More Rosebud - Gyles's Diary, episode 10: the first half of 1964 - O-levels, A Study in Sherlock, and lessons learnt

0:00They often say in life that more is less. I hope you find more Rosebud is more, not less. Enjoy and welcome.

0:27it's tuesday it's every other tuesday which means today harriet you get to speak harriet by the way if you're new to our podcast, is my producer. And she's called Harriet Jane. And she's been a producer for a number of years. We first met when she was producing a programme called... My Teenage Diary. For BBC Radio 4. And I was one of your guests. How many of those episodes did you do? We did 11 series. Gosh, that's a lot. There are only six episodes in each series. Still, that's 66 people. Well, yeah, but we've done that about five times over on Rosebud. so that's that's true yeah and for you present company accepted who had the most fascinating teenage diary i tell you one of our best guests actually as someone you know was sheila hancock it was a brilliant program yeah she's a brilliant human being recently had her 92nd birthday if people want to know more about sheila hancock who i first saw on stage at the Theatre Royal Stratford East in 1959.

1:32Do listen to our episode which we recorded at her house on the River Thames, didn't we? It was fun. Yeah, her diary was fantastic. She had the holiday romance in France when she was about 16. Similar to your diary, Giles, just constant kissing. It's funny because I met you when you were reading your teenage diaries on that programme and now we're going to do more from your teenage diaries. We are. That's what today is about. And people have been sending in bits from their diaries, have they? Yes. So someone called Katie Weston, hi Katie, has emailed to say, I'm so enjoying Giles's diary entries.

2:08They've made me dig out my own schoolgirl diaries. I've enclosed an entry here from my 1978 diary. I was 11 years old and I'd started boarding at a convent school four days before. As you can see, I was not at all enamoured at being there. By the way, Jamie was my black Labrador. She just clarifies that. Thursday, the 19th of September, 1978. Today, I've been naughty. I don't care if I'm expelled. I can't stand the bloody nuns. I'll never like them at this rate. I hope all my friends like me. I have a feeling they don't. I just want to go home to see Jamie. Well, good night. I hope I'm liked. Oh, that tells us what she packs so much in just two or three lines there.

3:00That's extraordinary. I wonder how old she was in 1978. She says 11. She's 11. Well, is there more? Unfortunately not. But Katie, if you're listening, send us some more. We'd love to hear what you say. But you go on to say more in your email. Giles' diaries are amusing. all that talk of Jackie and Gail and the abbreviation MT made me laugh. I couldn't help but notice the distinction between my convent and his co-ed school. At 14 and 15, my diary was full of entries saying things like, the man in the market smiled at me, the boy in the fish and chip shop winked at me, the school gardener's looking nice today.

3:43it's sad really but we weren't allowed near any boys so i spent my days thinking about them and wondering if i'd ever have a boyfriend i did eventually and have been married for over 30 years oh isn't that marvelous i know so she didn't get poor old katie didn't get to see any boys at all or definitely no mting or kissing did you harriet when you were in your teens um Fancy a boy in a fission chip shop or the school gardener? The school gardener. I love the school gardener reference. I don't know. I had the odd crush on a teacher I had at primary school. I remember there was a teacher I liked.

4:27But I think it was more of a sort of, he was just a cool, he was cool and he played the guitar and he used to get everyone to sing Beatles songs and I thought he was quite trendy. But I do remember thinking he was good looking, even though I think I was only seven or something. So it's funny that you, yeah. And before that, I definitely was kind of in love with my ballet teacher, but she was a woman. But I think, again, that was a sort of mother figure or she just seemed very glamorous. At my prep school, there was a boy who was interested in ballet and ballet dancers, female ones. And I met him again many years later.

5:07well I was by then in my 20s or maybe 30s we'd known each other when we were small boys under 10 and I was sitting in a hotel in Bristol having lunch, Sunday lunch and I was being served the lunch and I turned to the waiter and said thank you and I recognised this boy the boy I'd been at school with, he was the waiter so I said oh sit, tell me, I'm the waiter, I can't sit so I said well let's meet afterwards I have to meet by the staff entrance. So I went to the staff entrance and met him there. And he took me back to his flat in Bristol. And he opened the door of the flat. And from wall, every wall from floor to ceiling, was covered with black and white photographs of ballet dancers, female ballet dancers.

5:56And there was one he'd fallen in love with. And I fear he'd pursued her to South Africa, where she'd retired. And I think there was now a restraining order on him, which is why he was living in Bristol. Oh dear. So maybe you did the right thing, is what I'm trying to tell you, in not getting too infatuated with your ballet teacher. No, she moved to Norway. Maybe I was a bit forward. And I've always wanted to go to Norway as a result, but I've never been. I had a scrapbook, which was just full of ballet dancer pictures. But this is when I was five or six or something. I thought I wanted to be a ballet dancer, but I was far too bony.

