WEBVTT 1 00:00:07.759 --> 00:00:15.320 Everybody dies. Everybody Isn't that? So you tried to get 2 00:00:15.359 --> 00:00:18.120 into the long draw today? Didn't you try? How do 3 00:00:18.320 --> 00:00:23.440 the they'd come back? They didn't you? What Secret Night? Express? 4 00:00:23.800 --> 00:00:28.679 By Alfred Noise. It was a battered old book bound 5 00:00:28.760 --> 00:00:32.200 in red buckram. He found it when he was twelve 6 00:00:32.280 --> 00:00:35.479 years old on an upper shelf in his father's library, 7 00:00:35.960 --> 00:00:38.359 and against all the rules, he took it to his 8 00:00:38.479 --> 00:00:41.520 bedroom to read by candlelight, when the rest of the 9 00:00:41.640 --> 00:00:46.320 rambling old Elizabethan house was flooded with darkness. That was 10 00:00:46.359 --> 00:00:49.479 how young Mortimer had always thought of it. His own 11 00:00:49.560 --> 00:00:53.079 room was a little isolated cell in which, with stolen 12 00:00:53.200 --> 00:00:56.159 candle ends, he could keep the surrounding darkness at bay, 13 00:00:56.600 --> 00:00:59.920 while everyone else had surrendered to sleep and allowed the 14 00:01:00.359 --> 00:01:04.439 night to come flooding in. By contrast with those unconscious 15 00:01:04.439 --> 00:01:07.799 ones his elders, it made him feel intensely alive in 16 00:01:07.879 --> 00:01:11.280 every nerve and fiber of his young brain. The ticking 17 00:01:11.400 --> 00:01:14.480 of the grandfather clock in the hall below, the beating 18 00:01:14.719 --> 00:01:19.000 of his own heart, the long, drawn, rhythmical ah of 19 00:01:19.040 --> 00:01:22.439 the sea on the distant coast all filled him with 20 00:01:22.480 --> 00:01:26.840 a sense of overwhelming mystery, And as he read the 21 00:01:26.879 --> 00:01:30.560 soft thud of a blinded moth striking the wall above 22 00:01:30.599 --> 00:01:33.359 the candle would make him start, and listened like a 23 00:01:33.400 --> 00:01:36.120 creature of the woods at the sound of a cracking twig. 24 00:01:37.359 --> 00:01:40.640 The battered old book had the strangest fascination for him, 25 00:01:40.920 --> 00:01:43.640 though he never quite grasped the thread of the story. 26 00:01:44.239 --> 00:01:47.560 It was called The Midnight Express, and there was one 27 00:01:47.760 --> 00:01:51.840 illustration on the fiftieth page at which she could never 28 00:01:51.879 --> 00:01:58.280 bear to look. It frightened him. Young Mortimer never understood 29 00:01:58.319 --> 00:02:01.120 the effect of that picture on him. He was an 30 00:02:01.120 --> 00:02:05.959 imaginative but not neurotic youngster, and he avoided that fiftieth 31 00:02:06.000 --> 00:02:08.439 page as he might have hurried past the dark corner 32 00:02:08.439 --> 00:02:11.039 on the stairs when he was six years old, or 33 00:02:11.680 --> 00:02:14.199 as the grown man on the Lonely Road in the 34 00:02:14.240 --> 00:02:18.800 Ancient Mariner, who, having once looked round, walks on and 35 00:02:19.120 --> 00:02:22.479 turns no more his head. There was nothing in the 36 00:02:22.520 --> 00:02:27.919 picture apparently to account for this haunting dread. Darkness, indeed 37 00:02:28.159 --> 00:02:33.560 was almost its chief characteristic. It showed an empty railway 38 00:02:33.639 --> 00:02:38.879 platform at night, lit by a single dreary lamp, an 39 00:02:39.000 --> 00:02:43.560 empty railway platform that suggested a deserted and lonely junction 40 00:02:44.080 --> 00:02:47.800 in some remote part of the country. There was only 41 00:02:47.840 --> 00:02:51.039 one figure on the platform, the dark figure of a man, 42 00:02:51.599 --> 00:02:54.680 standing almost directly under the lamp, with his face turned 43 00:02:54.719 --> 00:02:57.560 away towards the black mouth of a tunnel, which, for 44 00:02:57.680 --> 00:03:02.159 some strange reason plungung the imagination of the child into 45 00:03:02.199 --> 00:03:06.080 a pit of horror. The man seemed to be listening. 