Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Desert Island Discs
Presented by Roy Plomley
Novelist and poet who began publishing poems as a teenager and had early success with her first novel, leaving her bank job to write full-time.
Eight records
The eight records for this collection haven’t been catalogued yet.
The keepsakes
No book or luxury recorded for this episode.
In conversation
Presenter asks
What was your first ambition as a child?
All my family had been connected with the stage in some capacity or another, and I think they felt, you know, don't put your daughter on the stage, and we know too much about it. I think they were probably right.
Presenter asks
There's a theory that first novels are always autobiographical. Was yours?
No, mine wasn't. I was very lucky. I think it's such a bad thing. If you write an autobiographical first novel, what have you left in life? And mine, of course, was about the background and the kind of people I knew well, but it wasn't about me. I didn't write anything about my own direct experience for about twenty five years afterwards.
Presenter asks
Which of your novels have been the most successful – which have the public liked best?
Well, I think uh the humbler creation… [My present or my latest one], an error of judgment, and the unspeakable Skipton, which is my favourite.
The recording
Timestamps play the recording from that turn
Pamela Hansford-Johnson
BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts.
Speaker 2
Hello, I'm Lauren Laverne, and this is the Desert Island Discs podcast. This is the only extract the BBC has of this episode. The presenter is Roy Plomley. I hope you enjoy listening.
Presenter
mister Johnson, what was it your first ambition to be?
Speaker 2
Yeah.
Pamela Hansford-Johnson
Um
Speaker 2
For the
Presenter
Itches
Presenter
What went wrong with that?
Pamela Hansford-Johnson
Well, all my family had been connected with the stage in some capacity or another, and I think they felt, you know, don't put your daughter on the stage, and we know too much about it. I think they were probably right.
Presenter
Where you were Bookworm as a child?
Pamela Hansford-Johnson
Oh, yes.
Presenter
When you left school, had you made plans for what you were going to do?
Pamela Hansford-Johnson
No, I hadn't really, because we were very poor, and the necessity was to earn money.
Pamela Hansford-Johnson
So I think I took a secretarial course, and started off as a shorthand typist in American Bank, and I just think that I thought I should go on scribbling, as I always had written, until I got married.
Presenter
And I
Presenter
What was the first thing of yours you saw in print?
Pamela Hansford-Johnson
Well, that was a little poem in a Kensington paper called The Town Crier when I was fourteen.
Presenter
Mhm. And you went on writing while you were at the bank.
Pamela Hansford-Johnson
Yes, I did.
Pamela Hansford-Johnson
All the time.
Presenter
Hmm. What was the first?
Pamela Hansford-Johnson
Well, the first thing I had first thing I had published in book form was a really terrible volume of poems.
Presenter
I had the
Pamela Hansford-Johnson
It was published by The Sandy Referee and The Parton Book Shop conjointly as a prize for the best poem of the year in the Sandy Referee Poet's Corner. And anyway, that was dreadful. But however, it I think it's noteworthy that the next poet to win the prize was Dylan Thomas, and that was something.
Presenter
Yes. Well, that little book of poems of yours must be a great rarity to get out of.
Pamela Hansford-Johnson
It is.
Presenter
It's
Pamela Hansford-Johnson
Uh
Presenter
Is
Presenter
What was the next step?
Pamela Hansford-Johnson
Well, then I wrote a novel.
Pamela Hansford-Johnson
And I was very lucky about this. I had it taken right away. So I said to my mother, who was a very long-suffering woman, now look.
Pamela Hansford-Johnson
Will you let me leave the bank, and if my book's successful and I can live on my writing, may I do it? If the book isn't, of course I'll go back to work. And in fact, I was lucky with it, and I never went back to work. Not that kind of work.
Presenter
Yeah.
Presenter
Hmm.
Presenter
There's a theory that first novels are always autobiographical. Was yours?
Pamela Hansford-Johnson
No, mine wasn't. I was very lucky. I think it's such a bad thing. If you write an autobiographical first novel, what have you left in life? And mine, of course, was about the background and the kind of people I knew well, but it wasn't about me. I didn't write anything about my own direct experience for about twenty five years afterwards.
Presenter
Yeah.
Presenter
Of all your novels, which have been the most successful, which have the public liked best?
Pamela Hansford-Johnson
Well, I think uh the humbler creation
Pamela Hansford-Johnson
My present or my latest one, an error of judgment, and the unspeakable Skipton, which is my favourite.
Presenter
My favorite too.
Pamela Hansford-Johnson
I'm glad.
Presenter
Which others uh pleased you a apart from the public?
Pamela Hansford-Johnson
Well, an armgoard of the last resort.
Pamela Hansford-Johnson
I think I came nearer to doing the kind of thing I want to do.
Presenter
Mm-hmm.
Pamela Hansford-Johnson
One never gets there, but it felt a bit there.
Presenter
Breath.
Pamela Hansford-Johnson
Yeah.
Presenter
Your work has has very unusual breadth, hasn't it? I mean, your novels have a very wide range of subjects and background and mood.
Pamela Hansford-Johnson
Well, that's to encourage me. You see, I think it is advantageous to write the same kind of novel every time, because people rather like it, but I shall be bored stiff, and the way I stimulate myself and get myself to go on is trying to do something different in approach or background every time.
Presenter
Is there any one quality or intention you think that's common to them all?
