Martin Clunes

This is a treat: our guest today is the much-loved actor and star of Doc Martin, Martin Clunes. In this gorgeous conversation, Gyles and Martin discuss Martin's childhood - and Gyles's admiration for Martin's actor father, Alec Clunes, who died when Martin was only 8 years old. They talk about Martin's unhappy time at boarding school in the years after his father's death. They talk about a visit to a psychic, and about the importance of animals in Martin's life. And finally, Gyles and Martin talk about Martin's latest book, his life on his westcountry farm, and burials for dogs. Martin's book Training John and Murray, about training two terriers, is out now and available here https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/476741/training-john-and-murray-by-clunes-martin/9780241806036. Our heartfelt thanks to Martin Clunes for this fascinating conversation. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:02Speaker 02

  Welcome to Rosebud. This is my podcast with me Gyles Brandreth, produced by my friend Harriet Jane, and we're very lucky. We have literally millions of downloads. We've become a huge podcast worldwide. There are millions of you out there. So I'd like you all to join with me now, as I say what I say every week as we begin another episode. Are you ready? On the count of three, three, two, one, cue the music.

• 1:53Speaker 02

  Hello, it's very good to be with you. My name is Gyles Brandreth, and you're listening to the Rosebud Podcast, where we meet remarkable people and ask each one of them the same first question. What is your very first memory? And then, well, they unpack their lives. And today, we have an actor as a guest. It's an actor whose name has always been familiar to me because in the 1950s, when I was a little boy, I was given for Christmas a biography of his father, who was a very famous actor, director and producer in his day, called Alec Cloone's. Our guest is Martin Cloone's. You'll know him, I'm sure, from Men Behaving Badly

• 2:37Speaker 02

  or from Doc Martin, such a variety of work he's done over the years. He has a particular love of animals and has written several books about his love of animals. But I think you'll discover there's much more to his story than you might expect. It's a story, inevitably with some dark moments, some very dark moments, but with so much sunshine, the kind of sunshine that he brings to a lot of his work, and I think he brings to this episode of Rosebud. If you want to feel good, I think you're going to feel good when you've spent an hour in the company of this delightful actor, Martin Cloone's. Cue the music.

• 3:30Speaker 02

  Well, I'm excited, Martin. I think if it was Martin Cloone's, but having done my research, I see you are Alexander Martin Cloone's. Born, have I got this right, 28th of November, 1961?

• 3:43Speaker 03

  You betcha.

• 3:44Speaker 02

  Tell me, I'm not going to call you Alexander. Were you ever called Alexander?

• 3:48Speaker 03

  Never. Do you want to know why?

• 3:50Speaker 02

  I do want to know why.

• 3:51Speaker 03

  My mother was, I think, fair to say, a snob in some respects. She didn't like abbreviations. She thought, my name was to include my father's name because his father had been in Alexander and his father had been in Alexander. But she felt if my initials were M A C, people would call me Mac, and she simply couldn't bear it.

• 4:19Speaker 02

  She didn't want a Mac in the family?

• 4:20Speaker 03

  No, Max here, please.

• 4:22Speaker 02

  Gosh. Well...

• 4:24Speaker 03

  So I had this stone around my neck. I mean, that's in my passport and...

• 4:27Speaker 02

  But from being a boy, you were called Martin?

• 4:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, I was never going to be called Alexander. It was literally for the initials.

• 4:34Speaker 02

  Oh, well, that's ridiculous. But bless her, we'll find out more about her in a minute. So that's when you were born. What I want to ask you, Martin, is what is your very first memory? The thing that's in your head as your first memory?

• 4:49Speaker 03

  I think I have images of baths. I think I have a memory of being in a pram, being put in the garden in a pram. But I had a recent thing in my garden, one bit of my garden I was lying in on a sunny day, and I was having these, when we were little, my dad bought a pig shed in Mallorca, and every summer holidays, we'd go, we'd go out there, not every summer holidays, but we...

• 5:15Speaker 02

  A pig shed, did you say?

• 5:16Speaker 03

  A big shed in a bit of land.

• 5:17Speaker 02

  Oh, good.

• 5:18Speaker 03

  And he sort of converted the shed, put another floor in it, and we, it was quite basic, but it was, it was quite fun for holidays. And I was lying there, and nobody was beeping, and I was having these sort of, it was, I was being triggered, and I realized what it was. Where I was lying, the nearest trees were Scots pines, not leaved trees or leafed trees. And that was, it was the noise of the wind through the pine leaves that when I was put out in my pram in the garden in Mallorca, the wind, there's only pines there. And that sound, it's very, very different. And it had a massive, massive, joyous, triggering memory of Mallorca.

• 6:00Speaker 02

  That's fantastic.

• 6:01Speaker 03

  And then you can sort of imagine that you can smell the pine needles.

• 6:04Speaker 02

  I can smell the pine needles, then.

• 6:05Speaker 03

  And Dad made, he liked to repair dry stone walls.

• 6:09Speaker 02

  Now, tell us, who was your dad?

• 6:10Speaker 03

  My dad was Alexander de Sheriff, no, Alexander de Moro, Sheriff Cloone's.

• 6:15Speaker 02

  Alexander de Moro, Sheriff Cloone's. This is a magnificent name.

• 6:20Speaker 03

  Not bad, is it?

• 6:20Speaker 02

  Why did you have this grand name?

• 6:23Speaker 03

  Well, you see, I only know my dad's history through my mum's gritted teeth, because I don't think she cared for his family much. But his parents were music hall entertainers. And the story my mum told was that somewhere my grandfather, who I never met, met the Duke de Moro and sort of buttonholed him in a hotel in Austria or something, and, and sort of pretended that he was my father's godfather, which he wasn't, but he gave him the name anyway. And so he was, yeah, Sheriff de Moro. The sheriff thing, there was a few of them were sheriffs.

• 7:02Speaker 02

  But they were literally sheriffs, as in the high sheriff of a county?

• 7:05Speaker 03

  No, it was in their...

• 7:06Speaker 02

  Just a family name?

• 7:07Speaker 03

  Their name, yeah.

• 7:08Speaker 02

  So say the name again. Alexander?

• 7:09Speaker 03

  Alexander Sheriff de Moro Cloone's.

• 7:12Speaker 02

  Very good. He became known, though, and I knew of him. In fact, I knew of him before you were born, because I got interested in the theatre in the 1950s. And I have a feeling I may have seen him in a play at the Arts Theatre in Great Newport Street in London.

• 7:27Speaker 03

  Well, he ran that after the war.

• 7:29Speaker 02

  Well, there we are. Then I did see him there. He was an actor and a director, and when I was a child, a big name. I mean, I was given for a birthday a biography of him by J. C. Truin, which I've still got on my shelves to this day. So I was a fan of your father's before you were born.

• 7:50Speaker 03

  Do you know it's one of the books that Joe Wharton defaced that he got sent to prison for?

• 7:55Speaker 02

  Oh, my goodness. He took it out of the local library and wrote his bit of scene drawings in it.

• 8:00Speaker 03

  Dad's head in that, one of those famous photographers of the day.

• 8:05Speaker 02

  Angus?

• 8:07Speaker 03

  Angus McBain.

• 8:08Speaker 02

  Angus McBain.

• 8:09Speaker 03

  With a sort of, your head floating in a black bag, and he put, he took my dad's face off and put a monkey's skull on there, because I think my dad passed on one of his plays when he was running the Arts Theatre.

• 8:20Speaker 02

  Well, tell me a little bit about your dad. For those who don't know, who was he? Who was Alec Cloone's? Why was he well known?

• 8:27Speaker 03

  He was well known because he was an actor, a successful actor in the classical sense, mainly theatre. He was nervous of cameras, I think, or he just didn't get enough exposure or practice.

• 8:39Speaker 02

  He appeared in one of the Olivier films, didn't he?

• 8:42Speaker 03

  Yes, he's in Henry V, Last Man to the Wig Basket.

• 8:46Speaker 02

  That's a good line.

• 8:47Speaker 03

  It's terrible wig.

• 8:49Speaker 02

  Oh, dear.

• 8:51Speaker 03

  But yes, he was. He was Hastings. Met a bloody end, yeah.

• 8:56Speaker 03

  Or was, no, it was Henry the, no, was it Richard the Third? It's Richard the Third.

• 9:00Speaker 02

  It's Richard the Third, so it's the nineteen fifties.

• 9:02Speaker 03

  Sorry, yes.

• 9:02Speaker 02

  Okay, we get that right.

• 9:04Speaker 03

  Yes, and he did a few other films. Um, and um, the BFI sent me, it was so sweet, um, during the war, some propaganda, you know, loose lips sink ships type films dad was in, in his twenties. And I could see all his, um, and as related to when I was first working in front of cameras, that kind of like, oh, is it seeing all of me, you know, and sort of worrying about your body.

• 9:29Speaker 02

  So who was your mother and how did they meet?

• 9:31Speaker 03

  My mother, Daphne Gillian Acot. They met when she was his secretary when he ran the Arts Theatre. She had been Orson Welles's secretary for a grim year.

• 9:40Speaker 02

  Oh, grim year, she found him difficult to treat?

• 9:42Speaker 03

  Of course, yes, yeah, it's terrifying.

• 9:45Speaker 02

  He was a monster, wasn't he?

• 9:46Speaker 03

  She was, no, no, I don't think he was aggressive or anything like that, but he could loom and move silently apparently, and he'd suddenly be, Daphne.

