Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Desert Island Discs
Presented by Roy Plomley
BBC accompanist and musical assistant who arranged music for variety shows and original songs.
Eight records
The eight records for this collection haven’t been catalogued yet.
The keepsakes
The luxury
Not recorded.
In conversation
Presenter asks
When did the excitement of music come into your life?
I started having piano lessons when I was seven years old. Unfortunately, i in a way, it was found that I'd been born with the ability to read music at sight. So when I was given a new piece to practice, I just went home and played it straight through. Consequently, I saw no reason to spend a lot of time on dull scales and arpeggios. Well, when I was twelve, my father said he wasn't going to continue paying money he could ill afford … when it was such a bother to get me to practise, and so my piano lessons were stopped.
Presenter asks
What was the next step up the ladder?
Well, I was torn to shreds when after a year of this joyous living one of the heads of the B B C, who had been keeping a fatherly eye on me, decided that I should leave the typewriter keys for the piano keys and become a staff accompanist.
“You must remember that I was a raw amateur. And that's probably why I've always been more thrilled at knowing the famous people I've met. than, shall I say, a more blase professional musician.”
The recording
Timestamps play the recording from that turn
Speaker 1
This download is the only extract the BBC has of this edition.
Speaker 1
The presenter was Roy Plumley.
Speaker 1
When did the excitement of music come into your life?
Doris Arnold
Well, I started having piano lessons when I was seven years old.
Doris Arnold
Unfortunately, i in a way, it was found that I'd been born with the ability to read music at sight. So when I was given a new piece to practice, I just went home and played it straight through.
Doris Arnold
Consequently, I saw no reason to spend a lot of time on dull scales and arpeggios.
Doris Arnold
Well, when I was twelve, my father said he wasn't going to continue paying money he could ill afford.
Doris Arnold
when it was such a bother to get me to practise, and so my piano lessons were stopped.
Speaker 1
But you didn't stop playing the piano.
Doris Arnold
No. I borrowed all the operas and lots of songs from the local library. I accompanied at many amateur concerts.
Doris Arnold
Won the silver medal for song accompaniment at sight at a Woombridge Musical Festival.
Doris Arnold
And then I definitely decided that I would be an accompanist and try and rival Gerald Moore.
Doris Arnold
whom later I was to know as a good friend.
Doris Arnold
But my parents knew nothing about the musical profession and thought it was almost precarious, and so at the age of nineteen I found myself in the stores department of the L C.
Speaker 1
Yes. I I believe you told me once that you had failed uh three times uh to get on the permanent staff of the LCC.
Doris Arnold
Yes, thank goodness.
Doris Arnold
But as a result of my experience there, I got a job in the buying section of the BBC. Buying what?
Doris Arnold
Everything, chairs.
Doris Arnold
Radio equipment
Speaker 1
Paper clips and transmitters and things like that.
Doris Arnold
Yes. Can you imagine the excitement anyway to one who was young and crazy about music to be in the B B C? Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1
The beat.
Doris Arnold
You must remember that I was a raw amateur.
Doris Arnold
And that's probably why I've always been more thrilled at knowing the famous people I've met.
Doris Arnold
than, shall I say, a more blase professional musician.
Speaker 1
Yes. How long were you buying paper clips and transmitters?
Doris Arnold
Only a year.
Doris Arnold
I was transferred to the music department after a year, where I acted as secretary to four members of the BBC Orchestra and to Stanford Robinson, who was then BBC Chorus Master. Five of them.
Doris Arnold
Were they hard taskmasters?
Doris Arnold
No, they weren't. They were wonderful, actually, and
Doris Arnold
I think
Doris Arnold
My darling husband Harry S. Pepper, hereinafter referred to as Pep, will
Doris Arnold
Forgive me if I say that this was probably the happiest and most carefree year of my whole life. What was the next step up the ladder?
Doris Arnold
Well, I was torn to shreds when after a year of this joyous living one of the heads of the B B C, who had been keeping a fatherly eye on me, decided that I should leave the typewriter keys for the piano keys and become a staff accompanist.
Speaker 1
This was progress.
Doris Arnold
Well, in a way, yes, but you see, I couldn't bear the thought of anyone else working for my chaps.
Doris Arnold
and also I was to start as an accompanist in the variety department.
Doris Arnold
which to me at that particular time meant playing a lot of lowbrow music.
Doris Arnold
Well, I did become an accompanist, and soon after I was working at the same time as musical assistant to Gordon McConnell, who produced many delightful shows, and later to John Watt.
Speaker 1
Yes. You arranged all the music for the original songs from the shows, didn't you?
Doris Arnold
Yes. But it was Mac who suggested to an already experienced broadcaster, Harry S. Pepper, that he should teach me to play rhythm, and that we should play two pianos together.
Doris Arnold
Well, Pep persevered and we accompanied dozens of reviews and light entertainments, before there was ever a resident variety orchestra.
Doris Arnold
We usually played at our solo spot a selection from the music of a film or musical comedy.
Doris Arnold
We weren't very good, because, with all the other work we had to do, we never had time to rehearse as thoroughly as we should have liked.
“My darling husband Harry S. Pepper, hereinafter referred to as Pep, will forgive me if I say that this was probably the happiest and most carefree year of my whole life.”