6:32I had knobbly knees and knobbly elbows and actually if you want to be a ballet dancer you've got to have a few you can't have knobbly knees I haven't noticed your knobbly well of course you never show your knobbly knees you wear trousers most of the time do you should we get on with this I'm finding these quite awkward to read but I meet people on the train who say oh love the diary episodes so we're going to go on with it this is taking us back to January 1964 I'm 15 years of age. We begin the diary, I imagine, at home, where I live with my parents and sisters in London. And I go to a boarding school in Hampshire, which is a code boarding school called B-Dales.

7:14Shall I take it away? Yes, it's 1964. Wednesday, the 1st of January, 1964. A lovely start to the new year. A lovely school report for last term. It's all good stuff, especially history and English and even PE and outdoor work. Rachel, she's the drama teacher, Rachel ends hers with this. Full marks for his modesty offstage and for a lovely performance onstage. Ruth Whiting, form teacher, says, Giles appears to be a person of boundless energy and enthusiasm. I'm sure that the effort he is making to show greater self-control is much appreciated by his contemporaries. I put a lot of exclamation marks after that.

8:01John Slater, housemaster, writes, He fills his life with a multitude of activities, and the standard and enthusiasm which he brings to each is impressive. I hope there is no danger of his overcrowding his time, but I think he is aware of this problem. He is. And is it a problem? As Mr. Stocks tells us, he was the headmaster of my prep school, busy people are happy people. Hard work is the secret of a happy life I'm seeing Mr Stocks tonight At the Bedsanger Old Boys reunion At the Royal Overseas League Club Cocktails, 6 to 8pm 7 and sixpence Tomorrow I'm going to the Aldwych To see Donald Sinden and the Royal Shakespeare Company In the Comedy of Errors Ten shillings and sixpence They say it's a very funny production Sunday, the 5th of January, 1964 Oh, by the way, I remember it it was anyway sunday the 5th of january 1964 no that was the week that was on the goggle box last night the bbc have cancelled the series planned for the new year because there's likely to be a general election in the coming months and the bbc must not be seen to be poking fun at politicians in the run-up to the election and no what's my line on the box tonight that's over forever apparently, the end of an era.

9:25I've watched it from the beginning. Eamon Andrews is an excellent host, but my favourites on the programme are Gilbert Harding, we all love his bad temper, David Nixon, charming, Cyril Fletcher, funny, and Lady Isabel Barnett, a doctor and a lady with style and true class. Just throwing this in, Harriet, once I'd left school, left university, somehow I found my life interconnecting with the lives of all these people. And I remember Lady Isabel Barnett being a particularly lovely person. Later, tragically, she took her own life, was involved. She had a sort of unhappy later life. And there was a case of, I think, some shoplifting.

10:10And I don't know if she was having a breakdown of some sort, but she was a really lovely person. Anyway, on we go. Pa's favourite, of course, is Katie Boyle, because she is so beautiful and because he has represented her in court. My father was a solicitor. We only watch the Eurovision Song Contest so Pa can say, Ah, that's my friend Katie. We do not watch it for the songs. Nul point. Glad to see name-dropping runs in the family, Charles. Yes. Let's face it, ours is not a musical household. I've given up the piano, I've given up the cello, I hardly ever use my drum set now. I still play the triangle rather well.

10:51We don't listen to music on the wireless, I don't listen to it on my crystal set. Ma listens to music while you work when she's doing the ironing. And at Christmas, she listens to her Bing Crosby LP over and over and over again. Except that this year, it was the Pericomo Christmas album and Dominique the Singing Nun. It was a huge hit. The Dominique the Singing Nun. Anyway, we have not bought any of the Beatles records, but it doesn't matter because everybody else has. The Beatles are selling a million records a week. I am still listening to Salad Days and on Saturday night we had a box at the Savoy for the Pirates of Penzance, G &S and Cox and Box, music by Sir Arthur Sullivan words by Madison Morton and F.C.

11:44Bernand. Our new TV favourite is Steptoe and Son by Galton and Simpson who wrote my all-time favourite, Hancock's Hava. I do quite a good impersonation of Harold, Harry H. Corbett, and when he takes his teeth out, Pa is excellent as Dad, Wilfred Bramble. Go on, then. Harold? Oh, no, I'm now doing... Well, I've now reached the age of these. I'm doing... Harold? Dad? No, I don't think I can do it anymore. What a shame. Maybe you have to be a child. Yeah, I think maybe you do. Wednesday, the 8th of January, 1964. Jackie has come to London for a few days. she is staying at her sister's flat and has tempted me over for lunch there with promises of chocolate mousse her last letter was quite grumpy she does not like me typing my letters to her she says typewritten letters are impersonal i'd far rather you wrote in your own handwriting even if it does irritate you she said she was feeling depressed thinking back to last april when we were properly in love, but added that she loved to see me and would like to go to anything you'd like to go to.

