Duchess of Devonshire and Elizabeth McGovern 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, a real Duchess and a screen Countess.

The Dowager Duchess of Devonshire. The last of the famous Mitford sisters, she's a keen businesswoman

who transformed the fortunes of Chatsworth, one of the great houses of England.

Her Grace has kindly tonight asked me to call her Debo.

And Elizabeth McGovern, the American-born actress

who recently entranced the nation with a wonderful performance as Lady Grantham in Downton Abbey.

I am quite outclassed! Thank you both for joining me.

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Debo, have you seen Downton Abbey?

No, unfortunately not, because I very stupidly thought that they'd get it all wrong.

-But, of course, they didn't, and I realise now...

-I'm not so sure!

-I realise now that I've missed something. But they'll put it on again.

-Yes, they will.

-Just for you!

-I'll have another look.

-Let's take a look at a clip.

Welcome to Downton.

Lady Grantham, this is so kind of you.

Not at all, Duke. We're delighted you could spare the time.

You know my daughter Mary, of course - and Edith -

but I don't believe you've met my youngest, Sybil.

Ah. Lady Sybil.

How do you do?

Come on in, you must be worn out.

Oh - Lady Grantham, I've a confession to make.

My man was taken ill just as I was leaving, so I...

-Well, that won't be a problem, will it, Carson?

-Certainly not.

I shall look after His Grace myself.

Oh, no, I wouldn't dream of being such a nuisance. Surely a footman...

Didn't you serve me when I dined with Lady Grantham in London?

I did, Your Grace.

Ah. There we are. We shall do very well together, won't we...?

-Er...Thomas, Your Grace.

-Thomas.

If you'd had the chance, before you played Lady Grantham,

would you have liked to have received some advice from Debo?

Well, it did cross my mind on the journey here that I perhaps should

have read your book before embarking on Downton Abbey because your life

is such a parallel...

What struck you most about that sort of life, and the character you were playing?

-I think it takes a very healthy person to survive it.

-Yeah...

I really do.

Debo, you ran the great house of Chatsworth for nearly 50 years.

What do you think it is that has

increased people's interest in big houses?

I think there's a fascination...

When these films come on,

they're completely fascinated by it for some reason.

I don't quite know why - because they're just human beings, the same as everybody else.

Chatsworth pre-war, when your father-in-law

and mother-in-law were there...

Was it like that, was there that huge division of upstairs, downstairs?

Oh, there certainly was, but they were, my parents-in-law

were hardly there at all, because the war started when they were just going to make it much easier to run.

But it's such a pull, that house,

that people come back and back and back to see it again,

to walk in the park, to be alone in the garden...

Those are the things they love.

Heaps of people want their ashes scattered there, they really do.

There must have been plenty of books to choose from, living at Chatsworth.

There were thousands and thousands and thousands of books.

Did you keep account of the books, so that they weren't stolen away by guests?

-No, I'm afraid we didn't, and I'm afraid they were.

-Oh!

Let's start with childhood reads.

Debo, you had a very unconventional childhood.

Not much schooling from outside.

No, thank God!

I never went to school.

When I did, it was only for two days and it was so awful.

The early years, you were taught at home, weren't you?

Oh, yes. My mother taught us to read and write before we were five.

And did your father read to you much?

My father? No.

But his turn of phrase was absolutely second to none.

He was so funny. He was the source of all the jokes in our family.

Is it true your father only read one book?

He read one book.

It was called White Fang

and he said it was so good he was never going to read another.

LAUGHTER

And I bought one on the internet the other night thinking they'd never have one, and I got it for £2.

He'd have been so surprised, wouldn't he?

Elizabeth, tell us a bit about your childhood.

You were born in Illinois, and then moved to LA where your father was teaching, as a professor -

-and your mother was a teacher also.

-Two teachers.

-Yeah.

So, was it a Hollywood childhood or was it a bookish childhood?

It was not an LA upbringing per se, and it was - yes, given that both

parents were teachers, there were books everywhere. It was our life.

Did they read to you?

I don't REMEMBER that, but erm...

I would have thought that it was very likely.

