Anne Reid

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.

Presenter0:35

My castaway this week is the actress Anne Reid.

Presenter0:38

For a long time the bedrock of her successful career seemed to be her perfectly nuanced portrayal of a variety of Northern mums, what she calls skirt and jumper rolls.

Presenter0:49

Then in two thousand three the skirt, and indeed the jumper, came off when she and Daniel Craig starred in the highly acclaimed movie The Mother, about a frumpy looking woman in her late sixties who passionately seduces her daughter's boyfriend.

Presenter1:03

What Miss Beardsworth, the elocution teacher who helped her get into Rada in nineteen fifty one, would have made of all this is any one's guess. But the rest of us can only be grateful. These days rarely a month goes by without her appearing on stage or in our living rooms. She says

Presenter1:18

Inner talent gives you that ease. It's not a remarkable thing, just a knack that gives you a very nice life. You've been an actress, then, since the start of the nineteen sixties, Anne Reid, and yet

Presenter1:29

It's in the last, what, ten to fifteen years that things have gone stellar for you. That's all the wrong way round. It doesn't usually happen that way, no, I think it's the right way round.

Anne Reid1:36

No, I think it's the right way round, actually.

Anne Reid1:39

I didn't have huge stardom, you know, like movies and things like that when I was young.

Anne Reid1:44

And so things have just got better and better, and it's wonderful.

Presenter1:47

Last Tango in Halifax is your latest big hit. That's Primetime BBC One, and it rakes in the viewers. You're often seen these days, I think, as a a standard bearer for the older woman. You know, this is how life can be y yeah, I think you are.

Anne Reid1:49

Here that's prime.

Anne Reid1:52

I never said that.

Anne Reid1:54

Yeah.

Anne Reid2:00

It can be

Anne Reid2:01

Why?

Presenter2:02

Does that bother you?

Anne Reid2:03

No. I mean, the thing about getting old is that you you don't feel it. That's the problem. I'm seventy eight now. I I thought I would be really ready and a different person.

Anne Reid2:14

And it it absolutely hasn't happened. I s in my head I'm still about forty-three.

Anne Reid2:20

When people want to help me upstairs and help me out of taxis, I get a I get occasionally they do, I get a bit tetchy.

Presenter2:24

That did it?

Anne Reid2:28

In upstairs, downstairs, the director said one day said, Um, we've got to go do this take again, going up the stairs. And I said, Why are you asking me?

Anne Reid2:39

And he said,

Anne Reid2:41

Oh, I'm asking everybody. I said, No, you're not. You're being ageist.

Anne Reid2:45

Then the next day I had to walk up and down these huge stairs, and I said to Adrian Scarborough, I'm exhausted and he said, Oh dear, you've made your bed, and now you're going to have to lie on it'cause nobody dares say anything to me after that.

Presenter2:58

Just before we came in to sit down in front of the microphones you were saying that you imagined for yourself maybe a sort of parallel life which would have been a life in music. You are passionately attached to the music you love. BA

Anne Reid3:10

I was brought up in a musical family. My you know, not not famously musical, but there was always music. My mother was dance crazy. We all learned to dance very early on. I waltzed round the kitchen with my mother when I was a little girl, and daddy played the piano, and my grandma played the piano. And it's in me. I just know it's in me. Acting happened quite by accident when my teacher said I'll get you the forms for Rada and wrote to my parents and said she thought I ought to be an actress and I hadn't thought of anything else.

Anne Reid3:41

But really my heart is in

Presenter3:44

Music. I mean, all our castaways say it's difficult to hone it down to eight, but for you in particular, to make eight choices today for your discs

Anne Reid3:52

Oh nightmare. Absolute nightmare.

Presenter3:54

Yeah.

Anne Reid3:54

Yeah.

Presenter3:54

Yes.

Anne Reid3:55

And why have you chosen this first dissent? Well, this is my wonderful Barbara Cook singing Vanilla Ice Cream. And I this story is far too long to tell here, but she changed my life because after my husband died in nineteen eighty one

Anne Reid4:09

I didn't know which direction my life was going. By chance I was watching the television and I saw the concert follies and this amazing woman came on.

