Miriam Rothschild

Speaker 10:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

Speaker 10:08

The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen eighty nine.

Speaker 10:11

And the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Speaker 20:29

My Castaway this week is a lover of the natural world. As a biologist, her studies of butterflies, the flea, and the worm have brought her an international scientific reputation.

Speaker 20:40

As a conservationist, she cultivates one of the wildest gardens in Britain.

Speaker 20:45

Her love of animals allows her to wear no leather. She sits here to day in her usual footwear, the Wellington boot.

Speaker 20:51

She's campaigned for homosexual law reform. She's also credited with the invention of the seat belt. Now in her eighties, her enthusiasms remain undiminished. She is Miriam Rothschild.

Speaker 21:04

Well, tell me about the Wellington boot first of all, Miriam Rothschild. How long have they been your constant footwear?

Miriam Rothschild1:09

Well, I suppose I've worn them for about ten years because I started because I when I began looking at the way farm animals are treated, I was so horrified by the w the state of our slaughterhouses that I decided never to wear leather again. And you wear them even out to dinner?

Miriam Rothschild1:26

Yes, I've been to Buckingham Palace and my Wellingtons in the evening. Has he? Oh, yes. Oh no, it takes granted.

Speaker 21:34

Oh no!

Miriam Rothschild1:36

And it's

Speaker 21:36

Take the

Miriam Rothschild1:36

Um

Speaker 21:37

Does it mean that?

Miriam Rothschild1:37

I like white ones.

Speaker 21:39

Will you wear them on the desert island?

Miriam Rothschild1:42

There's no there's I have no axe to grind there. I like to feel the sand between my toes.

Speaker 21:48

Well now presumably the the island will be bliss to you because there will be all this unknown flora and fauna about you.

Miriam Rothschild1:55

I think I would be very happy on the desert island. That I'd never have a dull moment.

Miriam Rothschild2:00

day or night, because if they're animals there and plant, unknown flora, unknown fauna beast, terrific. And wonderful smells,'cause you're quite proud of your nose, aren't you? Oh yes. I love the smell of wildflowers, and also the smell of insects.

Miriam Rothschild2:14

I think we should hear the first piece of music.

Miriam Rothschild2:17

Yes, I'm terribly keen to have on this desert island really corny records. I don't want anything else really because I don't want to have to think of the future on this desert island. If you're eighty you don't think so much of the future, but I'd love to think of the past and all the romantic and very corny moments of one's life. So let's have absolutely sob stuff.

Miriam Rothschild2:44

I'd like to start with if you were the only girl in the world. We used to play that in the nursery at home and on one of those lovely old gramophones with horns. You're too young to remember those, but you had to be a sort of athlete then, because the whole time was spent jumping up and down in order to wind the damn thing up. It was always running down, groaning down.

Speaker 43:08

You were the only girl in the world, and I were the only one.

Speaker 43:18

Nothing else would matter in the world's way We could go on loving in the same old way Forgot and stay for tool with nothing to mind

Speaker 23:38

If You Were the Only Girl in the World sung by Anne Ziegler and Webster Booth.

Speaker 23:43

Funny, you know, I can See every

Miriam Rothschild3:44

The furniture in the Tring Nursery when I hear that.

Speaker 23:48

You were you were born um at the turn of the century in in a house in Aston Wold in North Antarctica, don't you?

Miriam Rothschild3:53

Yes, I tried

Speaker 23:55

Born in the country.

Miriam Rothschild3:55

Okay.

Speaker 23:55

Uh Uh

Miriam Rothschild3:56

What was your childhood like then?

Speaker 23:57

Uh

Miriam Rothschild3:57

Marvellous.

Miriam Rothschild3:59

had the most marvellously happy childhood. Never never a bad moment. Never went to school? No, never. Never had a governess. Well, I did have a governess, but she was kept very much in the background'cause my father rather disapproved of governesses, resident governesses, and he disapproved of examinations.

Speaker 24:04

Never had a g

Miriam Rothschild4:16

And they were very good target.

Miriam Rothschild4:18

Were you always dotty about animals? Always. From the very first moment, because I really think naturalists I've said this over and over again, you know, they are born, not made. And of course my father himself being a great naturalist, he he helped me on the way.

