Virginia McKenna

Virginia McKenna0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in two thousand and four, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:30

My Castaway this week is an actress and a conservationist. In the fifties and early sixties she and her husband Bill Travers were the golden couple of the British cinema. She was the star of popular films such as A Town Like Alice and Carve Her Name with Pride.

Presenter0:44

But it was the first film they starred in together that really catapulted them into the limelight. Born Free told the story of the game wardens George and Joy Adamson and the lioness they reared called Elsa.

Presenter0:57

Making that film, the actors became conservationists too. They went on to campaign against the cruel captivity of animals and help draft international regulations for their welfare.

Presenter1:08

Bill Travers died suddenly ten and a half years ago, but his wife continues their work. All of our lives are inextricably linked with animals, she says. When we mistreat them, we degrade ourselves. She is, of course, Virginia McKenna. And to try to keep a wild animal as a pet, you feel, is to mistreat them, Virginia, and that happens more than we know, I think, doesn't it?

Presenter1:33

Well, it does. Um I was astounded to learn not so very long ago that there are about ten thousand tigers in the United States kept as so-called domestic pets, but they're wild animals and kept in very, very extraordinary circumstances like someone's apartment or in some old garage or something. And there are more kept as pets you say ten thousand in America. And there are fewer fewer tigers than that in the wild. Yes, there are about five thousand altogether in the wild.

Virginia McKenna1:55

And there are fewer, fewer

Presenter2:02

So it makes you think, doesn't it? But how does that ha what kind of people would do that? I don't know. Well, I maybe it's like having a status symbol or uh uh that I am I own this magnificent creature and it only can

Presenter2:16

Eat when I say it can, or I give it food. It can only do what I want, and of course it can't

Presenter2:21

Do anything much because it's so confined in the most terrible circumstances for a wild creature. There is one, isn't there, in Monacozoo, a rare white Bengal tiger called Nina. Tell me about her. Well, I've had a sort of personal campaign against Monacozoo for quite a long time now, going back to the mid-nineties. And I haven't had a huge amount of success. That tiger was there then, and her pen, her cage, is actually a little better than it was when I first saw her, but not what tigers should live in. So, Nina, so far is one of your failures. Give me a quick rundown of your successes.

Virginia McKenna2:32

Tell me about her.

Speaker 32:55

Yeah.

Virginia McKenna2:55

That's what we

Presenter2:58

The rescuing of big cats. Well, it's nice to have a few successes to to make the balance right. The very first three animals we rescued from Tenerife, who lived in tiny cages on top of a bar,

Virginia McKenna2:58

If there's a

Speaker 32:59

BING

Virginia McKenna2:59

Okay.

Presenter3:09

A male lan and a female larnis and a leopard. On top of a bar. Yes, yes, in in Tenerife. And we had letters from British tourists saying, For Godness sake, can you help us rescue these animals? And we finally did. It took nearly five years to get them out of there, but we

Speaker 33:14

Well yeah

Virginia McKenna3:14

Best room.

Presenter3:26

Give up very reluctantly, always.

Presenter3:29

And that, releasing a domestically bred big cat back into a kind of wild anyway is exactly of course what the story of Born Free was about, which uh began all of this, the story of Elsa the Lioness and a film which changed your life forty years ago. You couldn't really not take this first record to your desert island, could you?

Presenter3:49

I'd have to.

Speaker 43:53

Born free As free as the wind blows

Speaker 44:02

As free as the grass grows, Ball free to follow your heart.

Speaker 44:13

Live free.

Speaker 44:17

Um

Presenter4:17

Beauty Surrounds You. Born Free, sung by Matt Munro from the 1966 film starring my castaway Virginia McKenna, and it was a film which was to change your lives, yours and your husband Bill Travers. Having said that, it was never really going to be just another film, was it? You had literally to walk into the lion's den.

