Julia Donaldson

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.

Presenter0:29

My Castaway this week is the children's writer Julia Donaldson.

Presenter0:33

Her quirky rhyming creations are relished by children and grown-ups around the world, and she's the recipient of countless literary awards. The author now of more than one hundred and fifty books, popular success came comparatively late, and only after she had already worked as a teacher, a publisher, in local radio, and, at times, as a busker. The Gruffalo is her best-known creation. Published ten years ago, it's become a modern classic, selling more than four million copies. It's been turned into a stage show and now a film. Looking back, she says, it's odd to think that he, the Gruffalo, nearly didn't exist at all. The story was going to be about a tiger, but I couldn't find anything to rhyme with that. It is a tale of this wily little mouse who invents an imaginary beast who lives in the deep dark wood. He does that to fend off predators who have come to eat him. Then he encounters the monster for real. It actually exists in the deep dark wood.

Presenter1:34

When you came to write it, you got stuck and you were persuaded to continue by a ch by a child, yes, by my son Alastair. That's right. I mean at this stage you have to remember, I had had a few books published, but most of them were for educational publishers, which

Julia Donaldson1:38

But

Presenter1:48

It does count, of course, it does count. But I was dying to have another book out there in the bookshops. And I got halfway through, and I did get stuck, and I was going to give up. And I told my son Alastair about this, and he said, No, go on, mum, I think it's really good. So he did inspire me to continue. For anyone with children, Room on the Broom, a Squash and a Squeeze, The Snail and the Whale, and Stickman, my particular favourite.

Presenter2:15

They do occupy a very special place on the nursery shelf, and yet it seems that

Presenter2:20

You kind of rattle them off. I mean, you've written a lot. Do they come easily to no, they don't really. It's a lot of blood sweat and tears. It you know, they take a long time to germinate. They might take a year in my head.

Presenter2:33

And then it seems to me it takes absolutely ages to craft them and it is a labour of love really. And given that these are story books for young children, of course, are you thinking about the parents when you're writing? Are you thinking about that grown-up slumped at the side of the bed at the end of the day? I think like any maybe it sounds grandiose to call myself a poet, but I mean any poet, they're thinking about what they're writing.

Julia Donaldson2:48

And to be un

Presenter3:00

You know, if you bake a cake even, okay, you know, it's got to be for children's party, but you actually just want this cake to be perfect in itself. So I'm just thinking about my creation.

Presenter3:11

I suppose sneakily, yes, I really, really care what the grown-ups think. I've been a parent of young children myself, and I know how awful it is when they reach for I won't mention any names, but some book that you hate and it's so nice when they choose one that you enjoy reading. So, yes, I do want the parents to enjoy it. Let's have some music for now then, Julia. What have you chosen as your first piece of music for you? Well, the first one is Beethoven's Spring Sonata. And why have you chosen it?

Presenter3:38

I think it's just the most heavenly tune. I think to me it's about the loveliness of life, you know, despite tragedies and troubles and, you know, this fresh feeling of regrowth and renewal.

Presenter4:47

That was Yehudi Menuen, accompanied by his sister Hefzeba Menuen, and the opening of Beethoven's sonata number five in F major, the spring sonata. I said, Julia Donaldson, in the introduction, that one of the many jobs that uh you've taken about busking, I don't know if busking is a job, but you used your busking to pay for your holidays. Which makes me think you must have been a pretty good busker. I don't know about that. Well, it started when I was a student. I studied drama and French at Bristol University, and we got packed off to Paris to improve our French. And of course, everything was very expensive in Paris. And I had a guitar and I could play about five chords maybe. And I had a a girlfriend, Maureen, and we used to sort of go down the champs-Élysées singing. I can still remember a repertoire as Plaisier d'Amour.

Presenter5:35

Blowing in the wind and green sleeves, those were the main ones we did. And then you met somebody who, as it were, extended your repertoire. Yes, he he revolutionized everything. This was our friend Malcolm from

Julia Donaldson5:37

That is funny.

