Tony Iveson

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.

Presenter0:10

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

Presenter0:33

My castaway this week is the veteran pilot Tony Iverson. One of only a handful of men to fly in the Battle of Britain and Bomber Command, his life has been packed full of adventure and daring. As a boy, the cartoon exploits of Biggles fired his dream to take to the skies. Indeed, the week of his twenty-first birthday was marked not so much by cards and cake than by being shot down in his Spitfire over the North Sea. Initially reported missing in action, he went on to fly in the three raids that finally sunk the German battleship the Tirpitz. He hasn't really put his feet up since, with a successful career in broadcasting, campaigning for a permanent memorial to the thousands of airmen killed in RAF Bomber Command, and even returning to the skies in a Lancaster bomber aged 89. He says we were in a total war for our survival. Total war is a brutal, nasty, uncivilised business. We just got on with the job.

Presenter1:30

So, Tony Iveson, this year, I understand, you traveled to California and you met.

Presenter1:36

Quite an interesting fellow, a man called Kurt Schultz in California. Yes. Tell me about Kurt Schultz, why did you meet him?

Tony Iveson1:44

Well well, I met him at Berkeley University a few years ago when a symposium was put on about the sinking of of tirpits.

Tony Iveson1:54

And he, it appeared, was a pilot in a German fighter squadron which was moved forty miles south of Tromsø, where Tirpitz was sitting, and for some extraordinary reason he and his colleagues missed us in their Mescheschmitz. And when I met Kurt and he ex tried to explain all this to me, and as I got to know him better, I got to like him very much.

Presenter2:18

And how did it feel to shake the hand of a man who was in within just a few seconds of of

Tony Iveson2:23

But

Presenter2:23

I mean probably killing you.

Tony Iveson2:25

That's very strange, actually.

Tony Iveson2:27

Well, you realize that you're both airmen.

Tony Iveson2:30

Both had a job to do.

Tony Iveson2:32

And well, we sort of hugged each other and were glad that we hadn't met in the skies in urban Norway.

Presenter2:38

Uh was there a sense in which you felt you maybe had much more in common with Kurt than you have with with many people who haven't been through a war, even though you were on opposing sides?

Tony Iveson2:47

I think Amen all over the world have a great deal in common.

Tony Iveson2:50

And once you find out, if you meet a stranger that he too was a pilot, there's no problem. You've got...

Tony Iveson2:55

Lots and lots of things to talk about.

Presenter2:57

And what's the tie you're wearing today? What's that tie?

Tony Iveson3:00

This is the 617 Squadron Tai, the Dambusters.

Presenter3:04

Yeah.

Tony Iveson3:04

Yes. It shows the lightning striking the dam.

Presenter3:08

Is it always very close to the surface with you, all of those experiences? I mean, w you know, the drama of your life, for those of us who who've not been through a war, is almost unimaginable. I'm I'm wondering if you feel that it sort of almost informs every day that you live, that experience that you went through.

Tony Iveson3:24

Well, because um for ten years I've been chairman of the Bomber Command Association.

Speaker 43:30

Yeah.

Tony Iveson3:31

We have several gatherings a year, and mainly in the last three years it's been the memorial which has occupied my th my days and nights and weekends and thoughts, so that, yes, it's it's all come back to me.

Presenter3:45

Plenty to talk about, Tony Ibsen, but for now we're going to listen to some music. Tell me about the first disc that we're going to hear. Why have you chosen this? And tell me what it is.

Tony Iveson3:53

But my first record takes me back to nineteen forty three when I was on my way into bomber command, and the one thing senior officers did not want

Tony Iveson4:03

Was someone arriving to go on a mission and suddenly saying, Oh, oh, I I can't go, I've got violent toothache.

Tony Iveson4:09

So we all had to go to the dentist and pronounce dentally fit. The dentist I met had just returned from New York.

Tony Iveson4:18

And whilst he was probing he played Frank Sinatra, and I didn't know who it was, but I was very taken by the voice. So I guess I might have been amongst the first few people ever to hear Sinatra in this country.

Speaker 44:32

You do something to me Something that simply mystifies me

Speaker 44:43

Tell me

Speaker 44:46

Why should it be?

Speaker 44:48

You have the power to hypnotize me.

Speaker 44:55

Let me live'neath your spell Do do that.

