Paula Rego

Paula Rego0:00

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 painter. At the age of 62, she finds herself popular and admired, but it's been a long, hard slog from her conservative Portuguese childhood to the top of the British scene. At seventeen, she entered the Slade School of Art in London and won the Principal's Prize in the summer of'54, but it wasn't until she was in her mid-forties that she enjoyed her first solo show in London. She's a figurative painter whose pictures often depict disquieting scenes from her domestic life. She's also well known for her work based on fairy tales, animals with human qualities, creatures in whom she can invest nameless passions and sinister thoughts. Much of this is a revolt against her childhood, where to answer back invoked retribution. Hence, she says, the flight into storytelling. She is Paula Rago. And are the stories you tell, Paula, are they about you, about what you're thinking and feeling? Is that what we can read if we knew how to read it in these paintings? I prefer not to have stories about me. They're usually.

Presenter1:34

something that happens outside myself.

Presenter1:38

Sometimes they're stories about people I know, their experiences or their people you've met or experiences you've had.

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They are people whom I know quite intimately.

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And I turn them into characters and make stories up about them very often. Because you said before now that your your husband, who who died in 1988, didn't he, but he used to be able to look at your paintings and he knew where you'd been and who you'd met, or what kind he was. Where I'd been, whom I'd met, and what I'd been up to even. That was dangerous. It was actually.

Paula Rego2:05

Can you do this?

Paula Rego2:11

That was dangerous.

Presenter2:14

But you leave little secrets about, don't you? Or little clues there are suddenly a little cockerel down the corner, or a tiny handbag somewhere in another corner that all of which

Presenter2:24

For you have meaning, but are you saying it's for us to give it our own interpretation? Well it's fair it's quite obvious. I mean the cockerel was to show that the cadet was was quite proud of himself and of being a young man going into college. So it was like a young cockerel, you see. Blah-dee-da.

Presenter2:45

So that's actually quite obvious. Sometimes there are things that are not quite so obvious. And for myself really Like what? Can you give me an example? Well, perhaps that's obvious to you. There was the Liddy and the Maids on the table.

Presenter2:59

That was a s a symbol of purity, where in fact the maids are not the slightest bit pure. In fact, they're quite murderous, which is what they do. They murder their mistress. This is a painting called The Maids Which You Painted After Jeanese.

Paula Rego3:10

That's right, yes.

Presenter3:12

But there is always in in your paintings, for me anyway, and all of these things are subjective, there's there's danger is very close at hand, it seems to me, in in many of them, not in all of them, of course not. That's good. Um is it? Yes, good.

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Because if you're very if you're frightened of something, the best thing is to draw it.

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If you look the devil in the face.

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Then you're less frightened of him.

Presenter3:40

So a lot of the things you've painted are your fears?

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Yes.

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What have you been frightened of in your life? Ill of the dog.

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Mostly of the dark.

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and of hearing footsteps. I mean, just scary things like that, like you're scared of when you're a child.

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Let's pause there because there's so much more of it to to explore. But tell me about your first record that you want on this desert island.

Presenter4:09

First record is Amalia Khudrigsh singing

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Give me your arm, and come along with me damou brass under thee.

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It reminds me.

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Everything Portuguese ready.

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The best.

Paula Rego4:32

I'm a blessed

Presenter4:41

Amalia Rodrigues singing Damo Braso anda Dai Come and give me your arm, and come, come away with me.

Presenter4:48

The f the figures in your paintings, uh Paula Rego, are uh often very large. I mean the paintings themselves can be very large but but they are g if I can describe them such big, solid, square jawed characters, usually women. I mean are these the women of your youth, the the maids, the nurses, the the servants that you had about you? Is that who they are? They are, yes. And I mean my model is Portuguese. Most she is Portuguese, so I use her a lot. And they are the women that were around the house, in the kitchen.

Presenter5:20

Um cooking and um doing doing the chores and looking after me really. So you were very close to them?

Paula Rego5:25

Yeah.

Presenter5:27

Very close to them. And I love being in the kitchen.

