Professor Dame Carol Black

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 Medic Academic and Policy Advisor, Professor damn Carol Black.

Presenter0:40

Impressed by her clutch of titles? I hate to say it, but you probably should be. In addition to being the principal of Newnham College, Cambridge, she's an international expert on a rare tissue autoimmune disease, and only the second ever woman to be president of the Royal College of Physicians. From the get-go, it was clear that mould-breaking would become something of a habit. She was the first in her family to pass the Eleven Plus, becoming the Grammar School's head girl for good measure. Then, too, the first in her family to win a place at university.

Presenter1:10

where she was President of the Students' Union. Later, as head of rheumatology at London's Royal Free Hospital, she established a world wide reputation in her chosen field.

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You get the picture. She says, perhaps my earliest achievement was to defy limited family expectations. I was meant to stay living in my hometown and work in a shoe factory or shop, but I had a stubborn belief that more was possible. So welcome, Professor Dane Carroll Black. Thank you. As well as the roles that I mentioned there, you're currently conducting a government health review on addictions and obesity. You chair the board of the Nuffield Trust, which is a health policy think tank.

Presenter1:49

You're a trustee of the National Portrait Gallery. Um it's clear from all of that you live a very full life indeed. I hope you don't mind me saying this, but it's worth letting listeners know that you're in your mid seventies and even so, several times a week you run three miles every morning. I'm wondering if you've managed it this morning.

Professor Dame Carol Black2:07

I haven't managed it this morning simply because I arrived back from New York last night, but that's what I do. As long as I can run, I will run, because it gives me some sort of release, and I can think when I run. I don't know why, but I can solve problems.

Presenter2:24

In twenty fourteen I saw that you were involved in something called the Great Dames Race. It was a race at Cambridge. You got the best time. You you beat Dame Mary Archer by eleven seconds, I think. Are you one of those people for whom it's the winning and not the taking part that's important?

Professor Dame Carol Black2:40

I think first of all the taking part is important. In that particular race it is, because six of us race for the Children's Hospice, and we do it each year. That's the most important thing. But it is nice to win too. You've said

Presenter2:53

Now that you're a person who likes taking risks, what sort of risks do you find the most satisfying?

Professor Dame Carol Black3:00

The most satisfying have been risks about my career, because I was very bad at doing it.

Professor Dame Carol Black3:05

in perhaps the first fifty years of my life, and then I got very, very much better as I got older. I realized I could take risks and the world wouldn't fall apart.

Presenter3:16

Maybe we'll learn a bit more about that today, I hope. Your father was a good enough singer, I understand, to to get a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music. How much is music tied up with your sense of identity? Are you somebody who's passionate about it?

Professor Dame Carol Black3:29

Yes, I am, and and many forms of music. So from being a very young person I was used to my father singing and playing the piano. He conducted the church choir. I used to sing in the choir. It it's been an essential part of my life from very early on.

Presenter3:46

So tell me then about this first piece that we're going to hear this morning.

Professor Dame Carol Black3:48

Um my first piece is The Trumpet Shall Sound from Handel's Messiah.

Professor Dame Carol Black3:53

And it's because my father was such a very good singer.

Professor Dame Carol Black3:57

And he never realized his ambition. He was the eldest of eleven children.

Professor Dame Carol Black4:03

and he gave up his scholarship because his father was dead.

Professor Dame Carol Black4:07

and he went to work in the local warehouse.

Professor Dame Carol Black4:10

and later in his life he had an enormous chip on his shoulder.

Professor Dame Carol Black4:16

that he hadn't really done what he wanted to do with his life.

Professor Dame Carol Black4:20

And I think that influenced my ability to take risks.

Speaker 44:24

The trumpet chas and burnt a petty device.

Speaker 45:02

We live in God of the world.

Speaker 45:08

We try and

Speaker 45:20

Halloween

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The trumpet shall sound from Handel's Messiah, sung there by John Tomlinson, with the English concert and choir conducted by Trevor Pinnock.

Presenter5:32

So, um, Dame Carol Black, you're expected to deliver this report on addictions and obesity, as I mentioned, to the government. It's going to come out soon. I know you're not going to give me the conclusion, but what's been the focus of your interest?

Professor Dame Carol Black5:42

How do you help people who are in our benefit system?

Professor Dame Carol Black5:46

due to an addiction with either drugs or alcohol, or perhaps they're because of a problem with obesity, what do you have to do to make it possible for them to get closer to the labour market and, if possible, return to work?

Professor Dame Carol Black6:02

Yeah.

Presenter6:02

The vexed question then of obesity and personal responsibility. How much do you think individuals should take on the chin the fact that in the end it's up to them?

