Walking The Dog with Emily Dean - Anthony Horowitz

Episode Date: May 30, 2022

This week Emily went for a stroll in Suffolk coast with Anthony Horowitz and his Labrador, Chase. They chatted about his childhood in North London, his gap year at a cattle ranch in Australia, creating Alex Ryder and his latest Bond thriller, With A Mind To Kill. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Right, Anthony's going to throw a stick to Chase. Yeah, here we go, go on Chase. Anthony? Yeah? Do you want to throw a stick for Raymond? Yes, Raymond, here you go. Raymond, this one's for you? It didn't work.

Sorry about that. Raymond, you've embarrassed me. This week, Raymond and I travel to the beautiful Suffolk coast to meet novelist and screenwriter Anthony Horowitz and his Labrador Chase. Anthony is the man behind the phenomenally successful teen spy series, Alex Ryder, and a best-selling writer of adult fiction with books like Magpie Murders, the Hawthorne and Horowitz series,

and was chosen by both the Arthur, Conan Doyle and Ian Fleming Estates to write continuation novels for Sherlock Holmes and James Bond. Oh, and in between all that, he also created and wrote the ITV series Foils War. I mean, you're getting the picture. This man doesn't take many days off. But he does always make time for a dog walk, my kind of man, So Raymond and I joined him and Chase on their daily outing, and we had the loveliest chat. He told me about his childhood growing up in North London and his school days at rugby,

and how he was certain that he was going to be a writer from a pretty young age. And the gap year he went on working at a cattle ranch in Australia, in order to completely throw himself out of his comfort zone. Anthony also chatted to me about creating Alex Ryder, and how he kind of sensed there was something unique about this character, and he was right because the books went on to change his life. We also talked about his wife Jill. Their first date was at a theme park.

How fabulous is that? Who runs a TV production company that produces all of his literary output? Anthony is a really fascinating man. He's fiercely intelligent, very honest and self-aware. And may I say, an immaculate host, the man greeted me with cupcakes for heaven's sake. But I get the sense that writing wasn't really a choice for him. It was something he's so passionate about.

He would just never have been happy doing anything else. We talked to about his third and final book in the James Bond series with A Mind to Kill, which is out now and it's a really brilliant thriller. And also takes Bond into new territory as a slightly more kind of complex battle-scarred character in later life. But don't panic, he's still a total boss. I loved my chat with Anthony and Chase, and I really hope you do too. And do check out with a Mind to Kill. I'll stop talking now and hand over to the man himself. Here's Anthony.

And Chase and Raymond. Here we go. Come on, Raymond. Oh, do you know, I can tell instantly, Anthony, he's a proper dog walker. In what sense? You're carrying a stick behind your back. This dog has an... I called him Chase and it was exactly the right name for him

because he has an obsession with sticks. He's going to ruin this podcast as I have to stop every five seconds to throw him another stick. But it's his great loving life. He's going to make it. He's so tiny. We're going about a couple of miles. Is he going to make it?

Oh, isn't it beautiful here? This is for me one of the most beautiful views in the whole country. I can't tell you. This is what I look at when I'm writing. Orphidness, this river and the island across there, the shingle spit over there. And in the distance, do you see those pagodas? Oh, yeah. This whole area is absolutely full of history.

And those were built in the Second World War, believe it or not, to test the nuclear bomb that was going to be dropped on Japan. And they were testing with detonation mechanism in those. and they deliberately built them like Japanese pagodas. And the idea was that if the explosion was too big, it would knock out the pillars, which would bring the roof crashing down, and that would contain any for-out. There wasn't anything any nuclear material over there,

but they didn't want the blasts to do any great damage, so that's why that was designed. And all those buildings are sort of Second World War bits and pieces. There was a whole array of people over there during the war. And if you look further down the coast, take a step forward to over there. That's another building. I love, it's called Cobra Mist in the far distance. And that's a Cold War lookout.

The Americans were based there. And that was where if the Russians launched an attack on us, are the first sighting of the planes, missiles or whatever would be made in that building. And what's incredible about it is, is that when the Americans abandoned it, I think sometime in the 60s, they left behind all their equipment.

And if you can get a chance to go in there, it's not to happen to the public, but if you know someone who'll let you in, all the computers are still there. And it's like walking into an old James Bond film because it's got, you know, the flashing lights and the tapes that turn and the sort of the little screens of one sort of another. And it's all still there.

And it's sort of great, it's a huge compound. Can I just say, Anthony Horowitz, this might be the most impressive opening to any of these podcasts I've ever had. I'm not used to this. I'm not used to this. I mean, I'm used to, have you got the poo bags, love? Yeah, I'll see you later. We've got the poo bags. We've established that before we left.

I know. But this to me, I mean, I do. I look at this every single day and what is incredible about it also. You know, we're looking at this huge Suffolk sky here. And in the winter, that over there, I'm pointing east, is sort of, it's Russia and it's Siberia. And the wind comes howling in and the rain hits my windows horizontally. And it's incredibly elemental and sort of, and I feel totally alone and with my writing. And I love it.

In the summer, it is so beautiful. I swim here. Actually, in this river in front of us, I swim pretty much every day. It's got some quite strong currents. be careful and it's a bit muddy but I just love dipping in in the summer here and the best thing of all is this vast skyline every 20 minutes it's a different landscape the light changes the clouds change today it's quite cloudy and overcast a little chilly and and wind that is worrying your sound recordist over there and and yet and yet it can also be boiling hot and blue

and perfect I love it I just this is why I'm probably happier than anywhere in the world I am very thrilled and delighted. I mean, what an intro, what an opener. To be here with one of my favourite writers, I'm with the very wonderful Anthony Horowitz and we are in Suffolk. In Orford. In Orford.

