0:00:47 > 0:00:49Do you have any heroes?
0:00:49 > 0:00:52Great men that you admire, this side of idolatry?
0:00:54 > 0:00:57I don't believe in heroes. I don't know.
0:00:57 > 0:01:02It's rather a feminine term, I would suggest, Mag, heroes.
0:01:02 > 0:01:04I can imagine a woman having a hero,
0:01:04 > 0:01:06but I can't imagine a man having a hero.
0:01:06 > 0:01:09The something almost indecent about it.
0:01:09 > 0:01:10All right.
0:01:10 > 0:01:17Tell me about men of greatness in any field that you particularly admire.
0:01:17 > 0:01:21Well, I've had four, four in the whole of my life, four.
0:01:21 > 0:01:23I've thought of this, actually,
0:01:23 > 0:01:28and have come to the conclusion that of all the people I have known...
0:01:29 > 0:01:33many have been able people, some less able,
0:01:33 > 0:01:37but only four of them could classify as geniuses.
0:01:37 > 0:01:41If you ask me to define the word genius, I'm not going to attempt it.
0:01:41 > 0:01:44No, but tell me who the four are.
0:01:44 > 0:01:49The four are, well, the late Winston Churchill,
0:01:49 > 0:01:51with whom I worked for a year.
0:01:51 > 0:01:58Who else? The painter, Augustus John, whom I knew well.
0:02:02 > 0:02:05Sir Flinders Petrie, the Egyptologist,
0:02:05 > 0:02:08whom I've known on and off all my life.
0:02:08 > 0:02:12I went to see him on his deathbed in Jerusalem.
0:02:14 > 0:02:17And fourthly, Sir Arthur Evans,
0:02:17 > 0:02:20the discoverer of the first civilisation in Europe.
0:02:21 > 0:02:23Those four, I think those four,
0:02:23 > 0:02:28I can't think of anybody else in the same class. They were all geniuses.
0:02:28 > 0:02:31They were all almost superhuman people.
0:02:31 > 0:02:35They all had something that nobody else that I can think of had.
0:02:37 > 0:02:40And if you want heroes, if you want to call them hero,
0:02:40 > 0:02:44a beastly word, you can apply it to them.
0:02:44 > 0:02:47But I should begin immediately to find faults in all of them.
0:02:47 > 0:02:49Which wouldn't be difficult.
0:02:49 > 0:02:53Well, Flinders Petrie, for instance, do you find fault with him?
0:02:53 > 0:02:55Anybody can find fault with Sir Flinders Petrie.
0:02:56 > 0:03:02I tell you, he was a man who focused his mind on whatever
0:03:02 > 0:03:06he was thinking about at the time to the exclusion of everything else.
0:03:06 > 0:03:09For instance, one of the first things he did
0:03:09 > 0:03:13when he went to Egypt was to make a minutely accurate
0:03:13 > 0:03:17plan of the great pyramids, which nobody had done before.
0:03:17 > 0:03:22Down to the fraction of a millimetre. That kind of thing.
0:03:22 > 0:03:28He... When he got an idea in his head, that idea was there.
0:03:28 > 0:03:31And the curious thing about the old man was this.
0:03:31 > 0:03:35I knew him well in the latter years, that for instance,
0:03:35 > 0:03:39he had his own ideas about the chronology of Egypt,
0:03:39 > 0:03:42of the timetable of the Pharaohs and so on.
0:03:42 > 0:03:46And his chronology differed by 15 centuries or more,
0:03:46 > 0:03:48it varied,
0:03:48 > 0:03:56from any other chronology in any university in Europe.
0:03:58 > 0:04:01He was almost a laughing stock.
0:04:01 > 0:04:05If he had been a lesser man, he would have been laughed out,
0:04:05 > 0:04:07laughed off the stage.
0:04:07 > 0:04:13But no. To his dying day, he was at least 15 centuries out.
0:04:13 > 0:04:20And he was so absolutely devoted to the subject, right or wrong,
0:04:20 > 0:04:23that you felt, here is a devotee...
0:04:24 > 0:04:27a man who in some mysterious way belongs to his subject.
0:04:27 > 0:04:32He began in Egypt at a time when Egyptology was in a very poor way.
0:04:32 > 0:04:38It was really he who started the modern science of Egyptology
0:04:38 > 0:04:44at a time when it hadn't even become the beginnings of a science.
0:04:44 > 0:04:49He had a methodical mind, however wrong his conclusions might be,
0:04:49 > 0:04:55he threw off a whole number of ideas which themselves produce
0:04:55 > 0:04:56other ideas.
0:04:56 > 0:04:58He pointed to the methods.
0:04:59 > 0:05:03And it was for others to shape the method and to make it logical
0:05:03 > 0:05:04and productive.
0:05:04 > 0:05:08It was 1925, I remember vividly,
0:05:08 > 0:05:13that I first really got to know him and his wife, Hilda.
0:05:13 > 0:05:17We had been in contact with one another. He was back from the East.
