Gyles's diary, episode 18

0:00More rosebud? Do we need more rosebud? Well, it seems we do. Because on a Tuesday, we drop something that is a little bit different. It might be an interview, a conversation with somebody who's a little bit unusual. It might be my diaries. It'll definitely be me, Giles Brandreth, with my producer and friend, Harriet Jane. If you want less of her, just listen to the Friday episodes.

0:43It's Tuesday. That means it's more Rosebud. I'm Giles Brandreth, and I'm speaking to you from our studio, the Rosebud Studio, which is in Park Lane in London's, well, Mayfair. It's a very deluxe address. We have a very deluxe studio, courtesy of Grosvenor House, where we invite distinguished people on a weekly basis to come and have a conversation about their first memories, and we see where it takes us. every other tuesday i get together with my friend and producer harriet jane and we leaf through my diaries and we're still me as a very young person even still a teenager come on to the diaries in a moment but harriet how are you today yeah i'm fine thanks i haven't i forgot to eat breakfast do you know it's such a mistake what is your breakfast normally toast sometimes scrambled egg yeah do you know a good breakfast if i wish i made the time for this and maybe during the summer i'm going to scrambled egg avocado tomatoes bit of smoked salmon oh a little bit of cheese what do you think does that sound good very good because instead what i often i'm having now is just a chunk of cheese a bit of marmite and some small tomatoes oh that's okay isn't it well it's protein i think that sounds good you should have a proper breakfast yes i know anyway but you haven't come alone today i'm slightly sort of startled by this you brought a young man with you that i mean yes yes is the answer yes you brought a young man with you he is a colleague and a friend of rosebud podcast rather than someone randomly the reason that i didn't eat breakfast for example um tarma it's beethoven it's tarma matheson aka beethoven can i say you understandably had reservations when i said i'd seen tarma on stage and loved him and i said let's as an experiment he is so soaked i'm sure in beethoven let's interview him as though he were beethoven and neither of us knew when he sat down in fact at my home to be beethoven whether it would work.

2:51I don't think he knew it would work. It has been one of our most successful and popular episodes, which is interesting because we've had, you know, extraordinary living people, scientists, Nobel laureates, Olivier Award winners, Oscar winners. But Beethoven has been dead for a while, but he's brought to life by this Australian. Can we say hello to him? Tom, how are you? Hello. Thank you so much for having me back. It's nice. You're based in London now, are you? I am indeed. I am, yes, in North London. And you do a variety of shows about a variety of people. Yes. And the Beethoven one we loved, but you do others.

3:28And I've seen the Byron show, Lord Byron. Yes, yes. Would I be right in describing Lord Byron as the first modern celebrity? Absolutely, yes. He, as it were, didn't, as it were, invent celebrity, but there was nothing like him before that. Only great political leaders of the nature of Caesar or possibly Napoleon, of course, as contemporary, but Byron was famous for being famous almost. I mean, he first got famous for Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, which he wrote while he was abroad, and it was this extraordinary poem which seemed to encapsulate the entire nascent romantic ethos and just became a sell-out success, which is rather strange now when you read it because it's rather archaic, but its central character, Childe Harold, was this dark, brooding, dangerous, scandalous character who had had to leave the shores of England because of the scandal that was pursuing him.

4:30And that was sort of Byron himself. He was so Byronic. He was rather Byronic, yeah. And he had lots of interesting affairs, didn't he? He had affairs with everybody. Yeah, including his own family. Men, women. Men? Absolutely. And with, worst of all, his own half-sister. Wow. Oh, dear. He was the most spectacularly scandalous person, I think, in British history. And he's still scandalous. So when I do my show, people still gasp at what he did. And do you know as much about him as you know about Beethoven? I think so, yeah. So I think maybe as a Christmas treat later in the year, we might invite Thomas, if he doesn't mind, to come back and be Byron for us.

5:12Fabulous. And you can dress up as Lady Caroline Lamb. was she one of his conquests? Yes, she was. You can come. No, I don't want to be the half-sister. No. That's too much. Is that too much? Yeah. Is that too much? Incest is beyond the pale still, isn't it? Is it? Yes. Giles. You can confirm with me that it was Arnold Bax who said, in this life you should try everything once except incest and folk dancing. I thought it was specifically Morris dancing, but I don't insult Morris dancers all around the world. So, yeah, anyway. Who was his best friend, Lord Bowden's best friend? We had various best friends along the way.

5:46They were also possibly lovers, but he ended up being quite lonely. I think he died in Greece, in Missolonghi, having gone to try and help expel the Turks from Greece. I was really asking who his best friend was, because I'll come dressed as that person. Oh, I see. Because you're going to be dressed as Barron. Well, I tell you, interestingly, he was very, very good friends with Percy Bysshe Shelley, who, of course, is an enormous supporter, and it was Shelley and his wife, Mary Shelley, and the doctor John Polidori, Byron's doctor John Polidori, who all sat together and said, let's write a horror story.

6:21And John Polidori came up with a story called The Vampire, which is the first sort of, it's a precursor to Dracula. And Mary Shelley came up with Frankenstein. So that came out of that. And they were all in a drugged up state somewhere in Switzerland, I think. We're going to end the year on a high. This might be our New Year's Eve special. Look, we're just whetting people's appetite. You've got to stay tuned to Rosebud, because Lord Byron will be one of our guests before Christmas. I mean, an extraordinary range of people we have, including Beethoven and Lord Byron, thanks to Tama. Your show about Beethoven, when you listened to the conversation, if you haven't listened to it, please do listen to it, you said afterwards, oh, I meant, you asked me about Mozart and I didn't tell you everything I wanted to tell you.

7:05What did you want to tell us about Mozart? Well, if I can answer this in the guise of Beethoven again, I would say this which is you asked me about the death of Mozart and I had a thought I wanted to finish because I think it has enormous ramifications for the entire field of art I was of course enormously upset distressed when this great man died he was the guiding light to all of us when he died it was as though the sun had been snuffed out everything I had ever done had been refracted through his example. But I heard something at that time which brought me comfort and had for me enormous meaning with regard to the power and significance and purpose of art.

7:55And it's this. An English composer by the name of William Herschel, whose chief fame rests on his astronomical discoveries, it was he who added Uranus to our solar system, proposed that the stars which fret the evening sky are not mere points of light, but vast suns like our own, burning incalculable miles away. And some of them are so far distant that their light still falls on us that they themselves have burnt out long ago. so the heavens it seems are illuminated by the light of bygone suns and so it is in my opinion with the firmament of music Mozart is dead but his light streams on forever the wonder of art is that it allows us to speak beyond the season of our life and to evade the bindings with which death ties up our tongues.

