Sir Harry Secombe

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.

Presenter0:31

My castaway this week is a comedian. In his long career he's achieved many things, appearing in musicals and films, writing books, recording best-selling albums, and hosting religious programmes on television. But one period in his life stands out above all the rest, both for him and for those who've enjoyed his performances over the years. It was the time when he and three friends put together a radio show not long after the war. It became a classic, anarchic, ridiculous, and very, very funny. It was called The Goon Show. He's since been knighted for his services to entertainment, but those goonish days remain, professionally, anyway, his happiest. I still have the image of myself as Neddy Sea Goon, he says, a demented idiot running around in manic fashion. He is Sir Harry Seacombe. And you've even got the goon on your coat of arms, haven't you, Sir Harry? Yes, I think it's best to call me Harry, don't you, under these circumstances, Shoo?

Sir Harry Secombe1:24

And these circumstances.

Presenter1:26

But is it goon or go on? Well, it's go on. Actually, when when you uh united you become what they call an armidurous. And you have to go along to the College of Arms to, you know, to sign in.

Sir Harry Secombe1:27

Oh well it

Presenter1:37

And they uh decide then what sort of uh you have on your coat of arms.

Presenter1:41

So I had a a swan for Swansea, a sword for represent the army with the mask of comedy on it, then a mermaid combing her hair, sea cone, all clever stuff you want to say and then a a mermaid a merman with a conch shell.

Sir Harry Secombe1:52

Hmm.

Presenter1:57

to represent music. And underneath the motto, Go On, which which is you know, sends it all up. So you got it all on then. But why were those days the happy? Was it just that they were so successful or was it something more than that?

Speaker 32:02

So you got it all

Sir Harry Secombe2:02

Hold on then.

Presenter2:10

They were fun to do. I mean, w we all pursued our individual careers all through the the gloom show. But we got together on a Sunday. We were like kids be let out of school. It was fantastic, all these things we could do. And the BBC in their infinite wisdom, you know, allowed us to uh experiment. They got cross with you sometimes, they were. Oh, now and again, yeah, poor old Milligan was always fighting them off, you know, the BBC executives.

Sir Harry Secombe2:27

Yeah.

Presenter2:32

There was a planners' meeting after it had been running about two years, I think.

Presenter2:35

And a senior producer got up and said, This go on show What's it all about? Who are these gawns?

Presenter2:41

And didn't Sellers once impersonate the Queen and got you all into hot water? He did, yes. And and he also in uh he was stopped impersonating Winston Churchill as well. It's interesting, isn't it? Because it wasn't political or social. It was a political. And the thing was silly really, wasn't it? It was stupid.

Sir Harry Secombe2:50

Okay, that's an it's

Sir Harry Secombe2:53

But was he

Sir Harry Secombe2:55

It was just silly really, wasn't it?

Presenter2:57

It was an oral cartoon. But there were some great profound things in it. Like, I mean, I found I I found Eccles at the bottom of about a fifteen mile deep trench or something. I said

Presenter3:08

What are you doing here? Echoes you do. Everybody's got to be somewhere. But the Echo found thought that, you see.

Presenter3:14

But was it Milligan who was uh you know, at at at the bottom of these flights of fancy primarily? Yeah, we rode on the thermal currents of old Milligan Milligan's imagination.

Sir Harry Secombe3:20

Uh

Presenter3:23

But but Bencheen and Milligan didn't get on, did they? Well, they got on, but th there was a resentment because You know, we're all finding

Presenter3:32

Sort of jokes at each other, and somebody'd say something, and it would be taken up by another one.

Presenter3:39

Espe especially with Spike and Mike, they'd they'd enlarge on a theme and both would go away thinking the whole thing was his, whereas really he's an amalgam of of uh the other fellow as well.

Sir Harry Secombe3:44

Yeah.

Presenter3:49

So there was a little resentment. I got I got the impression that you were the peacemaker in many ways, you know. I wasn't away as well. You were the only sane one round there. I was the heaviest one there, so keep me in order.

Sir Harry Secombe3:54

I want it away as well.

Presenter4:00

Tell me about your first record.

Presenter4:02

Well, I I've picked Peter Sellers singing my old Dutch because it it epitomizes old Sellers. It it starts off nice and sweetly and then turns rather nasty at the very funny. And when he stood next to him with the microphone, I mean physically he shrank for old Henry Crank and he blew himself up for Bloodknock and he shrank again for Blue Bottle. He became them. You know, he he was.

