Frances Wood

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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By Castaway This Week is the writer and historian Francis Wood.

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As head of the Chinese Collections at the British Library, she is effectively the gatekeeper to some of the rarest and most precious documents in the world.

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Her life's been immersed in the language and culture of the Far East, and along the way she's also spent time throwing hand grenades, planting rice seedlings in the paddy fields, and bundling Chinese cabbages.

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She is a powerful advocate for a land that's often perceived in the West as impenetrable. From China's extraordinary history to its arrival as an economic superpower, it is, she says, a bottomless pit of interesting stuff. Her books have included an exploration of life during the Cultural Revolution and an unpicking of one of China's most well known visitors, the Italian merchant Marco Polo. He didn't, she suggests, ever set foot in the place.

Presenter1:23

We're going to come to the hand grenades and the paddy fields a little later, I hope, Francis Wood. But let's let's start with Marco Polo. Um we all think we know that he did go. Indeed, we all spent much of our

Presenter1:35

Childhood in school studying the fact that he went and told us all about it. Um that's wrong, is it?

Presenter1:42

There's, I think, n absolutely no definite proof that he went. The little manuscripts that we have which say they are the book of Marco Polo or they are a description of the world are compilations of medieval knowledge about the Far East, but the whole idea of an author and of this little man sort of picking his way slowly across the Central Asian deserts is absolutely unproven. And and your contention is that it's as much to do with what he left out as what he put in. He didn't mention footbinding, which for many visitors was one of the most arresting features of China. Didn't mention the Great Wall of China. Didn't mention chopsticks, didn't mention tea drinking, enormous amounts of things that didn't appear. I think that the collections are, you know, they're stories that were told by one seaman to the next. And so it's not a first-hand account of a place. You have been not just criticised, but but pilloried for that point of view that Marco Polo never went to China. Does that bog bother you? Because obviously you're somebody whose professional standing is incredibly important to you and and the and the authenticity of the work you do and the things you say.

Presenter2:44

I really wrote it because I wanted people to think more than anything else. You know, we we look at China through his eyes. We don't think what are the Chinese saying, what are they doing? It was nearly forty years ago now that you first visited China and under Mao's rule, nineteen seventy one. Um the differences, the main differences that strike you between then and now about China are what?

Presenter3:03

Golly, the differences. I just sort of think of the view of Shanghai then, when Poodung was cabbage fields and

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The um the clock on the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank was still playing the East is red. And now you look at it and you know you've got the Pearl Tower, everything you've got lights, you've got shining, you've got giant buildings which glisten in the sun. It's completely different. Except, of course, if you get away from these major cities, I mean, and the the absolute bling, I think of it, is Peking now, but go out into the countryside and you're still back with sort of China immemorial. I'm imagining that when you went there in 1971, they were surprised just simply by the physical presence of a Westerner, were they?

Presenter3:43

Absolutely, yes. Yes, old ladies used to kind of stagger and clutch at trees as we walked past, and

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people would always say to you, kind of right in your face,

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Wigor and foreigner and he thought, Yeah, I know, I know, I am a bit different and so on and yeah, we were complete freaks.

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Let's have some music then. What are we going to begin with today?

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Well you start with something that I suppose I've been

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engaged with very recently, but which is of course one of the oldest um aspects of the Chinese collections in the British Library. It's um Chinese Buddhist monks and a few nuns chanting the Diamond Sutra. The text of the Diamond Sutra is a very standard one. It was a translation from the Sanskrit. And the Diamond Sutra is a dialogue between the Buddha and his little disciple Subuti. And we happen to have in the British Library the world's earliest dated printed book, which is a copy of the Diamond Sutra printed in 868 AD.

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One of the things that the Buddhist faithful do to ac accrue merit is to sing or chant the sutra. And so as we play this we are accruing merit and they are accruing merit.

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My dear one, dear hunt.

Speaker 24:53

But in there one thought.

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How can this?