Anne Reid4:18

And to cut a long story short, I wa I she came to the Don Mar warehouse and I went to see her and I was blown away and I wrote her this long fan letter which I don't think she ever read. And since then we've become great friends. We've been to Paris together and I've met so many wonderful people. I sat next to Stephen Sondheim at her house for dinner. She said one night, I'll put you next to Steve and I said, Oh, that'll be nice. Who, Steve, who? And she said, Sondheim. And I said, Oh, my God. I was so nervous. I think I drank too much and became much too chummy.

Speaker 45:01

Vanilla ice cream. Imagine that. Ice cream. And for the first time, we were together without a spec.

Speaker 45:14

He was so friendly, that isn't like him, I'm simply stung. The wonders never cease, the wonders never cease. It's been a most peculiar day.

Presenter5:18

Uh

Presenter5:26

That was Barbara Cooke, your good friend, Andre, singing vanilla ice cream from the musical She Loves Me. Were you inspired then to do the cabaret that you've recently done because of what Barbara Cook told?

Speaker 35:29

Singing vanilla.

Speaker 45:30

Mm-hmm.

Anne Reid5:38

I think

Presenter5:38

I think

Anne Reid5:38

I mean, it's ridiculous. I always liked to sing. I took singing lessons when I was very young.

Anne Reid5:45

and the a German teacher called Mr Kuhn, who said I had a body like a tiger and a voice like a mouse and um and I didn't get very far. And then I went into Coronation Street and I stopped it. And I had a very high voice and I didn't really like sopranos. So when I heard Barbara,

Anne Reid6:03

I thought I'd just want to have singing lessons again.

Presenter6:05

But you waited a long time. It was twenty twelve before you got up professionally and did cabaret. This point in your life, a lot of people find.

Anne Reid6:09

Cabaret.

Presenter6:13

that their confidence ebbs away, the confidence that it takes to get up and do something like cabaret and to say, I'll tell a little story about that. You're shaking your head as though it doesn't take confidence. It must take a whole load of confidence.

Presenter6:26

What can they do to you, Kirsty? They can't shoot you for it.

Anne Reid6:29

Is it nicer to be

Anne Reid6:31

Other people Oh, I love it and I can wear what I like. You see, I don't have to wear all those awful skirts and jumpers. I have a very sparkly dresses.

Presenter6:38

It's something of a travesty that you've been seen in sort of checkered overalls and skirts and jumpers, because you you come in here today but you're very, very beautifully dressed, and I always think when I see you as yourself, you have a great deal of style. Has it annoyed you over the years to be bundled into terrorline trousers and aprons?

Anne Reid6:44

Yeah.

Anne Reid6:52

Oh.

Anne Reid6:56

Yeah.

Anne Reid6:58

And I with it always being below stairs. No, well, you know, I worked. I'm a jobbing actress and so I'm very, very lucky because I just have worked. Yeah. Yeah.

Presenter7:09

Um it was then the elocution lessons that you started with, and that was in an attempt to sort of iron out your. What do you have? A Geordie accent?

Anne Reid7:13

In an attempt to sort of iron out your

Anne Reid7:15

A jo well, kind of.

Anne Reid7:17

Yeah. Northeastern, yes.

Presenter7:19

Yeah.

Anne Reid7:19

Can you do it for us now, Wood?

Anne Reid7:22

No, I don't think I can.

Presenter7:25

Let's have some more music then, Anne Rita. Tell me about your second piece of the morning. Why have you chosen this?

Speaker 47:32

I'm not sure if I can do it.

Anne Reid7:34

If I'm on this desert island, I think it would give me something to do to try and learn to sing like this. This Ella Fitzgerald, I mean, it this is vocal fireworks.

Anne Reid7:47

Every time I hear it, I can't believe it.

