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OK, ready when you are.
Quiet, please and action.

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Good evening.
If anyone were to ask me...

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..who's done most to popularise...

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..art and culture
in the last 50 years...

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..there would only be one answer.

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Well, he's a great talker...

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..and what a voice. Lovely voice.

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Well, his hair.

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You know the answer to that one.

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Got to be Melvyn, hasn't it?

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Melvyn Bragg.

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Melvyn. Melvyn Bragg.

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Melvyn Bragg. Melvyn Bragg.

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# You know Melvyn Bragg
was in the parlour

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# And he said that he was
going to have some tea... #

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He's the godfather
of popularising culture.

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You know, he'd make a documentary
about Earth, Wind and Fire

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or you know, Tchaikovsky.

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Contains some strong language.

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Best known for the South Bank Show,

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the country's longest running
arts programme,

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Melvyn Bragg has profiled many of
the world's most notable artists,

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actors, writers and musicians.

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He's also a constant presence
on BBC's Radio 4,

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has written numerous works
of non-fiction,

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plays and film scripts
and 22 novels.

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A very immoral woman.

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I'm an artist.

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He's variously been called a
polymath and a national treasure.

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So you can hear me now? Yes.

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That's all right.

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For all that, he's still deeply
embedded in his working class
Cumbrian roots.

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'Now on Radio 4, here's
Melvyn Bragg with In Our Time.'

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Melvyn Bragg's Thursday morning
routine hasn't changed since 1998

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and, now aged 75, he shows
no sign of slowing down.

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Regent's Park, it broke down,
the lights, for 25 minutes.

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Never happened before, ever.

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Shit.

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I said to the guy, "Turn right..."
I didn't say turn,

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I said, "If you turn right and
go that way, it's much easier."

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A key cultural figure in our time,
Melvyn Bragg is widely known

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as an inexhaustible broadcaster
and champion of the arts.

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What's less well known
is his private persona,

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the story of the
working class boy from Cumbria

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who crossed the class divide to
become an establishment figure.

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I used to deliver the newspapers
for the man who had this shop,

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John Easton.

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Wigton is Melvyn's home town.

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Hello, how are you?

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He's a familiar sight on its streets
and still has a house nearby.

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And here's one of my best friends,
Mickey Saunderson,

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and his son's taken over there.

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Most of his novels are set in
and around the Wigton of his youth.

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All right there? Yeah.

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Writing in the genre
of autobiographical fiction,

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the novels sometimes reveal
a great deal about the man himself.

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The funny thing is I can't look
around this town now without seeing

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the town I knew when I was a child
cos it's so extraordinarily vivid.

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Over there where there's a gap,
that was stables,

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that was all stables,
lots of horses, it was a horse town,

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one of the biggest horse fairs
in the North of England.

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The gypsies came, they rode them
up and down the streets.

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So that's what I see now
as much as what I see here.

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My working class experience,

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it was the experience of
millions of people in this country.

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The accommodation was really poor.

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There were horrible inadequacies.

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It was disease-ridden in 1946,

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there was an epidemic of TB
went through the town.

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I got TB, my mother got TB.

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People knew it was bad,
they knew it was rubbish,

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just like they knew a lot of the
jobs they were doing were dreadful,

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sweating like horses
to do horse work.

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They knew that.

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But out of that they built
a terrific society.

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The colossal sense of freedom.

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We were out on the streets,
there was scarcely any traffic

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and you played hide and seek
inside the town.

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It was just absolutely wonderful.

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The fizz of it was terrific.

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Hello. Hello, how are you?

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Good, how are you? Yeah well,
how's it going? Good.

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Go on, then, let's have a look.

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Melvyn uses his own memories of the
past as the canvas for his novels.

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The strength of the English novel
is in its small localities.

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Melvyn is very much in that
tradition, independent,

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sceptical, and yet full of passion,

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even sometimes a religious passion
for the place from which you come.

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With a population of 5,000,

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Wigton had 12 churches,

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which were central to town life.

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I went to church,
most people went to church.

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You heard the King James Bible,

94
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you heard from the Book Of
Common Prayer, you sang the hymns

95
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and you heard these magnificent
words, this great language.

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It was that kind of unconscious
education which is often,

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I think, as good as
the best education.

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It's like the way
Thomas Hardy learned about nature.

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Thomas Hardy walked to school
every day for many years,

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through the woods, until he could
tell the nature of the trees

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from the sound the wind made
as it went through them,

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the different trees,
whether it was oak, whether
it was beech, and he could.

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It was at this eagle
that I did my, er,

104
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first piece of what you could call
public speaking.

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It was the service of
The Nine Carols And Nine Lessons

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and the opening lesson had to be
read by the youngest choirboy.

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I was six.
The sentence I most remember was,

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"And the serpent beguiled her
and she did eat,"

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and I hadn't
the faintest idea what it meant.

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I had to come here though
and they put a box on here

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so I could see this and see above
this and I just was so terrified.

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I think that set the pattern.

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I mean, before any sort of
public speaking since then,

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I've always got so nervous
that I'm almost shaking,

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even now aged 75, 69 years on,
so you didn't do me any favours.

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Factory workers Stanley Bragg
and Ethel Park married in 1938.

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Melvyn was born a year later.

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I was an only child.

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I was born when the war started
and obviously they decided

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to have no more children
and I never asked them why.

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The number of questions I did not
ask my parents makes me ashamed

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ever to call myself
an interviewer really.

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His father joined the RAF and
was away for the next four years,

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leaving Melvyn alone
with his mother.

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My earliest memory,
it's to do with my mother.

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She's been asked to leave the
factory when she got married,

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as girls were in those days.

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She went out to clean houses.

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She'd tuck me
on the back of the bike

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and I'd go to other people's houses.

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I remember being with her
very firmly.

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Going down the street with
my grandma, 100 yards to the Co-op,

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could take about an hour.

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She just talked to everybody.

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She would want to know
how they were

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or who won at bingo or what was
going on or she would be laughing.

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She'd just be really interested.
She loved people.

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They were a really strong community,
as if it was extended family.

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They really looked after each other.

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We knew so many people,
which was great.

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I was Ethel's son or Stan's boy.

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Before anybody got their name round
this outlandish name called Melvyn,

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which was ridiculous in a town
that was full of Johns and Josephs

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and Joes and Sams, and what
the hell was I called Melvyn for?

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Where was that from? My mother
went to the pictures in 1938

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and saw Melvyn Douglas
in a film and thought he was

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terrific, so I got stuck with it.

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He was a good actor,
so we're all right, but still.

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The burning of the lips
that isn't thirst but something

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a thousand times more tantalising,
more exalting than thirst.

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You're very talkative.

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I can't remember much, in fact,

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about my father
coming back from the war.

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The impact it must have
had on me being so

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entirely supplanted by this man
I didn't know at all.

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It was no longer my mother and me,
it was three of us.

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In his autobiographical fiction,
the main protagonist, Joe,

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is Melvyn's alter ego.

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In this passage,
he describes Joe's experience

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when his father comes home from war.

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"Joe was in the bed.

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"Sam picked him up rather roughly
and the boy woke up.

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"'Come on.' Sam's voice was louder
than he had intended.

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"'Where are we going?'
'Back to your bed.'

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"'I want to sleep with Mummy.'

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"'This is where you sleep now.'

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"Joe sniffed. He didn't like the
smell that came off his father.

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"'Why can't I sleep with Mummy?'

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"'Don't be such a baby.'

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"The words were harsh. Joe cringed
and lay tactically still.

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"'We used to sleep in mud
sometimes,' said Sam,
by way of reparation."

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When Melvyn was eight,
his father became the landlord
of an old Wigton pub.

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That, that middle room, that
was my bedroom, it's like a cell.

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I lived here from 1948 till
I went to university in 1958.

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Well, it wasn't like this at all.

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It was four rooms down here,
not one room.

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This on the right was the bar.
It was a man's bar.

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On the left was the singing room
with a piano in the corner.

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I was an only child,
so I had a room on my own

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and I was up there from five o'clock
in the afternoon on my own.

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By quarter to seven it was empty,
most week nights

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and then dad would go upstairs
and my mother would go upstairs

183
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and I would be left in charge
and I'd be what,

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11, 12, and you learn to pull
a proper pint.

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My father taught me,
so I liked that.

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Even in the 1950s, it was
far nearer the late 19th century

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00:10:04,320 --> 00:10:06,840
than the late 20th century.

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I mean, women would walk down
the street dressed in black,
no teeth, aged 40.

189
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And the Old Testament
was in full force.

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00:10:13,760 --> 00:10:15,560
There was masses of don'ts.

191
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You couldn't play there and that,
you couldn't do that there,

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you're not supposed to do that
and that made people have secrets.

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00:10:21,520 --> 00:10:25,560
My mother, and for a lot of them,
they just monitored it,

194
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who'd be with who,
and the secrets they knew,

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00:10:28,720 --> 00:10:31,120
if I'd have known them,
I could have been Dostoevsky.

196
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There was a big secret at the
heart of Melvyn's own family.

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His mother, born in 1917,
was illegitimate,

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00:10:41,160 --> 00:10:43,320
then a terrible stigma.

199
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And her mother was sent
out of the town.

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I mean, it's the good old days,
God Almighty, er,

201
00:10:50,120 --> 00:10:55,640
and she was fostered by this woman
called Mrs Gilbertson

202
00:10:55,640 --> 00:10:58,360
who I thought was my grandmother,
so I was brought up

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surrounded by people who were not
who I thought they were.

204
00:11:01,400 --> 00:11:04,160
People had lied to you,
but they lied to you because

205
00:11:04,160 --> 00:11:06,600
it was better than
telling you the truth,

206
00:11:06,600 --> 00:11:10,040
which they thought you weren't
supposed to say that sort of thing.

207
00:11:10,040 --> 00:11:12,120
So it was quite complicated.

208
00:11:12,120 --> 00:11:14,920
What has that done for you, do you
think, in terms of truth and lies?

209
00:11:14,920 --> 00:11:16,920
It's made me the wreck I am today.

210
00:11:21,200 --> 00:11:24,240
Is William in? Yeah, OK.

211
00:11:25,280 --> 00:11:29,360
Melvyn's oldest friend,
William Ismay, runs the town cafe.

212
00:11:29,360 --> 00:11:33,600
The date of their first meeting
is lost in the mists of time.

213
00:11:33,600 --> 00:11:37,840
Oh, better ask Melvyn that.
I can't remember these fine details.

214
00:11:39,520 --> 00:11:41,760
It would be about four or five,
wouldn't it?

215
00:11:41,760 --> 00:11:44,560
Similar ages, then to the Scouts.

216
00:11:46,080 --> 00:11:48,720
Of course Melvyn was always
a natural achiever

217
00:11:48,720 --> 00:11:52,480
and we sort of became the best
group in the Cumberland Westmorland
Scout District.

218
00:11:54,160 --> 00:11:58,200
My father started off in this shop
here and of course Melvyn was
down in the Black-a-Moor.

219
00:11:58,200 --> 00:12:01,040
I used to go down, you know,
some nights,

220
00:12:01,040 --> 00:12:03,680
"Are you coming to the pictures
tonight, Melvyn? Good film on,"

221
00:12:03,680 --> 00:12:06,120
if it was a cowboy
or whatever it was.

222
00:12:06,120 --> 00:12:08,320
He'd look at his rota,
"No, no, I can't go tonight,

223
00:12:08,320 --> 00:12:10,920
"I've got to do this tonight," so.

224
00:12:10,920 --> 00:12:12,600
Sounds terrible, William.

225
00:12:12,600 --> 00:12:15,280
Oh, no, no, no, I mean,
and the rugby team.

226
00:12:15,280 --> 00:12:18,200
Melvyn wanted to be on that
first team and he tried to be,

227
00:12:18,200 --> 00:12:20,800
he got onto it. Once he was on,
that was it, you know,

228
00:12:20,800 --> 00:12:24,200
there's no way
he'd be off the team.

229
00:12:24,200 --> 00:12:27,120
I used to have arguments with your
dad about it. Aye, that's right.

230
00:12:27,120 --> 00:12:29,600
I remember once saying to him
when I was in your kitchen,

231
00:12:29,600 --> 00:12:31,320
in the middle of some kind of row,

232
00:12:31,320 --> 00:12:33,400
I was about eight or nine,
I said "But, Mr Ismay,

233
00:12:33,400 --> 00:12:36,160
"money doesn't matter."
Oh, he'd never let me forget that.

234
00:12:36,160 --> 00:12:39,440
"Money doesn't matter, there,"
he'd shout as we were
walking down the street.

235
00:12:39,440 --> 00:12:42,280
'I've very lucky, I've kept
some of my closest friends.'

236
00:12:42,280 --> 00:12:44,320
I've got, what,
ten friends or something,

237
00:12:44,320 --> 00:12:48,160
three or four of them are people
I knew when I was five years old,

238
00:12:48,160 --> 00:12:50,600
four years old,
six years old, back there.

239
00:12:50,600 --> 00:12:53,800
But when you went back, you were
conscious that you were privileged.

240
00:12:55,320 --> 00:12:58,120
You two left school when you
were 15 or 16, didn't you?

241
00:12:58,120 --> 00:13:01,160
And when I went to be
an apprentice bricklayer

242
00:13:01,160 --> 00:13:04,920
and went in the army when,
as soon as I was 21,

243
00:13:04,920 --> 00:13:08,000
cos you registered at 18
and as soon as you were 21,

244
00:13:08,000 --> 00:13:11,920
you went for a medical and
two weeks later, I was in the army.

245
00:13:11,920 --> 00:13:14,640
It was difficult to talk about
what you did...

246
00:13:16,320 --> 00:13:19,840
..because it, everything you said
would sound like showing off.

247
00:13:19,840 --> 00:13:22,240
Youth hostelling,
we went youth hostelling,

248
00:13:22,240 --> 00:13:25,320
cycling in the lakes,
those were good days.

249
00:13:27,280 --> 00:13:31,440
This happy, active childhood
was unexpectedly fractured.