Speaker 24:20

Always

Miriam Rothschild4:32

And the first present he gave me, I remember, was a quail.

Miriam Rothschild4:35

I had a tame quail as a present. I loved that quail. Then I graduated to white mice. I hated toys that were not alive, only like live toys.

Miriam Rothschild4:46

Uh

Speaker 24:46

And your father was really the inventor, wasn't he, of conservation, of modern conservation?

Miriam Rothschild4:51

Do we want to do it?

Miriam Rothschild4:53

Well, he was certainly called the inventor of modern conservation, because before his time people thought you had to conserve rare species, and he realized that it was the habitat you had to conserve, not the species. You had to preserve the wood in which the animals live.

Miriam Rothschild5:07

or the meadows in which they live.

Speaker 25:09

And he was an expert on the flea too, wasn't he? Yes.

Miriam Rothschild5:12

Yes, he was much greater expert than I was on the flea. He disco he, among other things, discovered the flea, the carabubonic plague, the greatest killer of all time.

Speaker 25:23

And then y your research years later was to help in the uh in the myximatosis campaign, wasn't it?

Miriam Rothschild5:29

Yes, I guess that the rabbit flea in this country carried myxomatos, and so people investigated the life cycle of the rabbit flea, and then I I made a sort of

Miriam Rothschild5:40

Funny discovery, really, that the rabbit flea has handed over the control of its breeding cycle to the rabbit, and depends on the rabbit's hormones, not its own.

Miriam Rothschild5:52

And that was quite unique in the insect world at that time.

Miriam Rothschild5:55

So that created a bit of a stir,'cause nobody knew why they couldn't breed rabbit fleas,'cause generally you can't stop fleas breeding.

Miriam Rothschild6:02

But nobody could breed the rabbit fleeing captivity, and then I discovered it was because of this link with the hormones. But nobody believed you, did they?

Miriam Rothschild6:10

Well, not at first, but I mean time went on and the shift was dra

Miriam Rothschild6:15

I wonder why it was that you concentrated

Speaker 26:18

Did on the flea.

Miriam Rothschild6:19

Oh, that was purely f filial devotion. I mean, I I my father was a flea man and I became a flea girl. That was as simple as that. But he was also an eminent banker.

Speaker 26:29

Uh

Miriam Rothschild6:29

Yes, but I had nothing to I I mean, that that wasn't my line at all. I never liked business. I was no good at that.

Speaker 26:35

So you and and your brothers and sisters in these early years ran around in happy, uneducated bliss in the countryside.

Miriam Rothschild6:43

My brother was highly educated, I wasn't. He went to Harrow.

Miriam Rothschild6:47

won a scholarship to Harrow, but I was un totally uneducated. And your sisters? Yes, we were uneducated.

Miriam Rothschild6:54

But then in your teens you you got some literary ambitions into. Yes, that's that was funny of course, but in one's teens one had these grand ideas. And then I became a member of an amateur writing society called the Scraps Society, and the group as a group used to go around together.

Miriam Rothschild7:11

It was rather fun, really.

Miriam Rothschild7:14

And among those who attended parties and things was no less a person than Paul Roberson.

Miriam Rothschild7:20

And of course I became completely hooked on his singing.

Miriam Rothschild7:25

I mean, it was a marvellous thing because it was always a small room he sang in. And when he there's this tremendous control of this bass voice, you felt that

Miriam Rothschild7:35

Any minute he might lift the roof, you know, it was a tremendous thrill. I'd like to have one of his records now, one of his very corny records.

Speaker 47:43

Some enchanted evening

Speaker 47:49

You may see a stranger.

Speaker 47:55

You may see a stranger Across a crowded road And somehow you know

Speaker 28:14

Paul Robeson singing Some Enchanted Evening. Who else was in this literary group of yours?

Miriam Rothschild8:19

Well, we had a a a medley uh group really. There was Cyril Connolly was there and uh even waugh

Miriam Rothschild8:29

and Patrick Balfour and uh Paul Robinson at that time was um leading man in O Man River. It had just come over. He used to come along and bring um Alberta Hunter with him, who was his leading lady. She had a very beautiful voice too, and it really made a marvellous part. Yeah.

Speaker 28:46

It is

Miriam Rothschild8:46

Uh

Speaker 28:46

So despite all the literary leanings at this stage, in the end it was some, as I've seen it put, the snail that got you.

