Sir Nicholas Henderson

Speaker 40:00

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 40:08

The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen eighty nine.

Speaker 40:11

And the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:30

My castaway this week is a diplomat, the epitome of British tact and aplomb. He has served as his country's ambassador in Poland, West Germany, France, and the United States.

Presenter0:41

Before that he had learned his profession in very distinguished company, having been private secretary to five different foreign secretaries.

Presenter0:50

Universally known as Nico, and admired for his ability to open doors and calm fears, it was once said that having him in Washington during the Falklands' War was as good as having another battle fleet. That's Nico, approachable and reassuring, otherwise known as Sir Nicholas Henderson. I'm not sure how flattering it is, Sir Nicholas, to be compared to a a a battle fleet, but I suppose it was meant to be a compliment.

Sir Nicholas Henderson1:15

No, I was compared by the B B C, many thought much more pertinently, when I was in Washington, to a broken down English country house.

Presenter1:26

We used to see such a lot of you. I can remember at that time you were constantly marching in and out of meetings with with Al Hague and Caspar Weinberger.

Sir Nicholas Henderson1:35

Yes, it wasn't like normal diplomatic life because there was a a war and one had therefore had a different role. And America is a different place from any other country where they expect foreign representatives to push their way around and get their view across.

Presenter1:49

But you were very much, weren't you, the the the voice of Britain in America. I don't know whether you did look like a what was it, a dilapidated house, but you

Sir Nicholas Henderson1:56

Yeah.

Presenter1:59

He was you you were on all the chat shows, weren't you?

Sir Nicholas Henderson2:02

Yes, because it was the main item of news. The Falklands War was as much the main item of news in the States or throughout as it was here. And they wanted to know each day what was happening or going to happen. And I was sometimes they were done at recorded at different times in the morning, sometimes on all three at once. Nobody could escape me. Douglas Fairbanks wrote to me one day, said, I've seen you I saw you again this morning. I'm a bit worried about all those wrinkles and lines. I wonder whether you would try using this makeup paste that I which I enclose a tin. I find I it's so successful I use it throughout all the day.

Presenter2:39

Do you worry about your fist? Did it worry you then?

Sir Nicholas Henderson2:41

Well, it worried me that my wife used to see how ghastly I look. That worried me slightly.

Presenter2:45

How did you manage at the time to keep in touch with the mood here? Because obviously what you were saying there was was desperately important for us.

Sir Nicholas Henderson2:53

Well, I was in touch with London, of course, all the time, and they were with me, and I was in touch with the US Government and with the Congress. And I mean, once I went was up on the Hill and talking to the Congress to try and persuade them how right our cause was, and a senator took me aside and said, Listen, would you let Mrs. Thatcher know straight away that we're going to be very worried if a lot of casualties down in the South Atlantic because it's our hemisphere and we don't like the idea of blood being shed. Would you be sure Mrs. Thatcher knows that?

Sir Nicholas Henderson3:22

I gave him the assurance.

Presenter3:25

Of course she'd fairly yanked you out of retirement to to send you to the States, to make you Ambassador to the United States, hadn't she?

Sir Nicholas Henderson3:32

Yes, it was a few weeks after the election that uh um Carrington's foreign secretary asked me to go to Washington.

Presenter3:37

Well now, are you going to enjoy our desert island? Um does solitary confinement in the sunshine appeal to you at all?

Sir Nicholas Henderson3:44

No, I don't think so. Um I don't say I'm particularly gregarious, so other people think I am, but I certainly like company and uh I don't think I should be

Sir Nicholas Henderson3:54

I'm happy being by myself, and I don't particularly like the the pelting sun.

Presenter3:59

Shall we hear your first piece of music?

Sir Nicholas Henderson4:00

Yes, I'd like to hear Vivaldi's concerto, The Four Seasons, the the section on the winter. It has a a pathos, this piece of music, that appeals to me. And it's played by the Academy of St. Martin's in the Fields, which is an orchestra I very much like. And the particular solo we're going to hear is played by Iona Brown, and we saw quite a bit of them and entertained them when when we were serving in Washington.

