Backlisted - A Kestrel For a Knave by Barry Hines (from Green Man Festival)

Episode Date: August 28, 2023

Author and illustrator Rose Blake and writer and musician Bob Stanley (Saint Etienne) joined Andy and John at the Greenman festival in Wales on August 18th 2023 to discuss Barry Hines's second novel A Kestrel for a Knave (1968) and, inevitably, the film adaptation Kes (1969), directed by Ken Loach from a screenplay by Hines himself. This episode was recorded in front of a large crowd of festivalgoers, most of whom had either read the book or seen the film, or both. Why does this apparently simple story of a boy and a bird continue to speak to us nearly 60 years after it was written? And what does that say about the changes in British society in the same period - or lack of them? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Benefits vary by car and other conditions apply. Hello and welcome to Backlisted, the podcast that gives new life to old books. Today you find us in the Welsh mountains on a rainy day in August, in a tent at the Green Man Festival. As people run in from the rain, they're confronted by the sight of four people on stage. Four people on stage with one thing in mind, to talk about a book that they love. I'm John Mitchinson, the publisher of Unbound, the website where people crowdfund the books they really want to read. And I'm Andy Miller, the author of The Year of Reading Dangerously. And what you're going to hear today is a recording of a live episode of Bat Listers that we made at the Greenman Festival in Wales on Friday, August the 18th, 2023, in the middle of the afternoon, as John has suggested.

We got a good turnout, which might be partly because of the podcast and partly because it was really raining all day very heavily. Greenland, in the most beautiful part of Wales, the Bannon Pretynog, the place formerly known as the Brecon Beacons. You know, we were warming up the crowd for The Comet Is Coming From Now

and the headline is Devo From The Past during extremely challenging weather conditions. But we were delighted to have been asked to perform there. We were. So what you're going to hear on this tape, which was made through the desk at the show, is conversation between four people about barry hines's novel orchestral reneve made into a film by ken loach and tony garnett the following year as kiss yeah published in 1968 by michael joseph and as made into a film in 1969 never been out of print and it's never been

out of print never been out of print absolutely right it's never been out of print. Never been out of print. That's absolutely right. We felt that it would be a book that connected with the Green Man audience and so it proved. So it proved. But before we listen to the recording, and I should just say, remember this was recorded at a music festival

so you might hear some bleed through from the other stages at various points. We're going to do the housekeeping that we do on Backlisted of telling you a bit about the author. And first of all, reading you the blurb of the first edition jacket. And I'm going to ask my colleague, John Mitchinson, to appraise this in his role as a publisher and estate. So this was what was put on the Michael Joseph jacket. And John, if Barry Hines didn't write this himself, I will eat a kestrel. This sounds like Barry to me. Anyway, here we go.

If for some incredible reason you have not read A Kestrel for a Knave, nor have you seen Kess, here is what this book is about when it was published. Barry Hines' first novel, The Blinder, received a notable round of applause in 1966. His second, A Kestrel for a Knave, shows a more subtle, more tender development of character and an unerring eye and ear for the environment of youth. It is the story of a boy and a bird, each apparently untamable but deeply involved and dependent on one another.

The knave of the title is Billy Casper. Not much beloved by anyone, and idling through his last year at school before probably joining his brother in the pits. His emergence as a human being seems effectively blocked by his mother, who is preoccupied with the men who serially frequent the house, and the indifference of all those around him who have little time for a stubborn, inarticulate boy. Life changes for Billy when he adopts and patiently trains a kestrel. Gradually, learning from books and from all the magpies, jays and lesser birds he has kept before, he gains the kestrel's confidence until she will fly freely and return to his lure.

Bringing her fierce and fearful nature into harmony with his own becomes an absorbing passion, making him more vulnerable than before the outcome leaves the reader questioning and deeply caring how billy will face the terrifying odds ahead well you have to say that is a very good blurb i'm gonna say johnny that's one of the best blurbs we've ever read on this i really think so i really think so that is incredible yeah and barry hines if you wrote that wherever you now reside uh thank you very much because if you haven't uh read or seen a kestrel for naval care you have a. Hopefully you now understand where this episode is coming from. And also, yes, indeed, you have a treat in store.

We should say that Barry Hines was a bit of background on him. He was, I mean, he came to prominence in the 1960s. His name is often connected with other writers that period, with other writers that period, Alan Sillitoe in particular, as being a kind of working class novelist. He wrote nine novels in the end and they all are sort of set in and around, for the most part, South Yorkshire,

which is where he was from. Yes, he was born in Hoyland. Yeah, near Barnsley in 1939 and he died in hoiland near barnsley he did indeed 2016 and and he spent time uh he didn't go down the pit but he did work uh briefly as a as an apprentice mining surveyor in the pit um unlike billy casper he was a bit of a star student he was also an extraordinary athlete which we do mention in the pit um unlike billy casper he was a bit of a star student he was also an extraordinary athlete which we do mention in the podcast um he played uh athletics he he represented um i think yorkshire athletics but he played uh football for for barnesley and for crawley town

but then became a teacher and i think it was out of his teaching experience combined with the experience of his brother, Richard, who had kept a Kestrel, that the story for Kes came about. And it was a success. The film came out the next year and made it even more of a success. It sold over 2 million copies. The great Bard of Barnsley has said about... Our former guest. Our former guest on the podcast has said about Kestrel for a Knave.

