Jan Pienkowski

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 nine.

Presenter0:27

My Castaway this week is the illustrator Jan Pionkovsky.

Presenter0:31

He's published more than a hundred books over the past forty years and delighted generations of parents and children.

Presenter0:38

His work has been described as violently colorful, it's inventive and often macabre.

Presenter0:44

Childhood terrors are realized in Gothic scenes. Witches are a constant presence, and his haunted house was a pioneering pop-up book. Born a few years before the Second World War, his childhood was spent in Poland, Bavaria, Vienna, and Italy, before he reached Britain more than sixty years ago. He's been here ever since. But the folk traditions of Central Europe can still be seen in his work.

Presenter1:08

Let's talk for a moment about uh one of your most famous witches, Meg, from uh I mentioned the Meg and Morg books that people have loved for so many years. She she was inspired by a real person, is that right?

Jan Pienkowski1:19

I think she was. Where we lived during the war was was in the Reich. I mean it was technically uh Germany. And my father uh ran a farm there and my mother was always working and she was terribly anxious that I shouldn't get T B. So uh I had milk from the cow, but it had to be boiled and I really didn't like it when it was b I hated it. And so there was this poor lady, our neighbour's wife, who was had this task of making me drink this awful milk. And she hit on this solution where she'd start on a one of these gruesome stories and then stop and say, Drink your milk and then I had a little bit and then she'd tell me the next bit. And the heroine of the terrible stories was always Baba Yaga, the the terrifying witch who flies about and eats children and so on. And I think that Meg is a kind of she's uh whatever the word is when you get rid of of some childish terror by by sort of replaying it. And I think that's probably what it is, you know, that that's how Meg came about.

Presenter2:27

I mean, Meg is is relatively benign. But of course the books are meant for very young children. Other books that you've been responsible for are a good deal more scary.

Jan Pienkowski2:31

Yeah.

Speaker 12:33

Yeah.

Jan Pienkowski2:33

Bye.

Presenter2:36

Do you think it's fine for children to be?

Presenter2:39

Petrified.

Jan Pienkowski2:43

I don't know that my pictures are that petrifying. Um there is a an awful witch in a house on a chicken foot, and of course the man who's cutting off his hand to throw to the wolves to so they let him through. That is sort of fairly horrific, for instance. I suppose children like to

Jan Pienkowski3:02

I mean, what was nice about being frightened was that I was in a safe place. If you're in bed and your father or your mother reading you a story, you can be as petrified as you like because you know you're safe. But then, of course, when we went to Warsaw in'forty-four and then the war caught up with us, and then we saw action, and then that was pretty scary, and I think that those stories then would be, you know, terrifying.

Jan Pienkowski3:33

I don't know if that makes sense. It does.

Presenter3:34

It does.

Jan Pienkowski3:35

And I don't like uh shrill noises. I think

Jan Pienkowski3:39

because I've blotted out the screams. You know, I can remember sort of terrible things happening and people being killed and and so on, but I I don't remember the noise.

Jan Pienkowski3:52

The noise has been obliterated somehow, but it's there inside me, and so I I feel terribly unhappy.

Jan Pienkowski3:59

with screaming and all that sort of thing. And people panicking, trampling and screaming. That is what scares me.

Presenter4:06

For now, let's turn to the music. What's your first piece of music today? I would like.

Jan Pienkowski4:11

The Beatles. And the particular song I've chosen is because presumably you know the other castaways are all on tiny little islands dotted round the ocean and they're all alone and so in a way although we are alone

Speaker 44:22

But

Speaker 14:22

Uh

Jan Pienkowski4:27

We're not alone because there's so many of us, and so I thought this was appropriate, Eleanor Rigby.

Speaker 44:35

Look at all the lovely people.

Speaker 44:43

Get all the loudly people.

Speaker 14:48

Eleanor Rigby picks up the rice in the church where her wedding has been.

Speaker 14:55

Lives in a dream, waits at the window Wearing the face that she keeps in her jar by the door

Presenter5:02

The Beatles and Eleanor Rigby. Jan Pienkovsky, you hinted probably more than hinted, actually, when we were talking a moment ago about the unsettled nature of the early years of your childhood. You you fled first to Warsaw and then you had to move to rural Poland. Tell tell me about life in rural Poland.

Speaker 15:13

Yeah. Uh

Jan Pienkowski5:20

Well, it was a bit

Jan Pienkowski5:22

Like it must have been.

