320 00:22:52,920 --> 00:22:55,320 and avaricious sinner. 321 00:22:55,320 --> 00:22:57,360 That is me doomed! 322 00:22:58,360 --> 00:23:03,720 James commented on the images in this manuscript as a very fine 323 00:23:03,720 --> 00:23:08,920 execution but most terrifying and repulsive, 324 00:23:08,920 --> 00:23:10,880 and they truly are. 325 00:23:12,400 --> 00:23:14,960 You can imagine that he had these sort of things 326 00:23:14,960 --> 00:23:17,320 in mind for his demons. Oh, easily. 327 00:23:17,320 --> 00:23:22,160 When there is such a recurrence of hair, and red eyes or yellow eyes, 328 00:23:22,160 --> 00:23:24,360 and small teeth and things. 329 00:23:24,360 --> 00:23:26,400 And the scaly nature. 330 00:23:26,400 --> 00:23:30,000 Yes, you can imagine that our Victorian antiquaries 331 00:23:30,000 --> 00:23:32,280 put their hand down and touched one of these. 332 00:23:32,280 --> 00:23:33,440 Yes. 333 00:23:33,440 --> 00:23:36,960 The one that terrifies me most is actually this one. 334 00:23:36,960 --> 00:23:42,240 Cos you see the corpse. Oh, yes. And the worms. Worms, yes. 335 00:23:43,880 --> 00:23:47,520 I suppose it really is his unique contribution to the ghost 336 00:23:47,520 --> 00:23:52,160 story form, is that nobody else had this incredible 337 00:23:52,160 --> 00:23:54,760 reservoir of material to draw on. 338 00:23:54,760 --> 00:23:58,280 You get the feeling from his notebooks alone that all these 339 00:23:58,280 --> 00:24:00,160 things came together for him, 340 00:24:00,160 --> 00:24:02,760 and this cross-fertilisation, of course, 341 00:24:02,760 --> 00:24:04,440 helped with the ghost story writing. 342 00:24:04,440 --> 00:24:09,240 The historically accurate detail that creates 343 00:24:09,240 --> 00:24:12,920 the background for the supernatural in the ghost stories 344 00:24:12,920 --> 00:24:16,800 derives from this very wide-reaching research 345 00:24:16,800 --> 00:24:19,720 and absolutely thorough understanding of history. 346 00:24:24,920 --> 00:24:27,840 Alongside cataloguing the Fitzwilliam collection, 347 00:24:27,840 --> 00:24:31,800 Monty became a Fellow of Kings and then Dean of the College, 348 00:24:31,800 --> 00:24:33,640 all by the time he was 28. 349 00:24:36,240 --> 00:24:39,920 The young academic seemed more than happy to remain in the cloistered, 350 00:24:39,920 --> 00:24:43,000 overwhelmingly male world of university. 351 00:24:49,520 --> 00:24:53,760 When he wasn't working, his main diversion was pure socialising 352 00:24:53,760 --> 00:24:56,400 and Cambridge clubs like the Chitchat Society 353 00:24:56,400 --> 00:24:57,960 provided the ideal forum. 354 00:25:00,880 --> 00:25:04,680 'Cambridge and Oxford are great places for societies 355 00:25:04,680 --> 00:25:08,600 'and particularly around the great art which is the favourite art 356 00:25:08,600 --> 00:25:10,880 'of such people which is talking.' 357 00:25:10,880 --> 00:25:14,120 So, as soon as James came here, 358 00:25:14,120 --> 00:25:18,160 he would have been a good talker, 359 00:25:18,160 --> 00:25:20,720 and people would have said, "that James character, 360 00:25:20,720 --> 00:25:22,800 "we should have him in the Chitchat Society." 361 00:25:22,800 --> 00:25:24,880 It is a place where you get together over a 362 00:25:24,880 --> 00:25:28,080 glass in the evening with people you like, 363 00:25:28,080 --> 00:25:31,320 and you would take it in turns to entertain each other. 364 00:25:36,360 --> 00:25:42,200 But for Monty and many of his peers, the perfect soiree wasn't all talk. 365 00:25:45,760 --> 00:25:48,720 As the evening wore on, Monty and his friends would often end 366 00:25:48,720 --> 00:25:51,840 up on the floor engaged in lively horseplay. 367 00:25:53,080 --> 00:25:57,520 They called this ragging and Monty was a dab hand. 368 00:26:03,000 --> 00:26:06,880 One participant recalled writhing on the floor during the rag, with 369 00:26:06,880 --> 00:26:11,160 Monty James' long fingers grasping at his vitals. 370 00:26:11,160 --> 00:26:15,200 Monty later made a point of saying, "Sex is tiresome enough in novels. 371 00:26:15,200 --> 00:26:18,880 "In a ghost story, I have no patience with it." 372 00:26:18,880 --> 00:26:21,280 So what are we to make of the peculiarly tactile 373 00:26:21,280 --> 00:26:23,280 nature of his writing? 374 00:26:23,280 --> 00:26:28,240 Hairy clutching arms, slimy tentacled embraces? 375 00:26:28,240 --> 00:26:30,920 Monty may have been a lifelong bachelor, 376 00:26:30,920 --> 00:26:33,880 but he understood the frisson of physical contact. 377 00:26:35,120 --> 00:26:38,920 What it touched was, according to his account, 378 00:26:38,920 --> 00:26:43,200 a mouth...with teeth 379 00:26:43,200 --> 00:26:46,640 and with hair about it. 380 00:26:46,640 --> 00:26:51,440 And not, he declares, the mouth of a human being. 381 00:26:54,840 --> 00:26:58,440 Like ragging, Monty's stories were perhaps an outlet for energies 382 00:26:58,440 --> 00:27:01,280 he found difficult to express elsewhere. 