Presenter5:46

Bristol. He was a medic. And he said, Right, I'm coming. I'm arriving. Um, I'm joining you. Right, The Beatles. He had about twenty Beatles songs, all the songs from the musical Hair. I mean, this list about a hundred songs long. And he could play them all, could he? He could play them all on his battered old left-handed

Julia Donaldson5:59

And he could play

Presenter6:02

And we, the three of us, used to then sing and dance and take this big hat round which Malcolm had brought back from Kenya. At one point, the hat blew into the Seine when we were crossing a bridge, and Malcolm stripped down to his vest and underpants and dived off the banks of the Seine and rescued it. And he was really my hero after that. Every single thing you've just told me about Malcolm makes me understand exactly why you married him. He's only mine straight away. I mean.

Julia Donaldson6:24

Yeah.

Presenter6:32

So you made sweet music together in in Paris, and you is it true you went on to write a

Julia Donaldson6:36

See

Presenter6:41

An opera for when you were eventually wed. That who performed did somebody perform it at the wedding? Yes, we did, that's right. I wrote a little operetta with songs for the bridesmaids and the best man and us, and we sang at our um wedding. Actually we had our best man was Colin Sell who plays the piano on I'm sorry I haven't a clue and he accompanied the whole thing. I wish I'd been a guest at that wedding. It sounds extraordinary. Um it sounds unconventional. Are you quite an unconventional person who's lived quite an unconventional life?

Julia Donaldson7:04

Bad wedding at the same time

Presenter7:10

Um, yes, I suppose so. Maybe it was our more or my generation, though. I don't think any of us were thinking about.

Presenter7:18

You know, pensions and steady jobs. And I think the current generation, probably for very good reasons, are are perhaps more.

Presenter7:25

conventional. Of course, the current generation might also think as as they left university with their degree, Yes, I'm going to get into publishing. I mean, you got into publishing in a in quite an unusual way, rather a haphazard way. Can you explain it? Yeah, well really, uh, my heart was set on being an actress and um I think that stemmed from

Julia Donaldson7:35

Can you explain it?

Presenter7:43

When I understudied the fairies in an old Vic production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. But then I think by the time I was with Malcolm, I sort of thought, Do I really want to be sweeping stages in Clendrednod Wells? And I did a quick secretarial course and wormed my way into Michael Joseph Publishing Firm as a sort of secretary-come tea girl. You know, I think that's the way publishing often keeps the wages down. Let's have your second track then. Tell me about number two.

Julia Donaldson8:08

Keep the ways.

Julia Donaldson8:10

Yeah.

Presenter8:13

Well, the second record I've chosen is Edith Piaf singing La Foule, I suppose really because it brings back those days in Paris, those those busking days.

Speaker 28:24

'Cause revoir la villain paid pairs. Se focance sur la salais et sur la vouille. I jeant in la music et les la rire.

Julia Donaldson8:34

Larry

Speaker 28:46

Ensudin, jamara tunni sor law.

Julia Donaldson8:47

But my what you say?

Speaker 28:50

And to be a little bit of a dream,

Presenter8:54

Against Piaf and La Four, the crowd. Um let's find out a little more then, Julia Donelson, about the early years. You were born at the end of the forties. Tell me about life when you were growing up.

Presenter9:06

Well, I lived in a tall Victorian house with my granny, who lived on the top floor, an aunt and an uncle who lived in the middle floor, and my parents and my sister and our cat Geoffrey, who must get him in, on the ground floor. And the Hampstead Heath was just at the bottom of our road, so my sister and I spent a lot of time playing on the heath. And you were the only children in the house then? Yeah, we were the only children, so I suppose we were spoiled to Rossen, really, you know, and in a way it was like having two sets of parents because actually my my father when I was six developed polio and so he was in a wheelchair for most of my childhood, whereas my uncle, you know, he could sort of play ball games with us on the heath and so on. So that it was very good in that respect. You have described it as a Milly Molly Mandy sort of a childhood.

Julia Donaldson9:53

Yeah.

Speaker 49:53

Yeah.

Julia Donaldson9:53

Failed.

Presenter9:55

And home was a creative place, was it? Was there music and love?

