Barbara Taylor Bradford

Barbara Taylor Bradford0:00

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.

Barbara Taylor Bradford0:08

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

Presenter0:23

My Costaway this week is a writer. Her most successful novel, A Woman of Substance, ranks among the most popular works of fiction ever written. It sold more than 20 million copies, and more people request her books from libraries in Britain than any other author. This writer of substance was born in Yorkshire 70 years ago and, as a typist on the Yorkshire Evening Post, got her stories published by slipping them into the copy tray when no one was looking.

Presenter0:49

This simple act of determined ambition set her on a career path as a journalist. Then in her forties she wrote the book that was to make her famous. She's now written eighteen novels, mainstream fiction for women, she calls them, the fruits of the desire to excel, which she believes she was given as a child. When you read a book of mine, she says, you're reading a lot of what I'm about. She is Barbara Taylor Bradford. Of course what we read about Barbara are driven women, women of great talent and ambition, and also of great discipline. I mean, these women are made up of pieces of you, aren't they? I think so, yes, Sue, a little bit. My husband always says to me, No, not a little bit, a lot. So somewhere in the middle. Well, certainly there are often women, and Emma Hart, your woman of substance, is a woman of Yorkshire roots. I mean, you went back to what you knew, didn't you, in order to begin identifying.

Speaker 31:41

The AI dating.

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But she's also a woman who, as well as having all that drive, is also.

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Very good natured, very honest, very decent. That's important to you, isn't it? It is. I've always tried to give my female protagonists integrity. And I think that's what appeals to a lot of the readers. They write to me and say, your women are honourable. And that's what they like. And Emma was very vulnerable. I say was, because I killed her off in Old the Dream, but I should say is vulnerable because she still lives on in my head and in my heart. She had a good heart herself, an understanding heart, and she was vulnerable. And

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A mixture of many things, but also a good businesswoman, which I think is what

Presenter2:29

Comes over in that way. Indeed, I mean, she ends up running a department store empire. It's sort of Harrods, really, Harts. Well, it's not the story of Harrods, but I borrowed their building, let me put it in the middle of the day. Well, absolutely. And the whole style of it. And of course, she also owns newspapers, and there's a hugely successful empire. I mean, this woman has never existed. Have you ever met anyone who comes anywhere near her?

Speaker 32:30

Yeah.

Speaker 32:35

Well it's not

Barbara Taylor Bradford2:37

I'm born.

Barbara Taylor Bradford2:40

Well, absolutely.

Barbara Taylor Bradford2:42

Yeah.

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People have said to me they've not asked me they've I was going to say ask me, but they haven't. They've said, Oh, she's rather improbable and I've said, No, she's not rather improbable, because you've not done your research like I did. There was a woman who I considered was the greatest monarch in the world at her time.

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not just of England, but in the world, and that was Elizabeth Tudor. Now here you have this magnificent woman who was kind of a a Grand Emma Hart, if you think about it. And then there's a woman such as Catherine the Great, who has been very denigrated, but yet was a marvellous woman. And what about

Barbara Taylor Bradford3:22

Uh

Speaker 33:22

If you

Barbara Taylor Bradford3:22

Uh

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Our century. We had Helena Rubinstein and Mrs. Thatcher. Well, I was just getting to her. Yes, Margaret Thatcher, and a a true woman of substance. So these are the women you have admired and

Barbara Taylor Bradford3:35

We have insisted that

Barbara Taylor Bradford3:38

Uh

Speaker 33:39

Ugh.

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These are the women or this is the kind of woman you, Barbara Taylor Bradford, aspire to be.

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I do. I hope I'm disciplined and good hearted as well and all of the things I said Emma was. I hope to be like that. Certainly I know I've got integrity.

