Winston Graham

Speaker 20:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Disc's Archive. For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen seventy seven, and the presenter was Roy Plumley.

Presenter0:32

This week our castaway is the novelist Winston Graham. mister Graham, how do you view the idea of a spell on a desert island?

Presenter0:40

Uh with a certain amount of trepidation, because I have never been able to look after myself very well. Uh I've got hands which I use all the time for writing because I write in longhand, but they're not much use I would have thought for building a boat or constructing a house or a shed and I've never cooked much for myself in my life.

Presenter1:01

Is music an interest of yours?

Presenter1:04

I'm very fond of music, and I never seem to have quite enough time to listen to it as much as I would want to, or go to concerts as much as I would want to. There always seems to have been in my life something that I've had to do more. Do you play an instrument? No, I don't, to my great grief. When I see a piano I could scream.

Presenter1:23

What's your first record?

Presenter1:24

Well, when I was a small boy, my mother used to play every Sunday evening. It was a sort of ritual. She played at other times of the week, but this was a sort of hour every Sunday, and I could whistle perhaps sixteen or seventeen of the pieces that she played, but I know only by name about half a dozen. And the one I've chosen is the Impromptu in a Flat by Schubert, which she played rather meditatively. And I think that this particular record is played in very much the same way.

Presenter2:53

Alfred Brendel, playing Schubert's Impromptu in A Flat, opus one four two, number two.

Presenter3:00

What part of the country do you come from, Winston? From Lancashire. I was born in Manchester. Oh, with Paul Dark in mind, I expected you to say Cornwall. Well, I moved there. My family moved there when I was 17, and I lived there for upwards of 28 years, and I think probably wherever I die, my spiritual bones will rest there. You're an honorary Cornishman. Oh, yes, I think so now. Were you a bookish lad?

Presenter3:23

Yes. Um I was rather a miserable young man in the sense that I was always ailing and uh this I think uh put one back into oneself more and I was always reading and uh

Presenter3:35

I was a voracious reader, really. What did you want to be? A writer. Right from the beginning. Yes, right from the beginning.

Presenter3:42

Now, you can't just start writing.

Presenter3:46

As as a vocation, as a career, because it takes a long time without some kind of private income. Could you manage that?

Presenter3:54

Well, my father died when I was 19, two years after we'd got to Cornwall, and my mother had, in fact, a small private income. Minuscule by today's standards, but she was able to stake me for a few years, and this is what she did. So you bought a typewriter and some paper, and sat down and said, I'm a writer, aged 19? I bought paper. I don't use a typewriter very much, but I bought paper and started in that way, and I started writing. And I...

Presenter4:24

I did a variety of unsuccessful things until I was twenty one and then I started my first novel and uh I completed it and it was published about two or three years later. And of course it made absolutely nothing so that I was still dependent upon my mother, but at least it gave me a reason for living and for doing what I was doing and uh

Presenter4:43

I went on from there.

Presenter4:45

Let's have your second record before we go on from there. Well, at uh just around the outbreak of war, uh I met Bena Moisevich, and some months after this, when he was bombed out, I, greatly daring, invited him to come and spend a few weeks with me in Cornwall.

Presenter5:04

Greatly daring because, of course, I was young, newly married, and awaiting call up.

Presenter5:09

But he accepted my invitation, and he came down and

Presenter5:13

He played a great deal. The rackman in off piano concertos number three and and number two.

Presenter5:19

And it was a magical time to hear this wonderful music sounding through the house on that grim, cold January month, before he went away again.

Presenter6:31

Beno Moisevich playing a section from The Slow Movement of the Rachmaninoff Second Piano Concerto.

Presenter6:37

At this particular time we had uh a good but upright Beckstein piano, and uh

Presenter6:43

It was like an elderly or a middle aged maiden lady with her first love affair. It sang and it glowed, and after Moisevich left it went very, very flat, and it took weeks of tuning to bring it up to pitch again. Yeah.

Presenter6:57

What's your next record? That also concerns Moisevich, doesn't it? Well, while Moisevich was at our house, he learned the Beethoven piano concerto number three for the first time. He was going to play it in Liverpool in the following month, and this is particularly reminiscent to me of the time when he stayed with us. Unfortunately, Moisevich never recorded this. No, I was afraid he hadn't. So who would you like to play to represent him, as it were? Well, nobody surely better than Rubinstein.

Presenter8:29

part of the first movement of the Beethoven third piano concerto, Arto Rubenstein, with the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

Presenter8:35

Now, you had started your writing career. Having sent your first novel off to the publishers, how many did you send it off to before it was accepted? Three.

