More Rosebud - Gyles's Diary episode 43

0:00I'm Jake Stouck, co-founder and CEO of Serval. We built Serval to automate the IT work that slows companies down. Onboarding, password resets, access to applications, my laptop stopped working. While employees wait for help, their real work is put on hold. IT desperately wants to automate this work, and that's why they need Serval. You just tell Serval what you want to automate in plain English, and it's built. No drag-and-drop workflows, no expensive consultants. Employees get unblocked and IT teams go from drowning in tickets to building what actually matters. With Serval, IT becomes the AI engine powering the entire company.

0:39This is a new way to run IT. We guarantee you'll automate 50 % of all tickets and we'll prove it to you in a free four-week pilot. Go to serval.com slash ACAST. That's S-E-R-V-A-L dot com slash ACAST.

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1:05I'm Eden Scherer.

1:07Harriet: And I'm Brock Charlelli. We played Best Friends on The Middle. And became Best Friends in Real Life. We're here to re-watch The Middle with all of you. Each week, we'll recap an episode with behind-the-scenes stories, guest interviews, and what we think now, many years later. There's a lot to dive into, so let's get to middling.

1:28Harriet: a cast helps creators launch grow and monetize their podcasts everywhere a cast.com

2:00Welcome to another episode of More Rosebud. This is, well, where you get more of me and you get some of my friend, my colleague, my producer, Harriet Jane. How are you, Harriet? I'm fine, thanks, Charles. I'm going to give people a little bit of a secret, give away something, because they're hearing this, if they're hearing it for the first time on the day, it's dropped on a Tuesday morning. but we're actually recording it a few days before because i'm going to be reading from my diary and i was going to say well what a marvelous weekend i've just had because among my many excitements this weekend was attending trooping the color which is the so lucky yeah and i'm i sit in the commentary box with one of our wonderful previous guests the amazing claire balding and a marvellous soldier who is from the grenadier guards who are this year trooping the colour with the king and the queen and all the rest of the royal family and then I thought no I can't say how wonderful that was because it hasn't happened yet oh I see just in case for some reason I'm sure it wouldn't be but just in case it was cancelled or you know I talked about you might say well were you cold up there how what was it like and it was a brilliant day or were their soldiers fainting.

3:16The reason I'm very careful about this is, as you know, I wrote a biography of the late Queen Elizabeth II. And she had, when she was a child, a sort of nanny, nursemaid governess called Miss Crawford, known as Crawfie within the family. And Crawfie basically blotted her copybook by writing a book about her life with the little princesses, because she looked after Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret Rose, and was dropped by the royal family it was an act of betrayal etc and she was distressed that she'd done it but she'd done it it was too late she'd taken the money and then she went on to write magazine articles and one year she i think wrote an article describing royal ascot or some annual event that always was the same she wrote this article before it had happened and that year it was cancelled so the article still appeared in the newspaper or the magazine describing an event that that year hadn't taken place.

4:13So one should never do that.

4:16Harriet: No, but you could just say, I'm going to do Trooping the Colour. Well, I am saying that. In a few days. Yes, because we're recording this. But by the time people hear this on Tuesday, it will have been and gone. Yeah, but people can get their heads around that concept, that this doesn't go out live. It's recorded a few days before it goes out. And many people listen to it. Can't you listen? Do you know what, Giles, could I tell you something which may come as a surprise to you? The rosebud listener is a person of above average intelligence. And I'm telling you that for a fact because I can feel it through the airwaves coming to me.

4:56We know that because we have advertising that surrounds us that helps pay for what we're doing. And we know that the advertisers know who's listening. And that's why the ads are all so sophisticated.

5:07Harriet: They're so classy, our ads. They are. Some people are missing them because there are people who belong to our offering that includes a Sunday. The ad-free. If you want an ad-free offering, it is there. It's called patreon.com forward slash rosebud. And you can just apply for that. Rosebud family. The rosebud family. And you get us and you get extra things on a Sunday. But some people like me, I listen like a real person. So I'll listen to this episode on Tuesday evening in the bathroom. and it's quite fun. And so I listen to the ads as well. Though I have discovered you can press this little thing on my phone.

5:45I could if I wanted to fast forward.

5:47Harriet: Don't say that, Giles. Come on. No, you listen to the ads because they help to pay for the production team and all the people that we have helping us at the moment. And they are classy, our ads, aren't they? And you read them in a very classy way, I might just say, Giles. Thank you. Yeah, because you're so sophisticated. Well, I don't know about that. but I do I must say I like it I mean I like well you remember from the diaries we're going to get to in a moment that I first had the offer of being in a commercial for milk wasn't it when I was 18 or 19 years of age and that didn't materialize are you actually a cockney Giles just putting on a posh accent that would be funny we did a wonderful episode with the actor Larry Lamb I don't think we put it out yet it hasn't dropped yet but it's a different kind of episode of Rose but I think it's electric.

6:37We recorded it in front of an audience. And curiously, when I first met Larry Lamb, he spoke to me with a posh accent.

6:44Harriet: Oh. And I didn't realise he was sending me up. He said, oh, hello, Giles. Lovely to see you. How are you? And after a while, I said to him, Larry, I didn't realise that this, so the accent you put on is an accent. You're such a good actor. You know, I'm Royal Shakespeare Company. That's what I am. Oh, you thought he was posh, pretending to be Corblimy when he was acting. Yes. But actually, he is a Cockney. And if you look at him, doesn't he look, and if he spoke like that, you'd think this is a man who's going to be cast playing the bank manager or the foreign secretary of a certain type of country because of the silver hair, the silver fox look.

