Peter Ackroyd

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.

Presenter0:35

My castaway this week is the writer Peter Aykroyd. A master of grand biography, astute fiction, and sweeping history, he could be described as a method writer, wrapping himself around his subjects, expertly finding their voice and committing it to print. Brought up on a council estate in London, he took a double first from Cambridge, won a scholarship to Yale, and became the literary editor of The Spectator by twenty-three. He then left to write full-time, picking up numerous prestigious awards. Yet, despite all that, and being an alumni of the Barbara Speak School of Tap Dancing, he says

Presenter1:12

I don't find myself interesting. You could sum it up in a few words or sentences, really. Came from nothing. Self educated. Luck, energy, curiosity, ambition that's it. I actually think, Peter Aykroyd, that sounds like a killer cocktail of interest. Is it simply that you don't like talking about yourself that's the problem?

Peter Ackroyd1:30

I'm not very keen on talking about myself. I must say it's a subject which I approach with uh trepidation. I'd much rather talk about my work rather than about my life, because I don't really think my life holds that much interest for anyone apart from myself.

Presenter1:44

Even when you hear me give that little astonishing list there, you don't think actually she might be onto something.

Peter Ackroyd1:50

It doesn't mean that much to me, um, objectively. It's uh a record of past time when my main preoccupation is what I'm dealing with at the moment and what I might be dealing with in the future.

Presenter2:03

And what about this idea it's a fairly recent preoccupation that we think the interior life of the artist is as worthy of attention as what the artist is producing?

Peter Ackroyd2:12

I have never subscribed to that doctrine. I think the interior life of the artist is probably best kept under wraps, and that the only merit artists have is in the productions which they create. The life beneath the surface, as far as I am concerned, can remain firmly invisible.

Presenter2:30

Maybe not today, just for forty five minutes.

Peter Ackroyd2:33

Oh, for to day, yes, I can bear my soul. I'm on an island by myself, so I can speak freely for the first time.

Presenter2:40

You've no idea how much that pleases me. And of course there is the irony that you write about TS Eliot, you write about Dickens, you write about Shakespeare. People are interested in the artist. We are all fascinated by the artist and what it what has led them to produce what they're able to produce.

Peter Ackroyd2:55

Ah Well, in that case I'll try and be as helpful as I can.

Presenter2:59

Delighted.

Presenter3:01

Let's quickly get to some music and then get on with the business of the day, shall we?

Peter Ackroyd3:04

Oh yes. Well, the first piece I've chosen is actually the only piece of pop music that I can remember from my youth. It's by the King's Men, and it's called Louie Louie.

Speaker 33:20

Oh no.

Speaker 33:27

Whoa, and that's

Presenter3:47

So that was the Kingsman and Louis Louis. We're going to come back to Bearing Your Soul in just a minute then, Peter Eckroyd. But for now, I'd like to.

Peter Ackroyd3:52

How do you know I have a soul to bear?

Presenter3:54

Well, you mentioned it a moment ago. You said you're happy to bear your soul today. I'll hold you to it. But for now, let's talk about the the work. You're a hugely popular

Peter Ackroyd3:58

But for now.

Presenter4:02

Author. And you tackle the towering subjects. I'm I'm thinking here of Blake, Thomas Moore, Chaucer, Wilkie Collins, most recently. You're comfortable in the company of towering figures.

Peter Ackroyd4:12

I'm

Peter Ackroyd4:14

comfortable in the company of those whom I admire. I would put it no higher than that. The people whom I've chosen uh for the biographical uh speculations tend to be what I would call cockney visionaries, whether it's Turner, Blake, Moore, Chaucer. They've um instituted a tradition to which I myself aspire.

Presenter4:35

You're writing just now, I gather, about Charlie Chaplin.

Peter Ackroyd4:38

Yes, he's uh the subject of a a shorter biography than some of the others. As far as I am concerned, he is the direct descendant of Dickens. He is Dickens's true heir.

Presenter4:48

So you're you're writing about Charlie Chaplin. I I'm imagining the research, of course, because most of his work is is on film, is very different from the sort of research you normally do. As I understand it, you you read all the works of the person you're writing about, then you read everything that's been written about them.

Peter Ackroyd5:03

As much as possible. In some cases, of course, that's rather a taller order than in others. But in the case of chaplain, it's a sort of different discipline, but the process is much the same.

Presenter5:13

Is there a sense of accomplishment when you come to the end of writing a book?

