Chad Varah

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.

Presenter0:30

My Castaway this week is a priest. Ordained in nineteen thirty five, he found himself appalled at the ignorance of many young people about sexual matters, and began counselling sessions in the parishes where he worked.

Presenter0:43

His concern for the young also took him into journalism, on the one hand writing about sex for the popular press, on the other becoming one of the founder writers of the Eagle Comic.

Presenter0:53

But it was in the church of S. Stephen Walbrook in the City of London that his life's work really began. It was there, in nineteen fifty three, that he opened a telephone helpline for people in despair. He's the founder of the Samaritans, Chad

Presenter1:08

Did you have any concept, Chad, when you established that first emergency telephone line nearly forty years ago now?

Presenter1:16

of the response and the repercussions that it would have, or were you just

Presenter1:21

doing it and seeing what happened.

Chad Varah1:23

I was doing it wrongly at the beginning.

Chad Varah1:27

I was offering my counselling because I didn't know any better.

Chad Varah1:32

There wasn't anything else except either counselling or psychiatry or psychotherapy.

Chad Varah1:38

and I wasn't competent to do anything except the counselling.

Chad Varah1:42

But three months later.

Chad Varah1:44

I had discovered that something that wasn't in the textbook, that was being done by the volunteers who'd gathered round me,

Chad Varah1:53

with no qualifications but wonderful human qualities, was even better than my counselling.

Chad Varah2:01

It's a listening therapy which I named befriending.

Chad Varah2:04

And this is now accepted by other organizations besides us who say that so-and-so needs to be befriended.

Presenter2:13

But there's there's something rather mystical uh attached to this story of how you set it up, isn't there? Because you had, if you like, a couple of signs that it was meant to be.

Presenter2:22

Not not least the the telephone number itself, which was man nine thousand.

Chad Varah2:27

You see, when I had this idea of setting up

Chad Varah2:30

A sort of nine-nine nine for potential suicides.

Chad Varah2:35

I thought I ought to have a telephone number which is easy to remember.

Chad Varah2:40

and which resembles nine nine nine.

Chad Varah2:43

What about nine thousand as a sort of nine nine nine for thousands of people?

Chad Varah2:50

I knew the exchange would be MAN for Mansion House, so I went into the vestry which was being restored after bomb damage.

Chad Varah2:58

Asked the workmen if the phone was there and working, and they said yes.

Chad Varah3:04

and they dug it out for me. It was all covered with dust, and I rang the operator and asked could it be changed to man nine thousand.

Chad Varah3:12

Well, it turned out it was man nine thousand, so

Chad Varah3:16

I said to God, this is getting eerie. Stop it.

Presenter3:20

I'm sure that an awful lot of people who who ring the Samaritans do so because they feel they're on their kind of desert island, if you like, that they haven't got a friend, that they can't cope, that they're all alone and therefore in despair. Do you think you would feel like that, completely on your own, thousands of miles from anywhere, no one to turn to?

Chad Varah3:41

I don't think so, because I have been a fairly alone person, not feeling lonely.

Chad Varah3:49

All my life.

Presenter3:50

What's the first record you put on your wind up grammar phone that's waiting for you?

Chad Varah3:54

Well, it is in fact about being a castaway.

Chad Varah3:58

It's uh

Chad Varah3:59

Mahler Zich binder Welt ab handenger commen.

Chad Varah4:03

which means the world has let go of me.

Chad Varah4:07

It hasn't heard from me for a long time. It maybe thinks I'm dead. I don't care if it does.

Chad Varah4:13

And goes on thence I live long in my heaven, in my song.

Speaker 44:49

Fearish songs feel at sight of God.

Presenter5:16

Alfred Pearl singing part of Mahler's Ichbinder Welt with the Vienna State Opera Orchestra conducted by Felix Prohaska.

Presenter5:24

We were talking, Chadvarra, about the coincidences that occurred and made you feel that you'd been meant to set up the Samaritans. But the idea had its origin, didn't it, in an event which had taken place in your life in the early years as a parson?

Chad Varah5:38

Eighteen years, in fact, before the start of the Samaritans, my very first job as a parson.

Chad Varah5:46

I was ordained deacon in Lincoln Minster.

Chad Varah5:49

In nineteen thirty five

Chad Varah5:52

Went to my parish in Lincoln, Saint Giles, new housing estate.

Chad Varah5:58

My vicar was ill in bed with flu.

