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Episode image is a detail from the cover of The Biography Of A Locomotive Engine by Henry Frith.
For this, the 32nd Second Hand Book Factory, Charles Adrian interviews his father, Roland Gillott, on board the narrow boat Dream Weaver. Bobbing gently, moored to a towpath somewhere along the Kennet and Avon Canal, they discuss the coming anniversary of the First World War, the cheering optimism of Katie Melua and a thrilling piece of family publishing history. The picture used for this podcast is taken from the first edition of The Biography Of A Locomotive Engine and not from the facsimile edition, which has a dirty-looking, shiny, marbled, beige design.
Mention is made in this episode of Mike Batt’s musical based on The Hunting Of The Snark by Lewis Carroll; the book itself is discussed in Page One 49. Mention is also made of an Anna with whom Charles Adrian performed at the Oxford Arms in Camden and of a Rae who lives with Roland; Anna is Anna Tobert, who is featured in Page One 75, and Rae is Rae Bentley Jones/Gillott, who is featured in Page One 143.
Biography Of A Locomotive Engine by Henry Frith is also discussed in Page One 168.
This episode was recorded aboard the Dream Weaver, which was then moored on the Kennet and Avon Canal, 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: 29th July, 2013.
Book listing:
My Dear, I Wanted To Tell You by Louisa Young
Rumpole And The Younger Generation (from The Best Of Rumpole) by John Mortimer
The Biography Of A Locomotive Engine by Henry Frith
Links:
Episode transcript:
Jingle
You're listening... you're listening to London Fields Radio.
Charles Adrian
Hello and welcome to the 46th Page One. This is the 32nd Second Hand Book Factory. This is Page One On The Run for London Fields Radio. I'm Charles Adrian and I'm here with my father Roland on my parents' canal boat, the Dream Weaver. Now I'm going to play... So I'm going to start this with a... with a piece of music that I've chosen. And this is something from the soundtrack to Wes Anderson's film The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou. Now, I chose this over Planes, Trains And Automobiles sung by, [laughing] I think, Dionne Warwick just because I think this is nice and it's very short. It's called Let Me Tell You About My Boat and it's by Mark Mothersbaugh [/mʌðəzbaʊ/]. I think that's how you pronounce his name.
Roland Gillott
Sounds very appropriate.
Charles Adrian
[laughs]
Music
[Let Me Tell You About My Boat by Mark Mothersbaugh]
Charles Adrian
So that was... that was Let Me Tell You About My Boat by Mark Mothersbaugh. So tell me first... tell me first about yourself. This is the part where I ask you to describe yourself. How might you describe yourself?
Roland Gillott
So I'm now retired. I'm a solicitor and I was in practice until March of this year - 2013. And I'm really enjoying my... looking around to see what are the right things to do during retirement.
Charles Adrian
Right. Yes.
Roland Gillott
I see this very much as a... as a new stage, as the next stage of my... of my life.
Charles Adrian
Tell me about the book that you've brought that you like.
Roland Gillott
I've, sort of, had in mind that this next year will be the centenary of the commencement of the First World War.
Charles Adrian
Oh, do you know, I didn't know about that. Of course. Yes. It hadn't even [come into] my head.
Roland Gillott
[speaking over] And so there will be, I think, people beginning to talk about it and to remember that. This book is about the First World War. Its title is My Dear, I Wanted To Tell You and it's by Louisa Young. And it follows different people throughout that war. And I found it interesting in the way that different people reacted differently to a war situation and... and in the way the author interweaves those different lives.
Charles Adrian
Okay. Lovely. Do you want to read the first page?
Roland Gillott
I'll do that.
Chapter One
London, towards Christmas, 1907.
