Michael Heath

Michael Heath0:00

This is the B B C.

Presenter0:02

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.

Presenter0:13

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

Presenter0:37

My castaway this week is the cartoonist Michael Heath. For sixty years his sharpened nib and equally pointed wit have satirised the bumptuous, hypocritical and contradictory behaviour of

Presenter0:49

Well, all of us. High court judges, punk rockers, schoolchildren, politicians, young mums, shopkeepers, city gents, hipsters, all have, at one time or another, been skewered by the pithy concision of his pen. He's brought humour to the pages of virtually every British newspaper there is, and he's currently cartoon editor of The Spectator. Born in the mid-1930s, his schooling throughout the war years was virtually non-existent. By the age of twelve, he still couldn't read and write, and as a student he claims to have hated every minute of art college. But the fact remains that it was drawing that ended up connecting him to the rest of the world. He says the idea of being a cartoonist came because I could draw silly things. I couldn't read or write, but I could communicate with cartoons. So welcome, Michael Heath. You sounded there in the middle of that introduction as if you wanted to contradict me.

Michael Heath1:38

Now, you're completely correct. The reason I did draw, I suppose, was because that I really couldn't read or write, and I could sort of scribble little drawings down. I sort of wanted to do that. My father was a cartoonist of children's comics, film fun, radio fun. They weren't humorous, cowboys and Indians, detective stories and things like that. And he hated every moment of it. He was a teacher once upon a time, but he gave it up and became an illustrator of children's comics, which paid much better than being a teacher. So I think before the war, he was earning up to £30 a week, when the average wage was about four pence. But he learnt to hate it, and they worked him into the ground. The only reason I'm bringing this up is because I was surrounded by people who my mother could draw too, illustrate little drawings for the picture goer. And the way they talked about their work and the way he hated it, and it ruined his life, he thought.

Michael Heath2:31

The last thing I should have become was what I became, a cartoonist.

Presenter2:35

We're living in a particularly tumultuous and fascinating time politically. I'm wondering if that makes for very rich pickings for a cartoonist.

Michael Heath2:40

Yeah, I want to get

Michael Heath2:43

Well it does, unless it's the one at the moment because they're going through all this nonsense of changing government and all the rest of it and then it goes on and on and on and on and they take over everything and the air goes out of everything and there's nothing else and there's no action in no other show in town other than politicians. And I'm not mad about being a political cartoonist. I do sort of everything. I satirize. I'm not sure about the word even satire, but the thing is that I draw what I see around me and I never thought of that as a particularly clever thing to do, but I thought it was a way that your drawings wouldn't date. So if you got the hair right, the clothes right and on people or whatever, then you wouldn't date.

Presenter3:21

If I may say so, you yourself don't appear to have dated. I knew from my notes that you were born in nineteen thirty five, so you're eighty. You walked in here to day. If anybody had asked me, I would have said Topps, sixty two years old. You look very current.

Michael Heath3:33

How can I answer that? I said, Yes, I'm wonderful. You know, I've got wonderful skin.

Presenter3:37

I'm actually talking about what you're wearing. Oh, am I wearing? Oh, you're aware.

Michael Heath3:39

Oh, by wearing. You're a sharp-dressed man. Well, that's a desperate attempt to seem young and tragic. Well, it's working. I haven't had a face-to-face. Not the tragic, but the younger.

Presenter3:44

Well, it's working. I haven't had a face. Not the tragic video. No, no. So, what are we going to hear? And why have you chosen this track number one?

Michael Heath3:51

I was working at nineteen fifty three training to be an animator in J. Arthur Rank's studios, and I wanted to be an animator, and I wanted to animate

Michael Heath4:02

Things like Bambi, I suppose. Anyway, I was animating advertisements at 24 drawings per second of movement. Anyway, I hated it. And the man in charge of the place was an American, one-legged American gay man who chainsmoked. And he came into the studio one day and threw this record at me. It was a CEP, I think. And I took it home, put it on my dancer record player. And my hair, which I still have, as you're kind enough to say, it's not a wig, stood on end. I really was flipped, as they say. And I was, you know, boom, wow. And I thought the lonesome smoke was the greatest thing I'd ever heard in my life. And I had heard lots of music.

