Robert Winston

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.

Presenter0:30

My Castaway this week is a doctor. He practices in a controversial field, fertility. He was born into a Jewish family in West London, studied medicine, and after a brief spell in the theatre, joined the Hammersmith Hospital, where he's been on and off ever since. In 1981, three years after the first so-called test tube baby was born, Hammersmith opened the country's first national health IVF clinic, and it's from this position that My Castaway has campaigned passionately for patients of all kinds, HIV positive, lesbian, widows, and lovers, to be allowed to make the babies they want.

Presenter1:05

But he scorns the idea that he's playing God. There's an extraordinary need for what we're doing, he says. It has huge value for mankind's future. He is Professor Robert Winston Lord Winston, indeed.

Presenter1:19

Robert, making people fertile where they are not, surely that is a kind of act of God, isn't it?

Robert Winston1:27

Well, the ability to procreate is, I suppose, an act of God.

Robert Winston1:32

What we're doing is to use the materials of creation.

Robert Winston1:36

There is a concept that by using the materials of creation mankind is in the situation of imitatio dei, he's imitating God, which is seen to be good by Judeo-Christian thought. And indeed the first commandment in the Bible is be fruitful and multiply. And it goes on to say, and fill the earth. And then the fourth verb in the Hebrew is and subdue it.

Robert Winston2:06

And that's the notion that mankind uses technology to improve his environment, to use it to improve his lot, to improve the quality of life.

Presenter2:16

So you can imitate God, but you're not supplanting him. That's the

Robert Winston2:20

Yes, we're not creating from nothing, we're creating from what already exists.

Presenter2:23

But of course it's your patients who see you as God, isn't it? Because they come to you miserable, in despair, they have only one thing on their mind, which is that they want a baby, and you are seen as the person who can answer their prayers.

Robert Winston2:36

And that is actually the most difficult aspect, I think, of the whole work. The idea that people attach much more significance to you than really you justify or can you meet. I mean, basically.

Robert Winston2:47

I find myself.

Robert Winston2:49

a failure, I mean frequently with with patients because I don't come up to their expectations. Uh much of the time I'm telling people that I can't help them.

Robert Winston3:00

And very often, because people don't want to hear that, you have to tell them that really quite brutally, almost brutally.

Presenter3:08

I think you've called it yourself an emotional roller coaster, all of this. How much of that emotion rubs off on you?

Robert Winston3:15

I find it

Robert Winston3:17

Actually impossible to talk about my clinic.

Presenter3:19

At home.

Robert Winston3:19

Uh yeah, I never go home with it, ever.

Presenter3:22

But how can you switch off when you've been

Robert Winston3:23

Well, I I well, I do things like listen to music, for example, or read a book or, you know, do something totally different. But I actually don't talk about the medicine at home. I don't mind talking about my science, which is a different compartment, because that isn't anything like as demanding, although

Presenter3:34

Um

Presenter3:37

What do you think about it?

Presenter3:38

Do these cases

Robert Winston3:39

Yes, I do, and I think of the mistakes I make all the time, actually. I think of the things that I've said to people that I feel perhaps weren't right or not tactful.

Presenter3:46

Let's hear some of that music that uh takes you away from it all so well. What what's your first record?

Robert Winston3:51

Well, the first record is Haydn's Creation. It's got special associations for me because it's the the chord when Let There Be Light is the moment of discovery, science, and of course it's also about fertility, too. It's about genesis.

Speaker 44:52

Old God saw the slit us as good far.

Speaker 45:04

On their fings are near.

Presenter5:08

Werner Holveck singing part of Haydn's creation with the Brighton Festival Chorus and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Antoll Dorati.

Robert Winston5:16

Yeah, there's a wonderful irony about this because

Robert Winston5:18

Haydn was in a childless marriage, and when the thing was performed, the Arias they shouted Father Haydn to the front, Father Haydn to the front.

Presenter5:27

The irony surrounding you is that when IVF treatment first began only 18 years ago, it's amazing, isn't it?

