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In conversation with Jeffrey Archer
1.8k Plays1 year ago
Jeffrey Archer is one of the most successful authors of all time. He has been published in 115 countries and more than 50 languages, with international sales passing 275 million copies. But his life has been just as remarkable as any of his stories. It’s a tale of political intrigue, wealth, fame, financial calamity, nobility, crime, incarceration, redemption and love.
In this wide-ranging conversation with host Will Kingston, Jeffrey reflects on his life, his work and his three loves: politics, storytelling and his wife, Dame Mary.
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Transcript
Introduction to Jeffrey Archer's Ambitious Journey
00:00:14
Speaker
G'day and welcome to Australiana from The Spectator Australia. I'm Will Kingston. My guest today once said that when he was three years old, he wanted to be four. And when he was four, he wanted to be Prime Minister.
00:00:27
Speaker
He never did become prime minister, although given how extraordinary his life has been, even at the age of 83, one wouldn't entirely rule out one more twist in the tail. The Jeffrey Archer story has all the hallmarks of a great novel, which is fitting for an author who was sold upwards of 275 million copies in 115 countries, sporting glory, political intrigue, wealth, bankruptcy, nobility, crime, incarceration, redemption, and love. They're all there.
00:00:57
Speaker
And I only have an hour. Jeffrey Archer, welcome to Australia. If I could just correct one thing, well, I never went bankrupt. People put that in, journalists put it in all the time and it's wrong. We can certainly, certainly get to that, but I will have that noted on the record. I've cherry picked moments from your life and themes from your books for us to basically jump into some different ideas.
Influence of Archer's Mother and Political Entry
00:01:21
Speaker
I'd like to start close to the beginning, 1951, around which time your mother is employed as a journalist for the Western Mercury. She wrote a weekly column, I believe, entitled Over the Tea Cups. How do you reflect on the influence of your parents on your life and your writing?
00:01:39
Speaker
Well, my father died when I was 11, so I hardly remember him, but my mother was a very strong influence in my life. Indeed, not only was she have her own column,
00:01:52
Speaker
in the local paper she also sat on the local council and became chairman of the arts committee so she was a vulnerable woman remembering that was the nineteen nineteen for its nineteen fifties a formal woman but then i've had strong women in my life all the time because
00:02:10
Speaker
I married a remarkably strong woman who's gone on to be chairman of Cambridge University Hospital, be made a dame and become the first woman ever to chair a national gallery or museum in this country. She's currently chairman of the Science Museum. And on top of that, I worked with Margaret Thatcher for 11 years. So strong women are something I actually like and indeed write a lot about.
00:02:39
Speaker
I have both Mary and Margaret Thatcher on my list of topics to speak to you about, but in order to keep a rough chronology, I'll zoom past Oxford and I'll zoom past the athletic glory and for the moment, the future wife that it gave you.
Conservative Party Changes and Global Politics
00:02:55
Speaker
I'll go to 1967 when you are elected as a Conservative Councillor for Havering, following in your mother's footsteps. Why did you choose the Conservative Party?
00:03:06
Speaker
It was a close run thing in the sense that by nature, I'm what's thought of as a left wing Tory. But in the end, I happen to believe strongly in free enterprise. I happen to believe strongly in entrepreneurs. And I don't think those two particular gifts, qualities are ones admired by the Labour Party. So I think the Conservative Party was a natural home for me.
00:03:33
Speaker
Do you think the Conservative Party today still believes in those principles? It's very changed, but then every party changes. I'm 83 now. I entered the House of Commons at the age of 29. And the time you're referring to, I was only 26 when I was a member of the Greater London Council. So of course things change. It's a very pointed question you're asking, but in truth,
00:04:00
Speaker
I think I would still fit into the modern Conservative Party. It was a pointed question and I'll lead the witness a tad further. How would you assess the health of Conservative politics in the UK today? Today. Today. Well, it's remarkable that my party has produced the first Jewish Prime Minister, the first Bachelor Prime Minister, the first Woman Prime Minister, three in fact.
00:04:24
Speaker
And now the first Indian Prime Minister. So we are the modern party in that sense. And I think that's an amazing thing.
Predictions and Reflections on UK Political Dynamics
00:04:33
Speaker
I think the Labour Party go on employing middle class white men.
00:04:38
Speaker
The brand of conservative politics, not just in the UK, but all around the Western world, doesn't reflect that. I know in Australia, the Liberal Party was the party that got gay marriage over the line, for example. Why do you think there may be that disconnect between, say, the brand of the conservative party and conservative politics, and then some of the wonderful achievements that you just mentioned? Well, part is move. It's interesting you should mention the worldwide movement.
00:05:07
Speaker
It's clearly moving to the right when someone like Trump can be taken seriously. And indeed, if you look across France, Germany and Italy, it's the right who are beginning to dominate with the exception of perhaps Spain. And indeed, even in Australia, there seem to be slight movements to the right there as well.
00:05:32
Speaker
Well, who will win the next election in the UK? In theory, the leg party will win by 40 or 50 seats. In practice, we're a year away, so heaven knows what will happen.
00:05:44
Speaker
The yesterday's result, which you will have missed well because it would have only just been announced, the Labour Party had a very big victory in Scotland. They took a Scottish nationalist seat that was thought they might win by two or three thousand and they won by nearly nine thousand.
00:06:03
Speaker
And I have always said that if the Labour Party are to form a majority, they will need 20 seats in Scotland. Yesterday's result would indicate 41 seats in Scotland. I don't think that will happen. I think they're more likely to get the 20 seats I've been predicting. And if they do, then Labour will govern and Sir Keir Starmer will be Prime Minister.
From Politics to Literary Success
00:06:31
Speaker
How do you feel about that? That's fine.
00:06:33
Speaker
We've been in power for 14 years. It's very healthy to have a change from time to time. It's never good for government to go on and on. Putin's been in power for 22 years. And I think he's totally out of touch. Let's go forward. You were elected as an MP, as you said, at the age of 29 in 1969.
00:06:55
Speaker
Although through a series of financial misfortunes, you find yourself on the brink of bankruptcy without going bankrupt. You're forced to stand down from parliament in 1974, and I believe you told a friend at the time you would become a novelist because all you needed for that was a lot of paper and a lot of pencils. The result, first of many best sellers, not a penny more, not a penny less. No, no, no. Please, correct the record.
00:07:22
Speaker
17 publishers turned the book, first book, down. Not a penny more, not a penny less was turned down by everybody. The 17th publisher published it and they only printed 3,000 copies, which just about sold in the first year. It's now sold 27,750,000 copies 42 years later.
00:07:52
Speaker
Well, I'm glad you said that because it raises an interesting question around grit and determination. Take me back to that time when you are handing over manuscripts to publisher after publisher and being turned down. Take me back to how you're feeling and what kept you moving forward in that period. Well, funnily enough, my agent, Deborah Owen, the wife of the Foreign Secretary, David Owen,
00:08:17
Speaker
never lost faith in me. She went on believing the book was a winner. She sold it to Sweden and to America before she sold it to Britain. And I thank her for the rest of my life that she went on believing in me. And then suddenly Jonathan Cape said, OK, we'll have a go. Three thousand copies, three thousand. Let's see what happens.
00:08:44
Speaker
The rest is history. What did you know about, or what, sorry, I should say, what do you know about writing in 2023 that you didn't know when that book was published in 1974?
Evolution of Literature and Class Influence
00:08:55
Speaker
I think if I had the knowledge of what happens to most writers, I might not even have put pen to paper. The average writer in Britain earns £14,100 for every thousand books that are sent to publishers, one is published.
00:09:14
Speaker
For every thousand books that are published, one makes it to the best sellers list. For every thousand books that make it to the best sellers list, one goes to number one. It's just as difficult as wanting to be an opera singer, a ballet dancer, or to play the piano in the New York Metropolitan
00:09:39
Speaker
So it's tough. It's interesting as you say that I'm reflecting during the 1970s and the 1980s as you were pumping out bestseller after bestseller, there seems to be a lot of literary figures that are, they almost transcend the genre, that are celebrities, that are people who are at the front lines of public debate and of the intellectual movement.
00:10:00
Speaker
Just feels to me today there aren't that same class or that same group of great figures in the literary world. Do you think that's reasonable to say?
00:10:11
Speaker
I think that probably is fair to say. There are still some very fine writers and still some very fine new books, but I think you're right. That gathering of intellectual writers and writers making a great breakthrough are probably in the decline. But this morning, the Nobel Prize committee announced the new winner
00:10:32
Speaker
of the Nobel Prize for Literature, and in his opening statement after he said how delighted and surprised he was, which is what all Nobel Prize winners do, he then went on to say, if you read me, his own words, if you read me, don't look for a plot.
00:10:53
Speaker
You know, I'm afraid I can't survive among that. That's that's the only thing I do is I want you to turn the page. I want you to follow the plot. I want you to be unable to put the book down. The idea of actually saying don't if you want to read me, don't bother with the plot. I mean, I found that horrifying. Yeah, I would agree. You have been known as the great storyteller of your age.
00:11:16
Speaker
What do you put that, I'm assuming that is emblematic of a broader trend. What do you put down that change in mindset from storytelling to something more nebulous? What do you put that down to? I do believe in my heart that writers are well-educated people who are well-read. Storytellers are born. If you can combine the both good writing and storytelling, that's when you get a winning book.
00:11:45
Speaker
And that's probably the rare thing. But the truly rare thing, the truly rare thing is the God given gift of storytelling. You can't pop down to your local store and say, I'll have a packet of best selling pills, please. They don't exist. Well, you mentioned kind of those ingredients to get a winning book.
00:12:08
Speaker
Correct me if I'm wrong, the greatest winner of your career, Cain and Abel, the biggest bestseller to this day. That was published in 1979. As an aside, it's the first book I can remember seeing on my parents' bookshelf as a child. I can still have that image in my mind quite vividly. The first chapter, it starts with a poor Polish boy being born in a forest.
00:12:31
Speaker
And the opening words to the second chapter, William Lowell Kane was born in a hospital that was built by his father. Class is a foundational theme in the book. So I'll pull you away from Poland and the US where the book is, where those two characters are born and pull you back to the UK. What role does class play in UK life today? Very little compared with what it did when I was a child.
00:12:59
Speaker
I repeat, I'm 83, so the listener can get the picture. I was born in 1940, but when I was a young child, there was the aristocracy, the upper class, the upper middle class, the middle class, the lower middle class, the lower class, and the workers. And I'm not exaggerating. Thank God that is gone. We still have snobbery in Britain. We still have people who think they're entitled and superior, but they're far less
00:13:28
Speaker
and they're dying off every day, which is a good thing, because today's modern society, today's modern world, it should be ability that
Reforming the House of Lords and Short Story Craft
00:13:39
Speaker
matters. There's a separate but related question here, and that is on the relevance of the House of Lords in that new environment, of which you are still a member. Do you think the House of Lords still has a place in modern Britain?
00:13:54
Speaker
Yes, but it needs to be cut right back. There are too many. We should first get rid of all the hereditary peers. There are 93 of them. They have no place in a modern chamber, none at all. And we should cut down the remaining 600 or 700 down to about 300. What the House of Lords offers is people who've achieved
00:14:15
Speaker
in their own lifetime, amazing things and can pass that on. They might be great doctors. They might be great teachers. They might be great financiers. They might be great lawyers. And when they speak, you listen because you know they're speaking with massive wisdom and authority.
00:14:33
Speaker
And that is the group I would like to see remain in the House of Commons and continue to scrutinize bills and change even the wording because it's not adequate for what they're attempting to achieve. But overall, the laws is far too big. It is, as you will rightly press me on as an Australian unelected. And that's not a bad thing altogether.
00:15:02
Speaker
But it needs to be the very finest people they can lay their grubby hands on. Yes, it's surprising that I don't think I will push you on it, actually, because I've seen the influence that the rise of the career politician has had on politics in Australia and on politics in the US. And you see the broadly equivalent chamber in Australia being the Senate, I don't think does its job anymore as being a House of Review. It becomes a House of vested interests that just push those vested interests.
00:15:31
Speaker
I think the way that you framed it is spot on. I think there really is still a place for it. We'll go forward. Your first series of short stories, A Quiver Full of Arrows, comes out in 1980. As distinct from a novel, what makes a great short story? You have to accept straight away that the story is only 20 or 30 pages and it will not make a novel. It's a vignette. It's something that happened in someone's life and I get these
00:16:00
Speaker
All the time, people come up and tell me a short story. They tell me about something that's happened in their life. And I listen carefully. And sometimes it's half a story and one can see what one can do with it. But occasionally, because it has been a great incident in their life, it's a whole story. And then I try to write it. I give you the example. I met a young lady, well, she was, yes, I met a young lady 40 years ago.
00:16:30
Speaker
in California, who told me that when she was at the University of Los Angeles in California, she used the thumb lifts back to college because they had no money. Her family had no money. And she was very careful. I said, she was very careful about which car she got into and who would be there. So she wouldn't get in a car with two men. She was much happier if a woman was driving.
00:16:55
Speaker
But this old man was driving, so she got into the car and he drove her. And during the conversation, she discovered he'd also be to the University of Los Angeles. And they discussed what she was doing. Well, she was reading English, so she told him the authors she liked. And she said she was studying Hemingway and Steinbeck and Frost. And she went through the list and asked which one she liked and what she was learning.
00:17:23
Speaker
And for two hours, they discussed these things. And when she reached the front gate of the great university, she got out and she walked round to thank the gentleman who was a ragged and a rough beard before he drove away. And he said, I'm so glad you liked Grapes of Wrath. It took me a long time to write. She'd been in the car with Steinbeck
00:17:51
Speaker
for two to three hours and didn't know she'd been in the car with Steinbeck. That's an example of someone giving you a lovely short story. It's not a novel, Will. It's a short story. Why do you think he never told her his name during that conversation? I have no idea. I will not put the words into Mr. Steinbeck's mouth. A great man and a great writer.
00:18:18
Speaker
Well, that leads me to a question as to who are your great literary heroes? I think unquestionably the man I admire most is Stefan Zweig, an Austrian Jew who was living in Vienna at the time when Hitler came into power, genuinely thought he was going to take over the world, escape to New York.
00:18:44
Speaker
wrote two of the greatest novels I've ever read. I think Beware of Pity is a complete masterpiece. He then went on to Brazil
00:18:53
Speaker
And sadly, he and his wife committed suicide because they were convinced that Hitler was going to take over the world pretty well. So he goes down as the greatest writer storyteller I've ever read. And a people of authority who advise me on this tell me that you like his novels, Jeffrey. His nonfiction is the work of genius because he wrote about Europe at the time of Hitler.
00:19:22
Speaker
And it's truly remarkable. And I can say to anybody, I didn't discover him until the age of 50. So if you're picking him up for the first time, you're about to be thrilled.
Literary Success Across Genres and Storytelling Impact
00:19:34
Speaker
That's a really good tip. It's interesting as well in that you mentioned that he could straddle nonfiction and fiction. A rare combination.
00:19:42
Speaker
It is and I will potentially embarrass you here. I believe you are the only person to sell number one bestsellers across fiction, nonfiction and short story compilations. What does it take to straddle different genres in literature? I think I in some ways got lucky in the sense that I didn't do the other two until I was established.
00:20:05
Speaker
And short stories, it's funny, I have a love of short stories. I have a passion. I think Henry Mopassan, Somerset Maugham, JK and RK Narayan in India, who many people have never heard of, should have won the Nobel Prize. Problem is he was good at plotting.
00:20:29
Speaker
brilliant short story writer. So I've loved short story writers all my life. My mother did and I bought up with a passion for it. So it was natural for me to turn to short stories. And in those days, you know, a short story is not popular nowadays, but four of my sets of short stories went to number one on the Sunday Times best sellers list. I couldn't do that nowadays. They don't want short stories nowadays.
00:20:59
Speaker
This is I struggle with this because I would have thought in today's day and age with social media and lower attention spans, I would have thought the short story is actually very well suited to our times. Yes, you can make general rules like that, which are quite correct. You're 100% right. But then ironically, the public tell you otherwise you can you in the end, I always say you got to trust the public. I don't understand why.
00:21:25
Speaker
I'm still there 45 years later, but I'm very grateful to the public.
00:21:30
Speaker
It's interesting in a different domain, but it reminds me of, uh, of the words of John Howard, Australia's former prime minister who said that the, in the political sphere, the public usually gets it right. It sounds like that's the case in, in literature as well. I think it's actually a shame. I, I, your short story compilations were responsible for giving me a love of, of reading. And I think particularly for younger people, they can be easier to digest. So, so I think it's a tad unfortunate.
00:21:57
Speaker
that they don't have the same currency potential that they once did. There's no greater compliment for someone to say, you gave me a love of reading. There is no greater compliment.
00:22:07
Speaker
I spoke to, uh, someone who was my age and a friend of mine and, uh, and he, and I mentioned that I was speaking to you today and
Political Relationships and Leadership Reflections
00:22:15
Speaker
he said, Oh, well, you've just inspired me to go back and rank my top 10 favorite Jeffrey Archer short stories. He sent me the list. I'll send you the list up to this in an email and you can see if you can agree. But I think the point is, and he's, he's told me he hadn't read those in 15, 20 years, but they stay stayed with him. And I think that goes to show that, that they really do.
00:22:35
Speaker
an impact in, they've had an impact in how people have built up that affection for reading. They are an author to accept because you think you've been put on earth to entertain. You've been put on earth to take a few hours away in a troubled life or whatever it might be. And then someone says, I had an amazing experience in India, Will. I went to the Jaipur festival where 8,500 people came to hear me speak. And that alone was a shock. I'm not a pop star, I'm an author.
00:23:05
Speaker
And they said, what would you like to do now you're in Jaipur? I said, I'd like to visit the palace. I mean, it has such an amazing reputation. I'd like to see Indian art, Indian sculpture. And I was met at the gate by the lady in charge, the sort of director of the palace. And she took me around. Now, I can normally tell in two minutes if someone has read one of my books. Certainly four minutes would be a long time.
00:23:33
Speaker
But after an hour of being shown around the park, I still wasn't sure if this lady had ever read a word I'd written. And we got back to the front gate and she said, I'd like to thank you. And I said, why do you want to thank me? She said, the prodigal daughter, the sequel to Cain and Abel, when I read about Florentina becoming the first woman president of the United States, it made me believe I could do anything.
00:24:01
Speaker
And I am the first woman director of the Jaipur Palace. And I thought that was wonderful because that wasn't why I wrote the book. I wrote the book because I believe in strong women. I wrote the book because I wanted to write about the first woman, having served the first woman prime minister of Great Britain, Margaret Thatcher. I wanted to write a book about the first woman president of the United States, but it had never crossed my mind.
00:24:28
Speaker
that a young woman in India would sit there saying, I can do that. It's a lovely story and it opens the door to a conversation on Thatcher. So you are appointed Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party in 1985, right in the thick of the Thatcher years. How would you describe your personal relationship with Margaret Thatcher and what are your reflections on her today? Well, we were friends and not all politicians are friends.
00:24:55
Speaker
And I had the honor of serving her for 11 years and then considerably longer after she retired and left the House of Commons and went to the House of Lords. There was a lot of reasons for it. My wife is a chemist who taught at Somerville College, Oxford. Margaret Thatcher was a chemist who did her first degree in chemistry at Somerville College, Oxford. So there was not only my love of politics and my wanting to work for her as prime minister,
00:25:25
Speaker
My wife, she had tremendous admiration for Mary. Whenever she came to the house and she used to stay with us once a year at the Old Vicarage, she was off to the hospital, which Mary was chairman of, watching operations. I mean, you couldn't keep the woman still, not a hope. So the answer to your question is, I consider it a great privilege. I did not know at the time, Will,
00:25:49
Speaker
that it might, or how could I, that it might be said 30 years later she was the greatest prime minister of the era. I was working with the person I was working with.
00:26:01
Speaker
And so here we were 30 years later with people stopped me in the street and say, what was it like to work for Margaret? And one of the most successful Americans stopped me the other day and said, I met her once and I truly envy the fact that you were close friends. And I didn't think that. And of course, when she was prime minister, I wasn't a close friend.
00:26:22
Speaker
I was a lowly operagic of no importance. We became close friends after she left number 10. And to try and answer your questions, not a day goes by when people say, my God, I wish she was running the country now. That's a really interesting point. And it's one that I reflect on. You look at the great figures of her era. You look at Reagan, you look at Thatcher, you look at people in Australia like Hawke and Howard.
00:26:51
Speaker
These are substantial political figures. I think it's fair to say in the US, in the UK, in Australia, we don't have that same degree of substance in our leaders. What do you put that down to?
Freedom of Speech and Media Influence
00:27:06
Speaker
You must add Bob Menzies to that list. And Menzies before Thatcher, yes. I was greatly admired in this country by people of my generation as a serious, serious world leader. John Howard, I've known for many years
00:27:21
Speaker
thought he was quite outstanding and had the privilege of many private conversations with him about his country and about mine. He's not to be relied on, Will, when it comes to discussing the Australian cricket team. He's a man of considerable prejudice, with ideas that in my view are slightly, well, slightly bonkers.
00:27:48
Speaker
a privilege to know him and work with him during those years. And Margaret Thatcher greatly admired John Howard. I have a lovely story about him. He came to watch England versus Australia, and I was in the president's box. The Field Marshal, the Lord Bramwell, was chairman that year. And I looked out of the bench and I said, there's the next prime minister of Australia. And the Field Marshal said, which one, Jeffrey, which one?
00:28:15
Speaker
I said, the man in the suit over there, get him up, get him up. And he came up to the box and met Phil Marshall Bramall, a very great fighting soldier, and was in the presidential box. And he's very touching about the fact he never forgot that because he was leader of the opposition at the time. There wasn't any doubt in my mind he was going to be prime minister. And there wasn't any doubt in my mind he'd be a damn good prime minister.
00:28:43
Speaker
And he proved to be, and I know for a fact he's a Spectator Australia subscriber, so I hope he's listening to that. You did mention Menzies, and I overlooked him initially, but it reminded me because I saw only a couple of days ago a tweet of one of his old quotes, and I've sneakily popped it up onto the screen, and I want to read it to you and get your thoughts on it. Now, why is freedom of speech of real importance to humanity?
00:29:10
Speaker
The answer is that what appears to be today's truth is frequently tomorrow's error. There is nothing absolute about the truth. It is elusive. In the old phrase, it lies at the bottom of a deep well. Robert Menzies in 1942. Well, way ahead of his time as always and absolutely 100% accurate. He would have been amused. I'd love to have told him. I never had the honor of meeting him or knowing him. I'd love to have told him that
00:29:38
Speaker
When I was running the party on the ground in one particular by-election, I remember vividly, we had a man who always stood called Screaming Lord Such, who Bob Menzies would have loved him because he was always giving his opinions. And that's what Bob Menzies approved of. You were allowed to give your honor. He always ended up with 500 votes out of 40,000. And he became a much-loved person in Britain because he stood in every seat of Screaming Lord Such.
00:30:07
Speaker
And towards the end of his life, he got me in a bar in a corner and said, I just want to tell you one thing, Jeffrey. When I first walked the streets 30 years ago and you were a young MP, I made 20 statements and everybody laughed at me.
00:30:23
Speaker
Ten of them are now law, he said. So, the government is 100% right. You must let people express their opinion. You don't, of course, want evil people saying evil things. But when there may be members, there may be people listening to this who will remember Wedgwood Ben, who was a cabinet minister when I was a young man. I never agreed with the word he said. But thank God he said it.
00:30:51
Speaker
Do you reflect today on the rise of council culture and the seeming inability of so many people to disagree respectfully in the way that you did? How do you reflect on the way that society seems to be moving away from that men's Ian view of free speech? I hate it. I hate this attitude that if you represent a tiny group of people, you can tell people off and tell them that they're wrong. You can tell us what you think and we can weigh up how we feel.
00:31:19
Speaker
But because you represent a tiny group of people, you can't suddenly say, you're woke, you don't understand, you're a bad person. That's drivel. I'm very happy to listen to any views and weigh them up and discuss them. But I don't want to be shouted at by someone who knows they're always right and I'm always wrong.
00:31:42
Speaker
Let's move forward in time once again to 1996. Fourth Estate is published. It's based on Robert Maxwell and Rupert Murdoch. Rupert Murdoch has coincidentally handed over the keys to his empire only in the last few weeks. How would you describe Rupert Murdoch's legacy and what is he like as a man? I think he's among the best company I've ever known in my life.
00:32:06
Speaker
We breakfast from time to time, we're old friends, and I'm a huge, huge admirer. Obviously, I don't always agree with everything he says, but you'll be blooming foolish not to listen to what he says. He's now a man of great wisdom and great authority. In fact, he was telling me at our last breakfast a few weeks ago that he's looking at Governor Yooking
00:32:29
Speaker
in the United States as a future president. He'd already dismissed both Biden and Trump as serious candidates. He accepted they were likely to be the candidates. He accepted that one of them was likely to end up as president of the United States. But this 92-year-old man was telling me I should be looking at someone else. And I told him,
00:32:55
Speaker
that he should be looking at the young lady who was ambassador to the United Nations and a governor of her own state. Nikki Hailey, yeah.
00:33:05
Speaker
Yes, I think she might be the shock because if something happened to Trump that made it impossible for him to stand as president to the United States, it seems to be damned unlikely. I think she might come through the middle because Biden wouldn't want to stand against her. Biden wants to stand against Trump. Interesting. And in the first two Republican primary debates, she has been the big mover and has been very impressive in both. I like to believe it's on the record.
00:33:35
Speaker
that I spotted her a year ago and thought, I hope to God you stand for the presidency. You mentioned Murdoch as a man. And I think that's fascinating because I haven't really heard many personal stories about Rupert Murdoch, but how would you describe his legacy in media and his impact on media and journalism?
The Clifton Chronicles and Writing Craft
00:33:52
Speaker
We have in this country, the times and Sunday times that are probably our two best newspapers. They are both losing money.
00:34:03
Speaker
At his height as a young man in his forties, they were making a packet of money, and he was considered the great publisher of newspapers. They are now losing a fortune. Has he ditched them? Has he thrown them away? No. His love of the printed word is still slightly out of proportion to common sense, but he allows the Times and Times and Sunny Times to go on, and they're still, in my view,
00:34:33
Speaker
the best two newspapers in Great Britain, and we have him to thank for that. I was listening to a podcast about a month ago. The guest was Michael Wolff, certainly not a fan of Murdoch and the biographer of Murdoch, but not a fan. But he talked about watching Rupert Murdoch read a newspaper, and he said that the way Rupert turns the page and handles a newspaper almost with this reverence, it is almost like a spiritual experience for him. I found that quite illuminating into the passion that he has for his trade.
00:35:02
Speaker
I think that's believable. Let's go forward again. 2001, you are sentenced to four years imprisonment for perjury and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. During your time in prison, you write three volumes of prison diaries. I recall reading them when I was in my teens. What did you learn from those two years in prison? Well, how incredibly privileged I was, how incredibly lucky I was to have led such a charmed life.
00:35:27
Speaker
And most of all, the shock has been I thought I wrote while I was there because I wanted to get it out of my system. I wanted something to do. It's such a boring existence. So I wrote every day. The shock for me, well, is here we are 24 years later.
00:35:48
Speaker
And the books are still selling. I'm still getting letters every week about how they love them. I thought they'd die a natural death in two or three years. But no, the public haven't let them go. Why do you think that's the case? I think they're fascinated to see someone who was well educated and capable with words, but not much else survive in that existence. I've had many highly intelligent men and women saying,
00:36:15
Speaker
In a way, I'd like to have done that, had that experience. I'd like to have seen how I would have reacted to that experience. And indeed, it spawned four novels straight afterwards. I'm in Prisoner of Birth. They all said what they didn't. Some people said I was finished. My next novel afterwards went straight to number one.
00:36:36
Speaker
It gets me thinking, the instinct that you obviously have to constantly be looking for stories, for ideas, for little kernels to then turn into a short story or a book, how much of that do you think is just a natural instinct and how much are you constantly doing it day in, day out? I just do it day in, day out. My wife was criticizing me yesterday when we were in a restaurant and I said, there was a woman with two men and I said, which one is she?
00:37:05
Speaker
How can you tell? I said, watch carefully, watch carefully. And she watched and she still couldn't because that's why she's a scientist. And I'm a novelist. I worked out which one she was sleeping with and I worked out their relationship. But I do that all the time. I can't stop doing. I'm fascinated by people. I had a man visit me this morning who put a book into a publisher and they stole it. And he was telling me about how he'd given them the idea and never heard from them again. And then he saw it on in the bookshop.
00:37:35
Speaker
And I was appalled, absolutely appalled. And he came to me and he's got a new idea. And he's very frightened of it being stolen, which is understandable. But when I got on to questioning him about his life, his life was fascinating. He's got a child, a young child, who from a one night stand,
00:37:55
Speaker
And he's taking care of that child and determined it would be properly educated. So there are things going on in people's lives in the background that you don't see when you just pass them in the street. And you're quite right. Well, I desperately try to discover as much as I can because people are fascinating. And if you can get that into a book, if you can reveal it, they know it's true. Jeffrey experienced that.
00:38:24
Speaker
This is really interesting. We had a conversation with God Saad a couple of weeks ago, and he talked about the power of curiosity as a way of deriving what he does day in, day out as a writer and a professor. Obviously, this is a natural instinct for you. Are there any practical ways that people can go about cultivating curiosity? I never heard that. It's a fascinating question. Actually,
00:38:54
Speaker
working on curiosity. I think probably not, Will. You'll either have it in you to want to know what those two are doing in the corner. I notice people who just walk by you and don't look at all. The house can be on fire. They just walk by and don't notice at all. And those who are curious about the slightest thing. No, I suspect curiosity is in fact
00:39:17
Speaker
part of your makeup or not part of your makeup. But it's useful if you want to be a writer.
00:39:24
Speaker
Yeah, it's interesting. I tend to think that it is probably overwhelmingly part of your makeup, but I think that there are little routines you can do. I'm living in New York at the moment, and I realized for the first three months I was there, I'd have a podcast in my ears. I'd be looking straight ahead. And it only occurred to me after about three months that I never really look up when I'm walking down the street. I never really look in New York. And you then really quickly realize that a lot of the action and a lot of the interest in the architecture
00:39:52
Speaker
And but in order to make that a habit, I now have to forcefully tell myself, look up, look around, look left, look right. It's a small example, but I think that there may be some little routines and habits you can instill, which may at least make you more aware of your surroundings, which may make you more open to curiosity as a thought. But when you're writing about such an experience, Will, and I can see you walking down 5th Avenue, a good writer will capture that.
00:40:21
Speaker
And without spelling it out, more people look up than straight or down. You slip it in, and then the people who know New York nod. It's what's called a nodder. I had the great privilege as a young man of being edited by the legendary Corley Smith, who edited J.D. Salinger, and he edited Cain and Abel. It was a great honor that I could have such a giant editing my book. And he used to call those nodders when you
00:40:51
Speaker
tell someone something they already know, you've slipped it in, and they nod while they turn the page. I really like that. We'll move forward again. When you were 70 years old in 2010, you said you wanted something to drive you. The result, and sorry, and you said that you realised that writing a series of books would keep you working flat out for at least five years. The result was the Clipton Chronicles, and I found that little
00:41:20
Speaker
line and interesting insight into your mindset. How do you think about aging? How do you think about? I'm 83. At 70, you're quite right. I've stood up and asked our Lord if he'd be kind enough to allow me to write three books called the Clifton Chronicles. And I said, oh, I went back to my publisher and they did five books. And there were only 50 by the time I died. So I had to go on. In the end, it was seven books. And I think the shop there,
00:41:48
Speaker
The shock there, Will, was the success. I mean, five number ones on the New York Times. I mean, it just was a shock. I was just enjoying myself. I was really doing my life story in a different form and bringing in everyone I knew. It came as a shock that the whole world would enjoy that the Germans had three in the top 15 at the same time. Maybe I'm a German underneath.
00:42:11
Speaker
I think that little tidbit there is very interesting that you were doing your life story in a different way. Is this the first time you've consciously drawn on your prison chronicles aside? First time you're constantly drawing your life in that way for a novel? No. Every author. Have you written a novel well? I haven't, no. If you were to write a novel and anyone listening to this, I will say to you, stick to what you know about.
00:42:37
Speaker
The best novels, if you look at Jane Austen, if you look at Charles Dickens, if you look at the great novelists, they write about what they see in front of them and what they've witnessed and what they live with. Don't write a ghost story because you think they're in fashion. Don't write about sex because they think that's what they all want. Don't do violence because it's part. Write the book you want to write. If the public enjoy it, they will buy it. The public will decide.
00:43:06
Speaker
We reach 2023. Your new book, Traitor's Gate is part six in yet another series that keeps you flat out working, no doubt. The William Warwick series. How, and we touched on this before, but I want to maybe go a tad deeper. How has your writing style evolved since not a penny more, not a penny less? I think I'm a better craftsman. I think I obviously have more experience and therefore don't take quite the same amount of time doing everything.
00:43:34
Speaker
But I'm no better storyteller. You're either a storyteller at the beginning or you're not. And in the case of the Clifton Chronicle, which are all individual books, yes, they are a series about a man who starts
00:43:44
Speaker
as a constable on the beat in the Metropolitan Police in London, and goes right, if I live long enough, goes right the way through to becoming Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. And in the latest book, he's a superintendent. He's just becoming, at the end of the book, a chief superintendent. And the story came in the weirdest way. I'd been locked up like everyone else for two years because of COVID. And when Mary and I finally escaped, we were invited on to
00:44:09
Speaker
a ship going around the British Isles, one of the Viking cruisers. And I sat next to a man who said, I can tell you your next story. I usually say to them, have you murdered your wife? And so far, I haven't had a yes on that. And he said, no, but I can tell you how to steal the crown jewels. And I thought, oh, everybody knows that the crown jewels
00:44:33
Speaker
were stolen only once in 1671 by Colonel Blood. He was caught when he was in the tower. I'm on the soup course and I'm stuck nestling here. He then went on and told me in two minutes, and it may have been three, how to steal the crown jewels. I didn't sleep that night. By the time we got back to Southampton, I'd written a 50-page outline. I realized the research would be the most demanding I'd ever done in my life, but if I could get it right, it would be for me
00:45:03
Speaker
That was such an exciting book. And I can tell you, because I've only just come on this program, the figures came out a few hours ago. My sales are up 30%. So it's clearly the public wanting to know how to steal the crown jewel. And no doubt a few more after this interview. My final question, I deliberately skip past
00:45:26
Speaker
You're meeting Mary at Oxford in 1966. You've been married now for 53 years? 57 years. 57, sorry. God help her. Love has been a theme of your books and your short stories as it is with all great authors. How do you reflect on love at the age of 83 and then, I guess, separately but related?
Themes of Love and Personal Reflections
00:45:48
Speaker
What is the secret to an enduring marriage?
00:45:51
Speaker
Well, I think I've been very, very fortunate. I've known friends who have gone through divorce. Of course I have. And I've seen marriages that didn't work. Of course I have. So it's a heck of a gamble at the age of 25, Mary was 21, to say you will spend the rest of your life together. I've been incredibly lucky. I married not only the most beautiful woman of her generation, but arguably the cleverest woman of her generation, of which
00:46:17
Speaker
Dorothy Hodgkin, the Nobel Prize winner, said, I've only taught two clever women in my lifetime, and one of them is Mary Archer. She, of course, went on to be the first woman on Roids of London, the first woman at Trinity Cambridge, the first woman to chair a national gallery or museum. It's been an amazing career, and the Queen made her a dame. It's been wonderful and a great privilege.
00:46:41
Speaker
to be with such a remarkable person. I learn every day. I think if you stop learning, if you stop enjoying the company of the other human being in your life, you want to go. There's nothing there, is there? But I enjoy her company every single day and it's a very, very privilege. We've been married for 57 years and she says I'm her trainer husband
00:47:05
Speaker
because we met someone the other day who'd been married for 10 years and then married again. And he said rather casually, yes, that was my trainer wife. So Mary decided I'm her trainer husband. He's out there looking for the real thing, but I'm not going to let her go.
00:47:19
Speaker
No, I've got no doubt that you will not let her go. And there were lovely sentiments to end on there, Jeffrey. I really appreciate you sharing that. I mentioned at the start of the podcast that your books currently have sold somewhere around 275 million copies. No doubt after this interview, we'll get that past 300 million. I hope you will, otherwise what's the point of you?
00:47:38
Speaker
Exactly right. I almost don't need to say this. I'll say it anyway. Go out, get the entire William Warwick series. But I would also suggest again to young readers who haven't had the thrill of a Jeffrey Archer short story, I would actually make that your first priority. Jeffrey, this has been an absolute pleasure. Thank you for coming on, Australiana. Thank you very much. It's been a privilege for me. It's nice to work with someone who does his research, reads the books and knows which questions to ask. Doesn't always happen, Will.
00:48:07
Speaker
Thank you very much for listening to this episode of Australiana. If you enjoyed the show, please leave us a rating and a review. And if you really enjoyed the show, head to spectator.com.au forward slash join. Sign up for a digital subscription today and you'll get your first month absolutely free.