Jeremy Hutchinson

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 the former barrister and member of the House of Lords, Jeremy Hutchinson.

Presenter0:39

His life spans eleven decades of British history, and he spent much of it at the very centre of the action.

Presenter0:46

Born during the First World War, he was brought up in the company of some of the greatest artists and writers of the day. In World War two he escaped his bombed out ship clinging to a life raft with Lord Mountbatten. At the bar he played a central role in many of the culturally seismic trials of the day, among them defending the novel Lady Chatterley's Lover against Obscenity Charges and Christine Keeler in the Perfumo Fair trial.

Presenter1:11

His brilliance in cross examination inspired John Mortimer's creation of the character of Rumpole of the Bailey.

Presenter1:17

He enjoyed two long marriages, his first to the great actress Peggy Ashcroft, his second of forty years to June Osborne. And he spent most of his time in the Lords, an active and passionate defender of liberty. He says I had the luck to live when the world of the establishment was being dismantled. The whole of one's career was to do with what was going on in society. And that's the key thing, is it, Jeremy, to be an effective advocate, it's essential to be in touch with what's going on for the people in the jury. You understand their life, and therefore can communicate with them.

Jeremy Hutchinson1:51

Absolutely. That's the whole point. You have to have a deep interest, I think, in people. You have to know what's going on in life, and you have to have a passionate belief in what you're doing, which is about justice.

Presenter2:06

You retired in nineteen eighty four, having spent forty four years at the Bar, and it's probably a good idea to just remind people that in the span of that time we saw things like the abolition of corporal and capital punishment, the abolition of censorship, the legalization of homosexuality.

Presenter2:20

Did it feel tangibly exciting to be at the centre of those changes in the law courts?

Presenter2:25

One did feel

Jeremy Hutchinson2:26

Killed the one had the luck.

Jeremy Hutchinson2:29

To be living in a period which was in its own way quite revolutionary.

Jeremy Hutchinson2:34

One was brought up at a time when

Jeremy Hutchinson2:37

Deference was part of society, and having gone through seven years of the war and in the navy, and having seen the hunger marchers in the nineteen thirties, and having witnessed that terrible period of unemployment, and then having stood in for Parliament in nineteen forty five on the Labour side, all that really became part of one's experience into the new world which was going to change all this.

Presenter3:09

Now Desert Island Discs as a programme, as you may know, has been going for um seventy odd years now. It's not very often that I get to speak to somebody who was aged twenty seven when the programme actually started. Can you tell me what the secret of your longevity is?

Jeremy Hutchinson3:25

Well, the boring thing about that is, that my family motto is neither rash nor fearful, which my tearaway sister said typically Hutchinson lukewarm.

Jeremy Hutchinson3:42

But it really means moderation in all things.

Presenter3:45

Yeah.

Presenter3:46

I'll be tucking that one away for later. It's time for the music now. Tell me about your first choice this morning.

Jeremy Hutchinson3:52

Well, it's the music hall. My father, when I had a treat from school, would take me to see George Roby, who was labelled as the Prime Minister of Mirth. Let's go off and see the PM and we then would go down to the Hobon Empire, and it had everything singing, acrobats, jugglers, and my God, it had performance. If you didn't perform in the ten or twelve minutes you had, there was a lot of barracking and ah, get off it and so on. And it taught me a lot about performance. And I've chosen Lily Morris, my favourite performer, at the time.

Speaker 34:37

I don't know how she manages to keep that lot, I'm sure. I said to her the day, as she was standing at the door, Don't have any more, Mrs. Moore.

Speaker 34:53

Mrs. Maw, please don't have any more.

Speaker 44:53

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 44:55

Never anymore.

Speaker 34:58

The more you have, the more you want, they say, And enough is a good at a feast any day.

Speaker 44:58

Yeah.

Speaker 35:07

Uh

Presenter5:07

That was Lily Morris, and don't have any more, misses Moore. So tell me, Jeremy Hutchinson, you were born in nineteen fifteen. Given when you were born, do you remember Armistice Day?