Speaker 44:10

But

Presenter5:28

WINTER from Vivaldi's Concerto in F minor, The Four Seasons, played by Iona Brown with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields. We rather leapt off to Washington there, Sir Nicholas, and uh let's go back to the beginning. Were you always destined, do you think, to become a diplomat?

Sir Nicholas Henderson5:44

No, I don't think I was destined to be anything, and most of my generation, I think, were not.

Sir Nicholas Henderson5:48

um because the war the world was so uncertain. I became very interested in history and foreign affairs as an undergraduate at Oxford, partly because of events that were going on and partly because I'm a great I became a great friend of a historian AJP Taylor. I was greatly under his influence.

Presenter6:06

This was at Oxford.

Sir Nicholas Henderson6:07

Yeah.

Presenter6:07

But you were reading law then, weren't you?

Sir Nicholas Henderson6:08

But I somehow was much more interested in history and I saw a great deal of him and remained a great friend of his.

Presenter6:15

So was it then and there that you developed the idea that you might spend your life in foreign affairs?

Sir Nicholas Henderson6:21

Foreign affairs.

Presenter6:25

What about

Sir Nicholas Henderson6:25

I was interested in public affairs generally.

Presenter6:27

What about foreign languages? Did you have a gift for them?

Sir Nicholas Henderson6:30

I don't have a gift for foreign languages.

Sir Nicholas Henderson6:33

Luckily my family's rather good at them, my wife and my child, but I'm not. I think it's

Sir Nicholas Henderson6:39

A failing, a weakness. I wish I had been better.

Presenter6:40

It is true, isn't it, that we are, as a as a nation, I think, rather bad at languages. Wherever we travel in Europe, certainly, other people can speak English and we can never speak their languages.

Sir Nicholas Henderson6:49

Yes, but I think our our specialists are good. If the people in the in uh the Foreign Service are extremely good at languages, partly I suppose it's their bent, but when they learn what we call a hard language, Chinese or Russian or Slav language, I think you will find them as good, if not better, than those of any other of any other country. We've got marvellous experts on all those languages.

Speaker 26:59

Bam.

Presenter7:11

But do you think now that uh we are very much part of Europe and and uh that our politicians sh should try harder? That that they always seem to talk in English at common market discussions, don't they?

Sir Nicholas Henderson7:21

Yes, I wish they did. It isn't only that they talk English, but they talk um often English or even cricketing slang. And this is one of the problems, that they're told that some foreign statesman speaks English, so they then launch into m cricketing metaphors about the wicket being sticky or the balls being fa f over fast and that sort of thing, which of course they don't understand.

Presenter7:40

Mrs. Thatcher with her guard up, or

Sir Nicholas Henderson7:42

Yeah, I think they can probably grasp what that is.

Presenter7:46

Anyway, uh let's go back to you and and and uh say that you went to boarding school, didn't you, to prep school and then to Stowe public school. But they were school days dogged by some illness.

Sir Nicholas Henderson7:56

Yes, um they were indeed, and so was my career uh altogether, really. I had I got T B as a child and I I lost the use of my left arm and shoulder, and that affected my my life, really, and I got it again.

Sir Nicholas Henderson8:11

a return of T B this time of the kidney when I was serving as Ambassador in Poland. But by then they'd invented drugs that dealt with T B and so although I was on the drugs and not do well for two years it did cure it.

Presenter8:24

So does that mean that uh as a child you were somewhat bed-ridden and therefore rather studious?

Sir Nicholas Henderson8:31

Uh I think I was all effectless.

Presenter8:33

What do you mean by that? Describe to me what sort of chap you were at Oxford.

Sir Nicholas Henderson8:37

Well by then I think I'd begun to um see the point of life and Oxford was a very important place to me, very important. Made a lot of friends there which I've retained and that had a great influence on my life.

Presenter8:49

Right, let's leave you at Oxford and and have another piece of music.

