Peter Mayle

Speaker 10:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

Speaker 10:08

The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen ninety three and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:29

My Castaway this week is a writer. He's deployed his literary talents in a number of ways. While working in advertising, he came up with the phrase Nice One Cyril. Later, he teamed up with a cartoonist friend to produce a series of stories about Wicked Willie. They sold well. He's since been told that every lavatory in Wiltshire has a copy. But it was only when he moved to France that he became a household name in Britain. The book he wrote about his experiences there was called A Year in Provence. The rest is profitable, if sometimes turbulent, history. He is Peter Mayle.

Presenter1:01

Peter, let's talk about the turbulence first. The charge is that you've drawn a kind of Disney-esque portrait of a peaceful area of rural France and you've attracted so many tourists that the peace is no longer there, and what's more, you've taken the Mickey out of the locals to boot. What's the case for the defensive?

Peter Mayle1:15

Right. Uh well that seems sort of fairly long catalogue of sins and horrors. The first thing that I've been accused of is destroying Provence. It's funny, I mean I I don't read all the critical things because you just get fed up with reading them after a time, but

Peter Mayle1:28

Some of them I have read, and in none of them have I ever found any evidence to support this terrific, sweeping generalization that I've revealed a secret part of the world. I mean, it would be nice if somebody wants to say he's ruined Provence, he's brought all these tourists down there.

Peter Mayle1:42

Say for instance, you know, last year there were three thousand British caravans and people with British number plate cars down there, and this year there are four hundred and ninety eight thousand. And then it would be there would be somehow some substance to it.

Presenter1:55

I suppose the one statistic that's being offered is that now there's some wine museum and winery being opened in Menerbe, which is the town that you sent to yourself.

Peter Mayle2:04

And he's expecting

Presenter2:07

And he's expecting eighty five thousand people a year to visit it, etc.

Peter Mayle2:10

I think he'd be jolly lucky if he got eighty five thousand people here. I mean, I s I'd been sitting in the middle of it for the last six years, this turbulent invasion by five hundred thousand laga louts in sharabangs and and buses and mopeds and God knows what else.

Presenter2:13

I mean I see

Presenter2:21

And you haven't noticed?

Peter Mayle2:22

I haven't seen anything.

Presenter2:23

The other complaint is that the visitors who do come apparently press their noses against the windows and come out with phrases like, Look, Stan, there's one of them having its lunch.

Peter Mayle2:32

That's absolute rubbish. I mean so much of it is fabrication. And in fact, I mean what is interesting is this this other accusation that I've been caricaturing the French and patronizing them and speaking of them unkindly and unflatteringly. And I've obviously done some interviews with the French press and with French radio.

Presenter2:34

So this

Peter Mayle2:51

And at no time has there ever been any accusation like that, either during the interview or or once it's been recorded or written.

Peter Mayle2:59

And as a small but I think quite important thing, I went up to Paris in February to to have pinned on my bosom a gold medal by the the Minister of Tourism for services to French tourism. Now the French are quite proud people. They don't want to go around giving awards to foreigners who make fun of them. I think they feel that I've rendered an accurate portrait of the area and the characters, as indeed do a lot of people who write to me, who are French and bilingual and have read the books.

Speaker 13:15

Remote.

Presenter3:25

So it's not true that you're frightened to go into Minerb these days and can't look the butcher in the eye or?

Peter Mayle3:30

I've never looked the butcher in the eye because there's a better one down the road in Caboyan, actually. I mean that's that is what is so silly. It's a small village and one goes to shop somewhere else.

Presenter3:35

Today

Presenter3:38

I suppose why one stops to think that maybe there's a an iota of truth in the criticisms is that you can't have anticipated the success that the book would have, so that when you went back from the village to your house and sat down to write, you were perhaps slightly more carefree with your caricatures than you would have been if you'd thought everybody was going to get to hear emails.

Peter Mayle3:56

I get to hear about it. You're saying they're caricatures, and uh I mean, they're not. I think they're pretty accurately described. People say, Oh, well, everybody's got a moustache and gold tooth and smokes and things like that. Well, if you go down there, there is a high rate of moustaches, and gold teeth, and cigarette smokers, and they are, I find, quite

Peter Mayle4:15

Lovable, interesting, nice people.

