Brian Aldiss

Presenter0:00

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 seven.

Presenter0:27

My castaway this week is the prolific author Brian Aldiss. Best known as a master of the science fiction genre, he's won virtually every major award in the field, and along with JG Ballard was one of the founders of a new wave of British science fiction in the sixties. He says it suits him that science fiction remains a kind of outcast literature, regarded with suspicion in the holy places of academe. Having said that, he seems more than comfortable travelling well beyond the genre, writing autobiography, poetry, and straight fiction, too.

Presenter0:58

His description of being brought up in the dull heart of Norfolk is a small clue to the significant misery of his early childhood.

Presenter1:06

Indeed, during the Second World War he felt it was a relief to escape into the army, and when his war ended he didn't want to come home. For many, of course, science fiction is a form of escape, but for my Castaway, writing allows him to study the human condition and understand his own childhood. He says novels are messages, not only to the reader, but to the self. Well, let's leave the self to a little later on. Right now, let's concentrate on the reader. What is the message, Brian, that you want to get over to your reader when you're writing?

Brian Aldiss1:38

Well, I don't agree with those people who think that science fiction is some kind of prediction of the future. It may or it may not be. I think it's a metaphor, and it's a metaphor for the human condition.

Brian Aldiss1:51

There's certainly something in me that urgently needs expression, and it doesn't quite tell me what it is.

Brian Aldiss1:59

You can understand this in the works of many writers. Thomas Hardy, for instance, writes about one thing but thinks about another.

Brian Aldiss2:08

Um and he can't quite tell you what he is thinking about.

Brian Aldiss2:12

But I would think that I.

Brian Aldiss2:15

I have suffered from loss from a very early age, and although I have recovered from it, in theory, this is the sort of stamp that has been put on me.

Presenter2:26

Um in the introduction I I men mentioned your attitude towards people who don't consider science fiction worthy of their attentions. Uh why do you think people have that view of it?

Brian Aldiss2:35

Oh, I don't know. I don't know. I mean, people don't like tomatoes. You can't explain why they don't like tomatoes. You just feel that in some cases they're missing something. I actually think that the great days of science fiction

Brian Aldiss2:51

have perhaps passed now.

Brian Aldiss2:53

But the fact is.

Brian Aldiss2:55

That science fiction gave me an umbrella and it gave me endless friends.

Brian Aldiss3:00

Who are still my friends?

Brian Aldiss3:02

I would never knock science fiction.

Brian Aldiss3:05

I think it's splendid. Tell me about your first record.

Brian Aldiss3:09

Walter Brennan was a minor actor in Western movies.

Brian Aldiss3:14

And suddenly he came out with this

Brian Aldiss3:17

little song Old Rivers, and I think it sort of epitomizes the way I feel about myself. For years I just wrote and wrote for the pleasure of it.

Brian Aldiss3:32

and I have to admit for the pleasure of the sales of it round the world.

Brian Aldiss3:37

But then suddenly I got the bug.

Brian Aldiss3:39

The idea that I could write better

Brian Aldiss3:42

That I could become not just a sky-fi author, but that I could actually make it as a writer.

Brian Aldiss3:51

Great error in my ways, because I immediately

Brian Aldiss3:56

became much more ambitious and therefore less happy.

Brian Aldiss4:00

And that's where I connect with Old Rivers.

Presenter4:03

You seem to be saying then that in a way this is almost a sort of m metaphor for your career, this song.

Presenter4:09

You h Yeah.

Brian Aldiss4:09

See ya.

Presenter4:09

Yeah.

Brian Aldiss4:09

Uh

Speaker 44:09

The shining get high and that mule would

Presenter4:12

Music movement.

Speaker 44:13

No rivers would finally say, Whoa!

Speaker 44:17

He'd wipe his brow and lean back on the reins and talk about a place he's gonna go.

Speaker 44:25

You say, one of these days, I'm going to climb that mountain.

Speaker 44:29

Walk up there among them clouds.

Speaker 44:33

Where the cotton's high and the corn's are growing.

