No opportunities lost in describing the beauty of the Berkshire countryside. "If you've read Watership Down I'm sure you'll realise it's entirely based in the English countryside and you can almost say that the English countryside was another character in the book. "What followed was really the essence of Watership Down. "This called for spontanaiety, it had to, and I just began off the top of my head: 'Once upon a time there were two rabbits, called eh, let me see, Hazel and Fiver, and I'm going to tell you about some of their adventures'.
Before I said anything in particular my elder daughter, who was eight at the time, said 'Now daddy we're going on a long car journey, so we want you to while away the time by telling us a completely new story, one that we have never heard before and without any delay. "Well one day we were going to Stratford-upon-Avon to see Judi Dench in Twelfth Night. "I always used to tell stories off the top of my head to my two little girls whenever we had a long car journey. "Well I've always been a story-teller all my life, when I was at school I did everything I could to get the masters to give me a job writing short stories as part of the school work and I discovered I came top time after time after time and I discovered for writing stories." On the genesis of Watership Down. On first discovering his knack for writing tales. We had a nice house with three acres of garden, I had all that to play in, admittedly I mostly played by myself, not having any brothers or sisters but I think that really developed my imagination. "I had a very happy home, and a nice upbringing. "My original idea was that Big Wig after he'd fought Woundwart and driven him off, would die of his wounds but my children simply would not have it." You read excerpts from the interview below.Īudio and Video links on this page require Realplayer Both audio clips are approximately 15 minutes long so expect a few minutes downloading time. A civil servant for most of his working life, he penned Watership Down in 1972 which, after 13 rejections from publishers, became a world-renowned story that is now Penguin Books' best-selling novel of all time.īBC Radio Berkshire's Vernon Harwood met the now 86-year-old author for an exclusive interview about his life and works, including certains 'truths' about Watership Down. Richard Adams was born in Wash Common, just outside Newbury, in 1920.
Now 86, the Wash Common-born former civil servant exclusively reveals some truths about the book to BBC Berkshire. Interview: Richard Adams Richard Adams is most famously known as the author of Watership Down, the world-renowned tale of the rabbits at Sandleford Warren. People You are in: Berkshire > Features > People > Interview: Richard Adams
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