0:00:02 > 0:00:05SPEECH INAUDIBLE
0:00:41 > 0:00:45'Sir Mortimer Wheeler, the greatest archaeologist of our time.
0:00:45 > 0:00:49'Now aged 84, he lives an active and hospitable retirement
0:00:49 > 0:00:53'close to London's Trafalgar Square and his beloved British Academy.
0:00:53 > 0:00:56'He's been a star in everything he's ever set his hand to.
0:00:56 > 0:00:59'Now he has time to look back with wit and affection
0:00:59 > 0:01:02'on the great men and events he's known or admired.'
0:01:02 > 0:01:06Are you a student of Benjamin Disraeli?
0:01:06 > 0:01:08- No.- You're not.
0:01:08 > 0:01:09I am.
0:01:09 > 0:01:15I find that Benjamin Disraeli on my table by my bedside,
0:01:15 > 0:01:21it lightens my day for me, or my night for me.
0:01:21 > 0:01:23He...he produces
0:01:23 > 0:01:26exactly the things I've been trying to say myself
0:01:26 > 0:01:27for so long.
0:01:29 > 0:01:34And lately, I've picked up his, I think it's his last novel.
0:01:34 > 0:01:36A novel of his old age - Lothair.
0:01:37 > 0:01:41And there I opened the book at a page which has
0:01:41 > 0:01:46a direct bearing on what you've just been saying.
0:01:46 > 0:01:48On this page he is talking about
0:01:48 > 0:01:51a little man called Pinto,
0:01:51 > 0:01:53Portuguese of some sort.
0:01:53 > 0:01:56But a pet of society in the period he's writing off.
0:01:56 > 0:01:59And he...
0:02:00 > 0:02:05..gives an idea of the sort of conversation that he imagines,
0:02:05 > 0:02:08or had heard, taking place in his time.
0:02:09 > 0:02:14After all, nearly everything that he wrote in his novels is, for us,
0:02:14 > 0:02:17an inheritance from the age of conversation.
0:02:18 > 0:02:23And in this particular book, his hero, I think, his hidden hero
0:02:23 > 0:02:26is a little man called Pinto.
0:02:26 > 0:02:30And Pinto he describes in what I think is a perfectly delightful
0:02:30 > 0:02:32and eloquent manner.
0:02:32 > 0:02:35"He was not of intellectual Croesus
0:02:35 > 0:02:38"but his pockets were full of sixpences."
0:02:38 > 0:02:41And he gives one or two of the sixpences as examples.
0:02:41 > 0:02:43And one of them is this,
0:02:43 > 0:02:47"He would sometimes remark, when a man fell into his anecdotage,
0:02:47 > 0:02:51"it was a sign for him to retire from the world."
0:02:52 > 0:02:56'Well, in spite of his professed aversion to anecdotage,
0:02:56 > 0:02:59'Sir Mortimer himself is a marvellous storyteller.
0:02:59 > 0:03:02'He relishes the quality of greatness in others
0:03:02 > 0:03:05'and not least the faults that he believes
0:03:05 > 0:03:09'that no genius worthy of the name can ever be without.'
0:03:09 > 0:03:12So, the genius can still make an infinite number of mistakes
0:03:12 > 0:03:13and still be a genius?
0:03:13 > 0:03:15Well, yes, well, look at Churchill.
0:03:17 > 0:03:19There's a whole book about his mistakes -
0:03:19 > 0:03:22Churchill: A Study In Failure.
0:03:22 > 0:03:24It's a sensible book too, a sensible book.
0:03:24 > 0:03:30But of course, it leaves out all that matters about Churchill.
0:03:30 > 0:03:33What matters is what happens in between his failures.
0:03:34 > 0:03:37And his failures themselves were stimulating.
0:03:37 > 0:03:40It's rather a curious story.
0:03:40 > 0:03:44If...if it bores you just put a finger up and I'll stop.
0:03:45 > 0:03:46Perhaps.
0:03:50 > 0:03:52It happened this way -
0:03:52 > 0:03:53in the year 1938...
0:03:55 > 0:03:59..I received a formidable document from the University of Bristol...
0:04:01 > 0:04:05..inviting me to accept an honorary doctorate, you see.
0:04:05 > 0:04:07The first time it had happened to me.
0:04:07 > 0:04:10Of course, as you get older and go down the slope
0:04:10 > 0:04:14these things happen as a matter of course and they just happen.
0:04:14 > 0:04:16But this was the first.
0:04:16 > 0:04:21And it...it so happened
0:04:21 > 0:04:25that Winston Churchill was, at that time,
0:04:25 > 0:04:29the Chancellor of Bristol University.
0:04:29 > 0:04:31He had been for some years.
0:04:31 > 0:04:34And if he took on a job of that sort he always did it.
0:04:34 > 0:04:38He would always turn up at the great ceremonial occasions.
0:04:38 > 0:04:43And so, when in due course I appeared in the Great Hall,
0:04:43 > 0:04:46in the line of the stalls, you know, sitting in between...
0:04:46 > 0:04:49This made me laugh internally, I can tell you.
0:04:49 > 0:04:53Sitting between a future Prime Minister and
0:04:53 > 0:04:56our greatest living poet.
0:04:56 > 0:04:58And here was little me in between.
0:04:58 > 0:05:01- Why? Why on earth?- That was between Churchill and who?
0:05:01 > 0:05:04No, no. That was between,
0:05:04 > 0:05:06um, Anthony...
0:05:06 > 0:05:07- Anthony Eden.- Anthony Eden.
0:05:07 > 0:05:10Between Anthony Eden, who hadn't been then Prime Minister,
0:05:10 > 0:05:12he was going to be eventually,
0:05:12 > 0:05:15and with T.S. Eliot.
0:05:15 > 0:05:18There were other...a few other people to make the row up.
0:05:18 > 0:05:21And there was I but I couldn't make out why on Earth they'd picked on me,
0:05:21 > 0:05:23little me.
0:05:23 > 0:05:27I was a very shy... I am by nature a very shy man,
0:05:27 > 0:05:29as you may have discovered.
0:05:30 > 0:05:33HE LAUGHS
0:05:33 > 0:05:36Up on the dais sat the Chancellor,
0:05:36 > 0:05:37in his Chancellor's robes.
0:05:37 > 0:05:40And the one thing of course that Churchill loved above all else
0:05:40 > 0:05:41was dressing up.
0:05:43 > 0:05:46And in due course, we walked up the little stairs
0:05:46 > 0:05:50and knelt on a cushion and the Chancellor threw out our hood
0:05:50 > 0:05:53and he set it on your shoulders and you made an honest man.
0:05:55 > 0:05:56Well, it came to my turn.
0:05:56 > 0:05:59I went up and knelt on the cushion.
0:05:59 > 0:06:04And I imagine that the Chancellor was intended to say something like,
0:06:04 > 0:06:07"Bristol expects that every man will do his duty,"
0:06:07 > 0:06:08or something of that sort.
0:06:08 > 0:06:14Instead he said, "I want to see you. Meet me afterwards in the anteroom."
0:06:14 > 0:06:15This was in a hoarse whisper
0:06:15 > 0:06:18while the hood settled on my shoulders.
0:06:18 > 0:06:20And I went down.
0:06:20 > 0:06:23Well afterwards I appeared in the anteroom.
0:06:23 > 0:06:27"Ah, you're going back to town, yes?" "Yes," I said.
0:06:27 > 0:06:28"Would you come with me?"
0:06:29 > 0:06:33"Yes." HE MURMURS QUIETLY
0:06:33 > 0:06:36"Well, OK, I've had enough of this, let's get in the car
0:06:36 > 0:06:37"and go to the station."
0:06:38 > 0:06:42And outside there was a Daimler car as long as a train you know,
0:06:42 > 0:06:43waiting for him. We got in.
0:06:44 > 0:06:48When we got to the station, this was 1938, before the war.
0:06:48 > 0:06:52There was a great crowd.
0:06:52 > 0:06:57Churchill always magnetised a great crowd in some sort of mysterious way.
0:06:57 > 0:07:00And there was the Chief Constable and all the rest of it.
0:07:00 > 0:07:02The station platform was cleared.
0:07:02 > 0:07:06We walked across it and we got into a carriage, a whole carriage,
0:07:06 > 0:07:09not a compartment but a carriage
0:07:09 > 0:07:12marked - "the Right Honourable Winston Churchill".
0:07:13 > 0:07:16I didn't, I still didn't know, I hadn't a clue what was happening,
0:07:16 > 0:07:17what it was all about.
0:07:18 > 0:07:21We sat down opposite each other as I'm sitting down opposite you.
0:07:23 > 0:07:25And he produced from his pocket...
0:07:26 > 0:07:29..a pair of eye shades with elastic.
0:07:30 > 0:07:33And he proceeded to drape it round his massive forehead.
0:07:34 > 0:07:39"When I travel by train, I always sleep for half an hour."
0:07:39 > 0:07:43You see he was building up a little bit of reserve, there.
0:07:43 > 0:07:46And he put it round his head
0:07:46 > 0:07:48and left it up there.
0:07:49 > 0:07:52And then he leaned over to me and said, "Now I'm going to tell you.
0:07:54 > 0:07:58"I'm writing a history of the English speaking people.
0:07:59 > 0:08:02"I've got the Danes,
0:08:02 > 0:08:05"very difficult people the Danes.
0:08:05 > 0:08:08"Let us talk about the Danes."
0:08:08 > 0:08:11Well then, of course, the whole thing
0:08:11 > 0:08:15was, it was clear to me that he had given me a degree
0:08:15 > 0:08:18because I was the only archaeologist he'd heard of
0:08:18 > 0:08:20And he wanted a bit of help.
0:08:20 > 0:08:22Well, that was all right I could...
0:08:22 > 0:08:23fair enough.
0:08:23 > 0:08:29Well, we talked about the Danes and then we passed on to other...
0:08:29 > 0:08:33to prehistoric Britain and so on.
0:08:33 > 0:08:36And the eye shades never came down.
0:08:36 > 0:08:41But we met the following day and behind him is a shadow,
0:08:41 > 0:08:42very extraordinary this shadow,
0:08:42 > 0:08:46Lindemann who afterwards became Lord Cherwell.
0:08:46 > 0:08:48I never heard, at that time,
0:08:48 > 0:08:52I never heard Lindemann, or Cherwell, say anything.
0:08:53 > 0:08:58Later, he... We met on various occasions and we talked
0:08:58 > 0:09:04but he was the shadow which gave Churchill a peace of mind.
0:09:04 > 0:09:08Churchill had somebody to lean on
0:09:08 > 0:09:11in some curious, psychological way.
0:09:11 > 0:09:14Anyway, we talked together, we talked on other occasions.
0:09:14 > 0:09:18And I remember one of the questions which Churchill asked me
0:09:18 > 0:09:20on one occasion was,
0:09:20 > 0:09:24"Tell me, who was the first Englishman?"
0:09:25 > 0:09:29Well, that's a bit of a question to have fired at you.
0:09:29 > 0:09:34And of course, in the Churchillian sense, knowing what he wanted,
0:09:34 > 0:09:37I said, "Oh, the Piltdown Man."
0:09:37 > 0:09:44It's a curious, monkey-like skull which had been found,
0:09:44 > 0:09:51not very long previously, in a gravel pit at Piltdown in Sussex.
0:09:52 > 0:09:56And this was regarded by many people at the time
0:09:56 > 0:10:01as a very primitive type of sub-man.
0:10:02 > 0:10:06And he made a mental note and then after all these conversations said,
0:10:06 > 0:10:09"Would you write it down and send it to me?"
0:10:09 > 0:10:13So I wrote these things down and sent them to him.
0:10:13 > 0:10:16And of course, he took them and he put the Churchill into it.
0:10:16 > 0:10:20He put the headlines into the whole thing. He brought it alive.
0:10:20 > 0:10:25I simply just...I simply gave him a little fuel and he lit the fire.
0:10:28 > 0:10:30Now, I'm now going to pass on.
0:10:30 > 0:10:34There came the war, as you will very well remember.
0:10:34 > 0:10:38Just before the...on the eve of war,
0:10:38 > 0:10:41the proof of the first volume arrived and I saw it and corrected it
0:10:41 > 0:10:43and sent it back.
0:10:43 > 0:10:44Then the war.
0:10:44 > 0:10:46And at various levels,
0:10:46 > 0:10:51well, he and I were occupied for the following 10...15 years.
0:10:54 > 0:10:57I remember very vividly the next occasion upon which this
0:10:57 > 0:10:58question arose,
0:10:58 > 0:11:01the question of the history of the English speaking people arose.
0:11:01 > 0:11:04It was on a day in August in 1954
0:11:04 > 0:11:05and I was sitting in my office
0:11:05 > 0:11:09and a letter came to me from Churchill's editor.
0:11:09 > 0:11:14Churchill by that time was still - he was Prime Minister.
0:11:14 > 0:11:16He was a sick man really.
0:11:16 > 0:11:19I rather think he'd had a stroke but I'm not sure.
0:11:19 > 0:11:23Anyway, he was a burdened man
0:11:23 > 0:11:27with no time to look at the niceties of a proof
0:11:27 > 0:11:31and he'd handed the whole thing over
0:11:31 > 0:11:37for final correction to his principal subeditor.
0:11:38 > 0:11:41And he, not knowing that I had actually drafted the original,
0:11:41 > 0:11:44sent it to me and asked whether I would be good enough
0:11:44 > 0:11:46to read it through and comment on it.
0:11:46 > 0:11:53I did and opened it at the page, almost, where the Piltdown Man
0:11:53 > 0:11:57appeared as the first Englishman,
0:11:57 > 0:11:59with Churchillian decoration.
0:12:01 > 0:12:05Well, since 1938, or '39,
0:12:05 > 0:12:08when I had written the draft,
0:12:08 > 0:12:10things had happened to the Piltdown Man.
0:12:10 > 0:12:13In 1949, and again in 1953,
0:12:13 > 0:12:17new chemical methods had discovered,
0:12:17 > 0:12:22determined, that Piltdown Man was a forgery, a complete forgery.
0:12:22 > 0:12:28Well of course this had passed over, or passed by,
0:12:28 > 0:12:32the mind of the busy Prime Minister,
0:12:32 > 0:12:39the ailing Prime Minister who was the author of it in its final shape.
0:12:39 > 0:12:44And I spent that August day, I remember, with a sort of fretsaw
0:12:44 > 0:12:48carving out all references to Piltdown Man.
0:12:48 > 0:12:52You won't find a single reference to Piltdown Man now in Volume One.
0:12:52 > 0:12:55But by God if it had got through!
0:12:55 > 0:12:59The whole of that bestselling history,
0:12:59 > 0:13:01those four volumes,
0:13:01 > 0:13:04would have rested upon a forgery.
0:13:05 > 0:13:07It was a near miss!
0:13:19 > 0:13:26Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd