Richard Madeley

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 nine.

Presenter0:27

My castaway this week is Richard Madeley. It's twenty years since he opened the first edition of This Morning with the words Hello, I'm Richard Madeley, and this is my wife, Judy

Presenter0:37

In the years since pretty well everyone has sat on their sofa, from Madonna to Brad Pitt, from the Clintons to notoriously OJ Simpson.

Presenter0:45

Their unique selling point has always been that their on screen chemistry is based on their real life relationship. When they're on air, the personal and the public seem indivisible. So over the years we've found out every detail of their married life, from their experiments with Viagra to his vasectomy. I'm wondering, Richard Makeley,

Richard Madeley1:02

Meekly.

Presenter1:03

If you derive a degree of comfort from knowing that it's all out there, that nobody can ever get one over on you.

Richard Madeley1:09

I wonder if that is the reason that I in particular am so sort of remorselessly, embarrassingly sometimes frank. I don't know. I think it might be actually more a reaction to the men in my past. My grandfather, for example, very typically of his generation, spoke very little about his emotions and his feelings and the bad things that had happened to him. And similarly, I didn't really understand until after my father had died, and he died very young when he was 49 and I was twenty one, that there were a great many things about him, psychologically, emotionally, that he kept buttoned up. I came to realize that keeping as quiet as both he and his father had done hadn't been particularly good for either man. And as I moved through my twenties, I sort of unconsciously, I think, resolved to be the opposite, to say what I thought, to wear my heart on both sleeves, as it were, and communicate with my family, and then as my career developed, I guess, with the wider public. And you know what? Despite having it ripped out of me for doing that on so many occasions, I have no regrets about that at all. I mean, I'm fifty-two now, and I feel quite blessed that I've ended up I'm a happy man.

Presenter2:14

Y your grandfather's backstory is a fascinating one. Obviously, I am going to ask you about that. But I'll ask you later on. It's interesting there in that answer that twice though you've first of all used the word embarrassingly and then you say, you know, people really kind of take the Mickey out of you for doing it. Yeah, I you know, you you're aware, are you that people say, Oh, Richard Medley just opens his mouth and lets, you know, lets his emotions go.

Richard Madeley2:18

Classical

Speaker 42:26

I'm not sure if I can do it.

Richard Madeley2:35

Yes, and I think that's what's led to what I would of course say is the canard, that I make sort of huge numbers of gaffes. I think it's the internet has actually brought that particular one sort of to the fore. And there are pages of gaffes that I've never made. I mean, things, look, things like Richard to artist, it's a self-portrait, who's it of? You know, Richard to author, this is your autobiography, who wrote it? You know, I mean, stuff like that. But I don't mind, because the key thing is not to take yourself seriously. If you take yourself seriously, then you're going to ride for a fall. Because it's the invisible clause in the contract that you sign when you become a a broadcaster. They will rip it out of you. And you have to be prepared for that.

Presenter3:16

And what about for uh your children? I mean, you've got you've got four children. Is it true you did this legendary L E G impersonation where I mean you didn't you didn't miss and hit the wall, you had the fool all the gear on. I mean you were done up to look like him too. Is it true they tried to persuade you not to do that?

Richard Madeley3:27

You're honoring you

Richard Madeley3:30

Not at all. No, that isn't true. Absolutely not true. Um my memory of that is that that they got the tape of it, the th the V T and and and rushed it round to their friends. If if the wider question is are are my kids embarrassed by the things that I do or say or whatever? I'd have to say, by and large, no.

Presenter3:46

I read that Chloe, your daughter, said you can only be embarrassed so many times before you get used to it. He's spluttering his tea on the table.

Richard Madeley3:57

And anyway, I mean, to some extent, all parents are de facto embarrassing to their children. That's the job, isn't it? Yes.

Presenter4:02

Inevitably.

Presenter4:04

Tell me about your first piece of music today then. What have you chosen?

Richard Madeley4:06

Well, I'd heard of Ella Fitzgerald as I sort of grew up, and my parents are very keen on her, but I didn't really sort of discover just how gifted she was, and what an amazing voice she had, until I met Judy. And one day we were quite early on in our relationship, we were sort of swapping records like you do, and it was vinyl then, and she had a collection of Ella Fitzgerald songs, and we put it on, and I realised then just how what a gift she had. And Summertime, to me, just is the best template of her voice. It's just beautiful.

Speaker 44:35

So

Speaker 44:42

And the living is you.

Speaker 44:45

Yeah.

Speaker 44:48

Fish are jumping

Speaker 44:54

And the cat.