Presenter5:02

That was Frank Sinatra, and you do something to me, I dare say, one of the very few things that could make a dental appointment seem a little more bearable, Tony Iverson. Um you're ninety one now. You could so easily pass for about twenty five years younger than that. You seem very robust and healthy looking.

Tony Iveson5:17

Oh yes. Very complimentary.

Presenter5:20

Well, I'm not being overly flattering, but um you do look in remarkable shape. You were just you were twenty five then when the war finished. I'm wondering what you think the legacy has been for you personally of going through that at such a young age.

Tony Iveson5:21

Classic

Tony Iveson5:37

Well, I think um most flying people would agree with me that uh

Tony Iveson5:41

being a pilot or a member of our crew

Tony Iveson5:44

makes one very self-reliant.

Tony Iveson5:47

Well, you appreciate that uh what happens is in your own hand.

Tony Iveson5:51

And if you go through a few experiences you then find out a great deal about yourself, about how much you can take, and those experiences, even the bad ones, are helpful for the future. But what it taught me was that I I could rely on myself, that I I had s some skills and I I had some capacity.

Presenter6:13

Um somebody once wrote of you, they said he flies like those wings are riveted to his shoulders. Only a couple of years ago, I think when you you must have been eighty eight, eighty nine, you had the opportunity to fly a a Lancaster bomber again. What was that experience like getting back into the cockpit?

Tony Iveson6:30

It was far more emotional than I expected.

Tony Iveson6:34

The Lancaster's a war machine. It it it's very cramped to me, far more so than I remembered.

Tony Iveson6:41

And when they gave me the controls, they were much heavier than I remembered.

Tony Iveson6:46

And uh it started w wandering off as it as if the lacquer still was saying to me, If you think you can come back after sixty odd years and carry on, well, have another think.

Presenter6:57

And the emotions were thinking back to what? Did you think of a particular episode?

Tony Iveson7:02

Well, I got out of that aeroplane and looked at it.

Tony Iveson7:05

and thought about

Tony Iveson7:07

operations, I really did wonder how did we do it.

Tony Iveson7:11

I know it was a long time ago and I was young and fit and I was a prof professional flyer really at the time.

Tony Iveson7:18

But I thought about some of my friends who had been lost, and uh it was qu an emotional experience.

Presenter7:24

Mr. President, many tens of thousands killed in our AF bomber command. I think it's over fifty five thousand Afghan. I wonder what you make of the fact that today, of course, we are week in, week out, losing servicemen and women in action in Afghanistan and Iraq. Every individual is named. We see their photographs on the evening news and in the papers. Do you think we are right to commemorate every individual loss in that way these days?

Tony Iveson7:30

Yes.

Tony Iveson7:52

Well, it's inevitable, I think, because the losses are spaced out, and one is moved by seeing the the coffins arriving. One night in march, nineteen forty four,

Tony Iveson8:04

Bomber Command lost ninety-five aircraft, which was nearly seven hundred airmen, in one night.

Tony Iveson8:12

They couldn't, obviously, because they were shut in on the other side, so they could not be brought back.

Tony Iveson8:18

If there was a cortege of seven hundred, what would we do?

Tony Iveson8:23

It's so different today.

Presenter8:25

Let's have some more music, then, Tony. What are we going to hear now? We're on disc number two.

Tony Iveson8:30

But this number two

Tony Iveson8:32

Tommy Dorsey, playing I'm Getting Sentimental Over You is a wonderful, wonderful melody, and uh he was a great trombonist. When I was about seventeen, with two friends, we set up a nightclub called the Ebony Shadows on the upper floors of his parents' house. The great advantage was that halfway up the final staircase there was a window which looked out on the next-door pub, where there was also a window. So, unknown to his parents, we could wangle in a few bottles of beer. And occasionally, we would persuade a girl to come to our Ebony Shadows.

Presenter9:35

That was the sound of Tommy Dorsey and his orchestra, and I'm getting sentimental over you. Um let's go way back then. Tell me a bit about your father. He had fought in the Battle of the Somme on july first, nineteen sixteen. Did he ever talk to you about that?

Tony Iveson9:50

A little bit, not much, but uh it was quite obvious he had a terrible scar on his chest where the bullet had um come out. Um

Tony Iveson10:00

He'd volunteered in August 1914. He joined the Royal Fusiliers and he went over the top on that day, the first day of the Somme, and was hit within a few moments. They were all very heavily laden, with a pack on their back and a rifle, and he was knocked over by this bullet, which hit him. He'd only gone about ten yards, and so he fell down and he fell on his back. And therefore he couldn't move, and he couldn't get out of a water bottle, and he laid there whole day, and it was a hot day.