Speaker 47:47

Uh

Speaker 47:50

I guess these people wonder what I'm singing. Did you even know nothing? Ever see a dream walking well I did. Biscuit a tasket up my yellow basket Hamilton heat wave, tropical heat wave

Presenter8:18

Have a

Presenter8:20

Uh

Speaker 48:28

I guess I better quit while I'm ahead. With high, high, high, high, high, high, high, high.

Presenter8:38

Ella Fitzgerald and How High the Moon So, Anne Reed, you were born in nineteen thirty five. I was. In Newcastle. You were the fourth child, three boys before you. Yes. Was it a struggle keeping up with your

Anne Reid8:48

Big brothers? Oh, no, I didn't really spend a lot of time with them because when I was born my my father worked for the Newcastle Chronicle. Then we moved quite quickly because nineteen thirty nine the war came, my father went away and um we went to live in Redcar um near my mother and I. My

Presenter9:08

Grandmother. Your father went to work for the Daily Telegraph, and they subsequently sent him to. Was it Delhi, first of all, to be a Middle East correspondent?

Anne Reid9:10

Nice.

Anne Reid9:14

He was a foreign correspondent Middle East and correspondent in the Middle East. Yes, it was his dream job.

Anne Reid9:19

My brothers by this time were all grown up, and, you know, so they had to do something with me, and it it sounds cruel, but I was sent to boarding school, and I actually enjoyed it.

Anne Reid9:30

I accepted it. In those times, you know, you'd been through a war, my brother had been a

Anne Reid9:35

torpedoed twice in a prisoner of war camp and you didn't expect the cosy life that people expected. Now, that's how I remember it.

Presenter9:43

So you were eleven when you were sent to boarding school, and your mother then went out to join my father, yeah. To be wife of

Anne Reid9:45

And your m

Anne Reid9:47

to India to join my father, yeah. To be wife of the father. He was there for partition. And I went to visit them. The first time I went, I went in this plane belonging to a Maharaja, which is really story for another day.

Presenter9:59

No, it isn't. It's definitely a story for now.

Anne Reid10:00

Definitely a story for now. Well, my dad was having a a drink with these in a bar in Bombay with these two RAF pilots, ex-RAF pilots, who are now working for the Maharaja of Bikanier. And they were going to bring a plane from de Havilland's in London, a little six-seater de Havilland Dove, to India. And my dad said, Would you bring my daughter? And the next thing I'm at London Airport with my little suitcase, and my brother sort of handed me over to two strangers and we set off. Well, these boys were joyriding, you know, they'd been in the war.

Anne Reid10:34

It took us seven and a half days to get to India. We just went all over the place. My mother was having a nervous breakdown in Delhi'cause there were no mobile phones. She'd no idea where I was.

Presenter10:43

Were you nervous?

Anne Reid10:45

Oh.

Anne Reid10:47

when we arrived at the Maharaja of Bikaniers in the area and we started whooping and diving and doing victory rolls and I'd never flown before so I th I thought, well, if you go B O A C as it was then, this is this is what happens when you fly.

Presenter10:59

What was the look on your mother's face when she finally came to the city?

Anne Reid11:02

Well, I was then put on a train overnight with a padre to they found somebody on the station in Bikanier to take me down to Delhi. It's all so dangerous, isn't it, really?

Anne Reid11:13

I just accepted it. You know, as a kid, you just accept what life does.

Presenter11:18

What and did you s

Anne Reid11:18

Yeah.

Presenter11:18

B

Anne Reid11:18

Uh

Presenter11:18

During those years at boarding school.

Anne Reid11:20

Well, not a lot really. I saw them every ye every summer, and I went to Tehran, to Beirut, uh to Cyprus to stay with them in the holidays. It was strange existence,'cause I didn't have a home anyway, you see. But I think I was a very tough little girl.

Presenter11:36

Yes, I think you must have been'cause it's rather a sink or swim existence. I mean, for some for some little girls, that would be the most fun they could ever imagine, and for other little girls, they might get a little lost in that set of circumstances.