Presenter8:45

And meantime you are busy on another one.

Presenter8:48

Were you sticking to the sort of places and people that you knew?

Presenter8:53

No, I wasn't. I think there's a a a a very considerable distinction between two types of novelists. Perhaps the better type of novelist, if you may say so, starts with his own personality and works out from that.

Presenter9:07

I, perhaps, the longer staying type of novelist.

Presenter9:10

start much further out, looking for things that perhaps I didn't then totally comprehend or understand.

Presenter9:16

And the longer I

Presenter9:18

work and the older I grow and the more I write, the more I come closer into my own self work. Did you feel in those early books there was a steady progress going on in your ability to handle stories and characters?

Presenter9:31

I didn't notice much progress for time, and I think nobody else noticed much progress. I mean, I had no difficulty, as you observe, in finding a publisher, but I had great difficulty in finding a public.

Presenter9:42

Did you have periods of discouragement? Oh, yes, certainly, because uh one knew that the first novel didn't make much money, but when the third novel didn't make much money one began to wonder whether one's really going to succeed at all. Were your early books more or less on the same lines?

Presenter9:59

The first three were plain straightforward thrillers. The fourth was a straight novel. My publisher said that it was ten years in advance of the others, but commercially he could shake me.

Presenter10:11

Because I'd change my style. Yes, which publishers don't like, of course. No, nor do readers.

Winston Graham10:16

Mm-hmm.

Presenter10:17

How long did it take you to toe book?

Presenter10:19

Oh, it varies enormously. I'm talking about the early ones. Oh, the early ones, I suppose, about uh fifteen months.

Presenter10:25

Are any of them still in print?

Presenter10:27

They're not in print because I won't allow them to go into print. There are there are certainly one or two publishers who would like to put them out, but uh

Presenter10:35

To my mind they are not uh mature enough and they should stay decently interred.

Presenter10:41

Which was your first success?

Presenter10:43

Well, I suppose

Presenter10:45

The the war came. I had written several before the war.

Presenter10:49

And then the war perhaps in a way matured me.

Presenter10:55

And the reading public had become more book conscious at the end of the war, and I wrote a book called The Forgotten Story, which was a story of uh Falmouth at the end of the nineteenth century, and that I think really was the beginning of the things. Then shortly after that I wrote a a film script which was made into a film and that was the way it began.

Presenter11:19

Well, living on my desert island, I feel I would really like to hear sometime the sound of human laughter.

Presenter11:26

Uh if only to remind me of my own humanity and uh

Presenter11:30

What better way to hear it than uh

Presenter11:33

to listen to one of our much regretted and great comics, Gerard Hofnung, addressing the Oxford Union and telling them the bricklayer story.

Winston Graham11:44

And before I knew what was happening...

Winston Graham11:49

The barrel started down.

Winston Graham11:52

jerking me off the ground.

Winston Graham11:55

Drinking Milton Gran.

Winston Graham11:59

I decided to hang on.

Winston Graham12:06

And halfway up I met the barrel coming down.

Presenter12:13

Gerard Hafnung.

Presenter12:15

Now you told us one of your earliest successes was this novel about Falmouth and the nineteenth century. You have always been fascinated by local history.

Presenter12:24

Well, living in Cornwall as I did, I came to be deeply appreciative of, obviously, firstly, the beauty of the scene, then the people whom I came to like much later, but very sincerely, and then their history, which was an infinitely more exciting history than one supposed. Eighteenth century Cornwall at that time was of much greater importance to England than it is today, returning 44 members of Parliament and the strategic position of its coastline and the tin and copper that was being raised. Hence the first poll dark novels, which of course are set in the reign of George III. Yes, precisely.

Presenter13:06

Now you wrote them in two batches, didn't you? How many were in the first batch? There were four in the first batch. I know people think that these were sequels, but they were not. Uh they were just one long story which happened to break off in convenient parts. And when I'd finished the fourth, which is called Warleggen, I um felt that this was the end of what I had to say. And to start again would have meant um

Speaker 113:27

Yeah.

Presenter13:30

all the dangers of of what a a sequel can offer, which is staleness and repetitiveness. So it was eighteen years before I came back to them, and then there seemed to me to be a a new theme.

Presenter13:42

starting up, and this has filled three more novels.

Presenter13:46

Now the poll dark books really paid off when the BBC did them a couple of years ago on television in how many instalments?

