Helen Browning

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.

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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 Chief Executive of the Soil Association, Helen Browning.

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A farmer and campaigner, the journey food makes from the land to the plate has been central to her life and work. She was, as they say, ahead of the curve. Thirty years ago, you would have found her in the fields newly preoccupied by crop rotation, compost, manure, and clover, or at the farm gate trying to flog her organically reared meat to passers-by. She is by no means the first pioneering woman in her family. She was inspired at an early age by her five great aunts, who all, after the First World War, remained unmarried and running a farm together, making delicious salty yellow butter and enjoying a regular sniffer or two of whiskey at the end of a hard day. One can only think that they'd raise a glass to their great nieces' achievements, as well as leading the Soil Association for the last five years. She's chair of the Food Ethics Council, runs a 1400-acre farm, her own meat business, and the local pub to boot. She says, One of the ways I measure success in the farming business is how many livelihoods it sustains. How much vitality can you create from a place? Well, for me, complexity is what one needs in life, and I'm sure we'll explore that complexity in farming a little bit later on, Ellen Browning. I read that you say that when you're on the farm, it inspires you. That's interesting. How does it inspire you? Oh, it does completely. I think everything that I've done in life and that I do in life is really about the farm and the countryside. When I'm outside, when I'm walking the farm, that's when I feel really me. The wildlife, the animals, the sense of stewardship, the privilege actually of being able to be outside and in nature. It's mixed farming that you do, so there's arable and there's dairy and there are your beloved pigs too. Do any of them take priority? Is there one that you prefer above the others? Well, I guess the biggest contribution I've made has been developing organic pig systems, a system which allows our pigs to have a really good life. So I do feel particularly attached to my pigs because they are such an abused animal in this world. They are often incarcerated. Very few pigs get the chance to feel the sun on their backs. So for me, my saddlebacks are very precious. What do they look like?

Speaker 12:55

What do

Presenter2:57

They're black pigs with a white stripe on their shoulders. They were a sort of endangered breed when we took them on nearly 30 years ago. There's a few more around now. But they're great mums. They taste fantastic. They love living outside. And we cross them with a large white so that we don't get too much fat because actually people don't want too much fat on their meat. So they're lovely black and white pigs. You work then full time really in your role as Chief Executive of the Soil Association?

Speaker 12:59

Boydesh

Presenter3:23

If you could just say to people, this one thing is important about farming and important about what we do at the Soil Association, what would that one thing be above all others? Well, I guess it's basically about helping people farm better and eat better. I mean, you know, that's a big subject. But we need to keep treading more lightly. Farming is a very disruptive thing to do to the environment. I mean, whenever we start farming, from the time humanity started farming, we've disrupted the environment, we've squeezed out nature. The Soil Association's job and organic farming's role is to try and make more space for nature and enable farm animals and wildlife and people to thrive while we farm. So, a businesswoman, a campaigner, a farmer, when I was thinking about how I would introduce you today, I sort of wondered what order to put any of those things in. Which one are you first and foremost? I'm always a farmer, first and foremost. I thought you might say that. Right, it's time for the music then, Helen Browning. First of all, we're going to hear what.

Speaker 13:40

Uh

Helen Browning3:40

Yeah.

Speaker 13:40

Top.

Presenter4:19

We're going to hear Buddy Holly.

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I used to go and stay with a wonderful family on the Salisbury Plain, where we used to be rounding up cattle with horses at dawn, and Joanna introduced me to Buddy Holly, and it was the start of my musical life.

Helen Browning4:33

Well, that'll be the day when you say goodbye, yes, that'll be the day When you make me cry, you say you gonna leave You know it's a lie cause that'll be the day When I die, well you give me all your love and your hurt and love it All your hugs and kisses and your money to hell You know you love me baby Still you tell me maybe that someday we'll all do well

Presenter5:09

That'll be the day, Buddy Holly. So tell me, Helen Browning, about Millie, Molly, Cora, Nora and Nina. They were. They were the five aunts. They were the five aunts. Tell me more about them. They sound intriguing. They were amazing women. They lived over on the Morvern Hills and farmed there. They had a wonderful independent life. They were so full of optimism and vibrancy. And I admired the life they were living and the independence that they had. I looked around and saw a lot of women, particularly on farms, still not really having much of a role or not being acknowledged for having much of a role. And I knew I wanted to have that sort of independence in my life and that ability to forge my own way.