Professor Dame Carol Black6:17

I think it is a difficult question. I have yet to meet a woman who wished to be fat.

Professor Dame Carol Black6:25

And of course, I think there is an element of personal responsibility for our own health. And of course, being obese can damage your health. But I think it's how do you trigger

Professor Dame Carol Black6:42

The right response in people

Professor Dame Carol Black6:45

Because lecturing people

Professor Dame Carol Black6:49

Bashing them on the head, on the whole, we know, doesn't get us there. And I think the really difficult thing is to understand

Professor Dame Carol Black6:59

and to find ways

Professor Dame Carol Black7:03

Enabling people to want to do this for themselves, we know it's hugely difficult to do.

Presenter7:09

You say bashing them on the head. I'm some might say that, well, you know, withdrawing their benefits or limiting their benefits in response to their inability.

Presenter7:17

To uh lose weight is bashing them on the head. What would you say?

Professor Dame Carol Black7:22

There's no evidence that um

Professor Dame Carol Black7:26

taking things away from people, whether it be their benefits or anything else, so far in all the research I've done, either in this country or internationally, that that will get us to where we want to be. On the contrary, there is some evidence that doing that may in fact have the opposite effect. And being in treatment

Professor Dame Carol Black7:53

Alone.

Professor Dame Carol Black7:54

And having treatment indeed successful treatment will not get you closer to the labour market. You need other things. So, for example, you need to ensure a person has a home.

Professor Dame Carol Black8:07

you need to ensure that there is in work support, maybe support for up to a year. And I would like to see that support for work becoming part

Presenter8:21

It sounds to me as if you are somebody who might think that a simplistic political soundbite isn't even beginning to address the underlying issues of culturally what we're finding such a problem right now.

Professor Dame Carol Black8:37

What I would say is that this is a hugely complex problem, and not one thing alone will ever solve it.

Presenter8:44

For a long time you have been advisor to government on health in the workplace.

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If you were to recommend three simple things to enable people to have a healthier and better

Professor Dame Carol Black8:56

Better Life What would it be?

Presenter8:57

Uh

Professor Dame Carol Black8:57

Well, first of all, can I say I don't think government alone can do this. Government may be the enabler, but actually we're talking about what can employers facilitate. And if you wish to have a healthy and well workforce, you need a chief executive who believes

Professor Dame Carol Black9:16

In their health and well-being, you need to train line managers.

Professor Dame Carol Black9:21

To be aware of health and well being, a good employer will make available things which will help your mental health. I would almost put your mental health above your physical health, ensuring that you care, trying to keep them positive.

Presenter9:38

Yeah.

Professor Dame Carol Black9:38

Yeah.

Professor Dame Carol Black9:38

And not

Presenter9:38

Not negative.

Professor Dame Carol Black9:39

Yeah.

Presenter9:40

Let's have some more music. Professor Dame Carol Black, tell me about this, the your second choice of the day.

Professor Dame Carol Black9:45

My second choice is Ariane Aria from Tulia's opera, Adriana Lecouvre. I've chosen this because from my teenage I had a real interest in the opera and I bought for many years a season ticket right in the gods at the Royal Opera House and it was B2425 right up at the top of the house and I've always loved opera.

Speaker 411:01

Give it to you, Soul Lord.

Speaker 411:11

Uh

Presenter11:15

Adriana's aria from Chile's opera Adriana La Couvre sung by Renato Scotto there with the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by James Levine.

Presenter11:24

So, uh, Carol Black, you say my earliest achievement was to defy limited family expectations. I mentioned that at the beginning. Tell me about your parents then. Your father we know a little bit about. Tell me more.

Professor Dame Carol Black11:35

My parents grew up in a village in the middle of Leicestershire called Barwell. My father, as I said, came to work in a warehouse for more than 40 years. My mother was the eldest of ten and her mother died in childbirth, having my uncle, and she became the mother of the family. So my parents couldn't marry until they were 39. She had to bring up the other children.

Professor Dame Carol Black12:05

And uh

Presenter12:05

I did wonder about that because it was ten years before they married, after they met each other. Right.

Professor Dame Carol Black12:08

Yes. And she worked in a local shop.

Professor Dame Carol Black12:13

They were very hard working, they were certainly.

Professor Dame Carol Black12:17

n not absolutely poor, but we had no money to spend. We had no books in the house other than the Bible.

Professor Dame Carol Black12:24

Really, no books at all.

Presenter12:27

How do you look back on that? I mean, as a woman who's who's been surrounded, presumably, by books virtually the whole of the rest of your life.