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That was a recording of Buddhist monks and nuns of the Fau Guang Temple in Taiwan singing the Diamond Sutra. And you said, Francis Wood there, that we accrued merit just by playing that, did we? We did indeed. Now the Diamond Sutra is also the oldest book in the world, the oldest book that exists.

Presenter5:29

The great phrase is the world's earliest securely dated printed book. We have a wonderful edition in the British Library which was printed in 868 AD, which is five hundred years before Gutenberg. Woodblock print with an incredibly beautiful frontispiece. It's a glorious thing. Can you describe to me uh in a bit more detail what it looks like? Does it actually look like a book as we would understand a book, albeit an ancient one?

Presenter5:52

I mean, it's it's a book, we say, in the form of a scroll. Right. But it's thirty feet long, so I mean, it is a complete article. The Chinese at the time rolled their books up. It's a huge piece of printing. And how is it kept, and where is it kept?

Presenter6:05

At the moment it's in the conservation studio. It's just been conserved, and it is phenomenal, the work that our conservators have done, because it's now actually really in the same state as it was in eight six eight. You can even see, which is amazing, a trace of the block.

Presenter6:19

The indent of the block where it was printed and pressed down on the wood block when it was first created. Is it the case that one of your colleagues has spent no less than seven years on this restoration? It is the case, yes. He's the most amazing, painstaking work, repairing tiny holes, repairing creases, pulling pieces together, but repairing it in a way.

Frances Wood6:29

It's like

Presenter6:40

That does allow us to see the paper as it originally was. I mean, it's very this is obviously the beginning of printing in the world, if you like. There's tons of work now to be done, and really it's only just beginning. Do the Chinese want it back?

Presenter6:54

It's never been asked for. I mean, it must be incredibly precious. It is. I mean, it's obviously a world treasure. Yes.

Frances Wood7:01

Uh

Presenter7:03

I suppose what I can say is that we try as hard as we can to make it available to Chinese scholars who need to see it. I also think that now, given things like the Internet, I mean, we've got the Diamond Sutras up on the World Wide Web. You can zoom in, you can see it actually rather better on the Internet than you can, you know, in a rather darkened case in in the library itself.

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What about being in the physical presence, being in such close proximity to such a treasure? There you are, on your own, working with something that is so precious.

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Do you f do you feel something different from the rest of us, do you think?

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Oh, I think

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The familiarity that I have now with the Diamond Sutra is fantastically important. You know, oil painting ceramics, you can leave them on display forever. Nothing much is going to happen to them.

Speaker 37:46

Nothing.

Presenter7:49

Paper is a much more delicate material, so it'll be put on exhibition every so often, but we can't really afford to leave it there all the time. Let's have some more music then. Disc number two, Francis. What are we going to hear?

Presenter8:01

This takes me back to childhood. It's Georges Barcins singing the ballad des dans du de du tent de jadis, ballad of the woman of of the past, and Georges Barsins was my father's perhaps favorite singer, I suppose, and so this reminds me of childhood.

Frances Wood8:15

Des temoi au nan quelpé, et floral la belle romaine, archippi ada netaille, qui fusacousina germaine, et coparlain cambrion men de surivière aux surtang. Qui boté trople que mène, mais aux sons les na jeantang, qui boté trople que mène, mais aux sons les na je dentang.

Presenter8:45

That was George Brassant's and Ballad des Dame du Tommes de Jadie, Ballad of the Women of Years Gone By. Let's go back then, Francis Wood, and find out about your early life. He said that was one of your father's favourite songs. You were born in London at the end of the nineteen forties. What do you remember what are your earliest memories of life at home?

Presenter9:05

I suppose some of my I have memories of hanging upside down on a trapeze in the garden in the sun, you know, those you have those sunny childhood memories. But I mean, the the the the Georges Prosins is one of the things, one of my memories of comfort is being upstairs and sort of meant to be going to sleep, and hearing Dad downstairs typing and Georges Prosins always playing. My brother in the same room as me, but

Presenter9:26

We divided the room up with wardrobes and things like that. So we were sort of just, you know, very comfortable at home and with Georges Poisson's and the typewriter. Your parents did what?

