0:00:04 > 0:00:06I think every family has turbulence
0:00:06 > 0:00:09lurking just below the peaceful surface.
0:00:09 > 0:00:12I find when I bring characters down here to the ocean's edge,
0:00:12 > 0:00:14it releases something in them.
0:00:14 > 0:00:16Secrets and desires seem to tumble out.
0:00:18 > 0:00:22Patrick Gale is one of Britain's best-selling novelists.
0:00:22 > 0:00:26He's known for stories set around the Cornish coast,
0:00:26 > 0:00:29exploring psychologically complicated families,
0:00:29 > 0:00:31often based on his own relations.
0:00:32 > 0:00:36I've been reading his novels since the late 1980s.
0:00:36 > 0:00:39Back then, he was known as a rare example
0:00:39 > 0:00:40of being an out gay writer.
0:00:42 > 0:00:44I was labelled a gay writer,
0:00:44 > 0:00:46and gay lives and loves are still right at the heart
0:00:46 > 0:00:48of everything I write.
0:00:48 > 0:00:50But what really fascinates me
0:00:50 > 0:00:56is seeing how they mesh in with the whole mess of family life.
0:00:57 > 0:01:01I've joined Patrick to discuss his novels and latest project -
0:01:01 > 0:01:05his first TV drama, Man In An Orange Shirt,
0:01:05 > 0:01:08being televised to coincide with the 50-year anniversary
0:01:08 > 0:01:12of the decriminalization of homosexuality.
0:01:12 > 0:01:17It's an epic story about two gay couples - one in the 1940s,
0:01:17 > 0:01:21and one in the present day, and a secret that connects them.
0:01:21 > 0:01:22Like many of his novels,
0:01:22 > 0:01:26the story is partly based on his own family history.
0:01:26 > 0:01:28The secret is about his parents.
0:01:28 > 0:01:31My parents' marriage wasn't a disaster,
0:01:31 > 0:01:32but I look at this picture,
0:01:32 > 0:01:35and it's a bit like watching a car crash about to happen.
0:01:35 > 0:01:36Yes, because I know now
0:01:36 > 0:01:39what my mother didn't know at the time.
0:01:39 > 0:01:43It's lingered on the edge of my writing for a long time,
0:01:43 > 0:01:44but this is the first time
0:01:44 > 0:01:46I've really felt able to address it fully.
0:01:54 > 0:01:57So, a major two-part BBC drama,
0:01:57 > 0:02:02set in the Second World War with explosions...
0:02:02 > 0:02:03HE LAUGHS
0:02:03 > 0:02:05EXPLOSION
0:02:06 > 0:02:08Well, don't just sit there, help him!
0:02:08 > 0:02:10..and in the present day.
0:02:11 > 0:02:14Did you make the story up out of nowhere, or did it...?
0:02:14 > 0:02:17Not at all, it actually grew from a germ in my own family.
0:02:17 > 0:02:22My mother, when I finished my first novel, which was a very gay novel,
0:02:22 > 0:02:25I'd given it to her to read, and her immediate response was,
0:02:25 > 0:02:28"Well, darling... I loved it, it was very sweet,
0:02:28 > 0:02:30"very funny, rather sad, um,
0:02:30 > 0:02:33"and I think it'll help your father come to terms with himself."
0:02:33 > 0:02:35And, of course, my jaw hit the floor.
0:02:35 > 0:02:36Wow...
0:02:36 > 0:02:38Um, and she proceeded to tell me how,
0:02:38 > 0:02:40when she was pregnant with me,
0:02:40 > 0:02:43she found this stash of love letters hidden in my father's desk.
0:02:50 > 0:02:52And she started reading them and thought, "Oh what fun,
0:02:52 > 0:02:55"these letters from some girlfriend I'd never heard about."
0:02:58 > 0:03:01And then realised they were from his best man.
0:03:01 > 0:03:02Whoa.
0:03:08 > 0:03:12She said, not only were they clearly love letters that covered, you know,
0:03:12 > 0:03:13quite a long period,
0:03:13 > 0:03:17but it was clear from the letters that my father and this man
0:03:17 > 0:03:21had experienced a passion she had never experienced with my father,
0:03:21 > 0:03:26and that they spent the night before the wedding in a hotel, together.
0:03:26 > 0:03:27Oh, good gracious.
0:03:33 > 0:03:36At that point, when my mother found those letters,
0:03:36 > 0:03:37my father could've been sent to prison
0:03:37 > 0:03:39on the basis of those letters alone.
0:03:39 > 0:03:42She knew that men went to jail for this.
0:03:42 > 0:03:44Did she confront your father with them?
0:03:44 > 0:03:46This is the awful Englishness of it.
0:03:46 > 0:03:47She destroyed the letters,
0:03:47 > 0:03:50she never told him she'd found them or read them,
0:03:50 > 0:03:54she never slept with him again, and she was... She assumed,
0:03:54 > 0:03:55as a lot of her generation would have done,
0:03:55 > 0:03:57that this meant he was a paedophile.
0:03:57 > 0:04:00So she never, ever left any of us alone with him.
