Paul Hogarth

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 eight and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:30

My Castaway this week is an illustrator. His talent for observation has made him the natural artistic companion of many important writers, including Graham Greene, Doris Lessing, and Robert Graves. He's also produced his own books illustrating with sympathy and humour what he's seen on his many travels through keynote parts of the world. The son of a butcher from the Lake District, he won a scholarship to the Manchester College of Art, became a Communist and as a teenager fought in the Spanish Civil War. After the Second World War, he travelled through Europe and discovered the talent which has sustained him ever since, breaking with communism in 1956. Now eighty, he's been described as the original angry young man. But of himself, he says, my ambition was to become a compassionate observer. He is Paul Hogarth. You're um now a highly successful artist and illustrator, Paul, but what what makes you angry today?

Paul Hogarth1:24

Uh income tax increases and that sort of thing.

Presenter1:28

But not politics any more.

Paul Hogarth1:29

Well, in a way, yes, I um

Paul Hogarth1:32

Having been a Marxist um gives you a a sort of um analytical mind, and uh I read three newspapers a day and that sort of thing, and countless weeklies.

Presenter1:43

But you still get angry.

Paul Hogarth1:45

Oh yes, I get angry, but I don't go out in the streets any more.

Presenter1:49

I said that you're you know, you wanted to be your ambition always was to be a compassionate observer, but

Presenter1:55

Were you not also um

Presenter1:57

Really, creating propaganda. I mean, there was quite a lot of people. There was, yes. Yeah, you were drawing quite a lot of, you know, socialist man at work. Did you?

Paul Hogarth2:00

Yeah, you were doing quite a lot of

Paul Hogarth2:03

Uh because eventually i it it got to the point where I just couldn't um bear drawing uh you know this birthless optimistic um attitude towards uh industrial reconstruction, as it were.

Presenter2:18

But did you know it was a lie? Did you know that the kind of happy, smiling people you drew at work were actually probably pressed men?

Paul Hogarth2:21

Yeah.

Paul Hogarth2:25

Well, you could see it, yes, but y I didn't know they were political prisoners or uh that it was all contrived. I thought, well, they were rebuilding their country. You know, like Poland, for example, was a country which was completely on its back.

Paul Hogarth2:40

And the Communists at that stage were like an army. You know, they were uh whipping everybody up to a

Paul Hogarth2:46

incredible state of enthusiasm to get it done.

Presenter2:49

You were sort of swept along on this wave of idealism.

Paul Hogarth2:51

On this wave of idealism.

Paul Hogarth3:02

They wanted an artist that could draw industry, and here I was still drawing industry in the sixties in America.

Presenter3:08

I suppose I mean there is a certain irony in that in the end, that you went on to draw the product of capitalism. And indeed, you know, your more recent work has included illustrating Hugh Johnson's Companion to Wine or Peter Mayle's A Year Into.

Paul Hogarth3:12

It is the

Paul Hogarth3:14

Yeah, that's right.

Paul Hogarth3:20

Yeah.

Paul Hogarth3:21

Well I've always been a whiner and ironically, that's another ironic thing. I became a whiner through living high on the hog, you know, in the best hotels behind the Iron Curtain.

Presenter3:30

Yes. So, I mean, hedonistic pleasures were not ruled out as a result of all this early idealism.

Paul Hogarth3:34

I was very much criticized by my fellow communist artists, you know, that we can't trust Hogarth.

Presenter3:44

'Cause he enjoyed the good life too.

Paul Hogarth3:45

I enjoy the good live news.

Presenter3:47

Tell me about your first record.

Paul Hogarth3:49

Well, um

Paul Hogarth3:50

When I was in America, I uh first heard Bob Dylan, and that was in the sixties, and I heard um

Paul Hogarth3:57

like a roll in stone, which really got to me and I'd be driving around America a great deal, rented cars, drawing America, and um it's the first time I'd heard Dylan and this particular uh sound just made me burst into tears because it reminded me what my mother said. She said, If you go on with the ideas you have, you'll be a a rolling stone that will gather no moss.

Paul Hogarth4:21

And uh

Presenter4:21

And you did and you were.

Paul Hogarth4:23

And I was, I I realized uh that I that I was, and

Paul Hogarth4:26

When my agent at that time, a remarkable character called Ted Riley, said, Well, you're you're really an itinerant journalist, and it it sort of uh I thought, Well, my God, I am, but I don't like to be called that.

