Ready? Yep.
I'm going to Barnsley.
I've never been to Barnsley before.
"Why are you going to Barnsley, Greg?" I'll tell you.
I've been asked to make a documentary about this little book,
A Kestrel For A Knave by Barry Hines.
I love this book, and this book is set in Barnsley.
It's one of the first things I ever read.
I was one of the first stories at school that really got me.
That really drew me in.
And then later, it came back into my life again
because I became a teacher, and it was my go-to book in the classroom
to get children engaged,
especially kids who didn't want to read, particularly.
That little book always drew them in.
It's my first documentary.
I have to wear the same shirt for the whole documentary
for continuity reasons.
So, I've already learnt before we start...
..BBC presenters...
..they smell.
This programme contains some strong language
'As you watch me inexplicably filmed from above, walking up a road,
'know this - our trip will unearth proof
t'hat the original Billy Casper can still flick the V....
Screw you.
'..the wisdom of a pop star...'
Like, we all need to take the jesses off now and again.
GREG CHUCKLES
God, we do.
'..a live hawk...'
Oh! Tiffin. What's this?
'..a man with a live hawk... Yeah.
'..garment sniffing, and another man with a live hawk.'
I probably shouldn't have eaten fish
before I started doing a piece to camera.
'There'll be technical problems...'
Look if I stand up.
LAUGHTER
How did you get on with Barry Hines, Millie?
'..but don't panic, mainly I'm here to celebrate a much-loved book.'
If A Kestrel For A Knave asks anything of people,
it's to find the thing that you love. Precisely.
Consider yourself teased.
'What I have realised is I actually know very little about this book
'outside of the story.
'I know nothing of the author, Barry Hines,
'and nothing about Hoyland Common near Barnsley,
'the South Yorkshire town that was the book's setting.
'What I do know is that A Kestrel For A Knave
'has been in print since it was first published in 1968.'
For many, it's better known as the film Kes, made little more than a year after the book came out.
The story of Billy Casper, a boy from a mining community
who teaches himself to train a kestrel
has been capturing people's imaginations for decades.
Casper, where the devil have you been?
Nowhere, Sir. Nowhere?
Who are you, the Invisible Man?
It's a roller-coaster of brutality, hope, despair and iconic comedy...
And Bobby Charlton has equalised for Manchester United.
..its influence rearing its head over the years
in the most unlikely places.
It's a kestrel, Sir. Beautiful. Can it fly?
Yes, it's flying now, Sir.
STUDIO AUDIENCE LAUGHS
'Here in Hoyland Common, I'm keen to know if the book and film still speak to the local people today.
The answer to that question comes quickly.
CAMERA CLICKS
There you go.
Thank you. You're welcome.
I've got DVD of that.
And, er... Have you? Have you watched it?
Yeah, I've watched it, like, hundred times, to be honest with you.
It's just really good how he's, like...
..how he's trained a kestrel from a certain age,
and like it'd take people years and years to do that.
I mean, are you rolling on this?
Well, I didn't know until me dad were saying,
"Oh, er, Kes were filmed here,"
and all that.
I don't know what to say.
HE GIGGLES
You've said enough. That's amazing.
In 1968, these houses were full of mining families
just getting on with their lives.
One year later, in the summer of '69,
something mad happened in Hoyland Common -
a film crew descended.
Now, that in itself would have been big news round here.
But, then, the community got word that Ken Loach, the director,
didn't want to use trained actors,
he wanted to cast from the local community.
So, suddenly these people found themselves queuing up for auditions
with a chance of being in an international film.
So who better to talk to about the enduring appeal of this book
than the man who directed the award-winning film that followed it?
Ken Loach.
Here it is, the home of Sixteen Films.
BUZZER RINGS
ON INTERCOM: Hello? Hello, it's Greg Davies.
ENTRY SYSTEM BUZZES
I think that was Ken Loach.
Here we go.
Let's face it, I'm out of my depth here.
'I quickly set about impressing the celebrated director
'by showing him how good I am at clapping.'
I'm going to start with a really pedestrian question
and ask you just to tell me how it came about.
Erm, well, I met Barry Hines through Tony Garnett, the producer of Kes,
and Tony and I were old friends at the BBC,
and we'd done a lot of stuff together,
and, erm, we were hoping to make a feature film.
Tony had met Barry Hines and asked Barry to do a story
for The Wednesday Play.
Tony. Greg?
And he said, "No."
GREG CHUCKLES
And that surprised me.
Sometimes you just meet people and you just click.
He'd got very piercing, blue eyes,
that just went through you.
And he said there was a book he wanted to go and write.
But, then, 18 months later, his agent sent me a draft of
A Kestrel For A Knave,
and I started to read it,
and then cancelled everything for the rest of the day,
and read it till I'd finished,
and made a decision there and then that we must make a film of it.
Wow.
I mean, the truth of the book shone through.
The comedy of the book shone through.
And, of course, the great thing that is in the book was the strength
of the central image, of a boy who is trapped training a bird...
..that flies free.
Kes!
C'mon, Kes!
How easy was the book to turn into a film script?
Very easy.
I mean, Ken and Barry and I took a screenplay credit,
which I think now probably we shouldn't have done,
because it was all there in the book.
It was a script editing job, not a screenwriting job. Right.
Because it was there.
You read the book and you're watching a film.
Both film and book tell the story of a boy whose secret life
with a trained kestrel transcends a loveless home
and cruel education system.
Having failed his eleven-plus,
Billy, like so many, is set up to fail some more
in a secondary modern school.
TEACHER OFF-SCREEN: Get out!
Weeks before leaving, his options for the future seem predetermined,
but he quickly reveals a defiance that becomes central to this story.
Right, then, well, would you like to work in an office,
or would you prefer manual work?
What's manual work?
Oh, it means working with your hands.
Things like farming, engineering, plumbing, things like that,
as opposed to pen-pushing jobs.
I'd be all right in an office, I have a job to read and write.
