Sir Robin Day

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 ninety, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:29

My Castaway this week is a television interviewer. Thirty years ago he tried and failed to become a Member of Parliament. Since then he's reversed the old adage and proved to the nation's delight that if you can't join em you can, occasionally, beat em.

Presenter0:44

Many a politician has squirmed before his penetrating questioning, where his entertaining style has earned him popularity and a knighthood too.

Presenter0:53

Now in his mid sixties, he has retired from his regular programme, but still makes enough appearances to remind us that he is without doubt the elder statesman of political television. He is Sir Robin Day. Robin, I find it very difficult to imagine you on a desert island. How are you going to cope with life in the raw?

Sir Robin Day1:10

Well, I don't know why you find it difficult to imagine me coping with life on the desert island, nor do I find it difficult to imagine myself in the raw state. By that you mean in the nude?

Presenter1:20

Whatever you care to wear.

Sir Robin Day1:21

Well, I d I I shall wear whatever I have to wear, but I shan't be raw uh all the time, because there is there's bound to be some vegetation I can find to make myself uh an appropriate garment. No, I shall I shall cope. It's always been my motto in life, to cope with whatever difficulties uh are in front of me, and I shall make the best of a of a good or a bad job. What would you be most pleased to have escaped from?

Sir Robin Day1:44

Oh, the dirt and the noise and the television

Presenter1:47

The television tools are not available.

Sir Robin Day1:48

Yes, there wouldn't be a television set on the island, because the television is so awful.

Presenter1:53

Even with you on it.

Sir Robin Day1:54

Oh, no but but I'm not on it enough.

Presenter1:58

When are you most at peace, then, Robin? What what in life brings you a sense of calm and well being?

Sir Robin Day2:05

Well, I don't know. I don't think I've ever enjoyed calm and well being. I I like uh I like trouble and noise and activity and uh and friends around me and argument. So that's what I'd miss on the desert island. Is music a comfort to you at all? Oh, yes, very much so. But but music usually with words.

Sir Robin Day2:23

We're going to have several great voices. This is the programme of great voices.

Presenter2:26

Let's have

Sir Robin Day2:27

The first

Presenter2:27

Swam what is it?

Sir Robin Day2:28

Well, the first one is is from a ve very famous and favorite opera.

Sir Robin Day2:33

And it's a piece which would give me the sense of having a party and lots of friends on a sort of lonely beach on this this this desert island, and it's the drinking song from Verdi's La Traviata, sung by Placido Domingo and Iliana

Sir Robin Day2:53

I won't leave me out on a gag.

Sir Robin Day2:57

Love and the time beyond

Speaker 43:02

Devil, who devils in the flea of movie.

Sir Robin Day3:03

Devil.

Sir Robin Day3:10

And I

Presenter3:41

Placido Domingo and Iliana Kotrubasch singing the drinking song from Verdi's La Traviata with the Bavarian State Orchestra and Opera Chorus conducted by Carlos Kleiber.

Presenter3:51

I think everyone imagines, Robin, that when you're not on the television that you're in the House of Commons doing your homework, watching the politicians at work. Is that so?

Sir Robin Day3:58

Well, I have been for the last thirty years or so. I've usually been in the House of Commons most afternoons and most debates. Hansard and the newspapers are very quite re reliable for telling you what has been taken place, but it's no substitute for hearing the actual debates. Of course now one can watch it on television, which is what I've advocated.

Sir Robin Day4:18

For about thirty years it's taken a long time to happen, but I'm very glad that it's being done so well and so successfully.

Presenter4:23

So you're now sitting at home with your feet up watching it?

Sir Robin Day4:25

Well, I I watch it from time to time, but uh not as much as I used to, because I don't do regular programmes, though I'm hoping to resume doing uh political programmes before very long.

Presenter4:36

How far back does your observation of politicians go, then?

Sir Robin Day4:41

Well, the first politician I ever heard speak was Winston Churchill, actually. My my father, who admired him greatly, though my father wasn't a Conservative, he always used to tell me he was a great man, and he he used to predict that he would one day leave the country. I don't think he foresaw nineteen forty, but he told me he was a great man and would have a future.

