Pauline Collins

Pauline Collins0:00

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.

Pauline Collins0:08

The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen eighty nine.

Pauline Collins0:11

And the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:28

My castaway this week is an actress. She's been entertaining television audiences for more than twenty years, appearing in popular series like Emergency Ward Ten and Upstairs Downstairs. She and her husband, John Alderton, became one of the country's most famous acting couples, with such series as Know Honestly and more recently, Forever Green.

Presenter0:48

At the same time she's enjoyed a theatrical career, and it's this which has recently burgeoned into huge success. Her portrayal of Shirley Valentine, the trapped Liverpool housewife who finds love on a Greek holiday, has won great acclaim in the West End and on Broadway.

Presenter1:04

It's now been turned into a film, and its leading lady, at the age of forty nine, has become an international star.

Speaker 31:11

Um

Presenter1:11

She is Pauline Collins. Pauline, how much difference have you found between being a well known actress and an international star?

Presenter1:19

Not a lot yet. I don't really think of myself as being an international star. The the one lovely thing is that um I've got to move around a lot more.

Presenter1:29

because the film company, you know, pushed me round the world and there's more to come yet. There's Japan and Australia in the New Year to sell the film. Um w the difference I suppose from a career point of view is that I've had lots of stuff sent to me that obviously would never have come my way.

Presenter1:44

That started while I was on Broadway, in fact, of American Films, and and nobody had heard of me, of course, before, so the likelihood of my getting

Presenter1:52

Even a coffinous bit in the American film was extremely remote, so that's the difference that it's made. But I'm not yet mobbed in my Hampstead abode.

Presenter2:00

Well, we'll talk more about all of that and about Shirley Valentine in a minute, but I guess that in the wake of her and all of this publicity surrounding it, that you might just like what we have to offer here, which is the peace and seclusion of a desert island. Absolutely. I can think of nothing nicer. I have no terrors about being on my own. I would really like to be on a desert island. What will you do there?

Presenter2:22

Um, I'll think a lot. That's something that you don't have an awful lot of time to do in this busy city world we all live in.

Presenter2:29

Um'cause there's always somebody bending your ear, isn't there one where you know it's either a telephone or

Presenter2:34

A child or a husband saying, Have you got, where is?

Presenter2:38

And I love the idea of just, I mean, I love the sun. It is a warm desert island, isn't it? Obviously, whatever you want it to be. Well, I love the sun. And I love just looking at the sky. It would be.

Pauline Collins2:43

Whatever you want it to be.

Presenter2:51

Paradise. So no escape for you? No. I would be shooting anybody who came to rescue me.

Presenter2:57

Let's have the first record then that you're going to play when you get there. Alright, this is by a wonderful pianist called Errol Garner and the track I've chosen is I'll Remember April. The the reason I like this record apart from his incredible talent is because it reminds me tremendously of my family, of in the time when I was growing up, in my late teens and early twenties, when my uncle Frank used to bring lots of records from America and he was the one who introduced us to Errol Garner. And it reminds me of family gatherings and happy evenings and parties.

Presenter4:28

Errol Garner playing I'll Remember April. You say it reminds you, Pauline, of family gatherings. Was it a big family, then?

Pauline Collins4:33

Was it a big

Presenter4:34

Well, um, I suppose it it was big in in one sense in that my mother and father bought a house with my aunt and two uncles, so there are a lot of us in the family, yes, it was quite a big family. Where did you all come from? Well, originally everybody came from Liverpool and Wallasey, my dad from Liverpool, my mother from Wallasey, but the house that they bought eventually was down in Worthing, where where all good northerners land up. But I thought there were Irish roots as well. Yes, all my grandparents are Irish, so um.

Presenter5:02

All all the blood is Irish, but they made it to Liverpool. And your parents were teachers? Yes, all teachers, yeah. And my aunts and uncles, except for one uncle who's in business.

