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Season 2 Episodes

After a slightly unfocused start to this 45th Second Hand Book Factory, Charles Adrian gets down to asking his old schoolfriend Christine Goldsmith (née Morris) about the books and music that she likes. They talk about things that cannot be put right, the correct names for rooms and furniture and the notion that some books might secretly have better beginnings.

This episode has been edited for language.

When God Was A Rabbit by Sarah Winman is also discussed in Page One 172.

For those of you who did not have R.E. lessons at school, “R.E.” stands for Religious Education.

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: 14th January, 2014.

Book listing:

Atonement by Ian McEwan

Watching The English by Kate Fox

When God Was A Rabbit by Sarah Winman

Links:

Page One 172

Charles Adrian

Episode transcript:

Charles Adrian
Hello and welcome to the sixty-somethingth Page One. I actually haven't looked up what number this is. And the reason is because we... the reason is that we recorded this before Christmas...

Christine Goldsmith
We did.

Charles Adrian
... and then I deleted the recording...

Christine Goldsmith
You did.

Charles Adrian
... so this isn't coming in the order that I expected it to come in originally and there was a switching around. So this is now... this is going out on the second... I say the second week of January, it's going to go out on, I think, the 14th of January.

Christine Goldsmith
Okay.

Charles Adrian
It's definitely the 45th Second Hand Book Factory. I'm pretty confident about that. The important thing to say, of course, is that my guest today is Christine... Goldsmith...

Christine Goldsmith
Goldsmith, yeah.

Charles Adrian
... who I still... I'm afraid I still think of you as Christine Morris...

Christine Goldsmith
Okay.

Charles Adrian
... But I will ch... that will change gradually.

Christine Goldsmith
That's fine.

Charles Adrian
I was at your wedding. I know that you got married. I'm a big fan of Tom's. It's not a... It's not a sad thing that you have [laughing] changed your name.

Christine Goldsmith
No. [laughs]

Charles Adrian
I'm going to start... I'm going to kick us off with the first track for today, which is by Fred Astaire. And... yeah, I'm not going to say much more about that. It's just a lovely track. We were out in the rain yesterday and this is Isn't This A Lovely Day by Fred Astaire and the Oscar Peterson Trio.

Music
[Isn't This A Lovely Day by Fred Astaire and the Oscar Peterson Trio]

Charles Adrian
So that was Isn't This A Lovely Day sung by Fred Astaire and accompanied by the Oscar Peterson Trio. It's from the film Top Hat, which is my favourite Fred Astaire film. Christine, describe yourself. How do you describe yourself?

Christine Goldsmith
I am a friend of Adrian's and... well, first and foremost, I suppose, that's my identity. I'm a friend of yours, Adrian.

Christine and Charles Adrian
[laughter]

Christine Goldsmith
I'm... Gosh, I'm a thirty-something strawberry blonde woman who likes walking – sometimes in the rain with Adrian. And I like to think I'm a little bit creative in some ways. Maybe I'll just leave it there.

Charles Adrian
Alright.

Christine Goldsmith
If that's okay with you.

Charles Adrian
That's absolutely fine. Yes, I think I would agree that you're... well, more than a little creative – in several ways, I would say. Now. So, this is a slightly unusual episode of this podcast in that – well, first of all, that we're sitting on your couch and normally I do this over a table. But we're both of us wrapped in blankets in your wonderful sitting room. We'll come to whether or not you...

Christine Goldsmith
You said “couch” just then.

Christine and Charles Adrian
[laughter]

Charles Adrian
We'll come back to that...

Christine Goldsmith
Okay.

Charles Adrian
... later on. Let's... So this is... Because we're... And also because we're redoing this – which is always a bit strange – because I managed to so wantonly delete the file the first time round. It was a lovely recording we did. But it's also, obviously, given me an excuse to come and stay with you out in the countryside. We're going to start with a book that you like. Do you have that with you?

Christine Goldsmith
Yes, I think it's in the bookcase over there, actually. [laughing] Do I need to have it...?

Charles Adrian
[laughs] You're going to read a page from it.

Christine Goldsmith
Oh sh... I forgot.

Christine and Charles Adrian
[laughter]

Christine Goldsmith
I really... I knew that I wasn't very well prepared.

Charles Adrian
[laughs]

Christine Goldsmith
That's fine. If you could just... Right. And it's very strictly page one, isn't it? So I can't go...

Charles Adrian
[speaking over] It's very strictly page one. That's exactly how it goes.

Christine Goldsmith
Okay.