Presenter9:34

My father worked in the British Museum Library from before the war. He was a French specialist. And my mother taught French.

Presenter9:43

So you were sort of immersed in the culture and the literature of another country from early on? Yes, and I I think prob some of my memories I mean, I think early memories are often a bit um dubious, but I do seem to think I remember being on a boat when I was two and we went to France for the first time. And I remember

Presenter9:59

Things like French houses that we stayed in every summer,'cause we'd go every year. It sounds like quite a rarefied life, but interestingly, your parents also were code breakers at Bletchley Park, is that right? Yes, a bit before my time, but during the war, yes, nice. They weren't ju I'm meaning I'm sort of trying to work out they weren't just sort of rarefied academics, they were people who sort of had used

Frances Wood10:10

But during the war,

Presenter10:18

Their brains also for very practical means, which is interesting. Yes, I think my father went first because pretty well everyone from the British Museum who wasn't in the forces, and apparently he made.

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a whistling noise when he breathed, so he wasn't he he didn't go into the army. I think that was a good thing,'cause I think he would have been some sort of objector. But he didn't mind code breaking codes. So he went there with all of the people from the British Museum, and my mother was a Wren.

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And she was secretary to Angus Wilson, the novelist, who was then working in the British Museum, and he introduced my parents after the war. And he was a very colourful figure, not just his bow ties, but the rest of his life was pretty colourful. Did your mum ever tell you tales of him?

Presenter10:57

I don't remember so much tales as I remember Angus himself. I remember him coming to a party. I suppose I was probably about seven or eight, and my brother was about five. And my mother, who was she was very sort of progressive, obviously trying to explain to us about homosexuality, because he was coming with Tony, his partner, and Mum was trying to say that they were kind of like they were married. And.

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Obviously this was meant, in a sense, to make us not stare at him, but I remember sitting under the piano the entire evening and just, you know, fixing him with a gimlet stare, wondering what on earth was going on, and he was

Frances Wood11:27

Uh

Presenter11:29

He had a wonderful squeaky voice, and he was very nice, but it was all very mysterious. You say that your father might have had to be a conscientious objector, if indeed he had been drafted to fight. Was politics a very active thing in the household? It was very active, yes. I mean, as a child, the incredible drag of being compelled to deliver Labour Party notices endlessly, you know, to no financial reward. I'm sure no child would do it without money. But also, there were things like with the French kind of political connection. I can remember.

Presenter11:59

My parents looking after refugees from the Algerian war, you know, young men who were refusing the draft.

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Coming.

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and staying through friends in France and smuggling contraceptives into France and things like that. So there were sort of international collections as collections as well. So c sort of borderline risky behaviour on your parents' part? They were willing to to suffer for their politics?

Presenter12:21

I mean, I suppose with the um conscientious objectors from Algeria, yes.

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I don't know that they would have thought it as really risky, but I suppose it potentially was. Let's have some more music then. What are we going to hear next?

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We're going to hear Paco Ibanyev and Miniña se fuela mare, which well it's actually it's a Lorca song, that's the main thing, that it's Paco Ibanyev singing Lorca.

Speaker 312:41

Yen mira den trolator en jesada de sebia.

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Cincoces contesta havan, redondas como sortija, redondas como sortiga.

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That was Pako Ibaniev and Mi Ninha Se Fue à la Mar. My girl went off to the sea. So tell me, Frances, didn't you also spend some of your childhood sort of living cheek by jowl with the British Museum? Your father used to work in there. Yes. At that time, they had a system by which sort of semi-senior officials had to spend a week living in what was called the Rotor House, which was just to the right-hand side as you go into the British Museum. And there was a wonderful great drawing-room where my parents would give parties, and downstairs there was a kitchen with a cook in it, and there was a dumb waiter which we used to put my brother in. And on Sundays, when the reading room. What, against his will, or you would just. Oh, no, you loved it. He loved it. Just probably a bit dangerous, but still. Right.

Frances Wood13:44

Yeah.

Frances Wood13:47

Oh no, you loved it. You loved it.