Presenter5:11

So I trained as a teacher. I knew your sister? Yeah. You but did you know you wanted to be an actress? Oh, yes. But I trained as a teacher'cause that was the only way I could get my fees paid at the Central School of Speech and Drama, you know.

Speaker 35:11

So

Speaker 35:13

I know your sister?

Presenter5:23

'Cause the council wouldn't pay my fees otherwise. Was there any of it in the family at all? Or were you a complete one off? Well, not really, because my grandmother was a singer. She had an extraordinary voice. But but by the time she'd had three children she thought she ought to be a good wife and mother and she said, I'm going to sing for my babies.

Presenter5:38

What about you at these family gatherings? I mean, were you the little girl who did the party piece? I often did party pieces, yes. Um, I was really sad, actually, that in that my cousin Philip had a rather nicer singing voice than I did, so he was always asked to sing first. And were you creative? Were you inventive as a child? Did you invent friends and characters for yourself?

Presenter5:58

I didn't do this. I didn't invent friends and characters l like who were mythical, you know, like some children invent a mysterious friend. What I used to do was to become other people, and one of my

Presenter6:09

Characters was a funny little girl who's a bit ESN called Maureen.

Presenter6:13

who um had uh a lovely personality but she wasn't quite dealing off a full deck. I don't know why I created this character. I think it was originally to entertain my my then baby sister. And I used to sometimes push her round in the pram as this character. I mean people watching me must have thought I was off my head. What did what did Maureen do? I mean how did one do that?

Presenter6:34

She had a strange face and a s and and a slightly hunched look and um and she was a very immediate person, you know. She there was no malice in Maury.

Presenter6:45

How did she speak? You did not like that.

Presenter6:49

And and what about accents? Could you always do accents? Yeah, I always had a very good ear, yes, always. And uh I thought my first performance was as a chicken, really. That was my my first example of an ear. Chicken laying an egg, aged two.

Presenter7:04

At home to do it? Yes.

Presenter7:08

Enough, enough. Enough. We better have some music following that. What's the next one? The next one is.

Presenter7:15

A wonderful piece of organ music, uh Vido's to Carta. In my youth it used to be played by my music master, mister Buckley, on the school organ, and it was something which really uplifts the soul.

Presenter8:13

Christopher Herrick playing V Doors to Carter.

Presenter8:16

You didn't set out to be a comedy actress, did you, Pauline? No, I set out to be an actress, um of of any kind, really. I suppose it's partly to do with the fact that I have a round face that I ended up playing comedy. Why do you say that? I don't know. People don't tend to take you seriously, do they? I mean, I like playing comedy, I really enjoy it, but it would be wonderful to play the odd murderess, you know.

Speaker 38:28

Yeah.

Presenter8:35

Wouldn't it? I have no desire to play massive classics. That's that's not what I'm looking for. But I suppose i in the early days of your career, in in in the sixties, you were perhaps up against the Julie Christie's and the Sarah Miles. They were Yes, I was up against the Dollybirds, which I never was. I I've never been quite the look of the moment. But it's it's the eyes that people always talk about when they speak of Pauline Collins. If you're being slightly naughty or trying to convey something mischievous, somehow the eyes and the twinkling of them do the trick, don't you? That's true, yes. I mean, I think that's what people do mention, is the twinkling of eyes. But there must be something else as well. I mean, you are, would you say, a natural comedian? I suppose so. Yeah, I suppose I was lucky to have that facility to play comedy, timing or whatever. You don't like getting too technical about it, do you? No. I I'm not very good at that. I don't work technically. I admire actors who do, but it's not my way. I work from the gut, really, and and and make mistakes often. Um but I find that's the only way I can work really, is to leap in.

Pauline Collins9:04

That's a trick. That's true.

Pauline Collins9:20

Uh Yeah.

Presenter9:35

So it was Windsor Rep when you were twenty-two. A gazelle in Park Lane. What was that all about?

Pauline Collins9:38

Twenty-two

Presenter9:41

It was a sort of drawing room comedy with Arabians in it, and I played an Arabian maid servant.

