Walking The Dog with Emily Dean - Tony Parsons

Episode Date: March 8, 2021

This week Emily is joined by best-selling novelist, Tony Parsons and his Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, Stanley. They spoke about his Essex childhood, his memories of George Michael, how he bonded with David Bowie over a shared life experience and what it felt like when his book ‘Man and Boy’ went on to become a global phenomenon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I was always very close to my mum. Love my mum. You know, girlfriends were always amazed. I'd find my mum every day. So, you know, I'd been some drug-soaked holiday in, you know, with people throwing televisions out of the window. And I'd be calling my mum in Billerickie, you know, to make sure she was all right.

You know, see how she'd done on the lottery. This week on Walking the Dog, I chatted to broadcaster, columnist and best-selling novelist Tony Parsons and his beautiful Cavalore King Charles Spaniel, Stanley, who, it turns out, has the best teeth I've ever seen on a dog. It was honestly like Jim Carrey in canine form. Tony is someone I first became aware of in the 80s when he was a high-profile music journalist and married to fellow writer Julie Birchall. He famously co-wrote George Michael's first autobiography called Bear, but it was his novel man and boy about a single parent dad that

saw him become a household name as an author and the book went on to sell over two million copies. Tony's now a successful crime novelist with his hugely popular detective hero, Max Wolfe, and he's recently written a gripping psychological thriller called Your Neighbors' Wife. Tony's a fascinating man to chat to. We talked about his Essex childhood, how answering an ad for a music writer changed his whole life, and what it felt like when his book, Man and Boy went on to become such a global phenomenon. He also shared his memories of George Michael, who he got to know pretty well, and he told me about bonding with David Bowie over their shared experience of being single-parent dads.

I found Tony a really interesting man to talk to. I mean, I found it interesting. Stanley lay on Tony's sofa snoring throughout. You can't get the audiences these days. Do check out Tony's latest book, Your Neighbors' wife, by the way, as it's a great read. And yes, there is a dog in it, Ray. And no, it's not you. You're already in my book. How much real estate do you want for heaven's sake? I really hope you enjoy my chat with Tony and if you do please remember to rate review and subscribe here's Tony and Stanley Well look I'm going to get my dog Ray

I don't know, is Stanley with you Tony? Yeah he's asleep on the sofa Yeah he is uh he's uh he's there I can he can make a guest appearance at any time yeah He's sleeping off he's sleeping off his morning walk The old boy he's getting he's knocking on a bit now Did you take him out this morning Take him out every morning

Yeah take him out absolutely every morning every morning, every evening. Yeah, we're out there. Well, I'm going to get Ray, Tony. We're going to start now. But before we do, I'm going to get Ray. Ray, come here. Okay, here he is. He's in the middle of eating a bone. And you'll know what it's like.

He doesn't like to be disturbed when he's got his bone. Say hello to Tony. You're a handsome fellow. It's very handsome. Yeah. Sorry about that. Sorry about taking you away from your bone. It looks a bit cat-like, actually.

Yeah, it's a big, there's a kind of a little, a little kind of cat-like demeanour about him. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that kind of like self-contained, thousand yards there, yeah. So you've just met Raymond, my dog. I want to know all about Stanley, Tony. Stan is a nine-year-old,

Ruby-coloured, Cavalier, King Charles Spaniel, who will be 10 years old in November. My daughter was nine, and she was very keen to have a dog. And we decided it. My wife grew up with dogs. and it would be, we decided it would be a wonderful thing for her. And she was kind of bold enough to go online and research what dog would fit best with our family and our way of life and our personalities.

She came up with a cavalier, King Charles Spaniel. And it's true, they're very, they're very loving dogs, but they're very easygoing dogs. You know, like during the long lockdown, Stan and I would go out for a couple of hours every morning. You know, we'd like Trump. And cavaliers will do that, you know, that if you, want to chill out at home and relax and be very sofa-orientated, then they'll go along with that. But if you want to go for a big muddy S-A-S-type yomp, they'll do that too. So it's just like he's really my best mate, really.

The person I spend the first couple of hours of my day with is Stan. You know, he's really, he's really close to me. So they do become incredibly close to you. and yeah, I just, yeah, he's very food-orientated. He's very easily to bribe. I think he does love me. Yeah, it's very popular, too. He's a real Hampstead face, you know, because we're in temporary accommodation.

And it's not easy to get a short let in Hampstead when you've got a dog. But luckily, people in this building, people in the building where we're renting our flat, new stand. And they knew what kind of dog is. known him for years. So we've got a pass. So Stan got us in, really. I like being with Stanley.

It's like going into the bar and cheers with Norm. Yeah. Yeah. And it's a very dog-friendly place. I mean, a lot of the cafes and, you know, are very dog friendly around there. They love, they love seeing a dog. Hey, buddy.

Hey, hey. Hey, hey, hey, buddy. Here he is. Here he is. He's a handsome fellow. Sorry. to disturb your old buddy. Do you want to get down and go back to sleep?

Sorry to disturb. There he is. Go back to sleep. He loves his flat. He really loves this flat. I think he likes a smaller, a smaller home, a smaller living environment. You know, he's much closer to us. He sleeps closer to us.

He's kind of, I think he's aware of us when we turn in at night in a way that he's not when we're in our home. I have to say, he's got an impressive set of teeth, Tony. My wife is Japanese. she's got very Japanese standards of hygiene and dental care and she brushes his teeth every night. She brushes his teeth every night.

So not twice a day, but every night she brushes his teeth. And vets are astonished when they meet Stan. When he has his yearly medical, when they often get their teeth whipped out because that's what happens with dogs, sadly. Stan always get, you know, he's got this kind of Hollywood million a million dollars smile

and it's because Eureko my wife you know take such care and attention when he was really he was very small and he had to have a few teeth out and she felt

we were letting him down you know because we were not taking adequate dental care of him but it's not easy with a dog but she's done a great job yeah no he's got for a dog that's 10 this year he's doing really really well

oh I'm really impressed he's got better teeth in some Hollywood celebrities. I can't believe it. I've got so carried away with talking about Stanley, who I'm overwhelmed with. I loved just at first sight. I got a very good vibe about Stanley. I haven't even introduced you properly and I should because I'm really excited that you've been able to give us time today because I'm such a huge fan of yours, Tony, and had been for many decades. I'm with the very wonderful bestselling, I'm going to, I'm doing your full list actually, broadcaster, journalist and best-selling novelist, Tony Parsons.