Peter Ackroyd5:16

No, not really. The accomplishment comes in the actual process of composition. I enjoy very much the all the preparations, the research, the arrangement, the writing, the provision, give me great pleasure.

Presenter5:27

And you are meticulous about this. You have all these annotated notebooks and everything is. Oh, yes.

Peter Ackroyd5:31

Oh yes, that's the only way of doing it, otherwise you'd become um immersed in in inchoate heaps of paper.

Presenter5:33

Otherwise

Presenter5:37

And what about trusting your own instincts as a critic? You began as a literary critic at a very young age, as we know, twenty three. So d do you absolutely think that in the end, once you've absorbed what everybody else has to say, you've got to sort of go back to your own opinion and and try to hear that voice?

Peter Ackroyd5:53

Yes, you have to fashion everyone else's opinion and belief into a coherent whole, but then

Peter Ackroyd6:00

give a twist to it with one's own knowledge or feeling. It's sometimes a painful process, but as far as I'm concerned the dissection of the material is as important as the actual writing, and once the book is completed I tend to lose interest in it. It's sort of despatched.

Peter Ackroyd6:18

Into the world, if that's the right phrase, and I try not to pay much attention to it after its birth in the world. I don't read the reviews.

Peter Ackroyd6:27

It's just a question of moving on to the next thing.

Presenter6:30

And is it the case that you just forget everything? Once you've once you've immersed yourself in a subject, it's gone. You download it and you can't really remember what it is you've written about.

Peter Ackroyd6:38

No, no, I can't remember at all. I g if you asked me the dates of T. S. Eliot's birth and you know, I couldn't tell you. I could hardly tell you the death of Charles Dickens. No, it all has to be evacuated in in order to make room for the next subject. Um otherwise my head would be a sort of bedlam of voices and characters which it would be very difficult to control or to discipline.

Presenter7:00

Time for some more music. Peter, what are we going to hear? Your second disc of the day is what?

Peter Ackroyd7:04

My second record is by a musical artiste of the early twentieth century called Florie Ford, and her song is O O Antonio. The reason I've chosen this is it's it's a song which my grandmother used to sing to me when I was a very young child, and it's remained with me ever since, so that even now in the morning I often sing it. It's my little shortcut into the London of a century ago.

Speaker 37:31

Oh and only all he turn away. Live me alone, yo, all on my only o.

Peter Ackroyd7:36

We talk.

Speaker 37:48

I want to meet him with his new squeeze. Then up will go and come Leo and his eyes dream comes.

Peter Ackroyd7:59

Leo and his eyes.

Presenter8:05

That was Florrie Ford, and Oh, Oh, Antonio. That was recorded in 1908. You chose it, Peter Aykroyd, because it reminded you of your grandmother. It was a song that she used.

Peter Ackroyd8:13

It reminded me of my grandmother, but it also evoked for me the London of that period, which is one I have been trying to immerse myself in for some years.

Presenter8:23

Your grandmother who who lived with you at home your m grandmother grandfather and your mother she used to take you on little tours of London, did she?

Peter Ackroyd8:25

Grandfather.

Peter Ackroyd8:28

Yes, she did. She took me on tours of central London, or the city, as we should prob most properly call it and I think my grandmother communicated to me her love for London, and I suppose thereby planted the seeds for my love.

Presenter8:40

And and your great skill in writing about London is

Presenter8:43

Writing about London. Can I say as a person? I mean you bring London to life in that way. You begin one of your books on London by saying Tread carefully over the pavements of London, for you are treading on skin.

Peter Ackroyd8:54

Yes, uh London has been my constant companion all my life. It's been the source of whatever inspiration I possess, and it's been the landscape of whatever imagination I have for as long as I have lived. So for me it is the natural and inevitable subject. It is the sun in my sky, and I hope and trust that I will spend the rest of my life in London.

Presenter9:16

What about the idea you've written about this a lot the idea that the past of London that the deep, rich, complex and often, you know, violent and difficult past of London somehow lives on. Can you explain a bit more of that thought?

Peter Ackroyd9:28

Yes, well, one example is when the editor of the big issue wrote to me saying that he had cited his magazine in Clarkenwell, although he had no knowledge of its radical roots. The area seems to be a magnet to some kinds of London activity. So the spirit of the place can live on in most extraordinary ways. And what I try to do in many of the books I've written is to underline the lines of light which connect the past and the present in a sort of lover's embrace, that the the past is always present.