Hm.
Well, if nothing I've mentioned so far appeals to you, and
if you can stand a hard day's work and you don't mind getting dirty,
there are good opportunities in mining.
I'm not goin' down t'pit.
Oh, don't be put off by what you've heard.
Conditions have improved tremendously.
I wouldn't be seen dead down t'pit.
I started my teaching career in a secondary modern,
as did Barry Hines.
I'd hoped to visit the school that he taught in -
part of the film was shot there -
but it was demolished in 2010.
OFF-SCREEN: Action!
In its place is this shiny new academy.
It couldn't be a bigger contrast to the school in the book,
and I wanted to see if Billy's story resonates in any way
with the children being taught here today.
Before I prove conclusively that I'm as bad at real teaching as I was
in the '90s, here's me giving a nuanced portrayal
of a fictitious teacher that some of you will recognise.
Good morning. And shut up.
Maybe I could compose a regular memo with how it's all going.
OK.
Why don't' you drop that in my pigeonhole?
Great. Where's that then, Sir?
Any bin.
I've just walked past three classrooms and loads of kids
have been shouting "Gilbert" at me.
Inbetweeners lives on.
Right, I'm about to teach my first lesson in 14 years.
I'm shitting myself.
PUPILS APPLAUD
GREG CHUCKLES
Oh. Well.
Well, ladies and gentlemen... You all right, Mr Ball?
How are you? Good to meet you. You can sit down now, I'll take it.
I taught for 13 years, and that is the first time
I've ever had a round of applause coming into a classroom.
Do you applaud your teachers when they come in?
ALL: No. Good.
What did you like about A Kestrel For A Knave?
'The school's hand-picked class of pupils
'are disappointingly compliant.'
I liked how Billy wasn't, like, very good academically.
He found something he actually enjoyed doing,
and continued to do that.
'I was hoping to bawl one of them out, '60s-style.
'As you can see, alas, they're too nice.'
I liked how realistic it was, because it didn't try to
glamorise it, or try to make his life seem better.
'Being here, it's easy to feel that A Kestrel For A Knave
'is about a very different time and place.'
Come on, quickly, Casper. I've never seen such slack work in my life.
Does it feel real to see teachers
behaving the way that they...they behave?
SEVERAL PUPILS: No.
I mean, what would happen to a teacher at this school?
They'd get fired.
GREG LAUGHS
They'd get fired?
I was at the tail-end, when I came to secondary school,
of corporal punishment being stopped.
So in the first two years when I was at school, kids were being hit.
My science teacher, erm, Chunky Wilson...
Get that on record.
..he whacked me over the head with a textbook this thick,
because I was talking.
Keep out of trouble. I ain't been in trouble, Sir.
Not since last time.
'I don't think there are any Billy Caspers in this class,
'but like anyone who reads the book,
'they connect to the themes that make this story so powerful.'
It would take a much longer documentary to capture the realities
of growing up in a modern-day Barnsley.
What is certain is that it has changed dramatically
since A Kestrel For A Knave was written.
For Barry Hines, Hoyland Common,
the mining community of the 1960s,
was a powerful backdrop to his work.
I'll let Barry explain this himself.
Me dad, me dad was a miner.
I was brought up in a mining village called Hoyland Common
between Barnsley and Sheffield.
And, er...
..it was a typical sort of South Yorkshire mining village,
with the 19th-century company houses, and the council estate and
the pit at the bottom of the street, surrounded by woods and fields,
yet pretty close to...to a city.
It's that curious South Yorkshire environment
of the urban and the rural.
Were you a great reader when you were a child?
I was a great reader of comics. Comics?
You didn't have a lot of books at home?
No, we didn't have books in the house at all.
What were the comics you read? Dandy, Beano, Rover...
..then we used to swap the Rover for the Wizard and Hotspur,
and, er...and that's as far as my reading went.
This is where we actually shot the Dandy sequence,
which is where the coke...the coking plant was, which features
in the film, when you hear the... IMITATES MACHINERY SOUNDS
It was, I think, one of the geniuses of Ken Loach
that he actually used that sound effect as part of the story...
As part of the backdrop.
..when he was reading the Dandy, you know, the comic...
Ah, right.
..you know? Of course. So that when Dan was...
When Dan banged the culprit into the middle of next week.
"Take that. Crash!
"Where did he end up?
"In the middle of next week, Uncle Dan!"
He used the sound effect as if he was going back...
So, he used the coking... I didn't know that. That's... Yes.
See? Always learning.
'The perilous location for this interview confirms
'my creeping suspicion that the director wishes me harm.'
Just doing a bit of business.
'But we're here now, and I have much to ask Dai Bradley,
'the original Billy Casper, who was just a local schoolboy
'when Ken Loach cast him to star in the film.'
We start by getting sidetracked.
I mean, the opportunities to get into acting in the mid '60s
was virtually nil.
There was one talent show on TV with Hughie Green... Of course!
..Opportunity Knocks. Opportunity Knocks! Yeah.
And I remember there was one guy, and he was completely naked
up...from his chest upwards, and he was able to roll his tummy,
and make his muscles ripple. His music went...
THEY HUM WHEELS CHA CHA
MUSIC: Wheels - Cha Cha
Ken Loach will love all this. DAI CHUCKLES
It's true! This is what you hoped for, Ken, right?
This is what he did.
That's the music every week. Yeah, I remember.
He used the same bloody music. I remember!
DAI CHUCKLES
I remember. I don't know.
And all those Kes purists out there -
broaden your horizons a little bit. DAI CHUCKLES
So, where are we now in terms of where the whole film was set?
Well, I'd say this is the outskirts of Hoyland.
Um...and...and most of the filming took place over there,
which is where Barry Hines grew up as a kid. And went to school.
It was a very physical kind of upbringing.
Um, the main things... I mean, it was a physical kind of place
in so much that most of the fellas worked down the pit
and, um, it was all sport, and...
