Andrea Newman

Speaker 10:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a download from the Desert Island Discs archive.

Speaker 10:06

This edition may be slightly different from what was actually broadcast, but it is the only version we have. It comes from the British Library's radio collection.

Speaker 10:15

The recording didn't contain the guests' eight music choices, so we've rebuilt the original show by using discs from the B B C Gramophone library. For Wrights' reasons we've had to shorten the music.

Speaker 10:26

Full details can be found on the Castaways page on the Desert Island Disc's website.

Speaker 10:31

The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen eighty.

Speaker 10:34

And the presenter was Roy Plumley.

Presenter0:53

This week, our castaway is the novelist and television writer Andrea Newman.

Presenter0:58

Andrea, how much does music mean to you? Important?

Andrea Newman1:01

Very important.

Presenter1:02

Ever studied it?

Andrea Newman1:04

Yes, piano lessons as a child, exams to grade six, and brought up in a musical family.

Presenter1:12

Have you ever played in public?

Andrea Newman1:13

Yes, I actually won a Cup once when I was about fifteen. Oh, somewhere up north. Then I gave up. I thought, Quit while you're ahead.

Presenter1:16

Where is the

Presenter1:23

You play discs a lot.

Andrea Newman1:24

Yes, I I play if unless I'm out for the day, I play music every day at home.

Presenter1:28

As background when you're doing routine tasks.

Andrea Newman1:31

Yes, and also to help me start work, or as relaxation, all sorts of music for many hours a day.

Presenter1:39

How do you mean to help you start work? To put you in the mood?

Andrea Newman1:42

Yes. It's so difficult to start work at all that I find music does help a little. Nothing helps enough.

Presenter1:53

Did you have any plan in selecting your eight record?

Andrea Newman1:57

Yes, I've been practising for years in the hope that you'd ask me. And I've I've made lots of lists and torn them up and made fresh ones, and I've found that it was very little to do with nostalgia. I was choosing old favourites, and music that I know so well that I know I'll never be tired of it, that I'll always love it.

Presenter2:00

Uh

Presenter2:16

What's the first one you have?

Andrea Newman2:18

Vedor is a Carter from the Fifth Symphony, and it's meant to pull me together. When I arrive on the island and the shock of being shipwrecked, I imagine I'd need something very bracing. And I think organ music is pretty bracing, and this is a very stirring piece, and I'd play it very loud.

Presenter3:36

The Daccata from Vidor's Fifth Symphony, Nicholas Kiniston, at the Royal Alwood Hall organ.

Presenter3:44

Where were you born, Andrea?

Andrea Newman3:45

Dover.

Presenter3:46

Your father was a civil servant.

Andrea Newman3:48

No. He was a first of all a reporter and later a photographer.

Presenter3:53

Now, when you were a little girl, Dover must have been very noisy. Did you stay there during the war?

Andrea Newman3:58

We got out of Dover rather fast. I was two, so I don't remember Dover at all. We then went to Shrewsbury.

Presenter4:04

With your parents? Yes. Where did you go to school?

Andrea Newman4:05

Yes.

Andrea Newman4:08

Ah, first in Shrewsbury and then in Cheshire. My father was away during the war in the RAF.

Presenter4:13

What we were good at at school.

Andrea Newman4:15

English Surprise. Um, very much on the art side. English, history, Latin, art, music, terrible at maths, terrible at biology, totally one sided and unscientific.

Presenter4:28

What did you want to do?

Andrea Newman4:30

I always wanted to write. I think as soon as I learnt to read or write I thought this is the thing to do.

Presenter4:35

Did you start writing?

Andrea Newman4:36

I started writing trying seriously to write for adults when I was nine, which is ludicrous.

Presenter4:43

Then you went on to university in London. You read English, obviously.

Presenter4:49

And while you were an undergraduate, are you married to a fellow student?

Andrea Newman4:52

No, I married someone I'd known since I was sixteen. Mhm. I married when I was twenty one.

Presenter4:55

Mm-hmm.