0:05:17 > 0:05:19He wanted a holiday.
0:05:19 > 0:05:22He hadn't the faintest notion of what the word holiday meant.
0:05:22 > 0:05:24I don't know much about that.
0:05:24 > 0:05:29But he and Hilda wanted to come into the Welsh countryside.
0:05:29 > 0:05:32I was then, at the time I think I was a thing called
0:05:32 > 0:05:36Director of the Welsh National Museum,
0:05:36 > 0:05:38something of that sort, and as a sideline
0:05:38 > 0:05:42I was digging up a Roman fort near Brecon in South Wales.
0:05:44 > 0:05:46Before the end of the same week, he and Hilda had
0:05:46 > 0:05:52arrived at my farmhouse and they'd dug themselves in.
0:05:52 > 0:05:54Day by day, they went out into the countryside.
0:05:55 > 0:06:00He'd set himself a holiday task, he always had a task.
0:06:00 > 0:06:07His task was the task of recording stone circles and stone cairns.
0:06:07 > 0:06:10I said to him, "What instruments have you got?"
0:06:10 > 0:06:13"Ah-ha," he looked at me with a smile of ineffable cunning.
0:06:15 > 0:06:19He produced a pea-stick, a bamboo pea-stick,
0:06:19 > 0:06:21to hang peas on to, I suppose...
0:06:23 > 0:06:27with one hand and a visiting card from his pocket with the other.
0:06:27 > 0:06:28"They are my instruments.
0:06:28 > 0:06:33"I put the pea-stick in the ground to show me where I'm going, and
0:06:33 > 0:06:40"I use the two sides of the visiting card to give me a right angle.
0:06:40 > 0:06:42"That's how I work."
0:06:42 > 0:06:44And bless my soul, at the end of the day,
0:06:44 > 0:06:47he came in with a notebook full of figures.
0:06:47 > 0:06:53After dinner, in this farmhouse, with its oil lamps,
0:06:53 > 0:06:58he sat by an oil lamp, produced the figures and a logarithm table
0:06:58 > 0:07:02and worked it at all out in a mysterious fashion known to himself.
0:07:02 > 0:07:04His was that kind of mind.
0:07:05 > 0:07:08A mind full of the most intricate
0:07:08 > 0:07:11and difficult solutions to the most simple problems,
0:07:11 > 0:07:16and a simple mind when the problems became really complicated.
0:07:16 > 0:07:20It was very interesting. Interesting psychology.
0:07:20 > 0:07:22Well, we were together then.
0:07:22 > 0:07:26And later on when I was establishing a,
0:07:26 > 0:07:30an Institute of Archaeology at the University of London,
0:07:30 > 0:07:32he handed over to me a considerable sum
0:07:32 > 0:07:38of £10,000, it was, which was a lot in those days.
0:07:39 > 0:07:42Which had been given to him for this sort purpose,
0:07:42 > 0:07:44just handed it over to me.
0:07:44 > 0:07:47He said, "I'm going to Palestine, to Jerusalem.
0:07:47 > 0:07:49"I can't pay your damn taxes any longer.
0:07:49 > 0:07:51"I'm going to live in Jerusalem."
0:07:51 > 0:07:52And he went out to Jerusalem.
0:07:52 > 0:07:54"You might as well take this before I go,"
0:07:54 > 0:07:57and he handed me £10,000.
0:07:57 > 0:08:00That showed that we had got a rapport with one another.
0:08:00 > 0:08:05And from that point onwards, I went ahead and founded this institute.
0:08:05 > 0:08:09And he went on to Jerusalem.
0:08:10 > 0:08:16I must tell you one little incident that happened which rather
0:08:16 > 0:08:20showed that aspect of his mind when he was staying with me
0:08:20 > 0:08:23in that farmhouse in Brecon, in Wales.
0:08:24 > 0:08:28One morning, before he went out for his day's tramp over the hills,
0:08:28 > 0:08:34he said, "I found a curious cairn yesterday." Heap of stones, you see.
0:08:34 > 0:08:37"There's something about it I don't understand.
0:08:37 > 0:08:40"Would you lend me a couple of your men and we'll have a look at it?"
0:08:40 > 0:08:43I said, "Yes, of course, take them."
0:08:43 > 0:08:46So, he went off into the blue with a couple of my workmen...
0:08:48 > 0:08:53and for an hour or two, all went quietly and well.
0:08:53 > 0:08:55And then one of these men came running back with his eyes
0:08:55 > 0:08:59starting out. "Oh, sir, oh, sir! Come with me, come with me!
0:08:59 > 0:09:01"There's a bull chasing the gentleman,
0:09:01 > 0:09:04"a bull chasing the gentleman."
0:09:04 > 0:09:06And so I picked up a surveying pole,
0:09:06 > 0:09:10which was the only thing accessible in the form of a weapon,
0:09:10 > 0:09:13and traipsed a mile across the countryside behind this
0:09:13 > 0:09:17excited Welsh farm labourer.