Speaker 44:37

And they ain't no fields to

Presenter4:39

Walter Brennan and Old Rivers. And the arms were up there. You were enjoying that as it was being played. I noticed uh the line One of these days I'm gonna climb that mountain was the one that really got you going.

Brian Aldiss4:48

Yes, that's right. Well, you know, I still might actually climb that mountain. I've got three books coming out this year, and one of them I think very well of.

Brian Aldiss4:59

So I am hopeful.

Presenter5:01

Tell me about when you very first started writing. How old were you?

Brian Aldiss5:04

Four.

Brian Aldiss5:06

And I illustrated my stories?

Brian Aldiss5:08

And my mother would bind them in uh florid wallpaper and put them up on the shelf.

Presenter5:16

What did you write about when you were four?

Brian Aldiss5:18

I can't remember. And happily, those little stories have long since disappeared.

Brian Aldiss5:26

But I believe that they were highly imaginative, prompted by the fact

Brian Aldiss5:33

That my mother at the time was in an awful few.

Brian Aldiss5:38

Because

Brian Aldiss5:39

Her firstborn daughter had been stillborn.

Brian Aldiss5:44

and she had set up a defence mechanism.

Brian Aldiss5:47

that the child had lived.

Brian Aldiss5:49

And so I had to live with that child, this perfect child.

Brian Aldiss5:53

And I could never be.

Brian Aldiss5:55

As her.

Brian Aldiss5:57

And so I think the idea of pretence was in the air.

Brian Aldiss6:02

And I do believe

Brian Aldiss6:04

That although I accepted all this,

Brian Aldiss6:08

Some little part of me said This isn't real.

Brian Aldiss6:12

And that's a whole part of science fiction. It isn't real.

Presenter6:15

Just to be clear, when when you were a little boy then, you understood that your mother had given birth to a daughter before, and that daughter had lived had a short life and then died. In fact, that wasn't the case.

Brian Aldiss6:26

Yeah.

Brian Aldiss6:27

That wasn't the case at all.

Brian Aldiss6:29

And it was only when I was fifty.

Brian Aldiss6:32

Searching a graveyard

Brian Aldiss6:34

that I found in a stretch of unconsecrated ground,

Brian Aldiss6:38

A little tombstone that said Sophie Aldiss. That was my sister who had never lived.

Brian Aldiss6:44

It's a most interesting story.

Presenter6:46

Indeed. L let's talk about it a bit more then. You said that you you felt from your mother a I don't know if you used the word disapproval, but that was the sense that I got your when you were born y did your mother want a girl to replace the little baby that

Brian Aldiss6:57

It was disappointment as much as anything. Right. So that.

Presenter6:59

Right.

Brian Aldiss7:02

The atmosphere was slightly one of misery.

Presenter7:06

Do you mean that when she looked into your eyes as a little toddler you didn't get back any of the well, the the very crucial sort of motherly warmth and love that a that a toddler needs to thrive and survive?

Brian Aldiss7:16

Uh that that's about it, yes. And when I was when I was five

Brian Aldiss7:23

Another little girl was born.

Brian Aldiss7:25

My my sister Betty.

Brian Aldiss7:27

and it happened that at that time I had hooping cough.

Brian Aldiss7:31

And you know, if a baby gets hooping cough

Brian Aldiss7:34

Uh they're finished. So within the hour

Brian Aldiss7:38

I was sent off to my grandmother.

Brian Aldiss7:41

Within the hour.

Brian Aldiss7:43

Um so that when I came back to home

Brian Aldiss7:47

I was extremely upset.

Brian Aldiss7:49

And so

Brian Aldiss7:51

My father had a ready solution he could send me off to boarding school.

Presenter7:55

Let's pause for a moment and hear your next disc.

Brian Aldiss7:58

It's the Goretzkys Symphony for Sorrowful Songs coming in very appropriately and it's sung by Susan Grittel.

Brian Aldiss8:09

It balances on the very edge of boredom.

Brian Aldiss8:14

while at the same time being hypnotic.

Brian Aldiss8:17

It's an extraordinary piece. It seems to go on forever.

