0:00:11 > 0:00:14Stories have to begin
0:00:14 > 0:00:19out of the welter of events and ideas and pictures and characters
0:00:19 > 0:00:22and voices that you experience in your head.
0:00:22 > 0:00:24You, the storyteller, must choose one moment,
0:00:24 > 0:00:27the most suitable moment,
0:00:27 > 0:00:29and make that the start.
0:00:33 > 0:00:37Lyra and her daemon moved through the darkening hall,
0:00:37 > 0:00:40taking care to keep to one side,
0:00:40 > 0:00:42out of sight of the kitchen.
0:00:45 > 0:00:50The three great tables that ran the length of the hall were laid ready,
0:00:50 > 0:00:55the silver and the glass catching what little light there was.
0:00:57 > 0:01:00The long benches were pulled out, ready for the guests.
0:01:02 > 0:01:07Lyra stopped beside the master's chair and flicked the biggest glass
0:01:07 > 0:01:09gently with her fingernail.
0:01:09 > 0:01:12The sound rang clearly through the hall.
0:01:12 > 0:01:16"You're not taking this seriously," whispered her daemon.
0:01:16 > 0:01:18"Behave yourself."
0:01:19 > 0:01:22Lyra is the perfect heroine to me.
0:01:22 > 0:01:24Most importantly, she's 12,
0:01:24 > 0:01:29and you follow her growing up as she matures and realises the world
0:01:29 > 0:01:32is a lot more complicated and darker than she knew.
0:01:37 > 0:01:42From time to time, a writer emerges who is so extraordinary,
0:01:42 > 0:01:45they transform the imagination of a generation.
0:01:48 > 0:01:53You mention Philip Pullman in the same breath as CS Lewis.
0:01:53 > 0:01:56Um, you know, this is someone who's going to last.
0:01:59 > 0:02:04In 1995, Philip Pullman gave us the first in a trilogy of novels,
0:02:04 > 0:02:07called His Dark Materials,
0:02:07 > 0:02:13set in an alternative universe that contains an imaginary Oxford.
0:02:17 > 0:02:21Romantic, fearless, fantastical,
0:02:21 > 0:02:25his epic tale follows Lyra on a heart-stopping adventure
0:02:25 > 0:02:28into other worlds,
0:02:28 > 0:02:31where witches rule the skies,
0:02:31 > 0:02:35ice bears are the bravest warriors,
0:02:35 > 0:02:40and every human is accompanied by their own animal spirit.
0:02:41 > 0:02:43It creates a universe,
0:02:43 > 0:02:45and it's a universe I think many of us read and think,
0:02:45 > 0:02:48"Oh, I'd like to be in there. I'd like to experience that."
0:02:48 > 0:02:51And then you realise that there are many worlds.
0:02:51 > 0:02:55It's just such an exciting prospect, and you enter that,
0:02:55 > 0:02:57and you live within it for sort of
0:02:57 > 0:03:00the time it takes to read through the books.
0:03:02 > 0:03:06Pullman's world is dominated by the evil Magisterium,
0:03:06 > 0:03:10which seeks to control all humanity,
0:03:10 > 0:03:14but there is one child who can stop it,
0:03:14 > 0:03:17with the help of a golden compass.
0:03:19 > 0:03:23Mr Pullman himself has said
0:03:23 > 0:03:26he wants to undermine the basis of Christian faith,
0:03:26 > 0:03:28so let's be clear about that.
0:03:28 > 0:03:31That's what he's doing, and he's been quite good at it.
0:03:31 > 0:03:35No-one has the right to spend their life without being offended.
0:03:35 > 0:03:38Nobody has to read this book.
0:03:38 > 0:03:40Nobody has to pick it up.
0:03:40 > 0:03:43Nobody has to open it, and if they open and read it,
0:03:43 > 0:03:44they don't have to like it.
0:03:46 > 0:03:49His books have sold over 20 million copies,
0:03:49 > 0:03:54and have been translated into 40 languages,
0:03:54 > 0:03:57and his recent prequel, La Belle Sauvage,
0:03:57 > 0:04:00has become an instant bestseller.
0:04:01 > 0:04:05I think La Belle Sauvage has a dark thread in it,
0:04:05 > 0:04:08and I think times are dark now.
0:04:09 > 0:04:12I felt that I'd been preparing for something.
0:04:12 > 0:04:17I felt that I'd been serving a long apprenticeship in various ways,
0:04:17 > 0:04:20and that finally I'd got a story
0:04:20 > 0:04:24which was going to occupy me for a long time and be worth the telling,
0:04:24 > 0:04:27but it was a long apprenticeship.
0:04:49 > 0:04:52The commonest question writers get asked is,
0:04:52 > 0:04:54"Where do you get your ideas from?"
0:04:55 > 0:05:00The truthful answer is, I don't know, they just turn up.
0:05:00 > 0:05:03But when you're wandering about with your mouth open
0:05:03 > 0:05:06and your eyes glazed, waiting for them to do so,
0:05:06 > 0:05:09there are few better places to wander about in than Oxford,
0:05:09 > 0:05:11as many novelists have discovered.
0:05:14 > 0:05:16I put it down to the mists from the river,
0:05:16 > 0:05:19which have a solvent effect on reality.
0:05:25 > 0:05:29In Oxford, likelihood evaporates.
0:05:34 > 0:05:38Wherever you look from here, you see something beautiful.
0:05:38 > 0:05:40It is extraordinary.
0:05:42 > 0:05:45I never really lost that, um,
0:05:45 > 0:05:48feeling of luck and chance and dream and unlikeliness.
0:05:50 > 0:05:53On a day such as this, when the sun is low in the sky,
0:05:53 > 0:05:59and you can see all kind of curious combinations of things, um,
0:05:59 > 0:06:03at the end of a Victorian terrace, right next to a medieval church,
0:06:03 > 0:06:07right next to a modern launderette, that sort of thing.
0:06:07 > 0:06:10It's a wonderful place to make things up about.
0:06:13 > 0:06:18In Pullman's fantasy Oxford, you can travel to London by zeppelin.
0:06:23 > 0:06:27Rooms are lit with anbaric lamps,
0:06:27 > 0:06:30and with the slightest slip of a knife,
0:06:30 > 0:06:33you can step into another world altogether.
0:06:37 > 0:06:43I had a few notions about what I wanted to find out about.
0:06:43 > 0:06:46One of them was the notion of the Arctic,
0:06:46 > 0:06:49and the Arctic winter in particular,
0:06:49 > 0:06:51this place in time with immense deep darkness
0:06:51 > 0:06:54where you could hide anything evil and...
0:06:54 > 0:06:57It's traditionally been a place of horror and magic and witches
0:06:57 > 0:06:59and superstition and so on.
0:07:03 > 0:07:07Witches have known of the other worlds for thousands of years.
0:07:07 > 0:07:11You can see them sometimes in the Northern Lights.
0:07:11 > 0:07:14They aren't part of this universe at all.
0:07:16 > 0:07:19Even the furthest stars are part of this universe,
0:07:19 > 0:07:22but the lights show us a different universe entirely.
0:07:22 > 0:07:25Not further away but interpenetrating with this one.
0:07:29 > 0:07:33Here, on this deck, millions of other universes exist,
0:07:33 > 0:07:35unaware of one another.
0:07:39 > 0:07:42So often, in children's fiction, the world is engaging,
0:07:42 > 0:07:46but quite small and quite enclosed around the child,
0:07:46 > 0:07:47and what Pullman did
0:07:47 > 0:07:50was create a world as big as a real world,
0:07:50 > 0:07:52a world that you could inhabit
0:07:52 > 0:07:54as if you were actually breathing in it.
0:07:57 > 0:08:01I think of myself as a realist, not a fantasist at all,
0:08:01 > 0:08:04because my main interest
0:08:04 > 0:08:07as a storyteller is in the way
0:08:07 > 0:08:12that real people behave in different situations,
0:08:12 > 0:08:15what it really means to be a human being.
0:08:15 > 0:08:17If I write fantasy, it's only because,
0:08:17 > 0:08:19by using the mechanisms of fantasy,
0:08:19 > 0:08:24I can say something a little bit more vividly about, for example,
0:08:24 > 0:08:26the business of growing up.
0:08:38 > 0:08:42In 1965, Philip Pullman arrived,
0:08:42 > 0:08:45fresh from a secondary school in North Wales,
0:08:45 > 0:08:48to read English at Exeter College, Oxford.
0:08:51 > 0:08:54It was here that he met Caradoc King,
0:08:54 > 0:08:57who would one day become his literary agent.
0:08:59 > 0:09:02My first impression of Caradoc was... Well, he stood out among us,
0:09:02 > 0:09:04because he was the only one wearing a suit.
0:09:04 > 0:09:06And Philip was wearing a sort of...
0:09:06 > 0:09:11A sort of beret, sort of rollneck sweater, hair long,
0:09:11 > 0:09:16looking like he'd just come out of some attic in Paris or somewhere,
0:09:16 > 0:09:19that he was clearly an artist of some sort,
0:09:19 > 0:09:21and I was immediately impressed.