Anne Reid11:36

Yes, I think you

Anne Reid11:39

Some

Anne Reid11:45

You see, without getting sentimental, I felt very loved. I always felt loved. My parents were the nicest people in the world. My brothers were enormously good fun. They were all newspaper men, and they were oi everybody was always looking for the next feed line to do a joke.

Presenter12:02

Let's have some more music, Henried. It's time for your third piece this morning.

Anne Reid12:02

But that's

Anne Reid12:05

Good morning. Tell me why you've chosen this.

Anne Reid12:08

When I was in Beirut with my parents we used to dance on the roof of the Saint Georges club and there was a big old record player and they used to play French music and this makes me think of the sea and the stars and dancing with my father on the roof.

Speaker 412:26

La May

Speaker 412:30

Convadency.

Speaker 412:32

Le Long, he goes a clay.

Speaker 412:37

Adi Voffellais d'Avason.

Speaker 412:40

Love me.

Speaker 412:43

Levo Le Cham Jones.

Speaker 412:50

La May

Speaker 412:53

Ocean Duty

Speaker 412:55

Oh full.

Speaker 412:57

C'est moteau.

Presenter12:59

Charles Rene and La Mer memories for you, Anne Reed, of dancing with your father in Beirut underneath the stars.

Presenter13:06

Didn't you ever wonder and I think given the circumstances, to me it seems entirely um understandable but as a little girl, didn't you ever wonder why is mummy all those thousands of miles away and I'm here on my own?

Anne Reid13:19

No, I never felt on my own.

Anne Reid13:22

But I think it stood me in quite good stead. I think this is really why, if you want honestly, I've never remarried. I think basically I'm a loner.

Anne Reid13:31

I'm quite surprised I ever got married in the first place, but I think I am, really basically, a loner, and I think that comes from my childhood. You know, we didn't analyse things then people didn't analyse themselves. It's only now. I think why am I like this?

Presenter13:48

Do you like then the temporary nature, as is so often the case of acting, of acting jobs? You know, you pitch up, you get on with people, then you pack everything in your trunk, either mentally or physically, and you move on?

Anne Reid13:59

I love meeting lots of different people and I love the fun of not knowing who you're going to be with in six months' time. I hate the idea of knowing where I'll be in a year. And I I think acting becomes an addiction. Having said I really didn't want to do it, once you've done it, it's like alcohol. You think, Oh my gosh, I really need more. Me then About Miss Beardsworth, who I've read about. This this uh she she taught you elocution.

Anne Reid14:24

Yes, I've never

Presenter14:25

I've never been asked about Monica Beardsworth. How funny. And so she said, This girl can do it, you know. When I'm teaching her elocution, she's not just enunciating perfectly, but she's making sense of what it is she's reading. No, I actually failed the elocution.

Anne Reid14:39

But she

Presenter14:39

Example.

Anne Reid14:41

I used to have to learn plays, bits and pieces from plays. And I remember another girl at school saying, I'm going to be an actress when I grow up and I thought, well, I could act you off the stage, darling. I remember the first time I remember, I thought, well, she's not terribly good but it never occurred to me that you could make a living at it.

Presenter14:59

So you got in age just sixteen to Rada. How was that? How did it go? Sixteen's very young.

Anne Reid15:03

Yeah, I was so naïve. I was playing parts I really didn't understand at all.

Presenter15:05

That was play.

Anne Reid15:09

I think it was a bit wasted on me, actually. They were very sophisticated. I remember doing the cocktail party and trying to look sophisticated with a long cigarette holder and all that, and I didn't know what I was doing at all.

Anne Reid15:21

Um did you enjoy it?

Anne Reid15:23

Oh yes, it was great fun. I actually won the bronze medal at Rada.

Anne Reid15:28

Then I went to my little bed sitting room in South London and thought, Well, what am I supposed to do? And I didn't know what an agent did, really. I hadn't a clue, and it was only a teacher.

