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Season 1 Episodes

Think of all those old books you find in other people’s houses or on second-hand book stalls. There must be thousands, perhaps millions of books that have been read and then put away or sold on. Each book contains its own world of characters and situations and there is not enough time in the world for one person to read all of them. There might, however, be enough time for somebody to read just the first page…

Correction: When Charles Adrian says that he is in the London Fields Cafe, he means that he is in the Wilton Way Cafe, which is the home of London Fields Radio.

This episode was recorded at the Wilton Way Cafe for London Fields Radio.

This episode has been edited to remove music that is no longer covered by licence for this podcast.

A transcript of this episode is below.

Episode released: March, 2012.

Book listing:

The Hosts Of Rebecca by Alexander Cordell

Microbes and Man by John Postgate

Snowflake by Paul Gallico

Introduction to The Fontana Book of Great Ghost Stories by Robert Aickman

The Travelling Grave by L. P. Hartley

Links:

Charles Adrian

Episode transcript:

Charles Adrian
Hello! My name is Charles Adrian and I'm here in the London Fields Cafe for the first edition of Page One. This is... The radio show is called Page One and the subtitle is The First Page Of Second Hand Books. And that's exactly what it is, okay?

Before we start, I want to give you an image. Imagine you're in somebody's house... a friend or somebody you know has invited you to their house... and upstairs in a spare room or maybe in a top floor landing, you find a bookcase. And the bookcase has a whole range of old books on them that you've never heard of before by authors, some of whom you may have heard a little bit about, some of whom are completely unknown to you. On the back covers there are rave reviews from magazines and newspapers that don't exist anymore. The pages are a kind of light beige colour and the spines are broken or faded in the sunshine. And you take one out and you start reading it just for a moment because lunch is called or the family's going out for a walk, perhaps. And so you just get time to read maybe the first page and then the rest is left to your imagination.

This is the concept that I'm working with for Page One. So there's no thematic link between the books. They come just as they would do from a forgotten bookcase. And I will read just the first page and then the rest of the book will happen in your imagination. But I'm going to start... Before I read anything, I'm going to start by playing a track by Shirley Bassey.

Music
[Something by Shirley Bassey]

Charles Adrian
Okay, so there were two reasons for that track. One is that Shirley Bassey's cover of the Beatles' Something is not played often enough on the radio but the other one is that Shirley Bassey is Welsh and my first book is called The Hosts Of Rebecca by Alexander Cordell.

According to the cover, it's the brilliant successor to Rape Of The Fair Country and the Fair Country is Wales. Reynolds News, apparently, according to the back, says: “Alexander Cordell has done it again. 19th century Wales in all its bawdy strength and warmth and color.” So, I did a bit of research about this book. I found this just in a... in a stall somewhere... I think probably on the South Bank, actually... that stall outside the National Film Theatre. But I did look Alexander Cordell. He wasn't Welsh but he does come 82nd in a list of 100 Welsh heroes and is described as perhaps the most famous adoptive Welshman of his time.

Of course, this gives me a dilemma because I realise that I should read this in a Welsh accent. My Welsh accent is very, very bad. I've decided that I'm going to go with the Welsh accent. But this is really for anybody who has never been to Wales or doesn't know anybody who is Welsh and so won't mind or will be offended. Anybody who is Welsh, you've got about two minutes to go and make yourself a cup of coffee or something. Oh, I should probably tell you... to... maybe to make up for this... a bit of information for you. If you are interested in this guy, you can go to Blaenavon. There is a Cordell museum.

Okay. Here it is. This is The Hosts Of Rebecca. Imagine this is a vintage radio drama, in which the accents are done by people who have no real idea what's going on.

Chapter 1

1839

A PEBBLE HIT the window, bringing me upright.
In the sea of Grandfer's fourposter bed I sat, staring into the nothingness between sleeping and waking, shivering in the pindrop silence.
A handful of gravel at the glass now, spraying as thunder. Out of bed head-first then, scrambling over the boards. Nightshirt billowing, I raised the sash.
“Hush you for God's sake,” I said. “You will have Morfydd out.”
“Then move your backside,” said Joey in the frost below. “It is damn near midnight.”
Twelve years old, this one - a year and a bit younger than me, with corn-coloured hair and the face of a churchyard ghost, starved at that. A criminal was Tramping Boy Joey, the son of a Shropshire sin-eater; raised in a poorhouse, thumped by life into skin and bone, but the best poaching man in the county of Carmarthenshire. Our bailiff had fits with his legs up when Joey was loose, for he poached every meal. You keep from that Joey, said Morfydd, my sister - you can always stoop to pick up trash.
I dressed like a madman in the stinging silence of December with the window throwing icicles into the room, for it was a winter to freeze dewdrops, and the moon was shivering in the sky that night, rolling over the rim of the mountain. Ice hung from down-spouts, water butts creaked solid and the white plains were hammered into silence. Black was the river where the hen coots were skating, and the whole rolling country from Narberth to Carmarthen city was dying for the warmth and tumble of spring.
“You got a woman up there or something?” whispered Joey, blowing on his fingers and steaming.