Presenter4:58

And you graduated? Yes, the following year.

Andrea Newman4:59

Yes, the following year. Then I went to work as a civil servant and I spent eighteen months putting circles round numbers which they called coding. Coding. I was coding answers to questions for a government social survey.

Presenter5:06

Yeah.

Presenter5:07

Coding.

Presenter5:14

Did you really feel that this was a stop gap?

Andrea Newman5:16

Oh yes, but it it was so lovely to be earning even a small amount of money after being a student for so long. It was wonderful to be employed.

Presenter5:22

Uh

Andrea Newman5:24

I actually have a payday, but I was still int intending to write novels.

Presenter5:30

Let's have your second record. What's that to be?

Andrea Newman5:32

My second record is Vaughan Williams, to remind me of England, when I'm sitting on my island. I could have taken a lot of Vaughan Williams, but I had to choose one, and it's The Sixth Symphony.

Andrea Newman5:44

The end of the first movement.

Presenter6:36

The closing passage of the first movement of the Vaughan Williams Sixth Symphony.

Presenter6:41

Andre Preven conducting the London Symphony Orchestra.

Presenter6:45

How long were you a civil servant?

Andrea Newman6:47

18 months.

Presenter6:48

What did you do next?

Andrea Newman6:50

I became a teacher.

Presenter6:51

Where?

Andrea Newman6:52

I'm at a grammar school in North London.

Presenter6:54

Did you find that rewarding?

Andrea Newman6:56

Yes, very satisfying very hard work.

Andrea Newman6:59

I think the hardest job I've ever done.

Presenter7:02

When did you complete your first novel?

Andrea Newman7:05

I must have been twenty four.

Andrea Newman7:07

While you were teaching? Yes, I wrote in the school holidays. The teaching was a very good discipline because it gave me six weeks off with pay.

Presenter7:07

While you are teaching.

Presenter7:13

Yeah.

Presenter7:17

Yes.

Andrea Newman7:17

In which to write every day, and I'd been very sloppy about.

Andrea Newman7:23

only writing when I felt like it and I'd been telling people that one day I'd be a writer but I never finished anything. So in the school holidays I finally got myself to write ten pages a day, every day.

Presenter7:33

And you completed a novel in six weeks.

Andrea Newman7:35

Yes, I think I started in the Easter holidays, but mostly it was done the summer holidays, so six or seven weeks, yes.

Presenter7:42

What was it called?

Andrea Newman7:43

A share of the world.

Presenter7:44

What was it about?

Andrea Newman7:45

It was about student life.

Presenter7:48

sort of autobiographical.

Andrea Newman7:49

Not really. No, it looked as if it might have been, but it wasn't.

Presenter7:53

So you had got this precious manuscript. How did you go about selling it?

Andrea Newman7:59

I did it all in longhand first, then I typed it on a rented typewriter, because I obviously had so little confidence it wasn't worth buying one. It took me longer to type than it took me to write, and then I sent it to Galantz, because they were Deputy Maury's publisher, and they kept it six weeks, sent me a nice letter, turned it down, then I sent it to Heinemann, because I thought

Andrea Newman8:22

Somerset Warm had done all right, and they kept it three months and sent it back with no comment.

Presenter8:27

Oh dear.

Andrea Newman8:28

And it was very depressing, this great fat parcel back on the mat when you came home from school, you know. And then third time lucky Bodleyhead took it.

Presenter8:38

Well, there you are, a published author. Let's break off your third record. What's that?

Andrea Newman8:43

My third record is Tosca, because I love Puccini and Tosca in particular, and Maria Callas is my favourite soprano, and Gobby was wonderful Scarpia and Scarpia is such a wonderfully evil part.

Presenter8:57

Yes, it is.

Andrea Newman8:57

I'd have to have a bit trim act too with Tuscar and Scorpio singing together.

Speaker 39:04

Last three of the evil

Speaker 19:06

Yeah. Uh

Speaker 39:07

Empire

Speaker 19:13

Lotta vantino near

Speaker 39:14

Ready?

