IT is a sunny Sunday morning in mid-December 2025 and Janet and I are on our way to Brodsworth Hall. I turn on Radio 4 to listen to ‘Desert Island Discs’.
“This should be interesting,” says Janet. “The ‘castaway’ this week is that guy who writes the ‘Jack Reacher’ books – Lee Child.”
I’ve always been fascinated by creative people and I especially like learning about their pathway to success.
We miss the first couple of minutes but then I hear Lee describing a significant turning point in his life. It was when, as an unhappy eight-year-old, he first heard the Beatles on the radio singing ‘She Loves You’.
This sparked a sudden change in his outlook from feeling permanently miserable to being full of life.
As the song plays I tell Janet, “That’s odd, that’s very odd. Something similar happened to me at that age when I first heard the Beatles singing, ‘Please, Please Me’. It knocked me out and I knew immediately, my world would never be the same. What an odd coincidence!”
Lee goes on to explain that when he was growing up in Birmingham he was mad about football, and was always getting into fights.
Even at five years old he was a giant for his age and used to stick up for his big brother.
I tell Janet: “When I was young I was more like a featherweight than a Goliath, but for some reason I too was always involved in fights – all way through my school life. I’d love to lie and boast that I won them all, but I can’t because I didn’t. However, win or lose, I always refused to allow myself or friends to be bullied, and when pushed too far it really didn’t matter how big my opponent was.”
In between other songs, Lee explains how badly he was treated by his own parents.
“It’s true,” says Janet.
“I once read that if Lee told his mother he’d enjoyed a particular meal, she’d never serve him it again. And his crazy father always looked upon Lee as a total waste of space.”
I’m shocked. Fancy having parents like that! Lee escaped his miserable upbringing by listening to music and reading fiction – lots of it. And I can identify with this. I too was always reading, but not as a distraction from real life.
My early years were wonderful but I was addicted to books about football, fishing and sport generally.
Then as Piano Concerto Number One by Tchaikovsky begins to play, Janet interjects: “The BBC has deliberately missed out something important here.
It’s common knowledge that at Sheffield University, Lee spent more time smoking nefarious substances than attending lectures.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really!”
I was different.
I loved my A-Level subjects and also my teacher-training course, and there were no illegal drugs available at my college.
After university, Lee got a job working for Granada TV and quickly climbed to the top of his profession. However, when improved technology meant the axe hung over everyone’s head, he fearlessly took on the role of trade union representative. To him mild surrender was not an option if jobs were at risk.
Driving my car through Hickleton, I felt a shiver run down my spine. Union organisation was also one of my passions as a teacher and I, like Lee, was determined to fight like mad to defend colleagues or students.
But eventually, Lee realised that in his conflict with Thatcherism, the battle was lost. So he resolved to change from working in TV to full-time writing with one purpose: to become a multi-millionaire.
His first novel, ‘The Killing Floor’, was published in 1997 and after that he started writing a new book on September 1 every year until 2019. According to Google he’s sold over 100 million books and made tens of millions of pounds.
I thoroughly enjoy comparing my humble life with that of an international superstar. Lee and I were born in the same year, we both adored the Beatles, books and football, both of us fought in the playground and in the workplace against injustice, and dedicated ourselves to writing.
But there the comparison ends.
As the wonderful theme music finale to ‘Desert Island Discs’ begins, I feel disappointed that it’s all over too soon. No wonder, in 2019, a panel of broadcasting experts named it ‘the greatest radio programme of all time’.
