0:00:02 > 0:00:05A CONCH IS BLOWN
0:00:07 > 0:00:09OMINOUS DRUMBEAT
0:00:12 > 0:00:15" 'I got this to say, you're acting like a crowd of kids.'
0:00:15 > 0:00:18"The booing rose and died again
0:00:18 > 0:00:21"as Piggy lifted the white, magic shell.
0:00:21 > 0:00:27" 'Which is better, to be a pack of painted savages like you are
0:00:27 > 0:00:29" 'or to be sensible like Ralph is?'
0:00:29 > 0:00:33"A great clamour arose among the savages. Piggy shouted again,
0:00:33 > 0:00:38" 'Which is better, to have rules and agree or to hunt and kill?' "
0:00:38 > 0:00:40Kill the pig! Slit her throat!
0:00:40 > 0:00:42Bash her in!
0:00:42 > 0:00:46"At last, the words of the chant floated up to them
0:00:46 > 0:00:49"across the bowl of blackened wood and ashes.
0:00:49 > 0:00:53" 'Kill the pig, cut her throat, spill her blood.' "
0:00:53 > 0:00:54Kill the pig!
0:00:54 > 0:00:55HE SCREAMS
0:01:40 > 0:01:42I find it very difficult to talk here now
0:01:42 > 0:01:45because I'm watching the sea all the time.
0:01:45 > 0:01:48The sea always makes me watch it all the time.
0:01:48 > 0:01:51I've spent hours and hours, not just on the sea
0:01:51 > 0:01:54but just watching wave after wave come in.
0:01:56 > 0:01:58If it's an image of anything,
0:01:58 > 0:02:01I think it's...
0:02:01 > 0:02:05an image of our unconscious,
0:02:05 > 0:02:07the unconscious of our own minds
0:02:07 > 0:02:10or you could say, I suppose you could put it the other way round
0:02:10 > 0:02:13and that is that we have a sea in us.
0:02:13 > 0:02:15After all, we are sea creatures
0:02:15 > 0:02:17that learnt to walk on the land, are we not?
0:02:17 > 0:02:22And perhaps one way and another, we go back to it.
0:02:22 > 0:02:24Every night when we dream,
0:02:24 > 0:02:27we go back into that kind of depth
0:02:27 > 0:02:30and that kind of beauty
0:02:30 > 0:02:33and monstrosity, and, um...
0:02:33 > 0:02:35mystery.
0:02:38 > 0:02:42So, really, the sea is not a single image,
0:02:42 > 0:02:47it can really image almost anything that the human mind can discover.
0:03:22 > 0:03:24He died in this house.
0:03:24 > 0:03:28He died, in fact, in what was then my brother's room, David's room.
0:03:30 > 0:03:33I'm afraid he had got rather drunk.
0:03:33 > 0:03:37And we think he'd got up in the middle of the night
0:03:37 > 0:03:40and sat on...
0:03:40 > 0:03:43a sofa, we know he was sitting on the sofa,
0:03:43 > 0:03:46and the sofa faces one of these great big windows
0:03:46 > 0:03:47that we have here
0:03:47 > 0:03:48and it faces east.
0:03:48 > 0:03:50And it was midsummer.
0:03:50 > 0:03:53It was the 19th of June 1993.
0:03:56 > 0:04:00And I think he must have seen the sun coming up
0:04:00 > 0:04:03behind the trees there.
0:04:03 > 0:04:05And ironically, although this is Cornwall
0:04:05 > 0:04:07where he was an old man...
0:04:08 > 0:04:11..the trees there are beech trees,
0:04:11 > 0:04:16as there were in Savernake Forest near Marlborough
0:04:16 > 0:04:18where he lived as a child.
0:04:18 > 0:04:19And so, in a curious way,
0:04:19 > 0:04:23in his death, I think you could see him
0:04:23 > 0:04:25as coming around full circle.
0:04:29 > 0:04:31"And then quite suddenly,
0:04:31 > 0:04:33"he knew he was not alone.
0:04:35 > 0:04:38"It was not that he saw or heard a presence.
0:04:38 > 0:04:43"He felt it, like the warmth of a fire at his back,
0:04:43 > 0:04:46"powerful and gentle at the same time.
0:04:47 > 0:04:51"And so immediate was the pressure of that personality
0:04:51 > 0:04:53"it might have been in his very spine.
0:04:55 > 0:04:57"He bent his head in terror,
0:04:57 > 0:04:59"hardly breathing.
0:04:59 > 0:05:03"He allowed the presence to do what it would.
0:05:03 > 0:05:07" 'I am here,' the presence seemed to say."
0:05:07 > 0:05:10" 'Do nothing, we are here.' "
0:05:16 > 0:05:21He was very strange, I think, in his relationship with reality.
0:05:22 > 0:05:27Very early on, he was taken out to Savernake Forest
0:05:27 > 0:05:29near Marlborough by his parents
0:05:29 > 0:05:32and they were playing around, he was little,
0:05:32 > 0:05:35and they pretended to hide behind a tree
0:05:35 > 0:05:38at the end of the walk, and he suddenly found himself alone
0:05:38 > 0:05:39and looked up,
0:05:39 > 0:05:43and glaring at him over the brushwood
0:05:43 > 0:05:45was a huge stag
0:05:45 > 0:05:46which he knew, he says,
0:05:46 > 0:05:48he knew wasn't a real stag,
0:05:48 > 0:05:50was something else, something other.
0:05:52 > 0:05:55Right to the end of his life,
0:05:55 > 0:05:58he believed in the other.
0:06:03 > 0:06:06William Golding emerged as a writer in the 1950s
0:06:06 > 0:06:10with a series of astonishingly original novels.
0:06:10 > 0:06:13Their subjects include a group of schoolboys
0:06:13 > 0:06:16stranded on a tropical island,
0:06:16 > 0:06:20the final days of Neanderthal man,
0:06:20 > 0:06:23a sailor marooned on a rock in the middle of the Atlantic,
0:06:23 > 0:06:28a talented artist consumed by his own ruthless ambition
0:06:28 > 0:06:32and the building of a spire on a mediaeval cathedral.
0:06:32 > 0:06:36But they are all expressions of a unique and powerful imagination.
0:06:39 > 0:06:44"Lok looked away over the river to forget his hunger.
0:06:44 > 0:06:46"He flared his nostrils
0:06:46 > 0:06:51"and immediately was rewarded with a whole mixture of smells
0:06:51 > 0:06:55"for the mist from the fall magnified any smell incredibly,
0:06:55 > 0:07:00as rain will deepen and distinguish the colours of a field of flowers.
0:07:00 > 0:07:04"There were the smells of the people too, individual,
0:07:04 > 0:07:09"but each engaged to the smell of the muddy path where they had been."
0:07:14 > 0:07:17Golding couldn't be alone at night, even with the light on.
0:07:17 > 0:07:20He says he was terrified, would have to rush upstairs
0:07:20 > 0:07:22and lie beside Ann and hear her breathing
0:07:22 > 0:07:24and know that it was all right.
0:07:24 > 0:07:27If he went into a room at night,
0:07:27 > 0:07:30he said he had to throw the door open very loudly
0:07:30 > 0:07:33so that anything that was inside
0:07:33 > 0:07:35would be warned and go away.
0:07:40 > 0:07:43"But before I could close the door,
0:07:43 > 0:07:47"the incorrigible schoolmaster in him had called me back.
0:07:47 > 0:07:50"I tell you something which may be of value.
0:07:50 > 0:07:55"I believe it to be true and powerful - therefore dangerous.
0:07:55 > 0:07:59"If you want something enough, you can always get it,
0:07:59 > 0:08:04"provided you are willing to make the appropriate sacrifice,
0:08:04 > 0:08:07"something, anything.
0:08:07 > 0:08:11"But what you get is never quite what you thought
0:08:11 > 0:08:16"and sooner or later, the sacrifice is always regretted."
0:08:18 > 0:08:20SCHOOL BELL RINGS
0:08:21 > 0:08:25Golding went on to win the Nobel Prize
0:08:25 > 0:08:29but when his first novel was published in 1954,
0:08:29 > 0:08:31he was already 43 years old
0:08:31 > 0:08:33and working as a teacher
0:08:33 > 0:08:36at Bishop Wordsworth's School in Salisbury.
0:08:38 > 0:08:39- Morning.- Good morning, sir.
0:08:39 > 0:08:42Right, sit down, please.
0:08:42 > 0:08:44Now, how far have we got?
0:08:44 > 0:08:47- Act Two, Scene One, sir. - Right, lend me a book, somebody.
0:08:47 > 0:08:50'He was a scruff and he was known as Scruff.'
0:08:50 > 0:08:53Right, come up and show us what you can do.
0:08:53 > 0:08:57'And in the Junior Six, I was a member of the Bishop's Players'
0:08:57 > 0:08:58and he produced a play
0:08:58 > 0:09:02and I was one of those who was one of his actors.
0:09:03 > 0:09:05By the time I had him,
0:09:05 > 0:09:09Lord of the Flies had just been published.
0:09:09 > 0:09:11I think earlier in his career in the school,
0:09:11 > 0:09:15he may have had some input and done something,
0:09:15 > 0:09:18but I think by the time he first published that,
0:09:18 > 0:09:21'I think he then had lost all interest in teaching.'
0:09:21 > 0:09:24My recollections are that
0:09:24 > 0:09:28he gave you an exercise book and told you to write
0:09:28 > 0:09:30and he did his own thing.
0:09:30 > 0:09:34Or he told you to read a chapter and he did his own thing.
0:09:35 > 0:09:37Now, our first focus today
0:09:37 > 0:09:40is on the work you've done on the island
0:09:40 > 0:09:43and I've looked at your maps.
0:09:43 > 0:09:47A quick reminder, somebody, when do the boys realise it's an island
0:09:47 > 0:09:50- though they've sussed it out? Nick? - When they go to the top
0:09:50 > 0:09:52of the mountain, the three of them,
0:09:52 > 0:09:56- and they look around and it's, like, boat-shaped.- Yep, boat-shaped.
0:09:57 > 0:10:01The coral was scribbled in the sea as though a giant had bent down
0:10:01 > 0:10:05to reproduce the shape of the island in a flowing chalk line
0:10:05 > 0:10:07but tired before he had finished.
0:10:16 > 0:10:19WILLIAM GOLDING: I've always been puzzled
0:10:19 > 0:10:24and I am still at this moment, I am in a state of confusion
0:10:24 > 0:10:28between the imaginative world and the real world.
0:10:31 > 0:10:37It is perfectly true to say that I have, sometimes in my life,
0:10:37 > 0:10:40found that the imaginative world
0:10:40 > 0:10:44had pushed the real world right out of the way,
0:10:44 > 0:10:46was literally more real.
0:10:53 > 0:10:55"The boy with fair hair
0:10:55 > 0:10:57"lowered himself down the last few feet of rock
0:10:57 > 0:11:01"and began to pick his way towards the lagoon.
0:11:01 > 0:11:04"And though he had taken off his school sweater
0:11:04 > 0:11:06"and trailed it now from one hand,
0:11:06 > 0:11:08"his grey shirt stuck to him
0:11:08 > 0:11:11"and his hair was plastered to his forehead.
0:11:11 > 0:11:15"He was clambering heavily among the creepers and broken trunks
0:11:15 > 0:11:17"when a bird, a vision of red and yellow,
0:11:17 > 0:11:21"flashed upwards with a witch-like cry.
0:11:21 > 0:11:22"The fair boy stopped,
0:11:22 > 0:11:25"and jerked his stockings with an automatic gesture
0:11:25 > 0:11:29"that made the jungle seem for a moment like the Home Counties."