Speaker 44:43

How does it feel?

Speaker 44:48

To be without hope

Speaker 44:53

Like a complete unknown

Speaker 44:57

Like a rolling stone Ah

Presenter5:02

Bob Dylan and Like a Rolling Stone. The politics and the social comment to one side, Paul Hogarth. You've also undertaken what perhaps might have been a happier task, I dunno, travelling through Graham Green country, that's to say from Brighton to Havana, Sierra Leone to Haiti, drawing the scenes and characters from his novels. How long did that take?

Presenter5:22

Yeah.

Presenter5:25

Liner

Paul Hogarth5:26

Well, because of his uh innate pessimism, he'd sort of managed to visit every unpleasant place, you know America and uh South America rather, and um and Europe. It it it was it was very depressing. But when you actually started to do the drawings, uh you know, you forgot that.

Paul Hogarth5:45

Um

Presenter5:45

But you really tried to get inside his life.

Paul Hogarth5:47

Yes, well I had to, you see, yes, uh yes. He was very, very uh a very unusual man, uh very compassionate and um I got a great deal of stimulus from from meeting him to time to time. I used to go down to Antibes and show him what I'd done and he he loved artists, he reacted to artists and uh I suppose he sensed uh a great deal of the misery uh that we have working out by ourselves uh uh as he had done.

Presenter6:16

Rye Misery

Paul Hogarth6:17

Well, he uh

Paul Hogarth6:19

I said, This is going one of the last journeys I'm going to make alone. And he says, Well, you must always be alone. You see, that's the point, he says.

Presenter6:27

You'd been illustrating the covers of The Graham Greens.

Paul Hogarth6:29

Yeah, since sixty sixty one, sixty two years.

Presenter6:32

of the penguins and editions of his novels. I mean, I'm sure a lot of people can bring to mind the cover, for example, of of of uh the power and the glory and those two fighting cops.

Paul Hogarth6:32

An edition

Paul Hogarth6:38

There's two.

Paul Hogarth6:39

Yeah, yeah.

Presenter6:40

Or those two killers, I think, the the the taunton and

Paul Hogarth6:43

Tom Tom McCrutz, yes.

Presenter6:44

On the front of the comedians, those two kind of ruthless, sinister-looking characters. Did he okay those? Did he have right of veto?

Paul Hogarth6:47

Ruthless, sinister-looking character.

Presenter6:54

But did you ever send one to him and he said this won't do?

Paul Hogarth6:56

He said this won't do. Yes, many of them. Well, not too many of them. But

Presenter7:01

What sort of thing did he pick on?

Paul Hogarth7:02

Well, he um I I had always thought of him as a as a completely non commercial character. But he would say things like, um

Paul Hogarth7:12

This character is not sympathetic. Uh people won't pick up the book.

Presenter7:17

Tell me about your second record.

Paul Hogarth7:20

I'd like to pay tribute to my indomitable mother.

Paul Hogarth7:25

His favourite song was Florrie Ford Singing the Old Bullin' Bush.

Paul Hogarth7:30

She was the opposite of my father, who was a rather stern, tough character, who

Paul Hogarth7:36

had all kinds of songs which she used to sing.

Paul Hogarth7:41

when we went out on what seemed to be interminable weekend excursions in an old Morris Cowley. But her favourites were always upbeat, and um this is one song which I remember she always used to sing uh in the kitchen when she prepared uh food.

Speaker 47:58

Come, come, come and make eyes at me down at the old bull and bush. Come, come, have some bought wine with me down at the old bull and bush.

Speaker 48:17

Here be a good German band!

Presenter8:21

Florrie Ford singing The Old Bull and Bush, and that was recorded in nineteen oh four. Um you seem, Paul, Paul Hogarth, to have found art for yourself and pursued your interest in it against all the odds, because your parents were deeply opposed to it, really, weren't they?

Paul Hogarth8:36

To be fair to them, um in those days, you know, if you were from the working class or the lower middle class as I was, uh it wasn't a viable option. I mean, you couldn't earn a living. The constant pressure I got was you've got to think of um the future and earning a living.

Presenter8:53

So they were frightened for you, really, frightened that you wouldn't be able to make a living.

