Jack Higgins

Speaker 30:00

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. The programme was originally broadcast in two thousand and six, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:29

My castaway this week is a writer. His thrillers are worldwide bestsellers, the product of someone who by his own admission was, quote, a clever bugger who didn't fit into the system. As a child he read everything, but never did well at school. But eventually he became a teacher, and he started to write by night, a steady stream of adventure stories that allowed him to pay off the mortgage and ultimately write full time. Then suddenly, when he was forty-five, it all took off. He wrote The Eagle Has Landed and moved from successful everyday author to the world's number one. It was his twenty seventh book, and many more have followed since, because this multi-millionaire storyteller is still writing, and at the age of seventy six has no intention of stopping. I'm one of only a handful of British authors who's been just as successful in America as Britain, he says. They can't take that away from me. He is Harry Patterson, otherwise known as Jack Higgins. Jack, it's a phenomenal record, really. I take it that anyone if anyone had told Harry Patterson when he was a young man in the fifties in Leeds that he was going to have this kind of success, he'd have laughed, would he?

Jack Higgins1:39

Absolutely. In fact, I know this sounds very mundane to say this, but I can remember in those days I knew I wanted to be a writer because I had always loved books and reading and that kind of thing, in spite of not being too good at school. But.

Jack Higgins1:57

The thing which really hit me, having rather inferior jobs and money being short supply, I had this idea that there might be money in writing, in writing short stories and things like that. And so I was always scribbling away. And to be honest, in my head was the idea of just making a few Bob.

Presenter2:18

Is that all it was about?

Jack Higgins2:20

To a great degree, yes, except that I enjoyed doing it.

Presenter2:24

But when when you said to people, I want to write and I might make a few bob writing did they laugh at you?

Jack Higgins2:30

Um they actually call me Daft Harry.

Jack Higgins2:34

And did laugh at me because within my environment and the working class level I was at, it just wasn't.

Jack Higgins2:43

the sort of thing that people could take seriously.

Presenter2:46

But it wasn't just a a kind of passing thought, passing ambition of yours, was it? It was something that you you walked around dreaming of all of the time.

Jack Higgins2:54

Yes, absolutely. If you like, you could say I lived in the world of fantasy.

Jack Higgins3:01

I think I was rather like uh Marlon Brando in the famous film when he sits in the back of the car and speaks to his brother and he said I could be somebody.

Jack Higgins3:12

It was this feeling that you wanted to be somebody, but the idea that you would end up number one in the world, which would ever else

Jack Higgins3:24

I say in my life, and we're back with my first choice. They can't take that away from me. It's true.

Jack Higgins3:33

Has the chest been miraculous?

Presenter3:35

And as you say, they can't take that away from me. So it's Fred Astairs going with you to this island, is he? Yes.

Jack Higgins3:37

Mm.

Jack Higgins3:41

I love Fred Stair, and I love Cole Porter and the Gershwins, and all that kind of stuff.

Speaker 43:46

The way you sip your tea

Speaker 43:50

The memory of all that

Speaker 43:54

Oh no, they can't take that away from me, The way your smile just beams, The way you sing off keys

Speaker 44:07

The way you haunt my dreams No, no, they can't take that away

Presenter4:16

Fred Isaire and they can't take that away from me from the film Shall We Dance uh that was in nineteen thirty seven.

Presenter4:22

The big breakthrough for you though, Jack Higgins, was nineteen seventy five, the Eagle has landed, you were in your mid forties, it changed everything for you. It was a pretty preposterous story really, wasn't it, about these German paratroopers landing in Norf need I remind anybody, I mean it's on still on the television constantly, but led by Michael Kaine, they land in Norfolk and their ambition is to to kidnap Winston Churchill.

Presenter4:44

Do you remember and this was in war time do you remember coming up with that idea? I mean, do you remember when it hit you?

Jack Higgins4:51

It really came out of the fact that Churchill was the least protected l major leader in the entire war, which he was. He used to just walk around.