Sir Robin Day4:58

And he took me to an an open air meeting, and it was an open air meeting where the rain had fallen. It was in Gloucestershire in, I think, nineteen thirty three, and the meeting had to be held in a marquee, because it was pouring rain, and the marquee was leaking.

Sir Robin Day5:11

And people put their umbrellas up.

Sir Robin Day5:13

And this annoyed my father, because we couldn't see the Speaker, and he, much to my alarm, he shouted at the top of his voice, Put those umbrellas down We can't see mister Churchill.

Sir Robin Day5:26

And I thought we were going to be arrested and carted off for making an interruption. First time I'd ever heard a heckle or an interruption at a public meeting, but Winston stopped speaking and he looked over his spectacles and said, Does anybody mind the rain? I don't mind it a bit.

Sir Robin Day5:41

And all the umbrellas came down, and I thought my my father was a great hero.

Presenter5:46

He was a liberal, your father.

Sir Robin Day5:47

Yes, he was.

Presenter5:48

And this all happened near your home in in Gloucestershire, where he was a telephone manager.

Sir Robin Day5:50

Yeah.

Sir Robin Day5:52

That's right, that's right.

Presenter5:53

But with a great passion for politics and the public.

Sir Robin Day5:54

He's like pac passion for politics and philosophy and reading all sorts of books.

Presenter5:58

He was Prime Minister once, I think, you'll tell.

Sir Robin Day6:00

Well, that was a that was of a of a little parliament which no longer exists called the Hampstead Parliament, which existed in the twenties and thirties and and was a sort of mock parliament and professional men and people used to

Sir Robin Day6:13

hold offices and and and constituencies and things like that. It was a sort of debating society. That's right. Which died the death, I suppose, w when when uh when um I don't know why it died the death. I think it died the death when the war came. Let's pause there then and have your next record. What's

Presenter6:27

That.

Sir Robin Day6:29

Well, this takes me back to my school days during the war, and this was a time when we had to organize our own entertainment.

Sir Robin Day6:36

And one week we organized my school which was evacuated to the Lake District.

Sir Robin Day6:42

And we arranged a concert, and I learned the words of this song, which has remained with me ever since, and it's Flannagan and Allan in Underneath the Arches.

Sir Robin Day6:52

In this nineteen I think it's early thirties recording, it's a bit rough and scratchy, you hear the introductory words which you never normally hear, but they're rather nostalgic. The writs we never sighed for, the savoy they can keep.

Speaker 47:10

A rip we never side for

Speaker 47:15

Yeah, boys, they can see

Speaker 47:19

There's only one place that we know And that is where we live.

Sir Robin Day7:21

Yeah.

Sir Robin Day7:24

And that is where

Speaker 47:29

Underneath the archae we dream a risk of lay

Sir Robin Day7:31

They are

Sir Robin Day7:34

Yeah.

Sir Robin Day7:34

Yeah.

Sir Robin Day7:36

I don't know whether I was Flanagan and Allen in that version I sang in 1940, but I learned to do the bop ba ba bop ba ba ba ba as well.

Presenter7:46

Were you a pleasant little boy? Were you the apple of your mother's eye?

Sir Robin Day7:49

I think I I don't know whether she would have used such a cliche, but I think she was quite fond of her son younger son, yes.

Presenter7:56

And what sort of person was she?

Sir Robin Day7:58

She was a very quiet, artistic, placid lady.

Sir Robin Day8:03

Um, she loved gardening, she loved music, she played the violin, she

Sir Robin Day8:08

She um she liked embroidery, she did all those things.

Sir Robin Day8:12

She wasn't very interested in politics, but she did follow them, and listened to my father arguing about them.

Presenter8:18

And have you inherited any of her gentleness, or are you entirely your father's son?

Sir Robin Day8:23

No, this is this is uh this is th I suppose my mother's gentleness and placidity is the source of my own gentleness and placidity, which emerges from time to time when I'm in suitable company.

Presenter8:35

What did your mother want for you, Robin? What were her hopes for this late arrival?

