Gyles Brandreth webchat - 17 September 1-2pm

woof

Hi Gyles! Am intrigued. Has researching the book changed the way you live your life (or were you quite happy before that?)

I have always been quite happy, but not always as happy as those jolly jumpers might have you think! And the happiness that my Seven Secrets of Happiness book is about, isn't really the happiness that you get from a bar of chocolate or a glass of champagne (though I'm sure they help at times). It's that sense that all's right with the world and everything is as it should be. I think a good definition of happiness is a sense of the rightness of being. Does that make sense?

DollyGolightly

Hello Gyles,

Being a bit of a career chameleon - what would you consider your 'career highlight' so to speak?

p.s me and OH love just a minute!

I asked Dr Anthony Clare once why people of my parents' generation talked about the war as the happiest time of their lives. And he said, "that's simple-people at home during the war had a sense of common purpose. They felt united and part of a community. And the lads at the front, in the services, risking their lives, they were being tested. The research shows that being tested was an important part of being happy. You very rarely find people who are truly happy sitting around, not doing very much. An engagement with life is important to happiness." So I do lots of things because I like to keep busy and I like trying to do things I haven't done before. On 5 October i am setting off on a 40 date tour with my Looking for Happiness show, starting in Norwich and ending up in the West End next April. I hope that will prove to me a career highlight!

amandap

Hi Gyles I am a big fan of yours. Does that mean I can ask two questions?

1) You wrot e a book about Charles and Camilla but I would love to know what you think about Willioam and Catherine. And George of course

2) I have ordered your book but how happy do you think you are?

Thank you in advance

Two questions, to answers. 1. I have met William and Catherine, and I think they are really great. William has taken over from the Duke of Edinburgh as President of the Playing Fields Association and I am a Vice President. I think George is a great name. My fifth grandson was born on Saturday and he is called Atticus George Brandreth!

Now to question two. Thank you for ordering my book. I hope you will find it fun (and occasionally funny) and helpful too. What's interesting about the Seven Secrets of Happiness is that they apply to anyone-fat, thin, young, old, married, single. The research shows by the way, that married people tend to be marginally happier than unmarried people. And with couples who have been married when their wife dies, the husband will either get married again within three years, or he will die himself... With women, when her husband dies it makes no difference at all!

Scream

Hello Gyles - I've just bought a copy of your book and am excited to read it. What gave you the idea for it?

Why are you called Scream, Scream? I have a daughter called Saethryd-not an easy name, you'll agree, but I don't think even I would have called my daughter Scream (though, in her time, she has of course!).

Thank you for buying The Seven Secrets of Happiness. I got the idea for the book after I had visited the great psychiatrist Dr Anthony Clare in Dublin (where he was the head of Ireland's oldest psychiactric hospital). He seemed to me to be such a wise and interesting person that I wanted to share with people the secrets that he shared with me. I was asked to dive a lecture at Birmingham University about happiness, and that made me dig up the notes from my meetings with Dr Clare. The lecture went well, and then I did a "looking for happiness' show in Edinburgh in August. We sold out and got lots of 5 star reviews-so that made me happy. And now I am taking the show on the road. I hope you will come and see it somewhere and we can meet up afterwards and I will autograph your book. (only if you want me to of course!)

bedbug

Now I want to know what your children are called!

That wasn't my actual question though. I am sure I read somewhere that you kept your wedding a secret. Is that true?

As I was just saying to Scream, I have a daughter called Saethryd-who's named after an Anglo-Saxon Princess. Saethryd and I have written a book together, which is coming out in November called The Lost Art of Having Fun. Essentially, it's all our favourite family games. Saethryd's son, Rory, has helped us with the book. I have a second daughter named after Aphra, named after Aphra Behn, who was the first woman to earn her living as a writer. (She was also, alledgedly, a spy). Aphra has children called Kiyo, Isolde and Cassian. I have a son called Benet, and he has two sons; one called Cornelius and another (born on Saturday) called Atticus. If you ask my children why they have such amazing names, they will tell you it's because they are such amazing people!

p.s yes, Bedbug-when my wife and I were married, we didn't tell anyone apart from our two witnesses. We were married in the same place that my parents had been married. And they also only had two witnesses.

Sunhat

Hello Gyles

I've always wondered, how scripted are shows like Just A Minute? Do you know the topics in advance? Are you all sitting there reading your words or does it all come out of your heads on the day?

Hello Sunhat, the joy of Just a Minute is that it is totally unscripted. Nobody reads anything. We just burble away and hope for the best. And Nicholas Parsons is going to be ninety in October-a role model for us all. (I gave him a copy of my book on the Seven Secrets of Happiness but I think he knows them all already, which is why he has lived so long and so well).

Gally

Hello Gyles - it's me again. As there aren't many questions on this thread yet and it's the 17th tomorrow I have just been googling you just in case there was something I could add to keep things going and discovered that we were born in the same year, married in the same year and your 3 children were born in the same years as mine. Wow - I think it was meant to be!! Only difference is you still have your wife but I don't have my husband ... Seriously, I love their names - have your grandchildren been bestowed with equally individual, unusual monikers? You always seem such a jolly, optimistic person () - are you always so, or do you sometimes, occasionally, feel a little glum? ()

Now, if you have read one of my earlier answers you will know what my grandchildren are called. And, yes, I am generally optimistic, which I know can be a bit annoying. Of course, I do feel a little glum now and again-but then I remind myself that if I am feeling glum what hope is there for the world? I have been so blessed in my beautiful and long-suffering wife, three children, six grandchildren and assorted cats, that I certainly have no right to complain about anything! Once of the Seven Secrets of Happiness is simply this: "if you want to be happy, be happy-act it, look it, feel it, walk it, talk it, do it now." The very act of saying to yourself that you are going to be positive will make you more positive.

Clytie

Oh, fascinating.

I came across A A Milne's "Red House Mystery" at my charity shop last month. I hadn't realised he'd written anything except the Winnie the Pooh books, but now I gather he had quite a large output and became rather frustrated that Pooh's success destroyed his reputation as an adult author.

Do you think Milne's other work was unfairly overshadowed by Winnie-the-Pooh?

Yes, A A Milne is a fascinating character, who did resent the way his other work was overshadowed by Winnie the Pooh. He wrote a very touching autobiography called "It's Too Late Now" and if you want to know more about his story, get to Islington in North London on Sunday for the last two performances of Now We are Sixty, the show I wrote with Julian Slade, who created Salad Days. It's stars include Russel Grant, who turns out to be a wonderful actor.

CaffeineAddict

Atticus is a lovely name. Are you a hands-on granddad? What's your top grandparenting tip?

It is exhausting, isn't it, being a grandparent? But I have to say that grandchildren certainly do contribute to happiness. I like to think I am quite hands-on. I certainly make some excellent scones with my granddaughter, Isolde. One of the secrets of happiness is to live in the moment and I think that would be my top tip for grandparenting, just relish the moment, do what you can and be grateful that at the end of the day you can give them back and put your feet up!