Presenter4:03

Okay. Well, we'll we'll trace your story in a minute and hear what we feel about it as it goes through. But let's let's hear about your first record. What's it to be? My first record is One Fine Day. I've chosen it to

Presenter4:17

because it was my mother's great favourite. She loved opera and would try to go when the opera was in Leeds, and she didn't always have someone to look after me, so I was dragged along. I always choke up when I hear one fine day because I think of my mother.

Speaker 34:47

Every single thing.

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On thinking the morning.

Speaker 35:16

An ovium ball.

Barbara Taylor Bradford5:29

What is it?

Presenter5:38

One fine day from Puccini's Madam Butterfly, sung by Maria Callas with the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Tullio Serafine. So, your mother, Barbara Taylor-Bradford, used to take you to the ballet and to the opera. This was in Upper Armley. Obviously, you went to the cinema as well, the Picture Drome, I think you went to. That was in Armley, yes. Did that must have infected you with this love of narrative?

Speaker 35:54

Like yes.

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I think it did. I was absolutely blown away as I sat there in the dark watching people like Carrie Grant and Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire. I think I fell in love with glamour.

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Then, because it it was a time when movie stars really were.

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glamorous and elegant and beautiful, and where are they to day? And fell in love with it in the sense that you wanted to write about it or that you wanted to have it yourself, because of course you achieved both.

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I'm not sure.

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I think what I did when I was sitting there was

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be fascinated by the story. And a lot of people said, Did your mother write? or did your father write? My father was a wonderful raconteur, but I think seeing those movies, I learnt about storytelling because that's what I do. I'm a storyteller. What did you do for a living, your father? My father was an engineer.

Barbara Taylor Bradford6:49

Um

Presenter6:55

He had been in the Royal Navy in the First World War. He joined under age. And if you read A Woman of Substance and read about Winston Hart, you're really reading about Winston Taylor. Matthew's Emma's brother, Winston Hart. Yes, that's right. My father also.

Barbara Taylor Bradford7:07

My museum is

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Lost a leg.

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He got shrapnel, exactly like Winston, in his calf, and before you knew it the gangrene had set in and travelled. He always told me that his mother came to him and said, Winston,

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If you don't have your leg off.

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Now

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You're not going to be alive.

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Which is exactly what Emma Hart says to her brother, Winston, isn't it? So he's apparently said to her, and I stole it.

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Well, all right, ma'am, you know that lovely Yorkshire word I'll have it off. I suppose half a loaf is better than none.

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So there it is in living colour in a woman of substance. Now the other thing, of course, is that your book, I think, Act of Will, reflects, does it not, your parents' marriage. There's autobiography there as well, isn't there? Yes, and it's the only book that is semi-autobiographical.

Barbara Taylor Bradford7:53

Yeah.

Barbara Taylor Bradford7:55

Now that

Speaker 38:03

Uh

Presenter8:08

And I couldn't write it until they were dead, because I really wrote, in a sense, about this very tumultuous marriage that they had. They were either in each other's arms or at each other's throats, and he was very good looking, and he had an eye for the girls at times, you know. And really what it was that Audrey did, I suppose my mother did, and that is

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kind of push me without me knowing I was being pushed, and sacrifice, make many sacrifices, so that I could have the life that she had never had.

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And when she died and my agent wrote me a letter, Morton Janclo in New York, he said, Your mother gave you the greatest thing a mother can give a child the desire to excel.

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And she did.

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Tell me about your second record.

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My second record is I'll Be Seeing You, sung by Rod Stewart from his new album, and I chose it because in Emma's Secret I bring Emma back, and to do that I have to go to the war years because those years were pretty much

Presenter9:21

Told in a little bit of narrative and then a few little scenes, but no long chapters. The book was getting too long, so I had to skimp on the war and those years of the Blitz. So in the book, I have the war years with Emma, and I have some of those lovely songs that.

Presenter9:42

We all remember if we were around in those days. Songs that won the war. Yes, songs exactly.

Speaker 39:45

Songs that won the war.

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I'll be seeing you.