Sir Robin Day8:39

Oh, I don't know. I don't know whether she had any because uh it was uh

Sir Robin Day8:44

My I was went in the army when I was eighteen and went away and uh I don't know that she she just thought I hoped I'd come out of the army alive and and go on to do something else. I don't think she had any particular ambitions for me.

Presenter8:56

Did either of them live to see you pioneering into television?

Sir Robin Day9:00

No, no. My mother died when I was overseas in the army in nineteen forty six, and my father died shortly after I came out in nineteen forty eight.

Presenter9:10

Is that a great sadness to you that they never saw you achieve?

Sir Robin Day9:13

Well, it is a great sadness in retrospect, but it didn't strike me as a sadness at the time, because I didn't know that I was going to achieve anything else.

Presenter9:21

But uh just to complete your childhood, you were you were headboy at school and you left in nineteen forty two, didn't you? And you then joined up immediately?

Sir Robin Day9:26

That's great.

Sir Robin Day9:29

Yes, more or less.

Presenter9:30

Into what?

Sir Robin Day9:32

Well, I went first of all into the Home Guard, because there was some delay about being called up into the Royal Artillery, and so I did some period in a coastal Home Guard unit in West Mersey, in Essex, and for that reason I I've always thought that

Sir Robin Day9:47

Dad's Army was more of a of a of a documentary than a than a comic programme. But um then I went into the army in in nineteen forty two for for four or five years and uh like everybody else.

Presenter9:58

Let's leave you there for a moment and have another record.

Sir Robin Day10:02

Well, talking of the war and the army, this is something I shall never forget hearing.

Sir Robin Day10:06

Mm

Sir Robin Day10:07

At the darkest days of the war, on june eighteenth, nineteen forty, I heard this broadcast

Sir Robin Day10:14

on my headphones in school, and it was the most inspiring

Sir Robin Day10:19

Utterance in the English language that I've heard

Sir Robin Day10:23

ever in my whole life, and it is that of Winston Churchill broadcasting to the nation.

Sir Robin Day10:29

after the fall of France, and it is a very famous passage indeed.

Speaker 310:34

For rights reasons, we are unable to bring you this choice.

Presenter10:37

Winston Churchill speaking on the BBC on june eighteenth, nineteen forty.

Sir Robin Day10:42

What sort of war did you have, Robin? Rather dull. I sailed from England on V E Day and got to East Africa just before V J Day.

Sir Robin Day10:51

Having done two years or so tough of military training in the Royal Artillery.

Sir Robin Day10:56

And then I just um

Sir Robin Day10:58

did out my time until it came to be demobilized. I just m missed having a good war. I didn't didn't reach a high rank or win a medal or anything like that.

Presenter11:08

Is that a source of any regret to you?

Sir Robin Day11:10

Well, I'd I'd like to have either I'd love to have come out a hero or have done something interesting, but no, I don't regret things.

Sir Robin Day11:17

I suppose I'm lucky to be alive in Wenson?

Presenter11:19

So there you were when the war ended, a man of um

Presenter11:23

Twenty two, with no influence, no contacts. What did you do?

Sir Robin Day11:27

Well, I went up to Oxford because and as an ex serviceman who had got entrance to Oxford, I got a a government grant, which which helped us all through. Everybody got a grant if if they were in that situation.

Sir Robin Day11:39

And I read law at Oxford and um got got involved in in student activities and politics and that sort of thing.

Presenter11:45

Tell me about post-war Oxford. What sort of atmosphere was there?

Sir Robin Day11:48

Well, it was a quite incredible age, and I think it was really in the history of Oxford University it was a golden age. I know everybody thinks their own time at university was it was a golden age.

Sir Robin Day11:58

But um post-war Oxford was quite incredible because there were people of several generations.

Sir Robin Day12:04

There were m men of thirty who'd fought at Al Alamein, and there were men of of of eighteen who'd just come up from the school because they've got brilliant exam results. And there were people of about twenty three, twenty four like me. And so it was a three or four generations rolled into one. And they were full of

Sir Robin Day12:23

Very talented people. There was Ken Tynan, there was Edward Boyle, there was Tony Benn. There were all sorts of people.

