Susan Hill

:00:06. > :00:16.condolences to the bereaved. That is the latest. Now it is time

:00:16. > :00:23.

:00:24. > :00:28.Susan Hill has written more than 40 books, at least three of them are

:00:28. > :00:33.set texts for schoolchildren. She has known for her versatility. She

:00:33. > :00:37.has written children stories, crime fiction, family dramas and ghost

:00:37. > :00:43.stories. It is hard to categorise her, there she is the master of the

:00:43. > :00:46.unsettling disturbing tale. Her most famous ghost story, the woman

:00:46. > :00:50.In Black, has continued to be a bestseller. It has been adapted for

:00:50. > :01:00.radio, television and the big screen. The stage version has been

:01:00. > :01:03.

:01:03. > :01:07.playing at this West End theatre in Susan Hill, let's start with ghosts,

:01:07. > :01:11.who have been quite good to you. We are in the Fortune Theatre in

:01:11. > :01:16.London where the stage play of your ghost story, the woman In Black,

:01:16. > :01:20.has been playing for more than 20 years. It is a fantastic study in

:01:20. > :01:28.malevolence. I wanted to ask you about the role of the fictional

:01:28. > :01:32.ghost. Do they have to have a purpose for you? Yes, they do. Most

:01:32. > :01:37.real life ghost stories don't have a purpose. You read about someone

:01:37. > :01:41.who saw a lady drifting down a staircase, or someone with a head

:01:41. > :01:45.under their arm floating through a wall and then they do it again, and

:01:45. > :01:50.then they do it for someone else, but why? If it is real, why are

:01:50. > :01:55.they here? For fiction, there is absolutely no point in this. This

:01:55. > :02:00.is why reading a long series of the real-life ghost stories is rather

:02:00. > :02:04.dull. A novel has to do something different and it had to have a

:02:04. > :02:11.point, she has got to have a reason for haunting. In this case, the

:02:11. > :02:16.region -- the reason his revenge? Yes, not a good reason for doing

:02:16. > :02:23.anything. You can understand, of course, grief, and by tiny can

:02:23. > :02:27.understand someone whose style has died at somebody else's hands. The

:02:27. > :02:34.feeling of rage and the desire to avenge the child, but this would

:02:34. > :02:40.fade. Her revenge has just borrowed its way into her heart and it is a

:02:40. > :02:45.little black worm and it will never, never be satisfied. One is always

:02:45. > :02:49.hoping she will go, leave, but she never can. It was your first ghost

:02:49. > :02:55.story. Are you surprised by how successful this has been? It is

:02:55. > :03:00.been on the stage for more than two decades, a new film, adapted for

:03:00. > :03:07.radio, time and again. Why the think it resonates with people?

:03:07. > :03:12.I knew that, I would Bartlett! I don't know. -- bottle it. It plays

:03:12. > :03:19.around the world in places like Japan and India, you think, how can

:03:19. > :03:25.they possibly relate to this story of Edwardian England with Fox and

:03:25. > :03:29.London and steam trains? The Ghost is a universal in all folk and

:03:29. > :03:33.fairy-tales. The ghost crosses all language culture barriers,

:03:33. > :03:37.everything. People relate to a ghost story and they take it

:03:37. > :03:42.seriously. When it is not just that the rules and spills, it is not

:03:42. > :03:46.just to frighten people, there is a point to this story. He said that

:03:46. > :03:49.it works no matter where you while, whatever culture it you're in, and

:03:49. > :03:53.the setting is the trappings, but the you in your story when you

:03:53. > :04:01.wrote it, and for many of your stories, the setting is everything

:04:01. > :04:05.in order to be able to create the atmosphere. Yes. I'm looking back

:04:05. > :04:10.tried to find an explanation for this universal popularity. I often

:04:10. > :04:14.start with the place, but I did particularly in this book. I wanted

:04:14. > :04:20.to see if I could write a long that ghost story than we had had for a

:04:20. > :04:24.while. Lots of short those stories, but since Dickens or the Turn Of

:04:24. > :04:28.The Screw, there were not many fall meant ones. I could see the genre

:04:28. > :04:33.fading out. I feel sad about that. And I loved reading and so I

:04:33. > :04:38.decided to sit down, make a list of what the ghost story should have,

:04:38. > :04:44.and one of it was a sense of place, atmosphere. A specific place which

:04:44. > :04:47.is haunted, either the House, a little town, or wherever. She stays

:04:47. > :04:56.in that one place some of the time. Even if we are not talking about

:04:56. > :05:01.ghosts, a lot of your work has this quality of being unsettling, as a

:05:01. > :05:08.menace under the surface, where does that come from? I don't know.

