Ann Leslie

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.

Presenter0:31

My Costaway this week is a journalist. For the past thirty years or more she's travelled the world, writing, as it's been called, the first rough drafts of history, reporting on events such as the fall of the Berlin Wall, the attempted coup against Gorbachev, or Nelson Mandela's Walk to Freedom.

Presenter0:46

She was born in India, sent back to convent school in England by a rather careless mother, but escaped early to Oxford University, where she read English and went man hunting, her phrase, for the first time.

Presenter0:58

She had her own column on the Daily Express at the age of twenty-two, but really learned her trade there and at the Daily Mail under the watchful eye of the editor David English. The doyenne of English journalism, she's been everywhere and reported on just about everything. Bloody-minded, gravel-voiced, and remorselessly fluent. She is, she admits, not unlike P G. Woodhouse's fierce Aunt Agatha, who ate broken bottles and wore barbed wire next to the skin. She is Anne Leslie. Uh not, Anne, that that's an image you would necessarily promote, as I understand it, when you're out in the field, because you like playing the kind of brainless bird, don't you? Well

Ann Leslie1:35

Well, in the sort of countries I tend to work in, they're very contemptuous of women.

Ann Leslie1:40

And the way to get round this problem with them is to be as bird-brained as you possibly can, because they don't see you as a threat. And I always remember Dame Freya Stark, who is the wonderful adventurer who used to go to mad, bad, and dangerous countries. And she wrote that the great advantage of being a woman is that you can always pretend to be more stupid than you are, and everyone believes you. And what she meant was every man believes you. So I go round looking, frankly, like some bird-brained dimbo, and I have a huge handbag.

Ann Leslie2:14

which is full of rubbish, which I then empty on to Naparachek's desk, saying, I have got the permissions, I just can't find them. And of course he can't stand.

Ann Leslie2:24

this rubbish, and also I remind him of his mother.

Ann Leslie2:28

And he just wants me out of the room.

Presenter2:31

But it's worked with people rather more dangerous than just sort of people at Visa desks, hasn't it? It's worked with kind of gun-toting gorillas.

Ann Leslie2:38

It works very well at checkpoints. It particularly worked in the Balkans, which were always manned by people with gold or silver teeth. You knew they were killers, and you'd turn up one of these checkpoints, and what I used to do is fish out of my handbag pictures of my daughter.

Ann Leslie2:57

And they would take out of their stained, blood and vomit caked uniforms pictures of their daughters and their sons and everything, and they would just then after that, weeping sentimentally, let me through whereas if I came in, looking like a war correspondent, they'd know what to do with me.

Presenter3:13

But you've used your femininity, haven't you, in in less dangerous situations than that one, you know, perhaps it was more dangerous. I mean, didn't you do the Dolly Bird act in order to get a scoop out of Mohammed Ali back in the sixties?

Ann Leslie3:25

On the whole, I always try not to look like a journalist. And Mohammed Ali was coming into London for a big fight. I knew nothing about boxing. So I dressed up lots of eyelashes and fur and make up and stood apart from all the journalists. And I knew that Mohammed Ali had a lot of people in his entourage who were extremely interested in dolly birds. And one of them clocked me and asked if I'd like to meet the champ. And I said, sure.

Ann Leslie3:53

And he showed me

Presenter3:55

Waggling your hand back.

Ann Leslie3:56

He showed me into the back of Muhammad Ali's rolls. And as we drove off, with all the press noting that he had a new blonde by his side, I rolled down the window and shouted, I'm Anne Leslie, the Daily Express, actually, I've scooped you. And Muhammad Ali thought that was incredibly funny. And we got on like a house and fire after that.

Presenter4:17

So cynical use of your femininity is okay, is it? I mean, as long as it it's justifiable because it means you get the story.

Ann Leslie4:24

Yes, I'm not in the job of educating oafs around the world in sort of gender politics and and that kind of thing. I'm there to get a story, and if using femininity can get it, I'm happy about that.

Presenter4:38

Uh

Ann Leslie4:38

Let me buy. Okay.

Presenter4:39

Mm-hmm.

