11/01/2012 The One Show

Hello and welcome to The One Show with Matt Baker. And Anita Rani.

With us tonight are a couple who we reckon have been on TV together for

a whopping 7000 hours. Give or take a few. And they are about to add

another 30 minutes. It is Judy and Richard! That sounds like it should

always have been that way. I agree. It is great to hear. We have also

heard that the entire Ledley family have got into trouble recently?

daughter was Sleeping Beauty in the Windsor production. And I got

carried away. We went down to watch her, and there is the bit when she

picks her finger. Everyone in the audience knows she is about to be

tricked into pricking her finger. I stood up, maybe a little the worse

for wear for drink, and shouted don't do it, it is a trick! And she

heard me and burst out laughing. The scene came to a halt. Now it

has come into the Madeley jargon. We will say if something is not

worth doing, don't do it, it is a trick. We all went on Boxing Day.

The whole family went. There were Disney lights and swords and

shouting. Someone said to the musical maestro, can you shut those

people up? But that is what you do in a panto. The EU can make as much

noise as you want here. We will. The panto season may be coming to

an end, but another season has been making the headlines.

Spring has sprung in January. According to the Woodland Trust,

there are flowers in bloom weeks ahead of schedule in parts of the

UK. So please send in your photos of your blooming daffodils. We will

try and find the most northerly daffodil during the programme.

Now, they say truth is stranger than fiction, and over the next few

weeks, Gyles Brandreth is setting out to prove it by solving some of

Britain's strangest mysteries. First up is the story of a

politician who had a double life in more ways than one.

John Thomson Stonehouse - economics graduate, business entrepreneur and

family man. Perfect material for politics. When Labour won the 1964

general election, Stonehouse rose rapidly to power as the minister

for technology. There was even talk of him one day succeeding Harold

Wilson as Prime Minister. So not just his family, but the nation,

was in shock when he went on holiday to Miami, left a pile of

clothes on the beach and vanished. His wife had no doubts. I am

convinced that it was a drowning incident. The world declared him

dead. Barely a month later, police in Australia received a call about

an Englishman seen signing cheques under two different names in a

Melbourne bank. When they visited his hotel, the man gave the name

Clive Mildoon and produced a British passport to prove it. That

might have been the end of the story. But one keen-eyed officer

spotted a book of matches bearing the name of the same Miami hotel

where John Stonehouse had stayed before his apparent suicide. It Mr

Stonehouse had faked his death. He had been rumbled, and had become

one of the few people in history to be caught faking their own death,

leaving his wife and three children believing that he was dead. But why

did a high-flying and he want to deceive all who knew him? This was

his excuse days after being discovered in Australia. I have

been sick. My psychiatrist confirms that. When in public life, one is

subject to enormous pressures. was buried darker secret lying

behind his faked suicide? In 1969, five years earlier, remarkable

allegations were made that Stonehouse was a spy for the

Czechoslovakian secret service. He himself adamantly denied espionage.

I have gone to Czechoslovakia and had close connections there, but

the idea that I was a spy is ludicrous. During the Cold War,

such allegations were rife. At the time, MI5 had no hard evidence, but

the damage to his reputation had been done. So could it be that the

burden of concealing such a secret was the real reason that he was

desperate to disappear? Cambridge historian Professor Christopher

Andrew is one of the few who have seen MI5's file on Stonehouse. What

kind of man was he? John Stonehouse was a fraud. But for a long time,

he was successful. The idea that he might have been a spy working for

Czechoslovakia in 1969, a detective came along and said, I fear and 90%

certain that he is a spy. So Stonehouse was called in, and he

put up a good defence. MI5 decided he was innocent. And what he?

he had been a spy. The decisive evidence came in the mid- 1990s,

when the Czechoslovakian intelligence service, having become

an ally, made public some of Stonehouse's file. They were pretty

disappointed with the quality of the intelligence he passed on. So

to the long list of people who Stonehouse defrauded, it is

possible that we can add the name of Czechoslovakian intelligence.

the top of that list was his family. This was their first, rather candid

Although never convicted for espionage, he did serve time for

fraud, forgery and theft. Stonehouse serve just three years

of his seven-year sentence following a string of heart attacks.

On his release from prison, he lived in relative obscurity until

14th April 1988, when the man who once faked his own death died for

real. It is the stuff of movies. Our

super sleuth Gyles is here. We do not know all there is to know yet?

