Rt Hon Barbara Castle

Rt Hon Barbara Castle0:00

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.

Rt Hon Barbara Castle0:08

The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen ninety, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:29

My castaway this week is a politician. For thirty-four years she served as the Labour member for Blackburn, rising to high office in the Wilson governments of the sixties and seventies. She it was who gave us the breathalyzer, the motorway speed limit, equal pay for women and the Humber Bridge. Ten years ago she retired from domestic politics and went, as she put it, to raise hell in Europe. She's now retired from that too, and at the age of eighty can look back on a career in which she was the first to do many things, all of them with conviction, many of them with great passion. She is Baroness Castle of Blackburn, better known to all of us as Barbara Castle.

Presenter1:06

Well now, um are people allowed to call you Lady Castle now, or are you not? They're to call me Barbara or Barbara Castle. But technically, of course, you've been able to call yourself Lady Castle since the mid-seventies. Yeah, since my uh husband became a life peer, I had the courtesy title of Lady Castle, but I got a dispensation not to use it. Now I'm I'm a commoner by heart.

Rt Hon Barbara Castle1:09

No, they're not.

Rt Hon Barbara Castle1:16

Yeah.

Presenter1:28

by history and by pride.

Presenter1:31

I think although the House of Lords, I must admit, is full of some very distinguished people, it's fascinating to meet them all again, it's a bit of an anachronism, you know, to have an unelected second chamber. You you once called it something far worse than that. In your in your diary in 1967 you said that the Lords were impotent and ridiculous. Well, I think what I I was arguing then is that we should keep them impotent.

Presenter1:57

Because I don't like serious political power being put in the hands of unelected people who have are where they are as a result of the patronage of a Prime Minister. I think that's a bad principle. I'm in favour of an elected second chamber. But if you believe all of that, and you obviously do very deeply, very passionately, why have you gone there? Why have you accepted the title? If you are critical of an institution, it's far better to study it from inside than from outside. I remember I've always been highly critical of the European Parliament, but I wouldn't have foregone the ten years' experience of it from the inside, and I want the same inside experience of the Second Chamber.

Presenter2:40

Patently, then, um Baroness Castle of Blackburn is not a mellowed version of Barbara Castle. Do you think you'll ever mellow?

Presenter2:48

Well, I I hope I'm mellowed in the sense that um some of the sharp corners have been rubbed off, but I hope I never become depassioned, if there's such a word. I hope I will always feel.

Presenter3:02

I think I shall always feel as strongly about things as I did when I was a young beginner. Do you think you'll become depassioned or would become depassioned on a desert island? I mean, is that is that hell on earth for you, all fired up and no one to protect yes, absolute hell on earth. One would have to live

Rt Hon Barbara Castle3:14

Multiple tank, yeah.

Presenter3:20

Uh very much in memories. Of course, of course you would. So how have you set about choosing what music you would need with you on the island?

Presenter3:28

The music I would take with me.

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would be chosen to remind me

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of the distant stages of my life and my associations and the things which I cared about during my very long life.

Presenter3:43

Shall we hear the first one then? What is that? I've uh chosen Handel's Messiah, and it's a rather curious reason, this.

Presenter3:52

It goes back to my childhood as a schoolgirl in Bradford.

Presenter3:57

And we weren't a terribly musical family, but my father every now and then

Presenter4:01

want to sing it you know, he ought to teach us something about music, and the Halley Orchestra used to come.

Presenter4:07

And I remember him taking us to Hear Handel's Massa, and I was so taken with the contralto singing He Shall Feed His Flock.

Speaker 44:46

Yeah.

Speaker 44:47

It is war.

Speaker 44:50

I for sure

Speaker 44:58

Thank you, Shaw God.

Presenter5:19

Gladys Ripley singing He Shall Feed His Flock from Handel's Messiah with the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Malcolm Sargent.

Presenter5:27

Were you always determined to go into politics, Barbara? I mean, how early did you make up your mind? Well, I think I breathed it in. You know, almost from birth some of my earliest memories go back to Pontefract, which of course was in a mining area, and I remember the miners' lockout of the nineteen twenties.

