SIMON BRETT INTERVIEWED BY GYLES BRANDETH

This session was very amusing as Gyles Brandeth and Simon Brett knew each other very well and the jokes flowed back and forth. Gyles apologizing for once being an MP and making a joke about finding his feminine side and his subsequent inability to park his car, which I would not have the cheek to repeat here.  ;o)

I was particularly interested in that Simon and I had been at Dulwich College at the same time although he is a bit younger. Also I read that he was born in Worcester Park just across the A3 from where I worked in New Malden for 17 eventful years. 

Simon mentioned the opening at Dulwich of the Raymond Chandler Library by crime writer Tom Rob Smith and the existing of the P.G.Wodehouse Library. My memory might be faulty but in my days at Dulwich 1955-1961 Chandler and Wodehouse were not as highly regarded by the school as another very famous writer and Old Alleynian O.A. C.S.Forester. 

The reasons were that Chandler was a "crime writer" who had gone to Hollywood, and Wodehouse had broadcast from Berlin during the war, see here.

Simon discussed his time at Oxford , his job as a Father Christmas, his interest in acting, his career with BBC Radio, his  involvement with the pilot episode of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, his time with London Weekend television, and his creation of Charles Paris, the acting detective. It was all fascinating stuff and very enjoyable, so enjoyable in fact that I bought one of Simon's books at full price and had it inscribed "to another O.A."