..and fighting.
OFF-SCREEN: Get him! Get him!
INTERVIEWER: You make a lot of that, of course, in Kes, don't you?
There's a memorable piece in which the two kids,
MacDowell and Billy, have a fight in the playground.
Is that the kind of thing that was part of your childhood?
Well, it was...until...it was up to 11, and, then, when I passed
the eleven-plus and went to the grammar school,
it all changed.
And...
..suddenly, I was part of a...
..um, a middle class...
..institution, academic institution,
which I couldn't cope with very well at all.
Barry Hines' academic success took him to grammar school.
Eventually, he lectured here at the arts building
in the University of Sheffield.
'It is a place that holds answers to many of my questions about
'the boy from Hoyland Common who became a celebrated writer.
'David Forrest is the lecturer who watches over the archive,
'but before showing me key artefacts,
'he takes his cue from the director and attempts to kill me.'
I mean, it's a beautiful building. David, what...what is this?
Erm, so, this is a paternoster.
Er, I think it's the only one left in the country.
It's a listed building, so we've got to keep the lift, as well.
The whole building's lift... Hop in.
Yeah, yeah... What is it? Eh? Come on, get in!
I mean, that's...that's dangerous.
'I forgive David for the lift, and we get stuck in to the archive.'
I'm already excited. Tell me what we've got in front of us.
This is a scarf that was, erm, knitted for him by his auntie,
erm, because, so the story goes, the family didn't want to,
or couldn't afford to buy the scarf from the official suppliers.
We know that grammar school was a really difficult place for him,
because it was a place that he realised he was different
because of his class.
Obviously, it's never been washed. It's never been washed?
We can't wash it. We can't affect it in any way.
We don't want to shrink it. It's a very important artefact...
Yeah. ..of a very, very important working-class writer. So, yeah.
Of course! It does... Do you want to have a smell of it yourself?
I'm going to sniff it. Yeah.
I like to think Barry would want me to have sniffed his scarf.
Does it smell like school to you?
It does smell like... Does it bring back memories?
It does smell like... Yeah, that's what I thought. Yeah, it does.
'I would like to point out
'that David sniffed the scarf before I did,
'but that has been conveniently edited out.'
Do you want to sniff it again? No, I've sniffed. All right.
I'm on camera sniffing it. OK.
So we've also got, linking to his experience in grammar school,
it's actually his report cards from grammar school. Oh.
VOICEOVER: Just to explain, if I make funny noises at this point,
it's because I have a weird thing
about touching real historical objects. It's just me.
He was going from his town where his mates were, where his family was,
to the city of Sheffield,
and you can see here he struggled a bit at school,
I think it's fair to say. So, we've got English - D.
French - D. But English... History, geography - C's. ..E. Yeah.
English - D, again, that year.
And, I don't know why that's a surprise to me,
but...but he wasn't a model student, was he?
No. I mean, he was a brilliant athlete.
I think that's really, really important to make clear.
He had trials for Manchester United,
played for Barnsley Reserves...
I didn't know he had trials for Manchester United. Yeah.
He was that good, was he? He was very good. He played football
at university with Bob Wilson, who played for Scotland.
He played in the first team there,
he played to a very high standard when he left university, as well.
So sport was a thing that was his passion.
This is pre him discovering George Orwell. Yeah. Yeah.
This is pre him even fantasising about becoming a writer.
It just happened by chance.
There were two things happened roughly at the same time - I was
in digs with a lad who was doing English for his second subject.
I mean, I wasn't even doing English, I was doing history.
And one Sunday afternoon I was bored stiff,
I'd looked at the paper and read me comics.
I mean, I were still reading comics when I went to Loughborough.
I never read...never read real books,
and I was so bored that this...this lad who I was in digs with,
as I said, who was doing English,
I said to him, "Have you got any books I could read?"
And he looked a bit doubtful,
cos he'd known me for several months by this time, and he went
to his shelf, and he found the thinnest book he could find.
And it was George Orwell's Animal Farm.
It's got about 86 pages. Big print.
HOST CHUCKLES
And...he's put me finger under the lines and set me off.
And I managed it at one sitting.
And it was the first book I'd read of my own volition.
I can't remember now what I got out of it,
but it must have just been the narrative, the story.
It was a good story, and I read it, and I though, "Oh!"
And there was a chink in the armour.
For Barry, football was a means of expression,
but when his flatmate introduced him to the world of fiction,
an alternative future began to present itself.
Barry's first wife, Margaret,
witnessed the metamorphosis first-hand.
'I put her at ease with some more top-grade clapping.'
When you and Barry first became a couple,
he had no ambitions to become a writer.
And then he went to London and he read Animal Farm,
and, suddenly, this ambition was born.
And I just wonder, was that a shock to you,
as someone...? Yes, it was a surprise.
He became obsessed with reading.
I don't know how he passed his PE certificate, really,
because... Because it took over to that extent?
Yes, yes, and he had a full-time job in a school in St Marylebone,
and he wrote at night and weekends, but he was a busy man,
because he also played for Crawley Town on Saturdays...
Football. Yeah. ..still keeping his football up.
Yes, but he was absolutely determined, even then.
Before he'd had his eureka moment and thought,
"Maybe literature's the path for me," sport was incredibly important.
Yeah, and his university dissertation, actually, is all about
the relationship between academic life and sporting life,
and the fact that for young working-class people
there are many, many talented people,
but they exercise their talent through sport.
But football as a form of expression... Yeah, absolutely.
..rather than having a kick-around in a park
is such a fascinating idea.
So the whole... The dissertation was written as these long descriptions,
where he tries to write football as ballet.
And his first novel, the novel that he writes before
A Kestrel For A Knave, The Blinder, is of course about football.
And Hines writes the football scenes
as though they are kind of extended sequences of dance.
NARRATOR: "The centre forward rolled the ball to Lenny, who retreated
"into his own half and aimed his kick out to the wing.