7:23And then when he speaks in his natural, normal voice, you think, oh, it suddenly becomes a bit more Jack the Laddish. yeah it's interesting how the accent sends out a signal so um attractive man larry lamb very

7:37Harriet: attractive if you're listening larry lamb we we think you're attractive we do think you're posh or posh or cock me what's your idea of an attractive man oh give me some examples i don't i just don't know if i but you do know when confronted with one i don't know but it's Not, I definitely don't have a type. Absolutely not. I like all, I've had all sorts of men. We're back on this. We're back talking about matters of the heart, Giles. I don't know if people like hearing us talk about this the whole time. Except they do. Because then we received a letter on this very topic, which I was leading us into.

8:16Oh, okay. What's my type? It was instant attraction. And that's what this letter is about.

8:21Harriet: So I don't think I have a type. uh yeah it's just something some je ne sais quoi something indescribable in the atmosphere absolutely i tell you what is important for me i think and i would advise anyone to identify this first rather than having a type don't have a type that's not a good idea it usually ends in tears and it's very hard to get your type they might not they might not like you you know you might love tall dark and handsome and they're just not interested so i say my type is someone that is interested in me of course and if you're good at spotting that which i have to say i think i am and most sensible people are and they need to become good at that i thought you're gonna say most sensible people are interested no no no they're not interested in me most if you can get good at spotting the people that are interested in you and i don't know how you work it out but you just can, there's something going on, then that's who you're interested in.

9:25Harriet: Because then you're not always running after people that aren't keen, which is a nightmare. Have we got to the bit in the diaries where this girl, after I've done a whole series of about eight programmes on the last day, she was in the band or she was a backing singer, as we were saying goodbye, said you didn't notice, did you? Oh, are you bad at noticing? Are you a poor noticer? Clearly I am. And I saw her, and of course. And I hadn't noticed. And we've done eight weeks of work together. That's a helpless job. Well, that would never happen to me. I'd be noticing the first day. Yeah, of course you would.

9:57Harriet: Yeah. Anyway, because we've talked about in the past catching sight of people on a train as the train's leaving the station and it meaning something. And we've had a letter that's relevant to that. Oh, we have, yes. Who's it from? Shall I read it out? Yeah, please. Tell us the background to this. So this is someone called Tom Cunningham. Hello, Tom. Thanks so much for emailing us to hello at rosebudpodcast.com, which I have to say is suddenly being answered with great efficiency by Marie. You've got a team. You've got someone. Yeah, yeah. And I'm actually emailing people much more now as well.

10:32Harriet: So sorry, normal services resumed. So if you email in, you'll get a reply pretty much straight away. So definitely email us with some stories. Anyway, Tom's emailed. Tom must have listened when we were talking about falling in love at first sight. We've talked about that a few times, haven't we? It can happen. Hello, Harriet and Giles. Your podcast is an oasis in the hurly-burly of current times. Thank you. That's nice, isn't it, Giles? That's very nice. Now, on to why I'm emailing. I was listening to a recent episode of Radio 4's In Our Time, covering the poet John Keats. Brilliant show, In Our Time.

11:11Harriet: Melvin Bragg? No longer Melvin Bragg. Oh. It's now he's got a successor, whose name will come to me in a moment. melvin do you know we were very honored melvin retired from in our time recently and i think our conversation with him our rosebud part is really worth listening to was his last big interview before announcing the retirement wow we were so lucky to have melvin bragg doing rosebud for us and then he decided to retire from in our time and now it's misha glennie i still love the program yeah brilliant program tom continues in the episode of in our time that he was listening to about john keats one of the distinguished guest scholars referenced a sonnet by keats named to a lady seen for a few moments in voxel oh but this is interesting this sounds like a good for a few moments yeah that's the point because we were talking about well instant love this is good And Tom says, sonnet snippet.

12:13Harriet: So here's a quick quote from Keats. Time sea hath been five years at its slow ebb. Long hours have to and fro let creep the sand. Since I was tangled in thy beauty's web and snared by the ungloving of thine hand. Crumbs, Keats. so tom continues if one of the defining poets of british romanticism fell in love after the briefest of glances then surely it must be real but also can i say the erotic charge snared by the ungloving of thine hand i mean they looked at each other and she slowly took off her glove no that's not what happened snared by the ungloving of thine hand they didn't look at each other and she slowly ungloved he was observing a woman ungloving her hand correct and then got a crush on said woman she probably didn't give him one look and she certainly wasn't ungloving her hand in a sexy way you're quite right i was giving it 18th century it's the 18th century and i'm giving you keats the male gaze yeah okay fine in which she is ungloving her hand and he's giving it an erotic charge so she ungloved her hand probably to get something out of her purse and he watched on and thought, war.

13:37Harriet: Anyway, God, we keep digressing. Back to Tom's email. Surely it must be real, Tom says. Surely love at first sight must be real. I myself, Tom says, decided the moment I saw my future wife six years ago that she was the one for me. I just joined the company that I was working at and I was around three days in when I walked in and saw someone sitting at the desk behind me that I hadn't seen before. All of a sudden this curious feeling swept over me and it was as if everything had crystallized in that moment. I've been struggling with my mental health, drinking too much and generally struggling to keep it together but when I saw her I felt this sense of resolve.

