More Rosebud: Gyles's Diary, episode 44

0:02Acast powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend.

0:30Fernando. You can listen to the Guardian Football Weekly wherever you get your podcasts. Hopefully see you soon.

0:41Harriet: Acast helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com

1:11Hello again, I'm Giles Brandreth. This is more Rosebud. I'm not alone on a Tuesday. I have a companion, and it's always the same companion, I'm pleased to say. It's my friend, Harriet Jane. The person, actually, when I came to her with the idea for this podcast called Rosebud, she thought of the name Rosebud. I think I was going to call it First Memories. You. Were you? Or something like that, I can't remember. When I first phoned you up about it, what did I say? Can you remember?

1:36Harriet: No, you just said, oh, I've got a good idea for a podcast. And I said, I'm pleased I said this, by the way. I said, oh, that is a good idea. And then we met. And then quite quickly, you came up with the idea of Rosebud as the name. And here we are almost three years later. And Rosebud, well, it spawned more Rosebud. and that's what we have on a Tuesday. And every other Tuesday, we have an interesting guest. And every other Tuesday, like today, we have diaries. And I was thinking to myself, Harriet Jane, you don't keep a diary on a regular basis. I do keep a diary on a regular basis and I've also been keeping a journal quite recently, separate to the diary.

2:21Harriet: Oh, crumbs. Not content with the diary, you've got to add to it. Yeah, but rather like there's the diary on a Friday, there's more diary on a Tuesday. But if you were keeping a diary this week, well, I was thinking you've had a really interesting week. I have, and I should be keeping a diary, but I tell you why I don't. Because I've got so much self-loathing, which one of our guests this week, one of the interesting things that happened was one of our guests, Anthony Scaramucci, I'll say, the Mooch. The Mooch. He kind of did this incredible thing where he sort of fixed me. was he'd been in the room for two hours doing this brilliant interview and I'd just been a quiet person in the corner like I am and at the end he sort of looked straight at me and gave me this sort of cold reading didn't he said what when's your birthday and I said June and he said you're a Gemini and he's using horoscopes and whatever he'd gleaned from being around me he said this incredibly perceptive thing about there being two people with inside me the gemini's and that one of them was giving the other one a hard time and i needed to tell that that one to stop i needed to stop talking negatively to myself so and i was really shocked when he said it to me because i thought oh my goodness that's what i do the whole time but that's why I don't keep a diary because I read it back and I cringe at my voice the voice of my diary I find it so hard to write the diary in a way which I then can find pleasing to read I read back my diary a year later six months later a week later and I just think oh that of course What a silly idiot.

4:07But that is the value of a diary. Let me just conclude for people about Scaramucci because his podcast is coming out on Friday of this week.

4:17Harriet: Yeah. On the 3rd of July. We've had this season of podcasts with Americans. And we thought it's the 4th of July on Saturday, 250th anniversary of the United States of America. Scaramucci is this remarkable figure who has his own podcast, of course, but also was briefly, humiliatingly briefly, the communications director at the White House for Donald Trump and is a fascinating figure. But we discovered in the course of our long conversation with him that one of his fascinations is with astrology. We don't talk a lot about that on the podcast. You will find him completely riveting. It's a must-listen to on Friday.

4:57But afterwards, as Harriet says, as he was going, he said some delightful things. In fact, he called me afterwards and said, well, I can't do his accent. It's a wonderful American accent, isn't it?

5:09Harriet: Italian-American, Long Island. Honestly, it is fantastic. He said, you know, I enjoyed being in the magic kingdom you two have created. Harriet, very interesting. And Harriet is Gemini, and I am Pisces. and he immediately sussed these two conflicting personalities within Ariad. He then said to me, you're Prices, you're the fish and you've got to get the one side of her is happy. That's the creative side. And the other side, what did you say? Did you use the word self-loathing to him? You just use that word now. I think you may have said to him, there's one side that's very critical. I wake up in the middle of the night and being self-critical.

5:49Harriet: He said, you can have two good people in you or you can have two bad people in you. He said, but he sort of seemed to suss that I've had maybe one of each and one of the bad ones not being very nice to the good one. I think that is what he sussed and what we've got to do is work on the bad one. And I said to him, how do I work on the bad one? He said, well, the good one is the creative one. You're doing good there. The bad one, there's only one way. And he talks about this in the podcast. Kindness, kindness, kindness, kindness. Love, love, love. That's the only way. So we're going to work on that.

6:21Yeah. But to go back to the diaries, to be sensible for a moment, the value of a diary is it's written on the day, in the moment, with the voice of the day. People never understood that with the diaries of Kenneth Williams, which on some days there is self-loathing, there's waspishness, there are vicious things said about people who thought they were friends of his. Well, they were friends of his, but in that particular evening he got back home and wrote in his diary, that was the mood of the day. So don't be frightened of the mood you're in on the day you write your diary.

6:52Harriet: Oh, no, it's not that I'm saying mean things. It's that I don't like the style. Well, the trick of it, as I've found, having kept a diary now for, you know, 60, 70 years, is don't actually write necessarily about your mood or your feeling. Write about what happened that day. Yeah, you're good at that. Describe, well, I mean, the easy way to do it is say the headlines today are in the world. I had for breakfast such and such. I then went to a meeting with so-and-so. The reason I was going to ask you about your diary is you sent me a text on, was it Sunday night, saying you'd gone to a dinner. The day before you said, I'm not sure I really want to go to this dinner.

