Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP

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 three and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:30

My Castaway this week is a politician. She was born in Yorkshire, the only child of parents who, though sometimes short of money, never stinted on their devotion to their daughter. At seventeen she went south to join a dance troupe, and made a fleeting appearance as a tiller girl. Eventually, however, she settled down as an MP secretary, and since then Parliament has been her life. She became an MP herself in nineteen seventy three, a triumph, she says, of stamina, faith, hope, and bloody mindedness. And last year she made history when she was elected Speaker of the House of Commons, the first woman to hold the office, and the first since 1835 to be elected from the opposition benches. She is, of course, Betty Booth.

Presenter1:11

Were you christened Betty, Betty? One never saw

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP1:13

Yes, I was. Um my mother was very keen that I had the shortest possible name. Of course it could even be shortened to Bet. Uh but my father wanted to call me Hannah.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP1:24

My mother was very insistent and uh at the last moment said make it, Betty. But these days they uh call you madam.

Presenter1:30

Speaker, did either of your parents live to see this great triangle?

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP1:34

Sadly, no. My father died even before I became a Member of Parliament. My mother was around, a great campaigner for me, and a great supporter.

Presenter1:34

Yeah.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP1:43

Um it was just wonderful for her that I really did become a member, but she was never around when I was even a deputy speaker.

Presenter1:52

They burst with pride when he

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP1:52

Yeah.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP1:53

Well, my friends tell me who knew my mother they would say, Oh, your mother is very proud of you, and would be proud of you now and my reply to that is, I think she would, but you know, I will be the last to know about it.

Presenter2:06

Yes. All she'd say is I think I've I've read you you're still my daughter.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP2:10

You're still my daughter. There was one occasion, yes, and I thought I was going to lose this seat at West Bromwich, which was absolutely potty, because I had the largest majority at that particular election, but I was terribly nervous and I said I'm going to lose and very upset about it and at the end of this tearful explosion from me, she said, Never mind, dear, you're still my daughter.

Presenter2:33

Is there a lot of your mother in you, do you think? I mean, do you handle difficult MPs like she might have scolded you, you know, told you off for being stubborn or bloody minded?

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP2:41

Not my mother. I think my father was more the disciplinarian. I was brought up in a very disciplined household, and I think perhaps I follow my father in terms of being disciplined about timing, duty, and that sort of thing.

Presenter2:58

So I mean, obviously you are very much you have to be, it's the job, a disciplinarian i i in the house. I it I mean, people do compare you to a a nanny or a schoolmistress sometimes, inevitably because you're a woman. Perhaps such a male dominated forum takes it better from a woman, fundamentally.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP3:13

Perhaps so. And I don't mind being a mixture of all of those things, because people who get elected to the House of Commons have been through very tough battles within their own party to get themselves established.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP3:26

with the with the electorate in order to be elected, and they come there with very robust views. They want to set the Thames on fire.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP3:35

They want to make themselves heard, so there is a lot of robust argument goes on, and I have to find a method of allowing them to do that, while at the same time rein them in once they've gone a bit too far, and that's when the discipline comes in.

Presenter3:51

Hm. But you've um taken some stick from the member for Bolsover, haven't you?

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP3:55

And he's taken some stick from me too. I mean, he's the only one member I sent out of the Commons for one whole day. He was very surprised at that. So it's a bit of give and take and a good deal of humour between the two of us.

Presenter4:08

Let's hear your first desert island disc,'cause we're going to cast you away in a minute. What's the first of the eight?

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP4:13

But I'd like the overture to Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld. This is very robust, and it reminds me of the zip and glamour of Paris.

Presenter5:22

Part of the overture to Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld, played by L'Oquestre de la Suisse Romand, conducted by Ernest Anserme.

Presenter5:30

otherwise known as the Cancan. You see, now there you are, you walk straight into it because you I know I've read about you saying that the Tiller Girl business was a very short part of your life, but there you are having the Cancan. Tell me, you did go south and you did join a

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP5:42

Yes, I did. Um when I was young and at home, I'd always been at uh dancing class and uh thoroughly enjoyed it. I wanted to be a professional and my mother took me to the Tiller School where I was accepted. All you had to do was high kicks in the splits and smile at the same time. And I was in pantomime for the short winter season. My father was horrified at the thought of it. It was the first time I'd left home. He said this is no way for a good working class girl to earn a living.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP6:15

I enjoyed it, but it was the very bad winter of nineteen forty seven. Cold, not much food around.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP6:23

I've been coseted at home, and I soon left and went back to Yorkshire.