On a beautiful day of perfect white snow, cut-blue sky and historical [sic] childhood excitement, Nadine Waveney's cousin Noel threw a snowball in Kensington Gardens. It hit a smaller boy they didn't know, smack on the side of the face, causing him to gasp and shout and lose his footing, and knocking him on to the uncertain icy surface of the Round Pond. Still shouting, the boy, whose name was Riley Purefoy, crashed through the flimsy [sic] frozen layers – and shot out again, gasping, shaking slush and icy water off himself until his hair stood on end, and laughing uproariously. Noel, who was bigger, stared at him, unsure. Nadine, standing back, smiled. She liked that the smaller boy was laughing. She'd seen him before in the park. He was always scrambling about, climbing things, collecting things. Once they'd come face to face halfway up a conker tree, deep in the green leaves. He'd had a pigeon feather in his hair, like an Indian warrior. He'd laughed then as well.
Jacqueline Waveney, well dressed, high-cheekboned, self-consciously verging on Bohemian, insisted on bringing Riley...
Charles Adrian
Very nice. Thank you. [musing] Mmm. So I imagine some of those people will go to war and some of them will stay at home and...
Roland Gillott
That's right.
Charles Adrian
... harrowing things will happen.
Roland Gillott
Yes. And it takes the story right through the Somme, which was one of the most awful situations when, for all the good intentions and for all the plans, the armaments had been fired and it was hoped that the German armaments would be silenced, and in fact that didn't happen. And, as a result, people were cut down in the most awful way when they went over the top and crossed no man's land. And so we see that from the point of view of... of those who were there and experiencing it, and with colleagues - with... with other soldiers, people who they'd trained with, who they'd effectively grown up with.
Charles Adrian
Wow. Yes. Yes. I... I'm pleased that you've called my attention to that... I hadn't... it hadn't crossed my mind that we're heading into 2014. That's... Yeah, I think you're right. That'll be a big topic, won't it? Wonderful. Okay. Thank you very much for bringing that. That's fantastic. Let's listen to your first track - or your first choice today - which... so I've... for the first one I picked the Katie Melua track Nine Million Bicycles.
Music
[Nine Million Bicycles by Katie Melua]
Charles Adrian
That was Nine Million Bicycles by Katie Melua.
Roland Gillott
Interestingly, it was you who introduced me to Katie Melua. You said, “Dad, I think you'd enjoy her” and...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] I'd forgotten that.
Roland Gillott
... and I... so I went and got the album that this comes from, Piece By Piece. And you were right and...
Charles Adrian
[laughs]
Roland Gillott
... I did enjoy her. And I've... it has meant I have bought other albums of hers as well. She's amazingly optimistic and I think she has this... comes over as having this amazingly optimistic view of life. And I remember... Because what's so interesting of these figures is that they're done in different ways. So... So 9 million bicycles: that's a fact.
Charles Adrian
[laughing] Right.
Roland Gillott
And then 12 billion light years from the edge: that's... that's a guess.
Charles Adrian
Okay.
Roland Gillott
And then 6 billion people more or less: that's more or less, that's not accurate. And I gather... I remember hearing her saying that a scientist picked her up on that distance from the edge and he said, “Well, it should be measurable. It shouldn't be just a guess. In science we shouldn't have a guess. It should be real.” And I found that... that fun that somebody would do that...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Yeah, that's funny. Yeah, that's interesting.
Roland Gillott
... and pick that up and make a point about it.
Charles Adrian
[laughs]
Roland Gillott
One of the things I've... I suppose I also enjoy about Katie Melua is that, as I understand it, she's worked a lot with... with Mike Batt. Mike Batt...
Charles Adrian
Of Bright Eyes fame?
Roland Gillott
... and also of Hunting Of The Snark.
Charles Adrian
Did he write that?
Roland Gillott
And he wrote Hunting Of The Snark, which we went to see as a family.
Charles Adrian
That's right!
Roland Gillott
And we saw it at the Prince Edward Theatre.
Charles Adrian
Okay. I remember liking it. Yeah.
Roland Gillott
And that's right, because we really liked it as a family. But only after quite a short number of weeks, it came off and really we don't hear about it again. And that's a great shame. But what is nice to know is that he's working alongside - or has been working alongside - Katie Melua...