Okay, so that was The Hosts Of Rebecca by Alexander Cordell. I should have said that the front cover shows a woman in a lilac dress being held by very strong-looking man. He has huge hands. He has one hand on her shoulder, the other on her left buttock. In the background, there are horsemen running away from a burning... it looks like a gazebo but it might be a chapel... on the hillside.

The next book is completely different. It's a book called Microbes And Man. It's a Pelican Original by John Postgate from 1969. It was... It cost thirty new pence, or six shillings in old money. I can't remember how much I paid for it... probably a pound or something. I love popular science books and I also think that microbes are probably more fascinating than most of us imagine. They have such a bad reputation because of those kitchen cleaner ads but, as it says on the back cover: “Life on earth as we know it could not exist without microbes”.

I did have a doubt about the title. It's called Microbes And Man. I think, probably, nowadays you'd have to call that Microbes And Person or perhaps bring out a companion volume called Microbes And Woman. Desmond Morris has done something like that. I think, John Postgate, if you're listening... something to think about.

Okay. Here's the first page of Microbes And Man:

CHAPTER 1
Men and Microbes.

This is a book about germs, known to scientists as microbes (or to some, who cannot use a short word where a long one exists, as micro-organisms). These creatures, which are largely invisible, inhabit every place on Earth where larger living creatures exist; they also inhabit many parts of the Earth where no other kinds of organism can survive for long. Wherever, in fact, terrestrial life exists there will be microbes; conversely, the most extreme conditions that microbes can tolerate represent the limits within which life as we know it can exist.
The ‘biosphere’ is the name biologists give to the sort of ‘skin’ on the surface of this planet that is inhabitable by living organisms. Most land creatures occupy only the interface between the atmosphere and the land; birds extend their range for a few hundred feet into the atmosphere; burrowing invertebrates such as earthworms and nematodes may reach a few yards into the soil but rarely penetrate farther unless it has been recently disturbed by men. Fish cover a wider range, from just beneath the surface of the sea to those depths of greater than a mile inhabited by specialized, often luminous, creatures. Spores of fungi and bacteria are plentiful in the atmosphere to a height of about half a mile, blown there by winds from the lower air. Balloon exploration of the stratosphere as long ago as 1936 indicated that moulds and bacteria could be found at heights of several miles; recently, the U.S.A.'s National Aeronautics and Space Administration has detected them, in decreasing numbers, at heights up to eighteen miles. They are pretty sparse at such levels, about one for every two thousand cubic feet, compared with 50 to 100 per cubic feet at two to six miles (the usual altitude of jet aircraft) and they are almost certainly in a dormant state. Marine microbes have been...

And that's the end of the reading.

Because the book is by John Postgate. I've decided I'm going to play a track by Oliver Postgate, which some of you may recognise. It's the theme tune to Ivor The Engine.

Oliver Postgate
Ivor The Engine, second series, main theme.

Music
[Main Ivor Theme by Vernon Elliot]

Charles Adrian
Okay, so that will be nostalgic for anyone who is old enough to remember Ivor The Engine.

Now, in case you're worried that there's something of a Welsh theme going on here, the... the... it's purely coincidental. My next book is, in fact, set in Switzerland. I read this again recently. This is a book that I've had since I was a child but it is a second hand book. It was bought from Buckinghamshire County Council Library. There's a stamp inside saying: “This book has been withdrawn from the County Library stock. Price 30p.” There's no clue as to why it might have been withdrawn. I think this is an excessively religious book.

I read it again recently. It... You could say it's a beautiful story about a snowflake who falls onto a Swiss mountain, melts, falls in love with a raindrop, has children, floats down rivers, through lakes and out into the sea. But I think it's quitely [sic]... quite a strongly religious tract, teaching us that suffering is worth it as long as other people benefit. I'm just going to read the first page. You can maybe decide what you think. There's not much information here but see how you feel.

SNOWFLAKE

THE Snowflake was born on a cold, winter's day far up in the sky, many miles above the earth.
Her birth took place in the heart of a grey cloud that swept over the land driven by icy winds.
It all came about from one moment to the next. At first there was only the swollen cloud moving over the tops of the mountains. Then it began to snow. And where but a second before there had been nothing, now there was Snowflake and all her brothers and sisters falling from the sky.
Falling, falling, falling! As gently as lying in a cradle rocked by the wind, drifting downward like a feather, blown this way and that, Snowflake found herself floating in a world she had never known before.

And that's obviously where I have to stop. So I'm going to have to leave you to imagine whether this transforms into, as I say, a beautiful story of a snowflake or a rather aggressive religious piece of evangelism. That was Snowflake by Paul Gallico, by the way. One of the world's most popular children's authors. I also remember a story about a cat, which I really liked.

