Loyd Grossman

Speaker 10:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen ninety seven, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:31

My Costaway this week is a man of taste. Taste and style are his livelihood, as he entertains some twenty million television viewers a week by eating his way through their culinary efforts or snooping around their houses. A New Englander with a first-class degree in history and an ambition to be either an academic or a rock star, he came to London when he was twenty-five and studied at the LSE. In fact, he became a journalist and a restaurant critic and got into television by mistake when breakfast television began in the early 80s. First on Through the Keyhole and more recently on MasterChef, he's kept us entertained with his classless commentary on our way of life. From pebbledash to kiwi fruit, he's a stalwart defender of the mass market. I don't sneer at it, he says. I'm like someone from another planet who's observing the weird domestic facets of life here. He is Lloyd Grossman. However, you've been here, Lloyd, um nearly as long as you were there. Surely you have to stop being the outsider at some point.

Loyd Grossman1:30

Oh, yes. I mean, I think I probably describe myself as being like someone from another planet just to stop a journalist from describing me as that. I I in fact feel very much at home here.

Presenter1:42

But do you think you have to be a foreigner to say the things that you do? I mean, if if you know, if f if someone else pointed out the ducks up the wall or the ubiquitous kiwi fruit on the side of the pudding, you know, they would be accused of being snobbish. Somehow you can get a w you you can be classless, as I said.

Loyd Grossman1:57

Yes, I d I think it it helps to come from a different culture if you want to make trenchant and amusing and entertaining observations.

Presenter2:05

Without being cruel, though, that's the trick, isn't it?

Loyd Grossman2:07

Yes, without being cruel, because it's got nothing to do with good taste or bad taste and making value judgments. It really is making an observation which is meant to illuminate how we

Loyd Grossman2:22

Feel people live.

Presenter2:23

Yes, but at its worst you could just be

Presenter2:26

you know, taking the Mickey out of people.

Loyd Grossman2:27

Oh yes, yes, and people have tried that approach, which I don't really like just because I'm not particularly that sort of person.

Presenter2:35

Well not a crew.

Presenter2:36

No, I don't think it's a good idea.

Loyd Grossman2:37

No.

Loyd Grossman2:39

No, I'm a softy.

Presenter2:41

You were quite cruel, though, I think, in the well, I don't know whether you meant to be cruel, but in the early days of Through the Keyhole. I mean, I can remember you going into Sterling Moss's house and saying, you know, this is the house of a man who's seen a James Bond film and believed it.

Loyd Grossman2:53

And and Sterling subsequently invited us back twice.

Presenter2:58

I think you said Tony Blackburn's house was like the house of a maiden aunt in Eastbourne.

Presenter3:04

Yeah.

Loyd Grossman3:06

I d I just um I just reacted instinctively because of course through the keyhole was done, is done in a very ad-lib way.

Speaker 13:16

Yeah.

Loyd Grossman3:16

And really what we wanted to do, I think, was to break down some of the taboos and some of the pretentiousness that went with interior design and decorating. I mean, it's no big deal whether you've got

Presenter3:27

Decorate

Loyd Grossman3:31

A furry purple lampshade.

Presenter3:33

You're not a snob, as we've said. You're not a nasty guy. You say you're a softy. And yet you're subjected to snobbery and nastiness by your detractors who accuse you of being, I don't know, a kind of

Presenter3:45

Anglicized American intellectual who who's kind of embraced the game show. They're pretty nasty about you, aren't they?

Loyd Grossman3:53

Well, maybe there was an element of um

Loyd Grossman3:56

Puzzlement, because there there is this idea, which I think is a problem in contemporary British culture, that everything has to be in a hierarchy.

Loyd Grossman4:07

So the game show or populist television is down there in Death Valley.

Loyd Grossman4:14

And being a fellow of All Souls is up there in Mount Everest. And everyone is in an in somewhere on the intellectual ladder and has to be characterized. And I think because I don't know, because I i it was perceived by some people that, oh gosh, maybe I ought to be doing something else.

Loyd Grossman4:30

They thought, well, what is he doing mucking around with populist television? There's something wrong here.

Presenter4:36

More of that to come. Tell me now about your first record.

Loyd Grossman4:40

The first time I heard this record by the Kinks, it was like being a witness to some sort of phenomenal artistic event. You know, whether it had been the premiere of The Rite of Spring or the first time Isadora Duncan took her clothes off on stage or whatever, I knew when I heard this record on the radio, I knew that everything I thought about music was going to change forever. Because I had never listened to a piece of music that was so loud, so aggressive, so enthusiastic.

Loyd Grossman5:12

And so full of the spirit of revolution and change that subsequently has come to characterize the 60s for all of us.

Speaker 35:28

Girl, I want to be with you all of the time.

Speaker 35:35

The only time I feel alright is when you list

Presenter5:49

The kinks and all day and all of the night and memories of your youth. Grossman, the the budding rock star isn't an easy picture to conjure up. Describe to me what you looked like on the stage in your teens.

Loyd Grossman6:01

I went to a very, very, very strict and authoritarian New England, rather doer New England school. And we were subject to all sorts of extraordinary dress codes. And at one stage, the urge to wear tight jeans by the student populace became so extreme.

Loyd Grossman6:22

That our principal instituted a test where you had to be able to take your trousers off without unlacing your shoes.

Loyd Grossman6:31

In order to be sure that you weren't wearing trousers that were too tight, so we would grow our hair as close to our collars as possible and of course immediately after school slip into the tightest, most hideous, bleached-out Levi's and the most awful smelly Afghan coats, two of which I still own by the way, or a very ropey-looking black leather jacket.

Presenter6:54

And you played the guitar?

Loyd Grossman6:56

And I play the guitar. I began playing the guitar when I was quite young.

Loyd Grossman7:01

And uh played classical guitar, you know, was very keen on Bach transcriptions and all that sort of stuff.

Loyd Grossman7:08

Then I heard the kinks and virtually threw my classical guitar away, went out and, you know, begged my parents to buy me an electric guitar, which they did. And in those days, as soon as you bought an electric guitar, there were people hanging around the door of the music store waiting to invite you to join a band.

Presenter7:24

But at some point you started writing about it, didn't you?

Loyd Grossman7:27

Yeah, I began writing about music when I was uh I had just left high school, so I suppose I was seventeen, I was just about to be eighteen.

Loyd Grossman7:37

And the the so-called Underground Press was was just developing. The the most famous of of the Underground Press publications was Rolling Stone.

Loyd Grossman7:47

Um which I began writing for.

Presenter7:49

That meant that you toured with these bands. I mean, so were you writing on tour or were you also playing on tour?

Loyd Grossman7:55

Oh, I was mostly I I was doing a lot of um playing at sort of what they used to call college mixers and a mixer is when you know well it's a sort of glorified dating bar really. And then also with my various duff bands go out on tour as a sort of support act for much bigger bands. We were absolutely appalling. I mean I've never had bottles and other things thrown at me the way that

Presenter8:21

Oh really? You were that bad? We went terrible.

Loyd Grossman8:21

It could be that bad.

Loyd Grossman8:23

We were terrible.

Presenter8:25

But at some point you you ended up in in

Presenter8:28

Places like the legendary Chelsea Hotel in in New York and you went to Chicago with the likes of Muddy Waters and Howling Wolf. How did you get on to all of these things?

Loyd Grossman8:35

Well, I mean, one of the things is that uh that I I suppose characterizes uh me is is that I'm an enthusiast. I'm a real fan.

