Roger McGough

Speaker 20:00

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 20:08

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

Presenter0:29

My Castaway this week is a poet. As a boy growing up in Liverpool he showed little aptitude for literature, but at Hull University the dam burst and the words came flowing, encouraged and supported by Philip Larkin. His witty, colloquial style gave his work wide appeal. In the sixties he formed a highly successful pop group called The Scaffold. There Lily the Pink, his words, went to number one. But the sixties swung away and he returned to his first love.

Presenter0:56

He's written more than thirty books of poetry, all of them still in print. To quote from his poem for a Dead Poet, he was a poet, he was a proper poet. He said things that made you think and said them nicely. He is Roger MacGough, who's far from dead and sitting opposite me right now. But is that your definition of a proper poet, Roger? Somebody who says things that make you think and says them nicely?

Roger McGough1:20

I think it would be, yes. That's the sort of um poetry that I like. I mean, poetry is a mystery to me still, but um I like something that's accessible.

Roger McGough1:28

But it it's not like just telling somebody a story. There's always that element of mystery about it that comes in. I don't know in a funny way.

Presenter1:32

In what sense?

Roger McGough1:35

Uh it comes from the impulse that makes you write it. As if the work often comes from somewhere else, as if the ideas are coming around and about, and I'm just picking and choosing them and trying to make sense. You know, you don't write a poem about such a thing or about such a person. You just take a line and see what happens. And that's the mystery of the

Presenter1:50

Yeah.

Presenter1:51

What we forget, of course, was how avant-garde it must have been in the sixties, that whole business of writing about things that you knew about, rather than writing traditional poetry, but suddenly you writing about your Aunty Madge or bus conductresses or something.

Roger McGough2:05

Bus conductresses or something. Yes, it was. I mean, when I went into teaching in Kirby in a school and I was given to teach those children the same books that I had had when I was at school, Palgraves' Treasury of Poetry. It meant nothing to the kids.

Roger McGough2:17

And it was then that I was I introduced them to the poetry that I was writing, and I was making them write about their aunties and their uncles and the estate and using the language of what was around them. And they enjoyed it. So instead of like taking a mirror and showing it to the sky, you bring it down and show it around you. And that's the the starting point.

Presenter2:34

But the danger if you do too much of that is that people tend to imply, the critics tend to imply that you're not not being a proper poet.

Roger McGough2:42

Uh

Presenter2:42

That you're there's a sort of

Presenter2:44

Slightly disparaging tag to it, isn't there, that you're a pop poet or you're a beat poet, but you're not actually quite proper. I mean, do you resent that?

Roger McGough2:49

But you're not actually

Roger McGough2:52

I mean

Roger McGough2:53

I do resent it, and it's been used that people use it now. You're a performance poet, meaning I don't know quite what it means. I think it means you're not quite a poet, or that you write for performance only. And it's not true. I've always

Roger McGough3:04

Written all my life trying to make sense of my own life and and I love language and I love words, I'm trying to write poems all the time and um just trying to be myself as well.

Presenter3:13

So that's your individual approach to poetry, and you must be a bit right, mustn't you, if all your books are still in print and there are more than thirty of them? Yes, yes, and and

Roger McGough3:21

And there are lots lot of good poets around who who do the same sort of thing. You know, it's not just me on my own. I'm part of a generation and a whole lot of poets who um a lot of good new poets coming along as well.

Presenter3:33

What's interesting, though, is that you may well have uh uh and obviously do have an ear for poetry and and a poetic voice, but you don't have an ear for music.

Roger McGough3:42

I know.

Roger McGough3:44

You referring to the scaffold here, sir?

Roger McGough3:46

No, you're not. No. No, I don't. I d I don't um listen to music at all. I know there are people I know, writers, who can put on marwa and uh work. I can't. I I have must must be silence. And then for relaxation I I don't want to sit and listen to music. I want to go out and meet people and

Presenter4:03

So you d you don't want to take eight records, do you?

Roger McGough4:05

No, you don't mind doing it very short. Thank you.

Presenter4:09

So how have you how have you come across the eight that you have got?

Roger McGough4:12

Yes, so I thought I'd start back at the beginning in my childhood. The house was full of Gilbert and Sullivan and uh John McCormack, the old Irish tenor, you know, I'll take you home again, Kathleen, and all that tears ever.

Roger McGough4:23

And the Italian tenors, Caruso actually Robinson Caruso he was the he'd be good on this programme, wouldn't he? Robinson Caruso, the famous Italian tenor who was shipwrecked. And um Beni Mino Beni Mino Gili. I'd like to have in memory of my mum and dad.

