Pod Insights Rosebud with Gyles Brandreth More Rosebud - Gyles's Diary episode 43 About this episode It's 1976, and we have more hilarity, honesty, and social commentary from Gyles's diaries. In this episode he shares a stage with Bernard Manning and some go-go dancers, publishes a cheeky book about the Queen, and fires the nanny. Plus Gyles and Harriet chat about love at first sight and John Keats. Enjoy this! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript 0:01 Speaker 00 Welcome to 215 Maple Drive. We just put this property on the market.
0:06 Speaker 01 Love the crown molding.
0:08 Speaker 00 Oh, wait until you see the walk-in closets and the bathroom tile.
0:12 Speaker 01 Does it have Verizon FiOS? You know, 100% fiber internet.
0:16 Speaker 00 No FiOS, but it looks like it's got cable. Let's check out the kitchen.
0:19 Speaker 01 No FiOS? Yeah... no thank you.
0:22 Speaker 00 Don't you want to see the rest? Okay, bye-bye.
0:25 Speaker 02 Get Verizon FiOS, because when you're moving, it's 100% or nothing.
0:53 Speaker 03 Welcome to another episode of More Rosebud. This is, well, where you get more of me and you get some of my friend, my colleague, my producer, Harriet Jane. How are you, Harriet?
1:04 Speaker 04 I'm fine, thanks, Giles.
1:05 Speaker 03 I'm going to give people a little bit of a secret. Give away something. Because they're hearing this, if they're hearing it for the first time on the day it's dropped, on a Tuesday morning. But we're actually recording it a few days before, because they're going to be reading from my diary. And I was going to say, well, what a marvelous weekend I've just had, because among my many excitements this weekend was attending Trooping the Color. Which is the...
1:31 Speaker 04 So lucky.
1:32 Speaker 03 Yeah. And I sit in the commentary box with one of our wonderful previous guests, the amazing...
1:40 Speaker 04 Claire Balding.
1:41 Speaker 03 And a marvelous soldier, who is from the Grenadier Guards, who are this year Trooping the Color with the King and the Queen and all the rest of the royal family. And then I thought, no, I can't say how wonderful that was, because it hasn't happened yet.
1:56 Speaker 04 Oh, I see.
1:56 Speaker 03 Just in case, for some reason, I'm sure it wouldn't be, but just in case it was cancelled. Or, you know, I talked about, you might say, well, were you cold up there? What was it like? And it was a brilliant day. Or were their soldiers fainting? The reason I'm very careful about this is, as you know, I wrote a biography of the late Queen Elizabeth the second. And she had, when she was a child, a sort of nanny, nursemaid, governess called Miss Crawford, known as Crawfy within the family. And Crawfy basically blotted her copybook by writing a book about her life with the little princesses, because she looked after Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret Rose. And was dropped by the royal family, it was an act of betrayal, et cetera. And she was distressed that she'd done it, but she'd done it.
2:41 Speaker 03 It was too late, she'd taken the money. And then she went on to write magazine articles. And one year, she, I think, wrote an article describing Royal Ascot, or some annual event that always was the same. She wrote this article before it had happened, and that year it was cancelled.
2:58 Speaker 04 Hmm.
2:59 Speaker 03 So the article still appeared in the newspaper or the magazine, describing an event that that year hadn't taken place. So one should never do that.
3:08 Speaker 04 Hmm. No, but you could just say, I'm going to do Trooping the Colour.
3:13 Speaker 03 Well, I am saying that.
3:14 Speaker 04 In a few days.
3:15 Speaker 03 Yes, because we're recording this, but by the time people hear this on Tuesday, it will have been and gone.
3:20 Speaker 04 Yeah, but people can get around that, their heads around that concept, Giles, that this doesn't go out live, it's recorded a few days before it goes out.
3:29 Speaker 03 They can.
3:30 Speaker 04 Yeah.
3:31 Speaker 03 And many people listen to the-
3:32 Speaker 04 Can't you listeners, you're very, do you know what, Giles, could I tell you something, which may come as a surprise to you? The Rosebud listener is a person of above-average intelligence, and I'm telling you that for a fact, because I can feel it through the airwaves coming to me.
3:48 Speaker 03 We know that because we have advertising-
3:51 Speaker 04 Yes.
3:52 Speaker 03 -that surrounds us, that helps pay for what we're doing.
3:55 Speaker 04 Yeah.
3:56 Speaker 03 And we know that the advertisers know who's listening.
3:58 Speaker 04 Yeah.
3:59 Speaker 03 And that's why the ads are all so sophisticated.
4:00 Speaker 04 They're so classy, our ads. Have you noticed?
4:03 Speaker 03 They are. Some people are missing them, because there are people who belong to our offering-
4:08 Speaker 04 Oh.
4:09 Speaker 03 -that includes a Sunday.
4:10 Speaker 04 The ad-free.
4:11 Speaker 03 If you want an ad-free offering, it is there.
4:12 Speaker 04 Yeah.
4:13 Speaker 03 It's called patreon.com forward slash Rosebud.
4:16 Speaker 04 Yeah.
4:17 Speaker 03 And you can just apply for that.
4:18 Speaker 04 Rosebud family.
4:19 Speaker 03 Family and you get us and you get extra things on a Sunday. But some people like me, I listen like a real person.
4:25 Speaker 04 Yeah.
4:26 Speaker 03 So I'll listen to this episode on Tuesday evening in the bathroom. And it's it's quite fun. And so I listen to the ads as well. Though I have discovered you can press the little thing on my phone. I could if I wanted to fast forward.
4:40 Speaker 04 Don't say that Giles, come on. No, you listen to the ads. Because they help to pay for the production team and all the people that we have helping us at the moment. And they are classy, our ads, aren't they? And you read them in a very classy way, I might just say Giles.
4:56 Speaker 03 Thank you.
4:56 Speaker 04 Yeah, because you're so sophisticated.
4:58 Speaker 03 Well, I don't know about that. But I do, I must say, I like it. I mean, I like, well, you remember from the dowries, which we're going to get to in a moment. That I first had the offer of being in a commercial for milk, wasn't it?
5:09 Speaker 04 Oh, yeah.
5:10 Speaker 03 When I was eighteen or nineteen years of age, and that didn't materialize.
5:13 Speaker 04 Are you actually a Cockney Giles, just putting on a posh accent? That would be funny.
5:17 Speaker 03 We did a wonderful episode with the actor Larry Lamb. I don't think we put it out yet. It hasn't dropped yet. But it's a different kind of episode of Rosebud. I think it's electric. We recorded it in front of an audience. And curiously, when I first met Larry Lamb, he spoke to me with a posh accent.
5:37 Speaker 04 Oh.
5:38 Speaker 03 And I didn't realize he was sending me up. He said, Oh, hello Giles, lovely to see you. How are you? And after a while, I said to him, Larry, I didn't realize that this, that, that. So the the accent you put on is a is a an accent you. So you're such a good actor. You know, I'm Royal Shakespeare Company. That's what I am.
5:56 Speaker 04 Oh, you thought he was posh, pretending to be call blimey when he was acting.
6:01 Speaker 03 Yes.
6:01 Speaker 04 But actually, he is a Cockney, yeah.
