Sir Tim Waterstone

Presenter0:01

BBC Sounds, Music, Radio Podcasts. Hello, I'm Lauren Laverne, and this is the Desert Island Discs podcast. Every week, I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book, and luxury they'd want to take with them if they were cast away to a desert island. And, for rights reasons, the music is shorter than the original broadcast. I hope you enjoy listening.

Presenter0:43

My castaway this week is Sir Tim Waterstone. When he founded Waterstones back in 1982, his initial vision of a literary haven for book lovers, late opening shops bursting with stock and staffed by knowledgeable enthusiasts, was considered highly unconventional. Many, including his former employers at WH Smith, didn't think it would last. He proved them wrong, and his shops proved the perfect home for readers and writers alike. The stores also became the natural choice for launch parties and public appearances by the literary firebrands of the day. Browsing was actively encouraged and was good for business too. Over 70% of sales were impulse buys. His life as a bookseller might best be filed under adventure. He built Waterstones up, sold it to old rivals, bought it back, then quit, then helped someone else buy it. One constant has been his love of books themselves. He says, I think the printed word on paper between two boards is the most fabulous consumer product. It's cheap, it's lovely, everyone adores it. It's collectible, storable, transportable. It's a beautiful product. Sir Tim Waterstone, welcome to Desert Island Discs.

Sir Tim Waterstone1:53

Thank you so much. Thank you.

Presenter1:55

You no longer own Waterstones, but you always said that your target market was literary book browsers. Why is browsing such a particular pleasure?

Sir Tim Waterstone2:04

Well, we both know that it is such a particular pleasure to go into a bookshop and read half a chapter and put it down. And we rarely encourage browsing, because we know when people come in to browse, they're sooner or later going to buy, and sometimes much more than they first thought they were going to buy when they first walked into the shop. You know, you want people to be relaxed when they go into a bookshop and just thoroughly enjoy the whole process of looking at books, picking them up, putting them down again, browsing in them.

Presenter2:27

Is it true that you sometimes pop into water stones to people watch?

Sir Tim Waterstone2:30

I do. Particularly Piccadilly are the huge branch of Piccadilly. And um

Sir Tim Waterstone2:35

It is a tremendous pleasure to go in there on a busy Saturday and I sit on a sofa there, just watch people. It's so lovely to see people and see how well the staff interact with them and how happy people are in the bookshop. It's lovely.

Presenter2:48

The bookselling trade is ever changing. Audiobooks are up, overall book sales are going down and Amazon continues to be a dominant player. What do you see as the role of independent booksellers today?

Sir Tim Waterstone3:00

Well before I do that I'd say that Bordstones and Amazon completely dominate the market here now. And independent booksellers have to be very, very good to compete. And the ones that are very good compete easily. But independents can't survive if they don't run a proper width of stock, a proper depth of stock, and have people working in the stores who are not just enthusiasts but really do know what they're talking about.

Presenter3:23

Your love and passion for music is evident in your list today. Tell me about your first choice. What is it and why have you selected it?

Sir Tim Waterstone3:31

Well, my first choice is the Rachmanoff second piano concerto, and it's here for this reason that I came from a totally unmusical family. I mean totally unmusical family. I played the piano a little bit from the age of seven or eight and learning a little Mozart piece made me realise that classical music might be interesting. But we had no music in the house at all. We had a piano which was polished all the time to press the neighbors, never played. But one day I walked into our village, I lived in Crowborough in Sussex, and I went into the music shop and browsed the records there. And then the lovely man who owned it said, what are you looking for and how much money have you got? I haven't got any money whatsoever, so I wasn't going to buy anything. But he talked to me for a bit and heard that I played the piano. And he said, well, I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll give you a scratch record from the back of the shop. He needn't pay for it. And see how you like this piece. And if you like it, I'll give you another one like it. And what he gave me was the Rachmanov piano concerto, Malcolm Sargent conducting Liverpool fill with Cyril Smith, the soloist. And I took it home and my mother was out and we did have a radiogram. And I put the LP on and opened up the French windows into the garden and sat on the steps and looked out into the garden. And then this music just burst out and I just had an absolute, total revelation to me. I just couldn't believe I'd heard something so beautiful. And that got me hooked for life, you know, from Rachmanoff to all through a whole journey for the next 70 years.