Presenter5:34

You were a real Luddite, weren't you? You didn't you didn't give it much cop at all.

Robert Winston5:40

I've always been pretty stupid about a lot of things actually, and I've always made

Robert Winston5:44

Errors of judgment of this sort. I mean, I didn't appreciate that in vitro fertilization could actually be.

Robert Winston5:52

able to work on a broad scale. One was also aware that human embryos don't implant very regularly. I mean only about fourteen percent of treatment cycles even now produce a baby.

Presenter6:01

What what does that make it?

Robert Winston6:04

Well, averagely throughout Britain uh in an average unit you'd have about a one in eight chance, one in nine chance of

Presenter6:10

But in your unit it's a better chance.

Robert Winston6:12

It's a bit better than that at the moment, but I mean it d it depends so much on the you know in this fact success rates.

Presenter6:13

But that's it.

Robert Winston6:19

can be exaggerated by the nature of who you're treating. If you treat lots of young women, you'll get much better success rates, perhaps one in three. If you treat women in their forties then you'll have success rates which are well below ten percent.

Presenter6:30

But I wonder whether reproductive medicine and as we say it it's moved forward in leaps and bounds over the the last eighteen years I wonder whether it hasn't had what you might regard as a negative effect made women more obsessed by childness childlessness more distressed.

Robert Winston6:47

I think it's had two major effects, one definitely negative and one definitely positive.

Robert Winston6:53

Positive side first, I think, is that this was a matter of deep shame. The loss of self esteem was associated with a complete shut off privacy. I mean, people who are infertile, are angry, dispossessed, and they can't easily talk about it, and the publicity given to in vitro fertilization.

Robert Winston7:11

has made it much easier for them to discuss it openly. So that's been a really positive benefit.

Presenter7:16

But my point really is that what happens now as a result of reproductive medicine being they're offering people another chance, if then that fails, then a woman has a double sense of failure because she failed naturally and then she fails artificially.

Robert Winston7:27

I think that's perfectly true. I think that

Robert Winston7:30

It's also partly because we live in a kind of consumer society. We believe we can get anything that is available and therefore it's difficult to accept that there might be failure. And also there is probably too much expectation of what medicine can offer. I mean the fact is medicine doesn't cure disease. It gets ways round it very often or it palliates it. And you can't cure everybody with infertility.

Presenter7:53

Record number two.

Robert Winston7:54

Yeah, well, as you've probably appreciated, I'm choosing music which is related in my mind to human reproduction. And the the next record is the end of the third act of The Marriage of Figaro, where it seems that the relationship between the Countess and the Countess finally resolved, and then he pricks his finger as he picks up Susannah's letter, and you realize from this little fandango or march that it's actually not resolved at all, and that uh they're putting a brave face on the relationship, the Count and Countess, just before the wedding.

Speaker 48:33

This was another.

Speaker 48:38

Timilaiosho

Robert Winston8:40

Real f

Robert Winston8:49

Richelieu

Speaker 48:56

Sit on, sit on.

Robert Winston8:58

Uh

Speaker 49:01

And it's your bandy hole.

Presenter9:24

Part of Act three of Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro with Rugero Raimondi, Lucia Popp, Barbara Hendricks, and Jose Van Damme with the Academy of Saint Martin in the Fields, conducted by Sir Neville Mariner.

Presenter9:35

So was the young Robert Winston West London schoolboy, Saint Paul's, was he always destined to be a doctor?

Robert Winston9:41

No, no. I I I mean, my father was um unfortunately died when I was quite young.

Presenter9:46

What did he do?

Robert Winston9:47

Well, he was a diamond craftsman. Um

Presenter9:50

And your mother was quite a serious politician, local politician, wasn't she?

Robert Winston9:50

Hey, what?

Robert Winston9:53

I don't know if you'd call my mother serious. I mean, she's a very clever woman. Um

Presenter9:57

Well, she became mayor, didn't she?