Anne Reid15:38

Edward Burnham, who rang me up and said, What like seven months later and said, What are you doing? and I said, Nothing and he said, Well, they're looking for a stage manager at Bath. So I was a stage manager for about

Presenter15:50

Who is let's take a break for some music, Anne-Reed. It's time now for your fourth choice of the morning. Tell me about this.

Presenter15:56

O

Anne Reid15:56

Well, I'm a huge Bill Evans fan. In two bars I know it's Bill Evans. I just think he's the best.

Presenter17:10

That was Bill Evans and Lucky to Be Me. So, Anne-Reid, after you did graduate from Radha and you went to the Bed Sit and you spent some time being a stage manager, there were then stints on The Benny Hill Show, on Hancock's Half Hour. You moved to Manchester in 1961 and there you started playing Albert Tatlock's niece, no less, in Coronation Street. And you were in that role for about nine years you were on Coronation Street. It's important to contextualise just how popular Coronation Street was at the time. I've read that your funeral as a character after nine years was watched by over 18 million viewers. Now, nine years is a long time to do any single job. Why did you stay that long? Uh

Anne Reid17:49

I didn't think I'd ever get employed again, I think.

Anne Reid17:53

It's quite scary and the money was nice. You know, you get awfully cosy in a soap.

Presenter17:58

It was while you were working at the soap, was it, that you met the man who would become your husband? How did you meet?

Presenter18:04

He produced the s

Anne Reid18:04

series. He said he produced it'cause he wanted to get to know me.

Anne Reid18:08

I don't believe that.

Anne Reid18:10

And did you strike up a romance as you talked about work? I mean, he said that No, he chased me for two years. Did he? Yes, and I didn't fancy him at all. Then one day I suddenly thought, Oh, actually, I rather fancy you.

Presenter18:22

There was a touch of the Eric Morecombe's about him, I read. Is that right? He looked funny. He was the funniest.

Anne Reid18:25

He was the funniest man.

Presenter18:27

Was it

Anne Reid18:27

The cleverest man and the funniest man in the world, and he was ev the person everybody wanted to sit next to at dinner. Yes. I never lost the excitement of going to meet him. No, never lost that. He was difficult, he was very volatile, but then the most interesting people often are.

Presenter18:51

How are you? You don't strike me as a volatile person. Were you the peacemaker?

Anne Reid18:53

No, no, no.

Anne Reid18:56

Yes. I'm a bit sleepy. I mean, I can always go to sleep.

Anne Reid19:01

I have flown off the handle a couple of times in the make up rooms of television when I haven't liked what they've done to me, but I don't think apart from that. No, I'm not. I'll walk away from a problem rather than but we were that was quite a good match, you see.

Presenter19:15

And the problem you did have was that

Presenter19:17

I mean, not not soon into your marriage, but in the early years of your marriage he did become quite seriously ill. Oh, yes.

Anne Reid19:22

Oh yes. When Mark my little boy was two, our little boy was two uh Peter suddenly started to be ill. So it was really all through Mark's childhood, and then he died when Mark was nine. And he was only forty five.

Anne Reid19:36

Yeah, so young, so

Presenter19:37

Yeah.

Presenter19:38

Oh young. And so that period when you you decided you weren't going to work at all.

Presenter19:44

And that you were going to care for your husband, who was very ill and

Anne Reid19:46

Yes, it wasn't just that. I mean, my dad had died and mummy came to stay with us quite she had Parkinson's disease. There was too much going on in my life, and I can't tell you that I sat and thought, why am I not acting? I didn't.

Presenter20:00

It sounds like a very tumultuous period to have one of your parents ill, to have your husband intermittently ill, and to have a tiny child.

Anne Reid20:06

I think from a career point of view it was not good, because it was my it was my forties, you see. He died when I was forty five and he was forty five, and from those sort of ten years are quite important in an actor's life, I think thirty five to forty.

Presenter20:23

And what about not from a career point of view, what about from a person point of view? What was the impact on you of all of that?

Anne Reid20:29

It was very, very difficult.