0:11:35 > 0:11:38We were living in a council flat at the time
0:11:38 > 0:11:41in a converted Victorian house, my wife and I,
0:11:41 > 0:11:43and we'd just put the children to bed
0:11:43 > 0:11:46and pretty exhausting it had proved to be.
0:11:46 > 0:11:50And I'd been reading - well, we'd both been reading to them offhand,
0:11:50 > 0:11:53Cannibal Island, Treasure Island, Coral Island,
0:11:53 > 0:11:57anybody's island, Pirate Island, islands, islands,
0:11:57 > 0:11:59islands incorporated, really.
0:12:00 > 0:12:04And I said to her, "Wouldn't it be a good idea
0:12:04 > 0:12:08"to write a book about what actually would happen to children
0:12:08 > 0:12:11"if they found themselves alone on an island?"
0:12:11 > 0:12:14And my wife said, "That's a first-class idea, you write it."
0:12:21 > 0:12:25"The rock struck Piggy a glancing blow from chin to knee.
0:12:25 > 0:12:30"The conch exploded into a thousand white fragments and ceased to exist.
0:12:31 > 0:12:35"Piggy, saying nothing, with no time for even a grunt,
0:12:35 > 0:12:38"travelled through the air sideways from the rock,
0:12:38 > 0:12:41"turning over as he went.
0:12:41 > 0:12:43"The rock bounded twice and was lost in the forest.
0:12:43 > 0:12:46"Piggy fell 40 feet
0:12:46 > 0:12:50"and landed on his back across that square red rock in the sea.
0:12:50 > 0:12:54"His head opened and stuff came out and turned red.
0:12:54 > 0:12:56"Piggy's arms and legs twitched a bit,
0:12:56 > 0:12:59"like a pig's after it has been killed.
0:12:59 > 0:13:03"Then the sea breathed again in a long, slow sigh,
0:13:03 > 0:13:06"the water boiled white and pink over the rock,
0:13:06 > 0:13:11"and when it went, sucking back again, the body of Piggy was gone."
0:13:22 > 0:13:24Is this how it was when you were a boy?
0:13:24 > 0:13:26Much the same sort of houses?
0:13:26 > 0:13:28The houses were the same...
0:13:28 > 0:13:30Golding grew up in Marlborough,
0:13:30 > 0:13:35an old market town in the middle of rural Wiltshire.
0:13:35 > 0:13:37And you used to sleep in that room?
0:13:37 > 0:13:39When I was a very small boy, I slept in there.
0:13:39 > 0:13:42I was sent to bed early in the evenings,
0:13:42 > 0:13:45the way nice children were in those days. But the nasty children,
0:13:45 > 0:13:49the ruffian sort with shirts sticking out of their trousers and that,
0:13:49 > 0:13:51used to play around here on the green.
0:13:51 > 0:13:54Did you ever feel like escaping and joining the ruffians
0:13:54 > 0:13:55or did you know your place?
0:13:55 > 0:13:57I knew my place.
0:13:57 > 0:14:00I'm not really adventurous, socially.
0:14:00 > 0:14:03I knew I was one of us and they were one of them,
0:14:03 > 0:14:04and the terrible thing was
0:14:04 > 0:14:08that "us" didn't really extend any further than the house
0:14:08 > 0:14:10so really, we had no place.
0:14:10 > 0:14:13MUSIC: "SOUTH BANK SHOW" THEME
0:14:13 > 0:14:18It took a bit to persuade him to do it, and it was very difficult
0:14:18 > 0:14:19because I came to him at a time
0:14:19 > 0:14:23when he'd just been through a big depression, savage depression
0:14:23 > 0:14:25which I knew only a little about.
0:14:25 > 0:14:28I wasn't aware of its size when I met him.
0:14:28 > 0:14:30I went down to the house near Salisbury
0:14:30 > 0:14:33and he couldn't have been more charming
0:14:33 > 0:14:35and Ann, his wife, was wonderful.
0:14:35 > 0:14:36And we got colossally drunk,
0:14:36 > 0:14:40which seemed to be part of what he wanted to do. I didn't mind either.
0:14:40 > 0:14:42And then, those were the days,
0:14:42 > 0:14:46he drove me back to Salisbury, drunk as a skunk.
0:14:46 > 0:14:49'He's always been a rather strange writer, nothing to do
0:14:49 > 0:14:53'with the contemporary cliques and claques of English fiction,'
0:14:53 > 0:14:57almost a hermit scholar looking for meanings, telling his stories,
0:14:57 > 0:15:00'but full of sharp wit and social observation when he needed it.'
0:15:00 > 0:15:02I think he saw himself as a scholar.
0:15:02 > 0:15:05As you know, he'd been a school teacher, he had a real interest
0:15:05 > 0:15:08in ancient civilisations, particularly Greek and Roman.
0:15:08 > 0:15:11And the novels are rifted with scholarship.
0:15:16 > 0:15:19Golding and his older brother, Jose,
0:15:19 > 0:15:22were both pupils at the local grammar school,
0:15:22 > 0:15:25where their father, Alec, was one of the teachers.
0:15:26 > 0:15:31His father was a scientist - brilliant scientist, actually,
0:15:31 > 0:15:35though he never got beyond being the science master at Marlborough.
0:15:35 > 0:15:37And he was an atheist
0:15:37 > 0:15:40and indeed, brought Golding up rather strictly as an atheist.
0:15:42 > 0:15:45And on the other hand, there was the mother,
0:15:45 > 0:15:48who believed in all sorts of spooks and ghosts.
0:15:49 > 0:15:53Golding was very aware that his father was lower middle-class
0:15:53 > 0:15:56and he was aware of it particularly because in Marlborough,
0:15:56 > 0:16:00at one end of the street was Marlborough College,
0:16:00 > 0:16:02one of the great public schools of England.
0:16:02 > 0:16:05At the other end was Marlborough Grammar School
0:16:05 > 0:16:08where his father taught and Golding attended.
0:16:08 > 0:16:10And Golding resented it greatly.
0:16:10 > 0:16:13He says how he was filled with envy and hatred.
0:16:14 > 0:16:15He never got over it.
0:16:15 > 0:16:19It's one of the things his dreams are full of.
0:16:23 > 0:16:26"December the 13th, 1971.
0:16:28 > 0:16:31"This dream takes place for the most part
0:16:31 > 0:16:34"in the dining room of 29 The Green, Marlborough.
0:16:34 > 0:16:37"Jose is there, but he is not Jose.
0:16:37 > 0:16:40"For one thing, he is about a foot taller than me
0:16:40 > 0:16:42"and I believe him to be infinitely stronger.
0:16:42 > 0:16:45"He has got hold of a baby
0:16:45 > 0:16:48"and he is laughing at it, at me, at everything.
0:16:48 > 0:16:49"He also has a knife.
0:16:51 > 0:16:54"He pulls the baby out until its arms are stretched
0:16:54 > 0:16:57"and fixed in the attitude of crucifixion.
0:16:57 > 0:17:01"He begins to work on the hands and fingers,
0:17:01 > 0:17:05"dissecting them into patterns while the baby wails and cries.
0:17:05 > 0:17:07"I am terrified and revolted.
0:17:07 > 0:17:12"Either I can do nothing or I am too frightened to do anything."
0:17:16 > 0:17:19He had a great capacity for seeing wickedness in himself
0:17:19 > 0:17:22and, of course, drawing on that wickedness.
0:17:22 > 0:17:26I think he used the consciousness of what he might have done
0:17:26 > 0:17:28to write his books.
0:17:28 > 0:17:30And perhaps, in that way,
0:17:30 > 0:17:34he felt he was keeping this other person in its cage.
0:17:43 > 0:17:46In 1930, at the age of 19,
0:17:46 > 0:17:50Golding went up to Brasenose College, Oxford
0:17:50 > 0:17:54where he was the only grammar school boy in his year.
0:17:54 > 0:17:57He went along to the University Appointments Committee,
0:17:57 > 0:18:00you go to that in your last year
0:18:00 > 0:18:03and they tell you where your career may lie.
0:18:03 > 0:18:07And the notes of the chap interviewing him
0:18:07 > 0:18:12say that he is not top drawer, NTD,
0:18:12 > 0:18:13and not quite a gentleman,
0:18:13 > 0:18:17and would be all right for a day school but not a public school.
0:18:17 > 0:18:19So that was their estimate of him
0:18:19 > 0:18:22and he knew that that's how he was regarded
0:18:22 > 0:18:26by fellow students, not only by the dons.
0:18:37 > 0:18:41"She came down the stairs and stood
0:18:41 > 0:18:43"and there was nothing to do but look,
0:18:43 > 0:18:45"nothing needing to be said.
0:18:47 > 0:18:52"She took a scarf, her father's, I think, and we went out together.
0:18:52 > 0:18:55"We went to a blackened-out pub and sat hand in hand,
0:18:55 > 0:18:59"both stunned by this overwhelming sense of recognition.
0:19:00 > 0:19:03"We kissed then and there in public
0:19:03 > 0:19:05"without shame or bravado,
0:19:05 > 0:19:08"because although people stood within a yard of us,
0:19:08 > 0:19:10"we were alone.
0:19:13 > 0:19:17"And we both recognised, without a moment's doubt,
0:19:17 > 0:19:20"that we should never let each other go."
0:19:24 > 0:19:28He went to Maidstone for his first teaching job,
0:19:28 > 0:19:29Maidstone Grammar School.
0:19:30 > 0:19:33And there he met Ann, his wife.
0:19:34 > 0:19:37They met in a left book club meeting in London.
0:19:39 > 0:19:40He always says, you know,
0:19:40 > 0:19:44"Do tell me absolutely what you think about it."
0:19:44 > 0:19:46And I do.
0:19:46 > 0:19:51And then I get into fierce trouble for saying something critical.
0:19:51 > 0:19:55And he goes away and he mutters and he looks it over
0:19:55 > 0:19:59and finally he does, most often, agree.
0:20:16 > 0:20:20The Goldings were married in 1939
0:20:20 > 0:20:23and their son, David, was born the following year.
0:20:27 > 0:20:30I think he was a very good father in things
0:20:30 > 0:20:33because he didn't do the wrong things.
0:20:33 > 0:20:34I mean, he didn't bully you.
0:20:34 > 0:20:38Although he did think he had bullied me at a certain time
0:20:38 > 0:20:41when I was very young,
0:20:41 > 0:20:45that he tried to sort of make a man of me or something
0:20:45 > 0:20:49when I was a bit young to be made a man of, I thought.
0:20:51 > 0:20:55I mean, he took me sailing and taught me how to sail and so on.
0:20:55 > 0:21:00I shared his feeling that sailing was a very important thing.
0:21:02 > 0:21:03When he was a student at Oxford,
0:21:03 > 0:21:06David had a major mental breakdown
0:21:06 > 0:21:09from which he has never fully recovered.
0:21:09 > 0:21:14I think I've always had some sort of biochemical problem.
0:21:14 > 0:21:18When my mother was carrying me in her womb,
0:21:18 > 0:21:21she had German measles.
0:21:21 > 0:21:23That probably affected me.
0:21:23 > 0:21:27I mean, she did say later that...
0:21:27 > 0:21:31in these days, probably I would have had an abortion
0:21:31 > 0:21:33if that had happened,
0:21:33 > 0:21:36and I'm glad that she didn't.
0:21:36 > 0:21:39- So am I.- Thank you! Thank you.
0:21:48 > 0:21:50Three months after David was born,
0:21:50 > 0:21:54Golding joined the Navy, and saw active service throughout the war.
0:21:58 > 0:22:01"I came up out of my cabin at about 0800
0:22:01 > 0:22:05"when Walcheren and Westkapelle light were in sight.
0:22:05 > 0:22:08"The rest of the assault was proceeding in,
0:22:08 > 0:22:10"about a mile on my starboard bow,
0:22:10 > 0:22:14"with the landing craft stretching astern.