Speaker 44:56

Is hot.

Presenter5:03

Ella Fitzgerald singing Summertime from Poor Game Bear. So you were born then, Richard Maidley, in uh the fifties, the end of the fifties. Born in fifty six. Okay, and you were brought up in Romford with uh you had a an older sister.

Richard Madeley5:09

Bombing

Richard Madeley5:13

Yeah.

Richard Madeley5:15

Yeah.

Presenter5:15

Both your parents, what was home life like?

Richard Madeley5:17

Classic sort of white heat of technology sixties sort of environment. You know, dad worked for Ford. He used to go to work looking like President Kennedy, you know, dead white shirt, sort of crested.

Presenter5:28

I've seen the photographs, always in a series.

Richard Madeley5:30

Always in a suit. Dad always wore a suit. Even in the garden he wore an old suit. Even on the beach, when we used to go on holiday to St. David's in Wales, Dad would wear an old suit.

Presenter5:40

And what sort of small boy were you?

Richard Madeley5:42

Oh, quite biddable, I think. Um certainly very happy. I I had that great blessing, I suppose, of of knowing and being told by both parents that that I was loved. Dad's upbringing, uh which is the very opposite uh to mine. Uh he was never told by his father that uh that he loved him ever, not once. And he resolved quite early on, I think, to uh to be the opposite. But uh no, very very content, very centred, very happy.

Presenter6:03

I mentioned your older sister. Is it true that at at one point, much later on, she saved your life?

Richard Madeley6:07

She did, yes. What happened? We were celebrating one of her daughters, my niece's 18th birthday, at a big sort of pub restaurant in Essex, and our family talks for England, and we were having this.

Presenter6:17

That's where you get it from then.

Richard Madeley6:18

Absolutely. And we were having a series of debates about something and I was arguing with my brother-in-law and he made a very good point just as I'd put a piece of beef into my mouth and in order to get back into the game I swallowed it whole and I knew straight away it was a big mistake. Because I'd shut up everyone thought that I'd ceded the point and the conversation moved on. In fact I was sitting there gradually losing consciousness and I probably hadn't taken a breath for about two minutes when I started to go down and I thought well this is it. My sort of last sort of sights as I thought they were going to be was my son with his face turned to the restaurant wall beating it with his fists and my daughter just staring at me with tears coming out sort of horizontally from her eyes. It was horrendous. I mean it really was awful. And then I had this image of my sister kind of clambering over the table because there must have been about 30 of us in the room getting behind me and she's a teacher and she'd been on a health course only a week before and she'd been showing how to do the Heimlich maneuver. But it still wouldn't move and I began to completely collapse and as I collapsed she gave one last heave and I think gravity with me going down and her pulling up, she's very strong my sister, did it and it came loose and out it came and I got my breath back. But it was very close. And what about your children watching you go through that? It was horrible for them. Jack to this day, Chloe who's been quite robust about it, but to this day if I'm eating and I clear my throat, if Jack is in the room, he'll sit up bolt upright and he'll look across. Are you all right? Are you okay? And in fact, after I'd sort of come round from this episode, he stopped sort of weeping and he came round to me and pointed his finger straight into my face and his poor sort of tear-drenched face in front of me. And he said, never eat again. There was a pause and someone said, well, then you will die, Jack, sooner or later.

Presenter7:53

Let's pa let let us take a pause and think about that and and tell me about Disc two that you've chosen today.

Richard Madeley7:59

Well, it's appropriate, isn't it? Um the Dance of Death, yes. Dance Macabre, uh Saint-Solmes, wonderful piece. This was one of my father's favourites. My father had a had an incredible collection of classical music. And uh this was one of his favourites and he played it a lot and it was and it became mine too. It's just a wonderful, wonderful piece of storytelling and music.

Presenter9:16

The end of Saint-Con's Dance Macabre. You have written in depth about the history of your family, and it it's caused you to to look back at the links between, as you say in your writing, the sort of invisible thread that ties the the fathers and sons together. And it's the story of your grandfather essentially that you concentrate on.

Richard Madeley9:27

Yeah.

Presenter9:37

It's an incredible story of betrayal. Can can you sort of condense it and explain?