Helen Browning5:14

They were.

Speaker 15:14

They were the firearms.

Speaker 15:16

Uh

Helen Browning5:16

Tell me more about them.

Presenter5:48

They were spirited and they were delightful. This beautiful yellow salty butter that they were making, that really sort of fired up my imagination. I mean, were they farming organically then? Would they have been making technically organic butter? Well, I guess they weren't using many chemicals, but they would be farming in a mixed way, which is the fundamentals of organic farming, you know, they're with livestock and crops. And so, at home, then you were brought up on a farm. Your father was a tenant farmer, and both your mother and father had been married before. They had a son each, and then they went on to have three daughters together. That sounds very busy. Was it a very busy house? It was a busy house. Yeah, there's five of us around, although my eldest brother, Ken, was 16 years older than me, so he wasn't around much as we were growing up.

Speaker 15:59

Technically organic butter.

Speaker 16:19

Uh

Helen Browning6:19

Yeah.

Speaker 16:20

Uh

Presenter6:33

And your mother then, who had been a nurse, did she then occupy the classic sort of farmer's wife role most of the time? No, actually. My mother was really not a typical farmer's wife. She was not that interested in the farming. She liked to paint. She led her own artistic life and her own life with her friends and was very much in the house in terms of cooking and caring, but wasn't really engaged with the farm at all. And actually was quite nervous when I decided that I wanted to go farming. She didn't seem that ladylike to her. As a little girl then, when your father was out on the farm, were you always compelled to be out there with him, sort of watching him and seeing what you were doing? Yes, I was tagging along behind him and behind my brother. I mean I was either ill actually, because I was a terribly sickly child, so I was either in bed with asthma or I was tagging round the farm with dad or going to market. All I wanted to do was be outside, either on the farm or doing other things, walking and ferreting and all sorts of stuff.

Speaker 17:09

Yeah.

Presenter7:29

More of that in a minute. For now, Helen, let's have some more music. Tell me about this. What are we going to hear next?

Speaker 17:30

Yeah.

Presenter7:34

This is a tango. This is a Gotan project. I've been so lucky in my life that my interest in farming and organic farming seems to have led me to go to loads of different places. I've been lucky enough to be asked to go and speak in Japan and to go to Canada and New Zealand. And one of the great trips was to Argentina. I went out there with my partner, Tim Finney, and we had a trip to go and look at beef farming and look at the beef industry in Argentina. Along the way, we spent some time in Buenos Aires and we went to tango clubs late at night. And the tango is such an amazing dance. And did you have a ghoul? Did you have a dance? Well, I'm not really there. I wouldn't have dreamt of trying to get onto the floor, but it's something I've always wanted to do. And so when we finally have some time on our hands, which might be about another 20 years at this rate, I would love to do a proper tango with Finney.

Speaker 18:13

The

Helen Browning8:13

Did you tell I don't

Speaker 18:30

Si des aparisio.

Speaker 18:35

El mía baresera.

Speaker 18:41

Murio

Speaker 18:46

Pero renacera.

Presenter9:01

That was the Gotan Project and Epoca, and memories for you, Helen Browning, of being with your partner Tim in well, they sound fabulous, those tango clubs in Argentina. Tell me then about being you see, you were quite a sickly child. I was. I was very asthmatic as a child, and I got hay fever and eczema and all these things. So I did miss a lot of school in my early years. I grew out of it, I suppose. When I was about eight or ten, I started to become a lot healthier again. But it was a sort of very split childhood and gave me a lot of time to think in a funny sort of way. I read very widely and I just had a chance to contemplate in a way that I don't think I would have done if I'd just been the outdoors kid. What were you thinking about?