Miriam Rothschild8:53

Yes, that's true. I gave up my literary ambitions. I didn't think I was good enough. And I went into biology.

Speaker 29:02

It's very difficult, um, I think, for for for we, the uninitiated, to understand quite why the the tapeworm or the flea should hold such a fascination.

Miriam Rothschild9:10

Oh, but then all life, if you really look at it closely, is romantic and wonderful. Tapewords are marvellous animals.

Speaker 29:16

Ah.

Miriam Rothschild9:19

The maximum.

Speaker 29:20

Yeah.

Miriam Rothschild9:20

I

Speaker 29:21

I've heard you say before that

Miriam Rothschild9:21

But they're very

Speaker 29:22

There's something beautiful and romantic about them. I don't understand that.

Miriam Rothschild9:25

Yes, beautiful. One of the worms I studied at that time had diffuse kidneys that looked under the microscope like hundreds of scintillating candles. They were marvellous. Everything's marvellous about whether it's worms, butterflies, fleas, they're tremendously romantic. There's another worm you wrote about which which uh lived off the tip

Speaker 29:48

Tears of the hippopotamus.

Miriam Rothschild9:49

Oh yes. They live in the tearducts of the hippopotamus. And then they're marvellous life cycles, you know, where they go from snail to fish to dragonfly and it's it's fantastic.

Speaker 29:49

Oh yeah.

Speaker 49:49

Yeah.

Speaker 210:01

Uh

Miriam Rothschild10:01

Yeah.

Speaker 210:01

And then on the jacket of one of your books, I think there's a certain part of the anatomy of the flea.

Miriam Rothschild10:07

Oh yes, it's the only book in the world which has the vagina of Lee on the cover. But you must say it's beautiful. Have you ever seen it? It's the most wonderful thing.

Speaker 210:14

It's

Speaker 210:17

But why is it if you put dye into the microscope or something?

Miriam Rothschild10:20

Oh yes, those that particular section is artificially stained. It takes a long time to do, too.

Speaker 210:27

Oh, but it is

Miriam Rothschild10:27

Ends up.

Speaker 210:28

The s

Miriam Rothschild10:28

Uh

Speaker 210:28

Very beautiful Rather like a piece of modern art.

Miriam Rothschild10:30

Yes, it is.

Miriam Rothschild10:31

It's absolutely fascinating. All these wonderful colours, wonderful shapes, wonderful patterns. Marvelous.

Speaker 210:39

Shall we have your third record then?

Miriam Rothschild10:41

Yes, we're still feeling romantic, I think. So let's have another four Rovers and f to finish the romantic period, this particular romantic period.

Speaker 410:51

That old Magnolia Tree Busting his heart with melody I know he was singing of you, Malindelo, Lindeloh, I'd lay right down and die and die If I could sing like that bird sings to you

Speaker 211:21

Paul Robeson singing My Lindy Lou.

Speaker 211:24

We haven't, Miriam Rothschild, mentioned your mother yet. I read that she was responsible for introducing the overhead serve to women's tents.

Miriam Rothschild11:32

That's quite true, because she was when she was young she was a a a tennis champion. She was a European tennis champion, although she never actually came to Wimbledon, all her play was on the continent, but she was a very good athlete, my mother.

Speaker 211:45

in all his long skirts.

Miriam Rothschild11:46

Yes, or the and the with rackets, you know, that sort of

Miriam Rothschild11:50

funny shaped rackets they had in those days. But she was the other thing, of course, the outstanding thing about her mother was she was extremely beautiful, and that's how I remember her, as a very great beauty. I can't remember her jumping over beer barrels on skates.

Speaker 212:04

But did you do that?

Miriam Rothschild12:04

Did she do that? She used to do that, and they always when she arrived on the ice rink, everyone cleared the rink to watch.

Speaker 212:10

W what, they put beer barrels across the middle of the ring?

Miriam Rothschild12:12

And she used to jump over them. And I I can't imagine how you did that in long skirts.

Speaker 212:15

Imagine I

Speaker 212:18

She was Hungarian, wasn't she?

Miriam Rothschild12:19

Yeah.

Speaker 212:20

And and so many of her uh members of her family were were killed in the war, weren't they?