Paul Hogarth8:56

That's right. Well, they didn't realize, you see, that I'd inherited from them, as children do. Um

Paul Hogarth9:02

characteristics that would uh enable me to eventually, you know, break through.

Presenter9:07

Well, you had you had drive, you had determination.

Paul Hogarth9:08

You had drive, you had determination.

Presenter9:11

When were they finally persuaded? Was there ever a moment? I mean, when perhaps when you published your first book?

Paul Hogarth9:16

Yes. I used to send them books, uh the early books, you know, the uh social books and um uh they thought um I would never succeed.

Presenter9:27

Even though you were between hard covers they still they were convinced.

Paul Hogarth9:27

Be watch

Paul Hogarth9:29

But the first book that really impressed uh my mother, my father would never say anything, he he didn't even turn up at an exhibition I had at uh in Manchester, he wouldn't come in, just stood there.

Paul Hogarth9:43

First to kill, but uh wouldn't come he couldn't bring himself to admit that he was wrong, I suppose. Or maybe he was just plain.

Paul Hogarth9:50

uncomfortable with the whole situation.

Presenter9:52

Hm. But your mother was convinced finally, was she?

Paul Hogarth9:55

But she wouldn't come in either because uh she was dominated by him, you see. She was keeping the peace between us.

Presenter9:58

Mm-hmm.

Paul Hogarth10:00

It's very difficult with the only child.

Presenter10:01

Yeah.

Speaker 210:01

Yeah.

Paul Hogarth10:03

especially a male child, you see. And he was always jealous.

Paul Hogarth10:07

No second helpings, you know. Second helpings behind his back.

Presenter10:11

But was there any history of artistic talent in the family at all?

Paul Hogarth10:16

Well, you c unless you include William Hogarth. I'm supposed to be a collateral descendant of William Hogarth. But um I I d don't really believe this uh theory of artistic talent. Um

Paul Hogarth10:31

I think most children do entertain themselves. It mirrors the development of man, in a sense. Men did that ordinary men hunting. You know, they would just decorate the walls of caves with these animals they hunted.

Paul Hogarth10:45

It was a kind of language, you know, like writing or typing.

Paul Hogarth10:49

I think what you do with it is something else and that that requires uh more education and more thought.

Presenter10:55

So you would argue that you just began to draw because you were an only child, you were much on your own and you started to you picked up a pencil?

Paul Hogarth10:59

You were much on your own and you started

Paul Hogarth11:01

Yes, and and Greene told me that was why well how he began to be a writer. He sort of entertained himself.

Paul Hogarth11:08

He calls them entertainments.

Paul Hogarth11:09

Is it those early novels?

Presenter11:11

Hmm.

Presenter11:13

Tell me about your next record, number three.

Paul Hogarth11:16

Well, it's uh a song um which I heard in nineteen thirty seven. It's uh one of the songs of the uh English speaking um units of the International Brigade. Uh it's called uh Quinte Brigado.

Speaker 411:38

Viva Lakinte Brigada, Rumba Rumba Rumbala, Viva Lakinte Brigada, Rumba Rumba Rumbala Quette Regoria, Iruman Weva, Immanueva

Speaker 411:53

Get that.

Presenter11:59

Quinta Brigada, one of the songs of the Lincoln and International Brigade, song you sang during the Spanish Civil War. You'd have been about, what, eighteen at the time.

Paul Hogarth12:08

Had you

Presenter12:09

Had you had any training to go to?

Paul Hogarth12:10

Yeah.

Paul Hogarth12:11

Complete madness. I must have been balmy. Um the political atmosphere at that time is quite hard to describe these days, but um I suppose you could think of uh CND and the animal rights movement. Uh you know youth uh is passionate about its ideas and embraces them without question. And um I was taking part in a movement to um stop uh you know stop stop the fascists. I mean uh we'd seen them at these meetings in Manchester, in London, um beating up hecklers and uh

Paul Hogarth12:51

It uh it was frightening.

Presenter12:54

And the fighting of that was altogether more important than anything else you had to do with your life.

Paul Hogarth12:56

Yes, but when I got there, I realized we went down.

Paul Hogarth13:02

from the Guerre Austerlitz to Agen in the south west of France, which was a Communist municipality. And they um sent us by buses to the foothills of the Pyrenees, and then we were grouped

Paul Hogarth13:16

And smugglers led it over the over the hill over the Pyrenees.