:05:08. > :05:13.I ought to know. Perhaps it does not do to delve too deeply. A lot

:05:13. > :05:17.of it must go back to childhood. Somebody said not all children have

:05:17. > :05:22.unhappy tartlets, but all children have anxious childhoods at some

:05:22. > :05:27.time. Children of five -- Brighton there are things like shadows on

:05:27. > :05:33.the wall at night. Where I was born and brought up in Scarborough,

:05:33. > :05:41.there are things that no adult would think of as being frighten

:05:41. > :05:44.the, but children would find are frightening, like amusement arcades.

:05:44. > :05:47.Things like those spinning things that go round with pretend flames

:05:47. > :05:55.coming out of them. This is terrifying to children. I thought

:05:55. > :05:59.about this a lot. I was born in the last three years of the war and

:05:59. > :06:02.things were still not back to normal for the last few years, but

:06:02. > :06:07.I remember the black art and walking home with my mother or my

:06:07. > :06:11.father, at the root pitch black and until you've done that you don't

:06:11. > :06:15.know what pitch-black is. They had white rims painted around the

:06:15. > :06:19.trunks of trees to guide you. That was all that was a loud, you could

:06:20. > :06:24.not have a torch. Although you knew your way, there was a feeling that

:06:24. > :06:30.you might be somewhere different. Children's imaginations are huge,

:06:30. > :06:33.and I suppose mine was huge. Let me take you back to your beginnings

:06:33. > :06:38.when you have first discussing things with yourself. You have been

:06:38. > :06:43.writing for a very, very long time. Tell me about your child had and we

:06:43. > :06:53.started writing? I don't remember not writing. I was an only child in

:06:53. > :06:53.

:06:53. > :06:58.a place where a lot of people around work rather older. 48 was 60,

:06:58. > :07:04.it really is true. I had friends, I went to school early, but once I

:07:04. > :07:08.came home, I was on my own. I suppose children invent imaginary

:07:08. > :07:13.playmates, and I certainly did. I invented imaginary people to talk

:07:13. > :07:17.to, but I happened to write them down in stories, that's all. It is

:07:17. > :07:26.a child's game in a way. I discovered I could do this so I

:07:26. > :07:31.wrote and wrote. I can't remember not writing. I started around aged

:07:31. > :07:37.four or five and I never stop. It was the only thing I could do well!

:07:37. > :07:45.Be were published very young, at the age of 18. Yes, looking back

:07:45. > :07:52.other people have been published very young, but at the time, it was

:07:52. > :07:57.slightly uncommon. I suppose it was an example. Why not? If you want to

:07:57. > :08:02.write a book, write a book. I was a huge reader so I was imitating what

:08:02. > :08:07.people read, but I did not write children's books. You do it, I

:08:07. > :08:12.suppose, a friend as a -- has a son who is nine and he composes all the

:08:12. > :08:17.time. He says he wants to write a symphony, one can laugh about it,

:08:17. > :08:25.but he is going to. He is nine, but to him that is irrelevant and I

:08:25. > :08:29.think I felt that way about writing books. Was it ever seen as

:08:29. > :08:38.audacious in the context of your family? Did people think, she is

:08:39. > :08:42.terribly precocious and Das precocious? My parents were fine

:08:42. > :08:47.about it. My school friends were very proud and supportive. My

:08:47. > :08:53.school teachers were not. My head teacher said I'd brought shame and

:08:53. > :09:01.disgrace upon the school. That was mainly because the Daily Mail a bit

:09:01. > :09:05.stale was the Daily Express. -- of its day. There was an article about