Presenter5:59

Part of Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. Two, the first movement performed by the Liverpool Philharmonic with Cyril Smith as the soloist and conducted by Malcolm Sargent.

Presenter6:10

Sir Tim Woolterston, yours was a wartime childhood. Your father had enlisted in the Royal Army Service Corps, and after following his postings around the country, as you mentioned, you settled in Crowborough, in East Sussex, in nineteen forty two. What was life like there?

Sir Tim Waterstone6:25

I found the war extremely exciting and fun because that part of Sussex was where the fighter planes used to fight above us all the time and I used to lie in the garden and watch the planes in the open. My poor older brother was terrified of it and hid onto the piano, wouldn't come out. We had a Canadian soldier camp in the village which is interesting and they were great fun and they added to the whole spice of the thing. But it was a shock when my father came home because I was a baby when he went away to the war and my mother told me he was coming home on leave and I was three years old. And then I drew him some pictures to give him when he arrived and then the day came and she called out, your father's here and I went into the hall and there was this tall man in uniform looking down at me and I held up the pictures for him and he took the pictures and then I said something so absolutely dreadful that I probably changed the whole nature of my childhood and I can picture my mind my mother standing behind him, first smiling and then her face dropping when I said to him, go away, go away. We're happy without you here. Go away.

Sir Tim Waterstone7:38

And um he shrunk back.

Sir Tim Waterstone7:41

If he'd been a man of stronger character he would have handled that. But he just couldn't handle it at all, and sort of pushed me away. And um we had a really awful relationship all through the childhood and honestly I think it it dated from that dreadful

Sir Tim Waterstone7:55

The thing I said to him in the hall.

Presenter7:56

Yeah. I mean, reading about your relationship, you said that sarcasm was his weapon of choice, and it's quite a chilling description, the weapon that no child can weather or combat.

Sir Tim Waterstone8:07

Hm. Children can't do sarcasm, they don't understand it at all.

Sir Tim Waterstone8:12

Yeah, endless sarcasm, and shouted at me persistent. To this day I hate shouting. And um he was a weak man, but my mother was very affectionate to me and I think partly trying to offset you know what my father was doing. But she clearly thought her main duty in life was to protect him from the world. He just couldn't really cope with the world and

Sir Tim Waterstone8:34

I used to think it didn't damage me at all. I think now it did damage me somewhat. I had a terrible stutter from the age of six to thirteen or fourteen. I had to plan a sentence before I started it.

Sir Tim Waterstone8:49

And then I lost that suddenly when I went to secondary school, and confidence grew, and the stutter just disappeared extraordinarily.

Sir Tim Waterstone8:59

It it it did damage me, but the extraordinary thing is it gave in me

Sir Tim Waterstone9:04

such a desire to prove him wrong in his disparagement of me that, you know, I I'm absolutely certain that's where Waterstoat's came from in the end.

Presenter9:13

It's time for your second piece of music, Tim Waterstone. What's it going to be and why have you chosen it?

Sir Tim Waterstone9:18

Well, I've came to go through to one of my absolutely favourite pieces of music, Superior's Fifth Symphony, by my absolutely favourite conductor, Leonard Bernstein, conducting the Vienna Philharmonic. We're going to hear the coder of it at the end. It is a piece made for Bernstein's conducting, very theatrical, very emotional. And he clearly, absolutely loved the piece. It is a sensationally beautiful piece of work.

Presenter10:39

Part of the coda from Sibelius's Symphony No. Five, performed by the Vienna Philharmonic, conducted by Leonard Bernstein. Tim Waterstone Books would become your passion, but there weren't many in the house. Where and how did you feed your love of reading?