• 9:56Speaker 02

  And you're around, and it's Orson Welles.

• 9:58Speaker 03

  But he was complete, like, needed a nanny, that sort of. He would check out of hotels without telling her, so she'd have to pack his stuff and go through, and in those days you could resell unused plane tickets to pay the hotel and sort things out, and yeah, I think she'd just come out of art school, um, when that happened.

• 10:16Speaker 02

  Well, it was an experience, wow.

• 10:17Speaker 03

  Yes, it was an experience, it gave her some stories, and he was post sinking Othello at the time when she first started.

• 10:23Speaker 02

  Wow, so your mother, Daphne, worked for Orson Welles, then came to, just applied to work for your father as his secretary?

• 10:33Speaker 03

  So, yes, and she worked, uh, worked in independent television when it first started, and then she got the job, and she was really stage struck. She worked at the Opera House as well, doing, very creative, she could paint and do things, but so stage struck. Um, uh, and I think, I don't know, I don't know how she felt going forwards into that, if it was like, well, I must go and work for that Alec Coon, I don't know, but.

• 10:54Speaker 02

  He is this leading man, he's also, well, he's a producer, as well as a director, as well as an actor. They meet because she's working for him, they fall for each other? Had he been married before?

• 11:05Speaker 03

  Yes, he was.

• 11:07Speaker 02

  You don't have any half?

• 11:08Speaker 03

  But it didn't last, no, no, no children, no, no.

• 11:11Speaker 02

  And so, can you remember your parents together at all?

• 11:15Speaker 03

  Yes, um, and most of those memories, uh, in Mallorca, I guess that sticks out, because when you're at home, you're at school, or you're something else ghastly's going on. Um, but I do remember that, that thing of evening drinks, and, uh, still the smell of Martini Rosso can send me back there, or, um, Campari, this smells like a holiday to me, and dad would have a perno and do that slow.

• 11:40Speaker 02

  Oh, I love it, where it changes colour.

• 11:42Speaker 03

  Yes, and I can smell that, and he's always smoked a pipe and wore a short sleeved safari shirt. Um, and we'd go down and they'd give us a Coke with a paper straw, you know, in a green glassy bottle, and some olives that my sister and I had to divide up.

• 11:57Speaker 02

  And is she the only sibling?

• 11:58Speaker 03

  She's the only sibling.

• 11:59Speaker 02

  And younger than you, older than you?

• 12:00Speaker 03

  See, I couldn't tell you that.

• 12:02Speaker 02

  No, I'm sure she always has looked a lot younger than you.

• 12:05Speaker 03

  Much younger, yes.

• 12:06Speaker 02

  But were you the first born?

• 12:08Speaker 03

  Uh, no.

• 12:10Speaker 03

  Damn you.

• 12:11Speaker 02

  Well, I learnt these tricks from Jenny Paxman a few years ago, ruthless investigative journalism here. Anyway, she's still with us?

• 12:19Speaker 03

  She's still with us, she's, uh, lives on the Isle of Wight.

• 12:21Speaker 02

  Good, well, now she's certainly a lot younger than you.

• 12:26Speaker 02

  But were you good, were you good together as brother and sister?

• 12:28Speaker 03

  Um, so we were, and then dad died and everything went a bit.

• 12:33Speaker 02

  Everything changed.

• 12:34Speaker 03

  Uh, it sort of did, and it was, it's, my grandparents said that they, dad wanted us to go to state schools, and my grandparents said, this is a sign of the times, isn't it, well, we'll pay for Martin to go to, because the thinking was that she should learn to type and then meet a good husband.

• 12:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, it didn't work for your mother.

• 12:52Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 12:52Speaker 02

  She learnt to type and met your father.

• 12:54Speaker 03

  I know, but, uh, but, uh, it wasn't a great idea to say, I was a massive bedwetter when my dad died, and my, uh, my mother's family felt that I should go to a boarding school because I'd be gay if I stayed at home with my mother and my sister, because that's how it happens apparently. Um, so I was sent off as a massive bedwetter and not really cherished in the dormitory, so I was put in a room on my own.

• 13:22Speaker 02

  How come your father died when you were only eight? Because how, he would even use me?

• 13:26Speaker 03

  He was fifty-seven, fifty-seven, lung cancer.

• 13:29Speaker 02

  Had he been a heavy smoker?

• 13:30Speaker 03

  Pipe smoker, never out of his face, yeah.

• 13:32Speaker 02

  And he found that very difficult to face, didn't he? The fact of dying?

• 13:37Speaker 03

  I mean, he didn't, he didn't get long, um.

• 13:40Speaker 02

  But did he go to Mallorca on his own?

• 13:42Speaker 03

  He fell ill in Mallorca, and the doctor there said, you've got, you know, weeks to live, so he came home and he lived for about three months.

• 13:52Speaker 02

  And do you remember that time at all? Or not really?

• 13:55Speaker 03

  I remember I'd made something out of balsa wood at school that I took in, in hospital. Um, and then I remember, yeah, uh, actually, I remember it very vividly that it had obviously been announced on the radio, so the school secretary, we were both at the same primary school, had got us out, and we were sitting on chairs in the entrance hall, because they just assumed mum would come and get us, and mum's thinking was, they'll have a normal day, and then we'll, then we'll share this news, so we'd been sat for hours on the chairs, and then mum came to get us, and we went to the sweet shop, which was only ever happened on a Friday usually, uh, on the way home, and then we went home, and then she told us what had happened.

• 14:34Speaker 02

  So you knew something strange, the teachers didn't tell you, they just said, your mum's coming to get you?

• 14:39Speaker 03

  Yes, yeah.

• 14:40Speaker 02

  Um, and had you been conscious that he was ill beforehand? I mean, you, something was wrong, you knew that.

• 14:47Speaker 03

  Kind of, but, you know, I'm not that bright now, so I was even less at eight. Uh, and you just get pushed, life's just a series of experiences in a way, isn't it, at age?

• 14:58Speaker 02

  And how were he and your mother getting on at the time, not so well?

• 15:01Speaker 03

  Not good, no.

• 15:02Speaker 02

  Gosh, so it was complicated for her?

• 15:04Speaker 03

  I only found all this out later.

• 15:07Speaker 02

  Oh, you just thought, dad has died, that's the way life is?

• 15:11Speaker 03

  Kind of, yeah, I never, I'd never pushed my mother on, on what was going on, and she never really felt like telling us, and it's also didn't seem like my business in a way. I found this out from, um, my father's doctor, who, uh, Dr Russell Rees, who was a great guy, a Welsh GP and antique dealer, who, um, uh, I sort of hung out with later on, when I was in my early twenties.

• 15:35Speaker 02

  Gosh, and then you discovered it hadn't been so good, the marriage and?

• 15:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 15:40Speaker 02

  And did that change things in your head?

• 15:42Speaker 03

  Not really, not really, um, um, um, oh, you're on the tip of a massive story that you probably don't want to talk about. The, the, um, I sort of think I had a dissatisfaction with my lot vis-à-vis my father after that, but not in a damaging way, just, and, oh, I, I mean, this is a crazy story, but.

• 16:05Speaker 02

  Tell it.

• 16:07Speaker 03

  A girl who worked for us died tragically in a car crash, and her mother couldn't, couldn't cope with it, and was going to see mediums and music on it, and then she said, went to see this one woman who said, I keep seeing the actor who plays Doc Martin, and, and, uh, anyway, we, these stories circulated amongst my family. My sister-in-law's brother had killed himself very tragically after an MND diagnosis, and left a lot of unfinished business, and this talk of a medium who could, who worked, in a way it seemed, went. So Philippa was telling my sister-in-law about this, she said, well, I'll, I'll go with you, and this, this lady who, who hold the sessions doesn't take payment, uh, only asks for Christian names, and the Christian name of my sister-in-law was the name she

• 16:52Speaker 03

  had for the appointment, and she invited them to record it with their phones, um, whatever, and she sort of, and she just, um, she said, I've got, and my, Philippa was sitting in the background, and she said, I've got, there's someone, is there an Alexander? And it was my dad.

• 17:10Speaker 02

  Gosh.

• 17:11Speaker 03

  Beatled through.

• 17:13Speaker 02

  Good grief.

• 17:13Speaker 03

  To say, I'm really proud of you, and I really wish I'd been a grandfather to Emily, and all this wonderful stuff, and I was in, uh, Australia, on the west coast of Australia, when Philippa said, I haven't slept all night, she'd sent me the transcript of the, of the thing like that, and I remember getting this news and thinking, I'll have that, I'll have that, thank you, that's fine, because it's better than my unformed version.

• 17:42Speaker 02

  So you're now in a good place with your father?

• 17:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 17:45Speaker 02

  And as a little boy, you were in a good place up until the age of eight?

• 17:49Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 17:50Speaker 02

  And then when you lost him, because he died, it became more complicated, and you were in a bad place for a while, because you'd lost your father, and then when you heard from your doctor friend that the marriage, your parents' marriage hadn't been what it was, you also felt in a bad place?

• 18:07Speaker 03

  Kind of, yeah.

• 18:08Speaker 02

  And then now?

• 18:09Speaker 03

  Although I never, I never felt in a place that I would identify as bad at the time.

• 18:13Speaker 02

  But you felt a bit uncomfortable about him, whereas now you feel good about him.

• 18:20Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 18:21Speaker 02

  I mean, he's proud of you.

• 18:23Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 18:23Speaker 02

  And you can be proud of his achievements.