Sir Nicholas Henderson8:53

Well, I'd like to hear Coldporter's Night and Day sung by Fred Astare. I suppose I must have heard it in those days, and I've liked hearing it ever since, and it's brought frivolity, much needed frivolity, to my life.

Speaker 49:07

Like the beat, beat, beat of the tom-tom when the jungle shadows fall. Like the tick-tick-tock of the safety clock as it stands against the wall. Like the drip, drip, drip of the raindrops when the summer shower is through. So a voice within me keeps repeating, you, you, you, night and day.

Speaker 49:33

You love a one?

Presenter9:35

Coalporter's Night and Day, sung by Fred Astaire. Shades of many a party there, Sir Nicholas. I presume

Presenter9:42

Having served in at least ten of Britain's embassies across the world, you must have had your fair share of cocktail parties.

Sir Nicholas Henderson9:49

Yes, we've given a lot of parties. We used to give dances. The main aim of our of our entertainment, we always thought it sounds rather pretty to say it was to entertain.

Sir Nicholas Henderson9:57

So the people came again.

Presenter9:59

But what what's your technique? I mean, as the host it's all right, isn't it? You always have an excuse to move on, say, I must just go and speak to the next person.

Sir Nicholas Henderson10:05

Yes, it's much easier, more agreeable being a host, because you say you have liberty and you can move about and see whom you want. I much prefer being a host to being a guest.

Presenter10:13

So what do you do when you're a guest and you get stuck with somebody for minute after minute and in the end half hour after half hour? How do you move on?

Sir Nicholas Henderson10:22

Well, I don't say I'm very good at it. You s I suppose you say I'm sure you want another drink or I'm sure you wanna want to talk to someone else, I'd love to stay here, but I'm sure it'd not be selfish of me to go on talking to you.

Presenter10:34

And what do you do when somebody lavishes a huge hello on you and you can't for the life of you remember who they are?

Sir Nicholas Henderson10:41

Well, you know the I mean, it's a terribly corny trick, but one is apt to say, um, yes, I do just simply do remind me the of the first name.

Presenter10:51

Do you think they guess? I'm sure everybody knows when you do things like that.

Sir Nicholas Henderson10:55

Yes, I'm sure it's always far far too transparent, but

Sir Nicholas Henderson10:58

It's best not to admit it all the same.

Presenter11:01

Let's go back to your early career, if we may, because after a posting during the war in Cairo you were recalled and you were appointed to the private office of the Foreign Secretary, serving first Sir Anthony Eden and then Ernest Bevin.

Presenter11:13

It was a very meteoric rise, was it not? A as I work it out, you were not quite twenty five, and you were at the heart of the Foreign Office.

Sir Nicholas Henderson11:19

Yes, but I was in a very junior capacity. It it enabled me to see what was going on, but I don't want to give the impression that I was influential. I was a witness rather than a influence.

Sir Nicholas Henderson11:30

But very important to me, especially at the time my time with Ernest Povin, I l greatly admired and learnt a lot from him.

Presenter11:36

What sort of man was he, in your view?

Sir Nicholas Henderson11:38

Well, he embodied the the strength and character of this country and um when he was abroad and and uh he said the British people won't have this, people realized uh he was speaking for Britain without any equivocation. So he had a great impact and had a certain vision I think. I think without Bevan you might not have had the North Atlantic Treaty.

Presenter12:00

Now, you travelled, I think, immediately after the war with um Sir Anthony Eden, didn't you, to Berlin?

Sir Nicholas Henderson12:06

Well, yes. I mean this was for the Potsdam Conference just outside Berlin. And when the con the conference opened, Churchill was Prime Minister still and Eden Foreign Secretary. And halfway through the conference, the results of the British election were announced and they had to come back because they were defeated. And in return, Attlee went out as Prime Minister with Bevan as Foreign Secretary. Bevan had never flown before.

Sir Nicholas Henderson12:25

First time he'd ever been in an airplane. The difficulty was to get his seatbelt round him. He was a man of enormous girth and the the seatbelt's designed for slim members of the air air force who wa wasn't able to take it.