Roger McGough4:38

Benimino Gili singing La Done Mobile.

Roger McGough4:44

How long I want to do it?

Roger McGough4:53

Yeah.

Roger McGough4:54

Sempreoma Mapile.

Speaker 25:19

Very penny.

Presenter5:34

Benjamino Gili singing La Donne e Mobile from Verdi's Rigoletto, and that was a a recording of a live broadcast of a recital in Sheffield in nineteen forty nine. But that's the kind of thing you heard on the parents' what radio ground?

Roger McGough5:47

Radiogram, yesterday, a radio radiogram as big as a a car. I remember, it was dominated the the living room. This was in living.

Presenter5:51

Remember

Presenter5:53

This was in Liverpool, where you were born and bred. Son of a docker. I should imagine that the idea that you'd make your living as a poet was would have been an anathema to the family.

Roger McGough6:02

Indeed, yes. I mean, anathema to me. I mean, our horizons were were very small in in in those days. But I was the eldest of a generation, that generation who didn't do national service, who went to grammar school was offered to us, and and university education. And so a lot of the energy in the parents went into great expectation on my shoulders that I would do well, and I would have the education that they didn't have.

Presenter6:24

Tell me about the family describe it to me. What kind of family was it?

Roger McGough6:28

Um it was a Liverpool Irish family. Um my father's one of seven brothers and a sister and uh my mother's side, there were twelve, and they're mainly aunties. Uh that was a lot more fun. So it was all woodbines and boogie woogie kind of things. Um and that and very loving.

Presenter6:38

And those

Roger McGough6:44

Um working class Catholic family. Um

Speaker 26:47

Not a church.

Roger McGough6:48

A lot of church. Yes, I used to go to church. In fact, I was at some point, you know, the idea of being a priest was high on the hopes. I mean, the fact that I might have been the first Liverpool Pope if the girls hadn't got there first.

Presenter6:59

They thought that, but you didn't, Etiko.

Roger McGough7:01

Well, no, I the m from yes, now and again I I did, but um so either one could go into the church or one could be a teacher.

Presenter7:08

Okay.

Roger McGough7:08

Or do something clerical, as opposed to going doing something physical, like my father had done in his his generation.

Presenter7:13

So were there a lot of books in the house? I mean, were you sort of reasonably literary as a family, or not?

Roger McGough7:18

My mother loved books and was a great believer in the power of of of the book and and education and uh

Roger McGough7:24

I think given another time and place she would have perhaps been a writer herself, or they li she liked it. Uh my dad liked books about the sea.

Presenter7:28

Yeah.

Roger McGough7:32

stories and I remember when I he was had this working man's fear of

Roger McGough7:37

Place like libraries, so I used to go to the library for him and select a book.

Presenter7:41

You've written a poem about that, haven't you?

Roger McGough7:42

I have, in fact, yes.

Presenter7:43

Yes, and and you'd buy him bring him home a book that he'd read before.

Roger McGough7:46

Read before sometime, but it didn't matter because it's a good book. And that's all.

Presenter7:49

But your mum, as I understand it, used to during the war read to you off the back of cocoa tins.

Roger McGough7:55

Yes, I mean there weren't many books around, children's books. There were very few bookshops in a sense, so anything was readable, you know, oval tin tins and uh sauce bottles.

Presenter8:06

But your school, apparently, Saint Mary's College, Crosbie, was was decidedly not an inspiration as far as literature was concerned.

Roger McGough8:13

No, it wasn't. Nope.

Roger McGough8:14

It has to be said, the strap was was used, it was a teaching method.

Roger McGough8:18

But I was

Roger McGough8:20

Glad to be there. I've always thought I was lucky to be there in a sense, and and I was, and they they were people, there was a Christian brothers who took working class lads and they pushed them through college.

Presenter8:29

But did you consider yourself lucky'cause you were told you were lucky?

Roger McGough8:32

Yes, oh yes, oh yes, I was I was got to be told that I'm lucky, to know that I'm lucky. And I I quite enjoyed school in a sense. People like John Burt, who's down the corridor probably somewhere, was there, Kevin McNavara, good people around. Um but there's no accent on on literature at all. I mean in fact one year I failed in Englit O level because the year before we we did Gaelic. Christian Brother who didn't like English literature. Uh so we did Gaelic instead. Uh so I failed Englit.

Presenter9:01

And you've been owning up to that ever since.

Roger McGough9:01

You've been owning up to that ever since. I'm afraid so, yes. But it didn't matter. I mean, it's not surprising because I was good at language. I enjoyed language. I enjoyed words.

Presenter9:07

What?

