Lynn Barber

Presenter0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Discs from BBC Radio 4. For rights reasons the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast.

Presenter0:10

For more information about the programme, please visit bbc.co.uk/slash radio four.

Presenter0:34

My castaway this week is the writer Lynne Barber. Her nickname, the Demon Barber, goes some way to explaining her unflinching and often excoriating style of interview.

Presenter0:44

Over the past quarter of a century she has picked apart in prose Hollywood stars, Cabinet Ministers, and contemporary artists.

Presenter0:51

Quite an achievement in a celebrity world dominated by puff pieces and overzealous publicists. Critics say her profiles are hatchet jobs she famously asked Harriet Harmon if she was thick, and reduced Chris Evans to tears whilst the artists Jake and Dinos Chapman said they would kill her if they ever set eyes on her again.

Presenter1:10

But for her readers, if not her subjects, her writing is always revealing, and brilliantly entertaining.

Presenter1:16

I feel no guilt about being the sort of journalist I am, she says. I'm not ashamed of being nosy, and am rather suspicious of people who claim to have no curiosity about their fellow humans.

Presenter1:27

Your honesty in print, Lynn Barber, can be breathtaking. How do you behave when you're actually meeting your interviewees face to face?

Lynn Barber1:36

I think I'm very nice, you know, but I do ask quite blunt questions and I don't see the point particularly in beating round the bush, you know. I mean, if I'm trying to find out if Harriet Harmon is thick, I mean, it seems quite simple to ask her if she's thick, you know, but I don't know. I mean, I'm I'm not tactful, that's for sure. Do people flounce out often? Um no, I mean I think there's so quite a lot of people who do their flouncing before I mean they don't agree to see me, as it were. I've had people sort of hovering on the brink of flouncing out or slightly bringing an interview to a fairly abrupt halt. I think that people are well served actually by quite blunt or quite rude questions because it forces them to sort of fight back and come back strongly, you know, which should be quite good.

Presenter2:24

But it's of course not just the questions that you ask them. I'm thinking I remember reading a profile you wrote of Felicity Kendall, where you said Her hands looked older than mine, hideous, knotted, bony claws with crimson talons.

Lynn Barber2:35

Yes, well that was honestly that is very untypical of me. I normally don't comment on physical imperfections, but it's just that with Celestia Kendall there'd been this maddening thing that any man you ever met always said that she was the most wonderful, most desirable, most feminine, super duper woman in the world. So I was I was in that case look

Presenter2:56

Looking for imperfection. And what about I mean, you say in normal conversation you think you're quite nice, really. In the privacy then of your whatever you write, do you have a study or an office where you write?

Speaker 13:05

Yeah.

Presenter3:07

Where you're marshalling your thoughts and where you're thinking, yep, this is what I'm going to say about them. Do you ever.

Presenter3:12

Surprise yourself with how

Presenter3:15

Well how biting you can be.

Lynn Barber3:18

No. If I've gone to an interview with somebody like Heriot Harmon or Marian Faithful was another one, where I've really disliked them, I come away thinking, Oh, I can't wait to write this piece, you know and I mean, actually that flows far more quickly and easily

Lynn Barber3:34

The hard ones to write are people I'm a bit unsure about, where, you know, it could go this way, it could go that way.

Presenter3:41

What was it about Marianne Faithful that so got up your nose?

Lynn Barber3:41

Yeah.

Lynn Barber3:44

Well, she just went on and on and on, delaying and being late and messing people round, and then it was sort of as if she suddenly sort of oh, you're an intro oh, turned on the charm and I b by then I already hated her and went on hating her more and more and more.

Lynn Barber4:00

Yeah.

Presenter4:00

Let's have your first piece of music, then tell me what we're going to hear.

Lynn Barber4:02

Oh well this is Wonderful, Wonderful Pulp's Common People, which I think is probably the best pop single of my lifetime actually.

Speaker 44:25

Yeah.

Lynn Barber4:25

I wanna sleep with common people like you

Lynn Barber4:29

Or what else could

Lynn Barber4:32

I said.

Lynn Barber4:34

I'll see what I can do.

Presenter4:37

That was pulp and common people. And Lynn Barber, you interviewed Jarvis Cocker. Unusually you interviewed him in your house rather than his.

