Backlisted - The Railway Children by E. Nesbit

Episode Date: December 25, 2021

Merry Xmas everybody! Our friends Katherine Rundell and Frank Cottrell-Boyce, two wonderful guest authors, join us to celebrate the life and work of Edith Nesbit and perhaps her best-loved novel, The Railway Children (1906). This podcast has it all: cracker jokes and conversation, readings and music, laughter and tears, a forthright debate over whether Daddy is innocent or guilty, and even a special Christmas quiz featuring tenuous links - have a pen and piece of paper to hand (and maybe a box of tissues too). Also in this bumper episode of Backlisted, John revisits another magical childhood favourite, Hobberdy Dick by K.M. Briggs; while Andy bravely attempts to summarise Alan Moore's epic novel Jerusalem and shares just one of its 1296 magickal pages with us.Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)06:52 - Hobberdy Dick by K.M. Briggs. 10:11 - Jerusalem by Alan Moore. 16:04 - The Railway Children by E. Nesbit* 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, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with 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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Let's go seize the night. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamex. Benefits vary by car and other conditions apply. Hello and welcome to a special Christmas Day edition of Backlisted, the podcast that gives new life to old books. Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas! gives new life to old books.

Merry Christmas! Today, you find us somewhere in Northern England in 1905, sitting high above a railway line. Below is the black, yawning mouth of a tunnel. At the end of a valley, there runs a great bridge with tall arches. We're waiting to wave at a green steam train, the 915 Up, the one we call the green dragon, the one that carries an old gentleman with odd-shaped collars and a top hat that isn't exactly like other people's,

who always waves back. I'm John Mitchinson, the publisher of Unbound, the platform where readers crowdfund books they really want to read. And I'm Andy Miller, author of The Year of Reading Dangerously, and joining us for this special Christmas Day episode, like family members from far away who we see once or twice a year, are two returning guests, Catherine Rundell and Frank Cottrell-Boyce. Hey, Merry Christmas. And they both joined us in April to discuss Tristram Shandy. And it was after that digression film romp that Catherine said, oh, if you ever want me to come back on again, and I love to do the railway children, and we went, come back at Christmas. Come back immediately.

So thank you very much, Catherine. What a brilliant idea. We've been excited all year. Let me introduce and ask both our dear guests for their first festive contributions of the day. Catherine Rundell is the author of half a dozen children's books, among them Rooftoppers and The Explorer, all published by Bloomsbury, and a fellow of All Souls College in Oxford, where she has just finished the book about John Donne. Congratulations that she's been writing for the last thousand, i.e. six years. It's called Super Infinite.

And everybody, save a book token because it's coming out in April. Thank you so much. You're welcome. You're welcome. You're welcome. That's the kind of product placement we can do on here. Catherine, here's a cracker. Sound effect of pulling a cracker. What appropriate joke has just fallen onto the table from

i apologize in advance which e-nez bit novel features the uh murderous destruction of five children by a killer clown really sorry i'm gonna love this. It's something in it, right? It's just five children and it. Very good. A polite ripple there.

Thank you very much, Catherine. Thank you. Turning now to our other guest, the eccentric uncle slumped in the corner. Hello, Frank Cottrell-Boyce. He's an award-winning novelist and screenwriter who, as well as joining Catherine for the Shandy Fest, first appeared on Bat-listed number 79

to discuss Tove Jansson's Moominvalley in November. His best-selling children's books include Millions, which won the 2004 Carnegie Medal, Sputnik's Guide to Life on Earth, 2016, shortlisted for the Carnegie, and most recently Noah's Gold, all illustrated by Stephen Lenton and published by Macmillan. Frank wishes us to know that he is, quote,

erudite, warm and enthusiastic. That's so rude. Well, you said it, Frank. And those are all qualities that make him eminently qualified to appear on this backlisted Christmas special. And also to share with us, Sprank, do you have a cheering festive motto that's fallen out of your imaginary cracker for us today? Yes.

Do you wonder who delivers Mary and Joseph's groceries to the stable? I do. It's the little donkey. Very good. I'm also joined today by the green man himself, John Mitchinson, and our producer, Nicky Birch, who is part of the team here. We're all gathered around the Christmas table. They've also got crackers.

They've also pulled their crackers. Nicky Birch, what joke do you have for us? Which Christmas song is a family favourite of the Railway Children? Freight Christmas. It's good, but it's not what I've got

on my card. It's Phyllis Navadad. Ah, nice! Oh! That is brilliant. Right, Mitchinson, I know you've prepared a whole side of A4 of potential candidates. I'm just going to give you

one, my favourite one. Why, why, backlisted listeners, did Andy Miller give the kiss of life to an elderly male reindeer? My private life. My private life is none of your business. Go on, John. He was breathing new life into an old book.

Oh, dear. Is that your best one? Yeah, I think that's great. It's got to be crap, right? right well that was magnificent i i already feel we recorded this in july and i already feel the job the jollity is flowing through me like heroin it's amazing thank you very much have you got come on no i do i was too busy doing the quiz there's a quiz everybody there's a quiz later on that's exciting so if you hadn't already guessed because we've already told you so you pay attention the old book we're coaxing fresh and festive life from today is the railway children by e nesbit first serialized in 1905

in the london magazine and published in book form the following year by wells gardner darton and co it's remained in print ever since. The Railway Children has been adapted many times for radio and the stage and at least six times for the screen, with many, though not all, the adaptations featuring Jenny Agata. If ever a book needed no introduction, it is this one. So we're not going to give it one. I'm hoping every single person listening to this

doesn't need spoiler warnings or anything like that. You've had 115 years and multiple Christmas TV viewings to be up to speed for this one, so it should be fine. But before we get on to the Railway Children, John, what have you been reading this Christmas? I've been reading an old favourite and an old classic. It's Hobbity Dick by the great folklorist Catherine Briggs, K.M. Briggs. It was published first in 1955.

And it is about a kind of a supernatural hobgoblin figure called Hobbity Dick, who is the tutelary spirit of a house called Whitford Manor in the Cotswolds. who is the tutelary spirit of a house called Widford Manor in the Cotswolds. And he is watching on glumly as a family of Puritans move in. It's set in the middle of the, or shortly after the Civil War, the time of when Christmas was under threat or even banned. And it's about how he, with his kind of band of ghosts and Grimms and Will-o'-the-Wisps and Sprites,

managed to turn this rather dour Puritan family into something very different. But I thought I'd just read you a little bit about the Christmas. What's happening is that all the people who want to celebrate Christmas are having to do it in a barn, and they're trying to do it in a barn. And they've had to do it. They're trying to do it as far away from the big house so that nobody knows.

Christmas revels are banned. So, there must have been more than a score of people in the room, for convivial labourers had come from the farms round where a stricter supervision had been kept. Martha, Diligence, Little Samuel, Ned the houseboy, Charity, and half a dozen others were playing at hot cockles. Rachel, Maria Parmenter and Nancy, the oldest of the maids, were roasting chestnuts and crab apples. The butler, Jonathan Fletcher, a grave silent man, was brewing a bowl of lamb's wool in which the crabs were to float.

