Lucinda Lambton

Speaker 30:00

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 30:08

The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen eighty nine.

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And the presenter was Sue Lawley.

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My castaway this week is an enthusiast. She started her professional life as a photographer, and her passion for the unusual and the beautiful was realized first in books and later in a series of quirky television documentaries. Subjects on which she's bestowed her wit and energy range from Victorian lavatories and dog kennels to doll's house food and furniture. She's also an enthusiastic crusader in the cause of preserving our heritage. She is Lucinda Lambton.

Presenter0:59

You are, undoubtedly, Lucy, a woman of many passions. What would you say you were most passionate about?

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My children first.

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Buildings, dogs and people. Dogs, people, buildings, buildings, dogs, people. No order for that. The children first and then otherwise the dogs, the buildings and the people. But life, in fact, showing off buildings and showing off excitements all over the country. And that thrills me to an absolute fever pitch, day in and day out, year in and year out. But they are such strange things that you wish to draw people's attention to. I mean, an obelisk to a pig in Cornwall or a memorial to a balloon in Bedford. How do you find them and why do you why are you interested in them?

Presenter1:39

I'm interested in them because they make me roar with laughter, and give me the thrill of excitement of the discovering them, finding them, and what could be more delightful than chancing upon the information that Lady Myant Hedgecombe kept a pet pig called Cupid, and had it tethered to a gold chain, and took it down to breakfast, lunch, tea, and dinner, and took it to London outings. I mean nothing could be more delightful, and when it died had it buried in a golden casket.

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and a huge soaring stone obelisk put over its head. Sam, what could be more delightful than that? You get both the interest and the laughter. I agree, it's delightful, but to decide to spend your life exploring such things is quite a large decision, actually. Wasn't really the decision. It was just swept into an uncontrollable thundering pace. Does that sum up your life, an uncontrollable, thunderous pace?

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I suppose, except it all has to be controlled, really.

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But certainly it seems uncontrollable and it and it's and it's pretty well non-stop. It's odd at the moment because I'm alternating between doing all these films that are so different. And one day I'll be standing in Wimbledon dressed up as Lady Hamilton doing her Pose Plastique or holding Anne Boleyn's comb in my hand that hasn't been washed since she combed her hair before her head was cut off, and Marie Antoinette's pearl necklace that was taken off her severed neck. And the next day I'll be in the beautiful new leisure centre in Doncaster, which was made of solid white and grey marble. And I do find it very, very difficult going from one to the other, but it's all so delightful. Well now we offer here respite from all of that and a chance to leave all your collections and all your historical oddities behind and enjoy the Spartan piece of a desert island. Is that a welcome offer? Yes, it's welcome to be able to gather.

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everything together and rest for a moment or two it'd be lovely, and enforced rest would be a delight. Well, now let's hear some of the music you want to take with you. What's the first piece?

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The first piece is the perfect piece for the peace and calm of the island, which is Schubert's impromptu opus ninety number three.

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Because it is gloriously beautiful and a huge big thing about it is that for

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The last forty years I've been dreaming.

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What I imagined was a forlorn dream of being on Desert Island Disc, and it has always been on it. So, over the years, when I've heard it, it's also meant Desert Island Disc to me as well as the beauty and the calm of it all is a lovely, lovely piece of music.

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Schubert's impromptu opus ninety number three in G-flat, played by Alfred Brendel. That'll give peace, won't it? Perfect. That's we as we see what's going to thunder up as the programme progresses. Let's talk about your your work, your photography, Lucy. Is it true that you once swam across to an island with a saw between your teeth to cut away undergrowth, which was spoiling the picture you were about to take? Yes, that's true, yes. And also um disrobed because I didn't want to

Presenter5:37

get my clothes wet and embarrassing'cause the world and his wife were picnicking outside Glasgow and it was this lovely Gothic

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duck house on an island and it was the only way'cause you couldn't see it. I knew it was there. But you're obviously totally dedicated to your work in that sort of way. Take hours and hours to set up a picture. Yes, but it's our no, it's hours of pain. I was gonna say it's hours of pleasure. Setting up a picture is hours of pain. But finding the buildings and finding out about them and

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thundering round England and meeting people. That's pleasure. Pure, pure pleasure. But do you wait for hours for the right light to fall across your picture? Yes, or create it. That takes that can take up to four or five hours creating.