Presenter6:29

Back from the Palladium to Dewsbury.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP6:31

That's right.

Presenter6:32

P D Q.

Presenter6:34

But you'd stubbed your toe or something or something.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP6:35

I had, yes, I had a nail in the shoe, and I had a very bad foot, so it gave me a marvellous excuse to go home.

Presenter6:41

So when the feature writers say of you in the speaker's procession, as they have, and I quote her imperious carriage, undeniably that of a former Tiller girl, they're stretching it a bit.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP6:52

I think they're stretching it a bit. I f I feel sometimes had it been an overworked social worker in Oldham, they wouldn't have made quite so much of it.

Presenter7:01

But then there was a contemporary, a fellow Tiller girl, who came out of the woodwork when you became speaker and said.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP7:04

Yes?

Presenter7:06

That in order to be a Tiller girl, it took stamina and rigid discipline, so it had certainly prepared you for being.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP7:11

being a good speaker. I think it had prepared me for quite a lot later in my life actually. Again, the discipline, you know, of turning your head at a certain angle all at the same time, kicking your leg up at a certain height all at the same time. Great deal of discipline.

Presenter7:25

It's not required to do a lot of that.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP7:26

Not required to do anything with that now, but you know, I tell you, there is a similarity in the job of politics to being in the theatre, and that is very hard work, both of them.

Presenter7:37

Both of them. Mm. Something which of course your parents knew a lot about. They were in the textile business, weren't they?

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP7:40

We were

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP7:43

Both my parents worked in textiles in the West Riding of Yorkshire. My father was unemployed a good deal. My mother was a weaver. She worked five and a half days a week. She used to say, Well, the reason I work and your father doesn't is because I'm not employed for my sex appeal. I'm just employed because my rate of pay is r lower than that of your father.

Speaker 18:05

Yeah.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP8:06

And my father was at was I remember him being at home quite a g a good deal of the time when I went to and fro from school.

Presenter8:12

And he did the housework when he was in it.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP8:14

He did the housework for my mother.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP8:16

But what he would do he would draw the curtains, so that the neighbors wouldn't see a man scrubbing the floors and doing housework.

Presenter8:22

Bring the floor.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP8:24

Uh

Presenter8:24

And in the winter he prayed for snow.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP8:25

In the winter we all of us wanted snow. We would turn off the electric light, we would sit in the firelight and talk, we'd save a bit of money that way, and we would pray for snow so that my father got a job from the corporation shoveling snow the next morning.

Presenter8:42

Hm. Um but there must have been some treats in life. I mean, you must have had the the divvy from the co-op.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP8:46

And we have that the Divi.

Presenter8:46

We had

Presenter8:47

Uh

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP8:47

Uh From the co-op, actually, was saved for my dancing lessons. Yes.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP8:55

Let's have record number two. Well, record number two is Flannagan and Alan underneath the arches. I like this. It shows the resilience uh and humour, I think, of the dispossessed, and their haunting voices are most attractive to me.

Speaker 39:09

Leaving when it's raining.

Speaker 39:13

And sleepy when it's fine.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP9:13

And slavery with its far

Speaker 19:15

Uh

Speaker 39:18

Strange travelling by bondaby duba.

Speaker 19:20

Uh

Speaker 39:25

Finally, I alone

Speaker 39:28

Where thou'd a sheet will lay?

Speaker 39:33

Underneath the arches

Presenter9:34

Yeah

Speaker 39:35

We dream our dreams away.

Presenter9:35

We

Presenter9:39

Flanagan and Alan, and Underneath the Arches. You learned shorthand and typing, Betty, and nursed an ambition to be a window dresser.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP9:47

Why why was that? What was the appeal? Well, uh w when I was very young, before I went to technical college, I used to enjoy looking in the shop windows in my home town, and there was one particular window just full of everything.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP10:01

Whale-bone corsets, pins and needles, and I just thought it would be lovely to be a window dresser and do windows like that. Why did you want to arrange them? Why it just seemed so neat and tidy to put them all in in that order. I mean, I'd never seen the big shops such as there are in all the the you know the big cities now and be things beautifully arranged, but this seemed to me to be a just a wonderful job to have, very creative. But it was not for me, I'm afraid. I um got a scholarship to Dewsbury Technical College and I

Speaker 110:01

Uh

Presenter10:01

Whale bone

Presenter10:07

Why did you

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP10:32

When father wanted me to go there very much'cause he said, Girl, you've got to earn your own living. You might not get married, and therefore who's going to take care of you? And I was taught the things that enabled me to earn a living shorthand typing, mathematics, English grammar, all of those.

Presenter10:47

But you've gone on nevertheless being neat and tidy.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP10:50

I hope so. You know, I still stuff my shoes every night when I take them off with tissue paper. I have to say I've got a few shoe trees these days. I've graduated somewhat.

Speaker 111:01

Some

Speaker 311:01

Uh

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP11:02

And I ta when I take my my skirt off, I w do I wear a black skirt and white blouse and a jacket and as when I take those off, the neck of the jacket is brushed and everything is hung out. As your father enjoyed. He was very smart. I love the old photographs of him with his watch train. He looks absolutely super. But you enjoy.

Presenter11:14

Johnson has

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP11:24

Door you're closed

Presenter11:24

And

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP11:25

Cheers.

Presenter11:25

Yeah. Yes. But now you're confined to this black and white for now.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP11:27

I'm confined now to black and white. Um, yes, I wear a black skirt, it's my working skirt, I've got more than one, I admit, and a white blouse, and then when I go into the chamber, of course, I wear the black silk robe over the top, and buckle shoes, and black stockings.

Presenter11:46

But when you get out of there, do you

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP11:48

To rip them off and put something bright red? No, I don't. Only at the weekends because, um

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP11:52

I go back into the chamber at nine thirty every night for the last hour or last hour and a half. So it's not worth while changing. I mean, I do have uh to go to a dinner party in the evening, or I more often I give one in Speaker's House. But I don't change. It's not w I don't have time. I mean, I walk out of a dinner party at nine twenty and I go back to the chamber.

Presenter12:12

Night.

Presenter12:14

What about the hair? Because that has to look good because you've shunned the the full bottom traditional wing.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP12:19

Well yes, I felt that I really couldn't work in a wig. I'd never worn a wig. I'd never even worn one in my pantomime days as Prince Charming. So I certainly felt that I couldn't wear a full bottom wig. The house obviously understood. My hair, okay, I think I was on the front row when hair was given out, and it's not too bad, it's natural and curly, so so I can cope with that.

Presenter12:40

But you have to have a regular shampoo and set.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP12:42

Lags do that Sunday nights. Really? Yes. They come to you? No, I do it myself. And once a month when I need it cutting, they come to me.

Presenter12:47

Oh, yeah.

Presenter12:50

What about uh wait, how much do you care about that? Because I read that you have a penchant for House of Commons chips.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP12:55

I care a lot about weight, but I don't do anything about it. I've been at this I'm not going to tell you my weight, uh but I've been at this weight now for quite a long time. And I have a very lovely lady who is a housekeeper in Speaker's House, and uh she sympathizes with me, but she does cook me the most delicious meals, and I can't resist them, so I I tend to stay at this weight.

Presenter13:14

Hmm.

Presenter13:18

But you're not a great drinker. I think milk is your favorite tip on the market.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP13:19

Okay.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP13:20

Milk is better than with high cholesterol, I've had to stop that, even though even skim milk. So it's orange juice and tomato juice. Another record.

Presenter13:29

Yeah.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP13:29

Yeah.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP13:30

Oh, I Judy Garland. Um I want to hear a piece from her Carnegie Hall concert, which was recorded now some years ago, Rockaby. I've always enjoyed Judy Garland, and this she is now at the peak of her profession that she sings from Carnegie Hall.

Speaker 313:51

Naming kisses I'll deliver

Speaker 313:57

If you only play that Swany River rock-abite, you're rock-a-bye baby with a Dixie.