Speaker 39:16

How you know in Yoshi.

Speaker 19:28

Yeah.

Speaker 19:28

Las Futu Terosi.

Speaker 19:33

Shoo Shoo

Speaker 39:33

Uh

Speaker 39:38

Bobby

Speaker 39:47

I'm not sure if I can do it.

Speaker 39:50

Adir

Presenter9:53

Maria Callas and Tito Gobby in the second act of Puccini's Tosca.

Presenter9:58

So, Andrea, your first novel was published. Did you start another one straight away?

Andrea Newman10:04

Yes, I did my second novel in the next lot of school holidays.

Presenter10:09

And that was called Mirage.

Andrea Newman10:11

That's right.

Andrea Newman10:13

That was an extremely depressing story about divorce.

Andrea Newman10:18

I was very happily married at the time, and I wrote this miserable book about this girl who has an ideal marriage and it all goes wrong. And it had a very complicated time scheme, something so difficult that I don't think I'd tackle it now. But the ignorance of youth carries you along.

Andrea Newman10:36

It was a big hurdle. Your second novel is always a problem. People frighten you to death, you know. Are you a one-book author?

Andrea Newman10:43

And it was an enormous relief when I got Mirage finished and accepted.

Presenter10:47

And you sold the film rights.

Andrea Newman10:49

Yes, but they never made the film. I sell the film writes of both the first and second novel. And they must be sitting on somebody's shelf.

Presenter10:57

and on the strength of of that film money you packed in teaching.

Andrea Newman11:01

Yes, not because I didn't enjoy it, it was beginning to get easier, but it was very tiring, and I found that writing the holidays and teaching full time left me very drained, and something had to go.

Presenter11:11

And something had

Presenter11:13

You are now a full time writer. Did you feel confident?

Andrea Newman11:16

No, not at all. And being self employed frightened me to death. And now I love it. I can't imagine any other way to live, but it took me, I should think, two or three years to get adjusted.

Presenter11:28

You had fallen into a sort of routine, one novel a year.

Andrea Newman11:31

Yes. I was getting slower, though. I was taking three months now, instead of six weeks.

Presenter11:36

And then three and two won't go.

Andrea Newman11:39

Yes, that was number four.

Presenter11:40

And that was a very successful thing.

Andrea Newman11:42

That was the film, and that should have been my lucky break, and my career should have taken off after that, but it didn't. I didn't do the film script. It was a good film, but it was not faithful to the book.

Presenter11:53

Who was in it?

Andrea Newman11:55

Julie Geeson, Rod Steiger, Clare Bloom all very good people.

Presenter11:57

You

Presenter11:59

Yeah.

Andrea Newman11:59

though they didn't all look right, but they they acted very well.

Presenter12:03

Were you really angry about the way they treated your book?

Andrea Newman12:05

I don't think I was angry. I was disappointed. I was a bit sad, but on the other hand I was grateful for the money because this was back in 1968 or 9, I can't remember exactly now when the film was made. And it seemed so wonderful to have a film made at all that I don't actually remember being very angry, just disappointed.

Presenter12:27

Alexa in nineteen sixty eight, a bouquet of barbed wire the following year. Your novels aren't all that long. They obviously didn't take a year to write. What were you doing the rest of the time?

Andrea Newman12:38

I really can't remember. I must have been just living, I suppose, and and seeing my friends, and

Andrea Newman12:45

Pottering about. I'm a domestic.

Andrea Newman12:47

I can't imagine what I was doing, and now it it seems very lazy. I suppose I was thinking. I mean, that takes up a lot of time, and if you in order to write a book, however short a book, you have to spend a lot of time thinking about it, living with the characters.

Presenter12:58

Yeah.

Presenter13:00

You hadn't yet started writing for television.

Andrea Newman13:02

No. I'd never thought of it. I did six novels without a thought of television one a year for six years, and then I I sort of collapsed in a heap.