Presenter5:43

And, um

Presenter5:45

My father was a civil servant, so he wasn't allowed overtly to take part in. He was a tax inspector, wasn't he? Yes, he was Inspector of Taxes. I try and keep that dark, dear. But um my mother organized a feeding kitchen in our tiny little house for all the minors' children. She said, I'm not going to have

Rt Hon Barbara Castle5:49

There's a text in the middle.

Presenter6:04

The miners are forced back to work by the starvation of their children.

Presenter6:08

And and that was the sort of and I was very young then, you see. And what would what would your family have classed as as family entertainment? How did you go on at home to entertain? Well, we hadn't much money. But then

Rt Hon Barbara Castle6:17

Well we have

Presenter6:21

My father was a great book lover, and all his spare time was spent reading, and on Sunday evenings we used to gather round the fire in his little study, and he would take books that he thought we should

Presenter6:35

uh be aware of, and we would read them round the fire together. What sort of books? Well, I remember The Iliad and the Odyssey was one. That was a bit beyond above me then, I think I was about eight or something, and I found it a bit uh bloodthirsty. But then I remember

Presenter6:52

Reading William Morris, and that I loved, his one of his his great romantic novels like The Wor Waters of the Wondrous Isles and things like that.

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And William Morris was to be a great influence on my socialism because we loved beauty, hated injustice, and uh

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He wanted the simple life with people fulfilling themselves through their jobs.

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Did you then decide quite early on that you wanted to go to Oxford, or was that your father pushing you? Your father was anxious.

Rt Hon Barbara Castle7:20

I was

Presenter7:23

I was pushed one exam to another, first school certificate and matriculation and then HAAA certificate, then Oxford entrance, then HAAR certificate to win scholarships. And I said, Oh, I want a year I did win my scholarships and I said, But oh, my head's bursting, I want a year off to work in a factory. Oh, no, we can't hold it up. So, um there was this great pressure. But it was very unusual achievement for a girl. What it would have been in the late 1920s, wouldn't it? A girl from Bradford Grammar to go to go to Oxford.

Speaker 47:52

Yeah.

Presenter7:55

Well, there weren't many of us who did. I agree. My sister, my elder sister, she went to Oxford. Hertz is at Hughes College as well, and just before me. I tell you what I liked about Oxford.

Presenter8:07

Um was the Labour Club?

Presenter8:09

And I remember we used to have uh political skits at the end of the term. I remember as an officer of the club, I think it was secretary and treasurer or something like that. And I always had to take part in these political skits.

Presenter8:21

And one of the one of the pieces of music I would like to take with me to remind me of that was uh the sunny side of the street. We used to parody it, you see. We had I remember jigging up and down on the platform singing, Life won't half be sweet on the government side of the street.

Speaker 38:44

Boy, grab your coat, grab your hat.

Speaker 38:48

He worries on those deaths.

Speaker 38:52

Just direct your feet on Sunday side street.

Speaker 38:57

Can't you hear that bit of bat? Yes, happy tune, your step baby.

Speaker 39:05

Life can be so sweet on Sundays and street I used to walk in children, babe, both with those blues on rail Mmm, I'm not real, yes, uh lose those bottles, not me

Speaker 39:24

Never have a sentence.

Presenter9:25

Uh

Speaker 39:25

I'll be Ridgez Rocky Villa Noza Goldas at my feet on Sun Silent Street

Presenter9:36

Louis Armstrong singing on the sunny side of the street. By the sound of it, Barber, there wasn't a lot of time for social life back home in Bradford. And did you make up for all of that when you got to Oxford?

Presenter9:47

I did manage, even among my swatting years in Bradford, to get in some nice lighter moments at uh independent Labour Party dances, and I've got a vivid memory of going at the age, I suppose.

Presenter10:01

Probably be about fourteen, fifteen to an ILP dance.

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And uh they they played.

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Some Sharlstam music, and I just went on the floor and did the Sharlstam, and nobody showed me how.

