Beryl Bainbridge

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.

Presenter0:08

The programme was originally broadcast in two thousand eight.

Presenter0:27

My castaway this week is the writer Dame Beryl Bainbridge. When asked why she writes, she says It is something life forces you to do. If you had been very happy, perhaps you wouldn't have bothered.

Presenter0:38

The volume and quality of her work imply, therefore, that her existence has been far from blissful. She has written seventeen novels and numerous plays for stage and television, winning the Whitbread Prize among many others, and being shortlisted for the Booker no less than five times.

Presenter0:53

The writing began when she was a child. In an attempt to cope with the fierce domestic battleground of her home life, she would put pen to paper in secret.

Presenter1:02

Once I'd written it down, she said, all those neuroses were gone. It was marvellous therapy. So, Beryl Bainbridge, after all this apparent therapy, do you sit opposite me now as a calm centred and entirely happy human being?

Beryl Bainbridge1:16

Yes, and I I don't think I was um

Beryl Bainbridge1:19

all that unhappy. I I've I think I've had a very good life. Now, maybe that's I'm looking back on it from a point of quietness and uh

Beryl Bainbridge1:27

something else. Um but but no, I think I was perfectly all right as a as a child and uh

Beryl Bainbridge1:33

I think creativity

Beryl Bainbridge1:36

possibly only does come out of sort of uh friction and trouble and something else, because it makes your brain think a lot.

Beryl Bainbridge1:45

Uh

Presenter1:45

And you believed is this true you believed that you would die at seventy one, which was the age that both of your parents had died at?

Beryl Bainbridge1:48

Yes.

Beryl Bainbridge1:49

Yes, yes, yes, I was convinced it was going to happen. You inherit things, don't you? And I thought I shall be.

Beryl Bainbridge1:57

You know, I shall p not be here all that long.

Presenter2:00

And do

Beryl Bainbridge2:00

Before

Presenter2:00

Uh

Beryl Bainbridge2:00

Yeah.

Presenter2:00

Yeah.

Presenter2:04

You've had a huge amount of acclaim as a writer. You are very well regarded. You are now, as I said at the beginning, a dame indeed. Let's quickly deal with this business of the booker, if you don't mind. I'd like to get it out of the way. Five times you've been nominated. Do you care? Do you bother? Does it still annoy you that you can do that?

Beryl Bainbridge2:09

At the beginning.

Beryl Bainbridge2:14

And you'd like to get it out of the way.

Beryl Bainbridge2:17

Yeah.

Beryl Bainbridge2:20

There was only one time that I cared. I think that was about the fourth time when I began to kid myself that it was.

Beryl Bainbridge2:29

you know, that I would win. Everybody said so, you know, all the bets and everything. So th and that was quite a bit of a shock, a bit of a taking aback. But all the other times I was fortunate enough to have a publisher who, right from the beginning I mean, they they didn't you know, if you sold three thousand books you were on to a good thing, so it didn't really matter. So they weren't they didn't care about it, and and I don't think I did. It was just jolly nice going to the um the Booker Dinners.

Presenter2:58

Would your heart sink if you were nominated again?

Beryl Bainbridge3:02

Um no, I'd be quite pleased, you know,'cause I I'm getting a bit worried that there's all sorts of other people who are three times uh shortlisted, four times shortlisted. I I I'd like to be the one that was the longest shortlisted.

Presenter3:14

True list

Presenter3:16

Can you tell me about your first piece of music today then? What have you chosen?

Beryl Bainbridge3:18

Yes, this is um a wonderful uh record called Silver Threads Amongst the Gold, and it's um very sentimental and all that. But my grandfather we're talking about um

Beryl Bainbridge3:31

ooh, nineteen forty two, nineteen forty three, something like that, used to sit at the piano and uh he'd sometimes sing it, and my grandma would sometimes join in.

Beryl Bainbridge3:42

But I can remember hearing it at the back of my mind every time I went upstairs.

Speaker 43:48

No

Speaker 43:52

I'm growing old.

Speaker 44:00

Silver thread among the gold Shin off on my brow.

Presenter4:19

CONNI BOSWELL AND SIVEVER THERES AMONG THE GOLD. As I mentioned in the introduction then, Beryl Bainbridge, home was something of a battleground when you were young. Describe the domestic set up at home.