Lynn Barber4:44

Yes, and it was a really bad idea. I hadn't thought about it before, but he he'd been sort of saying he wanted to meet at this Greasy Spoon cafe, and I thought, I don't want to go to a greasy spoon. And so I said, Well, if if you want breakfast, come to my house and I'll make you breakfast. Were you thrown into a tiz before that? I was thrown into a tis. The other thing is because I admired him so much, I mean, I was like a fan.

Presenter5:01

I was sure

Lynn Barber5:06

And then I was sort of looking round my house thinking, Oh God, that's so crummy, that terrible photograph there, you know, and then

Presenter5:12

Are we rearranging the seed?

Lynn Barber5:13

Yes, exactly. I was sort of thinking I've been hide the entire lot. And no, I mean, he was a lovely man, and actually he subsequently asked me and my husband to a concert. Would you say you were friends?

Presenter5:13

Yeah, it's

Lynn Barber5:26

No, I wouldn't say that of him. I mean, he he's somebody I'd always sort of say hello to, but um Do you make friends ever with people you've interviewed?

Presenter5:33

Yeah.

Lynn Barber5:33

Well, I have a few. I mean, Tracy Emman, probably best known, and Nikki Haslam. But I mean

Presenter5:40

Back.

Lynn Barber5:40

Mm-hmm.

Presenter5:41

Not the object of the exercise. It should always be the case, I suppose, that the person you're interviewing has the prominence in your role and you sort of sit back.

Lynn Barber5:49

Yeah.

Presenter5:49

I'm wondering how things have worked for you since you became so much better known as as a face as well as a name because of An Education, which was the film that was won BAFTAs and was Oscar nominated about you, about a young schoolgirl, she's sixteen and she is picked up by a a con man. Do you do you find it do you find it difficult now to to put yourself second to the people you're interviewing because of that?

Lynn Barber6:12

Um

Lynn Barber6:13

No, actually. I think

Presenter6:15

I mean because they know stuff about you, man.

Lynn Barber6:17

Yes, I mean it it does slightly throw me, I suppose, but um I think probably that that in a way has existed for some years before I wrote the book in that I'd got a reputation as an interviewer.

Lynn Barber6:30

And the big contrast for me was that I had been working on the Sunday Express.

Lynn Barber6:35

But the Sunday Express was so unfashionable that nobody read it, you know, and then I went to the Independent on Sunday and suddenly people were talking about me. So it was at that point that people started saying Demon Barber and things.

Presenter6:47

You've said, of course, that people do frequently, I imagine, refuse to be interviewed by your turn-down requests from the publication you're writing for.

Lynn Barber6:52

Get public.

Presenter6:54

Why on earth do you think people agree to be interviewed by you?

Lynn Barber6:58

Well, I think I'm accurate for one thing. They can't complain that they've been misquoted. I think some people find it stimulating and challenging. And if I give somebody a sort of rave write-up, it counts for more than if I was always giving people rave write-ups, you know.

Presenter7:14

But I I have no doubt what you say about your quotes being entirely accurate. But people I mean, I don't read your articles for the accurate quotes. I read them because I want to know what you think and I want to often laugh out loud at the things you say about people.

Lynn Barber7:28

Oh good. Well that both of those are good. I mean I was told off a lot at the beginning for being judgmental, but actually people do want me to arrive at some conclusion about whether I like the person or don't like the person. And that's why I say the hard ones to write are where I'm genuinely not sure or it's a sort of borderline thing myself.

Presenter7:49

Time, I think, for some more music, then. Tell me what we're going to hear next, Lynne.

Lynn Barber7:52

Well, this is a bit of an odd choice, um, but i it it's because my father died very recently and

Lynn Barber7:59

He used to sing this a lot and we used to go on walking holidays in the Lake District and it's a song that goes on for about a million verses. We won't play them now, don't worry. But it's Abdul the Bul Bol Omir by Frank Crummett.

Lynn Barber8:12

Sons of the Prophet.

Speaker 18:14

Prophets were brave men and bold, and quite unaccustomed to fear But the bravest by far in the ranks of the shaw was Abdull the Bulbul of

Presenter8:24

Yeah.

Speaker 18:25

Now the heroes were plenty and well known to fame In the troops that were led by the Czar And the bravest of these was a man by the name

Presenter8:35

Have a name I see

Speaker 18:36

Arrivan script

Presenter8:36

Recorded in nineteen twenty seven. That was Frank Crummet and Abdullah Bulbul Amir. Lynn Barber, you say you have a fascination with how other families lived, and and maybe that's the reason that you got into the business of interviewing.

