Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Novelist whose adventure stories are filled with a love of the sea and islands.
On the island
Eight records
The keepsakes
No book or luxury recorded for this episode.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:08What part of the country do you come from?
I was born in Sussex, and I've lived most of my life, when I'm in England, in the south of England.
Presenter asks
1:11Did you show any literary bent at school?
Well, before Cranbrook, uh at the age of nine I was telling stories at my prep school in the dormitory. Uh I started the first school magazine on one of those, tapping it out on one of those … And I did a whole magazine on that basis. It took me ages. … I had a man, a wounded man, out of the army who was absolutely dedicated to Shakespeare, to literature, and he passed on … a great love of words and poetry and drama … And I wrote I did actually write a play before I left school.
Presenter asks
3:41Were you writing for yourself at that time [when you left school]?
Oh yes, I was writing I'd start in the mornings Go to work about eleven, finish work at half past seven in the evening, come back and write till midnight. I wrote four books between nineteen thirty-four and nineteen middle of nineteen thirty seven whilst working at a newspaper and also getting married.
Presenter asks
4:03Were they [the early books] successful?
They earned thirty pounds. H. Oh. And I've killed them now, you know. They're finished, they're out of print. But I was learning how
Presenter asks
4:17Then the war started you joined the Royal Artillery. Did that put a stop to writing?
No, no, within eight months of joining the army I began Writing in the middle of the night on a gun site on Kenley Aerodrome. This was whilst the Battle of Britain, the aftermath of the Battle of Britain, was still going on in the skies. And I wrote, it was. Not a very good story, but Attack Alarm is still selling. And it's got the atmosphere. The atmosphere is all there of the Battle of Britain. I think it was the only novel written about The Battle of Britain. uh whilst the thing was actually going on.
Presenter asks
6:54Now, among your own novels, which are your favourite?
I always answer this by saying the last one, or the one I'm working on, uh because the one you've just done, or the one you're working on, you know the struggle and the hard work. … I think probably I didn't know. The doomed oasis. uh there was a problem there in trying to get across these. very strange desert shakedoms at a time before they had been completely changed from gr uh grown up in the matter of moments from the camel to the Cadillac. … this is trouble with Australia. It's so unique geologically in the fauna, the flora, everything about it, that if you haven't seen Australia uh it's very difficult to. Get somebody mentally into the country so that they can feel that they've been there.
“But uh the inners side Hammond Innes is my surname, you've seen Hammond At some stage I hammond managed an inners. And uh the inners sign uh is the Celtic sign. And I think the Inners Clan is the is about the smallest clairn area in Scotland. It's nine miles by three.”
“Uh I started the first school magazine on one of those, tapping it out on one of those But in those days you had a circular Typewriter rather like a telephone. You prodded the letter and worked it round to the position and then dabbed it down.”
“Uh it enabled me to learn. How to go into a new country And Without any knowledge uh literally in a very short time to get to grips with the guts of that area taught me a lot and it taught me to be ruthless, absolutely ruthless, about cutting one's own work.”
“I do take a lot of notice of the amount of space I'm given in reviews, that's very important. … If some reviewer slams you, you can't. help that your hackles rise or whatever it is. But I don't think it makes much difference to one's position. … As long as they spell the name right. As long as they spell the name right, that's all you need.”