14:24Harriet: This is why I'm here. Swept up in emotion I I declared to my colleagues at lunch that day that I was going to marry her one day. I somehow built up the courage to ask her out to lunch. And then, although she politely declined twice, we finally went on a date in South Ken. I'm glad she said yes on the third ask because I was going to call it quits after asking for the third time. From there, the rest is history, as they say. we married in London and from then I pulled myself up out of the hole I'd dug and found my zest for life. What about that Giles? Well that's just one of the most beautiful letters that Rosebud has ever received.

15:10Harriet: Isn't it? It's a beautiful story and I wonder if intentionally or not he used the word zest at the end because zest is our calling card. It's what you offer, it's what you mentioned when you read some of your diaries about three years ago, the word zest came up on the first page. He sent us some pictures of them. Oh, I'd love to see them. The wedding pictures. I'd love to see them. Wait there.

15:37Oh, this is them jumping up in the air. It's obviously them and the best man, I assume, one you know now, bridesmaid or matron of honour, whatever it's called. They're leaping up in the air. They're on a bridge holding the balloons. they're jumping literally jumping for joy what a wonderful story yeah it's a lovely picture that

15:55Harriet: but that is an example of love at first sight yeah literally yeah he declared it to his colleagues i'm going to marry that girl yeah and then he was brave enough to ask her out she said no twice which was was that the right thing to do do you think on her part possibly she didn't rush into it don't rush into it and then she thought all right why not and then they met and his instinct was right and intriguing that keats all those years ago had a similar experience still going on about some woman taking her gloves off okay i got that wrong that no no no actually that was he was going on he was that's what he had a very mixed up love life was keats the one who had a fancied his half sister oh dear i think he did didn't he and luckily he died so young that he could never do anything about it oh i do no i don't know i know we're not very well informed we're not we might do later in the year when we finish my diaries we're going to go to other people's diaries so we might do them in conjunction yeah and we're going to peeps's diaries which are fascinating but there are some amazing letters from john keats from which i think we know about his very complicated love life i think to be serious for a second that it's quite reassuring to read about the complexities of other people's love lives.

17:13Yeah. Because it makes you think, well, I'm not alone.

17:16Harriet: Yeah. You know, when times are tough or times are exciting or, you know, the highs and lows, the rejections, the acceptances, the making mistakes, making an idiot of yourself, etc. Minds greater than ours have been caught up in the tangles. That's true. Yeah. But I wouldn't model any of your behaviour on the romantic poets. No. I mean, they were all over the place, Giles. And that's why they're brilliant writers. I thought they were mainly in the Lake District. Well, Keats was on the Spanish steps, wasn't he? Diaries now. Where'd we got to? We're in 1976, September 1976. Monday, the 6th of September, 1976.

17:55Last night in Oxford, old Emlyn Williams, now in his 70s. Do you know what I mean by Emlyn Williams, Harriet? No. Very distinguished actor, writer, playwright. Last night in Oxford, old Emlyn Williams, now in his 70s, evoked the young Dylan Thomas for us. He was spellbinding. He simply stood centre stage for two hours and talked. He used only his hands, his voice and his eyes, and somehow convinced us we were with a boy in Swansea 50 years ago. It was totally compelling. And he is very charming and flirtatious and young at heart. Lots of, you must come to Dove House Street, Giles. Tonight, in London, we went to the National Theatre, the least user-friendly building in the history of architecture.

18:49Give the man a knighthood. They did, you know, and then they gave him a peerage. And saw the new John Osborne play, Watch It Come Down. Watch us walk out. We did. We laughed at the interval. Some went earlier. I've never done that in the theatre before. Michelle said we should do it more often. The piece is pretentious tosh. Oh, dear. Have you ever walked out, Harriet, of a show in the midway?

19:15Harriet: Yeah. Yeah, I'm a big fan. I just, if I'm not into something, I just go and then I go out and get some food. Oh, well. Yeah. You pay the ticket. If it isn't working for you, you disappear. You wouldn't get up and walk out during an act. No. You'd wait for the interval. I'd just go in the interval. I'd just slip out. This is why I like putting on shows that are 90 minutes, no interval. Yeah. You can't lose the audience. They're stuck there. I know. In Edinburgh, there's no interval for our show. People come, they'll stay throughout. They can't. They can't leave. They can't. They can't. We lock the doors, don't we, I think?

19:45Harriet: Yeah. Bolt them. They won't want to leave. They may want to storm the stage. They won't want to leave. They'll be glued to their seats in horror. But what's interesting about this performance, and I do now, it does come back to me, of Emlyn Williams, who was a beautiful actor and can still be seen in films from the 1930s and 40s and 50s, is you see he used only his hands his voice and his eyes he was an old man in his 70s being the teenage dylan thomas and it clearly worked and sometimes less is more you know i think that when i'm in our show jitterbucking all over the place and you're saying stand still for god's sake all right friday the 10th of september 1976 chairman mauer has died and we are going to plunder the ben travis farce at the new national theater good news bad news the good news dear daddy the play that we'd put on at oxford is transferring to the ambassador's theater in the west end opening on the 20th of october bad news the bernard shaw estate are bastards having told us that we could do arms and the man in oxford with just two sets they now tell us we can't tour because our production only has two sets.

