Molly Parkin

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.

Presenter0:34

My castaway this week is Molly Parkin, the Grand Dam of Bohemian Living. She made her name as a painter, designer, and fashion editor, writing for Nova, Harper's Bazaar, and The Sunday Times, but she became notorious for her hedonistic personal life.

Presenter0:50

Hanging out till the wee small hours in Soho and Chelsea with musicians and artists, and revelling in years of heavy drinking and debauchery.

Presenter0:59

Her lifestyle was ruinous physically and financially, and she ended up being declared bankrupt. Above all else, at seventy nine years old she is a survivor. Sober for more than two decades, she continues to create, painting or sewing every day.

Presenter1:14

I haven't had a drink or a cigarette or slept with a stranger, which I did on a daily basis, for more than twenty-one years now, she says. Giving up the drink means I know what I am doing day and night. Is it important to you to feel that you have lived a life that is vivid and full of colour and richness? Is that where the delight comes from?

Molly Parkin1:36

I think I'm a typical product of my Welsh Valley. I've also got Romani blood, and the Celts are a nomadic race, so I have actually had 54 homes in adult years. And I have been blessed and have made it my business to surround myself with larger-than-life characters. I've learned a lot from them, especially some of those lovers. I was a painter and a writer as well. I've just written Welcome to Mollywood. I'm pleased about that at this stage in my life. It's kind of set me free, this latest memoir. It seems curious.

Presenter1:36

I think

Presenter2:16

to me as I sit here looking at the you say you're very much a product of the Welsh Valleys. I mean, you couldn't you really couldn't look any more fabulous and bohemian if you tried. You know, you'd be at home on the streets of uh Soho in New York or Berlin or you know, no I don't immediately place you in the Welsh Valleys.

Molly Parkin2:33

Thank you.

Presenter2:34

Chewing.

Molly Parkin2:35

You haven't been there on Saturday night?

Molly Parkin2:38

Yeah.

Presenter2:38

That is a very fair point. I wanted to ask you about harbouring regrets. You know, when when you were came in today into the studio, you had this sort of enormous and immediate smile on your face. You're very abulliant. Are you somebody who looks back at the times of your life when things were more difficult and regrets that maybe you missed out a bit or you didn't quite play it as you should have? Or do you think it it's all experience, is it?

Molly Parkin2:38

That is a very fair.

Molly Parkin2:57

Do you think it's all experience, is it? I don't well, when I say don't harbour regrets, my own mother was an alcoholic, my father was too, and it kind of runs throughout our family in the background. But my grandmother was my role model, so I am a sublime grandmother. I would have liked perhaps to have been well, I was kind, but an alcoholic mother is not what I would wish on anybody. But those two girls of mine, Sarah and Sophie, we're so close, I've made amends and we've come through any lingering resentments which I'm sure would have been there. I must say that about regret.

Presenter3:41

We have so much to talk about. We also have to fit in, of course, eight discs that you have carefully chosen. So let's go to the first disc of today. Tell me.

Molly Parkin3:45

But you have clearly.

Presenter3:50

What it is and why you've chosen it.

Molly Parkin3:52

Accentuate the positive. That seems to have been the theme of my life, and I was encouraged to do that by my grandparents, by all my spinster aunties who'd lost would-be lovers, boyfriends, during the First World War. And I believe, however low you go, there's always a little shimmer of light somewhere to concentrate on.

Speaker 44:15

Great.

Molly Parkin4:16

I like

Speaker 44:16

Last remark, Jonah in the way, Nova in the ark. Well, what did they do? Just when everything looks so dark.

Molly Parkin4:21

Well

Molly Parkin4:25

So die.

Speaker 44:28

Man, I said you gotta act since you ain't the positive, he limbs money the negative and latch

Molly Parkin4:31

Sin, you ain't the bud.

Molly Parkin4:34

Lim money negative and lat

Speaker 44:38

To the affirmative, don't mess with Mr. Inclean No, don't mess with Mr. Inc.

Presenter4:45

That was Bette Middler and Bing Crosby and accentuate the positive. Um I have to tell you, Molly Parkin, I have never felt duller in my dress. In you walked today and you're wearing it w is that an Astracan cape, or what is that made of? In a sort of raspberry colours. Fabulous.