Presenter13:54

A sixteen.

Presenter13:56

But you didn't adapt them? No, I didn't. Uh as a result the storyline was changed quite considerably, wasn't it? Yes, very considerably in the early instalments and in the later instalments, yes. Isn't there a difficulty when long historical novels like that are adapted for television, that the background and history are sacrificed for action, so as a result one is left

Presenter14:16

possibly with with melodrama, at any rate with the

Presenter14:20

um basic human situations, not much to support them.

Presenter14:24

Well, this is what I was very much afraid of, and I think it has happened to some extent, because they could have been uh

Presenter14:30

extended into a longer number of instalments and sixteen very easily. But to my rather to my surprise, I find that a great many people have discovered some historical background still existing, even though it isn't as strong as it was in the books.

Presenter14:45

Doing the historical research must be very enjoyable. There must be a

Presenter14:49

Rather a temptation to sit down and and start going through the old records, digging up what you can. Oh yes, with this last book, The Angry Tide, I r did nothing except research for five months before I started it. And that it's it's terror, it's enormously stimulating, especially if you go back not just to the history books, which are all right for the history, but go back to the diaries and the journals and things of that sort which are written. They give you a wonderful picture of the day.

Presenter15:19

You've been down on the locations in in Cornwall supervising the shooting of the new series, haven't you? Yes, I have, yes. Have you enjoyed that? Very much. Oh, it's been very stimulating because everybody connected with it has been marvellous. They're thoroughly professional, everybody concerned. And I use the word professional as the highest form of praise. Haven't you wanted to do the adaptations yourself?

Presenter15:41

Well, in the for the first four I was not invited.

Presenter15:43

and for the last three there was no prospect, because I was writing the last novel.

Presenter15:50

And would not have been able to do that had I been doing the adaptation. You're right up to deadline. Yes, they were waiting for it for me. They were, yes, they were very considerate. They didn't.

Winston Graham15:55

Yes, we were waiting for it before.

Presenter16:00

knock on my door or ring me up or anything, they assumed that I would turn up with it in good in due course, which I did.

Presenter16:07

Let's get back to music what now?

Presenter16:09

About nineteen fifty, I think, I met a man who'd got a small private recording outfit, and he'd just recorded a group called Los Paraguayos. He gave me a copy of this, and I very much enjoyed it, and I've never really lost my

Presenter16:24

affection for it.

Presenter16:26

I would like you to play a piece which I find totally incapable of pronunciation. It's called Requedos de Ipacari.

Winston Graham16:48

Y es la no diereno sabe blenidunio.

Presenter17:05

Los Paraguayas.

Presenter17:06

Now you mentioned having written a a film script quite early in your career. In fact, quite a number of your novels have been made into films. Mahoney for example. Yes, Hitchcock. Um six altogether have been made. Take My Life. Take My Life. Uh Night Without Stars, Fortune as a Woman, The Sleeping Partner, Mahony, uh The Walking Stick. Is that six? I don't know. Well it it seems like six.

Presenter17:31

Tell me about your writing discipline. Do you work so many hours each day or so many words each day? How does it work out? It's a difficult question. I'm always being asked this.

Presenter17:42

Obviously when one a novel is in full flow,

Presenter17:46

You can write for a long periods every day.

Presenter17:49

and my most creative time is from five in the afternoon till about eight.

Presenter17:54

But if you're just beginning a novel and the whole thing is in a sort of state of flux.

Presenter18:01

You can sit down at your desk happily enough, but uh

Presenter18:05

it doesn't necessarily follow that you will do any work.

Presenter18:07

And if you go and play a round of golf, you may have a better idea there than while you're sitting at the desk. It's a very good excuse. It is indeed a very good excuse, and the danger of that, of course, is to go to play golf too often.

Presenter18:20

You have given a lot of time to the interests of your fellow writers. You were chairman of the Society of Authors for several years, were you not? For two years, yeah.

Presenter18:27

And you helped the fight for authors to get a a public lending right, which alas they still haven't got. Which alas they haven't got. Now I was with Alan Herbert when he first began this campaign and I

Presenter18:40

Stayed with it for a long time, but I've rather lost touch with it now, but alas it seems to be stagnating.

Winston Graham18:45

I think

Presenter18:45

I think the only thing to do is to start chaining ourselves to the railings of Ten Downing Street.

Presenter18:52

Right record number six.

Presenter18:56

Fourteen or fifteen years ago I heard this song by Jimmy Rogers called Kiss Is Sweeter Than Wine.