Jeremy Hutchinson5:17

Yes, I do indeed. My parents at that early time had taken the house in Sussex, and I remember vividly

Jeremy Hutchinson5:26

Coming out into the porch, and it had been raining, and it was very muddy, and suddenly a pony came round the corner with a farm boy bareback on it, galloping, galloping, galloping round to the front door, and as he got to the front door he fell off into the mud. And when he got up he'd left his trade mark in the mud, and it was to tell us that the war was over. And that was the first grand word I learnt was trademark.

Presenter5:57

You spent the first ten years of your life, with your parents and your older sister, Barbara, in London's hammersmith, in a house that overlooked the river. What was London like? When you were old enough to go out and toddle round the streets, what did you see?

Jeremy Hutchinson6:09

The great moment were the dense fogs, which were rarely exciting. And you would go out in the fog, hardly seeing anything, and then you would hear in the distance a bell ringing, and the muffin man would loom out of the fog like a character in Dickens, open the beautiful napery, and you would see the muffins at one end and the crumpets at the other. To get to the underground you had to walk through this slum very embarrassing because my mother would take one child in one hand and the other in the other, wearing her latest frock from the Omega workshops, painted in hand by Roger Fry or Duncan Grant. Goodness me. And she'd walk through the slum with her head high, and the urchins used to cry out, Here comes the Queen of Sheba.

Jeremy Hutchinson7:03

It made a great impression on me. Very early on I got to understand how the other half lived.

Presenter7:08

So your father was a barrister himself. Your mother had been born in what is now Pakistan.

Presenter7:15

I mean, it must have been an literally an Edwardian upbringing, was it? Did you have to wear sort of a stiff collar and all that?

Jeremy Hutchinson7:20

No, not at all, because my parents were very up to date and very relaxed. My mother had this long affair with Clive Bell in the Bloomsbury Group, and my

Presenter7:31

He he was an art critic, wasn't he?

Jeremy Hutchinson7:33

Yes. My father was a friend of Roger Fry, and Lithner Strature was my mother's cousin. So they were very much into that whole world.

Presenter7:43

We shall talk much more about that in just a second, for now, though, we're going to hear your second piece of music. What have you chosen?

Jeremy Hutchinson7:50

I've chosen music from the three-cornered hat Tricon. A great friend of mine was in love with a beautiful dancer called Pearl Argyll, and so I went to a lot of ballet, and then suddenly to London came Colonel de Basil's ballet rush, and Tricorn was the most exciting.

Presenter9:11

That was part of Manuel Defaria's Three Cornered Hat, The Dance of the Miller's Wife, played by L'Orquestre de la Suisse Romande, conducted by Ernest Anserme. So tell me, Jeremy Hutchinson, even though your family came from a relatively establishment background, what you've described to me is a rather haute-boheme world, part of the Bloomsbury group. You said that your mother, although she was married to your father, a barrister, had was it a long affair she had with Clive Bell, the art critic?

Jeremy Hutchinson9:37

Yes, it went on for about ten years.

Presenter9:39

How did your father put up with her?

Jeremy Hutchinson9:41

Well, he had a wonderful temperament, my father. He suffered a great deal, I think. She was very passionate, my mother. My mother used to jump up in an argument and leave the room and slam the door. My father used to just laugh and say there she is, what he called doing bouncers. But she was an amazingly wonderful person, really. They were both determined to keep the family together, and he simply put up with it.

Presenter10:10

Your mother was also a a good friend, I understand, of T S Eliot. Do you remember ever meeting T S Eliot?

Jeremy Hutchinson10:16

Yes, indeed. My parents had this tiny little cottage in Sussex on the Chichester harbour, and Elliot took a house at a place called Bosum on the other side, and he would come over on the ferry to our side, and they would meet up, and they talked about the wasteland. My mother always had this extraordinary antennae for what was new, and I think Elliott very much respected her views.