Speaker 45:15

Yeah.

Presenter5:44

Chris Cross played by Lonius Monk on piano with Art Blakey, Milt Jackson, Al McKibben and Sahib Sheehab. Um you said, Michael Heath, that that made the hairs on the back of your neck stand up on end when you heard does it still?

Michael Heath5:57

Well, I played him pretty well every day since then. Having heard The Lonius Monk, I loved it so much that I thought I'd draw like that. And I thought that I could do that somehow, keep the drawings fresh. And remember, the track then lasted three minutes, so you were in and out of the record. Later on, it became LPs and they went on forever, and jazz became boring, and then became avant-garde jazz, which sounded like fire in a pet shop music. And I liked the wit of The Lonius Monk and the speed of which they played, and we were all

Michael Heath6:28

Hopelessly, terrifically professional and amazingly, you could not copy him. And I thought that was something.

Presenter6:36

Is it your aim when they look at a piece of of one of your cartoons is it your aim to make them laugh out loud and move on swiftly, or do you want them to smile and think?

Michael Heath6:44

I want to buy it. Uh I have no idea. Other than the fact that I have a morbid fear of um boring everyone witless and uh hopefully um they will get the joke.

Presenter6:56

Pretty recently, twenty fifteen, there was the appalling incident in the French satirical magazine Charlie Ebdo. Twelve people were killed, targeted because of the cartoons that were being drawn by the magazine depicting the Prophet Muhammad. How much do you think cartoonists should be concerned about offending people's sensibilities?

Michael Heath7:12

Well, there's a limit what you can do. I mean now if you can't draw them.

Michael Heath7:16

Certain things, and you can be killed by it. I mean, it adds a certain frision to your drawing. However, I'm not that sort of cartoonist. I try to keep you amused, like laughing or telling jokes in the air raid shelter.

Presenter7:27

Are there, for example, areas that you would not stray into? You'd think I don't want to cover this or that with my drawings? Are there things you've been told not to cover because they might offend people?

Michael Heath7:33

Don't

Michael Heath7:35

No, there are cut inists, not necessarily guys who want to be funny, but the idea is you should upset people. The whole thing about

Michael Heath7:42

say political cartooners is they should be so outrageous that everyone but you know questions in the house about the drawing yesterday in the Guardian or whatever. That was not my thing. I'm copped out. I wanted to be what I am. Funny is now dangerous and uh you've got to be careful what you do because there are whole groups of people who take offence all the time and look to take offence, who wish to take offence, and they take offence at whatever you do.

Presenter8:07

So then are you careful not to do it?

Michael Heath8:09

No, I do it. I I really do it, but they don't get it, so it doesn't matter.

Presenter8:12

Let's have some more music. Michael Heath, tell me about your second one. What are we going to hear?

Michael Heath8:15

He starts at the Infidels, Bad Pal, another brilliant pianist, technically terrific and amazing and mad, unfortunately, and driven that way by heroin, as most of them were at that period. I saw him once. I went to Paris and saw him. And he sat in front of the c piano and didn't move, didn't move at all, didn't play.

Presenter8:32

Ooh.

Michael Heath8:34

There's a bass player at a drummer and they pulled down a light over him and turned it on and off and he started playing. If you're depressed or feeling sad or whatever it is, or I put him on, but Powell has a and it killed him doing that. I mean the guys who did this sort of thing invariably blew themselves away, let alone us.

Michael Heath8:57

These people inspired me to um carry on showing out drawing. But I'm a hack. I mean, there's no other way for it. I'm uh just a hack cartoonist who happens to uh still be alive in a world which cartooning is um in dire straits, I think.

Presenter10:13

That was Dance of the Infidels, played by Bud Powell, accompanied there by Percy Heath and Kenny Clark. So Michael Heath, you were born in London, unlikely as it may seem in 1935. What are your earliest childhood memories?

Michael Heath10:25

Mine's sort of blank up until uh the war starts, really. I can't remember much about it, though we did live.

Michael Heath10:32

In Hampstead, round Museum Street, and um I was a Londoner born in the sound of both bells, what are you supposed to do?