383 00:27:04,920 --> 00:27:09,040 Gordon Carey, a former chorister at King's, was one of a number 384 00:27:09,040 --> 00:27:11,880 of younger men with whom Monty had close friendships 385 00:27:11,880 --> 00:27:13,600 during his time at Cambridge. 386 00:27:16,280 --> 00:27:20,440 Do you think your father had a particular sort of brightness 387 00:27:20,440 --> 00:27:23,920 which appealed to Monty? He seems to have been drawn to intelligence. 388 00:27:23,920 --> 00:27:27,560 I am not sure that his brightness wasn't his good looks. But... 389 00:27:27,560 --> 00:27:33,040 I remember my father saying of him, long after his death, 390 00:27:33,040 --> 00:27:37,560 "I suppose he was what would nowadays be called 391 00:27:37,560 --> 00:27:40,600 "a non-practising homosexual." 392 00:27:41,960 --> 00:27:44,200 So, that was Papa's opinion. 393 00:27:45,240 --> 00:27:49,320 It feels like a very modern thing to place upon Monty James 394 00:27:49,320 --> 00:27:53,360 because he is a very complicated man, I think, 395 00:27:53,360 --> 00:27:58,680 but there is a strong sense that throughout his life, 396 00:27:58,680 --> 00:28:02,480 he had passionate friendships but there almost seems to be no 397 00:28:02,480 --> 00:28:04,480 evidence that anything... 398 00:28:04,480 --> 00:28:07,720 I am sure there wasn't. 399 00:28:07,720 --> 00:28:13,200 That was fairly general in those times. 400 00:28:15,480 --> 00:28:20,120 He liked young people. And chatting with young people. 401 00:28:21,760 --> 00:28:22,880 He was very genial. 402 00:28:24,600 --> 00:28:26,400 It leapt towards him upon the instant, 403 00:28:26,400 --> 00:28:27,840 and the next moment, 404 00:28:27,840 --> 00:28:30,240 he was halfway through the window backwards, 405 00:28:30,240 --> 00:28:34,560 uttering cry upon cry, at the utmost pitch of his voice. 406 00:28:34,560 --> 00:28:38,160 And the linen face was thrust close to his own. 407 00:28:39,640 --> 00:28:42,280 So it's not hard to see why Monty hit upon the idea 408 00:28:42,280 --> 00:28:46,680 of entertaining the Chitchat Society with ghost stories 409 00:28:46,680 --> 00:28:48,760 and why he followed them up with dozens more. 410 00:28:50,200 --> 00:28:52,760 He could combine his historical expertise, 411 00:28:52,760 --> 00:28:56,280 his scholarly fascination for the strange and obscure, 412 00:28:56,280 --> 00:29:00,200 with his desire to thrill, delight, and above all, 413 00:29:00,200 --> 00:29:02,640 to connect with his friends. 414 00:29:02,640 --> 00:29:05,240 His face is not there, 415 00:29:05,240 --> 00:29:10,880 because the flesh of it has been sucked away off the bones. 416 00:29:14,920 --> 00:29:18,400 What else allows you to hold an audience in the palm of your hand, 417 00:29:18,400 --> 00:29:21,160 to manipulate their emotions and expectations, 418 00:29:21,160 --> 00:29:22,680 better than a ghost story? 419 00:29:23,880 --> 00:29:26,200 What must have made the readings really compelling 420 00:29:26,200 --> 00:29:30,200 was the rich detail and knowledge Monty brought to them. 421 00:29:30,200 --> 00:29:33,880 It sounded as if he knew whereof he spoke. 422 00:29:36,760 --> 00:29:39,880 Monty had started something of an institution. 423 00:29:39,880 --> 00:29:42,800 His stories became an annual ritual at King's, 424 00:29:42,800 --> 00:29:46,000 where he'd often present a new one each Christmas. 425 00:29:46,000 --> 00:29:48,680 But he was hardly a prolific ghost story writer. 426 00:29:48,680 --> 00:29:51,320 His academic commitments came first. 427 00:29:53,560 --> 00:29:55,800 In addition to his duties at King's, 428 00:29:55,800 --> 00:29:59,480 Monty had been appointed director at the Fitzwilliam Museum, 429 00:29:59,480 --> 00:30:03,320 even before his catalogue of its manuscripts had been published. 430 00:30:03,320 --> 00:30:05,560 Still only in his early 30s, 431 00:30:05,560 --> 00:30:08,400 Monty was very much a Cambridge high flyer - 432 00:30:08,400 --> 00:30:11,080 albeit something of a traditionalist. 433 00:30:12,240 --> 00:30:15,120 Uncomfortable with pressures to modernise the university, 434 00:30:15,120 --> 00:30:18,560 he was particularly resistant to women being awarded degrees. 435 00:30:20,400 --> 00:30:23,400 Monty may have been blessed with a remarkable intellect, 436 00:30:23,400 --> 00:30:26,400 but he wasn't exactly what we might call a free thinker. 437 00:30:26,400 --> 00:30:29,640 The modern world was being born around him here at Cambridge, 438 00:30:29,640 --> 00:30:34,000 but Monty's response seems to have been highly conservative. 439 00:30:34,000 --> 00:30:37,640 And that suspicion of change, his struggle with it, 440 00:30:37,640 --> 00:30:40,280 underlies what is perhaps his best-known story. 441 00:30:44,560 --> 00:30:47,560 SOMETHING MOANS 442 00:30:51,640 --> 00:30:52,640 Oh! 443 00:31:00,480 --> 00:31:02,840 Set mainly on the Suffolk coast, 444 00:31:02,840 --> 00:31:05,120 Oh, Whistle, And I'll Come To You, My Lad, 445 00:31:05,120 --> 00:31:08,120 is the cautionary tale of Professor Parkins, 446 00:31:08,120 --> 00:31:12,200 an overconfident Cambridge academic who represents a more modern, 447 00:31:12,200 --> 00:31:15,000 rationalist mindset than Monty's own. 448 00:31:18,200 --> 00:31:21,760 Parkins openly dismisses talk of the supernatural. 