Lynn Barber8:47

N

Presenter8:51

You were an only child.

Lynn Barber8:52

Yes, I'm sure it was that. Um, an only child and also I think particularly isolated because my parents didn't have any family in London. My father had some up north, but we never saw them. And they didn't seem to have any friends, so the only children I knew were at school. And I was intrigued to be able to watch the interactions of families, and actually I never did until much later in life.

Presenter9:16

I mean, you have for anybody who has seen an education or read your book, they will know that you come from this almost impossibly tight suburban background. Um how accurate a portrayal was that of your family life?

Lynn Barber9:27

In the film, do you mean in the film?

Presenter9:28

In the film, yes.

Lynn Barber9:29

Um, pretty good. I mean, because it's Nick Cornby and he's a nice person, it's a much sweeter version than my version that I

Lynn Barber9:37

Right. Um

Presenter9:38

And so how would you describe your father?

Lynn Barber9:41

Well, very shouty and bad-tempered indeed. And um.

Lynn Barber9:47

I said at his funeral he's probably the rudest person any of us had ever met and you know there was warm agreement. And your mother?

Lynn Barber9:56

Well

Lynn Barber9:58

Much quieter. Occasionally, she would try and control him. Finally, when they were about 89, they couldn't cope anymore, and I was moving them into a residential home in Brighton. And I said, Dad, seriously, you can't go into this shouting at everyone because they could kick you out, you know. And my mother told me off. She said, Oh, he's your father, you stick up for him, and sort of said he's got to be allowed to shout at everyone, which sure enough he did. But by the time he died, I was very touched that they were obviously the staff were very fond of him. He did have redeeming qualities, but the sort of social barrier that he put up was appalling. At what age did you begin to sort of stand up to him?

Lynn Barber10:44

Well, we were having rows right through my teens, um, probably from about thirteen onwards. But then when Simon, the conman, turned up,

Lynn Barber10:56

My father sort of deferred to him and he

Lynn Barber10:59

stood up for me, so that my father, as it were, abdicated at that point.

Lynn Barber11:04

Uh

Presenter11:04

And was he did he smack you? Did he hit you?

Lynn Barber11:06

Yeah.

Presenter11:06

Yeah.

Lynn Barber11:07

But I mean, it wasn't that thing of I'm going to go and get a stick and beat you. It it was it was just sort of a sudden swipe. But I mean, I remember

Lynn Barber11:17

Him doing it to my daughter, elder daughter, when she was four. And David was so appalled, my husband.

Speaker 111:23

My husband

Lynn Barber11:24

that he said, Right, we're leaving we're leaving the house now this minute and it was Christmas Day, we'd gone down there with all the Christmas food to cook my parents' Christmas lunch and um Rosie refused to eat her breakfast, my father hit her, Davis said we're leaving right now and we drove back to London to a foodless house. But I mean that was what I'd remembered my father doing to me and my husband was very shocked by it.

Presenter11:51

Uh

Lynn Barber11:51

Try it.

Presenter11:52

And where was your mum in in all of this, both wh when you were getting a clip round the ear and then when your daughter said

Lynn Barber11:57

Yes, I mean, she didn't intervene enough, I think, and she would.

Presenter11:57

Do you have a

Lynn Barber12:01

She would come up to me afterwards and apologize, but she didn't sort of step in at the time.

Lynn Barber12:06

Let's have some music. We're on uh disc

Presenter12:08

Number three now. What are we gonna hear?

Lynn Barber12:09

Ah, this is The Rolling Stones and The Last Time. I mean, I I did it with satisfaction, but this is less well known and actually fabulous too.

Presenter12:21

Too much pain, too much sorrow

Presenter12:26

Cause I feel the same tomorrow

Lynn Barber12:33

The last time, this could be the last time, maybe the last time.

Speaker 412:40

And I don't know.

Speaker 412:44

Oh no

Presenter12:49

The Rolling Stones and The Last Time. I want to rewind then to th this moment in your life uh you probably said it better than anyone in your book in Education why was I a conventional Twickenham schoolgirl

Speaker 112:52

Bit.

Presenter13:00

Running round London nightclubs with a Cornman.

Speaker 113:02

Yeah.

Lynn Barber13:02

Uh

Speaker 113:02

Bye.

Presenter13:03

You were just sixteen. T tell me how you met the Conman.

Lynn Barber13:04

Yeah.