Professor Dame Carol Black12:33

I think what I regret most is that I haven't read the children's classics. I've s never had the time to go back, perhaps I should. And th it it wasn't part of the environment. You were born

Presenter12:47

Uh just after Christmas Day actually, December twenty-sixth, nineteen thirty nine, and your mother was forty-five by then. That must have been a huge moment for your parents.

Professor Dame Carol Black12:48

December 2

Professor Dame Carol Black12:55

It was a huge moment. I understand my mother had had five miscarriages, and so I think I was a very sort of precious gift.

Professor Dame Carol Black13:05

They certainly regarded me as such, but definitely wanted me to stay locally. It it would never have occurred to them that I might have other ideas.

Professor Dame Carol Black13:18

I think if I'm being honest.

Professor Dame Carol Black13:20

I want it to escape.

Presenter13:22

From what age did you want to escape?

Professor Dame Carol Black13:25

Probably from about thirteen to fourteen wh once I

Professor Dame Carol Black13:31

Been to the grammar school, and I understood that there was life.

Professor Dame Carol Black13:36

Outside of Balwell.

Presenter13:37

Let's have your next piece of music. Tell me about this, your third.

Professor Dame Carol Black13:40

Oh, my next piece of music, Aether, performed by the Ted Nash Big Band, is because I love jazz and it's really to remind me of New York. I've been privileged that for many years now we go to New York every New Year and one of the things I always try to do is to hear some jazz and Ted Nash is a wonderful jazz player and this is one of Ted's own compositions. It's part of his suite and I would really love to hear it.

Presenter15:22

Ether, performed by the Ted Nash Big Band. Uh Dame Carol Black, you are um a fit woman, as we know. You run, you are a noticeably very slim woman.

Presenter15:31

You are a fat youngster, you said, as you came in here this morning. Now that does surprise me.

Professor Dame Carol Black15:36

No, I was, but I think it was partly because my parents had so much wanted a child. I would go home from school to tea, which would be pals of often bread and lard. I don't know quite how I ate it, or bread and jam, and my mother would cook cakes. And I think it was the one thing they could give me. They could give me food.

Professor Dame Carol Black16:01

and it was almost a protection.

Professor Dame Carol Black16:05

And I realized I couldn't easily play sport at school and I very much wanted to dance. But in my early teens I decided to lose weight. And what they gradually tried to do was to give me um interestlier more vegetables and fruit. I think that would be good news today because we had an allotment.

Speaker 416:28

Uh

Professor Dame Carol Black16:28

And so gradually I got more interested in gardening and the allotment and helping my father and and I think I perhaps was able to influence things a little.

Presenter16:41

What about grammar school? I said in the introduction, you were the first in your family, extended family, to pass the 11 plus and to go to grammar school. You went on to be.

Presenter16:49

head girl, and as we know, you've gone on to lead organizations, chaired boards. You you are part of a a generation of women who mostly don't do those things. Can you explain the early situations you were in where you thought, I'm going to stand for head girl, I'm going to get into the students' union and lead it?

Presenter17:06

I mean, where did it come from, given that you weren't from that background, as it were?

Professor Dame Carol Black17:13

For the head girl, it it came from my headmaster, William Gosling, who believed in me. For the President of the Student Union, without doubt,

Professor Dame Carol Black17:23

One of the greatest influences in my life was a woman called Dr Marjorie Tate, who was warden of the Hall of Residence in which I lived.

Professor Dame Carol Black17:32

I think I was very fortunate in finding people who helped me. I would almost go as far as to say they were more than mentors. They were almost like sponsors, but of course I didn't know that word.

Presenter17:46

No, it wasn't what we would have called them.

Professor Dame Carol Black17:48

I no, no, I but I would not have been able to do any of this because

Professor Dame Carol Black17:53

Couldn't go home and talk about it.

Presenter17:56

And while you were studying for your A levels, your mother, as I understand it, was diagnosed with lung cancer.

Professor Dame Carol Black18:01

Yes, um, it was extremely sad. My mother was a w a a wonderfully kind, warm woman.

Professor Dame Carol Black18:10

I wonder if my interest in medicine, although I didn't know it at the time, came through going with her to the hospital. There was a fantastic woman surgeon who operated on my mother who was extremely kind to me. That must have been very unusual to be aware of. It was exceedingly unusual to have a thoracic surgeon who was a woman.

Presenter18:27

It was exceedingly unusual.

Professor Dame Carol Black18:32

Looking back.

Professor Dame Carol Black18:34

I I really related to what was going on and to that particular woman.