Roger McGough9:08

Using them.

Presenter9:08

And French and geography were good, and indeed got you a place at Hull University, where the scales were to fall from your ears, as we shall.

Roger McGough9:15

Yeah.

Presenter9:15

Here in a minute, but let's have your second record.

Roger McGough9:18

Yes, well this be in fact um going back to my days at school as an altar boy, and I used to be enjoy the Latin Mass, and uh I'd like a Gregorian chant, perhaps Veni creato spiritus.

Roger McGough9:32

We are all spirits.

Roger McGough9:38

Mentors for his inhabitants.

Speaker 29:39

Just more of missing all

Roger McGough9:44

We raise more than the last we love.

Speaker 29:45

Yeah, it's

Presenter9:47

Yeah.

Speaker 29:47

Uh

Speaker 39:52

Gradually.

Presenter9:53

Yeah.

Roger McGough10:01

To be terrible, I remember

Presenter10:02

There is far out of

Roger McGough10:07

Five days in all of me.

Presenter10:08

We all of me

Roger McGough10:13

For dream mortal.

Speaker 210:14

Yeah.

Speaker 210:20

Fifty parties

Presenter10:27

A Gregorian chant, Feni creato spiritus. Tell me about then when you got to Hull University. W what happened that to open your ears and your mind to poetry? Was it a quite a sudden

Roger McGough10:38

It was very sudden. I think I said at

Roger McGough10:40

At school it'd be very much doing the doing the work and doing the work and not much intellectual debate and they just do the work.

Roger McGough10:46

Get the sums right, get the word get to university. And I was very young, I was seventeen, going on fifteen when I went to university, and it was there that

Roger McGough10:55

There was intellectual debate. There were intellectuals. There were people around that I was opened up to ideas I never had before. And often through the French, in fact, through

Roger McGough11:03

Coming across Rambeau, de Naval, Vient, these sort of people.

Roger McGough11:07

And just this great excitement, and I just started writing. And um it never stopped in a sense once. I I remember going through a mixture of Saint John of the Cross and Rambo, and uh not eating and sleeping for two days and seeing what I could do and what could I could write.

Presenter11:25

And it just all came out.

Roger McGough11:26

Yeah, I did.

Roger McGough11:28

So much so, and it'cause it surprised me,'cause I didn't it didn't seem to come from anywhere, and uh no one else knew the secret that I had.

Roger McGough11:35

And so I decided that I as I was writing poetry I must be a poet, and that whatever happened in my life

Roger McGough11:42

What if my job was and I didn't think it would be to do with poetry, that I would be a poet. That was my vocation anyway.

Presenter11:47

And what about Philip Larkin I mentioned in the introduction? He was, of course, the librarian at Hull University. Did you meet him? Did he inspire you? Yes.

Roger McGough11:54

Yes, he was, in fact, the subwarden of the hall I was in. I didn't approach him. I didn't I wouldn't have known what to ask him really. And he was a a private, quiet man.

Roger McGough12:03

But uh I was influenced and I started reading his poetry. And then in my final year I actually sent him some poems, and he wrote a very nice letter back and

Roger McGough12:11

You know, he was always supportive.

Presenter12:12

And he told you to publish them, didn't he?

Roger McGough12:14

He did, yes. He said you should uh why not publish them in the

Roger McGough12:17

University Magazine.

Presenter12:19

So what was the first poem you ever had published?

Roger McGough12:22

It was in a magazine called Tomorrow, and came out of Oxford. I think Michael Horowitz was uh concerned, and Iain Hamilton.

Roger McGough12:28

which now strikes me as very strange. But he spotted talent when he saw it. And my first poem was called Sunset.

Roger McGough12:34

And it was about a a fried egg slithering down the frying pan of the sky.

Roger McGough12:39

Wonderful stuff, sir. Wonderful.

Roger McGough12:41

Teddy's Eat Your Heart Out

Presenter12:44

But you found a voice. I and and as I understand it, the voice very early on was was was witty and sharp, but also quite poignant. I mean, it's not a voice that's changed that much over the years, has it? You might have improved from Fried Eggs Slithering Down the Sky, but

Roger McGough12:59

Not so not a lot, some would say. Yes, of course I have, yes. I did find my voice in an odd way, and it was all to do with and I don't why it comes, it comes perhaps from the background and being from Liverpool and and not doing literature at university.'Cause perhaps then I'd be

Roger McGough13:13

competitive or tried to please tutors and and and everybody else. And I didn't have that. I was sort of, in a sense, naïve, but wanting to learn, wanting to know more about it, and think it was a gift from God, I suppose, and wanted to uh develop it.