Robert Winston9:58

Yes, she did. But she was always an independent. I mean, she was asked by each of the main parties to actually stand for Parliament at different times, because she had a big local folly following, but she said, No, I'm I'm I'm an independent.

Presenter10:10

And it was a very Orthodox Jewish family.

Robert Winston10:14

Well, it was my mother's side was much more orthodox than my father's side, and my mother's father was a rabbi, and he had an incredible library. I mean, we had a lot of books at home, but I mean my I mean my father I remember him sitting in the corner reading Balzac and chuckling, but but my grandfather would be reading uh these in the original and he'd read Dante in the original, uh which was remarkable for a real Hebrew scholar who was a great Talmudic expert, and that was very unusual. So I learnt

Robert Winston10:43

classical Hebrew and Aramaic and a bit of Chaldaic when I was quite young.

Presenter10:46

So when did medicine float into the future?

Robert Winston10:48

Oh, that was very late. I I think I said when I was eight I wanted to be a famous scientist, but I mean that you know obviously

Presenter10:52

Well there you are.

Robert Winston10:53

Yeah.

Robert Winston10:54

Um no, I mean I I was going to read natural sciences and then suddenly at the last moment had a crease and decided

Presenter10:54

Yeah.

Robert Winston11:00

to go for medicine when I was about nineteen and and uh it was a very last-minute decision.

Presenter11:05

So you decided on Mitzun, you studied in London, you qualified, you got a job, you worked as a junior houseman for four years or more, and then you gave it all up for the theatre.

Robert Winston11:14

Yes, I worked that's right, I worked for four years and I was working in a very

Robert Winston11:19

I think crawl environment really. You know, the first six months of my first job, I left the hospital for one weekend. And after four years of being completely three years, really, to be fair, being completely stultified and feeling that this was not nearly as creative as I'd expected it to be, and very regimented, I decided that I would go back to an interest which I'd always had since a teenager, which was theatre.

Robert Winston11:46

I did a couple of things uh around the place and then I got an offer of quite a good stage in Edinburgh, um and I took a a play up by Pirandello, which I was

Robert Winston11:57

uh her playwright I'm still mad about, and it was an amazing success.

Presenter12:01

Tell me about your third record.

Robert Winston12:03

Well, the third one is a terribly serious piece, really. It's really from a sort of oratorio.

Robert Winston12:09

Or it's called a symphony, but it's sung. It's by Noam Sherif, who's an Israeli musician, who wrote a piece called Mahayeh Hametim.

Robert Winston12:19

Revival of the dead. It's a kind of requiem. I've always liked requiems, and this is a a requiem which looks at Jews before the Holocaust and then the Holocaust and then the revival of Israel as a sort of nation.

Speaker 412:40

Libertechology

Speaker 412:44

I've an ice and ice and blip it.

Robert Winston12:44

Yeah.

Presenter13:28

Part of the Holocaust from Noam Sherif's Revival of the Dead with Joseph Malavani, Levi Vissa and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by David Porchalein. It's pretty devastating music.

Robert Winston13:40

Um

Robert Winston13:47

Talk about some music.

Robert Winston13:49

I'm not actually a great Holocaust revivalist at all. In fact, actually, I think, although we have to remember the Holocaust, I think that.

Robert Winston13:57

We Jews have suffered from a Holocaust mentality, which I think is actually counterproductive.

Robert Winston14:02

But on the other hand, there are certain things that we have to remember because.

Robert Winston14:08

They are universal. It's not just a Jewish thing. And indeed

Robert Winston14:12

Uh you could argue it could be um a thing that's happening Rwanda.

Robert Winston14:16

And you can argue that it's a thing that could happen.

Robert Winston14:23

There is a universality really about that that music which is extraordinary.

Presenter14:26

What about your faith and your work, Robert? Has it given you pause for thought in the ethical arguments surrounding embryo research, for example?

Robert Winston14:36

Yes, I mean that's been that's been tremendously important. As it happens, I I think Judaism has provided answers for very virtually all the ethical problems that I've been faced with, and it's been a tremendously important yardstick.

Presenter14:49

But when people

Presenter14:51

you know, who obviously have equally deeply held faith, but of a different kind.

Presenter14:56

argue with you, criticise you publicly about the rights of the unborn child, about how wrong it is to experiment with embryos.

Presenter15:05

Do you have any respect for their views, or can does your faith give you an answer to all that?

Robert Winston15:09

No, of course I had respect for their views. One differs from them. But that's actually what our society is about. I mean the great thing about our society, its great strength, is that it's a pluralist society. And what's always troubled me is that people with very strong fundamentalist or dentological views have sometimes tried to impose those views on the multitude in society, and I don't think that's right.

Presenter15:32

But they might argue that your views are being imposed on society because

Robert Winston15:32

They

Robert Winston15:35

No, on the contrary, you see, they're not. I I think the fact is that what I do as a Jew when I see patients is to use my version of what I think is right and put it to them, but I don't make that an absolute decision. I mean, for example, there are many situations that I wouldn't there are certain many decisions that I wouldn't take for myself.

Presenter15:55

Such as

Robert Winston15:56

Well,

Robert Winston15:59

I mean one of the great

Robert Winston16:00

difficult areas in in in in reproductive medicine generally is the is the is is the area of of terminating pregnancy really, for example. I mean, that you know, but that's it to my mind

Robert Winston16:12

That has to be solved on an individual basis. You can't enforce those rules in general for everybody.

Presenter16:20

But in your personal life you're saying you you would not have ever wanted your wife to have an abortion.

Robert Winston16:25

Well, no, I'm not saying that. Um in fact, Judaism has views about the fetus which give it increasing status as it as it develops. And therefore the circumstances um will have to be looked at in each case. It's the notion that there are individual judgments to be made.

Robert Winston16:45

It's not a pyramidal religion. There isn't a single authority. And there is a possibility for flexibility. And there's a degree of pragmatism about Judaism, which I think is fundamentally very important.

Presenter16:59

More music.

Robert Winston17:01

Well, in the last year of his life

Robert Winston17:04

1827, uh Schubert was very affected by Beethoven's death, and he was suffering from malaise and headaches. He had incipient syphilis probably, and he wrote the Winteriser, the the The Winter's Journey, and Last Hope is the description of his watching a leaf falling from a tree, and that's his hope going. And that leaf in the dappled sunlight is just like the embryo that we transfer to the uterus, which generally doesn't actually become a baby.

Speaker 417:32

Four liters and the beats for all the

Presenter18:31

Dietrich Fischer Dieskar singing Letzter Hofnung from Schubert's Winteriser, accompanied by Gerald Moore.

Presenter18:37

There are so many ethical issues surrounding the work you do, Robert Winston. One of the most controversial, I think, has to be your wish to help a woman who is HIV positive to have a baby. Why do you believe that a woman who has a potentially fatal condition which she could possibly pass on to a child she bore, why should she have help to have a baby?

Robert Winston19:00

You have to understand, first of all, this isn't a general judgment. This was exactly the point. It was an individual judgment in a particular case.

Robert Winston19:08

But I'm sure, given an individual case of similar proportions, I would feel probably the same way.

Robert Winston19:15

Now, first of all

Robert Winston19:17

This woman had been well for twelve years, and

Robert Winston19:22

There are now increasingly a number of women who remain perfectly well indefinitely. Secondly, I am aware of some research which strongly suggests that we might be able to kill the HIV virus, and one has to accept that sometime there will be a cure for this disease, I'm sure there will be.

Robert Winston19:37

Thirdly, with proper precautions, the chances of the baby dying or being affected by HIV would be less than 10%, probably no more than 8%. Now, if we just translate that into a woman who's deciding whether or not to play Russian roulette having a fatal gene defect in the family, we'd have no doubt that we would allow her to have a pregnancy, because people do that all the time.

Robert Winston20:00

I met her several times, and I never promised her I was going to treat her until about the third or fourth time when I was then very sure. And I then presented it to a lot of people. I mean, I discussed it with very senior colleagues.

Robert Winston20:13

uh including um lay people.

Presenter20:16

But it is where your playing God comes in again.

Robert Winston20:18

No, it's not. What I'm doing is not playing God. You see, that's wrong.

Robert Winston20:22

Um playing God would be taking an arbitrary decision. Not playing God is allowing the argument to develop and then taking what seems to be a just decision after due consideration with as many people as possible.

Presenter20:34

Record number five.

Robert Winston20:36

Yeah, well, this is a different form of conception. I mean, this is um this is genetic engineering in its ultimate form. Uh this is Prokofiev, who's this marvellous composer. This is the poem about the the the desperately depressed prince who um goes on this

Presenter20:42

This is

Robert Winston20:51

Johnny

Robert Winston20:52

Because he falls in love with the idea of three oranges and he gets into the desert with his three oranges and

Robert Winston20:58

Uh he cuts out open the first one to get a drink, and there's this princess inside who dies, and then he opens the second orange to later on, because he's desperate for a drink.

Robert Winston21:06

and she dies. And then the third time he opens the third orange, the last orange, at this point the people who are in the theatre intervene. This is the theatre coming out of me, the idea of the theatrical. And they come in and they bring the fire bucket on and they give the princess something to drink. So this is birth out of an orange, and it's the march from the love of the three oranges.

Presenter22:17

The March From the Love of Three Oranges by Brokofieff, played by the Montreal Symphony Orchestra conducted by Charles Dutois.

Presenter22:24

So do you believe then, Robert Winston, essentially your role is, if you like, to to even out the playing field, to make it possible for anyone who wants a baby to have a go at having one?

Robert Winston22:35

No, I don't think I don't actually see myself as having a role. I mean, really, I don't.

Robert Winston22:40

Um I don't see myself as being anything like that important.

Presenter22:43

What's your attitude to helping a lesbian couple have a child?

Robert Winston22:48

Well, I think my attitude there is simply this, that

Robert Winston22:52

Again, I think it's a question of autonomy.

Robert Winston22:54

And I think my feeling really is that there has to be clear evidence that there is harm to the welfare of any unborn child. And I've not seen that evidence.

Presenter23:06

So have you treated a lesbian woman?

Robert Winston23:08

Um well, I'll tell you something. First of all

Robert Winston23:11

Lesbian women who I've known intuitively to be lesbian have come to me with a man in tow.

Robert Winston23:17

And what I've done when I felt it was appropriate is to.

Robert Winston23:22

Be prepared to play the game.

Robert Winston23:24

Now

Robert Winston23:26

Lesbians are still very defensive about coming forward and asking for treatment, and it's very seldom that we get direct requests. We've had a few, but it is seldom. But I think these cases need to be looked for.

Presenter23:38

But you've treated them when they've been honest as well as when they've been dishonest.

Robert Winston23:40

What is

Robert Winston23:41

Yes, I mean, yes, I have treated people who've been dishonest, actually. Yes, I have.

Presenter23:45

Hmm.

Robert Winston23:46

Um but it was a question of why they're being dishonest and how far they're being dishonest.

Presenter23:49

But you haven't called their bluff, you haven't you just hoodwinked them back.

Robert Winston23:53

No, I don't think one should do that. I have to say

Robert Winston23:57

No matter how good you are, all doctors make mistakes. If you're a cardiac surgeon, you can kill a patient on the operating table. If you're a gynecologist, you can cause havoc removing a uterus in rare examples. And we're not immune from those mistakes. But it's ludicrous to single out reproductive medicine, which is probably more carefully policed, more carefully regulated.

Robert Winston24:18

more thoughtful and introspective than virtually any other branch of medicine.

Presenter24:23

But you can also spend precious national health money treating people who perhaps have already had children or who are not in a permanent relationship, people who perhaps

Presenter24:35

shouldn't be in receipt of that money and that treatment.

Robert Winston24:38

Well, I don't think that's quite so easy to do nowadays actually because

Robert Winston24:42

I mean, there have been one or two cases that have cropped up, but very few, because, of course, the health service is so rigidly structured that actually what happens is that people are deprived of this treatment when they should undoubtedly have it, rather than they get it unnecessarily. And what I think is a scandal is that here we have politicians talking about family values and the need to promote the family and relationships, and at the same time, in one of the most important areas of medicine which affects the family, we make a total underprovision of a service which needn't be expensive, it could be much cheaper, providing it was better organised, providing actually the Department of Health took it on and worked out what to do.

Presenter25:23

I want to talk to you about politics in a minute, but let's pause for some more music.

Robert Winston25:24

But that's the first time.

Robert Winston25:26

Um

Robert Winston25:28

We come, I think, to one of the finest pieces of operatic writing, the quartet in Rigoletto, where we have.

Robert Winston25:34

The Duke of Manteva s um singing um Bellafilia damori, making love to Madalena, who's laughing at him, and Gilda and Rigoletto are watching this scene, and it's the welding of four total different emotions, sarcastic laughter, lust, portrayed as love, genuine love, portrayed as despair, and vengeance by Rigoletto.

Speaker 426:26

Make a room for the air.

Presenter26:58

Part of the quartet from Act Three Verdi's Rigoletto with Roberto Alagna, Mariana Penchiva, Andrea Rost, and Renato Brussone with the chorus and orchestra of La Scala Milan, conducted by Riccardo Mutti. Tell me about the future, Robert, a future in which people foresee our giving birth to, and a controversial phrase, this, designer babies. That's to say.

Presenter27:20

Children in whom the disease-carrying genes have been eradicated, you'll be able to choose the sex, you'll be able to choose what the colouring, the character, the aptitude. That that's gonna happen, isn't it?

Robert Winston27:32

Well, I don't know. I mean, let's just take those one by one. First of all, I've no doubt you're going to be able to choose the sex of a baby, but you won't need IVF to do that. It it that will be done by proper sperm sorting. Society will have to take a decision about that, because that is actually an issue which does affect society.

Robert Winston27:48

With regard to gene defects, well, people have criticised the work that we've done. I mean, we, if I dare use the word pioneered because it sounds so immodest, but let's say we started the notion that you could screen an embryo for a specific gene defect. And that work, which Alan Handiside and I did together, meant that we could prevent families who'd lost a child through a severe genetic defect in the early stages, then have a baby that was free of the defect. That seems justifiable, and it is true.

Robert Winston28:19

That we should be able to prevent certain rare cancer genes where there's a 90% probability of developing a particular cancer, we could prevent those in due course.

Robert Winston28:29

But desirable characteristics like beauty, intelligence, strength.

Robert Winston28:34

I don't think the risk is nearly as serious as you say in anything like the near future. First of all,

Robert Winston28:41

The desirable things like beauty.

Robert Winston28:44

and strength and so on. These are a multiplicity of genes interacting in an extraordinary way, and it's very unlikely we're going to be able to manipulate multiple genes in that sort of way in my lifetime or my children or my grandchildren's lifetime. I think it's a long time ahead.

Robert Winston29:01

The other problem is this, that if you manipulate genes, which is different from screening genes out, if you start manipulating a gene, you run the risk of damaging the embryo and causing an abnormality, of having an unexplained or undesirable gene expression. Now I don't think that any doctor could likely consider that.

Robert Winston29:21

And I think that

Robert Winston29:23

One of the reasons why human mankind is safe from us at the moment and for some time to come is because there's the inevitable fact that

Robert Winston29:35

The problem with this kind of genetic engineering is that it will always be unpredictable, and that's a very serious check.

Presenter29:43

Record number seven.

Robert Winston29:44

Record number seven. Well, this is a a savage piece of music. It's Shostakovich. And.

Robert Winston29:53

It has echoes of Lady Macbeth of Motensk, his his opera, because there are lots of quotations from that, and that's an opera about Russian womanhood, and particularly about an infertile woman. And the eighth quartet in the second movement has this remarkable passage, the sort of thing that Shostakevich often does, where he uses a folk melody half way through.

