michael morpurgo
Lady Carnarvon: [00:00:00] Welcome to my podcast and thank you so much for joining me today. My guest is probably one of my hero authors, Michael Morpurgo. I can't think there's anybody in the entire world who hasn't read Warhorse, watched it on film or watched it in the theatre and without doubt cried. But that is just one of the many books he's written.
And today we're just going to chat a little bit about the previous books, including that and his latest book, which is looking back and reflecting on his life today and where he's got to. And it's titled and takes the name of where he lives down Borough Lane, which is lovely. I hope it's nice and green, Michael,
Michael Morpurgo: at the moment it is still nice and green, which is amazing, but it really is.
Yes. Well, thank you for having us too. it's really very sweet of
Lady Carnarvon: you. Thank you. I'm here with Michael and his wife Claire, I should say. And I think Michael, your name first came into my world [00:01:00] with that wonderful lady who started the Hay Festival.
And she came and stayed and I had spoken at Hay and ages ago now. Yeah. And then she wanted to get on a horse to go riding here, which was pretty good going. Yeah. And she was telling me all about you at the time, so it was lovely. So I heard about you second or
Michael Morpurgo: so. Of course she was the first person who got the film of Warhorse going.
Lady Carnarvon: Yes.
Michael Morpurgo: Because as she was horse crazy, if
Lady Carnarvon: Yes.
Michael Morpurgo: And I think she loved the book and had seen the play and thought there must be a film of this. And so she who had the first conversations with Steven Spielberg.
Lady Carnarvon: Wonderful. I've loved the film and I dunno whether but I do quite a few things for charity here.
Michael Morpurgo: Yeah.
Lady Carnarvon: In 2014, when I'm often using anniversaries to remember to raise money for and to commemorate what our predecessors lived through, survived in the world, they tried to build for us. I'd asked the warhorse from the National Theatre, one of the horses to come here.
And he came into the library.
Joey came.
Michael Morpurgo: Joey came into [00:02:00] the library.
Lady Carnarvon: Into the library and out on the lawn. And I still think for all of us here at Highclere, it was one of the most moving days.
Michael Morpurgo: I bet. Because
Lady Carnarvon: it's etched in me,
Michael Morpurgo: I'm just crossed. I'm not here with him. How wonderful that would've been.
Lady Carnarvon: Well, I'd love him to come back again. We did something to commemorate the end of World War II recently in 2025.
Michael Morpurgo: Yes.
Lady Carnarvon: But often because it's a bit of a one man band being me and my team here. Yes. I'm asking for things a little bit late.
Michael Morpurgo: Yeah.
Lady Carnarvon: But it's just that visible connection to history. And that's what you created.
Michael Morpurgo: Well, I hope so, because it seems to me that history is certainly something which we don't do enough of.
We have to know. Who we are, where we've come from. If we are to know where to go in the future, it's the pathway. The pathway leads from the past through our lives and into the future. But we have to know where we've come from. So that story, was really because I was told it originally. I mean, I knew about the First World War, I'd read the poets like everyone has done, but [00:03:00] I was born during the Second World War.
So that was the war everyone talked about before the Second World War when I was growing up, it was then the Second World War. And the First World War was almost forgotten about. But since the first World War had been the cause of the Second World War, if your history, we know our history and it was, the one triggers the other as wars do.
And it's really important, particularly now, when it's such a scary world. We have to know why countries and people are behaving as they are. You don't have to agree with it, but you have to know why. What is behind, the various tyrants we now have in the world and what is behind our system and what's behind America.
We need to be able to understand it. You cannot do it by beginning now. You have to go back and find out where we've come from. How did we get on with, America in the 18th century? What happened? Why did they want their independence? It wasn't just about tea, it was about other things. And you find the more you read, the more you find out and the more you then understand how things are today.
So yeah, I'm glad Warhorse has been out there because to some [00:04:00] extent I saw it last night, by the way, in the theatre. So I'm all filled in my head. And so is Claire with Warhorse. And it is a story of really, of a people who find themselves in this extraordinary situation of having to fight a war. and the other nations of Europe were all thinking the same.