Presenter9:20

Part of the opening movement of Goretzky's Symphony of Sorrowful Songs sung by Susan Gritton. In the late 60s, around about 1968, I think it was, Brian Aldiss, you wrote a story about a young boy who, whatever he does, cannot please his mother. It was called Super Toys Last All Summer Long. You were describing the weight of the feeling at home of not having your mother's love. What about your father's love?

Brian Aldiss9:43

You're fine.

Brian Aldiss9:44

But I was programmed to love my mother.

Presenter9:48

Find the

Brian Aldiss9:49

It has, I think, we are.

Brian Aldiss9:51

As for my father.

Brian Aldiss9:53

I don't know.

Brian Aldiss9:54

You know, you hear people complaining.

Presenter9:54

You know.

Brian Aldiss9:57

about their family upbringing. They were all drunkards, I would say. But unfortunately it's just as bad if they're all teetotalers. They're in a state of perpetual gloom

Brian Aldiss10:08

You say they were teetotalers. They were God-fearing folk. They were God-fearing folk, and they belonged to the local church.

Brian Aldiss10:14

which uh was a congregational church.

Presenter10:17

And what was it that sort of didn't believe in drinking, didn't believe in the movies, didn't belie all that sort of stuff. All that sort of stuff. Right.

Brian Aldiss10:22

All that sort of stuff, right? Yes, yes, pretty heavy on movies, cards.

Brian Aldiss10:28

Drink almost anything jolly.

Brian Aldiss10:30

It was not for them. It was rul ruled out.

Presenter10:32

And your family lived above the shop. Your father worked in the family business. Tell us a bit about that.

Brian Aldiss10:37

My grandfather had established what would now be called a big department store, and my father reigned supreme over the gents' clothing and accessories.

Brian Aldiss10:49

I'm talking now about the thirties.

Presenter10:51

1920

Brian Aldiss10:52

The early thirties.

Presenter10:54

And what age would you have been in the early thirties?

Brian Aldiss10:57

Well, under ten.

Presenter10:58

Right. So a little boy in the back shop. Probably a lot of fun to be had.

Brian Aldiss11:00

Probably a lot of fun.

Brian Aldiss11:01

Oh yes, we had great fun.

Presenter11:03

Um, take me back a bit to when baby Betty was born. How did you mana did you manage to readjust?

Brian Aldiss11:08

I I found it very, very difficult.

Brian Aldiss11:11

I I just can't tell you, I was actually distraught.

Brian Aldiss11:16

Um

Brian Aldiss11:18

For instance, I started wetting my bed again.

Brian Aldiss11:21

How am I saying this? At one time I would never dare say it. But I'm in my eighties. I don't care. I can say these things. I was very ashamed.

Brian Aldiss11:30

But their solution was.

Brian Aldiss11:32

to send me away to boarding school.

Brian Aldiss11:34

And so I went to a prep school.

Brian Aldiss11:36

And I've I had a look about this. I wasn't quite six.

Brian Aldiss11:41

It's a time when a chap's still on friendly terms with his teddy bear, you know.

Brian Aldiss11:47

And I lived hard, then?

Brian Aldiss11:49

On a hard mattress.

Brian Aldiss11:51

and on that sort of mattress

Brian Aldiss11:54

To use a metaphor.

Brian Aldiss11:56

I lived for the next twenty years.

Presenter12:00

Tell me about your next record.

Brian Aldiss12:02

Well the next record

Brian Aldiss12:05

Is Ella Fitzgerald?

Brian Aldiss12:08

And the Ink Spots singing an absolutely wacky song called Kao Cow Boogie.

Speaker 412:13

It was a duty he learned in the city.

Speaker 412:18

Kamata I Kamata Yepria Get along.

Speaker 412:25

Get hip, little dog.

Speaker 412:27

Get along.

Speaker 412:29

Better be on your way. Get along.

Speaker 412:33

Get him, little dog.

Speaker 412:35

And he trucked him all down.