Presenter13:04

And it

Presenter13:07

Yeah.

Presenter13:12

Woof.

Presenter13:13

Listening to what? Let's have your fourth record.

Andrea Newman13:16

Well, while I'm in an operatic mood, um

Andrea Newman13:21

I do love opera very much, and I couldn't go on my desert island without Wagner, and so it would have to be the end of the Lieberstadt with Nielsen, one of the greatest pieces of music ever written.

Speaker 313:49

Yeah.

Presenter14:01

Yeah.

Speaker 114:02

Yeah.

Speaker 114:05

Birthdays are big.

Speaker 114:11

Be slow.

Presenter14:14

Yeah.

Presenter14:34

Birgit Nielsen singing The Liebestode from Wagner's Tristan and Disaldi.

Presenter14:40

Now, you'd written six novels. You didn't write another for seven or eight years. What were you up to?

Andrea Newman14:46

That was when I stumbled into television.

Presenter14:49

Yeah.

Andrea Newman14:49

Yes. I was very lucky. I'd written a few short stories, and I was asked to dramatise one of them for a half hour slot in a series called Tales of Unease. I knew absolutely nothing about television, but my agent rang up one day and said, Would you like to

Andrea Newman15:05

Adapt your short story and Of course I said yes.

Andrea Newman15:08

And that's how it began.

Andrea Newman15:10

And I spent the next few years learning how to write television plays simply by trial and error.

Presenter15:16

Writing single plays.

Andrea Newman15:18

Yes, a half hour for that series and then another half hour for a series called The Frighteners.

Andrea Newman15:23

And then a one hour play for Bluff Story.

Presenter15:26

You decided to go back to university for a bit.

Andrea Newman15:29

Yes, I must have been mad.

Andrea Newman15:32

I thought my career was going to fold up.

Andrea Newman15:35

and round about nineteen seventy one

Presenter15:38

This was a purely an anxiety statement.

Andrea Newman15:40

Oh, yes.

Andrea Newman15:41

Yes, I think creative work makes you very insecure anyway, and superstitious. It's not like being able to swim or type or something that you can reasonably expect to go on doing. It might just the ability might leave you one day. And I thought, how would I earn a living if I suddenly found I couldn't write any more?

Presenter15:46

Next.

Andrea Newman16:00

And by now I'd got divorced, and I was living alone, and

Andrea Newman16:04

That takes up time learning how to live alone. That was all very interesting and instructive.

Andrea Newman16:10

And I had done some television, but not enough to make a living. I was ticking over with the books, the royalties and the television, and I thought, suppose this career collapses, what do I do? I haven't got the guts to go back to teaching, because

Andrea Newman16:24

It's amazing, but what I could face at twenty three, totally ignorant.

Andrea Newman16:28

I would be much too frightened to face ten years later. So I thought I could teach adults, and in order to teach adults I need a a second degree. So I went back to London University and did an MA in a year.

Presenter16:40

In a year. You didn't think that was going to make you a better writer. This was purely a a teaching qualification.

Andrea Newman16:45

Yes, it was an insurance policy. I also thought, quite wrongly, as it turned out, it might be fun. I rather liked the idea of opting out of writing, take the pressure off myself, I thought, for a year, go back to college and be a student and meet people and I thought it might be more fun than the first time around, instead of which it now I was an absolute idiot, it turned out to be very hard work.

Presenter17:08

What was the subject of your special study?

Andrea Newman17:11

I did a dissertation on the rhetoric of Graham Greene, which was the idea of my American tutor, who was slightly sadistic, I think.

Presenter17:18

It sounds somehow an American sort of title, doesn't it?

Andrea Newman17:21

Yes, wonderfully American. I did three exams, one on the novel, one on contemporary literature and one on Graham Greene, and then um you know, your special author, you had to do a paper on him. And then the dissertation, which was something between twelve and fifteen thousand words.

Presenter17:37

Hmm.

Andrea Newman17:38

And it was all extremely hard work, and it wasn't fun at all, but it did mean that I got to read four major novels per week.