Presenter4:17

Well, now, we're going to take you away from it all anyway,'cause we're going to cast you away on a desert island. What kind of music do you think that you'll need in your loneliness there?

Peter Mayle4:26

I've got a mixture. I haven't got any chronology in my selection. It's just the sort of music that I

Presenter4:30

It might be a

Peter Mayle4:33

play according to mood in the life that I have in France.

Presenter4:36

What's the first one?

Peter Mayle4:38

The first one is there is a small story about this one, because I one of the most memorable evenings I had in a long, long time was a couple of years ago. I went to the concert that Pavarotti gave in Orange in the Roman theatre there, and it was August and it was open air. And normally you see those places when there's nobody there. You see these Roman amphitheatres, and they're empty and they're very impressive. But when you see them full of people and you hear the sort of hum in the air as you go in there, it is sort of magical. And he gave such a performance for about two and a half hours.

Peter Mayle5:10

This just reminds me of that hot night in August in Orange.

Speaker 45:17

I'm not sure if I can do it.

Speaker 45:20

Don't forget

Speaker 45:25

Oh, insisting.

Speaker 45:28

Erikomi Child Car.

Speaker 45:32

There boy band as far.

Speaker 15:32

Wherefore he up

Speaker 45:37

My friend the pan.

Speaker 45:42

On us.

Presenter5:46

Luciano Pavarotti singing Caruzzo by Lucio Dalla.

Presenter5:50

Peter, the the generally accepted story of your going to Provence in the first place is that you were a highly successful advertising man who became bored and decided to cut and run. But it wasn't quite like that, was it? You didn't give up an extremely lucrative career to go and renovate a barn.

Peter Mayle6:05

No, I mean well I I did give up a perhaps a potentially extremely lucrative career, but it was

Peter Mayle6:11

Almost twenty years ago I did that, um, when I was a foolish lad of about thirty-five.

Presenter6:16

And you gave it up then to to write in this country?

Peter Mayle6:18

Yes, I di I gave it up to write. I didn't actually care at that time where I was writing, I just wanted to get out of the business of advertising because I'd lost, you know, any enthusiasm that I'd had for it.

Speaker 46:28

And uh

Peter Mayle6:29

I thought it was now or never that if if you don't get out.

Speaker 16:30

Bath

Peter Mayle6:32

you know, before you're forty you're gonna be there for

Peter Mayle6:35

Another 10 or 15 years and I didn't know that.

Presenter6:36

So the business of going to France really was just a matter of writing there instead of here, in many ways.

Peter Mayle6:41

Yes, I mean uh initially I came back from America and came to England and wrote what I could for a li I was a sort of literary plumber, writing freelance advertising or magazine articles or occasional newspaper articles. I don't know.

Presenter6:54

Anything anybody would pay you for?

Peter Mayle6:56

Oh, exactly. By writing by the yard. I mean, that's what all I really wanted to do was to be independent, not have a boss I've always disliked.

Presenter6:56

Black

Peter Mayle7:03

hierarchies and authority and being told what to do.

Presenter7:06

But it was Wicked Willie, wasn't it? The talking penis who made everything possible.

Peter Mayle7:11

The hooligan with with whom we live, we men live. Uh yes, and that wasn't even my idea, it was it was a friend of mine called Greg Jolliffe who um I was having lunch with once. And he said I've got this idea which I have this little character which I really try and get into magazine strip cartoon format, but the magazines won't take it, because it's too saucy. And I looked at it and I thought it was hysterical, because it is a very funny way of expressing a true conflict that many men have between reason and

Peter Mayle7:40

passion or emotion or whatever you like to call it, lusts probably.

Peter Mayle7:44

And I thought it was a hysterical idea, and I thought the character was very endearing. And because I had had some experience in publishing, I said the grey will look.

Peter Mayle7:52

In books you can do practically whatever you want, so we could maybe do him as a book. And we put a book together and sold very well in England initially. As you so kindly said, it was in every lavatory in Wiltshire at one point.

Presenter8:08

And so the money came your way to do what you wanted to do and go to France?

Peter Mayle8:11

Well, it ended a period of about seven or eight years that was much less comfortable financially than I'd been previously used to in the advertising business.