Speaker 412:37

At old fair way singing his cow cow boogie in the strangest way coming to ya ya

Presenter12:45

Ella Fitzgerald and the Ink Spots and Cow, Cow Boogie. Um, throughout your childhood, did your uh relationship with your mother repair itself?

Brian Aldiss12:53

Well

Brian Aldiss12:55

You see, in a way I was freed by the arrival of this sister Betty, because I was no longer my mother's captive, as I had been. I mean, she would take me everywhere.

Brian Aldiss13:07

Including the loo for safety.

Brian Aldiss13:10

No, I was like a pet dog.

Brian Aldiss13:12

But once Betty was around, that was different, and eventually she and I formed an alliance.

Presenter13:19

This is you and Betty. So you didn't resent Betty at all. The fact that she was this golden child, this golden girl, didn't upset you.

Brian Aldiss13:20

Yeah, so

Brian Aldiss13:27

Well, I think I thought it was rot rot and bad luck to be born into this family.

Brian Aldiss13:33

I n I don't know what I felt, but certainly we were good support for each other.

Presenter13:37

I'm intrigued that you say that your mother took you everywhere. You felt like a little lap dog. She even took you when she went to the loot. She took you along with you. On on the one hand I mean you're getting very mixed messages from her. On the one hand you feel that she thinks you're a disappointment and she can't quite love you properly. And on the other hand she is terrified that anything might happen to you.

Brian Aldiss13:55

Yes.

Presenter13:55

Quite a contradiction.

Brian Aldiss13:56

Well, perhaps he was just afraid that I'd run off. I don't know. I don't know. But that was I mean, I've I felt very uncomfortable in that situation, there's no doubt. But I suppose

Brian Aldiss14:09

Well, I should say.

Brian Aldiss14:11

The family were busy sliding down the social ladder.

Brian Aldiss14:15

So that eventually father

Brian Aldiss14:18

Ended up

Brian Aldiss14:19

buying a sort of store a general store.

Brian Aldiss14:24

and my mother was in charge of the post office.

Brian Aldiss14:28

And that that was just fine for her. She could talk to all the customers. The customers would come in and they'd exchange tittle tattle, and she then at last became a much more cheerful person, and indeed full of jokes.

Presenter14:42

So in a sense this change of lifestyle almost I mean, is it fair to call it depression, what your mother had? She suffered from depression when you were a young child. So in a way this slide down the social ladder, as you describe it so wonderfully, at the same time she found her spirits rise and that actually she was in an environment that was more conducive to her enjoying herself and enjoying the family.

Brian Aldiss14:47

To be a

Brian Aldiss14:49

Yeah.

Brian Aldiss14:52

Do you d

Brian Aldiss15:00

Yes.

Brian Aldiss15:01

Yes, so we cheered up the end and uh.

Brian Aldiss15:06

And I joined the army.

Presenter15:07

Tell me about your next record.

Brian Aldiss15:09

For the next record

Brian Aldiss15:11

is um the sort of thing that travellers might play. It's part of Borodin's In the Steppes of Central Asia. It's a little tone poem.

Presenter16:19

Part of Borodin's In the Steppes of Central Asia. Unlike a lot of writers, Brian Aldiss, um, who tend to live out their fantasy on the page, you've had a very adventurous life. You love to travel.

Brian Aldiss16:29

That's quite so. And uh, as soon as I joined the army.

Brian Aldiss16:36

I was sent to India. Indeed, I celebrated my nineteenth birthday on the the harbour front of Bombay. You were p

Presenter16:47

Part of what was characterized latterly as the Forgotten Army.

Brian Aldiss16:50

The Forgotten Army, yes. So, where were you posted? I was then posted to Burma.

Brian Aldiss16:55

And uh you see, I was so young, this was all part of life.

Presenter17:01

You were frantic to get into the army. I mean, you tried once unsuccessfully to get in.

Presenter17:05

Yeah.

Brian Aldiss17:05

Any Need to get away from the f ⁇ ing.

Presenter17:06

Bye.

Brian Aldiss17:07

Emily?

Brian Aldiss17:08

Happy.