Presenter12:37

But tell me about Berlin, uh'cause you actually went into Hitler's bunker, didn't you?

Sir Nicholas Henderson12:41

Yes, I mean in very soon after it was all the debris was still about and bits of Eva Braun's clothing and the relics of the last few days were still there. They hadn't all been got rid of, it was a very and of course in the chancery, in Hitler's Chancery, above ground, where w was a room full of iron crosses lying about, thousands, millions of them, seemed to be.

Presenter13:00

Or just throw them down on the floor.

Sir Nicholas Henderson13:01

Yes, they'd been abandoned.

Presenter13:03

W were you tempted, uh I wonder, when you saw those iron crosses? I mean, did you did you pick one up?

Sir Nicholas Henderson13:07

No, I I felt no, I didn't. I thought it was aw awful really to this whole this whole scene was so harry, although it was German's fault of course entirely. But I I felt it was not for us to lead the world in loot.

Presenter13:20

Another record, please.

Sir Nicholas Henderson13:22

I'd like to hear the overture to Deflatermask by Strauss.

Sir Nicholas Henderson13:27

Because it symbolizes important moments in our life abroad, we lived in Vienna for a time. And Fledermaus's played always on New Year's Eve.

Sir Nicholas Henderson13:37

and they drink on the stage they drink champagne. And then when we went Poland years later and we got away from the Iron Curtain, we used to come out often through Austria and would make a point of coming out on uh New Year's Eve and going also to to Fredemar, so it's punctuated our life in a pleasurable way.

Speaker 414:06

Yeah.

Speaker 414:53

Uh

Presenter14:55

Part of the Overture to Die Fledemaus by Johann Strauss, with the Vienna Philharmonic conducted by Herbert von Carrion. You mentioned Sir Nicholas there, your wife well you said we went to Vienna. Um she spent a long a lifetime globetrotting at your side. Has she never minded?

Sir Nicholas Henderson15:11

Oh, probably. Y she was a journalist originally, and the question is whether she should give up her career or I mine. And um she she worked for Time. And this I don't think she has enjoyed um moving about, but she's Greek, my wife, and that somehow has made her adaptable both i in where she lives and in who she meets and the languages she speaks.

Presenter15:13

The d

Presenter15:33

Which, I wonder, um, between you, has been your your favorite embassy?'Cause they say, of course, that Paris is our most beautiful embassy, don't they?

Sir Nicholas Henderson15:41

Yes, I suppose it's the grandest as a building and as a garden and as a place. It's in the middle heart of Paris next to where the President lives. But you see, when you say which one has enjoyed most, they're likable for different reasons. Um I mean Spain was wonderful'cause it's a beautiful country. On the other hand the work wasn't too interesting. Well I suppose Washington in a way is most interesting because it's the most important.

Presenter16:04

Let's have your next record.

Sir Nicholas Henderson16:06

I'd like Mozart's Horn Concerto played by Dennis Braine.

Sir Nicholas Henderson16:10

And conducted by Cayan, a piece of music that I first got to know many years ago in Spain, but have played on and off ever since.

Speaker 417:07

Yeah.

Presenter17:15

The third movement of Mozart's Horn Concerto, number three, in E flat major, played by Dennis Brain, with the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Herbert von Carrion.

Presenter17:25

I'm sure you can explain, Sir Nicholas, better than most, why it is that the Foreign Office has a reputation for being

Presenter17:31

I suppose less than deferential is the polite way of putting it arrogant, some would say.

Sir Nicholas Henderson17:36

I don't know why you think I'm best explaining that. Somewhat double-edged question. But I think the if I was going to try and either explain or justify it, I think it's simply that you're out on your own so much of your life, you're abroad, you're not subject to immediate orders or control, and therefore you get used to being self-reliant.

Presenter17:52

I suppose the other interpretation uh of that attitude is that the inmates of the Foreign Office feel themselves to be um socially superior, better travelled than the other mortals of Whitehall.

