Dame Norma Major

Speaker 20:00

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.

Speaker 20:08

The programme was originally broadcast in the year two thousand, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:32

My Costaway this week is a wife and a mother. Thirty years ago, she met a man at a GLC election count, took him to the opera where he fell asleep, but nevertheless married him six months later. He became Prime Minister, and she was pitched into public life, where, as she recalls, she was regarded as an MP, a social worker, and a counsellor, all rolled into one. The resilience she learned as the child of a widowed mother came to her aid. Through her personal qualities and her professional abilities, she's written a successful biography of Joan Sutherland. She won round those who'd been inclined to patronise when she first entered the portals of power. I dislike, she said, being fawned upon by the sort who, were it not for my husband's job, would think of us as nice little people. She is Dame Norma Major. Resilience is the word, I think, Norma, that you had to have in spades to cope with what happened to you. Limelight, not your natural habitat.

Presenter1:27

No, no, I'm essentially, I think, a backroom girl. You've always said that about yourself, haven't you? I'm backroom in amateur dramatics.

Dame Norma Major1:32

Yeah, from Google.

Presenter1:36

Backroom at school? Always. I'm not a I don't think I'm a natural leader. I'm quite happy to be part of a team. But natural wife of leader.

Dame Norma Major1:43

For a wife

Presenter1:45

Perhaps. But you said you were terrified when he became Foreign Secretary. You must have been panic-stricken when he became Prime Minister.

Presenter1:54

No. I I wasn't happy uh when he became uh uh Foreign Secretary, and it was a job that I always assumed that he wouldn't get.

Presenter2:02

And I was quite pleased about that because I felt that I wouldn't be happy with the social life. It wasn't the politics. It was just that I knew a huge amount of social life went with the wife of the Foreign Secretary and that didn't really appeal to me very much. But you did it in the end. You did it in the end. Yes, I did. And I think the three months that John was Foreign Secretary obviously paid dividends. I think it was a quite a good training ground for

Dame Norma Major2:17

You do it in the end of the one for the current.

Presenter2:28

For being the wife of the Prime Minister. Well, we come back to all of that. But how has life improved since 1997? I think that was the feeling that so many people had when the Tories lost the 1997 election: that, well, if for anyone in this there is a silver lining, it's for Norma. She must be breathing a huge sigh of relief.

Presenter2:49

Well, to say that life is more enjoyable now implies that one didn't enjoy the job, which most of the time I did. I think it's quite nice not to have quite so many pressures now, and to have a little bit of time to ourselves, which we had very little of.

Presenter3:02

But resilience is what it's been all about. And I think you've often said that res you've had to have resilience f for all that life has thrown at you. Where do you think that comes from?

Presenter3:15

I think it must have come from my mother. I mean, if if it can be said to have come from anywhere at all.

Presenter3:20

My mother was left a widow at a very young age.

Presenter3:24

and came from

Presenter3:26

Um

Presenter3:27

quite disadvantaged beginnings and determined that she was going to improve her position.

Presenter3:33

and at one point was doing three jobs.

Presenter3:36

And I think she was very, very self-reliant, very determined.

Presenter3:41

And maybe some of that did rub off on me. Stoical.

Dame Norma Major3:42

Joe

Presenter3:44

Uncomplaining, I think that's really good. Yes, pretty much. I mean, she coped with what she had to do and did it well. And.

Dame Norma Major3:44

Communities

Dame Norma Major3:45

Yes, yes, pretty much.

Presenter3:52

I think that no one has to really get on with it. I think there's no point in complaining when opportunities come your way. It's a good attitude for a desert island, I have to tell you.

Dame Norma Major4:01

Dude for a desert

Presenter4:03

You should fare well. Tell me about your first record.

Dame Norma Major4:04

Well

Presenter4:07

Um well the first record is um Don't Fence Me In. Um it's it's uh one of a very few records that we had in the family at this time, and I I'm I'm pretty sure we were playing them on a wind up grammar phone.

