0:00:02 > 0:00:07Joan Bakewell has been a formidable but provocative presence
0:00:07 > 0:00:10on our television screens for more than 50 years.
0:00:10 > 0:00:14She came to fame in the 1960s on Late Night Line-Up,
0:00:14 > 0:00:18the BBC's end-of-day discussion and arts programme.
0:00:22 > 0:00:26Talking late into the night with the movers and shakers of the day,
0:00:26 > 0:00:29Joan quickly became a new face of the BBC.
0:00:30 > 0:00:35Young, fashionable, clever and, of course, female.
0:00:36 > 0:00:38She would lead a mini-skirted assault
0:00:38 > 0:00:43on the tweedy, all-male preserve of arts and academics.
0:00:44 > 0:00:47In the pre-politically correct age,
0:00:47 > 0:00:50they would call her "the thinking man's crumpet."
0:00:50 > 0:00:52It was a label that stuck.
0:00:54 > 0:00:58But Joan took no notice, and with her cool mix
0:00:58 > 0:01:00of head prefect meets girl about town,
0:01:00 > 0:01:02embraced the spirit of the age.
0:01:05 > 0:01:09She'd escaped a humdrum childhood in the North of England
0:01:09 > 0:01:12to read history and economics at Cambridge.
0:01:12 > 0:01:16There, she met her first husband, Michael Bakewell.
0:01:16 > 0:01:21They married in 1955, and would go on to have two children.
0:01:21 > 0:01:26But a life of conventional domesticity was not for Joan.
0:01:26 > 0:01:30These were the pioneer days of television,
0:01:30 > 0:01:33and she could not resist them.
0:01:33 > 0:01:37One guest at Late Night Line-Up was the playwright Harold Pinter.
0:01:37 > 0:01:41Their love affair, conducted throughout the '60s,
0:01:41 > 0:01:46and while both of them were married, became the stuff of media legend
0:01:46 > 0:01:50and inspired one of Pinter's best plays, Betrayal.
0:01:52 > 0:01:55Now, Joan is 80. She's still broadcasting...
0:01:56 > 0:02:00..she's a Dame of the British Empire,
0:02:00 > 0:02:02a Baroness in the House of Lords...
0:02:03 > 0:02:06..she goes to the gym twice a week,
0:02:06 > 0:02:08tweets daily, and drives a fast car.
0:02:09 > 0:02:14She believes the longer you live, the more outspoken you can be.
0:02:17 > 0:02:19SAXOPHONE MUSIC
0:02:35 > 0:02:37Hello, good evening, and welcome,
0:02:37 > 0:02:42and above all, Joan, congratulations on making it to 80.
0:02:42 > 0:02:44Thank you, thank you.
0:02:44 > 0:02:46You don't feel that old, do you?
0:02:46 > 0:02:48I don't know how old it's meant to feel, I think
0:02:48 > 0:02:50you feel where you are, you know,
0:02:50 > 0:02:53so the number is really irrelevant. I still feel -
0:02:53 > 0:02:56and a lot of older people will tell you they still feel -
0:02:56 > 0:02:59as they did many years younger, because the spirit doesn't age.
0:03:00 > 0:03:02And why do you work so hard?
0:03:02 > 0:03:06Oh, that's the point of life, isn't it? To go on doing
0:03:06 > 0:03:07what it is you enjoy.
0:03:07 > 0:03:11That's how I'm planning to spend the next 20 years,
0:03:11 > 0:03:15which is to do more of the same, and get as much pleasure from it.
0:03:15 > 0:03:18Well, let's go back into your world.
0:03:18 > 0:03:21"I was born into happiness," you said.
0:03:21 > 0:03:27Yes, I was born to parents who were delighted to have a child, very much
0:03:27 > 0:03:29in love with each other,
0:03:29 > 0:03:34the first born, and I was the benefit of early years that were,
0:03:34 > 0:03:37I think, enormously influential in me,
0:03:37 > 0:03:38they gave me an upbeat spirit,
0:03:38 > 0:03:43a sense that the world was a good place to be, and that has lingered,
0:03:43 > 0:03:46even though the family went rather off track.
0:03:46 > 0:03:49Yes, that was tragic, what...
0:03:49 > 0:03:53Your mother developed or whatever, melancholy or a depression,
0:03:53 > 0:03:56and that started when you were about 11?
0:03:56 > 0:03:59Yes, what is interesting is I think it happened to a whole
0:03:59 > 0:04:04generation of women who were school girls in the '40s.
0:04:04 > 0:04:07What seemed to happen was that their mothers, who had opportunities
0:04:07 > 0:04:10when they were younger -
0:04:10 > 0:04:13my mother got a scholarship to a grammar school but had to leave
0:04:13 > 0:04:16because they couldn't afford the uniform - hopes raised then dashed.
0:04:16 > 0:04:20She got a good job as a tracer in an engineering firm, head of the
0:04:20 > 0:04:24department, job applied for, couldn't do it because she was a woman.
0:04:24 > 0:04:27So hopes raised and then dashed, hopes raised and then dashed
0:04:27 > 0:04:30and that afflicted a whole generation of women
0:04:30 > 0:04:33who became depressed, and there was a big rise
0:04:33 > 0:04:37in the taking of tranquilisers among housewives after the war.
0:04:37 > 0:04:41Women were somehow disappointed in the options that life had
0:04:41 > 0:04:44seemed to present and then had snatched from them.
0:04:44 > 0:04:46There was something additional,
0:04:46 > 0:04:49probably, with your mother, wasn't there?
0:04:49 > 0:04:52Although at home she became more and more silent and
0:04:52 > 0:04:56non-communicative and more temper and so on and so forth, at the same
0:04:56 > 0:04:59time, you said, if you went out,
0:04:59 > 0:05:03then she would talk and so on, because she wanted everybody
0:05:03 > 0:05:08to think you were a perfect family, so that she could force herself
0:05:08 > 0:05:12to talk, going out - why couldn't she do it at home with you?
0:05:12 > 0:05:16That's very true of a lot of depressive people though,
0:05:16 > 0:05:19they are able to sustain an image of themselves in the outside world,
0:05:19 > 0:05:23one that they really wished was a genuine one, but when
0:05:23 > 0:05:27they were at home, the inner self and the depression took over.
0:05:27 > 0:05:30There was also the dilemma for my mother which was that
0:05:30 > 0:05:35I was the first generation of young people who made it to a university,
0:05:35 > 0:05:37and to some extent she envied me the opportunities
0:05:37 > 0:05:41I've had. She was every bit, if not brighter, than I was.
0:05:41 > 0:05:44And she would have flourished in the sort of generation today,
0:05:44 > 0:05:48but that was not available to her, and she must, I now realise,
0:05:48 > 0:05:53have looked with envy on the sort of options that life offered me.
0:05:53 > 0:05:58What impact did it have on you, do you think, seeing your mother
0:05:58 > 0:06:02in this non-communicative state most of the time?
0:06:02 > 0:06:05It often made rather conflicting emotions,
0:06:05 > 0:06:08one which was, of course, having had these early years of such
0:06:08 > 0:06:11happiness, I was enormously bewildered by what was going on,
0:06:11 > 0:06:14but also nobody used the word depression in those days,
0:06:14 > 0:06:17there was no such thing as therapy for depression.
0:06:17 > 0:06:20We just thought she had, the phrase was, "trouble with her nerves."
0:06:20 > 0:06:23A lot of women had "trouble with their nerves."
0:06:23 > 0:06:27And so I was completely bewildered by it, but also quite angry.
0:06:27 > 0:06:31How important at that time in your childhood was the wireless,
0:06:31 > 0:06:33was the BBC wireless?
0:06:33 > 0:06:36Oh, the wireless, it was absolutely crucial - that
0:06:36 > 0:06:39and the record player. The radio was the lifeline for
0:06:39 > 0:06:41all news during the war.
0:06:41 > 0:06:45You listened to every bulletin to hear about the defeats
0:06:45 > 0:06:50and, to some extent, the BBC tempered its reports to indicate
0:06:50 > 0:06:52that we weren't losing as hard as we were doing,
0:06:52 > 0:06:54when really we almost lost the war,
0:06:54 > 0:06:57so you went along with all the posters, you know,
0:06:57 > 0:07:01Dangerous Talk Costs Lives, Dig For Victory,
0:07:01 > 0:07:04all of that to a young person was a great rallying call for unity,
0:07:04 > 0:07:06so I became enormously patriotic,
0:07:06 > 0:07:11something I've not lost, enormously committed to the righting of wrongs
0:07:11 > 0:07:14which, rather naively, perhaps, I still believe in.
0:07:14 > 0:07:16Yes.
0:07:16 > 0:07:21And also the sense that a community can work together to an objective -
0:07:21 > 0:07:24the war instilled that in a whole generation
0:07:24 > 0:07:27and you don't find that so much today. There was a sense
0:07:27 > 0:07:32of united purpose about the country, which in the memory feels wonderful,
0:07:32 > 0:07:36but, of course, you were fighting a most tyrannical and dreadful enemy.
