Rowling called for the resignation of the Archbishop of Canterbury yesterday and today he obliged her by stepping down.
The only thing of note here for Rowling Readers is that the Anglican priest-child abuser whose crimes the Archbishop neglected to insure were investigated and prosecuted committed his assaults on children under his direction in a “shed.” Rowling told her Poet Laureate interviewer, whose podcasts are based out of his garage or “shed” in UK-speak, that the shed at her home as a child was a frightening place to her. In her renovations of Church Cottage years later, the only building to be removed was that shed.
That’s not enough for a proper post, though, so I’ll leave it at that, a marker placed for a future Golden Thread post-series.
Today I want to talk about Rowling’s “first television interview,” a fan-servicing piece she did in 2001 for all those impatiently waiting for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
What Is It? It is a Q&A with a ten year old boy (now 33 years old; how was the course of Victor Greenstreet‘s life changed by this bizarre contact with The Presence?) in which he asks the author softball questions about Quidditch Through the Ages and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. BBC One aired it as part of television special about Comic Relief, the charity which received most of the money generated by sales of those Hogwarts schoolbooks.
Was it Rowling’s “First Television Interview”? That is the claim made by the person who posted the short video on YouTube, but it is easily refuted. She spoke with 60 Minutes in 1999 and with the CBC in July 2000 as part of the Goblet of Fire promotional tour on the Hogwarts Express; I suspect there were others.
Why Should We Care about This Forgotten Bit of Marketing? What I found fascinating was that this quite forgettable clip remained unposted until 2023. There is nothing significant in it, but why did it take more than two decades to be added to the Rowling interview catalog on YouTube? It’s a guaranteed click magnet; even I felt obliged to check it out, right?
The only reason to care about it in the end, I think, is because of the credible snapshot it provides of Rowling in 2001, the year of her engagement and betrothal to Neil Murray, M.D. It was in a very real sense the turning point of her personal life and it was the year she was beginning the big push to the summit of her professional life and popularity. The “three year summer” between Goblet of Fire and Order of the Phoenix was the inter librum solstice in which she revisited and re-planned the last three books of the Hogwarts Saga while the world began to queue outside bookstores globally in anticipation of their next Harry, Ron, and Hermione fix.
What was she like then? I think three things reflect her state of mind at the time she sat down with 10 year old Victor (love that sharp haircut!). After the jump!
(1) This isn’t a Real Interview
Rowling isn’t taking any chances here of being ambushed by an ambitious journalist with a set of Gotcha questions. There is literally nothing of substance in the boy’s three questions or her answers to them. She’s got a lot on her plate personally and professionally in 2001 and more on her mind; stressing over a hardball interview was not in the cards.
(2) Her Comfort and Attentiveness with the Child
Rowling is leaning in to the conversation as if to communicate to Victor that he is her real focus, not the camera man and the light technician and the boom microphone director or any of the BBC studio controlled chaos around them. What could have been a truly uncomfortable experience and meeting instead became something the relieved and elated young man will treasure as a memory forever. Rowling’s love for children, especially those absolutely at the mercy of adults with agendas, is visible in these brief exchanges with Master Greenstreet.
(3) Her Stepping into the Imaginary World with Him
To expand on that last point, did you notice how Rowling discusses the history of Quidditch and the most dangerous ‘Fantastic Beast’ not only with ‘at her fingertips’ command of the material but without any ironic touches? This Wizarding World is very real to Victor Greenstreet, age 10, almost certainly his first immersive and extended experience within a text via his imagination, and Rowling honors that with just the right mix of seriousness and good humor. The boy knows it’s fiction; this wouldn’t be a “There is no Santa Claus!” moment if Rowling decided to explain in an aside “Of course there are no dragons or Acromantulas, Vic, right?” But she doesn’t feel any need to go there so they can co-inhabit this imaginary and greater reality together.
And that is a wonderfully human and generous moment, something I didn’t think I would find in this highly forgettable clip.
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