0:22:14 > 0:22:17"The first shell made my heart beat quickly
0:22:17 > 0:22:20"and I tried to stop my teeth chattering,
0:22:20 > 0:22:24"because now I knew it wasn't going to be an easy assault.
0:22:25 > 0:22:29"The radar began to show up assault craft and Westkapelle
0:22:29 > 0:22:33"and finally I decided to cut loose and run in.
0:22:33 > 0:22:35"Odd shells were dropping here and there.
0:22:35 > 0:22:38"I was feeling unhappy but fairly fatalistic.
0:22:38 > 0:22:42"I was worried about the obvious balls-up the rockets were making."
0:22:45 > 0:22:49In 1944, Golding captained a rocket ship
0:22:49 > 0:22:51during one of the bloodiest operations of the entire war,
0:22:51 > 0:22:55the assault on the Dutch island of Walcheren.
0:22:56 > 0:22:58The island was heavily defended
0:22:58 > 0:23:02because it controlled access to the major port of Antwerp.
0:23:06 > 0:23:08'This attack was one of the grimmest of the whole war.
0:23:08 > 0:23:12'Heavy enemy shelling met the landing craft, and many were lost.
0:23:12 > 0:23:15'Our Typhoons dived on the Hun
0:23:15 > 0:23:17'and blasted him with rockets.
0:23:17 > 0:23:20'Rocket-firing ships poured murderous fire in defenders' positions
0:23:20 > 0:23:24'while our smoke ships laid a covering screen.'
0:23:25 > 0:23:27When the bombardment began,
0:23:27 > 0:23:31Golding realised that the other Allied ships had made a mistake
0:23:31 > 0:23:36and their rockets were exploding amongst their own troops.
0:23:36 > 0:23:38A couple of ships were sunk.
0:23:39 > 0:23:42Also the coast wasn't bombarded, except by Dad,
0:23:42 > 0:23:47who continued on in a sort of, rather Nelsonic way.
0:23:50 > 0:23:54Dad managed to drop the rockets
0:23:54 > 0:23:57just in advance of the marines.
0:23:57 > 0:24:00They were the first people ashore.
0:24:04 > 0:24:06It was rather tragic because
0:24:06 > 0:24:11Dad had been informed that the Germans had evacuated the civilians
0:24:11 > 0:24:13and, in fact, they hadn't evacuated the civilians.
0:24:13 > 0:24:16So a lot of civilians got killed.
0:24:16 > 0:24:18That must have haunted Dad, I think.
0:24:19 > 0:24:21He never forgot that.
0:24:21 > 0:24:24He never forgot the people who'd been killed
0:24:24 > 0:24:29and he never forgot the fact that he'd actually killed civilians too,
0:24:29 > 0:24:33killed the nice Dutch people, who hadn't done any harm to anyone.
0:24:36 > 0:24:39At the going down of the sun,
0:24:39 > 0:24:41and in the morning,
0:24:41 > 0:24:43we will remember them.
0:24:43 > 0:24:46- ALL:- We will remember them.
0:24:54 > 0:24:58You've said that the Second World War changed your attitude
0:24:58 > 0:25:00towards human beings and towards human nature.
0:25:00 > 0:25:03Can you tell us how it changed it?
0:25:03 > 0:25:05It simply changed because, bit by bit,
0:25:05 > 0:25:09we discovered what the Nazis had been doing.
0:25:11 > 0:25:15Here was this highly civilised race of people
0:25:15 > 0:25:17who were doing, one gradually found out,
0:25:17 > 0:25:21impossible things. I remember, in those days, saying to myself,
0:25:21 > 0:25:24"Yes, well, I have a Nazi inside me.
0:25:24 > 0:25:28"Given the right circumstances, I could have been a Nazi."
0:25:28 > 0:25:32But bit by bit, as I discovered more and more
0:25:32 > 0:25:35what had gone on, that really changed my view
0:25:35 > 0:25:38of what people were capable of
0:25:38 > 0:25:41and therefore what human nature was.
0:25:41 > 0:25:43So that political nostrums, if you like,
0:25:43 > 0:25:46seemed to me just to fall flat on their face
0:25:46 > 0:25:51in front of this capacity man had for a sort of absolute evil.
0:25:54 > 0:25:55What did he say?
0:25:55 > 0:25:57He says there's a beast,
0:25:57 > 0:25:59comes out of the sea.
0:26:02 > 0:26:04"Jack spoke loudly.
0:26:04 > 0:26:07" 'This head is for the beast.
0:26:07 > 0:26:10" 'It's a gift.'
0:26:10 > 0:26:13"The silence accepted the gift and awed them.
0:26:13 > 0:26:17"The head remained there, dim-eyed, grinning faintly,
0:26:17 > 0:26:20"blood blackening between the teeth.
0:26:20 > 0:26:24"All at once, they were running away, as fast as they could
0:26:24 > 0:26:28"through the forest towards the open beach.
0:26:28 > 0:26:30"Simon stayed where he was,
0:26:30 > 0:26:34"a small, brown image, concealed by the leaves.
0:26:34 > 0:26:35"Even if he shut his eyes,
0:26:35 > 0:26:39"the sow's head still remained, like an after image.
0:26:39 > 0:26:45"The half-shut eyes were dim with the infinite cynicism of adult life.
0:26:45 > 0:26:47"They assured Simon that everything was a bad business."
0:26:49 > 0:26:52The whole book is posing a question.
0:26:54 > 0:26:57You think you've won a war.
0:26:57 > 0:26:59What you've done is finished a war.
0:26:59 > 0:27:03There was a crime committed in that war,
0:27:03 > 0:27:06the like of which, perhaps, was never committed
0:27:06 > 0:27:09in human history
0:27:09 > 0:27:12and you've got to do something about it.
0:27:14 > 0:27:16"Ralph looked at him dumbly.
0:27:16 > 0:27:20"For a moment he had a fleeting picture of the strange glamour
0:27:20 > 0:27:22"that had once invested the beaches.
0:27:22 > 0:27:27"But the island was scorched up like dead wood.
0:27:27 > 0:27:29"Simon was dead and Jack had...
0:27:29 > 0:27:32"The tears had begun to flow and sobs shook him.
0:27:32 > 0:27:36"He gave himself up to them now for the first time on the island,
0:27:36 > 0:27:40"great shuddering spasms of grief that seemed to wrench his whole body.
0:27:40 > 0:27:44"His voice rose unto the black smoke before the burning wreckage of the island."
0:27:44 > 0:27:47"And infected by that emotion,
0:27:47 > 0:27:50"the other little boys began to shake and sob too.
0:27:50 > 0:27:54"And in the middle of them with filthy body, matted hair
0:27:54 > 0:27:56"and unwiped nose,
0:27:56 > 0:27:59"Ralph wept for the end of innocence,
0:27:59 > 0:28:03"the darkness of man's heart and the fall through the air
0:28:03 > 0:28:06"of the true, wise friend called Piggy."
0:28:13 > 0:28:16It's really hard to read that without crying.
0:28:16 > 0:28:20It's an incredible piece of prose, because...
0:28:20 > 0:28:24"unwiped nose"... it's a child, suddenly,
0:28:24 > 0:28:26and yet he'd been a man a moment before.
0:28:26 > 0:28:31There's no sentimentality, but the "true, wise friend"... it's really...
0:28:31 > 0:28:33It's almost the first time he's realised
0:28:33 > 0:28:36what a value Piggy was to him.
0:28:36 > 0:28:38And he doesn't get gushes of emotions,
0:28:38 > 0:28:40he gets two adjectives - true, wise friend.
0:28:44 > 0:28:47'I think it's absolutely crucial to Lord of the Flies
0:28:47 > 0:28:50'that it couldn't have been written by someone who wasn't a schoolmaster,
0:28:50 > 0:28:52'because he knew boys.
0:28:52 > 0:28:55'He saw how boys behaved day in and day out.'
0:28:55 > 0:28:58OK, I want to start with the conch
0:28:58 > 0:29:02because that's almost the first thing that's picked up, so Tom and Elliot...
0:29:02 > 0:29:05Piggy's death and the conch's...
0:29:05 > 0:29:08being smashed is the same time.
0:29:08 > 0:29:10This kind of represents...
0:29:10 > 0:29:11..the end of civilisation.
0:29:11 > 0:29:13Excellent. Let Tom finish on that one,
0:29:13 > 0:29:16that's a really good canter there, excellent.
0:29:16 > 0:29:20When this happens it shows the complete end of civilisation and laws and order
0:29:20 > 0:29:22because Piggy, towards the end of the book,
0:29:22 > 0:29:25was the only one keeping law and order.
0:29:25 > 0:29:27So when he dies and when the conch is shattered
0:29:27 > 0:29:30which throughout the book, was representing it,
0:29:30 > 0:29:33it shows that they've all sort of turned into savage
0:29:33 > 0:29:36- and don't really represent anything anymore.- Yeah.
0:29:36 > 0:29:38It's interesting the way it changes
0:29:38 > 0:29:42from being a means of signalling and calling to something completely different
0:29:42 > 0:29:44in their assemblies,
0:29:44 > 0:29:47- almost like a mace or something ceremonial, doesn't it?- Yeah.
0:29:50 > 0:29:53When he came out of the Navy,
0:29:53 > 0:29:57Golding returned to teaching at Bishop Wordsworth's School.
0:29:57 > 0:30:00But he wrote whenever he could, even in lessons,
0:30:00 > 0:30:04and much of Lord Of The Flies was written in school time
0:30:04 > 0:30:06in a standard-issue exercise book.
0:30:14 > 0:30:18So this is the manuscript of Lord Of The Flies.
0:30:18 > 0:30:22He used these exercise books for a lot of his early work.
0:30:22 > 0:30:25He, I think, abstracted them from the school store.
0:30:25 > 0:30:31He wrote, as you'll see, tiny writing,
0:30:31 > 0:30:37which flows over the ruled lines of the exercise book.
0:30:37 > 0:30:42And he added in notes, as you'll see, in red biro,
0:30:42 > 0:30:46"schoolmaster's biro", he used to call it,
0:30:46 > 0:30:50as if he was marking schoolboys' essays.
0:30:52 > 0:30:56In 1953, Golding sent his novel to nine publishers,
0:30:56 > 0:30:59all of whom rejected it.
0:30:59 > 0:31:04Undaunted, he offered the manuscript to Faber and Faber,
0:31:04 > 0:31:06one of the most prestigious London firms,
0:31:06 > 0:31:10whose directors included the poet TS Eliot.
0:31:10 > 0:31:13Crawley, I think you didn't like it.
0:31:13 > 0:31:15I'm not really opposed to publication,
0:31:15 > 0:31:19just doubtful of its reception by the English-speaking people.
0:31:19 > 0:31:22I was a very, very junior editor,
0:31:22 > 0:31:25I'd have only been in Fabers for a matter of a few months at this time,
0:31:25 > 0:31:29but already there was one particular sort of thing I could spot,
0:31:29 > 0:31:32and that was a tired, weather-beaten old manuscript,
0:31:32 > 0:31:36that had been around to a lot of publishers before it reached us.
0:31:36 > 0:31:39And this was very much that.
0:31:39 > 0:31:42It was a large, yellowing manuscript,
0:31:42 > 0:31:46bound in rather depressing hairy brown cardboard.
0:31:46 > 0:31:48And there was a short, formal covering letter.
0:31:48 > 0:31:52Miss Parkinson had written her little note on that already.
0:31:52 > 0:31:56This is the comment made by the professional reader
0:31:56 > 0:31:58that Fabers employed.
0:31:58 > 0:32:00And she says, "Time - the future,
0:32:00 > 0:32:04"absurd and uninteresting fantasy
0:32:04 > 0:32:07"about the explosion of an atom bomb on the Colonies.
