More Rosebud - Gyles's Diary, episode 51

We start this episode of Gyles's diaries by talking about all the postcards we've received after we asked listeners to revive the art of sending the - sometimes saucy - postcard. We got so many, so this is a proper, old-fashioned "mailbag" edition of Rosebud. Our huge thanks to everyone who sent us something - we so appreciate it. We have wonderful listeners. And we reveal our prize-winning postcards. They come from: James Sainsbury, in Auckland, New Zealand; Alastair Crieff (sp), who set us a black and white photo he'd found in Dieppe, and the Reverend Jane Parry, who sent us a Donald McGill classic. Please get in touch with us at [email protected] if this is you! Then we have another enjoyable and absorbing edition of Gyles's 1980 diary, in which he has a sad lunch with a diminished Sir Michael Redgrave; manages to stay awake through Wagner's Ring Cycle; has a disconcerting invitation to get into a hot tub with Jimmy Edwards, and has a close shave with Frankie Howerd. Enjoy this, diary aficionadi! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• 2:19Speaker 02

  Hello again. I mustn't get over excited because it's a diary day today. And we're in the 1980s and that was an interesting period. And it's a day when Harriet and I are sorting through all the postcards that you sent us for our postcard competition to give you, well, a flavor of what we've had and why it's important. Hello, Harriet, are you in good form today?

• 2:39Speaker 03

  I am, thank you, yes.

• 2:41Speaker 02

  Good. Are you feeling excited too about the diaries and about the postcards?

• 2:45Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, very. Yeah, we've got so many postcards, didn't we?

• 2:49Speaker 02

  Explain to people who can't quite remember what the postcard thing is.

• 2:54Speaker 03

  I can't remember either.

• 2:56Speaker 02

  What happened is a month or so ago, I read in a newspaper that it was all over for the postcard.

• 3:02Speaker 03

  Oh, that was it, yeah.

• 3:04Speaker 02

  The postcard had its Victorian heyday, then went on into the 20th century. People went on holidays and they always sent one another, or they're back to family, friends, postcards saying, "Wish you were here." And we also talked about those vulgar but rather wonderful postcards, of which Donald McGill was the prime creator, that had jokes that probably are not considered politically correct now and in cartoons on the cover. And you would send those home as well. So we said to people, "Well, apparently the postcard is dying. People aren't sending postcards anymore. If you've got a postcard you'd like to send us, do send it to us." And people did. We got lots of them from all over the world. And they came to us at Grosvenor House in London, where we do most of our recordings and you've been gathering them.

• 3:47Speaker 02

  Just you put your hand, dip your hand into the sack and just produce one or two at random that rather tickled our fancies.

• 3:55Speaker 03

  Well, so I've got this one, which is fantastic because it's got a good idea in it. And it says, it's from Jacqueline Sweeney. Dear Harriet, Michelle and Giles.

• 4:09Speaker 02

  Oh, my wife is included in that. Lovely. Well, you know, it's a family show, this.

• 4:13Speaker 03

  Yep, correctly spelled as well with one L.

• 4:15Speaker 02

  Good, she likes that.

• 4:16Speaker 03

  Greetings from Svalbard, which I think is in Norway. Yeah, where I am on a cruise with my family around the fjords and glaciers of Spitsbergen.

• 4:27Speaker 02

  Oh, wonderful.

• 4:28Speaker 03

  That sounds amazing. We hope to see polar bears. Now, this is the good idea that she sends. On family holidays, we send ourselves a postcard. My husband writes it, we all sign it. And when we get home, we read the message and put the card on the notice board in our kitchen.

• 4:49Speaker 02

  I think that's a lovely idea.

• 4:50Speaker 03

  Isn't it?

• 4:51Speaker 02

  Of reminding yourself when you get back of the joy of the holiday. It takes you back there and it's there with you around the year on your family notice board.

• 4:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, I know. I wonder what sort of message they write themselves. Like, "Don't forget to clean the fridge" or something.

• 5:04Speaker 02

  Or "Wish we were still where we sent this postcard from." What's the picture on the postcard?

• 5:09Speaker 03

  It's Svalbard, which looks amazing. You can see some sort of snow-covered peaks in the background and some flowers in the foreground. It looks sort of desolate, but awe-inspiring, doesn't it?

• 5:24Speaker 02

  Desolate but awe-inspiring, that's what we like. I have been to Greenland, as you know. And Greenland looks a little bit like that.

• 5:31Speaker 03

  Yes, I haven't been to any of those places.

• 5:33Speaker 02

  You've not been to Iceland?

• 5:33Speaker 03

  Iceland looks a bit like that, too.

• 5:35Speaker 02

  Iceland's very like that, but Iceland is more populated. Greenland is sort of more deserted. Oh, it's a wonderful part of the world to go. And if you go at certain times of the year, it's dark all the day. Other times of the year, it's light all the day because they're so far north. You've got lots of them there. We can't, well, just give us some more.

• 5:50Speaker 03

  Well, we got so many from people who listen in other countries, which is very exciting.

• 5:57Speaker 02

  We are a global podcast.

• 5:59Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 5:59Speaker 02

  Oh, look, somebody here sent us some trees. Gabrielle has sent us some pictures of trees. Without a card like this, I wouldn't know on the whole what tree I am looking at. So I'm going to keep this card in my little briefcase. And when I'm out for a walk, I'm going to say, I'm going to take a sneaky look at it and say, "Oh, yes, oh, that's a maple. Yes, I love a maple." Very good. So thank you very much indeed, Gabrielle, for that. Berwick on Tweed from Anne Robertson, who's inviting us to come to visit her in Berwick.

• 6:29Speaker 03

  Oh, I love Berwick. I've only seen it from the train. It looks so nice.

• 6:32Speaker 02

  Well, now you've seen a picture of it. Michael has sent us a card. And what's this one? Farmer Gracie. Oh, it's rather charming. It's two hares playing volleyball.

• 6:44Speaker 03

  With no clothes on.

• 6:45Speaker 02

  Well, that's the way it is. St. Michael's Mount, that's your part of the world, isn't it? The West Country?

• 6:50Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 6:50Speaker 02

  Is that Devon Cornwall?

• 6:51Speaker 03

  Cornwall, I think, yeah.

• 6:52Speaker 02

  Cornwall from Emma Wood. My earliest memory is buying fresh milk and clotted cream from the village dairy. We would have to walk through the farmyard to reach the beach and the smell of cow manure still reminds me of those idyllic summers. With all best wishes, Emma Wood. It's a lovely card of St. Michael's Mount. Do you remember? Isn't it strange? Have you ever milked a cow?

• 7:18Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 7:19Speaker 02

  It's a very satisfying experience, isn't it? And the noise, the squirt as it hits the bottom of the bucket. And then you will have drunk fresh cow's milk, which probably is against the law.

• 7:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, slightly disgusting, I remember thinking.

• 7:32Speaker 02

  Ah, when I was a child, it was done, we did it in France. I think they put it on things or made chocolate with it.

• 7:39Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 7:40Speaker 02

  But I love, I love the sensation of milking a cow. Anyway, that's a lovely picture there. Oh, one of the cheeky ones. We're going to have a special prize for the cheekiest we've received. This is a cheeky card from Liz and Bob in Mass Dovignon in the southwest of France. And it's somebody playing bull and he's got a kind of, one of those, I think, I think the joke is, yes, he's just, there's a hospital in the background. He's on the beach playing bull. There's a hospital in the background. He has come in, you know, when you go to hospital, they put you on.