Now, Peter Gabriel, of all people, recorded an album based on this book... I assume it's called Snowflake by Paul Gallico... but the cheapest that it was for sale online was $70. So I haven't got a track by Peter Gabriel.

I'm going to move on to my last book. And I'm going to cheat. Already. This is only my first programme but already I'm going to cheat a little bit. I want to read the introduction from The Fontana Book Of Great Ghost Stories. This is Robert Aickman [/ɑɪkmən/], or Aickman's [/eɪkmənz/], introduction. Bear with me. I think it's wonderful. Again, just the first page:

INTRODUCTION

There are only about thirty or forty first-class ghost stories in the whole of western literature.
The ghost story must be distinguished from the scientific extravaganza on its left, and from the horror story on its right. The writing of science fiction demands primarily the scientific aptitude for imagining the unrealized implications of a known phenomenon. Its composition is akin to the making of an actual scientific discovery, and it is well known that many of the scientific developments first promulgated as fiction, all too soon become fact. The horror story is purely sadistic; it depends entirely upon power to shock. To-day, of course, De Sade has defenders in high places, such as Madame Simone de Beauvoir; and existentialism contends that life itself is properly to be seen as a sequence of minute-to-minute shocks, inducing “nausea” and “vertigo”. The ghost story, however, seems to derive its power from what is most deep and most permanent. It is allied to poetry.
Dr. Freud established that only a small part, perhaps one-tenth, of the human mental and emotional organisation is conscious. Our main response to this discovery has been to reject the nine-tenths unconscious more completely and more systematically than ever before. Art reflects disintegration on the one hand, and commercialised fashion on the other. Religion concerns itself more and more exclusively with ethics and politics. Love is rationalised and domesticated. The most advanced psychologists have begun even to claim that the unconscious mind has no existence, and that unhappiness can be cured physically, like, say, cancer. The trouble, as we all know, is that the one-tenth, the intellect, is not looking after us: if we do not blow ourselves up, we shall crowd ourselves out; above all, we have destroyed all hope of quality in living. The ghost story, like Dr. Freud, makes contact with the submerged nine-tenths.
The ghost itself reminds us that death is the one thing certain and a thing most uncertain; the bourn from which no traveller returns, except this one. The majority of ghost stories, however, have no actual ghost. A better title for the genre might be found, but the absence of the ghost seldom dispels the alarm. It can be almost worse if someone else apprehends the ghost, as in Seaton's Aunt; or if you cannot...

I'm going to leave that with you there. I have a feeling that my voice changed quite soon after I started reading that. I had an idea for a voice that I wanted to read that introduction in and then it just became the same voice that I read the previous... not the previous book... the microbes book in, so perhaps I'm less imaginative than I imagine in my head.

I'm going to read, though, the first page of the first story now because I also love it. It's called The Travelling Grave by L. P. Hartley.

Hugh Curtis was in two minds about accepting Dick Munt's invitation to spend Sunday at Lowlands. He knew little of Munt, who was supposed to be rich and eccentric and, like most people of that kind, a collector. Hugh dimly remembered having asked his friend Valentine Ostrop what it was that Munt collected, but he could not recall Valentine's answer. Hugh Curtis was a vague man with an unretentive mind, and the mere thought of a collection, with its many separate challenges to the memory, fatigued him. What he required of a week-end party was to be left alone as much as possible, and to spend the remainder of his time in the society of agreeable women. Searching his mind, though with distaste, for he hated to disturb it, he remembered Ostrop telling him that parties at Lowlands were generally composed entirely of men, and rarely exceeded four in number. Valentine didn't know who the fourth was to be but he begged Hugh to come.
“You will enjoy Munt,” he said. “He really doesn't pose at all. It's his nature to be like that.”
“Like what?” his friend had inquired.
“Oh, original and - and queer, if you like,” answered Valentine. “He's one of the exceptions - he's much odder than he seems, whereas most people are more ordinary than they seem.”
Hugh Curtis agreed. “But I like ordinary people.” he added. “So how shall I get on with Munt?”
“Oh,” said his friend, “but you're just the type he likes. He prefers ordinary - it's a stupid word - I mean normal, people, because their reactions are more valuable.”
“Shall I be expected to react?” asked Hugh with nervous facetiousness?
“Ha! Ha!” laughed Valentine, poking him gently. “We never know quite what he'll be up to. But you will come won't you?”
Hugh Curtis had said he would.
All the same, when Saturday morning came he began to regret his decision and to wonder whether it might not be...

There we go. Might not be what? If you want to find out, you'll have to read The Travelling Grave by L. P. Hartley or, as I say, simply imagine.

This was the first edition of Page One. I have been Charles Adrian. That's... That's it for today. I think this is probably a little bit less than half an hour now. But, as this is my first edition, perhaps we can imagine that I have been called down for lunch or called out to take a walk and I'm going to leave you with Little Ghost by The White... The White Stripes.

Music
[Little Ghost by The White Stripes]

[Initial transcription by https://otter.ai]