250
00:13:31,440 --> 00:13:34,240
When he was 13,
Melvyn had a nervous breakdown.

251
00:13:35,480 --> 00:13:38,320
I can't remember how it started,
but it started.

252
00:13:38,320 --> 00:13:39,920
I had this experience.

253
00:13:39,920 --> 00:13:41,800
It happened when I was lying in bed

254
00:13:41,800 --> 00:13:44,640
and I'd look in the corner of the
room and there'd be a little light,

255
00:13:44,640 --> 00:13:46,560
an absolutely discernible light,

256
00:13:46,560 --> 00:13:48,520
and that light was me

257
00:13:48,520 --> 00:13:53,440
and I didn't know what to do
and I had to wait until that thing

258
00:13:53,440 --> 00:13:56,600
came back and rejoined me
and then I would be OK,

259
00:13:56,600 --> 00:14:00,520
except by that time
I was terrified and...

260
00:14:00,520 --> 00:14:04,120
So that went on, and then
it started to accelerate.

261
00:14:05,480 --> 00:14:08,760
I'd be walking up the street
to school

262
00:14:08,760 --> 00:14:11,080
and glance in the shop window
and see a reflection

263
00:14:11,080 --> 00:14:12,880
and it would slide out again,

264
00:14:12,880 --> 00:14:15,640
or I'd be brushing my teeth
and it would slide out again.

265
00:14:15,640 --> 00:14:19,520
I was frightened out of my mind
and I didn't know what to do.

266
00:14:20,560 --> 00:14:23,800
I couldn't talk to anybody, anybody.

267
00:14:23,800 --> 00:14:25,880
And everything went on the slide.

268
00:14:25,880 --> 00:14:29,440
I was, I was OK at school,
I stopped being OK at school.

269
00:14:29,440 --> 00:14:34,160
I think it was the year after that
I got sent down from 3A to 3C.

270
00:14:35,840 --> 00:14:38,840
"It is as if a distinct part of me,
is it my soul,

271
00:14:38,840 --> 00:14:40,720
"it is certainly an intelligence,

272
00:14:40,720 --> 00:14:42,960
"leaves my body
entirely and completely,

273
00:14:42,960 --> 00:14:47,000
"totally and unmistakably and hovers
above it looking back on this

274
00:14:47,000 --> 00:14:52,080
"vacated thing of flesh, bone,
blood, breath, water, matter.

275
00:14:55,120 --> 00:14:57,960
Help was to come from
an unusual quarter,

276
00:14:57,960 --> 00:15:01,160
a poem by Wordsworth,
himself a Cumbrian.

277
00:15:02,680 --> 00:15:05,960
It was when I read The Prelude,
and I hit on a patch

278
00:15:05,960 --> 00:15:09,960
where this boy was obviously
frightened out of his mind

279
00:15:09,960 --> 00:15:13,040
and he had a breakdown,
which he does in The Prelude.

280
00:15:13,040 --> 00:15:14,400
I thought...

281
00:15:14,400 --> 00:15:15,680
"That's me."

282
00:15:15,680 --> 00:15:19,720
And Wordsworth describes it
very well about how
the formations of the clouds

283
00:15:19,720 --> 00:15:22,960
after he's done something,
stealing a boat, in this case,

284
00:15:22,960 --> 00:15:26,440
as a boy, troubled his mind
and how the shapes that he saw

285
00:15:26,440 --> 00:15:30,080
began to feel like thoughts,
feel like formations of thoughts.

286
00:15:30,080 --> 00:15:34,240
And then the great accident that
he was writing about places

287
00:15:34,240 --> 00:15:37,360
I would go bicycling to,
so I would go to this place

288
00:15:37,360 --> 00:15:39,360
and go to that place
and go to the other place.

289
00:15:40,640 --> 00:15:43,480
Over the next few years,
Melvyn found a way of coping

290
00:15:43,480 --> 00:15:45,840
that was to become
his defining characteristic.

291
00:15:47,280 --> 00:15:49,280
Then I started to really work...

292
00:15:50,520 --> 00:15:52,200
..and I got lost in that,

293
00:15:52,200 --> 00:15:56,000
and then at the age of about 15
or 16, sex kicked in and I got

294
00:15:56,000 --> 00:15:59,280
a girlfriend, who was wonderful
and still is wonderful,

295
00:15:59,280 --> 00:16:03,000
and, er, things began to veer.

296
00:16:03,000 --> 00:16:06,400
But it took me quite a few years
to stop fearing it.

297
00:16:08,240 --> 00:16:11,280
"Joe had an intimation at the
uttermost limit of his mind

298
00:16:11,280 --> 00:16:13,800
"that with Rachel,
the siege would be lifted,

299
00:16:13,800 --> 00:16:15,960
"not only the fallings away

300
00:16:15,960 --> 00:16:19,800
"but other fears that she would
heal in yet unknown ways,

301
00:16:19,800 --> 00:16:23,480
"what work and will had only
staunched and subdued.

302
00:16:23,480 --> 00:16:26,520
"And yet if his feelings and
thoughts could have been summed up

303
00:16:26,520 --> 00:16:30,200
"in a single word as she came to
a stop a mere pace in front of him

304
00:16:30,200 --> 00:16:32,840
"that day, it would have been,
'help'.

305
00:16:37,240 --> 00:16:41,600
Joe's girlfriend Rachel is
based on Melvyn's first girlfriend,

306
00:16:41,600 --> 00:16:43,840
Joan, who's living back in Wigton.

307
00:16:45,240 --> 00:16:49,480
We had dances in the lunch hour
once a week at school.

308
00:16:49,480 --> 00:16:52,120
I don't know what or why, I think
probably to teach us to dance

309
00:16:52,120 --> 00:16:54,880
but I can't remember being taught,

310
00:16:54,880 --> 00:16:57,520
and I used to dance with Melvyn.

311
00:16:58,720 --> 00:17:00,640
He was a good dancer.

312
00:17:00,640 --> 00:17:03,960
TEACHER: Quite smart.
A little bit shaky here and there.

313
00:17:03,960 --> 00:17:05,960
He was good looking.

314
00:17:05,960 --> 00:17:08,480
Um...

315
00:17:08,480 --> 00:17:11,000
I just liked him.

316
00:17:11,000 --> 00:17:13,560
I never thought of him, you know,

317
00:17:13,560 --> 00:17:15,400
because he was clever or
anything like that,

318
00:17:15,400 --> 00:17:17,880
no, he was just my boyfriend.

319
00:17:17,880 --> 00:17:19,960
# Let's rock

320
00:17:19,960 --> 00:17:22,000
# Everybody, let's rock

321
00:17:23,560 --> 00:17:26,880
# Everybody in the whole cell block

322
00:17:26,880 --> 00:17:29,040
# Was dancing to
the jailhouse rock... #

323
00:17:29,040 --> 00:17:31,520
When I was about 15,

324
00:17:31,520 --> 00:17:35,840
I used to desperately want
an Elvis Presley haircut.

325
00:17:35,840 --> 00:17:38,640
Well, this, we were still in
the era of short back and sides

326
00:17:38,640 --> 00:17:40,040
so you had to struggle,

327
00:17:40,040 --> 00:17:43,840
and I used to go in the bathroom
and put on my own mixture

328
00:17:43,840 --> 00:17:47,960
of water, brilliantine and Brylcreem
to make this thing go quiff.

329
00:17:47,960 --> 00:17:49,600
Now my mother hated that.

330
00:17:49,600 --> 00:17:51,840
I turned round.
She looked at me and she said,

331
00:17:51,840 --> 00:17:55,640
"Melvyn, you're pleasant looking
and you'll never be anything else."

332
00:17:59,040 --> 00:18:01,800
Just what I needed when I was,
when I was,

333
00:18:01,800 --> 00:18:03,920
I was off on a very serious date.

334
00:18:06,480 --> 00:18:09,440
Every time I got that much
above myself, it was psssht!

335
00:18:09,440 --> 00:18:11,920
It was like a sort of
sharpened scimitar

336
00:18:11,920 --> 00:18:14,360
going just underneath the kneecap.

337
00:18:18,880 --> 00:18:23,400
In 1950s Wigton, most people
left school at 15 or 16.

338
00:18:25,600 --> 00:18:29,800
But the new history teacher,
Mr James, had other ideas.

339
00:18:29,800 --> 00:18:33,760
Now 94,
Mr James still lives in Wigton.

340
00:18:36,520 --> 00:18:39,400
Right from the beginning
I started out,

341
00:18:39,400 --> 00:18:42,480
right from the beginning with the
assumption that you were going on

342
00:18:42,480 --> 00:18:44,680
to university,
as if the world was your...

343
00:18:46,320 --> 00:18:49,320
..I hesitate to use the word oyster,
it's such a cliche,

344
00:18:49,320 --> 00:18:51,800
but that the world was
there for you to take.

345
00:18:51,800 --> 00:18:55,080
Any one of you
would have the ability to do it.

346
00:18:55,080 --> 00:19:00,520
I had to encourage people, on the
staff as well as in the school,

347
00:19:00,520 --> 00:19:03,800
that it was worth sending people
to Oxford and if you remember,

348
00:19:03,800 --> 00:19:08,440
I took you and five others
from your group, down to Oxford.

349
00:19:08,440 --> 00:19:11,280
I took you to London as well and I
took you round the House of Commons,

350
00:19:11,280 --> 00:19:12,800
I seem to remember, didn't I?

351
00:19:12,800 --> 00:19:15,920
What I was trying to do
was open up the potential,

352
00:19:15,920 --> 00:19:21,200
open up the possibilities that were
available for people like you,

353
00:19:21,200 --> 00:19:24,720
and you were one of my most
rewarding, because you bit.

354
00:19:26,640 --> 00:19:29,640
The line was out, the fish rose,

355
00:19:29,640 --> 00:19:34,200
you rose and of course the most
surprised people, your parents...

356
00:19:34,200 --> 00:19:36,720
Yeah. ..whom I went down
and saw quite often. Yeah.

357
00:19:36,720 --> 00:19:40,000
I used to come down
to the Black-a-Moor
and see your mum and dad.

358
00:19:40,000 --> 00:19:42,160
Your dad was very good. He was.

359
00:19:42,160 --> 00:19:45,800
He was very good indeed. He never
said a thing about it, you see.

360
00:19:45,800 --> 00:19:48,040
I'm, I'm discovering my life
sitting in this...

361
00:19:48,040 --> 00:19:51,040
I talked to your dad, I talked to
your dad. He never said a word.

362
00:19:51,040 --> 00:19:52,520
You know I kept in touch.

363
00:19:52,520 --> 00:19:55,120
I've been brought up by people
who never told me anything.

364
00:19:55,120 --> 00:19:57,160
You didn't tell me you were
a Spitfire pilot,

365
00:19:57,160 --> 00:20:00,240
my father didn't say you'd come and
talked about going to university.

366
00:20:00,240 --> 00:20:03,080
But also for one reason or another,
I became very,

367
00:20:03,080 --> 00:20:06,040
I became addicted to doing
an enormous amount of work.

368
00:20:06,040 --> 00:20:08,560
Well, that is the other point
we've not mentioned yet.

369
00:20:08,560 --> 00:20:11,360
That is that the secret
of your success,

370
00:20:11,360 --> 00:20:15,200
actually, was your capacity to work.

371
00:20:15,200 --> 00:20:16,880
You worked extremely hard.

372
00:20:17,880 --> 00:20:21,520
Melvyn began to excel at school
and became head boy.

373
00:20:23,560 --> 00:20:25,600
Eventually you got a 90, didn't you?

374
00:20:25,600 --> 00:20:28,640
I got 90 and a 95 in the A-level.

375
00:20:28,640 --> 00:20:32,320
You did. We were talking about going
up Helvellyn, do you remember that?

376
00:20:32,320 --> 00:20:34,760
I remember going up Helvellyn,
you taking me up Helvellyn

377
00:20:34,760 --> 00:20:37,320
for a treat with
a sandwich and an apple.

378
00:20:37,320 --> 00:20:40,880
He was a bit of a perfectionist,
yes. I remember you, when we got to

379
00:20:40,880 --> 00:20:44,120
the top of Helvellyn and you turned
to me and you said to me,

380
00:20:44,120 --> 00:20:46,280
"You know,
I can't help wondering."

381
00:20:46,280 --> 00:20:47,800
I said, "What are you wondering?"

382
00:20:47,800 --> 00:20:51,000
You said,
"What happened to the other five?"

383
00:20:53,640 --> 00:20:56,000
Oh, dear!
We're not putting that out.

384
00:21:01,560 --> 00:21:04,920
Melvyn was one of a growing wave
of grammar school

385
00:21:04,920 --> 00:21:07,040
boys and girls going to
Oxford and Cambridge.

386
00:21:08,560 --> 00:21:13,040
And in 1958, the working class boy
with the broad Cumbrian accent

387
00:21:13,040 --> 00:21:17,120
travelled south to take up his
scholarship at Wadham College.

388
00:21:17,120 --> 00:21:20,240
Do you think there's any reason
for opening the doors of Oxford

389
00:21:20,240 --> 00:21:23,920
and Cambridge to more grammar school
boys that at present come in?

390
00:21:23,920 --> 00:21:26,280
They are getting in
more and more now.

391
00:21:26,280 --> 00:21:28,400
I mean, three years ago
there were less...

392
00:21:28,400 --> 00:21:31,840
I'm sure there were less percentage
of grammar school people
coming than there are now.

393
00:21:31,840 --> 00:21:34,320
Do you, as a public school boy,
welcome that?

394
00:21:35,440 --> 00:21:37,600
Er...

395
00:21:37,600 --> 00:21:39,520
No, I suppose I don't, really.

396
00:21:40,600 --> 00:21:43,680
Well, I was very broad Cumbrian,
but I wasn't aware of that

397
00:21:43,680 --> 00:21:45,480
and I wasn't bothered by it.