0:09:22 > 0:09:26- That's new. You see, we didn't have that in our day.- Which one?
0:09:26 > 0:09:29- CCTV.- There were, I think, about eight or nine of us
0:09:29 > 0:09:30who read English,
0:09:30 > 0:09:33so we sort of all got together the first day and had a drink together,
0:09:33 > 0:09:36to get the measure of each other, I suppose. But at some point,
0:09:36 > 0:09:40maybe because the conversation wasn't flowing naturally, I said,
0:09:40 > 0:09:44"What are you going to do when you leave here? What's the plan?"
0:09:44 > 0:09:45And Philip said,
0:09:45 > 0:09:50"Well, I thought I might be a writer or a composer or an artist."
0:09:50 > 0:09:55And, um, I think, "Bloody hell, he's a bit of a wanker, isn't he?"
0:09:55 > 0:09:57And this stayed in my mind.
0:09:57 > 0:09:59His awareness of his talents
0:09:59 > 0:10:04was quite clearly sort of in place from very early on.
0:10:04 > 0:10:07Your decision to come to Oxford, were you sort of...
0:10:07 > 0:10:09Had you visited Oxford before?
0:10:09 > 0:10:11- Were you...- Never.
0:10:11 > 0:10:14- Really?- Um, I was like... It was a romantic idea, you know,
0:10:14 > 0:10:18studying at Oxford, being an Oxford undergraduate.
0:10:18 > 0:10:24So I just sort of tried for it, and I was lucky enough to get in.
0:10:24 > 0:10:28I felt I was in heaven for the first few days,
0:10:28 > 0:10:33but I never really felt I belonged.
0:10:33 > 0:10:37You say you felt slightly as if you were a bit of an intruder.
0:10:37 > 0:10:39Fundamentally, I am not a scholar.
0:10:39 > 0:10:42I am not a... I'm not an academic, so I was always...
0:10:42 > 0:10:46There was a hint of false pretences, really, on my part.
0:10:46 > 0:10:49What did you do when you were here? What did you spend your time doing?
0:10:49 > 0:10:52I gather you weren't spending a lot of time on academic work.
0:10:52 > 0:10:54No, I wasn't spending a great deal of time,
0:10:54 > 0:10:55but then everybody says that.
0:10:55 > 0:10:58You know, if you get a first class, you go, "Oh, I didn't work for it",
0:10:58 > 0:11:01where, if you failed entirely, it was because I didn't work.
0:11:01 > 0:11:04You got a third class degree,
0:11:04 > 0:11:07so what's your excuse for getting a third?
0:11:08 > 0:11:10I'm just not very clever.
0:11:12 > 0:11:15Although Philip graduated with that third class degree,
0:11:15 > 0:11:20his time at Oxford University wasn't completely wasted.
0:11:20 > 0:11:22Many years later,
0:11:22 > 0:11:25he would reimagine Exeter College
0:11:25 > 0:11:29as Lyra's Jordan College in His Dark Materials.
0:11:34 > 0:11:37Jordan College was the grandest and richest
0:11:37 > 0:11:38of all the colleges in Oxford.
0:11:38 > 0:11:43It was probably the largest, too, yet no-one knew for certain.
0:11:43 > 0:11:46The buildings, which were grouped around three irregular quadrants,
0:11:46 > 0:11:50dated from every period from the early Middle Ages
0:11:50 > 0:11:53to the mid 18th century. It had never been planned.
0:11:53 > 0:11:57It had grown piecemeal with past and present overlapping at every spot,
0:11:57 > 0:12:01and the final effect was one of jumbled and squalid grandeur.
0:12:04 > 0:12:07The day after he graduated from Exeter College,
0:12:07 > 0:12:10Pullman began his first novel,
0:12:10 > 0:12:14but the road towards literary stardom would be a long one.
0:12:14 > 0:12:18I mean, I know your first book, you don't want to talk about,
0:12:18 > 0:12:20because you thought it was rubbish.
0:12:20 > 0:12:22Um, yeah.
0:12:22 > 0:12:26Well, the first book I wrote wasn't...wasn't...
0:12:26 > 0:12:30didn't come near to being published. It was a book in which I practised
0:12:30 > 0:12:33writing a novel, see if I could finish a novel,
0:12:33 > 0:12:34and having done that,
0:12:34 > 0:12:37I put it aside and started another one,
0:12:37 > 0:12:41which was published, but, um, thank goodness,
0:12:41 > 0:12:45has now sunk into the bog of oblivion.
0:12:45 > 0:12:47Right, I won't mention its name.
0:12:47 > 0:12:49I don't want to embarrass you any further.
0:12:49 > 0:12:52Uh, no. If you do, I'll deny all knowledge of it.
0:12:52 > 0:12:56OK. Do you remember a letter that you wrote in 1970,
0:12:56 > 0:13:00when you would have been about 24 or something like that, you wrote,
0:13:00 > 0:13:05"I want to be famous, but it won't come quickly, and nor will publication,
0:13:05 > 0:13:08"so I'm digging in, or mentally retrenching,
0:13:08 > 0:13:12"in the expectation of a long stretch of anonymity
0:13:12 > 0:13:17"while lesser reputations will bloom and flower and decay."
0:13:17 > 0:13:19- It says here!- What vanity!
0:13:19 > 0:13:24And you held on to that for, um, 23 years, and you were very patient.
0:13:24 > 0:13:25It took you a while.
0:13:25 > 0:13:30Yes, um, but then I was vain enough to think that my talent was such
0:13:30 > 0:13:34that the world had no choice but to reward it when the time came.
0:13:34 > 0:13:36Well, you were right.
0:13:43 > 0:13:47While he was waiting for his latent talent to be recognised,
0:13:47 > 0:13:51Philip took a teaching position at a school in Oxford.
0:13:51 > 0:13:53It gave him time to write,
0:13:53 > 0:13:59and a captive audience on which to hone his material.
0:13:59 > 0:14:02I was teaching for about 12 years,
0:14:02 > 0:14:07teaching children between nine and 13 years old, which is a good age,
0:14:07 > 0:14:08an interesting age.
0:14:08 > 0:14:10We were more or less free to teach
0:14:10 > 0:14:13what we thought was important to teach,
0:14:13 > 0:14:16and I thought they would benefit from, among other things,
0:14:16 > 0:14:18knowing something about Greek mythology,
0:14:18 > 0:14:21so I told them stories from the Greek myths,
0:14:21 > 0:14:25and I then told them The Iliad, and then I told them The Odyssey.
0:14:25 > 0:14:31I have a repetitive memory of him striding into our classroom
0:14:31 > 0:14:34with no books or papers or pens.
0:14:34 > 0:14:36He just kind of strode in.
0:14:36 > 0:14:38He had this enormous energy,
0:14:38 > 0:14:40and he'd come in and launch straight away
0:14:40 > 0:14:42into a story that was nearly always...
0:14:42 > 0:14:45um, well, it was always a story,
0:14:45 > 0:14:47but the ones I remember were the Greek myths.
0:14:47 > 0:14:49By the time I'd finished teaching,
0:14:49 > 0:14:51I'd told those stories a number of times,
0:14:51 > 0:14:55and I was given the chance to have this marvellous apprenticeship,
0:14:55 > 0:14:57telling these stories over and over again, so,
0:14:57 > 0:15:00refining them and getting the timing a bit better,
0:15:00 > 0:15:04so the bell went just at the moment when...maximum tension,
0:15:04 > 0:15:08and I'm very glad I did, because it taught me an endless amount.
0:15:11 > 0:15:16Teacher by day, writer by night, Pullman began to practise his craft,
0:15:16 > 0:15:21trying out different moods, different modes, different worlds,
0:15:21 > 0:15:25until he found one that seemed to fit.
0:15:29 > 0:15:35On a cold, fretful afternoon, in early October, 1872,
0:15:36 > 0:15:41a hansom cab drew up outside the offices of Lockhart and Selby,
0:15:41 > 0:15:46shipping agents in the financial heart of London,
0:15:46 > 0:15:50and a young girl got out, and paid the driver.
0:15:50 > 0:15:54She was a person of 16 or so,
0:15:54 > 0:15:57alone, and uncommonly pretty.
0:15:57 > 0:16:01Her name was Sally Lockhart,
0:16:01 > 0:16:06and, within 15 minutes, she was going to kill a man.
0:16:07 > 0:16:10It wasn't the first children's book I'd written,
0:16:10 > 0:16:14but it was the first one I'd written in a voice I now recognise as being
0:16:14 > 0:16:17a properly authoritative storytelling voice.
0:16:17 > 0:16:20I started reading it,
0:16:20 > 0:16:25and I just read all the way through, in one gulp.
0:16:25 > 0:16:26It came out of a play I'd written
0:16:26 > 0:16:28to put on at the school I was teaching at,
0:16:28 > 0:16:32and, being thrifty and ecologically minded,
0:16:32 > 0:16:35I recycled it into a...into a novel.
0:16:37 > 0:16:41These sort of plays I did had some sort of particular atmosphere
0:16:41 > 0:16:43that I was interested in.
0:16:43 > 0:16:46I was interested in the idea of the Penny Dreadful...