"The ball rose and travelled diagonally across the pitch,
"curving down like a rainbow, a feed to the running wingman.
"The ball had beaten the full-back for him.
"Lenny pivoted on his left leg and swung his right,
"pointing his foot like a ballet dancer.
"The ball would've gone a long way if the net hadn't stopped it.
"Then he signalled the goal by raising his right arm.
"Mr Brooke spun a full circle on one heel."
How much of that early writing of yours is really autobiographical?
Well, the first one, The Blinder, was wish fulfilment, really.
It was me, erm...
It was what I would have liked to have been. A footballer.
A footballer, but more than that, it was...
..it was the lad in it was George Best with six A-levels. Uh-huh.
That's what it was about.
Somebody who'd got everything going for him. Yes.
I loved writing that book.
I didn't know how difficult it was, you see, to write a novel.
I'd never... Never having been a literature student... Mm-hm.
..and never having to do criticism,
and never having done a degree in literature,
I never had any of the great masters looking over my shoulder.
He didn't sit down and knock off a thousand words before lunch...
Yeah. ..he mined them. Right.
But his images were so eloquent.
There's a little line about a toddler on a tricycle...
..whizzing down the pavement.
And he said, "His legs were going like bees' wings."
Ah, lovely. Yeah.
And, so you could see this little,
you know, this little kid doing this.
One of his literary heroes is Ernest Hemingway. Right.
And you can feel that...that spareness of style,
but that also means that it's very direct, and it's blunt.
So it's highly poetic, but it's poetic in a way which is economic,
which is almost efficient.
NARRATOR: "The sky was a grey wash,
"pale grey over the fields behind the estate,
"but darkening overhead to charcoal away over the city.
"The street lamps were still on,
"and a few lighted windows glowed the colour of their curtains.
"Billy passed two miners returning silently from the night shift.
"A man in overalls cycled by, treading the pedals slowly.
"The four of them converged and parted,
"pursuing their various destinations at various speeds."
I think he wrote three drafts of A Kestrel For A Knave,
and throughout I helped him with that.
We used to sit together and go through it together, you know,
and make decisions about which word to take out, which word to put in.
So you were that forensic about it?
Yeah. Yes. Together, you were...
..you were you were analysing sentence by sentence, were you?
Yes.
He was determined, and he was driven.
The novel was published, and the film came, was made the year after.
Soon after that, Sally was born.
So you had a child, as well as all this?
Yes, it was all together, all in the same, sort of, few months, really.
12 months. What a year!
Yes, it was. It was a good time.
I mean, this is the sort of thing that's beyond exciting for me.
Well, you tell me what this is.
Well, this is the handwritten manuscript of A Kestrel For A Knave.
Erm...
I mean, it takes my breath away every time I see it
and I've seen it lots of times.
Erm, it...
He wrote everything by hand, actually.
And all the way through his career, you know, right up until the 1990s,
he was still employing a typist to type up his work.
So the early drafts of the script are like this as well.
And it's that, yeah, you can see the crossings out. You can also see,
he looks like he's spilt some water, or a cup of tea over there.
I mean, that stuff drives me mad.
This...this evidence of life. Yeah.
And the fact that I'm holding it, it's...
I mean, I've got no words for that.
Well, you can see the film, as well, can't you, right?
Yeah. You can...
..you can really see it.
NARRATOR: "There were no curtains up.
"The window was a hard-edged block the colour of the night sky.
"Inside the bedroom the darkness was of a gritty texture.
"The wardrobe and bed were blurred shapes in the darkness.
"Silence.
"Billy moved over towards the outside of the bed.
"Jud moved with him, leaving one half of the bed empty.
"Then the alarm rang."
ALARM RINGS
Jud? What?
Thou'll be late. Shut it.
Clock's not fast.
I said, shut it.
Give over. That hurts!
Well, shut it, then.
I'll tell me mam on thee.
Shut yer stinkin' mouth.
Hands off cocks, on socks.
In a film, the writer is the most important creative... Yeah.
..element in the film, without doubt. Directors are secondary.
Not all directors would say that, of course. Well, they are, though.
Barry was involved in every aspect of the filming.
Barry was involved in the casting.
Obviously, he was involved in finding the locations,
because he knew the place.
And we used the places that he had in mind wherever possible,
when he was writing the book.
He showed us what he'd imagined was the wall of Monastery Farm,
which was an old rail wall.
Yeah, I've been there this very week.
BIRD CHIRPS
The ruin where Billy Casper finds his kestrel was an inspiration
for the book, and used as a location in the film.
It still stands today.
I'm delighted when Dai Bradley agrees to help me prove a theory
that I've long held without any evidence to back it up -
that I am a natural falconer,
an uncelebrated exponent of an ancient art, a man who was foolishly
overlooked by the makers of Game of Thrones for a lead role.
Possibly a king.
Whatever.
We just need this glove to protect your fingers just on your left hand.
Yes, I do...
GREG CHUCKLES
Oh, God. Dai, was this not petrifying going through this
in the...? Not... Do you remember back then?
Not particularly. I was fascinated with them.
And the fact that they were... I mean, they were chicks when we
started out, it wasn't an adult bird.
So, I kind of grew with the bird...
With the bird! ..over the course of the film.
Whereas you're...you're heading in the deep water, mate.
Well, I am slightly nervous now.
So, just hold your hand just like that. Yeah.
And he goes to the highest point.
So, don't put your hand... Oh! ..any further down than there,
otherwise he'll end up on your head.
Right, am I... Hang on a minute.
..am I holding on to that... No. ..there? No, just the bit...
That bit, there? ..between your thumb and forefinger.
You need to stay down there, mate. He can't see you. Oh!
Oh! What do you see, big man? Tiffin!
So, Greg, if you just let go.
Let go? Yeah. Here you go.
Go on, then. Wahey!
Hold your hand up and come round here like that...
Whoa! ..and he'll come across.