Sir Tim Waterstone10:55

Yes, well what happened was I think it was 1946 or 1947, just after the war, when I would be in either six or seven, a wonderful bookshop opened in the village called The Book Club, which is owned by a lady called Miss Santoro. And I remember peering through the window the day before it opened, thinking this looks wonderful. And I really spent my childhood there. I was there every day reading. First of all, Miss Santoro actually taught me to read, and then, of course, she taught me what to read. I never bought a single book all those years, so I never had any money to buy one.

Presenter11:25

What were you reading?

Sir Tim Waterstone11:25

What were you reading? Well, she started me off with fairly st standard particularly as I found reading difficult technically. She started me off with fairly sort of standard children's books and then nursed me through to the sort of humour books like Just William. And then we went into my sort of moody teenage years and we did Dostoevsky, we did George Eliot and she was a great lover of Graham Greene. But she it was her insistence that I talked to her about the book. So it taught me a fantastic amount really.

Presenter11:53

You describe Miss Santoro as quite an imposing character.

Sir Tim Waterstone11:56

Yes, she was horrid sometimes never to me. Well, once she was to me, when she caught me licking my finger before turning a page, she went for me. And every time I've done that since, I always remember the Sentora telling me off, an eight year old or whatever I was, at the shop.

Presenter11:57

Never to be.

Presenter12:02

You

Presenter12:10

Your parents went to India with your father's job, which meant you were sent to boarding school at just six. I mean, reading about your experiences there, absolutely horrendous. You know, you describe being sexually abused by the head teacher, and that is an experience from which many survivors never fully recover. What was the impact on you?

Sir Tim Waterstone12:29

Well, I discussed all this some years ago with a therapist, and I sincerely believe, I don't think I was damaged by it, I probably should have been. And I was extremely ignorant, and I just thought this is what life must be like, you know. But when I first talked to people about this publicly, it was a few years ago, and I did an interview with the Times Educational Supplement, and I talked about it then. And I did it so stupidly, it didn't do me any harm, sort of nonsense, you know. And about a week later, I had a letter forwarded on to me from a reader who read the article, and she was furious with me. Her husband, who'd been at that school after me, and had been through the same experience, and said, how dare you talk about it like that? You know, you ruined my husband's life. He killed himself, and never, never do that again. You may have come out of it, but most of those children will not have come out of it. So I don't know. I don't know. And maybe I had two things going with me at once. I had my father to deal with and this. And it was the father thing which really, really got to me.

Presenter13:31

Let's go to the music. It's time for your third disc to do.

Sir Tim Waterstone13:35

I wanted Elgar and I've gone to The Dream of Garantius performed by the Hallé Orchestra with Janet Baker. Tell me about Janet Baker. She actually started as a contralto at the bottom, so she moved into being a mezzo in the middle. And it gives her voice, to me, an absolutely unique quality in a mezzo, a very velvety, slightly dark quality. She has the most gorgeous voice.

Speaker 214:00

Voice of friends are round my bed, Oh, save us so badly with the prayer.

Speaker 214:18

Christ in the ghost.

Speaker 214:49

The same was strengthened him what time he knelt, Lone in the garden shade It yearned with

Presenter15:02

Part of Elgar's The Dream of Garantius, performed by the Halley Orchestra and chorus with Dame Janet Baker, conducted by John Barbaroli.

Presenter15:11

Tim Waterstone, life changed for the better when you moved on to Tonbridge School when you were thirteen. You were also captivated, I think, by misses Austin's one to one English lessons. What were they like?

Sir Tim Waterstone15:23

Yes, she was wonderful.

Sir Tim Waterstone15:25

She asked me sort of questions where I hadn't been asked before. There's a D. H. Lawrence story called The Odour of Chrysanthemums, which she gave me to read. And then the following Tuesday when I went to her or something, she said, tell me about the story. So I started off my normal account of what the story was, you know, and she said, no, no, no, darling, not that. What does the story mean? That light bulb went off my mind of what, you know, how l fiction is about meaning something. It's not such a literal narrative arc, you know.

Presenter15:53

Reading about you, talking about her, and and also talking about the bookshop of your childhood, I was struck by the atmosphere of both those experiences. You know, the flowers and the jar on Mrs Austin's table, books everywhere. And it struck me that actually that was what you went on to recreate in your shops.