Presenter10:05

So you were born in East Acton in uh in the forties, and you were something of a

Presenter10:10

A sort of Matilda figure, used to sort of gobble up huge volumes of whatever you could get your little mitts on. Is that right?

Peter Ackroyd10:16

Is that right? Is that what Matilda did? She did that, yes, she did that. Well, I am Matilda then, in that sense, yes. I was born in 1949, not in the 40s, which makes me sound like a little bit of a drink.

Presenter10:18

She did that, yes, she did that.

Presenter10:25

I do beg your pardon.

Presenter10:28

So tell me about. Isn't it the case that you were given some encyclopedic volume? Oh, yes, I got.

Peter Ackroyd10:31

Oh yes, I got uh for one Christmas present I got Arthur Meese's children's encyclopedia, I think in ten volumes, and I vowed to myself that I'd read every page before the year was up, meaning the next year of course. And I think I managed to do so. It was uh I can still remember the shine of the page, the the photographs, the print, the whole package. And I suppose it's instilled in me at a relatively early age a love of learning for its own sake.

Speaker 210:44

Yeah.

Presenter10:58

So it wasn't necessarily important to you what precisely you were reading about. It was simply the act no.

Peter Ackroyd11:02

It's just the act of reading is one which gives me intense pleasure. And if in the process I manage to imbibe some uh knowledge or information, then that redoubles the uh pleasure of the experience.

Presenter11:16

Let's have some more music. We're on your third disc. What are we gonna hear?

Peter Ackroyd11:19

Oh, the third disc is Mr. Fatz Waller singing Where is the Sun? And I chose this because my grandfather had a collection of Seventy-Eights, as they were then called, uh and he was an aficiado of Fatz Waller, so he used to play them and I used to dance around to them, and I've never forgotten them.

Speaker 211:42

When the

Speaker 211:43

But that would be where the first year

Speaker 211:48

Everything's wrong with that song of love.

Speaker 211:52

Yeah, yeah. Where's the one who said she loves me? Gone like the flowers I used to bring. Can it be true that somebody needs to love me?

Speaker 212:06

Villa.

Speaker 212:07

Look at my heart, don't feel so bad. Take it a kisses for all my sad.

Speaker 212:13

You know my heart, the moments we had. Maybe she misses them too, yeah. But tell me, where's the sun? Clouds above me don't take the dream. I cling to, where's the sun? Where's the one I love?

Speaker 212:29

My mind.

Presenter12:32

That was Fats Waller. And Where is the Sun? You said he used to dance around to that music'cause your grandfather has a discard. Do you?

Peter Ackroyd12:38

I still do.

Presenter12:40

Where do you dance and how you dance?

Peter Ackroyd12:42

In my bathroom I just jump up and down. It's a bit uh ungraceful at my age, but of course why not?

Presenter12:49

Well, you were born as late as nineteen forty nine, so you're still

Peter Ackroyd12:51

So you're still quite young. And of course I was, as you said, that Barbara speaks to the dance score for a while.

Presenter12:55

Yes, I want to hear every detail, and if you can't remember it, just make it up.

Peter Ackroyd13:00

Well, I used to go there with my little tap shoes um can't remember my age exactly, probably ten and we would be put through our paces, and in fact I appeared on stage at the Acton Town Hall

Peter Ackroyd13:13

Singing If you want to know the time, ask a policeman.

Presenter13:17

So you were quite good?

Peter Ackroyd13:18

No, I wasn't very good. I think I was just one of the few boys who bothered to turn up.

Presenter13:22

Do you I mean, you say you dance round your bathroom, but do you still secretly have a pair of tap shoes at home?

Peter Ackroyd13:27

No, I don't. I sometimes, in a moment of uh exhilaration, do a little tap dance to myself.

Peter Ackroyd13:35

But I don't think that counts as a performance.

Presenter13:39

Tell me more then about the little boy that you were, because you were an only child. Did that matter to you that you were an only child?

Peter Ackroyd13:45

Not at all. I mean, you don't miss what you don't have. So

Presenter13:45

Mm-hmm.

Peter Ackroyd13:48

I was perfectly content with my status, I think.

Presenter13:52

And your father wasn't around, you didn't miss that either.

Peter Ackroyd13:54

No, I didn't. Um he uh vanished from my life when I was a baby, so uh it was not as if I had uh seen him or known him at all.