Presenter5:01

What you want

Jack Higgins5:04

Mighty some of the time with a pistol in his pocket. I mean, that was well done. But I mean, that's what the old boy did. And I suddenly thought, yes.

Presenter5:08

But to me

Presenter5:12

But when you would approach your publisher and say, Right, I'm going to write my next book about the attempt to kidnap Churchill by the Germans, what on earth did he think?

Jack Higgins5:21

Well actually, uh to use his words, he actually said to me, This new book you're doing, because I've been working on it for a while, I hear you calling The Eagle Has Landed and I said yes, and he said, It sounds like a bird book.

Jack Higgins5:37

What on earth is it about? And I say it's very simple to pitch.

Jack Higgins5:41

Winston Churchill.

Jack Higgins5:43

Visiting Erfields is going to spend the weekend in a remote country house in Norfolk by the sea. German intelligence finds out about this and sends in paratroopers disguised as Poles in the SAS to kidnap him.

Jack Higgins6:01

And my publisher said that's the worst idea I've ever heard of in my life. The public will never go for it and he put the phone down.

Presenter6:10

But you stuck to your guns. How many copies has it sold?

Jack Higgins6:12

O over fifty, we reckon, over the years.

Presenter6:13

Any other questions?

Presenter6:16

Chameleon

Jack Higgins6:17

And yes.

Presenter6:18

And I have to ask you, I mean, you must have calculated how many millions of pounds has it made you?

Jack Higgins6:24

Oof over the years over the years.

Presenter6:26

True.

Jack Higgins6:28

Many, many, many millions. To be frank, um

Jack Higgins6:35

The smartest thing I ever did in my life was to take the advice which told me to leave the country as a tax exile. I know there are people who don't like the idea of tax exiles, but if I could just make a point, the years that you're talking about when I did this

Jack Higgins6:54

People have forgotten that

Jack Higgins6:57

Income tax rate

Jack Higgins7:00

was eighty three per cent.

Presenter7:03

They were making the pip squeak.

Jack Higgins7:03

They really made the pit squeak.

Presenter7:05

The eagle landed and you cleaned basically.

Jack Higgins7:07

So Tiger landed in Jersey and it's remained there for the last thirty years.

Presenter7:11

Record number two.

Jack Higgins7:13

It's Danny Boy, a very famous Irish number, particularly Northern Irish.

Jack Higgins7:20

And it used to be my mother's party piece at parties and wakes and whatever. And it used to have people crying and so on. It's uh and it therefore o takes me back to my early years in Northern Ireland and the kind of life I went through.

Speaker 47:41

I the pipes, the pipes are coiling.

Speaker 47:49

From Glen to Glen and stone the mountain side.

Speaker 47:59

The summer's gone.

Speaker 48:03

And olivaphras are dying.

Presenter8:10

A version of Danny Boy from The Choir Boys. That was your mother's party piece, you say. And memories of your boyhood in Belfast in the thirties. Why have those memories continued to have such an influence on you?

Jack Higgins8:14

Absolutely.

Jack Higgins8:21

Well, I lived in Deshankle. I went to school there. But in Ireland, the thing about it was, in 1938, the IRA declared war on Britain again. And they started bombing. And I went out with my step-grandfather one night. And I was out with him for some reason. And of course, I was only about nine, eight or nine. And all of a sudden, as it turned out later, an IRA man threw a Mills bomb, which is a pineapple grenade, into the crowd.

Jack Higgins8:58

And my step-grandfather, who was a World War I veteran of the trenches and so on, he grabbed me kind of almost on his shoulder and he ran like hell down the street and that was it. And I think if I inhale now I can smell the cordite and what it was like. And the other thing, if I can quickly say, that used to have in those days was with the terrible sectarian hatred, you had the differing sides evicting people from their area. And I can remember as a child then standing at the corner at night and seeing torchlight processions and there would be if it was a Protestant area there would be poor wretched Catholics with all their belongings and prams and things.