20:58We have to have the third act set in the drawing room as specified by Bernard Shaw. We can't afford to build a new set and re-rehearse, so the tour plus possible transfer won't happen now. And the Shaw estate will lose a hefty chunk of royalties. Fuck them, as Noel would say. They are idiots. Who gives a monkey's where the third act is set? Anyway, at least we have one West End transfer. and everything else has been good. Nice piece in the Oxford Mail about our fringe. Last time, we discovered Hinge and Bracket. This time, we've scored with Chris Langham and Noel's choice, Mr X from Gay Sweatshop.

21:39Gay Sweatshop? What's that? What's interesting is this is 50 years ago. So gay entertainment was not mainstream. It was quite controversial to have Gay Sweatshop as a company And Mr. X was something again.

21:58Harriet: Very intriguing. He was intriguing. A lot of leather, which Noel liked.

22:13I'm Jake Stouck, co-founder and CEO of Serval. We built Serval to automate the IT work that slows companies down. Onboarding, password resets, access to applications, my laptop stopped working. While employees wait for help, their real work is put on hold. IT desperately wants to automate this work, and that's why they need Serval. You just tell Serval what you want to automate in plain English, and it's built. No drag-and-drop workflows, no expensive consultants. Employees get unblocked, and IT teams go from drowning in tickets to building what actually matters. With Serval, IT becomes the AI engine powering the entire company.

22:52This is a new way to run IT. We guarantee you'll automate 50 % of all tickets and we'll prove it to you in a free four-week pilot. Go to serval.com slash ACAST. That's S-E-R-V-A-L dot com slash ACAST.

23:10Monday, the 13th of September, 1976. Last night was the last night of the festival. Michael Redgrave with his Hans Anderson readings. The week before, Emily Williams, age 71, swept all before him. Last night, poor Michael, age 68, struggled to hold the attention of the crowd. I met him at the station and took him to the Randolph. He stood alone on the railway platform looking bewildered, his fawn raincoat flapping in the wind, touching a little battered overnight case that when he opened it to the hotel contained nothing but some bottles of pills and his shaving kit. No pyjamas, no change of clothes.

23:52He's a stricken giant, stooped, anxious, going on because he has to, he needs the money and because acting is what he does, it's what he is. His hands shake all the time now, it's not just the drink, something is wrong with him. He's having tests at the hospital for nervous diseases. He says there's a brain operation that he may have to have. The idea terrifies him. The idea of performing last night terrified him too. In the wings, he said he couldn't do it. But when the time came, he did. He shuffled onto the stage. He sat to read the stories. He sat awkwardly and kept getting the pages muddled up.

24:34At one point, several sheets slipped from his folder onto the floor. He bent forward to retrieve them, but they were out of his reach. He leant towards them, slowly, painfully. I was at the back of the stalls and thinking I'd better go and rescue him when someone in the front row got up, collected the fallen pages, and handed them back to him. The stories, translated by one of Michael's old teachers from Clifton College, have great charm, and his voice, with that heart-rending rasp is still unique, but the power has gone, and with it, the authority. He can no longer command the house. The audience stayed with him out of respect and affection.

25:14They could see he was not well. The evening was sad, but not disastrous. Afterwards, he gave me one of his sweetest smiles. He felt it had gone rather well. Noel wouldn't join us for dinner. I can't face it. he's a sad old bugger but he's your sad old bugger not mine noel has discovered a secret floor of the randolph it's the floor above the top floor it's where the waiters live i think noel is spending some of his nights up there i took sir michael redgrave to the elizabeth restaurant simon caddell came to as planned we did most of the talking michael sat between us blinking at us but smiling.

26:01I think he had a happy evening. I hope so. He has been a very great man and I feel the privilege of knowing him. That's very sad, Giles, isn't it? It's very, very sad but he's actually, Michael Regrave has been part of my life since this time because he was the first seriously great person to take an interest in me and I'd seen him at the Chichester Festival Theatre and then at the National Theatre in a production of Uncle Vanya, a play by Chekhov, one of the greatest plays ever written, directed by Laurence Olivier. Laurence Olivier was in it, very distinguished cast, and he was outstanding. Many people of that era, if you ask them what was the single greatest performance they saw in their lifetime, would name Michael Redgrave as Uncle Vanya.

26:47So to have known such a person was fantastic. And then by chance, really, over the years I got to know his family and well he occurs again but I got to know his daughter Vanessa a little bit. I shared a birthday literally with his daughter Lynn and I got to know Corin Redgrave though a very keen socialist which I'm not but we had a shared love of Oscar Wilde and he did a wonderful show featuring Oscar Wilde and then I got to know Corin's daughter Gemma Redgrave who I would say is one of my best friends oh i love being with her uh you know how you feel it could be some people you're one of them um but she is another who if you've not been together for a year six months 18 months two years you're right back where you were the moment you see them oh yeah you understand them they understand you you don't really need to say very much you're just there and if you have a problem they understand it immediately just instantly so i've always felt that with jemma that's lovely which is lovely so that's by the by on we go lunch today this is the morning after the night with sir michael redgrave lunch today with another great man lord hailsham a year older than sir michael but a different gather altar thing as no likes to say Noel says this as an expression used by Princess Margaret.

