Penelope Leach

Speaker 10:00

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 10:08

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

Presenter0:31

My Castaway this week is an expert in the development of children. Born in the late thirties, she herself had an unhappy period in childhood when her parents divorced. She was forced to live with her father, the novelist Nigel Bolchin, which was not her choice. After her mother married again, they were reunited and life became more settled, and she went on to win a scholarship to Cambridge.

Presenter0:52

Her book Baby and Child, first published in nineteen seventy seven, is now considered a central work on the relationship between parents and their offspring. You cannot, she says, spoil a child, and she argues that the first six months of a baby's life are crucial to the happiness of the whole family.

Presenter1:09

It's beliefs like these that have made her one of the country's most eminent child psychologists. She is Penelope Leach. You've got two children of your own, Penelope, now now grown up. But did you bring them up by the book, as it were? And who

Penelope Leach1:22

I I in as far as I used a book at all I used Benjamin Spock's book.

Penelope Leach1:30

And I think we all have cause to be grateful to Ben's Bock, because

Penelope Leach1:35

If he hadn't written that book, the the whole idea that you could write books that were addressed to parents as people rather than as kind of receivers of instruction would never have been born. Um but no, I think I really brought my two up by my mum.

Penelope Leach1:50

My mother was around. We were very close. I have two sisters. We're a very close female enclave. I mean, my husband has got very good at living with a lot of strong, powerful women. And

Penelope Leach2:04

A lot of

Penelope Leach2:06

The stuff that I put out about children is a question of finding.

Penelope Leach2:11

psychological bases and justifications for what my mum did anyway. For instance, I mean, she didn't believe kids ought to get their bottoms smacked. She didn't think that was any way to handle people.

Penelope Leach2:22

And indeed she really did believe that

Penelope Leach2:27

Even quite small children should be encouraged to argue back to have their say to make their point. Um how can they become rational if you don't treat them rationally?

Penelope Leach2:35

I I was a great arguer. It drove my father absolutely to distraction because he really thought that people should do as they were told.

Presenter2:43

So you and your mother screamed at each other costly.

Penelope Leach2:45

Oh yes, constantly.

Presenter2:46

And you scream at your children.

Penelope Leach2:48

Well, yes, from time to time I did, and she confessed at me, she confessed, yes, very often from the top to the bottom of the stairs. You know, the acoustics are so good, it's much more fun.

Presenter2:50

Yeah.

Penelope Leach2:58

Uh so yes, I mean I brought them up.

Penelope Leach3:01

in a way that felt very natural to me because it was the way I was brought up.

Presenter3:05

Which was, I mean, the fundamental philosophy of that being that the baby is right and what the baby wants should be adhered to in the main.

Presenter3:14

It isn't

Penelope Leach3:14

And that the baby is right, the baby isn't right or wrong, it is that there aren't any rules that apply to everybody.

Penelope Leach3:21

And the only

Penelope Leach3:23

Guidelines you've got are the baby you've is the baby you've got.

Penelope Leach3:27

Who's never happened before and will never happen again.

Penelope Leach3:31

And I think the point that people miss is: it isn't that I think you should do this.

Penelope Leach3:36

Really, for babies' sakes. But because if you don't, if you try to follow a set of rules that don't feel comfortable to you, you're going to be miserable, and that's what makes babies miserable.

Presenter3:46

I'd like to explore that philosophy with you a bit more, but tell me first about your eight records. How have you chosen them? What do they mean to you?

Presenter3:53

It's funny. I I

Penelope Leach3:54

They started thinking about eight records on a desert island and I thought, you know, I can't. I probably wouldn't have any music at all. I'd probably have my head buried in the sand.

Penelope Leach4:03

But when I began to think about it, the do you know, life breaks up into very distinct phases, I think.

Penelope Leach4:09

And the do seem to be pieces of music which kind of sit in the middle of each of the different periods in my life, and that's what these are. And the first one is Louis Armstrong.