0:04:00 > 0:04:03- What?!- So in my childhood, I was never alone with my father.
0:04:03 > 0:04:05Good Lord!
0:04:08 > 0:04:11I felt terribly sad for my father, and my mother.
0:04:11 > 0:04:14I've got the love letters between my mother and my father,
0:04:14 > 0:04:17that also precede this photograph.
0:04:17 > 0:04:21And it's clear from those just how young and inexperienced she is,
0:04:21 > 0:04:23how little she really knows of the world.
0:04:24 > 0:04:27And I think, "Gosh, would she have gone through this, knowing..."
0:04:27 > 0:04:29I think she would have gone through with it,
0:04:29 > 0:04:32but she'd have gone through with it with an extra layer of armour.
0:04:35 > 0:04:38So I put it in Man In An Orange Shirt,
0:04:38 > 0:04:41but with a difference that I have the confrontation.
0:04:41 > 0:04:45She burns the letters, but boy, she also lets him know about it.
0:04:45 > 0:04:46Um, just as a sort of what-if...
0:04:46 > 0:04:47Well, you know...
0:04:47 > 0:04:50Wondering how their marriage might have turned out
0:04:50 > 0:04:52had the elephant in the room been named.
0:04:52 > 0:04:53Are you safe around children?
0:04:53 > 0:04:55What were you thinking, marrying me?
0:04:55 > 0:04:57Do you even love me?
0:04:57 > 0:04:59If I'm expected to lie around,
0:04:59 > 0:05:03bringing forth like some broodmare for the two of you...
0:05:03 > 0:05:05- Oh!- Darling, sit down!
0:05:05 > 0:05:07Don't touch me!
0:05:08 > 0:05:10Never touch me, you're disgusting!
0:05:10 > 0:05:11Criminal!
0:05:11 > 0:05:14We follow the mother character across two episodes,
0:05:14 > 0:05:18right up to the present day, now played by Vanessa Redgrave,
0:05:18 > 0:05:22who is struggling to accept that her grandson is also gay.
0:05:23 > 0:05:29My bridge crony's always asking me, when is he going to settle down?
0:05:29 > 0:05:30And I say to them...
0:05:31 > 0:05:35You know, some of us prefer our own company.
0:05:35 > 0:05:36That's what I tell them.
0:05:39 > 0:05:43I'm hoping that younger viewers will maybe have a pause for thought
0:05:43 > 0:05:45about homophobia, as well,
0:05:45 > 0:05:47because the central female character in it,
0:05:47 > 0:05:50who is very loosely based on my mother, as I was saying,
0:05:50 > 0:05:53has gone through this terrible journey of...
0:05:53 > 0:05:56of betrayal and having to rebuild her life.
0:05:56 > 0:05:58And she is deeply homophobic,
0:05:58 > 0:06:02but in a kind of knee-jerk way that's based on real pain.
0:06:02 > 0:06:04I've been ashamed.
0:06:04 > 0:06:06All my life.
0:06:07 > 0:06:08And I wonder why that was!
0:06:08 > 0:06:09Yes, you should be ashamed.
0:06:09 > 0:06:12Because it is terrible, it is disgusting,
0:06:12 > 0:06:15to live with other people as if you were animals.
0:06:17 > 0:06:18Animals?!
0:06:18 > 0:06:21- SHOUTS:- Yes! Animals!
0:06:21 > 0:06:22Oh!
0:06:30 > 0:06:32I always feel as if I'm in the wrong.
0:06:32 > 0:06:34It's not fair.
0:06:35 > 0:06:38And I think... I'm not saying all homophobia is, by any means,
0:06:38 > 0:06:40but it's based on a fear.
0:06:40 > 0:06:43- Yeah.- And I think... I think in order to combat homophobia,
0:06:43 > 0:06:44you need to...
0:06:44 > 0:06:47- You need to understand it, like... - To understand the fear.
0:06:47 > 0:06:50Like anything you want to combat, you have to understand.
0:06:50 > 0:06:53And I feel insofar as my novels are remotely political,
0:06:53 > 0:06:56what they do in combating homophobia
0:06:56 > 0:06:58is just to be out there and say,
0:06:58 > 0:07:00"Actually, this is just part of the wider spectrum,
0:07:00 > 0:07:03"this is part of family mess."
0:07:03 > 0:07:05- Yes.- And you might as well deal with it,
0:07:05 > 0:07:07because it's not going to go away.
0:07:07 > 0:07:09Yes, that's beautiful.
0:07:10 > 0:07:14Patrick first came to my attention 30 years ago,
0:07:14 > 0:07:17back when it was still unusual to be a so-called gay writer.
0:07:18 > 0:07:22You kind of announced yourself with The Aerodynamics Of Pork,
0:07:22 > 0:07:24which is a wonderful title.
0:07:24 > 0:07:26- How old were you?- 21.
0:07:26 > 0:07:30Right, so you were regarded as an early example of a gay novelist.
0:07:30 > 0:07:33Were you concerned that you might be looked at as a gay writer,
0:07:33 > 0:07:35and then deliberately chose to...
