David Wynne

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 seven, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:30

My castaway this week is a sculptor. His works are to be found all over the world, and one of them, Boy with a Dolphin, next to the Thames in Chelsea, is now one of London's landmarks. Famous people from the Queen to Paul Daniels and Sir Thomas Beecham have modelled for him, and we touch an example of his work nearly every day. He designed the hands on the back of the fiftypence piece. Now seventy, he studied zoology at Cambridge, and giving art school a wide berth, devoted the rest of his life to becoming a naturalistic sculptor. I try to tell the truth lovingly, he says, never belittle, nor ridicule, nor caricature. He is David Wynne.

Presenter1:09

The result is, David, that all your pieces are are very strong and and really very beautiful, whether it's a naked figure or wild animals or the portrait bust. Your intention, then, is to is to celebrate living forms, is it?

David Wynne1:21

Yes, um I see the role of sculpture in the world, in the civilized world, as something that will remind people of heaven, really, remind people of another order of reality where all's beauty and all's truth. And um I think that's what art is about. Uh I know I'm out on a limb, but I thought that when I was a boy, and I think it now.

Presenter1:48

Have you ever sculpted anything ugly?

David Wynne1:52

Depends what you call ugly. I've sculpted uh a gorilla with his hackles up. If people think it's ugly, I don't think there's anything. No. I don't think there's anything ugly in the real world.

Presenter1:58

But you don't, do you?

Presenter2:03

And conversely, then, do you always fall in love with everything you skulk?

David Wynne2:08

Yes, yes, I'm afraid so.

David Wynne2:10

I really do.

Presenter2:11

Does that include the Queen?

David Wynne2:13

She was wonderful, yes. And uh

David Wynne2:16

Well, I can remember her I said to her,'Do you mind if I touch your your face'? and she said,'Of course not' and then she said rather pensively,'You know, I've been sculpted several times before, and nobody's ever asked me that. I wonder why. Surely it's important.

David Wynne2:31

And she then went on

David Wynne2:33

I hope she won't mind my saying this to say how very important it was that parents should cuddle.

David Wynne2:39

their children, and um the physical contact was very, very important.

David Wynne2:44

Where's your lovely lady? Of course I loved her.

Presenter2:46

And is one of her hands on the back of the fifty pence piece?

David Wynne2:51

The hands on the back are my own, my wife's, two of my sons, and my old workman who died, Bill Amer, and there was one of a model that I was posing then. And the Queen said to me, What shall I say, Mr Wynne, when they say is the small hand mine? and I said, Not at all, ma'am. I used to row a great deal at Cambridge, and it's eight oarsmen and the cocks.

Presenter3:13

Tell me about your first record.

David Wynne3:17

My first record is what I should put out as my contender as the most beautiful piece of music ever written.

Presenter4:26

The beginning of the slow movement of Mozart's clarinet concerto in A major, played by Gervaise de Peillet, and the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Peter Marg.

Presenter4:35

So, David Wynne, the boy with the dolphin, which, as I've said, is on the Thames embankment, and it's the dolphin, for those who need remind him, with the boy flying sort of Peter Pan like through the air, just touching his fin. It's said to be a children's favourite. Um but you did another one many years earlier, didn't you? Children, Guy the Gorilla in Crystal Palace.

David Wynne4:53

That's right. That's in marble, black marble, and uh it's big. And uh I got the commission from what was then the L C C and um they said I'd have to do something on a tall plinth because uh otherwise they was afraid children would climb on it, you see. So I immediately thought, well,

David Wynne5:13

That's the answer. And I made this great big thing for children to climb on. And it's it is very popular with children. It's slide down its back and all this stuff.

Presenter5:18

Yeah, they still

Presenter5:21

And if Guy established your career, then I think the horse and rider in Sheffield's city centre, which is appropriately in stainless steel, certainly extended your reputation to the provinces, didn't it?

Speaker 45:31

Uh

David Wynne5:31

Oh, well, yes, I'd already then, I think, done quite a lot in America anyway.

Presenter5:36

But the figure on the back, it's a very thin and wiry kind of very angular, and the rider's got his hands throbbing.

David Wynne5:41

Yeah.

