Sir John Mortimer

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 two thousand and one, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:30

My Castaway this week is a lawyer and a writer. In a career at the bar, he often defended the right of free speech, but as a writer he's found himself trembling as he awaits the critics' verdicts. He must tremble a lot, because his output is phenomenal. He wrote his first play for radio, The Doc Brief, which went out on stage and screens Small and Big in 1956, and his series Rumpole of the Bailey was a mainstay of British television in the late seventies and eighties. He's written novels, screenplays, adaptations, and translations, from Paradise Postponed to Tea with Mussolini. And he sleeps these days in the bed in which the subject of one of his most famous plays died, his father. Erudite, witty, affable, and approaching seventy eight now, he observes, fear of death, like arthritis and failing eyesight, sets in around seventy. There are, however, if not cures, at least painkillers, placebos, and periods of remission. He is, of course, Sir John Mortimer. What are they, John, these painkillers and placebos?

Sir John Mortimer1:33

Well, I think mainly work. I mean, you know, living at home is a huge pleasure, watching the children grow up, being married, Benny. But I think work is the thing which produces events and I I have a very low threshold of boredom.

Presenter1:45

So you you keep going and you are surrounded by this enormous family. I I it's difficult to count the number of children and grandchildren. And do you know the numbers off the top of your head?

Sir John Mortimer1:54

It's very difficult to say because my first wife had four children when I married her and uh and then we added to that.

Presenter2:01

And and then you've had others since in your second marriage, obviously. And and in fact, your your youngest daughter and'cause obviously you have grandchildren, very grown up children, but your youngest daughter is Rosie is, what, sixteen?

Sir John Mortimer2:03

And and

Sir John Mortimer2:08

Yeah.

Sir John Mortimer2:12

She's sixteen and a half, so she's more an adult than I am, really.

Presenter2:15

So you so you need young children about you. That's again part of what makes you tick, isn't it?

Sir John Mortimer2:21

Well, I I do and I haven't got them really. I haven't got anything except sixteen and a half. But fortunately, um Jeremy Paxman lives about a mile away and he's got twins and they're very young. So you borrow them. We borrow them frequently.

Presenter2:32

So you borrow them.

Presenter2:35

In all of that, of course, you're not like your father at all, because there are lots of parallels between you and your father, and he's very much part of your life and still with you in many ways, isn't he? But you're not like him in that, because you were an only child, and you were quite lonely in many ways, weren't you? And he didn't like people coming to the house, did he?

Sir John Mortimer2:53

When he went blind, he didn't want people coming to the house because uh they might be sorry for him, and he didn't want anybody feeling sorry for him. And even when he could see if if visitors appeared at the gate, he used to rush and, you know, hide down at the end of the herbaceous border and go into the undergrowth for cover.

Presenter3:07

Very good.

Presenter3:10

But you're very open and and honest about your physical infirmities, aren't you? You're completely the opposite of him.

Sir John Mortimer3:17

He had a what I think is a very admirable attitude to towards physical infirmities. And and I'm I'm I'm always very fond of the story about Lord Uxbridge and the Duke of Wellington at the Battle of Waterloo and uh they're chatting together and a cannonball comes bouncing along and strikes off Uxbridge's leg and they go on chatting and then the Duke of Wellington says, Oh my God, Uxbridge, you've lost your leg and Uxbridge said, Oh yes, my God, so I have you know, I think that's quite a good attitude.

Presenter3:44

But but in terms of your father, as I said in the introduction, you do live in the house that he lived in, that he created, really, the very much the garden around the house that he created. You sleep in his bed, you use his walking sticks that he

Sir John Mortimer3:52

Yeah.

Presenter3:56

Left around the house.

Sir John Mortimer3:56

Left around.

Presenter3:58

It's very, very unusual that, uh uh except I suppose among nobility. Um and I mean Terville Heath, lovely though it is, is hardly a stately home.

Sir John Mortimer4:06

It's certainly not. It's it's a very small house with a very large garden.