Presenter14:04

Is it the case that I've read and I don't know if it's true that that your father wrote to you when you were at the Spectator, once you're sort of na you had a byline and he wrote to you and said I'm

Peter Ackroyd14:12

That's right. I am your father, and um I was advised uh not to see him. Various people, friends suggested that it wasn't a good idea, and it wasn't it would not have been a good idea.

Presenter14:12

Yeah.

Peter Ackroyd14:23

What would have been the point? I would have been meeting a perfect stranger. It's not as if we had anything to catch up on.

Presenter14:29

And it was a Catholic household.

Peter Ackroyd14:31

Yes, it was a a strict Catholic household in the sense that we said prayers in the evening and prayers before meals. I was enrolled as an altar server in the local Catholic Church, and I enjoyed the ritual of the occasions. I enjoyed the incense and the bells, what has often been called the beauty of holiness. But I think I was also affected by the notion of Catholic piety.

Peter Ackroyd14:54

At one point in my early life I remember being attracted to the life of a closed order of monks, either the Carthusians or the Cistercians. And that, of course, was balanced by the fact that I always wanted to be Pope. But no, Catholicism is one of those religions which permeates your being to such an extent that you cannot imagine being beyond its parameters. But that condition does not last for ever, and by the time I was seventeen or eighteen I had decided that my life outside the Catholic Communion was going to be more fruitful for me than one within it.

Presenter15:31

And what about um I mean, you said rather playfully, I know to me, how do you know I have a soul when I said we're we're gonna you're gonna bear your soul for me. But what about that question? Do you feel a a strong spiritual sense even though your life has been lived outside the communion, as you describe it?

Peter Ackroyd15:44

Well, I wouldn't call myself a secularist. If you can divide the world into two groups, I suppose the most obvious and eminent groups would be those who have a secular view of the world and those who have a spiritual view of the world. I would position myself within the latter, if only for the reason that I am convinced that there are forces and powers in the universe of which we have no inkling.

Presenter16:06

Do you believe in ghosts?

Peter Ackroyd16:09

I don't believe in them, but I'm frightened of them.

Presenter16:12

Never seen a ghost.

Peter Ackroyd16:13

I have seen a specter of a living person um rising from the person's body. I have also when I lived in a house eighteenth century house I had in North Devon I was often disturbed at night by what I sounded to me like silk rustling near by, and I since discovered that's actually a very common phenomenon, which may in fact be related to the springs of water underground. I don't know.

Presenter16:40

And and this idea o of searching for some sort of spiritual meaning for tying together the spiritual threads of of the city that is London.

Presenter16:49

There may be people who listen to you and say actually if you'd stayed within the Catholic Communion all of those those wanderings, those meanderings might have been answered more purposely, that actually some sort of built religion might be the very thing you need, rather than searching for them in the streets of a city.

Peter Ackroyd17:02

No, no, no. I want to build my own religion for myself. I don't want to adopt tho that of other people. Uh I wouldn't call it a religion. I would call it a state of pious awareness that London is a being which has its own laws of growth and change. And it's that process which I wish to explore in a variety of different ways.

Presenter17:23

You won a scholarship to St Benedict's School.

Peter Ackroyd17:26

That's right, said Medic kneeling.

Presenter17:27

Tell me about it, what's it like?

Peter Ackroyd17:29

It was okay. I am grateful for the monks for instructing me in Greek, Latin, and ancient history. I think that foundation of study has been of great benefit to me in my later life. It did mean that you could view your life as a series of hurdles which had to be overcome in order to survive. And I think that sense of life is probably one which I would have been better not to have known.

Presenter17:53

We'll talk about university in just a moment, but for now it's time for some more music, Peter Aykroyd. We're uh where are we? We're on your fourth disc of the day.

Peter Ackroyd17:59

Fourth.

Peter Ackroyd18:00

I once read a novel called English Music, which was in part about um sixteenth century music, and of course I listened to a great deal of it, and one piece has remained in my memory, which is Talis's Sperminalium.

Presenter19:13

The Sixteen led by Harry Christophers and part of Spaminalium by Thomas Tallis. So, Peter Eckroyd, you went to University to Clare College, Cambridge, in nineteen sixty eight, at a time when students all around Europe, indeed, were beginning to be radicalised. It was it was a a very different time for Britain. Things were tangibly changing. Did did you feel that at university?