Penelope Leach4:20

playing St James's Infirmary, and I don't know what that means. It means Cambridge, it means driving, which was the great thing of the day.

Penelope Leach4:28

and it meadens tried jazz which I adore.

Speaker 24:30

I went down to St. James in Fundry.

Speaker 24:36

Saw my baby there

Speaker 24:39

Sat down on the long white table.

Speaker 24:43

So sweet, so cold, so fair.

Speaker 24:48

Let her go, let her go, God bless her, wherever she may be.

Speaker 24:56

She can look as wide all over.

Speaker 25:00

She'll never find a sweet man like me When I die, I want you to dress me in straight leg shoes

Speaker 25:09

Box back coat and a stuff and hat Put a $20 gold piece on my watch chain So the boys would know that I died standing pat

Presenter5:20

And it's

Presenter5:26

Louis Armstrong and Saint James's Infirmary, and that was recorded in nineteen twenty eight.

Presenter5:31

Your philosophy of child-rearing, Penelope Lich is a very liberal one. Pick up the baby when he cries, let him sleep in your bed if he wants to, bribe a toddler with sweets, and um beware of discipline. It's advice which of course would have had our grandmothers turning in their graves. Have you any proof that it does work, that it is better than a disciplinarian regime?

Presenter5:54

Yeah.

Penelope Leach5:54

Proof is so hard to come by, but what kind of proof are we after? I don't believe babies are always right, and I actually don't believe in bribing toddlers with sweets. What I do believe is that there's no happiness for anybody in the nose to nose clashes that can only end in tears.

Presenter6:10

I'm sure that's right, but really my point is that that that it's very prey to fashion, isn't it, child rearing? That, you know, in one decade a certain approach is correct, in another another one. It affects all sorts of things, whether it's breast versus bottle or age of potty training or even things like grommets and circumcision. It's all a matter of fashion.

Penelope Leach6:29

Yes, it is. But some things work for some parents and other things work for other parents. And if you can collect up enough hundreds and thousands of those

Penelope Leach6:38

You end up with something which kindly reviewers refer to as common sense, and it is, and the beauty of common sense is that it works for most people most of the time.

Presenter6:48

So there isn't any danger then i i it isn't so fashionable, this current sort of liberal approach, isn't any danger that it's going to revert to the disciplinarian approach? I mean, there was one expert, wasn't there, in the twenties who said you should avoid kissing your child, if at all possible.

Penelope Leach7:00

Yeah.

Presenter7:02

I think

Penelope Leach7:02

What one's trying to do is to avoid such extremes that there's bound to be a backlash. But it isn't entirely, you know, up to people. Look what happened to Ben Spot.

Penelope Leach7:11

Who

Penelope Leach7:12

Was accused of being responsible for the firepower generation in the 60s. Now, I think that would be a wonderful thing to be responsible for.

Penelope Leach7:20

But so dreadful was the pressure on him.

Penelope Leach7:23

that he felt it was an accusation rather than a congratulation, and he did, in subsequent editions, go substantially back on a lot of what he'd said.

Presenter7:33

Yes, he said a bit more discipline might be a good idea.

Penelope Leach7:35

Yeah. And in a way I think that's a pity because

Penelope Leach7:40

The research remained the same.

Penelope Leach7:42

So it looked to his faithful followers, in a sense, as if he was changing his mind. Now, in old age, he's kind of come back to what I know, because I know him well, is true for him. And he really believes, as I do, that babies and toddlers and young children are actually people.

Penelope Leach8:00

Very much like you and me, except younger and less experienced, and that do as you would be done by.

Penelope Leach8:07

Obviates all fashion.

Presenter8:09

Record number two.

Penelope Leach8:11

This is the choir of King's College at Cambridge, conducted by Sir David Wilcox, singing part of Palestrina's Starbut Martyr, and I chose this because although religious music is not usually my top choice,

Penelope Leach8:24

Both Palestrina Starbert Martyr and Sir David Wilcox have kind of been very important in a lot of bits of my life. I was at a boarding school.