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False light indoors.

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It's just exactly the same as being a lumberjack with there's one or an undertaker, there's one

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a suitcase which was as heavy as a coffin with a man in it and the same size, full of lights, and there's sixteen other heavy cases to thunder about with. But you must in your time have been a peculiar sight, uh rushing around Britain, arriving at these houses to photograph the lavatories, for example.

Lucinda Lambton6:37

For example,

Presenter6:40

Cleaning unit in the car.

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Sodden with gumption and sodden cloths and lavatory brushes, really horrible.

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Really horrible it was all and the car became as aromatic as the lavatories themselves, and being underground in those lavatories, with the lights on, of course, bringing out the aroma to

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Absolute pitch. Seven hours, twelve hours, fourteen hours underground in the public laboratories in Hull once. What a horrible task. Why did you do it? Because I realized having seen the Gent's Urinals in the Philharmonic at Liverpool, which were pink marble, pretending marble, it was put on with sponges.

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I saw those and saw how disgusting they were. In fact, now they've been restored and they're in good order.

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and saw how many laboratories were repellent all over the country and saw that they should go and they therefore should be recorded before they went.

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and then of course find out they've been invented.

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in England, and sort of within living memory.

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The first proper working laboratory was a little more than a hundred years ago. It was invented by Queen Elizabeth's godson in the sixteen hundreds, but then there was nothing heard of it. She only had a bath.

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Once a month, as you know, whether she needed it or no. Did you know that? I thought the ancient Greeks invented lavatories, actually. Yes, yes, yes, no, I'm talking about the ball cocks and and um valves and all the flashing businesses. But you've gone off lavatories now, have you?

Lucinda Lambton7:57

Yeah.

Presenter7:59

I certainly have. I hate them. I don't know why I'm getting up sort of fever of excitement talking to you about them. Let's stop talking about them. Let's have your second record. What is it? Well, the second record is a yodling song because two reasons. One is it makes me shriek with laughter whenever I hear it. Three reasons. The second is that it's

Speaker 38:04

My love.

Lucinda Lambton8:04

Stop talking about

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Beautiful. And the third is that I'm making a series about modern architecture. And one of the things I've discovered is a ski slope indoors with proper snow, which has just been

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created for the first time ever where you can ski

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down mountains indoors, and they're going to be all over the country as soon as

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Jack Rickens say Jack Robinson are going to be huge buildings round proper snow mountains. And we filmed these and had this music with me yodlings for geeing down the slopes, and it's such fun.

Lucinda Lambton8:50

Hold on, hold on.

Speaker 29:02

Oh, it did go.

Lucinda Lambton9:06

My

Speaker 29:06

However,

Lucinda Lambton9:06

Yeah.

Speaker 29:06

That is an august

Lucinda Lambton9:07

Excuse me, idiot!

Speaker 29:08

Yeah.

Speaker 39:10

I'm not sure if I can do it.

Speaker 39:14

I did it in a dippery or a hoodie and a hoodie. I did it in a ditch to the order.

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That was a yodling song, believe it or not, um called Appenzella, which I thought was a name of a cheese, actually. Maybe it is. By sung by the Fin or yodled by the Finkenberger trio.

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You're not of course just a collector of of historical oddities and and objects. You're also a collector of people. You once collected up Bing Crosby, didn't you? Yes, that was exciting. Very, very exciting when I was seventeen.

Lucinda Lambton9:42

Yeah.

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going out into the street in London and seeing him walking along.

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and stopping him and saying, I live in that house. Can you come to lunch? And he came.

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And my mother was up a ladder pruning roses.

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and the greatest, I suppose, fan of Bing Crosbie that he had. And she was standing up the top of the ladder, and I said, Oh, do you know Bing Crosbie? and she t

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And there was the illegal himself, with a straw hat on and a pipe. Terrifying shock for her. Anyway, there he was, and he stayed for lunch.

Presenter10:17

And he was absolutely delightful. A bit later on, you picked up Yuri Gagari. That was again exciting.

Lucinda Lambton10:21

Alright.

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How did you do that? Well, it was the f one of the first jobs, was photographing.

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was photographing him and following him around the country, but that was marginally exciting.

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And it certainly was exciting seeing the first man in space, of course, but there was one moment of sort of crowning glory.

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When he was leaving, he threw

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And he walked up this great long red carpet, and

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came off the carpet.