A group of lads at the far end of the room were improvising clothes for the mumming play. A group of lads at the far end of the room were improvising clothes for the mumming play. George Batchford, with a cushion on his head to mark his rank as king of the revels, was directing everyone, his usual gloomy and impassive face, a glow with good humour, and the nips he had taken to quicken his spirits. Hobarty Dick, unperceived, added his own ho-ho-ho to the sound of merriment which went up from the place and slipped into a dark corner beyond the fire from which he could watch all that went on. Presently, the mummers with blackened faces and gay tags fluttering around them came stamping in from the far end of the room, and one of them, with a broom in his hand, swept the dust in behind the door for luck. Here come I, set on before, to sweep the dust behind the door, he chanted. Then Father Christmas came

on, and the king from Wessex, and the dragon with a flail wagging behind him for a tail, the Bessie with a cloak pinned round him for a skirt, an apron borrowed from one of the girls, and the fool with straw in his hair. It was a hodgepodge of a play, for several traditions met there, and everyone made up his part as it suited him, but it was received with great applause, and the girls laughed till their sides acheded then some of the lads who'd been peering over the heads of the others dragged a big log into the center of the circle and began to play at pulling done from the mire lifting and straining with loud gear ups and trying each man to drop the log on the toes of his fellows until when they were all straining their hardest, George Batchford, as Beelzebub, gave it a sudden push forward

and the whole line fell down among louder laughter than ever. And that's probably enough. It's a beautiful, lovely, perfect little children's book. And it is available. We can get hold of it, right? That's lovely. Okay, great. Andy, what have you been reading?

I've been reading Alan moore's novel jerusalem all 1180 pages and 600 000 words of it it took alan moore 10 years to write it and me two weeks to read it and um i always like the challenge on a christmas episode of attempting to discuss an incredibly long book in the space of exactly five minutes but i'm gonna do it because there's a bit i want to read for people on christmas day it's just so perfect. And the reason I read this book is it came out five years ago. It's a novel, uh, which is psychogeographic, psychedelic, psychotic. It's absolutely nuts and absolutely wonderful. It is one of the least disciplined novels I've ever read, but that would be, if you tried to discipline it, you'd lose the whole point of it.

It's just fizzing with light and energy. I think it got kind of ignored a bit because Alan Moore, although famous for writing V for Vendetta, Watchmen from Hell, The Lead of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and so on, isn't part of the literary mainstream. But this novel bears comparison with certainly Russell Hoban, certainly Alan Garner, certainly Susanna Clarke. If you like novels which present reality to you in a slightly wrong way, where you spend a lot of the time thinking, what's going on?

way where you spend a lot of the time thinking, what's going on? What's going on? And yet so many ideas are flying at you. It's wonderful. Also, if you live in Northampton, you've got to read this book. Northampton is the centre of the cosmos, it turns out. And Alan proves it in Jerusalem. Anyway, there are two reasons why I wanted to talk about it. The first is the middle section of the book is devoted to the adventures of a group of ghost children called the Dead Dead Gang who owe a very huge debt to the famous Five Secrets of Seven, Swallows and Amazons, the Baker Street Irregulars, and certainly the Railway Children and Five Children and It and the novels of E. Nesbitt.

And one of the things I hope we'll talk about is one of Nesbitt's achievements is to create that. Those gangs are a trope that runs all the way through children's literature ever since. And this is Alan Moore taking it and doing something disturbing with it, but funny and it's a proper adventure, but also here's this section. I'm just going to read this. Needless to say, listeners, this is Christmas.

So you'll forgive me. Jerusalem by Alan Moore is a book about books and it's a book about reading. And it's, we've said on here before, do you read a book or does a book read you? And this is what Alan Moore has to say about that. Page 773, for those of you reading along at home. I know I am a text. I know that you are reading me. This is the biggest difference that there is between us. You do not know that you are a text. You do not know that you're reading yourself. What you believe to be the self-determined life that you are passing text. You do not know that you're reading yourself. What you believe to be

the self-determined life that you are passing through is actually a book already written that you have become absorbed in and not for the first time. When this current reading is concluded, when the coffin lid rear cover is eventually shut tight, then you immediately forget that you've already struggled through it once and pick it up again, perhaps attracted by the striking and heroic picture of yourself that's been put on the dust jacket. You wade once more through the glossolalia of the novel's opening and that startling birth scene all in the first person, foggily described in a confusion of new tastes and scents and terrifying lights.

You linger in delight over the childhood passages and savour all the powerfully realised new characters as they are introduced, the mother and the dad, the friends and relatives and enemies, each with their memorable quirks, their singular allure. Engrossing as you find these useful exploits, you discover that you're merely skimming certain of the later episodes out of sheer boredom, thumbing through the pages of your days, skipping ahead, impatient for the adult content and pornography that you assume to be awaiting you in the next chapter. redundant than you have anticipated. You feel vaguely cheated, and you rail against the author for a time. By then, though, all the story's major themes are welling up around you in the yarn, madness and love and lost, destiny and redemption. You begin to understand the true scale of the work, its depth and its ambition, qualities that have escaped you until now. There is a dawning apprehension, a sense that the tale might not be in the category

you previously supposed, that of the picaresque adventure or sex comedy. Alarmingly, the narrative progresses past the reassuring borderlines of genre into the unnerving territory of the avant-garde. For the first time, you wonder if you've bitten off far more than you can chew, embarked upon some weighty magnum opus by mistake when you'd intended to pick up only a potboiler, holiday reading for the airport or the beach. You start to doubt your capabilities as a reader, doubt in your ability to stick this mortal fable out to its conclusion without the attention wandering. And even as you finish it, you doubt that you're astute enough to understand the saga's message, if message there be. You privately suspect that it will sail over your head.

And yet what can you do but keep on living? Keep turning the calendar leaf pages, urged on by the cover blurb that says, if you only read one book in your life, then make it this one. Oh, brilliant. The book chat will continue on the other side of this message. That's Johnny Douglas' theme from the 1970 film adaptation The Railway Children, which is inextricably bound up with what we're going to be talking about today. Catherine, you chose The Railway Children by Inesbit.

Can you remember the first time you read it or saw it or became aware of the book? I do. I was given it as a gift for my eighth birthday and read it in a day and it was like being struck by lightning I the kind of love at first sight that you hope you might feel for a person who felt it for a book the first time um and I became obsessed with her and so then I read Five Children and It and The Treasure Seekers and The Would Be Goods. And it was sort of like gorging on this voice that just feels like pure light being flooded.

It's like you read a page by her and all the oxygen in a five mile radius just rushes to greet you. And I was besotted and still am. How do you feel about the film? Oh, I saw the film, I think, a little bit later at about 10 and absolutely loved it, but it's very different. I saw it again as an adult. And of course, it feels like a completely different film, but just wonderful. I've got a confession.

I'd never read The Railway Child until this week. That is... No way. I'd seen the film 200 times, but I've never read the book. I feel like Scott and Amundsen have been reversed. Normally it's me finding the empty tent. Oh, Andy Miller was here. Yeah, but I'd never read it.

I thought it was really disappointing. No, you didn't. I didn't. I thought it was fantastic. It was fantastic. Frank, can you remember when you first became aware of E. Nesbitt as an author? I think the first time I came across The Railway Children was going to see the movie, which I loved.

And I didn't kind of connect it with anything else until Jackanory, when I saw Five Children in It. Oh, what's that? These are the original illustrations that were used in Jackanory, which I bought recently, because I really didn't get onto the wonder of Ian Esbit until I had my own children. Right.

I started reading them to them. And I think, you know, I found them quite a hard read, but I found them a wonderful thing to read aloud. Okay, yeah, that's interesting. There's a very short list of truly, truly funny writers. There's P.G. Woodhouse, Richelieu Crompton, and her. And I think she's got the edge. I mean, there's so many lines that just stay with you from her forever.

I love the bit, there's a chapter in the new treasure seekers called the conscience pudding where they try to make a christmas pudding on the cheap out of an insanely extravagant recipe from mrs beaten and they keep so they're substituting cheaper and cheaper ingredients like water instead of brandy and it said i just remember it says um it said wash the raisins and i've often thought we didn't get all the soap. It was like someone had given me the answer book to have to tell a story. I mean, if there are any meaningfully young people

listening to this, we should just say what Frank just showed us were the paintings that the Rostrum camera would pass over on Giaconori while the reading was being done. Already this is the magic of Christmas is with us. That's wonderful. Nicky, when did you first read The Railway Children? Oh, that's nice of you to ask.

I listened to The Railway Children as a child, as an audio book. I mean, probably about 100 times um so I don't know if I've actually ever physically read the book but I feel like it's imbued in my soul and we should remind listeners who don't know you were an early adopter of audiobooks yeah yeah all the classics I was uh Swallows and Amazons Ballet Shoes and the Railway Children, pretty much on repeat. Were they on cassette form, Nicky? Yes, yes. I'd go to sleep listening to them. So, yeah, the Railway Children is very special,

although we'll come on to this, but there's some bits in the Railway Children which, as a child, is a bit of sort of jeopardy, which I found quite difficult. Well, I tell you what. Those moments of fear. I mean, I've made the quiz questions as difficult as i humanly can given all these experts who've gathered so it's going to be fun uh john mitchinson when where how i am the generation who who will always forever be in

love with j Agata. I saw the film first, and that was what made me read the book. As well as being very funny, she's a brilliant, I think, storyteller in the old plot, moving a plot along. But there's a lot more in the book than just plot, which is why it's lovely going back to it. But I read Treasure Seekers, seekers would be goods i i had no idea until we did this podcast we will come on to just what an extraordinary life she had i mean it's

i am reeling i'm sitting on my hands while we talk about it because there's so much to say let's stick to the book stick to the book so i've got the blurb here. Here I've got a 1970 Puffin edition of the film tie-in cover of The Railway Children. And what I'm going to ask Catherine and Frank to do is to come up with an alternative blurb. This is what Kay Webb put on the back of the Puffin edition. First published 50 years ago. That's how old this book is.

First published 50 years ago that's how old this book is first published 50 years ago the railway children has entered the realms of children's classics a charming family story it has appeared as a television series and has now been made into a film that's it need we say more yeah so give me in a short sentence or paragraph, Catherine, what is the story of the railway children? So it's four children whose father is arrested wrongly because he is the soul of goodness. So they move to the countryside and fall in love with trains.

A train, specifically. I think that's pretty good. Frank, can you do it, please? The children of a prisoner move out of London to the frozen north where they get involved in thieving and thieving coal and... Rehabilitating anarchists. Yeah, rehabilitating anarchists.

Yeah, you give soccer to foreign anarchists. Ines was a founding member of the Fabian Society along with HG Wells, George Bernard Shaw, etc. And I realised that you could read The Railway. My encapsulation of The Railway Children is it's a Fabian fable in which a working-class community teaches members of the metropolitan elite the true meaning of socialism. Perfect.

That's brilliant. That's a good one. The children are the socialists. It's really interesting. Utopian socialists are definitely the children. They see inequality more easily and quickly than the adults. Catherine, what is it about this particular novel that distinguishes it from E. Nesbitt's other novels for children?

I think for me as a child and me as an adult, it's slightly different. I think as an adult, I love the finesse with which she brings in her really quite radical politics, the Dreyfus affair, the idea of Russian anarchists who were expelled from their homeland, which is Peter Kropotkin. But also, as a child, it's because it has the finest scene in all children's fiction. Its ending is, I think, maybe the greatest ending of any children's book ever written. The train slowly pulled out of the station. Bobby was left standing there, looking at the steam drifting away. And as

it was clearing, she saw a tall figure standing alone on the platform. Daddy! my daddy! I have to tip a hat to Danny Baker, who used to play that exact clip every couple of episodes when he wanted to get people to fill up I think there's something more going on there I think it's that the story is that Bobby has had to step up to the plate and become an adult you know this is this is a story about children in the countryside and it should be Edenic and you know completely carefree but she's discovered the true reason that they're there.

So she's had to step up to the plate and become an adult. And when her dad comes back, she gets her childhood back. And so that's the pressure between, I think those lines, daddy, my daddy, which I can barely say, they are, I contend that they are the most that's the most powerful single line that we've got maybe praise undo this button is up there with it but it's like it seems very ordinary and you you hear that line you fill up and it's because it's got the pressure of that whole story behind it and that's the sound of a little girl becoming a child again when she

didn't want to be a grandmother. Also, if you think about the way the whole thing has worked up until then, there's the yearning and the yearning and the yearning. And it's a book full of very detailed bits of life. And at the very end, there's this sort of promise that sometimes it will go wrong. But just occasionally, so I always cry the smoke will clear and the thing that your heart yearns for most will be revealed and you will name it and embrace it

and you know we wait for miracles our entire lives and just occasionally you get the miracle entire lives and just occasionally you get the miracle and the whole book is just leading up to that promise that it might not come but sometimes it might I just find it so beautiful because we know those stories about you know the outlaws or the famous five or whatever and in this story she's cast out of her gang because she knows something that they don't know. So the idyll of the story, it's taken away from one of the characters and then given back at the end.

I mean, it's so amazing. The start of her discovery of what's really happened is when the Kropotkin character turns up and she has to go into her mother's bedroom and she sees her father's clothes and knows that something's terribly, terribly long because he's gone somewhere without his clothes. So it's like, he's a prisoner. Prisoner and captives. Prisoners and captives. It all comes in at the same time, but so sneakily.

With the reader just one step ahead of bob she wants to step in and as frank says that moment just that bit where she gets to be a girl again in the film the shot is of her feet just lifting off the ground and you don't see her you just see it's just so perfect it's perfect the other emotional high point is the rake scene, which isn't in the film, which is an astonishing scene, really. Nikki, you mentioned the rake scene to us when we were talking about this. Can you tell us a bit what happens in the rake scene? Because it's not in the film, is it? Yeah, and this is going back to what I really feared throughout this whole,

when I listened to this, this was really quite a scary scene as a child, particularly when you know it's coming. Because if you've ever had a sibling and you've wished them evil at some point and then it actually follows through, that's a terrible moment. And this is what happens. Would you like me to read it? I have a little bit of it. Yeah, please.

The children are in the garden. They've been given a little bit of patch of land. And just the context, the children are always good. They're pretty much always, there's a few moments where they do something, mostly they do good things in this book. And the mum has said, you know, I'm so glad you don't argue so much anymore. So they're in the garden and they're just arguing about who's using the rake. I was using the rake, said Bobby. Well, I'm using it now, said Peter. But I had it first, said Bobby. Then it's my turn now, said Peter. And that was how the quarrel began.

You're always being disagreeable about nothing, said Peter, after some heated argument. I had the rake first, said Bobby, flushed and defiant, holding onto its handle. Don't! I tell you, I said this morning I meant to have it, didn't I, Phil? Phyllis said she didn't want to be mixed up in their rows, and instantly, of course, she was. If you remember, you ought to say. Of course, she doesn't remember, but she might say so. I wish I'd had a brother instead of two whiny little kiddie sisters, said Peter. This was always recognised as indicating the high watermark of Peter's rage. Bobby made the reply she always made to it. I can't think why little boys were ever invented.

And just as she said that, she looked up and saw three long windows of mother's workshop flashing in the red rays of the sun. The sight brought back those words of praise. You don't quarrel like you used to. Oh, cried Bobby, just as if she'd been hit, or had caught her finger in a door, or had felt the hideous sharp beginnings of toothache. What's the matter, said Phyllis. Bobby wanted to say, don't let's quarrel, mother hates it so. But though she tried hard, she couldn't. Peter was looking too disagreeable and insulting. Take the horrid rake then, was the best she could manage and she suddenly let her go her hold on

the handle. Peter had been holding onto it too firmly and pullingly and now that the pull the other way was suddenly stopped he staggered and fell over backwards, the teeth of the rake between his feet. Serve you right, said Bobby, before she could stop herself. Peter lay still for half a moment, long enough to frighten Bobby a little. Then he frightened her a little more, for he sat up, screamed once, turned rather pale and then lay back and began to shriek, faintly but steadily. It sounded exactly like a pig being killed a quarter of a mile off. Mother put her head out the window and it wasn't half a minute after she was in the garden kneeling by the side

of Peter who never for an instant ceased to squeal. What happened Bobby? Mother asked. It was the rake said Phyllis. Peter was pulling at it so was Bobby and she let go and he went over. Stop that noise Peter said mother. Come stop at once. Peter used up what breath he had left in his last squeal and stopped. Now, said Mother, are you hurt? If he was really hurt, he wouldn't make such a fuss, said Bobby, still trembling with fury. He's not a coward. I think my foot's broken off, that's all, said Peter huffily and sat up.

Then he turned quite white. Mother put her arm around him. He is hurt, she said. He's fainted. Here, Bobby, sit down and take his head on your lap. Then mother undid Peter's boots. As she took the right one off, something dripped from his foot onto the ground. It was red blood. And when the stocking came off, there were three red wounds in Peter's foot and ankle, where the teeth of the rake had bitten him, and his foot was covered with red smears

oh you know there is an argument andrew mayle says this that the railway children is folk horror well and that's an example of it right there and it that winds bobby's kind of you know this is this is she's this is the the we've had the moment of release at the end, but this is what's, this liminal state she is between adulthood and childhood. And she feels, you know, she feels that she's responsible for everybody and she's responsible for Peter and now she's let him down.

It's just, it's brilliant. Catherine, what's going on in that scene in terms of what are the challenges if you're writing that kind of scene where you've got three child personalities to set off against one another? I mean, it is her absolute magic skill that she appears to believe that children are people at a time when a lot of people didn't. And that each of them reacts in a way that is completely consistent with who they are and consistently reveals who they are. And she lets them be, as Nikki says, often very good, but often also frustrating and annoying and with the kind of intricacies of pride and

vulnerability that just blare out in that sudden scene. And I think it's one of the finest pieces of that particular kind of writing because you just feel your blood just sort of retreat. It's a remarkable thing. There's a fabulous metatextual bit near the end where Peter is saying to his mother, wouldn't this be marvellous if you were writing this as a story in a book? It's one of the best statements about fiction in all fiction. Don't you think it's rather nice to think we're in a book that God's writing?

If I were writing a book, I might make mistakes. But God knows how to make the story end just right in the way that's best for us. Do you really believe that, mother? Peter asked quietly. in the way that's best for us. Do you really believe that, mother? Peter asked quietly. Yes, she said. I do believe it, almost always,

except when I'm so sad that I can't believe anything. And even when I can't believe it, I know it's true, and I try to believe it. You don't know how I try, Peter. Now, take the letters to the post, and don't let's be sad anymore. Courage, courage. That's the finest of all the virtues. I just, I mean, it's just brilliant, isn't it?

The influence of Lawrence Stern on the work of E. Nesbitt, hitherto unnoticed. There is a stern thing to it. I mean, like the ending that we've just spoken about, that very emotional ending, they're not the last few pages of the book. The last few pages of the book is this amazing kind of pull-zo track back where she says well they're going into the house now we shouldn't be in there and she becomes the writer and puts those characters away and it's it's really deft

it's really clever but it's also really emotional because that girl has become a girl again yeah and this storyteller steps in and says you know you are just listening to a story again and she kind of releases you out of any worries that you've had about it you know so it's it's clever it's sternian but it's also incredibly emotional and consoling you know this is just a story we don't belong in it and they're going into their house stop worrying about them it's kind of a blessing you know at the end she's so adept you know the narrator picks bobby out early on doesn't doesn't she and says you know i'm rather fond of bobby oh then first of all she calls her roberta

and then she's i'm going to call her bobby like everybody else it seems silly not to she is brilliant about playing narration games if you think of um there would be goods where the narrator is oswald but you're not supposed to know that the narrator is oswald sorry because i'm not telling you who's telling you this story so ahead of her time i love that she does that it's such a trust in children to pick up what's happening she i think she believed in her readers so utterly and didn't believe that they needed to be told what to do there's no sort of blunt didactic Obviously, there's a lot of sort of morality in it, but it's the morality coated with sunshine and hope and reality.

It's so different from what came before. I think anyone who reads the books were published in the 1850s and 70s and then reading Nesbitt, it feels like she has come from 100 years ahead of her time to offer up what storytelling could be. Frank, the last time we discussed this book was when we were doing the Trish from Shandy show and I posited an idea that you poo-pooed. So I want to test it on you again and test it on everyone today.

And I'm going to go around and ask, father in the railway children, innocent or guilty? Frank. God, it would be great if he was guilty, wouldn't it? Well, good news. He is. As far as I... The story is much, much stronger if he's guilty.

But that's just my interpretation. Yeah. Okay. You say that's a vote for guilty. Definitely a vote for guilty. Definitely a vote for guilty. All right, Nicky, innocent or guilty? If he's guilty, what has the old gentleman done? Who's he bribed?

That's what I want to know. Yeah, exactly right. It's a conspiracy. Dwight Dreyfuss, that's what it's about. Catherine, innocent or guilty? Is father innocent or guilty? Come on, you have to decide. You're on the jury.

Okay. I mean, if he's guilty, everyone has to be in on it. That, you know, because there's no other way to get him up. Like Perks, Paley Turks, Jim. So, yeah, sure. It's a very different book, but I'll go with it. Guilty. So Daddy is like, I am the Daddy.

That's pretty neat. So daddy is like, I am the daddy. That's pretty neat. There's more of scum in the railway children than we'd hitherto realise. John, daddy, innocent or guilty? I'm going to get philosophical. It's innocent and guilty of what, I suppose. Yeah, okay.

I mean, I think that it's perfectly possible that he was guilty of organizing politically against the government from within the government because he's a good man. I think he's a good man and probably didn't deserve to be imprisoned. But that's the subversiveness of this book. I mean, you know, if it really is Kropotkin, it's a bit like Dreyfus. it's i mean you know if it really is if it really is kropok and it's a bit like dreyfus i mean obviously dreyfus was not dreyfus was became something that represented something far more than he he himself was i think there's all sorts of stuff like you know you're talking about the ending that hit him coming back it's they are in exile i mean they are essentially exiled in their own country it's hard to imagine what happens next with that family. Does he go back to take his government job?

Does he become a smallholder up in wherever it is, Derbyshire, Yorkshire, wherever we think it might be? So, innocent or guilty? If guilty is guilty of that, then he's guilty. But, you know. It made me think of Orson Well fame of orson wells who directed an adaptation of the trial the france kafka trial and he said the problem with the film with adaptation of the trial is everybody thinks joseph k is innocent but he isn't he's guilty as hell and i've my

fan with my watching of the railway children i love the idea. Why would you cast Ian Cuthbertson, for starters, unless he was guilty? He's obviously guilty. But also in the light of what you were saying about Daddy, My Daddy, there is, if he's guilty, the redemption offered to both Bobby and the father is a very different thing. And the love offer that exists between Bobby and the father is a very different thing than if he's just wrongly imprisoned, which indeed he might be wrongly imprisoned.

There isn't any one right answer. But the strong emotions generated by that section of the book, which we've already all experienced today, it seems to me you're forgiven. You're forgiven is part of the beauty of that. I think that's... I mean, she goes to some length to say that the Russian emigre, you know, the Kropotkin character, you know, is accused of something he did do.

Yeah. Yes, exactly. It was wrong in that state. But that doesn't mean it's an absolute wrong. And that's quite a chunk of the book. So, yeah, I think it stands up. I think it stands up. Thanks, Frank.

This is in 1905, right, when, you know when she's hobnobbing with the early Fabians and William Morris. You know, revolution is being fomented. So Ines was, as you say, John, successful in her era, a big personality, part of the Fabian Society, was a best-selling Christmas author. These books would be serialised and then they'd come out in book form the following Christmas.

The Railway Children was published for Christmas 1906. And prolific. 60 books. I wanted to read this incredible description of E. Nesbitt and her husband, Mr. Hubert Bland. Who was free. He should have been imprisoned.

This is from the Star magazine in May 1888. It's described as a bohemian household. E. Nesbitt, the gifted poetess of Longman's Magazine and the Weekly Dispatch, is known among her friends, literary and otherwise, as Mrs. Edith Bland, wife of Hubert Bland. She is a tall woman of somewhat over 30, with dark hair and eyes. Although her features are not precisely regular, their expression is

full of charm when they are lit up by a smile or animated by any absorbing topic. Mrs. Bland has a soft, melodious voice, and her manner may best be described by the French term enlienerie. That's not a word, everybody. The person from the Star made that up. She dresses in Liberty fabrics. Mr. Hubert Bland is a tall, broad, portly man with a large head. He is dark, wears a moustache and imperial and is a little under 40.

The Blands used to live at Blackheath but now reside at Leigh in Kent. They have two children, they actually had three children everybody, a boy and a girl, the former of whom now bears the familiar name of Fabian Bland. So not only did they found the Fabian Society, they called their son Fabian. So they were for real. Do you see her politics in her work, or does she keep it contained elsewhere? Anyone? I mean, the story of the Amulet has got quite a lot of very direct political commentary about slavery and oppression and imperialism.

The politics is sort of ambient in The Railway Children, isn't it? And I think part of the power of The Railway Children, isn't it? And I think part of the power of The Railway Children is that you're aware that there is a world elsewhere where things are going terribly wrong, where, you know, innocent men perhaps or guilty men are being arrested and where, you know, all kinds of stuff is happening in Russia. But it's sort of happening off stage and you're just living in it. And I guess in some ways, the railway children has some elements of a sort of socialist utopian ideal in the sense that one of its core hearts is surrogacy. And when they lose their father and their mother is absent, there is this idea that in the face of your loss,

others will stand up and swing for you. And the old man will, gentlemen and perks will, and there will be people who will take some of your burden and march alongside you. And the old man will, the gentleman and perks will, and there will be people who will take some of your burden and march alongside you. And that's a very much, I think, a childlike ambient sense of some of her politics, maybe. Yeah, there is such a thing as community after all. Yeah. Catherine and Frank, I'd like to ask you both, as children's authors, as people who write for children, what elements of Nesbitt do you try to put into your work? What are the lessons for you as writers for children

or writers about children? Writers who are read by children. From a purely sort of technical side of things, I think part of her brilliance is less is more. That, you know, rather than kind of her brilliance is less is more that you know rather than kind of inventing more and more and more and more dragons or whatever she'll really she'll come up with something and really push on it and really exhaust it like i said you know the carpets threadbur or you know even the railway children which seems quite in lesser hands the

railway children they would ship up in that village in yorkshire or whatever and meet cookie wacky people and it would be about how different their world is in the book the railway children it's quite a long time before they meet anybody else and it's all about the practicality of moving in in the dark where the food is how you heat the house how you make a game of that is it going to be fun what's it doing to your characters so she sticks with those characters and she really really drills down into them exercises them tests them relishes them enjoys them nurtures them makes them grow and harvests them rather than just throwing more and more stuff in which is what i think you know nearly every imitation of the railway children and there are, many imitations of the Railway Children,

are about how weird the new place is. But this is about testing the characters that you've brought with you, I think. Catherine, could you read a little bit for us, please? I would love to. So this is one of my favourite bits as a child, because in a book in which so many people are playing on a minor chord, there is so much that people are a little bit sardonic, a little bit ironical, and that is the absolute gift of the book. The asides, Phyllis, who means well. phyllis who means well she does also allow us a moment of just straightforward valor heroism just where everything comes together and they are able to do something brave at exactly the

right time but even though she's doing that it's not like they do it uh with straightforward confidence and with bulging muscles they do do it. They tear off their flannel petticoats because they know that there has been a landslide. And if the train goes around the corner, it won't have time to stop and everybody will die. So they are facing true peril, but they face it with Phyllis gets sort of sweaty and anxious instead of heroic and she says I wish I hadn't put on my flannel petticoats it's too hot and that is why they pull them off put them into flags. I'm just going to read a very tiny bit. So the train is coming and Bobby has her flag and she is waving and they've also put some flags by the side of the line and they are hoping that the train will see.

The two little flags on the line swayed as the nearing train shook and loosened the heaps of loose stones that held them up. One of them slowly leaned over and fell onto the line. Bobby jumped forward and caught it up and waved it. Her hands did not tremble now. Keep off the line, you silly cuckoo, said Peter fiercely. It seemed that the train came on as fast as ever. It was very near now. It's no good, Bobby said suddenly. Stand back, cried Peter, and he dragged Phyllis back by the arm. But Bobby cried, not yet, not yet, and waved her two flags right over the line. The front of the engine looked black and enormous and its voice was loud and hard. Oh, stop, stop, stop, cried Bobbie. No one heard her. At least Peter

and Phyllis didn't, for the oncoming rush of the train covered the sound of her voice with a mountainous sound. But afterwards, she used to wonder whether the engine itself had not heard her. It seemed almost as though it had, for it slackened swiftly, slowed and stopped not 20 yards from the place where Bobbie's two flags waved over the line it's just it's just it's just perfect so wonderful well i mean that's part of the politics is that she's great at writing heroic women and clever women yeah witty women women who step up there's that amazing bit where she gets onto the train as well um and she doesn't mean to she's trying and she says she'd never been so close to an engine before it looked much larger and harder

than she'd expected it made her feel very small indeed and somehow very soft as if she could very very easily be hurt rather badly i know what silkworms feel like now said bobby to herself there's very few books i've highlighted as many passages i've got such joy out of reading it that whole thing of read i i often wonder why this book because i think all her books are well not all her books but like there's a she wrote a selection of masterpieces yeah and why why does this book and why does this film have such a kind of fixed place and i think it might be partly because when the film came out the parents of the children who went to see that film had by and large been evacuated and she had by accident written the great novel of evacuation

and all the aspects of evacuation there that sense that there's danger elsewhere the sense that that you're going to be eating unfamiliar food, you're going to be surrounded by unfamiliar people, you're going to change class. All those things are kind of in there. That's brilliant. And the figure of the father coming back at the end is also a soldier returning, isn't it? My mum was evacuated to a convent in Penmarmar in North Wales with all her sisters. And she was there for the whole duration. And it was a palace, you know, and she came from this tiny terraced house

and they lived in this palace and were petted. And the night before her first communion, she heard her dad's voice outside their little dormitory. And he'd been, he was on the Atlantic convoys. He was, you know, the merchant marine. And it was him. He knew it was her first communion. She'd come up the night and she jumped out of bed and she was sent back to bed.

And to me, that moment is there in the end of this book. You know, that she had this voice in the night. It was impossible that it could be that voice. But it was that voice. Come out of this this book, you know, that she had this voice in the night. It was impossible that it could be that voice, but it was that voice. Come out of this terrible danger, you know? And I think for lots of people, there's a resonance in the Railway Children and Evacuation, which I think is partly why that film is so powerfully well-received.

You know, there are other great children's films from that era, Whistle Down the Wind and all that, but this has got this deep resonance. I had a drink with a chap a few years ago in Henley-on-Thames. We were with a group of friends and we were having a drink. I thought, God, you really look familiar. He's like a middle-aged man, a bit older than me. And I went, I feel like I know you from somewhere.

He goes, yeah, I get that a lot. I was in The Railway Children. No. Was he a boy? Was he Peter? Yeah. He was Peter. It was Gary who plays Peter in The Railway Children.

Such a nice chap. Really, really lovely man. Jenny Agata's performance is just astonishing. And the way she delivers those lines with such, I mean, not only the beautiful diction, but the emotion is just extraordinary. Yeah. It's very interesting how the film opens with her

as a grown woman looking back on the events. It's almost like you're being given, it's almost being presented to you as autobiographical. The Nesbitt's story is autobiographical. But then, Catherine, so much of Nesbitt's writing is not autobiographical, but seems to be derived from, she seems to have been a great one for asking people for plots. Yeah. from she seems to have been a great one for asking people for plots, but then investing other people's plots with her own emotional experiences.

And, I mean, she is a very interesting one in that she is one of the many children's writers who wrote staggeringly well about children but didn't necessarily treat children staggeringly well. You know, she had some children who were not hers who but she adopted as hers who were her husband's children with the nurse friend maid figure alice and then she cut those children out of her will and they only found out at her death and she was a woman who i think saw such richness and goodness and she understood jokes and she understood the childhood heart, but I'm not sure if she actually knew how to

play with and be kind to real children. There's a blood chilling description in this biography by Eleanor Fitzsimons of a visitor who spends the weekend at the Bland's stroke Nesbitt's, who says, initially, it all seemed quite fun. And by the end, I couldn't wait to get out because I realised this terrible psychodrama being endlessly played out between Nesbitt, her husband, the other woman who lived in the house,

the children, and that that's where the energy came from. That's what I found so interesting. The energy came from that sense of one person saying something and not meaning it, and how does another person think about that? And, you know, a perpetual rolling soap opera. I think HG Wells, who wasn't exactly, you know, Mr. Prim and Proper, he called their relationship intricate. Yes, he well said this thing.

He said, I found these two people and their atmosphere and their household of children and those who were entangled with them baffling to the extreme degree. At the first encounter, it seemed so extraordinarily open and jolly. Then suddenly you encountered fierce resentment. You found Mrs. Bland inexplicably malignant. Doors became walls, so to speak, and floors pitfalls. That's so good.

It's interesting. It's get out, isn't it? It's like being in Get Out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love the biographical detail that E. Nesbitt basically, everything's going great, she's selling lots of books, she's very popular, and then in about 1910 or 11, she decides she's going to stop writing so she can concentrate on proving that Shakespeare didn't write all his plays.

And that's what she does for the next 10 years. Yeah. It's like a Patricia Cornwall proving Sickert is Jack the Ripper or Jack the Ripper is Sickert. It's like, this is what I need to spend all my money on now. Nesbitt and Bland are the kind of people that Rich McCompton takes the piss out of in Just William. You know, they are the people who move into the empty house next door and paint fairies in the nude or something.

It's like, you know, and commune with voices. But then, like, Oswald and Noel in The Basketball Children, those are named after her lovers. The sort of, the gall that she had to just lay out little hints of her real life in these beautiful, exquisite children's books. It's an astonishing thing. Well, this is all very well, but if we keep going, there won't be time for the quiz.

Now, what we've done is we're dividing our guests and regular Batlisted people up into teams today. So we've got one team is going to be Catherine and John, and the other team is going to be Frank and Nicky. Catherine and John, what is your team name today? Do you want to say, Catherine? Well, this is John's idea. I love it so much we are the dumb crambos the dumb crambos thank you very much very good what an esoteric pub quiz this is right very good nikki and frank what will you be referred to for the quiz now go on nikki i think we're going to be called butter and jam because mum said you can't have both that would be reckless abandon all right here we go so round one is questions on the novel the railway children by e nesbit

and my first question goes to the dumb crambos, Catherine and John. We all know the 915 up the line is the Green Dragon. What do the children call the 10-7 down the line? No. The Worm of Wantley? Is it the Worm of Wantley?

John, that's fantastic! John, that's good. One point to the dumb crambos. I'm giving up now. Butter and Jam. What is the name of the franchise that runs the line that runs along the bottom of the railway children's garden? Go on, Nicky.

The Great Northern and Southern. Yes, I'll take it. It's Christmas Day. The Great Northern and Southern Railway Company. That's it. It's Christmas Day. The Great Northern and Southern Railway Company. That's the right answer. That was our alternative team name. That's great. Brilliant, good.

It's one all, everybody. It's already tense. It is. Question three to the dumb crambos, Catherine and John. Please name three of the gifts collected by the children to give to Mr Perks on his birthday? Well, there's the pram, of course, which Mrs. Perks is not sending back.

There's the shovel. There's the shovel. Good to have a good shovel. There are some kind of sweets, but we probably need to... Is it peppermint? Is it bullseyes? I think... What about... there's a honeycomb.

Yes, yes, there is. Let's go with that. That can be our three. You get your point. Well done. Very good. I will read you out what they collect. This doesn't count the things that they themselves give over.

A tobacco pipe from the sweet shop, half a pound of tea from the grocers, a woolen scarf slightly faded from the drapers, which was the other side of the grocers, a stuffed squirrel from the doctor. There was an extra point for the squirrel, but I'm sorry about that. A piece of meat from the butcher, six fresh eggs from the woman who lived in the old turnpike cottage

and a piece of honeycomb and six bootlaces from the cobbler and an iron shovel from the blacksmith. From the blacksmith. Wonderful. Very good. Well done. Respectable. comb and six boot laces from the cobbler and an iron shovel from the blacksmith wonderful very good well done respectable question four goes to butter and jam frank and nicky please name the two residences in which the railway children live well three chimneys three chimneys is the first one and the villa it's it's the villa isn't it is a villa that's what i know yeah yeah but if you want the point i need to know the name of the villa

it had every modern convenience and it was painted white that's right you know what was it called the finery no want to guess to guess? Go on, say that, Frank. I have no clue. Is it Edgecombe Villa, Andy? It is, but there were no bonus points available, John, but it is Edgecombe Villa. Well done, well done, well done. Well done, John.

Okay, so there is another. There's one, but it's Christmas Day. Let's offer Butter and Jam an opportunity to make up that number. I'm not going to do it. What is the name of the family dog that doesn't make it to three chimneys? Because it runs away at the beginning. It's like a it's a boy dog i think it is it is a boy dog um this is a horrible experience i don't know also no frank listen i'll give you a clue yeah he shares a name with the hound later in the book. Jim.

Yes, the dog is called James. Jim, I will give you the point. Well done. So at the end of round one, it's neck and neck between the dumb crambos and Butter and Jam. Round two, it's tenuous links. Now, that's a backlisted callback, which we haven't heard for five years, but it's tenuous links. And the first question goes to Butter and Jam, Frank and Nicky.

What is the tenuous link between E. Nesbitt and her fellow children's authors, Antonia Barber, Elizabeth Beresford and Charles Kingsley? I don't know who they are. So it's a bad start. It's not the Fabian Society, is it? It's not the Fabian Society. I don't know who they are. So that's a bad start. It's not the Fabian Society, is it? It's not the Fabian Society. It's not Wimbledon.

It's not the Wimbledon. It's a London postcode, no? Do you give up or would you want to guess? Are they all in an Untie Me a Buy It book? No, that's a good guess, but no, that's not right. The tenuous link is they are all authors of novels made into films by Lionel Jeffreys. Oh, The Amazing Mr. Blunden. Yeah. And Wumbling Free and The Water Babies.

Right. So, sorry about that. The Amazing Mr. Blunden has just been remade by Mark Gatiss. Tenuous link this to The Dumb crambos, Catherine and John. What connects the following novels? The Railway Children by E. Nesbitt, The Snow Goose by Paul Gallico, The Eagle Has Landed by Jack Higgins,

and The Riddle of the Sands by our old pal Erskine Childers, John. What connects those four books? Did they all have soundtracks by Johnny Douglas? No, I'm afraid not. I haven't a clue. Frank knows though. Frank knows. But I can't give you a point, Frank, but do you know what the answer is?

Isn't she in all of them? She's in all those films. Who? Jenny Agatha. Jenny Agatha. They are all made into films starring Jenny Agata that's right the snow goose, the eagles landed the riddle of the sands and the railway children brilliant I should have got that

butter and jam I hate this which two actors appear both in the 1968 BBC adaptation of The Railway Children and the 1970 film adaptation? There are only two actors. I don't know the names of the actors, but I know the characters.

It's Christmas. I'll give it to you. Go on. So Jenny Agatha is one. Yes. And then Jim is the other. Yes, you are right. i will give you the point so it's jim the hound is is the same actor in both the tv but for a bonus point do you know that actor's name anybody there is a bone amazing bonus point if you know the actor's

name oh this is hang on i do not anyone i funny enough i did look at it the other day i can't remember the actor was called chris witty how topical that's pretty so we brought it back to 2021 uh and that's so okay that's so all right everything to play for dumb crambos and this is a question where i have my dear colleague john mitchinson in mind because it's a publishing special question no pressure great no pressure john no pressure so in 1970 when the railway children film came out uh there was uh as we've discussed a tie-in edition of the novel there was a film adaptation version of the novel by Paul Davis and Jane Hollywood.

And there was also Pan put out in their paper sculpture book series, the Railway Children paper sculpture book includes two superb model engines for you to build. It costs 75p. You probably remember it, John. Text and pictures from the film two cutout engines who drew the two cutout engines and went on to find fame in the pop charts later in the 1970s 1970s. It's so ridiculous.

Tenuous link. I said it was tenuous. Unbelievable tenuous link. I can't imagine. It was 1970. They were based in Manchester. There's a clue. So quite soon after they'd done this drawing.

Yeah. Within five years, they're number one in the pop charts. It's like, I don't know, gilbert o'sullivan didn't draw no the two i like the guess no the two cut out engines were drawn by two manchester art students called lol cream and kevin godley oh no from 10cc that's brilliant so there we go of course so at the end of round two scores are the dumb crambos two points, but Butter and Jam are in the lead with three. What? Oh, well.

That's right, Frank. You're in the lead. Okay. Come on, bring it on. Right. Round three is a round we're calling Nesbit or Nesmith. On the week we're recording this, Michael Nesmith, the monkey's has unfortunately great hero

of mine he's died I'm going to give you the name of either a short story by E. Nesbitt or a song by Michael Nesmith or the monkeys and you have to say either Nesbitt or Nesmith. Right? Is that clear? Great. Wonderful. First one to the dumb crambos. We'll make it easy. Easy one to start with. Daydream believer.

Nesmith. Is the right answer. It's a hit for the month. It's well done. It's the only one I'd be able to get. Butter and Jam. Even that's barely. Girl with the guitar. I'm going to get. Butter and Jam. Even that's barely. Girl with the Guitar.

I'm going to go Nesbitt. Is the right answer. Nesbitt. Very good. Very good. Trick question. Okay. Dumb Cranbows.

Nesbitt or Nesmith? The Door Into Summer. Go, Catherine. I mean, I would think Nesbitt, so maybe it's Nesmith. What do you think, John? Actually, the old double bluff thing. I think we should be bold and just say Nesbitt. All right. Nesbitt, so maybe it's Nesmith. What do you think, John? I see the old double bluff thing.

I think we should be bold and just say Nesbitt. All right, Nesbitt. No, it's a track on Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones Limited, I'm afraid. So you don't get a point for that. It's Nesmith. Butter and Jam. Is this Nesbitt or Nesmith?

Last Train to Keithley. That's got to be Nesbitt in her monkeys mode. It's like she wrote the first draft of Last Train to Clarksville. I know that she did that. It's actually a trick question. It's neither of them. There's nothing called Last Train to Keithley. Ridiculous. I'll give you another one instead.

Nesbitt or Nesmith? Salesman. I'm going to say Nesmith. You are right. It is Nesmith. Well done, Butter and Jam. Well, brilliant, Nick. All right.

Dumb Cranbows. Under the New Moon. What do you think? Given that the others were Nesbitt, should we go Nesmith? What do you think? Yeah, I think so. Okay, we'll go.

Is he saying Nesbitt? Are we saying Nesmith? Are you saying bit or myth? Which one are you saying? I don't know. You can't hedge your bets. Let's say Nesmith. We're going to say nesmith we're

saying we're going to say nesmith okay under the new moon is a short story by e nesbit i'm afraid i do i am sorry um i'm not sorry really it's my favorite kind of gcse multiple choice come on guys yeah all right okay butter and jam love's first kiss is it a song by Michael Nesmith or a short story by Ian Nesbitt? What do we think, Frank? I'm going to go Nesmith for this. Yeah? She doesn't do love stories, does she? She does.

I think a couple, but I don't remember that. Frank is quite right. It is, of course, a track from a radio engine to a photon wing by Michael Nesmith. That's very good. Well done. Dumb Cranbows. Meddlesome Pussy. It's got to be Nesbit. Come on. Nesbit or Nesmith.

Has to be Nesbit, doesn't it? Yeah, we're going Nesbit. This is a family programme and you're right. It's Nesbitt. Well done. Meddlesome Pussy is a story by... We would have done better just to say Nesbitt to everything. So that leaves Butter and Jam, the last one.

Tapioca Tundra. Oh, that's got to be Nesmith, right? Yeah, definitely. It is the monkey song Tapioca Tundra by Michael Ness Smith. Very good. So at the end of round three, dumb crambos have four. Butter and Jam have seven. But don't worry, there's still a chance.

There's still, you could make it all back, dumb crambos, because I've built this. Right, okay. Nicky, there's still, you could make it all back, dumb crambos, because I've built this. Right, okay. Nikki, it's the music round. Brilliant. Right, okay. And the first question is for you, Nikki. What I want to know is who is the artist?

Every summer we can rent a cottage in the Isle of Wight if it's not too dear We shall scrimp and save Grandchildren on your knee Vera, Chuck

and Dave Frank, you put your finger up saying you knew what it was. Who was it? Is it Bernard Cribbins? It is Bernard Cribbins. And for a bonus point to anyone, the first person to answer a bonus point, that is Bernard Cribbins' cover version of When I'm 64 by the Beatles. What is notable about that?

Was it released on Apple? No. Did it come out before the beatles song i'm gonna give john that point wow it is the first song ever to be covered off sergeant pepper's lonely hearts club because it was produced by george martin who kind of slipped it under the table to burn you can hear that yeah there you yeah. There you go. So, okay, next question to Catherine. Catherine, it's an eNesbit connection. Please name the artist in eNesbit connection, not a Railway Children connection.

Who are we listening to here? The bells are ringing loud and clear From the Anglican Cathedral Is the season of good cheer There's a cockroach in my beer The children come to visit me On their faces is a frown How will Santa bring our presents? There's no chimney to get down Where to find a Christmas pudding?

Well, I haven't got a clue We couldn't get a turkey Will a voodoo chicken do? Yes, that's Christmas in Haiti. But who's the artist and what is the connection to E. Nesbitt? I have, I'm afraid, no idea at all. Is it someone who is a famous socialist? Is it someone whose name is Fabian?