7:29I've got other things to do. You know, haven't yet edited next week's, all this. But you went because you're a good person. You'd accept an invitation and you went. And I think I'm allowed to say this. It was at a high table at Oxford. And you found yourself seated with some very interesting people.

7:43Harriet: Well, I had a great night. And you sent me a text about it, which was like a diary entry. yeah it wasn't actually my mood is such and such it was oh i met this interesting man opposite me at dinner and was he chinese or he worked in china he was chinese yeah remind me what you told me yeah so it was saint anthony's college which is a graduate college in um oxford so everyone there is has already done an undergraduate degree and they're all in their 20s or 30s some of them are working in jobs and they're doing something m fill or whatever in their spare time or they're on a sabbatical and so and it's also got a very international reputation for being full of international students I think a lot of people are doing things like diplomacy or governance or it's that kind of thing lots of foreign affairs so I sat next to this man who was Chinese and he was an expert in environmental policy I asked him a few things he I started off by saying you know are you watching the world cup and he said no china aren't in the world cup this year and i said oh you know that's surprising and he said oh no no we're hopeless we're hopeless and i then said well the largest countries in the world if not the largest i know um but i then thought i actually haven't heard about the chinese football team maybe it's not maybe football's not big in china i thought so i said to him is football a big sport in china he said oh yeah it's the biggest sport the biggest sport everyone loves football and we've got a big football league and so then I said well how come the Chinese team isn't in the world cup and he said oh because we don't have a good talent pool because no Chinese parent would support their child becoming a footballer if your child said they wanted to be a footballer you just say well that's a hopeless career you're only going to be working for 10 years and then you're going to be retired or injured or whatever you need to be a doctor or run a company or a lawyer or you know what we know about sensible Asian parents which is that they are very ambitious for their kids and very sensible about a long-term career plan and where are you going to go with this and get yourself properly qualified so I thought that was interesting because what you hear about children in the UK is that many children's ambition is to be a footballer and because parents in our country are encouraged to be very yes, yes, yes with their kids.

10:10Harriet: I think you're encouraged to say to your child, if you want to be a footballer, darling, that's what you should do. You're encouraged to indulge your child's fantasies and dreams. I was sent by The One Show a few years ago to a primary school to talk about heroes. It was in relation to Winston Churchill being on the back of a banknote. And I talked about Winston Churchill and Florence Nightingale, William Shakespeare Horatio Nelson the children had not heard of most of these people and when I asked them who their heroes were it wasn't Alexander Fleming that was not the kind of role model they had it was entirely footballers it was a few years ago so it was David Beckham and Wayne Rooney and there was one other person who came up as a hero who is the man who appears on Britain's Got Talent Simon Cowell so those are the three names the only three names that came up as being who would you who do you aspire to be yeah nobody wanted to be a great scientist a great politician even a great business person no i know and i i mean maybe it's changed but definitely because my mother-in-law was a teacher she said you know all the girls wanted to be pop stars or influencers and or models whatever and all the boys wanted to be footballers i mean this is people in year seven or eight you know 11 12 13 so but in China, they don't want to be footballers.

11:35The boys may want to be footballers, but the parents are saying no, no, no.

11:37Harriet: I mean, he was implying that the kids didn't want to do it either. They knew it wasn't really a great career. In the same text that you sent to me, instead of putting it in your diary, you also mentioned something about romance and couples in China? Yeah, so I asked him about, you know, whether he was with anybody and were his parents worried that he wasn't settled down. And he said, yeah, they sometimes say things, but they know that I'm my own person and there's no point in forcing me. but he said in the town where he is from the parents write adverts for their children so they'd get a page of a4 or maybe bigger maybe a3 and they'd write you'd write a sign which advertised your child so giles then there'd be a picture of you and then they'd put your qualifications your hobbies editor of the school magazine director of 12th night night you know and they'd do a kind of personal ad for you and then they'd stick that on a pole and walk around the local park.

12:34Is this today? In 2026 this is happening?

12:36Harriet: I think there's maybe a day, one day a month or something where everyone goes to the park with their little advertising hoarding with their kids' credentials on it and they walk around and they have a look at everyone else and they go, oh yeah, Giles looks like a good match for Henrietta and then they chat and they start to set up a date maybe. Yeah, I thought, well, it was quite an efficient way of doing it. It's a wonderful idea. Yeah. So I'd like you to start keeping your diary again and not to think about which of the two sides of the Gemini personality that is Harriet Jane is writing the diary, but simply to record conversations like the one with the Chinese person.

13:18Harriet: Yeah, or what the mooch said to me when I was leaving. Or what the mooch said to me, do please listen to the mooch. Actually, we've had some very interesting Americans over the last four weeks, haven't we, on Fridays. And then normal service will be resumed the following week. So we've got the Mooch this Friday, and then some quite exciting stars of stage and screen turning up on Rosebud on the forthcoming Fridays. And then in August, we're still doing Rosebud, but we're doing it from another capital city. We're doing it from the capital of Edinburgh. I tell you my favourite story of the Mooches, because it's a dating story.

13:52Harriet: Yeah, do. was when he said that he'd go to school dances. And he had a car at this point because he's American and teenagers drive around in cars. It's so cool. And he'd go to the dance in his outfit, you know, his favourite shirt and his smart trousers. And he'd go in and he'd go up to a girl and he'd chat her up. And if it didn't work, he said he'd go back to his car. And in his car, he had five more shirts, ready, laundered, pressed, hanging up in his car. And he'd change his shirt, go back in, go up to the same girl in the different shirt and say, do you like me now? And he said, it really worked.

14:32I mean, what a move. He described himself as a Long Island Guido.

14:37Harriet: Yeah. Clearly, I mean, it is mesmerising. One of our best episodes. We're very excited about that. Love it. We've got some lovely episodes coming up. And I hope this is going to be a fun episode. Before we get to the diaries, have we had any interesting emails? Yes, this is a good email, Giles. because this refers to something in the diaries that happened in the last episode or maybe the one before. Oh, yes, because by now we're in the 1970s in the diaries and you may remember, Harriet, the problem was this. We lived at number one Camden Hill Gardens, which was a lovely Victorian house. We had the whole house, you know, basement and I think then three floors or maybe even four floors.

15:12Wonderful. Off Notting Hill Gate. Right next door to us was number two Camden Hill Gardens, which also was a tall Victorian house, but divided into flats. So we owned the freehold of our house, but next door were these flat dwellers. And one of the flats was occupied by people who were very noisy, noisy to the extent that it was driving us mad. Michelle was waking up in the night and literally crying with unhappiness. We did not know what to do. So we took recourse, we went to lawyers, could there be soundproofing, et cetera. And I wrote about that in my diary in extenso. And this letter, I think, relates to that.

15:51It comes from somebody called Sue Willis. So it's a lady. You can read the email.

15:55Harriet: Yeah, thanks for emailing, Sue. Hello, Giles and Harriet. Love the podcast and have been listening since you first started them. Oh, that's lovely. This episode, so she's saying the last episode of Diaries, was interesting to me because Giles mentioned living in a house in Camden Hill Gardens and the landlady of the house next door being a Mrs. Windler. so this is the landlady of the flats that joss spoke of in which some mexicans were living in one of the flats my husband had a wonderful eccentric aunt auntie dolly who lived in one of those flats but died in 1971 we used to go to tea or supper with her and despite her age she was born in 1887 she would never let us help clear away or wash up declaring that she certainly wouldn't offer to wash up in our house.

16:49Harriet: Dolly became a nun. Then she stopped being a nun and married in 1918 a sea captain called John Brown. This is a film in itself. It's amazing. She didn't fancy becoming Dolly Brown so she used her middle name Cunningham and hyphenated it Dolly Cunningham Brown. She sounds like such a character. They had a daughter Penelope Litschman Oh. Born 1922 in Kensington, known to the family as Lupe. Lupe married Alan Windler in 1946 in Kensington. Are you following this, guys? I'm following this totally. Mrs. Windler was Penelope Windler. Mmm. Absolutely. I'm not surprised she was known to the family as Lupe.

17:37Go on.

17:38Harriet: When he died, when Alan Windler died in 1976, it was discovered he'd been living a double life and had another family. This is a movie. It's amazing the number of people who have been doing this. I know. So there you have the brief history of your loopy landlord. I'm sorry if she didn't manage to evict the Mexicans and even more sorry for Michelle being so stressed with a baby and all that noise. Keep entertaining us with your podcasts. We're the same age, Giles, not Harriet. so I love hearing all the 60s and 70s stories from your diaries. All the best to you both. Sue Willis. Well, as you may be discovering in today's episode, I'm not sure if it's today or next time, we eventually buy the house next door.

18:26So not only...

18:27Harriet: I think that maybe does happen today, yeah. Well, so we actually gave a lot of money to Mrs Windler because she didn't solve the problem with the Mexicans. We thought, well, I'm going to have to move or we're going to have to buy her out. And we bought her out. Blimey, Tyler. Now, what is even more interesting, in a way, is that I think this lady, or was it her daughter, went out with Michael Whitehall, who's the father of Jack Whitehall. Oh. It's a small world, isn't it? That's maybe by the by. We don't need that extra detail. But in the movie, it would be quite funny. I mean, just what we read there was...

19:09I would like, if there's anybody out there who actually lived in one of these double families, we'd love to hear from you. Because there's some quite, the house I now live in, in southwest London, and I'm sure I have mentioned this before, I think was once lived in by a member of the Fife's Banana family. And they had a double, they lived a double life. Gosh. And there is, as you go over Putney Bridge, there's a blue plaque on a block of flats where a man called Ackerley, J.R. Ackerley, lived, who was a quite well-known writer. I think he had two families, two complete families. The theatre critic Kenneth Tynan, famously, his father had two families.

19:56And Kenneth Tynan only found this out, I think I've got this right, Kenneth Tynan was at home, wherever he lived, shall we say it was Cheltenham, and the newspapers arrived, and on the front page of whatever the newspaper is, is a photograph of his father. His father turned out also to be, wait for it, the Lord Mayor of Birmingham. And he's on the front page of the Birmingham Post and it's his dad who normally lives in Cheltenham with his mum and the other children. And he had a whole second family.

20:25Harriet: It's crazy. I mean, I'm going to say what everyone's thinking, which is how do you have the time? I know. And the energy. The admin. The admin. Getting from what? So we'd love to hear, wouldn't we? And I have to say, that's why only men, it's only men you hear doing this, because men aren't doing the admin. The women are doing the admin. The men are just swanning in every other week or whatever, getting their dinner cooked for them and having a lovely time. I think the great farce writer, Ray Cooney, wrote a farce about this. Was it called Run for Your Wife? About a taxi driver who, it was easy, had a cab, who commuted between his two families.

21:03But would you want that? I mean, having one wife and family is exhausting enough. Oh, enough of us chit-chatting. But I would like sometime to dip into your diaries again.

21:14Harriet: Oh, yeah. And I would encourage you to keep a diary because we do meet so many interesting people. I know, I must. I'm going to make it more matter of fact. I do. Go back, for example, you really enjoyed our time with Anthony Scaramucci, but just write about it. How he came, what he was wearing, how he was going back to the States the next day, what we talked about, the things you remember most, and then at the end, how we talked a bit about astrology, what he said to you without commenting on it, and then what he said about me, and then how he moved on. Without commenting on it. Yeah. That's the key.

21:48It is the key.

21:49Harriet: Okay, thanks. Diaries. So, we've reached January 1977. Tuesday, the 11th of January, 1977. went to Bush House for a World Service discussion on the monarchy. The Queen's Silver Jubilee falls on the 6th of February. There will be much rejoicing. Is it justified? Of course it is. But we took 30 minutes to say so, with a lot of pompous huffing and puffing as we did. The others on parade were John Grigg, the man who disclaimed his peerage and caused a national sensation back in 1957 when he called the Queen's way of speaking a pain in the neck. And Anthony Howard, editor of the New Statesman and General Rent-A-Smug Opinion.

22:38It's funny. Not so long ago, someone like Anthony Howard was a hero to me, a journalist of note, a voice in the land. Now he's just another middle-aged man with dandruff and a high opinion of himself. He really does think he's rather special. He has a hair, lip and teeth like broken tombstones, poor fellow. so perhaps he's compensating. Grig turned out to be quite jolly. Sorry I'm making these personal remarks. I'm certainly embarrassed by those. I do apologise because, in fact, Anthony Howard was always very nice to me, so I rather regret that. Anyway, here goes. The point is, it's a record of how you felt on the day.

23:23Thursday, the 3rd of February, 1977. Last night at 11.57pm at the Middlesex Hospital, London W1 Scythrid Charity Brandreth was born Mother and baby both doing well I like to think the date 2277 is auspicious The arrival was swift We had supper, chicken roasted by Michelle We collapsed in front of the box And then halfway through a programme on Mary Stopes Yes, yes. Michelle said, I think this is it. I think you'd better call a cab. This morning, I've been phoning around the good news. Everyone is nonplussed by the name. I now rattle off the explanation. St. Cythrid was the daughter of King Anna, the king of the East Angles in the late 600s.

24:12Michelle found the name in the venerable Bede's history of the church in England. An ad that she can always call herself Charity if she's unhappy with Cythrid. Noel said, let's hope the poor child doesn't have a lisp. I had an amusing exchange with Simon Cadell. Simon, why such an extraordinary name? Me, because she's such an extraordinary girl. Simon, already me, always. I love my daughter's name. I love my daughter. And all these years later, she's still called Scythrid. though we now know it probably should be pronounced Sethrid. But she does professionally often call herself charity because it can be easier.

24:57Harriet: Just spell the name for everyone. S-A-E-T-H-R-Y-D Daughter of the King Hannah, the King of the East Angles. Michelle chose the name. Do you think it was a burden for her? She has to spell her name every day of her life. I think it's a tough thing to give I'm just thinking of her as a little girl and going into rooms even Harriet I found difficult because in Dartmouth in Devon everyone was called Claire and Debbie and you're suddenly you're called Harriet and people go oh Harriet you know and you're having your six and having to sort of front up to this big name you've got Scythrid I mean you're saying your name to people that don't know what you're saying and probably You think you're making it up or saying something wrong?

25:45A lot of her friends called her Scythes, S-A-E-T-H-E-S.

25:49Harriet: Yeah. She's lived with it quite contentedly. She's published a number of books with the name Scythred. But I do know that she does have almost like a professional persona who is charity. Right. That can be quite useful, can't it, to have that? And I think charity is quite a nice. Yeah, lovely. And she's a big personality. You know, sometimes having a big name does make you… Makes you... Big. And I suppose... Oh, did we challenge our children from the start, do you think? Well, clearly we did. Look. They've all done well. They've all done well. Yeah. Why such an extraordinary name? Because she's such an extraordinary girl.

26:24Already, always. So, well done, Scytherit. If you're listening, we love your name and we love you. Aw. Saturday, the 5th of... Because you gave your daughters lovely names.

26:37Harriet: Yeah, but they're not difficult names. No. One is called Sylvie. Am I allowed to say this? Yeah. We've talked about it before. One is called Sylvie. Is that to do with Sylvie and Bruno, the story by Lewis Carroll? Both their names are French. I think I've always liked French. And Belle, as in La Belle Dame, sans merci, B-E-L-L-E. That's a bit of a challenge. I know. Because fortunately she is a great beauty, rich in riz. But if she weren't, it would be, you know, to be called Belle. I don't know. I think beauty is, possibly by just saying I'm beautiful, people think you're beautiful. Yeah. Well, look, it's always worked for you.

27:22Yeah. So what's wrong?

27:23Harriet: It's as much in your attitude as it is in what's actually going on in your face. Yeah. Yeah. On we go. Saturday the 5th. Yes, this, can I say, this podcast is an education. Somebody's muttering, it certainly taught me something. Saturday the 5th of February, 1977. Oh, can I tell you a ridiculous joke? Yeah. A ridiculous joke. I went to the doctor and he told me, I've only got three minutes to live. And I said to the doctor, what can you do about it? And the doctor said, well, I can boil you an egg. Is that quite a funny, silly joke? I love it. Yeah, I'm good. I was thinking of putting that into our show.

28:03If ever we need a lift in the middle of the show, we just want an old-fashioned joke. That's really funny. It's quite nice, isn't it? Anyway, Saturday the 5th of February, 1977. Sythrit's birth is announced in the Times today. It has a supplement celebrating the Queen's Silver Jubilee, but other than that, I cannot pretend it is a very exciting edition of the paper. On the front page, Rhodesia will contain rising guerrilla tide, says Ian Smith. Too held after bomb cash find. Irish terrorist bombs found in Liverpool. The London bomb scares are over. They've opened up the postbox in our street again, and restaurants like Odin's and Walton's, two of our regulars, no longer have sandbags outside.

28:44We feel safe on Gamden Hill. This is interesting. Reprieved murderess to be White House nanny. That's quite a story, isn't it? A convicted black murderess who is an old friend of President Carter's family was reprieved today in order to take up a post as a child's nursemaid at the White House. Getting good staff isn't easy. Nina, our nanny, has no criminal record so far as we know, though she has known sadness. She doesn't speak of it, but I think she had a son who was killed in a road accident when he was a little boy 20 years ago. Today, she's very gay, very excited about the new baby, anxious too.

29:27She's scurrying about the house, checking and double-checking that everything is where it should be. I'm going out now. A, to get a present for Bennett, who's our older son, so his nose is not put out of joint by the new arrival and B, to go to the Middlesex Hospital to collect my darling wife and daughter. Have I ever recorded one of my favourite Monja Danicheski lines? The famous last words of the fatted calf? I hear the young master has returned. It's interesting, you see. A diary who just put things in, you think, on the day. Later, this is the same day. Well, no fatted calf, but I did do Michelle cheese on toast, plus tomato ketchup and a salad.

30:10It's what she wanted. She's exhausted. She's in bed, asleep now, and looking very lovely in her full white Victorian-style nightgown. I like having a beautiful wife. And I love having a beautiful daughter. Except, of course, the whole thing of the broken nights is suddenly coming back to me. The horror of the 2am feed. Michelle will breastfeed her at first, but my turn will come, sitting up in bed with an aching back, completely shattered, holding the bottle at the correct angle so that the water goes down, mustn't get any air in it. Of course, it's worth it, but it's wearying too. I say that having children is the most beautiful thing that has ever happened to me, and it's true, and I mean it, but at the same time, there's a part of me that isn't really interested at all.

31:02Gosh. That is putting out your feet on the dowry, isn't it? Maybe we'll just stick to the facts.

31:09Harriet: No, I think that you've just said what probably a lot of people think. You know, we ask people what their moment of joy is and people always say, the birth of my child. And maybe because I'm cynical and maybe I'm about to say something I shouldn't on a podcast, I often think really because for me that day was just full of well you're giving birth so it's not that fun and it's full of so much complex feeling and it's not what I would describe as a moment of unalloyed joy and pleasure if you were to ask me that's being on a fairground ride whizzing around You know, something just silly and fun and exhilarating.

31:56Harriet: Yeah, and having children is really complicated. And when you have a baby, it's really hard work. Clearly, I'm remembering here the exhaustion of Bennett and that middle of the night feed. Oh, God, I can still feel the pain in my back trying to sit up straight, hold him correctly. I mean, you have moments of real happiness when you have a baby, but also moments where they cry and you just think, oh, please go to sleep, I'm so tired. Yeah. This is interesting, it seems I'm typing the diary because the next paragraph reads this. Anyway, all's well. Bennett is happy. Nina is the business. Michelle and Sythrid are fast asleep.

32:37I'm here tapping away as usual. I watched some TV while they slept, but of course there was nothing on. Saturday night, Jim will fix it, Doctor Who, Mike Yarwood, Starskin Hutch, Match of the Day. I like Mike Yarwood, but the rest of it is not for me. And on ITV, Larry Grayson, then Hawaii Five-0. No, thank you. I watched Peter Hall with Christopher Isherwood on Aquarius, and then caught a bit of Peter Ustinov on Parkinson. Quite droll, but essentially a waste of space, time and energy. I should have been writing a sonnet in honour of my daughter. Saturday 12th February 1977, an amusing letter from Mr Miller, the bank manager.

33:22Well, not altogether amusing. He wants the overdraft reduced. He is hearing somewhat rude noises from further up the line. But he is charming about Scythrit. He loves her charming names. You may be interested to know, he writes, that in the bank we have an account called Sundry Creditor Balances, or SCB for short, into which we put any bits and bobs of money which cannot be immediately applied. And it is delightful to know that you have given your daughter such an encouraging start, and even in infancy have guided her feet into the right paths by giving her similar initials, so encouraging her to think black instead of red.

34:04SCB. There you are. So those are Cythrit's initials. Sundry Creditor Balances. Last night we went to the National Book League Book Rest Dinner and auction Perhaps not an ideal Valentine's Night treat Talked with Jilly Cooper All dotty dizziness but fun Catherine Whitehorn Sane, sensible, amused Lord Longford Full of forgiveness, full of love And nutty as a fruitcake And John Brain Full of his own doerness Do you know who John Brain was? No Oh, he was once such a famous novelist for a while the most famous novelist in the country. He best remembered, really, for his first novel, Room at the Top, 1950s, made into a rather marvellous film.

34:48Harriet: Yeah, I know that. Tuesday, the 8th of March, 1977, my 29th birthday. I had supper with Michelle and the parents at the Mumtaz and launched my first High Court action. We are pursuing Simon Clarke Productions for the thousands owed to us. I discovered Dear Daddy the play I made it happen Noel and I cast it, produced it and presented it It's a hit It's the play of the year But we have not received a penny of the royalties due to us We will have justice We will have our money Our council says we should certainly get justice He thinks we'll win the case But he has his doubts as to whether there will be any money to be had once we do I'm sorry it's come to this, especially because it means that at the moment we're prevented from visiting the Ambassador's Theatre, seeing the cast, etc.

35:44And if we pursue the action, which we will, Simon Clarke is threatening to close the show. That's not a happy prospect for the company. We hear that Phyllis Calvert, the leading lady, is calling me all sorts of ugly names. But what choice do we have? Clarke is vermin, and I look forward to seeing him and his midget girlfriend in court. Right will prevail.

36:08Harriet: Wow. Yeah. Go Giles. Go Giles. But let's see what happens. Sunday the 13th of March 1977. Bennett's second birthday. We had a very jolly party in his honour. Charlie Alkins, Natasha and Harriet Brown, Harry Morgwyn, Sam Holden, Charlotte Festing, Katie Scarfe. They were the children of various interesting people. my sister and her husband a man called Desmond Brown who became a QC in fact head of the Bar Council somebody who was I think became the Deputy Chairman of Sotheby's Tony Holden was my great friend Amanda his wife wrote opera librettos Andrew Festing became a very famous portrait painter his lovely wife Virginia and Jane Asher and her cartoonist husband General Scarfe anyway balloons, games, sandwiches jellies and a chocolate birthday cake in the shape of a hedgehog.

37:03Michelle's birthday tomorrow. The big tea. We are taking a gang to the Caprice and I've organised souvenir matches, menus and huge tea-shaped chocolates for the occasion. Simon Cadell and Christopher Biggins will be proposing the toasts. Noel will not be telling the story that closed the old Caprice. We don't think Mrs. Festing could cope. It's the one where the old Jewish lady has returned from her husband's funeral. In the kitchen, she lights the stove and gets out her favourite frying pan. Into it goes a knob of butter, a chopped onion, a diced tomato and assorted seasonings. When it's sizzling nicely, she opens her handbag and pulls out a small parcel wrapped in old newspaper.

37:48She undoes the packet and from it she takes her late husband's withered schwong. She tosses it lightly into the frying pan and turns it gently with a wooden spoon. She explains to her old friend Myra, who is looking on aghast, all his life I had to eat it his way. Today I'm eating it my way. Tuesday.

38:11Harriet: That is horrible. I don't know whether you can include that or not. That's awful. But the point of a diary, as I was saying to you at the beginning, Harriet, is you simply record what happened. And this was Noel's story that he said, close the old Caprice. Whenever he had an outrageous story to tell, he would say, close this restaurant, that restaurant. Somebody in the restaurant told it too loudly. The restaurant was obliged to close as a consequence. Oh, I see.

38:40And obviously, anyway, there you are. He thought it was funny. And clearly, I thought it was funny enough to record there. Today is the parents' 40th wedding anniversary. We are taking them to the Inn on the Park. That's my parents. Lovely.

39:02Tuesday the 29th of March, 1977. I'm riding this on the train travelling back from Norwich, where we've now recorded eight programmes in our series Chatterbox. My companions are our amiable host, Chris Kerry, and the jolly farmer, Ted Moult. It is Budget Day. The star attraction has been Leo Absey, a good man. He was an MP. The main feature has been a reduction in basic rate income tax from 35p to 33p, conditional on the trades unions committing to pay claim restraint. The truth is, the government is in free fall. The unions are running amok. Inflation is rife, up to 69.5 % in just three years.

39:48And the government is hanging on in there, only thanks to being shored up by David Steele and his motley band of liberals. It can only end in tears. Monday the 11th of April, 1977. I should be returning from Venice right now. Instead, thanks to the British Airways strike and the consequent cancellation of our planned Easter in La Selenissima, I'm just in from Chaney Walk and Katie Scarfe's third birthday party. While the kiddies played, I talked with David Hemmings, who is amusing and amazing and lovely with other people's children as well as his own. He does wonderful close-up magic. Chatting, I mentioned that on Friday, Good Friday, we'd been to see Bruce Forsyth at the Palladium.

40:37Crucifying, I imagine, said Jerry Scarfe, chuckling. No, I said. In his way, he's a genius. I agree, said David Hemmings. At the end of the show, when you thought it was all over, did he send the orchestra home and just sit on his own at the piano and do another half hour? Yes, I said. Hemmings laughed. I thought he might. It's an old trick. It saves money on the musicians' union over time and makes the audience feel they're getting something extra and unplanned. These old troopers know what they're doing, don't they? Do you know the name David Hemmings? Yes. Yeah, he was a famous actor in his day.

41:17And he was an artist, I mean, he was best remembered, I think, for starring in the film Blow Up and then later in the Charge of the Light Brigade.

41:22Harriet: He sounds lovely. Oh, he was lovely. He was lovely. I remember years later, I mean, he was so funny. He drank too much, he tried to give it up. so he'd bring his own bottle of sort of elderflower when he came for dinner and he would do close-up magic. He could make bottles disappear from the table. But when Viagra was new, he arrived for supper and the moment he arrived for supper, Michel opened the door and he pretended to have a huge erection immediately on the side of Michel. And I don't know how he managed to do this. It was a magic trick, but a huge... Probably the bottle of elderflower. It probably was.

41:57I mean, it was absolutely massive. And he then spent the entire evening walking around and telling other guests at this dinner party, I'm so sorry, I overdosed on this new drug. The aggro, it's terribly effective. Oh, I'm so sorry, madam. It was our hostess that stimulated it. And he would go around trying to hold it down. It was absolutely hilarious. Very lovely man. Friday the 29th of April, 1977. Good news. I did the Tyne Tease Puzzle Party pilot yesterday. I think it's going to happen. Anne Wood is a clucking mother hen and completely new to television and can rub everybody up the wrong way, but somehow she's making it happen.

42:39More good news. I joined Pa at Elvino's at lunchtime to celebrate the publication of his book on parking law. He is so happy to have it in print at last, and I'm so happy for him. I think he enjoyed the party, but I couldn't be sure. He has been a lawyer working in this part of London for 40 years. He knows Elvinos, and yet I could see he wasn't wholly at ease there. His book is definitive, forwarded by Sir Robert Mark, Metropolitan Police Commissioner, etc. And yet he was self-deprecating about it. Why are we all so insecure all the time? Why do our stomachs never stop churning?

43:23Harriet: Oh. Was your dad a Gemini? Oh, when July the... No, it was a Cancer. Oh, it was Cancer. No, it was, yes, July the 11th. Cancer, yeah. Yeah, and that's what he died of too. Oh, Giles. Very sensitive, Cancerians, very sensitive. But look at that. Why do our stomachs never stop churning? This is 50 years ago. I know. And our stomachs are churning, aren't they, Harriet, sometimes? Probably people listening have got churning stomachs too. Hopefully Rosebud just quietens that down a little bit. I don't know today, with our talk of schwongs being fried and film stars with massive faux erections. Why do our stomachs never stop churning?

44:13Mine is churning this afternoon for two reasons. I attended the meeting of the creditors of Simon Clarke Productions Limited. They are collapsing the company to avoid paying us. They are bastards. I wish them dead. In the end, I will surely get my way. I've had the estimate from Roof and Lining Construction Limited for the soundproofing to the party walls at home. £927. Ditto, our bastard neighbours. On a lighter note, I've just sent a letter to the Times complaining about the sight lines and acoustics at the National Theatre. We went to Volponi on Wednesday, not marvellous, but that wasn't my point.

44:57My point was that even with Gielgud and Schofield in the cast and booming, and us at the end of the front row of the circle leaning forward, frequently we simply couldn't hear. And it's the costliest theatre in the history of the world. Giles. Tuesday the 3rd of May, 1977.

45:19Harriet: Outraged I've learnt much about life this past 24 hours One there are bastards out there I spent yesterday on the telephone to the National Westminster Bank Customs and Excise and the Inland Revenue As creditors of Simon Clark Productions in liquidation they get their money before we get ours I don't know why but that's the way it is Worse We have discovered that a new company, Simon Clark Presentations, has been set up and is acquiring the assets of Simon Clark Productions. We're going to win our case with judgment and costs in our favor and still not get a penny. It makes you sick. Noel is truly desperate.

46:08Harriet: I'm not surprised. two love is cruel and a man will say anything so as not to lose the girl michelle's friend came around last night with the man we have sworn not to speak his name her lover the mp the ex-minister she's besotted with him and he's frantic not to lose her he says he will leave his wife and marry her he came around to say it at our house he claimed so that her friends could witness him making the declaration. The pair of them stayed the night. He's just gone off to the House of Commons. Michelle says he will never leave his wife. They don't. How does she know? Three. However much you have, you never have quite enough.

46:58I'm working like a demon. I've just finished the pair's quiz book. Today I start on the big book of secrets. Next week I begin my biography of Dan Lino. I work every hour there is, but still steadily the overdraft grows. It's a bugger. But I note that you're still planning a few nights next week at the Manor House Hotel, Castle Coombe? Yes, well.

47:22Harriet: Oh, so, Giles, your lessons from life, they're interesting, aren't they? 1977. Well, the bust is about the money, honestly. This happens all the time. You know, people deliberately go into debt, then they fold a company, start a new company, transferring the assets. I mean, I think over the years, that sort of loophole, various governments have tried to tighten it. So it isn't as possible to do now as it was then. But, oh, love is cruel. Well, nothing's new there, is there? This guy, who I won't name him, though he is dead now. This guy, MP, minister, he, this girl, he loved her and she loved him.

48:03But he was never going to leave him. He was an MP. He was a conservative MP. He was never going to leave his wife, as Michelle knew. And he was just using Michelle and me in a way by saying, I'm saying in front of your best friends. Then, of course, clearly, you know, I really mean it. So that was a lesson, I suppose. And the thing about not having quite enough money, I'm sure I did feel that, because my father, as you know, never had quite enough money. And clearly, I was spending too much.

48:29Harriet: Yeah. I'd say what I would say, reading this bit of diaries, is a really good chunk of diary, this, Giles. I really enjoyed it. Is that you've calmed down a lot. Do you feel that? I mean, you're only 29 here, so you're full of kind of energy, but also, I would say, a bit more anger and sort of argy-bargy than you are now. I say you've mellowed, which is good. Well, two things to say. One is I think people settled down and became husbands and fathers earlier in those days. I'm 29, but I'm already a husband for several years and a father of two children. I'm on to the second property that I bought.

49:14So that I think, I hope I was taking being a husband and father seriously. You were, yeah. I was very exercised about the money.

49:23Harriet: Yeah. And so I took all that seriously. I spent a lot of time in correspondence with the bank manager, trying to charm him. And in those days, you could have a relationship with a bank manager. You could go and pitch to them your ideas and your schemes. I was doing a lot of that. And I don't know, was it at this time, and probably it would be in the doubt if it was, that I discovered the saying of the great General MacArthur. Do you know what I mean by General MacArthur? Or was it Patton? Maybe it was MacArthur. It was a great American general. Maybe it was General Patton. And the line was this.

49:58have a plan execute it violently do it today

50:04Harriet: crumbs Giles oh I can see that you do do that yeah have a plan execute it violently do it today but I mean because in this episode you know you're writing complaint letters you're having a spat with the neighbours yeah I don't think you're you're not fighting on all fronts like this anymore are you? or maybe you are I don't know. I mean, I tell you, I was outraged by the National Theatre because everyone lauded this great building and we loved the theatre. We used to go to it regularly. But it was, in our view, a most uncomfortable building. It wasn't hospitable. You didn't know where you were in it.

50:40And then when we discovered the sight lines didn't work, I mean, that's the whole purpose of a theatre. It was outrageous. It's absurd. and yes I think I began to mellow curiously almost on my first day as a member of parliament when an MP you may have heard of called David Davis who was my whip gave me a quotation by Arthur Balfour I came, I arrived and you could see I was sort of bright eyed bushy tailed, ready for action and this quotation by Arthur Balfour had been Prime Minister the beginning of the 20th century, was simply this line. Nothing matters very much, and most things don't matter at all.

51:26Harriet: Oh, great attitude to have David Davis. So I think for the first half of my life, I was having a plan, executing it violently, and doing it that very day. And for the second half of my life, well, I've realised that nothing matters very much, and most things don't matter at all. and as Anthony Scaramucci will tell all of us who listen to Rosebud this Friday he took the line from Mel Brooks about to be 100 years of age relax none of us are getting out of this alive so we've got to relax you've got to let the Gemini the twins inside you you've got to let the one that isn't so happy just get up to speed with the one that is happy I want those two twins walking in an harness Okay, yeah, I'll have a word with her tonight.

52:15And keep us posted.

52:16Harriet: Yeah. And when you start your diary again, simply say what you had for breakfast, what you had for lunch, what the weather was like, what was happening in the world, so much is happening in the world, who you're meeting on the podcast, what they said to you, just record what's happening. We don't need to know what mood you were in. Okay, yeah, good note. Good advice? Yeah, good advice. That's it. So thank you very much for being with us on the diaries. Next week, we've got so many good people coming up. I hope it's a wonderful actor who's about to appear in the West End, in Serrano de Bergerac, which is one of my favourite plays by Edmond Rostand.

52:55Possibly the best play written by a Frenchman in the 19th century. It's Adrian Lester. We've recorded that conversation. He's a beautiful actor. He has a beautiful soul. You will love that episode. That's next Tuesday.

53:10Harriet: Yeah. So lots of excitements. Woo-hoo. Woo-hoo. And don't forget, if you want to see Harriet and me in person, we'll be appearing in a show called Up Memory Lane at the Edinburgh Fringe, all of August, 4 p.m. every day. It's basically me with a twist of Rosebud and Harriet Jane. It's not Rosebud. It's a show. And there's some fun in it, some laughter, some songs, maybe the odd tier, and we hope you will enjoy it. and afterwards there will be a meet and greet organised by Michelle, my long-suffering wife. So do come and join us in Edinburgh. Meanwhile, join us for the next episode of Rosebud on Friday.

53:49That's it. You can say the line.

53:52Harriet: Cue the music.

54:07Thank you.

54:51Acast powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend.

54:59Harriet: A photographer in Texas earns an extra$47 ,000 a year shooting Star Wars cosplay portraits. A teacher in Maryland turns her woodworking hobby into a five-figure side income without leaving the classroom. And a couple in Pennsylvania will rent you backyard chickens for the season, so you can try the egg-laying life without commitment. My name is Chris Guillebeau. I'm the host of Side Hustle School. I share these kinds of stories every single day in detail with full transparency about the numbers. The point isn't just to inspire you, it's to show you what's possible. Proof that ordinary people are quietly building extra income in surprising ways, including a few ideas you can borrow.

55:36Harriet: Less than 10 minutes a day, every day, subscribe or follow Side Hustle School wherever you get your podcasts or find us directly at sidehustleschool.com. Acast helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com