Rt Hon Virginia Bottomley MP

Rt Hon Virginia Bottomley MP0:00

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.

Rt Hon Virginia Bottomley MP0:08

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

Presenter0:29

My castaway this week is a politician. I feel deeply, she says, that we were put on this earth to do good. She was brought up in London, part of a large family which has always been very important to her. Her husband became an MP in nineteen seventy five, and after several attempts she followed him nine years later.

Presenter0:47

Since then she's been rapidly promoted, as befits someone who was not made head girl at school, but has, in her own words, been determined to prove them wrong ever since. To day she's the Secretary of State for Health, Virginia Bottomley.

Presenter1:00

Virginia, public service is patently very strong in you as an ethic, but there must be easier ways of serving than being health secretary at the moment. Maybe.

Presenter1:09

But it is a tremendous privilege to be Health Secretary for a service which really around the world is so highly regarded. But do you enjoy it? I mean, is there enjoyment in it? I love it. I believe in it.

Rt Hon Virginia Bottomley MP1:17

It's the enjoyment.

Presenter1:20

It's one of those jobs you know you won't do forever, but I'm determined that when I do it, I'll do it the best I can. But how can you enjoy it with all of that antagonism? I mean, people throwing eggs at you when you arrive at places and disgruntled doctors and nursing bodies complaining, demonstrations, confrontations, bitterness. Yes, that's not what you see, though, if you call in at an accident emergency service at midnight. That's not what you see.

Presenter1:45

If you go round a hospice, if you go round a ward in any of our hospitals up and down the country, you see people wanting to do good, wanting to give to others. That's what brings them into the health service. And that's what motivates them. The funny thing is, if you ask the public, time and again, they say, what a wonderful health service, you couldn't fault it. But that's still the politician talking. I mean,

Presenter2:09

Are you always now the politician, or is there a real you in there somewhere? There must be, or you wouldn't be human, who sometimes flops down on the bed or on the sofa and says, My God, I wish I'd never seen or heard of the Health Service. I never, never think that. I never think anything other than it's a Health Service of which to be enormously proud. There are certainly moments you think.

Presenter2:29

You know, my goodness, you know, there must be an easier way of earning a living.

Presenter2:32

Um but the one thing you know is that you won't do it forever. The great thing about politics is you on the whole don't deserve your appointments, you don't deserve your disappointments. You have to be prepared for that. Let's talk about music for a minute, because as I understand it, one of your means of escape from all of the responsibilities and worries of this political world you inhabit is that you turn music on very loudly.

Presenter2:54

It depends on my mood, yes. But certainly because I'm somebody who's always thinking about everything, I'm thinking about the constituency, I'm thinking about the Health Service, I'm thinking about Parliament, I'm thinking about a huge number of things. If I really want to concentrate, I put on music and I put it on very loud.

Presenter3:10

And so your first record is is the kind of piece that you would do that with, is it?

Presenter3:15

It's the kind of uh music I work to the Exultati Gibbilati, Mozart's piece that he wrote when he was seventeen. It just sets me alight. I just feel wonderful and exhilarated.

Presenter3:30

And somehow, from time to time, you look at the boxes, you look at the papers, you think, My goodness, life is all about insoluble problems. Listen to the music, and really all problems become soluble.

Speaker 43:54

Oh Son.

Speaker 43:59

Oh, sorry, baby or the mix.

Presenter4:36

Kiritakana were singing the motette Exultate Jubilate by Mozart with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Colin Davis.

Presenter4:44

Obviously being Secretary of State for Health has taken over your life. It's more than a full-time job and you're in the office late at night, you're on our radio and television screens early in the morning. It all comes with the territory. But how much do you worry about getting your life out of balance, that the job is taking all you have to give?

Presenter5:01

I am very lucky in that I come from this extraordinary tribe.

Presenter5:06

and a tribe that is always there, and a tribe that's there when things are tough as well as when things are going well. And I keep in very close touch. I've spent every summer holidays of my life in the same house in the Isle of Wight.

Presenter5:18

And therefore, so long as I feel I can keep in touch with my relations, with my friends, then I know who I really am. And I often say I'm a bit like somebody who's working for finals, or I'm like one of my uncles or aunts when they were doing a posting overseas. You know, I hope when it's all over they will remember who I am.

Presenter5:36

And they'll still be there. But you work for finals for a very short period of time in comparison. I mean.

Rt Hon Virginia Bottomley MP5:39

Okay, timing.

Presenter5:41

To be working at that kind of pace under that kind of pressure every day must mean that daughter age twelve at home, husband get a bit neglected. Do they complain? Well, they seem to be terribly supportive. It's one of the things that's touched me most is the great friendship and support o of my family, and that's been one of the least of the complications. But does sometimes your daughter ring you up in the office and say, come home, Mummy.

Rt Hon Virginia Bottomley MP6:01

But also

Rt Hon Virginia Bottomley MP6:05

Come whom, money?

Presenter6:07

I think that uh misses Thatcher once sort of gave a very good advice, that uh it isn't only the quantity, it's the quality of time you spend with your children, and it's the sort of sense of being reliable, the sense of being a rock.

Presenter6:19

The sense of being predictable. What about your husband though? He he um he was of course a junior minister himself and he isn't that any longer. You've sort of outstripped him in career terms. Uh has that altered your relationship at all?

Presenter6:33

I think so Peter has been my best friend for thirty three years or something.

Presenter6:39

And um he's just somebody of tremendous

Presenter6:43

Good cheer, of great generosity. He's not somebody, frankly, who particularly enjoyed the detailed team working required of a minister. It's a waste of his talents. I mean, frankly, the life of a backbencher is joyous. You can take up any passing campaign or crusade. You can be as difficult as you like to the government, although I think he's rather more helpful to the government perhaps than he always otherwise would because of solidarity with me. And that's simply any sense of competitiveness is something that he wouldn't know or understand. Record number two. My second record is Tom Bowling.

Presenter7:21

A sea shanty, a sad sea shanty.

Presenter7:24

goes back, though, to childhood where we all sang round the piano in the Isle of Wight in this great

Presenter7:30

Tribal Haven

Presenter7:32

where where we gathered, and just a lovely piece of music, and so evocative, the the the one played on the cello.

Presenter8:39

TOM BOLLING, played by the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Henry Wood.

Presenter8:44

Tell me some more about this this clan of yours, which includes the the Jay family, although the the family name is Garnet, isn't it? You were Virginia Garnet.

Presenter8:51

And this huge sense of tradition. You've never missed a year of this bucket and spade. Been uh spent every summer.

Presenter8:57

been to the Isle of Wight. And what is so extraordinary is the way our children do the same. This summer our oldest son came back from Ecuador to be in the Isle of Wight in August. Our daughter, who's now in her twenties, she also returned. And it's it's extraordinary. It's like

Presenter9:15

Whatever happens, somehow we'll be there, and somehow it's miserable, terrible feuds, and rows, and rages, and other times, in all is sunshine and uh and peace.

Presenter9:24

And you always think it's funny that it's by the sea, because that's what the sea is like, you know, tormentous one moment and flat calm another. But it does give a great sense of strength to to all of us, young and old, that somehow you're prepared through life for the next stage, and you've seen people's fortunes wax and wane, and does send us back feeling stronger. My grandmother used to say what you needed was a a month by the seaside in the sunshine to keep you going through the winter in town. Well, now we're not allowed to sit in the sunshine too long because we're told it gives us ca skin cancer. But there's something about at least for your mental health sets you up for the year.

Rt Hon Virginia Bottomley MP9:54

Gives us k

Presenter9:59

But it was during one of those long, hot, or not so hot Augusts on the Isle of Wight that uh that the young Peter Bottomley pitched his tent in your garden, quite literally. How old were you at the time?

Rt Hon Virginia Bottomley MP10:09

Well I

Presenter10:10

I first met him uh when I was twelve because his father and my uh um uncle worked uh in the diplomatic service together.

Presenter10:18

Then he was at school with my brother, and he came down in his tent, and when my mother said to him, you know, How long are you staying, Peter? he said, Well, I'm just playing it by air. His parents were abroad at the time.

Presenter10:29

And really from there on I always say he didn't really marry me for myself, he really married me so he could join this uh great tribe in the Isle of Wight. He's a greater supporter of the whole the whole uh uh outfit, I think, almost than I am. Record number three.

Presenter10:45

My third record is Will Your Anchor Hold in the Storms of Life. I think this is really what it's all about. There are good times and there are bad times, but will your anchor hold? And uh that matters.

Speaker 411:02

In the songs of night

Speaker 411:06

Unfold their winds of strife when the strong tides end the cable strain when your hand runs

Speaker 411:40

From here, from that

Speaker 411:43

In the same.

Presenter11:48

Will your anchor hold in the storms of life sung by the combined Stythian's male voice and ladies' choirs?

Presenter11:55

Your father and your aunt, Virginia Bottomley, have been quoted as saying that they didn't think you enjoyed being a child very much. Does that ring any bells? Oh, it certainly rings a bell. I'm often asked now to give away prizes at schools.

Presenter12:08

And um I always say don't think your school days are the happiest days of your life. It gets better and better after that. Why was that? Because of what you've described is an idyllic childhood. And I was so serious, though, and I was so earnest.

Rt Hon Virginia Bottomley MP12:15

And I will

Rt Hon Virginia Bottomley MP12:18

Yeah.

Presenter12:21

And um I always wanted to change the world. I just didn't like being in a child's skin. But you're still quite serious and quite earnest. I'm still quite serious and quite earnest. But I do also have um all the kind of freedom and independence of being an adult.

Presenter12:36

And, um oh, being an adult is so much better than being a child. Is it? You were apparently very strong and idealistic and pushed the au pair out of the kitchen when you were six because she didn't know what she was doing. Oh, I think I was desperate. And then if for example, um my father did his best. Uh in the Isle of Wight we have these great Napoleonic forts out to sea, a mile out.

Presenter12:57

And the tradition always was that our great uncles swam to these forts when they were eighteen, and I think my father's generation swam when they were seventeen.

Presenter13:06

And I think I was so difficult that when I was ten my father took me off and I swum to the fort then. But I can imagine, you know, just being one of those people who, so long as I had a really difficult task in hand, I was fine. As soon as there was nothing to do, sort of like the camel's hump. I mean, it was a pain in the neck. Your father said that that you could never be budged when you decided to do something, and that was the problem with family life. I think all of that is true. And I often think that many of the characteristics that must have made me insufferable as a child are all the things that most work to my advantage as a politician. You know, I will listen so far, and then there comes a moment where, come what may, I'm not budging. So you admit to being quite tough. It seems to me to be quite an important point because every profile one reads of you that's been written over the past, what, five years or more, eventually poses a question which never seems to be answered, which is, is she hard? Is she tough underneath this professional front, or is she soft?

Rt Hon Virginia Bottomley MP13:45

The second one.

Presenter14:03

Is she a kind of bimbo? Or is she a battle-axe? My daughter said to me the other day, Mum, they don't understand you, but the truth is you're both. And I think a lot of women are like that. Publicly, women are more caring, they are more empathetic. But at the same time, I think a lot of women do have a real gritty steeliness about them, and I'm very aware that I'm like that. But what they're also asking, of course, is.

Presenter14:26

Is she like misses Thatcher?

Presenter14:29

Yes, I don't think she's really like Mrs. Thatcher. I'm really far more of a consensus seeker, I think, and just a different sort of person. But I'm certainly a great a great fan of Mrs. Thatcher's. She wasn't a great fan of yours, was she? No, I don't think she probably was. She blocked your your um being appointed to the Department of the Environment in about eighty-seven, didn't she?

Rt Hon Virginia Bottomley MP14:37

I'm certainly

Presenter14:48

It may be. Certainly, when I was summoned to Downing Street to become a minister, I was terribly surprised, because Willie Whitelaw had always apparently said you can't have the two of them in government. Peter was then a transport minister, and there was no question of me being a minister.

Presenter15:03

And so when she said would I go as a Minister of the Environment? I was totally taken aback, and the next thing I said was, Well, um, Prime Minister, I don't know anything about it. So she said very firmly, Well, in that case, Virginia, you'll just have to read it up, won't you? But I suppose the other question that people are posing when they think about you or write about you is something that we've already begun to touch on and has come through in in what you've been saying is

Presenter15:26

Are you too good to be true?