Pamela Hansford-Johnson
Well, I think the only conscious intention I have is all the time to try and write about people more deeply than before, and try and find a few things about them that haven't been said, or perhaps that sounds conceited, haven't been said in quite that way.
Presenter
Mm-hmm.
Presenter
Are you sensitive to criticism?
Pamela Hansford-Johnson
Frightfully, and I get much worse as I get older. I was tough as old boots when I was a young woman.
Presenter
But you've done a great deal of criticism yourself, both on broadcasting events like The Critics and magazines and newspapers.
Pamela Hansford-Johnson
Yeah.
Pamela Hansford-Johnson
Oh yes, I I I did regular criticism for about seventeen years, but I was a very kind critic by the standard of to day. I often look back and think I was kind.
Presenter
Mm-hmm. But you don't regret being kind.
Pamela Hansford-Johnson
Uh Not in the least.
Presenter
Yeah.
Pamela Hansford-Johnson
Four.
Presenter
You've written a number of radio features on on Proust and and his characters. What what is it principally about Proust's work that fascinates you so much?
Pamela Hansford-Johnson
Well, I think it's the greatest novel of the twentieth century. And also, for me, it does create an absolute world of its own. It's quite a different world. I feel I've got two I can live in. One's my own and one is his. Also, I think he taught me the way to look at people.
Pamela Hansford-Johnson
much more than any other novelist have ever written.
Presenter
You've written for the theatre, is?
Pamela Hansford-Johnson
Well, I've written A play, yes.
Presenter
Does do you want to write any more? Does the theatre fair snatch you?
Pamela Hansford-Johnson
I should like to, but I find it very hard to get the kind of ideas that turn into good plays. All the ideas I have need far more spinning out.
Pamela Hansford-Johnson
Although I would love to.
Presenter
You feel the same about films and television. You you'd rather stick to the
Pamela Hansford-Johnson
I would rather I would rather stick to the novel. I hope to write a play.
Presenter
I would rather
Pamela Hansford-Johnson
But something will have to happen.
Presenter
Do you plan a novel in great detail before you start work?
Pamela Hansford-Johnson
Not great detail. I do to a certain extent. I know exactly where I'm going, and I plan it roughly into parts. But I don't make it very close, because it would constrict me too much.
Presenter
Yes. Do you work regular hours?
Pamela Hansford-Johnson
Oh, when I can, yes. I try to do ten to twelve in the morning and two to four in the afternoon. It's rather a counselor perfection, but I try.
Presenter
Yeah.
Presenter
You're married to another distinguished novelist, CP Snow, Sir Charles Snow. Do you discuss your work in progress with him?
Pamela Hansford-Johnson
Yes, a good deal.
Presenter
And here with you.
Pamela Hansford-Johnson
Certainly, yes. We do find that helpful.
Presenter
Yes. You both work at home.
Pamela Hansford-Johnson
Yes.
Presenter
Kenny will both work in the same room.
Pamela Hansford-Johnson
We can do. We've got a very, very large study. We very often work at opposite ends.
Presenter
Very
Presenter
And of course you both have the same publisher, too.
Pamela Hansford-Johnson
Yes.
Presenter
Have you any um
Presenter
Great ambition in the way of writing or in any one subject that you want to tackle one day, but you've never been able to get down to research it or feel that you were ready for it.
Pamela Hansford-Johnson
No, I don't think one subject. I don't think I've ever felt that. But I do well, it's a very ordinary ambition, and all writers have it, and that is to write the kind of novel that when you've finished you think, That's what I want to do, that is right. Because ordinarily, of course, one gets to the end of a novel and you think, Well, it's not so bad, but you never get that feeling of it being right.
Presenter
Yeah.
Pamela Hansford-Johnson
Maybe impossible. Maybe no one does.
Presenter
Yeah.
Presenter asks
What is it principally about Proust's work that fascinates you so much?
Well, I think it's the greatest novel of the twentieth century. And also, for me, it does create an absolute world of its own. It's quite a different world. I feel I've got two I can live in. One's my own and one is his. Also, I think he taught me the way to look at people… much more than any other novelist [has] ever written.
Presenter asks
Do you plan a novel in great detail before you start work?
Not great detail. I do to a certain extent. I know exactly where I'm going, and I plan it roughly into parts. But I don't make it very close, because it would constrict me too much.
Presenter asks
Do you have any great ambition in writing – one subject you want to tackle one day but have never been able to research or felt ready for?
No, I don't think one subject. I don't think I've ever felt that. But I do well, it's a very ordinary ambition, and all writers have it, and that is to write the kind of novel that when you've finished you think, That's what I want to do, that's right. Because ordinarily, of course, one gets to the end of a novel and you think, Well, it's not so bad, but you never get that feeling of it being right.
“If you write an autobiographical first novel, what have you left in life?”
“I think it is advantageous to write the same kind of novel every time, because people rather like it, but I shall be bored stiff, and the way I stimulate myself and get myself to go on is trying to do something different in approach or background every time.”
“I think the only conscious intention I have is all the time to try and write about people more deeply than before, and try and find a few things about them that haven't been said, or perhaps that sounds conceited, haven't been said in quite that way.”
“I feel I've got two I can live in. One's my own and one is [Proust's]. Also, I think he taught me the way to look at people.”
“I try to do ten to twelve in the morning and two to four in the afternoon. It's rather a [counsellor] perfection, but I try.”