Frank Phillips

Speaker 10:01

BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts.

Speaker 10:05

Hello, I'm Lauren Laverne and this is the Desert Island Discs podcast. For rights reasons, the music is shorter than on the original broadcast. The presenter is Roy Plomley. I hope you enjoy listening.

Presenter0:28

How do you do, ladies and gentlemen?

Presenter0:30

On Idesite Island This Week is the possessor of one of the best known voices in Britain, its Frank Phillips.

Presenter0:36

Frank, how well could you face continued loneliness?

Presenter0:39

I think quite easily, because I never in fact lonely.

Presenter0:43

I like to look at things, examine them, and if it's dark, I can always hear music. No, I'm never lonely. What would you be happiest you got away from? Noise.

Presenter0:53

All was noise. I hate the noise of London's traffic. I hate

Presenter0:57

Little tiny noises like dripping taps in hotel bedrooms.

Presenter1:01

And I try and set those to music and it never works.

Presenter1:05

Now you've been exposed to so many thousands of records for so many years.

Presenter1:09

Do you have a big collection yourself? No, not now. I had quite a number of 78s, the old 78s.

Presenter1:16

But um nowadays they're not considered.

Presenter1:20

Quite the thing.

Presenter1:22

But I still play them.

Presenter1:24

Did you have any plan in selecting your eight for the Desert Island?

Presenter1:28

Autobiographical, I suppose, in a way, but at the same time, I wanted to play.

Presenter1:35

Pieces I really like.

Presenter1:37

Oh, if I may misquote Cecil Rhodes.

Presenter1:41

So much to play, so little time

Presenter1:44

What's the first one?

Presenter1:46

The first one is the third movement from the Third Symphony of Brahms.

Presenter1:51

I once played in an opera called The Waltz King, and I played the part of Brahms. At that age, Brahms was twenty-three.

Presenter2:02

And it never occurred to me that one could sing this melody, but you can.

Presenter3:06

The third movement of the Third Brahm Symphony, Sir John Barbirolli conducting the Helley Orchestra.

Presenter3:13

Mind you, I am bound to say that.

Presenter3:15

At the end of the first performance of The Waltz King.

Presenter3:19

Ernest Newman, the music critic, came along and said, How can you, Brahms, at twenty-three, sing a tune which I know jolly well you won't have written for about another forty years. You were saving it up. Right. Let's have your next record. The next record is please from

Presenter3:38

Potunis Turundot in Questa Regia, sung by

Presenter3:43

Eva Turner.

Presenter3:45

I think

Presenter3:47

if I'm not being impolite to other people. I think she is the

Presenter3:51

Greatest of the

Presenter3:54

big singers, this fine sustained singing, which physically must be frightfully difficult.

Presenter4:01

And I always play this record thinking she'll never get to the top note, but of course she always does.

Presenter4:58

Eva Turner in Questalegia.

Presenter5:01

You're a West Countryman, aren't you, Fred?

Presenter5:03

Yes, I was born in Sidmouth.

Presenter5:05

In 1901,

Presenter5:07

As a boy, what did you want to be?

Presenter5:09

Well, I left Sidmouth when I was one year old.

Presenter5:13

Lived in Bedford for 22 and during that time I wanted to be an engineer.

Presenter5:19

And in fact, I was apprenticed to a firm of marine engineers and spent five years at it.

Presenter5:26

Went to night school, failed on a trick, different subjects, each of three years, and then turned my hobby, which was singing, into a profession and gave up engineering. Did you find it tough going to start with as a professional? Harder than I thought, because I won the Blackpool Rose Bowl as an amateur in 1923, which is more or less the tops of amateur singing.

Presenter5:49

And I tore down to a London agent and said, I've just won the Blackpool Rose Bowl. And they said, well, if you want to be a professional,

Presenter5:56

Forget it. Don't mention it.

Presenter5:58

You've started broadcasting quite soon. Yes, the same year, nineteen twenty three. Very exciting it was, too, because I used to have a series then called The Foundations of Music, in which I learnt such a lot, because I used to sing songs of Chassons, Cesar Franc, for

Presenter6:14

And then, thanks to Stanford Robinson, nearly every Sunday I used to be at St. Margaret's Westminster recording or broadcasting live Bach church cantatas. Wonderful experience. In those early days of Savoy Hill the fees weren't very large, I believe.