What a lovely idea. That's a lovely idea. It isn't. I'm going to give up. Who doesn't? It's 1980s indie band, The Would Be Goods. Oh. a lovely idea it isn't i'm gonna give up who doesn't it's 1980s indie band the would be good so i can't give you the point for that i am sorry butter and jam and frank here's one for you till you come back to take care of me

I know I'll have to get along somehow Till then I miss you more than ever now. Frank's looking pleased with himself again. No, I'm not. I'm just so charmed by it. No, no, I'm clear. Is it again related to Inez in the Railway Children? Well, it's the theme music from the Railway Children It is the theme tune from the Railway Children

to which they've added words Who is singing them? Oh! British crooner from the late 60s Is it like Des O'Connor or someone like that? It's not Adam Faith? No

I would describe him as Edelweiss Hitmaker. Pumperdink? No, you're getting so close. I was thinking Engelbert. Trying to help you out. You're doing a very good job helping. I'm just not finding it, retrieving the information. Well, I'm going to have to tell you, it was Vince Hill.

It was Vince Hill with, more than ever now, reading the information well i'm gonna have to tell you it was vince hill it was vince hill more than ever now uh a b-side that came out as um but so it wasn't the big hit they hoped for right uh so that so dumb crambos here's this is everything to play for on this one and it's john this falls to john here we go john i want to know who the artist is performing this piece of music from 1982. Warm up exercise one. Stretch really tall from the waist right up. Bend your knees, bounce into the knees and then up. We'll do that exercise eight times.

One. Two. This first exercise is just to loosen you up. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Daddy, my daddy. Five, six, seven. Daddy, my daddy.

Is it Jenny Agata by any chance? No, and if that was your answer, it isn't. I'm afraid that is Sally Thompson. That was going to be just the next thing I was going to say. Sally Thompson. Sally Thompson on Lottie Burke, the German physical instructress, and her album Get Physical from 1982. Very good.

Translated into English and enunciated perfectly by Sally Thompson. So there's only one question left, but there are three points up for grabs. So you could still do it, dumb crambos. so you could still do it, dumb crambos. And Butter and Jam, you have to fiercely protect your competitive advantage at this point. We are going to hear three different audiobooks of The Railway Children. All you have to do, Nicky, don't play it yet,

all you have to do is name the three readers. But to make it more interesting, Steve Reich style, we're going to listen to them all simultaneously. They were not well-wishers and a gendron to begin with. They were just ordinary suburban children. I don't suppose they had ever lived with their father and father in ordinary red brick villas. There were three of them.

Roberta was the eldest. They were just ordinary suburban. Just ordinary suburbs. And they lived with their father and mother in an ordinary red brick villa. With colored glass in the front door. A tiled passage. They were called the room. A bathroom with hot and cold water. Electric bells.

French windows. And a good deal of white paint. And every modern convenience, as the house agents say. Bells, French windows, and a good deal of white paint. Who wanted to be an engineer? Every modern convenience, as the house agents say. Now, obviously, they don't sync because they read at different speeds and also the text, all three texts are different because they're different edited versions. Now, the way we're going to do this is we're going to,

I'm going to ask you, each team, to name one at a time, okay? So I'm going to go to you dumb crambos first can you name one of those readers one is jenny agata oh no no it's okay because i'm going to assume butter and jam got that didn't you yeah obviously yeah okay so we both got well done you both got that one and now i'm going to ask butter and jam to name a second reader can we confer i don't want to yes by all means confer now do you have a i don't know no i don't know who it is i don't know who read the one i always listened to when i was little is the male josh ackland oh that's a good guess it isn't josh ackland so i'm gonna throw it over to you for the second

guest dumb crambos is the man martin jarvis or steven it's not martin jarvis steven thorn So I'm going to throw it over to you for the second guest, Dumb Cranbows. Is the man Martin Jarvis or Stephen Thorne? It's not Martin Jarvis. Stephen Thorne. That was a good guess because Martin Jarvis does do all audiobooks. No, it's not. It's not Martin Jarvis. Stephen Fry?

It's not. It's not Stephen Fry. All right. Can it come back to us? Is it Ian Cuthbertson? So it's not Ian Cuthbertson. You're getting warmer. Michael Kitchen? Butter and Jam, You're getting warmer. Michael Kitchen. Butter and Jam, you're getting warmer.

No, not Michael Kitchen. No, come on, dumb crambos. We've got to give Butter and Jam there. So Butter and Jam. Go on, Nicky. Is the other woman, is she the mum in the film? Yes. So who is that, the mum in the film?

Is it Din Diana Sheridan? It is Diana Sheridan, butter and jam. Well done. Now, so that means I have to ask dumb crambos, who is the male voice? And I will give you a clue. It's related to the film as well. And you've already heard him once today.

It's not Bernard Cribbins. No. Dumb crambos. Yes, who was reading right at the very beginning, John? Who was that? and you've already heard him once today. It's not Bernard Cribbins. No. No. Dumb Cranbows. Yes, who was reading right at the very beginning, John? Who was that? Yes, who was that? Who was reading right at the very beginning?

God almighty. This is going to drive me mad. Well, it is Christmas. Oh. No. Give up. Anyone? Anyone want to guess?

Lionel Jeffries? It was Lionel Jeffries. Bravo, Frank. You wiped the floor with us. So the three readers there were Jenny Agata. Dinah Sheridan and Lionel Jeffries. Dinah Sheridan and Lionel Jeffries. And Dinah Sheridan is the voice that I grew up with.

Now I know. Thank you. Nikki, I guessed it was because you said to us the other day it was somebody very well spoken. Okay, so in runners-up places, Catherine and John the Dumb Cranbows, they scored a very respectable six, but our winners on Christmas Day 2021

with 11 points are Butter and Jam. Well done. Well done. Well done. You win a honeycomb and a shovel. Some gooseberries. An ounce of peppermint comfort. So before we wrap up, is there anything, Catherine,

you would like to say about Nesbitt or the Railway Children that you feel we haven't touched on or you feel is like to say about Nesbitt or the Railway Children that you feel we haven't touched on or you feel is important to say about her here in the 21st century? I don't think so. Only that without her, we wouldn't have Frank Cottrell Boyce. That's so true. And without her, we wouldn't have any of the truly, truly great children's writers who are writing right now.

She made it possible for those who followed on. And it's amazing to listen to you both speak about her and an inspiration in the way that you do. Frank, is there anything you want to add about her or about the Railway Children? Just thank you. You know, I think she was astonishing. I think she's underestimated. I'm so glad to have had this opportunity to talk about her influence is extraordinary I think you know when you when you read it you just think this is there are so many ways to tell a story that you haven't thought about and that's true you know Catherine Drite of children's writers of my generation but it's also true of you know Emi Akustirica making When Father Was Away on you know, her influence is everywhere. I think just now we're not wanted there.

Not for a few minutes anyway. I think it would be best for us to go quickly and quietly. We'll go to the end of the field, among the thin gold spikes of grass. We may just take one last look over our shoulders at the house where neither we nor anyone else is wanted now. Yeah, it's time for us to take one last look over our shoulders at the White House, where neither we nor anyone else are wanted now. But before we do that, we've got to offer our heartfelt, festive thank yous

to Catherine and to Frank for making our Christmas even jollier. Wonderful, thank you guys. To Nicky for joining in and keeping an eye on all of us simultaneously. Truly the Ginger Rogers of audio production and finally to unbound for laying on the buns you can download all million previous episodes of this thing plus follow links clips and suggestions for further reading by visiting our website batlisted.fm and we're always pleased if you contact us on twitter and Facebook, and now in sound and pictures on Instagram too.

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happy christmas and thank you for all your great support this year and roll on 2022 may it be positive and and full of great books for you to enjoy i'm going to read a poem by e nesbit to go out on called christ Roses. The summer roses are all gone, dead, laid in shroud of rain wet mould, and passion's lightning time is done, and love is laid out white and cold. Summer and youth for us are dead, what do old age and winter bring instead? They bring us memories of old years, and Christmas roses, cold and sweet, which washed by not unhappy tears I bring and lay beside your feet with gifts that come with flowers like these.

Friendship, remembrance of our past and peace. If you prefer to listen to Backlisted without adverts, you can sign up to our Patreon. And peace.