Presenter9:46

Everything. All the big questions. I I'm very aware that before I was ten, those big questions of what are we here for? What's it all about? were really live in me and I spent a lot of time grappling with that. When did you know that you wanted to be a farmer?

Presenter10:03

Really early. I would have said by the age of eight or so, I have this vivid memory of saying to my father, aged about eight, you know, Daddy, when I grow up I want to farm, and him slightly saying, Well, look, you know, we could find a few sheep and you could do something. And I just thought, no, I want to farm properly. You know, I really wanted to do it and to make a life farming.

Speaker 110:06

Yeah.

Helen Browning10:20

Yeah.

Presenter10:25

And you just briefly mentioned before that last piece of music that your mother, when you first expressed that interest in farming, your mother, the lady painter, the artistic person

Speaker 110:32

Yeah.

Presenter10:33

Rather raised an eyebrow at that. Did you say you she didn't think it was ladylike or? Well, I don't know that she felt it was the right thing for a girl to be doing. I think she felt I had opportunities to maybe write or a more literary career or something. I think she had a different view of what I might

Speaker 110:34

Uh

Presenter10:52

Be able to do, and farming wasn't her world. And so, yes, I did pull back quite hard from that and sort of, you know, no, I've this is what I want to do. And so you went to the village school, and then after that, you went to a convent school. You were a weekly boarder. I was. How did that suit you?

Presenter11:08

Well, I hated being away from the farm, and I wasn't a very confident child. I was still quite introverted in lots of ways. That surprises me.

Speaker 111:15

That's a problem.

Presenter11:16

I was. I was quite shy, quite socially inept. Some people would say I still am. And I found it quite difficult to really find my place. Academically, I struggled in those early years. But I enjoyed the sport and I did eventually, you know, make good friends, some of which have stayed with me all my life. But I was more interested in nature and being outside and farming and animals than I was in people. I thought people were actually wrecking the world, the world that I loved. They were sort of building roads through it and pulling out the hedges. So I think I was more in my own world, in my natural world, than I was in the world of people at that point. Helen, tell me about your next piece then. What are we going to hear now? It's your third of the morning.

Speaker 112:02

It's your third

Presenter12:04

We're going into Genesis and Genesis was my first big musical love introduced to me by my brother Philip. This was in my sort of mid-teens. He was a madcap, but he was a real countryman. And I spent a lot of my childhood out with him ferreting to earn our pocket money. Dad used to pay us sixpence for every rat's tail we brought home. So we'd be out there with the terriers trying to catch rats in the dairy. And I adored him and he introduced me to Genesis. And it was like opening a window on the world for me. I just found it really spoke to me. So this is a piece called Undertow.

Helen Browning12:41

Tell me what you think you would do.

Helen Browning12:50

Stand up to the night.

Helen Browning12:53

The wind has stronger fun and make the most of all.

Helen Browning12:58

You still have a moment till you lay down on the ground

Helen Browning13:04

Let the tears run from your eyes to the frost and trees And heaven find me on your knees Let me leave the bed

Presenter13:16

That was Undertow from Genesis there and chosen, Helen Browning, because it reminded you so much of your brother Philip, and you say you got sixpence for every rat's tail that you brought back to your father. What a wonderful way to spend a Saturday that was for your pocket money. You were doing your O-levels and Philip, who was a good few years older than you, was newly married, and very quickly after he married...

Speaker 213:24

Bottom.

Presenter13:37

He became very, very ill. T tell me what happened. Yes, it was my A levels actually. I was eighteen and he was married and great celebrations and two weeks later he went into hospital and didn't come out. And he died uh aged twenty three of a very

Speaker 113:41

18

Presenter13:53

rare disease called Gupasure syndrome. Which is an autoimmune disease. It's an autoimmune disease. And it was shattering, uh obviously for his new wife, for my father.