The play – for which Briony had designed the posters, programmes and tickets, constructed the sales booth out of a folding screen tipped on its side, and lined the collection box in red crêpe paper – was written by her in a two-day tempest of composition, causing her to miss a breakfast and a lunch. When the preparations were complete, she had nothing to do but contemplate her finished draft and wait for the appearance of her cousins from the distant north. There would be time for only one day of rehearsal before her brother arrived. At some moments chilling, at others desperately sad, the play told a tale of the heart whose message, conveyed in a rhyming prologue, was that love which did not build a foundation on good sense was doomed. The reckless passion of the heroine, Arabella, for a wicked foreign count is punished by ill fortune when she contracts cholera during an impetuous dash towards a seaside town with her intended. Deserted by him and nearly everybody else, bed-bound in a garret, she discovers in herself a sense of humour. Fortune presents her a second chance in the form of an impoverished doctor – in fact, a prince in disguise who has elected to work among the needy. Healed by him, Arabella chooses judiciously this time, and is rewarded by reconciliation with her family and a wedding with the medical prince on ‘a windy, sunlit day in spring’.

Charles Adrian
[laughs]

Christine Goldsmith
Great that that sentence finishes on page one.

Charles Adrian
Yes, that is very satisfying. And it's a lovely description of the play. What is the book? Tell us what it is that you've chosen?

Christine Goldsmith
Oh, this is...

Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Some people will recognise it but...

Christine Goldsmith
Yes, I'm sure they will. This is Atonement by Ian McEwan, which I read whilst I was on holiday in the Isle of Man in September. And I really liked it because it's... well, it's written at that... Part of it is sort of pre-war and then you have an account of poor Robbie in the war retreating to Dunkirk. And then part of it is after that. And actually you meet Briony – the, sort of, main protagonist – in old age, having met her first of all when she's a teenager. I think last time, [when] we did our mark one recording, I was talking about the fact that she's guilty of this, sort of, somehow quite innocent crime that actually I think I and probably all readers can associate with the fact that that would be so easy to do. And everybody's made mistakes like that but just not quite so consequential and significant ones. And it could have been anybody that just made that decision as a thirteen-year-old that it must have been Robbie who was the criminal. And how sad just as the years must have gone by that... as she grows up and realises what actually happened [indistinct] as the penny drops. I think I could just absolutely imagine that that could have been me. And how terrible that that might affect your whole life [indistinct].

Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Yes, and there's never anything that you can do about it.

Christine Goldsmith
No. Nothing you can do to, sort of, turn back time reality. And it's been that reality – that fact – that I suppose we're all a little bit looking for that atonement about something is very identifiable-with I think.

Charles Adrian
Yeah. Oh, thank you. That's wonderful. I'd forgotten that you'd chosen that. That's great. And the first track that you've chosen, which I've also forgotten – and I don't remember how it goes at all so I'm looking forward to hearing it again – is by Supergrass. And it's called We're Not Supposed To.

Christine Goldsmith
Yup.

Music
[We're Not Supposed To by Supergrass]

Charles Adrian
So that's a track I was not at all aware of in the 90's [laughing] when it came out.

Christine Goldsmith
[laughs]

Charles Adrian
It is wonderful. It's so fun.

Christine Goldsmith
Yes, it mattered a lot to me, that album, actually – I Should Coco. It was very representative of a time when I was a teenager and really wanting to hang out with my older brother's friends and other people that you're not supposed to know and hang out with. But you kind of really want to because the world's fascinating and they might be able to show you things. And as you become an adult, I suppose that... just that excitement for the potential of what life is actually going to be about. And you kind of know that people around you, your parents want to protect you from it but you're kind of bursting with energy to just go and do the dangerous stuff. So that's what it reminds me of.

Charles Adrian
Oh wonderful. Now, I'm going to read the first page of the book that I have already given to you, which you've started. I can see you've got up to age 85, which is pretty good.

Christine Goldsmith
[laughing] Pretty good.

Charles Adrian
[laughs] I'm very pleased that you've started reading this. We talked about it a long time ago – possibly when we were walking the Ridgeway together. Was that when we talked about it first? And this is a book that I think everybody should have whether they're English or not but it is called Watching The English: The Hidden Rules Of English Behaviour by Kate Fox. And, yeah, I loved it myself and I think I passed it around my family and they all loved it. And we all tried to class ourselves – that's one of the things that obviously the book invites you to do – by deciding whether or not you say things like “couch” or “sofa” or “settee”, as we were discussing earlier, and what... So this... I would call this the “sitting room” probably or the “living room”. What would you... What is this room for you?

Christine Goldsmith
This is the lounge...

Charles Adrian
The lounge. Right.

Christine Goldsmith
... which actually, I think, puts me as lower middle class, actually, which...

Charles Adrian
Very possibly, yes. You also have a... some kind of... what is that plant... Albert or... what's the name of the plant?

