Backlisted - The Riddle of the Sands by Erskine Childers

Episode Date: June 13, 2016

Author Lloyd Shepherd joins the Backlisted crew in their small but functional vessel to discuss what some regard as the first ever spy novel 'The Riddle of the Sands' and the extraordinary life of its author Erskine Childers. You can read more about Lloyd's plans to recreate the books journey at The Riddle of the Sands Adventure Club page here: https://unbound.co.uk/books/riddle-of-the-sandsTimings: (may differ due to adverts)9'26 - Six Facets of Light by Ann Wroe16'04 - Different Class by Joanne Harris23'50 - Riddle of the Sands by Erskine Childers* 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, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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with Tim Brinkley, who played with John Marston. Is Danny Thompson Richard Thompson's brother? No. Although they

played together. They have played together. No relation. How amazing. So anyway, they come on stage and Riley Walker gets a

massive round of applause. Walker is stoned off his box. A massive round of applause for the two acts. And they come. Riley Walker points, a massive round of applause. Walker is stoned off his box. A massive round of applause for the two acts. And they come.

Riley Walker points at the musician on stage and he goes, let's have a daddy fucking Thompson, right? And someone in the audience goes, yeah, mate,

we know who he is. Is he the fucker you? I feel like he's done three of them. That is great. That's great. For a really good heckle, eh? Yeah. I've never felt, I'd seen him twice at the Royal,

because I saw him at the first Hoxton, was it Hoxton Bar or something? Bar, right. And I've never felt so in with the in crowd, because it was like all the music jerks. So Pete Perfides is there with Kenton, and everyone's standing around, there's like 150 people watching Riley Walker.

And who was it people figured it was going on and on about it the day after I can't remember who else was there but I thought I'm in

I'm in with the 40 something in crowd Riley Walker's playing Poet is he yeah he is great do you really like

that stuff though really yeah what Richard Thompson but when you say that stuff John Martin

what stuff are you referring to 70s British fucking folk music Really? Yeah. What? Richard Thompson? But when you say that stuff... John Martin. John Martin. What stuff are you referring to? 70s British fucking folk music. It's not folk music. John Martin doesn't play folk music. It's time for me to tell you something about Matthew. Is he fucking folk music? What?

His parents are folk musicians. He was brought up in a home. That's the... He lives in Lewis. Oh, OK. Have you ever seen that groin? I'm so sorry I'm sorry if you're lost

there was a great internet meme of a photo of a dog staring into a camera with two people playing guitars in the background and someone put a caption that said Pet from Folk Museum

donate now because the dog's like this so Matthew I wish to reveal this if it's being recorded but was your childhood being dragged round festivals and pubs and no but the morris were often in our garden they were always referred to as the morris

so you've got the whole kind of Rottingdean... He's basically... Copper family. Yeah. I wish everyone you could see was a Copper family. So actually, I went back to my parents a couple of weeks ago, and my mum's old friend Jerry was there. Jerry was there, and I was like,

Hi, Jerry, how are you? I haven't seen you for 30 years. And he was, in fact, the guy that started the folk night in Rottingdean at the Copper Family. And he said there was a night there where... I can't remember. Anyway, there's about four of them there. McCarthy's, the Waterstones. Yeah, the Waterstones. All in one place in this little...

It's not Waterstones. An opportunity for you to... That's a different film. Performed an act of musical terror. I have to say, the musical terror is writing the Ballad of Matthew Clayton. A disgruntled man passes through the folk scene of Sussex in the 1970s. But did you consciously grow up defining your musical tastes

against all that stuff? I don't think it was as simple as that. It was just always around. It was my parents' music. My dad played the concertina. My mum ran the local folk club, singers and players. She was very much a purist,

so she only ever sung. She didn't, like, accompany folk music. And in fact, in the 90s, so I started going to... Where did she stand on the Dylan is Jesus?

That was... That was like a... She wouldn't understand that at all. She wouldn't understand Dylan. In fact, in the 90s, I started recording in this Interflow studio, started doing, like, sort of house music in this recording studio in Brighton that Chris Hampshire did, and it was very druggy music. Chris Hampshire, very kind of hard, druggy music, early 90s.

But my mum was getting old, so I thought, I'm going to record her before she dies. And so I took her to Chris Hampshire's studio and I got Chris to record her. And she sang, like, 20 songs just like that, kind of remembered all of them straight away. Amazing. And then you bought a banana.

Yeah. Matthew White's techno on the train on the way home. Yeah, I totally screwed around. I'm not kidding. It's brilliant. It's my favourite thing. On the train, that's the really nice detail. Is it just because you get completely absorbed in it? Someone complained last week. I can't wait for your...

They complained about the noise. You don't play it out loud, do you? No, I don't, but it was on headphones. But they literally... Someone was really embarrassing. Matthew, I can't, but it was like, it was on my headphones, but literally someone was, it was really embarrassing. Matthew, I can't wait for your kids to rebel by playing the mandolin. That's exactly what will happen. It'll, yeah, skip a generation.

In fact, I had a thing on the train last week where a woman looked over what I was doing and she's like, oh, are you using Reason, which is like the software program I use. I said, oh yeah, do you use it? And she's like, my, she's in her 40s. She's like, no, my son does. He's 16.

I'm always with dignity. This is convivial already. It's brilliant. Concertina. How can we spiral out of allergy to folk music into...

Yeah, there's not a lot of music in the River Sands. What were those brilliant... It still makes me laugh a lot, the Vic and Bob. Mulligan and Doe. Of course you remember. That's my job. Right. Hello and welcome to Backlisted, the podcast that gives new life to old books. Once more, we're gathered around the table in the Unbound offices, the slightly echoey

Unbound offices, and apologies if you find the sound difficult. We're working on it with books and blankets. Unbound, of course, are the publishing website that bring authors and readers together to make great books And I'm John Mitchinson, the publisher at Unbound And I'm Andy Miller, author of The Year of Reading Dangerously And joining us today is writer and journalist Lloyd Shepard Hello, Lloyd Hello, hello

Lloyd works in the genre-straddling field of historical-crime-supernatural fiction I do, yeah That's quite good, can I use that? That just occurred to me Can I use that? That just occurred to me. Can I use that? You can. And his fourth book, featuring the adventures of 19th century London river policeman Charles Houghton, The Detective and the Devil, was published earlier this year.

