Humphrey Lyttelton

Presenter0:00

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 six.

Presenter0:28

My castaway this week is the jazz musician and veteran radio presenter Humphrey Lyttelton. He formed his first band in nineteen forty eight and, described by Louis Armstrong as Britain's top trumpeter, has been touring ever since.

Presenter0:41

His chosen profession betrays an upper crust lineage. His father was a famous housemaster at Eton, and childhood holidays were often spent at the stately homes of titled relatives.

Presenter0:51

His radio career began with shows about jazz, but it's in his role as Chairman Humph on Radio Four's I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue that he's gained cult status as the deadpan purveyor of blue chip filth to Middle England.

Presenter1:04

Uh Humphrey Littleton, you've been a quiz master then on that show since 1972, but your real love, your first love, jazz.

Humphrey Lyttelton1:11

Yes, indeed, yes. Uh sometimes people ask me, um, you know, what's the most important thing? And I say, Well, if ever I slump forward, it's not going to be on a on a computer keyboard.

Humphrey Lyttelton1:22

Uh it'll be trumpet in hand.

Presenter1:24

What is it about the jazz that so captivates you?

Humphrey Lyttelton1:26

Well, I've I I was fascinated by music from a a very, very early age. Uh the trumpet came quite late. I I was I had a love affair with the harmonica for a long time.

Presenter1:36

And drums as well, you play

Humphrey Lyttelton1:37

And drums, yes. I fiddled about with that for a while and my mother thought, as mothers do, that I was showing enormous promise. So she answered um an advert in the local paper for a drum teacher.

Humphrey Lyttelton1:51

And um

Humphrey Lyttelton1:52

A man called Mr Glass came down, and I can remember the moment when he came into the room, and my mother said, Of course Humphrey's uh worked a lot on the drums himself, and he's learnt l he's he's learnt quite a lot. To which Mr Glass said, Well, we'll soon unlearn him all that.

Presenter2:09

You of course moved on to the trumpet. What was it about the trumpet that interested you f from the beginning? Did did something spark your imagination?

Humphrey Lyttelton2:15

I was rather taken by the f sight of Louis Armstrong playing the trumpet.

Humphrey Lyttelton2:20

because there you were in heraldic posture with the trumpet pointing at the ceiling.

Presenter2:25

That's with the head thrown back.

Humphrey Lyttelton2:26

head thrown back and everything. And it was only when I started to learn the trumpet that I discovered that it's absolutely fa fatal if you do that, because, if you'll pardon the expression, all the spit runs back into the mouthpiece and you get a rather bubbling performance in the wrong sense of the word.

Presenter2:44

Uh you are still performing at the age of eighty five. Ha has your appetite to perform, your appetite to to tour, diminished at all?

Humphrey Lyttelton2:51

Not in the slightest. I'm rather worried about it.

Humphrey Lyttelton2:54

No, it hasn't. I still wake up in the morning with uh with uh ideas sometimes they keep me awake at the crack of dawn ideas for things to do with the band. I've just done a recording session. We did nineteen tracks in four days and every morning I've been waking up with tunes in my head. And um as long as that goes on I want to get out there with the band and play them.

Presenter3:16

We're going to talk about that much later. Let's hear your first Desert Island Disc.

Humphrey Lyttelton3:21

Well, I go to that time when I was learning the drum with Mr. Glass, and he first of all took me up to the Victoria Barracks up in Windsor, waiting for the band to come out of the barracks and lead the guard, the new guard, up to Windsor Castle, where they do the changing of the guard. And I can remember still the thrill of hearing the command, by the left, quick march, and then you'd have the five beat roll on the drums. So I'd like to have a record by one of my heroes.

Humphrey Lyttelton3:50

Kenneth Alford.

Humphrey Lyttelton3:52

The British Malt King.

Humphrey Lyttelton3:55

His most famous march has been very badly treated, rude words have been put to it.

Humphrey Lyttelton4:00

And so on, but it's always a favourite of mine and has in one section of it a countermelody, which is absolutely beautiful.

Presenter4:38

The band of the Royal Marines and Colonel Bergey. So, Humphrey, um, you didn't just go to Eton, you were born at Eton in the spring of nineteen twenty one.

