Phyllis Sellick

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 two, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:30

My castaway this week is a pianist. She has a special place in the history of English music and musicians, not only because of her own talent, but also that of her late husband, Cyril Smith.

Presenter0:41

They were both hugely successful solo performers when Sir Henry Wood persuaded them to play together for the first night of the Proms in nineteen forty one. Their partnership became an institution, and composers such as Vaughan Williams and Gordon Jacob wrote pieces specially for them.

Presenter0:58

Then in nineteen fifty six Cyril had a stroke and lost the use of his left hand. But a year later they were playing together again. It was the beginning of a new career as a couple who could perform many of the great two piano works with three hands. A widow now for twenty seven years, she still teaches and still plays. I can't imagine life without music, she says. It's a sort of world of its own. She is Phyllis

Presenter1:23

Felix, I think a a lot of people would imagine that playing with another pianist, playing two piano works, is simply a matter of practising your part and then sitting down and putting it together, but there's a bit more to it than that, isn't there? It's the most difficult ensemble because it's percussive, you see. If you're playing with a string player, it doesn't have to be spot on, but it does when it's in two pianos.

Presenter1:44

If it's not dead together, you hear but on. Whereas if you were playing with a string, cello or violin, you wouldn't notice that it wasn't spot on together. Exactly, it could kind of merge together slightly, a hundredth of a second after. So it's total discipline, is it? It is indeed.

Phyllis Sellick1:54

Uh

Phyllis Sellick1:55

Yes, slightly.

Phyllis Sellick1:58

Yeah.

Phyllis Sellick2:00

Uh

Presenter2:01

Yes, you have to have.

Presenter2:03

The same sense of rhythm.

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And the same feeling about the music really.

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I think you have to have a very close relationship with your partner. It's a kind of telepathy, is it? Yes.

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I have a very good piano team who are

Presenter2:17

Identical twins and siblings play very well together.

Presenter2:23

Now, it was Henry Wood, as I said in the introduction, who spotted that that you and Cyril could achieve that kind of harmony. He had to nag you into doing it, though, didn't he? A little bit, yes. Well, we were very busy, you see, with our solo careers, and we both played with him. And he said it's silly for you two to be travelling in different directions. You should play two pianos. But how did he finally persuade you? Because I know you resisted for quite a long time. Yes. Well, he decided it by asking us to play at the

Presenter2:54

First night of the Proms when they moved to the Albert Hall. First time in the Albert Hall ever. Yes. Yes. And we played the Carnival of Animals by Sansauce.

Phyllis Sellick2:59

Mm-hmm.

Presenter3:04

Was it a revelation to you, then, in that moment? Did you did you spot immediately why have we resisted this for so long? Henry Wood was absolutely right.

Presenter3:13

Not right at first, but the BBC asked us to play the second sweep by Rech Maninoff very soon after that. And that really got us going. And it was lovely to travel together instead of in different directions. And you must have thought this, obviously. Thank goodness you did, because it meant that after Cyril had had the stroke you you could actually think about trying it again. It wasn't completely alien, was it? No, I'm sure we we couldn't have done it had we not played

Presenter3:41

for so many years beforehand. So it was just a continuation of that part of our lives.

Presenter3:49

Tell me about your first record for this desert island then. Well, this is um the romance from the second suite for two pianos by Rachmaninoff.

Presenter3:58

And I wouldn't normally choose a record where I'd played myself, but as I'm playing with Cyril, and this is one of our favourite works, I hope you'll forgive me if I've

Presenter4:09

Choose that one.

Presenter5:09

The beginning of the romance from Raghmaninoff's Suite No. Two in C for two pianos, played by Cyril Smith and my castaway, Phyllis Sellick. And that was the uh the second work you played together publicly. You played that for the BBC. Am I right in thinking, Phyllis, that y you used to play, you alone, the closedown in the late thirties at Alexandra Palace?

Presenter5:30

Yes, I did. All it did was to photograph my hands playing suitably.

Presenter5:35

Sleepy Music

Presenter5:37

I just played for two minutes. Never saw your face.

Presenter5:41

That's a good thing.

Presenter5:43

I'm not sure. I've seen some very beautiful pictures. The girl with the golden hair, I think you were called at one point, weren't you? I never knew that.

Presenter5:51

So you and Cyril had a m a marvellous career playing together after that forty one launch at at the Proms, although you continued to play separately as well, didn't you? And that career went on for about fifteen years and then

Phyllis Sellick5:55

Yeah well

Presenter6:03

disaster struck because you were touring Russia at the time. It was May 1956.

Presenter6:10

What was the first you knew that Cyril wasn't right?

Presenter6:14

Well, the Russians always gave us flowers everywhere, at the concerts, at the airports, and so on and Cyril said to me, If they give me any more flowers, I shall drop them.

Presenter6:25

So

Presenter6:26

During this flight from Kiev to Kharkov he had this cerebral thrombosis which paralysed his left arm. But you didn't know that at the time. I didn't know that, so we got off the plane.

Phyllis Sellick6:36

Jack.

Presenter6:39

And he was given more flowers, and he dropped them, and of course we both laughed.

Presenter6:44

But it was no laughing matter.

Presenter6:47

His hand and arm were paralysed. And he was what he was about forty-six at the time, wasn't he? I presume you thought that he would regain

Phyllis Sellick6:53

Yeah.

Presenter6:57

The use of of that hand. Well, I think hope springs eternal.

Presenter7:01

But he never did. He he worked very hard. But once these cells are dead, they're dead.

Presenter7:10

You must have been very frightened, so far from home. Oh I felt so far from home. And the language problem with the the different alphabet even, you can't can't begin to learn it really.

Presenter7:25

Thumbing through dictionaries to try to get what Cyril wanted and so on. And then, of course, you had to get home, which was not an easy business with a husband who was semi-paralysed. It wasn't easy. An expensive business, I presume. Yes, well, we were told by our agent, Emmy Tillick, that somebody had put up the money.

Phyllis Sellick7:34

My husband

Presenter7:45

for somebody to p to escort us home.

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And she said, I'm not allowed to tell you who it is.

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The embassy doctor came home with us. We had to go by train.

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And of course we had no money. At least we had money, we didn't have currency.

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And so the Embassy doctor would give cigarettes for a bowl of soap for Cyril or something like that. It was really a nightmare. But it wasn't till after his death that Emmy told us that it had been Sir Adrian Bolt.

Presenter8:16

Of course he knew he didn't want us to know, which I think was wonderful.

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Tell me about your second record. Well, the second one is the Brahms second piano concerto in B-flat.

Presenter8:27

It's a very favourite work of mine, and one that Cyril played most beautifully.

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And there's rather an amusing story about my daughter when she was a very little girl. I found her dressing her doll in her very best dress, and I said, Oh, darling, she looks lovely. Is she going to a party? She said, No, she's going to play the Brahms flat

Presenter9:48

The opening of the first movement of Brahm's piano concerto number two in B-flat major, played by Clifford Curzon with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Hans Kneppertzbusch. We'll come back, Phyllis, to how you overcame that disaster, because it wasn't easy with two small children to look after as well as Cyril. But I I'd love to hear first of all about your beginnings. I gather you were well you are a a natural talent. How how young were you when you first sat at the piano?

Presenter10:14

Apparently I started playing by ear when I was three. I had perfect pitch. I still have. I I make sure I keep my perfect pitch. When I pass my piano I I close my eyes and play a note.

Presenter10:27

And say what it is.

Phyllis Sellick10:28

Uh

Presenter10:29

And how long then, what age were you when you had your first lesson? I had my first lesson on my fifth birthday, and my teacher took me on for a month's trial.

Presenter10:39

And she she kept me on. Well, she was dubious about you being so young, you see. Then you won a competition, I think, didn't you, when you were about nine, a Daily Mirror competition. Yes, that's right.

Phyllis Sellick10:41

What she

Phyllis Sellick10:42

Do you see?

Phyllis Sellick10:44

I see.

Phyllis Sellick10:49

Yeah.

Phyllis Sellick10:50

Yes.

Presenter10:52

I gather it was called Pip Squeak and Wilfrid. Do we know why it was called that? Well, I think they were sort of cartoon characters in the mirror. What did you play? What were you playing now? Oh, there were pieces specially written for this competition. And then I went into the next stage and uh well I won it.

Presenter11:10

What did you get?

Presenter11:11

I got a scholarship to to learn with Cuthbert Whitemore. I think it was for two years, but he continued to teach me without any fee until I won a scholarship at the Academy. Who was he then, Cuthbert Whitemore? He was a professor at the Academy and a wonderful musician.

Phyllis Sellick11:24

He was a professor.

Presenter11:28

And you lived, of course, out in Ilford, didn't you? So presumably you had to travel in as a little girl. How did you manage that?

Phyllis Sellick11:30

Yeah, so

Phyllis Sellick11:32

Just like a little house.

Presenter11:35

Well, I my sisters sometimes used to take me and my mother took me. My sisters said cotting that kid about.

Presenter11:43

She got bored with the idea. Yes. And did you enjoy it? Oh yes, I did. I had two lessons a week. And I started with Cuthbert Whitemore and his wife.

Presenter11:54

And then when I got my scholarship to the Academy, I was playing Jeux d'Oux by Ravel and The Bach Buzzoni Chacon quite a daunting programme for a fourteen year old.

Presenter12:08

But what was I doing before I went into play?

Presenter12:11

I was playing leapfrog along the passage. Why?

Presenter12:16

'Cause I love playing leapfrog.'Cause you wanted to be a dancer, really, didn't you? Not a pianist at all, isn't it?

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But that's it that's your next piece, then, is it? The the judo.

Presenter12:27

And I also played it to Ravel in Paris, which was a wonderful thing to remember.

Presenter13:33

The opening of Ravel's Je dot, played by Vlado Perlmutter, the piece you played Phyllis Serick, to win an open scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music when you were fourteen, but which you also played in front of Ravel himself, you said. How did he react?

Phyllis Sellick13:45

Yes, I did.

Presenter13:48

Well, I think he thought it was all right.

Presenter13:51

Is that what he said? That was all right, Phyllis?

Presenter13:54

No, he he was very nice about it. But did you play anything else of his?

Presenter14:00

his pavanta and he didn't like that so much.

Presenter14:04

He said he thought it was sentimental.

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But of course

Presenter14:08

I think it's a sentimental piece. So, anyway, you took obviously Paris by storm as a teenager because you were also taken on by a French professor, weren't you, who spotted you in Lightning? Well, he came to the concerts that we gave. Cuthbert Whitemore took seven students to give one programme of traditional music and one of living French composers. And Philippe came to that concert and he said to Cuthbert Whitemore.

Phyllis Sellick14:17

Well

Presenter14:34

Sometime I would love to teach her.

Presenter14:37

He was a wonderful teacher, wonderful technical teacher. And he got you a a scholarship, I think, didn't he? Yes, to Fontainebleau.

Phyllis Sellick14:42

Yes, too.

Presenter14:45

To the American Conservatoire. That's right. What was it like there for a a young girl all on her own in the thirties? Quite an adventure, actually. Yes, it was. It's a lovely place, Fontainebleau, and we the girls were put in the palace. The only snag was that as we walked along the corridors, bats would be flying about. But uh you you'd done it all, as you said, mostly on scholarships and on people really doing you great favours because they admired your talent, obviously. But

Speaker 215:07

Yes.

Presenter15:12

Were you able at all to earn money as time went on to help your parents? Because you went on living at home.

Presenter15:18

Later on I played for dancing. I'd always wanted to be a dancer, mind you.

Presenter15:23

And I played for for dancing.

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uh for, I think, twenty two hours a week.

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Dancing classes. How much did you earn? Do you remember? Two pounds a week.

Presenter15:35

Yeah.

Presenter15:36

And then you started playing in in concerts and and and eking out a living, didn't you? Yes, yes. And then you met Cyril. Yes, broadcasting house, right here.

Presenter15:46

I want to ask you about that, but let's pause for another piece of music.

Presenter15:50

I was at uh

Presenter15:51

Sir Henry Wood's Jubilee concert.

Presenter15:55

and Rachmananov played his second concerto.

Presenter15:59

And in the second half there was the first performance of the serenade music, and Rachmaninoff went to sit in the box, and he was so moved by this serenade music that he had to leave the box. And I find it very, very touching. Every time I hear it, I have a little little weep.

Presenter17:18

The opening of Vaughan Williams' Serenade to Music, played by the B B C Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sir Henry Wood, and that was recorded in nineteen thirty eight. Ray Vaughan Williams, who wrote his introduction and fugue for you and Cyril especially, didn't he? Yes. I gather it's very difficult. Yes, it is. Why?

Speaker 217:31

Yeah.

Presenter17:36

It's technically very difficult and it's musically very difficult, but it's it's lovely. He came to lunch with us when we'd just learnt it, and we played it to him, and about one bit he said

Presenter17:47

Did I write that? And we said yes. And he said, well, it looks very clever, but it sounds terrible.

Presenter17:55

Cyril wrote in in a book he did that uh that Vaughan Williams had a great fancy for you, is that right? Oh, I don't know about that. But he apparently used to take you out to lunch a bit. Yes.

Presenter18:07

Yes, that was great fun. And I d I don't think the waiters knew who he was, because he looked like a large, relaxed farmer, and I don't think they had the slightest idea who he was. So they didn't take too much notice of him?

Phyllis Sellick18:21

But then

Presenter18:24

And he's d he dedicated quite a lot of things to you, didn't he?

Presenter18:28

Well, he dedicated this piece The Lake and the Mountains because he wrote the music for the film The Forty Ninth Parallel.

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And this piece came in the film Leslie Howard Turns on a Radio.

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And I'm playing this piece.

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And that's how.

Presenter18:46

I met him.

Presenter18:47

And you have it there, and he wrote what did he write across the top of it for you? Well, that's very embarrassing.

Presenter18:53

He wrote For dearest Phyllis, with all my love.

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Uncle Reef.

Presenter18:59

You mentioned Rachmaninoff earlier on and and and his being in the box at the at the uh the concert. How well did you know him?

Presenter19:07

I didn't know him very well, but Cyril knew him quite well.

Presenter19:11

And

Presenter19:12

Ragmanov

Presenter19:15

Admire Cyril's playing. Because of course, Mac Melanoff would have been a a grand old man by then, wouldn't he? And um, apparently.

Phyllis Sellick19:21

Yeah and

Presenter19:23

He told Cyril he hated public performance Rachmaninoff. He certainly looked as if he did. He walked on a very sort of hang dog expression with

Presenter19:34

looking very sad, as if do I have to do this? And of course we all clamoured for him to do that. It was wonderful playing. I gather he some one told him he ought to have a little drink beforehand.

Presenter19:47

Well, that was before the rhapsody on a theme of Paganini. There's a variation that goes up to a top note which is very exposed. Everybody would know if it were wrong. It sort of does a big leap ta-da-ta-ta-da-da-da-da-da-bonk. And if you get the top note wrong, of course, everybody knows. So Mazevich said to him, the the way to be able to do it really perfectly is to have half a glass of Benedictine before you play it.

Presenter20:15

And

Presenter20:17

Did did he do that? I'm not sure if he did it or not. Seems very dangerous advice to me.

Presenter20:24

We better have your record number five. This is the eighteenth variation from the rhapsody on the theme of Pekanini by Rach Maninoff, and it's Cyril playing it.

Presenter21:36

Variation number eighteen of Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini with the Philemonia Orchestra conducted by Sir Malcolm Sargent at the piano, of course, my castaway's husband, Cyril Smith. Um you've said before now, Phyllis, that you were lucky, if one can put it like that, in a couple of ways with Cyril's stroke, because A, as we said earlier, you'd played as a duo before, so you could have a good go at doing so afterwards. But the other piece of luck you said was that it was Cyril's left hand that he lost. Can you explain that to me?

Phyllis Sellick22:00

It adds a

Phyllis Sellick22:07

Explain that.

Presenter22:08

Hello.

Presenter22:09

In two piano playing, very often you get too much of the left hands, and composers tend to do double notes, and it's too heavy in the in the bass, and so we always used to knock out any doubled notes. And so it worked perfectly well to have two right hands and one left, but it wouldn't have worked to have two left hands and one right. Whose idea was it when you got back home to to West London from Russia? Whose idea was it to play with three hands?

Presenter22:41

It was Cyril's idea in Russia.

Presenter22:43

He said, If we can't play with four hands, we'll play with three.

Presenter22:47

But quite different playing with three hands from four. Oh yes. Don't tell me how. And playing the pieces that we had played for all these years.

Phyllis Sellick22:49

With three hands from four.

Phyllis Sellick22:52

Uh

Presenter22:57

Suddenly to play them with three hands instead of four, it meant all the notes had to be redistributed.

Presenter23:04

And this was a

Presenter23:06

Tremendous mental exercise. You see, one plays, you practise the notes and then you play more or less from the subconscious. You don't think consciously every note as you play. But when we had to do for three hands the works we'd done for four hands, we had consciously to think.

Presenter23:27

You've got to relearn the whole thing again, haven't you? You can't go you can't do it on autopilot and concentrate on your interpretation. It was so difficult.

Phyllis Sellick23:27

Relearn the whole thing again, haven't you?

Phyllis Sellick23:32

Concentrate on your interpretation.

Presenter23:35

The most difficult thing I've ever done.

Presenter23:38

And also because, of course, they were works for two pianos, but you were playing alone two-thirds of them.

Presenter23:47

Yes, I suppose I was.

Presenter23:50

Oh, I think that

Presenter23:52

Cyril played all he could with his one big hand, while I played the rest.

Presenter23:57

What was the catalyst in the end that got you back on the platform together? Because I can imagine you doing that at home, that it it helped him enormously. But what made you think you could get back on the platform and do it professionally?

Presenter24:10

Cyril was out in the garden, and the phone rang, and it was the the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, asking us to play at their Prongs, the Mozart Giupiano Concerto. So I went out in the garden and I said, They've just asked us to play at the Birmingham Prongs, the the Mozart he said, say yes.

Presenter24:29

So I said yes. And musical history was made, and your new third career was born. That's right.

Presenter24:37

Tell me about your next piece of music.

Presenter24:40

Well, my next record is the piano concerto by Arthur Bliss. It's Solomon playing this. I think in the same year he had a stroke and lost the use of his right hand. Now that was much more serious because his speech was affected.

Presenter25:00

And although there's a lot of music written for the left hand alone.

Presenter25:05

which he could have played.

Presenter25:08

And I don't quite know why he didn't, but he they they tried to make him play the cello instead, which seemed rather rather hard to me.

Presenter25:18

But it was tragic that.

Presenter25:20

This should happen to two of our finest pianists.

Presenter26:23

The end of the first movement of Sir Arthur Bliss's Piano Concerto, played by Solomon, with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Sir Adrian Bolt. It's a very difficult piece to play, you're telling me, Phyllis.

Presenter26:34

Very difficult indeed. It's very long and technically very difficult, but it's a very fine work. And took Solomon a long time, you said.

Presenter26:42

I think he said it took him six months. But I don't want to put other pianists off from playing it by saying that.

Presenter26:50

No, for that reason.

Presenter26:53

Phyllis, an an awful lot has been said and and written um about the great courage that Cyril showed in in in getting back on the concert platform, starting a new career and so on. But I have to say, it seems to me that that your own fortitude seems to have been subsumed in all of this, because you were

Presenter27:11

You had two small children, as we say. You you you had an invalid husband, obviously, and you had

Phyllis Sellick27:13

Yes.

Presenter27:17

Financial worries, didn't you, in that intervening?

Phyllis Sellick27:19

Well the fur

Presenter27:20

The first year, Cyril, it was very strange he'd never asked about money.

Presenter27:26

how we were doing all.

Presenter27:28

You know how we were managing. So for the first year I really had to earn all I could.

Presenter27:33

Keep the family. You were playing solo. You were out there playing as hard as you could, but you must have been it must have been pretty bleak for you because you would have had nobody to share it with. It's it's the problem of the carer always. Yes, it is, isn't it?

Phyllis Sellick27:36

Yeah.

Phyllis Sellick27:37

I know.

Phyllis Sellick27:42

Uh

Speaker 227:42

It's the problem

Presenter27:46

But he was so wonderful about it he never moaned or complained.

Presenter27:51

Which was the greatest help, of course. Who did you moan and complain to? No well, I hope.

Presenter27:58

But in the end it it it worked. Your third career took off, as we've heard, and went on for seventeen years until Cyril died in nineteen seventy four. That was equally sudden and a terrible shock, wasn't it? It was indeed.

Presenter28:15

We were very fond of the.

Presenter28:18

Solo piano concerto by Vaughan Williams and just

Presenter28:23

Before Cyril died we found someone who would arrange this for us for three hands.

Presenter28:32

And it arrived.

Presenter28:34

Just the day before he died.

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And his last words to me were

Presenter28:42

We'll start on that tomorrow morning.

Presenter28:46

And it's a happy thought for me that, because it meant he was still looking forward.

Presenter28:52

And then um I know that your your son died too, didn't he? Um in in in the eighties. And he he was only in his forties. Was that a stroke as well? Yes, it was. You see, they were both

Phyllis Sellick28:56

I hear you.

Presenter29:05

Absolutely hooked on smoking.

Presenter29:08

It was ridiculous, really. Well, when Cyril started smoking it it wasn't known.

Presenter29:14

that it was such a dangerous occupation. But Graham knew perfectly well. In fact, we we bribed the children not to smoke until they were twenty one. But Graham would prefer to smoke and not have the money, and Claire wouldn't have smoked anyway.

Presenter29:32

I wonder how much well, it must have been, because music's so much part of your life. You know, in those awful times, and you have had some, as we've heard, how much has music helped? Has it been a solace to you?

Presenter29:46

absolute center of my life.

Presenter29:49

I can't imagine.

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Not having music.

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It has helped me through all my troubles.

Presenter29:57

It really has.

Presenter29:59

Tell me about your record number seven.

Presenter30:02

The next record is um an etude played by Horowitz, who was a most fabulous pianist. A lot of academics quibble about some of his playing, which can be outrageous. He certainly takes lots of liberties, but it's so exciting. You can hear the hear the passion, and sometimes, if you wait, there's a bit of magic.

Presenter31:29

Scribin's Etude Opus eight, number twelve in D Sharp minor, played by Vladimir Horowitz. And these days, Phyllis, you're still teaching, I gather, but uh not, I suspect, to five year olds whose mothers think they've got perfect pitch.

Presenter31:42

No, not at all. Only to advance players. And how do you teach them? Do you do you just get them to play and listen to them and keep interrupting? What do you do? What's your technique?

Presenter31:51

Well, first of all, they play the piece right through.

Presenter31:56

And then I'm

Presenter31:57

I just say what I think. Very politely, I hope. Oh, really? Politely to say you're not you're not tough with them, then.

Presenter32:05

Well, I think I'm tough in that um I'm very fussy.

Presenter32:10

But I don't think I say anything very unkind to them. But do you say to them, Look, move over and I'll show you? And you sort of Oh, no, because I'd play it a good deal worse. Would you?

Presenter32:20

Yes, I'm sure I would. But do you play it do you play for yourself these days?

Phyllis Sellick32:21

Uh

Presenter32:24

Well, I do I do play, but um not very much. I think you see that unless you really practise seriously every day.

Presenter32:35

You don't play as well as you should.

Presenter32:37

And so I don't play as well as I should. So you wouldn't like what you heard? Not particularly.

Presenter32:43

Well, what about your piano? I mean, I know that you and Cyril always planned your houses around your piano, particularly when you were solo performers, because you had to have two grand pianos. Yes, absolutely. A lot of house needed to house two grand pianos.

Speaker 232:50

You had to have some kind of a message.

Speaker 232:53

Loves it.

Speaker 232:56

Yeah.

Presenter32:56

What what have you got to day?

Presenter32:58

Today I have a house that has one large room in which I can have my two steinways, one of which belonged to Sir Henry Wood and is on permanent loan to me. Has to go to Henrywood House when I as my accountant puts it when the angels come for me.

Presenter33:16

And it it just takes the two pianos beautifully and leaves a sort of sitting room around the fire. And all this music in your head.

Presenter33:25

It doesn't really matter what records you take to your desert islanding'cause you can sit there on the sand and play it in your head anyway, can't you?

Presenter33:32

Yes, I'm sure I can think of a lot of music to go through my head.

Presenter33:36

What about this last record?

Presenter33:38

Well, I think that most of the records I've chosen will be

Presenter33:43

Rather touching for me, either either because of the music or the associations, or or both, so I thought I'd better have something to make me laugh. So I've chosen Noel Card singing Mad Dogs and Englishmen.

Phyllis Sellick33:58

Hindus and Argentines sleep firmly from twelve to one, but Englishmen deter stars, yesterday.

Phyllis Sellick34:05

In the Philippines they have lovely screens to protect you from the glare. In the Malay States there are hats like plates which the Britishers won't wear. At twelve noon the natives swoon And no further work is done But ne'er dogs and Englishmen go work in the midday sun

Presenter34:26

Noel Card singing Mad Dogs and Englishmen. Um if you could only take one of those eight records then, Phyllis, to this island, which one would you take?

Presenter34:34

It would have to be serenade music by Vaughan Williams.

Presenter34:40

So I love it.

Presenter34:42

And what about your book? You've got the Bible, as you know, and you've got the complete works of Shakespeare.

Phyllis Sellick34:44

Yeah, but

Presenter34:46

I choose the Oxford Companion to Music.

Presenter34:49

Still got a lot to learn from it.

Presenter34:51

Yes, well it's a it's a

Presenter34:54

A great book, full of information.

Presenter34:57

And what about your luxury?

Presenter34:59

That would have to be a clockwork radio.

Presenter35:02

And if it could be have a bit of magic and be tuned into Radio Four, that's what I'd like.

Presenter35:07

Phyllis Selik, thank you much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs. Thank you.

Speaker 335:19

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