Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
After Dark: Elections in John Buchan with Ursula Buchan
18 Plays9 days ago
In this After Dark special, host John Ault speaks with Ursula Buchan, granddaughter of novelist John Buchan and author of the definitive biography Beyond the 39 Steps, about how elections shaped her grandfather's fiction. Before becoming famous for his spy thrillers, Buchan spent years as the prospective Conservative and Unionist candidate for Peebles and Selkirk, visiting every farmstead in the Scottish Borders and attending hundreds of village political meetings—experiences he would mine for his novels.
The conversation explores the most famous election scene in British fiction: Richard Hannay's impromptu speech in The 39 Steps, where an innocent man on the run gets dragged onto a political platform and must improvise a rousing address. Ursula explains how Buchan used this device to satirise the Liberal candidate "Sir Harry" spouting aspirational nonsense about the German menace while Hannay knows there's a real spy ring operating—Buchan's way of suggesting Liberals were dangerously unworldly about what was coming in 1914.
But The 39 Steps isn't Buchan's only election novel. In John McNab, three eminent men behaving badly hide out during a poaching adventure while attending a political meeting in a Masonic Hall packed with 2,000 people—where Buchan skewers both the witless Duke who introduces the speakers and the cabinet minister who spouts the same platitudes he's said a hundred times before. In Castle Gay, published in 1933, Buchan explores the rising threats of communism and fascism through another by-election, having recognised that these movements could manipulate "the plain man who now has a vote."
Ursula reveals how Buchan understood media power long before most—writing press communiques from GHQ under Field Marshal Haig, serving as Lloyd George's Director of Information, and overseeing propaganda films including The Battle of the Somme. When Hitchcock adapted The 39 Steps in 1935, Buchan famously told British Gaumont directors it was "much better than the book"—understanding that film was a different medium requiring different storytelling, and that media could be harnessed for good or corrupted for ill. From political humbug to the power of newspapers, this episode explores how a man who never actually fought a general election became one of the great chroniclers of British democracy in fiction.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to 'The 39 Steps' and John Buchan
00:00:01
Speaker
The After Dark episode for the Observations Podcast is heading back to one of the great classics of British literature and cinema, John Buchan's The 39 Steps.
Interview with Ursula Buchan: Exploring John Buchan's Legacy
00:00:13
Speaker
Our team is joined by Ursula Buchan, granddaughter of the author himself.
Richard Hannay's Political Escapades: Improvisation and Strategy
00:00:19
Speaker
Richard Hannay, an innocent man on the run, framed for murder, finds himself hustled onto the stage at a political rally.
00:00:30
Speaker
he's forced to improvise a rousing address. What starts as a desperate bid to avoid capture becomes something more.
00:00:43
Speaker
But this isn't Buchan's only delve into elections in his books. He also writes about elections in his other novels, John McNabb, and The Background of Castle Gay is an election in Scotland.
Political Themes in Buchan's Work: Satire and Critique
00:01:02
Speaker
The Adventure of the Radical Candidate
00:01:07
Speaker
On meeting the local Liberal candidate, having been run off the road in error in a car he had recently acquired, Hanne was bustled into the candidate's car, who was worrying about the loss of his real guest speaker to influenza, and was stuck in Blackpool, not where he should be, in the Scottish borders, at the local election meeting.
00:01:29
Speaker
Buchan described the scene. The hall had about 500 in it. Women, mostly. A lot of bald heads. And a dozen or two young men.
00:01:40
Speaker
The chairman, a weasley minister with a reddish nose, lamented Crumpleton's absence, soliloquized on his influenza, and gave me a certificate as a trusted leader of Australian thought.
00:01:55
Speaker
There were two policemen at the door. And I hoped they took note of that testimonial. Then Sir Harry, the candidate, started. i never heard anything like it.
00:02:06
Speaker
He didn't begin to know how to talk. He had about a bushel of notes from which he read, and when he let go of them, he fell into one prolonged stutter.
00:02:18
Speaker
Every now and then he remembered a phrase he had learned by heart, straightened his back, and gave it off like Henry Irving. And the next moment he was bent double and crooning over his papers.
00:02:31
Speaker
It was the most appalling rot, too. He talked about the German menace and said it was all a Tory invention to cheat the poor of their rights and keep back the great flood of social reform.
00:02:47
Speaker
But that organized labor realized this and laughed the Tories to scorn. It was all for reducing our navy as a proof of our good faith and then sending Germany an ultimatum, telling her to do the same or we would knock her into a cocked hut.