Presenter8:20

But but you I mean Wicked Willie uh had a decent provenance as it were, didn't he?'Cause you'd done a book about the facts of life, I think, somewhere.

Peter Mayle8:27

That was what first encouraged me to think that I could earn a crust as a writer, because it was something I'd done in response to one of my children sort of nailing me up against the wall and saying, What's sex? you know, that thing that they eventually all do and they always choose the most inappropriate moment.

Speaker 18:37

All unsafe.

Peter Mayle8:43

To do it. And I went to a bookstore to get some succour in this moment of need. And I found those books with very medical books, with people in white jackets and square spectacles and cross-sections of fetuses and things like that. Or that was one side of it. Or there were books about bunny rabbits and squirrels and the little thing at the end thing. And you know, the way Mummy and Daddy made you is pretty much the same as the way Father Bunny and Mummy Bunny made. And I thought both of those were probably wrong. And I thought there was.

Peter Mayle9:13

room for a book that just told the truth in a funny way so that children wouldn't be embarrassed about reading. So I I had fortunately got together with another friend who's also an illustrator, and we did the I did the text, he did the illustrations, and I had one introduction to a publisher, and he bought it overnight.

Presenter9:30

And that was about twenty years ago and it's still selling.

Peter Mayle9:31

That was a mud.

Peter Mayle9:32

Twenty is still in print and doing quite well on the way back.

Presenter9:35

Look at Out sold a year in Provence.

Peter Mayle9:37

Oh sure. Yes, it sold uh o around the world it sold about three million copies, I should think, four million copies.

Presenter9:43

Let's have your second record.

Peter Mayle9:44

The second record is, I think, one of the really great guitar players of.

Peter Mayle9:49

Today or any day, really, Jeff Beck, and he's playing a track called High Heel Sneakers, and there's a wonderful piece of piano playing in there as well.

Peter Mayle10:00

It just gets me um very stimulated and and when I finish writing I like to play something a bit noisy to get myself back into the real world.

Presenter10:37

Jeff Beck, playing high heel sneakers. Can we talk briefly, Peter, about your roots? You were born just before the outbreak of war in deepest Surrey. Tell me a bit about your family.

Peter Mayle10:48

Well, my father worked for

Peter Mayle10:51

Winston Churchill during the war in Whitehall.

Peter Mayle10:54

And Downing Street and wherever they happen to be, the great man.

Presenter10:56

What?

Speaker 110:56

Great then.

Peter Mayle10:57

He was in the civil service. He was, I think, in the Admiralty during the war.

Speaker 110:57

He was he was in the

Peter Mayle11:03

A little bit, but and then in after the war in the colonial office when we had colonies and the colonial office to administer them. And um

Peter Mayle11:12

moved around quite a lot, and I never really

Peter Mayle11:15

felt I had any particular roots with England. I was very had a very happy first few years of childhood that I remember very little about it, so I assume it was very happy.

Peter Mayle11:23

But I think probably the reason that I've never

Peter Mayle11:26

sort of felt that attached to England

Peter Mayle11:29

as an adult is because I was never in one place for very long as a small boy.

Presenter11:33

Were you put into boarding school, then, while you're

Peter Mayle11:35

Yes, I went to boarding school when I was seven, I think, and

Peter Mayle11:39

I thoroughly dislike most of that.

Peter Mayle11:42

But I don't think that was anything to do with boarding school. I just don't like authority.

Presenter11:46

So you didn't concentrate much on on work, on your education, or was a bit skimpy, was it?

Peter Mayle11:50

Well, I left school at sixteen. I got, I think, ten O levels, which wasn't bad. I don't know if that was still exist now?

Presenter11:55

Oh, that's not skimpy.

Presenter11:58

Well, they call them GCSEs now.

Peter Mayle11:58

Call them GCSEs now. Well, I think I got ten, and I was I was good at English, lousy at maths.

Presenter12:04

Your father had ambitions, but he he saw you as something big in oil, didn't he?

Peter Mayle12:08

He wanted me desperately not to work for the Colonial Office, but to work for something that he thought was going to be much more rewarding both emotionally and financially.

Speaker 112:16

Yeah.

Presenter12:16

Blind.

Peter Mayle12:18

and he always wanted me to work in industry.