Presenter15:29

We're back to is really is th all of this altruism really honest? Is there really very little in it for you? On a great number of fronts. Um there's a huge amount in it for me. But it just so happens that some people, I suppose, are motivated by building up worldly wealth. Some people are motivated by maybe the parties they go to or their appearance. What motivates me is the sense that one's using the skills that one brought into this world.

Presenter15:58

To make an impact, to make a contribution. Now, I hate to sound sort of priggish or pious, but I can be no other. What I like doing is campaigning. Ever since I was a child I've campaigned about uh uh the problems of people in long stay psychiatric and mental handicap hospitals. So then to be Secretary of State for Health when you can do something about it, I mean that is a reward in itself.

Presenter16:23

Next piece of music.

Presenter16:26

Next piece of music is really uh a piece of music uh for Peter.

Presenter16:30

its flounders and swan a transport of delight.

Presenter16:34

This is good natured, and it's funny, and uh, Peter, my great friend.

Presenter16:39

is good natured and generous and funny, and of course the great thing about Michael Flanders is that he had a great deal of adversity.

Presenter16:49

And as so often out of adversity come people who are dedicated to giving other people pleasure. So I love this.

Speaker 316:57

Such means of locomotion seem rather dull to us, the driver and conductor of a London omnibus. Hold, but if I please tainting, hold but if I please tainting, when you are lost in London and you don't know where you are, you'll hear my voice a calling both further down the car. And very soon you'll find yourself inside the terminus in a London transport diesel engine, 97 horsepower omnibus.

Speaker 317:26

Along the Queen's Grey Line

Presenter17:28

Michael Flanders and Donald Swann and a transport of delight. I'm still fascinated to know where Virginia Bottomley, or perhaps it was Virginia Garnet the Tory, came from. I mean

Presenter17:38

Listening to you talking about caring and the community and and the family belief in being a pillar of society, one would think that you had more in common with Shirley Williams than with Ed Edwina Currie. I think that um I was influenced by a number of things. When I was at Essex University, I became very impatient by the protests and the marches and the campaigns of the left.

Presenter18:02

which always seemed terribly self-indulgent. They never actually did anything. And I began to notice it was the Tories who actually did something and raised money for age concern and helped on the Meals on Wheels campaigns. And then I think I was deeply influenced by somebody who was a previous holder of my office, Keith Joseph, and his work, funnily enough, doing the job that I do now, had an enormous impact.

Presenter18:26

But th there is also this large part of you that is the is the natural social worker, isn't there? I mean uh at at the age of nineteen you were pregnant and married and you had a house in Lambeth which you opened up to all sorts of lame ducks, Kenyan Asians and neighbours going through a bad marital patch. I mean were you happy in that role, keeping open house for anybody who needed you? Yes, we've always had a sort of a house. Somebody once came to our house and said, What is this? Is it a community centre?

Presenter18:55

But both Peter and I come from these large families where there are always hangers on and people coming to stay and our children treat the house in the same way. So you don't mind that kind of invasion of your territory, your your home, do you? Your home isn't important to you in the material sense. My home is very important to me, though, as as a place that is my world.

Rt Hon Virginia Bottomley MP19:02

So you

Presenter19:13

But it's a world which I'm always very happy to share with others. I mean, I cannot cook to save my life, and I certainly can't cook for four or six. But if you tell me that I've got kind of thirty young people coming for lunch on Sunday, I can probably cope with that better than I can cope with three and four. But my home my home matters a lot. But you're not housewifely, obviously.

Rt Hon Virginia Bottomley MP19:33

But you're not

Presenter19:35

I'm desperate. I really am uh not my strong card. Uh and sometimes sort of I think people have a sort of view of me as being a kind of superwoman. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Presenter19:47

Next record.

Presenter19:48

Next record is part of the Vivaldi's concerto for mandolin.

Presenter19:54

I used to listen to this when I was working for the Child Poverty Action Group.

Presenter19:58

In my typical fashion I always had to go that extra mile.

Presenter20:03

One of the families I was working with, on their expenditure, I've got so concerned about, they came back and spent a Christmas with us. I used to get tremendously involved in their everyday lives, and sometimes it was really quite luring. There was a particular shop near Macklin Street, where the CPAG was, which was always playing this wonderful mandolin concerto at lunch time. I used to walk out at lunch time just to lift my spirits before I went back. This wonderful ethereal spiritual music. And they're what we have now.