Lynn Barber13:06

I I was at a bus stop and he stopped his car and offered me a lift. And of course I'd been told not to accept lifts from strange men, but I thought, well, he doesn't look strange, he looks okay. And so I got into the car.

Presenter13:18

So it wasn't raining and you weren't carrying a change.

Lynn Barber13:19

No, I wasn't I've never played the cello in my life. That was total Nick Hornby. And that was to excuse the sluttiness of my behaviour in getting into the car, but I just got into the car'cause I wanted a lip.

Presenter13:23

And that was just

Presenter13:30

I'm so glad that you used the word sluffiness. I was going to call bedevilment, but yes, sluffishness is much better. So you just sort of thought you you quite fancied the look of him?

Lynn Barber13:38

Well, I fancied a lift. And I mean, the other thing is my yearning just to meet different people who were different, who weren't from this sort of Twickenham suburban background. He talked with a funny accent. He he told me very early on that he was Jewish and he was a passionate Zionist.

Lynn Barber13:57

So all that was interesting. He was interested in Bergman films, you know, all sorts of foreign films I first saw with him. How old was he?

Lynn Barber14:06

Well, he told me he was twenty seven, so I was sixty. He was eleven years older than me, he said. But he told me he'd been present at some

Lynn Barber14:15

terrorist attack, I think, in Israel, which meant that he would have had to have been about five or six years older than he'd already admitted to. So

Lynn Barber14:25

The answer is I don't know.

Presenter14:26

And the first time you met your parents then, how did that go?

Lynn Barber14:29

Well, they were they were just rolled over and waved their legs in the air. I mean, they loved him. It was extraordinary. And he went to enormous lengths to charm my parents. As he was for me, so he was for my parents, probably the most interesting person we'd come across, you know.

Presenter14:45

So where did you go, these London nightclubs and so on? And you can conjure up a picture of a night out with Simon. Well, one of the odds.

Lynn Barber14:51

things was that because he was a landlord of these dodgy sort of bedsits and flats, first thing we'd do is sort of drive to Bayswater and he would go into these houses and collect some money, I suppose, and I'd wait in the car. And then we'd probably go to um there were one or two clubs in Bayswater that belonged to Perry Frackman or that Perrick Rackman would turn up at. He was the sort of evil landlord who gave this name to Rachmanism. If Simon wanted to meet him we would go

Lynn Barber15:22

to one of those places and just hang about. Or we would go to expensive restaurants or we would go to see a sort of foreign film.

Presenter15:31

And you were a young girl who had been studying hard all the time. And you were you were, you know, brightest in your class. Everybody expected that you were on the path to Oxford. So you you know, you were you were switched on. Did did any of it strike a bum note with you, or were you just sort of giddy with the glamour of it all?

Lynn Barber15:34

All the time.

Lynn Barber15:38

Everybody

Lynn Barber15:48

Just giddy with the newness.

Lynn Barber15:51

Well, it was just so different from everything I'd been brought up on.

Presenter15:55

Let's have some music. Tell me what we're going to hear next.

Lynn Barber15:57

Ah, well I better apologise for this, but I love it dearly. Um it's Freddie Mercury Monsrat Cabaye singing Barcelona.

Presenter16:06

Why I was gonna say why on earth, but actually what I mean is why have you chosen this?

Lynn Barber16:09

Well, I just love it. It makes me laugh. I love it. I love their two voices.

Speaker 416:14

Is it channel?

Presenter16:14

Yeah.

Speaker 416:24

Bells are ringing out

Presenter16:30

You're calling us together, fighting us for, wish my dream would never go away.

Presenter16:44

Freddie Mercury and Montserrat Cavalier and Barcelona. Lynn Barber, it's important, I suppose, for anybody who hasn't uh read your book An Education or Seen the Film to sort of

Presenter16:54

Put a full stop at the end of the story, an extraordinary one, whereby, in the end, the man you call Simon, the con man, um, he proposed to you.

Lynn Barber17:02

Yes, and my parents wanted me to marry him, and urged me to marry him. That was the real sort of shock horror. But basically I then found out that he was married anyway.

Presenter17:12

Can you remember finding that out?

Lynn Barber17:13

Oh, yes. I I just looked in the glove compartment of his car and there were a load of letters addressed to Mr and Mrs Simon Goldman. But my mother, just before she died, told me this other jaw dropping thing, which is that he had asked my parents if

Lynn Barber17:31

he could marry me, and they'd said yes, yes, good idea, and take me to live in Israel. And he'd never nobody had ever asked me if I wanted to live in Israel, and apparently that was what he was planning to do.