I think often children can't remember a time when they couldn't read, actually.

Debo, your first choice is A Hero Of Our Time by Mikhail Lermontov,

and it's the story of a Russian

military officer called Pechorin.

It's about him travelling through the mountainous region between Europe and Asia.

Can you remember roughly how old you were, when...?

Well, I think I was sort of 17, 18, very impressionable.

It was so moving, and the descriptions of Russia were so wonderful.

Did it give you an idea of a different Russia, or did you have any idea what Russia was like?

Absolutely none. Just that it was too big.

My mother used to say, "Don't let's talk about China, it's too big."

LAUGHTER

-The hero is a sort of antihero, isn't he?

-Yes, he is.

He's a sort of Byronic figure, sort of restless and bored by everything.

And he killed a friend in a duel and just thought nothing of it.

I'm going to read a little bit - this is describing him.

"A grand fellow, he was, take it from me, only a bit odd.

"For instance, he'd spend the whole day out hunting in rain or cold.

"Everyone else would be tired and frozen, but he'd think nothing of it.

"Yet another time he'd sit in his room

"and at the least puff of wind reckon he'd caught a chill,

"or a shutter might bang and he'd shiver and turn pale.

"Yet I've seen him go for a wild boar single-handed.

"Sometimes you wouldn't get a word out of him for hours on end,

"but another time he would tell you stories that made you double up with laughter."

The denouement was that this man became suddenly and unexpectedly

very rich, and he could buy anything he wanted, and did.

And as soon as he'd got the things, he didn't want them any more.

-Did he remind you of anybody in your own life?

-Oh, he certainly did.

The thing about very rich people

wanting to buy something desperately, and then of course...

But it must have been a lesson that you took to heart, because you are somebody whose...

circle was the rich and the privileged - and yet you knew how to survive it

and create a very, very happy, fulfilling life.

-So it must have been a lesson that implanted on your brain very early on.

-Well, maybe yes. Maybe it was.

Elizabeth, your first choice

is The Black Stallion

by Walter Farley.

Now, how old were you

when you were reading this?

-Eight or nine, probably. Or ten.

-Tell us what it's about.

It's a series of books about this wonderful relationship

between a boy and a horse on an island.

So I think it was a sort of romantic fantasy for me to have this

marvellous communication that was beyond words with this beautiful black stallion.

Is it a boys' book, really?

Er, I don't know statistically if more boys read it than girls. Probably...

Can you read us a little bit?

"Alec turned to the Black" - the horse...

"'This is our chance, Black,' he said, 'Don't let me down'.

"He could see the stallion was nervous.

"The horse had learned to trust him, but his natural instinct still warned him against the others.

"Soothingly, Alec spoke to him.

"Slowly he backed away.

"The Black raised his head nervously, then followed.

"As the boy neared the boat, the stallion stopped."

Lovely.

Debo, you're a famous rider -

I mean, you've hunted for many years.

Well, I lived for fox hunting and really nothing else.

What is it about hunting that excites you?

Oh, it's absolutely the most exciting thing in the world, I suppose.

There's something about fox hunting which is just...makes your hair go like that at the back of your neck.

Your next choice is called Rio Grande's Last Race

And Other Verses,

it's Andrew Barton Paterson.

Why did you choose this?

Well, somebody read it to me, and it's so tragic I rather wish I hadn't ever read it.

It was a very famous racehorse in the story, and a famous rider on it, and they were going round Aintree,

and there was a stone wall, and they jumped it perfectly the first time.

And the next time, they all crowded round him

and somebody shouted, "Give Rio Grande a chance, give him a chance." And er...

they pushed him into the side and he went through the wall and was killed, and so was his rider.

And it's just somehow so tragic, cos he had been such a wonderful horse.

Elizabeth, would you read us a little from...? It's the first poem in the book.

And this is his sad end, this bit?

So sorry... So sorry, I can't read.

His tragic end.

"He looked to left and looked to right, as though men rode beside,

"And Rio Grande with foam flecks white

"Raced at his jumps in headlong flight

"and cleared them in his stride.

"But when they reached the big stone wall, down went the bridle hand.

