Dame Elish Angiolini

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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.

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

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My castaway this week is the lawyer Dame Aelish Angelini.

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The first woman to become both Scotland's Solicitor General and Lord Advocate, she's currently Principal of St. Hugh's College, Oxford it's a long way from Govern, where her father heaved bags of coal round the streets, and there wasn't always money for the metre.

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She was the youngest of four, and, by her own admission, being Gabby was the only way she got heard.

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It's an early skill that seems to have served her pretty well. In the legal establishment she's gained a reputation as a gutsy moderniser, unafraid to challenge the system. Among her innovations, a pioneering support scheme for vulnerable victims, and establishing the National Crime Sex Unit for Scotland, the first of its kind in Europe.

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Her predisposition to seeing things from the victim's point of view might have something to do with her own experience.

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In nineteen eighty four she was badly injured in a rail disaster that killed thirteen others, including the two men sitting opposite her.

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She says advocacy is a great life skill.

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If you go to your bank manager asking for an overdraft, or if you barter at a market, you're employing advocacy skills. It's all about empathy and charisma. You once said that you think that part of your success has been down to the fact that you were never afraid to ask the stupid question, the obvious question. Being able to ask the obvious question, what seems like the stupid question, though, that takes actually quite a lot of confidence, inner confidence. Possibly, or also naivety and stupidity, which happened in abundance, certainly, in the early years. But I think that we call it in Scotland the daft lassie question or laddie question. It is something which I always encourage to never be inhibited from asking the question just because you think that you'll somehow humiliate yourself. Very often it's a one that everyone is struggling with. And ultimately, it became very useful in the context of cross-examination and advocacy later on in life. How interesting. Your first brush with the legal system was, I understand, as a teenager, you were a witness in, it was a case of a couple of boys stealing a barf. Coming into contact with the legal establishment, what did that

Dame Elish Angiolini2:32

Steve.

Presenter2:37

Teach you at a young age? It wasn't a very positive impression. I was probably about 16. I attended at this very grand marble-clad building. When you walked into the building, the atmosphere was very intimidating immediately, but also it was full of these very important people swooshing about in gowns. A friendly but gruff man asked you to go into this witness box, which was about two feet above everyone else, and asked to raise your hand. Your knees are knocking, you have to lift your hand, and your hand's shaking. The whole thing was just awful. It was a dreadful experience. And my overwhelming sensation.

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As a result of that, it was a feeling that the court was all about the permanent users and that the witnesses and the accused were like flotsman jets and coming in and out of the building. Whenever these incremental moves are made to modernise the justice system, you know, getting rid of wigs and so on and so on, especially when it comes to young people testifying, there are those who say, well, you know, you're eroding the traditions, you're actually denigrating the power of the court under such circumstances. How would you reply to that briefly? The justice system is like any other public service. It is there for a fundamental constitutional reason to protect the rights and to ensure the rule of law is applied. However, it doesn't require to have a pomposity or ritual applied to it unless that's seen as being useful and helpful to people. And I think that's ultimately the issue. People now live in a much more informal setting. And we have courts, and I visited a court in Brooklyn where the judge sat on a three-wheeled stool and whizzed about from one side to the other, but the solemnity and the respect in that courtroom was just as patent as it would be in the Supreme Court here. Now, speaking of solemnity and respect, Dame Ailish Angelini, tell me about your first piece of music this morning. Well, it's maybe not what people would expect. I suspect it will be somewhat iconoclastic, but others will think it's entirely predictable, those who know me, that in the 70s I was a great fan of Donna Summers and all disco music. And when I look back to the 70s, I had great fun dancing with my two friends, and we would dance to Donna Summer, and this is on the radio.

Dame Elish Angiolini4:18

It's maybe not

Dame Elish Angiolini4:38

I never told the soldiers how I've been feeling over you.