00:03:06
Speaker
He said that but for the Tories, Germany and Britain would be fellow workers in peace and reform. I thought of the little black book in my pocket. A giddy lot Scudder's friends cared for peace and reform.
Public Speaking and Oratory in 'The 39 Steps'
00:03:20
Speaker
Yet in a queer way, liked speech. You could see the niceness of the chap shining out behind the muck with which he had been spoon-fed. Also, it took a load off my mind.
00:03:33
Speaker
I mightn't be much of an orator, but I was a thousand percent better than Sir Harry. I didn't get on so badly when it came to my turn. I simply told them all I could remember about Australia.
00:03:46
Speaker
praying there should be no Australian there. All about its Labour Party and emigration and universal service. I doubt if I remembered to mention free trade, but I said there were no Tories in Australia, only Labour and Liberals.
00:04:02
Speaker
That fetched a cheer, and I woke them up a bit when I started in to tell them the kind of glorious business I thought could be made out of the Empire if we really put our backs into it.
00:04:14
Speaker
Altogether, i fancy I was rather a success. The minister didn't like me, though, and when he proposed a vote of thanks, spoke of Sir Harry's speech as statesmanlike, and mine as having the eloquence of an emigration agent.
00:04:30
Speaker
When we were in the car again, my host was in wild spirits at having got his job over. A ripping speech, Twisden, he said. Now you're coming home with me. I'm all alone, and if you'll stop a day or two, I'll show you some very decent fishing.
00:04:52
Speaker
Our team is joined by Ursula Buchan, granddaughter of the author himself.
Ursula Buchan's Biography: A Critical Success
00:05:06
Speaker
Hello, I'm John Ault and I'm the Director of Democracy Volunteers and today we've got a guest, Ursula Buchan. She is the granddaughter of John Buchan, the famous author who famously wrote The 39 Steps and other books about Richard Hanna and other ah best-selling novels in the nineteen twenty s and 30s. Ursula is an award-winning journalist, an author whose biography of a grandfather known as Beyond the 39 Steps was a critical success and has been described as definitive by ah critics.
00:05:36
Speaker
She's recently contributed to a collection of essays to mark the 150th anniversary of the birth of the author, which is then entitled John Buchan Reconsidered. She lives in Northamptonshire with her husband, who was a retired Old Bailey judge, and importantly, with two spaniels.
00:05:51
Speaker
Ursula, lovely to meet you, and thanks for joining us on the After Dark series for the Observations podcast. Now, as you know, our podcast is all about elections, and um And we've got lots of elections in John Buchan's books.
John Buchan's Political Experiences
00:06:05
Speaker
Why do you think that is? ah Well, I think it may have a lot to do with the fact that he mined his his life and his experience tremendously for his fiction, as as you as you'd expect novelists to do, except that they turn it into something rather different often. But the you know the the basic fact was that in April 1911, he became the prospective Conservative and Unionist candidate for Peebles and Selkirk in the borders of Scotland.
00:06:35
Speaker
And from then until the Great War, when obviously all all politicking stopped, he was extremely busy. i mean, he literally visited every farmstead in in the constituency, which was very big, Peebles and Selka. Yes. of the borders, he and his wife, where they would go and stay up there because he's his parents lived in Peebles. And they would literally visit every every house. And i think twice, actually, they did. And also um attend...
00:07:13
Speaker
dozens, hundreds of local political meetings, you know, in village homes. And you you put your finger on there, haven't you, about why we've started this conversation today. Because The 39 Steps is is, let's be honest, the most famous book that Bookin wrote.
Film Adaptations and Their Political Context
00:07:29
Speaker
It's the one that everyone's heard of. There's been films. it's even as that sick thing you say in your book it's even a bingo call um as part of of yeah 39 all the steps yes yes it's a long time since i've been to a bingo hall but i certainly remember two fat ladies and so on but 39 being the steps um and obviously in that perhaps people don't remember but anyone that's seen the films you know the donut 30s version there's so on there's always that section isn't there in the film where he gets dragged onto the political stage
00:08:01
Speaker
Why do you think Booker uses that as a sort of way of engaging the audience in something which these days might seem rather strange? Well, I don't think it would have felt strange those days. i mean, 39 Steps was written just after the start of the Great War, and between August and October 1914.
00:08:23
Speaker
So ah it was all terribly fresh in his mind. he spent the last three years ah doing it. it every every Every spare weekend or holiday they would spend in the borders, because they lived in London at the time. Mm-hmm.