Presenter6:31

Oh, no. No. The Chinese studio in the basement of Savoy Hill with Cecil Dixon accompanying and a little black dog sitting under the piano, I remember very well. Tenbob.

Presenter6:43

Yeah.

Presenter6:44

Now, you became a regular at the Proms in London, and you toured abroad quite a bit. Yes, I did.

Presenter6:49

In nineteen twenty six, I had a very great opportunity, thanks again to the BBC, to sing in its first international celebrity concert at Queen's Hall, which was Schoenberg's Gudder Lieder, which I managed to learn my part by heart.

Presenter7:04

Then I went to South Africa, toured with Mary Hall. 1928, Canada.

Presenter7:10

for about four weeks.

Presenter7:13

Switzerland, Belgium, France? Oh, yes, I had a very, very pleasant time. And you sang in opera? Yes, I had two seasons at Coven Garden in the French season. The first time we met, you were thinking the part of Captain Bearback in a revival of A.P. Herbert's Tampa Vitas of the lyric Theatre Hammersmith. I was in the chorus. Well done.

Presenter7:31

Well, it was a turning point in my career, I don't know about yours.

Presenter7:34

Because that was the year of the Jubilee Drives, King George V, Queen Mary, and it emptied the theatres. Something certainly emptied ours. It did, too.

Presenter7:43

And so I had to look around for a job.

Presenter7:47

And quickly.

Presenter7:49

And curiously enough I had two offers on the same day.

Presenter7:53

One was from a film company to conduct Marku.

Presenter7:57

The London Symphony Orchestra in the Albert Hall fortunately the soundtrack had already been recorded by Sir Henry Wood

Presenter8:05

In a film called

Presenter8:07

The man who knew too much. The other job was to join the BBC in London as an announcer.

Presenter8:15

And the difference in money was this, ten pounds between three weeks' work for the film company or one year's work for the BBC, and you'll know which one I took. Yes, upon this momentous decision, let's have your third record.

Presenter8:30

Chopin, please. The A-flat study from Obus twenty-five.

Presenter8:36

Can I

Presenter8:37

Mentally, now I have joined the staff in 1935. I'm wearing a dinner jacket and I'm sitting in the announcer's room.

Presenter8:44

And there is a play, and the character

Presenter8:47

motors away and stops his car because he sees a lighted room in a house on the roadside.

Presenter8:54

And if you're like I am, you are always interested when you walk by in the dark and you see.

Presenter9:02

A lit up room. You always want to know what's going on inside. Well, so did the character in this play, and he saw a woman sitting at the piano, and this is what she was playing, and it has always for me ever since.

Presenter9:13

made an atmosphere of peace, summer, warmth, evening.

Presenter9:19

Oh, Nostelda, if you like.

Presenter10:18

Chopin studied number one in A Platte Major, Opus Twenty Five, played by Shura Cherkowski.

Presenter10:24

Now Frank, you joined the BBC as announcer in 1935.

Presenter10:29

Dinner jackets on Sunday as well.

Presenter10:32

I'm not quite sure. Memory won't help me there. I always assumed that it was a cold Sunday supper.

Presenter10:40

And presumably apart from newsreading, you're doing a whole lot. Dance bands, variety shows, dancers. Oh, yes. And that's one of the great things about the announcing job, you'll know. You meet so many other people. Carol Gibbons, Joe Loss, all sorts of people with dance bands. Yes.

Presenter10:57

Well then the war came. We were sent off to one of the BBC's country outposts or what was known in those days as Hoggs Norton.

Speaker 111:01

Yes, I went.

Presenter11:05

I opened the war there, not personally, but you know what I mean.

Presenter11:10

And then I went back there in nineteen forty one. I think that's right here, yes, just towards the end of the Blitz. I had another four months there. But otherwise I was in London all the time. And for the first time Announcer stopped being anonymous.

Presenter11:24

And a very good thing too, I maintain.

Presenter11:27

It was caused because it was thought.

Presenter11:30

That if Hitler's invasion scheme did come off, that they would have people.