I want to go back, we've met Stanley, and I want to go back to young Tony, and pets and dogs in your life. Were there pets and dogs in your life when you were growing up? I loved dogs, and I had a dog called Laddie, who died when I was very young. I went to live on a farm, I think, was the euphemism that my dad used. But I love dogs. I really adored being around dogs. We lived above a shop in Essex.

There was a huge German shepherd who I loved who lived a couple of doors down. And one day I was petting this German shepherd. And he was about four. He was licking me. And he got up on his hind legs and he put his front paws on my chest and he pushed me over. and I had all my front teeth knocked out. And my mum was fanatically anti-pet. My mum was fanatically, you know,

she wouldn't wish harm or cruelty or anything, but she just didn't want them around. It was really traumatic for a more traumatic for it than I think it was for me. So I had dogs when I was very, very young, very young. And then came in the incident with the German Shepherd when I had all my front teeth were knocked out. He just pushed me over.

He was looking at my face. He didn't mean anything bad, but he was, and he was just too powerful for me to support and so my mum would never have pets around after that. I did have a dog, I'd add laddie when I was very, when I was very young. And I always dream of having a German shepherd, you know, in old age, I think it would be, you know, a nice symmetry if I could give, if I could give at home to a German shepherd at the end of my days. It was a messy accident to have, to have a child go through.

But it didn't stop me loving dogs at all. But it was really like having a daughter, really, that reignited my love. And, you know, the reality of what it takes, you know, what it means for your life and what it means for the responsibility that you take on. But it's been great. You know, she's, my daughter's at university now. And, you know, it's been fantastic to watch her grow up with a dog. You know, it's really good for any child, I think.

As long as they don't look your teeth out. Well, there's been a lot of research into that, hasn't there? Psychologists now seem fairly agreed on that, that children who grew up in dog homes, it's really beneficial, just in terms of learning compassion and empathy and that sort of unconditional bond that you have. And I think it's not just children that have learnt that and have got that because there's so many, in the area where I live,

there's so many young dogs, There's so many dogs of less than a year old, dogs that people have got during lockdown. You do hear talk of, you know, dogs being sent back to rescue centres and all that. But my experience is that the majority of the dogs that people have got during lockdown are deeply loved and cared for, yeah.

But there's everywhere around here. I mean, you can't step out the door without meeting some wild puppy that Stan wants to avoid, yeah. Tony, I'm fascinated by your child. I'm fascinated by your parents. They sound really fundamentally decent people. Yeah, they were, I was very close to my mind, Dad. And they were, yeah, they were, they were remarkable people.

I mean, they were both from huge families. My mum had six brothers. And my dad had eight sisters and two brothers. And I think that they both anticipated having a very large family. And they married when they were very young. And then my mum couldn't get pregnant. She had a series of miscarriages. And so for 10 years, they were, you know, they were trying.

And of course, I guess to support and the help that someone in that position or a couple in that position would get back then wasn't anything like it was today. Some people were just, you know, they couldn't have kids. So when I came along, I was really indulged, you know, and really wanted and really spoiled and really, really, really spoiled. And they both had very firm ideas of what they wanted for me. You know, they'd thought about it for 10 years.

I mean, they were still really young. They were still in the 20s, but they'd be, you know, waiting for a long time. But, yeah, and they were, you know, they were, I mean, it was a very working class background. You know, my dad was a green grocer. We lived above a shop. You know, my mum played piano and wrote poetry.

And my dad, you know, my dad was this big war hero. had a distinguished service medal, would have been a Royal Naval Commando. So I always thought that, you know, I was very blessed and lucky to have the childhood I did. And, you know, coming from that background, I think it put a little fire in my belly. I didn't really, until I was quite old,

I didn't know anybody that had a career, everybody that I knew had a job. You know, everybody had jobs. I didn't know one person with a career. And I think that that was not a bad experience for, you know, for a lifetime. of writing. You know, it wasn't to see

how lucky you are to be doing something you love because my dad didn't love his job. My dad hated his job. You know, my dad wanted to move to Australia. My dad wanted to up sticks and, you know, try his luck somewhere else. And that was, you know, that was the general experience.

People were working to put food on the table to pay the rent. So I always felt lucky to do what I do. I'm interested in only children because I think sometimes they can be, because they spend a lot of their downtime in their leisure time with two adults with greater life experience.

I think sometimes they can be quite sort of unusually sophisticated, I guess, beyond their years. Do you think that was true of you? No, I think if anything, I was very kind of took a long while to grow up. I was very young, I think, very naive and shy around girls, didn't know what to say to girls.

You know, one of my closest friends, had three older sisters and he just seemed relaxed around girls in the way that I just wasn't you know I just wasn't and it took me years to realize you know you just say the same old rubbish that you do to anybody else and it's fine it'll probably look out fine but I didn't feel I didn't feel sophisticated no I actually felt when I you know when I started in journalism I actually felt as though I'd had quite a sheltered life I mean I felt that I hadn't I didn't really I mean I had the experience certain thing I have worked in factories you know I've worked in looked at low paid, low-skilled jobs.

And that's, you know, that's not a small life experience to work, you know, a 12-hour night shift in a gin factory. But like on an emotional level, I didn't feel that I was, you know, I was very sophisticated. No, I mean, I can see the theory. I can see what. And I mean, my dad works all the time. So I wasn't really around him, you know, I can remember, I can remember every kickabout that I had with him.

You know, I can remember every football match that he took me to. because I didn't see that much of him, you know, because that six days a week he was working. And I guess he was quite, you know, he was quite an intimidating figure too that when I saw him, there weren't many heart to hearts because he was, you know, I mean, I've been thinking about Prince Philip and writing about Prince Philip. And, you know, those guys, you know, they don't want to be asked if they're okay.