0:07:35 > 0:07:37No, to start with, I embraced it,
0:07:37 > 0:07:39because I was so thrilled to be published at all.
0:07:39 > 0:07:42Well, it's an interesting thing about your writing, I think,
0:07:42 > 0:07:44and it's probably impertinent to say,
0:07:44 > 0:07:46but you're thought of as a gay writer,
0:07:46 > 0:07:47because you're a gay man,
0:07:47 > 0:07:51and there are gay characters in your books, and nearly always are.
0:07:51 > 0:07:54But, um, you're really a writer about families more than you are...
0:07:54 > 0:07:59Oh, totally! I've always been quite merciless with my gay readers
0:07:59 > 0:08:03about making them... Reminding them that they come from a family...
0:08:03 > 0:08:05- Yes!- ..and that they are attached in various ways
0:08:05 > 0:08:07to these people who are not gay.
0:08:08 > 0:08:12It was Patrick's decision to write about his own complicated family
0:08:12 > 0:08:16that first brought him mainstream attention in the year 2000,
0:08:16 > 0:08:18with the novel Rough Music.
0:08:18 > 0:08:21It told the story of a troubled young family
0:08:21 > 0:08:24holidaying on the Cornish coast.
0:08:25 > 0:08:30"She walked across the sand, not caring if her shoes became wet,
0:08:30 > 0:08:33"drawn forward by the sound of the breaking waves.
0:08:33 > 0:08:37"'If I stood here long enough,' she thought, 'Just stood,
0:08:37 > 0:08:41"'the sea would draw out more and more sand from underneath,
0:08:41 > 0:08:43"'and bring more and more back in.'
0:08:43 > 0:08:45"She dared herself not to move."
0:08:48 > 0:08:50Patrick wrote Rough Music
0:08:50 > 0:08:53the year he moved to his current Cornwall home,
0:08:53 > 0:08:57a working farm, where he lives with his husband, Aidan.
0:08:57 > 0:09:02It's situated at the very edge of Land's End, overlooking the sea.
0:09:02 > 0:09:07And it is here that Patrick began mining his childhood memories.
0:09:07 > 0:09:09For the first time,
0:09:09 > 0:09:13I consciously based a novel on my own family
0:09:13 > 0:09:16and my own deeply personal and private memories.
0:09:16 > 0:09:20It's curious, some books come slowly, some books come very fast.
0:09:20 > 0:09:23Rough Music was really fast and really intense.
0:09:23 > 0:09:25And I became completely obsessed with the book,
0:09:25 > 0:09:28because it was all in my head, and I needed to get it down.
0:09:30 > 0:09:35Patrick had decided to write about his own youth in the 1960s,
0:09:35 > 0:09:36growing up inside prisons
0:09:36 > 0:09:40in which his father worked as the prison governor.
0:09:40 > 0:09:43I think it's this odd thing, if you have a strange childhood,
0:09:43 > 0:09:45you don't realise it's strange at the time.
0:09:45 > 0:09:46- Yeah.- Because in those days,
0:09:46 > 0:09:48the governor's family lived in the prison.
0:09:48 > 0:09:50So we met the prisoners all the time.
0:09:50 > 0:09:53We were each, in turn, sent home from nursery school
0:09:53 > 0:09:54with a letter saying,
0:09:54 > 0:09:56"Please stop your child using this filthy language,"
0:09:56 > 0:09:58because the prisoners delighted in teaching
0:09:58 > 0:10:01these ghastly middle-class children to swear like troopers.
0:10:01 > 0:10:04Um, looking back, do you think it's a bit odd for a father
0:10:04 > 0:10:07to let a young boy consort with... I mean...
0:10:07 > 0:10:11He... No, he felt it was part of the process...
0:10:11 > 0:10:13- Yeah.- ..that these men,
0:10:13 > 0:10:16who by and large came from pretty terrible backgrounds...
0:10:16 > 0:10:20- Yeah.- ..should have daily contact with a happy family.
0:10:20 > 0:10:23Um, he had less control over things like, you know,
0:10:23 > 0:10:25me talking to them through the bars...
0:10:25 > 0:10:26That's an extraordinary image.
0:10:27 > 0:10:30In exploring his boyhood memories,
0:10:30 > 0:10:34Patrick decided to tackle something rarely written about at the time -
0:10:34 > 0:10:36the experience of gay childhood.
0:10:36 > 0:10:39I was vividly aware that what I was doing was...
0:10:41 > 0:10:45..risky, compared to what I'd written before.
0:10:45 > 0:10:47I was writing about the very early sense that I was gay
0:10:47 > 0:10:50when I was very little.
0:10:50 > 0:10:53Which is not a comfortable thing to write about,
0:10:53 > 0:10:54or to read about, I suspect.
0:10:56 > 0:10:59What I wanted to capture was that sense
0:10:59 > 0:11:02that I remember having when I was seven or eight years old,
0:11:02 > 0:11:04that I was not like other boys,
0:11:04 > 0:11:06that I didn't fit the mould.
0:11:06 > 0:11:10I have vivid memories of parental discomfort,
0:11:10 > 0:11:16and a sense that what I was was a cause of...