Humphrey Lyttelton4:47

I was, yes, may the twenty third, nineteen twenty one.

Presenter4:50

And that was because your your dad was a Scottish.

Humphrey Lyttelton4:52

My dad was a a a schoolmaster. He was a an uh assistant master then, which meant which was all the masters who weren't house masters were called assistant masters. And I was born there.

Presenter5:02

And it was a sort of classic, um, upper crust household of the nineteen twenties. I mean, they were there were the children were separate in the house, and there were nursemaids, and mummy was somewhere downstairs, and

Humphrey Lyttelton5:13

That's right, yes. I was brought up by um a Nanny Viggers.

Humphrey Lyttelton5:17

A very, very strict lady, very nice lady.

Presenter5:20

She she was pretty vigorous with the slipper, I understand it, Nanny V

Humphrey Lyttelton5:23

That was the first time I ever discovered that part of life was to bend over and make it on the backside by some implement of some kind.

Presenter5:30

Difficult now for for people of the generation who are having children to understand that. I mean, if if you woke in the middle of the night in tears or you had a bad cold, or was it was it Mummy you went to, or was it Nanny Viggers you went to?

Humphrey Lyttelton5:40

Oh, Nanny Vegas.

Humphrey Lyttelton5:42

and said there was a a spare bed in her in her bedroom, and you could sleep in there for the rest of the night. I think it was quite a common thing with nannies. You've spent so much of your life with them that you were absolutely heartbroken when they left.

Presenter5:54

Did you did you have a close relationship with your mother, though? I mean, were things good between you and Mum, or or did you not really see her very often?

Humphrey Lyttelton6:01

Oh, no, they were always good. My mother was uh she was an amazing person. She was she was very humorous.

Humphrey Lyttelton6:07

But uh my mother was uh she was a very strong woman.

Humphrey Lyttelton6:10

But she went from an upbringing in Babram Hall

Humphrey Lyttelton6:14

uh, with butlers and servants and all this kind of business. She went in nineteen sixteen to the front.

Humphrey Lyttelton6:24

So that within three weeks of leaving that sort of very sheltered upbringing, she was behind the lines outside Rouen.

Presenter6:31

And so tending tending the injured soldiers on the front line, did that leave its mark on her? Did she talk about that to you?

Humphrey Lyttelton6:37

She did. We went to see the um scenes of battle, you know, and uh in uh France in sometime in our teens. And I remember my mother uh when confronted with the graves, you know, which were just uh one whole field.

Humphrey Lyttelton6:53

And she broke down then.

Presenter6:54

You had, um, four sisters. You were the only boy. So, um.

Presenter6:58

Did you ever feel overwhelmed by all that uh femininity?

Humphrey Lyttelton7:01

When I was about eight, I suppose, my parents bought me a bicycle for Christmas.

Humphrey Lyttelton7:08

and I hopped on it and peddled fast.

Humphrey Lyttelton7:11

Because all my sisters were at boarding school as well, and they all had very hearty friends who used to come.

Humphrey Lyttelton7:17

And I was an age when one sort of bolted from hearty females.

Humphrey Lyttelton7:22

I still do, actually.

Presenter7:23

You're quite a shy boy.

Humphrey Lyttelton7:24

You're going to

Humphrey Lyttelton7:25

I was very shy, yes, terribly.

Humphrey Lyttelton7:28

I set fire to a vicar once, in out of shyness.

Presenter7:32

You now you're going to have to explain yourself.

Humphrey Lyttelton7:34

Well, it's I was wandering about the house at the age of I don't know, what five, six or something.

Humphrey Lyttelton7:39

One of the parents wandered in, and he was a vicar.

Humphrey Lyttelton7:43

and I was suddenly confronted in the hallway of the house by this total stranger.

Humphrey Lyttelton7:47

and um didn't know what to do at all, so in in in desperation I lowered my head and butted him in the midriff.

Humphrey Lyttelton7:55

And he burst into phrase.

Humphrey Lyttelton7:58

which uh might have uh been some evidence that I had some kind of satanic influence in my early days, but the truth was that he had a packet of Swan Vestus non safety matches in his waistcoat, and I'd ignited the whole art with one punch.

Humphrey Lyttelton8:13

But uh that's what Chinese does for you.