6:03 Speaker 03 And if you look at him, doesn't he look, and if he spoke like that, you'd think this is a man who's going to be cast playing the bank manager. Or the foreign secretary in a certain of a certain type of country.
6:13 Speaker 04 Yeah.
6:13 Speaker 03 Because of the silver hair, the silver fox look. And then when he speaks in his natural, normal voice, you think, oh, it's, he suddenly becomes a bit more Jack the Ladish.
6:23 Speaker 04 Yeah.
6:24 Speaker 03 It's interesting how the accent sends out a signal.
6:26 Speaker 04 Hmm, yeah. Attractive man, Larry Lamb.
6:29 Speaker 03 Very attractive.
6:30 Speaker 04 If you're listening, Larry Lamb, we we think you're attractive.
6:33 Speaker 03 We do think you're attractive.
6:34 Speaker 04 Posh or posh or Cockney.
6:35 Speaker 03 What's your idea of an attractive man?
6:38 Speaker 04 Oh.
6:38 Speaker 03 Give me some examples.
6:41 Speaker 04 I don't, I just don't know if I.
6:44 Speaker 03 But you do know when confronted with one.
6:46 Speaker 04 Yeah, oh no, but it's not, I definitely don't have a type, absolutely not. I like all sorts, I've had, I've had all sorts of men, no. We're back on this, we're back talking about matters of the heart, Giles. I don't know if people like hearing us talk about this the whole time.
7:04 Speaker 03 Except they do, because I received a letter on this very topic, which I was leading us into.
7:08 Speaker 04 Oh, okay. What's my type?
7:10 Speaker 03 It was instant attraction, and that's what this letter is about.
7:13 Speaker 04 Okay, so I don't think I have a type. Yeah, it's just something, some je ne sais quoi, something indescribable in the atmosphere.
7:26 Speaker 03 Absolutely.
7:26 Speaker 04 I tell you what is important for me, I think, and I would advise anyone to identify this first, rather than having a type. Don't have a type, that's not a good idea. It usually ends in tears, and it's very hard to get your type. They might not, they might not like you, you know, you might love tall, dark and handsome, and they're just not interested. So I say my type is someone that is interested in me.
7:53 Speaker 03 Of course.
7:53 Speaker 04 And if you're good at spotting that, which I have to say I think I am, and most sensible people are, and they need to become good at that.
8:02 Speaker 03 I thought you were going to say, most sensible people are interested in me.
8:05 Speaker 04 No, no, no, they're not interested in me. Most, if you can get good at spotting the people that are interested in you, and I don't know how you work it out, but you just, you just can, there's something going on, then that's who you're interested in. Because then you're not always running after people that aren't keen, which is a nightmare.
8:23 Speaker 03 Have we got the bit, to the bit in the dowries where this girl, after I've done a whole series of about eight programmes, on the last day, she was in the band, or she was a backing singer, as we were saying goodbye, said, you didn't notice, did you?
8:34 Speaker 04 Oh, are you bad at noticing? Are you a poor notiser?
8:37 Speaker 03 Clearly I am, because, and, and, and I saw her, of course, and I, and I hadn't noticed. And we've done eight weeks of work together.
8:45 Speaker 04 That's hopeless, Giles. Because that would never happen to me. I'd be noticing the first day.
8:49 Speaker 03 Yeah, of course you would.
8:49 Speaker 04 Yeah.
8:50 Speaker 03 Anyway, because we've talked about in the past, catching sight of people on a train, as the train's leaving the station, and it meaning something. And we've had a letter that's relevant to that?
9:00 Speaker 04 Oh, we have, yes.
9:01 Speaker 03 Who's it from?
9:02 Speaker 04 Shall I read it out?
9:03 Speaker 03 Yeah, please, and tell us the background to this.
9:06 Speaker 04 So this is someone called Tom Cunningham. Hello, Tom. Thanks so much for emailing us to [email protected] , which I have to say is suddenly being answered with great efficiency by Marie.
9:20 Speaker 03 You've got a team. You've got someone.
9:22 Speaker 04 Yeah, yeah. And I'm actually emailing people much more now as well. So, sorry. Normal services resumed. So if you email in, you'll get a reply pretty much straight away. So definitely email us with some stories. Anyway, Tom's emailed. Tom must have listened when we were talking about falling in love at first sight. We've talked about that a few times, haven't we? It can happen. Hello, Harriet and Giles. Your podcast is an oasis in the hurly-burly of current times. Thank you. That's nice, isn't it, Giles?
9:52 Speaker 03 That's very nice.
9:52 Speaker 04 Now, on to why I'm emailing. I was listening to a recent episode of Radio 4's In Our Time, covering the poet John Keats. Brilliant show, In Our Time. Melvin Bragg?
10:04 Speaker 03 No longer Melvin Bragg. It's now, he's got a successor, whose name will come to me in a moment. Melvin, do you know, we were very honoured. Melvin retired from In Our Time recently, and I think our conversation with him, our Rosebud part, is really worth listening to, was his last big interview before announcing the retirement.
10:25 Speaker 04 Wow.
10:26 Speaker 03 We were so lucky to have Melvin Bragg doing Rosebud for us. And then he decided to retire from In Our Time. And now it's Mischa Glennie. I still love the programme.
10:35 Speaker 04 Yeah, brilliant programme. Tom continues. In the episode of In Our Time that he was listening to about John Keats, one of the distinguished guest scholars referenced a sonnet by Keats named "To a Lady Seen for a Few Moments in Vauxhall."
10:54 Speaker 03 Oh, but this is interesting.
10:55 Speaker 04 This sounds like a good poem.
10:56 Speaker 03 For a few moments. That's the point, because we were talking about, well, instant love.
11:02 Speaker 04 This is good. And Tom says, "sonnet snippet." So here's a quick quote from Keats. "Time's sea hath been five years at its slow ebb. Long hours have to and fro let creep the sand, since I was tangled in thy beauty's web and snared by the ungloving of thine hand." Crumbs, Keats.
11:29 Speaker 04 So, Tom continues. If one of the defining poets of British Romanticism fell in love after the briefest of glances, then surely it must be real.
11:40 Speaker 03 But also, can I say, the erotic charge, snared by the ungloving of thine hand.
11:47 Speaker 04 I mean.
11:48 Speaker 03 They looked at each other and she slowly took off her glove.
11:51 Speaker 04 No, that's not what happened.
11:54 Speaker 03 Snared by the ungloving of thine hand.
11:56 Speaker 04 They didn't look at each other and she slowly ungloved. He was observing a woman ungloving her hand.
12:03 Speaker 03 Correct.
12:03 Speaker 04 And then got a crush on said woman. She probably didn't give him one look.
12:07 Speaker 03 You're quite right.
12:08 Speaker 04 And she certainly wasn't ungloving her hand in a sexy way.
12:11 Speaker 03 You're quite right. I was giving it.
12:13 Speaker 04 Eighteenth century.
12:14 Speaker 03 It is the eighteenth century and I'm giving you Keats, The Male Gaze.
12:17 Speaker 04 Yeah, okay, fine.
12:19 Speaker 03 In which she is ungloving her hand.
