Michael Mansfield

Presenter0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Discs from BBC Radio 4. For rights reasons the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast.

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For more information about the programme, please visit bbc.co.uk/slash radio four.

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My castaway this week is the Barrister Michael Mansfield. One of Britain's leading Q C'. s, he describes himself as a radical lawyer. The Birmingham Six, the Marchioness disaster, the Stephen Lawrence trial, and the killing of Jean Charles Jimenez are only a handful of the high profile cases he's been involved in.

Presenter0:51

Born into a conventional military church going family, his formative link with the law was made as a boy when his mother challenged the police after being wrongly accused of parking too close to a pedestrian crossing.

Presenter1:04

She won. He says, I do feel that reputation, standing up for principle, is one of the few ways in which a difference can be made. Michael Mansfield, um I think it's the case with young lawyers that you're told you've got to be impartial and that that will enable you to do your job best. Were you told that as a young lawyer, and have you followed it?

Presenter1:29

Professional distance in a sense that you stand off, a bit like surgeons, I suppose, and each case comes along its body. And you mustn't become identified or involved because you get too close, you lose your sense of judgment. Well, it seemed to me the only way I really wanted to do the job was to get inside the shell, the shoes, of the person or persons that I'm representing. You have to live their lives in order to communicate the feelings and understand how they've gotten the position they're in. You are incredibly high-profile, unsurprisingly, given so many of the cases that you've fought. Is that something you do you enjoy? Do you find it a hindrance? Well, it's like Topsy, it's just grown. I mean, you don't notice it. I mean, I've been at it a long time-forty-to years, odd. I haven't asked for it, but it's attended the cases. What about your personal safety? Has that ever been a problem with the type of cases you've been doing? Oh, yeah, personal safety certainly can be timed almost with the Irish cases, particularly the bombing campaign that took place from 1973 onward. And I was affected directly. My own car got blown up with the first one outside the Old Bailey. And people quite naturally were hugely hostile.

Michael Mansfield2:20

Yeah.

Presenter2:43

to those alleged to have committed these crimes. And so I found myself marginalized for doing these cases, and there were people who felt that I should receive death threats and so on, which I did do. And so I have to watch my back. Those very serious ones, then how d what do you do?

Presenter3:02

Well, that's the stage at which um I suppose I recognize being high profile mattered. If I can be above the parapet, the risks, funnily enough, are less they're still there, but they're less. High visibility is is, I think, my protection.

Presenter3:20

Tell me about your first disc today then. What are we going to hear, Michael?

Presenter3:23

Pink Floyd. There's a slight story attached to it because Nick Mason, who's in the group, was um the father of some children who my children knew rather well at school. And we used to go round for uh lunch or to his house when the children were playing together.

Presenter3:41

I never knew what he did.

Presenter3:44

And he didn't talk about it. And I think it was at lunchtime, and I try and play the drums, not very well. So I was tapping on the table or something, and he said, Oh, do you play the drums? And I said, Well, actually, as a matter of internet, I do play the drums, yeah. And I said, Do you? you know and he said well yeah I do I said oh really and he said I've got a drum kit all that and he said it's upstairs would you like to have a go and I go up and I see the drum kit it's huge and all the rest of it and I said well this is more than a hobby then you know the pit by now is extremely large I think he loved the whole experience because it was only when I saw posters on the wall

Michael Mansfield4:09

Dinner

Presenter4:17

in his house and I suddenly realized that, you know, here is the drummer of the Pink Floyd. And then he invited me and my family to go and see the wall. And you know, this is terrible admission. I hadn't really been to a pop concert before. And I think when you hear the track you'll realize you just get enveloped. And I want this on an island so that it fills the island.

Speaker 24:37

Yeah.

Michael Mansfield4:37

Uh

Speaker 24:37

Each shall leave their kids alone.

Speaker 24:47

Yeah.

Speaker 24:48

See that?

Speaker 24:49

Leave them kids of all

Speaker 24:56

But no, it's just it

Michael Mansfield4:57

Uh

Michael Mansfield4:58

And a brick in a wall

Speaker 25:05

All at all, you're just a little breaking the wall.

Presenter5:10

That was Pink Floyd and another brick in the wall. You're just about a year shy of seventy now, Michael Mansfield, and looking to be an incredibly good nick. I'm um I'm wondering if the mantle of radicalism still sits easily on your shoulders.

