Tuesday, October 05, 2010

A 1959 television interview with T.H. White

The BBC website has an archive of interviews with British novelists from Virginia Woolf to Zadie Smith.

Among them is an interview with my literary hero T.H. White, recorded at his home Alderney by Robert Robinson. He comes over very much as the schoolmaster he was before he became a writer.

Mention of Alderney recalls White's friendship with John Arlott. As Tim Arlott recorded it in his memoir of his father:
The first time they met, my father and Tim were so captivated by each other's company that they went out for a drink and did not return until late the following morning.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Love the interview as it shows the man in his element full of life and proud not to be "BaBa" as he states amusingly. I imagine he could have been quite intersting to know. An evening with White, Tolkien, Golding, Lewis, Graves would have been quite interesting. Too bad he died at such a relatively young age.

Anonymous said...

It does not appear that his house is a tourist stop as I cannot find any reference to it on the Alderney web sites. His temple to Hadrian deserves some comment. Is the house in private hands now?