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Great Lives

Val McDermid on PD James

Great Lives

BBC

Documentary, History, Society & Culture

4.21.3K Ratings

🗓️ 2 June 2015

⏱️ 29 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Val McDermid thinks crime writing is most definitely a suitable job for a woman.

She believes women are good at observing the minutiae of life and incorporating them into clue development.

Despite writing a book entitled 'An Unsuitable Job For A Woman', PD James evidently thought the same.

Val McDermid discusses her grea life with the help of James's friend, the literary critic Peter Kemp.

Presented by Matthew Parris.

Producer: Maggie Ayre

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in June 2015.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

You're about to listen to a BBC podcast and I'd like to tell you a bit about the

0:03.8

podcast I work on. I'm Dan Clark and I commissioned factual podcasts at the BBC.

0:08.6

It's a massive area but I'd sum it up as stories to help us make sense of the forces shaping the world.

0:15.0

What podcasting does is give us the space and the time to take brilliant BBC journalism

0:20.0

and tell amazing compelling stories that really get behind the headlines.

0:23.7

And what I get really excited about is when we find a way of drawing you into a subject

0:28.3

you might not even have thought you were interested in.

0:30.2

Whether it's investigations, science, tech, politics, culture, true crime, the environment,

0:36.1

you can always discover more with a podcast on BBC Sounds.

0:39.8

Great Lives is a download from Radio 4. We hope you enjoy what you're about to hear. A woman with a bleak

0:46.5

view of life, hardworking, stowical, but at the same time with a deep humanity and a great sense of humour.

0:54.0

That's how those who knew and loved her described her.

0:58.0

All say that despite some truly harrowing stretches in her life,

1:02.0

she was a joy to be around and now truly harrowing stretches in her life.

1:02.8

She was a joy to be around and never let adversity defeat her.

1:07.2

Baroness James of Holland Park OBE, best known as the crime writer PD James,

1:13.0

who died last November at the age of 94.

1:16.0

She's best known for her serialized novels

1:19.0

featuring her police detective Adam Dalglish.

1:22.0

She would often quote Graham Green. her police

1:23.0

she would often quote Graham Green

1:25.0

saying that there has to be a sliver of ice in every writer's heart

...

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