398
00:21:45,480 --> 00:21:49,080
I loved the story of
Joan Bakewell going into
the lavatory one afternoon

399
00:21:49,080 --> 00:21:51,640
and saying, "I can't talk like...
I can't talk Lancashire any more,

400
00:21:51,640 --> 00:21:54,400
"I've got to talk like them,"
and coming out talking like them.

401
00:21:54,400 --> 00:21:56,840
That's great and I'm sure it's true.

402
00:21:56,840 --> 00:21:59,040
I think she's terrific,
so that was...

403
00:21:59,040 --> 00:22:01,280
I didn't do that,
it kind of rubbed away.

404
00:22:01,280 --> 00:22:03,560
We were the scholarship kids
from the north

405
00:22:03,560 --> 00:22:06,040
who made it to Oxbridge

406
00:22:06,040 --> 00:22:09,320
and that was a great aspirational
aspect of our generation.

407
00:22:09,320 --> 00:22:11,840
Our parents wanted us to
get on in the world

408
00:22:11,840 --> 00:22:13,880
so we worked and got scholarships

409
00:22:13,880 --> 00:22:16,720
and we went to study
in golden places

410
00:22:16,720 --> 00:22:19,400
which were not known
if you lived in the north.

411
00:22:19,400 --> 00:22:23,440
We really sank into what they
were about, which in those days

412
00:22:23,440 --> 00:22:27,080
was entirely about love of learning
for its own sake,

413
00:22:27,080 --> 00:22:30,520
not as a vocation, not to get you
a better job or a higher pay,

414
00:22:30,520 --> 00:22:33,960
but because you loved
knowledge for its own sake,

415
00:22:33,960 --> 00:22:35,800
and that's characteristic of Melvyn.

416
00:22:35,800 --> 00:22:37,400
He loves knowledge for its own sake.

417
00:22:39,400 --> 00:22:42,320
Melvyn was still
with his first girlfriend

418
00:22:42,320 --> 00:22:45,320
and in the vacation he went to
see her father on his farm.

419
00:22:46,560 --> 00:22:50,960
My father was milking and
Melvyn went into the byre

420
00:22:50,960 --> 00:22:54,720
where they milk the cows to ask
if we could get engaged.

421
00:22:54,720 --> 00:22:58,280
I suppose I must have been
about 19 and my father said,

422
00:22:58,280 --> 00:23:00,240
"I'll think it over
when I'm milking."

423
00:23:02,840 --> 00:23:06,000
On reflection that was a bad thing
to do because my father

424
00:23:06,000 --> 00:23:08,920
didn't like being interrupted
when he was milking the cows,

425
00:23:08,920 --> 00:23:12,160
and he came back and said "No, she's
too young, wait till she's 21."

426
00:23:14,640 --> 00:23:18,480
Keen to spread her own wings,
Joan had moved to London,

427
00:23:18,480 --> 00:23:21,520
near enough to Oxford to
continue their relationship.

428
00:23:26,760 --> 00:23:28,680
I went to Oxford to see him.

429
00:23:28,680 --> 00:23:32,280
I felt a bit like a fish
out of water maybe, but that's...

430
00:23:34,040 --> 00:23:37,280
..he had these very
intellectual friends

431
00:23:37,280 --> 00:23:40,320
and I certainly didn't feel
as though I could keep up

432
00:23:40,320 --> 00:23:42,920
or contribute to their conversation.

433
00:23:45,000 --> 00:23:47,120
We kept going for a couple of years

434
00:23:47,120 --> 00:23:49,120
and then it was just too
much of a strain,

435
00:23:49,120 --> 00:23:52,000
distance and growing away and,

436
00:23:52,000 --> 00:23:56,000
and then she, she...
she grew away, she pushed off.

437
00:23:58,200 --> 00:24:00,520
I do remember one thing
in particular.

438
00:24:00,520 --> 00:24:03,760
He suggested I would maybe
have to go to cookery classes

439
00:24:03,760 --> 00:24:08,000
for when we gave dinner parties,
and I thought, "Dinner parties?"

440
00:24:09,280 --> 00:24:10,920
"What happened to suppertime?"

441
00:24:12,120 --> 00:24:14,840
Which is what we call
the evening meal here.

442
00:24:14,840 --> 00:24:19,280
But I think probably that,
and I think I got cold feet...

443
00:24:21,680 --> 00:24:24,080
..and called it off.

444
00:24:25,120 --> 00:24:27,400
"In the summer vacation,
Joe came back home

445
00:24:27,400 --> 00:24:29,360
"for as short a time as he could.

446
00:24:29,360 --> 00:24:31,600
"Wigton belonged to
the time of Rachel,

447
00:24:31,600 --> 00:24:33,600
"which was gone, and forever.

448
00:24:33,600 --> 00:24:35,920
"How could he ever accept
and absorb that?

449
00:24:35,920 --> 00:24:38,920
"And Rachel still came there
and had to be avoided.

450
00:24:38,920 --> 00:24:41,960
"Avoiding Rachel was
the root of those days.

451
00:24:41,960 --> 00:24:44,640
"It belonged to a time so near
he could reach out

452
00:24:44,640 --> 00:24:47,680
"in his memory just a finger length
and touch it,

453
00:24:47,680 --> 00:24:49,840
"like rubbing his hand
on a sandstone wall.

454
00:24:50,960 --> 00:24:52,640
I started writing when I was 19,

455
00:24:52,640 --> 00:24:55,720
started writing short stories
and never told anybody, obviously

456
00:24:55,720 --> 00:24:58,280
never published them. I thought,
"Well, I want to write

457
00:24:58,280 --> 00:25:00,640
"and I'm going to make a living,

458
00:25:00,640 --> 00:25:02,760
"and I can't make a living
out of writing."

459
00:25:02,760 --> 00:25:06,320
So I went to the careers
opportunity office in Oxford

460
00:25:06,320 --> 00:25:09,280
and I didn't know what I wanted
to do so I filled in forms

461
00:25:09,280 --> 00:25:12,840
for Unilever, for Blythe
iron and steel works,

462
00:25:12,840 --> 00:25:16,040
for anything, I just wanted a job
so I could have a living and write.

463
00:25:16,040 --> 00:25:18,080
And then he said,
"There's this BBC stuff,

464
00:25:18,080 --> 00:25:19,840
"why don't you sign some of those?

465
00:25:19,840 --> 00:25:21,960
"A lot of you young men
want to try this,"

466
00:25:21,960 --> 00:25:24,200
so I filled in the forms
for the BBC stuff.

467
00:25:24,200 --> 00:25:28,120
The BBC awarded just
three traineeships that year,

468
00:25:28,120 --> 00:25:30,280
one of them to Melvyn.

469
00:25:31,920 --> 00:25:36,600
By now Melvyn had fallen in love
with Lisa, a French Viscountess.

470
00:25:36,600 --> 00:25:40,000
She was five years older
and studying painting in Oxford.

471
00:25:43,200 --> 00:25:45,640
"'Why do I want to marry you?'
he said eventually.

472
00:25:45,640 --> 00:25:48,400
"'Because you made
so little fuss about making love,

473
00:25:48,400 --> 00:25:51,120
"'because you're always here,
now, when I call,

474
00:25:51,120 --> 00:25:53,320
"'because you're enigmatic
and I don't know you but

475
00:25:53,320 --> 00:25:56,680
"'there's something I know I can
do for you, because I feel set

476
00:25:56,680 --> 00:25:59,040
"'and grounded and I can see
a wonderful life with you,

477
00:25:59,040 --> 00:26:00,560
"'a life which will take me to

478
00:26:00,560 --> 00:26:02,960
"'where I'd never have dreamed
of going without you.'

479
00:26:02,960 --> 00:26:04,840
But he said none of that.

480
00:26:04,840 --> 00:26:07,880
"'I want to marry you,'
he said, that's it.

481
00:26:09,400 --> 00:26:13,480
In 1961 they married
and moved to London.

482
00:26:13,480 --> 00:26:18,440
We're going ahead in ten seconds,
ten from now.

483
00:26:18,440 --> 00:26:21,480
From Wigton to London, via Oxford,

484
00:26:21,480 --> 00:26:25,280
Melvyn took up his first
placement at the BBC in radio,

485
00:26:25,280 --> 00:26:27,360
then considered the senior service.

486
00:26:28,600 --> 00:26:31,440
From the moment I went into the BBC,
I thought two things.

487
00:26:31,440 --> 00:26:35,880
They'll both seem immodest but,
you know, what's the point if
you're not trying to tell the truth?

488
00:26:35,880 --> 00:26:38,920
I thought, "I can do this,
I can make programmes,

489
00:26:38,920 --> 00:26:40,480
"I can do this,"

490
00:26:40,480 --> 00:26:43,320
and I also thought,
"I'm not going to let this go."

491
00:26:43,320 --> 00:26:46,440
"If this is the way
to earn a living,

492
00:26:46,440 --> 00:26:48,320
"wow, I'm going to hold on to it."

493
00:26:48,320 --> 00:26:51,320
So I loved that
and I liked doing radio programmes,

494
00:26:51,320 --> 00:26:54,720
and then you're supposed to go to
television and I didn't want to go.

495
00:26:54,720 --> 00:26:57,640
I had seen one Monitor programme.

496
00:27:01,720 --> 00:27:05,360
Monitor was the BBC's first
television arts programme,

497
00:27:05,360 --> 00:27:07,960
edited and presented by Huw Wheldon.

498
00:27:11,480 --> 00:27:13,800
Good evening.
The return of Monitor.

499
00:27:13,800 --> 00:27:17,320
He was to be an immense influence
on a generation of broadcasters,

500
00:27:17,320 --> 00:27:19,200
Melvyn included.

501
00:27:19,200 --> 00:27:22,640
Do you regard yourself as a writer
who, as well as writing novels

502
00:27:22,640 --> 00:27:25,640
and essays and other works,
also writes poetry,

503
00:27:25,640 --> 00:27:27,920
or primarily as a poet?

504
00:27:27,920 --> 00:27:31,720
I'd seen a study of Robert Graves
and I was stunned.

505
00:27:31,720 --> 00:27:33,200
That's him writing.

506
00:27:33,200 --> 00:27:35,840
And he was writing
"the butterfly, a cabbage-white,"

507
00:27:35,840 --> 00:27:39,720
and then he corrected it and
I was completely stunned.

508
00:27:39,720 --> 00:27:44,960
"Even the aerobatic swift
Has not his flying-crooked gift."

509
00:27:44,960 --> 00:27:48,200
That's about me,
not about the butterfly.

510
00:27:48,200 --> 00:27:51,080
So I said, I'll go to television
if I can work on Monitor,

511
00:27:51,080 --> 00:27:53,920
and they said,
"Huw Wheldon doesn't like trainees."

512
00:27:53,920 --> 00:27:55,840
But I went to see Huw

513
00:27:55,840 --> 00:27:58,840
and he tilted his chair back
and his feet, both feet on the desk

514
00:27:58,840 --> 00:28:01,000
and then he said,

515
00:28:01,000 --> 00:28:02,760
well, the laconic...
HE SIGHS

516
00:28:02,760 --> 00:28:05,080
"So why do you want
to come to Monitor?"

517
00:28:05,080 --> 00:28:06,600
And I said, "I don't."

518
00:28:08,920 --> 00:28:11,680
And he nearly fell
off the desk laughing.

519
00:28:11,680 --> 00:28:14,800
I said, "I've got to do it because
I've got to finish this course.

520
00:28:14,800 --> 00:28:16,440
"I'd just rather stay in radio.

521
00:28:16,440 --> 00:28:19,120
"I've seen one of your programmes
and I thought it was really good,

522
00:28:19,120 --> 00:28:21,520
"but I'm having a very good time
in the radio and I'd like

523
00:28:21,520 --> 00:28:24,840
"to stay there, but I've got to do
some television, so there you are."

524
00:28:25,960 --> 00:28:27,400
He hired me on the spot.

525
00:28:28,920 --> 00:28:31,560
Comparisons are odious
but inevitable.

526
00:28:31,560 --> 00:28:34,600
Background rumble and the woodwind
section seems strangely...

527
00:28:34,600 --> 00:28:37,360
Soon after Melvyn's arrival
at Monitor,

528
00:28:37,360 --> 00:28:39,400
Humphrey Burton
took over as editor.

529
00:28:40,440 --> 00:28:43,680
Those days back in the '60s,
it really was a golden age.

530
00:28:43,680 --> 00:28:44,880
Television was expanding.

531
00:28:44,880 --> 00:28:48,160
Each year, many more millions
actually bought licences.

532
00:28:48,160 --> 00:28:50,480
People were still,
not everybody had television

533
00:28:50,480 --> 00:28:52,280
when Melvyn came into Lime Grove.

534
00:28:53,640 --> 00:28:56,680
He was full of energy.
He was full of enthusiasm

535
00:28:56,680 --> 00:28:58,880
and he always wanted
more than he could have.

536
00:29:00,120 --> 00:29:02,560
Even when he was just 23, 24,
he was pushy.

537
00:29:02,560 --> 00:29:07,560
He wanted to have his projects
given full attention.

538
00:29:07,560 --> 00:29:09,800
Experiment was still OK.

539
00:29:09,800 --> 00:29:13,360
Eric Weldon coined the phrase,
"you have the right to fail."

540
00:29:13,360 --> 00:29:15,280
But Melvyn came out tops.

541
00:29:15,280 --> 00:29:18,400
He was one of the leaders
of the arts in BBC television.

542
00:29:20,600 --> 00:29:22,280
It was an exciting time

543
00:29:22,280 --> 00:29:26,200
and a wealth of innovative
programmes all came from one place,

544
00:29:26,200 --> 00:29:29,240
Lime Grove Studios in West London.

545
00:29:29,240 --> 00:29:31,200
This is BBC television.

546
00:29:37,720 --> 00:29:42,800
# That was the week that was,
it's over, let it go... #

547
00:29:42,800 --> 00:29:45,120
We were watching
each other's programmes

548
00:29:45,120 --> 00:29:47,440
and thrilled with
each other's programmes

549
00:29:47,440 --> 00:29:50,720
and we were changing things.
I mean, look at That Was The Week.