9:00And the work of artists is like the star field on a cloudless night. It beautifies and brightens the all encroaching darkness. And I may just hope that such a fate might befall my work and me in time to come. And perhaps it can this August. which is a cue thank you for that Beethoven thank you for that Tom you are remarkable in the way you've absorbed Beethoven he's come into your head into your heart I think into your soul it's very moving the way you talk about him that's a brilliant description of the impact of the dead artist on the living world wonderful beautifully done you mentioned August that's because what you gave us was the essence of Beethoven in our conversation but you've created a show Yes.

9:55It's not a concert, it's a show, really. It's a show. It's a play about Beethoven's life, but there's a concert of his music threaded through it. Gosh. So that at certain moments, at certain salient moments in his life, the music sweeps forth. So we push you to an incredibly dramatic, dynamic moment in his life, and then the music takes over and sort of converts the drama into music, and the effect is extraordinary. so you have this constant alternation of words and music and it's incredibly uplifting who provides the words uh that's me and two other actors and you're you're playing i'm actually i play beethoven and they play other characters they play everybody else in his life yeah that's right yeah the the conceit is that they're the two people who wrote the first sort of mini biography of beethoven those sort of reminiscences of his life were two friends of his one was a student and one was an old friend and uh and they're writing the biography and as they write it it smokes up before you in imagination and you see and hear his life and it's so so important to hear Beethoven's life as well because it's inseparable from the music and who uh provides the music uh Jason Gillum who is a pianist I've worked with many many times I in my opinion one of the best pianists in the world at the moment and a wonderful young quartet called the quartet concret but we also have a cameo appearance by the English Chamber Choir.

11:20Good grief. So it's going to be a nice big show, but big in the sense of its ideas as well. It sort of has, it goes from the earthy to the cosmic. And where is this being performed? At Opera Holland Park. Opera Holland Park, I've been there. It's wonderful. This is big bananas. Yes. It's a thousand people. Yes, so we have to fill it with a thousand people. Otherwise, I have to move to Mexico and change my identity. So this is Holland Park Opera, which is in Holland Park in London. Yes, right in the centre of Holland Park. And how do people get tickets? It's on the 6th and 8th of August, and you can go to the Opera Holland Park website, and the play is called I Shall Hear in Heaven.

12:01Is that a phrase of his? Apparently he said it. Well, it's probably apocryphal, but it's a great idea for a title, and it becomes sort of the central moment in the show. Of course, Beethoven's deaf for the latter half of his life and didn't hear half the musics that he gave us. We're going to go, aren't we? Definitely. Oh, yes. I'm going on the 6th. Oh, well, I'd better come with you. Yeah. Then we can meet Rosebud people. We can say hello to them. Yes, yes. So come on the 6th or the 8th. Or the 8th. Well, I might go on the 8th then. Oh, I see. Well, no, I'd like to go with you. Yeah, that's a good idea.

12:35You can go twice. I want to go twice so we can spread the Rosebud love. Yeah. Okay, we'll say goodbye to you now because we've got to read our diaries because that's what this week's episode is all about. Well, you're very kind for having me on again. Thank you. Seriously, it was brilliant, the Beethoven episode. We look forward to Lord Byron and to hearing his story later in the year. And meanwhile, 6th or 8th of August at Opera Holland Park in London. What's their website? Oh, yes. I think it's just operahollandpark.com. Operahollandpark.com. Lovely. So we're going to see Tama on the 6th of August this year, 2025.

13:11Yep. And in my diary, I'm taking you back to the 6th of July, 1967. It's a long time ago. How long ago is it? I can't do the maths, Charles. Is that 60 years? It's interesting. 58 years. I'm very interested in Tama. And I'm interested in you because you're both into music. And interestingly, all my girlfriends at school were really serious musos. Sally, the girlfriend who's in these diaries, I'm in America. during the gap year, she's still at school. She was seriously into music. I mean, music was everything to her. The summer was the proms. That was everything. My previous long-term girlfriend, Jackie, she played the violin.

13:54She was into music in a big way. And I think still is. So I've never got into music. My friend Sheila Hancock tried to get me into music and did make me listen to some music on headphones. and I was transported by her and I did cry. She doesn't know. I cry, cry, break in me anyway. But I did cry. So, I don't know. I prefer words, that's all. Yeah, but songs are both, aren't they? Yeah, songs. I like a good song. I like a good French song. Oh, you like French, yeah. I like those French chansons. Give me le chartrenais. That's the thing I love. Yeah, yeah. Boom, gaffe tout le monde fait boom. And I'll take out the boom, ba-ba-ba-boom, ba-ba-ba-boom.

14:42Let's get on with the diary. We're going to America. It's the 6th of July, 1967. I'm in my gap year. And I seem to be writing this from somewhere in Houston, Texas. It's Houston, I think they say it, don't they? Houston. Houston, Texas. We have a problem. Chevy Chase, 3359. Oh, yes. This is, I don't know if we've talked about this before. During this gap year, I wanted to travel. I earned money when I was in Baltimore teaching to school. I had family I visited in New York. I had family I visited in Toronto. I didn't have much money. I was earning extra money doing poetry readings for a fee, giving talks for a fee.

15:18I had enough money to travel around, a bit on the Greyhound bus, but the Greyhound bus I found pretty heavy going. I liked to go on airplanes when I could. but I was very lucky because I was able to stay either with relations or with people I'd had introductions from, from the Park School where I taught in Baltimore, or from my school in England, Beedales. They had a list of alumni and I was visiting them in case they wanted to support the school. I was to encourage them to do that, but they obviously put me up for the night. Oh, great. So here I am. I'm going to go to Houston where I have relatives called the Simons.

15:52H. Gardner simons was the head of the family and he had lots of well you're going to discover that yeah okay just just a quick question before we start had you met any of these people before or were you just meeting them fresh no i had met none of these people before so i was coming 18 um english boy yeah coming not with very much luggage i seem to think i just had a briefcase a sort of rather heavy English type briefcase in which I was carrying books. I felt I'd taken, I took books all over America about economics because I was going to Oxford to do philosophy, politics and economics. And I felt I had to read the economics.