And we're with Anthony's beautiful doggy. Chase, I'm doing the signal. Finger pointing to sky means clear. come. And look at this. He is, Chase, he's disgracing me. Here he is. Chase the Labrador, black Labrador, one year and seven months old. My COVID dog, obviously, bought for far too much money during the height of COVID. But I needed company. I needed to have someone with me. So Chase came into my life. My wife bought him to reduce my stress levels. Really? Yeah. And weeks after he arrived, my stress levels were over the horizon. They were higher than they

ever been all thanks to this devil dog that's what we used to call him the devil dog what do you think of my dog Anthony very small but also quite remarkable in his own way it is a he isn't it yes Raymond yes he is like a little he reminds him a little bit of something out of Star Wars sort of one of those either Yoda or one of those tribes that appeared in the first episode so what's your history with dogs Anthony Did you have dogs growing up? Yes, I had... My first dog that I remember was Sooty, the Black Labrador.

And then there were some ulzations. Major was one, and Perseus was another. And my mother also had cats. I've never been that fond of cats, to be honest with you. Why not? Because... I suppose dogs belong to you and you belong to cats. It's a different sort of relationship.

I don't like their standoffishness. I don't like their lack of loyalty, it seems to me. They're sort of independence. I want an animal that sort of really just don't sovy. Ah, chase! I just got caught by a stick. We're going to go... So should we transfer to the woods, Anthony?

Well, I did say that when we first met, but you have a choice of two options here. We could have done a river walk, which is what we've started. Or we can go into either Rendleshire or Tunstall forest, which are really beautiful. And I think are probably less windy, so suit your needs better. better. You gave us the option and we chose the wrong option, but despite that, you're being incredibly good-natured about it and you haven't once said I told you so. I would, listen, I love walking wherever I go, so. Do you? Woods or fields or whatever. Yes, I can see, you know what? Some people walk and some people are walkers. You'll strike me as a walker.

We do at least three hours a day. Chase goes out for an hour in the morning at about 6.30. then normally about two hours at lunchtime and then another hour in the evening. Wow. Three to four hours a day. The best of this country can be found on walks. I mean, for me, it's, a walk is... Hello. Hello.

Hello. A retreat from everything that's bad into everything that is best about this country. Yeah. The nature is so beautiful. The woods we're going to visit. now, I just marvel at the colors and the quietness, the wildness, the deer. You might be lucky to see deer or mojacks, bouncing about the place. I see deer, Raymond.

And for a writer, of course, it's a wonderful place to just think about the work that I have to do this afternoon. It's turnover ideas. So we're going to, how are we going to go? One car or two? You're going to jump into the back of this one if you run. one if you run. Is that right? Yeah. I can get my keys. So we're going to go in Anthony's car now to the woods. Come on. Welcome to Turnstool Forest. That's where we're going to walk instead of the slightly quieter here, less wind. Oh this looks lovely Anthony. Well as I say it is very very easy to get lost in these woods.

So this could be a podcast that lasts a week or more. This is so the start of a horror film. Well I have food about writing horror films in the woods. Chase is already in his element, Anthony. Yeah, he loves it here. He really does enjoy this walk. Come on, Raymond. You're going to have to keep up. We're with the big boys now. Come on. So, talk me through Chase. He was, the idea was that he would...

No, Chase was ill. Chase had, first of all, he had a sort of an upset stomach, which lasted many, many months, which had, I'm afraid to say, a fire hydrant effect. on the dog. My house was almost unlivable in and it didn't matter how late I took him out, how early I took him out, how often I took him out, there were still accidents happening all the time. He was also tearing almost everything to pieces, but the worst of it was, was that there was no affection between us. He didn't seem particularly happy to see me, I was getting more and more unhappy to see him. And I think the thing about having a dog is that it is a sort of a simple contract.

You, um, ah, go on, Chase, go and find that. Can't find his stick. You know, the dog's job is to love you. Yeah, I feed the dog, I look after him, I, I clear up after him and all the rest of it. And in return, all I ask is love, but he didn't get that for a time. And so, actually, it was really, it was really difficult. We even came within days of rehousing him. because, you know, it was just awful having him.

And I would have done it, but for the advice of a friend, he said that, you know, you could do that. It was reasonable enough. But if you did that, you could never have another dog. Because just as a dog has a contract with you, you have a contract to it. You don't think about getting rid of your children. And so I changed my mind, kept him.

And within weeks, he turned a corner. And what I now have is the most affectionate and sweetest dog in the world, still occasionally irritating, but we are inseparable. And why do you think that was then? Do you think it is the case with dogs if you get that what you put in? Do you think it's because you've... There's a sort of a telepathy with dogs. I mean, dogs know your moods, they know your, they know what sort of day you've had.

They know when you're coming to the house. They know, you know, when to keep quiet and when to come, you know, and ask for attention. There is a sort of a strange telepathy. And I've had dogs all my life. I mean, I grew up with dogs and... But actually, the funny thing about it is, is that it meant that I grew up walking. You know, I've never been a very athletic or fit child,

or a person, I should say, but it's... That was one thing that never changed. It would come, rain, come shine, whatever, I was out walking. And the funny thing about that is, it does do something to you. My children have also grown up, always walking, at every weekend. I remember we were between dogs once.

Our dog had died. And Jill and I were in a ballpark on the Edgeware Road. One of those places you take children where they play inside. It was hammering down with rain, soft play centre, yeah. And it was pouring with rain outside. And I said to her, you'd realise that if we had a dog, we would now be in field somewhere. We'd be out in the countryside.

And the next week we went and got our second dog, third dog. And it's true. You know, from the age of three and four, my kids have spent every weekend out and about in the countryside. And you grew up in North London, is that right? Yes, I was brought up in North London in Stammore. Yeah. I used to walk in Priory Park or Bentley Priory, it was called a huge,

not huge, it seemed huge at the time, but it was sort of an area of grassland and sort of public common land. And yeah, that's where I began my life. And it was you and your, you had a brother and a sister? still do, my older brother, younger sister. And your parents, tell me about your parents, because your dad was. But in a nutshell, my parents were,

my father was a very distant man, he was a businessman, I have a feeling he was not an altogether. I don't think he was a scrupulously honest businessman. I think he was involved in many strange dealings. My parental setup is my parents are very artsy, it was very literary, it was very bookish, And I think they were wonderful people, but there's a legacy with that kind of upbringing, because you feel you're managing stuff a bit.

You get adulted quite young. I think, listen, my parents had similarities to yours. I mean, for example, the conversation expected of a dinner table was of a high standard, and I still remember the dreadful words up to the nursery. If children at the table did not actually talk properly about interesting things, then they were no longer required up to the nursery. My father, as I say, was a businessman, large, in some form or other. And the one thing about him that I will say he gave me, which I am always grateful for,

is a love of books because he had a wonderful library. He collected Charles Dickens and Trollope and Chekhov and Dostoevsky and many, many other great writers in lovely editions. I have all these books, I inherited them. And that he gave me. He also gave me a love of cryptic crosswords, which he taught me how to do them. But apart from that, he was a very distant man. And I don't, you know, as I speak of him now, I don't really want to speak ill of the dead. But he wasn't particularly kind to me.

He ridiculed the idea of my being a writer. I said to him at the age of about 13 and 14 that I wanted to write, and that was what I was going to do. And he just never ever took it seriously. Indeed, he mocked me endlessly for it. And I find that very strange, having two sons. The one thing I've never done is to belittle them. I mean, you know, I get angry with them, and we, you know, sometimes we have, you know, like any family, we have discussions. But I would never say anything deliberately to undermine their ambitions.

And so I don't understand what was in his head, really. But there you go. And you also had something similar to me, which is the sort of slight... That's just me cracking a stick for the dog. ...veillance, bailiffs turning up, because we had that. Do you think that sort of inspired you in a way? Do you think you thought, right, I don't want to be in a... that situation again, you know, that you were left with nothing suddenly.

Well, I was about 20-something years old when my father went bankrupt for the second time in his life. By then, I already knew exactly what I wanted to do. So I don't think I would particularly influence one way or another in terms of career or whatever. I mean, the one thing I took from my father's, not just his bankruptcy, but the fact that all his money disappeared. What happened was he died, and about a week later the first of ten or eleven letters turned up on my mother's doorstep, which all began the same way. There Mrs. Horowitz, we'd like to offer you our condolences for the loss of your husband. We feel we should point out that he had debts of this amount, which you now are earth. And those 11 letters added up to every single penny that she had in her name.

She also discovered that she had signed away to him, her properties, her insurer. her pensions, everything she had had gone because she was a sort of woman who would sign a document. I mean this is quite common then. Yeah. Without, you know, husband says sign it, so she does. But it was quite shocking. I mean, it really was. The bailiffs didn't come. We managed to salvage something out of the wreckage.

There was one thing that he hadn't been able to get from her, which allowed us to buy a very small house. Yeah. In Stamwell, where she lived until she died, which was incidentally not that much later, only 10 years later. So, you know, thinking about my parents, I miss my mother very much. You know, whenever anything good happens to me in my world, you know, if I have a book published or a nice review or a child is born, gosh, you know if she's that came third on the list. When good things happen to me, I always want to ring her and she's not here to take that call. Yeah, that must, that must, that's complicated, though, what you went through.

So I think people that go through stuff like that, because you say you've been honest about this and you've got up. in privilege, Rolls Royces and staff and all that goes overnight. Well, actually, well, I never much liked all that privilege. I mean, I know it's easy enough to say that. Look, you know, people say, why is he complaining? You know, Rolls Royces and servants, isn't that what everybody wants? And how dare he be so smug or whatever to sort of say, but he didn't want it? But the truth is that I wasn't happy as a child.

I mean, as I've said before, rich kids are unhappy too. too and I was very unhappy and I've spoken too much and too often about the prep school where I was sent when I was eight years old which was brutal and which was psychologically extremely damaging and unpleasant and to this day I have no idea why my parents sent me there when I was so clearly unhappy I wish I could ask them but it's a it's um I've I was in love with writing and with books and with literature and with stories and and adventure escape chases, action, twists and turns, all that sort of stuff, at the age of 10 and 11 years old.

And it was the single lifeline that took me through my life. And it's all I've ever done. You know, I'm a one-trick pony. I write. That's all I can do. And I love it as much now as I did when I wrote my first novel, which was an astonishing 57 years ago. Actually, it wasn't a novel, it was a play. But, you know, it's a...

Do you remember when you first realised, you know, I often ask comedians, when you first realized that comedy could be a currency for you, if you like. When did you realise with writing that you had a talent? Well, currency isn't how I look at it first of all. It was my life. I realised that writing was my life, and I realized it very simply. I was a fat, stupid, unpopular kid in a brutal and horrible school. And first of all, I discovered the library and began to read.

And the first books I liked, Willard Price Stories, Jungle Adventure, Shark Adventure, Lion Adventure, have the same thing in common, adventure, escape. And Tintin, I loved Tintin, because Tintin had secret passages. And I always saw story as a secret passage out of reality that you could get out of an Orly farm, which is the name of the school. I'm sure a lovely place now. Their lawyers and sister, I always say that.

But I could escape from this place by escaping into story. And so in the dormitory at night, where there were seven or eight of us in each dormitory, I began to tell the other kids' stories. And the extraordinary thing was, was having been told by every teacher that I was useless and stupid and had no talent, I discovered that they were wrong. Actually, I did have one talent, which was the ability to tell stories, in which the other kids enjoyed.

And because of this, I began to make more friends. And so story was, at that very, very early age, the answer to everything. But, you know, there are no rules in writing. People come to writing very late in life. There can be 60-70. You think about Alexander McWold-Smith, who became enormously successful, you know, at a late stage in his life. But then also I've met writers like Jeffrey Archer and Pritchik Forsight,

who both of them didn't want to be writers. but just needed money and decided that the fastest way to get it would be to write a best-selling book and do it and wrote many, many more books after that. And both of them slightly shocked me because their animus for writing was so alien to what I believe and what led me. But it made me realise that I'm not necessarily right. Whenever a writer talks about writing, they're only talking about their own writing, we know nothing about anybody else's. So tell me, I'm interested to know, that was really kind of the making of you in a lot of ways. Well, again, I feel a little embarrassed about it because, you know, I've changed so much in my view of politics and,

and how I see the world in recent years particularly, and I now even begin to question for the first time whether public schools are actually good for young people, good for the country, etc. But the truth is that back in, what was it? Ah, I was in school about 13, so that's 1968, actually, the end of the 60s. Yeah, rugby was, was, was, was, was, well, was, was a revelation to me. I mean, it was, there, there was, what was great about rugby? It was not the, you know, the school, the establishment, the, the, the traditions, the sort of, you know, the privilege of it all. It was three people, actually. It was Mr. Brown drama, Mr. Alden language, and Mr.

Hellywell, um, literature, who all three in their own way saw the writer in me for the first time in my life, encouraged me to write better, to, to, to, to, to, to explore more, to read more serious literature. I'll never forget Mr. Hellywell telling me to read The Go-Between by O.P. Hartley, which is sort of a bridge novel between popular fiction and great literature. And I was so knocked out that books could do what that book did emotionally. I mean, it's such a terribly sad book. But you know, it's interesting, I returned to it,

because exactly that I read it when I was a similar age, I returned to it recently and it's so evocative. There are certain books like that, aren't there, which... Well, also, if you ever get a chance to see the film, screenplayed by Harold Pinter, it is genius. Alan Bates, Julie, Christy, Edward Fox, but it's such a wonderful film and captures the books so brilliantly.

And that's always stayed with me in my life, which, of course, all great books do. Not only books that are great in the sense of being literary great, like, you know, your first Charles Dickens or whatever, but books that you love have a habit of never leaving you, which is what's so great about reading? Chaser spotted some... Oh, we have a, the woods are,

there are forestry people working in these woods and they do chop down trees from time to time, but they seem to manage everything very well. Hello! Did you do all that? I thought it might be YouTube. Very well done. Oh look there you go, I said we might see a deer

and one's just crossed our path, just up there beyond that yellow thing. Do you see a little baby deer crossing our path? I don't know why it is, but that to me is just one of the most wonderful aspects of walking in these woods. I know there are thousands of deer. We've just seen one of them, but something, something magical about that. But look, we're going to go down, this is an absolutely gorgeous path to our right, isn't it? Look at that.

This is so beautiful. There you are. I will now throw a stick. Right, Anthony's going to throw a stick to Chase. Yeah, here we go, go on Chase. Anthony? Yeah? Do you want to throw a stick for Raymond?

Yes, Raymond. Here you go. Raymond. This one's for you? It didn't work. Sorry about that. Raymond, you've embarrassed me. Come on.

When you were at school, which group were you in? Because I tell you, I was in, I called it the Pretty Team, and I would cling on by my fingernails to the Pretty Team, but never quite got accepted. So I thought, I'm going to be quite easy to get to be quite easy to get along with and bubbly and make jokes, but I was in a permanent state of fear of being excommunicated. And if I had my time again, I'd think, no, I wouldn't be in the pretty team,

because it was horrible. What were your friends like, and did you attach yourself to a particular group? I think I was in the sort of reading, drama, literacy, intellectual, depressive, worrying about the end of the world team. I was always, and I was also very much, I liked from the very start, I've always felt, actually, to answer your question honestly. But if it's been one problem in my life, it's that I've never really been part of a team, I've always been on my own. And that's true now as a writer and as in everything I do. You know, I've got wonderful friends, I have wonderful supporters, my publishers are brilliant and my agent is fantastic.

And all the people who work with me are part of, I suppose, the work team. Yeah. To you honest with you, I've always, and maybe walking in these woods on my own is sort of part of that. I've always felt to myself to be rather alone. But that's probably not a bad thing in some ways because it means you're self-sufficient and self-reliance. No, it's not good, it's not good because it's people are everything. People are, you know, how can you have complete happiness or complete fulfillment without other people? After rugby, you went to Australia, didn't you?

That's correct. I was a jaccaroo for eight months. What's a jacaroo, actually? I bet I'm the only writer you've ever interviewed, who with a penknife has turned a living cow or bull into every constituent steak. Fillet, rump, sirloyne, tenderloin, whatever. Does it put you off meat, that? I thought it would, because I was never a big meat eater when I started the job. But after a couple of weeks there, you know, it was just doing it. I would eat the biggest steak in the world at six in the morning for breakfast

because you just needed the protein. The reason I did the whole thing was, was that I was vaguely, I was aware I wanted to be a writer. And I was also aware that I was very privileged and had seen very little of the real world because I was obviously, you know, prep school, public school. So I wanted to do something that would really shake up my system. Something that was completely alien to me. I couldn't ride.

So obviously a job where horse riding was 50% of the activity was a good start. I never forget turning up at the cattle station, a place called Anthony Lagoon, where the first thing... Can I just say? I think that's the first for this podcast. I'll never forget turning up at the castle station. I'm glad to hear you, I'm giving you new material. Anyway, the first thing they said was, here's your saddle and this is your horse. Had you never ridden? I'd never ridden.

So I said to them, that's more or less what they said to me. So they gave me the saddle. They said, I'm going to do this for you once. And once only. And if ever the saddle comes loose and you fall off and whatever, that's your lookout. And he did the saddle and showed me how to do it and how other thing. And after that, I did it by myself.

And then I had to get on it and learn, first of all, how to sort of, you know, control the damn thing and how to wear, you know, where the reverse lever was and all the rest of it. And then how to canter and gallop. And one of my favorite tricks I learned. And we're walking down a narrow avenue in this way, which is not actually that dissimilar to some of the

places I saw in Australia where between the trees, there were these tree spiders that would pull really, really thick webs between the trees, big enough to catch birds in. So that's how strong they were. And if you rode through them at speed, which we were doing, if you were chasing after some cow, and it cut into your face, it was like having a wire dipped in acid pulled across your face. It was really painful. So one of the tricks I very quickly learned was how to keep galloping, not slow down, but

go side saddles so that your head is low, you know, you're horizontal to the horse, so your head close to the ground and going underneath these webs. So I became quite a good sort of trick rider at that time. But hang on, wait, this is quite extraordinary to me. Most people, you're saying you went through that system. What most people do is say, this is nice, I'm just going to carry on. I've got, life's quite easy for me. You decided to completely throw yourself out of your comfort zone. That tells me a lot about you. Well, it tells you that, A, that I had the opportunity to do it, which comes with privilege. I must be honest.

I mean, it wasn't exactly an escape. And also, I didn't go and work in a hospital in Nepal, sort of looking after sick children. So it was also, in a way, moderately or completely selfish. But that said, the opportunity he was there, because my father had a business contact, curiously. He was still alive at the time, who owned a cattle ranch in Australia, and therefore that's how I got in, which in itself was sort of weird nepotism of a very peculiar sort, because these people, you know, they were horrified when I turned up, really, this public schoolboy sort of, you know, good morning, sir, reporting, Anthony reporting for duty, horror, it's minor.

But, you know, I made a rule to myself, which is that anything I was asked to do, anything they asked me to do, I would do. So I did my own bushtucker challenges. I remember that one day we were doing a castrating of bulls, and they then cooked the testicles on the branding fire and said, here you go, eat this. So I did. And because it was, if I hadn't, it would have been giving in to sort of, you know, to their perceptions of me. Well, one of my favourite, I would tell you my favourite moment in Australia, because I did this every day. My job, because I was the new boy, was to go out every morning at about 4.30 and bring in the other horses. So the horses that were on all day long are out in the paddock at night. And then somebody has to go out and bring them in.

So one horse is kept back at the station and you go out on it by yourself. And I would go out. And the fact that I could now ride, and I could get on the horse, satellite it and get on it. And then I could steer it out to where I needed to be and go to the other 14-15 horses and then ring them back in again with the sun just beginning to come up behind the horizon. Huge red ball of fire coming up behind it. And you're talking about hundreds of miles of empty land.

The cattle station itself was bigger than London and it was just one of many. It was, to me, I mean, it's a bit, the sad part of all this is that I'm not sure I've had an experience in my life quite as fulfilling as that since I was 18 and 19. I think it's probably really, was a crucial, it sounds like, experience in some ways for you, in terms of the teachable moments. I'll tell you one of the experience from this.

I decided I would go back from Australia overland. I wouldn't fly back. I would go back on what was, although I didn't know it, the journey of a lifetime, because nowadays, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, these are the countries I went through. But I'll never forget that I took a train from Madras to Calcutta, which is pretty much the length of India. And I finally got to Calcutta, as it was called then, and I was starving hungry. I hadn't eaten for three days. So the first thing I did was to buy an ice cream.

And I took one mouthful of this ice cream to eat it, and it felt a powder on my mouth. It was like a year old. It was utterly disgusting. So I took the, I know, this is a moment. I just will never forget in my life. So I just threw it in a dustbin and then watched as from all sides of a station, tiny children, age six, seven and eight years old, ran in rags to this dustbin and began to punch each other out to get this ice cream out and then one of them got it and et cetera. And that was, if you like, one of the most formative moments in my entire life. I still see it now, this brawl. And it just brought home to me, the sort of, you know, poverty, inequality and status and status.

taking things for granted, etc. And, you know, that gap year, gap years were invented, really, not for rich kids to sort of just indulge themselves, but to try and learn more, to try and escape from their upbringing. And that's what it did for me. Yeah. What an extraordinary story that I can see that would have had such an impact on you. And you initially went into advertising, didn't you?

Well, I went to York University for three years, yes. where I met my wife, no, not my wife, Jill, I met my wife Jill in advertising later, but... Were you happy at university? Yeah, I wasted my time there, I think, to an extent. Yeah. At that time I wanted to go into theatre, I was very interested in drama, and so I was writing plays and directing plays and I'm very much active in sort of drama and comedy and all those sorts of areas. And... That never happened for me. And then I came out to university and thought, well, okay, I,

Since I can't get into theatre, I'll write a children's story, which I did pretty soon afterwards whilst working in advertising. That's where you met. Your wife, Jill. My wife, Jill. What was it right when you met her? Do you remember her the first time? Of course, I remember it vividly.

Yeah. I was very well known in the advertising agency because of having published a couple of books already. So I was sort of the up-and-coming famous novelist sort of thing. And she came into my office and she sought one of my books on that. And she said, you write this? I said, yes. And she threw it down and said, well, you haven't sold it yet. meaning that copy. And I disliked her intensely immediately, but she disliked me even more.

We really did not get on a tool well. Within two weeks, she had gone to her superior and said that she would leave the agency unless she didn't have to work with me. And then things bubbled on like this for quite a while. And what changed everything was that she had Thorpe Park was an account of hers, the amusement park. And she put up a notice saying if anybody wanted to come with her, she had to go to Thorpe Park for the weekend, and she would be very happy to take somebody as her guest. And I applied because I loved, still do, loved theme parks.

And so we had a weekend together at Thorpe Park, or maybe it was just a day together. And I remember, I'll never forget this, coming back in the car on the motorway, they were doing a critique of a Radio 4 play, radio play that had been on. And it was by me. It was my play, one of my very first earliest stump of productions. And Jill listened to this, and I was clearly

moderately impressed after all. And anyway, I'd got to know her better on the course of this day. She hated rides incidentally, which was sort of interesting, but came on them anyway. And we sort of hit it off and began a sort of a secret romance, which lasted two or three years, and then we got engaged and got married. That was a long time ago.

And she remains. As I, she remains my best friend, without any doubt, she's, she now, we now work together. She is the most brilliant producer I know to, you know, we're just doing a show at the moment. A murder mystery set in the Mexican jungle. You know, and as always, you know, I write a script and I'm sure it's perfect. And then she reads it and she sort of has to break the news to me that it isn't and that actually it could be a lot better. But that's quite a feat, you know, to be able to pull that off as a couple, you know, a romantic couple as well. I've always been very difficult to work with.

Are you? Yeah. I'm very driven. I really fight every inch of my work, often when I shouldn't. I mean, I'm slow to accept that I haven't got something right. But Jill is, you know, Vampire Moly's is a very good example. I wrote four of the six scripts, and I was convinced I'd got it right, and she was convinced I hadn't.

And it took me a long time to listen to her and understand that it had to be much more focused on the main character Susan Ryland, much less about sort of detective stuff. And it was exactly the right observation to make. And, you know, it's, I should listen to her first time, but even now I still row with her about, you know. So you had become a pretty successful writer in your 20s, hadn't you, Anthony? I mean, you were earning a reasonable living out of it, and you were, but it was... I've never equated success and money. I, I, yes, obviously, one is a byproduct to the other, but because of my father and his pursuit is his very one-minded pursuit of money, investment, shares, stuff, I've always, you know, I'm not begrudging or pretending

I don't earn money because that's ridiculous. But I don't let it guide me. When I do jobs for money, they always go wrong. I've only done it twice in my life where I've felt God I need some money to pay off this mortgage and I've taken a job and it just destroys the creative impulse. It's completely undermines everything I'm doing. I suppose the time when everyone first, that was your kind of wonder wall, was Alex Ryder, really. The great thing about Alex Ryder was, was that I meet 30-year-olds, 35-year-olds now, often holding children who, in a blink of an eye, transformed back into 10-year-olds because they're meeting me and they read Alex when they were 10. And it's, you know, there aren't many good things about getting old. In fact, there are none. But one thing I do love is that meeting

and that focal point and the feeling that accidentally, I have, A, introduced a very large number of young people to the pleasures of reading, and B, have been part of, you know, a tiny part, a molecule in their bloodstream for all their life. Did you ever have a moment when you were writing those books? Is there a point when you turn around and think, oh my God, I think this is, I think this is going to be massive? I had written 10 or 11 children's books with very, very limited success before I wrote Stormbreak. in about 1999, 2000. And you asked if there was a sort of a knowledge

that this was going to be big. I will never forget Jill saying to me, why are you writing kids' books? You have a television career now. By then I was writing TV. There is no audience for these books. Why are you doing another one? And I said to this one is going to be the one that changes everything.

And I sure knew it because it was completely different to all the other books I'd done. It was a different world, a different sort of, different sort of different idea, a different type of writing. It was the first children's book I wrote. There wasn't a children's book. It was what I used to call an adult book for kids. That was how I always thought of it.

And at that time, although you wouldn't believe it, there were no books like it. I mean, you know, it was just the right idea at the right time. But that interesting me, you mentioned the go-between, because I sort of think in a way, that was an adult book that kids could appreciate. Well, I think there is something in that. I read that when I was about 1819.

So I was sort of, you know, one of those, I think it's very interesting, the books that sort of take children out of children's books into a more adult, out world. Alex was a real kid. He wasn't having an adventure. He wasn't having fun. It wasn't all a jape. It was quite serious. Since you mentioned my father, the very, very first line of Stormbreaker is a strong memory I have of my father's death. The first line of Stormbreaker is when the doorbell rings at three in the morning, it's never good news. And when I say that to you,

I'm sitting in my house in Stammore, in the bedroom, and it's not the doorbell, it's the telephone that rings at three in the morning. And I know, because my father is in hospital, seriously ill, but it can only be one thing. It is a hospital ringing to say, come now, which of course it was and we did and we arrived too late. He was dead when we got there. So that first line had that emotional punch for me that has always stayed with me and sort of directed those books. And of course, Stormbreaker did way better than anything I'd written before. And then after that, every single book I wrote, sort of in the Alex Riders, series just doubled on the sales numbers until suddenly I never saw or thought that the

books would have quite such a huge impact. You became an incredibly successful TV writer as well. It seems like every time you think, oh I'll try this, it just becomes this runaway success. Well, I've had failures too. I mean, you've got, I think when I talk to schools, I always say, you've got to embrace failure. And if you believe everything you do is going to succeed, if you're afraid of failure, then you are short-changing yourself. You know, one of the things that I've always thought about with writing is that it is in itself a sort of an adventure. And right now, I could be doing the 35th Alex Rider book, and nothing else. That would be enough. I don't need to do anything else, but to me, that would

be anathema, it would be just a, you know, the joy of writing is, is challenging myself. My drama writing, my stage plays have always been catastrophic failures. I mean, you know, the I say the last one, which was dinner with Saddam, equally divided the critics. Half of them hated it. Half of them loathed it. It was a, it's, it's, it's, I can't seem to get it right. But you see, the challenging thing fascinates me because I, I now go back to the boy on the cattle ranch in Australia. I see, I see, I see patterns, Anthony.

Well, you might be right. I've had a lot of therapy, that's why. I think I've never had therapy. I'm much too scared. Have you not? I had, I, I, when I was, during the second COVID, I had to get a bit of help just to sort of, get me through it because I was so low, but no, I'm too nervous of therapy because I'm frightened that if I untangle the sort of preconceptions and preoccupations and the sort of

worries that I have and the sadness that I'll damage my writing. I think that the moment you accept happiness as a concept as something that is, that exists in itself, if you like, the moment you, that's the moment you'll never have it. It'll always be just around the corner. You are in an extraordinary position because not only were you approached by the Arthur Conan Doyle estate essentially, or how did that happen and Ian Fleming's estate?

Well, first of all, I made a conscious decision to move into adult writing because I was aware that as a children's author, I was with every year that passed becoming more distant from my audience and I didn't like that. I wanted, I needed to be... No, actually it was two things. It was, first of all, the new kids, kids growing up now,

I understand less. I don't have eight-year-olds of my own anymore to observe. And secondly, I felt a sort of a proprietorial interest in hanging on to the kids who had read me. I wanted to say to them, look, you don't need to read anybody else. I can still write for you now that you're 20, 30, 40. So I began to start thinking about adult books. The first one, talking about failure as a killing joke,

was really, really disliked by just about everybody. But then after that, I started planning another adult book called Magpie Murders, which eventually I wrote, and that wasn't a failure. That worked very well. And at around about that time, I was approached by the Doyle estate, would I be interested in writing Sherlock Holmes?

And it's a daunting prospect, I suppose. James Bond is more daunting than Sherlock Holmes, because the people who, when I'm writing Sherlock Holmes, I'm back in Victorian London. You know, it's back over the end of the 19th century. And although there are enormously passionate Sherlock Holmes societies and such, and, you know, people who are massively interested, it isn't quite the same as Bond where you have this sort of feeding frenzy. As soon as a writer announces that he or she is going to write a,

Bond novel and where a single wrong word, you know, can cause all sorts of ructions. I revere Doyle's writing. I think he's a fantastically good writer and one worry I did have was would I be able to write a book as good as anything he did? The answer to that is almost certainly not, but that said, The House of Silk, my first Sherlock Holmes novel, was, I think, a fairly decent stab. And Moriarty is the second one I did, is one of my favorite books, if only because it has such a sort of a horrifically unpleasant ending. by which I don't mean nasty, violent. I just mean unexpected and sort of really.

So, and then from there, so yeah, that was the first one I did. And then the Fleming estate called. And that was sort of a no-brainer. So, no, you know, writing Bond, three books, a trilogy now, beginning of his career, middle of his career, and now with a mind to kill the end of his career,

is my swan song, it's my goodbye to Bond. And as I say that, I sort of, feel a sense of loss because being immersed, when you write a continuation level, it is an opportunity to live with that character, to be inside the world, to experience being inside the book rather than outside it. And I've loved it.

I mean, you know, the work I've done has found favor with the majority of the core bond fans, which is important to me. And it matters to me that they above all should should, I like what I'm doing. But interestingly, I was able to read your latest book, which is absolutely brilliant, and I felt it so stood in its own right as just a brilliant thriller, just a phenomenal piece of writing. He's really complex and he's complicated and he's sort of full of,

he's reached this point in his life, hasn't he, where he's starting to question things about? First of all, thank you very much. What a nice thing to say. this Bond is slightly tarnished. He's slightly less... He's older and he's slightly wiser. And when I was writing it, I was worrying that the book

might lose the qualities that make Bond great. So I had to temper all that psychological stuff with action sequences. And, you know, putting in... All that stuff that happens, that fight on London Bridge, and particularly the one in the Russian underground system and the sort of the climax itself

for the tension at the end of the book. So it is an adventure story, but it is, it is markedly different to the first two, and I just hope that people will understand that that Bond was changing in Fleming's hands too. I mean, if you read The Golden Gun, man with the golden gun, or you only live twice, you are seeing the beginnings of a more reflective older Bond, and I've just merely sort of, you know, tapped into that. But of the three books, I'm tempted to say it's my favourite, if only because of the things that you just said about it so very kindly, that it is sort of of, you know, it is about something. It's actually a book about character and about psychology

and about... Yeah, I found him a fascinating character and I... So was it to do three, that was always the deal and that's why? It wasn't. I was going to do one. That was a deal originally. It was one book. And, you know, the book Chukomortis came out. It was liked. It was very well reviewed and sold well. And I think what happened was, the Fleming Estate realized that their plan of having a new writer for every book. didn't quite work because it stopped continuity. You know, if you liked one book, so you loved, you know, you want Sebastian Fork's first one you love,

you want another one by Sebastian Fork's and now it's somebody else. And so after my one, they decided they would stop doing that and they would start having one writer do them. And I was a lucky writer who therefore got to do three. So after Sugar Mortis are forever in a day, and then, you know, would you actually do a third one? I thought for about 15 seconds, said yes. And what's your process? I realise that's something you get asked a lot, but people are

fascinated, I think, by the writing process. So are you sort of regimented and disciplined and is it sort of right? We start at nine and you take half an hour for lunch and how does it work your day? I don't like those words regimented and discipline because I don't think they go quite well with writing. I think that once you start trying to sort of, look, again, I said earlier to you that every writer is different and every writer has their own game plan. But for me, I write when I want to write and I don't really look at the clock I don't do a do a word count I read once that you worked on Christmas you wrote on Christmas Day I think Jill might said that once I'm really surprising about that because I'm not very fond of Christmas

Day why not well partly because when I was a child a number of really quite unpleasant relatives used to turn up and it one of my earliest memories is was that loss of innocence and it wasn't to do with, you know, is or isn't there a father Christmas? It was do my parents actually like their family? No, they don't. And are these people nice or are they rapacious and really quite horrendous, which many of them were? I wrote a book about my grandmother called Granny. You can still read it. Also my relatives tended to die on Christmas Day. My father, my mother, all three out of my four grandparents all died within sort of splitting distance of Christmas Day. So I have a sort of a dislike of it for that reason too.

But anyway, I tend to, look, you've got to understand something. It's not a case of having to be like an NHS junior doctor or somebody working at a, you know, at a car factory where you have to clock in and work and that's the job. For me, I'm incredibly lucky that, look, I love writing, every aspect of writing completely. And therefore, I can work 10 hours in a day without thinking of his work. I want to ask Anthony about his boys because...

Okay. I think you seem like such a lovely dad because I think... I do actually. You have to interview Cass, I think, or Nick, and see if you get the same from them. I don't know. I always joke with them

that they'll write their autobiography. And that is I have said terrible things. about my parents, they'll have a few words about me. Because time does tend to exaggerate the faults and perhaps diminish the sort of the virtues. One of my favourite poems is the Philip Larkin one. You know, they muck you up your mum and dad. For your listeners, I very carefully, you know, just censored the swear word in that first line. And my other great, my other favourite Philip Larkin poem, which is so appropriate here, this is the first thing I have understood. Time is the echo of an axe within a wood.

So I'm interested that you grew up in, you know, as you've said, there was, things weren't always, as they quite seemed, perhaps. There was subterfusion and secrecy. Yes. And it seems like you've wanted to bring your kids up completely the opposite way, where you're quite open. Absolutely. Yeah. In fact, you know, it's a very, it's such a good question because, or it's such a perceptive question. It sounds a bit condescending, forgive me, but it was very much part of my feeling when I had children,

that they should know everything about me, the good and the bad. They've been involved in every aspect of my world. They've read the books, they've criticised the books, they've appeared in the TV shows. And every aspect of me, there's no mysteries, you know, good or bad. They'll never, they can never pretend. Like, you know, as I talk about with my father, not knowing who. who he really was. Yeah. But also there is part of the modern generation that, you know, I think that things have changed. My younger son calls me Tony. I would never have called my dad by his

person name, not a million years. And Tony instead, you know I hate being called Tony, but he does. And uh, and you're lost to Tony. Life has changed. You know, the days when, when parents were on a different planet to their children are over. And what I've loved about having children is that their friends always just saw me as a friend almost. I mean, you know, yes, I was this, dad, yes I was older, but that said that, you know, there was no formality. No, you know, when I was a kid, it was oh good morning, Mr. Smith, how very nice to meet you. You know, I hate being called. I hate being called Mr. Horowitz even now. I mean, I just do because it just belongs to another time, another place. Besides, I don't like the name terribly,

but that's sort of, but that's sort of, I always thought, I've always had a slight theory of it if I'd have a simpler name, I'd have an easier career. Because it's just, I saved his after having yesterday signed, finished signing 3,000 copies of you to kill. And it's such a long name to have to write on the page. Look at my dog, isn't he looking at sweet? Chase! Yeah, your boys? Yeah, you want to ask about the boys. I want to know about them because they're super successful. Okay, tell me what do you want to know?

When they were born, what did you think, I want these, I want to make sure these boys never finished the sentence. I wanted them to be nice. That was the mostly important thing. I wanted them to be kind. I wanted them just, I didn't care really about their income or their ambition or the, you know, obviously there's a party that hopes they would be successful and such, but above all, I wanted them just to be nice. That's the most important thing in the world, really. And it's amazing how many people aren't, particularly now. If it's one thing that's happened into this country in the last 10 years, it's this sort of this rise of anger and envy and dislike and the desire to destroy people. And I just don't want them to be part of that,

which, of course, having one son in the middle of politics is a problematic. Are we allowed to explain why that is? Look my son Cass is a special advisor to Rishi Sunak, to the Chancellor. Is he like a strategic advisor? He works on sort of image, actually. Image and sort of our presentation and communication, I suppose, would be his three main areas. I reckon put him in the slides, because the slides were... Well, I mean, and I will say that, you know, as much as I have an animus against the present government,

Rishi Sunnacht does seem to have behaved very well towards Cass and has been... Cass and has been loyal to him and has been a good employer. But your boys, it's interesting. Were you always, because you're obviously, you came as you say from Privilege, then you lost it. And then you and your wife Jill, yes. Built this incredible life together for your family.

How do you square that, that you know there was that fire? Even though you came from Privilege originally, you did have that fire because you lost it. How do you deal with that when you've got relative, and you're relatively successful financially now with your kids. I mean, all their lives, they've been, you know, they're, that's the other thing. Ah. They are.

Can I just say? My dog just beat you with a large stick. I'm not going to lie, I'm, Chase. What can I do? I can have him jailed. He literally grope me. No, he did not grope you. The stick, the stick that he was carrying a very large stick in his mouth.

Oh, the stick. It wasn't to him, but the stick. Oh, it was the stick. Tapped you as he tried to get past. I cannot really have you ending this. rather enjoyable interview by saying that my dog has sexually harassed you and that therefore we have now got to go to the police or whatever. I'm just saying he's a bit handsy. Um, I don't, well, first he hasn't got any hands. Secondly, um, it was a stick and thirdly, thirdly, he's too young to

understand any of this. And he's a dog. You try that defence in court, mate. It was a stick. That's what we're going to see. See how it gets you. Chase, now look what you've done. So go on. So you're, I'm interested by kids that. I've always said that my job was to look after if they were 18, hope where they were nice. then after that they're sort of on their own. They're not because we are a very, very close family. I really think it's important. Oh, God, yes. Nicholas was up here just last weekend. When I was plotting this walk so that we wouldn't all get lost, he came with me so that we would, you know, and helped me when I did get lost.

Have you created the family experience that he perhaps wanted when you were younger? I think that the family I had as a kid was so bizarre and so peculiar that anything I had done. If I had moved the entire family, we decided to live in Igloos in the Arctic. circle. That would have been a more normal childhood than the one I had. So, no, I haven't in any way. If anybody has sorted out this family and made it what it is, it's not me, it's Jill. Jill. Jill saved me from, you know, what I was after my schooling and after my own background, and she has been the dominant influence on my children. She is the one who, if there is any problem, they will ring, not me. So, so I can't claim credit here anyway, but, um,

what about, I want to know what happens on the Horowitz is going away? let's say let's go back in time a bit yeah who's the stressor who's the oh my god we're not going to get to the airport on time oh my god we haven't got the currency i'm never late i'm always i'm always hours and hours too early for anything are you i started preparing for this interview at sort of seven this morning so it was uh you know because because because you were coming house has got to look nice and all the rest of it come on raymond oh he's really likes you do you see do you look we've come full circle there is the car we didn't get lost at all oh come on chase well i've absolutely loved

after our walk, Anthony. Well, so have I am, and it's been really lovely, lovely way to talk. You are right, it seems a very special to be always to just... It's a gentle way to talk, and also, I always knew I was a fan of your books, but I'm quite a fan of yours now as well. Oh, sweet of you to say so, and I was looking forward to this and it lived up to all its expectations, so... Well, thank you so much. We can have another cup of tea and savour things now. You can say, actually, you know, I really hate your books, I didn't want to say it on it.

And I really urge you to buy Anthony's... And he's called with a mind to kill. With a mind to kill. And it's absolutely fantastic. Anthony, what do you call Raymond? Raymond, Raymond, come to heal. You, Raymond. Bye-bye, Anthony.

Bye-bye, Chase. I really hope you enjoyed listening to that. And do remember to rate, review and subscribe on iTunes.