Dame Beryl Grey

Dame Beryl Grey0:00

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.

Presenter0:31

My castaway this week is a ballerina. As a ten year old pupil at ballet school, her principal, Dame Ninette de Valois, said she had all the gifts it's possible to bestow on a young dancer. Those gifts took her to a position of prima ballerina at Sadler's Wells, where for fifteen years she enchanted audiences with all the great roles of the classical repertoire, and had some created for her by the eminent choreographers of the time. At the age of thirty, she went freelance and, often pursued by a devoted band of fans, danced her way around the world, the first Western ballerina to perform in Russia and with the Peking Ballet Company.

Presenter1:08

When her stage career ended, she became the artistic director of the London Festival Ballet. Her love of performing transferred to her love of dancers' training and education. Now in her mid-seventies, her innate sense of the beauty of movement is still strong within her. It has to be something you feel, she says, not something you're told to do. She is Dame Beryl Gray. Is that what marks you out, do you think, as a prima ballerina, Beryl? That you you it comes from within you. It has to come from within. It has to.

Dame Beryl Grey1:37

It has to come from

Presenter1:39

You have to be convinced yourself of every movement you are doing.

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I was trained.

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Bye my

Presenter1:47

Chosen teacher, Audre de Vost, to give every movement a meaning, to know why I'm doing something. But you had all of those choreographers, the great choreographers, writing for you, you know, Frederick Ashton and so on, and you had Damianette de Valois, who was a real taskmaster, telling you what to do. Where is there space between all of those people, all of those experts, for you, for the real you and your interpretation? Well, that's a very interesting question.

Speaker 41:58

And so on and you had

Speaker 42:09

Uh

Dame Beryl Grey2:09

Uh

Speaker 42:09

Uh

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You were expected to follow and not to think.

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But now to day things have changed. Now I don't know that people to day always give as much soul as I would like to see.

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But the opportunity is there much more than we had it. Under Ninette, we didn't have that.

Dame Beryl Grey2:27

And the name

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She expected us to do things in her way and she didn't like us putting our own interpretation in. And it was she, of course, who put you on the stage when you were really very, very small. At age fifteen, you danced your first full-length ballet, Swansea, on your fifteenth birthday. Yes, indeed. As was the wont. We all got into the theatre at nine thirty in the morning on Mondays and there was a note for me to go to see Ninette straight away and of course I was terrified. We were all terrified of her.

Dame Beryl Grey2:39

But when you

Dame Beryl Grey2:44

This one's really good.

Presenter2:58

And I went to see her, shaking in my shoes, and she said, Oh, dear, I want you to stay on after class and uh rehearse Swan Lake. I want you to go on this evening. So I thought she meant the two big swans, but uh and I said, Oh, which side? So she said, What do you mean which side? I want you to do the leading role with Bobby, and you want to stay behind and learn the part a deux.

Presenter3:21

And you know, I had never looked at that. But to perform your first full-length ballet, aged fifteen, requires not only physical endurance, but it also requires great acting ability, and you held it together, and the audience thought you were wonderful. How did you do it, aged fifteen?

Dame Beryl Grey3:23

That is not it.

Presenter3:38

Well, I couldn't wait to go on the stage. I enjoyed every single moment. And afterwards, when you went back to your dressing room, how did you feel?

Presenter3:47

Well, I think I was very exhilarated. And you know, I had lots of good wishes from people in the audience who became lifelong fans, who I still hear from every Christmas. The Grey Brigade. Yes.

Dame Beryl Grey4:01

Yeah.

Presenter4:01

They're still out there, are they?

Dame Beryl Grey4:01

They're still out there, are they?

Presenter4:03

Well, yes, I'm afraid I do get sad letters from relatives every so often saying someone has died. But they were wonderful. You know, they would come and leave food in the war, steak and sugar and cheese, all these things that were rationed. So you were wonderfully well looked after. But in that moment there must have been that feeling, as you say, you were receiving all of the flowers and all of the accolades and taken out to supper.

Dame Beryl Grey4:03

With

Dame Beryl Grey4:19

Here this

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Did you glimpse what life was going to be like? Did you think I'm going to be a star? No, not at all. I just wanted to go on and do more and more. I was always like that, wanting to do more and more.

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Tell me about your first record.

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Ah, now my choice goes right into the dancers, composer Tchaikovsky.

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It's the piano concerto number two.

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This is from a ballet which was put on

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Just after our first American tour, we toured to America in'49.

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And when we came back, three of us were terribly ill with jaundice.

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And it was at a time when Balanchine, the great Balanchine,

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from America was coming over for the first time to put a ballet on for the Royal Ballet.

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And I was determined to get well in time to do it and not miss this, because Margot and I had the two lead roles.

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Part of the first movement of Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto, Number Two in G major, played by Shura Czechowski, with the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Clemens Krause, and that was recorded in nineteen fifty five. And you say you remember one night ending flat on your back. You went over John Field's head for some reason.

Speaker 46:40

Uh

Presenter6:41

Well, in the finale, I think we were both carried away. You know, it was a marvellous ballet to dance, and I had to jump up on to his shoulder, and somehow I had gone too far back, and and he didn't catch me, and I went right over back.

Presenter6:56

You were the black ballerina. Margot Fontaine was the golden ballerina. She was at Saddler's Wells at the same time, too.

Dame Beryl Grey6:57

I'm a

Dame Beryl Grey7:02

So are you?

Presenter7:03

Margot started very early. M Alicia Markova, dame Alicia, was the first big ballerina they had. And then when she left, Margot was trained to become the ballerina, which she became. Absolutely. She was Margaret Hookham from the State. And Alicia Markova was Ms. Marks in London. So how how did you hang on to being old Beryl Gray? I was groom, G-R-W-M, Beryl Groom, and she didn't like that at all. Who? Daynette. Oh, yes. But see, one's whole life was controlled by Madam.

Dame Beryl Grey7:17

Good game.

Dame Beryl Grey7:20

That's right.

Dame Beryl Grey7:23

Mars Marx in London.

Dame Beryl Grey7:27

I do know

Dame Beryl Grey7:34

They met.

Presenter7:38

She said Gray was better, Groom disappeared, Gray would sound better. But it was awful because I'd been in the company three weeks and she we were all doing class, and she walked into class and said, Groom, you're going to be known as Grey from now onwards, unless you object. Do you mind? As if anyone of fourteen could mind, with the whole company looking on, I turned scarlet.

Presenter8:00

Another hallmark, of course, of of ballet now, but certainly ballet then, was that very, very dramatic make up, the scraping back of the hair, and then the sort of huge dark eyes. You weren't too good at that

Dame Beryl Grey8:07

Back of the head.

Presenter8:12

It wasn't well, you know, I was flung on, as it were, in the core the very first time I went on without any knowledge of makeup, and I just copied everyone. You had great sticks of grease paint, and then you had to take a spoon and put black sort of grease in it and melt it over a candle, and then you dipped in a matchstick and wiped your lashes with this liquid black, and then you had to put drops on the top of your eyelash on the very tip.

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It took an hour to make up in those days these little droplets on the end of a match stick. If you were doing that age fourteen or fifteen, I dare say you looked quite a fright by the time. I looked awful the first night. At the quarter of an hour before you were supposed to go on the stage, the ballet mistress came up and said

Dame Beryl Grey8:48

And of course,

Dame Beryl Grey8:53

I live

Presenter9:00

Oh, what do you think you were doing with your face, Beryl? Took a dirty cloth and a huge tin of Riselle's grease paint and wiped it all off, and then she sort of started to make me up, and then she was called away, and I had to finish off anyway. Oh, it was so difficult. Never mind, it was all very exciting. And didn't you also have no idea whatsoever what beginner's please meant when the knock came on the door? I thought that was just for me. I was so embarrassed. I thought, oh, everyone knows I'm a beginner.

Dame Beryl Grey9:18

And gingerbread.

Dame Beryl Grey9:23

Oh came on the door.

Presenter9:30

And then, seeing everyone in this strange make up on the stage for the first time, I didn't recognize anybody.

Presenter9:38

It was an extraordinary experience. I hadn't thought of that until this moment. Tell me about your second record. Well, now, my second choice reveals my absolute devotion to opera. And one of the great artists who I've adored is Eva Turner. The generosity of her spirit came through in everything she did, but for me,

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The most beautiful Rove was in Turenda.

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Eva Turner as Turundot singing Inquesta Reggia in this Palace from Act Two of Puccini's Opera with the chorus of the Royal Opera House Cotton Garden with the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by John Barberolli, and that was recorded in nineteen thirty seven.

Presenter11:17

Take me back to to the beginning, Beryl. Your father was a a factory manager and your mother was a dressmaker in East London in the beginning.

Speaker 411:24

In the beginning

Presenter11:25

How did they produce this phenomenal dancer of a daughter? Where did it come from? I don't know. My mother had a beautiful voice, and Daddy sang, and they both played the piano.

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But how did they discover your talent for dancing? How did you suddenly get up and start floating about? No.

Speaker 411:36

And

Speaker 411:41

Yeah.

Presenter11:42

Uh

Presenter11:43

We lived very near my father's brother and his family, and they had two daughters.

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and they were taking dancing lessons, so it followed that I should too. And we happened

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to be taught by a wonderful young teacher who became the top teacher of young children in this country eventually. She was Madeline Sharp. Yes, she was very young at that time. But did she notice immediately that you had talents? Yes. She saw my parents, I think, very soon and

Speaker 412:04

She uses Madeleine Sharp.

Speaker 412:07

Uh

Dame Beryl Grey12:08

Yeah.

Presenter12:14

tried to persuade them to let me go over once week as well to her own class in Bromley. She taught in Bromley. What was your first public performance, do you remember, and how old were you?

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Well, the first public performance I was for, it was at a big party.

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And um I don't know why, but um my father was supposed to be old time going out and I was the New Year coming in and she arranged Miss Sharp arranged this beautiful little solo for me.

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carrying a a candle in a lovely sort of old-fashioned candlestick holder and a white night dress. So really from a very early age you were working very, very hard. Oh yes. My mother obviously she loved my dancing, I suppose, and she Miss Sharp encouraged her to make sure that I practised a lot. So I used to work before I went to school.

Presenter13:05

And afterwards I didn't mind that at all, but I hated dancing on Sundays. I just thought I would have one day a week off. I hated dancing. But from what age were you really working seriously hard at it?

Dame Beryl Grey13:13

But for what it

Presenter13:18

From about five, I suppose. I c I can't remember a time when I wasn't working hard. I loved it. You know, I really did. I l adored it.

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Tell me about record number three. Number three.

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When I was running Festival Bally, I was very lucky I spotted the talent of a young dancer in the company called Barry Morland.

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And he

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is still, I think, an exceptional choreography.

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And he made this two-act ballet for us to Scott Joplin's music at a time before anyone had really thought about Scott Joplin. And it was called The Prodigal Son. And I just was so thrilled by this bally, and it had an enormous success, and it brings back so many happy memories. I'd like to hear it.

Presenter14:32

part of Scott Joplin's The Entertainer from the soundtrack of the film The Sting. So, um, Beryl Gray, you had to practise very hard from a very, very early age. What are the effects on a small child of of leading such a a very disciplined life?

Presenter14:46

Well, I I think it prepares you for life in the future.

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And I I think that

Presenter14:52

If you're going to be a success in ballet, you have to have an enormous amount of self-discipline if you're going to get to the top, because it's a very abnormal way of behaving with your body, going on your toes and keeping the back so rigid and yet being able to move it in a plastic way. It demands an enormous amount of practice. Exactly. That turnout is...

Dame Beryl Grey15:15

And the turn of the hips, yes.

Presenter15:19

Merciless. You have to work and work and work. What long term effects does that have? Can you still pirouette across the room if you want to? Still pirouette. That's that's eye control.

Dame Beryl Grey15:25

Uh

Presenter15:30

Yes. I think a lot of us have to have hip replacements as we get older. I've had one. And in fact, Ninette de Valois had two. Oh, poor madam, she was always in and out of hospital.

Dame Beryl Grey15:36

Yeah.

Presenter15:40

But there were times in your career that that you were sick and ill with overwork. I've read stories of you dancing the swan at the Met and actually pausing to vomit in the wing. Yes, well, we w we all were used to dancing when we were ill. You know, that comes from the war. We were only thirty in the company and

Dame Beryl Grey15:46

Well

Presenter15:59

Nobody could afford to be off. I mean, there were no covers. Now, of course, they have three and four costs of everything.

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But in those days poor madame was running the company on a shoestring.

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And so we just went on with the flu, or if we had a bad ankle we strapped it up, and so forth. I came across a wonderful poem, which I'm sure you know, which was printed in Punch Miss May and Miss Grey are still away, and Miss Lynde is ill. Ah, woe is me and lack a day Miss May and Miss Grey are still away.

Dame Beryl Grey16:23

He was ill, ah, woe is me and lack

Presenter16:28

How clever of you to find that. But obviously, that's what you did. You strapped yourselves up and went off. Yes. That particular poem was written after the.

Dame Beryl Grey16:30

How would I

Dame Beryl Grey16:33

Come on, ya

Presenter16:37

I think it was the first American tour when I had Jaundice and two others in the company did. And we we had lived on trains and danced every night right across America. But of course the critics used it to to have a go at the repertoire, didn't they? They said that that that you were away not because you were overworked but you were bored with the jaded classics. They said that Devalois was was was unwilling to inject any new blood, that she was using the same.

Dame Beryl Grey16:49

Don't f

Dame Beryl Grey16:58

They said that bro

Speaker 416:59

Uh

Dame Beryl Grey16:59

Yeah.

Presenter17:04

Ballerinas over and over again, didn't they? Having run a company since, I understand that.

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Well, you've got stars, you get them out there. Yes, indeed, because people

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definitely come to see certain dancers, because each dancer has a different quality and appeals to a different type of person.

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Record number four. Now record number four.

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We're coming back to opera again and to festival ballet. Die Fledemas I adore as an opera.

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A dancer that was my partner in the Royal Ballet, who became a choreographer, Ronald Hind.

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created a marvellous ballet called Rosalinda based on De Fla domas, so I would love to have something to remind me of that, but I think we'll have something for the actual opera.

Speaker 418:40

Holy is already the one.

Speaker 418:50

Be what

Presenter18:56

Lucia Pop as Rosalinda and Peter Zeifert as Eisenstein singing und Miltzang die Nachtigal and gently sang the nightingale from the ballroom scene of Straße's Die Fledemas with the Bavarian Radio Choir and the Munich Radio Orchestra conducted by Placido Domingo. I suppose of course before you went to Saddler's Wells you'd never danced with a man. Was that amazing suddenly to have to m coordinate yourself with someone else on the stage? Yes, we did. In those days there were no pas-de-doe classes. There wasn't time for that.

Dame Beryl Grey19:18

Double leader

Dame Beryl Grey19:21

Yes, we

Presenter19:27

And when you did that?

Dame Beryl Grey19:27

And when you did?

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I was just flung on with Robert Heltman. I think I let go the first night at the end of the Actou pas de der and his face had to be seen to be believed, but he caught me round the waist and all was well.

Presenter19:42

He was a marvellous partner. He was a great help to you, wasn't he? Enormous. I did all my first work with Robert Helpman. And obviously, you needed some moral support there. A, you were young, and B, as we say, De Valois was quite a taskmaster, very, very strong. You began, it seems to me, to defy her quite early on because you turned away and decided to go for lessons outside the company with a teacher called Audrey DeVos, didn't she? Well, yes, it was actually when we went to the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.

Dame Beryl Grey19:44

It was a very good thing.

Dame Beryl Grey19:45

Oh, enormous. I did all

Dame Beryl Grey19:48

Robert

Dame Beryl Grey19:52

you were young and be

Dame Beryl Grey20:08

Yeah.

Presenter20:13

I was beginning to show the strain of having danced corderbally in leading roles, really from the age of fourteen right through the war.

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I kept rolling over my ankles, you know, having little strains and so forth. And I went to this osteopath.

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And he actually had my

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Ankles

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up to the knee, strapped in a sort of Grecian manner for six months. And I was simply terrified Ninette would see this through the tights, so I was used to wearing leg wall.

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Because she was absolutely against osteopaths at that time. And it was he who recommended this teacher order a divorce and I found in her a a real original thinker and she believed in a lot of freer movements before you went into the very

Presenter21:06

tight, difficult, abnormal turnout of the classical ballet. Now it's accepted, of course, but in

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Those days in the early fifties it was um revolutionary and uh DeVos wasn't approved at all by Ninette, I'm afraid. But it was a liberation for you obviously. Oh yes, it gave me back all my self-confidence and it also gave me um a much greater insight into what I was doing, how I was using my body. How much was it that need actually to become your own person and as we said at the beginning to to be able to put your interpretation into the dance?

Presenter21:40

And how much was it, the fact that you were always slightly in the shadow of Margot Fontaine, that you decided in the end to quit and do your own thing?

Dame Beryl Grey21:46

We can

Dame Beryl Grey21:49

Casual

Presenter21:52

I was beginning to feel my self confidence going and if you go on stage and are not confident, then you can't give a good performance. No, she gave me back my self confidence and um I tried to keep a happy balance with Madam and

Presenter22:05

Because, after all, I owe her my career. So you tried very hard to keep on an even keel with her, but I I just sense underneath it all awful frustrations and quite a few disappointments. Oh, well, yes, of course. Well, Alexis Rassin and I led the company for ten weeks in the war. And then when we went to Covent Garden, naturally,

Presenter22:27

The whole company was doubled, more than doubled. When I left there were seven leading ballerinas, and the reason I left in'fifty seven' was that I was only going on once every six weeks.

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And a performance then became such a terrifying ordeal that again one was beginning to feel, you know, should I be doing this?

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And it was really only my husband who encouraged me to I was quite prepared to stop dancing, and he said, No, you go freelance and see how you cope. I'm sure you'll miss it. And he was so right. I loved dancing. I would have missed it.

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I could not five. Well, my choice is very much tied up with my husband now because it's the panorama overture from the Sleeping Beauty.

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which was played as I walked down the aisle in nineteen fifty to be married to him.

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Part of the Panorama and Antino from Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty, played by the Russian National Orchestra conducted by Michael Pletnieff.

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Sleeping Beauty, of course, Princess Aurora, a role you danced yourself on several occasions. But as artistic director of the English Festival Ballet, you put on, I think, at great expense a production of that led by Nouriev, didn't you? Yes. In the mid-70s. Yes, yes. And what was Nouriev like to work with? I mean, was he as difficult as everybody says? Oh, he's difficult. Bad language? Yes.

Dame Beryl Grey24:29

Functions.

Dame Beryl Grey24:43

Oh, he

Presenter24:48

But you forgave him everything. I mean, he he was such

Presenter24:52

A remarkable artist. But everyone said that was a kind of ego trip, didn't they? Because he I think he infla he was dancing the prince himself and he inflated the role and you know he was. Oh, well, he inserted solos for himself, yes. And why not? Absolutely. If you could dance them as well, as he was dancing in those days. But you never danced with Nuriev, did you? No. He would have been too short for me, I'm afraid, or I would have been too tall for him, whichever way you like to put it. He'd have been a student when you went to Russia. You'd cut loose from Ninet Davalva, you'd gone freelancer. And he was in the audience and watched you, I think, dance at Leningrad when you were dancing with Kondratov, whom you said

Dame Beryl Grey24:59

Oh, H is

Dame Beryl Grey25:04

And why not?

Presenter25:31

Was the best partner you'd ever had. Why? Well, he was. He was absolutely wonderful for me. So strong, and you could go off balance, and he could hold, you could do all sorts of wonderful lifts. And he partnered me in both Swan Lake and Giselle, and it was oh, it was wonderful for me. This was in 1957, wasn't it? I think you were bowled over to be dancing at the Ball Shoe at all, weren't you? It was such a huge theatre. You could lose your way, you wouldn't know which wing to come off. The orchestra, the orchestra, one hundred strong. And you know, the dancers, they lived every single small role up to the biggest role. Completely different from Covent Garden. Yes, quite, quite different. It was just incredible. I mean.

Dame Beryl Grey25:51

Yeah. Uh

Dame Beryl Grey25:52

I think

Presenter26:18

You realize that for everyone there taking part, it was their entire life.

Presenter26:24

Well, it was, of course, they lived within, obviously within the Communist regime. They didn't come out at that time unless they defected, did they?

Dame Beryl Grey26:24

But it was, of course, within obviously within

Dame Beryl Grey26:28

They were not.

Speaker 426:32

Uh

Presenter26:33

And I think you have

Presenter26:36

In the Russian dancers this tremendous capacity to make believe. And they're never embarrassed the ones I worked with anyway were never embarrassed. Whereas in England, if you're doing, for instance, the mad scene in Giselle, in my days one sort of half acted it until the performance. You were sort of slightly embarrassed, it wouldn't go full out. But in Russia, every single rehearsal was full out, like a performance. And they actually get into the roles and live them truly.

Presenter27:09

Tell me about record number six. This was a ballet the lady and the fool.

Presenter27:15

I would like the pas de d'oeux because I had a partner just before I left Covent Garden called Philip Chatfield, and um this pas de deux was something very special.

Presenter28:24

Part of the pad deux from the ballet The Lady in the Fool, inspired by the music of various Verdi operas, including Aida. And it was played there by the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Charles McKarris. You danced in public for, what, twenty-five years and retired when you were thirty-nine. But then you made this very swift transition, really, into running the Festival Ballet, now the English National Ballet. You became artistic director. Well, before that, I had always said I'd stop when I was 40. I didn't want to be remembered as having danced well and not doing quite as well. Of course. But by all accounts, when you arrived at the Festival Ballet, it was really quite an informal set of a band of gypsies. They certainly were. The dancers themselves decided who would play which part on the day of the performance. Oh, it it was absolutely extraordinary. But how would you say you differed towards the artists in your company from the way in which Ninette de Valois?

Dame Beryl Grey28:50

National Valley.

Dame Beryl Grey29:01

Add it.

Dame Beryl Grey29:08

The gypsies, it was said.

Presenter29:27

had treated you and hers. Yes, well the most important thing to me in rehearsals was to try and let each artist, when we were dealing with soloists and leading dancers, be themselves and interpret their reaction to the music and not tell them what to do. I I mean one of my most horrific memories wi in the Robert Bally was when we were learning

Presenter29:50

I can't remember which ballet it was, but there were five of us. We were all doing the same solo, and she insisted on us all landing at the same moment and doing everything exactly the same.

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Well, you cannot possibly do that. You know, everyone feels the music differently.

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And you can still be in time, but land a fraction of a second earlier or later.

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It's such a personal thing, dance. It's an expression of one's inner self, one's bearing one's soul when one goes onstage.

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Code number seven.

Presenter30:22

I've come back again to opera, Carmen. When the we the ballet company reopened Covent Garden in'forty six, and then the first full length opera that was staged was, I think, in January.

Presenter30:38

of forty seven, and it was Carmen, and I had the solo dancer in that, and I got to know lots and lots of opera singers through that. I used to sing in the chorus with them, so no wonder they didn't get very good notices.

Speaker 330:58

Uh

Speaker 430:58

Uh

Speaker 331:00

It's all beginning, it's not for me.

Presenter31:54

Theresa Berganza, Gordon Sanderson, Geoffrey Pogson, Alicia Naffey, and Yvonne Kenny singing their quintette Nous Avants en tetu naffere from Act Two of Bizet's Carmen with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Claudio Abardo. Now, how are you going to cope in this place where there is no one there is nothing?

Presenter32:12

Well, I hope it's sunny, because dancers like to swim, and I hope there aren't horrible things in the water.

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I am vegetarian, so it wouldn't worry me not having any meat.

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My friends asked me out to a lettuce leaf lunch, pulling my legs, so I suppose I could cope all right on berries and fruit and cocoanuts.

Presenter32:32

And you look back, I'm sure, across your career, your life, with great pride. I wonder what you would say to a young girl now aged, what, six or seven, when you were working so hard, who dreams today of being Beryl Gray or Darcy Buswell now. What would you say?

Dame Beryl Grey32:49

What would you say?

Presenter32:53

Oh, well, you must want to do it more than anything else in the world.

Presenter32:57

Then you'll get somewhere. And always.

Presenter33:00

Know what you want to do and strive for it.

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Last record. Now my last record has to be something associated with my husband, really. And so I thought I must have something of Sebalius. We have all his symphonies. We adore Sebalius.

Presenter33:18

When you listen to Sibelis' music, you see all that openness of Finland, that grandeur, that wildness. It's all there in the music.

Presenter34:24

The end of the third movement of Sibelius's Symphony No. three in C major, played by the Vienna Philharmonic conducted by Lorin Marzell. Now, Beryl, if you could only take one of those eight records, which one would you take? Probably Sibelius, because of its uplifting dignity and grandeur.

Presenter34:41

And what about your book?

Presenter34:43

This sceptred aisle, I think, because I adore history. And what about your luxury, have you thought of one of those?

Presenter34:50

I'd like a box of paint,'cause I love watercolours and I love painting.

Presenter34:56

And I can only ever do that when I'm away on holiday.

Presenter35:00

Dame Beryl Gray, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs. Thank you, thank you.

Dame Beryl Grey35:12

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