Presenter17:45

Do you think he really was planning a different life? He was planning to escape.

Lynn Barber17:48

Yes, I think he would have married me bigamously and just we'd have gone to Israel.

Presenter17:52

And you said that at that time you lost innocence and perhaps a certain good will towards people.

Lynn Barber17:57

Yes, I think that's right. I think

Lynn Barber18:00

I think it made me a sus suspicious, which I'd never been at all before, you know. But I mean, a very typical thing was once David and I coming back from a dinner party, I said, you know, why was that woman seeming to like me so much? And David said, maybe she did like you, you know, and m maybe it's not a cunning plot, maybe that is

Lynn Barber18:23

a genuine feeling, but I always sort of look for the worst first and

Presenter18:27

Then

Lynn Barber18:27

Instead of testing.

Presenter18:28

Can

Lynn Barber18:28

Stat.

Presenter18:28

Yeah. You've also said that at the point that you went you did eventually, although it was somewhat delayed, get into Oxford. At the time that you went to Oxford, your parents, after all these years as a schoolgirl, of trying to control you and telling you what you were going to do with your life and that this grade must be got and that you would choose this course and so on um they sort of abandoned control of you.

Lynn Barber18:47

Yes. Well, I think there were two reasons. One was that they were very ashamed of the sort of Simon Fiasco, which they did regard as their fault, you know. But also because they both had this sort of worship for the idea of academic attainment, the fact that I'd got into Oxford made me automatically a sort of better person. Do you see what I mean? It was as if they then said, Okay.

Speaker 119:10

Uh

Lynn Barber19:14

We don't know anything, you know best, you you make your own decisions from now on, sort of thing.

Presenter19:20

And did you sort of start from the year zero then when you went to Oxford? Did you say, Okay, let's start again with what I believe and what I know?

Lynn Barber19:23

Did you think okay?

Lynn Barber19:25

Absolutely. And sort of questioning everything I did believe, thinking, well, did I just get this from my parents? In which case it might well be wrong, and trying to rethink everything I thought, which is

Lynn Barber19:37

A terribly difficult job. It it was a real intellectual exercise.

Presenter19:43

We're on uh disc number five now, Lynn Bartler.

Lynn Barber19:47

Oh, well this is a lovely happy memory of Oxford parties and punting and gorgeous happy times. This is the Kinks. Thank you for the days.

Speaker 419:57

Okay.

Presenter19:57

Uh Brother. Yeah.

Presenter20:01

Those endless days of sacred days you gave me

Presenter20:06

I'm thinking of the day

Presenter20:11

I won't f Okay, the same

Speaker 420:12

Will they believe me?

Speaker 420:15

I bless the Light.

Speaker 420:18

Ah, listen.

Presenter20:19

Light the lights on you, believe me.

Presenter20:23

Hello you're good. Yo win.

Presenter20:26

That was the kinks and days. So, Lynn Barber, you did your bit then to try to rebuild yourself from scratch, as it were, at university, thinking, do I really think this, or has it received wisdom from my parents that I don't trust anymore? You also, I understand, did your bit for free love. Oh, yes. You had a sustained episode of promiscuity, did you not?

Speaker 420:34

So you can

Speaker 120:34

Uh

Speaker 120:37

Uh

Lynn Barber20:37

Yeah.

Lynn Barber20:43

Yeah.

Lynn Barber20:46

Yes, it wasn't it wasn't that sustained. I mean, some people have sort of said that I was promiscuous the whole time at Oxford. It wasn't actually so. I had a boyfriend for my first year at Oxford, or first year and a half even, but he then jilted me or dumped me or whatever the expression is. And so my thinking was I must find another boyfriend immediately and I haven't got time to waste sort of going out to dinner with them or going punting with them. You know, why don't I just go to bed with them first? And then I i if they're no good, I can just eliminate them and not waste any time, you know, which I suppose is a pretty bad attitude. So I did sleep with an awful lot of people in about two terms and

Presenter21:27

And then I stopped. It was odd. And you wouldn't forgive me, of course, being a journalist yourself, if I didn't ask you how many?

Presenter21:33

Probably fifty.

Lynn Barber21:34

Yeah.

Presenter21:35

Right.

Presenter21:38

And they're quite short, those Oxford terms, aren't they? Yes.