And they never wanted a hug. And they didn't, and they expected the same from you, you know. And I really, I mean, the Duke of Red, his life is very different from my dads, but in many ways, they're identical. You know, they're identical. I understand that generation of men, you know, and understand what it was like for their sons and how their sons, it doesn't surprise me that the Duke of Edinburgh's favourite child is his daughter, because those guys were always quite hard on their sons, you know, we were never quite tough enough for them, I think.

I can see that, and I think particularly between those two cultures, that was when culture really changed in a sense, wasn't it, I suppose? Or there was this society, changed, this idea of you do a job that you want to do because it's kind of creatively fulfilling or enriching, you know, it's about want rather than the need in a sense, isn't it? Absolutely. And the, and there was a huge gap between that generation of the men that experienced the war as young men and the generation that came after them that grew up with sex and drugs and rock and roll. And I mean, there's always, you can, there's never a substitute for being 16 with my own son, You know, when my own son was kind of running wild at 16 and, you know, starting to take drugs and, you know, going to concerts and staying up all night and people were having heroin overdoses on the sofa next to him.

You know, in many ways it was what I'd experienced, you know, it was that whole, you know, a very drug-soaked hedonistic world. And, you know, I knew it. I'd been there. I'd done it. My generation almost invented it. but it's still different when you're maybe 40 and 16. You know, it's, it's very different. But for my father's generation,

that generation of men and their sons, their life experience was just completely different. Did you always have a talent for writing? Yeah, I felt that I did have that gift, and I feel that it is a gift. And like most gifts, the harder you work on it, the better you'll get, whether it's a gift for music or language.

or whatever, you know, the more hours you put in, the more reward you're going to get. I did feel, I felt a bit underappreciated by my teachers. I always thought they should like realize there was kind of, the next dickens was kind of sitting sitting in the back row and they never really appreciated it. But I probably overrated myself. Yeah, but I did feel I had a gift. I felt that if I put in the hours, it could be very rewarding and could be a great way to spend a life.

and writers were glamorous figures to me. You know, I mean, all of them, all of them, whether I thought of Hemingway and Fitzgerald in Paris in the 20s or Jack Kerouac hitching down to Mexico, you know, I just, you know, JD Salinger having a nervous breakdown in occupied France. They were just very glamorous figures to me. You know, they seemed to be immersed in life in the way that I really wasn't. I really thought it would be a good way to spend the life.

and so it proved. You left school at 16, didn't you? And did you then, I love this bit of your life, which I call the Dickens bit of your life, when you worked in a gin distillery, because that's a very Dickensian job. Yeah, it is, yeah, it's a very Dickensian drink. And they used to give us a couple of cases every night.

I mean, the cases of gin were really for the office workers. So at the end of the day, before they stumbled back to the commuter train, back to the suburbs, they'd give them a big slug of free gin. But my colleagues and I were these young guys who worked the night shift. And we worked from eight at night to eight in the morning. And so we would come in and we would be beneficiaries of this Ligest, this Gouldings gin, Ligest. And, you know, we would just put it in the horrible drinks that we drank, you know, like, tap and tango and just all these.

I don't know if these drinks still exist anymore. I told them. And we were just like fill our cans up. I mean, it was just that, that, and, you know, it was really often when I'm walking stand in the evening and the builders are knocking off around here. You know, I smell weed everywhere. I just smell it everywhere. And I understand that kind of need for oblivion and release and escape.

when you're doing a job that is not fulfilling, is not very well paid. You know, I understand that need for oblivion. And, you know, these builders that are everywhere in Hampstead, knocking back their weed when it's like the equivalent of a pint these days. And for us, it was free gin. Were you thinking that was going to be a career job? Or did you always think I'm going to do a series of these sort of until then jobs? But my calling is writing.

Yeah, no, I believe I was going to be a writer, and I thought if I could get a novel published, then I would be a writer for the next 50 years. I mean, I didn't really understand the economics of there. I didn't understand. I mean, I kind of learned. I wrote to 100 people when I was 16 asking for advice, and only one replied to me, and that was Keith Houghty House, the late Keith Horty House, who was a journalist.

I mean, he was really my North Star and my role model, because he did a lot. You know, he wrote novels, you wrote brilliant newspaper columns, drank champagne at the bar at the Groucho Club, and he wore his hair long in his 70s. He was just such a cracking, great, great guy and a very generous man, you know, that he should take the time to write back to me.

And Keith Horthy wrote back to me when I was 16 and said, Dear Tony, get an agent. Which is Keith. And that was it. And so you think, right, I've got, I mean, because even now, you know, I get people, you know, in their 40s who don't realize that you did just the first step, if you want to publish fiction or nonfiction, the first thing you've got to do is get an agent. And it's one of the toughest, toughest thing.

it's harder to get an agent than to get a publisher. But it was such great advice. So then I dedicated myself to that. So I was writing this novel in the gin factory and then I found an agent and the agent found a publisher. Book came out. Book wasn't very good.

But it got me my first job in journalism because I was, you know, 22 years old and I had a published book. And that's impressive. You know, just as an act of will, just as an act of will, it's impressive. But I always felt that, you know, I would escape and that would be my escape,

that writing would be my escape. escape. When you say escape, escape from what? Escape from low paid, low skilled jobs, escape from doing stuff that I didn't want to do, doing work that I didn't want to do. That takes boldness, doesn't it? Yeah, but I think, you know, being an only child and being a much wanted only child fed into that, that my parents gave me a lot of confidence that I, you know, if I put the hours in, if I put the work in, then I could do pretty much anything. And then this advert you answered in the NME, which has become slightly legendary, hasn't it? When you answered an ad in the enemy, they were asking for...

Hip young gunslingers. Hip young gunslingers, yeah. Yeah, when the NME was looking for young staff writers, yeah. So when we started, I mean, Julie Bersh, we got the other job. And when Julie and I started and we shared an office, our desks were absolutely full of unopened applications. I mean, there were just like thousands and thousands of thousands. Because, you know, the enemy sold a quarter of a million a week and very tight demographic. So that if you advertise a job, almost everybody that's reading it, I mean, all through my life, I've met people that said, oh, yeah, you know, I applied for that job like Jonathan Ross and Neil Tennant of the Pet Shop Boys.

And, you know, I mean, there was a period where hardly a week would pass by without meeting one of my rivals for the job. and I desperately wanted it. I mean, I really, really wanted it because that was, you know, I read the paper and, you know, I loved the paper and because I'd been in it, because I was born when I was, music was really central to my life, you know, music.

And it was a great time for bands. You know, I mean, the, my first cover story for the NME was, was on Keith Richards, was on a Keith Richards drug drug trial. Yeah, and Keith was like 32. We kind of, what we thought of as the old guys, they were very young, you know, that Mick and Keith were 32, Bowie was about 28, you know, they were they were not old men. And so that those are, the old guys were pretty young and vibrant and vigorous still.

And then there was all these crazy kids that sided when I did, yeah. And what did you feel like in that environment? Did you feel you belonged? Was there a sense of you feeling I found my people? Yeah, I didn't feel that I'd found my people. I felt that, you know, I got on well with bands. I got on, I got on world with musicians. You know, I could go on the road with musicians and I could stay up all night with musicians.

And, you know, I could take drugs with musicians and party with musicians. And I loved the music. You know, most of the music I wrote about, I loved it. And so I had a, you know, it's quite a powerful voice, you know. I felt that my lack of experience is a right. was really exposed. I felt that I wasn't very good because I'd never had any formal training. I felt that, you know, it was different from, although I'd published a novel, you know, it's different because you're just hammering away at finding an agent and then the agents find

them. And it's, it's kind of, when you're writing stuff every week, you know, and then, you know, I was comparing it to Tom Wolfe or Hunterist Thompson and thinking, you know, why isn't it as good as that? Why isn't it as good as the stuff that I love? Why is it so feeble in comparison? I guess the answer is because it takes 10 years to be good at anything. And although people have got very fond memories, a lot of people that read it, read it have got fond memories of me. It was really, it's really because I had access, you know, that I was, you know, I was in that room with Debbie Harry or the sex pistols or whoever it was, you know, that I had that access. And that, that's what made it special but I did feel um yeah I just felt I just felt you know I felt my writing was was not

where it needed to be you know I felt that I had a lot of it showed me how much work I had to do you know and everybody was starting out at the same time and you know Debbie harry was like a young musician the young woman from New York who was hungry and brilliant and beautiful and so that was you know it's an exciting time and um as I say the old guys you know that like Bowie and and the stones, they were still around, you know, they were still around and interested. And it was a very, I mean, what spoiled it really was there was just, there was drugs everywhere, it's drugs absolutely everywhere. And people died and people, more commonly, people wreck their hells and their lives and their careers and their families. And so there was a lot of, you know,

I mean, I got out when I was 25, you know, I was an old man in terms of the music business, you know, and I've got quite a strong constitution, but I do feel quite lucky that I survived there. You seem to get on and connect with these people in a way that perhaps other writers didn't. I mean, a lot of the bands that I met, a lot of those, the young British bands, they really just reminded me of people that I'd grown up with.

You know, so it wasn't, you know, and also I recognised in them the same ambition and hunger that I had, you know, that I could see in them. they were afraid, you know, just as I thought, you know, I might get sent back to Billerickey. I might get sent back to the gym factory. I might have to go back to that. And it was, there was an uncertain. And I recognized in them that, yeah, just lack of certainty about what the future was going to be like. And it's not easy to do what you love for 50 years. I think, you know, a lot of it was just purely on a pragmatic level. You know, I had a voice

in a paper that was, that could really. get your career flying. You know, it was a short step from the NME to top of the pops, really. Do you think also, Tony, I wonder whether there might have been a sort of integrity, I suppose, about you, that you might not have had,

had you gone through that university system, do you think that might have contributed to it a little bit? There was something quite raw and real about you. Yeah, no, I mean, I was like out of the gin factory and into the NME, you know, and I did, and really the three years, is I'd at the NME was my equivalent of university, really, I think. That was that learning experience. But I think that I think I was quite raw and I think I was quite honest. And when we moved from

urban Essex when I was a little kid, when I was five, we moved from urban Essex to rural Essex. And it was pretty rural then. And one of my teachers said to my parents, you know, Tony should have elucution lessons because he's a really bright little kid. and I think elocution lessons were probably a lot more common in those days than they later became. But my dad was at school with Alf Ramsey, the England football manager. And Alph Ramsey had education lessons and took like, you know, the Duchess of Devonshire, you know, when he was from the East End.

And my dad was like just sort of hilarious, the idea that you would pretend to be someone that you weren't, you know, that you would pretend you would put on airs and graces and put, you know, just my dad found the idea of life. laughable. So that didn't happen. But I, you know, I think I'd grown up with that unspoken threat, really, you know, don't pretend to be someone you're not. Just be yourself. Just absolutely be yourself. And that's enough. And if that's not good enough for people, then that's too bad. You wrote George Michael's autobiography bear. And I remember my dad who was, I suppose he'd called, you know, he was an intellectual, very bookish, sort of, you know, and he said, you know, and he said,

said to me, you can read this because I think he was a bit, oh, no, she likes, Wham. And then he said, you can read this because he's a proper writer. That's a lovely, that's a lovely thing to hear. But I wanted to ask you about that. How did that come about you writing George Michael's autobiography? Well, I was, after the, after the NME, I was really kind of on the skids for 10 years. You know, that we were so fated and we were so lionized when we were at the, when we were at the NME that we thought, we thought that, you know, once we left, you know,

people would be asking us to be like director general of the BBC or, you know, the editor of the Times or something. And of course, nobody had heard of it. Well, nobody had heard of me. I think Julie was more popular than me. But I kind of, so I was, you know, just scraping around for any work that anyone that would have me. And my old editor at the NME, Nick Logan, started a magazine called The Face. One of the early things I did for them was I did a piece on on George and it was really the first serious interview that I mean we had a laugh we went to a fish restaurant called rudland and stubbs in smithfield meat market and the little side streets in in smithfield and we got drunk together and we had a good time and we was 10 years younger

than me and it was interesting it was interesting to see because it was a new experience for me because they were a pop band so when I went to see george and Andrew, like 50 girls in the street. And it was a different thing from being around rock band. And so it came about because I did this piece on George, very revealing piece about George. And then we did another one. I think it was a time when he was really becoming successful. I think he'd just had like eight number one singles in America from Faith, this album, his debut album. He was probably the biggest star in the world. You know, we're very friendly.

We got a well together. We trusted each other. And I said to him, let's do a book one day when you're an old man and it's all over. And he wanted to do a book immediately because he said there were eight biographies of him in the can coming out soon. And if we did a book, an official book, kill them all dead. You asked him if you could go 50-50, didn't you, on the, Well, yeah, I didn't realize why I didn't realize how remarkable, you know, what remarkable deal it was. I said, you know, we have to talk about money at some point.

And I, and I just said, why don't we just split it 50-50? And he said, yeah, that's fine. And it caused enormous reductions with George's American representatives, his managers, who said to my agent, you know, we can give Tony 20 grand. And it will be more money than he's ever seen in his life. We don't need to give him 50-50. And it's true they didn't need to get, you know, it wasn't something that it didn't make a lot of sense in a business sense. But it made sense as people that actually, you know, I mean, we did have a business relationship. We had a professional relationship.

But I did also think of him as my friend. You know, I did think of him as my friend. We weren't, we weren't massively close. But, you know, the night before I got married to my wife, Eureko, we went out for dinner with George just to three. of us. So we were pretty close. We were pretty close. You know, I met his mom. I met his sisters. You know, he met my family. And I liked him. You know, we were very close. And it's just kind of George Michael wasn't the kind of guy to haggle with you about money. If you were on his side, if he liked you, if he wanted to work with you, he wasn't the kind of guy. He wasn't going to

say to Andrew Ridgely, Andrew, you didn't really contribute anything to careless whisper. Let's face it, it's my song. Let's face it. You know, it's. not really, we don't really declare, you don't really deserve a co-songwriting credit. You know, Andrews got a co-songwriting credit on Kelly's Whisper. And I had the 50-50 deal. But, you know, it was a little, it became a little bit embarrassing because, you know, I had to say to him, you know, your guys really don't want to do it, George. They don't want to be 50-50.

And he was, you know, he was a sweet guy and he was a kind guy and a generous guy, but he was also tough. He was tough. And you don't really get to be in that situation, to be that, famous and to last if you're not tough. And he said to me, you don't have to think about it again. He said, I'm going to tell them what to do and you don't even have to think about it again. And it's true. It was never mentioned again. And he obviously told them, this is what I want to do. Make sure what happens. Don't talk to me about it. Don't go behind my back. Don't just, just,

you know, just do it. Just do what I want. Do what I want you to do. And they did. You must have been really sad when he died, Tony. Yeah, I mean, we fill out with a lot of people, George. A lot of people that were formerly close to him, he fell out with, including me. And I think he got, I mean, I had a close up of people ruining themselves with drugs. George, in some ways, I think, was unique because he, when I knew him and we were working together, he was quite a clean-cut young guy. And, you know, a bit too much alcohol would be the only, you know, the only, you know,

the only stimulant. And he really got into, you know, smoking. He was into, I mean, he was, you know, he's not into really hard drugs, but he was into what he liked. He liked a lot of. And I think it didn't, didn't do him good. And I think it was a shame, really, you know, because he was such a beautiful guy. He was a really beautiful man, a really lovely spirit. And, you know, genuinely, genuinely talented, really talented. And just like a smart guy, it was interesting being around him, you know. The first time I ever really spent any time in Hamstead was going to see George's house in Oak Hill

Drive off of Frognell and it was just really interesting, you know, when he had like a photo shoot coming up. You know, he'd make us tea and biscuits, but he wouldn't have any biscuits if he had a photo shoot coming up just to, you know, just to carve the extra gram

off his cheekbones. He's finally chiseled cheekbones, you know? And show me in Ashton Martin had never driven and was probably never going to drive because when he took his dog hippie to Hampstead Heath, which he did every day. You know, they used this old old range rover and that was enough for him. He was a lovely guy and I'm sad that he's not still around,

which is how I feel about, you know, everybody that I knew and loved to ruin themselves with drugs. I just think it could have been another life. Yeah, and they never got to find out. I want to go back to your writing and man and boy, which was sort of your smells like, like teen spirit in some ways, wasn't it? Because that was when everyone became instantly aware of you.

Yeah, it took a year to get to number one, which is really unusual for a book. You know, stuff is usually big explosion when it comes out. And man and boy was not like that. It came out in 99 in Harback and the paperback took a year to get to number one. And actually, the next book was out when it finally got to number one. after a year. The next book was out and at number one in the hardback list. So it was, it was a strange experience because it really, you know, it changed my life really in, in terms of, you know, it's what bought me a house in Hampstead. And it was a remarkable experience.

And it was really, you know, I started writing it the day that I learned my mum had terminal lung cancer. So I started writing it the day that I knew I was going to be in the world without my parents. And I think if you're a natural writer, if you're a natural story, or if you're a natural storyteller. It makes it easier. It just makes it easier to deal with. It was quite, you know, my dad died in 87. He hadn't told us he had cancer. He kept it secret that he had lung cancer. And we didn't know about it until he collapsed. It was taken into hospital. Three weeks later, he was buried. And I've still, to this day, I've no idea if, you know, he was trying to protect us, if he couldn't find the words, if he couldn't admit to weakness and frowtie, if he was scared.

I mean, I really don't know. It's probably a combination of all those things. But it was a very different experience 12 years later in with my mom. I was sitting there with the doctor and she's like, the doctor's 215 appointment and she's given a death sentence and, you know, that, and I'm sitting there holding her hand. And it had a profound effect on me. And I was always very close to my mom. Love my mom.

You know, girlfriends were always amazed that I find my mom every day. You know, I spoke to my mom every day. So, you know, so I'd been some drug-soaked holiday in, you know, with people throwing televisions out of the window. And I'd be calling my mom in Billerickey, you know, to make sure she was all right. You know, she had she done on the lottery. You know, it's very, very close to it. So it kind of started as therapy, really. And it was, it really began as, you know, because I felt completely, and my son was growing older.

And I felt, you see, the only time in my life, I really felt poised between the two generations. You know, I felt the generation that came before me was slipping into the mists of time and the generation that was coming after me was growing. And I felt absolutely poised between the two generations. You know, I really kind of understood the cycle of life for the first time. I got it, got it totally. I saw it with blinding vision. So I just, you know, sat down and sideline this book,

rowed from the heart, didn't get a lot of encouragement. there wasn't a lot of interest. There was one editor at one publishing house who thought it would do well, who actually thought it would sell a million. But he was the only one. It wasn't, they weren't beating down my door. And then as you say, it was a slow burn.

You know, it was a slow burn. And word of mouth, people related to their own stories and their own relationships with their parents and their fathers, particularly. And so, you know, so it's like, it's got the quality of a song. It's got the quality of a song about heartbreak, because it was written from the heart, you know,

it was written with no attempt to please the market or to have a big ear or to make a load of money. And the thing that happened to it and what's surprising is that women discovered the book. Women embraced the book. Women who buy most of the fiction, you know, claimed it as their own

and made it a huge best sell. For anyone who hasn't read it, it was about, well, people said it was loosely based on your life. There were obviously parallels because it was a single parent, but it was a male single parent. And it's interesting now that that's obviously quite a common thing. That doesn't seem an unusual state of affairs.

But back then it felt like that was the first time you'd sort of read about things from the perspective of a single male dad. Yeah, I think it was the first big dramatization. I think that's it. I mean, I was aware of, I mean, I didn't know lots of single dads, but I knew two. I knew my uncle Jim, my mom's youngest brother and David Bowie. And really I bonded with Bowie talking about that, that role.

And because, you know, my experience was not dissimilar to his. And I would say to Boe, what do we say to our sons about drugs when we know, when we've done on so many drugs ourselves, but we know the damage that they do. We know the ruin that they bring. And I really valued, you know, him as a sounding board and as someone who could share his experience. I mean, I really, really did value it. And even if I didn't really agree with his conclusions, because, you know, it's probably a more liberal friend than me, boy. And, you know, everybody's got to experiment, darling, you know.

Yeah. And, yeah. Everyone except my son, David. Do you understand? Yeah. I just felt, yeah, it's just too dangerous. It's a Russian roulette. And it's quite a simple story.

It's a simple story written from the heart, and it just struck a chord with a lot of people. And it was, you know, also it was published well. It had a brilliant cover. You know, had a very, you know, and these things do matter. You know, they do, in terms of just getting your foot, I'm sure there are great books that don't get the success that they deserve.

And usually when there are books that do get a lot of success, everything has gone right, absolutely everything is gone right. Title's right. The marketing is right. is right. You know, the word of mouth is positive. And when it explodes like that, it's usually and then it gets to a point where people are just curious. You know, there's maybe, I don't know, five million people in this country that will buy books. And you get to a point where, if like three and a half million of them have read the book, the other 1.5 million will read it out

of curiosity. You know, I'm like that. You know, I think, well, what is the fuss about? Did you feel a certain pressure afterwards, the pressure of success, you know, that idea that I've sold two million copies. So you're in this insane position where selling a million feels like disappointing. I think the more successful you are, the more disappointment you get. There is, there is, that comes with success. It's not it's not the failures that, you know, that are disappointed. I feel constantly disappointed in, you know, just on an almost daily basis, I feel disappointed with my career. And like the architecture of my career, you know, like deals that fall through or, you know,

and things that are not done properly or, you know, they made a film of a man and boy. And Yaron Griffith was really good in it. But the script was awful. The script was not good enough. they kind of left out the it needed to be more expansive it needed more stuff about father and the son and um so you know you you become very familiar with disappointment i did the pressure that i felt really was that um i always saw people that are writing their first book they've got enormous freedom because nobody's got any expectations about what that book's going to be uh but especially

after you've had a big hit like that people want they want the same again really they want the same again for the next 50 years. I couldn't really, couldn't really do it. I couldn't really, just didn't have it in me. Not that I'm above that or I'm above wanting to make a bobble or two. Not at all. It's just that I've never, I've never got more than one story to tell. I've never got more than one story to tell.

And that's the story that I go with. So, yeah, there was, there was a pressure, but the pressure is really that, I mean, you don't, you don't really expect to sell this. You can't, any, any huge book like that. I mean, my current team at Penguin Random House are the team that did 50 Shades of Grey. You know, you can't really expect to the next book and the book after that is going to sell more than 50 Shades of Grey. You just want to be in the same ballpark, you know? So, yeah, but the pressure that I felt was just that people were expecting the same book.

And I didn't feel that I was capable of doing that for. you know, 20, 30, 40 years. Oh, Sam Mendes emailed you, didn't he, about wanting to make a movie of man and boy. Well, Sam contacted me and said that he's always been a fan of the book, but then he became a father himself and it kind of deepened, the meaning of it deepened and we should do a, we should do a film one day. And at the time, I'd had so many kind of disappointed. with people ruining because people think that if it doesn't get made, that's the worst thing that can happen. But, you know, actually the worst thing that can happen is they do it and they

do kind of a mediocre job, you know, that's that's absolutely the worst thing. And so I was very insistent that, you know, I should write the script. And of course, you know, Sam Mendi got access to Oscar winning, you know, but he's a lovely guy. Sam's a lovely guy. And actually, the reason I started doing crime books was, was because of a conversation with Sam Mendes. So tell me what happened with the crime books. Sam had this screening for a film that he didn't make himself a film called The Kids Are All Right with Annette Benin, who was in American Beauty, of course. And he felt that people were not, he felt it was a terrific film when people were not watching it, people were not seeing it, people were not talking about it, people weren't aware about it. So we had a little screening somewhere down in Soho.

And this is like, you know, 10, 11 years ago. And we were having a drink beforehand. and, you know, what you're up to, what you're up to these days. I can't remember what I was up to. Not very much, I don't think. And I said, what about you? He said, I'm going to direct the next James Bond movie. That's quite a thing to throw in after the question, what are you up to?

And, you know, at the time it was, you know, Sam was like the director of the Domar Warehouse. He was, you know, Oscar winning, director of American Beauty. he, you know, it wasn't an obvious choice to be a bond director to do 007. And he started talking about the books. And he said, you know, the books were the first books that he ever loved as a kid, you know, when he was 11, 12, 14, 15. And they opened his eyes to, you know, all sorts of things, you know, travel, literature, sex, everything, you know, everything.

And just, and when he was talking, I thought, I feel exactly the same way. And what he said was that I'm going to try and capture, whatever it was that I loved about those books, the Inflammable Books. I'm going to try and capture that in a film, which he did brilliantly. I mean, I think that Skyfall was the only great James Bond movie,

and he captured it. He caught it. But I went back that night, I went home that night, and he was saying he was reading all the books again. There's a grown man. I thought, what a terrific thing to do to read all the Bond books again. So I started reading them. And before I'd finish the first page,

I thought, I'm going to do a series hero. I'm going to invent my own guy. I'm going to invent my own guy and write a series of books. And that's what I did for that's what I was doing before your neighbour's wife. That's what I was doing writing the Max Wolf books for six years. And there were six novels over six years. And if people don't write, I don't know if they realize, but that is phenomenally prolific.

I mean, that's a lot of writing. Yeah. And it was something kind of comfort in it. about getting a series hero that you like and you like his world. And he was a single, he was a murder detective. He's a single dad. And he's got a young daughter called Scout, as named after the girl in To Kill a Mockingbird.

And when I started writing the Max Warpops, my daughter was growing up. She's 18 now. And he was just starting to, I think he just started big school. And I managed to put in a lot of kind of my nostalgia for when she was a little girl, when she was a really little girl, because she was a great little kid, you know, and I missed it. It was a good experience. I mean, it was quite intimidating at first, because I wrote the book without a contract, the first one, the murder bag. I knew this,

what I wanted to do. And my agent said, if you do it, you're going to have to start again. So, you know, I had a long talk with my wife, Eureko, and said, you know, I want to do this book, but I can't do it with a contract because it'll just, you know, I had a long talk with. it'll be a waste of time. It'll just come and go. It'll be a, it'll be a stone dropped in the water and nobody will ever notice. And I need to cash in my pension, you know, so I need to cash in my life savings. We take a chance. And she said, well, if, you know, if you think, you know, you're going to do a good job and it's what you need to do, then do it. And so I did, but it was, it was not, when I was finishing it. So I took a couple of years, right in the first Max

Warf book, right in the murder bag. And towards the end, I thought, what a reckless thing to do. I mean, We wouldn't have been on the street, but we would have had to sell out home. You know, we would have had to move out of our home if I couldn't sell. You'd have been on the street, but it would have been Heath Street. Yeah, well, it would have been not Heath Street. Maybe it'd be East Street in Essex. It would be Street enhanced it. But, you know, sold it in 24 hours, went to number one.

And then you get a different pressure. Then it's, and I said to my editor, Selina Walker, at Penguin, the mouth. I really don't think I can do it again because I had a contract to do three books, ended up doing six. I said, I put everything into this book. I'm really, you know, I put everything in this into this book. I really honestly don't think that I can write a better book. And Selena said, can you write one that's as good. I said, yeah, I can do that. And she said, well, do that. And so your neighbour's wife, which I've just read in one sitting, and I absolutely loved it. And I think partly the reason I loved it, Tony, is that when it comes to thrillers, character is all to me.

And I feel because you're someone who writes, that's always been your thing as relationships and family and dynamics, that I feel the blend is so brilliant because you've got the twists, you've got all that structure and setting. But you really are invested in these people. Well, really I decided by thinking, I want to bring to. together the emotional power of man and boy with the thriller element of the Max Wolf books. I want them all in one book. So I want that. I want it to be very, I want it to be very emotionally powerful, but I also want it to be a page turn. I want it to be a pacing. I want it to be an exciting thriller. So it's bringing together Max Wolf and Man and Boy. And then it's, you know, stuff rubs up against each other. I was reading Rebecca by Daphne de Mori. And I'm thinking, well,

this is great because it's like multiple genres. You know, it's a love story. It's a genuine love story. Such a brilliant book, isn't it? Also, it's a murder mystery. It's a brilliant, you know, on any of these levels, and it's a book about self-esteem. You know, it's just absolutely wonderful. All these, all the, you know, it's rites of passage.

And I thought, I want to try and do that to try and get all these elements, all these different genres in a book. And so that was really, that was a side point. And then I was watching Adrian Lynn's director's commentary on Fatal attraction and I just thought the Glenn ghost character should be a man you know I just thought that's men are like that it's like men that are kind of tend to be spiteful and obsessive and boiling your boiling your bunny you know not women and um thinking how interesting it would be that if you that did a remake of that film and all the roles were reversed and it was like Michael douglas that was at home

and the gorgeous sand archer that was out you know running around yeah I felt there is a character in it, without giving too much away, as you say, who's a male bunny boiler, essentially, which has always been this female trope, hasn't it? Actually, that's a fantasy. That's always been a fantasy, this idea of the body boiler, because it is men who more commonly display those kind of traits, isn't it? Do you think it helps your father to a daughter, and do you think that helps with empathy towards women?

I think it does. I mean, I think men that have got daughters are different. And I think it does shape your world. It doesn't mean we're all exactly the same kind of feminist. But I think it's different from, you know, I've got friends that have only got sons. It's just like a blind spot that will always be there that doesn't exist if you've got a daughter or daughters. Yeah. So I think it does, I think it does help.

I mean, my team, my publishing team is almost totally feeling. email. And so they, you know, they're washing me carefully when I'm writing, when I'm writing this stuff. And if I hit a wrong note, let's say a woman wouldn't think that. A woman would not think that. You know, one point I remember, I wrote the character says her mother's got good legs. And, and I still maintain, I still maintain that a woman could think that about her mother, but they insisted, they insisted that this was a bum note and had to be cut out. So, Yeah, but, you know, it's never going to be as easy for me right from a woman's perspective as it is from a man's perspective. So I am, you know, I'm really open to suggestions and editorial comments.

You talk about shopping for pain, which I love so much, which do you want to explain a bit about what that is? Well, shopping for pain is the real modern phenomena is when you're scrolling through the devices of your partner, looking for evidence that perhaps they're straying from the path of righteousness. Anything from social media to second devices and secret devices. It just struck me as something that you couldn't have written about 20 years ago. That's what I like about. It's a very basic, you know, suspicion, jealousy, possessiveness. It's a very basic human nature.

And yet, and yet that could not have existed in quite the same way, you know, opening someone's letter. 20 years ago, wouldn't have been the same as, you know, these digital labyrinths that we'll live in now. Are you the type of person that would shop for pain? No, no. Have you ever been? No, no. I know, because it's, you know, I think if it gets to that stage, it's over, you know.

I think it's over if you, long before you get to that stage, I think it's done, really. Yeah. How did you know that your wife was the person you were going to end up with? She was eating dinner alone in a Japanese restaurant and I came into the restaurant with my girlfriend of the time and a friend of ours who'd just been thrown out by his wife who just told him that she was in love with somebody else. We had quite a long courtship, you know, it's quite a long call ship.

She came over in Japan when she was young to go to. University in Edinburgh. And we, you know, we, we saw each other a lot. You know, I would fly up to Edinburgh and in the end, you know, I told the woman that I was living with, you know, I've met someone else. We had a long courtship. And, and then you have the, you know, the bonds that come with time, you know, where you watch your parents die and, you know, I mean, my dad was, was dead by the time I met Eureka, but she went through my mother's illness with me and, you know, her parents have gone now. You know, her dad was a, a, an oil executive for Sumitomo and, you know, we had a trip to Japan where she just went

through his photo books because he was like the generation that really like photographed everything. So there was like an entire flat filled with photo albums. And just those kind of, you know, those kind of ties, you can't really get with someone you're meeting a bar. You know, you can't get that. And we have a daughter together and, you know. It seems like you have a lovely relationship with your kids, Tony. Yeah, well, I mean, it was with my son, I mean, we were, you know, it was, you know, mid-20s.

In past generations, wouldn't have thought of that as young, but it was in my world, it was definitely, you know, my contemporaries were saying, there's this great new drug called ecstasy, you know, we're going to give you something. And they would, like, give me, like, a little matchbox full of, like, this kind of state-of-the-art first-generation ecstasy. And I said, don't take it until you've got, like, a clear morning the next day. And I said, well, I've never got a clear morning. morning. I've got a five-year-old son. I've never got a clear morning. So I ended up giving all the ecstasy away, all this incredible first generation I beat her ecstasy. But, you know, I mean, I'm, you know, my son is in ways like me. He's like a long wolf, really, you know, but we are

close. It's the kind of relationship I have with my dad that I loved him, but I can kind of, I feel like I can remember every football game that we went to together. I have a theory, Tony, that every woman should have a son and every man should have a daughter. Yeah, that would heal the world, I think, yeah. I read something interesting that you sit down and the first sentence is really key to you, isn't it, when you sit down at the laptop when you're writing a book? Yeah, traditionally it's what I do on New Year's Day. I write the first sentence of the new book.

And it's so little to ask, you know, to come up with one sentence in 24 hours. It's so little to ask. And of course, you can change it at any stage. You can, you know, it can be revised at any point right up until it goes off to the printers. But that's traditionally what I do. I write the first sentence of the new book on New Year's Day. And I think, you know, a mistake that writers often make and people often make is that they're too hard with themselves. You know, they're too hard on themselves.

They're beat themselves up. They're just too demanding of themselves. And I start off a year by saying, all you've got to do is write one sentence. You haven't got to write a thousand words. You haven't got a right chapter. You got just write one sentence that it's an old Hemingway line, right? Write one true sentence. Right, just write something that you know to be true.

But before we go, I want to tell you something. I think I'm really quite surprised in a nice way. I was always such an admirer of your work. But I think I always thought you'd be a bit intimidating and scary. Not at all. And I've definitely calmed down as I've got. I mean, I don't think I was, you know, I don't think I was ever a nasty guy or a bad guy, but I think I've kind of calmed down.

And so, yeah, I think you, you, you met this close to the grave, you get mellow. Do you think so? Yeah, I think so. Yeah, I think you see things in perspective. I think you're more forgiving of yourself and others, I think. I wonder what your friends would say about you. I always think it's interesting to think what you hope someone would say about you when you leave a room.

I'm quite a loyal friend. I'm quite, if I love you and you're in my life, I'd do anything for you. You know, I think that there's that, you know, there's, a mate of mine once said that I, he said when I got married to Eureko, he said in his best man speech, he said, I had a genius for friendship, which was about the best review I've ever had, yeah. I think it's generous. It's a lovely thing to say, and it's a beautiful thing to hear.

I'm not sure it's 100% deserved. Well, that writing, rightly isolation is part of it. it, isn't it? And by, that's necessarily quite a selfish act, isn't it? Absolutely. Absolutely. I'm right as a train for lockdown. You know, right as they're trained for all this. You know, right as they're not doing their job unless they're alone in a room with their dog. You know, they're not doing it unless they're doing that. Yeah. We need to let you go now. What's happening with Stanley today? He's had a little sleep. I'll have a little one. After I say goodbye to you, I'm going to go and get him. And so we can also

I'm going to go and get him and then I'll have a little, I'll have a half hour of guitar and then dog walking. I'll be picking this up and I'll be, I'll be. So, you know, a bit of Noel Gallagher, half a world away. And before Stan, but I'm going to get Stan so he can say goodbye to you. Have you played it all your life? No, in the last couple of years. I'm trying to slave off dementia. It was either that or learn a language and it's kind of more.

fine. I'm going to get Stan. I'm going to get Stan. Get Stan. Wait, way. We're going to see Stan soon. Lovely to see you. Thank you for us. I enjoyed our talk. What's that? Stanley's doing? I just, just, sorry, buddy. Sorry, buddy. Oh, there you go. You're all right. Okay.

I've loved having you on the podcast, and I loved meeting Stanley. It's really great talk with you. I really enjoyed it. It was a lovely way to spend, spend an afternoon. So thank you. Thank you, Tony. So goodbye to Ray, Tony. Yeah. Cheers, Ray. See you next time. So long. I really hope you enjoyed listening to that. And do remember to rate, review and subscribe on iTunes.