Charles Adrian
Oh I didn't... Oh, good to know.
Roland Gillott
[speaking over] ... and doing things together.
Charles Adrian
Good to know. Excellent. Well, thank you very much for bringing that. Now I'm going to... I'm going to bring out the book that I've brought that I think you should have. And I... So, as I often do, I was looking at my bookshelves and thinking to myself, “What... What should I give you?” And I've brought The Best Of Rumpole. So this is...
Roland Gillott
[speaking over] Ah marvellous.
Charles Adrian
... this is described as “A personal choice by John Mortimer”. And I thought it's the kind of thing that I think you might like. That's all.
Roland Gillott
That's very kind.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] I think you probably already do like Rumpole. Is that right?
Roland Gillott
Yes, I... Yes, he's... Because he's a... Well, he's a larger-than-life character and of course the law has helped to encourage larger-than-life characters...
Charles Adrian
[laughing] Right.
Roland Gillott
... in many ways,.
Charles Adrian
I did think to myself, it's a little close to the world you've just left but hopefully entertaining enough.
Roland Gillott
It's... But it's a different part. Because I was involved in corporate commercial work and so not involved so much in what goes on in... in court, whereas Rumpole is right in the middle of that and so I... it's going to be a refreshment and it'll be really nice to read about something which is different...
Charles Adrian
Wonderful.
Roland Gillott
... from what I was involved in on a day-to-day basis.
Charles Adrian
That's... That's fantastic. Now... So I'm going to read it to you. Now, in my head, it should be read by... Oh, I'm trying to remember who it is that reads it on the radio, or plays him on the radio... I think it's Morris Denham. He has a wonderful voice. So I'm not going to sound like that. But I shall read the first... the first page of the first story which is called Rumpole And The Younger Generation.
I, Horace Rumpole, barrister at law, 68 next birthday, Old Bailey Hack, husband to Mrs Hilda Rumpole (known to me only as She Who Must Be Obeyed) and father to Nicholas Rumpole (lecturer in social studies at the University of Baltimore, I have always been extremely proud of Nick); I, who have a mind full of old murders, legal anecdotes and memorable fragments of the Oxford Book of English Verse (Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch's edition) together with a dependable knowledge of bloodstains, blood groups, fingerprints, and forgery by typewriter; I, who am now the oldest member of my Chambers, take up my pen at this advanced age during a lull in business (there's not much crime about, all the best villains seem to be off on holiday at the Costa Brava), in order to write my reconstructions of some of my recent triumphs (including a number of recent disasters) in the Courts of Law, hoping thereby to turn a bob or two which won't be immediately grabbed by the taxman, or my clerk Henry, or by She Who Must Be Obeyed, and perhaps give some sort of entertainment to those who, like myself, have found in British justice a life-long subject of harmless fun.
When I first considered putting pen to paper in this matter of my life, I thought I must begin with the great cases of my comparative youth, the ‘Penge Bungalow Murders’ [sic], where I gained an acquittal alone and without a leader, or the ‘Great Brighton Benefit Club Forgery’, which I contrived to win by reason of my exhaustive study of typewriters. In these cases I was, for a brief moment, in the Public Eye, or at least my name seemed almost a permanent feature of the News of the World, but when I come to look back on that period of my life...
And there we go. Only about three sentences in but that's the whole [laughing] first page,
Roland Gillott
Which is lovely, isn't it? It's a beautiful introduction and really makes me want to read more.
Charles Adrian
Wonderful. That's... That's exactly as it should be. And, actually, I...
Roland Gillott
Thank you very much.
Charles Adrian
... yeah, I give it to you hesitantly because having... I had to practice that yesterday in my kitchen and I was thinking, “Ah, maybe I should give him [laughing] something else instead and keep that and read it”.
Roland Gillott
[laughs]
Charles Adrian
But there we go. I hope you'll enjoy it.
Roland Gillott
Well, thank you very much indeed. No, I'll look forward to that.