Sir Tim Waterstone16:12

Yes, it it was. Yes, I mean, when I went to C Cambridge there was Heffers, the university bookshop.

Sir Tim Waterstone16:18

I stood there one day and I knew what I wanted to do was to create a book-selling empire, I'm sorry I'm so big, so immodest, which was sort of cross between the book club in Crowborough, the small independent, and Heffers, the vast great university bookshop. But I just wanted to put them together in one package. And I didn't want one little bookshop, I wanted hundreds of them. So it was there, and it was something about Mrs. Austin, it was something about Mrs Santora, and it was something about a research student who taught me at Cambridge, Francis Warner, who introduced me to the whole concept of books and culture and what they meant.

Presenter16:52

Letty, your next disc. This is your fourth. Tell me why you've chosen it.

Sir Tim Waterstone16:56

Well, I've chosen an anthem, or perhaps more accurately described as a carol. I was at a small college called St Catherine's, and next door was the Great King's, and I used to go quite often to evensong in the King's Chapel, which is one of the most glorious places in the world, to hear the choral music, absolutely sublime. And one day I heard this carol, Jesus Christ the Apple Tree, composed by Elizabeth Poston, who worked in BBC here for some time. She was a composer and she was a teacher of music. It is a most beautiful, beautiful piece of music.

Speaker 217:29

For life my soul has

Speaker 217:32

Good with proportion or ice cream.

Speaker 217:37

What tree of life my soul has seen, Laden with water.

Speaker 217:46

For spiritual beach of words, let's fail and with Christ be ever.

Speaker 217:56

His devotee of all things excel.

Speaker 218:01

Ah.

Speaker 218:02

Oh what's there?

Speaker 218:05

His beauty doth all things excel By faith I know, but I can tell For glory which I have and save in Jesus Christ.

Presenter18:23

Jesus Christ the Apple Tree, composed by Elizabeth Poston, performed by the King's College Cambridge Choir, conducted by Sir David Wilcox. Tim Waterstone After university, you worked for a broking firm in India and while there, married your first wife, Tricia. The marriage didn't last and afterwards you suffered a breakdown. What form did it take?

Sir Tim Waterstone18:45

Well, um

Sir Tim Waterstone18:48

Let me say this. A breakdown of that sort is absolutely unmistakable. It's not just being depressed or, you know, moody or blue. Physically, I couldn't move. I literally couldn't move my hands with enormous effort and couldn't construct a sentence. And I just stopped. It's just your body, brains just stopped on you. But I did, I was very anxious not to lose my job. So I tried to keep going as long as I could. But then they brilliantly sent me off, you know, to get home and get well, which in those days was unbelievably. I mean, nobody behaved like that. It was brilliant. This is middle sixties.

Sir Tim Waterstone19:24

But I eventually got myself to go to the dentist. I knew the dentist well. And he started getting worried about looking at me and worried. He put a hand on my shoulder and he talked to me again. And he went over to the phone. And then I'm trying to remember, because I actually blur the memory of this, but they went to the phone and arranged for me to be immediately taken. It was the Maudsley in south London, and the car took me down there, and they immediately admitted me. And I think they must have drugged me up. And I am hesitating, not meeting your eyes. I'm just trying to remember exactly what happened.

Presenter19:33

Mm.

Sir Tim Waterstone19:55

I remember the dreadful day room, you know, which in those days was full of cigarette stubs and cigarette smells and furniture polish, you know, that sort of dreadful institutional smell, those sort of places. And then I think it's only fifth or sixth day or something like that. I mean, I just did feel better. But I asked to see the specialist again and I said, look, I'd like to go home, please, or I will take the pills. And he first of all said, well, you can't because I can hold you here. But then he agreed. And he said, who's going to look after you at home? And I lied about that because I was on my own. And he said, I must tell you, you will be back. Don't be fearful of it. It will happen. Well, I absolutely never did. Two weeks later or so, I threw the drugs away.

Sir Tim Waterstone20:44

I felt fine and it was the most extraordinary thing. It's never come back. Never come back.