Richard Madeley9:42

Well, yeah, it starts in 1907 with my grandfather, who was ten years old. And he was in a big family, had six siblings, and his father, who ran a very small business in Worcester, went bust. My great-grandfather, Henry, couldn't really think what to do, and so he went up to Shropshire, where he had two brothers and a sister, a spinster sister, who tenanted a farm there. And his older brother, William, offered him not a loan, but a gift of money so that the whole family could emigrate to Canada and make a new start there. And the only collateral he asked for was one of the children. And that child was my grandad, because at ten he was just the right age to start working on the farm. So they set off shortly afterwards, got all their stuff on a wagon, went up to Liverpool, and halfway there they stopped in Shropshire and overnighted on the farm. And my grandfather, who was ten years old, woke up the next morning and they'd all gone.

Presenter10:28

And this extraordinary experience so early in his life sort of cauterized his feelings. Did it? It made it very difficult for him to re-

Richard Madeley10:34

And to reach out to your own father. The Great War didn't help, and the things that he witnessed in the trenches in France there. There were more betrayals, he lost a son. Yes, it was the beginning of the quarterising process.

Presenter10:44

So then, let's talk about your father. He was a complex man, your father.

Richard Madeley10:47

Yes, he was, because because he'd been brought up in this very isolated existence in Shropshire with a father who actually deep down wasn't unloving but found it impossible to express that love. And Dad grew up, actually, as he got older, beginning to wonder why it was that his father didn't appear to love him. So so Dad reacted to that. He completely compensated for that and was incredibly demonstrative towards me and my sister.

Presenter11:12

Apart from, and this is the shocking bit, when there would be, you say, about twenty or thirty episodes throughout your childhood when he displayed these.

Presenter11:19

truly shocking rages, violent rages, towards you.

Richard Madeley11:21

Yes, it was it it came out of a blue sky actually. It started when I was about eight and it continued until I was about ten when it stopped for good. Um and I can vividly remember that the the first time it happened. I'd never been spanked or slapped or hit. And uh it was a Saturday and my mum had gone to the shops and I'd done something to annoy my dad and uh he told me to go into the into the front room and s and stare at the wall.

Richard Madeley11:42

And then I heard the shed door in the in in the garden scraping open. It used to scrape on the on our path. And my dad came back in the room behind me about a minute later. And the next thing I knew, that there was a fire burning in the grate, it was winter. Um I I thought that the backs of my legs, that my calves had caught fire, and the pain was intense, and I could hear a cracking sound as well, which I thought was some wood burning or something. And I realised I was being hit suddenly. And I sort of span round, and my father, who was the most genial of men, had transformed into this sort of gargoyle. You know, his face was black with r rage, it was contorted, spittle sort of coming from his mouth. But it would it would happen, you know, as as you say, twenty, thirty times, and it finally came to an end when uh my mother was in the house and it was an evening and um

Richard Madeley12:24

I don't know, he he really lost it that night, even more than on the earlier occasions. And um I couldn't go to school the next day. Uh we had P E and the marks were so clear. And my mother uh introduced my father at breakfast uh as the man who was about to make an apology and uh told me that what had happened would never happen again be and because if it did my father w knew what was going to happen to him. In fact, later she told me she threatened to go to the police and and leave him. He gave me the most

Richard Madeley12:49

genuine and sincere and heartfelt apology, and he gave me an absolute promise that it would never happen again, and he told me how ashamed he was of himself, and I believed him, and I trusted him, and I forgave him on the spot, and I never had cause to regret that.

Presenter13:03

Let's take a break for some music, track three.

Richard Madeley13:06

This is inspired by m my son Jack actually. It's uh it's an American singer, uh John Mayer, singer songwriter. About three years ago uh Jack and I were sort of having a father-son Sunday morning washing our cars.

Richard Madeley13:17

Middle class is that. Um and he was playing uh a collection of of John Mayer tracks and he he put together a compilation uh C D for me, and this is one of them, and it's a beautiful song. Just Just a Young Man and um A Broken Heart, and it's called Why Georgia.

Speaker 313:32

Formal access to my apartment.

Speaker 313:37

I am tempted to keep the call and dry.

Speaker 313:45

And leave it all behind.

Speaker 313:51

Cause I'm

Speaker 313:53

I'm gonna wanna sometime.

Speaker 313:59

About the outcome

Presenter14:00

Uh

Speaker 314:00

Yeah.

Presenter14:01

John Mayer and Why Georgia and and you've played that because you were introduced to that music by by your son Jack and I want to that the father and sons thing is worth probably exploring I think uh a little.

Speaker 414:06

On my jack. Yeah.

Speaker 314:07

Uh

Presenter14:12

More. Um, you you became uh a father of two kids as soon as uh you married. Judy, you were their stepdad, yes. And you went on to have two more. I'm

Speaker 414:17

They're stepdads, yes.