Speaker 113:59

Ah

Speaker 314:11

Mm

Presenter14:15

Judy Garland singing Rockaby Your Baby recorded at her nineteen sixty one Carnegie Hall concert.

Presenter14:21

When did politics enter your life then, Betty?

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP14:24

I think from the moment I was born, I think I came out of the womb into the Labour movement. Uh my parents were involved very much at a local level. Our front room was always given over to uh Labour Party meetings as well as to wakes and weddings and things like that. And it was the committee room on Polling Day. So I was brought up in the Labour movement and I was in the League of Youth as soon as I was fifteen, sixteen.

Presenter14:50

You were good at public speaking from the start, apparently.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP14:52

Apparently, yes. I won one or two competitions when I was young, which is rather nice.

Presenter14:56

And you found two very good patrons and tutors eventually in the Labour MPs, Geoffrey DeFreitas and Barbara Castle. How did they help you?

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP15:04

They were enormously supportive. I did return to London in the early fifties to work in the House of Commons for both Geoffrey Defreytis and Barbara Castle. Members used to share a secretary in those days. And they were very helpful. I learned a lot from Barbara, of course, who just never gives up and you'll just go on and on and on. And Geoffrey Defreyas and his family were enormously supportive in wanting me to be to become a candidate and eventually to become an MP.

Presenter15:31

Hm. At what point did you decide then that you could do better than the MPs themselves and be one yourself?

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP15:36

I felt this in nineteen fifty five, fifty six. And I was on a the Labour Party list as a candidate, but I had not been selected. And I went to see the General Secretary of the Labour Party to say, look, why don't you put me on List A, which was the most prominent list? And he said

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP15:55

Elas, you should get some age on your shoulders first.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP16:00

And I went back to the House of Commons where I worked and I calculated the average age of members on the Conservative benches and those on the Labour benches. And Labour members were far, far older than those on the Conservative benches. And I thought, whether the Labour Party wants me or not as a candidate, I am going to try. And I was selected for the by-election in South East Leicester in 1957. A 20,000 Tory majority, and I was the only person who believed I could win it. It was great fun.

Presenter16:32

You were what, you were twenty-eight by then. But you'd had a lot of difficulty getting selected as well, hadn't you?

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP16:34

But you'd have to

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP16:38

I had because of the I felt that the Labour Party was very um chauvinist. It was looking after the men and not quite so much the women in those days. Took you, what, sixteen years? Took me sixteen years. I think I ought to be in the Guinness Book of Records for the girl most unlikely to succeed.

Presenter16:50

To me, sixty years

Presenter16:57

But eventually, um West Bromwich West, 1973, sixteen years after you first tried, you became an MP. Can you recall the elation?

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP17:04

I can. And I have today in the study and speakers' house a wonderful photograph taken at two o'clock in the morning, uh what I

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP17:13

certainly don't look tired, and nor did my very aged mother, and she's given me a spanking kiss on the cheek, and it is a wonderful photograph, and it did win an award. It's just full of sparkle and life, and I I see it well, of course, every day of my life, and remember all that wonderful day.

Presenter17:31

Record number four.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP17:32

Uh oh gosh, this is Ted Heath band playing Opus One. Now, this reminds me of my days in Dewsbury, Town Hall, Saturday night hop and the jitterbugging.

Presenter18:44

The Ted Heath band playing Opus One.

Presenter18:47

The House of Commons then became your life, Betty Boothroy, twenty years ago, and it has been ever since. What is it that you find so all absorbing about it? Can you sum it up?

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP18:56

Yeah.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP18:56

I like parliamentary procedures. I like the democracy of this country, the way it works. It's not perfect by any means, but it has stood us in good stead for a very long time. I'm very proud of it, and I seek to protect it.

Presenter19:12

And you've enjoyed, too, as a single person, all the other things it has to offer, its clubby atmosphere, its tea rooms, bars, and colleagues, and gossip, and so on but now you can't have any.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP19:21

No, I miss that very much. See, once one becomes Speaker, the House really says, Well, look, here we give you a home in the Palace of Westminster. Get on with your life there. Don't interfere with us. And I by tradition I'm not allowed to go round the tea rooms, the bars, or any of the the dining rooms. I miss it enormously, you know. The camaraderie of just standing in line for a cup of tea and a sandwich and sitting down for ten minutes with somebody and then moving on and and and all the social uh chit chat I I missed.

