Kathleen Hale

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 four, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:28

My Castaway this week is a writer and illustrator. Her childhood in Manchester was rather lonely, but her life as a young woman after the First World War in London was full of incident and excitement. Often penniless, yet always fascinated by the artistic world, she lived the bohemian life, at one point as secretary to the painter Augustus John. In 1926, marriage brought her stability, but twelve years later, boredom awoke her talent, and she published her illustrated story about Orlando the Marmalade Cat. Altogether she wrote 18 Orlando books, beautifully illustrated, charmingly written, and regarded by many as the epitome of good children's literature. Their creator, now ninety-six, would like to be remembered for her serious work, but admits somehow Orlando took over. She is Kathleen Hale.

Presenter1:19

Why was Orlando created out of boredom, Kathleen? Boredom of whom or what?

Kathleen Hale1:25

When my son, the elder son, was four and a half, there was just Beatrix Potter and Baba the Elephant and Ardidzoni. And really, though they're superb, and always will be,

Kathleen Hale1:38

I got awfully bored repeating these things. And then I um was talking to my friend C. K. Ogden, and I said the trouble about having

Kathleen Hale1:48

Children. I said there were no good children's books to read. And he said, Well, who better?

Kathleen Hale1:55

Than the mother to write children's books. So I had right, and we had a cat called Orlando, and it

Kathleen Hale2:02

And of course to a small four-year-old a cat is another person.

Kathleen Hale2:07

So I started telling him stories which I made up. But now, w why Orlando? Why was the cat called Orlando?

Kathleen Hale2:14

Ah, well, there's no sensible reason for that. It's just that when my husband and I were in Italy and we were sitting on a

Kathleen Hale2:22

Remote railway station waiting for a train.

Kathleen Hale2:26

On the platform opposite was an enormous lady with a little tiny table and a a white tablecloth down to the floor, and she was selling lemonade and things like that, limonadi or whatever it was, you know, and she suddenly said, Orlando, orlando and then I thought an enormous husband would appear.

Kathleen Hale2:48

Then a little boy with red hair peered underneath the

Kathleen Hale2:51

Tablecloth, looking up at her, you see. So I said to Douglas, Well, we call that Cat Orlando.

Presenter2:58

And and the situations that you put Orlando in, Orlando goes camping or Orlando goes abroad were all situations that had happened to you so you could sketch them was the point. But the character of Orlando was your husband.

Kathleen Hale3:12

Yes, mainly. I mean upright, honest

Kathleen Hale3:16

full of integrity and caring for his family. I I romanticized him, you know. There couldn't have been a man as good as Orlando. But

Presenter3:25

Solid and devoted. Yes. But in which case, were you were you Grace, the the nice devoted wife in the frilly apron who was ever full of warmth and feminine charm and sympathy?

Kathleen Hale3:36

The end.

Presenter3:37

Uh

Kathleen Hale3:37

Uh Yeah, she is entirely fictitious. She was the sort of woman I would like to be.

Kathleen Hale3:43

And she's exactly the opposite. I would like to be slightly dotty.

Kathleen Hale3:46

and um carefree and uh you know just sort of really feminine. And I'm the absolute opposite to all that.

Presenter3:56

You in the Orlando books at all?

Kathleen Hale3:58

My character well, yes, um, romanticized and soft and tinkle.

Kathleen Hale4:04

I was always getting into trouble. I never knew why. And Tinker was the same. Wayward, rebellious, very naughty. Ah, well, I was called naughty, and the head mistress, who was a wonderfully well known

Kathleen Hale4:18

Avant garde had missed she was marvellous.

Kathleen Hale4:21

She said that she I was the naughtiest girl she'd ever had, and there were always six hundred of us, so that was rather an accolade, wasn't it?

Presenter4:29

Let's turn to your records. Now, what's the first one that you would play as a castaway? Tell me about it.

Kathleen Hale4:35

Gertrude Lawrence singing experiment from Nymph Erland

Kathleen Hale4:40

Kell Porter.

Kathleen Hale4:41

And it's my younger son who said I must use it because I have always experimented. That's my watchword, really.

Speaker 44:49

Be curious, though interfering friends may crown. Get furious at each attempt to hold you down. If this advice you'll only employ, the future can offer you infinite joy and mariner.

