Raymond Briggs

Desert Island Discs: Archive 2005-2010

BBC

Society & Culture, Personal Journals

4.4 • 804 Ratings

🗓️ 20 March 2005

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the writer and illustrator Raymond Briggs. For millions of children, Christmas would be incomplete without Briggs's story The Snowman, which has been shown on television every year since its first release, in 1982, and his enduringly popular Father Christmas.

Raymond was born in 1934 in Wimbledon. His mother, Ethel, was a lady's maid and his father, Ernest, a milkman. He wanted to draw cartoon strips from an early age but, at art school, found his tutors looked down on his aspirations. After leaving, he quickly secured work as a commercial artist, doing illustrations for advertisements, journals and books. He said he was so appalled at the standard of the children's books he was asked to illustrate he thought he could do better himself. And he did - his first attempt was immediately accepted for publication and he went on to twice win the Kate Greenaway Medal - the principal award for illustration.

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

Favourite track: Parce Mihi Domine (from Officium Defunctorum) by Christobal de Morales Book: Complete Works of Beachcomber by J B Morton Luxury: A full-size billiard table with Radio 4 built into each of the legs

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're about to listen to a BBC podcast, but this is about something else you might enjoy.
0:05.4	My name's Katie Lecky and I'm an assistant commissioner for on demand music on BBC Sounds.
0:10.7	The BBC has an incredible musical heritage and culture and as a music lover, I love being part of that.
0:17.4	With music on sounds, we offer collections and mixes for everything, from workouts to
0:22.4	helping you nod off, boogie in your kitchen, or even just a moment of calm. And they're all
0:28.1	put together by people who know their stuff. So if you want some expertly curated music in your life,
0:34.9	check out BBC Sounds. Hello, I'm Krista Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive.
0:42.2	For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.
0:45.3	The program was originally broadcast in 2005, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.
0:50.7	Music was Sue Lolly.
1:09.0	My castaway this week is a writer and illustrator.
1:28.3	His books have become classics of their kind, both for children and grown-ups. Father Christmas, the snowman, and where the wind blows are among his best known. He's been producing them since the 1960s. He was brought up in Wimbledon. His mother had been a lady's maid and his father was the milkman. After leaving art school, he became an illustrator,
1:32.8	but unimpressed with the quality of writing with which he had to work, used his love of the strip cartoon to add his own words to his pictures. His parents often appear in his stories. The
1:39.0	simple, decent lives they led are a source of inspiration, and his work is always honest and unafraid of reality.
1:46.5	Now 71, he lives simply, drives an old car, and apparently buys his clothes from a charity shop.
1:53.2	On his gravestone, he would like inscribe the opinion of a little girl he knows, I quote,
1:58.5	he is not a normal person.
2:02.3	He is Raymond Briggs.
2:06.2	Why would she think, Raymond, that you're not a normal person?
2:07.8	Oh, golly, I don't know.
2:10.9	It all seems very normal to the point of being boring to me,
2:13.9	but she was only three and a half when she said this.
	...

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