Presenter19:54

You've even got your own little patch of terrace, haven't you?

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP19:56

I have, yes, I helped him use it.

Presenter19:57

You can't even have a cup of tea with a fellow MP unless it's asked them in.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP20:00

Unless I ask them in, you see, and and which I do. I see members, of course. I'm not isolated to that extent. But then you're playing hostess, and you're not sort of part of the all.

Presenter20:10

And you can invite secretaries of state. I mean, you have their ear, you have them round.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP20:13

Yes, it's wonderful. I can't vote, of course, and I can't speak in the House, which may seem strange to some people, but when I was a backbencher, I used to have to go and make representations to a Secretary of State about what I needed in my constituency. Now it's wonderful because they come and see me. You can send for them.

Presenter20:34

But ultimately you you're a person apart. Uh you've sacrificed, as you say, your political voice, your social life in the House. You've given up your London flat because you have to live in Speaker's House. It's very fine and impressive, but it's very formal.

Presenter20:47

You must therefore be really quite lonely on occasions.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP20:51

No, I don't know really what.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP20:53

Loneliness is, I think loneliness comes in a number of packages.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP20:59

I don't think I've ever been lonely in my life. I enjoy my own company. I was an only child and I was brought up to take care of myself in that respect. The loneliness that I occasionally feel is in decision making.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP21:14

At the end of the day, when you've listened to all the advice and it is very good advice.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP21:20

It is given to me.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP21:21

I have to make the decision. The buck stops with me.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP21:26

And it's in that decision making that I sometimes find a loneliness. Once or twice I find myself standing in my study in Speaker's house high up there, looking out over the terrace and the river, and saying to myself, I wonder if I've done it correctly.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP21:44

But

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP21:45

So far I know I've always made the correct decision, and I hope it's always been a quality decision.

Presenter21:52

Did you did you have that kind of terrible angst over the decision over the Maastricht vote?

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP22:00

Yes, I did have it at that time. I was questioning myself the whole time.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP22:05

Is it the right thing to do? Uh taking everything into consideration.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP22:10

I felt lonely.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP22:11

Right up to the last minute, and I told no one, other than the clerk of the house, what I intended to do, right until the last moment.

Presenter22:19

Does it keep you awake at night, that kind of thing?

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP22:20

Yes.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP22:22

I make no bones about it. I toss and turn, it does, and I put the light on and I read.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP22:27

And I toss and turn again.

Presenter22:29

Record number five.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP22:30

I'd like some music from Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty, because I enjoy the ballet enormously, and I have the video of the Kirov Ballet, which I watch, I have to say, on rainy Sunday afternoons.

Presenter23:43

The Rose Adagio from Act One of Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty, played by the Philemonia Orchestra conducted by John Launchbury.

Presenter23:50

You weren't the front runner when the post of Speaker became vacant, not least because you were a member of the opposition, and historically the speaker comes from the government side. But it was also the case that the post was uncontested usually. Why were you so determined to contest it?

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP24:05

I felt it was right that I should have a go at it. I had been Deputy Speaker for many years. There were a lot of friends in the House who were looking to me to run for the post.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP24:17

And when the time came, okay I said to myself, Betty, what, win or lose, just go for gold.

Presenter24:22

And you said, Elect me for what I am, not for what I was born, in your speech. What did you mean by that?

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP24:29

Elect me because you know me. I have been your deputy for a very long time. You know I am fair, you know I am just. Elect me for what I am and what you know of me in that respect, not for what I was born, a woman.

Presenter24:44

And your critics, um you know, the crusty old traditionalists have kind of fallen away now, haven't?

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP24:49

I think they have. I think they've melted a little.