Loyd Grossman8:45

And when I had the opportunity through writing to meet various musicians and travel to various places, I was so enthusiastic about it and so excited about it. I would go almost anywhere. And just a chance remark, someone said, Well, you must come out to Chicago because I was getting interested

Loyd Grossman9:04

in blues music. And to my surprise, when I arrived at my hotel, um two of the greatest blues musicians ever, namely Willie Dixon and Howland Wolfe, were waiting for me.

Loyd Grossman9:15

In the lobby, and they were my chaperones. And it was the first time that I, from my sheltered upbringing, had ever

Loyd Grossman9:23

Come across people like that.

Presenter9:25

Tell me about your second record.

Loyd Grossman9:26

Well, my second record is a Howland Wolf record.

Loyd Grossman9:32

He has I mean, to me, he's got one of the most extraordinary voices of the 20th century. And I suppose when I first saw him perform, he must have been.

Loyd Grossman9:44

Sixty, close to sixty, and he still scared the living daylights out of me. And Smokestack Lightning is one of those songs that just sends shivers up and down my spine. It's frightening.

Speaker 39:57

Oh, smokes and night

Loyd Grossman10:00

Uh

Speaker 310:01

Shining just like gold, but don't you hear me cry?

Speaker 310:11

Woooooooo

Presenter10:20

Howland Wolf and Smokestack Lightning. Let's go back, Lloyd Grossman then, to the place where you grew up, Marble Head, sixteen miles up the coast from Boston, a seaside town with eight yacht clubs. It was always well to do.

Loyd Grossman10:32

Marblehead is one of those, I don't know, sort of um

Loyd Grossman10:36

Picture postcard type New England towns. It's got very, very well-preserved old historic center, you know, with lots of clabbered houses. Everyone's got an American flag flying outside and a carved eagle over the front door. It was a lovely place to grow up. When I grew up there, it was still very much a New England village that, being at the end of a peninsula, had its own strange sort of culture. It's almost its own vernacular.

Presenter11:04

But it still had a strong dialect, did it?

Loyd Grossman11:06

Oh, it has still has strong dialect. Various uh terms were used in Marblehead that were not used in Salem, Massachusetts, you know, home of the Witch Trials, which was the neighboring town. Deadly rivalry between Salem and Marblehead.

Presenter11:19

And the Grossman family was very wealthy. What did it I thought it made its money out of hot dogs?

Loyd Grossman11:21

What did you do?

Loyd Grossman11:24

Well, no, my mum's family my mother's family made its money out of hot dogs. My father's father wa was one of the first people to be a sort of proper antique dealer when when the antiques business in a proper way was created.

Loyd Grossman11:38

around the time of the um centenary of the Declaration of Independence, around eighteen seventy six. So, you know, life life was very comfortable when I was a kid, but it was by no means

Loyd Grossman11:50

Luxurious

Presenter11:51

But they took you out to restaurants, didn't they? They taught you about food or

Loyd Grossman11:52

Yeah.

Loyd Grossman11:56

Yeah, they they t they taught me a lot about food. They like going out. I th I think that it's got to be set in the context of the fact that my parents were quite old. I mean my father was born in 1891. Um he so he was fifty-nine when I was born. And by the time I was sort of aware of anything going on, he was, you know, virtually retired.

Presenter12:16

He'd been a jazz musician before. Yes, he'd been a jazz musician.

Loyd Grossman12:18

Yes, he'd been a jazz musician sort of on the well, he really began his musical career.

Loyd Grossman12:25

at school where he played piano in in silent movie theaters. But then just after the Great War, he uh started a jazz band, which was reasonably successful up until the early twenties. And he wrote and published bits of music and things like that. And then he went into the family business.

Presenter12:42

Record number three.

Loyd Grossman12:44

Is um

Loyd Grossman12:45

A song I remember my father singing.

Loyd Grossman12:49

He actually sang very well, and I d to me the crowning jewel of his repertoire was uh this song, which has the most wonderful lyrics.

Speaker 313:02

We always sing.