Andrea Newman17:46

which I would never normally have done, so I caught up on a lot of reading that I should have done before.

Presenter17:50

Yeah.

Presenter17:52

And you'll know an awful lot about Graham Grease.

Andrea Newman17:55

Yes.

Presenter17:56

Well then, out of the blue, a bouquet of barbed wire was was picked up by a television company. Can we pick it up from there?

Andrea Newman18:03

Yes, this was my big break. I had done two episodes of Hall and Woman of Today, and Tony Warnby directed one of them. I sent him a copy of Bouquet of Barbois.

Andrea Newman18:14

as a thank you present. It was by then out of print. I think it had been published four years ago, five years ago.

Andrea Newman18:20

And it was his idea that I should dramatize it for television and he would produce and direct.

Andrea Newman18:26

and it would change our lives, and he was right.

Presenter18:29

How many episodes?

Andrea Newman18:30

Seven

Presenter18:31

And you did the adaptation yourself.

Andrea Newman18:33

Yes, Toni Tony and I planned it. Um he was my script editor, as well as my producer and my director. So it was just the two of us. I wrote it and he did everything else. And it was wonderful because we were a team and we had control over the material.

Presenter18:37

Here's what

Presenter18:47

Well, the material, you put the lot in. Everybody was going to bed with everybody else.

Andrea Newman18:51

I don't see it like that.

Presenter18:53

I'm guessing next week's permutation became a sort of national game.

Andrea Newman18:57

No, no, I think there's a emotional logic to it. I d I don't see it as the way the critics described it at all.

Presenter19:03

You had fantastic viewing figures, over twenty million.

Andrea Newman19:08

We were very lucky, we were very thrilled. Um I had no expectations at all, I was just worrying about doing it and getting it right.

Presenter19:14

Right.

Andrea Newman19:15

and the success took us all by surprise.

Presenter19:18

For that success would you admit that you were writing commercially?

Andrea Newman19:23

Um

Andrea Newman19:24

In the novel you

Presenter19:27

In the novel you had written seriously, the novel is from the heart.

Andrea Newman19:29

Yes, absolutely, all the novels were. I don't consciously think about commercialism and it was just a wonderful opportunity to dramatize my own book.

Andrea Newman19:41

without having things changed the way they are in a film.

Andrea Newman19:44

I saw it as freedom to put the book on the screen faithfully. I wasn't thinking about commercialism.

Presenter19:51

Well, as a result of those viewing figures, you wrote a sequel.

Andrea Newman19:55

Yes. That was obviously more commercial. I was asked to write a sequel, because we'd had this unexpected success with Bouquet, and I agreed to write a sequel, because I'm a professional writer. I write for a living. Obviously, it was more fun writing the original series than writing the sequel, but I did take it seriously and planned it very carefully, wrote it very carefully, except that it had to be done much too fast for various reasons. So we all dashed about rather. Um I had a month per episode, which was a very quick turnaround.

Presenter20:31

How many instalments of of the sequel?

Andrea Newman20:33

That was another seven.

Presenter20:35

and it began going overseas and playing all over the place.

Andrea Newman20:38

Yes, we sold both overseas and again on the on the sequel I've worked with one person, John Franco, who was script editor, producer and director, so it was just again a team of two in charge of the production, which was jolly nice.

Speaker 320:49

Yeah.

Andrea Newman20:50

And we were lucky with our overseas sales and those two series made the big difference to my career because that was when all my paperbacks took off.

Presenter20:59

There was a book of the sequel.

Andrea Newman21:01

Yes, that was hard work. It's not as much fun as doing an original novel. But on the other hand, apart from the money, which is important, it's nice to have a record of what you've done because television, once it's gone out, is lost. But if you can do a book of the series, then you do have something left when the programme's finished.

Presenter21:26

Record number five.

Andrea Newman21:28

Record number five.