Presenter8:15

That was your second record.

Humphrey Lyttelton8:17

Second record goes to a love that I uh shared with my father of the monologues that were recorded in the mid thirties by Arthur Marshall. And my father and I used to love this. It was at one of the meeting points, you know, there was uh and we p both played golf and we so that we had quite a lot of time together. Most a lot of it was r it was heaving with laughter at at Arthur Marshall's

Humphrey Lyttelton8:42

Description, for example, is in the role of a schoolmistress taking the children on a nature walk.

Presenter8:49

Left, right, left, right. Keep in step at the head of the crocodile. Sylvia, dear, don't slop about so. Hips firm and torso trim, if you please. That's the ticket. We'll soon be there. Oh, eyes left, girls, eyes left. Look, there's a rarely splendid specimen of a Jersey cow. What a fine, stodio creature she is, to be sure. Now, what's she up to, I wonder? Oh, oh, eyes right, girls, eyes right, Milly, eyes right, dear, this instant. Left, right, left. Chuckling away to that, Humphrey Lyttleton. Humphrey, that was Arthur Marshall and the nature walk. Um there was clearly then your father being a a schoolmaster at Eaton. Clearly no question of where you would eventually go to school. But but you went in the beginning to a boarding school aged eight in Surrey and you said that um you felt marooned there, that there was much nocturnal sobbing under the blankets. Y you weren't happy at being sent away from home.

Humphrey Lyttelton9:41

Well, I was eight years old. My parents took me there and uh you know I was f full of apprehension.

Humphrey Lyttelton9:49

We were met by the headmaster, Mr. Crabtree.

Humphrey Lyttelton9:52

Sounds Dickensian, doesn't it?

Humphrey Lyttelton9:53

And there were a lot of bounties boys already there who made friends already. Oh, dreadful. And then my parents um

Humphrey Lyttelton10:01

I think thought the best thing to do was to hand me over to mister Crabtree.

Humphrey Lyttelton10:05

and then uh get in the car and head off for the for the gate.

Humphrey Lyttelton10:10

Without uh saying goodbye or anything else, they thought they were the b the best thing. And I can imagine my father saying to my mother, who was probably very upset, um don't worry, he's probably made a lot of friends already. Well, in fact I hadn't.

Presenter10:23

When you were at school then, there there was a was he a a teacher there, Geoffrey Fox, somebody who actually was instrumental in informing you as a little boy and and and guiding you.

Humphrey Lyttelton10:32

Yes, Geoffrey Fox took over from Mr. Crabtree.

Presenter10:34

So he was the headmaster.

Humphrey Lyttelton10:35

He was the headmaster. It was a complete difference in style. And one of the things I did for him was uh doing cartoons on the stage. It was known uh then as Lightning Cartoons. It had a huge lay out pad.

Humphrey Lyttelton10:48

I must have looked a right idiot.

Humphrey Lyttelton10:50

I stood up there, you know, doing these things and reading this patter about people like Mahatma Gandhi, Charlie Chaplin, and uh people like that.

Presenter10:58

So even in those early days, I mean, you liked you clearly had the facility for doing a bit of a turn.

Humphrey Lyttelton11:04

Oh yes, yes. I think I was a bit of a ham even at that stage.

Presenter11:07

You started playing trumpet then at Eton, was it at the age of round about fifteen?

Humphrey Lyttelton11:12

Yes.

Presenter11:12

How did it all begin?

Humphrey Lyttelton11:14

Well, I'd had a band as a as of playing the harmonica.

Humphrey Lyttelton11:17

But then I heard Louis Armstrong and uh wanted to play the trumpet, so I got my mother to buy me a trumpet.

Humphrey Lyttelton11:25

And I walked into Charing Cross Road wearing, I may tell you, at the age of uh, what, fifteen, a top hat, a tail coat.

Humphrey Lyttelton11:32

A silver waistcoat.

Humphrey Lyttelton11:34

I don't know what they thought of the apparition coming in.

Humphrey Lyttelton11:38

My mother trailed round behind me, saying, Wouldn't a clarinet be nicer?

Presenter11:41

What was it about well, you say it was Louis Armstrong that that captured you, but what was it about jazz in general that that appealed to this uh fifteen-year-old boy?