Dame Elish Angiolini4:45

But they said it really loud, they said it on the air Radio

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That was Donna Sommer and on the radio. You managed not to dance just about there. Just actioned. I mentioned your appointments then as Solicitor General, and later on you became Lord Advocate in Scotland, the first woman in that post in its five hundred-year history. It would be fair to say that both of those appointments at the time caused a little bit of a stir. You were, as I mentioned, the first woman. You had been practising as a solicitor rather than what's known in Scotland as an advocate, a QC in England. You came from a non-establishment background, you know, a very simple working-class background as it might be characterised. You said at the time that some people might judge your appointment as Lord Advocate as a huge mistake. Those were your words, being aware that there would be critics. What do you think they might have been critical of? The role of Solicitor General and Lord Advocate are the most senior legal offices in Scotland, and hitherto and for many, many years, there had been political appointments.

Dame Elish Angiolini5:09

Just action.

Dame Elish Angiolini5:10

Uh

Dame Elish Angiolini5:30

Yeah.

Dame Elish Angiolini5:44

Whereas

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And therefore, it was almost the reserve of very senior QC's. And I had been a career prosecutor. The role of the law officers is also to give advice to the government, the government's lawyers, the equivalent of the Attorney General and the Solicitor General for England and Wales.

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And therefore, for someone to come who was probably unknown generally to many people at the bar, it was a huge disappointment because it was the prize for many at the bar and the significance of a solicitor where there was a slight form of apartheid that the somehow the solicitor profession wasn't quite as perhaps talented, which is wrong because many advocates come from the solicitor profession. But I knew there was much muttering because it did create consternation.

Presenter6:42

That sort of trailblazing for you, for the individual, does it create an extra layer of expectation and pressure? I wonder. I think undoubtedly you're acutely aware you're the first woman in any context that it brings with it a greater intensity of scrutiny. But ultimately, if you're going to accept a post like that, you have to have something of a tough hide to be able to go through it. And belief in yourself. When you were approached to become Solicitor General, then that was in 2001, as you say, the legal prize, really, the creme de la creme of jobs. What was your reaction? Oh, actually, I wasn't particularly happy with it. I had a very, very happy life. I was a very senior prosecutor. We had moved up to Aberdeenshire. I had a three-year-old and I had an 18-month-old toddler, and I was very settled and very happy up there. So, you had a conversation with your husband, obviously. How did that conversation go? Well, I said to him that there was a very high risk that I could be out very rapidly because it was whimsical in a sense as to whether or not you'd remain in office, to which he responded that as long as we could have a plate of pasta and a bottle of Chianti, he would be quite happy.

Dame Elish Angiolini7:29

Yeah

Presenter7:48

And that gave you the courage, did it? And it did, because essentially, I think he felt that it's far better to regret something you've done than to regret not having done something. It's time for your second piece of music, Danielish. Why have you chosen this one? Well, again, this is a record which most people would have counselled against on a programme of this nature, you know, because you're trying to establish, I suppose, some degree of gravitas and taste in your choice of music. But this is one by Jimmy Gioranti, Make Someone Happy. I think if I was on a desert island and I had this playing, it would be like having a large, warm hug. It's so

Speaker 48:19

So important to make someone happy.

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Make just one someone happy.

Dame Elish Angiolini8:23

Just

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Make just one heart-to-heart you

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You sing two, one.

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Smile that cheers you

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One face that lights when it leaves you One girl you're

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You're everything

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To fail.