Ann Leslie4:39

My first record is the wonderful, very moving Miserary by Gregorio Allegri, and I've chosen it really because it's blindingly beautiful. And secondly, I was brought up as a Roman Catholic, so I listen to a lot of sacred music.

Speaker 45:12

Sevo the Lord.

Ann Leslie5:12

Who don't know?

Speaker 45:17

He's in his own

Speaker 45:22

His age reason.

Presenter5:45

Part of a legri's miserari mei Deus, sung by the choir of King's College, Cambridge, directed by Stephen Clebery.

Presenter5:52

Um the jargon title for the job you do, Anne Leslie, is Fireman, isn't it? You're a female fireman, you're kind of parachuted into a hot spot when there's a a hot story and you've got to

Presenter6:03

get a new take on it. That must make you very unpopular with the resident journals in these places, who've got it sort of sewn up, really.

Ann Leslie6:11

Yes. Quite often you arrive in a country which the resident correspondents feel they own.

Ann Leslie6:17

I remember arriving in Haiti and I mean I was completely ostracized. I had a very bad back, and my fixer, who is a Haitian Creole, said, Well, why don't you try my Hongan, who is a w voodoo doctor? He saved my wife from zombification.

Ann Leslie6:34

Oh well, bad back should be nothing. Um unfortunately, I didn't realize that going to Hungan meant the entire slum turns up to watch

Ann Leslie6:46

This ceremony, which does involve a certain amount of nudity.

Ann Leslie6:50

And I remember saying to um

Ann Leslie6:53

I call saw my fixer. Look, can you tell the Hungaran that

Ann Leslie6:57

I want to keep my knickers on. So will that affect the magic?

Ann Leslie7:03

And it was agreed I could keep my knickers on while I was covered with ghastly substances in the entire slum, who were very sweet, I must say uh praying like mad, and you know, bits of chicken and things all over the place all the time.

Ann Leslie7:17

Um anyway, um it certainly cured my back. It did? Yes, I but I had to drink a lot of frightful fluids and uh the result is I got amoebic dysentery and I have to say the resident correspondents came up tromps.

Presenter7:20

It did.

Presenter7:30

But they know you're after the scoop, and that's what I mean. You go in there to stir it up.

Ann Leslie7:34

I'm not sure that I've really broken anyone's scoops. I've got scoops, but entirely by accident. I had a scoop uh with Indira Gandhi. Another bout of amoebic dysentery gave me that one. So

Ann Leslie7:46

Often actually fatal. I woke up with blood, mucus and everything coming out of more orosifices than I knew I actually possessed. So went in to see the Prime Minister, but I found myself you know, asking her a question, saying

Ann Leslie8:12

Terribly sorry, Prime Minister. Could I borrow your bathroom? And then rushing into it and throwing up and I

Ann Leslie8:18

came out in was misses Gandhi, and she completely changed. She laid me on her couch I had the tape recorder running, I may say and she began

Ann Leslie8:29

soothing me, singing to me, talking about her fears for herself.

Ann Leslie8:34

her family, and of course she was assassinated. And I thought, hey, this is a cracker, but I can't say that it was my rat like cunning, prismic dysentery. Record number two.

Ann Leslie8:46

Record number two is Nusrat Fatih Ali Khan.

Ann Leslie8:50

And the track I've chosen is Allah Muhammad Shah Yah, and it's Muslim, of course.

Ann Leslie8:57

If he was Pakistani.

Ann Leslie8:59

And when he died, I happened to be in India at the time, and I was in a cab with a Hindu nationalist.

Ann Leslie9:08

But he was weeping, and I said, Well, he said, I've just heard the great master has died. And I said,

Ann Leslie9:14

Excuse me, but he's Moslem.

Ann Leslie9:16

And he said, Ah, but sometimes music transcends everything. And I feel this about this track.

Presenter9:48

Musrat Fetter Ali Khan and Allah Mohammed Chah Yah. So to India, that takes us, Anne, where you were born of British parents, um just sort of at the beginning of the war. Your parents stayed on after independence. Wh what was your father's line of business then?

Ann Leslie10:03

My father was in oil.