Presenter20:50

You and Tricia had three children together, and you had three more children with your second wife, Clare.

Sir Tim Waterstone20:55

Yeah.

Presenter20:56

Given your experience with your father, how did you find parenthood?

Sir Tim Waterstone21:00

Um I I find it the most blissful experience you could possibly imagine and um I came to the conclusion early on that all you can do with children is love them and give them confidence and then you know let them go. But you know, I didn't give any of them a very secure childhood, but um they all know that I'd love them dearly and still do.

Presenter21:20

Let's go to the music. Tell us about your next piece.

Sir Tim Waterstone21:23

Well, the next piece of music is the Mahler Symphony No. 5, C-Sharp Minor, the Adago. The reason I've chosen that is that in 1990, I became director and a trustee of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, which gave me seven incredibly happy years with the orchestra, and I learned so much from them. There had been a concert at Christmastime in 1988, before I actually became involved with the London Philharmonic, when the London Philharmonic was playing a wonderful concert led by the Mahler Symphony No. 5, conducted by Klaus Tensted. Now, Klaus Tensted was a legendary conductor in those days, and he was a terrifyingly frail man, furious temper too. And I used to go to one of some of their rehearsals with him, watching him rehearse London Philharmonic, sometimes furious, sometimes very loving towards them. It made me realise what a great conductor can do. Well, I was there that night, and it was only years later that I found that it was actually a night where they recorded the orchestra live. So we're going to hear it. Klaus Tenstadt and London Philharmonic was an absolutely magical combination. Put Mahler in front of them and you've got something absolutely totally divine.

Presenter23:42

Part of Mahler's Symphony No. five, the Adagietto, performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Klaus Ternstett.

Presenter23:50

Tim Waterstone. In nineteen seventy three you went to work for WH Smith, and there you learned a great deal about the book business, but in nineteen eighty one you were sacked and left with a redundancy payment of six thousand pounds. What do you remember about your thoughts as you left that day?

Sir Tim Waterstone24:06

Oh, I marry it was it was the happiest moment of my life. I hated working there, and I'd always wanted to do Waterstones, and here at last I knew somebody'd made the decision for me and fired me.

Presenter24:18

But on that day, weren't you scared?

Sir Tim Waterstone24:21

No, I was angry actually. A mixture of anger and excitement. I wasn't scared at all. Not at all. I should have been. I mean, I was responsible for all these kids, you know. I was absolutely exhilarated. I just had to do it. I knew it would work. The moment I started recruiting staff, and they're all young, they're all arts graduates, straight down from the uni. The moment I described to them the detail of what I wanted to do, all four said it'll work. So it became everybody's plan. They all got caught up in the excitement of it. It was great. It really was.

Presenter24:48

Waterstones was born in 1982. What was your original vision as you set it out to those staff that you converted?

Sir Tim Waterstone24:56

Well it was this, a very heavy stock. So it's placed going to be packed with books, sold by people who love selling books and already knew about books. It could hold a wonderful conversation with anybody who wanted to talk to me. This is Ms. Santoro, of course, can be out again. Trading very long hours, evenings, Sundays. I mean, trading on Sundays was illegal in those days. We just simply went ahead and did it and we got away with it. And what I impressed on everybody is we're going to open branch after branch after branch as quickly as we could. And I wanted them to feel that there was no head office. In fact, the head office in those days only consisted of three people anyway, which is me and two others. Yeah, actually, the head office we had for the first two years was only a room smaller than this, 12 foot by 6 foot, with a laboratory office. And we only had room for two chairs. So if the three of us had to sit on the loo while the other two had the chairs. So everything was pushed into the branches. We didn't want to waste a penny at the centre. And it was a wonderful time to do it at the 80s because, A, nobody else was doing this. And secondly, there was a wonderful thrust of new authors coming through at that time.

Speaker 225:57

Who who do you think?