Humphrey Lyttelton11:50

on the surface of it it was just fun. You know, the music was just good fun. But underneath it all, um, I think it was the um

Humphrey Lyttelton11:59

fact that jazz music always contains a hint of pain.

Humphrey Lyttelton12:03

And it was that emotional side of it, I think, underneath that I liked, because most of the music that I go for is is highly emotional.

Humphrey Lyttelton12:13

And uh in the dead of night I've been known to sit there with a but not not exactly in floods, but with a knob trickle from time to time, listening to music.

Presenter12:22

We're going to hear your third record. Now, it's not a piece of jazz. Tell us about it.

Humphrey Lyttelton12:27

This is part of that emotional thing. It's a a recording of Benjamino Gigli in nineteen thirty six singing what I call uh Handel's Largo. And um after uh leaving school, leaving Eton, I went to South Wales with a cousin of mine.

Humphrey Lyttelton12:44

to Port Obad and um I suppose we were uh saved from utter boredom.

Humphrey Lyttelton12:50

in the evenings by the fact that he had a blind up gramophone.

Presenter13:46

Benjamino Gigli singing Ombre my foo from handels cerce uh giving you goosebumps there Humphrey Littleton

Humphrey Lyttelton13:54

Indeed, yes.

Humphrey Lyttelton13:56

And it's got that cadence at the end, da da da da da da da da and I come over all goose pimples from head to foot.

Humphrey Lyttelton14:03

With that particular sequence of things. I first came over funny when that was played in the nursery.

Humphrey Lyttelton14:09

When we used to listen to um

Humphrey Lyttelton14:12

Who Killed Cott Robin?

Humphrey Lyttelton14:14

And when he gets to all the birds in the air da da da da da da fellow crying and a sobbing, fellow crying and a sobbing, I was right there with him.

Humphrey Lyttelton14:24

Blubbing like a maniac.

Presenter14:26

So usually they're bringing back memories of uh Port Talbot. So in the evenings then, performing in what the the working men's clubs around?

Humphrey Lyttelton14:32

We go down to the Valindra Working Men's Club. You said, us, who are you? I had a double cousin.

Presenter14:36

Yeah, I went with my cousin.

Humphrey Lyttelton14:39

Anthony, who was like a brother to me. His mother was my mother's sister, and his father was my father's brother.

Humphrey Lyttelton14:47

So we always did everything together in those days.

Presenter14:50

After your time in uh Wales then, you were called up to the Grenadier Guards in in nineteen forty-one.

Humphrey Lyttelton14:55

Yes.

Presenter14:56

Um how was that then, seeing frontline? You did see frontline service at one point.

Humphrey Lyttelton15:01

Very briefly, yes. I went to North Africa in 1943 and trained to take part in the landing at Salerno.

Humphrey Lyttelton15:10

We went on uh stinking old troop ships.

Humphrey Lyttelton15:14

And we heard on the way over there that uh Italy had surrendered.

Humphrey Lyttelton15:20

So there was a general air of um celebration.

Presenter15:23

Yeah.

Humphrey Lyttelton15:24

I had my trumpet with me. I took it wherever I went.

Presenter15:24

Yeah.

Humphrey Lyttelton15:27

But we didn't realize that the Germans had moved in immediately that the Italians uh surrendered. We landed on the beach head and uh the Germans cunningly allowed most of the ships to un uh to

Presenter15:39

Just

Humphrey Lyttelton15:40

Disgorged. Disgorged uh uh soldiers until the beach head was full and then they started raining down the shells and things like that.

Presenter15:40

Gorge.

Humphrey Lyttelton15:49

And it was gruesome, you know, there's no doubt about it.

Humphrey Lyttelton15:52

On the other hand, I used to jazz up the

Humphrey Lyttelton15:55

The last post. In those days it was simply a bugle call saying and the w the words that went with it were lights out.

Humphrey Lyttelton16:02

Lights out, lights out.

Humphrey Lyttelton16:05

So, um

Humphrey Lyttelton16:06

People uh come up to me at gigs now.

Humphrey Lyttelton16:10

And, um, they say, I remember you at Salono, and you think, Oh, we're gonna have some sort of horrific memories and they say you used to jazz up at the last post.

