Sir Paul Gore-Booth

Speaker 10:01

BBC Sounds, Music, Radio Podcasts. Hello, I'm Lauren Laverne, and this is the Desert Island Discs podcast. For rights reasons, the music is shorter than on the original broadcast. The presenter is Roy Plomley. I hope you enjoy listening.

Presenter0:25

Our castaway this week, ladies and gentlemen, is a diplomat. In fact, he's the head of the diplomatic service, Sir Paul Gore Booth.

Presenter0:33

So, Paul, is music an interest of yours? Very much so.

Presenter0:36

Do you play an instrument? I play the piano a lot, but badly. Ever in public. Just once, I accompanied an American friend who was singing a song on the Burmese national radio. That was my first and last appearance. For a fee? No fee. What was your plan in choosing these eight records? I had the idea that I really did want to choose eight.

Presenter1:01

Really good pieces of music from the Dore Minifa period of music, which I would like to live with for quite a long time in case the BBC rescue operation broke down. What's the first one? First one is J.S. Bach.

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A sheep may safely graze.

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I choose this because it is a beautiful, basic piece of music, Bach, very correct and yet very melodic.

Speaker 32:04

Each star of brightened.

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Sheep May Safely Graze, sung by Erika Koot.

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What's your second choice?

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My second choice is from Mozart.

Presenter2:35

The slow movement of the piano concerto number 20. And the reason for this? And the reason for this is I think that it is one of the most perfect pieces of music that was ever written.

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Daniel Barembohm as soloist and as conductor in the slow movement of Mozart's piano concerto number 20 in D minor.

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Is there a tradition in your family, Supaula, of government service?

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No, and none at all.

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What was your first ambition?

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My

Presenter4:03

First ambition developed really very late and until university times I had no idea what I wanted to do. Then I did get a pretty clear notion that I wanted to have a career which had to do with foreigners. Yes. You were at Balio College, Oxford. And then you were decided on the diplomatic side. What was your first post?

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My first post was the Foreign Office, where I dealt with United States affairs. And your first overseas posting? That was to Vienna.

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after two and a half years. Yes. How long were you in Vienna? I was in Vienna um a year and a half and then I was extremely across at being transferred to the Far East.

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But um after three months

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My fury turned into exactly the opposite because three months after I left the Angelus happened and I was thankful to have missed it.

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Before sending you to Tokyo, were you given a crash course in Japanese? No, in those days we were less well organized than we are in language teaching, especially for non-specialists. I wasn't a specialist in Japanese.

Presenter5:08

But what I did was that I went via the United States and Canada and the Pacific and by sea, of course, the whole way in those days. And I took some Japanese books and I slogged away at some elementary Japanese.

Speaker 15:16

Yeah.

Presenter5:22

Which I found tremendously useful when I arrived and was able to build up on. And indeed one had to because people in your house just didn't do what you wanted them to unless you told them in Japanese. I believe you were married in Japan. Yes, indeed. We were married, actually, right in the middle of the Battle of Britain time. And it was really a wonderful send-off to married life to get a cheering message from people at home in those very dramatic days. Your wife was in the diplomatic service, too? Well, not exactly. She was working in the embassy, and we were working together, and one day, happily, we decided to make it permanent. And, well, I can't speak for her, but as far as I'm concerned, I never made a better decision.

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How long were you in Japan?

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In Japan altogether, four years and a half. This took you up into the war. Yes, indeed. Pearl Harbor morning is a very graphic memory.

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What's the drill for getting Embassy staff out?

Speaker 16:15

What's the

Presenter6:19

And what you have to do.

Presenter6:21

Is you have to arrange through the country representing your interests, which in our case was Switzerland, to get into touch with the people representing the other side's interests in Britain, and they have to work out safe conducts so a certain number of the enemy can get back home and a certain number of you can get back home. This all takes an awfully long time. How long did it take in your case? It took eight months in our case. We were very lucky compared with the unhappy prisoners of war, but still it did seem a long time. Yes. What was the next post?

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The next post was Washington. What happened was that I got a message while we were confined in Tokyo that I was going to Washington and of course we were both very excited.

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But it came about five months before we got out and one was afraid that it would have gone, but happily it hadn't. How far up the ladder were you now, First Secretary? No, I became a First Secretary in Washington in 1943.

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May we have your third record now, Sapo?

Presenter7:19

The third record, well, after Mozart, we clearly must have Beethoven, and I have chosen the pastoral symphony, and we will have a piece from the wonderful climax, which the symphony works up towards the end.

Presenter8:25

An excerpt from the last movement of Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony conducted by Otto Klemperer.