Presenter4:28

Such a um

Presenter4:30

He hadn't he had no voice of his own, if if you know what I mean. When Spike would say to him, uh when the when the script was being read, Use your own voice here, he said, I I can't, mate, I can't He couldn't do it. He'd have to hide behind a character.

Presenter4:45

We

Speaker 24:46

Baby.

Presenter4:46

Been together now for forty years And it doesn't seem a die to mind Ah

Speaker 24:59

So there I

Presenter4:59

Oh there I

Speaker 25:01

A lady living in Berlin, as I spoke for my dear Alan.

Speaker 25:12

Yeah.

Speaker 25:13

Yeah.

Speaker 25:19

In the land.

Presenter5:24

Had I swamp for my dear house.

Speaker 25:36

Get back in the kitchen, you rotten-o-dutch person!

Presenter5:42

Peter Sellers singing my old Dutch. You've um you've had well you have Harry Sigma a a wonderful voice yourself, you always have had a bel canto tenor that.

Sir Harry Secombe5:53

Yeah.

Speaker 35:53

And Belto

Presenter5:56

But when and how did you discover that you had it?

Presenter6:00

As a lad, I was in a choir, you know, from the age of seven. So all my life, really, I've been interested in music. And you used to sing when you performed, didn't you, in those early days? Didn't you sing a duet with yourself? Oh, yeah, in those days. I used to do sweetheart. Sweetheart, sweetheart, sweetheart, blah blah blah. One of those old classic stuff I did. But at some point, you discovered a singing teacher who said, Hang on, you should take this more seriously. Yes, I did. I was doing educating Archie and I was to sing on it.

Presenter6:28

And I was to sing out a tune. And Wally Ridley, who was then the sort of musical advisor for the programme, said, You better go and get that varsiew trained before you lose it.

Presenter6:36

So I bought a chair and a whip.

Presenter6:38

And some newspaper. Anyway, what?

Presenter6:42

I went along to see this wonderful old maister called Mandlio di Veroli.

Presenter6:47

And he took my voice apart.

Presenter6:49

Like a mechanic. And he used to say, Please, Harry, don't go cross-eyed in the middle of this area. You say he stripped it all the way down. Did you put it back together again?

Sir Harry Secombe6:55

Yeah, yeah.

Presenter6:56

Well yeah, what he did was get me to use my diaphragm rather than sing from the back of my throat. You know, you get a column of air comes up and you use that as a up into the cavities and the head resonances, and that's where you produce the voice. But this was while you were already recording the goons. Did he suggest to you that you should stop that maybe and be serious? I told me I had to produce my voice so I wouldn't hurt the chords. So I did all the goon chairs. Hello, folks!

Sir Harry Secombe7:15

We'd be serious.

Sir Harry Secombe7:19

I see.

Presenter7:22

Almost like restitative in opera. Hello, Jean! All up there, you see. Instead of going like we're talking now quite

Sir Harry Secombe7:26

Yeah.

Presenter7:29

Quite hoarse, actually. I see, well, just from the throat, as it were. Yeah, so it's up into the head. But did you ever think?

Sir Harry Secombe7:32

Yeah, so

Sir Harry Secombe7:33

Uh

Presenter7:35

I'd rather like to be a a a a serious singer. At one time, yes, I I I I fancied myself as a bit of an but and I always wanted to sing the big roles,'cause he he got me

Presenter7:45

to learn the Ari Antiki, the old old

Presenter7:49

Oh, yes, like by Gluke and people like that. Where you have a phrase which you have to sustain. And he'd keep doing that for a couple of weeks. And I'd be dying of saying on with a motley or something, or on with the mozzas or whatever. But he used to say, No, get it right first, get the diaphragm working properly. And then you can let fly. And he saved my voice, actually, because I would have lost it without any diversity. And have you still got it?

Sir Harry Secombe8:08

Uh

Sir Harry Secombe8:13

And if you still gave it to the

Presenter8:14

It's still there. I was doing Pickwick up until February, and in that, there are top C's. Two of the C's, they call them.

Sir Harry Secombe8:15

Very happy.

Sir Harry Secombe8:19

You can still use the shop seat.