Peter Ackroyd19:32

No, I never noticed it. It came as a complete surprise to me when I learnt about it later.

Peter Ackroyd19:38

See, I was intent upon my studies and I didn't pay much attention to the uh movement on the streets, if such there were.

Presenter19:38

Duh.

Peter Ackroyd19:45

Yeah.

Presenter19:45

I I I mentioned that that you got a double first from Cambridge. When you began to study there, right right at the beginning, did you feel automatically like you fitted in and it was a good thing?

Peter Ackroyd19:54

No, I didn't. I hated it for the first year. I didn't feel at ease or at home there in any respect. But then I began my second year. I came under the guidance of a very good tutor, Richard Gooder, and he had certain faith in me, and under his tutorship I came into my own, as it were.

Presenter20:11

Right. And p did you start writing poetry whilst you were still at university?

Peter Ackroyd20:15

Yes, I did. I fell in with a group of uh young poets, uh mostly at King's College, and together we formed a sort of um movement for want of a better word, which was called Totalism, and I published my first volume called Ouch. So my whole preoccupation was with poetry, uh in those days, and I had no thought of becoming either a novelist or a biographer. In fact, I would rather have scorned the idea, I think.

Presenter20:42

And how did you look? Did you look like a wild poet?

Peter Ackroyd20:47

I don't think I look like a wild poet, I just look like a sort of usual unkempt young man with long hair.

Presenter20:53

I see. And then you won a scholarship to Yale.

Peter Ackroyd20:56

Yes, a fellowship, actually. It was uh called a Mellon Fellowship, which was awarded to two students uh a year.

Peter Ackroyd21:04

And I was transported to Saybrook College, Yale, where I had to do absolutely nothing.

Peter Ackroyd21:11

and proceeded to do that.

Presenter21:12

And they paid you to do nothing. It was the banking family, Mellon. That was where the money came from. Right.

Peter Ackroyd21:16

Money came from the market. Yeah, they paid me to do nothing. But I got bored with nothingness after about a year and so decided to write a book called Notes for a New Culture, in which I tried to explain to the adoring world the whole problem of modernism in English literature. I don't think I succeeded very well. It was my point of view without the benefit of either knowledge or research. It was a crie de cur, but there was no real cry, just a whimper.

Presenter21:46

When you were in America, you met Brian Kuhn, who went on to become your partner. Yes. How did you meet?

Peter Ackroyd21:52

We met in a bookshop, I think, um in the Yale, in the corner shop. We quickly became uh good friends, and he moved back with me to London, and we remained together for something like

Peter Ackroyd22:07

Twenty three years.

Presenter22:09

More of that in a moment. For now, it's time for some music, Peter Aykroyd. We're on your fifth choice of the day. Tell us about that.

Peter Ackroyd22:14

This is the great fugue from Beethoven's String Quartet in B flat. The reason I chose this is because it was the first piece of classical music that I ever purchased.

Presenter23:25

The Lindsay's playing part of the great fugue from Beethoven's String Quartet in B flat. So, Peter Aykroyd, for any twenty three year old who'd like to become literary editor of The Spectator, what are your tips?

Peter Ackroyd23:36

Well, I came back from Yale and uh having

Peter Ackroyd23:40

Nothing else to do, I wrote to all the editors of all the periodicals and newspapers I knew of and offered my humble services. And lo and behold, the editor of The Spectator, George Gale, wrote back and asked to see me. And after a brief interview, he gave me a couple of books to review. I returned the reviews within a short space of time, and he hired me as literary editor. It came as rather a surprise, since I had no knowledge of what literary editors did, I had no experience of journalism, and knew nothing about editing. So it but I m mastered it all over a relatively brief space of time and I proceeded to enjoy myself.

Presenter24:27

And life at the spectator in those days, there were the infamous spectator lunches. Did did they happen on a weekly basis or a monthly basis?

Peter Ackroyd24:33

They were daily.

Peter Ackroyd24:35

The only work that was ever done was in the mornings.

Peter Ackroyd24:38

So it was it was fun. It was a complete revelation to me. I'd never been part of what you might call a social life of the capital, and here I was meeting in quotes famous people all the time.

Presenter24:48

Tell me about who were they? Who were the famous people?

Peter Ackroyd24:50

All sorts of people would wander in and out Kingsley Amy's, uh Oswald Mosley, Ariana Stasanopoulos.

