Backlisted - Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfeild

Episode Date: December 25, 2022

Merry Christmas Everyone! This year’s Backlisted Christmas special celebrates Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfeild, a classic of children’s literature and the childhood favourite of our producer, Nicky Birch. We are joined by the writer Una McCormack and Tanya Kirk, the Lead Curator of Printed Heritage Collections (1601-1900) at the British Library, who are both lifetime Streatfeild fans. Ballet Shoes was an immediate bestseller upon publication and the runner-up for the inaugural Carnegie Medal. It has never been out of print and was the first in a series of ‘Shoes’ books by Streatfeild. It has been adapted many times both as an audiobook and for film and television and in 2019 BBC News included Ballet Shoes on its list of the 100 most influential novels of all time. We discuss why this might be the case and much more besides and even hear from Miss Streatfeild herself. And it being a Christmas episode, there is a fiendish festive quiz. We also feature two other classic books by writers best known through their writing for children. John discusses A Giant in the Snow by John Gordon, an eerie Puffin classic from 1968, while Andy revels in the darkness of John Christopher’s The Death of Grass, first published in 1956, a post-apocalyptic science fiction novel, definitely written for adults and perfect for cutting through your post-lunch torpor. Enjoy! Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length) 16:39 A Giant in the Snow by John Gordon 22:04 The Death of Grass by John Christopher 29:32 Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfeild * To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops. * For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm * If you'd like to support the show, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Ho, ho, ho! Oh, if maybe you're preparing lunch or maybe you're listening to this drunk, out of your mind, about five o'clock, Baileys to hand. I've got a little glass of Baileys just here. Excellent.

Is it in a shoe or in a glass? Oh, it's a shoe. That would be good. If you saw me swing, if you could see me on Riverside just swigging gently from a shoe throughout this recording, that would be okay.

So obviously it's not really Christmas Day, is it? We haven't taken time out of our busy schedules to record this, although people did say that. Do you remember the first time we did that? Amazing that you managed to do it on Christmas Day. We thought so too. The illusion, the magical illusion of podcasting. Anyway, Una, where are you spending this Christmas Day? I am spending Christmas Day where I've spent the rest of the year, which is in Cambridge.

Lovely Cambridge. So I am at home with my other half of my nine-year-old. So ideal Christmas individual. Your nine-year-old, who's an anonymity we wish to protect, has become a superstar by Backlisted because it was thanks to her. She read the extract from Time for Lights Out by the late Raymond Briggs. She did indeed.

She was brilliant. All prepared for when she had to read a poem out in class this term as well. So she was straight in there with Raymond Briggs. Did she read that poem? She did that and some Roger MacDonald. Did she? Yeah.

She's taking it out on the road. That's very good. Gigging. Great. Okay, so you're in Cambridge. Tanya, where will you be? That and some Roger MacDonald. Does she? Yeah. She's taking it out on the road. That's very good. I don't gig in. Great. Okay, so you're in Cambridge. Tanya, where will you be? I will be in my house in Brighton with my husband and my two house rabbits and hopefully my parents

who are coming to stay. Oh, that's nice. Brighton Christmas. People go swimming in the sea. Is it one of those places? Yeah, they do do but I do not That used to be considered a complete madness didn't it?

Only the most eccentric people but now it's become a definite thing It's supposed to be very good for your mental health apparently Mental health and good for your weight and your metabolism It's all propaganda Shut up Absolute balls.

Anyway, John Mitchinson, where will you be spending Christmas Day? I should be gathered with my family around the table of a great two in Oxfordshire, roaring log fire, a glistening bird of some kind on the table, jugs of mulled cider, I should imagine. Just kind of, you know, the usual, the usual. Pigs in blankets. Yes, what the mother of the nation's favorite. Actual pigs in actual blankets, but not in the house.

And Nicky Birch, we need somebody in this backlisted grouping to be somewhere in London. Will you be in London this Christmas? Not I. I'm afraid I will not not i will be in north cornwall i may even with a wetsuit get in the water oh that's as close as i will get good for you with a wetsuit is okay i will sanction that thank you that's all right no you're welcome what about you andy what's the plans oh i'll be i'll be home i'll be home in Kent. I'm quite looking forward to Christmas Day.

But you've got exciting news post-Christmas, haven't you? Yes. I'm going to see Abba Voyage. At last. It's taken me nearly a year to get there. Imagine, I'm going to be losing my mindlessness to that. That's actually great. Well, I tell you what.

Imagine this. I got dance floor tickets. Watch out, everybody, if you're going on a particular day. If you see me. OK, John, take us in. Hello and welcome to a special Christmas edition of Backlisted, the podcast that gives new life to old books. Today, you find us in a rambling terraced house

in London's Cromwell Road, sometime in the early 1930s. It's Christmas Day and we're watching three young girls admire a Christmas tree. All three are wearing the same style of woolen jumper, finished with fluffy rabbit fur around the collar and cuffs. The tallest with blonde curls in blue, the middle with straight brown hair in orange, and the smallest with striking red hair in pink. The fir tree in front of them is like nothing they've ever seen. Each branch has been covered

in glittering frost, transforming the whole room into something magical. I'm John Mitchinson, the publisher of Unbound, a platform where readers crowdfund books they really want to read. And I'm Andy Miller, author of The Year of Reading Dangerously. And on this special day, we're joined by two friends of the show, reunited to celebrate Christmas Day, as we hope they would be. A special seasonal welcome to Una McCormack and Tanya Kirk. Hello. Hello. Happy Christmas. Happy to see you. Tanya is the lead curator of printed heritage collections, 1601 to 1900 at the British Library. Listen, everyone, when the quiz comes up later, I want you to remember what Tanya's job is. Specifically what her job is. No pressure, Tanya. No pressure.

Previously, she joined us back in February for episode 155 on Winifred Holtby's South Riding. 155 on Winifred Holby's South Riding. A specialist in literary collections, she's co-curated six major exhibitions including one on science fiction, another on gothic literature plus Shakespeare and the British landscape in literature and is currently working on one about fantasy which will open in October 2023. She's also edited five collections of classic ghost stories taken from books and periodicals in the British Library for the series Tales of the Weird. And excellent, they are too. And four of these are Christmas themed. And the most recent, which came out two months ago, is called Haunters of the Hearth.

Eerie tales for Christmas nights. So you've still got time to enjoy that before the festive season expires. before the festive season expires. Tanya, I'm asking everybody today to nominate the book they most fondly remember receiving for Christmas when they were a child. Which book were you most excited about receiving or surprised to receive, and then you just associate it with being able to slope off on Christmas afternoon and read it?

So I had to consult with my mum because I was excited about a lot of books at Christmas. She has informed me that the one I was most excited about was The Saga of Eric the Viking by Terry Jones, illustrated by Michael Foreman. That's such a great choice. I was kind of a bit little for reading it, but I remember the amazing illustrations and I was really into a bit little for reading it, but I remember the amazing illustrations and I was really into Vikings around then.

I've been to the Jorvik Viking Centre in York. Oh, haven't we all? 83 it was published originally. 83, was it? Yeah, makes note. Una McCormack, welcome back. Hello. She's making her eighth and record-equalling appearance on Backlisted,

having previously joined us for episodes dedicated to Anita Bruckner, Pow! Georgette Heyer, Bang! Russell Hoban, Pow! J.R.R. Tolkien, Boo! Terrence Dix, Woo! William Golding, What? Sounds a bit of an outlier, Golding, there in that company.

He's done nothing this woman cannot do. Eclectic is her middle name. She is also best-selling writer of nearly two dozen science fiction novels based on TV shows such as Star Trek, Doctor Who, Firefly, and Blake's Seven. Her most recent books include The Autobiography of Mr. Spock and Star Trek Picard's Second Self. She's on the editorial board for GoldSF, an imprint of Goldsmiths Press aimed at publishing new voices in intersectional feminist science fiction. And their first

publications are Mathematics for Ladies by Jessie Randall and Empathy by Hoa Pham. Una, please hold up to the camera, but also say what it is. For radio. Let me hold it up for radio. The book you most fondly remember receiving. So the book I most fondly remember receiving, and this was prepped up, I think, in front of a bike. So that's how excited I must have been about this book, was Comet in Moominland by Tava Janssen. And here's this edition.

It says 1975 in the front, which would mean that I was four when I got it. So, and I just, it was propped up there and I can I have very bad visual imagination, but I can picture that bike and I can picture that book. And yeah, that was the start

of a life of a, in the front of this is a lovely puffing book plate. I know, I've is a lovely puffing book plate. I know. I've got those. Yeah. I've got those. Absolutely beautiful.

With my sister's handwriting because I was too little to write my own name. So that's my book. Would you have seen Comet in Moominland on Jackanory, do you think? Oh, yeah. Oh, goodness. I don't know. When was it done? Well, about then.

About then. Probably don't know. When was it done? Well, about then. I read about it. About then. It probably must have been. The Moomin books partly owe their popularity in the UK for being great favourites of the producers of Jackanory. They did at least five of them, four or five of them, I think. That must have been where we got them then. But, yeah, I mean, Jackanory was on, but I wouldn't remember. I must have been, what, three and a half, four, five.

So, but yeah, that's probably the routine. So Comet in Moominland, and I still have it. It's covered in kind of plastic, sticky stuff as well. As you did, as you used to do in those days. She used to do, indeed. Is your daughter a big Moomin fan as well? Not really. No, she doesn't do books because I do books.

So she doesn't really do books. I'm already getting back at you. Well done. I'm going to go to Nicky Birch first. Nicky Birch. Hello. Let's explain to people why we're doing this particular book this Christmas. Well, you're basically giving me a little Christmas present for two of you. And I appreciate that. The four of you even. So, yeah.

When I was growing up, I read, but also listened to ballet shoes every single day as I went to bed. And when I might have been playing, when I was wanting something calming, I probably listened to it every day for at least five years, maybe longer. Some sort of ASMR kind of thing going on. Something like that. So this is a book that means so much to me because I know it so well. And funnily enough, I picked it up again to read it in preparation for this show. And I realized I really don't need to read it still. It's all up here. I know it all so well.

Could you? If we just triggered triggered you you'd be able to start talking i could actually verbalize it exactly so i you know i vow to be on hand to um answer anything and and i'm really excited to hear what you guys have got to say about this so yeah we'll get you to read from it as well john your what was your book that you were most excited to receive as a child ballet shoes as well or was it something different i'm afraid it wasn't ballet shoes um and it's it's it was i was when i was seven and i still remember it was the collins field guide to the birds of britain and europe by peterson mountfoot and holland i can still remember it was the most grown-up thing i'd ever owned i didn't i couldn't

really understand a lot of the technical stuff in it but I love it was like oh you're now I've now got the same book as grown-up bird watchers people who I would see at the hide with their binoculars and they'd have this magical book in their pockets and now I was one of the gang it's basically all I've ever wanted to do is to fit in Andy and this was the ticket my ticket to fitting in did you tick them off as you saw them has it it got little pencil marks? I'm afraid I'm not a person who can make marks in books. Quite right. But I did have a notebook in the RSPB or the Young Ornithologist Club

which had all the birds in and I did used to tick that off and I was that kind of child. Quite right. There was a survey done a few years ago which said that, I've always wondered what the pretext of this survey was but they surveyed adults who'd been children in the 70s to say what was the most disappointing Christmas present

of the 70s if you were a child and by a landslide the winner was book tokens What? What? Which children do you mean? I know, I know. Screw you guys.

That's what I'm saying. You know, we love book tokens. The best present. Yeah, right? They were the best present. My auntie Joycey in Dundee would always send me a £10 book token. Isn't that great? Yeah.

Well, they were surveying the Book Burners Association. surveying the book burners association of well who would be who would be bitterly opposed to the popularity of books 1980 the young andy miller is 12 years old he asks for and receives and reads over and over and over again almost as much as Nicky Birch was listening to ballet shoes. I was reading Roger Wilmot's From Fringe to Flying Circus, his history of all the footlights, comedy people, from beyond the fringe right the way through to 1980. And Nicky, I've got the same thing, Widley. I can quote enormous chunks of that book.

I love those books. That's before this female president, isn't it? 1980. They'd not had a female president by then, had they? No, it's, I mean, you know, it's horrendous. I mean, it's all, it's rank patriarchy and privilege. But, you know, it's fun. It's footlights.

It's footlights. And funny, let's be honest. Funny. Yeah yeah that's funny as well no so that was that was mine I really like that kind of that period before you're quite a teenager the thing you're just talking about John before you're a teenager where you you you are beginning to choose books that you think might appeal to you on a on an adult level but with a kind of pre-teen enthusiasm at the same time one of the books that i was looking forward to receiving at christmas was the judy bloom book forever which is famous for being the sex sexy judy bloom book where they actually have sex and and my mom i don't know if your parents used to do this so we grew up in a

flat so there wasn't much sort of storage space So there was always a present drawer where if you were a teenager, you pretty much knew, you knew where the presents were. Right. So I looked in there and saw that forever was in the present drawer. And then come Christmas day forever, never got passed on. Right.

I never got it because I realized what happened. She'd read forever and decided 12 yearyear-old or 30-year-old me was not ready. Not ready for the sex scene. So that was a denied present. There's no way forever would have got into our Catholic house. I mean, that would have, it would have burst into flames as it crossed the threshold, I think.

When did you read it? Absolutely baffling. When did you read it? I probably read it out of the present drawer, literally. Yeah, yeah, okay. My brother, my brother did that one. He discovered where all the presents were. And I said, well, you can't, then he had to, of course, tell me.

He had to tell me what I was getting for Christmas, which was deeply annoying. But then he had to keep course tell me that not only he had to tell me what i was getting for christmas which was deeply annoying but then he had to kept dropping hints in family you know family meals say you know what i'd really like for christmas this year is that and then in the end my dad just turned around and he said you found the presents haven't you you found and my brother said no and but it's funny whenever i watch those things about murderers wanting to return to the scene of the crime and it's always because and serial killers always want to get caught, I always think of my brother and the year that he ruined Christmas. Christmas. Well, Christmas is a time for the family.

You'll have noticed, listeners, that this episode of Backlisted is even more circumlocutory than usual. It's Christmas Day. Come on, cut us some slack. The book we're discussing, you already know, is Ballet Shoes by Nell Stretfield. It's first published by J.M. Dent in 1936, and it's now generally acknowledged as a classic of children's literature. But before we slip on our pointe shoes and start on the battement and plié, John, what have you been reading this week? I've been reading a novel from 1968,

children's novel from 1968, something I haven't read since I was a child week? I've been reading a novel from 1968, children's novel from 1968, something I haven't read since I was a child and I've always wanted to go back to and read and it's called The Giant in the Snow by John Gordon. Fantastic, fantastic jacket. I love it because it's very good on cold. It opens, I'm going to read a little bit it's now clearly what you would call the early stirrings of what we would now call folk horror it was written in 1968 john gordon was a writer for the eastern daily news in norwich it's about three kids who find a buckle and an ancient site and it turns out that that buckle is extremely important to the gathering darkness that's out there. It's just before Christmas. It's snowy.

This is really like a combination of The Dark is Rising and Ellador, because it's also set in the back streets of kind of bombed out Norwich and kind of strange alleyways and kind of old warehouses. But very similar kind of vibe to Ellador, very similar vibe in the snowy bits in the countryside to the dark is rising it's not an entirely successful novel there's a strange witch-like woman called elizabeth good enough who's in there who doesn't quite never quite really get to grips with what she is or what she does or what her powers do they also the children

she gives them all little backpacks that enable them to fly, which is a little bit, it's a little bit jetpacky, let's be honest. Although he writes so beautifully about the flying and Norwich from the air and the countryside from the air. The great joy of the book is his prose. I really, really enjoyed it. And I'm guessing it's long out of print. I think it was reissued by Orion a few years ago. But I'll just read you a little tiny passage just to give you the feel. As I say, the culmination is on Christmas Day, if you like. I do like that kind of thing.

And it does it very well. So this is John Quill. She's got separated from the school party. They're on a... The coach has stopped for what would now be called a comfort break. Probably wasn't called that in 1968, where children didn't have trainers but gym shoes.

Apparently that was one of the changes Orion made for the revised edition. Get me started. Anyway, here we go. Jonk looked round her. The copse was on a very low, flattish mound, so regularly shaped it may have covered the ruins of a small building, a real temple perhaps, but four or five ridges splayed out from it, like the

spokes of a wheel or the rays of a sun shape. Jonk counted them, four straight ones and one shorter and bent. Not a wheel, more like a gigantic hand with trees thrusting up between the fingers. If it closed on her, the thought made her jerk her head up. Her hair was wet now. It hung in dark strings to her shoulders and made a spiky fringe across her forehead. Her imagination was trying to frighten her, but she would not be beaten. She would circle the clocks. The horn bleated again, nagging like Miss Stevens. It was a sudden spurt of anger, more than anything else, that made Jonk stride into the V of the grassy ridges

and stoop to pick up the glinting object. But as her hand reached for it, she paused. The object was like a shiny yellow ribbon twisted in upon itself, a clutch of worms wintering under the soil. No, it was metal. She pulled a fern leaf, doubled it to make it stiff, and poked the object clear. It was circular, about the size of a palm, and was composed of metal ribbons that twisted and writhed among themselves in an endless pattern. It looked like a brooch, perhaps an old one, perhaps gold. Certainly, it was a discovery. She'd been right to visit the Temple of Trees. She picked it up, crumbling the earth from its crevices as she turned it in her hands. There was a distinct pattern to it, and in the middle of the interwoven gilded strips was a shape like a man stretched upright with his legs together

and his arms outstretched. His head was a loop of metal. Now she would go back. The green hand had given her a gift. It no longer seemed unfriendly. Jonk smiled slightly as she bent to brush the brooch in the grass of one of the ridges. The grass was short and fine, and beneath it the earth was spongy. She pressed it and it gave. Another landslip? More treasure? She was about to press again when the turf dimpled, as though it was going to split of its own accord and savour the trouble, but it did not crack. A ripple ran the length of the ridge, and suddenly, with a soft sound, almost like a sigh from underground, it humped itself in the middle. Jonk jerked back. The movement stopped. The ridge was absolutely still. The hump in the middle was

very low and may have been there all the time. Stooping may have made her giddy she'd imagined it but she was afraid she was able to admit to herself that she was afraid it was time to go and on we go this is the giant in this under the snow john gordon really cracking cracking book beautiful and has stood the test of time I think the language in it is beautiful. Andy, what have you been reading? Thanks, John. I've been reading a novel called The Death of Grass by John Christopher. This was recommended to me by a backlisted listener who is also a bookseller at Waterstones in Liverpool.

Thanks, Kieran. Merry Christmas to you. I went in, I said, I want something that is going to make me stare into the bleak heart of every human being. This particular festival, I said, I've got to do this show about ballet shoes. I need the antidote. What is it?

And Kieran said, I recommend The Death of Grass. And Kieran, you were dead right. This is quite the bleakest and most miserable and thrilling book that I've read for years. It is fantastic. I suspect, Una McCormack, you've probably read this, haven't you? Or you know who John Christopher is. Yeah, yeah. If you want to go from that one, read Empty World, which is John Christopher's young adult pandemic novel.

So that'll cheer you up. Well, it's funny you should say that because this is about a pandemic as well. The Penguin edition that's currently available has an introduction by our former Christmas episode guest Robert McFarlane, who says of The Death of Grass, this novel is remarkably prescient. John Christopher's worries at the impact of human activity on the environment were a decade ahead of their time and his account of pandemic panic was prescient by half a century or so I'm going to do the backlisted thing and read the blurb look I've got I got out of um

central library here in Liverpool uh an original hardback of the death of brass can you see on the cover there's just like a a skull yeah you know the skull beneath the skin merry christmas everyone um this is the blurb of the death of grass the death of grass recounts the terrifying changes on the face of the earth when the balance of nature is upset and it takes place not at some unspecified date in the future but in the present the characters are pleasant middle-class people who live serenely until the grass begins to die, upon which their personalities begin to change. Life in England becomes a desperate struggle for survival, and following their fortunes, the reader becomes personally involved.

Oh my goodness, this novel is like a cross between, I mean, it's very much has the feel of The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham. And Robert McFarlane compares it to Lord of the Flies. I could see that's true. So there's a kind of Lord of the Flies meets The Day of the Triffids. But I tell you the story and film that it really reminds me of is the Ealing film based on a story by Graham Green called Went the Day Well, which is a wonderful, wonderful story and film about what seemingly nice human beings are reduced to very quickly if they have to fight to survive.

I'm going to read you a little bit here, which will give you a flavour of how good this book is. Okay, so it's going along quite well near the beginning. And they're talking about what the ramifications of a loss of wheat and barley will be to the planet and what it will cause to happen to food supplies. And then in the next chapter, they say, but the thing is, there's a new government in power, and they plan to drop hydrogen bombs on all the major cities in Britain to kill people early rather than let them starve to death. It's like John Christopher has gone, I need to raise the stakes. What can I do? Roger Buckley, their families, and a very unpleasant man called Pirie, an unpleasant and violent man called Pirie, are attempting to get from London to John Custance's brother's farm

in the Dales, where they hope to hole up with weapons until civilization has returned to normal. Okay, so here we go. They had expected to be stopped on the roads by the military, and with that possibility in view had devised three different stories to account for the northward journeys of the three cars. The important thing, John felt, was to avoid the impression of a convoy, but in fact there was no attempt at inquisition. A considerable number of military vehicles on the roads were interspersed with private cars in a normal and mutually tolerant traffic. After leaving Saxon Court Court they made for the Great North Road again and drove northwards uneventfully throughout the morning. In the late afternoon they stopped for a meal in a lane a little north of Newark.

The day had been cloudy but was now brilliantly blue and sunlit with a massive cloud rolling away to the west poised in white billows and turrets. The fields on either side of them were potato fields planted for the hopeful second crop. Apart from the bareness of hedgerows empty of grass, there was nothing to distinguish the scene from any country landscape in a thriving, fruitful world. The men, sitting in Pirrie's ford, discussed things. John said, If we can get north of Ripon today, we should be all right for the run to the valley tomorrow. We could get farther than that, Rogers said. I suppose we could. I doubt if it would be worth it, though. The main thing is to get clear of population centres. Once we're away from the

West Riding, we should be safe enough from anything that happens. Peary said, I'm not objecting, mind you, nor regretting having joined you on this little trip, but does it not seem possible that the dangers of violence may have been overestimated? We have had a very smooth progress. Neither Grantham nor Newark shown any signs of imminent breakdown. Peterborough was sealed off, Roger said. Peterborough was sealed off.

No change there. Roger said. I think those towns that still have free passage are too busy congratulating themselves on being missed to begin worrying about what else may be happening. You saw those queues outside the bakeries? The trouble is, said John, that we just don't know when Welling is going to take his drastic action. It's nearly 24 hours since the cities and large towns were sealed off. When the bombs drop, the whole country is going to erupt in panic. Atom bombs and hydrogen bombs, Pirri said thoughtfully.

I really wonder, Rogers said shortly. I don't know. I know Haggerty. He wasn't lying. It's not on the score of morality that I find them unlikely, said Pirri, but on that of temperament. The English, being sluggish in the imagination, would find no difficulty in acquiescing in measures which their common sense would tell them must lead to the death by starvation of millions.

But direct action, murder for self-preservation, is a different matter. I find it difficult to believe they could ever bring themselves to the sticking point. We haven't done so badly. There's been a string of murders at this point. He grinned. You particularly.

My mother, Piri said simply, was French. But you fail to take my point. I had not meant that the English are inhibited from violence. Under the right circumstances, they will murder with a will and more cheerfully than most. But they are sluggish in logic as well as imagination. They will preserve illusions to the very end. It is only after that that they will fight

like particularly savage tigers. Wow. Merry Christmas, one and all. God bless us, everyone. Merry Christmas, bless us, everyone. So that is The Death of Grass by John Christopher. It is in print. I thought it was sensational.

Thank you very much, Kieran in Liverpool, who recommended that to me. It was perfect for my brilliant purposes. The Fossil Sisters lived in the Cromwell Road. At that end of it, which is farthest from the Brompton Road, and yet sufficiently near it to be taken to look at the doll's houses in the Victoria and Albert Museum every wet day. And if not too wet, expect it to save the penny and walk. That's so weird.

The audiobook of The Death of Grass uses the same music. LAUGHTER Thank you so much, Andy. Ballet Shoes. Ballet Shoes is a children's novel that tells the story of the three fossil sisters, Pauline, Petrova and Posy. Each of them has been collected by an attirant paleontologist they know as Gum, an acronym for great uncle Matthew. They grow up under the care of his great niece Sylvia

in his slightly shabby house in the Cromwell Road in London. Money is tight and Sylvia must take in boarders. Luckily for the girls he's comprised a garage owner, a retired English professor and a dance teacher who all play a part in educating the girls and encouraging them to attend the stage school run by the formidable Madame Fedolia, a former prima ballerina of the imperial Russian ballet. Much of the book's charm derives from the way Stretfield allows each of the sisters to find their own way to fulfil their own particular talents. Pauline as an actress, petrovert as a scientist and mechanic and posy as a ballet dancer i wish listeners could see the look on nicky birch's face of utter relaxation and bliss i'm so looking forward to this hour all i can say me too me too so why is ballet shoes uh important well for historical reasons it it was an immediate

bestseller on publication um it was runner-up for the inaugural carnegie medal and i think it's it i mean we all know it's a classic of children's literature it's never been out of print and it was the first in a series of many shoes books by Noel Stretfield. Although she tried, didn't she, to call them other things, but then the publishers called them circus shoes, theatre shoes, party shoes, movie shoes, skating shoes. I mean, shoes, shoes, shoes is the message here. It's been adapted many times, both as an audiobook and for film and television, including a classic 1975 BBC series and a rather less successful 2007 adaptation starring Emma Watson. It seems a bit unfair to single out Emma Watson,

John, as the cause of the failure of that film. Just placing it for people. I quite like that one. It's like Victoria Wood, isn't it? Yeah, I think Mark Warren is woefully miscast as Nana. Thoughts, Nicky Birch? No, absolutely. It was a heinous adaptation.

Thank you, Nicky. It's never been done. Strike it off. Strike it off. Strike it off. Nicky is the arbiter on all matters ballet shoes on this episode, don't you realise? As I am.

Yes, indeed. In 2019, BBC News included ballet shoes on its list of the 100 most influential novels of all time not even children's novels but novels of all time quite right too so let's start with the familiar backlisted question Tanya I will ask you when did you first read ballet shoes so uh I I read my I read the copy that my mum had owned, which she then handed down to my elder sister. And I know it was before I was nine and a half because I bought at a jumble sale my own copy because of sibling rivalry.

And it's got in the front, Tanya Jeanette Kirk, age nine and a half, 1992. Oh, that's brilliant. And a little drawing of some flowers. So I know I read it before I was nine and a half 1992 and I look for some flowers so so I know I read it before I was nine and a half it's been read many many times so Tanya you were nine and a half and were you a girl who was were you into ballet I was I was not good uh I have not ever had the physique for ballet but I did um I did do ballet as a little child and you know that like the dream of being good at it was there I just knew it was never going to happen apparently it was Christmas it can be everything can come your dreams can come

true it created a craze though, didn't it? Yeah, there was like a major, 1930s ballet was massive in the UK, I think. So does the book cause the craze or does the craze lead to the book? I think the craze led to the book. I think the editor at Dent asked Noah Stretfield to write a book about the theatre and for children and ballet was so huge and she'd seen Dame Lynette de Valois dance on Eastbourne Pier when she was a child and had kind of loved it since then and I think just kind of went with it. Una, when did you read Noel Stretfield's work first

time did you start with Ballet Shoes as well? Oh I read so many of them you know that that period when you're reading from about what eight to thirteen or whatever it is where you you you're just reading everything you don't really distinguish the books that you're reading in a way I can date this I've got I've got that BBC tie-in edition as well um and i can date it this is my copy and beautiful nick i can date it it's got 1981 so i was probably about nine and a half as well and the blurb at the front says uh that ballet shoes is warmly recommended for girls between eight or nine and 14 so that was k webb's kind of sexist Kay Webb. Readers of all genders and ages, I think we would say. So we're very lucky to have three members of this panel who've been

reading ballet shoes since they were children. I think John and I need to provide balance. they were children. I think John and I need to provide balance. John, when did you first read Ballet Shoes? I read it last week, Andy. I'm the same, and I apologise for my blinkered sexism in not reading it before, for thinking this was, as Kay Webb suggests, a book for girls. I hadn't read it before last week,

and I really,'t read it before last week and um I've really really enjoyed it it's so much fun and so socially specific as well which I'm sure is one of the things we'll talk about yeah John what did you make of it I absolutely loved it and um also read uh the Vicarage Family which I because I you know grew up in a vicarage so, because I grew up in a Vicarage. So it was fascinating. And I also have been devouring Angela Bull's biography of Noel Stretford, which is really, really good, really good work. There it is.

I just, yeah, it's, again, it is odd, isn't it? I mean, I had read as a kid, Thursday's Child, which is Noel Stretford. And I had definitely been, I'm pretty sure, I saw the TV adaptation of Ballet Shoes because the story was enough of the story to feel familiar. But I love reading classics like this because they're so odd. It's such an odd book.

It's such a very specific 1930s kind of setting. You know, kind of weird, right? Old professor collecting babies and I mean it's not exactly what I was expecting I don't think this book is massively about ballet either it's at least as much about acting um yeah I think the title is a really I mean it's obviously like a marketing thing the main character isn't the main character kind of Petrova I don't know there's much more about her and how she kind of doesn't fit in and she's almost like the kind of um Stretford really likes writing about girls that don't fit in it's kind of her thing also I think the ballet shoes are kind of weird because this is whole theme about how the children want to make something of themselves that they've not kind of drawn on their family history for.

They've done it themselves. They've not used any kind of nepotism or anything. But Posy inherits the ballet shoes from her mum. So she kind of is like undermining that point. I think it's a weird title, always have. Well, listen, for one young woman, Opportunity Knocks, because Nicky Birch, please would you read to us from Ballet Shoes so we can get a little flavour of what Tanya was talking about just then.

Do you know what? That's an absolute pleasure. I'd love to. I'm going to read from a section which I think explains a bit of the background to the story. So hopefully it gives you the scene, the setting. The three sisters, Pauline, Petrobert and Posy. Pauline is at home ill.

Petrobert and Posy have probably gone on one of their many walks that they have to have each day. Save a penny. Save a penny and walk. And so she's in the house and in the house they have a load of boarders, aka lodgers, and she hasn't really met them all yet. They haven't gone to ballet school or anything like that. So this is, so Pauline is at home and she's ill and she's sitting on the stairs at that moment the door behind her opened and a head popped out it had a shawl around it and for a moment Pauline was not sure who it was then she recognized it was one of the lady doctors the one whose surname was Jakes Dr. Jakes looked at Pauline. My dear child, what

are you doing there by yourself? I've got a cold, Pauline explained stuffily. Has she come down without her handkerchief? And the others have got out without me and I haven't got anything to do. Dr. Jakes laughed. You sound as though you have got a cold. So have I. As a matter of fact, come in. I've got a lovely fire and I'll lend you a large silk handkerchief and I'll give you some ginger drink, which is doing me good. Pauline came in at once. She liked the sound of the whole of the invitation. Besides, she'd not seen the inside of the two doctor's rooms since they'd been boarders' rooms instead of homes for gum's fossils. As a matter of fact, this one had changed, so she felt it was a new room altogether.

It owned a rather shabby wallpaper, but when the changed, so she felt it was a new room altogether. It owned a rather shabby wallpaper, but when the border idea started, it was distempered as sort of pale primrose all over. But the primrose hardly showed now, for the whole wall was covered with books. My goodness, said Pauline, walking round and blowing her nose on the scarlet silk handkerchief. Dr. Jakes provided, you must read an awful lot. We have a big bookshelf in the nursery, but that's for all of us and Nana. Fancy all of these just for you. Dr. Jakes came over to the shelves. Literature is my subject. Is it? Is that what you're a doctor of? More or less. But apart from that, books are very ornamental things to have about. Pauline looked at the shelves.

These books certainly were grand-looking, all smooth, shiny covers and lots of gold on them. Ours aren't very, she said frankly. Yours are more all one size. We have things next to each other like Peter Rabbit and Just So stories, and they don't match very well. No, but very good reading. Pauline came to the fire it was a lovely fire and she stood looking at the logs on it do you think peter rabbit good reading

i would have thought a person who taught literature was too grand for it not a bit very old friend of mine pauline explained that they don't go to school anymore. And she said, why is that? You see, Gum, great uncle Matthew, he said he'd be back in five years and he isn't. And who exactly is Gum? Dr. Jakes poured things out of various bottles into two glasses. Pauline hugged her knees. But he's called Gum because he's Garnie's great uncle Matthew.

He isn't really a great uncle of ours because we haven't any relations. I was rescued off a ship. Petra was an orphan from Russia, and Posy's father is dead and her mother couldn't afford to have her, so we've made ourselves into sisters. We've called ourselves Fossil because that's what Gum called us. He brought us back instead of them, you see. I see. Rather exciting choosing your own name and your own relations. Yes. Pauline saw the kettle was nearly boiling and looked hopefully at the glasses we almost didn't choose posy to be a fossil she was little and stupid then but she's all right now dr jakes got up and took the kettle off the

fire and poured the water onto the mixture in the glasses and at once there was a lovely hot sweet smell i do envy you i should think it an adventure to have a name like that and sisters by accident. The three of you might make the name Fossil really important, really worthwhile, and if you do, it's all your own. Now, if I make Jake's really worthwhile, people will say I take after my grandfather or something. Pauline sipped her drink. It was very hot. She looked at Dr. Jake's over the rim of the glass. Do you suppose me and Petrova and Posey could make fossil an important

sort of name? Of course, making your name worthwhile is a very nice thing to do. It means you must have given distinguished service to your country. Oh, beautiful. I just want you to read the whole thing now. I just want you to read the whole thing. I I just want you to read the whole thing. Yes, please.

Wonderful. I settled in comfortably there. That's so great. Sorry, it was rather long, but I enjoyed it. You know, John, it hadn't occurred to me before, but when Nicky was setting up that wonderful reading, in a sense, Ballet Shoes is in the tradition of that great 30s genre, the boarding house novel yeah such as Patrick Hamilton

I mean it's not like Patrick Hamilton clearly but but it is in that genre isn't it it's the idea of a mixture of people who for reasons of poverty or misfortune are forced to rub along together to create something bigger than themselves I mean ghani struggle with her accounts there's no book i've read recently is better about money and not having enough money and trying to work out how how to prioritize and what to spend it on and how to keep something back for yourself and you know the obsession with that obsession with the savings bank always having to put money in the savings bank and that well it's I I found all of the detail in it completely there's pages and pages of just doing calculations yeah we got you know

we've got trip and take me for this and that means we can put a shilling over here but that shilling we need to bring back later on in the year to do x y and z it's just I mean it's paragraph after paragraph of it I think and of course, of course, the obsession with clothes. The obsession with clothes is amazing. Yeah. Letting them out, making them again. What they're made out of. Turning them over. Yeah.

Organdy. Weird and wonderful words. Harloton. Words like that. So is there a thing going on, Una, where, let's say, the young readership, which has been traditionally predominantly female, what elements of wish fulfilment are going on? If it isn't ballet specific, what is it? So I read a lot of Stretfield. I didn't just read this one. I read a lot of other ones like

Applebow and White Boots and a lot of them. And actually, the wish fulfilment aspect of Stretfield for me is that the grown-ups listen to the children. When the children express what they need and want, the grown-ups sit and go, that's okay. All right. I hear you. How do we make that happen? Or, okay, I hear you. I've got to be honest. I don't think that's likely because of x y and z but the wish fulfillment was was completely that the grown-ups listen there's a there's a line in Gemma one of the Gemma books that I always come back to and one of the kids is explaining to their uncle uh something that he wants ambition for his his art uh and there's just a single line which the grown-ups his uncle philip a single line

it's philip understood grown-ups can understand and and i think i think that's actually the wish fulfillment in dole's dress all the arts and stuff you know either skating or ballet you enjoy maybe that you see that there's hard work a bit of talent a bit of luck she's sort of truthful about it but it's about the grown-ups listening so I kind of get a different thing from it I I felt like the thread that runs through it is for the wish fulfillment is that you just being like recognized for being really good at something and I think one of the things that she does really well is like awful uh parent figures who who don't listen and understand I mean there are definitely ones that do try and understand but

um there's some really brilliant hilariously awful ones like uh Aunt Claudia in white boots oh she's dreadful yeah she's so dreadful so she's obsessed with her niece becoming this champion figure skater because her brother the aunt's brother the dad of the of leila had um been a champion figure skater and then and then like fallen through the ice and died in a tragic accident and she frames his skates that he was wearing when he died and puts them on the wall and makes her look at them and it's awful actually i've reread that recently and Harriet's parents are pretty hopeless too, aren't they?

Because they're kind of getting by on some ridiculous, like his older brother gives them dodgy game from the estate. Like lettuces and stuff. And they're kind of going, but don't worry, Olivia's going to come into a bit of money one day. And that's kind of what they're about. They're also pretty hopeless. There's lots of like really ineffectual adults as well.

Yeah, definitely. I think she's clear-eyed about adults. Isn't that what's interesting, though, about Ballet Shoes, is there are no parents. These girls have no parents, and they kind of choose. That's that lovely bit that you read, Nikki. They get to choose, in a way, their parents, and they get to choose their name,

and they get to choose their kind of destiny. It's quite a subversive book if you read it on that point of view. And you feel this growing tension out there of the depression of, you know, you get little hints of it from Mr. Simpson not being able to go back to Kuala Lumpur, you know, and having to open a garage in London. And the sense that the money, you know, the bills are going through the roof and Garnie, Sylvia can't keep on top of it. I also love the authenticity, the fact that they reproduced the licence, that whole thing of going to County Hall. It's actually an authentic document that you have.

And as a kid, you know, you would love that. And I can imagine, I mean, as much as wanting to go and do ballet lessons, people wanted to go on the stage and to, I mean, as much as wanting to go and do ballet lessons, people wanted to go on the stage and to, I could earn money. I could help mum and dad out by going on the stage. I also think there's something going on. There's a kind of proto-pop group thing going on. They're called The Fossils, right?

I mean, that in and of itself is a brilliant name. But also because they have different specialisms and they come from different places, they are like a little band. And it really reminded me of a story about when the 60s TV series The Monkees was first launched. They made a pilot episode which wasn't a success and they realised why the pilot wasn't a success, even though it had the same actors who go on to be

in the huge hit series later in the 60s, because they had a manager figure hanging around. They had a parental figure hanging around. As soon as they took that guy out, the series takes off. And it's sort of similar with this, right? There are parents around, but as Una was saying very perceptively, I think, the fact that they listen to the kids allows the girls to be themselves, to make their own decisions

and take responsibility for their own actions and be the gang and be the band and be the fossils, you know? Hey, hey, we're the fossils. She does a series of books, which are a band. The Gemma books, Gemma and Sisters. It's a family band. So she does go on and do that. Love it.

I'm making a note, Una. I'm making a note. Can I ask you, Una and Tanya, when you read this, one of the things that it sets you up for is to feel that you have to be a thing. Yeah. Because nobody just is themselves. Or, you know, nobody just kind of goes on to an average life. You're either a very famous pilot or a very famous actress

or a ballet dancer. And that is the same in all her books. And there's a sense of like, how did I never, you know, as a child, you assume that this is your path to success. Did you feel like that? Yes. It's like failure. But the one I always identified with was Winifred.

Oh, yes. Always. Who's just a brilliantly drawn side character. Yeah. Wearing brown. Genuinely the talented one. But Pauline will always get the part. She never had the looks, did she? She never get the part. She never had the looks, did she, Una?

She never had the looks. She never had the Latin. And that awful adaptation. From Fringe to Flying Circus. From Fringe to Flying Circus. I recognise that. Thank you very much, Una. In the awful adaptation, they make her into this sort of boss bitch figure,

don't they? Yeah. The whole point about it is that she's sort of vulnerable and she comes from a shonky family and and it's she's i agree i think she's a i think she's a brilliant character but do not find it funny how noel strepfield always always characterizes she's very obsessed with looks because winifred she's clever but she doesn't have the looks. And Petrova, brown hair. Brown hair people don't do very well in Noel Stretfield's books. She loves ginger and she loves blonde.

She was an extremist. You mentioned Noel Stretfield herself there. I think we have some clips of Noel Stretfield. I wonder whether we could hear from her if there's a particularly appropriate soundbite. What turned you from acting to writing? The death of my father. He was by then Bishop of Lewes.

And I thought, well, now with no home behind you, so to speak, you really better do something safe. Silly to go on being an actress. And I was just travelling home at that moment, just passing the Barrier Reef, I remember, from Australia, this is, you see. And I looked at the Barrier Reef, I remember, from Australia, this is, you see. And I looked at the Barrier Reef and I thought, what shall I do?

I can't go on being an actress. And suddenly it came to me like a flash that I'd be a novelist. Yes. What made me think a novelist was a secure professional? Honestly, that's solid gold. It's just brilliant. She's gum, isn't she? She actually is gum.

You know what? You know what? I'm going to break the format. Can we hear another one? Let's just hear another one. That's incredible. You want to hear about how she came to write ballet shoes. This is the intervention of a publisher.

Okay, let's do it. When did you start writing for children? In the 1930 of a publisher. Okay, let's do it. When did you start writing for children? In the 1930s. Yes. When the publisher came to me and said, would you write a book for children, rather like your first book, The Witch Arts, children on the stage?

Of course, they couldn't be three illegitimate daughters of a colonel in a children's book. So I didn't want to write it at all, but I did in the end sit down and write it. And I called it Barry Shoes, and that's where I was telling you before my sister illustrated it. Yes. Written, well, about 40 years ago, still a big seller and a children's classic now. I know. You're not supposed to be alive when there's a classic around. How many copies have been sold?

Over nine million. Nine million. Wow! I like Noel Stretfield. I think we might hear from her again over the months ahead in our bag missing. Marvellous girl. Nine million copies. And that's in 1976.

70, yeah. So, yeah, incredible. I wonder what it's sold since. yeah so yeah incredible I wonder what it's sold since although it's very of its time I think that that idea of listening to children of people who come from from un I don't know their backgrounds are shady aren't they you don't really quite know what's happened how they've ended up being being collected by by um by gum so they come from nothing, but it's an amazing book about self-realisation and ambition and being kind and being, you know. You know, Mitch, I nearly,

I've got written on a bit of paper here, self-realisation has become a theme of ours since we did De Profundis. There's the Oscar Wilde element to this. But I agree with you agree you're absolutely right self-realisation is what I would say the wish fulfilment is that really going back to that question

it's the well if you have talent and you work the two things, you've got to have talent but you've also got to work and not a vast amount of talent because you know i mean posy is posy obviously we're told is sort of a genius but but pauline is pauline's good she's

you know she's she's going to be great um but it is hard work and poor petrova's just you know slogging out there but she also she becomes technically one of the best dancers i love that because she's really she breaks down the problem and analyses it. She's not feeling it, but she finds her own way of dealing with it. She's professional, yeah. I love Noel Stretfield's insistence that she became a novelist for reasons of security.

And then she goes, whatever gave me the idea of that? It was ridiculous. I have to say, I get the impression that she had largely a brilliant time. Yeah. I mean, I know, you know, she's bombed out and all this stuff. But I know that the vicarage childhood is miserable. And, you know, when she's acting, she's living in kind of terrible digs in Derby and this kind of thing.

But she always seems to be having there always seems to be a party uh about to happen or has just happened or she's you know uh slightly squiffy from one uh she sounds like she had a great time also i'd like to say a bit about her career as a writer um she was prolific she wrote um 30 books for children around, and 16 novels for adults, including, of course, Saplings, which was published in 1945 and republished by Persephone Books 10, 15 years ago, which is tremendous. Really, really good book. And as we've said, you know, she either wrote sequels to Ballet Shoes or allowed the titles to be changed. So she wrote Ballet Sho tennis shoes, circus shoes, theatre shoes, party shoes, movie shoes, skating shoes.

