Episode 4 My Life in Books

Hello and welcome to My Life In Books,

a chance for guests to chat about their favourite books

and why they're important. Joining me tonight is Sir Tim Rice,

lyricist, author and cricketing nut,

although I think it's fair to say

-your songs have been more successful than your cricket.

-This is true.

To date - 13 Novellos, four Tonys and three Oscars. Not bad.

Alongside him, Russell Grant,

without doubt the must-watch star of last year's Strictly.

Russell, I've never doubted your ability to move and shake.

I'm sitting still with you tonight, though.

-Welcome to you both.

-Thank you, Anne.

APPLAUSE

Tim, we're going to start with your first book.

Paint us a picture.

You're growing up in leafy Hertfordshire at the time.

Yes, I was born at the very end of the War,

technically in Buckinghamshire, but I grew up in Hertfordshire.

One of the first books that made an impact on me

was a grown-up book about astronomy.

It was a book my father had,

and he left it lying around the house, carelessly, and I grabbed it.

I rather defaced it, I'm afraid.

I was only five and I was writing things in coloured pens

on some of these beautiful drawings - only because I was so enthusiastic!

It was a book about the solar system

and about the possibility of man flying to the moon one day.

I became obsessed with the planets

and all the stats involved with the planets.

I can still recite the moons of Saturn as they then were,

just from this book.

My parents thought I was a bit weird.

I went to the Festival of Britain with my mum in 1951

and that was a huge celebration of Britain just after the War -

well, five or six years after the War.

It was a commemoration also of Prince Albert's 1851 exhibition.

And at this wonderful Festival of Britain

there was a model of the solar system with all the planets going round.

All I wanted to do was sit in front of this,

and my poor mum went bananas.

She was keen to see other things and I just sat there saying,

"Could I watch Saturn do one more lap?"

-And er, the book in question...

-The Conquest Of Space.

Willy Ley wrote the words and they're brilliant,

and Chesley Bonestell drew these picture of how, in 1949,

when the book was published,

they imagined how the planets and the satellites looked.

Of course, since then our probes have been all over the shop.

It's very interesting to see how much has been proven right

and how much has been proven misguided since 1949.

We'd like to remind everybody what you looked like at this stage.

-You're a very pretty little boy. How about that?

-Ah, yes!

-How old were you then?

-I think I was probably three or four then.

But I was definitely a bit weird

because I was very keen on this grown-up book

to the exclusion of Noddy and Big Ears to some extent.

I wrote to the Festival of Britain after it closed down

because I'd read this wonderful model of the solar system

was going to be dismantled.

I wrote to them aged five-and-a-half or six and said,

"If you don't want it, could I have it?"

I never got a reply, but they tipped off the Evening News,

a paper no longer in existence,

and I was interviewed by the Evening News aged six.

They came round and I was misquoted.

I learned early on that papers never get anything right!

But briefly I was considered a childhood genius,

but only for about three weeks,

it all went horribly wrong very soon after that.

And not to be left out, Russell,

let's see how beautiful you were at this age.

How about that?

Russell, you'd given up on shirts and ties, had you?

Even at an early age.

I mean, that was me.

I'd just won a bonny baby competition

at some holiday camp in Norfolk, near Great Yarmouth.

I'm wearing my sun top!

I don't why - it was the North Sea

and I'm sure there wasn't much sun coming in there!

Tim was born in 1944, you're a little later - 1951.

-Festival of Britain.

-Indeed.

But you're not in leafy Hertfordshire.

I'm in very leafy Middlesex.

I was born in Hillingdon in Middlesex just off Long Lane,

and a few months later I was taken to Harefield in Middlesex

which became very famous for the heart hospital

and Professor Magdi Yacoub.

I had my tonsils out there.

We moved into a very tiny little flat

in St Mary's Close, two bedrooms,

and the evocative sounds of the barges going up the Grand Union

and the little single, erm,

aeroplanes that used to land at Denham and Northolt,

still to this day remind me of my, my, my baby times.

But your first book is a long way from Middlesex, isn't it?

-It is.

-It's Heidi.

-It is. That's a beautiful cover of Heidi.

-You've got one there.

-I've got mine here, right.

It's a very beautiful cover.

It's mountains and lots of lovely fantasy pictures

of a little girl playing with the goats.

It's everything that I ever wanted.

My love of mountains began with the illustrations of Heidi.

It's quite a sad story in parts.

Heidi basically was taken up the mountain, carted up by Aunty,

and she lived with Granddad, who was blind, and Peter, the goatherd.

About three years later, Aunty came back,

a bit like the Wicked Witch of the West,

-took her back down the mountain...

-Without her being given any warning.

No, just took her back down and took her to Frankfurt

where she became a companion to a little girl called Klara.

Klara was an invalid, and then before you know it, Heidi became ill

and she was carted back up the mountain.

Klara came to visit and Peter, the goatherd, became jealous

and tried to throw Klara off the cliff.

In the meantime, Heidi had learned how to read in Frankfurt

and was entertaining Grandfather by reading him lots of books.

-Will you delight us by reading us an extract?

-I will be delighted.

"Heidi was awakened early in the morning by a loud whistle.

"When she opened her eyes, a flood of sunshine was pouring through

"the round window on her bed and the hay close by

"so that everything about her shone like gold.

"Heidi looked around her in amazement

"and did not know where she was.

"Then she heard her grandfather's deep voice outside

"and everything came back to her mind -

"where she had come from, and that now she was up on the Alm

"with her grandfather and no longer with old Ursel."

Lovely. I certainly remember Heidi.

I remember a TV series when I was young, black and white, BBC.

Heidi was written presumably in the first place in German?

-That's right, that's right.

-Have there been lots of translations?

All around the world,

I think 50 million copies around the world have been sold.

Is there one English translation,

or could you and I have a go at re-translating it?

Not tonight, I have to move on to the next book!

-I'll have a bash in the interval!

-Tim, very different for you.

Already you're showing your interest in cricket.

I played a bit at prep school when I was pretty small.

And I got more and more interested

when my parents got a TV for the coronation in 1953,

and they had the Ashes on, not ball-by-ball,

but it was enough to get me hooked.

And some years later, not that much later, when I was about 12,

my mum gave me a brilliant novel

which she'd enjoyed when she was a child,

written by a very famous author of his day called Ian Hay.

This was a booked called Pip.

It was partly a cricket story.

Pip was a young man, it tells the story of his life from five

to when he gets married when he's about 30.

One of the things he's very good at -

and he has lots of ups and downs - is cricket.

There are only a couple of chapters which basically are about cricket.

But it was a very moving story.

Although it's dated in many ways and it's very old fashioned,

-it's Downton Abbey, if you like...

-Of its time?

-Of its time.

And I still love the book,

not just because my dear mum gave it to me,

but because it is a wonderful book

that captures that era so well,

the era from about...just before the First World War.

I was very excited we had an old Penguin edition here,

but you've done better with your original.

That Penguin edition is late '30s,

it's an early Penguin, so in itself it must be worth something,

although that copy looks rather knackered.

All the better for looking knackered!

There are ways of looking knackered, and I'm not sure that book's got it!

This is a truly wonderful, knackered, in a very good way, copy of Pip.

-If I may, I'll read one little bit.

-Of course.

I'll have to paraphrase a bit or I'll go on too long,

but Pip and Pipette, his sister - who was really called Philippa -

go to a prep school, or a kindergarten, really,

run by Mr Pocklington, and he gives the kids an intelligence test.

Every day, or every week, every child goes in

and is given a thrupenny bit and a penny.

A thrupenny bit, you all remember those, don't you?

And the child is asked to choose either the thrupenny bit

or the penny, to see if he or she understands the value of money.

"Pipette unhesitatingly picked up the thrupenny bit

"and was commended for her acumen.

"Pip, when it came to his turn, selected the penny,

"and after being soundly rated for his stupidity

"was cast forth from the study and bidden to learn sense.

"A week later he was again put to the test and again chose the penny."

Pip goes on doing this for week after week,

and all the other boys and girls start taking the mickey out of Pip

and he's regarded as a bit of a twit.

His sister is getting a bit worried about this, and she's only six,

and she hates seeing her older brother being mocked by his friends.

She says, "Pip, why don't you take the thrupenny bit?

"If you did he'd stop being so horrid to you.

"Pip regarded his sister's small eager face with cold scorn.

"If I once took the thrupenny bit, he replied,

"he'd stop offering the money altogether.

"Why, I've made eightpence since I came here."

LAUGHTER

"This was the last occasion in their lives on which Pipette ever questioned

"the wisdom of her beloved brother's actions."

Delightful. Thank you for that.

-Oh, very good. Lots of Ps.

-Lots of Ps, yes.

-Pip, Pipette, Pocklington and pennies.

-Very interesting.

Anyway, Pip grows up to be a hunky guy who's, you know...

He ends up getting married, and the final chapter is about -

I won't spoil the story, because you're all going to buy it now -

but he actually has to play a golf game to win the hand of the woman he loves.

-Is the golf game the finale?

-Yes, it's the final chapter.

That might be exciting for people who like golf?

-Yes!

-Of which Anne is obviously not one!

Russell, your next choice is called

The Victoria History Of The County Of Middlesex.

This is a wonderful, wonderful book

and it was one of the inspirations for me

to really get behind where I came from.

I got pretty sick of being called West London or North London.

These compass points make little villages

and hamlets and towns anonymous.

And we need to understand that, certainly in Middlesex,

it's the land of the Middle Saxons.

So when you have these villages,

they are all very much a history of their own.

They're all very much... They have their own identity and therefore

I have a sense of belonging to where I come from -

Harefield and Middlesex.

You then get bureaucrats who came along in the '60s and '70s

who just, in a similar way to the way that the Treaty of Versailles

cut through tribes and regions and created chaos in the world today,

they've created chaos in the identity of our local history

and geography in this country, because of constant changes.

I wrote at the time to Mrs Thatcher

because I was so incensed about what Edward Heath had done.

I think she was incensed about most things Edward Heath did!

I said to her, "Why have you got rid of where I come from?"

I got this letter back from a Christopher Chope,

who I think is still in Parliament.

The letter read,

"Dear Mr Grant,

"just because we have abolished a 76-year-old county council,

"it does not mean we have abolished a 1,300-year-old county."

From that moment, I realised that distinction was

a county of a place is not the same as a county council.

But it does really explain the confusions,

so that if you say Wembley you'd say Wembley, Middlesex.

You listen to news programmes and it could be North London, North West London.

They don't know where they're coming from, half the news programmes,

because there is no definite book to tell you.

I'm 100% behind you - the most awful things

governments have done since the War,

ditching half the counties - many of which have come back.

Who wants Hereford and Worcester?

Who wants no Rutland, who wants Yorkshire rechanged?

-The thing is, if you define...

-Bring back Middlesex!

I think we've got how passionate you are. Let's excite you...

-Shall I put my book down, or can I take it?

-You can take it home.

I thought you'd like this, cos we've found this for you to see - the flag.

-How about that?

-Oh, yes, we raised that just a few months ago.

Here's me thinking that was the end!

Eric Pickles, Eric Pickles, a fine figure of a man -

I look terribly slim next to him...

They've asked me to be a government advisor on communities and counties.

We raised the Middlesex flag because they wanted to be

absolutely sure that everyone knew Middlesex still exists.

-Well, we've done it for you now.

-Middlesex Cricket Club still exists.

-County Cricket Club.

-I think I'll go home!

-We're off.

-It's a very important cause, this. I'm 100% behind you.

-Thank you.

-But we are going to go back to Tim in his 20s.

-Yes, far, far away.

-You've left public school.

-Yes.

You're not at all sure what to do.

I was a failed lawyer briefly and then I joined EMI Records

as a management trainee, which really means glorified office boy.

I felt I had one foot in the music business, which is my one passion.

During my time there I met - well, I wrote and I heard about

and wrote to - Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Then I suddenly found myself into theatre, and he said,

"I want to write musicals." And I wanted to be Mick Jagger.

TITTERS

But he said, "I've written eight musicals already," and he had,

and would I like to write the words?

"Do you know anything about theatre?" And I said, "Of course."

We then began a long and winding road.

Can we just see a picture of you at the beginning of that road?

That was the cover of Joseph, the first album we did together.

Joseph had a very gentle beginning, didn't it?

I happened to be in the audience

when you were telling a theatre full of undergraduates

about how Joseph came to be.

I must say, I thought they walked out and probably thought they could all write a hit musical.

You make it sound as if it's just falling off a log.

Well, Joseph was by far the easiest piece I've ever worked on.

Partly because one was young, enthusiastic,

didn't have too many distractions, and also it was basically funny.

It's much easier, certainly for me,

to write something funny than something serious.

If you write a love ballad,

it's much harder because everything's been said.

But if you're writing a song about a bloke who's got a coloured coat

and his brothers don't like him, it hasn't been done an awful lot before.

I mean, I'm sure somebody's written the Joseph story

and set it to music, but with humour you can use almost any word.

The weirder the word, the better. Joseph was effortless for us both.

I have to say, 40 years later and arrogantly, it was also quite good.

We didn't know at the time that it was that good,

and we never imagined that 40 years later it would still be around.

This book you've chosen as your next book,

The Code Of The Woosters, PG Wodehouse,

not unsurprising given your cricket and your background,

that this would be one of your choices.

It's perhaps an unoriginal choice.

Shortly after Andrew and I had a lucky break with Superstar,

we were going to - first time ever - flying to New York.

Jumbo jets had only just started and I couldn't believe the jumbo jet,

that was a thrill. We were at the back of the plane and my mum,

who was a great Wodehouse fan, had been saying for years,

"You must read PG Wodehouse."

I hadn't, and I was 25, 26.

She gave me the Code Of The Woosters to read while I was in America

because, "You won't have anything else to do there," she thought.

I read the book on the plane going out, and I was in hysterics the whole way

and I became a Jeeves and Wodehouse fanatic

to the extent that Andrew and I, after Superstar,

decided to write a musical based on Jeeves.

It was probably a mistake, because I found particularly

I couldn't begin to match the wit of PG Wodehouse through lyrics.

I pulled out of the project.

What was embarrassing was that we'd met the great man

to get permission to do it, and he was very old by then.

But not disappointing? It's sometimes a mistake, isn't it?

No, it was great to meet him.

He was exactly as one imagined and he lived out in Long Island in New York.

I remember very clearly we posed for some photographs

and I thought, "This is fantastic.

"Even if the musical's a total turkey, I've met PG Wodehouse."

Andrew and I posed with him, and my terribly trendy camera, in the days

when you had to take your pictures to Boots to get them printed.

When I got them back in England about two weeks later,

I found I'd somehow cretinously exposed most of the film

and all I got out of what should have been 24 lovely pictures,

of which 22 would have been me and Andrew and PG Wodehouse,

I got two pictures, both of Andrew, which I didn't need!

LAUGHTER

So I have no proof, except, when I decided to pull out of the musical,

I was so embarrassed I wrote a letter to PG Wodehouse

which took me forever to construct,

and I got a charming letter back from him saying, "Fully understand".

-That I have kept.

-Meanwhile, Russell, sticking with history.

-Your next choice is A History Of The Reign Of Queen Anne.

-Yes.

-A lot of people are surprised at my choices.

-Yes, very surprised.

I think this woman is one of the great Britons.

She is a woman who is very stoic.

She had 17 pregnancies.

Her one son only lasted until he was about 11 years old.

She presided over the union of the parliaments of England and Scotland.

I just think she's a lovely, lovely woman. Lovely woman!

She's a great woman and I think she's fantastic!

Queen Anne!

That's nothing to do with you, darling.

-It is spelt with an "E".

-It is.

Another connection, of course, quite a well known connection,

is yourself and the Queen Mother.

Oh, yes. The dear Queen Mother.

What happened was, I was opening a big exhibition in London at Olympia

and the Queen Mother was opening the exhibition and she popped along.

She only meant to stay for three minutes,

but stayed for half an hour and had a reading.

At that point, all the papers then had titles which were

"Astrologer Royal, By Royal Appointment".

-That's you there, Russell, looking like David Essex!

-..Like David Essex.

We never rehearsed that!

What did you tell the Queen Mother?

At that point I'm explaining to her that she was a Leo.

I said, "Do you know what, Ma'am? If you weren't the Queen Mother,

"you'd make a wonderful impresario like Delfont or Grade."

To which she said, "Quite so, quite so."

The Queen Mother did launch your television career as an astrologer.

She was fantastic.

It was never meant to be, it just kind of happened.

March 10th, 1978.

-What time?

-3.20 in the afternoon.

-I think this is early '80s, this is BBC Breakfast.

-Oh, look.

Sagittarius. If you're walking down the prom, prom, prom,

packing for your vacation or looking for a break, you're A-OK.

If you're a stay-at-home archer,

I suggest you go out on an away day

and let the bracing ozone or sea air blow over your body.

Oh, lovely!

APPLAUSE

I do have to say, those jumpers, which still plague me to this day...

I was disappointed you didn't arrive in a colourful jumper.

Darling, I'm 60 years old.

If I still walked around like that, they'd think something was definitely wrong.

Savoir faire! Debonair!

