Anne Scott James

Speaker 30:00

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.

Presenter0:29

My Castaway this week is a journalist and writer. She is, she says, one of the first generation of career girls. She went to Saint Paul's School in London, where her music teacher was Gustav Holst, then on to Oxford, which she left early to get on with life.

Presenter0:44

Starting in a lowly job on Vogue, she went on to become woman's editor of Picture Post during the war, and later editor of Harper's Bazaar. She then became one of the first star personality columnists, writing for the Sunday Express and the Daily Mail, and later she enjoyed a second career writing books about gardens and gardening.

Presenter1:03

Her private life was less well ordered. Her marriage to the writer and television reporter Macdonald Hastings ended in divorce, and although she was subsequently very happily married to the cartoonist Osbert Lancaster, her relationship with her son Max, himself a highly successful journalist, seems to have been a difficult one. Most lives are untidy, and mine is no exception, she says, but it has rarely been boring. She is Ann Scott James. And you were a, if not the, queen pin of Fleet Street back in the fifties and the sixties on the Sunday Express and the Daily Mail. What was it like then? Because it was quite a a male dominated place, wasn't it?

Anne Scott James1:41

Uh well, it's a very immodest thing to say that I was the Queen Bee, and I can't agree with that. But yes, it was male-dominated.

Anne Scott James1:48

It is a heavenly place to work, and I think I like the newspapers better than anything I've done before or since.

Anne Scott James1:55

because they were all then concentrated in Fleet Street or one of the streets or

Anne Scott James2:00

And every time you went out of the office you'd bump into somebody and say, Go and let's have a drink, or have you time for a sandwich or something.

Anne Scott James2:08

It was much more.

Anne Scott James2:10

Well, friendly really, I suppose. Even to women. Ah. Now it is extraordinary. The people who objected to us were the technical staff.

Anne Scott James2:19

And this was on the Sunday Express. All the men used to go down.

Anne Scott James2:24

to what was then called the Stone.

Anne Scott James2:27

Where proofs were pulled off of the articles they'd written and they could correct them down on the stone. Do the last-minute changes before they went into the middle of the street. This was the factory really of the factory floor. The factory floor.

Presenter2:34

This was the

Presenter2:35

Ready?

Anne Scott James2:38

But they wouldn't have me down there.

Presenter2:41

This is the print unions wouldn't have a woman on the stone.

Anne Scott James2:43

No, they just said we don't have women down here.

Anne Scott James2:46

But I melted their hearts, but subsequently I never went on to the stone of any other newspaper.

Presenter2:52

But again

Anne Scott James2:52

Wait.

Anne Scott James2:53

Yeah.

Presenter2:53

You were the first woman to write such a column, weren't you? Jean Rook and Linda Lee Potter and their Ilkwa to follow. But you were the first. How would you define exactly what you were trying to do?

Anne Scott James3:08

All I was trying to do.

Anne Scott James3:10

was communicate with my readers so that they may not have entirely agreed with me, but they thought on the same sort of terms that I thought.

Presenter3:18

So you would try Time to hit the spot.

Presenter3:20

But you d you want it to be controversial. You want it to make people think Yes. Okay, let's get you to the desert island. Um now this first piece you say you're going to play the minute you arrive. What is it and why?

Anne Scott James3:32

Yeah.

Presenter3:32

Well

Anne Scott James3:32

Well the first piece I'd like to play is Bach's Concerto for two violins.

Anne Scott James3:39

Bach's church music and is also his orchestral music.

Anne Scott James3:43

seem to me have a sort of soothing quality that I might need when I first get thrown by a wave or whatever it is on to that beach.

Presenter4:53

The opening of the second movement of Bach's double concerto for two violins in D minor, played by Christoph Poppen and Isabel Faust, with the Bach Collegium Stuttgart, conducted by Helmut Rilling. And memories for you and Scott James of going to the Proms before the war, because you were brought up in London. Of course, you went to school in London, you went to St. Paul's Girls in West London, where Gustav Holst was the music master. Did you like him?

Anne Scott James5:18

Oh he

Presenter5:18

If it's

Anne Scott James5:18

Absolutely enchanting, man.