Ann Leslie10:05

And of course oil is the great game in the subcontinent, so we travelled around a lot. But it was an odd childhood because I was first sent to boarding school in a hill station at four. Now nowadays that would be seen as child abuse, but we expat children, you know, expected it somehow.

Presenter10:23

Did you although I mentioned in the introduction your mother was somewhat careless, I mean, it's.

Ann Leslie10:28

No, she was a very beautiful woman, and so one of her friends said to me, Your mother had many, many virtues, but being maternal was not one of them. And I think she

Ann Leslie10:39

didn't feel like having me around, so that was fine. I was packed off.

Ann Leslie10:44

Yeah.

Presenter10:44

But was it fine? I mean, you've called it your non-childhood. Obviously, there's something that's still

Presenter10:50

Hurt there.

Ann Leslie10:51

There was an odd thing about my childhood is that I was then packed off to a convent in Derbyshire.

Ann Leslie10:59

And I think in a funny way my heart broke because I loved India. I felt I was being sent into exile, into cold, wet

Ann Leslie11:12

Probably the most important influence in my early life was Jamo Hommid, who was the head bearer, and he was a deeply noble Pashtun.

Ann Leslie11:23

But he saved my life on several occasions once during the so called Great Killing in Calcutta, where there was huge common little riots between the Hindus and the Moslems. And he knew that I was away playing with some friends in an area where the riots were coming. And he climbed over

Ann Leslie11:43

gardens and walls and he was obviously a Muslim he was obviously

Ann Leslie11:47

in danger of his life, but he went and

Speaker 411:48

Yeah.

Presenter11:48

I

Ann Leslie11:50

carried me, his little missy barber, on his spindly little back, and walked me to safety.

Presenter11:55

So you felt very loved by him, quite obviously. Um but you didn't feel very loved by your mother, did you? She thought you were

Presenter12:03

Rather a nuisance and rather plain, hm?

Ann Leslie12:04

Yeah.

Ann Leslie12:05

Yes, my mother being extraordinarily beautiful, I think was rather shaken by the fact that uh her daughter wasn't.

Ann Leslie12:13

And yet I was obviously clever. So when her own beauty started to fade, which inevitably it does, she became quite bitter, and in a curious way, I think, quite jealous of me. So I always felt

Ann Leslie12:27

Emotional blackmail from her. And I have to say, and it's a terrible thing to say, but you know, when she died, I was actually extraordinarily relieved. I always felt

Ann Leslie12:37

Anything I did would annoy my mother.

Presenter12:40

And I

Ann Leslie12:40

And I think it was jealousy as much as anything.

Presenter12:42

So do you think that because you felt that, as you've described, from a very early age, that that, if you like, was when and I think this is your phrase the iron started to get into your soul?

Ann Leslie12:52

I think what it did was it made me almost slightly cold blooded.

Ann Leslie12:57

Because I didn't expect

Ann Leslie12:59

Anything tremendously good to happen to me.

Ann Leslie13:02

Next piece of music.

Ann Leslie13:04

This is Ravishanka's improvisations on the theme music from Satyajit Ray's great masterpiece, Patha Panchali.

Ann Leslie13:13

And I remember going once to interview Sachajit Ray in Calcutta.

Ann Leslie13:19

And it made me feel that I was in somehow in eighteenth century London with Dr Johnson, because all these artists and painters and film makers were talking through the night so passionately, and Bengali culture is wonderful. But most of all, this reminds me of

Ann Leslie13:36

the kind of India that still lives on in my heart.

Presenter14:10

Ravi Shankar's improvisations on the theme music from Pata Panchali. Um so you were sent away from all that beauty, Anne Leslie, sent to a a convent in Derbyshire. I mean, one can't imagine a greater contrast, really. How did you get on? Did you hate it with this broken heart you had?

Ann Leslie14:26

I did hate it. Um one of the reasons I hated it, it was a very different culture. In one nun I remember I she came into the dormitory and I was changing my clothes. And as an India, I take one lot of clothes off and I put on the other lot of clothes. And she looked at me in this great puddingy face and she was furious and she said, What are you doing? Don't you know your guardian angel is a man? And this extraordinary attitude that even guardian angels can rape little girls. So I didn't like it at all. Yeah.

Presenter14:58

Yeah.