0:16:46 > 0:16:48As you wish.
0:16:48 > 0:16:52..and the notion of that sort of melodramatic over-the-top
0:16:52 > 0:16:55villainy and, um, blood and thunder, that sort of stuff.
0:16:58 > 0:17:02I've never received anything where I read it in one straight,
0:17:02 > 0:17:05brilliant read.
0:17:05 > 0:17:06I rushed down the corridor,
0:17:06 > 0:17:12and I said, "I just read the most extraordinary story, Jonathan,"
0:17:12 > 0:17:16and then he was quite laconic and dry humoured,
0:17:16 > 0:17:18and he just looked at me,
0:17:18 > 0:17:22and I said, "What am I supposed to do now?"
0:17:22 > 0:17:23I can't believe I said that.
0:17:23 > 0:17:27And he said, "David, I think you're supposed to publish it."
0:17:41 > 0:17:43The plane is a lovely tool.
0:17:43 > 0:17:46It really is, because you take off little...
0:17:46 > 0:17:49little tiny bits, little tiny bits, little shivers,
0:17:49 > 0:17:51little slivers of wood,
0:17:51 > 0:17:55until you've got the right thickness that you want.
0:17:57 > 0:18:00That's a good start, OK.
0:18:00 > 0:18:03Do you enjoy the process of writing,
0:18:03 > 0:18:06and does it stop when you leave your desk?
0:18:06 > 0:18:07I enjoy it, yes, because I enjoy...
0:18:07 > 0:18:10I enjoy making all sorts of things.
0:18:10 > 0:18:12I enjoy making things out of bits of wood.
0:18:12 > 0:18:16I enjoy the process of constructing a story and making it work better
0:18:16 > 0:18:19and clearing it of all the brambles and obstructions that...
0:18:19 > 0:18:21I enjoy that.
0:18:21 > 0:18:24So, part of me is thinking of it all the time.
0:18:24 > 0:18:28That's a little bit less ugly.
0:18:28 > 0:18:31Many people can write, but Philip can write a novel.
0:18:31 > 0:18:34There's a big, big difference,
0:18:34 > 0:18:37and I would take that all the way down to the sentence level.
0:18:37 > 0:18:41There's a sort of intense sense of reality,
0:18:41 > 0:18:48and closeness to being human and being in the world that he is able
0:18:48 > 0:18:52to vividly, um, conjure.
0:18:55 > 0:18:58Well, I see you in the carpentry shop.
0:18:58 > 0:19:02Do you get the same pleasure of, you know, trying to find the right word,
0:19:02 > 0:19:05the right phrase, the right name...
0:19:05 > 0:19:08Yes, that's, um, that's very much part of it,
0:19:08 > 0:19:11and getting the rhythm right.
0:19:11 > 0:19:15You have to hear what you're writing,
0:19:15 > 0:19:17because prose isn't simply
0:19:17 > 0:19:21sort of porridge with no structure.
0:19:21 > 0:19:24It's got a metrical structure, and if you're not aware of it,
0:19:24 > 0:19:26you damn well should be.
0:19:26 > 0:19:29I do take a great pride in
0:19:29 > 0:19:32looking up the exact meanings of words.
0:19:32 > 0:19:36Chambers 20th century dictionary.
0:19:36 > 0:19:39I love Chambers for its, um, eccentric definitions.
0:19:39 > 0:19:42Is this a precious thing?
0:19:42 > 0:19:45Um, I think I stole this from a school I used to work in.
0:19:45 > 0:19:47I can't remember now,
0:19:47 > 0:19:49and of course it wouldn't stand up in court,
0:19:49 > 0:19:51so I'm fairly safe in saying that.
0:19:51 > 0:19:53Um, it's my favourite dictionary.
0:19:53 > 0:19:59For example, eclair - a cake long in shape, but short in duration.
0:19:59 > 0:20:01If you look up words that you think you know the meaning of,
0:20:01 > 0:20:04like "feisty", you've got it,
0:20:04 > 0:20:08you see it derives from the German word "feist", which means a fart,
0:20:08 > 0:20:12and a feisty dog's a little dog that bounces around farting a lot,
0:20:12 > 0:20:14so if you've got a feisty heroine at work,
0:20:14 > 0:20:17just think what that means, you see. She's someone who farts a lot.
0:20:17 > 0:20:18Is that what you meant to say?
0:20:18 > 0:20:21No, it wasn't, really, wasn't it, so don't use the word "feisty".
0:20:21 > 0:20:22I shan't.
0:20:26 > 0:20:30Philip Pullman's own story has all the elements of a well-told,
0:20:30 > 0:20:32well-crafted fairy tale...
0:20:32 > 0:20:36A boy whose world gets turned upside down,
0:20:36 > 0:20:40but goes on to fulfil his dream of becoming a writer.
0:20:45 > 0:20:48He was born in Norwich, in 1946.
0:20:48 > 0:20:54His father was an RAF pilot, who was frequently posted abroad.
0:20:57 > 0:21:01I didn't see much of my father during my childhood.
0:21:01 > 0:21:04He never seemed to be there. He was always off somewhere else.
0:21:04 > 0:21:08When he did turn up, he was a figure of immense glamour for me.
0:21:08 > 0:21:11The strong smell of beer and cigarettes surrounded him,
0:21:11 > 0:21:14which for me was immensely grown up and glamorous.
0:21:14 > 0:21:15He was a sort of heroic warrior figure
0:21:15 > 0:21:17that entered our lives occasionally,
0:21:17 > 0:21:20and then went away again, and I took it for granted.
0:21:20 > 0:21:22That's the way things were.
0:21:24 > 0:21:29The itinerant life of an RAF family gave Philip and his younger brother
0:21:29 > 0:21:33Francis a rich and varied childhood.
0:21:33 > 0:21:39In 1952, the family moved to Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe.
0:21:39 > 0:21:43It was the first of several journeys that left a lasting impression.
0:21:55 > 0:21:57I loved being on ship.
0:21:57 > 0:22:00Of course, you get seasick, but, you know, you get used to that,
0:22:00 > 0:22:03and then it's such a rich, varied life.
0:22:03 > 0:22:05You see this...different kinds of sea.
0:22:05 > 0:22:07The seas aren't all the same.
0:22:07 > 0:22:12The sea is grey here, and it's blue there, and down there, it's green,
0:22:12 > 0:22:16and the ship is a wonderful place to run about and play in.
0:22:16 > 0:22:18And the pleasure, the sheer
0:22:18 > 0:22:21intellectual and emotional and physical pleasure
0:22:21 > 0:22:23of coming into another port.
0:22:23 > 0:22:25The motion of the ship changes.
0:22:25 > 0:22:28The smell in the air changes, because, you know,
0:22:28 > 0:22:30you're smelling the trees from the land,
0:22:30 > 0:22:34and you sail right into the middle of the city.
0:22:34 > 0:22:38So, you have a real sense of being somewhere different and strange,
0:22:38 > 0:22:43and the excitement of going ashore and seeing people riding
0:22:43 > 0:22:44strange carts and bicycles
0:22:44 > 0:22:48and speaking languages that you hadn't heard before.
0:22:48 > 0:22:51It's all thrilling, and I drank it all in.
0:22:51 > 0:22:54I was about six, I suppose,
0:22:54 > 0:22:57and my mother used to read to me
0:22:57 > 0:23:00from Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories.
0:23:00 > 0:23:03I loved them. I loved the sound of them.
0:23:03 > 0:23:06"Still ran dingo, yellow dog dingo, always hungry,
0:23:06 > 0:23:10"grinning like a rat trap, never getting nearer, never getting farther, ran after kangaroo.
0:23:10 > 0:23:12"He had to."
0:23:12 > 0:23:17And, one day, I was on my own, and I did what she did,
0:23:17 > 0:23:19and moved my eyes across the page,
0:23:19 > 0:23:22and I remembered the words because they were in my head,
0:23:22 > 0:23:23and I saw them on the page,
0:23:23 > 0:23:25these little black things becoming transparent,
0:23:25 > 0:23:28and I suddenly realised this is what reading was.
0:23:28 > 0:23:30The rhythm is intoxicating.
0:23:30 > 0:23:33The sounds of the words, the spin effects, things like that.
0:23:33 > 0:23:35I didn't know what they meant,
0:23:35 > 0:23:38but the magic of the sounds was what helped me see
0:23:38 > 0:23:42that those little black letters were what were preserving the sound
0:23:42 > 0:23:46of the pages, and that was probably...
0:23:46 > 0:23:49and I've never been asked this question because,
0:23:49 > 0:23:50that was probably the, um,
0:23:50 > 0:23:56the moment when my engagement with language and words and writing
0:23:56 > 0:23:58and reading really began.
0:24:03 > 0:24:05But Philip's childhood adventures
0:24:05 > 0:24:08were interrupted by a tragic telegram.
0:24:11 > 0:24:13His father, Alfred,
0:24:13 > 0:24:17had died when his plane spun out of control during an air raid.
0:24:19 > 0:24:22Philip was just seven years old at the time.