The Germans were thinking the same. They're all thinking they were having to fight a war. And then we had this awful slaughter because the weapons had got ahead of how we could really control it. The speed of wars, the destruction of it was just terrible. And if it should have been a warning to us all, it should have been the war to end all wars.
But it wasn't. And I think it, it is timely to remind ourselves that happened and people, rose up after that and it produced Hitler. No question about that. Why Germany? It's funny,
Lady Carnarvon: isn't it? Because it only just produced Hitler. Yeah,
Michael Morpurgo: absolutely.
Lady Carnarvon: He got in on such a slim majority.
Michael Morpurgo: Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah. But it was enough really to trigger the whole thing. And before that, if you look back before the first World War, there's always something which triggers it. One [00:05:00] was the, an assassination in, Sarajevo. There's always something which triggers a war. And it's very often down to an individual or down to the way the country has moved.
So when Warhorse comes on the stage, and we all have to know about how , Devon was in 1910, 1912, you get introduced to the pastoral population and to a village and how the peace time and then this war coming to their village and the horse being sold away and then the people going off, you get some sense of what war does to ordinary people.
And it's when everyone becomes ordinary war does equal people in that sense. and it's really important. Otherwise, what do we do? We do it once a year. We honour them on the 11th. We stand there, we listen to songs and the Union Jack is there and you forget what it was that it was the people who did that and did go over the top and our freedom was secure.
And then they had to do it all over again, another war in the Second World War. And that [00:06:00] was real people, my mum and all that generation lived through all that stuff and lived up to the mark, did it like so many people did as we shouldn't be here.
Lady Carnarvon: We are the lucky ones, aren't we?
Michael Morpurgo: We are the lucky ones.
Lucky generation.
Lady Carnarvon: Well it here, the, and one of the analogies into which I bought Warhorse was Highclere was a hospital during World War I.
Charlie: Huh.
Lady Carnarvon: And my predecessor Almina welcomed men back from the trenches and she healed them nursed and there's an operating theatre and made them better. It was unlike Downton Abbey.
It was a convalescent home, it was a hospital. So I have hundreds of letters here and it was the first book I wrote from all these men saying, dear Lady Carnarvon, I arrived at Highclere an awful wreck not knowing whether I wanted to live or die. But you sat with me through that first night and you gave me the courage to try to live.
They come from all over the world and in some ways what she did has led me to always look [00:07:00] out, to try to see what we can still do to today and how we can bring this memories back. Hence your warhorse. Joey came back in here when we were fundraising in 2014 just to think about what the world tumbled into for the next few years.
other: Yeah.
Lady Carnarvon: And the consequences for ordinary people, for just all of us sitting in this room.
other: Absolutely.
Lady Carnarvon: And our families and all the gardeners here. So we've got a roll call of what happens. It was a very personal book 'cause that's the only way it is. And I had obviously read warhorse before that as well as history, but it was, fascinating.
And then I continued writing World War II and. If you like horses. my grandfather in-law, the sixth Earl. he was medically unfit, but he managed to get himself, into the 7th Hussars. And he and his horse at the Cavalry Regiment was sent to be stationed on top of the White Cliffs of Dover in 1940, [00:08:00] which was such a bonkers thing to do.
Churchill then came along after he was elected and he said, what's the point of that? They just, if there was a bomb dropped on them, they'd gallop over the white cliff, so they'd all die. He said, back you go. And they were sent back up to Nottinghamshire, although yes, again, we still seem to have cavalry in World War ii, which is fascinating.
And then after that it was obviously disbanded and moved on from there. But again, this connection with the horse, which runs all the way through this family and then a connection of what you do in the World War ii. This was the home for Evacuee children. So I've got two, in my view, fantastic metaphors.
Yeah. Which fitted, which is why I often too late usually ask if there's another Joey to come, because I'm trying to get children today to understand what happened to children then. And I'm trying to bring children today from the cities out here. And one of the topics I wanted to ask you about was your extraordinary [00:09:00] charity, taking inner city children and giving them a few days in the country at your farms.
It's extraordinary.
Michael Morpurgo: Yeah. Well, it is extraordinary. But then the, the woman who invented it is extraordinary. She was sitting right beside you, Claire. She was the one who, created the idea. And it's interesting of how you've introduced this really because she was introduced to the countryside by her daddy, who started a publishing house called Penguin Books.