Kathleen Hale5:07

Ah

Speaker 45:14

A city man

Presenter5:17

You see

Presenter5:18

Gertrude Laurence singing Experiment from Coalporter's Nymph Errant, and a reminder for Kathleen Hale of an experimental and rebellious youth. But you had a fairly miserable childhood, Kathleen, unlike Orlando's cosy family life. Was there part of you in writing that that was trying to compensate for what you hadn't had?

Kathleen Hale5:37

I didn't have a uh an un an unhappy childhood because I made my own childhood. I had a very good childhood, but no f no love and affection in it.

Presenter5:47

Why not?

Kathleen Hale5:48

Well, my father died when I was five, and I think everything went wrong after that, because we were parked out with various cruel Victorian aunts who were adepts at mental torture.

Kathleen Hale6:02

And, um, until I was nine. And then, uh m uh mother had got a a home together for us and w we

Kathleen Hale6:12

and my sister and my brother joined him. Well, m mother for some reason nagged at me, and it's not my imagination, because my sister, who was five years older, said she never could imagine why my mother was anti book.

Kathleen Hale6:29

with me because she was uh well, they both loved each other and were just, you know, interested in everything.

Kathleen Hale6:37

Together

Kathleen Hale6:38

And um so I got used to being nagged.

Kathleen Hale6:42

I seem to be always doing something wrong, and I never could understand. I'm not sorry for myself, but I just couldn't understand.

Kathleen Hale6:49

She would take away my sketch book, and of course I was absolutely besotted by drawing.

Presenter6:54

So she would take those away as a punishment, knowing how much it would hurt.

Kathleen Hale6:57

How much it would have?

Kathleen Hale6:59

And that was torture.

Presenter7:01

And what sort of things were you drawing?

Kathleen Hale7:02

At the time.

Kathleen Hale7:04

horses, like most little girls and I had no horse or anything, but I used to spend a lot of time in the farrier's shop, you know, and would be given a ride home to their farm on the they were like billiard tables, enormous horses.

Kathleen Hale7:21

And, um, oh, I used to do later on, I used to do caricatures of the

Kathleen Hale7:26

Um it warred young ladies that were milling around me and everywhere, you know.

Presenter7:32

And and did you know you were good?

Kathleen Hale7:35

No, I just knew knew that that was what I had to do.

Presenter7:38

And

Kathleen Hale7:38

What

Presenter7:39

Was it not spotted at school that you had this talent?

Kathleen Hale7:41

Yes, it eventually after they

Kathleen Hale7:43

I refused to d do any lesson at all. Now I spent nine years in the corridor in disgrace. This marvellous headmistress said, Well, she's very good at drawing.

Kathleen Hale7:55

let her drop everything except English,'cause I wrote stories about the mill girls in Manchester in dialect. And I don't know. I wish I could know what I wrote, but they were thought very good.

Kathleen Hale8:08

So I was allowed to do English. And then I loved the sound of French. And I used to go about

Kathleen Hale8:15

talking mock French at gibberish.

Kathleen Hale8:19

And so I was allowed to do go to the French lessons. And the rest of the time I was

Kathleen Hale8:25

sent upstairs to the beautiful studio, school studio, and just drew and painted.

Presenter8:31

But it was the school in the end who put you in for a scholarship at Reading, wasn't it? Yes. And that was a great turning point for you.

Kathleen Hale8:38

Yes, and it was very funny because my sister, who was very, very popular and very good at gymnastics and all the lessons and so on, always got all the prizes. And here was her

Kathleen Hale8:50

awful kid sister having to go up on speech day and receive uh something, which was just a roll of um parchment with the pink ribbon round it. There was nothing written on it.

Kathleen Hale9:03

But she was a bit upset, I think, about that.

Presenter9:07

Tell me about your second record.

Kathleen Hale9:09

Well, imagining myself on a desert island, I thought in order not to go mad, I must keep myself reasonably lighthearted. And then I wanted to have records from

Kathleen Hale9:22

other countries in the world to give me some kind of contact with the real world and that somebody from Lebanon or somewhere might come and rescue me.

Presenter9:32

So this is what? Tell me about this record.

Kathleen Hale9:34

This is Kuban.

Kathleen Hale9:36

Rumba Azul. I loved the the um

Kathleen Hale9:40

Cool music in Iowa's week.

Kathleen Hale9:42

Good and keen dancer.

Speaker 49:45

Why not?

Speaker 49:50

Let's do things one.