0:24:25 > 0:24:30My brother and I had been playing outside, and, um, we were told this,
0:24:30 > 0:24:33and there was Mummy crying, and Granny was crying,
0:24:33 > 0:24:36and Grandpa was being sort of very kind to everyone,
0:24:36 > 0:24:39and it was a sense of big drama,
0:24:39 > 0:24:43and I remember thinking, "Well, that's a shame,"
0:24:43 > 0:24:47but I couldn't say I missed him, because I hardly knew him.
0:24:47 > 0:24:51You got the news and then you... you carried on playing.
0:24:51 > 0:24:53I carried on playing, yeah.
0:24:53 > 0:24:56So, your father died a hero.
0:24:56 > 0:24:58This is what we came to believe,
0:24:58 > 0:25:01my brother and I, because, posthumously,
0:25:01 > 0:25:04he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross,
0:25:04 > 0:25:06and we went to Buckingham Palace
0:25:06 > 0:25:10to be presented with the medal by the Queen.
0:25:10 > 0:25:14It was all reinforcement in my sense of having lost a hero.
0:25:14 > 0:25:16Many of your characters, in some way...
0:25:16 > 0:25:18- Yeah.- ..have sort of lost a parent or are looking for them.
0:25:18 > 0:25:20Not only in my books.
0:25:20 > 0:25:24It's a very common thing in books that children read.
0:25:24 > 0:25:27It's a dynamic thing to introduce into a story, anyway.
0:25:32 > 0:25:33As for Will's father,
0:25:33 > 0:25:37he'd vanished long before Will was able to remember him.
0:25:37 > 0:25:39Will was passionately curious about his father,
0:25:39 > 0:25:41and he used to plague his mother with questions,
0:25:41 > 0:25:43most of which she couldn't answer.
0:25:43 > 0:25:46Was he a rich man?
0:25:46 > 0:25:47Where did he go?
0:25:47 > 0:25:49Why did he go?
0:25:49 > 0:25:52Is he dead? Will he come back?
0:25:52 > 0:25:55What was he like?
0:25:55 > 0:25:58The last question was the only one she could help him with.
0:25:58 > 0:26:00John Parry had been a handsome man,
0:26:00 > 0:26:02a brave and clever officer in the Royal Marines,
0:26:02 > 0:26:05who had left the Army to become an explorer
0:26:05 > 0:26:08and lead expeditions to remote parts of the world.
0:26:08 > 0:26:11Will thrilled to hear about this.
0:26:11 > 0:26:16No father could be more exciting than an explorer.
0:26:16 > 0:26:19From then on, in all his games, he had an invisible companion.
0:26:23 > 0:26:25If you're writing a story where the children
0:26:25 > 0:26:27are the heroes and heroines,
0:26:27 > 0:26:29you can't have the dead hand of the parent
0:26:29 > 0:26:31at their shoulder the whole time,
0:26:31 > 0:26:34so I think there's probably all sorts of emotional reasons
0:26:34 > 0:26:38of having orphans, but there is a sort of plot-functional reason.
0:26:38 > 0:26:40It gets them out. It gets them free to explore,
0:26:40 > 0:26:42which is one of the great joys of the books.
0:26:51 > 0:26:55Pullman would not remain an almost orphan for long.
0:26:56 > 0:27:02Later that year, his mother married again, another RAF officer.
0:27:04 > 0:27:07The family moved to North Wales,
0:27:07 > 0:27:11where Philip found himself something of an outsider.
0:27:14 > 0:27:20On my first day of school, I think my accent had not mutated enough,
0:27:20 > 0:27:25and I was called to account for it by someone in the playground,
0:27:25 > 0:27:27- so there...- In what way?
0:27:27 > 0:27:29Oh, there was a bit of a tussle, I think.
0:27:29 > 0:27:32"Where do you come from?" "London."
0:27:32 > 0:27:36Sort of thing. But that was over very quickly, and next day,
0:27:36 > 0:27:39my Welsh accent was, um, firmly in place.
0:27:51 > 0:27:54What were your memories of your time there?
0:27:54 > 0:27:57Very much the landscape.
0:27:58 > 0:28:00There's an estuary there,
0:28:00 > 0:28:04tidal estuary. There's a little airfield there,
0:28:04 > 0:28:07where my stepfather was working, and sand dunes,
0:28:07 > 0:28:13near the beach, um, and there are hills behind the village.
0:28:13 > 0:28:17Not the great, rocky mountains of Snowdonia further north,
0:28:17 > 0:28:20but rounded, grass-covered hills.
0:28:26 > 0:28:30We were free in those days to wander anywhere we wanted to go,
0:28:30 > 0:28:32and we did.
0:28:32 > 0:28:34We wandered through the woods, and we walked up the rivers,
0:28:34 > 0:28:37and we went to the beach, and we clambered over the hills.
0:28:37 > 0:28:40It was a wonderful freedom that we had.
0:28:46 > 0:28:47And that landscape,
0:28:47 > 0:28:51the hills behind the sand dunes and the sea beyond that, is...
0:28:51 > 0:28:53is still very dear to me.
0:29:19 > 0:29:22My grandfather was a clergyman,
0:29:22 > 0:29:25a preacher who told stories about life,
0:29:25 > 0:29:29about everyday life, stories from the Bible, of course, um,
0:29:29 > 0:29:32and everything for him was imbued
0:29:32 > 0:29:35with a sense of the importance of storytelling.
0:29:35 > 0:29:37Everything we saw...
0:29:37 > 0:29:40There was a little stream that we used to go and play in and catch
0:29:40 > 0:29:45tiddlers and things, and, for him, that was Laughing Water.
0:29:45 > 0:29:50And the lone tree that we used to drive past,
0:29:50 > 0:29:53that was the Trail of the Lonesome Pine.
0:29:53 > 0:29:55It was full of, you know,
0:29:55 > 0:29:58popular references from popular films
0:29:58 > 0:30:00and from poems and from stories, um,
0:30:00 > 0:30:03so I had the sense that the world was full of stories.
0:30:03 > 0:30:08Grandpa was a very old-fashioned sort of Christian.
0:30:08 > 0:30:09He was a Victorian, after all.
0:30:09 > 0:30:13So he believed with a rock-like certainly,
0:30:13 > 0:30:15which I caught from him, naturally.
0:30:15 > 0:30:17Whatever he said must be true.
0:30:31 > 0:30:36In the beginning, God created the heaven and the Earth,
0:30:36 > 0:30:40and the Earth was without form and void,
0:30:40 > 0:30:44and darkness was upon the face of the deep,
0:30:44 > 0:30:49and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters, and God said,
0:30:49 > 0:30:51"Let there be light,"
0:30:51 > 0:30:54and there was light,
0:30:54 > 0:30:57and God divided the light from the darkness,
0:30:57 > 0:31:03and God called the light day, and the darkness, he called night,
0:31:03 > 0:31:07and the evening and the morning were the first day.
0:31:11 > 0:31:14So those things, and the words of the Bible,
0:31:14 > 0:31:16and the words of the hymns, um,
0:31:16 > 0:31:20are so bound up with me, that I couldn't...
0:31:20 > 0:31:24Even a surgical operation wouldn't be able to get them out,
0:31:24 > 0:31:27and I wouldn't want it to, because they made me what I am.
0:31:27 > 0:31:29And that's still the case?
0:31:29 > 0:31:31Yeah. Yeah.
0:31:31 > 0:31:35Um, yes, you don't lose your early influences, I think.
0:31:37 > 0:31:42You've obviously been fascinated by the language, by the mystery,
0:31:42 > 0:31:46by the music, by the rhythms and the stories of Christianity,
0:31:46 > 0:31:49but..."I don't like God," you've said, or, "I don't..."
0:31:49 > 0:31:55Well, God is, um, an invention of the Jews, I suppose,
0:31:55 > 0:31:57in the Old Testament,
0:31:57 > 0:32:02and developed into full unpleasantness by Christianity.
0:32:02 > 0:32:06Um, a completely unpleasant character,
0:32:06 > 0:32:08with very little to be said for Him.
0:32:08 > 0:32:11When did the revelation come to you that this was the case?
0:32:11 > 0:32:14Oh, in my teen years, like everything else.
0:32:14 > 0:32:21I began to realise, because I was reading about science, and,
0:32:21 > 0:32:23you know, you hear things at school about evolution
0:32:23 > 0:32:25and all that sort of stuff, quite rightly, um,
0:32:25 > 0:32:28and I began to realise they couldn't both be true,
0:32:28 > 0:32:31so one of them is either false, or true in a different sort of sense.
0:32:31 > 0:32:33True in a symbolic sense,
0:32:33 > 0:32:35so that was when I really...
0:32:35 > 0:32:36really when I decided
0:32:36 > 0:32:39that the universe might be a mysterious place,
0:32:39 > 0:32:43and there might be, somewhere out there, somewhere,
0:32:43 > 0:32:48a God, but there's no evidence of him here.
0:32:48 > 0:32:51Nature is enormously wide and powerful
0:32:51 > 0:32:54and beautiful and all those things,
0:32:54 > 0:32:56and I believe in nature...
0:32:57 > 0:33:00..but human...