To bring us up to near about now, your final choice of book

is something you're working on, isn't it?

Yes, I've chosen a book which I've admired for, I guess, 20 years

-since I first read it.

-You've got a copy there.

This is From Here To Eternity.

This was a hugely successful book in the middle of the 20th century,

written by James Jones.

It was made into a very successful movie

starring Burt Lancaster, Frank Sinatra,

Deborah Kerr, Montgomery Clift. A fantastic line-up.

Basically, it tells the story of some GIs in Hawaii,

just before Pearl Harbor, when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor

and the entire US Navy virtually without telling them,

ie, they didn't declare war.

That's one aspect of the story, these soldiers and the life they lived

waiting for war they know is coming but they aren't sure when or how.

But also it's two wonderful love stories

involving a young loner who is a private called Prewitt

who is involved with a kind of hooker, an escort lady

who is an American and works in a Honolulu bar.

She's come from Oregon and she'll go back to being respectable once she's made a few bob.

Another torrid affair,

which is the Burt Lancaster-Deborah Kerr famous scene on the beach,

where they're lying on the beach in their very respectable swimsuits

and the waves rush over them.

That's an affair between the non-commissioned officer,

the sergeant, and his boss's - the colonel's - wife.

I have decided I'm giving it a go as my next musical.

I've written a song about the colonel's wife

who is in her late 30s.

She knows her marriage is a mess, she's had a son

but it's not going right,

and she thinks there must be more to life than this.

And there's a wonderful word or phrase in it -

"there must be another language."

I'll read you a quick paragraph, which...

She's going to have this affair,

she knows she's going to have the affair with the sergeant.

She's excited about it, but also frightened.

She says, or the book says,

"There must be more, there must be, something told her,

"some place, somewhere, there must be another reason above, beyond.

"Somewhere, another equation besides this virgin plus marriage,

"plus motherhood, plus grandmotherhood,

"equals honour, justification, death.

"There must be another language - forgotten, unheard, unspoken -

"than the owning of an American's homey kitchen complete with dinette,

"breakfast nook and fluorescent lighting."

-Wonderful. What's your song called?

-Another Language.

-Lovely.

We stay with Hollywood, really, for your final book.

It's Ingrid, it's quite a recent biography of Ingrid Bergman

by Charlotte Chandler.

-Why this, Russell?

-I just think she is beauty personified.

I think she's probably the greatest actress, in my opinion,

that we've ever seen in movies.

If you're gay, you're meant to like Judy Garland and Marilyn Monroe

and Bette Davis and Joan Crawford.

I love all of those - just in case you wondered, yes, I'm gay.

Might not have crossed your mind!

So, but Ingrid Bergman is not the natural choice.

I go for Ingrid Bergman because she is an actor of great depths

and great dimensions.

Did you learn anything new from the book?

I did. I think what I learned about her was that -

again, talking about strong, powerful women -

that if she decided to do something, she was going to do it

and nothing would stop her.

Yet, some of the roles she played you'd think she was very supple

and malleable, but in fact she wasn't.

When she wanted to do something, she would.

She was a much stronger woman than I anticipated.

Russell, we were going to end with an obvious clip with you on Strictly

but actually we thought this was even more fun because it showed your talent...

-To amuse.

-..To amuse very much earlier.

-This is you on the Keith Harris Show in 1983.

-Oh, no!

# Scorpio

# Taurus, Gemini, Virgo

# Cancer, Pisces, Leo, Libra, Aries

# I don't care about your rising sun

# All I know is when your hands touch mine you move me on

# Good vibrations!

# You really move me on

# No matter what sign you are

# You're going to be mine Yes, you are

# Hold me tight

# Oooh, hold me, hold me, hold me, hold me. #

APPLAUSE

-You thought you'd never see it again!

-No, exactly.

Tim, what about Russell - The Musical?

I think Russell - The Musical would be a sell-out.

That's your next project.

-So funny.

-I'm not going to write it!

-It could be cricket!

-Oh, yes.

LAUGHTER

You two have been a delight. Thank you very much.

APPLAUSE

Thank you, Russell Grant and Tim Rice.

Just to remind you, everybody, that details for this series

are on the BBC website...

There's also more about our guests and their book choices,

and you can even hear them read a passage

from their favourite children's book.

Meanwhile, please join me again tomorrow night. Good night.

APPLAUSE

Subtitles by Red Bee Media