• 18:25Speaker 03

  And I do, and I found myself bragging about, you know, oh, my dad did this, yeah.

• 18:29Speaker 02

  Yes, and he really did, I mean, it's interesting.

• 18:31Speaker 03

  He was a conscientious objector at a time when it was hard to be a conscientious objector.

• 18:35Speaker 02

  Because he made war films, didn't he?

• 18:37Speaker 03

  No, he turned down the part that, um, Michael Redgrave took of, the guy who did the bouncing bomb, because dad said, I, I, I can't do that.

• 18:50Speaker 02

  Well done him.

• 18:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, and he stood, you know, a couple of court marshals and he drove a.

• 18:55Speaker 02

  Oh, you mean he was a proper conscientious.

• 18:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, you bet, yeah.

• 18:57Speaker 02

  Didn't just say, I don't want to do it.

• 18:58Speaker 03

  No, it was a draft.

• 18:59Speaker 02

  They said, you will serve in the army and they took people to court, did they, and tried them?

• 19:04Speaker 03

  Yeah, and he was an atheist as well, so he couldn't claim a faith, thou shalt not kill thing. He just, so he had to do it strictly on beliefs.

• 19:13Speaker 02

  And as a result of that, what happened to him?

• 19:15Speaker 03

  He drove an ambulance in the Blitz.

• 19:17Speaker 02

  So he did war service?

• 19:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 19:18Speaker 02

  But he didn't actually have to fight.

• 19:20Speaker 03

  And he did these, these little films.

• 19:22Speaker 02

  Gosh, oh, well.

• 19:24Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 19:24Speaker 02

  What an interesting character to have as a dad.

• 19:26Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 19:27Speaker 02

  So we have you aged eight. Who is your, do you remember your first friend outside the family?

• 19:33Speaker 03

  Uh, Jason Foster.

• 19:34Speaker 02

  And how old are you? How old is he?

• 19:36Speaker 03

  He's maybe a year younger than me. He's Barry Foster's son. Barry Foster lived at the end of our road. And Joanna and Miranda, Jason's sisters, that we were, you know, cycling on Wimbledon Common.

• 19:47Speaker 02

  Barry Foster actor?

• 19:49Speaker 03

  Van de Valk.

• 19:50Speaker 02

  Right, of course.

• 19:51Speaker 03

  Of course, and Frenzy, the Hitchcock film, the necktie murderer.

• 19:55Speaker 02

  Because you come from a theatrical heritage. I mean, your grandparents, you said, were, were they musical entertainers? Would you describe them as?

• 20:01Speaker 03

  Yes, there's somewhere I've got a postcard of them in a troupe called The Brownies. Peeking out.

• 20:06Speaker 02

  Oh, lovely, like a Pietro troupe, like a Fodorol, that sort of thing.

• 20:09Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 20:09Speaker 02

  Uh, and they, good, and they are your father's parents?

• 20:13Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 20:13Speaker 02

  Uh, and where does the Jeremy Brett connection come in?

• 20:17Speaker 03

  That's my mum's family.

• 20:18Speaker 02

  So on both sides, there's theatre?

• 20:20Speaker 03

  Kind of, yeah.

• 20:21Speaker 02

  And Jeremy was your mother's brother or?

• 20:24Speaker 03

  No, cousin, cousin, second cousin. Uh, yes, although, you see, because dad died when I was eight and then I was packed off to boarding school, I didn't. I, I wasn't living in a theatrical family.

• 20:35Speaker 02

  No.

• 20:35Speaker 03

  Mum had a, started an antique shop in the house to.

• 20:39Speaker 02

  To make ends meet.

• 20:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, um, so it wasn't like that, but then Jeremy came back from America just before. Uh, he started doing Sherlock Holmes, which coincided with me graduating from drama school. And he was fantastic. He's sort of, did you know him?

• 20:56Speaker 02

  I did know him.

• 20:56Speaker 03

  Well, you know what his company was like?

• 20:59Speaker 02

  Sensational.

• 20:59Speaker 03

  A million dollars, he just, yes, and, uh, it was kind of great timing for me because. I don't think he ever, he might have come to a play I did at drama school or something like that, but was just supportive and loving and, and. Um, yeah, became, became the father in the business that I'd been missing, I guess, in a way, in a way.

• 21:18Speaker 02

  So much style.

• 21:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, so much style, and his son David now lives down the road from us and we hang out all the time.

• 21:25Speaker 02

  So you were brought up, up to the age of eight, where are you living?

• 21:28Speaker 03

  On the edge of Wimbledon Common.

• 21:30Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 21:30Speaker 03

  Leafy.

• 21:31Speaker 02

  And how did your mother afford to go on living in Wimbledon?

• 21:36Speaker 03

  So dad's life insurance paid off the mortgage.

• 21:39Speaker 02

  Oh, brilliant.

• 21:40Speaker 03

  Three and a half thousand pound mortgage.

• 21:42Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 21:42Speaker 03

  Um, so that was okay. Uh, family allowance and the widow's pension.

• 21:48Speaker 02

  Gosh.

• 21:49Speaker 03

  And I don't think the antique shop made a great, made much money, but it gave mum something to do. She loved it.

• 21:57Speaker 02

  God.

• 21:58Speaker 03

  Uh, and she would, every Monday and Wednesday, she'd shut the shop and go off buying. Um, and that, or the fairs, the antique fairs, you know, with people wearing glasses around their neck like that, yeah.

• 22:08Speaker 02

  It gave her purpose and blood.

• 22:10Speaker 03

  She loved it, yeah, and the community.

• 22:11Speaker 02

  What's your best recollection of your mum from when you were a child? Your happiest, sweetest recollection of being with your mum?

• 22:18Speaker 03

  I remember, and this would have been before dad died, maybe, um, us having a picnic in the grounds of Canizaro Park. Which was just up, I don't know why we went to a park when we lived on the edge of the common, but the park was just on the edge of the common. It's a hotel now.

• 22:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:32Speaker 03

  Um, and I, I could take you to the spot, the slope and, uh, with the Tupperware of things to eat.

• 22:40Speaker 02

  A picnic.

• 22:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, just me and mum, yeah.

• 22:42Speaker 02

  Fantastic. So dad dies and who decides you've got to go to boarding school as a consequence?

• 22:47Speaker 03

  I'm, I don't know, but it was decided. My, my, my mother's family, obviously.

• 22:53Speaker 02

  Your grandparents came to help, I imagine?

• 22:55Speaker 03

  They, yes, they, they, they, they said they'd pay for my education.

• 23:00Speaker 02

  And were they good grandparents on?

• 23:01Speaker 03

  Yes, they were, they were. Um, nothing straightforward here, is it? My mum's relationship with my grandmother was complicated because she wasn't her mother. She was her aunt, uh, and grandpa was a civil servant in India and mum was born in Pakistan. Um, and then her mother, her and her sister, my aunt, their mother, um, died very suddenly and unexpectedly. And grandpa, um, married his, had their sister sent out.

• 23:31Speaker 02

  Oh, well, why not?

• 23:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, but weirdly, in those days, the thing to do was when a child reached a certain age, you know, you'd send it back to. England with the I A, which they did, but, but to England in the middle of the Second World War. So the school in Essex was immediately evacuated to, uh, the Lake District on the edge of Lake Windermere. And, um, mum loved it there. She's, because the roads were empty. You see, you could toboggan down the lanes in the snow and her and her sister went up there.

• 24:00Speaker 02

  So here she is, your mother, left alone, but financially, things have been sorted out with these two children. And it's decided you should go to boarding school. The grandparents helped with the school fees. You are already bedwetting almost immediately. That, that's how it manifests itself. The distress you must be feeling with your father's death. And what is the school like? It's a prep school?

• 24:22Speaker 03

  Very small, about a hundred and twenty pupils.

• 24:24Speaker 02

  All boys?

• 24:25Speaker 03

  Uh, all boys. It was, it's, it's still there. It's called Barfield. And there were only about twenty or so boarders. So obviously I wasn't cherished in the dormitory. I was a smelly lad. Um, so there.

• 24:38Speaker 02

  Oh, my gosh, you weren't cherished because you were a smelly lad because of the bedwetting?

• 24:42Speaker 03

  Yes, who wants a pillar in the room?

• 24:45Speaker 02

  Wow, wouldn't even have thought of that. So you felt.

• 24:48Speaker 03

  With the various.

• 24:49Speaker 02

  You felt subconscious.

• 24:51Speaker 03

  Devices, there was, there was one thing that was like lying on metal under your, under your sheet. Uh, but that would sound off a hooter when, um, liquids, you know, made the contact. But it took quite a lot, so it was kind of like you have just wet the bed, not you're about to. And obviously that wasn't popular in the dormitory.

• 25:12Speaker 02

  But this is a well-intentioned device designed to sort of alert you, to wake you up and make you go to the loo?

• 25:19Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 25:19Speaker 02

  That was the idea, I suppose.

• 25:21Speaker 03

  No, it didn't work.

• 25:22Speaker 02

  Oh, dear.

• 25:23Speaker 03

  But do you know what? When I was writing the middle, the book, Meetings with Remarkable Animals.

• 25:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:29Speaker 03

  I'd, I'd, I'd touched on this because the biology teacher, Mr. Huggett, um, put me in charge of the quite considerable school menagerie. And I would go down and I would let out, uh, the donkey, the sheep, the turkey, the hens and, um, the guinea fowl. And, um, give them their food and at the end of the day, I'd, I'd shut them away again. And, um, I think it was a very good use of me, a good thing to do with me and I still, uh. I'll go off with the dogs to fix a fence somewhere and have that me and the animals time and I love it. And when I just had one, Jim, my old Jack Russell, uh, I'd just say, come on, Jim.