0:33:00 > 0:33:03human beings themselves are quite sufficient
0:33:03 > 0:33:05to explain both goodness and evil.
0:33:05 > 0:33:09I don't think we need a god or anything supernatural for that.
0:33:15 > 0:33:17There is a war coming.
0:33:17 > 0:33:21I don't know who will join with us, but I know whom we must fight.
0:33:21 > 0:33:24It is the Magisterium, the church.
0:33:24 > 0:33:29For all its history - that's not long, by our lives, but it's many,
0:33:29 > 0:33:34many of theirs - it's tried to suppress and control
0:33:34 > 0:33:36every natural impulse.
0:33:36 > 0:33:40And when it can't control them, it cuts them out.
0:33:40 > 0:33:43That is what the church does.
0:33:43 > 0:33:48And every church is the same - control, destroy,
0:33:48 > 0:33:52obliterate every good feeling.
0:33:52 > 0:33:56So if a war comes and the church is on one side of it,
0:33:56 > 0:33:58we must be on the other,
0:33:58 > 0:34:02no matter what strange allies we find ourselves bound to.
0:34:05 > 0:34:10Very early on, where you aware of who the enemy was?
0:34:10 > 0:34:16Yes. I was, and it's organised religion, it's religion with power.
0:34:16 > 0:34:20And that was always the enemy
0:34:20 > 0:34:22that Lyra was going to have to face, and still does.
0:34:22 > 0:34:26Whenever you have a body of any sort that exerts power
0:34:26 > 0:34:30of any sort over any other people, something's going to go wrong.
0:34:30 > 0:34:32Power corrupts, as whoever it was said.
0:34:32 > 0:34:35And religious power corrupts absolutely.
0:34:39 > 0:34:44As a teenager, questioning the existence or otherwise of God,
0:34:44 > 0:34:48Philip encountered a version of his grandfather's Bible stories
0:34:48 > 0:34:49that he could relate to...
0:34:50 > 0:34:55Possibly because it gave the devil all the best tunes.
0:34:57 > 0:34:58Into this wild abyss,
0:34:58 > 0:35:02the womb of nature and perhaps the grave
0:35:02 > 0:35:05of neither sea nor shore nor air nor fire.
0:35:05 > 0:35:10But all of these and their pregnant causes mix confusedly,
0:35:10 > 0:35:12and which thus must ever fight,
0:35:12 > 0:35:17Unless the Almighty maker then ordain his dark materials
0:35:17 > 0:35:19to create more worlds.
0:35:20 > 0:35:25Into this wild abyss the wary fiend stood on the brink of hell
0:35:25 > 0:35:27and looked a while, pondering his voyage.
0:35:31 > 0:35:32Paradise Lost, books one and two,
0:35:32 > 0:35:35were on the A-level syllabus for that year.
0:35:35 > 0:35:40It was a revelation to me to hear that extraordinary language.
0:35:40 > 0:35:43When you're saying those words, when you get them in your mouth
0:35:43 > 0:35:46and your tongue and your lips and your teeth are involved,
0:35:46 > 0:35:49you have a different relationship to them
0:35:49 > 0:35:52from the one you have if you don't say them out loud,
0:35:52 > 0:35:56because poetry doesn't work by being logically analysed.
0:35:56 > 0:35:59Poetry works by a sort of enchantment, by magic,
0:35:59 > 0:36:01which is in the sound.
0:36:01 > 0:36:02The story itself,
0:36:02 > 0:36:08the story of the temptation and the fall, was familiar to me
0:36:08 > 0:36:10and every other child who'd been to church,
0:36:10 > 0:36:12but was enthralling storytelling,
0:36:12 > 0:36:14fabulous storytelling.
0:36:14 > 0:36:17It's... It's...
0:36:17 > 0:36:21You couldn't do it any better than Milton does it.
0:36:21 > 0:36:25It's an object lesson for everyone, every storyteller.
0:36:27 > 0:36:32As a schoolboy, Pullman came to understand the power of stories
0:36:32 > 0:36:34and our need for them.
0:36:38 > 0:36:43As a young man, he had to rewrite a very personal story that he'd been
0:36:43 > 0:36:46telling for most of his life.
0:36:46 > 0:36:49Let me come back to the death of your father.
0:36:49 > 0:36:53Your father died a hero in the RAF.
0:36:53 > 0:36:57I knew he was fighting a sort of war, that's all I knew.
0:36:57 > 0:37:00And I imagined that he was shot down.
0:37:01 > 0:37:03I found out much, much later
0:37:03 > 0:37:06that there was something odd about his death.
0:37:06 > 0:37:13He was flying a bomber, and it crashed.
0:37:14 > 0:37:18Well, he was an accomplished pilot, he had been flying for years,
0:37:18 > 0:37:22he wouldn't crash a plane unless there was a reason for it.
0:37:22 > 0:37:25There were hints of this from various sources
0:37:25 > 0:37:27that he had done it deliberately.
0:37:27 > 0:37:31He was in various kinds of trouble, money trouble, woman trouble,
0:37:31 > 0:37:37and he thought it was probably time to say goodbye to all of that,
0:37:37 > 0:37:40and he took his plane and flew it into a hill or something.
0:37:44 > 0:37:46That can only have been deliberate.
0:37:46 > 0:37:49Was it cumulative, this knowledge that...?
0:37:49 > 0:37:54- Yes...- ..that this was the sort of fiction you'd been living?
0:37:54 > 0:37:55I didn't begin to think about it, really,
0:37:55 > 0:37:57it was just something that had happened
0:37:57 > 0:37:59and it was over and done with
0:37:59 > 0:38:01until after my mother died in about 1990.
0:38:01 > 0:38:03But I never had the chance to ask her,
0:38:03 > 0:38:05and it was only when I was clearing out
0:38:05 > 0:38:07all her papers and photographs and thought...
0:38:07 > 0:38:10So it was a sense of mysteries and hidden things
0:38:10 > 0:38:12that one wasn't supposed to talk about.
0:38:15 > 0:38:19Three years later, Pullman began Northern Lights,
0:38:19 > 0:38:23the first book in his Dark Materials trilogy.
0:38:23 > 0:38:27When that moment came, how did you begin?
0:38:27 > 0:38:30It began with a lot of vague images,
0:38:30 > 0:38:32a lot of them from Milton,
0:38:32 > 0:38:34because I'd had lunch with my publisher
0:38:34 > 0:38:36and we discussed what I might write next.
0:38:38 > 0:38:42We'd excited each other over lunch by quoting large chunks of Milton
0:38:42 > 0:38:45to enliven the sausage and mash we were having.
0:38:46 > 0:38:51I was just agape, because there's that sense of the eyes are lifting,
0:38:51 > 0:38:54the scope of the story is lifting.
0:38:54 > 0:38:59And he said, "It's going to be over 1,000 pages, David!"
0:39:01 > 0:39:04I just thought, "Great!"
0:39:04 > 0:39:09And the only question I asked him, "Is it going to be a good story?"
0:39:09 > 0:39:12And he said, he sort of looked at me,
0:39:12 > 0:39:16and he's got a wonderfully dry sense of humour and just said,
0:39:16 > 0:39:18"I think it is."
0:39:32 > 0:39:36You have to find a moment which is the best moment to start.
0:39:36 > 0:39:39I knew there would be a girl at the centre of the story.
0:39:39 > 0:39:42Why? I don't know.
0:39:42 > 0:39:45It was just clear to me.
0:39:45 > 0:39:49You don't decide these things, you discover them.
0:39:56 > 0:39:58Lyra stopped beside the Master's chair
0:39:58 > 0:40:01and flicked the biggest glass gently, with a fingernail.
0:40:01 > 0:40:04The sound rang clearly through the hall.
0:40:04 > 0:40:09"You're not taking this seriously," whispered her daemon.
0:40:09 > 0:40:11"Behave yourself!"
0:40:13 > 0:40:15Her daemon's name was Pantalaimon
0:40:15 > 0:40:18and he was currently in the form of a moth.
0:40:18 > 0:40:23A dark brown one, so as not to show up in the darkness of the hall.
0:40:23 > 0:40:25When I first thought of the daemon,
0:40:25 > 0:40:28it was one of those sort of moments when you've been sitting there
0:40:28 > 0:40:31for months and nothing's happened and it's gone nowhere,
0:40:31 > 0:40:35and suddenly I found myself writing the words, "Lyra and her daemon,"
0:40:35 > 0:40:37and I didn't know she had a daemon until then,
0:40:37 > 0:40:40and it was spelt D-A-E-M-O-N.
0:40:40 > 0:40:43I had to write the rest of the chapter to see what they were doing
0:40:43 > 0:40:44and what the daemon was,
0:40:44 > 0:40:47and then I realised what an idea I'd got.
0:40:47 > 0:40:49It was the best idea I've ever had, I think.
0:40:49 > 0:40:52It has the form of an animal,
0:40:52 > 0:40:55and it's you, but it's part of you that's external.
0:40:55 > 0:40:58And it's born with you and it dies with you,
0:40:58 > 0:41:00and it's usually the opposite sex.