00:08:36
Speaker
um And um though he also he worked for an Edinburgh publisher called Thomas Nelson and Sons. So he he was often in Scotland. but Even so, all their leisure time was was taken up with ah trying to turn the the liberal borders. Yeah. Blue, really. um and And so it was terribly in in his... There were so many incidents in these in these meetings that he wanted to just express express a love for the borders, I think, and admiration for the people who came to these meetings. It's very, very popular. I mean, we've probably forgotten this now. but But But pre-radio and television, this is how ordinary voters and people who couldn't vote because a lot of women went to his meetings, this is how they they got to know their their their potential MPs.
00:09:38
Speaker
um So people flocked. I mean, I think in John McNabb, which has this ah great political meeting in it, which was published in 1925, but written in 23 and 24. You know, the the Masonic Hall has ah holds 2,000 people and it was full.
00:09:58
Speaker
And I think we've we've lost that sense probably of this was this was democracy in action, right? And in the in the case of all the women, and I think it's mentioned in the 39 steps, he says, you know, there are a lot of women there.
00:10:12
Speaker
These were people who who were frustrated because they couldn't vote. And as we know, there were far more suffragists than there were suffragettes. I mean, 20 times as many. yeah And they would have you know they would have been in in you know local suffragist organisations. They wanted to know what was going on. And they also wanted to know what would happen when when they would get the vote. So yeah i think I think political consciousness was really, really quite high amongst what they would have called ordinary people.
The Role of Oratory in Politics and Entertainment
00:10:47
Speaker
And this was the opportunity for, you know, these smart politicians come down from London or out from London and and and for them to see them and hear them and also heckle them.
00:10:59
Speaker
I mean, heckling was ah was ah was a ah national sport before the Great War. You heckling. And John Buckingham always said that that his own supporters were something that, you know, they could they could absolutely get him to a standstill. They were so clever at it. It was fun. It was entertainment as well.
00:11:21
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's the thing that most people don't realise. These days, you look at it on your phone or the or the internet. I mean, very few people actually read a newspaper these days physically, do they? um But one of the things I always think is very interesting about public meetings is it's actually, unfortunately for the politicians, a real chance for the public to have an opinion as much as for them to state their opinions.
00:11:40
Speaker
And that is something that's been lost from our political process these days, perhaps, you know, unsurprisingly. So let's let's start with the 39 Steps, because I'm glad you mentioned a few of the books there, and um I think we'll come on to things like Castlegay and so on shortly.
00:11:53
Speaker
But in terms of the 39 Steps, why do you think the device of the speech in the book and the films is one where he essentially gets to um berate both politicians but also the people who've been chasing around the borders of Scotland all the way from London. Why do you think it's used as a device in that way?
00:12:15
Speaker
um Well, there's a third reason too, I think, which is that um it's it it's it's a crowd. And the question is, can he get away from this crowd and so unscathed? So there's a lot of sort of um jeopardy in a political meeting for for those three reasons. I mean, i think I think one, he was just enjoying just sort of recounting how it was. um but But also, um with all John Buchan, however lighthearted it seems, however frothy, however much on the surface, there is always something going on beneath.
00:12:57
Speaker
And I think that in the 39 steps, there is a frustration there with the Liberals. and And I'm sure you're your viewers and and listeners will will know a great deal about the the history of of political parties before the First World War. But in
Buchan's Critique of Political Parties
00:13:15
Speaker
particular, in Scotland, the Liberals, it was almost like a religion.
00:13:19
Speaker
You know, Gladstone would turn up and speak and people would almost... loath and come The Midlothian campaign, famously, yeah. Exactly. and And I think that so being a conservative unionist, but a conservative free trader, so quite an unusual animal, political animal, um to be in the borders and and come up against this sort of...
00:13:44
Speaker
blind, really, attachment to the Liberal Party. um i think he wanted to I think he wanted to have a bit of a go at them, and a you know. and And there's that bit when Hanni says, you know, um about the Liberal... Yes, there's Sir Harry, the radical candidate, as he calls him, a radical equaling Liberal in in this context. and sir harry spouts a whole not lot of absolutely aspirational nonsense doesn't he he talked about the german menace and said it was all a tory invention to cheat the poor of their rights and keep back the great flood of social reform but that organised labour realised this and laughed the tories to scorn
00:14:28
Speaker
he was all for reducing our navy as a proof of our good faith and then sending germany an ultimatum telling her to do the same or we would knock her into a cocked hat he said that but for the tories germany and britain would be fellow workers in peace and reform And then he goes on to say, you know, the Blackstone, who are this German spying gang, you know, small interest they had in peace and reform. So Hanni knows something that the the the rather sort of dim, but amiable liberal candidate hasn't realised is that there's something really deep going on here and it's very dangerous. um And so so you've always got to remember there is a fictional
00:15:15
Speaker
ah aspect to all of this, but he is also saying that the Liberals, you know, plus a chance, really. they They can be... I'm saying nothing. They can be, you know, very aspirational, but actually bit unworldly in a funny sort of way. that they didn't that he What he's saying is that Liberals didn't know what was coming down the track at at them. That is one of those historical sort of discussion points, isn't it? The sort of sleepwalking into war in 1914 is something that's often talked about.
