Minette Walters

Speaker 10:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

Speaker 10:08

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

Presenter0:26

My Castaway this week is a novelist. She trained in one of fiction's hardest schools, churning out romantic stories for women, six chapters, no sex, no alcohol. After marriage and children, she returned to writing, this time on her own terms. Over the past ten years, she's published a selection of clever, creepy, exciting crime thrillers, which have brought comparison with the likes of Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers, except for the alcohol and sex, which these days does feature in her books. Most of them, memorably the Ice House and The Sculptress, have been adapted for television, and all of them sell worldwide, translated into 36 different languages. I think we all have a dark side, she says, but most of us learn to control it. She is Minette Walters, or in your case, Minette exploited that dark side. You invariably start with a body, don't you? And one remembers certainly the sculptress, where Pauline Quirk was sort of hacking her mother and sister to pieces in the kitchen. Why do you do that?

Minette Walters1:26

In a

Minette Walters1:27

When I started The Ice House, I was very aware that I was going to be compared with Agatha Christie because I set it in a country house. And I thought it's going to be terrible if people pick this book up and read assuming they're going to be reading in Agatha Christie. It's a very, very dark story, The Ice House. So I actually thought I must put the body right at the start with all the disgustingness of a corrupt body, which this thing had been lying around for quite a few weeks. You do seem to enjoy the smell and the nastiness. Oh, I do like that.

Speaker 11:57

Uh

Speaker 21:57

Yeah.

Speaker 22:00

I do.

Speaker 12:01

Uh

Minette Walters2:02

It's quite a challenge.

Minette Walters2:05

Creating on the page a really unpleasant dead body. I do enjoy doing that. Very interesting story. I was in America one time and in a bookshop doing a talk. And one of the people there asked me how I managed to write such good dead bodies. And I said, Well, how do you know they're good? And she said, Because I'm a pathologist and I've seen so many of them. And the secret is smell, I've decided. As long as you can inject smell onto the page. And how do you know about that? Have you researched such bodies? Oh, yes. I've got a very extensive library of pathologists' books. The smell, I think everybody knows the smell of death. It's when you open your fridge door.

Presenter2:32

And how do you know

Presenter2:35

Oh yeah.

Speaker 12:37

Oh, since

Minette Walters2:49

And the meat has gone off. If if I mean, it's better these days, but certainly as a child, all the larder used to open the door. And when the meat was beginning to go, you know what the smell of death is like.

Presenter2:58

Death is nice. It's dead blood. Yeah, it is. It's not pleasant. And the other thing you say amazingly is when you begin these books, you don't know who done it. I find that fascinating. Why don't you?

Minette Walters3:01

As the

Minette Walters3:10

I think because of the way I write, they're very claustrophobic stories. There are never very many suspects. And I think in The Breaker there are only three suspects, only three possible people who could have done it. Again, The Breaker because the fingers are broken. Yeah, it does. That's quite nasty. It does upset very much. The reason I do it this way is if I set out at the beginning knowing who had done it, or thinking I knew who had done it, I think I would write the book in a certain way. I'd either write too much of the person I thought had done it, or too little.

Presenter3:24

Being this is a screw.

Presenter3:46

But why do we like it so much? Why do we have these darker recesses? We are fascinated by crime of all kinds both

Minette Walters3:53

Yeah.

Presenter3:54

Fictional and factual, aren't we? And particularly murder. What is it about us? What does it say about us?

Minette Walters3:55

Actually,

Minette Walters4:00

What we want is we like to read it. We like that free song of horror, but we like sort of the confirmation of our own humanity at the end, when we can say, I could never have done that. And genuinely we are all right when we say that. Very, very few of us.

Minette Walters4:17

Can murder people. And most murders, I mean, I'm sure you know this, you are more likely to be murdered by someone who professes to love you than you are by a stranger, which is an awful fact of life. Even more horrifying. Tell me about your first record. Right, well, it's Queen, Bohemian Rhapsody, along I Gather with most of the country. I regard it as the greatest song, greatest pop song written this century or last century. And I just adore Queen.

Speaker 24:46

I see a little silhouetto of a man Scarabouch, Scarabouche, will you do the band and go Thunderbolt and lightning, very, very frightened

Speaker 25:02

Uh

Speaker 25:02

But I'm just a poor.