Anne Scott James5:21

And what was so sweet about him was the terrific interest he took in the school, because of course primarily he was a composer. He was really just awfully nice. But apparently he played a lot of bum

Presenter5:33

Some Notes in Assembly.

Anne Scott James5:34

Oh, I want to say

Anne Scott James5:36

We had a sort of dull, accurate uh music mistress who used to play the organ for prayers, but occasionally Gussie, as I'm afraid he was all too obviously called, used to take over a tremendous of

Anne Scott James5:50

Pulled out all the stocks, a lot of noises, and then again he hit the wrong note because in his enthusiasm.

Presenter5:56

More panache than I Yeah, I think you've said. So, um, you were obviously quite an academic girl. Classics, I think, was was your thing. You were quite you and your set, I think, snobbish about the sciences, hm?

Anne Scott James6:09

Oh, we were absolutely snubbish for a degree. We only accepted, really, classics and history and English as subjects for respectable uh schoolgirls.

Anne Scott James6:19

And uh we all got practically all got into Oxford or Cambridge without any trouble.

Presenter6:24

Which makes you sound, you know, very self possessed, very self confident, and yet reading about your home background, that's not what you were at all. You've said, you've written that that in fact you you were frightened of your pet

Anne Scott James6:38

Parents Oh, absolutely terrified. They were the last of the Victorian parents.

Anne Scott James6:45

They thought that everything that parents did was right and everything that children did was wrong.

Anne Scott James6:50

My father was the worst. He was very strict and he hadn't much humour.

Anne Scott James6:54

My mother at least was extremely amusing, good company when she chose to be, but

Anne Scott James6:59

What I respect them for was that we never had much money.

Anne Scott James7:02

But they saw that every single one of us got the best possible education.

Presenter7:06

He was a journalist, wasn't he? He was a critic and a morning.

Anne Scott James7:09

Yes, but more in the lines of uh literary criticism, really.

Presenter7:12

But he was a leader writer as well.

Anne Scott James7:14

Yes, but

Presenter7:15

Uh

Anne Scott James7:15

But

Presenter7:15

So very serious, very humourless, and always criticising you.

Presenter7:21

I'm afraid so.

Anne Scott James7:22

Yeah.

Anne Scott James7:22

But I saw a Dawn School. I really loved it. But really about half one's interest was taken up.

Anne Scott James7:29

So one wasn't sitting there brooding at home about one sad life. Record number two. Tell me about that. I loved some of the post war musicals, of which the most thrilling to me was West's Side Story.

Anne Scott James7:41

And of course it has to be Marie's song.

Anne Scott James7:45

I feel pretty. Oh, so pretty.

Anne Scott James7:48

She sings in ecstasy, but we in the audience know all the time that Nemesis is waiting for her. As soon as she's finished, somebody bursts in and tells her that her lover has killed her brother with a knife.

Speaker 48:02

I feel breathing

Speaker 48:04

Also pretty I feel pretty and witty and bright and I pretty Any girl who is pretty tonight I feel charming or so charming

Speaker 48:20

It's alarming how charming I feel. I'm so pretty. But I hardly can believe I'm real.

Presenter8:31

I Feel Pretty from Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story, sung by Marlis Watters from the London production of Westside Story, nineteen fifty eight that was recorded.

Presenter8:41

The thing that

Presenter8:43

really shaped your childhood in the twenties, and Scott James was, of course, the existence of your younger brother John, wasn't it? Tell me about him.

Presenter8:52

Well

Anne Scott James8:52

Yeah.

Anne Scott James8:53

I don't want to say too much.

Anne Scott James8:55

'Cause he might not like it.

Anne Scott James8:57

But he was epileptic and therefore very handicapped.

Anne Scott James9:02

as far as the normal things of life.

Anne Scott James9:06

And it fell to me to be his friend and companion.

Anne Scott James9:10

Indeed, I looked after him to a very large extent,'cause mother wasn't very good with him.

Anne Scott James9:16

He was just sort of my ally all through life. And when he died after a rather sad life, not until he was forty.