Beryl Bainbridge4:30

Well, I didn't realise what was behind it all until much later. It was that my father was a a businessman and had been doing very well in Liverpool. My mother married him on the rebound, and about four years after they got married, there was that slump in nineteen twenty nine or something, and he became a bankrupt, so that when when I was about six, seven or eight, I was signing cheques for my father without knowing it. It ruined his life, it ruined my mother's life.

Beryl Bainbridge5:01

And they constantly quarrelled about it. It's curious that you were signing the checks. Why would your mother not have been able to do that?

Presenter5:06

So,'cause they were at daggers drawn. He didn't trust her at all. And you say that your mother had married him on the rebound. When did you find that out?

Beryl Bainbridge5:13

Yeah.

Beryl Bainbridge5:15

Well, I was lucky. This is probably what helped me to write. Um

Beryl Bainbridge5:19

All these things were discussed quite openly, shouted sometimes.

Beryl Bainbridge5:24

I was almost an adult with with my parents. I mean, I'd say to them, Why are you doing this? and why is that? and then they'd tell you, you know, not because they wanted to help you, they were just um Regarded you as a grown up.

Presenter5:36

And your mother never tried to shield you from I mean, your father had a a fierce temper and he also suffered from the material.

Beryl Bainbridge5:42

Oh, you were that nobody ever got hit.

Beryl Bainbridge5:45

Um it was verbal it was terrible verbal abuse and screaming and and and my father, who outside was the most polite and well mannered, well thought of man, was a sort of a

Beryl Bainbridge5:57

A Liverpool

Beryl Bainbridge5:59

Yob indoors sometimes not always, not always but a row would break out over the smallest thing, and the row would go on for about three months.

Beryl Bainbridge6:09

and he used to have his uh food in his bedroom, and I used to have to take the tray up to him and I'd

Beryl Bainbridge6:16

you know, but put it on the floor and run for it.

Presenter6:18

Were you conscious then of of putting on a face, putting on a show when you stepped outside the front door?

Beryl Bainbridge6:22

Well, we all did, you see. I don't dunno about the people next door doing that. But for instance, I mean, when when my mother went out, she was known as the Duchess. She had this lovely fur coat well, if you call fur coats lovely, and a and a hat and gloves and everything, and I had the same. Even at the even at the age of eleven one had a handbag and gloves. But then you came in through the door

Beryl Bainbridge6:44

And everybody got out of these clothes, and my father would be in a very tatty ARP uniform, with a berry on his head my mother would be in a pinny, and a bit of a slip underneath that, and a pair of old slippers.

Beryl Bainbridge6:58

And me and my brother would be straight out of our um school uniforms into more or less rags, because you were saving the clothes for best, you know. But I took that as normal. So tell me about your next piece of music then. Well, I'd like the Beatles next and singing that wonderful song, Eleanor Rigby.

Beryl Bainbridge7:16

My then husband taught at the Liverpool Art School. He was a painter, Austin Davies, and he taught John Lennon.

Beryl Bainbridge7:25

and there was a boy called um Sutcliffe.

Beryl Bainbridge7:29

And he died very early. He died when he was about 21. He was a member of the group, he was dying. He was a member of the group, yes, quite a very big one.

Presenter7:32

Do you

Presenter7:33

He was a member.

Beryl Bainbridge7:37

There was one night when we had a party and the Beatles

Beryl Bainbridge7:43

I don't know whether they were called at then, but they all came round to the house this is in Huskerson Street in Liverpool.

Beryl Bainbridge7:49

and they played almost for two nights. I walked out, I said it was a disgusting noise, I took the children out.

Speaker 48:01

People

Speaker 48:05

Helena Rigby picks up the rice in the church where a wedding has been

Speaker 48:12

Lives in a dream, waits at the window Wearing the face that she keeps in her jar by the door

Speaker 48:20

Who is it for all the lonely people?

Speaker 48:25

But do my own

Presenter8:27

The Beatles and Eleanor Rigby. Can you remember, Beryl Bainbridge, when the writing began? How how young were you? Oh, yes.

Beryl Bainbridge8:35

Yes, I was about um

Beryl Bainbridge8:37

God, ni nine, ten, um

Beryl Bainbridge8:41

But my mother was very encouraging or so was my father, I mean but because in those days, you see, you weren't allowed to play with people, other children, because they might be a bit common or something, or not nice, and there was no television, so you um it was nice to have something to do.