Presenter13:51

And on Sundays, when the reading room was closed, there was a very gentle slope down from the superintendent's desk to the doors that went into the North Library. And I used to push my brother crashing down this slope on the book trolleys through the doors into the North Library, because we could. We played around in the reading room on Sundays. Is it true that your father had a list of treasures, and if there was any sort of national disaster, there were treasures that he must save before others?

Presenter14:17

Well, he always said I mean, he was quite a joker, my father, but I think I think they were given some training. Then he was told

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Obvious things like, you know, don't try and make off with the Rosetta Stone, it's probably better to try and save the Lindisfarne Gospels and so on. And he also claimed there was a funny little locked box on the mantelpiece in the bedroom that he slept in. And he always claimed that there was a gun in it, and so that if there was an intruder, he could take the gun and rush through the gloomy galleries of the British Museum. But I'm not sure about all of that. Let's move on then to look at you as a teenager. You said that you were a beatnik and a pseudo-intellectual. What were you sort of wee clothes stuffed in your back pocket and things? Were you always sort of hunched over some sartre? Well, I remember I know I used to carry much bigger than things. L'Étre le Neon, which is about kind of, you know, two foot wide.

Frances Wood15:00

Two foot wide.

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Which was very foolish.

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Yes, I d I don't know. I mean, at school I suppose we were all a bit sort of pseudo intellectual, um, but also kind of mildly naughty in kind of much more ordinary ways.

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You said that y your mother decided that I was having a nervous breakdown. Explain more to me about that. Well, I think if you if you grew up in Hampshire Garden suburb, there was much more kind of early access to things like

Presenter15:28

you know, it would have been people thought about psychiatrists and things like that. You know, if you'd been in a working class home, you'd just have been clipped round the ear and told to get on with it. So this was part of their sort of progressive, yes. So what happened during your supposed nervous breakdown?

Frances Wood15:38

It was familiar.

Frances Wood15:40

So what happened?

Presenter15:43

Well, nothing much, except well, I think it was quite good actually, because all the pressure got taken off me over A levels, because it was assumed that I wasn't going to pass my A levels, and therefore

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God knows what would happen to me. And so, of course, I managed to, you know, to do terribly well because I didn't have any pressure. And I went to see one psychiatrist who said.

Presenter16:00

Well, I think your mother's going through quite a hard time, but uh I think parents do often get the wrong end of the stick.

Presenter16:07

But for many teenagers the idea of well, I don't know, was it psychotherapy you went through or you know, sitting sort of talking about yourself for hours on end for a lot of teenagers might be precisely what they want to do, being rather self-obsessed.

Presenter16:19

Uh no. Well, I just went to see this man once really, and that was as he'd sort of said rather inconclusive things. That was that. He didn't progress, which was great. You're a mother of a twenty two year old yourself. Being having liberal parents, does does it make you a more liberal parent yourself?

Frances Wood16:26

Okay.

Presenter16:36

I think so. I mean, I think my parents were, you know, really very good. But I do I must say I do think bringing up children nowadays sometimes it's a question of crossing your fingers and just incredible luck that they come through.

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Let's have some more music, then. What are we going to hear next?

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Penny Lane, the Beatles. And why have you chosen particularly Penny Lane? Because I spent a very amazing year at Liverpool Art School in between school and Cambridge, um and Penny Lane came out that year and so it sort of symbolizes a a a magical year at art school.

Speaker 217:07

Wind is in my ears and in my eyes.

Frances Wood17:15

Uh

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And beneath the blue, superb blue skies I sit and meanwhile

Speaker 217:23

Many lanes

Frances Wood17:24

There's a fireman within our plan

Frances Wood17:27

Buck is a portrait of the queen.

Frances Wood17:31

That's the Keepers Fire engine.