Paula Rego5:28

And

Presenter5:30

And watching them do things. But you obviously had a sense that that those women were kind of downtrodden by the system, which it was I mean, it was a very male dominated society. Well, I mean, it was outrageous really. I mean, women had no rights whatsoever. They didn't even have the right to have a passport.

Paula Rego5:38

It was easy it was.

Presenter5:45

and that you needed permission from your father or your husband to leave the country.

Presenter5:49

Um, you had absolutely no rights whatsoever. As as a woman you you even didn't have a right to have a bank account.

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This is this is a long time ago, in the forties actually.

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And they had a terrible time and a lot of women could not read or write.

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Ah you went to school from the age of six till ten, that's all.

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And did you draw them then, you know, when you were a little girl? No, I didn't draw there. Then I drew princesses.

Paula Rego6:09

Yeah.

Presenter6:13

Not those women. Is that how you passed you're an only child, wasn't it? I was an only child. Is that how you passed your is that how you amused yourself?

Paula Rego6:17

That was an early child.

Presenter6:21

Yes, I was I was in my playroom on my own and I and I drew all day. I drew a lot, but I made a noise. I went, let's sit on the floor and draw and draw and draw. What was the noise for?

Speaker 46:32

Yeah.

Paula Rego6:32

Boom.

Presenter6:34

It's it's a comforting noise that I I unfortunately I still do it today when I'm drawing. Um I did it when I first got to art school. I didn't realize there were people around me and I started making this racket. It's like it's like a rocking it's a a no a noise that's comforting and anyway I don't really know because it comes out automatically. But when people heard that noise they knew you were okay. My my mother knew I was fine. If she heard that noise coming from the playroom.

Paula Rego6:58

It might not be.

Presenter7:02

She knew that I was I was playing. I was I was fine. And you did you you drew or painted on the floor, didn't you? On all fours? I did. And you went on doing that? Y you were close to the earth, you see. Yes. And I and I still worked till quite recently I I worked on the floor.

Paula Rego7:10

Of course.

Presenter7:22

Just esquitting, you see, it's quite a comfortable position. Is it?

Presenter7:28

It's just a strange thought that because I know your studio is it doesn't have windows, that you you don't like windows, do you? You want four walls and you can get down on the floor uh and and paint and get right down to it without any views from any windows or anything like that at all. The view takes you outside, you see, and the studio is like an extension of your head anyway. So if you're

Paula Rego7:30

It says

Paula Rego7:31

Okay.

Paula Rego7:37

And it's

Paula Rego7:39

Uh

Presenter7:51

If you you don't really need to look out. Tell me about your second record.

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The second record is Carmi Miranda.

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singing Chica chica boom chica, because that reminds me of my grandfather and my playroom in Portugal when I was a little girl. I had this wonderful playroom.

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ham lined in blue and white tiles.

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and the window at the back gave out to where the rabbits and chickens were.

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and is to go in there in the afternoon, shut the door,

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and play.

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with my dolls, play with my father's toy theatre,

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with all the cut out scenery.

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and um and just lose myself for hours and hours.

Speaker 28:52

Precan tan chika chikka bunchik.

Speaker 28:57

Whack and sell the chicken chicken booche.

Speaker 29:01

Neo Cora São Pashtuka Chica Bonch.

Presenter9:04

Carmen Miranda and Chica Chica Boomcheek. Now these Portuguese relatives told you stories. They fed your imagination. What what were those stories about?

Presenter9:15

I had an uh an aunt, and we used to sit under the trees, and she'd say to me, What would you like to hear today?

Presenter9:24

Oh, I say, I like to hear about a king who had a beautiful daughter, the princess, and all the adventures that happened to her, and all the nasty things that happened to her too. And then she'd spend the whole the the afternoon telling me the story and the story, if she didn't finish the story, it'd go on the next day. So it was like a serial.

Presenter9:44

So

Presenter9:45

If that was your background, which as we say was was very protected and very proper.

Paula Rego9:49

Very proper.

Presenter9:50

How did you feel then as a seventeen year old walking through the doors of of the Slade Art School? I mean it must it was quite avant-garde even then, wasn't it? It was very existential.