That's amazing. I didn't even see him coming.
Slightly unnerving when it stares directly at me.
Yeah.
He's...he's...he's really special.
I do feel like Billy Casper 2.0.
DAI CHUCKLES
'After I've hogged the hawk, it's Dai's turn.'
I'll stand where you were. Yeah. I'll stand out the way. OK.
Let's see how it's done. Where is he?
He's going to come...
He's sat on the ground, I'm afraid. He's going to come round.
DAI CLICKS HIS TONGUE
Kes!
BILLY CLICKS HIS TONGUE
Come on, lass.
BILLY CLICKS HIS TONGUE
Come on, Kes!
BILLY CLICKS HIS TONGUE
Come on, Kes!
BILLY CLICKS HIS TONGUE
Come on, then!
BILLY CLICKS HIS TONGUE
Come on, big guy.
Here he comes.
Hey, lovely.
Yes.
Oh, yes.
Oh!
I'll be honest with you, Dai, it could have gone smoother.
It could have gone smoother.
Good job we got the original, eh?
DAI CHUCKLES
Do you want to go to the perch?
There you go.
DAI CLICKS HIS TONGUE
What's this? What's this, then?
Yes. Nice and tasty, eh?
Bit of chicken biryani.
GREG CHUCKLES
I studied this book at school, when I was 11 years of age,
and the idea that I would be standing next to...
..the original Billy Casper flying a kestrel is, frankly, ridiculous.
But, it's been so lovely, a lovely thing to do.
You can see why it was such a special relationship
that they had. I can't imagine what it was like for you as a kid.
Yeah. It must have been absolutely magical.
Yeah. Yeah, it was.
Dai's wonderful memories of a special time in his life
chime with Billy's love of his kestrel.
In a moving scene from the book and the film,
we see another side to school - a teacher who cares,
who encourages Billy to share his passion with the class.
Right, Billy, write it up there.
We see him talk knowledgeably about the technical terms
that he's learned.
Right, now tell us what that is.
Well, they're like leather straps, Sir, attached t'bird's feet.
This is the moment where Barry Hines speaks from the heart
about the power of good teaching.
And after a while, I put it two inches away from its claws.
And, er, like that, like.
OFF-SCREEN: It contains such a rich educational philosophy.
I think his philosophy, as a teacher, and as a writer,
is to meet in the middle, to meet that young boy
in the middle, to meet the Billy Caspers in the middle,
to listen to them, to talk to them, to nurture them,
to hear what it is, where it is that they're finding creativity,
an agency in their everyday lives.
Mr Farthing's interest in Billy doesn't stop in the classroom.
He makes a visit to watch the boy fly his beloved bird.
C'mon, Kes!
If A Kestrel For A Knave asks anything of people,
it's to find the thing that you love.
Precisely.
Creating such a unique rebel. Yeah.
Such an unlikely rebel, Billy Casper, isn't he?
He's a rebel, because he embraces the natural world,
because he finds wisdom and poetry in everyday life. Yeah.
These are actually, kind of, quite artistic, quite rarefied pursuits.
Yeah.
And not ones that we traditionally associate with that "Grim Up North",
kind of, narrative that we hear about places like Barnsley.
That's the beauty of his work.
BILLY: If somebody comes up to me and says, "Is it tame?"
Is it heck tame.
Hawks can't be tamed.
They're manned.
It's wild, and it's fierce, and it's not bothered about anybody.
Not bothered about me, right.
That's what makes it great.
OFF-SCREEN: It's such a powerfully egalitarian message that all of us
can have poetry in our everyday lives,
just like Billy Casper.
It was basically saying that every child has a quality.
You should find that quality and nurture it.
It also is saying, "Why does this country, systematically,
"throw on the scrapheap at least two-thirds of each generation?"
It says all I wanted to say about a lad who's not academic,
but once he gets interested in something, he gets stuck in.
And what it does, of course, it gives him confidence.
And that's...that's key, that.
Because all of us, we need confidence,
and the middle class have got confidence in spades.
And, why not? I mean...
..that's what they pay money for.
The story of a boy from a mining town who trains a kestrel
has enchanted so many people, because of the inherent sense
of truth, a feeling that this tale could have happened,
so it was wonderful to discover that Barry's own brother, Richard,
was the inspiration for the book.
He really did fly kestrels as a child,
and went on to be the on-set expert for the film.
Casper, lad, get to my room!
DAI CHUCKLES
I'll thrash you, lads. How are you doing, Richard?
Falling asleep in my assembly! DAI CHUCKLES
That's it. That's what I came for. This is Greg.
Hi, Richard. Hi, Greg. Pleased to meet you.
How are you? Oh, yeah, I'm fine, thanks. The two Billy Caspers.
Yeah. That's right. United.
Billy Senior and Billy Junior. Yeah. Yeah.
So, he really, really did base the book on you,
or your experience with kestrels, right?
Well, some of it, yes.
Because I was the secondary modern school write-off,
beaten at school...
..and I got...
..a kestrel.
I saw it flying out there, and I came with a friend.
Not here by the ruins? Really?
Yeah. That's where the nest was, in there.
And I climbed up... It's incredible, that. I came...
I came out of that wood there with a friend,
ladder on our shoulders, and we climbed up the wall.
Took the kestrel from there? Yeah. But what about the books?
What about the library scene? Is there some truth there?
Yeah, that's true. I did it. You went to the library?
I went to Barnsley Library.
What do you mean? Are you a member of the library?
I don't know about that. I only want a book on falconry. That's all.
Well, you have to be a member to take a book out.
And you nicked it. Tell me you nicked it.
No, no, I didn't nick it. You didn't nick it. No.
I went to the book shop, tried to order it.
It was two weeks. But I was so fascinated, I couldn't wait.
So I went back to the library, got a notepad,
and copied it out by hand.
I wrongly presumed that Richard had continued to fly kestrels
for his whole life, and asked him to do it again.
Is it a he or a she?
