Off Air... with Jane and Fi - Whatever this is... (with Rory Cellan-Jones)

Episode Date: September 18, 2023

Jane's still saying 'cwassant' and Fi is still perplexed. Plus, they chat Russell Brand, tactical clothes drying and parental correspondents. They're joined by former BBC tech correspondent and journalist Rory Cellan-Jones to discuss his new book 'Ruskin Park: Sylvia, Me and the BBC'. If you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: [e-mail] Follow us on Instagram! @janeandfiAssistant Producer: Eve SalusburyTimes Radio Producer: Rosie Cutler Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Welcome to another week of whatever this is. Wherever you are in the world, thank you for engaging with Off Air, the hit podcast with Jane and Fee. I think actually when you said that, welcome to whatever this is, I thought that's a great name for a spin-off podcast. I might host that with Annika. Annika popped in to see us today. She got the week off to a good start.

She did. She's looking so showbiz. She looked terrific. She did, yeah. Absolutely aglow she was. That'll be that week with you. Well, I think it's probably because she lives on the isle of wight and she's annika rice oh yeah she swims in the sea every morning does she really does yeah isn't that lovely did you bond over that well yes i mean i think as you well know uh the cold water sea swimmer

or open water swimmer or as we just used to say, swimmer. Swimmer. People just swim. I'd really like to meet another swimmer in the same way that I don't think if you are a really, really keen croquet player, you're allowed to have that kind of external bonding, do you think? Yes, you're probably quite right. I don't think I've ever known croquet players to fall on each other with a sort of abandon that cold water swimmers. It's a weird one, isn't it?

It is a weird one. I'm very happy for all of you cold water swimmers. I'm a warm water swimmer, having enjoyed the delights of the sea off Sicily. And, yeah, what was I saying? I don't remember. No, I don't remember either. But anyway, whatever this is, is a great name for a podcast

I won't be doing it myself but everybody's welcome to it it was Jane's idea quick mention of Hilary who says I was listening to Jane's description of the lemon croissant

that wasn't a croissant that she enjoyed in Sicily still not sure how you're spelling that what is wrong with lemon croissant what did I say so I think

if you were going to do it phonetically that would be C-W-A SS-S-A-N-T. Croissant. Look, I've been in Liverpool. Maybe it's just rubbed off on me. I don't know.

Anyway, Hilary has been in touch to say she wanted to tell us about what she'd seen in St Ives. It's called a croffin, and it's shaped like a muffin, but it's made of flaky croaky pastry filled with jam and lemon cream. It looked a bit daunting for me, but I did buy two plain scones from the bakery, then jam and clotted cream from the co-op. And I had a lovely cream tea in bed after my nap this afternoon, made by my husband as I've trapped a nerve swimming yesterday. I knew there was a link. Hilary, thank you. What a wonderful man your husband sounds.

He does. A little nap, trapped nerve, and then a wonderful cream tea. Gorgeous. That's so much pastry and tea, isn't it? I know the cruffin of which you speak, because actually when we went to Margate on our holidays, there was a bakery there that was doing that. They

were huge things, Jane. The size of a small cake. Right. And all beautifully laminated. That's the thing, isn't it? In a croissant pastry thing. What's it? Is it? Is it lamination? Yeah, like puff pastry. Right. So look, times have changed. isn't the world of pastry moving on who knew uh we've got to talk quite seriously about russell brand uh because for those people who listen to this podcast outside of this country uh maybe you'd know russell brand because he had his hollywood he did have his years yeah but he's very well known in this country for being a comedian and now bills himself as a wellness guru and I mean, just conspiracy theorist. He's got six million viewers on YouTube and constantly decries all manner of things that actually most of us are just really happy to embrace. Vaccinations that save our lives, that kind of stuff.

A media that tries to inform us with fact, usually checked by two veritable sources, and you can tell by the tone of my voice that I'm not a big fan of him. Well, I always say there's so many things you could say about him, but one of the most comic things is that he is now railing against mainstream media in his annoying way. When this was a guy who took money from Radio 2 not that long ago, and indeed Channel 4 and BBC Six Music

and any other number of thoroughly mainstream media organisations. Yeah, but didn't you say that he was once invited onto Woman's Hour to talk seriously about a book? I looked it up today and the episode is currently unavailable, but he appeared on Woman's Hour shortly after I joined the programme in 2007. I didn't interview him, so I can't bring any personal experience. And I think, a bit like you, I have never been remotely entertained by him. I'm not just saying that now.

I've always thought he was really quite repugnant. Anyway, he does deny all the allegations against him. So the allegations are made by a lot of women now and they've been very, very carefully collated and checked out by our colleagues at the Sunday Times, the Times and Channel 4 Dispatches programme. And they're really serious allegations of rape and sexual assault. And the Metropolitan Police has now been informed of one of those allegations, sexual assault, going back to 2003.

So we've been talking about it across the day on Times Radio, and we've got quite a few emails about it, too. And I suppose one of the things that is really important that we always talk about, and maybe you and I would do it in a different way, Jane, because we are two women. I don't want to stir up any kind men's chagrin at saying that, but I don't know of a woman who would want to be defined by a sexual act with a man, full stop. So the thing that I find so painful, Jane, is when people start on at women who are brave enough to say this happened to me with the, you're falsely accusing a man.

Think of what it could do to his reputation or you've been paid for it or you're seeking to be a reality star or it's in your imagination you were going out with them anyway it was just one time whatever those things are just trust us when we say that a woman does not want to be defined by that just explain what happened at your news news agent today then so i went in at 8 30 to buy some emergency cat food and i picked up a couple of today's papers as i quite often, and I put them on the counter

and the guy who runs the corner shop said, oh, so you want to read all about Russell Brand. That poor man was his exact phrase. And I said, well, I'm going to read about Russell Brand and the stuff that has been said about him and has come to light over the last 24 hours. And I then proceeded to have what can only be described as a bit of a row with this guy who was basically saying

he's been completely set up, he hasn't done anything wrong. All of these women, they're always complaining about men. And he actually said, you know, it's like the poor footballers. And so I did try and make this point about how a woman wants to be defined and how a woman wants to be seen and it really is so rarely to make everybody think about what might once have happened to them uh you know in bed or maybe not even in a bed it trust me that is not how women want to be seen or thought about or for their families to have to think about or any of those things.

And so I did make a note to myself to just stop shopping there because I just can't really do it anymore, Jane, and because there's nothing that I could say to that man that would change his mind. Well, and that's the problem. It's like trying to argue with a barrel of fluff, isn't it? This trying to take on the conspiracy theorists and those who've lost faith in the mainstream media.

And I know how he viewed me, which is immediately just as one of those, you know, shouty, problematic women. He's got some front, though, as a news agent, having a bit of a beef with the mainstream media. Has he thought of another line of work? Well, it's a very good point, but also a slice of manchego cheese there costs £11.99.

Good Lord. It's not just solely a newsagent then. Well, fair play to him, she said, changing her tune. But I'm a woman. I'm going to, aren't I? This is from Leslie, who says, I like your show. I haven't contacted you before, but I can't get a thought out of my head. In all the conversations about the allegations about Russell Brand, which he denies, I haven't heard any

discussion about the relevance of his self-declared promiscuity, promoted by the Sun's Shagger of the Year Award. I think it is not possible for a man to have sex with 80 women a month, as he claims to have done, whilst also maintaining a sense of respect for women as equal adults and ensuring that you know them well enough to be able to make a judgment about their vulnerabilities and ability to consent. This type of promiscuity should always be a red flag and we should take this opportunity to change,

or at least challenge, the still too frequent admiration society has for men from all walks of life who behave this way well i agree with you leslie um i mean let's start here and i had not read any of russell brand's books of course if i'd done that interview in 2007 if that had fallen to me i would have read his book oh research you would have read it and kept you updated. Well, that's possible too. And then sent me 40 pages of notes via a bicycle because at the time the internet barely existed. But anyway, to get back to the serious point,

I would like to think that had I read his book, I would have been horrified by some of the content that has appeared in the newspapers over the last couple of days because it's vile and it's it's just it's just rem fond reminiscences uh from a man who behaved in all sorts of horrific ways with female partners i just don't understand why more and more more people didn't call it out at the time did we really love or did people laugh at that so we had a bit of a conversation about this in the production office didn't we earlier and actually some of our much younger colleagues um admitted to finding his humor funny because it was so out there it really pushed at the boundaries of what had been there before so i'm not going to condemn any of those colleagues

because they're all lovely and they're all very clever and I think can all see exactly what the problem is now. But that was it, wasn't it, Jane? It was because he said things that nobody had ever said before. And I think, as you say too, really mistakenly, people thought that that was some kind of sign of genius. And from what he's written about in his books, just about the way that he treats women, the side of all of these new allegations, that's not genius.

That's just horror. That's just filth. And when you think of some of the opprobrium, is that the right word, that female comedians get when they talk, perhaps in a slightly franker way than we're used to, about their sex lives or about periods or things like that. I mean, it's just extraordinary. The double standard is just off the scale here. And we all, all of us who've let this go without challenge, probably need to have a word with ourselves

about what we thought was acceptable. So there seems to be quite a lot of hope in the air that because of the airing of all of these allegations against a very powerful guy, a guy who went on to make money in Hollywood, a guy whose books carried on being published, a guy who makes a lot of money out of YouTube. I mean, if you've got six million followers,

YouTube is paying you a lot. I'd be very interested to know whether or not advertisers now ask not to be involved in his YouTube platform. That would be something. But people seem to be hopeful that this might mark a really watershed moment where people can challenge that kind of powerful man. And I don't know. Do you think that it is? I wonder whether this might be the beginning of a much, much bigger story that builds over the course of the next couple of months

about, frankly, the British entertainment industry. I think there are many people, Rosamund Irwin at the Sunday Times is just one, who believes that we haven't had our Me Too movement properly in Britain's entertainment industry. So who knows? Who knows what else will come out over the next couple of months and years? And let's be completely frank with listeners.

V, names are already being bandied around, aren't they? Yeah. Plenty of people in the frame. Men, by which, when I say people, I mean men. And that isn't to say, I know V and I are both fully paid up carping harpies. We'll take that. But I'm really exercised by the women in power who've turned a blind eye to these guys as well.

Well, there was a female boss at Radio 2. Yeah, there was. So Russell Brand exited the BBC, was fired from the BBC because he made that tape with Jonathan Ross that went out on air where they phoned up Andrew Sachs and Russell Brand, crowed about having slept with his granddaughter. It was hideous. Yeah and there was a female boss at the time who resigned and you know her lawyers had obviously been contacted by our colleagues here and she says that there's nothing further that she can add to the story.

But like you've said a couple of moments ago, there's just an enormous amount of culpability in people who I think must have known that the wrong barriers were being broken by that man. And for whatever reason, just didn't think, well, I should be the crash barrier for other people. Because, you know, women in very powerful positions and commissioning positions, I think, and you can all send emails and say it's wrong to think this, but I think they

have more culpability, because we do have a shorthand, we do have an understanding about the devastating effects that some male behaviour can have on women, particularly young women, forever and ever and ever and ever. We just understand it more. And it's not to say that good, kind, sensible, intelligent men can't pick up on it too. But we have a shorthand to it, Jane.

We just do. Yeah, because you can sense it. And I just think it's also worth saying that Jonathan Ross, after that incident, ITV were so appalled by the part Jonathan Ross had played in that tragedy and there we have it so

your thoughts would be very welcome it's janeandfeeattimes.radio and we don't mind if they're challenging thoughts as well, we really don't but I suppose I was very i felt very sad all weekend jane for the women who have come forward because they just can't have been any part of reliving their experiences that they would have felt comfortable doing i think they're really

courageous to do it i think the stuff that's come at them now is just very difficult and Russell Brand denies all allegations. We should maintain that. We should just have to say that. Shall we just bring in Jamie? I feel for Jamie because they're writing this email at silly o'clock waiting for check-in to open at Alicante Airport. Can you think of anything more glamorous than that?

Can you think of anything more glamorous than that? Can you? Well, I think possibly you sitting there in the Campari-laced breeze of Sicily eating a lemon-filled croissant. Jamie says, catching up on your pod regarding Jane's thigh-nipping fish encounter and wondering whether it may be, albeit different countries, related to this article. This is about fish attacks off the coast of Benidorm. The article was brought to my attention whilst on holiday in Spain on the Costa Blanca by my friend Rachel, who'd heard of this phenomenon

and decided to mention this mere moments before we entered the sea. Cue a lot of oohing and aahing and startled jumps. Worthier Frank Spencer. Luckily, no whoopsies were done by either myself or the Betty, which is actually Rachel's surname, at any sea detritus that passed our bodies. I'm struggling to know what Rachel's surname is. Is it the Betty? Is she called Rachel the Betty?

Or is she called Rachel Spencer? I don't know, Jane. No, I know you don't know. And for our younger listeners, none of that reference to the seminal 70s comedy Some Mothers Do Have Them will make any sense at all. Hello, Jane and Fi, how's it hanging? The washing, that is, says Kay, who's listening in Hamilton, New Zealand. See attached screenshot of a recent New Zealand Women's Weekly magazine reader story.

You just know it's going to be good, don't you? Go on. Would you be able to read that? I can read it. It's tiny. Oh, go on then. Well, I think I can. If I just get it in exactly the right part of my varifocals. Here we go. It comes from someone called Doris. Just gets better and better. Some of us have certain rules we observe when hanging out washing on the line. A few of us were discussing this the other day. Some said they just hung out the washing as it came out of the basket. Others hung it in groups. All the towels, all the tea towels. There are even people who use a certain coloured peg for items of the same kind. Oh, for God's sake. But the funniest one was someone who said that if she had had words with her husband,

she made sure that none of her clothes touched his on the clothesline. Oh, OK. Now I'm with her. Brilliant. I am not. Not brushing up against his pants. John is on the Isle of Skye,

and it's just as well because he sent in this cheeky email. He's not within distance. Fee and Jane, what do you think of this, Fee? Do women in same-sex relationships have a lower incidence of migraines than those with male partners? John, what are you getting at? John, John, John. Don't have a go at our lesbian friends.

We're not having it. You don't know what you're starting. Actually, he's not having a go at lesbians. He's having a go at women in general. Right, that having it. You don't know what you're starting. Actually, he's not having a go at lesbians. He's having a go at women in general. Right, that's it. Off you go, John. Can I say a very good afternoon to Claire? We went to the same school, Claire.

And do you know what? It's so rare that I ever meet anybody in life who's been to St. Swithards. I don't know if you've seen, but our old... I don't know why, but it does make me laugh. Yeah, everything you're imagining is true Jane. Has just announced the sad death of Miss Roberts also known as Miss

Janet who was a renowned sports teacher there from 1958 to 1997 which does span both of our days at that august establishment. Claire says as soon as I saw her name a rush of memories came back and And it just

made me think of the way that some teachers, be it their teaching or just their personalities, remain with us throughout adulthood. And I know that you've got very happy memories of Miss Roberts. Claire says, when I knew her at the end of her career, she was an imposing figure on the sidelines of the lacrosse pitch in the depths of winter. Well, she was back when I knew her too. And to say that she had a no-nonsense attitude, a gruff voice and a constant twinkle in her eye really does her

down, actually. Her Labradors featured in the Andrex ads. Did you know that? Did they? Yep. They hired them. Yes, I think they hired them out. Yep. And she was a real character, actually. Claire, I was hopeless at sport.

Really, really hopeless. Really dreadful lacrosse player. I had absolutely no kind of hand-eye coordination. And also I had to go and do all my music lessons and sports lessons because we weren't allowed to miss academic lessons, but it was fine to miss sports. Couldn't you drag your oboe onto the pitch? So I really, just most of the time, I haven't got a clue what was going on at all.

But actually, I do have some quite fond memories of Miss Janet. And you're right, she did have a twinkle in her eye. She just used to take the mickey out of me, being so bad at sport. And I think she realised that I was just one of those people who's just beyond help. There's no point trying to really... You weren't being horrible, you just were inept.

She was just absolutely rubbish. So I'm sad that she's died, Claire, but it just must be so lovely as a teacher to know that people remember you fondly. I mean, she was also super tough, actually. I think some of the gals from the school went on to play for England. Oh, really? In lacrosse, they did.

Gosh, she must have been really good. So I hope everybody else benefited from her sense of humour because it would be dreadful, wouldn't it, if I went out and emailed celebrating a teacher who actually it turns out is one of those teachers who's ruined lots of people's lives. I really hope that hasn't happened, Jane. Well, it hasn't happened.

No! OK, now we're going to get on to our guest Rory Kethlin-Jones in a moment. Just a brief mention for Glyn who has enjoyed the book I recommended last week, Bourneville by Jonathan Coe and Glyn's absolutely right because he says there's a chapter towards the end called The Top of My Mother's Head which deals with the

impact of the Covid lockdown on families and I think it's worthy of a Booker Prize in itself and should be submitted as evidence to the Covid inquiry. Be warned though, says Glyn, if your parents are in their 80s and you're in your 50s, have some tissues nearby. Yes, wholeheartedly agree.

It's so beautiful, that particular chapter. You're absolutely right. And it's just so sad. It's such a poignant book. I don't think a book has moved me quite as much as that one in a long time. Well, that's good to know. It's a good recommendation.

I'm just about to start Lucy Worsley's Agatha Christie biography. It's about the life of Agatha Christie. Is it really? There's no mystery there, is there? Who done it? Lucy Worsley did. Who flies on you today? Honestly, I've been so adept.

I wonder whether my medication's being upped and it's just paying off. Poor old David, the managing editor or whatever he's called. Is that his title? We don't know. It seems amiable enough. It's very important. It's much more important than us.

He made a cracking joke on the way in that nobody else noticed at all. What was that? Well, Eve said, I've lost my pass. And David said, what does it look like? Which is just quite a good gag. So it's got Eve's name on it. Oh. Yeah.

No, you see, you didn't get it. That's why I've never got on with management gags. I wouldn't have reacted quickly enough. I bet you were giggling and girding all over the place. Well, I said it's got... Oh, David, you're funny. Excuse me. Is that what you said?

I'd gone to the loo, I think. Excuse me. All right, sorry. Would you like gone to the loo, I think. Excuse me? All right, sorry. Would you like me to tell some tales? I don't think so. What are you suggesting I've done with management? Well, what was the alternative name of that podcast? Tune in, kids, to whatever this is.

OK, it's just heartbreaking. Right, Rory Catherine-J Jones was our guest this afternoon, one of the hosts of the podcast Movers and Shakers, which is about living with Parkinson's disease. His rescue dog, Sophie from Romania, is a massive hit on social media. He was also the BBC's first technology correspondent and he's written a memoir called Ruskin Park, Sylvia, Me and the BBC. Ruskin Park was the name of the council flats where Rory grew up with his mum, Sylvia, me and the BBC. Ruskin Park was the name of the council flats

where Rory grew up with his mum, Sylvia. Now, she died in 1996 and after her death, Rory found an incredible collection of papers and letters that she'd left for him under her bed. She was always a hoarder. I was brought up in a one-bed flat in South London. And I knew she kept a lot. But when I cleared the flat where she died, having lived there for 40 years, as I cleared under the dressing table and under the bed, more and more letters kept pouring out. And there were

just literally thousands of documents. She kept every letter she ever received it seemed to me over a period of 60 years and an awful lot of the ones she typed even to her two sisters who my two lovely aunts who were instrumental in my upbringing um she kept carbon copies she was a bbc secretary and this was her habit And it was all laid down there. And a lot of it, incredibly vivid sort of, I mean, gossip, family gossip, very vivid pictures of life at the BBC. But the heart of it was one sort of particular find, which was a stocking box, a red Kayser stocking box. And inside, I lifted the lid, there was a message in it for Rory to read and understand how it really was. And beneath that was a receipt for bed and breakfast, two nights bed and breakfast at a hotel at Angmering-on-Sea, nine months before I was born, and a whole lot of love letters and other letters from her describing the sort of great crisis of her life,

which is when she fell pregnant with me. Right. Now, I love the fact that you acknowledge throughout the book that your mother was not an easy person. She was a very difficult woman. Well, she was a difficult woman. And there's a very charming but very moving bit right at the beginning where you are mourning her.

It's the Christmas after her death. And you say to your wife, Diane, she was always such a pain at christmas and diane says sweetheart she was a pain all year round yes yes it was true she became very crabby very eccentric uh she she was obsessed with the past she was she retired from the bbc in 1974 it had been her life. She loved the BBC, which is a sort of major character in the book. And she was so full of regrets. And frankly, she used to bang on about her days in the 50s in television drama. It was all kind of, you know, one rolled one's eyes and said, enough already. But reading the letters really changed my mind what i hadn't realized

was what a great writer she was and what a smart person what a perceptive person and how you know how sad it was what what what she what she went through she was a brilliant writer she was a really good observer of life and of stupidity around her actually and there's lots of really fantastic detail in these letters, the carbon copies, you know, it's just remarkable. Do you regret now some of your, I don't know, behaviour around her? Maybe your impatience with her? Well, I regret having underestimated her,

but none of the family would disagree that she was difficult. And one tried to do one's best for her. For instance, tried to get her out of the flat where she was increasingly isolated and live in sheltered housing near us, and she wouldn't move. She was stubborn too. So I do regret sort of wandering around the flat not listening to her when I came on a visit from time to time.

Um, and I wish I'd listened a bit better. But I don't think any of the family would disagree that she was very difficult. And but what I feel I've done with this book is, is give her give her her due in terms of what a remarkable woman she was. Well, I was going to say, you have now well and truly paid her back because her story is within these pages. And you begin to understand quite how hard life was for single mothers at the time that you were born. Well, she was twice over a single mother.

I mean, the story is she got married in 1937 and gave up her job as an accountant's secretary in Birmingham, married to an older, rather stuffy man. When the war came along, she was one of those people who really enjoyed the war in some way. She, having been forced to give up her job, got a job at the BBC as a secretary, had a child the year after by her husband,

but her husband was completely contemptuous of her work at the BBC, referred to her as posh BBC secretary wife in rather wheedling letters to her, wanted her to give it up. And she left him in 1947 in Bristol with her five-year-old son, my half-brother Stephen, came to London, worked in television in London, lived in great, great poverty, scraping, scraping by. And then just when things were about to get better, when my brother Stephen was 16 and

about to make a career, along came yours truly. And it all began again. Well, we'll talk about the circumstances of your, I was going to say the circumstances of your conception. We're back in that B&B, which is where it all happened. But what you do brilliantly well, actually, in this book is bring to life a very claustrophobic childhood in this, well, literally tiny space in this one bedroom council flat in South London. your mum was a massive contradiction she could have bought the council flat of course a bit later but five thousand pounds for five grand but as a lifelong tory for reasons best known to herself she wouldn't do it uh but there's this you described the food you ate and something that crops up quite a lot in memoirs of that time is that truly wretched radio show sing something simple which i don't think there's anyone alive who enjoyed, ever enjoyed Sing Something Simple. But just take us into that flat on a Sunday evening.

Sunday night and school tomorrow. And I'm alone with my mum and we have a radiogram. I've still got it. It's the only thing I've still got from the flat. A 1950s radio with a lovely warm tone. And at lunchtime, maybe we'd listen to the Navy Lark or in the morning, two-way family favourites. But in the evening, sing something simple

with the Adam singers. It's a terrible, terrible dirge. And you can feel the depression just creeping over the flat. It's misery. It's completely triggering. Yes, I think it really is. I felt quite triggered just reading it, reading the title in the book. It won't mean a thing to some people listening, but if you're

around our age, it means so much. It means the weekend ebbing away and the homework still to be done and the fear of going to school the next day and everything. Could she see humour in life at that point or was she rather embittered by them she the good thing about her is she wasn't really embittered she was just regretful and she she was uh never embittered about my dad for example she always talked of him with with great affection but but she was living in the past and that was that was the trouble and and it was rambling and it was disjointed and uh you know for the, 11, 12 years of my life, like most, I think, children of a single mother,

I was completely and utterly devoted to her. And then suddenly as a teenager, I was massively embarrassed about her. I was massively embarrassed at school. I didn't want her to turn up at school. I didn't want to take any friends home because, A, she was embarrassing, and, B, the flat was tiny. And they all lived in bigger homes. So the predominant emotion throughout my teenage years was embarrassment.

Well, on your wedding day, your mum is wearing a dress that you think she got from a charity shop. And she's also got a quite conspicuous plaster over her eye. Yeah, yeah. She obviously had a fall, patched it up. She quite often broke her glasses and they were patched up with sellotape. And what's extraordinary, looking back through these letters, is what an elegant and obviously charming person she was.

And in fact, when we cleared out the flat, amongst all the debris and my old school shirts which she used to wear there were two gorgeous 1950s sort of evening gowns which we gave eventually to the daughters of some friends of ours who kind of valued them greatly but that kind of faded away. So tell us then about how your parents met. Well, in the 1950s, my mother, having started in radio in Bristol, got a job in television and in television drama, which was all live then.

And she was what's called a director's assistant, which was basically a secretary, but in the studio for each production. And she got a temporary promotion she kept getting temporary promotions uh potentially climbing the tree as as floor manager and she was floor manager on this production called who goes there live like like everything else then uh and her assistant floor manager was a young man uh 16 years her junior although he didn't realize quite how much younger he was than her called james kathlyn jones who had started at the bottom a

couple of years earlier as what was her called a cool boy in those days uh kind of runner today and was making his way up uh and one of the great things i found in amongst the letters was a memo And one of the great things I found amongst the letters was a memo from my mother to personnel saying what a great job James Catelyn Jones had done in the studio and what a support he'd been to her and how marvellous he'd been. And then even more extraordinary, when I went to the BBC's Caversham archive and found my dad's file, which had been kept because he became a distinguished BBC figure, my mum's file had been destroyed, I found another memo referring to the memo my mum had written, saying it was nice of Mrs Rich, as she was called then, to write this memo, but we don't think it should go in the file because she is, after all, basically just a secretary. Ouch. Ouch. It was so extraordinarily patronising. Yes, I mean, the hierarchical nature of the BBC then, well, to say whether it's really improved. Can you explain the significance of the Cavisham archive?

I mean, what else is contained within that, or what even is it? It's a huge collection of BBC documents, obviously stretching over 100 years. Why I was interested in it was I wanted to know a bit more about the truth of my parents' relationship, whether my dad, as has been suggested, whether his career had suffered because of the scandal. So he was a drama director. He was on his way up, but he was, it's funny, in Wikipedia, which is accurate but not truthful in a way, it says, my father was a BBC drama director, my mother was a secretary. And that sounds like an old, old story, doesn't it?

But actually, when they met, she was his boss, temporarily. She was the senior person. And I wanted to investigate that further and so i called up his file and i called up a bunch of stuff about bristol during the war where she started and air raids during big discussions about whether for instance they should stop broadcasting during air raids um and the the the war ministry being quite keen that they did because it might help the Germans know whether their bombs had hit. And a lot of stuff about drama in the 1950s, which was an incredibly pioneering time,

the time of live television drama. Your mum and dad did have... Well, it was a passionate affair, wasn't it? Yes, it wasn't a fling. It lasted a year. Yeah, and there was real... Some of their letters, certainly some of your father's letters... Yeah. And there was real, some of their letters, certainly some of your father's letters. Some of his letters.

Yes, some of your father's letters to your mother. Very, very passionate stuff. Yes, and quite, I mean, who wants to read about their parents' sex lives? Nobody. Nobody. So how did you feel when you read about yours? I felt slightly cringey. It was getting to know my dad in a way that I never had.

I mean, I didn't meet my father till I wrote to him when I was 23. So this was his character written all over these letters. And they start off quite sort of boyish in a way, sort of, you know, of slightly crude but they then do get quite passionate and quite neurotic because my mother was always said to be the neurotic one but it becomes clear that he was too

there's sort of a letter which he starts full of self-loathing and then he starts it again at 1am saying I should have scribbled that out and never sent that but he has sent it and then there's poems he at 1am saying, I should have scribbled that out and never sent that, but he has sent it. And then there's poems he's written, quite good poems.

So it's their love affair captured in his letters. But what is great is that she also gets her side because she writes to her sisters and their letters are incredibly frank um we think today of social media being you know let it all hang out but actually these letters that they never thought would be read by anybody else they that my aunts and my mum exchange extraordinary details about their their lives their love lives as well as as well as trivia and and she tells the whole story of the affair at one point she says i know it'll never last but um while it does oh

we've been to a party and there was some crooner that um that had a thing for him and i i'll lose him to her i looked up this crooner and she had indeed had a chart hit in 1956 or 57. So you get all of that picture. But what's extraordinary is that he was set on a course of actually marrying her at one point when she falls pregnant. And there are documents, for instance, he signs a document because she needs to get divorced. Ten years after separating, she's still not divorced from her husband. He signs a document saying, I have committed misconduct with Mrs. Rich and I am

the father of the child she's expecting. So he was playing ball for a while and then it all went wrong and there was a massive legal battle. And all the time she's trying to manage her financial affairs, she's getting jobs at the BBC, never getting to a particularly high level. But money is hugely significant to her, isn't it? It had to be. Well, it had to be because she came to London from Bristol and was desperately poor at the start with my brother, Stephen. They moved into this flat, which they thought was paradise but compared with some digs in Maida Vale um but she said the rent is high but I can just about manage it and then through my childhood uh you see the current she was determined to get me a a good education

and at one point everything hangs on me getting an assisted place from the inner london education authority and she talks about how they're going to manage and how i go around the flat switching the lights off because she's told me that they need to save we need to save money on the electricity bill and how that won't really make a difference but luckily i get the scholarship and it's painful i mean reading that genuinely is exquisitely painful all these years on because she was clearly so worried about everything. VoiceOver describes what's happening on your iPhone screen. VoiceOver on.

Settings. So you can navigate it just by listening. Books. Contacts. Calendar. Double tap to open. Breakfast with Anna from 10 to 11. And we're talking to Rory Kethlyn-Jones, author of Ruskin Park, Sylvia, Me and the BBC. This is about your mum Sylvia's life

and about her love affair, because it was a love affair with Jim Ketlin-Jones, her BBC, what was he, Lothario. I mean, it's difficult because he did advance in his own career and become the director of the Foresight Saga, I think, notably. Yeah, he was trying to climb the greasy pole at the same time as my mum.

They were both competing for sort of attachments, as they're called at the BBC, and they both got them. But then she had me, she kept on applying and didn't get any more. And she was of a certain age, she was in her 40s when she had me, and obviously nobody thought she deserved promoting. And my father had a bit of a struggle, but then ended up as a director in the early 1960s. And then the big break, he was the director of all the middle episodes of the Foresight Saga, which was the great hit. And when was it that your mum showed you your father at work without ever actually introducing you to him?

This was absolutely excruciating because I knew he was because she had changed her name by depot the day before I was born. It's one of the documents, you know, the depot, 16th of January. So I was called Ketlin Jones and it's an unusual name and he appeared in the papers during the Foresight Sagas, you know, it was a little thing in the Daily Mirror with him. So I knew him, and his credit was rolling up on the screens on a little black-and-white portico.

But when I was 13, she used to take me to Television Centre a lot, which I used to think was wonderful. It was, like, you know, much more exciting than any any theme park and used to wander around looking into the studios and one day she came with me she used to just let me roam generally but she she said no let's go into this control room we went into this room and there were these sort of silhouetted figures looking at monitors uh one curly-headed chap having a a joke with somebody next to him. It was a break in rehearsals or something. And she suddenly leant over and whispered, that's your father, and I couldn't wait to get out.

Gosh, I'm not surprised. Because the idea of meeting him in those circumstances was just horrifying. What did she expect you to be able to say in that moment? How did she expect you to react? I don in that moment how did she expect you to react i don't know i really don't know as i said she was a wonderful talented but also quite a manipulative person in some ways yeah um and i don't know whether she just wanted to embarrass him i mean it was certainly going to embarrass me it was not going to have a good outcome. No. News just in to Times Towers.

Just to interrupt for a sec, the Metropolitan Police has said that it has now received an allegation of sexual assault against Russell Brand dating back to 2003. We'll have more on that in our news bulletin at four o'clock. Rory, how do you think knowing so much about the vulnerability of love between your parents changes the way that you think about them? Because not all of us will ever have access to that kind of part of their relationship with each other. No, I think when I met my father, think uh when i met my father uh i was and was eventually welcomed into the family uh the kathlyn jones family principally by my oldest half brother simon uh i was kind of in love with this new

family they were more sophisticated than my family my mother's family were lovely people uh who i used to go and stay with mainly mainly based around Birmingham, and lovely, warm people. And these Kathleen Joneses, who are also very nice people, seem more sophisticated. And I think I fell in love with them a bit too much, perhaps, and kind of... I sort of sympathised with my dad, thinking, oh, that would have been a...

And it would have been a terrible marriage, undoubtedly. I sympathised with my dad, thinking, oh, that would have been a... And it would have been a terrible marriage, undoubtedly. But the sort of pendulum swung a bit back towards my mother because I really understood, as she had hoped, how it really was. The picture of your wedding day when you married Diane is... I gather it was a day of tremendous tension because it was the only day that your mum and your dad were together that you can remember in your life.

The pressure must have been off the scale. I know. It seems weird. It all turned out fine because all my lovely Birmingham relatives, it was Grand National Day and at the village hall where we paid for our own wedding, we don't go to either of our sets of parents for money, the relatives from Birmingham organised a sweepstake for the Grand National. Of course, we won. It must have been fixed somehow.

But I was sort of on tenterhooks as to whether my mum would say anything embarrassing, do something embarrassing. There was always potential. We announced that we were expecting a baby um and uh i saw her purse her lips and then she joined in the applause and it was kind of few we've got through that yeah yeah yes um it does the book ends i do i just find the whole thing tremendously poignant and i do recommend it to anyone who's ever even had just a passing moment where they've wondered about their parents just wondered how they got together why they got together or indeed what they were like

before they got together and your mum just emerges as a as a whole person lots with idiosyncratic woman with all sorts of prickly bits but very very human and really it was really interesting to get to know her yes and i felt i went on the same journey don't forget i found these 25 26 years ago talked briefly about them to my dad who i knew knew by then he was so embarrassed and i was so embarrassed that we kind of put it away right it's only after my dad died that i went back to the letters and really dived in and got this extraordinary picture found for instance a document showing that she'd applied to be a pilot uh in the civil air guard at the outbreak of war

and she'd always she was a terrible driver and we always used to mock her for that and she said i was going to fly solo and then war broke out and we all said mum shut up and it turned out to be true true i mean that's that yes that's just one of the many brilliant little bits in this book uh we can't let you go without asking about sophie who it seems to me this is sophie the rescue dog from romania is she getting a little bit closer to leaving leaving the compound she is getting better she well the key thing over the last month or so is that she's left the back of the sofa she used to spend most of her time behind the back of the sofa she sleeps in she's got three beds she lives in the life a life of absolute luxury um we've just had an perhaps too exciting weekend where our two grandchildren have been four and 11 months have been staying with us and she's terrified of them there was

something out of barking there but uh in previous previously she'd not seen them because she'd been hidden behind the sofa. So at least she's coming out, coming out of her shell. OK. We'd all live behind the sofa if we could, Rory. Sometimes think that's absolutely right. That's why we love Sophie. She's living all of our best lives. She's one of us, basically.

Rory Catherine Jones. It's such a poignant book, that Ruskin Park. And I think anyone who's ever just wondered a bit about their parents and about what they were really like, will enjoy that book. Yeah, it's a really clarifying thought, isn't it? To think of how your parents loved. It's just such a weird, there's so few people a party to that. I did find some funny letters once that my dad had written

to my mum when my mum was on a walking holiday in Austria and he was back home. In inverted commas. She was on a walking holiday in Austria. This is before they married and actually they're very funny letters. Yeah. They are very funny. Oh you see that stuff? Yeah. I'm not sure whether they know I've seen them. Anyway.

Can I just alert people to the fact that it is Save Your Photos Month. Did you know that? Well, actually, I think this is really interesting. I'm glad you mentioned that. Go on. Well, it's a lovely email from Amanda because we were talking ages ago about the photo

mess that we all have on our phones and on computers and WhatsApp messages people have sent to us and the fact that you think, one day I'm going to get around to doing that and you just never do. And so Amanda had had the same thought and set up a business, organising people's photos. And what does she do? I couldn't quite... So I think

she literally goes to see people, they give her the hardware, she downloads all the photos and then sorts them. So takes out all the rubbish ones when you've taken five different photographs. Because I'm always taking pictures of recipes that I never do. Well, she'd sort out all of that. Okay.

Yeah. And then what, she prints them out? Yeah. And you can ask her to sort them into different either digital folders or something else. I think it's fascinating because I was reading an article over the weekend about museums are now uh trying to find uh evidence of the stuff of covid so things like government announcements pamphlets uh face masks do you remember the stuff yes the the first leaflet all of those the leaflet saying don't go out i've kept that actually um i'm not sure what i'm going to do with it i've put put it in a drawer with my mum's World War II identity card,

which I've got. So future generations will think the war went on forever. Yeah, they will. No, but it's that, they're collecting, museums are now collecting the paraphernalia of COVID and lockdown. Yeah, well, I'm glad. Because it's history. And I've got photos of empty streets and corridors and stuff.

And maybe we should all do what we can't all plug them but you know I was going to say that if people are interested I'm going to hop on and have a look at what Amanda does so I'll pop it up on my Insta somewhere unfortunately Amanda you've got to bear with me

because it'll take me about a month to get around to doing that hence I'm terrible with photos. I will say this for F, she gets there in the end. So, Amanda, thank you for that. One for the gravestone kid. Actually, that would make sense. You will have got there in the end, won't you? Oh, boom, boom!

Right, and it's only Monday. OK, thank you very much for engaging. More, please, Jane and Fi at Timestock Radio. We really do, honestly, love hearing from you. And please, actually, I'm just enjoying the photographs of Coiffon filled with lemon puff cream. Just gorgeous. Keep them coming. Good night.

Bye-bye. You did it. Elite listener status for you for getting through another half hour or so of our whimsical ramblings. Otherwise known as the hugely successful podcast Off Air with Jane Garvey and Fee Glover. We missed the modesty class. Our Times Radio producer is Rosie Cutler,

the podcast executive producer. It's a man. It's Henry Tribe. Yeah, he's an executive. Now, if you want even more, and let's face it, who wouldn't, then stick Times Radio on at 3 o'clock Monday until Thursday every week and you can hear our take on the big news stories of the day as well as a genuinely interesting mix of brilliant and entertaining guests on all sorts of subjects.

Thank you for bearing with us and we hope you can join us again on Off Air very soon. VoiceOver describes what's happening on your iphone screen voiceover on settings so you can navigate it just by listening books contacts calendar double tap to open breakfast with from 10 to 11 and get on with your day accessibility there's more to iphone