Speaker 25:06

He is just a full body!

Speaker 25:08

A family is sparing his life on this monstrosity.

Presenter5:17

Green and Bohemian Rhapsody. I said, Mina Walters, that you trained in one of fiction's hardest schools. That's writing romantic fiction for women. People usually think I think aspiring writers think that's quite easy to knock off. It's not, is it?

Minette Walters5:30

No, very, very hard. In fact, I expect a lot of your listeners will remember them. They were Women's Weekly Library, little thirty thousand word novelettes. And I was the editor of the hospital romance section.

Minette Walters5:46

All in all set in hospitals, isn't it? Well, not necessarily hospitals. They had to have doctors and nurses in them, which did make life very, very difficult.

Minette Walters5:54

But yes, people assume that somehow a romance is easier to write than any other form of writing. It's nonsense. I mean, any good story needs suspense, a good plot, good characterization. And I did have to wade through an enormous number of manuscripts.

Presenter6:13

Did you have favourite authors?

Minette Walters6:13

I I definitely had favourite authors who wrote for me. The trouble is they all had pseudonyms because a lot of them were men. I had a wonderful bank manager who wrote brilliant stories. And which is another thing, it's there's this great sort of myths surrounding romantic fiction, but we had a lot of male writers.

Presenter6:33

But pseudonyms because they really didn't want anybody to know they turned the stuff out. Absolutely. At what point did you decide you'd have a go then and why?

Minette Walters6:35

Anybody to know they change the stuff

Minette Walters6:42

Well, I think I I was driving my colleague who was the editor of General Romances. He was luckier than I was. He could have romances about anybody. No, doctors and nurses. No, he didn't. I always stole the doctors and nurses off him. But I was forever complaining. I mean, you'd be sent 30,000 words of a conversation between a man and a woman. And the author genuinely thought this was a romance. Well, of course, it was deeply and utterly tedious and boring because nothing happened.

Speaker 16:51

There he

Minette Walters7:10

And I was always complaining and he said, Well, why don't you have a go? You know, if you think you're so good, you have a go. And I thought, well, it's a good idea, because at least I could sort of write a prototype. And because it struck me all the best stories were the ones where the romance was the sub-plot and you had a good galloping story as the main plot. So I wrote one.

Minette Walters7:35

Um

Presenter7:36

Um

Minette Walters7:37

Absolutely adorable.

Presenter7:37

And you used a pseudonym as well, didn't you?

Minette Walters7:39

I

Minette Walters7:43

Minette Walters writing at that point? Well, uh nothing because I was writing I rate, I think, thirty-five or thirty six of these novelettes in the end. While I was at university, I was writing plays sort of based on Jean-Paul Sartre from Samuel Beckett, because I was reading French at university. I have to say, see, they were absolutely dire.

Minette Walters8:04

And I did send them to the BBC and they all came back again. And I I keep them all. I read one the other day and I quite understand why the BBC sent them back. You have to be a genius to write like Jean-Paul Sartre and Samuel Beckett and I did not have their genius. Record number two. Oh well, this is Buddy Holly singing Peggy Sue. I think this was definitely my first pop hero at school. I joined his fan club, although he was dead by that time.

Speaker 28:36

If you knew, Veggie soon

Speaker 28:39

Then you know why I feel blue without Peggy

Speaker 28:45

My baby's soon.

Speaker 28:49

Oh well I love you Kelly, I love you Peggy Sue

Speaker 28:55

Peggy Soup, Peggy Soup.

Presenter9:03

Buddy Holly and Peggy Sue in Memories for You, Minute Waters of school, Godolphin School near Salisbury, a boarding school for well, you went on a scholarship for the children of servicemen who

Minette Walters9:13

Who died in the war? My mother was having to work because my father died when I was ten.

Minette Walters9:19

And as a result of his war service in the desert. And she but it was so hard for her. You know, look, she had with three children, so hard for her looking after all of us. And she was very concerned, because I was at a day school, that I was an early latchkey kid, actually. I had to come home very ear you know, from school and she was working. So she looked around for schools that did have these types of scholarships, and we were all fortunate. I have two brothers. All three of us got foundation scholarships.

Presenter9:52

It's not often that you hear people who went to boarding school sing the praises of boarding school, but you do, don't you? Yeah.

