Sir Alec Rose

Sir Alec Rose0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Disc's archive. For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen sixty nine.

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Each week, a well-known person is asked the question, if you were to be cast away alone on a desert island, which eight gramophone records would you choose to have with you?

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As usual, the castaway is introduced by Roy Plumley.

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Uh

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Uh

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Okay.

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Boom.

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Cast away this week, ladies and gentlemen, is a great sailor.

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Last year he sailed alone round the world in his 36-foot cutter Lively Lady, its Sir Alec Rose.

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So Eric, did you listen to music during your voyage?

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Quite a lot, yes. I was able to pick up the BBC overseas service quite regularly. Yes. During how much of the 354 days of the voyage could you get reasonable reception?

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Oh, except for all the the far south round Cape Horn, where I suspect the mountains of South America

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Cut the uh reception.

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I picked them up very well.

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From practical experience, what sort of music meant most in isolation?

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Well the good music, the the semi-classical, the stuff with a little bit of life in it.

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What's the first one you chose?

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Uh

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Well, it's the song O Peaceful England from Merry England.

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I want

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Beep beep.

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Oh my god.

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Monica Sinclair singing O Peaceful England from Edward German's Merry England. What's your second record?

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The eighteen twelve overture by Tchaikovsky.

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And uh

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I like this, it's soul-stirring.

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The closing passage of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture, Sir Adrian Bolt conducting the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

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So Alec, what part of England do you come from?

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I was born in Canterbury in Kent.

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When did you get this fascination for the sea?

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Uh

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Well, I've had it from a very small boy. I've always read all the old sea stories of the old square riggers.

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with their runs round Cape Horn.

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And uh that inspired me and taunted me and forced me in the end to sail to

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Okay, Paul. What was your first job when you left school?

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Oh, I was in an insurance broker's office in Canterbury.

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How long did that last?

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Well, a couple of years, but uh I I

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Felt the urge for more.

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Adventurous

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Outdoor life. You had a year in Canada, didn't you? Yeah.

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Doing what?

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Farming, I was rounding up the cattle and uh ploughing and sowing and reaping. And when you came back?

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When I came back I joined my father in his business as a haulage contractor.

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And then you bought a small farm yourself? Yes.

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Yes, uh just before the war we took a small holding.

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And during the war? When I was at sea, I volunteered for the

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Royal Navy. And you saw a lot of action.

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Yes, quite a bit in the North uh Atlantic in convoys.

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Were you in big ships or small ships? No, small ships.

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And you finished up as lieutenant, RNVR? Then what? Back to the farm? Yes, yes. I I was back uh to uh a small holding and uh

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A fruit farm we had.

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Had you started sailing yet?

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Uh no.

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What was your first crab?

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So I bought a

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Ship's lifeboat

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and I converted her into a nice little cake.

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put another uh false keel on her and uh

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built the topsides up and made a a very comfortable

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Seaworthy boat. How long did that take you? It took me five years. What was the furthest you went in her?

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Oh, I sailed to the continent. I sailed round Holland and down across the Bay of Bisco to Spain and ran all round the west coast of England.

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And this gave you the idea of a really long trip.

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Yes, well

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The nineteen sixty four single-handed transatlantic race came along and uh

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I was determined to have a go, but I realised that my lifeboat conversion wasn't a suitable craft for that job, and so I sold her.

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Not without shedding a few tears, I might say, because

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A lot of my blood and sweat had gone into.

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Converting a

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I sold her and and I I found a lively lady in Yarmouth in the Isle of Wight and uh she was uh

Sir Alec Rose6:50

Yeah.

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The lovely

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Looking boat.

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And you entered for the single-handed transatlantic race in 1964. You did pretty well, too, didn't you? Well, yes, I finished four.

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In thirty-six days. Yeah.

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And you also sailed back alone? Yes, oh yes, I completed the round journey alone. That was just to celebrate coming back. Yes.

Sir Alec Rose7:11

Yeah.