Presenter4:20

And I just remember that enjoying this particular piece.

Presenter4:23

And I think to some extent perhaps I have been a bit fenced in, so maybe this is appropriate.

Speaker 44:30

Oh give me land, lots of land, under starry skies above

Speaker 44:38

Don't fence me in.

Speaker 44:42

Let me ride through the wide open country that I love.

Dame Norma Major4:42

Yeah.

Dame Norma Major4:44

Wide open country that I love

Speaker 44:47

Don't fence me.

Speaker 44:52

Let me be by myself in the evening breeze

Presenter4:58

Bing Crosby and the Andrews sisters singing Don't Fence Me In with Vic Schearn and his orchestra. Not fenced in now, though, Norma. You feel released now.

Presenter5:07

Not as much as I would like to be. No. I think there are still quite a few constraints and the diary is still very full. Because you've had two weddings and an autobiography in the family. It took a long time to

Dame Norma Major5:13

Two

Dame Norma Major5:14

Yes, and I think sort of

Presenter5:21

Um

Presenter5:22

cope with the aftermath um in terms of correspondence and and

Presenter5:26

all sorts of things like that. And I can't believe it's actually three years have passed and

Dame Norma Major5:28

Uh

Presenter5:30

In a sense, I don't think I have moved on as much as I would like yet. I would like to do some more writing. Would you? What would you like to write next? Because you've done two and the book about it. At the moment I'm just putting the finishing touches to some more words for checkers.

Dame Norma Major5:36

Won't you

Speaker 25:36

Yeah.

Dame Norma Major5:36

What would you like to write next?

Dame Norma Major5:40

And the checks are at the moment.

Presenter5:45

because the paperback is um in the offing. And then I have one or two ideas that I think probably aren't quite ready for

Presenter5:52

Biography

Dame Norma Major5:53

Yeah.

Presenter5:54

Novels? Uh not novels, no.

Dame Norma Major5:55

Yeah.

Presenter5:56

You're not going to do an Anne Whitticom or an Edwina Curry, I don't know. I don't think I've got the imagination.

Speaker 45:59

That doesn't

Presenter6:02

Or experience.

Speaker 46:02

Or the experience.

Presenter6:05

Yes, maybe. Maybe. Maybe. I see. All right.

Dame Norma Major6:06

Glade.

Presenter6:08

Let's go back to to your beginnings. Um your father, you you never knew him really? No, no. I was a very small child when when he was killed.

Dame Norma Major6:13

No.

Presenter6:17

What happened to him? He died in a motorcycle accident in Belgium about six days after the war ended.

Dame Norma Major6:17

Uh

Presenter6:23

which um was very sad. And my mother had lost a baby just uh six months earlier as well, and hadn't seen my father since the loss of the baby, and I think it was

Presenter6:33

A deeply disturbing time. So you would have been about three? Uh, nineteen forty-five, yes, three. Hm. And she was twenty two years old. What did she do, for heaven's sake?

Presenter6:43

worked hard. I mean, she she uh was always determined that she was going to um improve her condition. She she was brought brought up in a fairly

Presenter6:52

her disadvantaged background and was determined that she was going to

Presenter6:56

Do what she could to uh

Presenter6:58

make life better. But in doing that and in working hard she didn't have the time to look after you, it seems, because she sent you off to boarding school. Yes, I went to boarding school when I was was four. It was a very small boarding school in Bex Hill.

Dame Norma Major7:09

But it was a very s

Presenter7:13

But she used to come down and visit me every weekend and stay in a guest house at Bex Hill.

Presenter7:17

Um we used to have tea on the pier and

Presenter7:19

I remember the Palm Court Orchestras.

Presenter7:21

buttered toast, and I really only have fond memories of it all, even though I was so small.

Presenter7:27

And in all of this you were you sound to have been a very sort of balanced, quite domesticated little girl. You quite liked home life obviously, perhaps because you'd been to boarding school, but you were very ordered, very tidy.