0:07:36 > 0:07:40I remember the blitz in Manchester,
0:07:40 > 0:07:43going out into the back garden and seeing a great glow,
0:07:43 > 0:07:46which was something like 15 miles away, which was Manchester burning,
0:07:46 > 0:07:50and that was terrifying - as a child you didn't know when it was going to
0:07:50 > 0:07:54be near you. I remember a German plane being shot down nearby
0:07:54 > 0:07:57and all the children rushing to collect shrapnel,
0:07:57 > 0:08:00and we traded shrapnel, like other children traded stamps,
0:08:00 > 0:08:03we collected shrapnel.
0:08:03 > 0:08:09So there was fear and a sense of brooding terror around.
0:08:09 > 0:08:12There were things later on that you had to learn about war,
0:08:12 > 0:08:17but, at the time, it was a very exhilarating, morale-boosting
0:08:17 > 0:08:22enterprise which resulted in victory which we celebrated.
0:08:22 > 0:08:29What about when you saw pictures of Dachau, and Belsen, and so on,
0:08:29 > 0:08:31what did you make of those?
0:08:31 > 0:08:34Well, that came after the war and I never forget that.
0:08:34 > 0:08:37The shock, when we went to the cinema
0:08:37 > 0:08:41and saw the newsreel of the concentration camps, was traumatic.
0:08:41 > 0:08:43I was relatively young,
0:08:43 > 0:08:45I thought the world was a good place,
0:08:45 > 0:08:49I thought people behaved well, even in war, when they killed each other -
0:08:49 > 0:08:53I knew about war, but I didn't know about concentration camps and
0:08:53 > 0:08:55torture, and extermination,
0:08:55 > 0:08:57I had no idea that people could behave like that.
0:08:57 > 0:09:01And, of course, the pictures of piled bodies went unedited, virtually,
0:09:01 > 0:09:04and I've never forgotten that moment,
0:09:04 > 0:09:07I've never forgotten how terrible it was.
0:09:07 > 0:09:10And, in a sense, it shifted my view of the world, that the world
0:09:10 > 0:09:15contained such horror, and from then on I've always been rather...
0:09:15 > 0:09:21not cynical, but aware that the world contained monsters.
0:09:21 > 0:09:24Did your parents at that time... As you were studying, and so on,
0:09:24 > 0:09:28were they ambitious for you or not? Later on your mother,
0:09:28 > 0:09:29we think, from what you say,
0:09:29 > 0:09:32resented your success possibly, later,
0:09:32 > 0:09:37but, at the time, were your parents rah-rah-rahing you on to get awards
0:09:37 > 0:09:42in terms of examinations that the family had never had before?
0:09:42 > 0:09:46Well, I was part of that generation who benefited, probably yours, too...
0:09:46 > 0:09:51- Yeah.- ..who benefited from social mobility, so my grandparents had both
0:09:51 > 0:09:54worked in factories or foundries or breweries and so on.
0:09:54 > 0:09:56My parents had "bettered themselves,"
0:09:56 > 0:10:00would be the explanation, the word they used.
0:10:00 > 0:10:05And they believed in getting on in study and achievement,
0:10:05 > 0:10:09so they were aspirational, I think the contemporary word is,
0:10:09 > 0:10:10and they were for me.
0:10:10 > 0:10:15So they wanted me to pass exams and do well, just for its own sake,
0:10:15 > 0:10:18because they knew it would be rewarding, whatever I made of it.
0:10:18 > 0:10:23And then when boyfriends came on the scene, that triggered
0:10:23 > 0:10:26off an explosion with your mother, really, didn't it?
0:10:26 > 0:10:28The burning of the photograph.
0:10:28 > 0:10:33It triggered a lot of things - I think boyfriends often do.
0:10:33 > 0:10:36But in those days and certainly in my background, which was
0:10:36 > 0:10:40sort of lower, well, working class, lower middle class, now we're
0:10:40 > 0:10:44defining classes, which class we belong to, there was a great deal
0:10:44 > 0:10:48of anxiety surrounding sex, basically because girls could get pregnant
0:10:48 > 0:10:50and that was the most terrible thing,
0:10:50 > 0:10:52you would be a social outcast if you were,
0:10:52 > 0:10:55you would be a social outcast if your DAUGHTER got pregnant.
0:10:55 > 0:10:58So, the arrival of boyfriends carried that menace with it
0:10:58 > 0:11:03and I went on a trip to Holland which was a scholarship,
0:11:03 > 0:11:07travelling scholarship, with boys from the local grammar schools,
0:11:07 > 0:11:10heretofore I'd been at a girls-only school,
0:11:10 > 0:11:13and therefore obeyed all the rules of the women teachers.
0:11:13 > 0:11:18Access to boys was new to me and very exciting and I came back with a
0:11:18 > 0:11:23variety of photographs, one of which - if you think of photographs now as
0:11:23 > 0:11:27being shocking, this was a picture of me kissing a boy, which my mother
0:11:27 > 0:11:34discovered and called me in and lit a fire laid in the hearth and she
0:11:34 > 0:11:35said, "I am going to burn...
0:11:35 > 0:11:37"We're going to burn this photograph together,
0:11:37 > 0:11:42"and I never want to know anything like this ever happening again."
0:11:42 > 0:11:46And she put it on the fire and the flames consumed the photograph.
0:11:46 > 0:11:50How she expected me to ever have a boyfriend and get engaged
0:11:50 > 0:11:54and married, let alone have children, I have no idea, but it represented
0:11:54 > 0:11:58real terror for her that at the age of 16 I was kissing boys.
0:11:58 > 0:12:02Sex before marriage most parents forbade,
0:12:02 > 0:12:05didn't they? Whereas today...
0:12:05 > 0:12:08You say you remember it and it was a very strange time.
0:12:08 > 0:12:11People got married in order to have sex, sex before marriage was
0:12:11 > 0:12:16forbidden and all sorts of crazy rules were established to
0:12:16 > 0:12:18make sure that you didn't "do it".
0:12:18 > 0:12:23I was not allowed to be in the house with a boyfriend on our own,
0:12:23 > 0:12:26my parents had to be there.
0:12:26 > 0:12:30But it just meant that we went down the fields and we went, you know,
0:12:30 > 0:12:33we went, as it were, the back of the bike shed, so it wasn't literally
0:12:33 > 0:12:36the back of the bike sheds, but, I mean, in order to get some expertise
0:12:36 > 0:12:40in this extremely important skill of one's sex life, you had to avoid
0:12:40 > 0:12:47all sorts of barriers put in your way by teachers, by the church, by
0:12:47 > 0:12:52the parents. All three institutions believed in the same thing -
0:12:52 > 0:12:56that young girls should be protected from the evils of sex
0:12:56 > 0:12:59and the risks attendant on it until they were married, at which point
0:12:59 > 0:13:05it was expected to flower into some great romantics of orgy of pleasure.
0:13:05 > 0:13:10These untrained lovers were expected to cop on to it immediately.
0:13:10 > 0:13:13How foolish can you be, really? But of course it caused
0:13:13 > 0:13:16a lot of pain for struggling...
0:13:16 > 0:13:19- You know, eager young women, and boys, too.- Of course.
0:13:19 > 0:13:25The next change... When you moved on to Cambridge, that was a family
0:13:25 > 0:13:27dream that you were fulfilling for the first time,
0:13:27 > 0:13:29really, wasn't it?
0:13:29 > 0:13:31Yes, I've always thought that the moment
0:13:31 > 0:13:35I went to university at Cambridge it changed my life.
0:13:35 > 0:13:39First of all, geographically, I mean, I grew up in Stockport, which was
0:13:39 > 0:13:43a smoky, factory town in the North of England and quite drab - still
0:13:43 > 0:13:45not very bright, but I am very loyal to it -
0:13:45 > 0:13:50and I went to Cambridge - leafy paradise - so that, geographically,
0:13:50 > 0:13:54was just extraordinary. Poetically, you know - walking along the banks,
0:13:54 > 0:13:57the daffodils in spring, all the cliches.
0:13:57 > 0:13:59But the other thing was moving from a community concerned
0:13:59 > 0:14:03and obsessed with all these anxieties, to a free-spirited...
0:14:03 > 0:14:08A place where people exchanged ideas and where learning mattered,
0:14:08 > 0:14:12having fun mattered, you were allowed to, you were given permission
0:14:12 > 0:14:15and within the limits of Cambridge,
0:14:15 > 0:14:18as it was then, very, very liberating.
0:14:18 > 0:14:21And you found your accent was very different
0:14:21 > 0:14:24to that of all your contemporaries at Cambridge,
0:14:24 > 0:14:27although you had had... Your mother, I guess, or your father
0:14:27 > 0:14:31had organised elocution lessons for you when you were growing up.