00:15:45
Speaker
um because obviously there's this perception, isn't there? It was the sort the great and the good. It was the the cousins across Europe who were at war. But actually, it came came down to quite small things.
00:15:56
Speaker
um And I suppose that's my question about, but my final question about the 39 steps before we go on to other elections, because I think it's always, I think the elections are, are quite interesting, the ones he picks to to talk about.
00:16:08
Speaker
But in the 39 steps, he obviously talks about political humbug and and candidates basically saying what they think try and get elected. It does sound, without wanting to be political, slightly, it has murmurs these days, do you think?
00:16:24
Speaker
Or is there anything normal for politicians to spout humbug? um Yeah, I think so. At times of elections, anyway. um and And not always and not everybody. but But yes, I mean, there's a very good, and we haven't got on to John McNabb yet, but there's there's a wonderful description of the cabinet minister, Lord La Mancha, who is actually in on this poaching wheeze, you know, say so there's a lot of jeopardy for him. um But he gets up and he he spouts all the things that he's sort of expected to say. And he said it 100 times before and he'll say it 100 times again. and and and people clap him really because they're, you know, they admire the sort of facility
00:17:10
Speaker
rather than really, really engaging with what he's saying. and And I think there's a lot of that at election time. You've said it all before, you'll say it all again, ah and it's really a matter of how how facile, how how clever you can be in in hiding the fact that you've said it all before and yeah yeah and you're not really engaged with it. um so i That's what Hannay says. Hannay says that. Essentially, he says...
00:17:38
Speaker
Just because um the speech says, I really don't think it matters what they say, it's how they say it. it The fact that he's delivering a speech was essentially is completely made up, is more evocative, more engaging to the people in the hall...
00:17:55
Speaker
than the formulaic things that the politicians say. Do you think that's true? ah Well, yes, I do. and And it's weird, isn't it? He's ah he's a Scot of of a so who's lived in south or southern Africa and he pretends to be an Australian colonial.
00:18:13
Speaker
yeah know So he really doesn't know what the Australians think. but But that's that's a sort of that's to to point up the contrast between what he's saying and how he's saying it. And I think probably Buckingham may be, wouldn't put it higher than that, may be saying something about the way that the masses um can can be a bit manipulated by the by the quality the of of of the of the orations, as it were. um And, um I mean, once once we've got through the Great War, the the the real anxiety is Bolshevism.
00:18:54
Speaker
And I think he's then concerned about you know, how how you fend that off when they can sometimes be so alluring, you know, the the um and persuasive.
00:19:10
Speaker
um So, you know, there there is something below going on um and that Buckingham is saying about politics, both pre and post-war, but the ordinary, not the ordinary, the casual reader doesn't need to pick up on it.
Intertwining Fiction and Politics: 'John McNabb' and Beyond
00:19:30
Speaker
I mean, you do have to dig down. You mentioned John McNabb. Obviously, I think everyone listening to this will know John Buck and 39 Steps. deal The other books are less well known.
00:19:42
Speaker
Tell us about John McNabb and how he engages elections in that book. Well, John McNabb is about three senior people. yeah you really ought The subtitle really ought to be eminent men behaving badly.
00:19:57
Speaker
they They discover from each other that they're bored. i mean, they're very capable, competent people. And JB didn't, sorry, we all call him, and all that his descendants call him JB.
00:20:11
Speaker
ah but but He didn't worship success, but he did like competence. And these are really competent people. You've got Sir Edward Leithon, who's been attorney general and is a senior barrister and an MP. There's Lord Le Mancho, who's a cabinet minister, also from the borders.
00:20:29
Speaker
And there's a chap called John Palliser Yates, who's a a senior banker. So these are these are people who, inverted commas, matter. And they hear about a poaching plot that a larger-than-life character in the book called Jim Terrace, but named after a chap called Captain James Branda Dunbar, who in the 1880s had sent out a poaching um sort of challenge to a a landowner in the Highlands and and poached a stag.