Presenter5:24

Oh yes, I think it um improves uh with age, like maturing good wine, I suppose. But conventional politics particularly, and certainly what's been going on over the last twenty-five years, has got me so angry about and I'm particularly concerned with social justice as well as legal justice that I'm more vociferous now than I was when I started. And yet this radical once canvassed for Margaret Thatcher. Explain yourself. Yes, well I have to admit to all this.

Presenter5:55

It started really with with my mother, who we lived in Finchley, and my mother campaigned for her. And she got me to campaign for her, and she got me to join the Young Conservatives and all of that. Did you ever meet Margaret Thatcher? No, never did, but to give her adieu we always got a letter well, my mother did.

Michael Mansfield6:09

And that

Presenter6:14

Saying, you know, I'm so grateful you've stuck down 3,422 envelopes yet again. And I assure you, that is the reason for our victory. My mother sort of stuck them on the wall. Later on, I stuck them on the wall, and people said, What? But in a way, I think you disagree with the politics, maybe, but on the other hand, she was involved, she participated, and she wanted me to be involved, and so that was a lesson. And so, growing up, you had this sort of hornby-train-setted, privet-hedged upbringing, terribly conventional, sort of lower-middle class?

Michael Mansfield6:40

I'm bringing

Presenter6:44

Well, I suppose if there's a label, yes. Right. Um, tell me more about it.

Presenter6:49

Well, I'm very grateful for it. It was secure. I mean, we had the same house throughout. I went to school on a bike just up the road. I was able to go behind the h across a railway. There were sort of allotments and meadows and a brook. And I look back on that period with great fondness because although it was stringent and there wasn't a lot of money around and it was a small house, it didn't seem to matter. Given this very conventional set up common for the time, your mother then had this brush with authority where she took them on. That's interesting that your mother took on the police. Did she get a parking ticket, a conviction? What was it? No, in the days that I mean there were no meters and all the rest of it, no yellow lines, but there were studs and a pedestrian crossing and she was being summonsed for parking between the studs. She said, no, I didn't do it, and I'm not going to accept this. There she was summons to the magistrates' court.

Presenter7:40

And she took it on herself, fought the case, defended herself unheard of And of course the the Perry Mason moment in her case is calling my father, who was disabled, as a witness, because he was sitting in the car and the police officer hadn't noticed.

Presenter7:54

That was it. She was acquitted. And it became, you know, it was well, it was certainly in the newspapers, whether it's on the front page, I can't remember. But that was the lesson. Tell me about your second piece today.

Presenter8:04

I had two brothers. I I didn't see much of them because they enlisted in during the war and I was born during the war. So I didn't see very much of them. But the eldest brother had joined during the war the Scots Guards, and after the war he stayed in the Scots Guards as a bandsman.

Presenter8:20

He used to play in all the big, um

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occasions and

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The one that he found the most moving and the most important and significant was the cenotaph.

Presenter8:32

And I just remember standing at the cenotaph as a boy with my parents, and very difficult for tears to be held back, very emotional. And there always were autumnal leaves in Whitehall covering the ground, and you could hear them rustling. That's how I remember it.

Presenter9:51

That was the masked bands performing Nimrod from Elgar's Enigma variations. So a service family, then, Michael Mansfield. Your father had served in the First World War and your brother was in the Scots Guards. Was it assumed that you would follow that path as well?

Presenter10:04

Yes, it was. I think my father really wanted me to do that, and at school.

Presenter10:09

What an admission. I was very fond of the combined cadet force. And my mother, you know, sewed creases in my trousers. You're not supposed to do that. My brother showed me how to polish the boots by melting the black polish so they were like mirrors. And how to blanco my belt and gaiters and all this kind of thing. And I was in charge of a drill squad. I can hardly believe I did all this. And we went off to Sandhurst. And I think my father thought that's where he's going to end up. I mean, he died before he could know that I didn't end up there. But that was a very strong possibility. You say that your father died when you were in your late teens. Did did you know that he was ill?

Michael Mansfield10:46

General.

Presenter10:48

I didn't. I didn't. He worked extraordinarily long hours, difficult hours, but he never let on that he'd in fact got throat cancer. I went away with some friends to Torquay on a tennis holiday. I loved tennis at that time. I got a phone call from my mother.

Presenter11:04

That not only was my father in hospital, but he was seriously ill.