Presenter10:39

And your dad, as you were mentioning, your dad was an illustrator.

Michael Heath10:41

Yeah, my father's upstairs chewing the furniture because he doesn't like drawing cowboys and Indians, even though he's brilliant at it. And my mother was a mother, a mother of 1939. My mother was a dear soul, and so was my father. But I had no relationship with my parents at all, and that was normal, I gather. I mean, my father did not hug me, we did not high five, and we did not get together and go out together and laugh like drains watching whatever football. I was sort of thrown out of the house at eight in the morning and told to come back at six, and that's the way it was.

Presenter11:13

And can you tell me more about your mother? You say she was a typical mother of, you know, of the time.

Michael Heath11:16

I'd played the piano at ragtime, and I thought that was lovely, and I just

Presenter11:21

And did she draw two?

Michael Heath11:22

I mean she did a few drawings for Picture Goer and uh stopped and never drew again except to tr card for somebody and things like that. No, she didn't do it.

Michael Heath11:31

But the house was full of pictures and you know the prints of Van Gogh and things like that. And my father was an intellectual. Intellectuals, as we were living in Hampstead at that time, were all communists, Stalinists, and all hated Churchill, which seemed a bit odd to me, but I didn't question it. But living in Hampstead, one came across all these intellectuals, and that means tweed suits and open-toed sandals and a beard and a pipe. My father was in charge of the National Fire Service, which meant that he had to gather enough people, locals, around his neighbours, to put out incendiary bombs that were dropped.

Presenter12:06

And you used to help him with that, didn't you?

Michael Heath12:08

I did, yes indeed. The sentimentary bombs were often dropped too low and didn't blow up and were just lying around all over Hampstead Heath. And I was asked if I'd help out and load them up in a pub at the bottom of Downtry Hill. And they were piled up like milk bottles. And I used to go out and collect all these things and carry them like milk bottles. And I remember an old lady seeing me and fainting. I thought that was very funny. Then I got to the bottom of the road and they'd pile them up. No health and safety didn't come into it. Early war years to me, I had some friends and all the rest of it. It was unfortunately, it sounds awful, but it seemed fun.

Presenter12:45

It's time for some more music. Tell me about your third. What are we going to hear now?

Michael Heath12:49

Well, poor things out there, we've heard some jazz, they're probably lying down or whatever it is, and don't want to hear any more jazz ever again. So I'm playing what you might like a little better. It's the Teddy Bears Picnic. I said I didn't particularly talk to my parents and they not to me. And we didn't celebrate birthdays or Christmas or anything like that or give presents to each other. But I had a friend all the time in the background, and that was the BBC. The BBC radio was going on all the time. And Lord Wreath saw to it very brilliantly, I thought, is that he'd have a comedy programme and he'd follow it with Beethoven's Fifth or whatever, children's programmes, which I used to hear occasionally. I thought it was brilliant.

Speaker 413:27

If you go down in the woods today, you're sure of a big surprise. If you go down in the woods today, you'd better go in disguise. For every bear that ever there was will gather there for certain, because today's the day the teddy bears have their pee.

Presenter13:57

That was Teddy Bear's Picnic, performed by Val Rosen with Henry Hall and his orchestra. You were laughing, was it ruefully throughout that?

Michael Heath13:58

Yeah.

Michael Heath13:58

Performed by

Michael Heath14:03

Well, I was just thinking about that I suppose there were uh the children it was aimed at were of age between whatever it was, three and eight. Wouldn't be the same children as they are now.

Presenter14:12

You said no Christmas presents, no birthday presents. I mean, your father was earning a living. Was that part of the sort of communist ethos that, you know, don't don't

Michael Heath14:16

That

Michael Heath14:18

I don't think he gave the same present to my mother every year, but didn't cheer her up. He gave her a little bottle of violet perfume, which she said was disgusting. And he never varied that. And what presents I was given at that time, perhaps a teddy or something like that, or an old train, they were taken away from me and given to the people next door or something who'd been bombed out. Or indeed I didn't know my birthday or at what date it was on. I once, at a school I was in for five minutes, invited a lot of kids in the school that I was in the classroom with.