And he knew was someone who worked in a pub in the middle of Devon in the middle of nowhere and brought his daughter down to show her the place that he loved passing on love of the countryside and the love of Devon to her. So she's six, seven years old. She arrives there and they all, her Allen Lane's, friends running the pub and there's the 7-year-old girl, they dunno what to do with her.
So they say to her, will go for a walk, Claire. So they give her wellies. And put her out the door, like a dog or a cat. [00:10:00] And so she starts walking and so she's time to go. And she turns right outside the pub and there's a little path and it leads to the village church yard. And she's this high and she starts seeing slow worms and a squirrel and a butterfly and a caterpillar.
And suddenly realised there's this whole world which she had never known before. And became completely fascinated. She walked outta the church yard down the lane and up a path. And the first path she came to was a, led to a farm. And she liked the idea of that 'cause there were sheep, there were lambs, there were horses.
So she walks in and bold and was brazen and have a lemonade. And they said, yes, of course. And they gave her a lemonade. And I think they probably gave her a sticky bun or something. But what she really wanted to do was to go be with the animals. So she, they offered, I think, would you like to feed the lamb?
Yeah. So she started feeding the lambs. Then she was grooming the horses, then she was helping milk the cows every single holiday. She came back, she got to know these farmers, got to know everyone in the village and understood what it was. This [00:11:00] countryside thing, this nature thing. The making of food, the creation of food, and the extraordinary people who worked at it every day.
So she had that and kept it in our head, in her head and her heart, all her youth. And then she got really lucky at a certain point and she met me.
Lady Carnarvon: She married you? Yes. Hi.
Michael Morpurgo: I got there first. She met me. And I was a teacher or became a teacher in the end, really. and we, but our heads together. But the idea really was hers because we both taught enough in regular classrooms to realise that what was happening was that with any teacher in any class, you walk into a classroom of regular kids, half of them will come from great homes where people will talk and they read and they do interesting things and you are teaching.
Therefore, the seed falls on ground where it can grow. The other half never did anything. They really went home and they watched telly finished. And we thought that those children need [00:12:00] something which is going to touch them as it touched Claire's life, which was the countryside and nature. They're in the middle of cities, they're big blocks, they look out over nothing really, but roads and towers really.
So she said to me, after about seven or eight years of teaching, what are we doing this for? Because all we're doing is teaching. The children who were come from great homes are gonna be fine anyway. we're not affecting them. And the others we're not touching 'cause they're going home and it's not really working.
We're simply perpetuating this awful divide, which we do have in this country. And so she said, no,,let's try and find a way of getting them outta the city so they can do what I did when I was 70 years old. And then, sadly, her daddy died in 1970. And left her some money and she thought, well, I've got to do what my heart tells me to do.
Why don't we start a charity? Call it Farms for City Children. And we were young and very naive and didn't know much about farming, but bought a [00:13:00] large Victorian house, in Devon, just outside the village where she had gone when she was little. All the people who worked up in the village came to work and look after people.
We got together with a farm living next door. So it was a real farm, not a pretend farm. People did real work and the children joined in the real work, which is exactly what she wanted. And then we found another farm. And another farm. So what have we done? We've had about 120,000 children now come to spend a week of their young lives on these farms.
All because of this lady there who's now a grandmother and a great grandmother. But I won't talk about age.
Lady Carnarvon: No. 29 today. No. How amazing It is. Extraordinary. It
Michael Morpurgo: wonderful. It's
Lady Carnarvon: completely extraordinary.
Michael Morpurgo: And if we meet them, that's what's the lovely thing now with being so old. You go everywhere and you meet people, they come up to you and say, oh, well you didn't, you maybe clean out the calves.
So, and they're about 45 and they got kids. And I remember they'll never forget because he was such an impression. And I have to say, coming here today, you look at [00:14:00] the grounds around here and you look at this extraordinary building and we've seen it before. I've seen it on the telly, like quite a lot of few million people have.
But that's not the same. It's not the same.
Charlie: No, it's not.