12:20 Speaker 04 Yeah, no.
12:21 Speaker 03 And he's giving it an erotic charge.
12:22 Speaker 04 So she ungloved her hand, probably to get something out of her purse, and he watched on and thought, war. Anyway, can we keep digressing? Back to Tom's email. Surely it must be real, Tom says. Surely love at first sight must be real. I myself, Tom says, decided, the moment I saw my future wife six years ago, that she was the one for me. I'd just joined the company that I was working at, and I was around three days in, when I walked in and saw someone sitting at the desk behind me that I hadn't seen before. All of a sudden, this curious feeling swept over me, and it was as if everything had crystallized in that moment.
13:07 Speaker 04 I'd been struggling with my mental health, drinking too much, and generally struggling to keep it together, but when I saw her, I felt this sense of resolve. This is why I'm here. Swept up in emotion, I declared to my colleagues at lunch, that day, that I was going to marry her one day.
13:28 Speaker 04 I somehow built up the courage to ask her out to lunch, and then, although she politely declined twice, we finally went on a date in South Ken. I'm glad she said yes on the third ask, because I was going to call it quits after asking for the third time. From there, the rest is history, as they say. We married in London, and from then, I pulled myself up out of the hole I'd dug and found my zest for life.
13:58 Speaker 04 What about that Giles?
13:59 Speaker 03 Well, that's just one of the most beautiful letters that Rosebud has ever received.
14:03 Speaker 04 Isn't it?
14:04 Speaker 03 It's a beautiful story and I wonder if intentionally or not, he used the word zest at the end because zest is our calling card. It's what you offer, it's what you mentioned when you read some of your diaries.
14:16 Speaker 04 Yeah.
14:17 Speaker 03 About three years ago. Um, the word zest came up on the first page.
14:22 Speaker 04 He sent us some pictures of them.
14:23 Speaker 03 Oh, I'd love to see one of them.
14:24 Speaker 04 The wedding, the wedding pictures.
14:25 Speaker 03 Oh, I'd love to see, I'd love to see them.
14:27 Speaker 04 Wait there.
14:30 Speaker 03 Oh, this is them jumping up in the air. It's obviously them and the best man, um, I assume, and one you know now, bridesmaid or matron of honour, whatever it's called. Oh, they're, they're leaping up in the air. They're on a bridge, holding the balloons. They're jumping, literally jumping for joy. What a wonderful story.
14:46 Speaker 04 Yeah, it's a lovely picture that.
14:48 Speaker 03 But that is an example of love at first sight.
14:51 Speaker 04 Yeah.
14:52 Speaker 03 Literally.
14:53 Speaker 04 Yeah.
14:53 Speaker 03 He declared it to his colleagues, I'm gonna marry that girl.
14:56 Speaker 04 Yeah.
14:57 Speaker 03 And then he was brave enough to ask her out. She said no twice, which was, was that the right thing to do, do you think, on her part? Possibly.
15:04 Speaker 04 Hmm. She didn't rush into it.
15:06 Speaker 03 Don't rush into it. And then she thought, all right, why not? And then they met and his instinct was right.
15:11 Speaker 04 Hmm.
15:13 Speaker 03 And intriguing that Keats, all those years ago, had a similar experience.
15:19 Speaker 04 Still going on about some woman taking her gloves off.
15:22 Speaker 03 Okay, I got that wrong.
15:23 Speaker 04 That, no, no, no.
15:24 Speaker 03 Actually, that's what he was getting on about.
15:25 Speaker 04 No, he was, that's what I mean.
15:26 Speaker 03 But he had a very mixed up love life. Was Keats the one who had fancied his half-sister?
15:30 Speaker 04 Oh dear.
15:31 Speaker 03 I think he did, didn't he?
15:32 Speaker 04 And luckily he died so young that he could never do anything about it.
15:35 Speaker 03 Oh, do you know, I don't know.
15:36 Speaker 04 Oh, did he?
15:37 Speaker 03 I know.
15:38 Speaker 04 Oh dear, we're not very well informed, are we?
15:40 Speaker 03 We're not, we might do, later in the year, when, when we finish my diaries, we're going to go on to other people's diaries, so we might do them in conjunction. And we're going to do Peeps' diaries, which are fascinating. But there are some amazing letters from John Keats, from which I think we know about his very complicated love life. I think, to be serious for a second, that it's quite reassuring to read about the complexities of other people's love lives.
16:05 Speaker 04 Yeah.
16:06 Speaker 03 Because it makes you think, well, I'm not alone.
16:09 Speaker 04 Yeah.
16:09 Speaker 03 You know, when times are tough or times are exciting, or, you know, the highs and lows, the rejections, the acceptances, the making mistakes, making it of yourself, et cetera. Minds greater than ours have been caught up in the tangles.
16:22 Speaker 04 That's true, yeah. But I wouldn't model your, any of your behaviour on the Romantic poets. I mean, they were all over the place, Giles, and that's why they're brilliant writers.
16:32 Speaker 03 I thought they were mainly in the Lake District.
16:35 Speaker 04 Well, Keats was on the Spanish Steps, wasn't he?
16:38 Speaker 03 Dairys now. Where'd we got to? We're in nineteen seventy six, September nineteen seventy six, Monday, the sixth of September, nineteen seventy six. Last night in Oxford, old Emlin Williams, now in his seventies, do you know what I mean by Emlin Williams? Harriet?
16:56 Speaker 04 No.
16:57 Speaker 03 Very distinguished actor, writer, playwright. Last night in Oxford, old Emlin Williams, now in his seventies, evoked the young Dylan Thomas for us. He was spellbinding. He simply stood centre stage for two hours and talked. He used only his hands, his voice and his eyes, and somehow convinced us we were with a boy in Swansea fifty years ago. It was totally compelling, and he is very charming and flirtatious and young at heart. Lots of, you must come to Duffhouse Street, Giles. Tonight in London, we went to the National Theatre, the least user-friendly building in the history of architecture.
17:42 Speaker 03 Give the man a knighthood. They did, you know, and then they gave him a peerage. Oh. And saw the new John Osborne play, Watch It Come Down. Watch us walk out. We did. We left at the interval. Some went earlier. I've never done that in the theatre before. Michelle said we should do it more often. The piece is pretentious tosh.
18:04 Speaker 04 Oh dear.
18:05 Speaker 03 Have you ever walked out? A- are you at a show in Midway?
18:08 Speaker 04 Yeah, yeah, I I'm a big fan. I I just, if I'm not into something, I just go and then I go out and I get some food.
18:15 Speaker 03 Gosh, yeah, well.
18:17 Speaker 04 Yeah.
18:17 Speaker 03 You've paid the ticket, if it isn't working for you, disappear.
18:19 Speaker 04 Yeah.
18:19 Speaker 03 You wouldn't get up and walk out during the, an act.
18:22 Speaker 04 No.
18:22 Speaker 03 You'd wait for the interval.
18:23 Speaker 04 I'd just go in the interval. I'd just slip out.
18:25 Speaker 03 This is why I like putting on shows that are ninety minutes, no interval.
18:27 Speaker 04 Yeah.
18:28 Speaker 03 You can't lose the audience. They're stuck there.