Presenter14:20

I will talk to you about that, but the thing that occurs to me from listening to you talk about the horrible experience of having these beatings so regularly by your father over a period of a few years the fact that they came out of the blue, these rages, when you yourself became the dad.

Richard Madeley14:33

Israel

Presenter14:35

Did you ever worry that there was something lurking in there?

Richard Madeley14:39

Everybody asks that question, um and the answer is quite simply no. I think by twenty six I was reasonably clear about who I was, you know. I'd left it completely behind, so no, I I never reflected and and worried that maybe I'd, you know, visit the sins of the Father on my son.

Presenter14:52

Is your mother still alive?

Richard Madeley14:53

Oh yes, we've had long conversations about this. I mean dad died in nineteen

Richard Madeley14:57

seventy seven and

Richard Madeley14:59

You know, my mother has nothing to blame herself for. She stopped it when she became aware of how bad it was. She wasn't there when it happened m most, I think, if not all of the times. And you didn't feel you could go and talk to her about it at the time? No, it's funny. It was a strictly father son thing. It's very odd. But no, it never occurred to me to go to her and say, Daddy's hitting me. Will you talk to him?

Presenter15:06

And you didn't figure out.

Presenter15:16

A as a a young man, a teenager even, you you've described yourself as a a young man in a hurry, which is really interesting. I mean, what what was it you were hurrying towards?

Richard Madeley15:21

Which

Richard Madeley15:21

Plastic.

Richard Madeley15:24

I was herring away from failure because the plan was to do my A-levels, go to university, read English, and then get some kind of graduate placement on the newspaper. I wanted to be a newspaper reporter. And when I was 16, I applied to the local paper in Brentwood in Essex, the Brentwood Argus, now defunct, just for what we would now call work experience. And the editor wrote back very bluntly and said, no way, they hadn't got the time to put up with a 16-year-old making tea. But I could come in and just have an interview one afternoon about the job. That sort of come and learn about the paper turned into an offer of a job on the spot. I was a news editor when I was 19, which was painfully young. I was a political editor when I was 17, which is absurd. But I used to reach out and grasp the challenge and yank myself up the ladder to make sure that when my friends came out of university at 21, and some of them wanted to be a reporter too, I was miles ahead, otherwise what was the point?

Presenter16:15

You sound fantastically ambitious.

Richard Madeley16:17

I was, you know, I was extreme, much, much more so than I am now. But it was.

Presenter16:21

Are you not still ambitious?

Richard Madeley16:22

No, I've I've slowed down a lot, you know. I've kind of achieved most of the things that I set out to achieve and and what I what I realized quite a long time ago was that that what that really was was to be part of a happy family. You know, that that became family became the most important thing.

Presenter16:36

Tell me about your next piece of music.

Richard Madeley16:38

Well, this is actually this dates back to my school days. Simon and Garfunkel were a huge inspiration musically to myself and a friend Paul. We formed a little group, a little folk pop group, called Alchemy. It was the 1970s. Yes, that's European. Exactly. And we covered a lot of Paul Simon. I think it's his loveliest song, Hearts and Bones.

Speaker 316:56

Rainbows in the high desert air

Speaker 317:01

Mountain passes slipping into snow

Speaker 317:08

Hearts and bones

Speaker 317:13

Heart and bones

Presenter17:22

Paul Simon and Hearts and Bones and memories there, Richard Madeley, of uh you mentioned your group Alchemy. Yes, you're duo I'm gonna say it again, Alchemy, it's called is it true that you were offered a record deal almost that you almost, yeah.

Richard Madeley17:31

It was called having a name.

Richard Madeley17:36

What happened? We played the Windsor Pop Festival 1974. It was the illegal one that got together.

Presenter17:40

They still speak of it.

Richard Madeley17:40

They still talk of it in the alleys of Windsor. It was actually closed down by the police on about the fourth day, but we were there on the second. We came off and some ANR man came up to us with a card and said, come in, make a demo. We could talk, we could do business. And Paul and I had a sort of we took it, I'm sure, far more seriously than it was intended. But we decided I'd be a reporter, he'd be a doctor, and we went our separate ways.

Presenter18:00

And you made this fantastically quick progression. I mean, you you moved from local papers and then it was radio and then quickly you were becoming a presenter rather than a reporter.

Presenter18:10

You you clearly seem very confident sitting opposite me now. It'd be ridiculous if you were in the job you're and you weren't confident. But but back then, were you were you brimming with confidence?

