Alan Clark

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 five, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:30

My castaway this week is a politician. Immensely rich and good looking, he might have achieved more were it not for what he describes as a devil or a demon in me that wants to shock people I despise.

Presenter0:42

He began his career as a historian and didn't enter Parliament until 1974, when he was 45. He served as a minister in three government departments, but even Mrs Thatcher, who otherwise admired him, seems to have balked at elevating him to the Cabinet. He's now best known as an observer of the times in which he's lived. In his diaries, published in 1993, he is frank about everything, from his views on his colleagues to his frequent marital infidelities. He is Alan Clarke.

Presenter1:12

How much of a disappointment is it to you, Alan, that you you're better known, as I say, as a diarist, than for any political achievement?

Alan Clark1:19

Well, it ought not to be, because uh diaries and the written word last longer and and outlive their authors to a far greater extent than the transient fame that attaches to people who just blunder about in politics. But it is a disappointment. Um some of my friends have said offered me a kind of Faustian bargain. I mean, would you

Alan Clark1:38

If you could just do a deal with the devil and get into the cabinet and dump the diaries, which would you do? And I can't really decide, but I suspect that I'd make the wrong decision, as I have on many previous occasions.

Presenter1:49

How close do you think you came to that Cabinet seat? Do you believe that misses Thatcher would eventually have delivered it if she hadn't asked the room?

Alan Clark1:54

Yes, I was going to be Secretary of State for Defence, but in 1919, two things got in the way. First of all, Saddam Hussein attacked Kuwait, and that meant that you couldn't change halfway through a war. It would have been done in the autumn of that year. And then she herself got into the most frightful jeopardy, and she lost a Chancellor, and then she lost Geoffrey Hanson, and she was in such a jam that she couldn't think about secondary appointments.

Presenter2:19

Are you sure entirely that that was the case, or isn't it also that you had some pretty

Presenter2:23

Strong enemies, didn't you? I mean, there were people within her government who would have opposed your

Alan Clark2:28

Oh yeah, well I mean they were Douglas Hurd told her not to make the Minister for Trade. I regard that as a a compliment to have people who feel if who generate strong feelings. It it has to be a tribute to your personality and your

Alan Clark2:41

Skills, it means they're a bit frightened of you.

Presenter2:43

But but your personality was also uh you were known to be

Presenter2:47

You are known to be a a rather waspish philanderer.

Alan Clark2:52

Those two don't go together. I mean, I may be waspish and I may be a philanderer, but if you try and combine them.

Presenter2:52

It's not always

Alan Clark2:58

You don't make many friends.

Presenter3:00

Well, and something else too. I mean, you haven't always towed the party line. You've spoken out both publicly and privately against the government.

Alan Clark3:03

Yeah.

Alan Clark3:05

I don't know.

Presenter3:07

But you don't think that your own personality or your own behaviour got in the way of any promotion you might have had.

Alan Clark3:12

Yes, I I've no doubt he got in that way of that. But at least I I wouldn't have got into politics at all if it hadn't been for Ted Heath.

Alan Clark3:19

Because Ted Heath wrote to the area agent in in the West Country and said under no circumstances is Alan Clark ever to enter the House of Commons.

Alan Clark3:27

So the result of that was that um you know one or two constituencies safe seats were very glad to take me on board.

Presenter3:33

Because they didn't like being told what to do.

Alan Clark3:34

Yeah, that's nice.

Presenter3:35

But didn't it ever occur to you along the line, you know, earlier than the the the latter half of the eighties to to to toe the line, to clean up your act and get the job that you wanted?

Alan Clark3:45

It should have done. And I was negligent there uh spoilt, I suppose. I thought I had a very good relationship with misses Thatcher, and

Alan Clark3:52

She would do for me in the end what she did for me when she made me Minister for Trade, which she did against great advice.

Presenter3:58

But then she went, and so your hopes of high office went with her.

Alan Clark4:01

Yes, they did. I mean, when she went I was depressed and I thought, you know, Parliament's going to be very dull and uh plenty of new guys coming along and I'm getting out. And it's better always, I think, to jump before you're pushed. I never lost an election and I've never been sacked and I like to leave it like that.

Presenter4:13

I never lost.