Presenter20:34

Is it in my constituency, in Hazelmere?

Presenter20:37

There's a family, the Dolmetch family, who make old English instruments.

Presenter20:41

and they annually have a concert of Old English music.

Presenter20:45

And there again they play Vivaldi's mandolin concerto.

Presenter20:50

and it's what I find time and again as I grow older.

Presenter20:53

It's the kind of tapestry of life, it's the connections through life.

Presenter21:56

Part of Vivaldi's concerto for mandolin, played by the Venetian soloists conducted by Claudio Schimone.

Presenter22:04

You said there, Virginia, in my typical fashion I went the extra mile.

Presenter22:08

Does your that kind of resolution, your the determined side of your character, does that annoy you? Do you do you find it really a problem? Or do you not like it in yourself?

Presenter22:19

Well

Presenter22:20

I think it's

Presenter22:21

Useful to have a job that uses all that energy.

Presenter22:25

But I laugh at myself now, looking back and seeing that way in which I I can't bear to leave any stone unturned. But it goes back to that that business, as I say, that that crops up in the papers about your being a a bit of a goody two shoes. I mean, do you worry about that? Do you worry that sometimes you you look and sound really rather pie?

Presenter22:46

I think I just have to be the person that I am.

Presenter22:50

You can only be what you are, you can only do what you believe in.

Presenter22:55

Um I I'm not subtle enough to be untruthful, you know, it's too complicated.

Presenter23:01

Let's talk about the Isle of Wight, which you as you say is dear to your heart, and you fought the eighty three general election there. Um and you really believed you were going to win, didn't you? Really believed I was going to win. Fought

Presenter23:14

In a way I could never have believed possible I campaigned for all I was worth, and I went to the prisons and the hospitals and the factories, and goodness knows what.

Presenter23:22

There was one wonderful woman always saying, you know, why is misses Bottomley going round all these prisons and factories at schools? Why isn't she making lunch for her children?

Presenter23:31

To which misses Bottomless Children used to say, Yes, but mum, she hasn't tried your lunches. But um I lost by three thousand votes, which was actually not bad, but anyway you lost. Thirty five thousand votes and I lost.

Speaker 423:36

Anyway.

Rt Hon Virginia Bottomley MP23:38

Three thousand v

Presenter23:44

But again, life is so strange, because, in fact, for my family it would have been a pain in the neck.

Presenter23:50

The Isle of Wight's the place of rest and recreation, and the idea that mum was constantly on duty would have been really pretty grim for all concerned. And who would have who would have believed?

Presenter24:00

that within a year I'd be the Member of Parliament for a lovely constituency, exactly halfway between the Isle of Wight and London. So that happened, as you say, the following year, eighty four. You got Surrey South West at a by election following the death of Maurice Macmillan.

Presenter24:15

And the rest of your career is history, really, isn't it? Um P P S to Patton and Howe and Junior Minister in Environment and Health, before you got the big one, after John Major won the election. You got it in April'ninety two. Have you ever felt, though, like the token woman? Do you think you've got further, faster, because you're a woman?

Presenter24:34

Well, I dare say. I mean, I goodness knows why appointments are are made, and it's a complicated stuff.

Presenter24:40

I remember commenting at the time that there was a time when nearly everybody in the Cabinet was an old Etonian. Now we've got the same number of old Etonians as we have women in the Cabinet. I'm certainly very pleased that Gillian Shepherd's there with me. But you think you do have to put up with the constant

Rt Hon Virginia Bottomley MP24:53

But you think

Presenter24:56

Sexist jibes, not within the Cabinet, I hope, but certainly from other politicians and pundits. I mean, they write about the Ginny Charm offensive, don't they? And they talk about you doling out the distasteful medicine with a winning smile. Do you find all that offensive? Or again, is it does it come with the territory? With a great pinch of salt. I mean, they they will always say something, uh, and therefore.

Presenter25:17

Let them say what they want to say, so long as I'm clear in my own mind that I'm doing what what I believe in. What about all the super case, you know, Nurse Bossy Boots and Mary Poppins?

Presenter25:27

Is it just a bore?