550
00:29:50,720 --> 00:29:53,960
It was getting 16 million people
at 10.30 on a Saturday night.

551
00:29:55,760 --> 00:29:57,840
A letter in the Guardian this week,

552
00:29:57,840 --> 00:30:00,680
Sir, the trouble with the
Liberal Party is that it contains

553
00:30:00,680 --> 00:30:03,640
too many chartered accountants
and too few farm labourers.

554
00:30:05,000 --> 00:30:09,040
Increased opportunities came
with the launch of a second
BBC television channel.

555
00:30:10,840 --> 00:30:15,080
Two new BBC Two transmitters opened
today so we begin by welcoming

556
00:30:15,080 --> 00:30:19,160
everyone who hasn't been with us
before to Late Night Line-Up.

557
00:30:19,160 --> 00:30:24,000
Melvyn is born of a television age,
which was in its youth

558
00:30:24,000 --> 00:30:27,880
when he began,
and has mellowed with it,

559
00:30:27,880 --> 00:30:30,480
and in so doing
he has shaped it.

560
00:30:32,760 --> 00:30:36,000
"London began to draw me in,
a willing victim,

561
00:30:36,000 --> 00:30:39,000
"tempting, enthralling,
poisoning, transforming.

562
00:30:39,000 --> 00:30:42,680
"I was half in bondage to it
and half the untutored Goth,

563
00:30:42,680 --> 00:30:45,360
"raiding Rome in lust for its loot.

564
00:30:45,360 --> 00:30:49,280
"I couldn't wait to get at the city
and work was a carnival."

565
00:30:52,040 --> 00:30:55,920
Melvyn found himself playing
the role of an MC at a strip club

566
00:30:55,920 --> 00:30:58,720
for the controversial director
Ken Russell.

567
00:31:00,160 --> 00:31:02,400
Well, ladies and gentlemen...

568
00:31:02,400 --> 00:31:05,560
It was the beginning of
an important collaboration.

569
00:31:05,560 --> 00:31:09,240
He would go on to write
the screenplay for several of
Russell's films.

570
00:31:11,640 --> 00:31:14,600
By now Melvyn was narrating
his own films

571
00:31:14,600 --> 00:31:17,760
and, in this one, is
clearly making his best efforts

572
00:31:17,760 --> 00:31:20,680
to sound as BBC as possible.

573
00:31:20,680 --> 00:31:23,720
'David Mercer has just bought
this house in North London.

574
00:31:23,720 --> 00:31:26,560
'He's 38 and has made his living
entirely from writing

575
00:31:26,560 --> 00:31:28,600
'for the past six years.'

576
00:31:28,600 --> 00:31:30,600
Melvyn's accent...

577
00:31:30,600 --> 00:31:32,360
personally, I couldn't give a toss.

578
00:31:32,360 --> 00:31:34,320
I think it was
a very pleasant accent

579
00:31:34,320 --> 00:31:37,560
and I don't think he
lost any ground from

580
00:31:37,560 --> 00:31:41,400
being a north... er, a Cumberland
boy and being proud of it.

581
00:31:41,400 --> 00:31:44,560
'It was his stage play,
Ride A Cock Horse with Peter O'Toole

582
00:31:44,560 --> 00:31:47,080
'a year or so ago which
brought him recognition

583
00:31:47,080 --> 00:31:49,360
'as a dramatist of the theatre.'

584
00:31:49,360 --> 00:31:53,440
We were the grammar school
generation and Britain began to be

585
00:31:53,440 --> 00:31:55,640
populated in the '60s,

586
00:31:55,640 --> 00:32:00,720
'70s and '80s by that
predominantly working class

587
00:32:00,720 --> 00:32:06,200
generation, the beneficiaries
of the Attlee government,

588
00:32:06,200 --> 00:32:10,200
and it did fundamentally change
the power structures of Britain,

589
00:32:10,200 --> 00:32:14,240
so Melvyn, I think, was part
of that movement and that drive.

590
00:32:16,960 --> 00:32:20,320
This is one of his first
appearances as a presenter,

591
00:32:20,320 --> 00:32:24,880
talking about an author
to whom he himself
would one day be compared.

592
00:32:24,880 --> 00:32:27,040
Now, though Sons and Lovers
is a novel,

593
00:32:27,040 --> 00:32:28,800
it didn't come out of thin air.

594
00:32:28,800 --> 00:32:30,960
Though there is part of
any work of fiction

595
00:32:30,960 --> 00:32:32,600
which does come out of the blue,

596
00:32:32,600 --> 00:32:35,440
that imagined force
that gives it life,

597
00:32:35,440 --> 00:32:38,480
but a great deal has to do
with the real life of the writer.

598
00:32:39,920 --> 00:32:43,880
Although he was working full-time
at the BBC, Melvyn was still

599
00:32:43,880 --> 00:32:49,880
managing to write and had completed,
but not yet published, three novels.

600
00:32:49,880 --> 00:32:53,120
What I used to do is to get up
at about five in the morning

601
00:32:53,120 --> 00:32:54,760
and write for two or three hours,

602
00:32:54,760 --> 00:32:58,360
and then go through to catch
the Tube and then do another hour

603
00:32:58,360 --> 00:33:00,640
or two in the evening.

604
00:33:00,640 --> 00:33:04,240
When I'm sitting there writing,
I'm absolutely content.

605
00:33:04,240 --> 00:33:07,680
In 1965, Melvyn's first novel
was published.

606
00:33:08,760 --> 00:33:12,760
It was acclaimed as the debut of a
distinctive and talented new writer.

607
00:33:13,840 --> 00:33:18,720
He decided to abandon his successful
BBC career to write full-time.

608
00:33:20,720 --> 00:33:26,200
I'd just retired from the BBC,
taken out my pension,
£262 and ten shillings,

609
00:33:26,200 --> 00:33:27,440
my entire pension fund,

610
00:33:27,440 --> 00:33:30,760
set up as a writer and got broke
within about three months.

611
00:33:34,160 --> 00:33:37,760
Hollywood came calling
and he began writing film scripts.

612
00:33:37,760 --> 00:33:40,840
MUSIC: Jesus Christ Superstar

613
00:33:51,840 --> 00:33:58,560
In films, I got to write
the script and then that would be

614
00:33:58,560 --> 00:34:03,880
used as the first brick in building
a house that you could not

615
00:34:03,880 --> 00:34:07,040
recognise when it was finished,
and other bricks above that,

616
00:34:07,040 --> 00:34:10,320
but other screenplays, writers,
having a go at it and changing it,

617
00:34:10,320 --> 00:34:15,360
sometimes changing it radically, so,
so there was no satisfaction in it.

618
00:34:15,360 --> 00:34:19,240
You didn't control it
and you weren't working with people

619
00:34:19,240 --> 00:34:22,240
who were sympathetic
to go in the same direction.

620
00:34:23,920 --> 00:34:29,400
That didn't work for me
and I didn't work for them either,

621
00:34:29,400 --> 00:34:31,960
so it was two negatives, pow.

622
00:34:39,160 --> 00:34:43,440
By 1971, Melvyn had
separated from his wife, Lisa,

623
00:34:43,440 --> 00:34:45,640
with whom he'd had a daughter.

624
00:34:45,640 --> 00:34:47,880
Lisa, who had a history
of depression,

625
00:34:47,880 --> 00:34:49,760
tragically committed suicide.

626
00:34:51,360 --> 00:34:55,600
It was an event that cast
a long shadow over Melvyn's life,

627
00:34:55,600 --> 00:34:59,040
and it would be 40 years before
he felt able to write about it.

628
00:35:01,680 --> 00:35:05,800
Their daughter, Marie-Elsa,
was six when her mother died.

629
00:35:05,800 --> 00:35:08,480
She hasn't spoken about it
publically until now.

630
00:35:10,160 --> 00:35:13,600
Oh, I'll never forget when he told
me what happened, I mean,

631
00:35:13,600 --> 00:35:15,680
um, so obviously...

632
00:35:17,120 --> 00:35:21,400
um, a very big part of my life,
um...

633
00:35:21,400 --> 00:35:24,640
He did tell me in a church.

634
00:35:24,640 --> 00:35:26,280
He took me to a church.

635
00:35:27,920 --> 00:35:31,960
My mother was deep in,
er, Jungian analysis

636
00:35:31,960 --> 00:35:36,240
but her analyst committed suicide,
six months before she did.

637
00:35:36,240 --> 00:35:39,680
There were just catastrophes
that happened along the way and

638
00:35:39,680 --> 00:35:42,720
nobody knew, she didn't tell anyone
because she couldn't or, I don't

639
00:35:42,720 --> 00:35:49,000
know why, so what seems to happen
is that everybody feels guilty.

640
00:35:49,000 --> 00:35:53,440
Until this day, some of her
greatest friends still love her

641
00:35:53,440 --> 00:35:58,560
as if she was around yesterday
and they're still really, really

642
00:35:58,560 --> 00:36:02,400
upset and they're still wondering
if they could have done anything.

643
00:36:03,640 --> 00:36:07,520
After my mum died, er, for
a good period, he would take me

644
00:36:07,520 --> 00:36:10,760
to work with him a lot,
especially if he worked weekends,

645
00:36:10,760 --> 00:36:15,240
so I got to sit inside editing
suites and go and check the sets

646
00:36:15,240 --> 00:36:19,680
with him or he'd have a big group of
people debating the next project or

647
00:36:19,680 --> 00:36:24,520
he'd be going for a walk and needing
to decide between different titles.

648
00:36:24,520 --> 00:36:26,960
It was very hard work.
He worked really hard.

649
00:36:29,640 --> 00:36:32,440
"It was not so much that he put
everything into his work,

650
00:36:32,440 --> 00:36:35,760
"it was that he looked at the work
to put everything into him.

651
00:36:35,760 --> 00:36:39,440
"Labour was his school,
his opportunity, the stuff of his

652
00:36:39,440 --> 00:36:43,880
"imagination and increasingly the
object to which his senses reached.

653
00:36:43,880 --> 00:36:47,760
"He attacked it and wanted
his blows returned to go harder,

654
00:36:47,760 --> 00:36:49,400
"daring it to give him limits."

655
00:36:52,400 --> 00:36:57,880
In 1973, Melvyn married writer
and film maker Cate Haste,

656
00:36:57,880 --> 00:37:01,360
with whom he would go on to have
two more children.

657
00:37:01,360 --> 00:37:05,400
I thought he was very good-looking,
actually, um,

658
00:37:05,400 --> 00:37:11,480
but also he was, full of, um,
well, he was exploring new areas

659
00:37:11,480 --> 00:37:14,200
really, there was
this sort of bubbling energy

660
00:37:14,200 --> 00:37:18,400
but in different areas,
almost exploring different facets
of his personality,

661
00:37:18,400 --> 00:37:23,120
and I've always felt writing was
actually the most important thing.

662
00:37:23,120 --> 00:37:27,360
He was publishing novel after novel,
but it didn't pay enough,

663
00:37:27,360 --> 00:37:31,360
and the need to earn a living
drove Melvyn back into television.

664
00:37:31,360 --> 00:37:33,920
# Paperback writer... #

665
00:37:33,920 --> 00:37:38,080
By the mid-'70s, Melvyn had returned
to the BBC with a new series

666
00:37:38,080 --> 00:37:39,840
that he'd created.

667
00:37:39,840 --> 00:37:44,000
And I really did think,
I'll copy a panel game

668
00:37:44,000 --> 00:37:48,680
so if anybody turns on,
it looks like a panel game -

669
00:37:48,680 --> 00:37:51,280
it's got dah, dah, dah,
three people there,

670
00:37:51,280 --> 00:37:54,160
chairman there, it's got a
little quiz in the middle,

671
00:37:54,160 --> 00:37:56,360
except on the panel
will be Gore Vidal,

672
00:37:56,360 --> 00:38:00,120
Jonathan Miller, Martin Amis,
Antonia Fraser, they'll be the
panel.

673
00:38:05,120 --> 00:38:08,760
Hello, this is the programme about
paperbacks out this week, coming

674
00:38:08,760 --> 00:38:11,720
into the shops from today and to
talk about them tonight I'm joined

675
00:38:11,720 --> 00:38:15,240
by Joan Bakewell, journalist and
of course television broadcaster.

676
00:38:15,240 --> 00:38:16,480
Hello.

677
00:38:16,480 --> 00:38:20,320
Clive James, poet, songwriter
and television critic. Hello.

678
00:38:20,320 --> 00:38:25,520
And Jonathan Miller, doctor,
writer and a director in theatre
and television. Hello.

679
00:38:25,520 --> 00:38:29,040
But why did you choose to
write about Cromwell?

680
00:38:29,040 --> 00:38:30,640
Well, I, I must be honest

681
00:38:30,640 --> 00:38:34,480
and say I wanted to write somebody
as far away as Mary Queen of Scots

682
00:38:34,480 --> 00:38:39,560
as I possibly could find and I think
that person must be Oliver Cromwell.

683
00:38:39,560 --> 00:38:41,280
His popularity was growing.

684
00:38:41,280 --> 00:38:44,320
His casual style was radical
and refreshing

685
00:38:44,320 --> 00:38:47,360
and he wasn't afraid to take on
famous establishment figures.

686
00:38:47,360 --> 00:38:48,800
..of the leftist, for example.

687
00:38:48,800 --> 00:38:51,840
You're supposed to have all these
outrageous opinions and then...

688
00:38:51,840 --> 00:38:55,440
I never... They never appear in
print, except in your words.

689
00:38:55,440 --> 00:38:57,520
I know what you're trying to do.

690
00:38:57,520 --> 00:39:02,360
You're trying to make me out as a,
as some er, crypto-National Front...

691
00:39:02,360 --> 00:39:04,120
It isn't right, you know.

692
00:39:04,120 --> 00:39:08,520
You accused me of calling you a,
a crypto-National Front,

693
00:39:08,520 --> 00:39:11,160
in other words, of calling you
a fascist. I hadn't said...

694
00:39:11,160 --> 00:39:13,560
Colonel. Just a second.
Colonel was under the bed.