Sir Tim Waterstone25:57

Well, Salman Rushdie, William Boyd, Jeannette Winterson, Peter Aykroyd, A. S. Byat, Margaret Drabble, Ishiguru, you know, they're all coming through at the same time. And there were no literary festivals in those days, apart from Cheltenham and Hay. The branches we opened throughout the country were the literary festivals and the authors were in every night signing, talking to the customers. Gosh, it was fun, it really was fantastically good fun.

Presenter26:10

Bump.

Presenter26:23

It's time for your next disc. Why have you chosen this?

Sir Tim Waterstone26:25

Well, this is the Goldmark Violin Concerto, number one. The story behind this was this early 90s, and it was a period of immense personal happiness in my life. I'd met Rosie, and we'd married, and I was so, so happy. And I must, I think, have been visiting the old Bronton Road shop, which is by now one of a hundred, you know, because when I went back to the tube station, there was a little music shop which sold only classical music. And I walked in and they were playing something which was absolutely beautiful, and I didn't recognise it, but I just stood there, absolutely transfixed with the beauty of this. And I bought the record and played it and played it and played it. And since then, it's become one of my absolutely favourite movements.

Presenter26:57

Press my

Presenter28:19

Part of Karl Goldmark's violin concerto No. One, the Andante, performed by Itzak Perlman, and the Pittsburg Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Andrei Previn.

Presenter28:29

Tim Waterstone, as your business expanded you became notable for your aggressive tactics. You were often challenging established bookshops. Sometimes you'd open up near a loan independent, and the result would be that they would go out of business. Apparently Alan Bennett never quite forgave you for what happened in Leeds.

Sir Tim Waterstone28:46

No, that's that's that's true. We we went to Leeds and there was a rather famous bookseller there, been there for many decades. I mean they it had no energy, no drive at all, but it was Ellen Bennett's favourite book shop. Perhaps we would have hesitated if we'd known that at the time. Anyway, we just opened pretty well next door and they closed down within about three weeks.

Presenter29:05

But as you grew, and sometimes other businesses and competitors did close, did you ever feel guilty?

Sir Tim Waterstone29:12

Um

Sir Tim Waterstone29:15

Do you know I have to say no, I wasn't. I didn't feel guilty. I just felt that they'd had the shot. You know, there's a lot of things people used to say to me about me personally, that I was personally responsible for closing down far too many independent bookshops. But the truth of it is that Waterstones, when it started, was the smallest independent bookseller you could possibly imagine. Six thousand pounds from me, a lot of debt. I mean, we had nothing. But what we did have was self-confidence and a very clear offer and wonderful staff and a wonderful business model. And we weren't sympathetic, quite honestly.

Presenter29:21

You know, there's other things

Presenter29:50

You've written Success is not the making of a fortune, but the making of a point. Who are you proving yourself to?

Sir Tim Waterstone29:57

Me, but of course my father, yeah. And um

Sir Tim Waterstone30:02

A bit to the world too, you know. I mean, i i it doesn't sound as if we'd invented anything very original, but we had actually, and my father b was underlying it, and um

Sir Tim Waterstone30:14

My sister was a brilliant sister to me, much, much older than me. She sort of mother to me, rather. I mean she was always completely on my side.

Sir Tim Waterstone30:22

A little bit was showing her.

Presenter30:24

Your father didn't live to see your success, but your sister did. What did she make of it?

Sir Tim Waterstone30:29

Well, she was first of all rather pleased'cause she was a shell, so she she did rather well financially out of it. Oh, so yeah, she's very proud.

Presenter30:36

Waterstones was independent for eleven years. You sold the company to WH Smith in nineteen ninety three. It can be complicated letting go of something with your name on it. I mean, it was your baby. Even though you felt like it was the right time, you must have had a certain amount mixed up.

Sir Tim Waterstone30:48

And then we're fine.

Sir Tim Waterstone30:51

Yes, it was painful. But on the other hand, I told myself not to feel like that. I was in young fifties. I thought to hell with it. There are other things I can do in my life and it's been great. And I was convinced by the Smith letter, which they did absolutely honour, about the staggering amount of investment they were going to put into it. You know, it felt the right thing to do, and it was the right thing to do.

Presenter31:13

Let's go to the music. This is your seventh today. Why have you chosen this?