Presenter10:46

And did you actually talk to him?

Jeremy Hutchinson10:48

Well, later in life, of course. But at that time he was always very, very tight in, you know, wearing his jacket and his waistcoat and his tie, and looking like a bank clerk, really. And he had a very big nose. We my sister and I used to call him the Eagle.

Presenter11:08

You mentioned the affair that your mother had with the art critic Clive Bell. He was married to Virginia Woolfe's sister, and I've read I don't know if this is true, but I've read that Virginia Woolfe's novel Mrs. Dalloway was based on your mother. Is that true?

Jeremy Hutchinson11:21

Well, I think yeah, uh as far as anything's based on anybody, I I think certainly in a way. She's been written up by some people as being a hostess, my mother. Of course she wasn't a hostess. I have the dining room table we had in our small dining room, Omega table, now in my sitting room. You can just seat six people round it. What she loved doing was giving parties for her friends, fancy dress parties and charade parties, and she loved that.

Presenter11:52

Time for some music, Jeremy Hutchinson. We're on your third piece of the morning. Tell me about this.

Jeremy Hutchinson11:58

It's Teddy Wilson, the wonderful jazz player. It was in the war. After I'd been sunk in the Kelly, Mountbatten was given the aircraft carrier, the Illustrious, and he asked for the surviving officers to be part of his crew. The Illustrious was repairing in Norfolk, Virginia, before America came into the war, and we went out there. And when we got leave, I went to stay with a friend of mine in New York, and every night he took me to Harlem, and it was my introduction to the whole of jazz. And Teddy Wilson was my favourite pianist, and here he is playing T for Two from the musical No No Nanette, which in fact was the first musical I ever went to.

Presenter13:52

That was Teddy Wilson and T for Two. As you introduced that piece of music, Jeremy Hutchinson, you gave scant mention to the fact that you were sunk during the war. I need to know more about that. In the introduction I said that you were left clinging to a life raft with Lord Mountbatten. Tell me more.

Jeremy Hutchinson14:08

I was in this flotilla and we were sent in to go between Crete and Greece, because the Germans had already taken Greece and they were trying to take Crete, and we, being destroyers, drew very l little water, and so we could get in between Crete and the mainland and beat them up at night. And we went in, did what we were asked to do, and sank a lot of these Greek boats. And when we came out at dawn, it was the most beautiful day in May, and I remember the wonderful smell of the herbs on the shore. And of course, we were just sitting ducks to the German aircraft, which sure enough suddenly came out and attacked the two of us.

Jeremy Hutchinson15:00

And we were both sunk.

Presenter15:02

How many survivors were there?

Jeremy Hutchinson15:05

Just under half the ship's company, about a hundred, I think. I was one of the lucky ones because I was on deck and therefore swept off by the sea. And going down and down and down and down in the water is not as bad as you might imagine, except that your ears are feeling they're going to burst. But when one popped up, the really unpleasant part was the oil, and we all swam to a raft.

Presenter15:36

And as you clung to the life raft, what was Lord Mountbatten's demeanour? W was he talking? Was he rallying you?

Jeremy Hutchinson15:42

Well, he loomed up as black as all the others, and we turned and the ship was floating upside down, and suddenly it went up in the air forty five degrees and very, very slowly slid down under the water. And it all all is like a television programme, really, but it's quite true. He then turned to us and says, Give the old ship a cheer. And we all sang Roll out the barrel to keep our spirits up.

Presenter16:15

Let's take a break for some music, then, Jeremy. And we're on your fourth.

Jeremy Hutchinson16:20

This is Traviata. This was also when I was in the navy. We were sent out to the Indian Ocean, and by this time I was married and had just seen my first child, my daughter Eliza, and a signal came out that RNVR is the volunteer part, which I was of course, could put in for a long signals course, and so I immediately put in for it because I wanted to get home. And the first job having passed to become a full signals officer, my first appointment was a sure job after all these years of tossing about on the sea, a sure job, and not only a sure job, but in Italy.