0:11:18 > 0:11:21..yeah, discomfort for them, and embarrassment,
0:11:21 > 0:11:24and something best not spoken about.
0:11:26 > 0:11:28"The Happy Prince And Other Stories
0:11:28 > 0:11:30"was a book he had read several times before,
0:11:30 > 0:11:34"and found himself rereading at least once a year.
0:11:34 > 0:11:36"Julian was compelled at his reading of them
0:11:36 > 0:11:38"by an interesting fog of disapproval
0:11:38 > 0:11:40"that seemed to hang about adults
0:11:40 > 0:11:43"when they spoke of the book and its author.
0:11:43 > 0:11:46"Ma implied that the stories were not quite nice,
0:11:46 > 0:11:49"as though Mr Wilde had gone too far.
0:11:49 > 0:11:52"There was a darker truth at work.
0:11:52 > 0:11:56"She disapproved of the author, or was frightened of him,
0:11:56 > 0:11:59"but something stopped her saying this aloud,
0:11:59 > 0:12:02"so she voiced vague unease about the stories instead."
0:12:07 > 0:12:10Rough Music got me a very big mailbag
0:12:10 > 0:12:13from desperately guilty mothers of gay men.
0:12:13 > 0:12:14Yeah.
0:12:14 > 0:12:16Because I think it was...
0:12:16 > 0:12:18It was one of the first times anyone had written a novel
0:12:18 > 0:12:20- about a gay child.- Yeah.
0:12:20 > 0:12:23There have been plenty about gay teenagers, but gay childhood,
0:12:23 > 0:12:24and here I was only seven,
0:12:24 > 0:12:28and a lot of women wrote to me after reading that book, saying,
0:12:28 > 0:12:30"I feel so guilty, because I knew he was...
0:12:30 > 0:12:33"I realise now - it shone out of him as a child that he was gay,
0:12:33 > 0:12:36"and I was in denial and pretended I couldn't see it."
0:12:36 > 0:12:39Having analysed his childhood,
0:12:39 > 0:12:42he then turned to his adolescent years in the 1970s.
0:12:43 > 0:12:45He wrote the novel Friendly Fire
0:12:45 > 0:12:47based on his own memories
0:12:47 > 0:12:50of attending Winchester College boarding school,
0:12:50 > 0:12:52where he followed the exploits of two teenage boys
0:12:52 > 0:12:55coming to terms with their sexuality,
0:12:55 > 0:13:00but all seen through the eyes of a new girl in school, Sophie.
0:13:00 > 0:13:02As someone who has written...
0:13:02 > 0:13:04In fact, my first novel was set in a public school...
0:13:04 > 0:13:05I remember vividly.
0:13:05 > 0:13:10And, you know, I know some people kind of groan when they think,
0:13:10 > 0:13:11"Oh, God, it's another British person
0:13:11 > 0:13:13"getting over his very special,
0:13:13 > 0:13:16"and let's face it, privileged British upbringing."
0:13:16 > 0:13:18Why should a reader be interested?
0:13:18 > 0:13:20It's so blatantly my school life,
0:13:20 > 0:13:23and yet I'm not actually in it at all.
0:13:23 > 0:13:25No, it's a brilliant story, this sort of...
0:13:25 > 0:13:27I've kind of put various friends of mine in it, and I put girls...
0:13:27 > 0:13:30But above all, you put that marvellous girl, Sophie, I think?
0:13:30 > 0:13:32She was a fantastic character.
0:13:32 > 0:13:34Sophie, who is my alter ego,
0:13:34 > 0:13:36and I use her to go back into my teenage years
0:13:36 > 0:13:39and look at it through a girl's eyes.
0:13:39 > 0:13:41And so she's much more critical than I was.
0:13:41 > 0:13:44And she could be there for a double stranger in that world.
0:13:44 > 0:13:47- It makes her a perfect explainer... - Yeah.- ..for the reader.
0:13:47 > 0:13:50They're thrown into it, and you're immediately in this school,
0:13:50 > 0:13:51and it's fun, it's like...
0:13:51 > 0:13:54It's like you've been parachuted into it yourself.
0:13:54 > 0:13:57MUSIC: Love Is The Drug by Roxy Music
0:13:57 > 0:14:00"The first time Lucas came to Sophie's attention,
0:14:00 > 0:14:02"he was wearing a dress.
0:14:02 > 0:14:04"Sophie paused one night in Flint Quad,
0:14:04 > 0:14:06"and was transfixed by what she saw
0:14:06 > 0:14:08"through one of the male chamber windows.
0:14:08 > 0:14:10"Music was playing,
0:14:10 > 0:14:12"Bryan Ferry singing Love Is The Drug.
0:14:12 > 0:14:15"A girl in a soiled purple silk ball gown
0:14:15 > 0:14:18"was showing an older boy how to jive.
0:14:18 > 0:14:19"Then the dancer's manoeuvres
0:14:19 > 0:14:22"caused the girl to be spun out in such a way
0:14:22 > 0:14:26"that her eyes momentarily met Sophie's through the barred window.
0:14:26 > 0:14:29"And Sophie saw it wasn't a girl at all."