Speaker 112:19

To me

Peter Mayle12:20

And he eventually got me a job with Shell as uh an apprentice, junior, trainee, sub-executive, or something like that. And he was thrilled because he said, Now, you know, you're set for life, it's womb to tomb in that company and you can just go on and when you're sixty or sixty five you can have a pension and retire and prune your roses and do it. And I was, I dunno, nineteen or something at the time, and I dutifully went into Shell and did my best to like it, and unfortunately I I couldn't like it.

Presenter12:48

But you found your way into the advertising department.

Peter Mayle12:50

Well, I I kept on trying to find something that would interest me, and I wasn't terribly interested in shipping and oil and tankers and refuelling stops. But I I thought people in advertising in the advertising department at Shell seemed to have more fun, and they wore you know, and some of them wore bow ties, and they were they were slightly apart from the rest of us.

Peter Mayle13:10

And so I applied and applied and applied to the personnel people to see if they'd transfer me into advertising. And eventually they did. And I was very lucky to work for a very nice man who was doing an advertising magazine, an internal advertising magazine. And I worked as his editorial assistant, because I had good English O-level. And he started to teach me a bit about writing. And then, really, a huge stroke of luck, the man whom I had come to know by reputation and admire very much in America, because I was reading up about all I could about advertising, called David Ogilvy. He got the Shell account, the Shell Oil account in America.

Peter Mayle13:47

Just at the time when my early mentor, the the editor of this magazine, moved on to something else and I became at the age of twenty one or something the editor of this internal shell advertising magazine. Not one of the great publications in the world, but it it sort of served me very well at the time. And instantly I wrote to David Ogilvie and said I'd like you to do an article for me.

Peter Mayle14:07

and because it was a client.

Peter Mayle14:09

Even a young and pinkly faced client making the request, he said yes, yes, yes, and sent me an article, and then I had the temerity to disagree with something that he'd said in print.

Speaker 114:14

Yeah.

Speaker 414:14

Yeah.

Speaker 114:14

In a

Peter Mayle14:19

And so he wrote me a letter saying, How dare you, young man? and I wrote back to him. We had this long correspondence, and eventually I said, Would you give me a job, please, sir?

Peter Mayle14:26

And to his internal credit, he said yes.

Presenter14:29

That was lucky actually, wasn't it?

Peter Mayle14:30

It was tremendous luck, and also tremendously good natured on his part, because I must have seemed like the most appalling little pipsqueak to him.

Presenter14:37

What did he teach you? Did he teach you how to write for the market?

Peter Mayle14:40

He taught me how to write clean prose and and not to be self-indulgent. He was a wonderful teacher, and in fact very kind to me, because he used to take me aside after office hours occasionally and say, You know, the the secret of it is, dear boy, he said, The secret of it is just perseverance, perseverance, perseverance. There is no secret to success as long as you persevere.

Peter Mayle15:01

He's absolutely right. I mean perseverance is ninety percent of it in advertising.

Presenter15:05

Chord number three.

Peter Mayle15:06

Uh record number three is Glenn Gould, who's I always have this fascination for people who can make their fingers move so nimbly across piano keyboards. And I I love the Goldberg variations, Bach's Goldberg variations, and this is this is one of them.

Presenter16:12

Glenn Gould playing one of Bach's Goldberg variations.

Presenter16:16

You were identified, Peter Merle, in nineteen sixty seven, as one of the young meteors. You were twenty eight at the time. It was in a book of that title, and it meant that you were one of the talents of your generation. What had you done to merit that accolade?

Peter Mayle16:29

Probably not enough, but um I I think at at the time I was one of the youngest.

Peter Mayle16:34

managing directors of an advertising agency in London. Because I think w when I came back from New York it was to help the London office of a New York advertising agency. I there were about ten of us I think. And so after a couple of years when the Americans went back to America there was they looked around in desperation for someone who could speak English and there I was so I think they made me managing director.

Presenter16:55

Was this then before you'd coined Nice One, Cyril?

Peter Mayle16:57

Yes, yes. I mean I I'd worked uh for several years in America and it was pre-Cyril, P C.

Presenter17:04

If they'd known about Cyril, they'd have had even worries of

Speaker 117:04

There

Speaker 417:05

Uh

Presenter17:07

How how did that come about, Cyril?

