Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Writer of crime stories, biographies and histories; author of about fifty books.
On the island
Eight records
The reminiscence it carries for me is of my childhood.
O What Is That SoundFavourite
I choose it partly because of the immense admiration I felt and feel for Auden, the influence that he had not only on me but on almost all young poets of the thirties but also because this particular poem, with its sense of betrayal and menace, is very typical of the time.
If I Were Tickled by the Rub of Love
Dylan was at this time not obsessed by sex, but obsessed by sexual images. He was also obsessed by language. And I think this is a really intoxicating poem.
It brings to my mind the very first bombing of London and the bombing of the docks.
Anne Shelton with Ambrose and his Orchestra
It carries for me both poignant recollections of snatched weekends while in the army, and also of hearing the song in the company of rather distinguished now painter named Carol Waite...
It also has that criminal error in which something is concealed that is bound to be valued by any crime writer.
Betty Hutton singing Murder He Said, of which I'll only say that I enjoyed enormously.
The tone of which, and especially the last verse of which, represents for me MacNeese's own affirmation of the goodness of life, of mere living even in what I think has been a difficult time.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:34How much does music mean to you?
Music in theory means a good deal to me. In practice I have to say that I'm almost tone deaf. ... I learned the piano for seven years. Detested it, I'm afraid, throughout. And now it will be difficult for me to find Middle C.
Presenter asks
3:35What did you do when you left school [at the age of 14]?
In the sense of self-education, all I can say is that I was what I believe is horrifically now called an autodidact. That's to say, yes, I did educate myself. I just educated myself by reading books absolutely at haphazard. ... No guidance of any sort.
Presenter asks
8:44What were you doing to earn your living and provide the money to print the magazine [Twentieth Century Verse]?
I was a company secretary of a small engineering company.
Presenter asks
14:25Did you do any writing while you were serving [in the Royal Armoured Corps]?
The keepsakes
The book
Charles Dickens
My one book would have to be a Dickens novel, and after brooding on it and feeling agonised between Bleak House and Our Mutual Friend, I would choose Bleak House.
The luxury
a recliner (a couch to recline on)
what I would choose would be what I call a recliner that is to say, a rather large, not hammock, but something in which to recline, a couch on which to recline. I would place it by the sea, and I would watch what I hope would always be a gentle, calm sea in the calm sunlight.
Very little writing. I wrote a few poems. I had my second book of poems published. But I was very distinctly a member of the awkward squad in the army. I was a very bad soldier, an unwilling soldier.
Presenter asks
19:09How did you get your weekly book column?
This came about through George Orwell, who was a friend of mine. And George was writing a column called Life, People and Books for the Manchester Evening News. Then after the success of Animal Farm, he was offered the post of book critic on The Observer and didn't want to go on writing the Manchester Evening News column. And he very kindly managed to persuade them to give me the job.
“I think the war was the end of the world as people knew it before the war. The world after the war was different.”
“I think that crime stories can be good novels.”
“I'm much more interested in the psychology of the criminal than I am truly in setting a puzzle, although I do like to have a puzzle in the book.”