Paula Rego9:59

It was very

Presenter10:02

I mean, it was still existentialist then.

Presenter10:06

And a life room you see, even going into the life room first of all, the first time I went to a life room and saw naked people in it.

Presenter10:12

And they had a particular smell of naked flesh has a particular smell.

Presenter10:17

And I was alarmed by this. Oh gosh. Anyway, why were you alarmed? Well, because I didn't know.

Paula Rego10:21

Uh

Speaker 210:21

Are we

Paula Rego10:22

Well because

Presenter10:25

How to draw this incredible um

Presenter10:31

Um presences, you see. They were very strong presences, these naked women. They didn't fall into the background and blend into the background like nudes, what's called nudes. They were naked women.

Presenter10:44

and some were naked men.

Presenter10:47

Um and it was very disconcerting to to see that. And what about the other students? I mean, you must have been very different from them. You know, when you when you turned up to a Saturday night hop or something, you would have to know what a hop was. And they said what is this? They said it's a dance. And uh I come I was used to these dances in Portugal, so I turned up with my um blue taft dress, long dress, you see, to go to the dance.

Paula Rego11:00

Well

Presenter11:20

Um and of course I realized everybody was wearing black pullovers with turtlenecks and so on, jeans.

Presenter11:27

Did you feel very stupid?

Presenter11:32

But you got over it all in the end, because of course you you in fact you fell in love, of course, I did with one of the students with the money.

Paula Rego11:35

I did

Paula Rego11:37

Yeah.

Presenter11:38

with Victor Willing and um and he was married and you became pregnant by him, which was

Presenter11:45

Incredibly daring in nineteen fifty six, and particularly for someone with the background you've just been describing. I mean, did you it happened? Yes. I was very much in love with him.

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And um

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I wanted to have this child, really.

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So, um

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I felt that I wanted him with me that's what I felt above all.

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But you had to go and tell your parents you were pregnant. You bet.

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I wrote to my father.

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And he

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came to London right away. Got to London in thirty six hours driving from Portugal, which was fantastic.

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and we spend the night in Soho drinking.

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and talking about it.

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It was very hot at night. I shall never forget it.

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I'm in wander the streets, drinking, like I say, Coca Cola and stuff like that, and beer and so on.

Presenter12:37

And we talked and talked, and then he took me back to Portugal in the car, and we listened to opera all the way down.

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all the way through France. In fact, we listened through to several operas, including Ricolette.

Presenter12:50

Tell me about Rigoletta.

Presenter12:53

This is Rigoletto.

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Um

Presenter12:58

asking to have his daughter given back to him. She has just been abducted by the Count.

Presenter13:07

and uh I left him, you see, and he's very, very sorry. And this reminds me of my father, because my father loved opera.

Presenter13:15

We used to go every week when we had the opera season in Lisbon. We had a box. And in fact, he saw regular although I was brought up in fact on on Carmen,

Presenter13:26

Um this reminds me of my father because he saw this opera thirty two times.

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And I think it was his favorite opera. And this is Rigoletto being.

Presenter13:37

quite incredibly angry and begging and pleading for the return of his daughter who was his treasure. His treasure. She he kept her from the world, actually, apart nobody was allowed to see her. She lived with a

Paula Rego13:39

People

Paula Rego13:41

For the return of this daughter who

Presenter13:49

with her na with her her maid.

Presenter13:52

And then this this didn't didn't protect her, in fact, so she she left him.

Paula Rego13:59

You don't know.

Presenter14:00

Yeah.

Paula Rego14:00

Yeah.

Presenter14:01

Uh

Paula Rego14:01

Ha ha ha ha ha.

Presenter14:02

Uh

Paula Rego14:02

Yeah. Hail Popula! And this time you learned.

Paula Rego14:09

Ho voilula, and la spanierner, omiyahi yai, haga vilen passo.

Paula Rego14:21

One burden of a boor deserva.