Michael Heath14:47

I said that my birthday was on such and such a date and they must turn up with presents or something. Anyway, they turned up and it wasn't my birthday and they were sent away. And

Michael Heath14:58

Uh

Michael Heath14:59

I hid behind the settees. I'm in

Presenter15:01

It's tragic comic, that story. I mean, you're laughing, I want to sort of shed a tear about it.

Michael Heath15:04

Yeah, the tears of a cloud. Yes, I can see that. Yes, it's ghastly. But of course, it may be the.

Presenter15:09

Well, is it not a bit ghastly? It sounds a bit ghastly.

Michael Heath15:11

Is it

Presenter15:13

You've mentioned that your dad was an ARP warden in Hampstead. You had.

Michael Heath15:16

Yeah.

Presenter15:18

During the war, also been sent for a time to Devon, where your grandmother lived, because it was meant to be safer there. How did that go?

Michael Heath15:22

How did that go? I was evacuated. I mean, not in the colourful way of standing around with a box with a gas mask in it, and I was at Waterloo Station or whatever it was. And I went to stay with my grandmother. I was um on the beach one day. It did on the beach is very difficult because they covered it on scaffolding and laid bombs all over the rather place.

Presenter15:41

This was in Devon.

Michael Heath15:42

Yeah, it's a place called Torcross.

Presenter15:43

Yeah.

Michael Heath15:45

I climbed through the scaffolding and barbed wire. It was a lovely day. And I sat there on the beach and there were a few people around me, and a couple of soldiers. And they saw the aeroplanes coming towards us. And they said, Ah, they're two of ours and I said, Wee, like that they separated and machine gunned us all and cannon fired us all and I didn't know anything other than to run, so I got up and ran and climbed through the barbed wire and the scaffolding. And all this noise around, I couldn't figure out what it was like, and it was shrapnel. And you know, they'd bombed the place, and it was considered more dangerous to be in Devon than it was to be in London, so I came back to London.

Presenter16:19

Tell me about your next piece of music, Michael Heath. We're on your fourth of the day.

Michael Heath16:24

Oh, Max Miller. Max Miller. I in 1947 my father, for reasons never quite understood, dragged us all out of London and took us to live in Brighton. We stayed there. Now Brighton in 1947 was pretty well exactly as it is in Graham Green, Brighton Rock, and it was absolutely the most fantastic thing.

Michael Heath16:50

And the whole town was like a frontier town. I mean it's just outrageous full of criminals on the run from the police. Nowadays you get away from the police, you go to Rio or something. In those days they got trained Victoria and went to Brighton for fifteen shillings or something. Return. And I would take to this club and I met all these criminals and strange men and odd women.

Presenter17:12

Let's hear it.

Speaker 417:13

And there was a fella running down the street in his shirt.

Speaker 417:16

I told him he on, a little tiny shirt running down the street. I said, where are you going? He said, home. Here. Here.

Speaker 417:26

Here's the song that goes with it, I never slept a wink all night.

Speaker 417:38

I once stayed in a swell hotel, the chambermaid was really

Presenter17:42

That was Max Miller at the Finnsbury Park Empire in 1942. Max in an air raid, and I never slept a wink all night. Michael Heath, you were mentioning there that your father, for, as you say, unknown reasons, took the family to Brighton in 1947. So much of your work is filled with this brilliant, luxurious detail, the small bits of life. If you were to pen a little cartoon snapshot of life in Brighton at that time, in the, let's say, the early 50s, what would be in it?

Speaker 417:48

Nice.

Michael Heath17:48

Uh

Michael Heath18:08

With a mixture of people, the criminals and the things that they did to each other and

Michael Heath18:13

I mean, I got a job in not a job, but I sort of th in the club. There was a billiard hall upstairs and they gave me

Michael Heath18:20

shilling to go out and get them sandwiches'cause often they go into mammoth card games which would last twenty four hours and um every now and then they'd beat someone up.

Presenter18:27

You you ended up at art school and you am I right, you did loath every minute of it.