0:32:07 > 0:32:13"A group of children who land in jungle country near New Guinea.
0:32:13 > 0:32:16"Rubbish and dull. Pointless."
0:32:16 > 0:32:20And then she puts an R for "Reject" in a circle.
0:32:24 > 0:32:28Charles Monteith decided to take the manuscript home
0:32:28 > 0:32:30and was captivated by Golding's story.
0:32:31 > 0:32:35He persuaded Faber and Faber to publish the book
0:32:35 > 0:32:39on condition that Golding made some significant changes to the text.
0:32:40 > 0:32:44This first version is drastically different
0:32:44 > 0:32:47from the Lord of the Flies most people have read.
0:32:47 > 0:32:49This is a religious novel.
0:32:49 > 0:32:53He says he underwent a religious convulsion
0:32:53 > 0:32:57and he came out of the war deeply religious.
0:32:57 > 0:33:00When Charles Monteith of Fabers
0:33:00 > 0:33:03rescued this novel from the slush pile,
0:33:03 > 0:33:06he thought, "All this must go. All the supernatural stuff must go."
0:33:06 > 0:33:09And Golding concedes, concedes, concedes,
0:33:09 > 0:33:14until what came out is a novel that is secular,
0:33:14 > 0:33:17it's not assuming any supernatural intervention.
0:33:20 > 0:33:23CHOIR SINGS
0:33:26 > 0:33:30There was Golding, that was me, so we were at either end of the...
0:33:30 > 0:33:32I was the school organist.
0:33:32 > 0:33:34So, you know, I used to play
0:33:34 > 0:33:37every day and he used to come every day.
0:33:37 > 0:33:39He was a very loyal member of the choir.
0:33:41 > 0:33:46I used to go and practise the organ up at St Martin's, just up the road.
0:33:46 > 0:33:48I used to go up to that church
0:33:48 > 0:33:52and I would suddenly find that Golding was there,
0:33:52 > 0:33:56on his knees, praying, alone.
0:33:56 > 0:33:59And that wasn't just one occasion, many occasions.
0:33:59 > 0:34:02That made a great impression on me.
0:34:02 > 0:34:06I recognised that there was a man for whom religion was really important.
0:34:08 > 0:34:12When I was growing up, he was definitely Christian.
0:34:12 > 0:34:15We went to church, he took me to the cathedral,
0:34:15 > 0:34:19told me not to swing my legs and behave properly.
0:34:19 > 0:34:24But there was also the sense that they were places of mystery,
0:34:24 > 0:34:26and not always completely safe places.
0:34:26 > 0:34:30I think he gave me the idea that a church was full of...
0:34:30 > 0:34:34dark thoughts, as well as spiritual thoughts.
0:34:34 > 0:34:37Golding's Christianity was a very odd thing.
0:34:37 > 0:34:40I mean he was never an orthodox Christian, that's for sure.
0:34:40 > 0:34:44There were various bits of Christianity he hated.
0:34:44 > 0:34:47A friend said to him once, "Have you ever taken the sacrament?"
0:34:47 > 0:34:49He said, "I'd be sick."
0:34:49 > 0:34:52He said that the crucifixion should never be depicted.
0:34:52 > 0:34:56"It's a horror to be veiled", he said.
0:34:56 > 0:34:59SCHOOL BELL RINGS
0:34:59 > 0:35:03Although Lord Of The Flies received good reviews
0:35:03 > 0:35:07and Golding was recognised as a striking new talent,
0:35:07 > 0:35:10he couldn't afford to give up teaching
0:35:10 > 0:35:13and had to continue with an exhausting daily routine.
0:35:13 > 0:35:19He came in with proofs, typewritten pages,
0:35:19 > 0:35:21and he'd hand them out to you.
0:35:21 > 0:35:24And he said, "I don't want you to read these,
0:35:24 > 0:35:26"I just want you to count the words."
0:35:26 > 0:35:29And then you had to put in pencil how many words
0:35:29 > 0:35:31were on the page and hand them over to somebody else.
0:35:31 > 0:35:34And then you got another one so you could check.
0:35:34 > 0:35:38And it was certainly The Inheritors, the one that I was looking at,
0:35:38 > 0:35:41because it was all about cavemen.
0:35:50 > 0:35:52"He looked at the water,
0:35:52 > 0:35:55"then at each of the people in turn,
0:35:55 > 0:35:56"and they waited.
0:35:58 > 0:36:00" 'I have a picture' ".
0:36:00 > 0:36:04"He freed a hand and put it flat on his head as if confining the images
0:36:04 > 0:36:07"that flickered there.
0:36:07 > 0:36:10" 'Mal is not old
0:36:10 > 0:36:12" 'but clinging to his mother's back.
0:36:13 > 0:36:15" 'There is more water,
0:36:15 > 0:36:17" 'not only here, but along the trail where we came.
0:36:17 > 0:36:20" 'A man is wise.
0:36:20 > 0:36:24" 'He makes me take a tree that has fallen and...' "
0:36:24 > 0:36:28"his eyes, deep in their hollows, turn to the people
0:36:28 > 0:36:32"imploring them to share a picture with him.
0:36:32 > 0:36:35"At last, Ha spoke.
0:36:35 > 0:36:37" 'I do not see this picture.' "
0:36:41 > 0:36:43I read the first page and I remember saying to myself,
0:36:43 > 0:36:48"Oh, my God, first it was schoolboys, now it's bloody cavemen!"
0:36:48 > 0:36:50Of course The Inheritors, I think, is his best book.
0:36:50 > 0:36:52And I think he thought so, too.
0:36:55 > 0:36:57Together with his love of classical literature,
0:36:57 > 0:37:00Golding had a deep interest in archaeology
0:37:00 > 0:37:03and often visited the digs that were taking place
0:37:03 > 0:37:06in his part of Wiltshire,
0:37:06 > 0:37:09which is littered with prehistoric sites.
0:37:10 > 0:37:13His second novel, The Inheritors,
0:37:13 > 0:37:16focuses on a small band of Neanderthals
0:37:16 > 0:37:19who encounter an unknown new species, Homo sapiens,
0:37:19 > 0:37:22and are gradually exterminated.
0:37:24 > 0:37:28He tries to enter the mind,
0:37:28 > 0:37:32if you can use that word, of a pre-mind creature.
0:37:32 > 0:37:35And he didn't follow what most people
0:37:35 > 0:37:38thought about Neanderthals at that time at all.
0:37:38 > 0:37:40Most people thought Neanderthals hadn't got language
0:37:40 > 0:37:43and most people still think that.
0:37:43 > 0:37:45He thought they had a kind of language.
0:37:45 > 0:37:50He gave his Neanderthals the ability to see pictures
0:37:50 > 0:37:52in each other's minds and in their own minds.
0:37:52 > 0:37:54"I cannot see that picture,"
0:37:54 > 0:37:57they say to each other if they don't understand.
0:37:57 > 0:38:02These Neanderthals are wonderfully sensitive to the external world.
0:38:02 > 0:38:05They sort of think in metaphors if they think at all,
0:38:05 > 0:38:09and he's got to put that it into language which, of course, is impossible, really.
0:38:09 > 0:38:12So he invents, he makes a new language,
0:38:12 > 0:38:15goes inside a mode of apprehension
0:38:15 > 0:38:18of the world which is quite unlike anything we have.
0:38:22 > 0:38:26"They were as different from the group of bold hunters
0:38:26 > 0:38:30"and magicians who had sailed up the river towards the fall,
0:38:30 > 0:38:34"as a soaked feather is from a dry one.
0:38:34 > 0:38:38"Restlessly, he turned the ivory in his hands.
0:38:38 > 0:38:42"What was the use of sharpening it against a man?
0:38:42 > 0:38:47"Who would sharpen a point against the darkness of the world?"
0:38:51 > 0:38:55The questions he was...puzzled by, I think,
0:38:55 > 0:38:58were questions to do with the fragility of goodness,
0:38:58 > 0:39:02why is it fragile, why does it suddenly break down?
0:39:03 > 0:39:07He worked out these questions in the form of modern myths,
0:39:07 > 0:39:11in other words, stories full of images
0:39:11 > 0:39:15which contain a great deal of meaning which is latent,
0:39:15 > 0:39:20rather than expressed in any simple propositions or arguments.
0:39:20 > 0:39:25They're like the myths of religion but different from them.
0:39:25 > 0:39:29So, for example, the myth that is embodied in The Inheritors
0:39:29 > 0:39:33is set in the context not of a biblical story or religious story
0:39:33 > 0:39:38but in the context of an evolutionary biological
0:39:38 > 0:39:41understanding of the prehistory of the human animal.
0:39:42 > 0:39:48I think the tragic aspect of Golding's myth
0:39:48 > 0:39:51is that the Neanderthals, in some sense,
0:39:51 > 0:39:54intuited their fate
0:39:54 > 0:39:57and knew that it couldn't be avoided.
0:40:00 > 0:40:03I think it is a very sympathetic account
0:40:03 > 0:40:07of how it would have felt to be a Neanderthal at this particular point,
0:40:07 > 0:40:13that is, as we now know almost at the end of their existence,
0:40:13 > 0:40:17possibly the last group which died out
0:40:17 > 0:40:22in the face of these incoming alien modern humans.
0:40:22 > 0:40:25So that's what makes it so poignant.
0:40:39 > 0:40:41In the 1950s,
0:40:41 > 0:40:44Golding bought a series of sailing boats
0:40:44 > 0:40:47in which the family would spend their holidays,
0:40:47 > 0:40:50sailing along the south coast and across the Channel to France.
0:40:55 > 0:41:00Well, the first boat was Seahorse, which was a lifeboat.
0:41:00 > 0:41:04Well, the first year we sailed off in that.
0:41:05 > 0:41:07After he'd converted her,
0:41:07 > 0:41:12put a deck and a cabin on, and we felt that was a luxury.
0:41:13 > 0:41:15It wasn't even like camping,
0:41:15 > 0:41:18it was just much worse because you couldn't get out and walk.
0:41:19 > 0:41:23It was the most extraordinary adventure to take up.
0:41:24 > 0:41:26'Another shipping forecast
0:41:26 > 0:41:32'issued by the Met Office at 2343 on Saturday 18th.
0:41:32 > 0:41:34'Rockall, westerly veering north westerly,
0:41:34 > 0:41:39'seven to severe gale nine, decreasing, five. Showers...'
0:41:39 > 0:41:43"He eyed the peculiar shapes that lay across the trousers
0:41:43 > 0:41:48"indifferently for a while until at last it occurred to him
0:41:48 > 0:41:52"how strange it was that lobsters should sit there.
0:41:52 > 0:41:56"Then he was suddenly seized with a terrible loathing for lobsters
0:41:56 > 0:41:59"and flung them away so that they cracked on the rock.
0:41:59 > 0:42:04"The dull pain of the blow extended him into them again
0:42:04 > 0:42:06"and they became his hands,
0:42:06 > 0:42:10"lying, discarded, where he had tossed them.
0:42:13 > 0:42:18Pincher Martin is one of Golding's strangest books
0:42:18 > 0:42:23because, of course, except through memory it only has one protagonist
0:42:23 > 0:42:28who's even more radically isolated than the schoolboys on the island.
0:42:31 > 0:42:35Pincher Martin, Golding's experimental third novel,
0:42:35 > 0:42:39is about a sailor who is stranded on a rock in the Atlantic
0:42:39 > 0:42:43after his ship has been sunk by an enemy submarine.
0:42:43 > 0:42:46The self-absorbed central character appears to look back
0:42:46 > 0:42:52over his previous life and the book is both a moral investigation
0:42:52 > 0:42:55and an hallucinogenic account of physical isolation.