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In all the old, familiar places.

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That this heart of man embraceth

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All day through.

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In that small cafe

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The Pa

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Rod Stewart and I'll be seeing you. So your mother taught you to read, Barbara, and then you started to write. How old were you when you had your first story published?

Presenter10:26

I was ten years old, and for some reason my father thought I wanted a pony. Now, I didn't want a pony, actually, but he was always saying to me, When I'm rich, I'm going to buy you a pony. But of course, he was never rich, so I never got the pony, perhaps to my relief, you know. So I wrote a story about a little girl who gets a pony. And it was only about three or four pages. And three months later, we got a letter and a postal order for seven and six or ten and six. I can't remember the exact amount, it's so long ago. But I said to my mother, I don't care about the money, I want to see my name there. So there was obviously that ambition and ego about writing was already there, wasn't it? And you saw it eventually. I did, Barbara Taylor. And was that your fate sealed, your destiny sealed? Yes, I think my destiny was sealed that day. I said to my mother, I'm going to write books one day. And she said, oh, that'll be nice. You know, sort of not really paying any attention. Which is why, of course, you went into journalism and you went to the Yorkshire Evening Post and a chap called Keith Waterhouse who used to help you along a bit. He did. How did you get these stories into the paper? Because you were taken on as a typist, weren't you? Yes. How did you slip your stories into the coffee tray? Well, part of the week, every girl in the typist department had to go into the copy room. And what it was was a room with long tables and little booze. And you put on earphones and sat there until a voice said, This is Keith Waterhouse. Who am I talking to? Oh, it's Barbara Keith. And then, well, I'm out here at the court. Can you take my copy? So you sat there typing as he dictated. And it was special paper, and you just put Keith Waterhouse at the top and took it when he'd finished. He says, Goodbye, and you take off your headphones and go into the sub-editor and you just dropped it down.

Barbara Taylor Bradford10:48

Name is that.

Barbara Taylor Bradford11:14

I did.

Barbara Taylor Bradford11:18

Is that

Presenter12:27

So when I came to write my stories, I used the same paper with my name at the top, Barbara Taylor, and dropped it down. And they ran three or four and came the day that the accounts department said, Who is Barbara Taylor? Is she a stringer that we have in Doncaster or Ripon or somewhere like that? And no, they discovered me in the typist pool and the editor was intrigued. It's like one of your books. It is in a way. Fools rush in where angels fear to tread. So he was very intrigued and said, Well, have you written? And I told him, you know, local newspapers and all of that. I said, Oh, sometime.

Barbara Taylor Bradford12:29

Still

Speaker 312:54

Which is in a way.

Barbara Taylor Bradford12:55

Yeah.

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Bring me your book of scraps, you know, your scrapbook, your book of pieces. So I said, I will, thank you very much, sir. And off I went. And at lunchtime, I ran out of the office, on the tram, up to Upper Armley, into the house. My mother said, oh, good, you've been sacked, because she didn't want me on this paper. She wanted me at Leeds University. So I said, no, panting, got the book, took it back, went back to his office, and he said, Barbara, what is it? And I was out of breath and I told him what I'd done. I brought the cuttings book. Yes, exactly. Sooner said than done. So he was intrigued. And that's the beginning of my journalism. It's amazing. Tell me about record number three.

Speaker 313:35

Temporal

Barbara Taylor Bradford13:36

Uh

Speaker 313:36

Yeah.

Presenter13:46

O my beloved father And again a story about my father, because he always thought that whoever was singing it was singing about the father. And one day I said to him, But, Daddy,

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You're wrong, you know.

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She's singing about the man she loves. She's going to go and see him and get her wedding dress. And he said, Oh, Barbara Love, I don't care if she's singing about her father or her lover. I just like this song, and I love the words and I love the music. But she always called me Our Barbara or Barbara Love. I'd call him, you know, from New York, and he'd say that you are Barbara. And I said, Who else would call you Daddy?