Brian Aldiss17:09

But that many of the chaps, who were perhaps only two or three years older than I.

Brian Aldiss17:14

um were married, and their lives were interrupted.

Brian Aldiss17:18

But mine was not mine continued.

Brian Aldiss17:21

And so I was in good spirits.

Brian Aldiss17:24

even though we were on half rations, etcetera, etcetera.

Brian Aldiss17:28

I mean, water was so short you weren't allowed to wash, um, you couldn't have your hair cut, uh, a hairdresser was unnecessary.

Presenter17:35

And what was it about you then, where many young men would have found great hardship and just longed to be home, what was it about you that thrived in that environment?

Brian Aldiss17:43

Well, you know, if you don't wash or have your hair cut for s six months, it's absolute paradise when you're nineteen. There was always something interesting and extraordinary, often very frightening, it's true. Were you I mean, you wanted to go, did were your family sad to see you go?

Brian Aldiss18:00

My father at least saw me to the bus that would take me to the train that would take me to the barracks that would take me to

Brian Aldiss18:08

etcetera. the Far East.

Presenter18:09

Was it a tearful farewell?

Brian Aldiss18:11

No?

Brian Aldiss18:11

Not at all.

Brian Aldiss18:13

But he did give me a word of caution. He said

Brian Aldiss18:16

Look, old boy, don't go in the brothels.

Brian Aldiss18:20

Did you follow his advice?

Brian Aldiss18:22

It was impossible to follow his advice.

Brian Aldiss18:27

But a brothel?

Brian Aldiss18:29

In the Far East at that time, was quite different from a brothel now. It was a house where many poor fugitive young women had to live because

Brian Aldiss18:41

Um

Brian Aldiss18:43

Their husbands, their support, their fathers.

Brian Aldiss18:46

had all been killed in the war with the Japanese. So they had to live somewhere. So they'd come to Singapore and Hong Kong.

Brian Aldiss18:55

As a refuge.

Brian Aldiss18:57

They were pretty and they were nice.

Brian Aldiss18:59

They they were good ladies.

Brian Aldiss19:01

And

Brian Aldiss19:03

What they had to sell was what men

Brian Aldiss19:06

Needed to buy.

Presenter19:09

Tell me about your next record.

Brian Aldiss19:10

Well, the next record is going to be I I've always loved Offenbach, his his marvellous operas. And from Orpheus in the Underworld uh there's a song

Presenter19:10

Um

Brian Aldiss19:22

Sung by Charon.

Brian Aldiss19:25

who was the king of the Boeotians in life, and now he's just a ferryman, ferrying Orpheus and Co. across the Styx, and this is the melancholy little

Brian Aldiss19:37

Kind of a love song that he sings to one of the women as they're going across the steps.

Speaker 419:46

If I were king of the Be oceans, Then you would reign there by my side.

Speaker 419:58

I do not shudder at the notion I was attractive before I died.

Brian Aldiss20:05

Uh

Brian Aldiss20:07

I don't

Speaker 420:11

And though I have not won promotion In the ranks of souls in hell

Brian Aldiss20:11

Oh, I have no

Speaker 420:23

No ghost could offer such devotion, Or take the heart that means so well of the late king.

Presenter20:40

The King of the Boeotians from Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld. You've written 40 odd books, you've written 250 short stories.

Presenter20:49

The remarkable thing about you. I do beg your pardon. Two hundred and sixty. And the remarkable thing about you as a writer is that in the beginning you didn't have to go and tout your manuscripts round uh the the various publishers. You were you were commissioned to write your first piece of of work, professional work.

Brian Aldiss20:49

Yeah.

Brian Aldiss21:04

Professional work.

Presenter21:05

That's right.

Brian Aldiss21:06

It was because um uh when I was back in Civie Street it was very hard to adjust. I was determined to be a writer, and rather than starve in a garret, I starved in a bookshop in Oxford.

Brian Aldiss21:20

And I thought I could write a column.

Brian Aldiss21:22

Comic column

Brian Aldiss21:24

And so I did.

Brian Aldiss21:26

A column called The Bright Fount Diaries.