Michael Morpurgo: When you see it and you realise that people have their lives here, this is a place that's been made and lived in by people, real people like yourself, who've had families who've done it and done it. Now. That's really interesting. And
Lady Carnarvon: we're a farm.
Michael Morpurgo: And a farm. You produce. We're produce and
Lady Carnarvon: I've got farming records from the 16th century.
Michael Morpurgo: Wonderful.
Lady Carnarvon: So we're still farming the same fields. And I've now got some pigs, a rare breed pig from Cornwall because there was only
Michael Morpurgo: Cornwall,
Lady Carnarvon: there was only a hundred souls left in the world.
Michael Morpurgo: Yes. But why do you want pigs from Cornwall when you could have good one from Devon.
Lady Carnarvon: Sorry, I, because I'm a Cornish. Really? It is like you went to Devon, I went to Cornwall and obviously we've got, lambs and sheep and things like that's so we are a proper, farm and we've got 1,400 ewes two and a half thousand lambs and a small thing of sheep.
And we've now also got some, some [00:15:00] cows, some Belted Galloways.
Michael Morpurgo: Well you're doing the two things that we've already talked about, which is to pass on the history. 'cause people come down here and they find out about people who've lived here. And also you're passing on the whole message about food and where food comes from.
Yes. How important the land is. It's,
Lady Carnarvon: it's from the farm and that's a lot of the, the books that I write are about, it's about gardening, it's about cooking.
Michael Morpurgo: Yeah.
Lady Carnarvon: It's about that connection. It's getting your I was lucky enough to get my hands dirty. we spent many lovely summer, holidays in a o type like the darling buds of May it was completely chaotic with a little lamb called Redcurrant.
And my father digging spinach and collecting cucumbers was in
Kent.
Michael Morpurgo: You said those
Lady Carnarvon: that was in Kent in the summer.
Michael Morpurgo: Yeah.
Lady Carnarvon: And with ponies. who he rode bare back and collect from the field in headscarves and all those things which are unbelievably precious.
Michael Morpurgo: Yeah.
Lady Carnarvon: I don't even remember a tv.
Michael Morpurgo: Yeah,
Lady Carnarvon: I did.
We'd have had time for it. And when I lived in Cornwall, we didn't have a TV start then. My parents used to rent one.
Michael Morpurgo: I think it gets [00:16:00] in under your skin, doesn't it? Because always, certainly my wife, she doesn't watch tele now because she does prefer this other world out there.
I find her sometimes, she won't mind me saying this. Sometimes she'll be out in the garden till 10 o'clock, half 10 at night this time of year. Yeah. Doing what's got to be done, whether it's watering or whatever. Yes. She doesn't want to, the news she said will be the same this evening as it was in this morning.
So what are we wasting our time for? And I think she thinks there's so much that's fake about that world. This is the real thing doing
Lady Carnarvon: it. There is. And I think, as you have share your reflections down the years. Absolutely. Yeah. In your latest book. Yes. I think that also, I love biographies 'cause you just pick up the tips of how to try to live well and we're trying to avoid some of the pitfalls.
I'm always trying to an ask people to anticipate in this business here. So you walk round the pitfall, not bloody through it again. And on a bigger scale, that's what we should be doing in the world today.
Charlie: Yeah.
Lady Carnarvon: And understanding the importance of veteran trees.
Charlie: Yeah, I think
Lady Carnarvon: that's
Michael Morpurgo: right. [00:17:00]
Lady Carnarvon: My earliest written records here is 749 ad so people have chosen to live here for a long time and there's Iron Age Fort and Bronze Age Tumuli.
And I suspect it's the same.
Michael Morpurgo: Sorry, start again. When did it?
Lady Carnarvon: 90. That's my earliest written record.
Michael Morpurgo: God, we thought our house
Lady Carnarvon: was old.
Michael Morpurgo: Are we, I'm quite old. Excuse me. Our house is 18th century and we thought that was old.
Lady Carnarvon: You're frankly modern are. No, but it's just that length of time, which I like.
Michael Morpurgo: yes.
Lady Carnarvon: Absolutely. And it bronze age chamber, Iron Age thought. So I'm always hoping to somehow spark someone's interest to go and read, one of your books, the one about is it Waiting for Anya?
