Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Desert Island Discs
Presented by Sue Lawley
Politician, journalist and biographer, best known for her biographies of Queen Victoria, Wellington, Churchill, the Queen Mother and the Queen.
Eight records
Norman Allin with the BBC Choir
Father used to put on this wonderful song, Nazareth, and then one of us children was invited by him to play the pedals so that the song came out and then he would stand up and in a very fine barytone he would sing the melody
My parents wanted me to have what they thought of as a a new education. It was called Headington, a school for girls. And we borrowed the Harrow School song. So, at the beginning and end of every term, we, chubby teenage girls, would jump up and pour out 'Till the fields ring again and again to the tramp of the twenty two men.' And then we all began laughing, because we were clearly not twenty two men.
Monastic Choir of the Abbey Church, Ampleforth
A Catholic family advised us to send our sons to Ampleforth. And one of my favourite pieces of music is the plain song sung by the monks of Ambresport.
Trumpet Concerto in E-flat major: II. Andante
John Wallace with the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Christopher Warren-Green
New cardinal invited me to let him have Frank's funeral at Westminster Cathedral, and I think I suggested that our grandson, Caspar, should play the music at the end of the funeral. So he played this wonderful piece of Haiden. The music was extremely moving. There was a great deal of joy and exultancy in it.
Maria Callas with the Orchestra of La Scala Milan conducted by Victor de Sabata
There was a very simple reason for that. Because it reminded me of Frank and me going together to the opera at Leinbourn, and that in turn reminded me of Antonia playing the part of Lady Macbeth in the Dragon School, play
BBC Welsh Chorus and Symphony Orchestra
It's an express... in the most marvellous poetic way of William Blake, what the Labour Party of our day felt like, and I think still does.
I Vow to Thee, My CountryFavourite
Westminster Abbey Choir conducted by Martin Neary
I like now to think But Queen Victoria at her golden jubilee, like our prison queen is... having so wonderfully now... that Queen Victoria had a piece of music sent to her from Scotland by one of the great musicians of the day. That's why I'd like to include Cecil Spring Rices. I vow to thee, my country.
Jesus mustn't... out of one nation, but out of every nation. I thought the most wonderful thing about the Queen Mother's funeral, which I was fortunate enough to go to, was that there were leaders of all nations and different kinds of religions. And that's what religion ought to be.
The keepsakes
The book
Diplomacy and Murder in Tehran
Lawrence Kelly
I don't think we should expect to be able to convert the Great Russian power to the West just by dropping bombs on the outlying areas. I think we've got to understand what Make some tea.
The luxury
A miniature orange tree in a pot
I'd like to have one with buds on it. So that after it's flowered we'll have some tiny oranges and we can all [have a] delicate feast.
In conversation
Presenter asks
Where do you think you got that push and drive from?
Probably... from my father, he was a specialist consultant... and our home was in Harley Street. And I don't think he realised how pushing he was.
Presenter asks
Why did you change your studies at Oxford to classics, history, and philosophy?
Because... my friend Hugh Gaitskin introduced me to Maurice Barra who was the dean of Waldham College. I admired Hugh, and Hugh admired Morris. He thought I could drop all these silly [English courses]... because in those days the wonderful Cambridge School had not yet developed, but Maurice Barrow, one of the lecturers in classics, was very brilliant and witty and amusing.
The recording
Timestamps play the recording from that turn
Speaker 1
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.
Presenter
My Castaway this week has been a politician, a journalist, and a biographer. She'll be ninety six this year, one of the most remarkable women of our times, radiating intelligence, charm, and wit from the centre of a unique family.
Presenter
At Oxford in the twenties she was clever and beautiful. Quinton Hogg said there wasn't an undergrad who wouldn't have considered it a privilege to hold an umbrella over her head.
Presenter
She went on to fight two general elections as a Labour candidate, but having failed to win a seat, turned to journalism, and then to her famous biographies of Victoria, Wellington, Churchill, the Queen Mother, and indeed the Queen herself.
Presenter
Married for nearly seventy years to an eminent Labour politician and campaigner, she produced eight children.
Presenter
I always thought I was going to be lost in a crowd, she says, but then found myself pushing forwards, which always surprised me. She is Elizabeth Longford.
Presenter
It uh it turned out to be a very special gift, Lady Longford, that that push of yours, that drive. Where do you think you got it from?