Presenter11:10

In fact, he was dying, and I had no idea. So I rushed back, obviously. I I got back too late. He he was dead.

Presenter11:18

I I mean, I'd seen him before I went away, but I didn't realize how serious the situation was.

Michael Mansfield11:22

Okay.

Michael Mansfield11:23

Can you tell me then?

Presenter11:24

I suppose at that time, more normal than it would be now. Especially if it was a diagnosis of cancer. Yes. People didn't really know. Yes, and I think my father wouldn't have wanted me to know.

Michael Mansfield11:29

Yeah.

Michael Mansfield11:31

Yes, and I think

Presenter11:33

He's very anxious that I did succeed at everything I did, because he was working in order to provide for that situation. And he would have thought that if I'd known because I was at a very crucial period trying to get in to university, just finished at school, so it was a crossover period for me. But he was very stoic about everything.

Presenter11:53

Let's take a break. Let's have another piece of music.

Presenter11:56

Next is a piece of music which again is evocative. When I went to university, I went to Kiel. I went to with my first wife, in fact, I went to

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A concert in the Hanley Town Hall, one of the pottery towns.

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We arrived a bit late, and I came in the middle of this most brilliant piece of me. I'd never heard it.

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Arachmaninoff's second piano concerto, and I d you you know when the sort of hairs on the back of your head bristle and all the rest of it, and I just sat there, again captivated by this brilliant perform I don't know who the pianist was, but you have a recording of the Halle playing it, and it takes me back to that and you drift away with this.

Presenter13:32

That was the opening of Rachmaninoff's second piano concerto, played by Jean-Bernard Pommier, with the Halley Orchestra conducted by Lawrence Foster. I want to talk about some of those earliest cases. You have defended people who've been involved.

Presenter13:44

In terrorism, you defended the Price sisters. This was a case in 1973, part of an IRA unit.

Presenter13:52

Nearly two hundred people injured throughout these bombing campaigns, and you've said it was impossible not to be attracted to these two passionate, committed people. Explain that. Why on earth was it impossible? Yes, I mean I've been educated by the cases that I've done. I've become, in a sense, angrier as I've gone on. Now, in this particular instance.

Michael Mansfield14:04

Okay.

Presenter14:11

Here were two young people.

Presenter14:14

And doing what I've already explained, the procedure that I adopted, which is I've got to get to know these two people. I mean, there were more than the two women, but I represented the two women.

Presenter14:24

And the longer I spent with them, I suddenly realized, well, wait a minute, if I had been born in their situation.

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Facing enormous obstacles to dealing with discrimination, housing, employment, and so on, all those well-known factors.

Presenter14:39

Only wanting civil rights.

Presenter14:41

I don't applaud and I don't support any kind of violent terrorism.

Presenter14:47

Anywhere in the world. I'm not somebody who's ever done that. But on the other hand, I do understand the origins of a lot of what makes people in the end. Often it's not mindless. There is a political background. It doesn't justify, but it does explain. But of course, in Britain, we do have a democracy. It would have been possible for these two young Irish women to march on Parliament, to get petitions together, to politically make their cause. That is the structure we have, not to bomb innocent citizens as they go about their business. That was the discussion that I had with them.

Michael Mansfield15:21

So they go back with this.

Presenter15:25

Their answer to that was, we have it's rather like the ANC.

Presenter15:29

In South Africa.

Presenter15:31

They were saying that we've tried all the democratic means.

Presenter15:34

And I have to say it applies to Hamas in Gaza. Well, you compare it to the ANC, but these women did have a democratic vote. They were listened to as citizens in the way that black people in South Africa during a party were not. But it's not with Hamas, who were democratically elected. But what about these young Irish women that you were? Well, what I'm saying is that what one has to understand here is a situation in which they felt their democratic voice had not been listened to. So you may have the vote, it depends on whether it counts.

Michael Mansfield15:48

That's very important.

Michael Mansfield15:54

Bit of one

Michael Mansfield15:56

Well, what I'm

Presenter16:08

But here surely you are as an example of how we are in a functioning democracy that does affect change. You have seen with the cases, the great cases you've been involved in, that they do affect legislative change. You know, we can think of Mrs Delalio and her child who was killed in the Marchioness disaster, who relentlessly campaigned along with you and your legal team and in the end did effect substantial change. It can be done and it is done.