• 26:12Speaker 03

  And Emily, my daughter, would say, go on, Jim, you're off on a mission and off we'd go and do something and I love that time with them.

• 26:18Speaker 02

  What was the first animal in your life? Your memory of your first animal?

• 26:22Speaker 03

  The first animal was Timmy, the cat, who was dad's cat and dad liked cats. And so after he died, he was a sort of legacy cherished cat and a special thing. He got epilepsy.

• 26:34Speaker 02

  A cat with epilepsy, is that a common phenomenon?

• 26:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, we just put down a dog with epilepsy, um, who'd had epilepsy. Uh, uh, yes, but he had, they gave, he'd have, he'd sit, there was an old piano. He'd sit on top of the piano and then have a fit and it would shake all the strings. You could hear it all around the house.

• 26:52Speaker 02

  Gosh.

• 26:52Speaker 03

  And we had another cat called Tommy and then, um, they went the way of cats, you know, but my daughter long lobbied for a, a dog. And so we got Jemima from a rescue.

• 27:01Speaker 02

  Even your sister?

• 27:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, did I, what did I say?

• 27:03Speaker 02

  You said your daughter.

• 27:04Speaker 03

  Sorry, my sister, yeah. I'd wanted a dog, so we got Jemima, a little white terrier from a rescue place. And, um, she was, she, I think my sister was, you know, uh, lost interest. And then it just sort of became this dog and my mum never wanted a pet, but she did, you know, so she did it for us. And, um, uh, so she was sort of left with it and then later on, I, I, I got really close to Jemima. And I love, and I can, and I know most, any child will tell you the thrill of a dog's weight on your bed is, especially to a child is, is some, I don't know, is something special.

• 27:52Speaker 00

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• 29:25Speaker 02

  But the animals have been important to you from that time on?

• 29:28Speaker 03

  Well, it's funny. It was just writing that book, sort of, oh, oh, oh, and sort of spotting those stepping stones back through my life that, yeah, they have. And, yeah, and obviously it's got a bit out of hand lately, but, um, yeah, they've been good to me.

• 29:42Speaker 02

  But when you were a little boy, were the animals, I mean, look at it back now, were they the sort of the comfort you found after the death of your father?

• 29:50Speaker 03

  No.

• 29:51Speaker 02

  Did you, did you feel the loss of? Other boys at school, I suppose, had dads. Did you feel, oh, I haven't got a dad? Were you aware of that?

• 29:57Speaker 03

  I was aware you could be teased for that.

• 30:00Speaker 02

  Oh, really?

• 30:00Speaker 03

  Uh, or you could boast about that. It was a, it was a difference. It sort of set you, you know, set you apart. But I didn't feel I was a figure of tragedy in any way. I never have.

• 30:11Speaker 02

  And also, Mr. Huggett, the biology teacher?

• 30:12Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 30:13Speaker 02

  Was a good man, actually, and he understood you.

• 30:16Speaker 03

  He got that right.

• 30:17Speaker 02

  And he got it right. He gave you the animals. It's lovely. And then where did you go to school next?

• 30:21Speaker 03

  After that, I stopped. They realized that boarding wasn't, you know, wasn't for me. So I went to a school called Royal Russell on Shirley Hills, uh, outside Croydon.

• 30:32Speaker 02

  And was that good? That school good for you? Did you enjoy that?

• 30:34Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was good. It was mixed. Uh, I, you know, I got perfected smoking, um, chasing, you know, girls, uh, and that sort of thing. I was rubbish and annoying or caned daily.

• 30:48Speaker 02

  Caned? Oh, yeah. Did caning?

• 30:50Speaker 03

  Oh, boy, yeah. Oh, the prep school did a bit of that as well, yeah.

• 30:53Speaker 02

  Were you caned at prep school? Can you, can you remember? Can you remember what it was like?

• 30:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, sore.

• 30:58Speaker 02

  I mean, they caned you on the bottom?

• 30:59Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 31:01Speaker 02

  And what were the misdemeanors? What were you doing?

• 31:03Speaker 03

  I don't know. Uh, smoking, uh, peeing behind a tree once in the forest.

• 31:08Speaker 02

  Oh, wow. Maybe it's better than peeing on the metal sheet in your bed.

• 31:12Speaker 03

  Maybe.

• 31:13Speaker 02

  You could have said, sir.

• 31:14Speaker 03

  There's a theme emerging.

• 31:15Speaker 02

  Yes, exactly. Dearie me.

• 31:18Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 31:18Speaker 02

  And are you conscious of being happy or unhappy or just muddling along?

• 31:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, I was happy. I had lots of good friends, a lot of laughing.

• 31:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 31:26Speaker 03

  I've always had a lot of laughing. I like laughing.

• 31:28Speaker 02

  And girls? Do you remember being taught the facts of life?

• 31:32Speaker 03

  No.

• 31:33Speaker 02

  You weren't ever?

• 31:34Speaker 03

  No. I tried to teach myself in several practical experiments.

• 31:41Speaker 02

  Mr. Huggett on hand to point you in the right direction.

• 31:43Speaker 03

  Oh, boy.

• 31:44Speaker 02

  Oh, dear. Were you quite young with this at the school?

• 31:46Speaker 03

  At the school, I was an early teen. And then I was there when I got my moped. When I was 16, I was, I left when I was 16 and went to drama school.

• 31:53Speaker 02

  I mean, is there a funny story you can tell us about the first of these embarrassing moments?

• 31:57Speaker 03

  Certainly not.

• 31:59Speaker 02

  So was that funny?

• 32:00Speaker 03

  Well, there was, you know, the, I mean, nothing special, just, you know, fumblings and.

• 32:04Speaker 02

  But you were content at school. And were you clever enough? Did you do O levels or GCSEs?

• 32:10Speaker 03

  I wasn't enthused.

• 32:11Speaker 02

  Ah.

• 32:12Speaker 03

  Uh, no, I wasn't. Um, one, Mr. Foot, the deputy head, put, called my bluff because I, when people say, well, what are you going to be when you grow up? I just sort of said an actor without.

• 32:26Speaker 02

  Oh, automatically?

• 32:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, I guess so.

• 32:28Speaker 02

  Because your dad had been an actor and you had an uncle figure who was an actor?

• 32:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, I guess so, yeah. Yeah. Um, without knowing anything about it.

• 32:37Speaker 02

  Were you in the school plays?

• 32:38Speaker 03

  Well, then Mr. Foot put me in the school plays, yes. That was a triumph.

• 32:42Speaker 02

  Was it? What was the first one? Can you remember your first appearance on stage?

• 32:45Speaker 03

  Costard in Love's Labour's Lost.

• 32:46Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 32:47Speaker 03

  To greater acclaim.

• 32:48Speaker 02

  But it's an amusing part.

• 32:50Speaker 03

  Well, I got a lot of laughs, yes.

• 32:51Speaker 02

  Yeah. He's a clown, the fool.

• 32:53Speaker 03

  Yes, yes, yeah. And, uh, I realized that I could do that, make people laugh. And that's when the rot set in.

• 33:03Speaker 02

  Yeah. And you've been doing it ever since, sometimes unintentionally, who knows? No, no. Uh, but you, I mean, you do do serious work as well as.

• 33:11Speaker 03

  Do anything, yeah.

• 33:12Speaker 02

  You do the charming work and the serious work. And did your parent, your then mother think, well, you, because you went to Arts Educational, didn't you?

• 33:19Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 33:20Speaker 02

  The London Drama School? And from that moment onwards, did you feel at home? You thought this is actually, is my destiny? I'm going to do this.

• 33:28Speaker 03

  No.

• 33:29Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 33:30Speaker 03

  I didn't, but I, it became what I was doing. Uh, and then, of course, you get into this sort of looking for a funnel, don't you? You, you, then you've got to get your equity card. You've got to go into repertory and stuff like that. And so, and off I went. I went to, uh, the Mercury Theatre in Colchester and did all, and worked for a long time in, in the theatre. Um, and, and not failing or anything like that, not being unhappy, but not, I don't know. Then, then I got the opportunity. I directed a play with two friends in a pub, a two-handed version of Alan Silletto's The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner. And it was really good.

• 34:12Speaker 03

  Uh, and a really simple, um, set and setting. And so we managed to flog it around a few. We toured it around England.

• 34:20Speaker 02

  And how old are you at this time?

• 34:22Speaker 03

  Uh, mid twenties, I suppose. And then the British Council saw it and they said, oh, this would be great for us. So we went to Nigeria and toured around Nigeria, going to universities and theatre troops. And that was amazing because the next day we'd do workshops with them. Uh, and they, they, they loved the play because it was very rhythmic, because you couldn't really run around on stage. Uh, and so we'd work, you know, they'd want to work with that the next day and it was absolutely fantastic. And I thought, and I saw the way, what theatre meant for them as a sort of political, social discussion forum, that a lot of their theatre groups are very political and it's a way of airing things, you know? Um, and I thought, wow, I see the value of this.

• 35:07Speaker 03

  And I, and I started to see what it offered me and what I offered it. Um, and then I sort of reconciled and, yeah.

• 35:15Speaker 02

  But that's the kind of thing that your father would have thought through as well.

• 35:18Speaker 03

  Possibly, yeah, maybe. Because I'd just bimbed.