Richard Madeley18:14

We're in co

Richard Madeley18:18

No, it was all it was it was all very much an action. I suspect it is for most young people starting out, you know, and possibly overreaching themselves. No, I was very tense. You just have to crack on and hide it. It was the sort of early days of BBC Local Radio, and quite often we would break a a shift, you know, and go and sit in a there's a hotel opposite the the radio station for lunch and a beer. And I felt so out of my depth, so out of my depth, that I would sometimes make an excuse and take the beer and grab a a paper and go and sit in the toilet and just and just shut the door, shut the cubicle so I could I didn't have to sort of engage or talk. I was very, very insecure.

Presenter18:50

It seems curious to me that you decided to get married at twenty one.

Richard Madeley18:54

I think and I've I've only realized this in recent years, it seem it does seem weird, doesn't it? You know. Um uh Lindra and I had only known each other for about a year when we got married, and I think it was a as an antidote to my loneliness.

Presenter19:04

Right.

Richard Madeley19:05

And I think I desperately needed some kind of um anchor and refuge.

Presenter19:05

Tell me.

Presenter19:08

Was it was it a badge of being grown up?

Richard Madeley19:10

I'm not eating. I think that's absolutely true. Yes, I think it was. And it was a big mistake, and it was my mistake, and I have to carry the can for that.

Presenter19:17

And it it was a traumatic time round about then. At what point then did your father you say your father was only forty-nine when he died. W were you just married or just about to go?

Richard Madeley19:23

Yeah.

Richard Madeley19:25

We'd been married the the previous Saturday. Um Dad and mum came to the wedding in Cumbria. A week went by and on by the Monday I was getting a f a phone message to call home and I did and it was my mother and sh she said Dad had died that afternoon at one o'clock, died in her arms.

Presenter19:25

Yeah.

Richard Madeley19:39

So, yeah, in in terms of of a of a of of a young marriage starting out, it was a tremendous body blow to it, because it preoccupied me completely, obviously, the death.

Presenter19:46

And very poignantly he had driven home to die, as it were. He was having these terrible sort of

Richard Madeley19:51

Hmm.

Presenter19:52

Chest pains and pains in his body.

Richard Madeley19:54

When I got home on the day of his death, uh it was a very sort of uh poignant scene really. The his car was parked slewed sort of diagonally across our driveway and the the house. And most sort of

Presenter19:59

Yeah.

Richard Madeley20:06

Uh movingly, I suppose, the um the carpet on the driver's side in the well had been scrunched right up under the pedals, you know. And obviously he'd been in terrible pain and his f he must have pushed out with his feet and the carpet had gone up. Um and what had happened was he'd he'd he'd uh got to the front door, couldn't get his key in the door. My mother had heard him struggling, came down, he sort of tottered in and said, I think I'm having a heart attack and two minutes later he was dead.

Presenter20:28

Let's take a break for some music. Tell me what you've chosen next.

Richard Madeley20:30

I love the Eagles. And I have to say, and I'm not the only person to have said this, don't take this the wrong way, but they sound very sexy.

Speaker 420:37

Mm-hmm.

Richard Madeley20:38

But have you ever seen them? They're like sacks of potatoes, and they were back then. But I think this is one of their sweetest compositions and melodies. It's New Kidd in Town.

Speaker 320:47

Charlie, come lately.

Speaker 320:52

Kid in town

Speaker 320:56

Everybody loves you.

Speaker 321:01

So don't let them

Speaker 321:05

You look in her eyes.

Speaker 421:07

The music

Presenter21:09

Uh

Speaker 321:09

Grills to play.

Presenter21:13

The Eagles, a new kid in town. I'm wondering what your father would have made of this great career that you've carved out for yourself. Would he have been able would he have been proud? I'm sure he would. And would he have been able to tell you he was proud, do you think?

Richard Madeley21:24

Yes, yes, he he he was certain whatever he felt about it, he would have been straight about it. I also think he would have he would have been very troubled by the negative side of of of what we do, you know. I mean, I'm fine with it. It's it you just have to accept it and and not worry about it. Um but I think things like what happened at Tesco's when I forgot to pay

Richard Madeley21:42

For all that stuff in the front of the the trolley and the whole year of his son, you know, sort of being going into a magistrate's court to be, you know, sort of remanded and eventually going to Crown Court. Yeah, but that was me because I I the the police offered me a caution on the on the day that this stupid thing happened. But as my solicitor was quick to point out, accepting a caution means that you accept that you've intended to commit whatever the crime is, that you've been I couldn't have that. I mean, it was simply an a non-starter.