Jan Pienkowski5:24

In England, before the Industrial Revolution or even earlier than that, almost medieval.

Jan Pienkowski5:31

In the sense that we grew the flax, we put the flax in the pond, come the autumn, fished it out, dried it out, and wi there was a special dev medieval device for getting the husks off, then that was combed, then that was given to the spinsters to spin, then it was given to the weaver to weave. By this time it was spring, then it was pinned out on the meadow in the sunshine to bleach by the sun, and then it was made into sheets, shirts, whatever it was, you know. So so that was just an example. So everything was done in the old way. It was like Chaucer, I suppose, my life, you know. What about food? We were allowed to kill one pig a year. If you did more than that, that was punishable by death.

Presenter6:18

But even though those were the war years for you, I mean, it was relatively plentiful. There was food around the world.

Jan Pienkowski6:21

Yeah.

Jan Pienkowski6:24

For us because we were

Presenter6:26

And your parents. Tell me about your parents.

Jan Pienkowski6:29

Oh, my my father was a country squire. We had a a little

Jan Pienkowski6:34

Country house by a river in now the extreme east of Poland. When the Germans and the Russians attacked Poland, my father's policy was always to stay on the German side of the front, you know, because then we wouldn't end up in Siberia or whatever. So my mother and I put everything on on a cart with a couple of horses and drove to Warsaw, which was quite an adventure. So she was a doctor's daughter, and she was a very, very practical, hard-working woman.

Presenter7:07

You have said the most important thing in life is to develop sterling qualities of character.

Jan Pienkowski7:13

I think my m my mother certainly had sterling qualities of character. I don't know if my father was quite so sterling, but no, he was a good man, very kind man.

Presenter7:24

And they came from a a solidly upper middle class. It would seem a a well educated background.

Jan Pienkowski7:30

Ye yes. He was he went to a German university in Posnagen. My mother studied chemistry at the also university where her father was a professor of maths.

Presenter7:43

At the point at which your father had to to disappear, to go underground, was that explained to you at the time?

Jan Pienkowski7:46

The Wonder Ground was

Jan Pienkowski7:50

No, it wasn't explained. He just he just disappeared. It was very upsetting. How how old would you have been?

Jan Pienkowski7:58

Five, six, maybe six.

Jan Pienkowski8:01

And he just went and and didn't come back and and he sent me a little toy train.

Jan Pienkowski8:07

And I I remember being very upset and I unwrapped this little brown paper parcel and I said, I don't want to train, I want my dad So that was that was very sad.

Presenter8:21

And when did you see him again?

Jan Pienkowski8:22

Um, so again Warsaw, uh that was in nineteen forty four, about a year later.

Jan Pienkowski8:29

And then we were there until it fell. And then the surviving population were marched to um a depot where trains are mended in the sort of

Presenter8:38

In the sort of salt.

Jan Pienkowski8:39

Uh

Presenter8:39

Yeah.

Jan Pienkowski8:39

sidings and then there's sort of pits between the tracks so the mechanics can get underneath the trains. And so we slept in those pits. It was all this kind of atmosphere of panic, fear and it was very unpleasant. And then we were put on open top cattle tracks and taken down to uh the Reich. So fortunately my father had relations in Krakow who helped us. And then my father got a job on a farm in Vienna because you see there were so few men left in Germany by then, they're all either dead or they were at the Russian front.

Presenter9:13

Tell me about the second piece of music that you've chosen.

Jan Pienkowski9:16

It's a polonaise, which is the Polish dance, and it's the polonaise in praise of Warsaw, which is my native city where I was born. This version of it was done in the communist times, and free speech was not the rule of the day. The words go, so now Warsaw smiles again with good heart and with good cheer. We understand each other without words, like two good friends, meaning that you couldn't say what you wanted to say, but everybody knew what you meant, Najwik.

Speaker 49:58

Tell us the spirit of God.

Speaker 410:01

And take this one better now.

Speaker 410:06

And they play the time.

Speaker 410:08

I please as I do and show my

Speaker 410:14

You scared the dangerous gone.

Speaker 410:17

Lord is the mercy of the world.

Speaker 410:21

Here that should sent you all.

Speaker 410:37

Supreme Court

Speaker 410:40

Be with all the gospel peacefully.