Speaker 113:56

It's an auto

Presenter14:05

For us all. So there you were sitting your A-levels. You know, that's a crucial time for an 18-year-old. What happened? I just stopped. I mean, I was literally in the middle of the exams. I never finished my A-levels. I went straight to the hospital and stayed there with him and his wife for several weeks while he was deteriorating. So it was a very rapid end to my school career. You never went back? I never went back.

Speaker 114:11

Teen Europe

Presenter14:31

And what did you do then?

Presenter14:33

So after he died, I went cycling actually for a while. I went off my bike for a few weeks and I found a dog and then I worked on the farm for a year. You know, I think I was very low. I think we were all very low. But I worked there for a year. I got some experience on the farm, which I needed to do anyway. And then I went to Australia a year after and spent a year there travelling around. And it was good, actually. It was cathartic. What did you do in Australia?

Presenter15:04

I did a bit of everything. I bought an old van and travelled around working in bars and restaurants mostly. I did sell advertising for a short while in Perth. I worked in sheep shearing sheds a bit and then I spent about six or eight months actually travelling the whole place. And moving far away from the family before, you know, mobile phones or Skype calls or the

Speaker 115:21

Uh

Speaker 115:26

Yeah.

Presenter15:28

Was it important to you at what had been a particularly difficult time in your family to go? I think I needed to go. I'd always wanted to go to Australia because I described earlier on how I felt that, you know, England was kind of congested and full of all these people, and I wanted big open spaces. And actually, then in particular, I needed big open spaces. I needed to get out there. I wanted to spend some time where nobody knew me, where I could explore more myself. It wasn't all a good time, I have to say. I mean, it was, you know, it's quite painful being on your own for a year and travelling around, but it was really formative. I needed to do it. Let's have your next piece of music then, Helen Browning. What are we going to hear now? Your fourth of the morning. My fourth is El Stewart, Lord Granville. Now, this actually is about Australia because in this journey in my van, you know, which I slept in for a year, I only had two tapes. And one of them was El Stewart. And during the year, my father came out to Australia and we spent a couple of weeks looking at farmland and we stopped up in the evenings and cooked steak and we had a wonderful time. Actually, it was a wonderful couple of weeks with him. And he always remembers this one tape that was played over and over again as we travelled around. So this is for Australia and my father.

Speaker 116:10

Uh

Speaker 216:50

Go and tell Lord Grenville That the tide is on the turn

Speaker 216:56

It's time to fall the anchor up and leave the lavender stun

Speaker 217:04

We'll be gone before the dawn returns

Speaker 217:10

Black voices on the wind.

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Gun tell a grandma

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That I dreams of running

Presenter17:23

That was Al Stewart and Lord Granville. So, Helen Browning, 50,000 miles later, you return to the UK and you go to Agricultural College. And you'd done your dissertation, I understand, on alternative methods for animal welfare. And so it strikes me, even at that tender stage of being a student, you were thinking about Bucking Convention. And you were thinking that the way we're doing things now doesn't quite seem right to me.

Speaker 217:28

Into the UK.

Presenter17:48

Yes, I was. I think I'd been worried for years about the way our wildlife was disappearing. I could see that at Eastbrook. I could see the hedges going. I could see the wildlife going. I think when I was at Agricultural College, I came across

Presenter18:03

The intensive pig and poultry sector for the first time. Although we weren't an organic farm at Eastbrook, we'd had grazing livestock and mixed farming. I hadn't been exposed to the way pigs and chickens are treated in farming, particularly and it was at its worst actually, probably in the early 80s. So I was really horrified by that, and I was really starting to think there has to be another approach that we can take that gives animals a fairer, better life.

Presenter18:33

And so you joined your father on the farm. It was clear that your future was going to be in farming, but something rather unexpected happened. Your father just saying you take away the farm. Yes, I I finished my degree and came back to the farm in the middle of'86. And I knew I was going to get very involved in the management there quite quickly, but I didn't realize that he was going to say

Speaker 118:41

Two.

Helen Browning18:42

But yes

Presenter18:54

Right. I'm stepping back altogether and letting you get on with this. My father handed it over very swiftly. And you were aged what, about twenty four? I was twenty four. So you were sort of wet behind the ears and full of idealism and you were managing I mean, I'm I'm interested particulars, you know.