Presenter13:24

Record number three.

Roger McGough13:26

Aye, it's well.

Roger McGough13:27

There I was at Hull, and one of the reasons

Roger McGough13:31

Good exciting as well by poetry was actually listening to poetry. Listening to

Roger McGough13:36

Dylan Thomas.

Roger McGough13:37

And so I'd like to hear.

Roger McGough13:38

Under Milkwood, Richard Burton reciting the opening.

Speaker 313:42

To begin

Roger McGough13:43

In at the beginning.

Speaker 313:47

It is spring, moonless night in the small town, starless and Bible black, the cobbled streets silent and the hunched, quarters and rabbits' wood limping invisible down to the slow black.

Speaker 313:59

Slow

Speaker 314:00

Black

Speaker 314:02

Pro black fishing boat bobbing sea

Presenter14:05

Richard Burton reciting the opening of Dylan Thomas's Under Milk Wood is wonderful voice, isn't it? It's terrific. We're talking about your voice, your voice of poetry, uh not having changed much over the years, but

Presenter14:18

Certainly there's a deal of cynicism, it seems to me, that has crept in over the years, hasn't there? I was just looking at one of your early ones, Let Me Die a Young Man's Death, Not a Clean and In Between the Sheets, Holy Water Death, Not a Famous Last Words, Peaceful Out of Breath, Death.

Speaker 214:25

And select me.

Roger McGough14:26

Uh

Presenter14:33

You know, and you can compare that with uh one you wrote not so very long ago. Um

Speaker 214:33

Yeah.

Presenter14:37

It's a joy to be old, kids through school, the dog dead and the car sold. I mean, it's a bit more realistic, isn't it?

Roger McGough14:42

Just it's funny you should pick on the Let Me Die Young Man's Death, because it's very much the the music of Dylan Thomas. You can see the influence in that one, can't you?

Presenter14:49

You can see the influence in that one, can't you? It's a kind of anthem, isn't it, in that one? It is a young man's anthem, really.

Roger McGough14:52

Yeah.

Roger McGough14:55

But it's it's funny when you get when I I'm at the age now and I realize I'm too old to have died young.

Roger McGough14:59

That's rather

Presenter15:01

But a bit let me carry on with the cynicism line for a minute. I mean, certainly in your the first poetry you had published, formerly published as it were, um uh uh as a book, Summer with Monica. I mean, and again that was very sixties, in in in bed all day in orange rooms, you know, yellow curtains, arguing about who was going to get up and make the tea. Um and then in Middle Age you write, Today is not a day for adultery, and go on to talk about Wellington's even coloured seldom arouse, you know. Cynicism, Ruther.

Roger McGough15:27

Cynic

Roger McGough15:29

A lot of the cynicism, I think, was about

Roger McGough15:32

Particularly in the sixties, was about the way people regarded the times as if that things were all going to change, this new permissive society, which everyone a lot of people were promoting. Now

Roger McGough15:42

In uh the Permissa Society I was never too much involved in. It seemed to be happening elsewhere, it always did. The parties where things happened were always the the ones I didn't go to.

Presenter15:50

But everybody thought that.

Roger McGough15:51

Well, that's it, yes. I know, and I was just making that that point, I suppose.

Presenter15:54

What's always been a part of your work, though, is word plays and it puns and spoonerisms.

Roger McGough15:58

Hunger's

Roger McGough15:59

Yes.

Presenter16:00

And that that's something that's gone on and on, and you

Presenter16:03

Some people should say you should get rid of it, but you don't.

Roger McGough16:05

No, I don't. And I like it very much, and particularly when I w for children's work, they love that. I mean, a lot of

Roger McGough16:12

Uh poems just revolve around that.

Presenter16:14

Like we can't tell the time our neighbourhood watch has been stolen.

Roger McGough16:18

The thing about me as well is that I'm the sort of person I'm desperately nervous now talking to you and trying to make sense of this jumble of words inside my head. But I have like the French called l'esprit d'Escalier. On my way out here, why didn't I say this? Why I could have said that, that would be marvellous. But of course, for poetry it's fine'cause you have this, you have the ability and the escalier give me as long as you want it to be, you can rework and rewrite. When I do a book like Defying Gravity, which does have these jokes in like got up, had shave, did Times Crossword, had another shave.

Presenter16:38

The nullity.

Roger McGough16:52

These are the poems that critics will say, Look at this, it's all rubbish and it sort of is, they're almost like jokes. But they're part of what I do, and the rest of the the book is is serious poems and what I consider serious and dealing with life and death and everything else, and uh I'm I'm all these things.