Miriam Rothschild12:25

Oh well, they perished under Hitler. I mean that they were they were killed in concentration camps. It's a terrible tragedy.

Speaker 212:34

What did your mother think of you as a young teenager? Did she approve of you?

Miriam Rothschild12:38

I think she would have preferred that I should go on writing than that I should become a biologist. She wasn't she didn't really enjoy biology, my mother.

Miriam Rothschild12:47

But then, of course, something happened which pleased her very much.

Miriam Rothschild12:52

I was awarded the research table at the biological station at Naples, and she then obviously thought that she had a future Nobel Prize in the family, and I ne didn't like to disappoint her, so I didn't tell her that I was the only air.

Miriam Rothschild13:09

Which means I think that we should have the next piece of music. Yes, that's right. And there's a story behind the next piece of music because when I went to Naples

Miriam Rothschild13:18

That was the m w the really romantic place to go to in those days. Because not only was there a volcano blasting away in the background, but there was a most marvellous countryside. I mean, round Naples, wonderful. I remember the spring with all the cyclamen in flour. It was absolutely fantastic.

Miriam Rothschild13:38

And we had a wonderful director of the laboratory, a very, very nice man called

Miriam Rothschild13:43

Reinhardt Dawn, who was recommended for the Nobel Peace Prize because he had such a marvellous group there, all international, all getting on so well.

Miriam Rothschild13:53

And while we were looking at the sunset over the Bay of Naples, he introduced me to Pablo Casholtz, because he was a great musician, Dreinhardt Dorn himself, and I became hooked on Cashaltz after hearing these records.

Miriam Rothschild15:08

While I was at Naples there was a tremendous uh eruption of Vesuvius and a mountain suddenly appeared, small mountain in the middle of the bay of Naples and the uh laboratory there named this Monte Mirium, which thrilled me very much. Then unfortunately there was another eruption and it s sank beneath the wave.

Miriam Rothschild15:29

I disappeared from sight forever.

Speaker 215:32

And that was the music that played the while. It was the prelude to Bach's cello, suite number five, in C minor, played by Pablo Casal.

Speaker 215:40

I love to hear about your garden here in Northamptonshire. I understand you've completely handed it back to nature.

Miriam Rothschild15:48

Well, not completely. That's hardly true, but very nearly. Because in the area immediately round the house I've got a mixture of wildflowers and garden flowers. For instance, now there are a lot of cultivated daffodils in bloom. And later on I still have I think it's r they're rather pretty mixture right near the house. And then on the house itself there's a wild lot of creepers. I mean they're wild roses growing up with

Miriam Rothschild16:17

cultivated clematis, an old man's beard, which is something I like very much, all mixed up together.

Speaker 216:23

And you you're cultivating cowslips in the greenhouse.

Miriam Rothschild16:26

Yes, I've got cowslips everywhere. That's my I'm very keen on.

Miriam Rothschild16:31

It

Speaker 216:31

And poppies and hair bells. Yes, all those wow.

Miriam Rothschild16:33

Yes, all those wildflowers. I think it was, I mean, we were losing them so rapidly. I mean, they'd been bulldozed out of the field. They'd been.

Miriam Rothschild16:42

sprayed out of road verges. I mean, they've just disappeared our flora was just disappearing. I was hoping in this way perhaps to encourage people to bring it back. And you sell the seeds? I do, and I distribute a lot of seeds and I encourage people to grow wildflowers. Absolutely, I think the one thing to bring back the flora of this country, which is one of the most beautiful in the world, it's gone. And I I repeat this over and over again. I mean, nobody likes living really in the middle of a snooker table. That's what it comes to.

Miriam Rothschild17:14

I mean it's just green everywhere and no no flowers in the grass any more.

Speaker 217:19

There's now um a growing awareness, happily, I think, that uh of the beauty that man has been destroying. Do you think it's come too late, or is there hope for us?

Miriam Rothschild17:29

I think we are too late. You can't really turn the clock back. That's impossible. But I think you could do a lot to save the situation as it is now.

Miriam Rothschild17:41

What's your

Speaker 217:42

Your favorite time of the year in the garden?

Miriam Rothschild17:43

I really haven't got a favourite time of the year, but I think high summer is the thing in the end that one likes the best. And it's a wonderful thing. In my in my garden, I'm terribly lucky that I have a pair of nightingales, and one of them comes and sings right under my window. That's a very unusual privilege. And I think they're attracted there by the wildness of the garden.