0:42:58 > 0:43:02Golding is struggling with how human beings represent their lives
0:43:02 > 0:43:07to themselves and how it's very difficult to tell the difference
0:43:07 > 0:43:09between a dream of a life
0:43:09 > 0:43:11and the actual life that has been lived.
0:43:14 > 0:43:16Is it actually a work of the imagination?
0:43:16 > 0:43:18And that there's actually nothing else but,
0:43:18 > 0:43:20if there are meanings in human life,
0:43:20 > 0:43:23it's simply a successful exercise in the imagination?
0:43:26 > 0:43:30In Pincher Martin, the rock is more than a rock in the sea
0:43:30 > 0:43:33or a struggle for a man's survival on this rock,
0:43:33 > 0:43:35it has other implications.
0:43:35 > 0:43:37Pincher Martin isn't about a man
0:43:37 > 0:43:39who tries to survive by climbing on a rock.
0:43:39 > 0:43:42It is, in fact, about a man who dies on page two.
0:43:42 > 0:43:45I made him die very deliberately on page two,
0:43:45 > 0:43:47and the rest of the book,
0:43:47 > 0:43:50right up to the last chapter, is in fact about the man in purgatory.
0:43:53 > 0:43:56Because he is a very wicked man
0:43:56 > 0:43:59who has no kind of religious experience at all,
0:43:59 > 0:44:04he can't see the compassion of God.
0:44:04 > 0:44:08And all the time he's hanging on, he is greed, sheer wickedness,
0:44:08 > 0:44:11unless finally he is nothing but claws clutched into each other.
0:44:11 > 0:44:15And that is still there resisting this black lightning
0:44:15 > 0:44:17which is the compassion of God trying to open them up
0:44:17 > 0:44:20and really trying to take them away,
0:44:20 > 0:44:23trying to take all the pincher structure away.
0:44:30 > 0:44:35Here are some recurrent nightmares.
0:44:37 > 0:44:43On 27th January, his second dream is "I am going to be hanged,"
0:44:43 > 0:44:47and then his third dream, again, "I am going to be hanged."
0:44:49 > 0:44:51Dream number two, "I am going to be hanged.
0:44:51 > 0:44:56"In the event, I help myself to die by slumping to my knees
0:44:56 > 0:44:59"and experience an immediate
0:44:59 > 0:45:02"and satisfactory state of nothingness."
0:45:04 > 0:45:07"Dream ego," that's his word for having a dream.
0:45:07 > 0:45:12"Dream ego has his recurrent nightmare, he is to be hanged
0:45:12 > 0:45:15"and, as usual, is under no sort of restraint whatsoever."
0:45:17 > 0:45:20There is one particular dream where his father is the executioner.
0:45:20 > 0:45:25And there's another dream where his father has come across the world to see him hanged.
0:45:26 > 0:45:28"Comment, my recurrent dream
0:45:28 > 0:45:31"may be the result of drinking too much.
0:45:31 > 0:45:32"Guilt, in a word."
0:45:35 > 0:45:39Well, he would get drunk and he wouldn't get jollily drunk,
0:45:39 > 0:45:42he'd get rather, sort of, morosely drunk.
0:45:42 > 0:45:45After a while, he would drink it as if he disliked it,
0:45:45 > 0:45:48as if it was evil tasting medicine.
0:45:48 > 0:45:53And I even caught him once pouring bottles of wine down the sink
0:45:53 > 0:45:57in an attempt to get rid of this sort of loathsome substance.
0:45:57 > 0:46:01I mean, he had enormous resources of self loathing anyway.
0:46:01 > 0:46:05Sometimes, it would just go over the edge
0:46:05 > 0:46:08and it would be horrible.
0:46:19 > 0:46:22"In a flash of vision,
0:46:22 > 0:46:24"he saw how other feet would cut their track
0:46:24 > 0:46:26"arrow-straight towards the city,
0:46:26 > 0:46:30"understood how the tower was laying a hand on the whole landscape,
0:46:30 > 0:46:34"altering it, dominating it, enforcing a pattern that reached
0:46:34 > 0:46:39"wherever the tower could be seen by sheer force of its being there.
0:46:41 > 0:46:45"He swung round the horizon and saw how true his vision was.
0:46:45 > 0:46:47"There were new tracks, people in parties
0:46:47 > 0:46:52"making their way sturdily between bushes and through heather.
0:46:52 > 0:46:57"The countryside was shrugging itself obediently into a new shape.
0:46:57 > 0:47:00"Presently, with this great finger sticking up,
0:47:00 > 0:47:04"the city would lie like the hub at the centre of a predestined wheel.
0:47:04 > 0:47:10"New Street, New Inn, New Wharf, New Bridge,
0:47:10 > 0:47:14"and now new roads to bring in new people."
0:47:19 > 0:47:22The Spire, Golding's fifth novel,
0:47:22 > 0:47:26is about a medieval Dean called Jocelyn who has a vision
0:47:26 > 0:47:31which compels him to build a huge steeple on top of his cathedral.
0:47:31 > 0:47:35The physical impossibility of the project doesn't deter him
0:47:35 > 0:47:39and he sacrifices everything to achieve his dream.
0:47:43 > 0:47:45The Spire...
0:47:45 > 0:47:49is a novel about the building of Salisbury Cathedral spire
0:47:49 > 0:47:53and that was a thing he looked at every day from his classroom window.
0:47:55 > 0:47:57When I was teaching and had it in the window
0:47:57 > 0:48:01over those bowed heads, I was always puzzled by it.
0:48:01 > 0:48:04It's obviously possible because there it is,
0:48:04 > 0:48:09but given what technical means were possible at the time,
0:48:09 > 0:48:12that's in the 13th century,
0:48:12 > 0:48:15it seemed to be nearly impossible, anyway,
0:48:15 > 0:48:18and I would... I wanted to find out
0:48:18 > 0:48:22what kind of people would do it.
0:48:26 > 0:48:30When you turned your mind to finding out, you didn't read old records
0:48:30 > 0:48:32or look up the actual people who had done it,
0:48:32 > 0:48:35- you went about it your own way? - You can't find it out
0:48:35 > 0:48:38because there's no manuals on how to build a gothic cathedral.
0:48:38 > 0:48:41I said to myself, "What would these people have?"
0:48:41 > 0:48:44And the answer is, of course, they'd have blocks and tackles.
0:48:44 > 0:48:47Well, I knew about seamen ship.
0:48:47 > 0:48:50So I said to myself, "How would sailors set about
0:48:50 > 0:48:55"putting this thing up?" And I got at it from that point of view.
0:48:55 > 0:48:57So, as far as I know,
0:48:57 > 0:49:00the whole thing is an invention from beginning to end
0:49:00 > 0:49:03but it seems to work and people believe it.
0:49:06 > 0:49:11"The whole building revealed itself to me.
0:49:11 > 0:49:13"The whole building spoke.
0:49:13 > 0:49:16" 'We are labour,' said the walls.
0:49:16 > 0:49:19"The ogival windows clasped their hands and sang,
0:49:19 > 0:49:21" 'We are prayer.'
0:49:22 > 0:49:26"And the trinity over the triangular roof...
0:49:26 > 0:49:28"But how shall I say it?
0:49:28 > 0:49:31"I had tried to give away my house
0:49:31 > 0:49:35"and it had returned to me a thousand fold."
0:49:39 > 0:49:40He presents in The Spire
0:49:40 > 0:49:43this character called Dean Jocelyn
0:49:43 > 0:49:46who builds the spire - he is responsible for planning it, getting the money.
0:49:46 > 0:49:49And what is Jocelyn motivated by
0:49:49 > 0:49:55is the great question of the novel. Is he motivated by egotism? Yes.
0:49:56 > 0:50:00A kind of sublimated sexuality? Yes.
0:50:00 > 0:50:04Or worship?
0:50:04 > 0:50:05Yes, as well.
0:50:06 > 0:50:10So, he's questioning, through Jocelyn, himself, I think.
0:50:10 > 0:50:14And I think that's when it comes, at this quite crucial time
0:50:14 > 0:50:19in his life when he is just about to start being a full-time writer.
0:50:22 > 0:50:30I wanted to conceive the kind of man who would say "This must be done."
0:50:31 > 0:50:34And would not know at the beginning
0:50:34 > 0:50:37that even if God had told him to do this,
0:50:37 > 0:50:41nevertheless the cost was going to be his life
0:50:41 > 0:50:43and probably other people's lives, too.
0:50:43 > 0:50:50I still think it's a good image almost of any human endeavour,
0:50:50 > 0:50:53that it can never be wholly good, it must always have a cost in people.
0:50:58 > 0:51:01Jocelyn was a fanatic, was he not?
0:51:01 > 0:51:04We are in the presence of religious fanaticism.
0:51:06 > 0:51:08We see what it can do.
0:51:09 > 0:51:15Its cost in suffering and death and sorrow is...is immeasurable.
0:51:18 > 0:51:20"I thought it would be simple.
0:51:21 > 0:51:24"I thought the spire would complete a stone bible,
0:51:24 > 0:51:27"it would be the apocalypse in stone.
0:51:27 > 0:51:29"I never guessed in my folly
0:51:29 > 0:51:32"that there would be a new lesson at every level and a new power.
0:51:32 > 0:51:36"Nor could I have been told. I had to build in faith against advice,
0:51:36 > 0:51:40"that's the only way, that when you build like this,
0:51:40 > 0:51:45"men blunt like a poor chisel or fly off like the head of an axe.
0:51:46 > 0:51:50"I was too taken up with my vision to consider this.
0:51:50 > 0:51:52"And the vision was enough."
0:51:58 > 0:52:01He just has captured what happens
0:52:01 > 0:52:06when a vision gets so mixed up with self-aggrandisement,
0:52:06 > 0:52:09when somebody so lacks self-awareness,
0:52:09 > 0:52:14that actually they and their project become one.
0:52:14 > 0:52:19And so what we have is a perfect description,
0:52:19 > 0:52:22not just of Deans, but of any human venture,
0:52:22 > 0:52:26where a leader loses track of their own humility.
0:52:28 > 0:52:34We should distrust the voice that tells us that we are right
0:52:34 > 0:52:36and everybody else is wrong.
0:52:43 > 0:52:46'I have always been a great admirer of Golding's talent
0:52:46 > 0:52:49'but this is a very, very, very bad book.'
0:52:49 > 0:52:52'I happen to agree, only more.
0:52:52 > 0:52:55'I heard the word gothic mentioned a couple of times
0:52:55 > 0:52:57but this is all mock gothic.'
0:52:57 > 0:52:59The Spire came out, I think, in April
0:52:59 > 0:53:05and quite soon afterwards, there was a radio review of it.
0:53:05 > 0:53:07And one of the people on the panel
0:53:07 > 0:53:11had really taken against the book.
0:53:11 > 0:53:14'The writer sometimes seems to be using the dark ages
0:53:14 > 0:53:16'as an excuse for extravagance.'
0:53:16 > 0:53:19'I was much more revolted by the book's excesses.
0:53:19 > 0:53:23'I believe an American reviewer has already said of this book,
0:53:23 > 0:53:25'that it touches the "Wuthering" depths...'
0:53:25 > 0:53:27HE LAUGHS
0:53:27 > 0:53:29We were all sitting around in the sitting room
0:53:29 > 0:53:31in our cottage in Wiltshire,
0:53:31 > 0:53:36and my father, I'd never seen him so emotional.
0:53:36 > 0:53:39He turned absolutely white and crashed out of the room.
0:53:40 > 0:53:44'I think it is a bad book because I find its symbolism crude.
0:53:44 > 0:53:48'I find the sexual undertone of spire building very, very badly managed.
0:53:48 > 0:53:50'Very pervasive, very disagreeable.'
0:53:52 > 0:53:55And my mother started swearing
0:53:55 > 0:53:58and I have never heard her swear like that.
0:53:58 > 0:54:01But I think it frightened my father.
0:54:01 > 0:54:03I think it had an effect
0:54:03 > 0:54:07on his ability to be confident in his imagination,
0:54:07 > 0:54:14and perhaps even to be confident in my mother's judgement.
0:54:14 > 0:54:16So...this shook him,
0:54:16 > 0:54:18this really shook him.
0:54:30 > 0:54:34"He opened his eyes quickly and there was the head,
0:54:34 > 0:54:37"grinning amusedly in the strange daylight, ignoring the flies,
0:54:37 > 0:54:40"the spilled guts,
0:54:40 > 0:54:42"even ignoring the indignity
0:54:42 > 0:54:43"of being spiked on a stick."
0:54:45 > 0:54:48"He looked away, licking his dry lips.
0:54:48 > 0:54:50"A gift for the beast,
0:54:50 > 0:54:52"might not the beast come for it?
0:54:52 > 0:54:55"The head, he thought, appeared to agree with him.
0:54:55 > 0:55:00" 'Run away,' said the head silently, 'Go back to the others.' "
0:55:04 > 0:55:08Although Lord of the Flies had been a critical success
0:55:08 > 0:55:11it wasn't until the publication of the American edition,
0:55:11 > 0:55:14and particularly the paperback in 1959,
0:55:14 > 0:55:18that Golding became an international bestseller
0:55:18 > 0:55:20and started to earn large amounts in royalties.
0:55:22 > 0:55:27Lord of the Flies has since sold more than 40 million copies.
0:55:31 > 0:55:33Well, I grew up a in a little town called Durham, Maine,
0:55:33 > 0:55:38and at that time, the State of Maine had a bookmobile service,
0:55:38 > 0:55:40it was a mobile library.
0:55:40 > 0:55:46And one day I said to the lady who drove the bookmobile,
0:55:46 > 0:55:51"Do you have anything about kids the way that kids really are?"
0:55:51 > 0:55:53And she thought a little bit about it and she said,
0:55:53 > 0:55:55"Well, there's one book
0:55:55 > 0:55:57"and it's called Lord of the Flies,
0:55:57 > 0:56:00"but if anyone asks you where you got it,
0:56:00 > 0:56:04"say you found it on your own because I might lose my job.
0:56:04 > 0:56:06"That's an adult book."
0:56:06 > 0:56:09And I thought, "Hmm, an adult book about kids."
0:56:09 > 0:56:14And I was completely riveted by the story from the very beginning
0:56:14 > 0:56:19because it was like a boy's story, the ones that I was accustomed to.
0:56:19 > 0:56:23The difference was the boys were real boys.
0:56:23 > 0:56:26They acted the way that I understood boys acted.
0:56:28 > 0:56:30You guys are assholes!
0:56:31 > 0:56:34"At last, the words of the chant floated up to them
0:56:34 > 0:56:38"across the bowl of blackened wood and ashes,
0:56:38 > 0:56:41" 'Kill the pig, cut her throat, spill her blood.' "
0:56:42 > 0:56:46You have to put things in context, too,
0:56:46 > 0:56:48of the time when I read those lines.
0:56:49 > 0:56:51It would have been 1960,
0:56:51 > 0:56:55around the time that Kennedy became President
0:56:55 > 0:57:00and the civil rights unrest was beginning in the south.
0:57:00 > 0:57:03And we saw on the nightly news
0:57:03 > 0:57:06police turning dogs on people
0:57:06 > 0:57:08who just wanted to ride the bus.
0:57:08 > 0:57:11MUSIC: "Scarborough Fair" by Simon & Garfunkel
0:57:15 > 0:57:20The Vietnam War made the book seem even more relevant.
0:57:20 > 0:57:24It acquired a cult status amongst young people in America
0:57:24 > 0:57:26and Golding became a '60s phenomenon.
0:57:31 > 0:57:34We knew that there was bad stuff there.
0:57:34 > 0:57:37And I think that, past a certain age, most kids do.
0:57:37 > 0:57:40And you look for somebody to explain it to you.
0:57:40 > 0:57:44And that's one of the things that the Golding book did.
0:57:44 > 0:57:47It explained it to me. It didn't preach, I didn't need that,
0:57:47 > 0:57:50but stories, stories that illuminated. That was valuable
0:57:50 > 0:57:52and I grabbed that with both hands.
0:57:52 > 0:57:55So, in that sense, it was comforting.
0:57:55 > 0:57:57It was the idea that somebody else understands.
0:58:06 > 0:58:13# Are you going to Scarborough fair
0:58:14 > 0:58:21# Parsley, sage rosemary and thyme
0:58:23 > 0:58:30# Remember me to the one who lives there
0:58:30 > 0:58:38# She once was a true love of mine... #
0:58:38 > 0:58:41For 30 years, the Goldings lived in Bowerchalke,
0:58:41 > 0:58:44an idyllic Wiltshire village just outside Salisbury.
0:58:48 > 0:58:52"I am small and in the garden at Marlborough.
0:58:52 > 0:58:56"It is twilight. There is a live snake in the garden
0:58:56 > 0:58:59"which seems to me about five feet long
0:58:59 > 0:59:01"and thick as my arm.
0:59:01 > 0:59:06"I hold it firmly close behind the head with my left hand,
0:59:06 > 0:59:09"since I am left-handed. The snake writhes and struggles,
0:59:09 > 0:59:13"but I know it cannot bite or sting me so long as I hold it just so.
0:59:15 > 0:59:17"Somehow the affair changes.
0:59:17 > 0:59:20"I am examining a dark hole in the garden
0:59:20 > 0:59:24"and the snake is inside, its head now resting in the entrance."
0:59:24 > 0:59:27I mean, you know, he doesn't bother to say,
0:59:27 > 0:59:31"This is just so amazingly Freudian I don't know what to do about it."
0:59:38 > 0:59:40I think it was 1966.
0:59:41 > 0:59:45My father received a letter from an American graduate student,
0:59:45 > 0:59:47a woman,
0:59:47 > 0:59:53saying she was studying his work and would like to talk to him.
0:59:53 > 0:59:55And he got lots of these letters
0:59:55 > 0:59:59and, mostly, he said, "No."
0:59:59 > 1:00:05This time he said no politely and she was much more persistent.
1:00:08 > 1:00:10I wrote him a letter.
1:00:10 > 1:00:13I got a response and he told me, yes, that he would see me.
1:00:13 > 1:00:17I could take the train up to Salisbury
1:00:17 > 1:00:19and he would give me lunch in a pub
1:00:19 > 1:00:22and he would be sitting in his Rover,
1:00:22 > 1:00:25and he wrote out the licence number.
1:00:30 > 1:00:35And we went to a pub for lunch and then we talked.
1:00:35 > 1:00:39I think the two of us were both very nervous, I certainly was.
1:00:39 > 1:00:43And then he took me to Old Sarum and he took me to Stonehenge.
1:00:46 > 1:00:51This was a very big thing in both my parents' lives.
1:00:51 > 1:00:55Virginia was a very attractive, very intelligent,
1:00:55 > 1:00:57very sympathetic person.
1:00:57 > 1:01:00Very interested in his writing,
1:01:00 > 1:01:04somebody I think my father wanted to be friends with.
1:01:04 > 1:01:09But I think it would be misleading
1:01:09 > 1:01:12if I didn't acknowledge that he also,
1:01:12 > 1:01:16at some layer, at some degree,
1:01:16 > 1:01:18I think he fell in love with her.
1:01:26 > 1:01:30Was he infatuated with a young Virginia Tiger?
1:01:30 > 1:01:34Was he smitten with a young Virginia Tiger, to use an English phrase?
1:01:34 > 1:01:37Was he besotted with a young Virginia Tiger,
1:01:37 > 1:01:40to use something that might be used in France or Italy
1:01:40 > 1:01:42or one of those wicked places?
1:01:42 > 1:01:44I would say, yes, he must have been.
1:01:44 > 1:01:47There must have been that interest.
1:01:47 > 1:01:50We were not lovers, although it was thought that...
1:01:50 > 1:01:53I'm sure that Ann thought that might have been a possibility.
1:01:53 > 1:01:57We were not lovers. We were very, very good friends.
1:02:01 > 1:02:04"We had one of those interminable, reasonable conversations
1:02:04 > 1:02:07"about the relationship between men and women.
1:02:07 > 1:02:10"One would not be jealous.
1:02:10 > 1:02:13"One would understand enjoyment taken with a third person.
1:02:13 > 1:02:16"Nothing was permanent, nothing was more than relative.
1:02:16 > 1:02:21"Sex was a private business, sex was a clinical matter
1:02:21 > 1:02:25"and contraception had removed the need for orthodox family life.
1:02:25 > 1:02:28"And then suddenly we were clinging to each other
1:02:28 > 1:02:31"as though we were the only stable thing in an earthquake."
1:02:34 > 1:02:37You have to remember that I was young,
1:02:37 > 1:02:40certainly smart, and attractive.
1:02:40 > 1:02:44So she made it very uncomfortable for me.
1:02:44 > 1:02:49I think, er... I think she didn't like me.
1:02:49 > 1:02:51I'm sure she didn't like me.
1:02:51 > 1:02:56Ann was deeply, deeply resentful and jealous
1:02:56 > 1:03:00because she thought that she was the person who shared his creative life,
1:03:00 > 1:03:04of course, and had shared his creative life, still did.
1:03:04 > 1:03:06So yeah, it was a very bad moment for the marriage
1:03:06 > 1:03:09and in some sense didn't heal.
1:03:13 > 1:03:17Golding's preferred means of escape was to go to sea.
1:03:17 > 1:03:21In 1966, he used some of his new-found wealth
1:03:21 > 1:03:25to buy a glamorous Dutch racing yacht called Tenace
1:03:25 > 1:03:30in which he planned to sail through the canals of France to Greece.
1:03:31 > 1:03:33It was 1967
1:03:33 > 1:03:38and we set sail on this tremendous boat.
1:03:38 > 1:03:42We were sailing through lightish fog
1:03:42 > 1:03:44when suddenly...
1:03:44 > 1:03:47I mean, it was most extraordinary.
1:03:47 > 1:03:49Part of the fog seemed to get thicker.
1:03:58 > 1:04:02And then we realised it was the bow of a huge ship.
1:04:02 > 1:04:07It was an enormous freighter and it wasn't very far away
1:04:07 > 1:04:09and it was coming straight for us.
1:04:10 > 1:04:13And my father put the boat about
1:04:13 > 1:04:16and we just glanced
1:04:16 > 1:04:19down the side of this boat
1:04:19 > 1:04:22and water started to come in.
1:04:22 > 1:04:25And I think it very likely that we would have drowned.
1:04:26 > 1:04:30Then we saw that somebody on the boat had seen us.
1:04:30 > 1:04:35They went round in a huge circle and came back and found us again.
1:04:41 > 1:04:44It affected both my parents terribly strongly.
1:04:44 > 1:04:46My mother instantly became very ill.
1:04:46 > 1:04:51My father became fantastically depressed
1:04:51 > 1:04:56and I think it's easy to see why.
1:04:56 > 1:05:02He was a sailor, that was one of the defining aspects of him, I think.
1:05:02 > 1:05:05And if you're a sailor and a captain
1:05:05 > 1:05:07and you lose your ship...
1:05:09 > 1:05:12That's a very crushing disgrace.
1:05:16 > 1:05:20I was able to see him after that.
1:05:20 > 1:05:23We were in a pub in London
1:05:23 > 1:05:28and he looked up at a lovely barmaid
1:05:28 > 1:05:34and remembered lines from Eliot's The Love Song Of J. Alfred Prufrock.
1:05:34 > 1:05:36And these are...