Presenter8:58

One of your earliest stories was called Song of the Soldiers of the Cave. And it was about German prisoners of war. Intriguingly, you yourself had a sort of I mean, a friendship. I was going to say relationship, that's not quite right. It was a friendship with a German prisoner of war.

Beryl Bainbridge9:03

And it

Beryl Bainbridge9:04

What?

Beryl Bainbridge9:08

That's not quite right.

Beryl Bainbridge9:11

Yes, that was after the war. You see, after the war it took time for them to all be sent back.

Beryl Bainbridge9:17

Um

Beryl Bainbridge9:18

But we met in the pine woods, and it was very sort of innocent.

Beryl Bainbridge9:22

They were allowed out to wander around and uh

Presenter9:25

So obviously this was a little

Beryl Bainbridge9:26

See Uh

Presenter9:27

But

Beryl Bainbridge9:27

Oh damn.

Presenter9:27

Oh, it's gosh!

Beryl Bainbridge9:27

Gosh, it it well, uh uh the f the fact was if you'd

Beryl Bainbridge9:31

I mean, I was only thirteen, fourteen or something. I mean, I couldn't you weren't allowed out with men. Yes. And anyway, with a German. But he was very

Beryl Bainbridge9:39

childlike and sweet and nothing went on. And you yourself had a I mean, a relatively checkered academic career school. Not not much relative of totally.

Speaker 49:46

Bills

Beryl Bainbridge9:51

Then I was uh thrown out of school at I was not quite fourteen. Why did they throw you out?

Beryl Bainbridge9:56

Well, it was only because of um there was a a dirty rhyme going round the school, you know, and it was written on a piece of paper, and everybody had a turn of seeing it, and I did drawings to it, I illustrated it, I thought that would be a help.

Beryl Bainbridge10:12

Put him up

Beryl Bainbridge10:13

Jimslip Pocket, my mother,

Beryl Bainbridge10:16

Needed it for the wash.

Beryl Bainbridge10:18

and she took it out and instead of sort of she went straight to the head mistress.

Beryl Bainbridge10:23

To show her the note. Can you remember the rhyme? Yes, um well, if it's not too rude. Let's give it a go. It's quite a clever rhyme, actually. It's only human nature, after all, to take a little girl behind a wall.

Presenter10:29

Let's give it a go.

Beryl Bainbridge10:36

To pull down her protection and plug in main connection It's only human nature after all.

Beryl Bainbridge10:41

It wasn't that wasn't, I think that take a little girl, it's nothing to do with child abuse or anything. It's just that.

Beryl Bainbridge10:48

Women were little girls.

Presenter10:50

And you did the drawings.

Beryl Bainbridge10:51

I did rather good drawing. I tha I'd have been sent to art school these days, but, you know.

Presenter10:57

And you weren't sent to art school then, you were sent off to encourage your acting talent?

Beryl Bainbridge11:01

Yes. Well, I had been uh i in Children's Are in Manchester before this. My mother had seen ad advertisement in the paper, and so I was doing things with Billy Whitelaw and

Beryl Bainbridge11:12

to the Charmers, and this was up in in uh Manchester.

Beryl Bainbridge11:16

And so when I got thrown out of school, I couldn't get into any other school.

Beryl Bainbridge11:22

And so I was sent off again to this wonderful ballet school, and I'd never been anywhere like that before. It was lovely.

Presenter11:30

Much more to come. Tell me now about your third piece of music.

Presenter11:34

Uh

Beryl Bainbridge11:34

Uh this is uh Richard Tauber.

Beryl Bainbridge11:36

and it's the one Can I Forget You? And it sounds rather odd this, but I want this for my agent to hear, Andrew, who's been so good to me and so kind, and so was his late wife. And it sounds like a love song well, it is a love song.

Beryl Bainbridge11:55

But not in the way it may sound, but it's it's for Andrew.

Speaker 411:59

Can I forget you for with my heart remind me that once we walked in with dreams Can I forget you? But in my heart remind me how sweet you make the moonlight seem

Presenter12:29

Richard Tarber and Can I Forget You? And when you were in your late teens then you met Austin Davis at the Liverpool Playhouse. And you married when you were what, just short of twenty, were you about nine?

Beryl Bainbridge12:36

Yeah.

Beryl Bainbridge12:39

No, twenty one. Twenty one, yes. What kind of a man was he?

Beryl Bainbridge12:44

Well, he was he was lovely. He came from a different class from me, and I I I believe in class, you see. I mean, he had a much different upbringing. He you know, he went to boarding school very early. His father was a professional man, his mother was a painter.