Presenter9:46

And it was a wonderful comedy part, which is great. And then three years later you were in the West End with Passion Flower Hotel. Now I remember that,'cause that was what you might call a seminal work at the time, wasn't it?

Speaker 39:57

Yeah.

Presenter9:59

Um

Presenter10:00

It was written funnily enough, it's uh you know, Mother Love. Hm. That he was the guy who wrote Mother Love, a completely different piece of work, but he wrote Passion Flower Hotel, this writer, under the name of Rosalind Erskine, as a lady, and it was about a group of schoolgirls who ran a brothel for the local boys' school.

Presenter10:16

and it was uh the most joyous experience of my life.

Presenter10:19

And an introduction to musicians for me. And who who were you? What part did you play? I played a character called Lady Janet Wigton.

Presenter10:25

Who was a one of the girls, you know, on the mate?

Presenter10:29

So at that point in the West End, wonderful play, marvellous experience, you must have thought you'd arrived. This was where it was at. Well, I did really. I I mean I was thrilled to ma and my parents were couldn't believe that at this uh age I w you know, this ripe old age of twenty five I was in a West End play. Um but of course I had a long way to go.

Presenter10:47

Let's have your next record. Um the next record, it's a lovely funny record, this by Jimmy Smith called Got My Mojo Working. And I love this because it reminds me of the first time I took John on holiday to Ireland.

Presenter10:59

uh which is the most wonderful country and he'd never experienced it and he had this tape which was playing in his old

Presenter11:06

Ford Zodiac while we were tootling land. Lovely island.

Speaker 211:11

I got my Mo, Joe Brackenban.

Speaker 211:16

And I'm gonna try it on you.

Speaker 211:20

Oh yeah.

Speaker 211:22

I've got my mojo working.

Speaker 211:27

And I'm goin' to try now.

Speaker 211:31

Oh yeah.

Speaker 211:33

Well I tried in New York City, but now I'm going to try it on

Presenter11:41

Jimmy Smith singing Got My Mojo Working. You mentioned there, Pauline, your husband, John Alderton, who in fact you met on Emergency Ward 10, didn't you? That's right. I was only doing one episode. He was the new star of it then. And we both remember a party that we went to after this episode, and the people we went with, but we don't remember each other. So obviously the the moment was not ripe then. So when did you meet him properly? We met properly a few years later when we did a play together. We didn't actually start going out together till 1969. Was that play called The Night I Chased the Women with an Eel? That was 1969. The other play was called The Night I Danced with Mr. Dalton. So isn't that strange? A lot of nights in your career. So what happened? The relationship then took off? Yes, it did, which was wonderful. And you married, and then you went on, as I was saying earlier, to have enormous success together in upstairs, downstairs. Yes.

Pauline Collins12:26

It was

Speaker 312:30

That's it.

Presenter12:31

You were the parlour maid, he was the chauffeur and um that was your first big hit, really, wasn't it? It was. That was the thing I was thirty then, and that was the thing which made people and know that I existed, I suppose, really. She was a good character though, so it was a wonderful character. It was created by Faye Weldon, you know.

Speaker 312:44

So it's a bonnet of the cat.

Presenter12:47

That she wrote the first episode, and she is one of my ultimate favourite novelists, Faye Weldon, and I was so pleased to have

Presenter12:54

You know, played that character written by her. The character also seduced the gentleman of the house, I seem to remember.

Pauline Collins12:58

Such is resembling.

Pauline Collins13:00

I mean it seemed

Presenter13:01

I had spent most of my time flat on my back or pregnant.

Presenter13:04

See

Presenter13:06

Then you and John went on to make No Honestly. Yes. And quite recently, Forever Green. Do you enjoy working together or is it really difficult? We do enjoy working together very much. And we've done lots of stage plays together. But in fact, before Forever Green, we decided to call a moratorium on that partnership for nine years. In fact, we didn't work together, because we thought it was getting a bit twee, you know. Is it easier working with your husband, or actually, does it make life really rather more difficult? No, it's I find it very easy, and so does John, because there are shortcuts. You don't have to mess about, you know, saying, I wonder if it'd be alright if you did sansa sensor. You can say that.

