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Program Title
Credits Executive Producer: Jonathan Powell Producer: Adrian Bate Director: Charles Beeson Intro CIDER WITH ROSIE/Intro by Russell Baker Memoirs of childhood often have a mythic quality. I suppose it's because, when you're young, the world seems so vast ... time so endless ... the grown-ups so big. Our story tonight is the childhood memoir of Laurie Lee whose growing up was done in the beautiful Cotswold valleys of Gloucestershire ... than which there is no place more beautiful. Lee was a poet, though he is far better known for his prose memoirs, which are still widely read and loved in England. "Cider with Rosie" is his story of life in a Cotswald valley between the two World Wars. He wrote it in the 1950s and, so the story goes, offered it to a publisher who didn't much like it -- but agreed to publish it only if Lee would write his own dustjacket blurb. So Lee wrote: "Should become a classic." And it did. It immediately became a financial success, too, and over the years made Lee a fortune. In tonight's film, you will hear Lee himself -- in old age -- reading some of the narrative passages. With a touch of poetic irony, Lee titled his book "Cider with Rosie," but made his mother, not Rosie, the central figure. "A disordered, hysterical, loving woman," he called her. "Muddled and mischievous as a chimney jackdaw." Lee was the youngest of a large family of children and he always insisted he never knew the precise date of his birth because, he said, his mother forgot to register it and couldn't remember the date herself... though she thought it was probably on a Thursday. Still, she did remember to have Laurie christened. It was done, he said, with water poured from a teacup. Well, as I said, memoirs of childhood often have a mythic quality. Now, Laurie Lee's "Cider With Rosie." Extro CIDER WITH ROSIE/Extro by Russell Baker Laurie Lee published four volumes of poetry and thought of himself primarily as a poet rather than a prose writer. Maybe it was poetic instinct that led him to encourage mysteries about "Cider with Rosie." For example, who was Rosie? Lee would never say. Maybe Rosie never existed… "Many girls think they are Rosie," he said. " But only she and I know. And that's the way it will remain." This hasn't stopped elderly women from coming forward to claim the title. When Lee died in 1997, a remote cousin, age 82, announced that she was the real Rosie, but couldn't remember drinking any cider. Lee's neighbors were also puzzled by the story of the villager who had migrated to New Zealand and was murdered for bragging about his wealth. Nobody in town could remember that. Though of course, who would tell if he did know about it? When Lee was asked if some of his story was fiction, he always said, "It's in the book, so it must be true." Something that's definitely true is the story of Laurie's father Reg, abandoning his family and going off to London to work in the civil service. Reg was a widower who'd already had a flock of children by his first wife, when he married his housekeeper and begot more children. Lee's mother waited thirty years for her husband to come home. He never did. Though every week he sent her a one-pound note and a letter that always said the same thing: "Herewith the usual. Yours, Reg." For Mobil Masterpiece Theatre, I'm Russell Baker. Goodnight.
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