Speaker 410:02

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 410:08

Aya ya ya

Speaker 410:14

Mada Tirido piru diro ridu de piru iro doses me cantar porum vastur tiri ki tri ki tri ki tri

Presenter10:33

Rumba Azool, played by the Le Cuona Cuban boys. So you were crazy about dancing by the time you got to London in the twenties, Kathleen.

Kathleen Hale10:42

Well, I re became crazy on arriving in London. I hadn't danced before, but I landed up in a a bohemian so called club and everybody danced, and I was dancing with tango before I knew what was happening.

Presenter10:57

I read somewhere that you made yourself a dress out of handkerchiefs at one point.

Kathleen Hale11:00

Oh, yes, the sort of um jumper thing with liberties, one s silk handkerchief for each sleeve. And one for the f

Presenter11:09

Front and one for the back. Hand sewn. But you didn't have much money. You you obviously had, although it was fun, it was obviously quite a tough life. Didn't you actually cut off your hair and sell it at one point?

Kathleen Hale11:19

Uh

Presenter11:19

Yeah.

Kathleen Hale11:19

Oh yes, I've got five pounds for that.

Presenter11:21

How long a piece of hair was it?

Kathleen Hale11:23

It was so long and so heavy, when I tied it did it up with hundreds of hairpins, it would slowly uncoil and slide down the back of my neck with hairpins too. So it was quite long.

Kathleen Hale11:36

But it was quite a racy thing to do.

Presenter11:38

Really, to cut your hair off shorts then wasn't

Kathleen Hale11:38

I wasn't the first, but uh at the Reading University I was and they said that they said I'd have to go down. They couldn't accept. So I said, Well, I haven't

Kathleen Hale11:50

cut off my morals and my hair, and then a long silence, and I found I was still enrolled as a student.

Presenter11:57

And then during the war, that fir the First World War, you became a a land girl.

Kathleen Hale12:02

Yes.

Presenter12:02

What did you have to do?

Kathleen Hale12:04

Oh, it was the most wonderful job. I insisted upon being a carter, because I wasn't going to hoe cabbages, that wasn't my idea. Well, I really didn't know anything about how to look after a horse, and I was given a huge one which used to stand on my feet, and I'd hang him all way at it and it wouldn't move.

Kathleen Hale12:23

Anyway, it was at Barnes, just beyond Hammersmith, where there was a huge vegetable farm, and they used to sell their produce at Covent Garden. And I also was one of the carters who had to leave the farm at midnight and find a way to Covent Garden.

Kathleen Hale12:42

Put the horses in the stable and back having backed the wagon into the pitch, right pitch, and then the costermongers and people would come along with their donkey carts, and I would give them their cabbages and things, and they would give me Tutton's tip. I nearly said, Oh, but you need it more than I do. And I thought, Shut up, Kathleen, take it.

Kathleen Hale13:06

Record number three.

Presenter13:06

Uh

Kathleen Hale13:07

Well, I I like Scott Joplin very much indeed. I don't know why. Everybody does like him. And the Maple Leaf Rag especially. And I don't know of anybody else who composes like him. He seems to me quite original. And

Kathleen Hale13:23

Makes one happy.

Presenter14:20

Scott Joplin and Maple Leaf Rag. There were, as I understand it, two courts of artists in London in the twenties. There was Jacob Epstein, the sculptor, and then the other one led by the painter Augustus John. You were a member of the Epstein circle to start with. W what were your impressions of him and them?

Kathleen Hale14:40

He was very, very um reserved and very solemn and a great man. It was his wife that I liked. She was she was his first wife and she was enormous and Scottish. She was like a great jelly that was just melting. And she called me Childy and they took me on Sundays.

Kathleen Hale15:03

to the Cafe Royal, which was a meeting place for all artists and bookies and thugs and aristocrats, anything you and wonderful harlots, two specially wonderful ones. And I used to go with them and drink their coffee, ma'e grande, it was called.

Kathleen Hale15:23

Until Epstein realized that I was I'd met Augustus John, he said, or I can't remember exactly, but well, you either belong to us

Kathleen Hale15:35

And don't have anything to do with Augustus or the other way around. Well, Augustus was much more fun.

Presenter15:40

But but Epstein disapproved of of the Bohemian set as it were. He his was the serious-minded set.

Kathleen Hale15:43

A Bohemian set as well.

Kathleen Hale15:46

Yeah.

Presenter15:47

How did you come to meet Augustus, John?

Kathleen Hale15:49

It was a competition open to everybody.