Minette Walters9:57

Yeah.

Presenter9:57

Yeah.

Minette Walters9:58

If it works for you, it works brilliantly. If it doesn't work for you, I think it's absolutely desperate. Why did it work for you? I think because I'm the kind I'm a very independent character and it brought out my independence. And it teaches you to be very sociable. I mean, it's it's you you learn very different skills from being at a day school, I think. You learn to be independent of your parents, you learn to be sociable, get on with people, otherwise you sink rather. So it gave you a confidence?

Presenter10:29

Obviously, to do what you wanted to do. And did you always want to be a writer? Was that always the ambition, intention?

Minette Walters10:29

Obviously to do what you wanted to do.

Minette Walters10:35

Yes, which is I don't I can't explain why, except I think because I used I love fantasy. So I adored reading. What did you read? Oh, Agatha Christie, Georgette Hare, Dorothy Sayers. Not En Enid Blighten or what Katie Diddy. Oh no, I'm afraid.

Presenter10:49

Katie did

Minette Walters10:51

No, in fact I was very disappointed when I was given what Katie did for a birthday, I think when I was about seven, and my brother was given Biggles and he didn't read it, so I read Biggles and I I thought that was so much better. That brought me into thrillers. But I I read that you also used to read the courtroom. Yes, I did. I mean, I I think it was the ASICS murder. The Hanratty. Yes, the Hanratty murder. And because my mother had the telegraph every day, and I used to read it because I was very interested. And of course, found the court page. And yes, I was fascinated by the Hanratty case. So early interest in psychology of crime. Well, it was because I could not understand why he'd killed Michael Gregson. And I didn't know what rape was, so there didn't seem to be a motive. So I was constantly reading it to try and find out why.

Presenter11:31

Yeah, I mean what the psychology was

Presenter11:47

The other interesting thing about your school is apparently Gillie Cooper had been taught by the same English mistress just before when Antonia Fraser was an old girl and and going back even further than that, um much earlier, Dorothy Sayers had gone now. Do we put this down to coincidence or was there something in

Speaker 111:51

Mistress Josephine and T.

Speaker 111:54

And going

Speaker 111:57

As a

Minette Walters11:58

I don't know.

Minette Walters12:02

The air in sort of a school. I've no idea, but it is extraordinary. And there are other writers who've come out of the school, you know, and it is weird. Brilliant English mission? Well, certainly Miss Lloyd, who is Gilly's my English teacher, I mean, she taught us grammar. And I think at the end of the day, that is so useful to a writer. I think when you know what it helps you decide when a sentence works, you're given the tools for the job effectively. And if on top of that, you have a good imagination.

Minette Walters12:33

You know, you're away, aren't you?

Minette Walters12:35

Record number three.

Minette Walters12:36

Ah, well this is the Marseillaise sung by Plithido Domingue. I adore this anthem and I'm I'm afraid I regularly wish it was ours.

Speaker 212:53

I'm not sure if I can do it.

Speaker 213:20

Hazard Missy Poyo Holla Holla Poyo Marce Mara She

Presenter13:39

Marciaz, sung by Palacio Domingo with the choir of the Paris Orchestra. So you read uh French at Durham University, uh Minette, and then via being a barmaid here and there into magazine fiction.

Speaker 213:44

Durham University.

Presenter13:50

As we've heard in writing writing

Presenter13:52

Really, because you wanted to write, but you stopped writing because you had two children, and surprise, surprise, you didn't have time.

Minette Walters13:58

Yeah.

Presenter13:59

How long did you leave it, and why and when did you begin again?

Minette Walters14:03

I mean, I knew that I wanted to write a crime novel, but

Minette Walters14:06

I had no idea when I might start, and it was very funny because our next door neighbour, I came back from dropping both boys off at school, and I came back and I said to her, Jean,

Minette Walters14:19

Do you know I've got a whole day in front of me and I feel like going down on my knees and thanking God and she said to me, Minette, do something with it and I thought she's absolutely right. So I went in and I started the ice house and the I wrote about two pages and those pages never changed. A lot of the rest of it did, but those two pages never changed from that

Presenter14:41

For that day.

Minette Walters14:41

Uh

Presenter14:41

They've been in gestation.

Minette Walters14:43

Yeah.