And we will not necessarily know the whole truth for 100 years,

because there is a rule about government papers. Most of them are

released after 30 years. But in the case of national security, that is

extended to 100 years. National security, things to do with the

Queen, are not revealed for 100 years. For example, we recently had

some state papers published which did not include anything about the

Falklands. There was material in there about the Falklands, still

deemed to be security sensitive. We did learn things about Liverpool.

Margaret Thatcher, then prime minister, was advised to let

Liverpool sink into decline. Jeffrey Howe denies it. There was

controversy about it at the time. They did not take that advice, but

it is fascinating. Other things were revealed as well? There was a

big diplomatic row in 1981. It involved this country, the US,

Lebanon, Saudi Arabia. It was to do with a Mecca Bingo Hall in Glasgow.

The Muslim countries objected. They felt it was an insult to the Muslim

faith, because Mecca is their holy city. And they did not want this

Mecca Bingo Hall being called after matter. But Glasgow won. Other news

about Margaret Thatcher? It turns out that The Iron Lady was the

ironing lady. There was a government paper saying, we have

spent this much on refurbishing your apartment at Downing Street,

including a certain amount on an ironing board. She put in the

margin, I will pay for my own ironing board. We do not need this.

You are spending too much. So she was a good housekeeper in private

as well as in public. I interviewed her a couple of times. The last

time was in 1994. It was a fairly tedious interview, because she had

done so many of them. We were not getting very far, so I threw her a

curve ball. I said, do you remember the time he became a grandparent?

Used it to the cameras, we are a grandmother. It sounded like Queen

Victoria. The press said, she thinks she is the Queen. She gave

me a funny look and then gave me a fantastic explanation. She said,

that basically, her husband hated the limelight. He never went near

the cameras. On the day that their grandchild was born, she prevailed

on him for 20 minutes to come out with her onto the pavement, because

it was a joint moment. But he would not, so she came out determined to

make it a joint moment, and found herself saying, to her horror, we

are a grandmother. I believed her. It is a charming story.

Now, our consumer man Dom Littlewood has come across some

dodgy companies in his time, but one that sells you a useless will

and then disappears has to be up there. Dom explains how a couple

from Nottinghamshire ended up with wills that literally are not worth

the paper they are written on. If you live in England, Northern

Ireland or Wales, and you fancy setting up a business, you have had

no training or qualifications and no industry recognised certificates,

I have just the job for you. Will- writing. You see, there is nothing

stopping me, you or anybody making money out of writing wills, because

it is an almost totally unregulated industry. But some roads have been

jumping on the bandwagon. Who would like they are well written? You,

would you like your well written? One thing you cannot complain about

when choosing how to do your will is lack of choice. Some choose the

more traditional method and go to a lawyer. Others get these off the

shelf do-it-yourself kits for between �10 and �20. Others use

professional will writers. But unlike lawyers, both the DIY kits

and professional will writers are not regulated, so if there is a

problem, there is no safety net. Patricia and Jim Hodges were caught

cold by a will-writing company. Impressed by the sales patter of

what they thought was a trustworthy company, they handed over a large

sum of money, only to be left with wills that were totally useless.

am not one for accepting people coming to the house from telephone

calls. He rang several times, and each time I said no, but I

eventually agreed to have an appointment. It seemed good. He was

very informative. Two hours later, we paid them a cheque for �1,830.

We looked at each other and thought it was a bit strange that they were

asking for the money there and then. But we gave them a cheque, and it

was cashed five days later. couple noticed that there were

mistakes in the Wills, and they even named the wrong sun as

executor. The wills were not legally binding. They tried to get

in touch with the company, but they stopped answering their phones.

this time, Hu had gone by, -- a year had gone by and we went to

find them, only to find that the company was no longer there.

their story reflects a bigger problem. If a solicitor writes a

will you are not happy with, he or she is automatically regulated and

you can ask the Legal Ombudsman to investigate. But if you use a will

writer, there is no one to turn to. We are not just talking about

problems with the will writers, there are bad lawyers out there?

There are bad lawyers, bad will writers and people who just make

mistakes. If something goes wrong with a will you have had written by

a solicitor, you have the right to come to somebody like us. But that

is not the case for Will writers. Even the industry itself is calling

for safeguards to stamp out the bad practice of the minority. Brian

McMillan is the boss of the Society of Will writers. He has gone

through rigorous training, but despairs that other independent

will writers are not qualified. He confirms that Patricia and Jim's

wheels are a mess. You went over a year with documents that are

worthless. None of them have been completed or executed properly. And

the information was either missing, incomplete or non-existent. So what

can you do to protect yourself? Firstly, ask your will writer if

they are qualified. If you use a solicitor, make sure they are

competent in will-writing. Make sure whoever you use has

professional indemnity insurance. Then if there is a mistake, your

beneficiaries might be compensated. Patricia will get no compensation.