Is it a Jack, or a...?
This lack of research provided us with something truly special.
NARRATOR: "She tried a new tactic and came in low,
"seeming to flit within a pocket of silence close to the ground.
"Billy flexed at the knees,
"and flattened the plane of the swing,
"allowing the lengthening line to pay out before her."
GREG: Go on, Richard.
NARRATOR: "She shortened her stoop and counter stoop,
"which increased the frequency of her attacks,
"and made Billy pivot and whirl,
"and watch, but never lose control of the lure or its pursuer."
C'mon, Kes!
GREG CHUCKLES
He's calling her Kes.
Old habits.
NARRATOR: "And she came, headfirst, "wings closed, swooping down,
"hurtling down towards Billy, who waited,
"then lured her - WHOOSH - up, throwing, up, ringing, turning,
"and as she stooped again, Billy twirled the lure
"and threw it high into her path.
"She caught it, and clutched it down to the ground."
Caught it first time.
Richard hasn't done that for 50 years.
It's us that's made him to it.
It's true!
What a little beauty.
Oh, that was brilliant.
I never thought I could do that again.
It was amazing. Absolutely amazing.
It's must be like riding a bike.
To have a hawk on my fist again...
Oh. I think I might get another one.
GREG AND RICHARD CHUCKLE
The film is faithful to the book's tragic end.
I can't see it meself. Right, ta.
When Billy fails to place a bet for his older brother Jud,
Kes' fate is sealed.
Billy spends the money on fish and chips instead.
Here it is, then, the original fish and chip shop.
It's now called Caspers. It's been renamed.
Yeah. What a legacy. I know! I know!
THEY LAUGH
Let's go and get some fish and chips.
Can I have a bobs worth o' chips, and a fish?
Serve him, will you, Mary?
Yes, love? Got any scraps, Missis?
Yes, love.
DAI: Can I have some fish scraps, please? Some? Fish scraps?
Yeah, course you can. OK. All right.
Still working it. OK. Still got the Casper magic.
There you go. You make the scraps on purpose now, though, don't you?
SERVER LAUGHS
Yeah. Yeah. I'm on to you.
Oh, thank you. There you go.
Only half as much for me, cos I'm not as big as he is.
Fat. Big. Fat.
DAI CHUCKLES
While Billy eats his chips, Jud's horses win.
The revenge he takes is heart-wrenching.
Billy retrieving the dead kestrel from the bin is hard to watch,
however many times you've seen it.
Well, Dai, I think that anyone who's read this book
has their opinions about this question,
but what do you think would have happened to Billy Casper?
Well, I felt that there was no life in the collieries for him.
He would not follow his brother into the coalmines.
I think you and I would agree on that,
that he didn't end up down the pit.
That's right. He had too much spirit in it. And what we want to think
is that that spirit wasn't crushed... Yes. ..by what happened.
It's that attitude.
"Screw you."
It's that... And I agree with you,
..but is that you and I romanticising it? No.
Is that you and I hoping that Billy... No, no, no.
..keeps that fighting spirit? I think he kept that fighting spirit.
I hope so. I think he did.
There's a lot of kids out there like him, you know,
and what we need to do is harness that raw passion,
whatever it is that really makes them tick.
Time for a selfie with the V-sign master.
DAI CHUCKLES
GREG OFF-SCREEN: It's not the first one Dai's had to do today.
That's it. Are you in? Yeah.
Ah, he's doing the... He's doing the fist in the air, look!
The two fingers, there. Yeah, hang on.
That way. Peace.
Yes.
GREG CHUCKLES
Champion.
David Bradley, AKA Billy Casper, turned 66 yesterday. So you...
Absolute fucking legend.
GREG LAUGHS
Don't start with that...
You don't seem to tire of...
Or you're doing a good impression, Dai,
of someone who isn't bored of talking about Kes.
Well, it's, kind of, been my whole life in a lot of ways, Greg.
I realised very early on that Kes would probably be...
..the...the...the the production that would kind of...
..usurp everything else I'd ever do in my life or career.
It's defined your career... That's right.
..maybe, yeah. That's right.
So, I embraced it rather than fought against it.
The fact that A Kestrel For A Knave remains the project
that both Dai and Barry Hines are professionally defined by
is no surprise. Its reach and influence have been phenomenal.
Time to speak to a well-known superfan - Jarvis Cocker.
Yeah, if you could come through to my office.
'And Jarvis has his own personal homage to the book's famous cover.'
The cover of the book was more like that.
Now, this photo haunts me really, because it's...
..I've seen, like, representations of it all over the place.
But the reason this photo came about was,
I think it was the NME years ago, asked...
They were doing something, and they were asking what me favourite book
was, and I said A Kestrel For A Knave, and I brought it along,
and then I think the photographer just said,
"Oh, will you do that pose from the from the cover of the book?"
So, I did. It's so great.
Obviously, I would never normally... Be so rude.
No, I mean... I don't imagine many people who saw that image
realised that you were back-referencing a 1968 book.
No, totally.
It's my cover version of that cover shot.
Yeah. When did you first read the book?
First read A Kestrel For A Knave...
It was... We did it at school.
Everybody had to read in order, and so the big excitement
in the class was if you were going to get a page to read
that had some swear words in it.
GREG CHUCKLES
Because, you know, to be allowed to swear in class
was just considered the best thing ever.
It's just the dream, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah.
As soon as there was, like, a swear word they would be shouting,
"Tha dun't like bein' called a BASTARD, does tha?"
Cos that...
That was the most important part of the book at that age.
Yeah. Yeah. So that was... Yeah, that was my introduction to it.
What is it about the book that has made it a special book for you?
For me, that symbolism of flight, and of escape from... Yeah.
..from your surroundings, or escape from...from what's holding you down.
And I think that was very powerful for me...
..growing up. The desire to escape has been, historically,
a massive kind of engine for...
..for people from the north, or not just from the north, but from...