Anne Reid20:31

I don't want to be gloomy about it, but one day I was in the

Anne Reid20:35

I was in the garden and I was crying in the hedge. I don't know whether I should tell this really. But and the lady came up in the next house and said, Anne, you can't be a good mother and a good daughter and a good wife all at the same time. It's and I I did feel stretched very thin, you know.

Anne Reid20:52

I don't want to be self-pitying at all,'cause I've I'm so lucky I've had the most wonderful life.

Presenter20:56

Yes, there's not even a thread of self-pity in anything you've said. Um I'm going to ask you then for your next uh

Anne Reid20:58

Yeah.

Presenter21:02

Piece of music, tell me what we're going to hear now.

Anne Reid21:04

A musical arranger in America called Larry sent loads of Broadway overtures to me, and it always I play them and it always gets me going in the day. Now I've never seen the bells are ringing, but I love the overture.

Presenter21:53

That was part of the overture from bells are ringing. And you had that time, as we know, when your husband was ill and died in his forties, and you were bringing up your son, and you took a

Presenter22:03

A big step back fr from any sort of career at all. When you started again, even though you'd been rada trained and been on Corrie for nine years, were you sort of starting from Year Zero?

Anne Reid22:12

I went to the I got the part of the um mother in Billy Liar at the Octagon Bolton.

Presenter22:13

I went.

Anne Reid22:20

And that night I walked it was in the round, it looked like the Albert Hall, it was a little theatre, and I walked out there and

Anne Reid22:29

I said to the director afterwards, I felt like a little bull going into a bull ring. I thought the chances of coming out alive tonight are very small indeed. I was so I couldn't speak. You know, I just was so frightened, but I got through it. That was the beginning of I thought I ca I've got to act, what else can I do? you know.

Presenter22:49

So, Anne Reed, as we know it was two thousand and three, then, that saw you take the part of May in The Mother. You said at the time that you were worried that the sex scenes between you and Daniel Craig would look like Tom Cruise and Thora Hurd.

Presenter23:04

They didn't.

Anne Reid23:04

I did. I said that to Daniel when we got into bed. I mean, I still can't believe I really did that.

Anne Reid23:11

But when I went for the interview I never thought for a minute that I would get it.

Anne Reid23:16

And then um

Presenter23:18

And Daniel Craig had been cast by this point, had he?

Anne Reid23:20

Oh, no, no, no. I got the part, and then they said, Do you know Daniel Craig? and I said no and I rang a friend of mine, Susannah up, and I said, Have you heard of an actor called Daniel Craig? and I heard her faint at the end of the phone, and I thought, Oh, he sounds like good news.

Presenter23:35

Yes, of because of course it was pre-double O Seven days, but Daniel Craig had a a a very good pedigree and was known as as not just a terrific actor, but a terrific looking actor.

Anne Reid23:36

Yeah.

Anne Reid23:44

Yes, he'd done um Our Friends in the North, which I hadn't seen, so I d really didn't know, and then they sent me a a D V D,'cause I said I've got to get on with the person.

Presenter23:46

What was

Anne Reid23:55

Normally I would never dream of saying that, but with this particular part of it's got s be somebody that I fancy, frankly.

Presenter24:01

Yeah, so that was my next question, obviously.

Anne Reid24:02

My next question. Obviously, you anticipated it. Well, everybody fancies Daniel Craig. So I looked at this movie that they sent me and within sort of like thirty seconds, I was on the phone saying, for God's sake, get him. He's wonderful.

Presenter24:17

Most women in their sixties would balk at wearing a bikini on the beach, never mind taking off their clothes and getting into bed with a very young man. Did you know? How does it go it's difficult for any of us mortals to imagine what that's actually like?

Anne Reid24:22

I didn't like it.

Anne Reid24:27

Well that's actually like I know the night.

Presenter24:29

Before Yeah.

Anne Reid24:31

I had a lot of drink on my own in the flat, and I stripped and I stood in front of a mirror and thought to morrow I'm going to have to show this and I started to cry.