Presenter10:15

I remember the lovely sense of abandon. I've adored dancing all my life. Do you still do it, the Charles? Well, I was driving up to a few years ago.

Presenter10:25

Um astonishing members of the European Parliament, I remember. And when the music starts I find it awfully difficult to keep off the dance floor.

Presenter10:34

And uh in Oxford, though I didn't do much dancing actually in Oxford. But you had quite a few boyfriends, I think. I thought, actually, I was a bit of a wallflower. I thought the wallflower sort of blossomed at Oxford and there was a lot of climbing over college. Oh, there was climbing over here, yeah, yeah. Oh, uh the Rebel was there.

Speaker 410:49

Oh, there was climbing over here.

Presenter10:53

Very much. What did the rebel go out to do then? Well, I had um a a Marvelous friend there.

Rt Hon Barbara Castle10:56

Well

Presenter11:01

um who saved me from going slightly mad in the place, because it seemed to be full of of uh superior young ladies from uh Rodine who'd been presented at court. But I found Olive

Presenter11:14

Shapley.

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She and I were fellow spirits, and we used to sit writing our essays in the early hours of the morning, and say, Oh, come on, let's get out. One brilliant moonlit night we slipped out down the garden, climbed the gate.

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and just walk by the river.

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Just to be free, just to show we weren't

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We weren't going to be held by these silly chaperonage rules, that we were free spirits. And that of course, if we'd have been discovered, we'd have been sent down. When you eventually came down, that would have been in the Depression, I suppose, when presumably unemployed graduates were two a penny, aren't they? Yes, I knew one thing, that I didn't want to be a teacher.

Presenter11:51

So it wasn't a question of going on and doing any teacher training as my sister had done. Then somebody came along, a friend of the family who was sales manager for the northwestern region of a big wholesale importers, and he said, Well, I can get Barbara a job if she's not too proud And it was as a demonstrator of their products in shops, you see. What were their products? Well, they're a bit of a mix bag.

Presenter12:14

I used to make cups of tea at exhibitions,'cause they sold tea and coffee. But they also sold sweets.

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On one occasion, I remember, I found myself in the basement of Lewis's store in Manchester.

Presenter12:29

Selling uh mister Pickwick's Mint Humbugs.

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And I was accompanied by an elderly gentleman dressed as mister Pickwick, and I was little Nell.

Presenter12:42

And you used to have to it was very good training actually for politics. Because you'd have to walk up to somebody and say, May I press you to a humbug? No, you were giving them free samples. This is good training for politics, isn't it? Actually, I was quite good at salesmanship when my mind was on it. I worked out a wonderful plan, sales plan, in conjunction with the sales representatives who were going all over the country and coming back to me with their ideas. So I wrote a beautiful memo and sent it into the directors, and they sacked me. So I got a very good impression of private enterprise, I can tell you. They didn't like being organised by you.

Rt Hon Barbara Castle13:11

Yeah.

Rt Hon Barbara Castle13:14

Great.

Presenter13:16

Well, he, the sales manager, said it's it's her or me, you see.

Presenter13:20

So there we are. I it was out on my ear. Shall we have record number three? Yes, this is.

Presenter13:28

This I must take with me to my desert island, because it embodies all my years long love of dancing.

Presenter13:34

It's Fred Astair and Ginger Rogers dancing cheek to cheek.

Speaker 413:39

Heaven

Presenter13:41

I'm in

Speaker 413:42

Yeah.

Speaker 413:44

And my heart beats so that I can hardly speak.

Presenter13:45

Heartbeats so that I can hardly screw

Speaker 413:51

And I seem to find the happiness I see When we're out together dancing cheek to cheek

Presenter14:02

Fred Astaire dancing cheek to cheek with Ginger Rogers.

Presenter14:07

It was nineteen forty three, and Barbara Castle, aged thirty two, small, neat, red haired, went as a delegate to the Labour Conference in London, and she made a fiery speech about the Beveridge Report, didn't she? Yes, I did. And quite a lot happened as a result of that performance.