Presenter13:20

It was quite an adventure. It was quite exciting as well. Did you see any action?

Paul Hogarth13:20

It's quite exciting as well.

Paul Hogarth13:24

Well, l no I didn't. No, I didn't. I'm afraid I didn't.

Presenter13:27

Oh, yes I know.

Paul Hogarth13:29

Oh, yes, I know. Well, this is what happened, you see, at Harama, which they mentioned the Battle of Arama in the song.

Paul Hogarth13:34

Um that was uh a terrible affair for the for the Brits. You know, they were

Paul Hogarth13:40

Suffered very severe casualties.

Presenter13:42

Lot of young men.

Paul Hogarth13:43

Not a young men though and uh other battles um

Presenter13:44

Moondown

Paul Hogarth13:47

Around Madrid, for Madrid. There were tough battles, and a lot of these young men weren't trained.

Paul Hogarth13:54

We were up against a professional army.

Paul Hogarth13:57

and who knew exactly what they were doing.

Presenter13:59

Hmm.

Presenter14:00

The result of having fought in the Spanish Civil War for you and and and your whole Communist Party background was that you were I think when you were called up for the Second World War you were suddenly discharged, weren't you?

Speaker 414:11

Yeah.

Paul Hogarth14:11

Yeah.

Presenter14:13

Because they found out about the past. How did they find out?

Paul Hogarth14:14

Yes, well there was this ridiculous episode where I was um wanting to help and uh when um a gunnery instructor uh asked me if I knew how to strip a an operate a Lewis gun, I said yes. And I was the only one who put his hand up.

Presenter14:31

You spent the war in the Ministry of Information, didn't you?

Paul Hogarth14:31

Yeah.

Paul Hogarth14:33

Well, uh in a studio that was producing uh MOI material, you know, propaganda material, and material that was

Presenter14:39

What sort of poster's telling us to dig for victory or whatever?

Paul Hogarth14:42

Well, not even as that important we're little handbills that were um you know shunted from planes, you know.

Presenter14:50

How did you feel about that?

Paul Hogarth14:52

Uh I I felt awful and uh I felt uh completely uh

Paul Hogarth14:59

Left out of everything.

Presenter15:01

Tell me about your fourth record.

Paul Hogarth15:04

Well, Schmettener became a composer.

Paul Hogarth15:08

which I only became aware of when I visited Czechoslovakia for the first time.

Paul Hogarth15:14

With Ronald Searle.

Paul Hogarth15:16

We both spent some days in Prague.

Paul Hogarth15:21

Waiting for a Polish visa. This was 1948.

Paul Hogarth15:27

And I heard for the first time Mav Last and I'd like to hear.

Paul Hogarth15:33

Waltova

Paul Hogarth15:35

which is the river that flows through Prague.

Presenter16:38

Part of Voltova from Smetener's Mavlast, my fatherland, with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Rafael Kubelik, and memories for you, Paul Hergarth, of post-war Prague, where you were with Ronald Searle, who was making his reputation at the time in the pages of Punch, wasn't he? Because he'd been, I think, a Japanese prisoner of war.

Paul Hogarth16:52

In the pages

Paul Hogarth16:55

Lil lily put first and then punch and then

Presenter16:57

And he chronicled his life in the prisoner of war camp.

Paul Hogarth17:00

In in the

Presenter17:03

Did you then learn from him how to interpret onto the page what you saw?

Paul Hogarth17:05

Yeah.

Paul Hogarth17:07

What you saw. He really, being a POW in a Japanese camp, um.

Paul Hogarth17:13

had sort of been a catalyst. And when you look at those early drawings he made before he got into a camp, they're they're just like art school exercises. But by the time he'd gone through that, terrible.

Paul Hogarth17:26

experience and become a fully fledged artist.

Presenter17:30

What was the turning point in in your career, as it were, when suddenly you began to make a reputation?

Paul Hogarth17:35

I went to Greece to um

Paul Hogarth17:38

Expose in graphic terms that military regime. And

Paul Hogarth17:46

Because I was on my own, I uh I remembered Searle and his degree of uh uh concentration and and I I lived completely alone in safe houses and uh

Paul Hogarth17:57

under cover all the time to avoid surveillance and um

Paul Hogarth18:01

It worked.

Paul Hogarth18:03

And I began to produce uh drawings which I I recognised were uh you see, my critical sense was was way ahead of my ability.