• 35:21Speaker 02

  Because you just bimbed?

• 35:23Speaker 03

  I just bimbed through life. I kind of still have, but I was bimbling through the first part of my career without that clarity. I was kidding away with it, but I didn't have that.

• 35:33Speaker 02

  You're just doing it. And then suddenly you think, actually, this is worthwhile.

• 35:36Speaker 03

  Actually, this is okay, yeah, yeah. And even if now I'm doing something really silly. Because when I finished Art's Ed, I really wanted to go into theatre and education because I thought that's worthwhile. I thought that's a good thing to do. And then I didn't get a job there, so, um, didn't do that. Still bimbling.

• 35:53Speaker 02

  Bimbling, it's a nice word. I'm not familiar with it. So you were a natural bimbler. But you eventually, well, when do you take off? When does your life change?

• 36:02Speaker 03

  Um, I did a play at the Hampstead Theatre. That was very good. I had, I had a really good part that wasn't on much. That's why it was, it was a bit like Mercutio, you know, didn't get worn out. Um, Uh, and it went very well and Harry Enfield came to see it. And then um asked me to do some sketches on his sketch show. And things and then we did a TV series together called Gone to the Dogs with Warren Clark. Uh, and Alison Stedman and lots of lovely people. Um, and then um, Harry was going out with Sue Virtue, who was Beryl Buchi's daughter at the time. And then the idea for Men Behaving Badly came along.

• 36:43Speaker 03

  And um, then I got, you know, Harry suggested me to Beryl for that and.

• 36:48Speaker 02

  Oh, so that's.

• 36:50Speaker 03

  That's when people learnt my name, if you know what I mean. I was doing a an Inspector Morse or a.

• 36:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:55Speaker 03

  Lovejoy here or there, you know, before that.

• 36:57Speaker 02

  And you have.

• 36:57Speaker 03

  No, I'd been in a sitcom, what am I talking about? I'd been in a sitcom called No Place Like Home before that. And I did one called All at Number Twenty with Maureen Lipman. The two series of that.

• 37:07Speaker 02

  But that's when life took off.

• 37:09Speaker 03

  But then, I suppose so.

• 37:10Speaker 02

  Of course, it did, you take off.

• 37:11Speaker 03

  But I I wasn't starving, I wasn't working in restaurants, I was earning a living.

• 37:15Speaker 02

  Rather like your father, you had one brief, short first marriage?

• 37:18Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 37:19Speaker 02

  So you've done a bit, so like your father, you end up as an actor, director and producer.

• 37:24Speaker 03

  I suppose so, yes.

• 37:25Speaker 02

  You have one short marriage, you're smoking for a while, but you give it up because you don't want to die of cancer like he did. That's very good. Uh, did you feel a sense of of failure when your marriage ended? Or you were so young, it didn't, you thought these things happened?

• 37:38Speaker 03

  No, it was horrid, really, yeah, yeah, it's not a nice thing to do.

• 37:40Speaker 02

  And you you didn't have any children?

• 37:42Speaker 03

  We didn't.

• 37:42Speaker 02

  So, in a sense, it's, you moved on.

• 37:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 37:45Speaker 02

  Yeah. And how did you meet Philippa?

• 37:48Speaker 03

  Uh, she called my agent and booked me for a lunch. She, they had a film called.

• 37:54Speaker 02

  Because she was a producer?

• 37:56Speaker 03

  She was, she'd been a commercials and promos producer and documentaries producer. And there was a scheme, the same scheme that um Kenneth Branagh and co got together for Henry the Fifth. That the government introduced. Um, and she thought, I'm gonna make a film and her brother Simon wrote it. And they asked me in.

• 38:15Speaker 02

  Simon, what's his name?

• 38:16Speaker 03

  Simon Braithwaite, he doesn't, he no longer writes. And then slowly through the pre pre-production, it was, my god, Miss Jones, but you're lovely. I fell in love with Philippa.

• 38:26Speaker 02

  Can you remember the moment of it happening?

• 38:29Speaker 03

  I can remember a few moments, yeah.

• 38:31Speaker 02

  Give us, I give us one, only because I'm intrigued by people saying, no, I met and we we got married. It's it's a journey, isn't it? Can you remember the sort of the click moment? Because it's such, because how long have you been together now?

• 38:43Speaker 03

  Well, nearly thirty years.

• 38:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, and you work together all the time.

• 38:46Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 38:46Speaker 02

  You, I mean, Doc Martin is your co-production.

• 38:49Speaker 03

  Well, we don't do the same job, I'm never, I'm not a producer.

• 38:52Speaker 02

  No, but you create it together.

• 38:54Speaker 03

  Yes, definitely.

• 38:55Speaker 02

  It is in a sense your baby.

• 38:56Speaker 03

  Definitely.

• 38:56Speaker 02

  As well as having a baby.

• 38:57Speaker 03

  And all the factuals we've done, yeah.

• 38:59Speaker 02

  So, so the point is, this is somebody who you've actually spent your life.

• 39:03Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 39:03Speaker 02

  The last thirty or more years collaborating with this person.

• 39:06Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 39:07Speaker 02

  So when you tip over from, actually it's just fun having lunch and flirtation into, this is for real. It's a big thing.

• 39:16Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 39:16Speaker 02

  It's a huge thing. Your life has been defined by the moment you and she fell for each other.

• 39:24Speaker 03

  Well, I guess it has, yeah, yeah.

• 39:27Speaker 02

  So what I'm trying to get you to remember is to pinpoint the moment at which you thought, this is irreversible, we're going through with this. Each of you, what it was like.

• 39:38Speaker 03

  I'll tell you when I proposed, shall I?

• 39:40Speaker 02

  Please.

• 39:41Speaker 03

  Um, we'd been, were we living together? Yes, we were living together, I think. And do you remember the holiday programme?

• 39:48Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 39:49Speaker 03

  They were at great gigs, I'd done a, I I I, it was doing San Francisco and Hawaii and then on to Hawaii.

• 39:56Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 39:57Speaker 03

  And because it's that industry, um, you could get all the tickets you wanted because you're, you know, basically promoting things. Um, and so they said they'd fly Philippa out to Hawaii at the end. And uh, I guess I was away for about two or three weeks and it was the longest I'd been apart from her. And I thought that I can't, I really, really miss her. I have to marry her. So she got off a sixteen hour flight and I popped the question in a bathroom in Maui.

• 40:26Speaker 02

  Wow. And did she want to think about it or did you say yes immediately?

• 40:30Speaker 03

  She said yes immediately. She was confused, the jet lag.

• 40:34Speaker 02

  Oh, and then you had.

• 40:36Speaker 03

  Well, then, because we had our return tickets, we just mucked around. We went to Kauai and Big Island and just had this joyous, I think, three week holiday.

• 40:44Speaker 02

  This helps, the setting helps for this, the beginning of a relationship or the beginning of a deep relationship. And then how quickly did you have your, is it just one daughter?

• 40:53Speaker 03

  Emily, just one daughter. Um, maybe two, three years. Um, Philippa then got really busy because she produced Sliding Doors.

• 41:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:01Speaker 03

  And that, that, that, that took a lot of uh, time and attention. Um, but yeah, um, we did, we, yeah, we had Emily.

• 41:10Speaker 02

  Yeah. And is it, are you a good dad?

• 41:12Speaker 03

  You'd have to ask her, I think so, yeah, I'm doting, adoring.

• 41:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, I miss her, she left home.

• 41:18Speaker 02

  And how do you make a marriage work?

• 41:21Speaker 03

  I don't know, we just do.

• 41:22Speaker 02

  It's a tricky thing, you know.

• 41:24Speaker 03

  We, we spend a lot of time together but separate or at at home together, but she's in her office. Or she's with her horse or I'm fixing a fence or with the dogs or with my horse. Or something, then there's, there's obvious meetings, mealtimes and things like that and the debate about what to eat. And the evenings, but I don't know, is that how, that's how we've done it.

• 41:48Speaker 02

  What do you like most about her? What does she like most about you?

• 41:52Speaker 03

  I don't know what she likes about me. I like her, she makes me laugh, she's really witty and elegant.

• 42:00Speaker 02

  That's nice.

• 42:01Speaker 03

  Hot.

• 42:02Speaker 02

  Well done. If you can't tell me what she likes about you, you certainly can tell me what she doesn't like about you. What irritates her about Martin Cloone's?

• 42:11Speaker 03

  Uh, I'm repeating myself.

• 42:13Speaker 02

  Did you do a lot of that?

• 42:14Speaker 03

  An awful lot, yeah.

• 42:15Speaker 02

  Really, doing the same story again and again?

• 42:17Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 42:18Speaker 02

  Oh, dear.

• 42:18Speaker 03

  The walkway, you said, you said, you said. Because there's a part of you that initially fights hard, doesn't it?

• 42:26Speaker 02

  And animals are now very much part of your life. So tell us, where, where do you live? Why animals as part of your story?

• 42:31Speaker 03

  I live in West Dorset, uh, on a small farm with horses and cattle. We did have sheep, they're annoying, um, and lots of dogs.

• 42:40Speaker 02

  They're annoying?

• 42:41Speaker 03

  Sheep, yeah.

• 42:43Speaker 02

  They're tasty.

• 42:44Speaker 03

  Delicious, yeah.

• 42:46Speaker 02

  Why are they annoying? Because they're.

• 42:47Speaker 03

  Ah, they just want to die for a pastime, really.

• 42:50Speaker 02

  Oh, that's cruel, you're supposed to be an animal lover.

• 42:54Speaker 03

  I am, but I am, and lambs, lambing is the best bit of sheep farming, anyone will tell you that, that's nice. Although it's the hardest work, but it's nice. And then they just become, they're great, and they're gorgeous when they're bouncing and gambling around. But then they're just, they're just charmless sheep.

• 43:10Speaker 02

  Oh, really? I mean, do you like animals? Are they better than human beings? Do you feel easier with animals than with humans?

• 43:16Speaker 03

  Never put them in a race.

• 43:18Speaker 02

  Oh, fine. They are what they are?

• 43:20Speaker 03

  We're, we're all different infestations of the planet, aren't we?

• 43:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's good.

• 43:25Speaker 03

  That was always with, with Emily, like, you know, don't squash a spider, it's his planet too. And we take care of these things.

• 43:33Speaker 02

  I mean, do you have things that are important, more important than others? Maybe it isn't a race, is work more important, the countryside more important, the animals more important?

• 43:40Speaker 03

  Well, it's all part of the melee of my life, really, but I mean, the work, I I have to work to support, it's, you know, it's not. We're not, we're quite expensive to run. Um, and not that I want to retire, but I couldn't anyway.

• 43:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, and you do like working, don't you?

• 43:55Speaker 03

  I love it.

• 43:56Speaker 02

  Doc Martin, how did that idea came about?

• 43:59Speaker 03

  That came out of a film called Saving Grace, um, that was shot in Port Isaac where we shot Doc Martin. Uh, that was made by Sky Pictures. Um, who, which Elizabeth Murdoch, oh no, it was made by Sky, then Elizabeth Murdoch started a thing called Sky Pictures, which was terrific. She gave lots of people in television a chance to make films, ninety minute films for Sky. Um, and they approached us because of the, Saving Grace was more successful in the States than it was over here. But Sky said, look, let's follow this, is there, they, the part, the character I played in it, there's a sort of dope smoking GP. They said that in, that tested well, could we do prequels, sequels or something with that character?

• 44:44Speaker 03

  Could, how, would you like to do three a year for two years? And we said, yes, we would. And whilst we were making the first three, Sky Pictures folded. So I met Nick Elliott, the then drama commissioner with the brown envelope with the VHS in it. In a pub in Putney and I said, what do you think about picking this up? Because, and he watched it and said, tonally, the dope smoking thing didn't really work for the ITV audience. He said, but we, no objection to you being a doctor down there, if you can sort that out. So then we took, dispensed with that character and invented the monster that he was.

• 45:22Speaker 02

  And eighteen years of it, was it?

• 45:24Speaker 03

  Eighteen, eighteen years, yeah.

• 45:25Speaker 02

  Yeah. And we, and you've abandoned it now, it's all over.

• 45:28Speaker 03

  It's.

• 45:29Speaker 02

  Oh, there may be the odd Christmas special, like Men Behaving Badly. We may, we may, ah, good.

• 45:34Speaker 03

  Well, there's also the American version now, Best Medicine.

• 45:38Speaker 02

  With different.

• 45:39Speaker 03

  With Americans in. But I I guessed.

• 45:41Speaker 02

  You get a little tickle?

• 45:42Speaker 03

  I guessed as his father.

• 45:44Speaker 02

  Oh my god, it's come to this, you're now playing your own character's dad.

• 45:50Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 45:50Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 45:51Speaker 03

  But he's great. Josh Charles plays the doctor and he's really good. And it's sort of, it's solid upstate New York.

• 45:56Speaker 02

  Quite strange.

• 45:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's weird as hell.

• 45:57Speaker 02

  Daring me. Of your work, though, what is it in your head? And your head hits the pillow. What do you want us to put in the time capsule of your work that, that you hope?

• 46:07Speaker 03

  Well, Doc Martin's not bad, is he?

• 46:09Speaker 02

  It's very good.

• 46:09Speaker 03

  Eighty something hours of that.

• 46:10Speaker 02

  I'm not choosing, you're choosing.

• 46:11Speaker 03

  I'm choosing. Well, I, I, I got a lot. I mean, I've done very few feature films in my life. Um, and then Emerald Fennell decided to kick an old rock over and give me a fantastic part in, um, Wuthering Heights, which was very exciting. Uh, sixty-four to, you know, be exposed to that sort of world.

• 46:34Speaker 02

  And who have you just been playing controversially?

• 46:37Speaker 03

  Oh, uh, I, I did Hugh Edwards.

• 46:39Speaker 02

  Yeah. What was that like?

• 46:40Speaker 03

  Weird.

• 46:41Speaker 02

  Very weird. I, I, I put it to watch and I decided not to watch it in the end, I'm afraid. Because I knew Hugh Edwards and I thought this is going to be too uncomfortable.

• 46:52Speaker 03

  I'm sure, yeah. Um, I think you did the right thing.

• 46:55Speaker 02

  Oh dear. Were you not pleased with it? I mean?

• 46:56Speaker 03

  No, I was really pleased with it, but I think anybody had a problem with it. Don't watch it.

• 47:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, fine.

• 47:01Speaker 03

  That's my, because people say to me, what do you say to people who say it's too soon? I said, don't watch it.

• 47:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:05Speaker 03

  Don't play your part in it.

• 47:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:07Speaker 03

  Don't.

• 47:07Speaker 02

  Very good. But is it difficult to play a real person? Maybe somebody you've met. You're the same. You're the right height. I can see why you were chosen. Uh, was it very difficult to do?

• 47:16Speaker 03

  Um.

• 47:17Speaker 02

  No, it was just another job.

• 47:19Speaker 03

  Well, yeah, kind of. Yeah. With its own set of challenges. Um, a very good makeup artist who helps. Um, but also how much familiarity did we have with that man?

• 47:29Speaker 02

  Yeah. So you'd seen him endlessly.

• 47:31Speaker 03

  Seen him endlessly, uh, on parade.

• 47:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:35Speaker 03

  Not, you know, uh, that, that was a harder find looking through the, um, archive.

• 47:41Speaker 02

  Yeah. Uncomfortable.

• 47:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, not pretty at all, but, um, yeah.

• 47:47Speaker 02

  But it worked.

• 47:48Speaker 03

  Well, I think it's a story worth telling. Uh, yeah.

• 47:50Speaker 02

  And you would, you will play anything. I mean, what is the range of what? No. Because I mentioned your name to people saying you're coming on and they all say the same things. They say Doc Martin, they say, maybe badly. They see you as this warm character. I said, no, he's done the whole gamut. Um, and you have, haven't you?

• 48:06Speaker 03

  I guess, yeah.

• 48:07Speaker 02

  And you're ready to.

• 48:08Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 48:09Speaker 02

  We're, we're seeing your leer eventually. Who knows? I mean, do you do stage work now? Do you do stage work?

• 48:14Speaker 03

  I haven't for, I did, I haven't for ages because I don't live in here, well.

• 48:20Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 48:21Speaker 03

  And, uh.

• 48:22Speaker 02

  The commitment would be very great, too.

• 48:24Speaker 03

  Well, I commit to a TV series for three months, but I work more than three hours a day. And that's, it's not, having something to do is my enemy.

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• 50:15Speaker 02

  Who has made you the person you are?

• 50:19Speaker 03

  My wife and daughter, I guess, I think.

• 50:21Speaker 02

  Not your mother and father?

• 50:26Speaker 03

  Probably not my father due to absenteeism. Um.

• 50:31Speaker 02

  But is he in, I mean?

• 50:32Speaker 03

  I mean, I do, I, I notice things. I notice things. I notice my hand. I've got arthritic hands now, which my mother had. I, I'm aware of that. Uh, but my set of sensibilities, I don't, I don't know. I'm not sure. It's just this bimbling thing, you know? Some stuff sticks, doesn't it?

• 50:52Speaker 02

  It's also, it's good. What Ibsen used to call the life lie.

• 50:56Speaker 03

  Life lie?

• 50:57Speaker 02

  Life lie. This bimbling thing. Uh, I often find hugely successful.

• 51:02Speaker 03

  What's he mean, what does he mean by the life lie?

• 51:04Speaker 02

  It means you, you've convinced yourself in your head, you have a lie that carries you through life. And your lie is that you are this amiable, bumbling person, you know, shifts along. And it's got you through things when you.

• 51:19Speaker 03

  But I do. I've never, I've never striven. I've never pushed. I've, uh.

• 51:25Speaker 02

  Really?

• 51:25Speaker 03

  Literally everything has come to me.

• 51:28Speaker 02

  Well done. That's fantastic. How are you at home with rows and things? Do you go quiet or do you go noisy?

• 51:35Speaker 03

  A bit quiet and surly.

• 51:37Speaker 02

  Yeah. So you do, you just retreat?

• 51:41Speaker 03

  I think so, yeah. I'm not, I, I tend to avoid any kind of conflict. I don't, I don't do well in it.

• 51:48Speaker 02

  Oh, exactly. I'm, I'm going to be bimbling now. Your lovely books, the one I've got, the first one I got, It's a Dog's Life.

• 51:56Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 51:57Speaker 02

  Was huge fun and I gave it to different people.

• 51:59Speaker 03

  Did you?

• 51:59Speaker 02

  Then there was the second one you mentioned a moment ago.

• 52:01Speaker 03

  Meetings with Remarkable Animals.

• 52:02Speaker 02

  Yeah. And your third one, that was about heroic animals, wasn't it?