Christine Goldsmith
Angus.

Charles Adrian
Angus.

Christine Goldsmith
I'm not sure but it's actually only from IKEA. I don't know if that also classes me.

Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Okay. IKEA probably doesn't come into but the type of plant might. I could walk around your garden and assess you based on what kind of plants you have in the garden...

Christine Goldsmith
Wow.!

Charles Adrian
... and what kind of paraphernalia you have, what kind of objects you might have placed in the garden.

Christine Goldsmith
Okay. What about my gardening clogs? Do they do anything?

Charles Adrian
I don't remember. It's possible. Yeah, possible. You'll have to wait until you get to that section of the [book]. It's just a... It's a wonderful book. I'm going to read you the introduction.

ANTHROPOLOGY AT HOME

I'm sitting in a pub near Paddington Station, clutching a small brandy. It's only about half past eleven in the morning – a bit early for drinking, but the alcohol is part reward, part Dutch courage. Reward because I have just spent an exhausting morning accidentally-on-purpose bumping into people and counting the number who said ‘Sorry’; Dutch courage because I am now about to return to the train station and spend a few hours committing a deadly sin: queue jumping.
I really, really do not want to do this. I want to adopt my usual method of getting an unsuspecting research assistant to break sacred social rules while I watch the result from a safe distance. But this time, I have bravely decided that I must be my own guinea pig. I don't feel brave. I feel scared. My arms are all bruised from the bumping experiments. I want to abandon the whole stupid Englishness project here and now, go home, have a cup of tea and lead a normal life. Above all, I do not want to go and jump queues all afternoon.
Why am I doing this? What exactly is the point of all this ludicrous bumping and jumping (not to mention all of the equally daft things I'll be doing tomorrow)? Good question. Perhaps I'd better explain.

THE ‘GRAMMAR’ OF ENGLISHNESS
We are constantly being told that the English have lost their national identity – that there is no such thing as ‘Englishness’. There has been a spate of books bemoaning this alleged identity crisis, with titles ranging from the plaintive Anyone for England? to the inconsolable England: An Elegy. Having spent much of the past twelve years doing research on various aspects of English culture and social behaviour – in pubs, at racecourses, in shops, at night-clubs, on trains, on street [...]

Charles Adrian
That's the end of the first page.

Christine Goldsmith
That's it? Oh.

Charles Adrian
That's it. And then... And one of the things I think I found wonderful about this was that however much we may all think “Oh, I'm a totally individual. I'm not like any... I don't fit into any of these…”, we... you will recognise yourself, I think. I certainly recognised myself in a lot of descriptions – a lot of habits, basically. I think that's what it boils down to: is habits. And a lot of non-English people who I've described this book to – and described certain parts of it to – will say, “Oh, yes, absolutely. I recognise that.” I think Tom and I have talked about pub conversation and pub behaviour. When you get to that part I think he'll enjoy that. That is fascinating, the kind of conversations that you can and can't have at the bar in a pub if you're a regular drinker. So I... yes, I give that back to you.

Christine Goldsmith
Thank you.

Charles Adrian
Enjoy reading that – or enjoy continuing to read that.

Christine Goldsmith
Yes. I am. Thank you.

Charles Adrian
And we're going to play... No, I'm not going to play a track here. Sorry. I'm all out of...

Christine Goldsmith
Yes.

Charles Adrian
I have no concentration this morning for this. And it's what we said: because I haven't actually thought about it this time – I'm just re... I'm using the crib sheet from [laughing] last time...

Christine Goldsmith
Yes.

Charles Adrian
– it's much harder.

Christine Goldsmith
But I think it probably makes it more fluid, in fact. Less...

Charles Adrian
[speaking over] We'll find out.

Christine and Charles Adrian
[laughter]

Charles Adrian
We're going to go straight onto the book that you're giving to me, which I'm going to give to you now because I brought it back with me.

Christine Goldsmith
Thank you. So this is When God Was A Rabbit by Sarah Winman.

Charles Adrian
I love that title! [laughing] I mean, it's just wonderful.

Christine Goldsmith
Partly it's just the title. What a fabulous title because it just makes you wonder, “Gosh, what? When God was a rabbit. Wow!” God really is a rabbit... No.