00:21:03
Speaker
And he won... 20 pounds of for for doing this. Real money in those days. Yes, exactly. And they they they and so JB must have heard this. he he He was a very keen fisherman and a very keen stalker.
00:21:18
Speaker
um ah He must have heard this story. And so they they they they decide to send out a challenge to three Scottish estates.
00:21:30
Speaker
they're all close together, that they will catch a salmon and and poach two stags, kill two stags in the course of a period of about 10 days. And so um the the landowners can now you know can obviously yeah work against them to try and stop them doing it. And if they win, they will give a lot of money away and um and all that sort of thing. So it's ah it's a gentleman's challenge. Yeah.
00:21:58
Speaker
But they're facilitated by a character that comes that first comes in Mr. Stanfoss, which is the last of the Great War novels, ah called Sir Archie Roilands, who has a small estate between the other three estates, and they they hide with him.
00:22:14
Speaker
and ah But it's very difficult and embarrassing for him because he's a prospective political candidate. ah a unionist, a conservative, ah a Russia seat, which is not explained. And so he has this big political meeting in the middle of this sort of poaching sort of chaos. And Lord La Mancha is the cabinet minister who's also speaking at this political meeting. And um John McNabb is a comedy. is a comedy And so J.B. uses his experiences of political meetings to make a very, very funny um account of Roilance, who gets terrible stage fright, and Lord La Mancha, who spouts the platitudes that he's expected to to spout. um Anyway, they they don't succeed entirely in their in their poaching, but it's ah um and it doesn't turn out in the end to be...
00:23:14
Speaker
very, very dangerous for them because when the landowners discover who they are, um they all know them or know of them. And so they wouldn't ever give them away. So, it's ah I mean, it's it's not a dangerous um ah exploit after all they discover. But there were wonderful descriptions of the Haydn landscape and weather, which all the things that Buckingham was really good at. And also um it it sorts out their boredom, their ennui. Actually, they want to go back to London and take up their career. So, I mean, it's still one of the most popular of the John Buchan books.
00:23:53
Speaker
Because it's got such a joie de vivre about it. But this political meeting is is very crucial for the development of of our understanding of Roiland's character, but also ah just how ridiculous these meetings could be. And it's it's introduced by the Duke of Angus.
00:24:13
Speaker
And you think, oh you know, John Buchan's going to say some very nice things about Angus. But he turns out to be completely witless. And and I think I just really wouldn't give him the thistle because he worried he would eat it.
00:24:28
Speaker
you know so so so um So, again, ah what you have to understand about John Buckingham, he's quite a subversive writer. And you think know it's all going to be sort of fawning about the Highland Laird and all the rest. But actually, it's not. It's about the challenges that everybody has to face. And that they they can't just have property and hold on to it and think it's, you know, and the politics that goes with having the property. After the Great War, they have to face the challenges of the future.
00:25:01
Speaker
And Sir Archie is given a lecture by his soon-to-be fiancé about this just before the political meeting. And so what comes out is actually an almost a sort of Bolshevik um explanation of the importance of of rising to to to to future challenges, and that and in particular that, you know, nebless oblige will only get you so far. So um so there is an an undercurrent of that.
00:25:33
Speaker
And, of course, because he spent so much time on holidays in the and with his wife in in the Highlands, he knew what was already happening there, ah had been happening for a long time, actually, the the the cultural changes and the and um that were happening as a result of...
00:25:51
Speaker
of, well, all sorts of all sorts of things, but the Great War particularly. We'll come on to communists bit, because I'm conscious communists appear in Castle Gay, I think, don't they? They do, they do. You'll remind me about the thistle. um I'm pretty sure, ah thinking back to, I think, yes, Prime Minister, I think Bernard asks, um Jim Hacker asks Bernard, how is the thistle awarded?
00:26:15
Speaker
um And he says, oh, a committee sits on it. and Which is obviously a sort of derivation of the same joke, isn't it? really yeah Absolutely. um Absolutely. um So now in the powerhouse, am I right to say that Sir Edward Lethon got in by accident by a by-election? Because I'm conscious that...
00:26:39
Speaker
Buckingham doesn't just write about elections and public meetings. He seems almost captivated by the by-election, that sort of election in
By-elections and Political Dynamics in Buchan's Work
00:26:47
Speaker
microcosm. I think one is mentioned in that book very briefly.
00:26:51
Speaker
but there's also the entire election in Castlegay is all about a by-election. But i think there's even in The Three Fishers, am I right? There's talk of an election in a Scottish borough in the 1810s or something like that. So he seems captivated by by-elections. Obviously, we've just done a series about by-elections.
