Backlisted - Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfeild - rerun

Episode Date: December 9, 2025

A timely revisit of our 2022 Christmas special which celebrates Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfeild, a classic of children’s literature and the childhood favourite of our producer, Nicky Birch. We are joined by the writer Una McCormack and Tanya Kirk, the Lead Curator of Printed Heritage Collections (1601-1900) at the British Library, who are both lifetime Streatfeild fans. Ballet Shoes was an immediate bestseller upon publication and the runner-up for the inaugural Carnegie Medal. It has never been out of print and was the first in a series of ‘Shoes’ books by Streatfeild. It has been adapted many times both as an audiobook and for film and television and in 2019 BBC News included Ballet Shoes on its list of the 100 most influential novels of all time. We discuss why this might be the case and much more besides and even hear from Miss Streatfeild herself. And it being a Christmas episode, there is a fiendish festive quiz. We also feature two other classic books by writers best known through their writing for children. John discusses The Giant under the Snow by John Gordon, an eerie Puffin classic from 1968, while Andy revels in the darkness of John Christopher’s The Death of Grass, first published in 1956, a post-apocalyptic science fiction novel, definitely written for adults and perfect for cutting through your post-lunch torpor. Enjoy! *For £150 off any Serious Readers HD Light and free UK delivery use the discount code: BACK at seriousreaders.com/backlisted * To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops. * For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm *If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes and original writing, become a patron at www.patreon.com/backlisted *You can sign up to our free monthly newsletter here  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode of Backlisted is supported by Serious Readers. Which is fitting because that's what we are. I find my eyes get tired in the evenings and it's easier to read during daylight. And a Serious Reader's HD Essential light gives you the full spectrum of daylight. Suddenly, every word is sharp, the contrast is better and the strain just goes. Which means I can read longer and moan less. And that's good for everyone. Backlisted listeners get £150 off the HD Essential plus free UK delivery.

with the code back at Seriousreaders.com forward slash back. And you've got 30 days to try it at home risk-free. That's Seriousreaders.com forward slash back and use the code B-A-C-K. And now on with the show. Hello. Hello. Good morning. How is everyone?

Well, good morning is presumptuous. Good night. Good evening. Good afternoon. So this is a rerun episode, one of our favourites to we get to revisit. And this is really exciting for me because it really is my first. favorite book ever. This is still your favorite book ever.

Yes, despite doing 10 years of backlisted, this is still my favorite book ever. I think we made it even favoriter as well. I think we were so good on this episode. Actually, I'd say not we were so good, Una, you were so good on this episode. I could possibly comment. This is an amazing thing. This has been my favorite children's book, I would say that, that I listened to and read so many times as a child. And then we did this show about it. And Una told me in the show

something so unbelievable about this book that my jaw dropped to the floor. And I have to say it's totally changed how I see about this book. And that's what you've got to look forward to in this show. Oh my goodness. And I didn't spoil it for you. That's the main thing. No. Good. Good. You made it. You adulted it a little bit. Oh, right. Yes. Stop it. Okay. Why are we re-running ballet shoes in? Why do we choose it? Well, it's very Christmassy, and we're heading in that direction at the moment, but also, for those of you who happen to be in London,

the National Theatre are doing their production again this year. They did ballet shoes as their Christmas production last year, and then it's been remounted or redone. I don't know what the technical term is. Restaged. Restaged, that's probably it, isn't it? Yeah, for this season. So ballet shoes, you can see it on stage right now

and a very nice production it is too. It's lovely, tits, isn't it? Yeah, they make, the set is all the fossils and stuff, isn't it? It's like the cabinets. It's like the pit rivers or the science museum or something. It's really, really nice, I think. And everyone feels right. And it's quite important with ballet shoes, I think, that everyone feels right.

Yeah? I've come away feeling like they've done disservice to the book. You come away feeling happy and satisfied. Exactly. Exactly. As with the actual recording for this episode a few years ago, I rather feel like I'm eavesdropping on whatever is happening. But it's lovely to see my friends looking so happy and so content.

Also, we should send a message to another one of our friends, Tanya Kirk, who was the guest on this show. And she is currently laid up in hospital again, having another operation on her leg. Tanya, when you listen to this, if you do, you've probably got nothing better to do than sit listening to old episodes on which you appeared. But anyway, if you are listening to this,

everyone at backlisted says get well soon. We do. And hopefully we'll see you in 2026. Nikki, shall we break the habit of podcasting lifetime and share with listeners what the subject of this year's Christmas episode will be? Yes, we too tend to focus on children's books at Christmas, because it feels right. So we've got a corker of a children's book to focus on this year. We are going to be looking at the asterix books.

Yes, for Christmas, the asterix books by Gossini and Udezzo. We will be focusing on La Zizanis to give it its original title, which was, as everyone knows. Installment number 15, Asterix and the Roman agent. I've got a big pile of Asterix books next to me here with the best prep ever for one of these episodes. I'm looking forward to the readings. Yeah. Frame 6.

Asterix is like doing alt text on social media, isn't it? Magic potion all round, everyone. What's the name of the druid? Get a fix. Get a fix. Thank you. I need to get a fix on and start reading. Yes, well, good. Oh, cool.

Come on. So we're recording that, aren't we, in about a week's time? So please join us on December the 25th, which is when that episode will go live for a lovely celebratory Christmassy show all about Asterix and the Roman agent by Gossini and Udozo. And before that, right now, Una, what should people do? Right now, they should sit down and pick up. up ballet shoes and read along with us. And if anybody wants to commission me to read the entire ballet shoes to them, I'd be very happy to do that.

Would you do that? Yeah, I would. I actually would, especially if it got recorded and put on Audible. Yeah. Your readings on the show are lovely, so I'm seconding that motion. Again, I feel like I'm eavesdropping on that. As in, it's a quote, famous phrase, lacing daisies into one another hair. You're the secret Santa of this, aren't you?

You've provided the means by which it can happen. The secret Satan. Thank you so much. Bye, bye, posy. Bye, Petrava. Bye, Pauline. Bye. See you next time, everyone.

See you. Bye. Hi, everyone. Hello and welcome to a special Christmas edition of Backlisted, the podcast that gives new life to old books. Today, you find us in a rambling terraced house in London's Cromwell Road, sometime in the early 1930s. It's Christmas.

day and we're watching three young girls admire a Christmas tree. All three are wearing the same style of woolen jumper, finished with fluffy rabbit fur around the collar and cuffs, the tallest of blonde curls in blue, the middle with straight brown hair in orange and the smallest, the striking red hair in pink. The fir tree in front of them is like nothing they've ever seen. Each branch has been covered in glittering frost, transforming the whole room into something magical. I'm John Mitchinson, and the publisher of Unbound, the platform where readers crowdfund books they really want to read.

And I'm Andy Miller, author of the Year of Reading Dangerity, and on this special day, we're joined by two friends of the show, reunited to celebrate Christmas Day, as we hope they would be. A special seasonal welcome to Una McCormack and Tanya Kirk.

Hello. Hello. Happy Christmas. Happy to see. Yes. Tanya is the lead curator of printed heritage collections, 1601 to 1900 at the British Library.

And listen, everyone, when the quiz comes up later, I want you to remember what Tanya's job is. Specifically what her job is. No pressure, Tanya, no pressure. Previously, she joined us back in February for episode 155 on Winifred Holby, South Riding. A specialist in literary collections, she's co-c curated six major exhibitions,

including one on science fiction, another on Gothic literature plus Shakespeare and the British landscape in literature, and is currently working on one about fantasy, which will open in October 2023. She's also edited five collections of classic ghost stories taken from books and periodicals in the British Library for the series Tales of the Weird and excellent they are too.

And four of these are Christmas themed, and the most recent, which came out two months ago, is called Haunters of the Half, eerie tales for Christmas nights. So you've still got time to enjoy that before the festive season expires. Tanya, I'm asking everybody today to nominate the book they most fondly remember receiving for Christmas when they were a child. Which book did you, were you most excited about receiving or surprised to receive?

And then you just associate it with being able to slope off on Christmas afternoon and read it. So I had to consult with my mum because I was excited about a lot of books at Christmas. she has informed me that the one I was most excited about was the saga of Eric the Viking by Terry Jones illustrated by Michael Foreman. That's such a great choice. I was kind of a bit little for reading it, but I remember the amazing illustrations

and I was really into Vikings around there and I'd been to the Yorvik Viking Centre in York. Oh, haven't we all? 83 it was published originally. 83 was it? Yeah, makes note. Una McCormack, welcome back. Hello.

She's making her eighth and record equaling appearance on backlisted. Having previously joined us for episodes dedicated to Anita Bruckner, Pau, Georgia Heyer, bang, Russell Hoban, Poh. J.R.R. Tolkien. Terrence Dix. William Golding. What? Sounds to have an outlier, Goulding there in that company.

Is nothing this woman cannot do. Eclectic is her middle name. She is also best-selling right of nearly two dozen science fiction novels based on TV shows such as Star Trek, Doctor Who, Firefly, and Blake's 7. Her most recent books include The Autobiography of Mr. Spock and Star Trek Picard's second self. She's on the editorial board for Gold SF, an imprint of Goldsmith's press

aimed at publishing new voices in an intersectional feminist science fiction, and their first publications are mathematics for ladies by Jesse Randall and Empathy by Hoa Fam. Una, please hold up to the camera, but also say what it is. For radio. Let me hold it up for radio. The book you most fondly remember receiving. So the book I most fondly remember receiving, and this was prepped up, I think, in front of a bike.

So that's how excited I must have been about this book. It was Comet in Moominland by Sovay Janssen. And here's this edition. It says 1975 in the front, which would mean that I was four when I got it. So, and I just, it was propped up there and I can, I have very bad visual imagination, but I can picture that bike and I can picture that book. And yeah, that was the start of a life on the fair. In the front of this is a lovely puffing book plate.

I know, I've got those. Yeah, absolutely beautiful with my sister's handwriting because I was too little to write my name. So that's my book. Would you have seen comment in Moomineland on Jackanori, do you think? Oh yeah. Oh, goodness. I don't know. When was it done? Well, about then. That's what's really those, the Moomin books partly owe their popularity in the UK for being great favourites of the producers of Jackanori. They did at least five of them, four or five of them, I think. That must have been where we got them then. But yeah, I mean,

Jack and Orie was on, but I wouldn't remember. I'm a swim, what, three and a half, four, five. So, but yeah, that's probably the route in. So come in Moominland and I still have it. It's covered in kind of plastic sticky stuff as well. As you did, as you used to do in those days. She used to do, indeed. Is your daughter a big Moomin fan as well?

Not really. No, she doesn't do books because I do books. Oh, look. Kids are so great. Already getting back at you. Well, then. I'm going to go to Nikki Birch first. Nikki Birch.

Hello. This, let's explain to people why we're doing this particular book this Christmas. Well, you're basically giving me a little Christmas present for two of you. And I appreciate that. The four of you even. So, yeah, when I was growing up, I read, but also listened to ballet shoes every single day as I went to bed. And when I might be playing, when I was wanting something calming, I probably listened. to it every day for at least five years, maybe longer.

Some sort of ASMR kind of thing going on here. Something like that. So this is a book that means so much to me because I know it so well. And funnily enough, I picked it up again to read it in preparation for this show. And I realized I really don't need to read it still. It's all up here. I know it all so well. Could you?

If we just triggered you, you'd be able to start talking. I could actually verbalise it exactly. So I, you know, I vow to be on hand to answer anything. And anyway, I'm really excited to hear what you guys have got to say about this. We'll get you to read from it as well. John, what was your book that you were most excited to receive as a child, ballet shoes as well? Or was it something different? I mean, it wasn't ballet shoes.

And it was when I was seven, and I still remember it, it was the Collins Field Guide to the Birds of Britain in Europe by Peterson, Mountfoot and Holland. I can still remember it was the most grown-up thing I'd ever owned. I couldn't really understand a lot of the technical stuff in it, but I love, it was like, I've now got the same book as grown-up bird watchers, people who I would see at the hide with their binoculars and then have this magical book in their pockets. And now I was one of the gang. It's basically all I've ever wanted to do is to fit in, Andy.

And this was my ticket to fitting in. Did you tick them off as you saw them? Has it got little pencil marks in bits of them? I'm afraid I'm not a person who can make marks in books. Quite right. But I did have a notebook from the RSPB or the Young Ornithologist Club which had all the birds in

and they did used to tick that off and I was that kind of child. Quite right. There was a survey done a few years ago which said that I've always wondered what the pretext of this survey was. They surveyed adults

who'd been children in the 70s to say what was the most disappointing Christmas present of the 70? If you were a child, what failed to live? And by a landslide the winner was book tokens. What?

I know. I know. Screw you guys. That's what I'm saying. You know, we love book tokens. The best present. Yeah, right? They were the best present.

My auntie Joyce in Dundee would always send me a 10-pound book token. Isn't that great? Yeah. Well, they were surveying the Book Burners Association of, you know. Well, who would be? would be bitterly opposed to the popularity of books. 1980, the young Andy Miller is 12 years old. He asks for and receives and reads over and over and over again,

almost as much as Nikki Birch was listening to ballet shoes. I was reading Roger Wilmot's from Fringe to Flying Circus, his history of all the footlights comedy people from Beechelieu. from Beyond the Fringe right the way through to 1980 and Nikki I've got the same thing weirdly I can quote enormous chunks of that book

I love those books That's before there's a female president isn't it? 1980 they'd not had a female president by them had they? No it's it's I mean you know it's horrendous thing I mean it's all

it's rank patriarchy and privilege but you know it's fun and funny let's be honest funny yeah That's funny as well. No, so that was mine. I really like that kind of, that period before you're quite a teenager. The thing you were just talking about, John, before you're a teenager, where you are beginning

to choose books that you think might appeal to you on an adult level, but with a kind of pre-teen enthusiasm at the same time. One of the books that I was looking forward to receiving at Christmas was the Judy Bloom book Forever, which is famous for being the sexy Judy Blume book where they actually have sex. And my mum, I don't know if your parents used to do this. So we grew up in a flat, so there wasn't much sort of storage space. So there was always a present drawer where if you were a teenager, you pretty much knew, you knew where the presents were, right?

So I looked in there and saw that Forever was in the present drawer. And then come Christmas Day, Forever never got passed on, right? I never got it because I realized what had happened. She'd read forever and decided 12-year-old or 30-year-old was not ready. Not ready for the sex scene. So that was a denied present. There's no way forever would have got into our Catholic house. I mean, that would have burst into flames as it crossed the threshold, I think.

When did you read it? Absolutely, Ben. When did you read it? I probably read it out of the point. present draw, literally, like, wow. Yeah, yeah, okay, yeah. My brother, my brother did that one. He discovered where all the presents were.

And I said, well, you can't, then he had to, of course, tell me that, not always, he had to tell me what I was getting for Christmas, which was deeply annoying. But then he had to kept dropping hints in family, you know, family meals. So, you know what I'd really like for Christmas this year? And then in the end, my dad just turned around and he said, you found the presents, haven't you? He found, and my brother said, no, but it's funny, whenever I watch those things about murderers wanting to return to the scene of the crime and it's always because serial killers

always want to get caught. I always think of my brother and the year that he ruined Christmas. Christmas. Well, Christmas is a time for the family. You'll have noticed listeners that this episode of that listed is even more circumlocutory than usual. It's Christmas Day. Come on, cut us some slack. The book we're discussing, you already know, is Ballet Shoes by Nell Streffield. It's first published by J.M. Dent in 1936, and it's now generally acknowledged as a classic of children's literature. But before we slip on our point shoes and start on the Batemort and Plier, John, what have you been reading this week? I've been reading a novel from 1968, children's novel from 1968, something I haven't read since I was a child. And I've always wanted to go back to an read. It's called The Giant in the Snow by John Gordon.

a fantastic jacket. I love it because it's very good on cold. It opens. I'm going to read a little bit. It's now clearly what you would call the early stirrings of what we would now call folk horror. It was written in

1968. John Gordon was a writer for the Eastern Daily News in Norwich. It's about three kids who find a buckle and an ancient site and it turns out that that buckle is extremely important to the gathering dark that's out there. It's just before Christmas, it's snowy. This is really like a combination of

the Dark is Rising and Elidore, because it's also set in the back streets of kind of bombed out Norwich and kind of strange alleyways and kind of old warehouses, but a very similar kind of vibe to Elidore, very similar vibe in the snowy bits in the countryside to the Darkest Rising. It's not an entirely successful novel. There's a strange witch-like woman called Elizabeth Goodenough, who's in there, who doesn't quite really get to grips of what she is or what she does or what her powers do. They also, the children, she gives them all little backpacks that enable them to fly, which is a little bit, it's a little bit jetpacky, let's be honest. Although he writes so beautifully about the flying and Norwich from the air in the countryside

from the air, the great joy of the book is his prose. I really, really enjoyed it. And I'm guessing it's long out of print. I think it was reissued by Orion a few years ago. But I'll just read you a little tiny passage just to give you the feel. As I say, the culmination is on Christmas Day, if you like. I do like that kind of thing, and it does it very well. So this is John Quill. She's got separated from the school party. The coach has stopped for what would now be called a comfort break.

Probably wasn't called that in 1970, in 1968, where children didn't have trainers, but gym shoes. Apparently that was one of the changes of Ryan made for the revised edition. get me started. Anyway, here we go. Junk looked round her. The cops was on a very low, flattish mound, so regularly shaped it may have covered the ruins of a small building, a real temple perhaps, but four or five ridges displayed out from it like the spokes of a wheel or the rays of a sun shape. Junk counted them, four straight ones and one shorter and bent. Not a wheel, more like a gigantic hand with trees thrusting up between the fingers

if it closed on her the thought made her jerk her head up her hair was wet now it hung in dark strings to her shoulders and made a spiky fringe across her forehead her imagination was trying to frighten her but she would not be beaten she would circle the cops

the horn bleated again nagging like Miss Stevens It was a sudden spurt of anger, more than anything else, that made jonks stride into the V of the grassy ridges and stooped to pick up the glinting object. But as her hand reached for it, she paused. The object was like a shiny yellow ribbon twisted in upon itself. A clutch of worms wintering under the soil?

No, it was metal. She pulled a fern leaf, doubled it to make it stiff, and poked the object clear. It was circular, about the size of her palm, and was composed of metal ribbons that twisted and rithed among themselves in an endless pattern. It looked like a brooch, perhaps an old one, perhaps gold. Certainly it was a discovery. She'd been right to visit the temple of trees.

She picked it up, trumbling the earth from its crevices as she turned it in her hands. There was a distinct pattern to it, and in the middle of the interwoven gilded strips was a shape like a man stretched upright with his legs together and his arms outstretched. his head was a loop of metal. Now she would go back. The green hand had given her a gift. It no longer seemed unfriendly.

Junk smiled slightly as she bent to brush the brooch in the grass of one of the ridges. The grass was short and fine, and beneath it the earth was spongy. She pressed it and it gave. Another landslip? More treasure? She was about to press again when the turf dimpled, as though it was going to split of its own accord and savour the trouble, but it did not crack.

A ripple ran the length of the ridge, and suddenly with a soft sound, almost like a sigh from underground, it humped itself in the middle. Junk jerked back. The movement stopped. The ridge was absolutely still. The hump in the middle was very low and may have been there all the time. Stooping may have made her giddy, and she'd imagined it. But she was afraid. She was able to admit to herself that she was afraid. It was time to go. go. And on we go. The giant in the sun under the snow, John Gordon. Really cracking, cracking book. Beautiful. And has stood the test of time, I think. The language in it is beautiful.

Andy, what have you been reading? Thanks, John. I've been reading a novel called The Death of Grass by John Christopher. This was recommended to me by a backlisted listener and also who is also a bookseller at Waterstones in Liverpool. Thanks, Kieran. Merry Christmas to you. I went in, I said, I want something that is going to make me stare into the bleak heart of every human being. This particularly festive technology, I said, I've got to do this show about ballet shoes.

I need the antidote. What is it? And Kieran said, I recommend the death of grass. And Kieran, you were dead right. This is quite the bleakest and most miserable and thrilling book that I've read for years. It is fantastic. I suspect, Una McCormack, you know exactly, you've probably read. read this, haven't you? Or you know who John Christopher is. Yeah, yeah. If you want to,

if you want to go from that one, read Empty World, which is John Christopher's young adult pandemic novel. So that'll cheer you up. Well, it's funny you should say that, because this is about a pandemic as well. The Penguin Edition that's currently available has an introduction by our former Christmas episode guest, Robert McFarlane, who says, of the Death of Grass, This novel is remarkably prescient. John Christopher's worries at the impact of human activity on the environment were a decade ahead of their time

and his account of pandemic panic was prescient by half a century or so. I'm going to do the backlisted thing and read the blurb. Look, I got out of central library here in Liverpool an original hardback of the death of brass. Can you see on the cover there's just like a skull?

Yeah. You know, the skull beneath the skin. Merry Christmas, everyone. This is the blurb of the death of grass. The death of grass recounts the terrifying changes on the face of the earth when the balance of nature is upset. And it takes place not at some unspecified date in the future, but in the present. The characters are pleasant, middle-class people

who live serenely until the grass begins to die, upon which their personalities begin to change. Life in England becomes a desperate struggle for survival. Bible, and following their fortunes, the reader becomes personally involved. Oh, my goodness. This novel is like a cross between, I mean, it's very much in the, it has the field of the Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham. And Robert McFarlane compares it to Lord of the Flies.

I could see that's true. So there's a kind of Lord of the Flies meets the Day of the Triffitt. But I tell you the story and film that it really reminds me of is the Ealing film based on a story by Graham Green called Went the Day Well, which is a wonderful, wonderful story and film about what seemingly nice human beings are reduced to very quickly if they have to fight to survive. I'm going to read you a little bit here, which will give you a flavor of how good this book is. Okay, so it's going along quite well near the beginning, and they're talking about what the ramifications of a loss of wheat and barley will be to the planet and what it will

cause to happen to food supplies. And then in the next chapter, they say, but the thing is, there's a new government in power, and they plan to drop hydrogen bombs on all the major cities in Britain to kill people early rather than let them starve to death. It's like John Christopher has gone, I need to raise the stakes. What can I do? Are heroes who are called John Custence, Roger Buckley, their families, and a very unpleasant man. called Piri, an unpleasant and violent man called Piri, are attempting to get from London to John Custance's brothers' farm in the Dales, where they hope to hole up with weapons until civilisation has returned to normal. Okay, so here we go. They had expected to be

stopped on the roads by the military, and with that possibility in view, had devised three different stories to account for the northward journeys of the three cars. The important thing, John felt, was to avoid the impression of a convoy. But in fact, there was no attempt inquisition. A considerable number of military vehicles on the roads were interspersed with private cars in a normal and mutually tolerant traffic. After leaving Saxon, court, they made for the Great North Road again, and drove northwards uneventfully throughout the morning. In the late afternoon, they stopped for a meal in a lane, a little north of Newark. The day had been cloudy, but was now brilliantly blue and sunlit, with a mass of cloud, rolling away to the

west, poised in white billows and turrets. The fields on either side of them were potato fields planted for the hopeful second crop. Apart from the bareness of hedgerows, empty of grass, there was nothing to distinguish the scene from any country landscape in a thriving, fruitful world. The men, sitting in Piri's Ford, discussed things. John said, if we can get north of Rippen today, we should be all right for the run to the valley tomorrow. We could get farther than that, Roger said. I suppose we could.

I doubt if it would be worth it, though. The main thing is to get clear of population centres. Once we're away from the West Riding, we should be safe enough from anything that happens. Piri said, I'm not objecting, mind you, nor regretting having joined you on this little trip, but does it not seem possible that the dangers of violence may have been overestimated? We have had a very smooth progress, neither Grantham nor Newark's shown any signs of imminent breakdown. Peterborough was sealed off, Roger said. Peterborough was sealed off.

No change, sir. said, I think those towns that still have free passage are too busy congratulating themselves on being missed to begin worrying about what else may be happening. You saw those cues outside the bakeries? The trouble is, said John, that we just don't know when Welling is going to take his drastic action. It's nearly 24 hours since the cities and large towns were sealed off. When the bombs drop, the whole country is going to erupt in panic. Atom bombs and hydrogen bombs, here he said thoughtfully, I really wonder. just said shortly, I don't know. I know Haggerty. He wasn't lying. It's not on the score of

morality that I find them unlikely, said Piri, but on that of temperament. The English, being sluggish in the imagination, would find no difficulty in acquiescing in measures which their common sense would tell them, must lead to the death by starvation of millions. But direct action, murder for self-preservation, is a different matter. I find it difficult to believe they could ever bring themselves to the sticking point. We haven't done so badly. They've been a string of murders at this point. He grinned. You particularly, my mother, Piri said simply, was French, but you fail to take my point. I had not meant that the English are inhibited from violence. Under the right circumstances, they will murder with a will and more cheerfully than most.

But they are sluggish in logic as well as imagination. They will preserve illusion. to the very end. It is only after that that they will fight like particularly savage tigers. Wow. Merry Christmas, one and all.

God bless us, everyone. Merry Chris, bless us, everyone. So that is the Death of Grass by John Christopher. It is in print. I thought it was sensational. Thank you very much. Kieran in Liverpool

who recommended that for me. Perfect for my purposes. The Fossil Sisters lived in the Cromwell Road, at that end of it, which is farthest from the Brompton Road, and yet sufficiently near it to be taken to look at the dolls' houses in the Victoria and Albert Museum every wet day. and if not too wet expect it to save the penny and walk

that's so weird the audiobook of the death of grass uses the same music thank you so much thank you so much Andy ballet shoes Ballowshoes is a children's novel that tells the story of the three fossil sisters, Pauline, Petrova, and Posey. Each of them has been collected by an atterent paleontologist they know as gum, an acronym for great Uncle Matthew,

and they grow up under the care of his great niece Sylvia in his slightly shabby house in the Cromwell Road in London. Money is tight, and Sylvia must take in borders. Luckily for the girls, he's comprised a garage owner, a retired English professor and a dance teacher, who all play a part in educating the girls and encouraging them to attend the stage school run by the formidable Madame Fidolia, a former prima ballerina of the Imperial Russian ballet. Much of the book's charm derives from the way

Stretfield allows each of the sisters to find their own way to fulfil their own particular talents. Pauline as an actress, Petrovert as a scientist and mechanic, and Posey as a ballet dancer. I wish listeners could see the look on Nikki Birch's face of utter relaxation and bliss. I'm so looking forward to this hour.

It's all I can say. Me too. So why is ballet shoes important? Well, for historical reasons, it was an immediate bestseller on publication. It was runner-up for the inaugural Carnegie Medal. And I think it's, I mean, we all know it's a classic of children's literature. it's never been out of print and it was the first in a series

of many shoes books by Noble Strepfield although she tried didn't she to call them other things but then the publishers called them circus shoes, theatre shoes party shoes, movie shoes, skating shoes I mean shoe shoes is the message here it's been adapted many times

both as an audio book and for film and television including a classic 1975 BBC series and a rather less successful 2007 adaptation starring Emma Watson. It seems a bit unfair to single out Emma Watson, John, is the cause of the failure of that film. Just facing it for people.

I quite like that one. It's okay. Victoria Wood, in it? Yeah, I think Mark Warren is woefully miscast as Nana. Thoughts, Nikki Birch? No, absolutely. It was a heinous adaptation. It's never been done. Strike it off. Strike it off. Strike it off.

Nicky is the arbiter on All Matters Ballet Shoes on this episode, don't you realize? As I am. Yes, indeed. In 2019, BBC News included Ballet Shoes on its list of the 100 most influential novels of all time, not even children's novels, but novels of all time. Right, too. So let's start with the familiar backlisted question at Tanya.

I will ask you, when did you first read Ballet Shoes? So I read the copy that my mum had owned, which she then handed down to my elder sister. And I know it was before I was nine and a half because I bought at a jumble sale, my own copy, because of sibling rivalry. And it's got in the front, Tanya Jeanette Kirk, age nine and a half, 19992. Oh, that's brilliant. And I'm a little drawing some flowers.

So I know I read it before I was nine and a half. It's been read many, many times. So, Tanya, you were nine and a half. And were you a girl who was, were you into ballet? I was. I was not good. I have not ever had the physique for ballet. But I did do ballet as a little child. And, you know, like the dream of being good at it was there. I just knew it was never going to happen. It's Christmas. It can we, everything can come. Your dreams can come true.

It created a craze, though, didn't it? Yeah, there was like a major, 1930s ballet was massive in the UK, I think. So does the book cause the craze, or does the craze lead to the book? I think the craze led to the book. I think the editor at Dent asked Noah Stretfiel to write a book about the theatre and the children,

and ballet was so huge. And she'd seen... Dame Lynette de Valois dance on Eastbourne Pier when she was a child and had kind of loved it since then and I think just kind of went with it. Una, when did you read Noel Stretfield's work first time? Did you start with ballet shoes as well? Oh, like I read so many of them. You know that period when you're reading from about what, eight to 13 or whatever it is

where you're just reading everything. You don't really distinguish the books that you're reading in a way. I can date this. I've got that BBC tie-in edition as well. And I can date it. This is my copy in Beautiful, Nick. I can date it. It's got 1981.

So I was probably about nine and a half as well. And the blurb at the front says that ballet shoes is warmly recommended for girls between eight or nine and 14. So that was Kay Webb's kind of. Sexist K. Sexist K Webb. Readers of all genders and ages, I think we would say. Look, we're very lucky to have three members of this panel who've been reading ballet shoes since they were children.

I think John and I need to provide balance. John, when did you first read ballet shoes? I read it last week, Andy. I'm the same, and I apologise for my blinkered sexism in not reading it before for thinking this was, as K-Web suggests, a book for girls. I hadn't read it before last week. And I've really, really enjoyed it.

It's so much fun and so socially specific as well, which I'm sure is one of the things we'll talk about. Yeah, John, what did you make of it? I absolutely loved it. And it also read the Vickrish family, because I grew up in a Vickritch. So it was fascinating. And I also have been devouring Angela Bull's biography of Nell Streffield, which is really, really good, really good work.

There it is. I just, yeah, it's, it's, again, it's, it is odd, isn't it? I mean, I read, I had read as a kid, Thursday's child, which is Noel Strickland. And I had definitely been, I'm pretty sure I saw the TV adaptation of ballet shoes because the story was enough of the story to, to feel familiar. But I love reading classics like this because they're so odd. It's such an odd book. It's such a very specific 1930s kind of setting. You know, Kind of weird, right? Old professor collecting babies. I mean, it's not exactly what I was expecting. I don't think this book is massively about ballet either. It's at least as much about acting. Yeah, I think the title is a really, I mean, it's obviously like a marketing thing. The main character, isn't the main character kind of Petrova? I don't. There's much more about her and how she kind of doesn't fit in and she's almost like the kind of, Streterfield really likes writing about girls that don't fit in. It's kind of her thing. Also, I think the ballet shoes are kind of weird because this is a whole theme about how the children want to make something of themselves that they've not kind of drawn on their family history for.

They've done it themselves. They've not used any kind of nepotism or anything. But Posey inherits the ballet shoes from her mum. So it's, so she kind of is like undermined. that point. I think it's a weird title. I always have. Well, listen, for one young woman, Opportunity Knox, because Nikki Birch, please would you read to us from ballet shoes so we can get a little flavour of what Tanya Ed was talking about just then. What, you know what, that's an absolute pleasure I'd love to. I'm going to read from a section, which I think explains a bit of the

background to the story. So hopefully it gives you the scene at the setting. The three sisters, Pauline, Petrabert, and Posey, Pauline is at home ill. Petra and Posey have probably gone on one of their many walks that they have to have each day. Save a penny. Save a penny and walk. And so she's in the house and in their house they have a load of borders, aka lodgers, and she hasn't really met more yet. So they haven't gone to ballet school or anything like that. So they haven't gone to ballet school or anything like that. So Pauline is at home, and she's ill, and she's sitting on the stairs. At that moment, the door behind her opened, and a head popped out. It had a shawl round it. And for a moment, Pauline was not sure who it was. Then she recognised that it was one of the lady doctors.

The one whose surname was Jakes. Dr. Jakes looked at Pauline. My dear child, what are you doing there by yourself? I've got a cold. Pauline explained stuffily. does she come down without her handkerchief and the others have got out without me and I haven't got anything to do Dr Jake's laughed you sound as though you have got a cold so have I

as a matter of fact come in I've got a lovely fire and I'll lend you a large silk handkerchief and I'll give you some ginger drink which is doing me good Pauline came in at once she liked the sound of the whole of the invitation besides she'd not seen the inside of the two doctor's rooms

since they've been boarders rooms instead of homes for gums fossils As a matter of fact, this one had changed, so she felt it was a new room altogether. It owned a rather shabby wallpaper, but when the border idea started, it was distempered as sort of pale primrose all over. But the primrose hardly showed now, for the whole wall was covered with books. My goodness, said Pauline, walking round and blowing her nose on the scarlet silk handkerchief. Dr. Jake's provided, you must read an awful lot.

We have a big bookshelf in the nursery, but that's for all of us. and Nana. Fancy all of these just for you. Dr. Jakes came over to the shelves. Literature is my subject. Is it? Is that what you're a doctor of? More or less. But apart from that, books are very ornamental things to have about. Pauline looked at the shelves. These books certainly were grand looking, all smooth, shiny covers and lots of gold on them. Ours aren't very, she said frankly. Yours are more all one size. We have things next to each other like Peter Rabbit and just so stories and they don't match very well. No, but very good reading. Pauline came to the fire. It was a lovely fire and she stood looking at the logs on it. Do you think Peter Rabbit

good reading? I would have thought a person who taught literature was too grand for it. Not a bit. Very old friend of mine. Pauline explained that they don't go to school anymore and she said, why is that? You see, Gum, great-uncle Matthew. He said he'd be back in five years, and he isn't. And who exactly is gum? Dr. Jakes poured things out of various bottles into two glasses. Pauline hugged her knees. Well, he's called Gum because he's Garnie's great-uncle Matthew.

He isn't really a great-uncle of ours because we haven't any relations. I was rescued off a ship, Petrov is an orphan from Russia, and Posey's father is dead, and her mother couldn't afford to have her. So we've made ourselves into sisters. We've called ourselves Fossil because that's what Gum called us. He brought us back instead of them, you see. I see. Rather exciting choosing your own name and your own relations.

Yes, Pauline saw the kettle was nearly boiling and looked hopefully at the glasses. We almost didn't choose Posey to be a fossil. She was little and stupid then, but she's all right now. Dr. Jake's got up and took the kettle off the fire and poured the water onto the mixture in the glasses, and at once there was a lovely hot, sweet smell. I do envy you. I should think it in a venture to have a name like that, and sisters by accident. The three of you might make the name fossil really important,

really worthwhile, and if you do, it's all your own. Now, if I make Jake's really worthwhile, people will say I take after my grandfather or something. Pauline sipped her drink. It was very hot. She looked at Dr. Jakes over the room of the glass. Do you suppose me and Petrova and Posey could make fossil an important sort of name? Of course, making your name worthwhile is a very nice thing to do, it means you must have given distinguished service to your country. I just want you to read the whole thing now. I just want you to do that whole

thing. Wonderful. I'd settled incompturedly there. That's so great. Sorry, it was rather long, but I enjoyed it. You know, John, it hadn't occurred to me before, but when Nicky was setting up that wonderful reading, in a sense, ballet shoes is in the tradition of that great

30s genre of the boarding house novel, such as Patrick Howell. I mean, it's not like Patrick Hamilton, clearly. But it is in that genre, isn't it? It's the idea of a mixture of people who, for reasons of poverty or misfortune, are forced to rub along together to create something bigger than themselves. I mean, Garnie's struggle with her accounts. There's no book I've read recently is better about money and not having enough money and trying to work out how to prioritize and what to spend it on and how to keep something. back for yourself and, you know, the obsession with, that obsession with the savings bank, always having to put money in the savings bank. And that, well, it's, I, I found all of the detail in it completely. There's pages and pages of just doing calculations, isn't it? Yeah. We've got, you know, we've got tripping for this and that needs to be able to just

shilling over here. But that shilling we need to bring back later on in the year to do X, Y and Z. It's just, I mean, it's paragraph after paragraph of it, I think. And of course, the obsession with clothes and, you know. The obsession with clothes is amazing. Yeah. Letting them out, making them again. What they're made out of. Turning them over and, yeah, what the, yeah.

Organdy. Weird and wonderful word. Tarleton. All words like that. So is there a thing going on, Una, where let's say the young readership, which has been traditionally predominantly female, what elements of wishfulfillment are going on? If it isn't ballet specific, what is it?

So I read a lot of Stretfield. just read this one. I read a lot of other ones like Apple Bow and white boots and a lot of them. And actually, the wish fulfillment aspect of Stretfield for me is that the grownups listen to the children. When the children express what they need and want, the grownups sit and go, that's, that's okay, all right, I hear you. How do we make that happen? Or, okay, I hear you. I've got to be honest, I don't think that's likely because of X, Y, and Z. But the wish fulfillment was completely that the grown-ups listen. There's a line in Gemma, one of the Gemma books that I always come back to. And one of the kids is explaining to their uncle, something that he wants

ambition for his art. And there's just a single line, which the grown-ups, his uncle Philip, a single line, it's Philip understood. Grown-ups can understand. And I think I think that's actually the wishful film in Delstra. All the arts and stuff, you know, either skating or ballet, you enjoy maybe that. You see that there's hard work, a bit of talent, a bit of luck. She's sort of truthful about it, but it's about the grown-ups listening. So I kind of get a different thing from it. I felt like the thread that runs through it is for the wish performance is that you

just being like recognized for being really good at something. And I think one of the things that she does really well is like awful. parent figures who don't listen and understand. I mean, there are definitely ones that do try and understand, but there's some really brilliant, hilariously awful ones like Aunt Claudia in White Boots. Oh, she's dreadful. She's so dreadful. So she's obsessed with her niece becoming this champion figure skater because her brother,

the aunt's brother, the dad of Leila, had been a champion figure skater and then like fallen through the ice and died at a. tragic accident and she frames his skates that he was wearing when he died and puts them on the wall and makes her look at them and it's awful. Actually, I've re-read that recently and Harriet's parents pretty hopeless too, aren't they? Because they're kind of getting by on some ridiculous, like his older brother gives them dodgy game from the estate. Like lettuces and stuff. And they're kind of going, but don't worry, Olivia's going to come into a bit of money one day. And that's kind of what they're both. They're also pretty hopeless.

Lots of, like, really ineffectual adults as well, definitely. I think she's clear-eyed about adults, yeah. Isn't that what's interesting, though, about ballet shoes is there are no parents. These girls have no parents. And they kind of choose, that's that lovely bit that you read, Nikki. They get to choose, in a way, their parents, and they get to choose their name, and they get to choose their kind of destiny. It's quite a subversive book, if you read it on that point of view.

And you feel this growing tension out there of the depression, of, you know, You get little hints of it from Mr. Simpson, not being able to go back to Kuala Lumpur, you know, and having to open a garage in London and the sense that the money, you know, the bills are going through the roof and Garnie. Sylvia can't keep on top of it. I also love the authenticity, the fact that they reproduce the license, that whole thing of going to County Hall. It's actually an authentic document that you have. And as a kid, you know, you would love that. And I can imagine, I mean, as much as wanting to go and do ballet lessons, people wanted to go on the stage and to, I could earn money. I could help mum and dad out by going and be going on the stage. I also think there's something going on.

There's a kind of proto-pop group thing going on. They're called the fossils, right? I mean, that in and of itself is a brilliant name. But also, because they have different specialisms and they come from different places, they are like a little band. And it really reminded me of a story about when the TV 60s TV series The Monkeys was first launched. They made a pilot episode which wasn't a success. And they realized why the pilot wasn't a success, even though it had the same actors who go on to be in the huge hit series later in the 60s. Because they had a manager figure hanging around.

They had a parental figure hanging around. As soon as they took that guy out, the series takes off. and it's sort of similar with this, right? There are parents around, but as Una was saying very perceptively, I think, the fact that they listen to the kids allows the girls to be themselves to make their own decisions

and take responsibility for their own actions and be the gang and be the band and be the fossils, you know? Hey, hey, we're the fossils. She does a series of books, which are a band. The Gemma books, Gemma and Sisters. It's a family band.

So she does go on and do that. Love it. I'm making a note, Una. I'm making a note. Can I ask you, Una and Tanya, when you read this, one of the things that it sets you up for is to feel that you have to be a thing. Yeah. Nobody just is themselves.

Or, you know, nobody just kind of goes on to an average life. You either a very famous pilot or a very famous actress or a ballet dancer. And that is the same in all her books. And there's a sense of like, how did I know? never, you know, as a child, you assume that this is your path to success. Did you feel like that? Yes. Yeah.

It's like failure. But the one I always identified with was Winifred. Oh, yes. Always. Who's just a brilliantly drawn. Brilliant character. Yeah. Wearing brown.

Genuinely the talented one. But Pauline will always get the part. She never had the looks, does she? She never had the looks. She never had the Latin. Yeah. And that awful adaptation. From fringe to flying circus.

From fringe to flying circus, I recognise that. Thank you very much, Ena. In the awful adaptation, they make her into this sort of boss bitch figure, don't they? Yeah, that's a... The whole point about it is that she's sort of vulnerable and she comes from a shonky family. And I agree. I think she's a brilliant character.

But do not find it's funny how Noel Stretfeld always characterises. She's very obsessed with looks. because Winifred, she's clever, but she doesn't have the looks. And Petrova, brown hair. Brown hair people don't do very well in Noel Stretfell's book. She loves Ginger and she loves blonde. She was an extremist. You mentioned Noel Stretfield herself there.

I think we have some clips of Noel Stretfield. I wonder whether we could hear from her if there's a particularly appropriate soundbite. What turned you from acting to writing? The death of my father. He was by then Bishop of Louis And I thought, well Now with no home behind you, so to speak

You'll really better do something safe Silly to go on being an actress And I was just travelling home at that moment Just passing the barrier reef I remember from Australia this is you see And I looked at the barrier reef And I thought, what should I do? I can't go on being an actress

And suddenly it came to me like flesh I'd be a novelist What made me think Another was a secure professional I'm going Honestly Solid gold It's just brilliant

She's gum isn't she She actually is gum You know what I'm going to break the format Can we hear another one Let's just hear another one That's incredible You want to hear about how she came to write ballet shoes

This is the intervention of the publisher When did you start writing for children? in the 1930s when the publisher came to me and said would you write a book for children rather like your first book The Witch Arts children on the stage of course they couldn't be

three illegitimate daughters of a colonel in a children's book so I didn't want to write it at all but I did in the end sit down and write it and I called it Barry Shoes and that's where I was telling you before my sister illustrated it written about 40 years ago

still a big seller and a children's classic now. I know. You're not supposed to be alive when it's a classic around. How many coffees have been sold? Over nine million. Nine million. Wow.

Isn't that great? I like no strepield. I think we might hear from her again over the months ahead in our bagnison. Marvelous girl. Nine million. And that's in that's in 1976. 70. Yeah.

So, yeah. So, yeah, incredible. I wonder what it sells since. Canada's Wonderland is bringing the holiday magic this season with Winterfest on select nights now through January 3rd. Step into a winter wonderland filled with millions of dazzling lights, festive shows, rides, and holiday treats. Plus, Coca-Cola is back with Canada's kindest community,

celebrating acts of kindness nationwide with a chance at 100,000 donation for the winning community and a 2026 holiday caravan stop. Learn more at Canada's Wonderland. Although it's very of its time, I think that that idea of listening to children of people who come from, I don't know, their backgrounds are shady, you don't really quite know what's happened, how they've ended up being collected by gum. So they come from nothing, but it's an amazing book about self-realization and ambition and being kind and being, you know. You know, Mitch, I've got written on a bit of paper here, self-realisation, which has become a theme of ours since we did De Profundis.

There's the Oscar Wilde element of this. But I agree, you're absolutely right. Self-realisation is what the, I would say the wish-fulfillment is that really, going back to that question. It's the, well, if you have talent and you work, the two things, you've got to have talent, but you've also got to work. And not a vast amount of talent because, you know, I mean, Posey is, Posey, obviously we're told is sort of a genius. But Pauline is good. She's, you know, she's going to be great. But it is hard work. And poor Petrova's just, you know, slogging out there. But she also, she becomes technically one of the best dancers. I love that because she's really,

she breaks down the problem and analyzes it. She's not feeling it, but she finds her own way of of dealing with it. She's professional, yeah. I love Noel Stretfield's insistence that she became a novelist for reasons of security. And then she says, whatever gave me the idea of that, it was ridiculous. I have to say, I get the impression that she had largely a brilliant time. Yeah. I mean, I know, you know, she's bombed out and all this stuff. But I know that the vicarish childhood is miserable. And, you know, when she's acting, she's living in kind of terrible dinks in Derby and this kind of thing, but she always seems to be having, there always seems to be

a party about to happen, or has just happened, or she's, you know, slightly squiffy from one. She sounds like she had a great time. Also, I'd like to say a bit about her career as a writer. She was prolific. She wrote 30 books for children, around about, and 16 novels for adults, including, of course, saplings, which was published in 1945 and republished to buy Persephone books 10, 15 years ago, which is tremendous, really, really good book. And as we've said, you know, she either wrote sequels to ballet shoes or allowed the titles to be changed. So she wrote

ballet shoes, tennis shoes, circus shoes, theatre shoes, party shoes, movie shoes, skating shoes. And she's also reputed to be the author of the six-word short story, for sale, baby shoes, and if she is and we're starting that rumour now so yeah let's get that one out there let's let's take it away from Hemingway and give it to Noel Stretfield yeah the other one I read that I thought was really worth of look is called I ordered a table for six which has a kind of you know that a bomb is going to hit it's set you in the blitz and you know a bomb is going to hit is that for not the children or adults that's an adult one.

And you're kind of final destination or casualty. You're kind of going, who's going to be standing at the end of this one? But it's pretty good, I thought. Have you,

have you got something to read us from elsewhere in Stretfield's work then? Yeah, so I picked a little chunk from, we've heard it mentioned already, and she's mentioned it herself. I picked the opening of her first novel,

The Witch Arts, so that you could see where ballet shoes came from. Can you say why they're called the witch arts? They are called the witch arts because they are fatherless children, but they are well brought up by their own nana, and they know the our father witch art in heaven. So as they don't know who their father is, they say, well, you know, our father witch art. So that's why they're

called the witch arts, which is very, very good. So I'm going to read you a little bit of this. And I think of it as like the mirror universe ballet shoes. Yeah, it's kind of like what you think this story actually might be. So the witchart children lived in the Cromwell Road at that end of it, which is furthest away from the Brompton Road, and yet sufficiently near it to be taken to look at the dolls houses in the Victoria and Albert every wet day, and if not too wet, expected to save the penny and walk. That's literally the same line. Literally the same line. Saving the penny and walking was a great feature of their childhood. This is where it starts to diverge.

Our father, maybe the eldest would say, must have been definitely a taxi person. He couldn't have known about walking, or he'd never bought a house at the far end of the longest road in London. Our father, Tanya, the second child would argue, was a Rolls-Royce man, his own, you know, I don't believe he ever hired anything. Their father was a legendary hero to the children. They knew so little about him. Little sounded so exciting.

Our father would have done this or said that they would romance. No story was too improbable for such a man. He'd been a soldier with many honours and even more mistresses. His first mistress, or at least the one credited with being his first. This is where it diverges. Yeah. Was a Miss Rose Howard. She belonged to a most rigidly respectable family and was at that time,

22. She met the brigadier, as she always called him, but as a military ball. He was a captain in those days, newly married to a lady of such remarkable social eminence in blue bud, that he was guaranteed a brilliant future. He saw Rose and fell in love, but the brigadier to be in love was to make love. This he did entrancingly, so entrancingly that he persuaded Rose to leave her family, her home, her respectability, and to live in the Cromwell Road. his guardianship. It is Patrick Hamilton. It is Patrick Hamilton, yes.

They live in non-conjugable bliss for eight years with the brigadier popping in, whereupon he leaves Rose, breaks it off. But he does come back every so often to deposit on Rose a series of his bastard children, who are the Maisie Tanya and Daisy of the book. And then he dies, and Rose and Nana, who is there and calls them Blessed Lans, bring up the three girls.

So you've got your Garney and your Nana. And then Rose dies in a sort of a bit of a shocker. And the kids are sort of thrown on their wits in many ways in a series of sort of depressing boarding houses. This is better than I could have ever hopeful. And the oldest one becomes kind of a sex worker. Yeah, yeah. She's sort of kept in it. She's a chorus.

It's honestly very upsetting for a lover of ballet shoes I told you mirror universe You're positing this as the It's the true story The mirror mirror Or the inferno of the Stretfield universe Absolutely or stiletto shoes

We might Yeah so it's not a great book It's very readable and enjoyable It's not very good But somehow she lifts this and fair play to her. We've all done it. She kind of lifts this and goes, I can do this as a kid's book. Yeah. Okay, so right.

Okay, so ballet shoes is the witches with the benefit of hindsight. Yeah. It's like saying, I can revisit this, but I can make it feel warmer and... It's like with the cynicism taken out. And also the kids are not that great at things in the witch arts. and she gives them like proper talents for ballet shoes. Yeah. And so she takes this germ of the idea and does what she's good at,

which is writing children. Yeah. That makes me love it even more. But then, interestingly, she basically copies that and does the same book for the rest of her life. Because all of tennis shoes and white boots and curtain up and they're all the same book. I'll just read you at the beginning. There's a Christmas story I have here. There's a volume of, it seems appropriate, Noel Stretfield's Christmas stories,

which is published by Virago called the Moss Rose and certain tropes certain Stretfield tropes become apparent very quickly but anyway I'll just give you the beginning of this story Lavinia was wedged so tightly

between the passages on the underground train that however much the coach is swayed it made no difference she just could not fall over not only was she squashed by passengers but by parcels and suitcases. The parcels, even though they were wrapped in paper, trumpeted news of what was in them and what day it was. The foot of a turkey brushed a lavinia's cheek.

A large square box marked fragile did not need to be opened to see the glittering Christmas tree ornaments inside it. What else could be travelling in a basin-shaped package on Christmas Eve but a plum pudding? Christmas Eve has a special feeling all its own, a mixture of excitement, hustle and bustle. Even the suitcases look Christmas-Evish, thought Lavinia. You can see they're lumpy because there are presents inside them, as well as clothes. But I bet nobody's got a more exciting suitcase than me. Just to be clear, she's heading to the Cromwell Road at that point.

Cromwell Road is that the loathstone. It is. It is very much. It is like the main artery down which her imagination runs. Yeah. Do we have a little bit of a Christmas excerpt from ballet shoes that we could hear from somebody? There's someone who got that. Well, I could read a little bit if you want.

Yes, that would be great. Perhaps because they've been working so hard, Christmas Day seemed the loveliest day they had known. Nothing was very different from other Christmases, but somehow it seemed a particularly gay day. Their stockings bulged when they woke, and beside all the usual things in them, there were large, white, sugar pigs with pink noses and wool tails. When Nana came to tell them to get up, she had three parcels under her arm, and they, of course, had presents for her. Pauline had made her some handkerchiefs, and Petrova a needlebook full of needles, and Posey a blotter of two plaited paper mats stuck on cardboard. Nana had knitted each of them a jumper with a fluffy rabbit's

wool round the cuffs and collars. Pauline's was blue, Petrava's orange, and Posey's pink. They all put them on for breakfast. On the breakfast table were chocolates for them from Theo. Everybody else's presents were waiting for the Christmas tree after tea. They went to church, even Posey, and sang heart the herald angels, oh come all you faithful, and the first Noel. They had been afraid that perhaps they would only get one that they knew and the rest were some dull tune that was supposed to belong to Christmas and did not really. The turkey and plum pudding and crystallized fruits and things they had for lunch as Posey was not allowed to sit up for dinner.

After lunch, Sylvia read to them while they did an enormous jigsaw that she'd got especially for Christmas afternoon, and then there was teen, and Cook had made a most remarkable cake with her father Christmas and reindeer on it, and as well, three large gold stars, which she said was what she hoped the children would be. Oh. Come on. It's lovely. It's just lovely.

It is lovely. It is. But she don't, you know. We were poor, but we were happy. And it's, but it's, but it, like you say, it's. It's not cynical. It's heartfelt, and very, very true.

So let me ask those of you have been reading Strepfield since childhood. Nikki, I'm going to ask you first. Why does this keep going? Why, here we are in the year, whatever we're in, 2022. Why hasn't this retired to the shelf? I think it's something that,

something that Tanya mentioned, because my mother, it meant a lot to her. And she gave me the book, and it meant a lot to me. And I gave my daughter the book. And it's meant something to her. And I, and I, and I, but I think that's part of it. I think there is definitely a handing this down from generations because some, some books are so meaningful that you really want to, to pass them on to the next, and particularly your children, your own thing. So I think, I think, I think that's why it's, it's had such a significant legacy. I completely agree with that. I mean, what that brought to mind was just that moment at the end that, you know, where they turn and go, which one would you be, or who would you want to be in this book? Invites you in. It's sort of, you know, it makes you part of that family, I think, that you could be sitting at that table enjoying that wonderful cake with homemade gifts. You're sort of invited into, you're enfolded into the family of that book.

It's like on the John Christopher Blub, it said, the reader becomes personally involved. Indeed. Mr Piri turns up as their new border. He does. I'm afraid I'm going to shoot you all in the head, girls. I am sorry, it's for your own good. Tanya, what do you think? Why are we talking about this here in the modern era?

Because it doesn't feel like an old book that, to me, it's packaged by Puffin as almost like a contemporary classic. I get that. But, you know, it still speaks to its constituency. It's kind of about finding your niche. This is back to the self-realisation point again. And kind of finding your people. And I think, so the one thing that I found really sad about it,

the ending is they all kind of go their separate ways. And they get these amazing careers, but they're no longer a family in the same way. And I always found that really bittersweet. Yes, because we, I mean, if you haven't read it, and we don't want to give stuff away, but they're heading to different countries to do different things, aren't they? Yeah. And also Posey is going to Prague.

Yeah. In 1933, yeah. In 1933, yeah. Yeah, all right, don't get, let's not get too dark. Yeah, she comes back to that in a short piece. Have you read it, Tanya? It's a little piece called what happened to Pauline Petrova. I haven't, yeah.

But I've read The Painted Garden. in which it kind of covers that they have to leave and they move to Hollywood. There's a little puffing collection called Christmas with the crystals and it's a sort of little chapter that I think was in a Christmas book that she did in the 70s where clearly she's been sitting since the war going, oh no, I sent poor old Posey off

just before the tanks rolled into the sedate land. And worst of all, I've sent her with Nana, you know? Yeah, okay. I think Nana would be useful in a conflict situation. So what is her reverse engineered solution? Yeah, what happens? The writer knows Stretfield.

They all meet for a holiday just before the war breaks out. And Nana's saying, oh, do you know, I'm finding Prague terribly difficult. You can't get oatmeal and treacle. Yes. Brilliant. Garnie says, do you know what, Nana? I think I'll go back and you can go to Hollywood with Pauline. And then when the ballet company basically has to flee the tanks, they kind of, they pack up and go to New York.

So Pauline's making films, Posey's sort of dancing, and Petrova, as we expected, is flying planes in the war effort. Well, of course I do I have to get them out of there. I couldn't leave the poor girl in pram. Okay, this seems like a perfect moment this being a backlisted Christmas episode

to say, it's time for the quiz. No. It's just for fun. Yes, it's just for fun, everyone. It's just for fun. I've got a quiz question for you, Andy Villis. All right. Well, you can drop that at the end.

Okay. All right. So what we've got, this year's Christmas quiz, we've got three rounds of a question each for our guests and our regulars. And then we've got a free for all at the end. I've tried to make sure the questions are easy for the specialisms of each guest and the enthusiasms of each member of the team. So without further or two, here we go. One point per answer. Let's start with you, Nikki Birch.

Nikki, in which teen classic is the young heroine told that if she wants to be one of the cool girls at her new school, it is essential she wear loafers with no socks. Oh, I don't know this. I'll give you a clue because it's Christmas Day. Thank you. You've already mentioned the author of this book once on this show. Yes, correct.

Is it, are you there? God, it's me, Margaret. It is. It is. Thank you. One point. It's Judy Blume. Are you there, God, it's me, Margaret.

Well done, Nikki. Una. Who is the author of the fairy story, The Red Shoes, adapted into the classic ballet film of the same name by Michael Powell and Emerick Pressburger? I'm so bad at quizzes.

Is it Hans Christian Anderson? Good. As luck would have it. It is Hans Christian Anderson. Merry Christmas. You got a point. Thank you. done. Tanya, which member or members of the group, The Beatles, wrote the song Old Brown

Shoe, originally released in 1969 as the B-side to the Ballad of John and Yoko. George Harrison is the correct answer. Merry Christmas. You get a point. Well done. Good shoe quiz here, Andy. This is a shoe-based quiz. You've spotted that. Good. John. please identify the author of the following short poem. Is Bliss, then, such abyss, I must not put my foot amiss, for fear I spoil my shoe. I'd rather suit my foot than save my boot. For yet to buy another pair is possible at any store, but Bliss is sold just once, the patent lost, none buy it anymore. Save foot, decide the point.

the Lady Cross or not Verdict for boot 19th century Yes American Yes I was thinking Oh Ed Brown

No I'm going to open it up Okay anyone else know who that is Whitman Not Whitman Tanya Tanya is bliss then such abyss no Nikki it's Emily Dickinson

That's good it was my next Fuck yeah Emily Dickinson Fuck yeah Right exactly Fucking Emily Dickinson Okay so out of round one It's everyone's got a point except I'm afraid John Mitchison

Sorry John Nicky Question to you Who is the author of the book Shoe Dog, a memoir by the creator of Nike. And the clue is in the title of the book. By the creator of Nike. That's the author of Nike. Shoe Dog, a memoir of the creator of Nike.

I know that the guy who set up Adidas was called Adolf, but I don't know the guy who set up Nike. I'm afraid that's not what I have on the card. What's his note? Does anybody know who wrote Shoe Dog Memoir by the Creature of Nike? it's Phil Knight I bet that's a good book. I try to make that as easy as I could, I'm so sorry. Una to you,

in which episode of Star Trek the animated series Does Mr Spock Let's start that game Una, in which episode of Star Trek The Animated Series Does Mr Spock request, amongst other things, a special pair of boots for his trip back in time

to rescue his younger self? That's yes to you. year. It is. Oh my God. Such an excellent specialist knowledge. It's the only one people have seen. Okay, good. That's fine. That's a point. Congratulations. So next to Tanya. Tanya, here we go. And I think I'm confident you're going to get this. For one point, here we go. The British Library holds a copy of an early children's book published in London in 1765 by John Newbury. and reputed to have been written by Oliver Goldsmith. For one point, please tell us its full title.

Is it Tommy Films' Pretty Songbook? No. I'm afraid it isn't. I'm so sorry. I don't know what the answer is. This is my collection. This is terrible. I'm going to be fired. I know. Sorry about that, Tanya.

Well, we have fun. We have fun on this episode, didn't we anyway. So, okay, so its full title is as follows. The History of Little Goody Two Shoes. Oh, no. I so nearly said that. Otherwise, called Mrs. Marjorie two shoes, with the means by which she acquired her learning and wisdom,

and in consequence thereof her estate, set forth at large for the benefit of those who from a state of rags and care and having shoes but half a pair, their fortune and their fame would fix and gallop in a coach and six. You were only offering a point for that. I should have got it for the shoes, Link. Una, that's the title. What can I do?

That's the title. John, for a point. Which of Shakespeare's plays features the following exchange? Morellus. You, sir, what trade are you? Cobbler. Truly, sir, in respect of a fine workman, I am, but, as you would say, a cobbler. Morales. But what trade art thou? Answer me directly. Cobbler. A trade, sir, that I hope I may use with a safe conscience, which is indeed, sir, a mender of bad soul. Oh, Morellas. It's not two gentlemen of Verona. It's one of those, it's one of those, it's one of those, it's one of those comedies, isn't it? As you like it. I mean, it is funny, I grant you, but no, it's not one of those, it's not one of those comedies.

Anyone? It's not, John hasn't got it, I'm afraid. 12th night, it's not 12th night. No, anyone? In what, the exchange between Morelis and de Cobbler. Anyone know when that appears? If it doesn't have Spock in it Julius Caesar?

It is Julius Caesar Tanya Kirk An extra point to you Excellent Well thought through Yeah yeah All right It's the final

This is very exciting I think Tanya's in the lead I don't think I am No no she's not no No wait a minute No okay Two points to Tanya Right

Oon's got two Nicky's got one And John has yet to register on the board John's had a really hard question. He has, he has, but he'd do the soap for me. Okay, Nikki, final round. The shoe drawings of which iconic,

and that is the correct use of that word in this context, 20th century artist, were collected in a 1997 volume entitled Shoes, Shoes, Shoes, the autobiography of Alice B. Shoe. I have no idea, Andy. Name an iconic 20th century artist. Andy Warhol? Tanya, it is Annie Warhol, yes, that is correct.

Another point. Tanya, leapted, poached that point. Tanya, I feel embarrassed. Okay, Una to Uno. Third and final question for Una. Una, which bestselling science fiction novel, I would argue, for younger readers, begins, I stare down at my shoes, watching as a fine layer of ash settles on the worn leather. This is where the bed I shared with my sister,

Rim stood. Is it Blade Runner? Do Android's dream of electric sheep? It certainly is not. Anyone else know what that is? No, Chris, isn't it? Of course. It's one of the Hunger Games books.

It is one of the Hunger Games books. It is Mocking Jay. Tanny. You're bracing away with this. I'm too old for Hunger Games. By gone. Yeah, okay. Yeah.

What I should have said is Mockingjay or Ms. Mockingjay being a sound mind in the Little Goody Two Shoes format. It's actually got a really long title, but sadly not. Tanya, this is your question. Tanya, we all know the author of the story, The Boots at the Holly Tree Inn, first published in 1855 as the Christmas number of the magazine Household Worlds is Charles Dickens. We all know that.

But can you tell me which of Dickens' novels began serialisation in the same, month, December 1855, and in the same periodical, not concluding until June 1857. You can see Mitch, Mitch champing at the bit. David Copperfield. I'm afraid it isn't David Copperfield. John, over to you. Dombey and son. It is not Dombey and son.

Buna? Muppet Christmas Carol. It is the Muppet Christmas Carol. Otherwise known as Little Dorrit, it's Little Dorrit, I'm afraid. Okay, right. Okay, John, finally to you. Here we go. It's an easy one. John, the Dr. Martin's boot is perhaps synonymous with the skinhead movement that originated in the UK in the late 1960s. The most infamous literary chronicler of skinhead fashion music and violence was the late author James Moffitt, aka Richard Allen, who between 1970 and 1980 penned 18 novels in the skinhead sequence. How many of those 18 novels feature the word skinhead or some variation thereof in their title? Of the 18. Come on, John. Come on, John. How many?

You don't even have to name them. Just how many of those 18 novels have the word skinhead. At least 10 of them. It's either 10 or all of them. Go for all. I'm going to go for all. I'm afraid not, John. Eight.

They are as follows. Skinhead, suede head, skinhead escapes, skinhead girls. Skinhead girls. Top gear skins, trouble skinhead, dragon skins, and the elegiac skinhead farewell. It's the last in that great sequence. It's a Roman Fleur. I feel sad there wasn't one called Merry Christmas Skinhead, but unfortunately

that was my new English library. Yes, they were indeed. Now I will open this up to everyone. You can bump up your scores. One point, this is a free for all, just shout out your answers, one point for every one of the ten remaining Richard Allen's skinhead novels you can name that don't have the word

skinhead in the title. Go. Bootho Booth. No, but you're close. Monkey boots. Close. Knights at the circus. No. Flick knife.

Ten holes. No. It's really annoying. Wellie boots. DM boots? Oh, you know, you're so, you're getting so, boot what? Boot girls.

Boot boys? No. Who said boot boys? I did. No, Nikki did. That's the you. Boot boys. Okay.

People at home will be screaming this at their radios. David Rich is Alan. Mopeds. Day trips. Mop heads. Actually, Nikki, Nikki's got the feel for this. She's on the role, yeah.

She really is. Okay, so they were as follows. Demo, 1971. Boot Boys, 1972. Glam, 1973. Glam, I should have got that. I've got that. 173.

Sorts, 1973. Teeny Bopper Idol, 1973. Terrace, terrors, 1975. Knuckle girls, 1977. Can any of you name another one that might have come out in 1977. Knockle boys. Jubilee. Jubilee. No, that's a good guess. No, but

you're in the right ballpark. Punk girls. Nearly. Punk rock in 1977. And finally, 1980, Mod Rule. So I'm declaring at the end of that sensational quiz, everybody won. Because it's Christmas. It's Christmas Day.

Well done. I've got a quiz question for you, Andy. Oh, yes. Go on. Yeah, I can't miss out my quiz question. So, as we all know, the 1975 adaptation of ballet shoes was produced by John Wiles, second producer of Doctor Who. But which Doctor Who story connects Madame Fidolia and Posey Fossil?

I'm going to say, just saying something on air, Is it the reign of terror? No, it is not. Oh. What is it? Sorry, you got one wrong in and it's... I got one wrong. I got one wrong.

Quite rightly too. I deserved it. Posey is played by Sarah Prince. And Madam Fadolia is Mary Morris. And the story that connects them is Kinder. Yes, of course it is. Yes, it is. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Well done, Una for getting Kinder into this episode. Good fact, hey. Top good fact. Very good. There you go. God bless us, everyone. Why don't we hear from our, I feel, our patron saint of this episode.

Could we hear from Noel Stretfield again before we go? What are your writing habits, Miss Stretfield? I regularly every day. Yes. From about 9 o'clock to lunchtime. And you write in bed, I'm told. Well, that was going back into my having left the theatre. You see, everybody used to say,

oh, I've got tickets for this or that, and what about coming to this and, you know. and you can't write a book that way as you know you've got to sit down and write it's a very disciplined world and so one day when someone was offering me something particularly tempting to go and see I instead of saying

no I can't because I'm writing a book which no one believed anyway I suddenly took all my clothes off and got back into bed and I thought well now I can't go out in the street and that's the end of it and I've been in bed ever since Oh my goodness I love it

That's exactly how I write I just took all my clothes off and went to bed. I've been in bed ever since myself. Goodness. Wonderful. Right. Well, I'm afraid we must now, sadly, say farewell to the fossils and to the redoubtable Miss Stretfield and leave you all to your own celebrations.

Huge thanks to Tanya and Una for allowing us to overindulge ourselves. To Nikki Birch, both the initial inspiration and for making us sound like we're all gathered around the same figgy pudding. Before we go, Tanya, is there anything you would like to add? we'd like to say about ballet shoes or Noel Streffield that we didn't cover in the show today. I was thinking because Christmas is obviously at a time for telling ghost stories.

There's this amazing, completely throwaway story in Noah Streptford's biography by Angela Bull, which I really recommend. Where they're talking about when Noel was a child living in the vicarage in Ambley in West Sussex and how she used to see a little girl wearing pantaloons around the place.

And it's kind of, unexplained, and then the biography just says, and then they moved out, and then the people who lived there after them did some renovations, and they discovered the skeletons of a mother and child behind the staircase. And it's just completely left like that. There's no further explanation of any kind, moving on to Noel's life. It's just brilliant. Again, God bless us everyone. That's lovely. What a lovely heartwarming story. Una, anything you would like to add before we go. Oh no, just she continues. I hadn't read it in a long time and I went back and enjoyed it a lot more than I expected. I went off on a bit of a kick of all of the ones I'd read as a

kid. So it's been thoroughly enjoyable to go back to white boots and Apple Bow and the circus is coming. She's, she's a lovely writer and many charms. And Nikki, this was your special Christmas gift. Is there anything you would like to add that we haven't covered in the, in the episode. Just like to say, thank you very much for doing that. It's lovely, being me a little Christmas present. But I just wanted to reflect on one thing, which is the say, because I listened to it so much, the sayings, it was, she was very fond of using sayings.

Nana always does the sayings in the book, doesn't she? And I thought I'd just leave you with a few of Nana's saying. Let's hear them. What the eye doesn't see, the heart doesn't grieve after. Very familiar. Obviously, a very important Noel Strepull message. comes before a fall. That gets repeated a lot.

And then my favourite one, which is in tennis shoes, which I don't really understand, but I love it. Never keep a dog if you can bark yourself. Yes. I think that the Queen's message to her Commonwealth there

on this special day. So, Johnny, do we have anything we want to say as it's Christmas Day? If you're out there listening to this and you've got kids, the fossil vow, I think, puts it into the front range.

of classics that give children and morals they should live up to. We three fossils vow to try and put our name into history books because it's our very own and nobody can say it's because of our grandfathers. I love that. It's radical. Brilliant. Happy Christmas. Well, look, we'd like to wish all our listeners a very happy Christmas and thank you for your incredible support that you've shown backlisted this year. Another record-breaking book-filled year for us. we mean it when we say we couldn't and wouldn't,

how much we might wish to do it without you. So thank you so much. Thank you so much for supporting us. Merry Christmas, wherever you are. Merry Christmas. Happy New Year, everybody. Thank you. Bye.

Bye, bye, bye, bye, bye-bye. I don't know.