46 00:03:06.759 --> 00:03:10.240 His attitude was tense, expectant, as though he were awaiting 47 00:03:10.280 --> 00:03:13.759 some fearful tragedy. There was nothing in the text, as 48 00:03:13.800 --> 00:03:16.560 far as the child read and could understand, to account 49 00:03:16.560 --> 00:03:20.080 for this waking nightmare. He could neither resist the fascination 50 00:03:20.199 --> 00:03:23.199 of the book, nor face that picture in the stillness 51 00:03:23.199 --> 00:03:26.159 and loneliness of the night. He pinned it down to 52 00:03:26.199 --> 00:03:30.080 the page, facing it with two long pins, so that 53 00:03:30.199 --> 00:03:34.159 he should not come upon it by accident. Then he 54 00:03:34.240 --> 00:03:38.560 determined to read the whole story through, but always before 55 00:03:38.560 --> 00:03:41.680 he came to page fifty he fell asleep, and the 56 00:03:41.719 --> 00:03:45.000 outlines of what he had read were blurred, and the 57 00:03:45.039 --> 00:03:49.599 next night he had to begin again, and again before 58 00:03:49.639 --> 00:03:54.240 he came to the fiftieth page, he fell asleep. He 59 00:03:54.280 --> 00:03:57.199 grew up and forgot all about the book and the picture. 60 00:03:57.840 --> 00:04:00.960 But half way through his life, at that strange and 61 00:04:01.039 --> 00:04:05.039 critical time. When Dante entered the dark wood, leaving the 62 00:04:05.199 --> 00:04:09.560 direct path behind him, he found himself a little before 63 00:04:09.639 --> 00:04:15.520 midnight waiting for a train at a lonely junction, And 64 00:04:15.560 --> 00:04:21.959 as the station clock began to strike twelve, he remembered, remembered, 65 00:04:22.360 --> 00:04:28.120 like a man awaking from a long dream. There under 66 00:04:28.160 --> 00:04:32.600 the single dreary lamp on the long, glimmering platform was 67 00:04:32.639 --> 00:04:36.480 the dark and solitary figure that he knew. Its face 68 00:04:36.600 --> 00:04:39.279 was turned away from him towards the black mouth of 69 00:04:39.319 --> 00:04:46.160 the tunnel. It seemed to be listening, tense, expectant, just 70 00:04:46.279 --> 00:04:50.079 as it had been thirty eight years ago. But he 71 00:04:50.160 --> 00:04:52.759 was not frightened now as he had been in childhood. 72 00:04:53.480 --> 00:04:56.160 He would go up to that solitary figure, confront it 73 00:04:56.199 --> 00:04:59.000 and see the face that had so long been hidden, 74 00:04:59.319 --> 00:05:03.199 so long averted from him. He would walk up quietly 75 00:05:03.519 --> 00:05:06.519 and make some excuse for speaking to it. He would 76 00:05:06.560 --> 00:05:09.439 ask it, for instance, if the train was going to 77 00:05:09.480 --> 00:05:12.079 be late. It should be easy for a grown man 78 00:05:12.120 --> 00:05:16.000 to do this, But his hands were clenched when he 79 00:05:16.040 --> 00:05:20.560 took the first step, as if he too were tense 80 00:05:21.120 --> 00:05:27.879 and expectant. Quietly, but the old vague instincts awaking, he 81 00:05:27.959 --> 00:05:31.800 went towards the dark figure, and the lamp passed it, 82 00:05:32.240 --> 00:05:35.480 swung round abruptly to speak to it, and saw, without speaking, 83 00:05:35.680 --> 00:05:43.480 without being able to speak, it was himself, staring back 84 00:05:43.519 --> 00:05:48.600 at himself, as if in some mocking mirror, his own 85 00:05:48.639 --> 00:05:52.120 eyes alive, in his own white face, looking into his 86 00:05:52.199 --> 00:05:57.199 own eyes alive, the nerves of his heart tingled, as 87 00:05:57.240 --> 00:06:01.800 though their own electric currents would it. A wave of 88 00:06:01.879 --> 00:06:05.560 panic went through him. He turned, gasped, stumbled, broke into 89 00:06:05.560 --> 00:06:08.439 a blind run out through the deserted and echoing ticket 90 00:06:08.439 --> 00:06:12.439 office onto the long moonlit road behind the station. The 91 00:06:12.480 --> 00:06:17.360 whole countryside seemed to be utterly deserted, the moonbeams flooded 92 00:06:17.360 --> 00:06:21.959 it with the loneliness of their own deserted satellite. He 93 00:06:22.160 --> 00:06:26.199 paused for a moment and heard, like the echo of 94 00:06:26.240 --> 00:06:30.160 his own footsteps, the stumbling run of something that followed 95 00:06:30.319 --> 00:06:34.680 over the wooden floor within the ticket office. Then he 96 00:06:34.720 --> 00:06:39.120 abandoned himself, shamelessly to his fear, and ran, sweating like 97 00:06:39.160 --> 00:06:43.000 a terrified beast, down the long white road, between the 98 00:06:43.040 --> 00:06:47.439 two endless lines of ghostly poplars, each answering another into 99 00:06:47.480 --> 00:06:51.160 what seemed an infinite distance. On one side of the road, 100 00:06:51.199 --> 00:06:53.560 there was a long, straight canal in which one of 101 00:06:53.560 --> 00:06:57.600 the lines of poplars was again endlessly reflected. He heard 102 00:06:57.600 --> 00:07:01.040 the footsteps echoing behind him. They seemed to be slowly 103 