• 8:13Speaker 03

  You've got the gown on.

• 8:13Speaker 02

  They put a gown on, which has this, which is the back is open.

• 8:16Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 8:16Speaker 02

  So your bottom is always visible.

• 8:18Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 8:18Speaker 02

  I don't quite know how that works, except I do know how it works.

• 8:21Speaker 03

  So they can take it off when you're in the theatre? When you're asleep?

• 8:26Speaker 02

  They can just lift it off.

• 8:27Speaker 03

  They take the gown, they untie the gown and they take it off.

• 8:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm with you.

• 8:31Speaker 03

  You're meant to wear pants, basically, aren't you?

• 8:32Speaker 02

  Well, this guy isn't wearing pants and he's playing bull. So it's a slightly cheeky one.

• 8:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, so you can see his bottom as he's bending over to throw the ball.

• 8:40Speaker 02

  You can see it's, look, we better get to some winning ones.

• 8:43Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 8:44Speaker 02

  We would like to say, though, we love doing rosebud. And it's fantastic to feel that all over the world, there are people who took the trouble to send us a postcard. So the postcard is not dead. You know, just send a postcard to anyone. It doesn't need to say very much. You can simply say, "Wish you were here."

• 9:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, you can buy so many nice postcards, can't you? When you go to an art gallery, there are always, I love looking through those.

• 9:07Speaker 02

  I was looking this morning. I've got a big box of postcards that are the covers of Penguin Books.

• 9:14Speaker 03

  Oh, that's a good postcard to send someone.

• 9:16Speaker 02

  And I was looking, I wanted to bring a postcard in for you today to send you with a little message on it. "Thank you for being so nice to work with last week."

• 9:24Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 9:24Speaker 02

  And I couldn't find an appropriate one. Everyone I looked at, I thought, "No, Black Mischief, no, I can't give her that." Lady Chatter's Lover, no, I can't give her that. Sex and Society by Lex Comfort, no, I can't give her that. And I was hoping that they would have one by Virginia Woolf. Because you know, for family members, you did some readings from Virginia Woolf the other day and they proved very popular. And then I realized probably Penguin don't publish Virginia Woolf because she was originally published by the Hogarth Press, her own imprint. And anyway, so I love an original postcard. I buy many more postcards than I send.

• 10:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, they're good to put on your wall and, yeah.

• 10:03Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 10:04Speaker 03

  Right, so we're getting to the prize winners now.

• 10:06Speaker 02

  But the prize.

• 10:07Speaker 03

  We should put a drum roll in, but just imagine there's a drum roll playing in the background.

• 10:12Speaker 02

  This is from Harbour Ferry, Auckland. And I think maybe the postcard that's come furthest. Shall we see what the message is and who it's from?

• 10:22Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 10:22Speaker 02

  It's from James Sainsbury. "Whose earliest memory is with my older sister visiting our newborn brother in the Mata Matan Maternity Hospital. It was 1982 and I was three."

• 10:39Speaker 02

  Ah, James is a beekeeping honeybee scientist in New Zealand. Isn't that marvellous?

• 10:46Speaker 03

  Mmm.

• 10:47Speaker 02

  Well, there you go. And what's he sent us a picture of?

• 10:51Speaker 03

  It's a ferry by the look of it, which I imagine is in Auckland, the Harbour Ferry, an evening scene of a typical harbour ferry leaving Auckland for the historic North Shore suburb of Devonport. It looks so lovely there. Wow.

• 11:06Speaker 02

  Do you think that's definitely the one that's come furthest? What about this one? That's come a long way. Read that.

• 11:10Speaker 03

  So, I mean Auckland, New Zealand is a long way from London, isn't it? It's basically in another date, date. It's tomorrow.

• 11:19Speaker 02

  It's tomorrow.

• 11:20Speaker 03

  It's tomorrow.

• 11:20Speaker 02

  And that's what we are, as modern as tomorrow, with a lot of time for yesterday.

• 11:23Speaker 03

  So James Sainsbury is looking after honeybees tomorrow.

• 11:27Speaker 02

  James, we loved your card.

• 11:29Speaker 03

  I mean, that's amazing.

• 11:29Speaker 02

  Thank you for being in Auckland and thinking of us.

• 11:31Speaker 03

  Yes. So, so James, you've won a prize for coming the furthest, but a special, a highly commended goes to Jake Johansson, who's listening in Fargo, North Dakota.

• 11:45Speaker 02

  Fargo.

• 11:47Speaker 03

  I mean, that sounds so kind of mysterious.

• 11:50Speaker 02

  Do you remember, wasn't that a television series in the day? It's called Wells Fargo.

• 11:54Speaker 03

  Wells Fargo is a company, isn't it?

• 11:56Speaker 02

  It's a company, it's a bank, I think.

• 11:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, but Fargo is a film and a TV series.

• 12:00Speaker 02

  Oh, is it?

• 12:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, mm-hmm, yeah. But North Dakota, I mean, that just sounds so kind of.

• 12:06Speaker 02

  It does. They're cowboys, they're horses.

• 12:08Speaker 03

  Full of mystery and romance. Yeah.

• 12:11Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 12:12Speaker 03

  So, North Dakota, they're not tomorrow, they're earlier this morning, and they are listening there. And they love the podcast. And thanks so much, Jake, for listening in North Dakota and for taking the trouble to send a postcard all that way. It's actually got a stamp on it that's circular, a round stamp. Quite cool.

• 12:33Speaker 02

  Very cool.

• 12:33Speaker 03

  I think we should introduce those here. I mean, I'm just amazed the post delivers these things these days.

• 12:39Speaker 02

  And some of them were simply addressed to Rosebud London and got here. Most of them actually were addressed to Grosvenor House partly.

• 12:45Speaker 03

  They were, yeah.

• 12:46Speaker 02

  So, we come to the final two, and you've chosen the classic winner, and I've chosen the cheeky winner.

• 12:51Speaker 03

  Oh, yes. So this we chose because it's just such a lovely image. And it's slightly cheeky because it's got two women who have no clothes on, on the front. But it's a vintage black and white picture, artistically done.

• 13:05Speaker 02

  They're decorously positioned.

• 13:08Speaker 03

  They are leaning forwards with their arms folded over their chest. So you can't see anything. They look very glamorous. And they're probably in the 1950s or something, or maybe 40s. And they're in hip baths.

• 13:20Speaker 02

  Oh, as in my famous warm-up?

• 13:22Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 13:23Speaker 02

  I, I didn't know what a hip bath was. That's a hip bath, is it?

• 13:25Speaker 03

  I think so.

• 13:26Speaker 02

  I think it is a hip bath. You just sit in it up to your hips. You can't lie back in it.

• 13:31Speaker 03

  And they're having a chat. And they've got their feet in water too. Maybe they're in a spa or something.

• 13:36Speaker 02

  Can I have a look? What does it say on the back?

• 13:38Speaker 03

  It says deux femmes dans le bain. Two ladies in the bath.

• 13:43Speaker 02

  These are two glamorous ladies sitting, having a gossip in a hip bath in Paris.

• 13:49Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 13:50Speaker 02

  And they look very contented, don't they?

• 13:51Speaker 03

  They do.

• 13:52Speaker 02

  They look glad. They're having fun. They're having a fun gossip.

• 13:55Speaker 03

  We've given this one a prize for being the most tasteful, interesting, but slightly saucy picture. Dear Harriet and Giles, you've restored my faith in the English after Brexit.