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The Beatles and Penny Lane and by immense good fortune you find yourself in Liverpool the year that was released 1967

Presenter17:44

Yes, it was a fabulous year to be in Liverpool. I was very lucky. I was simply a child swap. I went to stay with friends who the father was a painter and worked at Liverpool Art School and I went and did the pre-diploma year. But it just happened that it was the year that the Liverpool poets all got going. Roger McGough, Adrian Henry, Brian Patton, Alan Ginsburg came to visit Liverpool. And would you see them in the streets? Oh, yeah. I remember seeing Adrian and Alan Ginsburg. Terribly funny, two sort of tubby, dark-haired, bearded gentlemen who looked very similar. And yeah, and Roger McGough taught us liberal studies and Adrian Henry taught us graphics. So we were very much part of the Liverpool scene. And you mentioned Ginsburg there. I mean, he of course espoused this very sort of, you know, the idea of free love and being open to things that the generations before had not been open to. Was that the atmosphere? I mean, w was it sort of genuinely a new beginning and and a rather sort of free time?

Frances Wood18:06

Yeah.

Presenter18:37

I think it yes, it was. I mean, I think it was a time when sort of Liverpool Art School became, as it were, slightly the centre of the universe. Um and obviously all those things were, yes, very much part of it. What did you look like at art school?

Presenter18:50

I had sort of I don't think I looked wildly excited. I had sort of, you know, sort of square cut. We used to go to Vidal Sassoon and get free haircuts with those funny you never knew quite how many points you had at the back. But of course it was also the time as a mini skirt, so I had kind of practically invisible skirts and we did things like spray paint our boots silver and so on. So it was fun being an art student. And then to go from being an art student in Free Love Liverpool in 1967, you then went to Newnham College, All Girls' College at Cambridge. It must have seemed surely like something of a straitjacket.

Presenter19:22

Yeah, it was definitely the wrong way around. Yes, it was very much like going to a convent. I mean the What were the rules? The rules were that the doors were locked at twelve and if you came in there was a fun really funny rule that they said if you come in between eleven and eleven thirty you pay the porter threepence and if you come in between eleven thirty and twelve you pay him sixpence.

Frances Wood19:27

Some rules were that the door

Presenter19:40

And it was all sort of cups of cocoa after hall and wearing your gown. Where did the study in Chinese come from, then?

Presenter19:47

A bit of a fluke, I think, really. At school I had been quite good at French and quite good at Spanish. But I decided I wanted to do a language that was as diff I said at the time, as difficult and as different as possible. I don't know why I said difficult, because I'm fundamentally fairly lazy, but different I wanted. And I'm just eternally grateful that I chose Chinese and not Arabic or Japanese, for example, because I think Chinese

Presenter20:09

opens an entire world.

Presenter20:11

And you say difficult. I mean, just to be clear, there are, in its biggest incarnation in a Chinese dictionary.

Presenter20:17

44,000 characters, am I right about that? Yeah, I don't but I don't know that there's anyone who's ever actually learnt all of those. You have to learn each character.

Presenter20:26

It's not like an alphabet where you can build up and then you can guess. Each character has to be learned as you encounter it. I find it you know, it entity interests me rather than depresses me.

Presenter20:38

Is it also the case that even the way that something is said I mean, of course, we're used to regional accents all over the world, but in China it becomes even more important because you can seriously mix up certain words and certain meanings. It is true, it is a tonal language. For example, the words for fish and jade are very close. The words for mother and horse are very close. And even one of my Chinese tutors said that the first time her son, who was a little Chinese boy, encountered a horse, he looked at his mother in some surprise and obviously couldn't quite see the connection. Have you ever come acropper yourself?

Presenter21:08

I haven't I've usually been fairly okay. And in fact Chinese because Chinese people are terribly nice and they're the sort of people who say, you know, after you've stumbled through two words, they say, God, you're really brilliant, you speak wonderfully, you know, not like the French who sniff at every mistake you make. Let's have some more music then. What are we going to hear next?

Presenter21:24

Piano Red Allen and Right String Baby But the Wrong Yo Yo. I had a wonderful friend at Cambridge who ran a record shop which sold mostly completely mad blues records, and every so often he'd dash round on his bike and say, You must hear this, it's funnier than anything else.