Anne Reid24:45

And I thought, Oh, my God, I can't do this and so I rang my son, and I was weeping, and he said, Look, mum, it's a great part. You know, if you're inhibited, it's not going to work. Just go for it. And I sort of managed to pull myself together, but it was scary.

Presenter25:00

Let's have your next piece of music, Anne-Brit. We are on your sixth piece of the morning. Tell me about this.

Anne Reid25:07

Yeah.

Presenter25:07

Oh

Anne Reid25:07

Oh, this again is Barbara she keeps coming up in my life when I was in New York.

Anne Reid25:12

She said, You have to come and hear this amazing

Anne Reid25:15

a trumpet player called Chris Botey, he's at the Blue Note, and she took me and I was never into trumpets, but I love this so much I play it over and over and over again.

Presenter25:52

That was Chris Botey playing Deborah's theme from the film Once Upon a Time in America.

Presenter25:56

So, Anne reads, um, let's talk then about life after the mother, because you did say at the time that it sort of changed your life forever. Do you think you mean that in career terms? People saw you different.

Anne Reid26:06

You know, most of the time I get sent scripts now, and that took a long time to get there.

Presenter26:12

I said back at the beginning when we began speaking today that you know you've had a career that's the wrong way round, and you said the smart thing, which was actually it's been the right way round, which is the degree of of notoriety and the demands that are made on you have increased as you've gotten older and presumably as you felt

Anne Reid26:21

Which is

Presenter26:30

More and more equipped to deal with them.

Anne Reid26:32

Yeah, the sad thing is that I'm now too old to play the parts that I would love to have played Beatrice and Much Ado, musicals I'd love to have done Pal Joey.

Presenter26:39

Hmm.

Anne Reid26:42

That's what I'd really love to have done, but hey, you can't have everything.

Presenter26:46

Last Tango in Halifax, as we've mentioned, it's been very popular in its third series. Do you think that programmes like it, or indeed it itself, manage

Anne Reid26:50

Series

Presenter26:55

To just move things on, manages to stop us all thinking of old people in a certain way. I hope so.

Anne Reid27:01

Yeah.

Anne Reid27:02

You know what the problem is, it's the writers. They've never been seventy.

Anne Reid27:07

So they can't write from something they've experienced. They just look at people and they decide that's what you are. I mean, we may look old, but in our heads we're not.

Anne Reid27:19

I like the idea of being you know those old Broadway divas who go on forever.

Presenter27:24

Yeah.

Anne Reid27:25

Kitty Carlyle and people like that went on working till they were ninety-seven, and that's what I want to do, please God.

Presenter27:31

What about the subject of love then in your later years? You've been single, widowed for a very, very long time.

Anne Reid27:36

I know, I have, and I think people think it's strange, but I've just sort of

Anne Reid27:40

Gone for my career and I had my son and

Anne Reid27:43

Now I have my grandchildren, Alex and and Laurence, yes, who are the lights of my life yes.

Presenter27:48

I think

Anne Reid27:51

Their mother, my son's partner, Sarah, is the nicest person in the world, so it's a very happy situation.

Anne Reid27:58

No, I never thought of getting married again. I'm quite difficult to live with, I think.

Presenter28:03

Why are you?

Anne Reid28:04

Well,'cause I like waking up in the morning and thinking, Hm, if I've got the money, I might go to Paris or I might go to New York and

Anne Reid28:12

And I don't want to ask somebody else if they'd mind or if they want to come.

Anne Reid28:18

Yes, I'm quite a difficult woman, actually.

Presenter28:21

I realize that. I'm glad we've cleared that up, Emreet. Time for some music then. Tell me about this seventh piece. What disc is this, and why have you chosen it?

Anne Reid28:23

Glad we've cleared down South Africa.

Anne Reid28:30

I was actually listening to a B B C programme of Alan Titchmarsh, and this music came on. I was living in Manchester. I was actually dusting the bedroom, and I suddenly heard this glorious music.

Anne Reid28:46

It's Pat Mutheny playing Always and Forever, which I think he wrote for his parents.