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Yeah.
Presenter
Probably
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Black from my
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Father, he was a specialist consultant.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
and our home was in Harley Street.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
And I don't think he realised how pushing he was.
Presenter
Odd. But your mother was quite a strong character as well, wasn't she? Well
Countess Elizabeth Longford
My mother was a
Countess Elizabeth Longford
A trained doctor.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
But she gave it up when she married my father.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
She was at the beginning of her thirties.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
And she wanted to have
Countess Elizabeth Longford
A good family. In the end, she had five children. You were the eldest, child. I was the eldest.
Speaker 1
But she has a
Countess Elizabeth Longford
She was very strong and brave character. She fought with swans at Regent's Park Lake. We were tiny children and we were taken up there for our walk. And so when one of us went up to the swans, my mother flew after them, caught the swan by the neck.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
and marched it back into the water.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
And I can still remember the funny
Countess Elizabeth Longford
motions it made with its neck.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
trying to unstiffen it where she'd gripped it. They were hissing away like
Presenter
Like mad.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Uh
Presenter
Tell me about you as a little girl. You were obviously very, very bright. What were you interested in?
Presenter
I was
Countess Elizabeth Longford
passionately interested in
Countess Elizabeth Longford
drawing and painting and writing little stories and
Presenter
Him.
Presenter
And you very much wanted to go up to Oxford, didn't you? And you eventually went in nineteen twenty six to Lady Margaret Hall. But it wasn't, as I understand it, entirely an academic ambition, was it? I think you liked the idea of getting away and getting into what you call the flapper world.
Presenter
I've checked
Countess Elizabeth Longford
My parents, which I now approve of, were very strict. My father, for instance, wouldn't allow me to have my hair bobbed.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
He insisted on two long pigtails. I thought that was very s
Presenter
So you got away and off you went to Oxford.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Yeah.
Presenter
Tell me about your first record.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Uh
Presenter
Well, that was
Countess Elizabeth Longford
this sort of bravado spirit of my father, because suddenly
Countess Elizabeth Longford
He came home with an enormous load of luggage which turned out to be what were called pianola rolls.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Father used to put on this wonderful song, Nazareth, and then one of us children was invited by him.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
to play the pedals so that the song came out and then he would stand up.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
and in a very fine barytone he would sing
Countess Elizabeth Longford
The melody
Speaker 2
Uh
Speaker 2
We're going to
Speaker 2
Uh
Speaker 2
Peace, glory, water flee.
Speaker 2
Oh poor Bay La Chamber come here.
Speaker 2
Long Lord overhaul.
Speaker 2
Have to mortals give us.
Speaker 2
Life forevermore
Presenter
Nazareth, sung by Norman Allen with the BBC Choir, conducted by Stanford Robinson, and that was recorded in 1932. And memories for you, Lady Longford, of your father singing at the pianola. So you went up to Oxford on an English scholarship, didn't you? But you changed to greats, to classical history and philosophy. Why did you do that?
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Physical history and physical.
Presenter
Because
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Yeah.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
My friend.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Hugh Gaitskin.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
introduced me to Maurice Barra.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
who was the dean of Waldham College. I admired Hugh, and Hugh admired Morris. He thought I could drop all these silly L
Presenter
Ha
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Yeah.
Presenter
Uh
Presenter
What, or silly old customs in the sense that English was a girl sometimes. Yes, yes. Because in.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Yeah.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Uh
Countess Elizabeth Longford
In those days the wonderful Cambridge School had not yet developed, but Maurice Barrow, one of the lecturers in classics, was very brilliant and witty and amusing. You said he was mesmerizing. Why why was that? He could talk nonsense and at the same time make you
Countess Elizabeth Longford
feel. It was perfectly
Countess Elizabeth Longford
good sense and the kind of good sense you wanted to hair.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Weren't you often the only girl at his parties? I was always the only girl, because I was sponsored by Hugh Gateskin and one or two others.
Presenter
And who were the other men around those tables then? There were plenty. What, John Betcherman, Dick Crossman, was he there? Yes, they all knew them. Spender or
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Yeah, yeah.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Orden.
Presenter
Uh
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Yes, I met them all.
Presenter
Interha
Presenter
But Maurice Barrer, as you say, was uh a classical scholar and older than all of you. I think he would have been about eight years older.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
True.