Presenter21:52

A year? Did the whole thing last a year?

Presenter22:06

And as we said, you didn't shoplift, but uh you'd forgotten to pay for this puzzle that you took out your trolley to the car park.

Richard Madeley22:10

It was you know some shopping trolleys have a little separate compartment at the front, you know, and that's usually where I p used to put bottles and things, don't anymore. And when I got to the checkout and it was one of those days when I had a million things on and I took everything out of the main compartment, which cost a lot, and put it back in again, but I just didn't take the bottles out. And because I always put them back in that part of the trolley once I'd paid for them, it didn't look odd when I pushed it out of the store, you know, because that's where they were when I when I normally left. But I'd been seen and uh I was stopped and within six hours charged. It was horrible.

Presenter22:13

The fun.

Presenter22:39

I mean, you were at the height o of your fame in the sense that this morning. Yeah, just kicked off, and people were f fascinated by it. You must have felt I mean, I know you're very robust and you've been through the mill a few times since with different things, but at the time, did you not feel that the world was falling in on your head?

Richard Madeley22:42

Yeah, it just kicked off and people

Richard Madeley22:49

I'm sincere.

Richard Madeley22:53

Absol absolutely. It was unbelievably humiliating. But going back to your your question, Dad would have found that very hard. He would have been wonderfully supportive, but I think he would have been mortified that that his son had got himself into that kind of a of a mess.

Presenter23:06

Um as I say, you you know, inevitably, because of the career that that you lead, you know, it's it's sometimes on the front pages. One of the moments that reached the front pages was when you and Judy got the only I think it was the only exclusive interview with O. J. Simon.

Richard Madeley23:20

It was it was the the a global live exclusive.

Presenter23:23

You were at I T V. It w it was gonna be i in shown in the evening.

Richard Madeley23:26

It was what it was. It wasn't.

Presenter23:27

It wasn't uh this morning. It's not

Richard Madeley23:28

Not at all, no. It was it was w we we'd been signed up to do an experimental uh seven o'clock in the evening half hour chat show. And yes, he was going to be the first guest, and once he'd been booked, the assumption was that he'd be the whole show. And two days before we we went to do the interview, I T V had a sudden sort of

Richard Madeley23:44

I don't know, crisis of confidence, and felt that this, as it was the first of a new Chat Show series, we ought to showcase, and we needed to have four items on the first show. And looking back, if I'd just been a little bit older and wiser, and Judy too, I think we should have walked. I think we should have said, you know what, get someone else to do it. Because in the end, we had 12 minutes to interview A.J. Simpson. So we did our best when Judy had to say,

Presenter23:58

I think we should

Richard Madeley24:06

Twelve minutes in, she said, Well, OJ, that's all we've got time for. And he gasped, and the studio audience gasped, and the watching world gasped, and boy, did we get it in the neck. I mean, because our names were on the tin. And you have to accept that.

Presenter24:16

Uh yeah, I knew

Presenter24:17

Yeah, and in in essence that is what you're paid for.

Richard Madeley24:19

That's what you paid for. So we so we took you know, we t we took the hit and had the worst reviews, uh totally understandably, of our entire careers. And I actually thought maybe our careers had come to an end. Did you? Yeah, and it ha if it hadn't been for for this morning being answered bread and butter and allowing us to show that we actually could do interviews, you know, um it it might well have been. I mean it was the worst moment of my career, bar none.

Presenter24:38

Tell me about your next piece of music though.

Richard Madeley24:40

Um

Richard Madeley24:41

Back to school days really, um I loved the Who when I was at school and I can still remember the day when my mate Chris who lived around the corner banged on my door and said, Come around to my place, come round to my place, I've got to hear this who track, you've got to hear this who track and it was I think the best track they ever laid down. Won't get fooled again.

Speaker 324:58

Dream here

Speaker 325:01

With our children and our feet

Speaker 425:04

Uh

Speaker 425:05

Uh

Speaker 325:05

The morrow's today

Speaker 425:07

First chip will be gone

Speaker 425:12

And men who spur the song Sit in judgment of all wrong They decide and the shotgun sings the song

Presenter25:24

The Who and won't get fooled again.

Presenter25:27

How on earth, Richard Midley, could we have come this far and not spoken about the great love? Richard and Judy. You were twenty six when you went to work with her at Granada T V for the first time, and she was already the local star. I mean, she was somebody who was w did it were you intimidated?