Charlie: Yes.
Lady Carnarvon: things like that, which I think again, are so touch a nerve. It's a different way of sharing that part of history and the fear of it and the courage of it, and the hope of it.
And it's that tiny word hope, which is still quite hard
Michael Morpurgo: to find today. Can do. They can take you there, can't they? you don't need to this, as, sit in the Pyrenees. Well, to some extent, you don't need to. if you can't go to the Pyrenees to [00:18:00] read a book about this whole other world, imagine another time.
And very good for us to read in this country. I think as well, how it is to be occupied. we have
Lady Carnarvon: not, I started a literary festival now this October
Michael Morpurgo: few days. Well, why haven't I been invited?
Lady Carnarvon: I'm, please come now.
Michael Morpurgo: Outrageous. Invite people before me. What's going
Lady Carnarvon: on there? No, you are the first.
Because what I'm, what I'm going to do as well is create a trail through the gardens Yes. For children. And my first part is, I was just chatting to one of our maintenance guys so that you, I'm giving the game away, but you begin the trail by going through a wardrobe. So I'm gonna hang some old clothes in wardrobe and go the other that's
Michael Morpurgo: happened.
Yep.
Lady Carnarvon: Absolutely. It has happened, hasn't it? And then just find some of those different magical things and the magical books, whether you, I've got various ideas of how you find Alice in Wonderland by opening the entrance to fairyland, which obviously goes with all the tree trunks or whatever else to again, try to persuade people.
And I've got a reading competition with prizes and cash behind
it [00:19:00] and a writing competition. So if people write to me letters or a diary longhand and anybody under 16 can come for free. I, that's wonderful. I want people to come to read, to write, to be part of it. So please do. It's my effort to try to, the social media, which is, has a value, but you can see it from time to time, not all the time.
Michael Morpurgo: Yep.
Lady Carnarvon: And there's reading, which should be part of your life every day.
Michael Morpurgo: that's what we've got to ensure happens because it is, that's the pathway to understanding and the knowledge and all these things. And, if we can get them reading more, and you are doing this, I'm scribbling my books and other, there are other writers out there who are doing this all the time.
And all the child has got to do is to have a book that she or he loves and that. Puts 'em onto another book and then another book. Of course, that's the way it starts, but it's gotta start. So there's gotta be good libraries, they've gotta be great parents. Parents are really important. That business of sitting and reading, it's absolutely key.
I'll just tell you a tiny [00:20:00] thing that happened to us last year. We are on a holiday with our grandchildren and great-grandchildren in Normandy, sitting on a beach there. And I was just sitting there looking at the sea and thinking, this is great.
And in front of me was the man who was married to one of my granddaughters and, huge man, he's six foot four Norman warrior sitting there in a bathing costume. And I thought he was alone. And then suddenly I see he's got his arms around his baby, who's about 1-year-old. And I thought, that's very sweet.
And then I saw something even more remarkable. I saw hand coming out and turning a page. So you have this huge daddy introducing a baby about one boy, and then you see a little hand coming out and turning it back. And then the father suddenly coming and turning it back again. And then there's an argument because the child wants, it was just this business Yeah.
Of two people, daddy and child doing this thing together, which they both loved. [00:21:00] And that closeness, the physical closeness, the smell of the father, the touch, the voice, feeling, the voice, all that was there in that tenderness. And if you start that way, that books are something my daddy loves or my mommy loves.
You love it. That's what has happens. And, we all know that it's a question of finding a time to do it. And if you start them like that, then they'll read and then they'll read. And that's what we want more and more. It
Lady Carnarvon: is. So I'm trying different ways to give it a great big push.
Michael Morpurgo: Good.
Lovely.
Lady Carnarvon: So, and I thought I'm giving it a good push this October because we've got other various things happening, which might encourage people to come along, which will help me give it a push. And so it's just trying to twist people's arms. But I just think a life without books is a really poor life.
And it's trying to understand the treasure. William of Wykeham lived here. His dates were 1324 to 1404. So he was living here in the 1370s, eighties time. And [00:22:00] then he, he built New college, Oxford and Winchester College from Wickham. From Highclere. It was his palace in the middle.