695
00:39:13,560 --> 00:39:17,720
I hadn't said any such thing,
but you got a lot of fun out of it.

696
00:39:17,720 --> 00:39:20,480
That's what you mean.
What... That's what you mean.

697
00:39:20,480 --> 00:39:23,320
You can't get, you can't say that,
you can't tell me what I mean.

698
00:39:26,800 --> 00:39:31,040
Across the river, on the South Bank
of the Thames, an offer was brewing.

699
00:39:31,040 --> 00:39:35,720
London Weekend Television wanted
to revamp their arts programming.

700
00:39:35,720 --> 00:39:41,000
We set out to, um, look for
a presenter for that programme

701
00:39:41,000 --> 00:39:44,000
and actually, er,
there was a list of one.

702
00:39:44,000 --> 00:39:46,080
We never looked beyond Melvyn.

703
00:39:46,080 --> 00:39:51,960
He had a fresh, contemporary feel
to him, brisk, no-nonsense.

704
00:39:51,960 --> 00:39:55,240
At that time you would say this,
this may seem, er,

705
00:39:55,240 --> 00:39:58,440
a little bit of a caricature
but the, kind of the arts were

706
00:39:58,440 --> 00:40:00,080
owned by the public school classes.

707
00:40:00,080 --> 00:40:05,200
That's not a completely fair
statement, but here was somebody

708
00:40:05,200 --> 00:40:08,240
who was bright, obviously

709
00:40:08,240 --> 00:40:14,320
of working class origin, unfussy,
unprissy and, er, exactly the fit

710
00:40:14,320 --> 00:40:18,480
for the programme that we wanted
to make, and we approached Melvyn.

711
00:40:18,480 --> 00:40:22,840
He wanted to be the editor
as well as the presenter and er,

712
00:40:22,840 --> 00:40:25,680
the deal was done
and the rest was history.

713
00:40:25,680 --> 00:40:30,960
And I had got,
already worked out that there,
the thing that was missing was the

714
00:40:30,960 --> 00:40:35,000
join in my life between the culture
I'd been brought up in,

715
00:40:35,000 --> 00:40:39,520
which was comedy on radio,
going to the movies,

716
00:40:39,520 --> 00:40:45,800
er, later watching television,
comedians, pop singers, all that

717
00:40:45,800 --> 00:40:48,160
and the things that I'd got used to

718
00:40:48,160 --> 00:40:52,920
in London, opera, ballet, concerts,
the high-brow writers and so forth.

719
00:40:52,920 --> 00:40:58,360
I thought these are the same,
they're in the same business,

720
00:40:58,360 --> 00:41:00,240
they're like that.

721
00:41:00,240 --> 00:41:07,440
Therefore a very good composer
of popular music is to be taken

722
00:41:07,440 --> 00:41:10,360
just as seriously as a good
composer of classical music.

723
00:41:10,360 --> 00:41:12,600
Melvyn was particularly good,
wasn't he?

724
00:41:12,600 --> 00:41:15,240
I mean, he nailed his colours
to the mast from the beginning

725
00:41:15,240 --> 00:41:18,680
when he got Andrew Lloyd Webber
to jazz up the Paganini variation.

726
00:41:18,680 --> 00:41:21,600
# Dum-dum dum-dum dum-dum... #

727
00:41:21,600 --> 00:41:25,840
MUSIC: South Bank Show Theme

728
00:41:25,840 --> 00:41:28,480
This was the start
of The South Bank Show.

729
00:41:30,680 --> 00:41:32,680
THEME CONTINUES

730
00:41:47,520 --> 00:41:49,080
Hello. This is a new show.

731
00:41:49,080 --> 00:41:51,600
We're here every Saturday night
for the next six months

732
00:41:51,600 --> 00:41:54,320
and I'm going to try and make
programmes which will include

733
00:41:54,320 --> 00:41:57,520
both the latest and the best
in the arts of our times.

734
00:41:57,520 --> 00:41:59,920
I got the Berlin Philharmonic
lined up, we'd worked there.

735
00:41:59,920 --> 00:42:02,960
I'd got the Royal Shakespeare
lined up, we'd done some work there,

736
00:42:02,960 --> 00:42:05,280
and one or two other things
like that lined up,

737
00:42:05,280 --> 00:42:07,280
but I really fought
to get McCartney.

738
00:42:07,280 --> 00:42:12,040
You're just plonking along
on a chord and you decide to

739
00:42:12,040 --> 00:42:16,160
sort of, for some reason, you decide
to reach out and see what's there.

740
00:42:16,160 --> 00:42:17,600
See what you can pull down.

741
00:42:17,600 --> 00:42:20,440
And you can do it any time,
you know, you can just, you know...

742
00:42:20,440 --> 00:42:22,480
I mean, this will
probably be chronic,

743
00:42:22,480 --> 00:42:23,880
but you can just, you know...

744
00:42:23,880 --> 00:42:26,640
# Melvyn Bragg was in the parlour

745
00:42:26,640 --> 00:42:30,680
# And he said that he
was going to have some tea... #

746
00:42:30,680 --> 00:42:33,880
I mean, you know, that's not
very good, but you could,
you could work on that.

747
00:42:33,880 --> 00:42:37,320
I think it was the Sunday Telegraph
that said that we applaud ITV

748
00:42:37,320 --> 00:42:38,680
doing an arts programme,

749
00:42:38,680 --> 00:42:41,800
but we draw the line in the arts
at that Lennon-McCartney.

750
00:42:41,800 --> 00:42:44,200
When they talk
about bringing dreams in...

751
00:42:44,200 --> 00:42:45,760
The South Bank Show started life

752
00:42:45,760 --> 00:42:48,000
as a multi-subject
magazine programme,

753
00:42:48,000 --> 00:42:50,080
but it wasn't getting an audience.

754
00:42:50,080 --> 00:42:53,400
The whole struggle
was against monumentalism, I mean,

755
00:42:53,400 --> 00:42:55,000
we should be doing our own.

756
00:42:55,000 --> 00:42:58,800
We were getting murdered, every
which way, we were getting murdered.

757
00:42:58,800 --> 00:43:01,600
People will just walk
by it and not think.

758
00:43:01,600 --> 00:43:03,840
Melvyn had to think fast,
and mid-run,

759
00:43:03,840 --> 00:43:06,480
he abandoned the magazine format

760
00:43:06,480 --> 00:43:10,240
and devoted each programme
to a single artist.

761
00:43:10,240 --> 00:43:12,960
I just bet the ranch on it
and I thought, well, they're going

762
00:43:12,960 --> 00:43:14,880
to fire me so I'm going to do
Ingmar Bergman

763
00:43:14,880 --> 00:43:17,960
because he's my hero, he's never
done anything on British Television.

764
00:43:17,960 --> 00:43:20,640
Take one.
So we got Bergman.

765
00:43:20,640 --> 00:43:23,640
Ha! Right! Good.

766
00:43:23,640 --> 00:43:27,520
We got Pinter. His first interview
in many years, and David Hockney.

767
00:43:27,520 --> 00:43:29,520
We did a big film
with David and it went phew,

768
00:43:29,520 --> 00:43:32,160
it took about two weeks to turn
the entire thing around

769
00:43:32,160 --> 00:43:35,240
and then we won the Prix Italia. I
think it was ITV's first Prix Italia

770
00:43:35,240 --> 00:43:39,280
and then we won it again
the next season and then we won it
again the next season for the arts.

771
00:43:39,280 --> 00:43:41,560
So once we got into the swing of it,
it was OK.

772
00:43:41,560 --> 00:43:43,320
It was very hairy at the start.

773
00:43:43,320 --> 00:43:45,800
It was seriously,
sleepless nights and um,

774
00:43:45,800 --> 00:43:47,560
it was a, a bit nerve-racking.

775
00:43:48,560 --> 00:43:52,280
Surprising what winning a couple
of prizes does for you, though.

776
00:43:55,160 --> 00:43:57,840
This was one of Melvyn's
most memorable

777
00:43:57,840 --> 00:44:01,640
South Bank Shows, about
the painter Francis Bacon.

778
00:44:01,640 --> 00:44:04,400
Well, how long have you worked here?

779
00:44:04,400 --> 00:44:07,880
Well, I've been here for years,
about 23 years or more.

780
00:44:07,880 --> 00:44:11,600
Their shared interests
extended beyond the arts.

781
00:44:11,600 --> 00:44:15,760
Yes, I think Francis will follow me
to my grave really.

782
00:44:15,760 --> 00:44:20,520
These, these are my few abstract
pictures here and er,

783
00:44:20,520 --> 00:44:25,360
because I used the walls and things
just to test the colours out on
them. Yeah.

784
00:44:25,360 --> 00:44:31,880
And we turn up at his house,
this dump in Reeves Mews, which was,

785
00:44:31,880 --> 00:44:35,320
um, it's now, they transported the
whole dump to Dublin as a museum.

786
00:44:35,320 --> 00:44:37,160
He'd lined up champagne bottles.

787
00:44:37,160 --> 00:44:38,800
We had a couple of glasses
of champagne

788
00:44:38,800 --> 00:44:41,640
and I felt it was really good -
what did I stop drinking for?

789
00:44:41,640 --> 00:44:44,360
It didn't have the slightest
effect on me whatsoever.

790
00:44:44,360 --> 00:44:47,120
How right you are.
Whatever, whatever it is.

791
00:44:47,120 --> 00:44:49,200
And everything else
is a falling away.

792
00:44:49,200 --> 00:44:51,200
Whatever it is. Everything else...

793
00:44:51,200 --> 00:44:54,040
Is a falling away. Is a falling
away. That's right.

794
00:44:55,080 --> 00:44:57,880
Then we went up to the place
where we always had a big lunch

795
00:44:57,880 --> 00:45:01,720
so we had a big lunch and a lot
of red wine and we kept drinking

796
00:45:01,720 --> 00:45:04,600
and er, well, we both got
very drunk.

797
00:45:04,600 --> 00:45:10,080
I say "why should you?"
but I want to be able to re-make

798
00:45:10,080 --> 00:45:15,960
in another medium, the reality of,
of an image that, that,

799
00:45:15,960 --> 00:45:17,720
that excites me.

800
00:45:22,080 --> 00:45:24,680
Cheerio.
Cheerio, Francis.

801
00:45:25,800 --> 00:45:28,960
And I saw the rushes a couple
of mornings later and I rang up

802
00:45:28,960 --> 00:45:31,400
and said, Francis, there's a,
when we done that thing,

803
00:45:31,400 --> 00:45:34,560
in the studio it was fine, and,
and in the restaurant towards the

804
00:45:34,560 --> 00:45:39,280
end, you're drunk and I'm drunk, er,
but I think there's something in it.

805
00:45:40,320 --> 00:45:44,000
I think, I think it's,
it shows you as you are really

806
00:45:44,000 --> 00:45:46,920
a lot of the time, not drunk but
you're saying things, you said well,

807
00:45:46,920 --> 00:45:52,520
I've got egg all over my face but,
I don't mind, do you mind if
I show...

808
00:45:52,520 --> 00:45:55,520
"Do what you want with it, darling,
do what you want with it."

809
00:45:55,520 --> 00:45:57,640
You're not interested
in fantasy, are you?

810
00:45:57,640 --> 00:46:00,280
No, not in the least.
Nor am I, not in the slightest.

811
00:46:00,280 --> 00:46:04,200
I'm not interested in things of
fantasy. I'm interested in reality.

812
00:46:04,200 --> 00:46:09,000
What's reality?
Reality is what exists.

813
00:46:09,000 --> 00:46:12,960
For me, the South Bank Show
was my route to culture,

814
00:46:12,960 --> 00:46:14,440
my only route to culture,

815
00:46:14,440 --> 00:46:17,240
at the age of sort of 14, 15,
growing up in Margate,

816
00:46:17,240 --> 00:46:18,920
it was like my, you know, it's

817
00:46:18,920 --> 00:46:22,760
like how I got involved in the world
that was actually in my head.

818
00:46:24,280 --> 00:46:26,480
Our visual arts presenter,
Tracey Emin.

819
00:46:35,440 --> 00:46:37,600
When I was a child
about 10 years old,

820
00:46:37,600 --> 00:46:41,080
when most of the kids were outside
playing, I must confess I would

821
00:46:41,080 --> 00:46:44,920
sit in front of the mirror and
imagine that I was being interviewed

822
00:46:44,920 --> 00:46:50,320
by Melvyn Bragg, so this is the
closest I will probably ever get.

823
00:46:50,320 --> 00:46:53,960
I suppose some teenage girls
would have other idols

824
00:46:53,960 --> 00:46:57,480
and fantasise about other people,
but mine was Melvyn.

825
00:46:58,760 --> 00:47:00,400
MUSIC: Fame
by David Bowie

826
00:47:04,720 --> 00:47:08,280
Hello, Tracey, very nice to see you.
Cheers.

827
00:47:10,920 --> 00:47:13,320
There are those who have said
that celebrity

828
00:47:13,320 --> 00:47:15,600
gets in the way of being serious.

829
00:47:15,600 --> 00:47:18,840
That is true, like a museum's not as
likely to buy my work as they would

830
00:47:18,840 --> 00:47:22,920
do if it was someone else because
of the celebrity thing, because of

831
00:47:22,920 --> 00:47:26,760
the, the glamour thing but there are
a lot of sort of like as I've said,

832
00:47:26,760 --> 00:47:30,600
sort of grumbly old men out there
that would never take me seriously.

833
00:47:32,040 --> 00:47:36,160
My dad has a continual
delight about people

834
00:47:36,160 --> 00:47:40,600
he meets or new ideas
or, you know, an artist.

835
00:47:40,600 --> 00:47:44,640
He, he has a...
it slightly dazzles him still.

836
00:47:44,640 --> 00:47:47,080
Where is the fellow?
I fear to come.

837
00:47:47,080 --> 00:47:48,880
Go to, go to.

838
00:47:50,760 --> 00:47:53,200
Come hither, sir.
Good Majesty.

