Clare Balding and Hardeep Singh Kohli My Life in Books

APPLAUSE

Thank you, and welcome to My Life In Books,

a chance for my guests to share their favourite reads.

Joining me tonight, Clare Balding, the presenter you can trust with any major live event.

She even knows the offside rule, and she's taller than Willie Carson.

Alongside Clare, broadcaster and stand-up comedian Hardeep Singh Kohli,

currently touring the country as the Nearly Naked Chef,

but the good news is tonight he's got his clothes on.

Thank you both for joining us.

APPLAUSE

Clare, your father was Sir Ian Balding, a very famous trainer,

and trained the Queen's horses, and indeed your brother's taken over the stables now,

so you must have met the Queen on numerous occasions.

-Er... Yes, erm...

-LAUGHS

When I was growing up, as a child,

the Queen would come to have a look at her horses,

so sometimes you would come downstairs, my brother and I,

and the Queen would be in the drawing room, having breakfast.

-Wow!

-It's slightly unnerving.

I saw a pony once in Springburn, when I was growing up.

Did the Queen not give you any ponies?

We queued for hours to see the Queen in 1977, the Silver Jubilee.

We queued for five-and-a-half-hours,

and she was gone in about eight or nine seconds.

-Where were you?

-George Square in the centre of Glasgow.

Did you read a lot as a child, Clare?

I did, yes,

and particularly like a lot of little girls, you know,

pony books were a very strong part of that reading.

And I had this very strong belief that the ponies that I had

understood me and knew exactly what I was saying.

And these conversations I had with them, that they were listening to every word.

-Did your parents read to you? Your father?

-My mother did.

-My father wouldn't have done.

-Because he was too busy?

-I think he didn't notice I was there until I was about...

-Oh, dear!

-..23!

-Hardeep, did your parents read to you?

-No.

I mean, both my parents worked quite a lot,

because they were immigrants to the country,

so it was kind of very much part of that lifestyle.

But they used to put on Wally Whyton records for us and play stories.

There would be stories told, we would listen to on an old gramophone.

There was always stories being told, you can't grow up in a Punjabi household,

or a Glaswegian household, without someone somewhere wanting to tell you, "One last story."

Let's start with childhood reads.

Clare, not surprisingly, you have chosen Black Beauty by Anna Sewell.

Can you give us a brief summary?

It's narrated by Black Beauty, the horse,

and his is the voice you hear throughout it,

and it traces his life and the different owners that he has.

Some of whom are kind and compassionate,

and some are downright cruel.

And actually the edition that I have is the most beautiful book.

It's not just the content of it, it's because it's this book.

And inside it says,

-"To my great-great-niece Clare, from Aunt Evelyn."

-Oh, wonderful.

And it's got beautiful prints in it by Cecil Aldin.

It's a lovely book, and it was Anna Sewell's only book that she ever wrote.

How old were you when you read it?

Well, I think it was read to me first.

I think my mother would have read it to me and...

Did you see the television version?

-I loved the television version.

-You did?

-Good, we've got a quick clip here.

-Oh, good.

Well, I suppose he ought to have a name.

Now, let's see, um...

Jet? Swift?

No, they're not right!

-Blackbird.

-Ebony.

-Lightning?

Something that describes him.

Well, he's black... and he's very beautiful.

Black Beauty.

BLACK BEAUTY THEME TUNE

-The music's fantastic, isn't it?

-It is lovely.

I'm going to have that music at my funeral.

-Oh, good.

-A cheery thought, yes.

Black Beauty, the book, suffers from being in the shadow of what was such an iconic TV show.

I think a lot of people wouldn't have known the book existed,

because the TV show...that music,

it takes you back to being a kid again.

I suppose it depends on how old you are,

because for my generation, we'd well read Black Beauty.

Also today you couldn't call it Black Beauty.

It'd be Beauty Of Colour... LAUGHTER

..which is understandable.

You were brought up in Hampshire,

and you started riding at the age of...

Before I was two, cos I know that I broke my collar bone

just after I was two falling off a pony.