Chad Varah6:00

His wife said, Can you get down rather smartly to St. Peter and Eastgate?

Chad Varah6:06

Churchyard

Chad Varah6:07

And there's a funeral.

Chad Varah6:10

So I got on my bike and went down.

Chad Varah6:13

saw that the coffin was small.

Chad Varah6:16

So took the order for the burial of a child. I'd never done a funeral before, but of course I knew how.

Chad Varah6:21

And

Chad Varah6:23

leading the coffin in pouring rain across a plowed field

Chad Varah6:30

uh with the little undertaker by my side.

Chad Varah6:34

He told me the child had committed suicide.

Chad Varah6:39

I was shattered.

Chad Varah6:43

I made the interment as quick as I could so that people could get back into the cars out of the rain.

Chad Varah6:49

And then I stood at the end of the grave.

Chad Varah6:53

remembering what the undertaker had said,

Chad Varah6:57

that she had attended the same school as his daughter, and confided in his daughter.

Chad Varah7:03

but she was desperate because she began bleeding between her legs.

Chad Varah7:08

So I said, Little girl, I never knew you, but you've changed my life.

Chad Varah7:12

I shall teach children about sex.

Chad Varah7:15

Even if I'm called a dirty old man at the age of twenty-four.

Presenter7:19

Sh she thought, did she, that something was terrib she had some terrible disease.

Chad Varah7:24

Must have done.

Presenter7:25

So you made it your life's business.

Chad Varah7:27

That very evening in my church youth club I found an opportunity.

Chad Varah7:33

to give some instruction.

Chad Varah7:36

And J

Chad Varah7:37

It became

Chad Varah7:39

A regular thing.

Chad Varah7:41

just before refreshments, that everybody would gather round and bring their questions, which at first were always about sex, because in nineteen thirty five no adult would ever give a child a straight answer.

Chad Varah7:54

Record number two. Well, you asked me whether I would be lonely.

Chad Varah7:59

Um

Chad Varah8:01

Not for a long time, but then I would

Chad Varah8:04

Begin

Chad Varah8:06

to feel a certain yearning.

Chad Varah8:09

And I don't know of anything which expresses yearning.

Chad Varah8:13

Better.

Chad Varah8:14

Then

Chad Varah8:16

The second movement of Rachmaninoff's second concerto.

Chad Varah8:20

It it term

Chad Varah8:22

I find it almost unbearable to listen to.

Presenter9:22

Part of the second movement of Rachmaninoff's concerto number two in C minor, played by Rachmaninoff himself with the Philadelphia Orchestra, conducted by Leopold Stachovsky. We were talking about your permissive attitude towards sex in in those early years. What do you think it was in your life that had prepared you to be the the the preacher of such a permissive message? You were born, what, shortly before the outbreak of the First World War. Your father was the local vicar in Lincolnshire, and your upbringing, by all accounts, was really rather proper.

Chad Varah9:50

Big ones.

Chad Varah9:51

Very puritanical indeed. Sex was never spoken about. Mostly I owe it to being a scientist.

Chad Varah9:59

Uh from

Chad Varah10:01

My very earliest days, I didn't accept what other people said I wanted to test for myself.

Chad Varah10:08

And so you couldn't fool me.

Chad Varah10:11

With um stories about how if you masturbated everybody would know.

Chad Varah10:17

Because I said to myself

Chad Varah10:20

Well, I don't know, and I'm a lot cleverer and more perceptive than they are.

Presenter10:24

But you don't know who does and who doesn't.

Chad Varah10:27

So if I can't tell, nobody can tell about me, and I wouldn't care if they did.

Presenter10:32

And you were very determined not to follow your father into the church, weren't you?

Chad Varah10:36

Yes, very determined indeed, though I realize now that I owe an enormous amount to my father for.

Chad Varah10:44

Having been one who had

Chad Varah10:48

A sort of aristocratic disdain of what people thought.

Chad Varah10:54

Um

Chad Varah10:55

He wasn't at all concerned with what people thought. What he thought, he said. And I was often embarrassed as a child because he said things other people only thought.

Chad Varah11:05

Uh but now I admire him for it and I think I do it myself.

Presenter11:10

And are you now looking back on it all pleased and glad that you did follow him into the church? Or

Presenter11:16

Is there part of you that will always feel that you were

Presenter11:19

Very slightly press ganged into it.

Chad Varah11:21

Well, I was press ganged into it by dear old Bishop Hine. But uh you asked me, do I now regret it? No.