Presenter12:29

Well he came in late.

Sir Robin Day12:30

Well, he came in later. He came later.

Presenter12:32

Didn't you beat him to the presidency?

Sir Robin Day12:33

Yes, he did make a stand at that time, yes.

Presenter12:34

Make a stand

Presenter12:36

And you've written that all male Oxford was in love with a girl called Shirley, who was to become Shirley Williams.

Sir Robin Day12:42

Yes, that that quotation is in fact from somebody else's uh book. But um uh that is a a fair statement, but uh it didn't include me, though I liked her very much.

Presenter12:51

Who were you in love with him?

Sir Robin Day12:53

At Oxford? I don't remember the names, but I can give you a list afterwards.

Presenter12:59

But debating was your real forte, wasn't it?

Sir Robin Day13:01

Yeah.

Presenter13:02

Tell me about that. How did you go on?

Sir Robin Day13:04

Well, I um I took part in the uh activities of the Oxford Union and um

Sir Robin Day13:09

and was chosen eventually to tour the United States on a debating tour of some fifty American colleges and um institutions, and that was very exciting at a time when very few English people had been to America.

Presenter13:21

Did you then quite naturally believe, um, like the other people you mentioned, like Tony Bairn, like Jeremy Thorpe, that politics was going to be your future in some way?

Sir Robin Day13:29

Um I had in mind a a a political career vaguely, but I knew that I had to earn a living somehow first, and I was I was uh

Sir Robin Day13:38

going to get called to the bar and was called to the bar and uh

Sir Robin Day13:42

After I came down from Oxford I duly took the bar exams, and was a pupil at Inn Chambers for some eighteen months. But eventually I came to the conclusion that uh that it wasn't for me, that I wasn't going to be a very brilliant uh barrister, and I hadn't got the mental the necessary mental

Sir Robin Day13:59

uh equipment to um

Sir Robin Day14:02

Become a first class barrister.

Sir Robin Day14:05

That was what I felt. And also I was about twenty eight, and it was time that I

Sir Robin Day14:10

Uh and a living.

Presenter14:13

But perhaps if you'd stayed there and if you'd concentrated you would have developed that equipment.

Sir Robin Day14:16

Perhaps, but I doubt it.

Presenter14:18

Let's have record number four.

Sir Robin Day14:20

Well, that takes me back to again to the wartime. I left England on V Day on a troop ship, and when we got to uh Portside

Sir Robin Day14:30

We pause.

Sir Robin Day14:31

and uh we had some fun and games and dancing under the Mediterranean stars. And I remember vividly I don't know why I do, but I remember vividly that the

Sir Robin Day14:41

The tune which boomed out of the ship's loud speaker was the one we're going to hear now, and it's by Artie Shaw.

Presenter15:49

Artie Shaw and his orchestra and Begin the Begin.

Presenter15:52

And just going back a bit, Robin, when you were President of the Union, you were twenty seven years old, and you I understand that you weighed seventeen stone.

Sir Robin Day16:00

A bit more than that, nearly 18 stone, yes. And you went on the first

Presenter16:04

D Meni da

Sir Robin Day16:05

Yes, I did. I I'd put on a lot of weight. After coming out of the army I stopped all the fiendish exercise of of military training. Then in the post war Britain there was nothing but starch to eat. There was very little food, but there was plenty of starch. And then I went to America and lived off the fat of the land for three months, and I was came back and I was really enormous.

Sir Robin Day16:23

And uh I went to the hospital in Oxford and asked for advice, and they gave me advice. I took off four stone.

Sir Robin Day16:30

Uh in about uh

Sir Robin Day16:32

Less than a year.

Sir Robin Day16:34

And I've taken off more weight than any other human being of my acquaintance. But then again I've put on more weight over the years. But of course the trouble is that, like you, I'm in a profession where looks are important, so I have to bother.

Sir Robin Day16:47

About my appearance.