Presenter
And he of course was was commonly believed, at that time, to be a homosexual, wasn't he? And then one day he proposed to you.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Yeah.
Presenter
Yeah. How did it happen? Tell me about it.
Presenter
Petrus. Approaching
Countess Elizabeth Longford
rushed affair, because he had another lady ready on his list if I declined, which I did because I'd already met Frank.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Peckenham. Tell me about your second record.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
My parents wanted me to have what they thought of as a a new education. It was called Headington, a school for girls.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
And we borrowed the Harrow School song.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
So, at the beginning and end of every term, we.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Chubby teenage girls.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Would jump up.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
And pour out.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Till the fields ring again and again.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
to the tramp of the twenty two men.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
And then we all began laughing, because we were clearly not twenty two men.
Presenter
One of Harrow's School's songs forty years on. Now, Lady Longford, I think another proposal came your way at Oxford. This is before eventually your husband to be proposed, and this one was in fact from Hugh Gateskill. How did he come to propose?
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Uh
Presenter
He never actually
Countess Elizabeth Longford
proposed. Hugh was a a marvellous
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Educationists.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
And
Countess Elizabeth Longford
He made it clear to me.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
that he was interested in improving me.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
And Hugh and Frank.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
shared rooms and I think you influenced Frank a good
Presenter
And f
Presenter
Right?
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Dale
Presenter
Uh Of course you both, you and your husband Frank, knew Gateskill all his life. He died tragically early, didn't he, aged fifty seven?
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Terrible.
Presenter
How different do you think Lord Longford's political career would have been had Gateskill lived? Do you think he would have made Lord Longford Home Secretary?
Presenter
I don't
Countess Elizabeth Longford
No, but
Presenter
No, but
Countess Elizabeth Longford
At Bicos?
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Frankl was used to say that Evelyn Moore, who was a a really close friend of both of us, used to say
Countess Elizabeth Longford
If they make
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Frank, Home Secretary.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
He'll let us all be murdered in our beds.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Because it released the prisoners. I think.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
He meant it, because Frank had already begun his prison reform.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Which
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Arch tourists like Dear Evelyn used to.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
dislike intensely.
Presenter
But of course, once Gateskill died, there was really no chance, I think, of your husband achieving high office because Harold Wilson took over and you
Speaker 2
Green.
Presenter
Intensely disliked each other, didn't you?
Presenter
He must pretty
Countess Elizabeth Longford
And click Clever.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
But rather difficult to get on to. He lived quite near us in Hampstead, garden suburb, but Harold didn't want to have a sort of special relationship. I made several attempts to understand the way it was all going from Mary, not from Harold. I found her much easier.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Tell me about your next piece of music. A Catholic family advised us to send our sons to Ampleforth.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
And one of my favourite pieces of music is the plain song sung by the monks of Ambresport.
Speaker 2
Yeah.
Speaker 2
God is me.
Speaker 1
No one's here.
Speaker 2
God
Presenter
Easter plain song sung by the monastic choir of the Abbey Church, Ampleforth. But of course the the real love of your Oxford years, Lady Longford, um, w was the man whom you first met when he was fast asleep. Tell me about meeting him.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
I Uh
Presenter
had gone with
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Hugh Gateskill to one of the Oxford College commemballs. In the middle of a grass path I saw a figure fast asleep in a chair in the middle of the grass path. And I thought to myself, I wonder who his partner is. She must be very well equipped with partners to let one like that
Presenter
Sit alone and asleep. So, what did you do when you saw this beautiful figure lying prone and asleep?
Presenter
He got up.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
And red gin.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
And
Countess Elizabeth Longford
followed me upstairs to the set of rooms which Hugh had borrowed for the night.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
He he saw there was a nice long bed.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
So he climbed into the bed without undressing, and I saw this sleeping figure. So I gave him a smacking kiss on the forehead and said, This is the sleeping beauty, the other way round. Frank sprang up and said, I would kiss you if I could, but I can't.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
I didn't know what he meant by that. But what did he mean by that? He was the partner of John Buckham's daughter, who was very nice.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Frank Shay.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
He would kiss me if he could. I thought that was a good start.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
So I would make it more easy for him.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Uh
Presenter
So that was all 75 years ago. And you did get married eventually, but some years later, I think. It was a very.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Okay.
Presenter
Modern marriage, wasn't it, Lady Longford, in the sense that um it was a marriage of of great equality.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Yeah.
Presenter
Frank was very
Countess Elizabeth Longford
strong, feminist.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
partly through being the last boy in a large family of sisters and brothers.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Would you like to tell me about you?
Presenter
Next record.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Yeah.
Presenter
After
Presenter
Frank
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Austria.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
New cardinal invited me to let him have Frank's funeral at Westminster Cathedral, and I think I suggested
Countess Elizabeth Longford
That our grandson, Caspar.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Should play.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
the music at the end of the funeral.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
So he played this wonderful piece.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Of
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Haiden.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
The music was extremely
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Moving.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
There was a great deal of joy and exultancy in it.
Presenter
Part of the second movement of Haydn's Trumpet Concerto in E-flat played by John Wallace with the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Christopher Warren Green.
Speaker 1
Warren
Presenter
Um there were two, of course, major differences between you and your husband, Lady Longford, although you were misses Packenham in the beginning, weren't you?
Presenter
He was a Tory, and you were strongly Labour, and he was a Catholic, and you were an agnostic. Now you won the first, the political battle. You drew him to the left, didn't you? How did you manage to do that?
Presenter
Every Sh
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Shama.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
The Master of Balliou College, Oxford, Sandy Lindsay, used to invite students from a voluntary educational association called the Workers Educational Association to stay at the Oxford University Summer School.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
and Frank became a tutor in economics.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
To the
Presenter
The WEA And why did all of this change your husband's political sympathies? What was it that drew him to the left?
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Well, I became a tutor then too, so we were both linked to
Countess Elizabeth Longford
a real neighbor experience in the world.
Presenter
Uh
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Topic.
Presenter
You'd had, I think, six or seven of your children before you moved towards your husband, Frank, in terms of religion, and indeed converted to Catholicism. How had you managed before that? What what happened on a Sunday morning with the family? Frank and I.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Yeah.
Presenter
Uh
Countess Elizabeth Longford
is to set off.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
to church on Sunday morning.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
We'd get to the main Banbury Road in Oxford. Then one lot would go with Frank to the Catholic Church, and the other lot with me.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Yeah.
Presenter
And how difficult was it for you to commit to Rome in the end, Lady Longford?
Countess Elizabeth Longford
not difficult at all because
Countess Elizabeth Longford
I was very friendly with a wonderful Dominican monk called Jervis Matthew and his brother David Matthew. And when there were executions
Countess Elizabeth Longford
In South Africa they would always try and comfort.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Those who were left.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
And tell them.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
not to stop being proud.
Presenter
Of their own nation. Now you've chosen an Aria from Verde's Macbeth next. Why why do you want to take that to your desert island?
Presenter
Uh
Countess Elizabeth Longford
There was a very simple reason for that.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Because
Countess Elizabeth Longford
It reminded me of Frank and me going together to the opera at Leinbourn, and that in turn reminded me
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Of Antonia playing the part of Lady Macbeth in the
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Dragon School, play
Speaker 2
Yeah.
Presenter
Maria Callas singing the aria La Luce Langue from Verdi's Macbeth with the orchestra of La Scala Milan conducted by Victor de Sabata.
Presenter
Uh you produced and and and nurtured such a talented family, Lady Longford, the historian Antonia Fraser, the novelist Rachel Billington.
Presenter
others in politics and arts and the law. What do you what do you put it all down to, that that plethora of talent? Do you think it's all in in the genes, or is it in the nurture, too? All our
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Children were.
Presenter
Uh
Countess Elizabeth Longford
of enormous interest to both their parents.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Uh
Presenter
Of course you might only have had six children, not eight, if your political masters had had their way.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
My sixth baby was born.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
I was already Labour candidate.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
for Kings Norton, Birmingham.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
And I would certainly have got in, so I went up to visit them.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
And one of the committee sent a motion that I should be asked to give a promise.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
that this would be my last child. I was really
Countess Elizabeth Longford
upset and horrified at being asked by a political party to give a promise not to have more children. I said I couldn't give any such promise, so I offered them my resignation because I immediately began
Countess Elizabeth Longford
thinking they were quite right, I might want to have more children. So I resigned.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
From the seat and had
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Another baby, a girl, and then after her, the last
Presenter
A boy.
Presenter
Now you've said you want to take Jerusalem to this desert island. Why do you want to take that? Well, because.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Yeah.
Presenter
It's an express
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Yeah.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
in the most marvellous.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
poetic way of William Blake, what the Labour Party of our day felt like, and I think still does.
Presenter
That was the BBC Welsh Chorus and Symphony Orchestra and Jerusalem.
Presenter
It's um always fascinating to recall, really, that you were in your fifties before you published your first book, weren't you, Lady Longford?
Presenter
And eventually, I think the second book, the first one wasn't so so successful, The Jameson Raid, but the second one was Queen Victoria. Then you went on to the Duke of Wellington, The Iron Duke, two highly acclaimed biographies. People praise your narrative style and your sense of the person in your work. How do you do that? How do you get inside the skin of your subject?
Presenter
I
Countess Elizabeth Longford
I feel I must be in close touch with the individual.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
preferably through letters or if not through journals.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
I think it all began with Queen Victoria because I'd been very much growing up in the days of Lytton Strachey.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
and of all the literary people.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
I think Strache was the only one who saw the possibilities in Queen Victoria.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
All the rest of us were very much heavy handed.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Twentieth Century readers and writers. We didn't believe it.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
True.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Queen Victoria to make her own point, but she made it notwithstanding.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
By keeping a very fascinating journal.
Presenter
And you had, of course, a distinct advantage over Strachey, didn't you? Because you had access to those royal archives. He he hadn't had that. So yours was
Countess Elizabeth Longford
And hand that.
Presenter
to that extent, um a a a more informative book.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Yeah.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
The Royal Archives had the
Presenter
Uh
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Yeah, yeah.
Presenter
But you've also talked about finding the great moments your phrase in a subject's life and you've said that that perhaps one of those moments in Victoria's life was when she heard a mystic voice saying, Still endure.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Important.
Presenter
Trap. Yeah.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Uh
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Our generation.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
To read and recognize it because.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
It had always been the way to brush off Victoria and Victorianism as being terribly boring, unromantic, and how could she have exerted such a charm over people like Albert?
Countess Elizabeth Longford
and and Israeli. And the answer was because she wasn't stuffy.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
She was
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Imaginative. One could see that immediately.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
from the kind of places.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Yeah.
Presenter
She lagged.
Presenter
And she did not, you are convinced, have an affair with John Brown? It was
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Okay.
Presenter
Totally.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Against her.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Nature and Beliefs.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
I like now to think
Countess Elizabeth Longford
But Queen Victoria.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
at her golden jubilee, like our prison queen is.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Having so wonderfully now.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
that Queen Victoria had a piece of music sent to her from Scotland by one of the great musicians of the day. That's why I'd like to include Cecil Spring Rices. I vow to thee, my country.
Presenter
I vow to thee my country performed by the Westminster Abbey Choir with Martin Baker playing the organ, conducted by Martin Neary.
Presenter
What about our own queen, about whom you've also written, Lady Longford? You say that her one of her great moments was when she said, I must be seen to be believed.
Presenter
Why do you think that such a great moment? Before her.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Uh
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Royalty could always think of some excuse for not being seen and in fact not doing its duty. But that is long past, and they are very dutiful now.
Presenter
You you've written over the past decade applauding the Queen's decision to some years ago now reduce the civil list and to pay taxes. How strong is your belief that the British monarchy will endure? Or will it have to alter more still to keep pace?
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Yeah.
Presenter
I
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Uh Tremendously admire.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Prince Charles, I think he's always
Countess Elizabeth Longford
open minded and prepared to think o of new ideas. And I think the Queen is tremendously serious minded about it all. She just doesn't let
Presenter
It slide.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Uh
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Uh
Presenter
And what about your own life, Lady Longford? Your slogan I noticed when you were standing for Parliament all those years ago, seventy years ago, was a full life and a family life. Has it been full in the way that you originally hoped?
Presenter
I suppose
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Who's I would have stuck with.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Um Kings Norton.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
But they just didn't understand how women feel about
Presenter
Children.
Presenter
So you regret in that sense not having won a seat in the House of Commons? And in the end, I suppose what you did was abandon some of that push, that ambition we were talking about.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
So you regret
Presenter
In the beginning, for the sake of your family. But I presume you have no regrets.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
No, I wouldn't say.