Paul Hogarth18:12

But um through constant practice um I began to produce a greater proportion of good drawings.

Presenter18:20

And were these pictures then exhibited?

Paul Hogarth18:22

No, they were published they were published in the Communist Press, the Lefwing Press throughout uh Europe.

Presenter18:28

And you were acclaimed. I mean that was that was the moment.

Paul Hogarth18:29

Yeah, that's a John Verger.

Paul Hogarth18:32

wrote of an emerging talent. These were shown in London.

Paul Hogarth18:37

It was my first exhibition nineteen fifty three that was.

Presenter18:41

And did you ever feel have you ever felt any rivalry with the camera? Have you ever felt, you know, what is the point of the artist going out there sketching because the camera can capture it in one?

Paul Hogarth18:50

Well I do know it's in one.

Paul Hogarth18:52

Well, I I I've always thought um I've always been well aware of uh what drawing can do. I've always sought to revive um the sort of drawing that has been forgotten.

Paul Hogarth19:05

Uh I did this when I taught at Cambridge um and uh the students who picked up picked up that message were Roger Law and Peter Flock.

Presenter19:14

Yeah.

Presenter19:15

They of course are the the creators of Spitting Image. How can you put that into words? What

Presenter19:21

What's the kind of

Presenter19:23

What how do you define that creation then?

Paul Hogarth19:25

Well, uh I I'd showed them the um tradition of political satire um of the uh Belle Epoch. Uh yes, France um had a periodical press uh and magazines like Assiet Aubert, which means uh the butterdish, you know, the gravy train. And uh

Paul Hogarth19:45

Some of these artists are quite well known and became painters later, you know, like Francicek Kupka game Lausk painter, but he was a.

Paul Hogarth19:53

uh an extraordinary uh social caricaturist.

Paul Hogarth19:58

and great power. And of course Roger Roger and Peter were were stunned by this uh degree of artistry, you know, coupled with a social content, a social idea.

Presenter20:10

Next piece of music.

Paul Hogarth20:12

Tschaikovsky's Eugeno Negin, which was the first

Paul Hogarth20:15

Russian opera I had heard, seen and heard.

Paul Hogarth20:21

If I may.

Paul Hogarth20:22

I was invited to stay in Russia for three weeks on my way back from China.

Paul Hogarth20:27

And it was winter and it was depressing.

Paul Hogarth20:31

And um

Paul Hogarth20:33

I went to a series of operas this was the first one after a day of exhausting um activity, uh, ploughing round enormous museums and acres of ponderous historical paintings.

Paul Hogarth20:48

and having somebody explain all this to me until I was sick to death. And in the evening I was absolutely exhausted. But this was the one that really got to me most because it it it really shunted me into um the Russian psyche and this superbly evocative, tragic music which seemed to me um essentially Russian.

Presenter22:07

Part of the introduction to Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onyegin with the Bolshoi Orchestra, conducted by Mark Ermler.

Presenter22:14

When did your belief in the Communist ideal finally end? I I presume it was Hungary, fifty six, was it?

Paul Hogarth22:20

Yeah, well, it reached the point where uh I realized that Russians were an empire and behaving like imperialists and um.

Paul Hogarth22:28

By that time I had developed a lot of contacts with um Poles, Czechs, artists, writers who uh had become disillusioned.

Presenter22:39

But you were actually passing through Hungary, I think, in the middle of the day.

Paul Hogarth22:41

Well, I'd had a show I'd had a one man show of uh all my African drawings and China drawings and all that, and uh it was a retrospective, um, in Sofia of all places, in Bulg Bulgaria. And um

Paul Hogarth22:57

They said, Well, how would you like to go back?

Paul Hogarth23:00

Um and I said, Well, I'd like to go back by train and um the the the train was closed.

Paul Hogarth23:08

And we went straight across uh Hungary to Warsaw.

Presenter23:11

So it was only when you got to Warsaw you discovered what what was going on that the Soviet troops had gone.

Paul Hogarth23:13

Yeah

Paul Hogarth23:14

going on with the Soviet troops are gone. I met an old friend of mine, the cricket tourist Judge Jerzy Zaruba, and who I always used to see in Warsaw. And everybody was on strike and

Paul Hogarth23:27

The trucks were moving in to uh this big demonstration in the vast square that's around the Palace of Culture.