Andrea Newman21:30

Complete change of mood. One of the things I thought on my desert island was that I'd want

Andrea Newman21:35

Music for all sorts of moods. And this is for when I want to wallow. Instead of being cheered up in a depression, as I could be by Vidor, I might want to be brought even further down by Frank Sinatra. And this reminds me of Diana, who's my favourite character in Mackenzie, my new series. And when she's depressed, this is what she plays.

Presenter21:59

Where is that one out witch?

Presenter22:06

That I threw aside

Presenter22:13

After it brought my love so near

Presenter22:24

Here's that rainy day, Frank Sinatra.

Presenter22:28

Andrea, you're quoted as saying, I put my characters through hell because it's easier than giving them a good time.

Presenter22:36

Do you really feel that?

Andrea Newman22:38

That sounds very callous, doesn't it?

Andrea Newman22:40

I think although it's true, I'd rather put it another way that I like to write about conflict.

Presenter22:48

Yes.

Andrea Newman22:48

And that's why they have a rotten time, because all their interests conflict with each other. Um I want to write about high drama. I want strong characters and I want them in conflict with one another.

Presenter23:00

You have a sort of

Presenter23:03

Feeling towards, well, the sleazy. I mean, for example, an evil streak, a bisexual voyeur, a strange.

Andrea Newman23:11

Bisexual impotent boy, yeah.

Presenter23:13

Yes.

Andrea Newman23:14

Yes.

Presenter23:14

As a strange theme.

Andrea Newman23:16

Very strange. I think it's my best book.

Andrea Newman23:20

It was certainly the hardest to write, but I don't know what made me think of it, and I prefer not to dig too deep into why I write things or where I get ideas from, again, because I'm superstitious about possibly losing it.

Presenter23:32

Cool.

Presenter23:37

Now you mentioned um in passing Mackenzie, your new one.

Presenter23:42

Now Bouquet of Barbed Wire and another bouquet were I T V serials. Now the B B C has climbed on your bandwagon and you're working for them. They've commissioned one in what, thirteen installments.

Andrea Newman23:54

Yes, it was originally thirteen, and then they decided to put out the first two as a long first episode, so now they're calling it twelve.

Presenter24:02

But

Andrea Newman24:02

But in terms of work it's certainly thirteen.

Presenter24:05

Now this is a tremendous amount of work. This is an original. This isn't an adaptation. You start right from scratch.

Andrea Newman24:10

Yes, I dreamed this up purely for television. I thought after bouquet what do I do next? What would I like to see on the screen if someone else was writing it?

Presenter24:18

Mm.

Andrea Newman24:19

and Mackenzie used the result, but it developed very slowly.

Presenter24:23

How long has it taken you?

Andrea Newman24:25

Well, I first got the idea in nineteen seventy six, and I did a lot of thinking about it, or rather letting it simmer uh at the back of my head without poking at it too much. And then I did a synopsis and a thirteen episode breakdown, I suppose in nineteen seventy seven, and was commissioned at the end of the year, and I started writing in january'78, and I finished the scripts in autumn'79, and then I had to do the book.

Andrea Newman24:53

And I didn't finish that until the end of April this year.

Andrea Newman24:57

So with a few breaks, the odd holiday two and a half years.

Presenter25:02

How much screen time? How how long are the episodes?

Andrea Newman25:05

The opening long episode is ninety minutes and all the others are fifty five. It's a ninety page script from my point of view, produced one every six weeks.

Presenter25:15

And it's a good thick book that you've written as as the book of the series.

Andrea Newman25:19

Yes, I don't suppose I'll ever do one longer than that. I I'm a great believer in short novels.

Andrea Newman25:25

I almost wish I I was French so that I could write even shorter novels'cause they get away with murder, don't they, in terms of length. But um Mackenzie's written from three viewpoints, so it's not actually just the scripts as another bouquet was, it's the viewpoints of the three women in his life, how they see him, and it's a mixture of first person and third person, and it covers nineteen years and three families, so it's really quite complicated.