Sir John Mortimer4:10

My father had more inf certainly more influence on me than anybody else. I think that because we were an isolated family, really,

Sir John Mortimer4:20

And because he treated me as though I was a grown up person all my life, and because he taught me about the plays of Shakespeare and the stories of Sherlock Holmes and all the things which are important to me,

Sir John Mortimer4:32

My life has been tremendously influenced by him.

Sir John Mortimer4:35

Perhaps too much and I I sort of stand in the garden sometimes and fall over and think this is where he fell over, you know. It's ridiculous. I haven't moved anywhere.

Presenter4:44

Tell me about your first record.

Sir John Mortimer4:46

My father and mother were both totally unmusical, except I listened to Radio Luxembourg and sang Predaster numbers, but that was all the music that happened. Until I got to Oxford and I made a great friend and he had everything that you could want. He was a great classical scholar, he was funny, he loved music. And he introduced me to Brahms and Mozart. And the first thing I really remember him playing on a grammar phone where you had to sharpen this wooden needle, if you remember, and that it played the Brahms Fourth Symphony, and that that was the beginning of music really to me, proper music.

Presenter6:21

The opening of Brahm's Symphony No. four in E minor, played by the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Naimi Yevi, and memories, John Mortimer, of your best friend at Oxford, who, despite being such a civilizing influence on you, was in fact rather a tragic character.

Sir John Mortimer6:35

Character in the end, wasn't he? He was a perfect friend. He was a pacifist in the war. And then when the war ended.

Sir John Mortimer6:42

He studied science from the beginning and became a country doctor.

Sir John Mortimer6:47

Popular, beloved.

Sir John Mortimer6:49

and then fell in love with a woman cleaning the cottage hospital.

Sir John Mortimer6:54

And she wouldn't come away with him and he shot her, killed her. She had a family and then he committed suicide and took all his drugs in a wood and died. And this is something that I just have have never been able to come to terms with. And I've met murderers and I've acted for murderers, but I've never, never found the answer to that.

Presenter7:11

I've never been able to come to terms with

Presenter7:19

As you say, you're no stranger to peculiar stories. And I mean, there is also, of course, part of you not that one, but part of you that enjoys a good story. You can't be a defence lawyer if you not enjoy a good story.

Sir John Mortimer7:23

Bring his hand.

Sir John Mortimer7:29

Yeah, you can't be.

Sir John Mortimer7:31

Yeah, barristers are incredibly But

Presenter7:34

But you collect them as well on the social circuit, it seems to me. I do collect stories.

Sir John Mortimer7:37

I do collect stories.

Presenter7:39

Do.

Sir John Mortimer7:40

I am known at home as radio mortimer because they they don't stay with me for very long before they get past on.

Presenter7:40

Bye up.

Presenter7:46

But there's um a very good one you picked up, I think, in in Italy about some woman whose father had a w a wonderful idea for topping Hitler.

Sir John Mortimer7:54

Well, that was uh Penelope Jardine. And Penelope Jardine is a very upper class girl and her father was Major General something Jardine. And he was in charge of the British Army in West Africa or somewhere like that.

Sir John Mortimer8:08

And the German commander of the German army nearby is his during the war.

Sir John Mortimer8:12

came up and said, If you hand your troops over to me, to Germany, I'll see that you're very mercifully and kindly treated after the war.

Sir John Mortimer8:20

And so he wrote back to the Foreign Office, and he said, I've had a wonderful idea. I shall ask to see Hitler to discuss this further. And I've had yellow fever, and Hitler hasn't.

Sir John Mortimer8:32

So therefore I shall get some yellow fever.

Sir John Mortimer8:35

Germs, and I shall put them in my box of Swan Vesta's matches. And when I'm chatting to Hitler about whether I should hand over my troops to Germany, I shall light up my pipe, and these germs will escape, and Hitler will get yellow fever and die, and the war will be over. And so he got a one-on-one answer back from the Foreign Office, which said that's the silliest plan we've ever heard of. And furthermore, it wouldn't be cricket to kill Hitler like that. That's a great idea.

Presenter9:06

But you are, as we say, a a kind of snapper up of these anecdotes.