Charles Adrian
[laughs]

Christine Goldsmith
A rabbit really is called God – I think that's the better way of expressing it – in this book. Elly, who is the main character, is given a rabbit and she is just determined to call it God and that gets her in a huge amount of trouble at school with her R.E. teacher, who sort of casts her out of the class for being so disrespectful. But really I suppose the reason I've chosen this book is [that] something about the way it's written is... is just so heartwarming because it sort of combines all the realities of life. All the weird quirkinesses and all the things that don't make sense and actually never get explained in life, where they always just remain a bit of a mystery: they're all in this book and the author feels no need to, sort of, tie up all of those things. She... It remains quite mysterious, quite a bit of it. And it's really funny, the way Elly is so vociferous and just talks as a child about everything she's thinking and feeling. And I can really identify with saying things that make people go, “[gasps] You're not supposed to say that”, which... Elly says everything as a child that may or may not be offensive. And I suppose it combines all of that humour with some of the really sad things that happen in life: losing friendships and family members ultimately and difficult relationships. It all happens. And it all just feels quite real. It feels to me how life really is, this book. [It] just felt a little bit like coming home.

Charles Adrian
How wonderful. Read the first page.

Christine Goldsmith

I DIVIDE MY LIFE INTO TWO PARTS. NOT REALLY A BEFORE and After, more as if they are bookends, holding together flaccid years of empty musings, years of the late adolescent or the twentysomething whose coat of adulthood simply does not fit. Wandering years I waste no time in recalling.
I look at photographs from those years and my presence is there, in front of the Eiffel Tower maybe, or the Statue of Liberty, or knee-deep in sea water, waving and smiling; but these experiences, I now know, were greeted with a dull tint of disinterest that made even rainbows appear grey.
She featured not at all during this period [...]

Oh, I've just realised something. This isn't the start that I read last time. I didn't like this start.

Christine and Charles Adrian
[laughter]

Christine Goldsmith
There's another start, I think. Because it doesn't seem to convey what the book is. Can I just read the other start. [laughs]

Charles Adrian
[laughing] Okay.

Christine Goldsmith
[laughing] Okay.

I DECIDED TO ENTER THIS WORLD JUST AS MY MOTHER [...]

[laughing] Just the idea that there might be an alternative start to a book...

Charles Adrian
[laughs]

Christine Goldsmith
... that's much better...

Christine and Charles Adrian
[laughter]

Christine Goldsmith
... [indistinct] that sort of prologue.

Charles Adrian
Yes, okay.

Christine Goldsmith
Do you know what I mean?

I DECIDED TO ENTER THIS WORLD JUST AS MY MOTHER GOT off the bus after an unproductive shopping trip to Ilford.

Charles Adrian
[laughing] [quietly] This is ringing a bell.

Christine Goldsmith

She'd gone to change a pair of trousers and, distracted by my shifting position, found it impossible to choose between patched denims or velvet flares, and fearful that my place of birth would be a department store, she made a staggered journey back to the safe confines of her postcode, where her waters broke just as the heavens opened. And during the seventy-yard walk back down to our house, her amniotic fluid mixed with the December rain and spiralled down the gutter until the cycle of life was momentously and, one might say, poetically complete.
I was delivered by an off-duty nurse in my parents' bedroom on an eiderdown that had been won in a raffle, and after a swift labour of twenty-two minutes my head appeared and the nurse shouted Push! and my father shouted Push! and my mother pushed, and I slipped out effortlessly into that fabled year. The [...]

Charles Adrian
[laughs] Oh, thank you so much. That's When God Was A Rabbit by Sarah Winman. Lovely. Thank you. I haven't started reading this yet but I'm going to soon, I think. This is very close to the top of my list of future books.

Christine Goldsmith
Great.

Charles Adrian
I'm looking forward to it. Oh, this has been lovely, Christine. It's been lazy and a little bit chaotic, I think.

Christine Goldsmith
Yes.

Charles Adrian
And, yeah, it's been very nice. I've been Charles Adrian, I should say. I've been thinking and I think it's probably the 65th Page One. So it's retirement time probably...

Christine Goldsmith
Yes.

Charles Adrian
... is what's happening here. It's the 45th Second Hand Book Factory, I think. You've been Christine Goldsmith.

Christine Goldsmith
Yes.

Charles Adrian
We've been in your lovely house in the countryside. Thank you so much.

Christine Goldsmith
My pleasure. Thank you.

Charles Adrian
And this is your last track, which is a track that I know but it's not a track that I've ever been that excited about. It's quite fun to listen to. Why do you want this one?

Christine Goldsmith
Really, it's because it featured in a school play I was once in when I was a sea anemone. And I thought my teacher, Mr Wright, had written it and I rushed home and told my dad that Mr Wright had written this wonderful song that I was dancing in. And it turned out that... that he didn't. It was, in fact, The Beatles.

Charles Adrian
[laughs] And here they are with their version of it.

Christine Goldsmith
[laughs]

Charles Adrian
This is Octopus's Garden from Abbey Road.

Music
[Octopus's Garden by The Beatles]

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