Julia Donaldson9:58

Yes, but

Presenter10:17

And did they encourage you to be, um apart from having the responsibility of getting the tea and biscuits for the quartet, to to be rather a free spirit?

Julia Donaldson10:22

Yeah.

Presenter10:25

I think they were just very good at letting us be as whoever we were and you know we learnt musical instruments, we learnt the piano, but they weren't breathing down our necks, making us practice like I probably was with my children, I'm afraid. We were both quite academic children, but if ever a report came home where, you know, I hadn't done very well on some subject, my mother never, never whacked her finger and said, Oh, you could do better, not at all, no, not at all pushy as parents. And was it a political I mean, with a small P, was it a political household? Um well my father had done politics, philosophy and economics at

Presenter11:04

Oxford, just before the war broke out, and he was in that quite left-wing generation. And I mean, like, he hated the game Monopoly. My sister and I used to play Monopoly endlessly with our aunt and uncle, and my father thought it was such a terrible capitalist game. So, did he just sit it out and not play, or did he tell you? Yeah, he wouldn't ever play.

Julia Donaldson11:23

So you wouldn't have a plan.

Presenter11:25

Too grasping, was it, for him? Was that what what annoyed him about it? Yes, that's right. Yes, um you were ruining everyone else by building all these houses and hotels and yeah, that was what he hated about it. Let's have some music then. Tell me about uh the next track. We're on uh number three now. Well, this is really for my father because we had a

Presenter11:47

One of those old-fashioned wind-up record players, and he had a big collection of seventy-eights. And this piece of music, which is Haydn's piano trio and G major, the gypsy rondo, my sister and I called it the tune that came back again, because the same little tune kept coming back again, and we used to hide behind the furniture and sort of pop out every time this tune came back again.

Presenter13:07

Les Beaux-Arts trio playing part of the third movement of Haydn's piano trio in G major, the gypsy trio and memories there, Julia Donaldson, of your father, who you said was a a keen cellist. And then, as you mentioned, you were, what, six years old when he contracted polio? Yes, up to the city. Do you remember the actual time that you understood that this was?

Julia Donaldson13:23

Yeah.

Presenter13:30

the gravity of it. I think when it first happened it was very

Presenter13:35

gradual, you know, I remember we used my sister and I used to pull him out of bed. We had a jokey thing pulling him out of bed in the mornings and one day he was a bit achy and stiff and then next thing we knew he was in hospital and

Presenter13:48

He was still in hospital, and I must have been ill.

Presenter13:52

In bed myself, having a meal with my mother in the bedroom, and I suddenly saw she was crying.

Presenter13:58

And I'd never seen my mother cry before. I think in those days people held it in much more. And just in a flash at six years old, I realized this was a huge, huge thing.

Julia Donaldson14:07

This will

Presenter14:09

So he was confined to a wheelchair, apparently. He was then, yes. I mean, when he came out of hospital for.

Julia Donaldson14:11

He was

Presenter14:15

A while he tried to learn to walk with crutches and calipers. I I remember sitting on his knee when he first came back and saying, Oh no, this feels all kind of wiry and metallic, these caliper things he had on his legs. But he gave that up and he then, yeah, he was in his wheelchair. It must have had a terrific impact on family life. I mean, you described the house itself, a sort of Victorian kind of townhouse type thing, was it, I imagine, with lots of stairs and lots of floors. Did that mean that he was?

Julia Donaldson14:33

It must

Julia Donaldson14:39

I think what's it

Presenter14:43

Confined to one part of it or the ground before actually our family but

Julia Donaldson14:44

Uh

Julia Donaldson14:47

Yeah.

Presenter14:49

It still obviously was a lot of work for my mother. You know, she had to meet him when he came back from work and heave him.

Presenter14:57

out of the car, into the wheelchair, and yes, and and of course things weren't very adapted for disabled people, so everywhere they went she had to take this sort of

Presenter15:06

Bottle for him to pee into if there wasn't a grant downstairs loo and things like that.

Presenter15:12

Let's take some time for some more music then. T tell me about your fourth piece of music, Julia.