Penelope Leach8:33

The only good thing about which was that we got the chance to sing with the Three Choirs Festival, which was then conducted by David Wilcox as he then was.

Penelope Leach8:42

And singing this practically saved my sanity one particular spring.

Penelope Leach8:47

And then, years later, when I turned up at Cambridge, there was Sir David Wilcox, now Master of Music. So it's kind of important to me. Anyway, I love early music. I like my music very early, and this is very early.

Presenter9:54

The choir of King's College, Cambridge, conducted by Sir David Wilcox, singing part of Palestrina's Starbert Martyr.

Presenter10:00

You said that that was music that saved your sanity one spring. Can you tell me about that?

Penelope Leach10:05

I was sent to boarding school really because nobody could think what to do with me. My father, Nigel, and the Courts didn't think it suitable for me to be

Penelope Leach10:16

with my mother who was then living with the man who was to be my stepfather but wasn't yet. They weren't actually married.

Presenter10:20

Yeah.

Penelope Leach10:22

And so the arrangement was that I was to live with my father and that meant boarding school in the town.

Presenter10:28

And he did not get on at all.

Penelope Leach10:30

No, nor did boarding school and me. And in fact, I've been marked by that. I'm a I'm phobic of institutions to this day. I really

Penelope Leach10:38

I cannot tell you how much I hated it.

Penelope Leach10:40

Um it was the lack of privacy, it was the the oh, the whole thing. Tell me then about your relationship with your father. I think he had hoped that the second baby would be a boy.

Penelope Leach10:53

I was born very shortly before the war began and very young children were a very difficult thing to have just, you know, with the war starting.

Penelope Leach11:04

I think we were temperamentally not matched. I was frightened of him always. I didn't have good reason.

Penelope Leach11:10

But I was, and I think that was irritating for him. A child who's frightened of you is extremely irritating.

Presenter11:16

He was a a a novelist, Nigel Baltrin. He burnt

Penelope Leach11:18

Yeah.

Presenter11:20

Psychological thrillers, I think I'm calling.

Penelope Leach11:22

Yes, a lot of it came out. He was a a he had a psychology degree.

Penelope Leach11:26

And he did a lot of work during the war to do with bomb disposal and so forth. And a lot of his books are to do with the backroom boys of the world. He wrote a small back room.

Presenter11:36

Yeah, he wrote a small back room, didn't he? And Mine Own Executioner.

Penelope Leach11:38

Uh

Presenter11:40

But he wrote much later on, when you were grown up, he wrote an article in a Sunday newspaper saying that children were an expensive and unrewarding bore.

Penelope Leach11:49

I think he probably had his tongue in his cheek.

Penelope Leach11:53

I I mean, I think he was a man, and there are many of them who wished his women didn't like having babies all the time.

Penelope Leach11:59

I think that's true, but I'm sure there was some tongue-in-cheek when it was a little bit more than a moment.

Presenter12:02

But he he said, and I quote, he said that children were destructive of the emotional life of the average man. I think his the case he was putting was that that once a wife becomes a mother, she becomes a different woman.

Presenter12:15

I think to some

Penelope Leach12:15

To some extent he's right. I think the

Penelope Leach12:18

Romantic idea that a baby brings a couple together. The evidence is, the statistical evidence is, that a baby much more often drives a couple apart.

Penelope Leach12:28

Many a baby is the beginning of the end for a marriage.

Penelope Leach12:32

Record number three.

Penelope Leach12:34

This is from book one of the well tempered clavier. I love Bach in a particular way because in a in a sense I'm rather frightened of the emotionalism of of music. I think uh you know there are a lot of times in my life when I can't afford that.

Penelope Leach12:50

But there's also a kind of

Penelope Leach12:53

Intellectual discipline.

Penelope Leach12:55

In

Penelope Leach12:56

particularly the preludes and fugues, which I love, and what's more, it's hard to believe, but once upon a time I could actually play this.