Presenter8:53

That was Jimmy Gioranti and Make Someone Happy. I want to take you back to 1960. That's the year you were born. You were born in Govern. Your dad is a coal merchant. Of course, an important difference between a coal merchant and a coal man, but he was a hands-on. Oh, he did. He carried hundreds of weights of coal up close in Govan. Of course, this was a time, the very beginning of the 60s, when the cranes still lined the Clyde and there were tens of thousands of people employed in sending ships all over the world with the steelmaking and so on and building the ships. What are your earliest memories of living in that part of the west of Scotland? It was a very warm community, but that community became very challenged in the 70s because of the significant increase in crime that came during that period. As the shipyards began to fade, in particular, and there was greater unemployment, there was constant burglaries and insecurity around the area, and the poverty seemed to be much more dominant at that point. That was tangible to you, was it? Absolutely. I mean, we had our own problems because my father's business crashed with the Clean Air Act coming in, and my mother had to go out and work for the first time in her life. She had to work, and she worked in an off-sales in Partick, carting big crates of beer, etc., up from sellers. So there's a slight schizophrenia about having had this unconditional love from these parents who were very warm and

Dame Elish Angiolini9:06

He was hands-on.

Dame Elish Angiolini9:21

Please was this

Presenter10:12

Passionate about education, not in an ambitious sense, but to give you the opportunity. It was almost sort of described as permission to succeed. You didn't have the pressure to succeed. And I wanted to be a tap dancer when I was a child. My mother was as thrilled about that as anything, if that's what I wanted to be. When your father's business folded, what were the things that you weren't able to do that you had been able to do before?

Presenter10:33

There were times when we would go round to the Rag and Bone Man to get bringing clothing to get money, enough money to go out to purchase food for the following week. I don't think that ever really leaves people that sort of memory. Where is it with you? Is there always a little bit of you that knows that sometimes life can be that bad? Yes, and I think it's interesting, even in my own management, my husband came from a background which was comfortable and therefore he doesn't really consider it anxious. Whereas I think people who come from that are, it probably makes them quite driven in a sense because of the fear of poverty. Let's have some more music. Ailish, tell me about your third of the morning. What are we going to hear now? This is Ella Fitzgerald. This song was my mother and father's song, and when the Sunday lunch was being cooked, this would be being played.

Dame Elish Angiolini10:47

Yeah.

Dame Elish Angiolini10:48

Pretty sorry.

Presenter11:15

And sometimes they'd have the occasional little dance together with it. They were very romantic, even in the when they were older. There was always an element of romance and they were genuinely in love.

Speaker 411:25

With a love that's true.

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Always

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When the things you've planned Need a helping hand, I will understand

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Ella Fitzgerald and always and you said going into that, Eilish, there there's this vision of the occasional sort of dances round the kitchen between your mother and father when Sunday lunch was being made. Um so it was a happy, a loving home.

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And yet, I read that you had a bit of a miserable time at school, is that right? Certainly, the first few years. So surprised by that. What was wrong? Often I tried to work out whether or not there was such sentiment, such warmth in the house that it was, you know, separation, anxiety, however, you know, psychologists might describe it now. But I think ultimately it came from the financial insecurity because my mother and father, for the best reason, sent me to a Montessori school. It wasn't a fee-paying school, but it was one where you had to buy your own books, and that was again an important factor in my mum going out to work. And she got a loan for that. I remember that.

Dame Elish Angiolini12:10

Uh

Presenter12:39

I didn't settle at school at all. I was very tearful. I was conscious that everyone else was progressing at a level, particularly with reading and also with jigsaws, which I couldn't do. And I remember being slightly chided about it and feeling very troubled. I was sent to a child guidance clinic because I wasn't learning. I was a dreamer, basically, was how I would say disconnected. Right. So there was a sort of underlying anxiety. I think it was, but also, I think what I subsequently discovered is that we have dyslexia in the family. And I suspect, because my spelling is still pretty ropey at times, that I had mild dyslexia and that may have been, I overcame it so that it wasn't discernible at a later stage, but not until my confidence had been addressed. My mother was very anxious about this situation that I was feeling so unsettled in school.

Dame Elish Angiolini12:59

Right.

Presenter13:26

And she was advised by a teacher to find something, just find something that I enjoyed and that I might be good at. And you said a moment ago that was tap dancing. It was tap dancing and ballet. But the tap dancing was probably consistent with my personality because it made a lot of noise. So what happened? Why did you not pursue it? Well, I got to about the age of 11, and one of the examiners described me as having lots of enthusiasm but not very much skill in the context of my dancing. Others might see that in other areas of competence as well. And that was the end of that. But by that time,

Dame Elish Angiolini13:42

What?