Presenter17:07

And it's proved to be durable'cause all your books are still in print. Funnily enough, when you say, you know, got up, had a shave, I mean it it's very reminiscent of Sgt. Pepperbillies and got up, got out of bed, dragged a comb across my head.

Roger McGough17:09

Indeed.

Roger McGough17:16

Yes, they've got a lot to answer for. They have. All the poems I wrote, there was never I was used to my readings, you know. The back John and Paul: scribble, scribble, scribble.

Presenter17:18

The hell?

Presenter17:24

But it's the same thing, isn't it? Going back to what we were saying about colloquial images and the mundane things of life, and that of course is what they did in Liverpool. I mean, Penny Lane was in a place in Liverpool, isn't it? And uh Strawberry Fields was a place. But you come out of the same egg, don't you?

Roger McGough17:33

Sure.

Roger McGough17:35

Yeah.

Roger McGough17:38

Yes, yes. And it is part of this generation I go back to who are suddenly finding their own voice. Culture when I was younger was was second hand. It came to us from America. We wore the clothes that our our parents wore. And suddenly in the in the sixties there's money available, there's an education. People started to find their own life and their other heroes.

Presenter17:58

Let's have record number four.

Roger McGough17:59

I loved Ravel's Pavan for a Dead Princess. When I heard it at university first time, and I was very moved, and have been when I hear I hear it, and I did say to myself, Ah yes, I can be moved by music. What I shall do in my life, I shall devote a lot of time to listening and to classical music, to going to opera and really during my life I'll develop this great sort of passion for music. I'm still waiting. So it's a sort of musical slap on the wrist when I'm out there in the desdahl and saying, Roger, but there's still time. There's still time.

Presenter19:23

Part of Ravel's Pavan for a Dead Infanta, played by Vladimir Ashkenazi. It seems to me, Roger McGough, that you led a kind of double life in the sixties, uh i in two ways. Well, let's deal with the first one. You were a conventional teacher by day, but you could metamorphose into a a beat poet by night. I mean, what did you do, nip into a telephone box and change? Well, yes.

Roger McGough19:42

Actually. Um telephone box any any's anywhere around and I had I always had a bag with me, a a blue canvas bag I remember, which I had a pair of glasses but there were black ones, a brush to comb my hair fold, um usually a black roll neck collar and some French cigarettes because I was then a Monsieur Le Beietnik, I was a Beechnik and existentialist. Used to go down into the pubs and clubs of of Liverpool and read poetry and mix with poets and and writers and all that.

Presenter20:05

But by day you would teach nice girls French and R E and then and then sometimes in the summer you'd sort of presumably put the gear on again and slink away to the Edinburgh Festival.

Roger McGough20:15

Yes, I went to the Redenburg Festival very early, early days. To read poetry.

Presenter20:19

And stuff newspaper down your trousers.

Roger McGough20:21

That's right, I remember the first night. It was Arthur Dooley who who died recently, a wonderful Liverpool character and sculptor, and I slept on the steps of the Scottish.

Roger McGough20:29

National Gallery, I remember, and he sh had those newspapers with me and stuffed them down trousers to keep warm.

Presenter20:34

But literally'cause you couldn't afford to pay anywhere for the night.

Roger McGough20:37

I know I was pretending that I couldn't.

Presenter20:38

I see.

Roger McGough20:39

Stay anywhere that night. That was a teacher pretending I wasn't.

Roger McGough20:43

To pick

Presenter20:43

Teacher.

Presenter20:44

But but you learned your trade on the fringe, did you? I mean, would you say?

Roger McGough20:48

Very much so, yes, yes. Um and this is the time of Michael Harvard's Pete Brown, the sort of uh blues for the hitchhiking dead. The beat poets of America were great influence.

Presenter20:57

Let's talk about the scaffold, because in a sense it was the birthplace of the scaffold as well, wasn't it? I mean, between Liverpool and Edinburgh, anyway. Yes, ma'am.

Roger McGough21:02

Yes, I mean Lettenberg gave us our first professionals.

Presenter21:05

Hm. So there was you, uh, there was John Gorman and there was uh Mike McCartney, Paul's brother, who changed his name to Magea. Did he do that because of

Roger McGough21:11

That's right.

Presenter21:14

Yes. We just didn't want the link.

Roger McGough21:15

He just did.

Roger McGough21:17

That's right, yes. We he nearly became MacFab, Michael MacFab, but he changed Mc to McGee, we thought Mageer.

Presenter21:24

But but you were a great success. I mean, so much so that you gave up teaching.