16:30So I had these economic textbooks, which I carted all over America for a whole six months. And I don't think I opened them once. No, no, because you keep, every now and then you give yourself a hard time about, oh, I still haven't read. Oh God. And what about, did you take any clothes with you? I had a duffel bag. Yeah. And in the duffel bag, I think I had a change of shirt and underpants, that sort of thing. Maybe I had two shirts and two pairs of underpants and some socks. I did not have very much in the clothes I was wearing. And everywhere I went, you know, I put them in the washing machine.

16:59Gosh, you're a funny person. You had some economics textbooks and a change of clothes in a briefcase. I mean, that's hilarious. I was ridiculous. Oh, dear. And I think I was still talking all the time, too. I was turning up and sort of burbling away. Oh, they probably found you really entertaining. You know, it's only for a night, isn't it? Yeah, it is. They probably really enjoyed it. I hope so. Oh, and you probably, I'm sure you had lovely table manners, didn't you? I did have good manners. Yeah. I did have good manners. Would you take a present when you arrived? Do you think you'd give them something?

17:32Oh, did I turn up with a hostess gift? Maybe not, because you didn't have much money. You just come off the Greyhound bus. And I think I was only 18. Yeah. You know. Yes, you can get away with it, can't you? So I think they welcomed me. Yeah. Everyone was very generous. I hope I was good at sending thank you letters. I'm sure you were. I expect I was, because I was well brought up in that regard. And nowadays, I'm really anxious about thank yous. Well, you know, after we've had guests on the podcast, we had a wonderful guest the other day, which I haven't put out yet. And 48 hours went by, and I suddenly woke up in the middle of the night thought, oh, I haven't sent a thank you message to him.

18:14So I went to the loo. This is two in the morning. I just hoped my wife wouldn't wake up and noticed I was away for half an hour while I was tapping away on my mobile phone sending him the thank you letter. 2 a.m. Yeah, I just felt bad. I just felt bad. Yeah, that's good, Giles. Anyway, let's get on with this. Yeah. Thursday, 6th July, 1967. The address I'm writing from is 3359 Chevy Chase, Houston, Texas I flew here yesterday morning via Atlanta Morris, the Simons houseman and chauffeur, met me at the airport He's a charming man black, as all the servants are gracious and devoted to the family He has been with them for 18 years In the car, I sat next to him until we reached the gates of the estate in River Oaks, where the money and the mansions are when he pulled up and suggested I might prefer to sit in one of the back seats.

19:11That's what Mr. Simons would expect. My cousin, H. Gardner Simons, 63, is an oil man and a successful one. This is the kinsman I mentioned to you, Ariat. Under the Simons' leadership, Teneco, it developed into a huge industrial complex diversified interest reporting over four billion dollars uh in that year i think which was well around that time anyway it was it was a huge thing and he was hugely successful well it says it here he is chairman and chief executive of the tenneco oil company and keeps a house in mexico a ranch in texas an apartment in new york a place at brandreth in the adirondack mountains as well as the palatial home where I am now.

20:04Gardner and his wife have five children from 40 to 23. As a family they have more than that number of cars. I've only seen five but I know there are more. The number plates go S1, S2, S3 etc and today at the Tenneco building I came across S12. The house is a marvel. My suite's not bad. Large bedroom, larger sitting room, boudoir and bathroom with a vast square bath. The bath is actually too big. Sitting in the middle, you can't reach the taps or the sides. When I arrived, I asked for a telephone, instantly installed, and a typewriter brought out from Tenneco. My bed is made by the maid. My clothes are laundered and replaced before I know it.

20:50In a moment I may go for a swim in the pool beneath the palms on the patio. When I arrived, Mrs. Simons greeted me quite formally and gave me lunch. Mexican food, hot and good, served by Morris. And then Quita appeared. She is 23. Susan is her proper name. Attractive, intelligent, and though to the right of Duncan Sands, a raving radical by local standards. the radio blares out we need a great deal more of jesus and a lot less rock and roll that's how they actually feel in these parts quita has been my good-humored houstonian guide yesterday afternoon she drove me through town to visit the magnificent campus of rice university to see the astrodome the largest stadium in the world on a complex covering 260 acres at a cost of 31 million with 6 ,000 tonnes of air conditioning and a$2 million scoreboard.

21:50And the medical centre, again, the largest in the Western world with 10 hospitals and almost as many medical schools. Tomorrow, she is taking me to the humble oil building, the tallest in town, if not in the world, to lunch with her brother, David, in the petroleum club on the 43rd floor. It's a club for oil men. The workers eat in the cafeteria below, known as the linoleum club. Everything here is biggest and best, including the prison. And that's the strange thing. What the Texas Department of Corrections has created at Huntsville really is impressive. I'm just back from a day there. I began at the diagnostic center where the prisoners first arrive and where their needs are actually assessed.

22:36The main jail is for recidivists and amazingly, there are proper education and training programs on offer. the men aren't just cooped up in their cells all day things are happening i was able to talk to the men quite freely when they discovered i was english they wanted to know if i'd met twiggy they seemed quite taken with twiggy swinging london is something everybody is aware of in america even the poor unfortunates on death row the one thing that worries them is the way we treat the Union Jack. The idea of using the national flag to decorate underpants is deeply shocking to them. Here, there's a federal law to protect the stars and stripes from insulting behaviour.

23:31Saturday, 8th July, 1967. It is two in the morning. It's Sunday, in fact, and I'm writing on the floor in New Orleans Airport waiting to board Delta Flight 121 to Los Angeles. It's scheduled to depart at 4.31am. I've had a long, long day. What a bit memorable. I started the day with Quita's friend, John Shanahan, a good man. He took me around the poor areas of Houston. He's one of the directors of the federal poverty programme there. We concentrated on an area known as the bottom, because that's exactly what it is. We went into homes that were no more homes than dilapidated shacks. I saw a single room where a family of ten was living in filthy conditions, without a bathroom or a kitchen.

24:23They didn't even have a TV, and in the US, a TV is a necessity. The heat was unbearable, the squalor truly desperate. The poverty is not only among the Negroes, though they are the largest group, but among Mexicans and whites. According to John, these last are the most difficult to help. I flew out of Houston at 4.25 Marvelling that so much poverty and so much wealth could exist side by side Fifty minutes later I landed in New Orleans I put my luggage, briefcase and duffel bag in a locker And boarded a bus to go downtown I got off at Canal Street The nation's widest, most brilliantly lighted thoroughfare And walked into the French Quarter, the Vieux Carré I wandered down Charter Street to Jackson Square.