Anne Scott James9:24

But I miss him.

Presenter9:26

But when you say y you were asked to look after him, um we mean that in a in a very um strict sense. You were at his side during all of your free time. When you were not at school, you were looking after him, weren't you? Holding on to the school.

Anne Scott James9:38

Well I was really because I wasn't uh well the sort of times when

Anne Scott James9:43

Other schoolgirls might be free in the evenings or what I wasn't.

Speaker 39:46

Yeah.

Anne Scott James9:46

And I think it also makes you probably rather uh bossy, people might say, because if you've got a lot of responsibility when you're young, you expect to have responsibility when you're older.

Presenter9:59

But it also would have taught

Anne Scott James9:59

What's your

Presenter10:00

You are cut.

Anne Scott James10:00

Kind of metallic.

Presenter10:01

Yes, I think definitely. In the end you you had to leave him'cause you got into Oxford as you said and you went to Then I had then I had to and other arrangements had to be terrible.

Anne Scott James10:09

Do another arrangements have to be done.

Presenter10:12

Well, yes, I think he did.

Presenter10:14

So you went up to uh Somerville in nineteen thirty one. What would you have looked like then? What kind of figure did you cut?

Anne Scott James10:23

Well, I was um very tall, so I was bound to be noticed.

Anne Scott James10:28

And s so I'm told, so I can say so now, I think I was pretty good looking.

Anne Scott James10:34

But for women in general.

Anne Scott James10:35

Oxford was pretty drear.

Anne Scott James10:37

Because the men completely despised us. And we were living more or less well, I wouldn't say a convent that's going too far, but as though we were a boarding school.

Presenter10:46

Why did they discern Bye, Zoo.

Anne Scott James10:47

I don't know. I suppose most of us would rather.

Anne Scott James10:50

Plain. As indeed were they, I expect. Hm. They're probably frightened of you, truth be told.

Anne Scott James10:56

Well

Anne Scott James10:57

Yes, I think they did all assume that we were too scholastic to be amusing.

Presenter11:01

Yeah.

Presenter11:03

Anyway, you weren't happy there, and despite getting a first in your first part finals you decided to leave. A great storm of collegiate and parental protest, I think, but you left and you went off to get a proper job, about which we shall hear. But let's pause for your third record.

Anne Scott James11:19

Oh, yes, I love dance band music. Oh, I was too tall to dance well, really. I was out to be looking.

Anne Scott James11:26

down on my partner rather than gazing up into his eyes.

Anne Scott James11:30

But I've chosen good night, sweetheart. I'll see you in the morning.

Anne Scott James11:34

Because

Anne Scott James11:35

I met first love at Oxford. I wasn't all grim, you see.

Anne Scott James11:39

He and I, we got the Good Night Sweet Hole on the brain.

Speaker 411:56

I'll be watching all you.

Speaker 412:04

They make cast for more.

Presenter12:12

Good night, Sweetheart, sung by Al Boley with Ray Noble and his orchestra. So um and you then answered an ad in the agony column of the Times peculiar place to advertise, really, for a job on Vogue.

Presenter12:24

As an assistant to both the managing director of Vogue and to the knitting editor. Now, did you know anything about knitting? Absolutely not.

Anne Scott James12:32

And who

Anne Scott James12:35

I swore to the managing director who interviewed me.

Anne Scott James12:38

that I could knit absolutely anything from a sort of suit down to a dressing gown. But did you have to write knitting patterns or deal with knitting? What did you have to do? Well, at that time we had the rights of um knitting patterns from a French magazine.

Anne Scott James12:54

But the French have a completely different method of giving instructions in writing. They seem to assume that all their readers are perfect litters. Can't go wrong.

Anne Scott James13:03

So the instructions in English came out all wrong.

Anne Scott James13:07

and furious readers used to send their garments into us sometimes.

Anne Scott James13:13

And you'd pick up a sweater.

Anne Scott James13:15

with one very short sleeve and one very long sleeve.

Anne Scott James13:19

And the knitting editor,'cause I had a senior, I was only the assistant editor, thank goodness would say, Oh, Lord, we've got to re knit this'cause she was new, it wasn't her fault, she was new too. We both came into this mess.

