Janet Holmes à Court

Speaker 30:00

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

Presenter0:28

My Castaway this week is a businesswoman. In fact, she's just been named Businesswoman of the Year. Married for nearly twenty-five years to one of the richest men in Australia, she supported him loyally through huge success and stressful failure. When he died suddenly in his early fifties, she was advised to sell up and retire to a beach. She did the opposite. Her husband had just begun to turn the tide which had run against him, and she now took the helm.

Presenter0:53

In the past six years she has created an impressive commercial empire out of cattle, construction, transport, and theatres, ten of them all in the West end of London. She remains a proud and loving widow, unafraid of being on her own. This, she says, is what women have to prepare for. She is Janet Holmes

Presenter1:13

Preparing for widowhood may be one thing, Janet, but preparing to take over a multi million dollar empire is quite another. Was there ever any doubt in your mind that that was what you had to do? It wasn't actually anything that I really thought about. I just did it. So you never gave the Beach a thought?

Presenter1:29

Definitely not.

Presenter1:31

I'd be bored out of my mind. So, no, that didn't really occur to me.

Janet Holmes à Court1:32

Yeah.

Janet Holmes à Court1:33

I'd

Presenter1:37

But there seems to have been a suggestion that somehow your your husband, Robert Holmes, at court, had kind of prepared you for this moment. Is is that the case?

Presenter1:47

I'm not really sure about that. One of my children did say that to me as I was going off to the office on the the first day, the uh the the day after the funeral, I to actually start work.

Presenter1:59

And he said you realise Mum Dad's been preparing you for this for a long time. Do you think he knew then, perhaps, that he might die young? Well, I'm positive that he knew that he would die young. Um you can't abuse your body the way he did with cigarettes and stress and overwork and the wrong diet and expect to live for a hundred years. Did you expect as well that he would die? So you perhaps always knew this could happen.

Speaker 22:20

Did you expect as well that he would die?

Presenter2:25

Yes, but I di I don't think I ever thought of it in terms of taking over. You spent, as I said, nearly twenty-five years with him, um and now six years without him.

Presenter2:35

How different are you, as a widow of fifty-three, from the wife you were at, say, forty-three?

Presenter2:41

Oh, I think very different. I think I'm more confident.

Presenter2:46

I'm more possibly more me.

Presenter2:49

You know, it was a it was a role that I played, the company chairman's wife.

Presenter2:55

And I wasn't really play acting and I don't regret anything that I did in those twenty-five years. But I think that I am a more independent by definition I'm I'm a more independent

Presenter3:05

Forceful person. There's nobody telling me what I should or or shouldn't do or how I'm expected to behave. I just do what I want to do. And are you as happy to get up every morning as you were then?

Presenter3:17

Yes. You have to face reality. The reality is I don't have a husband, he's dead. And if I was to spend the rest of my life saying I can't get out of bed'cause I'm on my own, that would be a terrible waste of uh energy and a life. So you you face it and you get on with it. So yes, I am as happy to get out of bed in the morning because that's what life's like. Tell me about your first record.

Presenter3:44

Well, my first record is Brahm's violin concerto.

Presenter3:48

It's played by Yehudi Menuen, and we're going to hear the slow movement.

Presenter3:54

Possibly I've listened to the third movement of this more in my life than the second one because I as I've got older I've started to become more interested in slow movements, but I used to be frightfully uh uh in touch with the third movements of all the concertos I have in my portfolio, which are all

Presenter4:14

pretty upbeat and rousing, but as I get older I think my musical taste is orienting me more to slow movements.

Presenter5:23

Part of the second movement of Brahms violin concerto played by Sir Yehudi Menouin with the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Rudolf Kemper. You did own a desert island at one point with your husband Robert, didn't you, John? We still do. It's not exactly desert. It's very wooded, in fact. It even has a little uh area of rainforest on it. It's off the coast of Queensland.

Speaker 35:43

Then

Presenter5:45

Near Cairns. That's not then one of the things you sold after Robert died, because you did sell a great number of things. We sold uh an enormous amount of things because we inherited

Janet Holmes à Court5:51

A great number of things.