Anne Reid28:51

And I said to my son, he'll hate me saying this, but this guitar seems to talk, and it's like saying I love you and thank you and it's just been wonderful having you for my son.

Presenter29:26

That was Pat Mathini with Always and Forever and as you said, you were dusting the bedroom when you first heard that and you have Alan Titchmarsh to thank.

Presenter29:34

The self-containment that you describe about yourself then do you need to spend time alone? Are you somebody who needs to retreat?

Anne Reid29:40

Yes, I love parties. I love

Anne Reid29:44

going out and about and meeting and having dinner parties, but I need to shut the door and I sometimes I write in my diary, I spent the day all alone. It was wonderful.

Presenter29:54

Huh.

Anne Reid29:54

Yeah.

Presenter29:55

No, I like that. And therefore, this uh desert island, the idea of spending hours and days and maybe even weeks and months alone, what sort of what does that fill you with?

Anne Reid30:04

I don't think I'd survive, darling,'cause I'm no good in a kitchen. I'm no good in a fully equipped kitchen. You're convincing in a fully equipped kitchen,'cause I've seen you in upstairs and downstairs in a fully straightforward staircase. I know it's all to do with the way you stand with when you're holding a pan.

Presenter30:13

I don't see it in a function.

Anne Reid30:18

Is it? I don't know. But what would I eat? There's no way I would I've I've been thinking I would do a bit of skinny dipping, that would be quite nice, and then I'd just go to sleep on the beach and hope that somebody would pass by in a boat. Tough luck.

Anne Reid30:34

Yes, I don't think I'd survive very long. And I'd dance to La Mer. I I would hope I I might meet a monkey on your magic island who could jive. That would be nice.

Presenter30:43

Let's have your final piece of music, Henry. Tell me about this then, your eighth.

Presenter30:47

What are we going to hear?

Anne Reid30:48

Well again, this is Barbara.

Anne Reid30:51

When I was in New York a few years ago, this CD came out and she said, I want you to hear this, and she stood in front of me and mouthed the words.

Anne Reid30:59

I can see her standing there now with her hands in her pockets swinging about. I said to her recently, I said, Barbara, I find it really hard to talk about you without sounding as if I'm in love with you. And she said, You mean you're not? And I said, No, no, not actually.

Speaker 331:13

From now on this pile of flesh Shall be considered something pretty special And Miss B L T Down is the toast of the town.

Anne Reid31:20

Uh

Presenter31:20

When

Speaker 331:24

Mary and Joseph, what happened to Mabel? Every gesture and position that she takes is smart and meticulous. Talk about the magic that the camera makes. But this is ridiculous.

Presenter31:38

This

Presenter31:40

That was from the musical Mac and Mabel. Look what happened to Mabel and that was your friend Barbara Cook singing there, Anne Reed. Um it's time for me to give you the books. You get to take to this island the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare and then you get to take a book of your own along with them. What will you take?

Anne Reid31:54

I don't know whether I'm allowed this.

Anne Reid31:57

Because it goes with my luxury.

Anne Reid32:01

But I want the complete works of Georgian Ira Gershwin, which is a music book.

Presenter32:08

Yes, absolutely. You can have that.

Anne Reid32:09

Bye.

Presenter32:10

Yeah.

Anne Reid32:10

Good. Thank you.

Presenter32:10

Good.

Anne Reid32:11

So your luxury? My luxury is a piano. You see, and then I could sit there and I could learn the songs. I could learn to play them. I might learn to play Rhapsody in Blue. And if you were to save just one discount, which one would it be?

Presenter32:23

Which one

Anne Reid32:24

Well, I suppose it ought to be Barbara, but I

Anne Reid32:28

I am going to go for Bill Evans. Lucky to be me. Yes.

Presenter32:32

It's yours. Anne-Reed, thank you very much for letting us hear your desert island discs. Oh, thank you.

Presenter33:17

You've been listening to a download from the BBC. You'll find more information on the Radio 4 website: bbc.co.uk slash Radio4.