Michael Morpurgo: Was he part of the, the founding of Winchester College as well, or is that
Lady Carnarvon: He did found Winchester College, but he was a bishop.
He was a poor yeoman son from Hampshire back to the farming again. But when he wrote his will, I was interested in people's wills. What did he value? His collection of books. That's what he wrote about. Yeah. Yeah. And the fifth Earl of Carnarvon George's great-grandfather who discovered the Tomb of Tutankhamun. He wrote a will when he was 21 because sadly his father had died.
And what did he mention? His books?
Michael Morpurgo: Yeah.
Lady Carnarvon: So I really like that you see these tiny details and often when I'm writing or researching, it's always those tiny details. Yeah. Or he also, the fifth Earl used to sail a lot and he could sail across the Atlantic and things like that in 1898. And of course on the book, [00:23:00] on the sailing journeys, all he did was read.
He was a voracious reader. He read so much. His elder sister said he might as well have got a university course just on the journeys to and fro. Because you were sailing for ages.
Michael Morpurgo: yeah, yeah.
Lady Carnarvon: And he truly loved it. He was never without a book. And you find those tiny details and they just obviously influence what you're writing when you're writing about them, but also your thoughts as you go forward.
There's always massive books, power beside my bed.
Michael Morpurgo: I think it also, the wonderful thing for that books do it, I think almost nothing else does, is that it helps children ask questions. about something that they know nothing about or just en enough, they want to know more. And they are faced, aren't they?
When you are faced with an imaginative situation, a book between people, problems with relationships, political problems in the world, all the time, what it's doing is getting a [00:24:00] child to think about how it is to be a man, a woman. So if you are growing up and you are eight years old and you're just reading a book and there's an old person in it, yeah, you might have a grandpa.
Your grandpa might have died. And in this book maybe there's a grandpa who died. So you understand how it is, what mortality is. It's just a little glimpse of truth which you pick up in books, which you cannot pick up every day. You can pick up a lot every day, but the books help you deal with the everyday things.
That's what's wonderful about it,
Lady Carnarvon: because you are not alone.
Michael Morpurgo: No, absolutely. You are always holding a hand. You are holding a hand with an author for a start, but forget that you're also holding hand with all the people who've read that book too. And that's rather wonderful when you do have a, writer like JK Rowling who has, done Harry Potter.
It does mean that everyone who's read it shares Harry Potter, just like you share Winnie the Pooh. it's a thing we have in common and the things that are in common , with all of us are so important to us. That's what's makes us so
Lady Carnarvon: much. I'm always trying to find the things in common to bring people [00:25:00] here.
Michael Morpurgo: Yeah.
Lady Carnarvon: Because I think that's what we remember. And then I'm raising different monies for different charities. 'cause I want people to meet people. Yes. That gives people help people.
other: Yeah,
Lady Carnarvon: absolutely. So that's again what it is. It's about the threads we hold in common and it's amazingly rewarding when you see it all.
So I've got a, a beautiful sketch I gave my husband where two people's hands are just interlinked, has a little finger there. And that's inspired me to commission sculpture in the garden. 'cause we don't have any bloody sculptures. They got sold or melted down probably in one of the walls, which is two hands nearly reaching and you walk under it's huge, almost tunnel structure.
Michael Morpurgo: Well, they're trying to touch
Lady Carnarvon: and then the next one trying to, and then the last one they do touch. Oh,
Michael Morpurgo: lovely.
Lady Carnarvon: And it's just again, that hands together and walking together. And I thought I could use that again for some quotes as people go to Yeah. Absolute. Encourage people to come just to keep trying, which is all I'm trying to do.
Yeah.
Michael Morpurgo: you are the gardening person as well, about sowing seeds [00:26:00] and it is all about sowing seeds. Funny. It's what we hear from what we hear for, I think. and I'm 82ish now, and I discovered one or two secrets that other people had discovered before me, which is always very irritating.
But there's a wonderful writer who wrote The History Boys, Alan Bennett. And in that book, at some point, the school master, who is a flawed character in many ways, he says what he's doing it for is to pass it on.
Yes.
Michael Morpurgo: And it's really simple.
We have the same thoughts about reaching out to others and helping people and passing on what it is that is value to us.