Presenter9:46

Sorry.

Jack Higgins9:47

being told to get out of town.

Presenter9:49

Yeah.

Jack Higgins9:49

It's not a good thing.

Presenter9:49

It's not the sort of thing you forget when you witness that as a young boy.

Jack Higgins9:50

No, you see it elsewhere with things reversed, with Protestants being told to get out, you see what it means.

Presenter9:59

Yes. But it's interesting, I mean, all of these memories you mentioned, there are there are little bits of them in all of your books, aren't they? I mean there are often churches, as you say, there's often masses.

Jack Higgins10:04

I mean they're often

Presenter10:08

There there's certainly the IRA is always there. You've got Shawn Dillon, your latest hero, who was an IRA enforcer, wasn't he? I mean it's it's just it's in your blood, isn't it? Well it is you know about it, you understand about it.

Jack Higgins10:11

He's all

Jack Higgins10:15

Yeah.

Jack Higgins10:18

You know about that, you understand about that. But there's another aspect to it. Uh I used to be very friendly with a great Yorkshire writer called John Braine. And I remember John saying to me once, he said, in some ways the terrible thing about being a writer, he said, even if your father was dying in bed

Presenter10:26

Mm-hmm.

Jack Higgins10:36

And you'd sit on the bed to hold his hand. He said there's part of you that's thinking I can use this.

Presenter10:42

Huh?

Jack Higgins10:43

So it's always there.

Presenter10:45

Record number three.

Jack Higgins10:46

Oh, foggy day. Right.

Jack Higgins10:49

It's a particular resonance for me for two reasons. First of all, when I went to do national service and I was posted to household cavalry, you must realize that for a lad from Leeds this was a terribly exotic thing to happen because the households were full of tofts doing their national service and you would be in a bed next to Viscount somebody and on the other side would be the Honourable Somebody else. But also for someone who'd never been to London and this kind of thing.

Jack Higgins11:20

I used to walk for miles, just taking everything in and thoroughly enjoying it.

Jack Higgins11:27

And and that therefore brings back that

Jack Higgins11:31

Period of my life when that was happening in such a big way, having such an effect on me, means a great deal to me. Fred is there doing this one.

Speaker 411:40

A foggy day in London town

Speaker 411:47

Had me low and had me down.

Speaker 411:53

I view the morning.

Speaker 411:56

With alarm.

Speaker 411:59

The British Museum had lost its charm.

Speaker 412:05

How long I won?

Presenter12:08

Freddis Air and A Foggy Day from the sound track to the nineteen thirty seven film Damsel in Distress. But just just going back to your childhood briefly, you'd gone to Leeds because your mother had remarried, so you had a stepfather there. You joined them there at the age of nine, having lived with the extended family in Belfast.

Presenter12:25

I get the impression that you weren't particularly welcomed by him, were you? You were a bit of a a nuisance.

Jack Higgins12:32

I was a big nuisance. Yeah, he he simply didn't want me round. And um

Jack Higgins12:39

It wasn't a good experience at all.

Jack Higgins12:44

It was the worst kind of feeling you get in a situation like that, which is is not um.

Jack Higgins12:51

Abuse or physical abuse or whatever. It's just this heavy.

Jack Higgins12:58

feeling of knowing that you're uh not wanted in a way. It was just uh a big feeling that uh you didn't fit in.

Presenter13:02

Yeah.

Presenter13:09

But reading was always your great escape.

Jack Higgins13:12

Yes, it was always a great state. And then jumping over uh various jobs, I ended up as a civil servant in quite a decent uh salaried position.

Jack Higgins13:24

And I'd done a lot of you know, I'd got matriculation in the evenings from LSE and I'd got A levels and things like that. And it was just that suddenly I thought,

Jack Higgins13:36

Well, here you are, you kind of about twenty-section your life's getting nowhere.