Molly Parkin4:59

This is sort of fake fur. It's yeah, it was a cushion in Oxfam until I seized it and I took it to pieces and I've lined it with silk and I've made it into a collar. It looks to me that it's a huge, huge collar.

Presenter5:01

It's waiting yet.

Presenter5:11

Tremendous.

Presenter5:12

Underneath that is a sort of flowing cape in crushed red velvet.

Molly Parkin5:15

Yeah, it's slight clashing. Whatever I put on, it's got to disturb what's there already.

Presenter5:20

And the hat, of course. Can you describe the hat to me? I don't think I'll give it to you. It's the hat, it's beautiful.

Molly Parkin5:23

The hat is bright red, pillow box red and black striped, and it's got a plique on it in scarlet.

Presenter5:32

Looking at you, I'm wondering what your house looks like, what's the decoration like inside your house?

Molly Parkin5:36

While thinker Frida Carlo, her studio in Mexico, the Mexican painter

Presenter5:42

So the walls are painted what colour?

Molly Parkin5:44

The whole of the kitchen is scarlet, scarlet lacquer.

Presenter5:47

Hmm.

Molly Parkin5:47

So it's very shiny. Then inside it's a fluorescent pink, and it you must remember that all my paintings uh are on there, and any bits of jewels or beads or whatever I I will scoop up just to put on the wall.

Presenter6:02

Now, as an artist, you obviously have a wonderful eye for colour. It's interesting you say that you deliberately slightly set things off so as they're not quite matchy-matchy too much, because you want to presumably you want to be sort of stimulated so.

Molly Parkin6:13

I wanted to stimulate the eye of anybody who looks at it, and myself, of course.

Presenter6:17

And are you constantly, are you sort of magpie-like, always looking for colour and stimulation?

Molly Parkin6:22

It seems to come into my life and I can't say no. Like all those lovers, very difficult to say no.

Presenter6:26

Mike or

Presenter6:29

When somebody

Presenter6:32

You said that that colour is a a little like lovers, you know, d difficult to to turn down, difficult to disappoint. Uh these days, uh how's the situation with the lovers going? Is that flourishing?

Molly Parkin6:41

I've lost all the urges. Have you? Yes. The hormones just dropped out of my underwear on top of my shoes. I don't know where they went, but it's gone now. And it's like being unleashed from a lunatic. I mean, Giorgi Melli told me that when we didn't think of it either ourselves. It was French surrealists who t coined the phrase. And do you know what? When I was in the throes of all the hedi hedonism, you call it debauchery. I don't call it debauchery. I think it's giving gifts. You know what I mean? And a wonderful thing to do.

Presenter7:11

Yeah.

Presenter7:12

So you can see that.

Presenter7:14

Was that an unfair word to use, do you think?

Molly Parkin7:16

Well, it's it's got uh critical overtones, whereas hedonism is uh a rejoicing in life and debauchery is as if you've gone down the wrong passage, which I never think any passage is the wrong passage.

Presenter7:30

Right.

Molly Parkin7:30

And do you like mixing with with people like that, you know, where sexual intercourse is just like shaking hands? And I was told by much older women than me, they said, Moll, you might think that this this heady lifestyle of yours is where it's at now. The best is yet to come, Moll.

Molly Parkin7:51

Really? I said, how can it be better than this? And uh and they said, uh right at the end, when that urge has subsided, uh then the the true

Molly Parkin8:02

joy of life will be revealed to you, and now that is exactly where I am. So love on a very profound level comes unexpectedly and brilliantly.

Presenter8:15

Let's have some music. Tell me about the second disc we're going to hear today, Molly Parkin. What is it, and why have you chosen it?

Molly Parkin8:21

The second disc is Leanne Carroll, and it's called Three Sheets to the Wind. But I've chosen this one because I know I had met Bette Midler, and I didn't go into that, but we were kindred spirits immediately when I interviewed her. Leanne Carroll is a fellow Aquarian, and Three Sheets of the Wind is to me in the exaltation of drinking in the open air on top of a mountain with friends or on the seashore. And she just captures it, and I love it.

Speaker 48:55

Tuck llama honey and I kiss your fingers dry Three sheets to the wind like an orphan butterfly Sun tree dying, shrouded in lace Babin been dragged on like the lonely space, yeah

Molly Parkin8:55

That's what I'm saying.

Speaker 49:09

So come listen to the side when you dream it

Speaker 49:13

I listen to the sound when the dream is done.

Speaker 49:18

But I'm

Speaker 49:21

It is gone. Oh!

Presenter9:25

That was Leanne Carroll and Three Sheets to the Wind. You said, Molly Parkin, that you come from a background of teachers, preachers, and minors.

Molly Parkin9:32

That's right.

Presenter9:33

Yes, that sounds quite strict as an upbringing. Was it strict?

Molly Parkin9:36

Well, it was very, very religious. My grandfather was senior deacon. My mother played the organ in the chapel, a Presbyterian. We went three times on Sunday and in the week as well. I mean, we were on living on the side of a mountain anyway, and God seemed very close. He was just at the top.

Molly Parkin9:56

But I did uh drop all that and boasted of being an atheist when I was started drinking when I came to London. I thought that would be a cynical and clever and sophisticated thing to do.

Presenter10:03

I thought that

Presenter10:08

Have you come back to religion then? Do you go to church now?

Molly Parkin10:11

Um I am a a very spiritual person and that happened when I gave up drink. My grannie's voice came to me. She came to me, she said, Enough is enough. God stepped in.

Presenter10:22

You felt that somebody bigger was in charge, did you? That that was

Molly Parkin10:25

Well, I felt my granny, but she epitomised she herself had lost eleven children. My my mother was the one of twel only one of twelve to survive. She was a very pious, very wonderful woman.

Presenter10:36

What had they had they all died as children?

Molly Parkin10:38

and anath the age of five.

Presenter10:38

Uh

Molly Parkin10:41

T B or terrible things, pleurisy, it's very damp our valley.

Presenter10:46

Right.

Molly Parkin10:46

And also that family was a doomed family. My great great grandfather lost the castle. He was a boozer and a gambler. Gambling's something that I have stayed well away from.

Presenter10:57

Right, he lost the castle. Tell me more.

Molly Parkin10:58

Tell me more. How do you think it's a little bit more?

Molly Parkin11:02

The whole castle and the mountains which they'd own.

Molly Parkin11:05

These things matter very little to me, but it it did was very big in my childhood, and there was a a very, very strong work ethic.

Presenter11:14

You were very close particularly to your grandparents, weren't you? Yes. Right. What are what are your happiest memories, your strongest memories of times with them?

Molly Parkin11:17

Yeah.

Molly Parkin11:21

I remember we would sit in front of the fire, always in front of the fire. That formed me as a painter, really, because coals form into buildings, and then she said, Look, there's the castle crashing to the ground.

Molly Parkin11:36

And then we would look after this photograph, this awful sepia photograph, of Crygano's Castle. It's still there now. I've been there since. I would sit just by her, and the serenity of this wonderful woman translated itself to me. Safe, s very, very safe, you know.

Presenter11:54

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

Molly Parkin11:55

Okay.

Molly Parkin11:57

I think we've got Louis Armstrong and a kiss to build a dream on. And why I've chosen this is when I came to London, left art school and started teaching at Elephant and Castle and I met a Welsh jazz pianist, Dill Jones, wonderful. And he said to me, Moll, there's somebody appearing in London, a black musician. He wasn't well known at that point, Louis Armstrong, and you've got to see him, Moll. And so I did go, and at the end of it, Dill introduced me to Louis Armstrong, and I was in fragments with joy, the delirium of hearing this jazz for the first time, and seeing him play and his love of life which came from him. He caught hold of me and he whispered in my ear, you're mine for tonight, honey. And I drew back and I said, I can't do that. I said, I'm going to teach in the morning at Elephant and Castle. I have to go back home to bed now. And he just stopped me with this wonderful satchmo mouth and kissed me on full on the lips. I'd never been kissed like that before. And you know, he set all my blood boiling. I went in a different path. And within a fortnight, I'd lost my virginity. I said to him, I'm a virgin anyway. And that's when he kissed me. Anyway, there's something you talk about regret. So he's remained with me.

Speaker 313:02

Yeah.

Presenter13:08

I went in

Presenter13:21

Yeah.

Speaker 413:21

Let's

Presenter13:21

Cheers.

Speaker 413:22

Yeah.

Molly Parkin13:22

Uh

Speaker 413:22

Uh

Molly Parkin13:22

Give

Speaker 413:22

Me, a kiss to pill a dream on.

Speaker 413:26

And my imagination will thrive upon that kiss Sweetheart, I ask no more than this But kiss the bell I dream on

Speaker 413:44

Give me a kiss before you leave me, And my imagination will feed my hungry heart.

Presenter13:53

Louis Armstrong and The Kiss to Build a Dream On. There there was a good bit of throaty laughter going on throughout that Molly Park, and that was bringing back the memories, wasn't it? Um I've seen photographs of your your mother. She was a very glamorous, very beautiful uh woman. And what was her character like?

Molly Parkin14:07

Yeah.

Molly Parkin14:10

Oh, my mother, you know, the blight of beauty, really, and also.

Molly Parkin14:16

She was thought to be the um beauty of the valley, with strange navy blue eyes, like mesmerizing really, and a vivacity to go with it.

Presenter14:26

When you say the blight of beauty, what do you mean by that?

Molly Parkin14:29

She had a big psychic burden, the death of her eleven of her siblings, you know.

Molly Parkin14:36

She was the only one to live, so there was great expectation on her with her looks, her personality, and, of course, she was a wonderful pianist. I mean, she could have been thought to be bipolar now. So my mother was in and out of psychiatric wards, really, all through our girlhood.

Molly Parkin14:57

Very, very aware. Very, very aware. It was very frightening as a child because she would lot she would be in the s

Presenter14:59

Right.

Molly Parkin15:05

In the front room, pounding Beethoven, pounding all sorts of very dramatic scores with the with the door locked, and then that left me, I don't know well, my sister wasn't with us for the first years of my life, my mother couldn't cope with her, and I would be there prey to my father's attention. So my mother she would have made an amazing concert pianist, but the nervous system wasn't there.

Presenter15:34

Let's have some more music. Much more to talk about, but for now some music. We're on disc number four now, Molly.

Molly Parkin15:39

We're on disc number four and that's Ian Shaw, Welsh boy, also who I've known for many years, about 23 years, and this is called Somewhere Towards Love. When he was 14, he's now in his late 40s, he asked for his birthday present to be a copy of Molly Parkins' Good Golly Miss Molly with me on the cover with a sequin top hat, because he said when I grow up I'm going to marry Molly.

Molly Parkin16:09

But we are very, very close friends. He wrote this somewhere towards love, and um it was about rejection in love, something I actually haven't experienced, you see, though I have rejected and broken hearts. Sorry about that, perhaps I regret that. But anyway, when he plays it, as he does in uh concerts all over the place, and I'm in the audience, he dedicates it to me, said, You know, Molly is now a hundred and seventeen and my girlfriend.

Speaker 416:41

Some things you can hold

Speaker 416:45

Tighten your hand

Speaker 416:48

Some things unfold, some things are planned, sometimes beyond, sometimes above.

Speaker 417:03

Always for you.

Presenter17:07

Uh

Speaker 417:07

Uh

Presenter17:07

Somewhere towards love. That was Ian Shaw and Somewhere Towards Love. You said a moment ago, Molly Parkin, talking about your mother, that because sometimes she she ended up hospitalised because of her condition, the phrase you used, I think, was you were vulnerable to your father's attentions. You you did suffer um severe beatings and sexual abuse at the hands of your father. For how long did that last?

Molly Parkin17:32

That lasted from my earliest memories. But at seven I think I was rescued from that because um I uh developed mastoid and went to hospital and then outbreak of war came in nineteen thirty nine and I I spent the whole of that time down with my grandparents which saved me.

Presenter17:53

Wrote

Molly Parkin17:54

Yeah.

Presenter17:54

Yeah.

Molly Parkin17:54

Yeah.

Presenter17:54

Um about your experiences. And since you have said, I had to offload my father. I wrote it out of me and I had to have a bucket beside me and I vomited it out.

Molly Parkin18:00

I rose

Molly Parkin18:05

Yes, I was. I ha was physici I I wrote it in a friend's place in Mexico and I didn't publish it. And then I thought, but you wrote that because you would have liked to have read something like this, because it would have helped you. And and uh having published now Welcome to Mollywood, the a number of emails from all over the world have come say your story, Molly, is my story, and if you can move beyond it, I can too. And in terms of

Presenter18:33

I used to regard violence as evidence of passion. I used to mistake jealous rage for mad love. So the legacy of your father's actions was with you for a very long time. You ended up in violent relationships.

Molly Parkin18:47

So that's

Molly Parkin18:52

I did end up in uh not uh at boyfriends or anything, but there was violence uh uh within both of my marriages. Now I wouldn't dream of allowing anybody to l raise a finger to me, but then I fought like a cat and dog fight. I fought back, I lost teeth, broken noses, black eyes.

Molly Parkin19:14

You know, they were scratched from stern to stem.

Molly Parkin19:19

I laugh about it now, but that's not also not very healthy atmosphere for children to be brought up into.

Presenter19:26

Two

Presenter19:27

More to come from Molly Parkin in just a moment. For now, though, some music. We're at your fifth track of the day, Molly. What are we going to hear?

Molly Parkin19:35

This one is George Mellie and um Hoagie Carmichael's wonderful song. This is called O Rocking Chairs Got Me. George and I uh did enjoy a wonderful friendship. I call it a friendship. And um

Molly Parkin19:51

He asked me to go when he was dying with cancer.

Molly Parkin19:54

He said to me, Oh, he said, Let's just enjoy old times and he opened the bedclothes. Now, he was asking me in for a cuddle. He wasn't asking me in for anything more seductive than that, just to hold him. So it was like a need for somebody that they knew very well. And so Georgie Melly and uh rocking uh rocking chairs got me, sort of hits the spot for me.

Molly Parkin20:19

Old Brock and she's got me.

Speaker 420:24

My kid is by my side.

Speaker 420:30

Go fetch me my ginsaw.

Speaker 420:35

I'm gonna take your huh

Speaker 420:38

Gonna turn you high.

Speaker 420:42

I can't move. Yeah.

Presenter20:44

Uh

Speaker 420:44

From this camera

Presenter20:47

That was George Melley and Rockin' Chair. So your life was an artist then, Molly Parkin, you were seventeen, I think, when you won a scholarship to Goldsmith's College of Art. And y your exhibitions were being reviewed uh very well. You were being commissioned to paint. Your friends included people like Francis Bacon and so on. D it was it a it must have been a very heady milieu at that time to to be uh to be hanging around with those people who were at the forefront of the art movement in Britain.

Molly Parkin21:15

Well, the colony I mean, I was made a member of the Chelsea Arts Club when I was twenty two. Uh and that is where I met Francis Bacon, of course, and he was my boozing companion. Um Did he ever paint you?

Molly Parkin21:30

He he wanted to paint me and I don't like sitting. I'm not a sitting still kind of person. I was more interested in getting the champagne down me and listening to him. And we had a great repartee. And did you find that when I mean, when did the it felt to me

Presenter21:40

Is that

Molly Parkin21:47

As if I was in the amongst the right people, because it was a club for outsiders, and it's sorely missed, I have to say that. And you were also, this is a time.

Presenter21:50

Yeah.

Presenter21:56

Of extraordinary creativity for you, though, because as well as your art, which, as I say, was very well regarded, your exhibitions.

Molly Parkin22:02

You were also you were making cl

Presenter22:04

Making cl

Molly Parkin22:05

Bowels of the Tate, Tate Britain, everything. I was earning an enormous amount of money from my paintings.

Presenter22:06

Okay,

Presenter22:11

You were making clothes for Biba. You opened your own store at some point. Just the hats.

Molly Parkin22:14

I own just the hats.

Presenter22:17

And then did you open your own clothes at that point?

Molly Parkin22:19

I did open my own boutique off the Kings Road in Chelsea.

Presenter22:22

And when did you have your own restaurant?

Molly Parkin22:24

And I had my own restaurant just before, just after. It was all in the same time.

Presenter22:29

Hi.

Molly Parkin22:30

So you were able to be very creative, be very productive, and also huge parties, thirty, me doing the cooking.

Presenter22:34

Huge.

Presenter22:37

Right.

Molly Parkin22:37

Bringing up the children.

Presenter22:39

Yes. Well, let's talk about that. When did you when was your first marriage?

Molly Parkin22:44

I got married uh when I was twenty-five and I was married for some eight or nine years.

Presenter22:50

That's right. Was it your first marriage that your two b daughters were born and you're right. So where was the time to be mother? Was there time to be mother?

Molly Parkin22:53

Yeah.

Molly Parkin22:57

Well, yes, because I was a painter all the way through that marriage, so I was at home bringing up the children.

Presenter23:01

Right.

Presenter23:02

Right. And and the drinking as well didn't inhibit you being a mother to them? The drinking wasn't out of control.

Molly Parkin23:09

Troll, then, it was like social drinking.

Presenter23:11

Right. So when did the the painting turn into writing? You wrote for Nova magazine. You then went to Harper's Bazaar, then you moved on to the Sunday Times. You won Fashion Editor of the Year while you were at the Sunday Times. So how did you begin to write? How did you know you could write?

Molly Parkin23:22

Back to the sun.

Molly Parkin23:25

I I it was pounced upon me, the writing. When I went to a Nova, I couldn't write, but, you know, it was a magazine Nova and very, very visual, so they gave me the twelve colour pages'cause they could see by how I was dressed, how I approached colour. And then, of course, I got the writing bug and couldn't wait to leave to start writing novels.

Presenter23:37

Gave me the

Presenter23:47

And you did, in fact, write ten comic novels throughout the the seventies that were very well received. We don't have time to talk about those right now because you've got to fit the music in.

Molly Parkin23:54

Oh dear

Presenter23:54

Yes, we're going we're on we're on our sixth disc, Molly Parkin. What's your sixth piece of music?

Molly Parkin24:00

Sixth is Michael Jackson.

Presenter24:03

Yeah.

Molly Parkin24:03

And Billie Jean. And I had always wanted to be a Soho hostess. I wouldn't have minded, you know, rather a baudy house, really. Many people said you'd have been good at that, Mall. But this wasn't a baudy house. I was asked to fulfil the role of somebody who just died who was a DJ to Lula, a transvestite, wonderful person. And we did it for a whole year. It was based on my Welsh club down in my Welsh Valley, where all ages came. And whenever I I thought it's a bit empty on this dance floor now, I would put on Michael Jackson and Billie Jean right from the beginning. People jump on the dance floor.

Speaker 324:47

He was more like Vivian.

Speaker 324:49

Call my movie scene, I say I don't mind, but what do you mean I am a woman?

Speaker 324:59

Yeah.

Speaker 325:01

Then I am

Speaker 325:05

On the dance, on the blow.

Presenter25:11

That was Michael Jackson and Billie Jean. So let's talk for a little bit then, Molly Parkin, about your years of of proper drinking and sexual adventures. You you contend that not, as I described them in the introduction, not debauchery, but part of a a journey where you opened your mind and opened your thoughts to what was unconventional at least.

Molly Parkin25:32

Well, it didn't seem too unconventional amongst the people that I was uh moving amongst, but perhaps they were unconventional people. After all, James Robinson Justice, he taught me everything.

Presenter25:44

This is a very famous actor. You had a

Molly Parkin25:45

Yeah, that was a two-year affair. That was a love affair. That was like the love of my life. How old were you then?

Presenter25:45

Yeah, that was too

Molly Parkin25:52

And how old was James Robertson Justice? He was fifty two, so he's thirty years older.

Presenter25:55

But he was

Presenter25:58

Right. He was a terrifically well known actor at the time of the mm.

Presenter26:05

Yeah.

Molly Parkin26:05

Doctor in the

Presenter26:05

The house

Molly Parkin26:06

Yeah.

Presenter26:06

Yes. And and so how did you uh how did you keep things covert? Were you did you have to be very careful in your affair with him?

Molly Parkin26:12

Very, very careful. Right.

Molly Parkin26:14

But he was very, very funny. Um and Georgie was very very funny and and you know, John Mortimer was very, very funny, so we spent and I was very funny. We had funny tales to tell each other. And and humour is quite an aphrodisiac, really, if you're drinking the right wine or not the right wine. And uh so

Molly Parkin26:39

Anyway, it it came out of control uh after that second marriage. I couldn't stop. I was on the Oblivion Express already.

Molly Parkin26:48

There there is

Presenter26:48

There's a point, of course, that just before people go into recovery where they say, you know, you have to everybody h has their own bottom that they hit. When did you hit bottom and what was that?

Molly Parkin26:56

That was uh in the gutter outside Smithfields, having pleasure d I don't know how many of the meat porters, but I was there because the the pubs open at five o'clock in the morning.

Presenter27:06

You say in the gutter I mean that y you're not talking euphemistically, you were in the gutter.

Molly Parkin27:10

I was lying in the gutter in the gold llama that I'd been wearing for a week, but I had full macchiage on.

Presenter27:16

Right.

Molly Parkin27:17

Well, it's a bit smudgy round the lips, of course. Do you know, I lay there gleefully. There is a gleeful side to drinking well, my drinking and I thought that this is fun. You can't go any lower now unless you get into the uh you know

Presenter27:31

Down into the sewers.

Molly Parkin27:32

Sewers, yes, but I looked around to see if there was an opening and there wasn't. I slept for two days and two nights, and then I woke at something like three in the morning, and my granny's voice came to me, said, The party's over now, Molly. You've just had your last drink, Bach, Bach being little one. And uh so I never looked back.

Molly Parkin27:53

And that is where I found God right away.

Molly Parkin27:56

How long have you been sober now? Twenty-four years.

Molly Parkin28:01

It's like, you know, three things they depended on each other, the the addictions. That was I would smo uh take a cigarette and then I would take a drink, the two went together, and then I would look around as to which uh s strangers to seduce.

Molly Parkin28:18

Let's have some music, Molly Parkin.

Presenter28:20

Ha ha ha

Presenter28:21

What else can I ask?

Presenter28:24

But it's

Molly Parkin28:24

Questions

Presenter28:25

Yeah.

Molly Parkin28:25

Ha ha

Presenter28:25

Um disc number seven, tell me what it is.

Molly Parkin28:26

Disc node.

Molly Parkin28:29

Number seven is Sarah Jane Morris, a wonderful red-haired temp tress, sultry singer. And she wrote this, Never Forget How to Dance. And if I've had bleak moments, like the death of my mother, was very, very bleak, and friends, I never forgot how to dance. I would put on something like Michael Jackson and Billie Jean and dance.

Speaker 428:54

It's been a long time coming.

Speaker 428:57

These feet have been confined

Speaker 428:59

To a basher on death's road

Speaker 429:02

My sentence was uncared

Speaker 429:05

Twenty-one years in a prison cell for something I didn't do.

Speaker 429:10

When no one in the country believes you, there is nothing you can do, but I never forgot how to dance.

Speaker 429:19

No, I never forgot how to dance.

Speaker 429:23

No, no, and have I ever gone

Presenter29:26

That was Sarah Jane Morris and Never Forget How to Dance. So, Molly Parking, you are known for the lifestyle you had. You know, you're known for being this person who was a sort of heroic drunk and who had many lovers and all of that stuff. Do you ever think that you have done yourself a disservice by becoming as well known for your lifestyle as you are for your talents and your productivity?

Molly Parkin29:49

I'd been trained as a bona fide a fine art. If I hadn't done that, I would have been a sculptress. That is what I would have done. But when it came to the writing of the comic Erotica, even my mother said, I'm really ashamed of you. And one auntie said, I don't want to talk to you. The devil have written this stuff now. And all of them in the home here now are asking to read it because it's full of filths. So I already knew that I wasn't going to be admired in literary circles. I'm not interested. I'm not interested to be a person of that. I know I'm a painter. I know I'm a writer. I know I'm a poet. I move amongst these people. And to them, they know I'm that as well. Of course, you.

Presenter30:14

Yeah.

Presenter30:35

Your daughters you you've said of your daughters before two daughters, as we know, from your first marriage you said my drunken behaviour had so humiliated my daughters. Have you repaired?

Presenter30:45

Those relationships with your two dogs.

Molly Parkin30:46

You can only I I wanted really to write a letter or but I was told, you know, in at the fellowships, No, you don't write a letter, Molly And I said, Well, can't I just ring them up and say I'm ever so sorry for the last thirty years? And they said, No, that isn't good enough. And they said, Uh love is not a noun, it's a verb.

Molly Parkin31:06

It's slowly, slowly catchy monkey with the uh forgiveness and t for me to be forgiven.

Presenter31:14

I said in my introduction, above all else, Molly Parkin, you are a survivor. It is true, and it is remarkable.

Molly Parkin31:19

I will survive the desert island. I'm looking forward to it. Are you?

Presenter31:21

Yeah.

Presenter31:22

Yeah.

Molly Parkin31:23

Oh yeah, I've been on desert islands and I am a loner. I have a very, very strong big.

Presenter31:23

You'll be fine.

Presenter31:26

And I

Molly Parkin31:30

extended family life. Um so it isn't that I'm starved, but I have chosen for thirty years to live on my own.

Molly Parkin31:40

We've got

Presenter31:40

Reached our final disc. Tell me about the final disc. What are we going to hear?

Molly Parkin31:43

Well, this is Little Richard. This is called Good Golly Miss Molly, and he's got such life. I mean, all of these that I've chosen are full of life. They're a reflection of what I love and the sort of person that I love.

Molly Parkin32:02

Uh

Speaker 432:02

Show Like the ball You call it me ballin'

Speaker 432:08

So like the bomb.

Speaker 432:10

When they're rocking on the bowler

Speaker 432:13

Hey, here your mama call

Speaker 432:17

Early early morning to the early early night When the Commission's mile and walking at the house of blue light Good gall and Miss Miles

Presenter32:28

That was Little Richards and Good Golly, Miss Molly. So, Miss Molly, I'm going to give you the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare. What's your book going to be to take to this island?

Molly Parkin32:37

Well, it's difficult for me because I am a big reader, but the one that I'm awaiting, it's almost finished now, but it's a book that my own daughter, Sophie, who was introduced to The Colony and all of that lot when she was fourteen, and she is writing The History because she knows it all, and she's the appointed writer of The Colony. That will remind me of all those conversations and everything that I'd be missing.

Presenter33:02

Okay, so soon to be published and it will be yours. And a luxury too. You're allowed a luxury to me.

Molly Parkin33:07

If you tilt this brooch, it's by Andrew Logan, one of my dearest friends, and it's got a sparkly glass a brilliant red around it, and it's small heart, and if you tilt it, it enlarges to fill the whole of that space. I am very heartfelt. Can't I have one of my hats and a cloak to go with it? No. Well, you could have an entire outfit.

Presenter33:07

It's faster.

Presenter33:18

And if

Presenter33:30

Fit a new one.

Molly Parkin33:31

Yeah, I'll have the outfit and this is part of it.

Presenter33:33

Right, you can have the entire outfit that you're wearing today as your luxury to take to the island.

Molly Parkin33:37

Oh, well, that's all right. Nice. Well, there you are.

Presenter33:39

Not so bad. And if you had to choose just one of the eight tracks, which one disc would you save? Tricky.

Molly Parkin33:39

But

Molly Parkin33:43

What do you say if that would be difficult?

Molly Parkin33:47

Have I got a say no?

Presenter33:48

Oh yes you've got

Molly Parkin33:49

What to say now?

Presenter33:49

Yeah.

Molly Parkin33:50

Well

Molly Parkin33:52

I think that in case I have Alzheimer's and forget who I am, if I had little Richard, then I'd know my name was either Golly or Molly.

Presenter34:03

You may have Good Golly, Miss Molly, by Little Richard. Molly Parkin, thank you very much for letting us hear your Desert Island discs. Thank you.

Molly Parkin34:06

Molly

Presenter34:55

You've been listening to a download from the BBC.

Presenter34:58

You'll find more information on the Radio 4 website: bbc.co.uk/radio4.