Roger McGough21:26

I said

Roger McGough21:28

Yes. And we were offered a television series called Gazette, and we had to go and improvise using newspaper headlines live on a Saturday night. And so I packed my job in and we went on television. And we became famous in the North, it was only in the North, fairly quickly because there was very few television uh programmes on really.

Presenter21:47

Let's have record number five, I think.

Roger McGough21:49

Yes, well, it was the time when the Beatles' first record got into the into the charts, Love Me Do. Going back to what we said before, when everything could be an American and uh we'd taken our culture from elsewhere, now we were able to do it ourselves and suddenly the world was opening up, everything was possible.

Speaker 222:05

Uh

Roger McGough22:05

Yeah.

Speaker 222:05

Love, love me too.

Speaker 222:08

You know I

Roger McGough22:10

I love you.

Speaker 222:10

Yeah.

Speaker 222:11

Yeah.

Roger McGough22:12

I've always been true.

Roger McGough22:15

So

Roger McGough22:19

Hello

Speaker 222:20

Mm-hmm.

Roger McGough22:20

And the

Speaker 222:21

Uh

Speaker 222:22

World love me too.

Presenter22:26

Beatles and Love Me Do. Nineteen sixty seven was a big year for you, Roger McGough, wasn't it? You made a record, you published your first anthology, Summer with Monica, and you were voted Most Promising Newcomer by ABC Television. This was the big time.

Roger McGough22:39

It was, was wasn't it? Yes, uphill ever since. Um yes it wa it was a a good year. Lots of things w were happening uh on on the two fronts, on the publishing,'cause the Mersey Sound came out that year, the book with Brian Patton and Adrian Henry. And um

Presenter22:53

This was the anthology that was said to be the mood of Liverpool of the 60s, and you were part of it. You were absolutely where it was at.

Roger McGough22:56

Who did you see?

Roger McGough22:58

You

Roger McGough23:00

Yes, if if I'd have known I'd have taken more notice of the timer.

Presenter23:04

That's what they all say. And then came Thank You Very Much and Lily the Pink, both written by you. Big hits for the scaffold in about, what, sixty ni sixty eight and sixty nine, I think.

Roger McGough23:05

Yeah.

Presenter23:15

And you were big on the cabaret circuit. You hit the palladium, didn't you?

Roger McGough23:18

Yes, did the Palladium. But it's interesting because say after sixty seven when so many things were happening to me individually as a as a writer and as a performer and then the scaffold was slightly sort of disinvolving, you know, slightly ebbing away.

Roger McGough23:31

And then Thank You Very Much came up. Because prior to this we never included music in our act, we were very much a theatre comedy group, um crossed between sort of Ken Dodd and Ionesco, you know, the goons. But because Epstein had been our manager for a while, and of course Mike's involvement with Paul, we started to record. Then the scaffold changed from being this students group really playing Edinburgh Festivals. We suddenly went out on this sort of music circuit and Lilith Pink and wearing white suits and playing the cabaret circuit.

Presenter24:01

And that's where the next bit of double life comes in really, doesn't it? Because there you were, you know, the the the pop star. But you're also still a would-be poet. I mean, was there a dilemma for you in that? Wouldn't it like so?

Roger McGough24:13

I wasn't a would-be poet house.

Roger McGough24:15

To it.

Presenter24:16

You've become you've been published by then. Sorry about that.

Roger McGough24:17

Sorry about that. No, but you're right. I mean, there was a thing about being on top of the pops one week and then going and doing kaleidoscope and uh British Council readings. And a lot of people would say uh

Roger McGough24:29

Oh, Roger McGough, yes, isn't your hobby's poetry, isn't it? You know, uh you're a singer with p with pretensions. And that was never that. That was the there were two things I was doing.

Presenter24:37

But when did you finally make the choice between the two and you chose the poetry? And how hard was it to choose?

Roger McGough24:44

It it wasn't hard at all. Scaffold had joined up with the Bonzo Dog Doodar band, um became great friends of ours, and we we formed a group with them called Grimms, which was great fun. And we toured the universities around the country. But it was so big it gradually sort of dinosaur, it gradually wound its way down, leaving me by then writing poetry.

Presenter25:02

And you didn't mind.

Roger McGough25:03

Oh no, no, I didn't. No, I'd had enough of that by then, yes.

Presenter25:05

No regrets about living.

Roger McGough25:06

It's about living leaving stardom behind.

Presenter25:07

Leaving stardom behind.

Presenter25:09

You must have left money behind as well.

Roger McGough25:12

Oh yes, yes. There's a poem called Fame that goes, The best thing about being famous is when you walk down the street and people turn round to look at you and bump into things.

Presenter25:22

Breco number six.