For people who come from South Yorkshire and Barnsley in particular, it's our Moby Dick, our Things Fall Apart, our Great Gatsby. And it has been the book, I think, that more or less defined Barry Hines' career. Barry Hines' career I mean I want to say also firstly Ken Loach made three films in collaboration

with Barry Hines he did The Gamekeeper in 1975 and Looks and Smiles in 1981 but it clearly is a Kestrel Frenet, which is the one which lives on in the British public imagination. Yeah, and I also want to just acknowledge that I, after Barry Hines died, I talked about,

or we talked about his career on Backlisted. And I read his third novel which is called First Signs if you go back and find that episode which using our website you will be able to, backlisted.fm you'll hear me saying this isn't

a very good book, First Signs and I feel really guilty Johnny now having revisited Kestrel and also looking at the overview of Barry Hines' other work, that when we, I haven't changed my mind, First Signs is not a very good book, but it is not representative of Hines' vision or his talent. And this is a really lovely opportunity to redress that balance for me anyway. opportunity to redress that balance for me anyway um i'd also like to point out that hinds went on uh firstly in addition to writing the novels john has has talked about um he also wrote the screenplay of threads he did um which if if that was the only thing he'd ever done, Threads, which was a BBC film shown in 1984 about the probable effects of a nuclear strike on a major city. If that was the only thing he'd ever done, he'd be a culturally significant figure.

that he had the range to write that write a best-selling novel write a film script uh that was the basis of one of the most beloved british films of the last 60 70 years that he wrote plays that were produced at the royal court he was that thing we always look for on Backlisted. The real thing. He was a working writer. Yeah. And he loved being a working writer. And it's partly for that reason we were so pleased to welcome both Rose Blake and Bob Stanley, who you'll hear me introduce on the actual live recording, because they bring such different perspectives on orchestral phrenae as a cultural phenomenon.

Yeah. We'll say a bit after you've heard the discussion about how it felt talking about this book on stage in Wales, at Greenman, in that place. Johnny, is there anything else you think we need to say before we get into it? Yeah, just as a linking back to our last podcast, summer reading special, Catherine Taylor,

whose memoir I talked about, The Stirrings, she was an extra in threads. So she writes about that in the books. Was she? Small world, but I wouldn't want to paint it. Good Lord. Right, okay. Here we are.

You're joining us live at the Green Mountain Festival in Wales. Smell the mud, hear the rain. Behind us on the big screen is projected the famous photograph of Billy Casper flicking everyone in that tent the Vs. Nikki, our producer, I'm going to ask, do we need to explain the phrase flicking the Vs as is his Nicky our producer I'm going to ask do we need to explain the phrase flicking the V's from other people around the world no I think we should just let it

lie it's a nice anglicised thing just figure it out it's not ironically given the subject of a castrol for a knave flipping the bird it's a very different gesture but if you're not familiar with it listeners orchestral frenève, flipping the bird. It's a very different gesture, but if you're not familiar with it, listeners in other countries,

just Google the phrase orchestral frenève Billy Casper and you will see what we mean. Hey, are you a member? What do you mean? Are you a member of the library? I don't know about that. I don't want to book on parking lots, no. Well, you have to be a member to take a book out. I only want one.

Well, have you filled one of these forms in? No. Well, you're not a member then. You'll have to take one of these home first for your father to sign. My dad's away. Well, you can wait till he comes back home, can't you? I don't mean that. I mean, he's left home. Oh, I see. Well, in that case, your mother will have to sign it for you.

How about she's at work and she'll not be home till tea time and it's Sunday tomorrow? There's no rush, is there? I've never broke a book, you know. I haven't tore it at all. Well, look at your hands. They're absolutely filthy. We'll end up with dirty books that way. I don't read dirty books. I should hope you don't read dirty books. You're not old enough to read dirty books. My mum knows one of the people who works here, you know. That'll help, won't it? No, that doesn't help at all. You're not old enough to read dirty books. My mum knows one of the people who works here.

That'll help, won't it? No, that doesn't help at all. You still have to have the back signed. To be a member, you'll have to have somebody over 21 who is on the Borough Electoral Roll to sign it for you. Ah, well, I'm over 21. You're not over 21. Ah, but I vote. You don't vote. You're not old enough to vote.