Peter Mayle17:09

It was a complete fluke. I was doing um a commercial with Alan Parker, whom I'd known for a long, long time, and we were doing this commercial for a product called Wonderloaf, which was a sliced white loaf.

Peter Mayle17:22

And the campaign idea was it was locally baked, which it was. In fact they had thirty-eight different bakeries all around England and Wales.

Peter Mayle17:29

And we were doing a spoof of a wine tasting where they were trying to guess from which bakery this particular loaf had come. And the two bakers were sitting there, you know, with their T shirts with Nottingham or Grimsby or whatever it was on them to identify themselves and they were saying, Well, I think it's one of um, you know, Bert's down in Wolverhampton and they say, No, no, no, don't taste it's too full for Bert, it might be one of

Peter Mayle17:51

Might be one of Cyril's, actually, in Nottingham. So they they chewed it and listened to it and did all those sort of wine whiny things with it. And then they said, Yep, that's right. And then at the end of the commercial

Peter Mayle18:01

We had a couple of seconds, and Alan said, Can you think of anything to stick in here?'Cause it's a bit dead.

Peter Mayle18:07

And so they'd agreed that this work of genius the bread.

Peter Mayle18:10

Had been baked by Cyril, so.

Peter Mayle18:13

I just said, Well, why don't they say, you know, something like Nice One, Cyril? And this fellow looked at the camera.

Peter Mayle18:19

And he he had a really rather interesting and

Peter Mayle18:22

and a round face, and he just waved and he said, Nice one, Cyril.

Peter Mayle18:26

And that was only thought that sort of quite pleasant way of ending up. And with literally within, I suppose, two or three weeks of the commercial running, you started to hear people at Tottenham Hotspur, I think it was in those days, screaming at Cyril Knowles, who I think was one of their big stars.

Speaker 118:40

I think was what

Peter Mayle18:42

You know, nice one, Cyril, and Boy, you know, and all that. And then it became a song, and then it passed into the language properly. And it's still, I saw it.

Peter Mayle18:51

In fact, not long ago I was driving towards Nice.

Peter Mayle18:55

And

Peter Mayle18:56

Somebody had put a bit of graffiti on it, and the signpost said niece and someone had put the figure one and then Syril underneath it. So it's still lurking about somewhere.

Presenter19:05

But did anybody remember it had anything to do with a loaf of bread called

Peter Mayle19:08

No, certainly not. It was a complete distraction from what people should have remembered, and to that it there's one of the great dangers of advertising, of course. You can get something into the language which has absolutely nothing to do with the product that you're supposed to be selling.

Presenter19:11

Ha ha.

Presenter19:19

Just transfers the attention away from the product in the end.

Peter Mayle19:20

Absolutely.

Presenter19:21

X piece of music.

Peter Mayle19:23

The next piece of meeting is one of my favourite songs, one of my wife's favourite songs, These Foolish Things. I think the lyrics are absolutely wonderful and I think the way Brian Ferry sings it is uh very interesting and nice.

Speaker 419:34

When you did that to me, I somehow knew that this had to be The winds of March that make my heart dancer

Speaker 419:46

A telephone that wings, but who is to answer?

Speaker 419:52

Oh, how the ghost of you clings!

Speaker 419:56

This foolish thing

Speaker 419:59

Remind me of

Presenter20:02

Brian Ferry and these foolish things. It was six years ago now, Peter, that you moved to France, and um allowing for poetic licence, I think most of us have a good idea about how you went on there.

Presenter20:13

Except, of course, that in print you always seem to manage to see the funny side of mishaps. Is it really always like that, or have there been times when you've just felt you simply couldn't cope and you were going to come back to Britain?

Peter Mayle20:24

Never, never that. I mean, there are times when it has been infuriating, frustrating, all of that. But I think.

Peter Mayle20:32

Encouraging us was the fact that we knew we'd made the right decision, we knew we'd come to the right country, we loved the country, essentially we loved being there, and in life you have problems, uh they just happen to be particular. French problems, if we'd come back to England we'd have had English problems, so there was never any desire to sort of backtrack.

Presenter20:50

So tell me about a typical day in Provence now. What do you do all day?

Peter Mayle20:53

I get up quite early. I take the dogs out for three or four mile walk.