Michael Heath18:31

Nobody did any work. I mean, they just sat around talking about Jide or something. And I wanted to go out and I wanted to freelance and I did it there. I mean, I was freelancing there, and I sold my first drawing to Melody Maker magazine, which is my jazz thing, a jazz magazine, a very good one. And I sent them some drawings, and I sold them straight away. I was very I got two guineas.

Michael Heath18:54

I I didn't do captions then, I just did amusing drawings or Christmas cards or something like that. Or indeed, there was a funny office in London.

Michael Heath19:03

For Deco Records when the LP first came out, and you would sit in a room and a guy would open a hole in the wall and say, Debussy, anyone know anything about Debussy? Do a cover, ten pounds. And I said, Jazz, anyone know anything about Jazz? I'll do so. Okay, ten pounds, here he is, do it. Quite a good living, actually.

Presenter19:22

I mean that's not that.

Michael Heath19:23

Well, it could yes, I it was a good living, I mean, and and that's very good. And then I eventually ended up in a magaz newspaper that everyone's forgotten about, the Woman's Sunday Mirror, and I did a strip called Nelly Know All, Never Throw Anything Out, Make Do and Mend. And you know, don't throw those old socks away, dye them and then hang them up for Christmas or eat them, boiled.

Michael Heath19:45

And I got ten pounds, ten shillings for that.

Presenter19:48

Let's fit in some more music, Michael Heath. Tell me what we're going to hear now. This is your fifth track of the morning. Jack Buchanan.

Michael Heath19:54

Not jazz? Honestly, I swear to God out there that you're probably leaving the room, but it's not jazz, I said you. Um Jack Buchanan, I suppose, is Britain's answer to Fridestair.

Michael Heath20:04

And these are pre electric recordings that I've been listening to and I this one is one too. And they have to project themselves, you know, they have to sell a song and all the rest of it. It it's relentlessly

Michael Heath20:16

Cheerful and

Michael Heath20:18

It's about travelling, for God's sake. Well, I mean, travelling now is horrendous, but this is about travelling and travelling in nineteen thirty

Michael Heath20:25

I was 29. It was obviously, you know, about three people going to Paris, like for three quid or something like that, and or sitting in one aeroplane and being given cocktails. And it has that.

Michael Heath20:37

Boom, George V thing, like Cheerful Charlie Chaplin or whatever, or uh someone who wishes to

Michael Heath20:44

entertain you or not go

Presenter20:48

Let's hear it, shall we?

Michael Heath20:49

Mm.

Presenter20:49

Mm.

Speaker 420:51

I've been a while away from bank to Mandalay. No buses ever ran for me. And I have crossed the line and roamed the wide world over. And I have even seen down under and Andover. And I have found the milk of humankind too, way back in Buffalo and town.

Michael Heath21:01

Right, well nobody

Speaker 421:14

Yeah.

Speaker 421:16

You take a step, I take a step.

Michael Heath21:17

I

Speaker 421:19

Keep on and gone.

Presenter21:22

Take a step. Jack Buchanan with the Shaftesbury Theatre Orchestra, directed there by Thomas Tunbridge. You were well embedded into Fleet Street Michael Heath by the 1960s, working for Punch, The Spectator, Private Eye, and so on. You were also part of a rather is Loosh a good word? That soho drinking crowd. You know, people like Geoffrey Bernard and Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon. Yes, are you still? A little bit.

Michael Heath21:38

Yeah.

Michael Heath21:39

Yeah.

Michael Heath21:41

Must be a little bit of a message.

Michael Heath21:43

Are you are you still?

Michael Heath21:46

Well, I can't do the drinking I drank, or drank the drink I was drinking, whatever it is. As I'd been in Brighton and I met all these strange people, odd balls, as you would call them, and I'm in Soho, I came across or was introduced to Geoffrey Bernard, who's outrageous and a wonderful writer for The Spectator. And I got on extremely well with him, although he was outrageously rude, and so were all his friends. But they were all witty and amusing and clever. They all were brilliant painters, Francis Bacon, for instance, and Lucian Freud, and all these other strange people. All of them had one thing in common. On the whole, they had something that you wanted to hear or pick up from. And no one was allowed to boast, and you mustn't dog about money you'd earned, or whatever it is, or a drawing, anything like that. You just sat down and stood and.

