The Times - UK (2020-10-15)

the times | Thursday October 15 2020 1GM 5

News

After exploring the byways of Britain,

encountering the bears of the Appala-

chian Trail and producing a short his-

tory of nearly everything, Bill Bryson

has had enough.

The 68-year-old writer said that he

had decided to retire and “indulge my-

self rather than explore new territory”.

Bryson, who has mostly lived in Britain

since the early 1970s after meeting the

woman who became his wife on a back-

packing trip, said he had been “treating

retirement as an experiment so far this

year but it has been successful and I’m

pretty likely to continue”.

In an interview with Stig Abell to be

broadcast on Times Radio this morn-

ing, Bryson says: “There’s no twitching

going on in me at all. I’ve decided to re-

tire... for the first time in decades I’ve

been reading for pleasure and finding

I’m really enjoying it.”

The writer, whose 1996 book Notes

from a Small Island about his explora-

tion of his adopted country sealed his

reputation, said he had been anxious

that he “would run out of things to do”

if he stopped writing as a profession.

“That has not been the case,” he said.

“The world is full of other things to do

that are enjoyable without any of the

pressures that come with you doing this

as a job.” Bryson worked at The Times in

the 1980s before embarking on a writ-

ing career in 1989 with his US travel

book The Lost Continent, which was full

of caustic observations about his home

state of Iowa.

The author met his wife, Cynthia, in

1973 after interrupting his backpacking

trip at the age of 20 to take a job at a psy-

chiatric hospital in Virginia Water, Sur-

rey, where he worked as a nurse.

The couple have four children and

ten grandchildren. “You only get one

life,” Bryson says in the interview. “That

is pretty evident to all of us. I would

quite like to spend the part that is left to

me, which I hope is a significant part,

but only a fraction, doing all the things

I’ve not been able to do.

“Like enjoying my family, I have

masses of grandchildren and I would

love to spend more time with them just

down on the floor.”

In the interview the writer identified

A Short History of Nearly Everything,

published in 2003, as his most treasured

book. He said the work — a rough guide

to science — had “opened a lot of doors

for me, did the best internationally and

has also been the book that has made

me most financially secure”. He added

that it was also the project that allowed

him “to get out of the rut” after a series

of journeys through America’s small

towns and woods, never mind his

explorations of Britain’s countryside

and character.

“I was getting tired of just writing

comical travel books predicated on the

idea of me being a bit of an idiot and get-

ting drunk in inappropriate places and

that kind of thing,” he said. Bryson ad-

mitted, however, that the work, which

he described as his first endeavour to do

a “serious book about science, a serious

book about anything”, could have

caused him trouble.

“Any trained scientist could have

picked it to pieces by looking at very

specific areas where I didn’t quite grasp

the bigger picture,” Bryson, who was

“terrible” at science at school, said. “But

by and large they were really quite gen-

erous,” he said adding that his latest

(and last) book, The Body: a Guide for

Occupants, proved trickier, partly

because everybody “has been living in

these bodies for lifetimes”.

He added: “If I am talking about par-

ticle physics, if I get something wrong,

biologists aren’t necessarily going to

know that. The knowledge is so specific

that you can screw up in one area and

people from other areas are not going

to necessarily know. If you make a simi-

lar mistake with the body all kinds of

people are going to know you have

made a whopping mistake.”

Times Radio Breakfast, 6am-10am

A blow to Bryson’s legions of fans,

leading article, page 27

Is Book at Bedtime keeping you up at

night? Radio 4 is hunting for happier

endings for its long-running fiction

series after admitting that listeners

have been put off by “gratuitously

violent and tragic stories”.

Millions of Britons have made Book

at Bedtime part of their late night rou-

tine since it was first broadcast in 1949,

under a slightly different title. Popular

novels, from classics to new releases,

are serialised across weekday evenings

at 10.45pm, allowing audiences of all

ages to ease themselves towards sleep

with a story.

Recent selections have included The

Aspern Papers by Henry James, A

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by

James Joyce, and Trespass by Rose

Tremain. Radio 4 commissioners have

now conceded that some titles were too

dark for the night-time slot and are ap-

pealing for cheerier works to abridge.

