Henrietta

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 two, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:31

My castaway this week is an aristocrat. She was born wealthy and grew up in glamour. At the age of sixteen, a national newspaper printed her photograph with a caption that read, Is this the most beautiful girl in Britain? She married her childhood sweetheart, a Marquis, who suddenly and reluctantly had to take on the management of his family's vast public estate.

Presenter0:52

Four years ago he suffered a stroke and was given six hours to live. His wife believed he would not die. With love and determination she nursed him back to health. It was a profound experience, one which she says made her feel useful for the first time in her life. She is the Marchioness of Tavistock.

Presenter1:12

Your husband, Lady Tavistock, was given a one per cent. chance of survival. What made you so certain that he would live?

Presenter1:19

Oh, I wasn't certain at all when I was rung up and told.

Presenter1:23

I just from the moment I saw him when I got back to London that night

Presenter1:28

I can't explain. He had such a look of

Presenter1:31

Peace on his face.

Presenter1:32

And there didn't seem to be any distress, and I didn't feel from the moment I'd seen him that he was going to die.

Presenter1:38

But when you say that

Presenter1:40

In your introduction.

Presenter1:42

But it was a a lot of help that I got that helped me b bring him back to life too. I couldn't have done it without

Presenter1:48

The most

Presenter1:50

Incredible help from our children, and also

Presenter1:54

A lot of friends and the medical profession. I mean, it was incredible teamwork. And him too. I mean, he was determined. Is he now fully recovered? I mean, if you met him, would you know he'd been a stroke victim? No, I don't think you would. I think if you'd known him before, you'd think he was different.

Presenter2:11

Um sometimes because he's hesitant in his speech, because when you have something called aphasia.

Presenter2:17

You can't always locate quite the right word.

Presenter2:20

But to all intents and purposes he can lead a perfectly normal life.

Presenter2:25

But now what about you and and your feelings about it all? Because you've written, as I began to quote there, it's only since his stroke that for the first time in my life I have felt useful and needed.

Presenter2:38

Can you explain that? Do you mean it literally?

Presenter2:41

Um, I felt needed in a superficial way, perhaps, but I've since Robin's been ill, I have felt

Presenter2:48

Certainly useful for the first time.

Presenter2:52

And much

Presenter2:54

More needed.

Presenter2:56

Yes, I think that is probably true.

Presenter2:58

I'd like to talk to you some more about all of that, but let let's get down to your desert island discs first. How have you chosen them?

Presenter3:04

Oh, it's been, as I'm sure you're told by everybody, extremely difficult. You think how very, very easy it will be, and I have kept since I was a child in the back of my diary.

Presenter3:13

A list of I suppose I've cheated, it's always been a little more than eight, but I didn't think it was going to be quite as hard as it was because

Presenter3:21

You know, you start with forty and it goes to twenty and then eight's pretty hard.

Presenter3:26

What's the first of the eight that remain?

Presenter3:29

Oh, the first of the eight is what we played to Robin over and over again, because his favourite piece of music that he always said made him happy was Neil Diamond's beautiful noise.

Presenter3:38

And

Presenter3:39

When he was unconscious, I'd always heard that familiar sounds that you like and smells are very important to bring someone back to consciousness, so it played repeatedly.

Presenter3:50

And it still makes us all very happy.

Henrietta3:52

Yes, it does!

Henrietta3:57

No it's

Henrietta3:59

Coming up from the pond.

Henrietta4:03

It's the song of the cheetahs.

Henrietta4:06

And it plays until dark.

Henrietta4:10

It's the Song of the Cross.

Henrietta4:14

On the furious lions.

Henrietta4:18

But there's even romance in the way that they dance to the music.

Presenter4:23

Beautiful Noise sung by Neil Diamond, who was in fact the star of the first pop concert that you and your husband held at Woburn Abbey in, I think, 1977. 1977, yes.

Speaker 14:30

Mm-hmm.

Presenter4:32

One of the most

Presenter4:34

sort of memories I will always have was, as you know, the nights are very short in England in July.

Presenter4:41

And the crowds had all left, and as dawn broke the mess was unbelievable.

Presenter4:48

And we started picking up the letter, Andrew and Robin, and we saw in the distance walking sort of arm in arm towards the lake.

Presenter4:56

Robin and Neil. Both of them thrilled. It was the biggest concert he'd ever Neil had ever given. Robin had sort of his idea to have in front of the house, and there they were, walking very happy with what they'd both accomplished down to the lake.