Rt Hon Virginia Bottomley MP25:27

Is it just a

Presenter25:29

There's some truth in it.

Presenter25:31

But um it doesn't matter to me.

Speaker 425:34

But where's the truth?

Presenter25:38

No, that I am that I am an enthusiast, that that I really do believe in campaigning. I think that's that's where the truth in it is.

Presenter25:46

Record number six.

Presenter25:48

Record number six is Lauren Hardy.

Presenter25:51

The Trail of the Lonesome Pine. This was the campaign song in the Isle of Wight.

Presenter25:55

There was a wonderful moment where Margaret Thatcher arrived on a hovercraft to sort of bid me uh Godspeed and to to rally the troops. And as we went round this wonderful uh and really lovely island uh with all the spring flowers coming out, we had a great lorry, and this tune burst forth from the lorry.

Speaker 426:18

Blue-rich mountains of Virginia On the trail of the lonesome pine In the pale moonshine A horse and twine Where she carved her name And I carved mine or two Orton just like a mountain of blue Like a pine I am lonesome

Presenter26:46

Laurel and Hardy and the Trail of the Lonesome Pine and the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.

Presenter26:52

I want to talk to you, of course, about the health service. Do you use it for yourself and your family?

Presenter26:58

Oh, I've always used the health service and uh

Presenter27:02

always had the best possible care from the Health Service.

Presenter27:05

But what would you do if, for example, your your child had the the classic hearing problem that could be resolved with a simple operation, but you had to wait six weeks or more on the NHS and you could have it done next week privately, and in the meantime your daughter was uncomfortable and her work at school was suffering. What would you do?

Presenter27:23

I can't believe that I would do anything other than wait for the Health Service appointment to come round, and waiting at the moment for my daughter to have her teeth seen to. That is something that that I accept.

Presenter27:34

With the Health Service, you can't have instant treatment of every case, regardless of whether or not they need treatment. Otherwise, you would have huge spare capacity waiting for people suddenly to arrive. But presumably, you could afford private health care. I've never had an employer that offered to pay for me to have private health care. And I don't have a vendetta against people who use the private sector. It's just that I do think the Health Service is the most remarkable service. And yet it's such an unhappy place, and not a week goes by that we don't hear stories of demoralised doctors or underpaid nurses or lack of staff, lack of attention to patients. How can people believe that what's really going on is in the best interests of the patients?

Presenter28:20

I really don't think that's right. I think that there's a great spotlight on health,'cause health matters to us all.

Presenter28:27

individually, in our families, in our communities.

Presenter28:31

And time and again I will be announcing improvements on waiting times, quality improvements, different ways of providing a service, for example, to parents who've had a stillborn child, little small developments all over the country. They never get the attention they deserve. But it's also, isn't it, because people are constantly suspicious about the health service in Tory hands. They don't necessarily believe it is safe. And they believe that because over the past fourteen years the Conservative Government has broken up and deregulated and privatised every other state service or utility, that health can't really be that different. I don't think that is the perception now. I mean, certainly people wanting to come into the health service, whether as nurses or doctors, the whole recruitment levels are incredible.

Presenter29:21

I think the whole development of the fundholders, the trusts, the whole significance of the distinction between providing a service and purchasing a service

Presenter29:29

really provide the Health Service with the opportunity to be the envy of the world in the next century as the way they have for the last decades. Number seven. Number seven.

Presenter29:42

is part of Traviata, Verdi's Traviata. Now, on the whole at home people know what sort of day it's going to be. If it's just a normal day, then I'll be up at six ish and listening to the news, working. I'm an I'm I'm an early morning uh worker, and I'm Cinderella, I'm completely sort of knocked out by midnight.

Presenter29:59

Uh but if it's a really tough day and I'm really gonna have a bit of a

Presenter30:03

battle with the treasury or I'm going to have a grilling from the select committee. Then we have opera. It could start anything, you know, after five or something early in the morning. Very loud. And the whole world knows that if Verdis Traviota is what we're hearing early in the morning from my study, then, you know, watch out, keep out of the way. I've really got a towel round my head.

Speaker 430:26

Christmas and gone

Presenter30:27

Yeah.

Rt Hon Virginia Bottomley MP30:28

Yeah.