A brief circulated to potential pro-

The BBC has insisted that it does not

plan to “sensationalise” Jimmy Savile’s

crimes after announcing plans to make

a drama about the disgraced presenter.

The mini-series, titled The Reckon-

ing, will tell the story of how Savile

came from a working-class background

to be one of the biggest stars in tele-

vision. It will also focus on Savile’s years

of sexual abuse and the impact he had

on his victims.

Jeff Pope, the drama’s executive pro-

ducer, said: “I think this is a story that

has to be told. We must understand why

a man like Jimmy Savile seemed to re-

main immune for so long to proper

scrutiny and criminal investigation.”

The series will be shown on BBC

One. It is not clear who the corporation

has in mind to play Savile, now believed

to have been one of Britain’s most pro-

Radio 4 seeks happier bedtime stories

ducers states: “We will always aim to

select a variety but we would like to be

offered more titles that are pure pleas-

ure, diversion or even comedy.

“Happy endings are often a bit too

rare in what we are asked to consider.

We can listen to sad or disturbing sto-

ries if they are ultimately redemptive,

but a gratuitously violent or tragic end-

ing is upsetting, infuriating and can

seem distasteful.”

The note adds that “listeners rarely

enjoy being cheated with ambiguity or

uncertainty”, implying a preference for

plotlines that are neatly resolved.

“Some contemporary novels espe-

cially have very challenging content:

we need to consider whether that can

be filleted without misrepresenting the

original,” it continues.

Radio 4 sources stressed there was

no ban on unhappy endings, simply a

desire to present a wider range of

stories.

The quest for upbeat tales extends to

the station’s short-fiction programmes

on Friday afternoons and Sunday even-

ings. “There is sometimes a tendency,

particularly in the single-story slot, to

veer towards a reflective, melancholic

or plangent mood,” the brief told

producers.

“This can be completely justified and

very poignant, but it can also be too

easy to switch off, even if it is beautiful

on the page. We would like more of our

stories to be positive and dynamic.”

In addition to the war on gloom

Radio 4’s controller, Mohit Bakaya, is

also plotting an overhaul of the station’s

arts coverage that could result in Front

Row being replaced with a longer even-

ing programme.

He has invited pitches for a “newly

imagined, intelligent space” to cover

the arts, running for 45 minutes a night

rather than the half hour given to Front

Row. The process could either lead to

the present programme being substan-

tially revamped or supplanted by a new

format with a different name, sources

said.

Savile abuse drama ‘won’t

sensationalise his crimes’

Matthew Moore

Matthew Moore Media Correspondent

lific child sex offenders, who died in

2011 aged 84 without facing justice for

his crimes.

Piers Wenger, the controller of BBC

drama, said: “The story of Jimmy Savile

is one of the most emotive and troub-

ling of our times. We do not intend to

sensationalise these crimes but to give

voice to his victims. We will work with

survivors to ensure their stories are told

with sensitivity and respect and to

examine the institutions which Jimmy

Savile was associated with and the cir-

cumstances in which these crimes took

place.

“Drama has the ability to tackle sen-

sitive real life subjects and consider the

impact of a crime on its survivors and

what lessons can be learnt.”

A 2016 report into his abuse found

that staff at the BBC, which employed

Savile for many years, missed numer-

ous opportunities to stop him.

Bryson closes the book on a long career

David Sanderson Arts Correspondent

11

honorary doctorates, including from

Durham, Leeds, St Andrews, King’s

College London and the Open

University

10 million

books sold since 1998, for more

than £81 million

2 million

copies sold of A Short History of

Nearly Everything, right

3

books about the English language,

The Mother Tongue, Troublesome

Words and Bryson’s Dictionary for

Writers and Editors

30

languages into which his books

have been translated

Bill Bryson, 68, said

that he was looking

forward to getting

on the floor with his

ten grandchildren

FABIO DE PAOLA/SHUTTERSTOCK

Totting up the Bill