Presenter25:48

Uh

Speaker 125:48

Uh

Presenter25:48

Dude.

Speaker 125:48

Uh

Presenter25:48

Uh

Presenter25:54

Record number six.

Andrea Newman25:56

Well, this is to cheer me up after Sinatra, and it's wonderful Barbara Streisand.

Andrea Newman26:02

singing What are you doing the rest of your life?

Speaker 126:05

What are you doing the rest of your life North and South and East and West?

Speaker 126:19

Of your life

Speaker 126:22

I have only one request of your life.

Presenter26:23

Uh

Speaker 126:29

Bet you spend it all with me.

Presenter26:35

Barbara Streisand.

Presenter26:36

to whom I owe an apology, because while she was singing, I was I was doing a sum here, I work out that the total time of Mackenzie is six hundred and ninety five minutes.

Andrea Newman26:46

Good heavens, is it?

Presenter26:47

Is it? Is an awful lot of minutes, an awful lot of work.

Andrea Newman26:51

There was an awful lot of pages, too.

Presenter26:55

What are you writing next?

Andrea Newman26:56

I've no idea. I'm having a long rest.

Presenter26:58

A long risk.

Andrea Newman26:59

I've got two or three ideas simmering for both books and television. Or possibly a stage play, but I don't know yet.

Presenter27:07

Your writing is a family occupation. Your mother does your typing for you.

Andrea Newman27:11

Sometimes, yes, sometimes I have to pay people to type for me because I have to

Andrea Newman27:16

faster turnaround, the schedule's too tight. But if there's time, as on a novel, then my mother very kindly types for me. It's wonderful. She's a wonderful mother.

Presenter27:19

Uh

Andrea Newman27:25

Not just because she types, I mean she's she's wonderful anyway in many ways, but she also types.

Presenter27:25

Do not

Presenter27:28

Yes.

Presenter27:32

Tell me about your discipline as a writer. Um do you work regular hours? Do you work a certain number of pages or words every day? How how do you apportion it out?

Andrea Newman27:43

Well, when I'm not officially on a project, either a book or television, I don't write anything. I can go for months without writing anything and don't miss it at all.

Andrea Newman27:52

Once I'm officially on a project.

Andrea Newman27:55

I am quite disciplined. I used to think I was lazy, but I think actually I must be quite disciplined, and I do ten pages a day, usually between two and six.

Presenter28:01

The issue.

Presenter28:03

Then you go on until you're finished?

Andrea Newman28:05

I usually do my ten pages, sometimes less, sometimes more. When I it was in my twenties it used to mean two thousand words, and now it means one thousand.

Presenter28:14

So writing isn't getting easier.

Andrea Newman28:16

No. Definitely harder. You get more critical as you get older. You get slower.

Presenter28:18

Hmm.

Andrea Newman28:20

And more critical.

Presenter28:22

How does an idea, a basic idea for a play or a book, come? Is it a visual impression first?

Andrea Newman28:30

It's a sort of click in the head, and you simultaneously get a picture of the character and a little bit of information about the situation there in the crisis situation. And then it develops very slowly, under its own steam, and you really leave it alone, and it could take months, or even years.

Presenter28:49

You let the subconscious do the will.

Andrea Newman28:50

Yes, I'm a great believer in the subconscious, knowing best. I come in much later when the idea is ready, when it's thoroughly cooked and ready, then I start doing the shaping and

Presenter29:02

to start disciplining the subconscious as it were.

Andrea Newman29:05

I suppose so, yes. I have a sort of screen in my head, and I see the characters very clearly moving around, and I hear what they're saying, I hear the dialogue, and I see the faces.

Andrea Newman29:17

And the problem is really concentrating on that screen, watching and listening properly, and overcoming your natural reluctance to face the blank sheet of paper.

Presenter29:28

Record number seven.

Andrea Newman29:30

Well, I thought I would like the human voice on my desert island that I would want someone to talk to me and who better than a great poet reading a great poem, which I first read actually in a university entrance exam back in the late fifties, when it must have been shortly after he died, I suppose. I didn't even know the poem. I don't know whether that meant it was a recent poem or I was very ignorant. But anyway it's Fern Hill, Dylan Thomas.