449 00:31:21,760 --> 00:31:24,360 But during a golfing holiday by the seaside, 450 00:31:24,360 --> 00:31:27,400 a terrifying encounter shakes his certainties. 451 00:31:32,400 --> 00:31:36,040 It's not surprising Monty found the Suffolk coast so evocative. 452 00:31:36,040 --> 00:31:39,520 The powerful winds blowing in from Scandinavia in northern Europe. 453 00:31:39,520 --> 00:31:42,680 The sea defences struggling to hold back the water's relentless 454 00:31:42,680 --> 00:31:44,480 attempts to reclaim the land. 455 00:31:46,840 --> 00:31:50,960 Pagan, elemental forces are at work here. 456 00:31:50,960 --> 00:31:52,400 Purposeful ones. 457 00:31:59,680 --> 00:32:02,120 Wandering back from an afternoon on the links, 458 00:32:02,120 --> 00:32:04,960 Parkins stumbles across a strange artefact. 459 00:32:04,960 --> 00:32:06,080 Give a dog a bone. 460 00:32:06,080 --> 00:32:09,040 A whistle with an engraving in Latin. 461 00:32:11,640 --> 00:32:14,960 "Quis est iste qui venit?" 462 00:32:14,960 --> 00:32:17,560 "Who is this who is coming?" 463 00:32:21,400 --> 00:32:24,720 As Parkins soon discovers, something is indeed coming. 464 00:32:28,880 --> 00:32:30,760 He can't resist blowing the whistle, 465 00:32:30,760 --> 00:32:33,200 and finds himself caught in a strange dream. 466 00:32:35,040 --> 00:32:38,800 He seems to have released some kind of power in the wind. 467 00:32:38,800 --> 00:32:40,320 In the air itself. 468 00:32:44,600 --> 00:32:45,800 Help! 469 00:32:45,800 --> 00:32:49,480 Parkins represents the aggressive modernity that Monty despised 470 00:32:49,480 --> 00:32:51,320 and possibly feared. 471 00:32:51,320 --> 00:32:54,080 The elemental menace that he unleashes is a punishment, 472 00:32:54,080 --> 00:32:57,560 not for his curiosity, but for his intellectual pride. 473 00:33:01,080 --> 00:33:04,080 The dream finally crosses over into reality 474 00:33:04,080 --> 00:33:07,440 when the bed sheets in Parkins' hotel room billow into life. 475 00:33:17,560 --> 00:33:19,600 PARKINS WHIMPERS 476 00:33:19,600 --> 00:33:23,280 The sense of being trapped in a waking nightmare was brilliantly 477 00:33:23,280 --> 00:33:27,200 captured by Jonathan Miller in his celebrated television adaptation. 478 00:33:30,280 --> 00:33:32,000 PARKINS GROANS 479 00:33:32,000 --> 00:33:36,000 The real visceral power of Whistle, 480 00:33:36,000 --> 00:33:38,640 is it really is like a nightmare. 481 00:33:38,640 --> 00:33:40,880 I think a lot of people would watch that and say 482 00:33:40,880 --> 00:33:43,720 that's the closest they've seen to someone getting, 483 00:33:43,720 --> 00:33:46,760 or representing what it's like to have a nightmare. 484 00:33:46,760 --> 00:33:52,240 Actually, everything that happened in Whistle And I'll Come To You, 485 00:33:52,240 --> 00:33:58,920 erm, he finds it hard to distinguish what he dreams about 486 00:33:58,920 --> 00:34:01,040 and what he thinks he actually sees, 487 00:34:01,040 --> 00:34:03,160 if indeed he actually sees anything. 488 00:34:04,520 --> 00:34:06,680 PARKINS GROANS HELPLESSLY 489 00:34:06,680 --> 00:34:11,400 There's a very particular sort of slowed-down groan 490 00:34:11,400 --> 00:34:13,800 that Michael Hordern makes. 491 00:34:13,800 --> 00:34:15,440 Well, that's what I remember, 492 00:34:15,440 --> 00:34:18,880 in the moments when I've had bad dreams and have woken suddenly. 493 00:34:18,880 --> 00:34:21,280 I often find it very difficult to articulate something. 494 00:34:21,280 --> 00:34:24,120 I'll say, "Er, urgh...ohh," 495 00:34:24,120 --> 00:34:26,840 and then suddenly you wake up. 496 00:34:26,840 --> 00:34:32,640 And then what has been in the dream diminishes and disappears, 497 00:34:32,640 --> 00:34:37,160 but nevertheless, it remains perhaps for a little while 498 00:34:37,160 --> 00:34:39,840 because the dream itself is very disconcerting. 499 00:34:40,960 --> 00:34:42,320 Oh, no. 500 00:34:46,040 --> 00:34:48,120 Oh, no. 501 00:34:48,120 --> 00:34:51,240 I always certainly think that that's it for Professor Parkins! 502 00:34:51,240 --> 00:34:53,200 Yes, well, I don't think it is, you see. 503 00:34:53,200 --> 00:34:55,760 I think what happens is that he would be, 504 00:34:55,760 --> 00:34:59,440 if he told the story again when he went back to Cambridge, 505 00:34:59,440 --> 00:35:00,720 he might have said, 506 00:35:00,720 --> 00:35:04,760 "I was very disconcerted by something that happened to me, but of course, 507 00:35:04,760 --> 00:35:06,240 "how could I possibly believe 508 00:35:06,240 --> 00:35:08,400 "that the sheets would get up and attack me? 509 00:35:08,400 --> 00:35:13,280 "But nevertheless, that moment, which was obviously a dream, erm, 510 00:35:13,280 --> 00:35:15,480 "I did have a dream to that effect." 