David Wynne5:43

Yes, well it's b it was based actually, that figure, on the White Horse of Uffington, if anybody has ever seen that. It's a which is the most extraordinary uh Celtic object in these islands. It's it's a magic thing.

Presenter5:48

I've seen that.

David Wynne5:56

And um

David Wynne5:57

Are people like it? It's difficult to follow the ones people like and don't like because they're much more likely to tell you if they do like it than if they they don't, you know.

Speaker 46:06

Yeah.

David Wynne6:07

For instance, the Queen Mother's Gates in Hyde Park, there uh quite a lot of people said they didn't like it, and I used to question them and usually found they hadn't seen it.

Presenter6:16

The lion in the unicorn.

David Wynne6:17

Oh yes.

David Wynne6:18

But um

David Wynne6:19

There we are. Yes, it d Sheffield was was a fine one, I thought.

Presenter6:23

And then at the other end of the spectrum from that fine, elegant stainless steel, there is the the the the huge, again, black marble um I think it's fossil marble, isn't it, you did for Pepsi Cola in the bear, the grizzly bear.

Speaker 46:34

Oh, the bear, yeah.

David Wynne6:36

Oh shit.

Presenter6:36

When you do dolphins and grizzly bet how do you know about do you do them from photographs or do you

David Wynne6:41

No, no, no. Photographs are useless. Photographs always lie. The only way to do it is to go follow the animal, watch the animal and um draw.

Presenter6:50

So you swam with the dolphin?

David Wynne6:52

Oh, again and again, yes.

Presenter6:53

What did you do with the grizzly bear?

David Wynne6:54

Oh, I followed him up in the High Rockies with another.

David Wynne6:58

Chap uh on horses and we um camped out and

David Wynne7:03

Follow them that way.

Presenter7:05

But you obviously then have fun doing all of this. There are endless pictures of you kind of riding in on the nose of the bear on this great lump of marble as the crane drops him into place. And it's quite a macho business, isn't it?

David Wynne7:07

No, I love it.

David Wynne7:09

Rising

David Wynne7:10

Nose

David Wynne7:16

Uh yeah, I don't know about Matro. It's it's it's some of it's very hard work, but it's all good fun, that's the thing. It's the most lovely life you ever thought of. It's um one's doing exactly what one wants to do, seven days a week.

David Wynne7:29

and being applauded and paid for it.

Presenter7:32

Tell me about your second record.

David Wynne7:34

Oh, the second record is of course Beethoven. It was incredibly moving to me as a little boy, this piece of music, particularly.

David Wynne7:43

I remember once when my mother and father were had had a fearful row, and we children thought they were going to split up in the war, this was.

David Wynne7:52

And we were listening to this and in the middle of the slow movement, my brother Gerald jumped up and seized my two parents, one in each hand, and said, You shan't, you shan't do it.

Presenter8:55

Part of the slow movement of Beethoven's Symphony No. Nine in D minor, played by the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Otto Klemperer.

Presenter9:02

Why did you become a sculptor, David? Was there a point at which might you equally well have been a painter, or was there a moment when you realized you wanted to be three-dimensional?

David Wynne9:11

It's very difficult now to pinpoint it. You see, um I was at school in the war and then I went from there into the navy.

David Wynne9:22

While I was in the Navy I was very, very interested, as a as a young man while I still am, in comparative religion.

David Wynne9:30

And I took a long leave in the Far East.

David Wynne9:33

instead of coming home to be demobbed, and I travelled quite a lot to the monasteries and the um temples in the East, and I came across a very curious thing.

David Wynne9:46

That

David Wynne9:47

one could learn more about the deep

David Wynne9:51

Deep inmost

David Wynne9:53

Knowledge and understanding of the religion.

David Wynne9:57

By looking at the sculpture, the ancient sculptures, and by talking to the priests. And I it struck me so forcibly that if there was ever a way to con

David Wynne10:06

to transmit this emotion, this deep

David Wynne10:10

Amazing emotions which I had all the time.

David Wynne10:13

to other people.

David Wynne10:15

It was through sculpture.

Presenter10:16

What kinds of emotions?

David Wynne10:18

all the all the emotions of awe and wonder and and love which one has for the world.