Charles Adrian
And we're going to listen to your second track, which is an [tripping over the name] Anni... Annni... Annie Lennox track. This is Pavement Cracks by Annie Lennox and it may be that it was because we were listening to Annie Lennox in your car that I thought of Katie Melua.
Roland Gillott
Right.
Charles Adrian
I think there may be an association in my head.
Roland Gillott
How interesting.
Charles Adrian
Who knows? But this is... this is Pavement Cracks.
Music
[Pavement Cracks by Annie Lennox]
Jingle
London Fields Radio... it's London Fields Radio.
Charles Adrian
It is, it's London Fields Radio. This is Page One On The Run. I'm Charles Adrian and I'm here with my father on my parents' boat the Dream Weaver on the Kennet and Avon Canal. That was Annie Lennox with Pavement Cracks.
Roland Gillott
Now, I came to Annie Lennox quite late in a way. She was already a solo artist. I didn't know and wasn't listening to her music at the time when she was with The Eurhythmics. But I remember buying the album from which that track came, Pavement Cracks, which was bare, which was produced in 2003. And what came over to me what a... was what a serious piece of work it was. The whole album was prepared in a very careful way with great depth. And one of the things that she writes about is... is pain. And I remember, Adrian, a performance you were in, which you did with Anna at...
Charles Adrian
Oh, yes, yes.
Roland Gillott
You did it at... so it was at the Oxford Arms in Camden.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] That's right. Upstairs. Yeah.
Roland Gillott
And the character that... that you played was often really quite nasty to the character which Anna played.
Charles Adrian
[laughs] That's right, yes.
Roland Gillott
And during this, I remember a time when Anna was clearly feeling pain from something which you had said to her. And your response was: “Deal with it.”
Charles Adrian
[laughs] Yes.
Roland Gillott
And I was interested in that and I've learned from that. And I can see, in a way, that that is what we all have to do. We all suffer pain but we all have to deal with it. And I'm interested that Annie Lennox, I think, is working through that through music and hoping that her music will help those who are in pain - that we will each hear it in a different way but it may help, it may help the pain which we feel.
Charles Adrian
That's lovely. That's lovely. Thank you. So you've... you've really put some thought into your music choices.
Roland Gillott
I've enjoyed doing that.
Charles Adrian
Yeah. That's excellent. Thank you very much for that. That's really nice. And this is your part... This is your section now, in a way. You... You... Or once again your section. What... What book have you brought that you're going to give to me?
Roland Gillott
This book comes in... in quite a plain wrapper. It's a book that's... that's written by my great grandfather and therefore your great great grandfather. It was written in 1891 and I've been excited to find that it's available - it's still available - on the internet.
Charles Adrian
Wow! Amazing!
Roland Gillott
And so I wanted to give you a copy of it.
Charles Adrian
How nice!
Roland Gillott
Now, the front cover and the note on the internet refers to The Bibliography Of A Locomotive Engine. The actual title is Biography - The Biography Of A Locomotive Engine.
Charles Adrian
[laughs] [speaking over] Oh. Okay. Somebody's... Somebody's made a mistake. Right.
Roland Gillott
And... But it's... And I've obtained it from... from Barnes and Noble. And it was on on their list. Yeah. And it's... it's come through the post to me.
Charles Adrian
Wonderful.
Roland Gillott
And I think that... And that's really been quite a revelation to me. I thought that his books, maybe one day, I would find one in a secondhand bookshop. And [that] it's the sort of thing that I might get there. He's... But... But here it is and still listed. It's been... It's a facsimile edition...
Charles Adrian
Oh, yes. I see. Yeah. Yeah. I see.
Roland Gillott
... that's... that's been recreated. Now, he was somebody - Henry Frith was someone - who was really interested in... in railways. A story that's told me is that he couldn't settle to go to bed until he'd seen the Irish Mail go through.