Presenter16:49

You lost an enormous amount of weight about four years ago when you had your heart bypass operation, didn't you?

Sir Robin Day16:54

Uh I don't remember losing a a lot of weight. I must have lost some weight. It was a good good idea to lose weight because it was bad for the blood pressure.

Sir Robin Day17:02

But I'm much fitter now that I don't smoke.

Sir Robin Day17:05

You see, I hadn't smoked for eight years when I was a very heavy smoker.

Sir Robin Day17:09

I gave it up and I had pneumonia.

Sir Robin Day17:11

And I've never spoken since.

Presenter17:13

Let's go back to nineteen fifty five when you applied. I mean, a great turning point in your life. You applied for a job at ITN as a newscaster. Why did you think you'd be any good at it? I didn't.

Sir Robin Day17:25

I didn't know what it was. I was desperate for other employment. I worked in this building in Broadcasting House, and I was sitting in my room on the second floor, very near this very studio where we're now recording this programme, and a friend of mine who is now a High Court judge and was then a barrister, rang me up and says, There's a notice on the Grayson notice board which might interest you. And it was a job which was said to be of interest to barristers or people who had been barristers.

Sir Robin Day17:55

by independent television news, of which I had never heard,

Sir Robin Day17:58

uh saying they wanted newscasters, which I didn't understand, to present the news on the new service of the commercial television. And it said that they just had to have a knowledge of public affairs and a good presence and ability to think on their feet.

Sir Robin Day18:14

And application should come in to the sunset. So I put in an application within the hour.

Sir Robin Day18:19

Swore my Broadcasting House Secretary to secrecy, and I was summoned to an audition and was then achieved on the shortlist.

Presenter18:26

And was then

Presenter18:28

Were you very nervous when you went for that audition?

Sir Robin Day18:30

Now I wasn't nervous, but I was I was keyed up. I was keyed up. I was I was tense. I wasn't apprehensive.

Sir Robin Day18:37

It was in a studio somewhere in Highbury.

Sir Robin Day18:40

and I remember going to a lounge tea shop in in I think it was the Seven Sisters Road.

Sir Robin Day18:46

and I bought myself from a wine merchant one of those small miniature bottles of brandy which I don't normally drink at all.

Sir Robin Day18:52

But I had a bottle of brandy emptied into my coffee cup in the Lions' Tea Shop.

Sir Robin Day18:57

uh at about sort of mid afternoon.

Sir Robin Day19:00

before my appointment, to give me some fortitude.

Presenter19:03

So Robinday was taken on by ITN and at that point he broke the mould of the television newscaster. Fair?

Sir Robin Day19:11

Yes, I suppose that's right, but there were other people doing it as well. We just all we did was that the the great thing was there was no news on television then as we know it now.

Sir Robin Day19:21

And so we were just we went into it vigorously and and in a lively way, and we asked questions which we thought needed answering, and the extraordinary thing was that it sounded revolutionary and it seemed revolutionary, but that was really because what was then put out on the B B C was really rather dull and square.

Sir Robin Day19:37

Not because we were so brilliant.

Presenter19:40

Record number five. Yeah.

Sir Robin Day19:42

Record number five.

Sir Robin Day19:44

is a great and beautiful melody from a great and beautiful opera.

Sir Robin Day19:50

which is a favourite of mine, and is a favourite of my son Alexander as well, who heard it only recently. It's from Carmen, and it's a very famous piece, The Habanera.

Sir Robin Day20:01

and it's sung by Teresa Berganza.

Speaker 420:12

Yeah.

Speaker 420:20

La pello, sil confign de refuses supries, la parabill otre sat otre cocha prefer and mais paple.

Presenter20:56

Teresa Baganza, singing the Habanera from Bizet's Carmen, with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Claudio Abardo.

Presenter21:04

Which of the six Prime Ministers that you've confronted has been the most testing opponent?

Sir Robin Day21:10

Well, th I don't regard them as opponents. I regard them as subjects of journalistic inquiry. I don't regard them as people I have to attack or anything like that, because they are far too experienced parliamentarians to um raise any question of attacking them. But um

Sir Robin Day21:25

I think that probably misses Thatcher is is the one who has who has uh developed the most uh difficult technique of of just proceeding to say what she wishes to say irrespective of the question.