25:15The charm is real. Small streets, oh, hanging houses with intricate lace railings. It reminded me of Bruges in Belgium. I bought a newspaper and wandered across Jackson Square over a disused rail track and up a slight hillock. And there it was, the Mississippi. I stood for quite a while gazing at the huge, still river. Sometimes I think I'm not me But a character in a novel Félix Krul Or Julien Sorel In Le Rouge et le Noir I wandered back Towards the French market And into the beautiful Basilica of St Louis Then across to Bourbon Street To see the girls That's what Bourbon Street is famous for On my way I stopped for a Coke And opened the paper I read of the death of Vivian Lee.

26:09I was stunned and surprised by my own distress and amazed too. I was in New Orleans and reading of the death of Vivian Lee. I wandered around town until I found it, and I did. A streetcar named Desire. Do you remember this? Do you know this, that Vivian Lee Harriet appeared as Blanche Dubois in A Streetcar Named Desire? Yeah, great play. And obviously a movie too. So anyway, I decided to go to the movies and I went to Spartacus for no other reason than Sir Laurence Olivier was in the cast. It wasn't bad. Of course, Vivian Lee had been married to Laurence Olivier. When the show was over, I decided to take a cab out here to the airport, thinking that New Orleans late on a Saturday night is not the best place for a stranger to be hanging around at a bus stop.

27:02Good public transport in this country is pretty much non-existent. The black people really are treated as second-class citizens. The airport is completely deserted. I've been thinking about Sal as well as Quita and Susie Blastine. I've just bought a copy of T.H. White's The Making of the President, 1960. I'm going to start it now. I know I should be reading An Introduction to Positive Economics, but I just can't face it. Add a chocolate malted for supper. Tasty. Thursday 17th July 1967. Yesterday I visited St. Sophia Greek Orthodox Cathedral, the most beautiful church I've ever seen, full of lights and extraordinary colour.

27:52Then I went to the area of Los Angeles called Watts, home of the race riots of 65, 34 people were killed. It's a depressing district. I spent some time looking at Watts Towers, a huge series of statues, oil derricks, Gothic cathedral, created over 33 years by one Simon Rudia, made out of broken glass and junk and cement because I wanted to do something for the United States because I was raised here, you understand. I wanted to do something for the United States because there are nice people in this land. And I'm with some of the nicest of them now. I'm on the beach at South Laguna, looking out over the Pacific Ocean, watching the orange sun go down.

28:40Laguna is a vacation beach and an artist's colony. South Laguna is much less spoiled. It's a kind of earthly paradise. And the crowd I've fallen in with are giving me a flavor of alternative America. My hosts are delightful. He, Bill, is a mild-mannered Jewish doctor from Baltimore. She, Christina, is unorthodox Greek. Stout, funny, somewhat crude, earthy, messy, a Georgie girl with enormous buck teeth and bare feet. Her brother is Ike Pappas, the CBS newsman I've often seen on TV. He was there when Jack Ruby shot Lee Harvey Oswald. He's the man who said, Oswald has been shot holy mackerel good grief isn't that extraordinary in fact it turns out because I did some research on this later there's a shot Oswald has been shot Oswald has been shot a shot rang out mass confusion here all the doors have been locked holy mackerel this is interesting that by chance I'm meeting the sister of this man who at that time was obviously famous in America her father lives with them Nestor Pappas.

29:49He has great charm and just potters about drinking beer, writing home to Greece and sleeping. They have two little girls aged two and four and a babysitter aged 13. The babysitter does all the work. Also here, this is an eccentric beach party, is an exhausting Catholic lady, a mother of seven, who wants a break from her husband and children, and a middle-aged hippie who glories in the name of Rusty de la Rosa. She has abandoned her husband in New York, dresses strangely, takes drugs, and has brought her two daughters out west in search of freedom and enlightenment. The daughters are called Michelle and Kim.

30:31I have fallen in love with Kim, completely. There has been much talk of the feminine mystique. Now, this may interest our older listeners. Do you know about this book? No. Oh, what is very interesting to me, Harriet, about this episode is this was a revolutionary time in America. So much has changed because of the 60s. You can see I'm very aware of the racial discrimination, the class division between the black people and the white people. I mean, I'm just seeing it every day and reporting it. And the whole hippie thing was huge. These were hippie people that I was meeting with. But everybody was talking about this book.

31:15Every woman you met. It was a huge bestseller. It was by Betty Friedan. It had been published in 1963, which was a few years before. It basically brought to light the lack of fulfillment in many American women's lives. It was one of the books that triggered, in the best sense of the word, women's lib. Yeah. so you couldn't meet a woman and they wouldn't be talking about that so here i am this 18 year old boy with meeting a lot of women who seem much older than me and i realize they were in their 30s they seem much older than me and they would all be talking about this book and i'd be listening with big flapping ears interesting wednesday the 19th of july 1967 san francisco is another world It is the western city I had been promised, the palace of the Pacific, except that it is full of hippies and Chinese.

32:12Chinatown here is the largest Chinese community outside the Orient, and the hippies are everywhere. San Francisco is their Mecca, and the Haight-Ashbury district, where I'm writing this, is their Holy of Holies. I've just tried to take a discreet photo of one of the hippies. He has a halo of frizzy hair that must be three feet in diameter. I do not exaggerate. How would I describe hippies to the man in the moon? Well, they're beardy weirdies, bedecked in beads, long-haired and youthful mostly. They live communally. They take drugs, some harmless, others not, have bare feet, and I think can be divided into two groups.

32:54The dropouts, intellectual, social failures by mistake or design, and the radicals, angry and rejecting the current values. They are all over San Francisco, slouching and sleeping, selling their newspaper, smoking their pot, dancing and singing. I don't believe in Jesus, the hippie said to me. Trust no one over 30, and Christ was 33. That's a fun little poem. Friday the 21st of July 1967. Well, the thing about a diary is it's a time capsule. It just takes you back. Anyway, Friday 21st of July 1967. Yesterday, San Quentin, a traditional penitentiary getting predictable results. No one emerges better from the experience.

33:46Today, a fascinating morning in one of the municipal courts with Judge Harry Lowe, recently appointed and the first Chinese judge in California. Here, it's a political appointment. Lowe's appointment was one of Democrat Pat Brown's last acts as governor. Ronald Reagan would never have chosen him. The actor and Republican Ronald Reagan had just succeeded Pat Brown as the governor of California. I sat on the bench next to the judge. The day began at nine with all the drunken disorderly charges. The judge dealt with 45 cases in 30 minutes. All but one pleaded guilty. Most regular offenders were given 30 to 60 days in the county jail.