Presenter11:36

Naming uh announcers or newsreaders

Presenter11:41

and to identify a name with a voice.

Presenter11:45

is very much more difficult to falsify.

Presenter11:49

You brought us some devastating news from time to time. I seem to associate your voice with one or two war disasters. Yes, indeed.

Presenter11:58

Uh it was that was about the time when

Presenter12:02

Somebody wrote to the then Director General saying, why do you keep this chap on the staff?

Presenter12:07

We shall never win the war so long as you keep him. And he sent the postcard down to me, and it's written across it was, so that's what it is. I believe you own the card index report on you from the Nazi archives. Yes, I do. Richard Nimbleby very kindly sent it to me from Berlin immediately after the war. He was one of the first people, kind of the news boys, to get there.

Presenter12:32

And whereas others might go for sights of bodies, scenes to photograph, the tidy mind of Dimbleby took him immediately into the cabinet file and of Chancellery, and he sent me my card. And I think I'm right in saying he sent Alvander Dell his. What does yours say? What kind of report did you have? Oh, Vorspieler Erster Klasse, which I think is extremely nice. And though I don't myself read German handwriting, I am told that in the bottom right-hand corner it says fond of the arts. Oh, nice. Well, let's have record number four, Frank. What next?

Presenter13:06

I should like to go back, if I may, for a moment to nostalgia, because

Presenter13:11

I've been married very happily for eighteen years, and this is the tune to which, if I may put it this way, a certain amount of my courting was done.

Presenter13:21

A great deal of dancing was done, and I still sing.

Presenter13:25

It's one of the most beautiful songs of its kind, Jean-Sablanc singing Why Do You Pass Me By?

Frank Phillips13:35

Basé sommer boy.

Frank Phillips13:39

Some members?

Frank Phillips13:43

Don't

Frank Phillips13:45

A few despois, boss de soi.

Frank Phillips13:48

Jay thought it better.

Frank Phillips13:53

Donge d'eta royal.

Frank Phillips13:58

Okay, guys on First

Presenter14:01

Frank, you've read the news for nearly thirty years, and about it all you've maintained the impersonal impartiality that the B V C insists on. You've never been able to let your own views color your reading. Hasn't this continued inhibition been a great strain?

Presenter14:16

Not been quite so inhibited as you might think when you read things like Today in Parliament, where you

Presenter14:23

Are both the opposition and the government, and you are quoting each. It becomes frankfully exciting, you know. I believe you were in the habit of putting the cut-out switch down and making comments occasionally. Not very often, and I don't think I should ever do it again. You are thinking of the fast car, are you? Yes. Yes, well, that was quite a morning.

Speaker 314:40

Uh

Presenter14:44

We'd had this uh

Presenter14:46

Bank robber, chap.

Presenter14:48

Escaping in a fast car

Presenter14:50

And so I when I put the cough key down, not knowing it wasn't working, said

Presenter14:55

And really expect them to go away in a slower.

Presenter14:58

But uh it went out all over the country and I must say I think it did sound broadcasting a power of good, publicity-wise. What else do you remember as having gone wrong?

Presenter15:09

Well, I have read the early morning news in my pajamas more than once. That speaks for itself.

Presenter15:17

Well, now you're retiring. That doesn't mean we're not going to hear you any more.

Presenter15:20

I'm being retired. That's a pension thing. If you are a member of a pension scheme and they say that's it, that's it. No, I want to do as much broadcasting and stay as close to microphones and television cameras for that matter as possible. Welcome to the ranks of the worried freelancers. Well, you look jolly well. What in particular have you lined up?

Presenter15:43

At the moment, I'm doing a weekly series of military band broadcasts.

Presenter15:48

Uh which I find

Presenter15:50

Slightly interesting because I have myself no knowledge of military history at all.

Presenter15:55

And therefore, I rely enormously on my producer and on Colonel Basil Brown, the director of music at Neller Hall, who is a military historian.

Presenter16:06

And he does know the music and the stories behind it, so that before we do each program, the three of us meet and we act as each other's devil's advocate, and that is how the script gets knocked out. What's this series called? Passing of the regiments. It deals primarily with the amalgamations of the county regiments and others in the British Army from 1922 going right up to present day. Yes. Now you're going to have a little more time for your hobbies in future. What are they?