• 14:08Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 14:08Speaker 03

  I saw this card in Dieppe, France. Very good. Yeah, I think France is a place where they, they still go for the, um, the naked postcard. And it's from someone who I think is called Alastair Crieff. Anyway, Alastair, we'd love to send you a prize. So, um, please get in touch. Yeah, we'll have to work out how to get people's addresses, won't we?

• 14:32Speaker 02

  It's a bit complicated, this, isn't it?

• 14:33Speaker 03

  It is, isn't it?

• 14:34Speaker 02

  Because postcards don't normally give an address.

• 14:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, you're gonna have to write in with your address.

• 14:37Speaker 02

  Maybe us chatting about them will be considered a prize enough.

• 14:39Speaker 03

  Yes, that's true.

• 14:40Speaker 02

  We are honoring you. You will go into the Rosebud Postcard Hall of Fame.

• 14:43Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 14:44Speaker 02

  And finally, we did have quite a few cheeky ones.

• 14:47Speaker 03

  Yes. So we're going to give a prize to the cheekiest postcard, aren't we? And Karen Cole, who's a big fan of the podcast, because she came to see us in Edinburgh. So we've met her, we've met her husband. They came all the way from Australia. They gave us a key ring. Then they came to Grosvenor House and had tea here. And they met Igor and they, I mean, they've been on a Rosebud pilgrimage.

• 15:08Speaker 02

  Igor who plays the piano in the barroom.

• 15:09Speaker 03

  Yes, Igor who plays the piano. And they left us a bundle of brilliant saucy postcards and a key ring each from Australia. And so Karen, we'd like to say to you, thanks so much for those. We will put those on our wall in the studio and think of you. And we loved meeting you. And thanks for coming all this way to say hello. And I hope you're having fun in Australia.

• 15:32Speaker 02

  Yeah. And maybe next week, I might share, or next time we're together, I might read you out some of the jokes, because they were very rude.

• 15:39Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 15:40Speaker 02

  But the cheeky postcard that's winning is this one, um, which comes from, I think, is that Jane Reid or Jane Perry? Was it two people? I don't know. Who's it from?

• 15:52Speaker 03

  I think it says Reverend Jane Perry.

• 15:55Speaker 02

  Oh, from the Reverend Jane Perry.

• 15:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 15:58Speaker 02

  Love the Reverend Jane Perry. And she writes, "Postcards rule. I send postcards when I'm on my travels to the indoors folk I visit, sending about a dozen each time." Oh, they say it brings the outside world to them when for health reasons, they're not able to go out and join the wider world. They particularly like naughty ones.

• 16:18Speaker 03

  Mmm.

• 16:18Speaker 02

  And this is quite a naughty one. It's one by the great Donald McGill, who did so many for many, many years. Wasn't paid very much for them, but they made a lot of people laugh. And, well, I think you need to describe the picture. It's a period, it's a restaurant scene.

• 16:34Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 16:34Speaker 02

  There's a waiter.

• 16:36Speaker 03

  So there's a waiter standing at the table with, with the customer who has got a very large bosom, hasn't she? She's amply endowed.

• 16:48Speaker 02

  A lady of riper years.

• 16:49Speaker 03

  Yes, yes.

• 16:50Speaker 02

  With a fine bust.

• 16:51Speaker 03

  She's got a hat on and a red dress, this sort of dress you'd wear to the beach. And she has got, her breasts are so large, they're resting on the table and they're completely obscuring the menu.

• 17:02Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 17:02Speaker 03

  And she's saying to the waiter, "What's on the menu, waiter?" And he's looking down and thinking, "I know what's on the menu. It's your two bazookas." So, and he's looking, um, red in the face, as are a lot of people in Donald McGill postcards. So, yeah, it's fun. It's, um, is it smutty? No, it's saucy.

• 17:24Speaker 02

  It's saucy. I think it isn't smutty. I think it is cheeky. It's a bit naughty. It's probably politically incorrect, but nonetheless, we, we quite liked it.

• 17:32Speaker 03

  Yeah. I don't know if it is politically incorrect.

• 17:36Speaker 02

  Well, I think it probably is because maybe it's a figure that we are joking about.

• 17:39Speaker 03

  Oh, I see. Yeah. But she might be very slim. She's just got big boobs.

• 17:43Speaker 02

  Yeah. And also, she's, I think, quite happy with them.

• 17:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 17:46Speaker 02

  She's plucked them on the table.

• 17:47Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 17:48Speaker 02

  And they are magnificent, it must be said.

• 17:50Speaker 03

  Um, so Reverend Jane Perry, I, we think that's your name. We're, um, giving you a prize. So we need to get your address too. I mean, this is complicated, Giles. This could go on for months.

• 18:01Speaker 02

  But you sent us a postcard.

• 18:02Speaker 03

  We'll be sending emails back and forth.

• 18:04Speaker 02

  If we've mentioned you and you feel you deserve a prize.

• 18:06Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 18:07Speaker 02

  I'm going to give you maybe my Seven Secrets of Happiness.

• 18:10Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 18:10Speaker 02

  Because I think postcards are about spreading happiness.

• 18:14Speaker 03

  Yeah. I mean, in the time it's going to take us to organise this, you could probably, we could probably read out the Seven Secrets of Happiness and play it on the podcast. But yes, send us your address to [email protected] and we will send you a book signed. So that is worth writing in.

• 18:31Speaker 02

  Signed by both of us, though.

• 18:32Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 18:33Speaker 02

  It must be said, it was told to me by an antiquarian bookseller that the most valuable books are the ones that are unsigned, or at least undedicated.

• 18:41Speaker 03

  Oh, that's true.

• 18:42Speaker 02

  That dedicating it to somebody actually reduces the value. You just want, you know, Howard's End, E M Foster.

• 18:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, you don't want Jane, "Happy Christmas, love, E M Foster."

• 18:52Speaker 02

  Or if it's E M Foster, "Bassel, I've been thinking about you all morning."

• 18:57Speaker 03

  Now, that would go.

• 18:59Speaker 02

  Morgan.

• 19:00Speaker 03

  That would go well at auction, wouldn't it?

• 19:02Speaker 02

  Couldn't it? Now, let's get down to business, because we're not just here dealing with the post. But that's what life is like here at Rosebud Towers.

• 19:09Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 19:10Speaker 02

  And we just love you being in touch. So thank you very much indeed. Do keep us posted with all that's happening in your world. Let me tell you now.

• 19:17Speaker 03

  And keep sending postcards to each other. You know, it's such a nice thing to do, isn't it?

• 19:20Speaker 02

  It's a lovely thing to do.

• 19:21Speaker 03

  Yeah, we must remember that.

• 19:22Speaker 02

  And it's also, I think it's a nice thing to do at work. And now I've discovered my box of, which I haven't used in years, my box of Penguin cover postcards. I'm going to bring in the occasional postcard for you, just saying, "Hello, how are you?"

• 19:36Speaker 03

  Yeah. I think it's a really good thing. I think let's all make a, a resolution, you, Giles, me, Harriet, and all the listeners, to send the odd postcard to people. If you're thinking of them, don't send them a text, send them a postcard.

• 19:51Speaker 02

  And the emphasis being on the odd postcard, because I like an eccentric postcard.

• 19:55Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 19:55Speaker 02

  Send them the odd. I think it's a lovely idea.

• 19:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 19:58Speaker 02

  Getting something in the post is fantastic.

• 20:00Speaker 03

  Yeah. It could just say, "Thinking of you," or, yeah.

• 20:03Speaker 02

  I forget who it was, somebody like Syd O'Connell, who said, "You know that your life is over and there is no interest in your life anymore when you no longer look forward to the morning post."