Speaker 313:06

Raggedy music to the cattle as it swings Back and forward in the saddle on a horse

Speaker 313:13

Uh

Speaker 313:26

Son of a gun from Arizona, right-time cowboy Joe.

Presenter13:30

Sons of the Pioneers singing Ragtime Cowboy Joe. You were you were destined to make, I think, Lloyd, the easy transition from Marblehead High, sixteen miles south, to Harvard. How big a disappointment was it to you and your family that you didn't make it?

Loyd Grossman13:43

When you grow up in uh in in Boston, around Boston,

Loyd Grossman13:48

Harvard is sort of where you want to go, but uh it was not for me.

Presenter13:52

Why not?

Loyd Grossman13:53

Or rather, I suppose I wasn't for them. I did very well in my uh in a what uh college boards, which are like our A levels. I did extremely well in them, in fact. But I had a had a bit of bother with uh our principal and vice principal.

Presenter14:08

What sort of buffer?

Loyd Grossman14:09

Well, a couple of friends and I.

Loyd Grossman14:11

put together a little proto Underground magazine. I can't even remember what it was called. And we were regarded as pretty unacceptable troublemakers. So there was a little cloud. I left Marblehead High School.

Presenter14:25

And you went to Boston University.

Loyd Grossman14:25

Boston University

Presenter14:28

I see. Um, less prestigious Boston University. Did you feel that? Did it matter to you?

Loyd Grossman14:33

No, not really, because Boston University is sort of the antithesis of Harvard. It is um it's very big and uh very urban.

Loyd Grossman14:43

By the way, it happens to be an extremely good university.

Loyd Grossman14:46

But one of the things that happened, I suppose, because I I went to a university that at that stage was less academic, was that I was able to devote ninety seven percent of my time to music.

Presenter14:58

So, how did you manage to get such a good degree? You did early modern European history.

Loyd Grossman15:02

Yeah.

Presenter15:02

If you spent so much time on the rock circuit as you've uh said, how come you got a good degree?

Loyd Grossman15:08

Because I'm pretty good at history.

Presenter15:11

So this was a true dilemma, was it, as to whether you should be an academic or a rock star?

Loyd Grossman15:15

Yeah.

Presenter15:15

Not a joke.

Loyd Grossman15:16

No, no, it was a true dilemma. I really, really wanted to be a historian. I probably still want to be a historian.

Loyd Grossman15:25

But

Loyd Grossman15:27

At that period, you know, in the late sixties and early seventies, everything that was happening, where it was at, everything that was exciting about the time, had to do with rock music.

Presenter15:39

Mm.

Loyd Grossman15:40

Everything.

Presenter15:40

What made you abandon the ambition?

Loyd Grossman15:43

Of being a rock star. Probably that I wasn't very good at it.

Loyd Grossman15:48

And also, I I began to feel that, uh, you know, the lowest form of human existence is the unsuccessful rock musician.

Presenter16:00

Number four.

Loyd Grossman16:02

I have always loved soul music. And there was a great radio station in Boston called WILD, WILLD, with a great diss jockey called Wild Man Steve. And all they played was soul music. And to me, a song that absolutely encapsulates everything that's wonderful about soul music, as well as being an amazingly generous tribute from one artist to a lot of others, is this Arthur Connolly recording.

Speaker 316:29

Do you like good music?

Speaker 316:32

Got that sweet soul music!

Speaker 316:35

Just throw me this screen in.

Speaker 316:38

Oh yeah, oh yeah.

Speaker 316:41

We are here on the floor, y'all.

Speaker 316:44

I know where to go

Speaker 316:47

They askin' what to do there.

Speaker 316:50

Oh yeah, oh yeah.

Speaker 316:53

What I don't lose all song

Presenter16:59

Arthur Connolly singing sweet soul music. Uh so you gave it all up and applied to the London School of Economics, Lloyd Grossman, to study for an MA in in how to make gin, as far as I can understand.