Sir Tim Waterstone31:17

Well, most of my adult life has been in London, and I do love London very, very dearly. And I suddenly remembered that lovely song The Nightingale sang in Berkeley Square. And I had heard years ago the wonderful John LeMeasurer sort of talking his way through the song and so absolutely delightfully. I thought, what would be nice of me as I dream of London gazing out into the lovely sea around me on the desert island, and to hear John the Measurer's voice as well. So very English and so lovely.

Sir Tim Waterstone31:51

Best streets of town.

Sir Tim Waterstone31:54

We're paired with stars.

Sir Tim Waterstone31:59

It was such a romantic affair.

Sir Tim Waterstone32:04

And as we kissed

Sir Tim Waterstone32:06

And said good night.

Sir Tim Waterstone32:10

A nightingale sound

Sir Tim Waterstone32:14

In Barker Square.

Presenter32:16

John the Measurer with A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square. Sir Tim Waterstone, you found lasting happiness with your wife, Rosie, whom you met in nineteen eighty eight. Now apparently you knew straight away that this was it, but she took a little bit longer to come round.

Sir Tim Waterstone32:32

Not so long.

Sir Tim Waterstone32:35

Well, I I should say immediately there's twenty-five years age difference between us. I mean me, she's forty-nine, she was twenty-four. She's just finished at Oxford and we were interviewing people and she walked into my office, she's carrying some shopping bags, such an unusual entrance. And it was an absolute, immediate, total coup de food for me and I just utterly fell overwhelmingly in love with her. And we were together for two years and then we married and two more delicious daughters appeared in short order and it was just lovely.

Presenter33:07

You're eighty now, and have just written a memoir. What has looking back on your life taught you?

Sir Tim Waterstone33:12

Um, I think it's taught me that I'm an incredibly lucky man, actually. Obviously there are parts of my private life which have been catastrophic. But I feel very, very blessed. And what it's taught me, I think, is to follow your star. I hated corporate life. I came out of corporate life and created my own corporation. Be yourself. It's when you're not being yourself you're most uncomfortable. Love. That's what I learnt. Love.

Presenter33:38

It's time for your last disc. Tell me about this one.

Sir Tim Waterstone33:42

L'Amer, Chal Trene, so suitable for desert islands. One of the very, very early lessons in Zen Buddhism is you should stand.

Sir Tim Waterstone33:50

Before a crystal blue sea, staring out at the horizon. There's a moon moons of calming yourself. So that's what I'm going to be doing, looking out at the crystal blue sea.

Speaker 233:59

Yeah.

Speaker 234:02

This water belongs

Speaker 234:05

Esteemes auroy.

Speaker 234:11

La May

Speaker 234:14

Les Abérossi.

Speaker 234:16

The norm did go.

Speaker 234:21

And I'm going to be a little bit more Yeah.

Speaker 234:27

Aberse monkey.

Speaker 234:33

Lamer.

Presenter34:35

Charles Tronay and La Mer. Sir Tim Waterstone, I'm about to cast you away, of course. You're going to be in complete isolation, apart from your books and music. How do you feel about the prospect?

Sir Tim Waterstone34:46

I'm actually quite good on my own. As you pointed out earlier, I am aged. There's all sorts of things I like to do about thinking. There's no way I'm going to try to escape instantly. I I don't swim well enough, one thing. And secondly, I'd be completely incapable of constructing a raft which would get me beyond the first five feet of waters.

Presenter35:02

So the books I give you the complete works of Shakespeare and the Bible to take with you. You can also take a book of your own choice. Just one, I'm afraid. What will yours be?

Sir Tim Waterstone35:12

Well, I did think about that. I thought, first of all, Tolstoy.

Sir Tim Waterstone35:15

But then I changed my mind because something I do love doing is memorising poetry. So I've chosen actually the Oxford Book of English first, because then I can read lots of poetry which I already know and love and learn a lot of it. So that's it. I can be very happy actually. Bible, Shakespeare.

Presenter35:21

Tonight

Presenter35:31

You can also have a luxury item.

