Barbara Taylor Bradford OBE

One of the finest and most prolific writers of her generation – bursting on the scene in 1979 with a magnificent novel which not only inspired and empowered generations of women but was also an eye watering commercial success – selling over 30 million copies worldwide.

After an incredible debut, she went on to write over 40 novels, religiously delivering a book a year.

Barbara was a wonderful writer – unashamedly commercial – who created strong, female characters. Interviewed by the New York Times in 1979, she said “I’m not going to go down in history as a great literary figure. I’m a commercial writer, a storyteller. Women want to read about women who have made a success of their lives. It’s a matter of identification. Most novels concerning money and power are about men. I will always write about strong women. Not hard women, though. I mean women of substance.”

Barbara wanted to write books that people genuinely wanted to read, stories that would engage an audience – and she did – and at HarperCollins we were, and are, hugely proud to be her publisher.

But I am not going to talk about her books – or her career as a writer – everyone here knows about that, and since her death it has been chronicled on a global scale across print and broadcast media.

I want to talk about the Barbara we all knew: the Barbara I met when I took over this job 12 years ago, and the Barbara who I am proud to say became my, and my wife Annie’s great friend.

When we first met, she was everything I had imagined. I had been summoned to the Dorchester – her home from home in London – for tea.

There she sat on a sofa, sipping a glass of pink champagne with immaculately coiffed hair, beautifully dressed and bedecked in some eye-catching jewellery. She appeared the elegant doyenne of New York Society that I had expected, but underneath I got to know a very different Barbara: the Barbara who many people in this room will recognise. The warm, clever, wonderfully unspoilt person who we affectionately know as BTB.

A fiercely proud Yorkshire girl from a village outside Leeds – who had left school at 15 and successfully made her way in the world, through guts, determination and hard work – and I might add, with a huge amount of talent and a great deal of charm!!

The Barbara who loved nothing more than a cup of tea and a plate of good old Fish and Chips – she even convinced the Dorchester to serve it with a bottle of Malt Vinegar!

There is good reason why we are here in the beautiful church of St Bride’s – it is well known as the journalists’ church. Barbara was proud to have been a journalist first and shared many wonderful stories about that part of her career.

Her first job, aged 16, was at the Yorkshire Evening Post – working in the typing pool. She would write up stories for the likes of Keith Waterhouse, who worked for the paper at the time, and who would later go on to become the acclaimed playwright and Fleet St legend.

Barbara’s ambition was always to be a journalist and, to escape the typing pool, she had to work hard and keep her head down. Working in an environment dominated by men, her mother had given her good advice: don’t flirt, and only stay for one drink. It was advice she always remembered. (Although in her later years, my observation was that she may well have ignored it!!)

Alongside typing up stories for journalists, she secretly started to write up her own stories and drop them in the sub-editors’ tray, with the byline ‘Barbara Taylor’.

Barry Horniblow, the editor, was not familiar with girls in the typing pool and wanted to know who Barbara Taylor was. He called her into his office, where she confessed! He decided to give her the break she had longed for and within six months she was a full-time reporter.

It was Keith Waterhouse who took her under his wing. Barbara always acknowledged that writing for a newspaper taught her to look for the human story in every drama or tragedy, a skill that would serve her well as a novelist.

Also in her orbit, and working for the paper, was a ‘pimply youth’, (her words not mine) – a trainee photographer with a broad Yorkshire accent, called Peter. He asked Barbara out to the pictures several times, but she always declined.

On leaving the Post she came to London to work on Fleet Street as the Fashion Editor at Woman’s Own, and she quickly immersed herself in the wonderful Soho café society of artists, actors and writers that was flourishing at the time.

She told me of a party she went to with Keith Waterhouse – full of celebrity types from the period. In walked a wonderfully good-looking man, with blonde hair and piercing blue eyes. There was a hush of recognition as he entered – it was Peter O’Toole – the star of the big new David Lean film Lawrence of Arabia.

Barbara immediately recognised him as the spotty photographer from the Yorkshire Evening Post who had shown such an interest in her, now without any trace of pimples, or a Yorkshire accent.

Barbara’s decision to turn down O’Toole all those years ago proved fortunate for her beloved husband, Bob – they went on to have a very happy, 55-year marriage. Bob was her greatest champion, in life and her career, and together they were quite the force. She wrote the books and, as a producer, he successfully adapted them into acclaimed TV dramas.

Anyone witnessing their relationship could see they were each other’s greatest love – kind, affectionate and respectful of each other – although also admitting that in times of irritation she referred to him as Napolean whilst he called her Bismarck!

Relationships with people were important to Barbara, especially her team at HarperCollins; she considered them family. Lynne and Liz, who spent so much time with her and did so much for her and Bob over the years, and the many others who contributed to her books in oh so many ways. She never underestimated the job that they did for her to make her books a success.

Barbara was wonderfully generous – many of us here will have taken delivery of a Fortnum’s champagne package at Christmas. And if anyone ever arrived in New York, they would be whisked out to dinner at some fabulous restaurant on the Upper East Side.

Barbara appeared to live a glamorous life, but she never lost sight of where she came from, she was fiercely proud of it. As comfortable at the most sophisticated New York Soiree – as she was in our Glasgow warehouse engaging a group of forklift truck drivers, with her smile and her stories. On those occasions, health and safety came first, and she would happily swap her fur coat for a high viz jacket – pink of course – with the letters BTB blazoned across the back!

For there was a wonderful mischievous side to Barbara. When we had publication dinners, at 5 Hertford Street, in her beloved Mayfair, we would always present her with a gift. Something nice and thoughtful, but being impoverished publishers, relatively affordable. Before unwrapping it she would look up at me and say, “Is it a diamond bracelet, Charlie?”. I feel rather mean now that it never was.

Barbara was quite simply, extraordinary. She achieved remarkable success in a male dominated world, blazing a trail for women. And whilst she cherished the company of men, especially her darling Bob, she didn’t see any damned reason to be second to them!

But it was Bob that looked after her business……

I always knew it was time to renew Barbara’s contract when Bob invited me for lunch at Harry’s Bar, or some other delightful spot. Over lunch he would remind me how much Rupert Murdoch adored Barbara, and that they had only been chatting the other day about how much he loved her latest book.
Bob need not have worried: for as long as she was writing books, she would be writing them for us!

I last saw Barbara in May last year in New York when Annie and I visited her apartment for drinks. She greeted us – beaming with a radiant smile – the sunlight illuminating her perfectly. As we enjoyed champagne, Barbara was her usual captivating self – interested, engaging and delightful. The bottle was finished, and we said our goodbyes, and I assured her I would see her soon. It didn’t cross my mind that I wouldn’t.

When someone is no longer with us, we all have a different way of remembering them. When I think of Barbara, I will always have a vision of her smiling, her eyes sparkling, and always smiling.

Barbara gave so much to the world – it is a better place for her having been here – and heaven will be a far better and brighter place for her company.

Collins – as it then was – acquired Granada Publishing in 1983 which was a bargain as the price included BTB and her phenomenally successful A Woman of Substance.

Hardly a one book wonder, she followed up that year with Voice of the Heart and then, in 1985, she published Hold the Dream and, in January that year, Channel 4 aired A Woman of Substance with viewings figures that still stand.

So, it is no exaggeration to say that Barbara was the most important author in the entire company, and therefore surprising that I was appointed as MD of the then named Grafton Books: a sort of sub-Charlie Redmayne job. Though never actually spoken out loud it was made very clear that if Barbara didn’t approve at a lunch arranged for the following week, then I would be out.

Fortunately, we never stopped laughing then and for the rest of her life.

She became a close friend, even coming to my son’s Christening. She never forgot him and always enquired after him.

We so looked forward to her visits to the UK and to hosting that year’s book launch party. At these she used to walk round the room and introduce herself to each and every bookseller. And at the end of the party, she would go round again to say goodbye to them by name.

As a result, we all went the extra mile for her, and no author was more greatly loved.

The visits by Bob to the office were received with rather more trepidation.

The team would present the campaign. Bob was always polite but when shown the cover would usually say “I think Barbara deserves a 5th colour, don’t you, and lots more gold foil”. Our Radio advertising campaign became a TV campaign and magically the print run seemed to have doubled.

But he was also immensely generous and thanks to him I found that it was possible to pay £50 for a starter at Harry’s Bar, to play roulette at Les Ambassadeurs, and to always start dinner with a double vodka on the rocks.

He devoted his working life to promoting Barbara. When he was away on his travels, I often teased him that he had left Barbara locked up in the attic to keep up the pace of a new book every year. He produced all her TV series and ensured that her publishers were working as hard as he was to keep her as a number 1 author. They were the ultimate team and a formidable duo, and I don’t think there has ever been, or ever will be, a couple like them.

And so we now come full circle as I run the team at Curtis Brown, appointed by the Trustees to be Barbara’s literary agent: a gamekeeper turned poacher.

Our job is to keep the flame burning with, of course, our first job to capitalise on the effect of the forthcoming Channel 4 TV series based on A Woman of Substance which we hope will introduce new readers to the wonderful world of Emma Harte created by Barbara; the new cast needs only to be half as good as the original led by Jenny Seagrove to achieve this.

And, of course, we will be challenging Barbara’s publishers round the world To Be the Best and to Hold the Dream.

While I will never be able to emulate Bob’s style, I would be very flattered and feel we were on the right track if at the end of a meeting I overheard a publisher to say that he reminds me just a bit of Bob Bradford.

He was everything to Barbara and I can still hear her saying to him each day:

Fly me to the Moon,
Let me play among the Stars.

To which Bob replies:

In other words,
I love you.

Strength and dignity are her clothing;
she can laugh at the time to come.
She speaks with wisdom,
and faithful instruction is on her tongue.
She watches over the affairs of her household
and does not eat the bread of idleness.
Her children arise and call her blessed;
her husband also, and he praises her:
“Many women do noble things,
but you surpass them all.”
Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting;
but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.
Honour her for all that her hands have done,
and let her works bring her praise at the city gate

Bees are tap dancing up there
On their cushions in the air.
If you listen you’ll hear their song,
It’s sweetly soft and doesn’t last long.
It begins with a buzz and ends with a hum,
Look! Look! Here they come.
Listen now – don’t you see?
They are escorting the Royal Queen Bee.

It was in 1976 that I had the glimmer of an idea for a novel. In actuality, it was the image of a young girl, wrapped in a shawl and walking through the mist on the Yorkshire moors. I had no idea who she was, but I wanted to know more about her and quite suddenly I knew she would become a woman of some importance one day.

For the next few days, I thought about the girl of the moors, and as she grew flesh and became real to me I, in turn, filled with excitement. So much so that I knew I had to share her with my husband Bob. As a movie producer, he was used to listening to plots and was a receptive listener. By the time I had told him the girl’s life-story, improvising as I went along, he was genuinely sold on the novel, and as excited as I was. He told me to write an outline, which I did, and then we took it apart together and I rewrote it several times until we were sure it was everything I wanted it to be. My only worry was that it was somewhat parochial, since most of it played out in Yorkshire.

But this didn’t bother Bob at all, who told me that it was the girl who was captivating, who the reader cared about – and that location was not all that important. Readers will become intrigued by her, will want to keep reading to see what happens to her, how she ends up.

What I wanted was to tell a good tale about an enterprising woman, who makes it in a man’s world of business when women weren’t doing that. A woman who becomes a woman of substance.

I suppose I succeeded more than I realised at the time. Emma Harte and her life story captured everybody’s imagination, and still does. Tough and often ruthless, brilliant when it came to dissimulation, she was an amazing businesswoman, and could be a powerful and fearsome adversary when she thought this was necessary.

No author sits at a desk for hours at a time wanting to write a book that nobody reads. I am proud that my first novel, published in 1979, has sold millions of copies. Remarkably, it’s still selling today forty years later.

I smile every time I see the phrase ‘a woman of substance’ used to describe other successful or unique women. My title has seeped into everyday language and is used all the time, in newspapers, magazines and on the airwaves.

When I gave my mother a copy of the book she looked at me and said quietly, ‘This is the fulfilment of your childhood dream’. It was. But it might not have ever been written if Bob had not been excited by my storytelling and had convinced me to do that outline. Even when I doubted it, he dismissed the idea very swiftly. It was his total confidence in my ability that gave me the courage to write my first novel, and to keep on writing many more. In fact, his love and devotion helped to create my whole career, and I couldn’t have done it without him by my side. And that is why every book is dedicated to him with all my love and gratitude, and always will be.