Presenter10:24

And your parents obviously encouraged you in all of this. I read that your father spent practically his last bit of capital on setting you up.

David Wynne10:30

Yes, where do you read that's perfectly true. My father was a sailor, proper sailor.

David Wynne10:35

He went three times round the world before he was twenty one under sale, and he just encouraged one. He didn't

David Wynne10:42

Whatever we said, you think, oh, that's marvellous. Well done, that'll be good.

David Wynne10:46

And when I decided to become a sculptor, he got me a studio with his last four thousand quid. Well

David Wynne10:53

All the people at his club said he was crazy, you know, to do it. And he said, Not at all, not at all. The boy's going to be absolutely go to the top, you see and so with this behind you, you you have a hell of a start.

Presenter11:03

Did he live to see you go to the top?

David Wynne11:05

No, no, he didn't. I'm not at the top, but he he died about fifteen, twenty years ago.

David Wynne11:10

Well then what the

Presenter11:10

He saw me astonished, yes.

David Wynne11:11

He saw me established, yes, he saw me established.

Presenter11:14

But w was your family artistic? I mean, was your mother or your father?

David Wynne11:17

Particularly my mother knew a great deal about art, about European art anyway.

David Wynne11:22

Uh my father painted watercolours in his old age and uh

David Wynne11:26

They weren't frightfully good, but he thought they were, you know.

Presenter11:28

So there in the gene somewhere. But you'd gone up to Cambridge to read zoology, hadn't you? And then you went away to war. Did did you ever finish?

David Wynne11:31

And then you went away to walk

David Wynne11:34

No, I went just for a little bit first before going into the Navy, really just to assure myself a place at the university when I got back.

Presenter11:42

But did you ever finish the degree?

David Wynne11:43

No, no, no, no, no, no. Um there was a very f wonderful man who was a master of my college called GM Trevelyan, historian.

David Wynne11:52

And he and two of the other dons decided between them that I shouldn't have to go to any more lectures and that I could stay up taking s lessons in ancient sculpture from Andrew Gow, who was a Greek professor, who was the most uh erudite man I think I've almost ever met. And he said in his pronouncement that two things must not suffer.

David Wynne12:16

The May boat which you are stroking.

David Wynne12:19

And the May Ball, which you will be asked to bring back the pre-war splendour. And so, with that proviso, he said I could stay up at the university without doing any work at all.

Presenter12:28

Was it they who told you never to go near art school?

David Wynne12:30

No, they didn't. They rather felt that I should go near an art school. I knew I didn't want to go near an art school.

Presenter12:33

But you wouldn't

Presenter12:35

Why not?

David Wynne12:36

Um it's difficult to say because I think that you cannot teach art any more than you can teach love.

David Wynne12:43

I think that art is something which is in you or not in you, and can be

David Wynne12:47

Helped, encouraged, nurtured by other people, but it can't be taught. So I never went near an art school.

Presenter12:53

Record number three.

David Wynne12:55

The record next. You see, I spend a long time listening to music when I'm working in the studio and

David Wynne13:02

These ones I've chosen are the ones that again and again move me.

David Wynne13:06

And this is by Van Morrison, who's an Irish singer, and the track is called Madam George.

Speaker 413:15

Say goodbye to Madam George.

Speaker 413:22

Dry your eyes from Adam Joy

Speaker 413:30

Wonder Wyoming George

David Wynne13:30

Wonder why

Speaker 413:37

Well

Presenter13:44

Van Morrison and Madam George. You may have bypassed art school, David, but you obviously got in with the right people, Jacob Epstein, to name, the top man in the business. How did you get to know him? Was that sheer cheek on your part?

David Wynne13:56

Yep. I just um sent him a note from Trinity College, where I was, and said that I proposed to call on him at ten o'clock the next morning. It's no good saying

David Wynne14:06

Would he like to see me? And I arrived at ten o'clock in his house in Qui uh where was it? Hyde Park Gate.

David Wynne14:14

And he said to me, Look, if you want me to tell you whether to be a sculptor or not.

David Wynne14:19

Don't.