1:05:36 > 1:05:39"We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
1:05:39 > 1:05:42"By sea girls wreathed
1:05:42 > 1:05:46"With seaweed, red and brown,
1:05:46 > 1:05:49"Till human voices wake us and we drown."
1:05:52 > 1:05:55I would think that we were in correspondence
1:05:55 > 1:05:58less and less over five years.
1:05:58 > 1:06:03I think that Ann felt it had gone on, the correspondence had gone on
1:06:03 > 1:06:05too long and that that should stop.
1:06:11 > 1:06:15"I find it difficult to decide when the crisis began.
1:06:15 > 1:06:18"But by 1971, it was unendurable.
1:06:18 > 1:06:22"Not only did life seem pointless,
1:06:22 > 1:06:25"there was a kind of raw intensity about daylight perception
1:06:25 > 1:06:28"that could not be endured.
1:06:28 > 1:06:32"On top of that, there was an insomniac length to every night
1:06:32 > 1:06:34"when each second had its own weight,
1:06:34 > 1:06:40"its tiny addition like a Chinese water torture.
1:06:40 > 1:06:46"The remedy for this, of course, was drink - the old, old anodyne.
1:06:46 > 1:06:48"I do not now remember how many times
1:06:48 > 1:06:50"I was dead drunk in this period."
1:06:52 > 1:06:56I think part of the depression, really,
1:06:56 > 1:07:00was simply that he didn't have enough structure around him.
1:07:00 > 1:07:02He'd had this terrifying school day
1:07:02 > 1:07:05and he'd wrote books in it very successfully.
1:07:05 > 1:07:09I mean, I think he missed that and he missed the contact certainly.
1:07:09 > 1:07:12And it's a bit of a mistake a lot of the time
1:07:12 > 1:07:14for writers to shut themselves away.
1:07:15 > 1:07:18After the Tenace was sunk in 1967,
1:07:18 > 1:07:22Golding wouldn't write another novel for more than ten years.
1:07:25 > 1:07:28He had quit the job as a teacher.
1:07:28 > 1:07:30He was living and working at home.
1:07:30 > 1:07:32But Ann was also not working outside the home.
1:07:32 > 1:07:36There were occasional moments when the two of them would disappear
1:07:36 > 1:07:39and it was known they were talking about Bill's writing.
1:07:39 > 1:07:42But also in the early '70s, this was a period
1:07:42 > 1:07:45when he was having a lot of trouble writing.
1:07:45 > 1:07:49So in a sense of... The absolutely verboten question was,
1:07:49 > 1:07:51"Are you writing something now?"
1:07:51 > 1:07:54You know, "Would you like to talk about it?"
1:07:56 > 1:08:00"Once or twice I was drunk for more than a day.
1:08:00 > 1:08:03"I said unforgivable things to Ann and pulled her about
1:08:03 > 1:08:07"on at least three occasions.
1:08:07 > 1:08:09"The rawness of daylight pushed at me.
1:08:09 > 1:08:12"The presence of David exasperated me.
1:08:14 > 1:08:18"My inability to write fretted me and I drank."
1:08:22 > 1:08:28Another source of Golding's distress was his son David's mental illness.
1:08:28 > 1:08:32Although David went to Oxford, he found university very stressful
1:08:32 > 1:08:35and his behaviour became increasingly unstable.
1:08:37 > 1:08:41My tutor at Brasenose
1:08:41 > 1:08:44offered to let me have a year off
1:08:44 > 1:08:48and go to the Warneford Hospital in Oxford,
1:08:48 > 1:08:51but I rejected that.
1:08:51 > 1:08:54I felt I had to face this
1:08:54 > 1:09:00and go through the normal process of an undergraduate.
1:09:00 > 1:09:03But, later, it got worse.
1:09:04 > 1:09:08I think it really hit about 1968,
1:09:08 > 1:09:12because that's a year I really don't remember much about.
1:09:12 > 1:09:16I know things were happening which I should've been interested in,
1:09:16 > 1:09:20like the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Soviet Union.
1:09:24 > 1:09:27For my parents to have a child
1:09:27 > 1:09:31with a real severe, lifelong mental illness
1:09:31 > 1:09:34was, I think, their great tragedy.
1:09:39 > 1:09:42"The figure was a child,
1:09:42 > 1:09:45"drawing nearer.
1:09:45 > 1:09:50"He was naked and the miles of light lit him variously.
1:09:50 > 1:09:53"A child's stride is quick,
1:09:53 > 1:09:56"but this child walked down the very middle of the street
1:09:56 > 1:09:58"with a kind of ritual gait
1:09:58 > 1:10:02"that in an adult would have been called solemn.
1:10:03 > 1:10:06"His face was so swollen he could only glimpse
1:10:06 > 1:10:09"where he was going through the merest of slits.
1:10:10 > 1:10:14"It was perhaps something animal that was directing him
1:10:14 > 1:10:17"away from the place where the world was being consumed.
1:10:17 > 1:10:21"Perhaps it was luck, good or bad,
1:10:21 > 1:10:25"that kept him pacing in the one direction where he might survive."
1:10:29 > 1:10:32I think that Darkness Visible is Golding's reaction
1:10:32 > 1:10:35to what had happened to David.
1:10:37 > 1:10:42He said that there were two novels he had tried to portray a saint in.
1:10:42 > 1:10:45One was Simon in Lord of the Flies,
1:10:45 > 1:10:48the other was Matty in Darkness Visible.
1:10:50 > 1:10:53He was writing a novel about the Blitz
1:10:53 > 1:10:57and a child who walks naked out of a firestorm.
1:10:57 > 1:10:59It can't have happened.
1:10:59 > 1:11:03This is the kind of firestorm that melts metal.
1:11:03 > 1:11:07Eventually, after very strange adventures,
1:11:07 > 1:11:11the kind that happen to a sort of religious maniac,
1:11:11 > 1:11:14he develops a relationship with spirits
1:11:14 > 1:11:17who tell him that he's to be sacrificed.
1:11:19 > 1:11:23I think that Darkness Visible is a kind of homage to David.
1:11:23 > 1:11:27David was very religious. Became a Catholic,
1:11:27 > 1:11:29gave away his possessions.
1:11:29 > 1:11:31Saintly boy.
1:11:31 > 1:11:35And I think this novel is an attempt to come to terms with
1:11:35 > 1:11:40and see what is great in David.
1:11:43 > 1:11:46Sometime this year, my brother said to me,
1:11:46 > 1:11:49"Of course, you know, I think Matty is me, really."
1:11:49 > 1:11:53And I was, um...surprised,
1:11:53 > 1:11:55but, in a sense, relieved,
1:11:55 > 1:11:58because that means it's OK to discuss it now.
1:11:58 > 1:12:02I think there's a huge link between Matty and David,
1:12:02 > 1:12:05and I think there's also a link between Matty and my father.
1:12:05 > 1:12:12My own feeling, having watched David through these terrible vicissitudes,
1:12:12 > 1:12:16is that his mind is quite similar to my father's,
1:12:16 > 1:12:20and his imaginative capacity is quite similar,
1:12:20 > 1:12:25but something has just tipped it too far that way.
1:12:25 > 1:12:28Whereas I think my father's imagination,
1:12:28 > 1:12:33which is often quite touch and go
1:12:33 > 1:12:36on the "is he sane, is he mad" front...
1:12:37 > 1:12:42..it just manages to walk the line in between it.
1:12:45 > 1:12:49'We're now alerted to the dangers of an uncontrolled use of pesticides.
1:12:49 > 1:12:53'Traces of DDT have even been found in the fat of penguins
1:12:53 > 1:12:57'and it took Professor Lovelock's electron absorption detector
1:12:57 > 1:13:00'to spot the minute, although important, quantities involved.'
1:13:01 > 1:13:07We both of us walked from our homes to the village post office.
1:13:08 > 1:13:12And we would start talking to each other in the way you do,
1:13:12 > 1:13:14in a village like Bowerchalke,
1:13:14 > 1:13:19and that led to exchange of all sorts of views.
1:13:20 > 1:13:25We talked about it, and in a sense it was a joint thing.
1:13:26 > 1:13:31The earth is a system made up of all of the rocks,
1:13:31 > 1:13:35the ocean and the atmosphere and all of the living things,
1:13:35 > 1:13:40working together to form a self-regulating entity
1:13:40 > 1:13:44that keeps its climate and chemical composition always
1:13:44 > 1:13:46so that the planet is habitable.
1:13:46 > 1:13:49In other words, big as it is,
1:13:49 > 1:13:52it's still behaving as if it were something alive.
1:13:54 > 1:13:58And Bill said, "If you're going to come up with a grand idea like that,
1:13:58 > 1:14:02"you better give it a good name." So I said, "What would you suggest?"
1:14:02 > 1:14:07He said, "I'd call it Gaia, the Greek name for the earth's goddess."
1:14:16 > 1:14:20"Now we, if not in the spirit,
1:14:20 > 1:14:22"have been caught up to see our earth,
1:14:22 > 1:14:29"our mother, Gaia Mater, set like a jewel in space.
1:14:29 > 1:14:34"We have no excuse now for supposing her riches inexhaustible
1:14:34 > 1:14:38"nor the area we have to live on limitless, because unbounded.
1:14:40 > 1:14:45"We are the children of that great blue, white jewel.
1:14:45 > 1:14:51"Through our mother, we are part of the solar system and part,
1:14:51 > 1:14:55"through that, of the whole universe.
1:14:55 > 1:15:00"In the blazing poetry of the fact, we are the children of the stars."
1:15:04 > 1:15:06In October 1983,
1:15:06 > 1:15:11Golding was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature,
1:15:11 > 1:15:15the first English writer to receive it since Winston Churchill in 1953.
1:15:17 > 1:15:20One of the judges in Stockholm
1:15:20 > 1:15:22announced that he disagreed with the choice,
1:15:22 > 1:15:27and described Golding as "a small British phenomenon of no importance."
1:15:30 > 1:15:33There was a tremendous farce.
1:15:33 > 1:15:36Other judges who shouldn't have broken confidence wrote to Golding
1:15:36 > 1:15:40to cheer him up and said that these decisions were never actually unanimous,
1:15:40 > 1:15:44that this bloke had taken leave of his senses.
1:15:44 > 1:15:46Nonetheless, Golding was deeply hurt.
1:15:46 > 1:15:52It just, in a way, reinforced his feeling that somewhere,
1:15:52 > 1:15:56in the establishment of culture and the arts,
1:15:56 > 1:15:59there was enmity directed against him.
1:16:05 > 1:16:09"These are the good fellows whose duty it is to steer our ship,
1:16:09 > 1:16:12"to haul on the ropes and do strange things with our sails
1:16:12 > 1:16:16"in positions which must surely be perilous, so high they go.
1:16:18 > 1:16:22"All this I watch with complacency from far off
1:16:22 > 1:16:25"in the shelter of the wooden wall with its stairways, that lead up
1:16:25 > 1:16:28"to where the privileged passengers live.
1:16:28 > 1:16:33"But forward, beyond the white line which separates the social orders,
1:16:33 > 1:16:37"the people work and sing and keep time to the fiddle when they play.
1:16:37 > 1:16:39"For like children, they play,
1:16:39 > 1:16:43"dancing innocently to the sound of the fiddle."
1:16:46 > 1:16:50Rites of Passage is the first in a trilogy of novels
1:16:50 > 1:16:54which chronicle a voyage from England to Australia
1:16:54 > 1:16:56in the early 19th century.
1:16:56 > 1:16:58It is a monumental late work
1:16:58 > 1:17:01in which Golding pursues his constant themes of class,
1:17:01 > 1:17:06myth, the border between reality and unreality,
1:17:06 > 1:17:08and man's capacity for inhumanity.
1:17:11 > 1:17:14'It's a voyage that takes a year from Tilbury Docks to Sydney Harbour.