Presenter16:18

Your cousin Anthony that you've described is similar to a brother to you, you were very close. He he died in action during the second

Humphrey Lyttelton16:24

He died in Angio, yes.

Presenter16:25

How did you hear about that?

Humphrey Lyttelton16:27

Um I heard about that when I was I was immediately back home when the news came through. My father came up. I remember him coming up into my bedroom and he was uh he was very fond of Antony.

Humphrey Lyttelton16:39

He could barely sort of he just sort of blurted out that Anthony had been killed.

Humphrey Lyttelton16:45

He gave me a sort of comforting, you know

Humphrey Lyttelton16:48

pat on the sol on the shoulder and uh went out and uh he was very overcome by it.

Presenter16:49

No, that's on the show.

Presenter16:55

What's your fourth record then, Humphrey Littleton?

Humphrey Lyttelton16:57

It's a Gospel number sung by one of the greatest of all Gospel singers, Marion Williams, through his absolute tornado of passion.

Humphrey Lyttelton17:07

And I love it.

Presenter17:20

Want me to serve

Presenter17:39

The power and passion of Marion Williams and the Stars of Faith, and it is well. So, Humphrey Littleton, you're demobbed in nineteen forty-six. You you famously play outside Buckingham Palace on V E Day, and you decide then that you want to pursue art. You you you're gonna pursue the the cartooning uh talent that that was exposed when you were at uh prep school in Sunningdale.

Humphrey Lyttelton18:00

Well, it was a choice I had to make.

Humphrey Lyttelton18:03

When I came out of the army, my father, I think, expected me to become a schoolmaster in his footsteps. So um I went to my father and f in trepidations because uh I thought he might be very disappointed.

Humphrey Lyttelton18:18

And then she asked me what what do you think he will do?

Humphrey Lyttelton18:21

So I said, Well, I have two natural talents. One of them is for drawing.

Humphrey Lyttelton18:27

And um and the other is for music.

Humphrey Lyttelton18:30

So I went to Camberwell Art School to get a diploma in illustration.

Humphrey Lyttelton18:37

And at the same time joined a band called George Webb's Dixielanders.

Presenter18:42

Art and music, I mean, two things that are are chosen, tend to be chosen by people who who like to buck convention. Were were you an unconventional character in your mid-twenties?

Humphrey Lyttelton18:52

So I'm Tohoot.

Humphrey Lyttelton18:55

Well, I grew a beard for one thing. I had a rather handsome aub auburn beard.

Humphrey Lyttelton19:00

Didn't have any money at that time. They used to tip you for taking part in the war. You had a tip.

Humphrey Lyttelton19:06

And a suit. They gave you a suit, a blue suit with a red pinstripe, treasure flow things.

Humphrey Lyttelton19:13

and um went al along to the art school in the uh in the daytimes and then went down to Barnhurst on Monday nights, I think it was, and played in the band.

Presenter19:23

And this idea that you were beyond conventional I mean, given that you'd come from such a conventional background, given that you were Eton educated, your father was an Eton housemaster, to be pursuing the the the line that you were was was pretty unusual. I mean the people who'd been with you at Eton would be going on to be uh uh clerics or would go on to work in government or you you must have waved them all goodbye and they must have wondered what you were up to.

Humphrey Lyttelton19:44

I actually had a a quite a long depression.

Humphrey Lyttelton19:48

Through the process of

Humphrey Lyttelton19:51

sloughing off, as you might say, all the preparatory education that I'd had. Not necessarily what I'd learnt, but all the sort of um you know, uh how you behaved and w and what you were aiming for and uh to get rid of all of that. It took a long time. I mean, I'd become a uh what I call a romantic socialist during my time in Wales. I'd had my battledress dyed blue and wore it with a turtleneck sweater coming out underneath the battledress, which was sort of wa waste.

Humphrey Lyttelton20:21

thing. My father once said to me, in that we he was he was a bit sour about the way I was turning out, and he once said to me, I don't quite know what the association was, he said, I hope you're not turning into one of these French Socialists, all beard and belly

Presenter20:35

Let's hear now your fifth uh record.