David Wynne14:21

And I said, um

David Wynne14:23

I don't. I am a sculptor and um I'm coming to you for advice. He's that's different. And from that day on he um

David Wynne14:32

He helped me when he could, w uh when it was convenient to us both, he came to the studio and that's how he was he was a very nice man.

Presenter14:40

But nobody ever taught you, ever showed you how to use it.

David Wynne14:43

No, there was another sc uh wonderful sculptor called Georg Ehrlich Ostrian, and I went to him one day a week for a time and

David Wynne14:54

I don't know what he taught me, not much, I'm afraid, but a bit. But chiefly he uh he had a beautiful girl posing for him, who I immediately took over and married, and so that was a good one.

David Wynne15:08

And um but I've never had a lesson uh uh I've been to the stonemasons wanted when I wanted to know how to sharpen the chisel and how to do things with different sorts of stone, and I went to the blacksmiths when I wanted to learn uh welding and and um whitesmithing, as they call it.

Presenter15:28

And do you remember selling your first piece, and what was it?

David Wynne15:33

I do. The selling is not very important.

Presenter15:36

Well, you had to make money in the end, didn't you?

David Wynne15:37

Not necessarily. Your friends always give you a good dinner.

David Wynne15:40

It's no good thinking about that, really it's not. That comes or it doesn't.

Presenter15:46

Next record number four.

David Wynne15:47

The next record is Ah Well. Now this is pure, pure music. This is Jacqueline Dupre playing the saraband from Bach's cello suite, number one in G.

Speaker 416:27

Yeah.

Presenter17:02

Jacqueline Dupre playing the Saraband from Bach's cello suite number one in G, which she recorded for the B B C in nineteen sixty two.

Presenter17:10

So, David Wynne, in order to be able to do what you do, you have to see the skull beneath the skin. That's really what you're saying, isn't it? You have to understand the anatomy precisely.

David Wynne17:20

It's not what I'm saying, but it sounds very good. I think you're right. The the uh you've got to see more than than that. You've got to grope down and in for the rhythms.

Presenter17:23

Yeah.

David Wynne17:32

At form.

David Wynne17:34

The person or the animal.

David Wynne17:37

Deep, deep down, and then you'll find

David Wynne17:39

The

David Wynne17:41

Contact, the connection with the planet, with everything.

Presenter17:44

So, if you have a female model in your studio, how do you go about that? Do you require her to move about to walk about? No, yes, she walks about.

David Wynne17:49

Oh yes, she walks about.

Presenter17:51

Hmm.

David Wynne17:51

Uh with a with a with um with a female, with a young girl uh which I do a lot of, you know. She walks about and she um reads or she sits or she stands or she she just becomes totally

David Wynne18:05

Unselfconscious because it doesn't that doesn't take very long. People s very, very soon realize that it's not.

David Wynne18:13

the same emotion which is going between you as it is

David Wynne18:17

In ordinary life, it's it's the love indeed, but not sexual love and not d sexual desire. It's just a desire to praise the creation, it's another thing. And when you get all this data, uh what she looks like, what she feels like, what she is like, then you put it all in, and then you forget it all, and you make the piece of sculpture.

David Wynne18:39

Just how it happens, how it comes.

Presenter18:41

How many did you make?

David Wynne18:42

Six Nevermore.

Presenter18:43

Why?

David Wynne18:44

Because if you do more than six, you start to lose interest, lose heart, the edges start to be rounded off, it's not as good.

Presenter18:51

So is the first one that comes out the best one?

David Wynne18:53

No, the f the first six are exactly alike. Well, not exactly alike, but equally good alike.

Presenter18:57

And it would undermine the value if you went on checking them out after that.

David Wynne18:59

Well yes it would, but um again again I must protest that the value isn't really the important thing about it.

Presenter19:05

And what do you do then? You you break the mold? Yeah.

David Wynne19:07

Yeah.

Presenter19:08

What's up?

Presenter19:11

Record number five.

David Wynne19:12

Right.

David Wynne19:15

We've got to come on to my children. I've got four children.

David Wynne19:18

The younger two

David Wynne19:20

Have got

David Wynne19:21

A group

David Wynne19:22

They're extremely well known and extremely successful. They're called the Osrick Tentacles. Don't ask me why. Edward plays the lead guitar and Rowley plays the bass guitar.

Presenter20:05

Myriapard by the Osrick Tentacles from their album Arborescence. You disappear from time to time, David, to Africa to study animals. Where do you go and what have?

David Wynne20:16

Um it depends on the animals, of course. I've been to Botswana, to the Chobi, to study elephants.

David Wynne20:23

And I've spent quite a long time in northern Kenya studying white rhinos and um

Presenter20:29

But you're in a tent in the bush.

David Wynne20:30

In a tent or no in um yeah, in a tent. But in um Africa I've got a a hut.

David Wynne20:38

which I got a couple of

David Wynne20:40

chaps to build for me and um has no amenities except it has a solar panel so there's a bath out the back. You have a hot bath when you come in the evening. And I helped a lot of refugees from Rwanda at one point and um they gave me what must have been all the champagne out of the um some embassy because it's a

David Wynne21:02

Sort of vintage Moen Chandon, and I've got that behind the bath. So those are the only two amenities I've got. It's a lovely hut, it's it's all native uh things, um, you know, old masks and rugs and weapons and things like that. And out of it, from one's bed, one can actually see close herds of

David Wynne21:23

zebra and buffalo and occasionally a giraffe.

Presenter21:27

Sounds like paradise.

David Wynne21:28

But now I'm going to Namibia to study.

David Wynne21:32

The habits of the black rhino. I really want to do a sculpture one charging.

David Wynne21:37

which they say is quite easy. To get to see him charging, it's getting back again that's trouble.

Presenter21:42

But have you ever got into trouble with these animals? I mean, you've obviously come quite close to

David Wynne21:42

Whoever got

David Wynne21:44

I mean you've obviously come to the point. Especially if you're going on foot, which is the way I like to go.

Presenter21:51

What's happened to you? You've been attacked by the business.

David Wynne21:52

Oh, we've been uh yeah. Um

David Wynne21:55

I was with another chap in um out at at a pan, which is a sort of pool in the

David Wynne22:02

bush and then um three big bulls came down to drink. It was such an amazing sight. And one of them let out a

David Wynne22:12

A piercing shriek is the noise they make.

David Wynne22:15

and came thundering up the bank at us, which was

David Wynne22:19

good sound stuff, but it's a very terrifying moment. And anyway, uh Lloyd uh ha there was a big branch near us and he grabbed this branch and threw it and hit the

David Wynne22:29

thing on the ear and it swerved, so we're all right.

Presenter22:32

But you did a good sculpture as a result.

David Wynne22:34

Yeah, I did a fine sculpture afterwards because um

David Wynne22:37

We had a torch and we got out the torch and I just drew what I'd remembered, or noted what I'd remembered about it.

Presenter22:42

But it's a quick sort of photographic memory as well.

David Wynne22:44

Yes, not only that, it's not a photographic memory, it's it's it's an emotional memory. I mean, it it is the most awe inspiring thing to be menaced by an enormous creature like that, and and that feeling is the feeling which you can put into the sculpture. It's all a matter of feeling.

David Wynne22:59

And you loving the creature while it's happening, you applauding it.

David Wynne23:04

While it's doing it, really?

Presenter23:07

Next record.

David Wynne23:08

Now the next record is almost my first choice.

David Wynne23:13

Schubert. He was.

David Wynne23:16

Such an extraordinary man he had such an unhappy life, and yet his amazing music, always, always like a dove at break of day arising, his his pure, pure emotion of love for the world comes through.

Presenter24:29

Isaac Stern, Alexander Schneider, Milton Cartims, Pablo Casals, and Paul Tortellier playing the opening of the third movement, the scherzo of Schubert's string quintet, in C.

Presenter24:40

Um you met your wife, Gilly, as a model. She modelled for you many, many, many, many, many times during the course of her life. But she wasn't just your model, was she? She was your mule.

David Wynne24:50

No, she was my muse. She understood more about sculpture than I'll ever know.

Presenter24:56

How did it work?

David Wynne24:56

How did you get the money? As in Homer, wherever you like, the arrow, where I was aiming. When I was making a big piece of sculpture, or indeed any piece, but a large piece, when I got stuck, which one does, you know, you get suddenly, you don't know where you're going, suddenly it it all clouds over.

David Wynne25:19

And I would um

David Wynne25:21

If I was with a assistant, probably old Bill Amer, I'd say.

David Wynne25:26

Bill recognized time we bought Jillian. He said, Yes, mate. He said, Get her along, for God's sake. He said, Oh, I can't see it. I said, Nor can I and.

David Wynne25:34

So we I go out and find out who Jillie was who came in. She said, Yes, of course.

David Wynne25:39

And she'd walk in. She she was so beautiful. She walked, had the most beautiful walk you've ever seen. She had the most beautiful feet I've ever seen.

David Wynne25:47

And she'd stand and look at it and

David Wynne25:50

She said, It's going very well, isn't it? I said, No, it's not going well, it's not the other. She said, Well,

David Wynne25:55

Something like. I expect it'll be better when you change that arm.

David Wynne26:00

Change that arm? And then O'Bille would say, She's right, mate. Look here and then she would quietly go out again. But uh she never said anything which wasn't practical, which couldn't be done. I miss her very much, as you can imagine.

Presenter26:14

She died in in 1990.

David Wynne26:16

Is she? Yeah, maybe you're right. About then, anyway. Ninety, ninety, yes.

Presenter26:20

But you have two proteges, both female, who work with you and help you and learn from you. I mean, you obviously, from everything you say, find enormous inspiration in women, don't you?

David Wynne26:29

Yes, I do. Oh yes.

David Wynne26:31

Yes, there are

David Wynne26:33

Well, there's Robin, who has been with me

David Wynne26:37

Off and on for twenty years.

David Wynne26:39

I met her in Cornwall when I was doing the Bear, and she's been working for me. Now she's a sculptor in her own right and a very good one.

David Wynne26:46

And her husband is also.

David Wynne26:49

My greatest male friend and um so that's going she helps me all the time. She's coming to Namibia.

David Wynne26:55

And then this Candida, who's lovely and who's been with me three, four years perhaps, and she's now doing her own things.

David Wynne27:04

And uh

David Wynne27:06

There are other girls who pose for me. The the uh th the the most beautiful girls you ever saw. There's um Isabella, who's just about to run the marathon.

David Wynne27:15

And the the latest one is Sana, who's Dutch. I love them all.

David Wynne27:20

I really do. I'm I'm in love with them all. And uh

David Wynne27:25

It's the only

David Wynne27:26

feeling that I think is a bit similar is when you one's in Africa and you see something like a a gazelle.

David Wynne27:34

And you look at them and you just oh, so, so lovely

David Wynne27:38

But the great thing about the girls is they can walk and talk.

Presenter27:44

Record number seven.

David Wynne27:46

I've missed about four girls. Never mind. Uh number seven.

Presenter27:47

Never mind.

David Wynne27:50

That's got to be Mozart again.

Speaker 427:56

Praise Lord.

Speaker 428:12

Let me be a tree.

Speaker 428:33

We have drawn.

Presenter28:51

Kiriticanoa, singing Dove Sono, the Countess's Aria from Act Three of Mozart's Marriage of Figaro, with the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Sir George Schulty. Um

Presenter29:02

David Wynne on a Desert Island I think is okay, isn't it?

David Wynne29:05

Oh, fine, yeah. I've been on one.

Presenter29:06

I

David Wynne29:08

I I uh got myself landed on an island called the Great Blasket by f fishermen for a couple of weeks once and s suck it out fine.

Presenter29:17

So, you don't suffer from boredom or loneliness? No, no, no.

David Wynne29:18

Something like boredom or loneliness. I mean, well, loneliness, I don't know.

Presenter29:23

Yes, well but but the love that you talk about, I I mean, obviously sees you I mean, is is it more than that? Is it just a very positive attitude to life? It and that's what sees you through, is it?

David Wynne29:27

And I

David Wynne29:36

Dunno.

David Wynne29:37

I think it's I don't think it's just that. A positive attitude can you can end up as a banker, can't you? I don't think it's like that.

David Wynne29:46

I think it's that one has glimpses.

David Wynne29:49

of the next level.

David Wynne29:51

of existence.

David Wynne29:53

And I think it's that which is the beauty and and that's what you love is the

David Wynne29:59

The fact that we

David Wynne30:01

Whether we know it or not, we're s we're just walking in cloud and if we put our heads out it's all magic.

Presenter30:08

And so as you sit on the sand, you know, whittling away at a piece of wood or driftwood or whatever, whatever you found well, we'll talk about that later. But how important is it for you to think that back here, you know, there are these great lumps of marble and metal everywhere that are

David Wynne30:13

Christmas or whatever. So

David Wynne30:17

Yeah.

Speaker 430:18

Uh

Presenter30:27

Incredibly indestructible. And when you're, you know, you've disappeared into the sand, you're a few bits of bone, they'll still be there.

David Wynne30:29

Let's go.

David Wynne30:30

You've disappeared in

David Wynne30:31

Yeah.

David Wynne30:34

Ozymandius. Yeah, I I I don't know. They don't I don't think that figures quite as much as people think who don't do it, you know, to have a a great um memorial to oneself in

David Wynne30:48

Every other town is is is it's all right. It depends who's looking at it, who's if people are getting out of it, what you think. I don't want them to remember my name. I think the name means nothing at all.

David Wynne31:01

But on the desert island I would I think what I would long for most

David Wynne31:06

If one may say it without

David Wynne31:08

Miss Contraction is female company.

David Wynne31:12

I'm not allowed to have a uh a beautiful girl, am I? No, no, no.

Speaker 431:14

Bruh.

Speaker 431:15

Uh

David Wynne31:16

Yeah, but it's it's yeah.

David Wynne31:21

But the d desert island would be all right. Uh um it's not very difficult to get used to sleeping on the sand and or whatever one does.

Presenter31:29

Last record.

David Wynne31:30

Well, the last record is by a very great friend of mine called Chris DeBerg.

David Wynne31:36

who we helped when he was a young man in Ireland, by bringing him over to to our house where we had all sorts of people in and out all the time, Jimi Hendrix, uh the Beatles, uh Donovan.

David Wynne31:49

And I go and stay with him in Ireland. He's a wonderful fellow.

David Wynne31:52

And a wonderful singer. And this is the one called I'm Not Crying Over You.

David Wynne31:58

And I told Chris that I was going to ask for this on my desert island diss, and he said, yes, he said, well, he is crying, of course.

Speaker 432:06

I don't mind this empty room

Speaker 432:10

And I like it when I'm alone

Speaker 432:16

Trying not to think about you

Speaker 432:19

I'm not awaiting by the telephone

Speaker 432:24

I'm watching a late night movie

Speaker 432:28

Where the lovers say goodbye.

Speaker 432:33

How does really get into me?

Speaker 432:38

And tears are in my

Speaker 432:40

But I'm not crying I'm not crying

Speaker 432:51

Crying away.

Speaker 432:59

I won't love you.

Presenter33:05

Chris Deberg and I'm Not Crying Over You. Now if you could only take one of those eight records, David.

Presenter33:13

Which one would it be?

David Wynne33:15

I suppose it'd be the first one.

Presenter33:17

Mozart Carinet Concerto.

Presenter33:20

Well, you did say it was the most beautiful piece of music ever written.

Presenter33:24

What about your book as well as the Bible and Shakespeare?

David Wynne33:27

Oh, I think I'll I'll have Homer.

David Wynne33:30

Um

David Wynne33:32

The Odyssey and the Iliad.

Presenter33:34

And your luxury. The chisel, is it?

David Wynne33:37

The chisel?

Presenter33:38

I don't know. You were asking for a knife or a chisel.

David Wynne33:40

Well, I wouldn't mind a knife.

David Wynne33:43

And you say, nothing living, I couldn't have my little fox terrier. No, couldn't I?

Presenter33:47

No, I'm not sure you can have a knife either, because it's a great practical use.

David Wynne33:49

Well if there's no life, I'll take a harmonica. You see, modestly I haven't brought it into the programme before, but I do rather fancy myself on the harmonica.

Presenter34:00

So you'll sit on the sand and play softly to yourself.

David Wynne34:03

Yeah in the evenings.

Presenter34:06

David Wynne, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island liscs.

Speaker 334:18

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