Kathleen Hale15:53

To design a poster for some distressed country, Greece perhaps or something.

Kathleen Hale15:59

And I won it.

Kathleen Hale16:01

and it was twenty five pounds, which was a lot then. And after all, I won it in front of the whole of London.

Kathleen Hale16:09

And then I saw Augustus, and I knew he was one of the judges, so I thought I'll pull his leg.

Kathleen Hale16:15

So I said, went up to him and said, Thank you so much for the twenty-five pounds.

Kathleen Hale16:21

and his look of horror

Kathleen Hale16:23

Re muttered I never had to pay for it.

Kathleen Hale16:27

And so I I left him sort of seething with anxiety, you know. Didn't know who was going to blackmail him next. So then I finally told him, and he was quite happy.

Kathleen Hale16:38

Oh, he said, What do you do?

Kathleen Hale16:40

for a living. So I said, Well, I'm working for a window cleaner at the moment, trying to collect bad debts. But I've done some drawings I'd like to show you and he was very taken with them. And he offered you a job. Yes, he said, Come and be my secretary. So instead of earning thirty five

Presenter16:51

And they often

Kathleen Hale16:57

shillings a week, which I was just scraping together, I got two pounds and all my meals.

Presenter17:03

And what did you think of him? Because he was a a fascinating character, wasn't he? And you obviously are you've written that you felt a frissant every time he came into the room.

Kathleen Hale17:12

Yes. Wasn't romantic, it wasn't sex, it was just s some

Kathleen Hale17:17

Spirit has arrived or some strange freesome.

Presenter17:21

He was at the height of his fame then, wasn't he?

Kathleen Hale17:24

Yeah.

Presenter17:24

All these famous people, I mean T. Lawrence and and Thomas Hardy and Yeats, everybody wanted their picture painted by Augustus Johnson.

Kathleen Hale17:30

He wanted

Kathleen Hale17:32

And Madame Suja, she was playing her cello down in the studio.

Presenter17:37

What she played her cello while he painted it.

Kathleen Hale17:39

Yes. It just boomed up the stairs. I couldn't find out any music in it, but it was a wonderful feeling.

Presenter17:45

But he was an outrageous flirt, wasn't he?

Kathleen Hale17:48

Oh, yes, but it was women were silly. I mean, one of his opening gambits, which he tried on me, was I'd like to knock a baby out of you. Well, I mean

Kathleen Hale17:59

Really? Did did he say that to all the women?

Kathleen Hale18:02

Well, I c I wasn't always there, but.

Presenter18:05

Yeah.

Kathleen Hale18:05

You presumed he did? Oh yes.

Presenter18:07

Let's have record number four.

Kathleen Hale18:10

Ah, yes. Augustus was one of the first people to go as a

Kathleen Hale18:15

Well, I can't say tourist, but to go and to Spain, and it was a very thrilling thing to do. And he was absolutely besotted by the country and the people and the music. And he brought back several sets of music.

Kathleen Hale18:31

And he gave me a set. And La Sardonna

Kathleen Hale18:35

The Les Manges? I don't know how you pronounce it.

Kathleen Hale18:39

I think it's so lovely. And of course it's one of the um list of music from different countries.

Presenter19:45

La Sardana de les Monches, played by La Principal de Perelada.

Presenter19:50

Life was obviously great fun, Kathleen, living in Chelsea in the early twenties, mixing with all those famous people, Sickert and Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant, lunch at the Cheshire Cheese, and dinner at the Savoy.

Kathleen Hale19:58

Duncan.

Kathleen Hale20:01

With a s

Presenter20:02

But nevertheless, you fared ill. You you were under nourished, were you?

Kathleen Hale20:06

Yes, I got a duodenal also, which I had for years.

Presenter20:10

So it was a really hand-to-mouth experience.

Kathleen Hale20:12

Oh, yes. And then the I had one or two rich men, young men, who took a fancy to me and who take me to oh Simpsons.

Kathleen Hale20:22

I've had roast beef, you know.

Kathleen Hale20:24

I'd have a a lovely great meal and then I could do without eating for the next day. You know, it was

Presenter20:29

No, it was that kind of life.

Presenter20:31

But it was in nineteen twenty three that you were really poorly, and you were taken to the London Fever Hospital, weren't you?

Kathleen Hale20:36

Yes.

Presenter20:37

And treated by a man who was to change your life, Dr. John MacLean. Tell me about him.