00:27:09
Speaker
but As if so general elections are a bit sort of everyone, whereas these are quite focused. All the journalists come up from London and it' great... I think the by-election is a fictional um device because it draws it draws people in. In a way, a general election is much more diffuse.
00:27:27
Speaker
and and then i And I don't think there are any general elections in in John Buchan. um There are political meetings ah because people had to either nurse a constituency they have had or try to persuade people to to change at the next election. And, of course...
00:27:46
Speaker
What you need to know about John Buchan is he never actually fought a general election because in 1914, Great War, August 1914, all that sort of thing was stopped and he would not...
00:28:05
Speaker
He would not fight the 19... He wouldn't take the coup on, would Yes. He would not take the coup on, which I think was an act of sort of courage, really, because he might possibly have got in. mean, it was very liberal constituency. And in 1927...
00:28:25
Speaker
I suppose um it wasn't even really a by-election. he he um ah One of the members, the members of the um for the Scottish universities, I think... Yeah, the combined universities, yeah....died, Sir Henry Craig, and so he was invited to be the candidate, and all he had to do was write and um an election manifesto, really, which was sent out to all the...
00:28:53
Speaker
all the alumni of the four yeah universities. And that, I don't believe, went until 1948, did it? They certainly lasted a lot longer than that, yes. Yes, yeah. But certainly in 19... There was London as well. There was the Oxford and Cambridges, but London had them as well, yeah. yeah and well Well, quite. And so people would expect to have two votes, one in their own constituency and one of them from their university.
00:29:17
Speaker
um But, of course, um that was a great advantage for him because... By that time, he was not well. Well, he hadn't been well since before the Great War. dueo de alullcers That's what sent him to bed um in August when he wrote the thirty nine steps um So actually, electioneering, he found really quite hard.
00:29:41
Speaker
um so he was grateful only to have to write. But it also meant it made him a rather different kind of politician. yeah He was never very partisan.
00:29:52
Speaker
And in fact, when he said he wanted to go into politics, um a lot of his friends weren't quite sure which party he was going to. Like Tony Blair, i I believe there is a story, isn't there, that people asked him when he said he was going to go into politics, which party he was planning to stand for.
00:30:11
Speaker
I don't know if that's if that's true or not. but You remind me somewhat again of Yes, Prime Minister. When when when Jim Hacker asked Bernard again, I think, he says something along the lines of, so if he came down to it, Bernard, what side would the ah civil service be on?
00:30:27
Speaker
mine or the public's? He said, oh no, it's the winning side, Minister. um And I think that's what's interesting about the by-election. I think he gets 88% of the vote or something. He gets a phenomenal notice of votes. But what's interesting about the combined universities and Scottish universities in this case is they, in a by-election, used first past the post to elect people.
00:30:46
Speaker
But in a general election, actually, it's proportional representation, didn't they? single transferable votes. So you listed the people you voted for. I didn't know that. People say we've never had PR. We had PR ah for the the ah the university seats, which is interesting. But it's also it's all postal votes as well, isn't it?
00:31:04
Speaker
Yes, it they definitely all postal votes. Yes. Anyway, it meant because he wasn't a very partisan Tory um that he could concentrate firstly on Scottish issues. And also, i mean, he spoke the devolution debate in 2007. Yeah, famously.
00:31:19
Speaker
Yeah. And also, um ah go well, education generally was was a big thing with him. um he he He worked on the ah the push to to raise the um the school leaving age.
00:31:36
Speaker
It didn't work, but he was very involved with that. And also very involved with the education of young conservatives. He he he got together with Baldwin, Stanley Baldwin, in the 1920s, very involved with that. And he was, I think, president of the...
00:31:54
Speaker
the University Conservative Association, you know universities. I mean, he was always going to speak to universities um ah in the in the Tory interests. So
Appreciating Multiple Political Perspectives
00:32:05
Speaker
so he was – I mean, I think it worked against him as far as his career as a politician was concerned because I'm i'm not sure that being – always being able to see the other person's point of view is necessarily a recommended recommendation.
00:32:22
Speaker
As I as saw as a dumb partisan these days, Ursula, couldn't possibly comment. Ursula, how much do you think his writing even developed beyond that to look at other rising threats in the 30s? Oh, well, that's a very interesting question, John, because um i can't remember, is it Castle Gay 32? 33, I mean, is a Prince of the Captivity, which is has been called the first popular anti-Nazi novel.