Dame Elish Angiolini13:55

And

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My schoolwork had been transformed. They didn't know about my problems at the dancing class. And so you had a different persona in there. And realising that you could be really successful in one area suddenly changed everything. And you were in the family, the wee one. You know, you were the youngest of four. Were you spoiled by your big brothers? Incredibly. They were. They're all like substitute parents, and they still all treat me as if I'm their baby. Did you eat a Christmas cake? Were you blamed for eating a Christmas case? No, I didn't do it. I was innocent, but it was the first miscarriage of justice I experienced, certainly. What was it? Well, my mother would make about four Christmas cakes every year. And one was on the wire rack cooling. And when she came back in that evening, there was a piece missing from the top.

Dame Elish Angiolini14:15

Youngest of four ways.

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Okay.

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Yeah.

Dame Elish Angiolini14:29

What was it?

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She summoned us all in about what had happened. She said, Now, if a mouse has got it, I have to throw this cake out. So, one of you has been at this cake.

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And my brother sort of looked at me like this and I confessed to it. I confessed to it because I didn't want I thought he'd get into more trouble than I would. And I've never quite forgave my brother for making me undergo this this presumption of guilt that I had. But it's made me conscious in my forensic career later on that people do confess to crimes which they're not guilty of.

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Yes, a perfect illustration to that, I think. It's time for some more music now, Aelish Angelini. What are we going to hear next? We're on your fourth of the morning. Tell me about this. This is This Guy's in Love With You. Again, very cheesy, highly sentimental, but reminds me of my sister Mary and my sister Anne and my brother Kevin all sitting around the dancette record player.

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See? This guy.

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This guy's in love with you.

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Yes, I'm in love.

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Who looks at you the way I do?

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When you smile again, Del We know we don't.

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Herb Alpert, and this guy's in love with you. You were seventeen then, Aelish, when rather than

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I don't know, dancing in your bedroom to ABBA or the Bee Gee's that were in the charts at the time. You decided you would set up an advice clinic in the local hall for people who were having, what, problem with their benefits payments or housing problems? Or why on earth did you do that? Oh, I was dancing away to record as well. So but but

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Being there, I was acutely aware of the problems that people were, particularly my own parents. So, they had a roof which was leaking dry rot, there were all sorts of problems, and no resources to try and resolve that. So, I found out that you could get grants, and then the neighbours found out that we got a hundred percent grant, and so I filled them out for my neighbours. This got round just about the whole of Governor, so the parish priest asked me to come in and could I help people who were having problems. And through that, I met an elderly, who was in her 80s, I visited her. This lady had linoleum, which was all turned up, and she was completely blind. I made an application for her to have replacement carpeting because of her blindness. But the rules were that you could not have carpeting, you could only have linoleum. In any event, we went along to the Supplementary Benefits Appeals Tribunal with this lady, and we won. We won, and we got that rule changed. So, it was probably still to this day my best forensic triumph, and it's one which still gives me greatest warmth because we went home and we had a carpet party with fish suppers that evening, the two of us, and it transformed our life. I think that's where I learned the fact that I discovered I was resourceful, I could find out and solve problems, which is what law is about. It's about trying to solve problems. You were all set to study politics and economics at university. Why was it that you found yourself switching to law? I think because of the experience of crime in the area, it became very, very vulnerable. I came home from school one day and discovered my mother in the back garden, and she was in her sixties, and she was on the top of a ladder at the back garden. She was placing sharp shards of glass.