Miriam Rothschild18:07

I'd like to have a a record of the Nightingale.

Miriam Rothschild18:10

On the desert island I think that would something that would remind me more than anything of my garden at home.

Speaker 418:50

Yo, you're a little bit more.

Miriam Rothschild19:02

Unbelievably beautiful bird and let their liquid siftings fall.

Miriam Rothschild19:09

That's a quotation of T. S. Eliot about the Nightingale.

Speaker 219:11

Uh

Speaker 219:12

Can we talk about we're talking about birds and of course your your Uncle Walter.

Speaker 219:17

was uh had the most famous collection of birds and birds' eggs, didn't it?

Miriam Rothschild19:21

Yes, he had the biggest one of the biggest clay. He had three hundred thousand skins of birds and about two hundred thousand birds' eggs, and it was a a wonderful scientific collection.

Speaker 219:33

He was the second Lord Rothschild and and MP he was the MP for Aylesbury, wasn't he?

Miriam Rothschild19:39

Yes, but I mean he is famous because of his museum. And I suppose most famous of all because he tamed zebras and harnessed a foreign hand which he drove down Piccadilly and into Viking Palace.

Miriam Rothschild19:53

And it was rather my father, who was a funny man, who always had jokes, he said when when the carriage got half way down Piccadilly, the zebras were so well camouflaged they disappeared and the carriage seemed to be rolling by itself.

Miriam Rothschild20:06

That was in store.

Speaker 220:07

What happened when it got to the palace?'Cause the queen came out.

Miriam Rothschild20:10

Oh, it was Queen Alexandra who asked it to be driven there, and my uncle was terrified because these zebras were very, very difficult to manage. And Queen Alexandra came up to pat one of the zebras, and he was terrified because they kicked the eye out of a gnat, these animals. In fact, they killed his groom one day, who was careless with it. Good heavens However, it went off all right.

Miriam Rothschild20:32

I think I think we'd have had

Speaker 220:32

I think we'd have heard about it if it happened.

Miriam Rothschild20:33

Yeah, if it's happening.

Speaker 220:35

It's it's always been said that he was one of the the the great eccentrics of the century. Do you agree with that? You think it's unfair?

Miriam Rothschild20:41

Yes, I think he was extraordinarily eccentric man, and I lived under the same roof as hi as him for a long time. He never he was a non talker, you know, never spoke. That was one of his things, which is strange if you didn't understand him.

Speaker 220:57

Well, now he was a a fellow of the Royal Society and um

Speaker 221:02

So is your brother, and a few years ago you were made a fellow.

Miriam Rothschild21:05

Yes, I I think that that's true. I think that was a record a brother and a sister who were both uh

Miriam Rothschild21:12

uh fellows of the Royal Society at the same time. That was a great honour.

Speaker 221:16

You also are um credited with having invented

Miriam Rothschild21:19

The seat melted.

Miriam Rothschild21:22

There was a huge airfield uh set down on my farm in the war, and I got very friendly with the pilots and the various people on the airfield, and

Miriam Rothschild21:33

They began trying to teach me the elements of flying there.

Miriam Rothschild21:39

And I noticed the seat belt they were wearing and I thought to myself, That's the thing really to to to put on cars. And we made the first seat belt out of the uh webbing of a side saddle, side sad which we had uh in in the in the stables. And those are the very first were uh it's it wasn't a a brilliant idea of mine, it was just copied from really the air aeroplanes that had the seat belt, but it became very useful of course on cars.

Speaker 222:05

Indeed. Shall we have some more music?

Miriam Rothschild22:08

Some of the fellows there I was very friendly with them and they used to go out on these terrible bombing expeditions during the night and

Miriam Rothschild22:18

had a terrible life really. And then on days off or evenings off we used to go up into the wood and listen to the nightingales. And one of the chaps there who was a padre, he was covered with decorations, extremely nice fellow, he at we used to listen to these nightingales, it was he who really introduced me to Purcell and who the the music of Purcell was his great he was a great specialist and that was how I got to really like Purcell as as a composer.