Lynn Barber21:38

And that looks

Lynn Barber21:40

Miss Hill

Presenter21:41

Absolutely, I was jamming the men. And the rather uh romantic ending to this episode is that there was one man that you met immediately and thought, Yes, actually I'm going to marry you.

Lynn Barber21:50

Yes, absolutely. I mean, actually that was t right at the end of Oxford. A friend brought David to my room in Oxford, and I just saw him and thought

Lynn Barber22:01

That is the man I'm going to spend my life with. And it was.

Presenter22:04

There is a photograph in in your book, An Education of David, in those days. I mean, it has to be said. Yes, it was devastating.

Lynn Barber22:08

It has to be said.

Lynn Barber22:09

And actually, he remained gorgeous looking almost till his death, yeah.

Presenter22:15

Fascinatingly, that he made you, well, you used the word, a gooder person, that he somehow.

Lynn Barber22:18

But he

Presenter22:20

He was a very good idea.

Lynn Barber22:20

Totally, he was a really good person, genuinely kind, genuinely, totally honest, couldn't tell a lie to save his life. And I just think that by living with him so long, I gradually got better. I mean

Lynn Barber22:36

I was never unselfish like he was. I mean, I'm still quite a selfish person, but

Lynn Barber22:40

it did bring a sort of new Uh

Presenter22:44

Morality, I think, into my life. And as you say, D David is now dead. He died from he was having a a bone marrow transplant and and there were subsequent complications.

Lynn Barber22:51

What's that?

Lynn Barber22:53

Yes. I mean, he was he was told he had something called myelofibrosis, which is a sort of leukemia-ish thing.

Lynn Barber23:00

They said he would only have two good years to live unless he had a bone marrow transplant, and then he died in the course of the bone marrow transplant.

Lynn Barber23:09

So I've always So

Presenter23:11

felt quite sort of cheated by that, really. And in writing about it, you haven't spared yourself any of the honesty that you often turn on other people. You've said that you you were not sort of good enough at being the patient's comforter throughout.

Lynn Barber23:23

I wasn't the patient.

Lynn Barber23:26

Yes, I couldn't do caring, you know, and I felt very bad about that. And I'd see other wives, you know, on the ward who never left their husbands' bedside, and I was always dying to run away as soon as I got to hospital. And I'm very glad that right at the end when we thought he was getting better and was coming out of hospital, and I sort of said

Lynn Barber23:48

Oh, gosh, I hope I don't have to change any dressings or something. And he sort of said, Oh, no, that's not your job, we'll hire somebody. And it was as if he was saying, It's okay, I know you're not that sort of wife and you're never going to be.

Presenter24:00

You've also said that that you a part of you shrank and winced almost when he said, Well, thank you for your loyalty. Tell me more about that.

Lynn Barber24:11

Well, I just wish you'd said your love, you know, and it was as if he still doubted that I loved him. And

Lynn Barber24:20

It goes along with something my father said about he said, You only come and see me and your mother out of a sense of duty.

Lynn Barber24:28

But then my parents had also said, you know, fine words, button no parsnips, that you you can say that you love for somebody, but what actually counts is how often you go and visit them or whether you remember to phone them every day, sort of thing. So I'm not quite sure. I mean, I wish David had said love rather than loyalty, that's

Speaker 124:38

But

Presenter24:49

We're going to have some music then tell me what we're going to hear next.

Lynn Barber24:51

Ah, well this is something I very much associate with David and it's Jean Cocteau, it's La Troison d'Or and we he had an LP which was his absolute favourite record and w in one of our many moves subsequently, knowing it was his favourite record, I packed it very, very carefully at the bottom of the suitcase, which apparently is just what you should not do. And that was the end of that. So I'm glad to rehear it now.

Speaker 425:26

Bouclay, Bouclay, Lantiquité. La ter boule l'êt dernité.

Speaker 425:32

Lace bouclais, etc, given the quite deunnais, couclétupté, l'yse de la fait auté

Speaker 425:44

Laño, Ultimate.

Presenter25:47

That was Jean Cocteau and La Troison d'Or, the Golden Fleece. So, Lynn Barbie, your career has been, among other things, working at the Sunday Times, The Observer, The Independent on Sunday. You have had stacks of recognition, lots of British Press Awards. You started out, it's notable, at Pent House.

Presenter26:05

Not modelling but writing.