-There you are.

-Oh, that's me on Mill Reef.

My father trained a horse called Mill Reef, who won the Derby,

-the Eclipse, the King George and the Arc.

-Fantastic.

He was the superstar of 1971,

and in 1972, the year after I was born,

he broke his leg, and that is him,

having stood up after they repaired it.

And they had a cast on it, and when he stood up,

the first person to ride him, in fact the only person to ride him was me.

So he didn't race after that?

No, he went to stud and he sired Derby winners.

Hardeep, your childhood read,

you'd moved to Glasgow from London when you were four,

and your parents had come over from India in the mid-'60s,

and at school in Scotland you were introduced

to Roald Dahl's Fantastic Mr Fox.

Can you tell us the story?

When I read it, it was just a cracking yarn about a fox,.

Foxes were always quite cool, they've kind of got an arrogance about them.

Even today if you see a city fox,

they kind of look at you with a sense of condescension before they run off.

They're quite Glaswegian in that sense.

And quite gallus, which is a nice Glaswegian word.

I'm evangelical about Roald Dahl.

He was notoriously misanthropic, for sure,

but there are levels within this book.

It talks about community, which plays very much into my Sikh upbringing

about community and society.

It's about family, cos it's three wee foxes and Mr and Mrs Fox.

I was one of three sons, so I could relate very easily to the family.

But mostly it was about food. Gathering and collecting food.

It has to be said, for the brilliance of Roald Dahl's writings,

Quentin Blake's illustrations, it's putting together two of the finest practitioners

in what's just an absolutely beautiful book.

Can you read us a favourite bit?

Yes, well, unsurprisingly, I turn immediately to a bit about food.

-Yeah.

-So at this point, all the animals have clubbed together

to try and get food, because they're being starved out by the farmers.

" 'So, to start with, we shall have four plump young ducks.'

"He took them from the shelf. 'Oh, how lovely and fat they are.

" 'No wonder Bunce gets a special price for them at market.

" 'I think we'd better have a few geese.

" 'Three will be quite enough, we'll take the biggest.

" 'You'll never see finer geese than these in the king's kitchen.

" 'Gently does it, that's the way.

" 'What about a couple of smoked hams. I adore smoked hams.

" 'Fetch me that stepladder, will you please?' "

Mr Fox, I mean he's a bit of a villain, really,

but he has that charm that wins everybody over.

He's sort of Shakespearean, in a sense, because he is hubristic.

He's full of arrogance that no-one can catch him, he can get whatever he wants.

He finds himself in this really tight situation

and actually searches his own self,

and you learn more in life from your defeats than your victories,

and he's defeated and manages to make his way of it.

Now in both cases,

your childhood books are actually reflecting your passions.

Horses for you and food for you. Are you a good cook?

I'm touring the country cooking for audiences,

so I hope, if I'm not good now, I better get good.

-With jokes.

-With jokes and stories.

What this book is, it's food and storytelling,

and that's what my life seems to have become.

-And obviously you have a mild interest in horses.

-Just occasionally!

Clare, you've brought in two very old editions of books.

And your next one, you were studying English,

it's The Myths Of Greece And Rome, edited by HA Guerber.

Now, I've got here an edition that was published in 1906...1907.

-Where did that come from?

-I've written my name there very neatly,

but on the left hand side it says W Hastings, and that's my Uncle Willie.

So probably he'll claim it back when he sees this,

which will be slightly disappointing.

Do you have a favourite myth?

Well, I love the fact that...

I like the fact that it's real ancient mythology

and that all these sort of stories...

If you say to a child, or you hear a phrase like Achilles heel,

and you know what that means.

You know that means your weak point, but why does it mean that?

Because of the myth of Achilles being dipped in the River Styx

by his mother to make him impregnable.

But she had to hold him by some bit of his body,

so she held him by his ankle, and there in his heel.

Achilles nose wouldn't be the same, would it?

No, it wouldn't!

It's incredibly powerful how these stories and these words

have sustained for millennia.