Presenter21:38

And your technique only works if people are willing to play the game. That is to say they answer your questions and then be quiet and allow you to.

Sir Robin Day21:42

Well I can allow you to ask the next one. Yes, um Harold Macmillan, Edward Heath, Jim Callaghan, Harold Wilson they would answer the questions in their own way. I mean Harold Wilson would say to me as we came down in the lift in Lime Grove from the Studio Panorama studio in the sixties, he would say, Oh, you forgot to ask me that, Robin.

Sir Robin Day22:00

What did I ask forget to ask you, Harold? You didn't ask me about X and Y.

Sir Robin Day22:05

If you'd have asked me about that, I wouldn't have known what to say, you see.

Sir Robin Day22:09

You missed that one.

Sir Robin Day22:10

and sometimes he was pulling my leg.

Sir Robin Day22:12

But he he enjoyed doing that and I used to be furious. I said, Why did I not ask that?

Sir Robin Day22:18

But he liked he liked the sword play.

Presenter22:20

So do you think it's wrong of the Prime Minister, of Margaret Thatcher, not to answer the questions, or do you think it's a clever technique?

Sir Robin Day22:25

I don't think it's wrong or right. It's a matter for her. And if she wins elections as a result of doing it, that's for her to decide. There's no divine right of television interviewers to have their questions asked. It's just a question of whether television should have a platform on which there is some degree of scrutiny of the rulers of the time or not.

Sir Robin Day22:45

And I think if television doesn't have effective scrutiny, then it's it's uh it's not performing its function, though of course, now that Parliament is televised, which I've always advocated,

Sir Robin Day22:54

That scrutiny is seen to be done by the people elected for the purpose, which I think is a very great improvement, instead of people like me, or even the great Brian Walden, or even the great David

Sir Robin Day23:05

Let's stop there for a minute and have some more music.

Sir Robin Day23:08

My next bit of music is one of which I have a particularly happy memory, and that is I taught the words of it to a Russian interpreter.

Sir Robin Day23:17

on a plane going from Kiev to Leningrad.

Sir Robin Day23:21

She was a rather pretty girl.

Sir Robin Day23:23

And in in Kiev the

Sir Robin Day23:26

Interpreters are rather more relaxed than the ones in in Moscow. Anyway, this girl little girl came up to me on the plane and and

Sir Robin Day23:33

Nestled up to me on the seat and said.

Sir Robin Day23:39

mister Day, he said, can you give me the words?

Sir Robin Day23:43

Oh, I can't give you anything but love, baby.

Sir Robin Day23:46

So I said, I'm pretty sure I can, and I started off and I gave her the words, and fortunately there were several other correspondents on the plane who could supply some of the words that I couldn't. There were two or three American correspondents of the New York Times, and we sang this song, and I'd like to have on my desert island Fats Waller and a singer of whom I hadn't heard for a long time, called Una May Carlyle, who does the first bit of the vocal.

Speaker 424:12

I can give you

Speaker 424:15

Anything but love

Speaker 424:19

Baby

Speaker 424:22

That's the only thing I've plenty of.

Sir Robin Day24:28

Yeah.

Speaker 424:31

That's what am I supposed to do? Dream of wild scheme of wild. You're wrong.

Sir Robin Day24:32

Really?

Sir Robin Day24:34

That is.

Sir Robin Day24:36

Yeah.

Speaker 424:37

You're sure to find our shoulder.

Speaker 424:43

Happiness

Speaker 424:45

And I gave

Speaker 424:47

Whole things are sure to find for. Gee, I love to see you look and swell. Well, my tail is waiting right outside the door. Give me look and swell, I'm playing.

Sir Robin Day24:58

Well my tailor's we

Sir Robin Day25:00

Yeah.

Speaker 425:03

Diamond bracelets wool worse, dozens of bracelets in my life. What do I want it for?