Peter Mayle20:58

Come back, have breakfast, go to work. I'm in the office by nine o'clock every day or six days a week. Well, I've got an office, it's about four second commute from the house. It's just across the courtyard from the house.

Presenter21:02

We've got another

Speaker 121:02

Fixed days.

Speaker 121:07

Uh

Presenter21:07

It's just

Peter Mayle21:09

And I s try to be sitting down by nine o'clock every morning.

Presenter21:13

This is your slab table in the sunshine, is it, this office?

Peter Mayle21:16

Well yeah, winter some yes often. I have to admit.

Presenter21:18

Oh f

Presenter21:19

Do you eat much lunch?

Peter Mayle21:21

Just a little something, a salad or something like that.

Presenter21:24

And do you drink as much as it sounds as if you do in your books? An awful lot of champagne, Calvados and Mark, the local firewater, kind of sloshing around in your mind.

Peter Mayle21:31

Not so much champagne. I'm I'm not a great I I love I love champagne because it gives an atmosphere to to it makes people cheerful. I love a couple of glasses, I couldn't go on at champagne, but I do drink quite a lot.

Presenter21:41

And you feel less guilty about it'cause the sun's shining and'cause it's been made locally or

Peter Mayle21:42

When you feel

Peter Mayle21:44

It's been made locally or guilt, me and alcohol don't mix.

Peter Mayle21:49

I feel rather well on it. I like it very much. I think it's a great social lubricant. It seems silly to live in the middle of wine producing country and not assist local business as best one can.

Peter Mayle22:01

That is just a wonderful thing to do, sit down with somebody in the middle of the day and have a couple of glasses of wine.

Presenter22:06

More music.

Peter Mayle22:08

Uh

Peter Mayle22:09

This is played by a wonderful violinist Marvelous violinist called Isaac Stern and it's part of Brahms Concerto in D major.

Presenter23:17

Part of Brahm's concerto in D major for violin and orchestra, played by Isaac Stern with the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Eugene Ormondy.

Presenter23:25

How disappointing was it for you, Peter, that the television version of a year in Provence has been rather a flop?

Peter Mayle23:32

The thing that was really disappointing to me was the relish with which it was attacked, and I didn't think it deserved that. I

Peter Mayle23:40

find it very difficult to judge it from a dispassionate point of view because it's a dramatization of a bit of my life, so

Peter Mayle23:48

I'm not the sort of typical viewer.

Peter Mayle23:51

But I was appalled at the the savaging that it got.

Presenter23:54

Yes. Maybe it caught a bit of the flack as well that

Peter Mayle23:54

Yeah.

Presenter23:57

You've come in for yourself as well. I mean, have you found that, that you go through a period where

Presenter24:02

You know, you've got the best thing since sliced bread, since Wantaloa. And then suddenly you're not. And whatever you do, and whatever you say, or whatever happens to do with you.

Speaker 124:05

Yeah.

Presenter24:11

People are gonna attack you.

Peter Mayle24:12

Oh yes, I think I I've had that for about a year now and it's it's curious because at the very beginning when we all thought here in Provence would be a pleasant little book that might just sell out its first printing of three, four thousand copies, I got kindly reviewed, kindly written about and it generally was treated nicely. Almost exactly the same time that it became a number one paperback bestseller the the mood of the pieces started to change and people started to look for trouble and started to look for parts where the book hadn't been accurate or whether I'd taken a liberty here or described somebody wrongly there.

Peter Mayle24:49

And that's been going on at least for a year now.

Presenter24:51

Do you think that's a particularly British disease, not allowing someone to be a success for for very long? Get them up onto the pinnacle and then knock them off when as soon as you can.

Peter Mayle24:59

It doesn't seem to ha I mean I don't seem to have any problems with America, and the book has been very successful in America, too. It is partly a a part of the English mentality, I think.

Peter Mayle25:10

But all the people I know in France say, well, don't worry, if if you had been bestseller in France it would have happened here too, so I don't know.

Presenter25:18

You've nevertheless made a a lot of money out of the book and and its spin-offs, and and I've read that one of your great fears in life is lingering poverty, but that probably applies to most of us.

Presenter25:28

Do you think that you find money

Presenter25:30

more important than a lot of people do.