Robert Winston30:13

Which is a Jewish folk melody, and he's talking about the destruction of peoples, not about Jews particularly, but about peoples and about generations.

Presenter31:23

Part of the second movement of Shostakovich's String Quartet No. Eight, played by the Borodin String Quartet.

Presenter31:29

You've just been made a a Labour peer, Robert Winston. Do you see yourself becoming more politically active in a Blair government?

Robert Winston31:36

I shouldn't think so. Who knows?

Presenter31:39

Would you like to then? And do you see yourself as would would you be prepared to be spokesman on health in the Lords?

Robert Winston31:40

Yeah.

Robert Winston31:44

I don't think I would be asked to be spoken on health in the Lords, but

Presenter31:47

But would you like to?

Robert Winston31:48

I mean there are a number of areas which I would I think I'd like to influence. I think I'd probably quite like to influence science more than medicine in some ways. I think medicine is very well spoken for in the House of Lords as it happens. We've got an excellent spokesperson. If one could use one's limited expertise to help influence sensible decisions, that would be good. I mean I found the House of Lords desperately depressing for the first six months. I wasn't well I first of all I wasn't at all sure that I sh I should be there.

Presenter32:04

Yeah.

Presenter32:12

Bye.

Robert Winston32:16

Anyway.

Robert Winston32:17

Um and then having got there, after being quite diffident about it, I felt myself just doing one other thing rather badly, you know, I mean, and not doing anything very well.

Robert Winston32:28

I'm beginning to get a bit of the measure of the place now, I think, and it it is an extraordinarily interesting place.

Presenter32:33

It's enormously time consuming for a man who doesn't.

Robert Winston32:36

To do it promptly, yes. But then I can do my scientific writing at night, and my medicine in the morning.

Robert Winston32:42

Um I I wouldn't

Robert Winston32:44

Mind having more to do with the arts actually. I mean, um that that's always been a fundamental interest, both literature, music, painting.

Presenter32:52

So you could become Minister for Fun.

Robert Winston32:54

Hmm.

Robert Winston32:55

Like fat chance of that.

Presenter32:57

The f

Robert Winston32:58

Mm-hmm.

Presenter32:59

Last record.

Robert Winston33:00

Well the last record really is very special. It's Johan Sebastian Bach, Goldberg variations. And I mean this is an expression of ultimate fecundity because his music was fecund in the extreme and he was an extraordinarily prolific composer. He had twenty children from two wives, I think thirteen from his second wife, I think that's right.

Presenter33:18

Yeah.

Robert Winston33:21

And of course this is being played by the most precise pianist, Glen Gould, and it's just a masterpiece of timing.

Presenter34:26

Glenn Gould playing the end, the aria and reprise of Bas Goldberg variations. If you could only take one of those eight records, Robert.

Robert Winston34:33

I think it would be rather difficult not to take the bar, really.

Presenter34:36

What about your book?

Robert Winston34:38

That's very difficult. I mean, I'm surrounded by books. I I've thought about this a lot and I haven't come to definite conclusions.

Robert Winston34:45

But I think the Koran, actually and perhaps if I might be allowed, it in English and Arabic, and an Arabic primer.

Robert Winston34:52

There's a reason for that. You know, Islam gets an extraordinarily bad press in our society. I mean, the the violence that we use towards Islam ver verbally is savage, and there's a need to understand this this culture much more, and I feel that I could spend some time usefully trying to do that.

Presenter35:11

And what about a luxury?

Robert Winston35:14

Well, if you allow me not to use this as a utility, and I promise not to, um, it would be the tools and the blank glass to grind my own uh reflector telescope, I think. I've started trying to make reflector telescopes several times in my life and never actually had because I'm I'm a terrible you know, I flit around from things, I've never finished it off. But I think on a desert island I might have the opportunity of finishing off my grinding and polishing, making a good parabolic mirror, and then being able to watch the stars afterwards.

Presenter35:43

Robert Winston, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Speaker 335:54

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