Presenter13:39

Might, of course, that's true of any actor that you work with for any length of time, and there are lots of actors that for instance Joss Ackland I've done a huge amount of work with.

Presenter13:47

and have a very good working relationship with. Um but I found it very easy.

Presenter13:52

The only trouble is that you might perhaps always get the same stimulus and therefore it becomes dull. And also, I mean, you've got to take it home with you together. But you don't, you see, you just can't take it home with you because life has to go on at home. So you go home and put the kettle on and make the food and forget about all that. Well now, theatrical critics would say, I think, that the that the turning point in your career was nineteen seventy when you played a character called Nancy Gray in The Happy Apple by Jack Pullman.

Pauline Collins14:18

Uh Uh

Presenter14:20

Do do you think it was a kind of turning point?

Presenter14:22

It was a m a wonderful character. It was a a median type, was how she was described, and she was the admen used to test things on her to get her reaction. But that character was essentially a very ordinary person, wasn't she?

Presenter14:35

I I'm an ordinary person, actually. I I tend to be cast as commoners, not as queens. I think um th that's my sort of area, really.

Presenter14:46

Another record. This is a wonderful sound coming up by a woman called Jennifer Holiday. I first saw her performing on The Tonies. She's a huge black singer and she's singing a number here called And I'm Telling You and it's from Dream Girls by Henry Krieger. And I've always admired this musical. It's never been a a huge success, it's never come here. It's about based on the story of the Supremes.

Presenter15:08

And while I was in New York one day there was a charity going on in Shubert Alley, which was where my stage door was, and there was a wonderful pianist there, and I said, Oh, who's he? and they said, Oh, that's the man who wrote Dream Girls so I wrote him a note saying how much I admired it, and he wrote me one back, saying he loved Shirley Valentine.

Speaker 315:32

Telling you

Speaker 315:37

I'm not going.

Speaker 315:40

You're the best man I'll ever know. There's no way I can ever, ever go. No, no, no, no way.

Presenter15:53

Looking at our producer Olivia there reminds me of Simon Callow's reaction. It was Simon Callow who bought me this because who he's who directed Shirley Valentine, the first time we worked together about seven or eight years ago, because he knew that I loved it and when he first heard what he'd bought me, he was horrified. But I think it's wonderful. Wonderful. I think it's wonderful. It was Jennifer Holiday singing, and I'm telling you, I'm not going from Dream Girls. You mentioned Simon Callow, you mentioned Shirley Valentine. It was, what, two years ago that that part came along. Did you know it was for you the minute you read it? Oh, yes, I did. I knew it was by Willie Russell, whom I admired tremendously. I also knew that he wasn't sure about whether he wanted me for it, because he in fact auditioned eight of us. But as soon as I read it, the whole piece felt completely familiar to me. The language he uses and the characters that he drew were completely. And did you immediately stand out? Did Willie Russell immediately pounce on you and say you're my Shirley? I don't know. I first of all auditioned for Simon and Bob Swash, the producer, and they obviously they liked what I did very much, but they said, oh, we have to.

Presenter16:57

Let Willie listen. And so another day I did it for Willie. And he's very uh non-committal Willie, you know, so I thought, well, I don't know if he wants me to do it or not, so I I went I left quite quickly and he always holds that against me, that that I just said, Oh, well, okay, right, I've done it now, goodbye and what that really meant was you were desperate about it, you wanted it badly, did you?

Speaker 317:14

But what does yourself

Presenter17:19

I'm never desperate about anything. I'm a terrible fatalist. And I always feel that if you're meant to do something, you will. So I'm not a person who claws their way up in the old-fashioned style for parts. And if Willie had chosen somebody else, I would have known there was a reason for it. Let's talk for a moment about the character of Shirley Valentine. She's sad, isn't she? Not for her lost youth, but for her lost self. That's what she really goes in search of. Yes, and what's wonderful about the character is that she doesn't blame anybody except herself. She's very philosophical about it, but um she is aware of the fact, as many of us are at various times in our life, that we're not fulfilling our potential. And she started life as a as a very vivacious and joyous teenager who was very quickly put down by her schoolteachers.