"And loud we heard Macpherson call,

"'Make room or half the field will fall,

"'Make room for Rio Grande!'

"'He's down! He's down!'

"And horse and man lay quiet, side by side,

"no need the pallid face to scan.

"We knew with Rio Grande he ran,

"The race that dead men ride."

-Oh! Did it make you cry?

-Well, of course. Floods. Floods.

Are you a crier, generally?

Well, I am at that sort of thing.

-Animals?

-Well, sort of, when they've been so wonderful.

-There's something about the beauty of a horse too, that is beyond all words, isn't it?

-It is.

-Did you learn poetry off by heart?

-Yes, we had to.

My mother followed something called the Parents' National Education Union.

So there was a curriculum that she was following when she was teaching you at home?

Yes, there was.

Before we move on from childhood - Debo, did you read to YOUR children when they were small?

No, because we had a nanny who was far better at it than me

and she taught them botany, she taught them all kinds of things, took them camping...

And the badgers used to come round and, you know,

it was just a marvellous childhood when she was there.

Far, far better than I ever could have been.

There's a picture, here, of you when the children were young

with Chatsworth in the background.

Had you moved in there recently, at that time?

Yes, we had. We moved in 1959,

and I was there for 46 years and a month.

Elizabeth, you married an Englishman. Your life was transformed.

You moved over here and your children were brought up over here. Did you read to them when they were young?

Oh, yes.

They won't remember!

Did they choose, or did you?

I did.

Well, I was forced to read the Harry Potters of course, but erm...

..but aside from that, we read a lot.

Your next book - James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist

As A Young Man.

You were 15 when you read this.

Could you give us the plot in ten seconds?

Irish boy finds his true nature

growing up in...religious Dublin.

So it's er...

him discovering who he is.

OK, would you like to read us a passage from it?

"A wild angel had appeared to him, the angel of mortal youth and beauty.

"An envoy from the fair courts of life, to throw open before him in an

"instant of ecstasy the gates of all the ways of error and glory.

"On, and on, and on, and on.

"He halted suddenly, and heard his heart in the silence.

"How far had he walked, what hour was it?"

Why was it so special to you, that book, at 15?

I think it gave me a licence to believe that

the interior monologue that was within me

was important and relevant and...worth expressing.

In the same way that this boy discovers

that his calling in life will be to express the nature of life through his work in art.

Were you already on the path to becoming an actress by then?

No, this was long before that.

Debo, your next choice is an autobiography,

it was published in 1966.

It's called A Late Beginner

by Priscilla Napier.

Can you tell us about this?

Well, it's about Priscilla Napier's

childhood in Egypt,

and the extraordinary things she noticed.

Her father was working in Egypt, advising the government

on matters financial and all that.

-She wrote it towards the end of her life, didn't she?

-Yes.

She goes back and describes her childhood as if she was still a child...

And she precipitated herself into wonderful descriptions

of Egypt and the people there and er...

it's just so extraordinary to be able to do that and then pretend you're only three.

Which couldn't have been quite true!

There's a little bit here...

"My mother and her sisters were true Victorians.

"Not in a general way - frightened of battle, murder and sudden death - but perfectly terrified of insects.

"The discovery of a scorpion in the nursery toy cupboard was, I think, kept from her.

"'Come and look, Daddy, what there is!

"'A tiny little lobster, in one of the dolls' teacups.'"

LAUGHTER

In your own book, Wait For Me, published last year,

there are some wonderful descriptions of you and your sisters.

Nancy was your older sister, and she was 16 years older than you.

Yes, she was grown up

and she'd gone to London to go to balls and all the rest of it, you know,

so she was very, very... Came back with these amazing tales of what she'd been doing in London.

-Hugely embroidered, like all her tales...

-Yeah.

..but very funny.

Did it mean that you were a late beginner, being the youngest?

Yes, it did, because I wasn't the least bit interested in politics and all the others were.

And there were such rows at the dinner table, and people used to

go out and bang the door, you know -

but an absolute blind spot to me, I couldn't be interested in it.

Elizabeth, your next choice comes at a time when you were going through a big life change.

It's Middlemarch by George Eliot.

