Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Children's author and Children's Laureate, writer of forty books for children, winner of every major children's literary award, and creator of Madame Doubtfire,
On the island
Eight records
I think that here we have Donna Ottavio basically singing about the fact that if she's not happy, he's not happy. And I think that that is the root of love, that you care.
I just don't know how he stayed sane, waiting for the last ... Harvey Bonneville or whatever they were called, to come home at night. ... So this is sort of really reminds me of teenage at home.
Prelude No. 9 in E major (from Book 1 of The Well-Tempered Clavier)
I married a man who was a philosopher by trade, but had always wanted to be a musician. And every night he played the piano for hours and hours and hours. ... realizing the game was up, he would play this.
America is a lovely place to bring up children when they're young ... they had such merry times and this is a record that reminds me of them dancing about the house for hours.
I'm a speeder. I mean I'm going to say it fearlessly. And I try and calm down. And so when I know that I'm going to be in trouble soon, I put on this.
He's just so considerate and so courteous and so kind and I am none of those things since I'm continually lost in admiration and this always makes me think of him.
Domine Deus (from Mass in B minor)Favourite
Rotraud Hansmann & Kurt Equiluz
I've chosen it just because I think it's one of the most beautiful pieces of music and I think it would be a great comfort to me on my island.
I Know That My Redeemer Liveth (from Messiah)
I have absolutely no religious beliefs at all, but I do think that you can't go through life without knowing that the world is full of people who do somehow feel that they can make a difference and make a difference for the better.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:48Do you fear that people can't be bothered to read anymore because they can see the films instead?
Well, every time I get really, really depressed about this, I remember that, you know, more copies of Thackeray's Vanity Fair are sold in a year now than were read in his whole lifetime, and I try and cheer myself up.
Presenter asks
1:56What would you say to a child who says they don't need to read because they can watch stories on television or film?
Well, you don't lecture them, obviously, that's the biggest turn-off of all. But I think if you can only get the right book to the right child at the right time, you often can make them realize just unconsciously that there's some depth in them, something that fulfils some need they have, and they do become passionate readers.
Presenter asks
4:59Do you subscribe to the idea that blood is thicker than water?
Well, I look around me, I talk to people. ... obviously underneath even the closest relationships are these things boiling up and and some one tiny thing will be the last straw and and and and everything falls apart.
The keepsakes
The book
Philip Larkin
In some ways we share the same dark view of the world. And I also think he is. Probably. one of the finest, if not the finest, poet of the last century.
Presenter asks
6:20Are you saying in [All Bones and Lies] that you don't have to be nice to your ageing parents if you don't like them?
Oh no, that's absolutely not the moral of the book. I would have thought that the moral was more that you must find a way of doing what you feel is the right thing to do and make it somehow fit in with your own way of viewing yourself. ... Colin takes his mother home to look after her. But he stops feeling guilty about not liking her.
Presenter asks
15:25Did [The Tulip Touch] have any root in reality, such as reading about a child arsonist in a social report?
I think everybody remembers that about two years before that book ... was written ... there were a couple of really, really horrid murders in which very young children were implicated. And we all had a great social shock ... what was particularly shocking for me was the completely extraordinary response of ... mostly the tabloid newspapers of this sort of lock em up and throw away the key and they're born evil ... children are not born one way or another, they become one way or another. And I wanted to show that.
“I doubt if there is any such thing as a truly happy family. I think it's the sort of mythology we all cling to. I just think life is so complicated and it is so difficult.”
“I feel you can't be judged for your feelings. You can only be judged by your actions.”
“I personally have yet to meet the child who blames themselves for the divorce. Most children know exactly where to place the blame. They're just too polite or too anxious to say a word about it.”
“I think the secret of dealing with children is to remember that ... they might be half size, but they're not not half brained. I just treat them as if they were small adults.”