• 52:06Speaker 03

  That was, yes, yes.

• 52:07Speaker 02

  Because you did a TV series or a one-off about, did you?

• 52:12Speaker 03

  I did about dogs. That was the, that was the first book came out of the TV series. Yeah.

• 52:16Speaker 02

  And the third one, the new one is what?

• 52:17Speaker 03

  The new one is Training John and Murray.

• 52:19Speaker 02

  And what's that about?

• 52:20Speaker 03

  So that's about, um, my Jack Russell Jim died last, oh no, not last year, two years ago now. Um, and we knew he was going to because he had a liver cancer and we weren't going to let him suffer. Um, and so when he started to look uncomfortable, we, you know, um, did the right thing. And then two weeks later, our Jack-a-Wa-Wa, Penny, uh, it turned out she had a tumor behind her eye that nobody knew about. So she was put down. So we just had two blind cocker spaniels and a retired guide dog in the house. And so the entire animal kingdom took liberties. Badgers came in the garden, crapping everywhere.

• 53:00Speaker 02

  Goodness.

• 53:00Speaker 03

  Uh, deer came in, ate all the roses. Uh, the fox took the hens. Um, and we were definitely missing, I was missing having a terrier. And Philippa was on the train coming up to London, reading Horse Down. And she sent me this photo of an ad in the back saying Jack Russell puppies for sale, Dorset. That was on a Monday. On the Wednesday, we brought John and Murray home. And they are fox, fox, warren, Parsons, Jack Russells. They're long-legged, um, very affectionate, ruthless killers. Um, and the first, the first line of the book used to be, after they killed the deer, we knew it was time to take John and Murray more seriously.

• 53:44Speaker 02

  Very good opening line.

• 53:45Speaker 03

  I know, the publishers didn't like it. They thought it was a bit off-putting.

• 53:48Speaker 02

  No, I think it gets us straight into the drama.

• 53:51Speaker 03

  They were only six months old.

• 53:52Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 53:53Speaker 03

  Um, and then because of the way we roll with our dogs, we just go, we don't use leads. We just walk around the farm, um, you know, for, for their exercise. And pretty soon they were off. They were off and away. We put GPS trackers on them. But there was no help. You could just see how far, how far away they were. Uh, and we were, we were really despairing, um, really despairing. And then we found, uh, reached out to all kinds of people, then found a woman called Ingrid Grayling in Devon, who, um, we had one day with and she gave us homework, six weeks of homework, four 20-minute sessions with each dog every day separately. It was a nightmare. And then I was doing Wuthering Heights, so I kept going away.

• 54:36Speaker 03

  So poor Philippa had eight 20 minutes, 20 minutes, you know, with these dogs who looked like they weren't paying attention. And anyway, we got there. We got there in the end. But that's what the, the book is about. But it's, it's, it's, it's more involved than my telling of it there. And they're amazing animals.

• 54:52Speaker 02

  Have animals taught you something that you, that you carry through in life?

• 54:57Speaker 03

  Um, I think, yes, their presence has taught me what I think about the world, which isn't that it's ours to administer, I think it's ours to share. Um, and that does involve some animals getting killed by other animals. You know, stick your head in the ocean, the big fish eat the little fish, don't they? And that's kind of how the everything's evolved. So I'm, I'm, I'm a carnivore, I don't have a problem with that. But I'm, I, I'm also interested in animal welfare, even the welfare of the animals that get eaten. Um, but I see it more as sharing and I've. Because when you live in the country, well, you're in leafy barns, you're sort of, you're, you're exposed to the seasons, you see the changes in time and I feel that.

• 55:40Speaker 03

  You just, i- if you live in a city, you are still part of nature, you're just not witness to it, are you? But I love that witness to it and I just sort of feel that going out in it with the animals, I love walking the dogs, I love it beyond anything.

• 55:54Speaker 02

  You've written a book about remarkable animals. Who is the most remarkable person that you think you've encountered outside of Philippa?

• 56:01Speaker 03

  Do you know, funnily enough, one of the nicest people I ever worked with was Sam Neill.

• 56:06Speaker 02

  Sam Neill?

• 56:07Speaker 03

  Who we lost, yeah.

• 56:09Speaker 02

  In the other week, yeah.

• 56:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, he was a really nice guy. I did a terrible film with him.

• 56:18Speaker 03

  It was so bad it never got released, I don't think. He was in it, Helena Bonham Carter was in it, Kristin Scott Thomas played my wife, Steve Coogan.

• 56:25Speaker 02

  Gosh.

• 56:26Speaker 03

  Um, it was an Alan Atborne play called Revengers Tragedies. I don't know why, Miramax took it and shelved it, but.

• 56:36Speaker 03

  He was, this was before mobile phones, and he was out there one day, he was quite a good artist, and he was sketching. What was beyond the trailers when we were in the countryside at the. And he, he then faxed that to his family to show what was going on. And then he was, he would ask questions. You know, when you're all together, there's so much waiting when you film something, so much waiting. He'd go, what's your favourite restaurant? You know, and he'd, he'd start these wonderful conversations. And then intermittently, he'd reach out every now and again. And send an email or something, oh, I saw you in this and I did that. And, and he loved his father's vineyard and all of that.

• 57:12Speaker 02

  That's a good memory to have.

• 57:13Speaker 03

  Just a really, really nice guy, yeah. I hoped that I'd bump into him once again, but.

• 57:19Speaker 02

  Your father being a conscientious objector was also an atheist. Do you have faith in your life?

• 57:24Speaker 03

  Uh, no. Not that one, not, uh, no, I don't have a, a, a, an, a, other being.

• 57:31Speaker 02

  But you sort of believe in the beyond because your father has curiously sent you this message.

• 57:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 57:37Speaker 02

  Which does seem credible.

• 57:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, doesn't it? Yeah, credible and welcome.

• 57:43Speaker 02

  Credible and welcome. It's lovely.

• 57:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 57:46Speaker 02

  Okay, uh, we're getting to the end now, and we have three quick questions. You've got to really give the answer that comes straight into your head, Martin. A moment of joy, particularly from your early life, a moment of joy.

• 57:56Speaker 03

  Okay, when we were doing the very first, the Doc Martin Sky films, that weren't the TV Doc Martin. Um, our friend Sue Godfrey came down to stay with us. Emily was a baby at the time. And we were staying in Rock.

• 58:14Speaker 03

  And it was a beautiful sunny evening and we'd booked a table at Rick Stein's seafood restaurant and we took the ferry across. Lovely. And we ate, and it was the first time I'd been in that room and, uh, all that he's got fun, do, do you know it?

• 58:28Speaker 02

  I do.

• 58:29Speaker 03

  Do, those paintings, I, I know them quite well now. Um, it's my favourite restaurant in the whole world and I think it's because of that one night. It was the first time we had a night off. We got a babysitter for Emily and Sue was with us and we went there. And the food is off the scale, isn't it? And the service is, is out of this world. And it, it never fails for me. I got slightly worried when they rearranged the room and moved the bar. But I'm okay with it now because the paintings are still there and the food is still fantastic and just the spot. We did a day cookery course in the school there once as well. I just love that spot.

• 59:04Speaker 02

  And what about a moment of sadness?

• 59:13Speaker 03

  Well, there was, um, it was really sad when my father-in-law died in Covid. Not off Covid, but in Covid, it was a sort of catalogue of disasters. I was really sad because he was fabulous.

• 59:27Speaker 02

  Is your mother still alive?

• 59:29Speaker 03

  No.

• 59:29Speaker 02

  Did she remarry?

• 59:30Speaker 03

  No.

• 59:32Speaker 02

  But was she okay? Did you, were you a good friend to her, do you think, as the years went by?

• 59:35Speaker 03

  Yes, yes, I wish she had maybe remarried because.

• 59:39Speaker 02

  She was a long time a widow, wasn't she?

• 59:41Speaker 03

  She was, but I thi- I think because it had sort of slightly sounded, I think she was, that's enough of that.

• 59:45Speaker 02

  So she was on her own anyway.

• 59:46Speaker 03

  Yeah, and she had a great circle of friends and her antiques and stuff. Um, but, yeah. Yeah, well, obviously that was sad, it was more shocking than sad when she died, but, um.

• 1:00:00Speaker 02

  I thought it might be one of your animals.

• 1:00:04Speaker 03

  Well, you know, when.

• 1:00:05Speaker 02

  Except you accept it, what's interesting.

• 1:00:07Speaker 03

  No, no, here's a funny thing. I have a theory and I, I, I've got better at it now. Um, with, with Jim, I felt really good. I'd made him a coffin, it had thirty-three tiny tennis balls in it for his journey.

• 1:00:20Speaker 02

  Forgive me, you made him a coffin?

• 1:00:21Speaker 03

  Yeah, I make coffins for the dogs.

• 1:00:23Speaker 02

  For each of your dogs when they die? You make, because you do a lot of woodwork.

• 1:00:26Speaker 03

  Labradors, but yes, I do, I love woodwork, but yeah, yeah.

• 1:00:30Speaker 02

  So you make them a proper, with proper mortis and tenon thing, I mean, you do it nicely?

• 1:00:35Speaker 03

  Yes, I do it nicely.

• 1:00:36Speaker 02

  You make a nice coffin?

• 1:00:37Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:00:38Speaker 02

  It's a lovely thing to do.

• 1:00:39Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:00:40Speaker 02

  And then you put the, the balls that you would.

• 1:00:42Speaker 03

  They were just filled with.