Brian Aldiss21:29

and eventually got a letter from

Brian Aldiss21:33

Faber and Faber.

Brian Aldiss21:35

The publishers of the day, who said, We're all fans of bright fans. Would you like to make them into a book?

Brian Aldiss21:43

I can't tell you.

Brian Aldiss21:45

The bliss of that moment Of course I would like to make them into a book. Were you able to give up working in the bookshop? Almost immediately, despite the fact my publisher, my literary agent, and my beloved father already mentioned,

Brian Aldiss21:59

All advised against it, so I became an independent writer.

Presenter22:04

Tell me about your creative process. I mean, not surprising, of course, all different authors have all different experiences. How difficult is it for you to get things onto the page?

Brian Aldiss22:13

It isn't all that difficult. But Doris Lessing told me long ago no, sorry, it wasn't Doris, it was Iris Murdoch. Iris said.

Brian Aldiss22:21

You must never tell anyone how much you enjoy writing.

Brian Aldiss22:25

You must always make out that it's really hard work.

Brian Aldiss22:30

Well, it is hard work, but it's also.

Brian Aldiss22:35

The second most enjoyable thing you can do.

Brian Aldiss22:38

in life.

Presenter22:39

And do you uh do you know where the story is going on the page when you begin? Do you have a plan of what's going to happen at the not just the beginning, but at the end?

Brian Aldiss22:48

No. Really, a a novel takes you about a year to write, so you've not got to be bored by it, so you don't plan it or I don't plan it. I embark on it, and it's a voyage of discovery. And at one time, early in my career, I was having lunch with Agatha Christie.

Brian Aldiss23:07

And she's a very sympathetic woman, rather grand.

Brian Aldiss23:11

And I said.

Brian Aldiss23:13

Can't see how you managed to write such a a complex novel.

Brian Aldiss23:20

And she said, Oh, it's quite easy, really. I just go ahead and I write the novel, but I stop at the penultimate chapter, and then I think

Brian Aldiss23:30

Who's the most unlikely character to have committed the murder?

Brian Aldiss23:36

So when she's settled on this, she just goes back and corrects the train timetable here and adjusts the relationship there, and then she goes on and writes it, and of course everyone is baffled and enchanted.

Brian Aldiss23:48

Well, I can't say they are as baffled and enchanted by my novels, but that's the principle I work on.

Speaker 223:48

Well, I can't say they're

Brian Aldiss23:53

Let's hear your next piece of music. All right, this is where we go abroad again. You realize I don't have an English work here. They're all foreign. It's terrible, isn't it? We'll forgive you. All right. Thank goodness for that, because you'll be able to hear a Croatian folk song.

Brian Aldiss24:10

From the days of Yugoslavia, called Olulomoya.

Brian Aldiss24:15

Oh, my darling

Speaker 424:17

Lord Jews of men in our day in Lord.

Presenter24:45

The Croatian folk song Oilolo Moya or Oh My Darling. Well, let's talk about your your own early family life, because when you were in the bookshop you had met the woman who was to become your first wife, and as a young writer y you were married and had two children. What was their what was her early married life like?

Brian Aldiss24:56

The young

Brian Aldiss24:59

Two children

Brian Aldiss25:02

It certainly, although it was not a great success, it provided.

Brian Aldiss25:09

The World With Two Marvellous People.

Brian Aldiss25:12

Wendy and Clive.

Brian Aldiss25:15

And

Brian Aldiss25:16

Well, if you feel that you're not loved, the corollary is that you feel you're not worth loving.

Brian Aldiss25:24

Anyhow, it didn't really work, except

Brian Aldiss25:27

To produce these two extraordinary children.

Presenter25:31

And when your marriage broke down, that this new life that you had, what sort of life was it then? You were working on a newspaper by then.

Brian Aldiss25:37

Yes, I was literary editor of the Oxford Mail when it was a broadsheet, and I lived in one room.

Brian Aldiss25:44

With a few books, No Money.

Brian Aldiss25:46

I was I was forty then, I think.