Roger McGough25:25

I used to like modern jazz in my beatnik days when you used to drink frothy coffee out out of those little see-through cups. And um

Roger McGough25:36

When Scaffold had number one Lily the Pink, instead of doing the obvious like tour around the large theatres and music venues,

Roger McGough25:44

What if that we did if we did a show at the Open Space Theatre in Tottenham Court Road?

Roger McGough25:49

called The Puny Little Life Show, Total Without Music, with Polly James and the three of us.

Roger McGough25:53

And in the evening we had a residency at Ronnie Scott's.

Roger McGough25:56

Where we were

Roger McGough25:58

On with Stan Goetz.

Roger McGough26:00

And so the one I've chosen is Stangett's recording of My Funny Valentine.

Speaker 226:08

Uh

Presenter27:03

Stan Goetz with JJ Johnson on the trombone and Funny Valentine. Have you then, Roger, unusually been able to make a living as a poet? I mean, even Philip Larkin had a day job.

Roger McGough27:14

Yes, yes I did. And it probably as a result of having made my name with the scaffold, it certainly made life easier for me because people knew who I was. And so this was a help to me.

Presenter27:24

Hm. And you judge competitions and do readings, as you say. And you teach people to write.

Roger McGough27:27

Yeah.

Roger McGough27:29

Very, very occasionally.

Presenter27:30

Workshops.

Roger McGough27:32

No, you can't really teach anybody, but you can be there, you can enthuse people. I think that's what's good.

Presenter27:35

I think that's what's going on.

Roger McGough27:41

Well people, yes, that's right. That's all you can do. If ever I do a reading occasion in a school, you know, and y you may be that one person at the back suddenly

Roger McGough27:50

comes excited by something you've said and think yes I can do that it's possible

Presenter27:53

And you've got young children of your own, a sort of second family, second marriage. Um, do do you read to them?

Roger McGough27:56

Yeah.

Roger McGough27:59

When they're naughty.

Roger McGough28:00

Yes, oh yes, you've got to have discipline in the house. Yes, they they love all that, they love the poetry. The funny thing is though, it.

Roger McGough28:07

'Cause it's sort of a nice idea that people have if you write for children that it must be marvelous for them.

Roger McGough28:13

uh to have you reading their stories. But what does happen, of course, you write them for a different age group. You know, I'm just writer, get excited by an idea and uh so I always read them, but it may be f when they're a bit older or a bit younger. So there tends to be a sort of my wife wife will say, you know, if you don't

Presenter28:22

Mm-hmm.

Roger McGough28:26

Behave yourselves. Your dad'll come and read one of his stories to you.

Presenter28:28

But are you are you lucky enough to like your own poetry, or do you pick up some old stuff sometimes and and cringe?

Roger McGough28:37

No

Roger McGough28:38

No, I don't cringe. Um I may cringe at at some of the attitudes I probably had when I was a younger man.

Roger McGough28:44

Uh,'cause attitudes have changed a lot over the years. But, uh, no, I was like it, it's'cause part of me and it came out of me and um

Roger McGough28:52

I'm afraid I do like it.

Presenter28:54

Have you caught a favourite one? Will you read one to us?

Roger McGough28:56

Um The favourite one is a more recent one. We talked about my

Roger McGough29:00

I have a little daughter and uh I've got three three sons and a stepson and a little daughter called Isabel and she was very ye very young and I took her to see Cinderella in Yorkshire at Harrogate, the pantomime, and is coming back and it was awful weather.

Roger McGough29:18

And I wrote this poem.

Roger McGough29:20

Cold cinders.

Roger McGough29:23

After the pantomime, carrying you back to the car on the coldest night of the year.

Roger McGough29:27

My coat black leather cracking in the wind.

Roger McGough29:30

Through the darkness we are guided by a star.

Roger McGough29:33

It's the one the good fairy gave you. You clutch it tightly, your magic wand, and I clutch you tightly, for fear you blow away, for fear you grow up too soon, and suddenly I almost slip, so take it steady down the hill.

Roger McGough29:46

Hunched against the wind and hobbling, I could be mistaken for your grandfather and sensing this I hold you tighter still.

Roger McGough29:53

knowing that I will never see you dressed for the ball, be on hand to warn you against Prince Charming's, and the happy ever afters of pantomime.

Roger McGough30:02

On reaching the car, I put you into the baby seat, and fumble with straps I have yet to master.

Roger McGough30:07

thinking, If only there were more time, more time.

Roger McGough30:11

You're crying now.

Roger McGough30:12

Where's your wand?

Roger McGough30:14

Oh no.

Roger McGough30:15

I can't face going back for it.

