Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Writer twice winner of the Whitbread Prize for children's and adult fiction.
On the island
Eight records
Gordon McRae singing Oh, what a beautiful morning from the original Rogers and Hammerstein soundtrack to the film of the musical Oklahoma.
Robinson Crusoe (extract read by Samuel James)
An extract from Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe, read there by Samuel James.
He who would valiant be arranged by Rafe von Williams, performed thereby the Wells Cathedral Choir, conducted by Malcolm Archer.
Don Pasquale: aria 'Ah, un foco insolito'
That was Donicetti's Don Pascuali's Aria, Ah, A Sudden Fire, sung by Renato Brousson, with the Munich Radio Orchestra conducted by Roberto Abado.
L'Enfant et les sortilèges: 'Je ne veux pas finir ma page'
From Ravel's L'Enfant et les Sortières, that was I Don't Want to Finish My Page, sung there by Magdlena Kojna with the Berlin Philharmonic, conducted by Sir Simon Rattle.
Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band
That was Jake Gardham, your grandson, playing drums to the original recording of Cut and Run by Gordon Goodwin's Big Fat Band.
Dover Beach (extract read by Samuel James)
That was part of the Dover Beach, written by Matthew Arnold, and read there by Samuel James.
Ave MariaFavourite
Gonville and Caius College Choir, Cambridge
This is the Keys Choir, Cambridge, and it's Ave Maria, and it is one in which my granddaughter ... is singing.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:50You've described your stories as being given to you to do. Wonder what you mean by that.
I think nearly always. I seem to know. Yes, that's it. Off you go. But what happens before? It's quite long and tiresome and agonising very often. Is it worth doing?
Presenter asks
2:37How do you decide which audience — children or adults — you are writing for?
You know, I just don't know. I was reading yesterday Beatrix Potter's Tom Kitten. My goodness, that's a savage book And it's so intricate she never thought for a minute whether it's for children or not. I don't think she's awfully good with children. But I certainly don't think of an audience sitting, children or grown ups, you know, avidly reading.
Presenter asks
10:37You fell backwards into a fire and your brother was born and your mother was very ill. Tell me a bit more about all of that.
I hadn't realized that the fire was so important until I began to write it all down, you know. It also meant that I couldn't write anything, couldn't do much with my hands for a while. But the other thing was my brother arriving. I think I was deeply jealous, probably. And then When they were all screaming and shouting about how wonderful this baby was, my mother was taken away. I thought to die … no one told me what she why, she had scarlet fever. And those days it was a pretty killing, horrible thing, but nobody told me anything about it.
The keepsakes
The luxury
Presenter asks
12:34How do you think your mother has influenced you? How do you think she shaped you?
Well, religiously first and there was no question of being an atheist in our house … I did admire her very much. I felt she had missed out most dreadfully on education, and one of the things that shaped me, though, was not good she couldn't sing a note, and when in church beside her I was so embarrassed … still to this day God knows I'm nearly ninety I can't make a sound in church. I stand there moving my mouth about.
Presenter asks
19:00Tell me about the moment when you met the literary critic L.A.G. Strong on a train.
I followed that man to the station, and I got in the same carriage and I sat beside him. And he said, Were you at the lecture? and I said, Yes. So we got talking. And he said at the end, I think you're a writer. And I said, Yes, I am. And I hadn't told any one else that, and he said Send me something. So I went back in absolute joy, and I sent a short story I had ready, and two weeks passed, and then a letter came, and it was in bright blue type. And it said Jane Garden. You're a writer beyond all possible doubt.
Presenter asks
27:42You, turning ninety shortly, how have you yourself greeted ageing?
Inevitable, I think. I don't think that I like being old at all. I really do not. I'd be frightened. But goodness, what luck To be ninety.
“I haven't actually looked at them yet. I said, Well, I do hope you'll send them back, because I want to send them somewhere else. And she put the phone down, she said to her secretary, A mad woman has just rang me.”
“Do you know, Julia, I think these might just do.”
“I am cast upon a horrible desolate island, void of all hope of recovery. But I am alive, and not drowned, as all my ship's company was.”
“You're a writer beyond all possible doubt.”
“I think I would choose Ave Maria.”