34:29Others were given suspended sentences. A few were fined, a few put on probation, three sent to alcoholic school. Judge Lowe admitted freely that this is rubber stamp justice and does no one much good, though he does try to look out for the first and young offenders. He admitted that his usual sentence to the county jail is meaningless, particularly so since it's run by a sheriff with a known fondness for the bottle. For the rest of the morning, Judge Lowe sat in his criminal court with a typical list of cases, from shoplifting to prostitution. A number of hippies appeared, having marijuana and sleeping in the park.

35:09The judge went easy on them. Wednesday 26 July 1967 The good news Yesterday I travelled from Seattle to Tacoma one and a half hours each way via the Boeing works these aircraft are the business of Seattle to the Cascadia Diagnostic and Reception Centre for Juveniles aged 8 to 18 Here they receive all the kids committed by the courts study them in depth for six weeks then decide what they should do with them The recidivist rate is wonderfully low. 20 % this year. I was impressed and will be writing this up properly. This is very interesting to me, Harriet, that I was doing this trip and doing all this prison stuff.

35:58Anyway, that's by the way. The bad news. I got back to Seattle to read the headline, Detroit aflame. Paratroops have been flown in to quell the worst race riots in years. I've just bought the special 6am souvenir edition of today's Seattle Post-Intelligencer. The front page has dramatic pictures of burning buildings, rioting and looting in Detroit, Wilmington, Grand Rapids, Maryland and New York. And pictures of President Johnson and Martin Luther King looking solemn and in deep thought. The headline reads, America Today, How Did It Happen? I think we know the answer right across the country for generations the black people have been treated as second rate citizens and they've had enough Monday the 14th of August 1967 I'm writing this on board TWA 704 bound from Washington DC for London we left at 8pm and we land at 8.05am dinner has been served, the lights are being dimmed, and I'm reflecting on the past six months.

37:12I've travelled well over 158 ,000 miles, and I'm returning home slightly weary, slightly tanned, slightly less stooped, slightly heavier, slightly changed. Without consulting my notes, what are the highlights of my time in America. What are the 10 moments or places that come instantly into my mind? One. Last week, flying into Chicago with 80 soldiers fresh from Vietnam. So fresh they hadn't slept since leaving Saigon. They were full of the horror of the war and the glory of it. However, they all believed in what they were doing. They talked a lot about the money they earned and how they spent it, mostly on prostitutes.

38:04The girls cost$20. Inflation in Vietnam is terrible. Two, still in Chicago, the Baha 'i Temple at Wilmette. Three, in LA, sitting on top of the hill, looking down over the Hollywood Bowl, watching Barbara Streisand effortlessly hold an audience of 17 ,000 in the palm of her hand. Four, up in British Columbia, going up Howe Sound to Squamish. Normally, I'm not one for nature, but the beauty of this was overwhelming. More memorable than the Niagara Falls. Five, the Forest Lawn Cemetery. It was everything that evil in war led us to expect in the loved one that was his novel about it and disneyland it was everything uncle walt led us to expect and more i really liked both they are ridiculous but wonderful six sitting on the hot sand drinking an iced chocolate malted on the beach at coney island seven drinking so many martinis with james bennett head of the federal prison service that when I left him, I could hardly stand.

39:21Eight, the Shakespeare garden in the Golden Gate Park, featuring each and every flower mentioned in Shakespeare. Nine, lunch in the senator's dining room at the US Senate. Of course. Ten, rescuing Kim de la Rosa from the Pacific Ocean. She disappeared beneath the waves. It was my heroic moment, my finest hour. I dived in and brought her out in my arms. And that I could do so is all thanks to those cold afternoons at the Fulham Baths. Thank you, Ma. And the swimming lessons were followed, I remember, by a cup of hot bottle seated on a high stool in the Fulham Baths cafe. I can picture the counter I sat at and the advertisement for 7-Up that was my constant reading.

40:16It's a funny thing, a diary, isn't it? It's quite interesting reading that from my point of view. I think a diary is a good thing because it does give people, this gives people a flavour of what an 18-year-old, educated, middle-class English boy got from America, visiting it during his gap year. It's a snapshot, one-person snapshot. But I think it's probably quite an accurate snapshot of America at that time. So I'm glad I... Yeah, I like your observations on hippies. Yeah. They're funny. Yeah, I found the hippies very... I mean, it's really... I mean, what an odd character I was, I think. Because I was spending half my time doing this serious stuff and visiting the prisons as this 18-year-old boy, you know, making my notes.

41:08What was I thinking I was going to do with all this information I was gathering? Well, I think you like having a project and a purpose, don't you? So I think you might have been troubled by the thought of just kicking about. You're right. Even though you were obviously busy. I mean, you go to about seven cities in three weeks. You know, by most people's standards, that would be quite a lot to do. But I think you probably, once you'd finished your job in Baltimore, you thought, I need another project thing. So you latched onto this idea because you already were interested in it. And indeed, when I came to write my first book, it was about prison reform.

41:45So I was taking a serious interest in it. There was use to what you were doing. Yeah, so it was a mixture of that. And I wanted to catch the sights. I wanted to go to these cities, you know, New Orleans, LA. These are places you've got to go to. And you went all around. And I also slightly went where I had connections. Yeah. There were either people from the school in Baltimore, I'd been given introductions, or there were people who'd been at my own school, B-Dales. Yeah. Old pupils from the school. Or there were families. So I had reason to go to places. And you were getting free. free board and lodging yeah free board because you obviously don't have any money but you stop talking about that actually but you're yeah you're free board and lodging yes i was free board and lodging and people entertaining me you know taking me to places i mean meeting that judge being taken to call you know all the people who yeah i was being entertained lovely but yes and it was interesting you see i went to the airport i didn't go to a hotel i spent the night at the airport in New Orleans and I noticed I had a chocolate malted for lunch.

42:42That was my whole meal. It takes me back. Bless me. And there I was. And also everywhere I went, rather sweetly, falling in love with everybody. And some of the people I did keep in touch with, Susie Blaustein, I kept in touch with her. And I got to know her mother too. I wonder what happened to her. She was famous. She was one of the richest heiresses in America. um so maybe i was fancying for the wrong reasons and my cousin uh keto who was older than me i was only 18 and she was 23 so she probably seemed a lot older but she was literally one of the richest heiresses in america so why didn't this sorry not to be obsessing about the brandreth family fortune but why did none of this family because she was the tenneco money yeah and that wasn't to do with That was then.