Chad Varah11:28

Um

Chad Varah11:29

You can't regret something which has had such.

Chad Varah11:33

Um

Chad Varah11:34

Rewarding consequences.

Chad Varah11:37

I have in fact made my ministry what I wanted it to be.

Chad Varah11:42

You know, ministering to individuals or couples, and not so much.

Chad Varah11:46

To masses of of people. I don't think I used to preach very well.

Presenter11:52

So much so that you almost prefer to be called a councillor than a than a vicar, don't you?

Chad Varah12:00

Oh, I don't know. Um

Chad Varah12:06

I think

Chad Varah12:08

I think I would describe myself

Chad Varah12:10

as a sex therapist. But um

Chad Varah12:15

But I wouldn't repudiate my Christian ministry at all and

Chad Varah12:21

Um

Chad Varah12:24

Well, nothing means.

Chad Varah12:27

much more to me than my weekly sung Eucharist.

Chad Varah12:32

at St Stephen Walbrook on a Thursday.

Presenter12:37

Shall we have record number three?

Chad Varah12:40

I should, of course, on my desert island, remember those Thursday Eucharists with my own choir.

Chad Varah12:48

uh Polyphony of London, singing, for instance, Grant us thy peace from Birds Mass for Four Voices in English.

Chad Varah13:00

But unfortunately Polyphony hasn't recorded it, and the people who have do it in Latin.

Chad Varah13:06

So I think

Chad Varah13:09

I will settle for

Chad Varah13:12

My

Chad Varah13:14

Other favourite church

Chad Varah13:16

The Russian Orthodox Church, with which I've had many connections over the years.

Chad Varah13:22

And take advantage of the fact that the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom.

Chad Varah13:28

Uh one of them has been written by Rachmaninoff.

Chad Varah13:33

Side-like

Chad Varah13:35

The Beginning of the Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom

Speaker 413:40

Vlagoslovi Vladiko Vlagoslovieno charsto oca y sina is yatagodukha.

Chad Varah13:48

Yeah, no

Speaker 413:55

Nenye Priš noy vovie kivie ko

Speaker 414:23

Osvishne Miris Pasini Dushna Shik Gospodu Pomo Limseo

Presenter14:41

Part of Rachmaninoff's Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, sung by the Orthodox Liturgy Choir of Essen, conducted by Carl Linker. Now, apart from being a a very busy parson in those post-war years, uh you were in Blackburn during and after the war, I think, and then you moved to Battersea in South London. You were also writing strip cartoons. Now, how on earth did you get into that?

Chad Varah14:55

You move

Chad Varah15:02

Whilst I was in Blackburn, I was, amongst other things, editor of the Diocesan magazine, and I had the idea of syndicating articles. So I called a conference of diocesan editors, and we formed a society called Interim on the way to a society for Christian Publicity. And the only non-diocesan editor I invited was Marcus Morris, and he had this idea that there should be an answer to the dreadful horror comics that were produced for American GIs, adults.

Presenter15:34

So did he invent Dandare?

Presenter15:36

Not exact.

Chad Varah15:41

The idea of a space

Chad Varah15:44

story, space fiction story, but it was the wonderful artist he discovered, Frank Hampson, who actually created Dan Dare.

Chad Varah15:55

And

Chad Varah15:57

All the

Chad Varah15:58

Science fiction stories, except one.

Chad Varah16:02

Well

Chad Varah16:04

Scripted and drawn by Dand by Frank Hampson. The one that wasn't was by me. It was called Marooned on Mercury.

Chad Varah16:12

But I wrote the back page.

Chad Varah16:14

Stories for Eagle

Presenter16:16

You also started writing for picture posts, articles on sex and the sort of permissive teaching that you'd begun in the church.

Chad Varah16:19

Yeah.

Presenter16:25

Again, it must have created quite a stir in Battersea. Here's their vicar who writes stories for strip cartoons and what's more sex articles.

Chad Varah16:35

I had only accepted the living in Battersea on condition that I could do as I liked.

Presenter16:43

And indeed you did. Let's have your next record.

Chad Varah16:46

Well, I can freely confess that I won't only yearn for my uh Thursday Eucharist, I will also yearn for human love of various kinds. And I can't think of any more beautiful expression of that than by another of my favourite composers, Handel.

Chad Varah17:08

Uh in his Sileti Venti in Latin.