Sir Nicholas Henderson18:03

Well, you see, they do have when they're abroad, they are quite a high pedestal and have to entertain people who are heads of government or foreign secretaries of those countries, so they naturally mix in a rather grand world.

Presenter18:14

Does that explain, too, why some Prime Ministers have been rather intimidated by their foreign offices?

Sir Nicholas Henderson18:20

I don't know about intimidating. Certainly Prime Ministers want to control their foreign office, yes, or the foreign official.

Presenter18:27

and fail to imply.

Sir Nicholas Henderson18:29

I hope they often fail, yes.

Presenter18:32

Do you think this one's failed to control her foreign office?

Sir Nicholas Henderson18:36

Well, I think she has failed in nothing that she's determined to do, and she certainly imposes her will on the throughout the White Hall machine.

Presenter18:44

You first became, um, going back to the the the safer territory of your own career.

Presenter18:49

You first became ambassador to uh to Poland. That was your first ambassador ship. Which you loved. Uh uh and then you went on to Bonn, which was not so much fun, was it?

Sir Nicholas Henderson19:00

Well, fun isn't quite the word for it. It after all our relations with

Sir Nicholas Henderson19:06

You make me sound so fearfully pompous with these questions. Relations with Germany are rather important because it's the most powerful country economically and the most exposed militarily. So they are rather important. The pleasure of Bonn, though, was really having a second post there, which was Berlin. So one went one could go to Berlin for the weekend and see an opera or hear a concert, and then come back to Bonn for the week.

Presenter19:29

Can I help you sound less than pompous then by asking you to tell me about a rather good fancy dress party you held in Bonn?

Sir Nicholas Henderson19:35

Well, for some reason, partly b in order to liven the atmosphere up, we used to give a lot of parties there. We gave one for a Koenigswinter conference, which is an annual event, Anglo-German politicians. And we danced all night. We had most a lot of members of the British Cabinet at the time. And when we gave another party for a fancy dress, because we felt that the Germans and the English inclined to be inhibited, lose those inhibitions when they're wearing fancy dress. So my wife had to make me a fancy dress, and she we had then a a beautiful Dalmatian dog. She made me a headdress, a head, a whole head of exactly like my Dalmatian, with the spots in the same place. And I received the guests at the door with my Dalmatian sitting beside me and I looking like him.

Sir Nicholas Henderson20:20

And the guests were not so much the guests were amused.

Sir Nicholas Henderson20:24

But my dog was not so much amused as embarrassed at finding someone like himself next to him.

Presenter20:29

Do you think that the uh the hierarchy of Bonn thought you were English and dotty?

Sir Nicholas Henderson20:33

Yes, I'm sure they did, and I think they still do, because this the photograph of this is always reproduced in the German press as a a mark of the dottiness of the British.

Presenter20:42

And are you still dotty about Dalmatians?

Sir Nicholas Henderson20:44

Yes, but alas I don't have one. That one died and uh he won the D Warsaw dog show dog show, by the way.

Presenter20:49

The Warsaw Dog.

Sir Nicholas Henderson20:50

She won the Warsaw Dogs there, my Dalmatian. Then I also had a Beagle.

Sir Nicholas Henderson20:53

Throughout my time abroad, I like them as dogs very much indeed. They have a delicious smell. Queen Elizabeth I had beagles as uh hot water bottles.

Presenter21:03

Some music, please.

Sir Nicholas Henderson21:05

I'd like to hear a piece of Schopper, because um we were in Poland for some years, the buccaro played by Dino Luparti, a Marvis pianist who died young.

Presenter22:14

Dinou Leparti playing part of Chopin's baccarole in F sharp major.

Presenter22:19

And so, Sir Nicholas, nineteen seventy five, and um you were given that very prestigious posting, Paris, where you stayed, what, for four years?

Presenter22:29

You were said by Macmillan earlier on to have as an ambassador the skill of an impresario. What did he mean, do you think? Was it a compliment?

Sir Nicholas Henderson22:37

He could have meant, I suppose, that I didn't invent or

Sir Nicholas Henderson22:41

Create any anything myself, but really put other people together.