Presenter8:22

Tell me about record number two.

Presenter8:24

Record number two, Gili, Benjamini Gili. Can I met Gili with'cause Manny de Veroli, the aforementioned.

Presenter8:31

Was a contemporary of Shili's at the Academy of St. Cecilia in Rome. And I met Sheely with him a couple of times. The last time was at the

Presenter8:40

His last concert at the Albert Hall, and I was taken backstage to see him.

Presenter8:44

And I was thinking, I I'll remember all my life what Gee Lee says to me, you know and he had this dressing gown on and a towel round his neck and he wasn't feeling all that well.

Presenter8:53

And all I all I could hear him saying was, Piageri, I'm pleased to meet you and that was it,'cause he spoke in a whisper took to the maestro all the time. And I was rather sad about that. You know, I I hope for some message from him, like, keep it up, lad, or pack it in, lad, or something.

Presenter9:08

Anyway, I appreciate you know, I appreciate his singing because he's the perfect Belcanto.

Presenter9:16

But he

Sir Harry Secombe9:16

Uh Signorino Ledironduer for the forest.

Sir Harry Secombe9:23

Before, keep on

Presenter9:30

Yeah.

Presenter9:56

Good for the fuck

Presenter10:09

Ben Yamino Gili singing Your Tiny Hand Is Frozen from Puccini's Laboem with La Scala Orchestra conducted by Umberto Berrettone, and that was recorded in 1938. Was it? Yeah.

Sir Harry Secombe10:17

I think it's a very good thing.

Presenter10:20

Tell me about this um fun loving family of yours. Who were they and what was their fun?

Presenter10:26

Uncle George, he used to tap dance, taught me to tap dance. George Charles, he was married to uh Margery Charles, my my father's sister, who used a beautiful redhead, used to play the piano in Woolworths, selling cheap music. You know, they they put the cheap music in front of me, they wanted to buy it and she'd play it. There was my uncle Siddle, who used to play the saw. He had a a saw, ordinary saw, which he used to hold between his knees, and he used to whack it with a drumstick and produce sounds like a like a soprano singing.

Presenter10:54

It nearly was,'cause that soul was quite sharp, you know.

Presenter10:58

But you in the middle, in the middle of all of this, apparently were excruciatingly shy.

Sir Harry Secombe10:58

You in the middle.

Presenter11:02

I was very shy. You couldn't perform in front of you. My sister was the funny one in the family, Carol.

Sir Harry Secombe11:03

You couldn't perform in front of crystal.

Presenter11:07

Still is. Very funny girl, Carol. And uh

Presenter11:11

When we had sort of parties at Christmastime and

Presenter11:14

weddings and all that sort of thing. We all did a turn.

Presenter11:18

But I was too shy to perform. This is at my grands place in Jersey Terrace in St. Thomas.

Presenter11:23

And I'd go outside to the outside toilet and sit there with the door open and sing. That was my part. What an idiot. As long as they couldn't see you and you couldn't see them. I couldn't see them, you see, so I could sing.

Sir Harry Secombe11:30

It's gonna be

Sir Harry Secombe11:31

Yeah

Sir Harry Secombe11:33

Trying to

Presenter11:34

The neighbours thought I was mad. But you apparently went on stage with your sister and did something called a little turn called a Welsh courts. Again the Welsh courtship. It was a thing.

Sir Harry Secombe11:39

Cool.

Speaker 311:40

Do I

Sir Harry Secombe11:40

The language

Presenter11:42

Ted and Mae Hopkins, uh a Welsh double act years ago, and they made a little uh they made a record. And we learned it off by heart. And I was the stooge, she did the uh funny part and I was stooge, so I was. But how could you do that if you could only sing in the lav? I mean, how could I go on stage and just just so you so you could go on the stage and perform? Because I took my glasses off. I realized if I took my glasses off and I couldn't see the audience.

Sir Harry Secombe11:54

But

Sir Harry Secombe11:57

I want to second that we're going to go.

Sir Harry Secombe11:59

So you so you could

Sir Harry Secombe12:00

Okay, because that

Presenter12:06

I had more questions. But what what did you think, you know, as a as a young boy, a young man, that you were going to do with your life? How did you think you were going to earn a living?

Sir Harry Secombe12:06

And you can

Sir Harry Secombe12:12

Yeah.

