:00:00. > :00:19.Pat Barker's two war trilogies take take us from the Western Front
:00:20. > :00:21.in 1917 through to the blitz and London
:00:22. > :00:27.to the Second World War with characters that carry
:00:28. > :00:33.Noonday, the book that completes the second trilogy, a story
:00:34. > :00:35.of loss and relationships, delayed by a world that sometimes
:00:36. > :00:37.seems to be collapsing in rubble all around.
:00:38. > :00:40.I will be talking to Pat Barker about her contribution
:00:41. > :00:53.to the literature of war. Welcome.
:00:54. > :01:02.You are writing about characters who have two adapt to life in London
:01:03. > :01:08.while bombs are falling. What do you think life was like? Exhausting more
:01:09. > :01:13.than anything else I think, nobody was getting much sleep at night.
:01:14. > :01:17.Even the people who were just being bombed, the people in the emergency
:01:18. > :01:21.services were awake all night. Then you had to go to work and do more
:01:22. > :01:25.less a normal day's work and people who were there to talk about the
:01:26. > :01:29.exhaustion, virtual impossibility of getting through an afternoon.
:01:30. > :01:34.Getting up in the morning, walking down the familiar street and seeing
:01:35. > :01:39.that a school or shop or pub had simply disappeared overnight. Yes,
:01:40. > :01:43.and the people who disappeared overnight as well, the people you
:01:44. > :01:48.were used to seeing on the tube or in the corner shop. They would be
:01:49. > :01:52.one face missing and you would never know whether they had got a bad cold
:01:53. > :01:55.and stayed in bed or whether they were under a pile of rubble at the
:01:56. > :02:01.end of the street. Without giving away the plot line, which are very
:02:02. > :02:08.touching and quite thrilling, it is that sense of complete uncertainty,
:02:09. > :02:14.that you play on in the book, what will happen next? Is this night
:02:15. > :02:17.going to be our last? Yes, on the basis that this night might very
:02:18. > :02:27.well be your last, do you behave differently? One of the very minor
:02:28. > :02:32.characters says, who are you going out with tonight? Is it somebody you
:02:33. > :02:37.would want to die with? That was literally the situation they were
:02:38. > :02:40.in. The story revolves around the characters, their relationships,
:02:41. > :02:45.some of whom we know from the first two books in the trilogy, the blitz
:02:46. > :02:52.then arrives as a kind of lumbering war machine into their lives. So it
:02:53. > :02:56.is not so much about men and women of action, who are on the front, but
:02:57. > :03:03.people affected by it. Do you think we must apologise the London of the
:03:04. > :03:06.Blitz? I think we do but increasingly, I think the myths are
:03:07. > :03:11.being challenged. People who lived through it, they spoke about it at
:03:12. > :03:18.the time, tell one story, they tell stories about a bomb dropped on
:03:19. > :03:22.their house but what really hurt was that their next-door neighbour
:03:23. > :03:25.nipped in and stole the child's birthday presents which they had
:03:26. > :03:31.hidden in the cupboard under the stairs. That is what really hurt,
:03:32. > :03:36.the betrayal. At 20 years later, the same person interviewed says, in a
:03:37. > :03:42.way, it was a wonderful time, we all pull together. The crimewave in the
:03:43. > :03:47.Blitz, which I have not read much about, but there were an awful lot
:03:48. > :03:51.of burglars in the Fire Service. Because you had unrestricted access.