Presenter13:33

But did you ever get to write anything? You stayed there for six years. Did you get to write anything? Because that's really what you wanted to do, isn't it? Millions of captions.

Anne Scott James13:39

and blurbs and little small pieces. But that was really what I left,'cause I got a job as a writer on picture post. And this was during the war?

Presenter13:48

The war just started. So what sort of topics did you cover then? Because uh there would have been a lot of them because it was wartime.

Anne Scott James13:54

Well, it was mostly women's work in wartime, particularly food in wartime.

Presenter13:59

And growing vegetables in your window boxes.

Anne Scott James14:02

Oh yes, all everything to do with um how to adjust your pre-war life to

Anne Scott James14:08

present day life. And we covered the women's services too, of course.

Presenter14:11

And what you learned was this was what you wanted to do. You you felt right. Yeah.

Anne Scott James14:15

Gotcha.

Presenter14:15

Alright.

Anne Scott James14:15

I just simply loved it.

Anne Scott James14:17

Record number four.

Anne Scott James14:19

Well, picture post sort of brings me into this.

Anne Scott James14:22

To remind me of this.

Anne Scott James14:24

We had a lot of fun in the nineteen thirties, but

Anne Scott James14:28

over all the pleasures and all the dance spans and all the fun.

Anne Scott James14:31

There was the shadow of Germany, always that black cloud.

Anne Scott James14:35

Because anybody with any intelligence, I think, knew what was coming.

Anne Scott James14:40

And I think all the things that bring back thee.

Anne Scott James14:43

Sort of horrible side of the purtis.

Anne Scott James14:45

Nothing moves me so much as the music of Cordwell.

Anne Scott James14:48

on the singing of Lottilenia, that rashping

Anne Scott James14:52

Minatory voice.

Anne Scott James14:55

It's

Anne Scott James14:56

a great portent of what was to come.

Speaker 415:02

Oh well.

Speaker 415:03

Come on, we now must say goodbye. We've lost our good old mama.

Speaker 415:19

Must have a whisky, or you know why

Presenter15:26

Not Elena singing court vials the Alabama song from Brecht's Mahagoni.

Presenter15:31

You went on, Anne Scott James, to become editor of Harper's Bazaar, where you commissioned a lot of big names in the making, including Elizabeth David.

Presenter15:41

I think you said you were the first person to commit.

Anne Scott James15:44

Yeah.

Presenter15:45

Uh

Anne Scott James15:45

What was the first piece she wrote for you, do you remember? What was the first piece she wrote for me? I may say that I had no choice of any description in what Elizabeth wrote for me. She was much too grand.

Presenter15:45

Always the f

Anne Scott James15:55

to discuss anything. She did what? She did.

Anne Scott James15:59

and wrote to the length she wanted.

Anne Scott James16:02

And as far as I remember, the first piece was about rice, which wasn't what I would have chosen. But everything she wrote, I mean, honestly, she could write about dust and make it absolutely edible and delicious. But did she hit the deadlines? Well, always just.

Anne Scott James16:18

Yes, she did hit the deadlands, with misery to all concerned.

Anne Scott James16:22

And then there was John Betcherman, who who wrote poems from time to time for holidays. That was a very different cup of tea.

Presenter16:29

Yeah.

Anne Scott James16:29

He was so sweet, so anxious to please. But of course a poet isn't like being a journalist. You don't really like writing for deadlines at all.

Anne Scott James16:38

And he used to ring me up and say, Oh, Anne, Anne, couldn't you please let me off?

Anne Scott James16:45

That was when he was writing me a poem for my Christmas issue, so I couldn't hold it for the next issue. It was Christmas or Nothing. And he did do it, and it was a charming poem, and I loved him very much.

Presenter16:56

Well, and it's the one every one knows, of course, isn't it? It's bath salts and inexpensive scent and hideous tie kindly meant and all that, which we hear every Christmas. And that was for you.

Anne Scott James16:58

Yeah.

Presenter17:05

Well, that was a a great a great cool really nice.

Anne Scott James17:09

Oh, he he was so nice.

Presenter17:12

And then, while we're name-dropping here, although as you say, they weren't big names at the time, a few years later, I think when you were on the Sunday Express in the mid fifties, you went to interview Nancy Mitford, who'd published Noblesse Oblige about you and non-you. Tell me about that encounter. First of all, what did she look like?

Presenter17:33

Beautiful.

Anne Scott James17:33

Yeah.

Anne Scott James17:34

absolutely beautiful. She was dressed in Dior, in which she looked absurd in a way,'cause she was so English, I can't imagine. Whatever she wore in French, she still looked like an English beauty.

Presenter17:45

'Cause you had I I mean, you had the discussion with her about you and not you, didn't you? And and I think

Anne Scott James17:49

Oh yeah, excuse me.

Presenter17:52

She'd said that there were three stigmata that place you firmly in the non you bracket, which is wearing trousers if you're a woman, combing your hair in public and using anything plastic.

Presenter18:04

I think we'd all we'd all fail on probably all three these days, wouldn't we?

Presenter18:08

But you asked her

Presenter18:11

The best question of any interviewer at that time. You asked her if

Anne Scott James18:14

You were you, didn't you? Oh, yes, all right. I said, Am I you or not you? And she had a long thought, during which I quaked.

Anne Scott James18:22

Not that I cared much, but it it was she sort of looked at me and she said,

Anne Scott James18:26

You have you legs.

Anne Scott James18:29

So I thought that was uh

Anne Scott James18:31

to settle the matter in my favour.

Presenter18:33

Do you think you know

Presenter18:34

Despite the uh the the Mitford propensity for for

Presenter18:39

teasing and humour. She was quite serious about you and non-you, wasn't she?

Anne Scott James18:44

Well she would say no, I would say yes.

Anne Scott James18:47

Precisely.

Anne Scott James18:49

Yeah.

Presenter18:49

Tell me about record number.

Anne Scott James18:49

Five.

Presenter18:50

Thanks.

Anne Scott James18:51

Well, presumably when I landed on my desert island I'd be very ragged.

Anne Scott James18:55

So I think I'd like to remember one really grand dressed-up occasion.

Anne Scott James19:00

And the one I would choose would be A First Night at Covent Garden.

Anne Scott James19:04

The first night

Anne Scott James19:05

of Zepharelli's Tosca.

Anne Scott James19:08

Wait.

Anne Scott James19:09

Maria Callas

Anne Scott James19:10

In the name part, singing Tosuka.

Anne Scott James19:13

She acted with heart and soul.

Anne Scott James19:16

And everybody was in tears when she sang Visa Darte, which I'm going to ask for next.

Speaker 419:26

The best in J.

Speaker 419:30

Love me your pregnancy, I someday confess it.

Speaker 420:00

Ilode, me, melt, signor.

Presenter20:22

Maria Callas singing Vissidate, I Live for Art, I Live for Love from Puccini's Tosca with the orchestra of La Scala Milan conducted by Victor de Sabata.

Presenter20:32

You met Macdonald Hastings, Anne, on Picture Post and and married during the war, and you had your first baby, Max, just after it ended. And you managed to keep the professional life going as well because you hired a nanny who I think came when Max was six weeks old and stayed for decades stayed too long, I think you've ever she became a bit of a tyrant, didn't she? Nanny Stratford.

Anne Scott James20:56

Yes, if you have the old fashioned kind of nanny with a lot of experience, they do take over the whole household. They tell you what you can do and where you can go and if you can have a picnic or lunch at home or whatever.

Anne Scott James21:08

But you didn't mind that?

Presenter21:09

Well, I did, rather. And and obviously Max was was quite a handful. He was born, you've written, a completely finished product. What does that mean?

Anne Scott James21:21

You know what m most babies look like when they're newborn, pretty wrinkly. But uh he was just sort of very advanced looking, and he always was. I mean, he walked very quickly, he talked, oh God, how he talked when he was two. I mean, he could have made a political speech, I should think. He was a very precocious child.

Presenter21:41

Very self possessed self possessed by the age of five, you said. Learned to ski in an hour flat, parachute aged seventeen, and then there's a story of him shooting the television. What happened?