Jeremy Hutchinson17:09

And while I was there, they reopened the opera house at Naples. And the first opera they had on was Traviata. And to me, the most beautiful part of the opera is the duet between Gaumont, the father of Alfredo, and Violetta.

Speaker 418:12

Hold on.

Presenter18:36

Dite Alla Giovine from Verdi's La Traviata, played by the Orchestra of the Rome Opera House, conducted by Vincenzo Bellezza. So, then, Jeremy Hutchinson, you were eventually, when you made it to the bar, thirty two. What was it that appealed to you about criminal law?

Jeremy Hutchinson18:51

You're dealing with every sort and kind of person, and you're privileged to enter their lives for a short period, perhaps the most important part of their whole life. It's a great experience, and you're talking to twelve ordinary people about whom you know nothing, and you ha have to do that with them, with the jury, with the judge, and with your opponent, and with your witnesses.

Presenter19:25

So let's talk then for a moment about the twelve ordinary people that you were talking to in 1960. That was the beginning of the obscenity trial for Lady Chatterley's lover. The book had been banned, of course, in the UK up until then, owing to its highly explicit sex scenes and the language that was used. You were on the defence team for Penguin at that point. Why did you want to take it on? Why did you think it was important?

Jeremy Hutchinson19:48

I had a passion for the subject. It was extraordinarily appropriate, because back in nineteen twenty seven my father had appeared for a picture gallery which was showing Lawrence's pictures as being obscene.

Jeremy Hutchinson20:06

And of course then there was no defence, and you had to show cause why these works should not be destroyed. And the keeper of the gallery wanted a huge trial about this, but Lawrence wrote to my father and said all he wanted was the preservation of his works, and so my father negotiated, so he got his pictures back. And Laurence wrote to him afterwards and said something to the effect of that he was the St George for the artist. And so I felt here I was being this

Presenter20:43

It was Penguin's intention in 1960 then to publish Lady Chatterley's Lover, which had been available on the continent and for those and such as those who could afford to pay for it, but Penguin wanted to sell it at, I understand, three shillings and sixpence, which meant that it would be available to, for want of a better phrase, the common man. What about you personally? I'm talking now about your views outside the courtroom. Did you think that there was any danger, as those who wanted to continue the ban said, of having

Presenter21:11

you know, young morals corrupted.

Jeremy Hutchinson21:13

No, because the test was so right that it if it was a work of art, it should none the less be published. I found the book itself a wonderful novel, quite outside the sex, the whole setting, the whole question of the classes, which has always been part of the period of my life, and extraordinarily still continues up to a point in this country.

Presenter21:39

What about the idea of dismantling the establishment, of the part that you played in that? Because although, as you say, you know, your parents were bohemian in their sensibilities, you came from a background further back, which was an establishment background. You know, you went to Stowe School and to Oxford and so on.

Presenter21:55

Why were you so interested in dismantling the establishment, I wonder, given that you had come from it?

Jeremy Hutchinson22:00

My family had always been a radical family, going right back to my great ancestor, the regicide Colonel Hutchinson, and when I was eighteen or nineteen one came to realize that the establishment, the them and us society, was a ridiculous situation.

Presenter22:21

Let's have some music. Jeremy, tell me what we're going to hear now. We're on your fist.

Jeremy Hutchinson22:25

When the war came to an end it was the time of the musicals, and we as a family went to them all. And then came this new musical called West Side Story.

Jeremy Hutchinson22:38

And I was absolutely amazed by the whole music, saying this is an opera, this is something completely new and it was very, very exciting.

Speaker 423:45

Uh

Presenter23:47

The Rumble from the original soundtrack of Westside Story, composed by Leonard Bernstein. And you said, Jeremy Hutchinson, that you used to go and see lots of musicals and go to the theatre often with your young family. You were married, as we know, to Peggy Ashcroft. You had met and married rather quickly, actually, in nineteen forty. Wha why do you think she fell for you?