Peter Ackroyd24:57

And I became quite friendly with many of them. Um and at the age of twenty three, twenty four, that's quite uh uh interesting position to be in.

Presenter25:08

You were fearless on the page, too. I read a review of uh Vladimir Nabokov, and you said of his writing, It's incomprehensible, weak, derivative, and self-indulgent.

Peter Ackroyd25:16

Of course. Well, those are the words of a very young literary hack who is uh trying to make an impression. Uh I don't endorse my uh views of that period.

Presenter25:27

And you've been on the receiving end, of course you have, as a writer yourself, of you know, lots of people like you, but then plenty of reviewers don't. Do you bother to read your reviews?

Peter Ackroyd25:35

No, they get sent to me about a month after the publication of the book and they just go into the files, as it were.

Presenter25:40

Right. I mean, I can't resist it really'cause you're sitting opposite me. Dreadful bonkers. Bernard Levin in The Times called your novel Chatterton a mess. Does that all of that just makes you laugh, doesn't it?

Peter Ackroyd25:48

Yeah, it's just because of my head. It's uh it's not something which exercises me in the least.

Presenter25:53

Um tell me about uh at the eleventh hour, I understand, your first volume of of poetry that was about to be published. You changed the pronoun from he to she at the last minute.

Peter Ackroyd26:02

Oh, yes. That was because I didn't want to advertise my uh sexual uh disposition to my family, apart from anything else. So I thought it best uh to conceal it. I suppose that was a um a mistake in retrospect, but at the time it seemed the most natural thing to do.

Presenter26:18

Brian had come with you from America and you were living life together in London. That's right. But your family didn't know.

Peter Ackroyd26:22

That's why

Peter Ackroyd26:24

No, had no idea.

Presenter26:25

And you were together for twenty three years, w and they didn't meet him, they

Peter Ackroyd26:29

No, no one ever did.

Peter Ackroyd26:31

It may have been a mistake on my part to uh keep the two um

Peter Ackroyd26:36

parts of my life separate, but it it was almost inevitable and natural in that period.

Presenter26:44

Why, why do you think that was?

Peter Ackroyd26:47

I don't think they would have got on very well.

Peter Ackroyd26:49

my mother and he although they may have done, I don't know.

Presenter26:52

Your mother simply having a difficulty with the fact that her son was in a gay relationship, you mean, or?

Peter Ackroyd26:57

I think that might have been the problem, yeah.

Presenter27:00

And did you I mean, you you've spoken very honestly about the place that Catholicism had in your early life. Has there ever been a part of you that's possibly had a problem with it?

Peter Ackroyd27:10

No, not at all. Uh it uh seems perfectly natural to me.

Presenter27:14

The lives that uh gay and lesbian people live now are probably the lives that have changed more than any in the last thirty years.

Peter Ackroyd27:21

Yes, I should think so. It it's a cause of surprise to me when I wander down Old Compton Street.

Peter Ackroyd27:28

When I was a boy the whole matter was kept underground almost literally.

Presenter27:32

Indeed. You know, mothers do ask about girlfriends. Did you very deliberately conceal that, or it just was an area that you never spoke to your mother about?

Peter Ackroyd27:40

We never spoke about it. I I presume she sort of guessed, but it was not a subject about which we felt able to uh talk.

Presenter27:49

And what was Br what did Brian make a living at while you were writing?

Peter Ackroyd27:52

Well, he had several limbs. He was a ballet dancer for a while, then he was a male model.

Presenter27:56

So he is very beautiful.

Peter Ackroyd27:58

Yes, he was.

Peter Ackroyd28:00

He was even a double for um John Travolta in his advertising campaign.

Presenter28:06

Oh gosh, so yeah it's quite the lucre.

Peter Ackroyd28:06

Oh gosh, so yeah.

Peter Ackroyd28:09

Yeah.

Presenter28:11

I'm just imagining that if you're a double for a John Travolta, you probably get quite a lot of attention as you walk through the streets of London.

Peter Ackroyd28:16

Yes, I think that did happen, but I I think I think he enjoyed it too.

Peter Ackroyd28:20

Did you quite enjoy that? I did rather, yes. I thought, well.

Peter Ackroyd28:25

Why not?

Presenter28:27

Let's have some music, then, Peter Eckroyd.

Peter Ackroyd28:30

Well, I've always loved sacred music. I think it's uh by far the the most interesting and imposing kind of music for me, and one of the great exemplars of it is Bach's Mass in B minor.