Rt Hon Barbara Castle14:19

It and

Presenter14:22

Oh, yes. Um actually it got me a husband and a constituency, which wasn't bad going for the first time at a Labour Party conference as a delegate. Tell me about getting the husband first. Well, Ted Castle was then night editor of the Daily Mirror.

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And one of his reporters, who was covering the conference, came back and said.

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Oh, there's been a very fiery speech by a new young woman, Barbara Betts, as I was then.

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So Ted said I'll put her on the front page as the voice of youth, you see. And then as Ted Castle thought, Well, I'd better come and see what this young woman's like that I put on the front page of the mirror. And so we met, and our courtship began.

Presenter15:04

And then the people in Blackburn.

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In nineteen forty four, when it was clear the war was coming to an end and the political truce was coming to an end, were looking for a candidate.

Presenter15:14

And uh my name was put forward as the young woman who made the speech. But again it was quite avant garde, really, wasn't it, of Blackburn to select you?

Presenter15:23

Well

Presenter15:25

I must say it was very difficult for a woman to get selected then, and I've always said I was only selected as a result of a fluke.

Presenter15:33

Uh because first and foremost, the women's section insisted that there should be a woman on the short list.

Presenter15:40

And they said, We're not going to make any more of your cups of tea, and this is a woman on the short list, so the men had to climb down, and they faced with that dire threat.

Presenter15:48

So then they turned round and said to the regional woman's organizer of the Labour Party, Well, who's tell us a good woman, you see? Well, she said there was this to be a shug Barbara Betts. But even then

Presenter16:00

I wouldn't have got selected if Blackburn at that time hadn't been a double barrel constituency.

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Which meant that all the people in the selection conference had two votes.

Presenter16:10

And of course they cast the first one for a a white male trade unionist. Then they had another boat and they said, Oh, we'll go for that fiery redhead. Then when the constituency was split into a good half and a bad half, the good half chose me and I stayed ANP for thirty four years.

Presenter16:28

Just tell me a about your husband, Ted, um, in all of this, because he supported you all the way, didn't he? I mean, do you think he ever for one moment wished he'd married a woman who had rather more free time?

Presenter16:40

No, I don't think so. What he did wish desperately was that he could have been with me in Parliament.

Presenter16:48

He was wonderfully s supportive is the N-word, isn't it?

Presenter16:53

Um

Presenter16:54

I I'd say ma I would say loving and generous.

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He was so generous spirited because he was ex excited by my success.

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as if it had been his own. But he longed to be in the House of Commons with me, and I was very pleased when he was made a peer, because I was still in the Commons, and it meant he was just along the corridor. We could meet every day and have a meal together, drink together, go home together.

Presenter17:19

He'd come into the gallery and hear me speak.

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And so will you always been.

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Tremendously close at political and personal partnership.

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Record number four.

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Of the four, I've chosen Beethoven's Eroica Symphony.

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When I was very close to Anaram Vevan and Jennie Lee, his wife, I remember once calling round to their flat, and there was Nye sitting in his own this this sort of left wing rebellious man he was Welsh, and of course he was music mad.

Presenter17:54

and he was sitting listening to Beethoven's Heroica Symphony.

Presenter17:59

And I want to I take that with me to remind me of those Bevenite years in which we all fought for fundamental changes in our society.

Presenter19:00

Part of Beethoven's Symphony No. Three in E-flat major, The Eroica, played by the London Classical Players conducted by Roger Norrington.

Presenter19:08

For many people of my age, Barbara, you were the first real woman MP up there in the Cabinet with the men holding the the big offices employment and transport which was seen as a much bigger job really in the sixties I think. Were you aware of breaking the conventional female mold? I mean was that part of what you set out to do? Or didn't think that. Well yes I think I did. Not as a gesture but instinctively. For instance I was elected at St Pancras Borough Council as one of the youngest members in 1937. And they said oh you go on Maternity and Child Welfare Committee I said why should I? I'm not married and I haven't any children. You go on it. You're both. Um I where they said what do you want gone? I said highways, sewers and public works.'Cause that's what makes a city tick.

Presenter19:53

And so I never wanted a woman's job.

Presenter19:59

I I wanted a job at the heart of all the problems of the world and of society, and I was lucky in the Prime Minister Harold Wilson because he had one great characteristic which distinguished him from anybody other Prime Minister I've known, certainly from the present one. He really believed

Presenter20:15

In the abilities of women and the potentialities of women, nothing gave him greater pleasure.

Presenter20:20

than to put a woman in a job that she hadn't done before. And so that's why he made me Minister of Transport. I was the first ever woman to Minister of Transport in this country. Weren't you the first Minister of Transport not to have a driving licence?

Rt Hon Barbara Castle20:29

Won't you prefer

Presenter20:33

Well, I don't know, because uh there might have uh been earlier ones who had had chauffeur driven cars, but certainly I couldn't drive. And you can imagine what that did to them the men, because uh a woman who comes between a man and his car is risking her life.

Presenter20:49

But if she doesn't try

Presenter20:51

Well, that's really adding insult. And you never you never have driven?

Rt Hon Barbara Castle20:54

And you never

Presenter20:56

I've never driven. Ted loved driving.

Presenter20:59

was always willing to meet me anywhere, at any hour of the day and night, and drive me round. He didn't want me to learn, because he knew I'd always be pinching the car.

Presenter21:08

Did you ever in those years, when you started to achieve those high offices promoted, as you say, by Wilson, and you know, you went on to employment and productivity, which is a very big job did you ever, perhaps, occasionally dream of one day being Prime Minister?

Presenter21:22

No. Sounds awfully arrogant this, but I think women's grape failing is lack.

Presenter21:28

of arrogance if because I think we don't cast ourselves high enough.

Presenter21:33

Um we we're mentally conditioned to assuming that we'll always be at the best, number two.

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in the hierarchy. Never number one.

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So I never thought of myself. A, I was delighted to be an MP. That had been the height of my ambition. And then to be a minister, cabinet minister four times as well. That was beyond my wildest dreams. But politics apart, did you feel, did you experience any uh kind of pleasure when a f a woman finally did become Prime Minister? Oh yes, of course. Because as I said earlier, I believe that women do suffer from this lack of acceptance that men get.

Presenter22:11

And uh I must pay tribute to Margaret Thatcher for showing that a woman can do the job. Can organize the men. Yes, she and not only organize the men, but she can master a subject and nobody's going to look down on her. That that I think is a a very important uh thing and I totally disagree with the way in which she's used that authority and power, but I have to say that she

Presenter22:34

has shown a competence and a courage which should be applauded.

Presenter22:40

Let's have another record there.

Presenter22:42

Ah well, this will remind me of the those great battles against injustice and for progress. I'd love to take with me the Martin Luther King speech, I Have a Dream.

Rt Hon Barbara Castle22:57

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

Presenter23:01

As you say, Harold Wilson w was of course your patron through all those years of high office, and then suddenly one day in March 1976 he announced that he was going. He was going to resign. And he said that he'd always had a a private plan to go about then. You wrote in your diaries at the time, What exactly was Harold up to? More than met the eye, I had no doubt. Did you ever find out what he was up to? I never quite understood it.

Presenter23:27

He told me.

Presenter23:30

that he was really he he was really a historian at heart. More than a politician, and he wanted he'd done enough politics ever since he sixty four when he became leader of the party. Um, and he wanted to write.

Presenter23:47

Quite it. But I do believe one thing. I think if he hadn't resigned in'seventy six, we would never have lost the seventy nine election, because he was far too flexible an operator ever to have got himself tied up in the winter of discontent, the rigidity of the prices and incomes policy.

Presenter24:06

which his successor tried to carry through and which led to those dreadful winter strikes.

Presenter24:12

And Harold wouldn't have done that. You didn't want Jim Callahan, of course, to succeed him, did you? And No, I I didn't.

Presenter24:19

I wanted Michael Foote to succeed him. Um and I voted for Michael Foote.

Presenter24:26

So I can't really complain if if Jim Callaghan sacked me. But um But indeed he came in, indeed and he promptly sacked you, presumably because you had supported Michael Footch in that particular. Well, I don't know what his motives were. What reason did he give?

Rt Hon Barbara Castle24:36

Yeah. A lie.

Presenter24:41

Oh, make way for younger people. So I felt like saying, Well, why don't you start with yourself, Jim?'Cause he was the same age as I was, you see. It was a rather sad and unceremonious. But it was it was very heartbreaking because I was just about

Rt Hon Barbara Castle24:50

But it was it was very

Presenter24:54

You see, I'd got my child benefit on the statute book and I was arguing with the Treasury what would be the starting rate we'd put it at because we saw it as a big element in our policy and that we wanted to increase it gradually.

Presenter25:09

So, as to make the family as a whole better off, and make sure that some of that extra cash did go to the mother and children.

Presenter25:19

The um that that was a bitter d disappointment to complete that work. But still you but just you can't complain. I backed the wrong man, didn't I? But you must have been jolly furious at the time. Oh, yes, yes, of course. I wouldn't be human if I hadn't been.

Rt Hon Barbara Castle25:23

Yeah.

Presenter25:36

So a few years after that you you changed tack and you set out to to raise hell in Europe at the age of sixty nine. Um more of which in a moment, but let's pause and have record number six there. This is something that reminds me of of the sixties, when the Beatles burst upon us.

Presenter25:52

uh with the Mersey sound. I I I just absolutely fell for it because, uh, of course I'd always know represented the North West of England all my life, and I thought they broke down some of the pomposity and conventionality which I hate in life. So I want

Presenter26:09

At Love Me Too by The Beatles.

Speaker 426:24

Love, love we do.

Speaker 426:27

You know I love you.

Speaker 426:30

I've always been true.

Speaker 426:34

So

Speaker 426:38

Love me too.

Presenter26:40

The Beatles and Love Me Do.

Presenter26:42

Why, then, Barbara Castle, after all those years of being such a fervent anti-marketeer, did you decide to become a Euro MP? I mean, some people did see it as something of a betrayal, didn't they? Oh, yes, yes, so lots of my actions during my life have been suspect. I'd voted against direct elections in the House of Commons, but I'd lost. Now, you see, the one law of politics, as far as I'm concerned, is you fight for something you believe, and if you lose and the situation is thereby changed, you don't sit sulking in the sidelines.

Presenter27:14

And you ended up rather enjoying it, didn't you? Well, yes and no. I mean, I I wouldn't have been without that ten years' experience for for anything, because I sensed that Europe

Presenter27:24

was going to encroach more and more on our lives and we got to learn about it and now I know from the inside how the whole thing works. But do you believe, Father, that Europe is our future? I mean it's difficult to believe, isn't it, that the children of today will be anything other than Europeans when they grow up. Of course it's our future but then it's been our past. You see when people say to me oh you're anti-Europe I say don't don't be silly. I'm a great French scholar. I I won my scholarship to Oxford on French. I've travelled Europe. All the young people of today travel Europe but I've only travelled Europe. I've been to India, I've been to Pakistan, I've been to Africa, I've been to America. The world is my oyster and Europe's only part of it.

Rt Hon Barbara Castle27:43

Yeah.

Presenter28:10

And what I object to

Presenter28:12

is that this attempt to sort of glorify it into some kind of superior culture that's going to be protected by protectionist walls, keep everybody else out and get itself embodied in a rigid monetary system which prevents us from pursuing the policies we think are right for the British people.

Presenter28:32

You sound remarkably like misses Thatcher. Well, dear, ask misses Thatcher what she thinks of the social charter, which uh is part of my policy.

Presenter28:40

And she say, I am not having Socialism in by the back door. That's Socialism. It certainly is. I want um the Europe that is created to be a people's Europe and not a Eu Europe of the multinationals.