Chad Varah17:12

comes the wonderful Dulcis Amor, Sweet Love, sung by Anne Mackay, my favourite soprano.

Presenter18:23

Anne Mackay singing part of the aria Dulcis Amour from Handel's Silette Venti with the European Community Chamber Orchestra conducted by Ivan Ortlin.

Presenter18:33

So the people who started to come to you to the Samaritans, so called, in nineteen fifty three, Chad, needed befriending. What were their most common problems in those days?

Chad Varah18:45

Loneliness exacerbated any problem they had.

Chad Varah18:49

Um

Chad Varah18:51

And

Chad Varah18:52

A thousand and one problems produce

Chad Varah18:56

Only one or two results depression or anxiety.

Chad Varah19:02

Or the two together?

Chad Varah19:04

So you don't, in order to befriend them, have to be an expert on a thousand and one problems. You have to be an expert on anxiety and depression and loneliness.

Presenter19:14

But I would presume that the decriminalization, for example, of homosexuality since then or the the Abortion Act.

Presenter19:22

Um two things m which must have done much to relieve the kinds of problems, to to solve, resolve the kinds of problems that were being brought to you then.

Chad Varah19:31

Absolutely. I can't think of two better examples than the two you've mentioned. In the old days, the bad old days, we used to have so many homosexuals, male homosexuals chiefly, because female was never against the law, driven to suicide by blackmail and other threats, and pregnant girls driven to suicide because they couldn't obtain an abortion.

Presenter20:03

And do as many people commit suicide these days as did in your early days?

Chad Varah20:07

The wonderful thing is that from nineteen sixty three, when we became nationwide, though not as widespread as now, to nineteen seventy seven, eight,

Chad Varah20:21

The suicide rate of England and Wales dropped by one third, the only country in the world to have a significant drop, the only country in the world to be blanketed by Samaritans.

Chad Varah20:32

Since then, I'm sorry to have to tell you the bad news is that because we are understaffed, I think that's the chief reason.

Chad Varah20:42

The rate has leveled off and even began to rise again.

Chad Varah20:47

We're about eleven thousand short.

Chad Varah20:51

of volunteers in this country

Chad Varah20:53

And we've got twenty two thousand, we need thirty three thousand or more.

Presenter20:58

Next piece of music.

Chad Varah21:00

I'd like to be

Chad Varah21:02

Okay.

Chad Varah21:03

self-indulgent in just choosing

Chad Varah21:07

A trio

Chad Varah21:09

Uh because I enjoy it.

Chad Varah21:12

I enjoy a piano trio because I'm not a a very good musician and I can listen to three parts, but more gets me a bit defeated. My favourite piano trio is by my late friend Andrei Tchaikovsky, who died of cancer at an early age and I had to conduct his cremation.

Chad Varah21:34

and his trio noturno was played

Chad Varah21:38

world premiere at that service.

Chad Varah21:42

But since it hasn't been recorded I've substituted

Chad Varah21:46

Mendelssohn's trio.

Chad Varah21:48

Top forty-nine in D minor by those wonderful uh performers Corteau, Thibault and Casals.

Presenter22:55

Corto, tibo, and casals playing part of the second movement of Mendelssohn's trio for piano, violin, and cello, number one, in D minor, opus forty nine.

Presenter23:04

What do you look for in a volunteer, Chad? What are the essential qualities of a Good Samaritan?

Chad Varah23:11

I think many volunteers would be surprised to hear me say the one word answer, because we think of humility as a Christian virtue.

Chad Varah23:24

But it isn't exclusively Christian. We find this humility that allows you to say.

Chad Varah23:32

Um

Chad Varah23:33

This person before me.

Chad Varah23:35

is in a mess, and I'm not, or not too much, to be able to help.

Chad Varah23:41

This isn't because I'm superior, but because I've been more fortunate.

Chad Varah23:46

So there is no superiority at all.

Chad Varah23:50

to the person who is

Chad Varah23:52

In a mess.

Chad Varah23:53

And

Chad Varah23:55

Great thankfulness that one's own life is sufficiently under control to be able to give.

Chad Varah24:02

five hours a week or whatever it is to being a Samaritan volunteer.

Presenter24:06

But what are the the golden don'ts for the Samaritans? What what should not they do?

Chad Varah24:12

Well, first of all, they shouldn't in any way reject or patronize or look down upon.

Chad Varah24:21

Or judge. They shouldn't in any way.