18:30 Speaker 04 I know.
18:31 Speaker 03 In Edinburgh, there's no interval for our show. People come, they'll stay throughout.
18:34 Speaker 04 They can't, they can't leave.
18:35 Speaker 03 They can't, they can't.
18:36 Speaker 04 We lock the doors, don't we, I think?
18:38 Speaker 03 Hmm.
18:38 Speaker 04 Yeah, bolt them.
18:40 Speaker 03 They won't want to leave. They may want to storm the stage, they won't want to leave.
18:43 Speaker 04 Glued to their seats in horror.
18:44 Speaker 03 But what's interesting about this performance, and I do now, it does come back to me, of Emlyn Williams, who was a beautiful actor and can still be seen in films from the nineteen thirties and forties and fifties, is you see, he used only his hands, his voice and his eyes.
19:00 Speaker 04 Hmm.
19:00 Speaker 03 He was an old man in his seventies, being the teenage Dylan Thomas, and it clearly worked. And sometimes less is more.
19:08 Speaker 04 Hmm.
19:08 Speaker 03 You know, I think that when I'm in our show, jitterbugging all over the place, and you're saying, stand still for God's sake.
19:14 Speaker 04 Hmm.
19:14 Speaker 03 All right. Friday the tenth of September nineteen seventy-six. Chairman Mao has died, and we are going to plunder the Ben Travis Farse at the New National Theatre. Good news, bad news. The good news, Dear Daddy, the play that we'd put on at Oxford, is transferring to the Ambassador Theatre in the West End, opening on the twentieth of October. Bad news, the Bernard Shaw Estate are bastards.
19:40 Speaker 04 Oh.
19:41 Speaker 03 Having told us that we could do Arms and the Man in Oxford with just two sets, they now tell us we can't tour because our production only has two sets. We have to have the third act set in the drawing room as specified by Bernard Shaw. We can't afford to build a new set and re-rehearse, so the tour plus possible transfer won't happen now. And the Shaw estate will lose a hefty chunk of royalties. Fuck 'em, as Noel would say. They are idiots. Who gives a monkey's where the third act is set? Anyway, at least we have one West End transfer. And everything else has been good. Nice piece in the Oxford Mail about our fringe. Last time, we discovered hinge and bracket.
20:25 Speaker 03 This time, we've scored with Chris Langham and Noel's Joyce, Mr. X from Gay Sweatshop.
20:32 Speaker 04 Gay Sweatshop, isn't it?
20:34 Speaker 03 Yeah. What's interesting is this is fifty years ago. So gay entertainment was not mainstream. It was quite controversial to have Gay Sweatshop as a company. And Mr. X was something again.
20:49 Speaker 04 Hmm. Very intriguing.
20:52 Speaker 03 He was intriguing. A lot of leather.
20:55 Speaker 04 Oh.
20:56 Speaker 03 Which Noel liked.
21:06 Speaker 00 Welcome to 215 Maple Drive. We just put this property on the market.
21:12 Speaker 01 Love the crown molding.
21:14 Speaker 00 Oh, wait until you see the walk-in closets and the bathroom tile.
21:17 Speaker 01 Does it have Verizon FiOS? You know, one hundred percent fiber internet.
21:21 Speaker 00 No FiOS, but it looks like it's got cable. Let's check out the kitchen.
21:25 Speaker 01 No FiOS? Yeah, no thank you.
21:28 Speaker 00 Don't you want to see the rest? Okay, bye-bye.
21:31 Speaker 02 Get Verizon FiOS, because when you're moving, it's one hundred percent or nothing.
21:38 Speaker 03 Monday, the thirteenth of September, nineteen seventy-six. Last night was the last night of the festival. Michael Redgrave with his Hans Anderson readings.
21:50 Speaker 03 The week before, Emily Williams, aged seventy-one, swept all before him. Last night, poor Michael, aged sixty-eight, struggled to hold the attention of the crowd. I met him at the station and took him to the Randolph. He stood alone on the railway platform, looking bewildered, his fawn raincoat flapping in the wind, touching a little battered overnight case that, when he opened it to the hotel, contained nothing but some bottles of pills and his shaving kit. No pajamas, no change of clothes. He's a stricken giant, stooped, anxious, going on because he has to. He needs the money, and because acting is what he does. It's what he is. His hands shake all the time now. It's not just the drink.
22:35 Speaker 03 Something is wrong with him. He's having tests at the hospital for nervous diseases. He says there's a brain operation that he may have to have. The idea terrifies him. The idea of performing last night terrified him too. In the wings, he said he couldn't do it, but when the time came, he did. He shuffled onto the stage, he sat to read the stories, he sat awkwardly, and kept getting the pages muddled up. At one point, several sheets slipped from his folder onto the floor. He bent forward to retrieve them, but they were out of his reach. He leant towards them slowly, painfully. I was at the back of the stalls and thinking I'd better go and rescue him, when someone in the front row got up, collected the fallen pages, and handed them back to him.
23:20 Speaker 03 The stories, translated by one of Michael's old teachers from Clifton College, have great charm, and his voice, with that heartrending rasp, is still unique. But the power has gone, and with it, the authority. He can no longer command the house. The audience stayed with him out of respect and affection. They could see he was not well. The evening was sad, but not disastrous. Afterwards, he gave me one of his sweetest smiles. He felt it had gone rather well. Noel wouldn't join us for dinner. I can't face it! He's a sad old bugger, but he's your sad old bugger, not mine!
24:03 Speaker 03 Noel has discovered a secret floor of the Randolph. It's the floor above the top floor. It's where the waiters live. I think Noel is spending some of his nights up there. I took Sir Michael Redgrave to the Elizabeth Restaurant. Simon Cadell came to, as planned. We did most of the talking. Michael sat between us, blinking at us, but smiling. I think he had a happy evening. I hope so. He has been a very great man, and I feel the privilege of knowing him.
24:36 Speaker 04 Hmm, that's very sad, Giles, isn't it?
24:39 Speaker 03 It's very, very sad, but he's actually, Michael Redgrave has been part of my life since this time, because he was the first seriously great person to take an interest in me. And I'd seen him at the Chichester Festival Theatre, and then at the National Theatre, in a production of Uncle Vanya, played by Chekhov. One of the greatest plays ever written, directed by Laurence Olivier. Laurence Olivier was in it, very distinguished cast. And he was outstanding. Many people of that era, if you asked them what was the single greatest performance they saw in their lifetime, would name Michael Redgrave as Uncle Vanya. So to have known such a person was fantastic. And then by chance, really, over the years, I got to know his family.
25:23 Speaker 03 And, well, he occurs again, but I got to know his daughter Vanessa a little bit. I shared a birthday, literally, with his daughter Lynne. And I got to know Corinne Redgrave, though a very keen socialist, which I'm not. But we had a shared love of Oscar Wilde. And he did a wonderful show featuring Oscar Wilde. And then I got to know Corinne's daughter, Gemma Redgrave, who I would say is one of my best friends.
25:50 Speaker 04 Oh.
25:50 Speaker 03 I love being with her. You know how you feel, there could be some people, you're one of them, but she is another, who, if you've not been together for a year, six months, eighteen months, two years, you're right back where you were the moment you see them.