Presenter5:10

I remember Andrew saying rather angrily to them, Wouldn't it be more helpful if you helped with the letter?

Presenter5:16

And there they were both picking up letters. It was a lovely sight after a concert like that. That was uh about three years after you'd uh taken over the running of Woburn, which you I think you've taken over in seventy four.

Speaker 15:20

That was it.

Speaker 15:26

Yeah.

Presenter5:28

When you and your husband were both in your early thirties. But you deeply resented having to take over running Woburn, didn't you?

Presenter5:37

Yes, I realized I behaved very badly about the whole thing, but one of the when we got married

Presenter5:42

I had said to Robin that I really didn't feel that I ever wanted to live in a big house like Robin.

Presenter5:47

It was more than that. You told him you wouldn't, didn't you? Well, yes I did. I make tried to make it sound nicer.

Presenter5:54

Can you remember the very first time you saw Woban Abbey?

Presenter5:57

Very clearly. I was fourteen.

Presenter6:00

And I'd been out.

Presenter6:03

to have dinner with Robin and his cousins and his

Presenter6:07

an aunt of his and and my father-in-law. And Robin said

Presenter6:13

I'd like you to come and have lunch to morrow. We're all going to Woburn, and I'd like you to come down.

Presenter6:17

Have lunch there.

Presenter6:18

And I remember saying to my mother, I don't think I want to do that and she said, Don't be so silly, of course you it's a beautiful house and anyway we went down and went all over it. I'd never seen a house that big.

Presenter6:29

And at the end, Robin said to me, I do hope that you like my home.

Presenter6:34

And I can remember thinking well obviously I would say yes, as I do very much but thinking, I would never want to live anything in anything like this. I was very, very aware of how important it was just to be able to

Presenter6:47

get outdoors very easily.

Presenter6:50

I'd never ever want to live in a house like this. Didn't he go further than that and say, I hope you like it because one day you will live here and be my wife. Yes, he did.

Presenter6:58

I wasn't going to say that. Yes, he did. He said, I hope that one day you will I hope this will be your home one day because um

Presenter7:06

I'd like to marry you and this will be your home.

Presenter7:08

And how did you feel when he said that?

Presenter7:10

I thought that he was um

Presenter7:14

mad, it's perhaps too strong word, but uh very odd to to be thinking like that.

Presenter7:19

Record number two.

Presenter7:22

It's a total contrast from what we've just heard, Beautiful Noise, but I think the duet from Bizet's The Pearlfishers.

Presenter7:29

is one of the most

Presenter7:32

It's it's the most haunting, beautiful duet.

Presenter7:37

And I've got many, many recordings of it. It's very hard to find which one I like the best, but whichever whenever one plays it, it's

Presenter7:44

It just takes one

Presenter7:47

Some are quite different and it's

Presenter7:49

It's the whole opera I don't enjoy that much, but this duet I think is wonderful.

Henrietta7:58

Well on the airport.

Henrietta8:03

It's my life.

Henrietta8:11

Seven, seven of the

Henrietta8:18

Be the soul.

Presenter8:54

The duet from Bizet's The Pearlfishers, sung by Nicolai Gedda and Ernest Blanc, with the orchestra of the Opera Comique Paris, conducted by Pierre Dervaux.

Presenter9:04

Can we talk about your early life? You were born in London, Henrietta T. Arcks, the daughter of a wealthy banker. Your mother had been in the theatre, I think. My mother was an an actress called Joan Barry, and she was

Presenter9:17

I I'm I'm told a very great actress, sadly. All that I have ever seen of her are films, and it was in the early days of the film industry.

Presenter9:26

And so

Presenter9:28

They really don't.

Presenter9:30

Indicate.

Presenter9:31

Apparently, how good an actress she was. But she gave it all up to be. She gave it all up. She said, You can't have two careers.

Speaker 19:35

She gave it all.

Presenter9:38

Being a wife and a mother is a career in itself, and she gave it up.

Speaker 19:38

Yeah.

Presenter9:42

Um

Presenter9:44

I think it was sad because I think she missed it very much.

Presenter9:47

And you were only a child. Were you very spoilt? Oh, I think I was very spoilt.

Presenter9:52

Um my mother did have a son as well, but he died when I was two.