Presenter25:08

I never had a

Presenter25:12

That's Waller and Una May Carlyle and I Can't Give You Anything But Love, Baby.

Presenter25:18

Thirty years ago, Robin, you stood as the Liberal candidate for Herefordshire, and lost. Why did you never try to get into the House again?

Sir Robin Day25:26

Oh, because I was old. I was thirty six and, as you know, that's that's uh y y you'll find that when you're thirty six you will think that is very old. But uh by that time I felt I'd given up my television career, which had only just started, to stand as a a candidate for Parliament, which was a very foolish thing to have done.

Sir Robin Day25:45

Uh and

Sir Robin Day25:47

When I came out unsuccessfully, I uh thought I'd better concentrate on on developing my television career.

Presenter25:53

But would you have preferred, on the whole, to have spent your life in Parliament rather than on the television?

Sir Robin Day25:57

Oh yes, I'd like to have been a Member of Parliament early on, and I've always been very am amazed and disappointed when brilliant Parliamentarians which I wouldn't have become, but brilliant Parliamentarians like, say, Brian Walden, give up Parliament and go and

Sir Robin Day26:12

The television journalist, because by being a journalist, you just report and explain. By being a Member of Parliament, you have to decide.

Presenter26:20

I suppose looking again at those contemporaries of yours that we were mentioning, then we can add Peter Parker and Edward Duquesne, St. John Steves, William Rhys Marg all of those people have perhaps exerted

Presenter26:31

A greater influence on society, or held more prestigious jobs with more influence than you. Yes.

Sir Robin Day26:37

Yes, yes, they have.

Presenter26:38

Do you resign?

Sir Robin Day26:39

So I think they're probably more brilliant people, some of them.

Sir Robin Day26:42

I don't make any complaint. I don't compare myselves with them. I've had a certain amount of luck in my career and I'm where I am now and I I've done as best I could and I it may be less glittering and less brilliant and and l less well rewarded than those some of those people you've mentioned, but um I never

Sir Robin Day27:01

Uh I I've never thought of myself as as without a useful contribution to to society by being on television.

Presenter27:09

Of course it's brought you a knighthood.

Presenter27:11

And it could perhaps bring you more.

Sir Robin Day27:14

Are you asking a question or making a forecast?

Presenter27:17

Well, at least one columnist has suggested, Robin, that um an ideal place for you now would be a seat in the House of Lords. Would you uh could you take to that easily?

Sir Robin Day27:25

That was Sir John Junar, and I don't make a I don't make a habit of commenting on Sir John Junar's more extreme observations.

Presenter27:35

We shall let you off the hook then and have um another record record number seven.

Sir Robin Day27:40

Well, I'd like a sentimental.

Sir Robin Day27:42

Record

Sir Robin Day27:44

Sung by Hoagie Carmichael.

Sir Robin Day27:46

And it is called Stardust, and the words are lovely.

Speaker 427:55

Sometimes I wonder why I spend

Speaker 428:01

Lonely Night

Speaker 428:04

Dreaming of a song and a melody

Speaker 428:10

Haunts my reverie.

Presenter28:13

And I am

Speaker 428:14

Yeah.

Presenter28:14

Uh

Speaker 428:14

Once again with you.

Presenter28:16

Hogey Car Michael singing Stardust

Presenter28:19

There are, of course, Robin, quite a lot of pretenders to your throne. Have you, I wonder, any admiration for any of them? David Dimbleby, Peter Sissons, Donald McCormick?

Sir Robin Day28:28

Oh, I think they're all the ones you've mentioned are all extremely able. But the interesting people to watch are the um the brilliant young women who are coming along for the first time in television.

Sir Robin Day28:39

But apart from yourself, there are some some new and even younger and I won't say as attractive, but even younger women with very brilliant minds and very brilliant journalistic gifts who are coming along.

Presenter28:52

And your sons, Robin, Alexander and Daniel, they're fifteen and thirteen.

Sir Robin Day28:56

Correct?

Presenter28:57

Might they follow in their father's footsteps?

Sir Robin Day28:59

I hope not. I hope they'll do something useful.

Presenter29:02

You've won the business.

