0:00:04 > 0:00:07Cambridge, October 1893.
0:00:09 > 0:00:11Halloween is approaching
0:00:11 > 0:00:14and literary and horror history is about to be made.
0:00:18 > 0:00:22Welcome to the Chitchat Society, where some of the brightest
0:00:22 > 0:00:25and best connected young men in the country gather to entertain
0:00:25 > 0:00:29each other with witty conversation and the reading of erudite papers.
0:00:33 > 0:00:39Tonight, our host is MR James, a fellow and Dean of King's College.
0:00:39 > 0:00:43But word has it he's got something rather unusual planned.
0:00:49 > 0:00:52Do the audience have any inkling that they are present at arguably
0:00:52 > 0:00:55the most important event in the history of the English ghost story?
0:00:55 > 0:00:59The moment when Monty James, its greatest master,
0:00:59 > 0:01:01unveils his first two tales of terror.
0:01:05 > 0:01:12The boy, a thin shape, with black hair and ragged clothing,
0:01:12 > 0:01:14raised his arms in the air.
0:01:15 > 0:01:18The moon shone upon his almost transparent hands
0:01:18 > 0:01:22and Stephen saw that the nails were fearfully long
0:01:22 > 0:01:26and that the moonlight shone right through them, and as he thus
0:01:26 > 0:01:31stood with his arms raised, he disclosed a terrifying spectacle.
0:01:33 > 0:01:39On the left side of his chest, there opened a black and gaping rent.
0:01:39 > 0:01:42SCREAMING
0:01:43 > 0:01:47Over the coming years, the mind of Montague Rhodes James would
0:01:47 > 0:01:50spawn more than 30 classic stories of the supernatural.
0:01:54 > 0:01:58Nightmarish forces that pursue their unsuspecting victims.
0:01:58 > 0:02:00SCREAMING
0:02:00 > 0:02:03Monstrous guardians with ancient buildings.
0:02:03 > 0:02:05EVIL LAUGHTER
0:02:05 > 0:02:08Horrors that lurk in the idyllic English countryside.
0:02:10 > 0:02:14Violent retribution and black magic.
0:02:16 > 0:02:19Yet all these horrors were conjured up by a man who seemed
0:02:19 > 0:02:24the quintessentially respectable Victorian, a leading scholar,
0:02:24 > 0:02:26a devout Anglican.
0:02:26 > 0:02:30How did MR James come to create such an extraordinary body of work?
0:02:35 > 0:02:38I'm going to find out the truth behind this contradiction
0:02:38 > 0:02:41and see how the strange world of MR James' childhood,
0:02:41 > 0:02:44his precocious imagination, his unrivalled knowledge
0:02:44 > 0:02:46of morbid legends,
0:02:46 > 0:02:50and his repressed sexuality all came together to produce the finest
0:02:50 > 0:02:54and most frightening ghost stories in the English language.
0:03:08 > 0:03:12To get a feel for who MR James was, I am following in his footsteps...
0:03:12 > 0:03:14or rather, his cycling route.
0:03:17 > 0:03:22Monty's idea of a perfect summer's day was riding through France,
0:03:22 > 0:03:25finding a new church or cathedral to explore.
0:03:25 > 0:03:28Such were the pleasures of a scholarly English bachelor
0:03:28 > 0:03:30in the late 19th century.
0:03:35 > 0:03:38And it was one of these excursions that brought Monty here, to the
0:03:38 > 0:03:40foothills of the French Pyrenees.
0:03:53 > 0:03:56The Cathedral of Saint-Bertrand-de-Comminges
0:03:56 > 0:03:59inspired Monty's first published ghost story.
0:04:00 > 0:04:03It must be one of the few tales of the supernatural that could
0:04:03 > 0:04:05double up as a tourist guidebook.
0:04:09 > 0:04:14Previous ghost story writers tended to favour atmosphere over detail...
0:04:16 > 0:04:19..but Monty carefully draws the reader's attention to the
0:04:19 > 0:04:22stained-glass,
0:04:22 > 0:04:24choir stalls,
0:04:24 > 0:04:27and the dusty stuffed crocodile that hangs over the font.
0:04:34 > 0:04:37Monty had been fascinated by church architecture since childhood,
0:04:37 > 0:04:41and you can see why he would be taken with this place.
0:04:41 > 0:04:45There is also an atmosphere of heavy superstition here that's quite
0:04:45 > 0:04:48different to the strict Anglicanism with which he was raised.
0:04:53 > 0:04:55Just as Monty's emphasis on believable settings was
0:04:55 > 0:05:00unprecedented, the central figure of his story was a new, yet easily
0:05:00 > 0:05:02recognisable, kind of protagonist.
0:05:04 > 0:05:09The main character, Denniston, is not dissimilar to Monty himself,
0:05:09 > 0:05:13and other figures in the stories are cut from similar cloth.
0:05:13 > 0:05:16Fussy, bachelor academics with an interest in sacred buildings,
0:05:16 > 0:05:21medieval manuscripts, ancient artefacts and above all, an abiding
0:05:21 > 0:05:25curiosity that rather gets the better of them...
0:05:25 > 0:05:27with grave consequences.
0:05:33 > 0:05:36As Denniston wanders round the empty cathedral,
0:05:36 > 0:05:41he gets a strange sense that someone, something is watching.
0:05:45 > 0:05:47And this feeling of unease increases when Denniston
0:05:47 > 0:05:52comes across a book of pages cut out from old religious manuscripts.
0:05:52 > 0:05:54Canon Alberic's Scrapbook.
0:05:54 > 0:05:58His attention is caught by one illustration in particular.
0:05:58 > 0:06:01A demon from the Testament of King Solomon.
0:06:06 > 0:06:10The hands were of a dusky pallor, covered, like the body,
0:06:10 > 0:06:14with long, coarse hairs, and hideously taloned.
0:06:14 > 0:06:19The eyes, touched with burning yellow, had intensely black pupils.
0:06:19 > 0:06:22If you can imagine one of the awful bird-catching
0:06:22 > 0:06:23spiders of South America
0:06:23 > 0:06:26translated into human form
0:06:26 > 0:06:30and endowed with an intelligence just less than human
0:06:30 > 0:06:33then you would perhaps have some faint conception
0:06:33 > 0:06:38of the terror that is inspired by this appalling effigy.
0:06:40 > 0:06:43Monty's account of the picture is the first genuinely chilling
0:06:43 > 0:06:45moment in his work.
0:06:45 > 0:06:48His description of the demon would certainly discomfort anyone
0:06:48 > 0:06:53with a fear of spiders. Monty was a notorious arachnophobe.
0:06:53 > 0:06:56But it's a line at the end of the passage that continues to
0:06:56 > 0:06:58haunt my memory.
0:06:58 > 0:07:00One remark is universally made by those to whom
0:07:00 > 0:07:02I have shown the picture.
0:07:02 > 0:07:04It was drawn from the life.
0:07:07 > 0:07:13It was drawn from the life. Those few, simple words like a punch line,
0:07:13 > 0:07:17opening up a terrifying possibility that a mythical demon
0:07:17 > 0:07:19could actually exist.
0:07:22 > 0:07:25As the unfortunate Denniston discovers,
0:07:25 > 0:07:28when he retires to his lodgings to pore over the scrapbook.
0:07:32 > 0:07:35His attention was caught by an object lying on a red cloth
0:07:35 > 0:07:38just by his left elbow.
0:07:38 > 0:07:41A rat. No, it is too black.
0:07:41 > 0:07:43A large spider.