Michael Heath22:34

listened to what they had to say, and it was I mean, just um, boom I thought it was the most amazing thing in the world. Process Baker was the most frightening man I've ever come across. I thought it was terrific.

Presenter22:43

Yes, you once said it was like drinking with panthers.

Michael Heath22:47

Why yeah, I'm not sure you should say that on that, but the thing is yes

Presenter22:50

Did did you bother to wonder where the sort of self-destructiveness and the the general destructiveness of that group of people came from? Because it sounds like a very visceral environment.

Michael Heath23:00

Well, uh for a start the pubs closed at two and then you went up to the colony room after drinking in the French or coach and horses in Soho and then went back to the Hub

Presenter23:12

And it was whiskey, was the drink of choice?

Michael Heath23:14

Whiskey was the thing then, yeah. We drank well, vodka or whisky, yeah, lots of it. You start the day with Geoffrey Bernard, perhaps, in the coach and horses.

Presenter23:22

What what sort of time?

Michael Heath23:24

Well, eleven.

Presenter23:26

Hmm.

Michael Heath23:26

And Jeffrey would be coughing something dreadful'cause he's smoking fifty

Michael Heath23:31

Senior service a day, and all the rest of it, and drinking, God knows what.

Presenter23:34

If you were in the pub at eleven, when were you doing the cartooning? When were you doing the drawing?

Michael Heath23:39

When I was drinking both.

Presenter23:42

So you could you could be productive if you

Michael Heath23:44

I could drink and uh draw on.

Presenter23:46

That's something of a problem, isn't it, if one is still able to do one's work.

Michael Heath23:50

So I thought it was rather good. I mean, after all, you draw fearlessly when you're drunk, or half drunk, and then it sort of gives you a sort of whiz.

Presenter23:56

You designed the set for Keith Waterhouse's play, Jeffrey Barnard, is unwell. I mean, that was a a terrific and huge hit. And as you say, he was doing this weekly column called Low Life, the Spectator, which Jonathan Meads, the cultural commentator, once said was a suicide note in weekly instalments. Right. Yes. Does that seem about right, by your estimation?

Michael Heath23:59

Yeah.

Michael Heath24:07

Yeah.

Michael Heath24:13

Correct.

Michael Heath24:15

I was accused of not having, as Geoffrey would say, guts. You caught no guts. Guts meant drinking.

Michael Heath24:23

Continually I'm in and not stopping.

Michael Heath24:26

every day, all day, until he dropped or whatever. Serious drinking. I mean, I always said, you know, I made my excuses and left. I was a coward. I never went off. I went off to work. I never wanted to uh

Michael Heath24:40

Die of it.

Presenter24:41

Let's have some more music, Michael Heath. Tell me about what we're going to hear next. It's your sixth of the day.

Michael Heath24:46

This is one of the many brilliant recordings that played by Bud Powell and it's all the things you are Jazz Massey Hall, Bud Powell, Max Roach and Charlie Parker. And why do you like it? Because you can't repeat it. Nobody else can do it. Nobody could do it. These men were so brilliant that they played anyone else off the stage as you couldn't play like any of them.

Presenter26:08

All the things you are. Dizzy Gillespie, Charles Mingus, Charlie Parker, Bud Powell and Max Roach there. Michael Heath, you once did a a marvellous cartoon of a man at a bar saying to a woman he's chatting up, Do I know you from somewhere? and she says we were married for five years.

Michael Heath26:21

Yes. Oh god, there was lots of them. Yes. Did jokes about marriage and all the rest of it. And I did this for Guardian of all things. Yes, it was the

Presenter26:23

Yeah.

Presenter26:27

Yes, it was the early eighties. You had that cartoon strip called Love Old. Oh God, yeah. To say it was darkly humorous doesn't really count. Well, I doubt it. Yes, it was a bit bitter and twisted, wasn't it?

Michael Heath26:30

Oh god, yeah.

Michael Heath26:33

Well I think it's a good idea.

Michael Heath26:36

Would it be fair to conclude that you are not a romantic?