The book that Lloyd has chosen to talk about this week, backlisted, is The Riddle of the Sands by Erskine Childers, first published in 1903. As well as being regarded by many as the first spy novel, it's also the basis of an un band project, I have to declare an interest here, that Lloyd and his co-conspirator Tim Wright are currently seeking pledges for on our website. More of that anon, I'm sure.

Before we start, Lloyd, could you just tell our listener what... Hello, Tim. What have you brought with you to enhance the experience of discussing River of the Sands? Well, Tim and I have been talking about River of the Sands on our own podcast for the last year. And one of the things we talk a lot about is booze and food. And one of the things I brought is a dawn cot, which is a... It's a Friesian gin that's made in... Made in Norden, which is a town just on the mainland off the East Friesian Islands.

It's on the Norden line, isn't it? It's on the... It's on the... It's on the Norden, which is a town just on the mainland off the East Frisian Islands. It's on the Norden line, isn't it? It's on the Norden line. Norden features in the book. It features a lot in the book, yeah. And this is made in Norden, in East Frisia. You're supposed to drink it either neat or with... I've also brought some bitters. Would you care to...

I feel that we should immediately set about the business. Should we try some? So let's... There's only three glasses and there's five people in the room. I'm driving. Matthew's on the rosé. Matthew's already on the rosé. The non-folk-approved rosé line.

Not really. That's probably rather a large... We should also say that amongst the many skills of Matt our producer he's a notable bread baker and what we have in front of us is Matt can you just it's sweet rye bread with cardamom

and honey and it's very very crispy on the outside and very very chewy on the inside on purpose we're obviously looking to fill the slot that the BBC Recipes website is going to leave behind. So, as well as talking about books on future backlisted, we'll also be a narrative of food that you could eat alongside them.

Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. It's going to be horrible. Now, this is going to be an audio prompt, now raised by Jim at home. So before I put a piece of that to you...

Good, this could all go a lot better with it. My goodness! So before I stick a piece of this very chewy bread into my mouth, John, what have you been reading this week? I've been reading a very, very, very delicious book called Six Facets of Light by Anne Rowe, published by Jonathan Cape,

and I have to say it's as handsome a book as I've seen in a long time. Why do people always use the word handsome to describe books? I don't know, it just falls so neatly at the end. Have you noticed that? You look on Twitter people are always saying what a handsome cover handsome volume I don't know why maybe because curvaceous

just doesn't seem right I think sexy, people talk about sexy covers no one ever talks about a pretty book anyway it's a really lovely paper no show through, beautiful illustrations and that's ann rowe ann rowe yeah who is um she is senior editor of the economist she's the obituaries editor and the obituary that's right and she's also she was shortlisted for the samuel johnson prize for her biography of

pontius pilot so i was slightly trepidatious because I know that she's a very intelligent writer on Christian themes. But actually what this is, it's an attempt really to look at light, not as a scientist. Light being the great paradoxical substance, both wave and particle. It's invisible, but

without it we couldn't see anything. But it's an attempt to explore through painters, poets and philosophers what light is, and it's based really around her walking along the East Sussex coast, particularly between Eastbourne and Brighton. And that sounds very vague and rambling, and in a way the book is a little bit like that. But it's saved by the fact that she writes exquisitely well.

And it's also, it's such a brilliant theme. You think about it every, she writes obviously about how light hits grass, how light hits trees, how light hits spider webs. She talks, on one level, it's an amazingly detailed, kind of the new natural history it fits neatly into that category but it also allows us to talk about you know religious experience

about I mean there is some physics in the book there's just a lot of there's a lot of mythology in the book there are notebooks of painters there's some wonderful stuff the themes that the painters that come around again and again Eric Revilleus Samuel Palmer did you go to the Revilleus themes that the painters that come around again and again eric revillius um yes samuel palmer

um did you go did you go to the revillius uh exhibition that was down in dulwich i did last year wasn't that great yeah i mean really good yeah it's one of those sort of artists who gets seems to get more relevant and better as time i don't quite know why there's something about that flatness and the quality of the color so i just completely it was very it's it's just love it was a lovely reading experience very john mitchinson it is very isn't it you've covered stone and rain and now you've moved to light light i'm so sorry i might can i read you just a little bit yeah this gives you an idea of just how well written it is and how interesting i just think it's it it you know sometimes it would be very easy for you to turn around a book like this and say yeah it's all right but actually she really delivers she really i mean i guess it's it's made me want to go back

thomas traherne which i sort of you know glancing knowledge of a lot of poets but you realize that the great theme of poetry dante the great theme poetry, particularly any kind of transcendent sort of... Is light the big... That's the thing. Is it a metaphor? Is it a metaphor? What's a metaphor? It's a... Yeah. Yeah.

Anyway, here we go. Even daylight may be a distraction. It commands the stage so busily and glaringly that nothing prevails against it. Take away light and the unseen garden lilac suddenly drowns the world in scent and the invisible sea breathes and purrs as loudly as a great cat stretching and human instincts are sharpened like a reptile's, the whole skin alert to possible contacts in the dark with the unknown and the unimagined. But then light

returns doodling and dancing. Its artfulness is flame-like, and it was in this form that Reveillus most enjoyed it. Fireworks, bonfires, wind-blown beams from lighthouses or cars, patches of bracken ablaze on a hillside, even the simple, friendly flare of a match. I wish I had seen it, was his reaction to any outbreak he missed. Have you looked up Lambent yet? He eagerly asked his lover diana chuli in 1939 perhaps having described her glowing skin that way

here it is a flame or light playing on surface without burning it with soft radiance of eyes sky etc radiant of wit gently brilliant hence lambency, Latin, lambere, to lick, there you are. Very good. It's nice. I think I asked you, does she write about Margate? She's very, very, very particularly written about