Presenter14:01

Edwin Fisher playing Bach's Prelude number six in D minor from Book One of the Well Tempered Clavier.

Presenter14:07

So eventually you were rescued from boarding school, you went to live with your mother, who married your stepfather, you lived near Cambridge, and it all came good. Life was suddenly warm and comfortable and rounded.

Penelope Leach14:18

Yes, it all came very good. It it all my my

Penelope Leach14:22

Little sister was then

Penelope Leach14:24

Very acceptable age for being friends with. My older sister who

Penelope Leach14:29

fled the disturbances by going very early to the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. Didn't actually come home because she was by then, what, I suppose, seventeen, but came back close again and

Penelope Leach14:42

They bought this heavenly sixteenth century house in North Essex.

Penelope Leach14:48

And to the amazement of a lot of people, Michael

Penelope Leach14:52

didn't seem to feel that taking on three step daughters was at all a peculiar thing to do.

Penelope Leach14:58

And yeah, it worked. It worked for everybody.

Penelope Leach15:03

And I suppose I'm the world's um

Penelope Leach15:05

Proponent of stepfathering. I am quite clear that despite the

Penelope Leach15:10

The very considerable unhappiness of that three or four years. I'm I'm glad it happened.

Penelope Leach15:17

Um my mother sometimes used to say to me, What dreadful things I did to you and I would say yes, but you know, I am actually clear.

Penelope Leach15:24

that in the end it was a good thing.

Penelope Leach15:27

I think I'm glad the divorce happened.

Presenter15:30

So, because you loved your stepfather so much, I mean, you're right, you don't very often hear people eulogizing about stepparents.

Penelope Leach15:34

You

Penelope Leach15:35

You don't. Uh and because uh it was really because he loved her so much, actually, she became a completely different person.

Penelope Leach15:44

And it was very exciting to see. She began to write, she

Penelope Leach15:48

Oh began to giggle.

Penelope Leach15:50

And of course it was an exciting place to be in an exciting time. I mean there were a lot of very interesting people around. And you blossomed at school and you realized that you were a little bit more. The amazement of that was going to a day grammar school and discovering that they didn't

Presenter15:59

Realize that I may

Penelope Leach16:05

didn't give a damn about my uh leadership qualities or my character, only about mm the essay one had or hadn't written or whatever. And that was a revelation.

Presenter16:15

Let's have your next record.

Penelope Leach16:17

This is Gottlob Frick singing the aria O Isis und Osseris from the Magic Flute by Mozart. It's.

Penelope Leach16:24

Got a particular thing for me because Michael used to sing it he used to sing it in the car.

Penelope Leach16:31

He's sung it in cars I've been in with him all over England, all over.

Penelope Leach16:36

Italy, where I used to travel with them.

Penelope Leach16:38

in kind of late adolescence and when I was a student. And then he and the man who is now my husband used to sing it together when we holidayed together, which we did a great deal. So this particular aria kind of bridges what to me is one of the most exciting things about being a parent or the child of parents, which is the particular relationship that grown-up children can have with parents if the whole thing has gone well. And that's happened to me twice. It's the great good luck in my life. I remained friends with my own mother and stepfather and now am, as it were, friends with my own grown-up children. That's really what having babies is all about, I think.

Speaker 217:24

Fury shame that

Speaker 217:30

Fear of voice light guy.

Speaker 217:40

Yeah.

Speaker 217:46

Beautiful.

Speaker 217:50

The Rocky.

Presenter18:17

Gottlob Frick singing the aria Oesis undersiris from Mozart's magic flute with the Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Otto Klempere.

Presenter18:25

Going back to the business of of bringing up uh babies, Penelope Litch, surely if a mother doesn't impose a regime on the child, then she's in danger of the child imposing a regime on her, and therefore she might have to live night for day and day for night, and the whole of life be could become topsy-turvy.

Penelope Leach18:39

Defend.

Penelope Leach18:43

Our great mistake in the West is that we're always looking forward in terror. A woman has a baby and she's got six weeks to spend with this baby before she goes back to work.