Kathleen Hale20:43

Well, it's very difficult because he was so stupendous. He was very tall and a magnificent man altogether. And I think

Kathleen Hale20:52

I felt when I met him.

Kathleen Hale20:54

Here is my father.

Kathleen Hale20:56

This is the father I've been looking for.

Presenter20:59

And he was sixty six at the time when you met, and you were what you would have been twenty five.

Presenter21:04

And you've written that in order not to lose me he transferred me to Douglas, yes, his son.

Kathleen Hale21:09

Yeah.

Presenter21:11

He wanted to keep you in the family, so he wanted you to marry his son.

Kathleen Hale21:12

Yeah

Kathleen Hale21:13

We both loved each other, John and I. We really did.

Presenter21:16

Yeah.

Kathleen Hale21:17

And he decided he was too old. I didn't know he was making these decisions.

Presenter21:22

And what did you think and feel when you realized that he wanted you to marry his son, not him?

Kathleen Hale21:29

Well, then I thought, well, this is my miss missing brother, presumably.

Kathleen Hale21:34

And it will complete my family, you know?

Kathleen Hale21:38

That was the reason. I never meant to marry Douglas and I never

Kathleen Hale21:43

Felton fell in love with him.

Kathleen Hale21:46

Per se.

Kathleen Hale21:48

But it was stupid near John, really?

Presenter21:50

But you fell in friendship with him. Yes.

Kathleen Hale21:52

Yeah. Yeah.

Presenter21:53

Uh

Presenter21:54

Um and you married him and you spent the next forty-one years together? Yes.

Kathleen Hale21:59

Extraordinary, isn't it?

Presenter22:00

But you've written that you

Presenter22:03

Abandoned a magic world when you married reason and moderation. Yes. So.

Presenter22:09

Uh there's a suggestion, there's a hint of regret there, isn't there?

Kathleen Hale22:12

I've regretted it always.

Kathleen Hale22:15

And a great friend of mine, a woman, said, When Kathleen married Douglas her light went out.

Kathleen Hale22:22

Well, it was just

Kathleen Hale22:24

I lost my self-confidence'cause he Douglas was very serious. He was a remarkable man, but uh so serious and no sense of fun.

Presenter22:33

So he didn't excite you, but he gave you the security that you felt you wanted.

Kathleen Hale22:38

Well, I wanted children.

Kathleen Hale22:40

Very definitely and desperately. Douglas, uh, he took me out to theatres and that sort of thing. And he also took me to the

Kathleen Hale22:48

Hospital for Sick Children in Great Ormond Street because he was a path pathologist then.

Kathleen Hale22:54

And he had all these little patients and we went I went with him from bed to bed and they adored him. I thought, oh, he'd make a good parent.

Kathleen Hale23:04

And that's what really pushed me over.

Presenter23:07

So you made your decision and you stuck by it.

Kathleen Hale23:09

Yeah.

Presenter23:11

Let's have record number five.

Kathleen Hale23:13

The Cafe Mozart Walls from the Third Man.

Kathleen Hale23:17

Everybody was crazy about the third man, weren't they? The Ziddar I had never heard of Ziddar before.

Presenter23:49

Cafe Mozart Waltz from The Third Man played by Anton Karas.

Presenter23:53

It was, of course, Kathleen Hale one thing to make up the Orlando stories, but quite another to get them published,'cause you wanted them to be so big and so colourful, didn't you? Piers

Kathleen Hale24:03

I did the illustrations in seven colours. So for two years, in the hands of an agent, those first two books went the rounds, and nobody would take them.

Presenter24:14

They were too expensive, actually.

Kathleen Hale24:15

Yes, I learnt later that Mefion had kicked himself for not having it, but seven colours was no good.

Kathleen Hale24:21

And nothing happened until they landed up

Kathleen Hale24:24

On the desk of Noel Carrington, who was the the editor of the children's books for country life.

Kathleen Hale24:32

And he liked them so much, and he called in his friend, the printer, Geoffrey Smith.

Kathleen Hale24:38

What can be done with this? And Geoffrey said, well, for a start.

Kathleen Hale24:43

reduce them to four colors, which is financially f feasible and, of course, much better. Instead of having pearl grey and beige and

Kathleen Hale24:53

pink and these things. I had the primary colors and black, and you can get such wonderful purples and emerald greens and olive greens and oranges, that sort of thing, with four colors.

Presenter25:05

But they didn't then really take off with country life. It was later on, wasn't it, with Puffin that they really went.