Presenter17:10

'Cause you did a special study into distilling.

Loyd Grossman17:13

I did. I was very interested in demographic history and in the the sort of takeoff period just before the Industrial Revolution.

Loyd Grossman17:23

And one of the great dilemmas of that period was the fact that London

Loyd Grossman17:28

had a huge death rate. And people in the early 18th century were very worried that the death rate of London was depopulating the countryside because people would go to London and just die. The popular way of explaining this was by saying that there was so much gin drinking going on that it was killing off the population. The gin craze and you know as you know Hogarth did those two wonderful engravings of gin lane where everyone is dissolute and beer alley where everyone's healthy. So I wanted to do some research because not a lot had been done to see how much gin was actually being drunk and what effect it was having on the death rate in London.

Presenter18:04

How did you come out of all of that, aged twenty five to twenty seven, you were studying that? And suddenly there you are working on Harpers and Queen. It's it's a s a strange transition, you with your long hair by then, and black leather jacket.

Speaker 318:18

Yeah.

Presenter18:19

Uh

Speaker 318:19

Yeah.

Presenter18:19

You know, a million miles away, one would have thought from the glossy magazine scene. How do you make that transition?

Loyd Grossman18:24

Because when I was I mean, it's one of those weird things. When I was

Loyd Grossman18:28

In Boston.

Loyd Grossman18:30

Um and Marblehead growing up. I used to love reading.

Loyd Grossman18:34

A magazine called The Queen, which was the forerunner of Harper's encouragement.

Speaker 318:38

Motive.

Loyd Grossman18:39

See, when I got to England, I really wanted to write something for Harpers and Queen. Now, amazingly enough, the first thing I wrote for Harpers and Queen was about the architecture of the London Underground system, because a lot of it had been designed by a wonderful architect called Charles Holden. And London Underground stations are some of the best examples of twenties and thirties architecture in this country. And I dunno, they liked me and I liked them. And when I felt that I couldn't really sustain any more time at university, Harpers and Queen providentially offered me a job, so I went to work for the SSD.

Presenter19:10

So I'm going to go to the next one.

Presenter19:11

So it clicked and you started churning it out. You wrote and wrote under pseudonyms, all sorts of stuff. Eventually restaurant.

Loyd Grossman19:14

Later.

Loyd Grossman19:16

Yeah.

Loyd Grossman19:17

Yeah, I mean I was churning out a lot of stuff for them. I was tremendously lucky because I had a very, very brilliant editor called Willie Landles and a very brilliant features editor called Ann Barr who really encouraged me and they were wonderful to work with. Wonderful to work with.

Presenter19:34

But it's it's interesting that here and you mention Anne Barr, we start bumping into that kind of criticism I mentioned earlier on. She said since that you were clever but without roots. I mean, is she saying you're a dilettante?

Loyd Grossman19:46

I think that's what she was probably trying to say, but she would probably be able to articulate that more clearly, I think, if the question were asked directly to her.

Presenter19:56

But do you feel you are? Do you wanna be aware of that?

Loyd Grossman19:58

No, I don't worry. I mean, I I feel that there are many things that I feel very strongly about and many things I care very deeply about, many things that give me pleasure. And therefore, what I want to do

Loyd Grossman20:11

is to do as many of those things as possible.

Presenter20:13

Hmm.

Loyd Grossman20:13

That's what I want to do.

Presenter20:14

What you don't do very often, and again, this was her observation, is that you never wrote about yourself. You don't give of yourself very much. I mean, let's go back to the page.

Loyd Grossman20:23

In terms of my journalism.

Presenter20:24

Well, f

Loyd Grossman20:25

Yeah.

Presenter20:25

Let's go back to the keeper. Would you let me, if I were you, into your house? No, of course not.

Presenter20:33

Why not?

Loyd Grossman20:35

I do I do very little um I d I don't know, I do very little of that sort of personal publicity type of stuff. I just don't like it. I suppose I've got this idea that because I am

Speaker 320:42

Yeah.

Loyd Grossman20:49

quite a sort of public figure in a way. Maybe I just feel that you have to draw the line somewhere and I have to have there's got to be part of my life that is just for me and my close friends and my family.

Presenter21:04

Number five.

Loyd Grossman21:06

Every now and again a band comes along who are so brilliant and so exciting and so different that they just drive you crazy. And one of the bands that completely drove me crazy from the first time I heard them was an English group.

Loyd Grossman21:21

Cold ABC.

Speaker 321:23

Once upon a time when we were friends I gave you my heart, the story ends No happy ever after, now we're friends

Speaker 321:39

Uh-huh.

Presenter21:43

ABC and all of my heart. The story goes, Lloyd Grossman, that you taught yourself to cook in four days flat. How?

Loyd Grossman21:51

Largely through feeling that, you know, I'd been, ever since I was young, I'd been so interested in food. I loved going out to restaurants. And suddenly one day, I thought, this is really, really strange. You know, I actually can't cook. I don't know how to cook anything. I couldn't even, until I was 26 or 27, I could not even cook scrambled eggs. I promise you. Nothing. Toast was it.

Loyd Grossman22:19

So I thought, well

Loyd Grossman22:21

What I'll do is, I'll get a couple of really good cookbooks, and I spent the whole weekend.

Loyd Grossman22:27

Trying to cook two things, one from each of these cookbooks, and by the end of the weekend, low.

Loyd Grossman22:33

It worked.

Presenter22:34

What do you mean, Low It Worth? You could cook two things by the end of the week.

Loyd Grossman22:37

Yeah, well, that was pretty impressive. Considering that I couldn't cook anything at the beginning of the weekend.

Presenter22:38

Considering that

Loyd Grossman22:42

What were the two? Well, the two things were recipes that were so.

Loyd Grossman22:47

So elementary, yet at the same time real foundations for other cooking. I remember the first one, the great breakthrough, was chicken saute with mustard sauce, which was great fun. And then I learned to make some uh tomato sauce and pasta sauce.

Presenter23:04

But how can you say that you learned to cook? I mean, you didn't learn to to roast or reduce or glaze or make a basic bechamel tomi glass or all that stuff.

Loyd Grossman23:12

But then I I couldn't do all of that in one weekend. But once

Presenter23:16

But you felt that you cracked it, that you wielded the wooden spoon over the hearth.

Loyd Grossman23:18

I felt that.

Loyd Grossman23:20

Yeah.

Loyd Grossman23:21

I felt that having taken a whole bunch of ingredients and turned them into two edible things, I then felt that I could understand how it was done and that if I read my cookbooks carefully,

Presenter23:34

Hmm.

Loyd Grossman23:35

And wasn't totally stupid, I could do it.

Presenter23:37

We leapt over a rather seminal moment in your career, I think, which occurred in around about 83 when you got into television by accident. Tell me about it.

Loyd Grossman23:47

TVAM, which was the first commercial breakfast service in Britain, was just getting together to go on air in february 1983.

Loyd Grossman23:56

So late in 82 the producers were looking around for

Loyd Grossman24:02

Personalities to be on television. Of course, they wanted new people who hadn't been on television before. And one of the producers said, Oh, I know, I know what you should do. You should get there's a guy with a really stupid name who wrote, oh, I can't think of his name, but it's a really ridiculous name. He writes about restaurants for one of the glossy magazines and

Loyd Grossman24:24

Can't remember. And someone said, oh, I know. It must be Lloyd Grossman at Harper's and Queen. And they said, oh, yeah, that's it. That's it. Fine. Get him. Subsequently, I found out they weren't looking for me at all. They wanted to get Bevis Hillier, who was the restaurant critic for Vogue. He was my opposite number. So by accident, sorry, Bevis, by accident, I got this job at TVAM.

Presenter24:49

Record number six.

Loyd Grossman24:52

From very, very, very, very early childhood, I was fortunate to be taken to the opera and the ballet on a very regular basis.

Loyd Grossman25:04

And

Loyd Grossman25:05

You know, I love all the challenging ones and amazingly enough, you know, I've recently even decided that Janacek's quite interesting and got rather excited about him. But I'm afraid that um

Loyd Grossman25:18

It is still Mozart who gets to me more than any other composer.

Speaker 325:35

Allah ist by me of ein male.

Speaker 325:43

Oh, the world will fit us lately by the finer peace or diet of the world.

Speaker 125:52

What's that?

Speaker 325:53

Thoughts are even fashioned Larps are fashioned.

Speaker 326:02

Makes the love those limbs flashed tear.

Speaker 126:12

He signed up.

Presenter26:22

Edit Mattis and Peter Schreier, singing part of the duet from Act One of Mozart's Zaida with the Staats Capella Berlin, conducted by Bernhard Clay. We've got this far, Lloyd, without mentioning the voice.

Presenter26:35

Um people have struggled have to ask you about

Loyd Grossman26:39

Well, we've got this far without mentioning your legs.

Presenter26:40

Thanks.

Presenter26:42

People have struggled to describe it or imitate it over the years, and no one truly succeeds. It's your very own.

Presenter26:49

Where does it come from? Did your father speak like you speak? This the vowels, isn't it?

Loyd Grossman26:53

No, some of my but uh quite a few of my elderly aunties did.

Presenter26:56

Yeah.

Loyd Grossman26:57

And someone said the other day, yeah, Frasier from Cheers is quite close to it.

Presenter27:00

Yeah.

Presenter27:04

Do you hate people mentioning it?

Loyd Grossman27:06

No, because people are going to mention something.

Loyd Grossman27:09

You know, so they're either gonna describe me as, you know, balding, bespectacled, whatever, you know, something like that. Or are they gonna talk about my voice, you know, so I mean, they've gotta talk about something.

Presenter27:19

And it isn't going to change because you're forty seven. You're a presenter of popular aspirational television, I think is the phrase of the moment. Things that people want to aspire to, like beautiful houses and wonderful cooking.

Loyd Grossman27:21

Yeah.

Presenter27:33

You're not a rock star and and you're not you're not the academic that you might have been. Do you do you regret that? I mean, do you have any ambition still to um

Presenter27:42

To write the history of, I don't know, Western culture as opposed to the history of dogs or supermarkets or whatever it is you've done.

Loyd Grossman27:49

No, um I d I mean, I love the fact that I I can now as an amateur spend a lot of time um

Loyd Grossman27:58

working on

Loyd Grossman28:01

things that are historical and cultural. I'm on the Museums and Galleries Commission, and I've recently become a Commissioner of English Heritage. So I really can now, with the sort of love and enthusiasm that I think sometimes only amateurs can bring, I can spend a lot of time

Loyd Grossman28:17

working with historic buildings and history and art and education and all all the things that, you know, maybe I I don't get to do so much of in my professional life.

Presenter28:27

Number 7.

Loyd Grossman28:30

Girls just want to have fun is

Loyd Grossman28:33

a single that is so astonishingly exuberant that the first time I heard it, um and I I just felt wonderful. I felt I really wanted to be at a party, I really wanted to be dancing, I, you know, just

Loyd Grossman28:47

really wanted to enjoy everything.

Loyd Grossman28:51

And

Loyd Grossman28:52

I'm I'm thrilled to say that my my daughters, my two perfect daughters, Florence and Constance, are tremendous music fans. And their idea of bliss is putting something like this on the stereo, very loud, and jumping around the sitting room.

Speaker 329:11

My mother says when you gonna live your life behind

Speaker 329:16

Oh mother, did we not the fortunate one?