0:14:31 > 0:14:35Yes, the aspiring working class wanted their children to
0:14:35 > 0:14:39"speak proper" and I was sent to elocution lessons to get
0:14:39 > 0:14:40rid of my Stockport accent,
0:14:40 > 0:14:47and...my mother struggled to give me a decent elocuted voice.
0:14:47 > 0:14:51So, I arrive at Cambridge, a scholarship girl from Stockport,
0:14:51 > 0:14:54and all the other girls at Newnham and Girton are,
0:14:54 > 0:15:01a lot of them are from Rodene and St Pauls and Cheltenham Ladies College,
0:15:01 > 0:15:02and although they treat me as an equal
0:15:02 > 0:15:04and don't remember my anxiety....
0:15:04 > 0:15:06No-one else from Stockport Grammar?
0:15:06 > 0:15:09Nobody else was from Stockport Grammar School and,
0:15:09 > 0:15:11and they all spoke with southern accents,
0:15:11 > 0:15:15and I found that rather intimidating - I just wanted to be like them.
0:15:15 > 0:15:16Did you have a go?
0:15:16 > 0:15:21Yes, I was so anxious to run with the crowd
0:15:21 > 0:15:23that I completely over did it.
0:15:23 > 0:15:28When I went back home, my parents didn't know what had happened,
0:15:28 > 0:15:30some extraordinary change had come over me
0:15:30 > 0:15:34and, of course, it's often mentioned in people's autobiographies and
0:15:34 > 0:15:39novels of the time that going away to university from a working class
0:15:39 > 0:15:42family - you come back and there's a gulf has opened up between you.
0:15:42 > 0:15:46And when you were at Cambridge, were you already planning careers,
0:15:46 > 0:15:51or didn't that really happen until after Cambridge?
0:15:51 > 0:15:54I did a little acting at Cambridge, not very distinguished,
0:15:54 > 0:15:57but, nonetheless, I was thrilled by that.
0:15:57 > 0:16:00I was in Peter Hall's first production, he later became
0:16:00 > 0:16:03the person who created the National Theatre, of course.
0:16:03 > 0:16:07I was in his first production, which was Anouilh's play,
0:16:07 > 0:16:10Point Of Departure. I played...
0:16:10 > 0:16:14As one of my contemporaries then practising being a critic said,
0:16:14 > 0:16:16"Joan Rowlands..." -
0:16:16 > 0:16:19that was then my name - "..played a whore like the Virgin Mary."
0:16:19 > 0:16:24Not a great recommendation really, so I clearly wasn't very good.
0:16:24 > 0:16:27But I liked the idea of being part of a team that
0:16:27 > 0:16:30put on a performance, which of course is what television is.
0:16:30 > 0:16:35And so you were, you were learning things that were in addition
0:16:35 > 0:16:38to academic things that would be of value for you in different,
0:16:38 > 0:16:42different fields, even if you didn't know which fields at that time.
0:16:42 > 0:16:45More important than that, I was learning who I was.
0:16:45 > 0:16:46I was learning who I was,
0:16:46 > 0:16:50and that was really at that time between 18 and 22
0:16:50 > 0:16:53when you really find out, so quickly, so many different
0:16:53 > 0:16:59things about what you want in life, the truth about yourself with all
0:16:59 > 0:17:04the complex social overlay stripped away...
0:17:04 > 0:17:06I think that is wonderful, I think
0:17:06 > 0:17:10it's great to be between those ages and able to discover what you want.
0:17:10 > 0:17:15And I knew I wanted to belong to this world of ideas in some way.
0:17:15 > 0:17:19And feminism, by the time you were at Cambridge, was that
0:17:19 > 0:17:21word in currency?
0:17:21 > 0:17:25No, it wasn't, though I have to say I was at a school that had -
0:17:25 > 0:17:28a girls grammar school - which had six houses,
0:17:28 > 0:17:33and they were called Bronte, Austin, Gaskells, Nightingales, Slessers
0:17:33 > 0:17:37and Beales, all named after distinguished women, so it was bred
0:17:37 > 0:17:42into us that women were on their way and women had to define their lives.
0:17:42 > 0:17:45Now, of course, when I arrived at Cambridge, which was a great
0:17:45 > 0:17:48benefit, women were not allowed...
0:17:48 > 0:17:51And you were to follow quite soon after,
0:17:51 > 0:17:54but your trajectory was entirely different from mine, because women
0:17:54 > 0:17:56were not allowed in the Footlights,
0:17:56 > 0:18:00they were not allowed to be in the Union, there were only two women's
0:18:00 > 0:18:03colleges and 14 men's colleges,
0:18:03 > 0:18:07so, although Cambridge was hugely eye-opening, it was pretty restricted
0:18:07 > 0:18:10in the opportunities it gave you - you had to make the most of it.
0:18:10 > 0:18:13So, also women did feel there was a lot of work
0:18:13 > 0:18:16to be done about the opportunities given to women
0:18:16 > 0:18:19and, of course, it's been the story of my life how they've done it.
0:18:19 > 0:18:21There were some advantages to being
0:18:21 > 0:18:25a woman - like, for instance, the fact that there were roughly,
0:18:25 > 0:18:30when I was there, 9,000 men and 1,000 or so women,
0:18:30 > 0:18:34so that you had much more choice.
0:18:34 > 0:18:36Yes, there was, there was choice.
0:18:36 > 0:18:40It was rather strange, it was rather...
0:18:40 > 0:18:43We were in these single sex colleges
0:18:43 > 0:18:47where men were not allowed to stay, obviously, overnight and if you got
0:18:47 > 0:18:52pregnant, as a colleague of mine did, you were sent down on the instant.
0:18:52 > 0:18:53No appeals, as it were?
0:18:53 > 0:18:56The very next train, the very next train out of Cambridge
0:18:56 > 0:19:00because she'd "fallen from grace," as it were...
0:19:00 > 0:19:05She's still married to the person who was the father of the children!
0:19:05 > 0:19:09So there was all that constraint on the lives that women
0:19:09 > 0:19:11led in Cambridge.
0:19:11 > 0:19:15But nonetheless there was a great sense that the role of women
0:19:15 > 0:19:18was changing, and in a sense perhaps the men didn't really
0:19:18 > 0:19:20know about it yet -
0:19:20 > 0:19:24that in fact it would be the story of the 20th century,
0:19:24 > 0:19:27the emerging role of women, that would affect us most.
0:19:27 > 0:19:32And how did you learn - not from your parents, obviously -
0:19:32 > 0:19:37how did you learn the facts of life? Conversation with girlfriends, or...
0:19:37 > 0:19:41a secret copy of Alex Comfort's first book or what?
0:19:41 > 0:19:45Oh, no, the books about things weren't available.
0:19:45 > 0:19:48Gossip, exploratory conversations -
0:19:48 > 0:19:51"Does it..." "What, you mean that..?"
0:19:51 > 0:19:54"Oh, how strange" - that was at school.
0:19:54 > 0:20:00A little later it got, it got subsumed into an enthusiasm
0:20:00 > 0:20:05for, I don't know, Wuthering Heights and Rochester and Heathcliff and
0:20:05 > 0:20:10DH Lawrence and the great fiction about sexuality,
0:20:10 > 0:20:13which of course was heady stuff.
0:20:13 > 0:20:18Not much practical use - practical use was taught
0:20:18 > 0:20:20between girls, about what you could do,
0:20:20 > 0:20:23and how there was such a thing as contraception,
0:20:23 > 0:20:26and where you could go for it, and where you might find it.
0:20:26 > 0:20:31And indeed also current was how you might get, if you needed it,
0:20:31 > 0:20:34an abortion, which was illegal.
0:20:34 > 0:20:37And at that stage, when you went to London, you failed to get
0:20:37 > 0:20:41contraception, contraceptive advice or whatever, didn't you?
0:20:41 > 0:20:45I went... That's right. I mean, it's hard to imagine now
0:20:45 > 0:20:48that the world could have been so resistant to
0:20:48 > 0:20:53women changing their lives. I went along to a doctor and said I wanted
0:20:53 > 0:20:57some contraceptive, and he said... And I said I was getting married,
0:20:57 > 0:21:00I was just about to get married. "Oh," he said,
0:21:00 > 0:21:03"You don't need anything like that, you're a good healthy woman,
0:21:03 > 0:21:05"you can bear lots of children."
0:21:05 > 0:21:07Goodbye, end of story, no help there.
0:21:09 > 0:21:13So, I mean, the world was very reluctant to equip girls with
0:21:13 > 0:21:18the wherewithal to have a sex life that was free of anxiety,
0:21:18 > 0:21:23free of anxiety, so there was a lot of anxiety around sex.
0:21:23 > 0:21:26And so you were thwarted at that turn
0:21:26 > 0:21:27and so you, at that stage,
0:21:27 > 0:21:30you decided just to take the risk, as it were?
0:21:30 > 0:21:34Yes, people, people took the risk, they knew the odds.