Sir Robin Day29:03

More useful. More useful.

Presenter29:05

You've warned them against it, have you?

Sir Robin Day29:06

No, no, no, I haven't warned them against anything. I just want them to be happy and to do what they do as well as they can and earn the respect of their contemporaries.

Presenter29:15

But like Richard Dimbleby's sons, they may well be tempted.

Sir Robin Day29:18

Possibly.

Presenter29:18

If they were, what qualities, what attributes of yours, I wonder, would you most like them to uh

Sir Robin Day29:23

Inheritance. Uh

Sir Robin Day29:25

I don't know what but inherit. It's just the the uh humour.

Sir Robin Day29:29

The ability to communicate.

Sir Robin Day29:31

and uh patience.

Presenter29:35

And if we cast you away now never to return, how would you like us to remember you?

Presenter29:40

For those attributes?

Sir Robin Day29:43

Well, I don't know about that. I'd like I'd like people to remember me as someone who may there occasionally brought some entertainment or interest into their lives.

Sir Robin Day29:53

On the television.

Presenter29:56

Your last record, please.

Sir Robin Day29:58

You'll notice that in my selection of records I've chosen a succession of great voices.

Sir Robin Day30:04

And I would like to end with one of the greatest voices of our time.

Sir Robin Day30:09

uttering some of the greatest words in the English language.

Sir Robin Day30:13

Olivier

Sir Robin Day30:14

in the famous speech from Henry the Fifth.

Speaker 430:17

Old men forget, yet all shall be forgot, but he'll remember with advantages what feats he did that day. Then shall our names, familiar in his mouth, as household words, Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter, Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester, be in their flowing cups freshly remembered. This story shall the good man teach his son, and Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by from this day to the ending of the world, but we in it shall be remembered. We few.

Speaker 430:49

We happy few.

Speaker 430:51

We band of brothers, for he to-day That sheds his blood with me shall be my brother, be he ne'er so base, And gentlemen in England now abed Shall think themselves accursed they were not here, And hold their manhoods cheap, while then his feet That fought with us upon St. Crispin's Day.

Presenter31:16

Laurence Olivier, with the Saint Crispins' Day speech from Henry the Fifth, with the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Sir William Walton.

Presenter31:22

So, Robin, you have to choose one of those records now as your favourite of the eight, the one that would be particularly special to you.

Sir Robin Day31:29

I think I'd have the drinking song from La Traviata to cheer me up and to make me feel in a bunchy, sort of convivial mood.

Presenter31:36

Having your party on the beach.

Sir Robin Day31:37

That's right.

Presenter31:38

And your book, Robin Wood?

Sir Robin Day31:40

What would you like? Well, rather than any single book, any single work of which I'd get probably rather tired, I'd have uh

Sir Robin Day31:49

The Oxford Book of English Verse, which would give me a wonderful collection of English

Sir Robin Day31:53

words which I could learn by heart.

Presenter31:56

And your luxury. What can we supply you with?

Sir Robin Day31:58

Well, I gather that's got to be uh an inanimate luxury.

Presenter32:01

Indeed it has.

Sir Robin Day32:02

I can't take uh another uh human being with me.

Presenter32:06

Certainly not.

Sir Robin Day32:06

Male or female. I think I'll choose a short wave radio set.

Presenter32:11

I'm not sure you're allowed that either.

Sir Robin Day32:13

Why not?

Presenter32:14

Well, because then that defeats the whole object of having eight records,'cause then you could listen to uh lots of other musical

Sir Robin Day32:19

Well, that was precisely why I chose it.

Presenter32:21

Yes, I know. But it's too clever. You've got to have something

Sir Robin Day32:22

But it's too clever.

Presenter32:26

Yeah, something inanimate, something some perfect luxury, whether it's a a large bottle of whiskey or a bath or something.

Sir Robin Day32:34

A dozen magnums of champagne, providing I could find somewhere cold to put them on the island.

Presenter32:40

Extravagant to the last. Sir Robin Dear, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your Desert Island disc.

Speaker 432:45

Thank you.

Speaker 332:54

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