Anne Scott James21:53

Well

Anne Scott James21:56

This is a story he'll get so angry if he we disagree about this. I think he was about twelve.

Anne Scott James22:02

But he used to get very excitable over everything. He's a very highly strung, excitable creature.

Anne Scott James22:08

And he was watching, it was either a Western or that kind of thing on television.

Anne Scott James22:12

and he suddenly whipped a loaded gun.

Anne Scott James22:16

out of his pocket and shot the television shed.

Anne Scott James22:19

To smithereens.

Anne Scott James22:21

I was in the room next door.

Anne Scott James22:23

and to hear a shot.

Anne Scott James22:26

In the room where you know your son is sitting.

Presenter22:28

Good.

Anne Scott James22:28

is an extremely alarming experience.

Presenter22:31

Hm. And why did he do it? Did you know?

Anne Scott James22:33

He got so excited at the either whether it was Indians and Cowboys or what, I'm not quite sure. But if it was there was a lot of shooting going on, bang, bang, bang, and he had to have his bang.

Presenter22:43

Yeah.

Presenter22:44

I know.

Anne Scott James22:44

New

Presenter22:45

You've you've written let me quote you precisely. I have always been slightly afraid of Max. What does that mean? How would you characterize that that kind of fear?

Anne Scott James22:54

Well, he's a very strong, unyielding character.

Anne Scott James22:58

and uh on the fundamental things of life.

Anne Scott James23:02

I don't think we ever really agreed very much. But, um

Anne Scott James23:06

Well, his reputation is at being f

Anne Scott James23:09

Very, very good at the jobs he undertakes, very wholehearted.

Anne Scott James23:13

It works and works and works.

Presenter23:15

So you're very proud of what you've achieved? And obviously for for those who don't know he became editor of the Evening Standard and the Daily Telegraph.

Anne Scott James23:16

Oh yeah.

Presenter23:22

I mean, editor-in-chief of the Telegraph Newspapers, I think. I mean, he's been hugely successful. Oh, yes. But very driven, is what you're saying. Yes.

Presenter23:30

But when you divorced his father, Macdonald Hastings, he went to live with his father. He would have been about eighteen at the time, wouldn't he? Yes. But but that must have been very hurtful for you. It's unusual, isn't it? Your daughter Claire stayed with you, and your son Max went with his father.

Anne Scott James23:47

Oh no, it wasn't hurtful to me at all. I mean the divorce was hurtful'cause uh it is a very painful experience. But uh

Anne Scott James23:57

Max had ex all the same tastes as his father, who also loved shooting and

Anne Scott James24:04

fishing and rather macho life.

Anne Scott James24:07

So it was quite natural he'd have been born stiff in London. But you've talked since about his hating you.

Anne Scott James24:14

I think he did.

Anne Scott James24:16

I do honestly think that there is not often a particular reason why people dislike another person.

Anne Scott James24:22

I think they just dislike them. And I think that quite young

Anne Scott James24:26

He just took against me.

Anne Scott James24:28

Didn't like me.

Anne Scott James24:30

Well I think we're better friends now.

Presenter24:32

Uh

Presenter24:32

He suggested

Presenter24:34

that you were very, very critical of him. He's acknowledged that he inherited a lot of his journalistic talent from you, but that you were very, very critical of him. Really, rather, as you were saying, your parents were of you. So I wonder if there's some truth in that.

Anne Scott James24:47

Yeah.

Presenter24:48

I suppose I'm

Anne Scott James24:48

A critical person I d

Presenter24:50

Yeah.

Anne Scott James24:50

Dead Nev.

Anne Scott James24:52

I mean, I loved him.

Anne Scott James24:54

Very, very much throughout all.

Presenter24:57

And now I mean, now you're in your ninety second year.

Presenter25:01

How is your relationship with him now?

Anne Scott James25:03

Oh, now it's very calm and easy. He's very good about coming to see me, and his wife cuts flowers for me and everything.

Anne Scott James25:10

I know they're very c very good to me.

Anne Scott James25:12

Record number six.

Anne Scott James25:14

Well, I couldn't be on a desert island without having something of Mozart.

Anne Scott James25:19

So I have chosen an orchestral piece.

Anne Scott James25:21

His Sinfonia concertante.

Anne Scott James25:25

Now Osborne gave me this.

Anne Scott James25:27

and saying it was a strange work, he didn't understand.

Anne Scott James25:31

but loved it, and I feel really rather the same.

Anne Scott James25:36

But I think it would calm me down. It's almost serene. I think it would calm me down.

Anne Scott James25:41

when the crisis happened, such as I got a nice pile of coconuts and found I couldn't crack them.

Presenter26:45

The opening of the second movement of Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante in E flat major, K three six four, played by Anne Sophie Mutta and Bruno Giorana, with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, conducted by Sir Nevill Mariner.

Presenter26:59

You married again in nineteen sixty seven, Anne, to Osbert Lancaster, the cartoonist, who invented Maudie Littlehampton, of course, among other things, but he was also a writer and a set designer.

Presenter27:10

You'd have been about fifty four by then, and he was older. It was obviously a much happier marriage, from everything you said.

Anne Scott James27:18

Yes,'cause we agreed about the fundamentals.

Anne Scott James27:21

Such as

Presenter27:22

Yeah.

Anne Scott James27:23

Well, the importance of art for a start. The unimportance of grouse shooting, number two.

Anne Scott James27:29

the importance of love, and particular we agreed about the kind of holidays we had.

Anne Scott James27:35

I like to.

Anne Scott James27:36

Drive.

Anne Scott James27:37

very slowly through a country, and look at churches and look at flowers.

Anne Scott James27:42

And of course he was always drawing'cause he's a very good architectural artist. And you did a book together, didn't you, about gardens?

Anne Scott James27:49

Then we did one book together, The Pleasure Garden, which is a little series of well, vignettes on my part.

Anne Scott James27:57

Thirty very good architectural drawings on his of the history of the English Garden from Roman times to today.

Presenter28:06

And then I think that was after he'd had a stroke, wasn't it?

Anne Scott James28:10

Yeah.

Presenter28:10

It did that, which is one of the things that we can do.

Anne Scott James28:10

But still he couldn't write.

Anne Scott James28:13

Uh he couldn't concentrate enough to write at any length, but he could still draw as well as ever for quite a long time.

Presenter28:20

And then, of course, he he he died, and that was nearly twenty years ago now, I think. Yes. Um so you've had yet another existence since then on your own writing and writing about gardening and gardening too through your seventies and eighties. Um has that, despite your sadness at losing Osborne, has that been a fulfilling time, a kind of third time.

Anne Scott James28:41

Oh yes, I I I loved it.

Anne Scott James28:44

I mean

Anne Scott James28:45

I always remember Osbourne.

Anne Scott James28:47

But I wouldn't weep forever.

Anne Scott James28:50

Nobody wished it at all. You could life goes on.

Presenter28:54

And that life, that past twenty years, it it seems to me, reading about you, that the that the sheet anchor in it has been your daughter Clare.

Anne Scott James29:03

Because

Anne Scott James29:04

Well, we just get on terribly well. Again, you can't explain it, but the magic is there. Record number seven.

Anne Scott James29:11

Will

Anne Scott James29:12

It's very difficult to choose. I've so little left, but I think I must have some birdie on the island.

Anne Scott James29:19

But I don't want to be sunk in verdant gloom.

Anne Scott James29:23

But luckily

Anne Scott James29:24

He wrote one comic opera, Falstaff, which is as musically brilliant as anything else he ever wrote, but very funny.

Anne Scott James29:32

I had like to hear some men's voices on my island.

Anne Scott James29:35

I'm fond of having men around me.

Anne Scott James29:38

So I've chosen a men's duet between Falstaff.

Anne Scott James29:42

and his friend Ford.

Anne Scott James29:44

And I've had other reason for liking this opera, that many years ago Osborne did the sets and costumes of it for Glenbourne.

Speaker 429:58

Lighter John the Lamo

Speaker 430:01

See the Amalinter.

Speaker 430:04

I'm all here, Duncan Ford.

Speaker 430:08

Basque.

Speaker 430:15

Elaine

Speaker 430:18

Let's scream on.

Speaker 430:21

Nor respond.

Speaker 430:23

La guardado, no mi guarda.

Speaker 430:28

La Turkor es Nastonde, Veralis for Le Baitazori, Titaidon Isui, Les Potitori drew, Mila Bol the Levas.

Presenter30:48

CE A Winza una dama here at Windsor there's a lady from Verdis Falstaff, with Tito Gobby as Falstaff and Rolando Bannarai as Ford, with the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Herbert von Carrion.

Presenter31:00

Well, Anne, um, prepare to be cast away on your desert island. Um what do you think it's going to be like? Is it going to be benign or full of dangers? What do you think?

Anne Scott James31:09

Yeah.

Anne Scott James31:10

Well, I suppose it's got mustard water on it, or it wouldn't last a minute. It's snake free, it's a very unusual island.

Presenter31:16

Uh

Anne Scott James31:16

In that respect.

Presenter31:17

But you can grow things'cause that's what you've done in your life and you did all that wartime growing dandelion leaves and stuff, so you'll be all right.

Anne Scott James31:24

You've got to start with some seed. I mean, you're assuming at that rate that I'm going to be on it for at least at least a year. You might be. I've got to collect the seed.

Presenter31:35

Biris

Anne Scott James31:35

To your b

Presenter31:35

Yeah.

Anne Scott James31:35

Yeah.

Presenter31:35

Ben But what would you think about will you sit there will you have any regrets about what I quoted you in the introduction as saying, you know, the the the untidiness of your life, your personal life?

Anne Scott James31:46

Well

Anne Scott James31:48

I shouldn't have married Mac except that I had two marvellous children by him, you see, so I must take that back.

Anne Scott James31:55

In the war, people married the wrong people very easily,'cause you couldn't help

Anne Scott James32:01

Having an admiration for people who were rather macho then, and I admired that very much.

Anne Scott James32:07

And then after the war it doesn't seem to matter so much.

Anne Scott James32:09

As having the same emotions. Tell me about your last record.

Anne Scott James32:14

I must have something, even if it makes me cry, to remind me of home.

Anne Scott James32:19

So I've chosen a little song by Bellini, a little love song, sung by my granddaughter.

Anne Scott James32:25

Calypso Conturis.

Anne Scott James32:27

when she was about seventeen at a school concert.

Anne Scott James32:31

It's called Favido Desenerio.

Anne Scott James32:34

And it's a young girl pining for her lover.

Presenter33:36

That was my castaway's granddaughter Calypso Cunturis singing Bellini's chamber song Il Fervido desiderillo, the fervent desire for the return of the young lover.

Presenter33:47

Now, Anne, if you could only take one of those eight records, which one would you take?

Anne Scott James33:53

Well, n I don't know. None of them seem to stand alone really, except in to make make a group. But still, if I've got to choose one, I think I'd choose Bach's double concerto for two violins.

Presenter34:06

And what about your book? You get the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare, as you know.

Presenter34:11

Well

Anne Scott James34:12

Yeah.

Anne Scott James34:12

I think after a good dose of Hamlet.

Anne Scott James34:15

and uh spending a bit of time reading the book of Job or the book of Kings, I would definitely want a novel.

Anne Scott James34:22

So I would definitely take it.

Anne Scott James34:24

The Semi-Attached Couple by Emily Eden. It's my permanent bedside book.

Anne Scott James34:30

It's rather high life, I'm afraid, but I think on one's island one might be quite glad to read.

Anne Scott James34:36

a bit about castles and dukes and so on.

Anne Scott James34:39

And what about your luxury? Oh, yes. Well, I wouldn't want to sleep in the island with nothing on,'cause I've got an objection to insects.

Anne Scott James34:46

So I'd like a very beautiful night dress, an exquisite one, of the finest white cotton, hand embroidered with all the wild flowers of an English spring.

Presenter34:58

Anne Scott James, Lady Lancaster, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Speaker 335:10

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