her past and her manner. And it's, again, there's nice little bits of autobiography about having her notebook when she's younger that's open and writing things in it. And there are bits of her notebooks threaded through it. Like I say, it's one of those books that if she wasn't as good a writer as she is and as interesting a writer as she is, it might just feel self-indulgent. And, of course, you know, I think it was Einstein says somewhere in the book no rascal has any idea what light is we've pondered it, it's one of the great

mysteries of the universe, we probably never know, it's the paradox I have to say we can't we should put this up somewhere that is a terrific cover it's terrific but the book itself it's still the heft in there well done Jonathan Cape

for still making books that beautiful. So the patch that she writes about is my patch which I moved to a few years ago I'm going to take this home and read it, I'm looking forward to it I think that the points she makes are pretty, you know, I think it's not going to interfere with

your enjoyment, but there's a particularly she's particularly good on chalk there's a wonderful bit where she says that rabbits digging in the chalk it's like they're kicking up light i mean it's just it's because that that that landscape is so reflective and that you know the combination of the of the white of the land and the and the blue of the sky and the blue of the sea but um i i think she she's she's got she's really good it's rare to get someone who writes as well about painting as they do about literature, but she manages it.

Like I say, it's such a neat way of tying these experiences together. I really want to read it. It sounds fantastic. Thanks, John. That went really well with my bread. For sure. Bread was... And now it's Andy with more gin. What have you been reading? Okay, so I'll keep the reading bit relatively brief

because there's something else I want to talk about. I did a Q&A last week with the author Joanne Harris who wrote Chocolat and 14 or 15 other novels. And she's great. If you ever get the chance to go and see Joanne talk, she's wonderful, a really inspiring person. One of the best writers on Twitter, the way she does her stories on Twitter, I think.

And really good. Well, I asked her about Twitter. She's great. She's really unrepentantly positive about Twitter. Which is nice, isn't it? She doesn't go, oh, trolls. Oh, I used to love it. Used to love it.

No, she's great. She's very positive and very... What did Steve say? Once she used to sneak off for a midnight skinny dip now it's a public swimming pool that other people have pissed him on um so i was talking to joanne about her new novel which is called different class uh is the third novel set in maltby the town of maltby and set in a school uh it bounces backwards and forwards between two narrative voices it's terrific but i really recommend it's It is. It's really good.

The thing about Joanne, which we talked about, and which is really interesting, is... I once went to an event, a Clive James thing, where he was talking to publishers and booksellers, and he chided booksellers and said, the problem with you lot is you don't just have a Clive James section in your shops. have a Clive James section in your shops. His point being that he was a difficult writer to categorise and if people like his stuff...

I think the point being was that he really was Clive James. And that, Matt, yes. But Joanne is a really hard writer. Joanne Harris is a really difficult writer to categorise, isn't she, Lloyd? I don't like she never she writes books set in France

around chocolate and the last three books have been a follow up to Chocolat yeah pictures from Monsieur Curie

The Gospel of Loki based on the Norse myths which just came out of I mean I know she's written the Rune novels and then

Different Class which is a complete but I can sympathise with that I mean my I know she's written the Rune novels, and then Different Class, which is... Complete and bad. But I can sympathise with that. I mean, my first three books, when I went into Waterstones, because I didn't want to, my first three books were in three different sections of Waterstones.

That's genre-straddling for me. Without this wanting to sound like a kind of cheap advert, but it is one of the reasons that we wanted to do Unbound. This classification thing is to me is a massive tale you know, tiny tale wagging a very large dog because you want writers, the whole

point about writers surely is you want them to do different things. But don't you also think the readers, there's a reader expectation. So I've had complaints from historical fiction fans they go, what's this weird stuff doing there? I've had complaints from weird fiction fans they go what's this weird stuff doing there I've had complaints from weird fiction fans what's this historical stuff doing there

there is an expectation a great line of Jonathan Meade's which I wanted to quote is that anything really good creates its own genre well I said to Joanne you know do you ever you know do you ever you know do you ever give

does it ever give you pause for thought that you ought not to dart around so much you know what is it do you feel that ties all your books

together given that they are disparate in their subjects and she just said it's me yeah and if people want to read me

they'll find me and that she's got an amazing gift for narrative which is great she's a really good storyteller amazing gift for voice

the voice of the classics teacher in the new different classes really reminded me of my Latin teacher at school. It's really strong. So anyway, so I was reading that but I was reading it in between a more important development in my life and the life of my family which is that my son recently turned 13 and as a mark of his entry into teenagehood we bought him a Playstation 4 oh

ok so we have a Playstation 4 in the house isn't it cool he is starting he's started playing all the games right

he's playing Last of Us he's playing Destiny he's shooing everything right his dad meanwhile is also spending

hours on the Playstation watching old Arena documentaries. On BBC. On Modern Household. On YouTube. The Modern Household. I've been watching, I've watched a series of the Arena documentaries

that Nigel Williams, usually Nigel Williams, made for BBC Two in the early 80s. Produced. Five-part series on George Orwell. Yeah. An incredible film called A Genius Like Us about Joe Orton. Joe Orton, who lived so early from where we are now. A fantastic film about Graham Greene.

Wonderful film with Powell and Pressburger when they were both still alive. And you know what makes these films great? Two things. They are made by people who love and have brilliant working knowledge of the material in question. But also the Orton one, I commend everyone, please go and watch this film. Firstly because it was made

not even 15 years after Orton had died. So it is full of people who knew Orton. But the great thing, the thing that makes these films so great is they let people talk it's amazing there are long

three four minute uninterrupted sections with Leone Orton's sister with Charles Monteith who nearly

published Orton but didn't there's a brilliant bit with the librarian who caught orton and halliwell in his lincoln library defacing library books where he describes and reads out some of the jacket copy from the books it's one of the single funniest things i've ever

seen and he knows it's funny and he's being allowed to have his moment. I know one is inclined to say, oh, things aren't as good as they used to be, and I don't know where this exists now. I think you can say it. John, what was the thing that you read out to me last week that Hugh Weldon said? It was a wonderful piece about public service broadcasting. We just published Wynne Weldon's really lovely book about his dad, Hugh Weldon,on who amongst other things

he was never director general but he he set up monitor which was the the film yeah yeah the film unit that went out of which arena grew but it was just what struck us i mean the party for the book was amazing because david attenborough came and you know humphrey burton came and melvin came and all the sort of BBC grandies, but you suddenly felt that sense that they were trying to do something that I don't think even... It's not even on the agenda anymore. They were doing things because they thought they were important to do and that they were providing a record of something.