Roger McGough30:17

Let some kid find it in tomorrow's snow.

Roger McGough30:20

Waiting in the wings the witching are.

Roger McGough30:23

Already the car is changing.

Roger McGough30:25

Smell sweet of ripening seed.

Roger McGough30:28

We must go.

Roger McGough30:29

Must go.

Presenter30:32

She's gonna like that when she grows up, isn't she?

Presenter30:36

Let's have your next record, number seven. What's that?

Roger McGough30:39

We talked before about regrets and I don't think I've had any major regrets at all in what I've done. It's all been interesting.

Roger McGough30:47

Because I've never had too many ambitions, I think. But there was one time when Willie Russell was a great fellow up in Liverpool and uh Willie had written Blood Brothers.

Roger McGough30:56

And he rang me up and said, Roger, would you be interested in playing the part of the narrator? So very exciting, and I gosh, am I I'm up to this. But then it wasn't a good time for me. Uh I just moved to London. It would have meant going back to Liverpool for a long period, and then perhaps going into the West End, doing the same thing every night.

Roger McGough31:13

you know, and and matinees and I thought, maybe I I can't take it.

Roger McGough31:17

But it was an opportunity missed sometimes, I think, and uh I love the musical Blood Brothers, so I'd like to hear Barbara Dixon singing Marilyn Munro.

Speaker 231:25

I know a Sammy burned the school down, well it's very easily done.

Speaker 231:31

The teacher lets the silly gets Play with the magnesium.

Speaker 231:38

Thank God.

Presenter31:39

He only got probation well, the judge was old and slow Though it was kind of him said I reminded him of Marolyn

Presenter31:50

Barbara Dixon singing Marilyn Monroe from Willie Russell's Blood Brothers. You're self-contained enough to be okay on a desert island then, Roger, are you?

Roger McGough31:58

Yes, I think I could um

Roger McGough32:00

Stay with myself and and think and contemplate and uh you know, it's something monkish about me.

Presenter32:04

Mm.

Roger McGough32:05

But I I couldn't do anything. I couldn't make anything or

Presenter32:06

Big

Roger McGough32:09

I'm afraid.

Presenter32:09

So you probably snuff it quite quickly.

Roger McGough32:12

Oh, oh no, no.

Presenter32:14

Sorry.

Roger McGough32:14

I'll get by. I I look, but someone would something would turn up. A a crate would be washed ashore with a house inside it and a cooker and a maid.

Presenter32:19

But the half

Presenter32:20

And I make

Presenter32:22

And if you start getting homesick, you'll put on your last record. Now, before we say what it is, just tell me where you are in your mind when you hear these noises.

Roger McGough32:31

I'm in bed.

Roger McGough32:33

And I'm young.

Roger McGough32:35

Uh basically

Roger McGough32:36

small and snuggled up under the uh counterpane.

Roger McGough32:39

I can hear these noises outside coming across from the river, from the River Mersey.

Roger McGough32:46

There's a mixture of something coming home and warm, and something exciting about leaving and going away.

Presenter33:11

Foghorns on the Mersey and and memories of a childhood on Merseyside and presumably getting out of that warm, snug bed and joyriding on the ferries, huh?

Roger McGough33:21

Yes, that's all we're done. Yes, the ferry crossed the Mersey.

Presenter33:24

So tell me, um, of the eight records, if you could only have one of them, which one would it be?

Roger McGough33:29

Well, they all sound pretty much the same really to me. Um so I'll probably go for the for the fog horns in a sense. Well'cause the hope that this the hope that the plaintive parping of the fog horns might attract other ships in the locality, you see, out in this in the ocean. They might hear the fog horns and come toward it like bees to honey and uh I might be rescued.

Presenter33:49

Okay. And what about your book, as well as the Bible and Shakespeare, which are there?

Roger McGough33:53

Mhm. I'd probably take the a Times Atlas of the Night Sky.

Roger McGough33:58

I do like stars and I a chance to rechristen all the

Roger McGough34:02

Planets and stars, after people I know and love.

Roger McGough34:05

Make up a few names.

Presenter34:07

And what about your luxury?

Roger McGough34:09

Well, you know how you never get a cab when you need one? Well, I thought perhaps a a black cab might be nice. And then I could I don't drive, as a matter of fact, and so I could learn to drive, do the knowledge on the island. And then, um, once the petrol had run out, I could live in it, and perhaps in the evening with the as the sun goes down, a pina collard in one hand, listening to sailing by and the shipping forecast, count my lucky stars.

Presenter34:34

Roger McGough, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your Desert Island discs.

Speaker 234:45

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