Speaker 329:58

And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns about the happy yard, and singing as the farm was home in the sun that is young once only, time let me play and be golden in the mercy of his means. And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and cold.

Speaker 330:32

and the Sabbath rang slowly in the pebbles of the holy streams.

Presenter30:39

Dylan Thomas reading part of his poem, Fern Hill Now, you said you lived on your own these days.

Andrea Newman30:47

Not any more, actually, but I used to.

Presenter30:49

I see. Are you domesticated and practical?

Andrea Newman30:52

I'm very practical. I'm not keen on housework and cooking. I do as little as possible.

Presenter30:59

Could you look after yourself on a desert island? That's what I'm getting at.

Andrea Newman31:02

I am very practical in an urban environment. I think I would be an absolute dead loss on my desert island.

Presenter31:08

Could you build a hut?

Andrea Newman31:10

I doubt it. It would be very rudimentary, a few leaves and branches, and I'd be too scared to crawl into a cave in case there were creepy, crawling things in it.

Presenter31:18

Open-air pursuits like fishing, done any of that?

Andrea Newman31:21

Never Don't believe in any of that.

Presenter31:23

Could you live as a vegetarian?

Andrea Newman31:25

I'd have to. I couldn't kill anything to eat it, although I do eat fish and meat that other people have killed for me, so it's very hypocritical of me. But I couldn't manage it on my island, no.

Presenter31:35

Would you try to get away?

Andrea Newman31:36

No, I can't swim.

Presenter31:38

Oh, don't, yes. Stay very well.

Andrea Newman31:39

I wouldn't dare. I I would stay quite happily sitting in the sun and eating my fruit and vegetables and playing my records. And I'm used to spending a lot of time alone because writers have to, so I enjoy my own company. I think most only children do. Um I could spend a few months there without

Presenter31:56

I will find you at the end of that time. Your last record. What's that?

Andrea Newman32:02

My last record is Strauss. I'd like to take far more Strauss, but I've chosen the four last songs, Schwarzkopf, and it's the fourth, because if I was never rescued, I think it could reconcile me to the idea of dying alone on the desert island. It's the most wonderfully serene music.

Speaker 132:33

Yeah yeah.

Speaker 332:39

Yeah.

Speaker 132:39

Uh

Speaker 332:39

Yeah.

Speaker 132:45

Unscrew

Presenter33:22

The last of Richard Streisse's Four Last Songs in Arbentrot, sung by Elizabeth Schwartkopf. If you could take only one disc out of your eight, which?

Andrea Newman33:34

I have to take the strauss.

Presenter33:36

And one luxury to take with you?

Andrea Newman33:38

An unlimited supply of champagne, please.

Presenter33:41

Yes, indeed, yes, and you may choose your own brand.

Andrea Newman33:45

I'm told I should choose Krug fifty nine.

Presenter33:48

I'm sure it's excellent. I may have trouble in getting it.

Andrea Newman33:52

Well, I'm sure I can't get an unlimited amount, but um can you manage several cases?

Presenter33:56

Oh, yes, indeed. It's just a question of our credit running out, that's all.

Presenter34:01

And one book, apart from the Bible and Shakespeare, which are already there,

Andrea Newman34:07

Well, I'd take one of the books that has influenced me most that I have read most often since my teens that I still think is a magnificent novel that I've learned a great deal from, and it's The Weather in the Streets by Rosmond Lehmann.

Presenter34:21

The Weather in the Streets by Rosamund Lehman. And thank you, Andrea Newman, for letting us hear your Desert Island Disc.

Andrea Newman34:28

Thank you very much. I've enjoyed every moment.

Presenter34:31

Goodbye, everyone.

Speaker 134:41

You've been listening to a download from the Desert Islandists archive. For more downloads, please visit the Radio 4 website.