Well, it was a time in my life

of much tumult, because I had left America where I'd worked very hard to carve a career,

and I had made this decision to have a baby in England

so I was grappling with a lot of life changes, and...

really to kill time

I found what looked like the fattest book on the shelf,

and what I found in it was writing of such great wisdom about

human interaction and the repercussions of the decisions people make in their life.

And so much of it has to do with...

..people making choices about who they marry,

and er...

..the great importance of that, for any woman.

So it gave me a sort of a wise strength at that time.

Has Downton Abbey made up for the years when

you had to put your career on hold because of children?

I would say so, yes.

I feel very, very happy and proud to be a part of it.

Debo, your next book

is a very modern book, but it'll probably be

classed as a classic very soon.

It's Alan Bennett's

The Uncommon Reader.

He's been to stay, has he?

No! He wouldn't come to stay -

I said "Alan, do spend the night here, please do."

So he said, "No, no. I don't want to do that, I'll go to a crummy 'otel."

LAUGHTER

He's so nice and so charming and all that.

And he somehow has got this completely right, this book about

the Queen going unexpectedly to the back quarters of Buckingham Palace.

The travelling library happened to be there, and there was one or two people very interested in looking

so she'd climbed up the steps, and she went in to look and see what there was.

And having ploughed through a very heavy book that she was told was going to be wonderful,

her eye alit I'm glad to say on The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford.

We've got a little of Alan Bennett here, reading from The Uncommon Reader.

'Books did not defer. All readers were equal.

'And this took her back to the beginning of her life.

'As a girl, one of her greatest thrills had been on VE night, when she and her sister had slipped

'out of the gates and mingled unrecognised with the crowds.

'There was something of that, she felt, to reading.

'It was anonymous. It was shared.

'It was common.

'And she, who had led a life apart, now found that she craved it.

'Here in these pages and between these covers, she could go unrecognised.'

-Is it a good portrait of the Queen?

-I should say, very good.

Very good, because she's so extraordinarily down to earth,

and that's just how she would have reacted to the idea

of all those books round her - which of course she's got far, far more than that of her own.

I love Alan Bennett, he's...

That's the best description of reading I've ever heard.

"It's anonymous. It's shared." That's why it's so beautiful.

That's it, it's lovely.

You can leave yourself at the door, and yet you're sharing with other people.

And Elizabeth, your next choice

is The Remains Of The Day by Kazuo Ishiguro.

What happened

when you were reading this?

I was in a production

in New Jersey of Twelfth Night,

and driving back and forth in the car with the cast we would all carpool together, and...

it was a group idea to read passages of a book just to make the journey go faster.

So we all read this to one another. So it was a happy memory, that.

But at the time I felt that it crystallised my idea of a perfect book.

Not one passage is extraneous or not beautifully written.

It's about a butler in service, Stevens, who towards the end of

his life, doesn't he, sort of looks back and clearly regrets the missed opportunities.

The story is it dawning on him that he's missed his chance for love,

and that it was there for him.

So I suppose it began my fascination with the English character, because I think...

..in some respects he's writing about, perhaps not the England of

today, but the England of 40 years ago in which erm...

people were more interested in living lives of duty, et cetera

than in letting their emotions dictate their actions.

And the butler has learned to suffer the damage of that to a certain extent.

We've got a clip here, and this is a flashback.

It goes back to the first time that he meets Miss Kenton, who of course he falls in love with,

and even in this clip, she looks as if she's already in "lurve".

Well, no gentleman callers allowed, of course.

You'll forgive my mentioning it, but we have had problems of that sort

before, from inside the house too.

The previous housekeeper took it into her head to run off with the under butler.

Now, if two members of staff happen to fall in love

and decide to get married, there is nothing one can say, but what I do find a major irritation

are those persons who are simply going from post to post, looking for romance.

Housekeepers are particularly guilty here.

-No offence intended, of course.

-None taken.

I know from my own experience how houses are at sixes and sevens once the staff start marrying each other.

Yes, indeed...

-Ahhh!

-Ohh.

And the book, of course, won the Booker Prize in 1989.

Possibly becoming a classic like Middlemarch, do you think?