Presenter8:31

What happened to you after the war, Sir Paul? Did you stay on in the United States?

Presenter8:35

No, what happened was that it was decided that the United Nations should hold their first assembly session ever in London. So I came home and a bit unorthodoxly more or less appointed myself secretary to the British delegation led by Ernest Beffin. Yes.

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What was your next overseas appointment?

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Rather surprisingly, we went back again to the United States.

Presenter9:00

As what? This time as head of British Information Services, which was a a public relations job. Uh not really a diplomatic one at all? No, I was a member of the embassy, but uh the people I dealt with were newspaper, radio, television uh people and therefore quite different from the normal diplomatic life.

Presenter9:19

Then from the West to the East you were appointed ambassador to Burma. Was this an eventful time? This was a great event in my life because the first appointment to a post of your own is always a great moment when you are at last in charge of something.

Presenter9:36

And Burma itself was a very congenial country and our experience was most enjoyable. It's a very beautiful country. It wasn't very safe at the time because there were still rebels and marauders around, but we managed to travel a good deal and it was also a very great pleasure having our relationships with U Nu, who was at that time Prime Minister and was a very delightful and a very fine man to deal with.

Presenter10:00

And then High Commissioner in India. You were High Commissioner at a rather tricky time in Anglo-Indian relations.

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We had great ups and downs. We started off.

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with Her Majesty the Queen's visit, which was a a wonderful experience. She got the most splendid reception. Then we had a very difficult period when we seemed to run into disagreements with India over a number of things.

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And uh it was quite hard going.

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Until the moment in 1962 when the Chinese attacked India.

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And at that moment, we were the first people to produce something concrete in the way of aid to India. And that, of course, led to a very warm and friendly feeling all of a sudden.

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And now you're head of the whole diplomatic service. This involves how many people?

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This involves about 6,000 people or a little more and the figure includes everybody. It includes ambassadors and high commissioners. It includes the middle-level officials, secretaries and the security guard who looks after the door. And the consular service. Yes, indeed.

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In how many countries?

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Well over a hundred.

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And of course, new countries coming along. Yes, this is still happening, but.

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Total staff is in fact steadily going down. Well, this is magnificent and very unusual.

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Well, perhaps it's not fashionable, but we try. May we have record number four now?

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I would like now to have a piece of really grand, grand opera.

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And the grandest grand opera I can think of at the moment is the famous duet from Verdi's Othello between Othello and Iago.

Sir Paul Gore-Booth11:50

First emotional.

Sir Paul Gore-Booth12:01

Elvas Miro El Clayo Pointotenti.

Sir Paul Gore-Booth12:19

Uh

Sir Paul Gore-Booth12:26

Uh

Sir Paul Gore-Booth12:27

See the turn.

Sir Paul Gore-Booth12:33

Yeah.

Sir Paul Gore-Booth12:35

That's why that's why I'm all

Presenter12:47

A duet from Verdius Otello, Usy Björling and Robert Merrill.

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In your days of all, most diplomatic candidates have the same sort of educational background as you, Eaton and Baylou.

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Has this changed? Has the intake broadened? Yes, very much indeed. And in recent years, we have made a great point of trying to interest universities other than Oxford and Cambridge in diplomacy as a career for their good students of a certain attainments and character. We're not looking for people because they were not at Oxford and Cambridge, but we do want to get the best people from all backgrounds and all around the country. Yes, what qualities would you say are necessary? How would you define diplomacy? Is it high-level public relations? Is it salesmanship?

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That all is part of it, but I would say that the basic need is for a person to be adjustable.

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What you have to do is to be able to meet and deal with and like and be liked by.

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People from all classes of society.

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from countries whose method of thought, whose climate, whose habits are quite different from our own. And if you haven't got that capacity, you shouldn't try diplomacy.

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Well now you're planning to retire quite soon after a very busy life with a lot of

Presenter14:16

A great deal of responsibility. How are you planning to spend your time?

Presenter14:20

Well, I haven't much worry in the sense that I've always managed to keep active one way or another. I did once, by a curious coincidence of circumstances, get something like five months' leave. It was simply I hadn't had any for a very long time, and I found no difficulty in keeping occupied, and by the end I hadn't done half the things that I wanted to do. So I'm not too worried. I know that you're president of the Sherlock Holmes Society.

Presenter14:46

And you became a very familiar figure in the popular press when you went to Switzerland this year, disguised as Sherlock Holmes. What was that junkie?

Presenter14:56

What happened was that I've been a member of the Sherlock Holmes Society of London since its re-foundation after the war, and then suddenly to my great surprise in 1967, I was invited to be president.

Presenter15:10

And at that time the Society were hoping to do a quiet little trip to Switzerland in which they would visit the Reichenbach Falls where the famous fight took place between Sherlock Holmes and Professor Moriarty.

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But um

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After my wife and I had been on a business trip to Latin America this spring, we came home and found the thing had become a world story. And, well, there we were.

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You traveled with Professor Moriarty on the edge of the falls.

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Yes, and not once, but six times no less, because

Presenter15:43

We we had to do this struggle on a very narrow pathway and you can't get more than two television cameras bearing on the target at once. So we had the struggle over and over again. We're quite exhausted by the time it was finished.

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We've come to record number five now. What's that? Record number five is Brown's.

Presenter16:05

And I have chosen the slow movement in the Brahms violin concerto, both for the sheer beauty of its music and also because the record that I want is played by Yehudi Menouhin and I would like to take with me something which I regard as a personal tribute to Yehudi, both as a craftsman and as a great human being.

Presenter17:27

Part of the second movement of the Brahms violin concerto with Yehudi Manduin as soloist with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.

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Bodenexable

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I thought we ought also to have in our collection a little lighter relief from Vienna.

Presenter17:44

And I've chosen for that a duet from the first act of Die Fledermaus.

Sir Paul Gore-Booth17:54

Drink a leap and drink a shemel, drink and mark the deaf and hell, zing shoe and oi bechela, zis wal sleeves of arb.

Speaker 118:01

And I'm not sure.

Sir Paul Gore-Booth18:07

See thy sale by room set and sing.

Sir Paul Gore-Booth18:14

Peace here, draw your sound so much it's me to me.

Speaker 118:24

The deep dividend.

Sir Paul Gore-Booth18:28

If there are any interesting shown, you're surrogate and love.

Sir Paul Gore-Booth18:39

Peace to be a

Presenter18:46

A duet from De Play de Mouse

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Sung by Anton Delmotte and Hilda Guten.

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How can you take the loneliness of a desert island?

Presenter18:55

Oh, I think I'd be all right.

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Is a diplomat taught survival drill?

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He just experiences it without being told, but you manage all right.

Presenter19:04

I think so, yes. From a practical point of view. Yes, I'm not desperately good at doing it myself. My father was a very good practical engineer, but whether it was his fault or my fault, I found it difficult to learn from him. But I think I could manage rather straightforward gardening. Would you try to escape?

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Not at first.

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I think I'd have so much to do and to think about.

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And I would rather enjoy that. Right.

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Background numbers here.

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Record number seven is also what I might describe as classical recreational.

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I thought I must have a piece from the great classical age of jazz in which I grew up.

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The greatness of that age perhaps we don't even yet realize. So I've chosen the Edith Baker piano version of The Birth of the Blues by De Silva Brown and Henderson.

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Edith Baker at the piano, The Bells of the Blues.

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And now we come to your last record. What's that?

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It is a finale, of course.

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And I thought that one of the most splendid finales in classical music.

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is the piano playing

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of Sviatoslav Richter in his interpretation of the Schumann piano concerto in A minor. It's such an incredible example of technical dexterity and accomplishment and sheer musical dynamic.

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The closing passage of the Schumann piano concerto with Sviatoslav Richter.

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If you could take just one of the eight discs you played a support, which would it be? I think you can tell from what I said that it would be the Mozart.

Presenter22:06

And one luxury to take to the island with you? Rather complicated. Uh I insist on taking a piano. You insist it must be an upright. Yes. Yes? Yes. So that you don't live underneath it. This is an old story. Yes, indeed. Well, I'll try not to live underneath the upright and dig myself a hole.

Speaker 122:18

Yes and

Presenter22:22

But it has various conditions. It has to be heat proof, damp proof, and ant proof, right? And I have to have a set of tuning instruments. And now I get onto the luxury. The rest is all necessary. The luxury is that they must have some instructions which I can understand.

Presenter22:38

Fair enough. Conditions agreed to. One book putting aside the Bible and Shakespeare as already on the island. Well, as a Christian scientist, I shall have in my pocket a tiny pocket edition of our textbook, Science and Health. Yes. And I hope you'll allow that to be in my pocket, even if it gets wet. Yes, indeed. And what I would like to take as... As the other book is Tolstoy's War and Peace. I once read it very fast. I would like now to read it slowly.

Presenter23:04

Thank you, Sir Paul Gorbooth, for letting us hear your desert island disc. Thank you very much. Goodbye, everyone.