511 00:35:19,800 --> 00:35:21,640 Oh, Whistle, And I'll Come To You, My Lad 512 00:35:21,640 --> 00:35:24,400 features some of MR James' most memorable images, 513 00:35:24,400 --> 00:35:26,280 captured in these illustrations 514 00:35:26,280 --> 00:35:28,400 which were approved by Monty himself. 515 00:35:30,000 --> 00:35:33,400 They were the work of a young artist called James McBride, 516 00:35:33,400 --> 00:35:35,440 who would go on to play a pivotal role 517 00:35:35,440 --> 00:35:38,480 in the publication of the ghost stories, and for a few years, 518 00:35:38,480 --> 00:35:41,600 was perhaps the most important person in Monty's life. 519 00:35:50,440 --> 00:35:53,680 Monty met James McBride around the time he presented his first 520 00:35:53,680 --> 00:35:55,520 stories to the Chitchat Society. 521 00:35:57,160 --> 00:36:00,840 McBride was a student at King's, ten years younger than Monty, 522 00:36:00,840 --> 00:36:03,120 but they struck up a close friendship, 523 00:36:03,120 --> 00:36:07,000 travelling together on Monty's beloved cycling holidays in Europe. 524 00:36:10,840 --> 00:36:14,640 On one occasion in France, McBride disposed of a particularly 525 00:36:14,640 --> 00:36:17,480 large spider that had crept into their bathroom. 526 00:36:18,840 --> 00:36:20,720 Greater love hath no man. 527 00:36:29,240 --> 00:36:31,960 This is Dippersmoor Manor in Herefordshire, 528 00:36:31,960 --> 00:36:34,080 once the McBride family home, 529 00:36:34,080 --> 00:36:37,560 where some of Monty's letters to James McBride have been preserved. 530 00:36:40,560 --> 00:36:42,240 Should really blow the dust off, 531 00:36:42,240 --> 00:36:44,760 there isn't really any, but it's...it feels correct. 532 00:36:48,160 --> 00:36:50,080 Ah, there's some. 533 00:36:50,080 --> 00:36:52,120 It's on King's College notepaper. 534 00:36:53,200 --> 00:36:54,880 "My dear boy, 535 00:36:54,880 --> 00:37:00,240 "long since I heard of you, but not so long since I wrote. 536 00:37:00,240 --> 00:37:04,320 "What is happening? I hope you are getting along with your exams. 537 00:37:04,320 --> 00:37:07,840 "I think you'd better keep Christmas here, had you not?" 538 00:37:10,040 --> 00:37:12,720 This is the 3rd of January 1900. 539 00:37:12,720 --> 00:37:14,920 "My dear boy, how are you? 540 00:37:14,920 --> 00:37:18,000 "I took a slight influenza on Christmas Day, 541 00:37:18,000 --> 00:37:22,640 "which has left me weak from that day to the next. 542 00:37:23,920 --> 00:37:28,000 "My principal object in writing is to get news of you. 543 00:37:28,000 --> 00:37:30,400 "I want to know that you are recovered 544 00:37:30,400 --> 00:37:35,040 "and that you have had no relapses or other unpleasant adventures." 545 00:37:36,760 --> 00:37:40,440 As many people commented, Monty's handwriting is execrable, 546 00:37:40,440 --> 00:37:41,520 almost indecipherable. 547 00:37:43,000 --> 00:37:46,840 Though at some point, in several of these letters, he refers back 548 00:37:46,840 --> 00:37:49,320 to their beloved holidays in Scandinavia 549 00:37:49,320 --> 00:37:53,560 and actually lapses into Danish or Swedish, I can't actually tell... 550 00:37:54,760 --> 00:37:56,480 ..cos I am not a scholar. 551 00:37:58,480 --> 00:38:02,120 There's nothing hear that would trouble a biographer 552 00:38:02,120 --> 00:38:04,520 trying to find hidden depths of passion, 553 00:38:04,520 --> 00:38:09,360 but there is a gentle thread of affection and solicitude 554 00:38:09,360 --> 00:38:12,640 from Monty towards McBride which is actually very touching. 555 00:38:15,240 --> 00:38:17,920 Each of the letters begins, "My dear boy," 556 00:38:17,920 --> 00:38:22,160 and ends, "Ever your affectionate, MRJ." 557 00:38:26,480 --> 00:38:30,400 James McBride's marriage in 1903 appears to have had no ill effect 558 00:38:30,400 --> 00:38:32,520 on his friendship with Monty. 559 00:38:35,000 --> 00:38:38,080 And that friendship seems to have led Monty to collect his early 560 00:38:38,080 --> 00:38:40,760 stories in book form the following year. 561 00:38:46,640 --> 00:38:50,440 And here it is, a first edition of Ghost Stories Of An Antiquary. 562 00:38:51,880 --> 00:38:53,160 Very beautiful book. 563 00:38:54,520 --> 00:38:58,360 Now nicely mottled and foxed with age as is appropriate. 564 00:38:59,800 --> 00:39:03,640 I feel a bit like Monty must have done with his Medieval manuscripts. 565 00:39:06,280 --> 00:39:10,080 McBride wanted to be an artist, and Monty probably saw the book 566 00:39:10,080 --> 00:39:13,160 more as a means to promote his friend's work than his own. 567 00:39:15,640 --> 00:39:18,840 There's a very good one here. Canon Alberic's Scrapbook. 568 00:39:20,320 --> 00:39:23,120 It's probably the first visual representation 569 00:39:23,120 --> 00:39:24,760 of one of Monty's demons. 570 00:39:24,760 --> 00:39:28,200 The seated figure here was thought by many of Monty's friends 571 00:39:28,200 --> 00:39:31,280 to be a thinly-veiled portrait of Monty himself. 572 00:39:31,280 --> 00:39:33,720 He certainly looks as genial as everyone says. 573 00:39:35,880 --> 00:39:37,080 It's very evocative. 