Pauline Collins17:43

She barely goes

Presenter18:05

Um and that's where the downward spiral begins for everybody, I think. And that's why everybody ha needs a strong center themselves. You know, it's the old thing about loving yourself, isn't it?

Presenter18:14

Is that why you think it struck such a chord? I'm sure that's so. I'm sure that's the reason that no matter how successful anybody is, and it's curious the broad spectrum of people who have written about this play to me while I was doing it h here in England and on on the New York stage. And they range from housewives to corporate directors. It's it's quite amazing, really, how it's touched everybody. Saying what kind of thing? Saying that

Pauline Collins18:17

I'm sure that

Presenter18:41

It reminds them that they have forgotten what their original aims were in life, whatever those aims may have been, that sometimes they've been pushed down a wrong alley by parents or by the boss or whatever, or just by not being brave enough.

Presenter18:55

How did the audiences differ between the West End and Broadway? They were great in New York. I mean, the the audiences in England are my own family, so I know that they you know, I know if they're enjoying something or not, but in New York there's no question if they enjoy it because they stand up and shout and

Presenter19:10

Amongst all the the charming, praiseworthy things they shouted out, was a wonderful matinee. I I was delivering a line which was I talk to rock, but he doesn't talk to me, because he can't understand a bleeding word I'm saying. That was while I was on the Greek island. I talked to the rock instead of the wall, which I talked to in Liverpool.

Presenter19:30

And from down left, after I'd said, He doesn't understand a bleeding word I'm saying, came an old voice saying, Neither do I

Presenter19:39

So the Liverpool accent.

Speaker 319:39

Certainly

Pauline Collins19:40

Okay.

Presenter19:41

was quite difficult for them, was it? Well I I played it very lightly there, as I did in the film indeed. It's a very light accent that I think. I thought it was quite heavy. And quite thick. Oh, can do thicker than that.

Speaker 319:43

Yeah.

Pauline Collins19:47

Who is it? I thought it was called

Pauline Collins19:49

The f

Presenter19:52

And then then there was the decision to make the film of Shanelle Valentine. Now, you wouldn't automatically get that part, would you? You wouldn't automatically translate from the stage to the cinema? Very far from automatically, I would have thought.

Pauline Collins19:55

Yeah, yeah.

Presenter20:03

When Lewis Gilbert came to the first night and said he was going to make the film, and a little later said he would like me to do it, I thought that's very kind of him, but he'll never get the money people to back him up. But he's very strong about that, and he was the person who would put Julie Walters in educating me.

Presenter20:19

And he encouraged five Paramount executives to come over one Monday night and watch me. And he said, What do you think? and they said, Yes, we'll have her. But at the time they wanted to have Cher, didn't they? Wanted to have Cher, yes. Would have been a classic piece of miscasting. Well, she would have been different, wouldn't she? It would have been a completely different piece of work.

Speaker 320:29

Uh

Pauline Collins20:34

Time's ready.

Presenter20:37

Yeah.

Presenter20:38

But you must have been thrilled. Of course I was. Yeah, I was gob smacked.

Presenter20:42

Right, some more music. This is an extraordinary singer whom I first heard in France when I was fifteen.

Presenter20:49

Her voice is rather like my grandmother's. She's a very high colorator, and she was never trained at all. Her name is Madeau Robin, and she sings La Gitane iloiseaux, and she's got a wonderful

Presenter21:00

Heart stopping voice.

Speaker 321:25

Yeah.