Lynn Barber26:06

No, writing. Well, not even writing, actually, editing more. Um I mean, um I was literary editor, letters editor, reviews editor, everything that wasn't the girls, basically. Um and so that was a terribly good training in all sorts of aspects of journalism.

Presenter26:24

Is it true that you went on one of your duties at the the photo shoots when you were called in was was to powder the girls' bottoms?

Lynn Barber26:29

Well, yes, I that was one of the things you had to do on photo shoots and ch um change the records so you sort of kept up a supply of suitable background music and and I would do the Times Crossword as well.

Presenter26:42

And then when it came to the job of actually interviewing, which you did for the magazine, uh, y you were interviewing people often, uh, I suppose quite expectedly, about elements of their their sex life. Yes, well that was a very good training.

Lynn Barber26:53

And we had this series called Parameters of Sexuality. We always had a very pretentious title and everything, which was just interviews with people with a particular kink, like a foot fetishist or somebody who was planning a sex change. And all I had to do was sort of

Lynn Barber27:11

glean it from them and make sure I didn't sort of show any shock or disgust.

Presenter27:17

And and what about how this dovetailed with your home life? You you you did have your two daughters c relatively close together.

Lynn Barber27:23

I left Penthouse in order to start a family. So

Presenter27:26

So

Lynn Barber27:26

I did write a big serious book called The Hey Day of Natural History, which was about Victorian naturalists. I mean, that was what I was doing while I was raising the children. And before that I'd written two sex books, How to Improve Your Man in Bed and a Single Woman's Sex Book.

Presenter27:42

Now you wrote How to Improve Your Man in Bed when you were just twenty-nine. Yes. Yes. You knew it all by then, Magic.

Lynn Barber27:47

Get out of here.

Lynn Barber27:48

And that's it.

Lynn Barber27:49

I didn't at all. I I think the uh one of the other things about growing up with my father was that I was embarrass I've always been embarrassment proof. Nothing embarrasses me is Let's have some music then.

Presenter28:01

At disk number seven, ma.

Lynn Barber28:03

Oh, this is something that we both love very much. Lou Reed's Walk on the Wild Side. Very good.

Lynn Barber28:10

Holly came from Miami, FLA. Yeah.

Presenter28:15

Hitchhiked away across USA.

Presenter28:20

Plucked her eyebrows on the way Shaved her legs and then he was a she She says hey babe take a walk on the wild side

Presenter28:28

Said he honey, take a walk on the wild side

Presenter28:40

That was Lou Reed and Walk on the Wild Side. You said going into that, Lynn Barber, that we always loved that. It's you and David you're talking about there.

Lynn Barber28:45

I mean on the whole I he played much more classical music and I played um pop music, but that was one that we both agreed on.

Presenter28:54

Um writing about his illness, you said for the first time I had to contemplate the idea that I might outlive David, that I might one day be a widow.

Presenter29:03

And how was I supposed to comport myself in the meantime?

Lynn Barber29:07

Yes. Well, that was at the point where we've been told that he had two.

Lynn Barber29:12

Years to live.

Lynn Barber29:14

I mean, that was such a sort of peculiar idea, sort of do you carry on as normal? I had totally assumed that he would outlive me because he was so young looking and so healthy and, you know, he didn't smoke, he barely drank, he went for long walks and all the rest of it, and I've always had a very unhealthy lifestyle. So it was just appalling to think

Presenter29:35

Think that he might die first. He died in 2003. It was a bleep to the brain after this transplant.

Lynn Barber29:39

Yeah.

Speaker 129:39

No.

Presenter29:42

And you said that you occupied a sort of period of madness after that time. You suddenly began to imagine the possibility that throughout your marriage David had had affairs, a string of affairs. Why did you imagine that?

Lynn Barber29:55

Um well, I mean, what triggered it was that I was sent a photograph of him um in which he appeared to be um smiling slightly drunkenly and very lovingly at whoever was behind the camera.

Lynn Barber30:10

And it wasn't me.

Lynn Barber30:12

But I mean it was more that I don't think I was thinking very straight, but I mean it was more that I felt this incredible weight of guilt because I kept thinking there must have been something I could have done to have prevented it. Particularly I thought maybe if we'd gone to the States and had the operation there that maybe it would have worked or whatever. But anyway I sort of had this whole guilt thing. And then from this photograph I thought, oh he's looking at somebody who he's obviously in love with and it's not me. Therefore he had affairs. Therefore I don't have to feel at all guilty. I'm not justifying this. I'm just saying that that was the sort of madness.