Presenter16:35

Fishing.

Presenter16:37

Fizzing, fizzing.

Presenter16:39

And then gardening.

Presenter16:41

Let's have another record.

Presenter16:43

This I would like.

Presenter16:44

Very much. It's Bess, you is my woman from Poggy and Bess. I've always.

Presenter16:51

Adored, if that's the right term, the music of Mr. Gershwin. It does something to me. I don't know what it is, but let's listen and I'll try and tell you after.

Speaker 317:01

From this middle I tremble, I keep this ball.

Speaker 317:09

Yeah.

Speaker 317:10

Yeah.

Presenter17:29

Bessie was my woman now from the soundtrack of the film version of Porky and Bess.

Presenter17:34

What's your next Regal Crack?

Presenter17:36

The next record is uh folks on, but uh I did say that I would

Presenter17:41

Try and explain why I like Porgy and Bess, and now I've just heard the record, I realize, of course, that I have the same love for Gershwin's music as I have for Puccini's, a chap who can really write a tune.

Presenter17:52

Uh the next record. I've always thought that folk music

Presenter17:57

is best sung unaccompanied.

Presenter18:00

And of all the folk tunes I know, this one she moved through the fair.

Presenter18:05

is my favorite.

Presenter18:06

And when it comes to a recording, give me every time Mr. Kenneth McKellar.

Frank Phillips18:12

My young love said to me My mother won't mine.

Frank Phillips18:23

And my father won't slight you for your lack of kind.

Frank Phillips18:35

Then she st away from

Presenter18:42

Kenneth McKellop.

Presenter18:43

I was delighted to hear about the fishing and the gardening, Frank. It sounds as if you'd make quite a resourceful castaway.

Presenter18:49

Well, it depends rather, I would have thought, on what sort of island. It's not a bad island. You are quite a handy chap. Reasonably, yes.

Presenter18:57

Would you try to escape? Oh, yes. Yes, I think I should. Partly because I like my fellow creatures and largely because I'm terribly fond of my family. Yes. Ever done any sailing? Yes, I've done quite a lot, largely crewing rather than sailing, and I'm not a madly good navigator. I can.

Presenter19:18

steer by a compass, but I can't necessarily read a nautical chart.

Presenter19:22

He would have no compass, so the best of luck. Let's have record number seven.

Presenter19:29

Oh, yes. What fun. I mentioned before, didn't I, how much I enjoyed meeting people in the dance band world.

Presenter19:37

And one of the people I've always liked and whose signature tune I still like and play whenever I can, Joe Loss in the Mood.

Presenter20:15

Joe lost in his signature tune, and now we come to your last record.

Presenter20:19

Well, I cannot go to any island, Roy, without some music of Elgar.

Presenter20:25

And I've thought a lot about this.

Presenter20:27

and I'd settled for part of Falstaff.

Presenter20:32

If you recollect, you will find in the score there is a part.

Presenter20:38

Marked.

Presenter20:39

Falstaff fast asleep behind the arras.

Presenter20:43

He is Jack Falstaff, page to the Duke of Norfolk.

Presenter20:47

He's dreaming about his youth. That's right.

Presenter21:48

An excerpt from Elgar's full stop conducted by the composer.

Presenter21:52

Now if you could only have one of these eight records, which would it be?

Presenter21:57

I think the peace and quiet and the lighted room, the chopper, you know. Right. And one luxury to take to this island with you.

Presenter22:05

An arm chair.

Presenter22:07

Very sensible idea. And one book.

Presenter22:11

I should like to take a dictionary.

Presenter22:15

I've got several, but the one I think I would like most of all is Eric Partridge's compilation called A Dictionary of Origins, because there you have, when once you've learnt how to use the book, and that takes about six months, let me tell you

Presenter22:29

There you got the nucleus, as it were, of any number of books. I'm sure you do the same. You turn up a word, and the moment you've seen that word you'll see half a dozen others, and off you go. So I want the chair to sit in.

Presenter22:41

Right, you'll be quite a long time in there, Chair. And thank you, Frank Phillips, for letting us hear your choice of Desert Island Disc. Oh, it's been great fun.

Presenter22:49

Goodbye, everyone.