:09:05. > :09:08.a teenage girl writing a sex novel and you can imagine the

:09:08. > :09:13.headmistress's reaction. They were appalled that this would bring

:09:13. > :09:18.shame and disgrace on the school. Oh goodness, the shock and horror,

:09:18. > :09:21.I was bemused by this. I could not understand why they were not at

:09:21. > :09:25.least neutral about it. I could not see where the shame and disgrace

:09:25. > :09:30.came in, but it obviously did. It was a relief to go to university

:09:31. > :09:35.where everyone was extremely proud. I want to ask you to say a little

:09:35. > :09:39.bit about the two occasions when you have written out of personal

:09:39. > :09:45.grief and loss, if you would be willing to, the first time when

:09:45. > :09:50.your fiance died before he married, the Shakespearean scholar, and the

:09:50. > :09:54.second time when you lost your daughter. What was it about those

:09:54. > :10:04.two things that you thought, I can actually learn from this myself?

:10:04. > :10:12.I'm going to write about it. think with the first time, grief is

:10:12. > :10:16.the most enormous emotion. You have to do something with it. You'd go

:10:16. > :10:21.mad otherwise. I was fortunate, I suppose, in being able to express

:10:21. > :10:26.in the way that I did by transmuting it into fiction a year

:10:26. > :10:32.later. Everybody's story is different, but the emotions are the

:10:32. > :10:38.same. There aren't very many emotions, just a huge grief and

:10:38. > :10:43.loss and distress. Whatever the circumstances, those circumstances

:10:43. > :10:47.are shared. But at that time, it was good dark then -- catharsis, I

:10:47. > :10:52.had to put down everything I felt, but in a different context. I had

:10:52. > :10:58.to invent a story, which I did. Also, a great friend of mine at the

:10:58. > :11:03.time said, you must write about this. He was right. That was a

:11:03. > :11:07.novel. When our middle daughter, Imogen, died as a premature baby, I

:11:07. > :11:12.had not intended to write about it because this was not something...

:11:12. > :11:15.We lived do it in a different way. But I wrote an article for Good

:11:15. > :11:19.Housekeeping about it because I was working for them at the time and

:11:19. > :11:23.the editor said, could she bear to do an article? It is a really

:11:23. > :11:28.relevant subject for the readers. I wrote an article and the post back,

:11:28. > :11:36.I cannot describe, was so enormous I thought, I have to tell the whole

:11:36. > :11:40.story. It is not that people wanted to know from and a Korean cents,

:11:40. > :11:47.people had had similar experiences and they wanted to know how they

:11:47. > :11:51.could somehow link their experience with what I was writing. I've read

:11:51. > :11:58.that as a completely true story. Rot very quickly. It was cathartic,

:11:58. > :12:02.but in a different way. -- I wrote it very quickly. It was important

:12:02. > :12:09.to feel what they were feeling. When you are in grief, you do

:12:09. > :12:14.actually go mad. You do strange things, say it strange things. I

:12:14. > :12:18.broke down as far as I could all have those things. People wrote and

:12:18. > :12:22.said, I am so glad you did that because I thought it was only me. I

:12:22. > :12:27.thought I was completely off the wall and I could never have told

:12:27. > :12:31.anybody and then I realised I wasn't alone. I could deal with it

:12:31. > :12:36.and leave it behind after that. It was quite important. Let me bring

:12:36. > :12:42.you back to your departure from the other work that you did in your

:12:42. > :12:49.crime fiction. The series seem to be a good genre to explore the same

:12:49. > :12:52.issues you have been talking about, the morality of society. The

:12:52. > :12:56.question I want Askey it is to do with the popularity of that le

:12:56. > :12:59.genre, but how it has impacted on you as a writer, these books are

:12:59. > :13:05.doing very well in the United States in a way that your other

:13:05. > :13:09.work has not sold. Why do you think that is? I don't like to keep

:13:09. > :13:14.saying I don't know, but I don't know! The Americans are huge crime

:13:14. > :13:18.readers, they read probably more than we do. But it is true, they

:13:18. > :13:22.are very English, they are set in an English cathedral town and I

:13:22. > :13:32.think they like that. But they have engaged with the darker aspects of

:13:32. > :13:34.