Presenter5:56

You know, the things and the stuff which were extraneous to what I needed in my life. Like a Boeing 7270. Exactly. Like a huge house in Regent's Park that required five security guards and so on to look after it. And numerous Impressionist paintings. Yes, numerous Impressionist paintings and matters of debt. And a lot of those things had been purchased with debt, and they don't earn anything. So. To pull the company into shape and make it into the sort of company I wanted.

Presenter6:25

We disposed of all this extraneous matter. But they were sort of things that gave you personal. Pleasure, presumably. But why I think that's what the interesting thing is. Why didn't you need them alone, whereas you did need them when Robert was alive? Um, I didn't need them. He did.

Speaker 26:41

Hmm.

Presenter6:41

I didn't eat them. I used to say these things are called possessions,'cause in the end they'll possess us.

Presenter6:47

Robert was the most profitable division that Hatesbury had, if you like, and he could service the debt by ringing stockbrokers and doing a few deals. I don't have that ability.

Presenter6:58

I don't have that interest. But you personally, it sounds to me reading about you, um, live a much more compact life. I mean, having divested yourself of all those things, as you say. I I mean, I I see that quite often when you're in London you live in a small flat in Soho and walk to work at the theatre through the back street. You sound like a sort of young girl about town. Well I used to to be honest, I loved that. I had a flat in Soho for two years while

Janet Holmes à Court7:16

Uh

Presenter7:22

I found another house that suited me better and then did the obvious refurbishments and so on one needs to do. Being able to walk to the office and walk to each one of our theatres

Presenter7:32

It was it was great fun. And when you got tired of all of that, and when you do now, you can just take off to the to the outback. Well, what have you got out there, cattle? Stud farms? We have a stud farm where we breed thoroughbred racehorses just outside of Perth.

Presenter7:47

That was a great hobby of Roberts and uh it was a very expensive hobby and when he died it was pretty much out of control with far too many horses. Um we've now pulled that into line and in fact we've we make a little bit of money out of it which is quite gratifying. So the way to turn this business around really was to sell off everything he enjoyed only.

Janet Holmes à Court8:03

So

Presenter8:08

And kill the debts.

Presenter8:10

Well, partly and it was it was t basically to to sell the things that were non income earning um because we didn't have this magic formula anymore.

Janet Holmes à Court8:16

Machinique.

Presenter8:19

And they say you own more than one percent one point one percent of Australia, isn't it? That's about right. It does add up to about one point one percent of Australia. And then a lot of business in the Far East as well in the Philippines and Thailand. Yes. But where

Janet Holmes à Court8:23

Text

Janet Holmes à Court8:26

One

Presenter8:33

Where in it all, Janet, do you call home?

Presenter8:36

I often joke that home's in an aeroplane, but I think I have to call Perth still home. Perth is quite a fantastic place in having lots of uh

Presenter8:48

Advantages over any city, any other city I know. One of them is that it's on the same time zone as every city in Southeast Asia that I need to be in, so I don't have to change my watch. When I go to Sydney once a month for the Reserve Bank meetings, I get chronic jet lag, particularly in the summer, and I'm in my own country, but I can go to Hong Kong and feel fine. But all of that business and time zones apart and so on. I mean, if you were, you know, ill or worried or miserable, where'd you go home to?

Presenter9:19

I'm never ill or miserable or

Presenter9:23

So you're the lucky one.

Presenter9:26

No, but Perth, okay? Yeah. Perth. Tell me about your next record.

Janet Holmes à Court9:28

Perfect.

Presenter9:31

Now the next record is John Williams, the Australian guitarist, playing a piece of work composed by Peter Scullthorpe, an Australian composer. It's called From Kakadoo.

Presenter9:43

Peter Schulthel's work is tremendously evocative of the Australian landscape. John Williams I have met, he is quite one of the nicest people, and this would remind me of what wonderful things human beings can be, and also of Australia.

Presenter10:59

John Williams playing From Kakadoo by the Australian composer Peter Scalthorpe.

Presenter11:05

Going back then to the beginning, Janet Holmes recourt, when and how did you meet Robert?