Sir John Mortimer9:07

After all

Presenter9:09

But these days at parties, again, because of weakness in the leg department, as you put it, you're sitting. Is that do these stories therefore go over your

Sir John Mortimer9:17

Well I try and avoid that. Wheelchairs at parties are disgusting'cause everybody's crutch level, which is just where you don't want to be. And it's like being a child because all the conversation goes o over your head and occasionally a sort of damp samosa or a s sausage on a stick is handed down to you and you miss all all the gossip. Tell me about record number two.

Sir John Mortimer9:39

Record number two is Fred Astaire. And uh when I was a child, all I wanted to be was Fred Astaire. I wanted to wear white tie and tails and I wrote up for a monocle and I had a little stick with a silver knob and I wore a dinner jacket at a very, very early age.

Presenter9:52

Yeah.

Sir John Mortimer9:54

But there's something still I think wonderful about Frederick.

Sir John Mortimer9:57

And there's a kind of careless elegance which is backed by an incredible professionalism and dexterity about everything that he does.

Speaker 410:06

I love your family face.

Speaker 410:13

You're so funny face.

Speaker 410:18

For you're a cutie with more

Speaker 410:24

Then beauty

Speaker 410:25

You've got

Speaker 410:27

A lot of personality for me.

Speaker 410:32

You fill the air

Presenter10:34

Uh

Speaker 410:34

Yeah.

Presenter10:34

And Funny Face, sung by Fred Astaire. Your idol, John Mortimer. Not just because you wanted to sing and dance, but performance is what it's for. I mean, you are.

Speaker 410:39

Can it

Sir John Mortimer10:42

This is what it's called.

Presenter10:44

Well, I suppose you are a performer. You also you have been a frustrated performer, haven't you?

Sir John Mortimer10:48

Yeah, but I I think that every day you sit down behind an empty page, what you do is perform on the page, you know, when you're writing, you're saying, Look at me, I'm dancing But I do perform. I go I go round the country with two actresses and uh

Sir John Mortimer11:01

And two musicians, and we perform in sometimes in very grand places like the Sydney Opera House we've done in Brussels and some sometimes.

Presenter11:09

But what do you perform?

Sir John Mortimer11:10

Oh, well, I tell stories and then we read bits of poetry and we d read bits of plays and I find it absolutely irresistible.

Presenter11:16

Do you? Well, you get the buzz.

Sir John Mortimer11:18

The greatest feeling to me, better than any drink or drugs or anything that you could have, stimulant, is when it ends.

Sir John Mortimer11:25

And you're so relieved it's over and you've done it and you get in the car and we drink champagne out of the bottle and eat garage sandwiches and drive home in a state of complete happiness.

Presenter11:32

Drive.

Presenter11:35

And of course the parallels between the theatre and the courtroom have been drawn many times. You were hugely successful at the bar in the end, particularly when you moved from divorce into dirty books, I think.

Sir John Mortimer11:49

My enemies call them dirty books. I call them cases about free speech and

Presenter11:53

This was Oz, Gay News and Last Exit to Brooklyn.

Sir John Mortimer11:55

Yeah.

Sir John Mortimer11:56

And last exit

Presenter11:59

Uh

Sir John Mortimer11:59

And I invented a my only contribution to the law of England really was in the in the last exit case. I invented a thing called the aversion defence, which was Dipper description of sex in a book is so revolting that it puts the British public off sex at least until Thursday afternoon. It is h has a highly moral and beneficent effect. So it hasn't depraved or corrupted. No, no, it's made them behave much better. And the Court of Appeal thought that was absolutely charming.

Presenter12:20

Rubber.

Presenter12:24

But I wonder if as as a writer and you were a writer at the same time as doing that, you've always run the two careers in parallel.

Sir John Mortimer12:28

Only two.

Presenter12:30

Whether you ever felt compromised once you got into that freedom of speech area, because in a way you were you must have been emotionally committed in a way that a barrister's not supposed to be.