..from working class backgrounds, because it's, like...
..it gives you some energy. You kind of want to get away from there.
You want to make something, or write something,
or sing something in order to help you... Yeah. ..get away.
To soar with your jesses off.
Yeah. Like, we all need to take the jesses off now and again.
GREG LAUGHS
God, we do.
God, I wish I could... And fly... And fly free.
There's a lot of catchphrases you get from me in this book.
We often used to say that when we were rehearsing, and that,
"You've got to take the jesses off". Did you really?
Yeah. In Pulp? Because you've got to...
Yeah, you've got to, like, let it... You've got to let it go.
I like that Kes, specifically,
was being referenced in Pulp rehearsals. Yeah. For sure, yeah.
I know why it speaks to a Northerner,
but why does it speak to other people?
Yeah, that's a good... That's a good question.
I think it's something to do with if you...tell a story...
..in a specific enough way, people then realise that
there's something genuine about it, there's something real about it.
Because you could only really pick up on those details
if you'd lived that kind of experience.
In a weird way, the more specific you make it,
then that opens it up into like a universal thing.
I don't know. All my creative career has been dedicated to
trying to work out how that works. Right. Because I really think
it's true - if you get the details of stuff right,
suddenly it clicks for people and they say,
"Oh yeah, this is real, and I'm going to take notice of it". Right.
So, the devil's in the detail.
Barry Hines' keen observations of daily life in Hoyland Common
were key to this book. And that makes sense
to novelist Kit De Waal, for whom it all rings true.
I know that front room, I know the kitchen.
I know that school. So, for somebody like me,
very working-class, it was one of the few books that you could say,
"I know that world. I know that pub..." Right. "..I've sat there."
He... It really is a window into that time...
Totally. ..and that place.
But, I wonder, do you think that it's still an important book?
It is an important book, incredibly so,
because there are so few working-class books
written by the working class community, by working-class writers.
It's rare to have that.
And what... Why? Why? Why?
How's the landscape changed?
There was a real explosion of working-class voices in the '50s
and '60s. How is... People say that, though. People say that, and
whenever we talk about the explosion of working-class writers,
it's against a backdrop of a huge body of work
that wasn't working-class. Of course.
It's just that, you know, whenever you say "working-class writers,"
The Loneliness Of The Long-Distance Runner,
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning,
and you very quickly will run out of titles.
OK. Very quickly.
So, there were just some big hits. Exactly. Right.
There were some big hits, and some really important works.
And this is always what I say about working-class literature -
there's enough room to have it.
You know, we want to see the whole of the UK,
and the whole of history, depicted on TV and in literature.
How many Pride And Prejudices are we ever going to see?
I mean, there must have been seven or eight of those. I know.
But we have one... I mean, we're Darcy'd out now, right?
We're Darcy'd out, and there's one Kes.
Ken Loach and Tony Garnett adapted
three more of Barry's novels,
and there won't be many people who grew up in the '80s
that didn't watch Threads,
his harrowing story of the aftermath of a nuclear attack,
which focused on the impact it had on ordinary working people.
Class is a theme he returned to time and time again in his work,
a choice he angrily defended.
People say to me quite often,
"Why...when are you going to progress?
"When are you going...?" I know what they mean.
"When are you going to write about something else?"
What they mean is, "When am I going to start writing about
"the middle classes?" I wonder if anybody said to Evelyn Waugh,
"When are you going to progress?" I wonder if they say
to Kingsley Amis, or Martin Amis, or Margaret Drabble,
"When are YOU going to progress?"
Whilst A Kestrel For A Knave remains his most high-profile work,
Barry continued to write unapologetically
about working-class lives.
In later years, he and his second wife, Eleanor, lived in Sheffield,
where he continued to work despite failing health.
He wasn't very good at spelling. That must have been...something...
Was he not?! ..coming on. No.
But, when he was well, when you were first together, when he was well...
He still couldn't spell very well.
GREG LAUGHS
No, honestly. Good. I'm glad... I'm glad to get it on record.
Cos I got called in every five minutes, wherever I was.
I think that's an inspiration to young writers to find out
that someone who could write as well as him couldn't spell.
No, his spelling wasn't good. Good.
As I say, he used to phone me at work every day.
"How do you spell this?"
So...so, obviously Barry was a working-class lad,
but there was a stage, and, really, it was at the time you met
when Barry, you know, had had a lot of success,
and no longer lived in the place where he grew up,
and, yet, class was still so important to him.
Oh, yeah. He would be delighted if somebody of his own,
what he called his "own class"... Yeah.
..enjoyed it, and then came up to him and said, "That were brilliant".
Oh, his day would be made. Yeah.
"That was all right, that was."
That's a quote that somebody said to us yesterday, that someone...
or someone had said to him
Either "That wasn't bad," or, "That was all right,"
and that was enough praise.
Yes.
That was enough. "Not too bad."
"Not too bad," yeah!
And if we went back to Hoyland, he had to go to the...
..Working Men's Club. Did he?
Yeah, he had to keep going to that to prove that he was a working man,
or to be the same. Right.
He was desperate, I think, to be recognised and loved,
and everything, by all the people round about,
because he just loved them so much.
So, he still wanted to be accepted by them...
Oh, he was desperate to. ..and to feel part of them?
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
And if anybody ever praised him for something,
he was over-the-top pleased.
He was just so delighted, because he thought
that they were a lot better than he was,
because they were the people that he loved more than himself.
Yeah. That's probably a bit mixed up,
but you know what I mean?
'Diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease,
'Barry moved back to Hoyland Common with Eleanor,
'where he spent many happy nights at the local Working Men's Club.'
I'm meeting bestselling novelist Millie Johnson,
a Northern success story,
who feels Barry made her career possible.
I arrive early only to discover that, in a final act of sabotage
by the director, there is a technical problem.
Look if I stand up.
MILLIE LAUGHS
How did you get on with Barry Hines, Millie?