We still talk about people being narcissistic, Achilles heel, Pandora's box,

regardless of all the literature from all over the world that's come in between.

I think it shows the power of the stories.

Oh, they're great tales, and in this edition there are various pictures,

beautiful works of art based on the classics

and also quotes from various poems.

You've got bits of Virgil, but also you'd have bits of Byron or Keats or whoever.

And the inspiration behind some of the great works of art and poems of British culture.

You've reminded me today that

one can be as in love with the physical book as the contents of it.

Cos that's one of those books you actually would have had to envelope open.

It would have been uncut pages, and with both of these books,

it's as much about what they physically are as their content.

And I love going back over this.

I love the feel of it, the weight, the thickness of the pages.

I love the smell of it. This one particularly smells really good.

-You don't mind other people smelling your books?

-No.

-Can you smell that?

-Yeah.

And you'll let her smell your next book?

-It smells of your front room.

-Her great-uncle's front room.

-My books don't smell quite as interesting.

-We're coming on to your next book.

While at university, you came upon your next choice.

It's a very Scottish book.

Lanark by Alasdair Gray.

Is it possible to give us an overview?

I was dreading the point where you would ask me what's the book about.

I've read it three times, I don't really know what it's about.

But it's about two characters, Duncan Thaw and Lanark.

Duncan Thaw lives in post-war Glasgow.

Lanark lives in post-apocalyptic Unthank, but it's really Glasgow.

And it's their stories intertwined

through four separate books brought together.

It's about human beings, how we treat each other.

Both Duncan Thaw and Lanark are outsiders,

and looking back at my selections,

I seem to relate very much with people on the periphery of society, those ostracised.

Did it change your life?

I wouldn't be here now if it weren't for that book.

-Because...

-Well, because as a teenager in Glasgow,

I didn't really know there was a world outside Glasgow.

This was the first bit of art I consumed that made me think,

"Hold on, I can raise my head above the parapet."

Glasgow is a city people write about, they're passionate about and they love.

And also, again as an immigrant, I had no precedence in the city of Glasgow.

My people come from the northwest of India,

and that gave me an instant history.

It locked me in to the '50s, '60s, '70s of Glasgow.

And I felt I was part of the city.

I was spat out by the city the way Duncan Thaw was.

Yeah. Clare, we're coming on to your next book.

You're at boarding school, where you eventually became head girl.

Were you a goody-goody then?

I was in terrible trouble when I was young.

-OK.

-I got suspended, got de-housed,

and then I was the reformed character.

And your book from that era is Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights.

Just remind us of the plot of this.

The central characters are Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw,

and the story boiled down,

cos it's a quite complicated book, but the story really is about

them growing up together, being real genuine soul mates,

and how society, having imposed certain expectations on Catherine,

society dictates that Heathcliff isn't good enough for her.

So she marries boring old Edgar Linton,

and Heathcliff goes away heartbroken,

educates himself, comes back as a man that is acceptable to society

and vows revenge and destroys lives because...

All their lives are destroyed by this rigidity.

Yeah, and I think when you're that age and you...

not necessarily identify with it,

but when you get a message in your head,

"Don't listen to what society tells you is right".

If you fall in love, you fall in love.

Just...fall in love, be true to you.

Don't tick all the boxes that everybody tells you to tick,

because that way lies madness and unhappiness and all sorts.

We've got a clip from probably the most famous version of the book in film

which is the very early one, 1939.

Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon here,

showing a very dark Heathcliff.

You'll never love him, but you'll let yourself be loved

because it pleases your stupid greedy vanity.

Loved by that milk sop with buckles on his shoes.

Stop it and get out!

You had your chance to be something else,

but thief or servant were all you were born to be.

Or beggar beside the road, begging for favours,

not earning them, but whimpering for them with your dirty hands.

That's all I've become to you, a pair of dirty hands.

Well, have them, then!

Have them where they belong!

It doesn't help to strike you.

A peculiar way of speaking!

Yes, that's true, but you can see there it's about that snobbery.