Presenter19:02

It's a little sentimental, but it seems to me to sum up quite well a a fairly decent philosophy of life, and it's one that I wouldn't quarrel with.

Speaker 119:12

Well, when I was a young man and never been kissed, I got to thinking it over how much I had missed.

Speaker 119:19

So I got me a girl, and I kissed her, and then and then

Speaker 119:23

Oh Lordy, well I kissed her again because she had kisses sweeter than wine She had mm mm kisses sweeter than wine

Presenter19:39

Jimmy Rogers.

Presenter19:41

Now you were rather um modest early on about your

Presenter19:44

Practical capabilities of looking after yourself. I wasn't modest, I was truthful. And you can't do any camp fire cookery. You were never a Boy Scout? No.

Presenter19:54

I'm worried about you. Yes, I'm worried about myself. I I would perfectly certainly stay there until somebody tried to pick me up.

Presenter20:01

Well, I do hope things work out for you, because there's nothing really we can do.

Presenter20:06

No.

Presenter20:07

I have, I suppose, a certain instinct for survival, and I imagine that necessity being the mother of invention, I would

Presenter20:13

Breed certain schemes. Yes, work at that, Winston.

Presenter20:18

And record number seven.

Presenter20:21

This is uh The Four Seasons by Vivaldi.

Presenter20:25

The whole thing is absolutely marvellous. Why does it appeal to you so much? I've no idea. I think it's I think it's if you're going to ask me this question, weren't you, so I'll answer it now. If there were one uh record that I had to take to the island, uh this is the one I would certainly take.

Speaker 120:34

Yeah.

Presenter20:41

Also, of course, it wouldn't be a bad idea if I were marooned on a desert island. I presume it'd be a tropical one. I hope

Presenter20:47

You wouldn't want to put me on the illusions or something?

Presenter20:49

Um it would be nice to have a record of the four seasons where there would probably be only one or two.

Presenter20:55

And uh I'm very devoted to it.

Presenter21:59

Pinker Zuckerman with the English Chamber Orchestra playing the opening of Winter from Vivaldi's Four Seasons.

Presenter22:06

I have a rather comic uh memory of this particular piece, as it happens. I was in Venice two years ago.

Presenter22:13

And they were celebrating the tercentenary of Vivaldi's birth. I don't think anybody knows actually when he was born, but they decided to make it then. And we went to a concert on one of the islands and uh it was a large hall and the cellist was a man, a large man, with a suit about two sizes too big for him, so that his coat tails swung and uh his trousers hung like elephants uh round his rather big feet. And I was in the front row and

Presenter22:42

In the middle of one of the movements, both he and I suddenly saw an enormous black beetle walking across the stage, and uh there were two members of the orchestra, ladies in long frocks. So he cast an anxious glance around the audience he wasn't playing at that moment, and gradually edged his way towards the black beetle, not moving his cello, so that his cello began to take on an angle of about forty-five degrees, until the black beetle came up against a large black boot. He then glanced anxiously round the audience again, and with a marvellous chaplain-esque flick, flipped the black beetle into the wings, and then slowly resumed an upright position, just in time to take up the music.

Presenter23:22

It's the sort of thing that makes concert gang worthwhile, it certainly is, it is.

Presenter23:27

Ah, your last record, what have you saved to the end?

Presenter23:30

Well, being on a desert island, if I can't have a Girl Friday, I would like a lady's voice. Rita Strike has a superb voice, and I would like to hear her sing.

Presenter23:42

What in English I think is called the nightingale and the rose.

Presenter24:48

Rita Strike in The Nightingale and the Rose by Saint-Sans. Now you've told us which one disc you'd take if you were only going to take one and that was the four seasons.

Presenter24:57

One luxury to take with you. What's that going to be?

Presenter25:01

I don't know. I think that I would probably take a large number of exercise books and a large number of barrows, because this would give me some sort of an outlet when I was in distress. One book to take with you to read, apart from that conventional little list of the Bible and Shakespeare and big encyclopedias? Yes, I think I would take Benham's Book of Quotations. It's actually a very old book of quotations, but it's better to my mind than the Oxford. And there's such a marvellous variety of thought and abbreviated thought and poetry and quotations from the Greek and the French and the Latin and from the Bible. I think this would probably be as useful to me as any other book.

Presenter25:42

Right.

Presenter25:42

And thank you, Winston Graham, for letting us hear your Desert Island Discs. Thank you, Roy. Goodbye, everyone.

Speaker 226:06

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.