Sir Tim Waterstone35:32

Yes, there is something which I would like there more than anything else. There is a photo of Rosie taken way back when we were very first together, and um she she's not realizing the photograph's being taken. It's in somebody's garden. And I carry that photograph with me everywhere, and um I'd like that to survive the shipwreck.

Presenter35:51

It's yours. I also have to ask if you could save just one of these tracks from the waves. Which would it be?

Sir Tim Waterstone35:57

Well, I think it better be Garantius. I could listen to that a hundred times and find more beauty in it. So, Garantius, Elgar, Janet Baker, please.

Presenter36:05

Sir Tim Waterstone, thank you very much for sharing your Desert Island discs with us.

Sir Tim Waterstone36:10

Thank you so much. It's a great pleasure.

Presenter36:21

I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Tim, and I wish him all the very best as he whiles away the many hours on the island learning poems by heart, contemplating the waves, and that photograph of Rosie, his wife.

Presenter36:32

Tim would be impressed by the wonderfully diverse range of writers, nearly all of whom have been as keen on reading as he is, in our Desert Island Discs back catalogue. You can enjoy listening to Maya Angelou, Alan Bennett, Zadie Smith, V.S. Naipaul, Faye Weldon, Diana Attil. It's a huge list and there's a novelist there to suit every taste. You can find them all on BBC Sounds or on the Desert Island Discs website.

Presenter36:57

Back in 2007, Kirstie cast away Edna O'Brien. He moved to to London once he was.

Speaker 237:02

You'd been married for a few years with your two young boys and your husband, and you wrote The Country Girls. Yes, The Country Girls remains in my personal life, my little what shall we call it, hold all of experiences.

Speaker 237:17

A little miracle for me. Up to then I had been writing scattered bits and pieces, and suddenly I sat down and I began

Speaker 237:28

I wakened quickly, and sat up in bed abruptly.

Speaker 237:32

It is only when I am anxious that I waken easily, and for a minute I could not remember the old reason my father he had not come home.

Speaker 237:41

And I knew that I was there.

Speaker 237:44

I could write it. I have to tell you they don't come as easily now.

Speaker 237:49

But that was like it was like a lucid trance, if you know what I mean.

Speaker 237:55

And it was finished in three weeks. Those three weeks profoundly changed your life. This book was brilliantly received. I mean your talent was there for all to behold.

Speaker 238:06

And at the same time it was being burned on the streets of Ireland. How did you hear of that?

Speaker 238:10

No shortage of hearing it, my mother conveyed to me.

Speaker 238:15

Um you know how people do? They want to tell you something and they will say somebody else said, you know, and somebody else said to your father I should be kicked naked through the town. And I didn't question her. This will show you what a coward I am. I should have questioned the naked.

Speaker 238:33

But I didn't. Charles Hawhey, who was then Minister for Culture and the Archbishop McQuaid, saying it should not be in the hands of any decent family and it was a smear on Irish womanhood and people, you know, cutting me and sending me anonymous letters and all that. Did it matter to you that your homeland was pulled? Oh, it hurt me very much. Because deep down you have a question with yourself. You feel, have I betrayed them? Have I done something wrong, as they have said I have?

Presenter38:51

Were was it poll?

Speaker 239:06

And being s a little prone to that kind of self examination, I was defiant or semi defiant on the outside, but I was also made very nervous.

Presenter39:18

Yeah.

Speaker 239:19

Yeah.

Presenter39:19

Edna O'Brien talking to Kirsty in 2007.

Presenter39:22

Next week, my guests will be the businesswoman Josephine Fairley. Do join us.

Speaker 339:40

Hello, I'm John Ronson, the author of So You've Been Publicly Shamed. This is my journey into the lives of the shamed, people ruined by a badly worded tweet or work faux pas.

Speaker 339:55

Along the way, I turned from being a keen shamer myself into somebody unsettled by this new zeal to judge and condemn, often on very weak evidence.

Speaker 340:06

That's So You've Been Publicly Shamed, read by me, John Ronson, and abridged specially for BBC Sounds.