1:17:14 > 1:17:16'The overall headline of the story
1:17:16 > 1:17:21'is trying to get from one end of the earth to the other by sea'
1:17:21 > 1:17:23using ropes and pulleys, canvas and wood,
1:17:23 > 1:17:28in order to try and battle against the ever-changing, ever-unpredictable
1:17:28 > 1:17:29and unmasterable sea.
1:17:35 > 1:17:38'Celebrations are in full swing
1:17:38 > 1:17:41'with the news that the 1980 Booker Prize for fiction
1:17:41 > 1:17:43'has been won by William Golding.'
1:17:43 > 1:17:45'Rites Of Passage,'
1:17:45 > 1:17:49a powerful, allegorical novel about life on board a sailing ship
1:17:49 > 1:17:52going from England to Australia in the early 19th century.
1:17:52 > 1:17:56'I don't like the word "allegorical", I don't like the word "symbolic".
1:17:56 > 1:18:01'"he word I really like is "mythic" and people always think
1:18:01 > 1:18:04'that means full of lies, whereas of course what it really means'
1:18:04 > 1:18:10is full of a truth that cannot be told in any other way but a story.
1:18:10 > 1:18:14What do you think, to put it very crudely, you were trying to say?
1:18:14 > 1:18:17What is that truth that you were trying to convey?
1:18:17 > 1:18:22Oh, mercy, the brotherhood of man
1:18:22 > 1:18:26and the capacity for cruelty that we all have in us
1:18:26 > 1:18:29and which we have to control.
1:18:29 > 1:18:30No, I'm not ready!
1:18:32 > 1:18:34No! No!
1:18:34 > 1:18:36Please!
1:18:36 > 1:18:39Rites of Passage centres on the public humiliation
1:18:39 > 1:18:44of one of the passengers, a parson who gets drunk,
1:18:44 > 1:18:48has sex with one of the sailors, and then literally dies of shame.
1:18:48 > 1:18:51You must be cleansed!
1:18:51 > 1:18:53CHEERING
1:18:53 > 1:18:58There's a crossing of the line ceremony where they go across the equator and Neptune arises
1:18:58 > 1:19:00and there's this big sort of festival.
1:19:00 > 1:19:02And the Reverend Colley is the subject of the dunking,
1:19:02 > 1:19:07the sort of ritual to take one of the passengers and sort of baptise them.
1:19:09 > 1:19:10And it's very, very fierce.
1:19:10 > 1:19:16I think Golding's always been fascinated with that, how closely we rub up against barbarity.
1:19:16 > 1:19:19And that within the blink of an eye,
1:19:19 > 1:19:23you can have something very civilised and seemingly in control
1:19:23 > 1:19:25turn into something that is monstrous.
1:19:29 > 1:19:32I think he was particularly interested in humiliation.
1:19:32 > 1:19:35The character Colley is desperately and utterly
1:19:35 > 1:19:37and completely humiliated.
1:19:37 > 1:19:42There's drunkenness, there's sexual humiliation, it's all in public.
1:19:42 > 1:19:47I think that somewhat goes back to the social class aspect of things.
1:19:52 > 1:19:55In June 1988, Golding was given a knighthood.
1:19:56 > 1:19:58Paradoxically,
1:19:58 > 1:20:01for a writer who had long complained about the English class system,
1:20:01 > 1:20:04he had lobbied vociferously for the honour,
1:20:04 > 1:20:08and immediately had his and Ann's passports changed
1:20:08 > 1:20:10to "Sir William and Lady Golding".
1:20:13 > 1:20:17In their 70s, the Goldings had moved to Cornwall.
1:20:17 > 1:20:19They bought Tullimar,
1:20:19 > 1:20:23a large Georgian house a few miles from the sea
1:20:23 > 1:20:25in the village of Perranarworthal,
1:20:25 > 1:20:29about as far away from the literary world Golding so disliked
1:20:29 > 1:20:31as it was possible to be.
1:20:34 > 1:20:38Matthew Evans, who was then the chairman of Faber & Faber said,
1:20:38 > 1:20:44"Bill rather wants a version of Lord Of The Flies done for the stage."
1:20:44 > 1:20:47And down I went to Cornwall.
1:20:47 > 1:20:51And they said, "He'll meet you at the station."
1:20:51 > 1:20:55He said, "We live down here because people can't get at us."
1:20:55 > 1:21:00But he said, "I think that the way to present this book in the theatre,
1:21:00 > 1:21:02"and I think it would be good in the theatre,
1:21:02 > 1:21:07"is to try and scrape it back to the original intellectual themes
1:21:07 > 1:21:08"that are at its heart."
1:21:10 > 1:21:14'It really is the story of English democracy
1:21:14 > 1:21:18'and the way in which democracy is a very fragile thing
1:21:18 > 1:21:19'that can be broken.'
1:21:19 > 1:21:26"The dark boy, Roger, stirred at last and spoke up, 'Let's have a vote'.
1:21:26 > 1:21:29"Yes, vote for a chief, let's vote."
1:21:29 > 1:21:31- CONCH BLARES - You've done it!
1:21:32 > 1:21:33CONCH BLARES
1:21:33 > 1:21:38This symbol of the conch, which is at the heart of the whole book,
1:21:38 > 1:21:40which is the moment which they can all come together
1:21:40 > 1:21:44and agree on something, it could be a symbol of kingly power,
1:21:44 > 1:21:48it could be the staff at the English Houses of Parliament,
1:21:48 > 1:21:51but it's very much to do with English consensus
1:21:51 > 1:21:53and he was fascinated by that.
1:21:53 > 1:21:55And that's what he saw the book being about,
1:21:55 > 1:21:58because it's about a group of English schoolboys.
1:21:58 > 1:22:00As the guy says at the end of the book,
1:22:00 > 1:22:04"I thought an English bunch of schoolboys would have done a little bit better than that."
1:22:04 > 1:22:08So it's sort of about the old school tie, too.
1:22:08 > 1:22:11Maybe there is a beast.
1:22:11 > 1:22:12LAUGHTER
1:22:12 > 1:22:15Hear him! He's got the conch.
1:22:15 > 1:22:18'What I mean is...
1:22:18 > 1:22:20'maybe it's only us.'
1:22:22 > 1:22:25On the island, there was nothing for the boys to fear
1:22:25 > 1:22:28but fear itself, really. But that fear produced gangs
1:22:28 > 1:22:32and produced violence in the end. You've got Jack's camp
1:22:32 > 1:22:34and you've got Ralph's camp at the end of the day.
1:22:34 > 1:22:36The only thing that produced those was the fear
1:22:36 > 1:22:40and the beast, which WAS the fear.
1:22:40 > 1:22:41< Could you give us an example?
1:22:41 > 1:22:44I don't know, say, like, recently, the riots.
1:22:44 > 1:22:49It's people... They're destroying their own place,
1:22:49 > 1:22:54their own city, because on the island, they're afraid of things,
1:22:54 > 1:22:59when really it turns out to be themselves, so they destroy their own habitat through the fires
1:22:59 > 1:23:01and destroy each other's lives.
1:23:01 > 1:23:04SCREAMING
1:23:12 > 1:23:15"Jack had backed right against the tribe
1:23:15 > 1:23:19"and they were a solid mass of menace that bristled with spears.
1:23:19 > 1:23:22"The intention of a charge was forming among them.
1:23:22 > 1:23:27"Ralph stood facing them, a little to one side, his spear ready.
1:23:27 > 1:23:31"The storm of sound beat at them, an incantation of hatred."
1:23:31 > 1:23:34'Slit his throat! Bash him in! Kill the pig!'
1:23:34 > 1:23:37The debate about good and evil is absolutely at the heart,
1:23:37 > 1:23:39the debate about original sin.
1:23:39 > 1:23:45Is man a wicked person who has to be improved and moulded by society?
1:23:45 > 1:23:48Or is man naturally good?
1:23:48 > 1:23:51It touches on an absolutely fundamental debate.
1:23:57 > 1:24:01'We have a disharmony in our natures.
1:24:02 > 1:24:06'We cannot live together without injuring each other.'
1:24:17 > 1:24:22If you look at, not just Lord Of The Flies, but all the books,
1:24:22 > 1:24:26I don't think there is another post-war English novelist
1:24:26 > 1:24:29who goes so deeply into these fundamental questions
1:24:29 > 1:24:31of morality and politics.
1:24:33 > 1:24:37I can't think of another writer who matches him,
1:24:37 > 1:24:42for the intense way he experiences human emotions, human passion
1:24:42 > 1:24:45in a poetic and yet controlled and English way.
1:24:52 > 1:24:57I found his body that morning - he died very, very suddenly.
1:24:57 > 1:25:01And fortunately my father, who's a doctor, was in the house
1:25:01 > 1:25:06and could talk me through this, and indeed the rest of the family,
1:25:06 > 1:25:09because I'd never seen a dead body before.
1:25:12 > 1:25:14I wanted to put the body on the back of a horse
1:25:14 > 1:25:17and take it to the top of a hill and make a bonfire out of it.
1:25:17 > 1:25:24Or alternatively put it on a boat, a flaming boat and push it out to sea.
1:25:25 > 1:25:30He was clearly very involved with the great epic writers,
1:25:30 > 1:25:33so I pictured him also as a kind of Greek bard
1:25:33 > 1:25:35in a kind of Homeric mode.
1:25:35 > 1:25:38Almost with a lyre, declaiming these things.
1:25:43 > 1:25:46In The Spire, when Jocelyn's dying,
1:25:46 > 1:25:51he's obviously in a fairly weird state
1:25:51 > 1:25:56and he sees the people around him, not as the human beings
1:25:56 > 1:26:02he's familiar with, but as shapes and structures and textures
1:26:02 > 1:26:04that are completely unfamiliar.
1:26:05 > 1:26:09And this was 1964, nearly 30 years before he died,
1:26:09 > 1:26:15and he obviously had a strong idea of what it was like to die.
1:26:18 > 1:26:22"No matter how high he rises, robe after robe,
1:26:22 > 1:26:25"tomorrow or the day after,
1:26:25 > 1:26:27"they will tap three times
1:26:27 > 1:26:31"on the smooth parchment of that forehead with the silver hammer.
1:26:33 > 1:26:36"Then his mind trotted away again
1:26:36 > 1:26:40"and he saw what an extraordinary creature Father Adam was,
1:26:40 > 1:26:43"covered in parchment from head to foot,
1:26:43 > 1:26:46"parchment stretched or tucked in,
1:26:46 > 1:26:49"with curious hairs on top
1:26:49 > 1:26:54"and a mad structure of bones to keep it apart.
1:26:54 > 1:26:59"Immediately, as in a dream that came between him and the face,
1:26:59 > 1:27:04"he saw all people naked, creatures of light brown parchment
1:27:04 > 1:27:07"which bound in their pipes or struts.
1:27:08 > 1:27:13"He saw them pace or prance in sheets of woven stuff
1:27:13 > 1:27:16"with the skins of dead animals under their feet.
1:27:17 > 1:27:22"And he began to struggle and gasp to leave this vision behind him
1:27:22 > 1:27:25"in words that never reached the air."
1:27:38 > 1:27:41'It seems to me that we do live in two worlds.
1:27:41 > 1:27:44'There is this physical one which is coherent,
1:27:44 > 1:27:49'and there is a spiritual one, which to the average man,
1:27:49 > 1:27:52'with his flashes of religious experience,
1:27:52 > 1:27:56'if you'd like to call them, that world is very often incoherent.'
1:27:58 > 1:28:02This experience of having two worlds to live in all the time
1:28:02 > 1:28:05or not all the time, occasionally,
1:28:05 > 1:28:09is a vital one and is what living is like.
1:28:27 > 1:28:30Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd