‘If you love a man, pick up his socks’
Bestselling author Barbara Taylor Bradford has been married for 54 years. She talks to Celia Walden about being a woman of substance
‘Cashmere, wool and nylon mix,” says Barbara Taylor Bradford. “The pure cashmere ones wear out too fast.”
Bed socks – and their importance within a marriage – are a recurring theme in my encounters with the bestselling British novelist. We discussed them four years ago, in her 5,000 sq ft Manhattan penthouse, and we’re back on the subject today, in the rarefied glow of the Dorchester tea rooms.
Robert – Taylor Bradford’s American film producer husband of 54 years – was always complaining about cold feet, until the woman he calls “Napoleon” made him wear bed socks. “And now he’s grown into them,” she shrugs. “It’s about mothering men without them knowing they’re being mothered.”
Were Taylor Bradford’s new book to be called On Marriage, rather than Secrets of Cavendon, it would doubtless sell as many copies as the previous 31 (just the 92million worldwide) and possibly break the records of her first, A Woman of Substance, which has sold more than 30million copies since it was first published in 1979, and is one of the 10 bestselling novels of all time.
How the Leeds-born author manages to bash out an international bestseller every year is the subject of as much wonder as her blissfully happy marriage. I’m going to need to know her secrets.
“If one wants one’s marriage to survive, one has to be very clever,” begins Taylor Bradford – an impeccably turned out and lavishly bejewelled 84-year-old, with a regal gait and a mischievous smile. “Control yourself when you’re annoyed about something – hold it in until you’re not so fraught and you can have a discussion, rather than an argument, about it. Edit yourself: I love words, but they can hurt. And do try never to look slobby in front of your husband – it isn’t just a turn-off for him, but for oneself. So put a nice kaftan on, comb your hair and wash your face – and a little spritz of perfume never hurts.”
Taylor Bradford may have just extended my marriage by at least a decade, but it’s possible some women could see her advice as unfeminist. Is there room within marriage for grand notions of equality? “No,” she flings back. “I think the sort of woman who would quibble over who picks up a shirt or a pair of underpants really needs to grow up. If you love a man, stop being so childish and pick up his f------ socks.”
It occurs to me that, along with other people’s marriages, Taylor Bradford could probably singlehandedly sort out the battle of the sexes, Britain and Brexit (she’d have Barnier bowing before her within minutes). She’s a formidable truthteller and blues buster rolled into one who could put the world to rights over a pot of English Breakfast and a slice of lemon. Because Taylor Bradford has spent the whole of her life just getting on with it.
The daughter of an engineer, who lost his leg in the First World War, she was 10 when she had her first short story published in a children’s magazine. Six years later, she was standing in the office of the Yorkshire Evening Post’s editor being asked: “So you want to be a journalist?”
“I don’t want to be, sir,” Taylor Bradford replied. “I’m going to be.” At 18, she was the paper’s first women’s editor, and after nine years in Fleet Street, she moved to the US, met Robert and became the prolific novelist she is today. “I never joined any ‘women’s lib’ type organisation; I liberated myself the day I told my parents I wanted to work at a newspaper,” she shrugs. “And I never felt there was a glass ceiling.”
Never felt, in any way, held back because she was a woman? After all, those were the Fifties. “No. My mother always said to me: ‘Remember that men will treat you according to the way you behave, so don’t flirt with them or tease them. Be serious, and if any of them ask you out, don’t go’.”
As charismatic and beautiful as her heroines, Taylor Bradford was “asked out a lot – and by the married ones, too”. Of course, that would be
‘Put a nice kaftan on, comb your hair and wash your face – and a little spritz of perfume never hurts’
considered harassment now, I point out. “Oh, because of ‘Me Too’,” she sighs, referring to the social media hashtag that emerged following the Harvey Weinstein revelations, where women shared their own stories of harassment. “One does wonder whether it really is ‘me too’, doesn’t one? Nobody harassed me, and it wouldn’t have bothered me if someone had touched my knee. Yes, some men became a bit pestering, but I would just laugh and say: ‘Don’t be so silly.’ Because you know what?” she whispers, leaning in: “If you laugh at a man, they get very embarrassed.”
But I’m not sure that even the loudest guffaw would deter Weinstein-sized predators. “Oh, of course,” Taylor Bradford shakes her head in disgust. Might the scandal inspire a future bestseller?
“Well, Weinstein’s certainly a great villain, but he’s far too ugly to be in any book of mine. And what I don’t believe in is this idea of sex addiction. Don’t call it an illness! It’s a powerful man, who ain’t Clark Gable, taking advantage of the women he couldn’t get before he had that power. An illness!” she scoffs, so loudly the couple at the adjacent table turn around.
The thing that saddened her was Kevin Spacey. “Because he is such an enormous talent. And where is he now?” In the same “sex rehabilitation” centre as Weinstein, I tell her.
“Oh,” she says. “Do you think they’re comparing stories?”
Seriously, though, does she think there is something intrinsically rotten about it? “Well, back in the day, agents used to be called ‘flesh peddlers’ and that whole droit du seigneur thing has always gone on.” But won’t this be the end of it? “I don’t know, because it’s in every industry – even in the House of Commons. But, of course, they’re bored to death, so they’ve got to do something.”
Just as Taylor Bradford didn’t set out to bust through any glass ceilings, A Woman of Substance – the story of a maid turned billionaire businesswoman, set in 1905 – wasn’t intended to be a feminist manifesto.
“I created Emma Harte because, in the Seventies, the women in fiction were either Madonnas or prostitutes – never real. And for some reason, women all over the world were inspired by her, so it turned out to be a book with a message I hadn’t intended to send.” Despite the success she enjoyed over the next 40 years, there were missed chances: she would have liked to be Fleet Street’s first female editor, she admits, and “were I 30 years younger and living in Britain, I’d be vehemently campaigning against the gender pay gap right now, because it’s wrong and it’s cheating women”.
There were also personal sadnesses: she and Robert never had children. “I had two miscarriages and I was devastated at the time, but I couldn’t let that define me. We both had our careers, and so I pushed ahead. And although some people in that situation quarrel and break up, we clung together.”
In any case, she says, “regrets are as pointless as worrying: either let it go or do something about it. But there seems to be such a sense of entitlement in the young now! And yet, nothing worth having – whether a good marriage or a great career – comes easily.”
Another half-hour with Taylor Bradford could probably iron out every wrinkle in my life, but she’s got a day of interviews lined up and, regretfully, I say goodbye. As I’m nearing the door, her voice rings out across the tea room: “Remember, darling: mother them, but don’t ever let them know.”
Secrets of Cavendon by Barbara Taylor Bradford is published by Harpercollins (£16.99). To order your copy for £14.99 plus p&p call 0844 871 1514 or visit books.telegraph.co.uk
‘My miscarriages devastated me – but I couldn’t let them define me’