Speaker 27:37

Yeah.

Presenter7:41

Yes, I hadn't thought of it in that point of view, but yes, I did. I I've I had always been um

Presenter7:45

Um I like playing with dolls and dolls' houses and all the things that little girls used to used to enjoy and perhaps isn't politically correct anymore. Yes, it's sort of a bit the that that it's sniffed at, that one should enjoy cleaning out a cupboard. I think I used to organise my mum. I was forever cleaning out the cupboards.

Dame Norma Major7:53

I think it's

Dame Norma Major8:00

I think

Presenter8:04

Were you? And all credit to her that she didn't seem to mind. The people who s sniff at that kind of thing are the same kind of people I think who d who despise the idea that you might take pleasure in looking after your husband and family, too. It seems it seems odd. I think that's a modern tragedy, um, that uh we can't

Presenter8:21

appear to take a pride in in doing that any more. And I think maybe some of the social problems spring from that, that we

Presenter8:27

Feel that we ought not to regard it as an important part of.

Presenter8:32

Life, a career in itself, which it can be for many women. Do you think it's coming back full circle? It's interesting. I mean, when I introduce you and I say my castaway this week is a wife and mother.

Presenter8:41

I stop when I write that and think, now, is it all right to say that? And of course it is. Well, it's fine to say it to me.

Presenter8:47

Well, that's what I think. I'm sure I'm not alone. It's just that maybe we've been intimidated into.

Dame Norma Major8:47

Well that's what I thought.

Presenter8:54

Um being rather afraid to admit it. I think you're absolutely right. Tell me about your second record.

Presenter9:00

Our second record is is Slaughter on Tenth Avenue. I think even as a little girl I must have enjoyed music, and I certainly enjoyed dancing. And at any opportunity, if there w there was music on the radio that could be danced to, I I tended to dance to it. And Slaughter on Tenth Avenue is actually another record that we had in our very small collection at home.

Presenter9:49

The New York Philemonic, conducted by Richard Rogers, playing Slaughter on Tenth Avenue, from the musical On Your Toes by Rogers and Hammerstein, and Memories, Norma Major, of Dancing in the Kitchen in Bermondsey. Was your mother musical?

Presenter10:01

No. My father wo was a pianist. He um an amateur pianist, and from what I hear, rather good one. So she obviously had music in her life.

Presenter10:10

And I think there was always the hope that I would learn to play the piano, and it never really quite worked out that way. I had lessons for years and years and years, and either I was very badly taught or didn't apply myself sufficiently to it, but it

Dame Norma Major10:16

Otherwise,

Presenter10:21

Never came off. This would have been when you were at Peckham School, which is where you ended up and you became head girl.

Presenter10:28

Yes, I think a bit by default. There were only seven of us in the uh upper six at that time and

Presenter10:33

I suspect there were others who probably would have done it with greater applombre. But again, organisational abilities. That's the thing.

Dame Norma Major10:36

But again all

Dame Norma Major10:38

Well yes, perhaps.

Presenter10:44

And what did you where would we have been by then? Sort of late late fifties? Fifty-nine. Yeah. So w what would we have had? Dickie Valentine, Johnny Ray, Lonnie Donegan. No idea. I mean you didn't have these people pinned on your wall. The first no no no. Never.

Dame Norma Major10:55

Uh

Dame Norma Major10:56

You didn't have these people pinned on your wall.

Presenter11:00

The the first pop record I bought was um Rock Around the Clock.

Presenter11:04

With thirteen women on the other side. And I think probably that was the only pot record I have ever bought. Bill Haley. Bill Haley. You weren't. I was quite boring, to be honest.

Dame Norma Major11:10

You want to swing up?

Presenter11:14

Why did you say that about yourself? Well, I don't think I particularly liked doing some of the things that most young people of my age did.

Presenter11:22

I mean, my children think I was boring then, and I probably was. And what did you want to do? Did you have a nice? I wanted to be a nanny.