Beryl Bainbridge13:00

I dunno. Um what do you mean when you say I believe in class?

Beryl Bainbridge13:05

Uh

Beryl Bainbridge13:06

Well, there are such things as classes, the the lower classes, who used to be called the working classes, and there's the middle classes.

Beryl Bainbridge13:13

Um

Beryl Bainbridge13:15

you know, have a bit of money, and then of course there's the other lot who have a lot of it. I mean, I grew up among the the middle lower classes, and you did talk about class a lot. I mean, all this idea that you can wipe that out and say how ridiculous it is daft. You can't. I mean, it still exists. In fact, it probably exists more than ever.

Presenter13:33

And you yourself, with with your husband then, you had two children in very quick succession.

Beryl Bainbridge13:37

Yes, if a

Presenter13:38

Your first child in nineteen fifty seven, second one Jojo in the second year. And then when Jojo was very young, you found out that Austin, your husband, was having an affair.

Beryl Bainbridge13:41

But in 1958, yeah.

Beryl Bainbridge13:48

Yes, um

Beryl Bainbridge13:50

How did you find out? Um I came back from hospital from my first child, from Aaron, and there was a note on the table with two cups and two plates saying Can't see you tonight. Beryl's coming out of hospital, so

Beryl Bainbridge14:04

Pem

Beryl Bainbridge14:06

I don't know, and I it is so difficult looking back so long ago, but I mean I adored Austin. I thought oh oh God, I I loved him so much.

Beryl Bainbridge14:15

Anyway, um

Presenter14:16

You are very young and in this very extreme situation.

Beryl Bainbridge14:18

Yes, well he was breathing in the head, yes.

Beryl Bainbridge14:22

He decided that marriage wasn't for him and he moved out.

Beryl Bainbridge14:28

Oh, possibly, yes. Oh, yes, I think so. Though

Beryl Bainbridge14:32

The fact that somebody's unfaithful to you in those days was so dreadful, you know, that was a body blow, but um

Beryl Bainbridge14:40

I mean, it's easy looking back, isn't it? I mean, now or um one would think, well, yes, that's what men do, you know, and you can forgive them, and you know, and I'm sure lots of people do.

Beryl Bainbridge14:50

Uh

Presenter14:50

Yeah.

Beryl Bainbridge14:50

Bam.

Presenter14:50

I ask that question because uh you have said I wanted a proper old-fashioned family.

Beryl Bainbridge14:55

Yes, yes, yes, yes, and that's why I wanted to get married and have lots of children.

Beryl Bainbridge15:02

But on the other hand, if that had happened, I would never have written another word. I wouldn't have wanted to. I'd have just wanted to be happily married.

Beryl Bainbridge15:11

Um

Beryl Bainbridge15:12

I mean so solitary.

Beryl Bainbridge15:15

And um

Beryl Bainbridge15:16

Very demanding profession.

Presenter15:20

Uh

Beryl Bainbridge15:20

Tell me about your next trip.

Presenter15:20

Check that.

Beryl Bainbridge15:21

Uh my next record is um

Beryl Bainbridge15:24

Kiss me good night, Sergeant Major. And I don't know who originally sang it, but this was.

Beryl Bainbridge15:32

I sang it to the troops in Southport during the war, and I had a little um tule skirt on, bally shoes no, no, no, tap dante shoes, of course a little red military jacket, and a little sort of box cap.

Beryl Bainbridge15:48

And I sang Kiss Me Good Night, Sergeant Major, to the troops.

Speaker 115:51

Kiss me good night, Sergeant Major.

Speaker 115:56

Tuck me in my little wooden bed.

Beryl Bainbridge15:58

Mm.

Speaker 116:01

We all love you, Sergeant Major.

Speaker 416:03

Sergeant Major

Speaker 116:05

When we hear you bawling, show a leg

Speaker 416:08

Joe Alee.

Speaker 116:10

Don't forget to wake me in the morning and bring me round a nice hot cup of tea. Kiss me.

Presenter16:21

Violin and Kiss Me Good Night, Sergeant Major. So there you were in your early twenties as you were describing it. You had two young children, you had a man that you loved, but the marriage had broken down amid his affairs. And you came to London. Yes. And he also came to London.

Speaker 116:21

Is it

Speaker 116:27

Okay, you have

Beryl Bainbridge16:30

Yeah.