Peter Mayle25:33

I think I find it less important than most people do. If I was so concerned about money, I would never have left the advertising business for a start because I had had an absolutely guaranteed contract I could have signed for another five years, which would have made me quite rich, and I chose not to sign that. I think if I'd really wanted money, I would never have taken the chance to move over to Provence and get away from England and, you know,

Presenter25:54

But you like you like your creature comforts, you like your silk shirts, preferably made in Paris.

Peter Mayle25:57

Oh, I love them, yeah.

Peter Mayle25:59

Absolutely. I love all that. But above everything else I like independence and um money comes second to that.

Presenter26:06

But on the other hand, because you wrote a bestseller, having moved to Provence, you've been able to stay there. I mean, do you think in a sense the whole experiment has been a success, the gamble has come off, because you've made the money and that if you hadn't, you might not still be there?

Peter Mayle26:21

That's a very interesting question and thank God it's hypothetical. I don't know. I think I would still be there because I love it so much, but I wouldn't be there under such tranquil circumstances in that, you know, I know I can I don't have to keep rushing back to London to get work because I can write.

Peter Mayle26:39

more or less do what I want to do out there now. So it would have changed life if if I hadn't been lucky.

Presenter26:44

It's difficult to imagine you living in genteel poverty even if the sun is shining.

Peter Mayle26:49

Well, it's much easier. It's much easier to be broke when you're warm.

Presenter26:54

Let's have some more music.

Peter Mayle26:55

Oh, this is a marvellous piece of of music, the overture to Wagner's Tannhuizer and its terrific music for storms.

Presenter28:04

Part of the overture to Richard Wagner's Tannhuizer, played by the Berlin Philharmonic, conducted by Herbert von Karrian, and music that you'll watch the weather go by to on your island, Petermail. What do you think your morale would be like after you'd been stranded there for a few months on end?

Peter Mayle28:20

I think I'd be bored with myself, and I think I'd be quite frustrated, and I think I'd be considering throwing myself into the sea and see if I could find another piece of land.

Presenter28:28

But would you be able to do anything about your life there? Would you have made home, as it were?

Peter Mayle28:33

I would have made a hollow in the beach and covered myself with cocoanut leaves, I think, probably. I've I'm not a very practical person. I would be, I guess, if I had to be. But I find

Peter Mayle28:42

Changing a plug about the limit of my expertise in these matters.

Presenter28:45

Which is why you need all these workmen, huh?

Peter Mayle28:47

Exactly. And I I'd much rather I think, you know, I have a very simple principle. I know what I'm doing when I'm writing. I'd rather write extra to pay people who know what they're doing when they're doing electricity or plumbing or building a stone wall or putting a roof on. And I think I'm more usefully employed at the typewriter than making a fool of myself at all these other things.

Presenter29:07

But if you had to, you could.

Peter Mayle29:09

I guess I could, yes.

Presenter29:11

I mean, you you believe in yourself you believe in yourself, do you? You're an optimist.

Peter Mayle29:14

Yeah, sure, absolutely an optimist, and I'm sure that even after a few months on the island I would imagine that it will all turn out all right.

Peter Mayle29:23

Because you know I've been terribly lucky in my life so far, and uh so far it's turned out all right.

Presenter29:29

So do you I mean it's the classic question do you pinch yourself sometimes and think, My God, I'm lucky, I mean, how on earth did I get here?

Peter Mayle29:36

Every day. Every day. Yeah, I really do.

Peter Mayle29:39

I I really feel extraordinarily lucky and very content.

Presenter29:44

More music.

Peter Mayle29:46

This is of a very old dear friend of mine, Tony Ashton, singing.

Peter Mayle29:51

A song called Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, which I think is distinguished by some lyrics that are unlikely to be found anywhere else, particularly a line that says She left me a note by my discarded sock, which I find and every time I listen to this record I f I fall about, and it reminds me of Tony.

Speaker 430:07

1.45 we were talking things about living and dying and diamond rings and it was beautiful, relaxed and almost serene. It was a good time. You know what I mean. By the time I awoke it was just five o'clock. She had left me a note by my discarded sock. It read thanks for the money and the video machine.

Presenter30:38

Tony Ashton, singing Saturday night and Sunday morning. Do you think, Peter, and let me just press you once more on this about the success of your move to Provence, do you think that the the success of the book and the spin-offs and so on and even the subsequent controversy have actually saved you from boredom, have saved you from opting out? Perhaps you haven't yet opted out.