Presenter12:16

Well'Cause you wanted to perform. I wanted to perform. I did sort of local concert. I had a few impressions of the vicar.

Sir Harry Secombe12:17

I want to

Presenter12:22

get thumped as well. I did impressions of everybody, the milkman, the milkman's horse.

Presenter12:27

But uh I had to get to work because uh well we lived in a on a council estate where everybody was you know, no good trying to keep up with the Joneses'cause everybody was called Jones around there.

Presenter12:38

And anyway, um I had to get out and do something. Uh the war started and well, before the war started I joined the Terriers. Um that was in April nineteen thirty nine because the war was coming, pretty obvious. The TA.

Speaker 312:49

But it's

Presenter12:51

132nd Field Regiment. My number was 924378. Bows and arrows we had in those days. Tell me about your next record.

Presenter12:59

In those days on the council estate, most of the social activity, you know, was around the church hall and the church itself.

Presenter13:07

And uh

Presenter13:08

As I was in the choir, I loved I loved singing hymns. Si hymns have always been my favorite for some reason. I wake up in the morning with the hymn in my mind.

Presenter13:17

Not always the same one, you know, honestly, shaved to

Presenter13:20

You've got to open your mouth too.

Sir Harry Secombe13:24

What a

Sir Harry Secombe13:25

Uh

Presenter13:27

And uh as you get older y there's comfort in these old hymns, you know,'cause you've sung them all your life, I suppose, and when you get near the end they give you a bit of comfort.

Presenter13:37

Yeah.

Presenter13:38

Anyone my mother.

Presenter13:40

Yeah, I'm crying.

Sir Harry Secombe13:41

Yeah, I'm crying here.

Presenter13:43

Yeah.

Presenter13:45

But my my mother wa used to sing beautiful things, you know, she had a lovely voice, my mother.

Presenter13:52

My father could only perform in in concerts if he had a chair to put his foot on.

Presenter13:57

Hold onto the back of the chair and do a monologue. That was his party piece. But his knee would tremble otherwise. Yeah, so yeah, anytime well yeah, all the legs would shake.

Sir Harry Secombe14:03

Yeah.

Presenter14:06

Thought we'd play the cat in it?

Presenter14:09

But my mum had a lovely contralto voice, and I was one of her favourite hymns, and one one of mine was.

Presenter14:15

How sweet the name of Jesus sounds Beautiful hymn, that is.

Speaker 314:24

Jesus

Presenter15:15

How sweet the name of Jesus sounds sung by the London Emmanuel Choir, conducted by Muriel Shepherd.

Presenter15:21

So Lance Bombardier Seacombe was uh sent to the front in North Africa in 1942. How how close did you come to catching it? Well, we were in um

Presenter15:30

in action for a long time.

Presenter15:32

We were sort of infantry assault brigade and we went in we were twenty five pounder regiment. We went into uh Algiers in November forty two then pushed ahead to try to get to Tunis before the Germans got there'cause they were coming from the other side, you know, the Eighth Army was on the in the desert and we were coming through Tunisia, Algeria, Tunisia. We nearly made it, but we got uh caught at a place called Taborba, about five miles from Tunis.

Presenter15:58

And uh we had a bit of a shock there.

Presenter16:01

We had to get out rather quickly. Did you, I mean, did you ever feel real fear? Did you ever feel? Most of the time, yes. It's um.

Sir Harry Secombe16:06

Most of the

Presenter16:09

Difficult to explain to anybody who's never been in action. I mean, that's why regimental reunions are a hell, because you can only sort of come to terms with it by talking over it wi with people who've been through it with you. It's amazing to start with when you go into action for the first time before you know anything about it. There's a kind of bloodlust, you get quite excited and uh w because you're firing at them. Once they start firing back at you, it's a different matter altogether.

Presenter16:36

'Cause I remember once um

Presenter16:37

Having to obey a call of nature.

Presenter16:40

And suddenly bling something went over my head.

Presenter16:44

And I turned round and there was a hole in the cactus thing behind me. And my first instinct was to get up and say, Hey, be careful and I realized they really meant it and from then on your attitude changes. It's a personal thing. Funny though. You grow up a bit quickly. You grow up rather quickly, yeah. And you met a man called Milligan.

Sir Harry Secombe16:54

Yeah.

Sir Harry Secombe16:56

It's funny though.