Presenter21:27

Madeau Robin singing La Gitane et Loiseaux. What is that note? Well, I I think it's um something like an octave above Top C, maybe more. It's an extraordinary voice. And and this is what my grandmother uh had, you know, a voice like that. Um and this woman never had any training. There's something about her voice which

Presenter21:47

inspires me. I don't know what it is. It's not everybody's tastes. But whenever I'm feeling tired in the dressing room I always put on Madu Robin, and somehow she energizes me.

Presenter21:58

We were saying earlier that you're a bit of a a a daydreamer, Pauline, but a constructive one. I mean, you you sort of try to think life through, rather, don't you? I get that impression.

Presenter22:08

I'm not sure that I try and think life through. Uh I think that I feel life through. Do you read a lot? I do, actually. I read an enormous amount.

Presenter22:17

Um increasingly uh as I grow older I feel the need to learn more because uh although I had a very good education, I feel that there's an awful lot in my life that

Presenter22:28

I don't know, particularly in the area of philosophy. So I try I'm sort of ploughing my way through Jung at the moment.

Presenter22:35

How you? And trying to improve myself in that area. And Goethe, I really think. And Goethe too, yes.

Pauline Collins22:40

And

Presenter22:43

Do you write?

Presenter22:44

I always say I'm going to knock off a novel, but I'm a fierce procrastinator, which is why I haven't done anything large.

Presenter22:51

On that score, I do write poems because the end is in sight, and I love

Presenter22:55

I love the feeling of writing poetry. I I enjoy that expression of emotion. Perhaps you might write your novel on our island, you never know. Or a play. Definitely. Do you get paper and pencil on this island? Well, if you ask for it for your luxury, but not.

Pauline Collins23:07

Yeah.

Presenter23:10

How much would you mind, Pauline, if you never appeared in another film?

Presenter23:16

If any Nevers came into my life, I wouldn't mind.

Presenter23:19

I think that's a very sweeping statement. I would find something else to do.

Presenter23:23

How much would you mind if you never went out to work again?

Presenter23:29

Work of some kind is very important to me. I'm not sure that it is only this work that is important to me, but I would always like to be doing something.

Presenter23:37

Um, I I have to say that as I'm growing a little older, the necessity to work all the year round seems to be growing less. But maybe that's the natural fall off of middle age.

Presenter23:47

Who would you say had been the single um greatest influence on your life?

Presenter23:54

Probably my father.

Presenter23:55

Because the the main thing he taught me was to be at ease with all men.

Presenter24:01

He was a headmaster.

Presenter24:02

from a a very ordinary working-class Liverpool family who became a headmaster and of a small school.

Presenter24:08

But he was at home with Prince and Pauper, my Dad, and I think that was a wonderful lesson that he taught me.

Presenter24:14

Let's have record number six. Okay, now this one.

Presenter24:18

is a a wonderful um invigorating piece of music. It's uh Tchaikovsky's violin concerto number one.

Presenter24:26

Um

Presenter24:27

I love this piece of music because I love all Russian composers. I love all things Russian. They much better than Diddley Mozart and all that, you know. There's something about the Russians which really gets me at it, and the bit that you're going to hear is a marvellous piece of this piece.

Presenter25:24

Part of Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto Number one, played by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Charles Dutois.

Presenter25:31

Pauline, you made a very happy rediscovery about three years ago, I know, because a young woman wrote to you and said that she believed you were her mother. Yes, that was Louise. Um that was um the daughter that I had uh while I was in Rep in Kilani, in fact. And um

Presenter25:49

She I had her adopted when she was six weeks old, which was the most awful thing ever to do. It's extraordinary how you make these decisions in life. I I mean, I thought my reasons for doing so were good.

Presenter25:59

which were partly familial because my parents were teachers at Catholic schools, and partly because I had not a sou in the world and nothing to offer this child. But you also I mean you were twenty-three years old, early sixties, terrific stigma attached to having an illegitimate child. Indeed there was. It's extraordinary when you think of it now. It means so little now. In fact everybody does it now, all the time. I I thought I remember thinking at one time that if she was a boy it wasn't so bad to be an illegitimate boy. It was somehow more romantic but it was really tough to be an illegitimate girl because there would always be people saying she'll go the same way as her mother. So for that reason I decided she should be adopted. But it must have broken your heart. It was awful, yes. It's like it really is like having a piece of your heart actually ripped out and I think that it flaws you for the rest of your life.

Pauline Collins26:36

But it must have

Presenter26:45

Um

Presenter26:46

However, I knew that we would be re reunited some day. I wasn't quite sure when, and I knew that it would have to be her who instigated it. You were forbidden by law, I think, to try and find her with handed a child for adoption. That's right, yes, so I knew she had to do it.

Speaker 326:55

Yeah.

Pauline Collins26:57

Uh

Pauline Collins27:01

Dear

Presenter27:02

How did you feel then when you opened the letter? Oh, well, absolutely delighted. But I wasn't surprised, because about three days before I'd had an extraordinary dream about her.

Presenter27:10

um in which she was speaking to me, so I I sort of knew it was coming.

Presenter27:15

Had you called her Louise? Yes. So Maria, her mother had kept the same name, yes.

Pauline Collins27:17

And she kept loving.

Presenter27:20

And how old was she when she finally came with you? I'm twenty one.

Presenter27:25

It's all been a very happy business in your case, hasn't it? Because I suppose you all had to get together and agree that it should be made public. Yes, we did, yes.

Pauline Collins27:26

This is your case.

Pauline Collins27:27

Because uh

Presenter27:32

So that was was you and her father? Yes, that's right. You were able to introduce her to her father? Because we had kept in contact over the years, yeah.

Pauline Collins27:37

To her father.

Presenter27:41

It has been a happy business in your case, but it's not something necessarily to be recommended. It mightn't be for everybody. It would be very bad of me to recommend anything to anybody, because this is just one situation.

Pauline Collins27:46

No, I'll make it forever.

Presenter27:51

I've heard awful sad stories of children looking for their parents and their parents don't want to know them and vice versa. Uh I think that we're just lucky and other people have to rely on their own instincts as to whether it's going to turn out as wonderfully as it did for us. And what did your other three children think of it? Well they were delighted. Strangely enough, uh about a fortnight before Kate had said, my daughter Kate is sixteen, oh I wish I had a sister and

Presenter28:16

Now I wanted to say, Well, actually you have, but we don't know where she is and then two weeks later I had the letter. So it's wonderful for everybody. It's a very happy ending. It is indeed.

Pauline Collins28:23

Mm-hmm.

Presenter28:27

Shall we have another piece of music? Right. Now, this is. Oh, it's a beautiful piece of music. This takes me back.

Presenter28:33

A hundred years, really. Um Claire d'Alune is probably one of the first pieces of music that I ever heard in my life.

Presenter28:40

Living in a a flat in Wallasey, which was later bombed.

Presenter28:45

This was one of the pieces of music that.

Presenter28:48

Just rang

Presenter28:50

Through my very early childhood.

Presenter29:54

Michel Beroff playing Debussy's Claire Delune.

Presenter29:57

The Alderton household is patiently a haven of equality. I I gather John stayed at home and looked after the children while you went off to Broadway. He did, yes. Isn't that terrific of him?

Presenter30:07

Um

Presenter30:08

Okay.

Presenter30:09

He he's always been a very sharing kind of father, you know, a good nappy changer and cooker of um dinners and stuff. Uh but he decided that as it was a very important year for uh the two of them doing exams, that he he wouldn't take any work during that period. And I think he should be father of the year for that. Do you think people believe that you two are as happy and well adjusted as you seem?

Presenter30:30

Some of the press used to try and poke out dreadful secrets, which there weren't ever. I mean, we're really rather boring, actually, because, you know, there's nothing terrible going on in the woodshed. What happens next? Is it is it his turn now to go out to work? Yes, I hope so. I think he's probably going to do a play in the New Year.

