Transcripts For BBCNEWS Meet The Author 20170916 : compareme

Transcripts For BBCNEWS Meet The Author 20170916

Prince charles will not live at Buckingham Palace. He says he will go to the house he currently lives in at the moment. He is very co mforta ble in at the moment. He is very comfortable they are. Buckingham palace is too big and costs too much money to run. The idea would be to open it to the public a little more. Theyre certainly not going to sell it. They will try to make it a bit more commercially viable. Apparently Prince William as well, he is quite happy not to live in Buckingham Palace either. At the moment they cannot open it up because the queen lives they are. In the future, as and when charles becomes king, he will not live there. And he has lived in Clarence House for a long time. It is a house. Instead of palace. That is it for the papers tonight. Do not forget you can see all of the front pages online. Our website is therefore you seven days a week. If you missed the programme you can watch it later on the bbc iplayer a. Coming you can watch it later on the bbc iplayera. Coming up you can watch it later on the bbc iplayer a. Coming up next, meet the offer. Author. Munich. A word that in britain was turned from the simple name of a city, into a political label for the appeasement of hitler, perhaps political weakness in the face of aggression. It is the title of Robert Harris new novel. A thriller set in that anxious prelude to the second world war, and the story of betrayal and loyalty. Welcome. You face a interesting problem as an author here. You are trying to create tension, a marvellous human story, against the backdrop where we know the outcome. You know, oddly enough that is not a problem. One of the best thrillers of recent times, the day of the jackal, we know de gaulle was not assassinated, a thrilling book. We know there was a deal at munich, that is not really the issue. It is how we get there, what went on behind the scenes. Who was trying to do what, in order to get to a point with the other. No. What you have to do with this book, far from the essential human drama, which we will come to, for those who will not read it, is work out how hitler, for example, behaved in a room. How he looked at ribbentrop, chamberlain. What he was like . I must say, my biggest worry about writing the novel, i realised i had to have hitler close up, you cannot write a novel about the munich agreement without that. I did have one great piece of good fortune. Oddly enough there is a 12 minute recording of adolf hitler speaking normally, was recorded in finland in 1943. Nobody was aware of it, it turned up in the finnish archives. You hear him speak, this remorseless, grinding, at the same time, lively voice. That was a great help to me. You dont have any other leader in the second world war, we hear what they sound like over the dinner table. Talking about leaders. You managed to evoke a certain amount of sympathy for what chamberlain was trying to do, and how he went about it. His fundamental decency, really. Although he was duped. I have a great sympathy for chamberlain. Im often drawn in life to unpopularfigures. Chamberlain was unlike the modern caricature for a weak leader we have. A terrifically strong leader. If i had to pick a recent Prime Minister he reminds me of, it is margaret thatcher. The same remorseless domination of his colleagues by his mastery of detail. He was as passionate for peace as hitler was passionate for war. Munich describes a dual between these two men. Oddly enough chamberlain wins the dual. I do think there is any doubt about that. Hitler felt he had been cheated. And was furious with chamberlain. We remember it completely differently. Very hard but that is how it looks to hitler. The drama that unfolded in the book, and i dont want to go to too much detail of the plot. A spoilerfor readers about to pick it up. There is human drama involving two people on different sides, as it were. Who knew each other before the war. What we see is the classic fight between loyalty to country and loyalty to ones own beliefs. That occurs again and again in your story. Always fascinates you. Yes, i like the great historical event, and the individual conscience caught up in it. I wanted to write a novel about munich for 13 years. I would have the idea of a Civil Servant who travelled with chamberlain on his plane to see hitler. I could not see where else it went. A man having problems in his private life, his wife having an affair. At which point do you stop appeasing in the private life, as well as the International Stage . That was my original conceit. Last year, i thought if he was at oxford around 1930, and there was german scholar, like ribbentrop, and they were great friends, and they travelled on adolf hitlers train overnight to munich, as my other protagonist travelled from london on chamberlains plane. And they met. That would take me into the conference. A wonderful sense of fun, on the authors part. Serious, but fun nonetheless. Trying to create the atmosphere in the room. It has to come out of your imagination. We know the historical fa ct afterwards. We can work out the various strategies. What it was like, what the smell was like, what the fuel was like. The atmosphere, the lighting, that is in your head. Great fun to make it up. I had three great visits writing this book, one was around downing street after six oclock i was allowed in, and shown