Sir Harry Secombe16:57

You grow up rather quickly, yeah, so keep your head down.

Presenter17:02

I met a man called Milligan. Oh, God. There were

Presenter17:06

Germans were dug in very deeply into a hill.

Presenter17:09

near a place called Oizaga. And uh they wouldn't come out. We'd ask them all, you know, I sleep and left chocolates behind for them, but they wouldn't come out. So they there was a plateau in front of it and then a steep

Presenter17:20

Cliff

Presenter17:22

and uh sort of road. So to get them up they brought in very heavy guns, seven point two gun howitzers, which are enormous things with with uh hydraulics and big rubber wheels. And we dug gun pits to specifications given to us, which were wrong. They were too small. So when they brought these guns in at night time,

Presenter17:40

They put the first one into the pit and they fired on a lanyard. They got a bit of a rope attached to the firing mechanism, sand back and pull it. And when they turned down the gun had gone. Could it just jump jumped out to this

Presenter17:52

Disgun pit

Presenter17:54

over this cliff and we were in a wireless truck at the bottom of it, an eight hundred wit wireless truck, and this thing come over and it missed us by just a couple of feet.

Presenter18:03

Pandemonia broke out,'cause we thought, you know, if if they're firing guns instead of shells, this time we packed it in, folks. And I was looking up with the dictionary for I'm on your side in German.

Presenter18:14

The flap of the truck opens and this face comes in. Anybody seen a gun? He was Milligan, of course. What colour were we crying?

Presenter18:20

And he says he's still paying for it.

Presenter18:22

And that's how it all began for us. Record number four.

Presenter18:26

Great voice, this is. This is Gordon McRae singing If I Loved You from

Presenter18:31

Rog Rogers and Hammerstein Carousel. It's a it's an example to me of how to sing a ballad properly. And and of course the words are so good, and when you get the words and music coming together so beautifully, it's it's uh

Presenter18:44

It's a rare thing.

Presenter18:47

Uh

Presenter18:48

I loved you.

Presenter18:51

Time and again I would try to say

Presenter18:57

All I want you to know

Presenter19:05

Gordon McRae singing If I Loved You from Rogers and Hammerstein's musical Carousel. So out of the war, into the Dimobsu Tarry, and not long after, into the Windmill Theatre. Now, what were you doing, a good God-fearing man from Swansea? In the kind of. Well, I mean, it was synonymous with sleaze, wasn't it? The Windmill Theatre. Well, not really. It was quite decorous, and you weren't allowed to move. We used to say that.

Sir Harry Secombe19:22

Well

Presenter19:27

They only wore three beads and two of those of perspiration. You know, if they moved, that was it,'cause if they were moved, yeah.

Speaker 319:32

It was unique.

Presenter19:33

So'cause the Lord Chamberlain's office were always keeping a close eye.

Speaker 319:37

So there was these tableau.

Presenter19:40

Curtains open, tableau of moods, unmoving. Touch up the curtains. On comes Hannah. Carl Fox, yes. Do the shaving acts. Six shows a day. But you you met Benteen, Michael Benteen, at the windmill, didn't you? Yes, he was doing an act called Sherwood and Forest.

Sir Harry Secombe19:42

And then the the

Sir Harry Secombe19:45

Yeah.

Sir Harry Secombe19:46

Do they

Sir Harry Secombe19:47

Six shows a

Presenter19:54

It was a very funny act, a c a cod Russian act. And I saw the dress rehearsal that was in the show that followed the one I was in.

Presenter20:01

So I n nipped backstage to see him to say, you know, how how much I appreciate what he was doing. And I said, I've got to meet a mate of mine called Milligan. He's because he was still over in Italy then.

Presenter20:10

So we eventually got together, used to get to go down to Jimmy Grafton's pub off Victoria Street in Strutton Grounds.

Presenter20:17

and called the grafter, strange enough.

Presenter20:20

And we used to meet there and uh after hours we did our own little bits and pieces. And sellers you'd meet in the radio.

Speaker 320:25

And sellers

Sir Harry Secombe20:25

Dude,

Presenter20:27

Yeah, I met him on a thing called Listen to My Children, which was written by Murin Norton. Very avant-garde, very funny comedy he was.

Sir Harry Secombe20:32

Very available.

Presenter20:35

And uh I got Peter to come down to the Grafton, so we'd always get together and throw these ideas about. So eventually the four of you y said that you know there's the seed of a good idea, more than the seed of a good idea here. Let's sell it to the radio. Let's let's took a bit of time to get B B C to accept it. Eventually they they give us a pilot to do.

Sir Harry Secombe20:44

Yeah.

Sir Harry Secombe20:50

Because

Presenter20:54

And in their infinite wisdom they they give us a series. Meantime, you'd gone to Blackpool and were kind of second spot. Hello, folks, yes. That air of desperate gaiety coming out there, you know. But but give me an idea of how you put the Goon Show together, because it was a Sunday. You'd come down from Blackpool in your little Austin seven. I'd come down to little Austin, yeah, Austin ten, ostentatious, we used to call it. Oh, God. Come down overnight, go to see Jimmy Grafton, have bacon and egg for breakfast, then go along to Man Leo's, have an hour's lesson.

Sir Harry Secombe21:01

Toward the

Presenter21:26

Then off to uh reh rehearse the Goon show. The first thing we did was the the read through, but we'd all fall about and exchange jokes and all the rest of it. Then they do it with the orchestra and then orchestra and effects then do it. And in the end in front of an audience.

Sir Harry Secombe21:39

And in the

Presenter21:41

If yes, in the front of an audience. I think it's a cue for it.

Presenter21:44

It's the key hot sign for quite a way. Just to get into the market. But you had a script, a tight script, or did you add lib within it?

Sir Harry Secombe21:47

But you

Sir Harry Secombe21:51

Damn it!

Presenter21:52

It was all done on disk, so they couldn't edit that. You had to keep to time and you had to keep to the script.

Presenter21:58

I'd blow a raspberry here and there or something, but really it was it was scripted and had to be you know, the BBC insisted on it.

Sir Harry Secombe22:02

You know, the BBC insisted on it.

Presenter22:04

Mostly by Milligan. Mostly by Spy. And Larry Stevens in the beginning. And

Presenter22:09

'Cause Eric Sykes wrote quite a few when when Spike wasn't ill. He did some very funny ones, Eric. But eventually you did start to add lib.

Presenter22:17

Well, yes, when tape came in, when they you recorded on tape, you could edit it and you could do what you liked, you know, we

Sir Harry Secombe22:23

We

Presenter22:24

I mean, sometimes Min and Hen would go on ad living forever and I'd come in quickly and say, Come on, let's let's break it up and get on with the show. But a sound engineer's nightmare because so much of it, as you say, it was a it you were creating a kind of verbal cartoon, so you had all these sound effects.

Sir Harry Secombe22:35

Yeah, yeah.

Presenter22:37

That was the thing. They had about three um turntables with records going round and and the blogs are going from one to the other. Spike was a a stickle of having the the the effects dead right. That was one thing he had.

Sir Harry Secombe22:44

Mike was a

Sir Harry Secombe22:48

Uh

Presenter22:49

And as you said, people used to cue to to come and hear this thing, and uh much later on, because of course people have gone on loving the goons.

Sir Harry Secombe22:52

Yeah.

Presenter22:58

Most famously, Prince Charles, who wanted to be a goon, didn't he? He does all the voices. He's very good at the voices. He really is. He was besotted with you, wasn't he? He really well, he's still he's still a great fan. I get letters from him now and I get sort of spike, keep in touch with him. But he I once uh heard him do all these these voices. All of us together met at uh Sellers' place for lunch one day when he was at Cambridge. And uh it was wild. He's in all these impressions.

Speaker 323:01

Wait, does all of us

Sir Harry Secombe23:12

Okay.

Presenter23:23

He could do Eccles and Blue Bottle and Cran, and I said to him.

Presenter23:27

You know, if anything happened to your lot, God forbid you could join us. You'll be air today and goon tomorrow.

Presenter23:33

And he said, It's very drafty in the tower this time of year, Netty. He said.

Presenter23:39

Tell me about your next piece of music. This is a great piece of music. I I've done it myself a few times, but this is beautiful. It it it's done by Richard Tucker and Robert Merdle with just piano.

Presenter23:49

It's that famous, wonderful duet from the pearlfishes by Bizet.

Speaker 224:13

Uh

Speaker 224:19

Yeah.

Presenter24:50

Richard Tucker and Robert Merrill singing part of the duet Au Fant du Temple Saint, from Act One of Bizet's The Pearlfishers, recorded at the Carnegie Hall with George Schick at the piano.

Presenter25:01

Harry Seecombe, um, you've had some health scares in your time, not least being told that you only had two years to live. How did that happen? Well, I I'd uh actually had um perforated colon. I was suffering from punctuation, you understand.

Presenter25:15

So this was in Barbados and had an operation and during the operation they found that I also had diabetes.

Presenter25:23

And I was pretty ill. I mean, I had um peritonitis. And the doctor told my the surgeon told Myra that um

Sir Harry Secombe25:23

And I was pretty ill, I mean.

Presenter25:32

It was touch and go before the operation. He said it's fifty-fifty or sixty-fourty or something.'Cause you're also, what, nineteen or twenty? I was nineteen stone, yes.

Sir Harry Secombe25:39

Now it's nineteen stone.

Presenter25:42

I was six or seven when I was twelve, and I was hit by a left, you understand. Oh, the old ones are best, I tell you.

Sir Harry Secombe25:42

Which doesn't you

Presenter25:48

But anyway, you ended up in performing again in Australia, and all of a sudden. And then I, all of a sudden, because I hadn't really taken.

Presenter25:56

care of myself. I hadn't really got down to dieting or anything. I did a concert at the Opera House in Sydney.

Presenter26:02

With the big orchestra and big choir and everything. And normally, at the end of these things, I'm elated, you know, on a high.

Presenter26:09

But this time they came off I felt terrible.

Presenter26:12

And uh the impresario, Dennis Smith, took me down to see this doctor in Woonomaloo.

Presenter26:18

who gave me a good going over and said, Harry, I'll give you two years at the most if you keep this up. And he frightened the life out of me. He said, you know, stop drinking, stop eating too much.

Sir Harry Secombe26:25

You know, it's

Presenter26:28

And take it easier. So, what happened then once you got far? Well, Mila said you've got to do, you know.

Sir Harry Secombe26:31

My mother.

Presenter26:33

She'd take me in hand, and she did. And I went on a dark. Yes, you were a large person to take it out. Yes, you were.

Sir Harry Secombe26:37

Yeah.

Presenter26:41

took me by the throat.

Presenter26:42

And uh eventually in about six months I'd I was I'd lost about three stole. I've and in the end I lost five stone altogether. It's plain bread for this week, you understand. Record number six.

Presenter26:54

Now this is a

Presenter26:56

A bloke is a mate of mine and a lovely singer. He hasn't been too well lately, but I think he's coming on nicely.

Presenter27:01

Beautiful voice, a real Welsh tenor, lyric tenor.

Presenter27:05

It does a wonderful dominuendo, you can really

Presenter27:08

really use his voice properly.

Sir Harry Secombe27:10

Last night I lay

Speaker 327:12

Sleeping, there came a dream so fair I stood in old Jerusalem beside the temple there.

Speaker 327:25

I heard the children singing, And ever as they sang. This

Sir Harry Secombe27:33

What the voice of it

Speaker 327:34

Dangers from heaven in and surround Methought the voice of angers from heaven in and sorrow.

Presenter27:52

The Holy City, sung by Stuart Burroughs, with the Ambrosian singers, accompanied by the organist Martin Neary. It wasn't long after that illness and the dieting, Harry Seacomb, that you began presenting religious programmes, you know, Highway for ITV, you did for ten years. But were the two things linked in some way? Did it sort of stop you in your tracks? I mean, I was.

Sir Harry Secombe28:11

It can sort of stop you in your tracks.

Presenter28:14

Having, as I say, felt the brush of the angel's wing.

Presenter28:18

You do reassess your life, I think. You you look back and say, Well, you know, don't be such a twit. Think of uh your family and your responsibilities. And when the this came up, Bill Ward wrote to me, Bill Ward used to be uh I knew him from the time as a flow manager until he became a chief executive with ATV. And then he retired. And he wrote this letter to me saying that uh he wanted to talk about a programme. And we had lunch together and he he brought up the idea of highway. And I said, you know, I am I the right block to do it. It's a long way from gooning to the godspot. That's it, yes, from goon to guru, something is.

Sir Harry Secombe28:50

That's it?