Jack Higgins13:41

And uh there was such a shortage of teachers that you were offered these grants.

Jack Higgins13:48

and I thought, well, I might as well have a go at that.

Presenter13:50

So you became a teacher, but all the time you were writing. By night you wrote, didn't you? You couldn't stop.

Jack Higgins13:53

By night

Jack Higgins13:54

Yeah, you couldn't.

Jack Higgins13:56

The blunt truth was, I found my Maitier there, and by then I'd become much more skilled at writing. And then I wrote uh

Jack Higgins14:06

Two or three books.

Jack Higgins14:08

And one of the books two of them got turned down, but one of them got picked up and it became the first book I had published. It was a book called Sad Wind from Sea, which came out as an adventure thriller. I can tell you what I got for it, by the way, The Advance.

Jack Higgins14:29

This was a book, a whole book, was seventy-five pounds.

Presenter14:33

But it was the beginning of so much.

Jack Higgins14:34

It's the beginning. I mean, you only got paid ten pounds a week as a schoolteacher.

Presenter14:41

Okay, next piece of music.

Jack Higgins14:43

Oh, the Grand March from Aida. That just takes me back to that period of being in the household cavalry.

Jack Higgins14:54

in what's now the Blues and Royals. In my day it was just the Blues. I wouldn't have missed it for anything. But this is the Grand March, the march past of the regiment.

Presenter15:39

So that was the grand march from Verdi Zaida, played by the mounted band of the Blues and Royals. You poured out all sorts of books, all kinds of pseudonyms, Martin Fallon, James Graham, Hugh Marlowe, as well as your real name, Harry Patterson. Jack Higgins had yet to be invented. Why so many different names? Why didn't you just put them out on the screen?

Jack Higgins15:58

The cosso is too prolific.

Jack Higgins16:00

And if publishers doing one book

Jack Higgins16:04

In a particular year, if you've turned out two more.

Jack Higgins16:10

As far as host publishers are concerned, you've got to wait till next year and the year after that. Well, that was no good to me because the kind of money I was earning wasn't huge money or anything. I was trying to make a living.

Presenter16:22

And when did Jack Higgins actually get invented then?

Jack Higgins16:25

Well, um I decided that things weren't going

Jack Higgins16:32

Totally in the way.

Jack Higgins16:35

Er, I thought they should.

Jack Higgins16:38

and I met one of my old school teachers.

Jack Higgins16:41

And at by this stage I've become a senior

Jack Higgins16:45

lecture at university, which is a very respectable thing to be and very well paid.

Jack Higgins16:51

And I met him one day in the precinct in Leeds, and he said, Oh, I'm very proud of you know, you used to be in my form at school and so on, at elementary school.

Jack Higgins17:01

And he said, Well, the only thing I'll say to you is, I've read your books because you wrote them.

Jack Higgins17:08

And he said, the trouble with thriller writers, he said, it seems to me, you work everything out beforehand and then you make people act it all out like a script. And he said, real life isn't like that. He said, people make the script in real life. How they behave. How they behave under stress. Or are they good or are they bad? Or whatever. And he said, so really all you ought to need is just an idea for a story. And I was quite thought this is so simple really. Maybe I've been missing out all these years.

Jack Higgins17:46

carefully constructing these plots and things.

Presenter17:49

The narrative, but not actually filling out the characters themselves, not being real.

Jack Higgins17:51

That's right.

Jack Higgins17:53

And what I did, I took it all on board and I wrote a book called East of Desolation.

Jack Higgins18:00

When I sent it in, the agent said straightway this is far.

Jack Higgins18:05

Superior, tell anything you've done before.

Jack Higgins18:08

But this is so different, we want to start again. So sorry, stop being Harry Patterson and let's have another name. And that's where the Jack Higgins came from.

Presenter18:20

Next piece of music. Number five.

Jack Higgins18:23

The thing about Lepasteur

Jack Higgins18:26

by Grovelet, which of course means the shepherd.