I think the quote was something along the lines, even if you had an idea, an idea wasn't enough. It only became good television if you worked hard and you made something that was... Whereas now it's all about... It was if you followed your interest and you were true to your interest. It's all now about ideas. Well, that's good. We should do more visual things.

I like that. I'm just making a virtue. I would like to... visual things. I like that. I'm just making a virtue. Can I just say, they're all YouTube, the arena films. They are, although you can also buy stuff now from the BBC shop as well. Are you saying you've not had access to YouTube before you got a PS4?

I've not had access to the pleasure of watching YouTube on the telly. No Apple TV for you laptop Apple TV is your friend Do you know what the connection is between the book that we're about to talk about? I've spent ages trying to find the film of The Riddle of the Sands on Amazon Prime

What, was my God York? It's on YouTube It is, the whole thing I watched that this week I think we'll come on to it we've talked about books enough now for some capitalism wherever you're going you better believe American Express

will be right there with you heading for adventure? we'll help you breeze through security meeting friends a world away? you can use your travel credit squeezing every drop out of the last day? how about a 4 p.m. late checkout? Just need a nice place to settle in? Enjoy your room upgrade.

Wherever you go, we'll go together. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamx. Benefits vary by card. Terms apply. Lloyd. Lloyd, yes. Yes.

Riddle of the Sands. Riddle of the Sands. Tell us why you wanted to talk about Riddle of the Sands on Backlisted. Well, I read Riddle of the Sands at school, as I'm sure a certain number of people for a certain generation who were educated at a certain type of establishment would have done, and I'd forgotten all about it. And my friend Tim Wright, who is a very clever digital writer,

writes stuff for online, also writes BBC Radio 4 plays. A few years ago, he did a thing called Taking a Book for a Walk. He took Kidnapped for a Walk from the Western Isles to Stirling in the same time frame as the book and being in the same location. And he said to me, I want to do the same thing with Rid of the Sands because, as anyone who's listened to our thing with rid of the sands because as anyone who's listened to our podcast about rid of the sands will know it's curiously specific about dates and locations um and so so the idea was that we would we would take this book and we

you know we'd take it for a walk um so i had to go and reread it and uh so i reread it i suppose two years ago and i just thought it was absolutely amazing. I mean, I'd forgotten how... I read it at the same time I was reading Alastair Maclean as Sven Hassel. It was in that kind of... But as a book, I thought it was just staggeringly good. And so we'd been doing this podcast about the book, going through each day and drinking lots of things and talking about it.

We went to the Kiel Canal last year to do a couple of days on the Kiel Canal to sort of re-enact it. And we've got an unbound project, as John alluded to, to try and put a new edition of the book out with us basically taking it out for a walk and finding out what these places are like and going on a few sort of outings. But once in the cupboard, kind of, you know, the outdoor edition.

Well, one of the things you find when you put this out there is obviously this book is huge with yachties, right? It's absolutely huge with the sailing returns. If you've got a boat, you have probably read Riddle of the Sands. If you go... If you put top ten sailing books into Google, it's at the number one. And why is that? Why is it so popular? Well, because there's a lot of sailing in it.

We should say, John, I mean... There's a massive amount of sailing in it. And if you're not a sailor, I'd say it is a challenge to follow some of the... I mean, I actually found it quite strangely comforting in a way that I didn't really understand what the fuck was going on. Sorry. Allow me that. But it is very, very, very salt kind of imbued.

I mean, it is, you know, I can absolutely, I think the things that I loved about the book, not having read it before, I sort of pretended to read it like you know, I can absolutely... I think the things that I loved about the book, not having read it before, I sort of pretended to read it like you do. I had a vague notion of what it was and a vague memory of Michael York in the film. And also, we'll come on to Erskine Childers in a moment. It's a pretty extraordinary human being in the story.

But I just... I hadn't read it. So sort of knuckling down to read it was a... I mean, you know, and I'm a big Arthur Ransom fan. I used to love those books. It reminded me a little bit of a kind of grown-up version of We Didn't Mean To Go To Sea, which is one of my favourites of those. But it is quite complicated, and the plot... There's a very particular love of...

I mean, what I would perceive as quite male as well love of gadgetry and detail that the first hundred pages are largely spent lovingly describing types of spinnacle whatever that I don't know what a spinnacle is

there's no such thing as a spinnacle you just made that word up I have to say for the part of me that... Cos we've just moved to these offices and we're on the canal, I've got a serious boat lust at the moment. Yeah, yeah. I dawdle along the canal on the way home and I kind of look fondly at the little stoves and the engines.

And actually, so this sort of hit me in a quite quite good moment to receive mode i've gazed for hours at the into the the windows of arthur beals chandlery yeah yeah well we we've done a lot of it we've done events at arthur beals as a result i know it's this and i suppose that the the the thing is that the book is... There are things that are really remarkable about it. I don't think anybody had done this kind of clever fray. Maybe we should talk a little bit about that. Let's hang on to that for a moment, because I want to ask Lloyd about that. Shall I just do the now traditional...

Blurby blurb. Blurby blurb. We seem to have two different editions of Riddle of the Sandstone. I've got the vintage classics edition. Right, I'll give you mine first. OK. OK. So there's a Paul quote. Different editions of Riddle of the Sandstone. I've got the Vintage Classics edition. Right, I'll give you mine first. Okay. Okay.

So there's a Paul quote. First real thriller, Ken Follett. Not bad. It's not bad. I just keep on being happy with that. While on a duck hunting holiday... Sorry. No, no, no. Come on, everyone.

It's already terrible. While on a duck hunting holiday sailing in the Frisian Isles, Carruthers and his friend Davis, which are you, Lloyd? I am not Davis, so I'm Davis. You're Davis. On the podcast, yeah. Yeah, you're Davis. You are Simon McCorkindale.

I'm Simon McCorkindale. Carruthers and his friend Davis become suspicious of German naval activity off the North Sea coast. Terrible. The pair decide to investigate and are soon embroiled in a world of suspense and intrigue as they set about foiling nothing less than a plot to invade England. Initially published in 1903, The Riddle of the Sands proved a prescient vision of the Anglo-German conflict that was to culminate in the First World War.

This thrilling adventure is now regarded as the first and one of the best spy novels ever written, inspiring later masters of the genre from John Buchan to John le Carre. OK, shall I do vintage classics? Yeah, go on, we'll go. There's a plot score in the vintage classics. Oh. Oh. Yeah, hang on.

Yes, order alert. Paul quote, A ripping yarn, it's just so exciting, Ben McIntyre. When Carruthers receives a letter from his friend Davis suggesting a Baltic sailing trip, the vision of a manned yacht, A1 scenery and excellent duck shooting quickly works its charm. But Carruthers' hopes for a holiday are quickly dashed. There has been suspicious activity

along the coast. The Medusa, manned by the sinister Dolman, has already tried to destroy Davis. What are the Germans up to? Nothing less than a plot to invade Britain. And only

these two courageous Englishmen can stop them. Published in 1903, The Riddle of the Sands is considered the first modern spy novel. And then it says underneath, see also the 39 steps. Can I read what John Buchan said about it? Yes! It's better than either of those. John Buchan, I think they are the most truly realised

of any adventure story that I have met, and the atmosphere of grey northern skies and miles of yeasty water and wet sands is as masterfully reproduced as in any story of Conrad's. Oh, that's... So I'm putting that out there

as a much better blurb. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I do feel the... I have to say... I'm sensing you didn't like it very much. Well say I think the sighting of ripping yarns in that blurb we just did

as you may be aware we just did a couple of weeks ago Bert Fegg's nasty book for boys and girls by Michael Palin and Terry Jones which contains the original idea of across the Andes by Frog subsequently made into rippingipping Yards.

And I'm not sure I have ever read one of the texts that Palin and Jones are clearly spoofing in Ripping Yards. So it took me a little while to settle into the book because it seemed like a tremendously good setup to a punchline that never came um but i did i did like it i i struggled a bit as as john did with the opening section yeah although i loved the it starts in a brilliant way this book with a kind of that great tradition of the languid hero who's seen everything and done everything

and is rather jaded. The truth is I was bored. Yes, exactly, exactly. A bit of club. But, Lloyd, is that true, then, that this is the first spy novel, as we would understand? Well, no.

I mean, not really. Kim was published a few years before. Kim, yeah. I mean, I think the thing about this book that you... Well, first of all, I suppose it's like reading anything that was... This book was an enormous success when it came out. It sold two million copies. It's never been out of print in Britain.

Churchill arranged for it to be delivered to every ship in the Navy at the beginning of the First World War, which is ironic given what came later. We'll come into that. But it was of huge significance. But the other interesting thing is that Childers never wanted it to be called a novel.

He was violently opposed to it being called a novel. And he didn't want it to be called the author. He wanted it to be called the editor. So the whole thing was, this is a found text. So the whole shtick was that these guys had actually existed. And even today

you can read stuff in the sailing fraternity where people clearly think this stuff actually happened. And I think a lot of the difficulty perhaps with the sailing stuff is Childers himself sailed this route in 1897 on his own boat. So it's all very vivid in his mind. He's describing what actually happened.

And obviously, it's all stuff that he was really interested in. But Britain at the time was a sailing nation. And that's a huge theme in the book, the decline of Britain as a sailing nation. The decline of Britain as a little boat sailing nation. And of course with Dunkirk down the road. But that's one of the great, I think some of those rants of Davis in the book

about... Well, Davis is clearly children, right? Davis is this sort of, you know, slightly off to the side, disconnected, you know, a little bit, you know, humorless and a little bit sort of straight back, but also fiercely, a little bit, you know, humorless and a little bit sort of you know, straight, but also fiercely patriotic. Well, fiercely everything, you know, fiercely fierce,

fiercely in love, fiercely patriotic, fiercely, you know. But whilst, you know, whilst I did struggle a little bit with some of the trying to figure out... I'm counting the word struggle, so a little tally, a little tally down here. Just with the understanding the sales and what the you

know i mean i have a word spinnaker is a word and spinnaker is also not in the book no spinnaker's not the book but no no the point being is what i'm saying is that didn't really bother me in the end because i i thought that was, that was my, that was you know, it's the sort of thing if I, if you read it maybe more slowly and carefully or if you were on a sailing holiday or learning how to sail, you'd probably master it quite quickly. The way he does it is Carruthers

doesn't know how to sail. Yeah. Right, so Carruthers is learning how to sail in the first quarter of the book and that's kind of, so you're learning as you go along. And it's sort of, it's sort of the whole thing, it becomes actually after a while quite mesmerizing and the sense of place is really extraordinary that you know that but the sort of all that tacking in the dark and the yeah i mean it's it's just i guess it's just a i mean i think the thing you say about it being male is is kind of true i mean it's two men on a boat men on a boat and there's quite a lot of technical detail in it.

But once you get the beginning of the sense of where the plot is taking you, I mean, it's quite hard. I mean, there is a plot, you know, the spoiler is on the back, but it's quite a long way into the book before you've got any bloody idea that it's about a plot. Well, I suppose the other thing

is... It's just the Dolmen and the Medusa are kind of sinister, but he keeps that plausibility of their alternatives. I would also say there is some absolutely... There is some really lovely writing in the book. I mean, he's very, very good on wind and water and the movement of water. And, I mean, I'm going to just read a little...

I'm just going to read a little bit of this, and I'm sure you've got bits you want as well Lloyd but this just fell open on this. Later as the wind sank to lazy airs he became busy with a large topsoil and jib but I was content to doze away the afternoon drenching brain

and body in the sweet and novel foreign atmosphere and dreamily watching the fringe of glen cliff and cool white sand as they passed ever more slowly by very good of that and the whole thing of Caruthers arriving and not feeling

ghastly the whole thing he can't believe he's got a portmanteau that's far too big for a boat and there's some really good comments about this this fop showing up shall we go and stay in a hotel

I don't really like going on are your men arriving there are no men arriving it's like the worst you're sort of beginning with and then gradually the kind of

the boat is quite small and pokey and there's a lot of good stuff about what it's like sleeping in in a bunk but I think you're right Lloyd

I think that's clearly deliberate isn't it there's a clear attempt to take the reader by the hand and say and put them in a bunk. But I think you're right, Lloyd. I think that's clearly deliberate, isn't it? There's a clear attempt to take the reader by the hand and say... And put them in a boat. Yeah, put them in a boat and say... There's a very funny bit. Can I read that? I'm not going to read the bit I was going to read

because the bit I was going to read is more in line with this. But there's a funny bit about Carruthers arriving and he goes down into the boat and bangs his head and bangs his chins and all this kind of stuff. You see, were Davis's reassuring words, there's plenty of room to sit upright. And he goes down into the boat and bangs his head and bangs his chins and all this kind of stuff. Stretching my legs out, my knee came into contact with a sharp edge. I had not seen this devilish construction as it was hidden beneath the table, which indeed rested on it at one end. It appeared to be a long, low triangle running lengthways with the boat and dividing the naturally limited space into two. You see, she's a flat-bottomed boat, drawing very little water without the plate.

That's why there's so little headroom. For deep water, lower the plate, so in one way or another you can go practically anywhere. I was not nautical enough to draw any definite conclusions from this but what I did draw were not promising there's a lot of that stuff

when we're in Carruthers but also when Carruthers gets into the sailing there is some really lovely bits with him kind of going okay I'm beginning

to understand why people are into this now and so you know I think that's rather there's lots of little good stuff but I do think this thing about it not being a novel right the thing about hey, I'm beginning to understand why people are into this now. And so, you know, I think that's rather... There's lots of little good stuff. But I do think this thing about it not being a novel...

So that's what I wanted to say. It's the frame, I think. I can't think of a novel that has this completely realised frame that this was found papers and I'm the editor, which he sort of says in the press... Which is EC. Which has obviously been used many times since sorry when it was published then

it was published in 1903 it was called The Rid of the Sand a record of secret service recently achieved edited by Erskine Childers what was the author like what was Erskine like well I've was the author like? Ah, we won't come to that. What was Erskine like?

Yeah, we'll come to that. Well, I've got 11 pages that I can go through. Matthew, if I give you the title of some of Erskine's other books, this was the only novel that he wrote, and he didn't want it to be seen as a novel. Only novel he wrote. And his other books include War and the Armblanche, German Influence on British Cavalry, The Framework for Home Rule. Yeah. war and the arm blanche german influence on british cavalry the framework for home rule

you know he he was a he was a serious mofo so he was born 1870 born to an english father and an irish mother that will become important um in mayfair and um uh his father died when he was eight years old, and there was some strange family business involved, his mother going to a sanatorium, and he was basically adopted by his Irish aunt and uncle and went to live in Ireland. Then sent to school in England, aged 11,

and educated in England, different times, and the Irish family were members of the ascendancy, the Protestant Irish ascendancy, who had basically been running the place for 700 years. So he goes to private school, goes to Trinity, then goes into the civil service, becomes a House of Commons clerk in about 1890-whatever. Gets into sailing, mid-1890s, buys a boat, goes sailing.

Then joins up for the Boer War and then comes back and writes The River of the Sands. And the point of The River of the Sands was it fell into this category of invasion literature. And is it his first book? It's his first book. Well, no, sorry, he wrote a book of, his letters from the Boer War

were published before then. Yeah. I can't remember the title of the book, but it's letters from from the Burwall. And so there's a whole category of books about the growing threat of Germany, including the magnificently named

The Battle for Dorking, which came out in 1871. But there's a whole range of books about Britain being invaded. And this is by far the most influential and actually causes the Admiralty to go, oh hang on a minute, we need to build support.

There's a bit at the end of the Vintage Edition where they did make some changes. They did make some changes. It was the beginning of the Dreadnought arms race and building more and more Dreadnoughts. So the book comes out, it's hugely successful, makes his name. He marries a Bostonian

woman, works as a clerk, but then gets increasingly interested in the Irish question. We will begin to tread carefully as we go through this, but he gets increasingly interested in the Irish question, for Irish home rule. His wife is quite

a Republican, you know, she's American and she thinks that the British Empire is probably not the greatest thing since sliced bread, as Erskine had thought it was. Gets more and more interested in home rule. Fights in the First World War has a real ripping yarns First World War, actually.

Flying planes and navigating. And actually Churchill, being a big fan of Ridley of the Sands, Churchill had proposed an invasion of the East Frisian Islands based on Ridley the Sands, which was abandoned and replaced with an invasion of Gallipoli. And Childers was the navigator for Gallipoli. It's worth saying, one of the amazing things about this book

is with the charts and the descriptions in this book, you could actually invade the East Frisian Islands. That's the amazing thing it's also worth saying about Childers and you'll know why I say this now that in this you were talking about Churchill, in this period Churchill described Childers

as quote a great patriot and statesman we'll come back to that so Childers is right in the centre of this, you know, of England and empire and all this kind of stuff. Comes back from the First World War and basically moves to Ireland and basically becomes a proponent of Irish Home Rule. Goes to the Paris Convention.

He's a liberal to begin with, wasn't he? He's moved from liberal. When the liberals sort of messed up Home Rule or compromised it, he became more and more. when the Liberals sort of messed up Home Rule or compromised it, he became more and more. And then ends up being on the convention in 1922, on the other side of the table from Churchill, Austin Chamberlain, Lloyd George, arguing for Irish Home Rule.

That leads to the creation of the Irish Free State in 1922. Childers is violently opposed to the Irish Free State because he thinks it's a compromise, because it's not actually an independent republic, it's a dominion within the Empire. Because of the treaty. Because of the treaty. De Valera, Éamon de Valera is also violently opposed to it. The two of them go into hiding,

basically, in the Southern Ireland. Michael Collins, Arthur Griffith, all the Sinn Féin people are in favour of it, and they sign the treaty. Arthur Griffith violently falls out with those because everyone is saying, who is this English guy and why is he talking

for Ireland? And then the rumour starts going around that he's actually a spy. He's actually a spy for the English. Which I guess Riddle of the Sands might lead you to believe is not impossible. And then in 1922 he's in hiding and he's arrested by the Irish Free State Army.

Has he been gun-running? Well, the gun-running story is... I'll talk about the gun-running story separately. But the Irish Free State arrest him and he is shot by the Irish Free State in 1922. By a firing squad. By a firing squad. But they arrest him because...

But he's carrying a gun that was given to him by Michael Collins and that's illegal it's illegal to carry but it's a pretext for shooting this guy and the reason he's shot is that he's the guy he is the guy

who's saying you've surrendered to the English you've surrendered to the English you've messed it up Ulster's gone its own way you've messed it up

why did you do this why did you and he's gone and he's very there's a lot of George Orwell about Erskine Childers because he's the very austere kind of, you know, librarian figure going, you've messed it all up, you've messed it all up.

So they shoot him, basically, they kill him. Postscript, 1968. No, 1971. His son, Erskine Childers, Erskine Hamilton Childers, becomes President of the Irish Republic. So it's an amazing life story. He also has two other things worth noting.

Churchill, who, I mean, something like five years, it's not much more than that, who five years earlier had referred to him as a great patriot and statesman. When the death sentence was passed on Childers, he said the following thing. Churchill said, No man has done more harm or done more genuine malice or endeavoured to bring a greater curse upon the common people of Ireland than this strange being, actuated by a deadly and malignant hatred for the land of his birth.

That's quite a swing, isn't it? And also there's this amazing story, actually, swing, isn't it? And also there's this amazing story actually, very stirring story about Childers' conduct in front of the firing squad. He goes up to every member of the firing squad and shakes their hand.

Goes back to stand there and he goes, take a step forward lad, it'll be easier. And his final words to his wife. She writes, now I am going, coming to you, heart's beloved, sweetheart, comrade wife, I shall fall asleep

in your arms, God above blessing us, all four of us, Erskine. It's good stuff. It's boy's own stuff. And it's still controversial to this day, his role in Irish independence. This Englishman at the heart of this, basically, struggle with England.

Well, there does seem to be that element, even in the novel, of him a number of times, his attraction to the idea of what he calls romance, which is getting carried away with the story, and the transformation of Carruthers, who is a kind of, as you say, languid, sort of policy wonky foreign office bod, going to his club and smoking cigars

and living a life of pampered ease. Not particularly engaged. And then becoming suddenly, by the end of the novel, he's kind of doing all kinds of heroic stuff in boats and shaving off his moustache and pretending to... One of the interesting things about that stuff is a lot of the stuff that we don't take for granted, like spy books, is kind of all there.

There's the disguise stuff, there's the fantastic dinner party near the end where no-one is saying quite what they mean. It's a brilliant bit of writing, I think. and the brilliant bit where he's creeping through the fog to listen outside that outside yeah all that stuff so the second half there's very little sailing in the second half of the book listeners um it's mainly i wouldn't want to put people off i don't think the sailing is a is a is a kind of a it's not a deal breaker well one of the reasons we were doing i think if i say it would be we wanted to do we wanted to take it we sort of wanted to

take it away from the sailors a little bit because the minute you say oh we're reenacting the riddle of the sands sailing world are on the phone going what boat are you going and we're like well we don't sail we're staying we're sticking on the land we're more interested in the you know the culture of the drink, the food. Which is beautifully... You do have that very strong sense of that very weird, that Friesian coast. It sort of does make you want to go and visit it.

It's funny saying it's the first thriller. One thinks of a thriller now... If I think of a thriller, I think of Lee Child. And Lee Child... Great Child great though Lee Child is doesn't hang about page three you're off right

what I found fascinating about this book is there's a very deliberate it seemed to me hang on in there hang on in there hang on in there once we're underway

then we'll really go for it well i think a lot of that is actually from the sailing because if you've ever said there is quite a lot of hanging around you're not going to very fast a lot of waiting for the wind there's a lot of waiting for the wind and all that kind of stuff but also a lot i mean you you're you you're into music from the 60s and 70s and one of the fascinating things about that is they're making it up right they're making up what we now take as yes business and this is what this book is doing, it's like all the stuff at the beginning

in London when he's going out and buying all this stuff which I love, the Ripping Gale stove it's just like Bond visiting Kew and going buy this, take that, buy that and Fleming does it in three pages and Childers does it in twenty but you know it's a sort of it's not unfamiliar

in a way if you write a Haggard which is considerably harder to read than Erskine Childers and even John Buchan who I guess probably was inspired by this I'm thinking they're right at the same time

Buchan was a very very big fan of Childers but I mean what I liked was the idea that you would, you know, A, that you're referred in the text to the maps and charts. I mean, it was an attempt to really, to realise something that was happening in the real world. You know, there was no, it wasn't just imagination. But at the same time the delaying I think is because it is a riddle

it is looking at trying to figure out what motives are and it's boats in the night and it's kind of you know who's that coming towards us now it's the girl who you kind of figure that Davis has got the hots for but it's not quite clear

a little bit more than the hots he's in a complete state. He's in an absolute funk. Lloyd, has anybody ever made a musical of our fans? No. There's been a film. There has been a film, that's right. And we've been talking about the amazing sophistication of this book and the way it plugs into the geopolitical scene of the time.

Let's just listen to the trailer from the 1979 film. What started as a harmless holiday ended in a desperate struggle for their lives. Peter's in a lammis. You're just going to ram us. Michael York, Simon McCorkendale in the classic spy thriller The Riddle of the Sands. Now playing in its sixth smash week,

call the Satori hotline [phone]. So it's that film. I watched the film this week I quite enjoyed it I think the film I think the film's pretty good It's Michael York as Carruthers Yeah yeah yeah

A stunning Carruthers I love Michael And Simon Corkendale I think is a pretty good Davis A.K.A. A.K.A. Manimal A.K.A. Manimal Yeah

And Jenny Hector Jenny Hector as Clara Dolman Oh Yeah And Mr Bronson from Grange Hill Mr Bronson Michael Sherwood Hill. Mr Bronson as Michael Sherwood. As Burma.

As Burma. So, Matthew Clayton, do you have any tenuous links to this book? Yeah, tenuously. I've got a tenuously. I'm going to ask Andy, I'm going to ask you what the tenuous link is between Caravas and Phileas Fogg.

Oh. Is it David Niven? You've got to let that drop. Your nemesis, David Niven. You've got to let that drop. Is it Michael York? No, it's not Michael York. It's Bradshaw's.

Bradshaw's Continental. Very good. So Bradshaw's Continental is the travel guide, kind of incredible travel guide published by... It is amazing. It's a railway time travel. Yeah, but it's kind of railway. It's also got steamers and hotels.

It's like everything you need to know. So it features in Phineas Fogg, but Bradshaw's also feature in Sherlock Holmes, Count Dracula, G.K. Chesterton, Lewis Carroll and Agatha Christie, which is really incredible. But my favourite Bradshaw's story is the one that connects Bradshaw's with Michael Portillo. So...

Oh, he's got kind. So wonderfully, I mean, this is a wonderful story. So in 2010, Michael Portillo starts a TV series, Great British Train Journeys, where he follows the Bradshaw's British guide around railway journeys of Britain. And in 2012, January 2012, an extraordinary thing happens, which is the facsimile version of the 1863 Bradshaw's book

sells 30,000 copies. Old House of the Publishers, part of Osprey. And it goes on to sell over 100,000 copies. The fax in the edition of his 19th century train guide. Because of Michael Portillo's program. Isn't that insane? This is what every editor dreams of happening. It's out of copyright.

Totally, yeah. It's out of copyright. It's yeah. It's out of copyright. It's got no colour in it. It's no colour. We are going to have to be paying Bradshaw. There's no author. There's no author. And it's totally random.

Completely random. I have no idea. When did Bradshaw... No legal read. Do we know when they stopped making Bradshaws? Well, Bradshaw died in 1853, but they carried on after his death. I've got an 1896... In fact, online, I've downloaded it off the internet.

It's basically like downloading the internet. It's basically the Victorian internet. 25 gigs. There are over 1,000 things. That's what I did to the BBC food section the other day. I've downloaded them all. If anyone needs a copy, recipe cards, Matt. Recipe cards, recipe. Recipe cards.

But I love that Brad Childers is in there. I love that. And it featured so much in the literature of the time. But the funny thing about Brad Childers in this book, because obviously Childers, when he did his sailing trip, he didn't take a train. He did everything on the water. Yeah.

So to research the train bits, there's quite an involved train section, if you remember, he's got to be at a certain place at a certain time and go to disguise in the toilet and come out and actually he must have researched all that in Bradshaw's because actually the times in Bradshaw's are identical to the times in the book so you kind of go

he's just opened his Bradshaw's when he was researching the book, just as I do when I've got to go to St Helena and just read it out There's a quote there isn't there about a man starts going back to and looking through his Bradshaw's in the same way that he will

foggle his gun I was going to ask you Lloyd why Childers only why didn't Childers not write more novels, but actually I wonder if the question is not that, but why he wrote a novel in the first place? Well I think because the interesting thing about

his writing, the thing that he was involved in in Ireland, he was people said that the reason the English government caved in sort of 1920, 1921 to the Irish was partly Michael Collins' guerrilla warfare, but equally Erskine Childers' propaganda,

because all he was doing all day long, he was running the Irish Bulletin, which was the Sinn Féin newspaper, he was editing it and basically writing it all day long. So I think he probably thought that novels were somewhat frivolous. And actually, one of the interesting things about being a writer

you look at the life of Erskine Childers this is a man who was finally in the world he was trying to change the world and the thing he tried to change the world with was his writing so you mentioned his stuff on his pamphlets on the British Army and the Cavalry they were hugely influential because he was basically saying

we're about to go to war and we've still got men on horses carrying swords do you have any idea how bad this is going to be and because he was basically saying we're about to go to war and we've still got men on horses carrying swords do you have any idea how bad this is going to be yeah yeah and so he was very that's why churchill was such a huge fan of his because he was saying so i think he probably found an outlet for his writing that was to do with changing the world he probably you know you probably couldn't think of another novel that would that would have the same effect his conversion to the cause of irish nationalism is Irish nationalism is quite an extreme thing. You can see why people were suspicious. It's so extreme.

It's so... Look at your CV. Hmm, spy novel. Hmm, OK. You know what? Thanks for choosing this, Lloyd. I learned so much. And not just about spinnacles, everyone.

I learned so much about... I think I thought Riddle of the Sands was some kind of Egyptian thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right? So I learned a lot about the novel. But actually learning about Childers, yeah. Childers is extraordinary.

It's surprising that he's not better known, I think, in England particularly. Well, I almost thought it was almost surprising. Presumably the book was already so successful that it couldn't then be suppressed after he'd been shot for some kind of treachery. There's a lovely moment when they're negotiating in London and he's basically been kicked out of the room

because the IRS is so sick of him being so intransigent. And there's a bit in his letters back to Molly, his wife, where he says, spent the time discussing the Riddle of the Sands with the man outside. He was a big fan. So this stuff's going on. He's got Lloyd George, Winston Churchill in the room with Arthur Chamberlain and Arthur Griffith

and Michael Conagher in the room there. And he's chatting about it. And what he's known for is the Riddle of the Sands. That is amazing. It is also about German militarism was another thing. He's quite prescient about the fact that the Germans are quite admiring of the sort of organisation

The hard thing to read in the book I think is the imperial side of it the idea that actually empire is great and Germany needs an empire as much as England does and why would they not have one they deserve one and so that kind of thing is politically quite hard for us to read now.

But it was perfectly, absolutely standard liberal policy in 1903. I think that's probably as good a point as any to stop. Thank you to Lloyd Shepard, to Matthew of course as always, to producer Matt Hall and once again thanks to Unbound.

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