Paul Hogarth23:36

It was estimated that there must have been about half a million.

Paul Hogarth23:40

And that square.

Presenter23:41

And did you witness this?

Paul Hogarth23:42

Yeah.

Presenter23:43

And did you witness oppression of the men?

Paul Hogarth23:45

Yes, well what happened, you see, was that they brought Gomalka out of prison and he was reinstated as a moderate leader, but still a communist. And that Soviet tanks were in all the back streets surrounding the square waiting to see what was going to happen, whether this was going to be accepted, you know, a change of leader. And Gomolka was a more moderate Communist. A good

Speaker 424:11

Yeah.

Paul Hogarth24:11

Part of the demonstrators just broke up. The demonstration broke up after he gave a speech.

Paul Hogarth24:20

Then quite a sizable pro proportion of the crowd stayed behind, reaffirming their solidarity with the the Hungarian freedom fighters and um wanting an end to uh a communist regime in Poland.

Presenter24:35

And what has

Paul Hogarth24:35

Then the police started beating everybody up.

Paul Hogarth24:38

you know, most vicious charges, you know, and uh

Presenter24:41

You saw that.

Paul Hogarth24:42

Yeah. Did you draw it?

Presenter24:42

Did you draw it?

Presenter24:46

And you decided, I think, in that moment, to tell the British newspapers what you had seen.

Paul Hogarth24:49

Yes, well I d there were a number of things and uh you know, like um a well known poet of that time, Netzing Hitmut, who had uh been given um asylum in the Soviet Union.

Paul Hogarth25:03

Mikhails he'd incited the Turkish Navy to mutiny and uh

Paul Hogarth25:09

He was a corpse celebre of that time, and uh he told me

Paul Hogarth25:14

This wasn't paradise at all. It was

Paul Hogarth25:17

More purgatory than paradise.

Presenter25:19

And you decided to leave.

Paul Hogarth25:20

So I decided I would report what had been going on in Warsaw.

Paul Hogarth25:25

I felt like Judas, but

Paul Hogarth25:28

Elma.

Paul Hogarth25:29

Nobody would talk to me after that.

Presenter25:31

Wouldn't they?

Presenter25:33

But you felt you'd done the right thing.

Paul Hogarth25:35

I felt I'd done the right thing, yes.

Presenter25:37

Record number six.

Paul Hogarth25:39

Well, it's um it's a memory from uh a visit to South Africa.

Paul Hogarth25:46

Bigg me.

Paul Hogarth25:47

Back to the days when I used to walk around Johannesburg,

Paul Hogarth25:51

And uh I first uh heard these um this urban music, queller, it's very buoyant music, very happy music.

Presenter26:28

Donald Cachamba and his band playing Flying Quailos. Great great spirit there against the odds.

Presenter26:40

Mm.

Presenter26:41

But that that brings back memories of travelling round Africa where and you went of course with Doris Leslie a collaboration there with her. One of many important writers as I've said that you collaborated with. Another was was Brendan Behan. You drew his happier experience.

Paul Hogarth26:42

Funny.

Paul Hogarth26:46

Yeah

Paul Hogarth26:53

Yeah.

Paul Hogarth26:58

That was like travelling with uh an Elizabethan entertainer.

Presenter27:02

And and not not a teetotal experience, actually.

Paul Hogarth27:05

Not a teetotal experience, no.

Presenter27:06

Best friends now.

Presenter27:07

And then, of course, there was Robert Graves, the the novelist and poet of whom you became later on a neighbor on the island of Majorca.

Paul Hogarth27:13

or on the island of Majorca.

Presenter27:15

He he very much liked your drawings of the music.

Paul Hogarth27:18

Yes, yes, we got on very well. And I think what was of interest to him that I was catching the

Paul Hogarth27:26

The island before it changed irrevocably.

Presenter27:29

But he didn't much care for a portrait you did of him, did he?

Paul Hogarth27:32

Oh, he liked it, but the thing is that uh people like to be flattered when you draw their portraits and I mean uh I've done many portraits and I've sold about three, you know, out of about a hundred.

Presenter27:43

Because people don't like the show.

Paul Hogarth27:45

They want changes, you know.

Paul Hogarth27:48

Robert said, well, he said to me, he said, um

Paul Hogarth27:52

You have to remember, he said, that um no one likes to look his age, and um you have to try and capture the age that um your sitter uh likes to think of of himself.