Presenter29:40

Bach's Mass in B minor, performed by the King's Consort and Choir, conducted by Robert King. So you moved Peter Aykroyd out of London in the late late eighties?

Peter Ackroyd29:50

I didn't so much move out of London as acquire a sort of country weekend retreat. I mean, I bought it obviously because I enjoyed being in the country, but I think the major force behind it was Brian's wish to have a country house.

Presenter30:04

Right. Did he yearn for the the quieter life, do you think?

Peter Ackroyd30:06

He went he went in for the grand life, I think would be a better way of putting it.

Presenter30:11

Is it a grand house?

Peter Ackroyd30:12

The country house was yes, it's pretty grand with a

Peter Ackroyd30:15

Outdoor swimming pool, a lake and so forth.

Presenter30:18

And did you entertain there on the weekends there? Was it was it a

Peter Ackroyd30:21

Oh no, no entertainment at all. It was just him and me and the dog.

Presenter30:24

Right.

Presenter30:25

Brian was diagnosed with AIDS in 1990, and that was at a time, of course, when the combination therapies that are open to people now when they're HIV positive were not around.

Peter Ackroyd30:34

No, it was more or less a death sentence in those days.

Presenter30:36

And so how did how did both of you cope and react to that diagnosis?

Peter Ackroyd30:40

Well, we coped as well as we could. He he was alive for another five years, and I I was more or less his sole companion.

Peter Ackroyd30:49

But we just got to it. It wasn't a particularly difficult time. In some ways, it was easier than times before. But he slowly.

Presenter30:58

What do you mean by that? Easier than tight.

Peter Ackroyd30:58

Uh

Peter Ackroyd30:59

Well life became simpler. It's reduced its scope to, you know, one or two necessary things. Um he never lost his um

Peter Ackroyd31:10

Cheerfulness in fact, he was singing in the bath the day before he died.

Presenter31:14

Did you write during that period or were you simply looked after?

Peter Ackroyd31:16

Of course I vote um.

Peter Ackroyd31:18

continually through the period. Since I was his sole companion, I suppose in modern parlance I was his carer but in truth he cared for himself more than I do.

Presenter31:30

And so what about you now? You are you alone? Are you in a relationship?

Peter Ackroyd31:32

I'm alone, and quite happy to be so.

Peter Ackroyd31:35

I've never been happier than when I've been celibate.

Peter Ackroyd31:38

Even when I was a boy wanting to be a Cistercian monk, I had the same instincts.

Peter Ackroyd31:44

As I do now, it suits my character.

Presenter31:46

And oh, I mean celibate as a lifestyle choice or dipping in and out of celibacy as the mood takes you?

Peter Ackroyd31:52

No, uh complete celibacy.

Peter Ackroyd31:56

With no deviation, no

Presenter31:59

Hesitation or repetition?

Peter Ackroyd32:04

No, it's the real thing, I've never been happier.

Presenter32:07

Let's have some music. Tell me about your seventh disc.

Peter Ackroyd32:10

Uh my seventh choice is uh Vorjak's Serenade for Strings and E, for the simple reason that I like it.

Presenter33:12

That was the opening of Dvorak's Serenade for Strings in E, played by the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sir Colin Davis. So at the risk, Peter, of straying into areas of melodrama, I understand that on the day that you um completed probably the work that you're best known for, your enormous tome on London, um, you almost typed in the end and suffered a massive heart attack.

Peter Ackroyd33:34

Yes, I did. I think I'd been saving it up until I'd finished the book, in fact. I was uh rushed to hospital, uh put in a coma for a week. My mother was told I had fifty fifty chance of living. So it's all very uh uh exciting. And I woke up at the other end of the tunnel um feeling perfectly fine.

Presenter33:55

Had you seen anything in the tunnel, as people sometimes do?

Peter Ackroyd33:58

Yes, I saw lots of Arab women dancing, which is an extraordinary thing, uh but that's what I saw.

Presenter34:05

Right. What about your lifestyle choices? Are you very careful about what you eat and drink and imbibe?

Peter Ackroyd34:08

I don't have a lifestyle. My choice is of no consequence. I j I just do what I always have done. I haven't changed anything. I just think of it as a passing aberration.

Presenter34:20

And I heard some gossip, I'm sure this can't be true, that you smuggled a bottle of wine into the the recovery uh ward afterwards and

Peter Ackroyd34:26

That is true. How did you know that? I got no, I ordered a bottle of wine as soon as I came round.