Richard Madeley25:32

Written duty

Richard Madeley25:35

Run out of sea

Richard Madeley25:38

Somebody who's

Richard Madeley25:41

No, I I've I fancied her straight away and when I ac accepted this job and realized I'd be working literally alongside Judy, I was really chuffed. Now at that point I was still married, so it was only it was only that sort of freissance you get, knowing you're going to work with a beautiful woman. It's you know, nothing wrong with that. But we hit it off on every level from the word go.

Presenter25:56

And you finally, as I understand it, sort of seduced her over a tuna casserole. Now, either you're a very good cook.

Presenter26:03

Or she f you know, she felt the same way and she was married at the time, so it w it was a situation full of difficulties. It was a mother of two young children.

Richard Madeley26:06

Yeah.

Richard Madeley26:10

It was it it it it sounds really quite sort of um seedy and seamy, doesn't it? You know, it was an office affair, but it didn't feel like that at all. We both knew that we had found the right person in the other. I was by that stage um I was separated, and as Judy and I got close she confided in me that that that her marriage, too, had been in trouble for for quite a while and probably wasn't going to last.

Presenter26:28

And as you say, she was the mother of young twins. Um I mean that is a huge responsibility.

Richard Madeley26:34

Well when I asked her to marry me, I can still remember th this kind of gimlet look that I got back very calculated look really and she said, Look, I come in a three pack. I knew exactly what she meant. And I but I took that very very seriously and you know, yeah, twenty six is very young, isn't it? And Judy was right, not to be suspicious, but to be cautious. And in the end I figured it would be okay, and and and it was.

Presenter26:53

Did you feel like this was sort of the first moment of the rest of your life?

Richard Madeley26:56

Yes, that's exactly how it felt for both of us. And we we had one little kind of probationary period just before we moved in together. We decided before I actually moved in that we would go to Cornwall for a week and rent a cottage for all four of us. So for the first time I'd be sleeping under the same roof. And it was just such fun. We were blessed with amazing weather. And I look back on that week, that sunny week, August week in Cornwall, as one of the happiest in in my life. I can remember, you know, we'd go for long walks on the beaches and I'd take the boys off by by myself and at night we'd look up into these warm sort of clear skies, almost Grecian skies, you know, and and watch the shooting stars and describe the constellations to the boys. And I remember when we got back to Manchester and I carried everyone's bags in and I sort of made I had a flat and I sort of made a sort of move to go and the boys one of them turned and said, Oh, you're not going, are you? And turned to Judy and said, He he can stay, can't you, ma'am? And Judy sort of looked at me and said, Yeah, I think that.

Presenter27:49

Okay.

Richard Madeley27:50

And we were off.

Presenter27:51

Tell me about your next piece of music.

Richard Madeley27:53

Um I was it's really hard compiling this list, as I'm sure everybody says to you, and I I really, really wanted to take uh a Police track uh with me, because I think Police were one of the best bands uh of the eighties. But in the end I decided that the reason I love them so much is because of Sting, his voice. Um Sting's voice is just extraordinary, he's sort of the Rod Stewart of his age I suppose, only only better, sorry Rod. Um and I think it's h his his lovely poetic singing is never better heard than in in Fields of Gold.

Speaker 328:19

So she took her love for to gaze awhile Upon the fields of Bali

Speaker 328:28

In his arms she fell, as her hare came down, Among the fields of gold.

Speaker 328:38

Will you stay with me?

Speaker 328:40

Will that be my love?

Speaker 328:43

Among the fields of body

Presenter28:46

Sting and fields of gold. This long and very fruitful partnership that you and Juliet have had on screen ha has always had a huge amount of attention. People have been fascinated because unlike so many people that we see on television, where we feel like

Richard Madeley28:58

Where we found that.

Presenter28:59

We're getting a version of them. With you we feel like we're getting the real deal. You know, we we see the little looks that Judeel shoot you across the studio floor. We we hear you say, No, no, I want to ask another question You know, we get all of that, the the interplay as we think we would see it if we were sitting in your front room. So it is what it seems, I guess.

Richard Madeley29:15

Do

Richard Madeley29:17

It really, really is. I mean, there are obviously areas in our sort of personal life and within our relationship where we wouldn't tread. It would be indelicate and I don't think people would be particularly entertained by it. But essentially, the way that we react with each other and the way that we interact with our guests is very much the the way it would be if you came around for dinner. We wouldn't want to broadcast any other way, and it would be very wearing if the whole thing was some kind of elaborate act.