00:32:51
Speaker
And there's no doubt that from the very early 30s, he was very concerned about the rise of the dictators. ah In particular, obviously, Hitler and Mussolini. So, so you know, there were these tooth two twin threats coming from different sides, Bolshevism, communism, and National Socialism or fascism. And and they were real threats. I mean, words like fascism are ah bandied around all the time But in the 1930s, you were seeing the real thing.
00:33:22
Speaker
and um And his his preoccupations in Castle Gay and in Prince of the Captivity are with are are with these movements that that can influence the plain man who now has a vote.
00:33:37
Speaker
Yeah, um and I'll go back to another sort micro one as well. um
Media Influence in Buchan's Novels
00:33:42
Speaker
In the gap in the curtain in 1932, there's another Conservative candidate fighting a by-election, I think in Dorset, wasn't it?
00:33:48
Speaker
And that's all about media. You talk a bit about media in the Castle Gate, but also there's this interest in the effects of media as well. as and why do you think that is with Buchan? Well, because he was he was always in the thick of it.
00:34:03
Speaker
i mean, he was he he started to write for The Spectator in 1900, aged 24 years. four He became deputy editor in 1906.
00:34:15
Speaker
He went on writing for The Spectator um after the First World War and and from time to time after that, but also wrote for The Graphic and other other ah magazines and and newspapers. he was He wrote more than a thousand journalistic articles and in the course of his his life, and many of them were on politics.
00:34:36
Speaker
And so he was, you know, he was absolutely... um he yeah and then during the First World War, he was in... ah um in He was writing press releases. he was communiques from the GHQ under Field Marshal Haig. And he was in the Foreign Office dealing with foreign information. And then in 1917, Lloyd George made him...
00:35:03
Speaker
director of information. So he essentially head of propaganda, and he met all these American, looked after all all these American journalists in chateaus in France. and
Buchan's Embrace of Film as a Medium
00:35:12
Speaker
well he was He was always a newspaper man, really, in effect. and Well, newspaper man, that's perhaps not the right word, but certainly a journalist. And he understood the power of the written word. And also, I might i might add films. I mean, when he was director of information, Some um very, very um influential films were were made by his department, in including The Battle of the Somme.
00:35:39
Speaker
And um he was very happy, for instance, for The 39 Steps to be filmed. Well, yes. He was in 1934. Much better than the book, wasn't it, he said? Much better than the book. bed And the directors of um British Gowmont had never, ever heard an author say that before. I think he said much for his sort of modesty. But also so also also I think that he understood that the that film was a different, a modern, different medium, and you had to approach it differently.
00:36:12
Speaker
but that that he was perfectly happy to embrace it and was actually, um he would have he would have signed more film deals after 1935, which was when the 39 Steps was released. um But he became Governor General of Canada and Buckingham Palace wouldn't let him sign any film deals while he was Governor General and he died in office in February 1940.
00:36:39
Speaker
So, ah quite ah I mean, I think Hitchcock, Alfred Hitchcock particularly, wanted to film Greenmantle, which is the second of the Hanni books, and it never happened. ah So, you know, quite a lot of if-onlys about that. But so he was a you know he understood media, and he knew that it could either be, it could be corrupted, but it could also be harnessed in a good cause.
00:37:05
Speaker
um So we'll go to some fun questions, if you like, there shows because I love this, but I'm conscious that the people listening are also going to know silly things, if that makes sense. So I'll i'll finish up with a few other questions that I know people have asked me to ask you.
00:37:20
Speaker
Okay. Far away. Who's your favourite Richard Hannay?
00:37:28
Speaker
Mr. Stamfast. Okay. And who's your favourite actor playing Richard Hanna. Oh, Robert Donat. Got to be. I mean, I like Robert Powell, but I think Robert Donat in the 1935 film. And Madeleine Carroll, who he he he he played against. um um there there's no There's no female interest in the book, of course, but, I mean, Hitchcock would not have got away with that. Particularly as he wanted to make a splash in America, which he did through 39 Steps.
00:38:00
Speaker
And so Madeleine Carroll and Robert Donat are ah wonderful actors. a wonderful leading pair. I remember as a kid watching that film and my dad, just for fun, called him Mr. Donut all the way through. Really? Really? Fair enough. I think it's a play on the fact that I think Donut calls um the candidate Mr Crocodile, doesn't he? Yes, he does. In the film. Yes. Because he can't pronounce the guy's name. Yes. He can't pronounce it. It's it's interesting that that that the that the political meeting does make its way into, I think, all the all the films, doesn't it? Yeah.