28:16Harriet: A different gather alter thing. A different thing altogether. I love that. A different gather alter thing. And Noel used to claim that Princess Margaret always said, oh, it's a different gather alter thing. It's quite a nice phrase. He was saying that all the time. Anyway, Noel was very excited about Lord Hailsham and had gone to a lot of trouble with the lunch. Smoked salmon, lamb cutlets, cheese and salad, fruit and ice cream. Lord Hailsham was giving one of our festival lunchtime lectures. The lunch was really a bonus for Noel Because Noel is an actor He isn't starstruck about other actors Halesham was a star from a different constellation And Noel was in awe And his lordship was on song He is very brilliant and very funny He rattled through a raft of F.E.

29:03Smith stories Several of them new to me E.g. at an election meeting F.E. Smith suggested to a heckler that he might like to take his cap off before asking his question. Heckler, I'll take my boots off if you like. Effie Smith, sighing. Ah, I knew you'd come here to be unpleasant. You still can't beat the best. Judge, I have read your case, Mr. Smith, and I'm no wiser now than I was when I started. Effie Smith, possibly not, my lord, but far better informed. Lord Hailsham, accepting a third libation of port from Noel, told us it was the drink that killed him. Do you know who I even mean by F.E.

29:44Smith?

29:45Harriet: No, I think you've mentioned him before, but I've forgotten who he is. F.E. Smith, 1872 to 1930. We're becoming a bit like in our time, aren't we? First Earl of Burgundy. He was a lawyer. He was a Conservative MP. He was one of Lord Hailsham's predecessors as Lord Chancellor. He was considered the most brilliant person of his time. He came from Liverpool, and my father was born up in that part of the world, in Hoylake, near Liverpool, and came from a family of lawyers. The name F.E. Smith meant everything. So he was a hugely famous, brilliant man. And it was an era 100 years ago. Now the famous people who are noted in our society are influencers, maybe movie stars, people who appear on ludicrous reality TV shows.

30:31100 years ago, when my father was a boy, it was people like F.E. Smith lawyers the public intellectuals people would go to the House of Commons and the House of Lords to sit in the gallery to listen to these people speak they would go to the Old Bailey they would sit in the gallery to listen to these great brilliant orators doing their thing

30:52Harriet: we've really dumbed down haven't we Charles I think maybe we have to be honest I have to say we're keeping our end up aren't we I mean you are, you are, I'm not I do my best to dumb you down all the time Come on, you're a very clever person. I don't think I am. But the culture has dumbed down a bit, hasn't it? Can I say, I love, since we're being serious, you and I together, one of the reasons I love Rosebud is we are exploring people's stories. And I think sometimes we really get to the heart of the matter. But I also, I love getting to the heart of the matter with people on Fridays, but I also love the life of the mind.

31:31and I'm not very good at it but I love going to an art gallery with somebody who knows about the pictures and then you look at a picture and they tell you what the things to look out for and the great thing about somebody like Lord Hailsham who was a very brilliant man is I love being with people who are cleverer than me when I say this often in the diary I want to be with people who are cleverer than me who are beautiful and who are funny that's all I want Thursday the 7th of October 1976 we got back from our week in Athens at lunchtime we have made a decision tomorrow i am firing the nanny oh what moni nora whatever she was called i can't remember we'll maybe discover her name now um or maybe i'm not going to mention her name we'd had lope do you remember we got a successor this this girl yeah i'm afraid forgive the political incorrectness this was written in 1976 i'm firing the nanny she has been a disaster from the start fat ugly spotty lumpen lazy stupid don't talk about your mother like that child She has no redeeming features.

32:34I do not want Bennett, our son, spending any more time in her company.

32:39Harriet: Apologies, nanny. She was awful in Athens. Lazing by the poolside, rubbing oil onto her hideous body, which should have been about her duties, and muttering and sighing whenever she was asked to do the slightest thing. It's supposed to be a holiday for me too, isn't it? She bleated. no i wanted to say but i didn't anyway the plan is that i tell her tomorrow and she goes at once with three months notice cash in hand i'm dreading it i hate firing people not a good day the bank of england has put up interest rates from 13 to 15 percent our national westminster overdraft already costs a fortune. It's a nightmare.

33:27Harriet: I'm not surprised if you're taking the nanny on holiday with you. But hold on, that's the base rate of 15%. Can you imagine what our mortgage was? If I have to hear another boomer moaning on about interest rates when they bought their house for 27p and have got a nanny to go on holiday with them to Athens, most people now can't even afford to live with their parents i mean for goodness sake giles moving swiftly yeah sorry no i'd love to hear i'd love to hear this no i think it's lovely i'm gonna get so many emails no can i say one of the fascinating i must be serious for a moment um somebody came up to me on the underground the other day and to talk about the podcast people do and they said oh I love you and Harriet Harriet's so funny etc she said brilliant she's marvelous I love it because it's a real intergenerational experience I said I'm sorry Harriet is my I didn't say that but obviously it is an intergenerational that is the point yeah and that I think people find quite interesting so your take and my take is slightly different because but I know I will get a few emails from people saying the interest rates were really high and And we do really struggle.