Presenter4:38

Yes, we did. I mean, w we thought it was just going to be another film at the beginning, because we were told, Oh, it's easy, you know, you just they're like big pussy cats. They they come up to you and stroke them and pat them, and we said, Oh, that sounds fantastically easy. Oh, they said, There's no problem. However, when we got there, it wasn't quite like that, particularly at the beginning, because the two lionesses they'd chosen to work with us at the start were from a circus. So they were trained lions. And one day one of them tried to get at Bill in our so-called training session, and he managed to get out, luckily, of the of the enclosure. And the producers withdrew those two animals straight away from the lions contact with trained lions. What was wrong with them? Well, we didn't work with trained lions. None of the lions in Born Free that we had we worked with closely were trained. So w w who did you which ones did you use in the end? Well, they started the search, really, all over the place to try and find animals that had at some point had contact with humans but were not trained. They were not circus animals.

Virginia McKenna5:14

But we need to be able to do it.

Virginia McKenna5:16

Well we didn't

Presenter5:36

And the first pair that we got were the Scots Guards mascots, who were in Nairobi, and they became two of our greatest buddies. So they were Elsa, were they? Well, the female the female girl was one of the Elsas. Then there was Mara from the Nairobi Orph Animal Orphanage, Henrietta from the Uganda Orphanage, Little Elsa. I mean

Virginia McKenna5:44

Well

Presenter5:55

They came out of the woodwork from all sorts. And actually, Emperor Haile Selassie gave us three little cubs. So, of all shapes and sizes, they came to us. It's a real international effort to get international effort. But tell me about dealing with lions. It was, as I say, it was the story of the Adamsons, Joy and George Adamson. And did George give you the golden rules of how to behave with a lion? Never turn your back on it, I presume. Yes, you don't turn your back. You don't run.

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If they put their mouth round your arm or your wrist, you don't pull away.

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You

Presenter6:28

use measured tones. You don't speak in a highly squeaky voice, which you might do if you were a bit nervous. But luckily we didn't have too many occasions when, you know, we did have a problem. But you you did suffer injury as a result of a lion in the end, didn't you? We were stalking some Thompson's gazelles with the lions. Bill and I had taken boy and girl out on to the plains on our own.

Presenter6:51

And the the animals were stalking these gazella, getting really excited, and they came back and they kept tapping our ankles to and I said to Bill, I wonder if they want us to stalk with them. So we got down on our hands and knees and crawled through the grass. By then they were really excited, and Boy turned round and looked at me, and I think he must have thought, She looks a bit easier to pull down. So he literally leapt into the air and landed on my shoulders, and I went down and broke my ankle. But then once I was on the ground, you know, he didn't attack me or anything, he just stood over me and looked at me, and so did the girl. She came up and had a look. And then Bill's dilemma was what to do, because he had to get them back to the Land Rover. You never quite know. I mean, they're wild animals, you know, they're not tame, ever.

Presenter7:33

Um and he finally got them back to the Land Rover by taking his shirt off and wiggling it through the grass, which they followed. And then he got me into the Land Rover and began my journey to Nairobi to hospital. Tell me about record number two.

Presenter7:47

Record number two is just chosen well, n really all the things I've chosen are because Bill and I like them together or they have a special personal meaning because of our life together. And this was uh a wonderful composition by Albinone which we heard in the fifties and um yeah, I couldn't have the programme without it.

Presenter9:06

Part of Albinone's adagio in G minor for organ and strings, played by Paul Nicholson and the Guildhall string ensemble, conducted by Robert Sauter.

Presenter9:15

Tell me about your background, Virginia. I mean, i were you destined to be an actress and did you love animals? Is this a fairy tale life you've had?

Virginia McKenna9:20

Fairy tale

Presenter9:23

I don't think it was particularly fairy tale. My parents parted when I was four, and I lived with my father in Hampstead. He had a small collection of animals, which I would totally disapprove of having now, I have to say, a parrot.