Presenter24:51

I mean, someone observed the other day that in your year or so of office you you've risen from the kind of ordinary obscurity, if obscurity it is that a an ordinary MP has to national stardom without making too many enemies.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP25:06

I hope that is right. I don't set out to make enemies. I don't want to rise to stardom. I really just want to do a job, you know. I'm really terribly proud of the fact that uh I'm Speaker. Um it really is tremendous for womankind. It's wonderful for my constituency. It it's not sort of to me personally, but it almost brings tears to my eyes with the pride I have in doing that job and the faith that people have in me. And therefore I have got to do it well. Don't want stardom. I just want to be known as a jolly good speaker, and a nice girl, and somebody who has been very fair and just all round.

Presenter25:44

Do you ever sitting in that large chair? It's quite large, that chair, isn't it?

Presenter25:49

Do you ever have those moments of blinding amnesia when you simply can't remember and members?

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP25:53

Of course. I mean, um I have a terrible time. Um

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP25:58

I know the person very well, and the the name goes, and I'm inclined to say, Oh, the very handsome man there, Honourable Member on the fourth row back, and twenty of them stand up. It's fatal. But I do have help from a very good secretary who stands by the chair, and if I forget a name, he tends to latch on to it, so we help each other out like that. But it is frightening, is this amnesia? It really is, and terrifies me.

Presenter26:24

Do you ever have moments of of blind panic? Have you ever had a moment of ordinary panic then, when when the house is really getting out of control and we hear you shouting order, order, order, but somehow you don't seem to be able to bring that

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP26:38

I do have moments like that, and all I can do then is to remain standing.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP26:44

Call order, to demand order, and of course if I didn't get it, I would have to suspend. I haven't had occasion to do that as yet. I don't want to do that. But it takes time to get the house to order. It's there's as I said earlier, there are a lot of robust people there who want to make themselves heard.

Speaker 126:51

Uh

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP27:06

Next piece of music.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP27:08

This is Placido Domingo singing You Are My Heart's Delight and I

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP27:13

Oh, this melts my heart, and it brings me to order.

Speaker 327:19

I least mine guns as hell for the

Speaker 327:25

This is good issue needs to be far

Speaker 327:32

Oh beauty blue and best, and the city's face There's one and shore

Speaker 327:48

Praise my trust display while there's the law.

Speaker 327:55

I'll stay button.

Speaker 328:04

I'm my name.

Presenter28:19

Placido Domingo singing Dein is mein Ganses Hertz

Presenter28:23

The hours in the commons, Betty Boothroyd, make it uh difficult for anyone, really, who wants uh a full and active family life. Do you feel that you've substituted the one for the other in a way that the commons, if you like, is your family?

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP28:36

Yes, I do. I w it I think it must be wonderful to have a family and a home, uh that sort of structure. Uh but I think I've sacrificed it in order to devote my entire life to the commons. So I have sacrificed a family, but at the same time it makes up for it in the most enjoyable job and a very privileged job that I'm able to do.

Presenter28:51

So I have

Presenter29:00

But did you decide against marriage at some point? Or it's not apparently from everything that I've been told for a lack of admirers.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP29:07

I didn't decide against it. I was very active when I worked in the House of Commons. I had great opportunities to travel with parliamentary delegations, which I did certainly to most places in Europe, and to um the Far East and to China and Vietnam. And of course I was fighting elections and by-elections. And it's not every man who's going to sort of wait until you've finished all that you want to do like that. They're going to find some other girl. So I think the timing wasn't right for me. I wasn't against it, it just didn't come at the right time.

Speaker 129:27

Every

Presenter29:32

So I

Presenter29:36

But it didn't happen at the right time.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP29:37

Yeah.

Presenter29:38

But you are, aren't you, a very young

Presenter29:40

Homely sort of person in the proper sense, not the pejorative sense of the word. I mean, you like your own hearth, your own heart, your own nourishing.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP29:43

Let's go.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP29:45

Very high.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP29:47

Absolutely. I enjoy cooking. I like cooking for myself, which I do when I get the odd weekend at home. I enjoy my own home. I've got a nice little cottage in Cambridgeshire, fourteenth century beamed little doll's house, and I love being there. Nothing excites me more than getting into my car and getting home. I find that very exciting and very nice.

Presenter30:10

But I presume one of the uh problems about being on your own in life is that people always assume you want to be invited out.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP30:15

That's not always true.

