Marti Caine

Presenter0:00

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.

Presenter0:08

The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen ninety one.

Presenter0:12

And the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:30

My Castaway this week is an entertainer. She started her career playing the working men's clubs in and around her native Sheffield. She ended up hosting the television talent show which first discovered her, as well as starring in Las Vegas, the Royal Variety Show, her own television show and a situation comedy. She could sing, she could dance, she could make em laugh, and she was sexy too.

Presenter0:52

But then, about three years ago, she discovered she had cancer of the lymph glands. Her life since then has been a battle against her illness a battle she's winning, she believes, through positive thinking and the support of family and friends. Still working, still at the top, and still glamorous, she is Marty

Presenter1:11

But you can't, Marty, have been born in post war Sheffield and been given a handle like that, Marty. Where did the name come from? Sounds terribly glamorous, anyway. Thank you for that wonderful introduction. It came from a gardening book, actually. I was Sonny Smith for a week.

Presenter1:27

And then I was Zoe Bond for a week, and I didn't want to be Susie or Cindy or Jane.

Presenter1:33

So he got a gardening book and uh page forty three, Rye.

Presenter1:37

Second line down, right, fourth word along.

Presenter1:41

Manure. No, no, right. Page 97, and so on, until we came across tomato cane, by which time.

Presenter1:48

My husband at the time was tiring of the game and said, Ah, well, you're built along similar lines. Call yourself Martyr Kane.

Presenter1:55

So I rang the club where I was supposedly appearing that night and said, Hello, Zoe Bond won't be able to come tonight. Marty Kane is coming instead. So he said, All right. And when I got there, he'd misheard and written Marty Kane. And I have rather a deep voice anyway, so he must have thought I was a fella on the phone. So you've been stuck with it ever since? I've been Marty Kane ever since. How old were you then then when you invented Marty Kane?

Marti Caine2:13

And

Marti Caine2:14

How much

Presenter2:18

I I reckon I'd be in my twenties, very early twenties. But you set out to sing, not to tell gags, didn't you? Yes, yes. And I was so dreadful at it and so nervous. stop the singing and start telling the gags? I mean, did that happen suddenly? Uh not too suddenly. I realized I I wasn't uh sort of laying them in the aisles with the singing.

Presenter2:39

I mean, it was all right, but it wasn't distinctive, it was a sort of I could keep vaguely in tune and me my rhythm was fair. But I I was a cross between

Presenter2:50

a sort of virulin and alum breeze when I wanted to sound like

Presenter2:54

Rod Stewart.

Presenter2:55

You know what? I had this sound in my head that never ever got as far as the air.

Presenter3:00

And then there was a classic night, wasn't there, when the comedian Dave Swan didn't turn up. That's right, it was a lunchtime show. We were doing.

Presenter3:07

a Sunday noon and neat, as they were called.

Presenter3:10

A lunchtime and evening performance.

Presenter3:14

I only just found out that matinees aren't little jackets that you knit for babies. They at noon shows. And uh he was taken ill or couldn't appear in the evening and in those days I had the capacity to remember jokes almost.

Presenter3:27

Total recall. So I was able to go on and do his act for him. You know, quite innocently, I didn't realize that one didn't

Marti Caine3:31

Yeah.

Presenter3:34

Nick an entire act, which is it wasn't what I was doing. I thought I was doing Dave Swan, a Welsh comic and a very good one. I thought I was doing him a favour.

Presenter3:43

And I said, Well, I'll do his act, I can remember it you know, so he said, Aye, all right then, lass, go on then, you try it So I and I stormed him with Dave's act and he gave me an extra two quid. And from then on you knew gag telling was going to be your routine? Absolutely. Even if it were Dave Swann's gags I was telling. Anybody's. Anybody's.

Presenter4:02

I want to talk more about jokes and and women and femaleness and all those things in a moment, but let's put on your first record before that. What's the first one you'd play on your desert island?

Presenter4:12

I think it'd be George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue.

Presenter4:15

Why would you like that?

Presenter4:17

Uh one, I've got some I'm very fortunate'cause I have some very, very good friends. My closest friend is Pam.

Presenter4:24

And we've been our mothers were friends basically when we were in push chairs, so we started our friendships uh when we were biting the corners off the loaf in our push chairs.

Presenter4:34

And uh we've sort of although we've not always been together through circumstances beyond our control, we've grown in parallel uh all the way along.

Presenter4:43

And one day she said, Here, come and listen to this.

Presenter4:47

And she played me this Rhapsody in Blue, which was our first introduction to beginning to appreciate classical music. I'd like to say we were seven at the time, but in fact we were forty five. But better late than never, eh?

Presenter5:58

George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue played by the London Philharmonic conducted by Andrew Davis.

Presenter6:04

So when and how, Marty Kane, did you start putting the physical gags into your act, you know, the the tripping over the microphone cable and all of that? Was that by design? No, it wasn't. I'm a naturally clumsy person, very accident prone. It's usually when I've got Ten Bob on myself, you know, the Lord boots me into touch.

Presenter6:22

Yeah, I always sort of slip off something or trip over something or spill my peas down my frock. But it turned out it went down well with the audience, so it was left in. It was a relief after the singing, I think.

Marti Caine6:26

But it turned out

Presenter6:33

But during all of this, of course, I mean the the singing, the joke telling, the tripping up and so on, you've managed, as I said in the introduction, to remain remarkably feminine. I mean the slinky dresses are a trademark, aren't they? Now they're an inspiration, really. When did they get put into the act? Uh they again were nothing to do with me whatsoever. But dress designers take one look at you. You know, they love long arms and long legs and long necks. And uh they're very artistic people, these designers. And it's very difficult to say, I don't like that frock.

Presenter7:06

It's a bit low because they say things like Get it worn, woman and so you wear it, you know, and I I presume they know better. But y you can't pretend that you don't enjoy them. I love'em. They're wonderful, great fun.

Marti Caine7:18

Grave.

Presenter7:18

You've never revealed the name of your dressmaker, have you? No, no, she she wishes to remain anonymous. She's made me clothes uh only me stage clothes. She won't make me day clothes for me.

Presenter7:28

She's made me stage clothes for fifteen years now or thereabouts and she's totally brilliant. She's an artist. Some of them look as if they're painted, aren't you? Some of them are. Most of them are sellotaped, if not stabled into place. But back in the summer of 1974, when you were a contestant on the talent show New Faces, you were making your own dresses. And wasn't that part of your success? Because didn't you make one that fell to pieces? Yes, yes. That was by design, but only if I fell downstairs.

Presenter7:58

So I had to uh have these stairs erected, or new faces had the stairs erected for me. But they wouldn't let me rehearse in case I broke something, a leg or something, and therefore they couldn't complete the show. So they said, We'll just go for it on the night, which I did do, and uh there was a gasp, a sharp intake of breath from the audience and

Presenter8:19

Then they realized they'd been had, so to speak, except for one old lady who wrote in and said she thought I should be given another chance.

Presenter8:28

But how long did you think it was last? I mean, uh at that point Marty Kane the star was born. How long did you think you were there for, realistically? And I'd noticed that most acts, unless you happen to be Cliff Richards or Frank Sinatra or Ella Fitzgerald, come take a year to get there, a year to soak up the glory and a year to sort of fade back into oblivion again. So I gave myself three years and I decided, or we decided, as a family unit, my husband, my ex-husband now, and uh

Presenter9:01

The whole family unit decided we should work like the clappers for three years and then get out with our sanity and enough money to open a little calf somewhere.

Presenter9:10

Or something like that. So that's what I did. Instead of which you've worked like the Clappers for sixteen years, have you still got your sanity? No, and I but I've s nearly got enough for a little cash.

Presenter9:21

Record number two.

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A song that me and me dad.

Presenter9:27

used to clean our teeth every morning too. It's a

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It

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called all people that on earth do dwell, but I used to think it meant

Presenter9:36

All people that unearth have done well.

Presenter9:39

Auntie do dwell, you know, that kind of thing. I've got a a a nephew who used to say, Our father who parks in heaven and it was one of those childhood misconceptions. And by the time we'd finished singing All People That On Earth Do Dwell, our teeth were clean.

Presenter10:33

Or People That On Earth Do Dwell, sung by the choir and congregation of the Royal Naval College Chapel, Greenwich, and memories for Marty Kane of her father, who who died tragically, I think, when both he and you, Marty, were very young. What happened? Yes, he he died of lung cancer when he was uh he was thirty-two. I think my mum was twenty-eight. And you? I was seven.

Presenter10:55

And from then on the the the story of your childhood i i is a very sorry, it's a very sad tale, isn't it? I mean can you describe some of it? Well it it's it's funny because it it's terribly sad in the telling, I suppose, but at the time it didn't seem at all sad. I think children are resilient and they adapt very quickly and very easily. And my mum very quickly became dependent on me. And so it w it's always wonderful to have someone who needs you. You did have some really quite dreadful experiences with her because she became quite dependent on drugs, didn't she? And uh and alcohol, yes. But I I had a stepfather who um

Presenter11:32

Although he was when he was sober he was a wonderful man actually, generous, warm, funny. But he was a fellow alcoholic and uh i in fairness to him he used to get so frustrated because she wouldn't stop taking the pills, the sleeping tablets, which she'd take handfuls of all day long and swill down with a whiskey or Guinness or whatever. And it uh it frustrated him so much.

Presenter11:56

that he'd lose his temper.

Presenter11:58

And eventually you were taken into care, weren't you? Oh, that was long before she remarried. Uh though, that was when I was uh seven or eight.

Presenter12:08

Uh when I was living in Scotland and she was qu quite bad then. But there were moments when she straightened up throughout her life.

Marti Caine12:12

Hmm.

Presenter12:16

Until eventually.

Presenter12:18

Uh the the inevitable happened and she died at I think she was forty-two and she died from an overdose.

Marti Caine12:23

Yeah.

Presenter12:25

And in the meantime, um, you'd run away from this coun council home you'd gone into, hadn't you? Yeah. Not because I was treated badly. As a matter of fact, it was it was wonderful. I was treated very well. So why did you run away?

Marti Caine12:31

Yeah, not because

Presenter12:38

Well, because I couldn't get I mean the the my repeated that my mother was supposedly in hospital, not very well, but as soon as she's better you'll be able to go back home again. When will she be better? Soon. And I thought, oh, you know, that that they're talking down to me. My mother had never talked to me like a child because I was an equal sort of thing and obviously these people were talking to me as anyone would talk to a seven or eight year old child.

Presenter13:02

Which I saw straight through, as do most seven year old or eight-year-olds.

Presenter13:05

and decided that uh I'd go back to my grandfather. It wasn't a conscious effort to run away. So eventually went back to live with him in Sheffield, and and he al although he was very kind, he eventually took advantage of you as well, didn't he?

Speaker 413:10

So

Presenter13:17

I think I I I thought long and hard before um

Presenter13:21

Writing about that incident with my grandfather because it was so.

Presenter13:26

inconsequential in on the surface of things. It was nothing at all compared to what uh I've I've read about a lot of people. But it had such a disastrous and far reaching effect on me.

Presenter13:39

Uh it that in fact I'm still suffering from the repercussions of it now.

Presenter13:45

But by the time you were seventeen you you'd left home. I mean, you you got married, didn't you, to Malcolm Stringer, a butcher's apprentice, and and you were well pregnant. Do you think you rushed into all of that in a way to uh to get away from your grandfather, as it were?

Presenter14:01

I don't know. It's it's easy to put the blame on someone else. You can never blame anyone else for your own actions. I think uh my pregnancy was a result of curiosity. I certainly didn't like it very much at that timing. I'd rather go to the pictures.

Presenter14:13

The whole business was very messy.

Presenter14:15

And you felt terribly guilty about it afterwards and spent a lot of time in the bath.

Presenter14:20

And how guilty did you feel when you discovered you were pregnant as a result?

Marti Caine14:20

And how

Presenter14:24

Well, guilt wasn't what I felt. I think it was um

Presenter14:28

I felt that my life was over because, um

Presenter14:31

I've got to dedicate myself to this uh something else that was dependent on me totally, this little creature.

Presenter14:38

And yet

Presenter14:39

turned out to be the joy of Millai.

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Record number three.

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Record number three.

Presenter14:45

Actually, I I've asked for the shipping forecast because, as I said, I used to listen to an awful lot of wireless.

Presenter14:52

And I used to sit and wait for Dick Barton to come out from the back,'cause I loved Dick Barton.

Presenter14:58

And of course the shipping forecast. It it painted such beautiful words, such beautiful places. I'm sure Dickens wrote the shipping forecast originally.

Presenter15:08

Wonderful curly words it'll take me. And when I'm sitting on my desert island I can conjure all these other places to give a different view from my inner windows.

Speaker 315:16

This is the BBC Home Service. Before the shipping forecast, there are frost and gale warnings.

Speaker 315:21

Widespread grand frost is expected tonight in England and Wales with slight air frost in places.

Speaker 315:27

Gale warnings are in operation for sea areas Iceland, Faroes, Bailey, Hebrides, Rockall, Mallin, Shannon, Finistaire and Biscay.

Speaker 315:36

Shipping forecast for the next 24 hours, Iceland Faroes, wind south to southeast, force five, increasing to force six, to gale, force eight.

Speaker 315:46

Occasional rain, moderate visibility.

Speaker 315:49

Bailey Rock All Shannon, wind south force six to gale force eight, later veering northwest and moderating.

Speaker 315:57

Rain at first becoming showery later, moderate to poor visibility becoming good.

Speaker 316:02

Hebrides Mallin, wind south, force five or six, increasing to force

Presenter16:07

The shipping forecast on the BBC's Home Service in nineteen fifty six. You're right, they're wonderful m names on this. Oh, yes, and so British, isn't it terribly, terribly British? I don't think it'll be much use to you in out-of-date shipping forecast on the Desert Island book.

Presenter16:21

Will you be set on escape, do you think?

Marti Caine16:23

Unfair.

Presenter16:27

I think I shall have had it all nicely done by then and planted and I'll be completely organised. It'll be all neat and tidy. All neat and tidy and fields of, well, plots of planted vegetables and little hut later. That's not going to be a little hut. It'll ev evolve into an Attell eventually, I think.

Marti Caine16:40

Little huh.

Presenter16:48

But there's a lot of the housewife in you, isn't there? You you like all of that. I love it. Yes, I'm a definitely a frustrated cleaning lady. But really you you took to performing at the working men's clubs and everything because you needed the money to have these things. Exactly. It was purely and simply a means to that end.

Marti Caine17:00

Exactly.

Presenter17:04

And so you then got yourself discovered. You then became a star, which is not what you'd expected. You changed your nose. Aye. Four foot six off the end, yes. And you lost your husband.

Presenter17:16

Yes, I don't know whether the two were connected.

Presenter17:19

You know, the nose and the husband. What about becoming a star in the husband?

Presenter17:23

I don't know, I think Malk was um.

Presenter17:27

Well, very typical Yorkshireman, and never ever liked the idea of his wife earning the money. I don't think any man would but a young one, it was very difficult for him to swallow, and while he'd had it for a while, it grew very thin.

Presenter17:42

But then a few years ago you found another husband in the B B C canteen? Yes, eight years after after Malcolm. Yes, I found another that I thought was just as strong as as Malcolm. He's turned out to be just that.

Presenter17:55

A man called Kenneth Ives, without whom the last few years would presumably have been really rather impossible to bear.

Presenter18:03

I don't know about impossible because I've got some wonderful friends and a wonderful family. I'm very, very fortunate. But Kenneth was quite, quite exceptional. Quite exceptional. He was determined to find some answer to this question. It couldn't possibly be fatal. And he read extensively books that are, I mean proper books on the subject and invited scientists and authors and doctors for lunch and dinner and asked questions endlessly and in fact ended up knowing more about the subject than most, certainly than most GPs.

Presenter18:41

Well, we shall hear in a minute about how all of that began and how you discovered your illness, but let's pause for record number four first of all.

Presenter18:48

I recover four. I love the snow. I think it's my Peter Pan mentality. And I think I'd really miss snow on the desert island, presuming it's a tropical desert island this, yes. So I'd like Snowfall, sung by Singers Unlimited.

Presenter19:09

Softly.

Presenter19:14

Change.

Presenter19:20

Yeah.

Presenter19:26

Snowflake

Marti Caine19:27

Yeah.

Presenter19:31

Snowfall sung by Singers Unlimited for memories of snow on Marty Kane's Desert Island.

Presenter19:37

It was the summer of nineteen eighty seven, I think, that you first discovered, Marty, that something was wrong with you. Tell me about it.

Presenter19:46

I I I'm I'm very fortunate in as much as I've had I've enjoyed spectacularly good health. I think I had twenty four hour flu in nineteen sixty five, I think and that's been it. But I do go for a a you know, a two thousand mile service once a year.

Presenter20:01

And on one of them they discovered that there was something wrong with the sump and said, Oh, I think we'd better have a biopsy. So you had no other symptoms at all? None whatsoever. No tiredness and none of those things.

Marti Caine20:11

And then nothing.

Presenter20:13

Nothing. So it was difficult to believe that you had something that was really serious. Yes. So when were you actually told and what were you told?

Presenter20:21

I was told by the surgeon who performed the biopsy

Presenter20:25

Um that it was

Presenter20:28

A particular type of lymphoma, a non-Hodgkin's lymphoma called uh low-grade follicular lymphoma that was treatable but not curable.

Presenter20:37

And he avoided my eyes, and it that didn't sound like terminal to me, but reading between the lines it obviously you know, that was the soft way of sort of um

Presenter20:47

Breaking it to me.

Presenter20:50

Uh no, I I felt it was such a cliche saying, Well, Doc, how long have I got? You know, I just couldn't say that. And uh oddly enough, again, when my back's against the wall, um the mouth tends to go into action.

Presenter21:02

And he said, so it is malignant lymphoma. So I said

Presenter21:07

But does that make me a lymphomaniac? And he said, No, no, you know, quite earnestly.

Presenter21:13

And he said, you know, it's uh it's you must go and see an oncologist. I've made an appointment for you with this oncologist and he'll uh he'll give you uh uh something that'll help. And I said, Yes, but will I ever play the violin again? And I'm sure he thought I was cracking up under the strain. But did he eventually ask the question, you know, answer the question, how long have you got? I asked the oncologist who was wonderful. Uh he didn't patronise me, but I he explained in words that I could understand and I said, What is the prognosis for someone with low-grade follicular lymphoma? And he said, Five years, but we would expect you to do better.

Presenter21:52

What did that mean?

Presenter21:53

Six years, I think.

Presenter21:56

Pay your bill first. The way you talk about it, and indeed the way you've written about it, um you sound as if you coped with the whole thing remarkably well. You send up the idea of panic. I mean you you sound really

Marti Caine21:56

Yeah.

Marti Caine21:57

Uh

Presenter22:07

as you've written about it, very gung-ho. I mean, was it like that, or was this part of the act? To tell you the truth, I I did feel very gung-ho. I I have I really have nothing to whinge about.

Presenter22:18

I mean, by this time I was, what, forty four, forty five.

Presenter22:23

And I'd visited enough hospitals and done enough charities to see pathetic little two-year-olds and four-year-olds and newborn babies dying. And I thought

Presenter22:34

A wonderful life I've had. It's been a life of contrast. It's been a wonderful life. So, you know, at

Presenter22:41

If it all ends tomorrow, I I wouldn't swap a second of it to gain another fifty years of somebody else's life. I enjoyed my life so much. You even described it as a as a cushy kind of cancer. What do you mean by that? It is a cushy kind of cancer. This partic my particular kind. I mean, it's not if I I must stress that if I was in pain, there are an awful lot of people who have

Marti Caine22:53

Uh

Presenter23:01

Painful cancers or painful heart conditions or painful kidney conditions that are that they're dying from.

Presenter23:09

or dying of. And and I w I'm so fortunate to have uh one that it it's the immune system that that goes eventually. I suppose you just die of a cold or something like that. I think there may be some discomfort with it at at a later stage, but it can be dealt with these days. There's no need for anyone to be in pain these days. They have wonderful pain killers.

Presenter23:32

Next record.

Presenter23:34

Number five.

Presenter23:35

Ah, this it's the middle section of this. It's a song called Rosanna, but the brass section in the middle is more spiritually uplifting than uh any music I've ever heard, I think. It really lifts the spirit.

Presenter23:58

Since she went away.

Presenter24:02

Loser.

Speaker 424:02

The body girl

Speaker 424:06

Now she's

Speaker 424:07

And I have to

Speaker 324:08

See

Presenter24:17

Rosanna sung by Toto

Presenter24:20

So that treatment, the chemotherapy, took place during 1988-1989, didn't it? And you're now in remission, is that right? Yes.

Presenter24:29

If you stay clear for two years, then you've got more than a 50% chance of remaining clear. And the longer you stay clear, the higher your chances are. So you've been clear for nearly two years, then haven't you?

Marti Caine24:39

Yes.

Presenter24:40

And so things can only improve from now, you hope. Hopefully, yes. Although I don't know they can get better than perfect.

Marti Caine24:43

Yeah.

Presenter24:48

During all of it you you've gone on working and you've gone on facing the public and the press, which can't have been easier. I mean

Presenter24:55

Have you been able to do that again? Because what we were talking about earlier, that there are two Marty Kanes. There's the one that goes out there and does all of that and there's the other one, the housewife and and the mother and the home bird. Is that part of the secret of coping, do you think? Yes, I think so, because um when I go out I'm Marty Kane and when I come in I just hang her on a hook uh you know with the coats and leave her there.

Presenter25:16

Uh so y there is escape for me by separating the two consciously. And is there part of you that would quite like to leave Marty Kane hanging on the hook? Oh, yes, yes, there is. She's got one room where her photographs are and her clothes are, and I won't allow her anywhere else in

Presenter25:32

in in the place at all. But uh it's your business.

Presenter25:36

You you just don't give up show business. It's show business that gives you up.

Presenter25:42

Record number six.

Presenter25:43

Our record number six is an.

Presenter25:46

I think uh

Presenter25:48

It's time for a laugh on this desert island and I'd like to take along some uh

Presenter25:52

Some Hancock, I think.

Presenter25:55

Particularly the the Test Pilot sketch with Kenneth Williams.

Speaker 425:59

Hancock to the control tower. Something strange is happening. There's a peculiar knocking sound on the windscreen.

Speaker 426:08

Seems to be coming from outside the plane.

Speaker 426:10

Slowing down to 1800 miles an hour.

Speaker 426:13

We'll slide Cockpit open to see what's wrong.

Marti Caine26:18

Good evening.

Marti Caine26:25

There's a nice cold out here, can I come in?

Presenter26:28

The test pilot sketch from Hancock's Hafar with Tony Hancock and Kenneth Williams.

Presenter26:33

You ended up, as I said, Marty, presenting the television talent show that you were discovered on New Faces. In one sense, of course, perhaps you weren't the best person to do it, because you felt too much for the contestants. I mean, you knew what it felt like to stand trembling behind the curtains. Yes, I did, and I I I was totally involved with them. I used to catch their nerves all the time. I was fine while I was talking to Nina, but when I had to introduce the next act, I'd immediately link up with them standing in the wings and I'd go to pieces. Nina, of course, is Nina Mishkoff, who was really hired, I presume, to be the hard guy to your soft guy. Yes, she was. She was really cruel to them, wasn't she?

Marti Caine27:07

Finish waiting.

Presenter27:10

She did her job brilliantly. That's what she was employed to do, the sort of Gilbert Harding in drag. But we all believed that you hated her for that. I mean, I used to think that you were so protective about those contestants and you couldn't stand her being so cruel to them. On stage, I couldn't. But because I can separate Marty Kane from myself offstage, it was fine. So sometimes to say to somebody, I think you ought to go back to Sheffield and give it all up, is good advice.

Presenter27:38

Well, let's put it this way. If they can't stand the heat, we're not doing any favours pushing them into the kitchen because they're going to get far worse than Nina can ever give them. It's not an easy business to be in. You've got to be able to take rejection, and it's a very difficult thing to take. So you that was a presentation job you did, although with jokes, and then you've done a sitcom, Hilary. You've done pantomime most recently, haven't you? You were the Red Queen, very dramatic Red Queen in Snow White. But we haven't seen Marty Kane, the live stand-up comic, for a long time, doing the routine. Has she gone now? I think she's lost a bottle, to tell you the truth. Yes. Has she?

Presenter28:17

Uh-uh-uh.

Presenter28:18

Can't tell you what the fear is like every time I go on stage. I'm all right once the spotlight hits and she comes out, but that's me in the wings and I'm permanently ill in a into a bucket and uh

Presenter28:31

I just I think I should be doing something easy for a living, like being a mercenary or something like that. What am I doing in this profession? And I've seen the same look in so many other artists' eyes.

Presenter28:43

And you're not willing to put yourself through that any more? I don't know whether I could take that any more. Um if there's a a a different means of earning a living, of communicating, then I I'll try it right.

Marti Caine28:55

Are you the only one?

Presenter28:59

Novel, hmm? I'm trying to write a fictional novel, yes. It's a case of having to write a fictional novel now that I've blown in the advance, I think. So what is it? Is it a is it a Booker Prize winner or is it a Jackie Collins job? No, I think I might just miss out on the Booker Prize. Um it's just the um the escape is sort of Jackie Collins type stuff that I like reading. And where do you write it?

Marti Caine29:19

Come on

Presenter29:21

Always facing north I found, although I don't know left from right, in fact I don't know up from down, never mind left from right, and north and south completely confuses me. But I did discover that

Presenter29:32

I was sitting.

Presenter29:33

Um

Presenter29:34

With me back to the south facing the north, in all cases. And then it flows free. Well, I won't say free exactly, but very cheap.

Presenter29:43

Next record.

Presenter29:45

My next record uh epitomizes show business to me.

Presenter29:48

It's Helen Reddy singing Showbiz.

Marti Caine29:57

Your business manager That's all social bit. Uh

Presenter30:04

Uh

Presenter30:06

Big smile.

Speaker 430:08

All the critics let you stay

Speaker 430:12

Cause they're about to change your lifestyle.

Speaker 430:16

Meanwhile it's snow moving.

Presenter30:22

Helen Reddy singing Showbiz

Presenter30:24

It's um it's a tough life you've led, Marty, as we've said. I I wonder when, looking back on it all, you think you were at your happiest?

Presenter30:33

I wonder. Um there have been so many happy moments, I think.

Presenter30:39

a young mum when I was when the kids were young and uh

Presenter30:43

I was absorbed in them and watching them grow and

Presenter30:47

I liked that, although I wasn't a particularly good mother, I don't think, but th they don't seem to have suffered a deal.

Presenter30:54

And I suppose you've been, despite it all, one of the lucky ones. I mean, there must be a lot of potential Marty Kanes, young mums in Sheffield or any other city, pushing the prams around.

Presenter31:05

Not quite sure how to make ends meet. I mean, would you encourage them?

Presenter31:08

To stand up and sing or dance if they felt like it, or would you say to them, If that was your happiest time, would you say to them, Don't believe it, fame and money, aren't necessarily the answer.

Presenter31:18

I think it depends how badly they want the three-piece suite.

Presenter31:22

Uh you know

Presenter31:25

Your last record? Uh my last record is a a prayer, I think, really, in music. It's one of the most beautiful pieces of music. Um

Presenter31:35

Sensitively played.

Presenter31:37

And uh it's just

Presenter31:39

It's called Thanks Song and it's Thank You to.

Presenter31:43

Kenneth

Presenter31:44

all my friends and the Lord himself for

Presenter31:48

For such a wonderful life.

Presenter32:50

Dave Grusin playing Thanks Song.

Presenter32:53

So you've got to choose one of the eight records, Marty, which would be more important to you than any of the others. It'll have to be Thank Song.

Presenter33:00

That one. And a book

Presenter33:03

Ah, now you see, I've thought about this long enough. I thought now

Presenter33:07

I can't tell her what I'd really take, which would probably be either a Rupert Annual or Jackie Collins.

Presenter33:12

Uh I I should impress her and say, Will I take uh the Dictionary of Philosophy or Fowler's Use of the English Language or something like that? And she'd say you can't have it because it's a reference book.

Marti Caine33:18

And she's

Presenter33:21

Oh, would she? Yeah. Oh, well, there you go then. Jackie Collins or Rupert. Well, which? Yeah. Actually, I'm going to take.

Marti Caine33:23

A bit of jacket.

Marti Caine33:25

Well, which?

Presenter33:27

A do-it-yourself manual.

Presenter33:29

Um because I need it for my luxury item. And what's that?

Presenter33:33

A solar-powered electrical

Presenter33:36

Do it yourself, Kit.

Presenter33:38

drills, you know, he comes in a pack.

Presenter33:41

Drills, saws, chainsaws, the lot, solar powered. This is to build the hotel, is it? Yes.

Marti Caine33:46

Yeah.

Presenter33:48

You're not really supposed to have anything that's got any practical use at all, but I suppose if you're if you persuade me you're only building a hotel for your own pleasure. Oh, it's purely and simply for my own pleasure. And it would give you great sort of uh spiritual stillness and rewarding, yes, it would.

Marti Caine33:57

And it would

Marti Caine34:01

The little bit of a musician.

Presenter34:04

Oh well that's alright then. Alright thank you.

Presenter34:06

See you can cheat a bit.

Marti Caine34:07

See

Presenter34:09

Marty Kane, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island disc. Oh, it's my pleasure. Thank you for having me.

Marti Caine34:12

Yeah.

Presenter34:22

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