A a milne

With Gyles Brandreth

36 min listen

Broadcaster, writer, actor – and former MP – Gyles Brandreth joins Lara Prendergast on this episode of Table Talk to discuss his memories of food, from hating dates and loving ‘bread sandwiches’ to his signature dish of fish fingers and his love of eating baked beans cold from a can. Gyles also tells Lara about getting permission to eat swan, his encounter with Raymond Blanc and his friendship with a former editor of The Spectator. Plus – Gyles bemoans the lack of freebies that come with recording a Spectator food podcast (sorry Gyles!). Gyles’s new biography of A.A. Milne, Somewhere, a Boy and a Bear, is out now. Produced by

100th anniversary of A A Milne and E H Shepard, with James Campbell

36 min listen

On this week’s Book Club podcast we’re celebrating the 100th anniversary of a landmark in children’s publishing, When We Were Very Young — which represented the first collaboration between A A Milne and E H Shepard, who would (of course) go on to write an illustrate Winnie-the-Pooh. Sam Leith is joined by James Campbell, who runs the E H Shepard estate. He tells Sam how the war shaped the mood and success of that first book, why Daphne Milne’s snobbery and ambition left Shepard out in the cold, what happened to Christopher Robin… and how Pooh became Pooh.