Miriam Rothschild22:52

I only wish he hadn't died at thirty seven, because I think of all the wonderful pieces he might have done afterwards, and also very much regretted there wasn't a flute in those days, because I think it's he could have made wonderful compositions for the flute.

Speaker 224:06

Hurcell's Fantasia in D minor for four vials, played by the Ensemble Fure Altremusique, conducted by Nicolas Arnancourt.

Miriam Rothschild24:14

I think it's a marvellous record, you know, to have on a desert island, because I'm sure when you played it, it would attract all the seals out of the water, and you'd suddenly see these heads bobbing up, and there's sort of whiskers sticking out, and and eyes glittering while this is being played. I think I should make friends with the seals.

Speaker 224:32

You are, as we said at the beginning, a a vegetarian and and a natural defender in so many ways, aren't you, of the rights of animals? You care very much about them.

Miriam Rothschild24:41

I do indeed.

Speaker 224:42

You you believe that many farm animals are are mistreated, maltreated.

Miriam Rothschild24:46

Well, I think that the way that we treat farm animals is absolutely terrible, especially chickens and well, not especially chickens, but very much chickens. And I mean, when you see them uh pressed together and and and pushed into these baskets I really can't bear it. I mean that's something that's inexcusable.

Miriam Rothschild25:08

How are you going to survive on the island then? You may I mean you may have to fish. I shall eat tons of fruit and vegetables, and I shall have to be very careful which plants I select because a lot of them are toxic.

Miriam Rothschild25:19

I won't select any plants on which very brightly coloured insects feed, because that's a sign that they're toxical plants.

Miriam Rothschild25:29

Shall we have your seventh record?

Miriam Rothschild25:31

There was a time in my life, you know, when I was very, very keen. You you asked me before about wildflowers, but there was a time in my life when I was extremely keen on garden flowers, particularly tulips. I had a mania about tulips. And on one occasion a friend of mine

Miriam Rothschild25:49

and I we hired a barge in Holland and we spent a holiday on this barge trailing round the countryside and

Miriam Rothschild25:59

Uh we we

Miriam Rothschild26:01

specialized in visiting all the tulip fields we could from this barge, and he was like pictures very much, and so he used to go and see the Rembrandts. I used to go and see the tulips.

Miriam Rothschild26:12

And on this barge, we had a very old record, a sort of

Miriam Rothschild26:19

A gramophone recorder. It wasn't really a grammar phone, but it was a sort of recorder. And we had two records we played. And one of them was the Lambeth Wall.

Miriam Rothschild26:28

And we taught the crew to dance the Lambeth Walk. So he went up and down these these canals in Holland dancing the Lambeth Walk.

Miriam Rothschild26:38

Very amusing red habit.

Speaker 426:40

Any time your lamb is way, any evening, any day, you'll find us all to in the lambtha swallow. Every little lamb of gown takes along the lambs down. You'll find us all doing the lambers walk.

Speaker 126:53

My lot of tied amphibian.

Speaker 427:00

Everything's bright and breezy, do as you long well pleasing. But why don't you make your way there? Stay there, play there, but once you're at down there

Speaker 227:11

The Lambeth Walk, sung by Teddy St. Dennis and Company, Visions of Miriam Rothschild, um Lambeth walking through Holland. It was great fun. Your life seems to have been full of enthusiasms and addictions of one kind or another.

Miriam Rothschild27:25

Yes, I'm afraid I'm an eager beaver.

Speaker 227:29

I was right, wasn't I, when I mentioned earlier that you you were active in in bringing about the change in legislation uh uh of homosexuality.

Miriam Rothschild27:36

Yes, well I I worked very hard on that and I it f from the scientific angle. I had a very very good

Miriam Rothschild27:45

A team really, because um Professor Darlington and Professor Ford and

Miriam Rothschild27:52

Uh several of the of the very top scientists joined me in this. What did you d do actually? Well, we wrote a report on the subject for the Wolfram Committee, and they really adopted quite a lot of it in their report. It's sort of neat. Roth

Miriam Rothschild28:06

A Huxley report.

Speaker 228:08

Yeah.

Miriam Rothschild28:08

Uh

Speaker 228:08

But but How did you become interested?