Presenter
There are
Countess Elizabeth Longford
I abandoned something.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
That I wanted to do for their sake, I think they
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Made my life absolutely.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
enjoyable and I felt it was valuable because of them.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
And the idea of not
Countess Elizabeth Longford
having another of those little
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Creatures.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
when I was still able to I just rejected it.
Presenter
But
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Uh
Presenter
And now for your your last record, you've chosen the first verse of the hymn Alleluia, Sing to Jesus. Why do you want that?
Presenter
Jesus mustn't
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Unjust.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
out of one nation, but out of every nation.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
I thought the most wonderful thing about the Queen Mother's funeral, which I was fortunate enough to go to, was that there were leaders of all nations and
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Different kinds of religions.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
And that's what religion.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Ought to be.
Speaker 2
Give for Jesus.
Speaker 2
This was
Speaker 2
Praise Lord.
Speaker 2
His love.
Speaker 2
Please the signal.
Speaker 2
I've lost
Presenter
That was the first verse of the hymn Alleluia, Sing to Jesus by W C Dix recorded in Norwich Cathedral.
Presenter
Now, Lady Longford, if you could only take one of those eight records you've told me about, which one would it be?
Countess Elizabeth Longford
I'll have
Countess Elizabeth Longford
I vow to be my country.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
entirely for the sake of the present queen.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Yeah.
Presenter
And if we gave you on your desert island the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare, what other one book would you like to take with you?
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Bible
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Uh
Presenter
It's the name
Countess Elizabeth Longford
New book by Lawrence Kelly about
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Russian legends and beliefs. And I don't think
Countess Elizabeth Longford
We should.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
expect to be able to convert the Great Russian power to the West just by dropping bombs on the outlying areas.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
I think we've got to understand what
Presenter
Make some tea.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Uh
Presenter
That's Lawrence Kelly's Diplomacy and Murder in Tehran. And what about your luxury?
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Yeah.
Presenter
Oh, my luxury
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Please ready.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
simple one, a great friend of mine.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
read me out about a a miniature orange tree.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
that you can buy in a pot. I'd like to have one with buds on it.
Countess Elizabeth Longford
So that after it's flowered
Countess Elizabeth Longford
We'll have some tiny oranges and we can all
Countess Elizabeth Longford
Heaven
Presenter
Delicate feast.
Presenter
Elizabeth Lady Longford, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs.
Speaker 1
You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.
Speaker 2
Uh
Presenter asks
How did Maurice Bowra come to propose to you?
Petrus. Approaching rushed affair, because he had another lady ready on his list if I declined, which I did because I'd already met Frank.
Presenter asks
How did you manage to draw your husband Frank to the left politically?
The Master of Balliou College, Oxford, Sandy Lindsay, used to invite students from a voluntary educational association called the Workers Educational Association to stay at the Oxford University Summer School and Frank became a tutor in economics... Well, I became a tutor then too, so we were both linked to a real neighbor experience in the world.
Presenter asks
How did you manage on Sunday mornings before you converted to Catholicism?
Frank and I... is to set off to church on Sunday morning. We'd get to the main Banbury Road in Oxford. Then one lot would go with Frank to the Catholic Church, and the other lot with me.
Presenter asks
Why did you resign as a Labour candidate when you were pregnant with your sixth child?
My sixth baby was born. I was already Labour candidate for Kings Norton, Birmingham. And I would certainly have got in, so I went up to visit them. And one of the committee sent a motion that I should be asked to give a promise that this would be my last child. I was really upset and horrified at being asked by a political party to give a promise not to have more children. I said I couldn't give any such promise, so I offered them my resignation because I immediately began thinking they were quite right, I might want to have more children. So I resigned.
“My mother was very strong and brave character. She fought with swans at Regent's Park Lake. We were tiny children and we were taken up there for our walk. And so when one of us went up to the swans, my mother flew after them, caught the swan by the neck and marched it back into the water.”
“I was always the only girl, because I was sponsored by Hugh Gateskin and one or two others.”
“I gave him a smacking kiss on the forehead and said, This is the sleeping beauty, the other way round. Frank sprang up and said, I would kiss you if I could, but I can't.”
“I feel I must be in close touch with the individual, preferably through letters or if not through journals.”
“I think they made my life absolutely enjoyable and I felt it was valuable because of them. And the idea of not having another of those little creatures when I was still able to I just rejected it.”