26:05 Speaker 04 Oh, yeah.
26:06 Speaker 03 You understand them, they understand you. You don't really need to say very much, you're just there.
26:11 Speaker 04 Yeah.
26:11 Speaker 03 And if you have a problem, they understand it immediately, just instantly. So I've always felt that with Gemma.
26:21 Speaker 04 That's lovely.
26:21 Speaker 03 Which is lovely. So that's Bye Bye Bye. On we go. Lunch today, this is the morning after the night with Sir Michael Redgrave. Lunch today with another great man, Lord Hailsham. A year older than Sir Michael, but a different gather-alter thing, as Noel likes to say. Noel says this as an expression used by Princess Margaret.
26:44 Speaker 04 A different gather-alter thing. A different thing altogether.
26:49 Speaker 03 Yes, a different gather-alter thing. And Noel used to claim that Princess Margaret always said, "Oh, it's a different gather-alter thing." It's quite a nice phrase, he was saying that all the time. Anyway, Noel was very excited about Lord Hailsham and had gone to a lot of trouble with the lunch. Smoked salmon, lamb cutlets, cheese and salad, fruit and ice cream. Lord Hailsham was giving one of our festival lunchtime lectures. The lunch was really a bonus for Noel. Because Noel is an actor, he isn't starstruck about other actors. Hailsham was a star from a different constellation, and Noel was in awe. And his lordship was on song. He is very brilliant and very funny. He rattled through a raft of F. E. Smith stories, several of them new to me.
27:33 Speaker 03 E. G., at an election meeting, F. E. Smith suggested to a heckler that he might like to take his cap off before asking his question. "Heckler, I'll take my boots off if you like." F. E. Smith sighing, "Ah, I knew you'd come here to be unpleasant." "You still can't beat the best." "Judge, I have read your case, Mr. Smith, and I am no wiser now than I was when I started." F. E. Smith, "Possibly not, my lord, but far better informed." Lord Hailsham, accepting a third libation of port from Noel, told us it was the drink that killed him. Do you know what I even mean by F. E. Smith?
28:13 Speaker 04 No, I think you've mentioned him before, but I've forgotten who he is.
28:16 Speaker 03 F. E. Smith, eighteen seventy-two to nineteen thirty. We're becoming a bit like in our time, aren't we? First Earl of Bergenhead, he was a lawyer, he was a Conservative MP. He was one of Lord Hailsham's predecessors as Lord Chancellor. He was considered the most brilliant person of his time. He came from Liverpool. And my father was born up in that part of the world, in Oyle Lake, near Liverpool, and came from a family of lawyers. The name Effie Smith meant everything. So he was a hugely famous, brilliant man. And it was an era a hundred years ago. Now, the famous people who are noted in our society are influencers, maybe movie stars, people who appear on ludicrous
28:57 Speaker 03 reality TV shows. A hundred years ago, when my father was a boy, it was people like Effie Smith, lawyers, the public intellectuals. People would go to the House of Commons and the House of Lords to sit in the gallery to listen to these people speak. They would go to the Old Bailey. They would sit in the gallery to listen to these great, brilliant orators doing their thing.
29:19 Speaker 04 We've really dumbed down, haven't we, Giles?
29:21 Speaker 03 I think maybe we have, to be honest.
29:24 Speaker 04 I have to say, we're keeping, we're keeping our end up, aren't we? I mean, you are, you are, I'm not. I do my best to dumb you down all the time.
29:31 Speaker 03 Come on, you're a very clever person.
29:33 Speaker 04 I don't think I am. But the culture has dumbed down a bit, hasn't it?
29:37 Speaker 03 Can I say, I love, since we're being serious, you and I together, one of the reasons I love Rosebud is we are exploring people's stories. And I think sometimes we really get to the heart of what the matter. But I also, I love getting to the heart of the matter with people on Fridays, but I also love the life of the mind. And I'm not very good at it, but I love going to an art gallery with somebody who knows about the pictures. And then you look at a picture and they tell you what the things to look out for. And the great thing about someone like Lord Hailsham, who was a very brilliant man, is I love being with people who are cleverer than me. Well, I say this often in the diary. I want to be with people who are cleverer than me, who are beautiful and who are funny. That's all I want. Okay.
30:22 Speaker 04 Great.
30:22 Speaker 03 Thursday, the seventh of October, nineteen seventy-six. We got back from our week in Athens at lunchtime. We have made a decision. Tomorrow, I am firing the nanny.
30:32 Speaker 04 Oh, what? Moni Nora, whatever she was called.
30:36 Speaker 03 Can't remember. We'll maybe discover her name now. Or maybe I'm not going to mention her name. We'd had Lope, do you remember?
30:41 Speaker 04 Yeah, yeah, this, this girl, yeah.
30:44 Speaker 03 I'm afraid. Forgive the political incorrectness, as was written in nineteen seventy-six. I'm firing the nanny. She has been a disaster from the start. Fat, ugly, spotty, lumpen, lazy, stupid.
30:56 Speaker 04 Don't talk about your mother like that, Giles.
30:58 Speaker 03 She has no redeeming features.
31:02 Speaker 03 I do not want Bennet, our son, spending any more time in her company.
31:06 Speaker 04 Apologies, nanny.
31:08 Speaker 03 She was awful in Athens. Lazing by the poolside, rubbing oil onto her hideous body, which you should have been about her duties. And muttering and sighing whenever she was asked to do the slightest thing. "It's supposed to be a holiday for me too, isn't it?" she bleated. "No", I wanted to say, but I didn't. Anyway, the plan is that I tell her tomorrow and she goes at once with three months' notice, cash in hand. I'm dreading it. I hate firing people.
31:41 Speaker 03 Not a good day. The Bank of England has put up interest rates from thirteen to fifteen percent. Our National Westminster overdraft already costs a fortune. It's a nightmare.
31:55 Speaker 04 I'm not surprised if you're taking the nanny on holiday with you.
31:58 Speaker 03 But hold on, that's the base rate, fifteen percent. Can you imagine what our mortgage was?
32:04 Speaker 04 Oh, if I have to hear another boomer moaning on about interest rates when they bought their house for twenty-seven p and have got a nanny to go on holiday with them to Athens. Most people now can't even afford to live with their parents. I mean, for goodness sake, Giles.
32:21 Speaker 03 Moving swiftly on.
32:21 Speaker 04 Yeah, cut, sorry.
32:23 Speaker 03 No, I love to hear, I love to hear. No, I think it's lovely.
32:26 Speaker 04 I'm gonna get so many emails.
32:28 Speaker 03 No, can I say, one of the fascinating, I must be serious for a moment.
32:34 Speaker 03 Somebody came up to me on the Underground the other day and to talk about the podcast, people do.
32:40 Speaker 04 Yeah.
32:40 Speaker 03 And they said, "Oh, I love you and Harriet. Harriet's so funny, etcetera". She said, "Brilliant, she's marvelous, etcetera, etcetera". She said, "I love it because it's a real intergenerational experience." And I said, "I'm sorry." Harriet is my colleague.
32:53 Speaker 04 Harriet's eighty-six.