Kathleen Hale25:12

Puffin asked me to do, and I did the first two of their fiction series, and I said.

Kathleen Hale25:18

I do it for them on condition that they listed my country life books on the back amongst the credits. And of course immediately

Kathleen Hale25:28

The big ones were a success.

Presenter25:31

So all through the war and through the fifties you wrote Orlando's Seaside Holiday, Orlando's Magic Carpet, Orlando the Judge. But were they always based still on your experience? Yes. You had the sketches to go with them as it were, every time.

Kathleen Hale25:43

Yeah.

Kathleen Hale25:46

Um now the magic carpet. I have tried again and again to retire because I felt it was vulgar to write a whole lot of books all on the same subject.

Kathleen Hale25:58

And Country Life offered me four hundred pounds advanced royalties if I would do another book.

Kathleen Hale26:05

When I received an invitation from two friends of mine who lived in Beirut, and I longed to go there or anywhere abroad,

Kathleen Hale26:14

And um so I accepted it and went there and the magic carpet is a result of my visit to Beirut.

Presenter26:22

We should have your next record there, I think.

Kathleen Hale26:24

Yeah.

Presenter26:24

Yeah.

Kathleen Hale26:25

Shiraz singing Kite.

Kathleen Hale26:28

I I'm not responsible for this at all because I don't know what it's about. It was in some one of the Beirut languages of which there are so many and it was a hit tune at that time. But it might be anything, it might be obscene, it might be subversive, I I'm not responsible, but I liked it very much.

Speaker 426:50

Uli Swai with Hainalai, Zahir Inti with Habi Sway.

Kathleen Hale27:46

I hope somebody who is listening to this program is Lebanese and could send me a translation. I mean it.

Presenter27:54

Shira singing Kite. Um those books certainly made you famous, Kathleen. Did they make you rich?

Kathleen Hale28:00

No. Um I was rich for the first two years.

Kathleen Hale28:05

And then the paper shortage put an end to it.

Presenter28:08

But did but did having that success, being in demand again, being your own person, did it bring back some of the magic and excitement that you perhaps felt you'd sacrificed for family life?

Kathleen Hale28:20

No, it was quite different. It wasn't anything like the magic. But it was completely I was besotted by the books. I never stopped thinking of them night and day. I got taken over by those cats.

Presenter28:32

But you said, as I mentioned at the beginning, that you would

Presenter28:36

rather have uh pursued some of the more serious side of of your talent. You slightly resent, perhaps, these days, that Orlando did take you over so much. What would you like to be remembered for, if not for Orlando?

Kathleen Hale28:49

I would like to have been a writer, you see. I had the two pulling at me, and the drawing was um the easiest thing,'cause you start at four years old to do it.

Kathleen Hale29:00

And writing.

Kathleen Hale29:02

I don't I couldn't have made a living by writing. And do you still draw?

Kathleen Hale29:08

Yes, I a few weeks ago I I had I drew a garden gate when I had to sit in the car because I can't walk, and the others went off and enjoyed themselves. And there was an old broken down garden gate, and I started and I've got I've still got the capacity. I'm a very good draughtswoman.

Presenter29:25

And do you still enjoy it? Does it still give you the same pleasure?

Kathleen Hale29:26

This is a pleasure.

Kathleen Hale29:28

Yes, it's mixed well it it's a timeless thing. You feel eternal.

Kathleen Hale29:33

I mean, there's no worries. You don't have any worries and

Kathleen Hale29:37

You're not mortal.

Presenter29:39

It's a marvellous talent, isn't it, that can remain with you for so long. And you're ninety six years old and you've been drawing since you were four, and you still get pleasure from it.

Kathleen Hale29:42

Yeah.

Kathleen Hale29:48

Well, I suppose it's the same pleasure you get from writing or composing music.

Kathleen Hale29:53

It's a complete fulfilment and an absolute outside yourself. It's the thing you're drawing.

Kathleen Hale30:00

Do you lose sense of time? Oh, absolutely. Yes. That's what I mean by saying that one is eternal.

Kathleen Hale30:06

Let's have record number seven.

Kathleen Hale30:09

Well, of course all these um records I've chosen first of all because I like them.

Kathleen Hale30:16

And then I've given reasons for liking them, and this is and also wanting to have different countries. And James Galway playing Annie's song.

Kathleen Hale30:25

With his miraculous flute, he's Irish, so I got on to Ireland. Oh, and it is so lovely.