Presenter28:54

So I thought, well, you know, I'd I'll have a go anyway, so let's try. So I did six and I got I you know, I got to like it very much indeed.

Presenter29:02

Meeting peop ordinary people do extraordinary things. That that put turning a spotlight on on people in the community, you know, unsung saints within the community.

Presenter29:11

That I found very interesting, because I wasn't aware of so many people doing good out there quietly without thought of reward or anything. Because in our business we do

Presenter29:20

good deeds with an ear splitting stealth, don't we? Let's face it. But

Presenter29:24

You meet these people and you meet people who are com completely committed to helping others.

Presenter29:30

And you become humble in the process. More music.

Presenter29:34

Ah, this is uh

Presenter29:35

A lovely old friend of mine, Kiri Te Kanawa.

Presenter29:39

She um

Presenter29:41

did her first appearance on television with me after she when she came over from New Zealand.

Presenter29:45

And uh

Presenter29:47

We got on very well together. Shell is beautiful, Voice this beautiful girl.

Presenter29:51

But I couldn't uh pronounce her name. Keely, I can do it now, Keely De Canawa. So I had a few stabs at it. She's just call me Tim Mickers, Harry, she said.

Presenter30:00

So I thought here's a kindred soul.

Presenter30:46

Kieri Tecanawa singing part of Bilero from Contalube's Songs of the Auvergne with the English Chamber Orchestra conducted by Geoffrey Tate. You celebrated fifty years in show business last year, Harry, and fifty years of marriage coming up next year.

Sir Harry Secombe31:00

Yeah.

Presenter31:01

You claim that you and Myra have never had a row, and that you've never lost your temper. I mean, you sound like some kind of saint. No, not at all. Oh, we'd laugh a lot. And I'd make all the big decisions, you know, whether we'd go to war with China or

Presenter31:14

buy any more missiles. And she decides the little things like what's for lunch and what schools the kids go to at all. She's been your mainstay. She has. She's great. She really is. And she's back in the wings now with the towel and the glass of water. Always there when I was doing my bit, doing the act, she'd be there in the wings.

Sir Harry Secombe31:20

What schools do kids go to?

Sir Harry Secombe31:25

And she's back

Sir Harry Secombe31:27

Always that.

Presenter31:31

I dragged her on one night in New Zealand, the last I did a final concert of uh Austrian New Zealand, dragged her on stage and she stood there, God bless her, and a tremendous ovation she got.

Presenter31:44

She deserves it.

Presenter31:45

Now, you can't take her to your desert island. You're going to be all alone. Can you?

Presenter31:50

You can make yourself like you can keep your own pecker up, you know? I'll have to talk to coconut trees or whatever.

Presenter31:56

I don't know, I'm a gregarious bloke. You know, I I'd uh I like to be on my own now and again, as we all do, but uh I like people. Tell me about your last record.

Presenter32:04

Whenever I go abroad, especially on my own, I like to play green sleeves. It it reminds me of of the view from my window at home.

Presenter32:14

I can see it's right across the wheel of Sussex to the south down. It's beautiful. Rolling.

Presenter32:18

Hills and uh

Presenter32:20

Trees and lakes and things. And this music reminds me of it all, so I I can feel that I brought it with me.

Presenter33:25

Part of Phantasia on Greensleeves, arranged by Vaughan Williams, played by the Philadelphia Orchestra, conducted by Eugene Ormondy.

Presenter33:33

Which one of those eight records, Harry, if you could only take one?

Presenter33:37

I'll take the green sleeves, because it'll remind me of home.

Sir Harry Secombe33:39

Hello.

Presenter33:40

Now the Bible's there, and the complete works of Shakespeare are there. What about your book?

Presenter33:46

I'd like to take Pickwick's papers, because I've done it I've done play the part long enough, and singing top C's, going

Presenter33:54

puce in the process, but great fun. And what about your luxury on this island? I'd like to take a guitar. I can't play an instrument, you see.

Presenter34:03

And I can't sing, you know, sing to myself. So I'd like to learn to play the guitar so I can accompany myself as I wander around.

Presenter34:10

Singing little uh bits and pieces.

Presenter34:13

What can I sing all through the night?

Presenter34:16

That would keep the natives awake, wouldn't it?

Presenter34:20

For Harry Seekham, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs. It's been a pleasure.

Speaker 334:32

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