Jack Higgins18:30

It's um a beautiful small piano piece.

Jack Higgins18:36

And I should point out that my eldest daughter from a very early age exhibited huge talent for the piano.

Jack Higgins18:46

But I remember her playing this piece.

Jack Higgins18:50

when she did grade five or something, Royal College of Music, and got a distinction with it.

Presenter19:57

Le Pasteur the Shepherd by Gabriel Groblet, played by Peter Catin.

Presenter20:02

So um Jack Higgins started to write full time. After a few years he hit the jackpot with The Eagle Has Landed, and off he went to Jersey. Have you lived in the lap of luxury ever since, you know, sitting there writing magnificent houses overlooking the bay? Is that about the feel of it?

Presenter20:20

Uh

Jack Higgins20:20

M

Jack Higgins20:22

No, uh a lot of people look upon me as as being a bit eccentric. I mean, I don't drive around in a Rolls Royce or any kind of fancy motor.

Jack Higgins20:36

I don't really see the point.

Jack Higgins20:39

of uh on a small island, you know. The having thing it it it's as if what you're doing is for show. um tr trying to make a statement or whatever.

Presenter20:52

But it's it's an irony, isn't it, that you you achieve so much and yet the central relationship in your life crumbles away.

Jack Higgins21:00

Yeah, well you have um

Jack Higgins21:03

I know this sounds a bit downbeat, and I'm not feeling particularly downbeat, but the character where I say he'd one of those days, the man who had everything.

Jack Higgins21:15

and then for some reason felt he had nothing, you see.

Jack Higgins21:19

And um it can often be one of the consequences of great success, that kind of thing.

Presenter21:25

Cool.

Jack Higgins21:27

Well, it requires adjustment to handle it all.

Jack Higgins21:32

And you've got to remember that

Jack Higgins21:35

you can become a huge success. What effect does that have on the partner in your life, on your wife? What effect is it going to have on your children? Because one has to remember, especially in the years

Jack Higgins21:52

Following Eagle has landed, I really was number one in the world. Really, genuinely. It was.

Jack Higgins21:59

get over to Hollywood. It was stretch limos. It was st stay at the Beverly Hills. And that's the kind of thing where relationships erode. Not in a nasty way or anything like that, but it's just the kind of

Jack Higgins22:14

Osmosis, it's things seeping through, and in the end, oh well, I can't really go on here, you know, etc.

Presenter22:22

Let's pause for another piece of music, because this is connected with one of your books, isn't it?

Jack Higgins22:26

Yes.

Jack Higgins22:28

I wrote a book called The Wrath of God.

Jack Higgins22:33

and we sold the film rights to MGM.

Jack Higgins22:37

They had the famous award-winning director, Ralph Nelson. They had Robert Mitchum playing this.

Jack Higgins22:46

Priest in nineteen twenties Mexico, and it also had, amazingly, for me as a great filmber for all my life, Rita Hayworth.

Jack Higgins22:58

And

Jack Higgins23:00

The interesting thing about it, there are two things. Number one, it was the last film Rita ever made.

Jack Higgins23:06

The other great thing about it was

Jack Higgins23:08

In this Mexican village the people haven't been married or baptized or anything like that for years, and they all beg him.

Jack Higgins23:17

To do this. And there's this wonderful middle of the film where this marvellous mass is played, and against the chorus, the camera keeps fading and coming in on Mitchum marrying people, baptising babies, and so on. And then it's so moving, it ends up at the end where everybody's gone. And he's sitting there in one of the pews and he's rumpled clothes. And he looks up and he says.

Jack Higgins23:48

But who will forgive me?

Speaker 424:04

Tellas alturas.

Speaker 424:06

Pasa los sombres.

Speaker 424:09

Hasta los domras quiamá el señó.

Jack Higgins24:10

Pasta Mosu.

Speaker 424:14

Yeah.

Speaker 424:16

Pasta los sombres.

Speaker 424:20

Pasa los hombre estiamar señor.

Presenter24:23

Mercedes Sosa and part of the Gloria from Ariel Ramirez Missa Criolla, the Brazilian Mass. That was music from the nineteen seventy two film The Wrath of God, um based on the book written by my castaway Jack Higgins. You've written more than seventy books now, Jack. So the will to go on writing is there.

Presenter24:41

And and that's what you do every day. You you I mean, you don't play golf, you don't play it.

Jack Higgins24:45

Yeah.

Jack Higgins24:48

No, I don't. But there is an interesting reason for that. If you think of my life.

Jack Higgins24:54

M

Jack Higgins24:56

For years everything had to be done while you were doing something else to earn a living and put bread on the table and pay the rent.

Jack Higgins25:05

So in other words, the a my hobby, if you like to look at it that way, was this writing.

Jack Higgins25:14

and churning out all these books, and so on.

Jack Higgins25:18

And the result is that you get to obviously a certain stage in life.

Jack Higgins25:24

Where?

Jack Higgins25:26

Most people will be retired anyway.

Jack Higgins25:30

But if you've never been used to doing that and feel no desire to do it,

Jack Higgins25:34

It's just that I'm rather old to be doing it.

Presenter25:35

So you've got

Presenter25:37

But in your mind it's wrong to stop doing it as long as you can as long as the success is there for you to achieve.

Jack Higgins25:45

Yes, but it I

Presenter25:47

I think he's just hooked on writing, hm?

Jack Higgins25:49

Uh

Presenter25:49

Uh

Jack Higgins25:49

Probably.

Presenter25:51

We got number seven.

Jack Higgins25:53

Now, why have I selected Rod Stewart Sailing?

Jack Higgins25:58

Well, there's uh

Jack Higgins26:00

A good reason for that, which is that uh some years ago I wrote a play.

Jack Higgins26:05

and it was called Walking Wounded, and it was set in a rehabilitation unit.

Jack Higgins26:12

In Breton.

Jack Higgins26:13

After the Falklands, and it's essentially my.

Jack Higgins26:19

him to soldiers. And I have an enormous respect for soldiers, as an old soldier myself, but for men I've known who've been through far worse things than me. And

Jack Higgins26:33

What I remember is my friend and others said, you know, when we were all going down on the big boat,

Jack Higgins26:41

The QE two, and so on.

Jack Higgins26:44

It became a kind of anthem to the soldiers sailing.

Jack Higgins26:47

They used to sing it.

Speaker 426:50

I am safe.

Speaker 426:54

I am sailing.

Speaker 426:58

Home again.

Speaker 427:01

Across the sea.

Speaker 427:05

I am saving.

Speaker 427:09

Stormy waters To be near you

Speaker 427:16

To be free.

Presenter27:18

Rod Stewart and Sailing. So you've got everything you want, Jack Higgins, even some of the paintings I think you admired in Leeds City Art Gallery as a boy. You've got Atkinson Grimshaw.

Jack Higgins27:27

Oh, I can use some Grimshaws.

Presenter27:28

Doors.

Jack Higgins27:29

Uh

Presenter27:29

Uh

Presenter27:29

And if you haven't got what you want, you can buy it. What I want to know is what it's like to climb.

Jack Higgins27:29

And if you have a

Presenter27:34

To the top of your personal Everest, which is what you've done. You intended to become a writer, you've become a writer and a more successful one than you can possibly have imagined, as we've said. What's it like?

Presenter27:45

Standing on that peak.

Jack Higgins27:50

Well, I think you're always slightly feeling you're gonna fall off.

Jack Higgins27:55

I'm very lucky.

Jack Higgins27:58

In with my partner at this stage of my life, we've so much in common.

Jack Higgins28:07

That that does mean um

Jack Higgins28:10

A great deal to me.

Presenter28:12

But there's something, isn't there? There's something that

Presenter28:15

You don't quite feel, yes, I've achieved it, I am the luckiest man alive.

Jack Higgins28:23

Because in at some aspects of your life

Jack Higgins28:29

Things like divorce and things like marriage breakdown and that kind of thing. I'm a gloomy

Jack Higgins28:38

Orange Protestant Presbyterian from Northern Ireland there, you know what I mean.

Jack Higgins28:44

But temp

Jack Higgins28:46

Part of that.

Jack Higgins28:48

Somehow, um

Jack Higgins28:50

It takes life too seriously.

Jack Higgins28:53

and constantly queries what you're doing and what you're achieving.

Jack Higgins28:59

I'm being

Jack Higgins29:01

I've lived for th what is it, three quarters of a century.

Jack Higgins29:08

And you see

Jack Higgins29:10

There are bound to have been things in your life

Jack Higgins29:14

Where you're travelling hopefully.

Jack Higgins29:17

And then it goes.

Jack Higgins29:19

Duff.

Jack Higgins29:20

And maybe you're responsible for the things going wrong.

Jack Higgins29:25

Wi it in your life or for relationships going r wrong.

Jack Higgins29:31

But I don't want that to sound too damby. I really mean that. And that's uh. Why? I'm finishing on an extremely...

Jack Higgins29:40

Upbeat one.

Jack Higgins29:42

Which is another Fred's stare. Let's face the music and dance. And

Jack Higgins29:48

I adore all this music and uh two years ago

Jack Higgins29:52

We did, um, a show.

Jack Higgins29:55

at the Jersey Opera House for a couple of weeks. All every woman in the club wanted to be in it in wonderful dresses and the men in black tie. And it was so marvellous, the whole audience applauded.

Presenter30:04

Yeah.

Speaker 430:04

Uh

Presenter30:04

Mm.

Jack Higgins30:09

And it broke into it's heartbreaking actually, let's face the music and dance. And it was so fantastic. And also to me, it's kind of uh

Jack Higgins30:21

An anthem really, there may be trouble ahead, but while there's moonlight and music and love and romance, Let's face the music and dance. And that's the way to look at it, folks.

Speaker 430:34

There may be teardrops to share

Speaker 430:39

So while there's moonlight and music and love and romance, let's face the music and dance.

Presenter30:51

Uh

Speaker 430:51

Bands. Let's face the new.

Presenter30:54

Calm down.

Presenter30:56

Fred Astaire and Let's Face the Music and Dance from Follow the Fleet recorded in 1936. Now, Jack, if you could only take one of those eight records, which one would you take?

Jack Higgins31:08

Would be

Jack Higgins31:09

Trying to be upbeat, I would take let's take the music and dance. Let's take the music and dance.

Presenter31:14

Let's face the music in dance.

Presenter31:16

And your book? You get the Bible, you get the complete works of Shakespeare.

Jack Higgins31:21

Well, being practical, I should also ask for the complete works of Charles Dickens.

Jack Higgins31:27

Um my God, that would uh keep me going. And I've always been a great Dickens fan.

Presenter31:33

And a luxury we give you.

Jack Higgins31:36

Well, I was going to say, as times have moved on,

Jack Higgins31:40

And the mobile phone is so much part of our lives. I would like a mobile phone. If you say, well, you can't have a mobile phone.

Presenter31:48

Which I do.

Jack Higgins31:48

Uh well, I I would say well

Jack Higgins31:51

Really, it's the only reason I would want to would be on the level of being able to say, Is there anybody out there? You know. I can't really think of anything more than that.

Presenter32:01

So you want a a mobile phone, but you're happy that it doesn't work, really, essentially.

Jack Higgins32:05

Yes.

Jack Higgins32:07

You could probably spend a lot of time trying to make it work, but not me. I'm the least technical person in the world.

Presenter32:14

Jack Higgins, Harry Patterson, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island is.

Jack Higgins32:18

Thank you. It's been a real pleasure.

Speaker 332:27

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