839
00:47:53,200 --> 00:47:57,040
The South Bank Show has
run for almost 800 episodes.

840
00:47:57,040 --> 00:48:00,280
It's a remarkable chronicle of
many of the world's most talented

841
00:48:00,280 --> 00:48:03,560
artists, musicians,
writers and actors.

842
00:48:03,560 --> 00:48:07,840
We use that word, isn't he a
polymath... I know that he reads up

843
00:48:07,840 --> 00:48:12,480
about things and he's obviously
got an incredibly retentive memory

844
00:48:12,480 --> 00:48:18,280
cos he remembers everything but he,
he knows, he knows the business,

845
00:48:18,280 --> 00:48:22,240
so you feel safe and you know that
in his hands it will be all right.

846
00:48:22,240 --> 00:48:27,320
There you go. I would like to
be like Newton Blick who, you know,

847
00:48:27,320 --> 00:48:30,360
died in the dressing room
after a performance,

848
00:48:30,360 --> 00:48:33,680
except that I love my family so much
that I'd prefer to do it here.

849
00:48:33,680 --> 00:48:38,880
You get some people who interview
you, who have questions and ask the

850
00:48:38,880 --> 00:48:43,920
questions, but Melvyn, you feel that
it's, that the interview is organic.

851
00:48:46,840 --> 00:48:52,080
Melvyn's most affecting interview
was with Dennis Potter in 1994.

852
00:48:52,080 --> 00:48:54,920
At the height of his fame
as a TV dramatist,

853
00:48:54,920 --> 00:48:56,520
Potter was dying of cancer.

854
00:48:56,520 --> 00:48:58,400
I think mine is with the ashtray.

855
00:48:58,400 --> 00:49:02,000
He came in an ambulance
with morphine.

856
00:49:02,000 --> 00:49:04,080
Champagne he wanted and fags.

857
00:49:04,080 --> 00:49:07,720
There's no treatment possible,
it's just blanking out pain with

858
00:49:07,720 --> 00:49:12,440
morphine so it's finding the
balance between the amount of pain

859
00:49:12,440 --> 00:49:16,440
that allows you to work and the
amount that you need to blank out,

860
00:49:16,440 --> 00:49:18,000
you know... Yeah.

861
00:49:18,000 --> 00:49:20,160
Cos you know, if you blank it out
totally, you can't work.

862
00:49:20,160 --> 00:49:24,280
What was the biggest triumph,
of course, was, was seeing him

863
00:49:24,280 --> 00:49:29,920
so much himself,
easy, open, relaxed.

864
00:49:33,080 --> 00:49:37,120
Er, er, full of joy in some way.

865
00:49:37,120 --> 00:49:40,240
Below my window in Ross,
when I'm working in Ross,

866
00:49:40,240 --> 00:49:45,080
is a plum tree, er, it looks
like apple blossom, it's white and

867
00:49:45,080 --> 00:49:48,360
looking at it, instead of saying,
"Oh, that's nice blossom," you know,

868
00:49:48,360 --> 00:49:52,400
now the, last week, looking at it,
through the window when I'm writing,

869
00:49:52,400 --> 00:49:58,920
it is the whitest, frothiest,
blossom-est blossom that there

870
00:49:58,920 --> 00:50:03,800
ever could be, you know, and things
are both more trivial than they

871
00:50:03,800 --> 00:50:07,480
ever were and more important than
they ever were and the difference

872
00:50:07,480 --> 00:50:11,080
between the trivial and the
important doesn't seem to matter.

873
00:50:11,080 --> 00:50:16,600
But the now-ness of everything
is absolutely wondrous.

874
00:50:16,600 --> 00:50:20,440
Um, can I break off for a second?
I need a swig of that,

875
00:50:20,440 --> 00:50:22,640
there's liquid morphine
in that thing.

876
00:50:22,640 --> 00:50:27,120
And there was one terrible minute
when he, he stopped

877
00:50:27,120 --> 00:50:29,600
and I thought, he's stopped
and he reached,

878
00:50:29,600 --> 00:50:32,240
and he got his morphine bottle out
and he couldn't open it.

879
00:50:32,240 --> 00:50:34,880
Anyway, we went on
for about 74 minutes.

880
00:50:34,880 --> 00:50:38,640
This is not agitation about
Brimstone and Treacle, by the way.

881
00:50:38,640 --> 00:50:41,080
Do you want another drink?

882
00:50:41,080 --> 00:50:42,840
I wouldn't mind, yeah.

883
00:50:42,840 --> 00:50:44,880
Somebody's last testament

884
00:50:44,880 --> 00:50:50,520
was in this way not in any
reality show, celebrity show crap,

885
00:50:50,520 --> 00:50:57,400
it was a real person giving
his last interview inside the medium

886
00:50:57,400 --> 00:51:01,200
that had made him the person he was.

887
00:51:01,200 --> 00:51:03,520
I need that thing again.
I'm sorry, I'm...

888
00:51:05,080 --> 00:51:08,200
Thank you very much, Dennis, thanks.

889
00:51:08,200 --> 00:51:11,800
No, thank you, you made it easy,
Melvyn, but, but then you always do.

890
00:51:17,120 --> 00:51:21,560
Well, I felt OK, you see. At certain
points I felt I was flying with it.

891
00:51:21,560 --> 00:51:22,920
Yeah, you were.

892
00:51:22,920 --> 00:51:26,880
And, so I'm, I'm grateful for the
chance, you know, this is my chance.

893
00:51:26,880 --> 00:51:32,160
When we'd finished and I went out
on to the... Thames side

894
00:51:32,160 --> 00:51:38,040
and of course it was
the pathetic fallacy, I mean,
it was pouring down,

895
00:51:38,040 --> 00:51:43,360
um, and er, I was just very
shaken up and the whole studio was.

896
00:51:43,360 --> 00:51:45,160
Thanks very much, folks. Thank you.

897
00:51:45,160 --> 00:51:48,720
Do you want to come
in the Green Room?

898
00:51:48,720 --> 00:51:54,480
It was very difficult to do
but he reached a height of um,

899
00:51:54,480 --> 00:51:57,400
the height of his sensitivity
in that interview,

900
00:51:57,400 --> 00:52:02,600
which enabled Potter to say things
which were extraordinary

901
00:52:02,600 --> 00:52:06,680
and poetic and I think it takes
a very good interviewer to do that.

902
00:52:08,920 --> 00:52:11,160
Melvyn was now a prolific author,

903
00:52:11,160 --> 00:52:16,040
Controller of Arts at LWT,
ubiquitous on our television screens

904
00:52:16,040 --> 00:52:19,160
and presenting Radio 4's
Start the Week,

905
00:52:19,160 --> 00:52:21,640
certainly famous enough
to be lampooned.

906
00:52:25,360 --> 00:52:29,120
And now like many international
artists, Mick Jagger

907
00:52:29,120 --> 00:52:33,200
lives in a particularly comfortable
house in a sunny climate.

908
00:52:33,200 --> 00:52:35,920
Spitting Image,
we followed it at South Bank Show.

909
00:52:35,920 --> 00:52:37,560
They had good exit lines.

910
00:52:37,560 --> 00:52:41,000
There was one line where, er, one
of them said, er, it was me, at the

911
00:52:41,000 --> 00:52:45,880
end of that, me, my puppet at the
end of, er, Spitting Image saying,

912
00:52:45,880 --> 00:52:52,080
and now The South Bank Show. Please
do not forget to turn off your sets.

913
00:52:55,120 --> 00:52:58,880
Hello, tonight on the South Bank
Show I'll be saying a few words

914
00:52:58,880 --> 00:53:02,120
at the beginning to introduce a
piece of film and then going down
the pub.

915
00:53:02,120 --> 00:53:04,440
If you want me,
I'll be down The Coach and Horses.

916
00:53:07,600 --> 00:53:12,000
Melvyn seemed to me to be at
the centre of English literary life.

917
00:53:12,000 --> 00:53:14,960
I met Melvyn first
at a grand literary do

918
00:53:14,960 --> 00:53:19,040
and he came bowling over to me,
looking very handsome...

919
00:53:20,240 --> 00:53:23,240
and pointed his finger at me
and went, "you."

920
00:53:23,240 --> 00:53:25,640
I got quite frightened,
because I'd published two novels -

921
00:53:25,640 --> 00:53:29,520
in the first, Melvyn
had been an object of literary envy

922
00:53:29,520 --> 00:53:34,040
in the novel, um, and in the
second I'd made fun of his name

923
00:53:34,040 --> 00:53:36,680
and put his name in a list
of preposterous names.

924
00:53:36,680 --> 00:53:40,440
He saw my fright and he threw
his head back, showed me that fine

925
00:53:40,440 --> 00:53:44,720
set of choppers he has, and just
laughed and laughed and laughed.

926
00:53:44,720 --> 00:53:47,760
We were both Northern,
working class grammar school boys.

927
00:53:47,760 --> 00:53:52,200
We shared a sense which might sound
strange to you and it certainly

928
00:53:52,200 --> 00:53:55,560
sounded strange to a person sitting
at the next table when Melvyn and

929
00:53:55,560 --> 00:53:59,200
I started to discuss this because
this person came up to me afterwards

930
00:53:59,200 --> 00:54:03,000
and said, what does he mean then,
when he said he feels an outsider?

931
00:54:03,000 --> 00:54:05,680
How can you be an outsider
if you're Melvyn Bragg?

932
00:54:05,680 --> 00:54:07,960
But there's the interesting thing,

933
00:54:07,960 --> 00:54:10,600
and that was the thing that we
shared, we both felt that we

934
00:54:10,600 --> 00:54:14,040
were outside, somewhere or other,
outside the culture.

935
00:54:14,040 --> 00:54:16,400
How Melvyn could feel
outside the culture,

936
00:54:16,400 --> 00:54:19,320
when for many people and indeed
for me, he WAS the culture, is hard

937
00:54:19,320 --> 00:54:22,400
to explain, but it might be that you
were marked forever if you are,

938
00:54:22,400 --> 00:54:24,160
if you haven't been, in this country

939
00:54:24,160 --> 00:54:25,840
if you haven't been to
a public school,

940
00:54:25,840 --> 00:54:29,000
and you're not from the south
and you aren't middle class.

941
00:54:29,000 --> 00:54:31,120
Howard said, um,
he needs some advice,

942
00:54:31,120 --> 00:54:35,160
I, this incorporated best man
is supposed to give some advice.

943
00:54:35,160 --> 00:54:37,440
Melvyn was best man
at my wedding ten years ago.

944
00:54:37,440 --> 00:54:40,480
He wanted it to be poetic,
really poetic.

945
00:54:40,480 --> 00:54:42,240
And ended his speech with a song.

946
00:54:42,240 --> 00:54:45,200
He sang to us as Al Jolson.

947
00:54:45,200 --> 00:54:53,160
# When April showers do
come your way... #

948
00:54:53,160 --> 00:54:55,680
APPLAUSE

949
00:54:55,680 --> 00:54:58,800
# They, they bring the flowers home

950
00:54:58,800 --> 00:55:02,440
# That bloom in May... #

951
00:55:02,440 --> 00:55:04,240
People could not believe their eyes.

952
00:55:04,240 --> 00:55:07,160
They just could not believe
that there was Melvyn Bragg being

953
00:55:07,160 --> 00:55:11,320
Al Jolson, but I have seen
Melvyn Bragg at some of his parties

954
00:55:11,320 --> 00:55:13,720
being Pavarotti,
singing as Elvis Presley.

955
00:55:13,720 --> 00:55:18,080
# ..daffodils... #

956
00:55:18,080 --> 00:55:20,880
The side of him
one doesn't know about, but you see,

957
00:55:20,880 --> 00:55:23,920
that's actually perfect,
Melvyn doing Pavarotti as

958
00:55:23,920 --> 00:55:29,080
Elvis Presley quintessentialises the
provider of culture in, in our time,

959
00:55:29,080 --> 00:55:32,600
that he should be Elvis Presley
and Pavarotti at the same time.

960
00:55:35,280 --> 00:55:37,400
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

961
00:55:39,680 --> 00:55:43,520
ELECTRIC GUITAR SOLO

962
00:55:48,800 --> 00:55:52,400
I was a, er, an avid viewer of
The South Bank Show

963
00:55:52,400 --> 00:55:55,080
because it seemed that for,
for the first time there was a show

964
00:55:55,080 --> 00:55:58,240
that was cultural that,
that I actually enjoyed.

965
00:55:59,800 --> 00:56:01,680
I remember the Eric Clapton one,

966
00:56:01,680 --> 00:56:04,840
you kind of got to understand
some of the craft behind the art

967
00:56:04,840 --> 00:56:09,520
and that was, you know, to those
who had ever taken up a guitar

968
00:56:09,520 --> 00:56:13,800
and held it in their hands,
that was a fascinating programme.

969
00:56:13,800 --> 00:56:17,960
Melvyn was made a life
peer by Tony Blair in 1998

970
00:56:17,960 --> 00:56:21,000
and became Lord Bragg of Wigton.

971
00:56:21,000 --> 00:56:24,240
Melvyn has always been the same
position in the Labour Party.

972
00:56:24,240 --> 00:56:28,720
He is a progressive, he is a radical
but he wants Labour governments

973
00:56:28,720 --> 00:56:32,280
so that combination of radicalism
and realism, is, is a sort of

974
00:56:32,280 --> 00:56:37,240
defining trait of Melvyn and people,
and people like him and makes him

975
00:56:37,240 --> 00:56:40,520
really rather more consistent than
the rest of us who went through

976
00:56:40,520 --> 00:56:46,800
various student versions of Labour,
you know, early, um, sort of left

977
00:56:46,800 --> 00:56:51,880
and then moved probably more centre,
centre-wards and then he has always

978
00:56:51,880 --> 00:56:56,240
stayed in exactly the same place and
stood for exactly the same things.

979
00:56:59,200 --> 00:57:02,680
"'All wrong' was how Seth
saw the world, for it seemed to him

980
00:57:02,680 --> 00:57:06,600
"all wrong that men should slave
while others lorded it.