0:21:34 > 0:21:38Some were unlucky, most of us got away with it.
0:21:38 > 0:21:41We didn't go in for orgiastic indulgence,
0:21:41 > 0:21:44but, I mean, you know, romance and so on had its power,
0:21:44 > 0:21:46not to mention the hormones.
0:21:46 > 0:21:49But you fell in love at Cambridge, didn't you?
0:21:49 > 0:21:52I did, yes - I fell in love quite a number of times,
0:21:52 > 0:21:56and then eventually I fell in love with someone who was to become
0:21:56 > 0:21:59my first husband, to whom I was married for 17 years.
0:21:59 > 0:22:01And you weren't allowed even -
0:22:01 > 0:22:04until you got married, you couldn't share a flat or anything,
0:22:04 > 0:22:07even when you left Cambridge?
0:22:07 > 0:22:09No, when you went to rent a flat,
0:22:09 > 0:22:12they did need to know that you were married.
0:22:12 > 0:22:16There was a lot of wearing of curtain rings on your third finger
0:22:16 > 0:22:20and a lot of lying and cheating. You know, the world
0:22:20 > 0:22:24you lived in was a construct to serve what you actually wanted.
0:22:24 > 0:22:28So people got married in order to have sustained sex in the same
0:22:28 > 0:22:33place regularly - that's what marriage offered people
0:22:33 > 0:22:37who might wish to cohabit, but society made it very difficult.
0:22:37 > 0:22:41So that's why people did marry and married at 22.
0:22:41 > 0:22:46And marriage obviously came at a time when you were also,
0:22:46 > 0:22:49in your case, being 22, you were thinking about a career
0:22:49 > 0:22:52and therefore you were face to face with the fact that it was
0:22:52 > 0:22:56more difficult for women to combine work and marriage than men.
0:22:56 > 0:23:00Do you know, David, I don't think I've ever thought in terms of a career.
0:23:00 > 0:23:05I've always thought in terms of doing something interesting with my time.
0:23:05 > 0:23:11So I did sign up and became a BBC studio manager in radio -
0:23:11 > 0:23:14technical job, I was terribly bad at it,
0:23:14 > 0:23:16and because I was bad at it, I wasn't happy,
0:23:16 > 0:23:19and so I didn't stay there very long.
0:23:19 > 0:23:24I became a copywriter - now that was a very interesting training.
0:23:24 > 0:23:26It trains you in the use of words,
0:23:26 > 0:23:30but it also trains you in the place of women in the world,
0:23:30 > 0:23:35and I was given the Tampax account, which was an American product
0:23:35 > 0:23:41for women's health, but the leaflet had to be translated
0:23:41 > 0:23:44into English from American and I was given that task.
0:23:44 > 0:23:47In the course of this advertisement,
0:23:47 > 0:23:50they wanted to shift from the sketches,
0:23:50 > 0:23:52which were socially acceptable,
0:23:52 > 0:23:56of women during "that time of the month",
0:23:56 > 0:24:02into a photograph of a woman - new realism was the case in advertising.
0:24:02 > 0:24:04There was to be a new reality in television
0:24:04 > 0:24:08and they could not find a model who would be photographed
0:24:08 > 0:24:14for a sanitary product - no model would dream of doing it.
0:24:14 > 0:24:16So, eventually, I just said, "Oh, well, I'll do it,
0:24:16 > 0:24:20"I'll do the photographs." I got six guineas.
0:24:20 > 0:24:22Six guineas!
0:24:22 > 0:24:28So, advertising you found a bit pernicious, didn't you?
0:24:28 > 0:24:33It seemed to me that advertising got people to buy things they didn't need and couldn't afford,
0:24:33 > 0:24:37and I thought, was this exactly the right thing to be doing?
0:24:37 > 0:24:40And so I was a little high-minded about advertising -
0:24:40 > 0:24:45much fun to be had, but I was... I wasn't sure that social objectives
0:24:45 > 0:24:49were ones that I really rated very highly.
0:24:49 > 0:24:54So how did you make the transfer to the BBC?
0:24:54 > 0:24:59Well, I was doing... I was out of the BBC for being a bad technician.
0:24:59 > 0:25:05I then married, and then I had my first child,
0:25:05 > 0:25:08and I'd read all the books about childcare, I was going to do everything
0:25:08 > 0:25:12according to the book - people always start out that way -
0:25:12 > 0:25:13and decided to stay at home.
0:25:13 > 0:25:18After about nine months staying at home rocking the cradle -
0:25:18 > 0:25:22babies don't talk very much - I found I was getting really quite bored
0:25:22 > 0:25:26and I remember thinking, well, I got a degree at Cambridge
0:25:26 > 0:25:30and here I am. I mean, this is it - is this it?
0:25:30 > 0:25:36Is that how it's meant to be? And what I started to do then was recall my time in radio
0:25:36 > 0:25:39when people used to arrive at Broadcasting House and would
0:25:39 > 0:25:46go into a studio - I was doing the knobs, turning the knobs badly.
0:25:46 > 0:25:49They would record a talk, which they had typed out, brought in,
0:25:49 > 0:25:52they read to the microphone, it took about half an hour,
0:25:52 > 0:25:55and they went away with three guineas.
0:25:55 > 0:25:58And I thought, that's an interesting way to earn a living,
0:25:58 > 0:26:03because you can look after a child and earn three guineas in an afternoon.
0:26:03 > 0:26:06How do I crack that? How do you get to do that?
0:26:06 > 0:26:09You have to have something to write about.
0:26:09 > 0:26:12And so I set about concocting all sorts of ideas
0:26:12 > 0:26:16and writing to everyone - "no, no, no, no, no, no."
0:26:16 > 0:26:20And that's where my sheer persistence at that stage
0:26:20 > 0:26:24won me the opportunity to do the occasional talk for three guineas,
0:26:24 > 0:26:30and it was in radio that I just began to learn, by copying others,
0:26:30 > 0:26:34how to write and present small items.
0:26:34 > 0:26:40And then, 1965, you made it to Late Night Line-Up.
0:26:40 > 0:26:45Yes, I was... This was suggested to me -
0:26:45 > 0:26:47television as an option was suggested to me in the bar
0:26:47 > 0:26:52at the BBC, which was a very flourishing place in those days,
0:26:52 > 0:26:56by a very distinguished radio producer called Reggie Smith,
0:26:56 > 0:26:59who was full of ideas and opportunities, and I remember him
0:26:59 > 0:27:04turning to me one day and saying, "You've done radio, Joan, "What about television?"
0:27:04 > 0:27:06And I said, "Well, no, I can't do the technology of radio,
0:27:06 > 0:27:09"I'm certainly not going to be able to do camera work in television."
0:27:09 > 0:27:13He said, "In front of a camera."
0:27:13 > 0:27:16I said, "What?! In front of the camera?"
0:27:16 > 0:27:19He said, "Give it a go. There's this new building
0:27:19 > 0:27:22"over in West - Television Centre - in West London, they're building this
0:27:22 > 0:27:25"new building, it's full of wonderful studios,
0:27:25 > 0:27:27"it's a factory of programme making -
0:27:27 > 0:27:32"get over there and see if you can't do something to camera."
0:27:32 > 0:27:35When was the first time you conducted your first interview
0:27:35 > 0:27:37on Late Night Line-Up?
0:27:37 > 0:27:42I've wiped it from my memory. It's gone, I am happy to say.
0:27:42 > 0:27:46Line-Up was on every day of the year except Christmas Day,
0:27:46 > 0:27:52so that's 364 programmes a year, and it was on for eight years.
0:27:52 > 0:27:54And I joined it in 1965,
0:27:54 > 0:27:59it was on BBC Two, every night - late, obviously -
0:27:59 > 0:28:02and somewhere along there I was given the chance to do
0:28:02 > 0:28:05an interview. I can't believe how terrible it must have been.
0:28:05 > 0:28:09But in a sense it was a new medium, and people were trying out
0:28:09 > 0:28:13new things, and they were prepared to give me the benefit of the doubt,
0:28:13 > 0:28:18and I stayed with that team for many, many years.
0:28:18 > 0:28:25And according to the dates, it shows that in 1966, only after
0:28:25 > 0:28:30a year at Late Night Line-Up, you were chosen to confront the one
0:28:30 > 0:28:35and only Robin Day, which must have been quite a fearsome moment.
0:28:35 > 0:28:39Yes. Robin meant it to be fierce.
0:28:39 > 0:28:42Robin Day represented a breakthrough in the style of interviewing.
0:28:42 > 0:28:45He prefigured Paxman,
0:28:45 > 0:28:49he was aggressive, and pursued his interviewee.
0:28:49 > 0:28:54I was invited to interview him and he was enormously rude, I think
0:28:54 > 0:28:58you could say, very stone-walling, completely ungenerous.
0:28:58 > 0:29:00What did he say to you off camera?