Jeremy Hutchinson24:07

Well, Peggy was seven years older than me. I'd known her from quite early on because Peggy was married to Rupert Hart Davis, the publisher, who sometimes came to the house, and she was quite a well known actress by then. And then in the war came, after a year as a rating, I was turned into an officer, and that happened at Hove.

Jeremy Hutchinson24:36

And Peggy came down in a play at Brighton.

Jeremy Hutchinson24:40

And of course I went round and knocked on the stage door and said, Hello, Peggy, how nice to see you and I was dressed as a sailor. I think it was because I was dressed as a sailor that she fell for me, probably. It was the only time in my life that I've been really attractive. A wonderful uniform.

Presenter24:59

And what are your happiest memories of family life with Peggy?

Jeremy Hutchinson25:03

Well, it was a wonderful period because the acting profession is a wonderful profession, and it's very like being an advocate. You're self-employed, and it's a very precarious operation. And so there was a lot in common between the acting profession and being an advocate. Of course, it was wonderful to be married to probably the greatest actress of the twentieth century. But of course, one has to fetch after the fact. Great artists are primarily married to their art, and so it should be. And after some years of marriage, I had endless evenings on my own. And then our weekends, of course, were always made difficult because of matinees and so on. Then on Sundays, she would be, of course, extremely exhausted.

Presenter25:56

Did you ever try to persuade her that maybe she should leave the stage behind?

Jeremy Hutchinson25:59

No, never for a single moment

Presenter26:01

Your marriage did break down in the end. But there was a period when you were still married to Dame Peggy Ashcroft and you were carrying on an affair. That must have been a very, very tricky time.

Jeremy Hutchinson26:13

It was it was a difficult time. It d it took me five years before I could bring myself to make the decision.

Jeremy Hutchinson26:23

which was rarely to do with loneliness, and Peggy was wonderful about it. There was no hysteria about the divorce. I mean, both my wives are quite remarkable. I mean, they both behave wonderfully.

Presenter26:36

Time for some music, Jeremy Hutchinson. We're on your uh sixth disc of the morning.

Jeremy Hutchinson26:42

I had to arrange this memorial service in the Abbey for Peggy. Peter Hall did the main tribute, Harold Pinter did a wonderful talk also from his point of view, and then Murray Perrat played this lovely slow movement in this Mozart concerto.

Presenter28:01

That was the Andante from Mozart's Piano Concerto in C major played by the English Chamber Orchestra with Murray Pariah on piano. So, Jeremy Hutchinson, you were made a life peer in 1978. You retired from the bar in 1984. You played such an important part in so many of these big changes in British law then. I wonder how you regard the profession now. It's it's going through momentous changes right now.

Jeremy Hutchinson28:25

Well, this Government is in its turn dismantling everything that I've been talking about. At the centre of time, I patched it was the introduction of legal aid, which

Jeremy Hutchinson28:36

I had quite a lot to do with it as a young person, and the whole basis of the legal aid idea was that after health, the most important thing in life is your freedom and your liberty and being able to stand up against authority. And what was so wonderful was that there were the high street solicitor, often a one man band. Anybody could walk in and get free advice on their problem. This government is dismantling the whole legal aid apparatus, and you're talking about sums of money which are as nothing compared to the amount of money spent by the state on the price of one fighter aircraft.

Presenter29:26

When we reform any system, though, it is very uncomfortable often for the people who work in it. And surely this is just that it is the price of change, it is the price of evolution, and the time will come when people will think, Well, that's the way it is now, and we'll make it work this way. It's not the same as it was fifty years ago, it's this way now.

Jeremy Hutchinson29:43

Well, no doubt. I mean, I'm extremely old now, and I'm out of what is going on. But the whole point was that everybody should be entitled, just in the National Health Service, to the best, not the worst.

Presenter29:59

Let's have some music, Jeremy Hutchinson. We're on your seventh disc of the morning. Tell me about this. What are we going to hear?