Tony Iveson10:36

and it was lucky that late towards the evening that they they found him.

Presenter10:41

One of the most extraordinary aspects, I think, of your father's life is that he fought again he fought at Passchendaele. He must have been a man of extraordinary nerve and courage to be able to go out there and fight again.

Tony Iveson10:53

Well, I think he would have said it was in the line of duty. He came home and from the first wound and recovered.

Tony Iveson11:00

and sent out again, as as many, many thousands and thousands were.

Presenter11:04

Um let's go back to nineteen nineteen. That was the year uh you were born. I mentioned in the introduction that as a little boy you would read the the comic stories about Biggles and you know all the the heroes and what they would get up to in wartime. Did you feel that your life in those early years was sort of dominated by the the prospect of war or the shadow of war?

Tony Iveson11:26

Well, certainly by the time I was about eleven years old.

Tony Iveson11:31

I would hear my father and uncle and others saying,

Tony Iveson11:35

Are we really going to have to fight the Germans again?

Tony Iveson11:38

and they were horrified at the prospect.

Presenter11:41

Your father and mother especially, given that they were the parents to four sons. I mean, they must have, you know, almost have been able to see that looming fate of what was coming for their young boys.

Tony Iveson11:51

Yes, uh I think my parents' generation was the one that suffered most.

Tony Iveson11:57

They were married in April nineteen seventeen, so and she'd known him before, so she'd had a man in France, and then within twenty years there's another war, and she had four sons.

Tony Iveson12:09

What they endured is quite incredible.

Presenter12:12

Time now to have some more music, then, Tony. Tell me what we're going to hear now. We're on disc number three.

Tony Iveson12:17

I was very interested in flying. All I wanted to do was to fly. And at that time, our heroes were.

Tony Iveson12:23

pioneer aviators. So people like Amy Johnson, who as a typist learned to fly and took off and flew solo to Australia.

Tony Iveson12:33

And Alan Cobham was trying to make Britain airminded, and he was to take his his flying circus around the country. In fact, I had my first flight in an Alan Cobham air show, and I believe that m many, many battle Britain pilots did likewise.

Presenter12:48

How old would you have been when you were taken up at the airshield?

Tony Iveson12:51

Uh that would I'd be about fourteen, I think.

Tony Iveson12:55

and we did a circuit and landing.

Tony Iveson12:57

And the pilot when the landing round stopped turned round and said, Well, that's it and I said, Is that all? He said, Well, I'll give you another one. So I got two the price of one.

Speaker 413:07

There's a little lady who has captured every heart, Amy Johnson.

Speaker 413:14

It's you.

Speaker 413:16

We have watched and waited since the day you made your start, Amy Johnson.

Speaker 413:23

It's true.

Speaker 413:25

Since the news that you are safe has come along

Speaker 413:30

Everyone in town is singing this love song.

Speaker 413:34

I am in

Presenter13:38

That was Jack Hilton and his orchestra, and Amy, wonderful Amy. I have to tell people, Tony Ivan, that you were singing along to that pretty well. You got quite a good voice. Was she something of a pin up girl, then, Amy, for you?

Tony Iveson13:48

Oh, yes, she was, because she went on she married a man called Jim Mollison, who was another pioneer aviator, and they set up lots of records crossing the Atlantic in a single engine monoplane.

Presenter14:00

So you were the eldest, then, Tony, of four boys, as we know um your father had fought and then went on to be your father went on to be a policeman.

Tony Iveson14:07

The F.

Presenter14:07

Yes. What sort of dad was he then? Was he pretty strict with his four boys?

Tony Iveson14:12

Yes, he was strict, but he wasn't uh over strict.

Presenter14:15

Yeah.

Tony Iveson14:15

We knew when dead something it it meant something.

Presenter14:19

Right. And what did he w you know, in terms of your sort of behaviour, was it, you know, shoes polished and shirt and tie on a Sunday and all that sort of stuff?

Tony Iveson14:27

Yes, to some degree, we were always well turned out. He was always very smart himself, and he was very, very keen on our getting a good education and doing well once we'd had were given the opportunity.

Tony Iveson14:43

Um what he wanted, I think, for us after the experience of um the twenties and the Great Depression was that we should find a job which had security.

Tony Iveson14:56

Well, I wanted to join the RAF on a short service commission when I was seventeen, but he wouldn't countersign my applications. He said, four years fly, what are you going to do after that? These four years are very important to your education. And then when the time came when conscription was introduced and I would have had to go anyway into the army, that's when he relented and allowed me to apply for the RAF Volunteer Reserve.

Presenter15:22

You yourself went on to have four children. Of course there was a marked difference, given given when you were a dad in terms of teenagers' expectations and so on. Did did you try to parent in the way that your parents had parented you, or did you just accept that times had changed?

Tony Iveson15:39

I I think because of my service experience I was

Tony Iveson15:43

tending to be a disciplinarian.

Tony Iveson15:46

But I think through influences you learn and perhaps more relaxed than my parents had been.

Presenter15:53

Yes. You think you were then,'cause your children would have been growing up in the in the sixties, yeah?

Tony Iveson15:57

He has.

Presenter15:57

Yes. Yes, not not really the time to be a disciplinarian father.

Tony Iveson16:01

No. No, you would get real defiance. I tried to not get involved in a situation where there was no backing down.

Presenter16:12

Uh

Presenter16:12

That was probably your military training too, you know when to quit when you're ahead.

Tony Iveson16:16

Perhaps she was.

Presenter16:17

Let's have some more music then. What are we going to hear next? We're on disc number four, Tony.

Tony Iveson16:23

Well next you're going to hear Danny Kaye, that extraordinary, wonderful entertainer of the fifties and sixties. And this piece of Tubby the Tuber was a great favourite with my children.

Tony Iveson16:36

Poor Tubby couldn't quite get involved with the orchestra and suddenly um

Tony Iveson16:41

A miracle happened and he became the star of the show and they absolutely loved it.

Speaker 216:47

Why, how perfectly wonderful said the strings. Please, Tubby, may we sing your tune, too?

Speaker 217:05

How about me? said hislophone.

Speaker 417:09

Diffusing this

Speaker 217:12

And me, said the trombone.

Speaker 217:21

May I say the cellist?

Speaker 417:28

Here I come, said people.

Speaker 217:35

Uh

Speaker 417:35

Ah

Speaker 217:35

And they all play.

Presenter17:47

That was Danny Kaye and Tubby the Tuba, or indeed Tubby the Tuba, as I think he said. Now, you joined the RAF reserves, as you say, before war broke out, and so by 1940 you were among the famous few who fought in the Battle of Britain. Your family were sent a telegram saying that you were missing in action. Tell me about that. What happened?

Tony Iveson18:09

Well, uh it it they certainly had their eye on the ball because um that telegram probably arrived the morning after the action.

Speaker 418:19

Yeah.

Tony Iveson18:19

It was my first sortie. We were on a convoy patrol, three of us, and suddenly the air seemed to be full of flack. And when we looked around there was an aircraft above us, and my flight commander said, Well, tally ho, and off we went. So when I finally saw this aeroplane with those Yunkers with one engine on fire, and as I got as close as I could, the rear gunner woke up and plastered my aeroplane. I felt things thudding into it. One piece took a corner of the windscreen off. So I dived away and so did he. I never saw him again.

Tony Iveson18:57

and I had a a sick aeroplane on my hands. The engine wasn't functioning properly, temperatures were slowly rising, pressures slowly dropping. I was still losing altitude steadily.

Tony Iveson19:10

Right on the far horizon there were a few dots, and I steered towards them. But by that time I was down to a height where I knew I'd have to go into the sea, and I'd been told you should try and land along the waves and not into them.

Presenter19:25

Because the impact of going into them will will kill you.

Tony Iveson19:26

Yeah.

Tony Iveson19:28

And I uh just steadily just put it in.

Presenter19:32

Did you at any point think this is it? I'm done for.

Tony Iveson19:37

Do you know, I'm not sure. Um I think I was a bit busy.

Tony Iveson19:41

And I had a May West, which was a an inflatable life jacket, and I saw them trying to launch um a lifeboat from the nearest ship.

Tony Iveson19:52

And for some time as they were paddling towards me, I was on top of wave and so were they. And and then we s and in the end I was shouting I'm over here.

Presenter20:04

They did pick you up, of course, then. And what sort of first aid did they administer? How were you taken care of on board the minesweeper?

Tony Iveson20:10

Well they dragged this shivering, sodden sergeant pilot and took me on board and filled me with rum and took me into the engine room, which was very, very hot, and took off my my uniform, which eventually dried almost stiff, too stiff to put on.

Presenter20:26

And so, as we know, your parents had received the telegram giving them almost the worst news which is missing in action. Was it your mother who opened the front door when you came home?

Tony Iveson20:39

Didn't I can't remember?

Tony Iveson20:41

how I arrived at home or

Tony Iveson20:43

Uh I think my father took it in his stride.

Tony Iveson20:46

They'd been through a lot, you know, and uh they weren't demonstrative as perhaps we might be to day.

Presenter20:53

I'm wondering about your parents, Tony. We were talking about you know, the grim times that they lived through and and the degrees of austerity that they had to deal with. Later on in life, did did did life get easier for your parents once their children were up and and grown?

Tony Iveson21:08

Yes, yes it did.

Presenter21:10

Right. In in terms of what money money was presumably.

Tony Iveson21:13

Well, yes, money and uh they moved house to um out in the country. Yes, they got it got much better for them.

Presenter21:23

Let's have some more music, Tony. Tell me what we're going to hear now. We're on um

Presenter21:27

Disc number five.

Tony Iveson21:29

The next record I'd like is The Dambusters March, and uh as a member of that squadron, although I joined them a year after the Dams, I met uh some of the great survivors.

Tony Iveson21:40

On the way into Bomber Command on my course we we talked about six one seven.

Tony Iveson21:45

But we thought of it either as suicide squadron or

Tony Iveson21:48

uh the squadron to which you read it could only go with experience.

Tony Iveson21:53

And when my CO said, Well, the Wing Commander Leonard Cheshire,

Tony Iveson21:57

who is then commanding the squadron, will be happy to see you to morrow.

Tony Iveson22:02

This great legend of a pilot, although he was only two years older than me.

Tony Iveson22:06

I could hardly believe it, and I was the first pilot to go to that squadron without previously flying bombers.

Presenter23:13

That was the band of the RAF regiment and the Dam Busters march. So, Tony Iverson, you you told us that you were invited to join the 617 Squadron, famous by then for successfully using these bouncing bombs to destroy the German dams, and you've said that for you it was understandably a great honour to be asked to join them. But you also said they were known as the Suicide Squadron. Now, I'm wondering when you flew with them. By by this time you were you already married at this point? Right. How difficult was that then to leave your your wife Christine at home and and to know that you were in such danger?

Tony Iveson23:40

Which one?

Tony Iveson23:50

Well, um

Tony Iveson23:52

In today's terms it it may seem a bit difficult, but

Tony Iveson23:56

Lots and lots of other people were doing it then. It wasn't so unusual. Uh people were sent away in those days for three and four years.

Tony Iveson24:04

soldiers fighting in the desert and in Italy and

Tony Iveson24:07

People had seen

Tony Iveson24:09

It was a very, very different period indeed.

Presenter24:12

Um tell us then a bit about this mission which finally sank the Tirpitz. Can you describe what she looked like when you first saw uh this ship? I mean, she was a grand vessel, wasn't she?

Tony Iveson24:22

Tirpus was a huge vessel approaching the the fiord I saw over the nose of the Lancaster, but only as a sort of black shape. My bom ever said it looked like a dinky toy from fifteen thousand feet, the huge vessel though it was.

Presenter24:37

And when you got back from that mission, what happened? What sort of reception did you get?

Tony Iveson24:43

Well, we got telegrammes from everybody Churchill, the King, Eisenhower.

Tony Iveson24:48

The Navy even?

Presenter24:50

It's impossible to talk about all your missions in detail, because there were many, many other uh missions, including one which saw you awarded the the Distinguished Flying Cross. But I'm wondering if after the Battle of Britain Churchill gave the speech where he said it was necessary to take the war to Germany. His words were to pulverise their entire industry and scientific structure on which their war effort and economic life depends. Now that was a big speech at the time, and he was rallying the nation and rallying people like you who were putting their life on the line.

Presenter25:22

After the war.

Presenter25:23

The government and he sought to sort of distance themselves from those actions. What what were your feelings about that?

Tony Iveson25:30

We were very, very, very disappointed.

Tony Iveson25:35

Churchill asked for Mastery of the Air. We'd given it to him by 1945. When we had a reunion after the war, the only one we ever had at the Albert Hall at that time, I think we were all very, very, very furious about the view about Bomber Command because in his victory speech Churchill mentioned almost everybody, but not Bomber Command, as a contributor to the victory.

Presenter25:59

You've spent much of the past ten years as chairman of the Bomber Command Association. You will know that there is a small but very vocal minority who think that there shouldn't be a permanent commemorative memorial because it's a part of Britain's history that they feel conflicted about, and some of them even feel ashamed of it. What would you say to those people?

Tony Iveson26:23

All I can say is most of them or all of them are post war.

Tony Iveson26:28

They had no idea what situation we were in in 1940. If.

Tony Iveson26:34

The Luftwaffe had defeated Fighter Command, and if the Germans had been able to land here well, we would have been occupied and subjugated. It was total war. We were fighting for our existence, and the only way w we could touch Germany was through bomber command.

Presenter26:51

And the critics, of course, you'll have heard them say this, say that, you know, it's the bombing of the civilians was the thing that they objected to. How would you reply to that?

Tony Iveson26:59

Well, we weren't bombing civilians, we were bombing German industry. Bear in mind the Germans killed forty-three thousand of our civilians between September forty and May 1941, and would have gone on doing so had we not taken the war in the air over the rooftops of German cities.

Presenter27:20

Planning permission for a permanent memorial has now been given for R A F Bomber Command. The more complex bit of the story is that there's a lot of funds still to be raised. Are you confident you will see it built in your lifetime?

Tony Iveson27:33

Yes, I'm very confident.

Tony Iveson27:36

Lots and lots of people have worked hard and we've had lots of support and contributions. And what we need really now on top of it is uh to provide the funds for its care and maintenance in the future.

Presenter27:48

Alright, let's take a break for some music then. Tell me what your next record is, Tony. Where are we down at the next record?

Tony Iveson27:54

The next record I'd like to hear is the Brooke Violin Concerto. And the reason for that is it was my second wife's very, very favourite piece of music. So although she died in France, I organized a memorial service in the Actors' Church in Covent Garden so that her friends and colleagues could say goodbye to her. And we had a solo violinist who played this piece.

Presenter29:21

The adagio from Rook's violin concerto, played by Kyung Hua Chung, with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Rudolph Kemper. And that piece of music was chosen for Margie, your your second wife. You were married for thirty five years. And is it true do you know, um, Tony, who Simon Cowell is?

Tony Iveson29:40

Well, I've heard of him.

Presenter29:41

Yes. And we'll leave it at that. But but Simon Cowl now is a very well known talent show judge. You yourself were something of a a Simon Cowell in television, were you not? You were a te you were a

Presenter29:53

You're a talent show judge. How did that happen?

Tony Iveson29:56

Well, it it happened because uh I was an honorary member of an R A F Mess in Yorkshire, and so was a wonderful man called Barney Colihan.

Tony Iveson30:04

who u produced on radio the Wilfrid Pickel shows. And he went into television and he was putting together a programme called Top Town on television where towns would be asked to produce an entertainment package and compete against each other. And he wanted a panel of judges. And I was a sort of not quite the man in the street, but people like Ted Kavanaugh, who wrote the script for Itmar, and a wonderful principal boy of the thirties called Dorothy Ward.

Speaker 230:08

Yeah.

Presenter30:32

And how did you find it? I mean, somebody with your background, how did you find the sort of glossy, shallow world of television after what you'd done?

Presenter30:42

Well I enjoy

Tony Iveson30:42

Well I enjoyed.

Presenter30:43

Did you? And when you were on live television I mean, of course it all was live then, there was nothing really that was prerecorded. Did you qu did you get a bit of an adrenaline rush? Did you did you sort of enjoy the live element of it?

Tony Iveson30:54

I enjoyed it very much. It was in the very early days of Granada in the north of England.

Presenter30:57

Yeah.

Tony Iveson30:59

I I just loved it.

Presenter31:01

Doesn't the rest of life, after what you had been through in the war and all your experiences as a fighter pilot, doesn't the rest of life seem a little bit sort of washed out and colourless by comparison?

Tony Iveson31:12

No, it doesn't seem that, but it it it did teach me that um the uh problems one met in uh civilian life uh could be solved, and they weren't quite as major as uh taking off on a filthy night from the north of Scotland, knowing you were going to be in the air for twelve and a half hours.

Presenter31:33

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

Tony Iveson31:35

After the war I found serious music, shall we say. W when I had my first job it was based in London, and I went to many promenade concerts.

Tony Iveson31:47

And Tchaikovsky became one of my favourite composers. I just loved his music.

Presenter32:48

That was the eleventh variation of Tchaikovsky's Sweet No. 3 in G, played by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Sir Adrian Bolt. As you said, Tony Iverson, your second wife Margie, died in 1997. She died of a brain tumour. I wonder if, at that point, in that stage in your life, you thought that you would play out the rest of your life alone. Did you think that?

Tony Iveson33:13

Uh yes. Uh I don't know whether I looked deliberately at the future and thought about it, but that that would seem to have been the possible pattern.

Presenter33:21

But that's not been the case. Tell me what happened.

Tony Iveson33:22

No.

Tony Iveson33:26

Well, many years ago I was a a flying instructor in Rhodesia, and then the same flight was a a certain individual, and we became very, very good friends indeed. And just after the war he came down to Bournemouth, where I was based.

Tony Iveson33:40

and brought along his stepdaughter, who was fourteen.

Tony Iveson33:44

So that's when I first met her.

Tony Iveson33:47

Well, I kept in touch with him and I got to know her mother and Mary I met her husband and I used to get the odd card from her. So when Marjorie died I'd been invited to by many people in England from when I was living in France to go around and I thought well, you know, I'd better do it instead of putting them off. So I telephoned Mary and said I'd very much like to meet again, which we did in Bath.

Tony Iveson34:17

And I was well, I I think I've got to say when I saw her there.

Tony Iveson34:22

I just fell in love with it.

Tony Iveson34:26

And uh fortunately she seemed to think that um she'd like to spend some time with me. And so uh two or three years after Maudie's death, her husband had been dead then for many years, sadly.

Tony Iveson34:40

Uh we've we just enjoy each other's company so much and I've been incredibly lucky in finding her and the fact that she wants to share things with me.

Presenter34:49

And you have seven grandchildren? Is it three great grandchildren you have? Um I imagine that that the remaining RAF friends that you have and you keep in touch with, they must feel like a a sort of extended family too, do they? I mean, you know so much about their lives and you've been through so much with them.

Tony Iveson34:53

Yeah.

Tony Iveson35:06

Yes, the the the the Royal Air Force is a great family and the people I met and served with and still know are very great people indeed.

Tony Iveson35:16

Yeah.

Presenter35:16

Let's have your final uh piece of music today then. What are we gonna hear?

Tony Iveson35:20

This is a very favorite melody. It's it's the most beautiful melody, and if I remember rightly, it was kind of discovered not too long ago, and it seemed to come along just about the time I met with Mary. So I associate this tune very much with her.

Presenter36:30

That was part of Albinoni's Adagio in G minor, played by the Berlin Philharmonic, conducted by Herbert von Kariam. So, Tony Idsson, we come to the point in the programme where I'm going to give you the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare, and you get to take one of your own books. What do you want to take along?

Tony Iveson36:48

Well, I would like uh the three volumes of Somerset Maugham's short stories.

Tony Iveson36:54

He is a magnificent story teller.

Tony Iveson36:57

And I would never tire of them.

Presenter36:59

Right. Well, we shall hope that we can find those three somehow fused into one book. And a luxury, too. You can have something to make life just a little nicer. What luxury would you like?

Tony Iveson37:10

I would like to try and develop my own little vineyard.

Presenter37:14

Bye.

Speaker 437:14

Uh

Tony Iveson37:15

and therefore I'd like two established finds, one Sauvignon blank,

Tony Iveson37:21

And the other, a Grenache wine, plus, please, a biggish tin bath.

Tony Iveson37:28

Perhaps within a year I might harvest a few grapes to tread in the bath and give me a conch shell of wine.

Presenter37:35

Right. I shall give you then those vines, and indeed even a tin bath to go with them to tread your grapes. If you had to choose just one track of these eight discs we've heard to day, if you were to save one, which one would you save?

Tony Iveson37:50

I would choose the the last one.

Presenter37:52

That's the Albinone.

Tony Iveson37:53

The Albanians.

Presenter37:55

Right, it's yours. Tony Igerson, thank you very much for letting us hear your Desert Island discs.

Tony Iveson38:00

Well, thank you for inviting me.

Presenter38:48

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.