Chad Varah24:26

Make themselves feel important by giving advice.

Presenter24:30

But don't people want to hear a point of view?

Chad Varah24:33

No. In one word, no, they don't. They may politely indicate that it's your turn to have a bit of a talk now, but that's not what they really want.

Presenter24:44

More music.

Chad Varah24:47

Well, it wouldn't be me if I didn't want to do something for the underdog. And so in selecting my discs I couldn't but be aware that eight

Chad Varah25:00

with somebody like me are bound to be well-known composers.

Chad Varah25:05

But look at all the thousands of composers whose works are never heard, who seem to have been forgotten.

Chad Varah25:10

I remember one who gave me great pleasure when I was at Oxford.

Chad Varah25:15

Uh

Chad Varah25:16

and who is now pretty well forgotten, Vincent d'Andy.

Chad Varah25:22

Um

Chad Varah25:23

Who

Chad Varah25:26

died at the age of eighty when I was at at Oxford.

Chad Varah25:30

And who wrote

Chad Varah25:32

A symphony for piano and orchestra.

Chad Varah25:35

Uh

Chad Varah25:36

And

Chad Varah25:38

I have it old seventy eight.

Chad Varah25:40

which I first heard it on.

Chad Varah25:43

Played by the orchestra he founded, the Lamoure Orchestra. I'd like a bit of the second movement.

Presenter26:51

Jean Marie Darret playing part of the second movement of Vincent Dandy's Symphony for Orchestra and Piano in G major, with the L'Amoureux Orchestra of Paris conducted by Albert Wolff.

Presenter27:03

Before you found your Christian faith at your theological college nearly fifty years ago now, you developed a belief.

Presenter27:11

In reincarnation. Do you still believe in reincarnation to day?

Chad Varah27:15

Oh, very strongly, more strongly than ever.

Chad Varah27:18

Um

Chad Varah27:19

You see

Chad Varah27:22

When I was at Oxford,

Chad Varah27:24

I called myself an agnostic, and I was studying natural science.

Chad Varah27:30

And

Chad Varah27:32

I came into contact with anthroposophists, that is, followers of Rudolf Steiner.

Chad Varah27:37

It's a kind of Christian version of Theosophy which is Buddhist.

Chad Varah27:41

Um

Chad Varah27:44

And I suddenly realized when they presented the idea of reincarnation.

Chad Varah27:50

That I didn't have to be persuaded this was something I knew deep inside me.

Chad Varah27:56

Also I remembered my old nanny.

Chad Varah27:59

People of our class in those days were brought up by a nanny, not by their mother, except when they were produced at a dinner party or something. And my nanny, Winnow, never told me until I was an undergraduate, visiting her

Chad Varah28:17

in the place where she got married.

Chad Varah28:22

That I was born knowing how to read.

Chad Varah28:26

And

Chad Varah28:29

She had caught me reading, and she couldn't believe it, she thought it was too eerie, and she never mentioned it to anyone, not even to me afterwards.

Presenter28:36

At what age, do you know?

Chad Varah28:37

Well I was in my high chair.

Chad Varah28:39

And I remember also that when Winnow was wheeling me in my pram with my sister Audrey at the other end I must have been fifteen months w the pram was stopped by a gentleman wishing to chat up my pretty nanny.

Chad Varah28:58

And he gave me a penny, which was a large sum in those days, and we were just by a shop. I pointed to a cane. I had the wicked idea of sticking it in the spokes of the pram and making it awkward.

Chad Varah29:11

The point of the story is that um

Chad Varah29:15

The cane was used as an instrument of correction in my family, and one day when I was five, I said to my father, It's my cane, bought with my penny, and I'm not going to lend it to you.

Chad Varah29:27

And

Chad Varah29:28

Somehow the question arose of the shop where I bought it.

Chad Varah29:33

And

Chad Varah29:34

A cunning expression came over my father's face, because he knew something that I wouldn't know, which was that the shop had changed hands shortly afterwards.

Chad Varah29:45

So if I had seen the shop recently it would be a different name.

Chad Varah29:49

Said what was the name over the shop?

Chad Varah29:52

I said H Elgood, and his jaw dropped off, because that is what it was then.

Chad Varah29:58

When I was fifteen months old I had read it.

Presenter30:02

So the thesis is that at some time in a previous life you learned how to read.

Chad Varah30:06

Proof.

Presenter30:08

So uh in what form would would you care to be reincarnated next time?