0:07:43 > 0:07:45Oh, I trust to goodness not.
0:07:46 > 0:07:48Good God.
0:07:48 > 0:07:50Oh, no.
0:07:50 > 0:07:52It was a hand.
0:07:53 > 0:07:55Like the hand in the picture.
0:07:56 > 0:07:58He flew out of his chair,
0:07:58 > 0:08:02deadly inconceivable terror clutching at his heart.
0:08:02 > 0:08:06The shape, whose left hand rested on the table, was rising to
0:08:06 > 0:08:08a standing posture behind his seat,
0:08:08 > 0:08:10its right hand crooked over his scalp.
0:08:14 > 0:08:17What's remarkable, perhaps even uncanny,
0:08:17 > 0:08:22about Canon Alberic's Scrapbook is just how fully formed it is.
0:08:22 > 0:08:25The pacing, the building of atmosphere and menace,
0:08:25 > 0:08:29are masterly for a first story. Not a word seems out of place.
0:08:30 > 0:08:35And Monty's conversational tone only adds to the feeling of veracity.
0:08:39 > 0:08:43Canon Alberic's Scrapbook may have been inspired by MR James's
0:08:43 > 0:08:47travels in France but it drew on a lifetime of experience.
0:08:49 > 0:08:52The roots of Monty's stories lie in his childhood in England
0:08:52 > 0:08:56and his fascination with history and the supernatural was shaped.
0:08:59 > 0:09:04Montague Rhodes James was born in 1862 and when he was three,
0:09:04 > 0:09:07his family moved to Great Livermere in Suffolk.
0:09:12 > 0:09:16There is a mysterious remote atmosphere here.
0:09:16 > 0:09:18And even in the 19th century it must have felt a place
0:09:18 > 0:09:20apart from the rest of England.
0:09:22 > 0:09:25The family came here when Monty's father, Herbert James,
0:09:25 > 0:09:28was appointed as the local Anglican priest.
0:09:31 > 0:09:34What kind of a congregation and a parish did Herbert James inherit?
0:09:34 > 0:09:39He encountered quite a diverse group of people.
0:09:39 > 0:09:42People who were inherently superstitious
0:09:42 > 0:09:46and Herbert wrote about his concern at the end of the 19th century.
0:09:46 > 0:09:49With all the technological innovations there have been,
0:09:49 > 0:09:52we've still got people who seek out the wise man and woman from
0:09:52 > 0:09:56the village and prefer this esoteric superstition that he called it.
0:09:56 > 0:09:58So, it's a real religion.
0:09:58 > 0:10:02It was a rural, agricultural community
0:10:02 > 0:10:04and most of the people would be working on the land
0:10:04 > 0:10:08here at the time, and the land involved both farmland, which
0:10:08 > 0:10:12would have been tilled by horses, which is effectively behind you.
0:10:12 > 0:10:16And behind me there would have been the land we know as the Brecks,
0:10:16 > 0:10:19the Breckland, which is more like open moorland where they
0:10:19 > 0:10:22would have kept rabbits and sheep.
0:10:22 > 0:10:26In fact, the Breckland, as we know it today, is the nearest thing England
0:10:26 > 0:10:31has to a desert, so we are living on the margins and so, wherever you have
0:10:31 > 0:10:36got a margin between two types of culture and two types of landscape,
0:10:36 > 0:10:40you often get a deeper awareness of the supernatural and the spiritual.
0:10:46 > 0:10:48Monty would later draw on the area's history
0:10:48 > 0:10:51and superstitions in his writing.
0:10:51 > 0:10:54But it is easy to imagine how the powerful atmosphere here might
0:10:54 > 0:10:56have fed his boyhood imagination.
0:10:58 > 0:11:01Especially when combined with the piety of religious devotion
0:11:01 > 0:11:05that characterised family life at the Great Livermere Rectory.
0:11:17 > 0:11:21The James household was a devout one but it was also close
0:11:21 > 0:11:23and loving, and remained so.
0:11:23 > 0:11:28Monty's letters throughout his life are open and affectionate.
0:11:28 > 0:11:31All that religion, though, does seem to have filled Monty's childhood
0:11:31 > 0:11:34imagination with some quite extraordinary visions.
0:11:38 > 0:11:41For a time, young Monty was preoccupied with
0:11:41 > 0:11:46thoughts of fiery apocalypses and days of judgment.
0:11:46 > 0:11:49And although Monty never claimed his tales were inspired by personal
0:11:49 > 0:11:52experiences of the supernatural,
0:11:52 > 0:11:56a short work published after his death suggested that on one occasion
0:11:56 > 0:11:59he may have glimpsed a frightening figure in the rectory grounds.
0:12:04 > 0:12:07A face was looking my way.
0:12:07 > 0:12:10Malevolent, I thought, and think it was.
0:12:10 > 0:12:14And from just above the eyes the white border of a linen drapery hung
0:12:14 > 0:12:17down from the brows.
0:12:17 > 0:12:21I fled, but at what seemed like a safe distance within my own
0:12:21 > 0:12:24precincts, I could not but halt and look back.
0:12:25 > 0:12:27There was no white thing
0:12:27 > 0:12:30framed in the hole in the gate...
0:12:32 > 0:12:37..but there was a draped form... shambling off through the trees.
0:12:45 > 0:12:47Strange apparitions apart,
0:12:47 > 0:12:50Monty's childhood appears to have been a very happy one.
0:12:52 > 0:12:55He began his education at home, learning Latin
0:12:55 > 0:12:58and Greek from his father and French from his mother.
0:12:59 > 0:13:03His parents encouraged a lifelong love of learning in him,
0:13:03 > 0:13:06but eventually, his schooling had to continue elsewhere.
0:13:08 > 0:13:11Monty seems to have been someone with a keen sense of place,
0:13:11 > 0:13:14and this would be a theme in both his work and life.
0:13:14 > 0:13:18He would become deeply attached to a small number of locations
0:13:18 > 0:13:21so when he had to leave Great Livermere at the age of 11 to go to
0:13:21 > 0:13:24prep school in London, the wrench was profound.
0:13:25 > 0:13:29It's perhaps no coincidence that the next story Monty published,
0:13:29 > 0:13:33after Canon Alberic, centres on an 11-year-old orphan boy.
0:13:38 > 0:13:41Lost Hearts tells of Stephen,
0:13:41 > 0:13:44sent to live at the home of his sinister, much older cousin.
0:13:47 > 0:13:51The cousin turns out to be an alchemist, seeking immortality
0:13:51 > 0:13:54and the house is haunted by the spectres of two children
0:13:54 > 0:13:58he has murdered in the course of his experiments.
0:13:58 > 0:14:02Quick or we will be late. Quick, dear boy.
0:14:02 > 0:14:06Dear boy, we have so little time, the potent hour has come!
0:14:08 > 0:14:11It's one of Monty's grimmest stories.
0:14:11 > 0:14:13The lasting impression is of isolation
0:14:13 > 0:14:15and the vulnerability of children.
0:14:19 > 0:14:22Munificent engine,
0:14:22 > 0:14:23soul bread,
0:14:23 > 0:14:27strong rhythm of eternity.
0:14:27 > 0:14:29But with its occult references,
0:14:29 > 0:14:33Lost Hearts is also suffused with arcane knowledge...
0:14:33 > 0:14:34Generous boy.
0:14:34 > 0:14:38..something which would define Monty's later childhood.
0:14:38 > 0:14:40Here lies your fortune.
0:14:40 > 0:14:42Ordained by the heavens,
0:14:42 > 0:14:44sanctioned by the ancients.