Sir Nicholas Henderson22:46

and mounted some show that others had devi designed or devised. He could have meant that, which is true in a sense, it's one of the roles of an ambassador to bring people together in a way that uh produces something that you haven't produced yourself.

Presenter22:57

But but also the job is, um, I presume after the the the the charm and the tact and the diplomacy and this putting together of people is essentially one of of obedience to the master, isn't it, to the politicians back home?

Sir Nicholas Henderson23:11

I don't see it quite like that. I think, in fact, if you're representing Britain abroad, you have to bring to the attention of the central government in London where British interest lies and in for that purpose what they ought to be doing about it. So I see it as a little more uh constructive than you're suggesting.

Presenter23:26

But I can't imagine a Prime Minister or a Foreign Secretary welcoming its ambassadors across the world, taking initiatives all over the place.

Sir Nicholas Henderson23:35

No, you obviously can't d take steps or suggest action, but I think you ought to have a view and be prepared to express it, however unpopular.

Sir Nicholas Henderson23:42

But it is a you're right. It is a cause of conflict, I think. I mean, obviously, if you're told to go to the government of the country you're in, the government says uh sends a telegram saying go and tell them this, you would do so unless you think it's really

Sir Nicholas Henderson23:58

Wrong. In which case you do always have a chance of saying, Of course I'd carry out your instructions, but I do think that before you do so f you ought to consider the possible repercussions. And you do ha you can do that, and you one does do it, one should do it.

Presenter24:11

But I suppose in the end what I am getting at is that you must surely, Sir Nicholas, often have thought that you would have preferred to have been the politician rather than the diplomat.

Sir Nicholas Henderson24:22

Yes, I don't think I think it now. I think perhaps I did at the time, but I think the politician has a

Sir Nicholas Henderson24:26

That's a pretty

Sir Nicholas Henderson24:28

a pretty rough and hair raising and unsatisfactory life. I mean when he's in a position of what's called power, he's run off his feet, he's so exhausted, he's got so much to do that he can hardly exist, and then he can be thrown out on his ear overnight. I think it's so I perhaps I I my reason I didn't go to it is I never had I never thought I had the health to do it, incidentally, and probably I didn't have the character for it. I think you need to be extremely tough and resolute.

Sir Nicholas Henderson24:53

and not mind too much about what people say or think.

Presenter24:55

But there was a time when it appealed to you.

Sir Nicholas Henderson24:57

Yes, it always appeals to me. I mean, I think it is the the great adventure, but I think it is an adventure which only very few people ought to go in for.

Presenter25:05

Your next record, please.

Sir Nicholas Henderson25:08

The Mozart piano concerto number nineteen with the solo, piano solo, played by Hepzeba Menouin.

Sir Nicholas Henderson25:16

And the Bath Festival Orchestra conducted by Yehudi, they they both stayed with us several times in Paris and I greatly admired both of them.

Presenter26:19

The third movement of Mozart's piano concerto number nineteen in F major, played by Hepzebar Menuin with the Bath Festival Orchestra conducted by Yehudi Menuin. We talked earlier, Sir Nicholas, about your being about to retire after Paris when you were sixty, and Mrs. Thatcher calling you back from the brink. Now there are those who said she might have got the idea from a leaked memo of yours from Paris, which was very critical of the Callaghan government.

Sir Nicholas Henderson26:46

It was critical of Britain.

Sir Nicholas Henderson26:51

economic position and of our the conduct of our foreign policy of being only semi detached members of the European Community. And I thought one affected the other. And that was the theme. I wasn't particularly attacking them.

Sir Nicholas Henderson27:04

the Lab the Callahan government or the Labour Government, I was attacking the plight Britain had got into, which meant that it was impossible really to conduct a resolute foreign policy.

Presenter27:14

This was your your valedictory dispatch at the end of four years in Paris.

Sir Nicholas Henderson27:17

Yes.

Sir Nicholas Henderson27:19

Yes.