Presenter28:52

Your next piece of music, I think.

Presenter28:54

Well, I I should take with me an Italian Socialist song.

Presenter29:00

You see, as I say, I've always been a European. I mean, I years before we went into the European Community, I was tra in touch with European Socialist parties through the National Executive of the Labour Party.

Presenter29:12

and one of the songs we often sing at our rallies

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is the um Avanti Popolo.

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Forward the people, with the bandera rosa, with the scarlet banner, waving triumphantly.

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of Socialism and Liberty.

Speaker 429:29

Bandero salatlayun pera, bandero salatra yumpera, pandero salatlayun pera, fiber socialist law.

Presenter29:46

Bandira Rossa, sung by the Lagon. You've always been known, Barbara, for your appearance, your smartness. It's very important to you, all of that, isn't it? Your your appearance. Oh, yes. I think I'm very feminine. Um, I've always adored nice clothes. I have an impulse bag, and if I see a dress that's me, I have to have it, you know. Whatever else I go without. You're going to be a bit stuck on this desert island. I mean, you know, your your hair will be all out of place, and um how are you going to cope in life in this kind of unpopulated and uh undemanding raw?

Presenter30:19

I shall make myself as unattractive a grass skirt as I can manage, and I'm no seamstress, so it's going to be very difficult. And Charleston in it. Yes, and we shall be dancing on the sand, yes. But you'll sit there also and and and thinking back on it all, and and when you do that I mean, you said just now that uh

Presenter30:37

The Labour Party chose the wrong leader in nineteen seventy six to succeed Wilson. I mean, do you and your contemporaries think about that? Will do you blame yourselves for the fact that Labour has been out of power for eleven years now?

Presenter30:49

Yes, we made mistakes, but when I look back

Presenter30:54

Lo the things I myself have been privileged to do as a minister. I'm pretty proud.

Presenter30:59

Pretty proud of the record.

Presenter31:02

The hair isn't quite as red, Barbara, but the political passion is as strong as ever, isn't it? It doesn't as we said at the beginning, it doesn't mellow, it doesn't fade, does it? Well, as I say, I hope it mellows in the sense one doesn't waste energy on bitterness. But I hope it doesn't depassion.

Presenter31:22

Your last record. My last one i i is a very seductive piece that I was introduced to by my niece's husband.

Presenter31:33

who is a great musical expert.

Presenter31:36

And I went to stay with them every New Year. One of the rituals was, that after a snack lunch they would put me on the settee. I could see the sunset through the window, with a glass of Madeira in my hand.

Presenter31:47

and Colin will put on for me.

Presenter31:50

Vaughan Williams, Symphony No. five.

Presenter32:54

Part of Vaughan Williams' Symphony No. five in D, played by the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Andre Previn. Now you've got three choices to make. First of all, which of those eight records is the most important to you? If you could only have one.

Presenter33:08

The continuing battle cry against injustice is what I would like to have with me in my loneliness.

Presenter33:14

I shall have Martin Luther King.

Presenter33:16

And what about your book? You've got the Bible and you've got Shakespeare. Which book are you taking? Uh the Complete Works of William Morris. He embodied what for me is true, that socialism is about building beauty. Is there any one section of it you'd like better than the other, because I'm not really allowed to give you a complete work. No, complete works? Well then, you must give me the collected works. No, you can't have that I a volume oh Brenda can't just have one poem.

Presenter33:42

If I can only have one poem, I will have the message of the March wind.

Presenter33:47

But that is depriving me of a great deal else. We'll negotiate about it in a minute. Just tell me your luxury, finally. I want.

Presenter33:55

a typewriter, and of course a a ream of paper.

Presenter33:59

Because you see, uh as you know, I've I've I've been a a considerable diarist in my time, and so I want to write my last diarist.

Presenter34:10

on the desert island, which will of course also include a lot of reminiscing about my past.

Presenter34:18

Baroness Castle of Blackburn, or should I just say, Barbara Castle. Thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs. Thank you, Sue.

Rt Hon Barbara Castle34:33

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