Presenter11:11

I met Robert at the university in Western Australia. He was born in South Africa, came to Australia for the Olympic Games in nineteen fifty six and felt more at home when he stepped off the ship than he ever had in South Africa, he told me. So went home and decided that's where he wanted to be.

Presenter11:28

and came to Australia to study law. In I was in my second year of university when he came to

Presenter11:35

To the campus. This was in the sixties. In the sixties. You were obviously um very active, very gregarious, very active. They say you were very talented, could have done anything with your life at all. You could have gone into politics or the unions or business or whatever. But you decided to really subjugate yourself to him, didn't you? Yes.

Presenter11:55

I don't think I'd ever do it again, but uh

Presenter11:58

I don't regress it. How far did it go then? I mean, did you? What did you do for him? Did you lay out his clothes for him? Yes, I did every morning.

Speaker 312:04

Yes, I did.

Presenter12:06

read the newspapers, made cups of tea. But I s I was able to move out and and do I mean, uh, after uh the children went off to boarding school, which I wasn't particularly happy about, but

Presenter12:18

Um they did. But he wanted you with him. He wanted me with him. He actually would have liked me to be standing right beside him constantly. The whole time. The whole time. But why were you willing to do that? W you must have thought about it very well. Yes, I thought he was a very special human being. He was.

Janet Holmes à Court12:31

Uh

Speaker 212:31

Yeah.

Presenter12:35

I felt that he had a special talent, a special brain.

Presenter12:39

And my job was to facilitate the use of that brain, and wake making cups of tea and so on was not what this man was put on the planet for, and so on. Now

Presenter12:51

It's a bit of a nonsense, and I wouldn't do it again. And I don't think young women do that sort of thing today.

Presenter12:58

But it was more common to do that in that team. And it felt right. And it felt right. And you were happy to be doing it. And it worked.

Janet Holmes à Court13:01

Take any

Speaker 213:03

Right, and I was happy to hear you doing it.

Janet Holmes à Court13:05

Yeah.

Speaker 213:05

And it works.

Presenter13:06

He became the great success. The great brain led to millions of pounds.

Speaker 213:08

The green

Speaker 213:09

Do you mean

Janet Holmes à Court13:10

Uh

Presenter13:11

Hmm. Record number three.

Presenter13:13

Record number three. Well this is uh part of the final movement of Beethoven's Piano Concerto number five, which everybody knows as The Emperor. It's played by Edwin Fischer. Edwin Fischer is the pianist who played this when I first heard it when I was about four years of age.

Presenter13:30

It's very significant to me, this piece of music, because I remember very clearly watching my mother. She was washing up at the time listening to this piece of music and crying. And at that time we didn't have a grammar phone. And I asked her what what on earth she was you know, why are you crying, mummy? sort of thing. And uh she said that this was so beautiful.

Presenter13:54

and she knew she wouldn't hear it again for a long time.

Presenter13:58

So she was sad, and I think that that it was the first time I really realized that music could move someone in such a way.

Presenter15:09

Part of the final movement of Beethoven's piano concerto No. five, The Emperor, played by Edwin Fischer with a Philemonia orchestra conducted by Wilhelm Furtwengler.

Presenter15:18

The crash, Janet, when it came in nineteen eighty seven, hit your husband hard, um, because as you've indicated, some of his favorite activities were share dealing and currency speculation. They say he lost about four hundred million pounds. Is that about the size of it?

Presenter15:33

Four hundred million a lot. Masses. It was.

Janet Holmes à Court15:33

Beforehand

Presenter15:38

Very, very traumatic, very traumatic.

Presenter15:42

And presumably it meant he worked even harder to try and recoup. Oh yes, nobody has ever worked as hard as Robert worked then. He would work any hour. The world that he was moving in was an international world, so that if people were awake in New York you spoke to New York, but that might mean it was the middle of the night in Perth. If you were talking to London, it would be a different time of the day. So it is possible to work twenty-four hours a day, and he almost did.

Speaker 216:09

Hmm.

Presenter16:11

And the pressure would have been huge because I'm sure there were a lot of shard and for it, a lot of people delighted that the great acquirer had come with. Oh, huge. I was very upset about that because there were several journalists in Australia who, quite frankly, had made their careers out of talking to him two or three times a day. He was very good at manipulating the press.

Presenter16:30

And

Presenter16:31

Immediately this happened they turned.

Presenter16:34

and the joy was palpable almost.

Presenter16:38

But tell me more about his lifestyle. Obviously in those three years then that followed the crash he he was under this great stress. But he smoked heavily, cigars for breakfast? Yes, always had.

Janet Holmes à Court16:48

So

Presenter16:49

Smoked a lot. Exercise? Not partic no, not there wasn't time for exercise. Food? What sort of food did you? Bad food.

Presenter16:57

Uh not the sort of food that the children and I eat and did eat. I mean, we all so you ate something different? Often.

Janet Holmes à Court17:02

So you

Presenter17:03

But but you must have said to him during the course of it, Look, you are killing yourself Oh, yes, and I think he was an intelligent person, he must have known that, but his doctor, who's a who's a great friend of mine, in fact, tells me that he he said to Robert, If you go if you want to live to be fifty five even, you'll have to change your lifestyle and

Presenter17:21

His answer was I could do that, but

Presenter17:24

I wouldn't be happy.

Presenter17:26

And eventually the inevitable happened in 1990. He had a a huge heart attack. Where were you at the time?

Janet Holmes à Court17:28

Yeah.

Speaker 217:31

Definitely.

Janet Holmes à Court17:31

Yeah.

Presenter17:34

You were with him? I was with him? Yes, it was it was in the middle of the night. Um

Presenter17:38

And uh it was a a very massive heart attack. Did you have time to speak to him or did he wake you up and speak to you? Oh yes, yes, yes. Mm. He he woke up and and thought he had indigestion and of course I thought

Janet Holmes à Court17:45

Oh, yes.

Presenter17:51

I uh

Presenter17:53

suspected that it wasn't and um

Presenter17:56

And then he had a heart attack and very quickly.

Janet Holmes à Court17:59

Very

Presenter18:01

So someone wrote at the time that that the chess player had gone and and and the game would never be the same again, but it did go on as we've heard and we'll discuss some more. But tell me first about your next record, number four.

Presenter18:12

Well, I've been trying to think of what I would miss if I was on a desert island, and obviously the main thing I'd miss would be people.

Presenter18:19

And I have been fortunate in my life in having many close male friends in the truest sense of the word. I actually have about six men who call me mate, and I love it. And many of them have had wonderful voices.

Presenter18:33

Now Richard Burton was not a man in my life, but he has got a wonderful voice. So I think I would take Richard Burton reading parts of Under Milkwood.

Presenter18:44

Also a piece of work which I absolutely love and know quite well, so I could mutter along with Richard.

Janet Holmes à Court18:51

To begin at the beginning.

Janet Holmes à Court18:55

It is spring, moonless night in the small town, starless and bible black, the cobbled streets silent and the hunched, quarters and rabbits' wood limping invisible down to the slow black.

Janet Holmes à Court19:08

Slow.

Janet Holmes à Court19:09

Black

Janet Holmes à Court19:11

Crow black fishing boat bobbing sea

Janet Holmes à Court19:15

The houses are blind as moles, though moles see fine to night in the snouting velvet dingles, or blind as Captain Cat there in the muffled middle by the pump and the town clock, the shops in mourning, the welfare hall in widow's weeds, and all the people of the lulled and dumbfound town.

Janet Holmes à Court19:34

Are sleeping now.

Presenter19:36

RICHARD BURTON reading The Opening of Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas.

Presenter19:41

So you took over, Janet, the business as it entered the nineteen nineties. We've indicated that you run it differently from the way Robert did, but how would you characterize the essential differences in the way you run it? It's totally different. Robert was a really a one man band.

Presenter19:56

The way I've described it is Hatesbury was like a pyramid with Robert at the top.

Presenter20:02

and many people paying homage.

Presenter20:06

and they worshipped him and they had him on a huge pedestal.

Presenter20:09

I would like to think that I'm down at the bottom of a pyramid and that I can motivate people, make them feel good about themselves, hopefully inspire them to achieve their maximum potential. So what does that mean you do this different? You go out and meet all of those people. I mean, thousands of employees you have, don't you? Yes. I spend a lot of time with them.

Presenter20:30

But we don't make our money with money in Haydesbury. We make it with people. But any big decision, like a two million on a new feeding centre or whatever, would go through you. So you are very hands-on, is what we're saying.

Janet Holmes à Court20:42

Oh, absolutely.

Janet Holmes à Court20:44

Yeah.

Speaker 220:44

That's what we're saying.

Presenter20:46

What sort of effect does that have on you? I mean, you must feel under stress. You must feel sometimes like your husband must have felt. No, not very often. I've got a fantastic chief executive officer in Australia, Darryl Jarvis, who was actually working in the company when Robert died, but in the cattle division.

Presenter21:04

So I've got

Presenter21:05

Him on my side. I've got a good board. We now have managing directors in all our operations who are.

Presenter21:13

trustworthy part of our team.

Presenter21:17

Do, which is what Robert didn't, is you delegate, you trust other people.

Presenter21:22

Yes, yes.

Presenter21:24

That's the lesson, really, isn't it? Yes, it's people and keep them motivated.

Janet Holmes à Court21:29

Yeah.

Janet Holmes à Court21:30

Yeah.

Presenter21:31

But but basically stopped trying to be king pin.

Presenter21:34

Oh, absolutely. That was his great mistake, wasn't it? Yes, it was.

Janet Holmes à Court21:35

But that was his great mistake.

Presenter21:38

Number five. What's that?

Presenter21:40

Um this is part of Elgar's uh cello concerto in E minor. It's played by Jacqueline Dupre.

Presenter21:46

It's very moving, very soulful, and of course the the Jacqueline Dupre story is a story we all know. And Sir John Barberaley I once heard conduct

Presenter21:57

The orchestra in Western Australia when I was a very small child, and he made it sound so wonderful.

Presenter23:00

Part of Elgar's cello concerto in E minor, played by Jacqueline Dupre with the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sir John Barbaroli. And you have aspirations to be a conductor yourself, Janet? Yes, I've always wanted to be a conductor. I think that is the prime position in the orchestra. But you're having lessons. Your children are giving you lessons. Yes, yes, quite an inspired gift for me. I think they're probably sick to death of me waving my arms around when I'm listening to music. And so for my fiftieth birthday, they organised for me to have twenty conducting lessons and twenty piano lessons. And then when I've accomplished the goal of being able to conduct something, the hire of the university orchestra in Western Australia so I can give a little concert to my friends. So when's it going to happen? I don't quite know. I've been so busy since my birthday that I've only just started on the piano lesson side and the conducting lessons. I suddenly realised actually when they gave them to me that conducting was probably quite difficult.

Presenter23:59

More difficult than waving your arms.

Janet Holmes à Court24:00

Yeah.

Presenter24:02

Let let's talk theatres, because as I said, you own ten of them, including the Theatre Royal Drury Lane and Her Majesty's and the Garrick and the Cambridge and so on. A third, I think, of the West End seating capacity. That would be about right, yes.

Speaker 324:04

Uh

Presenter24:13

But you haven't, it seems, concerned yourself so much with what's on stage at the beginning as to what goes on backstage and in front of house. The first thing we that I had to do and that we did when we came into Stolmos in the serious way after Robert died was recognize that we were in fact landlords.

Presenter24:32

And that the landlord side of Stallmos had in fact been badly neglected for quite some time. That is, the maintenance and the provision of decent facilities for people. But of course, people have always said in the past that these theatres, many of them are historic buildings, they can simply eat money if you're going to put them in order. How have you managed to afford it? Well, they do eat money.

Janet Holmes à Court24:49

The main order

Presenter24:53

And when people complain to me about ticket prices, as they occasionally do, I have to explain that we have to be allowed to make a little bit of money in our theatres so that we can do the refurbishments and provide the facilities which people demand. They are hugely expensive. But what you've also been criticised for doing is putting on too many commercial shows. You've got Miss Saigon and Phantom of the Opera and so on. You get the bums on seats, obviously, which is do you do you feel that you should legislate in favour of more serious theatre, or is it just a business?

Speaker 225:11

That one

Janet Holmes à Court25:11

Yeah.

Presenter25:28

We have to have a balance.

Presenter25:31

At the moment we do have Miss Sargon, Fame, Oliver.

Presenter25:35

Passion, Phantom of the Opera. We have five other theatres. We have an Inspector Calls.

Presenter25:41

which thousands of school children are coming to see because it's part of the curriculum.

Presenter25:45

We've got Tap Dogs, which thousands of young people are coming to see, and we're developing a new audience. We've just had Lee Evans.

Presenter25:53

We packed The Apollo and the Lyric for eight weeks with young people who had never been to the theatre before.

Presenter25:59

Even if one percent of those young people decides that going to the theater is an exciting thing to do, that a live experience is exciting and comes back.

Presenter26:09

I think we've achieved something. Record number six.

Presenter26:12

This is a track from Jimmy Chai's musical Brand New Day.

Presenter26:19

And this musical was first performed at the Perth Festival in 1990. I went about three times. It was a most moving experience. I was asked afterwards if I would be interested in establishing a theatre company in Australia which would use multi-racial casting, which would perform the work of Aboriginal writers as well as other Australian writers. So we set up Black Swan and two years later we actually put Brand New Day together again and took this Aboriginal rock musical to towns like Maury in northern New South Wales which have dreadful race problems.

Presenter26:58

and showed the people of Mauree Aborigines being Creative, being clever, being funny, being optimistic. And the title Brand New Day is about.

Presenter27:11

uh reconciliation

Speaker 227:14

Listen to the news, talking about the blues are our people.

Speaker 227:22

Listen to the news, talking about the blues of our people.

Speaker 227:34

Without

Speaker 227:37

Let's just keep our way.

Presenter27:43

Jimmy Chai's Brand New Day, sung and played by the Black Swan Theatre Company of Western Australia.

Presenter27:48

It said you rather resent the Australian stereotypes we're fed, you know, the sort of Barry Humphreys slobbering.

Janet Holmes à Court27:53

Humphreys Slob.

Presenter27:55

Rather uncouth cultural attaché, Les Patterson. I do, I hate it.

Janet Holmes à Court27:55

Roger and coup.

Presenter27:59

I think it feeds English prejudice because I've never met Les Patterson.

Presenter28:04

I thought you'd met him on a jumbo jet at some point.

Speaker 228:07

Brief.

Presenter28:11

I actually once last year travelling from Singapore to Perth there were four obnoxious people and their behaviour was absolutely fintage, Les Patterson, but they were all English. Now no doubt Australians behave like that as well somewhere, but I have met them and I have met thousands of very sophisticated Australians. So it's time Barry Humphreys stopped it, is it? Yes.

Janet Holmes à Court28:35

Yeah.

Presenter28:36

And and what of your children, Janet, all in their twenties now, two of them educated at Oxford. Are are they in the business too?

Presenter28:43

If they wish to be in the business, I'd love it. If they don't wish to be in the business, I think that's fine, too. I think it's really bad to make people feel that they have to do it. I wonder, though, you were saying that you spent a lot of your time not with them when they were younger because they were at boarding school and you were travelling with Robert. I wonder if, in a funny kind of way, you're almost closer to them now than when they were young. I probably am. I mean, I I resent not having been with them when they were in those formative teenage years.

Presenter29:10

A couple of years ago one of my sons applied for a job.

Presenter29:14

for his holidays and sent me the his application letter. And I was absolutely staggered that he could have done this. Now, I shouldn't have been staggered. If I'd been growing up with him and he'd been growing up with me,

Presenter29:28

I would have known uh I would have helped him with his homework and I would have known that he was capable of such a terrific application. And I thought, Oh gosh, I really missed out on a lot of fun there. They must be very proud of you.

Janet Holmes à Court29:38

Yeah.

Speaker 329:38

There must be

Presenter29:40

I think they are. I'm very proud of them. I think they're all re they're all pretty sane and I'm very proud of you.

Speaker 229:46

We've all survived.

Presenter29:48

Mm.

Presenter29:50

Record number seven.

Presenter29:51

This is a quartet from Beethoven's Fidelio. I think it's beautiful. I like to sing along with it. I would take Fidelio with me on this Desert Island because it's well it's Beethoven and it's my favourite opera, but also it's in German. And I studied German at school for five years and I reckon by the time I'd been on this Desert Island for a couple of years I'd be able to sing the whole thing, whereas if it was in Italian I wouldn't have the faintest idea what they were saying.

Speaker 230:21

This season

Speaker 230:24

And who?

Speaker 230:29

Yeah.

Speaker 230:32

Oh shit.

Presenter31:12

Part of the quartet Mir Istso Vunderbar from Beethoven's Fidelio, sung by Adolphe Dallopozza, Manfred Jungviert, Gundela Janowitz and Lucia Pop.

Presenter31:21

So tell me about Janet Holmes accord on a desert island, completely alone. But for her eight records, do you find the idea rather inviting? No.

Presenter31:30

My f

Presenter31:31

No, I don't. Uh I'm not uh gregarious in the sense that I want a thousand people around me and I avoid

Presenter31:39

if possible, going to places where there are too many people.

Presenter31:42

But I do have a a a special group of friends and I I don't relish the thought of not being with them.

Presenter31:49

And do you despite your gregariousness, despite that group of friends, do you also um suffer from loneliness?

Presenter31:57

There's a time sometimes at the end of a concert when people are pairing up with their partners and going off home, when I think, Oh God, I'm going home to an empty house again.

Presenter32:08

To be alone sometimes would be a great luxury.

Presenter32:14

Forever.

Presenter32:16

Do you do you think you might get married again one day?

Presenter32:19

Oh, you're very, very different. No, I d I don't have any religion, so I don't see the point of getting.

Presenter32:27

Married again. Let me rephrase it then. I mean, do you see yourself putting your life together with somebody else's at some point?

Janet Holmes à Court32:28

Let me rephrase it.

Presenter32:34

I wouldn't mind doing that. You get very used to being on your own. It's probably rather selfish, but the habit of being able to do precisely what you want in those rare moments when you are on your own.

Presenter32:46

is something that um grows on you. You wouldn't give up easily. No. It's quite comfortable existence. Yes. But sharing maybe sort of three days a week or something.

Presenter32:58

Why not? Sounds ideal. Last record.

Presenter33:01

Last record, I think this is arguably the most beautiful piece of music ever written, and many of my friends and I would like this to be played.

Presenter33:10

at our funerals.

Presenter33:12

It's the slow movement of Schubert's string quintet in C major, I play it constantly.

Presenter33:20

It's very sad, so I'm going to be quite sad.

Presenter34:18

Part of the second movement of Schubert's string quintet in C major, played by the Emerson String Quartet with Mitslav Rostropovich. If you could only take one of those eight records, Janet, which one would it be?

Presenter34:31

I think

Presenter34:33

I would have to take Fidelio because y it is the longest one. There'd be more.

Presenter34:41

And what about a book? Because we g we we give you the complete works of Shakespeare and we give you the Bible.

Janet Holmes à Court34:45

We give

Presenter34:46

Although you're not religious, you say. No, but I need to read it.

Janet Holmes à Court34:48

No.

Presenter34:51

What about a book of your own choice? I've decided to take a great Australian book called Tourmalane, written by.

Presenter34:59

Randolph Stowe. It's terribly evocatively written in terms of descriptive passages, but it is a universal story. And it's also a novel which Black Swan adapted for the theatre for the festival in 1992 and was stunningly successful. And so it would remind me of lots of friends and happy experiences. But

Presenter35:23

Basically it would remind me of Australia.

Presenter35:26

And what about your luxury? I think I would not be allowed to take my piano. I mean, I'd like to take my piano and hope that somebody like Harvey Keitel was washed up and wanted lessons. But uh

Janet Holmes à Court35:39

Could I

Presenter35:40

I take a piano, but if that was too big for our vessel I think I just I would take a jar of Vegemite.

Presenter35:48

Would you? Well, couldn't live without it.

Presenter35:52

No Australian could live without a jar of Vegemaisa.

Presenter35:55

Janet Homes Accord, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs. Thank you, Sue. It's been a great honour and pleasure.

Speaker 336:10

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