Michael Mansfield16:24

Disaster

Presenter16:33

Well, it's the Obama phrase, we can do it, you can do it, I can do it. I understand why some people are driven to extremes which I don't accept. However, change actually can be affected. And the example I'm now giving, of course, is what happened with the Bloody Sunday families. I mean, they waited 30 years and they got it in the end. We will talk more about Bloody Sunday, but let's take a break for some more of your discs. What are we going to hear?

Presenter16:59

Benjamin Zephaniah, The Death of Joy Gardner. This is spoken word because I'm thinking of the island and I'm thinking of the fact I'm not very good at being on my own, I have to say. If I'm at home, you know, I tend to have the radio on in every room. On my own, I'd probably be quite hopeless. So I would want to listen to this.

Presenter17:20

Because it would remind me of

Presenter17:22

Why I've done the things I've done because in this poem is measured anger.

Presenter17:29

And I hope that's what I've had. So here it is.

Michael Mansfield17:33

They put a leather belt around her.

Michael Mansfield17:35

Thirteen feet of tip embound her.

Michael Mansfield17:38

Handcuffs to secure her, and only God knows what else.

Michael Mansfield17:42

She's illegal, so they port her, said the empire that brought her. She died nobody killed her, and she never killed herself.

Michael Mansfield17:51

It is our job to make her return to Jamaica, said the alien deporters who deport people like me.

Presenter17:58

That was Benjamin Zephaniah and the death of Joy Gardiner. Michael Mansfield, you said the most significant and the most harrowing case that you've been involved in was uh Stephen Lawrence's murder. This was, of course, the black teenager.

Presenter18:09

How did you come to be involved?

Presenter18:12

They're always, in a sense, partly by chance.

Presenter18:16

And partly because the connections that you already have formed with people. And I knew the solicitor who was originally approached by the Lawrences and he approached me about this, so I just said, Yes, fine, I'll certainly take this on. Unusually, though, representing not a defendant, but a family. But of course, the longer one became familiar with the sequence of events that had affected Doreen and Neville, then you then begin to appreciate the magnitude of the injustice. It's not just the killing. The killing's bad enough, but then when you're not getting answers from the authorities, whether they be police or politicians, and you're having to bang on doors and persevere until the door opens a tiny amount. So this became obviously a long-running saga of struggle. Dorian and Neville have made things change. They've set agendas by persisting and insisting in the end. And to give the Labour Government their due, they set up a public inquiry to investigate all the background matters. To find out what's gone wrong in this case.

Speaker 218:49

Uh

Presenter19:26

I'm wondering about the personal you, though. I'm wondering about.

Presenter19:29

The long walk home after that. I'm wondering about what's going on inside. I'm not thinking about the legal brain who's thinking about it and saying what he's going to say to the parent.

Michael Mansfield19:36

Yeah, and

Presenter19:38

On that one, I d I I was actually um on on that particular occasion going somewhere else, but

Presenter19:43

I mean, there was an occasion, the first trial, relating to Barry George, who was accused of killing Jill Dando.

Presenter19:51

And I was upset about it. I thought, you know, this shouldn't be. He shouldn't have been convicted. Is it my fault? So I've got to re-examine this. How am I going to do this? So I just walked home about seven miles. You know, pounding the pavements is pretty good exercise. It's also very good for just letting it drain out. And so each paving stone was another thought, another development. So by the next day, I'm sort of centered again and I think, right, we get up and we start again.

Presenter20:18

Let's uh draw breath and have some music. In fact, not music this time. What are we going to hear?

Presenter20:24

Right, this piece has me in fits of laughter. I'm going to control myself on this. I'm a great goons fan, I have to say, brought up with the goons on the wire, less as it was then called. And I met Spike some years later because he was interested in the same kind of issues as I was. And I'd met him before, and I said to him, We're in Trafalgar Square, and I said, Look, you won't remember me, but my name is Michael Menswell, and you used to come and support. And he just had one thing. He said, Well, the point is, as long as you remember who you are, that's fine. So you know, and he's that he's one-liners, and he's brilliant. And this little sketch has it all.

Speaker 320:58

What time is it, Egger?

Presenter21:03

Uh just a minute I I got it written down here on a piece of paper.

Speaker 321:06

Poiper

Speaker 321:10

A nice man wrote the time down for me this morning.

Speaker 321:14

Hmm.

Speaker 321:15

Then why do you carry it around with you like oats?

Speaker 321:19

Well, me, baby

Michael Mansfield21:20

Uh

Speaker 321:21

Anybody

Michael Mansfield21:22

They asked me the time.

Michael Mansfield21:24

I I can show it to them.

Presenter21:28

That was the Goons and What's the Time echoes. Michael Mansfield, can you do any of the voices?

Presenter21:33

Oh, yes, I mean, one of the phrases I know you know, it's it's an exercise. He's falling in the water. It's a catchphrase that comes up all the time. I'm not an aficionado, but I think that was pretty good.

Michael Mansfield21:40

Bye.

Presenter21:42

Michael Mansfield, you've taken on many cases where you have unpicked police evidence and found it more than wanting, found it to be completely false. In the case of the miners that you represented during the miners' dispute, though, it wasn't just a couple of bobbies who were trying to pull a fast one. You found that people very senior in the police were attempting to promote a version of the truth that was very far from the reality and indeed could have ended up with the men they were accusing spending life in prison. How shocked were you?

Presenter22:17

I was shocked, yes. I mean, I never ceased to be shocked. I think the moment you sort of anaesthetize to it all, then you've lost the plot. So, yes, I was shocked.

Presenter22:25

Politics does influence not only decisions about prosecuting, but also the very forces on the ground. The central allegation in connection with these public order offences is that the air was black with missiles. I believe it was the very phrase. That was the very phrase. The sky was black with missiles. And what we attempted to share, and it's not just me, obviously, there was a team of lawyers involved in defending the miners. But what the police hadn't bargained for, there was an official, if you like, police photographer standing on the roof of one of the buildings. Police took a video and it showed quite clearly that the police were not bombarded. There were missiles occasionally, but they were very rare. And it certainly wasn't black with missiles. The allegations against the miners just were not true.

Michael Mansfield22:39

Cool.

Michael Mansfield22:40

I don't know if it was the very freeze.

Presenter23:13

If every cloud does indeed have a silver lining, then surely the silver lining of the miners' dispute was that you met your second wife, Yvette, whilst you were involved in it. Yes, she was making a film about the way in which civil liberties were being encroached at that time, and she heard from other people that I was involved and that I might be able to contribute to this. Although I have to say, much to my amusement and hers probably, she cut me out entirely of the film because she couldn't edit it. Probably listening to me now, you think, well, I understand that.

Michael Mansfield23:21

Yes.

Presenter23:44

Is there much light hearted banter, then, in the Mansfield household? I'm wondering with with her work and your work, is it not a sort of relentless litany of the horrors of the world?

Presenter23:53

Uh no. I think the reason for that is partly because we both recognize we'd drive each other mad if we did that. Also, with well, altogether, six children, you are taken down to ground level. What they want to do is what I've tried to do. So I switch off.

Presenter24:08

So a lot of light-hearted matter. I'm an earth. Six children. A marriage, your career. How on earth do you fit it all in? The answer to that is uh a tribute to the families, actually. I mean I mean my own family, who've provided unstinting support. And I think without that

Presenter24:28

I couldn't have done it. I've taken them for granted, and I shouldn't have. Yes, you must surely have a very understanding wife.

Presenter24:35

Yeah, perhaps too understanding, but I think she is now

Presenter24:39

uh translating her understanding into action and saying, you know, now's the time. So and I appreciate that. It's time now to readjust in this sort of seventieth year. Readjust and look at other things. Next then we are going to hear appropriately what.

Presenter24:55

Well, amongst the children there are a number as Jonathan my eldest and Kieran and Freddie the youngest who are deeply interested in music, and in Freddie it's kind of rap.

Presenter25:07

And I'm very proud of all their achievements, but this leads into homegrown sounds. And this particular number, Won't Wait for Hope, is to do with consumerism.

Presenter25:22

and that we need to consider we all need to consider whether now is not an an extremely apposite time to reconsider our values, our priorities for the future.

Presenter25:33

Wandering makes me feel alone.

Speaker 225:39

Cold thoughts drift from the west, chest heaving and moaning, wheezing and groaning, ins and the outs, thems of the us, themes of too much, yeah I'm kicking up a fuss, squeezing out the pus, sneezing up disease, guilt and relief, yeah putting on the fleece, unsettling breeze

Presenter26:00

That was Homegrown Sounds and Won't Wait for Hope with your son Freddie, with Iona Rowan on vocals and guitar. In recent years, Michael Mansfield, one of the biggest legal undertakings has been the Saville Inquiry, known broadly as the Bloody Sunday Inquiry. It lasted twelve years. Was it worth it?

Presenter26:18

Absolutely. It's not just for my sake I say that. I think you ask any of the families because they felt, quite rightly, that the truth about what happened in nineteen seventy two, when people died on the streets of Derry, shot by British military forces, had never been uncovered.

Presenter26:38

Now it took a long time. It certainly did, but it's worth every penny because it wasn't dealing with an isolated incident that took maybe four minutes, which is about the length of time it took.

Presenter26:50

He was, in fact, Lord Saville, had a remit much broader than that.

Presenter26:55

It was part of the pre-peace process at that time, looking back at what had happened in the twenty years before that, which had led to this situation where British troops were effectively occupying the streets in this way and led to the shooting. Now that's an enormous task. And if you were a mother or a father or whatever, or a relative, and you had had your relatives murdered.

Presenter27:20

You would want that to be, as it were, recognised. This was a moment that they'd waited for, and there was emotion welling up in all of them. And I think it was one of those days, in fact, for me, probably the most moving day of 42 years. The emotion was palpable from the families, even on the television screens that many people witnessed. The worry that people have, though, is the cost and the time. According to Tessa Jowell, £400 million was spent. They say, I understand what you say. Putting it in context was an important part of Lord Saville's remit. But they look at something like the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that was dealing with decades of abuse and turmoil in South Africa, and they say, well, that took three years, for goodness sake. Why should Saville have taken so long, and why should it have cost us the taxpayers so much? And there was, I mean, I don't know if this is true, but certainly around the time there were newspaper headlines saying that you yourself had made three-quarters of a million pounds in fees and that this was overblown and bloated and that it was wrong that that amount of money should be spent. Yes, well the figures are wrong. I'm not going to get it. The figures are wrong. And on the fees front, I'm not afraid to discuss it. I mean, anybody who cares to look it up will see that I'm nowhere near the the top league of earners. And I'm certainly not in the top league of people who are earning money out of the Bloody Sunday inquiry. I was paid what was the state

Presenter28:41

The state determined the fees. I didn't determine the fees. The state determined the fees that were relevant for the hours that I put in on that case. Now, yes, perhaps. I don't know, because I wasn't there. I'm not behind the scenes. Maybe a year or two could have been knocked off. Maybe they could have done the job quicker. I don't know. But I think if you then go to the situation this year, David Cameron stands up in the House of Commons.

Presenter29:06

He did not mince any words unequivocal.

Presenter29:10

In the way he said this should never have happened effectively, and it was unjustified killing.

Presenter29:18

And then he he used a word that is rarely used.

Presenter29:21

And this was a a Conservative Prime Minister apologising to the Irish community. They could not believe their ears. I think it's worth every penny.

Presenter29:32

Let's take a break then. Let's have some music. What are we going to hear and why?

Presenter29:36

Well, this is for Yvette.

Presenter29:38

Uh Yvette's been a member of a a a rather large uh chorus, as it were, or choir in South London, the festival chorus it's called.

Presenter29:47

And they have three concerts a year, and over the last sixteen years, I think something like that, I've been to all of them. So I've listened to many pieces.

Presenter29:55

And the piece that would take me back is Herbert Howell's Requiem. The way this is described as a kind of hushed intensity.

Presenter30:05

I need to have a bit of a hushed intensity, and this this will give it to me.

Speaker 230:45

Oh, sweet God.

Presenter30:55

Oh crazy song.

Presenter31:04

That was the opening of the Requiem by Herbert Howell, sung by the choir of Saint John's College, Cambridge, led by Christopher Robinson. What do you think your father would have made, Michael Mansfield, of this soaring career, not off to Sandhurst, but all the other things that you have done?

Presenter31:19

Well, I often think of what he would have thought. I think ultimately, quietly, he he he would have smiled to himself that, you know, I've gone off in this direction. Uh, he he wouldn't have said very much, but

Presenter31:34

He knew that I wanted to go into the law, and I discussed it with him. He said, You'll never make it. We haven't got the connections, we haven't got the money, so forget it. So I think he would be amazed and probably gratified. So life on this island, Michael Mansfield. As I understand it, you're a bit of a dancer at parties. Love it. Yes. Were you dancing much on the island? Well, you've only allowed us eight records, so me. So I used the tree. I imagine myself just dancing around a tree as the partner, you know.

Michael Mansfield31:56

Love it.

Michael Mansfield31:58

Well

Presenter32:08

What about being lonesome?

Presenter32:11

Yeah, I find it difficult. I have to say, I'd be wanting to find ways of communicating with the outside world.

Presenter32:18

Cooking, uh dare I say, I am quite good at. Now, it's taken me a while to get there, but I'm there.

Presenter32:23

And I'm very experimental. So on this island, I'm imagining things will be growing, and I can what about that over there? I wonder if I can eat that. Now, some days obviously it'll lay me out because I shouldn't be eating it, other days I'll cook it.

Presenter32:34

Vegetarians are won't be catching fish, and if there's um, you know, a few animals around, they'll be perfectly safe.

Presenter32:40

Let's have your final piece. It is music here. What are we going to hear now? Well, this is jazz by I think a maestro.

Presenter32:47

And you have to imagine a cold

Presenter32:50

uh November day, a few well, many years ago now, Yvette and I were wondering what to do. We wandered to Balatitan or

Presenter32:56

And there in Barcy Town Hall was Antonio Fortioni.

Presenter33:01

So we got to know him very well, and we've been to nearly every gig he's had, certainly in the United Kingdom. He plays brilliantly, but he's also very funny. And it's called Touch Wood, and there'll be plenty of that on the island.

Presenter33:43

That was Antonio Forcioni and Touch Wood. So Michael Mansfield, the books now. It's uh the Bible, of course, the complete works of Shakespeare. What book are you going to take along to?

Presenter33:53

Well, I'd like to just vary one of these if I may. Um.

Michael Mansfield33:56

A

Presenter33:58

The Bible. Could I change it for another Bible? Yes. Oh, good. Well, yes, you have to tell I'm saying yes, but I'm waiting for you to tell me what the other Bible is. As all good barristers, I get the answer first.

Michael Mansfield34:03

Well

Michael Mansfield34:06

Yeah.

Presenter34:09

Yes. Yes. Well, it's the um it's Lees Vegetarian Bible.

Michael Mansfield34:10

Well it's the

Presenter34:14

No. But you're a good cook, you tell me. With another religious text that we do allow, but um another religious text.

Michael Mansfield34:18

Please.

Michael Mansfield34:20

Yeah, with anything.

Michael Mansfield34:23

Another rel

Michael Mansfield34:24

Some other biblical quote.

Presenter34:28

If I were allowed a a a philosophical

Presenter34:31

tracked, then I'd like to go back to

Presenter34:35

The Rights of Man by Thomas Paine. So if I may have that. I'm really not sure if you may have that. We will get letters, as you know. Yes. And you are allowed to take a book. I mean, that can be your book.

Michael Mansfield34:42

And you can

Michael Mansfield34:46

Yeah.

Presenter34:47

No, no, I have a book.

Presenter34:49

Yeah.

Presenter34:50

And again, I'm going to have to ask permission probably. I would want a book I haven't read, I know nothing about, other than by reputation. Now what I would like to take.

Presenter35:00

It is in fact one book, but it's a trilogy the Cairo trilogy by Mahfouz. It's set in Cairo and Egypt, and I and I think it's intricate.

Presenter35:10

And I think I would need something that would consume my interest from day to day. That's your book, then? And what about a luxury?

Presenter35:16

Right. Well, as I said, I would want to try and communicate with the outside world, but I like to do it in a musical way, I'd like a drum kit. Oh, yes, you can say that. So I could bang out SOS on that.

Michael Mansfield35:24

So I could

Presenter35:26

in Morse code and do some rather bad drumming to the birds.

Presenter35:30

It's your as a drum kit. If you had to choose then just one of the eight tracks, which one would you choose?

Presenter35:36

I think I'd choose the goons.

Presenter35:39

Every time I hear it, I laugh at it. It's mad, but it's there. I want to go out laughing. It's yours. Michael Mansfield, thank you very much for letting us hear your Desert Island discs. Thank you very much. I've enjoyed every minute.

Presenter36:35

You've been listening to a download from the BBC. You'll find more information on the Radio Four website bbc. co dot uk slash radio four.