• 20:13Speaker 03

  Oh, gosh. I mean, most of us don't look forward to the post.

• 20:16Speaker 02

  That's, but that's why I said it was somebody like Syd O'Connell, because it was a different era.

• 20:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly.

• 20:20Speaker 02

  When you did look forward to who was writing, who the postcard came from, who the letter was coming from.

• 20:24Speaker 03

  No, it's just catalogues and bills.

• 20:26Speaker 02

  Yes. I mean, and often in our house, we don't get post for several days.

• 20:29Speaker 03

  Oh, gosh. That's good.

• 20:31Speaker 02

  Delivering every day. But very rarely does one get a proper letter letter.

• 20:35Speaker 03

  No, I know.

• 20:36Speaker 02

  So send us a postcard, please, you know where we are. It's time now to turn the clock back, Harriet. We're going back to mid 1980. This is me, Giles, reading to you from my diaries. And if you want to hear. Harriet reading, I just mentioned this in passing. People who belong to the Rosebud family. On a Sunday afternoon, we have an extra episode. And sometimes it's us chatting, sharing family secrets. But we've started a new series called Rosebud Reads. And in the first episode, I read my spoof of P G Wodehouse. And then in the next episode, Harriet read from the Diaries of Virginia Woolf.

• 21:17Speaker 02

  And this proved very, very popular with family members. Thursday, the third of July, nineteen eighty. This is me, Giles, reading from my diary of all those years ago. I'm now in my early thirties. I'm running my own publishing business where I'm getting celebrities to write books or to give their name to books. I'm doing this with my wife, Michelle. We have three small children. We're living in two houses in Notting Hill, or rather Notting Hill Gate. That's the background. Thursday, the third of July, nineteen eighty. This morning, Leonard Rossiter, in cracking form, lots of nervous energy, but plenty of good humour, too.

• 22:02Speaker 02

  He lunged at the girls in the taxi, but took it well when rebuffed. He was in high spirits. This afternoon, Woman's Hour recording with Les Dawson. What makes a joke funny? He had no idea, but he made me laugh a lot. I had ambitions to be a sex maniac, but I failed the practical.

• 22:20Speaker 03

  Oh, sorry.

• 22:23Speaker 02

  The mother-in-law thinks I'm effeminate. Of course, beside her, I am. This evening, Anthony Palace's private view at sixty-two Pimlico Road, followed by supper, Shay Charles Low in Warwick Square. Alex DeYoung, still wild and wonderful. He would have been one of our tutors at Oxford. Anthony Palace and I were together at Oxford. He's the world authority on Rasputin, Alex DeYoung. Alex DeYoung, still wild and wonderful. Lizzie Spender, beautiful and distant. She went on to marry Barry Humphries.

• 22:58Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 22:58Speaker 02

  Hmm. And was the daughter of Stephen Spender.

• 23:01Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 23:02Speaker 02

  Maurice MacMillan, skin like pale parchment, hands that shake. My gosh, he's the son of Harold MacMillan.

• 23:10Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 23:11Speaker 02

  It was some party, wasn't it?

• 23:12Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 23:13Speaker 02

  Anthony's paintings are wonderful. He has done well to stick to his last. And he's still painting to this day.

• 23:19Speaker 03

  Brilliant.

• 23:20Speaker 02

  Saturday, the twelfth of July, nineteen eighty. He'd like to paint our picture, by the way, Anthony Palace. But there's now competition. There's somebody else who wants to paint our picture. But that's by the by. Saturday, the twelfth of July, nineteen eighty. Last night, Pa's seventieth birthday dinner at the Reform Club. A black tie, gentleman-only affair, given by Emery Parks and Co. to mark both Pa's birthday and his retirement from the firm after forty-five years' association.

• 23:51Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 23:52Speaker 02

  It was well done. Melon frappé, saumon fumé, entrecôte grillée, thiolienne, melastrigata, macon luni, château sissac, brandy port. A High Court judge I'd never heard of led the toasts and did it well. Pa responded amusingly, with the right mix of self-deprecation and accepting the evening as nothing less than his due.

• 24:15Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 24:16Speaker 02

  I think he enjoyed it. He never looks totally at ease with his colleagues, which is odd, since he is so much more interesting, high-powered and distinguished than any of them. I tried to keep quiet in my corner. Tonight, we are at Ye Oldie Bell at Hurley. Ma and Pa first came here together in the spring of nineteen thirty-seven. We had brought them back for the night as Pa's birthday treat. It has been a total success. Both of them really happy. I'm so glad. Pa means the world to me. I hope he knows. I think he does.

• 24:51Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 24:52Speaker 02

  Friday, the twenty-fifth of July, nineteen eighty. News from the world. Peter Sellers has died, age fifty-four. Ronald Reagan has been chosen as the Republican Party's presidential candidate, age sixty-nine. Steve Ovitt, Sebastian Coe, Duncan Goodhue are wowing them at the Moscow Olympics. I'm just in from tea with Tommy Steele, a wonderfully gifted performer, but rather an opaque personality. I went with Simon Kudell to see Tommy's show at the Prince of Wales Theatre. We were impressed by his skill, but underwhelmed by the experience. He does a routine involving the audience, where there's the possibility of a member of the audience winning a bottle of champagne.

• 25:36Speaker 02

  Tommy Steele contrives to forget to present the prize, and then, at the curtain call, remembers. It was neatly done, but we noticed that the bottle of champagne was actually a quarter bottle. That's what the performance was, too. Wonderfully thought through, but ultimately without generosity, without real heart. Tough verdict to have the great Tommy Steele. Is he now Sir Tommy Steele? He probably should be.

• 26:13Speaker 00

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• 26:58Speaker 00

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• 27:12Speaker 04

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• 28:50Speaker 02

  Friday, the fifth of September, nineteen eighty. I'm on the six twenty a.m. train from Blackpool to Euston. I've spent the day with John Inman. He does what he does very well, but that's all he does. Do you remember John Inman?

• 29:04Speaker 03

  Yes, yeah. Oh, you being served. I love that.

• 29:07Speaker 02

  Camp actor and entertainer. His range is nil.

• 29:11Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 29:11Speaker 02

  But he is sweet and enthusiastic, and so long as you stick entirely to storage from the Golden Age of Variety, all's well. We minced together along the front. Almost every passerby cried, "I'm free."

• 29:25Speaker 02

  John loves Blackpool. In theory, I love it too. I love the piers, the front, the tower, the shows. And yet, though it will have cost ten times as much, I'm very happy that we rented Kino Piastri's house again this August. I say I love Blackpool, but I don't really, not the way John does. Tommy Trinder once told me that the best smell in the world to him was the smell of a pantomime matinee. Oranges and wee-wee.

• 29:53Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 29:54Speaker 02

  Can you imagine?

• 29:55Speaker 03

  That's horrible, isn't it?

• 29:57Speaker 02

  But that's the way they feel about it.

• 29:58Speaker 03

  Gosh. I mean, if you were John Inman, you must have had people shouting, "I'm free at you", hundreds of times a week.

• 30:06Speaker 02

  Every day.

• 30:07Speaker 03

  I mean, it must have been.

• 30:08Speaker 02

  I mean, we walked along.

• 30:09Speaker 03

  Quite tiresome.

• 30:10Speaker 02

  I mean, I, I knew him, got to know him really quite well.

• 30:13Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 30:13Speaker 02

  And he, he very kindly came and modeled some of my jumpers for me. I was doing a knitting book.