Presenter14:30

We had wonderful report team. So this is for my father.

Speaker 314:53

I know.

Speaker 315:14

Uh

Presenter15:33

That was Yvonne Kenny singing Oh My Beloved Father from Puccini's Gianni Schiki with the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by David Parry. So Barbara Taylor Bradford, or Barbara Taylor as you then were, age 20, you came to London, came to the big smoke, became the fashion editor of Woman's Own, which of course had lots and lots of romantic fiction in it at the time. All those sort of soppy love stories. Did you never want to write one of those for it? No, and I never read them actually, to tell you the honesty. Oh, very good. I read the features. There were several fashion editors, actually. I was one of several. But when I got there, I was very impressed by all these women in the fashion department because they all wore hats and they came to work in them. So I went out and I remember buying a green pie hat, you know, pill box, really, I suppose we would call it today. Green, like that microphone. But I always felt rather foolish going to work because I'd worked on a newspaper, you know, before in a dirty trench coat. That was my mode of dressing in those days. So where were you heading, do you think? Do you think you thought you were going to become the kind of.

Barbara Taylor Bradford15:44

AH

Barbara Taylor Bradford15:46

Yeah, yeah.

Barbara Taylor Bradford16:01

High bread.

Presenter16:44

Jean Rook Linda Lee Potter figure of those days. Or were you going to be a kind of crime reporter in the dirty trench coat? Well, my mother said something to me one day that has always remained in my mind. She said, You have to live life a little, Barbara, before you can write about it.

Speaker 317:00

Hmm.

Presenter17:01

And she was right. So the next best thing to writing novels, in my mind, was to become a journalist. And I think at different times, depending on what movie I'd seen with her at the Picture Drome, whether it was Rosalind Russell in Front Page or Jimmy Stewart in Dial Northside 777, which was a newspaper story, I wanted to be a foreign correspondent or maybe a crime reporter. So I think I wanted to write I know I wanted to write books, but I realized that I had to live life a little to understand people. And then you met and fell in love with Bob Bradford, an American movie maker. Was it, as in your novels, a kind of love at first sight? A coup de food? I think it was, yes. He'd been given my name by a mutual friend when he was going to make a movie here. And it was so easy. Within half an hour, I felt that I'd always known him.

Presenter18:04

And apparently he felt the same. How long have you been married now? At Christmas, we would have been married forty years.

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For more music, number four.

Presenter18:13

Number four, I've chosen this because it's one of my own favourites. It's Rachmaninoff's piano concerto number two in C minor. It's almost like that grand theme that you would have behind a very dramatic Hollywood movie of the 40s and 50s, or indeed maybe a television miniseries.

Presenter19:34

End of Rachmaninoff's piano concerto number two in C minor, played by Vladimir Ashkenazi with the Philharmonia Orchestra again, conducted this time by Andri Previn. The theme tune, of course, to Brief Encounter. So, Barbara, you off you went to the States, you married Bob and you started writing a syndicated column, and you started writing some books, including one, I think, How to Be a Perfect Wife. Yes, I laugh about that these days. They sold like crazy. And you know, having written a woman of substance about this warrior woman who goes out to conquer the world, people have teased me about it, especially the press who have managed to dig up these books and say, But Barbara, this is totally opposite. And I said, Well, I meant it when I wrote it and they asked me to do it, and now my attitudes have changed. You also were asked to write some children's poetry, I think. What was that? What kind of books are you? Yes, I did a number of children's books. I edited a couple for the uh another publishing house. They this particular house had bought the most beautifully illustrated book I've ever seen for children, and it was um in Czech.

Speaker 320:25

Because I did a number of

Presenter20:41

And it w the illustrations each page had an illustration and a a poem in Czech. And they said, Do you think you could look at the picture? Because they didn't know really what the words said. They just loved the pictures. Can you look at this picture? And then do a little poem about the same length. And I thought, well, why not? And I drove Bob crazy. I would call him at the office and say, How does this sound? The Sandman has the swiftest wings and shoes that are made of gold. And he comes to you when the first star sings and the night is not very old. He said, Do you mind? I'm in a meeting. But it was a lovely children's book, and I enjoyed doing it. It was a challenge. But finally, finally, in your, I think, early forties, you'd started writing, you'd written a few novels and dumped them and so on, but finally you come up with the big one, the woman of substance, this history of the heart family from Victorian times, really, and as it went on to the present day.

Speaker 321:31

Started.

Presenter21:43

Why do you think it took that long? Is it simply that you hadn't lived enough life as you said your mother said you should? Or why did it suddenly emerge that this was the kind of stuff you were going to be successful with?

Presenter21:55

You know, I really I had to ask myself a lot of questions one day. I did have the syndicated column on interior design, and I'd done a number of interior design books that had been very successful. And one Monday morning I said, All right,

Presenter22:10

You're in your early forties, you've always wanted to be a novelist. You must do it now, because you don't want to end up being one of those women who regrets not having done certain things.

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So I said, What do you want to write? Where do you want to set it? What do you want it to be about? And I came up with old fashioned English saga, partially set in Yorkshire, because I know Yorkshire people and what they're made of.

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I want to write about a woman and then I thought, who makes it in a man's world. And then I thought, but women's doing that. It has to be more unusual. And I thought, Ah

Presenter22:50

when women were not doing that.

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Not every woman was doing that.

Presenter22:55

So there it was. And there have been seventeen other works of fiction ever since, sold in ninety countries in heaven knows how many languages. I think some forty thirty. Amazing. Amazing. So that was the big turning point. Let's pause there for some more music.

Barbara Taylor Bradford23:04

Thirty third forty something late.

Presenter23:12

I WOULD LIKE I REMEBER You Sung by Diana Kroll. It reminds me all the time of Bob. Not particularly that one song, but the singer of the song.

Presenter23:24

Um I often if I'm out and he's come home from the office before I'm back, and I know he's home because I hear this lady singing, and I think, Oh, good Bob's home He just loves the way she sings.

Speaker 323:38

I will

Speaker 323:42

You're the one who made my dreams come true.

Speaker 323:48

A few.

Speaker 323:49

Kisses ago

Speaker 323:59

I will

Speaker 324:04

Uh

Presenter24:04

You're the one who said.

Presenter24:06

Diana Krall, and I remember you. Um, you and Bob haven't had any children, Barbara. Um he now helps you manage uh your business, the B T B, the Barbara Taylor Bradford business. I mean, in a sense, I suppose the books and the characters in them are your children, aren't they?

Presenter24:22

Well, sort of. It wasn't that we set out not to have children and I didn't say, Oh, I'm going to have a big career. I had a miscarriage and I never got pregnant again. And I'm not the kind of person who says, Oh, that's terrible, and becomes gloomy about it. I've had an awful lot of lovely things in my life, and I can't worry about a child that I've never known.

Presenter24:49

You know, we it's the luck of the draw, isn't it? I'd have loved children, but I don't have them. I've got a great marriage. I've got Bob, who is a great supporter of mine in every way, as I hope I am of him. And we've got to be content. And there's a lot in it too. I mean, every time you produce a book, and as we say, you've produced eighteen of these kind of it gives you a rock, huh?

Presenter25:12

He gives you a well, that got a bit exaggerated. He gave me that pretty gold bracelet once, and he gave me those pearls. But they're never big rocks. They're a pair of earrings or a bracelet or a token. Marks the moment. Yes, to mark the moment. But actually, what I love getting is the finished book. I'm not a bit jaded about that. And what better thing can you have than to see it? There it is. And of course, it reads totally different when you read it as a book. Does it? Better.

Speaker 325:13

Be ready.

Barbara Taylor Bradford25:24

Death.

Speaker 325:24

But

Barbara Taylor Bradford25:24

Scrap.

Barbara Taylor Bradford25:26

Uh

Barbara Taylor Bradford25:41

Yeah.

Presenter25:43

It sound it seems better, it seems like yes. Because they're hard won, of course. I mean, people might imagine that because you've written so many, just sit down and conjure them up. But it's hard work, isn't it? Don't you sit there staring at a blank wall? Yes, it's my screen. I sit there staring, and in my mind, I see all these things happening. I envision the characters and the scenes.

Barbara Taylor Bradford25:43

So it's just

Barbara Taylor Bradford25:44

But that's lucky it's

Barbara Taylor Bradford25:50

But it's

Presenter26:03

And it is a screen, in a way. Because I do see it all, and I do believe it all, and I do believe those characters are real, and if I didn't you wouldn't believe it either.

Presenter26:14

The author's got to truly believe that those things are happening.

Presenter26:20

Cook number six. Well, you know, I think that Frank Sinatra was always probably the greatest entertainer in popular uh music that there has ever been.

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And since I often write about unrequited love, I've chosen

Presenter26:38

That great barroom song One for My Baby.

Speaker 226:43

I think you should know.

Speaker 226:49

We're drinking my friend

Speaker 226:53

To the end.

Speaker 226:56

of a brief episode?

Speaker 227:03

Make it one for my baby.

Speaker 227:08

And another one.

Speaker 227:10

Alright

Presenter27:11

Frank Sinatra and one for Mike Davy.

Presenter27:14

Um you and Bob, Barbara, are currently fighting in the Indian courts because um Woman of Substance has been plagiarised by an Indian soap opera for television. This isn't the first time it's happened out there. I mean Bollywood is notorious for it and I think The Godfather and Jackie Collins Dynasty and Reservoir Dogs have all been plagiarised. Why have you decided on this occasion to take action?

Presenter27:37

Well, first of all, it wasn't only one book. We found out that it was three books. It was a trilogy.

Presenter27:44

And it was three of the movies Bob had made.

Presenter27:47

And I actually got a bit panicky because we discovered from their website that they were doing two hundred and sixty two episodes and planning two hundred and sixty two more for next year. But it's the principal you say you'll fight rather than damages, is it? It's the principal and

Barbara Taylor Bradford28:02

Damages, is it?

Presenter28:05

You can't go around stealing intellectual property from other people, and I hope it will help other authors who don't have my resources or my courage to go all that way and go into a High Court in Calcutta.

Presenter28:21

The rewards, as you say, for your efforts, for all the work you've done over the years and these books that you've produced have been great. Of course, you live in a lovely apartment in New York overlooking the East River and you collect beautiful furniture and

Barbara Taylor Bradford28:30

Yeah.

Speaker 328:33

Yeah.

Barbara Taylor Bradford28:33

Top

Presenter28:34

And it's all there in your books, isn't it? That love of quality, you know, whether when you're describing the Persian carpets and the damask hangings and the Hartnell ball gowns. I mean, these are the things you love. They give you great pleasure and they give a lot of other women pleasure. And even women that can't have those things like to dream about having them. But did your parents ever see you achieve them?

Speaker 328:39

Describe it.

Barbara Taylor Bradford28:40

Yeah.

Barbara Taylor Bradford28:44

Yeah.

Barbara Taylor Bradford28:47

Yes, I do, and

Presenter28:58

Well, they were both alive until A Woman of Substance came out. It was rather sad really because my father died in nineteen eighty one in the October, and after that

Presenter29:12

Burying him?

Presenter29:14

I went back to New York. My mother wouldn't come with me. She insisted on staying where she was, and I I must have called her four times a day for weeks. But sadly, she died five weeks after he did. But essentially her dream for you was fulfilled, wasn't it? It was. And you know, she did say to me, oddly that it's odd that you bring that up, because when I gave her the hard cover of A Woman of Substance, she did say to me, This is the fulfilment of your childhood dream.

Presenter29:43

Meaning that I'd finally written the novel I'd always threatened to write.

Presenter29:49

Number seven.

Presenter29:50

I've chosen Visi Darty.

Presenter29:53

From Tosca, because it was my mother's.

Presenter29:55

favourite opera of all the operas. I mean she loved the the one I had in the beginning, but this she loved tremendously and would always go to see it when it was on in in Leeds and would take me with her. And actually it's one of Bob's favourite operas because he is very much into classical music as well and opera. So that's what I'd like and I do love Kerry Tecanawa, one of my favorite opera singers.

Speaker 330:27

Tori one, two, and yo. Oh I'm striking can you pube?

Presenter31:12

Vissi date, vissi damore, I've lived for art, I've lived for love, from Puccini's Tosca, sung by Kiritikanoa, with the Welsh National Opera Chorus conducted by Sir George Schulte. So now we move together, Barbara, into the realms of fiction, and place you on a desert island, all on your own. What kind of

Presenter31:30

What figure will you cut, do you think? What sort of figure would I cut? Well, frankly, I think I'd be looking to be rescued. But I think that I would try. I mean, obviously, you have to, if you're a practical woman, which I am. You still polish your own furniture, Irene. I do that sometimes, yes. Well, you don't trust anybody. That's nasty silicon on the end. That's exactly right. I think that I would make a sort of hut or a place to be able to sleep. What about snaring the rabbits and catching the fish?

Barbara Taylor Bradford31:43

You still

Barbara Taylor Bradford31:46

Top

Barbara Taylor Bradford31:50

And that

Presenter32:04

Catching the fish I might be able to do all right, but I wouldn't want to catch rabbits because they remind me of my little dogs, you know. So I wouldn't want to catch a rabbit and start cooking it. I I think I was eating bee gee or chamois.

Presenter32:20

But um hopefully I'd get rescued, but I'd I'd just have to try and manage. I mean, I suppose anybody would. And I wouldn't care what sort of figure I cut, because there's nobody there to see me, right? Last record.

Presenter32:36

Well, you know, when I was going to school, I went first to a school called Christ Church.

Presenter32:44

Church of England School. So I chose Jerusalem because it's one of my favorite hymns. It's stirring and inspiring and there's something wonderful about it. And so that is my choice.

Speaker 332:58

Cause fields in ancient time Walk upon eagles and mountains green.

Speaker 333:08

And was the holy love of God, Andles and Pastius sin, And did the thirst from man to fall.

Speaker 333:26

The voice holds fill in my heart.

Speaker 333:32

See wheel.

Presenter33:47

Charlotte Church singing Jerusalem with the Orchestra of the Welsh National Opera conducted by Sean Edwards. Now, Barbara, if you could only take one of those eight records, which one would you pick out? I would take the Kere Ticanawa. The Visidate. Yes. I was toying with Jerusalem, but I think I would take the Tosca, because Bob loves it.

Presenter34:09

My mother loved it, and it was mother mother who introduced it to me, so that's the one I would choose. What about your book? We give you, as I'm sure you know, the Bible, and we give you the complete works of Shakespeare.

Presenter34:20

I think after a lot of reflection

Presenter34:23

This week, before I did the show, I decided upon a book called David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. It's about a person overcoming great adversity.

Presenter34:36

And I write about women who overcome great adversity, and I'm on that desert island and I probably have to have some inspiration about overcoming the adversity of being alone there.

Presenter34:50

And we allow you one luxury. What would you like to take? A little bag of eye makeup, especially mascara. Being a blonde, I've got blonde eyelashes. And if I'm going to be rescued by a handsome British sailor in a rowboat, at least I want to have my eyes looking right.

Presenter35:09

Barbara Taylor Bradford, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs. Thank you.

Barbara Taylor Bradford35:21

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