Michael Heath26:43

I'm the most romantic man you ever met in your life. Is that true? I'm completely soppy. Absolutely, completely, absolutely, certifiably mentally soppy. If you show me d bambi, I'm on the floor sobbing. I I I dumbo.

Presenter26:55

I don't know if you're toying with me now.

Michael Heath26:57

Is this true?

Presenter26:57

But

Michael Heath26:57

Are you remembering that?

Presenter26:59

And so you've been married twice?

Michael Heath27:01

Yes, indeed. Twice. Long time. Well, yeah, but I mean, now it's heroic. I mean, a long time. I've been married in twenty four years first one, I think, in eighteen years the other one, and one in the middle I didn't marry.

Presenter27:12

So long marriages when you said you're a romantic, you've said you're neurotic, did work t tend to always take precedence?

Michael Heath27:18

I've got to be careful, I apris thing is that first of all, women may become attracted to you because you make them laugh and they say, Oh, I love his drawings. I do little drawings for them. And then you get married to them. Editor says, I want this drawing by five, and you've got to do it by five. And they say, I thought we were going out. I thought we were going to the theatre or cinema or whatever it is. And I say, I've got to do this drawing, get it in. Well, why don't you ring the editor up and say, You haven't got time, you're going out.

Presenter27:28

Uh

Speaker 427:28

Raw.

Michael Heath27:44

That doesn't seem the

Presenter27:44

That doesn't seem the most unreasonable idea.

Michael Heath27:47

Well, yeah.

Michael Heath27:48

No, but I mean, there are three people that are married with a cartoonist. The cartoonists are not funny necessarily, you know, they're not giggling or laughing. I mean, they're

Michael Heath27:56

the sad side of it, the depression side of it, because I don't think there's any f fun without you being depressed at the same time. You've got to know the difference between the two. I mean, depression is the adverse side of people giggling all the time.

Presenter28:08

Of course, everybody is familiar with the idea that we have professional obligations, but for everybody, there's a choice to be made. You might say, well, actually, today is the day that I do phone the editor and say.

Michael Heath28:18

Yeah, I I mean, you know, I I'm I was driven, darling. You know, if I was a composer or if I was Shostakovich or whatever, um I mean everyone would allow me to go up there and hammer away and uh conduct a huge orchestra and miss dates and God knows what else and like that and they would naturally assume that that came first and you were the greatest composer of all time or uh conductor.

Michael Heath28:40

Or a great artist, for instance. Art and me, I mean, you know, I'm not an artist, I'm a cartoonist, and I'm rather angry about that, because if I played my cards right, I wouldn't have to think of these damned ideas all the time, because every day it's like going in for a competition and having a win. If I'd become a contemporary British artist, I wouldn't have had to do anything. So you took a blank canvas up and then rude word in neon written backwards. In other words, it's stunning.

Presenter29:02

I get the feeling that Michael Heath on contemporary art might be a whole new series, but I don't think we have time for it yet.

Michael Heath29:02

Yeah.

Michael Heath29:06

But I don't think we have time.

Michael Heath29:08

I admire them. You go you understand. I don't go and laugh or sneer at them. I wish I was one.

Presenter29:14

Tell me about your next piece of music. We're on your seventh, Michael Heath.

Michael Heath29:17

Funny face for the stare at his sister.

Michael Heath29:21

It's rather like Jack Buchanan and we're recorded at much the same time and you had to shout into a tube to get yourself heard on an old shelleck record. And that adds to me something about it. It's like you've got no chance of retakes or anything like that. You've got to do it in three minutes and out. And Freder Stair is full of beans and excitement and I defy you not to feel happier after you've heard Funnyface.

Speaker 329:43

From having you around Though you're no glorious Swanson, For worlds I'd not replace That's funny, funny face

Speaker 430:00

Please and tell me that I'm not so pretty, dear When my looking glass and I agree In the contest at Atlantic City, dear It's a miracle I

Presenter30:15

That was Funny Face by George and Ida Gershwin sung there by Fredna Dela Stair with Julian Jones and his orchestra.

Presenter30:21

Michael Heath, I I I'm hesitant to call it a body of work, and yet it is. And I'm only hesitant because you yourself have said, Well, I'm just a hack cartoonist who happens to be alive, which is to rather underplay the whole thing.