Presenter10:46

Sidiatinski's Warsaw Polonaise. So, Jan Piakovsky, you you hinted at this this background, this rich and diverse family background, certainly on on your mother's side. Chemists, architects, painters, I imagine your parents wanted for you

Presenter11:02

Quite a rich education, and yet because you were going from place to place, you couldn't have managed much of a formal education in those early years.

Jan Pienkowski11:06

Yeah.

Jan Pienkowski11:09

My mother did that. Did she? Because you see, the schools were closed down.

Jan Pienkowski11:14

By the Germans, there were no schools for publishment.

Jan Pienkowski11:17

So she taught me and she in fact she taught the village children as well, but she taught me systematically and of course because she was a scientist she could do it. So I think I probably had as good an education as at school because it was one to one.

Presenter11:32

And you were essentially an only child, were

Jan Pienkowski11:35

I was an only child in effect, yes. But well, I had a a sister who unfortunately died before I was born. Were you a lonely child? Did you wish for siblings? No, I don't think so. I d I think I was very happy on my own. I think when I sort of see my friends and that the the problems they have with their siblings

Jan Pienkowski11:55

I think I was well out of that.

Presenter11:56

And do you think did it foster your creativity and imagination? Did you know that? Yes.

Jan Pienkowski12:00

Being alone, I think absolutely. Yeah, you live in an imaginary world, don't you?

Presenter12:05

How many languages were you speaking then, by the time you were six, seven, eight?

Jan Pienkowski12:09

Oh, well, by the time I was

Jan Pienkowski12:11

Eight, I was speaking Italian, so it'd be Italian, German and Polish, and my parents spoke French to each other when they didn't want me to understand, so

Jan Pienkowski12:21

I picked bits of that up, I suppose. But that was it.

Presenter12:26

That was it. Yes. Let's have some music. What's next?

Jan Pienkowski12:29

When we

Jan Pienkowski12:30

I lived in Italy with the Polish Army in 1945. My parents took me to Rome and I was completely gobsmacked, completely flattened by Rome. I've loved it ever since. She's just wonderful. And I remember I went to the opera for the first time. So then when I went back to Rome on my own, when I knew I was going to get into Cambridge, I left school and earned enough money to go to Rome for a couple of months. I stayed with a very nice widow lady with two sons, and one of the sons was more or less my own age, Franco. And we used to go around together. And he took me to the Bas of Caracalla, where they had the opera in the open air. And there was a wall.

Jan Pienkowski13:17

Outside, and you didn't have to pay, you could sit on the wall. And the one I remember is Aida. Aida is a a hostage, and then her father is taken prisoner, and they want to escape. And I suppose it was something to do with being away from your the land of your birth, of your childhood, you know, and going back. Perhaps that's why it has such a powerful resonance to me. But I think it's also a very beautiful duet.

Presenter13:59

Uh

Speaker 113:59

Uh

Speaker 414:32

Yeah.

Presenter14:33

Birgett Nielsen and Franco Corelli, with Riverdra le Forest in Balsamati, you will see again our fragrant forest, from the third act of Verdi's Aida.

Presenter14:43

Jan Pierkovsky, you've lived in Britain for more than sixty years now. Is there part of you that still feels like uh the immigrant?

Jan Pienkowski14:47

Yeah.

Presenter14:52

Yeah.

Jan Pienkowski14:52

I knew you could ask that. Um

Jan Pienkowski14:57

All right, all right. I wasn't going to say this because it might end in tears, but but I I shall. I didn't know what the answer to that question was, but then

Jan Pienkowski15:06

I heard this poem.

Jan Pienkowski15:08

And it is by Kipling.

Jan Pienkowski15:10

And it's about a Roman centurion who's uh served in Britannia for um many years. Obviously Rome is pulling out of Britain and his uh cohort is being told to go back to Rome. And he says uh command me not to go.

Jan Pienkowski15:34

And so I don't know why that I should find that poem so very moving.

Jan Pienkowski15:40

And it has a wonderful description of the English skies and the English countryside compared with the Italian. And and then he says, But I don't want to go on to stay.

Presenter15:53

And the reason that you find that

Presenter15:56

Profound thought is because of what Britain meant to you at that point and what it meant to you.

Jan Pienkowski16:01

Well, I suppose whereas losing, you know, my first country, it was long ago and far away and so on. The concept of losing this one is so

Jan Pienkowski16:11

utterly appalling and

Jan Pienkowski16:14

terrifying that I suppose that's what upsets me. I don't know why.

Presenter16:18

And why do you think you might lose it? What is it that I'm going to do?