Presenter30:16

Dude.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP30:16

How right you are How right you are Lots of friends and neighbours think, Oh, she's on her own, we'll ask her out and I as we discussed earlier, I do enjoy my own company. I don't mind a bit being on my own. I just like to garden and cook and uh read and watch a bit of television.

Presenter30:33

What's the most decadent thing you ever do in your life?

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP30:35

Stay in bed on a Sunday morning reading a book and drinking coffee. Until what time? Oh, about half past ten. It's disgusting, isn't it? I I don't even read the newspapers. I just potter downstairs, make coffee, take it back upstairs, and my favourite book, whatever I'm reading at the time, Marvels.

Presenter30:53

Next piece of music.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP30:54

I'd like a very old number now. It's um Fred Astaire with Johnny Greene in his orchestra. No strings. I like this because it's carefree.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP31:04

and fun and there's a lovely tap routine in it.

Speaker 331:06

Like robin upon a tree, like sailor goes to sea, like an unwritten melody, I'm free that's

Speaker 331:15

So bring on the big attraction. My decks are clear for action. I'm fancy free and free for anything. Fancy!

Presenter31:37

Fredester with Johnny Green and his orchestra and no strings. So you'll be dancing tap or can can or whatever it is, Betty Guthroyd, like the owl or the pussycat on the edge of the sand on your desert island. Will you be happy to be there? I mean, will you be able to cope? Would you be able to construct a shelter or look after yourself if you if there was no body and nothing else, really?

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP31:57

I I don't think I'm capable of doing much f in that respect. Building a shelter, I doubt that I could do that. In terms of food, well, I just if there were any leaves around that I could chew on or grasses, that's what I would do. I of course there'd be no snorkeling equipment there, so I couldn't attempt to catch fish, I guess.

Presenter32:16

I could swim and try that.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP32:17

I could swim. I'd try that. Oh, no. Oh, I have a love i a hate relationship with the water. I enjoy swimming in it, but I wouldn't try and swim away at all, no.

Presenter32:29

You could always shout down a passing ship'cause you've had some practice.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP32:32

I would yell yes order order

Presenter32:33

I have

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP32:36

Ah.

Presenter32:36

Yeah.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP32:36

Last record. My last one is Ethel Merman. I'd like her singing. There's no business like show business. Ethel Merman had wonderful voice. I mean, she could crack a chandelier with a high note. And also, although it's not part of this particular show, I when I was deputy speaker, I stepped into the chair.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP32:56

And the member who was speaking looked up from his notes, very surprised, and he said, What do we call you? and I remembered Ethel Merman in another show, and I stood to my great height, or whatever it is, and said, Call me Madam.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP33:12

And they did, so here comes Ethel Merman with no business like show business.

Speaker 333:20

No business like show business like no business I know You get word before the show has started That your favorite uncle died at dawn And top of that your pie have hardened Your broken hearted, but you go on There's no people like show people They smile when they are

Presenter33:47

Ethel Merman singing There's No Business Like Show Business from Annie Get Your Gun.

Presenter33:51

Now which of the eight records, Betty Boothroyd, would you keep if you could only keep one?

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP33:56

I'd select Judy Garland because it's a long player and I'm cheating a bit, so maybe I get a little bit more than rock a buy. But Judy has vitality, and I think when I'm down in the dumps she would be the great pick me up that I need.

Presenter34:10

What about

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP34:11

Your book.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP34:12

I'm not going to take War and Peace, because I'm sure I'm going to find a Milduke copy somewhere, so only other people have taken it. I'm going to take a gamble.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP34:19

I haven't read it. It's a it's a book called A Suitable Boy.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP34:22

And the writer is a man called Vikram Seth.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP34:26

It's had good reviews and it's a love story set in post independent India. But the essential element, I think, for A Castaway is that it's got thirteen hundred pages, which is rather more than War and Peace. And what about a luxury?

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP34:42

Oh, my luxury is going to be the mace of the House of Commons.

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP34:47

I'm being rather cunning because

Rt Hon Betty Boothroyd MP34:49

I think that if I had the mace with me, then the sergeant at arms would send out the navy and the air force to find the mace and I will be rescued.

Presenter34:59

Betty Boothroyd, Madam Speaker, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your Desert Island discs.

Speaker 135:11

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