981
00:57:06,600 --> 00:57:10,280
"All wrong that the sick should
suffer while the rich wore pearls.

982
00:57:10,280 --> 00:57:12,360
"All wrong that there should be
hovels for some

983
00:57:12,360 --> 00:57:14,000
"and palaces for others.

984
00:57:14,000 --> 00:57:16,840
"All wrong that a man should be
shut out from learning at the very

985
00:57:16,840 --> 00:57:19,320
"time he might make sense of books.

986
00:57:19,320 --> 00:57:20,680
"All wrong."

987
00:57:22,320 --> 00:57:27,000
Melvyn has been a tireless advocate
of arts and education in The Lords.

988
00:57:27,000 --> 00:57:29,800
Both are subjects
he feels passionate about,

989
00:57:29,800 --> 00:57:33,640
as even the slightest push
on the button reveals.

990
00:57:33,640 --> 00:57:36,720
Some private schools are rubbish,
some are very good.

991
00:57:36,720 --> 00:57:38,560
I don't think Eton's all that good.

992
00:57:38,560 --> 00:57:41,240
If you take our Prime Minister
as an example.

993
00:57:41,240 --> 00:57:45,320
Once when on the Letterman show
he was asked what, what Magna Carta

994
00:57:45,320 --> 00:57:49,120
was and do you know what he said,
he said "You've got me there."

995
00:57:51,720 --> 00:57:55,400
This was a guy who had been told
he was brilliant at Eton,

996
00:57:55,400 --> 00:57:57,880
he told Letterman,
you've got me there.

997
00:57:57,880 --> 00:58:01,320
He must have done something,
he could have said big chart,

998
00:58:01,320 --> 00:58:06,400
couldn't he, Magna, oh Carta, oh
Big Charter and he didn't know that.

999
00:58:09,440 --> 00:58:11,120
When Dad was made a Lord,

1000
00:58:11,120 --> 00:58:14,560
Grandma and I were sitting up
at the balcony and he came in,

1001
00:58:14,560 --> 00:58:19,640
in this long red robe with
a white ruffle and I remember

1002
00:58:19,640 --> 00:58:27,280
she sat there and she just went,
"Imagine that, our Melvyn, royalty."

1003
00:58:29,520 --> 00:58:31,960
I said, "No, Grandma, he's a Lord."
She said, "Oh."

1004
00:58:35,240 --> 00:58:38,160
I, Melvyn Lord Bragg,
do solemnly, sincerely...

1005
00:58:38,160 --> 00:58:42,720
My mother was pleased but there's
no doubt whatsoever that she'd

1006
00:58:42,720 --> 00:58:47,440
have much preferred if I'd stayed in
Wigton, married my girlfriend, had

1007
00:58:47,440 --> 00:58:51,720
three children, lived two streets
away and led that sort of life.

1008
00:58:51,720 --> 00:58:56,960
That would have been much better
for me, for her, everybody.

1009
00:58:56,960 --> 00:58:59,480
Who knows,
she might have been right.

1010
00:59:03,080 --> 00:59:06,360
After the death of his father
in the late 1990s,

1011
00:59:06,360 --> 00:59:09,200
Melvyn started work on what
was to become an acclaimed

1012
00:59:09,200 --> 00:59:13,280
series of novels,
the Cumbrian trilogy.

1013
00:59:13,280 --> 00:59:14,880
I wanted to write about him

1014
00:59:14,880 --> 00:59:17,280
but I wanted to write it as fiction
because I didn't know

1015
00:59:17,280 --> 00:59:20,960
enough about him,
I didn't want to intrude on him.

1016
00:59:20,960 --> 00:59:23,120
The first book,
The Soldier's Return,

1017
00:59:23,120 --> 00:59:25,240
is a fictionalised
account of his father

1018
00:59:25,240 --> 00:59:28,120
settling back into life
at home in Cumbria,

1019
00:59:28,120 --> 00:59:29,880
after a long absence at war.

1020
00:59:33,160 --> 00:59:35,360
My favourite one was
The Soldier's Return,

1021
00:59:35,360 --> 00:59:37,440
which I think's a marvellous novel

1022
00:59:37,440 --> 00:59:40,400
which reminded me
in many ways of Sons and Lovers.

1023
00:59:40,400 --> 00:59:45,120
It's in that tradition, it's about
that kind of Northern sensitive

1024
00:59:45,120 --> 00:59:47,720
boy, um, but it's not just about
a Northern sen...

1025
00:59:47,720 --> 00:59:53,360
it's about Northern sensitivities
and where they come from and
attachment to, to mothers.

1026
00:59:53,360 --> 00:59:55,920
Fantastic about the boy
and the mother, that novel,

1027
00:59:55,920 --> 00:59:58,160
wonderful about the boy
in the novel, marvellous scenes

1028
00:59:58,160 --> 01:00:01,800
about him learning to dance with
the mother before the father comes

1029
01:00:01,800 --> 01:00:05,400
back and then the father coming back
and all that confusion within

1030
01:00:05,400 --> 01:00:09,680
the father coming back to a family
world that he doesn't recognise.

1031
01:00:09,680 --> 01:00:13,520
But if you misremember,
as I do in my autobiographical...

1032
01:00:13,520 --> 01:00:16,000
you get it wrong, you're not trying
to get it wrong, you,

1033
01:00:16,000 --> 01:00:18,880
then it sets you off onto
a completely different course.

1034
01:00:18,880 --> 01:00:21,080
The lines switch
and you're going somewhere else

1035
01:00:21,080 --> 01:00:25,160
and you don't know where you're
going. You know it's still
in that area,

1036
01:00:25,160 --> 01:00:27,760
you're supposed to be
based on this chap here

1037
01:00:27,760 --> 01:00:30,840
but it's getting further and further
and further and further away.

1038
01:00:30,840 --> 01:00:33,880
Crossing The Lines is the third
book in the Cumbrian Trilogy.

1039
01:00:33,880 --> 01:00:38,640
It follows his character Joe's
relationship with his first
girlfriend.

1040
01:00:38,640 --> 01:00:41,600
I remember bumping into
one lady in Wigton.

1041
01:00:41,600 --> 01:00:47,280
She was lovely and "Joan,"
she said, "how nice to have a book

1042
01:00:47,280 --> 01:00:50,280
"written about you," and I said,
"Oh, I don't know about that.

1043
01:00:50,280 --> 01:00:53,080
She said, "Do you know, I'd love
somebody to write a book about me."

1044
01:00:53,080 --> 01:00:56,840
There was a lot of reporters
and things around,

1045
01:00:56,840 --> 01:01:04,040
trying to find out who "Rachel" was
in that book and I must admit, I was

1046
01:01:04,040 --> 01:01:09,640
worried stiff that they would find
out and come here and start prying.

1047
01:01:09,640 --> 01:01:11,840
I didn't want that at all.

1048
01:01:11,840 --> 01:01:16,080
But apart from that, no, it...
I wasn't worried about it.

1049
01:01:16,080 --> 01:01:20,560
Some of it wasn't true,
but most of it was, yes, yeah.

1050
01:01:24,120 --> 01:01:26,080
He told me that he'd put me
into this,

1051
01:01:26,080 --> 01:01:30,640
this tale of the Maid of Buttermere
and I thought, oh, I'll be a

1052
01:01:30,640 --> 01:01:34,520
major character, I'll walk in about
chapter two and go right through.

1053
01:01:34,520 --> 01:01:38,320
In a 30-chapter book,
I appear in chapter 29

1054
01:01:38,320 --> 01:01:40,720
and I'm the jailer
of Carlisle Prison.

1055
01:01:42,760 --> 01:01:45,080
Mr Campbell,
a jailer of Carlisle Prison

1056
01:01:45,080 --> 01:01:49,040
and the prisoners are all Melvyn's
friends, named Brian Henderson

1057
01:01:49,040 --> 01:01:52,480
and David Pearson and Eric
Hetherington, people like that.

1058
01:01:52,480 --> 01:01:55,560
They're all rogues and
been put away in jail, you know.

1059
01:01:55,560 --> 01:01:59,000
Quite a little touch of
local humour in that.

1060
01:01:59,000 --> 01:02:02,880
In Wigton, local artisan and
friend Brian Campbell worked with

1061
01:02:02,880 --> 01:02:05,720
Melvyn to create three
stained glass windows

1062
01:02:05,720 --> 01:02:10,160
for St Mary's Church, the scene
of so many Bragg family memories.

1063
01:02:11,400 --> 01:02:14,040
That's the bit that
everybody likes best.

1064
01:02:14,040 --> 01:02:17,320
That bit here. With the lights on
in the houses and the church.

1065
01:02:17,320 --> 01:02:20,320
Yeah.
And the, the sheep in the field.

1066
01:02:20,320 --> 01:02:22,360
I wanted to bring
Wigton into the church

1067
01:02:22,360 --> 01:02:25,200
because my argument was that
the church was the people.

1068
01:02:25,200 --> 01:02:28,680
This was a very good building,
but the church is really
the congregation.

1069
01:02:28,680 --> 01:02:30,480
I wanted where you can see
out into the town

1070
01:02:30,480 --> 01:02:32,480
and the town can
see into the church.

1071
01:02:34,360 --> 01:02:37,040
Melvyn and Brian
are relatively new friends,

1072
01:02:37,040 --> 01:02:39,840
of only 40 years' standing.

1073
01:02:39,840 --> 01:02:42,240
A chance conversation
when we first met,

1074
01:02:42,240 --> 01:02:44,320
my painting had almost dried up.

1075
01:02:44,320 --> 01:02:46,520
I'd almost given over working.

1076
01:02:46,520 --> 01:02:49,800
I was very discouraged
and you talked to me about that.

1077
01:02:49,800 --> 01:02:52,360
You won't remember this,
I'm sure but you talked to me

1078
01:02:52,360 --> 01:02:53,840
about that painting and said,

1079
01:02:53,840 --> 01:02:58,600
why don't you concentrate on your
own locale, why don't you stick with

1080
01:02:58,600 --> 01:03:03,800
what you know in Wigton and
district and the Northern Fells
and the Solway Plain?

1081
01:03:03,800 --> 01:03:06,680
The best bit of advice I ever had,
because I kind of picked up

1082
01:03:06,680 --> 01:03:10,280
and went on from there and I owe you
a great deal for that, actually.

1083
01:03:10,280 --> 01:03:12,760
And I've had to wait this long
for you to tell me that.

1084
01:03:12,760 --> 01:03:16,120
Absolutely, yeah, yeah, but it was
worth waiting for, wasn't it?

1085
01:03:28,000 --> 01:03:30,440
Melvyn's recent novel,
Grace and Mary,

1086
01:03:30,440 --> 01:03:32,880
is based on his mother's
illegitimacy.

1087
01:03:34,280 --> 01:03:36,280
I started to write it
before she died.

1088
01:03:37,520 --> 01:03:41,000
She was then in her 90s
and Alzheimer's was raging,

1089
01:03:41,000 --> 01:03:43,840
she was getting more and more frail,
so I just started making notes.

1090
01:03:43,840 --> 01:03:46,000
Right,
we'll do the Midnight Tango now.

1091
01:03:47,360 --> 01:03:49,480
She loved dancing,
she loved singing,

1092
01:03:49,480 --> 01:03:51,080
she loved being with people.

1093
01:03:53,400 --> 01:03:57,920
This is a snatch
from Grace and Mary and it's

1094
01:03:57,920 --> 01:04:03,320
when the man is going
back in time with his mother

1095
01:04:03,320 --> 01:04:06,320
and remembering when he was a boy
and they went to dances.

1096
01:04:12,480 --> 01:04:15,760
"For Mary, the glory was
the communion of the two circles

1097
01:04:15,760 --> 01:04:19,600
"and its imitative gentle
parody of distant unattainable

1098
01:04:19,600 --> 01:04:22,400
"privilege taken over
here by ordinary people

1099
01:04:22,400 --> 01:04:26,120
"and made into their own with
a smile at the ease of it.

1100
01:04:31,160 --> 01:04:34,440
"Just ordinary people
getting on with their lives

1101
01:04:34,440 --> 01:04:36,600
"and making the best
of not giving in.

1102
01:04:37,480 --> 01:04:40,280
"And then,
Fred Ingram was on the trumpet,

1103
01:04:40,280 --> 01:04:45,160
"wet his lips and Tommy Jackson
hit the drums and all of them,

1104
01:04:45,160 --> 01:04:47,600
"the Studden boys
and Queenie, Kettler

1105
01:04:47,600 --> 01:04:51,760
"and other people from the town,
out for an evening celebration,

1106
01:04:51,760 --> 01:04:54,640
"Grace and Mary and himself,
all of them..."

1107
01:04:54,640 --> 01:04:58,360
I can't read this, I never can.

1108
01:04:58,360 --> 01:05:00,360
So I'm sorry about that.

1109
01:05:04,600 --> 01:05:06,680
For the past 50 years,

1110
01:05:06,680 --> 01:05:10,040
Melvyn has juggled his careers
as writer and broadcaster.

1111
01:05:11,920 --> 01:05:13,800
I really love doing both of them.

1112
01:05:13,800 --> 01:05:16,200
If I didn't, I don't
know what I would do.

1113
01:05:16,200 --> 01:05:17,760
I think if you do
something you like,

1114
01:05:17,760 --> 01:05:19,680
it gives you energy
to do the next thing.

1115
01:05:19,680 --> 01:05:21,760
It's a form of sort of vitalism
I know,

1116
01:05:21,760 --> 01:05:25,880
but it's, it's true, people who do
jobs they hate must be worn out

1117
01:05:25,880 --> 01:05:30,040
and the energy left over to do
anything else must be very difficult

1118
01:05:30,040 --> 01:05:32,920
but I love doing these television
stuff and the radio stuff.

1119
01:05:32,920 --> 01:05:35,720
I can't think of anything better
to do at nine o'clock

1120
01:05:35,720 --> 01:05:37,960
on a Thursday morning than
to talk to people, you know.

1121
01:05:37,960 --> 01:05:40,200
I love doing it,
I really genuinely do.