Brian Aldiss25:49

Uh

Brian Aldiss25:51

But almost immediately

Brian Aldiss25:54

into my one room.

Brian Aldiss25:56

Came.

Brian Aldiss25:58

A statuette

Brian Aldiss26:00

Ever.

Brian Aldiss26:00

A rocket shipped like a needle.

Brian Aldiss26:03

And it said that I had won a Hugo, which is the Oscar of the SF field, for Manoel Hothouse.

Brian Aldiss26:12

And so from sinking down I was bouncing up again.

Brian Aldiss26:16

And I've continued to bounce.

Brian Aldiss26:18

Ever since.

Presenter26:19

During the most difficult uh periods of your life, do you continue to write? Are you always writing? Or is there a point at which you are stymied by any personal turmoil you're going through?

Brian Aldiss26:29

No, I don't think so. I I think that I always write, because um well, it got me out of many scrapes, for one thing. Um yes, I I kept on writing. I always wrote.

Presenter26:40

You had a second and very successful and long and happy marriage that again bore you two children. T tell me about Margaret. How did you meet Margaret?

Brian Aldiss26:50

I met Margaret while I was down in this one room in.

Brian Aldiss26:55

an Oxford slum called Paradise Square.

Brian Aldiss26:57

It's now a multi-storey car park, alas.

Brian Aldiss27:01

Um

Brian Aldiss27:03

Margaret, yes, she was.

Brian Aldiss27:07

Shy, reserved, extremely pretty.

Brian Aldiss27:12

And she smelt gorgeous.

Brian Aldiss27:14

And she had lots of other virtues too.

Brian Aldiss27:18

And one of those virtues

Brian Aldiss27:21

Was the chi?

Brian Aldiss27:22

Like the first wife, produced two children, a boy and then a girl.

Brian Aldiss27:28

Another remarkable thing is that those four

Brian Aldiss27:32

To my knowledge at least, you don't know what your children think.

Brian Aldiss27:36

M.

Brian Aldiss27:37

Always were without jealousy and got on with each other.

Brian Aldiss27:42

They're just marvers.

Brian Aldiss27:44

Very marvelous.

Presenter27:46

Tell me about your next record.

Brian Aldiss27:48

Oh, well, the next record is an old favourite, you know, when something particularly sentimental and ghastly was happening in England.

Brian Aldiss27:56

You you'd need a dose of Private Eye or Tom Lehrer, who could be awful about anything, including uh a song for World War Three, So Long Mom.

Speaker 228:09

I'm off to drop the bomb, so don't wait up for me.

Speaker 228:15

But though I may roam, I'll come back to my home. Although it may be

Speaker 228:21

Debris remember mommy, I'm off to get a commie So send me a salami and try to smile somehow I'll look for you when the war is over

Speaker 228:33

An hour and a half from now.

Presenter28:39

Tom Lurr and So Long Mom or A Song for World War Three. You had this sustained period of of great success and selling lots of books. Tell me about the time that you worked with Stanley

Brian Aldiss28:51

Well, that was rather funny really. One day I was in my study and uh the phone rang. I picked it up.

Brian Aldiss29:01

And uh it was Stanley Kubrick, and he talked and talked and talked and talked.

Brian Aldiss29:06

So eventually he said shall we have lunch?

Brian Aldiss29:10

Yeah.

Brian Aldiss29:11

So I went to Pinewood and we had lunch and we had a jolly good time. It was great fun.

Brian Aldiss29:18

And so.

Brian Aldiss29:19

I went and worked with him for a year, and we were trying to make.

Brian Aldiss29:24

A monster movie from this little

Brian Aldiss29:27

A cameo reading called Super Toys Last All Summer Long.

Brian Aldiss29:34

I said you could never make this into a big movie.

Brian Aldiss29:39

And Stanley said, Oh, yes, I could.

Brian Aldiss29:41

And we were both wrong, you see. He couldn't.

Brian Aldiss29:44

Stanley died.

Brian Aldiss29:46

But Spielberg could.

Presenter29:48

And that was AI eventually.

Brian Aldiss29:49

Yeah.