574 00:39:40,200 --> 00:39:43,200 The other thing that strikes you as unusual is the curiously 575 00:39:43,200 --> 00:39:47,680 unfinished quality of this book. There are only four illustrations. 576 00:39:47,680 --> 00:39:50,400 Monty may have meant it as a way of pleasing and promoting 577 00:39:50,400 --> 00:39:54,400 James McBride, but it turned into something quite different. 578 00:39:54,400 --> 00:39:55,840 A memorial. 579 00:39:57,880 --> 00:40:02,520 In May 1904, McBride, who had trouble with his appendix, 580 00:40:02,520 --> 00:40:03,960 became gravely ill. 581 00:40:05,240 --> 00:40:09,400 Despite an apparent improvement, he died the following month, 582 00:40:09,400 --> 00:40:12,280 with his wife still pregnant with their daughter. 583 00:40:13,280 --> 00:40:16,320 McBride was buried in Lancashire on the 8th of June. 584 00:40:17,520 --> 00:40:22,120 Monty, in the words of a friend, was broken hearted. 585 00:40:22,120 --> 00:40:24,880 On the day of James McBride's funeral, 586 00:40:24,880 --> 00:40:27,160 Monty took the train to Lancashire 587 00:40:27,160 --> 00:40:30,960 carrying a selection of flowers from the Fellows' Garden at King's. 588 00:40:30,960 --> 00:40:33,400 He waited until the other mourners had gone, 589 00:40:33,400 --> 00:40:38,720 and then threw into McBride's grave lilac, honeysuckle and roses. 590 00:40:39,920 --> 00:40:44,360 It wasn't in Monty's nature to be demonstrative about his feelings, 591 00:40:44,360 --> 00:40:48,040 but that may well have been the saddest day of his life. 592 00:40:55,240 --> 00:40:57,800 BELL TOLLS 593 00:41:05,920 --> 00:41:09,880 Ghost Stories Of An Antiquary was published not long before 594 00:41:09,880 --> 00:41:13,640 Christmas 1904, just a few months after McBride's death. 595 00:41:15,080 --> 00:41:19,520 The book sold sufficiently well that a second impression was issued. 596 00:41:19,520 --> 00:41:21,360 Not only his Cambridge friends, 597 00:41:21,360 --> 00:41:25,000 but the public had a taste for MR James' ghost stories. 598 00:41:27,800 --> 00:41:31,600 Inevitably, Monty was asked whether he believed in ghosts. 599 00:41:31,600 --> 00:41:34,520 He gave a somewhat evasive answer. 600 00:41:34,520 --> 00:41:36,920 "I am prepared to consider evidence 601 00:41:36,920 --> 00:41:40,640 "and accept it if it satisfies me." 602 00:41:40,640 --> 00:41:42,480 Perhaps it doesn't matter, 603 00:41:42,480 --> 00:41:45,720 because what he clearly understood was fear, and he had 604 00:41:45,720 --> 00:41:48,800 an uncanny skill for finding the exact words to express it. 605 00:41:52,240 --> 00:41:55,840 That skill is especially evident in The Treasure Of Abbot Thomas, 606 00:41:55,840 --> 00:41:57,680 the last tale in the collection. 607 00:42:04,560 --> 00:42:07,600 Drawing on Monty's expertise in stained glass, 608 00:42:07,600 --> 00:42:10,720 it tells of an antiquary who discovers a set of clues in some 609 00:42:10,720 --> 00:42:15,560 windows that led him to a trove of buried gold in a German monastery. 610 00:42:19,400 --> 00:42:23,440 Although the tale was inspired by Monty's fascination with windows, 611 00:42:23,440 --> 00:42:26,960 its climax is perhaps the most claustrophobic in all his work. 612 00:42:33,040 --> 00:42:36,120 The antiquary identifies the location of the treasure 613 00:42:36,120 --> 00:42:37,680 in the monastery's well. 614 00:42:40,800 --> 00:42:44,240 One night he descends into it to find the bag of gold. 615 00:42:45,480 --> 00:42:47,480 Or what seems like it. 616 00:42:49,120 --> 00:42:55,440 The great bag hung for a moment on the edge of the hole, 617 00:42:55,440 --> 00:42:58,600 then it slipped forward onto my chest, 618 00:42:58,600 --> 00:43:01,360 and put its arms around my neck. 619 00:43:04,720 --> 00:43:06,360 CREATURE SLURPS 620 00:43:06,360 --> 00:43:07,880 MAN SCREAMS 621 00:43:09,040 --> 00:43:12,760 I believe that I am now acquainted with the extremity of terror 622 00:43:12,760 --> 00:43:17,400 and repulsion that a man can endure without losing his mind. 623 00:43:17,400 --> 00:43:21,480 I was conscious of a most horrible smell of mould. 624 00:43:22,840 --> 00:43:27,280 Of something like a face pressed closely to my own, 625 00:43:27,280 --> 00:43:28,880 moving slowly over it. 626 00:43:29,960 --> 00:43:32,560 Of several, I don't know how many, 627 00:43:32,560 --> 00:43:36,600 arms or legs or tentacles or something clinging to my body! 628 00:43:42,960 --> 00:43:46,360 The Treasure of Abbot Thomas was among the first stories to 629 00:43:46,360 --> 00:43:48,800 kindle my own passion for the work of MR James. 630 00:43:52,720 --> 00:43:55,120 But I didn't encounter it in book form. 631 00:43:55,120 --> 00:43:57,840 Rather, it was one of a series of television versions shown 632 00:43:57,840 --> 00:44:00,160 every Christmas when I was a child. 633 00:44:01,440 --> 00:44:04,960 Monty's most chilling phrases were brought to life by 634 00:44:04,960 --> 00:44:07,080 a succession of fine actors. 