0:29:00 > 0:29:04Oh, Robin was very sexist, you know, and that was the era when sexism was
0:29:04 > 0:29:08quite current as we now know in the BBC. I always remember him saying
0:29:08 > 0:29:14to me, "Do the people you interview always stare at your breasts?"
0:29:14 > 0:29:17Did he?!
0:29:17 > 0:29:20I don't recall, but obviously he remembered.
0:29:20 > 0:29:23Well, let's take a look at that, where you are confronted with
0:29:23 > 0:29:28the challenge of Robin Day.
0:29:28 > 0:29:31Your directness is very often taken for rudeness, and I wonder
0:29:31 > 0:29:34if the directness doesn't often antagonise the person
0:29:34 > 0:29:36that you are interviewing.
0:29:36 > 0:29:39Well, when you say it's very often taken as rudeness, what is your evidence of that?
0:29:39 > 0:29:44Well, the image that you convey is of almost trying to undermine
0:29:44 > 0:29:47someone's confidence and opinions.
0:29:47 > 0:29:51Well, an image isn't evidence, and when you say try to - what did you say? -
0:29:51 > 0:29:55"undermine their confidence," well, I don't know how often
0:29:55 > 0:29:57you go to the House of Commons, but if for instance you'd been
0:29:57 > 0:30:00to the censure debate last Monday night in the House of Commons
0:30:00 > 0:30:03when Mr Wilson most of the time was trying to speak above a hubbub
0:30:03 > 0:30:06of uproar, and it often happens the other way round,
0:30:06 > 0:30:08constant interruptions.
0:30:08 > 0:30:11Now, anything that happens in a short television interview
0:30:11 > 0:30:13is absolutely peanuts.
0:30:13 > 0:30:16Well, an Oxford contemporary of yours said that you've at sometime or other
0:30:16 > 0:30:18insulted all your friends, so it isn't surprising
0:30:18 > 0:30:22if the image has been conveyed that you do tend to be rather aggressive.
0:30:22 > 0:30:26Well, if we are going to bring up what one's student contemporaries
0:30:26 > 0:30:29said about one in a moment of friendly excess,
0:30:29 > 0:30:33I don't think we're going to get accurate reports of anybody.
0:30:34 > 0:30:38Well, there - holding your own after a year in television.
0:30:38 > 0:30:41His eyes were in the right place, though, they weren't looking down.
0:30:41 > 0:30:43No, no, ignoring the breasts at that point.
0:30:43 > 0:30:46Well, Robin, as you can see, was enormously aggressive,
0:30:46 > 0:30:50and it was quite unfamiliar at that time for people
0:30:50 > 0:30:53to be that aggressive, and certainly that aggressive towards a woman,
0:30:53 > 0:30:58and he enjoyed that, he liked that, and he would have said
0:30:58 > 0:31:01that's fair enough. And I didn't mind at the time either,
0:31:01 > 0:31:04but I wasn't particularly fond of him, I have to say.
0:31:04 > 0:31:09- Absolutely. There was no hint of a budding relationship there? - There certainly wasn't!
0:31:09 > 0:31:14Not a hint. And just as a contrast, you interviewed also at that time
0:31:14 > 0:31:21Kenneth Clark. I mean, Civilisation was a television series,
0:31:21 > 0:31:25but, I mean, it was almost god-like, and so to have Kenneth Clark
0:31:25 > 0:31:31to talk to was a plus, and in fact, here he is right now.
0:31:31 > 0:31:35At what stage in your career did you begin to collect paintings
0:31:35 > 0:31:36personally as a patron of the arts?
0:31:36 > 0:31:40- Oh, at school. - Did you really?
0:31:40 > 0:31:43Yes, I did indeed, I got some nice things when I was at school,
0:31:43 > 0:31:47easily get things then, got a very nice Bonheur drawing
0:31:47 > 0:31:50which I have still, and in my first year at Oxford
0:31:50 > 0:31:53I got nice things too.
0:31:53 > 0:31:58This series of 13 programs has the very ambitious title, Civilisation.
0:31:58 > 0:32:01It deals with the history of Western civilisation.
0:32:01 > 0:32:03Is it a personal view of yours,
0:32:03 > 0:32:06or is it some attempt to make a definitive account?
0:32:06 > 0:32:09Oh-ho! It couldn't be that.
0:32:09 > 0:32:13Of course it's a personal view. And it's a personal view
0:32:13 > 0:32:17controlled by all kinds of factors - I mean, 13 is an arbitrary number,
0:32:17 > 0:32:21and obviously one could have gone on to a good many more.
0:32:21 > 0:32:26How have you been able to reject close favourites - buildings,
0:32:26 > 0:32:30paintings - you've not been able to use all the pieces that you love.
0:32:30 > 0:32:33Which hurt most?
0:32:33 > 0:32:37I minded very much leaving out the German Romantics.
0:32:37 > 0:32:41Because I think they added a great deal to human faculties.
0:32:41 > 0:32:44I think that was a bad mistake - or not mistake,
0:32:44 > 0:32:46that was a great misfortune.
0:32:46 > 0:32:49Why I did it was simply there wasn't enough visual material
0:32:49 > 0:32:51- to make it that interesting.- Mm.
0:32:51 > 0:32:54How patrician things were in those days!
0:32:54 > 0:32:58- Yes, wasn't it patrician? - De haut en bas, I think.
0:32:58 > 0:33:03No, it's fascinating. Do you think, in fact, that television
0:33:03 > 0:33:10is a good medium for the arts, or do you see it gradually winnowing away?
0:33:10 > 0:33:12By no means, by no means.
0:33:12 > 0:33:15The Kenneth Clark series Civilisation was
0:33:15 > 0:33:18commissioned by David Attenborough when colour came onto television.
0:33:18 > 0:33:22David Attenborough thought, what would look good in colour?
0:33:22 > 0:33:25The whole art of the Western world.
0:33:25 > 0:33:28Which of course made the series a world success.
0:33:28 > 0:33:32No, I think the arts have absolutely a major place to
0:33:32 > 0:33:34play in the television schedules.
0:33:34 > 0:33:36People like it, it gives lots of people access to stuff
0:33:36 > 0:33:40they didn't know before. People enjoy them.
0:33:40 > 0:33:43And what, on reflection,
0:33:43 > 0:33:48do you think now of the words of the one and only Frank Muir?
0:33:48 > 0:33:50"Thinking man's crumpet" is what you are avoiding saying,
0:33:50 > 0:33:53and I thank you for that.
0:33:53 > 0:33:58At the time it was a small passing remark, but it became emblematic
0:33:58 > 0:34:02and was used by editors as a shorthand to define me,
0:34:02 > 0:34:07and I resented that, really. I didn't mind it as a social joke,
0:34:07 > 0:34:13but it did tend to categorise me in a world where you were either serious
0:34:13 > 0:34:15or you were light entertainment,
0:34:15 > 0:34:17and it caught me between the two,
0:34:17 > 0:34:22and I wanted to work in quite a serious arena of television,
0:34:22 > 0:34:24and it rather put the block on that.
0:34:24 > 0:34:28So it wasn't useful and I don't think it was accurate.
0:34:28 > 0:34:31Do you think you had more pressure on the way you looked,
0:34:31 > 0:34:34or the way you had different outfits and costumes?
0:34:34 > 0:34:37Were there more headaches for a woman on television?
0:34:37 > 0:34:40It's hard to know what it was like being other people.
0:34:40 > 0:34:42So I only know what it was like being me.
0:34:42 > 0:34:46Well, here's an example on Nationwide, I think, coming up right now.
0:34:46 > 0:34:52Lot 289 - very pretty dress, this one, 289.
0:34:52 > 0:34:54Can I say eight to begin? Eight.
0:34:56 > 0:34:57When I was asked to choose a dress,
0:34:57 > 0:35:01I was torn between taking the plunge or keeping up appearances,
0:35:01 > 0:35:06so I think in choosing this one I've managed to do both at the same time.
0:35:06 > 0:35:08Although what in television terms
0:35:08 > 0:35:11you'd say it gives you "very little coverage",
0:35:11 > 0:35:14it is in fact a very proper dress -
0:35:14 > 0:35:17it's very heavily boned around the waist and around the back,
0:35:17 > 0:35:21and I have to stand very straight, completely unbending in it.
0:35:21 > 0:35:23It gives one a dignity that normally
0:35:23 > 0:35:27slacks, sweater, boots don't give you.
0:35:27 > 0:35:30It makes rather a change for us from our working clothes,
0:35:30 > 0:35:33the clothes we normally wear on television,
0:35:33 > 0:35:36to be able to live out our feminine fantasies, and I see nothing
0:35:36 > 0:35:39incongruous between doing a job and earning your living
0:35:39 > 0:35:42and looking feminine when you want to.
0:35:43 > 0:35:46You really enjoyed that bit. We all did.
0:35:46 > 0:35:49I've completely wiped that from my memory -
0:35:49 > 0:35:51I have to say I don't remember doing it at all.