32:55 Speaker 03 I shouldn't say that. But obviously, it is an intergenerational, that is the point.
33:00 Speaker 04 Yeah.
33:00 Speaker 03 And that I think people find quite interesting.
33:01 Speaker 04 They do.
33:02 Speaker 03 So your take and my take is slightly different because...
33:04 Speaker 04 But I know I will get a few emails from people saying, "The interest rates were really high."
33:09 Speaker 03 They were really high.
33:10 Speaker 04 And I do really struggle. Know that, but also, it was easier to accumulate assets. And as you have said, Giles, if you were born in nineteen forty-eight, you're the luckiest little person alive, and you were, Giles.
33:25 Speaker 03 Maybe then, not so much now, because I'm closer to death than you are, Harriet.
33:29 Speaker 04 That's true, that's true.
33:30 Speaker 03 And if you say that's true, not necessarily, you should say, not necessarily.
33:33 Speaker 04 Oh, oh, oh, not necessarily.
33:35 Speaker 03 Yes, I might be run over by a bus.
33:36 Speaker 04 I might be run over by a bus.
33:38 Speaker 03 And I know who might be driving it, that's a joke. Tuesday, the second of November, nineteen seventy-six. It's all happening. One, Nina Tishlakis has arrived as our new nanny. She's not a fat, lumpen girl, she's a petite lady of riper years and Greek extraction. She's a widow, about fifty, highly experienced, very enthusiastic. She looks the business, she has her own uniform, fingers crossed.
34:06 Speaker 04 Hmm.
34:06 Speaker 03 Two, I've been the support act to Bernard Manning. Do you know what I mean by Bernard Manning?
34:12 Speaker 04 Of course.
34:13 Speaker 03 That's interesting, you hadn't heard of Emlin Williams, but Bernard Manning, nineteen thirty...
34:17 Speaker 04 Bernard Manning died in two thousand and seven, Emlin Williams was seventy in nineteen seventy-six.
34:21 Speaker 03 You're right, you're right. For those who don't know, he was a Manchester-born comic, club owner, came to prominence in the TV series The Comedians.
34:29 Speaker 04 He was on telly, wasn't he?
34:30 Speaker 03 Yeah. Yes, last night, I took my cabaret act to the Piper Room in Preston, and I survived. I shared a dressing room with a pair of topless go-go dancers, should that be a quartet? And the stripper, a rough-looking lady of about forty, who put one foot on a chair and shoved her naked rear end out towards me while giving me a prit stick. Rub it on me arse darling, she ordered. I'm going to glue on me sequins. Gives the arse a bit of sparkle, covers up the craky bits. The club room was long and narrow, so you had to perform like an umpire at Wimbledon, turning your head from side to side. The go-go girls went on first, each favouring one end of the room. I followed.
35:14 Speaker 03 I managed just. The trick, should I ever do this again, is to be on the attack without rushing. Keep it strong, but take your time. I gabbled too much at the beginning, and my throat was so dry. But it was fine, and given that I was completely clean and inoffensive, it went down remarkably well. While I was on, someone shouted, "In Broad Langashire!" I can't do it. "What are you drinking lad?" I said, "In Broad South Kensington. Mines of gin and tonic, thanks." And when I came off, there were a dozen of them lined up for me.
35:50 Speaker 04 Oh.
35:51 Speaker 03 I suppose they took sympathy. I drank them all. Actually, I must stop drinking gin, I'm getting fat. When I sat down, Bernard Manning rolled on. He came on from the street. He travels the circuit in his white Rolls Royce. He gets to the club and waits outside the door. He launches straight into the act. It's filthy from the word "go", but also undeniably funny. He did forty minutes, relentless, non-stop, sweating profusely throughout. At the end, all the lads cheered. I had a drink with Bernard. "You're a fucking cunt Giles, but I like you. We must work together more often. You make me look good."
36:36 Speaker 03 And then, he stepped back into the roller and set off for his next gig. He did three last night, and it was a Monday.
36:44 Speaker 04 Wow.
36:45 Speaker 03 On the same, still on the same day. Three. Jimmy Carter, from the peanut state of Georgia, is the new president of the United States. He got almost forty million votes to Gerald Ford's thirty-nine.
36:59 Speaker 03 Sunday the 7th of November 1976. Fundraising evening for the action research charity at the Athenaeum Hotel Piccadilly. We played a game called Petropolis: Monopoly with Oil. The company Clement Freud with son Dom, Nicholas Parsons, Simon Williams and Belinda, his then-wife, John Stride and April, John Dunn, he was a broadcaster. I thought he was the best radio interviewer in the business, by the way. He was six foot seven inches tall and his wife Margaret. Sinead Cusack and Jeremy Irons. All relatively jolly, except that Clement was determined to win at all costs and did.
37:41 Speaker 03 I tell Sinead that Jeremy is a distinct improvement on George Best. She did not seem to want to be reminded of Mr. Best. Simon Williams and John Dunn are not just incredibly tall, they're incredibly nice, good fun and easy company. It's worth noting, because it cannot be said of everybody.
38:12 Speaker 00 Welcome to 215 Maple Drive. We just put this property on the market.
38:17 Speaker 01 Love the crown molding.
38:19 Speaker 00 Oh, wait until you see the walk-in closets and the bathroom tile.
38:23 Speaker 01 Does it have Verizon FiOS? You know, 100% fiber internet.
38:26 Speaker 00 No FiOS, but it looks like it's got cable. Let's check out the kitchen.
38:30 Speaker 01 No FiOS? Yeah, no thank you.
38:33 Speaker 00 Don't you want to see the rest? Okay, bye-bye.
38:36 Speaker 02 Get Verizon FiOS, because when you're moving, it's 100% or nothing.
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39:13 Speaker 03 Friday the 3rd of December 1976. Ludicrous scenes on Thames TV tonight. Bill Grundy out of control with the Sex Pistols. He tried to be amusing while they abused him. Several shits, a couple of fucks and a fucking were aired. There will be hulls of protest. Poor old Grundy, he bleated facetiously while the punks, clearly out of their minds on something, jeered at him contemptuously. It was a broadcaster's nightmare.
39:41 Speaker 04 Giles, can I just apologise for the amount of swearing this episode?
39:46 Speaker 03 Yeah.
39:47 Speaker 04 I mean, we've had quite a lot of rude words. Sorry, everyone.
39:51 Speaker 03 And they're not from me.
39:52 Speaker 04 No, well, some were. No, no, no, they weren't.
39:54 Speaker 03 I think I was quoting people at the time. This is the difficulty with the dowry. And in a sense, this is in the public domain because this happened on television.
40:01 Speaker 04 Oh, this is famous.
40:02 Speaker 03 And Paul Bill Grundy, who was a very experienced broadcaster, he was suspended for two weeks and I think eight weeks later, the actual show was cancelled. So this was a disaster for them.
40:12 Speaker 04 Well, it was good really because we're still talking about it now and still famous.
40:16 Speaker 03 That's true. And of course now, you have that kind of bad language on television regularly. But when I was a child, literally when I was a child, it was unheard of. On a whole, I don't really like it.
40:26 Speaker 04 Oh, swearing?
40:27 Speaker 03 Yeah. I mean, I don't do much of it myself. And you don't do much of it, actually?