0:41:00 > 0:41:03And that made the story a lot easier to tell,
0:41:03 > 0:41:06because I could have them talking together, and they could say,
0:41:06 > 0:41:08"Let's go in there," and she could say, "Let's," and he could say,
0:41:08 > 0:41:10"No, we're not supposed to."
0:41:10 > 0:41:13And she could say, "Don't be such a coward, come on, you watch out."
0:41:13 > 0:41:14So it was much more dynamic
0:41:14 > 0:41:17when you've got two characters talking than just one.
0:41:18 > 0:41:21As a writer, I really admire what he's done
0:41:21 > 0:41:26because it's such shorthand for what a person is.
0:41:26 > 0:41:28If you see this person comes in
0:41:28 > 0:41:31and their daemon is a slightly mopey dog,
0:41:31 > 0:41:33you think, "Right, got it.
0:41:33 > 0:41:37"Ah, they're a cat, ah, they're an eagle, OK, I got you."
0:41:37 > 0:41:41And it's very, very clever, I wish I'd thought it up.
0:41:41 > 0:41:46Talking daemons, what do you imagine your daemon is?
0:41:48 > 0:41:52She's probably one of those birds that steals things.
0:41:52 > 0:41:55You know, like the jackdaw of Rheims or the thieving magpie,
0:41:55 > 0:41:58one of those corvids.
0:41:58 > 0:42:03Bright, clever birds that scrounge, scavenge -
0:42:03 > 0:42:08just as happy with a scrap of aluminium foil as with a diamond.
0:42:08 > 0:42:10If it glitters in the right way
0:42:10 > 0:42:13and catches her attention, she'll pick it up.
0:42:13 > 0:42:14I think so.
0:42:22 > 0:42:27Philip's writing routine operates to an unerring rhythm.
0:42:27 > 0:42:32He begins at 10am, writes 1,000 words a day,
0:42:32 > 0:42:34and employs various techniques
0:42:34 > 0:42:37to keep the dreaded writer's block at bay.
0:42:39 > 0:42:42You have a lot of curious rituals, don't you?
0:42:42 > 0:42:44Yes, I am...
0:42:44 > 0:42:47Well, I have a number of habits connected with paper.
0:42:47 > 0:42:53I like to write on paper that's got two holes in it, not four.
0:42:53 > 0:42:56And most paper you get these days has got four holes in it.
0:42:56 > 0:42:58Well, that's quite impossible,
0:42:58 > 0:43:00nobody can write on paper with four holes in it.
0:43:00 > 0:43:02- Nobody can?- Nobody can.
0:43:02 > 0:43:03It's quite impossible.
0:43:03 > 0:43:06So when I could only get hold of four-holed paper,
0:43:06 > 0:43:09I used to put little white stickers on the top hole and the one down
0:43:09 > 0:43:12there so that my paper would still only have two holes,
0:43:12 > 0:43:13and it was possible to write on.
0:43:13 > 0:43:17Another thing I do with paper is colour the edge, you see?
0:43:17 > 0:43:21I colour the edge of the paper at the top corner,
0:43:21 > 0:43:24a different colour for each book that I'm writing.
0:43:24 > 0:43:27So when I've coloured a stack of paper,
0:43:27 > 0:43:29I can only use it for that book,
0:43:29 > 0:43:33and I mustn't write on paper that isn't coloured like that, and, um...
0:43:33 > 0:43:37- Why? Because it works.- How did you get into that habit, then?
0:43:37 > 0:43:39I don't know, I'm superstitious.
0:43:44 > 0:43:49During the years in which His Dark Materials took shape,
0:43:49 > 0:43:55Pullman's thoughts began to focus around a powerful, central theme.
0:43:55 > 0:43:58My mother taught me underneath a tree,
0:43:58 > 0:44:02And sitting down before the heat of day,
0:44:02 > 0:44:07She took me on her lap and kissed me and, pointing to the east,
0:44:07 > 0:44:09began to say...
0:44:11 > 0:44:14I found that my interest was most vividly caught
0:44:14 > 0:44:17by the meaning of the temptation and fall.
0:44:17 > 0:44:22Suppose the fall should be celebrated and not deplored?
0:44:22 > 0:44:26As I played with it, my story resolved itself into an account
0:44:26 > 0:44:27of the necessity of growing up
0:44:27 > 0:44:30and the refusal to lament the loss of innocence.
0:44:33 > 0:44:35The Bodleian Library in Oxford
0:44:35 > 0:44:40holds a rare first edition of William Blake's Songs Of Innocence,
0:44:40 > 0:44:43published in 1789.
0:44:49 > 0:44:51This is such a privilege.
0:44:51 > 0:44:52And it's an extraordinary thing
0:44:52 > 0:44:55to look at the very pages, the very paper,
0:44:55 > 0:45:01the very colours and inks that his own hands used
0:45:01 > 0:45:04to make this beautiful thing.
0:45:06 > 0:45:10And what an impact it must have made on the first person who bought it,
0:45:10 > 0:45:12and on the first readers.
0:45:16 > 0:45:19Little lamb, who made thee?
0:45:19 > 0:45:22Dost thou know who made thee?
0:45:22 > 0:45:25Gave thee life and bid thee feed
0:45:25 > 0:45:27By the stream and o'er the mead?
0:45:27 > 0:45:32Gave thee clothing of delight, the softest clothing, woolly, bright?
0:45:36 > 0:45:40I think the Songs Of Experience came out about four years later.
0:45:41 > 0:45:47There are so many chimes with your writing and your beliefs
0:45:47 > 0:45:50and your way of looking at the world and Blake...
0:45:50 > 0:45:52Well, I stole it all, I suppose.
0:45:53 > 0:45:58This is the little book I've had for, oh, nearly 50, 60 years now.
0:45:58 > 0:46:01It's a selection from Blake.
0:46:01 > 0:46:03It went everywhere with me.
0:46:03 > 0:46:07It's falling apart and has been much repaired.
0:46:07 > 0:46:09This is the book that first...
0:46:11 > 0:46:15..showed me how important Blake was to me.
0:46:17 > 0:46:21"To see a world in a grain of sand and a heaven in a wildflower,
0:46:21 > 0:46:25"to hold infinity in the palm of your hand and eternity in an hour."
0:46:25 > 0:46:28It's a political poem, because it says things like,
0:46:28 > 0:46:32"A dog starved at his master's gate predicts the ruin of the state."
0:46:32 > 0:46:39Passionate, angry, magnificently oratorical denunciations of cruelty.
0:46:39 > 0:46:42It's a great poem.
0:46:44 > 0:46:48Blake showed me a way of seeing the world which I found very...
0:46:48 > 0:46:52both true and congenial and full of hope.
0:46:52 > 0:46:56And I bless him for that and I thank him for that, and I wouldn't be
0:46:56 > 0:47:01the person I am, the writer I am, without William Blake.
0:47:09 > 0:47:12"The true purpose of human life, I find myself saying,
0:47:12 > 0:47:15"was not redemption by a non-existent son of God,
0:47:15 > 0:47:18"but the gaining and transmission of wisdom.
0:47:18 > 0:47:20"And if we're going to do any good in the world,
0:47:20 > 0:47:22"we have to leave childhood behind."
0:47:26 > 0:47:28Have your last look, Phillip,
0:47:28 > 0:47:31because it's only allowed to be opened for four minutes.
0:47:31 > 0:47:34I know, I know. This is such a treasure, such a privilege.
0:47:43 > 0:47:46The fact that young people growing with daemons,
0:47:46 > 0:47:50a daemon can change and transform itself, and so...
0:47:50 > 0:47:55are you saying that's what childhood is about?
0:47:55 > 0:47:58That it gives you those options that are available to you?
0:47:58 > 0:48:01I don't think I'm saying it, I think I'm showing it.
0:48:01 > 0:48:05Someone else is saying it.
0:48:05 > 0:48:07They can say what they like.
0:48:07 > 0:48:12No, the daemon is a way of showing it, and it does show that, yeah.
0:48:12 > 0:48:17The most exciting moment for me came when I realised children's daemons
0:48:17 > 0:48:21stopped changing in their adolescence
0:48:21 > 0:48:26and a daemon retains one fixed form for the rest of your life.
0:48:26 > 0:48:28That was the moment when I saw, yes,
0:48:28 > 0:48:30this is something I can use to say something
0:48:30 > 0:48:34about the difference between innocence and experience,
0:48:34 > 0:48:35in William Blake's terms.
0:48:35 > 0:48:39So that was a very exciting moment when I realised I could do that.
0:48:39 > 0:48:42A lot of children's books, the story of Peter Pan, for instance,
0:48:42 > 0:48:45are stories about...you're a child
0:48:45 > 0:48:47and being a child is what you'll always be,
0:48:47 > 0:48:52whereas your book is very much about that period of...
0:48:52 > 0:48:55The need to grow up. Children don't want to be children for ever,
0:48:55 > 0:48:57they get sick and tired of being children.
0:48:57 > 0:49:00They want to be grown-up, they want to be exciting things.
0:49:00 > 0:49:03I completely understand that, I remember that feeling.