Alan Clark4:16

Yeah.

Presenter4:16

But now you miss it.

Alan Clark4:18

Tremendously.

Presenter4:19

I'll ask you some more about that in a minute, but let's hear some music first of all. What what's the first piece that you'd take to a desert island and why?

Alan Clark4:26

Well, the Leonora Overture, there's a passage in the Leonora Overture that absolutely bowled me over the very first time I heard it, because I was sitting next to the most beautiful woman. I was very, very young, I was 16 or 17, I suppose, and I'd never seen her before. I'd never seen an object of female beauty of quite that degree before. Terribly kind of unapproachable and distant, but amazing. And combined with this visual impact, I heard this incredible passage of the Overture. And for that reason, I shall always remember them together.

Presenter6:04

Part of Beethoven's Leonora Overture No. Three, played by the Vienna Philharmonic conducted by Claudio Obardo, and a memory of of a kind of falling in love for my castaway Alan Clark. Was that the first time you fell in love, Alan, or was it?

Alan Clark6:16

Uh no, it wasn't a high type. I'm a soppy old thing, I'm always falling in love.

Presenter6:21

Are you, I mean, really in love, or is there a difference? I mean, we're talking about fancying people or falling in love.

Alan Clark6:25

No, no, no, fancy, no, no, I'm not way beyond that. No, just I mean

Alan Clark6:30

Love is a is it means something different to everybody and and it's um

Alan Clark6:35

a composite of emotional tensions and pressures and

Alan Clark6:39

bonds and things. I I I'm I'm reluctant to share my views on love with a stranger, Sue.

Presenter6:46

But your music reflects it also.

Alan Clark6:47

Yeah.

Presenter6:48

All right, well we'll leave it there. But let me just ask you one thing about it. Is it is it

Presenter6:51

Is it the pursuit that you've always enjoyed, or is it the conquest?

Alan Clark6:56

I don't much like the terms even pursuit and conquest, because they imply that the object of your desire or affection is in some senses reluctant and

Alan Clark7:08

To me the the important thing about relationships is that both sides should enjoy them.

Presenter7:12

But haven't you sometimes found it all the more alluring because it was um unattainable?

Alan Clark7:19

Um yeah, that's true, I think.

Presenter7:23

You you have nevertheless remained married to the same woman, to Jane, for thirty six years now, I think. Your father wrote in his autobiography that in Jane

Alan Clark7:29

Think you'll find it?

Presenter7:31

You had found your natural protector, and that you were a lucky man. Is that the case?

Alan Clark7:36

Yes, it's very true. My father was um a lazy old thing in some ways, but he was very, very shrewd uh when he wanted to be, and he he was completely right there and spotted.

Alan Clark7:47

Uh God knows where I'd have been if I hadn't been married to Jane. I mean I think I sat in the diaries at one point locked up probably for fairly long stretches at a time.

Presenter7:55

What?

Alan Clark7:55

Oh, just brawling and

Alan Clark7:58

Kind of breaking the law and, you know, out of God. She's controlling my worst side. So in being your natural.

Presenter8:03

So, in being your natural protector, she saved you from yourself. Is that what you're saying?

Alan Clark8:08

I'm afraid there's some truth in that, yes.

Presenter8:10

Can you recall the first time you set eyes on her?

Alan Clark8:13

Very well. It was on the beach at Rye Harbour.

Alan Clark8:16

and I saw them having a picnic.

Alan Clark8:19

and uh kind of spotted Jane, but thought no more of it. Her family lived in Rye then, and uh we I had a house in Rye, and we kind of just became friendly.

Presenter8:32

And she was she was fourteen when you first saw her.

Alan Clark8:35

She was, I suppose, fourteen, yes, maybe fifteen, fourteen or fifteen.

Presenter8:38

You were kind of late twenties. How soon did you know you wanted to marry her?

Alan Clark8:43

Well, she claims she knew it the first time she saw me. I didn't know it until quite a bit later, and and I found out as one often does, while you're with the person you take it for granted and you kind of assume that everything's found out when they go away.

Alan Clark8:56

And he wrote how much you missed them.

Alan Clark8:59

Um then I think you do start thinking seriously about

Alan Clark9:03

Doing something will make sure that they can't go away.