43:33She was a cousin of mine, but her dad had made the money. The oil money, yeah. They could have sent you a little bit. There was a lot of Brandreth money, and my great-grandfather, who came back to England to run the English side of the family, who was called Henry, he didn't run it very well. I don't think he took it as seriously as he should have done. He didn't have the Charles Brandreth work ethic. Well, he was distracted by being a God-botherer. And he spent a lot of money building chapels all over the northwest of England, all over Wales. But I've got a letter. I must show it to you. It's actually, this letter has affected my entire life, I think.

44:16It certainly affected my father's life. It was written in about 1903. And it was a letter from my grandfather to my great-grandfather saying, Dear father, I've been in touch with New York and the family about getting you more money. And they are saying that the, and it amounts to in today's money, the quarter of a million pounds that they're sending you for your day-to-day expenses, on top of paying for the 12 indoor and 14 outdoor servants, should be sufficient for your means. Quarter of a million pounds a year? they were funding him hugely and he wasn't doing anything he wasn't running the business properly and this is Henry, this is Chapel Man the Chapel Man he was spending a quarter of a million pounds a year on churches no, no, no, on living

45:14and that was on and everything else was paid for so his son my grandfather was a sensible person and he became a lawyer my father was then a lawyer my son is a lawyer so they then became middle class people who earned their living by joining a profession and etc so the money people ran through the money there was still money up until the second world war and then i think they were all invited to give their shares back to the company there was some rearrangement anyway my father ended up with nothing nothing at all um and of course i ended up with nothing uh but i think these the awareness of money worries it affected my father throughout his life and i think i've been aware of the idea of not having money all my life is your family well to do ish uh but yeah i don't know really they they um ish one of my forebears the only one that I really know about is Sir Roland Hill who invented the postage stamp.

46:26My God. But he also designed the letterbox or something. Sir Roland Hill. There's a big statue of him in Kiddermint stuff. But he's a huge figure. Yeah. Sir Roland Hill. So the postage... I'm sorry. The royal mail millions are coming my way. But excuse me, Harriet Jane. Yeah. We've had hours of me chunching on with my boring friend for these ridiculous bills. I know. a heart trap and I'm with the Roland Hill post office heiress yes the man who invented the postage stamp I mean yeah at the Victorian Albert Museum they have his original poster I know you've got Penny Blacks yes in your in your scrapbook but he's just an uncle you know he's not um direct he's not direct yeah he's an uncle he's an uncle somewhere along the line yeah you can I'll claim it.

47:14We're going to get some of Harriet's Diaries in due course. Tuesday, 15th August, 1967. The plane landed on time. I took the bus to the Victoria Terminal. Ma and Pa were there waiting for me. We had coffee and they told me the news. Hess has had a baby. A little girl called Polly. This is my sister, Esther. They didn't say who the father was or where he was. There was no question of Hess marrying him. She thought about an abortion, but didn't want that. Pa could have arranged it. This, I think, was around the time that abortion was legalised in the UK. Anyway. She thought about adoption, but didn't want that either.

48:01The baby was born in the Middlesex Hospital. Hess was the only unmarried mother there. There was some hostility from some of the nurses, and other mothers kept asking where her husband was. but she coped. She's coping well, apparently. Ma and Pa are coping too. They seem very happy to be grandparents and proud. They say Polly is a lovely baby. I'm going to see her on Sunday. I'm going to sleep now, but before I do, I'm going to sleep all day. I must report that there was a letter waiting for me from Sally. Dearest Giles, I have nothing to say that cannot wait till I am with you again, except welcome home, my darling.

48:44I am as sure as is possible, after all this time, that I love you and will forever. The rest, and there is much of it, must wait. I got your letter, number 58, this morning. Thank you. I am going to the prom tonight to stop myself thinking, but I shall long to hear tomorrow evening. Till tomorrow, I love you. I am yours. What more can I say? Sally, I'm glad to be home. Oh, that's lovely, Giles. It's touching, isn't it? Very, very touching. Can I just say something about your parents, which is how wonderful they were to... People now won't really understand this, or younger people now won't really understand this.

49:32this is the 1960s 67 and the idea of babies being born out of wedlock as it was called then really wasn't something that that happened to very many people obviously it happened to lots of people but not to very many people and my my parents were conventional people you know they were church going middle class people my father was a lawyer my mother was a teacher and as you from this they were totally accepting of uh my sister and her baby uh yeah from the start says a lot about them and they were great with my niece polly then when she was a baby and were for the rest of their lives i mean polly was brought up as i think she would acknowledge as much by her mother as by her grandparents and was she their first grandchild yes i think she was their their first grandchild, yes.

50:27Thrilled. Yes. But how lovely that they just didn't bring any of that sort of awful, judgmental... Which clearly there was. You see this? Hesse was the only unmarried mother in that ward at the Middlesex. There was some hostility from some of the nurses and other mothers kept asking where her husband was, but she coped. I mean, she was a great coper, Hester. She was a remarkable person. If we stick with the doubting, people will get to know her even better. She had her travails, but she came out strong and obviously Polly was the joy of her life well and she must have been a strong character oh Polly was and is no no I mean Hess oh Hess was a she was a very strong character to be determined enough to keep the baby in the face of probably what was a lot of oh are you sure you want to do this dear you know and don't you want to give her up and all that stuff and the truth is too there are a lot of people you know adoption is a marvellous thing my younger brother was adopted um and there are lots of people looking for newborn babies to be adopted so you could actually give your baby for adoption and it could find a wonderful home oh no of course of course but it but it's but yeah if you if you don't want to do that it's harrowing to be forced which some people were i mean that is terrible yes and can make you unhappy for the rest of your life really the regret of that so brilliant that your parents supported her and that she was um strong enough to to keep to keep her baby that's brilliant and and the rest of the story it's a complete success story and polly's life is a complete success and um she has a marvelous husband and she has three wonderful daughters you know the whole thing now seems absurd to people totally absurd but you think of all the unhappiness that's been caused over the years by by all that anyway the world changes the world evolves and in a sense this is what a diary about, telling people how it was once upon a time.