If it were up to me, yes.

We've had childhood and adolescent books, classic novels and some poetry.

We're going to move on to guilty pleasures.

Debo, you go back to your childhood for your final choice.

And you've actually brought with you, your copy of this book,

Struwwelpeter.

It's a German book,

by Heinrich Hoffmann,

and it's a pretty scary children's story, isn't it?

-It certainly is.

-Yes.

Why did you choose it?

Well, because it's so frightening, and children love being frightened.

And why is it scary?

Because they cut off their fingers, they burnt the girls because of the matches...

-It's punishment.

-Harriet And The Matches - she got burnt because

-she was naughty and did something wrong.

-Too right!

There's a terrifying picture of her running,

isn't there? Do you remember?

-Oh, yes.

-Really, really frightening.

-How children survived it I don't know.

-I apologise for the frightening books.

LAUGHTER

When did you read it, Elizabeth?

It was in my husband's parents' house, so we'd take the kids there

and he used to enact the story of the boy who never drank his soup.

-Do you remember that one?

-Yes, I certainly do.

And wasted away until he died, a stick! And they loved that.

Elizabeth, we come on to your final book, which you describe as your guilty pleasure.

Pure enjoyment...

I love reading recipes...

but I don't like a lot of fat - literary fat -

around the recipe itself, I just like reading the recipe.

Do you dream of cooking, or do you actually cook?

-I never cook.

-LAUGHTER

Can you show us one recipe that you dream of, then?

I mean, this to me is just so much fun.

"Souffle...

-"A quarter-ounce softened butter.

-CHUCKLING

"Prepare the mould, measure out the ingredients, butter the entire surface of the mould.

"Roll granulated sugar around in it, to coat the sides and bottom evenly."

-I just love reading all that!

-LAUGHTER

-Are you a cook, Debo?

-I haven't cooked since the war.

LAUGHTER

That's how I started my cookery book.

You wrote a cookery book yourself?

-Yes.

-Ah!

-I did. And it still sells, strangely enough.

Debo, you're breaking the rules cos you've brought another book.

Well, this is...yes, this is a very strange book.

It's The Life of Ronald Knox

by Evelyn Waugh.

Evelyn was a great friend, and he used to give me all his books as they came out.

And this thing arrived... and it doesn't look very prepossessing, does it?

Horrible colour, and everything perfectly beastly about it.

So I put it on the floor. And a friend of mine was sitting

next to me on the sofa, picked it up and found this written in it.

-Can you read it?

-Yes...

"For Darling Debo, with love from Evelyn.

"You won't find a word in this

"to offend your Protestant sympathies"!

Well, that's how it starts. And then, you see,

you're looking for what's happening,

and...there are no words in it.

-LAUGHTER

-Isn't that a good book?

But wasn't it nice of him to do it on purpose...?

-Wonderful!

-He knew I wouldn't look at it, but it was jolly nice of him.

-So that's my surprise.

-That was brilliant.

And, if you had to choose one of the five books to recommend - which one?

-Me?

-Yes.

-Oh, Lord...

I don't know.

-I suppose A Late Beginner.

-A Late Beginner.

-I think so.

-Priscilla Napier. That's the autobiography published in 1966.

-Completely wonderful.

-Elizabeth, if you had to choose one?

-Middlemarch.

-Middlemarch.

-It's a book to live your life by.

What do you think your book choices say about you?

I think they...reflect my journey.

Which is, starting out

an enormous ego - James Joyce -

with er...

a penchant for romantic fantasy - Walter Farley -

tempered by the wisdom of middle-age, and

settling into a life of being happily married with kids.

That's been my...

personal journey thus far.

-Debo?

-I don't think I can judge that for myself.

If I may say so, I think what your books say about you is that you've got a terrific sense of humour.

-Oh, good.

-Yes!

-LAUGHTER

That's very nice to hear.

Don't forget, there's more about the Books series on the BBC website.

Thank you to Debo, Dowager Duchess of Devonshire, and Elizabeth McGovern -

thank you for your life in books.

Please join me again tomorrow, same time, same place, for more stories of lives and books.

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