Presenter9:58

Um

Presenter10:00

I enjoyed enormously being an only child, and I remember when I had my second child, I felt

Presenter10:06

Maybe this was being very cruel to the first one, because being an only child was so wonderful.

Presenter10:11

My mother didn't my father had to travel a lot'cause he was a merchant banker and was involved in South America and North America a lot.

Presenter10:18

And mummy always liked to be with him, but she said she wouldn't travel with him unless I could go too, so I did have.

Presenter10:24

an interesting childhood in that I travelled a lot.

Presenter10:27

and they took a governess with me when I went.

Presenter10:30

'Cause my mother say was you don't only learn at school, you learn by experiences of life.

Presenter10:35

But would you have been nice to know? I mean, what would your friends when you were in the middle of the morning?

Speaker 110:39

Do I still

Presenter10:42

When I was a child, and most of them.

Presenter10:44

say I was perfectly horrid. But on the other hand

Presenter10:48

Some of them are still my friends today, so luckily there was something perhaps r right, yes. But I think I was pretty spoiled.

Speaker 110:51

Yeah.

Presenter10:56

Then when you were seventeen you you um you came out. Do you remember what you wore?

Presenter11:01

Yes, I brought to my own party, I remember very well. It was the most beautiful pink satin dress from Pierre Balmar, and it was embroidered all over and with flowers, sort of wild roses, it was absolutely beautiful. Have you any idea what it cost? I haven't any idea, but I we

Speaker 111:13

Uh

Henrietta11:13

Yeah.

Speaker 111:13

Any idea?

Presenter11:17

Must have been an enormous amount of money, but as my mother and father said, we only have one daughter.

Henrietta11:22

Uh

Presenter11:23

So you looked beautiful when you came out. Your oh, I read that your waist was seventeen and a half inches. Can that be true?

Presenter11:30

Well, do you know, it's very funny, because to day I was shopping, and a lady came up to me and said, I have to tell you a story that you may not remember, but will make you laugh. She said, One day we were both at the dressmaker together, and your waist was the same measurement as my upper arm. Do you remember that?

Presenter11:47

And I said, you know, I have to be honest, I don't, but I said, I can assure you now that my waist is a great deal bigger. Let's have your next record.

Presenter11:57

Or my next record.

Presenter12:00

really makes me think of mummy more than anything else, because my mother adored Fred Astair.

Presenter12:05

We I was very lucky'cause my mother knew Fred Astaire and so when I was quite young I met him. I even spent

Presenter12:12

eight weeks staying with his daughter.

Presenter12:15

In his house in Beverly Hills, and he was a magical man. I mean, he didn't.

Presenter12:22

Walk anywhere, every movement he made was dancing.

Presenter12:27

And he sings beautifully too, and the next record is Frederick singing That Face.

Henrietta12:32

That face.

Henrietta12:34

That face, that wonderful face.

Henrietta12:41

It shines, it glows, all over the place.

Henrietta12:49

And how I love to watch it change expressions.

Henrietta12:57

Each look becomes the prize of my posaire.

Presenter13:02

Fred Astaire singing That Face. Of course uh a lot of people, Lady Taverstock, remember your face. I certainly do as a being the sort of face of the fifties. One remembered you on the cover of Vanity Fair and and and so on. You did some modelling, didn't you? Yes, I did. I did some photographic modelling in New York.

Presenter13:19

And I was very lucky'cause I was photographed by Richard Avedon and photographers of like that and it was

Presenter13:25

That was quite ex heady stuff in a way because

Presenter13:30

I was paid $100 an hour for some of the jobs I did, and if you think of that in the fifties, that's incredible. So you could have made a career out of it.

Presenter13:38

Yes, I don't think that would have been very great. I don't think I'd have been very happy doing that there. Weren't you also offered a part in the film of of Susie Wong? Yes, I was. I read for the part. Um

Speaker 113:44

Yes.

Presenter13:48

My mother had very mixed feelings about

Presenter13:52

whether I should act or not. I'm very glad that I didn't,'cause I would have been

Presenter13:56

very bad at it. I'm very self conscious. I would

Presenter13:59

I think it I would never have been a very good actress, and that would have upset her very much, because she was a perfectionist. And

Presenter14:07

Again, I I'm very lucky the life I have, and I remember very clearly Robin telling me.

Presenter14:13

If they ever wanted to act that was fine, but that, um

Presenter14:17

We would not share a life together if I did.