635 00:44:10,360 --> 00:44:15,040 I can vividly recall the BBC's MR James adaptations of the early '70s, 636 00:44:15,040 --> 00:44:17,680 and the profound impact they had on me. 637 00:44:17,680 --> 00:44:19,880 Robert Hardy's desperate exhortation, 638 00:44:19,880 --> 00:44:21,720 "I must be firm," 639 00:44:21,720 --> 00:44:23,960 in The Stalls Of Barchester. 640 00:44:23,960 --> 00:44:26,960 Michael Bryant's chillingly logical response 641 00:44:26,960 --> 00:44:28,840 to The Treasure Of Abbot Thomas, 642 00:44:28,840 --> 00:44:32,280 "It is a thing of slime. Slime and darkness." 643 00:44:33,520 --> 00:44:35,760 And perhaps most memorable of all, 644 00:44:35,760 --> 00:44:38,800 Peter Vaughan in A Warning To The Curious. 645 00:44:38,800 --> 00:44:40,360 When asked what he will do 646 00:44:40,360 --> 00:44:43,880 with his recently rediscovered crown of East Anglia, he simply says... 647 00:44:47,000 --> 00:44:48,360 I'm going to put it back. 648 00:44:50,360 --> 00:44:54,200 I beg your pardon? I'm going to put it back, back in the ground. 649 00:44:54,200 --> 00:44:55,880 Everyone's in a hurry, hurry, hurry. 650 00:44:55,880 --> 00:44:59,120 It was my love of these dramatisations that led me to direct 651 00:44:59,120 --> 00:45:01,960 my own interpretation of an MR James story, 652 00:45:01,960 --> 00:45:03,480 The Tractate Middoth. 653 00:45:10,680 --> 00:45:14,120 TRAIN WHISTLE BLOWS 654 00:45:14,120 --> 00:45:17,800 My inspiration as a director is Lawrence Gordon Clark, 655 00:45:17,800 --> 00:45:20,000 the man behind the 1970s adaptations. 656 00:45:23,080 --> 00:45:27,320 His first rendering was The Stalls Of Barchester in 1971. 657 00:45:32,200 --> 00:45:33,840 February the 21st. 658 00:45:33,840 --> 00:45:35,880 I must be firm. 659 00:45:35,880 --> 00:45:38,720 I must be firm. 660 00:45:38,720 --> 00:45:45,320 I was so excited to get this chance, 661 00:45:45,320 --> 00:45:47,200 and erm, we were fortunate enough 662 00:45:47,200 --> 00:45:51,480 to cast Robert Hardy to play the lead, and, erm... 663 00:45:52,960 --> 00:45:57,200 He was terribly enthusiastic about it, cos he loved MR James. 664 00:45:58,840 --> 00:46:00,640 He gave a superb performance. 665 00:46:03,080 --> 00:46:04,920 BELL DINGS 666 00:46:04,920 --> 00:46:07,560 Robert Hardy's portrayal of the murderous archdeacon 667 00:46:07,560 --> 00:46:08,800 who gets his comeuppance 668 00:46:08,800 --> 00:46:12,840 was wonderfully complemented by the evocative location filming. 669 00:46:12,840 --> 00:46:15,240 FOOTSTEPS 670 00:46:24,240 --> 00:46:27,520 James has a very strong sense of place and of location. 671 00:46:27,520 --> 00:46:30,920 Were you drawing heavily on that from the written word? 672 00:46:30,920 --> 00:46:32,480 Absolutely. 673 00:46:32,480 --> 00:46:36,000 He gives you freedom to exploit and explore... 674 00:46:37,320 --> 00:46:40,080 ..English countryside, English architecture, 675 00:46:40,080 --> 00:46:45,120 in a way very few people other than Dickens actually do. 676 00:46:45,120 --> 00:46:46,560 It's a joy. 677 00:46:46,560 --> 00:46:48,400 BELL TOLLS 678 00:47:10,200 --> 00:47:15,600 And it gave one a wonderful excuse to rediscover or discover areas 679 00:47:15,600 --> 00:47:22,400 and choose places where you could best impart tension and atmosphere. 680 00:47:33,920 --> 00:47:37,960 You get into your little car and you set off with MR James 681 00:47:37,960 --> 00:47:43,280 and a dog, if you've got one, and drive off for five days, 682 00:47:43,280 --> 00:47:47,280 staying in unlikely pubs and walking and looking at places. 683 00:47:47,280 --> 00:47:51,360 And finding yourselves in increasingly Jamesian hostelries? 684 00:47:51,360 --> 00:47:55,160 Absolutely, looking nervously over your shoulders. 685 00:47:58,920 --> 00:48:02,600 I think James was the absolute master. Why do you think that is? 686 00:48:02,600 --> 00:48:06,480 What does James have that others don't? He has a great sense of evil. 687 00:48:08,240 --> 00:48:11,560 He's a great manipulator, like all great storytellers. 688 00:48:13,320 --> 00:48:16,600 To make people frightened when you want to, it's a wonderful power. 689 00:48:16,600 --> 00:48:18,600 MAN GASPS 690 00:48:18,600 --> 00:48:20,600 CLAW SCRATCHES 691 00:48:20,600 --> 00:48:23,480 BODY CLATTERS TO THE GROUND 692 00:48:23,480 --> 00:48:26,520 That's basically what we're all in this for, isn't it? 693 00:48:26,520 --> 00:48:31,160 You know, it's that wonderful ability to entertain 694 00:48:31,160 --> 00:48:32,800 and to entrance. 695 00:48:32,800 --> 00:48:33,800 James had that. 696 00:48:37,240 --> 00:48:40,920 Monty would go on to produce three more volumes' worth of stories, 697 00:48:40,920 --> 00:48:43,160 usually unveiling a new tale every year. 698 00:48:45,600 --> 00:48:48,840 And while he was now better known to the wider public as MR James, 699 00:48:48,840 --> 00:48:50,280 the ghost story writer, 700 00:48:50,280 --> 00:48:52,840 his academic duties at Cambridge remained 701 00:48:52,840 --> 00:48:54,880 the overwhelming focus of his life. 702 00:49:01,240 --> 00:49:04,960 In 1905, Monty was accorded the highest honour at King's, 703 00:49:04,960 --> 00:49:07,960 he was elected Provost, or Head of the College. 