Sir Nicholas Henderson27:20

I sent it to David Owen, yes, he was foreign secretary at the time.

Presenter27:23

And somebody leaked it.

Sir Nicholas Henderson27:25

And The Economist got hold, I think, of several copies of it.

Presenter27:28

Would it be unfair to say in the end you were not too upset that it was leaked?

Sir Nicholas Henderson27:32

I think I was very worried when it first was published because I hadn't taken up my post in Washington and the government certainly were were worried or some of them that it might affect that. But in fact, I don't think it did. And it was widely read in the United States. And in a sense, it was seen as the starting point from which Mrs. Thatcher's government and Carrington's foreign policy was intended to be conducted.

Speaker 227:42

My

Presenter27:59

So you went off to be Ambassador in the United States. It's always been said, of course, I I think we know it for a fact, don't we, that the Prime Minister had offered the American Ambassadorship to Edward Heath.

Sir Nicholas Henderson28:09

Yes, she did, and um he turned it down. Then, as soon as I was appointed, he rang me up.

Sir Nicholas Henderson28:15

And said hello, congratulations for going to Washington. I hope you don't think I was trying to stand in your way.

Presenter28:23

Which he wasn't and didn't.

Speaker 428:24

Uh

Sir Nicholas Henderson28:24

Yeah.

Presenter28:26

President Carter was there when you when you first um arrived, of course, and then Ronald Reagan. You've called uh that Reagan Thatcher alliance, when you've written about it, one of the finest pieces of casting on the international stage. What did you mean by that?

Sir Nicholas Henderson28:41

Well, they were, in a sense, marvellously reciprocating, one with the other.

Sir Nicholas Henderson28:47

Mrs. Thatcher extremely articulate, dynamic, forceful, and President Reagan a marvellous communicator and understander of human beings and not only responding but somehow making something of a relationship and a situation.

Presenter29:04

And do you think that that Mrs. Thatcher's relationship will be or can be equally close now with George Bush?

Sir Nicholas Henderson29:12

She knows Bush very well, and she took a lot of trouble with him when he was in a sense in a back seat as Vice President. She never took she never came to Washington, in my experience, without making a point of going to see him. So I'm sure she'll have a good relationship with him, although it won't be quite the same, obviously, as that with uh President Reagan.

Presenter29:27

Do you think she spotted him as Reagan's successor, then?

Sir Nicholas Henderson29:30

I don't know.

Presenter29:31

Yeah.

Sir Nicholas Henderson29:31

I don't know. I think she knows perfectly well that um

Sir Nicholas Henderson29:34

You always want in politics to be in with those who are out because one day they'll probably be in and you will be out.

Presenter29:42

Another record, please.

Sir Nicholas Henderson29:44

I was thinking instead of music on this island, I'd like to hear this spoken word and something to amuse me. A piece from a story by PG Woodhouse, The Clicking of Cuthbert. It's about a Soviet novelist, bearded Soviet novelist, who is invited to a literary society in a suburban town in England.

Sir Nicholas Henderson30:06

Uh

Speaker 230:06

He was aware that his hostess was looming up before him with a pale young man in horn rimmed spectacles at her side.

Speaker 230:14

there was in mrs smithhurst's demeanour something of the unction of the master of ceremonies at the big fight who introduces the earnest gentleman who wishes to challenge the winner

Speaker 230:25

Oh, Mr. Brusilov?

Speaker 230:27

said misses Smethurst, I do want you to meet mister Raymond Parslow Devine, whose work I expect you know. He is one of our younger novelists.

Speaker 230:38

the distinguished visitor peered in a wary and defensive manner through the shrubbery but did not speak

Speaker 230:45

inwardly he was thinking how exactly like mr devine was to the eighty-one other younger novelists to whom he had been introduced at various hamlets throughout the country

Speaker 230:55

Raymond Parslow Devine bowed courteously.

Speaker 230:58

while Cuthbert, wedged into his corner, glowered at him.

Presenter31:02

An extract from PG Woodhouse's The Clicking of Cuthbert, narrated by Timothy Carlton.