• 30:18Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, I imagine he was good at that.

• 30:19Speaker 02

  So I spent a lot of time with him. And everywhere we went, "I'm free, I'm free", and he responded enthusiastically.

• 30:24Speaker 03

  Did he?

• 30:25Speaker 02

  And I think this is a not correct verdict on him, because I have since seen him performing songs on a programme called The Good Old Days. And I think, I'm saying he's quite limited, and indeed, he did play this camp character. And that was quite a small range. But he also could do variety, could put over a number very attractively. He had warmth with an audience that I think in the previous entry, I was suggesting Tommy Steele did not have.

• 30:53Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 30:53Speaker 02

  Though Tommy Steele, of course, huge star.

• 30:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 30:56Speaker 02

  Thursday, the eleventh of September, nineteen eighty. Lunch with Sir Michael Redgrave. I picked him up on the corner of Elizabeth Street at twelve forty-five as arranged. He's seventy-two, but seems so much older. He's very frail. We went to Odin's. I think he took some pleasure in ordering his meal, but when he came, he only toyed with it. His fork rattled on the plate. Getting the wine glass to his mouth required both hands.

• 31:23Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 31:24Speaker 02

  I told him Marnie Danichevsky's joke, borrowed, I think, from James Thurber. "Forgive me if I fall over. I've got Parkinson's disease. I'm hoping he's got mine." He laughed, but said, "I've got something else as well." He didn't seem to know what it was. He talked of going to New York next month to have an operation. They bore a hole right into your brain, through your skull.

• 31:49Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 31:50Speaker 02

  He doesn't think he can face it. I asked about the Redgrave Theatre in Farnham. I told him that we'd been on Monday and seen Rowan Atkinson there. I tried to remember some of the jokes, but I struggled really to keep the conversation going. He wants to work again. Last year, he appeared at the National in Simon Gray's play Clothes of Play. He was on stage throughout, silent, alternately dozing and observing the scene. He loved it. "But that sort of role doesn't come along very often", he smiled. I took him home after lunch. The outing had exhausted him. In the taxi, he started talking about Edith Evans again, how much he had loved her, how he had slept with her on the night Vanessa was born.

• 32:35Speaker 02

  I took him to Ebry Muse. He seems to be living in a single room in a converted coach house. It was quite ramshackle. Suitcases open on the floor, bed unmade. I left him standing in the doorway. He waved me off, smiling his sweet smile. He was still waving when I reached the corner.

• 32:54Speaker 03

  Oh, that's sad, Giles.

• 32:57Speaker 02

  And he was a very great actor. As one of his secretaries, his secretary Joan Hurst, who had also been secretary to Noel Coward, I think Michael Redgrave inherited her from Noel Coward. She said, "You should have seen him in the nineteen fifties. He was so powerful, so strong. He played all the big parts, that you can, all the big Shakespeare roles, Stratford in London and indeed in New York. It was colossal then. And I began to see his work in the late fifties, early sixties, when he was still at the height of his powers. But by now, he was quite diminished. But I still feel so blessed to have known him. I mean, a properly one of the greats. Sunday, the twenty-eighth of September, nineteen eighty.

• 33:41Speaker 02

  Cyril Connolly is right. The pram in the hallway really is the enemy of promise. It certainly makes keeping a daily journal something of a challenge. "I have to take my children off to the zoo now", which means that I have about thirty seconds in which to report on twenty-four hours of the ring cycle. "We completed the marathon at Covent Garden last night. It was an experience. I stayed awake throughout. I listened carefully. I was intrigued. I was mostly held. I was never moved. We went the night before to see Donald Sinton's Othello. Not quite right, too fruity, of course, too blacked up. Inevitable, it doesn't work anymore. But even so, I was moved again and again.

• 34:26Speaker 02

  Words touch me in a way music never has. Excepting Cole Porter and Charles Trenet. Strange how potent cheap music is. Deep down, I'm shallow, et cetera." I was also in Covent Garden yesterday with Kenneth Williams, promoting acid drops. He is very funny. He signs a book, leering up at the member of the public who's buying it, telling them what a pleasure it is to present it to them and what a privilege it is to meet them. And the moment they turn their back, he pulls a face at them and mutters, "Bleep".

• 34:59Speaker 03

  Oh, dear.

• 35:01Speaker 02

  "I'm being called. I must go." But yes, I think Diana Spencer will marry the Prince of Wales. She looks charming.

• 35:10Speaker 03

  Oh, wow.

• 35:11Speaker 02

  That's because paparazzi pictures of Lady Diana Spencer had begun to appear in the national newspapers following a visit to the Prince of Wales and his parents at Balmoral. So this is September nineteen eighty. It's amazing how much of all of this is still going on.

• 35:28Speaker 03

  I know.

• 35:28Speaker 02

  I mean, Diana Spencer, nineteen eighty, here we are in twenty twenty-six. And even people like Kenneth Williams are still remembered.

• 35:35Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 35:36Speaker 02

  The ring cycle, that's still going on.

• 35:38Speaker 03

  It's probably the same performance, forty-six years later.

• 35:42Speaker 02

  It could well be.

• 35:43Speaker 03

  Yeah. I've never seen it.

• 35:45Speaker 02

  Have you not?

• 35:46Speaker 03

  No.

• 35:47Speaker 02

  We went to see it, and Noel Davis, our friend, trained us for it. He brought the whole thing around in advance, played it to us. We had to make notes.

• 35:55Speaker 03

  Well, it's good. It's better, it's better when you've got the sort of passing acquaintance with these things.

• 35:59Speaker 02

  Honestly. But it's interesting, I wasn't moved by it. I was obviously impressed and I, I did my best. But I mean, Charles Trenet, this French singer, I was listening to him last night.

• 36:08Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 36:09Speaker 02

  You know, as I was doing in the kitchen when clearing up. Saturday, the fourth of October, nineteen eighty.

• 36:15Speaker 02

  This has been a really happy evening. Supper in the kitchen. Michelle, me, Noel Davis, John Schlesinger, Kenneth Williams. We had arranged it because John hadn't seen Kenneth for years. They were good friends in their army days in the nineteen forties and in London in the nineteen fifties. But John got tired of Kenneth's tantrums and screaming and self-indulgence. Anyway, tonight, Kenneth was on best behaviour, and it was just lovely to watch and listen. Stories of their time together in Singapore in nineteen forty-seven with Stanley Baxter and Peter Nichols, the stuff of Peter Nichols' play, Privates on Parade, in fact. After supper, we watched Kenneth on Parkinson. He began saying, "Oh, aren't I awful? Don't I look terrible?

• 36:59Speaker 02

  Look at her falling down the stairs." He tripped as he made his entrance on the show. But as we reassured him, he was truly brilliant on the programme, and the studio audience's response got ever more rapturous. He began to change his tune. "Oh, yes, it's getting better. Oh, that's a good story. Got the tag just right on that one, didn't I? I suppose I do look a bit of a dish." He was completely endearing, and it was touching to see him and Schlesinger embrace when it was time to leave.

• 37:27Speaker 03

  Oh. I can't believe Kenneth Williams was in the army.

• 37:31Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 37:32Speaker 03

  Amazing.

• 37:32Speaker 02

  He was in the army and, and, um, there's a marvellous play, and it was turned into a film as well, Privates on Parade by Peter Nichols, who was all part of that set. And they did troupe entertainment.

• 37:43Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 37:43Speaker 02

  I don't know how robust a soldier Kenneth was.

• 37:47Speaker 03

  No.