Speaker 329:20

Girls they wanna have fun Oh girls just do wanna have fun

Presenter29:34

Cindy Lauper and Girls Just Wanna Have Fun for Florence and Constance. How old are they, Lloyd, your daughters?

Loyd Grossman29:39

Five and eight.

Presenter29:41

You've mirrored your father's life in a sense, haven't you? Um from everything you've said about him. There are parallels there, aren't there? That that he was a kind of jazz musician turned antique dealer who

Presenter29:50

married a woman or had children late in life. Not that you've had children as late as him, but rock music, turnstylist, first child when you were nearly forty. It's all there, isn't it?

Loyd Grossman30:00

Yes, yeah, ele elements are there. I mean, I suppose we all do become our parents to a certain extent. And I must say I'd be very thrilled to be my father. I re I really would.

Presenter30:09

And and he was was he also um someone who was you might describe as being cultured but not intellectual about it?

Loyd Grossman30:18

Yes, he was uh he he he was uh

Loyd Grossman30:22

very well read. He was he he wa he was very erudite, but not um not sorta not pretentious about it. He never used it as a weapon to to beat people with.

Presenter30:31

The word you come back to quite a lot is unpretentious or not being pretentious. That matters.

Loyd Grossman30:33

unpretentious or not being pretentious. That ma

Loyd Grossman30:36

It does, because I think uh pretentiousness is is one of the cardinal sins, because it's merely a way of making other people n feel inadequate. And it's it's merely a way of

Loyd Grossman30:49

I don't know, of of of using nonsense to

Loyd Grossman30:53

uh attack people and make them feel not not up to your standards. And I didn't really like that actually.

Presenter30:59

Last record.

Loyd Grossman31:02

I always felt, you know, when the terrible day came around, when summer was shutting down and it was getting time to go back to school, you know, that sort of.

Loyd Grossman31:11

mixture of wistfulness and nausea that you get as school approaches. It says Summer to Me, the end of Summer to Me, that fan de saisant thing has a very bittersweet quality, which I think this song captures.

Speaker 331:39

Nobody on the road

Speaker 331:41

Nobody on the beach

Speaker 331:44

Feel it in the air

Speaker 331:47

The summer's out of reach Empty Lake

Presenter31:52

The Boys of Summer, sung by Don Henley. Now if you could only take one of those eight records, Lloyd, which one would it be?

Loyd Grossman32:00

I would oh, I would so hate to be limited to a life where there was only one record that I could play and where I was sitting on my own listening to it.

Speaker 332:07

Yeah.

Loyd Grossman32:13

So I think that for all sorts of reasons, which probably have very little to do with with music even, I probably I it would probably have to be girls just want to have fun, because then I could

Loyd Grossman32:24

Think about my girls.

Presenter32:26

Cindy Lauper Forever. What about the book? You've got the Bible and Shakespeare there.

Loyd Grossman32:33

The book would uh al although it's it's probably a t a terrible cliche, the book would would have to be Treasure Island.

Speaker 332:39

Hmm.

Loyd Grossman32:40

It's one of those books that I reread every couple of years, because I'm a great re reader of of the books I love. It is the most wonderful story, and it is also as a piece of writing a great, great work of art which you could study forever.

Presenter32:56

And your luxury.

Loyd Grossman32:58

My luxury would have to be a fishing rod. The only real benefit of being stuck on a desert island for me would be some opportunity to practice my casting, and finally get it up to up to scrap.

Presenter33:09

But you throw the fish back, because it you can't have a practical luxury. So it's fishing for fishing.

Loyd Grossman33:12

Oh, no, no, no, no.

Loyd Grossman33:16

For me, fishing is fishing for fishing's sake. It's got nothing to do with catching things, largely because I'm not really that much of a catcher. But so a fishing rod to perfect my casting.

Presenter33:27

Lloyd Grossman, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your Desert Island discs.

Speaker 133:39

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