0:14:47 > 0:14:52Your innocent heart must be the beating cornerstone to the gate.
0:14:52 > 0:14:54That unspeakable Gateway
0:14:54 > 0:14:57by which I will enter into it.
0:14:57 > 0:14:58SCREAMING
0:15:03 > 0:15:07When he was 14, Monty moved again, to England's premier school,
0:15:07 > 0:15:08Eton College.
0:15:10 > 0:15:15By now, something about him seemed older than his years.
0:15:15 > 0:15:19Perhaps to take his mind off being away from home, Monty had developed
0:15:19 > 0:15:24a precocious fascination with the old, the horrific and the obscure.
0:15:24 > 0:15:27Particularly medieval manuscripts, Apocrypha
0:15:27 > 0:15:30and the outer reaches of religious tradition.
0:15:33 > 0:15:38When I left Eton, it was with plenty of hobbies in the bookish line.
0:15:38 > 0:15:42I collected martyrdoms of Saints, the more atrocious the better,
0:15:42 > 0:15:43and biblical legends.
0:15:43 > 0:15:47Nothing could be more inspiriting than to discover
0:15:47 > 0:15:50that St Livinus had had his tongue cut out and was beheaded.
0:15:57 > 0:16:01With his morbid interests, Monty sounds remarkably like me at
0:16:01 > 0:16:05that age, though my teenage obsession was with horror films
0:16:05 > 0:16:06and stories.
0:16:10 > 0:16:14Monty and his fellow pupils would often pass the long evenings
0:16:14 > 0:16:17enjoying the works of Charles Dickens who had done much
0:16:17 > 0:16:20to popularise supernatural tales by giving them contemporary
0:16:20 > 0:16:22Victorian settings.
0:16:24 > 0:16:27And Monty seems to have taken an active interest in this genre.
0:16:31 > 0:16:34In a letter written in his third year at Eton, Monty
0:16:34 > 0:16:38speaks of engaging in a dark seance, a telling of ghost stories
0:16:38 > 0:16:42in which capacity I am rather popular just now.
0:16:42 > 0:16:46He doesn't say whether these tales were his own or those of other
0:16:46 > 0:16:49writers, but he clearly had a gift for beguiling an audience.
0:16:52 > 0:16:55Monty was soon exploring his fascination with ghost stories
0:16:55 > 0:16:56in written form.
0:17:00 > 0:17:04Eton's library holds his first printed work on the subject
0:17:04 > 0:17:08and his understanding of the story's fundamental appeal is very evident.
0:17:17 > 0:17:21This is The Eton Rambler, a publication set up by Monty
0:17:21 > 0:17:24and a few friends when he was in the sixth form.
0:17:24 > 0:17:28The second issue features a short essay by Monty on the subject
0:17:28 > 0:17:30of ghost stories.
0:17:30 > 0:17:33But the fourth number is of particular interest because it
0:17:33 > 0:17:37contains Monty's first real attempt at writing a ghost story.
0:17:38 > 0:17:40It's the story of a man who decides to spend a summer night
0:17:40 > 0:17:43in the northern aspect of a churchyard.
0:17:43 > 0:17:44Never a good idea.
0:17:46 > 0:17:48He laid himself down under a buttress on the north side
0:17:48 > 0:17:50of the building.
0:17:50 > 0:17:52And in blissful ignorance of the fact that he was
0:17:52 > 0:17:55surrounded by the graves of murderers and suicides,
0:17:55 > 0:17:56he fell asleep.
0:17:56 > 0:17:59After a while, he woke with a dim and unpleasant consciousness
0:17:59 > 0:18:02that something was pulling at his clothes.
0:18:02 > 0:18:05Nothing less than two glassy eyes belonging to a form
0:18:05 > 0:18:09that crouched there in the long grass.
0:18:09 > 0:18:12It was covered with what looked like a stained and tattered shroud,
0:18:12 > 0:18:16and he could dimly discern its long skinny, clawed hands,
0:18:16 > 0:18:19eager, as it seemed, to grasp something.
0:18:22 > 0:18:26So already, even in these very early attempts,
0:18:26 > 0:18:31we can recognise the familiar features of his ghost story writing.
0:18:31 > 0:18:36And the actual representation of the demonic presence is familiar
0:18:36 > 0:18:40already from Canon Alberic's Scrapbook - with glassy eyes,
0:18:40 > 0:18:44the clawed hands tearing at the clothes, the crouched form
0:18:44 > 0:18:47and some sort of stained and tattered shroud.
0:18:54 > 0:18:56In contrast to his time at prep school,
0:18:56 > 0:19:00Monty's years at Eton would be among the happiest of his life.
0:19:00 > 0:19:04He became a socially confident and academically accomplished young man.
0:19:05 > 0:19:08In true English public school fashion,
0:19:08 > 0:19:12he also learned to wear his intelligence and learning lightly.
0:19:18 > 0:19:21In 1882, Monty left Eton for King's College, Cambridge.
0:19:26 > 0:19:29University offered him an unparalleled opportunity to
0:19:29 > 0:19:33pursue his passions and enthusiasms on a bigger canvas.
0:19:35 > 0:19:37Monty seized it with both hands.
0:19:40 > 0:19:44As an undergraduate at King's, Monty managed to lead a double life.
0:19:44 > 0:19:46He excelled academically,
0:19:46 > 0:19:51transforming himself from a budding medievalist into a genuine expert.
0:19:51 > 0:19:55Yet he also became a leading light in the college's social scene.
0:19:55 > 0:19:59No-one knew how we found time to do it all but both
0:19:59 > 0:20:02sides of his life would shape his ghost stories.
0:20:08 > 0:20:09When it came to his studies,
0:20:09 > 0:20:13Monty spent much of his time at the University Museum, the Fitzwilliam.
0:20:18 > 0:20:22The museum boasted a wide range of antiquities but what drew
0:20:22 > 0:20:26Monty here was its extensive library of medieval manuscripts.
0:20:30 > 0:20:33And he didn't come just to read the manuscripts.
0:20:33 > 0:20:37Monty had an unprecedented ambition - to catalogue the collection.
0:20:39 > 0:20:42It was here at the Fitzwilliam that Monty embarked on what
0:20:42 > 0:20:45he truly regarded as his life's work.
0:20:45 > 0:20:47Compared to this, he saw his ghost stories as just an
0:20:47 > 0:20:49entertaining sideline.
0:20:49 > 0:20:53What Monty accomplished here was ground-breaking and has ensured
0:20:53 > 0:20:57his lasting reputation in the field of medieval scholarship.
0:20:57 > 0:21:00And remarkably, he did much of it as an undergraduate.
0:21:06 > 0:21:09The Fitzwilliam's collection of manuscripts
0:21:09 > 0:21:13ranged across several centuries before the invention of printing.
0:21:15 > 0:21:18Written, illustrated and bound entirely by hand,
0:21:18 > 0:21:21many were biblical and devotional texts.
0:21:25 > 0:21:30Information about their provenance was often scanty and incomplete.
0:21:30 > 0:21:33By studying and comparing the manuscripts,
0:21:33 > 0:21:36Monty sought to pin down their origins and authorship.
0:21:37 > 0:21:41It was an opportunity to both draw on and expand his detailed
0:21:41 > 0:21:44knowledge of the medieval period.
0:21:45 > 0:21:47How would you say Monty's approach was
0:21:47 > 0:21:50different in terms of examining these manuscripts?