• 37:47Speaker 02

  But he didn't lack courage, and I think he was probably a very, very entertaining, well, I know he was a very entertaining entertainer.

• 37:52Speaker 03

  Wow, amazing. And you learn a lot of skills during doing things like that, don't you, as an entertainer?

• 37:59Speaker 02

  Wednesday, eighth of October, nineteen eighty. Jimmy Edwards met me at Hayward's Heath. He was in rollicking form. I jumped in the car and off we sped. He drove hard and fast, handlebar moustaches bristling, stories of the war and the windmill and take it from here and wacko, all tumbling out. We stopped off at a pub en route for a refresher, a pint of beer and a large vodka. We got to Rivon Oak, his shambling cottage in Fletching Oakfield, and he proposed a libation before lunch. He opened a carton of orange juice and a bottle of champagne and poured them both into a large glass jug. "This is mimosa, not Buck's Fizz", he explained, handing me a pewter pint pot of the stuff and smacking his lips.

• 38:44Speaker 02

  Mimosa quaffed, we moved to the kitchen, where I sat on the barquette in the corner while he gave himself a gin and tonic and set about preparing lunch. Two huge steaks, which spat fat and caught fire repeatedly as he poked and turned them under the grill. He served them with salad, lettuce and a cut-up tomato, and two bottles of claret. After lunch, he went off to find the brandy, telling me as he went about his pride and joy, his Swedish hot tub newly installed. When he returned, he was stark naked. "Are you going to join me?", he asked. I declined. He slapped his huge belly with both hands, went away and got dressed again. We spent the afternoon in the sitting room going through his ideas for his book.

• 39:29Speaker 02

  Once we'd finished the brandy, he served us tall glasses of lager. We're working, we'd better not drink, he said. At six o'clock, he drove me back to the station. He appeared no worse for wear.

• 39:42Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 39:43Speaker 02

  Isn't that extraordinary?

• 39:44Speaker 03

  I mean, what's changed? Because people just drank so much during the working day.

• 39:52Speaker 02

  But he must.

• 39:53Speaker 03

  And driving.

• 39:54Speaker 02

  He was an alcoholic.

• 39:55Speaker 03

  Right.

• 39:55Speaker 02

  Jimmy Edwards. Do you know anything about him at all?

• 39:57Speaker 03

  He built up his tolerance.

• 39:59Speaker 02

  He'd served in the RAF during the Second World War. He was awarded the DFC. And then in nineteen forty-six, he appeared at the Windmill Theatre in London as a sort of stand-up comedian between the nude, in the Nude Review. And he then became a radio and television star as a comedian and raconteur. And he was splendid, but drink, well, he was driven by drink. And it may be later.

• 40:24Speaker 03

  Really? I mean, wow.

• 40:26Speaker 02

  I remember one evening having dinner with him and the drink was slow to come and he lost his rag.

• 40:30Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 40:31Speaker 02

  I mean, he just couldn't be denied the drink.

• 40:33Speaker 03

  He couldn't function without it.

• 40:35Speaker 02

  But he was, he was a funny man and he completely accepted when he turned up. He was Tommy Two-Ways. He completely accepted when he turned up naked at the lunch table, that I wasn't going to join him in the hot tub. Took no offence, put his clothes back on and carried on with the meal.

• 40:49Speaker 03

  Well, you've just got to try, haven't you? And every now and then someone will say, yeah, I'll get in the hot tub.

• 40:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:53Speaker 03

  Why not?

• 40:54Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 40:54Speaker 03

  But do you think he'd have been happy to just sit in the hot tub? Or do you want, did you want to mess around?

• 40:58Speaker 02

  He would have wanted to mess around.

• 40:59Speaker 03

  Oh, but just a little feel.

• 41:02Speaker 02

  That's what he was after.

• 41:03Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 41:04Speaker 02

  And, you know, if, if that's what your scene is.

• 41:06Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 41:07Speaker 02

  I know, I was adult, there was nothing.

• 41:11Speaker 03

  Well, let's face it, what's the point of a hot tub if you're not having a?

• 41:14Speaker 02

  A bit of a fumble.

• 41:15Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 41:15Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 41:16Speaker 03

  You know, come on.

• 41:16Speaker 02

  With a house guest.

• 41:17Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 41:17Speaker 02

  Come on, but I didn't.

• 41:18Speaker 03

  Come on, guys.

• 41:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, come on, guys.

• 41:20Speaker 03

  Join in.

• 41:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, join in.

• 41:22Speaker 03

  Stop moaning.

• 41:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, River Oak is the name of the address. They've still got the hot tub there.

• 41:26Speaker 03

  Oh, let's go and see.

• 41:27Speaker 02

  But what is interesting, to be serious for a second, no offence was meant and no offence was taken.

• 41:34Speaker 03

  No. What, what are you saying, Giles?

• 41:36Speaker 02

  I'm just making it clear to a modern.

• 41:38Speaker 03

  Your point being?

• 41:39Speaker 02

  I'm trying to make it clear to a.

• 41:40Speaker 03

  Your point being, everyone should just man up and get in the hot tub naked and stop moaning.

• 41:44Speaker 02

  I know, I'm not saying that. I'm saying to a modern audience in which this sort of thing wouldn't be considered acceptable in any which way at all.

• 41:50Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 41:50Speaker 02

  It's a long time ago and.

• 41:53Speaker 03

  And it was fine. Why is everyone complaining? Just get in the hot tub.

• 42:01Speaker 02

  Nothing to see here, moving on.

• 42:02Speaker 03

  But the fact is, Giles, you didn't get in, did you?

• 42:05Speaker 02

  I didn't, I wasn't even remotely, I wasn't remotely tempted. There's, there's, there's no touch of the Tommy Two-Ways about me. Appearances?

• 42:13Speaker 03

  Giles, I have to say that.

• 42:15Speaker 02

  People don't believe that, do they?

• 42:16Speaker 03

  No, I have to say that it's twenty twenty-six and the Tommy Two-Ways has gone the way of the phrase, the Tommy Two-Ways, which I know you were taught by Barbara Windsor.

• 42:25Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 42:26Speaker 03

  But it has gone the way of Jimmy Edwards' hot tub, i.e.

• 42:30Speaker 02

  No more.

• 42:31Speaker 03

  No more, thank you.

• 42:32Speaker 02

  Enough, no more.

• 42:32Speaker 03

  Enough of your outdated, retrograde expressions.

• 42:36Speaker 02

  And experiences.

• 42:46Speaker 00

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• 43:30Speaker 00

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• 43:45Speaker 04

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• 45:16Speaker 02

  Monday, twentieth of October, nineteen eighty. Horrible news. My friend, Lady Isabel Barnett, has committed suicide. On Friday, she was convicted of shoplifting at Leicester Crown Court, fined seventy-five pounds for stealing a tin of tuna and a pot of cream valued at eighty-seven p. It seems she could not face the humiliation. I liked her so much, she was so nice to me. I cannot express my sadness properly. She was sixty-two.

• 45:50Speaker 03

  Hmm, yeah, we've spoken about her.

• 45:52Speaker 02

  We have.

• 45:53Speaker 03

  Haven't we?

• 45:53Speaker 02

  Well, she's still a very special person to me in my head, in my life. A really lovely lady. What a, what a heartache.

• 46:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, terrible.

• 46:03Speaker 02

  I think people now would be more understanding of this kind of behaviour, this shoplifting that came with her, depression, anxiety in that time of her life. I don't know.

• 46:16Speaker 03

  Well, you say that.