52:23And this is how it was on Friday the 25th of August 1967. Met Sal at Waterloo at 1.30pm. We lunched at the Festival Hall, took the tube to London Bridge, found Medway Limited at Winchester Wharf, where I bought a grey two-tier fining cabinet for£8, ten shlings. That's quite a lot of money, isn't it? Got driven back to 5H, which was our family flat, by van. Had tea with Hess and baby Polly in kitchen. Then Sal and I walked to Charing Cross. Saw you only lived twice at the Odeon Leicester Square. Supper at Lyons plus chocolate. Took Sal home. A very happy day. Tuesday 29th, August 1967. I've seen Sal every day except for Sunday with Simon Cadell and the Reverend Peter Delaney oh I think he's still alive born 1939 he was Archdeacon of London and he was the curate of our local church St Maryland Parish Church and actually he officiated at the marriages of my sisters anyway it has been perfect especially yesterday at our house Full details in my secret diary, now safely under lock and key in my handsome new filing cabinet.

53:49Brackets, no snooping. All I need say here for posterity is that we play together and it is wonderful. There's a secret diary. Well. We should be reading that out, Giles. Yeah. It's much, much more interesting for the listeners. It certainly would be much more interesting for the listeners. So is it still in the cellar, the secret diary? I assume it all is. I mean, there's all the letters and everything. Wow. And those boxes down there, I haven't looked at, I really haven't looked at that in 50 years. So I don't know what is down there. Wow. But I do know, I do know that in the correspondence, I mean, you know, it's a diary.

54:30We're teenagers, late teenagers. We were apart for six months. So we were writing to one another. And I think we had a code, coded in the letters, saying sexy things to one another in code, I imagine. And, well, clearly there's a secret diary. Yeah. No snooping. Well, so that is definitely going to be worth a lot of money, Giles, when you give up all your stuff to the archives, the secret diary is going to be up there. 50 Shades of... 50 Shades. What I tell you is this. Even though I was only 18, it will be better, whatever it is, it'll be better written than 50 Shades of Grey. What a poorly written work that is.

55:20Oh, really? I haven't actually read it. Giles, watch out. This is controversial, what you're saying now. No, it's not controversial. Anybody will tell you it's poorly written. Really? Poorly written and poorly constructed. I admire and envy the author's huge international success as an author myself who has never enjoyed that degree of success. I've had the odd number one bestseller, but not internationally like that. I was asked to read it by the BBC for some reason. That legitimized bringing it into my house. My wife got rid of it, but I did read it. And I couldn't believe how poorly written it was, which is disappointing.

56:00Because I'm not against erotic fiction. No, so your diary, your secret diary could be the next Fifty Shades of Grey, Charles. Yeah.

56:17This is 23 August 1240. My darling boy, I'm home in bed and longing for you. I simply want to say thank you for waiting six months for wanting me and for this wonderful day. You can be quite sure that I am certain now. You are right to remember that moment coming out of the Odeon. I think it was then that I fully realized that this must continue forever. We have been so contented today. 1.30 seems a lifetime away and yet you at each moment of the afternoon are still alive in me now. I could go on. I won't. Simply know I'm waiting for three o 'clock tomorrow, that I love you, and that this day has been very beautiful.

57:03Thank you. Believe me, you're Sally. Tuesday 19th September 1967. Sal has gone back to Bidels, and I have come back to Bedsanger. You remember, I had left the school the year before she was still there, and Bedsanger was my prep school. this may prove to be a mistake i'm here to do two weeks teaching and earn some money which i need i've just had tea with major douche he hasn't changed and now i'm going to see mr burton to discuss the timetable i'm teaching english drama and french saying goodbye to sal and coming down here on the train i had that awful lurching feeling in the stomach sunday the 1st of october at 1967.

57:50Do you still get that awful lurching feeling in the stomach? Yes, all the time. Sometimes about three times a day. So do I. Hate it. I hate it. Well, I can't give you any good news because here I am. Dread. Dread. Fear. I'm many years your senior. And I'm still getting it. I was getting it in 1967. I'm getting it in 2025 and there are you getting it. I know. It's terrible. I think everyone gets it, don't they? Butterflies. But why are we getting it? You know, we've got this lovely podcast. People seem to love it. It's going well. And yet... Anyway, so, walking back to happiness. Except my stomach is lurching because I'm going back to my prep school.

58:31Not sure that I've done the right thing. Sunday, the 1st of October, 1967. I am not sure that returning to Betsanga was a good idea. I think I've helped little Ian Jones, the new boy who is so desperately homesick. But apart from that, I don't feel I've contributed much. The£25 is useful, and of course, there has been Brian Howe. Brian Howe is extraordinary. And when I write my version of Decline and Fall, he will certainly be a leading character. He is Bacchus. Mr Toad, Buddha, Mr Pickwick, all rolled into one. He is 54, but looks years older. He drinks like a fish and talks non-stop. Of course, he's ended up teaching Latin in an English prep school.

59:20He's a wonderful raconteur, the best I've met, and all his stories, however far-fetched, have the ring of truth to them. Tangiers, Hong Kong, Rome, Hollywood, he was there. I've splashed my sperm across three continents. Shall I tell you about it? Parr telephoned last night because it turns out that he knew Brian Howe in Germany after the war and remembers him well. He says he was highly intelligent but lazy, a dandy and a great poser. He had a German servant who wore a white jacket and gloves to serve dinner. Parr especially remembers the girl in Brian Howe's life, Maggie. According to Parr, she was a rank starlet of surprising beauty and a mistress rather than a wife.

1:00:05In fact, Brian Howe tells me they were married. It happened like this. In 1947, Brian was having a complicated affair with a Polish lady who was getting awkward. Drop them when they get awkward, Giles, that's my advice. No use hanging on to a woman if she's awkward. It only ends in tears. Anyway, he went to England on a brief leave, encountered this rank starlet, age 19, and married her in six days. He returned to Germany without her at first and carried on with the Polish lady. Eventually, he brought Maggie over, but things didn't go too well. She didn't want children for a start. Why else get married, says Howe.

1:00:46When eventually they returned to England, financial problems arose and she was unsympathetic. Indeed, she even insisted on an expensive London clinic nose job because her profile was all wrong. In 1951, they parted. He was 39, she was 24. He's taken me through quite a number of his other affairs. Most of his stories are unprintable, and in his cups, he is ridiculous. Last night, in the staff room, he dropped his trousers and tucked his private parts between his legs to show me how the boys in Hong Kong disguise themselves as girls and create a totally convincing Mons Venus. Does it look like the real thing, or what?