Humphrey Lyttelton20:38

My fifth record is uh it's it's a little bit of a narcissistic uh uh entry because um but it's also nostalgic because um I used to know and um and listen to one of the Mississippi Blues singers called Big Bill Brunzy, who is a fabulous guitar player and singer.

Humphrey Lyttelton20:57

And uh we heard that he'd got throat cancer and had had to have the whole of his v voice box taken out. Terrible thing for a s you know, performer of any kind.

Humphrey Lyttelton21:08

And so I wrote a piece which was based loosely on a melody that I associated with Big Bill, Big Bill Blues.

Presenter21:53

Yeah.

Presenter21:56

Mm-hmm.

Presenter21:58

Yeah.

Presenter22:00

Yeah.

Presenter22:17

My castaway, Humphrey Lyttelfon, and his band and Big Bill Blues. Enjoyable memories then on the island listening to that, Humphrey, and your bandmates.

Humphrey Lyttelton22:25

Well it would remind me if I was on the island for a very long time, it would remind me uh that I w used once used to play the trumpet.

Presenter22:32

In nineteen fifty six an extraordinary thing happened. You played with your longtime musical hero, Louis Armstrong. His description of you as Britain's top trumpeter, I m I mentioned it in your introduction then. How did that come about?

Humphrey Lyttelton22:46

Well, he referred to me uh I have to say at this point that uh i any trumpet player in any country that he ever met he referred to as a top trumpet player. So I don't put that up as one of my sort of m m m rosettes. But on this occasion we're in London's Empress Hall.

Humphrey Lyttelton23:06

We were brought in a little bit late after the first concert because he came over with a variety show, including a one-legged tap dancer.

Presenter23:13

You're not making this up, are you?

Humphrey Lyttelton23:14

I'm not making this up, he was b he was a one-legged tap dancer called Pegleg Bates.

Humphrey Lyttelton23:20

Who was quite famous in America'cause he danced with a wooden leg.

Presenter23:22

I bet he was.

Speaker 223:24

Hey

Humphrey Lyttelton23:25

And he once said to me on one occasion that we were sitting about'cause we could I could go into his dressing room and sit down and uh

Humphrey Lyttelton23:32

and and have to have a chat while we were doing the show with him.

Humphrey Lyttelton23:36

And he said, I'm doing a recording of my musical autobiography and I'm going to tell the people that you play this number for me And I thought, Well, this is uh something that he says to everybody.

Presenter23:48

He he died in nineteen seventy one, that was about nine years after your father died. How did Louis Armstrong's death uh affect you?

Humphrey Lyttelton23:56

I have to say that it affected me more than did my own father's death.

Humphrey Lyttelton24:03

in the in the emotional sense, because of course there was music attached to it as well, and I've talked about the the emotion of music and

Humphrey Lyttelton24:10

And um it was one of the worst experiences of my life.

Humphrey Lyttelton24:15

I was absolutely knocked sideways by it.

Humphrey Lyttelton24:17

It Louis Armstrong's death, because it was such a complete part of one's life.

Humphrey Lyttelton24:23

uh affected peop s people

Humphrey Lyttelton24:25

You know.

Humphrey Lyttelton24:27

all over the place, not just myself.

Presenter24:30

So your sixth record then it it really has to be Louis Armstrong.

Humphrey Lyttelton24:34

Yes, indeed. And um uh it'll d it'll recollect one of those moments when we saw him off at I think it was King's Cross station and we set up

Humphrey Lyttelton24:45

uh on one of those huge great baggage trucks.

Humphrey Lyttelton24:48

So we set up outside his carriage.

Humphrey Lyttelton24:50

He got into his seat.

Humphrey Lyttelton24:52

We played one tune.

Humphrey Lyttelton24:54

We played another tune.

Humphrey Lyttelton24:56

And another tune after that.

Humphrey Lyttelton24:58

And he went on, the train was fifteen or twenty minutes late in pulling out of the station. And I remember I played this number, That's My Home, as part of that farewell.

Humphrey Lyttelton25:10

and uh he hopped across the carriage and he opened those little windows that you could open on one of those carriages and he cut his head half out and he sang the words of this song. And that would be a that would be a fran fantastic memory to keep.

Presenter25:22

And people should listen out in listening to this for Louis Armstrong's tribute within it to you, Humphrey Littleton.