Presenter29:52

I want to talk we we mentioned Margaret, I want to talk about Margaret again now. It was almost ten years ago then that Margaret died of cancer. You wrote a book after the feast is finished about that. What was it that you wanted to say about that experience in writing?

Brian Aldiss30:09

It's part of a poem by Ernest Darson But when the feast is finished and the lamps expire, There falls thy shadow, Sonara.

Brian Aldiss30:18

The night is thine.

Brian Aldiss30:20

and I am desolate and sick of an old fashion.

Brian Aldiss30:25

Yea, hungry for the lips of my desire.

Brian Aldiss30:29

It was from that that I took the title.

Brian Aldiss30:33

Um

Brian Aldiss30:35

You see, this terrible drama goes on for some time.

Brian Aldiss30:40

Ah and one is seized by it.

Brian Aldiss30:43

But after the funeral.

Brian Aldiss30:46

A curtain falls silence falls.

Brian Aldiss30:50

Well, I found that on Margaret's computer

Brian Aldiss30:53

She had kept her a little department.

Brian Aldiss30:56

Characteristically called my health.

Brian Aldiss31:00

About her cancer.

Brian Aldiss31:02

And so, assisted by that and novels that I had kept, I wrote When the Feast is Finished and the book was published, and still

Brian Aldiss31:15

People write to me or phone me, or appear on my doorstep.

Brian Aldiss31:19

to say how grateful they are for that book.

Brian Aldiss31:23

That very sad book of bereavement.

Brian Aldiss31:26

And how you?

Brian Aldiss31:27

How you face it?

Brian Aldiss31:29

Ten years after that bereavement, then he are you still lonely?

Brian Aldiss31:33

No, I'm not.

Brian Aldiss31:35

I have

Brian Aldiss31:36

A very happy

Brian Aldiss31:38

and loving and exhilarating and extraordinary and unique and marvellous friendship with a lady who lives near by.

Brian Aldiss31:48

Let's call her Meg because she wouldn't like.

Brian Aldiss31:51

Her name to be known on the air, Meg is absolutely extraordinary, and we have transformed each other's lives.

Brian Aldiss32:00

There's been a renaissance from this black pit.

Brian Aldiss32:04

It's part of the good fortune of my life that this this should be so.

Presenter32:09

Tell me then about your loss.

Brian Aldiss32:11

Choice.

Brian Aldiss32:11

Well, my last record comes from Holst's Planet Suite.

Brian Aldiss32:16

It's a record that I've long loved, and finally I've realized the whole gravity of the situation. It's uh Saturn, the bringer of old age.

Presenter33:26

Part of Saturn, the bringer of old age from Hosts, the Planets. So, Brian, we give you the Bible, the complete works of Shakespeare. You're allowed to take, of course, one other book. What would you take with you to this?

Brian Aldiss33:37

Island.

Brian Aldiss33:38

I think I would take John Heilpen's uh recent biography of John Osborne. I knew John Osborne and I could see the awful mess that his life was in.

Brian Aldiss33:50

based on a kind of loss.

Brian Aldiss33:53

And how funny he was, how creative, what a good drinker he was.

Brian Aldiss33:58

And how perfectly Halpen has understood him. So it's it's more than a biography, it's a philosophy. And what would your luxury be?

Brian Aldiss34:09

Uh well, I think I'd take a banjo.

Brian Aldiss34:12

You know.

Presenter34:13

Do you play the banjo?

Brian Aldiss34:14

But no, that's

Presenter34:14

Well, I would take the venture. And if the waves were to crash to the shore and threaten to wash away your disks, which one would you choose to save from the surf?

Brian Aldiss34:24

I've thought very hard about this for at least a minute.

Brian Aldiss34:27

And then I thought the answer must be

Brian Aldiss34:30

Walter Brownin seein' all all rivers cause, you know.

Brian Aldiss34:33

And it encapsulates a lot of my life, too.

Presenter34:37

You may have it, Brian Aldis. Thank you very much for letting us hear your Desert Island discs. Pleasure.

Presenter34:48

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