I did not think I was a vulnerable person. I thought I was quite

astute. But we made a mistake. They obviously missold us, and cost us a

The makers of the DIY kit in the film wanted to point out that they

really do try to give the best advice, but if you cannot

understand it, take it back for a refund.

Richard was on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. You weren't with him.

He got one answer wrong, book- related. If you had been with him

would you have got it right? Hand on heart, no. Ways quite cross with

Chris Tarrant, not he compiles the questions. It was, do you happen to

know from the statistics from public transport lost property

offices over the last year which was the most commonly handed in

object? I did think it might be books I would have gone forum brel

las. Thank you, darling. The Book Club is launched once more. Eight

books and you've chosen them all. How many books did you have to go

to? We get sent between 20 and 30, from the long list compiled by our

partners. We have to pick eight. It can be a little bit like homework

but because they are such good reads... We had fantastic news

today that one of our authors, the first one in our launch for spring,

has just gone straight to number one. Shot to number one, within

days of the launch we were thrilled to bits. It is called Before I Go

To Sleep. It is by a man, SJ Watson. Tall way through I read the book I

assumed it was a woman, because the way he for trace his main character,

who is a woman who has lost her memory is so brilliant. But no,

it's a man and he's done a brilliant job. It is at number one.

It is great. It is so great to get debut authors like that. When you

are at home, is it the same room with slippers on? I to be really

quiet, whereas Richard likes to have the radio on. I can read in a

cafe. Twittering. I read standing up a lot, which is weird, in the

kitchen. I can imagine you reading and being on Twitter. Judy, you

seem to be OK not being in the limelight, but Richard is on radio.

100,000 people following on Twitter. Are you a little bit worried that

you are not there to rein him in? Good God, no. I can't criticise

Twitter, because he loves it. think it's wonderful. And it does

provide us with a lot of stimulating conversations at home.

She's a full-time writer now. I'm hopping about, freelanceing, and

writing, but she is a full-time writer with a two-book deal. Which

we will get to in a little while. Don't worry. I guess you hust have

-- must have had conversations about the two cars... Yes,

Hampstead garden suburb, it is like being in Beirut, twice in the last

month two separate drivers reversed into my. One was a people carrier.

They are not apologetic. Once might be a coincidence but twice... We

have made you something. What do you think about that? A lot of

people would agree with that sentiment. I think shoe be allowed

out with that. You may well be more of a target! Who knows? Some of our

most touching One Show films come from famous names taking us to

their childhood homes. Fay Weldon visits the streets where her family

lived after the Second World War. This is my street where I used to

live, in the hard, colt winter of 1946- 47 -- cold winter. So this

street to me just seemed terribly exciting. It was where the world

was beginning again. In spite of the cold and the grey and the no

paint and the no food, it was just enormously exciting. That's what I

remember most. # When the lights go on again... #

We were alive. Everybody around you was grateful to be alive after the

war. We had five or six years of bombs falling down on you and

people being killed and families disrupted. This is the house. I'm

about to go in and revisit the past. Goodness me. Strange to be back.

Whatever, who would have thought that all these years later one

would come back this these circumstances? It is all rather, if

my friends could see me now, what would they think? Well, goodness me.

It wasn't like this. It was bigger for one thing. It was one big room,

two windows, same view from the window. And my mother was Margaret,

my sister was Jane. She was my big sister. My parents were divorced.

My father was a doctor, living in New Zealand. But I do remember

leaving New Zealand and waving goodbye to him and seeing this

figure as the boat went out, and seeing him get smaller and smaller

and knowing you will never see him again. And I didn't.

But anyway, there with this great adventure in front of us, so we had

the great adventure. It was bitterly cold winter. It went on

longer. It went on for about three months. No coal, no fuel, hardly

any food. When the power went off, we just went to bed and stayed in

bed until the power came on. There was nothing else to do, was so cold.

No television or anything like that, remember. No mobile phones. It was

just you and the world outside and how you would manage in it. There

had been a war. People were lucky to be live. Lots of people had died.

One didn't voice one's anger. You didn't say to your mother, "You

should never have brought us here." That wouldn't occur to you to

behave like, that because the world was too fragile. My mother managed.

She became a housekeeper for a time and cleaned for other people. I did

sometimes wonder quite why one's friends lived in these quite

comfortable houses and we were living in one room in the cold.