Presenter9:39

And a snake, a rather lovely snake called George, and two bush babies. And when I think of it now I sort of die a hundred deaths really. But you know, that was of its time, wasn't it? That was I'm going back to the late thirties actually, of course. And what did you do for a living? My father was one of the chief auctioneers at Christie's. And your mother? My mother was half French and was the most wonderful musician. She came from a brilliant musical family. Everybody in the family played or sang.

Presenter10:06

She wanted to be a classical pianist, but realized that she'd never really get to the top, and so she turned to what was I think really her love, which was light music and jazz. And before the war she had her own trio in London. They played at the Barclay and at the Savoy.

Presenter10:20

Call that certain trio.

Presenter10:22

Two pianos and a singer. And then

Virginia McKenna10:23

Ah

Presenter10:24

When the war came.

Presenter10:26

Isaiah, I live m with my father, but he asked my mother if she would take me to South Africa for the war, because I was at boarding school and the school we were in the shelter every night.

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And she wonderfully said she would.

Presenter10:39

And then I had to get to know my mother because I didn't really know her that well. Unusual to have gone with your father. I mean, still today. I don't really know why.

Virginia McKenna10:44

Yeah, still today doesn't matter.

Presenter10:47

But um

Presenter10:49

It it worked out wonderfully, really. So you sailed for South Africa with her, aged what, nine? Nine at the outbreak of the United States. Yes, and we were the last ship in a convoy leaving from Liverpool, and all the four in front of us were

Virginia McKenna10:54

What nine?

Virginia McKenna10:56

But yes, and we

Presenter11:01

Torpedoed.

Presenter11:03

We were held back by an aerid warning and as we sailed we were shown the bits of debris from the other ships that were lying on top of the water. It was really frightful. Anyway, our captain was brilliant, wiggled his way across and arrived safely, and then she started to work in South Africa, again playing the piano. She played in cocktail bars and in hotels. And one wonderfully zany fact about her actually is that she wrote a song that we all knew years ago for Earth the Kid. An Englishman takes time. Yes, an Englishman takes time. I should have chosen it, shouldn't I, really? But yes, she was a fantastic musician and composing. And then as she got older, she started to then write religious music, which, when she went back to live in France for the last twenty, twenty-five years of her life, they were played in the churches and cathedrals in the south of France. So she kept her creativity going.

Virginia McKenna11:33

Yeah.

Presenter11:55

But didn't perform anymore.

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Tell me about your third record.

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Oh, wonderful Judy Garland

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Bill and I went to a live performance that she gave at the Dominion Tottenham Court Road.

Presenter12:09

And when she came forward and sat on the edge of the stage with her legs dangling over the edge and sang over the rainbow, I mean

Presenter12:17

I was just overwhelmed really.

Speaker 312:22

Her troubles melt like lemon drops Away up of the chimney tops

Speaker 312:31

That's where you are.

Speaker 312:38

And me so well over the rain.

Presenter12:51

Judy Garland and Over the Rainbow. So you enrolled Virginia McKenna at the Central School of Speech and Drama at the age of seventeen. Unusually your parents wanted you to be an actress.

Presenter13:02

I know. They they thought I had a chance, and they'd seen me in a few plays at school.

Presenter13:08

And said, we think you should try for drama school. So I tried for the old Vicks School, which I failed.

Presenter13:14

And then I tried for the Central School of Speech and Drama, which in those days was in the Albert Hall. So when we weren't doing a class, we were allowed to go into to listen to rehearsals of the concerts. It was absolutely fabulous. But then you went off to rep in Dundee. Yes. And you stayed there. You never went back to the Central School. No, I had such a brilliant time there, and I felt I was learning so much. I'd been at school for two years at Central. I felt I was really ready to continue on sort of doing it for real. What sort of parts were you getting?

Virginia McKenna13:25

Top

Virginia McKenna13:30

Besides that

Virginia McKenna13:32

Jewish.

Virginia McKenna13:43

What's that?