Presenter9:06

How old were you when you both married?

Alan Clark9:08

Uh I was thirty one, I suppose, and she was sixteen.

Presenter9:11

And do you think you've made her happy?

Alan Clark9:15

That is a question that only she can answer.

Presenter9:19

Her mother has said, or she's told the press, should we believe this, that that you have made her unhappy on occasions, although overall happy.

Alan Clark9:26

Yes, I think that's true, but I mean I think that

Alan Clark9:28

That kind of condition is inseparable from any long marriage.

Alan Clark9:33

Ah, there must there will be periods of unhappiness and and and habi I have always been happy with her. Jane has always been um an incredible strength to me, but I have I am weak, I suppose, and I have behaved badly, and I I know that at times I have made her unhappy, yes, but I've always done my best to make her happy too.

Presenter9:53

Record number two.

Alan Clark9:55

Candy Kisses is um a song that uh used to be played on the Duke box in Sarasota, Florida, where I worked for a bit as a a bell hop in a hotel.

Alan Clark10:05

It's always stayed with me because there's a particular line in it.

Alan Clark10:08

Candy kisses wrapped in paper mean more to you than all of mine do.

Alan Clark10:14

And um it's a reproach, of course, levelled by a beau at his uh loved one. And I often find myself repeating those that couplet even to day. In fact, I I just, you know, I've got a grievance against someone.

Alan Clark10:27

It's also one of the tunes that I can play on the piano myself. That's how I keep it alive.

Speaker 210:33

Yeah.

Alan Clark10:33

Yeah.

Alan Clark10:35

Wrapped in paper.

Alan Clark10:37

Main more to you.

Alan Clark10:39

That area of mine can be kissed.

Alan Clark10:45

Wrapped in paper.

Alan Clark10:47

You'd rather hide them

Alan Clark10:49

Here the old time

Alan Clark10:52

You love me.

Alan Clark10:54

When you whisper

Alan Clark10:57

Don't sleep now.

Alan Clark10:59

In my ear

Presenter11:01

Uh Slim Whitman and Candy Kisses. Can we go back to your beginnings for a moment? Your father was of course Lord Clerk here of Civilization, and like most boys of your class you were sent away to school from the age of eight. But what about before that? How much did your father have to do with you?

Alan Clark11:18

Just occasionally we used to go for walks and so on. He was a wonderful companion and um had a great gift for descending.

Alan Clark11:25

if it is a descent, into the wor into the mind of a child, so he could explain things beautifully. But this was only when I was very young. I mean, he hardly ever did that at once. I gone to boarding school. So I did think. I don't know. I mean, I don't know at all. You know, one was only there on holidays and that sort of

Speaker 211:37

So, yeah.

Presenter11:43

I thought you were sent away in the holidays too.

Alan Clark11:45

Yeah, I was that we were sent away in the holiday, not the entire holiday, but sent away for uh long passages in the holidays, yeah.

Presenter11:51

Wh why do you think that was? They just didn't want you around.

Alan Clark11:54

I suppose so. It it's not uncommon that, I mean, in in people of that class in that period. I mean, we were

Alan Clark12:01

kept behind the green bays door in in the various houses and

Presenter12:03

In the very

Alan Clark12:04

lived with either domestic servants or with governesses.

Presenter12:08

What about your mother? Was she remote, too?

Alan Clark12:10

Yes, yes, she's very she was very loving when I saw her and and and and beautiful and and sweet, but I hardly ever saw her.

Alan Clark12:18

I mean Jane has got an interesting theory about this, isn't it?

Presenter12:18

Yeah.

Alan Clark12:21

She explains my misbehaviour with the opposite sex as trying to get even with them because

Alan Clark12:27

The maids used to sort of make fun of us and so on, you know, the doma the domestics used to sort of

Alan Clark12:33

be quite disagreeable and so she said you've spent your entire life trying to take kids.

Presenter12:34

Yeah.

Alan Clark12:37

even with girls between the ages of eighteen and twenty two.

Presenter12:40

Yeah, she said she she suspects you actually don't like women very much.

Alan Clark12:44

No, she's completely wrong about that. I I knew well, I I just knew she's completely wrong about that. I prefer the company of women to that of men.