It's about class, it's about racism as well.

And it's set on the Yorkshire moors, and I've seen the vicarage

where the Bronte sisters grew up,

and all of that came from a young woman who couldn't possibly

have experienced those things.

But her imagination could create this really dark, tense world.

Hardeep, have you read the classics?

I have read some of the classics,

but I kind of struggled through my teenage years with female writers

because I think there's a maturity in women writing at the same age as men.

We develop later emotionally, so I found it, to be blunt,

kind of turgid and quite heavy going.

I was struggling to come to terms with Glasgow,

let alone the Yorkshire Dales.

But, you know, hearing such an impassioned plea

on it's behalf I think I might give it another go.

-Do you re-read books?

-I do.

I don't know how you feel, but there's a list of books I've yet to read

that I should really concentrate on.

But another thing that's beautiful,

particularly about the way we're talking about books through life,

is WHEN you read a book as well as WHAT you read.

So, you know, reading, Bronte in your teenage years

will absolutely impact on your sense of relationship, and the rest of it.

And similarly reading Burns throughout your life

changes how you think about song, how you think about love.

You go back to your roots for your next book.

It's called A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry.

Tell us about it.

Simply the most beautiful book I've ever read.

Set in India.

Set in India in the mid-'70s, early to mid-70s,

around the time of Indira Gandhi's Emergencies,

and it's about a number of characters.

But predominantly a couple of rural tailors, Omprakash and Ishvar,

who come from the village to the city to find work.

And it's heartbreaking, I've never cried so much reading a book.

I'm not the sort of person that generally cries reading a book.

It's an incredible...

-it's an incredible story, told...

-Give us a taste.

I've read this actually and it is, it's a great, great book, epic.

And violent and, you know I'd said to you, "smell this",

the smells created in that book are great as well.

Things as well I sort of feel slightly, having spent so much time in India.

I think if I feel a writer about India is painting a picture

I am unfamiliar with, yet can somehow resonate with,

they must be doing an incredible job.

I'll read the beginning, because I think the first four lines

are as beautiful as any four lines you'll find in it.

"The morning express, bloated with passengers, slowed to a crawl,

"then lurched forward suddenly, as though to resume full speed.

"The train's brief deception jolted its riders.

"The bulge of humans hanging out of the doorway distended perilously,

"like a soap bubble at its limit."

And it's like that all the way through.

The thing about this that's so important for me is

it has tragedy at its core.

Don't give away the end.

No, it's genuine... It's...

I'm genuinely welling up thinking about the ending

because it consumes you, this book.

Has religion featured a great deal in your life?

Yes. I think I alluded to my Sikh upbringing in Fantastic Mr Fox.

I'm a real, passionate believer in the culture of religion.

-But do you go to temple for example?

-No, I've an issue with organised religion.

I don't see why a designated building makes the words you speak to your maker

any more significant than your back bedroom.

I've never seen you without a turban, turbans of many colours.

Yes, I am the "Technicolour Dream Turban".

I think that again is my identity,

the cultural component of growing up, you know...

Listen, I've had a great life,

but it wasn't easy growing up in 1970s Glasgow as the fat, brown kid

with the green school uniform and matching green turban.

I felt I've earned the right to wear my turban.

My Sikhism's incredibly important to me, culturally and socially.

We move on, Clare, to a present day read.

You read it a few years ago.

It's unashamedly sentimental.

It's called The Art of Racing in The Rain by Garth Stein.

Tell us about it.

I mean, it became a global bestseller.

It is narrated by Enzo, who's the dog on the front cover there.

Enzo is named after Enzo Ferrari.

Enzo believes, because he's watched a documentary about Mongolia and life in Mongolia

that says that dogs will be reincarnated as men, as humans, so he...

The beginning of the book is the eve of his death, so you know throughout the book that he's going to die.

Yeah.

And he tells the story of Denny, who's his owner,

and Denny's marriage and child and subsequent heartbreak

when his wife dies and the battle for custody over his child.