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Yeah.

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It was a pretty rough passage though coming back.

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Now what's your third record? Well, it's a song from Bless the Bride, This Is My Lovely Day.

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Remember too that this was our long day.

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This Is My Lovely Day sung by Elizabeth Webb and Georges Guettari.

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You were fourth in the

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Single-handed transatlantic race, was the ambition to go right round the world already nagging? Oh yes.

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You had a false start, first of all, didn't you? Yes, in 1966 I started with the...

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It was the idea of sailing along with Sir Francis Chugester when he started.

Sir Alec Rose8:21

My dear

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But uh

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Although I knew I couldn't match him for speed.

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I thought it'd just be nice to go along.

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Yeah.

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But uh I had uh a mishap in the channel while I was becalmed a big ship

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Hit me.

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and damaged me so much that I was forced into Plymouth.

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Where uh

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The repairs took so long.

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Uh the term

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It was too late for me to leave England to get round Cape Horn.

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So you'll set sail again the next year? Yes, I had to winter in England and uh

Sir Alec Rose8:59

Go ahead.

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and prepare to start again in nineteen sixty seven. July the sixteenth, first stop Melbourne, going eastward. Yes. It was tremendous welcome at Melbourne where I met my

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Son, who I hadn't seen for seven years,

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and uh my daughter-in-law who

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I'd never met and my two grandsons and uh

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We had a very pleasant Christmas and the people there were tremendous.

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refitted the boat, painted her and

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Re-rigged uh the backstays that I'd broken on the way over and uh

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All that uh

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No cost to me at all.

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Then you had an unscheduled stop in New Zealand. Yes, after I got away from Australia, I was heading south.

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uh to to pass south of uh New Zealand.

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on the way to Cape Horn when I had a

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Further piece of uh trouble with the topmast fitting broke.

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And uh

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I was forced into bluff in southern New Zealand to

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Get the repairs done.

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Well the worst part of the voyage was still to come round Cape Horn. Was it worse than you'd expected? It wasn't worse because I'd always visualised the worst that could happen with the yacht being rolled over and whatnot. Were there many occasions when you thought she was going right over?

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Well, there were once or twice, uh when uh

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She was laid well down on her beam ends and I wondered if she was coming back again. It was jolly uncomfortable.

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But uh she always picked herself up and the further I went the more confidence I got in the yacht. Yes.

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Then after Cape Horn, the longest stretch of all, eight and a half thousand miles of the South Atlantic,

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This was when millions of people got very worried about you. You've disappeared. Well, uh, so I believe. Uh.

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Of course I uh the trouble is I was becalmed. I was in a a belt of calms just

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south and west of the Azores. And uh

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I was just going around in circles there for

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Couple of weeks. Yes. Altogether you were out of radio contact for what, about two months?

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Over two months, yeah.

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And I should think you from where you were you could have heard that sigh of relief that went up.

Sir Alec Rose11:30

My

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Yeah.

Sir Alec Rose11:30

Yeah.

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Then we heard that you were all right. Well, yes, it was a wonderful feeling.

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And from then on

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Well, it was plain sailing until that tremendous welcome at Portsmouth.

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You were ushered up the channel by the Royal Navy, weren't you? Yes, they they uh sent a minesweeper to meet me off uh the Sullies and uh they escorted me up the Channel and

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Took care of me all the way. And having had no one to talk to for all those months, all of a sudden there were 250,000 people to receive you. That's right.

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Let's have your fourth record.

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Well, it's um it's green sleeves.

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Green Sleeves by The Mellocrino Orchestra.

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Managing lively lady and looking after yourself was a full day's work, wasn't it? Oh yes, uh people say uh

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What did you do with yourself all day? But believe me, there's uh

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There's hardly a spare moment. In fact, at one time I wrote in my log

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I haven't sat down all day, rather like the housewife at home. How did you occupy yourself during very rough weather when you could only batten down hatches and stay below?