Presenter12:51

But you do sound to go back to you as a child, you do sound to have been very neglected, really. I mean, under today's definitions, it it sounds as if it borders on a child.

Alan Clark12:58

No, it isn't, you see, because it wouldn't be recognized as neglect, because you're properly fed, you're properly clothed, you're put to bed early, your time is occupied, you're not actually maltreated for the money.

Presenter13:08

You know, but you could still make out a case for emotional abuse, couldn't you?

Alan Clark13:11

Oh yeah. Uh

Presenter13:12

Yeah.

Alan Clark13:12

That's to say the the what are the parameters there are?

Presenter13:14

But perhaps that's what Jane is saying you suffer from.

Alan Clark13:16

Hmm, maybe.

Presenter13:19

And then you went to Eton. You didn't get much love there, did you?

Alan Clark13:21

No, but there you learn about uh human betrayal, cruelty, deceit. It's an excellent grounding for the realities of life, and particularly, of course, of the realities of politics.

Presenter13:34

So you not a lot of fun and not a lot of of love in your life as a boy. Can can you still feel the bruises of all of that?

Alan Clark13:43

I can't feel them. People often point them out to me, rightly or wrongly.

Alan Clark13:48

I I'm I regard myself as being

Alan Clark13:52

Pretty tough and um

Alan Clark13:54

You know, I'm not upset or faint if I see somebody dead or bleeding or anything, all that kind of thing's been completely knocked out of me.

Presenter14:01

But I suspect you didn't neglect your own sons in the way in which you were neglected.

Alan Clark14:06

Well, I hope not. I regard myself as having spoilt them by loving them to death, and yet he didn't turn them into sort of little wimpy sort of puffs. They actually both of them did extremely well in their own careers.

Presenter14:22

Let's have record number three, on Sam.

Alan Clark14:25

Well Sentimental Journey was a great Air Force song at the end of the war and I was only or just a teenager then.

Alan Clark14:32

But it was played on Naffy pianos in echoing Nissenhutz and so on, and in the background the roar of the B seventeens, you know, coming back limping and so on. There's a there's a whole mythology of wartime kind of schmaltz around this tune. And I like it again. It's it's always stayed with me because it's one of the tunes that I can play on the piano at home.

Speaker 214:55

Uh

Alan Clark15:57

He plays a lot better than I do, I can say that for sure.

Presenter15:59

Sentimental Journey, that was Joe Bushkin playing it.

Presenter16:02

Your father was an eminent art historian, of course, and and history is your passion too, isn't it? You always won the history prizes at Eton, yes?

Alan Clark16:09

Yes, I did, yeah.

Presenter16:10

And you read history at Christchurch.

Alan Clark16:12

Engine.

Presenter16:12

What did you intend to do with your life at that stage? What were your ambitions?

Alan Clark16:15

So I intended to go into politics and become Prime Minister.

Alan Clark16:19

And I regarded that as a perfectly natural outcome of everything else that I was doing. I'm not unique in that. I think most people who go into politics well, I don't know if

Alan Clark16:28

Press not to most people,'cause a lot of them just go in for sort of perks and and status and things. But a very large number of people who go into politics actually think they've got the answer.

Presenter16:37

But what were the qualities you had then as a young man that you felt fitted you to be Prime Minister?

Alan Clark16:42

I don't know if you actually analyze it and uh say to us, I have these qualities, therefore I'm going to succeed. You just have a determination to go and get it.

Presenter16:50

And you were a good debater. You could

Alan Clark16:52

Good morning.

Presenter16:52

Good.

Presenter16:59

You're also a good organiser, aren't you? I mean, you're quite a precise person, aren't you? Despite your

Presenter17:05

Cavalier exterior. You you like things how you like them.

Alan Clark17:05

I believe

Alan Clark17:09

What gives you that idea?

Presenter17:11

Because I've read about you and I've watched you talk on television and I've heard your wife say that you have your own butter dish and your

Alan Clark17:18

Yes, I suppose so. I suppose I am and perhaps more of a sort of

Alan Clark17:24

Uh fussy old thing that I would like to admit.

Presenter17:27

A secret pedant, yeah.