Jan Pienkowski16:20

Uh

Presenter16:21

Because ha is it is it because having had that insecurity there's it always is the possibility

Jan Pienkowski16:22

Pause that

Jan Pienkowski16:24

Yeah.

Jan Pienkowski16:26

It is all yes, I think that's very well put. I think that is precisely it, yes.

Presenter16:30

Let's have some music. Tell me about your next piece of music.

Jan Pienkowski16:33

Ah.

Presenter16:33

Uh

Jan Pienkowski16:33

Goody goody. Well, the next one is when I when I lived in Wales, it was before I came to London.

Presenter16:34

We'll have the next one as well.

Jan Pienkowski16:40

I was uh maybe ten, something like that. We had a wireless. It was kind of welded onto the home service. And I listened to children's outs at five o'clock and probably once a week had this song, Oranges and Lemons. And of course at that time I did not realize.

Jan Pienkowski17:00

What it was about. And then, when I came to London, gradually it dawned on me. So, oranges and lemons, say the bells of St. Clements. Well, St. Clements is in the Strand. It is more or less opposite my publisher, Penguin's office. It is the Air Force Church. And my partner was trained as a air fighter pilot in the RAF. And both his father and his uncle were in both wars in the Royal Flying Corps. So we sometimes go to the Dues. So I like St Clements very much. And so all these things have terrific resonance to me now. And I didn't know that. I knew the song, I didn't know what they were. Now I do.

Speaker 417:58

When I grow wish, they fell off your dish.

Speaker 418:12

Here come the

Speaker 418:14

Are you too many?

Speaker 418:16

They are not troubled.

Speaker 418:18

Yeah.

Presenter18:28

Oranges and lemons. I I'm wondering, Jan I'm imagining as a child you were drawing a lot, that that art was important to you. It was, and making things.

Jan Pienkowski18:33

But yeah, that's

Presenter18:37

Uh

Jan Pienkowski18:37

Yeah.

Presenter18:37

And did your parents encourage that in you or did they want you to be an academic?

Jan Pienkowski18:39

My father always encouraged it. It was in it was him. He encouraged it all the time. He had an uncle who was a successful painter, and he he more than encouraged me. He arranged for me to go when we came to London when I was about twelve or something.

Jan Pienkowski18:55

He arranged for me to go to a life class in a painter's studio when I was about thirteen.

Presenter19:01

Meg and Morg are these well, I mean, I suppose, relatively straightforward, simple drawings. There's another strand of your work that is.

Presenter19:10

Entirely different is these very, very

Presenter19:12

Detailed silhouette. I mean, how should I describe them? Are they cut outs? How do you do that?

Jan Pienkowski19:16

Well, I think they started as cutouts, but now they're they're drawn.

Presenter19:20

Why did you make the choice of going from doing normal, what I would call obvious illustration to these much more intricate things?

Jan Pienkowski19:27

Mm-hmm.

Jan Pienkowski19:29

Well, what happened was the first book I was offered that was in the in the sixties and it was a some Joan Aikin stories and I thought she was very, very good. I still do.

Jan Pienkowski19:41

I had to do one sample picture to see if I got the job. And I did a picture of a northern city, you know, in the snow. And I thought the city was good, the sky was good, the snow was good, everything was good, except the figures. And I thought, oh, there they won't do. I'll never get this job. So at the last moment, I'm afraid I am a bit of a last-minute merchant. The last moment I thought, right, I'll black them in. So I blacked the figures in.

Jan Pienkowski20:08

They've got the job.

Presenter20:09

You mentioned there, Joan Aiken, your first book with her was it was called A Necklace of Raindrops. Your second, which was The Kingdom Under the Sea. That won the Kate Greenaway medal. Was it important to you to have

Jan Pienkowski20:11

Most

Speaker 420:18

Yeah.

Speaker 120:18

Screen away.

Jan Pienkowski20:20

So

Presenter20:22

Great. I mean, that's a very prestigious prize. D did you enjoy the idea of a public recognition of your achievement?

Jan Pienkowski20:29

It was w wonderful, wonderful.

Jan Pienkowski20:32

Joan said, All right, Jan, you know, she was so pleased at what I'd done with the necklace, and and she said, What shall I do now? and I said, Well, can't you do some stories from where I come from? And she ended up with the stories from Croatia and that northern part of the Adriatic. And that's got the Baba Yaga. I mean, it is really the same tradition, the Slavonic tradition. And so she she did those to please me, you know, and so I put a lot of Polish things into it, you know.