0:49:03 > 0:49:06Peter Pan is a sickness, really,
0:49:06 > 0:49:10to wish to be a child for ever,
0:49:10 > 0:49:13or the AA Milne thing where you have the idea of a little boy
0:49:13 > 0:49:17and his teddy bear playing for ever in the Hundred Acre Wood...
0:49:17 > 0:49:18There's something wrong with it.
0:49:24 > 0:49:27In the world of Pullman's trilogy,
0:49:27 > 0:49:32growing up goes hand-in-hand with amassing a mysterious substance,
0:49:32 > 0:49:36feared by some and desired by others,
0:49:36 > 0:49:37called Dust.
0:49:39 > 0:49:42Dust is so central to the idea -
0:49:42 > 0:49:45where did that come from?
0:49:45 > 0:49:49I needed Lord Asriel, at that point in chapter two, to say something,
0:49:49 > 0:49:52to mention something that would cause a shiver
0:49:52 > 0:49:55to pass over this group of assembled academics.
0:49:55 > 0:49:57So I thought of the word Dust.
0:49:57 > 0:50:00And they shiver.
0:50:00 > 0:50:02We don't know why. Lyra, in her hiding place,
0:50:02 > 0:50:05hears the word and sees their silence and their shock,
0:50:05 > 0:50:08and realises that this word must have a capital D or something,
0:50:08 > 0:50:10because it's important.
0:50:10 > 0:50:13But she doesn't know what it is and we don't know what it is.
0:50:13 > 0:50:17This photogram was taken at the magnetic North Pole.
0:50:19 > 0:50:20In Svalbard.
0:50:21 > 0:50:23Kingdom of the ice bears.
0:50:25 > 0:50:27Ice bears, Pan.
0:50:27 > 0:50:30Lord Asriel, is that light rising up from the man's body or coming down?
0:50:30 > 0:50:35No, that's coming down from the sky, but that's not light.
0:50:37 > 0:50:39- It's Dust.- Dust!- Dust!
0:50:40 > 0:50:43Lord Asriel shows this slide show,
0:50:43 > 0:50:46and he shows a photograph of an adult
0:50:46 > 0:50:49with light coming out all around him,
0:50:49 > 0:50:50and it's Dust.
0:50:50 > 0:50:55The behaviour of these particles is quite unmistakable.
0:50:55 > 0:50:59Dust is flowing into this man through his daemon.
0:50:59 > 0:51:01There's a child beside him,
0:51:01 > 0:51:04and there's no Dust coming from the child.
0:51:04 > 0:51:10The whole idea is, when you mature and you become a sexual being,
0:51:10 > 0:51:13you release this energy.
0:51:13 > 0:51:16And that's an incredible idea,
0:51:16 > 0:51:20and that Lyra stands for that rather than...
0:51:20 > 0:51:24rather than for repression and maintaining childhood
0:51:24 > 0:51:27and trying to maintain innocence, that actually,
0:51:27 > 0:51:32experience is what we're supposed to have, it's the best thing about us.
0:51:34 > 0:51:37Dust is what makes you a real, three-dimensional grown-up.
0:51:40 > 0:51:43And the desire to keep yourself
0:51:43 > 0:51:46from acquiring your cloud of Dust
0:51:46 > 0:51:48is a desire for untruth and unreality.
0:51:52 > 0:51:56I think I love the books because they're an adventure story,
0:51:56 > 0:52:02and Philip is unabashed about using plot, about telling a good story.
0:52:02 > 0:52:09But underneath it are the biggest questions about being alive
0:52:09 > 0:52:11and what it means to grow up,
0:52:11 > 0:52:15to mature, what it means to relate to other people,
0:52:15 > 0:52:18how we relate to the world - I mean, it's the biggest questions.
0:52:18 > 0:52:21And he manages to marry those two beautifully.
0:52:21 > 0:52:25The winner of the 2001 Whitbread Book of the Year is Philip Pullman,
0:52:25 > 0:52:27The Amber Spyglass.
0:52:32 > 0:52:35It is the first time that a children's book has won this award,
0:52:35 > 0:52:36and I am thrilled.
0:52:36 > 0:52:39It was going to happen some day, and I'm just delighted it was me.
0:52:47 > 0:52:50That was a huge moment, not just for Philip,
0:52:50 > 0:52:53but for the world of children's books.
0:52:53 > 0:52:57Suddenly, there was considerable respect out there
0:52:57 > 0:53:03for a book which was primarily going to be read by young people.
0:53:03 > 0:53:06But that the adult world thought, "My goodness, it's learned,
0:53:06 > 0:53:11"it's intelligent, sophisticated, beautifully written, it's touching,
0:53:11 > 0:53:15"it's a page-turner, it's all those things."
0:53:15 > 0:53:18It was also a full-scale,
0:53:18 > 0:53:22epic challenge to the story of the redemption
0:53:22 > 0:53:25and the fall in the Christian scheme,
0:53:25 > 0:53:27and that he had taken on Milton
0:53:27 > 0:53:29in what was published as a children's book.
0:53:29 > 0:53:34Today, you're quoted as saying, "I am of the devil's party."
0:53:34 > 0:53:37His children's trilogy has been described
0:53:37 > 0:53:39as a celebration of atheism, but Philip Pullman,
0:53:39 > 0:53:42the winner of this year's Whitbread Prize, is unconcerned.
0:53:42 > 0:53:43"If there is a God," he says,
0:53:43 > 0:53:47"then he deserves to be put down and rebelled against."
0:53:47 > 0:53:49Yes, I said that.
0:53:49 > 0:53:52A lot of controversy has surrounded the release
0:53:52 > 0:53:55of the Nicole Kidman film, The Golden Compass.
0:53:55 > 0:53:58The movie is based on one of the trilogy of books
0:53:58 > 0:54:01written by Philip Pullman, an avowed atheist.
0:54:01 > 0:54:04The Golden Compass is vile!
0:54:04 > 0:54:06And some parents and church groups
0:54:06 > 0:54:08argue the book is an attack on religion.
0:54:08 > 0:54:11The author's very open about how it does attack religion.
0:54:11 > 0:54:13I mean, the goal of the main character, Lyra,
0:54:13 > 0:54:16is to kill God.
0:54:18 > 0:54:23There's nothing to stop fiction from being propaganda.
0:54:23 > 0:54:26In fact, Mr Pullman himself has said
0:54:26 > 0:54:29that "once upon a time" is a much more effective way
0:54:29 > 0:54:32of influencing people's minds than "thou shalt not".
0:54:32 > 0:54:33And he knows that.
0:54:36 > 0:54:38I think, quite clearly,
0:54:38 > 0:54:42if you depict something that looks very like the Christian Church
0:54:42 > 0:54:46in the unremittingly, quite extremely negative terms
0:54:46 > 0:54:49that Philip does, it's not entirely surprising
0:54:49 > 0:54:53if some people are going to be a bit hurt or threatened.
0:54:53 > 0:54:56But this is a story.
0:54:56 > 0:54:59Stories are thought experiments.
0:54:59 > 0:55:01They're "what if" things.
0:55:01 > 0:55:03And it's useful for the Christian Church
0:55:03 > 0:55:05to have these questions asked,
0:55:05 > 0:55:09it's useful for any institution that's powerful and unselfcritical
0:55:09 > 0:55:11to have these questions asked.
0:55:20 > 0:55:24Last year, Pullman returned to his fantastical Oxford
0:55:24 > 0:55:26with La Belle Sauvage,
0:55:26 > 0:55:31the first book in a new trilogy, digging deeper into Lyra's past.
0:55:34 > 0:55:39Bleaker, more menacing, it begins at the Trout Inn.
0:55:43 > 0:55:46"The shadow appeared around the side of the building again,
0:55:46 > 0:55:52"and then the man staggered and the burden on his shoulder seemed to squirm away and fall to the ground.
0:55:52 > 0:55:56"And then they heard a hideous, high-pitched cry of laughter."
0:55:58 > 0:56:01The landlord's son finds himself charged
0:56:01 > 0:56:05with saving baby Lyra from the evil forces of the Magisterium.
0:56:05 > 0:56:08"The man had a stick in his hands,
0:56:08 > 0:56:12"and he had forced the hyena daemon back against the wall,
0:56:12 > 0:56:18"and he was thrashing and thrashing her with fury, and she couldn't escape.
0:56:18 > 0:56:20"Malcolm and Esther were terrified.
0:56:20 > 0:56:23"She turned into a cat and burrowed into his arms,
0:56:23 > 0:56:25"and he hid his face in her fur.
0:56:25 > 0:56:29"They had never imagined anything so vile."
0:56:32 > 0:56:38No-one who reads La Belle Sauvage doesn't feel that it's got darker.
0:56:38 > 0:56:40Yes, I think it is.
0:56:40 > 0:56:45And the themes that I touch on are adult themes, really.
0:56:45 > 0:56:47I'm not sure this is a book for children.
0:56:47 > 0:56:49Children are welcome to read it,
0:56:49 > 0:56:53as anyone's welcome to read anything that I write, but I think,
0:56:53 > 0:56:57on the whole, the concerns of this book and The Book Of Dust
0:56:57 > 0:57:01are going to be a bit sort of darker and tougher, perhaps.