Speaker 414:27

Come on, it's Italy Four

Paula Rego14:38

Uh

Speaker 214:45

Oh, we're a bar, I saw sea, a sea. La Brie, La Burpa, La Burpa, Safina Burpa.

Presenter14:57

Dietrich Fischer Discar as Rigoletto, singing his aria from Act Two of Verdi's Rigoletto with the orchestra of La Scala Milan conducted by Rafael Kubelik.

Presenter15:07

You had um three children, Paul, in the space of five years. Did did motherhood r replace the creative urge in you, or did it suppress it, or did you carry on painting regardless? It's got nothing to do with it. It's got they're quite different things. Of course I was very lucky because I had quite a lot of help with children.

Paula Rego15:17

Please.

Presenter15:26

Um but when and then when I we came back to London to live, I worked when the children were at school.

Presenter15:32

So it didn't stop me working. Did you let them into your studio or were they not well no, they weren't allowed to to to come into the studio unless there was something very wrong with them, you know. This was in the country though. I mean, we had studios in the country, in our in our in our country house, in our farm. And of course they could run around quite free with the with the animals and so on. And and did you and your husband expect to make a living out of painting? I mean is that what obviously it's what you intended I suppose, but it didn't quite happen, did it? Well we didn't think of it things in those in in those we didn't make a living out of it. Vic sold paintings, in fact he sold them right when he came out of the slave.

Presenter16:12

But um

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In those days

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We were not expected to make any money. Art schools didn't teach you, didn't didn't actually

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Um they taught you that that it was important to do what you believed in.

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and what you wanted.

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But

Presenter16:32

The survival aspect, it was never we we never never talked about it. So how were you supposed to be? Well, we were we were we were helped by

Paula Rego16:36

Well

Presenter16:40

My parents, we we lived, we had grants, we we did all sorts of things, you see. Vic taught and he lectured, um, he gave lectures and so on, so he made us money. And you painted for him if if he liked it, it was okay. Yes, it was enough if he liked it. And if he didn't?

Speaker 416:55

Really like

Paula Rego16:56

Uh

Speaker 416:56

Yes

Paula Rego16:56

Yeah.

Presenter16:59

Then it upset me if he didn't. Did you throw it away if he didn't? I would change it.

Presenter17:04

According to his suggestions. Absolutely. So you were really quite I mean, he he was your mentor and your muse, but you were also quite sort of subservient to him in a way. You know, you were just trying to please him. I was trying to please him.

Paula Rego17:12

Yeah.

Paula Rego17:16

I certainly please him.

Presenter17:21

And because I I knew that he knew.

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And and he certainly knew about art.

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Um better than anybody I'd ever met.

Presenter17:31

So I had a very good person to rely on actually. I was very, very lucky to have someone there to learn from. So it must have been devastating then when he at the age of thirty-five wasn't it had the first of three heart attacks. Yes. And then and also then a couple of years later was diagnosed as having multiple sclerosis at the bottom must have fallen out of your world.

Paula Rego17:44

Yeah.

Paula Rego17:51

That's right, yes.

Presenter17:54

Well, it it did it did really. It did with with the first um when he was taken ill on the hillside and was found by his dog, and um I was devastated.

Presenter18:08

But uh and then you just brace yourself and that's it, really.

Presenter18:13

Because even when he was pretty sick at home I used to bring the pictures home to show him.

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Next record.

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Give me a pigfoot.

Presenter18:23

And a bottle of beer. I always thought it was a bottle of gin, which had been more appropriate than a bottle of beer. And it reminds me of Vec dancing. He was such a marvellous dancer. And generally everybody dancing at the slade where they play this record, quite often at the hops.

Presenter18:40

Big books.

Presenter18:42

And a bottle of beer. Send me Kate. I don't care. I feel just like I want a clown. Here's a beautiful drink because he's bringing me down. He's got a rhythm. Yeah. When he thumps his feet, he sends me

Presenter19:08

Betty Smith and Gimme a Pigfoot, and that was recorded in nineteen thirty three.

Presenter19:13

You painted Paula Rego during the later years of of of Vic's illness a series of pictures of of women with dogs, shaving dogs, stroking dogs, tending to dogs in in one way or another. Why Victor as a dog?

Presenter19:28

Well, I never said it was victorous a dog.

Presenter19:31

It was just the dog. The girl has to look after the dog because the dog is sick. It so happened they were both sick, both Vic, and the dog was sick, see. And she had to give him his medicine, and sometimes she couldn't open his mouth, although she wanted to treat him.

Presenter19:47

He would bite her hand. And she was shaving him and everything. She could have cut his throat, but she didn't because she loved this dog. So it's a story apart from Vic. But it was at the same time. But but there's another a huge picture which which for my money is one of the most disturbing of your pictures and that's called The Family. And and in it and I think you did this in nineteen eighty eight which was the year he eventually died.

Paula Rego19:57

But

Paula Rego20:01

So my money

Paula Rego20:02

Disturbed

Paula Rego20:03

It's called the family.

Paula Rego20:09

Gene 98.

Presenter20:13

Um and it shows what I take to be a mother and a daughter dressing or undressing this man in a bedroom, and you're kind of m man handling woman handling him as it were. And then over on the other side of the room, really

Paula Rego20:18

See how this is.

Paula Rego20:22

Yeah.

Presenter20:26

Very disconcerting. She's quite menacing but vulnerable but menacing is this little girl, looking on but not quite looking. I wanted to do the raising of Lazarus.

Presenter20:37

And what what what was my intention was that two little girls are trying to do anything they can to make this man come to life again. He's very sick, and he can't he's well, in fact Lazarus was dead, you see, and this man is nearly dead.

Presenter20:53

And they're rubbing themselves up against him, they're coaxing him, they're dressing him up, all sorts of tr

Presenter20:59

Try and the little girl by the window is a miraculous child.

Presenter21:04

And she's used to doing miracles, but this time they don't work.

Presenter21:08

You see, that's why she's got her hands up like that. But they don't work a miracle, so the man, you know, dies.

Presenter21:14

That's what my intention was.

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And then after he died, some years later,

Presenter21:21

You started doing these pictures of I think you call her dog woman.

Presenter21:25

Why?

Presenter21:27

One day, you know, I was working with Leela and my model and and I and and

Paula Rego21:30

Add your mod

Presenter21:33

She said, Can you kneel there, squat there? and she did, and I did this drawing very quickly.

Presenter21:39

And um this dog woman took me or took me

Presenter21:43

um i into into the past. I was able to remember things of our relationship, but this was quite a long time after he died. The dog woman were ninety six, you see.

Presenter21:54

It is just

Paula Rego21:55

is

Presenter21:59

As

Presenter22:01

As an animal.

Presenter22:04

Doing those paintings brought back memories of him, good memories.

Presenter22:11

Well

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Good and bad.

Presenter22:14

The memories, you see, they're all even the bad memories are good.

Presenter22:19

You know, all memory is good.

Presenter22:23

Tell me about your next record. River Deep and Mountain High. I can Tina Tana.

Presenter22:29

I'm in the summer in Portugal.

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After dinner.

Presenter22:34

And when we'd had quite a lot of wine to drink, we'd opened the windows to the terrace which surrounded the house, and danced. The children danced, we danced, everybody who was there danced, and this reminds me of it.

Paula Rego22:48

When I was a little girl, I had a break.

Paula Rego22:53

Only doubt I've never wronged.

Presenter22:59

Now I love you just a w

Speaker 423:01

Way out of that break off.

Speaker 423:05

But only now my daughter

Presenter23:08

I can Tina Turner with River Deep, Mountain High.

Presenter23:12

A great constant in your life, I think, Paula, is your model, Leela. She nursed Victor, didn't she? She did. She came to us as an au pair.

Presenter23:22

And by then he was very sick, so she nursed him and helped him paint, in fact. And how did she become your model?

Presenter23:29

She was around, so I used her. I mean, I used my family, my daughters and and and my son in law and everything, and she was there all the time, so I used her later on.

Presenter23:41

One Vic died.

Presenter23:43

I used her again. She's a marvellous model. Why, what's so marvellous about you?

Paula Rego23:47

She knows what I want

Presenter23:49

She actually can

Presenter23:51

With very little suggestion she can take the polls that's necessary.

Presenter23:57

and very often

Presenter23:59

Her idea of it is better than mine.

Presenter24:03

So I go along with her, what she how she places herself, in the room or on the chair.

Presenter24:11

So she you know she has a kind of creative input as well. But would you say that your painting has changed a lot since he died, and if so, how?

Presenter24:21

Well, the only way it's changed that it is that I use the model more now than I used to.

Presenter24:26

I use the model all the time now.

Presenter24:29

whereas before I did it from my head and from drawings.

Presenter24:33

Why? Um, it's impulsive and made on the spot, just as it was. But

Presenter24:42

It's with your eyes.

Presenter24:44

Focused out there and not inside yourself or inside your own head.

Presenter24:49

I'm interested in looking.

Presenter24:52

Now

Presenter24:55

Next record. I I love Disney. It was a great treat to go to the pictures when I was little.

Presenter25:03

We used to go with my grandmother and Lucy and my nanny.

Presenter25:07

I'm used to go to the cinema in Lisbon and take tea. We'd have tea in the interval. We'd have Berlin bowls that's doughnuts.

Presenter25:15

and we'd sit in our box eating.

Presenter25:18

And the thrill of watching the film the thrill was so enormous.

Presenter25:23

and when I was asked to paint some pictures for an exhibition called Spellbound,

Presenter25:28

I said, Well, the best thing to do would be to do Disney.

Presenter25:32

And this reminds me both of of earlier times going to cinema with my grandmother.

Presenter25:39

and of painting these Disney pictures.

Speaker 425:42

Once there was a princess. Was the princess you? And she fell in love. Was it hard to do? It was very easy.

Speaker 425:52

Anyone could see that the Prince was charming.

Speaker 425:56

The only one for me. Was he uh strong and handsome? Was he big and tall? There's nobody like him.

Speaker 426:04

Anywhere at all.

Speaker 426:06

Did he say he loved you? Did he steal a kiss?

Speaker 426:10

He was so romantic.

Speaker 426:14

Uh

Speaker 426:14

God not reason.

Speaker 226:26

Love.

Speaker 426:28

Uh

Speaker 226:28

Yeah.

Speaker 426:28

Uh Let my Christmas will come

Speaker 426:33

Some day.

Speaker 426:45

Or make every forever.

Speaker 426:53

My sh

Speaker 426:57

The day when spring is here

Speaker 427:01

Will fall by now.

Presenter27:30

Some day my Prince will come from the soundtrack of Walt Disney's Snow White with um Andriana Casalotti as Snow White.

Presenter27:38

So, Paula, when you were asked to paint work to illustrate the relationship between uh art and the cinema to celebrate the centenary of cinema in Britain, you didn't have to think very hard, really, did you? It was it was Disney for you. It was Disney for me. It I love Disney. Early Disney, I love Early Disney. Fantasia. Fantasia. See, I did all these ostrich women from Fantasia.

Presenter27:58

Because

Presenter28:00

When'apparently, when they drew the ostriches for Fantasia, they had a woman kneeling there with feathers stuck into her, and I thought I'd turn it all round and make the ostriches back into women.

Presenter28:13

And so Lila, we went out shopping and we got we bought tutus, bally shoes, the lot, you see. And it's a s it's a series of eight pictures.

Presenter28:23

Yes, in the red yes, yes, one, two, three, six, six, and then there's a double double p uh two pictures which have lots of them in the same pictures. One when they're very young.

Paula Rego28:23

Yeah.

Presenter28:33

And they're fooling around. They they have their skirts. They made this they make their skirts up into babies and into various things. They have no props, so they've got to use what they're wearing.

Presenter28:44

And then in the last one, this is the Os Australians Women's Cemetery. And they're very old and lying down to die. And I I mean, I can't.

Presenter28:53

I know you wanted them very much to stay together. I can't imagine what what their value would be. Was a price ever put on them? I don't know.

Paula Rego28:55

I can't imagine

Presenter29:01

But they were bought in the end by Charles Saatchi when the He owns this, and he bought them all together, which was marvellous, because they can st they hopefully will stay together.

Paula Rego29:04

And

Presenter29:11

But the truth is these days that your paintings can command really large sums, can I mean forty thousand pounds plus a painting? Yes, I think so. Do you think so? I mean, does that delight you? Does it thrill you?

Presenter29:26

I think it's marvellous.

Presenter29:29

Next record.

Presenter29:31

Dancing Cheek to Cheek by Fred Astaire reminds me of doing the Ostrich Women, because that we because we play that record quite often, Leela and I. In fact, right from the beginning, right through it, it reminds me of it.

Speaker 429:44

Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey.

Speaker 429:50

Have um

Speaker 429:52

I've been heaven

Speaker 429:55

And my heart beats so that I can hardly speak.

Speaker 430:00

And I seem to find that

Paula Rego30:04

The happiness I see Yeah. We're off to

Speaker 430:08

Together dancing cheeked

Speaker 430:12

Heaven

Speaker 430:16

I'm in heaven.

Speaker 430:19

And the cares that hung around me through the week Seem to vanish like a gambler's lucky streak When we're out together dancing cheek to cheek

Speaker 430:37

Oh, I love to climb a mountain and to reach the highest peak.

Speaker 430:43

But it doesn't thrill me half as much as dancing sheep to shake. Oh, I love to go out fishing in a river or a creek.

Speaker 430:55

But I don't enjoy it half as much as dancing cheeks and cheese Dance with me I want my arm about you The charm about you will carry me through

Presenter31:13

Uh

Speaker 431:14

Um

Presenter31:14

Yeah.

Paula Rego31:15

Uh I'm in heaven.

Presenter31:17

Fred Astaire, singing cheek to cheek from his film top hat. What will you paint on your desert island, Paula? Back to back to fear, I suppose. Back to fear. I shall be so scared being there. I shall have a lot of subject matter.

Paula Rego31:26

I was back!

Presenter31:32

All those bogey men creeping up behind you. That's right. All the footsteps in the dark.

Paula Rego31:34

That's right.

Presenter31:37

So will you be able to

Presenter31:39

Create some kind of shelter for yourself to sort of close yourself in to save yourself from those kinds of fears. Yes, I'm very practical.

Presenter31:47

and I shall be able to make a shelter.

Presenter31:51

And um plant things and all that. But what about the loneliness? The son of the sisters.

Paula Rego31:56

I shan't like

Presenter31:59

I don't like b be ha having being on my own all the time. I don't like it. I mean, I like being on my own, providing there are people outside, in a room, for instance, or somewhere else, like in a city, but not on a desert island, there's no one at all.

Presenter32:13

Last record.

Presenter32:15

Well, did you ever, from high society?

Presenter32:19

It's marvellous. It's about a party.

Presenter32:22

And it has uh Sinatra and Bing in it, which I like both of them a great deal. Um and uh what the hell?

Speaker 432:31

Have you heard about Fear Black?

Presenter32:34

And

Presenter32:35

Got run down by an avalanche. Don't worry, she's a gay girl, you know. Got up and finished four. She has got got

Speaker 432:43

Rabelai.

Speaker 432:44

Have you heard that Mimsy Star? She got pinched in the Aster bar and she was stoned. Well did you ever

Presenter32:57

Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby singing Well Did You Ever from the film High Society, and there's a lot of worry going on here about which one of those eight records, if you could only take one. Have you decided? Amalia.

Paula Rego33:03

Yeah.

Presenter33:08

A Malia. I'll take a Malia. That's very much part of you, isn't it?

Paula Rego33:10

Yeah.

Presenter33:12

What about your book?

Presenter33:14

Um the complete works of Scott Fitzgerald?

Presenter33:18

Yeah, okay. Any but if you could only take one And your luxury.

Presenter33:24

Pencil and paper.

Presenter33:25

Of course, what?

Presenter33:28

Paula Regga, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island is. Thank you.

Paula Rego33:38

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