Presenter31:24

That was James Galway playing Annie's song.

Presenter31:26

Your husband died, Kathleen, twenty seven years ago, and your boys, of course, were grown up then, so you spent another lifetime, really, on your own. Have you managed to find

Presenter31:38

as much enjoyment as you did earlier in your life, which you seem to have done at different points in your life, despite adverse circumstances.

Kathleen Hale31:45

Yes, I've always felt that however old you got, life was just as interesting. I mean, I though I've lost old friends through death, I've made new ones, and all this what's happening in the world is extremely interesting.

Presenter32:01

What about you on a desert island? Um not your ideal habitat, I would have thought.

Kathleen Hale32:05

Hardly, but on the other hand, you see

Kathleen Hale32:08

What desert island is it? It could be tropical, complete with Man Friday?

Kathleen Hale32:14

What could be better?

Kathleen Hale32:16

Everything to eat, a lovely man to take you out fishing?

Presenter32:19

Bye.

Presenter32:20

And as you look back across your your ninety six years of life,

Presenter32:24

Which bit of it will you enjoy on your desert island recalling most? What for you quite quite selfishly, now this is a selfish question, you know, what what was the highlight for you?

Kathleen Hale32:34

So many. You see, I lived in kind of epochs, and each epoch took me into a different circle of friends, and I met those terribly interesting people.

Presenter32:35

Yeah.

Kathleen Hale32:46

I can't think why they bothered with me, because I'm not an intellectual.

Kathleen Hale32:51

And Douglas said, Well, you're a good companion.

Kathleen Hale32:54

I I can't think why they had anything to do with me.

Kathleen Hale32:58

Tell me about your last record.

Kathleen Hale33:00

My first introduction to music was when I was a student at uh Reading University and the the music students used to give us a a concert. One of them would sing and then

Kathleen Hale33:13

Suddenly it was one played a bach fue.

Kathleen Hale33:17

Um

Kathleen Hale33:19

Well, uh it's it's just as though one was above the earth and floating.

Kathleen Hale33:25

I always felt it was like a

Kathleen Hale33:27

A hoard of white horses.

Kathleen Hale33:30

galloping rhythmically along up in the clouds, and their manes and tails following. I would be so absorbed by it that I wouldn't worry if I wasn't rescued.

Presenter34:41

Part of Bach's Prelude and Fugue No. One in C major, played by Glenn Gould. Now, Kathleen, if you could only take one of those records with you, which one would you have to choose?

Kathleen Hale34:51

The Spanish one, I think.

Presenter34:53

That's the one Augustus John gave to you.

Kathleen Hale34:54

Yeah.

Presenter34:56

Right. And what about your book? What book would you like?

Kathleen Hale34:58

Take with you. It's Marcel Proust's Remembrance of Things Past.

Kathleen Hale35:05

And I've chosen th this book because Jeff's Wood, who was a great friend of mine and influenced me very much, he insisted upon my reading it and I was about twenty-five, I suppose. And so I sat down and I started to read it. It's absolutely riveting. Well now the thing is that I've tried three times to read it again and I can't. It's something I think you do when you're young. That's why I want to take it with me and have to do it.

Presenter35:34

And what about your luxury?

Kathleen Hale35:36

When I was in Marrakech.

Kathleen Hale35:40

And I was going through the souks, which of course are malicious, you know, wonderful. And I bought a second hand I don't think it was antique.

Kathleen Hale35:50

Uh jalaba.

Kathleen Hale35:52

And it's cloth of gold and lined with faded shell pink.

Kathleen Hale35:58

Saturn.

Kathleen Hale35:59

and a row of little tight

Kathleen Hale36:01

Cotton buttons from throat to hand.

Kathleen Hale36:04

I would take it with me'cause I don't want to be parted from it.

Kathleen Hale36:07

And then I thought, if I'm going to be

Kathleen Hale36:10

Chip break in any case.

Kathleen Hale36:12

It would be glamorous and quite useless on a desert island. On the other hand, if I'm to be shipwrecked, other people will be shipwrecked. Not necessarily a whole lot of people.

Kathleen Hale36:25

But blow me down on the shores of my island.

Kathleen Hale36:28

might appear my Prince Charming. Now, how wonderful

Kathleen Hale36:33

to be able to greet him in golden glamour.

Presenter36:36

Kathleen Hale, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your Desert Island discs.

Speaker 136:48

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