Penelope Leach18:53

And

Penelope Leach18:54

She's so desperately anticipating the horrors of that moment that she tries to treat herself as if she'd had the baby six weeks ago, and the baby as if it had been born six weeks ago.

Penelope Leach19:05

She does herself out of that period of six weeks, which if only she could have taken it a day at a time, probably would have been long enough to make the end of that six weeks tolerable.

Penelope Leach19:17

Anticipating the trouble to come.

Penelope Leach19:20

doesn't help with the troubles of now. Babies who are picked up when they cry readily in the first weeks and even months do not cry more often or for longer than other babies. They cry less because they are more confident.

Penelope Leach19:35

If you can give them more.

Penelope Leach19:38

Indulgence of her needs you can give a baby at the very beginning, the more able to cope with your needs that baby will be as time goes on. And that's the point, I think.

Presenter19:48

But isn't there a danger there that you make parents perhaps feel even more guilty because if you tell them to go to a child every time he cries, when they've just sat down at the end of a long, hard day, and maybe the husband's come home from work and they've just managed to clear the toys from the floor or whatever,

Presenter20:04

They're very tempted to let him go on crying there and see if he'll cry himself to sleep. You're saying they mustn't do that.

Presenter20:10

No, you know, I'm not.

Penelope Leach20:11

What that really is.

Penelope Leach20:14

A serious misunderstanding of what I see this stuff as being about. I don't meet the mothers who are saying, Mayn't I sit and watch the rest of EastEnders before I go to my crying baby.

Penelope Leach20:26

I meet mothers and fathers who are saying

Penelope Leach20:31

I find it desperately difficult to leave this baby. Will I spoil her if I pick her up? My mother in law says I'm making a rod for my own back.

Penelope Leach20:41

My nanny says she'll get spoilt.

Penelope Leach20:44

That's the way round it is. Any mother who can leave a crying baby for a few minutes.

Penelope Leach20:51

Should, because the chances are that her

Penelope Leach20:55

Sol, if you like, is telling her that this is a tired baby who's going to grumble himself back to sleep. Fine, I'm concerned with the mothers who are being given this these rules, and they don't feel right to them.

Penelope Leach21:07

Some more music.

Presenter21:08

Yeah.

Penelope Leach21:09

Uh yes, this is Nathiso Yepes playing the theme tune from the film called Les Jeurs Anthedie.

Penelope Leach21:16

In English it's called Forbidden Games, and it's a film made

Penelope Leach21:20

In the middle of the war, 1942, 43, and it's about that dreadful period when.

Penelope Leach21:28

Refugees from Paris were being strafed by

Penelope Leach21:32

German troops coming in.

Penelope Leach21:34

And hundreds, if not thousands, of children were left on the roadside surrounded by dead parents.

Penelope Leach21:41

And this movie is about a little girl, a three-year-old, who was collected from the roadside.

Penelope Leach21:47

by a French farming family and taken home and cared for.

Penelope Leach21:53

And the Forbidden Games are the games she played about death, about the death of her parents.

Penelope Leach21:59

The reason I think this is most beautiful music, and I love guitar music, but the point about this for me is that this movie.

Penelope Leach22:06

which I saw in my last year at Cambridge.

Penelope Leach22:08

was the movie that clinched for me.

Penelope Leach22:11

The passionate interest in how and why children develop the way they do that's been with me ever since.

Presenter22:45

Narthiso Yepes playing the theme tune from the film Jeus Interdie.

Presenter22:49

You wrote your book, Baby and Child, in 1977, among others, but this is the big one now in its

Presenter22:56

third million and it's been translated into numerous languages, twenty eight or twenty nine sold across the world.

Presenter23:01

But even since you wrote it in'seventy seven, life has changed, hasn't it? It's become more pressured I mean, whether it's the pressure of unemployment or portable telephones.

Presenter23:11

The the whole b background against which children are brought up has become less ideal for you.