I vote for my mum. She don't like voting, so I do it. You'll just have to wait for it, won't you? Where would I find a book, then? In a shop, like? Well, you'd have to go down the street. There's a second-hand bookshop there. You'll find some down there. Thanks very much, everybody. Thank you. Thank you for coming. Thank you to Dave. Welcome to Batlist.

The podcast gives new life to old books. It's really fantastic to be here at the Green Man Festival in Wales. Talking about Barry Hines and a kestrel for a knave. So we're joined by two guests today. They are Rose Blake and Bob Stanley. Hello. Hi. Rose works as a freelance illustrator in London.

She has illustrated many picture books, including A History of Pictures for Children by David Hockney and Martin Gayford. She very luckily grew up opposite a library and has been obsessively reading ever since. She published Egg and Spoon, her first piece of writing last year with Rough Trade, and is currently working slash struggling on her next written project.

Yes, that's nature of the beast. We're also joined by Bob Stanley. Since 1987, Bob Stanley has written about music for publications including The Face, Smash Hits, NME, The Guardian, The Times, The LA Times, and The Paris Review. He is a member of the Mercury-nominated pop group Saint Etienne and has written two acclaimed pop music histories that span the 20th century, Yeah Yeah Yeah, The Story of Modern Pop, Faber 2013 and Let's Do It, The Birth of Pop, Faber 2022, which won the 2023 Penderin Prize. His latest book, The Bee Gees, Children of the World,

is published by Nine Eight and is available on the bookstore next door. I want to get straight to it then with A Kestrel for a Knave. Rose. Yes. When did you first read A Kestrel for a Knave by Barry Hine? I think it was in 2002. So I was 14 and I just got it out from my local library and I reread it last week and it was a totally different experience of reading.

What way? In the way that I read it just as a story when I was a 14-year-old. I read it as a boy who finds a hawk and the hawk dies and I read it so much more recently as a book about society and it's a book about politics and it's a book about so and it's a book about politics and it's about so many other than various things yeah um bob where did you when did you read the book or see the film

um i read the book at school when i was 12 or 13 i see um but i saw the film when i was five it's the first film i ever saw at the cinema and it was the support film for The Jungle Book. I went to Resilogia with my mum and she didn't know what Kez was because it was a brand new film at the time as she was obviously porous, right? I mentioned this to her

yesterday. She was like, oh no! I remember her covering my eyes but I couldn't work out why. But I really loved the look and feel of the film, weirdly. I mean, I obviously completely missed everything that was going on. I just saw the landscapes and thought Billy looked cool. And that was my main takeaway from that film. What was the first film you ever saw in the cinema, Rose?

Oh, God. I can't remember. Probably like The Lion King or The Little Mermaid or something like that. Yeah, mine was Dougal and the Blue Cat. We were just saying, you know, Dougal and the Blue Cat is a very psychedelic text and Keres really isn't. John was saying it's the least psychedelic novel of the 1960s. Yeah, Penguin have put an interesting new jacket on it,

which is by Alan Jones, the 60s. Well, he's still, I think, alive. But he came to prominence in the 60s. And it's a very psychedelic, pretty abstract-looking jacket. Seems like a, I mean, mean you know it's well brave yeah given the content and you uh john you um you have a special connection with this novel don't you um well i have a special connection in that i was i read it when i was about nine and um that was about the time i was completely into birdwatching and I was

excited to discover that the young ornithologist club back in 1970, 1917, I think it was, uh, their little badge, you get a little badge if you joined and it was a little Kestrel and somehow the memory of, of reading the book and being, I was obsessed with, I wanted my parents to give me falconry lessons, um, my parental situation wasn't quite as bad as billy casper's but it was met with fairly fairly round contempt was it what falconry where are we going to find and i in fact i did find i did find a place where you could go and i mean it wasn't i couldn't actually learn how to do it but i could hold a hawk and um that memory the first time I've had a hawk on my wrist

and the feeling of incredible lightness, but incredible strength when they fly away and they come back, really lived with me for life. And I'm totally, it was a few years before I actually saw the film, but the book had really kind of hit a very, very deep, I mean, I think anybody who's grown up with, as I did, my early years were spent up in the industrial northeast and getting out into the fields and finding nature out there

was really important. So, yeah. But a bit like you, Rose, going back to it, I haven't read it since I was nine. And there was huge bits that I'd forgotten in this novel that really blew me in this novel that really blew me away this time around. Rose, well you said that you found it

different from when you read it to what you remembered. And you are significantly younger than the older gentlemen gathered on this stage. So you don't remember when the world was quite like that. No.

And so did it feel dated to you? No, not at all. I mean, it's about, my main take from the book was that it's about the way that people are treated and it's about the fact that this boy is just, his life is cruel, everything about his life is cruel and you can't train a hawk using cruelty it's impossible to train a hawk using cruelty so that was the main thing that I took from it was

this idea of this boy that's up against everything his mum his brother his teachers everything in his life is just cruel to him but he can he can escape into this world of the hawk which I mean if he tried to train a hawk with cruelty, it just wouldn't happen. So it's a universal thing, isn't it? I think it's a very timeless idea, that. Bob, could you identify with it, despite coming from the Croydon area?

Well, no, I mean, if I said I identified with Billy Casper, I think it'd be a bit of a stretch. But, yeah, certainly, I mean, I didn't enjoy school at all. And I didn't feel like I was getting any education there. It's pretty commonplace in schools now, I think. I was literally being trained to do exams. And clearly, as I wasn't going to get into university, I was just, like, shunted to the bat.

So I can definitely relate to that. Rereading it now, I mean i think i've kind of worked this out when i read it the first time around but it's like it's clearly a very political book and it's um it's kind of drawing this it's this sort of spare language is there to like make you realize it's a political book and i wouldn't i wouldn't certainly didn't get that from the film when I was five. I certainly think it's true, John. Tony Garnett, Ken Loach's producer,

and Loach himself, the first thing they ever say about Kess, if they're asked about it now, is it's a political film. If you watch it and think it's a film only about a boy and his bird, you're not watching it right. It's a film about the system whatever you want to call the system in this context um i mean i i can remember

reading it and i couldn't see the center of it i kind of root for billy casper but why am i being denied certain kinds of narrative closure you were telling me what they wanted to do in the film adaptation or some producers wanted to do yeah there's a apparently they were it was not an easy film but i remember this barry barry hines's first novel and it's ken loach's first feature film very early very early very early so it wasn't a shoo-in to get money and there was one producer came and looked at it and said, yeah, well

what we really want is we want Judd, the brother, to actually be the partner of the mother and in a rage he kills the mother and then Billy Casper runs and disappears and mr farthing spends a time searching the streets of distant towns finally finds billy casper brings him back and

gets him a job in a zoo and barry heine said well he said we found that quite that scenario quite easy to resist and eventually united artists did come and fund the film but um yeah I mean I think I think you would imagine we'll maybe talk about the differences in in a minute but the differences between the film and the book because they are quite marked there are some marked differences although pretty much all the dialogue in the in the film comes from the novel and Tony Garner and and and and Ken Loach said they felt slightly sheepish later that they'd got screenwriting credits

when really it should have been Barry Hines. Yeah, yeah. Rose, I wonder whether you could, we were talking about what the prose, how spare the prose is. I wonder if you could read us a small section from the novel so people who haven't read it

can see the restraint with which Hines tells his story. I'm actually going to read quite a floral bit. Do it. Which cuts... I found that there's this juxtaposition in the book massively between this really spare language

and then these scenes where things are noticed, like a silver birch is noticed when he's being pained and there are where things are noticed, like a silver birch is noticed when he's being rohaned and there are various things that Billy... I feel that that's the inner interior of Billy maybe and it almost makes it so much more difficult to bear the cruelty because he's got this inner world

of noticing a thrush and stroking its back. Anyway, he's in a big fight in the school playground and he's pushed into a coal heap and he's got this inner world of, you know, noticing a thrush and stroking its back. Anyway, he's in a big fight in the school playground and he's pushed into a coal heap. He's being bullied. And he washes his hands after the fight. And this is just the description of him washing his hands. Okay, it says, a tap had been left running and its flow was powerful enough

to maintain a whirlpool in the bottom of the sink. Billy plugged the next sink and ran the hot water, tempering it with cold water and testing it until the bowl was well filled. He pushed his sleeves up to his elbows and immersed both hands. The level in the bowl rose and the displaced water escaped down the overflow. Billy leaned on his arms, his hands moulded to the shape of the bowl, and as the steam drifted up about his face he closed his eyes and smiled like the Bisto Kid. He bent over the bowl and slowly dipped to his face, held it, and made the water boil by blowing into it. He stood up, shaking his face and wiping the water from his eyes, then he lathered his hands from a bottle of liquid soap and fouled the water by rinsing them. He lathered them again, made an O with the forefinger and thumb of his right hand, and blew gently on the membrane gathered there. It blossomed to a bubble,

the spectrum curving in its skin as it left his hand and floated quietly towards the floor. He reached out to take it back. Touched it. Gone. He blew some more but they came out small, so he let them drift and time their own oblivion. Then, out it came, a jewel, hanging heavy in the air. He reached out to catch it, it bounced off the buff of air, then wavered in the suction as he withdrew his hand. He followed it, and as it fell he placed his hand below it allowing his hand to fall more slowly than the bubble, so that slowly, very slowly, the bubble fell closer to his hand. Falling, bubble over hand, both falling, until finally the bubble landed gently on the falling palm.

Billy eased them to a halt and stood up, smiling. He tilted his hand and shifted his head to catch the colours from different angles and in different lights, and while he was looking, it vanished, leaving him looking at a lathered palm. Amazing. It's amazing, isn't it? That is just amazing. I mean, it's a moment of Billy's, you know,

it's Billy's soul in this. And this is a man who didn't read a novel until he was 21. I mean, I do think the Heinz's story is incredible. I mean, he just, he grew up reading comics. There were no books in the house. And he was staying, I think he was in Diggs with an English graduate, maybe when he was teaching. And he said, have you got any books I could read?

And his friend's thinking, I'll find him the thinnest book I can find, found him a copy of Animal Farm. And from that moment onwards, that was it. He just read and read and read. And I think people often compare his style that he was influenced by hemingway but that honestly there is one of the great things about this book is there's so much more i mean really extraordinary writing than even the film would suggest that there would need to be for the story and some of the sentences really rich book some of

the sentences almost like a haiku there are the i just got one in the notebook which i'll just quickly read which it just says a call an echo an empty yard a sheet of paper captured against the wire by the wind i mean that as a sentence is just like oh so good bob um you said that you read the book when you were at school Bob, you said that you read the book when you were at school. Yeah. Because it was on the curriculum, wasn't it? Yeah, it would have been by the late 70s,

which is not that long after it was published, I suppose. And I think you were saying earlier, Barry Hines is still angry about the lack of working-class writers who are on school curriculums. But I think the reason that I, you know, I've learned about the Chartists and Peterloo at school and things like Billy Lyre were on our English curriculum would have been largely down to Kez and that generation of writers coming through

and being unignorable. And I think those things probably aren't on the curriculum anymore, certainly not the history parts aren't. Kes, definitely. Kestrel for a name definitely isn't any. It is. It isn't. It isn't, really.

Well, I think one of the things I was really surprised about going back to this book, I would be very interested, I'm going to ask a question of the many teachers gathered in this audience in a minute um i was really surprised at how much of this book you know you might think it's about class consciousness or you might think it's about training orchestral but i can't think of a better british novel about british schools, even though it was written nearly 60 years ago. That does not seem to be a rich vein of Rosen saying, well, there's Grange Hill, but that's not a novel. I mean, you know, there's not a kind of socialist realist tradition of writing about how horrible children can be to one another and how horrible, inadvertently perhaps, or deliberately, teachers can be to students.

I wonder, are there any teachers here who have taught Kess? Yes. At the back, yes. What luck, you're right at the very back and I can't hear you. Give me a thumbs up if they enjoyed it they loved it round of applause i loved it but one of the reasons i think it maybe it was it was barry hines himself said he used to like reading it you let school kids loved it because of the swearing yeah he said it was it was literally everybody would read he said often these were classrooms where kids had not had stories read to them since the if ever since they were very young and kes was the thing that unlocked reading kestrel for a name was the thing that unlocked reading for them because they were

all sitting there waiting to say bastard twat Cottrell-Boyce says something very similar in a foreword that he wrote to an edition of Kez, where he says, What are stories for? One of the best-loved scenes in A Kestrel for a Knave comes when Mr Farthing asks Billy to help him illustrate the difference between fact and fiction by telling the story of the first time he flew Kess. The teacher's gentle prodding finally unlocks a soaring poetry in Billy and for a moment we and his classmates see the boy's true potential as like a falcon he takes flight the lesson ends with the boys being told to write some fiction billy's tall tale turns out to be a

simple account of an unremarkable pleasant day a day when he had chips and beans for tea all the teachers were polite to him and a heartbreaking heartbreaking detail, the stairs were carpeted. The fact that Billy sees stair carpets and respect as unobtainable fantasies tells you all you need to know about his losses and his hopes. What are stories for? Stories are lies that tell the truth. Well, thanks, Frank. Thanks, Frank. And I believe, as if by magic, Bob, we have Billy's tall tale here, don't we? Oh, thanks. Yeah. One day I woke up and my mother said to me,

Here, Billy, there's your breakfast in bed for you. There was bacon and egg and bread and butter and a big pot of tea. When I had my breakfast, the sun was shining outside and I got dressed and went downstairs. We lived in a big house up Moorside, Mooredge, sorry. And we had carpets on the stairs, in the hall and central heating. When I got down, I said, where's our Judd? He's going the army, my mother said, and he's not coming back.

But your dad's coming back instead. There was a big fire in the room, and my dad came in carrying his case that he took away with him. I haven't seen him for a long time, but he was just the same. That was when he went away. I was glad he'd come back.

And our child had gone away. When I got to school, all the teachers were good to me. They said, Hello, Billy. How are you going on? And they all patted me on the head and smiled.

And we did interesting things all day. When I got home, my mother said, I'm not going to work anymore. And we all had chips and beans for tea. And then we got ready and we all went out to the pictures. We went upstairs and had ice cream at the intervals. And then we all went home and had fish and chips for supper. And then we went to bed.

So that's Billy's dream day. There's a heartbreaking detail always the detail where billy runs to the mother for comfort and she's embarrassed yeah to demonstrate any physical affection to him um the mother who in the film is played by the Coronation Street actress Lynn Perry who was not a professional actress at that time did you know that she goes into Corrie because of being in Kess so Rose what is it about let's just move to the film for a moment what is it about the film that i think your microphone is dead hello um what is it about the film that continues to speak to people it's still ken loach's most famous and most beloved film. What is it?

What is the thing in it that continues to speak to us? I think there are lots of things, but I think one of the things is this idea of someone that... Billy doesn't have his... He doesn't have a voice at all, and when he's asked to describe the hawk, he can't. His teacher describes the feeling of it he you know he i feel that it's this idea of everyone has a thing inside them that is imagination or magic or love or humanness and that's what the film shows in billy and kes

it's this idea of even though everything is against you, you've got this Kes with you. I don't know. It's kindness and humanness. Yeah. I would like to read you the strap line on the film poster for Kes when it was first issued and then ask you to answer a simple question and we'll just go along. They beat him. they deprived him they ridiculed him they broke his heart but they couldn't break his spirit true or false false bob false john yeah i mean false i don't know you just nobody Bob? False? John? Yeah, I mean, false.

I don't know. Nobody knows what's going to happen. Well, it's interesting to speculate what happens to Billy after the end of the film. How many people think Kes, I'm going to show of hands, is a hopeful film? One man there.

An outlier, thank you, sir. How many people think Kes a a kes is a hopeless film how many people have no strong opinions on this question yes many of you excellent um i think i think the film is more i think the film is bleaker than the book in a way because well because i think there is an inner life in the book that billy has which through the language that heinz gives him which you just can't get so for example the really important bit bob read earlier they couldn't put that in the film they tried it they tried him writing the letter and i had a camera over his shoulder but but it just went on too long.

But that letter is very important because there's another major bit that's not in the film, which is where he breaks into an empty cinema right at the end after he's discovered he's looking for Kez. And he sits and he literally projects a kind of a film from his imagination onto the screen and sitting there with his dad. And you could argue that by the time he gets home,

finds the bird, buries it, and then goes to bed, which is, you know, that going to bed, but that actually he has begun to develop some inner strength that we'll see him through whatever it is he does next. Probably not getting an apprenticeship, but I think that's one of the differences between fiction and films. You know, you kind of, when you see,

it's almost unbearable, the film, the ending where he buries the bird and then goes in. It's just, it's very, very bleak. I think I agree with the gentleman who said it was a hopeful film i think and book i think there is a very important moment near the end of the book where um judd has killed the bird and billy looks to his mother yeah to say what are you going to do about this you should do something is he going to get away with this and she says she won't do anything and it seems to me that's very important that that there is a moment of what you might call

a bit awareness i suppose awareness of the system. I agree with you. I think the film is more closed. Yeah, no, I agree. It's, yeah, I mean, because you can't, as Rose said, you can't get Billy's kind of internal life on film. So it's much bleaker. And I think, you know, the fact it looks like a black and white film.

It's not a black and white film. It gives the impression of being a black and white film. Everything about it is very bleaker. And I think, you know, the fact it looks like a black and white film, it's not a black and white film. It gives the impression of being a black and white film. Everything about it is very Dua, apart from the Brian Glover sequence, which is funny. We've been holding that. Yeah. There's,

um, it's, uh, yeah, the, the ending is, is, is very,

seems very final to me. That's what I get from the book is like, you know, everything's, everything's stacked against him. And it's like, he's, he's obviously, you know everything's everything's stacked against him and it's like he's he's obviously you know poetic soul and it's actually come out in his life or is he just going to end

up with like a work of dynamite or whatever and and i would say at the end of the film you don't you don't think he's going to pull through and become an author or whatever you know or where is a pathologist whereas perhaps in the, there's a sense that someone with that imagination, someone with that sensitivity and someone with that realisation of what it takes to outwit the system perhaps can do it, perhaps. So there's kind of a glimmer of hope there. Rose, I would really want to ask you about the scene with Brian Glover as the games teacher. Okay. How many people here think he seems like a really good bloke?

Okay. How many people here think he seems like a really good bloke? No one. Good. You can tell this is Green Man and everybody got picked last for games. Good. Hines was a games teacher. I know, but, you know, we can forgive him that.

So that scene in the film plays for laughs. Yeah. Right? It doesn't in the novel, does it? No, not at all. I mean mean we were chatting backstage and we both had particularly sadistic PE teachers I think and for me it's just

it takes me back to that place of you know coming last in PE the PE teacher making you run around the thing when all the rest of the class is finished it's torturous that scene in the book it's really torturous but it's hammed up massively in the film Yeah I mean it's reallyurous, that scene in the book. It's really torturous. But it's hammed up massively in the film. Yeah, I mean, it's really funny in the film.

Yeah, yeah. But at the same time, it's slightly watering down the message. And the message is what you see in microcosm on the football field is the same system that you see playing out in the school at large and in society. The system is rigged by... Yeah, the PE teacher just wins. He gives himself the penalty.

Everything is his game and he's the ref. So he just chooses that his team's going to win and then it doesn't. And that's when that horrible shower scene... Yeah, yeah. But Bob, you like football. Yes. You've read his first novel.

So his first novel is about a footballer. Yeah, The Blind Duck. Yeah, yeah. I haven't read it for a long time. football yes you've read his first novel so his first novel is about a footballer yeah the blind yeah yeah it's um i haven't read it for a long time i haven't read it immediately before this but i remember really enjoying it and again it's very it's very hard but it's um it's realistic i can't think of a better football novel i've read i mean i'm kind of it's one of those things like books about fictional bands so they tend to be why would why would you do that when there's the real thing exists you can read a book about a football or a real band um but the blinder is is is very good there's a good baseball novel don de lilo underworld oh right best bit of sports rising i remember some good boxing

notes ross ray's and the natural is a mother of good football, Noel. Well, I'm going to... My first book, which was published about 20 years ago, is a book about what it means to be a man in this country if you don't like sport. So I'm going to read this bit. This is when they pick the team for football. I think this is the best description I've ever read

of what it feels like as your classmates drift away from you and you're left standing on your own on the touchline. Right then, stop moaning and start picking. I'll have Anderson. He turned away from Tibbett and pointed to a boy who was standing on one of the intersections of the centre circle and the halfway line. Anderson walked off this cross and stood behind him. Tibbett scanned the line considering his choice. I'll have Purdy. Come on then Ellis. Each selection altered the structure of the line. When Tibbett had been removed from the centre, all the boys sidestepped to fill the gap. The same happened when Anderson went from near one end. But when Purdy and Ellis,

who had been standing side by side, were removed, the boys at their shoulders stood still, therefore dividing the original line into two. These new lines were swiftly segmented as more boys were chosen, leaving no trace of the first major division, just half a dozen boys looking across spaces at each other, reading from left to right. A fat boy, an arm's length away, two friends, one tall with glasses, the other short with a hair lip. Then a space of two yards, and Billy. A boy space away from him, a thin boy with a crew cut and a spotty face. And right away from these, at the far end of the line, another fat boy. Spotty crew cut was halfway between the two fat boys,

therefore half of the length of the line was occupied by five of the boys. The far fat boy was the next to go, wished half the length of the line and left spotty crew cut as one of the end markers. Tibbett then selected the tall friend with glasses. Mr Sugden immediately selected his partner. They separated gradually as they walked away from the line, parting finally to enter their respective teams and then there were three. Fatty, Billy and Spotty crew cut. Flushing across at each other while the captains considered. Tibbett picked crew cut. He dashed forward into the anonymity of his team.

Fatty stood grinning. Billy stared down at the earth. After long deliberation, Mr Sugden chose Billy, leaving Tibbett with Hobson's choice. But before either Billy or Fatty could move towards their teams, Mr. Subden was already turning away and shouting instructions. It's such a brilliant kind of whittling down, expose the weak, show them in front of everybody

and then just ignore them. And Brian Glover, I mean, can't help feeling that the the fast show's competitive dad was basically based on that that whole scene where he's knocking the kids out of the way in order to score so just to um wrap up then i'd like to ask each of you what is it about a kestrel for a knave that um means we should still be reading it now even though the world is superficially a different place what is it about this novel that continues to speak to people and you know i hope if you haven't read it you might go from here find a copy um and and and discover this

whole world laid out before you bob what do you what do you think it is that keeps it alive um well i don't think i don't think the world is a very different place for one thing um so i think it still seems i mean yeah superficially it is but uh yeah people haven't got jobs down mines but i mean um it's uh it's very relatable um how it's you know It's about power systems. The power system in Britain, very obviously, is still very much there. I think schools now seem to be entirely guided

towards exam success and not real education, which is obviously what Biddy's school is. It's not all about exam success, but it's trying to shun kids into the mines or you know um industrial jobs in around barnsley um so i think it's very relatable but yeah really it's about the the language i mean just from the the bits we've read today i think it's pretty clear that he has a it's just beautifully written it's very very it's it's very it's very minimal but yeah it's it's kind of like japanese poetry almost it's um just describing

washing hands or or a line dividing and subdividing it's almost like uh he's writing about yeah it's about it's about detail but it's um it's uh almost you know some scientific kind of poetry, really. But the language is very, there's nothing florid ever. It's very, very simple. The language is very simple and it's beautiful to read. Rose? I'm just going to keep it really short. I would say it's about finding light in darkness

or finding grace in, you know, it's about having a glimpse of something in a world that can be really hard and dark there's there's always a way of finding some kind of light i don't know yeah yeah john i think all of those things i think that sense of something wild just read the tiny little bit that he says which is kind of iconic bit in the book, where he says, Look, I know, sir, that's why it makes me mad when I take her out and I hear somebody say, Look, there's Billy Casper there with his pet hawk.

I could shout it to him. It's not a pet. Sir, hawks are not pets. Or when folks stop me and say, Is it tame? Is it heck tame? It's trained, that's all. It's fierce and it's wild

and it's not bothered about anybody, not even about me, right? And that's why it's fierce and it's wild and it's not bothered about anybody not even about me right and that's why it's great and that is if there is a spirit of indomitability and billy casper it's that understanding that the bird is wild even if he is not even if he his life is is constrained and all and it's it's a really profound and beautiful novel, really. Yeah. Well, listen, we have to go. Thank you so much for being such a lovely audience and for listening to us and for listening to the work of Barry Hines.

Yeah. Thanks to... Keep going. Thanks to Rose Blake. Thanks to Bob Stanley. Thanks to John Mitchinson. I'm Andy Miller. Thanks, Barry Hines. Thank you.

Bye. So there we go. There we all were. It was massive fun, I think. It was very nice to be in an audience where a lot of people had obviously read the book and seen the film. There was a real warmth that was sort of radiating off the audience. And at the beginning, we also asked if there were teachers, and there were quite a radiating off the audience and i well at the beginning we also asked if there were teachers and there were quite a few teachers in the audience because the book um for many years it's no longer on the national curriculum i think we said in the podcast but it it was a book that

was taught and for a lot of children i think was was a book that because it's got swearing in it and stuff it was it was a it was an exciting moment in their reading lives. So, yeah, it was a really, really good, it was a warm and happy occasion. I was thrilled we were discussing the book in front of an audience. I mean, on one level, I felt it was quite an obvious choice, but sometimes the obvious choice is the right choice. And the general affection for not just Kes,

but the book and the film and the music. And it's a really important piece of British culture. Even if you know nothing else about Ken Loach or Barry Hines or John Cameron or the actors in the film, people feel this connection with it. Absolutely. I think that it's a book that people do feel very connected to and I think we all talked about that in our own ways.

But I think it's also, it is a very important book in the development of working class literature in this country because it's a book that has lasted, as we've said before, it's sold and sold and sold and continues to sell. But somehow the question mark over what happens to Billy Casper, would Billy Casper have fared any differently today? As we think we said in the podcast, those things are still unresolved. It's what makes it a great and lasting work of art the sense we've gone backwards is quite strong ready unfortunate

position is is pretty strong i think when you read the novel now i mean i can only say i went into making this episode feeling you know i thought i knew what like all the best episodes i thought i knew what I was getting into, but the energy provided to me by actually reconnecting with the book was a powerful one. And to find that shared by the guests on stage and people in the audience was a really special thing. So I hope some of that comes over.

And I will also add as a as a final note that Barry Hines notwithstanding he's no longer with us has a new novel out next year how well he finished it in 2002 yeah it's only now it's being published it's called Springwood Stars yeah I don't know who's publishing I think it might be and other stories who've brought the Gamekeeper back into print recently. But I think there's a job of work to do to acknowledge A Kestrel for Neighbours, Barry Hines' most important book.

I mean, he would no doubt have agreed with that. But at the same time, there's a whole other body of work that is sitting there waiting to be rediscovered. So although we went the obvious route this time, there are all those other books out there that you could find and read and discover more about a really important author. Johnny, is there anything we want to say about how important it is that people check out our Patreon? By all means, visit our Patreon. And that for the price of

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That's it though, I think, isn't it? Yeah, we hope you've enjoyed it. You know, we didn't get any feedback from Self Esteem or Lancam isn't it uh yeah we hope you've enjoyed it um you know we didn't get any feedback from self-esteem or lancam about whether we'd warmed the crowd up for them but i think we did i think i think it was okay i felt that jockstrap definitely benefited oh if you if you want to hear two old men discussing how good jockstrap were at a music festival make sure you subscribe to Longlisted

because we have major news to bring from the midlife audience we have much to say do we not Andy much to say much to say thanks very much everybody and you know what a treat to do this book

what an absolute treat to do this book do read it please read it it really is a masterpiece