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and walked over and gave me a deep bow.

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and walked back on to the carpet and back on to the aeroplane, which was a moment of glorious triumph. It was simply that he'd seen my face about the places he'd toured England and the other.

Lucinda Lambton10:59

What time

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I suppose you thought I was a person of consequence, that I'd always somehow been there.

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And then you also, I think, picked up the Everley brothers about 25 years ago on a train. 28 years ago, isn't it? 29 years ago. How did it happen?

Lucinda Lambton11:14

Tray eight

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How did it happen? Them arriving King's Cross late at night, that noise, that steam steam train, the flying Scotsman it was on.

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And me standing there looking out at the excitement of it, and that hissing Do you remember the hissing that came from under trains?

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And then they there they were, the elderly brothers.

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And

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I can't tell you. I can't remember the moment of introduction. They said I fired a gun off into the air, but I don't think I'm sure I what it wasn't didn't have a loaded gun with me.

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And then we sat in the those small sleeper compartments all night with the crickets, who were Buddy Holly's backing up group.

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and the Everlies, and the crickets and the Everlies playing the guitars and singing away until four or five in the morning, all scrunched into a tiny sleeper, all the way to Edinburgh. And you've stayed friends ever since? Yes, stayed friends ever since. And that has strange consequences.

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Now of

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going along with my ordinary life, and when they come to England, suddenly being plunged into a life of sailing round London in black stretched limo Mercedes waving at fans

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But does that does all of that happen to you a lot? Do you are you a picker up of people?

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Try to be, if possible. Come on then, let's have the third record.

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I would like, of course, the Everley brothers,'cause that plunges me back into the past. I remember going to the reunion concert.

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And sitting there was very, very strange, because you knew

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that you were the age you were. I knew I was whatever I was, watching it, and yet I was, despite knowing it, I was seventeen and I had life in front of me, and it was absolute magic of the music bringing back precisely every tiny aspect of the feeling of a seventeen year old, and yet the magic of knowing what was going to happen for the next twenty years. It was very strange.

Lucinda Lambton13:04

Did he hungry?

Lucinda Lambton13:07

Not tough.

Lucinda Lambton13:10

No Sira.

Lucinda Lambton13:14

Eating the

Lucinda Lambton13:16

Jacob Out of pain.

Speaker 313:17

Yeah.

Lucinda Lambton13:19

Take a lot of pain.

Lucinda Lambton13:22

Love is like a cloud.

Lucinda Lambton13:25

Holds a lot of rain

Lucinda Lambton13:29

Love her.

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The Everley brothers singing Love Hurts and bringing back pictures of Lucy Dampton at seventeen. What kind of of girl were you, Lucy? I don't know. I've always been over-exuberant, tiresomely over-exuberant. I don't know anything else. Couldn't possibly tell you. Your childhood, I'm told, you have said, was untroubled by education. What does that mean? Oh dear, I didn't say that. I haven't said that. I've grinded my teeth in rage, but I wasn't

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properly educated in that I'd have liked to have been, but

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I haven't ever said untroubled. I think it would have been a a joy. I mean, I left school very early. You left school at thirteen? I I can't remember exactly what date, but certainly too early for comfort. Does that worry you, your lack of education?

Lucinda Lambton14:14

On the screen

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Daily, hourly, all the time, I feel as if I'm always with picked flowers rather than flowers that are actually planted.

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And any new information hasn't got the right foundation because it's gathered anew on the surface. And also another thing about not having been thoroughly educated is when you read or hear of something you as

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very tiresome not being able to connect it to something else if you get things in isolation all the time.

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I find that agony. But I suppose the silver lining is that it makes me

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Tireless in finding out more or less. It makes you hungry, it makes you greedy for knowledge. That's why you do it, is it? Or part of it? That you feel a bit inadequate about all of that.

Lucinda Lambton14:51

It makes you

Lucinda Lambton14:52

To green

Lucinda Lambton14:54

June

Lucinda Lambton14:55

Perhaps part.

Lucinda Lambton15:00

We've

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Not a bit.

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Hugely, horribly. Hate it, hate it.