Miriam Rothschild28:09

interested in the subject. Well, one of the things I thought uh was important was to try and stop the terrible amount of blackmail that was going on. People were being s uh blackmailed about this. And also I think that homosexuality is just it's quite a natural thing. I don't regard it as as an unnatural thing. If you're a if you're interested in natural history and you learn

Miriam Rothschild28:33

But this occurs almost right through the animal kingdom. It's nothing really very unusual. But there was a blackmailing element in the human scene that I was so horrified by.

Speaker 228:44

I think it's the uh the energy and the range of your interests which is so impressive. Is there anything which bores you?

Miriam Rothschild28:51

Bore in my life. That's one thing that's never happened to me. I'm very lucky. I've never been bored, never tired. Shall we have your last record? The last record I'd like to play is a really corny one. It's the Lara's song from Dr. Shivargo. And I was very happy with Dr. Shivargo because it took me back to a period of my life when I was deeply interested in Russian literature. I read it as I unfortunately not in Russian because I don't know Russian, but I read all the translations I could.

Speaker 229:00

Thus

Miriam Rothschild29:25

very extensively. And on the desert island, when I play this lovely corny song, it'll take me right back to that period when I really was thrilled with Russian literature. I loved it.

Speaker 429:36

Um

Speaker 429:38

Well

Speaker 429:39

My love.

Speaker 429:43

There will be songs to sing.

Speaker 429:49

Oh the snow

Speaker 429:55

Covers the whole pot spring

Speaker 430:01

Somewhere here?

Speaker 230:05

Roger Whittaker singing Somewhere My Love, Lara's theme from the film Doctor Giivago. Very romantic stuff, Miriam Rothschild. You're obviously very much a romantic person. Oh, absolutely.

Speaker 230:16

All those years of staring down the microscope at the romance of the insect world.

Miriam Rothschild30:21

Yes, uh that's you know, I lost the power of looking down the microscope about uh six years ago because I got shingles of the eyes, and that spoiled my vision to some extent.

Miriam Rothschild30:35

And it suddenly struck me that I've been look spent fifty years looking down a brass tube and that it was high time I began to look at something else. That's when I started my wildflowers.

Speaker 230:44

That's one I

Speaker 230:46

Now, you have to choose one of those records that you would that you must have more than any of the others. Oh, well, I'm.

Miriam Rothschild30:52

Oh well unhesitatingly I take the Bach, the the the cello by uh uh Pablo Casals because I mean that is the most marvellous record, isn't it, absolutely? And you it the one great thing is it hasn't got a uh an ins all the other records, these corner records have got insistent tunes in them and in due course one would go mad, wouldn't one?

Miriam Rothschild31:14

So you take the pablic asyn

Speaker 231:15

Yeah.

Miriam Rothschild31:15

Yes, that's right, the Bay of Naples, the sunset in the Bay of Naples. And the phosphorescent uh jellyfish.

Speaker 231:24

Now you have to choose a book. We we we give you the complete works of Shakespeare. Well, it's already there and and the Bible.

Speaker 231:31

Now what else would we

Miriam Rothschild31:31

And I'm not allowed the Encyclopedia Britannica, am I?

Speaker 231:34

You're not because it's a collected work. You can only have one book.

Miriam Rothschild31:38

If I could have a collected work, that's the one I'd have. The 1914 edition is a good one.

Miriam Rothschild31:47

My brother, of course, says I'm a prostitute, and I think I would take Proust, although I know it so well.

Miriam Rothschild31:54

I read it so often, I know it said, Well, I think I'll take that with me. In French.

Miriam Rothschild31:59

Oh, yes, in French.

Speaker 232:01

And a luxury, what would you like?

Miriam Rothschild32:03

Well, I should be extremely lucky that I should have a bag of seed, of wildflower seed, the mixture I call the farmer's nightmare, because that has in it poppies, cornflowers, corn marigolds, corn cockles, all these weeds of cornfields, and they're so beautiful. And as it's a desert island, you see, the climate would be quite different. It would give me a chance of experimenting how I could grow it. I'm sure in the end I would succeed. And when finally the rescue ship arrived, they'd find instead of the desert island they expected, a marvellous blood-red landscape with one beautiful skeleton in the middle.

Miriam Rothschild32:50

That's what I take with my luxury.

Speaker 232:52

Miriam Rothschild, thank you very much for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Speaker 133:03

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Islandists Archive. For more podcasts please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.