Jeremy Hutchinson30:05

Well, my daughter brought up two wonderful French granddaughters for me because she married a a Frenchman. The elder one is a remarkable journalist, and the younger one, called Emily, has become a well known chanteuse, that wonderful thing that the French have, where she plays the piano and writes her own songs. So I've chosen a piece by her which has really become her signature tune.

Presenter30:05

Yeah.

Speaker 430:39

Ond kilifai, tout jourbeau, c'est l'acu mi, les oiseaux, hom d'ésa.

Speaker 430:48

The Lord of U de Moon

Speaker 430:54

La vant c'est le bruill, c'est des cité saillet, jeuval, je monvet.

Speaker 431:04

I love to good moon

Presenter31:09

That was Emily Louiseau, your granddaughter, Jeremy Hutchinson, and she was singing L'Orebus de Mont.

Presenter31:14

Throughout this interview it it's clear to anybody listening, of course, that you are entirely switched on at the age of ninety eight. I wonder, has this considerable age brought wisdom with it?

Jeremy Hutchinson31:25

Well, I don't know whether one flatters oneself on that. I think, of course, I have a degree of wisdom. I'm not so sure that I have.

Presenter31:34

At this coming March, then, you'll be nin you'll be ninety nine in March. How are you going to celebrate?

Jeremy Hutchinson31:39

Well, I'm turning over in my mind if I reach a hundred, and being a great cricket lover, you know about the nervous nineties that cricketers get into before they get a century.

Speaker 431:51

Yes.

Jeremy Hutchinson31:51

Uh

Jeremy Hutchinson31:52

And you either hit a six and you're there, or you what they call get it in singles, I'm getting it in singles.

Jeremy Hutchinson32:02

And I have to decide whether I celebrate my hundredth year if I reach it, with a big party or with a small party.

Presenter32:10

Let's have your final piece of music, then, Jeremy. Tell me about what we're going to hear now.

Jeremy Hutchinson32:14

This is Beethoven opus a hundred and ten. I have a delightful stepson, who's my second wife, June's son, whose father was a great pianist, Franz Osborne, and my stepson plays the piano most beautifully, but he couldn't really face the rat race of a pianist life. And when I got together with June and found that he was he was then about twelve and he was practising on the piano.

Jeremy Hutchinson32:49

And I thought, Oh, God, in the evenings when I'm doing my work and burning the night hours with a towel round my head, I should be hearing this terrible practising on the piano. And on the contrary, what come up the stairs would be the sound of this wonderful, wonderful playing down below. And Opus 1010 was the one which I have in my head almost from the first note to the last.

Presenter34:21

That was Beethoven's Sonata Opus a hundred and ten, played by your stepson, Christopher Osborne. So, Jeremy, I'm going to give you the books now. You get to take the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare, and you get to take one other book along too. What will you take?

Jeremy Hutchinson34:34

Well, I would like to have the poems of Thomas Hardy. Would I be allowed to also have his novels, or not?

Presenter34:41

The complete works of Thomas Hard. It must exist somewhere, and I will find it for you and give it to you. And what about a luxury?

Jeremy Hutchinson34:43

It was hard.

Jeremy Hutchinson34:49

Well, I thought hard about the luxury, and I hovered between a hot bath and a boat, but then I thought, being a very visual person, I want you to borrow the most beautiful small painting in the world, which is The Tempest by Giorgione, which is at the moment in the Accademia in Venice. There would be a small label in the gallery on temporary loan.

Jeremy Hutchinson35:19

To D I D

Presenter35:21

That sounds like the perfect solution. And if you had to choose just one of the eight disks to save from the waves, which one would you save?

Jeremy Hutchinson35:28

I think it must be the Mozart.

Presenter35:30

It's yours. Jeremy Hutchinson, Lord Hutchinson of Lullington. Thank you very much for letting us hear your Desert Island Discs.

Jeremy Hutchinson35:37

Thank you.

Presenter36:19

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

Presenter36:21

You'll find more information on the Radio Four website bbc.co.uk slash radiofour