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Dreadful, dreadful, dreadful Tell me where tell me where you were born. You were born in Durham. That's a very great difficulty not having the Blade and Races, but I've thought that we can I can sing it, so that's all right, and then I can bring back the extreme, huge importance of the North East to me by singing the Blade and Races, and Geordie Hinney and Cushy Butterfield, and all those songs, so I can dance round the island, or march round the island singing them, then I needn't bother to have the records. You better sing a little bit for us now, then, quickly. Oh, goodness me, right. We went past Armstrong's factory, and up to the robin a day, half way over the railway bridge, the wheel she flew off there. Some went to the dispensary, and some to Doctor Gibbs's, and some to the infirmary, the ice would broke the ribs. Or emy lads, you should'a' seen us gannin', passing the folks along the road, just as they were stunning. There were lots of lads and lasses there, all with smiling faces, Gannon adon the Scotwood Road to see the Blade and Races. Wonderful.

Presenter16:09

This is your roots, Lucy Lambton, from County Durham. Yes, which is very very strong.

Lucinda Lambton16:10

Lucy Lamb

Lucinda Lambton16:12

Uh

Presenter16:15

Where you were born and you had lots of brothers and sisters, or lots of sisters. Yes, I have l four sisters and a brother, but they're all much younger.

Lucinda Lambton16:17

Lots of systems

Presenter16:21

I was six when the first sister was born, after me. And you were mad about horses as a little kid? No, I wasn't. When when I went to went to a boarding school and there was some

Lucinda Lambton16:26

Uh

Presenter16:30

Two girls there Petty, they were called, and misses Petty.

Presenter16:34

was my second mother and I used to go every weekend there and they used to t they taught me to ride when I was eleven and I loved it. I loved the competition of of races and um potato races and obstacle races and the musical chairs. In fact I ought to have chosen something for the musical chairs, Russ Conway and all those they did oh, I loved them so much. Well you haven't you you've actually chosen that childhood song though I think haven't you for your fourth one? Yes I have. Is it the fourth one coming up? Hooray hooray. Well it russ it makes me cry straight away hearing it. It's a fallen naked friend.

Lucinda Lambton16:58

Yes!

Lucinda Lambton17:00

Hooray

Presenter17:05

A four legged friend. Um lots of reasons. The mai mainly just childhood and the thrilling waves of mysterious nostalgia of um times past, even if they weren't happy, which these ones were and uh worshipping dogs and horses.

Speaker 217:25

A woman's like cactus and cactus can hurt Cause she's just a tight-waisted winky-eyed flirt She'll soon have your land and your pride and your gold And bury you deep long before you grow old A four-legged friend, a four-legged friend, he'll never let you down He's honest and faithful right up to the end That wonderful one two three f

Presenter17:55

A four-legged friend who never lets you down. Let's talk about your crusades that I mentioned at the beginning. I said that you're a kind of.

Speaker 218:00

Time.

Speaker 218:01

Right.

Presenter18:03

saviour of unconsidered Victoriana, like this this swimming bath in Germany. Yes, I do have it. I hope I'm sh I don't know if it was at all entirely to do with me, but it was a beautiful swimming bath and that was built as the Town Hall in Siena.

Lucinda Lambton18:07

Yes, I do have. I have

Presenter18:17

And it was due for the chop. And I helped by taking photographs. I wouldn't have said at all it was due to me. It was due to all the other.

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ardent activists, conservationists who saved it. But What else have you helped to save?

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all the below St Martin's in the field down to Admiralty Archer was all going to be pulled down. I don't play a major part, I simply provide the photographs. And that was saved. But the interesting thing now, as far as that goes, is that fifteen years later

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They ha it has been pulled down. It has been rebuilt the same.

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And with innovative architecture around it, and that's the most wonderful thing that's happened in the last ten years.

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We have left behind us the horrible concrete corset that was ever tightening over England. And it has actually changed and is now good architecture coming up all over the place. And the excitement of that is so immense. And it's certainly encapsulated in Trafalgar Square, because I don't know what would have happened if it had come down ten years ago. But you're also quite a a specialist, it seems to me, in the sorts of um finds that one only reads about in girls' adventure books. It's so delightful, ferreting things out.

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And knowing as you drive along what's behind the wall and what's over a field or

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I went drove up the M five yesterday and knew that a lady was lying in the churchyard who died in eighteen forty, having had thirty children, all of whom had died in infancy except for one who died when he was two. And knowing she was there as the rain fell was so magical. I love that, knowing the ins and outs all over England of what's where, that excites me to absolute fever every day. Now you you found another very special nook in Kensal Green, didn't you? There were lots of nooks in Kensal Green. That's wonderful. You should go there,'cause it's a great tract of country in in London. and blonde in the tightrope walker, who went over the Niagara Falls uh pushing his manager in a wheelbarrow on a tightrope. The manager wanted to show that he had complete faith.