40:31 Speaker 04 Depends who I'm with. When I'm with Larry Lamb, I put on a Cockney accent and I swear the whole time. He loves it.
40:37 Speaker 03 Does he?
40:38 Speaker 04 Yeah. But with you, I speak posh and I never swear.
40:41 Speaker 03 What do you speak like when you're on your own? In your head, what do you sound like?
40:44 Speaker 04 I think I'm probably a bit less clipped than I am on Rosebud.
40:47 Speaker 03 Really?
40:48 Speaker 04 Yeah. I dumb myself down. Yeah.
40:51 Speaker 03 How interesting, even doing it now.
40:52 Speaker 04 I'm all over the place.
40:54 Speaker 03 I know that.
40:55 Speaker 04 Yeah, because I'm actually from Devon, so I probably should be speaking like that, like that. I used to speak like that when I was little.
40:59 Speaker 03 I did an event the other day in Bridlington and I was interviewing somebody. And she was telling her story. And what was very interesting, at the end of it, I told her something. I said, "It's very interesting. When you've been talking about your career, you've talked entirely in a British accent. And when you were talking about the painful parts of your life and your three marriages, you talked in an American accent."
41:26 Speaker 04 Wow.
41:26 Speaker 03 And it was quite distinct. And I said, am I right to the audience? And they said, yes. And it turned out that she had been brought up, her life started in America. But throughout, she switched accents without realising it.
41:41 Speaker 04 Oh, that is interesting.
41:43 Speaker 03 It was just an lilt, an American lilt, when she began talking about personal things.
41:46 Speaker 04 Right.
41:46 Speaker 03 And then she got on to, I suppose it was kind of automatic pilot, telling her story. It was at a business conference. So she was talking about her business career. And then separately, I asked her some more personal questions about her relationships and things. And then when she mentioned one husband in a jokey way, I thought, well, maybe there's another one. And that turned out to be a third one. But each of those stories was told. So it's interesting. We have different voices for different people and maybe for different things that we may be saying.
42:13 Speaker 04 Well, she must have been going into a different part of her brain, don't you think? It's that thing of, you know, I told you once, you look to the right when you're remembering something and to the left when you're inventing something, you know, there's things you're doing with your, in your, you're retrieving things from different parts of your brain. Your memory is in a different place to your rational business person brain or whatever. And obviously in her brain, she's got accent as well because one accent's from her childhood. And when she goes into the memory brain, it's that's coming out. Interesting.
42:42 Speaker 03 It's very interesting. Rereading this diary is very interesting because a lot of these incidents in later years, I've turned into anecdotes and I've made them funny and I've modified them. And, um, but I think the, the diary, I do think I kept accurately at the time. "We have nightmares of our own at Camden Hill Gardens. The noise from our neighbours continues. Horrible loud music played by young Mexicans on the ground floor. Mrs Windler, the landlord next door, affects to be sympathetic, but the Mexicans don't give a damn. They go quiet for a day or two and then it starts again. Michelle is reduced to tears. The apprehension is as bad as the noise itself. We are desperate and looking at soundproofing,
43:26 Speaker 03 incredibly expensive and not necessarily effective, and possible legal action. Ditto. We're also considering legal action against Simon Clarke Productions. We are not getting our agreed cut from the West End run of Dear Daddy." We can't even get hold of the figures. We're due five percent of the gross box office takings. They wanted to give us a share of the profits, but Michelle said, "There won't be any profits, there never are. Profits can be made to disappear. You must go for the gross." We did. The play is a hit. We are due thousands. Noel is frantic for the money. He has no work. We need the money too. The only answer may be a High Court action, but the solicitors advise us not to threaten
44:11 Speaker 03 action unless we're ready to take it. And running a High Court action, according to Jim Phillips, our solicitor, is costly in terms of time and money and spirit. Is it worth it? Monday, the sixth of December, nineteen seventy-six. We went to Stratford by train. It takes an age. Why isn't there a proper train service to Stratford? It must be one of the country's leading tourist destinations. On the Underground, we saw one of my posters. I persuaded a group of my publishers to club together to fund an advertising campaign to promote eight of my books, which was rather fun. The poster carried a headline, "Giles Brandreth is perfect", with beneath it, "At least in book form he is."
44:55 Speaker 03 I've still got the poster downstairs, I'll show it to you when you next come over. Anyway, on the Underground, we saw one of my posters. But when we got to Paddington, I resisted the temptation to visit W. H. Smith and ask for a copy of a royal scrapbook. Have I only written about this? The book. It's a gentle royal spoof to mark the Silver Jubilee. It's supposed to be the Queen's own scrapbook, recovered from the dustbins in Buckingham Palace Muse. My twenty-five years on the throne. Photos of Her Majesty and family with balloons and commentary by me. Well, it's been banned by Hatchards because they are royal warrant holders. W. H. Smith will stock it, but only supply it from beneath the counter.
45:40 Speaker 03 I've pressed Michael Joseph, the publishers, to have some fun with this, but they won't. They don't want to upset W H Smith or Her Majesty. The book can't sell because no one is selling it.
45:52 Speaker 04 Is that why you haven't got a knighthood?
45:55 Speaker 03 Oh, do you think because of this book?
45:56 Speaker 04 Probably.
45:56 Speaker 03 Written fifty years ago, this cheeky book.
45:59 Speaker 04 Cheeky book about the Queen.
46:00 Speaker 03 It was great fun. People now, I mean, I've got, I've got lots of coppers in the basement. You can have one.
46:04 Speaker 04 Oh, great.
46:05 Speaker 03 Because, of course, they didn't sell, because they wouldn't put it in the bookshop.
46:07 Speaker 04 Oh, dear, wow.
46:08 Speaker 03 It was just a fun, it was like a sort of picture of private eye cover.
46:11 Speaker 04 I know, but the Queen doesn't like that sort of thing, John.
46:14 Speaker 03 The late Queen? I don't know. Well, we don't know. She would never have seen it. It was just a bit of fun.
46:18 Speaker 04 Okay.
46:19 Speaker 03 But at least the Silver Jubilee Diaries are doing well. Oh, yes, we'd also produce a Silver Jubilee Diary. And we may have the rights to produce the Action Man Annual. And I have plans to buy Hamleys of Regent Street. Much Ado About Nothing was marvelous. Judi Dench and Donald Sindon as Beatrice and Benedict, definitive, both hilarious and deeply touching. There's always a moment towards the end of a Shakespeare play when I want to cry, always. It is part of the magic of Shakespeare. It's why I want to die having just seen a Shakespeare play. Michelle has not said this, but I can hear her saying it.
47:02 Speaker 03 Yes, dear, it's called catharsis. So the good news there is, Harriet, I've been doing the crying fifty years ago.
47:10 Speaker 04 Yes, yes, you haven't.
47:11 Speaker 03 Something more interesting turned up.
47:13 Speaker 04 You're still crying.
47:14 Speaker 03 I ought to tell the listeners, during the last few paragraphs, Harriet has been yawning. And now she's reading an email.
47:19 Speaker 04 I've been yawning.
47:20 Speaker 03 It doesn't matter. I'm joking. I mean, you are yawning.