• 46:17Speaker 02

  I don't know. And, I mean, also maybe.

• 46:19Speaker 03

  Well, no, I'm just thinking about other people who have, you know, I'm thinking about Caroline Flack, for example, who didn't shoplift, but she was obviously not well and depressed and that led her to behave in ways that possibly she shouldn't have or, and she then was sanctioned by the police, wasn't she? And then she took her own life. So I don't know, I think people can be very, um, people sometimes don't realise when people act because they're not well, you know? And it's not clear and then they end up in court and I don't think people can always be very understanding.

• 46:53Speaker 02

  And I don't know, then one never talked about the menopause. She was a woman in her fifties when all this behaviour was beginning. Um, you know, people did not then talk about these sorts of conditions that might affect people.

• 47:07Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 47:07Speaker 02

  And because she was rather a grand person, Lady Isabel Barnett, she didn't talk about it, though she was a doctor, she had been a GP.

• 47:14Speaker 03

  But mental health is still not, yeah, it's not, it's not understood very well, is it?

• 47:19Speaker 02

  Tuesday, the twenty-eighth of October, nineteen eighty. My life with the stars, they're all very different. They have in common self-obsession, but it manifests itself in different ways. Who have I seen today? Number one, Richard Briers, actor. Normal, nice, self-deprecating, but always aware of his own worth.

• 47:41Speaker 03

  Hmm, I bet he was nice.

• 47:43Speaker 02

  He was lovely. Two, Rita Hunter, opera singer. Have you heard of her?

• 47:49Speaker 03

  No.

• 47:49Speaker 02

  She was huge in every sense. She was a celebrated Wagnerian soprano.

• 47:54Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 47:54Speaker 02

  Specialised for her brunhilde for the English National Opera.

• 47:58Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 47:58Speaker 02

  Rita Hunter, opera singer, huge, a vast woman. She needs two seats on the aeroplane to get into her dressing room at the Colosseum, she had to turn sideways. Obsessed with her, you shouldn't be laughing, Harriet, you'll be the one who gets cancelled before I do.

• 48:14Speaker 03

  That is funny, sorry.

• 48:16Speaker 02

  Obsessed with her health, but she doesn't see her amazing bulk as a problem at all.

• 48:20Speaker 03

  Well, no, she needs it if you're going to be brunhilde.

• 48:22Speaker 02

  The truth is, I'm told by people on the stand singing, you don't need it.

• 48:26Speaker 03

  No.

• 48:26Speaker 02

  But it became the norm of these great singers that they did allow themselves to become very large. She was delightful. Three, Henry Cooper, boxer. I went out to see him in Hendon taking cash. I found him a little frightening, not menacing, he was perfectly friendly, but his world is not my world. He has a cabinet in his hallway stacked with his trophies. Four, Jonquill Anthony. She doesn't really count, she's not a star. She's the creator of Mrs Dale's Diary. She wrote the first script in nineteen forty-eight, the year that I was born. She went on writing it until nineteen sixty-three. For a generation, Mrs Dale's Diary was an essential part of the British way of life.

• 49:11Speaker 02

  And now Jonquill Anthony lives alone in a council flat off Russell Square. She's lonely and forgotten. She told me, she hopes she's dying. Her sight has gone and she can no longer read. Have you even heard her name? No, maybe you wouldn't have done.

• 49:28Speaker 03

  No, I've heard of Mrs. Dale's diary.

• 49:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, she wrote more than four thousand scripts for the BBC. And she then did some novelisations of Mrs. Dale's Diary. And she died only a few weeks after I had this meeting with her on the sixth of December. Anyway, my fifth meeting of the day, Ken Dodd. Tonight, we went to see him at the London Palladium. The man is simply a genius. Yes, he went on and on and on, but we kept laughing. We didn't want it to stop. I haven't spoken to the wife's mother for eighteen months. I didn't like to interrupt her. How tickled we were. Gosh, he was a funny man. Tuesday, the ninth of December, nineteen eighty.

• 50:13Speaker 02

  John Lennon has been shot dead in New York. He was coming home to his apartment in the Dakota Building late last night when a young man simply walked up to him and shot him five times at point-blank range. He must have died instantly. The world is reeling. I'm reeling too, but for a slightly different reason. I've had a curious afternoon. I had lunch with Frankie Howard. At one o'clock, I went to find him in his house in Edward Square. It's a cold house, sparsely furnished, antiseptic. I always feel his boyfriend is lurking, hidden in a back room when I'm there. As I arrive, I hear a distant door being quietly closed.

• 50:56Speaker 02

  We went round the corner to eat, to Al Gallo Doro in Kensington High Street, Frank's local. He was at his most morose. Self-pity is Frank's long suit. He had some wine, but not a lot. It didn't cheer him. He feels his career is going nowhere. I imagine he's felt that since it started. When we'd eaten, I said, "We must work." "We can't go home," he said, terrified that I was about to suggest it. "We'll go to my agent's office. We'll work there." We took a taxi to Mayfair. The taxi driver was excited to have Frankie Howard as a passenger. "I suppose you want me to say, 'Titter ye not.' Well, I won't." At the office, I followed Frank up the wide wooden staircase as he called down to the receptionist.

• 51:40Speaker 02

  "This young man and I have a great deal of work to do. We do not wish to be disturbed. Is that understood, madam?" On the first floor, Frank showed me into a spacious, panelled room that appeared to be more of a drawing room than an office. He gestured towards a leather sofa in the middle of the room. As I went towards it, I heard him locking the door. I turned. He was putting the key into his pocket. "We don't want intruders." I sat on the sofa and opened my briefcase. I pulled out the manuscript we were supposed to be working on. "Never mind that," he said, lollping slowly towards the sofa. "I need to take the weight off my feet." He began to ease himself onto the sofa next to me.

• 52:21Speaker 02

  But halfway down, suddenly, his face contorted. He clutched his thigh and began to yelp with pain. "No, no," he whimpered. "What is it?" "It's my groin. No, oh, no, oh," he grimaced. Clutching himself, he struggled to his feet and limped back across the room to a large partner's desk by the window. He opened a drawer and produced a jar of ointment. "This is what we need," he muttered. He then staggered back towards me, thrust the jar of ointment into my hands, undid his belt, pushed down his trousers, lowered his underpants, and collapsed in a heap at my side. He closed his eyes and murmured, "You know what to do." "I don't," I blanched. "You do." "I don't."

• 53:07Speaker 02

  "Apply the ointment," he barked. "Rub it in." "Where?" He thrust his exposed crotch towards me and hissed, "There." "Where?" I gulped, not believing what was happening. "There," he repeated. "Haven't you seen one before? It's perfectly harmless. Treat it like a muscle." I did not know what to say or do. I couldn't make my excuses and leave because the door was locked and the key was in Frank's trouser pocket, and his trousers were round his ankles on the floor. I got up and walked to the window and stood there, staring out. Gradually, I heard Frank getting to his feet and pulling up his trousers. Muttering, he returned to the desk and put the ointment away. "I'm just going to wash," he said.

• 53:53Speaker 02

  He unlocked the door and left me. I stood, gazing out of the window until he returned. He came back, bright and breezy, as if nothing had happened. "Now, let's get down to it, young man. There's work to be done. No more dawdling." We did the work and shared a taxi back to Kensington. I dropped him off at the corner of Edward Square. As he got out of the cab, I hugged him. Odd as this may seem, I felt somehow that I'd let him down. "You won't tell Dennis, will you?" he pleaded, looking at me pathetically. "Promise?" "Promise," I said.