1122
01:05:40,200 --> 01:05:43,160
Melvyn doesn't need literary prizes,
but you know, every writer

1123
01:05:43,160 --> 01:05:46,680
likes to, likes to be,
likes the laurels and I think Melvyn

1124
01:05:46,680 --> 01:05:51,360
as a novelist has not had all
the laurels he should have, um, out

1125
01:05:51,360 --> 01:05:56,120
of the snobbishness of the culture
because he's not sufficiently,

1126
01:05:56,120 --> 01:06:00,920
it's felt, a priest of literature,
dedicated to literature only.

1127
01:06:00,920 --> 01:06:04,320
It's because he does the other
stuff, the media stuff

1128
01:06:04,320 --> 01:06:06,640
and we should be better than that.

1129
01:06:06,640 --> 01:06:10,040
Incredibly, the random selection
is '70s heart-throb Melvyn Bragg.

1130
01:06:10,040 --> 01:06:13,080
LAUGHTER

1131
01:06:13,080 --> 01:06:14,440
Hello.

1132
01:06:14,440 --> 01:06:17,600
Lord Bragg of Wigton. Hello.

1133
01:06:17,600 --> 01:06:20,000
How are you?
I'm Ashwin Kumar.

1134
01:06:20,000 --> 01:06:21,680
Very pleased to meet you.
Of Wembley.

1135
01:06:21,680 --> 01:06:26,120
My settled view on this is that
if the public persona, er,

1136
01:06:26,120 --> 01:06:29,600
takes precedence over
the writerly persona,

1137
01:06:29,600 --> 01:06:32,000
it's bad news for the writer.

1138
01:06:32,000 --> 01:06:34,360
Melvyn,
would you like to try Melvyn Bragg?

1139
01:06:34,360 --> 01:06:37,280
Yeah, it goes something like this.
That's fine, thank you.

1140
01:06:39,120 --> 01:06:43,400
A lot of a novelist's job
is eavesdropping, it really is.

1141
01:06:43,400 --> 01:06:47,280
Now if you have a very, very large
scale public persona you're

1142
01:06:47,280 --> 01:06:50,480
present in the media a lot, er,
it's very difficult to do that

1143
01:06:50,480 --> 01:06:55,480
eavesdropping, er, because you are
part of the noise of the culture,

1144
01:06:55,480 --> 01:06:59,000
so it's almost like trying to carry
a tune when you're shouting.

1145
01:07:04,960 --> 01:07:07,360
You know, the literary muse
is a harsh muse,

1146
01:07:07,360 --> 01:07:11,200
she doesn't really like that, she
wants you to, to, to stick with her.

1147
01:07:12,640 --> 01:07:15,160
Fucking Regent's Park,
it broke down at the lights.

1148
01:07:15,160 --> 01:07:17,320
While he may not have
an exclusive relationship

1149
01:07:17,320 --> 01:07:22,080
with his literary muse, Melvyn's
passions do remain constant.

1150
01:07:22,080 --> 01:07:25,360
Radio 4's In Our Time
is now in its 18th year.

1151
01:07:25,360 --> 01:07:29,080
And you've got 20 minutes' work
to do in, in five minutes.

1152
01:07:29,080 --> 01:07:33,160
It started because I got
fired from Start the Week,

1153
01:07:33,160 --> 01:07:36,200
when I was put in the Lords
and the BBC Director General

1154
01:07:36,200 --> 01:07:39,440
at the time thought this
impeded my impartiality

1155
01:07:39,440 --> 01:07:42,520
and therefore I should leave Start
the Week immediately and offered me

1156
01:07:42,520 --> 01:07:46,480
what they cheerfully called The
Death Slot on a Thursday morning.

1157
01:07:46,480 --> 01:07:48,600
I thought, well, I'm going

1158
01:07:48,600 --> 01:07:52,640
to do what I want to do now, cos
I've been fired and it didn't hurt.

1159
01:07:52,640 --> 01:07:56,320
Um, I'm going to do one subject,
I'm not going to have anyone plug

1160
01:07:56,320 --> 01:07:59,560
any book, I'm not going to refer to
a book, even when I introduce them.

1161
01:07:59,560 --> 01:08:02,840
I'm going to have three people that
are top experts and they're going

1162
01:08:02,840 --> 01:08:06,040
to be, all going to be academics
and that's that and we're going

1163
01:08:06,040 --> 01:08:09,600
to go right across the field from
astrophysics to Chinese history.

1164
01:08:09,600 --> 01:08:13,360
All the things that
I want to learn about, I'm going
to learn about on this programme.

1165
01:08:13,360 --> 01:08:15,600
That's what Eddington's
talking about.

1166
01:08:15,600 --> 01:08:21,200
The idea that somebody can
sit down with three academic

1167
01:08:21,200 --> 01:08:26,800
specialists in a subject area
and talk about it for 45 minutes

1168
01:08:26,800 --> 01:08:31,360
and in the process be
completely enthralling,

1169
01:08:31,360 --> 01:08:35,520
teach you something you didn't know,
engage you with a subject and

1170
01:08:35,520 --> 01:08:40,960
leave you wanting more, almost every
week, on the nail, is phenomenal.

1171
01:08:42,440 --> 01:08:46,720
Now, since I became
an aficionado of In Our Time,

1172
01:08:46,720 --> 01:08:52,880
it has swelled like some awful
bubo or carbuncle in my psyche

1173
01:08:52,880 --> 01:08:56,840
to occupy quite a large
part of my consciousness,

1174
01:08:56,840 --> 01:09:03,040
so um, mostly because I tend
to fall asleep with Melvyn every

1175
01:09:03,040 --> 01:09:08,040
night, every night, not just one or
two nights a week, but every night.

1176
01:09:08,040 --> 01:09:12,880
Some episodes of In Our Time
I've heard 10 or 15 times.

1177
01:09:12,880 --> 01:09:16,680
In Our Time was
produced by Tom Morris.

1178
01:09:16,680 --> 01:09:19,960
Thanks for getting me through that.

1179
01:09:19,960 --> 01:09:22,120
I was hanging on by lots
of fingernails there.

1180
01:09:22,120 --> 01:09:24,240
Did you think you said
most of what you wanted to say?

1181
01:09:26,640 --> 01:09:30,560
Despite Melvyn's many successes
and achievements, his life has been

1182
01:09:30,560 --> 01:09:35,080
overshadowed by the suicide
of his first wife, Lisa, in 1971.

1183
01:09:37,080 --> 01:09:44,120
In truth, that time has tormented
him, all, all my life, all,

1184
01:09:44,120 --> 01:09:46,800
since, since my mum died.

1185
01:09:46,800 --> 01:09:51,400
It's sort of like a, a tumour.

1186
01:09:51,400 --> 01:09:57,080
You can't get at it, um,
and you can't dissolve it.

1187
01:09:57,080 --> 01:10:01,040
You wish you could find some sort
of psychic acid and you could drill

1188
01:10:01,040 --> 01:10:04,520
a little hole there and pour it in
and shh, but that won't happen.

1189
01:10:06,360 --> 01:10:09,680
Melvyn hoped the remedy might be
to write Remember Me,

1190
01:10:09,680 --> 01:10:12,280
published in 2008.

1191
01:10:12,280 --> 01:10:15,280
I seem to remember at the beginning,
it started with him writing,

1192
01:10:15,280 --> 01:10:18,480
kind of almost like letters to me,
um...

1193
01:10:20,240 --> 01:10:21,800
Was just the amount of love.

1194
01:10:23,640 --> 01:10:26,400
You know, he, he, he, he's a very

1195
01:10:26,400 --> 01:10:31,080
complex person,
but he really does love.

1196
01:10:32,680 --> 01:10:35,160
And he really has loved me.

1197
01:10:35,160 --> 01:10:39,000
I knew I couldn't write anything
else if I didn't write that.

1198
01:10:39,000 --> 01:10:42,200
As I've written these three
straight autobiographical novels,

1199
01:10:42,200 --> 01:10:46,680
got this man to Oxford, and
then the next stage was he married,

1200
01:10:46,680 --> 01:10:48,960
which I did when I was 21,

1201
01:10:48,960 --> 01:10:52,400
married this extraordinary woman,
an intellectual scientist,

1202
01:10:52,400 --> 01:10:57,480
a painter, er, ended in her
taking her own life and the way

1203
01:10:57,480 --> 01:11:00,720
I've coped is the way I coped
when I was 14 or 15.

1204
01:11:00,720 --> 01:11:04,600
It had just been work, you know,
you work and you work and you work

1205
01:11:04,600 --> 01:11:07,440
and if you like your work
it's, it's, it's wonderful,

1206
01:11:07,440 --> 01:11:08,720
it's another country.

1207
01:11:10,120 --> 01:11:13,560
And yes, you block it
and by writing that book

1208
01:11:13,560 --> 01:11:20,880
I just drove a stake through it,
and it erupted, and so I was

1209
01:11:20,880 --> 01:11:25,120
covered in this stuff while I was
writing the book, which was a sort

1210
01:11:25,120 --> 01:11:31,840
of flailed by images and regrets
and recollections and that...

1211
01:11:31,840 --> 01:11:36,280
it didn't do anything that people
say that sort of thing's
supposed to do.

1212
01:11:36,280 --> 01:11:38,520
It's supposed to be therapy.
It was not.

1213
01:11:40,000 --> 01:11:43,280
It made things far, far worse.

1214
01:11:43,280 --> 01:11:46,760
It stirred the whole thing up again
and has been stirred up ever since

1215
01:11:46,760 --> 01:11:49,720
and I'd learned to live
alongside it.

1216
01:11:49,720 --> 01:11:53,800
It that sense, I profoundly wish
I hadn't written it.

1217
01:11:55,720 --> 01:11:58,080
I think I'd be more contented,

1218
01:11:58,080 --> 01:12:02,160
er, than I am now, by a long way.

1219
01:12:04,080 --> 01:12:06,240
"The heart of it is shame.

1220
01:12:06,240 --> 01:12:08,800
"That's what he wanted
to tell his daughter,

1221
01:12:08,800 --> 01:12:11,640
"but how could he convey it
without running into an excess of

1222
01:12:11,640 --> 01:12:15,040
"self-reproach or falling into
the arms of self-pity?

1223
01:12:16,320 --> 01:12:19,040
"He saw the truth of it
when the depression came back.

1224
01:12:19,040 --> 01:12:22,440
"Shame reappeared as clearly
as the mark of Cain.

1225
01:12:22,440 --> 01:12:26,240
"The shame had poisoned him
but it was a poison he deserved,

1226
01:12:26,240 --> 01:12:29,640
"and his system learned to live
with it, though at a price."

1227
01:12:31,760 --> 01:12:35,160
I don't want any sympathy.
I really don't want any sympathy.

1228
01:12:35,160 --> 01:12:36,680
I don't deserve it, I don't need it

1229
01:12:36,680 --> 01:12:39,240
and I think I've done very well
without it, thank you very much.

1230
01:12:39,240 --> 01:12:40,800
Well, I've done well enough.

1231
01:12:43,120 --> 01:12:46,320
Er, but the fact is that
I can't get over it.

1232
01:12:53,520 --> 01:12:58,120
I think forgiving yourself is
one of the most difficult things to

1233
01:12:58,120 --> 01:13:01,840
really face the, face the music
and come through it and that's

1234
01:13:01,840 --> 01:13:05,680
what I felt he had the courage
to try and do with Remember Me.

1235
01:13:05,680 --> 01:13:09,120
He was willing to really face it
with a full heart

1236
01:13:10,480 --> 01:13:13,600
and come through it
and that's brave, that's very brave.

1237
01:13:24,240 --> 01:13:26,400
Right, er, our publishing plans
for...

1238
01:13:28,000 --> 01:13:32,680
Fifty years after the publication of
his first novel, Melvyn's publishers

1239
01:13:32,680 --> 01:13:36,960
are discussing the book cover
for what will be his 23rd.

1240
01:13:36,960 --> 01:13:38,960
It's Melvyn's first historical,

1241
01:13:38,960 --> 01:13:41,680
proper historical novel since,
since Credo.

1242
01:13:41,680 --> 01:13:44,040
His core audience,
it has to be Radio 4...

1243
01:13:44,040 --> 01:13:47,440
Absolutely Radio 4,
but I think it's wider than that.

1244
01:13:47,440 --> 01:13:52,000
I mean, he is a,
he's a literary brand name.

1245
01:13:52,000 --> 01:13:55,640
I just wanted to show you
some initial thoughts.

1246
01:13:55,640 --> 01:14:00,080
I think he is somebody who needs
to be working at full tilt

1247
01:14:00,080 --> 01:14:02,680
all the time
and as long as he is able to

1248
01:14:02,680 --> 01:14:05,560
carry on working at full tilt,
he will carry on doing it.

1249
01:14:05,560 --> 01:14:08,160
He's been doing it all his life.

1250
01:14:08,160 --> 01:14:11,240
I hardly think he's going to stop
merely because he's 75.

1251
01:14:13,200 --> 01:14:17,560
CHOIR SINGS:
# Keep the homes fires burning

1252
01:14:18,960 --> 01:14:24,640
# While your hearts are yearning

1253
01:14:26,040 --> 01:14:30,320
# Though your lads are far away

1254
01:14:30,320 --> 01:14:36,400
# They dream of home... #

1255
01:14:39,360 --> 01:14:41,560
When the time comes for me

1256
01:14:41,560 --> 01:14:45,200
to say cheerio to radio and
television, I'll be, I'll be bereft,

1257
01:14:45,200 --> 01:14:47,560
but my God, I've had a good innings.

1258
01:14:47,560 --> 01:14:51,040
# ..the dark clouds shining

1259
01:14:52,840 --> 01:14:57,360
# Turn the dark clouds inside out

1260
01:14:57,360 --> 01:15:04,080
# Till the boys come home

1261
01:15:05,720 --> 01:15:12,560
# Oh, turn the dark clouds
inside out

1262
01:15:12,560 --> 01:15:19,400
# Till the boys come home. #