Humphrey Lyttelton25:27

Yes, I dismissed the idea and then he came up with it.

Speaker 225:31

At my farewell party.

Speaker 225:34

After my last trip to England.

Speaker 225:36

Humphrey Lyttelton, who's the top trumpet man in England today.

Speaker 225:41

He played this tune for me.

Speaker 225:49

Where sunset in the sky

Presenter25:59

Louis Armstrong, and that's my home. So, Humphrey, uh, your music career is very well established by uh well, we're at the early seventies now, in 1972, you are asked to do a pilot programme, a radio pilot programme. You already have your radio programme on radio two going strong, your jazz programme. Um why did they ask you to do I'm sorry I haven't a clues pilot, anyway.

Humphrey Lyttelton26:22

Well, uh I'd done w quite a few pilots over the years because anybody who e ever spoke for any length of time on on radio eventually asked to do a a a pilot and you got paid a studio fee and you went home and never heard uh anything about it f ever.

Presenter26:39

Uh the conspiracy with us, the audience, is is almost irresistible as a listener. You know, you've got the games with, as we say, no apparent rules. You've got the the wonderful character of Samantha, who I always imagine is very buxom for some reason, and um she's your sex obsessed assistant. Uh there's the non-existent high-tech uh laser display board that gives some of the clues to the contestants. Uh that's the appeal as a as a listener. What's the appeal as a performer?

Humphrey Lyttelton27:05

It's just such fun to do because we all get on well together. Because I got my persona on the programme from how I felt when they rung me up and said it's going ahead back in nineteen seventy two and uh we it's going on the air.

Humphrey Lyttelton27:20

And I drove in for the first recording then, thinking, What the hell am I doing? You know, I've got a perfectly good good career. I don't I'm not strat for money particularly, and uh I just don't know what I'm doing here.

Humphrey Lyttelton27:34

And I've kept that thought to the forefront of my mind all the way through.

Presenter27:39

What's your seventh record?

Humphrey Lyttelton27:42

My son's record arises from something that I discovered. People have said to me, and I don't.

Humphrey Lyttelton27:48

Uh I've never recognized it myself. That there's something about my timing.

Humphrey Lyttelton27:53

But in point of fact, somebody sent me uh an L P of one of the old Kenneth Horne shows Round the Horn, and I always used to listen to that when it was a regular broadcast, and then I'd forgotten about it. I um suddenly realized that I recognised in Kenneth Horn's

Humphrey Lyttelton28:12

approach to the thing, something of what I do. And so I've realized that he was a huge influence on me. It may be due to the fact that he was I'm I'm I'm alleged to be on the posh side, and he was also posh, and so he was doing much the same thing that I was doing.

Humphrey Lyttelton28:30

You know, um slamming.

Speaker 328:34

And now Kenneth Horn Master Spy.

Speaker 328:38

As the water gurgled down the plughole, it left a ring. I answered it immediately. Hello, hello, this is your friendly neighborhood spy here.

Presenter28:48

Thank heavens you're there. Sob, sob, gasp, gasp. I'm in I'm terrible, terrible trouble. Gulp, gulp, sob, gasp. I'm in the apartment opposite.

Speaker 328:58

Would you come across?

Presenter28:59

Drop of a hat.

Presenter29:01

But right now, right now, Mr. Horne, I'm desperate. I came home five minutes ago to find my father, the well-known atomic scientist, missing, the butler and maid dead, and the chauffeur has disappeared.

Speaker 329:14

Why you furry me?

Presenter29:15

Well, you know how bored you can get on your own.

Presenter29:17

I thought a bit of company.

Humphrey Lyttelton29:18

It would be nice.

Presenter29:19

Yeah.

Speaker 329:19

I'll be able to meet you today.

Presenter29:22

I thought you'd never get here. I'm Doctor Siegmund Eyre's daughter, Frida. Free to my friend.

Speaker 329:28

Oh.

Speaker 329:30

Oh I see, free air.

Presenter29:33

Yes, but you have to v

Speaker 329:33

Yeah.

Presenter29:34

By four gallons.

Presenter29:36

Kenneth Horne with Betty Marsden from Round the Horn. So, Humphrey Lyttelton, you've had these two wonderful careers in in jazz and radio that we've been talking about, but in the middle of this, of course, you you were a father, a grandfather, and indeed a great grandfather.