• 54:30Speaker 03

  Well, Giles, I mean, were you wearing a particularly fragrant aftershave that week? Because there's a second man who's thrust himself upon you.

• 54:39Speaker 02

  Well, I-

• 54:41Speaker 03

  Or were you just devastatingly handsome at this point?

• 54:43Speaker 02

  I was just young, I'm afraid.

• 54:46Speaker 03

  Young? Were you thirty?

• 54:47Speaker 02

  Well, by the standards of these people who are in their sixties, I was young. And maybe also I sent out the wrong signal. I don't know. Though, in fact, I've heard from other people who were approached by Frankie Howard. That he seemed to approach people who were already married. I mean, I've shown this to everybody from, I don't know, Max Bygraves through to Griff Rees Jones.

• 55:11Speaker 03

  Oh, right.

• 55:12Speaker 02

  And somebody once said to me, "Oh, maybe he was looking for rejection."

• 55:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, what you say about his self-pity makes me think maybe he was, you know. Well, no, just that he was possibly of a slightly melancholic turn of mind. And so the rejection is sort of, yeah, weirdly, he's seeking the confirmation that he's not a good person, that nobody loves him, that he's not attractive.

• 55:37Speaker 02

  So from my point of view, the sad past of many of these stories is that over the years, and some of these do feature in the diaries, I have been approached in this sort of way by quite a number of older entertainers, older actors. I've also known many very brilliant and beautiful actresses. I've not ever once been approached in this way by any of them.

• 56:00Speaker 03

  No, because women have got more class.

• 56:02Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 56:03Speaker 03

  I mean, we all know that, don't we, listeners? Women don't go around doing this sort of thing.

• 56:07Speaker 02

  Well, they certainly didn't to me.

• 56:08Speaker 03

  They don't to anyone.

• 56:09Speaker 02

  Oh, well.

• 56:09Speaker 03

  No, women, yeah.

• 56:12Speaker 02

  Moving on.

• 56:13Speaker 03

  Women have got style. They don't need to do this sort of thing.

• 56:15Speaker 02

  Good, I'm pleased to hear it.

• 56:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, not pulling your pants down, asking people to rub ointment into you, are you? For goodness sake.

• 56:22Speaker 02

  I agree.

• 56:22Speaker 03

  Come on.

• 56:23Speaker 02

  Actually-

• 56:24Speaker 03

  The fairer sex, I mean-

• 56:25Speaker 02

  It's absurd. If you stop to think about it, it's totally absurd too, isn't it? What a funny thing to want to do. Well, maybe not.

• 56:34Speaker 03

  Not if you want someone to touch your-

• 56:36Speaker 02

  Your privates.

• 56:37Speaker 03

  Your ambassador.

• 56:42Speaker 03

  Your member of parliament. I'm just making terms up.

• 56:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, how's your father?

• 56:46Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, how's your father? Your chap, your gentleman. What do you call it? I can't think.

• 56:50Speaker 02

  Your Dick Whittington. Turn against London. Anyway, enough of this nonsense. Moving on. Happily moving on because it's now Christmas. Let's raise the tone.

• 57:01Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, so this is probably the last entry, Giles. This is Christmas Day, nineteen eighty. Hopefully you don't get propositioned by any naked men on this day. It is Christmas after all.

• 57:14Speaker 02

  Naked Santa.

• 57:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, although I wouldn't put it past some vicars, you know, they could-

• 57:18Speaker 02

  Really?

• 57:19Speaker 03

  Well, you know what they're like.

• 57:21Speaker 02

  Or some Santa Clauses.

• 57:22Speaker 03

  Yes, yeah, come down the chimney stock and ask kids to rub the ointment into it.

• 57:29Speaker 02

  Well, we're amused. There has to be a trigger warning before this episode goes out. Thursday, the twenty-fifth of December, nineteen eighty. The parents are in California. Jen and family were in North London. North London is a foreign country to me. Guardian readers live there. Gin, that's what I said, Ginny and Co, were in St Albans. So we had a motley crew here today for Christmas lunch. Hester and Polly, Peggy Lynch, an old family friend, she was at school with my mother, and Patrick Fife. Patrick Fife was part of Hinge and Brackett. Peggy and Patrick got on famously. Peggy is a maiden lady of sixty-six. She's severely hard of hearing. Her speech is distorted, but her heart is true.

• 58:15Speaker 02

  We had her because she and her mother have come to us ever since I can remember. Mrs. Lynch, Peggy's mother, had a little wispy beard. Why did her daughter never do anything about it? Pa used to tease her terribly, shocking her when he carved the turkey by offering her breast, rolling the word around in his mouth, "breast," when what she distinctly asked for was white meat. Peggy hadn't heard of Hinge and Brackett, and when Patrick tried to explain to her that what he did for a living was dress up as a sixty-six-year-old maiden lady who looked a little bit like her, she was completely bemused. "I don't hear very well, dear," she said. They've gone now. Patrick did stay, and stay, he does.

• 59:00Speaker 02

  The first night of Hinge and Brackett at the Globe Theatre, when we went to Langons, he kept us there until gone three in the morning. "I'm tired. Being a father is very exhausting, especially at Christmas. I was up at five, remember, creeping about the house, putting pillowcases packed with presents by the beds of all the children. It should be a pleasure, and it is, but it's also rather nerve-wracking. You don't want them to wake up and catch you at it. Anyway, it's all done now, and I think the children had a happy time. I always prefer Boxing Day."

• 59:37Speaker 03

  Hmm. Oh, happy Christmas.

• 59:40Speaker 02

  Merry Christmas. Do you prefer Boxing Day?

• 59:42Speaker 03

  No, I absolutely love Christmas Day.

• 59:45Speaker 02

  Oh, do you?

• 59:46Speaker 03

  Love it. Yeah.

• 59:47Speaker 02

  Oh, well done.

• 59:49Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 59:50Speaker 02

  Oh, that's great.

• 59:51Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 59:52Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 59:53Speaker 03

  I love Christmas Eve. I think that's the best day of the year, Christmas Eve.

• 59:56Speaker 02

  Christmas Eve.

• 59:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 59:57Speaker 02

  What do you do on Christmas Eve?

• 59:59Speaker 03

  Usually go to the cinema.

• 1:00:00Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 1:00:01Speaker 03

  But, you know, play games, go on a walk, wrap presents, love wrapping the presents.

• 1:00:05Speaker 02

  Do you go to the midnight service or do you go on?

• 1:00:07Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:00:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's nice too, isn't it?

• 1:00:09Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:00:09Speaker 02

  Good. Well, we haven't got to Christmas yet. We've got lots more diaries before Christmas.

• 1:00:13Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:00:14Speaker 02

  Lots more rosebud before Christmas.

• 1:00:16Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 1:00:16Speaker 02

  We have got lined up, if I may say so, some very special Christmas guests. So I think the rosebud stocking is going to be full of some mighty surprises this Yuletide.

• 1:00:29Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 1:00:30Speaker 02

  Yep, yep. Until next time, this is me, Giles, and my producer and friend Harriet, saying goodbye. Thank you for listening and cue the music.

• 1:00:41Speaker 03

  Oh, I was just going to say apologies for any offence caused by the outdated sexual references in this episode, but it is a genuine bona fide diary from the eighties when basically anything went.

• 1:00:57Speaker 02

  This is actually a family programme.

• 1:00:58Speaker 03

  It is.

• 1:00:59Speaker 02

  Thank you very much for your company. Till next time. Cue the music.

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