0:35:51 > 0:35:55But I like several phrases, which was "very good coverage" -
0:35:55 > 0:35:59I like that, good television phrase, isn't it? "Very good coverage".
0:35:59 > 0:36:02And the idea that... I still hold to the idea that there is no conflict
0:36:02 > 0:36:05between looking good and enjoying feminine things,
0:36:05 > 0:36:08and feminism - they are not in conflict, they are adjacent,
0:36:08 > 0:36:12you don't have to be one or the other.
0:36:12 > 0:36:15Don't have to be ill-dressed or whatever.
0:36:15 > 0:36:20One of the great landmarks also in your life was
0:36:20 > 0:36:24when you met Harold Pinter - that was in 1960, wasn't it?
0:36:24 > 0:36:26Yes, yes.
0:36:26 > 0:36:29And was it love at first sight for either of you?
0:36:29 > 0:36:35We'd met because Harold was a recently arrived playwright
0:36:35 > 0:36:39and my husband was in the drama department of radio,
0:36:39 > 0:36:43so the bond initially, the friendship, was between them.
0:36:43 > 0:36:49But there was an occasion at a party in which Harold
0:36:49 > 0:36:52and I encountered each other,
0:36:52 > 0:36:56which he's chosen to record in his play Betrayal,
0:36:56 > 0:37:01which was a kind of electrifying moment of attraction,
0:37:01 > 0:37:04and, in the event, not to be resisted.
0:37:04 > 0:37:09And how quickly did it start after that first meeting?
0:37:09 > 0:37:13Oh, the time went on and we met each other, but this,
0:37:13 > 0:37:17this moment could not be denied, we couldn't pretend it hadn't
0:37:17 > 0:37:22happened, and so slowly we came to the idea
0:37:22 > 0:37:25that we might meet each other in a cafe
0:37:25 > 0:37:27for a drink and so on - it was easier to get around
0:37:27 > 0:37:30London in a car in those days, no parking problems.
0:37:30 > 0:37:32How people have affairs now I don't know -
0:37:32 > 0:37:35certainly no mobile phones in those days.
0:37:35 > 0:37:39So one could, you know, as it were be off the radar for a period of time,
0:37:39 > 0:37:42and we began to meet, and met more often,
0:37:42 > 0:37:45and things moved from there.
0:37:45 > 0:37:51And in fact you, you had a flat of your own.
0:37:51 > 0:37:56Eventually, yes. As all lovers know, you have to find somewhere to go.
0:37:56 > 0:37:58We found somewhere to go,
0:37:58 > 0:38:03and eventually things became under such pressure that we had
0:38:03 > 0:38:11a flat, and years later Harold was to use this story,
0:38:11 > 0:38:14almost exactly, in the play Betrayal.
0:38:14 > 0:38:18He didn't really invent very much except, of course,
0:38:18 > 0:38:22the characters themselves, which are neither me nor him.
0:38:22 > 0:38:26He wrote the play, which was looking back to this episode,
0:38:26 > 0:38:30and then he had it couriered round to me one evening,
0:38:30 > 0:38:33which he did with his new work,
0:38:33 > 0:38:36and I read it that night and I was completely shocked.
0:38:36 > 0:38:38I was completely shocked,
0:38:38 > 0:38:40I was reduced to a sort of gibbering wreck.
0:38:40 > 0:38:46I couldn't sleep, I was absolutely... I wasn't distraught,
0:38:46 > 0:38:50I was completely disturbed by the idea that something that had
0:38:50 > 0:38:53happened in the '60s that had come to a decent ending had been
0:38:53 > 0:38:55resurrected in the mid '70s
0:38:55 > 0:38:58into a different, entirely different life.
0:38:58 > 0:39:01So I did ring Harold the next morning,
0:39:01 > 0:39:02and he said, "Well, of course,
0:39:02 > 0:39:05"I'm sure you want to meet," so we met and talked,
0:39:05 > 0:39:08and I did say, "Of course you can write, you must
0:39:08 > 0:39:12"write your plays, you must write exactly as you feel, but if I were
0:39:12 > 0:39:16"to ask for one thing, it would be that you would change the title of
0:39:16 > 0:39:22"the play, Betrayal, because I regard that as an accusation against me."
0:39:23 > 0:39:29And Harold very carefully and meticulously explained that
0:39:29 > 0:39:33the number of betrayals within the play are numerous.
0:39:33 > 0:39:36And that I shouldn't take it personally!
0:39:36 > 0:39:38"You shouldn't take it personally."
0:39:38 > 0:39:42Of course, you interviewed Harold once on Late Night Line-Up.
0:39:42 > 0:39:43I interviewed him.
0:39:43 > 0:39:46There was a half-hour long interview between myself and Harold,
0:39:46 > 0:39:50it was pretty electric in the studio at the time, quite a lot of...
0:39:50 > 0:39:54Well, it must have been, because, did you do it as a sort of dare
0:39:54 > 0:39:57in the sense of seeing whether you got rumbled?
0:39:57 > 0:39:59I mean, because you weren't particularly rumbled.
0:39:59 > 0:40:02You got through the interview, subtly in your part,
0:40:02 > 0:40:07talking mainly about the theatre rather than private life, obviously.
0:40:07 > 0:40:10No private life figured at all, and there is no trace of the recording.
0:40:10 > 0:40:13This was the habit in those days. Late Night Line-Up, I did
0:40:13 > 0:40:16hundreds and hundreds of interviews, but all of them were either wiped
0:40:16 > 0:40:18so that they could re-use the tape, or simply ditched.
0:40:18 > 0:40:21So a large part of my career has completely vanished,
0:40:21 > 0:40:24regrettably, that interview with Harold.
0:40:24 > 0:40:27Oh, yes, that's emotionally, and every other way, regrettable,
0:40:27 > 0:40:30but the transcript exists.
0:40:30 > 0:40:31Yes, we talk about plays.
0:40:31 > 0:40:36It still has a certain life, but it is in the written word.
0:40:36 > 0:40:40If you look at the transcript, there are occasional remarks like,
0:40:40 > 0:40:43"as you know" or "as I told you before" or "I think we both know"
0:40:43 > 0:40:46scattered throughout the transcript.
0:40:46 > 0:40:50"I woke up in the middle of the night and I said..." Yeah.
0:40:50 > 0:40:52This is a quote of yours on this area.
0:40:52 > 0:40:56"In the event, an extra-marital affair,
0:40:56 > 0:40:59"surviving together the loss of trust,
0:40:59 > 0:41:03"is a major rite of passage in a lifelong marriage.
0:41:03 > 0:41:06"With longer lives, a grown-up marriage,
0:41:06 > 0:41:11"an affair is almost inevitable." It does go, you think, as far as...?
0:41:11 > 0:41:14Well, I do know people who have had lifelong marriages,
0:41:14 > 0:41:19and I know very well and they probably know that each or either
0:41:19 > 0:41:22or both have strayed, as the phrase might be, from the loyalty.
0:41:22 > 0:41:27But the strength of their commitment to each other deals with it.
0:41:27 > 0:41:31Now, that seems to me an extremely adult way to deal with being married,
0:41:31 > 0:41:36and they are very fortunate in having that depth of commitment
0:41:36 > 0:41:41to be able to overcome these hurdles. But hurdles there will very often be,
0:41:41 > 0:41:43and I think that's a mark of real success.
0:41:43 > 0:41:47Yeah. Can you remember - this is more recently, um...
0:41:50 > 0:41:53When you heard about Harold's recent death, um...
0:41:56 > 0:41:58..what effect did that have on you?
0:41:58 > 0:42:00Well, I knew he was dying.
0:42:00 > 0:42:03All those close to him did,
0:42:03 > 0:42:07and he'd phoned me about a fortnight before and said,
0:42:07 > 0:42:09"I won't be phoning you again."
0:42:11 > 0:42:13So I was ready.
0:42:15 > 0:42:17It was just a complete absence, sudden absence,
0:42:17 > 0:42:23of a huge and important figure in my life and in the lives of many people
0:42:23 > 0:42:26and in the culture of the country.
0:42:26 > 0:42:27So it was just an absence,
0:42:27 > 0:42:30the sense that what had been there -
0:42:30 > 0:42:34even if I didn't see him very often or speak to him very often -
0:42:34 > 0:42:37lunch with him from time to time, quite regularly -
0:42:37 > 0:42:40there was just nothing - absence, gone.
0:42:40 > 0:42:43That was... terrible.
0:42:43 > 0:42:46But as you get older, you learn about bereavement,
0:42:46 > 0:42:49and, of course, that goes on happening.
0:42:49 > 0:42:53Not with such a strong bond as I had with Harold,
0:42:53 > 0:42:58but, generally, of course, you lose family, friends and so on.
0:43:01 > 0:43:05Yeah. That's a very good description of the pattern, there.
0:43:07 > 0:43:09Moving on for now.
0:43:09 > 0:43:12You've done such interesting things.
0:43:12 > 0:43:18I mean, for instance, there is an example here of Taboo,
0:43:18 > 0:43:21which was a series you did early in the 2000s.
0:43:21 > 0:43:22Here is an excerpt from that.
0:43:34 > 0:43:37Nudity, shame and guilt go back a long way.
0:43:37 > 0:43:40Far enough and we reach the Garden of Eden,
0:43:40 > 0:43:45with Adam and Eve evicted because they knew that they were naked.
0:43:47 > 0:43:51Throughout the Renaissance, Adams and Eves aplenty
0:43:51 > 0:43:55were herded out of Paradise grasping guiltily at fig leaves.
0:43:55 > 0:43:58The focus of their shame was their genitals.
0:44:00 > 0:44:05The myth of man's fall into sin is rooted deep in Western culture,
0:44:05 > 0:44:07as it was in my 1940s Sunday school.
0:44:09 > 0:44:13I grew up in a family with one sister and no brothers.
0:44:13 > 0:44:16My parents were modest folk, prudish by today's standards,
0:44:16 > 0:44:20so I never saw them without their clothes. It would have been
0:44:20 > 0:44:22unthinkable for me to see my father naked.
0:44:22 > 0:44:26So I knew what girls looked like, but what about boys?
0:44:27 > 0:44:31It wasn't until I came to museums and galleries like this
0:44:31 > 0:44:34that I really found out the difference.
0:44:35 > 0:44:39And because it was stone cold marble, I took a closer look.
0:44:40 > 0:44:43Nudity gets used in all sorts of ways.
0:44:43 > 0:44:47It can suggest innocence, health, honesty.
0:44:47 > 0:44:50Art uses nudity to create beauty.
0:44:50 > 0:44:54Politics can see it as a matter of personal freedom.
0:44:54 > 0:44:57Whichever it is, it can often make us smile.
0:44:57 > 0:45:02Very good timing, the phrase personal freedom comes up.
0:45:02 > 0:45:05The opportunity to smile, I think, is important, too!
0:45:05 > 0:45:06Yes, absolutely.
0:45:06 > 0:45:09And, I mean, you said somewhere else
0:45:09 > 0:45:13one of the forbidden areas or the most taboo area left
0:45:13 > 0:45:17was, in fact, the male organ in an extended position.
0:45:17 > 0:45:19Nudity doesn't do people harm,
0:45:19 > 0:45:22and neither does entire nudity,
0:45:22 > 0:45:26and neither does an erect penis. It doesn't do anyone any harm.
0:45:26 > 0:45:30So, when I did that series Taboo, my basic premise -
0:45:30 > 0:45:34and this qualifies what I've just said - was
0:45:34 > 0:45:40nudity, sex, pleasure - good. Violence, abuse, and damage - bad.
0:45:40 > 0:45:42That was my basic tenet.
0:45:42 > 0:45:45But nudity? So what.
0:45:45 > 0:45:48And what are the essential differences
0:45:48 > 0:45:49between men and women today?
0:45:49 > 0:45:51Well, I don't know where to start.
0:45:51 > 0:45:56First of all, I have an impulse to say, "Look, Simone de Beauvoir."
0:45:56 > 0:46:00You know, men and women are made by their culture and basically deserve
0:46:00 > 0:46:03equal treatment and opportunity.
0:46:03 > 0:46:09On the other hand, since her day in the late '40s, neuroscience
0:46:09 > 0:46:12and investigation generally, biology,
0:46:12 > 0:46:19and the look at the detail of what makes up the human organism,
0:46:19 > 0:46:21the male and the female,
0:46:21 > 0:46:24we're conspicuously different - we are conspicuously different.
0:46:24 > 0:46:28And people are aware that different segments of the brain
0:46:28 > 0:46:32in men and women work in different ways, so what we are...
0:46:32 > 0:46:36Having made this strident demand that we should be equal,
0:46:36 > 0:46:38we are now faced with the problem
0:46:38 > 0:46:42of trying to work out how we do that when we're different components.
0:46:43 > 0:46:47Absolutely, absolutely. And in terms of religion, Joan,
0:46:47 > 0:46:52you've said... You've described yourself as a non-believing
0:46:52 > 0:46:55member of the Church of England.
0:46:55 > 0:47:00What about the Church Of England do you believe in and what not?
0:47:00 > 0:47:03I am more and more confused by the Church Of England,
0:47:03 > 0:47:05simply because I think it's confused about itself,
0:47:05 > 0:47:08but I am, you know, baptised and confirmed
0:47:08 > 0:47:11and indeed married in church
0:47:11 > 0:47:15and I've had a lifelong interest in people's values
0:47:15 > 0:47:19and the nature of what religion does for people
0:47:19 > 0:47:22and what it means to them, which is persistently strong
0:47:22 > 0:47:26even though we live in a largely secular-behaving society,
0:47:26 > 0:47:32one in which science is seen to offer a challenge to religion.
0:47:32 > 0:47:34Religion is amazingly resilient,
0:47:34 > 0:47:38because it answers a need that is created in the human mind,
0:47:38 > 0:47:43so I'm always interested, and I do still do programmes about religion
0:47:43 > 0:47:46and the nature of belief. I did a series called Belief.
0:47:46 > 0:47:48But do you... Do you ever pray?
0:47:48 > 0:47:52No. I ask you what you think prayer is.
0:47:54 > 0:47:56I sit and think. I sit and...
0:47:59 > 0:48:01..look at life.
0:48:01 > 0:48:05I sit and wonder at its awesome scale.
0:48:07 > 0:48:09The night sky or a landscape.
0:48:09 > 0:48:13So I might say that I contemplate things,
0:48:13 > 0:48:17and sometimes even meditate, if I get that right.
0:48:17 > 0:48:21I do remember a phrase that Harold Pinter used to use, which was
0:48:21 > 0:48:25"Thinking got me into this and thinking's got to get me out."
0:48:25 > 0:48:27And I sometimes use that.
0:48:27 > 0:48:29If I'm in a jam, I will go,
0:48:29 > 0:48:32"Thinking's got to get me out of this."
0:48:32 > 0:48:35And thinking is very good. Very good for you, it's quite hard.
0:48:35 > 0:48:38Yeah, yeah. What about television?
0:48:38 > 0:48:43Do you think the BBC, your beloved BBC, has lost its way a bit or not?
0:48:44 > 0:48:48Well, it certainly did have, didn't it, over the Jimmy Savile case
0:48:48 > 0:48:51and all those enormous revelations that came as such a shock to
0:48:51 > 0:48:54everyone, and then attempts to deal with it which kind of went wrong
0:48:54 > 0:48:57because people were still reeling under the shock.
0:48:57 > 0:49:01And I think it's got a chance to get things sorted out.
0:49:01 > 0:49:03It's got a new director general -
0:49:03 > 0:49:06I forgive him for sacking me in the 1980s, but never mind!
0:49:06 > 0:49:08- Did he?- We get on very well since.
0:49:08 > 0:49:11He was part of a system that abolished my job,
0:49:11 > 0:49:16which I didn't relish at the time, but I think he has got, you know,
0:49:16 > 0:49:20a new broom, he's going to, I think, change things. It needs change.
0:49:20 > 0:49:23I do think it's got a fantastic future,
0:49:23 > 0:49:27but what its destiny will be in the multiplicity of options
0:49:27 > 0:49:31for viewing, seeing, recording programmes, I don't know.
0:49:31 > 0:49:35But I believe, I want to believe, that it will always be there.
0:49:35 > 0:49:36What about politics?
0:49:36 > 0:49:39Which mainstream politician over your life -
0:49:39 > 0:49:42and as you know by the title of this programme,
0:49:42 > 0:49:45we've got 80 years to choose from here -
0:49:45 > 0:49:48but which politician have you, during your life,
0:49:48 > 0:49:50most admired, respected?
0:49:50 > 0:49:54I met Clement Atlee in the 1950s.
0:49:54 > 0:49:57He came to the Cambridge Labour Club.
0:49:57 > 0:50:02He was the most modest, uncharismatic figure I can remember.
0:50:02 > 0:50:06But he was completely purposeful about what he meant
0:50:06 > 0:50:11and what he said, so you did believe his project,
0:50:11 > 0:50:13which was the welfare state.
0:50:13 > 0:50:16And so, although I only met him fleetingly, it's a memory I cherish,
0:50:16 > 0:50:22because there has been no-one so consistently dedicated to an idea
0:50:22 > 0:50:26without any sense of ego being attached to it,
0:50:26 > 0:50:28and I do think that's very remarkable in our day.
0:50:28 > 0:50:32There is someone else, of course - how could I not mention him?
0:50:32 > 0:50:34Nelson Mandela.
0:50:35 > 0:50:39Now, Nelson Mandela went to prison for what he believed in -
0:50:39 > 0:50:45there can be no greater tribute to his ideology than that.
0:50:45 > 0:50:49That's a very good, very good point, and let's just pause there
0:50:49 > 0:50:53because one of the first of his interviews that he ever gave
0:50:53 > 0:50:59was to you, and here is just a moment of it, coming up right now.
0:51:08 > 0:51:10'Nelson Mandela walks free
0:51:10 > 0:51:14'after serving over 27 years of his prison sentence.
0:51:14 > 0:51:17'He walks into a welcome on a world scale.'
0:51:21 > 0:51:25Let me ask you personally, what has kept you going
0:51:25 > 0:51:27through all those years in prison?
0:51:27 > 0:51:30You. And others.
0:51:30 > 0:51:31Terrible flirt!
0:51:31 > 0:51:36And firstly, although we were sentenced,
0:51:36 > 0:51:39and sent to jail,
0:51:39 > 0:51:42we felt that we had come out
0:51:42 > 0:51:45head and shoulders above the government.
0:51:46 > 0:51:49Our defence was an attack on government policy,
0:51:49 > 0:51:53right from the time when they asked us "Are you guilty?"
0:51:53 > 0:51:58"No, we are not guilty. It is the government that is guilty."
0:51:58 > 0:52:02Can I ask you, now you are out of prison, how will you cope with
0:52:02 > 0:52:05the will for revenge, for retribution against the killers
0:52:05 > 0:52:09of Steve Biko, for example? How will you cope with that need for revenge?
0:52:09 > 0:52:14No. Fortunately we have had enough experience to know
0:52:14 > 0:52:18that there is no such threat from blacks.
0:52:18 > 0:52:22We have no desire to bring anybody to book
0:52:22 > 0:52:28for what they did, for having oppressed the masses of the people.
0:52:28 > 0:52:32- We have no such ideas.- But the deaths in prisons?- No.
0:52:33 > 0:52:39The essence of reaching a political solution
0:52:39 > 0:52:43means that you must let bygones be bygones.
0:52:45 > 0:52:48What was the lesson you got most of all from - in addition
0:52:48 > 0:52:51to what he was saying about revenge, of course, and that was followed
0:52:51 > 0:52:56up with the Truth And Reconciliation Commission in South Africa -
0:52:56 > 0:53:00what did you come away with from listening to,
0:53:00 > 0:53:02talking to Nelson Mandela?
0:53:02 > 0:53:04- Integrity.- Yeah.
0:53:04 > 0:53:06Integrity, a lifelong integrity
0:53:06 > 0:53:09of the truth of the man to his values,
0:53:09 > 0:53:12which is to be prized wherever you find it,
0:53:12 > 0:53:14and his was just exceptional.
0:53:14 > 0:53:18He never deviated from what he believed to be true,
0:53:18 > 0:53:21he knew to be true, and he laid down a lot of his life
0:53:21 > 0:53:25in order to see that through, and of course came out...
0:53:25 > 0:53:29I'd just got that interview with him the moment he was out of prison,
0:53:29 > 0:53:34and he went on to lead his country in the most triumphant way,
0:53:34 > 0:53:36and he is a landmark figure,
0:53:36 > 0:53:40a great, great figure of our century and the last one.
0:53:41 > 0:53:43A great, great figure. Absolutely.
0:53:43 > 0:53:47Tell me something. In terms of your life, looking back on it, Joan,
0:53:47 > 0:53:53what would you say was the thing that most makes you joyous
0:53:53 > 0:53:57when you think about it, reflecting on your life?
0:53:58 > 0:54:02My family. I think my family. I think it's a cliche,
0:54:02 > 0:54:06but I think being true to what I know of how I feel
0:54:06 > 0:54:10when I am alone and getting on in years, and looking back all
0:54:10 > 0:54:14those years, family is what matters.
0:54:14 > 0:54:17Family is what matters to everyone - whether they have it or not,
0:54:17 > 0:54:20they yearn for it, and when they find it,
0:54:20 > 0:54:24it's to be cherished, so my family give me great joy.
0:54:25 > 0:54:26Very good, the...
0:54:26 > 0:54:33And what about in terms of looking back at the down moments and so on?
0:54:33 > 0:54:36I mean, what's the thing that makes you most sad or angry?
0:54:38 > 0:54:41I suppose the opposite of the Mandela moment, really.
0:54:41 > 0:54:45The lack of integrity and the lack of trust, and the falling away
0:54:45 > 0:54:49of those idealised hopes that I had in the post-war years -
0:54:49 > 0:54:53the welfare state, the feeling that things could get better.
0:54:53 > 0:54:55I think we live in a world in which we think
0:54:55 > 0:54:57things are just going to get worse.
0:54:57 > 0:55:00And now that's terrible for everyone, but it's particularly hard
0:55:00 > 0:55:03on young people, because I grew up when the world was getting better.
0:55:03 > 0:55:07And... And I flourished under that expectation.
0:55:07 > 0:55:11So, now I see my grandchildren just feeling that the world -
0:55:11 > 0:55:13they are quite buoyant about themselves -
0:55:13 > 0:55:15but that the world will get tougher,
0:55:15 > 0:55:18and that's a very tough prospect for the world in general,
0:55:18 > 0:55:21so that's a bit of a downer, really.
0:55:21 > 0:55:24Have you ever thought very much about death?
0:55:24 > 0:55:28I mean, what it is, whether you will live forever,
0:55:28 > 0:55:30whether there is life after death?
0:55:30 > 0:55:34But death itself, what sort of an experience is that going to be?
0:55:34 > 0:55:37Well, depending on the state of medical decision-making
0:55:37 > 0:55:39at the time, I hope it will be painless.
0:55:39 > 0:55:44I don't believe in life after death except in so far as we all are energy
0:55:44 > 0:55:46and energy doesn't die,
0:55:46 > 0:55:49so something will happen to whatever's going on here.
0:55:49 > 0:55:54I do think about it. You do as you get older, you know,
0:55:54 > 0:55:58you get a hiccup, you get a fever, you think, "Ohh, could get worse!"
0:55:59 > 0:56:02But strangely enough I am less haunted by death
0:56:02 > 0:56:06than I was when I was young. I think the old grow to know
0:56:06 > 0:56:08that death is there waiting for them.
0:56:08 > 0:56:11They think about it sometimes, but if they do so...
0:56:11 > 0:56:15I think I do it occasionally and think, well, it is waiting,
0:56:15 > 0:56:18and it's not as far away as it used to be.
0:56:18 > 0:56:21And there will come a moment when I just say,
0:56:21 > 0:56:24"Yes, come on in, it's time to go."
0:56:24 > 0:56:28I hope that will be as serene as possible.
0:56:28 > 0:56:31I've been at the death beds of family,
0:56:31 > 0:56:33and I don't find it terrifying,
0:56:33 > 0:56:35I find it quite uplifting in a strange way.
0:56:35 > 0:56:40It gives me a sense of serenity that all things come to an end,
0:56:40 > 0:56:45and of course at my age, I've had a very good time.
0:56:45 > 0:56:48Absolutely, but in terms of now,
0:56:48 > 0:56:52and so on, I mean, people say "the best is yet to come"
0:56:52 > 0:56:57and so on and so forth. I mean, there is nothing that says that you
0:56:57 > 0:57:00couldn't, for instance, marry for a third time, fall in love again.
0:57:00 > 0:57:03Nothing. Absolutely, I am open to life's experiences,
0:57:03 > 0:57:08whatever they may be. I don't think older people close down the options,
0:57:08 > 0:57:12society closes down the options for them by expecting them
0:57:12 > 0:57:16to live in certain ways and to grow old gracefully and so on.
0:57:16 > 0:57:19The old don't feel like that - the old want to keep the options open.
0:57:19 > 0:57:23- Yes.- They want to be vigorous, lively, dangerous,
0:57:23 > 0:57:26full of zest. They want to keep going,
0:57:26 > 0:57:30that spirit that refuses to acknowledge what the body
0:57:30 > 0:57:32inevitably has to acknowledge.
0:57:32 > 0:57:36A quote of yours - "The fact that I am still DOING
0:57:36 > 0:57:40"as opposed to just BEING is quite important for me."
0:57:41 > 0:57:43Keep on doing.
0:57:43 > 0:57:47And that is true of... Old people want to be doing things,
0:57:47 > 0:57:51they don't want to be sitting at home with a rug over their knees
0:57:51 > 0:57:53waiting for people to look after them.
0:57:53 > 0:57:56They don't want that. It may be inevitable in some cases,
0:57:56 > 0:58:01but doing something with your life is what being alive is, of course.
0:58:02 > 0:58:07Give it to more people, they want it. More of the old want to be doing.
0:58:07 > 0:58:10Well, at that point, may I just say let's make a date
0:58:10 > 0:58:13for ten years from now,
0:58:13 > 0:58:16and look then at Joan Bakewell at 90.
0:58:17 > 0:58:21- Thank you so much. - Thank you, David.
0:58:26 > 0:58:28Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd