Dame Shirley Porter

Speaker 20:00

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 20:08

The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen ninety one.

Speaker 20:12

And the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:31

My castaway this week is one of local government's most colourful politicians.

Presenter0:35

Brought up in Finchley, the daughter of a grocer, her crusade against waste and her indefatigable energy invite comparisons with another distinguished woman of our age. But my Castaway didn't take up politics until she was forty, when, tired of running her local golf clubs she was a captain five times charities and community projects she stood for the Council. Nine years later she was its leader and set on a campaign of cutting down its committees, privatizing its services, and literally cleaning it up.

Presenter1:05

She's the enemy of the Little Outs, the champion of the Superloo, the former leader of Westminster City Council, Lady, now Dame, Shirley Porter.

Presenter1:14

The former leader by a matter of days, Dame Shirley, what's it like being out of office?

Presenter1:19

Well, actually you might think that it was going to be quieter, but I've found that the build up

Presenter1:23

To getting rid of one life and moving into another, exceptionally complicated and really quite exhausting because I'm going to become the Lord Mayor on May 22nd. And it seems to be part of my own character that if I get involved in something, then I can't help it. I start to think, well, what can you do with the Lord Mayorality? What are the important things in the city, and what should I do? And of course, all of this really gets you involved in a whole other set of new priorities and new interests. But why have you stepped down, however powerful you seek to make that role? Why have you stepped down from real power, loosed the reins of real power? You didn't have to. You just set a low poll tax when you were setting poll taxes. There was no political reason for your stepping down at all after eight years as leader of Westminster City Council. I think that there comes a moment in anything that anybody does when you feel that you have really done your best. You've I mean you can never actually do everything you intend to do. But there you are. It's time to move on. I think it's more important.

Dame Shirley Porter2:21

Yeah.

Speaker 32:21

Think it's very good.

Presenter2:22

No, I don't think so much bored as a realization of uh there are many other things I want to do in my life. I suspect that my difficulty arises from my genes. I'm somebody who always wants to make it happen. That becomes a little bit difficult within the narrow confines of local government.

Presenter2:42

Well, what we offer here right now is an opportunity for for reassessment, which is obviously what you're doing with your life. But this is a lengthy stay on a desert island with with no particular prospect of escape. Now how does that strike you?

Presenter2:54

Well, given the way that I've been so busy for the last eight years, literally chasing my tail.

Presenter3:00

and even more so as I came to the end of what some might have called my reign of terror.

Presenter3:05

Uh I would have thought I would have really looked forward to it. And in fact, I think in a way I shall love it. I I'm also a bit of a lotus eater. I love the sun, I love swimming, snorkeling, water skiing, all these things. And I think I shall relish the fact that the diary is not really cramping me. I don't have to keep saying, Oh, where am I going next?

Presenter3:23

And that would last for a short period. Then I'd start to want to do something and probably start to consider the way in which this island

Presenter3:33

Could be run better. I think I start there.

Presenter3:37

Nobody there to boss around, mind you. But you also have the music. Now, how important is that to you? Tremendously. If I didn't have music I mean, if you said to me you you go to this desert island there is no music I'm I'm afraid I wouldn't go. I would escape on day one.

Presenter3:51

What's the first record you put on? Well, uh my first record is uh Maria Callas singing.

Presenter3:57

An Aria from Tosca.

Presenter4:00

And the reason for that is that

Presenter4:02

I thought that she was the most

Presenter4:05

wonderful singer, but above that she was also an actress. I mean to listen to her voice, to the emotion in it. Also it's because it reminds me of my husband and when we watched Tosca I really I looked at him and I thought that when she died he was going to die with her. I mean it really does bring you her voice and the music brings you to a point of tears.

Speaker 34:35

Love me a pregunt, a soft confiscation.

Presenter5:04

Maria Callas singing the aria Vicidate Vicidamore, from Puccini's Tosca, with the orchestra E Coro del Teatro alla Scale di Milano, under the direction of Victo de Sabata.

Presenter5:18

Can we talk, Dame Shirley, about that turning point in your life when you decided age what, thirty nine or forty, to go into politics? I mean, what what was your life like at the time?

Presenter5:28

Well, I think uh where I'm concerned everything really happened because I got married so young. I was married at eighteen.

Presenter5:35

And I had my children at twenty and twenty-two.

Presenter5:39

So I really didn't think there was anything strange about the fact that I was very busy. I mean uh let's just take the sports side. You've mentioned golf. For example I did play for Hertfordshire County and uh that meant a lot of practising. And then on the children front I was very involved with the PTA and I'd go along to the Institute and take countless courses on an extraordinary variety of things. And I was involved also in a lot of community things. I come from a family that's always been involved in in community and work.

Presenter6:09

And then, round about the age of thirty nine, my daughter

Presenter6:12

She got married and I wondered what on earth uh I was going to do with myself. When other people say, Well, you've done so much community work

Presenter6:20

Uh we'd like to put you forward as a magistrate. And that was really the beginning of it all, and I became a magistrate. And I remember my great lack of confidence.

Presenter6:29

that I came in there and for the first time I wasn't somebody's daughter, somebody's wife, or somebody's mother.

Presenter6:36

That's a very, very mind-boggling feeling. It's a great feeling, but also I I could still remember what I felt like. But how long did it take you to get rid of that feeling? Have you felt it from time to time as leader of Westminster City Council and you've been very much in the public eye and you've been got at in the press and criticised by the opposition, you know, in in the proper political way? Have you ever stopped and thought

Speaker 36:42

But you're not

Dame Shirley Porter6:42

Uh

Presenter6:57

Hang on, you know, I never asked for all of this. I'm really just a very ordinary housewife who thought she'd get up and do something. Yes, I have felt it.

Presenter7:05

And uh I think the difficulty about being in politics and public life is

Presenter7:09

As we can see at each and every turn, that once you admit that you feel sensitive or you are hurt by what they're saying.

Presenter7:16

then of course you can reckon that your career's finished. But have you been as leader of Westminster Council tougher because you didn't want them to see that female vulnerability that you're referring to? I think as a woman it's extremely difficult to do it right. If we are in any way

Presenter7:32

Um shall we say

Presenter7:35

sensitive, then it's interpreted as being weak. A man who is strong, that's fine, but the the other side of the coin for a woman is she's bossy.

Presenter7:45

When I was first took over and I was in the council chamber and they started screaming and shouting and really baying and absolutely revolting, horrible.

Presenter7:53

There is a method in the opposition's madness. The method is to wear you down so you get fed up and you give up and then they assume that with a bit of luck that will be

Presenter8:02

really um useful to them, somebody else will take over.

Presenter8:06

And I can remember thinking to myself, My God, my mother should see me now. She wouldn't believe it. It's just not nice. You know, this isn't the way to behave. Women aren't brought up like that.

Presenter8:15

And then I thought, well, I expect when my father was in the markets that wasn't pleasant either. And there's something in you

Presenter8:24

Which makes you decide, I suppose, either to give in or to fight back.

Presenter8:29

Once I decided that if this is the game, I'll learn it and I'll be better than you.

Presenter8:34

Then it began to improve.

Presenter8:37

Record number two. Well, that leads me nicely into the fact that of course it's maybe it's because I'm a Londoner.

Presenter8:43

And if I could just say why.

Presenter8:45

Part of my childhood consisted of going on outings.

Presenter8:50

And uh we would always sing Second World War songs.

Presenter8:53

And every Sunday morning my father would take us down Petticoat Lane. I have a background of always mixing with people and being besotted with London. So uh that's the reason that I've chosen it.

Dame Shirley Porter9:07

Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner.

Dame Shirley Porter9:13

That I love London so.

Presenter9:13

I love

Dame Shirley Porter9:18

Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner that I think of her wherever I go.

Dame Shirley Porter9:29

I get a funny feeling inside of me.

Dame Shirley Porter9:35

Jasmine

Presenter9:37

Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner, sung by Bud Flanagan. It's impossible to ignore in your story, Dame Shirley, that you're an extremely wealthy woman in your own right. Your father was um

Presenter9:48

Sir John Cohen, who created the Tesco supermarket empire. But he began life in the East End, which you referred to as a barra boy. Where where was he in life when you were born?

Presenter9:59

Oh, I think he was already okay. We lived actually in Cackney and we left there when I was four and they were able to afford to build themselves a very nice house in Finchley, where so I spent my life there. But I think the important thing is that although we've always had the comforts, we also always had constant reminders about other people and a very great emphasis on not being too toffee-nosed. Why, was that because your father was very much in touch with his workers, as it were? Yes, I think it was. We used always to go to the factories, not the shops.

Presenter10:33

He always saw the dented tin on the shelf, you know, the one thing that was wrong. And that's exactly what my life has been like, always to have that sharp critical eye. So you've been operating, as it were, on rules that you learned really quite young from your father, this kind of hands-on management? I'm sure that's what it's about. I'm certain that there has to be something in there which makes me so hands-on, otherwise I don't know where it comes from. I finally get on very well with what I call real people. And that's what your father did. He knew the names of all the people who worked for him, did he? Are there any other golden rules? Are there any other parallels that you'd draw between running a supermarket and running the wealthiest borough in the land?

Dame Shirley Porter11:02

Yeah.

Dame Shirley Porter11:04

Yeah.

Presenter11:13

What I have tried to do in Westminster is actually to provide the best for the least amount of money. I think that you have only a small amount of money and you've got to make it spread and you've got to try to do the best for everybody.

Presenter11:26

Now, you don't actually do the best by not caring about how it's spent.

Presenter11:30

So I would hope that we've put the customer is always right, jolly difficult sometimes, because the you know, the great big British public can be quite difficult.

Presenter11:38

But in Westminster I hope they're properly treated.

Presenter11:42

Record number three.

Presenter11:43

Well, uh record number three is Calnedre.

Presenter11:49

And this is something which is part of the Day of Atonement.

Presenter11:56

Service.

Presenter11:58

And it reminds me of countless, well year after year, of family going to synagogue. It's a moment for reflection.

Presenter12:07

to look back on the past,

Presenter12:09

But it's also looking forward. Everything the Jewish religion is always has a sense of optimism, so you'll have this one big look back, but then you will look forward to the new year.

Speaker 312:18

Oh an idle

Speaker 312:25

Presora.

Speaker 312:31

Waharume

Speaker 312:45

Ino correct.

Presenter12:57

Col Nidrae, sung by Simon Hasse, the cantor at Central Synagogue in London's West End. So your Jewishness hasn't been that important to you through your life.

Presenter13:07

I don't see myself as a very orthodox Jew, but on the other hand I am somebody who has a great depth of feeling about the traditions of Judaism.

Presenter13:15

uh the meaning of being Jewish.

Presenter13:18

the really the way in which one leads one's life, what it means to be a Jew. I think I think I I'd like to put it like this. Throughout my life, due to the fact, I suppose that my name was Cohen, at school, um they don't like me saying this, some of my schoolmates, and I always get stories afterwards about it.

Presenter13:34

But uh there was anti-Semitism. Teasing, nastiness. Uh girls can be very nasty. Boys bully, but girls tease. They know how to set you up. It was during the war. I went to school, um to boarding school, which I absolutely loathed.

Presenter13:48

The only good thing about it was actually playing music, incidentally, and on the wind-up gramophone in 1939.

Presenter13:55

Didn't didn't your Jewishness also at that school prevent you ultimately from being head girl? Yes, well that's one of those things. Um the way it worked was the headmistress used to put up the names and then the school voted on it and

Presenter14:10

Um I suppose even in those days I had my ginger group.