Speaker 119:06

Okay.

Presenter19:09

Were you the only woman on the farm? I mean, how many men were you in charge of on that farm? I mean, there certainly weren't any other women working there at the time. I inherited a staff of men.

Speaker 119:12

Uh

Helen Browning19:17

Bye.

Presenter19:20

Mostly twice my age, very sceptical about what they'd heard might be happening. They knew I was interested in organic farming. I'd done a year's research on an organic farm as part of my degree. So they knew I had those kind of inclinations, and it was quite a shock for them when I took over the reins. And you started these very small-scale explorations. You know, you'd take twenty acres and you'd say, We're going to have a go at doing it the organic way.

Presenter19:50

I can't imagine it all went to plan all the time. I mean, w g give me some of your disasters.

Presenter19:56

Well, there are so many disasters along the way. Actually, most of them have been in marketing rather than farming. But to start with, yes, we took 20 acres and we ran lots of trials on that 20-acre site for the first year or two. And that was really to kind of make sure that we were researching things properly. But it was also about building the farm's confidence in the idea of going down this route. So we grew lots of different varieties of clovers and grass mixes. We grew vegetables in raised beds. We had different varieties of wheat and growing different plants together, which is an organic method. And we had our first house of laying hens, we had our first two pigs, all in this 20-acre site, running it almost as a small holding within the larger farm. Pretty cutting-edge stuff at the time.

Presenter20:40

Well, a lot of people seem to think so, particularly when we took it out of the test bed and started to convert the larger farm. And it created a lot of interest because I was a tenant, you know, I was paying a commercial rent. So it wasn't as though this was either a rich man's hobby or a sort of hippie dream somewhere. This was about commercial farming that was going organic and doing it on a reasonable scale. So having

Speaker 120:52

Mm-hmm.

Presenter21:04

Shown ourselves that actually you could grow amazing clovers. You didn't need all this nitrogen fertilizer. I think everybody on the farm was bowled over. So we started converting one of the two dairy herds with the idea that we'd compare and contrast for a few years to see which one worked best. But to be honest, by the time we got halfway through that conversion, I was sort of completely bitten by the bug, and we started converting the whole farm over a period of five or six years. No going back. Let's hear your next piece of music, Helen Browning. Then it's your fifth. Well, this is The Beatles, Here Comes the Sun. And this takes me back to my early days at the farm when I had these stressful mornings waking up at about six o'clock trying to work out what to do with all these farm staff. And my husband, Henry, we're separated now, but we had a wonderful time. He was incredibly supportive during that early period at the farm and actually still runs the farm as farm manager. And he would bring me this incredibly strong cup of coffee in the morning and put on the record player, Here Comes the Sun, I think as a sort of way of trying to irritate me out of bed.

Helen Browning22:16

Darling, it's been a long lonely

Helen Browning22:23

Beautiful darling.

Helen Browning22:25

It feels like

Helen Browning22:26

Since it's been here.

Helen Browning22:30

Here comes the sun Here comes the sun I say

Helen Browning22:38

It's alright.

Presenter22:44

The Beatles and Here Comes the Sun. Shopping Organic, Helen Browning, is still a relatively niche area. But when you were trying to sell your organic produce in that would have been in the eighties by then, I mean, it was almost unheard of. What were the first products that you tried to take to market?

Helen Browning22:55

It's my name.

Presenter23:01

Vegetables and eggs, because we were producing those quite quickly, and then later on, a whole variety of meats. So we did literally start selling from the farm gate, virtually flagging down cars and making them buy things. And then within a year or two, I bought a butcher's shop in a local village a few miles away. Organic food sales and farming have had relatively mixed fortunes because of the recession, and you'll be aware of this, a pretty mixed press at times too.

Presenter23:32

Organic food inevitably is more expensive and sometimes much more expensive than conventionally farmed food. And arguments rage on about whether can you actually taste the difference? Is it any better for us?