Presenter17:51

On this wall. And this is because of the fear that it engendered. And I became very angry, as you would, as a young girl, about this. And I had this notion of some messianic campaign to go out there and sort out all these criminal thugs. Yes, there is indeed a degree, a fair degree of idealism in that 17, 18, 19-year-old sentiment where I'm going to go out and I'm going to make the world a better place. How would you say your idealism has been compromised or dented or indeed has washed away over the years? I think very, very quickly as a young prosecutor, I discovered that so many of these people had lives which were absolutely disastrous. They had been treated very badly, may have been the subject of physical, mental, or indeed sexual abuse. Not always, but their self-esteem was generally very low. They had self-loathing and they had very little respect for themselves and therefore not for other people's properties either. And it was so much more complex than that very neat little notion that I'd had when I'd entered the profession.

Dame Elish Angiolini18:11

Please

Presenter18:45

Let's move then to nineteen eighty four. That's the year of the Pullmont Rail tragedy. It's very well remembered in Scotland. thirteen people lost their lives. You were a passenger. It was a rush hour train. It was travelling from Edinburgh to Glasgow. What do you remember about the accident itself?

Speaker 418:51

Thirteen.

Dame Elish Angiolini18:52

Yeah.

Speaker 418:57

Hmm.

Presenter19:01

In fact, I was about to miss that train, but someone helpfully gave me a lift and I managed to get it. So it's the sort of fickle finger of fate. And it was travelling past at very high speed. I was in the front coach of this train, which hit a heifer that had come onto the line when it was at full speed, and it took off into the air like a roller coaster. And many in my coach were killed and very seriously injured, including the two gentlemen who were sitting opposite me and one beside me was very seriously injured as well. So there were 20 people in your coach, as I understand it. Nine of those people lost their lives. Thirty years on from that.

Speaker 419:07

Yeah.

Presenter19:39

Have there been times w when it's been tangible the impact that going through something as awful as that has had upon you and decisions you might have made or not?

Presenter19:49

It had a profound psychological impact at the time. I was a young girl. I had just started my career in law and.

Presenter19:57

The sense of guilt that I also had about surviving, and I don't think that's what I expected, but also I think the overwhelming sense that I came out with it was one of survival. And it has to be a great instinct, which was seize the day. You've no idea how long you're going to be here. So tell me then about this next piece of music. Why have you chosen it?

Presenter20:15

This is una futiva la grima.

Presenter20:18

I was introduced to this at the time of the train disaster because my father-in-law Amadeo Angelini looked after me because everyone was away at that time when I came out of hospital. And he would play opera for me and introduce me to opera, which has been a great passion of mine for the rest of my life. But this song also is one which, although it's about a love situation, the idea of the furtive tear is one which I've had over a number of circumstances. And even as a big tough prosecutor, there have been times when the nature of what you're dealing with causes you to have that secret weep.

Speaker 421:17

Every beautiful jondli.

Speaker 421:28

Happy all the God and love be your voice.

Presenter21:53

On a fortiva lagrima from Lesier damore by Donizetti that was sung there by Enrico Caruso in nineteen oh four.

Presenter22:01

So, Aelish Angelini, once you were qualified in practising law, your career well, progressed, we have to say, pretty rapidly. By 1997, you were Head of Policy at the Crown Office. You went on to become the first woman procurator fiscal. The Procurator Fiscal in Scotland investigates sudden and suspicious deaths, a little bit like a coroner in the rest of the UK. You've focussed on the victim in your career, and that's interesting because a lot of people in your line of work don't do that. You piloted something called a victim liaison scheme, and I wonder why you felt the need to focus on the victim.

Presenter22:35

When I had started off in the prosecution service in Scotland, one of the primary and still critical aspects of that is that it's independent, the independence of the prosecution, so that it acts in the public interest and not on behalf of victims of crime. And that is important because it ensures that there is a balance and fairness in the activity. However, I think my take on how that was manifest was that in order to secure that independence, you had to be isolated, and therefore you didn't really communicate in the same way and you didn't take responsibility for the way in which they're dealt with. And I think that that was wrong.