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Oh, well, I'd uh write the log up.

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I'd cook myself a good meal.

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And turn in. That was the only thing to do. The noise must be terrific.

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Yes, uh it's called the Roaring Forties down there and uh

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They they really do roar and whine even when the wind is moderately light.

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There's still this wine through the rigging and it's soul-destroying, this wine, constant wine, it gets on one's nerves.

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Do you want to do another long trip?

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Not at the moment, no. I've done what I set out to do. You have virtually a new career now in the limelight, lecturing, writing, promoting sales of your excellent book. Do you enjoy this public life?

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Yes oh yes, I I quite enjoy it.

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I like meeting people. People think because you sail alone that you're an odd character. But you're not at all. I love parties. I love meeting people.

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You're still running your fruit risk business in Portsmouth? Oh, yes. Yes.

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At least uh my wife is

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Let's have record number five.

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Number five, yes, well um

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It's Louis Armstrong singing What a Wonderful World.

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He was top of the uh pulp.

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when uh I was on my uh way back home and uh

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I used to listen to this. I rather took a liking to it, because it's my sentiments, really.

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Seed trees of green.

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Richard Ruth is Jew

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I see them blue

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Fine you

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And I think to myself

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What a one

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What a Wonderful World by Louis Armstrong. What next?

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Well, it's Jerusalem.

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Why do you choose that?

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This is

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A stirring piece of music.

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which gives a country, English country scene which to me is very lovely.

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Jerusalem by the Royal Choral Society and the New Philharmonia Orchestra.

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So Alec, I don't have to ask you the usual questions about how resourcefully you'd manage on a desert island, nor about how you could stand loneliness because you stood it. During how much of the voyage was there any other life at all, seabirds, porpoises, anything?

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Oh, for a great deal of the voyage down through the North Atlantic and over the equator there was

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Plenty of dolphins and uh

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A number of

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Seabirds.

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One time a great school of whales came right uh before me on the beam and I I had

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Visions of them.

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hitting the yacht, but they dived at the right time and went under.

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But even down the cold southern ocean, there's always the albatross there.

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Always. Yes.

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And uh

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They're thousands of miles from any land and they uh

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I don't know what they live on. They don't seem to be interested in any scraps I threw over the side.

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You had your mascot, Algie, the toy white rabbit. Did you talk to him a lot?

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Oh yes, we had

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long chats together and uh

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I'd ask his advice and he'd he'd always uh

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come up with the same advice as I gave myself.

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Let's have record number seven now. What next? Yes, uh symphony.

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I've chosen Beethoven's pastoral.

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A section from Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony.

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The Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Otto Klemperer.

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Now we come to your last record through Alec. What's that?

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Well, I've not been a very good church goer, but being at sea brings one near

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to God, I think, and on a desert island I should feel

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that I wanted to pray.

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And so I've chosen the Lord's Prayer, the sung version by the Eric Rogers Chorale and Orchestra.

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Mallot Setting of The Lord's Prayer by the Eric Rogers Chorale and Orchestra.

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So Alec, if you could take just one record out of the eight you've chosen, which would it be?

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I think it'd have to be the last one, the Lord's Prayer.

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And one luxury to take to the island with you.

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How about uh

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Transistor radios that with the

Sir Alec Rose21:31

John

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Um

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good supply of batteries that I could uh listen to the news and

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I feel rather thankful I was in the desert island.

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And one book.

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Apart from the Bible and Shakespeare.

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The biggest edition of the history of England.

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A good long history of England. Yes. Write.

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And thank you, Sir Alec Rose, for letting us hear your Desert Island discs. Oh, it's a great pleasure. Thank you. Goodbye, everyone.

Sir Alec Rose22:09

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Islandists Archive. For more podcasts please visit bbc.co.uk/slash radio form.

Presenter22:21

The guest in this evening's programme, first broadcast on Monday, was Sir Alec Rose. The interviewer was Roy Plumley and the producer, Ronald Cole.