Beryl Bainbridge16:32

And

Beryl Bainbridge16:36

Oh, he was in London first and he um

Beryl Bainbridge16:39

He got us a flat in in in London. But you share did you share a house with him? Uh, later I shared a house with him and his new wife. He was in the basement and I me and the kids were in the top of the house.

Beryl Bainbridge16:50

But without heat sounds unusual. I mean, how did it work?

Presenter16:51

That's

Beryl Bainbridge16:55

Well, they were separate, yes.

Beryl Bainbridge16:58

But you see, by this time I think I was over the worst of um I mean, I couldn't have done it if I was still in the same feeling as it was, but I wasn't, so it was all right.

Presenter17:07

What are you doing for money? I mean, he was providing, but presum were you having to work as well?

Beryl Bainbridge17:11

No no. Um I got seven pound ten a week um for me and and by this time I'd had another child, you see, by somebody else. And then um I got a job down the road in what is now a health farm, but it was a bottle factory. It was um you know, did wines, spirits.

Beryl Bainbridge17:29

So I was very lucky, yes.

Presenter17:31

How much were you writing then at at that stage? Were you writing at all after the breakdown of your marriage?

Beryl Bainbridge17:36

Oh, yes. But I wasn't earning much money from it, so that's why I I had to get a bit more.

Presenter17:41

So you had a couple of novels published in the sixties, but the real breakthrough for you was meeting this man called Colin Haycraft. How did you wife Anna?

Beryl Bainbridge17:47

How did you find him?

Beryl Bainbridge17:50

Um, well, because what one of my child m my son Aaron was friendly at school with a boy called William, who was their son. Um

Beryl Bainbridge17:58

How can I explain?

Beryl Bainbridge18:00

I always knew what I wanted to write about, and

Beryl Bainbridge18:04

Anna would read the first twelve pages and either say, That's fine, get on with it, or would say, Oh, I'm not so sure about that. Uh Colin's bit was to to read it, and to say, Oh, no, you don't you don't need a you need a semicolon there, or you need a full stop there, or you want that there, or something like that.

Beryl Bainbridge18:22

But it w it wasn't just that, it was th what they introduced me to as well. I mean, you know, sort of sitting in their kitchen chatting to Freddie Air and and to all sorts of professors from Oxford

Beryl Bainbridge18:35

and Brian McGuinness and you know, it was just a different world.

Beryl Bainbridge18:39

I don't mean I felt cowed in any way at all.

Beryl Bainbridge18:42

And they were all very nice to me, but um

Beryl Bainbridge18:45

I did think of them as my betters. And did you sit in a

Presenter18:48

Observe them, or did you take part in discussions? Of course, uh, writers famously love to sit in a circle.

Beryl Bainbridge18:53

Well, the good thing was that you didn't just sit there with a cup of tea.

Beryl Bainbridge18:57

An awful lot of liquor went down, so of course I made me silent at first, but um

Beryl Bainbridge19:03

Afterwards, one wasn't, and lots of times I ended up under the table, making comments from under the table.

Presenter19:08

Literally, I can't do it.

Beryl Bainbridge19:09

Yes, under the table once or twice, uh'cause it was comfier down there.

Presenter19:14

Tell me about your next piece of music.

Beryl Bainbridge19:16

Richard Harris playing um singing MacArthur's Park. I didn't understand a word when it was first played, but then somebody told me I don't know how true it is that it's all about drugs. It's either Harris is singing about drugs or the person who wrote it was on drugs when they did it. I don't know, but I I think it's wonderful.

Speaker 419:39

McArthur's park is melting through the dark.

Speaker 419:43

All the sweet green icing flowing down Someone left the cake out in the rain

Speaker 419:51

I don't think that I can take it, cause it took so long to bake it, and I'll never have that recipe again.

Presenter20:05

Richard Harris and MacArthur Park. You're often portrayed when people write about you and they come to interview you in these broadsheet interviews as this very unconventional person with a bit of a crazy edge. When you I don't know if you bother to even read these things, but if you do

Beryl Bainbridge20:20

You do. I think it's rubbish. Absolute rubbish. And sort of talk about being eccentric, you know.

Beryl Bainbridge20:27

I mean, you can't be eccentric or a bit bit crackers if you've managed to write a whole pile of books and to support your children.

Beryl Bainbridge20:37

And to end up more or less okay. I mean, uh you can't be.