Presenter15:16

The next piece of music is another song, and it's Michael Flanders and Donald Swann, who are great heroes of mine. And this is Slow Train. And why have you chosen this particular Flanders and Swan? Well, I think that really Michael Flanders's songwriting and his use of words has been terrifically influential on me.

Presenter15:36

I I knew their music when I was a child, and funnily enough, Michael Flanders also was a polio victim, like my father.

Presenter15:44

And he died of a heart attack when he was fifty nine.

Presenter15:48

And when that happened, my father just said, That's the way I'll go. And my father did die of a heart attack when he was fifty-nine, just like Michael Flanders.

Speaker 415:57

Millersdale for Tideswell.

Speaker 416:02

Kirby Muxlow

Speaker 416:04

Mao Cop and Scholar Green

Speaker 416:08

No more will I go To Blantford Forum and Morty Ho.

Speaker 416:17

On the slow train from Midsummer Northern and Mumby Row.

Presenter16:25

Michael Flanders and Donald Swann and Slow Train. So, Julia, in spite of the fact that your father had this this terrible illness and was confined to a wheelchair, did life go on in a way that you think he found fulfilling after his illness? Yes, yes. I mean, of course it was frustrating for him and

Presenter16:45

He n I think naturally had a very even temper, but

Presenter16:49

You know, sometimes he would just get so frustrated, and one time just saying, I wish I could walk. I think that's it. It was just one time I heard him say that. But actually, he was.

Presenter17:00

Fortunate in a way because his job was cerebral, he played the cello, he could still play his quartets, um, so you know, it could have been worse.

Presenter17:11

Let's talk uh about your your childhood years then as they progressed. Were you the sort of teenager who kept a diary?

Presenter17:17

I did keep it around.

Speaker 217:19

Yeah.

Julia Donaldson17:19

Uh

Presenter17:22

I used to let my friends read my diary. That wasn't a terribly outpouring sort of diary. I was probably a secret writer who wanted to be read even then. That's exactly what I was thinking, as you said that then. So it was all when you were writing, even uh in those tender years, it was for consumption, it was for other people to see. In a way, although now I've still got those diaries and I had a huge crush on Mick Jaggo, and I don't think I'd want that to be published now.

Julia Donaldson17:32

And that's exactly what

Julia Donaldson17:34

Do you say that

Presenter17:50

And what about you mentioned that you were in a Midsummer Night's Dream? How old would you have been when you were in that? I was probably about twelve when I was in Midsummer Night's Dream. So your role was what, you were one of the fairies? Well, no, I was just an understudy. I was understudying the fairies, but actually

Julia Donaldson18:00

The one

Presenter18:04

Two fairies, I think, were ill on the same day. So I had to be two fairies. So um Titanis says Peace, blossom, cobweb, mirth, mustard seed and we have we had to say Ready, and I, and I, and I and you know, hope the audience wouldn't notice there are only three of us. And you shared a stage.

Presenter18:21

With Judy Dench, Tom Courtenay and Alec McGowan. That sounds like very high and talented company indeed. Well, yes, but this was of course back in the sixties, so they were quite n you know, up and comings then.

Presenter18:35

So you did have ambitions for yourself then in acting. You did sort of imagine that that was a career that you could make for yourself at one point. Yes, I did. You know, I was really keen to act. And unfortunately now that the way my career has gone, it's kind of gone full circle. And now I am doing a lot of acting, albeit it's just acting out my own stories. But some authors cringe and hate facing the public, and I absolutely lap it up. But don't actually think of myself as primarily a writer. I think of myself equally as a performer. I mean, if you came to our house.

Presenter19:11

There's a whole room devoted to props and costumes and um

Presenter19:15

You know, every book festival I go to with Malcolm, and usually my sister comes along, and sometimes some of my children, a couple of my

Presenter19:22

Children come and we act out the stories and we sing the songs and we I mean it as well as writing the stories, I spend almost as much time dramatizing them. Let's break now for some music. Tell me about your next track.

Presenter19:34

The next piece is a song, it's a Schubert song, Schubert's absolutely my favourite composer, and this is Andy Musique.