00:07:01.240 --> 00:07:05.519 but steadily gaining upon him. A quarter of a mile 104 00:07:05.560 --> 00:07:09.000 away he saw a small white cottage by the roadside, 105 00:07:09.360 --> 00:07:13.600 a white cottage with two dark windows and a door 106 00:07:14.399 --> 00:07:18.560 that somehow suggested a human face. He thought to himself 107 00:07:18.600 --> 00:07:21.360 that if he could reach it in time, he might 108 00:07:21.480 --> 00:07:28.120 find shelter and security and escape. The thin, implacable footsteps 109 00:07:28.160 --> 00:07:31.639 echoing his own were still some way off when he lurched, 110 00:07:32.079 --> 00:07:36.160 gasping into the little porch, rattled the latch, thrusted the door, 111 00:07:36.199 --> 00:07:40.120 and found it locked against him. There was no bell 112 00:07:40.439 --> 00:07:43.720 or knocker. He pounded on the wood with his fists 113 00:07:43.800 --> 00:07:49.639 until his knuckles bled. The response was horribly slow. At 114 00:07:49.720 --> 00:07:54.079 last he heard heavier footsteps within the cottage. Slowly they 115 00:07:54.120 --> 00:08:02.319 descended the creaking stair. Slowly the door was unlocked. A tall, 116 00:08:02.480 --> 00:08:05.920 shadowy figure stood before him, holding a lighted candle in 117 00:08:05.959 --> 00:08:08.240 such a way that he could see little either of 118 00:08:08.279 --> 00:08:12.680 the holder's face or form. But to his dumb horror, 119 00:08:12.759 --> 00:08:16.639 there seemed to be a seer cloth wrapped round the face. 120 00:08:17.920 --> 00:08:23.000 No words passed between them. The figure beckoned him in 121 00:08:23.240 --> 00:08:28.639 again without a word. The figure went before him up 122 00:08:28.839 --> 00:08:33.759 the crooked stair, with the ghostly candle casting huge and 123 00:08:33.919 --> 00:08:39.879 grotesque shadows on the whitewashed walls and ceiling. They entered 124 00:08:39.919 --> 00:08:43.320 an upper room, in which there was a bright fire burning, 125 00:08:43.600 --> 00:08:45.879 with an armchair on either side of it, and a 126 00:08:45.919 --> 00:08:49.919 small oak table on which there lay a battered book, 127 00:08:50.639 --> 00:08:54.559 a battered old book bound in dark red buckram. It 128 00:08:54.639 --> 00:08:59.200 seemed as though the guest had been long expected and 129 00:08:59.519 --> 00:09:06.120 all things were prepared. The figure pointed to one of 130 00:09:06.159 --> 00:09:09.799 the armchairs, placed the candlestick on the table by the book, 131 00:09:09.840 --> 00:09:12.480 for there was no other light but that of the fire, 132 00:09:13.080 --> 00:09:17.120 and withdrew without a word, locking the door behind him. 133 00:09:19.039 --> 00:09:23.960 Mortimer looked at the candlestick. It seemed familiar. The smell 134 00:09:24.080 --> 00:09:26.840 of the guttering wax brought back the little room in 135 00:09:26.879 --> 00:09:30.480 the old Elizabethan house. He picked up the book with 136 00:09:30.600 --> 00:09:34.679 trembling fingers. He recognized it at once, though he had 137 00:09:34.720 --> 00:09:39.200 long forgotten everything about the story, remembered the ink stain 138 00:09:39.279 --> 00:09:42.919 on the title page, and then with a shock of recollection, 139 00:09:43.799 --> 00:09:47.720 he came on the fiftieth page, which he had pinned 140 00:09:47.799 --> 00:09:52.600 down in childhood. The pins were still there. He touched 141 00:09:52.639 --> 00:09:57.480 them again, the very pins which his trembling, childish fingers 142 00:09:57.519 --> 00:10:02.159 had used so long ago. He turned to the beginning. 143 00:10:02.559 --> 00:10:04.960 He was determined to read it to the end now 144 00:10:05.039 --> 00:10:08.080 and discover what it was all about. He felt that 145 00:10:08.159 --> 00:10:10.759 it must all be set down there in print, and 146 00:10:11.320 --> 00:10:14.000 though in childhood he could not understand it, he would 147 00:10:14.039 --> 00:10:17.559 be able to fathom it now. It was called The 148 00:10:17.639 --> 00:10:22.480 Midnight Express, And as he read the first paragraph he 149 00:10:22.600 --> 00:10:29.000 began to dawn upon him, slowly, fearfully, inevitably. It was 150 00:10:29.039 --> 00:10:35.000 the story of a man who, in childhood, long ago, 151 00:10:35.240 --> 00:10:39.440 had chanced upon a book in which there was a 152 00:10:39.480 --> 00:10:43.639 picture that frightened him. He had grown up and forgotten it, 153 00:10:43.720 --> 00:10:48.720 and one night, upon a lonely railway platform, he had 154 00:10:48.799 --> 00:10:53.120 found himself in the remembered scene of that picture. He 155 00:10:53.159 --> 00:10:57.159 had confronted the solitary figure under the lamp, recognized it, 156 00:10:57.240 --> 00:11:02.320 and fled in panic, had taken shelter in a wayside cottage, 157 00:11:02.799 --> 00:11:06.000 had been led to an upper room, found the book 158 00:11:06.159 --> 00:11:10.360 awaiting him, and had begun to read it right through 159 00:11:11.559 --> 00:11:16.960 to the very end at last. And this book, too, 160 00:11:17.200 --> 00:11:21.879 was called The Midnight Express, and it was the story 161 00:11:21.919 --> 00:11:26.200 of a man who in childhood it would go on 162 00:11:26.320 --> 00:11:35.720 thus forever and forever and forever. There was no escape. 163 00:11:35.960 --> 00:11:38.720 But when the story came to the wayside cottage for 164 00:11:38.759 --> 00:11:47.960 the third time, a deeper suspicion began to dawn upon him, slowly, fearfully, inevitably. 165 00:11:49.200 --> 00:11:53.399 Although there was no escape, he could at last try 166 00:11:53.480 --> 00:11:57.399 to grasp more clearly the details of the strange circle, 167 00:11:57.960 --> 00:12:02.679 the fearful wheel in which he was moving. There was 168 00:12:02.679 --> 00:12:07.000 nothing new about the details. They've been there all the time, 169 00:12:07.360 --> 00:12:10.759 but he had not grasped their significance. That was all 170 00:12:11.440 --> 00:12:15.120 the strange and dreadful being that had led him up 171 00:12:15.320 --> 00:12:22.399 the crooked stair. Who and what was that the story 172 00:12:22.480 --> 00:12:26.399 mentioned something that had escaped him. The strange host who 173 00:12:26.480 --> 00:12:31.440 had given him shelter was about his own height. Could 174 00:12:31.480 --> 00:12:36.039 it be that he also? And was this why the 175 00:12:36.080 --> 00:12:41.279 face was hidden? At the very moment when he asked 176 00:12:41.360 --> 00:12:45.720 himself that question, he heard the click of the key 177 00:12:46.480 --> 00:12:53.159 in the locked door. The strange host was entering, moving 178 00:12:53.279 --> 00:12:59.639 towards him from behind, casting a grotesque shadow, larger than 179 00:12:59.720 --> 00:13:05.159 human on the white walls in the guttering candlelight. It 180 00:13:05.240 --> 00:13:08.159 was there, seated on the other side of the fire, 181 00:13:08.440 --> 00:13:13.879 facing him, with a horrible nonchalance, as a woman might 182 00:13:13.960 --> 00:13:17.519 prepare to remove a veil. It raised its hands to 183 00:13:17.600 --> 00:13:21.879 unwind the sere cloth from its face. He knew to 184 00:13:21.919 --> 00:13:26.960 whom it would belong. Would it be living or dead? 185 00:13:28.440 --> 00:13:32.559 There was no way but one. As Mortimer plunged forward 186 00:13:32.600 --> 00:13:36.200 and seized the tormentor by the throat, his own throat 187 00:13:36.320 --> 00:13:40.320 was gripped but the same brutal force. The echoes of 188 00:13:40.399 --> 00:13:45.759 their strangled cry were indistinguishable, And when the last confused 189 00:13:45.919 --> 00:13:49.480 sounds died out together, the stillness of the room was 190 00:13:49.600 --> 00:13:54.159 so deep that you might have heard the ticking of 191 00:13:54.200 --> 00:14:01.279 the old grandfather clock and the long drawn, rhythmical ah 192 00:14:01.320 --> 00:14:06.360 of the sea on a distant coast thirty eight years ago. 193 00:14:07.799 --> 00:14:14.000 But Mortimer had escaped at last, Perhaps after all, he 194 00:14:14.039 --> 00:14:19.000 had caught the Midnight Express. It was a battered old 195 00:14:19.080 --> 00:14:38.879 book bound in red Buckram. Everybody dies, everybody there. That 196 00:14:39.240 --> 00:14:43.639 was Midnight Express by Alfred Noise. And sometimes you see 197 00:14:43.639 --> 00:14:46.159 it as the Midnight Express. But the version I've got 198 00:14:46.200 --> 00:14:49.360 from the anthology I got was Midnight Express. So the 199 00:14:49.399 --> 00:14:52.279 first thing is I'll tell you something about Alfred Noise himself. So. 200 00:14:52.279 --> 00:14:55.559 He was born in eighteen eighty died in nineteen fifty eight. 201 00:14:55.679 --> 00:14:58.759 He was an English poet, storyteller and popular man of 202 00:14:58.840 --> 00:15:02.879 letters who his career traces a revealing archromade Wardian romance 203 00:15:02.919 --> 00:15:06.159 the mid twentieth century cultural critique. He was born in 204 00:15:06.240 --> 00:15:10.639 Wolverhampton and the West Midlands, in on sixteenth September eighteen eighty. 205 00:15:11.720 --> 00:15:15.600 His dad was also Alfred and his wife was Amelia Adams, 206 00:15:15.639 --> 00:15:19.240 and he spent formative years in Aberystwyth in Wales, where 207 00:15:19.240 --> 00:15:22.360 his father taught Latin and Greek, and the Welsh coast 208 00:15:22.360 --> 00:15:25.720 and mountains left a permanent mark on his imagination. In 209 00:15:25.799 --> 00:15:28.600 eighteen ninety eight he went up to Exeter College, Oxford, 210 00:15:28.639 --> 00:15:32.639 where he rode energetically and studied fitfully. The often repeated 211 00:15:32.639 --> 00:15:35.159 anecdote that he missed part of his finals to seize 212 00:15:35.200 --> 00:15:39.039 publisher about his first book is essentially true. His debut collection, 213 00:15:39.159 --> 00:15:41.399 The Loom of Years nineteen oh two cost him a 214 00:15:41.440 --> 00:15:45.399 degree but secured him a reputation. The volume was warmly 215 00:15:45.440 --> 00:15:48.120 received by established figures such as W. B. Yates and 216 00:15:48.159 --> 00:15:51.600 George Meredith, and it sold well with the general public 217 00:15:51.600 --> 00:15:55.440 as well, so after that the decade after that he 218 00:15:55.519 --> 00:15:58.279 became famous. This was his arrival. So between nineteen oh 219 00:15:58.360 --> 00:16:00.879 three and nineteen oh eight he issued a stream of 220 00:16:00.960 --> 00:16:04.279 verse volumes, The Flower Rolled Japan, The Forest of Wild 221 00:16:04.480 --> 00:16:08.120 Time Poems, which contained the Barrel Organ, and he quickly 222 00:16:08.120 --> 00:16:10.960 became one of the most commercially successful poets in English. 223 00:16:11.360 --> 00:16:15.279 The High Women Imagine being a commercially successful poet these days. 224 00:16:16.039 --> 00:16:18.759 The High Women, first published in Blackwood's magazine in nineteen 225 00:16:18.799 --> 00:16:21.639 oh six and reprinted the following year in forty. Singing 226 00:16:21.720 --> 00:16:25.240 Seamen and other poems, remained his most enduring worker, Ballad 227 00:16:25.240 --> 00:16:29.440 of Doomed Love, remembered for its incantatory refrains and vivid, 228 00:16:29.480 --> 00:16:32.679 almost cinematic imagery. The same time, he embarked on a 229 00:16:32.759 --> 00:16:38.639 large scale historical narrative, especially Drake and English Epic, which 230 00:16:38.840 --> 00:16:42.320 he did over nineteen oh six and to nineteen oh eight, 231 00:16:42.399 --> 00:16:44.759 a twelve book blank verse treatment of Sir Francis Drake 232 00:16:44.799 --> 00:16:48.039 and Elizabethan SeaWorld, which aligned his poetic manner with that 233 00:16:48.159 --> 00:16:51.399 of Tennison and the late Romantics. By his early thirties 234 00:16:51.799 --> 00:16:54.000 he'd done all this, you know, when he was a 235 00:16:54.000 --> 00:16:57.919 young man. He published multiple substantial volumes, gathered his work 236 00:16:57.960 --> 00:17:00.399 in collective form, and became, in the phrase of one critic, 237 00:17:00.440 --> 00:17:04.759 the most popular poet of his generation among ordinary readers, 238 00:17:04.920 --> 00:17:07.640 even as more fastidious review as being the cool on him. 239 00:17:08.279 --> 00:17:10.319 So he was a professional writer as well as a 240 00:17:10.319 --> 00:17:13.200 literary one. He wrote in short stories, essays, criticism, and 241 00:17:13.240 --> 00:17:18.880 fiction alongside poetry, and was industrious in cultivating Transatlantic audiences 242 00:17:18.920 --> 00:17:21.839 he saw the bulk of the people lived. In nineteen 243 00:17:21.880 --> 00:17:25.200 oh seven, he married Garner Daniel's, daughter of an American diplomat, 244 00:17:25.279 --> 00:17:27.880 a union that anchored him socially and emotionally to the 245 00:17:28.000 --> 00:17:32.039 United States. He had successful lectures there in nineteen thirteen fourteen, 246 00:17:32.119 --> 00:17:35.079 and he was appointed as professor of Modern English literature 247 00:17:35.079 --> 00:17:38.079 at Princeton University, where he was until nineteen twenty three. 248 00:17:38.519 --> 00:17:42.680 His students included F. Scott Fitzgerald and Edmund Wilson, and 249 00:17:42.720 --> 00:17:47.039 his public persona urbane, patriotic eloquent, made him a natural 250 00:17:47.119 --> 00:17:51.599 platform figure. He had further experiments in narrative poetry and drama, 251 00:17:51.680 --> 00:17:55.640 such as Robin Hood plus He's Robin Hood play Sorry 252 00:17:55.799 --> 00:18:00.279 Sherwood nineteen eleven, which was later retitled Robbinhood well. In 253 00:18:00.319 --> 00:18:03.160 the First World War, he was rejected for frontline service 254 00:18:03.160 --> 00:18:06.039 because of poor eyesight, and he worked for the Foreign 255 00:18:06.119 --> 00:18:10.519 Office alongside John Buchan on propaganda and morale building projects. 256 00:18:10.559 --> 00:18:14.039 He wrote some conventional patriotic verse and setales, and also 257 00:18:14.079 --> 00:18:18.400 produced more reflective work, notably the long anti war poem 258 00:18:18.440 --> 00:18:22.359 The Wine Press, which depicts in unsparing terms the suffering 259 00:18:22.359 --> 00:18:26.759 and futility of modern conflict. The Victory Ball, inspired by 260 00:18:26.759 --> 00:18:29.559 his disgusted post war frivolity in London while the Dead 261 00:18:29.640 --> 00:18:33.240 was scarcely Buried, became his best known war poem. Its 262 00:18:33.279 --> 00:18:37.200 refrain under the dancing feet are the Graves indicts the 263 00:18:37.279 --> 00:18:40.319 forgetfulness of the living. After the war, he continued to 264 00:18:40.319 --> 00:18:43.160 produce fiction and tales of the uncannic ghost stories such 265 00:18:43.160 --> 00:18:45.839 as Lucitania Weights and The log of the Evening Star 266 00:18:46.240 --> 00:18:51.319 are still anthologized, are they? Though this anthology? I've got 267 00:18:51.400 --> 00:18:54.480 quite an older one to nineteen eighties one, so he wrote. 268 00:18:55.559 --> 00:18:59.839 He was an agnostic originally and became increasingly preoccupied, preoccupied 269 00:18:59.839 --> 00:19:03.680 with relationship between science, faith and civilization, and he wrote 270 00:19:03.680 --> 00:19:06.880 a trilogy called of poems called The Torch Bearers Watchers 271 00:19:06.920 --> 00:19:08.599 of the Sky in nineteen twenty two, The Book of 272 00:19:08.599 --> 00:19:12.480 the Earth nineteen twenty five, and The Last Voyage nineteen thirty. 273 00:19:12.559 --> 00:19:14.920 His private life in the twenties was marked by loss 274 00:19:14.960 --> 00:19:19.000 and reorientation. Garnet Noise died in nineteen twenty six when 275 00:19:19.039 --> 00:19:22.119 they were visiting friends in Saint gen dulus I don't know. 276 00:19:22.279 --> 00:19:26.000 I don't know if that's French or Spanish. Saint gen Duluze. 277 00:19:26.279 --> 00:19:30.119 I guess Luth would be in Spanisher, not with the 278 00:19:30.119 --> 00:19:32.920 Cumbrian accento, an event that pushed him further in Wood 279 00:19:32.920 --> 00:19:35.839 and Sharpeney's religious search. In nineteen twenty seven he married 280 00:19:35.880 --> 00:19:38.279 Mary angela Man, the widow of a Catholic officer, and 281 00:19:38.279 --> 00:19:41.839 he himself was received into the Roman Catholic Church. And 282 00:19:41.880 --> 00:19:43.519 then he wrote a book about how he became a 283 00:19:43.519 --> 00:19:49.440 Catholic in nineteen thirty four. So he then settled in 284 00:19:49.440 --> 00:19:53.880 the Isle of Wight at Lyle Coumney Ventna, and he 285 00:19:54.160 --> 00:19:57.720 was a defender of tradition against the disintegrating forces in 286 00:19:57.720 --> 00:20:00.759 the modern world. He might choice of Shakespeare, Milton Johnson, 287 00:20:00.799 --> 00:20:05.519 bove All, Tennyson, I've got a lot of notes on him. 288 00:20:05.680 --> 00:20:08.079 And then in these final decades Bouts of ill health 289 00:20:08.079 --> 00:20:11.079 and failing eyesight forced him to dictate rather than write. 290 00:20:11.119 --> 00:20:12.839 He spent much of the Second World War in North 291 00:20:12.839 --> 00:20:16.160 America lecturing for the Allied cause, before returning permanently to 292 00:20:16.240 --> 00:20:19.759 the Isle of White in nineteen forty nine. Alongside serious work, 293 00:20:19.799 --> 00:20:23.799 he produced lighter pieces, notably Childham's children's verse Daddy Fell 294 00:20:23.839 --> 00:20:26.440 in the Pond, the title piece of A nineteen fifty 295 00:20:26.440 --> 00:20:28.240 two and he died of polio and the Isle of 296 00:20:28.279 --> 00:20:30.640 Wight in June fifty eight and was buried in the 297 00:20:30.680 --> 00:20:34.519 Catholic Cemetery Saint Save Years at Totland. By that time, 298 00:20:34.559 --> 00:20:37.880 his reputation had sunk. He was an embodiment of an 299 00:20:38.079 --> 00:20:43.119 obsolete sentimental format sentimental formally conservative strain of verse. But 300 00:20:43.519 --> 00:20:46.039 he keeps coming through. Now. I thought this was an 301 00:20:46.039 --> 00:20:52.000 interesting story, really, So This One Midnight Express was published 302 00:20:52.039 --> 00:20:54.720 on the third November nineteen thirty five, significantly in an 303 00:20:54.720 --> 00:21:00.440 American newspaper supplement called This Week in many anthologies, So 304 00:21:02.240 --> 00:21:04.200 when we look at it, we think it's not the 305 00:21:04.240 --> 00:21:08.119 story that's important. You could probably give the bare plot 306 00:21:08.160 --> 00:21:11.880 in about two sentences and lose nothing, should we do it? 307 00:21:12.319 --> 00:21:14.839 So basically, a man reads a book as a small 308 00:21:14.880 --> 00:21:18.440 boy which haunts him. He finds himself in that situation, 309 00:21:18.839 --> 00:21:20.880 and he finds himself kind of in the story, just 310 00:21:20.920 --> 00:21:22.839 repeating it round and round and round, and it's a 311 00:21:22.839 --> 00:21:26.359 bit horrific. There you go, we'll not really sure what happened. 312 00:21:26.799 --> 00:21:30.160 But what we have is we have this low, insistent 313 00:21:30.160 --> 00:21:34.759 field of dread which settles on the reader. And when 314 00:21:34.799 --> 00:21:39.480 you find out what technically what happened. So it isn't 315 00:21:39.480 --> 00:21:43.000 the narrative that creates the dread in some cases, you know, 316 00:21:43.200 --> 00:21:47.640 in a traditional suspense novel, it's the narrative that racks 317 00:21:47.720 --> 00:21:54.559 up those emotions. Whereas this is the descriptions. You can 318 00:21:54.559 --> 00:21:57.759 tell he's a poet, the poetic nature of the prose. 319 00:21:58.160 --> 00:22:02.480 The imagery, you know, very significant imagery. What we got, 320 00:22:02.480 --> 00:22:04.680 I mean, you know you could paint. You could do 321 00:22:04.720 --> 00:22:08.279 a fantastic graphic novel of it. Actually, so somebody should 322 00:22:08.279 --> 00:22:10.960 do it, not me. I can't draw. But you know 323 00:22:11.039 --> 00:22:13.799 you've got the Red Book, haven't you? That? Very the 324 00:22:13.799 --> 00:22:17.200 book read bookrom book and the where he you know, 325 00:22:17.279 --> 00:22:20.039 him reading it with the stolen candle stubs in this 326 00:22:20.200 --> 00:22:23.960 Elizabethan mansion bag on what a picture. And then you 327 00:22:24.039 --> 00:22:27.319 have him pinning the Then you've got the illustration that 328 00:22:27.359 --> 00:22:29.680 he doesn't want to see of the lonely platform with 329 00:22:29.759 --> 00:22:33.759 the single figure and the pins in the book, and 330 00:22:33.799 --> 00:22:38.039 then basically you have then it morphing. So he's on 331 00:22:38.079 --> 00:22:41.839 that platform and then you know, it's so visual, is 332 00:22:41.839 --> 00:22:43.799 what I'm trying to say. And then he goes. Then 333 00:22:43.799 --> 00:22:49.359 he's greeted by this sear cloth. It's like a Muslim cloth, 334 00:22:49.400 --> 00:22:53.160 I think around the face. And I should have actually 335 00:22:53.200 --> 00:22:54.960 looked it up rather than just guessing what it was. 336 00:22:55.519 --> 00:22:58.400 To me, I saw this figure with a like you know, 337 00:22:58.480 --> 00:23:02.920 like they make puddings with Muslim Muslim Muslim Muslim. I 338 00:23:03.000 --> 00:23:05.519 was mixed those two words up. They're quite different in meaning. 339 00:23:06.359 --> 00:23:10.759 And you know, over his fiast, as we'd say, and 340 00:23:11.160 --> 00:23:13.440 he's led up the stairs with candlelight and you can 341 00:23:13.480 --> 00:23:15.519 just again the graphic imagery and he sits in this 342 00:23:15.640 --> 00:23:18.720 room with the fire and the armchairs, and there's the book, 343 00:23:18.839 --> 00:23:20.920 you know, and that's it. It's just the images. And 344 00:23:20.960 --> 00:23:24.000 so I think it's the it's the weirdness a little bit. 345 00:23:24.200 --> 00:23:28.200 It's like the just it's the dreamlike nightmarish quality of 346 00:23:28.240 --> 00:23:33.119 the images. It doesn't feel totally real. It is it's vibe. 347 00:23:33.519 --> 00:23:36.920 I keep coming back to this, don't I so? And 348 00:23:36.960 --> 00:23:39.079 it's a dejah vous terror as well. It's you know, 349 00:23:39.119 --> 00:23:42.000 