0:57:09 > 0:57:12The world is in the most extraordinary state,
0:57:12 > 0:57:19things so desperately confused, people so bitterly angry,
0:57:19 > 0:57:22solutions so far away.
0:57:22 > 0:57:26And naturally, if you're a thinking person at all,
0:57:26 > 0:57:29if you reflect on what you see in the news and read in the paper,
0:57:29 > 0:57:33that's going to colour your understanding of things.
0:57:45 > 0:57:49"There was a sort of swagger amongst the badge wearers.
0:57:49 > 0:57:52"It was rumoured that in one of the older classes,
0:57:52 > 0:57:56"a scripture teacher had been telling them about the miracles of the Bible
0:57:56 > 0:58:00"and explaining how some of them could be interpreted realistically,
0:58:00 > 0:58:03"such as Moses' parting of the Red Sea.
0:58:03 > 0:58:06"He told them that it might just have been a shallow part of the sea,
0:58:06 > 0:58:10"and a high wind would sometimes blow the water away,
0:58:10 > 0:58:12"so it was possible to walk across.
0:58:12 > 0:58:17"One of the boys had challenged him and warned him to be careful,
0:58:17 > 0:58:19"and held up his badge."
0:58:22 > 0:58:26The presence of these forces, the religious forces,
0:58:26 > 0:58:29which is the League of St Alexander - explain that.
0:58:29 > 0:58:33Well, the League of St Alexander came to me as an example
0:58:33 > 0:58:38in the structure of Lyra's world, of the sort of thing
0:58:38 > 0:58:42that the Communist youth movements and the Hitler Youth were doing,
0:58:42 > 0:58:46using children to spy on their parents.
0:58:46 > 0:58:49A ghastly betrayal, a hideous thing to do.
0:58:49 > 0:58:53Morally squalid in every conceivable way.
0:58:53 > 0:58:56But governments had done it.
0:58:58 > 0:59:02Obviously, the essence of anything
0:59:02 > 0:59:05we regard as being a functioning democracy
0:59:05 > 0:59:09is freedom of speech and freedom of thought.
0:59:09 > 0:59:16The power to control speech is frightening.
0:59:16 > 0:59:20The power to control thought is ultimately evil.
0:59:20 > 0:59:24Truly wicked. It's what defines us as human beings.
0:59:24 > 0:59:27You take that away from us and we have nothing left.
0:59:27 > 0:59:30Philip recognises that,
0:59:30 > 0:59:33and that's one of the things that makes his writing so powerful.
0:59:37 > 0:59:40He's creating, in both in the initial trilogy and now in this,
0:59:40 > 0:59:46this sense of a world in which there are big political movements.
0:59:46 > 0:59:50There are loyalties, there is political machinations.
0:59:50 > 0:59:53In a Brexit world that we're in at the moment,
0:59:53 > 0:59:54it works absolutely beautifully.
0:59:54 > 0:59:59Who's going to actually do a deal, get together,
0:59:59 > 1:00:04assemble allies, save us? Who's going to move our world forwards?
1:00:04 > 1:00:07And he does this absolutely brilliantly, I think,
1:00:07 > 1:00:08in The Northern Lights,
1:00:08 > 1:00:11and again here in La Belle Sauvage.
1:00:11 > 1:00:13And it feels real.
1:00:13 > 1:00:16And it excites one's loyalties
1:00:16 > 1:00:21and one's passion and desire that, frankly,
1:00:21 > 1:00:23good will triumph over evil.
1:00:33 > 1:00:36La Belle Sauvage is both an end and a beginning.
1:00:39 > 1:00:44Its closing pages lead us back to the opening of His Dark Materials.
1:00:48 > 1:00:51Beginnings and endings are perhaps the most difficult decision
1:00:51 > 1:00:52for any writer.
1:00:52 > 1:00:55Where do you make the first mark?
1:00:55 > 1:00:59Where do you place the final full stop?
1:01:04 > 1:01:07I had the idea of a moonlit garden with bells ringing
1:01:07 > 1:01:14in the background, and a mood of mingled sadness and...
1:01:14 > 1:01:16hope and love, which is the mood
1:01:16 > 1:01:19of the final pages of The Amber Spyglass.
1:01:19 > 1:01:25And I didn't know what was going to lead to that or bring that about,
1:01:25 > 1:01:28but that was where I was headed.
1:01:28 > 1:01:31In the closing chapters of Pullman's trilogy,
1:01:31 > 1:01:35Lyra and her loyal partner in crime, Will,
1:01:35 > 1:01:39reach the end of their great adventure.
1:01:39 > 1:01:45"She led him past a pool with a fountain, under a wide-spreading tree,
1:01:45 > 1:01:51"and then struck off to the left, to the beds of plants, towards a huge, many-trunked pine.
1:01:51 > 1:01:54"There was a massive stone wall with a doorway in it.
1:01:54 > 1:01:58"And in the furthest part of the garden, the trees were younger, the planting less formal.
1:01:58 > 1:02:02"Lyra led him almost to the end of the garden, over a little bridge,
1:02:02 > 1:02:06"to a wooden seat under a spreading, low-branched tree.
1:02:06 > 1:02:11"'Yes,' she said, 'I hoped so much, and here it is, just the same.
1:02:11 > 1:02:14"'Will, I used to come here in my Oxford and sit on this exact same bench
1:02:14 > 1:02:19"'whenever I wanted to be alone, just me and Pan.'"
1:02:21 > 1:02:23One of these elemental story patterns
1:02:23 > 1:02:26recurs throughout His Dark Materials,
1:02:26 > 1:02:27which is the idea of two things
1:02:27 > 1:02:29which are bound together splitting apart.
1:02:29 > 1:02:34So the idea that Will and Lyra, who've grown so close together
1:02:34 > 1:02:39and who've come to love each other so deeply must leave and must part,
1:02:39 > 1:02:41fulfils the pattern.
1:02:43 > 1:02:46"'And if we later on,' she was whispering, shakily,
1:02:46 > 1:02:49"'If we meet someone we like and if we marry them,
1:02:49 > 1:02:52"'then we must be good to them and not make comparisons all the time
1:02:52 > 1:02:55"'and wish we were married to each other instead.
1:02:55 > 1:03:00"'But just keep up this, coming here once a year, just for an hour,
1:03:00 > 1:03:02"'just to be together.'
1:03:02 > 1:03:04"They held each other tightly.
1:03:04 > 1:03:10"Minutes passed, a water bird on the river bank stirred and called.
1:03:10 > 1:03:13"The occasional car moved over Magdalen Bridge.
1:03:13 > 1:03:16"Finally, they drew apart."
1:03:19 > 1:03:21You so wanted them to stick together.
1:03:21 > 1:03:23They had been through so much,
1:03:23 > 1:03:26and their ultimate sacrifice was that they had to leave each other.
1:03:26 > 1:03:29And it felt so unfair and the universe felt out of kilter.
1:03:29 > 1:03:32It felt as if they should be together.
1:03:32 > 1:03:37Yet I think there's something very strong and very brave about saying,
1:03:37 > 1:03:39"No, this is the price we pay."
1:03:46 > 1:03:50Of course, we too have beginnings and endings.
1:03:51 > 1:03:56We don't know when or where or how, but we know there will be an end.
1:03:59 > 1:04:03In the final part of His Dark Materials,
1:04:03 > 1:04:07Lyra ventures into the world of the dead,
1:04:07 > 1:04:11where she comes face-to-face with her own death.
1:04:15 > 1:04:20As I get older, of course, as we all do, I thought about my own death,
1:04:20 > 1:04:23which is much closer to me now than my birth is.
1:04:23 > 1:04:25Er...
1:04:27 > 1:04:30I've thought about it more and more, of course, the more time passes.
1:04:30 > 1:04:33I like the idea, that when you die,
1:04:33 > 1:04:35you have to give an account of yourself,
1:04:35 > 1:04:38and I like the idea that everyone has to have a story.
1:04:38 > 1:04:41You have to tell the truth about your life, you have to...
1:04:41 > 1:04:42It's no good going there and saying,
1:04:42 > 1:04:44"Well, I watched the television, mainly."
1:04:44 > 1:04:47That won't get you out of the world of the dead.
1:04:47 > 1:04:50But a true story about what you loved and what you saw
1:04:50 > 1:04:53and what you knew, how much you did, if it's true
1:04:53 > 1:04:55and it resonates with the harpies,
1:04:55 > 1:04:57then you're free.
1:04:57 > 1:05:02If you can't tell a story about your life, a true story,
1:05:02 > 1:05:05you can never escape the world of the dead.
1:05:05 > 1:05:08But if you satisfy the harpies by telling a true story
1:05:08 > 1:05:12about your life, then they will show you the way out,
1:05:12 > 1:05:15and you will dissolve and you become part of the universe again.
1:05:15 > 1:05:19Not as yourself any more, but as part of everything else.
1:05:19 > 1:05:23I like that vision, I like that idea of death.
1:05:25 > 1:05:27I think there's something in that.