0:14:29 > 0:14:33Friendly Fire was inspired by the friendships Patrick made
0:14:33 > 0:14:36during his teenage years at Winchester College.
0:14:36 > 0:14:40I was incredibly lucky in that, within a year of arriving there,
0:14:40 > 0:14:44I had a gang of four friends
0:14:44 > 0:14:47who were all basically gay, basically out.
0:14:47 > 0:14:49And we were out, but untouchable,
0:14:49 > 0:14:51because it wasn't against the rules to be gay,
0:14:51 > 0:14:53it was only against the rules to go to bed with somebody.
0:14:53 > 0:14:57And you know, no-one ever got caught doing that.
0:14:57 > 0:15:02Today, Patrick is still best friends with Rupert from his school days.
0:15:02 > 0:15:03Looking back, it was extraordinary.
0:15:03 > 0:15:05At the time, I thought it was perfectly normal,
0:15:05 > 0:15:07- but we were a gang of... - It WAS normal.
0:15:07 > 0:15:11But we were a gang of five out teenagers.
0:15:11 > 0:15:13- Yeah.- In 1975.
0:15:13 > 0:15:16Tall, out and proud, yeah.
0:15:16 > 0:15:19I mean, it's hard to give credit to now that that was...
0:15:19 > 0:15:21It was only eight years after decriminalization, so...
0:15:21 > 0:15:23Yeah, partial decriminalization.
0:15:23 > 0:15:25Yeah, so it was quite tender times, actually.
0:15:25 > 0:15:26And looking back,
0:15:26 > 0:15:31at no point did any of the teachers take me to one side and say,
0:15:31 > 0:15:32"This isn't on."
0:15:32 > 0:15:35We were like a gang of teenage girls, we met every day,
0:15:35 > 0:15:39and we endlessly analysed our friendships, our siblings,
0:15:39 > 0:15:41our mothers and fathers.
0:15:41 > 0:15:43A lot of our conversation was about crushes.
0:15:43 > 0:15:45We didn't JUST talk about men...
0:15:45 > 0:15:47- No, no.- We talked about hair products.
0:15:47 > 0:15:48THEY LAUGH
0:15:50 > 0:15:52"Charlie turned gay.
0:15:52 > 0:15:56"There was no other way to describe it, there was no discussion,
0:15:56 > 0:15:58"or announcement, or scene.
0:15:58 > 0:16:01"He just suddenly started talking incessantly
0:16:01 > 0:16:04"about which boys he had crushes on.
0:16:04 > 0:16:07"With Lucas' gossip and Charlie's mimicry,
0:16:07 > 0:16:09"they were a noisy gang of two,
0:16:09 > 0:16:12"co-opting Sophie whenever their paths crossed."
0:16:14 > 0:16:16Dare we talk about Friendly Fire?
0:16:16 > 0:16:19When it came out, I found it quite hard to read because it was so real.
0:16:19 > 0:16:23Yes. At the heart of it, of course, is a true-life tragedy.
0:16:23 > 0:16:27One of our teachers, he had been caught out being, um,
0:16:27 > 0:16:30inappropriately friendly with one boy.
0:16:30 > 0:16:33He was sacked, and that very night,
0:16:33 > 0:16:34he drove to the nearest railway crossing,
0:16:34 > 0:16:36and without even stopping his car engine,
0:16:36 > 0:16:39he walked under the London Express.
0:16:39 > 0:16:42- Mmm.- Um... And I did a version of that in the book.
0:16:42 > 0:16:45It was a really, really shocking thing, though.
0:16:45 > 0:16:48I can remember us discussing it in complete disbelief,
0:16:48 > 0:16:51the four of us just really bewildered by it.
0:16:51 > 0:16:54Thank God we had each other, because the '70s being what they were,
0:16:54 > 0:16:58there was no question of boys receiving any counselling.
0:16:58 > 0:17:01I mean, nobody actually explained what had happened.
0:17:01 > 0:17:05- No.- If I hadn't had all of you to talk it through with,
0:17:05 > 0:17:10it would have been a really damaging experience, I think.
0:17:10 > 0:17:12I can see that now, you know.
0:17:12 > 0:17:16I knew that we were different from everyone else, and special,
0:17:16 > 0:17:19and that we were stronger together than as individuals.
0:17:21 > 0:17:24Patrick has never shied away from darkness and difficulties
0:17:24 > 0:17:27within friendships and families,
0:17:27 > 0:17:29perhaps never more poignantly than in one of my favourites,
0:17:29 > 0:17:31Notes From An Exhibition.
0:17:31 > 0:17:36Set in Penzance, it revolves around troubled painter Rachel Kelly,
0:17:36 > 0:17:39who battles to balance maintaining an artistic career,
0:17:39 > 0:17:42bringing up children, and coping with bipolar disorder.
0:17:44 > 0:17:46Its central character, its dominating force,
0:17:46 > 0:17:48is this remarkable woman,
0:17:48 > 0:17:51this artist, Rachel Kelly.
0:17:51 > 0:17:53And one thing that's interesting about her,
0:17:53 > 0:17:56particularly now when this is a subject much more discussed,
0:17:56 > 0:17:58and one very close to my own heart, is that she's bipolar,
0:17:58 > 0:18:00she's a manic-depressive.
0:18:00 > 0:18:02You present that, it seems to me,
0:18:02 > 0:18:05with dazzling accuracy in terms of the, sort of
0:18:05 > 0:18:08the phases and the swings of it.
0:18:08 > 0:18:11I wondered if you'd researched that, or if you knew someone?
0:18:11 > 0:18:13I definitely knew someone.
0:18:13 > 0:18:18One of my beloved siblings had a terrible nervous breakdown, um,
0:18:18 > 0:18:19when I was ten.
0:18:19 > 0:18:23And this sibling tried to kill themselves for the first time,
0:18:23 > 0:18:25the first of several suicide attempts, and...
0:18:25 > 0:18:28I think, actually, I can pinpoint that
0:18:28 > 0:18:30as the year in which I became - psychologically, at least -
0:18:30 > 0:18:32- a novelist.- Wow!
0:18:32 > 0:18:35It's the year in which I suddenly just took a step back
0:18:35 > 0:18:37from being a little boy,
0:18:37 > 0:18:39um, and started looking at the world
0:18:39 > 0:18:42through a layer of glass.
0:18:42 > 0:18:46There's a very painful scene, it's on Garfield's birthday.
0:18:46 > 0:18:49His mother is in hospital, Rachel has had another of her breakdowns.
0:18:49 > 0:18:52Garfield has to spend the best part of his birthday
0:18:52 > 0:18:55visiting her in hospital.
0:18:55 > 0:19:00And that is almost exactly an evocation of visiting this sibling.
0:19:00 > 0:19:02- Yeah.- It was ghastly, really.
0:19:02 > 0:19:03No-one explained to me...
0:19:05 > 0:19:07..the reasons for this, I was just told,
0:19:07 > 0:19:09"Oh, you're having a day out from boarding school."
0:19:09 > 0:19:12And that little scene had sort of obviously been festering away,
0:19:12 > 0:19:15and it came back to me when I was writing the book.
0:19:17 > 0:19:20"He was glad to see she looked fairly normal.
0:19:20 > 0:19:22"She was wearing daytime clothes,
0:19:22 > 0:19:25"a dark blue dress covered in white spots.
0:19:25 > 0:19:29"But she looked pale, and somehow uncooked without her lipstick,
0:19:29 > 0:19:32"and there was something different about her eyes,
0:19:32 > 0:19:34"and she needed to wash her hair.
0:19:34 > 0:19:36"She had slowed down completely.
0:19:36 > 0:19:39"Garfield was used to her being sharp and crackly,
0:19:39 > 0:19:41"and rather frightening.
0:19:41 > 0:19:44"But now she was so slow and placid,
0:19:44 > 0:19:46"she was frightening in a different way,
0:19:46 > 0:19:49"as though her mechanism was winding down,
0:19:49 > 0:19:52"and no-one else had noticed, or thought to turn the key."
0:19:53 > 0:19:55It's one of the most touching things about children,
0:19:55 > 0:19:57when they're presented with a family trauma,
0:19:57 > 0:20:01is that, rather than asking to be helped, they want to mend.
0:20:01 > 0:20:03Absolutely, and I think it's especially true
0:20:03 > 0:20:06- of the youngest child.- Yeah. - I was a classic youngest child.
0:20:06 > 0:20:08So is that really what you are as a novelist?
0:20:08 > 0:20:11You make broken families in order to put them...?
0:20:11 > 0:20:13- Put the Elastoplast on. - Yeah.- I guess, yes.
0:20:13 > 0:20:14And sometimes the cracks show,
0:20:14 > 0:20:16but it's still... They are together at the end.
0:20:16 > 0:20:18I mean, your books are very...
0:20:18 > 0:20:20There is a real sense of a shining human spirit in all your books,
0:20:20 > 0:20:25of a kindness and a, you know, a healing quality that comes through.
0:20:31 > 0:20:34Patrick has always mined the memories and experiences
0:20:34 > 0:20:36of his living relations,
0:20:36 > 0:20:39but his most recent novel saw him investigate
0:20:39 > 0:20:42a mysterious figure from his family history.
0:20:42 > 0:20:46A Place Called Winter was his first historical novel,
0:20:46 > 0:20:49which reimagines the life of his great-grandfather, Harry Cane.
0:20:51 > 0:20:55I spent a lot of my early childhood with my mother's mother,
0:20:55 > 0:20:59and I heard repeatedly from her stories about Cowboy Grandpa.
0:20:59 > 0:21:02And I hadn't really worked out who Cowboy Grandpa was,
0:21:02 > 0:21:04I thought he was like Father Christmas.
0:21:04 > 0:21:08And it was only when Granny died,
0:21:08 > 0:21:11and I came across this handwritten memoir which he had begun,
0:21:11 > 0:21:14that I pieced together the pieces of the puzzle
0:21:14 > 0:21:16and realised that Cowboy Grandpa was her father.
0:21:16 > 0:21:20And about two years into the marriage, it seems to me,
0:21:20 > 0:21:25abandoned wife and my granny to go off to Canada to be a wheat farmer.
0:21:25 > 0:21:27"At this point, he went out to Canada.
0:21:27 > 0:21:31"He had enough money left to buy a small farm, but the uncle said,
0:21:31 > 0:21:34"'Our sister cannot be married to a farmer.'
0:21:34 > 0:21:38"So he went, and I never saw him again until I was 49."
0:21:40 > 0:21:43Granny doesn't really explain it, she just says
0:21:43 > 0:21:44he'd always wanted to be a farmer,
0:21:44 > 0:21:46which is... I don't believe for a moment.
0:21:46 > 0:21:49And then she says he was a bit of a reprobate, and then on another page,
0:21:49 > 0:21:51she says "and I think he lost his money".
0:21:51 > 0:21:53None of these stories were true, um...
0:21:53 > 0:21:55Did you just smell something about it?
0:21:55 > 0:21:58I could smell something, what was the thing that she's not saying?
0:21:58 > 0:22:01I then decided, OK, there was a huge scandal.
0:22:01 > 0:22:03Inspired by the family mystery,
0:22:03 > 0:22:05Patrick decided to imagine the possibility
0:22:05 > 0:22:08that his great-grandfather had fled England
0:22:08 > 0:22:10after he is discovered to be homosexual
0:22:10 > 0:22:12and threatened with exposure.
0:22:12 > 0:22:16We follow Harry as he journeys to Canada to become a homesteader,
0:22:16 > 0:22:20and then as he finds love with a neighbouring farmer.
0:22:20 > 0:22:24A Place Called Winter is a sort of gay romance, a historical romance,
0:22:24 > 0:22:26but, actually, it's far from romantic.
0:22:27 > 0:22:30It was extremely dangerous, for a start,
0:22:30 > 0:22:32for any man in this period
0:22:32 > 0:22:35to express any kind of love for another man.
0:22:35 > 0:22:37I then started imagining,
0:22:37 > 0:22:40might there have been other men out in Canada
0:22:40 > 0:22:43on the run from scandals and secrets?
0:22:43 > 0:22:45And I thought I was making all this stuff up,
0:22:45 > 0:22:48but then when I went out to Canada to do my research,
0:22:48 > 0:22:50I spoke to historians.
0:22:50 > 0:22:52And they said, "No, what you think you're making up
0:22:52 > 0:22:53"was certainly true."
0:22:53 > 0:22:56They're getting more and more evidence that between, say,
0:22:56 > 0:23:00the end of the Oscar Wilde trials and the start of the Great War,
0:23:00 > 0:23:03the Canadian prairies were very briefly
0:23:03 > 0:23:06a very useful place for the upper and middle classes of England
0:23:06 > 0:23:08to send their black sheep.
0:23:08 > 0:23:10Naively, the thought was
0:23:10 > 0:23:13you could make a man of somebody by sending them out there.
0:23:16 > 0:23:18"Paul arrived in a thick flannel over shirt,
0:23:18 > 0:23:21"which he tossed aside, as working warmed him up.
0:23:21 > 0:23:25"Harry found the shirt, and took it back to his tent with the tools,
0:23:25 > 0:23:28"thinking to keep it from the dew.
0:23:28 > 0:23:32"Lying on his camp bed after the evening's unvarying supper, however,
0:23:32 > 0:23:35"he became aware of the faint scent coming off it.
0:23:35 > 0:23:38"Paul's scent of nutmeg and wood smoke.
0:23:38 > 0:23:42"And without thinking, he drew it to him as he never could the wearer,
0:23:42 > 0:23:45"and pressed his face deep into its age-softened fabric."
0:23:47 > 0:23:50The real challenge of that novel is to tell that story,
0:23:50 > 0:23:53about a man who is gay without having words to describe what he is.
0:23:53 > 0:23:58- Yeah.- And who then, finally, thank God, finds love,
0:23:58 > 0:23:59but that love can only survive
0:23:59 > 0:24:02because neither man actually names it for what it is...
0:24:02 > 0:24:03Yes, exactly!
0:24:03 > 0:24:07And that's an interesting point, because we live in an age now
0:24:07 > 0:24:09where being gay is an identity.
0:24:09 > 0:24:12- Yeah.- It's not what you do or how you love,
0:24:12 > 0:24:15it's very much an identity.
0:24:16 > 0:24:20Questions about the complexity of contemporary gay male identity
0:24:20 > 0:24:23are central to episode two of Patrick's drama
0:24:23 > 0:24:25Man In An Orange Shirt.
0:24:25 > 0:24:29This time, we follow the married couple's grandson -
0:24:29 > 0:24:30a troubled gay young man
0:24:30 > 0:24:33who, despite the freedoms of a more liberal age,
0:24:33 > 0:24:36is still struggling with his sexuality.
0:24:37 > 0:24:39I bet you've still not told your granny.
0:24:42 > 0:24:45Not in so many words, she's...
0:24:45 > 0:24:47She's never invited confidences.
0:24:51 > 0:24:52And you're scared she'd...
0:24:56 > 0:24:59I, um... I... I don't know.
0:24:59 > 0:25:03Is it just the romantic in me that sees the possibility
0:25:03 > 0:25:06that you almost can believe there's something happier
0:25:06 > 0:25:09about the gay couple in the 1940s
0:25:09 > 0:25:11than there is in the present day?
0:25:11 > 0:25:14My present-day gay couple are deeply, well, deeply unhappy.
0:25:14 > 0:25:15Yeah, that's what I mean.
0:25:15 > 0:25:16So, I used to just...
0:25:16 > 0:25:19But that's... No, it's just me being strict with my viewers,
0:25:19 > 0:25:21I think - the one thing you will not get from me
0:25:21 > 0:25:23is a straightforward celebration. Isn't life...
0:25:23 > 0:25:24Hurrah, we're all... We can skip.
0:25:24 > 0:25:27Because I don't... I look around me, I look at my gay friends
0:25:27 > 0:25:29who are single and trying to find love,
0:25:29 > 0:25:31and it's no easier.
0:25:31 > 0:25:34I don't think we will ever get over the tendency to self-hatred,
0:25:34 > 0:25:37because we are taught it by our parents, often unwittingly.
0:25:37 > 0:25:40Though 95% of literature and films
0:25:40 > 0:25:42are about heterosexual couples
0:25:42 > 0:25:44who seem to have exactly the same problems.
0:25:44 > 0:25:48It's not as if gay people should have expected that the moment,
0:25:48 > 0:25:51you know, decriminalization happened,
0:25:51 > 0:25:54we would all have a life of absolute perfect relationships
0:25:54 > 0:25:57because straight people have had legal relationships in all history.
0:25:57 > 0:26:00It's very true, I'm not sure it has,
0:26:00 > 0:26:04overnight, it has gone away, the sense that, deep down,
0:26:04 > 0:26:06we are not entitled to happiness.
0:26:06 > 0:26:08- No.- And in Man In An Orange Shirt,
0:26:08 > 0:26:11what I've tried to explore is that sense of a lack of entitlement,
0:26:11 > 0:26:14and the sense that, you know, that this boy,
0:26:14 > 0:26:15who, on the face of it, has everything -
0:26:15 > 0:26:17he has a really good job,
0:26:17 > 0:26:19he has Vanessa Redgrave for a grandmother,
0:26:19 > 0:26:22um, is just on a self-destructive path.
0:26:39 > 0:26:40It's OK.
0:26:41 > 0:26:42It's not OK.
0:26:45 > 0:26:46It'll be OK.
0:26:51 > 0:26:55The young generation's been born into a world where, thankfully,
0:26:55 > 0:26:57they don't have to consider themselves criminals,
0:26:57 > 0:27:00they don't have to consider themselves pariahs
0:27:00 > 0:27:02or outcasts in any way.
0:27:02 > 0:27:07Nonetheless, they have to examine, as all people do,
0:27:07 > 0:27:09the very difficult nature of love
0:27:09 > 0:27:12and responsibility and relationships.
0:27:12 > 0:27:14And I think the psychotherapeutic challenge hasn't changed.
0:27:14 > 0:27:17And the problem almost of being given your freedom,
0:27:17 > 0:27:20is that you think that means everything is fine,
0:27:20 > 0:27:22that you don't have to think any more,
0:27:22 > 0:27:24and, actually, it's the reverse.
0:27:24 > 0:27:28You're now given the responsibility of being treated like proper adults
0:27:28 > 0:27:31who have to negotiate through the very stormy seas of relationships.
0:27:31 > 0:27:33What's upsetting with the young
0:27:33 > 0:27:36is that they feel they have to pretend not to care,
0:27:36 > 0:27:41because actually, sex is the least-frightening thing about life.
0:27:41 > 0:27:44- Love is much more frightening. - Yeah.
0:27:44 > 0:27:45I want you.
0:27:48 > 0:27:51I don't do casual, I need more.
0:28:01 > 0:28:03OK.
0:28:03 > 0:28:05The beauty of this story, as you've reinterpreted it,
0:28:05 > 0:28:10is that it doesn't end in silence and poison and death,
0:28:10 > 0:28:12but that the past reaches forward to the...
0:28:12 > 0:28:14- Yeah, the past heals the present. - Yeah.
0:28:18 > 0:28:21I think young people, young gay men especially today,
0:28:21 > 0:28:24there are lessons for them to learn from the past.
0:28:24 > 0:28:28- Yeah.- Not just the obvious lessons about the HIV epidemic -
0:28:28 > 0:28:33even beyond then, to the 1940s and '30s, these amazing gay marriages
0:28:33 > 0:28:35which were hidden in plain sight.
0:28:36 > 0:28:40And I think, in the rush to grab all our freedoms,
0:28:40 > 0:28:42and to have all the fun we can,
0:28:42 > 0:28:44we need to be wary of the damage we can do
0:28:44 > 0:28:46in the name of fun.
0:28:46 > 0:28:49- Yeah.- And remember that maybe sometimes love is what's needed.
0:28:49 > 0:28:51That's a very beautiful way of putting it.