Lady Carnarvon: It is passing it on. I'm here for however long I'm given, and I'm trying to pass on the joy of this house to be shared by as many people to plant some trees today, which somebody in a hundred years might say, that's a nice tree. to every day, each animal, the horses that I feed, all the dogs saying This is a nice day, [00:27:00] so let's live today.
Yes. Yeah. But to pass on the curiosity, so one of the little workshop tents for the literary festival is called The Curious Tent. there's another, which is Speaker's Corner. So it's just about speaking, communicating, being curious. Yeah, absolutely. And there's the, and a top hat tent and putting the phone away.
Yes. Which, so I'm just building it and funnily enough. We've just had a really nice, email from some other people. 'cause I often find it quite lonely. I'm doing it on online. You have an idea for a literary festival and then you have to turn this into something three-dimensional and it's actually rather as usual, which is fine.
And I don't shirk effort. But sometimes it's again, shaping things. So it becomes a real three dimensional clay sculpture, which people can enjoy and walk around and look at and Absolutely. And spend time so that when they come here, they feel they've had value. Yeah.
Michael Morpurgo: Yeah.
Lady Carnarvon: So there's always quite a lot more thoughts.
And often it's the funny things that happen almost last minute, [00:28:00] which are the only things that people remember. But I don't mind. So I just carry on pushing the boundary. And I just think that wonderful thing of writing long hand, although I write my books on the laptop computer the writing long hand.
I wrote a letter to someone yesterday, pushing down in long hand is so important. That link between brain and hand pen.
Michael Morpurgo: Well, we knew to the poet Ted Hughes quite well. He happened to be a neighbour of ours. And he spoke about that, very strongly. 'cause I, I think he wrote, I never saw anything, which had not been written by hand as far as he was concerned.
And I think he felt that was part of who you are. how you put yourself on paper. And I've always written by hand until such time as my big finger, which was the one that can controls the pen or the pencil. It got arthritis and now it doesn't do it very well. So now I go on to, an iPad and I find it [00:29:00] infuriating because I'm thinking constantly about whether or not it's working.
I have no faith in it whatsoever. I know it's ridiculous. It's because I'm so old. People do it properly. Do it properly, and they type as if they're playing the piano. I can't it at one finger and which finger do I use? The same, what I use for writing. So it goes on hurting. Has it sold anything?
Nothing at all. But I've got to the habit now. I learned something, which I think you'll probably know about this there, but I didn't realise this, that if you're very clever, you can get your iPad and there's a little thing you press and then you can speak into it and it prints it out magically.
It's just extraordinary. But it's taken me all these years to realise that it's rather useful. You don't need to use any fingers at all.
Lady Carnarvon: It's quite scary. I've been writing so far, I do dictate the letters that I'm putting into the book from other people. 'cause I want to hear their voice.
But [00:30:00] I do know I find the process of writing fascinating. I do try and write some poems sometimes. Do you And those need, I like doing that with my pen. I like the connection again.
Michael Morpurgo: Yeah.
Lady Carnarvon: Coming back
Michael Morpurgo: there I can see that as well. It's important anyway. But with a poem I can see it is 'cause every word, every line is so much more important than when it's a poem.
Somehow it's about the music in it, the rhythm in it. It's, and it also, it's in time with your brain. It's what Ted Hughes so you grow up writing and your process, your mental process is in time with your brain. That's what you've trained yourself to do. And then suddenly it's the machine that's dominating and then it makes mistakes and you have to correct it.
And then you get cross. And if you get cross, you're not thinking about what you're writing about. So it really is interesting. Claire used to do my typing for me at some point, which was really wonderful. She's also my editor, the editing that she's really good at, really good typing. She wasn't so good at, but the editing, which is marvellous.
But there's a problem with her editing. I have to confess this in public. When she edits a book, she's always [00:31:00] the first person who edits my book. She is quite unfairly truthful. And that sometimes is really annoying when you've been working for months and months. Yeah. And she says something about, well, yes, it's good, but maybe you should, I'm thinking I've been slaving over this thing.