0:09:18 > 0:09:21When I got to the scene of operations, there was
0:09:21 > 0:09:26a sloping hill, with fields stretching down it and two fields
0:09:26 > 0:09:29in particular with a hedge between them
0:09:29 > 0:09:31which had been carved off at the lower end
0:09:31 > 0:09:34so there was a way through from one field to the other, you see?
0:09:36 > 0:09:40At the bottom of that hedge, there was a flaming bull,
0:09:40 > 0:09:42almost visibly flaming.
0:09:43 > 0:09:48With its four legs stretched out and flames, if you will,
0:09:48 > 0:09:52a very close approximation to flames, coming out of its nostrils.
0:09:52 > 0:09:57And looking up the hedge, there on one side was Flinders Petrie's
0:09:57 > 0:10:01magnificent grey beard sticking out of the hedge.
0:10:01 > 0:10:04And on the other side was Hilda's bottom,
0:10:04 > 0:10:09covered with thick riding cloth, as she used to wear.
0:10:11 > 0:10:13I took a little step forward, timidly,
0:10:13 > 0:10:15and then another step timidly forward...
0:10:16 > 0:10:21and when I got within about 10 feet of the bull, 12 feet of the bull,
0:10:21 > 0:10:25it actually drew back one of its four feet, and then the other one,
0:10:25 > 0:10:28and the battle was over.
0:10:28 > 0:10:31Over his shoulder I saw the farmer coming in,
0:10:31 > 0:10:37rather irately into the field with a pitchfork over his shoulder.
0:10:37 > 0:10:40He drove the bull off. Down came, from the heights,
0:10:40 > 0:10:48came the beard and Hilda, down the two sides of the hedge.
0:10:50 > 0:10:55And they, the farmer went up to Petrie and said,
0:10:55 > 0:10:57"You ought not to be here, sir!
0:10:57 > 0:10:59"You ought not to be here!
0:10:59 > 0:11:02"This bull is dangerous."
0:11:02 > 0:11:04We'd gathered that.
0:11:04 > 0:11:06He drove the bull away with a pitchfork.
0:11:06 > 0:11:10I tried to calm the farmer by telling him that
0:11:10 > 0:11:13this was a very famous professor who knew all about pyramids,
0:11:13 > 0:11:19he thought this might be a pyramid and he wanted to look at it.
0:11:19 > 0:11:24Eventually, the Petries went off on the rest of their day's walk,
0:11:24 > 0:11:27or day's exploration, and the bull went,
0:11:27 > 0:11:31or was driven back through the gate, and I got back.
0:11:31 > 0:11:33But the point was this.
0:11:33 > 0:11:36This was characteristic of the old gentleman.
0:11:37 > 0:11:43He never referred to the bull incident again in his life.
0:11:43 > 0:11:45He was hardly conscious of this little interruption
0:11:45 > 0:11:49in what he was doing.
0:11:49 > 0:11:54His mind was focused entirely upon this heap of stones,
0:11:54 > 0:11:57simply a heap of stones thrown there by the farmer. And...
0:11:59 > 0:12:02neither at dinner that night, nor ever again,
0:12:02 > 0:12:04was the incident referred to.
0:12:05 > 0:12:09He... In fact, it had gone from his mind.
0:12:09 > 0:12:15His mind was perennially focused on whatever he was doing.
0:12:15 > 0:12:18On the one subject, and nothing else mattered.
0:12:19 > 0:12:24The last time I saw the old boy was on his deathbed in Jerusalem
0:12:24 > 0:12:26in the first months of 1942.
0:12:27 > 0:12:30I happened at the time to be doing some
0:12:30 > 0:12:33fieldwork of a non-archaeological kind in Egypt
0:12:33 > 0:12:36and heard by the grapevine that the old boy was dying,
0:12:36 > 0:12:40so I took 24 hours of leave, drove across Sinai,
0:12:40 > 0:12:46in the course of which my old staff car shed its track-rod
0:12:46 > 0:12:50and turned upside down, I crawled out again and got in somebody
0:12:50 > 0:12:56else's car, went on and got to Jerusalem, to the hospital there.
0:12:56 > 0:13:00It was a haven of rest, of peace and quiet.
0:13:00 > 0:13:06And in the little room, lying on the bed outstretched, was the form
0:13:06 > 0:13:10that I knew so well of dear old Petrie.
0:13:11 > 0:13:13With his magnificent profile
0:13:13 > 0:13:18and around his head a sort of turban of white linen.
0:13:18 > 0:13:23It looked to me exactly what my picture is of a Biblical patriarch.
0:13:23 > 0:13:24Well...
0:13:26 > 0:13:29He looked at me and smiled.
0:13:29 > 0:13:33And then he began talking, talking at a great rate,
0:13:33 > 0:13:38as though he had a great deal to say before, before the end came.
0:13:38 > 0:13:41He talked about bronze implements in Mesopotamia,
0:13:41 > 0:13:46about the incidence of the malarial mosquito in Gaza and so forth.
0:13:46 > 0:13:50His mind never rested, never rested until the very last moment.
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