Sir Terry Wogan

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 Sir Terry Wogan.

Presenter0:37

A pillar of broadcasting, he has for more than forty years made an art and a platinum-plated career out of just chatting.

Presenter0:44

The man who put the wit in Wittering, he's been our companion through thousands of on air hours in early mornings with his hit Radio Two show, on Prime Time T V with his chat show Wogan, the Eurovision Song Contest, and Blankety Blank, and, not least, as the beating heart of the multi million pound fund raising extravaganza that is Children in Need. He's done it all with an easy warmth, wry self mockery, and the ability that every broadcaster craves a deep connection with his audience.

Presenter1:15

Typically downplaying his talent, he says My whole life has been about making it up as I go along. Happy New Year, Sir Terry.

Sir Terry Wogan1:24

That's very kind. I hardly recognise myself from your description.

Sir Terry Wogan1:29

How enormously flattering. Oh, I'm glad I came to the desert islands.

Presenter1:32

Yes, I'm glad you came too. Uh you were part of the Radio Two breakfast show, of course, at the centre of it for more than twenty five years. Two years since you've given it up. I is it a space that's been hard to fill?

Sir Terry Wogan1:44

No, as as I've often said, I'm I'm a very shallow person. So

Sir Terry Wogan1:49

I can move from one thing to another without thinking too much about it. I miss the interplay with my listeners because every morning I would come in, I'd have about three, four hundred, five hundred emails, and really

Sir Terry Wogan2:03

They were my material.

Sir Terry Wogan2:05

I I've never rehearsed for anything. And so I would come in, uh the producer would throw these five hundred emails at me, I'd open the microphone and start.

Presenter2:14

What about the team that you worked with, um, Deadly Alan Coates and the Totty from Splotty and all the rest of them? Do don't you miss them?

Sir Terry Wogan2:20

Yeah, I of course I do, yeah. You have to create a kind of little club, if you like.

Presenter2:25

Thing

Sir Terry Wogan2:25

Because, of course, what we do, we're not talking to an audience, you're talking to one person. And they're only half listening anyway. You have to remember that. You know. They're walking in and out of the kitchen or they're they're in the car and so you only have their attention for a very short space of time. And it it's a mistake to think that everybody's clinging to your every word.

Presenter2:45

And there are only a handful of people, of course, who are truly household names. How have you dealt with the fame, the the knowing that every time you walk out the front door, the people who see you met Terry Wogan today? Have you a sort of carapace to deal with the notoriety, to always have to have a kind word to be nice to a taxi driver, to talk to the woman in the newsage?

Sir Terry Wogan3:04

News agents, all that stuff. It shouldn't feel like a carapace. You should you it should be within your heart to be nice to people. After all, if they're if they're being nice to you, if they're being rude to you, it's a different kind of thing. You don't give them the time of day. I remember early on in my career, I'm walking down Carnaby Street for reasons that escaped me.

Sir Terry Wogan3:24

And a fella.

Presenter3:25

Going for some nice lunen pants, maybe.

Sir Terry Wogan3:27

Those purple loons such a feature of my early years. And a voice said, You hello And so I turned. He said, Sign this, will you?

Sir Terry Wogan3:38

It's for my wife. I can't bear you myself.

Sir Terry Wogan3:42

And

Sir Terry Wogan3:43

It's important to remember that the more people like you, the more others will despise you. But one of the reasons that I I hope I was able to cope

Sir Terry Wogan3:54

with my new found fame in Britain, was that I had been famous before.

Sir Terry Wogan3:58

in Ireland. Because um

Sir Terry Wogan4:01

I started as a as a newsreader announcer on R T E, and then television started, Irish television, nineteen sixty one, and I became one of the first faces on it. And it meant that I understood that I could no longer go to pubs and and I understood that people would shout abuse at me in the street.

Sir Terry Wogan4:20

Oh, that's Teddy Wogan.

Presenter4:21

Oh, isn't he very fat?

Presenter4:25

Let's have some music, Terry Wogan. What are we going to hear first off today?

Sir Terry Wogan4:29

Well, I thought this one would be a nice one to start with. It's from Babe the Pig in the City, which is an unremarkable follow-up to Babe the Pig. But the little theme tune is absolutely fantastic because it's got everything. It's got Patty Maloney on the Ilion Pipes, it's got the Black Dyke Mills band and it's got Peter Gabriel, and it's got a sentiment that I'd like to be associated with.

Speaker 34:54

And steady on

Speaker 34:58

Show the sea is rare.

Speaker 35:03

May not seem like very much right now.

Speaker 35:08

Yeah.

Speaker 15:13

When you find

Speaker 35:14

You're yourself in the middle of a storm and you're tired and cold and wet.