But Enzo is a very philosophical dog. He knows that when she's ill,

when the wife is ill, he knows she's ill before she does, and you know...

-Do you believe that about dogs?

-My dog, I don't think would know.

He'd just know whether he was hungry or not.

-He's a Tibetan Terrier.

-Yes.

And indeed you were very ill a few years ago.

Well, yes, I'm not sure he realised, but he just knew I wasn't there for a while.

Cos you got thyroid cancer, which you're clear from now,

but it was a pretty crucial time in your life.

Yeah, and I was very... My attitude was,

if I pretend this isn't happening, then it's not happening.

Which is fine for me, it's not great for people around me,

because they can't talk about it cos it's not happening.

Were you reading this book?

I would have read that... probably was reading it, or had done just before.

And were you crying a lot anyway?

Sobbing. Absolutely sobbing.

-There's a bit here you wanted to read.

-Yeah, I did.

He says, "I've always felt almost human, I've always known

"that there's something about me that's different from other dogs.

"I'm stuffed into a dog's body, but that's just the shell, it's what's inside that's important.

"The soul. And my soul is very human."

And he's a great philosopher is Enzo.

He tries to help and he tries to warn Denny when things are going wrong.

And he watches a lot of motor racing.

-It isn't horse racing?

-It's motor racing and he's a big fan of Ayrton Senna.

Are you a dog lover or a motor racing lover, Hardeep?

-Neither.

-Oh, dear!

I mean, to be blunt, I can't think of a book I'm less likely

to want to pick up, or indeed read.

Can I just tell you, towards the end he knows he's going to die

and he doesn't want Denny to have to take him to the vet.

He wants to create a suicide machine for dogs

so that he can die when he wants to die.

Now, has that sold you, do you think?

-He's about to die!

-He's a dog! I mean...

Your next book... Actually it...

I can't believe you're not moved by...

-I adore you, Clare Balding...

-I know.

-..but he's a dog.

-No, but interestingly this book...

-Yes.

-...that you've chosen, which is Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale.

You actually read this because your ex-wife recommended it.

So you're not beyond being prepared to read something you wouldn't normally read.

No. I mean, there was a kind of almost,

I'm embarrassed to say, a conscious strategy

to reading Atwood.

I read white male writers pretty much all through my life, till my 20s.

Then I kind of got to a point in my mid-30s and I thought,

I've read so few books by women, I'm missing a massive perspective.

So my ex-wife had read The Blind Assassin, The Handmaid's Tale, and a few other books.

She recommended reading and I thought it'd be a great place,

start at the top in terms of literature.

-It's set in the future.

-Yes. It's set in a world where

we've so messed up the planet,

and we've so spoilt our paradise that women struggle to become pregnant.

So there are these handmaids, who are surrogates.

So if you're at all fertile, you're imprisoned effectively

and sent to houses to be impregnated by the man of the house.

The baby's then born and whipped off you as if it was the woman of the house's child.

And I thought it would be pleasant holiday reading.

I ruined my holiday by staying up till four in the morning going,

"One more chapter, one more chapter."

Your ex-wife's ultimate revenge.

Well, we're very good friends, so she gave me the gift of a brilliant book.

You know, if any men are watching that are avid readers,

I would exhort them to make sure they're reading enough women.

I think women read plenty men, but I think it's really important to get a balance.

-It's how we understand you so well.

-Yes. And put up with you.

We've had your childhood books, and ones that have

shaped your adolescence, and great reads in adult life.

What about hidden pleasures, even guilty pleasures?

What's your guilty pleasure, Clare?

When I go on holiday I'll take with me five or six books,

but I will always start, almost in a way of cleansing my brain

and making it, you know, just start again from nothing, I start with Dan Brown.

Fabulous, isn't it?

Clare Balding, Dan Brown's Angels And Demons.

Angels and Demons, Da Vinci Code, I've just read The Lost Symbol

on holiday the other week.

Angels and Demons is ridiculous.

It's a ridiculous plot, it's a stupid...