Presenter23:44

Can you blame the customer for sometimes being a bit sceptical about organic food and what it has to offer them?

Presenter23:50

I think many people haven't had a chance to visit an organic farm and really understand what it's all about and understand what we're trying to do in terms of the care and the attention that goes into producing food that way. We're very reliant in food and farming on cheap fossil fuels. If you look at the energy efficiency of our farming system, it's crazy. We put about 10 or 12 calories of fuel in for every calorie of food we get out the other end. And that can't continue. So yeah, I mean I can understand that people when they're squeezed financially that they're going to be thinking, you know, is that my highest priority? Can you taste the difference? Can you taste the difference? I try not to eat non-organic food now, so I wouldn't.

Speaker 124:32

And so

Presenter24:34

I think that there are big differences in some products in particular. So I would say that in chicken and pigs, where you have a very different production system, and in quite a lot of vegetables too, people do say they can taste the difference. But these things are relative, you know, and and what people might not like the difference. But I think if you have the option to support a way of farming that is much better for the environment and is much better for animal welfare, then I think it's a great thing, a great contribution people can make. Organic food sales in the UK were around about 1.7 billion a year, 1.8 billion.

Speaker 125:11

Yeah.

Presenter25:12

Right now, I mean, do you have targets in mind at the Soil Association? Do you think, well, when we've reached this point, then we know we've got our message across? I think for me, the target actually is not so much about how much organic food is going to be sold, but trying to ensure that all of farming becomes a lot more organic. Because the core of organic farming is about looking after your soils. And if we don't look after our soils now, we've already degraded something like 40% of our soils internationally. And that's happening here as well. If we don't care for our soils, we won't be able to feed people in 50 years' time. So I want to make all of farming a lot better, as well as continuing to support what I call certified organic farming, which gives people the confidence that we're not using pesticides and that sort of thing. And of course, it's not surely just about convincing the consumer. You've got to convince farmers that it's worth going through this. Intensive, laborious, you know, long-term project of converting their farms. How successful are you at doing that? I never try and persuade farmers to go organic. I show what we do, and some people are instinctively enthused about running a more complex, self-sufficient farming system. Others, it's not for them. I think there's always a financial risk, whatever you do in farming. Farming is a really hard way to make a living, actually. We might have capital assets, a lot of us farmers, but actually trying to make a margin on what you do is really hard. So I think you've got to want to do it. If you want to do it, you'll make a success of it. Let's have some more music, Helen Browning. Tell me about this. We're going to hear your sixth choice of the day. This is Joan Armour trading love and affection, partly because I love it so much, but it takes me to all those friends and my sisters who have been such a big part of my life. I am so lucky to have grown up in a community where people have known me from a child and to have those deep, long-lasting friendships and some amazing girlfriends, in particular Sarah Armstrong. And so, for friendship and for my wonderful siblings, my sisters Pip and Lucy, love and affection.

Helen Browning27:21

Now we're fine

Helen Browning27:24

The song

Helen Browning27:27

My eyes and the rain on my face

Helen Browning27:30

Why can't I?

Helen Browning27:38

No.

Helen Browning27:42

Really love, really love

Helen Browning27:44

When you love, really love, really love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love. Now I got all the time.

Helen Browning27:56

But friends and help

Presenter27:59

That was Joan Armour Trading and Love and Affection.

Presenter28:03

As if you didn't have enough to do, you've got this 1400 acre farm. As you say, you took over the butchers, you run the soil association, you decided that you take over the local club.

Presenter28:13

Why on earth did you do it? Well, because I loved that particular pub. I'd spent a lot of my teen years there and it was going downhill horribly. My partner Tim actually, you know, it's his baby really. And I wanted something that was really local, that was in our community. I wanted to be feeding our own people and to start to generate a food community around the village. And the pub was a bit of a way into that. You met your partner Tim originally when he came to interview you. You now you run the farm together and you know he as you say he oversees the pub and so on. It's a 365 day a year business running a pub and running a farm. Do you ever take a two week holiday away together properly? Yes we do to our own desert island which is far enough away that we can switch off where actually Wi-Fi doesn't work really or so I tell everybody and where I will not be got at.