Presenter19:42

And why have you chosen this particular song? Well, it's about music for a start, and music is a big part of my life. I just think it's got a very beautiful tune. In fact, when my mother died, this was a song that we chose. My niece, who's got a beautiful voice, sang this at her funeral.

Speaker 420:04

And they feel growing stronger.

Speaker 420:15

Orcious Laban Spield A Christ won't stream.

Presenter21:00

Felicity Lott singing Schubert's Andean Music. Julia Donaldson, you were writing for Playaway.

Presenter21:06

When I was dancing to play away in front of the teleon, I think it was a Saturday.

Julia Donaldson21:07

Yeah.

Presenter21:12

Well, you were young when you were doing this, let's be clear. At one point, you live in Scotland now, but when you first went up to Scotland, one of your jobs was working as a writer in residence in Easterhouse, which, for those who don't know, is a particular part of the west of Scotland that suffers enormous social challenges and a lot of deprivation. How did you find that? It's a long way from Hampstead. That's true. But actually, anyway, in Easterhouse, mainly I would go into the primary schools. And the lovely thing about those schools is the children just were so keen and receptive. And I think in some cases, the school was a kind of haven, really. You know, they'd be on their tummies in the corridors doing wonderful paintings and things like that.

Presenter21:56

Well, so lots of them came from lovely homes, actually. They weren't all from, I think, this deprivation thing.

Presenter22:01

gets exaggerated. But the thing is, I think people think that a writer in residence means you're doing your own writing. I was hardly doing any writing. I was helping people with writing projects in schools, but also in the community. So I think it was quite a practical kind of job actually. And you had the time we're talking about, this sort of time period when you were first up in Glasgow, by that time you had three children of your own. Were they inspiring any of your writing? They did, yes. My oldest son, Hamish, he was very, very imaginative and.

Presenter22:33

He had an imaginary friend who came out of the mirror. It was, you know, it was his reflection. And this inspired a series of books about a very naughty princess called Princess Mirabel, who comes out of the mirror. So obviously that was inspired by Hamish. And did they critique your writing? I mean, we were mentioning earlier that Alistair sort of said to you, Go on, Mum, keep on writing The Gruffalo. I think you're onto something here.

Julia Donaldson22:51

Over the

Presenter22:57

Yeah, I mean, I do drive my family mad. I think that I I'm not one of these secretive writers, just like I would let my friends read my diary, you know. In fact, what I do, I

Presenter23:08

I tend to give what I've written to one of them to read aloud to me, especially if it's in rhyme.

Presenter23:15

And if they stumble and they're putting the stress on the wrong syllables, which wasn't what I'd intended, then I rewrite that bit because I think it's maddening when a parent has a book which just doesn't seem to rhyme or scan properly. So they've been very helpful to me. More on your family in a moment. For now, let's have some music. Tell me about your sixth disc today. Well, I thought I had to get Malcolm in. If I'm going to be on this desert island, I would love to hear his voice. And also, Malcolm's a wonderful actor and mimic, and in this song, Cochin Blues, he is singing in the voice of a French truffle-hunting pig.

Presenter23:53

Course he is.

Presenter23:55

Yeah.

Julia Donaldson23:55

I am a pig with a very sad big tale to tell.

Julia Donaldson24:01

Ninety percent of my brain is devoted to smell.

Julia Donaldson24:06

I once was a pig and zee pink, I was buxom and blooming

Julia Donaldson24:12

And I loved La Cuisine Cojamble with a love all consumed.

Julia Donaldson24:19

Without his spare rib to be seen I had never recap

Presenter24:23

Malcolm Donaldson singing Cochon Blues, a song written by my castaway, Julia Donaldson, and that was Malcolm on the guitar as well there. We should just mention because people might.

Julia Donaldson24:30

We should

Presenter24:32

Get the idea that he's spent his life being your collaborator. He's also managed to fit in a pretty impressive career of his own. Is he a consultant pediatrician? That's right. Yes, he works in Yorkhill Hospital in Glasgow. We've talked a lot about your family. Clearly, your professional life has been woven in very closely with your family life. You had three children. Your son, Hamish, was the first. Yes. And as a little child.