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in Blonden and so agreed to be wheeled over in a wheelbarrow.

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And then there's Trollope there and there's um

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Oh, goodness, there's Brunel and Thomas Hood. They're all buried there and But covered in undergraves. Yes, very much so. Well, no, no, they are improving it. They're wow, sort of improving it. There's a lot of modern graves springing up now of very doubtful quality.

Lucinda Lambton20:32

BS

Presenter20:40

Are there, then, do you think, thousands more secrets to be found in in the English countryside? Or do you think

Presenter20:47

That somebody knows where they all are now. No.

Presenter20:51

There are thousands upon thousands of billions and trillions more. And that's your aim, really, is it, to find all of those, or to have them pointed out, to bring them to the notice of people?

Presenter21:00

It is nice to yes, to give them the credit that's due to them, these wonderful things that are hidden away. But does that spell happiness for you to have opened one person's eyes?

Lucinda Lambton21:08

Yeah.

Lucinda Lambton21:10

Yeah.

Presenter21:11

That was one of the best things ever, in fact, was in a cinema in Slough when an old lady came up to me and said

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I'd like you to know that I look at buildings now because of

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You she said, no less. That was wonderful, wasn't it? And kissed her and kissed her she exclaimed. Wasn't it nice of her? Let's have the fifth record. What is it?

Presenter21:31

The fifth record, I suppose, is the most beautiful of the lot, which just makes you melt with the beauty of it, which is the

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Quartet from Phil Eliot.

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Quartet from Act I of Beethoven's Fidelio, sung by Sonner Gazarian, Hildegard Berenz, Hans Sottin and David Koebler.

Presenter22:47

Lucy, what would a magpie like you collect on a desert island, I wonder?

Presenter22:51

Anecdotes of the past, I suppose. From whom? From memory.

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All the things that had been shovelled aside as you crash on by the day, there must be so many things to accumulate them all. That's what I do, yes.

Presenter23:05

How many things do you collect at home?

Presenter23:07

I came across some very exciting things the other day in a northern town. About two hundred stars from Odysseus Circus, papyromashi stars, huge, great thick papyamashi stars egging up all over the walls. So that's an exciting new development. I get to have mottos painted all over the walls. Yes, stuffed full. And uh and the the

Lucinda Lambton23:28

Buckingham

Presenter23:32

Absolute passion of my life. I kiss its walls every day. I love it so much. The house. Yes.

Presenter23:38

You were talking about mottos just now. What's your favorite one?

Presenter23:42

I look after the pennies, and the pens will take care of themselves.

Presenter23:47

You don't strike me as being a woman who's worried about money.

Lucinda Lambton23:50

Mm.

Presenter23:51

I worry any any no, don't worry about it, Nox, I've got it, because of hopeless disorganisation. I certainly, if I have five pounds, will spend it on a delicious

Presenter24:01

Bag of uh licorice all sorts rather than keep it, yes. Food is another passion. Yes, puddings and sweets, sadly, yes.

Lucinda Lambton24:05

Uh

Presenter24:08

Would you say that, Lucy, though, actually, despite all all the joking and all the laughter, that you're actually quite a serious person?

Presenter24:15

But that the that's the best thing is is, um

Presenter24:18

Serious things with a laugh is twice the value, isn't it? I hope. I mean, I it's ba I'm certain I am painfully so, yes. But do you worry that the world thinks you're a a zany joker when in fact It's extremely irritating.

Presenter24:32

talking about um that stupid, idiotic word that's always attached eccentric, which is rubbish and irritating.

Presenter24:41

Yeah.

Lucinda Lambton24:42

So how

Presenter24:44

I w wouldn't can't think of it. I feel sort of banana sitting here talking at all. Fu Oh, somebody I know what. I was paid the greatest compliment by my friend Anne Cruikshank the day before yesterday, who said fundamentally decent, which was wonderful. Let's have another record.

Presenter24:59

This one makes me melt into.

Presenter25:01

being a teenager, and life just beginning, which is Elvis Presley of fools such as I, I first heard it very strangely when I was standing in front of the Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi.