This tiny little kitchen. It is bliss isn't it? It has cupboards.

Everything is the same height. Not like what we had - a table in the

corner of the radio. Cooking smells, with rationing you were lucky to

have anything to cook! Everybody was starting again, starting afresh.

There was very little to cling on to from the past. So, you just

lived in the present. A very fine present it was.

And we are delighted to say that we've got Fay with us in the studio.

Fay, that was such a moving film. It's the first time you've seen it.

How did it make you feel watching that? Well, I think I was rather

impressed. You should be. I thought I dealt with my words rather well

and managed to tell a story. That's an accomplishment. You told that

story with the most beautiful turn of phrase. When did you start to

realise that you had that art of telling a story and you went into

writing books? I think probably when I was really quite small. I

could just use words. I could use language. I didn't have to do much

work at school. I could just manage to pull the wool over everybody's

eyes. It seemed as if I knew anything. I knew very little but

always manage today seem as if I knew a lot. You've written 30 books

over a 40-year career and your new book, Kehua, is a ghost story?

other side, if you might call it that, keeps surfacing in all of

them, I find. If you are a writer it is quite hard to believe in the

here and now. One prefers to live in a mildy fictional universe.

Judy, is it a story you are writing? Don't stand a chance next

to Fay! Mine's a ghost story set in Cornwall, where we have a house and

which we love very much. It is a story of a woman who is haunted by

her best friend, who has just died, in seemingly perfectly normal,

unsuspicious circumstances. But gradually she becomes aware the

heroine of the book, Kathy, that something very bad has gone on and

it affects her friend and her family. It is her trying to

convince people that what, including her own husband who

doesn't believe her, that she is being haunted by this woman with a

story to fell. I love a good ghost story. Is it finished? Not quite. I

have to say to my publishers, don't worry, I am working on it. I've got

a deadline at the end of this month and I'm sincerely hoping I will

have finished it. Did you find writing easy and disciplined now,

Fay? No, it is really hard work die too have a deadline at the end of

this month. Oh, God! I'm slighting wondering what I'm doing here.

Didn't I say exactly the same thing? You feel as if you should be

at home. It is the guilt. A lifetime of guilt. And Richard

you've only got five chanters of your book down? Six. She will be

finished on time. All writers in ply experience have no faith in

what they've written. She gave me her to read and I said, "This is

great" and she said, "No it's not." It's a great ghost story.

hopefully she will beat new I will be happy for her to come first.

That's good to hear. At the start of the show we asked

for pictures of your early- flowering daffodils. Christine

Walkden has been popping up around the country to see the signs of

spring for herself. The British winter. A rather

depressing mixture of snow, ice and general chaos. For the green

fingered amongst us it is the time of year we would most like to fast

forward. For this winter for most of us things have been different.

December's temperature almost six degrees warmer than the previous

year, our gardens and plants don't know whether they are coming or

going. Liz is President of a horticultural society and this is

her neighbour's garden. Liz, early January and here we are looking at

glorious daffodils. Is this usual for this part of the world? I think

it is probably about three weeks early. You are going to have this

glorious display but they are not going to last long. I would give a

good application of general fertiliser so when they die down

they are taking nutrients in and they bulk up against next year. Is

there anything else in the garden flowering early? Rhododendrons.

spring has well and truly sprung? think so. The mild weather hasn't

just caused flowers to bloom early. Barry Newman is chairman of the

National Vegetable Society and his rhubarb are behaving very oddly

indeed. Normally you could expect to see a crown of rhubarb is a few

undulations over it where the leaves are holding, ready to burst

through. It is amazing to see it so red at this time of year. Are you

hearing this from your members from around the country? Yes, everybody

is ahead of the game at the moment. What are the downsides? These

milder winter are encouraging pests and diseases. We are not getting

that natural cull, particularly with aphids, a major problem with

cabbage and Brussels sprouts. this garden in Wisley spring has

arrived early for the experts too. This year the plants think it is

spring and they are flowering early. Is there there a knock-on effect

because this is happen sog soon? Plant that -- Happening so soon?

There might be. The whole eco- system depends on the plants

flowering at the right time. For me, this is every gardener's dream. I

wouldn't expect to see such lovely colour in January. It is obvious

that spring has started early. Let's now hope there isn't a cold

snap just around the corner. It is time for flowering daff dils. A

quick whip around the country. Lytham St Annes. This one is

Glasgow! From Katie. This is North London. From Northern Ireland.

Sneer Giant's Causeway. But the winner is here. Ellen in