00:38:37
Speaker
Because it it's such a useful useful fictional device, really, apart from anything. So
Symbolism of Political Meetings in Storytelling
00:38:44
Speaker
and do you think it matters that the films... are the chasing around britain and the murder and so on is all part of the mythology of 39 steps but you think it matters they're all different in one there's a submarine there's an airplane in one there's falling off a clock um ah ah but big ben it all seems that they're all rewriting it why do you think that is um
00:39:10
Speaker
Well, as I said about they filming a very different medium, um and ah and I think it's quite difficult. the The ending of the novel is quite difficult to film. I can see why they they would want to to change it. um ah No, i I think it's absolutely fine. The only thing I would say is that the reason one of the strong reasons why I wrote my biography, um Beyond the 39 Steps, A Life of John Buckham, was I was concerned that as the years went by...
00:39:46
Speaker
he was just becoming the sort of junior partner to Alfred Hitchcock, and that all the other things he did in his life, besides writing the Hannay books, were were being gradually you know lost to public sight. um So, I mean, there is there is a risk. And and ah most people i who say to me, oh, I love the 39 steps. I really like that like that bit when he hangs off the clock and he You know, you have to say, well, actually, no, really. yes um and It is quite easy to to lose sight of just how interesting the novels are, really, even the Hannay ones, which were certainly the first three written as intelligent propaganda, basically.
00:40:30
Speaker
I remember the first time I read, i mean, this is a... a new copy because I can't find my old copy. But I remember as a 16 year old being sent to Scotland for my summer holidays and I took it with me and read every one and I took it around the world when we were on holiday as well because it was such a good read. um And it also keeps, it's not short is it?
00:40:50
Speaker
um it's also very It's also very nice. that The chapters are fascinating. The fact that it's very sequential. oh I know chapters are by definition sequential, but it's the way things happen to him and he makes things happen. i think that's what was fascinating about the 39th century. It's a book I don't imagine most people know. He sort of increased in rank and he met his son and all sorts of friends appear in these things, don't they? Yes. Yeah, well, he's a general by the end of the Great Yeah, exactly. And knighted.
00:41:20
Speaker
He gets all the gongs, doesn't he? yeah well well well Well, quite, yes. yeah um yeah I think people often say to me, oh I really loved John Buckham when I was young. i read him when I was 12 and 13. absolutely loved him. And i always say...
00:41:37
Speaker
Try them again. i think you'll be surprised by by just how how much you'll see that you didn't see yeah before. It's not just running around and daring doing boys' own stuff, is it? There's much more political nuance in there and and discussion about the way of the world, yeah. And he influenced a lot of later spy writers. oh yeah, of course.
00:41:57
Speaker
John le Carré, Graham Greene, Eric Hambler, people like that. Ian Fleming, all influenced by by John Buchan.
00:42:08
Speaker
I don't think just spy stories. And I think it also just that sort of, it's the chase film that also exists. I mean, I think of, is it the DiCaprio film, there Catch Me If You Can?
00:42:21
Speaker
It's literally the same idea, just not a series, not a war involved. But it's that, here I am, come and catch me. The same with... Well, a lot of the Hitchcock films, North by Northwest. North by Northwest, yeah, exactly. You you have the aeroplane chasing him. Well, that's in the 39 Steps. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, I think it's fascinating. So if you were to define Bookin's work, especially with elections, how would you, in three sentences, define it?
Elections as Critique and Entertainment in Buchan's Novels
00:42:53
Speaker
I think he wanted to... describe something that was very important to him, that he could see the point of, but that he could that because of his own deep experience, um he knew that there was something potentially ridiculous about um So it's it's they're affectionate portraits, but they're not absolutely dewy-eyed ones.
00:43:24
Speaker
um And i think I think the description of Lord LaMantra's speech in John McNabb is really an example of that, that he could see that it was possible to manipulate your audience just by being very good and experienced at what what what you do, and that that is potentially a danger. ah danger Ursula, it's been an absolute delight to meet you. And thanks so much for telling us all about your granddad.
00:43:51
Speaker
It must be very strange to talk about your granddad like this. um I'm sure it's something you're very used to doing, but I think it's very strange to have someone that important in british British culture to talk about and be able to talk about his legacy and importantly write about his legacy. It's amazing book, and which I would encourage eli anyone to buy and read.
00:44:08
Speaker
Ursula, thanks very much for coming. Thank you. I've thoroughly enjoyed it, John. Thanks, Ursula.
00:44:24
Speaker
The Observations podcast is being brought to you by Democracy Volunteers, the UK's leading election observation group. Democracy Volunteers is non-partisan and does not necessarily share the opinions of participants in the podcast. It brings the podcast to you to improve knowledge of elections, both national and international.