• 1:00:43Speaker 02

  That, that normally you'd throw and they'd catch and bring back.

• 1:00:46Speaker 03

  Yeah, he loved them.

• 1:00:47Speaker 02

  So you put tennis balls in that?

• 1:00:48Speaker 03

  Thirty-three.

• 1:00:49Speaker 02

  Thirty-three?

• 1:00:50Speaker 03

  Tiny ones.

• 1:00:50Speaker 02

  Why did you choose thirty-three?

• 1:00:52Speaker 03

  Was I kept, I kept buying them on Amazon and they never looked enough.

• 1:00:57Speaker 02

  And where do you bury them?

• 1:00:58Speaker 03

  In the garden.

• 1:00:59Speaker 02

  And do you have a little ceremony?

• 1:01:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'd say a few words, yeah.

• 1:01:03Speaker 02

  Well, why not? It's lovely.

• 1:01:05Speaker 03

  But I have a theory. I'm, I'm better at it now, but.

• 1:01:09Speaker 03

  Personally, when Dad died, it was a, well, you've got to be grown up now. You're the man of the house, I was eight. You've got to be grown up, this was the feeling, you can't be sad, you must be grown up. And so the grief was sort of not allowed. And we are funny about death in this country. It's a bit embarrassing and secretive, isn't it? Um, but we don't have those harsh, hard and fast guidelines when our animals die. And in the past, when Mary, when that was terrible, our first spaniel, um. I, I think that your grief for the dog unlocks all these latent locked up.

• 1:01:49Speaker 03

  Uh, griefs in reserve and they can come flooding out. I've felt it in the past, yeah. But then you get better at it. Put one of my horses down last year, that was sad.

• 1:02:01Speaker 02

  Gosh.

• 1:02:01Speaker 03

  I didn't make him a coffin.

• 1:02:03Speaker 02

  I imagine not. You're good, but not necessarily that good, honestly. Any regrets?

• 1:02:10Speaker 03

  Regrets? No.

• 1:02:11Speaker 02

  No, there's no point, is there?

• 1:02:12Speaker 03

  No. None of it was my fault, I bimbed into it all.

• 1:02:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, you did. The great bimbler. Have you ever done Chekhov and Ibsen?

• 1:02:20Speaker 03

  Yes, I played Solioli in The Three Sisters at the Bristol Old Vic once.

• 1:02:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:02:25Speaker 03

  I did lots at the Bristol, I loved it at the Bristol Old Vic, that was my, the best of my theatre experiences.

• 1:02:30Speaker 02

  You'd be good at all that. You want to go back and do a bit of that, in my view.

• 1:02:34Speaker 03

  I mean, I love filming though, Giles, I really love it.

• 1:02:36Speaker 02

  Do you?

• 1:02:37Speaker 03

  I love it, puts you back in the same working day as the rest of the world. It's weird when you work in the theatre, isn't it? You go home, everyone's asleep. Um, all you do, do is hang out with other actors, which is fine, but I like all the guys, the other trades.

• 1:02:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, you do, clearly. You're an interesting phenomenon. So, what, Martin Coons, of this lifetime of bimbling? What has life taught you?

• 1:02:59Speaker 03

  Very little.

• 1:03:02Speaker 02

  With a perfect bimbler's answer. I want now to dig deeper than that. What has life taught you? You can't fall back in your lifeline, mate.

• 1:03:10Speaker 03

  Be, just to be nice to everyone. You do that. It's a good practice, isn't it? I know I didn't always. I've grown into it.

• 1:03:18Speaker 02

  Tell me just for a moment why you didn't always and when was it that you didn't?

• 1:03:24Speaker 03

  I, I think when the sort of success things sort of happened, it can get a bit frenzied, I mean, success.

• 1:03:30Speaker 02

  Were you a man behaving badly for a short while?

• 1:03:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, I was a bit, yeah, yeah. It was sort of, can't blame it on that, but yes.

• 1:03:37Speaker 02

  But you were a bit cocky and?

• 1:03:38Speaker 03

  A bit cocky, yeah, maybe, yeah.

• 1:03:40Speaker 02

  And rude to people and?

• 1:03:41Speaker 03

  Maybe I was.

• 1:03:42Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 1:03:42Speaker 03

  Not, not, not habitually.

• 1:03:44Speaker 02

  But just, you were conscious of it.

• 1:03:46Speaker 03

  Once being sarcastic to someone, say, I hope you're not behaving badly. And, and, and I saw it impact on them and I thought, why did you do that? Because it's the first time it's happened to him, you know, and now, and I'm sure you're aware of it, you generally, by and large. With the selfie thing, but you have to take care of these people because it's first, you know, they can be quite, uh, excitable. The selfies is a, is a different thing, but best not to mind them, isn't it?

• 1:04:13Speaker 02

  Did you ever do therapy?

• 1:04:14Speaker 03

  Therapy? When I was a bedwetter.

• 1:04:18Speaker 02

  Oh, but when you were a little boy?

• 1:04:19Speaker 03

  Yes, I went to a child psychiatrist, and I, I, well, it, it, it sort of happened, coincided with it kind of getting better.

• 1:04:27Speaker 02

  I want to get one of these metal plates, it makes a terrible noise.

• 1:04:30Speaker 03

  You really don't.

• 1:04:31Speaker 02

  What an idea. I mean, this is the nineteen sixties.

• 1:04:34Speaker 03

  Still feel it scratching us through the nasty school nylon sheets. They gave me nylon sheets because they were easier to.

• 1:04:40Speaker 02

  Do you know, I think you needed therapy, not to cope with the bedwetting, but to cope with the treatments for the bedwetting. Did it solve it? I mean, are you?

• 1:04:49Speaker 03

  What, the, the honker?

• 1:04:50Speaker 02

  Are you still bedwetting? You're sharing with us.

• 1:04:52Speaker 03

  No, I haven't for weeks now.

• 1:04:56Speaker 02

  Look, I'm so glad you decided to be nice and come along to Rosebud. I think you're the best, Martin Coons, thank you so much.

• 1:05:02Speaker 03

  Thank you very much, Giles.

• 1:05:09Speaker 02

  Oh, I love that conversation with Martin Clunes. I really did. And, you know, he's my kind of bimbla. It's not a word I knew before. Anyway, now I'm very glad to have had that chat with him. And I'm going to get his latest book. As I mentioned, I've already got It's a Dog's Life. But the book he was talking about, the new book, is called Training John and Murray. It's puppy chaos for Britain's best-known dog lover. And I imagine it's pretty hilarious and it'll be heartwarming, too. I think I've got a heartwarming email to share with you. It comes from Heather Boyd, who writes, hi, Giles and Harriet. We absolutely love Rosebud and Mum and I have a very soft spot for Giles.

• 1:05:53Speaker 02

  Mum is 96, just in case you get any ideas, Giles. I am 60, so you can get any ideas you like with me. Oh, that's quite exciting. We have just listened to the latest episode with Anthony Scaramucci. I always ask Mum at the end of each episode what she thought of the guest. And being bed bound and rather sleepy, she can hardly remember what anyone says. But she's nevertheless fascinated and can always pick up the essence of the person. Thanks to your amazing interviewing. Tonight, after the episode, I suggested that she might like to answer a couple of Giles's questions, and she jumped at the chance. So she's attached a recording. Let's see if this works.

• 1:06:35Speaker 06

  What's your most joyous moment?

• 1:06:38Speaker 07

  Getting married.

• 1:06:39Speaker 06

  Gosh, and why would you say that was so joyous?

• 1:06:44Speaker 07

  Because I think all my life, I, I, what I really wanted was to get married and have a family. And that was the, that was it.

• 1:06:56Speaker 06

  That was the goal?

• 1:06:58Speaker 07

  That was, that was my goal.

• 1:06:59Speaker 06

  Wow.

• 1:07:00Speaker 07

  And the actual wedding day was the, was succeeding, getting my goal.

• 1:07:09Speaker 06

  You never had second thoughts?

• 1:07:12Speaker 07

  No.

• 1:07:13Speaker 06

  That's good. Well, we love your programme, Giles, absolutely love it. And my mother listens to her Rosebud every single night, so she's at least gone through them twice. But we're always very, very impressed with your questions. Thank you. Bye-bye.

• 1:07:32Speaker 02

  Oh, I think it's lovely. Thank you, Heather, and thank you, Heather's Mum. Marvelous. And finally, says Heather, here's a little poem I made up. Some may swoon for Harry Styles, but I have lost my heart to Giles. Older and not such a go-getter, but dressed to kill in a woolly sweater, a listening man, a woman's dream, focuses in like a laser beam. Suave and smooth, with lots of money, very posh, yet very funny, likes to meet his clientele at the Grosvenor Hotel. Maybe I could meet him there for tea and scones and chocolate à clair. Then we'll run away for our sordid affair. That's hilarious. P.S.

• 1:08:17Speaker 02

  If Harriet ever needs a helper on Rosebud, that would be my dream job. The P.S. is serious, and I promise I'd behave. Well, you've got the job, but we don't want you behaving, Heather. Wow. I've got to go and lie down. I wonder if they do cold showers at Grosvenor House? I'm sure they do. Phew, cue the music.

• 1:09:25Speaker 02

  Rosebud is a Plain Jane production, produced by Harriet Jane, hosted by me, Gyles Brandreth, with music by Phil Leopard, and recorded this week at the J.W. Marriott Grosvenor House in London's Park Lane. Room service.

• 1:09:41Speaker 01

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