1:01:28Oh, my God. This is in the staff room. Oh, my God. This is a boys' prep school. There are children aged 7 to 11 running around the corridor outside. This is this outrageous master, aged 54. His trousers are about his ankles. His private parts tucked between his... Anyway, can you believe it? Well, I mean, English prep schools, yes, I can actually. But what a character. He was a character. Oh, my goodness. Oh, dear. Monday 2nd October 1967. Letter from Parr. jen that's my older sister is in excellent form she's quite her old self she's 29 and still unmarried bar wants his daughters married and then i've got this quote from my father's letter would she appeal to brian howe i wonder this is my father talking for i'm certain he's lost maggie and probably needs young female company even if he is my age almost i'd love to see him again though he is an old flaneur.

1:02:32You see, my father obviously was quite charmed by him as I was charmed by this ridiculous man. Yeah. I mentioned this, this is me talking now, I mentioned this to Brian. Yes, he'd go for Jennifer. I still enjoy the best material. He chortled with a smack of the lips, a wobble of the purple chins and a roguish twinkle of the yellowing, dilating eyes. Oh dear. He thinks his next affair would probably kill him, however. He fears he will drop dead of a heart attack with too much exertion. He said to me, sadly, when we were still drinking at 2am the other night, teaching here is very trying. I don't think he'll last long.

1:03:11What a character. It's wonderful to meet these characters. We don't want people to encourage people to behave like this, but it's still quite fun to have encountered them. Oh, I think you need these people in the world, don't you? Not enough of them nowadays. Sunday the 8th of October. night but you wouldn't want him marrying one of your daughters would you all teaching your children sunday the 8th of october 1967 met sal at guildford station at 11 30 a.m she came from petersfield i came from london we went to lions for tea lunch and coffee till 3 p.m then we returned to the station and i tried on oh i remember it now and i tried oh i'm gonna burst into tears i tried on the red velvet waistcoat she has made for me.

1:03:55We decided we couldn't part and that we'd risk her being late. We walked and sat in the castle gardens. We had tea. We talked and talked. It was lovely. We parted at six. She had bought one of the quotations from the library calendar for me from the 20th of September. I learned that it is possible to create light and sound and order within us, no matter what calamity may befall us in the outer world. A quotation from Helen Keller. I have to say, I do remember these conversations and it's quite interesting where you like this. I mean, we were just able to, we just talked and talked and talked to each other.

1:04:40It was, I mean, you know, it was, I suppose, sort of sex over tea at Lyons is what it amounts to really but it was just fantastic anyway Tuesday 10th October 1967 I finished the U.S. leaflet and sent it off to the printers oh I remember this I'd planned to return to the U.S. during the Christmas holidays and I was going to pay for the visit by giving talks and poetry readings and this was designed to drum up business. Anyway, tomorrow the Oxford-Micklemas term begins, and I have to report to new college by 5pm. Today I had lunch with Pa. We bought me my dinner suit and then ate at Littlewood's.

1:05:25Oxford was everything to Pa. Everything. I know what he wants for me. The Union, that was the debating society. ISIS, that was the university magazine. And the Ouds, Oh, yes, dramatic society. We'll see. Meanwhile, haircut. My father had been at Oxford University in the late 1920s, and then an ambitious undergraduate's goals might have been becoming president of the debating society, the Oxford Union, becoming editor of the university magazine ISIS, and a leading light in the university dramatic society, the OUDS. and obviously I set off to Oxford with those things in my head. Whether I achieve them or not, we shall see possibly in future episodes.

1:06:18Meanwhile, haircut. So you're off to Oxford. Yeah. And what actually I'm reminded of, I'm now reminded of this, the thing with Sally, 1967, this stuff. And it makes me feel less embarrassed about it. We had that lovely conversation with Jojo Siwa, age 22. only the other day in this room and we were rather touched by how loved up she was so totally loved up it was it was actually enchanting and clearly i was going through that phase yeah with sal yeah okay where it ends i went no spoilers no i hope you don't break her heart giles or does she break mine so but anyway i'm grateful for the good times um and let whatever further times roll why do you find an email for us to share today harriet let me say to people we love getting your emails we get a lot of them harriet does try to respond to them all um and if we're not as quick as we should be please indulge us i think it'd be very interesting having talked about young love teenage love if you've got a charming or indeed a sad story to tell, feel free to share it.

1:07:34We can't promise if you send us your secret diaries to read them out. We're not even promising you to read mine. Ariat, you get the emails first. Are you going to share one with us? We don't usually do emails at the end of the diaries episodes, Giles, but we're going to do one today. Good. Let's throw it all up in the air. Can I say something? I quite like it when we have two weeks of diaries in a row. Let's just mix it up a bit. Well, that's what we've just done. Have we? um okay it says i'm listening to rosebud and giles mentioned how you shouldn't lend books do you remember we were talking about that i lent you a book you lent me a book i used to work as a food coordinator a cook in brackets oh this is from jeanette fuller sorry in australia oh we've got a big australian following i like that so this is jeanette I used to work as the cook in a children's daycare centre in Western Australia.

1:08:31One of the carers lent me a cookbook and I promised to return it. Not long afterwards, the carer suddenly left. Years later, I worked as an assistant nurse in a hospital. Checking the patient list, I spotted an unusual surname. It turned out that the patient was the brother-in-law of the carer. The next day, I was able, after 15 years, to return the cookbook to its owner. She was happy to get the book back. We had a chat and our paths never crossed again. That was about 17 years ago. I love Rosebud. Best wishes from Western Australia. I love Rosebud. Isn't that great? I love these stories. Please keep them coming.

1:09:13So if you have stories like that, share them with us. What's our email address? Hello at rosebudpodcast.com. Hello at rosebudpodcast.com. So do send us letters like that. Or if you've got stories of your teenage love affairs, even some of your teenage love letters, share them with us. Maybe not the secret diaries. I don't know. That could be a different alternative. There could be a late night rosebud. The X-rated. Raunchy rosebud. Oh, gosh. Yeah. I'm chuckling. I'm rolling my eyes. Harriet's looking appalled. Appalled. Oh, dear. Anyway, look, we've loved your company. I hope you've enjoyed ours.

1:09:55Till Friday for another big all-star Rosebud guest. Until next Tuesday when it may be more Rosebud with a surprising guest or it may be more diaries. Who knows? Who knows? Who knows? Oh, that's it for now. Goodbye. Bye.

1:10:30Thank you.

1:10:50by Harriet Jane, and in the chair, me, Charles Brantless. Thank you for listening.