Paul Hogarth28:05

So I said, and what age is that?

Presenter28:11

And he was what at the time, about seventeen

Paul Hogarth28:12

Nearly seventy, yeah.

Presenter28:13

It's a

Presenter28:14

Record number seven.

Paul Hogarth28:18

Well, this is a memory of um straying into a bar which turned out to be uh the Blue Note.

Paul Hogarth28:25

I didn't realize uh

Paul Hogarth28:27

It was a very famous uh jazz spot in New York in the early sixties when I first heard the uh this incredible jazz pianist, Thelonis Monk.

Presenter29:04

Felonious Monk and Bolivar Blues. So after all your travelling, Paul Hogarth, you're now settled back in England. Does it does it finally compare well to all the exotic places you've been?

Paul Hogarth29:14

Oh yes, yes it does. I'm I've sown my wild oats, definitely. And now I'm um very much an Englishman uh and um

Paul Hogarth29:25

I reverted to what I was, I suppose, in my young childhood. I become a country person.

Presenter29:32

And you're married for the fourth time.

Paul Hogarth29:33

Yes, full time. And we rent this house from the National Trust, Hitcott Manor.

Paul Hogarth29:38

It's it's as though we've been uh

Paul Hogarth29:42

Elected the Lord and Lady of the Manor.

Presenter29:45

So life is good. And you're still working. You illustrated John Betcherman's churches last year and you're still exhibiting. I presume the idea of being sent to a desert island in the middle of all this happiness and success would be appalling, wouldn't it?

Paul Hogarth29:58

I don't much like the idea, but I I I think I might adapt. I'm very ada I'm I'm I'm very adaptive. I I adapt very quickly.

Presenter30:05

Well and and you've never been afraid of adventure or as you've said of being on a ramp.

Paul Hogarth30:08

As you've said, of being on the fish.

Presenter30:14

Last record.

Paul Hogarth30:16

It has to be Far Horizons.

Paul Hogarth30:19

which is written by um

Paul Hogarth30:22

The incredible Glen Boyd Hart, a former student of mine at the Royal College of Art.

Paul Hogarth30:28

He wrote this for me.

Paul Hogarth30:32

On the occasion of my eightieth birthday we had a party at Hidcutt and um

Paul Hogarth30:37

I was completely overwhelmed because it's really

Paul Hogarth30:40

About uh Edward Lear.

Paul Hogarth30:43

Who was, like Glenn himself and myself, an itinerant artist, a wanderer, and a traveller also.

Speaker 430:54

Ships pass in the night

Speaker 430:58

I long to sail away, Wake up to the thrill, A new dawn, a new day

Speaker 431:09

Oh, how I long for that far horizon.

Paul Hogarth31:09

Law I

Speaker 431:15

Bright sunlit land where my life bega

Presenter31:18

Yends.

Presenter31:22

FAR HORIZONS, written by Glyn Boyd Hart and Ian Beck, and specially recorded for us here in the studio by Glynn at the piano and sung by James Biddlecombe. It's all about the the itch to travel, which you've still got, you're telling me.

Paul Hogarth31:35

Oh yes, yes. Australia beckons and Venice, which I've never really

Paul Hogarth31:41

Depicted.

Presenter31:43

Now if you could only take one of those eight records to this desert island, which one would you take for?

Paul Hogarth31:49

Yeah that's a hard one.

Paul Hogarth31:52

I think I'd take Far Horizons.

Presenter31:55

And what about your book?

Paul Hogarth31:56

Well, I thought I'd take the Times Atlas of World History.

Presenter32:00

And what about your luxury?

Paul Hogarth32:02

Well, uh this may sound astonishing, but I'd really like to take a solar-powered Apple Macintosh.

Paul Hogarth32:10

Computer, personal computer.

Presenter32:12

So you'll you go on creating as well.

Paul Hogarth32:14

I require creating and it'd be like a combination of uh going on being an artist and I'm not so sure that that isn't the um

Paul Hogarth32:22

The way forward for artists.

Paul Hogarth32:25

But I don't know.

Presenter32:26

Paul Hogarth, thank you very much indeed for letting me see your desert island indeed.

Paul Hogarth32:27

It's been a pleasure.

Speaker 232:37

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