Presenter14:43

I think so. But it took you two and a half years to write that book. Yes.

Minette Walters14:44

But it took you two and a half

Minette Walters14:46

Yes. Why did it take so long? Well, because it was so much harder than I thought it was going to be. I had to do a lot of research because I wasn't that knowledgeable at that stage. I'm rather more knowledgeable now about death and police procedure and all that sort of thing.

Presenter15:01

But there were shades of Agatha Christie there, weren't there?'Cause th these women, these three women lived in the big house and it was what the villagers thought of them and were they witches, were they lesbians, was she a murderess?

Minette Walters15:06

Just

Minette Walters15:09

Bins was she a murderess?

Minette Walters15:11

How did you

Presenter15:11

Who was the body? Well, quite. Who was the body? How did you make sure that it wasn't just a derivative Agatha Christie? Because it wasn't.

Speaker 115:13

Alright, who

Presenter15:21

What I set out

Minette Walters15:22

To do was to write the the crime thriller that intr sort of crime thriller that interested me, in other words, very claustrophobic, which is why I set it in this sort of country village. But in order to have it nothing like an Agatha Christie, to bring in this incredibly dark side to it, which I think is the influence possibly of Patricia Highsmith, who's probably my favourite writer. So as I kind of always describe the Ice House, there's a clash between Patricia Highsmith and Agatha Christie.

Minette Walters15:53

And you know, I mean, nobody could have been more excited than I was, except possibly my husband, because we really were quite poor at the time, and I should have been working, doing a proper job, and he was so supportive of me. When it took off, it was.

Presenter16:07

But it snapped.

Minette Walters16:08

No, no, no.

Minette Walters16:10

No, it was one of those books that did the rounds, and uh finally Maria Rait at Macmillan.

Minette Walters16:16

bought it and oh, the joy and delight in the house when somebody bought it. But how well what did you get paid for it? She claims it was twelve fifty, but I think it was twelve hundred.

Presenter16:22

Boom.

Presenter16:23

Uh

Presenter16:29

And

Minette Walters16:29

Ha.

Presenter16:29

And it was it was made best first crime novel, The John Creasy Award, amazing, so all those people who l watched it go by must have been kicking themselves.

Minette Walters16:33

On crease you would maze.

Minette Walters16:37

Yes, I think they were. And no, it was wonderful. It was such a a great success right from the start. Echo number four. Right. Well oh, now this is for my husband. This is Ode to Joy from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. And

Minette Walters16:56

We played this at our wedding and it's still his favourite piece of music.

Speaker 217:04

And there still

Speaker 217:35

On earth is earth and a pleasant heaven.

Speaker 217:41

Yeah.

Speaker 217:42

Yeah.

Presenter17:59

Part of the last movement of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 in D minor, the Ode to Joy, or to Freedom as it became in that recording made in Berlin in 1989, when it was performed by three huge choruses and six orchestras under the baton of Leonard Bernstein. They're all great sing-alongs, your pieces of music, aren't they? Yes, well I am going to.

Minette Walters18:13

Oh, this is a fine.

Minette Walters18:16

Need that on the desert island. You're conducting them here. Oh, conduct, yes, conduct.

Presenter18:17

Bayo.

Presenter18:19

And

Minette Walters18:20

I didn't think I'd better sing along.

Presenter18:22

All right, to ruin the tracks. So The Ice House was published in nineteen ninety two and there's kind of been w one a year for some time after that and then one every two years and so on. The sculptress you'd already written, I think, while you were waiting to find a publisher for The Ice House.

Minette Walters18:36

Yes, and that was quite worrying for my agents and my editors. And nobody had asked me if I was writing a sequel. They all assumed I was following the rules and writing series characters. Oh, having one but like a Morse or a choir. So of course they're all terribly excited about McLaughlin and Catterell who feature in the Ice House. The Policeman and the Woman. The Policeman and the Woman, yes. My agent did actually phone me and say, Well, it is about McLaughlin and Catrell. I said, No, no, it's a completely different story, the sculptress.

Presenter18:53

Yeah, so

Minette Walters19:10

And they went into complete panic because so, you know, they thought, Oh, my goodness me And thank goodness when it that everybody read it, um they loved it and that gave me the right from that moment on always to write what I wanted to and not have to follow the series character rule.

Presenter19:29

What what you as you went on through the nineties, it seems to me it was always there, but it seems to me that

Presenter19:35

They've become much more couched in social realism. And for example, Acid Rowe, your latest is set on a sink estate and in which an embittered social worker lets slip on purpose that there's a paedophile in their midst and so on. Obviously inspired by current stories. Is that where you get your inspiration?

Speaker 119:42

Duh.

Minette Walters19:48

Pile in there.

Minette Walters19:54

Is that where you get your inspiration? Yes. I mean, I was very interested in in I still I am deeply interested in how people react to to paedophilia, if you like. I mean, it is sort of

Minette Walters20:08

Everybody th throws their hands up in horror and screams. And I was particularly worried by the News of the World campaign to out paedophiles because I've been a prison visitor for a very long time and clearly a number of the people I have seen have been paedophiles. And I could not see how this campaign would be of any use actually in dealing with paedophiles. And so definitely acid row grew out of that. But you know, talking about the social realism, in a sense there is quite a lot you know, I'm not sure I would totally agree with you. I think all the books have been socially realistic in terms of the fact that each one is portraying prejudice of some variety or another.

Presenter20:55

Certainly, but but there's also you one can see, I think also you were inspired by the Stephen Lawrence murder, weren't you? In Shape of Snakes. It's the murder of a black person that might just go uninvestigated because that person was black.

Minette Walters21:07

Yeah, to be closed.

Minette Walters21:09

What I think fascinated me about the Stephen Lawrence story was the fact that it he needed champions. He was dead. And if his parents hadn't chosen to champion him, he would not have received justice. He still hasn't in one way is one way of looking at it.

Presenter21:26

Yeah.

Minette Walters21:26

Yeah.

Presenter21:26

Uh

Presenter21:26

So there's inspiration in current events, as it were. How much inspiration is there from these prisoners you visit? They give me.

Minette Walters21:35

wonderful insights into

Minette Walters21:38

You know, why they're there, what their lives. In a way, what you're doing to me now, finding insights into why I'm a writer, if you like. I'm always looking for insight into what takes people into prison. And it's very it's very sad how similar most of their backgrounds are. And it's these issues that I do try to bring into the stories.

Minette Walters22:00

Code number five.

Minette Walters22:01

Oh, now this is this is a wonderful record. This is Louis Armstrong's New Orleans Function, and it's uh it's a New Orleans funeral, in effect.

Presenter23:10

Louis Armstrong and part of his New Orleans

Minette Walters23:12

Definitely. It gets faster and faster. And it's also in case I, you know, when when I get miserable, I'll play the funeral.

Presenter23:13

Definitely.

Minette Walters23:21

Put myself in the mood for

Presenter23:24

You've also, Minette, written about rape. I mean, the braco is about rape, but controversially I've read that you've gone on to say that women shouldn't necessarily do what the police usually advocate and cooperate. Well, I think we've all been violent.

Minette Walters23:37

Well, I think we've all been conned women have been conned into assuming that just because a man is threatening, there's nothing you can do. And I think it's very, very important that women do fight. I think it's hard, of course it's desperate if a knife is being held to your throat. But I still urge people to run away, scream, do not give in tamely, because I think men then assume that it's such an easy thing to do. And women are bigger and tougher than this. We're very strong. And I think the police advice to give in was wrong. And I have met quite a lot of rapists, and they, I would say, by and large, they are very inadequate men. That's why they go in for rape, for goodness sake. And they would be terrified. Most of them would be terrified. But it's a difficult issue.

Presenter24:27

What is what's your latest uh book about and what's it been inspired by? Prison visiting or news stories or horror?

Minette Walters24:34

Yeah.

Presenter24:35

Yeah.

Minette Walters24:35

Well actually it's it's called Fox Evil. It's very much we live in Dorset and one of the sad parts about living in a beautiful county like Dorset is how many of the homes are holiday homes and communities are dying.

Presenter24:52

Yeah.

Minette Walters24:52

And who's the main?

Presenter24:52

In protagonist the Aged, it always seems to me.

Presenter24:55

It's a she and she's always quite middle class, whoever else is uh i i occurs in in this book. She's, you know, the female G P, the investigative writer, the political campaigner, the heiress.

Presenter25:08

She's kind of you really, isn't she?

Minette Walters25:11

Well, I I it's that th old chestnut, isn't it? I mean every single character I write comes out of my head. So every single character must be a part of me if it's come from my head. I think she's they're all very different. I mean Acid Ray for example, Melanie is very much a a sort of child of of a sink estate.

Speaker 125:27

Acid

Minette Walters25:34

And she's but she's a very feisty character. There's another similar character to her in Fox Evil.

Minette Walters25:41

But

Minette Walters25:42

One of the great joys, in my view, about the second half of the twentieth century is that class.

Minette Walters25:51

more or less vanished, and the middle class now makes up about ninety percent of the population, I've decided. Some of the worst problems exist within what would have been called the old middle class. And I think it's because the middle class

Minette Walters26:06

always tried to hide its secrets. You you pull the vet curtains, as it were, so people couldn't look in. And beat the wife. Yes, absolutely. And I think it's high time we were all exposed as being equally, you know, prone to these things.

Minette Walters26:22

Tell me about your next record.

Minette Walters26:24

This is a sketch or part of the the script from Life of Brian, and this is for my two sons who can do the entire film off by heart.

Speaker 226:36

Pilot, what does he want to see me for? Well, he wants to know which one you ought to be crucified. Oh, ha ha ha ha! Nice one, said George. Like it, like it. Shut up! Right.

Speaker 226:47

Hail Caesar. Hail. Only one survivor, sir. Oh!

Speaker 126:49

Only one survivor's house.

Speaker 226:51

Throw him to the floor.

Speaker 226:53

What's up?

Speaker 226:54

Throw him to the floor.

Speaker 226:58

Now

Speaker 226:59

What is your name, Jew? Brian, sir. Brian, eh?

Presenter27:06

This Brian before pilot, the sketch from Monty Python's Life of Brian, and so you've had your singing and you're dancing, that's your laughter.

Minette Walters27:12

Oh, it has to be. I I I have to have comedy all the time. It's my favorite thing. Say that, and that is such a funny film.

Presenter27:20

And that's to remember your sons by both now in their twenties. Do do they enjoy your books or do they criticise them or?

Minette Walters27:27

I do remember a lovely story with my younger son, and he was a weekly boarder at his prep school, and he was aged 12 at the time. And he was reading The Sculptress, and Matron came in and confiscated it from him. And he said, But Matron, my mother wrote that. And she said, I know, darling, that's why I'm confiscating it. I've read it.

Presenter27:50

Which I thought was sweet. And do they get to read it uh while it's uh in in progress, your work, or does your husband, or does it

Minette Walters27:58

Anyone? No, nobody reads it in progress. My husband's the first person to read it and he

Minette Walters28:07

He's very helpful.

Presenter28:08

You take his criticism.

Minette Walters28:10

Oh yes, but because he always reads it as a reader would read it. You know, he's not reading it as an editor would read it. So he's reading it a as a reader, and he can tell me if it goes slow anywhere or too fast sometimes. And after that it goes to my agents.

Presenter28:27

And what's the risk? Uh

Minette Walters28:27

Uh Uh

Presenter28:27

Jean, ha I mean, do you have set writing hours or do you just do it when the inspiration comes to you?

Minette Walters28:31

No, no. I don't I don't know any author who does that, you know. I think you you have to treat it like a job.

Minette Walters28:38

So I start about half past eight in the morning, usually work through till about one or two, and then I have a break till about, say, five, half past five in the evening and keep going again till eight or half past eight. But that's because those are my two best times. And how much difference has your success made to your lives? Materially, I want to know about? Well, we've we've bought a manor house which uh you know from from very very young I always wanted to have a good address and I think that's from reading Jane Austen, you know, Pride and Prejudice. You want a carriageway drive and the sound

Minette Walters29:16

I just think it's lovely to have a good address, and I adore we have a lovely, lovely house. So, yes, in that respect, materially, things are quite different.

Minette Walters29:26

And I also have a rather good car, my toy, which I enjoy, a jag. But other than that, no, I don't think much has changed at all. Number seven.

Minette Walters29:37

Right, this is um Richard Rodney Bennett's I Never Went Away, sung by Cleo Lane. Why do you want that? It's um features in the Skull's Bridal, and Richard's a friend of mine.

Speaker 229:49

I tried to get away from you.

Speaker 229:55

The past remind me

Speaker 229:58

I went on trains and boats and planes where love

Speaker 230:04

Could never find my

Speaker 230:08

But oh my dear

Speaker 230:11

However far away I flew

Presenter30:16

Richard Rodney Bennett's I Never Went Away sung by Cleo Lane. Um you're very good, I gather, Minette, with a with a with a spanner and a hammer, and not murdering people, but you've been your own roofer and your own plumber, you're a DIY expert, yes?

Minette Walters30:29

DIY expert, yes? Well, I'm I'm I adore it, you see, and it's it's people always want to know why, but you see it's such a wonderful sort of counterbalance to sitting in front of a computer all day, creating things in your own imagination, being able to just put rollers up walls or do the plumbing, whatever. It's a manual, physically m

Minette Walters30:49

Tiring exercise and also I can listen to radio four while I'm doing it.

Presenter30:55

So you'll have a shelter knocked up in no time.

Minette Walters30:57

Well, yes, I hope so.

Presenter30:59

How else do you imagine yourself coping? I mean, the the the isolation of the writer is probably quite good preparation, isn't it? Uh You know

Minette Walters31:06

Uh

Presenter31:07

Uh

Minette Walters31:07

I always thought, funny enough, that I wouldn't have a problem, until

Minette Walters31:12

I started really thinking about what it would be like to be on a desert island with eight records, three books.

Minette Walters31:20

And a luxury. And I thought I will be climbing the walls of this little house I've made for myself very quickly. And I because I am, I adore my family. I should be devastated not to be able to see them. I adore my animals. I've got lots of animals. And I think I shall get very, very lonely. So you fear loneliness? You fear boredom? Do you fear death?

Presenter31:45

Do you f

Minette Walters31:47

No, I don't think I fear death. I was I've always seen death as

Minette Walters31:53

sleep and I've never been afraid to go to sleep and uh so I think by the time I come to die I think I shall quite look forward to it.

Minette Walters32:05

Watch of me or by me.

Minette Walters32:08

Of you, I had in mind. Oh, of me. Well, then I won't know much about it, so it'll be very quick, and it'll all be last record.

Presenter32:09

I had in my

Speaker 232:14

You have

Presenter32:15

Uh

Speaker 132:16

Yeah.

Speaker 232:16

Who?

Minette Walters32:18

Right, this is Plathido Dominguez singing Nu Puy desin.

Minette Walters32:24

Um I think probably because how when I heard him sing it in the Three Tenors concert.

Minette Walters32:30

I was bowled over by it. I just think it is the most wonderful piece of music.

Speaker 132:35

Yeah.

Minette Walters32:35

Yeah.

Speaker 232:53

Or um

Presenter33:35

Passado Domingo singing the Aria no Puedeser, It's Not Possible from the Three Tenors Concert of Nineteen Ninety with the Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and the Orchestra del Teatro del Opera di Roma, conducted by Zubin Mehta. Now if you could only take um one of those eight records, Minute, which one are you going to take?

Minette Walters33:52

I think it would have to be Louis Armstrong's New Orleans functions. And what about your book? Well, are you going to let me have the Oxford English Dictionary as a C D ROM? Strictly speaking, no, it's a reference book. Oh. No reference book. That's kind of you. Because I've got that and it is wonderful. Well, can I have the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations then, please? It's also a reference book, strictly speaking. Yes, but it's got everything I'll need. I think I will find it.

Presenter34:06

Yeah, no reference.

Presenter34:14

Yeah.

Minette Walters34:21

Very tiresome trying to read the same book over and over and over again, whereas the Oxford Dictionary quotations will give me a thousand authors to choose from. And your luxury. Oh, now my luxury is um a real luxury. Uh what I want is Van Gogh's Irises, which I think are currently in the

Minette Walters34:42

Getty Center in Los Angeles. The reason I would like that, please, is one, it's a beautiful painting. Two,

Minette Walters34:50

When things get really desperate, I might be able to use it as a roof shelter. And three, if everybody in the world knows that I'm sitting on a painting that's worth fifty five million dollars, or probably more by now, I hope they'll come and find me.

Minette Walters35:06

Vinette Walters, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island design. Thank you, Sue.

Presenter35:09

I've loved it.

Speaker 135:10

Uh

Speaker 135:17

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