Alan Clark17:29

Yes, I have a pedantic side, that's true. I think courtesy is is actually quite important in in human relationships. Uh and you can behave

Alan Clark17:37

Quote, badly, unquote, in a number of ways, but I think you've always got to try and be.

Alan Clark17:42

Reasonably correct and courteous in the way you treat others until you actually want to thump them, that's different.

Presenter17:50

Just to go back to to you and what you wanted to be, you describe, interestingly, you describe yourself in Who's Who as a historian, not as a politician, after all that. And to be fair, you you've written several books on on military history, most notably The Donkeys.

Alan Clark17:57

What is a

Speaker 117:57

Yeah.

Presenter18:03

which people will remember in Spider What a Lovely War but I suspect, nevertheless, there are few who would immediately describe Allan Clark as a historian.

Alan Clark18:12

I was a historian until I became a politician, and I never lost an election, but I didn't contest the last one.

Alan Clark18:19

And so I think it's more fair of me to say I'm a historian now.

Presenter18:24

Do you do you wish you'd worked harder in the first place at being a historian, or or perhaps you might? Yeah.

Alan Clark18:29

No, no, I don't. I th I think um I didn't want to go a full-blown academic and

Alan Clark18:35

All sales and all that, you know.

Presenter18:37

But you want to be an academic now, don't you?

Alan Clark18:39

Yes, because I don't want to retire. I don't want to just be Derrida thing, uh, living in the country and sort of

Alan Clark18:44

With a deaf aid, I want to write another big book.

Presenter18:49

What did your father want you to be? Because he didn't think much of politicians.

Alan Clark18:51

No, he didn't. He never really disclosed what he wanted to be. I read for the Bar.

Presenter18:52

Every

Alan Clark18:56

And I think they quite my parents quite thought that was a nice sort of safe career, and I'd be a a barrister of medium distinction and then possibly a a judge and be sort of out of the way but respectable. That's what parents want their children to be.

Presenter19:08

And what did what did he think of you? What did they think of you in the end?

Alan Clark19:12

I never knew.

Alan Clark19:14

I never really knew what they thought.

Presenter19:16

How much did you care what your father thought of you?

Alan Clark19:19

Um I s don't I probably cared more than I pretend. I was very keen to um show my mother that I could

Alan Clark19:30

That because my mother was a terrific sort of lip curler when

Alan Clark19:34

With me, she I remember her saying to me when I was thirty, Any man who isn't married by the age of thirty has to be a pansy.

Alan Clark19:42

And uh that was just a monstrous because she knew perfectly well I wasn't.

Alan Clark19:46

A pansy or a gay as they're called these days.

Alan Clark19:49

And she was often very cruel. I wouldn't have um

Alan Clark19:53

had any standard to compare her by until I actually sat round the cabinet table with misses Thatcher, and then I saw again.

Alan Clark19:59

A woman being as cruel to men as as my mother.

Presenter20:02

It was.

Alan Clark20:03

And it was that was quite a useful grounding in a way.

Presenter20:05

And you admired misses Thatcher, too.

Alan Clark20:07

Hm. Well, you want those are the women that you want to prove yourselves to, not beautiful self-like maidens, and everyone proving yourself to them and that so does.

Alan Clark20:16

Lovely company, but they're not a challenge.

Presenter20:20

What's record number four?

Alan Clark20:22

Now the twenty third Psalm is lovely in church, always, of course. It's something which, as far as I know, they haven't yet.

Alan Clark20:29

castrated the language. But I in this case I've chosen it sung by a male choir because

Alan Clark20:37

I think it's got a wonderful resonance that way. It's not like many psalms. You can get a lilt into it.

Alan Clark20:44

It's almost a battle song.

Presenter21:15

The massed Welsh male voice choir singing the twenty third psalm.

Presenter21:19

You got into Parliament then, Alan Clark, when you were forty five. You became MP for Plymouth Sutton, february seventy four, despite the opposition of Edward Heath. But the reality of being an MP was a bit of a shock, wasn't it? Having a constituency at the other end of the country, and all these constituents and their problems.

Alan Clark21:35

Yes, I mean it is very, very hard work being MP if you do it conscientiously.

Presenter21:39

You'd underestimated that.

Alan Clark21:40

Um yes, I thought it'd be easier. I thought we'd do more just on um

Alan Clark21:46

Charm and check book, you know. But you can't. You have to you really have to take trouble with them because you represent

Alan Clark21:53

Sixty thousand people.

Alan Clark21:55

And of those sixty thousand at any given moment about twelve thousand are in the most awful jam of some kind, usually no fault of their own.

Alan Clark22:02

And the MP is really the only person who can sort it out for them.

Alan Clark22:06

So you that takes up a lot of time. Then you have to massage the eggo of all the peop of all the local Conservatives, the people who put you in, as they constantly remind you.

Presenter22:15

But it was Westminster you were really after, and that that's that's what you enjoy. Can you describe?

Presenter22:21

What it is that you enjoyed about being there as a minister or not? What what gave you a buzz?

Alan Clark22:28

Going through the door marked members only. A colossal latent

Alan Clark22:35

charge of static electricity which pervades that place.

Alan Clark22:40

It is so

Alan Clark22:42

Redulant of history and circumstance.

Alan Clark22:46

uh in such a concentrated way that any little incident can suddenly ignite it, you see, and you get it and then you can draw strengths from this great electric charge in the chamber and in the members' lobby and so on. All that's absolutely marvellous.

Presenter22:59

So what do you think? Do you think you might stand again, make some kind of political comeback, or is your age of sixty-six against you now?

Alan Clark23:06

Clearly my age is against me. That's near denial.

Presenter23:10

There'd be older Prime Ministers than that.

Alan Clark23:11

But uh yeah, I I just JNA.

Presenter23:14

But that ringside seat you still yearn for.

Alan Clark23:17

I still the end of the rings I see, of course, you can't not if you've and and I honestly think that no one who is honest would um say that they didn't regret it terribly. I mean, many people, most people leave

Alan Clark23:28

Politics and Parliament are much more humiliating circumstances than I. They're either sacked or turned out by the electorate or whatever. And I suppose because none of those things happen to me, it's much easier for me to pretend

Alan Clark23:40

that uh you know anything is still possible.

Presenter23:44

Is that why you you stress I think you've said it three times now that you you never lost an election and twice that you weren't sacked?

Alan Clark23:49

And twice the two words.

Alan Clark23:51

I do. I I keep saying that to myself, because it was my choice to leave, and it is theoretically my choice to return. But others may think differently and and block it.

Presenter24:04

Record number five.

Alan Clark24:06

It is a most beautiful tune, Bellbird.

Alan Clark24:09

And

Alan Clark24:11

For me it it conjures up a lot of escapist visions of great heat and white dust and midsummer and almost deserted but brightly coloured village streets in in Latin countries and very, very navy blue sky and

Alan Clark24:31

A long, long way from Westminster and winter fog and rain.

Presenter25:01

Los Paraguayas and Bellebird.

Presenter25:03

Can we talk about age? How how depressing do you find the process of aging?

Alan Clark25:06

Ha

Alan Clark25:09

So many people say this and it's always really pathetic when they do, but I mean I don't feel particularly old and therefore I won't accept it.

Presenter25:13

Blue.

Alan Clark25:16

If you're

Alan Clark25:18

still excited by all manner of different things and and feel enthusiastic.

Speaker 125:21

And and

Alan Clark25:23

practically every day of your life.

Alan Clark25:25

You don't accept it, but of course if you look in the mirror and you see a sortio

Alan Clark25:30

visage and and your um it is momentarily depressing. Once your your teeth and your hair and things start falling out, then you can't ignore this, but otherwise you can't.

Presenter25:40

But don't you suffer that pain when you suddenly are shown a photograph of yourself and you see the kind of

Alan Clark25:44

Yeah, exactly. Say someone photographer comes down to sort and he takes about

Presenter25:47

No ya

Alan Clark25:53

uh, say, fifteen pictures. I mean, it's like Hitler with his with his photography, you could only two are acceptable because if the public see the others they'll um your stature will be diminished and

Presenter26:04

We're lucky to find two.

Alan Clark26:05

Yeah.

Presenter26:06

But but I mean, do you what I'm really asking is do you pine for your youth? Do you have a more serious problem than most?

Alan Clark26:13

I suppose if I start actually making a fool of myself, I

Alan Clark26:16

I have got a problem, but right now I'm not aware of it. I'm not sure if I can do it.

Presenter26:19

I suppose some people might say you've already done that.

Alan Clark26:22

Well, no, that if you tell me why they think that, then I may may suggest to you that they just are just jealous.

Presenter26:27

Makes it

Presenter26:30

Jealous of your your way with women. No, Njotta, there's no lesson in it.

Alan Clark26:35

and sillery sight, you know, jealous of the general kind of level of

Alan Clark26:40

Vigor and Enthusiasm.

Presenter26:42

Next piece of music.

Alan Clark26:44

Well, this is Handles all. I mean, this is the great piece that is always played in the Abbey whenever a notable dignitary, particularly a Tory, dies.

Alan Clark26:56

and I first heard it at Anthony Eden's.

Alan Clark26:59

Memorial service.

Alan Clark27:01

To me it is the the great march of the old.

Alan Clark27:06

Establishment of the Right.

Alan Clark27:09

and on the desert island I would like occasionally to be reminded of its tones.

Presenter28:14

The Dead March from Handel Saw played by the English Chamber Orchestra conducted by Philip Ledger.

Presenter28:20

Your diaries, um which became bestsellers have been called recklessly frank, and but you've said you you don't regret them. Can I ask you quite simply why did you want to publish all of that? I mean, revealing and hurtful stuff, you hurt not least your wife, but also all sorts of friends whom you suddenly kind of

Speaker 128:30

Why

Presenter28:40

Wrote fairly rude bits of paper.

Alan Clark28:42

Oh, I don't think I have many friends really. I mean I may have heard of or may have discomfited a few enemies, but my friends know me and they know how I talk and how I write and

Presenter28:50

What about Jonathan Aitken, you know, good friend and always good for a dirty trick?

Alan Clark28:55

He would be offered that to come.

Presenter28:56

Comprehensive.

Alan Clark28:56

Comment.

Presenter28:56

Uh

Presenter28:57

Uh-huh.

Alan Clark28:58

But I I said good my good friend, and stand by in many a dirty trick. That's the actual text. Yeah. Uh I mean, I don't think he he would object to that. That's politics. I mean, if you can't play dirty, or fight dirty, you lose.

Presenter29:11

What about the hurt it's caused, Jane?

Alan Clark29:14

Well

Alan Clark29:15

Yes, I I didn't think it would hurt her as much as i it appears to have done. I think this is just the arrogance of the male who thinks that because he's living happily to all out and appearances happily

Alan Clark29:33

With his wife or with another woman, that somehow she will kind of forgive anything. And

Alan Clark29:42

I was wrong. I mean, I think one sometimes one finds these things out too late. But whether but I'm glad I didn't find out before, because I still think that the book is an integrated whole. It has got everything in.

Alan Clark29:55

And to take out one thing or another or d you would upset the balance and you'd upset the mix.

Alan Clark30:01

And it wouldn't have the same sort of feel, which is it which is one of of total candour.

Presenter30:07

Indeed, but I mean, can total candour, can honesty be the excuse for everything? It's also from your own point of view, led to all s all manner of arm chair analysis about whether Alan Clark is a spoilt little rich boy who

Speaker 230:20

Uh

Alan Clark30:20

Nobody has got it.

Presenter30:21

And all that sort of stuff. I would have thought that was pretty undesired, isn't it?

Alan Clark30:22

I would have thought that was pretty and

Alan Clark30:24

And that I'm not bothered with slashes. I mean, what people say about me, good God, if I worried about that, I would have.

Alan Clark30:29

Changed my tune a long while ago.

Presenter30:31

But do you do you worry about the fact then that perhaps it's thrown away your chances of ever being taken as a serious person?

Alan Clark30:40

I would worry if I thought that were true. Yes.

Alan Clark30:44

I haven't seen anybody actually say that except I think David Muller. I'm not absolutely certain that that

Alan Clark30:51

the extent to which I value his judgment.

Presenter30:54

Record number seven.

Alan Clark30:56

Well, this is the sort of archetypal bagpipe tune. I would have to have on the island bagpipes. I think really the first musical instrument I

Alan Clark31:07

Heard, I suppose, on my grandfather's land in in the west of Scotland.