Presenter31:09

Um how do you spend your time now, Sir Nicholas? Uh does it have an element of retirement about it, or are you as busy as ever turning out for public engagements?

Sir Nicholas Henderson31:17

Well it turned out for a public engagement connected with PG Woodhouse. I was trying to get him a plaque in Westminster Abbey that failed, but they have put up one of those blue street plaques in the street where he lived in London, and a party was given to unveil this plaque, which I was invited to. And the Queen Mother, who's a great PG Woodhouse fan, was the guest of honour. I unfortunately arrived late.

Presenter31:17

Right.

Sir Nicholas Henderson31:44

because I'd been attending some function of President Reagan, who was visiting London at the time. But I made my apologies to the Queen Mother, saying that um I thought that she would excuse me realizing that uh President Reagan, of all people, was an admirable member of the Drones Club.

Presenter32:02

And what else are you up to other than than fighting the corner for P G Woodhouse? What else are you doing?

Sir Nicholas Henderson32:07

Well, I'm a director of various companies.

Sir Nicholas Henderson32:09

Which takes me quite a bit of my time. I'm um

Sir Nicholas Henderson32:13

I am a trustee of the National Gallery.

Sir Nicholas Henderson32:16

And I'm um involved with the Duchy of Cornwall.

Sir Nicholas Henderson32:20

And I also do a bit of writing and uh not least important, I have a a quite big garden and orchard to to maintain.

Presenter32:27

So so in this your your final posting to our desert island, you could uh you could certainly garden on it. I mean, could you fend for yourself at all?

Sir Nicholas Henderson32:37

I think I could fend for myself, though it wouldn't stop me pining to have someone else to fend for, to help fend for me.

Presenter32:43

You are, if I may say, an interesting mixture of being the soul of discretion, but also enjoying a small gossip. Is that something that you pride yourself on?

Sir Nicholas Henderson32:53

Yes, I feel that talk about people is the part of the breath of life, yes.

Presenter32:58

Has it ever got you into trouble, though, enjoying talking about people?

Sir Nicholas Henderson33:00

But talking about it.

Presenter33:03

Your last piece of music.

Sir Nicholas Henderson33:05

Yes, I have a grandson who's

Sir Nicholas Henderson33:08

uh learnt the violin, he's very young, he's only just six.

Sir Nicholas Henderson33:12

And he learns by the Suzuki method, and I'd like to hear him play Rams's waltz.

Presenter34:13

Bronze Waltz in G, played by Master Benjamin Moore, aged six, on his violin. It's very clever, isn't it?

Sir Nicholas Henderson34:20

Yes, he has talent, likely.

Presenter34:23

Now, you have to choose, Sir Nicholas, one of those records that you would absolutely have to have by your side more than any other.

Presenter34:31

On your island.

Sir Nicholas Henderson34:32

Yes, it's very difficult, but I think I'd choose the Mozart Piano Concerto, number nineteen.

Presenter34:38

with the Menuen.

Sir Nicholas Henderson34:38

Yeah.

Presenter34:40

And a book. You've got the Bible, and you've got the complete works of Shakespeare.

Sir Nicholas Henderson34:45

Yes, I'd like to have with me, please, Guy de Maupassant's short stories.

Presenter34:51

Any ones in particular?

Sir Nicholas Henderson34:53

As many as you can manage.

Presenter34:55

We bind them all together.

Sir Nicholas Henderson34:57

Yeah.

Presenter34:57

And um a luxury.

Sir Nicholas Henderson35:00

Well, I suppose you won't let me have a beautiful piece of sculpture from the Louvre or Greece or the British Museum, so No, you can, you can with pleasure. Well, I think it I don't think they wouldn't let you might allow it, but I think they wouldn't allow it. So I've decided I to be practical, I'll have to have a large packet of seeds of various kinds which I could sow and satisfy my gardening instincts and possibly help my appetite.

Presenter35:28

Sir Nicholas Henderson, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Speaker 435:40

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk/slash radio four.