Sir John Mortimer12:40

Well, I know. That's that's the that's the great uh

Sir John Mortimer12:44

The great thing about embarrassing, you mustn't believe once you start believing in what you're saying, you lose all judgment. I did believe in it. I found it much easier to defend all those things if I didn't read them.

Sir John Mortimer12:56

I used to take my glasses off when watching pornographic movies.

Sir John Mortimer13:01

I remember once we had a prosecutor, he was a very, very nice chap. We used to go down to Scotland Yard and watch these terrible movies with the sergeant in charge of the projector. And one day the prosecutor arrived with a little roll of film under his arm, because his wife had a herb garden. And we were watching dreadful films called Toilet Orges, I think it was called. And he said to the sergeant in charge of the projector, he said, Sergeant, I've got this film and I haven't got a projector. So could you possibly show the film of my herb garden? And for half an hour we sat watching the thyme and the rosemary blowing. Then we went back to Toilet Org.

Presenter13:41

But there are, again, shades of your father and your childhood and all of this, because you were brought up by him to question everything, weren't you? And you were brought up to be someone who plays on his own, who knows exactly who he is and what he thinks and is prepared to go out there, but doesn't want to join a club, despite the fact you're very clubbable.

Sir John Mortimer14:00

That's that's absolutely true. I think that's the only child syndrome. I mean team spirit is something which I have never had any of it. So all the things that I was taught at school just went off m all the sort of moral which at those times were the British Empire, the British Raj and the Conservative government and so on, all of that just went off my back like Walter Opadu's back.

Sir John Mortimer14:21

Record number three.

Sir John Mortimer14:23

Record number three is Puccini. Turin dot is an opera which excites me enormously. It excites me so much that I can't listen to it when I'm working, which is I get just over excited. But I think one of the most beautiful things in it is is Little Liu's love song.

Speaker 414:45

Senior Scott Lord Senior School.

Speaker 414:57

Beautiful sister.

Speaker 415:28

Lord O Sor

Presenter15:39

Renata Scotto as Liu, singing the aria Signore Ascolta from Act one of Puccini's Turundot with the Orchestra del Teatro del Opera di Roma, conducted by Francesco Malinari Pradelli.

Presenter15:51

You've written a lot, uh, John Mortimer, about your father, but very little about your mother. Is that a reflection of the balance of their influence on you, or?

Sir John Mortimer16:00

In a way my father and I had some unholy alliance, which I think slightly left her out, which I now feel sorry for and and slightly ashamed about. But she was a very interesting person. She was

Sir John Mortimer16:12

She went to Birmingham School of Art. This is all pre the nineteen fourteen war.

Sir John Mortimer16:17

and she became an art teacher in a girls' school in Versailles, and then I think she was very brave. She went out to South Africa and taught art in a school in Pietermaritzburg.

Sir John Mortimer16:27

And she used to ride bareback along the felt and plunge naked into waterfalls. But she met there my father's family, because my grandfather had been a a brewer in Bristol, and he thought that was wicked. And he thought for some obscure reason it was less wicked to be an estate agent in South Africa. So they'd all gone there.

Sir John Mortimer16:47

And they said, When you go back to England, look up Clifford, who's about to go in the army'cause the war had started. So she got back and they went out for a picnic and

Presenter16:56

Got married.

Sir John Mortimer16:56

Yeah.

Presenter16:56

But she didn't like you writing about him, did she?

Sir John Mortimer16:59

Not at all. She thought it was absolutely

Sir John Mortimer17:02

I mean, two things she would have never she wouldn't ever have forgiven me for putting a swimming pool in the garden. But luck she didn't know I'd done that. And she wouldn't she wouldn't forgive me now. She thought it was intensely vulgar to write about your family.

Presenter17:16

She comes across in your in your autobiography as rather cruel on occasions. I I I mean, I remember it said you said you rang her up to tell her that you'd been made a judge, and she just laughed.

Sir John Mortimer17:28

And she nearly dropped the fact. She said, You were j w which was actually perfectly r uh r reasonable.

Presenter17:30

Winter.

Sir John Mortimer17:34

Reaction to the idea of me being a judge. But that must, well, I don't know, it must have cut.

Sir John Mortimer17:39

Not really,'cause I thought it was quite funny myself. They came from this rather English stoical school and uh

Sir John Mortimer17:45

Her father committed suicide in the end and uh all her family did, she was in South Africa, was to send the cutting from the

Sir John Mortimer17:52

Local papers saying, you know, this news item might interest you.

Sir John Mortimer17:56

Those English middle class ladies live in a pretty tough world.

Presenter18:00

Uh

Sir John Mortimer18:00

Next piece of music.

Sir John Mortimer18:02

I've been quite good at at friendships with women in my life, but not terribly good at male friendships. The sort of male best friend buddy is something perhaps that's the only child in me I haven't really relished or enjoyed, I don't think, as much as it should be. So this is the great friendship Aria from Don Carlos, Don Carlos and his friend swearing eternal friendship, and it's moving and triumphant and tells me about something I've missed.

Speaker 418:35

Anybody else?

Speaker 419:01

All the water tears

Speaker 419:17

Let's hear the buttons.

Presenter19:31

Placido Domingo and Cheryl Milne singing the duet Dio que nell alma in fondere from Act Two of Verdi's Don Carlos, with the orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Coven Garden, conducted by Carlo Maria Giulini.

Presenter19:43

You seem to have lived so many lives, John. It's difficult to know which one to talk about. Well, seventy eight. Not quite seventy eight. Can we touch briefly on on the first married one to the writer Penelope Mortimer? She it was who brought you these four step children.

Sir John Mortimer19:48

Yeah.

Sir John Mortimer19:50

Yeah.

Sir John Mortimer19:55

Yeah.

Presenter20:00

When you were twenty four years old, she was a little bit older, I think.

Sir John Mortimer20:03

Okay.

Presenter20:03

Yeah.

Sir John Mortimer20:03

Four years earlier.

Presenter20:04

Incredibly brave thing for you to do, in a way. I wonder, I mean, was it.

Sir John Mortimer20:04

Uh

Presenter20:09

Just a case of your falling head over heels in love, or were you kind of.

Presenter20:14

asserting yourself to these very kind of private parents of yours.

Sir John Mortimer20:18

It w it was tough on my father because we ha you know, we I was involved in a divorce case because she was married and he was the dry end of the divorce bar, but he he behaved very well about that. I mean she was very beautiful and very bright and and I think because I'd been an only child, the idea of these four children all over the place was uh was part of the great attraction.

Presenter20:41

But it was not a by your own account a particularly easy relationship. She was quite depressing.

Sir John Mortimer20:46

She well, yes, she had she had depression and suicidal leanings.

Presenter20:51

Which we know a bit about because of course she wrote The Pumpkin Litter in the sixties.

Sir John Mortimer20:53

She wrote me. But she when she w you know, she was i extremely talented. And now I can only I only remember the good times.

Sir John Mortimer21:05

And it was quite an exciting period of our lives, because

Sir John Mortimer21:08

Yet about

Sir John Mortimer21:09

About a decade she was writing for The New Yorker. I'd written my first play, I'd written a lot of novels, I was getting on at the bar. We kind of made a life which um

Sir John Mortimer21:19

which was exciting.

Presenter21:20

But an incredibly full life, and I think that's really what one feels when one reads about it, is ho how did you manage? Something must have got neglected in it all, because you were pursuing the legal career and the writing career. She was inc incredibly successful with her writing at the time.

Sir John Mortimer21:29

The right

Sir John Mortimer21:32

Yeah.

Presenter21:33

You had her four children, you produced two more of your own.

Sir John Mortimer21:36

True of your

Presenter21:37

Something, you know, something must have got left out in all of this.

Sir John Mortimer21:42

Looking back on it, I don't remember being incredibly oppressed with uh with work. I used to get up very early and write, and then I used to go off to the law courts and divorce people.

Presenter21:57

And eventually, of course, you and she divorced. She she she died, Penelope, recently, didn't she?

Sir John Mortimer22:02

Yeah

Presenter22:03

She she'd been publicly pretty horrible ab about you and very hurtful towards your your now wife, Perry. She was. Um in her autobiography. D did you m make it up in the end? Did you make it?

Sir John Mortimer22:10

She was.

Sir John Mortimer22:15

Yes, yes, I did. I mean, I I visited her and uh and we behaved th you know, with great so as though we were two very well mannered uh pe people who hadn't known each other all that well.

Presenter22:29

Record number five.

Sir John Mortimer22:31

Record number five, I Can't Live Without Dan in Washington. I think she has a wonderful way with the song and uh throws away lions and gives it enormous guts. And I thought I'd I'd have um Our Love Is Here to Stay, because in fact I'm talking about marriage. I first met my present Penny thirty years ago and it's here to stay.

Speaker 422:54

It's very clear Our love is here to stay Not far a year Whatever and a day The radio and the telephone And the crazy movies that we know Might just be passing fancies And in time may go But oh my dear

Presenter23:23

Dinah Washington and our love is here to stay. John, if writing is one way of your fending off your timor mortis, your fear of death, I suspect railing against the government is another one, really, because you've done a lot of that recently.

Sir John Mortimer23:32

Fear fear

Sir John Mortimer23:39

I I think

Sir John Mortimer23:42

What I miss so much in this Government, and I miss it in in the Conservative Party too, and altogether, is that liberalism that um that I I learned from my father.

Sir John Mortimer23:53

things like uh their penal policy, which is to answer everything by sending people to prison, cutting down on juries, cutting down on the the right to silence, cutting down on the the right to cross examine, all those things.

Sir John Mortimer24:07

which to do with the liberty of the subject.

Presenter24:09

But you've gone a step further than that, it seems to me, and you've kind of hit them where it hurts. I mean, you've said I'll quote you they're a government whose idea of justice can be dictated by focus groups and last week's headlines, or they're foodling about things that don't matter. What do you believe what are you really saying about them when you say that? What do you believe their motive is, if that is what they do?

Sir John Mortimer24:28

I think their main anxiety, and I suppose that's a war politician, is to get re-elected. As soon as they're elected, they think about being re-elected. They don't do things which might be unpopular.

Presenter24:37

So you your your accusation is one of lack of political conviction, is it?

Sir John Mortimer24:40

Nobody's got political convictions, really, of e in any party, so you're left with competence, which is quite boring.

Presenter24:47

I presume you make you make yourself heard when you meet these people in your social round, do you?

Sir John Mortimer24:47

Doom you make it.

Presenter24:52

So they did it. You obviously also enjoy that kind of feeling. You feel it deeply, but again, like your father, I suppose, who enjoyed being angry, didn't he? I don't think it's he enjoy.

Sir John Mortimer25:04

Enjoyed that so much. What he enjoyed was starting arguments.

Sir John Mortimer25:08

If time was hanging heavy on his hands he would think of something to say like

Sir John Mortimer25:12

I can't imagine anyone actually liking music, you know, or or foreign travel narrows the mind.

Presenter25:18

He was deliberately provocative. Yes.

Sir John Mortimer25:20

But yes.

Sir John Mortimer25:22

No, because I mean

Sir John Mortimer25:28

Well, I think their greatest political a asset is Anne Whitticombe, you know.

Sir John Mortimer25:34

It's gonna drive anyone to vote labour.

Presenter25:34

And

Presenter25:37

Next piece of music.

Sir John Mortimer25:38

Well, I could of course fill the whole of these records with Mozart because we are on an island and because we want the wind to be sweet and because Casey Vantuti has perfect music. I'd like to hear Suavecia Ilvento.

Speaker 425:56

All praise in the world.

Speaker 426:04

Hmm.

Speaker 426:24

It is good.

Speaker 426:28

I wish we were

Presenter26:50

Carol Vanessa Dolores Ziegler and Claudio Desderi singing the trio Suave Si Elvento from Act One of Mozart's Cosifantute with the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Bernard Heitink.

Presenter27:01

It does seem, John, from your latest book that you're a bit possessed by death, but not without a sense of humour, as ever. What what form does it does it mean you kind of grab the O bits first every morning?

Sir John Mortimer27:14

Well, everybody in that is so much younger than me. I've stopped reading it.

Sir John Mortimer27:19

I I find myself thinking about it when I'm not working or enjoying myself or having something exciting happen. I haven't seen it.

Presenter27:25

I haven't thought about it.

Sir John Mortimer27:27

Irritated, angry about it, I think. Angry. Yeah, but I haven't thought about it since we started talking.

Presenter27:33

But do you do you have you kind of mentally written your own obit, or do you wonder how much space you'll get, or have you written the headline, you know?

Sir John Mortimer27:42

If I wanted one sentence, I thought I'd put the defence rest.

Presenter27:47

Because of course your father thought about his outline, or you at what? He must have done. It was such a good one.

Sir John Mortimer27:50

Well he

Sir John Mortimer27:52

Yes, he when he was when he was very ill and when he was dying, he wanted to get up and have a bath and he said, No, no, please don't get up.

Sir John Mortimer28:00

And he he said, He sounded very angry. And so I said, Don't get angry. And he said, I'm always angry when I'm dying.

Sir John Mortimer28:08

Yeah.

Presenter28:08

But but you of course will will

Presenter28:11

go on living in I don't want to talk about your death too much, but I mean it it is interesting because your father lives so much through you, doesn't he? He goes on. His afterlife is undoubtedly through

Sir John Mortimer28:13

That's too

Sir John Mortimer28:17

Doesn't he get

Presenter28:20

Exactly.

Sir John Mortimer28:20

Exactly.

Presenter28:21

That's bound to happen again.

Sir John Mortimer28:23

And through my children. I mean, I can see lots of my father and my children.

Presenter28:24

Children, I mean I can see

Sir John Mortimer28:27

Yeah.

Presenter28:27

Mm. And do you want them, your family, or one or two members of it, to go on living in the house? So you can't imagine the house would have been so

Sir John Mortimer28:33

I would like it because n because he built the house and

Sir John Mortimer28:38

Tells her.

Sir John Mortimer28:39

strangely sort of magical properties.

Presenter28:41

Unthinkable that anybody else should own it or live in it, I suspect, than a mortimer.

Sir John Mortimer28:45

Yeah.

Presenter28:46

Uh

Sir John Mortimer28:46

Hey,

Presenter28:46

Yeah.

Sir John Mortimer28:46

But um I suppose they will.

Sir John Mortimer28:49

Record number seven.

Sir John Mortimer28:50

At the end of my last book.

Sir John Mortimer28:53

We go for a picnic in the bluebell wood with all the children and all the dogs and all the friends and everything. And suddenly at the end of it, in the last um

Sir John Mortimer29:02

Sentence of that is uh everything seemed perfectly all right and you forget all about death and

Sir John Mortimer29:08

not walking properly and only seeing out of one eye and all that vanishes from your mind. And so I really like this song, which is uh C'est bon, which is means uh everything's okay and Louis Armstrong tells tells us that it is.

Speaker 429:21

says Seaborn.

Speaker 429:25

Lovers say that in France.

Speaker 429:30

When they thrill to romance

Speaker 429:34

It means that it's so good.

Speaker 429:38

Au C'est sibon.

Presenter29:51

C'est sibon, sung by Louis Armstrong with the Cy Oliver Orchestra. This is the the cruel bit, John. It's where we cast you away on the desert island. Give me a picture of yourself on this island. What do you think you'll get up to?

Sir John Mortimer29:57

Cars your way on the

Sir John Mortimer29:59

Yeah.

Sir John Mortimer30:03

Uh Good lord.

Sir John Mortimer30:05

Well, I mean I I'm very bad at all those things you're meant to have to do, building huts and things like that. I so I just hope that enough stuff is washed up from the wreck.

Sir John Mortimer30:16

I think I'll perform every night. I'll do my show to myself.

Sir John Mortimer30:21

Uh

Presenter30:21

Is it all in your head? I mean,

Sir John Mortimer30:21

Is it all in your head? I mean, yeah, I could do it I could do it easily. I I performed that to to the assaulted fish and animals and so on and um

Sir John Mortimer30:32

And remember.

Sir John Mortimer30:34

Uh

Presenter30:34

And remember and I know that that that Byron is is very close to your heart, but as far as getting close to the big questions in life, it's it's Wordsworth that carries off the prize, isn't it?

Sir John Mortimer30:44

Well, Wordsworth was Rumpoh's favourite poet, and I think that um I was born whether that's good or bad, but I was born without any great religious sense. Neither my father nor mother were were religious. He was a sort of Darwinian evolutionist.

Sir John Mortimer31:03

Who told me that you couldn't possibly make a horse in seven days it'd take centuries?

Sir John Mortimer31:08

But I think that the sort of pantheism of Wordsworth and the feeling about nature is something which I the nearest I can get to religion. And there is a fragment of Wordsworth that I could

Sir John Mortimer31:19

Remember, on my island if I could read it.

Sir John Mortimer31:23

I have learned to look on nature not in the hour of thoughtless youth, but hearing oftentimes the still sad music of humanity.

Sir John Mortimer31:33

Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power To chasten and subdue.

Sir John Mortimer31:38

and I have felt a presence that disturbs me with the joy of elevated thoughts, a sense sublime,

Sir John Mortimer31:45

of something far more deeply interfused, whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, and the round ocean, and the living air, and the blue sky, and in the mind of man. It's rather beautiful, very beautiful.

Presenter31:59

Very beautiful.

Sir John Mortimer32:01

Last record.

Sir John Mortimer32:02

The last record is uh Rosen Cavalier, the marshaline, who stopped all the clocks'cause she didn't want time to pass, finally being reconciled to handing her lover over to a younger girl, finally being reconciled to

Sir John Mortimer32:17

time passing, being old, and doing it in the most beautiful way possible, which is uh more than I could hope to do.

Speaker 432:48

Yeah.

Speaker 432:51

I'm still wondering what the hell is it?

Speaker 433:12

Oh, it is joy.

Presenter33:23

Anna Tomova Sintoff, Janet Perry, and Agnes Boltzer singing the trio Harpmiers Galort from the end of Richard Strauss's Der Rosen Cavalier, with the Vienna Philharmonic conducted by Herbert von Karrion. If you could only take one of those eight records, John, which one would you take?

Sir John Mortimer33:39

But I think when I were listening to it again, I would take that great

Sir John Mortimer33:43

That great song of friendship, because it's so full of gusto and guts and happiness and

Sir John Mortimer33:49

Fidelity and all sorts of things. And your book?

Sir John Mortimer33:52

Well, I thought

Sir John Mortimer33:54

A lot about it. Then I thought of Rumpole and I thought what he likes is the um Quilla Cooch edition of the Oxford Book of English Verse.

Sir John Mortimer34:01

I could learn my way through that.

Sir John Mortimer34:04

But I could recite bits in my performance, my solo performance ideas.

Sir John Mortimer34:08

And your luxury.

Sir John Mortimer34:10

I thought of champagne I thought of inflatable women and I thought of champagne, but champagne would run out. And then I thought perhaps I could have a picture.

Sir John Mortimer34:19

And I was thinking what picture. And there's a picture by Vera Squeers in the National Gallery of Scotland.

Sir John Mortimer34:26

And it's an old woman frying eggs. And I think it's

Sir John Mortimer34:29

Perhaps my favourite picture in the world because the eggs and the oil and the old woman are so real and so

Sir John Mortimer34:36

Down to earth.

Sir John Mortimer34:37

And I think perhaps it was going to be cleaned and it was being taken in the ship and it's uh it's floated ashore. And I could think I could look at that and see

Sir John Mortimer34:47

A great humanist painter celebrating.

Sir John Mortimer34:51

The things that matter which are oh, women frying eggs.

Presenter34:55

Sir John Waterman, thank you very much indeed for letting us see your desert island discs. Thank you. It's been a great pleasure.

Speaker 335:08

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