I know she's suggesting it could be better. But so I do it. I always do it. 'cause I know she's wise. She's very good this way. I don't like her being like this, but she does it and she helps me. And when it's done and it's finally done, and she says, fine, that's good. That's good. And I said, well, is it as good as warhorse?
And then she says, no. And Warhorse was, I think 65 books ago. So in other words, all the 65 books I've written since have not been as good as warhorse. So when I am talking to children about choosing partners in life, I do tell them to choose a flatterer. We don't need the other thing at all. But they don't really look at me.
Lady Carnarvon: I strangely, I'm not choosing anyone anywhere. [00:32:00] How funny. Well, my husband also edits my books, first of all. and he also started to change some of my words.
Michael Morpurgo: Yeah.
Lady Carnarvon: Which wasn't very popular.
Michael Morpurgo: Yeah.
Lady Carnarvon: and I remember the very first book I wrote, lady, I mean, we'd gone away. I was exhausted by the end of it.
And then when we were away, he said, well darling, don't worry if nobody reads it, you've still tried very hard. I thought, well, I think he means it kindly, but obviously I'm afraid I just burst into tears.
Michael Morpurgo: I think you should have married her and I should have married him.
Lady Carnarvon: yes.
Absolutely Fine.
Claire and Michael, we have a summer jazz and fun evening each year. And if you could take anybody with each of you to the dance or to the evening out, who would it be? But he can't be each other. So Claire, do you want to go first?
Clare Morpurgo: The trouble is, I'm not sure he was a very good dancer, but I'd love to invite Gregory Peck.
Lady Carnarvon: He's very good luck. You'd have every other girl clustered around you. [00:33:00] Michael, who would you take?
Michael Morpurgo: Well, strangely enough, it wouldn't be Gregory Peck and I don't want to dance with him much. but there's a wonderful film called Roman Holiday.
Lady Carnarvon: Yes.
Michael Morpurgo: And the person I would like to have to the ball would be Audrey Hepburn.
Lady Carnarvon: Yes.
Michael Morpurgo: Who got on trouble is really rather well with him. So she probably wouldn't dance in the
Lady Carnarvon: So you are quite of awesome party.
Michael Morpurgo: Yes, I think so. No, I think, she was one of those extraordinary people who, whatever part she played, she touched your heart somehow.
she wasn't just that she was extraordinarily wonderful to look at. she was more than that. She had an extraordinary personality, , with which she infused every, person she played. I think Greg Peck was something the same actually. They were wonderful together, weren't they?
Lady Carnarvon: I think Audrey Hepburn had something called Grace. She had a huge amount of grace, which is so rare perhaps in the world today. And perhaps it's something that, you look for in your book sometimes.
Michael Morpurgo: Yeah.
Lady Carnarvon: And I think you have [00:34:00] contributed so much grace with all your amazing charity work.
Michael Morpurgo: Oh, thank you.
Thank you. Really glad it makes an old couple feel a lot better. Thank you.
Lady Carnarvon: I just wanted to say thank you so much for coming today.
Michael Morpurgo: Oh, bless
Lady Carnarvon: you. Thank you for inviting us. I think I could talk to you for hours. I'd be so honoured if you would come to the literary festival. I'm trying to create,
Michael Morpurgo: Let us know.
Lady Carnarvon: I will let you know because , I think it's a little bit more than the literary festival. It's trying to inspire to encourage,
yeah. To offer prizes and to offer cash prizes. Yeah. To offer recognition.
Michael Morpurgo: Yeah.
Lady Carnarvon: To offer books to those people who've tried and done well. And the anybody can come for free under 16, but only if they have read a book or have written something, which they can demonstrate to me.
Michael Morpurgo: I've got to tell you, I'm over 16
Lady Carnarvon: then you're paying. So I fine. I just, I dunno. I'm trying it. I hope it works. I'll give it a bash and see what happens. But thank you. And Claire, no, brother. So much.
Michael Morpurgo: Thank you
Lady Carnarvon: so much. And thank you.
Lady Carnarvon: And I [00:35:00] hope you all, look on the website of the Farms for City Children because it's an extraordinary endeavour.
It really is. And thank you. It's, it's what it says on the box. Great. And it's life changing.
Michael Morpurgo: Thanks so much. That's really sweet of you. Bless your heart.