Presenter20:40

But there have been unconventional strands to your existence. I mean, when you were talking a moment ago you were saying I had um my two children oh yes, and then I had a uh another child by people like a life that has been led very unconventionally.

Beryl Bainbridge20:48

Yeah, but I think

Presenter20:55

In the way that you talk about it, in the way that you talk about it.

Beryl Bainbridge20:55

In the way that you talk about it, in the way that you talk about it. Oh, I see. Yes, well, maybe I see it as.

Beryl Bainbridge21:00

in a funny sort of way, I don't know, but um

Beryl Bainbridge21:04

Well, anyway, most people don't don't ever write about that sort of thing, do they? Or they cover it up. Did you have a very swinging sixties?

Beryl Bainbridge21:11

Oh, God, no no, no, no I had very little money. I didn't go out. I mean, I I couldn't. I had to babysit my children.

Beryl Bainbridge21:20

The odd thing is in the sixties, and some of my friends had exactly the same experience, you could hardly walk down the road without some bloke wouldn't detach himself to you. And if you're politely brought up

Beryl Bainbridge21:31

You don't immediately kick him in the crotch. You you say, thank you very much. Nice of you to ask me, you know, that sort of thing.

Beryl Bainbridge21:39

And so, you know, there were always men we called them I had my my neighbour we used to call them gentlemen callers.

Beryl Bainbridge21:46

We often had gentlemen call us. They would ban sometimes they were

Beryl Bainbridge21:51

people's husbands from up the road and um

Beryl Bainbridge21:55

You know, and sometimes something happened, and sometimes you managed to get out of it.

Presenter21:59

Did you prefer to have relationships with people who were married?

Presenter22:02

Forgotten.

Beryl Bainbridge22:03

Oh, oh no, I thought that was awful, that was uh shameful, but um But you did it anyway?

Beryl Bainbridge22:10

It's out of politeness.

Beryl Bainbridge22:12

Then it was out of politeness.

Beryl Bainbridge22:14

Barrel, you say I

Presenter22:15

To polite

Beryl Bainbridge22:16

Mm-hmm.

Presenter22:16

Yes. I mean, are you being

Presenter22:18

as the Americans would say, cute. I mean, are you being smart by saying that?

Beryl Bainbridge22:21

No, no, no, no, I

Beryl Bainbridge22:24

I was brought up like that. If you were

Beryl Bainbridge22:28

If you wanted something very much, you always said you didn't, you know. Um.

Presenter22:33

And what about the way that men treated you? Because I'm I'm conscious of the fact, yes, that that that Colin, your publisher, was somebody who did say, Well, you put a semicolon there and you put a full stop there and you can't possibly do this and you must do that. And he had you on a fairly tight leash as a writer.

Beryl Bainbridge22:35

For nets of

Beryl Bainbridge22:38

Somebody

Beryl Bainbridge22:41

Yeah.

Beryl Bainbridge22:43

Let's do that.

Beryl Bainbridge22:46

But I think that's what men are supposed to be like. That's what they're supposed to do. I still think men are more capable than women.

Beryl Bainbridge22:53

I always have thought so. I have never ever thought to myself

Beryl Bainbridge22:59

that I was better than a man.

Beryl Bainbridge23:01

Ever.

Presenter23:01

Yes, but what about thinking you're equal to him?

Beryl Bainbridge23:05

Oh, but I don't think women can be equal. They're different species. They have different thoughts, and you have different thoughts, and you have different ex expectations. But by equal I do not mean the same.

Presenter23:15

They can be different, but have a a an equal status.

Beryl Bainbridge23:19

Oh, yes well, maybe if you were born at the time when that was going on, fine, but I wasn't.

Beryl Bainbridge23:24

I mean, maybe my children can have that sort of relationship and do, but I can't.

Beryl Bainbridge23:30

Tell me about your next piece of music then. The next piece of music is um oh, now this is this is a great favourite of mine, this is um Rolf Harris singing Two Little Boys. And why is it a favourite?

Beryl Bainbridge23:42

Well, I heard it years and years ago, and and and I thought it was absolutely beautiful, and gradually it became

Beryl Bainbridge23:49

something we knew, and then my grandchildren and I we did a sort of a mock play of Scott going to the pole, and this was one of the things in the background, one of the the tunes, when they're struggling through the snow.

Beryl Bainbridge24:02

And and obviously somebody's several of them are going to die, so that's why that's why I chose it.