12:54It's up to you, like everything else. Well, I took her to Gentle Jack, the new play by Robert Bolt at the Queen's Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue. Upper Circle, C-17 and 18, 12 shrinks and sixpence. It's an odd play, mixing fantasy and reality, but worth seeing for the stars. Dame Edith Evans, who has such a presence and that amazing swooping voice, and Kenneth Williams, who plays a kind of strange woodland sprite in the play. He isn't as funny as the audience hoped he would be, but he's very compelling. You keep watching him, wondering what's going to happen next. And I think Jackie enjoyed it. It was a good thing to go because it gave us lots to talk about.

13:40Her real love is music. She was given a new gramophone for Christmas and six new records. Her mother can't really afford it. Jackie knows that. I hope to be rich one day, not just so that I can have a chauffeur-driven car, I don't mind the beatily line, but because it's clear that money worries get people down. Jackie's mother is always thinking about money. As I write this, it is midnight, and I'm at my desk in my room, and Pa is sitting next door at the kitchen table smoking his Olivier cigarettes. With a cup of tea going cold and all around him all the bills set out in piles across the table.

14:20He's trying to work out which bills to pay first, starting with the school fees. Whenever the girls are on the telephone all the time, I'm talking about my sisters here, he stands right by them tapping his watch because he's thinking about the cost of every call. His favourite pictures are the two drawings in the hallway outside my room of the Victorian gentleman in his nightcap, sitting in his counting house, spectacles on nose, quill pen in hand. In one picture, he looks so happy. In the other, he is utterly downcast. Balance on the right side, happiness. Balance on the wrong side, misery. Friday, 10th of January, 1964.

15:04Tonight I took Gail to Port Betos at the Duke of York, St. Martin's Lane, Stalls, 10 and 6. It is Jean Anouy's play about the French Revolution, with Donald Pleasence being utterly superb as Robespierre. It was a good evening, but I know that Gail doesn't really love me. She says she does, to be kind. I think she thinks I'm funny and a bit different from other males, so she doesn't want to let go. but she doesn't love me. And perhaps I love her for the wrong reasons. I love her golden hair, beautiful and long. She can sit on it. I love her nose. I love her freckles. I love her eyelashes. I think she's Alice in Wonderland and she thinks I'm the Mad Hatter.

15:54I can't believe Gail's made a reappearance, Giles. So you've had Jackie and Gail in the same week. Well, just going out, you know. And, yeah, you know, I'm 15 years of age. If I can find one, I know I've got pictures of both of them. I'll bring them in to show to you, see what you think. Anyway, Saturday, 18th January, 1964. Plenty to report. I think I'm back at school. One, my French result has arrived. This is what it says. Brandreth G, ordinary level, French, grade one. I couldn't have done any better. Three girls in my year and myself, we got ones. The rest varied from two to six with about two failures.

16:38The only disadvantage of having got a one is that I bet someone ten shillings I wouldn't, thinking I hadn't done terribly well. Two, I've been made editor of Roundabout, that was the school wall magazine, alongside Chris Irwin, my opposite number in the socialist camp. He has curly hair and ideas that aren't quite straight either. This is an unexpected but welcome development. We have just had our first meeting and we haven't just been talking. We have cleared the whole office and planned the design and contents of our first issue. We are considering making a complete break with the old and renaming the magazine The Phoenix.

17:18Three, I'm taking the conservative message to the people with new posters and articles on my conservative party board in the quad. this week i'm going to have to write an attack on ian mcleod ian mcleod had become editor of the spectator because he'd resigned from the government the previous october um i'm not sure why i was attacking him well maybe we'll read and find out why he has written a three-page article in the spectator on the conservative leadership crisis and the way in which sir alec was chosen instead of Rab Butler. He denounces what he calls the magic circle that chooses the leader and makes it clear he thinks the wrong man got the job.

18:00I shall deal with him. Four. Heard the excellent production of Richard II with Gielgud, Richardson and Goodliffe on the third programme last night. That's Sir John Gielgud, Sir Ralph Richardson and an actor called Michael Goodliffe who was the father of a boy I'd been the French lease here with. Proceeded by motoring and the motorists beforehand with Pa on the air, talking about road safety and in good form. Everyone else on the programme has to come with a prepared script to read out. It's a strict BBC rule, but Pa is allowed to speak off the cuff from notes. Much more to report, but no time, rushing as ever.