Presenter14:14

And so it looked as if I would get it, there were two of us. And somehow or other they found a reason why, that they they just couldn't put it up and um

Presenter14:22

I may be mistaken, but when my father came down to talk to him about it

Presenter14:26

They said I was too young. I suspect that the reason was they didn't really want to put Cohen on the notice board as we came through.

Presenter14:32

Er, but it will remain a matter of mystery to me. But I did certainly leave very early, just after taking my s what was then school certificate. And then you went off to to finishing school in Switzerland, in fact. Yes, very nearly finished me off. I real it really wasn't my scene at all. Very grand for the daughter of an East End Barrow boy. No, not really. I mean, you know, finishing school, no, no, no. But at any rate, I learnt a bit of French. I learnt to ski, which was lovely. I roller skated around the place.

Dame Shirley Porter14:42

Dear

Dame Shirley Porter14:48

Boy.

Presenter14:57

And then you came home and you promptly fell in love? Almost immediately, yes. I I went along to take a wedding present to uh my friend, and her oldest brother was there with his friend, and need I say more. There they were, the returned soldier from the war.

Presenter15:12

Totally beyond my kin, I mean, much too old for me, ten years older, and wouldn't even look at me. I sold him a couple of tickets for a charity, due on a boat.

Presenter15:20

And uh that's the man to whom I've now been married for, my God, let me just think, forty-two years.

Presenter15:27

But what did your father think? Did he did he think that all young men were after your money?

Dame Shirley Porter15:27

But what did your father

Presenter15:31

Well, I expect he did, you know, and there's lots of fish and all that. But he he was very fond of him. And uh he wasn't actually penniless and he was what could only be called a grafter himself, so they always had a good relationship. So you got married aged eighteen? Hm.

Presenter15:45

Too young?

Presenter15:47

You can never tell. One thing I know is for sure that in order to

Presenter15:52

I think get married young and stay with the same person. You've got to have n the right person.

Presenter15:57

to be married to, but you've also got to have a lot of understanding, patience and

Presenter16:01

I think in my case, had my husband waited for him, you know, for me to put his slippers out, I suspect uh it wouldn't have worked.

Presenter16:09

Some more music.

Presenter16:12

It's I'm called Little Buttercup.

Presenter16:15

This I hope will make me laugh madly because it's um used to be sung we did all as everybody does in schools and I just adore uh Gilbert and Sullivan we did or we always had once a year this big, big opera and the whole school sang.

Presenter16:32

But Buttercup in this instance was my maths mistress. And the thought of her being called Little Buttercup would keep me in hysterics all the time. She was the tallest, not particularly attractive woman, and I don't know if she had a bad effect on my maths, but it's certainly not my strong suit. So that's why I'd like that.

Speaker 316:49

I've snuffed for Becky, an excellent Jackie, I've scissors and watches and knives.

Speaker 316:58

I rippled the laces to set on the faces of pretty young sweethearts and wife.

Speaker 317:07

I drink good coffee, I tear, I've coffee, pop tommy, I've got joke.

Speaker 317:15

My chickens and colleagues are pretty ballooniest and excellent peppermint.

Speaker 317:25

Let fire your perfect cup, dear little party cup, the Lord should never be shy.

Speaker 317:34

So by your watercup, with the waterclub, come of your buttercup.

Presenter17:48

I'm called Little Buttercup from Gilbert and Sullivan's HM S Pinafore, the doily cart opera company conducted by Sir Malcolm Sargent. The part of Buttercup there was sung by Bertha Lewis.

Presenter17:57

Um it is, Dame Shirley, the fanatical zeal with which you set about cleaning up London, for which perhaps mainly you'll be remembered to date, anyway.

Presenter18:06

Have you always had this thing about cleanliness and tidiness? Is it your thing?

Presenter18:11

Well, it is a bit strange, but I suspect that my mother would never have dreamt I'd be like this, and certainly not the teachers at school. I was the most untidy girl out, so it really isn't a matter of just tidiness. So how how did it come about, this campaign to clean up London? Let's talk about that.

Dame Shirley Porter18:20

So how how how do you

Dame Shirley Porter18:23

I can

Presenter18:30

wondered why it was so dirty. And I think that's how it happened. And then I I started to think, well, why don't we clean it up? And it was the beginning of saying, well, why don't you clean it up? And the first drama that occurred was when I thought up the idea of the sponsored Litterbin.

Presenter18:45

And I remember my own colleagues on the council and the director of planning at the time.

Presenter18:51

saying we'll have to have a planning permission for each litterbin. And I said, I just don't believe this. You know, to go to committee and actually get a permission for this litterbin.

Presenter19:02

It seems a joke now, because the whole country is flooded with sponsored little pins. But I have to tell you that's a fact. I fought my way through, and it was a bitter battle, and that was the beginning. And then after that, I really just feel so strongly that

Presenter19:16

It isn't right for people to live in a dirty environment and in an unpleasant environment, and it isn't just litter. I'm talking about the whole quality of life. When you live in pleasant surroundings, I think you are a better person. Of course, the other problem that London has and most big cities have is not just the rubbish, but the the homeless and the vagrants and so on. You've been criticised in your time, haven't you, for paying a lot of attention to the rubbish, the litter, but not doing enough for those people in need.

Presenter19:44

I don't think that Westminster Council has a bad record of the way it handles its own genuinely homeless. And sometimes, of course, we do get upset when other boroughs deliberately dump theirs in the centre of a capital city. So the problem of the homeless is an enormous one, and we have to be a little careful when we talk about that, in the sense that some people, you know, they don't want to be housed. We've even had a place that was opened and we couldn't fill it. So there are various nuances of this. Some people don't want to be moved on. Some people have just had rows with their families.

Presenter20:17

But we have to try to think about it completely, not in little parts.

Presenter20:23

Record number five.

Presenter20:24

Well, record number five.

Presenter20:27

This is Jacqueline Dupre playing Elgar's um cello concerto in E minor.

Presenter20:35

The reason that I wanted this it sort of

Presenter20:38

brings to my mind the sadness of of when health is not good. When you know uh I happen to very much like sport and I love being able to play tennis and golf and water skiing and all these things.

Presenter20:50

And when you have somebody like Jacqueline Dupre, whom I saw when she was in her prime, when she had everything, and she had her art.

Presenter20:58

Wonderful musician, lovely husband, looked as if it was all absolutely golden. And then I saw her later on.

Presenter21:07

Sitting in a wheelchair at a concert.

Presenter21:09

really in a awful. I mean, you know, drawing in in a in a terrible state of uh well, she had multiple cirrhosis. And it really brings home to mind how very important, how very lucky we are when we are healthy.

Presenter22:11

Jacqueline Dupre playing Elgar's Cello Concerto in E minor with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir John Barbaroli.

Presenter22:18

You're obviously, Dame Shirley, a a woman who likes to get things done. You've compared running a council to running a a household, and in fact, and of course Mrs. Thatcher compared running a country to running a household on occasions. Inevitably, there have been comparisons between you and our former Prime Minister on occasions. Not least because you're both grocer's daughters, of course. Yes, well I always say but she was only a corner shop.

Dame Shirley Porter22:39

I'm a fan.

Presenter22:42

Her father only had a corner shop. But do you welcome those comparisons? Do you I mean, did you enjoy them for what they were? Well, I think that Mrs. Thatter, after all, let's put this in context, she was running a country and I was running a council. But there is that one blot on your copy book, isn't there, of your eight years of office, and that was the sale of the three cemeteries for five P apiece. That was a blunder, wasn't it?

Presenter23:06

I think we have to um

Presenter23:09

put this also to context. A very difficult one for

Presenter23:12

Me in the sense that I don't want to make this sound as if it's a just a business.

Presenter23:18

proposition that there we are we sold these cemeteries.

Presenter23:22

I want it first of all understood that I am extremely sorry, as I have said countless times, that it went wrong and that people have been upset. Who would want to do something like this? But it was the price that was as wrong as anything, wasn't it? I mean, to sell a cemetery for five P, which then the person who bought it could then pass on for more than a million pounds, selling to someone else.

Dame Shirley Porter23:41

No, I have

Dame Shirley Porter23:47

Hmm.

Presenter23:48

One of these days when because we've got a l we've got discussions going on now when it's come to an end, I'll be delighted to come in and spend at least oh, I think I'm going to need an hour on that one alone. You can't look at that and just like that. It isn't really not so simple. But you would have handled it differently another time.

Presenter24:04

I would have hoped that those who are responsible for handling it, that means the actual carrying out of the politician's policy.

Presenter24:13

Would have handled it differently another time.

Presenter24:17

Record number six.

Presenter24:19

Well, record number six is Carmena Murana.

Presenter24:22

No.

Presenter24:23

Uh there's several reasons for this. One is that my daughter, uh, when she was at Henrietta Barnett, she used to sing in the choir and they sang with haberdashes and Carmena Barana.

Presenter24:34

Was with us for a month, solidly. I mean, really solidly. So that's where I first remember it. And

Presenter24:41

Then it always amuses me because there they are, these nuns with these these Latin voices and honestly the stuff is so racy, it's really great fun.

Presenter24:49

And the other reason is that if ever I should feel like just being a lotus eater and being lazy and sloppy on this island, Carmina Burana would get me up and go.

Presenter25:56

Carmina Borana by Carl Orff, the Philharmonia Orchestra and Chorus conducted by Riccardo Mutti.

Presenter26:03

You mentioned you were a snorkeler, Dame Shirley. This this could come in very handy.

Dame Shirley Porter26:05

Yeah.

Presenter26:07

Yes, yes. It's been a bit of a problem for me to know how I should make this snorkel. I I'm trying to think of something brilliant, like seashells or jellyfish or something. I don't know, but it has to be something quite brilliant how to make this snorkel. Bamboo poles, I think. Something, yes. I adore snorkeling. I'm not mad about swimming, but I just love deep sea fishing.

Dame Shirley Porter26:19

Yeah.

Presenter26:25

So your island will be well stocked and well swept. Very clean, I suspect. Oh yes, we should most definitely have to have it the the model. I intend to make it the model island. Yes, I do. Yes, yes.

Dame Shirley Porter26:38

Yes, I do.

Presenter26:39

You see, at first I thought I'd want to spend the time

Presenter26:43

learning to windsurf, because I I can windsurf, but not really frightfully well. I fall off more than I stay on. But this I'd have loads of time to learn to windsurf. And then I thought, well, obviously I'd go quite mad without having people round me.

Presenter26:56

had something to do in that sense, and people to talk to, and I'd try to get away. Then I thought, no, I think I shall stay there, and what I must do

Presenter27:04

is have a project. The project is to make it the model island. And if I did that and ran it absolutely superbly, then I would expect, you see, that the word would get out somehow because we live in a world where there are satellites, you know, and there are spy satellites and there there's everything. Communications is all. So somebody somewhere would note this frenetic activity that was going on at this island.

Presenter27:25

They see it look very old and think, Ah, we must go over there and see what's happening.

Presenter27:30

And there they'd finally see, and this really sort of sums up.

Presenter27:35

This I suppose it is a passion for running cities and running them properly. But then it would of course be the way in which I could um escape, in the sense that I would be rescued.

Presenter27:45

I f I feel that um But what would you look like by this time?'Cause you care very much, don't you? You always look immaculate. You have a reputation for being extremely well groomed. I love islands. I and I actually just like slopping around on an island looking awful.

Presenter28:01

Playing Fame from the Kids from Fame. Now why do you want that? Well that, you see, is the music which I do my aerobics to. It's not actually that uh funnily enough when I chose this I thought oh that's not too clever. You'll think it means uh I want fame or I've had fame or what's happening to fame. It isn't. It's the fact, it's the music that really gets me going. I I think it's uh it well it is, I know, because I do my aerobics to it.

Speaker 328:32

Yeah.

Speaker 328:52

Remember my name with you.

Presenter28:56

Fame sung by the kids from fame from the television series, and uh visions of Dame Shirley Porter doing her aerobics on the beach. So now you're going to become Lord Mayor of Westminster, but being a dame, wouldn't it be more fitting for you really to have your sights on Lord Mayor of London? No, I don't think that's uh something which would be within my grasp. I'll always retain my interest in London and and how cities are run, and I've already openly professed my own solution to the problems of London, which would be a Minister for London.

Presenter29:27

I do feel very strongly that as we move into Europe

Presenter29:30

Uh we're going to have to compete with Paris and Frankfurt and London has everything. I mean it really has and we have got to market it properly. You know we're the centre of the time zone, we've got the language, we really have it all, we just have to pull it together. And is that a post that you would like to hold? Well nobody's offered it to me and I doubt very much whether we shall see great changes. That that isn't even going to be

Presenter29:51

Brought forward. I mean, they've already scotched it. It's no longer one of the ideas for the White Paper. So, if that doesn't happen and you finish being Lord Mayor of Westminster and the right call doesn't come, it's back to the golf and the bridge and the good works, is it? Oh, no, no. No, I well, I say no, no. I hope it means that I can get my handicap a bit better than it's risen to. And I shall always enjoy sports. But I think that life consists always of moving forward. And if you are available and if you're open, if you're learning, it's a learning curve. If you're learning all the time.

Presenter30:24

then there's always something and I have an enormous number of interests, nothing's changed.

Presenter30:30

Last record.

Presenter30:31

There's something about music that uh does something to me. It kind of appears to relax me totally, clean out my mind and make me ready for the next step.

Presenter30:43

And this particular one, Beethoven's Ninth, I think it's full of joy. It's called The Ode to Joy, and it's all about hope and the future. And so far as I personally am concerned,

Presenter30:54

My views on life are that we just go on and there is always something to do and you can make it happen.

Presenter31:59

The final part of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, Ode to Joy, played by the Vienna Philharmonic, conducted by Carl Birm.

Presenter32:06

So, Dame Shirley, you're one record that's more important to you than the others, which is that.

Presenter32:12

Well, it's difficult, but I think although I've said a lot of brave words about being perfectly happy on this island, how wonderful it's going to be, I think in my darkest moments I'm not certain I'm going to enjoy it. So I'd better have something to help me be optimistic. And so that means it's going to be Beethoven's ninth. Oh to joy. And your book you have sitting waiting for you on the beach, you have the complete works of Shakespeare and you've got the Bible. What other book can we supply? Well this was the most difficult and I hope that you will let me get away with my priority list, you see, because I'm used to priorities and projects. So my priority of course would be to survive. I think there's not much point in everything else unless I'm actually going to make it. So I would like the SAS survival manual. Is that all right?

Presenter32:56

It's a bit practical, but I I think there is a precedent anyway for do-it-yourself survival. You can have the other side of me. I'll have Paul Gray's Golden Treasury.

Speaker 333:00

I've got it.

Dame Shirley Porter33:00

You can have that.

Presenter33:05

And a luxury.

Presenter33:06

Well, the luxury again is a bit of a problem, you see. Providing that you will accept my assurance, and I'm a very truthful person, I know they think politicians aren't, but actually I am. I promise that if you let me have the largest Swiss Army knife with the most number of blades, I will not try to escape with it. I'm not going to make a raft or anything like that. What I really want it for is I want to get my golf club handicapped down, because you see there's all these bunkers there, and I want to practice, so I'd whittle away and make at least one golf club. And then the other thing is I really would love to master windsurfing. It's the one thing that I haven't managed to do properly. So I would like to make myself a windsurfer.

Presenter33:47

So you want a Swiss army knife? Yes, please. How could I gainsay you?

Presenter33:51

That's kind of a good idea.

Presenter33:53

Dame Shirley Porter, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert islandists. Thank you.

Speaker 233:57

Thanks.

Speaker 234:06

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