Ann Leslie14:58

Yeah.

Presenter14:58

Yeah.

Ann Leslie14:58

Yeah.

Presenter14:58

Yeah.

Ann Leslie14:58

Yeah.

Presenter14:58

But it didn't stop you shining in the classroom, did it? I mean, you did your your O's and your A's very quickly, you got through the whole system and off to Lady Margaret Horse.

Ann Leslie15:05

The good thing about that school was uh there's nothing to do in the convent but work. And then I got a scholarship to Oxford and I was free. And of course, suddenly being free, I discovered boys, which I don't think was huge help to my academic creativity.

Presenter15:21

So you were free to go manhunting. What kind of pattern did it take, the manhunting?

Ann Leslie15:26

Well, I had a very beautiful friend called Elizabeth at Oxford. And we would, you know, set our sights on a particular sector of the undergraduate population each town. And we decided to go for the rugger stars. Well, of course, that's a huge mistake, because of course you have to spend most of your time in a muddy field. Then we moved on to the actors, which is when I met my husband.

Presenter15:49

You've been together ever since?

Ann Leslie15:49

Have you been together ever soon? With a few holidays from each other, yes.

Presenter15:53

Well, yes, you disappear from time to time. But apparently you you sort of behave pretty gracelessly. You wouldn't cooperate with marrying him, as it were. You just let him do all of the organisation. You

Ann Leslie16:04

The problem was that um by then I was freelancing and working for a lot of magazines and I was being sent

Ann Leslie16:10

by a magazine called Queen, Round the World.

Ann Leslie16:14

And I was going to be away for months. And Michael said, By the way, if we don't get married, I won't be here when you come back. So I thought, oh, well, all right.

Ann Leslie16:24

I said, but I don't want to know anything about this marriage.

Presenter16:27

Why didn't you want to know anything about it?

Ann Leslie16:29

But you sort of wanted it to happen really by this money, but you wanted to leave me.

Presenter16:31

I did want to be

Ann Leslie16:33

uh when I came back from round round the world work. Um and if this was the price. Um but I remember in the church looking out of the window saying I'm having this annulled for a stop, but he had to keep it a secret from my family and friends. It's a very semi-detached attitude, isn't it?

Ann Leslie16:50

Anyway, I mean

Presenter16:51

But what is it? I mean, what w what makes you so semi-detached about these things?

Ann Leslie16:55

It may be from my childhood that um I

Ann Leslie17:00

feel that

Ann Leslie17:03

I mustn't get too emotional and too emotionally attached.

Ann Leslie17:08

to anything in my life.

Ann Leslie17:10

Um it doesn't work out that way because I'm wholly emotionally attached to him and my daughter.

Ann Leslie17:17

Equal number four.

Ann Leslie17:19

Record number four is that um Jacqueline Dupre playing the opening and first movement of Elgar's Cello Concerto.

Ann Leslie17:26

Now, although I'm urban to the core, I get lonely on the road because I'm often on my own.

Ann Leslie17:33

And somehow when I'm on the road in some dusty or strange

Ann Leslie17:39

very foreign place, I have a kind of primeval yearning for the English countryside, which I never visit normally. And this is a very English piece of music.

Presenter18:42

Jacqueline Dupre playing the opening of the first movement of Elgar's cello concerto with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir John Barbaroli.

Presenter18:50

So into journalism, and this is the early sixties, and the Daily Express on the University Milk Round snaps up this articulate and self possessed English graduate, who by this time I understand had been propositioned by Salvador Daly. Now, in the interest of giving me a little scoop, come on, I insist you tell this story.

Ann Leslie19:08

It was during the long vac when I was after Oxford. I was only seventeen and for complicated and boring reasons I ended up

Ann Leslie19:15

Hoping to stay with some friends in Cadekes.

Ann Leslie19:19

They weren't there when I arrived, and I had no money, and I was sitting on the beach weeping.

Ann Leslie19:23

and a very beautiful gauntlet woman came up to me, found out that I'd been stranded, and then she said he wouldn't come and stay with me. And I spent an extraordinary summer there, and we used to go down to Daly's place, Portly Gart.

Ann Leslie19:36

And I remember one occasion he said to me, Have you seen the egg room? and I said, No.

Ann Leslie19:42

So he took me up to this circular room, which was indeed very beautiful.

Ann Leslie19:47

and then said to me, Would you like to see the Divine Dali? and I turned round, and there was Dali with his trousers round his ankles.

Presenter19:51

Didn't I always

Ann Leslie19:55

displaying what he called the Divine Dali. And I burst out laughing. So I ran out and went down to where all the friends were, and I said, You will never believe what's just happened And I said and it was so ludicrous. I mean, I looked at the Divine Dali, and it's a shrimp and two peas, I'm telling you.

Ann Leslie20:13

And they suddenly stopped laughing, and of course Darley was standing behind me. But I have to ha hand it to him. He took it very well. Frankly, I think he was impotent, but I mean, it was awful to be laughed at by a seventeen year old.

Presenter20:26

So an unforgettable summer in in Catalonia. Um back you came and you got a job on the Daily Express and they sent you to Manchester. I mean another foreign country as far as you were concerned.

Ann Leslie20:37

I was appalled. The mill towns were still flourishing and and girls wore clogs. And I remember I was loathed by the news editor because I fulfilled everything he absolutely loathed women for a start. I was a girl.

Ann Leslie20:53

Oxbridge Girls with Lardidar Accents

Ann Leslie20:56

And he took one look at me and said, You're not in the bloody Savoy today, miss, and you're keeping a good man out of a job. Well, I didn't want this job, actually. But the point is, Anne.

Presenter21:05

That you could do it, couldn't you? You you you could write. I mean, I don't you think it's one of those things you can either do or you can't do, and you just knew you had a kind of narrative to the way you wrote it, it's unadorned, tell it straight and hook the reader?

Ann Leslie21:19

The best thing that happened to me was I was not taught how to write a news story. In fact, that was one of the ways they were trying to drive me out, because there used to be a thing called the Daily Express style book.

Presenter21:22

Didn't you

Ann Leslie21:29

which listed all the clichés that they believed were appropriate to writing a news story. And I was never given it on the grounds that, you know, it might make me into a good journalist. And so I would go on some awful story. But I wrote the story as it had happened. And it went on from there. Record number five. Record number five is Billy Holliday singing Strange Fruit. It's about the lynching of a black man in the Deep South.

Ann Leslie21:57

And when I listen to it, I feel the music is so beautiful that it becomes almost an elegy for every anonymous person who

Ann Leslie22:09

has died in hideous circumstances.

Ann Leslie22:12

And I've seen them die in those circumstances in wars and ethnic cleansings and massacres. And it just reminds you of the fall of the sparrow, the anonymous person, who is not given a funeral oration.

Speaker 422:27

Then the sudden smell

Speaker 422:31

Of burning flesh

Speaker 422:37

Here is a fruit.

Speaker 422:42

For the crows to plap.

Speaker 422:49

For the rain together

Presenter22:53

Yeah.

Presenter22:55

Billy Holiday and Strange Fruit, the Strange Fruit being the body hanging from the tree, and you've seen a few of those, as you say, in your time, and Bosnia, KwaZulu, Natal.

Presenter23:06

Hey T, El Salvador.

Presenter23:08

Do you develop a kind of immunity to these sites?

Ann Leslie23:12

When you're working, you are.

Ann Leslie23:15

Very much like a forensic scientist. Sometimes they put uniforms on people they've already killed, and then you'll have to see whether the entry wounds and the exit wounds match the uniform and that sort of thing. And you're so that close to you. Well, you know, you can't go ahead and say this was a massacre of civilians unless you're sure of it.

Presenter23:28

Do you like

Ann Leslie23:37

So you have to do that kind of thing.

Speaker 423:38

Hmm.

Ann Leslie23:39

I don't call myself a war reporter. I specialize in foreign political stories, but of course over the years it has involved war, massacres and so on. But there are a lot of journalists who go on sort of my beat, who live on booze, adrenaline.

Ann Leslie23:56

And war. And they are like mercenaries almost. And when there is no war that rates

Ann Leslie24:05

any mention in in the Western media, they go into deep depression and sometimes die.

Ann Leslie24:13

Technical number six.

Ann Leslie24:15

This is the opening of the first movement of Brahm's Piano Concerto No. 1.

Ann Leslie24:20

Um

Ann Leslie24:22

Oddly enough, it's associated, in my mind, with one of the worst interviews I ever did in my life, and that was with Imelda Marcos. I couldn't ask her any question because it was like throwing pebbles into Niagara. I reminded Mrs. Thatcher many years later when I interviewed Mrs. Thatcher, I said, you're the worst person to interview. You're as bad as Imelda Marcos, because if you ask a question, it disappears like a pebble into Niagara. So those were two sort of failures as interviews.

Presenter25:50

The opening of the first movement of Brahm's piano concerto number one with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Karl Berm. I think Maurizio Pollini eventually comes in, but you wanted that great opening piece, didn't you? And and memories for you and Leslie for Imelda Marcos, the iron butterfly. You've always been a a critic of what might be called journalism of attachment, haven't you? You've always resisted advocating certain causes, but that must be quite difficult actually when you get into these situations. I mean, take Kosovo for example. You know, you you you you you couldn't not write compassionately about

Presenter26:23

The Muslims and the ethnic cleansing.

Ann Leslie26:25

The problem with the um

Presenter26:25

The problem with the

Ann Leslie26:27

whole idea of the politics of attachment is that

Ann Leslie26:32

If a channelist

Ann Leslie26:33

Allows their partisan emotions to get in the way of copy.

Ann Leslie26:39

It gets to the point where you will

Ann Leslie26:42

Edit out bad behaviour on the side of the people that you're espousing.

Presenter26:47

Mm-hmm.

Ann Leslie26:47

And you reduce it to almost a cartoon, goodies and baddies.

Ann Leslie26:54

Sometimes goodies, quote unquote, behave incredibly badly. It's up to you to say so. I think a journalist actually has to try and say, this is what I've seen, and not let your own personal feelings

Ann Leslie27:11

Do a sort of emotional editing in advance. Next record.

Ann Leslie27:16

This one is Paul Simon singing Graceland. It combines two passions. One is driving

Ann Leslie27:26

In the sort of states which are called flyover territory. Most people go to the states, they go to Florida.

Ann Leslie27:33

New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and all the rest of the states where the majority of people live is flyover country. I like the deep south. I like the strangeness of that area.

Ann Leslie27:47

He's using also South African musicians. So you get the My Love of South Africa, the.

Ann Leslie27:55

Music of the Shabines and the Townships, and you get them combined in one.

Ann Leslie27:59

And it works wonderfully for me.

Speaker 428:02

The Mississippi Delta was shining like a national guitar.

Speaker 428:10

I am following the river, down the highway, through the cradle of the Civil War.

Speaker 428:18

I'm on a Grace Land, Grace Land in Memphis, Tennessee I'm born Graceland.

Speaker 428:27

Poor boys and pilgrims, the families, and we are going to Greece.

Presenter28:31

Paul Simon and Graceland and memories of drinking southern comfort in the deep south. You don't d drink or smoke much any more? No, I don't

Ann Leslie28:39

No, I've got no mices left except adultery and I suppose it's a bit late for that now.

Presenter28:44

But illness is put paid, hasn't it? These kinds of vices.

Ann Leslie28:46

Yeah.

Ann Leslie28:47

Yes, I mean, to a certain extent now I have a damaged immune system. I can't uh for example work in Iraq.

Presenter28:53

Yeah.

Ann Leslie28:53

Yeah. still work, you know, Middle East, Israel.

Presenter28:56

Well, anywhere where there's a good medical service.

Ann Leslie28:57

Yes, it's

Presenter28:59

spent four months in hospital, you've had a serious operation and a couple of others. Have you

Presenter29:04

I mean, have you lain in your bed is really the question I'd like to ask you in in a hospital bed and contemplated your own demise more intensely than you've ever done out in the field.

Ann Leslie29:15

No, I once heard a doctor I was on morphine and I was in a hospital in Los Angeles at that stage.

Ann Leslie29:21

Talking to my husband, and people tend to think if you're zonked on morphine, you can't hear your own name.

Ann Leslie29:28

And I heard the doctor more or less saying it was terribly serious and

Ann Leslie29:34

you know, hinting to my husband that maybe I wouldn't make it. Um

Ann Leslie29:38

And I remember thinking

Ann Leslie29:40

Well, in a way, I don't totally mind dying now, because I've had a jolly good run for my money.

Ann Leslie29:46

But then of course I thought, well actually

Ann Leslie29:49

I'd rather not die,'cause my family would be so upset, so I thought, well, I won't, and didn't.

Ann Leslie29:54

Evidently.

Presenter29:55

You have this control over your life. But it what it means is you're on the leash a bit more now. You now at last are doing what your family, I think your husband and your daughter have always wanted you to do, which is behave yourself, heed their fears, eh?

Ann Leslie30:08

Yes, my husband now has a wonderful excuse. In the past, he couldn't say, well, you know, it's terribly dangerous, so what's new? He now has an excuse, and I have to break it to him gently. I'm terribly sorry, but I am going to go to Israel next week, and I'm terribly sorry, but I am going to go to Saudi Arabia.

Presenter30:27

But you couldn't have done it any differently anyway, could you? And you you are what you are, a female fireman.

Ann Leslie30:34

Yes, I I suppose I could write a column, but I was given my first column when I was twenty two, and terribly embarrassing because I knew nothing about anything. But there were huge posters all over London buses, you know, Anne Leslie, she's young, she's provocative, and she's only twenty two, which made me feel, of course, at twenty three my career would be over. And I can't really settle down to writing sort of polyphiller columns about how awful supermarket trolleys.

Ann Leslie31:03

Ah, but maybe the time will come.

Presenter31:06

Mm-hmm.

Ann Leslie31:06

Straight code.

Ann Leslie31:07

My last record is uh by Ofro Haza.

Ann Leslie31:11

Who's the late uh Israeli diva?

Ann Leslie31:14

It's called Eshal, which means God, and it's a kind of plea for peace. And curiously enough, although she was an Israeli diva, she was very popular among the Palestinians. And I was in.

Ann Leslie31:25

uh the West Bank when I heard she died and I was with Palestinians and

Ann Leslie31:31

They were terribly upset and I said, But she's Miss Rayleigh, you know? And they said, Oh no, her music crosses religious and ethnic divides And of course it always sounds like one of those stupid lovey remarks that music can

Presenter31:34

Lano

Ann Leslie31:44

Heal wounds between peoples. And mostly it can't, but there are a few exceptions. And I think Ofrahaza's echal.

Ann Leslie31:52

Does it?

Speaker 431:54

Please God protect us and keep away the pain. Guard every moment, with every breath we take. You know we sweat so hard for survival.

Presenter32:22

Offra Haza and Eshal a prayer for peace. Now, if you could only take one of those eight records, Anne, which one would you take?

Ann Leslie32:29

It would be the Ravi Shankar, because it evokes for me a time when I think I was the happiest I've ever been, which is when I lived in India.

Presenter32:38

What about a book, as well as the Bible and Shakespeare?

Ann Leslie32:42

P. G. Woodhouse collected works on

Ann Leslie32:45

I know an awful lot of his stories off by heart.

Ann Leslie32:49

But I only have to read a line like Aunt calling to aunt, like Mastodon's bellowing across the primeval swamp, and I start laughing again. And of course it's a totally unreal world. It's an idyl. It's one he invented.

Ann Leslie33:02

and I think I would sit chortling away.

Ann Leslie33:06

Until I was rescued.

Presenter33:07

Uh

Presenter33:08

And your luxury.

Ann Leslie33:08

Yeah.

Presenter33:08

Yeah.

Ann Leslie33:09

My luxury would be enormous amounts of garlic and a garlic press.

Ann Leslie33:15

Because basically I can eat anything twigs, boulders, stones, whatever, so long as it's drenched in garlic. Of course I'm not sure that the rescuers would want to rescue me, because I would smell long before they reached me.

Presenter33:29

Yeah.

Ann Leslie33:29

Yeah.

Presenter33:29

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

Speaker 333:40

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Islandists archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk/radio4.