18:45I have two articles and a play to write. The play is going to be rather good, I think. A study in Sherlock, a forgotten fragment from the memoirs of John H. Watson, M.D.

19:02Saturday, 1st February 1964. Work report. Work goes well and is quite tolerable, especially English lit, when I'm doing Chaucer. I have Mr. Gardner for English now, and he reads Chaucer out loud as if he'd been born in 1343. On the page, Chaucer is difficult. Out loud, he is totally comprehensible. English Lang, also good. I'm doing, as a special privilege, Congreve. Touching on other late-restoration comedy, including Garrick's adaptations of Shakespeare, of which the library has an original copy, 1766. French is fine. I'm studying the plays of Anouye. Maths and German are all right. Latin is frightful.

19:49My worst, and the worst. Speech Comp Report. I'm doing a bit of Milton, a W.H. Auden, look stranger, and possibly Lewis Carroll, the walrus and the carpenter. For my Shakespeare solo, Rachel wants me to do a bit of Malvolio, but I've in mind part of Richard Gloucester's long soliloquy from Henry VI Part III, or, following a strange dream I had a few nights ago a bit of hamlet oh that this too too solid flesh or speak the speech i pray you we shall see political report we tories sorry conservatives are fighting the good fight taking every opportunity to swipe at the socialists especially following the admirable speech of our great leader at swansea last monday the speech needless to say is at present prominently displayed with a large photo of St Alec on our board.

20:49This is so funny because I think I was probably the only conservative in the entire school. I was thinking, I mean, did it make you unpopular or did people just think it was fun? I hope they just thought I was funny and some thought I was funny, some thought I was ridiculous. Maybe some thought I was awful. But curiously, this boy, Christopher Irwin, who was the socialist, and when we had the general election, we were both the candidates for each of our parties. We had a kind of love-hate relationship. We were both best friends and sort of at loggerheads. That's good. But it is, I mean, clearly what a ludicrous figure I am.

21:24Because even now it's not common to be a conservative as a school child. No, and to talk about it. But also, I mean, all this nonsense being allowed to do William Congreve literature. Well, there we are. Brilliant. I fear the child may have been father to the man. You're a one-off. Saturday the 8th of February. That's what I hope people like Jackie and Gail thought. They did. I think they did. Saturday, the 8th of February, 1964. This is difficult to write about, but I will. On Thursday, A, B and I kissed. We were together until midnight. We were together again yesterday and all today. I know it is wrong because she is a member of staff and she has a fiancé and we can get into a lot of trouble.

22:17I know it's stupid, but it's also wonderful and I don't want to stop, nor does she. She thinks I'm amazing and I think she's rather special too. It's madness, of course, but how old was Romeo? Oh no, Juliet wasn't a member of staff. Help. later we talked and talked and talked she likes to hear me talking she lets me look at her we touched she let me touch her it is wonderful exciting and beautiful she feels guilty about her fiance they are getting married in the summer sunday the 9th of february 1964 disaster This is very, very bad. How it got out, I really do not know. Did I say something? I know inside my head I was boasting about it, but I did not say anything out loud.

23:18I honestly, honestly don't think I did. Were we seen? Perhaps we were. Anyway, it's dreadful, ghastly, terrible, truly terrible. I do not know what is going to happen now. After lunch, I was told to go and report to John Slater, the housemaster. I went up to his room. He was very friendly and asked me to sit down and said, a little bird tells me something that's not quite right. Anyway, he said what he'd heard and asked me if it was true. I said straight away that it was. I told him everything. Everything. He told me to go to the library and do some work. That's where I am now, writing this. I've got to go back to see him again at 5.45pm.

24:03He was very friendly. He said several novels had been written on this theme. He said if everyone was sensible, everything would be alright. But I'm quite frightened, to be honest. Monday the 10th of February, 1964. It's all over. at 4 15 p.m this afternoon i went to see tws that's the initials of the headmaster i was very nervous i was shaking i've been thinking about nothing else i've done no work today since seeing js that was the housemaster last night i've talked to no one anyway i got to the headmaster's study at exactly 4 15 i pressed the bell waited for the green light that says enter and went in he was very friendly he made me sit down in an armchair his secretary brought me a cup of tea and biscuits he pulled his chair around from behind his desk and sat leaning towards me with his elbows on his knees he asked me what happened he asked me to tell him everything when did it start who started it how far did we go had i written to her had she written to me I was in there for an hour exactly when I'd finished he told me not to worry he told me that I'd done nothing wrong but that it was wrong because I was only 15 and she's a member of staff he said that he'd spoken to her and that she's very sorry he said that since it hadn't gone too far the best thing now is to forget all about it I must not see her privately or ever speak to her again or write to her.

25:44She is leaving at the end of term anyway to get married. He said it is much worse for her than me. He said he didn't think he would have to tell my parents and he was sure I'd learnt a lesson. By the end of it all, we were laughing. He's very nice. He's wonderful, actually. He made it very easy and I'm very grateful. He isn't going to tell Hopalong either. That was my form teacher. and I'm very grateful. He says that I must not talk about it to anyone and I won't. It's all over. Just back in the dorm from having Coco with John Slater, the housemaster, he told me about a play called Young Woodley.

26:27He says that I should read it. It was banned when it was written in the 1920s. He thinks that I would enjoy playing the hero. The play, incidentally, Harriet, is by John Van Druton is about a 17-year-old boy who falls in love with his housemaster's young wife. I have to say that he, the housemaster, and the headmaster have been wonderful. I am very, very relieved. Obviously, I want to write to A.B., but I'm not going to. It will be difficult when I see her at handshaking and across the quad, etc., but that's life. I've learned my lesson, I hope I'm taking a sip of water Harriet I found that quite emotional I have not read that in a long while I'll tell you what I found particularly emotional reading was the nice headmaster and as I read that I could literally I mean as I speak it I can picture his he was quite young he was only in his 30s I can picture him leaning forward towards me he was quite slim and slight I can see his elbows on his knees and leaning forward and reassuring me.

27:35But I think, do you think, here we are 2025, obviously it shouldn't have happened. I was young and foolish. She was young and foolish and it was just, you know, these things happen. I think they handled it rather well. But what is your point of view as a mother of teenagers and in 2025, what do you think? well I think this might be an unpopular uh opinion but I think that is a brilliant way of handling it um I think it's good to deal with it privately not make a huge fuss and to allow both of your own consciences to do the work which they did you you knew it was terrible immediately and you'll never do that again and she as well well i knew it was terrible but i also was alarmed at being caught out that's that's what i was terrified what was going to happen yeah you know was i going to be asked to leave the school what you know well my parents anyway because now these things would be made quite public i think and that is really awful i hope i'm not making it public now but it is a long long time ago 60 or more years ago Yeah.

28:51So apologies all round, but I think, congratulations, the headmaster I know has died, and so has the housemaster. So these are all people from another world, another era, but it's part of the story. But they sound like lovely teachers. Well, they were caring people, weren't they? That's clear. They wanted the best for everybody. So let's go on. Saturday, 15th February, 1964. The interesting civics last night on prisons and prison reform. Today, I've started something new to join the rest of my activities. I'm taking a course in how to instruct children to take the National Bicycling Proficiency Tests.

29:30It means learning all the patter, the mechanics of a bike, details of the tests and such like. It gets me off a run and an outdoor work and enhances my reputation so it seems worthwhile. Also, it will help the children. I will begin teaching next term, starting with all the Block 2s and Block 3s who have bikes. School readings tonight. I'm doing a bit of Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme with Mark Caddell, or senior in Twelfth Night last term. And needless to say, play Monsieur. Supercilious, self-important, and all the rest. This afternoon, more casting for the junior play I'm producing, A Study in Sherlock.

30:09Whoever I choose has to be approved by Rachel. Tomorrow, I'm starting a week of getting up at 6.30am to do an hour of Virgil revision before breakfast. Mocks begin on Thursday. I just have to keep interrupting myself, Ariat, to say nothing in my life seems to have changed. As you know, I'm currently writing a book for publication later this year and I'm getting up again at 6.30 in the morning to go down to my desk. Oh, well done. First thing. Wow. And I've just been celebrating Twelfth Night at the Orange Tree Theatre. Yeah. I mean, it's all, oh, dearing me. Do you like working early in the morning?

30:52I love it. I love it. I love it. Yes. I think you once said to me, it's always good to earn some money before breakfast. Yeah. That's why I love being at TVAM in the 1980s. Fantastic. You get out there, yeah, get ahead of the game. Yeah, and then by 11s, you've already done a whole day's work. Yes, and then you can do another day's work. Yay! It's so exciting. Not that you're a workaholic or anything. Saturday the 7th of March 1964. Home for the weekend, by kind permission of TWS, headmaster and new best friend. I may be the only boy in the school who likes him. He is very unpopular. Apparently, new heads always are.

31:32Anyway, I like him. Of course, I have my reasons. Yesterday, school cross-country run. Not a lot of fun, but I survived and didn't come in last, quite. Today, on the train to London for the National Speech Competition Rachel told me that she approves of my casting for a study in Sherlock This is good news I'm very excited with my Sherlock Holmes He is key to the whole thing, of course And I feel that I've found a star in the making He is 13, and quite small, but he can do it He is called Simon Cadell Who was at Dunhurst, the B-Dales Junior School and comes from a theatrical family. Tomorrow, I shall be 16 years of age.

32:18Tonight, I'm going to Fielding's Music Hall at the Prince Charles Theatre in Leicester Square to see the great Sir Donald Wolfert perform the death of Bill Sykes. Did I... God, so ridiculous. Did I mention the speech competition? I didn't. Well, I came first.

32:43I mean this is action-packed Giles Aren't I ridiculous No but it's just the first two months of the year and you've already kissed a teacher and met Simon Cadell Who became as it were my best friend and he was the son of John Cadell who was a leading theatrical agent whose clients actually included Donald Syndon and Gillian Howell who's an actress and she was later the head of the Guildhall School of Drama and his grandmother had been and actress, Jean Cadell, appeared in films like Pygmalion, Whiskey Galore. He died, tragically, in the 1990s, but his sister, Selina, who was at the same school, a bit younger than me, she's still one of my closest friends, saw her the other day.

33:27Not only saw her for supper, but also saw her on stage because she was with Sigourney Weaver in The Tempest. Yes, yeah, of course. Because I didn't realise how old you were when you met. I knew you'd been best friends because you've often talked about Simon Cadell and listeners probably remember Simon Cadell from Heidi High and lots of other things. But I didn't know you were 16 when you met him and three years older than him. Yeah. And this play, A Study in Sherlock, I wrote it. Yeah. Which is rather exciting. So you met him because you cast him. I cast him. He was very young. I had auditions and he was clearly the best.

34:05He was 13 and small and yet he held that pipe. yeah i mean he has such a unique way about him didn't he that that mouth and the face and yeah okay on we go tuesday 31st of march 1964 woodpecker's guest house in the middle of nowhere actually somewhere near canterbury if god had meant us to live in the countryside he would have given us gumboots. The country is hell. It is cold, it is wet, it is muddy. There is nothing to do. We arrived here on Friday, good Friday, except there was nothing good about it. We were supposed to stay for three weeks here, while Pa goes to the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital in Great Ormond Street to have his varicose veins removed.

34:53But I persuaded Ma to let me go home today. I need to work and I need to be in London. Tuesday the 16th of April 1964. Ma and Pa and brother Ben are still at Woodpecker's. Pa recovering well from his op. Last night I went to the Regent Palace Hotel in Piccadilly for dinner with Ginny and Mr. Bagram. An Indian gentleman of riper years who was very nice but who I do not think Gin thinks suitable as a beau. Let alone a husband. pa will be disappointed he wants his daughters to be married he needs to get them off his hands they are 25 24 and 22 and getting long in the tooth who will rid me of these costly daughters this is pa speaking not me in india he says they'd all be brides by now and speaking of young brides i went to the 1954 film of romeo and juliet at the baker street classic last night okay but not a classic.

35:55Unlike Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf by Edward Albee with Uta Hagen and Arthur Hill. So powerful. I'm taking Jackie to Hedda Gabler at the St. Martins on Monday. She wrote me a letter out of the blue. She said, I just want to make sure that you might speak to me again and that we can still talk naturally and always will be able to. After all, it's only three months and and I'm not all that good at forgetting things. Anyway, now that we've done our best and worst and parted, etc., I didn't think there'd be any harm in writing. You'll probably write back and tell me to go jump in a lake and forget everything.

36:35The witch I will accept with grace, but I hope you don't. I didn't. I'm looking forward to seeing her. Thursday, 23rd April 1964. Letter just in from Jackie. It was lovely to see you on Monday. Thank you for a super evening. You know, when you kissed me goodnight, it was for the first time in three and a half months, 14 weeks, one day. I shall probably have to wait even longer for the next one. And still, I love you just as much now as I did then. Stupid, isn't it? Today is the 400th anniversary of the birth of William Shakespeare. Of course, we can't be sure of that. We know he died on 23 April 1616.

37:19We know he was baptised on 26 April 1564. We can surmise that he was born on 23 April St George's Day. We began our Shakespeare celebrations yesterday at the Mermaid Theatre Puddledock, not a mile from where Shakespeare's own theatre would have been. We went to the first night of Macbeth. I rather enjoyed it, but the critics did not. For example, this morning's Daily Mail. It will be many years before we recover from the celebrations attendant on the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's birthday. I suspect productions like Macbeth at the Mermaid might well put back the appreciation of the Bard some 400 years.

38:04We also splashed out on supper in the Mermaid restaurant. I've kept the menu for my archive. I had chef's pate, two shillings and sixpence, omelette fin serbe, eight shillings and sixpence, and fresh sliced pineapple, four shillings. Pa had it with kirsch, two shillings and sixpence extra. There was no chocolate mousse. I took Jackie to Wimpy's. We like Wimpy's. In her letter she says, I hope you enjoy Othello. But of course, that's a foregone conclusion with his lordship in the title role. she's right he is my hero saturday 25th april 1964 olivier is my hero i've made a scrapbook that covers his whole career every performance but whatever he's done before cannot equal this last night i saw laurence olivier's othello the greatest performance of our age whatever keen and irving were to their time olivier is to ours it was so daring so brilliant so beautiful so true.

39:09It was utterly extraordinary. He looked the part, he walked the part, he was the man. This was Othello. There was power and glory and laughter and then heartbreaking tragedy. This was bravura acting to catch your soul. Astonishing. And yes, ladies and gentlemen, I was there. And now, you may like to know, I'm going to spend the day creating a pastiche mural on our lavatory wall and painting the back of the lavatory door. Back to school on Tuesday. What was the mural? I can't remember. Just sort of cutouts from magazines. It's very interesting. I'm sort of addressing an audience as I write this, aren't I?

39:50Am I anticipating that 60 years later we'll be meeting and I'll be reading it out loud to you, Harriet? Yes, probably. I mean, you didn't know about podcasts back then, thank goodness, because you'd probably have had one. But I suppose I knew that peeps had kept a diary, and they sometimes get published. Anyway, shall we go on? I think you quite often address someone when you write a diary. Yes, you do. Yes, you're writing. It's hard to imagine just writing for yourself, isn't it? It's like Dear World, isn't it? Yeah, Dear Diary.

40:24Monday the 18th of May, 1964. News update. Letter from home. Ma is one degree under. Jen is lower than a snake's belly. Hess is having treatment. Gin is going to America. Ben is making a nuisance of himself. Happily, all's well here. Mods and rockers are running amok on the beach at Margate. There is gang fighting all along the south coast. Fortunately, so far, Broadstairs has been spared. Mr Gillingham has lent me one of his pipes for Sherlock Holmes to use in the play. I've been obliged to make three alterations in the cast, including my Watson. Annoying, but there we are. On we go. This week's roundabout is very insipid.

41:09David Creamer, fellow Tory, is editing, but it's washed out and uninspired. I'm writing this badly because I've just returned from some beastly running practice since I'm entering the South East Hampshire Sports next Tuesday, doing the 220. Am most unenthusiastic. Never mind. It puts me in the authority's good books. A splendid portrait of Will Shakespeare now hangs above my bed in G-Dorm, next to my own personal bedside light and elegant homemade bookshelf. Two old drawers nailed together. O-levels loom. The horrors of Virgil and multiple factors. German oral on Friday. Sunday, 30th May, 1964.

41:53In the Lupton Hall at 7.40pm, the world premiere of A Study in Sherlock, dramatised and produced by me. It was a considerable success, I'm proud and relieved to report, and will be repeated on Parents' Day. My Holmes, Simon Cadell, is quite excellent and will one day be the doyen of Bedell's drama. Mr Nehru has died. Ma will be sad. You may remember, Ariat, that my mother was born in Royal Pindi, when it was still part of British India. And she'd then gone to Canada and come to England to go to university. But in her heart, she never really left India and the Indian subcontinent. So Nehru, being the Prime Minister of India since the country's independence in 1947, was someone who would have sort of loomed large in her life.

42:49Hence, you know, ma will be sad. And Tarek Ali spoke about him last week. Yeah. Oh, he was a huge, great, big figure. Tarek Ali was saying he'd had a... Oh, a fling. Yeah. Well, I think it's a stained fling with Edwina Mountbatten. Yes. It wasn't just me at school. Well, exactly. It was happening everywhere. It was happening, Giles. Everyone was at it in those days. Turns out I'm quite restrained. And ridiculous. Listeners do know that I see myself as ridiculous as I read all this. Wednesday, the 8th of July, 1964. O-levels over. Excellent. The O-levels weren't excellent. Latin was a nightmare.

43:28Excellent that they're over. Workshop? Coffee table completed. Excellent. Well, Grinling Gibbons, it ain't. But all my own work, it is. And the mortis and tenon joinery is not bad, though I say so shouldn't. At the donkey cart in Petersfield, with tea and toasted tea cake, I finished reading Confessions of Felix Krull. More than excellent, it's my story. I hope you don't know this novel, Harriet. It's by Thomas Mann, published in the 1950s. It remained unfinished because of Mann's death. The novel has been described as the tale of a morally flexible yet irresistible confidence trickster. So then I'm saying it's my story.

44:14I'm not sure about that. Anyway, on we go. We're nearly at the end of this expert. Saturday the 18th of July 1964 One, I've been made a dorm boss Two, I've been made a librarian Three, I've been asked to join The Chronicle The school magazine All good I saw Rachel, the drama teacher About Next Term's school play She wants to do The Physicists by Friedrich Dürrenmatt And needs my support I had coffee in Petersfield with Helen Levinson. I like her. I had supper at Foxcott with Jackie. I love her. Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona has been chosen by the Republican Party to stand against LBJ in the US presidential election.

45:06He can't win. He can't possibly win. Why on earth did they choose him? Well, he didn't win. So I got that bit right. Lyndon Johnson won comfortably, taking 61 % of the vote, to Barry Goldwater's 39 % of the vote. What is wonderful about this diary from a personal point of view is the line there, I had coffee with Helen Levinson, I like her. I've not thought about this person, I think really since I wrote this, which is more than 60 years ago. The moment of reading their sentence oh giles giles is giles is crying again but the the point is and smiling and smiling the point is the person immediately becomes into my head i can see her shape i can see her nose i can see exactly i can see her in profile i see the whole thing i can see the outfit she was wearing isn't this interesting what memory so one of the advantages of keeping a diary is it does trigger memories.

46:07Yeah. Some of them not good memories, but some of them really nice memories like that one. Oh, that's lovely, Giles. Oh, gosh. I mean, there was so much there. And it's funny because someone was saying to me, they should make this, they should make Giles's diary into a Netflix series. It would be a brilliant drama because it would be both the personal of your love life and all the things that are happening to you and your writing and your hilarious antics. And also the political, because you tell the whole story of the 60s as well through it. And they were saying it would be such a great series.

46:48And yes, I mean, this is a brilliant episode of that series, isn't it? Because a lot happens. Also, it's quite a quirky little boy. Yeah. It's an interesting character. Yeah, who would play you, do you think? I don't know. I've got a grandson who is going to be appearing on our television screens either later this year or next year. he is in a new version of Lord of the Flies, the William Golding novel. And he's not one of the two or three principal characters that people recognise, but he's one of the leading characters in it. Well, he'd be perfect to play you. Maybe he would. He's only 12, 13 now.

47:27Probably by the time you raise money to get a show off the ground, he'll be the right age. Would you feel embarrassed with him knowing about Gail and kissing a member of staff or not? Well, I think when you write this, you put it in the public domain, you give it away. Yeah. And, you know, I hope anyone listening to this knows that it's the work of a 14, 15-year-old, 16-year-old boy who is as he was with all the vanities and naivetes of somebody of that age. and so you just hand it over and let it happen. But I like the idea, actually, because it was an amazing period, the 1960s. Yeah, it was.

48:14Yeah, and this is a great way of telling it, isn't it? Yeah. But all these films, they have to have an elegiac finish to them. So if it's just going to be... Well, we haven't got to the end of my teenage diary yet, have we? Well, exactly. What happens? Because you're still... You sound like you're back on with Jackie. You say, oh, you love Jackie. Exactly. Well, that's confusing, isn't it? But you see, I probably... It's on off, isn't it? It is on off. You know, you're 14, 15, 16, and she is a year older. So, you know. She still likes you, I think, doesn't she? Yeah, the tide came in and went out.

48:46Right. Yeah. And, yeah. Did she ever hear about what happened? No. That term, no. No, I don't think she did. You kept that secret from everyone. Which is interesting. because I'm quite a confiding person. Oh, I should warn you, Harriet. I still keep a diary. Oh, gosh. Well, shall I put my elbows on my knees and look at you intently and give you some brilliant advice, Giles? I would be grateful. At the end of this episode, that's what I'll be doing, listeners. Join us next time for another episode of Giles' Diaries. That's in two weeks' time. That's true. Every other week, we have a proper rose bun.

49:30And of course, every Friday, we have what we like to think is a star-studded Rosebud. We've got some very exciting guests coming up. We're about to record one right now, aren't we? We are. I'm looking forward to this meeting. So we need to go, because they're about to arrive. Oh, look, I recognise him. In fact, I last saw him on the last leg. Oh, I wonder who it could be.

50:01Thank you.

50:32That was more Rosebud with music by Phil Leppard, production by Harriet Jane, and in the chair, me, Giles Brandreth. Thank you for listening.