Chad Varah30:13

Oh, it's too early to think about that, and I haven't yet had the guidance of my guardian angel, who will doubtless uh steer me in the right direction when the time comes. Yeah. Record number seven.

Chad Varah30:27

I had wanted.

Chad Varah30:30

another of my favorite slow second movements with the Bach's violin and dobo concerto played by my friend Kyung Hwa Chung, but she hasn't recorded it.

Chad Varah30:43

So

Chad Varah30:46

Let's have the other side of Bach, the brilliant.

Chad Varah30:50

Bach rather than the

Chad Varah30:53

The wonderfully melodious one.

Chad Varah30:55

with his English suite number two.

Presenter32:00

Ivo Pogarelich playing part of the prelude of Bach's English suite number two in A minor.

Presenter32:05

As a man who has no fear of death, who knows his own mind, who enjoys his own company, you go some way to being the perfect castaway. What would you do on your desert island all day?

Chad Varah32:18

Read

Chad Varah32:21

Listen to my r discs, of course.

Chad Varah32:24

And read.

Presenter32:25

And you would be away from the telephone. Would that be a blessing?

Chad Varah32:29

Oh yes.

Chad Varah32:32

I don't want to shock people. I don't really like the telephone.

Presenter32:36

But never have.

Chad Varah32:38

Well, a telephone call says deal with me now, now.

Presenter32:42

Mm.

Chad Varah32:42

Whereas a letterer is more polite, says deal with me when you have a moment.

Presenter32:46

But you're you're retired from the Samaritans now.

Chad Varah32:49

Yes, from day-to-day involvement.

Presenter32:51

But do people nevertheless find their way through to you? Are there still people who say, I want and will only talk to Chadvara?

Chad Varah32:59

Well, I don't let people insist on seeing me if I don't want to see them.

Chad Varah33:04

The few people that I do still see are in my own specialization of sex therapy.

Presenter33:11

Last record.

Chad Varah33:14

Well, if the English suite of Bach gets me going at the beginning of the day, I'd like something to put me nicely to sleep at the end of the day, and I can think of nothing better than the second movement

Chad Varah33:30

of Revelles

Chad Varah33:32

Uh piano concerto.

Chad Varah33:35

Which is

Chad Varah33:36

Like a nocturne.

Chad Varah33:38

And is the most wonderful piece of music I've ever found for going as to sleep to.

Presenter34:43

Part of the second movement of Ravel's concerto for piano and orchestra in G major, played by Marta Agerich with the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Claudio.

Presenter34:54

Well, now, if you could only take one of those eight records, Chad, which one would it be?

Chad Varah35:00

Would have to be the one about human love.

Chad Varah35:03

Uh and Mackay singing Dolchi Samor.

Presenter35:05

The handle.

Chad Varah35:07

The handle.

Presenter35:07

And your book, you've got the Bible waiting for you, and you've got the complete works of Shakespeare as well.

Chad Varah35:13

Well, I've read both of those.

Presenter35:15

We can read them again.

Chad Varah35:16

No, I have a very good memory and

Presenter35:16

But

Chad Varah35:19

Well, I do like reading some things over and over again, but um well, if I'm only allowed

Chad Varah35:25

A one-volume book. I think it will have to be the Oxford.

Chad Varah35:31

Um

Chad Varah35:32

The New Oxford.

Chad Varah35:34

A book of English verse, but I'm afraid that in a year I will know it off by heart.

Presenter35:44

And your luxury.

Chad Varah35:45

Well, now, my luxury I'm in no doubt whatever. What I want is my own bathroom.

Chad Varah35:52

Um

Chad Varah35:54

Run by solar power, of course. My own bathroom with lashings of hot and cold water with a me-sized bath, slightly modified by having the video player transferred from the foot of my bed to the foot of my bath, moisture-proofed, of course, so that I can wallow in a hot bath or a cold bath if it's a hot day, and watch videos such as wildlife, such as those marvellous meercats.

Presenter36:24

Sounds like two luxuries. This this is a bath uh uh and a video recorder, yes?

Chad Varah36:29

That's at the end of the bath. It's part of the bathroom.

Presenter36:32

It's it's attached, is it? Well, in which case you can have it.

Chad Varah36:35

Oh, thank you. I'm going to enjoy the desert island. You can leave me there, I think.

Presenter36:41

Chadvara, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Chad Varah36:45

Thank you for having me. I've enjoyed it.

Speaker 236:55

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