Presenter25:13

and thinking about the world of Saint Francis, and then suddenly this booming, strange, incongruous music came out of a cellar cinema in the main street of Assisi.

Presenter25:24

And it just reminds me of life at the beginning, as life dawned, a fool such as I.

Speaker 225:30

And then a fool Sam over you

Speaker 225:37

You caught me hard to love our heart You say like we are

Lucinda Lambton25:44

Uh

Lucinda Lambton25:44

I'm a fool, but I love you dear.

Speaker 225:50

They are

Presenter25:51

The

Speaker 225:52

No.

Presenter25:53

They have a gun, said I lie.

Presenter25:59

Elvis Presley, and a fool such as I. Do you ever think, Lucy, that perhaps you were born in the wrong era? All your interests are Edwardian and Victorian. They're not, they're not.

Lucinda Lambton26:06

Choose that.

Lucinda Lambton26:07

Yeah.

Presenter26:09

I've got at home a word processor and a fax machine and and um

Presenter26:15

And I'm I'm embroiled at the moment every day, for seventeen hours a day in looking at modern architecture and being gripped by what's happening. So you're a modern woman?

Presenter26:24

You absolutely hate being called eccentric. So so would you. It's extremely irritating because it's irrelevant and tiresome and silly. You hate, too, don't you, the suggestion that you're some kind of upper class sabbatical. I do. Again, that's totally irrelevant. Totally irrelevant.

Lucinda Lambton26:34

Stabled.

Presenter26:38

Fantiresome. And inaccurate, too. The Sloane Ranger label is a monstrously inaccurate one. So would you agree that you have, so to speak, rejected your roots?

Presenter26:50

It's not really that I've rejected him, it's just that I

Presenter26:54

thunder on in my own life which is ceaselessly entertaining and ceaselessly rewarding.

Presenter26:59

and very, very hard work and and a joy.

Presenter27:02

And you love talking about all of the things that you do, but you hate talking about yourself.

Presenter27:07

Well, you do feel a banana talking about yourself.

Presenter27:11

Shall we ask the banana for her seventh record? A vain banana's choice.

Presenter27:16

Well, the seventh record was chosen for lots of reasons. It it's very important.

Presenter27:21

example of how you should have different types when you're there to enhance different moods. And this strange early sound of this nineteen twenty recording of blues does certainly make you feel a special feeling at a special time. And it's called lost lover blues and has the added bonus of making you shriek with laughter because there's an abundance of birdsong and yodling.

Lucinda Lambton27:47

Uh

Presenter27:48

Yeah.

Lucinda Lambton28:03

Maybe there I will find my man.

Lucinda Lambton28:09

I'm gonna have to.

Presenter28:15

Lottie Kimbra and Lost Lover Blues.

Presenter28:18

So, Lucy Lambton, as you um leap to your feet with the rising sun, far away in the Indian Ocean or the Pacific or the Atlantic, wherever your island is, what will you busy yourself doing?

Lucinda Lambton28:23

Far

Lucinda Lambton28:25

Will be a plan.

Presenter28:31

Well, if I could come to the luxury now that I'm allowed, I would very much like to sit there with a word processor and write of the last thirty years, so it would be time very, very, very well spent. Your memories, your own history. Um well, again you'll you'll paint the vain banana poking her nose up, but I'm really talking about all the things that yes, that have happened and that I've seen, that exist not because I've seen them, that they exist and all the strange things. Lord Kilmorry, for instance, Lord Kilmorrie I'm making some films for the BBC at the moment, the A to Z of England.

Presenter29:05

and we did E for Eastern, and Lord Kilmorey built an Egyptian mausoleum for his mistress.

Presenter29:11

in granite, a magnificent great building which he travelled round England with. He moved from house to house over the years, and despite being married,

Presenter29:19

took this enormous granite mausoleum round from house to house with him, and he was finally buried in a gown of rat's fur with

Presenter29:28

In the coffin with the mistress, having rehearsed his own funeral many times, dressed in white on a coffin, pulled on wheels under the ground. So all these incredible bits of information that are stored away, you have a kind of encyclopedic knowledge of oddities. You would attempt to bring some order to them and put them into the processor.