Speaker 424:08

One little chap then had a mishap

Speaker 424:12

Broke off his horse's head.

Speaker 424:16

Wept for his toy, then cried with joy, As his young playmate said.

Speaker 424:24

You think I would leave you crying when there's room on my horse for two?

Speaker 424:33

Climb up here, Jack, and don't be crying, I can go just as fast.

Presenter24:39

Rolf Harris and two little boys. You said much earlier when I was talking to you there that creativity comes out of friction and trouble.

Presenter24:47

I'd like to explore that a little bit more. Um the high emotion and the broken hearts and the the difficulties, do you think they've almost been essential to your creative force?

Beryl Bainbridge24:57

Oh, ha. Uh Absolutely essential. Well, that that's what I believe anyway. I don't know why I belie particularly I believe it, but I think it's true.

Beryl Bainbridge25:06

And in my case, certainly, I don't think I've ever written a book which wasn't based on something that happened to me.

Beryl Bainbridge25:14

Oh, for forget the the North the South Pole and um those ones. But certainly all the ones before that.

Beryl Bainbridge25:22

were all all things that had happened to me, practically without changing anything.

Presenter25:27

Uh

Beryl Bainbridge25:27

I would like to talk about

Presenter25:27

About those ones though. Because Colin Haycraft, your mentor for decades and also your publisher, as we say, he died in 1995.

Beryl Bainbridge25:29

Yeah.

Beryl Bainbridge25:31

Yes.

Presenter25:34

And after that, your writing moved in a distinctly different direction. Why was that?

Beryl Bainbridge25:40

because I'd used up all the um all my things about childhood and and my past. I'd written about them, and I had nothing more to write about, so I got a bit worried. So I thought I'll have to write about um, you know, bigger subjects, historical ones, which I did.

Presenter25:56

But do you feel you could have written those same books, those historical books, uh those more muscly intellectual books, if he had been around?

Beryl Bainbridge26:02

If he

Beryl Bainbridge26:04

Probably not, no. He would have said I I wasn't capable.

Beryl Bainbridge26:08

Or he'd have he or he'd might have said yes, you can do that, but then he'd have interfered. He couldn't stop interfering, so

Beryl Bainbridge26:15

So no, he I wouldn't have been able to do it.

Presenter26:17

I mean, you clearly revered his intelligence and valued his friendship, but do you think he was he something of an intellectual bullet?

Beryl Bainbridge26:19

But

Beryl Bainbridge26:23

Okay.

Beryl Bainbridge26:24

No, I don't. Well, if he was, I think

Beryl Bainbridge26:28

I think it's a good thing if you're a bully, i i i in that sort of sense.

Presenter26:32

Yes. And he also only printed a few thousand of your books at a time, because it saved him money. But it meant that you didn't get enough royalties to make what would I mean, you you were a successful and very well reviewed novelist at a time when you

Beryl Bainbridge26:44

Yeah.

Presenter26:46

We're not making very much money at all. Just very little.

Beryl Bainbridge26:47

Just very little, yes. Very little. I was on a salary at one point. I never quite understood that. But

Presenter26:49

I was on

Beryl Bainbridge26:53

I didn't really mind because um I was doing better than I than the seven pound ten a week I'd always had. Um I was enjoying what I was doing.

Beryl Bainbridge27:03

So it didn't really matter, I don't think.

Beryl Bainbridge27:05

I don't suppose anybody else would have published those the first couple of books. Whereas as soon as I went to Duckworth, because Duckworth knew everybody,

Beryl Bainbridge27:15

They you know, all these professors and journalists and everything else. Um

Beryl Bainbridge27:19

Immediately I got reviewed and good ones. Tell me about your next piece of music then. The next one is um oh now this is a this is an odd one. This is a chap that I was called meat pie, but he he's meatloaf and it's bat out of hell. And I suppose I've chosen it because um I I have very few modern records among this lot and and

Beryl Bainbridge27:40

Uh I do remember him belting away something, and particularly this one, so I like it.

Speaker 427:48

Found in the morning time

Speaker 427:52

But when the night is a

Speaker 427:55

We go, go, go!

Speaker 427:57

But like a man, let me talk

Speaker 428:03

But when the day is dawn and the sun goes down and the moonlight's shining you like

Presenter28:15

Meatloaf and bat out of hell. When you write, Beryl, how do you write? Is it is it quite a solitary?