Michael Heath30:32

There's no other way in working for newspapers other than working at great speed and or also magazines. So you had to be on the ball and know what you were doing. And that's

Presenter30:39

Do you take time to go back and look at it? Do you leave through old stuff?

Michael Heath30:42

No, I don't, other than the fact that I do like what I did, but I didn't like doing what I did it, and I don't like what I do now when I do it. But if I look at it six months from now, or six years from now, I think, my God, I wish I could draw like that now

Presenter30:54

No.

Michael Heath30:54

Yeah.

Presenter30:55

Cartooning, of course, has always relied on print as a medium. It is now a declining medium. Do you think there is a danger that as print as a medium declines, we will see the decline of of cartoonists?

Michael Heath31:04

Cartoonists. Yeah, I mean that it is true because you can if you want to save money you can get rid of cartoonists quite easily because they never come out of their hole in the wall. They stay at home and turn it out and their wives are saying, What are you doing, you boring so and so on But the fact is that um there are no cartoons in newspapers as there once were. The only cartooning that exists healthily is political cartoonists and uh all the b broadsheets have a political cartoonist.

Presenter31:29

You go into the office five days a week, is that right? At the spectator?

Michael Heath31:32

Yeah, I did work at home. I wouldn't recommend it.

Presenter31:34

Why do you go into the office now? What is it about that in is that a creative environment? Is it contact with other people that's sticking out?

Michael Heath31:39

But I come across other people who are alive and chatty and all the rest of it, and I pick up on things very quickly. Also, it stimulates me, and going to work stimulates me. It makes me very angry being on the underground and being with rude people, but that's the name of the game. I say, Okay, I put it in a drawing, you know, I mean I get my own back.

Presenter31:55

It sounds to me like you might actually quite like being alone on an island. Because, of course, I'm going to cast you away today. Do you quite like the idea?

Michael Heath32:03

I quite like it, I guess, because, you know, I'm used to being on my own, and when you're divorced you're living in horrible rooms and the rest of it, and I have a friend.

Michael Heath32:11

A dog has been with me all the time. Charlie, Charlie Parker, can I take the dog on the desert island? This we will come to in a second.

Presenter32:18

But first, tell me about your final piece of music. What are we going to hear now? What's your eighth track?

Michael Heath32:22

We got some more jazz here. That's Charlie Parker. That's my dog. And uh I just love this record. There are thousands of tracks that I'd love to have played and bored you rigid with, but I love this one and uh it's Lover by Charlie Parker.

Presenter32:36

Thank you.

Presenter33:38

That was Lover, played by Charlie Parker, composed by Richard Rogers and Lorenz Hart. It comes to the point, Michael Heath, when I give you some books, you get the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare, and you get to take one other book along with them. What's your book going to be?

Michael Heath33:51

Die of a nobody, it was serialized in punch, turn of the century.

Michael Heath33:56

It's about a family lived in Clapham or somewhere, and it's hysterical, and it hasn't aged at all.

Presenter34:01

As an

Presenter34:03

We'll give that

Michael Heath34:03

A tube

Presenter34:03

Then, and a luxury too. What would your luxury be?

Michael Heath34:06

Two

Presenter34:06

B.

Michael Heath34:07

I'd have a painting kit, so I could learn to paint properly, and I'd have a critic fly over and then review it. It's a stunning drawing, first painting the colour in the corner and the neon sign written backwards saying bum.

Presenter34:20

Right.

Michael Heath34:21

Uh and then I'd be a real artist and I'd I'd I'd I would dig my own grave and uh

Michael Heath34:27

and nicely at sea buried at sea.

Presenter34:29

Right.

Presenter34:30

We'll give you that then. And which one disk of the ace would you save if you had to save one?

Presenter34:35

Yeah.

Michael Heath34:35

Chrisscross, the first one, the learnest monk.

Presenter34:38

We shall give you crisscross. Michael Heath, thank you very much for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Michael Heath34:43

Terrific. I'm now off to go and do a gag about God knows what. I haven't the foggest idea, but it's about something. Good luck with that.

Michael Heath34:51

Toodle pip

Presenter35:33

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 4.