Opening the archives: A cellist, a playwright and a king

31:26People jumped out of the car and started yelling at me to do the same. It took me a few seconds and then I saw the bullets sort of creating a pattern on the road and I decided it was time to do the same. I did and we ended up in a ditch. However, we had enough of a chance to at least turn the car around and by that time there was a bit of fire from our side that enabled us to get in the car. Except for the fact that I found that I'd lost my berry in the ditch in the process. One does very silly things. I asked the driver to stop and I got out and got my berry and put it on. under this heavy fire and we drove off.

32:01I can never understand why I did that. And it wasn't the only attempt to kill the king. A decade earlier, Jordan's Prime Minister, Hazar al-Majali, had died in a bomb attack. And a second device, intended for Hussein, missed him only by minutes. Syrian intelligence services were behind the explosions. according to a later memoir by one of the group. They accused Hussein of being a Western puppet and an obstruction to Arab unity. And there were other plots. I've always suffered from sinus problems and I had special nose drops that I would have whenever I felt an attack was coming. I had used a certain bottle of this medicine some while before but then I decided it might have been a little old and so I asked someone to throw it in the sink and empty it and I used the new one.

32:54The person immediately came horrified at the results. The enamel began to bubble and we still had a part of the substance in the bottle and we sent it to be examined. It turned out to be acid. Well, fortunately, I didn't use it and it was one more escape. And bizarrely, one attempt was foiled thanks to the palace cats. This time it involved an assistant cook. My grandfather had always been very fond of cats, and so have I. And I kept noticing that the cats, in terms of the numbers I saw around the palace, were diminishing. Some dead cats had been spotted. So we began an investigation, and it turned out that, again, this fellow had been approached and had been given some poison that he was meant to use in my food.

33:42And he was experimenting to see whether it worked or not. So the cats led us to a would-be assassin. But the king appears to have been philosophical about his close shaves with death. I have been fortunate to escape their attempts. I seem to survive under duress. Deep inside one may be worried, but one has to put on a facade of a smile and to give everyone else confidence. Do you ever think I really would like to give this up, be a man in the street? If it were God's will, maybe. If I felt there ever was an obstacle in the part of my people or what they were striving to achieve, by all means. But no, I haven't thought of it.

34:25But the king did have some critics in Jordan, who objected to him often suspending parliament, firing prime ministers and cancelling elections. What do you say to people who would say that you're an absolute monarch? Well, I'm not an absolute monarch because the machinery is there. except for Parliament. And obviously that is a very important link that is missing. But beyond that, I continue to give advice wherever possible and to give encouragement. You say you give advice, but when it really comes to a decision, who decides? In the normal way, it has to reach right up to the top. And on many issues, my decision is sought.

35:02And over the next decades, Hussein continued to tread a delicate line between the opposing sides in the Middle East. ultimately winning an international reputation as one of the main forces for stability in the region. This is still a poor country, but it's strategically vital. Sandwiched between Israel and its main Arab enemies, King Hussein has held it together. Well, in the final analysis, the problems do not go away at the end of office hours. The life of the country, its future, peace in this area, will it be attained or not? All that we are building in the shadow of danger. the courage of a pupil, what their reward ought to be.

35:42And not only for us, but for everyone in the area. In 1999, after 46 years as ruler and several assassination attempts, the king fell ill with cancer. The last journey for King Hussein of Jordan, one of the central figures in the search for peace in the Middle East, is on the point of death. 20 years earlier, in the BBC documentary, he'd reflected on the legacy he wanted to leave behind. If you had your life over again, would you choose to be king of Jordan? It wasn't a choice, it was a duty. And I've enjoyed it with all its sadness and with all its burdens. So long as I had the feeling that I was serving the people of Jordan and was able to contribute towards a better future for them.

36:27King Hussein died at the age of 63 and his funeral was attended by more than 60 heads of state and government, some who had been sworn enemies. He was succeeded by his son Abdullah II. The beauty of the BBC Archive is that it covers decades, even centuries of history, and moments which shed light on our cultural past, including an extraordinary interview about the life of the great Russian playwright Anton Chekhov. Paul Shishkov was just ten years old when his family became the inspiration for one of Chekhov's most famous works. Shishkov's 1938 interview with the BBC was unearthed by the curator Tariq Hussain.

37:08And, just a warning, it does contain language of its time. It's the summer of 1897, and young Paul is living with his family around 50 miles from Moscow in rural Vaskina when he first meets Chekhov. The 37-year-old writer is spending the warmer months at his home in neighbouring Melikova and resting after the end of Moscow's theatre season. He was a very unassuming man. Kind eyes, he was gentleness personified. You couldn't imagine him ever arguing or losing his temper, but at the same time you couldn't imagine taking liberty with him. He was too aloof, you know, that kind of detachment. And the quietness of his voice and the complete absence of heat in his speech, somehow he kept even the most aggressive type of day.

37:54During the long, hot summer days they spend together, Shishkov often accompanies Chekhov on fishing expeditions and rambling through the countryside and gets to see a side of the writer hidden from the outside world. Chekhov liked walking in the forest, hunting for our Russian white mushrooms or wild berries, and fishing. Chekhov loved fishing, but he had very little chance in Medicovo. Just an artificial pond dug out, poorly stocked with fish. But at Vaskinov, we had a big lake with fish of all kinds in it then carp and pikes and perch and so on. We used to have important discussions about the best kind of bait to use.

38:31The schoolboy already knew two members of Chekhov's household, meeting the author's Dachshund dogs after arriving earlier with his family that spring. These dogs were called Bromide and Quinine. Chekhov was a doctor, you know, and he gave his dogs medical names. You see, they are short names in Russian, quite good for dogs.

39:00The puppies were a gift from Chekhov's publisher a few years earlier. The animals follow him everywhere, but not on days when he needs time to think about his writing. Chekhov didn't take his dogs out for walks much. That's a purely English habit, you know, to take dogs for walks all the time. They would have been a nuisance in the forest when he wanted to concentrate on thinking out a new story or a play. I knew, without him telling me, that he wanted to be quiet. He liked just sitting quietly by the shores of the lake, avoiding everybody and meditating. But the fishing gave something else for his hands to do, and that helped him to be all the more at rest.

39:37Shishkov makes frequent visits to the playwright's cottage, surrounded by apple trees and a cherry orchard. From here, Chekhov uses his medical skills to provide free care to some of the labourers, and it's also where he was at his most creative and wrote numerous works, including the first of his four major plays, The Seagull, in 1895. My mother had made it a strict rule that I was never to talk to him at all when we were out together. But one day she caught us talking, and she said I mustn't ever go out with him again. I might interfere with his thinking. Anyhow, she said, putting live worms on hooks and catching fish by their mouth was cruel and not good for little boys.

40:17But Chekhov protested. He said fishing developed patience in a boy, an accurate observation of nature. He'd certainly learned that. Anyhow, Chekhov won the argument. And as their closeness grows during the days spent together, Chekhov begins thinking about a new play based on Shishkov's family and what he sees and hears during his regular visits. He was beginning to work on the idea of his play The Three Sisters. It's about life in a small Russian garrison town. Chekhov had no first-hand knowledge of military life, but my father was an army doctor, and my mother and her two unmarried sisters were the daughters of a general.

40:55The three sisters was what our neighbors used to call them, and we lived in the winter season in the garrison town of Batum. It was wonderful to see the way Chekhov set to work to drink in the atmosphere of our life there. One day, while we were fishing, he began to ask me about it. And I remember telling him with great excitement how I once saw two officers fight a duel in front of our house. I saw one of them turn round in front of my nursery window and fire three shots at the direction of our front door. I rushed to the drawing room, and the other officers staggered in, covered with blood, right in front of me.

41:34Well, you can see for yourself a check of Midovich and the three sisters. What's happened? This is a terrible day. I don't know how to tell you, Irina, my darling. What? Tell me quickly, what is it? For God's sake! The baron's been killed in a duel. This BBC radio dramatisation of Three Sisters in 1973 shows Chekhov's style, focusing on the everyday lives of real people. The sisters are desperate to leave their provincial town and return to Moscow. But as the drama continues, you realise the trip will never be made. Life's slipping away and it will never, never come back. We should never go to Moscow.

42:14I know we will. We should never get there. There, there, my dear.

42:21Oh, I'm so miserable. When it was published in 1901 and Shishkov's family saw the play for the first time, they are flattered by their influence. I quite understand how excited my mother was when she came back from the first night of the three sisters in Moscow. Again and again in the part of Masha, the married sister, she could recall the conversations and discussions she had had with Chekhov. And the other characters. Well, we could all recognize them so vividly. The officers of the garrison who used to drop into our house in Batum. The gentle, weak Baron Tussenbach. The dignified type of Colonel Vershinian with his interest in social problems and philosophy.

43:01And the aggressive Salioni, just the typical garrison life with all the little tragedies, the close circles, and the gossip of the small town. It was amazing to think that Chekhov had never seen that life himself. And his first ideas of it might have come when he sat fishing with me by the lake or walking through the forest with my mother. And it's during those times that Shishkov's mother grows fond of Chekhov and sets out to find someone he can share his life with. I remember then talking about marriage. Sometimes we used to have various eligible, interesting women staying at our place and mother hinting that he wanted to catch his eye.

43:40But it was pretty hopeless, because he always had a way of retiring into his den. I once heard Chekhov say, you should never marry an interesting woman. She'll only interfere with your work. And when mother pressed him to say what makes a woman interesting, he answered, well, an interesting woman, she's a woman who is quite virtuous, but with an element of vice. And the next thing is Jewish blood. It improves a woman very much. And then there are the actresses. You should never marry an interesting woman like that. Well, the next thing we heard was that Chekhov had married Knipper, the leading lady of his plays at the Moscow Art Theatre.

44:19And someone said he'd broken all his three rules at once. But Chekhov already knew he was severely ill. In March 1897, he'd been diagnosed with tuberculosis after coughing up blood and was advised to change his lifestyle. Shishkov recalls the signs of his worsening health. Well, I remember him having his portrait painted. The famous painter Brass came over to do it. And I remember the easel standing in the big house and Chekhov looking on all that as a painful duty that had to be gone through. Well, the picture became very famous, and I suppose blackness was very good. But we all said the nose was far too red.

44:59Chekhov certainly had a bit of a red nose. That was probably due to bad circulation. Paul Shishkoff speaking in a BBC interview recorded in 1938 and brought to us from the archives by Tariq Hussain. Bad circulation or not, Anton Chekhov moved to a villa in Crimea where he hoped the warmer weather would help his failing health and he spent a year completing Three Sisters and writing his final play, The Cherry Orchard. He died in 1904, aged 44. Next, a little-known and quirky moment in history discovered by digital archivist Jonathan Charlton. It's the summer of 1937, and some of the 20th century's most famous artists, writers and photographers are holidaying in the south of France.

45:46Under a blue sky and hot sun, Pablo Picasso is sitting at a picnic table. We were all lunching in the courtyard, and we all had our bikinis on the women, at least, and the men just bare-chested. an enormous hornet came buzzing round the table. And we women were sort of shrinking into our skins, you see, the terrifying thing. And Picasso watched it and he got up and took a carving knife and he went like that and cut it in two. And we all clapped because, you know, cut a buzzing hornet in two the first time. We thought it was marvellous. Meet surrealist artist Eileen Agar interviewed by the BBC in 1985 She's one of the holidaymakers who also include photographer Lee Miller her lover, Roland Penrose poet, Paul Elwar and the painter Man Ray Eileen's invitation to join this circle is recent Earlier in her career she'd been a different type of artist I'd been doing portraits and I think they were quite good but I felt I didn't want to be a portrait painter for the rest of my life.

47:01You have to paint people whom you mightn't be interested in and it would become a sort of routine thing. And so I packed up and went to Paris and saw these paintings and I felt rather liberated. People were doing things out of their imagination. I had never tried that but I wanted to very much. Eileen had discovered surrealism. A style of art inspired by dreams and hidden thoughts that can look strange and bizarre. And she becomes a keen convert. It seemed to me to be so natural. The surveys were always trying to probe into something deeper than base value. The other reality, which is deeper than the reality that you see.

47:50Eileen begins using everyday objects and washed up debris for her creations. Among her most famous works is a wearable sculpture, also known as the Ceremonial Hat for Eaton Boya Base. What is it? It's 18 inches wide and 18 inches high. There's a lobster, a tigerfish, a prawn, seashells and marine flowers and a starfish. Something to eat? No, a hat. The creation of surrealist artist Eileen Egar to the man in the street, it's all a bit confusing. It really was a cork basket and I thought it's no use to me as a basket, what on earth can I do with it? So I put it upside down and turned it into a hat and of course a hat needs decoration and I enjoyed putting as many shells and fish bones and anything to do with the sea.

48:43I gathered together. And with Eileen's new artistic style comes an introduction to a new set of people. The Surrealists. Examples of her work are even included in the 1936 International Surrealist Exhibition organised by artist Roland Penrose. They greeted me very warmly into their circle and took an interest in my work. By the summer of 1937, Aileen is among the group invited to the south of France, where Picasso is also staying in Mougin. I naturally couldn't say no to an invitation like that. And Roland met us in Cannes and motored us up. And when we arrived there, we were met by all of them.

49:30And it was very lovely. It was the start of a fortnight of sunbathing, swimming and picnics. Scenes featured in the 2023 film Lee about Miller's life and career. Lunch is served. We used to have lunch in the courtyard and there was a lot of laughter and gaiety. It was very pleasant. And then we used to go, all of us, to dance. So, I was thinking we should swim with our cocktails this evening. Wonderful. I agree. Picasso, they liked meeting friends that he knew were through somebody else, you see. They wouldn't be difficult. He didn't like people he didn't know. And so I met Picasso. He was lying on his tummy in the sand just before he went in for a swim.

50:19And I'd walked along the beach beforehand to see what I could find. I was always looking for material to make objects out of. And I'd come across an awful lot of discarded bits of old leather, which had been shoes. And I'd brought them back and I offered them to Picasso as an offering, homage. And he laughed, a whole pile of these odd-looking bits and pieces of rubber. And he said, yes, I saw those. He said, I nearly thought of making something out of them. Which was rather amusing. But elsewhere in Europe, the threat of war is growing. In Germany, Adolf Hitler is in power. And the civil war in Spain.

51:03Night after night, all over Spain, men are torn from their weeping families, lined up and shot. Scores of cities, towns and villages have been bombarded and burnt. More than 200 churches have gone up in flames. We knew that war was coming. And Picasso himself would say, there's no question about it, there's going to be a war. Or the great military parade through Berlin's Tiergarten shows that once again Germany has a real army, with more than half a million men ready to strike at a moment's notice. In France, the group tried to ignore the threat. Aileen goes beachcommon, Lee Miller photographs Picasso, Roland Penrose makes collages, Paul Elwar writes.

52:11He opened this trunk in the balcony and it was full of shards or pieces of pottery or anything that he found that interested him that he could make an object out of. The summer won't be the last time the Surrealists meet, but for Eileen, it is perhaps the most carefree. In two years' time, the war broke out, you see. The Nazis started their terrible doings. and we didn't know what had happened to Picasso for a long time. But then Lee Miller was the first to see him because she was working with the American forces and she got to Paris with him at the Liberation and the first person he went to see was Picasso and he was jolly glad to see her.

52:57It was marvellous. During the war, Aileen returns to London, later showing her works at exhibitions in New York, Tokyo, Paris and Amsterdam one of the few female surrealist artists of her time I'm very happy as long as I can work I would be very distressed to live a long time if I couldn't work because I wouldn't know what to do with myself

53:29Eileen Agar, who died in 1991 at the age of 91 Her story was brought to us by the digital archivist Jonathan Charlton using BBC interviews and film excerpts from Lee, directed by Ellen Kuras from Sky Original. Finally, as the 2026 World Cup begins, we've a sporting witness story from the archives. 60 years ago, there was an unlikely four-legged hero of the 1966 tournament, Pickles the Dog. Uma Doriswamy explains. Oh, he's the most famous dog in Britain, easy. I think he's the most famous sporting dog, and he could even be the most famous dog in the world. I think Lassie might have a thing or two to say about that.

54:17Anyway, it's Sunday 20th March, and the Jules Rimet Trophy, the World Cup Winners' Prize, is on display at a stamp exhibition in London. Or at least it was for 24 hours, as the organiser told the BBC. Throughout the opening hours of the exhibition, we had the cup under scrutiny and personal observation the entire time. Once the hall had been closed for Sunday, however, and all the doors were locked, the cup was still under personal observation. But the two guards involved, of course, were moving about the hall. And there were two downstairs as well. Despite there being four guards, the display case had been forced open and the trophy, worth£30 ,000, or$80 ,000 back then, had been stolen.

54:59And the police were hot on the case. Well, kind of. Can you say yet whether this is a stunt or whether this is a real theft? No, it would guess work. Is there any possibility that it may be returned, in your opinion, from what you've learned yet? We're hoping either that it's returned or that we find out where it is. This was a major embarrassment for England's Football Association, who had taken possession of the trophy from FIFA two months earlier in preparation to host the World Cup that summer. The FA released a statement saying it deeply regretted this most unfortunate incident, which inevitably brings discredit both to itself and the country.

55:44The hunt for the trophy intensified and a reward was offered to anyone who had information that could help find it. But then, a ransom note for£15 ,000 was sent to the chairman of the FA. The police arranged a decoy cash drop in Battersea Park in South London, and the undercover officers arrested the sender, Edward Betchley, who came to collect it. But the trophy was still missing.

56:15A week after it was stolen, Pickles, a black and white collie mongrel and his owner David Corbett were about to go for a walk. Speaking on the 50th anniversary of the theft, David described how Pickles became a national hero. I walk over to the car where the dog is and he's curiously round the wheel of my neighbour's car and laying up beside it was a package wrapped in newspaper, tied very tightly with string all the way up. I bend down and pick it up. It's very heavy. Go to the other end, tear a bit off there and it's a lady with a dish, a shallow dish above her head like that. World Cup! So, oh!

56:56Jump in the car, up to the police station. I rush in and slam it on the counter and I say to the sergeant, my God, I think I've found the World Cup. and he looks at me, looks at the cup and he says, something will always be in my mind, doesn't look very well cuppy to me, son. But the police weren't as happy as David expected as he explained to the BBC's Simon Watts in 2010. They start asking me a question, who are you, who's your mother, who's your father, he says, where have you been, have you ever been in trouble and all that sort of thing. and I think, oh, this could be a bit dodgy. I'm thinking I'm going to get all the accolades.

57:38Oh, we've earned the World Cup. We can present it to the winners of the World Cup, 66. And they start coming the opposite tack. So did you think you made a mistake then by handing it in? You got yourself in trouble. I did. I was sitting there during the lapses of them going in and coming out, asking me questions and then obviously going to check what I'm saying. I'm thinking to myself, I've done the wrong thing here. I should have left it where it was. I guess from their point of view, the story of a dog stumbling on the cup must have been pretty hard to believe, though. Yeah, that was. So, you know, I was thinking, well, it's obviously going to think that.

58:14So I'll calm myself down. They're going to think that. You're all right. You're innocent. You'll be OK. But once everything was cleared up, Pickles got the recognition he deserved. Pickles, the 14-month-old mongrel, found fame when he sniffed out the missing World Cup. With his master, David Corbett, he went along to a London hotel to receive his award, a silver medal presented by the National Canine Defence League. There were also appearances on children's TV programmes. And here we've got Pickles. Come on, boy. Come on, Pickles. Come on. Come on. Come on. I'll have to go get you. Oh, there you go, boy.

58:45Come on, Pickles. No. And if that wasn't enough glitz and glamour, he even made it to the movies.

58:54Yes, there was a film, A Spy With A Cold Nose. It was roughly about a bulldog and they put a microphone in him and they gave him to the Russian president so they could listen to it. And there was lots of dogs in it running around and he was just one of the dogs running around and all that. But we had about six or seven days up in Pinewood and making it. The good thing out of that, one of the agents said to me, would you like me to look after you for the agency for 10 %? and I said, oh, yes, please, because the phone was ringing all the time. I was unaware what you'd do. It just shows you how you're liking changing that flesh.

59:33There was also a bit of cash to be had. The National Sporting Club honoured the stolen trophy finders David Corbett and Pickles. Henry Cooper uncovered a special treat for Pickles, but it's turkey or nothing these days. The champ had something to impress David Corbett, though, a reward cheque for£1 ,000, presented by the club to Pickles and his owner for their part in recovering football's most coveted award. And then eventually it was on to the actual football. England beat West Germany 4-2 in the final but there were still fears that something else could happen to the trophy on the team's victory lap as Dr Kevin Moore, director of the National Football Museum, explained in 2016.

1:00:12The FA then were terrified of the trophy being stolen again after this huge embarrassment so they made a replica but in secret they didn't tell FIFA. They didn't tell the then president of FIFA who was English, Sir Stanley Rouse, former head of the Secretary of the FA. So there were then two Jure Rume trophies, including on the day of the final at Wembley in 1966. Both trophies were there. They were also at the presentation dinner that evening. And for the next four years, this replica trophy was used rather than the original for fear of that theft. And we see Bobby Moore lift the original and then they go round the pitch and...

1:00:49Then the swap is made. A bemused, confused Nobby Stiles is asked to take one trophy and is given another. And from then on, much of the time, most of the time, it's this replica rather than the real trophy. But it was the real Pickles who was part of the England team's celebrations. We went out on a roof terrace. All the crowd were outside and the team come out. but Bobby Moore picked him up and held him up to the crowd. It was a tremendous moment. Who got the biggest cheer then, Pickles or the Cup? Pickles got a big cheer, I tell you, it was very close. Life for Pickles and David unsurprisingly settled down after the World Cup, but England weren't the only winners that summer.

1:01:41I got about£5 ,000. That was the loss of justice for the insurance. Actually, at that time,£5 ,000 was quite a lot of money. It was a lot of money. And you were able to buy a house with it? Yes, well, I come down to lovely Leanfield here and I put a deposit on the house that I'm living in now. So he really changed my life completely, Pickles did. Nobody was ever convicted over the theft. The Jules Rimet Trophy was retired at the 1970 World Cup and kept by that year's winners, Brazil. The new one was also stolen in 1983. It was never recovered, perhaps because that time there was no pickles to help out, as he sadly died in 1967 whilst chasing a cat.

1:02:25Uma Doriswamy brought us that story using the BBC archives. And our hats off to all the good people working to digitise and preserve the vast BBC sound archives from which we have drawn this History Hour. We'll have more first-hand stories from the past for you next week, so do join us again then. For now, though, this is Max Pearson from all of us here. Thanks for listening. Goodbye.

1:03:14I'm failing. I'm failing this sport and I love. Sporting Witness takes you to the events that have shaped the sports world through the eyes of the people who were there. It's not just about the sport. It's about all the other things that people with disabilities learn from each other. For nine minutes, you become a fan in the stands as we take you back in time to examine memorable moments from all over the world. There's a magic during those moments that carries your soul. We were truly blessed to be a part of history. Sporting Witness. Subscribe wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

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