we've been here before. I'm going to come back to 350 00:23:42.039 --> 00:23:46.160 that in a minute. So you know, it's it's a 351 00:23:46.279 --> 00:23:48.359 clearly set up. It's a short story. I mean, it 352 00:23:48.440 --> 00:23:50.079 is one of the shortest ones I've done for a 353 00:23:50.079 --> 00:23:52.480 long time. I'm usually doing the hourly ones, and I've 354 00:23:52.480 --> 00:23:57.680 been doing the long added The Willows by Blackwood, I 355 00:23:57.680 --> 00:24:01.160 did Great god Pan by mac and the first Book 356 00:24:01.200 --> 00:24:03.079 of the Beatle by Richard Marshall. These are all like 357 00:24:03.359 --> 00:24:05.920 three hour jobs, you know, and this is a much 358 00:24:05.920 --> 00:24:09.680 shorter story. It's nice to have a bit of a change. 359 00:24:11.079 --> 00:24:16.319 So when I was reading him, because of the poetics, 360 00:24:16.640 --> 00:24:20.160 I was, you know, you've got like the Highwayman, and 361 00:24:20.200 --> 00:24:23.640 you've got Walter Delomairez the Listeners, haven't you? And who 362 00:24:23.680 --> 00:24:25.599 was a poet? And of course one of my favorite 363 00:24:25.640 --> 00:24:27.440 book I'm looking at and I was Behold This Dreamer 364 00:24:27.519 --> 00:24:32.319 and Anthology by Delamaire. So there is something about Delamare 365 00:24:32.400 --> 00:24:36.240 is really good at conjuring these gothicky images. I'm thinking 366 00:24:36.240 --> 00:24:38.319 of All Hallows. But you know, a lot of his 367 00:24:38.440 --> 00:24:40.359 books are like that. They've got a vibe, you know, 368 00:24:40.400 --> 00:24:42.640 and he's a very poetic writer. But I would say 369 00:24:42.640 --> 00:24:48.240 that Delamare has more story. All hallows is it's kind 370 00:24:48.240 --> 00:24:49.920 of short on story. It's a little bit like this, 371 00:24:50.160 --> 00:24:51.640 but a lot of the other stuff we've done by 372 00:24:51.720 --> 00:24:56.920 Delamare has a bit more story. So when we think 373 00:24:56.920 --> 00:25:03.319 about the so Delamaire tends to dissolve plot into mood, 374 00:25:03.680 --> 00:25:06.920 whereas noise hardens plot into a loop. In this story, 375 00:25:07.000 --> 00:25:10.519 childhood encounter book within the book and then they're strangling 376 00:25:10.559 --> 00:25:12.759 that follows us back into the opening line. I mean, 377 00:25:12.839 --> 00:25:14.839 this idea of a story within a story is sort 378 00:25:14.839 --> 00:25:18.079 of very Arabian Nights. What was his name, Irwin? A 379 00:25:18.279 --> 00:25:21.400 book called the Arabian Nightmare and he, oh, what's his 380 00:25:21.519 --> 00:25:25.599 first name? Is famous Arabist and he did this story 381 00:25:26.039 --> 00:25:28.559 based on the Arabian Nights. The Arabian Nights famously our 382 00:25:28.640 --> 00:25:31.960 stories within stories, and it's a it's a technique of 383 00:25:32.039 --> 00:25:34.359 nesting a story within a story, which I really quite like. 384 00:25:35.119 --> 00:25:37.480 And there's that's what we're seeing here. But you know, 385 00:25:38.559 --> 00:25:41.680 so we say Walter Delomare tends to dissolve plot into mood, 386 00:25:42.000 --> 00:25:46.599 and this is this loop, where As you may argue 387 00:25:46.640 --> 00:25:50.319 that Delomare understructures his tales until they're almost pure implication. 388 00:25:50.319 --> 00:25:53.559 I think of the last one we did, the Recluse. 389 00:25:54.359 --> 00:25:57.200 You know nothing which happens in that really, and they're 390 00:25:57.240 --> 00:26:00.279 almost pure implication. Almost nothing happens, and nothing is what 391 00:26:00.319 --> 00:26:04.440 disturbs you. That's still a maire so noise. On the 392 00:26:04.440 --> 00:26:06.519 other hand, although he's a poet as well and uses 393 00:26:06.559 --> 00:26:08.720 that imagery, and I've just been talking about the imagery 394 00:26:08.880 --> 00:26:11.599 and the vibe that he conjures with the candles and 395 00:26:11.640 --> 00:26:17.839 these faces and the lonely I've just said that there 396 00:26:18.160 --> 00:26:22.319 isn't a lot of plot, but it is essential to 397 00:26:22.519 --> 00:26:26.039 the drive of the story. I think. I think the 398 00:26:26.079 --> 00:26:27.680 point I've just made there is quite weak, if you 399 00:26:27.720 --> 00:26:32.240 don't mind me saying, now we've got this idea of 400 00:26:32.279 --> 00:26:35.079 the trapped cycle, my mind being what it is, it 401 00:26:35.240 --> 00:26:38.839