:13:34. > :13:39.crime fiction as well as with the softer aspects. They invented dark

:13:39. > :13:43.pathological crimes. They go for that hardcore crime, if you like,

:13:43. > :13:47.too late point, but they are incredibly popular. They do some

:13:47. > :13:55.well -- they do well in other countries like Germany, France and

:13:55. > :13:57.Spain. It is just that people need to address these issues. I want to

:13:57. > :14:01.know about my own times and my something is happening. I don't go

:14:01. > :14:06.around looking for the next been in the obvious sense of what is

:14:06. > :14:10.happening today, but we all wonder why this is happening. But you are

:14:10. > :14:18.interested in children in particular, and children being

:14:18. > :14:23.murdered or abducted, bat hold loss of innocence. That seems to be a

:14:23. > :14:29.very, very compelling theme at a year. I don't think I would do it

:14:29. > :14:35.again for a bit! I think it is because crime against the child is

:14:35. > :14:39.probably the worst you can think of it. To witness stories are

:14:39. > :14:43.prisoners who have done all for things to themselves can't cope

:14:43. > :14:49.with child killers and paedophiles, they the them up and kill them in

:14:49. > :14:55.prison, there is something deep down which we are poor and cannot

:14:55. > :15:01.understand and cannot explain, especially when it is completely

:15:01. > :15:06.pathological and unprovoked. If there is such a thing as pure evil,

:15:06. > :15:10.that is it. But you do seem to try to explain it, don't you, by saying

:15:10. > :15:14.there is an absence of love. sure some way in the background, if

:15:14. > :15:18.you are not being loved, you do not know what lovers. If you have not

:15:18. > :15:22.been nurtured and cherished, it no one has cared about you, then you

:15:22. > :15:27.will be a psychopath because you do not know what this emotion is. But

:15:27. > :15:32.somewhere, you are longing for it, even though you don't know you are

:15:32. > :15:35.longing for bat. What happened -- what has happened to you, you will

:15:35. > :15:42.repeat in some dreadful way. That is not always true, there are

:15:42. > :15:50.probably a lot of paedophiles, not necessarily murderers, who what

:15:50. > :15:55.terrible films who have been laughed. It is just some dreadful

:15:55. > :16:00.aberration. I think I have done without for a while. Oddly enough,

:16:00. > :16:06.it is very hard to do that because it is easy to be cleared and get

:16:07. > :16:13.cheap thrills. The murder of a child is so awful that you have to

:16:13. > :16:19.be so careful to rein it in all the time, not to press too many of the

:16:19. > :16:23.easy buttons. I think I will leave it there. Take a rest. There are

:16:23. > :16:28.more interesting things at the moment to write about. Like what?

:16:28. > :16:33.Too many secrets to give away? new one, which is out, the betrayal

:16:33. > :16:39.of trust, it looks in part at assisted suicide. I think this is

:16:39. > :16:43.something that is very much the zeitgeist: People on one side of

:16:43. > :16:48.the -- all the other for various reasons. I have talked to lots of

:16:48. > :16:53.palliative care doctors and lawyers and it is a very interesting and

:16:53. > :17:00.potent and explosive subject. I wanted to grapple with that. There

:17:00. > :17:05.will be something else coming up, injustice, wrong accusation. I want

:17:05. > :17:09.to ask you about your style of writing. The Irish writer William

:17:09. > :17:14.Trevor said in your stories, we don't get your voice, we get the

:17:14. > :17:18.voice of the story, which I thought was an interesting way of talking

:17:19. > :17:24.about your very pared-down style in many of your books way you write

:17:24. > :17:31.very simple sentence -- sentences, but what really about is almost

:17:31. > :17:35.what creates the tone of the book. I wanted to ask you how hard that

:17:35. > :17:43.is to do? It strikes me that stripping things down is a very

:17:43. > :17:48.difficult thing. It is much harder, and that is where the difference

:17:48. > :17:54.comes in. The short books, which I want to pack a huge punch. You do

:17:54. > :18:01.make the reader work really hard. Migrate exemplar there, apart from

:18:01. > :18:06.William Trevor in short stories, if we are looking at short novels, are

:18:06. > :18:12.-- is Penelope Fitzgerald. She has taught me how that is done, by

:18:12. > :18:16.leaving out and leaving out. Crime novels, pick one up and it is

:18:16. > :18:20.fatter and longer, although you have to look after your style, you

:18:20. > :18:27.can put more in and you're more relaxed in writing. But something

:18:27. > :18:33.like a kind man, you'd think been pared down sentences all the time.

:18:33. > :18:38.It is more difficult because every word has got to way. There ought

:18:38. > :18:43.not to be any spare words, no spare fat on them. It is a lovely thing

:18:43. > :18:48.for Trevor to say, the voice of the story, because that is really

:18:48. > :18:52.important. The story should have its own voice. You should not be

:18:52. > :19:02.able to pick it up and think, it is like the last one. I'm very

:19:02. > :19:07.

:19:07. > :19:11.You're a voracious reader. Do you talk about that book as your

:19:11. > :19:18.literary DNA. I want to talk to you about the importance of having a

:19:18. > :19:25.passion for reading. All it is the only way we learn our

:19:25. > :19:35.trade. That is how you learn. You do not sit down with it like a

:19:35. > :19:37.

:19:37. > :19:44.textbook. You do not sit down and take it apart like he did at A-

:19:44. > :19:48.level. Reading slowly and attentively, but I learned, I

:19:48. > :19:58.suppose without knowing it, these wonderful scenes, like huge

:19:58. > :19:58.

:19:58. > :20:04.canvases on the wall. We learn that way. New think, goodness me! How

:20:04. > :20:08.one earth does he do that? Thomas Hardy, Graham Greene. They both

:20:08. > :20:16.have a sense of being inside of people and their hearts and minds.

:20:16. > :20:21.How is it done? I am shocked when I hear writers saying that they do

:20:21. > :20:26.not read very much. How could he do this? How could he be a composer

:20:26. > :20:31.and not listen to music? I do not understand it. But it is also just

:20:31. > :20:35.sheer delight. Thank goodness I learned to read when I was four and

:20:36. > :20:40.never stopped. You're also a passionate campaigner

:20:40. > :20:50.for the physical object that is the book. I want you to tell me a

:20:50. > :20:58.little bit about why that matters. Maybe it comes from... The beauty

:20:58. > :21:04.of the book was impressed upon me in 1961, the British Museum had a

:21:04. > :21:10.exhibition. I queued for a couple of hours and there it was, just in

:21:10. > :21:16.front of us. You could not touch it but a page was turned by a man with

:21:16. > :21:21.her white cloth. I looked at this book and something happened and I

:21:21. > :21:25.realised that the book, as an object, containing what it might

:21:25. > :21:31.contain and was something so amazing. I then began to love the

:21:31. > :21:40.book. It is a perfect thing. It can be a throwaway paper back, I can be

:21:40. > :21:49.a miniature book, it can be a Victorian book, I am not against

:21:49. > :21:55.the he book. It has its place. A friend of mine's father read 20

:21:55. > :22:00.books in hospital on one, rather than taking in piles of books. It

:22:00. > :22:06.will never have the perfection of the book. It is yet another piece

:22:06. > :22:14.of plastic with a screen, isn't it? It is useful but never, never,

:22:14. > :22:19.never, never, let the book Di. It is a perfect object.

:22:19. > :22:25.You still feel that, given the demands on our attention in the

:22:25. > :22:29.21st century, that the book still has a central place? Yes, because I

:22:29. > :22:34.look around me. I cannot take lessons from my children because

:22:34. > :22:42.they are adults now. But a friend of mine has to grandson's who are

:22:42. > :22:46.11 and 13. They have all the usual gadgetry and the play endless,

:22:46. > :22:51.completely incomprehensible games, but they both read huge numbers of

:22:51. > :22:55.books from the library. They are not interested in how they arrive

:22:55. > :22:59.at it. They will pick up a really good story and they will pick up