Presenter14:21

So you turned your back on acting and your back on independence and uh inevitably, it would seem, when you were twenty one you uh the wedding took place, you married the Marquis of Tavistock. But um you were hardly an ideal wife at first, were you? I mean you almost refused to go on honeymoon, didn't you? Well, I was a spoiled brat. I was frightened. I was I think we we'd known each other

Presenter14:45

Well, virtually all our lives. We were then engaged for nine months, while Robin was he was at Harvard, I was in England.

Presenter14:53

There was quite a lot of um

Presenter14:57

antagonism towards our getting married from his family, which now I understand

Presenter15:03

And so by the time you actually get to it.

Presenter15:06

It was all

Presenter15:08

Rather frightening. I can remember saying to my father as we drove to the wedding, I asked him if he loved me, and he said, Of course I know I love you, darling I said, Well, if you love me, you can prove it to me by

Presenter15:18

Asking this car to go anywhere but to the church. Daddy's face I mean, what a horrible thing to do to your father. But what were you frightened of?

Presenter15:25

I was frightened for the rest of my life, I suppose, whether it was the right decision.

Presenter15:30

Yes. I think when it

Presenter15:33

It is a very daunting stuff, especially if it's been going on for that long.

Presenter15:37

If you marry someone you've just met, you're not even thinking about, you're still carried along on a wave.

Presenter15:43

It was.

Presenter15:44

I remember after when we got into the car and left the reception, I said, Robin, I want to go home.

Presenter15:49

Back to Mummy.

Presenter15:51

He took me home and he dropped me there, and I walked into the plat, and of course there was no one there because everybody was still at the reception and the cook and the housemaid, I mean our wonderful cook, Mrs Verwell, had been with us since we were a child. I was on my own and I suddenly got frightened. I thought what are they going to do when they come back? And I took a taxi back to Clarity's. I mean the whole thing was ludicrous. Anyway, we're very lucky'cause it's now nearly thirty one years.

Presenter16:12

And I've been a very lucky wife. But during that time, again, you've written about the fact that.

Presenter16:18

He put reins on you, and you felt safe in those reins. You never had to tug at them too much. He

Speaker 116:23

You'll never have

Presenter16:26

The way you talk about it is as if he had tamed you in some way. Robin Deal. Well, Robin's always been the person who could control me the most, because if I'm.

Speaker 116:30

Who robbed you?

Presenter16:34

I can be very difficult. And if I'm going to be very difficult, he takes no notice at all. Well, there's no point in being very difficult if somebody takes no notice at all. So did he did he teach you to be

Speaker 116:42

So did he

Presenter16:45

A subservient way. No, I don't think he taught me to be a subservient way. I just think that he probably made me.

Speaker 116:46

Uh

Presenter16:52

A bit nicer person.

Presenter16:54

He made you behave yourself.

Presenter16:56

Next piece of music.

Presenter16:58

Well, the next is not relic, although it has l lovely harp music through it.

Presenter17:03

I am totally addicted, is the word, to Michael Hawden reading

Presenter17:08

C. S. Lewis's The Lamb, the Witch of the Wardrobe, and all the other wonderful Narnia stories.

Presenter17:15

And I suppose as happens to all of us, there are days when I really think I don't think I can cope with this, or I can't understand it, or I can't work it out, and if I get into the car

Presenter17:24

And I

Presenter17:26

Listen to one of these stories.

Presenter17:30

everything goes back into perspective and I can come back and I

Presenter17:33

I think I can cook quite well again.

Speaker 117:35

None of the children knew who Aslan was.

Speaker 117:38

But the moment the Beaver had spoken these words, every one felt quite different.

Speaker 117:43

Perhaps it has sometimes happened to you, in a dream, that someone says something which you don't understand.

Speaker 117:48

But in the dream it feels as if it had some enormous meaning.

Speaker 117:53

Either a terrifying one, which turns the whole dream into a nightmare,

Speaker 117:58

or else a lovely meaning, too lovely to put into words.

Presenter18:03

Sir Michael Horden reading part of C. S. Lewis's The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe.

Presenter18:08

Your father in law, the Duke of Bedford, practically invented the stately home business when he opened Woburn Abbey in nineteen fifty five. What does the running of it entail? I mean, it patently is the most enormous amount of work involving a huge staff.

Presenter18:22

Well, it's one of the I mean

Presenter18:24

Quite often I've been asked what does a a typical day at Woburn involve. There is no such thing as a typical day at Woban.

Presenter18:30

Because

Presenter18:31

It's a house that's open to the public, which is a little bit like the theatre. I mean, you can't put up a sign saying closed to day. So whatever happens, the visitors still come round. We also have two championship golf courses. We have a safari park. Over a thousand deer live in the park.

Presenter18:47

There's the forestry and the farming.

Presenter18:50

And there are over four hundred properties on the estate, and they're all getting older, so there's an incredible amount of maintenance.

Presenter18:57

I mean, the other day we had to mend just one section of the wall.

Presenter19:02

which was built by one of Robin's ancestors to create work in the Great Depression.

Presenter19:07

Well, now it's creating work of another kind and a great expense, because one tiny section costs thirty thousand pounds.

Presenter19:13

But of course the estate w was open to the public originally to to pay death duties when when the uh previous duke, the twelfth duke had died. I think seven million pounds was the debt. Yes. Does it now make money?

Presenter19:25

No, it doesn't make money. It would make money if no repairs were done. Does that mean, then, despite your wealth, that you're you're very careful about money? Do you like to think of yourself as careful about money?

Presenter19:39

Yes, I s I I do. I mean, I there are things that we're all less careful in. I realize that one of my less careful areas

Presenter19:47

is with horses.

Presenter19:49

I mean, it's funny if you I think almost anybody, if they think of something, there are things that you think of my goodness, that's a terrible expense I would never do that in one area. And yet there are other things that you don't think of that sum of money in the same context. My terrible weakness is horses, but on the other hand, it is a business.

Presenter20:06

And

Presenter20:08

It has had to pay tax, which means it makes money.

Presenter20:11

So this is your first love at Woburn. This is the start of the Bloomsbury.

Speaker 120:14

Finding Wilburn as a home.

Presenter20:17

Very much.

Presenter20:19

I remember my father in law saying it invades you, it does. It's all become one thing. The horses yes, I love horses.

Presenter20:26

But I also feel very committed to Woburn and the whole family estate that it is. Is it now home to you, then? Yes, it is.

Presenter20:35

Some more music

Presenter20:37

When we m we bred a very good horse called Precocious, who became a stallion, and you make sort of PR videos for stallions that you send around to mare owners couldn't really do this with men, could you? to try and encourage them to send their mares to your lovely stallion.

Presenter20:52

And a friend of mine made

Presenter20:56

The video film, and we then were trying to find the right music. And I'd always loved the Intimezo from Cavaliero Rusticano. And when we played that.

Presenter21:05

Overly

Presenter21:07

a film of the horse. It was absolutely wonderful.

Presenter21:11

And so, um that's what I'd like to hear next. I'd like to hear the intomezzo from Maschini's Cavalier Rusticana. And memories of what was the horse? Precocious. Precocious.

Presenter22:18

Part of the intemezzo from Mascagne's Cavalleria Rusticana, with the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Riccardo Mutti.

Presenter22:26

Your husband had his stroke one Sunday in February in nineteen eighty eight, at home at Woburn Abbey. He was forty eight at the time.

Presenter22:36

Looking back, had there been any warning signs that this might happen?

Presenter22:41

The had, unfortunately,

Presenter22:44

Robin wasn't a horse.

Presenter22:46

Therefore I hadn't got a vet.

Presenter22:48

I say that because

Presenter22:50

He'd been getting a lot of very serious headaches, and I always knew he had a headache because his one eye looked

Presenter22:58

Out of sync.

Presenter23:00

And

Presenter23:01

When I told the doctor afterwards that when he had a headache his eye was out of alignment, he said, but

Presenter23:08

Why didn't you send him to a doctor?

Presenter23:09

And I said, Well, I kept suggesting that he should go to a doctor in an oculus, and he had been to the oculus. Had he been when he had a headache, they would have seen.

Presenter23:18

the aneurysm pressing on the optic nerve, and he could have had an operation without ever having a stroke. It still would have been a very serious operation, but it would have certainly not left him as incapacitated as he was when he first had his stroke.

Presenter23:30

Now you were convinced, as we've said, when he had the stroke, that that that he wouldn't die the minute you saw him. But it it's more than just a conviction, isn't it? I mean, you you believe you are psychic to an to an extent.

Presenter23:42

Well, I don't know whether I'm psychic. I certainly know that I have if I follow my instinct.

Presenter23:48

It very rarely lets me down. I have horrible days sometimes when I know

Presenter23:53

that I'm going to hear something awful, or something awful's happened.

Presenter23:59

But with Robin, when I saw him lying there, I

Presenter24:02

couldn't believe he was going to die. I mean, I I obviously I realized he was desperately ill.

Presenter24:07

and possibly the most frightening

Presenter24:10

moment I had was

Presenter24:11

One night it was after he'd had his operation and it was he'd been put into a barbiturate coma after his operation to rest the brain.

Presenter24:19

and then he was slowly being sort of brought up to a higher level. And he was just regaining consciousness, and I was about four o'clock in the morning, and I was sitting in a room in the intensive care unit just down the hall, and a young doctor came and

Presenter24:35

An intern, I suppose, came and sat down beside me, and he said, Isn't it wonderful, your husband seems to be regaining consciousness.

Presenter24:41

And then he said the most frightening thing I've ever heard. He said, All we've got to hope for is that he has comprehension.

Presenter24:48

Now that had actually never occurred to me that he could

Presenter24:52

regain consciousness and have no comprehension.

Presenter24:57

And

Presenter25:00

The next day he was conscious, and.

Presenter25:04

When I went home I saw a banana and I thought I'm gonna take him a banana'cause there's nothing he has ever hated more than bananas all our life. And I remember walking in

Presenter25:16

to the room, sitting down beside him, peeling the banana and handing it to him.

Presenter25:20

and he took it.

Presenter25:22

Cool.

Presenter25:23

He put it in his mouth.

Presenter25:25

And I really it was almost like the end of the world because

Presenter25:29

This couldn't be Robin, and he took one bite.

Presenter25:32

And he pulled the most appalling expression and he flung it across the room. And I was so happy. And it shows that really I'm quite mad, because to me that meant he was perfectly all right. And it was only a few hours later I saw Alan Crockard, his doctor, and I said, There's nothing to worry about, he's going to be perfectly all right. And I now understand why. She said to me, Could you explain why you feel this? And I told him the story of the winter. I was very lucky I wasn't put in a little white coat in a little white room.

Presenter26:02

My husband doesn't like bananas, he must be all right.

Presenter26:05

But you also you brought in a friend, didn't you? Um a a a medium to to try and contact him in his unconsciousness, in his unconscious state.

Presenter26:15

Um yes, a very great friend of ours came and sat and would hold his feet.

Presenter26:21

And he said at one time that Robin was having the most wonderful time.

Presenter26:27

in the other world, and it would only be his discipline and sense of duty that would bring him back. So he's partly been there? Oh, he's he says I mean, if you talk to him about it, he tells you it's absolutely wonderful.

Presenter26:39

Only the other day I said to Robin, Are you really not frightened of dying? He said, Not a bit. Any time. It is wonderful.

Presenter26:48

More music.

Presenter26:50

Now the next piece of music I think is

Presenter26:54

Really, really wonderful. It's from it's a soundtrack from Dances with Wolves.

Presenter27:00

And I don't think I've ever heard in my life a piece of music that I haven't seen it sounds very strange, I haven't seen the film and I don't think I really want to see the film because I

Presenter27:09

I think the Red Indians had a very difficult time.

Presenter27:13

And I'm told by my children that I will not enjoy the film at all, but the music is wonderful and it gives you this.

Presenter27:20

incredible feeling of space, and I'm sure when I'm on the island.

Presenter27:25

which will feel limited because I won't be able to get off it.

Presenter27:28

To be able to listen to this music and feel the chore.

Presenter27:32

and the prairies of Wyoming and the mountains, it'll be wonderful.

Presenter28:07

The John Dunbar theme from the original soundtrack of Dances with Wolves.

Presenter28:12

Your husband, Lord Tavistock, is now, as you say, a complete and functioning human being again. But there is something different about him, isn't there? He's changed.

Presenter28:22

Well, I remember Alan Crockard, his surgeon, saying nobody after they've had a stroke can be anything they want. It's just that the tension's all gone. I mean, Robin

Presenter28:35

Really?

Presenter28:36

It was a very tense.

Presenter28:40

extremely hard working person. He had

Presenter28:43

He was driven. He felt he had to, I suppose, give back for the privilege he had.

Presenter28:49

And so he never really enjoyed himself and relaxed and stopped and looked at the birds and the trees and now he's

Presenter28:58

Totally different. He enjoys every moment.