Presenter21:03

Let's have some music. Tell me about your next choice. Number five.

Jan Pienkowski21:05

When I went to King's there was a little house by the Granta pub and

Jan Pienkowski21:12

Five of us put together, and I gradually realized that the reason we were all there.

Speaker 121:14

Gradually

Jan Pienkowski21:18

was that we were all foreign.

Jan Pienkowski21:20

There was an Irish American

Jan Pienkowski21:23

A Jewish South African?

Jan Pienkowski21:26

a Punjabi, myself and my great friend Dilipa Dhaka, who was from Bombay. And he used to sing this pop song over and over and over again until one day we we had Mrs. Um Mrs. Stewart, who's our wonderful landlady, and I remember hearing her coming up the stairs with the breakfast singing this song.

Jan Pienkowski21:52

It's Cory Cory.

Speaker 421:55

Gore Gore, Obaki Tory.

Speaker 122:11

Uh

Speaker 422:14

Obimiri girli aya pado gori gori, obanti tori sado zabulaya kado.

Presenter22:26

Lata Mangashkar and Gore Gore still stuck in your head? Do you still know all the all the words to that? Astonishing, yeah. Um for more than well, what is it, forty years now, you've shared your life with David Walser. Tell me how you met.

Speaker 422:26

Not

Speaker 422:30

So that's the thing.

Jan Pienkowski22:39

Well, we met in a pub in the King's Road. We just hit it off.

Jan Pienkowski22:44

And I went off on the back of his scooter and that was the beginning of that.

Presenter22:47

Can you paint me a picture? How I mean, you look splendid here now today. I'm wondering how much more splendid you looked forty years ago.

Jan Pienkowski22:55

No, I was probably very scruffy. I mean, somebody reminded me that that I was always dressed in black. I I'd completely forgotten this, but I'm sure the reason I was dressed in black is because it didn't have to be washed very often.

Presenter23:10

And you had you went through a civil partnership ceremony in in obviously recently, two thousand five.

Jan Pienkowski23:12

We may notice the

Jan Pienkowski23:14

Yes, we went the very first day.

Jan Pienkowski23:18

That it was allowed, we went to Richmond Registry Office in the morning and it said was the first day that it could be done. The interesting thing, I think I can say this, before we did it, I sort of thought, well, I'd better talk to my parish priest about it. So we went to Mass, and then afterwards we sort of waited for people to leave, as I thought it better wait do this outside the church. And I said, Father, you know, we're going to have the civil partnership tomorrow, and I just wanted you to know, and so on. And he's a very terribly nice man. And he said, well, you know, I can't give you a blessing. And I said, yes, I realize that. And then he said, but I'll say Vespers for you.

Presenter24:10

Did did did that feel i mean, obviously your religion is important to you. Did did it feel important to you that at whatever level it happened, it was somehow accepted by the church?

Jan Pienkowski24:20

Yes by the church.

Presenter24:22

I think it was.

Presenter24:24

And you and David have have worked together. You've collaborated together. Do you work e do you work easily together or is it a

Presenter24:31

Just one

Jan Pienkowski24:33

Unending struggle.

Jan Pienkowski24:38

No, it's absolutely cat and dog. But um but we we get results, you know, we get results in spite of that.

Presenter24:45

And what are the points of contention? Where do you have the

Jan Pienkowski24:47

Oh, almost anything. Yeah.

Presenter24:49

Any excuse? Let's take a break for some music then. Tell tell me what's next.

Jan Pienkowski24:50

Let's take a break for some music then. Tell me what's next. Now, what David does as his hobby is he plays the cello, and he plays that on the ground floor of our house, and I'm on the top floor in the studio in the in the what used to be the attics. And some of the music, especially the the lower the bass notes, come up the chimney, because I'm sitting next to the fireplace and and and and I can hear it. And this is one of the pieces that he plays, which which I like very much. So this is um this is, as I say, my favourite piece.

Presenter26:25

Recorded in nineteen twenty six. That was Pablo Casal's playing Foray's Après anne rev After a Dream. Um quite a melancholy piece of music, that? Do you is it a is it a regular listen for you, that one? Are you happy to be taken to

Presenter26:40

I mean, I think there's a there's sort of sadness that surrounds that.

Jan Pienkowski26:43

Yes. I s used to suffer from bipolar disease and I used to have this sort of profound melancholia and um now it's it's all right, so under control and but I still get little

Jan Pienkowski26:57

bits of it. So when I get the melancholia, I'm all right, because I think, look, it might not be like this, it's just me making it up. I mean, you know.

Jan Pienkowski27:08

Everything's very much the same as it was yesterday, it will be tomorrow. Where I really

Jan Pienkowski27:14

I'm frightened is when I get the upbeats, and suddenly everything's wonderful, you know, and all that. Then I think, Hello, old friend, I know who you are I'm not going to believe you. You know, and so in a way I'm happy w with the melancholy. I prefer the melancholy.

Presenter27:35

When are you most artistically productive? I mean, does it is is it the melancholia or is it the moments of of light and brightness that enable you to to make your art?

Jan Pienkowski27:45

I think the melancholy is the best.

Jan Pienkowski27:47

Yes.

Jan Pienkowski27:49

Because I've lived with it for so long.

Jan Pienkowski27:52

And I know that it can be controlled. It it was very frightening when when I started, it was really, really terrifying.

Jan Pienkowski27:59

But no, I think I I can still make use of it and I I think it does help me enormously.

Jan Pienkowski28:06

It's actually, if you like, it's a gift and and I think the whole idea of everybody having to be the same is perhaps not a good idea. You know, it's perhaps a good thing that some people should suffer that and then they're the ones who can express things perhaps slightly more graphically than the people who are on an even keel. I don't

Jan Pienkowski28:24

I notice all these things as you say and anyway.

Presenter28:27

And you notice the clothes that are cast on the street. You must explain this to me.

Jan Pienkowski28:31

Yeah.

Presenter28:34

You're you're a collector of clothes that people have thrown away. Isn't that true?

Jan Pienkowski28:36

Thrown away.

Jan Pienkowski28:37

You get that from

Presenter28:39

Uh

Jan Pienkowski28:39

So tell me about that. Well, because I live in in a street which is parallel with the river we've lived there for forty I don't know, forty odd years, and uh

Presenter28:40

Tell me, tell me about that.

Jan Pienkowski28:53

It has become

Jan Pienkowski28:55

Infested.

Jan Pienkowski28:57

With schools, there are five schools on our street. Now

Jan Pienkowski29:02

The five schools on R Street are for very privileged children.

Jan Pienkowski29:07

And so I suppose.

Jan Pienkowski29:10

They've got plenty of everything, so if they sort of leave their jumper hooked over a tree because it was a hot day and then forget to collect it, you know, mummy du just buys them another one. I mean, I don't know. So it's extraordinary from a wartime person that this happens. But I've made an effort for you, but normally I wear I wear entirely clothes that I found that fit me. And the others I give I give to the hospice.

Presenter29:28

You did it for me.

Presenter29:37

Do you give them a bit of a wash first, or are they just staying in the middle? Good heavens.

Jan Pienkowski29:39

Oh, yes, yes, yes, Donald.

Jan Pienkowski29:42

But I found belts and

Jan Pienkowski29:44

Endless mufflers, hats, gloves.

Presenter29:49

Let's have some music. What will that do? That will do. Let's have some music. What's next? Track number seven.

Jan Pienkowski29:50

Was it bad?

Jan Pienkowski29:51

That

Jan Pienkowski29:52

Sorry.

Jan Pienkowski29:54

Well, this is the river. You see, what what you can find by the river in Paris,'cause I worked in Paris, on uh Disneyland Paris, and um I did an enormous giant pop-up book which opened and then actors of small stature came on the pages and acted and so on. And it was a a very a very happy time. And uh this is a a very old song that I remember from my youth, and it's What You Can Find Under the Bridge.

Speaker 430:31

Gloroscurisona dre

Speaker 430:35

Sor de surfill tour cachette and sour

Speaker 430:48

Loana Pepper said

Presenter30:57

Tina Rossi and Soule Pont de Paris under the bridges of Paris. So, Jan Pionkovsky, I'm wondering what your parents made of the life that you fashioned for yourself.

Jan Pienkowski31:08

Oh, well, my father was uh very proud of my achievement in in the art part and distressed at my orientation. However, he was very fond of David, and he got over it. But there was an underlying sadness, I think, having lost one child.

Jan Pienkowski31:30

And then again, if you see what I mean, having lost the grandchildren, it was a bit of a hard deal.

Presenter31:37

And your mother?

Presenter31:39

Oh, my mother was a w All right.

Presenter31:41

No, she she she w she was okay.

Presenter31:44

What about the question of children for you? Because of course if you were beginning a a partnership now with David, there would be a possibility that you would become parents.

Jan Pienkowski31:53

Yes, well, I don't think I'd have been very good at it. Really? Why is that?

Presenter31:58

Yeah.

Jan Pienkowski31:59

Why do I think I'm too excitable?

Jan Pienkowski32:02

Children love that go, don't they? They love a bit of chaos and nonsense and people who are excited.

Presenter32:02

Children love that.

Presenter32:03

They love a bit of chaos and nonsense.

Presenter32:06

Yeah.

Jan Pienkowski32:09

No, I've got around dozen of godchildren and and so that's enough for me.

Presenter32:15

You you take time away fr from work and from London once a year, don't you? Yes. Yes. So a desert island may be not such a bad thing.

Presenter32:27

Yeah.

Jan Pienkowski32:27

No. I often wonder about it, but of course when I go on retreat I know I'm going to come home.

Jan Pienkowski32:33

Where's a desert island you think well that's it?

Presenter32:35

And when you go on these yearly retreats, can you share with us what what you think about what you do?

Presenter32:42

Uh

Jan Pienkowski32:42

The one I I like best is up in Scotland, it's in Murrayshire, it's called Pluskarden Abbey and it was built as a Benedictine Abbey and then never destroyed. They grow all their own food, they've got more than a hundred varieties of apple, they they grow lavender to make may have an income and so on. They've got a lovely river running by

Presenter33:07

It reminds me, it sounds quite medieval and a little bit of a single like those days in the countryside with the flax and the pig that was killed. Is is there something there that's very

Jan Pienkowski33:09

It's quite medieval, a little bit of a drink.

Jan Pienkowski33:13

Yes.

Jan Pienkowski33:15

There is. I like it very much. The only thing is it's rather a long way to go. So I sometimes go to the Isle of Wight, which is much nearer. And in fact, uh the the piece that I hope we're going to hear is uh the monks of the Isle of Wight and it's the Nuktimittis, the last song of the last service of the day, and it's a song of resignation, if you like, and being prepared for the final going to sleep.

Speaker 433:49

Not illiti servant omin.

Speaker 433:56

Second verbont.

Speaker 434:02

We are the heaven of early pain.

Speaker 134:03

Yeah.

Speaker 434:08

Sanacha De Tur What are all the steam?

Speaker 434:17

Fante faji mom ni ol popolo.

Speaker 434:24

Blue men that grey may not see your dark dress.

Speaker 434:31

And if dirty young babies do a destroyer Glory of Patriot Eli

Speaker 134:39

Yeah.

Speaker 434:43

Yeah.

Speaker 434:44

Let's be returning.

Presenter34:49

The monks of Cor Abbey on the Isle of Wight and the Nunc de Mittis. So we come to the point in the programme, Jan, where I will give you the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare, and of course you can take one book of your own. What will that book be?

Jan Pienkowski35:02

Well am I allowed a book on disc?

Presenter35:05

Yeah.

Jan Pienkowski35:05

Uh

Presenter35:05

Yes, you are.

Jan Pienkowski35:05

Well, I would have Martin Jarvis.

Jan Pienkowski35:08

A reading The Complete William.

Presenter35:11

Right, it's yours. And a luxury too. What will your luxury be?

Jan Pienkowski35:14

Yeah.

Presenter35:15

I'm afraid of

Jan Pienkowski35:15

It's going to be flat pre prosaic. I have these I have these notebooks and I always draw.

Speaker 435:22

No boot.

Jan Pienkowski35:24

On the tube, on the bus, everywhere. And so I would like to have a sort of large supply, a crate of those.

Presenter35:30

A limitless supply.

Jan Pienkowski35:31

Limitless supply and uh these are the pens I always use the Pentel sign pens

Presenter35:38

So that's what I would like. That's it. You can have them. Thank you very much. And if you had to choose just one track of the eight that we've heard today, which one would it be?

Jan Pienkowski35:38

Yeah.

Jan Pienkowski35:40

I have the

Jan Pienkowski35:48

I think I'd I'd have I think I'd have the Beatles.

Presenter35:52

Jan Pienkovsky, thank you very much for letting us hear your desert islanders. Thank you for looking after me.

Speaker 435:55

Yeah.

Jan Pienkowski35:55

This is

Presenter36:03

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