Presenter5:21

That was Peter Gabriel, and that'll do. So, Sir Teddy Wogan, most of the broadcasting that you've done over the years, apart from things obviously like blankety blank, but obviously much of the radio you've done, plenty of the T V, Eurovision and so on, have been live. Has there been any part of you that just as the green light flashes has felt a sort of shiver of nerves, or did you get well past that?

Sir Terry Wogan5:42

Yeah, you have to get past it.

Sir Terry Wogan5:44

Television isn't easy, for instance. Radio I've always found easy, although my very first broadcast was the Cattle Market Report.

Presenter5:51

Ah yeah.

Sir Terry Wogan5:51

Yes, and I remember when you start broadcasting first.

Sir Terry Wogan5:56

You lose control, you forget to breathe.

Presenter5:57

Yeah.

Sir Terry Wogan5:58

And so I felt as if the roof was coming down on top of me. That was the most nerve wracking thing I've ever done in my life. Subsequently then, as I say, Irish television started, and you needed you'd need a backbone of tungsten.

Sir Terry Wogan6:10

To endure and survive that, because nobody knew what they were doing.

Sir Terry Wogan6:13

There were a lot of chances came across from places like Australia and indeed Blighty, who said that they were directors and producers, and in fact were scene shifters and studio sweepers. It was very nerve-wracking, and so it took me quite a while to get the same kind of confidence on television that I had on radio. And I suppose it didn't really happen for me.

Sir Terry Wogan6:37

Until I did blankety blank.

Presenter6:39

It is frustrating but inevitably true that more than your triumphs, and there have been many, you will be remembered for your notable disasters. I'm not thinking of you being a disaster, but I'm thinking of your interviewees. You did interview Mel Brooks brilliantly, a lot of verbal sparring and great to watch. And he recommended to you that it would be a very good idea to interview his wife, the great actress Anne Bancroft. She indeed came on your show and I remember watching it live. I've never ever seen anything like it. Can you recreate a little moment from that interview?

Sir Terry Wogan7:08

Not interview.

Sir Terry Wogan7:12

Very few people have risked that.

Sir Terry Wogan7:14

Probably having watched Wogan, they thought, let's not do that again. And because it was live, you took your chances. I mean, I would find myself sitting opposite people and.

Sir Terry Wogan7:23

thinking, What are you doing on this show if you're not prepared to talk? And she wa she had that in spades, and so she s sat down beside me, and she appeared to be in a kind of catatonic trance.

Presenter7:36

Do you I mean, bearing in mind that she is the late Anne Bancroft, was she medicated? I mean, was there something?

Sir Terry Wogan7:40

No, no, not at all. It was She just didn't like you.

Sir Terry Wogan7:44

Well, I find that very hard to believe myself.

Sir Terry Wogan7:47

Obviously nobody had told her that it was going to be live.

Sir Terry Wogan7:50

And so she came on, um stricken with fear, really. I I like to think that's what it was, rather than just a hatred of me.

Presenter7:58

Right.

Sir Terry Wogan7:58

But you might be right.

Sir Terry Wogan8:00

The thing about it is, when you get an interview like that, and I got plenty like that because it was live, there was no no room for editing, um when you get an interview like that, your questions become longer.

Presenter8:09

Indeed, to fill the gaps, yes.

Sir Terry Wogan8:11

And there their responses become monosyllabic.

Presenter8:15

Well, if you got less than you expected from Anne Pancroft, you surely got more than you expected from David Icke in nineteen ninety one. He appeared at that time he was, I think, a member of the Green Party. He was a very well known sports broadcaster. He came on in a I think it was a turquoise shell suit.

Presenter8:29

And he proclaimed himself in front of you and your audience to be, I think I'm right, the Son of God.

Sir Terry Wogan8:34

Yes, indeed, and maybe something in what he said. I am.

Sir Terry Wogan8:39

The thing when you do a talk show, chat show, or in Dutch, prat show.

Presenter8:44

Out.

Sir Terry Wogan8:44

Interesting. What you're remembered for is not your good interviews. I mean, dear old Parky's remembered for being attacked by the emu.

Presenter8:49

Yeah.

Sir Terry Wogan8:53

and Russell being hit by Grace Jones and me, I'm remembered for George Best being drunk, and for David Icke being the son of God. And I did a little series for Satellite called Wogan Now and Then when we brought back people, he came back, and he was determined to get his own back on me.

Presenter8:56

Yes.

Presenter9:11

So, when you got him back in the chair, were you nervous the second time around to be in the chair? No, no, I'm not sure.

Sir Terry Wogan9:14

No, no, I'm I my

Sir Terry Wogan9:16

Nerves went a long time ago with me in in terms of television.

Presenter9:21

Let's have some more music. What are we gonna hear? Disc number two.

Sir Terry Wogan9:24

Uh I thought maybe you'd like um this. Well, I like it. It it's all it's all subjective, isn't it? It is. But this is a classic uh song by possibly the greatest interpreter of the popular song.

Presenter9:30

It is.

Speaker 39:39

My funny Valentine

Speaker 39:44

Sweet Comic Valentine.

Speaker 39:50

You make me smile.

Speaker 39:54

With my heart.

Speaker 310:00

Your looks are laughable

Presenter10:04

That was Frank Sinatra and my funny Valentine. I wonder, then, what does Helen make of it when you come home from an interview like that from the David Ike's and the Anne Bancrofts? What do you say to her when you walk in the door?

Sir Terry Wogan10:15

Nothing.

Sir Terry Wogan10:17

Because I never bring it home, and she'll occasionally comment.

Sir Terry Wogan10:21

But she knows me.

Sir Terry Wogan10:22

I've just done it live because I want to get home and have my dinner.

Sir Terry Wogan10:27

and live a normal life.

Sir Terry Wogan10:29

That's what keeps you saying, that if you have a core that is the most important thing in your life, which is my family.

Presenter10:34

Is it true that you are actually a little bit shy, that socially Helen is the one who organizes everything?

Sir Terry Wogan10:40

She's she's a cohesive kind of person. She's more gregarious than me. She's a lot of uh what she euphemistically calls girlfriends.

Sir Terry Wogan10:48

And uh I'm known as Terry Nomates.

Sir Terry Wogan10:51

Because the nature of what we do, when you when you work in radio, the idea that we're all part of a jolly, happy family huddling together for warmth, is not true. I would come in in the early morning on radio two and I'd see the back of Sarah Kennedy's head.

Sir Terry Wogan11:08

And then, just before I finish, I'd see the front of Ken Bruce, maybe not his best side.

Sir Terry Wogan11:15

And that was it. But as far as shyness goes, yeah, I've always there's nothing wrong with being shy, shy is good.

Presenter11:20

Now is it the case that the Dar's shop still exists in Limerick? Is your dad's shop still there?

Sir Terry Wogan11:24

It's awesome.

Presenter11:25

Yeah.

Sir Terry Wogan11:25

It is. The brother and I he came down from Dublin, my brother Brian, and we walked round the dad's old shop, trying to identify where the bacon slicer used to be.

Sir Terry Wogan11:35

It was lovely to go back to see my friends.

Sir Terry Wogan11:37

Google I left nearly sixty years ago, and there they were.

Presenter11:41

Were they? Yes.

Sir Terry Wogan11:42

Yes. Very old. I didn't understand that. But they were still the same. And it's the same when I go back to reunions in Belvedere, which is my school in Dublin. Nobody has changed except on the outside.

Sir Terry Wogan11:54

The people who are comedians are still comedians. The people who took life seriously are still the Egypts are still Egypts. And I think you sort of when you're seventeen

Sir Terry Wogan12:04

Yeah, you're fully formed really in the person that you're going to be. But the da anyway was manager. He'd met my mother in uh Grafton Street.

Sir Terry Wogan12:13

in Dublin, when they both worked in Leverton Frye, Grafton Street. It was kind of Fortnum and Mason, sort of rather grand. And the reason they got married was that he was offered the managership of Limerick, otherwise he couldn't possibly have have afforded it.

Sir Terry Wogan12:27

And then subsequently his talents and his hard work.

Sir Terry Wogan12:32

caused him to be the general manager and the director, and we all moved up to Dublin.

Presenter12:36

And what are your earliest memories of Limerick then? What sort of place was it to live?

Sir Terry Wogan12:40

Limerick has always been an individual city. It's it's on the Shannon, it it has docks. So it was semi industrial and a a tough town and the home of Irish rugby. Yeah. I left Limerick when I was fifteen. Left a load of my friends behind.

Sir Terry Wogan12:57

Then when I left Dublin to come here, I left some more of my friends behind, so there I am, Terry Nomitz.

Presenter13:02

Let's have some more music, Terry Nomits, what's next?

Sir Terry Wogan13:05

This is from uh Sleepless in Seattle, and this is Carly Simon, who's one of my favorite singers. She could be a mezzo, she could be a contralto, but she's got long legs.

Sir Terry Wogan13:15

And she sings this lovely song.

Speaker 313:17

When the sun is high In the afternoon sky You can always find something to do

Speaker 313:27

But from dusk till dawn, As the clock ticks on, Something happens to you.

Speaker 313:39

In the wee small hours of the morning

Presenter13:47

Carly Simon, and we small hours. Sir, Terry, you have a younger brother, as you mentioned, but for six years you were an only child. Were you doted upon?

Sir Terry Wogan13:55

Er I suppose so.

Sir Terry Wogan13:58

Not so much by my parents, but um I was doted upon when my mother would take me back to Dublin, where her heart really was.

Sir Terry Wogan14:06

And my mother would take me up to my maiden aunts, and I had um a great-aunt Mag, who was also a a maiden aunt.

Sir Terry Wogan14:14

So I had my Auntie May, who is my my godmother, Auntie Nellie.

Sir Terry Wogan14:20

An Auntie Kitty.

Sir Terry Wogan14:21

And yeah, I suppose my Auntie May spoiled me a bit. My my Auntie May was the one who got me reading, because she was the manageress of a bookstore in Dublin.

Sir Terry Wogan14:31

And every week she would send me the comics, and then every couple of weeks she'd send me a book.

Presenter14:37

Where was religion in your upbringing? Was that important?

Sir Terry Wogan14:40

It was in my upbringing, certainly, although my mother and father were never as devout as their neighbours and their friends certainly in Limerick. When I met the present Lady Worgan, we went to see her parents, and they

Presenter14:42

Although

Sir Terry Wogan14:53

every evening said the family rosary, which came as something as a shock to me, I can tell you.

Presenter14:59

And what about this um Jesuit schoolboy upbringing? I can't imagine it made you overly confident with the girls.

Sir Terry Wogan15:06

Ah, well, no, you n you never I don't know how anybody came out of an Irish education of my era with any kind of self esteem at all, because, apart from sex,

Sir Terry Wogan15:15

The worst sin of all was vanity, and indeed rugby, which I played a great deal of. There is no I in team, so, you know, you might score a try, and in my case very rarely.

Sir Terry Wogan15:27

and then come come running back.

Sir Terry Wogan15:29

to the halfway line.

Sir Terry Wogan15:31

Almost shame-faced. And if you're

Sir Terry Wogan15:34

If it was a rather good try, the captain might say Hullo

Presenter15:38

No, I'm I like rugby. I'm quite interested in rugby, but I'm also interested in in the sex bit. I'm interested in what, you know, being ashamed, this idea that, you know, you weren't ashamed.

Sir Terry Wogan15:46

And you weren't ashamed. We weren't ashamed of it. We just didn't know about it. It was in its infancy in Ireland. There there were girls, of course. And indeed, there was a certain amount of enlightenment, because the Jesuits, and certainly in Limerick, every so often, well maybe once a year, they'd have a dance. And the girls from the local convent would be invited. And then we would dance.

Sir Terry Wogan16:10

with the priests and the nuns circling us.

Sir Terry Wogan16:13

So that that was fairly enlightened for those times.

Presenter16:16

Let's have some more music. What are we gonna hear? We're on uh your fourth choice.

Sir Terry Wogan16:20

Well, one of the things about doing the Eurovision was I got to see a lot of Europe.

Sir Terry Wogan16:25

And uh we went to St. Petersburg, Helen and I, before we went on to Belgrade for the Eurovision Song Contest there.

Sir Terry Wogan16:32

And we walked into this wonderful church, and this magnificent Russian bass voice rang out, and it was one of the priests.

Sir Terry Wogan16:41

And I love the bass voice. So I just thought a little piece of the choir of Moscow's Church of the Ascension. This would remind me of happy days in St. Petersburg.

Speaker 316:57

Oh yes,

Speaker 317:07

Yeah.

Speaker 317:33

And it's new.

Speaker 317:39

We are all

Presenter17:52

The Choir of Moscow's Church of the Ascension of the Lord and O Praise the Lord from Heaven.

Presenter17:57

So, Terry Wogan, you've been married to Helen, who you've mentioned often so far, for forty-five years, hasn't it? Forty-six, I've described.

Sir Terry Wogan18:04

Gosh, watch a step. She could be listening to this.

Presenter18:07

Um how did you meet?

Sir Terry Wogan18:09

M

Sir Terry Wogan18:10

Someone chanted evening across a crowded room.

Sir Terry Wogan18:15

It was a party in Dublin, and she'd been let down by a boyfriend.

Sir Terry Wogan18:20

Which I find very extraordinary.

Sir Terry Wogan18:22

And I had come from reading the news on the television on Ireland.

Sir Terry Wogan18:26

And she was well known in Ireland for being very beautiful and for being a famous model and working in in um for American Vogue and for in Paris and all the rest of it. And I'd seen her on stage'cause she did a little bit of acting as well. And subsequently then I gave her a lift home in my Morris Minor with the broken passenger seat.

Presenter18:46

You'll smoothie.

Sir Terry Wogan18:48

Aha. We went off and had some soup and sandwiches.

Sir Terry Wogan18:51

I know how to get round girls.

Presenter18:53

So how did you manage to win her heart?

Presenter18:56

Well

Sir Terry Wogan18:58

Easy.

Sir Terry Wogan19:00

Ha ha

Sir Terry Wogan19:02

She always says I took her off the shelf.

Sir Terry Wogan19:05

I've always said that she was Ireland's luckiest woman. That's our little standing joke. We know it's not true. Indeed.

Presenter19:12

I've seen the photographs. I mean stunningly beautiful. As you say, she had a a proper this was not a little local girl doing a bit of modelling she had a proper, full blown, very successful international career.

Sir Terry Wogan19:22

Yeah, yes. And she was very beautiful. And but she was also extraordinarily nice and and kind. See, I think the most important thing in life is kindness.

Sir Terry Wogan19:32

The great thing about Helen and and the thing that that

Sir Terry Wogan19:36

Caused me to take her to my heart was that she was always the same to everybody. There is no act.

Sir Terry Wogan19:42

There is no affectation, there is no chameleon there that will change to be something different depending on the on the mood. She is the epitome of goodness, really. Her mother had that extraordinary quality of living this life, but but never thinking that this was it.

Sir Terry Wogan20:02

that the next life was the thing that was important.

Sir Terry Wogan20:05

Helen's not that religious, but she still has the faith, obviously.

Presenter20:09

You've said that the church is not that important to you. Was there a specific point at which you sort of lost your religion and decided that really it it didn't have much to offer?

Sir Terry Wogan20:18

Um well, I'm brought up by Jesuits who were very clever men. So my mother always said

Sir Terry Wogan20:25

It was the Jesuits' fault that I didn't believe, because they made me think.

Sir Terry Wogan20:30

And you see, that's the point. The gift of faith is that at some point you stop thinking. You say, Okay, I accept this, and I accept this gift of faith. And it's a wonderful gift. It's a great consolation to everybody. I I've I've never had that gift. Well, I had, of course, for a while, but I I'd always questioned it really.

Sir Terry Wogan20:48

I personally believe in people.

Sir Terry Wogan20:51

I suppose you could call it humanist, I don't know. But, um

Sir Terry Wogan20:55

I'd rather think.

Sir Terry Wogan20:57

that we're born.

Sir Terry Wogan20:59

good rather than evil. I I I've never accepted the the concept of original sin.

Presenter21:05

You have three grown up children now. Very sadly, y you and Helen, at the beginning of your marriage, lost a a young daughter, and I'm wondering if that might for the people who've been through such a profoundly painful experience, that can be a moment. when they part company from their faith.

Sir Terry Wogan21:19

Yes, I wouldn't say it was the moment, but it's one it's a cumulative factor, yes, where you think this is this is not fair.

Sir Terry Wogan21:28

Because it happens to people all the time, and it's not just you, and you shouldn't be so silly. But, um, yeah, that did have a mark leave its mark on me.

Presenter21:38

Do you think it also, given I it's so interesting and it it sounds.

Presenter21:42

Um central to your entire existence, your wife and your family. Do you think that cemented that also, that sense that, above all else, whatever is happening in the ridiculously unpredictable world of your career, the family's the thing?

Speaker 321:46

Uh

Speaker 121:46

Uh

Sir Terry Wogan21:55

Oh, yeah, well, that is exactly what it is. Whether it was because we we lost our daughter, I doubt it.

Sir Terry Wogan22:02

We're an Irish family. Irish families are like that. My children come to us every weekend, so not all of them together, but in dribs and drabs, they bring their their children. And

Sir Terry Wogan22:16

It's the only important thing in life.

Presenter22:17

Let's have some music. What's next?

Sir Terry Wogan22:20

This is Una Fortiva La Agrima from Donozzetti's L'Ilizir damore. Music is a wonderful thing for memory, isn't it?

Sir Terry Wogan22:28

The minute I hear this, I get a mental picture of sitting in the Staats Opera in Vienna.

Sir Terry Wogan22:34

couple of years ago.

Sir Terry Wogan22:36

And Le Lisir d'Amore.

Sir Terry Wogan22:39

being performed.

Sir Terry Wogan22:40

and this wonderful song from it.

Speaker 322:51

Nok is wisun.

Speaker 322:59

While ever stars at all money Evely are the same.

Speaker 323:17

Grap you character.

Speaker 323:25

Quericandoy of all

Presenter23:37

Placido Domingo singing Una Fortiva la Grima, a single secret tear from Donizetti's Le Lese damor with the orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, conducted by John Pritchard. Let's go then, Sir Terry Wogan, to the end of the nineteen sixties. You moved to Britain for work. Was that a tough decision to leave Ireland?

Sir Terry Wogan23:57

No. It's the kind of decision you take when you're young.

Sir Terry Wogan24:00

And fearless.

Sir Terry Wogan24:02

I'd started to work for the B B C while I was still an announcer on Irish radio.

Sir Terry Wogan24:06

And publicity photographs came out, famous photographs in 1967 of us all sitting outside the church, all the pirates.

Presenter24:14

John Peel and so on, everybody there.

Sir Terry Wogan24:15

Everybody there, you know. All the parents, and Jimmy Young and myself, the two people in suits.

Sir Terry Wogan24:21

Where are you? The only two in suits. Exactly. Well, oh, Bob Holmes had a suit as well. And when I got back, the Director General.

Presenter24:26

Okay.

Sir Terry Wogan24:29

of Irish Radio and Television asked to see me. We had a little conversation, and it turned out that he didn't feel that I could continue to work for the BBC while being paid employee of Radio Television. So I resigned.

Sir Terry Wogan24:44

and then sent a tape to the BBC.

Sir Terry Wogan24:47

To a man called Mark White. He was assistant head of gramophone department.

Presenter24:52

The tape that you sent him, is it true it was spooled the wrong way round?

Sir Terry Wogan24:56

I hadn't remanded it.

Sir Terry Wogan24:58

He puts it the right way round.

Sir Terry Wogan25:00

He listens to it.

Sir Terry Wogan25:02

And he offers me a job.

Presenter25:04

It's important to remember that you were doing the Radio Tube breakfast show, you know, the most prominent show on the station throughout the years when the IRA's bombing campaign was at its height. Did you feel your Irishness more keenly than ever?

Sir Terry Wogan25:19

Yeah, I never obviously denied my nationality. I never apologised for it. Certainly what would have what was being done was not being done in my name. Of course.

Presenter25:27

Good.

Sir Terry Wogan25:28

It was very difficult. I was very conscious, for instance. You'd come up a cheery morning voice after some horrific bomb incident. Being in the privileged position I was in, I never came across any antipathy. And years later, Irish people who'd lived in in Britain as long as me, and maybe even longer, came up to me and said that they were grateful to me for being an Irish voice.

Sir Terry Wogan25:53

Without apology.

Presenter25:54

Is it the case that you were sent a parcel bomb uh uh addressed to you at Broadcasting House in nineteen ninety four, I think it was?

Sir Terry Wogan25:56

Um

Sir Terry Wogan26:00

It was, it was. Um and my producer

Sir Terry Wogan26:04

Carried.

Sir Terry Wogan26:05

This parcel to the post room.

Sir Terry Wogan26:08

and was roundly castigated by the BBC nearly lost his job.

Sir Terry Wogan26:13

Tried to blow himself up.

Sir Terry Wogan26:15

And the the thing was that whoever sent in the bomb with my name on it couldn't have been much of a fan because I was on holiday.

Presenter26:24

Was it actually a bomb?

Presenter26:26

What's it?

Sir Terry Wogan26:26

Yeah, yeah.

Presenter26:28

So it had to be diffused and goodness meant.

Sir Terry Wogan26:29

Hmm.

Sir Terry Wogan26:30

Yeah.

Presenter26:31

Um, through that time then, working on the breakfast show, of course, would be the time when you had a young family growing up. Were you were you a very modern dad then? Because presumably it would give you the hours to be able to pick them up from the middle of the city.

Sir Terry Wogan26:40

But that's the great thing. I had the best of both worlds.

Sir Terry Wogan26:44

I was able to escape in the early morning, which is the most dramatic time for any family, and then I had the rather gentlemanly job of picking him up from school in the afternoon.

Presenter26:56

In jammy songs.

Sir Terry Wogan26:56

Oh, it was fantastic. Great. It's no wonder I'm such a family man.

Presenter27:00

Let's have some more music, Terry. Next is uh What?

Sir Terry Wogan27:04

Well, I thought again, this is from the soundtrack of a movie that I challenge anybody to watch without bursting into uncontrollable tears, Sleepless in Seattle. And this is my favorite version of this song. It's Jimmy Giranti as time goes by.

Speaker 127:19

And when two lovers won't

Speaker 127:22

They still say I love you.

Speaker 127:25

And that you can rely.

Speaker 127:31

No matter what the future brings

Speaker 127:36

As time goes by.

Presenter27:40

That was Jimmy Gioranti, and as time goes by, it is quite a sentimental list, this Terry Wogan. You're a sentimental character.

Sir Terry Wogan27:46

It is heart string tugging time, isn't it? I'm playing on the emotions of the listener, although Radio 4 listeners, I'm not sure about their hearts.

Presenter27:55

Um when you were gearing up then to leave your breakfast show, you said there's never a good time to leave, but there is a right time. How do you know when the right time is?

Sir Terry Wogan28:03

I've always been the kind of person who left parties early.

Sir Terry Wogan28:07

And my mother.

Sir Terry Wogan28:09

used to say of me that I'd I'd go out and play with the kids.

Sir Terry Wogan28:12

I wouldn't leave when everybody was there. I'd I'd make my own time to leave.

Sir Terry Wogan28:17

I I do believe in i in our business that um

Sir Terry Wogan28:21

You shouldn't outstay your welcome

Sir Terry Wogan28:23

M

Sir Terry Wogan28:25

My regret is that I didn't stop doing Wogan, the talk show, about a year before. But no, no, no, no, no, we need to carry on, they said, because it's a hundred and fifty hours of broadcasting on the television, and and we need you to go on. Meantime, they were building a village in Spain.

Sir Terry Wogan28:44

For uh for another uh sitcom.

Presenter28:46

Yes, for the ill-fated. El Davado. Yes, El D well, it was a bit of a sitcom. I think it was meant to be a soap opera. You then found out how? What? They just came to you and said, it's all over.

Sir Terry Wogan28:55

Yeah. Um well, but they they broke it to me gently. It's the thing the B B C is not awfully good at. I always think that um sometimes things end badly because nobody ever says

Presenter29:00

I opened it.

Sir Terry Wogan29:06

To an artiste, look um

Sir Terry Wogan29:08

We'll have another year and then

Sir Terry Wogan29:11

With all sorts of trumpets blaring, you'll go.

Sir Terry Wogan29:14

But they don't they're not very good at that. Confrontation is not a is not a great P B C thing.

Presenter29:19

And just as well you're steely then in your backbone.

Sir Terry Wogan29:21

You have to be a little bit. And you also have to, as I say, impose your own timing.

Presenter29:22

Yeah

Sir Terry Wogan29:26

Um

Sir Terry Wogan29:27

B B C is a corporation, is not you, granny?

Sir Terry Wogan29:30

I mean, it's the greatest broadcasting organization in the world. It will be a terrible shame if it's undermined in this country because.

Sir Terry Wogan29:38

As Michael Grade said, it's the B B C that keeps everybody else straight.

Presenter29:42

Here we are with uh Sir Bruce Forsyth, who who makes you seem like a mere stripling. He's um he's in his mid-eighties. But look at him.

Sir Terry Wogan29:49

But look at him. I mean, dainty on the feet. Yes. Fit as a flea.

Presenter29:52

Yeah.

Presenter29:53

Indeed.

Sir Terry Wogan29:54

Yeah.

Presenter29:54

Uh

Sir Terry Wogan29:54

He'll go on forever.

Presenter29:55

Yes.

Sir Terry Wogan29:56

Yeah.

Presenter29:56

So

Sir Terry Wogan29:56

I won't go on forever. I'll fold my tent and silently steal away one of these days.

Presenter29:56

Ah

Presenter30:02

Let's have some music on our penultimate disc of the morning.

Presenter30:05

What are we gonna hear?

Sir Terry Wogan30:06

We're going to hear Gretchen Peters, who's a singer-songwriter, like so many brilliant singer-songwriters, from Nashville, which seems to produce them like uh like the Welsh produced Lie Half's. Of course I'm going to be accused of excessive sentimentality and heart string tugging, but this this is such an affecting song. It's called When You Are Old.

Speaker 330:29

When you are alone.

Speaker 330:32

Full of sleep.

Speaker 330:36

Death no longer makes you weep.

Speaker 330:44

When your body aches with cold

Speaker 330:50

I'll warn your heart.

Speaker 330:53

When you are

Presenter30:55

Gretchen Peters and When You Are Old. Let's Talk, Terry Wogan, about the Toggs, Terry's old geezers and gals. In your in your autobiography you've included a a list, a sort of Toggs checklist of the characteristics. Take us through a few, would you?

Sir Terry Wogan31:09

The Togs, of course, are Terry's old geezers and gals, as as you know, and and they they have a life of their own now. I go to Toggs conventions and we all meet and they they dance and behave disgracefully.

Presenter31:11

Okay.

Sir Terry Wogan31:19

And so do I. How do you qualify as a scientist?

Presenter31:21

Yeah.

Sir Terry Wogan31:22

Well, you're asleep, but others worry that you're dead.

Sir Terry Wogan31:27

You're proud of your lawnmower.

Sir Terry Wogan31:29

The end of your tie doesn't come anywhere near the top of your pants.

Sir Terry Wogan31:37

You see, time team.

Sir Terry Wogan31:39

on the television and get drawn in.

Sir Terry Wogan31:42

You can live without sex, but not without glasses.

Presenter31:45

Ah yes.

Sir Terry Wogan31:46

So yeah.

Presenter31:46

Um I mean you say there are Toggs conventions. Do they still have them now that you're not on the radio?

Sir Terry Wogan31:50

Oh yeah, we were I was there this year, yeah.

Presenter31:52

Right. So your relationship with your fans then is a is a very

Presenter31:56

It seems like a personal one, it exists apart from the programme.

Sir Terry Wogan32:00

Oh, absolutely. I obviously still try and keep it going every Sunday on weekend Wogan.

Sir Terry Wogan32:05

But they're the ones they're the people who keep me going. They're the people who whose wit and wisdom and the ability to take ideas laterally rather than vertically.

Sir Terry Wogan32:15

That

Sir Terry Wogan32:16

A strange sense of humour.

Presenter32:18

What do they expect from you, I wonder?

Sir Terry Wogan32:20

Nothing, really. Um they turn up to everything I do. We still have, I hope, an enormous affection for each other. I miss them in a sense, and and I know they miss me, um, being there every morning.

Presenter32:33

You have a lovely little brood of grandchildren. How many do you have?

Sir Terry Wogan32:36

I have five now.

Presenter32:37

Yeah.

Sir Terry Wogan32:37

I have five two girls and three boys, and the eldest is seven. My children let me down a little bit by marrying.

Sir Terry Wogan32:44

A bit later than I did.

Sir Terry Wogan32:46

I want to be around when the grandchildren go to university, and I may not be around when they get married, but, you know, I'd like I'd like to be there when they grow up.

Presenter32:54

So the island, Sir Terry, off you go. I'm going to cast you away. How will you be on your own on the island?

Sir Terry Wogan32:59

I'll be all right, because I was an only child for about nearly seven years.

Sir Terry Wogan33:04

I won't be able to put up a house or anything. I'm absolutely hopeless. Completely unhandy. My wife changes the plugs in our house.

Presenter33:11

Our final disc then. What are we going to hear?

Sir Terry Wogan33:14

Well, I'm very fond of opera. I'm I'm involved with the Garsington Opera, and when I was a lad I used to go to Dublin Grand Opera Societies, and I was a supere, an extra.

Sir Terry Wogan33:25

And so I was an Assyrian slave, I was a doge in Venice, I was a waiter in La Traviata just to get in to see the the old operas.

Sir Terry Wogan33:34

This strikes a responsive chord because

Sir Terry Wogan33:37

I remember it being sung in that wonderful old Roman Coliseum in Verona, the great tenoraria from Tosca called Eluce van Listella.

Speaker 334:17

For he a he spread all

Speaker 334:32

I come for Love Love.

Speaker 134:35

Uh

Presenter34:44

Placido Domingo singing Elucivan la Stelli and the stars would be shining from Puccini's Tosca, with the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Giuseppe Sinopoli.

Presenter34:54

So I'm going to give you the books, Sir Terry Wogan. The Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare.

Presenter35:00

And you can take another book.

Sir Terry Wogan35:02

I thought I'd pick a book, which many people think is the greatest book ever written, but um

Sir Terry Wogan35:07

More and peace.

Sir Terry Wogan35:09

I've made several attempts.

Sir Terry Wogan35:11

And I've never got past page 220. So if I'm on the old desert island.

Sir Terry Wogan35:17

I'll give it a real go.

Presenter35:19

Right, I shall give that to you. And of course, you you know you're allowed a luxury too. What will your luxury be?

Sir Terry Wogan35:23

Mm.

Sir Terry Wogan35:24

I want plenty of of empty bottles, or maybe maybe full bottles, that I could empty.

Presenter35:29

Right, full bottles of what?

Sir Terry Wogan35:30

Vodka, wine, whisky.

Presenter35:35

A variety, a full bar.

Sir Terry Wogan35:36

Hey yeah.

Presenter35:36

Uh

Sir Terry Wogan35:36

Uh

Presenter35:36

Exactly. We'll supply you with the food.

Sir Terry Wogan35:37

Clay.

Sir Terry Wogan35:38

Fulbar That would be very nice and then I would empty them, and give me plenty of paper. Not only could I attempt to write the great novel, but I could also write messages which I would stick in the empty bottles, like Get me out of here before I die of starvation, privation, or exposure.

Presenter35:56

It's almost too practical, but I have a feeling that they would just end up being washed back on the shore. So on that basis, I think it's New Year's Day. I'm feeling generous. I shall let you have uh the bottles full and uh the bits of paper and pens to work on your uh novel. And if you had to choose just one of these eight tracks, which one track would you save?

Sir Terry Wogan36:16

I think I'd probably choose the first one, simply because it kind of epitomizes my attitude, which is that the the only thing that really matters.

Sir Terry Wogan36:25

In In the World is Kindness.

Presenter36:26

Nice.

Sir Terry Wogan36:27

So Peter Gabriel and That'll Do.

Presenter36:29

Sir Terry Wogan, thank you very much for letting us hear your Desert Island discs.

Presenter36:33

Pleasure.

Presenter37:07

You've been listening to a download from the BBC. You'll find more information on the Radio 4 website: bbc.co.uk slash Radio 4.