704 00:49:12,320 --> 00:49:14,640 Within a decade, he was also appointed 705 00:49:14,640 --> 00:49:16,880 Vice Chancellor of the University. 706 00:49:16,880 --> 00:49:19,480 As one of Monty's contemporaries later said, 707 00:49:19,480 --> 00:49:22,960 "It really looked like he was leading a life without a jolt." 708 00:49:25,080 --> 00:49:27,480 At least until events took a turn 709 00:49:27,480 --> 00:49:30,760 that would leave no-one in Europe untouched. 710 00:49:38,560 --> 00:49:39,920 It's difficult now for us 711 00:49:39,920 --> 00:49:43,080 to realise the great traumatic psychological effect 712 00:49:43,080 --> 00:49:48,360 of war at that time, because the late Victorian period 713 00:49:48,360 --> 00:49:52,080 before the war seemed a very mellow, golden age. 714 00:49:52,080 --> 00:49:56,640 Wonderful summers and the height of the British Empire and 715 00:49:56,640 --> 00:50:00,560 we were on top of the world and everything was fine and so on. 716 00:50:05,640 --> 00:50:09,480 And then, suddenly, four years of the leading nations in the world 717 00:50:09,480 --> 00:50:11,520 tearing themselves to pieces 718 00:50:11,520 --> 00:50:15,160 really made the watershed between eras. 719 00:50:23,920 --> 00:50:27,840 The university provided a stream of young men for the officer class, 720 00:50:27,840 --> 00:50:30,240 many of whom were known to Monty, 721 00:50:30,240 --> 00:50:33,040 and many of whom never returned from the war. 722 00:50:34,400 --> 00:50:37,920 A military hospital was even set up on the King's playing fields. 723 00:50:41,000 --> 00:50:46,560 All around him, not only the reports of young people who he'd known being killed, 724 00:50:46,560 --> 00:50:50,160 but also perhaps going daily 725 00:50:50,160 --> 00:50:53,560 and seeing some of the ghastly effects of the war 726 00:50:53,560 --> 00:50:59,080 and the gassing and shell shock, erm, had a terrible effect. 727 00:50:59,080 --> 00:51:01,680 And also the point of Cambridge was lost 728 00:51:01,680 --> 00:51:05,400 because you didn't have the teachers and you didn't have the students. 729 00:51:05,400 --> 00:51:09,160 As a Victorian, which he was, erm, 730 00:51:09,160 --> 00:51:11,280 he must have suddenly felt much older, 731 00:51:11,280 --> 00:51:14,480 must have felt that everything he knew, all the relations, 732 00:51:14,480 --> 00:51:17,520 all the symbols, all the myths, all the stories, all the friends, 733 00:51:17,520 --> 00:51:18,520 were gone. 734 00:51:21,600 --> 00:51:25,120 Monty never referred to the war directly in his ghost stories, 735 00:51:25,120 --> 00:51:28,760 but his later works betray a deepening sense of loss and despair. 736 00:51:37,600 --> 00:51:42,320 None more so than A Warning To The Curious, published in 1925. 737 00:51:43,520 --> 00:51:47,080 It begins along familiar Jamesian lines, a treasure hunter 738 00:51:47,080 --> 00:51:51,080 called Paxton uncovers a mythical Anglo-Saxon crown, 739 00:51:51,080 --> 00:51:53,240 said to be imbued with magical powers... 740 00:51:54,280 --> 00:51:56,000 ..and is pursued by its guardian. 741 00:51:58,920 --> 00:52:02,520 "What is to be done?" Paxton broke in impatiently. 742 00:52:03,640 --> 00:52:08,120 "The truth is that I've never been alone since I touched it." 743 00:52:10,840 --> 00:52:13,600 "There was always somebody, a man. 744 00:52:13,600 --> 00:52:17,040 "I always saw him with the tail of my eye on the left or the right, 745 00:52:17,040 --> 00:52:19,640 "and he was never there when I looked straight for him. 746 00:52:19,640 --> 00:52:23,280 "I think he's there, but he has some power over your eyes. 747 00:52:24,520 --> 00:52:27,000 "He won't forgive me. I can tell that." 748 00:52:32,640 --> 00:52:36,160 A Warning To The Curious feels like a kind of companion piece to 749 00:52:36,160 --> 00:52:38,640 Oh, Whistle, And I'll Come To You, My Lad. 750 00:52:38,640 --> 00:52:42,040 But the playfulness of the earlier story is nowhere evident. 751 00:52:42,040 --> 00:52:44,840 Paxton is a truly tragic character. 752 00:52:44,840 --> 00:52:46,920 We sense his vulnerability from the outset, 753 00:52:46,920 --> 00:52:49,920 and he pays very dearly for his theft. 754 00:52:49,920 --> 00:52:53,000 His death has a symbolic, ritual quality to it. 755 00:52:55,040 --> 00:52:57,080 We heard what I can only call a laugh. 756 00:52:58,760 --> 00:53:03,560 And if you can understand what I mean by a breathless... 757 00:53:03,560 --> 00:53:07,240 a lung-less laugh, then you have it. 758 00:53:09,040 --> 00:53:11,880 But I don't suppose you can. 759 00:53:11,880 --> 00:53:15,960 It came from below and swerved off into the mist. 760 00:53:17,920 --> 00:53:19,200 We bent over the wall... 761 00:53:20,600 --> 00:53:22,600 ..and there was Paxton at the bottom. 762 00:53:24,720 --> 00:53:27,640 You don't need to be told, of course, that he was dead. 763 00:53:30,280 --> 00:53:34,040 His mouth was full of sand and stones. 