Presenter23:10

The idea that you can be compassionate doesn't mean that you're compromising your independence. Now not all people agree with that. When I rolled out this scheme in Scotland, there was a certain view that this was again sentimental and that could compromise the role of the prosecutor.

Presenter23:24

But it was about just human decency. Well, let's look for a minute then at what else you did as when you were Lord Advocate. You established something called the National Sex Crimes Unit, and that was the only dedicated prosecution service of its kind across the whole of Europe.

Presenter23:38

It led in turn to profound changes in the way that sex crimes were prosecuted in Scotland.

Presenter23:45

What was its brief? How did you want to change things? What was wrong in your view? People have judgments on victims. A victim is sometimes seen by members of the public as someone who's deserving. You have a deserving victim, the one who consumed a lot of alcohol, would be found in a party where there had been other people. And then you would have the undeserving one, this sort of Doris Day type character who's taken off the street and raped. And the concern was that while the law protected them, there is a difficulty in actually securing convictions in these areas of the law. Very, very difficult and challenging, with a very low conviction rate. So have conviction rates actually gone up? They have gone up. From what to what? Well, I mean, at one point it was 3%. Yeah, so it's gone from 3% to what? I think it's as much as 5%, 6%. So it's very, very low still, but it is climbing. You've also, I understand, supported the more robust questioning of rape victims. That sounds like relatively quite a controversial thing to do. Why was it you thought that was important? It wasn't robust, I suppose, again, the Daft Lassie question. The question that people might be posing wasn't put to the victim in case the victim might think that they were being disbelieved. It was all

Dame Elish Angiolini24:21

Yeah.

Presenter24:48

Motivated in a kind, gentle way. But they would then go into the courtroom and find that someone would put that very question which they hadn't anticipated and which they hadn't thought through. Let's have some more music then, Ailish Angelina. Tell me about what we're going to hear next. We're on your sixth disc of the morning. This is.

Presenter25:05

Tambourine Man by Bob Dylan. It's my actually my husband loves Bob Dylan. I've come to love him over the years as well, but he sings Tambourine Man to them, or did sing when he used to carry them on his shoulders when they were little. And he would call being carried on the shoulder a jingle jangle, which comes from the phrase in a jingle jangle morning, I'll come following you.

Speaker 325:25

Hey, Mr. Time for Raymond, play a song for me. I'm not sleepy, and there is no place I'm going to.

Speaker 325:36

Hey Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me. In the jingle jangle morning, I'll come following you.

Presenter25:50

That was Bob Dylan and Mr. Tambourine Man, as you said, Ailish, going into that. Many happy memories of especially your your young family. You'd be on holidays or you'd be in the park.

Dame Elish Angiolini25:55

There was bad.

Dame Elish Angiolini25:57

Be in the p

Presenter25:58

And the shoulders they were on were that of your husband. I I'm going to call him Domenico. Do you call him Dominic or Domenico?

Dame Elish Angiolini26:02

Do you call him dumb?

Presenter26:04

Variety. Dom, Domenico, when I'm annoyed with him. Right. He gets his full name, but Dom, generally. So he's second-generation Italian Scottish. Yes. How did you meet? Dom is a hairdresser, and we actually saw each other, it sounds like again, you know, a movie, across a refectory at the university where he was at college studying hairdressing. So I remember seeing him, and a couple of weeks later, we met and we became great friends. And he subsequently had two hairdressing salons in Glasgow, and he loved it, except that we both had careers. And he very gallantly decided that he would give up. We were moving up to Aberdeen, so he sewed up and became a house husband and looked after our children. You've got great hair. Does he do your hair?

Dame Elish Angiolini26:13

How did you

Presenter26:47

He does, but it's a bit like the cobbler's wife. It's done reluctantly now. You know, in those first years a few years of lust, you know, when the romantically he was doing it very energetically. Now he does it as a duty, as his bait. Time for some more music. Tell me about your seventh choice of the morning.