Presenter34:27

Oh, how did you know that?

Peter Ackroyd34:31

But I don't believe in giving up things just for the sake of it.

Presenter34:34

So your life your solitary life then, the writing of uh the Chaplain biography, you are going over a book that you have written and you are doing the second volume of the history of i history of England?

Peter Ackroyd34:45

That's right. I'm on the third volume and now the second volume's about to be published.

Presenter34:47

Right. Do you have any spare time to do anything else apart from Wright?

Peter Ackroyd34:51

I don't want to do anything else.

Presenter34:53

Seven days a week, then.

Peter Ackroyd34:55

More or less, it's a pretty persistent schedule.

Presenter34:59

How many books now have you published?

Peter Ackroyd35:00

I think about forty.

Presenter35:03

Does that give you a sense of satisfaction, a sense of accomplishment?

Peter Ackroyd35:06

Yeah, I think every book for me is a chapter in the long book which will finally be closed on the day of my death. So that final book is the one which gives me the sense of achievement, not the various chapters as such.

Presenter35:21

And I read that uh five years ago you said in an interview, well, you know, I've only just begun. There's a lot more in there, is there?

Peter Ackroyd35:27

Yeah, I always feel that even still, although uh to all outward intents and purposes I seem to have uh written enough. But I have this constant need to continue, and to find fresh fields of thought.

Presenter35:41

And so, given that the solitary life suits you, the life on the island will be perfectly goodable for you, will it not?

Peter Ackroyd35:46

Oh, no, no, I hate every minute of it. First sign of a rat or snake, I jump right back into the sea.

Presenter35:52

Would you

Peter Ackroyd35:53

Oh, God, yeah. I wouldn't last a minute.

Presenter35:55

And what about that book you wrote then about an underneath London, where you presumably you had to climb into the sewers to write that?

Peter Ackroyd36:00

Oh, no, of course not.

Peter Ackroyd36:02

I wouldn't dream of it. I'm not a great believer in first-hand experience.

Presenter36:07

It's a very controversial thing for a a historian and biographer and somebody who's sort of written the tomes that people will read for centuries to come as the definitive works to say you're not one for uh that sort of research.

Peter Ackroyd36:19

No, my my research is my life. It's my my experience of London and of reading about the lives of other people is all the experience I need.

Peter Ackroyd36:28

I don't need to go to extremes.

Presenter36:31

What about building a shelter on the island? Would you be able to lash something up?

Peter Ackroyd36:34

Oh god no, I couldn't even build a matchbox, I'd be hopeless.

Presenter36:37

Yeah.

Presenter36:39

Do you think you might just expire in the middle of the middle of the middle?

Peter Ackroyd36:41

I would probably die straight away. Right.

Presenter36:43

Right.

Presenter36:44

On that note, we'll go to your final disc, tell us what we're going to hear.

Peter Ackroyd36:48

This is part of Peter and the Wolf by Prokofiev. It's the motif for the appearance of Peter. I was given this record when I was very young, and of course I identified with Peter having the same name as myself, and I thought of this motif as somehow my signature tune. So I've loved it ever since.

Presenter37:59

Part of Peter and the Wolf by Prokofiev, played by the Academy of London, conducted by Richard Stamp. So I'm going to give you the books now the Bible, the complete works of Shakespeare, and what will your book be that you take?

Peter Ackroyd38:09

My book would be The Imitation of Christ by Thomas Akempis. It was a book that powerfully influenced me when I was a boy, and I'd like the chance to reread it.

Presenter38:20

And a luxury, too, of course, you're allowed.

Peter Ackroyd38:22

Oh, pen and paper?

Presenter38:24

Yes. Do you do you write longhand?

Peter Ackroyd38:27

I the fiction I write longhand, yeah. But I'm quite prepared to use the same method for other books.

Presenter38:32

And if you had to narrow down the disks and just pick out one that you would save, which one would it be?

Peter Ackroyd38:36

I think it would be Florrie Ford and her nineteen oh eight performance of O O Antonio.

Presenter38:42

It's yours, Peter Aykroyd. Thank you very much for letting us hear your Desert Island discs.

Peter Ackroyd38:45

Thank you.

Presenter39:23

You've been listening to a download from the BBC. You'll find more information on the Radio 4 website: bbc.co.uk slash radio four.