34:44Harriet: I do know that. But also, it was easier to accumulate assets. And as you have said, Giles, if you were born in 1948, you're the luckiest little person alive. And you were, Giles. Maybe then. Not so much now, because I'm closer to death than you are, Elliot. That's true. That's true. And have you seen that? That's true. Not necessarily, you should say. Not necessarily. Oh, oh. Oh, not necessarily. Yes. I might be run over by a bus. I might be run over by a bus. And I know who might be driving it. that's a joke tuesday the 2nd of november 1976 it's all happening one nina tishlakis has arrived as our new nanny she's not a fat lumpen girl she's a petite lady of riper years and greek extraction she's a widow about 50 highly experienced very enthusiastic she looks the business she has her own uniform fingers crossed two i've been the support act to bernard manning do you know i mean by bernard manning of course that's interesting you hadn't heard of emily williams but bernard manning 1930 manning died in 2007 emily williams was 70 in 1976 you're quite yeah quite right for those who don't know he was a manchester born comic club owner came to prominence in the TV series The Comedians.

36:01Harriet: He was on telly, wasn't he? Yeah. Yes, last night I took my cabaret act to the Piper Room in Preston and I survived. I shared a dressing room with a pair of topless go-go dancers. Should that be a quartet? And the stripper, a rough-looking lady of about 40 who put one foot on a chair and shoved her naked rear end out towards me while giving me a pritz stick rub it on me ass darling she ordered i'm going to glue on me sequins gives the ass a bit of sparkle covers up the crepey bits the club room was long and narrow so you had to perform like an umpire at wimbledon turning your head from side to side the go-go girls went on first each favoring one end of the room i followed i managed just the trick should i ever do this again is to be on the attack without rushing keep it strong but take your time i gabbled too much at the beginning and my throat was so dry but it was fine and given that i was completely clean and inoffensive it went down remarkably well while i was on someone shouted in broad lancashire i can't do it what are you drinking lad i said in broad south kensington Mine's a gin and tonic, thanks.

37:19And when I came off, there were a dozen of them lined up for me. Oh. I suppose they took sympathy. I drank them all. Actually, I must stop drinking gin. I'm getting fat. When I sat down, Bernard Manning rolled on. He came on from the street. He travels the circuit in his white Rolls Royce. He gets to the club and waits outside the door. He launches straight into the act. It's filthy from the word go, but also undeniably funny. He did 40 minutes, relentless, nonstop, sweating profusely throughout. At the end, all the lads cheered. I had a drink with Bernard. You're a f***ing cunt, Giles, but I like you.

38:04We must work together more often. You make me look good. And then he stepped back into the roller and set off for his next gig. He did three last night. And it was a Monday. Wow. Still on the same day. Three, Jimmy Carter from the peanut state of Georgia is the new president of the United States. He got almost 40 million votes to Gerald Ford's 39. Sunday the 7th of November 1976, fundraising evening for the Action Research Charity at the Athenaeum Hotel Piccadilly. We played a game called Petropolis, Monopoly with Oil. The company, Clement Freud with son Dom, Nicholas Parsons, Simon Williams and Belinda, his then wife, John Stride and April, John Dunn, he was a broadcaster.

38:56I thought he was the best radio interviewer in the business, by the way. He was six foot seven inches tall and his wife Margaret, Sinead Cusack and Jeremy Irons. all relatively jolly except that clement was determined to win at all costs and did i told sinead that jeremy is a distinct improvement on george best she did not seem to want to be reminded of mr best simon williams and john dunn are not just incredibly tall they're incredibly nice good fun and easy company it's worth noting because it cannot be said of everybody.

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40:40Friday the 3rd of December, 1976. Ludicrous scenes on Thames TV tonight. Bill Grundy out of control with the sex pistols. He tried to be amusing while they abused him. Several shits, a couple of fucks, and a fucking were aired. There will be hulls of protest. Poor old Grundy. He bleated facetiously while the punks, clearly out of their minds on something, jeered at him contemptuously. It was a broadcaster's nightmare.

41:09Harriet: Giles, can I just apologise for the amount of swearing this episode? Yeah. I mean, we've had quite a lot of rude words. Sorry, everyone. And they're not from me. Well, some were. No, no, no, they weren't. I'm just quoting people at the time. Yeah. This is the difficulty with the diary. And in a sense, this is in the public domain because this happened on television. Oh, this is famous. And poor Bill Grundy, who was a very experienced broadcaster, he was suspended for two weeks, and I think eight weeks later, the actual show was cancelled. So this was a disaster for them. Well, it was good, really, because we're still talking about it now and still famous.

41:43And, of course, now you have that kind of bad language on television regularly. Yeah. But when I was a child, literally when I was a child, it was unheard of. On the whole, I don't really like it. I'm swearing. Yeah. I mean, I don't know much of it myself.

41:56Harriet: No. And you don't do much of it, actually? Depends who I'm with. When I'm with Larry Lamb, I'd put on a Cockney accent and I'd swear the whole time. He loves it. Does he? Yeah. I'm glad you did. But with you, I speak posh and I never swear. What do you speak like when you're on your own? In your head, what do you sound like? I think I'm probably a bit less clipped than I am on Rosebud. Really? Yeah. I dumb myself down. Yeah. How interesting. You're doing it now. I'm all over the place. I know that. Yeah, because I'm actually from Devon, so I probably should be speaking like that. Like that. I used to speak like that when I was little.