Alan Clark31:12

and I associate that music with everything that I really like.

Alan Clark31:17

And I love Scotland and I mean with with peat, pools and heather and

Alan Clark31:23

Mountains and wind and human bravery too. The pipes played.

Alan Clark31:29

So many men to their death across no man's land.

Alan Clark31:33

In the First World War and

Alan Clark31:35

I researched that for several years when writing The Donkeys.

Alan Clark31:39

So you can allow your mood to swing from heaven to hell when you listen to the pipes.

Presenter32:09

Scotland the Brave, played by the Scottish Pipe Band.

Presenter32:13

Kenneth Clark, according to you, Alan Clark, is a is a pudgy puffball, and Michael Heseltan, a dreadful charlatan who bought all his own furniture. Tony Blair rose too late to get much of a mention in in the published diaries. How is he characterized so far in the unpublished ones?

Alan Clark32:29

In a way, the little rude things I've said about Ken and others not Michael, I I think Michael's a dreadful man but about Ken and others is almost founded in affection. But Blair is not a colleague, he's a political opponent. I think he's over promoted, myself, and will seem to be such.

Alan Clark32:49

I think it is a dreadful thing to abandon the beliefs and precepts of a an ancient political party which is founded on

Speaker 132:56

Paper

Alan Clark33:00

Fundamental principles that must never be allowed to atrify.

Alan Clark33:06

And I think he's taking a terrible risk, but it may come off, into trying to turn it into a kind of all things to all men Democratic Party.

Presenter33:13

You can um contemplate all these weighty political matters on your desert island. Will you be all right there? Will you enjoy being there?

Alan Clark33:21

I'm quite used to solitude, yes.

Alan Clark33:25

I say I will enjoy it, but w I wouldn't want to uh stay there until my bones whiten.

Alan Clark33:32

I don't think. I but a period of detachment and contemplation is what a lot of people say I need, and who who am I to say they're wrong?

Presenter33:42

But do you think that's what you need?

Alan Clark33:45

Mm-hmm.

Alan Clark33:46

Yeah, I think it might do some good, but

Alan Clark33:49

But not indefinitely.

Presenter33:51

What sort of good might it do?

Presenter33:53

How would it make you a better person, if that's what you mean?

Alan Clark33:57

Well, I don't know better. I think that's probably uh beyond hope, but more effective. I would quite like to be away for three or four months, yeah.

Alan Clark34:06

Not more than that.

Presenter34:08

Uh

Alan Clark34:08

Last record

Alan Clark34:10

The Capriccio Italiene was the

Alan Clark34:13

One of the very first bits of what one would call classical music that I

Alan Clark34:17

heard on my own that I discovered, if you like, by accident, that just a wonderful magical tune was just coming across the ether at me while I was driving a car.

Alan Clark34:27

at night, which is a very good time to listen to music.

Presenter35:14

Part of Tchaikovsky's Capriccio Italienne played by the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Mustislav Rostropovich.

Presenter35:21

If you could only take one of those eight records, Anne.

Alan Clark35:24

Uh it'd have to be the handle.

Alan Clark35:26

Partly it's more majestic than any of the others, so it has more lasting qualities, and also I think because the orchestration is so complex that one would have one would get sick of it uh later than the others.

Presenter35:38

What about your book?

Alan Clark35:40

Well, I w want a book that gives variety and yet stimulates the mind.

Alan Clark35:45

So I would take Bertrand Russell's History of Western Philosophy.

Presenter35:50

And what about your luxury?

Alan Clark35:51

The piano, without any doubt. I might I might leave the island. Actually quite good at playing the piano, which I'm certainly not at the moment. I mean

Alan Clark35:59

I don't really even play it in drive any of my musical knowledge, I'm actually mad. What I do is I roll the bass, as it's called in New Orleans language, and um I straddle two octaves with my right hand, and really all half the time I'm just treating it as a xylophone.

Presenter36:15

But sentimental journey or candy kisses come out the other end.

Alan Clark36:18

Oh, absolutely. Sure. And stormy weather.

Presenter36:22

Alan Clark, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs. Thanks, I've enjoyed it.

Speaker 136:34

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