Dame Elish Angiolini26:57

This is bad.

Presenter27:01

This is Van Morrison, have I told you lately? And Dom and I have been at many Van Morrison concerts and longed for this song to be played because it's just such an archetypal, wonderful love song. Also, I think Twins as a Prayer, I think it originally was written as a prayer, and I think on a Daisy Island in the moments of gloom, which undoubtedly I would have when I was there, then this would be wonderful. It would serve two purposes.

Speaker 427:27

Have I told you lately that I love you?

Speaker 427:35

Have I told you there's no one above you?

Speaker 427:43

Below up with blessings

Speaker 427:46

Take away my sadness

Speaker 427:49

He's my trouble, that's what you do.

Presenter27:55

Van Morrison with Have I Told You Lately? So, Aelis, you retired as Lord Advocate in 2011. You are currently Principal at St Hughes College, Oxford, and you're visiting Professor of Law at the University of Strathclyde. I can't imagine you're any less busy. I mean, that sounds like quite a busy life, but it's a different sort of life from being at the front line of prosecution. How does it suit you? I love it, particularly St Hughes College. It was founded to educate poor women. I have a real connection with that. But the university itself is just a great institution and it's a wonderful privilege. But as a family, we just love living there. Yes, I was going to ask you about how does Domenico fit into that? I mean, it's a world away from the world that he chose for himself, which was running his hair dressing salons in Glasgow and so on and so on.

Dame Elish Angiolini28:36

Just a little bit.

Dame Elish Angiolini28:38

And so on.

Presenter28:38

He is now teaching athletics at primary school and coaching in the evenings at Oxford Athletics Association. And he is indulging his great passion life, which is eating and cooking. He just loves cooking and he loves wines. What would be your Desert Island dish then if it was to be cooked by dawn? Undoubtedly pasta with some seps in it and some green mix salad and chips. You can take the girl out precisely. Where would life be if it wasn't for chips? Your life has been defined by community and interacting and trying to affect change, indeed being very successful at it. Life alone on this island, I imagine, will seem

Dame Elish Angiolini29:07

Where would life be for one?

Presenter29:20

Unbearably stagnant for you, surely.

Presenter29:23

I do uh enjoy solitary moments and tranquillity and the opportunity to meditate, but I'm very much a people person. I love being surrounded by people. And I think an island and a palm tree

Presenter29:36

I suspect I wouldn't thrive.

Presenter29:39

Tell me about this final choice. What are we going to hear? This is A Fon Kiss by Robbie Burns. Byron described this poem as the essence of a thousand love songs, which clearly is a theme in my songs, which makes me sound like a pathetic romanticist. It's sung by Eddie Reader, and I just love this song, and it reminds me very much of my home and Scotland and much that I love about it.

Speaker 430:04

If fond cares and then we suffer

Speaker 430:12

If ever we are lost forever

Speaker 430:20

Deep in heart from tears I pledge thee

Speaker 430:30

Warren sighs and grown child.

Presenter30:36

That was Eddie Reader singing Robert Burns's A Fond Kiss. I'm going to give you the books now, Ailish. To take to this island, I'm going to give you the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare. You get to take along another book to join them. What will it be? I think the Oxford Anthology of Poetry, because one particular novel would be extremely difficult, you know, if that was it. Whereas poetry is wonderful. You know, there's so many different types and would keep me entertained endlessly. Right, that's yours then. And a luxury, and it's got to be a luxury. It can't be anything too practical. A photograph. It would be a photograph, I think, which would be a collage of all the people I love. That's yours. And if you had to save one of the tracks, which one would it be?

Presenter31:17

Very, very difficult. I think because of its connection with the the children beat tambourine man. Okay. That's yours then. The Bob Dylan. Dame Eilish Angelini, thank you very much for letting us hear your desert island. Absolute pleasure, Christy. Thank you.

Dame Elish Angiolini31:28

Yeah.

Presenter32:11

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

Presenter32:13

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