47:22 Speaker 04 I never yawn at work. I'm reading an email because Stop Press.
47:26 Speaker 03 Oh.
47:26 Speaker 04 Newsflash, I've got an email from Kieran McLennan just arrived in my inbox. My first crush.
47:34 Speaker 03 We must remind people of this. We mentioned, well, you must have mentioned him once, twice, when we were talking about first crushes. And you told us about Kieran McLennan, and he's got in touch. What does he tell us?
47:45 Speaker 04 So Kieran McLennan was a boy at my primary school.
47:50 Speaker 03 You were eight?
47:51 Speaker 04 I was young. And he, I mean, I thought at the time was devastatingly good looking, and he probably still is, Kieran. And he sort of...
48:04 Speaker 04 Tickled me one day and that was it. And he used to give me these sort of cheeky looks. I remember him very well. Anyway, he's just emailed me. Um, hi, Harriet. What a lovely message to receive. So, so, so after I spoke about him on Rosebud, he emailed in to say, I'm Kieran McLennan. I was listening to Rosebud and I heard my name and wow. And then I didn't email back for ages because I got so out of control with the inbox. I didn't email him back for two months. I emailed him back yesterday and he wrote straight back. Hi, Harriet. What a lovely message to receive. It certainly did give me a shock when I heard the podcast and realised it was you. It brought back some very funny memories from primary school. And yes, I think we probably did cross paths
48:48 Speaker 04 at the fair in Dartmouth years later.
48:51 Speaker 03 Oh.
48:52 Speaker 04 Although memory has a funny way of playing tricks on us after all this time. So I thought he was working on the waltzers.
48:59 Speaker 03 Oh, yes.
49:00 Speaker 04 And spinning the car. Yeah, but he, maybe he wasn't. Um, then he tells me a bit of his news. He sounds like he's doing really well. He runs his own company. Uh, he says, I'm really glad you got back in touch. It's funny how people can pop back into your life after so many years and it feels as though no time has passed at all. The next time you're down visiting your dad, step mum or sisters, do let me know. It'd be lovely to catch up properly over a coffee and compare notes on the last few years. Take care and thanks for writing, Kieran.
49:31 Speaker 03 That's lovely.
49:32 Speaker 04 I know.
49:33 Speaker 03 Can I say, do meet up with him when you're next in that part of the world. As you know, I'm threatening to come down because I want to meet your dad. But we could invite him and indeed anybody else from our pasts who mentioned the diaries to come and see one of our shows. Because we're doing some tryout shows, I think they're nearly all sold out in London at the Riverside Studios in Hammersmith, at the old sorting office in Barnes, at the Bedford Park Festival. But then we are going to be in Edinburgh for four whole weeks from the beginning of August to the end of August, every day at 4pm at the Gordon Aitken Theatre, Assembly George Square. Simply go to Gyles Brandreth, up Memory Lane with a twist of Rosebud and Harriet Jane, and you'll see when the show
50:14 Speaker 03 is, where it is, and you can book tickets. And then afterwards, I have decided, I hope you agree with this, we'll get out of our costumes, because that does take 10 minutes. And then there's a, there's a kind of reception.
50:27 Speaker 04 Dinosaur outfit you're wearing, takes ten minutes.
50:30 Speaker 03 No spoilers, please, no spoilers. We get out of our
50:33 Speaker 04 I'm not wearing a costume, I'm just wearing clothes.
50:35 Speaker 03 Yeah, but we'll probably want to keep the clothes fresh for the next day's performance.
50:39 Speaker 04 Oh, good point.
50:40 Speaker 03 So, because otherwise you
50:42 Speaker 04 Oh yeah, don't eat in them, yeah.
50:44 Speaker 03 I'm a mess eater and I don't want to spill
50:46 Speaker 04 That's good advice.
50:47 Speaker 03 So I will change out of my clothes, you will do what you like.
50:49 Speaker 04 Yeah.
50:50 Speaker 03 But then, so after about ten minutes, what I'm saying
50:52 Speaker 04 Yeah.
50:52 Speaker 03 Is we will go down and there is rather a nice area, the front of the theatre, or there's a cafe around the back of the theatre, and we will say to people, we'll be there every day for a cup of tea and maybe a donut. And we can meet people like Kieran, we haven't seen Phages.
51:08 Speaker 04 Kieran gets a name check in the show, doesn't he?
51:10 Speaker 03 At the moment.
51:11 Speaker 04 Giles.
51:12 Speaker 03 We haven't done the trials yet.
51:13 Speaker 04 Kieran McLennan, thanks for your email and please do you mind if you get, you get a name check in our show, so, I mean, I'm really sorry, I've just taken your name in vain all over the place.
51:25 Speaker 03 Well, the truth is with these diaries, I've taken all the people from my past, I mean, the poor nanny, who I described as
51:32 Speaker 04 That nanny, that's terrible.
51:34 Speaker 03 But that was then, I'm sure she changed, we weren't a good, weren't a good mix, weren't a good match.
51:39 Speaker 04 No.
51:39 Speaker 03 Just didn't work out.
51:40 Speaker 04 I mean, I think it's fine to want to lie by the pool on your holidays.
51:43 Speaker 03 Exactly. There are two sides to every story.
51:45 Speaker 04 That's true.
51:46 Speaker 03 All right, and that was the end of 1976, so next time we move into 1977.
51:51 Speaker 04 Woo.
51:52 Speaker 03 So on we go with the diaries. I love Rosebud. Thank you very much for listening, this is for you. Thank you particularly to, who wrote that letter at the beginning?
52:03 Speaker 04 Tom Cunningham.
52:04 Speaker 03 Thank you particularly to Tom Cunningham for that very touching, fascinating letter. If you want to get in touch, it's simply [email protected] .
52:18 Speaker 04 Or you could email [email protected] and that would actually arrive.
52:24 Speaker 03 You're very funny. She's on top of everything because she is the producer. Actually, I'm totally in her thrall as you will be too if you come to see our show. It's been great fun being with you again and I think that's it for more Rosebud.
52:39 Speaker 04 Yeah, thanks. Cue the music.
52:41 Speaker 03 Yeah, I love to hear you saying it. Cue the music. Oh, I must tell you this, Harriet. I must tell you this. No, no, no. I got out of the underground the other day and as the doors were closing, somebody shouted out as the doors were closing. They sometimes do this. They don't, they almost want to know that they can't speak to you. As the doors were closing, they went cue the music.
52:58 Speaker 04 Whoa, that's epic.
53:59 Speaker 00 Welcome to 215 Maple Drive. We just put this property on the market.
54:05 Speaker 01 Love the crown molding.
54:07 Speaker 00 Oh, wait until you see the walk-in closets and the bathroom tile.
54:10 Speaker 01 Does it have Verizon FiOS? You know, 100% fiber internet.
54:14 Speaker 00 No FiOS, but it looks like it's got cable. Let's check out the kitchen.
54:18 Speaker 01 No FiOS? Yeah, no, thank you.
54:21 Speaker 00 Don't you want to see the rest? Okay, bye-bye.
54:24 Speaker 02 Get Verizon FiOS because when you're moving, it's 100% or nothing.
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