Penelope Leach23:18

Yes, in a way I think that's true. I do have a feeling that we are allowing

Penelope Leach23:23

Societies to develop.

Penelope Leach23:25

In the post-industrial West, which really don't have an obvious and easy place for any of our caring relationships. And actually, children are only one. I mean, the same applies to the elderly and the sick and anybody really who is not preparing for or competing in the commercial job market. On the other hand, I think there's seen another big change. Women have lost.

Penelope Leach23:47

their female network. Most women don't have that kind of network of female relations that

Penelope Leach23:55

used to be part of the business of being at home. Home wasn't a place where you were all by yourself, you and one child. It was an an alternative way of life, and that's gone.

Penelope Leach24:06

But I think

Penelope Leach24:07

Hopefully what we're getting in its place is a realization.

Penelope Leach24:12

That's

Penelope Leach24:13

It isn't should mothers be at home, it's how should parents arrange for the care of children in the new situation.

Presenter24:22

But let me just ask you this. You you you brought up your children in the Maine in an extended family, didn't you? With with the presence of their aunts and and your mother, their grandmother. Do you think that's actually ideal? Would you recommend that to people if they could get back to that?

Penelope Leach24:30

Do you mother

Penelope Leach24:36

My sisters and I were very close, and it suited us. A lot of people would say, Oh, I couldn't live with my in laws. The idea is horrific. I certainly do think that the idea of nuclear families in isolation

Presenter24:43

You know

Penelope Leach24:51

It's very hard to make work if you're only going to have one or two children.

Speaker 124:52

What?

Penelope Leach24:55

And there's going to be just you or you and a partner who may or may not be their their father. You are desperately unprotected from the cold wind of of tragic events.

Penelope Leach25:07

Record number six.

Penelope Leach25:09

Record number six is the ANC anthem God Bless Africa. I've chosen the recording from the film Cry Freedom because the ANC's official recording is not quite as exciting. This is sitting in here because

Penelope Leach25:22

I don't want ever to forget that this is arguably the most important thing that's happened in the world in the last ten years, to be able to play the ANC anthem.

Penelope Leach25:34

But also, there's an awful lot going on. Africa is beginning to be the forgotten continent, particularly now Eastern Europe is opening up.

Speaker 225:54

But you can be tired.

Speaker 225:57

Getups, single, bossing, single.

Presenter26:11

The ANC anthem God Bless Africa from the film Cry Freedom.

Presenter26:16

You said just now that having your family around is ideal, but if you can't, if if you haven't got that extended family around you, what do you do? Because you've also said in print, and I quote, My ideal society has no day nurseries or creches in it.

Presenter26:32

I know that

Penelope Leach26:32

That's an alarming thing to say, particularly when people are campaigning for more and more daycare facilities.

Penelope Leach26:38

The point I'm making is that I think we're trying to use institutions, group care, instead of people.

Penelope Leach26:45

I think babies need people.

Penelope Leach26:47

And I'm jolly sure parents need people.

Presenter26:50

You mean one to one relationship?

Penelope Leach26:51

I mean babies badly need one-to-one relationships, and let me be clear about this. Mothers can't, nor do I think they should, nor have they ever anywhere in the world.

Presenter26:52

And then

Penelope Leach27:02

cared twenty four hours a day single handed for babies. It's not the way it works. It's not sensible. People say to me, um shouldn't mothers stay home and look after their own babies? They even say things like shouldn't women stop trying to have it all?

Penelope Leach27:17

What I'm trying to say is women that aren't having it all, they aren't having any of it at the moment.

Penelope Leach27:23

There isn't.

Penelope Leach27:25

The traditional.

Penelope Leach27:27

Home base, which had women as nurturers and men as earners. That doesn't exist anymore in the Western world, as far as I know.

Penelope Leach27:34

Women are not getting an equal bash.

Penelope Leach27:38

At money making, at career structure, because children are holding them back from that.

Penelope Leach27:44

Women are not getting equality with men in a men's world.

Penelope Leach27:49

So what I am really saying is, do we want that anyway? Isn't it about time?