Charles Adrian
[laughs]
Roland Gillott
And that's an interest that's come down and it's come down to my brother Humphrey and to myself. And it was his... it was... it was one of his children who introduced us to that. My grandmother is the youngest, she was born in 1880 - Lillian - but she she lived with the oldest who was Ida, who was born in 1870. And it was Ida, who we called Doidor - they both lived across the road from us when Humphrey and I were growing up - and it was Doidor who took us to see trains. We were right alongside a railway line, which had lots of interesting trains passing through.
Charles Adrian
Oh, lovely.
Roland Gillott
So we had this wonderful experience of... of going and sitting on a station meeting the people who were there. So it's something that's... that's quite deep. But he... he wrote wrote this book, he wrote a number of others and... So...
Charles Adrian
I ke... Thank you very much. You should read...
Roland Gillott
[speaking over] A book for you.
Charles Adrian
You should read the first page of it before you hand it over.
Roland Gillott
I'll do that.
Charles Adrian
Yes. Give us a taste.
Roland Gillott
I'm going to read from the preface.
Charles Adrian
Right.
Roland Gillott
ONE evening in August many years ago—to be accurate, in the year 1856—a rather small boy, for his age, was standing on the platform of the Salt Hill station, near Kingstown, Co. Dublin. A train was approaching bound for the Irish capital ; the engine was named Comet.
The small boy put a question to the engine-driver when he had stopped the train.
“How far are [sic] you goin' ?” asked Paddy, in reply.
The lad was not bound for any station ; he had come down for information only.
“Jump up along wid me as far as the Rock then, and ye'll see the ingine.”
The boy gladly complied, and that short run on the Comet was the first experience upon a locomotive of the writer of this book.
After that he had many rides with his friend upon the Comet ; and the Engineering School at old “Trinity” confirmed the tastes which had come “by nature” more readily than reading or writing. From that time to the present the study of engines, and the practice of driving them when opportunities...
Charles Adrian
Lovely. Thank you. That's wonderful. I have to admit I've... I've often seen the copies that you do have of his books at home and I keep meaning to steal one and take one for... for the second hand podcast that I do.
Roland Gillott
So this is... I have here the original of his...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Oh wow, you have an original. Wow. It's beautiful. Gorgeous.
Roland Gillott
[speaking over] ... which is ac... looks as though it may be signed by him.
Charles Adrian
Oh, wow. How amazing. I have to say the original makes it look a lot more dramatic. There's a... There's a fight going on on the... on the... what do you call that? The...
Roland Gillott
In the cab.
Charles Adrian
In the cab between two people. It's an awful lot more... This... This... This that you've given me, I think they've made some very poor [laughing] choices...
Roland Gillott
[laughs]
Charles Adrian
... in terms of packaging that. This looks like really rather a fun... fun book and this looks like an academic text.
Roland and Charles Adrian
[laughter]
Charles Adrian
But this is going to be great. I'm going to really love reading that. Thank you very much. And thank you very much for... for agreeing to be on the podcast and for taking me out on your boat.
Roland Gillott
Well, it's been a great pleasure.
Charles Adrian
It has been a lovely afternoon. I'm going to finish with the second track that I've picked. This is the track that was identified as - [by] Shanta, my older sister - as my song on my twenty-first birthday and I was... I was expected to dance to this. And I remember... But I do remember... This is one of my favourite songs and I remember listening to this in your study when I was a child because you had the album. This is Elton John and Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.
Roland Gillott
How lovely. We used to... I remember we used to listen to that and listen to it a lot. And partiucularly, actually, at the time we'd recently moved into the house that Rae and I are now living in and there was, sort of, chaos all around still as well. So we may have been in my study but also, you know, were in another room with the... with furniture all over the place. We hadn't quite put it all in place.
Charles Adrian
Wonderful. I'd forgotten the details of that but I do remember and I remember particularly the opening - I think it has the most wonderful opening - and so exciting to listen to it on a record, which is obviously not our experience today but we can imagine that. So, yes, thank you. Thank you very much. This is Elton John with Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.
Music
[Goodbye Yellow Brick Road by Elton John]
[Initial transcription by https://otter.ai]