Peter Mayle31:00

I don't think I've opted out. I mean, I do a day's work six days a week. I do something that I make a living at. I have my problems over there, just as we have problems wherever we live.

Peter Mayle31:10

Um I certainly don't well, I don't want to opt out. I like to write until I drop, really.

Presenter31:14

But that's what people think you've done in going there. But are you saying you still struggle to find time to do everything that you want to do?

Peter Mayle31:20

Absolutely. I mean, I I try to answer every letter that's sent to me, for example. I must get, I suppose, a hundred letters a week, so that's quite a slug of the.

Presenter31:27

But that's a result of your success.

Peter Mayle31:29

Hmm.

Presenter31:29

If you hadn't had the success, if you'd gone there to write and you were still churning it out and no publisher had really bitten, or even if they had, the book hadn't really sold, I wonder if you'd be as happy and contented as you say you are.

Peter Mayle31:42

No, I wouldn't, but I think I'd still rather be there than here, because it's better to be broke in a good climate than in a wet climate.

Presenter31:48

It's not all about climate, though, is it? I mean, at the end of the day, it's also to do with whether you're content with yourself and feel fulfilled. I mean, I press you because.

Peter Mayle31:50

Yeah.

Presenter31:57

You're the person who's in many ways lived out a lot of our our dreams and and I think you've got a duty to tell us really. Is the game worth the candle? It does genuinely make you happy.

Peter Mayle32:06

Yes. I mean I I hesitate to admit it quite so easily because I think if you admit to being happy you're content.

Peter Mayle32:12

People immediately turn round and say what a smug

Peter Mayle32:15

Monkey he is. Because the two things seem to get confused in England often by the English. And if you admit that you're having

Peter Mayle32:23

a lucky and very pleasant life, people don't like him because they say, Well, you know, maybe he is, but he should bloody well keep quiet about it, you know. But I um

Peter Mayle32:33

It has been worth it. It has been worth the inconvenience and the um discomfort of the early days, and to some extent the worry, the financial worry of the early days. It has been worth all the lousy pieces in the press. It has absolutely been worth it.

Presenter32:48

Last record.

Peter Mayle32:50

This is an area from Larondinae.

Peter Mayle32:53

And it's sung by Monserrat Caballee. I love to.

Peter Mayle32:58

sit outside at the end of the day and look at the sky and have a drink and open the doors and the windows and

Peter Mayle33:06

have the music come out of the house. It's the most wonderful

Peter Mayle33:10

relaxed feeling that I can possibly think of, and to have this sort of sound coming out of your windows on on a still evening is magical, I think.

Speaker 433:20

Or the poteno renov.

Speaker 433:24

It is for me, call my mind, call my feeling.

Speaker 434:08

Could pay the risk of

Speaker 434:12

Dunbachiar then time o raised the music.

Presenter34:19

The aria quil bell sonno di doretta from Puccini's La Rondine, sung by Monserrat Caballee, with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Charles Macarras.

Presenter34:28

If you could only take one of those eight records, Peter, which one would it be?

Peter Mayle34:33

Only take one. I think it would have to be um Averotti,'cause I just adore his voice and I uh I love to watch him and I never get tired of listening to him.

Presenter34:45

What about your book as well as the Bible and Shakespeare?

Peter Mayle34:48

There's a book called The Leopard.

Peter Mayle34:50

by an Italian called Giuseppe de Lampaduzza, which is about nineteenth century Sicily. I love it because it's the most beautifully written piece of work, even in English. I don't know it must be fantastic in Italian, but even in English it's a book I reread every year.

Presenter35:05

And what about your luxury?

Peter Mayle35:06

I think what I would really like to have to sustain my optimism is a menu from favourite restaurant in Paris called Chez Lamili Louis.

Peter Mayle35:13

which I go to whenever I go up there. It was the most wonderful food, it was a lovely place, and I think if I stared at that for long enough it would give me the resolve to go and duck the sharks and see if I could strike out and hit land on the other side of the ocean.

Presenter35:28

Peter Mail, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Peter Mayle35:32

Thank you very much.

Speaker 135:41

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.