Dame Norma Major11:25

What the d

Dame Norma Major11:27

I wanted to be in that.

Presenter11:28

I mean, from a very early age. I mean, I suppose this springs from playing with dolls and also being with people who had small babies.

Presenter11:36

And from the age of probably, as soon as I could realise that there was there was a career ahead, it was an Annie until I was about 16. And suddenly I decided this wasn't for me. And I don't really know to this day why. Because you became a teacher. Yes, I decided that uh teaching would be a better better bet. And you did teach, you taught domestic science in Neil. Yes, I taught for ten years in South East London.

Dame Norma Major11:54

Need a tool?

Presenter11:56

And did you enjoy it?

Presenter11:58

Yes, I did. I'm I'm not sure looking back whether it was the right career path. I think that if uh maybe I'd done some sort of careers assessment it might well have shown that there were different skills.

Presenter12:08

But I did enjoy it for the for the uh

Presenter12:11

time I spent teaching. What do you think those other skills might have been? Well, I think I would have perhaps been better doing something that did involve organization of some kind. Perhaps working in the library or doing research.

Presenter12:22

But you did, during all of this time well, when once you got into your twenties, I think, find something that truly absorbed you, and that was opera. You you became a kind of opera groupie, really, didn't you?

Dame Norma Major12:22

But you did.

Presenter12:31

I hate the word, but I I suppose you're right. I mean, I came to it, as I think uh I'm sure a lot of people must via musical comedy, musicals and musical comedy.

Presenter12:40

And I had met June Bronhill, who had been an opera singer at Saddler's Wells, had sung om sung in opera and operetta at Saddler's Wells, and when I met her she had moved into musicals, and I just wanted to find out what opera was all about.

Presenter12:53

And the first opera that I really got familiar with was Rigoletto, which was an opera that June had sung in.

Presenter12:59

And I went to the library to borrow a recording, and it happened to be Sutherland. And I'm afraid I was hooked from from that day. And there were stories of you sleeping on the pavement. Well, it was the only way at the time to get the best of the cheap seats.

Dame Norma Major13:09

Anyway at the time.

Presenter13:12

And I mean there were a lot of us doing it, it was fun, it's I think it's rather a pity that it isn't

Presenter13:16

We can't do it any more.

Presenter14:15

Joan Sutherland as Gilda singing Cara Nome from Act One of Verdi's Rigoletto with the Academy of St Cecilia Rome conducted by Nino Sanzognio. Joan Sutherland, whose biography you published, of course, in 1987, Norma, it apparently took you ten years to write it. Why so long? Well, not ten years to write it, ten years to research it. And it began as a catalogue, and I didn't actually get round to writing a book for some years into that ten.

Presenter14:41

Um I just thought it would be um useful for the operatic archives to have a catalogue of performances that Sutherland had sung, and gradually it just developed into something rather more than a catalogue. But there are stories of you hurling it across the room at one point.

Dame Norma Major14:55

Yeah.

Presenter14:56

I did. Once I got a publisher and I hadn't finished the book, it was getting a bit desperate. I mean, it had it had taken me a long time to write. I kept putting it away as elections came along and we moved house and all sorts of other things. And once I had a publisher I I really couldn't keep putting it to one side and I wasn't getting a lot of cooperation at home one way or another.

Presenter15:14

I don't know. I read about John fishing it out of the corner.

Dame Norma Major15:14

I don't know. I read about John

Presenter15:20

Um but I did th throw the manuscript across the kitchen at one point and lost chapter six under the washing machine.

Presenter15:27

But you were obviously John encouraged you. This is the man who fell asleep when you fell. Was it actually Joan Sutherland he fell asleep? Yes, it was. It was a g it was a gala. It was a one of they're usually much too long. And the Sutherland was singing the mad scene from Lucia. I don't know. And it was towards the end. You didn't go off immediately. Yes, it could have been the end of a beautiful friendship, but it wasn't. No. But it was effectively your first date, that, wasn't it?

Dame Norma Major15:34

Yeah.

Speaker 215:34

Yeah.

Dame Norma Major15:41

And it was towards the end.

Dame Norma Major15:43

Yes, it could have been easy.

Presenter15:51

I think it was. I th I think I tried to I'd organized a party that he wasn't able to come to and he'd invited me to something I couldn't go to. I thought he was playing hard to get at. I didn't get that impression. I think it was uh he had a busy diary even at that time. So was it kind of instant attraction? It was at this GLC country. Yes, it it was the the day of the GLC election in nineteen seventy and I I was helping another friend.

Dame Norma Major16:09

Yes.

Presenter16:14

Um

Presenter16:16

and I was doing transport and and knocking up.

Presenter16:19

So you were a bit presented here. Well, I don't think I was. I mean, I'd met the friend who had introduced me was a trainee agent.

Speaker 416:20

Plants.

Presenter16:25

a political agent and I'd met him at the opera. So in a in a sense it was more an operatic connection than a a political connection. And I was also doing some dressmaking for the candidate, so that's really how I was there. In so much fun.

Speaker 416:37

Instant attraction?

Presenter16:40

Yes, I mean I think there is such a thing as love at first sight and I've no doubt that's how it was for both of us. And um your mother must have been delighted because he was exactly I mean he was a Lambeth counsellor, he worked in a bank, he got a good steady job, she must have thought you'd made the right choice. What about you? You can't possibly have known, or did you, that he was deeply ambitious?

Presenter17:02

I'm sure I was not aware of it. I was impressed by the fact that he was um

Presenter17:08

On Lambeth Council.

Presenter17:09

and at that time there were quite a lot of glamorous events to go to, and it it was it was fun and it was exciting. I don't ever remember him articulating the fact that he wanted to be a Member of Parliament.

Presenter17:20

Um and in a sense I mean, I must have dr I drifted into the acknowledgment that this is where he was going. But in a sense, you know, life is a progression, so you you go one step at a time, you know, councillor, candidate, member of parliament.

Presenter17:33

Um and in in his case, Ever Onwards, record number four. Ah, I know now.

Presenter17:41

Well record number four is uh June Bronhill and Keith Mischel singing I Know Now from a musical called Robert and Elizabeth, which was the uh story of Elizabeth Barrett and um Robert Browning.

Presenter17:52

Which was on for several years during the sixties, and which was wonderful.

Dame Norma Major18:03

Oh, why all the world is wide and fair, And why there's music in the air To listen to

Speaker 418:15

When all the world is fine and fair And when there's music in the air The song is you

Presenter18:26

June Bronhill and Keith Michel singing I Know Now from the musical Robert and Elizabeth. So John became the member for Huntingdon in 1979, the first Thatcher administration. And 11 years later he was Prime Minister. One forgets really how meteoric it was. It seems astonishing now. And particularly because it happened all in that last 18 months, didn't it? He sort of ran through the great offices of the state. I think if Geoffrey Archer had written a story...

Dame Norma Major18:44

Yeah.

Presenter18:50

Like that, everybody would say, Well, come off, Jeffrey, that's that's much too uh beyond the pale. But it happened and it was just incredible. But when you talk, and I quoted you in the introduction, about being patronised, about people who fawned on you because your husband was Prime Minister who otherwise would have dismissed you as nice little people. Who who were those people? Who are those people? Where did you meet them? How did that manifest itself?

Presenter19:20

I'm not sure that I was terribly conscious of it. But I can be pretty focused and actually shut myself off to things like that. I I can only see what I want to see some of the time. But possibly jealousy on the part maybe of other Tory Cabinet Ministers' wives or something. No, that's not where it w c where it came from.

Speaker 219:30

Be a free

Speaker 219:34

I don't know.

Presenter19:37

Well, what what sort of a where was it then? Because it's something that that that John over the a period has talked about as well. He's often I mean, again, the classless society was his phrase. He's always said, made a point of saying, well, on several occasions anyway, that

Dame Norma Major19:46

His face

Presenter19:51

He hates being patronized. He thinks that you should be nice to people, you know, waiters in restaurants and that sort of thing. Th th this whole business of being patronized is something that you obviously both feel very keenly.

Presenter20:02

It sounds a bit paranoid when you put it like that.

Presenter20:05

I uh

Presenter20:07

I don't think it is, but it's obviously something that's important to you, that's all. And it's obviously therefore something that's been in the woodwork that you've felt, isn't it?

Dame Norma Major20:08

It is but it's obviously something that seemed

Presenter20:16

Maybe it does, it is a comment on where we feel we've come from.

Presenter20:20

Uh

Presenter20:22

That can sound a bit chippy, can't it?

Presenter20:24

I don't think it's too what do you mean you d you both come from quite humble beginnings and

Presenter20:29

Well, worked hard. Yes. But you don't feel it now?

Presenter20:33

The true patronise. If you feel it at all, you you you learn to live with it.

Dame Norma Major20:34

I mean I know.

Presenter20:39

The other side, though, that that you know wasn't made public at the time, but I I've read since is that the first six months in Downing Street your first six months were really, really grim.

Presenter20:51

Because there was just no help for you, was there? There was no help and there was no support. And I'm sure that looking back on it, I didn't need to get quite so distressed about the mountain of of letters that I had to cope with. But I mean, simply hundreds and hundreds of people wrote to congratulate both of us when Johnny came in letters. And we always have done.

Dame Norma Major21:07

We think we should get that.

Presenter21:11

And I think it just maybe in a sense that was a sort of sublimation of other anxieties that I was so focussed on on this huge mountain of correspondence that I felt needed to be dealt with. It in a sense stopped me focussing on other things that were probably more important. But the first six months was very difficult. Did you cry? Yes, yes I did. I cried quite a lot.

Dame Norma Major21:29

Uh yeah.

Dame Norma Major21:30

Quite a lot.

Presenter21:31

I don't like to be out of control of of my own little environment. And it uh it felt a bit like that. But of course in the defence of of of

Presenter21:42

Um, the people at Downing Street, there hadn't been a wife at number ten for a long, long time, and I think the perceptions of what was required of the wife of Prime Minister had had moved on. Suddenly they they'd got somebody there that

Presenter21:55

Um

Presenter21:56

could be made use of, I think, and and there were there were no there was no support.

Presenter22:01

For that row.

Presenter22:04

Record number five.

Presenter22:06

Uh rac uh record number five is uh Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. Two, which um apart from being just a sublime piece of music uh will remind me of

Presenter22:16

Brief Encounter, which I think is a magnificent film, so I can run the movie in my mind as well.

Presenter23:20

Philippe Entremont playing part of the final movement of Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. Two with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Leonard Bernstein.

Presenter23:30

Who were the most daunting heads of state, Norma, that you had to entertain during your seven years as First Lady? I should think. Boris Yeltsin and his entourage were rather a handful, weren't they?

Presenter23:42

They were quite interesting. I mean w we were fortunate that we were able to invite Boris to come and stay with us at Chequers. There's no facilities at number ten for having anyone to stay overnight, so thank goodness for Checkers. And I think he enjoyed the English country house and and the the ambiance that that uh Chequers offers. And they uh the stewards told me afterwards that they cleaned the house out of gin.

Presenter24:04

But they brought huge supplies of their own, Russian black bread and their own Coca-Cola and

Presenter24:09

all kinds of things like that. And what did they take away with them?'Cause he he he rather liked the cheese, I think, doesn't he? Yes, we'd served him uh Stilton cheese at lunch and he'd

Speaker 224:11

They take away with

Presenter24:18

Like the sage derby as well. So he went home with a lump of Stilton and some sage from the garden. You always again were reported as being a little reluctant in the beginning to take to chequers, because you had your own country home in Huntington and home is home, obviously. But you did fall in love with it in the end, didn't you? I don't think I fell in love with it, but neither was I reluctant. I mean it was just so marvellous to be able to go there at the weekend and not have to worry about anything. Marvellous, marvellous staff, wonderful, wonderful chef, and literally to not have to worry about any kind of housekeeping. But did you ever have it to yourself? Was it always for a big Sunday lunch? No, no, no. No, we had it to ourselves quite often and we used it a great deal for entertaining as well.

Speaker 424:51

But did you ever have it yourself?

Dame Norma Major24:55

No, no, no, no.

Presenter25:00

But even if we were entertaining, um I mean my responsibility was in sense in a sense only as an overseer.

Presenter25:07

Uh because everything was so beautifully organized there. And you taught yourself to swim in the swimming pool? Yes, I wish I'd done that a bit earlier. I asked them to turn the heat up and I thought I'm going to teach myself to swim while we're here. I'm never going to have a better opportunity. And son James learned to drive on the drive. Yes, yes. And we we we celebrated a lot of um

Dame Norma Major25:21

Yeah.

Dame Norma Major25:23

I

Presenter25:25

A family events there. This is the house w I mean, full of history, and you've you've written about it. Um the house from which Churchill made some of his great wartime addresses.

Presenter25:35

Yes, he did. He he wasn't allowed to broadcast. They weren't allowed to broadcast from the House of Commons, so often he would repeat the speeches that he made in the Commons from the haughty room at Chequers for the benefit of the BBC. Well, we shall fight him by land and all that. But the outstanding question is: who played indoor cricket among the first editions in the Long Gallery? Was that John?

Presenter25:54

No.

Presenter25:56

Who was it? That goes back a lot lot longer ago. No, it wasn't John. We wouldn't have dared.

Dame Norma Major25:56

Oh, yeah.

Presenter26:03

Record number six. Um record number six would be Michael Ball singing um with one look. I love Michael Ball's voice. I love the music of Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Presenter26:13

And this is a particularly fine piece. And Don Black's lyrics.

Presenter26:18

A wonderful, too.

Speaker 426:20

They won't look, they'll forgive the past. They'll rejoice, I've returned at last to my people in the dark.

Speaker 426:37

Still out there in the dark

Presenter26:43

Michael Ball singing With One Look from Andrew Lloyd Webber's Sunset Boulevard. So now um you watch from the outside um Norma as another couple cope with number ten, another woman copes with being first lady. I suppose Cherie Blair, as a career lawyer, has had more experience, if you like, of of being her own woman, but

Presenter27:02

What about the idea of having a baby in number ten while you're there? That that um that's quite an alarming thought. What do you think? I don't think she'll be short of help. I think there'll be plenty of help.

Presenter27:12

But you can't see the Prime Minister managing two AM bottles, can you? I hope not.

Presenter27:18

But what's the result of that whole experience for you? You must be a stronger person as a result. All the things we've talked about.

Presenter27:25

Is more water off a duck's back these days, isn't it? To some extent. I'm sure I am. I think you, if you're.

Presenter27:32

You have a role to play in public.

Presenter27:35

There's the old adage about the show going on. It doesn't matter how you're feeling or what's gone wrong in the background, somehow you've got to get on and do what it is you you're committed to doing. And I think that makes you realize what is possible, what it is possible for you to do.

Presenter27:51

So yes, I think I'm more tolerant.

Presenter27:53

I think I'm probably more patient.

Presenter27:56

And I think I get on and do what's required.

Presenter28:00

And perhaps able to withstand more, because of course life hasn't been entirely plain sailing since you left number ten. Your son, James, suddenly was really rather ill with a heart problem, wasn't he? That must have been hard. I mean, one's children being ill is

Presenter28:13

Yes, it was a shock. It was a shock for all of us. Um, but he has a pacemaker now and he's making uh fairly good progress and copes with it all very well. And he's coped with the press intrusions and'cause he's suffered from it a lot. It's been very difficult. He's ha he had a very hard time.

Dame Norma Major28:24

Yeah.

Presenter28:26

Um but uh I think it's made him a better person. Do you? That's what you tell him. He once said to me, Don't tell me it's going to make me a better person, but in a sense it does. It every time you have a crisis with the press or whatever, somehow you cope with it better.

Dame Norma Major28:32

You tell him

Speaker 428:33

Yeah.

Speaker 428:41

Um

Presenter28:41

And now he's happily married, as is Elizabeth, your daughter, and and memories of her wedding with this next piece, I think.

Presenter28:47

Yes, a laudate dominum, which I actually heard for the first time on uh the Inspector Morse uh programmes, which John and I both like very much, and I just thought this was perfect for Elizabeth's wedding, and we have a friend who's a soprano who sounds actually rather like Janice Kelly.

Presenter29:02

And

Presenter29:03

I just think it's beautiful.

Presenter30:02

Janice Kelly singing the Laudate Dominum from Mozart's Vesperae Solenes de Confisore. Do you miss it, Norma? Do you miss being at the centre of power? No.

Presenter30:12

You don't long for those days lying in bed when

Dame Norma Major30:13

I don't miss it.

Presenter30:17

Discussing whether or not to march on Baghdad.

Dame Norma Major30:19

And I would

Presenter30:22

Totally different things. Uh no, I don't miss it at all. I mean to say I don't miss it, you know, maybe reinforces the image that I didn't enjoy it, but I mean it was just a wonderful, wonderful experience.

Presenter30:33

and I don't regret a minute of it.

Presenter30:35

But neither do I miss it. I miss the people. I missed the people. And did you like the car parking space in Downing Street? You know, you know when you're no longer in office, when you get in the back seat of the car and it goes nowhere.

Dame Norma Major30:39

Did you like the

Presenter30:47

And any any lasting regrets as you sit on your desert island and and ponder whether, I dunno, you you should have become a Norland nanny or w what what were you regretted?

Dame Norma Major30:55

Well no, none whatsoever.

Presenter30:58

I think uh I've had a great life, very exciting, and I don't think if I did it again I'd want to change very much.

Presenter31:08

and on the desert island itself.

Presenter31:10

You know, you're such a homemaker, it's not a problem, is it? I'm a bitch. I'd have no problems. I mean, it's a desert island, so that implies the weather would be good. Nice bit of housekeeping, nice bitches. Like a build shelter. Yes.

Dame Norma Major31:18

And I could build

Presenter31:19

Pantry in the cave or something and arrange the palm fronds to do something or other. Not a problem.

Presenter31:27

Last record.

Presenter31:29

But the last last record is going to be th the it's the finale from uh Bellini's Norma with uh Sutherland again.

Presenter31:36

And why do you want that?

Presenter31:39

Um partly because of the name, partly because it's a great work, and it's uh Sutherland's favourite.

Presenter31:45

And the climax is just inexorable.

Presenter32:31

Joan Sutherland, John Alexander, and Richard Cross in the finale of Bellini's Norma with the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sutherland's husband, Richard Bonning. If you could only take one of those records, Norma.

Presenter32:45

And what about your book? You've got the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare, as you know. Could I take the complete works of Dorothy L. Sayers? You could take one of her. Only one. You can't take another complete works. If if we're strict with the rules. Nine Taylors.

Dame Norma Major33:00

Yeah.

Presenter33:01

And what about your luxury?

Presenter33:04

A laptop computer, solar-powered laptop computer. What are you going to do with that?

Dame Norma Major33:07

Do the

Presenter33:08

Right.

Presenter33:09

What is going to write? You're still not going to tell us. No.

Dame Norma Major33:09

What are you going to write? You're still not going to tell it.

Presenter33:14

Dame Norma Major, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs. Thank you, Sue.

Speaker 233:26

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