Speaker 221:50

Right strange baby, but the wrong yo-yo

Speaker 221:55

Somebody knocking on your door.

Speaker 221:59

I passed this morning bought a hardware store. I bought a brand new frame to fit my yo-yo.

Presenter22:08

That was Red Allen and right string baby, but the wrong yo-yo. I'm going to spend the rest of the day trying to work out what the hell that was about.

Presenter22:16

It's not much good asking me. You know they're dirty, but you I mean, I find it very difficult to know. But they they just they make me laugh. I think they're wonderful. So, Frances Wood, I said in the introduction that you spent time on that first trip to China throwing hand grenades, planting rice seedlings, and bundling Chinese cabbages. Tell me how it all came about. How did you end up there?

Presenter22:35

I went in 1975-76 as a British Council Exchange student.

Presenter22:40

This was the cultural revolution. I mean, and everyone in China was a fierce and kind of.

Presenter22:46

Uptight Red Guard. So we were exchanged for sort of ten very serious Chinese students who all knew exactly what they were going to do. They were going to go to the United Nations and be ambassadors and promote Marxism, Leninism, Mao Zedong sort. And then in return, the Chinese got this rather shambolic group of English students who didn't quite know what they were doing. And what about the throwing grenades? That seems rather surprising. Well, that was sport.

Presenter23:08

Of course it was. One part of compulsory sport in a Chinese institution is throwing hand grenades. I mean it's a bit like putting the shot, but it's like they have these little they had these little plastic models of hand grenades, which were the old kind, that looked like bottles. And it was a, you know, test of accuracy throwing. Um it's just like throwing a ball except we threw hand grenades instead. What about the caviar? Tell me about the caviar. Ah, the caviar, oh gosh.

Presenter23:31

In those days, because the Russians and the Chinese weren't speaking, um

Presenter23:36

There was caviar sold in the friendship store in Peking because there in the past I was there had been millions and millions of Russian experts who needed to eat caviar. And of course it came from the Amu, you know, the river where caviar comes from. Russia and China, both it's a border between them. And so Chinese caviar was sold by the jam jar. You had to take your own jam jar. And you would get a large jam jar for about sort of ninepence because the Chinese and the Russians weren't speaking. The Chinese didn't know about luxury goods. They didn't realize that the caviar in the outside world was, you know, the price of gold. So we used to have caviar for breakfast on Sundays. Really? How did you eat it? Just by the spoonful? No, we used to eat it on little brown Russian loaves, which again were baked in the friendship store, little brown rye loaves, jolly nice. And of course, I mean, upwards of, what, thirty million people had died in in the famine in China between would it be fifty eight? Between fifty eight and sixty one? I mean, how aware were you that that was in such close proximity? You know, you you were talking to people and, as you say, going out to these unusual, untypical places, places that were not designated to meet people. How much did you understand about their recent history?

Frances Wood24:28

Sixty-one.

Presenter24:45

Not a terrible lot, although I think

Presenter24:48

In one way, to be fair to us, I think that the the horrors of the famine had been to a large extent eclipsed by the horrors of the Cultural Revolution, which was still ongoing. And I mean, I think mo many people didn't know until afterwards. You know, there were there were the bodies that floated down the Pearl River to Hong Kong, but it was very difficult to know what had gone on in detail.

Presenter25:08

It was very difficult, but you just towards the end of, say, July, August 76, which was when Mao was clearly on his way out and everyone was in a state of real fear as to what was going to happen, you did get a real sense of foreboding. Could that mean civil war? What was going to happen? So you did know that the whole country was

Presenter25:30

On edge.

Presenter25:31

Let's have uh some more music. What are we going to hear next?

Presenter25:35

Well, in keeping, we're going to hear some of the um Chinese exercise music which we had to jump about to every morning. Every morning? Every morning. Everybody in China jumped about.

Presenter25:49

No.

Presenter25:52

Up head filth walk filled up here.

Presenter26:02

Yeah.

Presenter26:03

You pay, see?

Speaker 226:04

Uh

Speaker 226:06

Uh

Presenter26:06

Ah

Speaker 226:08

Uh

Presenter26:12

Some traditional Chinese exercise music, Francis. Would w do you plan to exercise on the island? Is that just to keep you fit and healthy?

Presenter26:20

I think I would exercise not now doing the Chinese star jumps, but by swimming. And they would only make you do the star jumps for I mean, it was just a matter of, was it eight minutes each day you were compelled to do exercise? Yes, but it was it was jolly cold often in winter. You go outside in your padded coat and you have to remember, as students in China, I mean, there were no cups of coffee or quick cigarettes or other. It was out there, jump about and then back into class. Are you quite a hardy sort, then?

Presenter26:46

Being in China made me hardy actually. I'm amazed. And when I came back, I I thought, you know, central heating was soft'cause we didn't have any of that. And

Frances Wood26:47

Uh

Presenter26:53

Yeah, I think so. It trained me. What about how you spend your time now? We know, of course, that you've written this series of books about China as well as your research work. I read that you also enjoy in your spare time reading about China in the 18th and 19th century. You like biographies, you like historical tomes. But I'm grateful to see that you like a bit of detective fiction, too. Does that allow you to switch your brain off? Yeah, I think like, is putting it mildly. I mean, the house is.

Presenter27:20

Um, I should say head deep in yeah, I'm crazy about detective fiction. And I I rather long to write it sometime. Do you think you will? Oh, I think I will and when I retire. What I want to do, actually, I'm afraid to say, when I write detective fiction, is to to kill all the people I've hated.

Presenter27:37

Will it be set in China or set here in Britain? I think probably more set here in Britain. I'm wondering as you sit down in the staff canteen if you can sort of, without any guilt or judgment, take out the old sort of Dick Francis or Ruth Randell or whatever it is you you read. Can you do that? Oh, absolutely. Yes, no, we swap it. We have a an insatiable thirst for it. That makes us all feel better. Um you come from a family then of academics as we heard. Is your son following in the family footsteps?

Presenter28:02

He could, but he isn't. He's just he got a first at Leeds and he's he's absolutely brilliant. But what he's going to do, which is what he's wanted to do since he was two years old, I think, is um he's going off to train to be an actor at Bristol Olvick Theatre School. And what about putting your son on the stage, Miss Wood? What do you think about that? Does it fill you full of horror?

Presenter28:22

No, because I think he's incredibly good. And I went to see him as Falstaff at Leeds. And he was absolutely brilliant. He was terribly moving. I mean, I could have killed Henry V in my bare hands at the time. He was wonderful. He's been brought up in relatively unconventional circumstances, in that you and your partner have lived at a distance from each other sort of full-time, and then your partner has come and spent weekends with you. How has that been, do you think? I think it's very good. I mean, I think his father, to be fair, wasn't I mean, you know, he's one of those people for whom babies are not wildly interesting. He was very good about responsibility, if not quite as hands-on. So I never felt I never felt alone in that sense. Are you quite a self-sufficient person? I think so, yes, yes. And as Ed has grown, I mean, they have a shared passion for history.

Frances Wood29:05

Yeah.

Presenter29:09

and b keep exchanging books on the Crusades and things like that. Very few people are very, very, very important to me, but but the crowd, not so much. Some people might think, of course, having a partner just on the weekend ideal,'cause you can suit yourself all week. I think it's got a huge a huge amount to say for it, yes. So it's been a happy arrangement.

Presenter29:28

Let's have some more music then. What are we going to do? Well, not I mean it is music of a sort. Tell us what we're going to hear next. I think it's amazingly tuneful. It's Tom Lehrer, Werner von Braun. And why have you chosen this particular Tom Lehrer? Because when I used to do the school run, in order not to have seven children squabbling in the car, I used to play tapes. And after we'd done Just William and the complete works of Sherlock Holmes, we went on to Tom Lehrer, who was a rip-roaring success, bizarrely. And just to be clear, the seven children were not all yours. Ed was yours. You were doing the sort of... Yeah, I was doing the school run, and I had sort of, you know, from five up to twelve, and they all loved Tom Lera.

Speaker 229:54

You were doing the sort of

Speaker 230:00

Some have harsh words for this man of renown, But some think our attitude should be one of gratitude, Like the widows and cripples in old London town, Who owe their large pensions to Werner von Braun. You too may be a big hero.

Speaker 230:18

Once you've learned to count backwards to zero.

Speaker 230:22

In German or English I know how to count down And I'm learning Chinese, says Werner

Presenter30:31

Tom Lehrer and Werner von Paun. I'm wondering on this island, Francis, would you're going to miss the books, aren't you? We'll come on to your book later, but will you feel isolated when you're not surrounded by beautiful books?

Presenter30:44

I would miss books terribly. People say our house is known as the house of books and bamboo, and that would be frightfully, frightfully difficult. Do you prefer books to people?

Presenter30:54

Um

Presenter30:55

I I prefer books to a lot of people.

Presenter30:58

There are certain people um who I prefer enormously to books, but the mass, I'd much I'm always happy. I mean, yes, take a book. Have you ever thought about making a life in China?

Presenter31:11

I

Presenter31:12

I think I could quite easily. I would actually miss English tremendously, because, as well as, you know, reading books, I do actually very much enjoy the process of writing.

Presenter31:23

And I would f I think English is a wonderful language, and I would I would miss that. I'd miss being

Presenter31:29

At sort of the peak of a language.'Cause if in China, I mean, I can stumble through Mamahuhu, but I mean, I wouldn't ever be quite up there at the top. I'd lo I like being able to write beautifully. And what about life alone then? Are you quite uh practical for the island? Would you be able to y you mentioned that your flat is known as the place of books and bamboo. Would you be able to to lash up a hut and so on?

Presenter31:51

I could. It would be a pretty bad one. My brother's actually brilliant at um at at building and making and things, but he takes ages. I mean, I am quite I think I'm sure I could lash something rather hideous together quite quickly.

Presenter32:02

Let's have your final piece of music then. What are we going to hear? This is from um Verdi's Don Carlos, the third act. And what is it about this particular piece that appeals to you? I just think it's beautiful.

Frances Wood32:37

Father, Love or Lord.

Speaker 233:00

Um with this sweet ball

Presenter33:11

Nikolai Gyauroff singing She Has No Love for Me from the third act of Verdi's Don Carlos with the Berlin Philharmonic, conducted by Herbert von Carrion. So we come to the point then, Francis, where, of course, I'm going to give you the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare. What's your other book going to be?

Presenter33:28

I'd like to take the tsu hai, which is a a 1930s Chinese dictionary called The Sea of Words.

Presenter33:36

This is partly because I read terribly fast and um

Presenter33:40

I would be terrified of running out of reading material. And the Soha is quite sort of difficult, but it's also actually a terribly funny dictionary because it's the 1930s. It's sort of the beginning of the modern age, and it's got all sorts of things like under the character way, you get things like Prince of Wales, and you get John Wycliffe spelt wrongly, and you get the Wilmington Electric Machine all spelt in sort of sideways English. It would mean I'd carry on learning Chinese, and I'd be able to come back and be sort of, you know, the brain of 1930s China. And plenty of unintentional humour there. And, of course, a luxury.

Presenter34:14

Well, I wondered about the um the war memorial outside Euston station.

Presenter34:19

I don't know if they'd miss it. I'm certainly happy to give you it, but uh can I ask briefly for a reason?

Presenter34:24

I'm very um moved and interested by First World War.

Presenter34:29

Memorial sculpture, the sort that has

Presenter34:32

Um, enormous bronze figures of gentlemen in macintoshes with sand-brown belts and kind of neatly laced boots and shoes. I find them.

Presenter34:40

Very intriguing.

Presenter34:42

It's yours. And if you had to choose just one of these eight discs, which one would you choose? Listener, she is contorting her face in horror. I think it would be the the Verdi for comfort. It's yours. Frances Wood, thank you very much for letting us hear your Desert Island discs. It's wonderful of you to ask me.

Presenter35:46

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