MILLIE CONTINUES LAUGHING
PUNTER OFF-SCREEN: That's just not right, is it?
So...
PUNTER LAUGHS OFF-SCREEN
You're still taller than me!
THEY ALL LAUGH
So, Millie, I understand you knew Barry?
MILLIE GASPS FOR BREATH
No, I didn't.
PUNTER LAUGHS OFF-SCREEN
Jesus Christ!
Last time I did that...
She's made me get on my knees... ..I got barred out.
She's made me get on my knees, she didn't even KNOW Barry.
MILLIE CONTINUES CHUCKLING
Hold on. Hold on.
No, I didn't. I didn't, I really didn't.
No, he was just a big influence on me.
When I started writing,
it was reading Barry Hines that I thought,
"You know, this guy's done it."
He's from Barnsley,
he had the same background as me,
and he wrote about the people around him... Yeah. ..here in this town.
I mean, that's the reason why I'm taking part
in this, really, is you never forget the first books
that you suddenly think, "Oh, maybe I... Maybe I COULD read".
Yeah. Yeah!
THEY GIGGLE
"Maybe I could be interested." Yeah. And that's the power of words,
isn't it? Yeah. To drag you into the world of books.
And it's a real door-opener.
The longevity of the book is that it's still relevant today.
And, you know, there are kids who are still as undernourished,
both, in a, you know...by... with food and books.
And it resonates as much today in today's world
as it did then. It should still be on the...
It's come off the curriculum, hasn't it?
I know. It should be on the curriculum...
It should be. I agree. ..because it's... It is a relevant book.
Yeah. We should start that movement... We should.
..to get it back on the curriculum. It started here.
You heard it here first. Right here,
in the Hoyland Common Working Men's Club.
There was a particular risk
that anyone who lived and drank with Barry ran.
As the club's manager, Mick Whitaker reveals to me,
there was a strong possibility that you could end up as a character
in one of Barry's novels.
Some of the characters, that were based in here.
The one that Brian Glover played. Yeah, the teacher. Yeah.
He were still teaching at Kirk Balk when I were there.
Ronny were a games teacher, and he walked out wi' ball under arm,
"Right, I'm Man U, and you're fuckin' Barnsley". Is that right?
Oh, aye. He were just like Brian Glover.
Right, and it's Manchester United versus Spurs in this important
fifth round cup tie here at Old Trafford,
and it's the fair-haired, slightly balding Charlton to kick off.
I asked Barry, and that character, based on Ronny Allen.
Oh, I love...I love the idea that he was watching...he was watching,
Ronny... He based them characters, on people that he knew.
You believe those people existed? Oh, yeah. They did.
HE CHORTLES And we've all known Billy Casper,
haven't we? We've all known... Still got some of them in 'ere now.
HE LAUGHS
Yeah, I bet. I bet!
GREG CHUCKLES
Tell me about your experience of Barry in here.
He weren't...He weren't Billy Big, no, he were just Barry.
He just used to come in, he'd buy hisself a glass of red wine.
Sometimes he'd come in wi' wife, sometimes he was on his own.
He'd just sit here.
Anybody approached him, he'd have a conversation wi' 'im.
If not, he'd just sit here with his own thoughts.
He knew what he'd done for round here. Yeah.
End of day, he wrote that book.
That book is brilliant. Yeah, it's amazing.
In his later life, when he were failing,
and he got his Alzheimer's and that,
he must have thought summat about this place, because,
as he got worse with his illness...
..he still came here. Yeah. So, he must've felt safe here.
Oh, yeah. Well... He must... There were summat...
..all accounts I've heard is he loved this place.
There must have been summat about this place
for him to keep coming here. Yeah.
This place must have been somewhere in his head, or his heart,
for him to keep coming here.
Well, there's no doubt Hoyland Common was in his heart.
I mean, no doubt. Well, I think so.
There's no doubt about that. I think so, aye, yeah. Yeah.
It was central to everything he did.
That book...
..will be read...
..100 years from now.
About what it was like to live at that moment...
..in that place.
But as a writer, he also had a stance.
And his politics gave him that stance.
Some people are so poor.
They have such, you know, poor lives.
Whereas rich people never say that they're rich.
They're always hard-up, aren't they?
That's what I was angry about -
people who've got loads of money that never earned any.
'And so we end as we began -
'me, inexplicably filmed from above, walking up a road.
'As soon as I've put that shirt in the washing machine,
'I reflect on what I've discovered.'
'There was something that Jarvis said that made me think
'about the journey we've been on with this book.
'He said when he was at school that kids in the class
'were just excited to read out the swear words,
'because it was legalised swearing in school.'
And it made me laugh straight away, because I remember it SO clearly
from being at school myself, and that kids in the class, who...
HE CHUCKLES
..who wouldn't normally volunteer to read, were volunteering to read,
because they knew there was a "bastard" coming up.
And when I started teaching, my motivation was not great, as well,
because I was reading this book
purely because I knew it engaged children.
HE CHUCKLES
I wasn't really engaging with the book myself,
I just knew it would get them.
I knew the story would get them.
Something I didn't appreciate, as a 20-something-year-old teacher,
that's for sure,
is, er, quite what an angry, defiant little novel it is.
I should take "little" out. "Angry, defiant novel."
And I love that about it.
And that...
..because there's so much that we should all be angry about.
Especially now. There's so much that we shouldn't just put up with,
going on in the world.
It, sort of, makes the novel feel more relevant than ever, really.
In its central message of, "We should be looking after each other,
"and we shouldn't just put up with the status quo".
I mean, those themes couldn't be more relevant, could they,
with the shit show that's the world today?
It's a real work of art.
It's a real rounded work of art.
And I hadn't quite appreciated that.
And it's...
..it's quite a trick to pull off something...
..as being so specific to a part of the world,
and make the theme so huge and so universal.
HE EXHALES SHARPLY
Clever bloke, weren't he?
HE CHUCKLES