Presenter29:17

Uh

Presenter29:41

So you're at the stage now in your career where you've worked successfully at ITV. You went to Channel 4 again when a lot of people thought you were going to make a real hash of it. You made a huge success. The figures were great.

Speaker 429:48

You made a huge

Presenter29:50

You are now both a a tiny digit.

Speaker 429:51

Yeah.

Presenter29:52

A tiny digital station where you're doing the same show you've always been doing in essence, but not many people are watching because not many people watch that channel. Is that difficult for you to cope with?

Richard Madeley29:57

But

Richard Madeley30:00

Is that difficult?

Richard Madeley30:01

Not at all, because we knew before we went that however it panned out to begin with, the viewing figures were going to be minuscule. I mean, you know, we haven't jumped into this, you know, not knowing that, and we don't mind. The only disappointment so far, and we launched in October, and it's you know, we're now coming into the spring, the channel as a whole, which is called Watch, hasn't really got traction. Overall, across the channel, people aren't watching in any significant numbers, and that obviously includes us. If I thought that the show that we're making was part of old rubbish, then I would feel embarrassed, and I would feel and so would Judy. But it's a good show, we're getting really good guests. We just have to cross our fingers and hope that the the audience will build.

Presenter30:37

Uh the book that you recently wrote, Father and Son, w was very well reviewed and and stylistically people commended your writing. Do d do you have a plan that maybe it it's time to it's time to retire the partnership and start doing things on your own?

Richard Madeley30:50

I think we both feel that we've done pretty much all we can do as a partnership, you know, in terms of the talk shows and everything. We're enjoying this one, but I think probably we'll both feel the need to diversify. You know, it's been over 20 years now doing the same kind of thing. And, you know, there are tantalizing possibilities in terms of solo projects or doing one-off projects together. I'm not saying we'd never work together again. I'm sure we will. And yes, writing, you're absolutely right. I mean, I'm just beginning to write a novel, which just dropped into my head one day, and I'm really enjoying it. So, writing is very important to me.

Presenter31:21

There will be plenty time, of course, to write on this island,'cause there's not going to be anybody there to bother you. Given what a people person you are, given how much you like to have a chin wag, it is clear to me. Um, how how would you handle it, being on your own?

Richard Madeley31:34

Oddly enough, you're right about my uh lamentable loquaciousness. Um I'm quite comfortable with my own company, you know. I mean, if there's no one else to listen, I'll I'll talk to myself. Um I think I'd be okay. Um yeah, I'm I'm reasonably okay in a in a solo environment.

Presenter31:42

What told you is that?

Presenter31:48

Tell me about your final piece of music then, Richard.

Richard Madeley31:50

It's actually something that that Judy and I sort of in advance of our ultimate demises have fought over. We both want this played at our funerals, but we couldn't really both have it played at our funerals. I guess the first one to die will get it played. It's just just stratospherically beautiful.

Presenter33:09

The PA Yezoo from Foray's Requiem, sung by Libby Crabtree with the B B C Philharmonic conducted by Jan Pascal Tortellier. So this is the point, then, Richard, where I will hand you the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare, and you can choose another book to take along.

Richard Madeley33:21

And you can

Richard Madeley33:24

Well, it would have to be something very big and very thick and and and very different and unusual. And I think it would be Jonathan Strange and mister Norell. It's it's about the return of magic to England at the time of the Napoleonic Wars, and the descriptive force of the writing and of the magic that is done is utterly believable, and you can reread it a million times and see fresh.

Richard Madeley33:43

Insight

Presenter33:44

Well, that's good,'cause you will have the time and the luxury.

Richard Madeley33:47

Probably my guitar.

Richard Madeley33:48

My acoustic guitar. I'd probably sing my own songs, remind myself because you know, when you know when you sing a song that you familiar with.

Presenter33:53

Yeah.

Speaker 433:53

Do you like songs?

Richard Madeley33:55

I tried, I was awful.

Speaker 433:56

Okay.

Richard Madeley33:56

Awful. Um, but I cover songs and as you know, when you cover songs you hear them as they're meant to be sung, you know, rather than the way you sing. So, yeah, I'd take my little six-string guitar with me.

Presenter33:56

Yeah.

Presenter34:03

And if you had to choose just one of the eight tracks today, which one would you choose?

Richard Madeley34:08

Hm. I think probably the first one. I think probably Ella Fitzgerald. Just for comfort. Just for that warm, liquid sort of warmth.

Presenter34:15

Richard Maidley, thank you very much for letting us hear your Desert Island discs.

Richard Madeley34:18

Thank you for asking me.

Presenter34:23

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk/radio4.