42:27I did an event the other day in Bridlington, and I was interviewing somebody, and she was telling her story. And what was very interesting, at the end of it, I told her something. I said, it's very interesting. When you've been talking about your career, you've talked entirely in a British accent. And when you were talking about the painful parts of your life and your three marriages, you talked in an American accent. Oh, wow. And it was quite distinct. And I said, am I right to the audience? And they said, yes. And it turned out that she had been brought up. Her life started in America. But throughout, she switched accents without realising it.

43:08Oh, that is interesting. It was just a lilt, an American lilt, when she began talking about personal things. Right. And then she got on to, I suppose it was an automatic pilot, telling her story. It was at a business conference. So she was talking about her business career. And then separately, I asked her some more personal questions about her relationships and things. And then when she mentioned one husband in a jokey way, I thought, well, maybe there's another one. And that turned out to be a third one. But each of those stories was told. So it's interesting. We have different voices for different people and maybe for different things that we may be saying.

43:40Harriet: Well, she must have been going into a different part of her brain, don't you think? It's that thing of, you know, I told you once, you look to the right when you're remembering something and to the left when you're inventing something. You know, there's things you're doing and you're retrieving things from different parts of your brain. Your memory is in a different place to your rational business person brain or whatever. And obviously in her brain, she's got accent as well because one accent's from her childhood and when she goes into the memory brain, that's coming out. Interesting. It's very interesting.

44:10Rereading this diary is very interesting because a lot of these incidents in later years, I've turned into anecdotes and I've made them funny and I've modified them. and um but i think the the diary i do think i kept accurately at the time we have nightmares of our own at campton hill gardens the noise from our neighbors continues horrible loud music played by young mexicans on the ground floor mrs windler the landlord next door affects to be sympathetic but the mexicans don't give a damn they go quiet for a day or two and then it starts again Michelle is reduced to tears The apprehension is as bad as the noise itself We are desperate and looking at soundproofing Incredibly expensive and not necessarily effective And possible legal action Ditto We're also considering legal action against Simon Clark Productions We are not getting our agreed cut from the West End run of Dear Daddy We can't even get hold of the figures We're due 5 % of the gross box office takings They wanted to give us a share of the profits, but Michel said, there won't be any profits, there never are.

45:19Profits could be made to disappear. You must go for the gross. We did. The play is a hit. We are due thousands. Noel is frantic for the money. He has no work. We need the money too. The only answer may be a high court action, but the solicitors advise us not to threaten action unless we're ready to take it. And running a high court action, according to Jim Phillips, our solicitor, is costly in terms of time and money and spirit. Is it worth it? Monday the 6th of December 1976. We went to Stratford by train. It takes an age. Why isn't there a proper train service to Stratford? It must be one of the country's leading tourist destinations.

46:06On the underground, we saw one of my posters. I persuaded a group of my publishers to club together to fund an advertising campaign to promote eight of my books, which is rather fun. The poster carried the headline, Giles Brandreth is perfect, with beneath it, at least in book form he is. I've still got the poster downstairs. I'll show it to you when you next come over. Anyway, on the underground, we saw one of my posters. But when we got to Paddington, I resisted the temptation to visit WH Smith and asked for a copy of a royal scrapbook. Have I already written about this? The book. it's a gentle royal spoof to mark the silver jubilee it's supposed to be the queen's own scrapbook recovered from the dustbins in buckingham palace muse my 25 years on the throne photos of her majesty and family with balloons and commentary by me well it's been banned by hatchards because they are royal warrant holders wh smith will stock it but only supply it from beneath the counter.

47:07I've pressed Michael Joseph, the publishers, to have some fun with this, but they won't. They don't want to upset W.H. Smith or Her Majesty. The book can't sell because no one is selling it. Hey-ho.

47:20Harriet: Is that why you haven't got a knighthood? Oh, do you think because of this book? Probably. Written 50 years ago. This cheeky book. Cheeky book about the Queen. It was great fun. People now, I mean, I've got lots of copies in the basement. You can have one. Oh, great. Because they didn't sell. Because they wouldn't put it in the bookshop. Oh, dear. It was just a fun, it was like a sort of picture of private eye cover. I know, but the Queen doesn't like that sort of thing, John. The late Queen? I don't know. Well, we don't know. She would never have seen it. It was just a bit of fun. OK. But, at least the Silver Jubilee Diaries are doing well.

47:51Oh, yes, we'd also produced a Silver Jubilee Diary. And we may have the rights to produce the Action Man Annual. And I have plans to buy Hamleys of Regent Street. Much Ado About Nothing was marvellous. Judy Dench and Donald Sinden as Beatrice and Benedict, definitive, both hilarious and deeply touching. There's always a moment towards the end of a Shakespeare play when I want to cry, always. It is part of the magic of Shakespeare. It's why I want to die having just seen a Shakespeare play. Michelle has not said this, but I can hear her saying it. Yes, dear, it's called Catharsis. So the good news there is, Harriet, I've been doing the crying 50 years ago.

48:37Harriet: Yes, yes, you haven't. Something more interesting turned up. You're still crying. I ought to tell the listeners, during the last few paragraphs, Harriet has been yawning, and now she's reading an email. I've never been yawning. It doesn't matter. I'm joking. I mean, you were yawning. I never yawn at work. I'm reading an email because stop press. Oh. Newsflash. I've got an email from Kieran McLennan just arrived in my inbox. My first crush. We must remind people of this. we mentioned well you must have mentioned him once twice when we were talking about first crushes and you told us about kieran mclennan and he's got in touch what does he tell us so kieran mclennan was a boy at my primary school you were eight i was young and he i mean i thought at the time was devastatingly good looking and he probably still is kieran and um he sort of tickled me one day and that was it and he used to give me these sort of cheeky looks I remember him very well anyway he's just emailed me um hi Harriet what a lovely message so so so after I spoke about him on Rosebud he emailed in to say I'm Kira McLennan I was listening to Rosebud and I heard my name and wow and then I didn't email back for ages because I I got so out of control with the inbox.

49:56Harriet: I didn't email him back for two months. I emailed him back yesterday and he wrote straight back. Hi, Harriet. What a lovely message to receive. It certainly did give me a shock when I heard the podcast and realised it was you. It brought back some very funny memories from primary school. And yes, I think we probably did cross paths at the fair in Dartmouth years later. Although memory has a funny way of playing tricks on us after all this time. So I thought he was working on the waltzes and spinning the car. Yeah, but maybe he wasn't. Then he tells me a bit of his news. He sounds like he's doing really well.

50:35Harriet: He runs his own company. He says, I'm really glad you got back in touch. It's funny how people can pop back into your life after so many years and it feels as though no time has passed at all. The next time you're down visiting your dad, stepmom or sisters, do let me know. It'd be lovely to catch up properly over a coffee and compare notes on the last few years. Take care and thanks for writing, Kieran. That's lovely. I know. Can I say, do meet up with him when you're next in that part of the world. As you know, I'm threatening to come down because I want to meet your dad. But we can invite him and indeed anybody else from our past who mentioned the diaries to come and see one of our shows.

51:12Because we're doing some tryout shows. I think they're nearly all sold out in London at the Riverside Studios in Hammersmith, at the old sorting office in Barnes, at the Bedford Park Festival. But then we are going to be in Edinburgh for four whole weeks from the beginning of August to the end of August, every day at 4pm at the Gordon Aikman Theatre, Assembly at George Square. Simply go to Giles Brandreth, Up Memory Lane, with a twist of Rosebud and Harriet Jane, and you'll see when the show is, where it is, and you can book tickets. And then afterwards, I have decided, I hope you agree with this, we'll get out of our costumes because that does take 10 minutes and then there's a kind of reception

51:53Harriet: what that big dinosaur outfit you're wearing takes 10 minutes no spoilers please I'm not wearing a costume I'm just wearing clothes but we'll probably want to keep the clothes fresh for the next day's performance oh good point because otherwise don't eat in them I'm a mess eater and I don't want to spell that's good advice so I will change out of my clothes, you will do what you like but then so after about 10 minutes what I'm saying is we will go down and there is rather a nice area at the front of the theatre or there's a cafe around the back of the theatre and we will say to people we'll be there every day for a cup of tea and maybe a donut and we can meet people like Kieran we haven't seen for ages Kieran gets a name check in the show doesn't he at the moment we haven't done the tryouts yet Kieran, McLennan, thanks for your email and please do you mind if you get a name check in our show.

52:48Harriet: Yes. So, I mean, I'm really sorry. I've just taken your name in vain all over the place. Well, the truth is, with these diaries, I've taken all the people from my past. I mean, the poor nanny, who I described as a... Oh, gosh, that nanny. Yeah, I know. That's terrible. But that was then. I'm sure she changed. We weren't a good mix. Weren't a good match. No. Just didn't work out. I mean, I think it's fine to want to lie by the pool on your holidays. Exactly. There are two sides to every story. That's true. All right. And that was the end of 1976. So next time we move into 1977. So on we go with the diaries.

53:22I love Rosebud. Thank you very much for listening. This is for you. Thank you particularly to, who wrote that letter at the beginning? Tom Cunningham. Thank you particularly to Tom Cunningham for that very touching, fascinating letter. if you want to get in touch it's simply hello at rosebudpodcast.co.uk

53:44Harriet: or you could email hello at rosebudpodcast.com and that would actually arrive you're very funny she's on top of everything because she is the producer actually i'm totally in her thrall as you will be too if you come to see our show it's been great fun being with you again and i think that's it for more rosebud yeah thanks cue the music yeah i love to hear you saying it oh i must tell you this harriet i must tell you this no no no i got out of the underground the other day and as the doors were closing somebody shouted out as the doors were closing they sometimes do this they don't they almost want to know that they can't speak to you as the doors were closing they went cue the music whoa that's epic

54:56Music

55:02Thank you.

55:28powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend.

55:35Harriet: Do you want to know the best part about being married to a woman? That there's no man involved? I mean, true, but I was going to say that it's a sleepover every single night with your best friend. Oh yeah, that part's cute too. I'm Taryn, she's Cammie, we're married, and staying up is our weekly pillow talk out loud with you. We're giggling, we're gossiping, we're arguing. Classic marriage stuff. Just having fun being wives while we navigate growing up and building a family together. Then our sleepover grows. Our listeners call the PP hotline with their own gossip, burning questions, late night spirals, all the stuff they'd only tell their best friends.

56:06Harriet: So it's a private sleepover, but you are invited. Staying up with Taryn and Cammie. New episodes weekly. Follow wherever you listen. Acast helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcast everywhere. Acast.com.