Penelope Leach27:54

But we mix the two worlds up together. I think we need

Penelope Leach27:59

Men coming back into what used to be the traditional women's world, and I think we have to find a place for children as people who are parented rather than as people who are solely the responsibility of their mums.

Presenter28:08

Rather

Presenter28:12

But why isn't that right place the nursery where they can have one-to-one relationships with the very good helpers employed there? If they can.

Penelope Leach28:19

Then that is super. And I'm not saying that there are no nurseries where that can happen. I am saying that if you're talking

Penelope Leach28:26

About a baby

Penelope Leach28:27

who doesn't yet walk and talk and make her needs known.

Penelope Leach28:32

The chances of your being able to meet those needs in group care are really very small, and the reason is simple. Supposing you're in a top class nursery. For a start, that's going to cost you one hundred fifty pounds, one hundred sixty pounds a week. So for many women, that's not an option.

Penelope Leach28:48

But supposing we're there, all right, the staff to child ratio is one adult to three children.

Penelope Leach28:55

Do you know any mothers with triplets?

Penelope Leach28:58

Meeting the needs of three babies simultaneously is close to impossible even if you're their mother.

Penelope Leach29:04

And to do it when you're not is worse than in point.

Presenter29:06

Does a child have to have one-to-one relationships all day, every day? After all, he's got his mother and his father at the end of that day and the beginning of that day.

Penelope Leach29:13

Beginning of

Penelope Leach29:14

Beginning

Presenter29:14

Boom.

Penelope Leach29:14

of life, certainly in the first year. The evidence increasingly is

Penelope Leach29:20

that children require

Penelope Leach29:24

To build an image of themselves, to build their self-image out of a consistent reflection of themselves.

Penelope Leach29:31

that's coming to them from a caretaking, dare I say, loving adult. Now, no, that doesn't have to be all day, every day, or always the same person. The rules seem to be that it needs to be most of the child's working day,

Penelope Leach29:47

And it needs to be familiar people, even if not always the same. A group of people, if you like.

Presenter29:52

Su Roop

Presenter29:53

So what's the solution to it all?

Penelope Leach29:56

Well, people will have to find the solutions that they can find, but to me the solution is that government should recognise.

Penelope Leach30:03

That

Penelope Leach30:04

Babies should have some kind of priority economically,

Penelope Leach30:09

Uh look if you like at Sweden, where

Penelope Leach30:12

Either parent can take or share an 18-month parental leave, full-time or part-time.

Penelope Leach30:20

to share that baby's care through to that walking, talking, make my wants known phase, after which either parent can work a six hour day until that child is seven. You deal with the latch key, five year olds, and so on.

Penelope Leach30:36

At one fell swoop. Now, all right, they've just changed government.

Penelope Leach30:40

Some of that will probably get pulled back on.

Penelope Leach30:44

But

Penelope Leach30:45

Rich nations can afford to give babies' needs some priority in adult time for three or four years of a forty year working life.

Speaker 130:55

Next piece of music.

Penelope Leach30:57

Ah, this is Bob Dylan playing The Times They Are Are Changing.

Penelope Leach31:01

I wonder if they are. We seem to have been campaigning for the same kinds of change.

Penelope Leach31:07

Certainly for the last twenty-five years.

Penelope Leach31:10

But it's a wonderful record, I think.

Speaker 231:13

Come writers and critics who prophesize with your pen.

Speaker 231:18

And keep your eyes wide, the tears won't come again And don't speak too soon, for the wheel's still in spin!

Speaker 231:28

And there's no telling who that it's naming But the loser now will be later to win For the times

Presenter31:44

Bob Dylan and the times they are a changin'.

Presenter31:46

You'll be all right on the island'cause you can cook, you can fend for yourself, can you? Are you a do-it-yourself, or are you? I don't think I should be very.

Penelope Leach31:53

Very good at making myself a shelter. I don't mind being by myself, but um

Penelope Leach31:58

I'm not sure I'm going to weave my palm fronds very well. How long would you last, do you think, realistically, all by yourself?