Presenter29:17

Let's have your next piece of music, Helen Browning. This is your seventh. So this is a piece from that wonderful film, The Thomas Crown Affairs, Glider One, Bill Conte. It's such a playful piece, and I think we're all at our best when we are in slightly more playful and relaxed mode. And for this bit of music, sort of symbolizes that for me. If you remember the film when they're sort of coming in on the little biplane and zipping in and zipping out, and it just feels light, and I want some lightness in my life.

Presenter30:24

Glider Part 1 from the soundtrack of the 1999 film The Thomas Crown Affair, composed and performed by Bill Conte. So, Helen Browning, you have a daughter, Sophie. Does she share your love of the land? She does, she does. So, she shares my love of the land and of animals. She's actually at the moment training to be a vet. She loves dairying and sheep. She has her own flock of sheep with her partner Di on the farm. She's off during the weekend, back looking after sheep at the weekends. I don't know if you've thought this far ahead, but can you imagine a day when you and Tim might say, you know, as your father did to you? Well, here it is. It's your turn now. We've done our best.

Presenter30:59

Very much so. We're already planning for that. And exactly when it'll all happen, I'm not sure, but she's definitely lining herself up to take things on as and when. You explained that you and Tim do escape for a couple of weeks every year to your own desert island, but I'm going to cast you away to our desert island. And I imagine, unlike very many of our castaways, you'll entirely be able to cope.

Presenter31:22

Well, I like to think so. It it's the isolation that might get to me. Right. Uh having said that actually I wasn't at all bothered about people for a big chunk of my early life, I quite like them now. So I might I might get a bit lonely. I think you'd have, what, irrigation systems in place in your house?

Helen Browning31:26

Right.

Presenter31:39

Having been quite a practical person in my early life, actually over the last fifteen or twenty years I've become rather too office based, so uh I would have to reinvigorate my practical skills, but I reckon I could still catch a rabbit or two. There weren't any rabbits on this desert island, but I could probably catch something.

Speaker 131:54

But like a problem.

Presenter31:56

Let's hear your eighth then. What are we going to hear now, Helen? This is Jerusalem, which may sound a bit corny, but actually it still makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, and it does express something about my passion for this green and pleasant land.

Helen Browning32:18

And must I breathe?

Helen Browning32:23

We bless highly Lord.

Helen Browning32:34

This brought me for

Helen Browning32:47

Of his fools on earth.

Presenter33:19

Jerusalem, sung by the choir of King's College, Cambridge, conducted there by Stephen Clebury with Oliver Brett on organ. I'm going to give you the books now, Helen. You get the complete works of Shakespeare and the Bible, and you take another book along with you. What's your book? I'm going to take Long Road to Freedom, Nelson Mandela. Right. Because A, I haven't read it and I want to. And B, it might teach me something about incarceration. Right, it's yours then. And a luxury, too. What's your luxury? Well, I wanted to take my dog, but I'm told you won't let me. You're right, I won't let you. So.

Helen Browning33:49

Come on, I wanted

Speaker 133:53

Yeah.

Presenter33:54

I'm going to take a wonderful sculpture that I have by David Lomax, who's a wonderful local sculptor, but he's amazing. And she's Gaia. She's an African woman carrying behind her back in a very elegant way an ostrich egg, which is a symbol of the world. And she always inspires me.

Helen Browning34:14

Yeah.

Presenter34:15

Well, you may take that with you then. And I'm going to ask you, if you had to, just one of these eight discs, which one would it be?

Helen Browning34:20

Take

Speaker 134:20

Yeah.

Presenter34:22

I think I'm going to take the tango so that I can at least flit around amongst the trees and excuse. Helen Browning, thank you very much for letting us hear your desert island discs. Thank you.

Presenter35:13

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

Presenter35:16

You'll find more information on the Radio 4 website bbc.co.uk slash Radio4.