chamberlains private study. The geography of downing street. Then in munich, the building where the munich conference took place. It is hardly changed. Untouched by allied bombing. A lot of the decoration is still there. The study where the conference took place, you can see. Hitlers apartment. There i was very fortunate to get into that, it is a police headquarters, closed off. That was staggering. Do you think you know what it felt like to walk into that room, when chamberlain and hitler met in person . I think i do. I read all the accounts i could. History to me is a very live thing. I dont necessarily believe in ghosts, but i believe in picking up, as it were, the tremors of the past. I feel that quite strongly. When i go to these places. Always in my books i have a strong place in place, i needed that physicality. To go there, yes, i did feel i could imagine what it was like. The room was filled with uniforms, ss uniforms, goring, himmler, hess. Various types. The italians in their smart fascist uniforms. These rather dowdy civilians from london and paris turn up. The crowds outside. The swastikas. I did not realise the munich conference took place in the absolute heart of nazism. They were all eternal flames. The grand reviewing area and so on. Like a pagan city within a city. To bring all of that alive, for me, that is a great pleasure of writing. We are up both of the post war generation. The shadow of these events, so strong over us. The interpretation was so vivid, by our parents generation. We are now almost creeping out of that shadow, beginning to be able to get it as human beings. We have this churchillian view of history. He was such a brilliant storyteller. A creative writer in a way, as well as Prime Minister. He has conditioned this whole island story of our. Of course Neville Chamberlain was given a very poor part. I dont think without 38, without munich, there would not have been the glorious victories of 1940. Or the survival of 1940. Poor old Neville Chamberlain died early on in the war. Unable to give his version of events afterwards. He has many faults. In the end, appeasement failed. In the end, he got it wrong. I am not sure that any Prime Minister would have done anything different, to what he did. I think he was aware, at least there was a pretty strong chance the agreement would not hold. The british by 1939, under chamberlain, were spending 50 of government revenue on rearmament. Imagine if we were to do that now. Part of the idea of the book, we have plenty of representations in fiction and on film of winston churchill, but i thought it would be interesting to try and represent chamberlain, what he was like. Robert harris, author of munich, thank you very much. The reason we still has an showers is that we have low pressure sitting out towards the east of the uk. You can see out towards the east of the uk. You can see that. High pressure and the atla ntic can see that. High pressure and the atlantic is putting in from the south west, and that will quieten things down, easing away most of the showers as we move through the day. Some heavy downpours across south wales in south west england. The odd rumble of thunder, here. Inland, most rumble of thunder, here. Inland, m ost pla ces rumble of thunder, here. Inland, most places like to dry. Winds will fall light, too, the recipe for a chilly night. In the towns and cities, temperatures should hold. In the countryside it could be a catch of grass frost. Tomorrow starts on that fairly fresh note, but fewer showers than we have seen to date, and more sunshine, so in improving pitches on sunday. And improving picture on sunday. Inland, mist fog should clear quickly. Showers in the south and east will fade away. One or two should turn up later in england and wales. Many will avoid the showers all day. This is the sunshine, and a degree or to warm a competitive saturday. Still breeze around the north sea coast, making things feel cooler and round the scotla nd things feel cooler and round the scotland and Eastern England as well. Moving sunday evening into monday, that High Pressure moves in from the atlantic. Low pressure sitting out towards these. Still a northerly breeze across Northern England and eastern scotland. Along the south coast, it will feel reasonably want to with most avoiding the showers. Temperatures around 15 18 for most of us, but he could feel cooler in the newcastle at aberdeen, for instance. Most places have a decent day of 14 18d. The little bit of rain adding in during the middle part of the week, once that there is a way, the weather will look fairly settled, with High Pressure building and its warming up as we had to the end of the month. This is bbc news. Our top stories British Police hunt for more potential suspects in the london tube bombing after arresting a man they believe may have planted the device. At this stage were an open mind about whether more than one person was responsible for the attack. We are still pursuing numerous lines of requiring and at great pace. Enquiry. A Property West of london was raided as part of the investigation. It belongs to an elderly couple known for fostering children. Bangladesh imposes sweeping new restrictions on 400,000 Rohingya Muslim refugees, stopping them from travelling once they enter the country. Also in the programme, we bring you a special report on the people who survived the devastation of Hurricane Irma in the caribbean

© 2025 Vimarsana