Penelope Leach32:06

All I know is that neither the solitude nor the heat would would

Penelope Leach32:11

in themselves tremendously bother me. But how long do?

Penelope Leach32:15

Elderly white ladies last on Desert Islands. Probably not long.

Presenter32:19

There's probably, I suppose, not a lot more to be said or written about the rearing of children for the moment, although people will go on writing books about it as they do. What are your preoccupations these days? They're they're altogether more global now, aren't they?

Penelope Leach32:33

Yes, I suppose they are because I think more and m you know, when I started in this game it seemed to me that there were an awful lot of things that that parents could do directly in their own lives that would make improve life for their children and for them. In in a way now I feel more and more that people are not being given the chance to do that.

Penelope Leach32:53

You know, the the simple fact that

Penelope Leach32:55

Having a child.

Penelope Leach32:57

is a major disadvantage.

Penelope Leach33:00

financially, career wise, in relationship terms.

Penelope Leach33:04

I think that's a very dreadful thing and and can't

Penelope Leach33:07

Um

Penelope Leach33:08

possibly lead to the production of the the best possible next generation.

Penelope Leach33:13

So yes, I suppose kind of parents' rights and to some extent children's rights have have become more of a preoccupation.

Presenter33:21

Last record.

Penelope Leach33:23

My last record is Band Age playing Do They Know It's Christmas or what I always think of as Feed the World. And you know, I picked this I I meant to pick Forevergreen.

Penelope Leach33:33

which is the tune specially commissioned for the great concert at the Earth Summit in Rio, which I've

Penelope Leach33:41

was at earlier in the year.

Penelope Leach33:43

Uh I couldn't because Forevergreen is an entirely unmemorable, unsingable song.

Penelope Leach33:50

In a way, though, this makes the same point that I think needs making after Rio, which is that the thing that got forgotten in Rio.

Speaker 133:58

But

Penelope Leach33:59

Was that we can't, and it's no good, saving the environment if we don't feed the people who have to live in it.

Penelope Leach34:07

And

Penelope Leach34:08

It's no good saying, Don't chop down your trees because we need you to have trees here in London.

Penelope Leach34:15

If the trees have to be chopped down for the farmers to grow the food to feed people. So, if you like, playing this now is kind of a political state.

Presenter34:51

Bandaid and Do They Know It's Christmas or Feed the World as you say. Which of the eight records, Penelope, is the one that you'd have to have more than that?

Penelope Leach35:00

I think I'll have to

Presenter35:02

Right, the prelude number six.

Penelope Leach35:03

Number six. And your book?

Penelope Leach35:06

Well that's difficult because I read so incredibly fast and all the time. Um can I have the Encyclopædia Britannica? No.

Penelope Leach35:15

You mean it's got to be a single volume? Yes, it's a collected work, you see. No, you can't have a collected work.

Presenter35:18

All right.

Presenter35:22

Yeah.

Penelope Leach35:22

Not if it's in one volume.

Presenter35:23

Uh

Penelope Leach35:24

Uh

Presenter35:24

Oh, you make it very difficult. Please.

Presenter35:28

It comes in one volume, doesn't it?

Penelope Leach35:29

It doesn't seem one for him.

Presenter35:30

Alright then.

Presenter35:31

Collected works of Freud in one volume only, annual luxury.

Presenter35:35

Yeah.

Penelope Leach35:35

And my husband.

Presenter35:38

Yeah.

Penelope Leach35:38

Father

Penelope Leach35:39

Ah, then can I have?

Presenter35:41

Yeah.

Penelope Leach35:41

A very friendly, very healthy horse.

Presenter35:45

Uh no.

Presenter35:46

It has to be something inanimate, I'm afraid. Right. What about a constant supply of good coffee? Yes. Right. I'll settle for that.

Presenter35:55

Penelope Leech, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs. Thank you. I've enjoyed it.

Speaker 136:07

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