764 00:53:35,680 --> 00:53:39,320 And the teeth and jaw had been smashed to bits. 765 00:53:41,920 --> 00:53:43,760 I only glanced once at his face. 766 00:53:49,680 --> 00:53:53,280 A Warning To The Curious was Monty's last great ghost story. 767 00:53:53,280 --> 00:53:56,360 It was included in his final collection, 768 00:53:56,360 --> 00:53:58,800 published after his Cambridge days were over. 769 00:54:04,280 --> 00:54:08,160 In a strange way, his life had come full circle. 770 00:54:11,000 --> 00:54:13,840 In 1918, with the war still raging, 771 00:54:13,840 --> 00:54:17,560 Monty had been invited to go back to Eton as Provost of the College. 772 00:54:20,640 --> 00:54:22,400 He seized the chance 773 00:54:22,400 --> 00:54:26,800 and was installed as Provost just a few weeks before Armistice Day. 774 00:54:31,960 --> 00:54:35,360 Monty had returned to the place where he'd spent his adolescence, 775 00:54:35,360 --> 00:54:36,800 perhaps his happiest years. 776 00:54:38,240 --> 00:54:41,880 Coming back seems to have brought a similar contentment. 777 00:54:41,880 --> 00:54:44,040 Monty was popular with his pupils, 778 00:54:44,040 --> 00:54:46,400 largely thanks to his keen sense of humour. 779 00:54:50,440 --> 00:54:52,440 This was something that sustained him, 780 00:54:52,440 --> 00:54:54,880 even in the last months of his life, 781 00:54:54,880 --> 00:54:56,800 when his health was failing badly. 782 00:55:00,320 --> 00:55:02,200 At the end, 783 00:55:02,200 --> 00:55:06,840 he had cancer, he knew he had cancer. 784 00:55:06,840 --> 00:55:13,840 Er, he knew it was terminal unless he had an operation. 785 00:55:13,840 --> 00:55:16,640 And he decided not to have an operation. 786 00:55:19,640 --> 00:55:23,480 As a pupil at Eton in the 1930s, Adrian Carey regularly 787 00:55:23,480 --> 00:55:26,960 visited the ailing Monty, a long-time friend of his father. 788 00:55:30,000 --> 00:55:31,440 And I would find him in bed, 789 00:55:31,440 --> 00:55:35,720 in a dressing gown with the bedclothes over it, 790 00:55:35,720 --> 00:55:37,680 and I used to wonder, 791 00:55:37,680 --> 00:55:39,520 "Surely you're getting pretty hot," 792 00:55:39,520 --> 00:55:44,640 but I think old people don't get hot in the same way! 793 00:55:44,640 --> 00:55:49,560 And he would talk away, spilling tea down the dressing gown, 794 00:55:49,560 --> 00:55:54,400 there was always a cup of tea there. It must have been nearly cold. 795 00:55:54,400 --> 00:55:57,800 But he would still drink a little and then prattle away. 796 00:55:59,160 --> 00:56:02,520 He would turn to Dickens or PG Wodehouse, 797 00:56:02,520 --> 00:56:06,040 which were among his favourite reading. 798 00:56:06,040 --> 00:56:09,640 He loved the moment when Bertie Wooster, 799 00:56:09,640 --> 00:56:12,480 having been through some scrape or other, 800 00:56:12,480 --> 00:56:17,160 appears like a tramp and approaches... 801 00:56:17,160 --> 00:56:20,240 some respectable person who says to him, 802 00:56:20,240 --> 00:56:24,040 "Sad piece of human wreckage though you look, 803 00:56:24,040 --> 00:56:26,280 "you speak like an educated man." 804 00:56:27,480 --> 00:56:33,200 And Monty applied this to himself in his dressing gown in bed... 805 00:56:33,200 --> 00:56:38,480 As he lay there. ..in a feeble state. But, er, he was a lovely man. 806 00:56:41,040 --> 00:56:44,560 Montague Rhodes James died in the Provost's Lodge at Eton 807 00:56:44,560 --> 00:56:49,920 at three o'clock in the afternoon on the 12th of June 1936, aged 73. 808 00:56:51,080 --> 00:56:53,480 BELL TOLLS 809 00:56:59,680 --> 00:57:01,640 CHATTER 810 00:57:05,360 --> 00:57:10,560 'It's 120 years since Monty unveiled his first two ghostly tales. 811 00:57:10,560 --> 00:57:14,680 'He could never have imagined just how long his work would endure.' 812 00:57:16,840 --> 00:57:19,320 It was a hand! 813 00:57:19,320 --> 00:57:22,160 While Monty can be seen as very much a Victorian figure, 814 00:57:22,160 --> 00:57:25,400 something about his personality resonates through the ages, 815 00:57:25,400 --> 00:57:29,360 and I think chimes with anyone who loves horror and fantastic fiction. 816 00:57:31,880 --> 00:57:35,560 His obsessive tendencies, interest in marginalia, and, above all, 817 00:57:35,560 --> 00:57:39,600 his enthusiasm, mark him out as what we would perhaps call "a fan." 818 00:57:41,840 --> 00:57:45,080 In his writing, his wry, scholarly eye and reticence 819 00:57:45,080 --> 00:57:47,000 are immensely appealing. 820 00:57:47,000 --> 00:57:50,040 But equally attractive is his desire to go for the jugular 821 00:57:50,040 --> 00:57:54,240 when necessary, to show the horror lurking beneath the tattered shroud. 822 00:57:59,240 --> 00:58:03,200 But it's important to remember that Monty intended his ghost stories 823 00:58:03,200 --> 00:58:06,280 as entertainment, a pleasing terror. 824 00:58:06,280 --> 00:58:09,480 And that's what the work of this immensely lovable, 825 00:58:09,480 --> 00:58:11,720 talented man will continue to be.