The things that happen, he jumps out of a helicopter

and saves himself with a handkerchief or something.

The Pope goes up in flames.

All this stuff that's completely unrealistic,

but there are bits of it that are interesting and the symbology I love.

Yeah, I mean you're going back really to mythology by liking this book.

Yeah. And places in Rome and going back,

and I've been to Rome relatively recently

-and gone and tried to look...

-It's that bad.

"What's the distance between here and there?

"Could he have got from there to there?"

It's stuff that I find vaguely interesting.

Can we talk about the book about the dog again?

-No, we'll talk about your guilty pleasure.

-It's very similar to Clare's.

-You can read this on holiday.

-This is The Communist Manifesto

by Marx and Engels.

How often do you look at this?

Well, I dip in and out of it.

I think again it's something I read when I was in my early teens

and really gave me a passion for politics.

It was the first time I realised there was a separation between

political philosophy and politics we saw on telly and read about in the papers.

And has it sold you on Communism?

What it sold me on is that there is no correct political path.

I mean, I think, you know, they talk about owning the means of production,

which is regarded as being an incredibly left-wing philosophy.

But actually if you look at big society,

a right-wing philosophy from David Cameron,

it's effectively owning the means of production, but without being paid for it.

But incredibly intolerant.

I mean, just page 28 here.

"You must therefore confess by individual,

"you mean no other person than the bourgeois, than the middle class owner of property.

"This person must indeed be swept out of the way and made impossible."

It is suggesting that someone like you and Clare should be swept away,

you're the bourgeois class.

I would be first with the broom. I would be first with the broom.

-To... yeah...

-To sweep me away. Thanks!

-To sweep us all away.

What do you think your book choices say about you?

Well, interestingly I think, if I may about Clare, I was surprised...

-I was only asking about you.

-No, we can do it on each other.

-We could.

-Go on then.

I wasn't surprised by the amount of animal-based books you've got,

but I was genuinely surprised

by how much theology and philosophy you have.

I mean, you know, we can, you know, mock Dan Brown,

but it is about religion, philosophy and belief.

And the classics book is the same.

So that was quite a surprise, for me, about you.

I thought there'd be a food-based book too.

Sorry to disappoint you! I wasn't surprised by Fantastic Mr Fox.

It's very interesting, the way you've revealed yourself so clearly,

that idea of the outsider, but also your Indian heritage

in the Rohinton Mistry book, I think is fabulous.

But also the political interest,

and you are a very strongly political beast, you...

-Yes, I do.

-...would never be afraid to say what you think.

To point out injustice, to say, you know, "This doesn't work,

"this system doesn't work and it needs to work better."

But I think that book, you know, is a big part of my politics.

But I can't wait, I'm going to read the Myths...

-Myths Of Greece And Rome.

-But not till you've read the dog book.

-Given a choice...

-You may mock, I tell you, I can take this,

because I don't have to try and pretend I'm clever or anything,

because nobody expects me to be.

I can pick a nice book that lots of people have read

and lots of people bought and feel no shame in it.

I don't care what you think. I'm not trying to be clever.

If you had to choose just one book, Clare.

Yes, sorry, it wouldn't be that.

-Much as I like it, it wouldn't be that.

-What would it be?

Well, I'd recommend, if it's across all age groups,

I'd go for Myths Of Greece And Rome.

I know there have been obviously much more recent editions,

and you will hear these stories told and retold,

and they will crop up in, in everything you do.

So read as close to the original as you can.

-It's a great recommendation.

-Hardeep, which book would you recommend?

I'd be tempted to go for The Fantastic Mr Fox,

but that probably gets quite good reading as it is.

So the Rohinton Mistry, A Fine Balance, the most beautiful book I've ever read.

Lovely. There we are.

Thank you Clare Balding and Hardeep Singh Kohli

for joining me for My Life In Books.

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CONVERSATION DROWNED OUT BY APPLAUSE

And please don't forget there's more about this book series

on the BBC website, and please join me tomorrow, same time, same place,

for more stories of lives and books.

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