Lucinda Lambton29:39

Just store

Presenter29:46

Yes, and all the events that have happened when in finding them all, and the delights. Yes, I mean all there's an awful lot to do. Many people I think would be very envious of you because uh you have such boundless enthusiasm and energy. Do you ever wake up in the morning and think, I really don't want to get up today?

Lucinda Lambton30:00

The wake up

Presenter30:04

No, I don't. No, there's it's always great excitement, indeed.

Presenter30:08

Terrific excitement for either the Leisure Centre in Dunkster or Lord Kilmorray's Mausoleum.

Presenter30:15

You never get depressed.

Presenter30:17

No, I I don't get to praise, but that's again is real luck and it I I'm afraid it paints a shallow one shade personality, so it's nothing to be praised, just luck. Why are you so self deprecating?

Presenter30:30

Because I do think it's bad not being depressed.

Presenter30:33

Of course it's bad. Uh b uh I mean I certainly I've fer certainly to not get depressed, I get agonized by um

Presenter30:40

hideous, dreadful horrors of the world, many, many horrible, horrifying, horrifying injustices, of course I do.

Presenter30:47

But if we were narrowing down and spotlighting this life you are talking about, I don't get depressed in it, no.

Presenter30:53

Shall we have your last record then? Well, the last was the agonising choice between the Battle Hymn of the Republic and the March from Norma and La Marcelaise. You can sing all those. I can sing them.

Presenter31:05

It's rarely to march round the island when feeling cheerful.

Presenter31:09

and just generally for a march. And in the end it came down to the masseuse because of the particularly fine recording with the soprano singing over a

Presenter31:18

choir of some thousands of people.

Lucinda Lambton31:34

In a moment

Presenter31:52

Yeah.

Lucinda Lambton31:52

Yeah.

Presenter31:52

Uh

Lucinda Lambton31:52

Uh

Presenter31:52

Yeah.

Lucinda Lambton31:53

Uh

Lucinda Lambton31:56

Colours we got.

Lucinda Lambton32:07

Shame, oh shame.

Presenter32:21

The Marseillais sung by the choir of the National Theatre, a particularly fine recording from Lucy Lambton's much thumbed collection. Isn't it stirring now? It is smashing. It I can't imagine how you're going to choose one, Lucy, because it's taken you days to choose eight records. How are you going to days? It's taken um for forty years.

Lucinda Lambton32:30

Yeah.

Lucinda Lambton32:36

Today

Presenter32:41

Forty years of nurturing a dream. Now, come on, you've got to choose one.

Lucinda Lambton32:45

I and it

Presenter32:52

Fidelia. The Fidelia. And Wincingle. We know your luxury, which is the word processor. I wanted to ask you for the entire film stock of Hollywood in the 20s thirties and 40s with a generator and a screen. But you knew I'd say no. Well, I thought you might say no. It'd be terrific kerfuffle getting it onto the island, wouldn't it? What's the book?

Lucinda Lambton32:56

We know your language.

Lucinda Lambton32:59

Uh

Presenter33:12

Finally. Well, you're going to rebel about this too, but I'm going to thump my hands on the table and insist,'cause it's a work of prose and poetry, and despite being the dictionary of natural biography, then you're going to say no. But it's a reference, but you can't have a reference.

Presenter33:28

Of glory and the things I find out from there. I found Jeremy Bentham.

Presenter33:34

The great law reformer, for example, wrote a paper, which I've only found in the Dictionary of Natural Biography, saying that all uh that he should auto icons should be made of the living dead, and that all laurelations should be interspersed with trees up the drive of a country estate, and that they should be clothed in resin with clothes of cowchuk, and this and that Francis Bacon invented the deep freeze in the sixteen hundreds on Highgate Hill by freezing a chicken and then perishing of pneumonia and dying that night. And that that may be from a reference book, but it's real glorious and fair. You don't need the book, because you know it all. No, I jolly well don't. Those are just two wonderful gems. And it's so difficult to read it, too, because the words are the size of ants' legs. But it it's really

Lucinda Lambton34:05

You don't need the

Lucinda Lambton34:07

Noise drug

Lucinda Lambton34:11

Yeah.

Presenter34:17

Wonderful book, and I can't I I'm I'm afraid I must insist. I shall get into terrible trouble, but I do find it impossible to say no, so you can have it. Thank you very, very much. Thank you very much indeed, Lucy Lambton, for letting us hear your desert idea. What an honour, what a huge, big honour.

Speaker 334:38

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