Presenter29:02

I mean, even in the morning when he draws the curtains and it's pouring with rain, he says, Oh, isn't that lovely? We need the rain. So badly, everything is a joy.

Presenter29:10

Would you go as far as to say that you don't entirely regret the fact that your husband had a stroke, because it's made him, as you say, more relaxed and more positive and more appreciative of life?

Presenter29:21

you more fulfilled and and both of you in a sense happier with each other from what you say. I would feel awful saying I don't regret he had a stroke if it wasn't for the fact that he tells everybody, thank God I had a stroke, otherwise I'd have missed the best part of my life.

Speaker 129:26

I would

Presenter29:38

I think

Presenter29:40

I am I it'd be very hard to say if we went back. I I think

Presenter29:46

He

Presenter29:48

Is much happier, but it still seems very cruel that he had to go through what he went through. But, yes.

Presenter29:56

It happened, and we're very lucky that we've got to where we are, and he made such a fantastic recovery.

Presenter30:04

Record number seven.

Presenter30:06

Record number seven is really going back. I can hear my children saying, Mummy, were you born?

Presenter30:13

His Chal Trine singing La Mer.

Henrietta30:15

Lama

Henrietta30:18

Derger

Henrietta30:28

Lady Tom

Henrietta30:30

Segra rose home.

Henrietta30:36

But yeah.

Henrietta30:39

Is what I belong

Henrietta30:41

Este maison royé.

Presenter30:46

Charles Trunet and La Mer, one of the Desert Island Disc's all-time top twenty. Will you try to escape from the Desert Island, Lady Tavistock, or will you be happy to just

Presenter30:55

Lean back and enjoy it.

Presenter30:58

Do you know, I really don't think I'd try and escape.

Presenter31:01

No, I I

Henrietta31:01

Okay.

Presenter31:02

I think I'd hope I'd be rescued, but I don't think I would leap into the shark-infested water, and I certainly wouldn't be capable of building a boat. But being alone presumably wouldn't phase you from what you were saying about the world. No, I love being alone.

Speaker 131:13

No, I loved being alone.

Presenter31:16

You you said in the past that it it it upset you always to be re referred to as the the daughter of a millionaire banker and the daughter in law of the Duke of Bedford always tag lines that really had nothing to do with with what you've accomplished yourself. Do you feel these days that you are much more of a person in your own right?

Presenter31:38

I think perhaps I don't worry quite so much about the tags. I know what I am, and I hope that people who

Presenter31:44

But close to me and careful may know what I am.

Presenter31:47

And how would you like to think that they described you?

Presenter31:53

But I'm

Presenter31:55

That's rather a difficult question. I'd like to feel that they felt that I was a good friend.

Presenter32:03

and would always be there to help them.

Presenter32:05

when they needed it,'cause I had the most

Presenter32:08

Incredible help when I needed it.

Presenter32:11

Last record.

Presenter32:13

My last record is, I think, one of the

Presenter32:17

really most wonderful love songs, which is Eric Clapfram's Wonderful Tonight.

Henrietta32:26

And I say yes.

Presenter32:48

Eric Clapton and Wonderful Tonight

Presenter32:51

Now the really difficult bit. Uh which of the eight records is the one you'd have if you could only take one? Um that really to me isn't the most difficult bit. That would be the Intimitsu from Cavaliera Rusticana, because

Presenter33:03

With that piece of music, I think I can cope with anything.

Presenter33:08

And your book, as well as the Bible and Shakespeare, which are waiting for you?

Presenter33:12

My book

Presenter33:13

I hope can be found all in one volume, is Sir Winston Churchill's History of the English Speaking Peoples, because I'm very historically uneducated.

Presenter33:25

and so hopefully I will learn something on my desert island.

Presenter33:30

And I think reading Churchill is.

Presenter33:34

Really, the best way to read the English language.

Presenter33:37

I've got a sneaking feeling it's four volumes, but perhaps we can have it specially bound. Otherwise I'll just have to take whichever one you let me have.

Speaker 133:43

We have

Presenter33:45

Oh, it's a hard letter. And luxury, your luxury, what you depend.

Presenter33:49

My luxury is a pillow, one of those triangular pillows. Again, if I have a pillow, I can cope with anything. So if I sleep well, I'll cope with my days very well.

Presenter33:59

Lady Taverstock, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs. Thank you very much, sir.

Henrietta34:08

Uh

Speaker 234:11

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