:03:52. > :04:01.They had the time of their lives. Absolutely. The first trilogy took
:04:02. > :04:03.us from the Western Front to a hospital where characters are
:04:04. > :04:09.incarcerated, to the aftermath of the First World War way now, in
:04:10. > :04:14.noonday, the last book in the second trilogy, in the Blitz. We see that
:04:15. > :04:17.whole period being inextricably connected, the characters bound
:04:18. > :04:21.together in the shadow of the First World War even as they were caught
:04:22. > :04:26.up in the second. I am writing primarily about people middle-aged
:04:27. > :04:32.in the Second World War or older and they are faced with this shock that
:04:33. > :04:38.the war they fought was the war to end all wars and people really
:04:39. > :04:42.believe that, in 1917 and 18, it was the only thing worth fighting for,
:04:43. > :04:46.the idea that this was the last war. 20 years later, there they are and
:04:47. > :04:49.their sons and daughters or nieces and nephews are doing exactly the
:04:50. > :04:56.same thing all over again. They felt they had failed. That is the emotion
:04:57. > :05:03.that interests me. Within a year of commemoration for various Centenary
:05:04. > :05:06.'s, the Battle of the Somme centenary is coming up, one of the
:05:07. > :05:13.things that people think of is whether people behave differently?
:05:14. > :05:18.You have said in the book about people facing different choices,
:05:19. > :05:22.whether they would still be there tomorrow or next week. What do you
:05:23. > :05:30.think it does to our nature? Does it left us, does it enhance life or is
:05:31. > :05:35.it something...? I think it certainly enhances life. The problem
:05:36. > :05:40.is with writing about it. It is a fascinating field for a novelist but
:05:41. > :05:47.yet as a human being, I deplore it. But there it is. I am I living on
:05:48. > :05:51.something I deplore. Ella and Paul who appeared in earlier volumes,
:05:52. > :05:55.they married and they were trained as artists. They have an artistic
:05:56. > :06:01.view of the world. That is something that is often caricatured. What do
:06:02. > :06:05.you think that means that that is their sensibility, what does it mean
:06:06. > :06:12.for the way they behave under the pressure and brutality and shock of
:06:13. > :06:16.war? First of all, I think they feel the enormous guilt of looking at
:06:17. > :06:21.this scene of total destruction and death and torment and finding it
:06:22. > :06:28.beautiful. Several people have found it beautiful, journalists as well as
:06:29. > :06:33.artists. I think they are mesmerised by it. They are in a strict sense
:06:34. > :06:39.bird-brain. They react to the visual impact, they don't necessarily think
:06:40. > :06:44.very hard about it or find it easy to articulate their thoughts and
:06:45. > :06:50.emotions. When you explore the relationships between characters,
:06:51. > :06:54.with the generation that went before Eleanor's mother and Rachel's mother
:06:55. > :06:59.who dies in the book, you take a couple of lines from lake which are
:07:00. > :07:04.terribly haunting. Reminders what they are. -- Blake. Reminders what
:07:05. > :07:09.they say to you because they clearly mean something powerful. The
:07:10. > :07:17.caterpillar on the leaf repeats to the, thy mother's grief. It fits in
:07:18. > :07:24.with what Eleanor is feeling about her mother. I like that it is very
:07:25. > :07:27.powerful, it is completely meaningless in a sense. We don't
:07:28. > :07:32.know what the caterpillar on the leaf repeating your mother's grief
:07:33. > :07:37.to you, means and yet we all know it is absolutely true. And that is the
:07:38. > :07:46.genius of a great writer, to distil something... Yes. It cannot be
:07:47. > :07:51.deconstructed or translated into simpler terms, it simply is and that
:07:52. > :07:58.is what makes a great writer. Finally, it is a book in a way about
:07:59. > :08:03.haunting. A haunting feeling. Yes, Eleanor's brother to be from the
:08:04. > :08:07.First World War, but also a sense that London and the Blitz, in total
:08:08. > :08:12.darkness, became a place where the dead of previous generations... You
:08:13. > :08:17.could walk past them in the, in the darkness, how would you know? That
:08:18. > :08:22.is what interests me. Pat Barker, thank you very much for talking
:08:23. > :08:34.about noonday, the third book in the second war trilogy.
:08:35. > :08:42.It has been another cold day and for some of us, some fine sunshine but
:08:43. > :08:44.for others, wintry showers. More to