0:21:50 > 0:21:52Up to that point,
0:21:52 > 0:21:57manuscript research was primarily driven by the importance of the text.
0:21:57 > 0:22:01But he was one of the very first people to pay consistent
0:22:01 > 0:22:06and considerable attention to the pictures, the illuminations.
0:22:07 > 0:22:10Monty's catalogue of the Fitzwilliam's manuscripts was
0:22:10 > 0:22:15published in 1895. He would go on to document many
0:22:15 > 0:22:18more of the country's great collections including
0:22:18 > 0:22:21those at Lambeth Palace and Westminster Abbey.
0:22:23 > 0:22:28Well, it is truly staggering and more or less unrivalled to this day,
0:22:28 > 0:22:32the sheer scale of his achievement is unmatched.
0:22:32 > 0:22:36- Can we take a look at some of the manuscripts?- Of course.
0:22:37 > 0:22:41This one, which is a Mirror of Sinners,
0:22:41 > 0:22:47so a highly moralising poem on what awaits you after death,
0:22:47 > 0:22:52especially if you have been a self-indulgent, lustful,
0:22:52 > 0:22:55and avaricious sinner.
0:22:55 > 0:22:57That is me doomed!
0:22:58 > 0:23:03James commented on the images in this manuscript as a very fine
0:23:03 > 0:23:08execution but most terrifying and repulsive,
0:23:08 > 0:23:10and they truly are.
0:23:12 > 0:23:14You can imagine that he had these sort of things
0:23:14 > 0:23:17- in mind for his demons.- Oh, easily.
0:23:17 > 0:23:21When there is such a recurrence of hair, and red eyes or yellow eyes,
0:23:21 > 0:23:24and small teeth and things.
0:23:24 > 0:23:26And the scaly nature.
0:23:26 > 0:23:29Yes, you can imagine that our Victorian antiquaries
0:23:29 > 0:23:32put their hand down and touched one of these.
0:23:32 > 0:23:33Yes.
0:23:33 > 0:23:36The one that terrifies me most is actually this one.
0:23:36 > 0:23:42- Cos you see the corpse.- Oh, yes. - And the worms.- Worms, yes.
0:23:43 > 0:23:47I suppose it really is his unique contribution to the ghost
0:23:47 > 0:23:52story form, is that nobody else had this incredible
0:23:52 > 0:23:54reservoir of material to draw on.
0:23:54 > 0:23:58You get the feeling from his notebooks alone that all these
0:23:58 > 0:24:00things came together for him,
0:24:00 > 0:24:02and this cross-fertilisation, of course,
0:24:02 > 0:24:04helped with the ghost story writing.
0:24:04 > 0:24:09The historically accurate detail that creates
0:24:09 > 0:24:12the background for the supernatural in the ghost stories
0:24:12 > 0:24:16derives from this very wide-reaching research
0:24:16 > 0:24:19and absolutely thorough understanding of history.
0:24:24 > 0:24:27Alongside cataloguing the Fitzwilliam collection,
0:24:27 > 0:24:31Monty became a Fellow of Kings and then Dean of the College,
0:24:31 > 0:24:33all by the time he was 28.
0:24:36 > 0:24:39The young academic seemed more than happy to remain in the cloistered,
0:24:39 > 0:24:42overwhelmingly male world of university.
0:24:49 > 0:24:53When he wasn't working, his main diversion was pure socialising
0:24:53 > 0:24:56and Cambridge clubs like the Chitchat Society
0:24:56 > 0:24:57provided the ideal forum.
0:25:00 > 0:25:04'Cambridge and Oxford are great places for societies
0:25:04 > 0:25:08'and particularly around the great art which is the favourite art
0:25:08 > 0:25:10'of such people which is talking.'
0:25:10 > 0:25:14So, as soon as James came here,
0:25:14 > 0:25:18he would have been a good talker,
0:25:18 > 0:25:20and people would have said, "that James character,
0:25:20 > 0:25:22"we should have him in the Chitchat Society."
0:25:22 > 0:25:24It is a place where you get together over a
0:25:24 > 0:25:27glass in the evening with people you like,
0:25:27 > 0:25:31and you would take it in turns to entertain each other.
0:25:36 > 0:25:42But for Monty and many of his peers, the perfect soiree wasn't all talk.
0:25:45 > 0:25:48As the evening wore on, Monty and his friends would often end
0:25:48 > 0:25:51up on the floor engaged in lively horseplay.
0:25:52 > 0:25:57They called this ragging and Monty was a dab hand.
0:26:02 > 0:26:06One participant recalled writhing on the floor during the rag, with
0:26:06 > 0:26:10Monty James' long fingers grasping at his vitals.
0:26:10 > 0:26:15Monty later made a point of saying, "Sex is tiresome enough in novels.
0:26:15 > 0:26:18"In a ghost story, I have no patience with it."
0:26:18 > 0:26:21So what are we to make of the peculiarly tactile
0:26:21 > 0:26:23nature of his writing?
0:26:23 > 0:26:28Hairy clutching arms, slimy tentacled embraces?
0:26:28 > 0:26:30Monty may have been a lifelong bachelor,
0:26:30 > 0:26:33but he understood the frisson of physical contact.
0:26:35 > 0:26:38What it touched was, according to his account,
0:26:38 > 0:26:43a mouth...with teeth
0:26:43 > 0:26:46and with hair about it.
0:26:46 > 0:26:51And not, he declares, the mouth of a human being.
0:26:54 > 0:26:58Like ragging, Monty's stories were perhaps an outlet for energies
0:26:58 > 0:27:01he found difficult to express elsewhere.
0:27:04 > 0:27:08Gordon Carey, a former chorister at King's, was one of a number
0:27:08 > 0:27:11of younger men with whom Monty had close friendships
0:27:11 > 0:27:13during his time at Cambridge.
0:27:16 > 0:27:20Do you think your father had a particular sort of brightness
0:27:20 > 0:27:23which appealed to Monty? He seems to have been drawn to intelligence.
0:27:23 > 0:27:27I am not sure that his brightness wasn't his good looks. But...
0:27:27 > 0:27:32I remember my father saying of him, long after his death,
0:27:32 > 0:27:37"I suppose he was what would nowadays be called
0:27:37 > 0:27:40"a non-practising homosexual."
0:27:41 > 0:27:44So, that was Papa's opinion.
0:27:45 > 0:27:49It feels like a very modern thing to place upon Monty James
0:27:49 > 0:27:53because he is a very complicated man, I think,
0:27:53 > 0:27:58but there is a strong sense that throughout his life,
0:27:58 > 0:28:02he had passionate friendships but there almost seems to be no
0:28:02 > 0:28:04evidence that anything...
0:28:04 > 0:28:07I am sure there wasn't.
0:28:07 > 0:28:13That was fairly general in those times.
0:28:15 > 0:28:20He liked young people. And chatting with young people.
0:28:21 > 0:28:22He was very genial.
0:28:24 > 0:28:26It leapt towards him upon the instant,
0:28:26 > 0:28:27and the next moment,
0:28:27 > 0:28:30he was halfway through the window backwards,
0:28:30 > 0:28:34uttering cry upon cry, at the utmost pitch of his voice.
0:28:34 > 0:28:37And the linen face was thrust close to his own.
0:28:39 > 0:28:42So it's not hard to see why Monty hit upon the idea
0:28:42 > 0:28:46of entertaining the Chitchat Society with ghost stories
0:28:46 > 0:28:48and why he followed them up with dozens more.
0:28:50 > 0:28:52He could combine his historical expertise,
0:28:52 > 0:28:56his scholarly fascination for the strange and obscure,
0:28:56 > 0:29:00with his desire to thrill, delight, and above all,
0:29:00 > 0:29:02to connect with his friends.
0:29:02 > 0:29:05His face is not there,
0:29:05 > 0:29:10because the flesh of it has been sucked away off the bones.
0:29:14 > 0:29:18What else allows you to hold an audience in the palm of your hand,
0:29:18 > 0:29:21to manipulate their emotions and expectations,
0:29:21 > 0:29:22better than a ghost story?
0:29:23 > 0:29:26What must have made the readings really compelling
0:29:26 > 0:29:30was the rich detail and knowledge Monty brought to them.
0:29:30 > 0:29:33It sounded as if he knew whereof he spoke.
0:29:36 > 0:29:39Monty had started something of an institution.
0:29:39 > 0:29:42His stories became an annual ritual at King's,
0:29:42 > 0:29:45where he'd often present a new one each Christmas.
0:29:45 > 0:29:48But he was hardly a prolific ghost story writer.
0:29:48 > 0:29:51His academic commitments came first.
0:29:53 > 0:29:55In addition to his duties at King's,
0:29:55 > 0:29:59Monty had been appointed director at the Fitzwilliam Museum,
0:29:59 > 0:30:03even before his catalogue of its manuscripts had been published.
0:30:03 > 0:30:05Still only in his early 30s,
0:30:05 > 0:30:08Monty was very much a Cambridge high flyer -
0:30:08 > 0:30:11albeit something of a traditionalist.
0:30:12 > 0:30:14Uncomfortable with pressures to modernise the university,
0:30:14 > 0:30:18he was particularly resistant to women being awarded degrees.
0:30:20 > 0:30:23Monty may have been blessed with a remarkable intellect,
0:30:23 > 0:30:26but he wasn't exactly what we might call a free thinker.
0:30:26 > 0:30:29The modern world was being born around him here at Cambridge,
0:30:29 > 0:30:33but Monty's response seems to have been highly conservative.
0:30:33 > 0:30:37And that suspicion of change, his struggle with it,
0:30:37 > 0:30:40underlies what is perhaps his best-known story.
0:30:44 > 0:30:47SOMETHING MOANS
0:30:51 > 0:30:52Oh!
0:31:00 > 0:31:02Set mainly on the Suffolk coast,
0:31:02 > 0:31:05Oh, Whistle, And I'll Come To You, My Lad,
0:31:05 > 0:31:07is the cautionary tale of Professor Parkins,
0:31:07 > 0:31:12an overconfident Cambridge academic who represents a more modern,
0:31:12 > 0:31:14rationalist mindset than Monty's own.
0:31:17 > 0:31:21Parkins openly dismisses talk of the supernatural.
0:31:21 > 0:31:24But during a golfing holiday by the seaside,
0:31:24 > 0:31:27a terrifying encounter shakes his certainties.
0:31:32 > 0:31:35It's not surprising Monty found the Suffolk coast so evocative.
0:31:35 > 0:31:39The powerful winds blowing in from Scandinavia in northern Europe.
0:31:39 > 0:31:42The sea defences struggling to hold back the water's relentless
0:31:42 > 0:31:44attempts to reclaim the land.
0:31:46 > 0:31:50Pagan, elemental forces are at work here.
0:31:50 > 0:31:52Purposeful ones.
0:31:59 > 0:32:02Wandering back from an afternoon on the links,
0:32:02 > 0:32:04Parkins stumbles across a strange artefact.
0:32:04 > 0:32:05Give a dog a bone.
0:32:05 > 0:32:08A whistle with an engraving in Latin.
0:32:11 > 0:32:14"Quis est iste qui venit?"
0:32:14 > 0:32:17"Who is this who is coming?"
0:32:21 > 0:32:24As Parkins soon discovers, something is indeed coming.
0:32:28 > 0:32:30He can't resist blowing the whistle,
0:32:30 > 0:32:33and finds himself caught in a strange dream.
0:32:34 > 0:32:38He seems to have released some kind of power in the wind.
0:32:38 > 0:32:40In the air itself.
0:32:44 > 0:32:45Help!
0:32:45 > 0:32:49Parkins represents the aggressive modernity that Monty despised
0:32:49 > 0:32:51and possibly feared.
0:32:51 > 0:32:53The elemental menace that he unleashes is a punishment,
0:32:53 > 0:32:57not for his curiosity, but for his intellectual pride.
0:33:00 > 0:33:03The dream finally crosses over into reality
0:33:03 > 0:33:07when the bed sheets in Parkins' hotel room billow into life.
0:33:17 > 0:33:19PARKINS WHIMPERS
0:33:19 > 0:33:23The sense of being trapped in a waking nightmare was brilliantly
0:33:23 > 0:33:27captured by Jonathan Miller in his celebrated television adaptation.
0:33:30 > 0:33:31PARKINS GROANS
0:33:31 > 0:33:35The real visceral power of Whistle,
0:33:35 > 0:33:38is it really is like a nightmare.
0:33:38 > 0:33:40I think a lot of people would watch that and say
0:33:40 > 0:33:43that's the closest they've seen to someone getting,
0:33:43 > 0:33:46or representing what it's like to have a nightmare.
0:33:46 > 0:33:52Actually, everything that happened in Whistle And I'll Come To You,
0:33:52 > 0:33:58erm, he finds it hard to distinguish what he dreams about
0:33:58 > 0:34:00and what he thinks he actually sees,
0:34:00 > 0:34:03if indeed he actually sees anything.
0:34:04 > 0:34:06PARKINS GROANS HELPLESSLY
0:34:06 > 0:34:11There's a very particular sort of slowed-down groan
0:34:11 > 0:34:13that Michael Hordern makes.
0:34:13 > 0:34:15Well, that's what I remember,
0:34:15 > 0:34:18in the moments when I've had bad dreams and have woken suddenly.
0:34:18 > 0:34:21I often find it very difficult to articulate something.
0:34:21 > 0:34:24I'll say, "Er, urgh...ohh,"
0:34:24 > 0:34:26and then suddenly you wake up.
0:34:26 > 0:34:32And then what has been in the dream diminishes and disappears,
0:34:32 > 0:34:37but nevertheless, it remains perhaps for a little while
0:34:37 > 0:34:39because the dream itself is very disconcerting.
0:34:40 > 0:34:42Oh, no.
0:34:45 > 0:34:47Oh, no.
0:34:47 > 0:34:51I always certainly think that that's it for Professor Parkins!
0:34:51 > 0:34:53Yes, well, I don't think it is, you see.
0:34:53 > 0:34:55I think what happens is that he would be,
0:34:55 > 0:34:59if he told the story again when he went back to Cambridge,
0:34:59 > 0:35:00he might have said,
0:35:00 > 0:35:04"I was very disconcerted by something that happened to me, but of course,
0:35:04 > 0:35:06"how could I possibly believe
0:35:06 > 0:35:08"that the sheets would get up and attack me?
0:35:08 > 0:35:13"But nevertheless, that moment, which was obviously a dream, erm,
0:35:13 > 0:35:15"I did have a dream to that effect."
0:35:19 > 0:35:21Oh, Whistle, And I'll Come To You, My Lad
0:35:21 > 0:35:24features some of MR James' most memorable images,
0:35:24 > 0:35:26captured in these illustrations
0:35:26 > 0:35:28which were approved by Monty himself.
0:35:29 > 0:35:33They were the work of a young artist called James McBride,
0:35:33 > 0:35:35who would go on to play a pivotal role
0:35:35 > 0:35:38in the publication of the ghost stories, and for a few years,
0:35:38 > 0:35:41was perhaps the most important person in Monty's life.
0:35:50 > 0:35:53Monty met James McBride around the time he presented his first
0:35:53 > 0:35:55stories to the Chitchat Society.
0:35:57 > 0:36:00McBride was a student at King's, ten years younger than Monty,
0:36:00 > 0:36:02but they struck up a close friendship,
0:36:02 > 0:36:06travelling together on Monty's beloved cycling holidays in Europe.
0:36:10 > 0:36:14On one occasion in France, McBride disposed of a particularly
0:36:14 > 0:36:17large spider that had crept into their bathroom.
0:36:18 > 0:36:20Greater love hath no man.
0:36:29 > 0:36:31This is Dippersmoor Manor in Herefordshire,
0:36:31 > 0:36:33once the McBride family home,
0:36:33 > 0:36:37where some of Monty's letters to James McBride have been preserved.
0:36:40 > 0:36:42Should really blow the dust off,
0:36:42 > 0:36:44there isn't really any, but it's...it feels correct.
0:36:48 > 0:36:49Ah, there's some.
0:36:49 > 0:36:52It's on King's College notepaper.
0:36:53 > 0:36:54"My dear boy,
0:36:54 > 0:37:00"long since I heard of you, but not so long since I wrote.
0:37:00 > 0:37:04"What is happening? I hope you are getting along with your exams.
0:37:04 > 0:37:07"I think you'd better keep Christmas here, had you not?"
0:37:09 > 0:37:12This is the 3rd of January 1900.
0:37:12 > 0:37:14"My dear boy, how are you?
0:37:14 > 0:37:17"I took a slight influenza on Christmas Day,
0:37:17 > 0:37:22"which has left me weak from that day to the next.
0:37:23 > 0:37:27"My principal object in writing is to get news of you.
0:37:27 > 0:37:30"I want to know that you are recovered
0:37:30 > 0:37:35"and that you have had no relapses or other unpleasant adventures."
0:37:36 > 0:37:40As many people commented, Monty's handwriting is execrable,
0:37:40 > 0:37:41almost indecipherable.
0:37:42 > 0:37:46Though at some point, in several of these letters, he refers back
0:37:46 > 0:37:49to their beloved holidays in Scandinavia
0:37:49 > 0:37:53and actually lapses into Danish or Swedish, I can't actually tell...
0:37:54 > 0:37:56..cos I am not a scholar.
0:37:58 > 0:38:01There's nothing hear that would trouble a biographer
0:38:01 > 0:38:04trying to find hidden depths of passion,
0:38:04 > 0:38:09but there is a gentle thread of affection and solicitude
0:38:09 > 0:38:12from Monty towards McBride which is actually very touching.
0:38:15 > 0:38:17Each of the letters begins, "My dear boy,"
0:38:17 > 0:38:22and ends, "Ever your affectionate, MRJ."
0:38:26 > 0:38:30James McBride's marriage in 1903 appears to have had no ill effect
0:38:30 > 0:38:32on his friendship with Monty.
0:38:34 > 0:38:37And that friendship seems to have led Monty to collect his early
0:38:37 > 0:38:40stories in book form the following year.
0:38:46 > 0:38:50And here it is, a first edition of Ghost Stories Of An Antiquary.
0:38:51 > 0:38:52Very beautiful book.
0:38:54 > 0:38:58Now nicely mottled and foxed with age as is appropriate.
0:38:59 > 0:39:03I feel a bit like Monty must have done with his Medieval manuscripts.
0:39:06 > 0:39:09McBride wanted to be an artist, and Monty probably saw the book
0:39:09 > 0:39:13more as a means to promote his friend's work than his own.
0:39:15 > 0:39:18There's a very good one here. Canon Alberic's Scrapbook.
0:39:20 > 0:39:23It's probably the first visual representation
0:39:23 > 0:39:24of one of Monty's demons.
0:39:24 > 0:39:28The seated figure here was thought by many of Monty's friends
0:39:28 > 0:39:31to be a thinly-veiled portrait of Monty himself.
0:39:31 > 0:39:33He certainly looks as genial as everyone says.
0:39:35 > 0:39:36It's very evocative.
0:39:40 > 0:39:43The other thing that strikes you as unusual is the curiously
0:39:43 > 0:39:47unfinished quality of this book. There are only four illustrations.
0:39:47 > 0:39:50Monty may have meant it as a way of pleasing and promoting
0:39:50 > 0:39:54James McBride, but it turned into something quite different.
0:39:54 > 0:39:55A memorial.
0:39:57 > 0:40:02In May 1904, McBride, who had trouble with his appendix,
0:40:02 > 0:40:03became gravely ill.
0:40:05 > 0:40:09Despite an apparent improvement, he died the following month,
0:40:09 > 0:40:12with his wife still pregnant with their daughter.
0:40:13 > 0:40:16McBride was buried in Lancashire on the 8th of June.
0:40:17 > 0:40:22Monty, in the words of a friend, was broken hearted.
0:40:22 > 0:40:24On the day of James McBride's funeral,
0:40:24 > 0:40:26Monty took the train to Lancashire
0:40:26 > 0:40:30carrying a selection of flowers from the Fellows' Garden at King's.
0:40:30 > 0:40:33He waited until the other mourners had gone,
0:40:33 > 0:40:38and then threw into McBride's grave lilac, honeysuckle and roses.
0:40:39 > 0:40:44It wasn't in Monty's nature to be demonstrative about his feelings,
0:40:44 > 0:40:48but that may well have been the saddest day of his life.
0:40:55 > 0:40:57BELL TOLLS
0:41:05 > 0:41:09Ghost Stories Of An Antiquary was published not long before
0:41:09 > 0:41:13Christmas 1904, just a few months after McBride's death.
0:41:14 > 0:41:19The book sold sufficiently well that a second impression was issued.
0:41:19 > 0:41:21Not only his Cambridge friends,
0:41:21 > 0:41:24but the public had a taste for MR James' ghost stories.
0:41:27 > 0:41:31Inevitably, Monty was asked whether he believed in ghosts.
0:41:31 > 0:41:34He gave a somewhat evasive answer.
0:41:34 > 0:41:36"I am prepared to consider evidence
0:41:36 > 0:41:40"and accept it if it satisfies me."
0:41:40 > 0:41:42Perhaps it doesn't matter,
0:41:42 > 0:41:45because what he clearly understood was fear, and he had
0:41:45 > 0:41:48an uncanny skill for finding the exact words to express it.
0:41:52 > 0:41:55That skill is especially evident in The Treasure Of Abbot Thomas,
0:41:55 > 0:41:57the last tale in the collection.
0:42:04 > 0:42:07Drawing on Monty's expertise in stained glass,
0:42:07 > 0:42:10it tells of an antiquary who discovers a set of clues in some
0:42:10 > 0:42:15windows that led him to a trove of buried gold in a German monastery.
0:42:19 > 0:42:23Although the tale was inspired by Monty's fascination with windows,
0:42:23 > 0:42:26its climax is perhaps the most claustrophobic in all his work.
0:42:32 > 0:42:36The antiquary identifies the location of the treasure
0:42:36 > 0:42:37in the monastery's well.
0:42:40 > 0:42:44One night he descends into it to find the bag of gold.
0:42:45 > 0:42:47Or what seems like it.
0:42:48 > 0:42:55The great bag hung for a moment on the edge of the hole,
0:42:55 > 0:42:58then it slipped forward onto my chest,
0:42:58 > 0:43:01and put its arms around my neck.
0:43:04 > 0:43:06CREATURE SLURPS
0:43:06 > 0:43:07MAN SCREAMS
0:43:08 > 0:43:12I believe that I am now acquainted with the extremity of terror
0:43:12 > 0:43:17and repulsion that a man can endure without losing his mind.
0:43:17 > 0:43:21I was conscious of a most horrible smell of mould.
0:43:22 > 0:43:27Of something like a face pressed closely to my own,
0:43:27 > 0:43:28moving slowly over it.
0:43:29 > 0:43:32Of several, I don't know how many,
0:43:32 > 0:43:36arms or legs or tentacles or something clinging to my body!
0:43:42 > 0:43:46The Treasure of Abbot Thomas was among the first stories to
0:43:46 > 0:43:48kindle my own passion for the work of MR James.
0:43:52 > 0:43:55But I didn't encounter it in book form.
0:43:55 > 0:43:57Rather, it was one of a series of television versions shown
0:43:57 > 0:44:00every Christmas when I was a child.
0:44:01 > 0:44:04Monty's most chilling phrases were brought to life by
0:44:04 > 0:44:06a succession of fine actors.
0:44:10 > 0:44:14I can vividly recall the BBC's MR James adaptations of the early '70s,
0:44:14 > 0:44:17and the profound impact they had on me.
0:44:17 > 0:44:19Robert Hardy's desperate exhortation,
0:44:19 > 0:44:21"I must be firm,"
0:44:21 > 0:44:23in The Stalls Of Barchester.
0:44:23 > 0:44:26Michael Bryant's chillingly logical response
0:44:26 > 0:44:28to The Treasure Of Abbot Thomas,
0:44:28 > 0:44:32"It is a thing of slime. Slime and darkness."
0:44:33 > 0:44:35And perhaps most memorable of all,
0:44:35 > 0:44:38Peter Vaughan in A Warning To The Curious.
0:44:38 > 0:44:40When asked what he will do
0:44:40 > 0:44:43with his recently rediscovered crown of East Anglia, he simply says...
0:44:46 > 0:44:48I'm going to put it back.
0:44:50 > 0:44:54- I beg your pardon?- I'm going to put it back, back in the ground.
0:44:54 > 0:44:55Everyone's in a hurry, hurry, hurry.
0:44:55 > 0:44:59It was my love of these dramatisations that led me to direct
0:44:59 > 0:45:01my own interpretation of an MR James story,
0:45:01 > 0:45:03The Tractate Middoth.
0:45:10 > 0:45:14TRAIN WHISTLE BLOWS
0:45:14 > 0:45:17My inspiration as a director is Lawrence Gordon Clark,
0:45:17 > 0:45:19the man behind the 1970s adaptations.
0:45:22 > 0:45:27His first rendering was The Stalls Of Barchester in 1971.
0:45:31 > 0:45:33February the 21st.
0:45:33 > 0:45:35I must be firm.
0:45:35 > 0:45:38I must be firm.
0:45:38 > 0:45:45I was so excited to get this chance,
0:45:45 > 0:45:47and erm, we were fortunate enough
0:45:47 > 0:45:51to cast Robert Hardy to play the lead, and, erm...
0:45:52 > 0:45:57He was terribly enthusiastic about it, cos he loved MR James.
0:45:58 > 0:46:00He gave a superb performance.
0:46:03 > 0:46:04BELL DINGS
0:46:04 > 0:46:07Robert Hardy's portrayal of the murderous archdeacon
0:46:07 > 0:46:08who gets his comeuppance
0:46:08 > 0:46:12was wonderfully complemented by the evocative location filming.
0:46:12 > 0:46:15FOOTSTEPS
0:46:23 > 0:46:27James has a very strong sense of place and of location.
0:46:27 > 0:46:30Were you drawing heavily on that from the written word?
0:46:30 > 0:46:32Absolutely.
0:46:32 > 0:46:35He gives you freedom to exploit and explore...
0:46:37 > 0:46:39..English countryside, English architecture,
0:46:39 > 0:46:44in a way very few people other than Dickens actually do.
0:46:44 > 0:46:46It's a joy.
0:46:46 > 0:46:48BELL TOLLS
0:47:10 > 0:47:15And it gave one a wonderful excuse to rediscover or discover areas
0:47:15 > 0:47:22and choose places where you could best impart tension and atmosphere.
0:47:33 > 0:47:37You get into your little car and you set off with MR James
0:47:37 > 0:47:43and a dog, if you've got one, and drive off for five days,
0:47:43 > 0:47:47staying in unlikely pubs and walking and looking at places.
0:47:47 > 0:47:51And finding yourselves in increasingly Jamesian hostelries?
0:47:51 > 0:47:55Absolutely, looking nervously over your shoulders.
0:47:58 > 0:48:02- I think James was the absolute master.- Why do you think that is?
0:48:02 > 0:48:06- What does James have that others don't?- He has a great sense of evil.
0:48:08 > 0:48:11He's a great manipulator, like all great storytellers.
0:48:13 > 0:48:16To make people frightened when you want to, it's a wonderful power.
0:48:16 > 0:48:18MAN GASPS
0:48:18 > 0:48:20CLAW SCRATCHES
0:48:20 > 0:48:23BODY CLATTERS TO THE GROUND
0:48:23 > 0:48:26That's basically what we're all in this for, isn't it?
0:48:26 > 0:48:31You know, it's that wonderful ability to entertain
0:48:31 > 0:48:32and to entrance.
0:48:32 > 0:48:33James had that.
0:48:36 > 0:48:40Monty would go on to produce three more volumes' worth of stories,
0:48:40 > 0:48:43usually unveiling a new tale every year.
0:48:45 > 0:48:48And while he was now better known to the wider public as MR James,
0:48:48 > 0:48:50the ghost story writer,
0:48:50 > 0:48:52his academic duties at Cambridge remained
0:48:52 > 0:48:54the overwhelming focus of his life.
0:49:01 > 0:49:04In 1905, Monty was accorded the highest honour at King's,
0:49:04 > 0:49:07he was elected Provost, or Head of the College.
0:49:12 > 0:49:14Within a decade, he was also appointed
0:49:14 > 0:49:16Vice Chancellor of the University.
0:49:16 > 0:49:19As one of Monty's contemporaries later said,
0:49:19 > 0:49:22"It really looked like he was leading a life without a jolt."
0:49:24 > 0:49:27At least until events took a turn
0:49:27 > 0:49:30that would leave no-one in Europe untouched.
0:49:38 > 0:49:39It's difficult now for us
0:49:39 > 0:49:42to realise the great traumatic psychological effect
0:49:42 > 0:49:48of war at that time, because the late Victorian period
0:49:48 > 0:49:51before the war seemed a very mellow, golden age.
0:49:51 > 0:49:56Wonderful summers and the height of the British Empire and
0:49:56 > 0:50:00we were on top of the world and everything was fine and so on.
0:50:05 > 0:50:09And then, suddenly, four years of the leading nations in the world
0:50:09 > 0:50:11tearing themselves to pieces
0:50:11 > 0:50:15really made the watershed between eras.
0:50:23 > 0:50:27The university provided a stream of young men for the officer class,
0:50:27 > 0:50:30many of whom were known to Monty,
0:50:30 > 0:50:32and many of whom never returned from the war.
0:50:34 > 0:50:37A military hospital was even set up on the King's playing fields.
0:50:40 > 0:50:46All around him, not only the reports of young people who he'd known being killed,
0:50:46 > 0:50:49but also perhaps going daily
0:50:49 > 0:50:53and seeing some of the ghastly effects of the war
0:50:53 > 0:50:58and the gassing and shell shock, erm, had a terrible effect.
0:50:58 > 0:51:01And also the point of Cambridge was lost
0:51:01 > 0:51:05because you didn't have the teachers and you didn't have the students.
0:51:05 > 0:51:08As a Victorian, which he was, erm,
0:51:08 > 0:51:11he must have suddenly felt much older,
0:51:11 > 0:51:14must have felt that everything he knew, all the relations,
0:51:14 > 0:51:17all the symbols, all the myths, all the stories, all the friends,
0:51:17 > 0:51:18were gone.
0:51:21 > 0:51:24Monty never referred to the war directly in his ghost stories,
0:51:24 > 0:51:28but his later works betray a deepening sense of loss and despair.
0:51:37 > 0:51:42None more so than A Warning To The Curious, published in 1925.
0:51:43 > 0:51:46It begins along familiar Jamesian lines, a treasure hunter
0:51:46 > 0:51:50called Paxton uncovers a mythical Anglo-Saxon crown,
0:51:50 > 0:51:53said to be imbued with magical powers...
0:51:54 > 0:51:55..and is pursued by its guardian.
0:51:58 > 0:52:02"What is to be done?" Paxton broke in impatiently.
0:52:03 > 0:52:08"The truth is that I've never been alone since I touched it."
0:52:10 > 0:52:13"There was always somebody, a man.
0:52:13 > 0:52:16"I always saw him with the tail of my eye on the left or the right,
0:52:16 > 0:52:19"and he was never there when I looked straight for him.
0:52:19 > 0:52:23"I think he's there, but he has some power over your eyes.
0:52:24 > 0:52:26"He won't forgive me. I can tell that."
0:52:32 > 0:52:35A Warning To The Curious feels like a kind of companion piece to
0:52:35 > 0:52:38Oh, Whistle, And I'll Come To You, My Lad.
0:52:38 > 0:52:41But the playfulness of the earlier story is nowhere evident.
0:52:41 > 0:52:44Paxton is a truly tragic character.
0:52:44 > 0:52:46We sense his vulnerability from the outset,
0:52:46 > 0:52:49and he pays very dearly for his theft.
0:52:49 > 0:52:52His death has a symbolic, ritual quality to it.
0:52:54 > 0:52:57We heard what I can only call a laugh.
0:52:58 > 0:53:03And if you can understand what I mean by a breathless...
0:53:03 > 0:53:07a lung-less laugh, then you have it.
0:53:08 > 0:53:11But I don't suppose you can.
0:53:11 > 0:53:15It came from below and swerved off into the mist.
0:53:17 > 0:53:19We bent over the wall...
0:53:20 > 0:53:22..and there was Paxton at the bottom.
0:53:24 > 0:53:27You don't need to be told, of course, that he was dead.
0:53:30 > 0:53:33His mouth was full of sand and stones.
0:53:35 > 0:53:39And the teeth and jaw had been smashed to bits.
0:53:41 > 0:53:43I only glanced once at his face.
0:53:49 > 0:53:53A Warning To The Curious was Monty's last great ghost story.
0:53:53 > 0:53:56It was included in his final collection,
0:53:56 > 0:53:58published after his Cambridge days were over.
0:54:04 > 0:54:08In a strange way, his life had come full circle.
0:54:10 > 0:54:13In 1918, with the war still raging,
0:54:13 > 0:54:17Monty had been invited to go back to Eton as Provost of the College.
0:54:20 > 0:54:22He seized the chance
0:54:22 > 0:54:26and was installed as Provost just a few weeks before Armistice Day.
0:54:31 > 0:54:35Monty had returned to the place where he'd spent his adolescence,
0:54:35 > 0:54:36perhaps his happiest years.
0:54:38 > 0:54:41Coming back seems to have brought a similar contentment.
0:54:41 > 0:54:43Monty was popular with his pupils,
0:54:43 > 0:54:46largely thanks to his keen sense of humour.
0:54:50 > 0:54:52This was something that sustained him,
0:54:52 > 0:54:54even in the last months of his life,
0:54:54 > 0:54:56when his health was failing badly.
0:55:00 > 0:55:02At the end,
0:55:02 > 0:55:06he had cancer, he knew he had cancer.
0:55:06 > 0:55:13Er, he knew it was terminal unless he had an operation.
0:55:13 > 0:55:16And he decided not to have an operation.
0:55:19 > 0:55:23As a pupil at Eton in the 1930s, Adrian Carey regularly
0:55:23 > 0:55:26visited the ailing Monty, a long-time friend of his father.
0:55:29 > 0:55:31And I would find him in bed,
0:55:31 > 0:55:35in a dressing gown with the bedclothes over it,
0:55:35 > 0:55:37and I used to wonder,
0:55:37 > 0:55:39"Surely you're getting pretty hot,"
0:55:39 > 0:55:44but I think old people don't get hot in the same way!
0:55:44 > 0:55:49And he would talk away, spilling tea down the dressing gown,
0:55:49 > 0:55:54there was always a cup of tea there. It must have been nearly cold.
0:55:54 > 0:55:57But he would still drink a little and then prattle away.
0:55:59 > 0:56:02He would turn to Dickens or PG Wodehouse,
0:56:02 > 0:56:05which were among his favourite reading.
0:56:05 > 0:56:09He loved the moment when Bertie Wooster,
0:56:09 > 0:56:12having been through some scrape or other,
0:56:12 > 0:56:17appears like a tramp and approaches...
0:56:17 > 0:56:20some respectable person who says to him,
0:56:20 > 0:56:23"Sad piece of human wreckage though you look,
0:56:23 > 0:56:26"you speak like an educated man."
0:56:27 > 0:56:33And Monty applied this to himself in his dressing gown in bed...
0:56:33 > 0:56:38- As he lay there.- ..in a feeble state. But, er, he was a lovely man.
0:56:40 > 0:56:44Montague Rhodes James died in the Provost's Lodge at Eton
0:56:44 > 0:56:49at three o'clock in the afternoon on the 12th of June 1936, aged 73.
0:56:51 > 0:56:53BELL TOLLS
0:56:59 > 0:57:01CHATTER
0:57:05 > 0:57:10'It's 120 years since Monty unveiled his first two ghostly tales.
0:57:10 > 0:57:14'He could never have imagined just how long his work would endure.'
0:57:16 > 0:57:19It was a hand!
0:57:19 > 0:57:22While Monty can be seen as very much a Victorian figure,
0:57:22 > 0:57:25something about his personality resonates through the ages,
0:57:25 > 0:57:29and I think chimes with anyone who loves horror and fantastic fiction.
0:57:31 > 0:57:35His obsessive tendencies, interest in marginalia, and, above all,
0:57:35 > 0:57:39his enthusiasm, mark him out as what we would perhaps call "a fan."
0:57:41 > 0:57:45In his writing, his wry, scholarly eye and reticence
0:57:45 > 0:57:46are immensely appealing.
0:57:46 > 0:57:49But equally attractive is his desire to go for the jugular
0:57:49 > 0:57:54when necessary, to show the horror lurking beneath the tattered shroud.
0:57:59 > 0:58:03But it's important to remember that Monty intended his ghost stories
0:58:03 > 0:58:06as entertainment, a pleasing terror.
0:58:06 > 0:58:09And that's what the work of this immensely lovable,
0:58:09 > 0:58:11talented man will continue to be.