Beryl Bainbridge28:21

Oh, very much. Oh, yes, very much so. Um.

Presenter28:22

Preoccupied.

Beryl Bainbridge28:25

And I used to the the the nice times were when I did it on a you know, an old fashioned typewriter, but that gave in and and now I'm up at the top of the house and this

Beryl Bainbridge28:36

What are what are they called? Those big machines?

Presenter28:39

The computers you'll be talking about.

Beryl Bainbridge28:39

But I only use it as a very posh typewriter. But I own I never leave it on the I was reading in the paper only the other day, some writers just lost.

Beryl Bainbridge28:49

Just lost all their manuscript or something in the computer. The computer was pinched. And you think, well, how can you leave it in the computer? How can you see it? How can you know what you've written?

Beryl Bainbridge29:00

Do you need to print it out and read it? Absolutely, yes. Every single page, yeah.

Presenter29:05

Tell me about your grandchildren. You you are very involved in the lives.

Beryl Bainbridge29:08

How many grandchildren do you have?

Presenter29:10

How many grand?

Beryl Bainbridge29:12

Seven. And you're a hands on granny? Oh, very much hands on. Well, when I can. But they're all getting a bit big now, you see. The eldest of the little ones is fourteen, and Luther's seven. And, um, I I I think they've regard me as a bit a bit fuddy duddy now, you know. Um

Beryl Bainbridge29:29

But they're they're they're all beautiful, yes.

Presenter29:31

And what about the thought of a desert island? I mean, does it fill you with dread, the idea of sitting on the sand on your

Beryl Bainbridge29:35

Well, as long as the weather's good, I wouldn't mind a bit of nice sunshine not too hot, but, you know, it'd be rather nice. Oh, I'd miss them all terribly, but, um

Beryl Bainbridge29:45

No, no, that wouldn't worry me at all,'cause I I talk a lot to myself as it is.

Beryl Bainbridge29:49

So the solitary life of our

Presenter29:51

Reuter has prepared you.

Beryl Bainbridge29:52

Yeah, it's on

Presenter29:52

Yes, I yes.

Beryl Bainbridge29:53

Uh

Presenter29:53

Yeah.

Beryl Bainbridge29:53

Yeah.

Presenter29:53

Would be all right.

Beryl Bainbridge29:54

To ya.

Presenter29:55

Tell me about your final piece of music, then.

Beryl Bainbridge29:57

The final bit of music is, oh no, this is a lovely one. This is David Bowie singing, well it it's got a a better name, but I call it Ground Control to Major Tom. And why have you chosen this? Again, I think one of doing plays with the children, I think. It was that not so maybe even writing about the Titanic, those words, ground control to Major Tom. They were looking for help. So instead of writing dot dot dot, we've hit an iceberg, they'd say ground control to Major Tom.

Speaker 430:33

Ground control to major tone

Speaker 430:40

Ground controls are made of song

Speaker 430:47

Take your protein fills and put your helmet on.

Speaker 430:54

Ground control to major taunts.

Presenter30:58

David Bowie and Space Oddity. So I will give you the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare, and you are allowed to take one other book. What will it be?

Beryl Bainbridge31:06

Well, um, there's a an amazing book. It's about seven hundred pages, because you need something that'll last a long time. It's called The Case Book of John Hunter, and it's about surgery and dissection and autopsies and treatment. And he collected all the things that are now in the Hunterian Museum, which is a wonderful place to go.

Presenter31:28

You may have that. And what about your luxury?

Beryl Bainbridge31:31

Oh, pens and p

Beryl Bainbridge31:33

Paper, yeah, I got got those, yes. Certainly, you can have those.

Presenter31:35

Certainly. You can have those. And if the the waves were to wash to the shore and threaten to take away the disks, which one would you say?

Beryl Bainbridge31:42

Oh, um

Presenter31:43

Yeah.

Beryl Bainbridge31:43

I think it's got to be Tauber, because

Beryl Bainbridge31:48

You know, to be sitting on a sand dune.

Beryl Bainbridge31:51

and presumably that the disc would play up really loud, and you could put it in a little in the distance, so to have this amazing voice.

Beryl Bainbridge31:59

whining away in the background. That would um

Beryl Bainbridge32:03

Bring emotions to the front, I think.

Presenter32:06

Dame Beryl Bainbridge, thank you very much for letting us hear your Desert Island discs.

Presenter32:10

Got you.

Presenter32:18

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