Presenter30:52

Yeah.

Presenter30:54

Do you now think it was nonsense? Yes. Right. Um tell me then about the period that you have occupied since. Both of your parents have died within only a within only a few months of each other.

Presenter31:05

And I mean, given that y y you've always gotten on with your parents insofar as you have always seen them, but given that you are not the natural carer, as you yourself state,

Lynn Barber31:10

Yeah.

Lynn Barber31:14

Yeah.

Presenter31:16

Has it been something of a relief that they're not around anymore?

Lynn Barber31:18

Oh yes. Um but I mean so much so. I mean it's only a month since my father died. My mother died um six months before that. So I'm still not used to it. But I mean the fact that I can go away for weekends without any sort of guilt is wonderful, you know. But I mean it has been a long haul. They were ninety two, you know. Um and I feel

Lynn Barber31:40

Well, yeah, liberated, actually.

Presenter31:42

Apart from your work then, you say that David lived a much healthier life than you. You're a committed smoker.

Lynn Barber31:49

Yeah.

Presenter31:50

And uh are you also a committed drinker?

Lynn Barber31:52

Fairly. I'm not as committed as to smoking, but I do drink, yeah. Yeah, how much would you drink?

Lynn Barber31:57

What a day. Well, what a however you want to come to that. A week, a day, an hour, if if we come to that.

Presenter32:03

I said They drink a bottle of

Lynn Barber32:04

Right.

Presenter32:05

Red wine are there.

Lynn Barber32:06

Right, okay.

Presenter32:06

Yeah. Your doctors of course would tell you that's not the thing to do then farther.

Lynn Barber32:09

Yeah.

Lynn Barber32:10

Well, oddly enough, actually it's funny with doctors. My doctor's always nagging at me to stop smoking, but he sort of just keeps shtum on the subject of drinking.

Presenter32:18

And how many cigarettes do you smoke in a day? Forty. Not thinking about giving that up.

Lynn Barber32:22

No, no, absolutely not. No, I really I really like smoking. And I mean if I had to give one up I'd give up drinking. But luckily I don't have to. Um would you survive on a desert island? Are you practical? No, not for a minute. I no, I'm totally impractical. I just well, not having any cigarettes I'd just go into a sort of coma more or less immediately. I wouldn't even attempt to sort of forage for food or build a shelter or any of those things. I just could not survive. Let's have a

Presenter32:51

Your final piece of music, then. What are we going to hear?

Lynn Barber32:52

Well, this is for David. Um this is Count John McCormack singing McCooshla and David uh on top of all his other talents also sang beautifully so he would sing this and also it makes me think of him.

Speaker 133:08

Yeah.

Lynn Barber33:09

Amah, I am here.

Lynn Barber33:16

Uh Yeah.

Speaker 433:17

Why?

Lynn Barber33:17

Uh

Presenter33:34

John McCormack and McCooshla Heartthrob, and that was recorded in nineteen eleven. So, Lynn Barbara, I'm going to give you the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare. What what's your book going to be to take along?

Lynn Barber33:44

Um well, I'll take a complete F. Scott Fitzgerald, if I may. Um but

Lynn Barber33:51

How much time I'd like to spend reading.

Presenter33:56

Why do you say that you're not much of a reader?

Lynn Barber33:57

Well, no, no, I am. But I mean, well, A, well, I have my reading glasses with me and, um

Lynn Barber34:03

b If I don't have any cigarettes, I as I say I shall just be curled up in a little ball and crying.

Presenter34:10

Well, let's come to your luxury then. Is it is it going to be cigarettes, I wonder? What are you going to take?

Lynn Barber34:13

Uh well no, I thought a cyanide pill actually would sort of shorten the agony rather than uh

Lynn Barber34:20

starving to death over w however long it took you to starve to death, I thought I'd just land on Desidi and take the cyanide pill and then I wouldn't have to read Shakespeare or all the rest of it.

Presenter34:33

Right, that's yours. And if you had to choose just one of the eight disks, which one would you save from the CD?

Lynn Barber34:38

When I take, um, John McCormack McCoosh, they're just that it's the most sort of meaningful to me.

Presenter34:45

It's yours. Lynn Barber, thank you very much for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Lynn Barber34:48

Thank you.

Presenter35:36

You've been listening to a download from the BBC. You'll find more information on the Radio Four website bbc.co. uk slash radio four.