And she's also reputed to be the author of the six-word short story for sale, baby shoes never worn. And if she isn't, we're starting that rumour now. Yes, get that one out there. Let's take it away from Hemingway and give it to Noel Stretfield. Yeah. The other one I read that I thought was really worth a look is called I Ordered a Table for Six, which has a kind of,

you know that a bomb is going to hit. It's set during the Blitz and you know a bomb is going to hit. Is that for children or adults? That's an adult one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you're kind of, it's a bit Final Destination or Casualty. You're kind of going, who's going to be standing at the end of this one? So that was pretty good, I thought.

Have you, Una, have you got something to read us from elsewhere in Stretfield's work then? Yeah, so I picked a little chunk from, we've heard it mentioned already and she's mentioned it herself. I picked the opening of her first novel, The Witch Arts, so that you could see where ballet shoes came from. Can you say why they're called The Witch Arts? They're called The Witch Arts because they are fatherless children,

but they are well brought up by their own Nana and they know the Our Father witch art in heaven. So as they don't know who their father is, they say, well, you know, Our Father witch art. So that's why they're called the witch art, which is very, very good. So I'm going to read you a little bit of this. And I think of it as like the mirror universe ballet shoes. Yeah.

It's kind of like what you think the story actually might be. So the witch art children lived in the Cromwell Road. At that end of it, which is furthest away from the Brompton Road and yet sufficiently near it to be taken to look at the doll's houses in the Victoria and Albert every wet day. And if not too wet, expected to save the penny and walk. That's literally the same line. Literally the same line.

Saving the penny and walking was a great feature of their childhood. This is where it starts to diverge. Our father, Mamie the eldest would say, must have been definitely a taxi person. He couldn't have known about walking, or he'd never bought a house at the far end of the longest road in London. Our father, Tanya, the second child would argue, was a Rolls-Royce man. His own, you know, I don't believe he ever hired anything. Their father was a legendary hero to the children. They knew so little about him and

that little sounded so exciting. Our father would have done this or said that they would romance no story was too improbable for such a man he'd been a soldier with many honors and even more mistresses his first mistress or at least the one credited with being this is where it diverges. Yeah. Was a Miss Rose Howard. She belonged to a most rigidly respectable family and was at that time 22. She met the brigadier, as she always called him, at a military ball. He was a captain in those days,

newly married to a lady of such remarkable social eminence, Blue Bud, that he was guaranteed a brilliant future. He saw Rose and fell in love with the brigadier to be in love was to make love this he did entrancingly so entrancingly that he persuaded rose to leave her family her home her respectability and to live in the cromwell road his guardianship it It is Patrick Hamilton. It is Patrick Hamilton, yes. They live in non-conjugal bliss for eight years with the Brigadier popping in,

whereupon he leaves Rose, breaks it off. But he does come back every so often to deposit on Rose a series of his bastard children, who are the Maisie, Tanya and Daisy of the book. And then he dies and Rose and Nana, who is there and calls them blessed lambs, ring up the three girls. So you've got your Garnie and your Nana. And then Rose dies in a sort of real bit of a shocker.

And the kids are sort of thrown on their wits in many ways in a series of sort of depressing boarding houses. This is better than I could have ever hoped for. And the oldest one becomes kind of a sex worker. Yeah, yeah. She's sort of kept in it. She's a chorus girl. It's honestly very upsetting.

I know. For a lover of ballet shoes. I told you, mirror universe universe you're positing this as the it's the true story the mirror mirror or the inferno of the strepfield universe absolutely or or stiletto shoes we might yeah so it's not a great book it's it's very readable and enjoyable it's not very good but somehow she lifts this and fair play to her we've all done it she kind of lifts this and goes i could do this is a kid's book yeah okay so right okay so ballet shoes ballet shoes is the witches with the benefit of hindsight yeah it's like saying i can revisit this but i can i can

make it feel warmer and it's like with the cynicism taken out and also the kids are not that great at things in the witch arts and she makes she gives them like proper talents for ballet shoes yeah and so she takes this germ of the idea and does what she's good at, which is writing children. Yeah. Yeah. That makes me love it even more. But then, interestingly, she basically copies that and does the same book for the rest of her life. Because all of tennis shoes and white boots and curtain up and they're all the same book. I'll just read you the beginning of there's a Christmas story I have here. There's a volume of it seems appropriate. There's a volume of, it seems appropriate,

Noel Stretfield's Christmas Stories, which is published by Virago, called The Moss Rose. And certain tropes, certain Stretfield tropes, become apparent very quickly. But anyway, I'll just give you the beginning of this story. Lavinia was wedged so tightly between the passages on the underground train that however much the coaches swayed, it made no difference. She just could not fall over. Not only was she squashed by passengers, but by parcels and suitcases. The parcels, even though they were wrapped in paper,

trumpeted news of what was in them and what day it was. The foot of a turkey brushed Lavinia's cheek. A large square box marked Fragile did not need to be opened to see the glittering Christmas tree ornaments inside it. What else could be travelling in a basin-shaped package on Christmas Eve but a plum pudding? Christmas Eve has a special feeling all its own, a mixture of excitement, hustle and bustle. Even the suitcases look Christmas Eve-ish, thought Lavinia. You can see they're lumpy because there are presents inside them, as well as clothes, but I bet nobody's got a more exciting suitcase than me. Just to be clear, she's heading to the Cromwell Road at that point. Cromwell Road is the...

The lodestone. It is. It is, very much. It's the main artery down which her imagination runs. Yeah. Do we have a little bit of a Christmas excerpt from Ballet Shoes that we could hear from somebody? Has someone got that?

Well, I could read a little bit if you want. Yes, that would be great. Perhaps because they've been working so hard, Christmas Day seemed the loveliest day they had known. Nothing was very different from other Christmases, but somehow it seemed a particularly gay day. Their stockings bulged when they woke, and beside all the usual things in them,

there were large white sugar pigs with pink noses and wool tails. When Nana came to tell them to get up, she had three parcels under her arm, and they, of course, had presents for her. Pauline had made her some handkerchiefs, and Petrova a needle book full of needles, and Posy a blotter of two plaited paper mats stuck on cardboard. Nana had knitted each of them a jumper with a fluffy rabbit's wool round the cuffs and collars. Pauline's was blue, Petrava's orange and Posy's pink. They all put them on for breakfast. On the breakfast table were chocolates for them from Theo. Everybody else's presents were waiting for the Christmas tree after tea. They went to church, even Posy, and sang Heart

the Herald Angels, O Come All Ye Faithful and the First Noel. They had been afraid that perhaps they would only get one that they knew and the rest were some dull tune that was supposed to belong to Christmas and did not really. The turkey and plum pudding and crystallized fruits and things they had for lunch as Posy was not allowed to sit up for dinner. After lunch, Sylvia read to them while they did an enormous jigsaw that she'd got especially for Christmas afternoon. Then there was team, and Cook had made a most remarkable cake with her father Christmas and reindeer on it, and as well three large gold stars, which she said was what she hoped

the children would be. Oh. Come on. It's lovely. Come on. It's just lovely. It is lovely. It is. We's just lovely. It is lovely. It is.

We were poor, but we were happy. But like you say, it's not cynical. It's heartfelt and very, very true. So let me ask those of you who have been reading Stretfield since childhood. Nicky, I'm going to ask you first, why does this keep going? childhood. Nikki, I'm going to ask you first, why does this keep going? Why, here we are in the year, whatever we're in, 2022, why hasn't this retired to the shelf? I think it's something that,

something that Tanya mentioned, because my mother, it meant a lot to her, and she gave me the book, and it meant a lot to me, and I gave my daughter the book, and it's meant something to her and she gave me the book and it meant a lot to me and I gave my daughter the book and it's meant something to her and I and I but I think that's part of it I think there is definitely a handing this down in generations because some some books are so meaningful that you really want to to pass them on to the next and particularly your children your own thing so i think i think that's why it's had such a significant legacy i completely agree with that i mean what that brought to mind was just that moment at the end that uh you know where they turn and go which one would you be or who would you want to be in this book invites you in it's sort of you know it makes you part of that family i think that you could be sitting at that table enjoying that wonderful cake with homemade gifts.

You're sort of invited into, you're enfolded into the family of that book. It's like on the John Christopher blurb, it said, the reader becomes personally involved. Mr Pirrie turns up as their new boarder. He does. I'm afraid I'm going to shoot you all in the head, girls. I am sorry.

It's for your own good. Tanya, what do you think? Why are we talking about this here in the modern era? Because it doesn't feel like an old book to me. It's packaged by Puffin as almost like a contemporary a classic i get that but but but you know it still speaks to its constituency it's kind of about finding your niche this is back to the self-realization point again um and um kind of finding your people and i think so the one thing that I found really sad about it, the ending

is they all kind of go their separate ways and they get these amazing careers but they're no longer a family in the same way and I always found that really bittersweet Yes because we, I mean if you haven't read it and we don't want to give stuff away but they're heading to different

countries to do different things aren't they Yeah And also Posey's going to Prague yeah yeah in 1937 yeah yeah all right don't get let's not get too dark yeah she comes she comes back to that in a short piece have you read it Tanya it's a little piece called what happened to Pauline Petrovi I haven haven't. Yeah, I've read The Painted Garden in which it kind of covers that they have to leave and they move to Hollywood. Little puffing collection called Christmas with the Crystals. And it's a it's a sort of little chapter that I think was in a Christmas book that she did in the 70s, where clearly she's been sitting since the war going, oh, no, I sent poor old Posey off just before the tanks

rolled into the Sudetenland. And worst of all, I sent her with Nana. Yeah, OK. I think Nana would be useful in a conflict situation. So what is her reverse engineered solution? Yeah, what happens? The writer knows Stretfield. They all meet for a holiday just before the war breaks out.

And Nana's saying, oh, do you know, I'm finding Prague terribly difficult. You can't get oatmeal in treacle. Yes. Brilliant. Garnie says, do you know what, Nana? I think I'll go back and you can go to Hollywood with Pauline. And then when the ballet company basically has to flee the tanks, they kind of, they pack up and go to New York.

So Pauline's making films, Posey's sort of dancing, and Petrova, as we expected, is flying planes, is in the war effort. And of course I knew I had to get them out of there. I couldn't leave the poor girl in, I couldn't leave the poor girl in Prague. Okay, this seems like a perfect moment, this being a backlisted Christmas episode,

to say it's time for the quiz. No. It's just for fun. Yes, it's just for fun, everyone. It's just for fun. I've got a quiz question for you, Andy Villis. All right. Well, you can drop that at the end.

Okay. All right. So what we've got, this year's Christmas quiz, we've got three rounds of a question quiz we've got uh three rounds of a question each for our guests and our regulars and then we've got a free-for-all at the end um uh i've tried to make sure the questions uh are easy for the specialisms of each guest and each and the enthusiasms of each member of the team so uh without further ado here we go one point per answer let's start with you Nikki Birch Nikki in which teen classic is the young heroine told that

if she wants to be one of the cool girls at her new school it is essential she wear loafers with no socks oh I don't know this loafers I'll give you a clue because it's Christmas Day. Thank you. You've already mentioned the author of this book once on this show. Okay. Yes, correct. Is it Are You There, God, It's Me, Margaret? It is.

It is. Thank you. One point. It's Judy Blume, Are You There, God, It's Me, Margaret. Well done, Nicky. Una. Who is the author of the fairy story The Red Shoes, adapted into the classic ballet film of the same name

by Michael Powell and Emmerich Pressburger? I'm so bad at quizzes. Is it Hans Christian Andersen? Good. As luck would have it, it is Hans Christian Andersen. Merry Christmas. You get a point. Thank you.

Good, well done. Tanya, which member or members of the group The Beatles wrote the song Old Brown Shoe, originally released in 1969 as the B-side to the Ballad of John and Yoko? George Harrison? Is the correct answer. Merry Christmas. You get a point. Well done. Good shoe quiz here, Andy.

This is a shoe-based quiz. You've spotted that. John, please identify the author of the following short poem. Is bliss then such abyss? I must not put my foot amiss, for fear I spoil my shoe. I'd rather suit my foot than save my boot. For yet to buy another pair is possible at any store, but bliss is sold just once, the patent lost, none buy it any more. Save foot, decide the point, the Lady Cross or not. Verdict for boot. 19th century?

Yes. American. Yes, I was thinking. Oh. No, I'm going to open it up Anyone else know who that is? Whitman Not Whitman, Tanya? Is Bliss then such a

No, Nicky? I don't know It's Emily Dickinson That's good, it was my next guess Emily Dickinson, fuck yeah Fucking Emily Dickinson fuck yeah right exactly fucking Emily Dickinson

okay so out of round one it's everyone's got a point except I'm afraid John Mitchison sorry John Nicky question to you

who is the author of the book Shoe Dog a memoir by the creator of Nike oh and the clue is in the title of the book by the creator of Nike. Oh, what is the creator? And the clue is in the title of the book.

By the creator of Nike. That's the author of the book, yes. Shoe Dog, a memoir of the creator of Nike. I know that then the guy who set up Adidas was called Adolf, but I don't know the guy who set up Nike. But I'm afraid that's not what I have on the card. What's his name? Does anybody know who wrote Shoe Dog,

a memoir by the creator of Nike? It's Phil Knight. Ah. I bet that's a good book. I tried to make that as easy as I could. I'm so sorry. Sorry, Andy. Una, to you.

In which episode of Star Trek, the animated series, does Mr. Spock... Let's start that again. Una, in which episode of Star Trek, the animated series, does Mr Spock request, amongst other things, a special pair of boots for his trip back in time to rescue his younger self? That's yesteryear.

It is! Oh, my God. Such excellent specialist knowledge. It's the only one people have seen. OK, good. That's fine. That's a point. Congratulations.

So next to Tanya. Tanya, here we go. And I think I'm confident you're going to get this. For one point, here we go. The British Library holds a copy of an early children's book published in London in 1765 by John Newbury and reputed to have been written by Oliver Goldsmith. For one point, please tell us its full title.

Is it Tommy Thelm's Pretty Songbook? No. I'm afraid it isn't. I'm so sorry. I don't know what the answer is. This is my collection. This is terrible. I'm going to be fired. I know. Sorry about that, Tanya.

Well, we had fun. We had fun on this episode, didn't we, anyway. So, okay. So its full title is as follows. The History of Little Goody Two-Shoes. Oh, no. I so nearly said that. Otherwise called Mrs Marjorie Two-Shoes,

with the means by which she acquired her learning and wisdom and in consequence thereof her estate, Mrs Marjorie Two Shoes, with the means by which she acquired her learning and wisdom, and in consequence thereof her estate, set forth at large for the benefit of those who from a state of rags and care, and having shoes but half a pair, their fortune and their fame would fix, and gallop in a coach and six. You were only offering a point for that. I should have got it for the shoes, Link. Una, that's the title. What can I do? That's the title. What can I do?

That's the title. John, for a point. Which of Shakespeare's plays features the following exchange? Morellus. You, sir, what trade are you? Cobbler. Truly, sir, in respect of a fine workman, I but as you would say a cobbler morellus but what trade art thou answer me directly cobbler a trade sir that i hope i may use with a safe

conscience which is indeed sir a mender of bad souls oh morellus uh It's not Two Gentlemen of Verona. It's one of those comedies, isn't it? As you like it. I mean, it is funny, I grant you, but no. It's not one of those comedies. Anyone? It's not. John hasn't got it, I'm afraid.

Twelfth Night. It's not Twelfth Night. No. Anyone? The exchange between Morellus and the Cobbler. Anyone know when that is? If it doesn't have Spock in it. Julius Caesar?

It is Julius Caesar, Tanya Kirk. An extra point to you. Excellent. Well thought through. It's the final round. This is very exciting. I think Tanya's in the lead. I don't think I am. No, no, she's not. No, no, wait a minute.

No, okay. Two points to Tanya, right? Una's got two. Nikki's got one, and John has yet to register on the board. John's had really hard questions. He has, he has. He'd do the same for me. I would do the same.

Okay, Nikki, final round. The shoe drawings of which iconic, and that is the correct use of that word in this context, 20th century artist were collected in a 1997 volume entitled Shoes, Shoes, Shoes, the autobiography of Alice B. Shoe. I have no idea, Andy. Name an iconic 20th century artist. Andy Warhol. Andy Warhol. Tanya,

it is Andy Warhol. Yes, that is correct. Another point. Tanya left it, poached that point. Tanya, I feel embarrassed. Okay, Una. Third and final question for Una. Una, which best-selling science fiction novel, I would argue for younger readers, begins, I stare down at my shoes, watching as a fine layer of ash settles on the worn leather. This is where the bed I shared with my sister Prim stood. Is it Blade Runner? Do androids dream of electric sheep?

It certainly is not. Anyone else know what that is? No, it's Pris, isn't it? Of course. It's one of the Hunger Games books. It is one of the Hunger Games books. It is Mockingjay. Tanya, you're racing away with this.

I'm too old for Hunger Games. Bye, bum. Yeah, okay, yeah. What I should have said is Mockingjay or Ms Mockingjay. James, bye, go on. Yeah, okay, yeah. What I should have said is Mockingjay or Ms Mockingjay being a sound mind in the Little Goody Two Shoes format. It's actually got a really long title, but sadly not. Tanya, this is your question. Tanya, we all know the author of the story

The Boots at the Holly Tree Inn, first published in 1855 as the Christmas number of the magazine Household at the holly tree inn first published in 1855 as the christmas number of the magazine household worlds is charles dickens we all know that but can you tell me which of dickens's novels began serialization in the same month december 1855 and in the same periodical not concluding until June 1857. You can see Mitch champing at the bit. David Copperfield. I'm afraid it isn't David Copperfield.

John, over to you. Dombey and Son. It is not Dombey and Son. Una? Muppet Christmas Carol. It is the Muppet Christmas Carol. Otherwise known as Little Dorrit. It's Little Dorrit, I'm afraid. Okay, right. Okay, John, finally to you. Here we go. It's an easy one. John, the Dr. Martin's boot is perhaps synonymous with the skinhead movement that originated in the UK in the late 1960s. The most infamous literary chronicler of skinhead fashion, music and violence was the late author James Moffat, aka Richard Allen, who between 1970 and

1980 penned 18 novels in the skinhead sequence. How many of those 18 novels feature the word skinhead or some variation thereof in their titles? Not all of them. Of the 18. Come on, John. Come on, John. How many? I'm going to say.

You don't even have to name them. Just how many of those 18 novels have the word skinhead? At least 10 of them. It's either 10 or all of them. All. Go for all. I'm going to go for all. I'm afraid not, John. Eight.

They are as follows. Skinhead. Suedehead. Skinhead Escape. Skinhead Girls. Skinhead Girls. Top Gear Skins. Trouble Skinhead.

Dragon Skins. And the elegiac skinhead farewell it's a roman fleur i feel sad there wasn't one called merry christmas skinhead but unfortunately published by new english library yes they were. Now I will open this up to everyone. You can bump up your scores. One point. This is a free-for-all. Just shout out your answers. One point for every one of the ten remaining Richard Allen skinhead novels

you can name that don't have the word skinhead in the title. Go. Bother Boots. No, but you're close. Monkey Boots. Close. Knights at the circus no flick knife

ten holes no welly boots DM boots oh you know you know Nicky you're so you're getting so

boot what boot girls boot boys boot boys no who said boot boys me I did

no Nicky did Nicky that's you boot boys okay Boot Girls. Boot Boys. Boot Scrap. Who said Boot Boys? Me. I did. No, Nicky did. Nicky, that's you. Boot Boys. Okay. People at home will be screaming this at their radios. Daytrips. Richard Allen. Mopeds.

Daytrips. Mopeds. Actually, Nicky. Nicky's got the feel for this. She's on the roll, yeah. She really is. Okay, so they were as follows. Demo, 1971. Boot roll, yeah. She really is. Okay, so they were as follows. Demo, 1971.

Boot Boys, 1972. Glam, 1973. Glam, I should have got that. I've got that. Sorts, 1973. Teeny Bopper Idol, 1973. Terrace Terrors, 1975. Knuckle Girls, 1977.

Can any of you name another one that might have come out in 1977? Knuckle Boys. Jubilee. Jubilee. No, that's a good guess. No, but you're in the right ballpark. Punk Girls. Nearly.

Punk Rock, 1977. And finally, 1980, Maud Rue. So I'm declaring at the end of that sensational quiz, everybody won. We're all winners. It's Christmas day. Well done. I've got a quiz question for you, Andy.

Oh, yes, go on. Yeah, don't miss out on my quiz question. So as we all know, the 1975 adaptation of Ballet Shoes was produced by John Wiles, second producer of Doctor Who. But which Doctor Who story connects Madame Fedovia and Posey Fossil?

I'm going to say just saying something on air. Is it The Reign of Terror? No, it is not. Oh! Sorry, you got one wrong. I got one wrong.

Quite rightly so. I deserved it. Posey is played by Sarah Prince and Madame Fedolia is Mary Morris and the story that connects them is Kinder. Yes, of course it is. Yes, it is. Oh, well done, Una, for getting kinder into this episode.

Good fact, eh? Top good fact. Well done. Very good. There you go. God bless us, everyone. Why don't we hear from our, I feel, our patron saint of this episode. Could we hear from Noel Stretfield again before we go?

What are your writing habits, Miss Stretfield? I write regularly every day. Yes. From about nine o'clock to lunchtime. And you write in bed, I'm told. Well, that was going back into my... having left the theatre. You see, everybody used to say, oh, I've got tickets for

this or that, or what about coming to this, you know. And you can't write a book that way, as you know, you've got to sit down and write it's a very disciplined world and so one day when someone was offering me something particularly tempting to go and see i instead of saying no i can't because i'm writing a book which no one believed anyway i suddenly took all my clothes off and got back into bed i thought well now i can't go out in the street and that's the end of it. And I've been in bed ever since. Oh my goodness. That's exactly how I write.

I just took all my clothes off and went to bed. I couldn't go out in the street. I've been in bed ever since, myself. Goodness. Wonderful. Right. Well, I'm afraid we must now sadly say farewell to the fossils and to the redoubtable Miss Stretfield and leave you to your all to your own celebrations. Huge thanks to Tanya and Una for allowing us to overindulge ourselves, to Nicky Birch, both the initial inspiration and for making us sound like we're all gathered around the same figgy pudding.

And of course, to Unbound for these lovely new organdy frocks. for these lovely new organdy frocks. You can download all 176 previous episodes, plus follow links, clips and suggestions for further reading by visiting our website, backlisted.fm. And we're always pleased if you contact us on Twitter and Facebook and now in sound and pictures on Instagram too. You can also show your love directly by supporting our Patreon at www.patreon.com forward slash backlisted.

What do you get for your money? Well, all patrons get to hear backlisted episodes early and ad-free. And for roughly the same as Mr. Simpson's advance against the value of the sisters' necklaces, those who have subscribed to the Locklisted level get two extra podcasts every month. It's called Locklisted. Think of it as our very own stage academy

where we three work hard to learn recite rehearse and perform stories taken from the books films and music we've enjoyed in the previous fortnight that's exactly what it's like that's not misrepresenting it at all john well done very good and there is actually a fabulous christmas episode isn't there which is worth plugging because the christmas episode are ones where um all the patrons have um suggested their favorite books that they recommend each other and it's spectacular we loved making that episode but that was one of our one of our favorites it was it's really fun that episode so anyway uh lot of listeners also get to hear their names read out on the show as a mark of our thanks and

appreciation and today's festive christmas Day roll call of new patrons includes... Amy Wallen, Theo Henderson, Merrilee Kincaid, Monica Dunkley, Johanna Lindsley, Laurie Harenberg, Elizabeth Graboff. Thanks very much to all of you. Merry Christmas as well. Thank you.

Before we go, Tanya, is there anything you would like to add, we'd like to say about ballet shoes or Noel Stretfield that we didn't cover in the show today I was thinking because Christmas is obviously a time for telling ghost stories there's this amazing completely throwaway story in Noah Stretfield's biography by Angela Bull which is I really recommend where they're talking about when Noah was a child in the living in the vicarage in Amberley in West Sussex and how she used to see a little girl wearing pantaloons around the place.

And it's kind of unexplained. And then the biography just says, and then they moved out. And then the people who lived there after them did some renovations and they discovered the skeletons of a mother and child behind the staircase. And it's just completely left like that. there's no further explanation of any kind moving on to noel's life it's just brilliant again god bless us everyone that's lovely what a lovely heartwarming story una anything you would like to add before we go? Oh, no, just she continues. I hadn't read it in a long time and I went back and enjoyed it a lot more than I expected. I went off on a bit of a kick of all of the ones I'd read as a kid.

So it's been thoroughly enjoyable to go back to White Boots and Apple Bow and The Circus is Coming. She's she's a lovely writer, many charms. And Nikki, this was your special Christmas gift. Is there anything you would like to add that we haven't covered in the episode? Just like to say thank you very much for doing that. It's lovely being me a little Christmas present. But I just wanted to reflect on one thing, which is the say, because I listened to it so much.

The sayings, she was so much, the sayings. She was very fond of using sayings. Nana always does the sayings in the book, doesn't she? And I thought I'd just leave you with a few of Nana's sayings. Let's hear them. What the eye doesn't see, the heart doesn't grieve after. Very familiar. Obviously, a very important Noel Stretford message,

pride comes before a fall. That gets repeated a lot. And then my favourite one, which is in tennis shoes, which I don't really understand, but I love it. Never keep a dog if you can bark yourself.

Yes. I think that the Queen's message to her Commonwealth there on this special day. So, Johnny, do we have anything we want to say as it's Christmas Day? If you're out there listening to this and you've got kids,

the fossil vow, I think, puts it into the front rank of classics that give children morals they should live up to. We three fossils vow to try and put our name into history books because it's our very own and nobody can say it's because of our grandfathers.'s that's i love that it's radical brilliant yeah yeah great well look we'd like to wish all our listeners a very happy christmas and thank you for your the incredible support that you've shown backlisted this year another record-breaking book-filled year for us we mean it when we say we couldn't and wouldn't how much we might wish to do it

without you so thank you so much thank you so much for supporting us merry christmas wherever you are merry christmas happy new year everybody thank you bye see you bye bye © BF-WATCH TV 2021