Presenter30:46

Um

Presenter30:47

And I I don't know what I'm going to do. No idea at all. Well, it's difficult, isn't it? I mean, other than Shirley Valentine, parts for

Presenter30:54

Ladies in middle age are quite a rarity. Yes, there are lots of parts, but it's just getting more which is as good as that. While I was on Broadway, I was sent a lot of American parts. In fact, once they know you in America, they tend to think you might be right for anything. So I was sent anything from 16 to 60, really. None of which were quite right. But it is something that women of around your age complain of. Jane Fonder was complaining about this only the other day, that there is nothing between doing dynasty and playing the nurse in Romeo and Juliet. Yes, I think this is about to change. Because I think that because of we are the baby bulge, aren't we, or something like that? Statistically, there are a lot of people of our age, and obviously a lot of them are women. And

Pauline Collins31:14

Yeah, so

Pauline Collins31:19

Yeah.

Presenter31:30

I think that our age group which have money to spend perhaps want to see and hear a little more about themselves in the theatre.

Presenter31:40

and in the cinema, so I'm hoping that I've been born at the right time.

Presenter31:44

So the offers are pouring in. Lots of all sorts of different things. The one which has most appealed to me uh is a a format for a tiny English film with a lady producer.

Presenter31:53

um which may or may not get off the ground, but I I love the sound of it and that may be what I'll do. So this is really a perfect moment to to sail away to the island and consider your future. Are you ready to go? Absolutely, yes. Um I I've got my pile of clothes sitting on the beach there, and nobody'll know where I've gone or if I'm ever coming back.

Presenter32:11

And there's one more record I think to go on the raft with Yes. Um I love tenor voices. Uh Luciano Pavarotti makes me drive dangerously with his extraordinary voice. But this is a man called Jussie Bjoling, a Swedish tenor, and this this man's voice breaks my heart. He's singing here.

Pauline Collins32:13

See ya.

Presenter32:29

Um a tiny aria from Andrea Chenier by Giordano, and it's called Amor Tiviette.

Presenter33:35

You see Bjoling singing Amur ti Viette from Andrea Schenier by Giordano.

Presenter33:41

Pauline, you have to choose now one record out of those eight.

Speaker 333:45

Yeah.

Presenter33:45

Is that possible? It's really hard, isn't it? Um

Presenter33:49

I think that the one that would carry me through thick and thin would have to be Claire de Lune, De Bussy's Claire de Lune, because um I love the piano, I wish I could play it. Um there's something about it which I think would take me through both happy and sad days on the island. It's very simple and just very beautiful. What about a book? You've got, as you know, the complete works of Shakespeare and you've got the Bible.

Pauline Collins34:07

Beautiful.

Presenter34:13

I I'm going to choose something which may sound pretentious, but it isn't, because I really mean it. And that is as I was growing up, um, I was always on the arts side in school, and and learnt English and history and

Presenter34:27

French and art. And, um, I had a a disrespect of scientists. I used to think that they were Philistines, girls who did physics and chemistry.

Presenter34:37

And um I feel really ashamed of that now. And the older I grow, the more I realise that physics is an extraordinary and beautiful subject. So what I would like is and I don't know which book to choose because I don't know anything about physics but I would like a book which would teach somebody as thick as me um the meaning of the universe. Preferably written by a metaphysician. We shall find you one. And um

Presenter35:00

A luxury. What shall that be?

Presenter35:02

I thought, you see, that you got paper and pencil automatically here, but I've found out you don't get that.

Presenter35:08

I was toying with the idea of Bahak flour remedies, which I think would be wonderful.

Presenter35:13

But I think maybe I could make those from the stuff on the island, so I'm going to choose a boring paper and pencil to record all the wonderful things that happened to me on this island.

Presenter35:22

What a rigorous regime we run here But I'm afraid you can't have it unless you have it as your luxury, and so be it. You shall have paper and pencil. Pauline Collins, thank you very much indeed. Thank you, your desert island discs. Thank you.

Speaker 335:31

Thank you.

Pauline Collins35:41

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