Presenter13:45

Oh, I was in Northanger Abbey, and I was in Black Chiffon, and then in The Pantomime, and then Daphne Rye, who was the casting agent for HM Tennants, was on a tour of England and Scotland looking for new people.

Presenter13:59

and she saw me in great expectations, and invited me to come down to London to do a penny for a song at the Haymarket, with a cast you would die to work with. And um who?

Presenter14:11

Well, m in I don't know if people will remember them, but Maury Law.

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Basil Radford.

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Wonderful George Rose, Leslie Howard's son Ronald, who he and I played the young love interest, and a set by Emmett and directed by Peter Brooke.

Presenter14:28

So you made and you were what you were twenty years old, I think. Yes, that was your London debut. And and I think that same year you made your first film, The Second Mrs. Tankeray. Oh yes, that was an experiment.

Virginia McKenna14:29

And you were what you were

Virginia McKenna14:32

Yes, I was from London.

Presenter14:40

It was with Pamela Brown and Hugh Sinclair, wonderful actors, and it was at Riverside Studios, and there was this idea that you would not have little tiny takes like you normally do in films, you'd have great long takes, like twelve or fifteen minutes, because you had four cameras all sort of taking over from each other.

Presenter15:00

Well, I don't think it really worked brilliantly well, but it was a very good lesson to learn right at the start. Absolutely. Followed by the Cruel C, in which you played Wren Julie Hallam.

Presenter15:11

I mean, again, a brilliant cast, Jack Hawkins, Donald Syndon, and so on. And this is all when you first arrived. It's all in the early fifties. That's right. And also, of course, Den Emiliot was in that film, and you were married to him briefly, wasn't it? I was, yes. And the same year that you married him, you made a town like Alice with Peter Finch. What was it like? Did you feel you were in control of your career? Were you just being swept off your feet? Because it all happened so quickly between the age of, what, twenty and twenty-four? Yes. I never really thought a about it really like that. Because I've never been terribly ambitious as a person. I was always ambitious to do the job well that I was doing, and I would take a lot of time preparing and

Speaker 315:19

Yeah.

Virginia McKenna15:19

Stephen.

Virginia McKenna15:23

Yeah.

Presenter15:53

Um not necessarily reading millions of books, but just thinking about the part and the scene and what was going to happen the next day. And I really took each thing as it came.

Presenter16:02

I I didn't have a long-term plan at all. I just did what came up next, really.

Presenter16:08

And did it well and succeeded,

Presenter16:11

Tell me about record number four.

Presenter16:13

This is really just a memory because it was the theme music for Elvira Madigan, a film which Bill and I went to see at the Curzon Cinema. And I remember sitting at the end and I couldn't get up. I was crying so much. The story was very, very moving and poignant. And the music, of course, contributed to the emotion that I felt. And Bill, too, he was very, very moved by it. So it became one of our favourite pieces.

Presenter16:41

Yeah.

Speaker 316:41

Uh

Presenter17:38

Part of the Andante for Mozart's piano concerto number twenty-one in C major, played by Howard Shelley and the London Mozart players. So a town like Alice and then Carve Her Name with Pride and indeed Bournfre, all based on fact for the most part. Probably a town like Alice, least so, based on Neville Schute's novel, but it was it was based on real incidents, wasn't it? Yes, it was based apparently on the story of some Dutch women prisoners who were trekked from camp to camp until they finally came to a village where they were taken in. This is in Malaya. Yes, so it was basically, you know, it was based on a true story. You never actually left these shores to make it, did you? We didn't, which is uh I was rather a story of my life until I made Bournfree. And I did things about other countries and very rarely went there.

Virginia McKenna17:59

Plus

Virginia McKenna18:00

Yeah, see it.

Speaker 318:13

And a true story.

Presenter18:24

Well, they did a second unit thing with people plodding through the f the the swamps and what not, but we did it all in Burnham beaches, all that, um, plodding through the swamps, and it was extremely cold, and they were constantly sp spraying glycerin on to our faces to make us look sweaty and hot.

Presenter18:38

And then carve her name with pride. A lot of training for that, I presume. You're using a sten gun and jumping from aeroplanes in a parachute. Did you do that? I didn't jump from the aeroplane, but I went up to Abingdon and I was taught how to jump from a high platform with the harness, because the thing was I had to learn how to fall properly. That was the real secret of not hurting yourself. When you jump with a parachute, you have to learn to fall correctly. So I had to do that. And you jump off the platform with your harness on, and then a huge wind machine catches you and sort of guides slows down your fall until you land on the ground. And this was a true story, of course. Absolutely based on the true story of Violette Zabo. Who went into France as a secret agent. Yes, on the second mission, she was captured and ultimately killed in Ravensbruck.

Virginia McKenna19:17

Who went?

Virginia McKenna19:19

After a second

Presenter19:24

Now, of course, the theme of that film is not a piece of music, it's a poem, really, isn't it? Which her French husband, who's killed. which is why she wants to go out there, I think, and and do her bit. As it were, he's killed in the war. But he wrote it to her and left it to her, said it to her before he went to war and he died. I have to ask you to give it to us.

Presenter19:46

It's called The Life That I Have and it's by Leo Marx.

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The life that I have

Presenter19:53

is all that I have.

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And the life that I have is yours.

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The love that I have, of the life that I have,

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Is yours and yours and yours.

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The sleep I shall have?

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A rest I shall have.

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Yet death will be but a pause.

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For the peace of my years in the long green grass

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will be yours.

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And yours.

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And yours.

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It is beautiful.

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You must have thought of that obviously when Bill died so suddenly.

Presenter20:33

Ten and a half years ago. I mean, in a way, that must have been your poem too, I would have thought. Yes, it it it's always been a bit my poem.

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and the poem of many people.

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Who have written to me over the years since the film came out asking for a copy of it. The simplicity of it.

Presenter20:53

summed up everything they felt about a life perhaps that had gone.

Presenter20:57

And which was was still going to be living within them. Tell me about the next piece of music.

Presenter21:04

Well

Presenter21:06

It was rather strange.

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Um

Presenter21:09

I heard a woman speaking on woman's arm.

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Being interviewed.

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And I listened to that voice.

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and I felt the most incredible attraction to the spirit of this person.

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And then at the end of the interview

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They played lark ascending.

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Played by her.

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and I wrote a letter to her.

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And I said, Would you play at my funeral?

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Something from lark something a bit macabre really, a lark ascending. But we then met.

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and became.

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Long friends for ten years.

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When Bill died.

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I wrote to her again and I said, Would you play at his memorial service?

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And she came to St. James's Piccadilly.

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She played up in where the organ is, at the back. She said, I will play, but I don't want to be seen. I want the music just to say everything. And she stood up there in this amazing music.

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came into the church.

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And um

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It's been a sad year'cause she died.

Presenter23:19

Part of Vaughan Williams' The Lark Ascending, played by Iona Brown, with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, conducted by Neville Mariner, and memories, Virginia, both of Iona herself and of your husband Bill's memorial service when she played that.

Presenter23:34

Bill I think particularly his life was changed by the making of Bournfree almost more than yours. He never he never really did films after that or acting after that unless they were about animals, did he?

Presenter23:47

Well, very, very rarely. When we came back from making the film, he said, The thing I want to do most is tell the story of what happened to some of the lions. The ones you used. The ones we used, because to our great disgust, most of them were sent to zoos and safari parks in this country and the States. And we said this is going against not that they could all have been released, obviously, but some more than the three we got could have been. So he said, I want to make a documentary about what happened to the lions, some of the lions. So we pulled our savings and he made his first documentary called The Lions Are Free.

Presenter24:21

He was a wonderful storyteller. That was his greatest gift. And he made a film which became important in your lives, An Elephant Called Slowly, which he wrote, didn't he? And it was based on a couple, again a couple who lived in Africa, and this time they were a couple who looked after abandoned elephants. But the the most important thing about that film was The Star.

Presenter24:42

Tell me about her.

Virginia McKenna24:43

And hers.

Presenter24:45

Yes. W we made that film with James Hill, who'd become a great friend. He directed Born Free, and he worked with us a lot after that, with Bill, certainly making documentaries. And when we went to Kenya to make this film,

Presenter24:58

We needed a small elephant. Daphne Sheldrick, who had and looked after orphaned elephants in Savo, had orphaned elephants, but not a little baby.

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And we heard about this one that had been caught as a gift to London Zoo by the then Kenya Government.

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Taken from the wild, from her family, you can imagine.

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And we saw her in the trapper's yard, and she was absolutely

Presenter25:21

Crazed with fear. I mean, she was rushing about, bashing herself against the sides, and we thought, well, we could never use this poor little thing. But David Sheldrick, Daphne's husband, said

Presenter25:31

I think I can look after her and and pacify her and calm her, and in only a few days you'll be able to use her, and that's exactly what happened. And then at the end

Presenter25:41

Um

Presenter25:42

We said can we buy her?

Presenter25:44

And they said yes, but we'll have to capture a second, because the gift is promised. This terrible gift by the Kenyan government.

Virginia McKenna25:50

By the Kenyan government.

Presenter25:52

To London Zoo, to London Zoo.

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So we said no, we can't agree to another family being torn apart.

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So she came to London Zoo.

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And that really was our catalyst.

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We'd been saying things as individuals for many years since Born Free about animals in captivity, and we thought, no.

Presenter26:10

We've we've got to do more than just us saying things and thinking things. We've got to do something. So we started our little group called Zuchek in those days, and Joanna Lumley was our first patron.

Presenter26:21

We were in a a three nine day wonder week they called us. So twenty years on we're still here.

Speaker 326:24

So

Virginia McKenna26:24

Yeah.

Presenter26:27

Record number six.

Presenter26:28

Oh, well number six is another animal memory, Ring of Bright Water, based on Gavin Maxwell's amazing book, What a Writer, um Ring of Bright Water.

Presenter26:40

And we went to the west coast of Scotland. It was all mid on location.

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And we apply the same.

Presenter26:45

method of working with the otter that we had to be close to, as we had with the lions. We spent time just in a in a large pen with the otter, waiting till she approached us, and that was the beginning. So she was the one who told us when she was ready. And then after that things fell into place.

Speaker 427:03

Where sun and wind play On a ring of bright water That's where my heartland will be

Speaker 427:19

Dear on the hill, In the first snow of winter, The gull in the sky winging free

Presenter27:30

Dal Dunikan singing Ring of Brightwater. Um so you and Bill were captivated by Africa. You remained very firm friends until the end, I think, with George Adamson. Do did you go out there? Did you return? Did you go on safari with him?

Presenter27:46

We didn't go on safari with him, but we visited him wherever he was living. And Africa, it's the

Presenter27:53

There is a pulse, there's a there's a strange thing, there's a there's a smell, and a and the sky's always changing, the sun's always shining, although the clouds are always there too, and it's the perspective, the distance, seeing the hills and the changing shadows, and you know there's this life that most of it invisible unless there's a big animal, but all that life going on just around you. It's so exciting, and it puts you in perspective. You know, you're a visitor, you're a privileged visitor to that place, and thank goodness you can't dominate anything.

Presenter28:29

Of course both Joy and George Adamson died tragically, were killed not by a lion, not by an animal in the end, but by a man, men, nine years apart, I think. That's right. That's a terrible, terrible tragedy.

Virginia McKenna28:41

That's right.

Presenter28:44

And then a few years after that Bill died suddenly. So you know you're the only one of the quartet left of the r the real and and acting Adamsons as it were. Have you been back alone yourself? I have been back and I opened this amazing, amazing lodge called Elsa's Copy. A copy is a little hilly outcrop.

Speaker 328:53

Yeah.

Presenter29:05

And I went and opened it. It must be about four years ago now.

Presenter29:10

What's it like, that place? Just tell me. You've got pristine Africa before you. It's as if man has not been there. You can't see man's wretched footprints or his wretched buildings that he puts up. It's lying before you is the bush, trees, and the line of trees where the rivers come, the greener there, and the smell. And you can just sit there and

Presenter29:36

Open up your heart, really, and let Africa come into it.

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Peck with number seven.

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My daughter, my only daughter, Louise, she.

Presenter29:46

Is a wonderful musician, this particular track is called Whispers.

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And it's about my uncle Peter, my mother's eldest brother, who came

Presenter29:57

to us for Christmas every year.

Presenter30:00

A wonderful pianist, and he and Louise used to sit and play duets together on the piano. She absolutely adored him. And this particular song is in his memory, and the violinist is her eldest daughter,

Speaker 330:33

Christmas time.

Speaker 330:38

Happy day.

Speaker 330:46

Oh pad me.

Speaker 330:53

Shu but you mentioned bruise

Presenter31:11

It was part of Whispers composed and played on the piano by my Castaway's daughter Louise McKenna and my Castaway's granddaughter Ashlyn McKenna playing the violin and Daniel Martin, No Relation, doing the singing. For a woman at home in the bush, a desert island holds no fear, I suspect, Virginia.

Presenter31:31

Really? No, I don't think I'd be particularly afraid. Being an only child, I'm not afraid of being by myself. In fact, I quite value times when I'm on my own. It's just wonderful. You you really your spirit can fly.

Presenter31:45

The last three

Presenter31:46

The Music Makers.

Presenter31:48

One of Bill's favourite poems and has become mine.

Presenter31:53

Is Arthur O'Shaughnessy's poem Ode.

Presenter31:56

and I discovered not so very, very long ago to my surprise that it had been set to music by Elgar.

Presenter32:04

And I was over the moon when I found that.

Presenter32:07

It talks about the individual, about loneliness but fulfilment. It talks about um music, what you what an individual can do to change things, to make a difference to people's lives.

Presenter32:21

It's so beautifully expressed that I thought

Presenter32:26

This has to be on my list because

Presenter32:30

I'll have the words and the music. I have two in one.

Speaker 332:44

We are dreaming of some of the

Speaker 333:03

On drink my Lucy brave

Presenter33:33

We are the Music Makers Arthur O'Shaughnessy's Ode set to music by Elgar and played by the London Philharmonic Choir and Orchestra conducted by Bryden Thompson.

Presenter33:42

Now, Virginia, you have to choose one only of that list of eight.

Presenter33:48

It it was a decision that I had to make between Iona playing Log Ascending.

Presenter33:55

And

Presenter33:56

The Music Makers.

Presenter33:58

And I decided on the music makers.

Presenter34:01

Because it meant so much to Bill.

Presenter34:05

And what about your book?

Presenter34:07

I only decided on this this morning.

Presenter34:10

and I decided I've got to really educate myself on this island.

Presenter34:15

It's a massive book huge, great heavy thing.

Presenter34:19

Called

Presenter34:20

Animal

Presenter34:21

And it is really the definitive encyclopedia about wildlife.

Presenter34:27

I shall be able to really learn something, and I'll have time to sit and read and learn about the animals which I'm so lucky to share the world with.

Presenter34:37

In your luxury.

Presenter34:39

Well, that again is about education. I I really feel that I've really let my brain slip a bit. What I would really love is to have

Presenter34:47

Two s am I allowed to two sets of language tapes, Swahili and Italian.

Presenter34:54

And then if I do get off the island and travel, at least I'll have two more countries where I can really speak the language of the people who live there.

Presenter35:02

Virginia McKenna, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs. Thank you very much.

Virginia McKenna35:14

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