Presenter24:56

Was a very challenging child. Tell me about him when he was young. Really, he he was, you know, um, he'd resist every.

Julia Donaldson24:59

Uh

Presenter25:03

An happy change, and he had the loudest cry of any child I'd known. But of course we were.

Presenter25:10

first time parents and we were terrifically

Presenter25:14

Proud of him is in his spirit and he had a

Presenter25:17

Wonderful imagination. He wouldn't really play with toys, he would just play with.

Presenter25:22

at bits of cardboard and say they were ice creams or violins or whatever, and he just lived in his imagination, really.

Presenter25:30

Do you think that that his imagination had an effect upon your ability to so well understand children's imaginations? Because on many occasions reading your books to my own small children, they seem captivated by this imaginary world. Do you think that Hamish sort of helped you to expand that? It would be very nice to think that, you know, because

Julia Donaldson25:46

Uh

Presenter25:52

I mean Hamish has just really, despite his very, very troubled life, he did give a a huge amount to to me and to Mok.

Presenter26:04

Um he was latterly diagnosed, not not as a very young child, but latterly diagnosed with what's known as schizoaffective disorder, which is a very serious and particular psychiatric condition. At what point in

Presenter26:17

In his life, in your life, did you know that it was something with a name?

Presenter26:22

I mean, really, as the years went on.

Presenter26:26

We knew that

Presenter26:28

Hamish was different. Hamish just had huge behaviour problems and um was always getting sort of sucked out of different schools as very, very, very difficult to handle. But I suppose we were always just told, you know, why don't you have a kind of contract with him and give him a gold star every time he

Julia Donaldson26:51

Time

Presenter26:52

does something right. And you know, we did all that. And I'm not saying that was necessarily bad, but it was you know, it was something deeper than that. And I think really by the time he was

Presenter27:04

In his early teens, we, Malcolm and I, really did feel there was something.

Presenter27:09

Very much, you know, the matter. But it w it wasn't until he was about sixteen or seventeen that he had this full-blown psychotic episode.

Presenter27:17

And his brothers, two brothers living with him, not just the parents dealing with the the massive implications. Yes, I mean that was terribly, terribly difficult.

Julia Donaldson27:23

Yeah, so

Presenter27:27

The younger ones Alistair and Jerry.

Presenter27:31

I mean they've just been

Presenter27:32

Terrific. I mean, Hamish would drive them mad in lots of ways, but at the same time they did love him and

Presenter27:40

really understand him and uh you know

Presenter27:43

I mean, even at at Hamish's funeral they they both did such wonderful speeches. So yeah, they've been brilliant. Hamish had committed suicide. It was two thousand and three. You've said that

Presenter27:58

You and your family, in your words, did a lot of grieving for Hamish long before he died.

Presenter28:04

Yes, I mean

Presenter28:06

When Hamish died, everyone's then so sympathetic.

Presenter28:11

But I don't think people fully understood.

Presenter28:14

How hard it was.

Presenter28:16

during those twenty-five years of him and his live.

Presenter28:21

Like we got a film of when Hamish was a little boy, and friends can't understand how we could watch it without dissolving into tears, but actually, probably.

Presenter28:30

We would watch it and dissolve into tears during Hamish's lifetime, during the very, very difficult years in his late teens and twenties.

Presenter28:39

Then we were sort of grieving for for that that little boy. And with him, she just wish she could have had a better life. And do you?

Presenter28:48

Do you reach any conclusion about his choice to end his life? Not really. I mean.

Presenter28:55

Sometimes I think it was a sort of almost an unselfish.

Presenter29:00

thing sometimes

Presenter29:02

During Hames's lifetime.

Presenter29:05

This is when he was

Presenter29:07

drinking very heavily and

Presenter29:10

leading this terrible lifestyle.

Presenter29:13

I used to think, oh no, you know, if Malcolm and I die, or when we die.

Julia Donaldson29:16

Yeah.

Presenter29:19

And Hamish grows old, it is very, very good-looking boy and um.

Presenter29:24

Just the thought of him

Presenter29:26

going old and being some old wine oh and and then kind of

Julia Donaldson29:26

Going all

Presenter29:30

how difficult it would be for the other two. You know, I sometimes well, I didn't wish him, of course I didn't want him to die, but I used to sometimes wish that he would die before us.

Presenter29:43

Let's have some music now, Julia. Tell me about your next piece of music, then.

Presenter29:46

Well, this is a song called Remembering Marie. The words are written by Brecht, and um David Bowie sings it. It was a song that Hamish loved when he was a little boy.

Presenter29:58

It's about someone who is looking back on the time of their first kiss. They don't even remember the girl's face, but they do remember this little cloud that was in the sky. The cloud

Presenter30:10

Was only there very, very fleetingly, and Hamish used to call this song.

Presenter30:15

Bloomed for minutes, that's a phrase within the song. I suppose it you could say it's that's true of Hamish.

Speaker 430:22

It may be that the plum trees still are blooming, That woman's seventh child may now be there.

Speaker 430:32

And get that clown.

Speaker 430:35

But only bloomed for minutes.

Speaker 430:39

When I looked up

Speaker 430:41

It vanished on the air.

Presenter30:48

David Bowie and Remembering Marie A. from Bertelbrecht's Ball. Tell me about the charity that is it a charity that you have set up or a charity you're involved in? Yes, I'm the patron of a charity called Art Link Central.

Presenter31:03

and it instigates really brilliant projects where an artist it could be a a visual artist or a musical person or a dramatist works with groups of disadvantaged people, and the people might be

Presenter31:20

Children or adults they might be from psychiatric hospitals, you know, kind of thing Amos never got actually.

Presenter31:28

Or a lot of elderly people they work with. You've talked about your family.

Presenter31:32

Often, more often than many castaways, it seems that they are not just central to your life in the way that lots of us find our family being the backbone, but that all of the creative things that you've done have somehow fed off this family experience. And when you take it out on the road,

Presenter31:50

The stage shows that you do with the Grufflo and so on. The family comes too, is that right? My sister very often comes and

Presenter31:58

Alastair and Jerry sometimes come along when they can, and Jerry acts a wonderful dragon in Room on the Broom. So, yes, it is a sort of family van trap, Donaldson.

Presenter32:12

And Alastair and Gerry, what do they do when they're not with Mum on the remote? Well, Ali, he's got a fellowship at Oxford University doing something very mysterious to do with maths and computing science. And Gerry is at Dundee University studying politics and philosophy, which is actually the same subjects my father did.

Julia Donaldson32:16

Um

Presenter32:35

Tell me about your final piece of music then, Julie. The final piece is Handel's recorder sonata in F. All my three boys played the recorder and

Presenter32:45

I think it's a beautiful and quite underrated instrument. And I and I also feel this is quite a calming piece of music. You know, I'd like something quite sort of soothing and calming.

Presenter33:54

Mikola Petri playing the opening of Handel's recorder sonata in F major.

Presenter34:00

So, Julia, this is the point when I'm going to give you the books. You get the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare on this island. You're allowed to take along your own book as well. What book are you going to choose? I've chosen a book which is called Poem for the Day, and it's got 365 poems in it, and you're supposed to learn them. So, I think I'll try and do that. And I hope I'd only be there for one year. I wouldn't have to start all over again the next year. And what would your luxury be?

Presenter34:26

Well, am I allowed to have a cat? No. You're not allowed anything living. I'm a pregnant cat. I can't think of a cat. I can't have a pregnant cat. Um well, I'll h I'll have a piano then. You may have a piano. And if you had to choose just any one of the eight discs, what would be your one disc?

Julia Donaldson34:29

You're not allowed anything living.

Julia Donaldson34:31

Hello.

Julia Donaldson34:32

Ron.

Julia Donaldson34:35

You

Julia Donaldson34:37

Piano

Presenter34:43

Very hard. I'm sorry, Malcolm, but I think I'm going to have Schubert. Julia Donaldson, thank you very much for letting us hear your Desert Island discs. Thank you.

Presenter35:00

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