Presenter29:52

Your wife presumably was instrumental in keeping the whole show on the road at home.

Humphrey Lyttelton29:57

Indeed, yes.

Humphrey Lyttelton29:59

There is an innate selfishness about one might say the performing arts.

Humphrey Lyttelton30:05

In in the sense that it does absorb you and it takes you away from home, but um

Humphrey Lyttelton30:12

If you're lucky and I was.

Humphrey Lyttelton30:15

Uh your wife manages to build her own career, apart from bringing up the children. She was a jazz fan, but she didn't like everything that I did, so that she would come occasionally to a concert and that kind of thing, but she didn't uh live that terrible life of a band wife trailing along behind.

Humphrey Lyttelton30:36

behind her to her her husband.

Presenter30:39

And your wife died earlier this year. How how do you think you would handle what would be the inevitable loneliness on a a desert island? Do you think you'd be able to cope with that?

Humphrey Lyttelton30:48

I've been used to loneliness ever since I got on my bike and and peddled away from my sister's terrible friends in childhood. Um and I've spent a lot of time on my own.

Humphrey Lyttelton31:00

And um

Humphrey Lyttelton31:02

The circumstances of when my wife died I looked after for a long, long time, which is a l a lonely experience in itself. So, um, you know, I and and also I've got a lovely I've got two families. Who it how lovely to have two families, uh my own blood family and the band, which is like a family.

Presenter31:24

Tell us about your eighths record.

Humphrey Lyttelton31:26

Next record will bring a little gaiety.

Humphrey Lyttelton31:29

into into my life. There's been some quite sad things in my music.

Humphrey Lyttelton31:33

I've always had a a wish that I'd learned to play the piano and had been able to play it like Fat Swallow.

Humphrey Lyttelton31:39

And also the fact that song pluggers used to go round in the thirties giving people sentimental songs to sing, and why they ever went in a studio where Fat Swallow was, I don't know, because uh he used to slaughter them and as he does indeed with a thing called It's a Sin to Tell a Lie.

Speaker 231:57

Sure is true when you say I love you.

Speaker 232:01

It's a sin to tell a lie.

Speaker 232:06

Billions of hearts have been broken, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 232:10

Just because these words were spoken. You know the words that were spoken here is: I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you. Ha ha ha. Yes, but if you break my heart, I'll break your joint, then I'll die. So be sure it's true when you say I love you.

Presenter32:26

That was Fats Waller, and it's a sin to tell a lie. So you've got Shakespeare and the Bible on this island, Humphrey Littleton. There is one other book allowed. What would that book be?

Humphrey Lyttelton32:37

Being interested as I am in cartooning and in humorous writing, I would take the collected works of James Thurber, the American cartoonist and humorist.

Humphrey Lyttelton32:49

Who I find extremely funny. I haven't read all his stuff.

Humphrey Lyttelton32:52

But uh as a writer I think he's even funnier than he was uh as a cartoonist.

Presenter32:57

Uh what luxury item would you have?

Humphrey Lyttelton33:00

Well, I think I'd have to take a keyboard.

Humphrey Lyttelton33:02

And then I could really get down to learning how to play like Fat Swallow. But the keyboard that I think I should have, because I won't have I can't plug anything into the I know. And and batteries, I mean, th you I can't take away

Presenter33:11

No, we we don't

Presenter33:12

Doesn't he

Presenter33:16

Too useful.

Humphrey Lyttelton33:17

Too useful. So I'm going to take a uh have a harmonium. You sit at it peddling.

Humphrey Lyttelton33:23

And playing

Humphrey Lyttelton33:25

Lovely music.

Presenter33:26

And um i if the waves should crash onto the shore and and attempt to wash away your collection of eight records, which one would you run through the sand to save?

Humphrey Lyttelton33:35

Got to be the Louis Armstrong. It's got to be the Louis Armstrong,'cause I think y you know, you've got your emotions have got to be stirred regularly, otherwise you just become more a boring old castaway.

Presenter33:46

Humphrey Lyttelton, thank you very much for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Humphrey Lyttelton33:50

Thank you, Kirsty, I've enjoyed it.

Presenter33:59

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