Rt Hon Virginia Bottomley MP30:30

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 430:32

O Siri Gos Ari.

Speaker 430:48

Totoi Tore.

Rt Hon Virginia Bottomley MP30:48

What a

Speaker 430:52

Uh

Speaker 431:11

Um for you must not

Presenter31:17

Alfredo Kraus singing the aria Pura sicome un angelo from the second act of Verde's La Traviata with the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Riccardo Mutti.

Presenter31:27

What will you do on the desert island, Virginia Bottomly? Could you cope without this family and support system, this clan, this tribe? I would be very bleak indeed.

Presenter31:39

I do not think I would cope at all. Would you curl up and die?

Presenter31:45

What would you do let me ask you this one, which has nothing to do with Desert Islanders what would you do should there turn out to be a leadership race, and at some point sooner or later there has to be one. Do you see yourself standing one day as party leader? I'm such a great supporter and admirer of our Prime Minister. I just can't conceive of that.

Presenter32:03

The worry is always anarchy and apathy. People are cynical about all politicians. Nobody can be cynical about our Prime Minister.

Presenter32:12

And uh I just am, you know, a great champion for his cause. But Mrs Thatcher, if I may draw the parallel, and you must have done before, or people must have done it to you, that uh she was your age when she was at education in the early seventies under Ted Heath, and three or four years later she was party leader, albeit in opposition. There are parallels there if you want to see them. I don't see them. Anyway, I think I'm somebody who so enjoys running my own department, having my own area of activity and responsibility. I simply want to do my job as well as I can. But are you then one of the few cabinet ministers who would admit that you're not up to the job of being prime minister when you say you like a specific area and perhaps couldn't cope with the whole range? Is that what you're saying? Well, I'm just so content with what I'm doing, and I uh see and respect and admire.

Presenter33:04

The the Prime Minister and all that he's doing. It's not something that I remotely contemplate. Last record.

Presenter33:12

Well, the last record is Ready Me.

Presenter33:14

This is um Stevie Wonder. I just called to say I love you. I um live on the telephone. Certainly I work dreadful hours and I'm always in the constituency or some far-flung a part of the country speaking. But I like to be in touch and I'm a terrible person for ringing up. And they say it oh, it's her again. Oh, it's her again. But I just need to say hello. Just need to let my children of whom I'm so proud know I love them.

Speaker 433:44

To say

Speaker 433:46

I love you.

Speaker 433:50

I just go.

Speaker 433:52

To say how much I care.

Speaker 433:58

I just got

Speaker 434:01

To say

Speaker 434:03

I love you.

Speaker 434:07

And I mean it from the bottom of my heart.

Presenter34:12

Uh

Presenter34:13

Stevie Wonder, and I just called to say I love you. So if you could only take one of those eight records. Oh, the Mozart. The Exultati Giulati.

Presenter34:22

What about your book?

Presenter34:23

Now my book I've enjoyed thinking about.

Presenter34:27

And my grandfather was a great astronomer, a mathematician, and we used to say good night to him in the Isle of Wight, and he always gave us a bit of chocolate when we went to see him. And he used to try and teach me about astronomy. And what I'm going to take with me is Norton's Star Atlas,'cause I have a lot of time to really mug it up.

Presenter34:46

When he died

Presenter34:48

His obituary in the Times said he was a practical idealist. I think I'd like my obituary to say I was a practical idealist. And you brought the book with you? I brought the book with me. You're ready to set sail. I'm ready to set sail.

Rt Hon Virginia Bottomley MP34:58

You'll

Presenter35:02

But not really. I'm just hoping that somebody will come and rescue me. What about your luxury?

Presenter35:08

I just don't think I could live without

Presenter35:11

Piped Today program.

Presenter35:14

I am a Today programme addict.

Presenter35:16

I will get deeply exasperated, because they won't always get it right, and I will want to ring them up and say, Now, look, really, to day programme, you may be a very good programme, but the balance isn't quite right. But I know I will have to put up with that. So I contemplated whether the exasperation would be too great. But no. What I'd like, please, is piped to day programme.

Presenter35:37

You shall have it. Virginia Bottomley, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs. Many thanks.

Rt Hon Virginia Bottomley MP35:49

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