Presenter18:40

More in a second of that, I think. Um for now though yes, tell me about this then. You mentioned the dancing.

Professor Dame Carol Black18:45

I'm Tifa 2. I wanted to dance and so I did in fact join a class for tap dancing and now I love to dance and whenever I can, I go to college balls, anywhere that I can go to dance. I love to jive and to be able to hear some tap dancing music would be wonderful.

Presenter19:46

Tapping away there were the feet of Daniel Harabarondo to Tea for Two. That was recorded by Gilles Roussel. You spoke, then Carol Black, about these people who now we would call them sponsors, wouldn't we? But actually when you boil it all down, sixty years ago and now it's the same thing, people saw something in you.

Presenter20:04

What was it, you think, that they saw?

Presenter20:07

Simply intend Legends?

Professor Dame Carol Black20:08

Yeah.

Presenter20:08

Yeah.

Professor Dame Carol Black20:09

No, no, I I I don't think simply that. Um

Professor Dame Carol Black20:13

I I think they saw quite a lot of resilience.

Professor Dame Carol Black20:19

Wh which I think I do have. I think

Professor Dame Carol Black20:23

They saw that I wanted to go somewhere. I don't think I knew where I wanted to go, but I think they saw themselves as helping me along a journey.

Presenter20:33

At what point did you begin to feel a tangible sense of separation from your family? I'm guessing it must have been quite early from your mum and dad, I mean.

Professor Dame Carol Black20:43

I think it was when

Professor Dame Carol Black20:45

when I went to university first of all. I really wanted to go to a university that was as far away from Barwall as I could go, and that Bristol was the furthest away.

Presenter20:58

How did your parents prepare you? I mean, can you remember your parents seeing you often? Tell me about that.

Professor Dame Carol Black21:04

Um

Professor Dame Carol Black21:05

I think, in fact, they drove me down there. We had a little Morris 8. And of course, I think they were very sad to see me go, but really thrilled. I don't think they really understood what a university was, but they absolutely wanted the best for me. I wanted to do history because I thought it was about people. And then when I got to university, I was so deeply disappointed. It was so very boring.

Professor Dame Carol Black21:36

It all seemed to be about constitutions and wars. But I basically did everything else but work. I sang in the University 32 Choir. I started to get interested in the student union. I became the head of my own hall of residence.

Professor Dame Carol Black21:57

Quite frankly, I did.

Professor Dame Carol Black21:59

Anything

Professor Dame Carol Black22:01

But were

Professor Dame Carol Black22:03

And

Professor Dame Carol Black22:04

I wished someone had just pointed out to me I would have been better to have spent some time getting a better degree.

Presenter22:12

Uh tell me then about meeting and I think indeed having dinner with Dame Cecily Saunders, who was the founder of the hospice movement. How did you meet her? How did you get to have dinner with her?

Professor Dame Carol Black22:21

Well, the reason I met Cecily Saunders was because after my history degree, I was accepted for a year's course on medical social work. So I decided by then I would love to be a doctor, but didn't think it was remotely possible. I thought, will they accept me having done so badly in my first degree? And she came to Bristol to give a lecture. And the woman who was running the course said, I'd like you to really meet Cecily Saunders. And we had dinner together. I was very lucky. She said, I'm going to try and put you off, because she had been a history graduate, a nurse, a social worker, and then had gone and studied medicine. And she told me how difficult it would be. But said, if I don't put you off, you better try and find a way of doing it. And I suppose from meeting her to actually entering medical school was almost another 18 months.

Presenter23:20

Tell me about the next piece of music, Carol Black. This is your fifth.

Professor Dame Carol Black23:24

The next piece of music, The Song and Dance of Tears by Bright Scheng, for many, many years I've been going to both Hong Kong and Singapore.

Professor Dame Carol Black23:35

First of all, through medicine, I used to go and teach and do some special clinics. And then as president of the Royal College of Physicians, we had extremely close association. And subsequently, I've been consulted by both the government in Hong Kong and Singapore on health and work. And I tried to listen to Chinese music and found it extremely difficult. And then Professor Gabriel, who's the Dean of Medicine at Hong Kong University, said to me, Carol, I think you will like the song and dance of tears. And he was quite right.

Presenter25:09

Part of the Song and Dance of Tears played there by the Hong Kong Philharmonic composed and conducted by Bright Scheng.

Presenter25:16

So then Carol Black The mid seventies onwards then saw you establish an impressive medical career after all this application. Uh scleroderma. What you know, you've become a world class expert i in that. How did you find that? Is it r is it a relatively obscure disease?

Professor Dame Carol Black25:33

It is a relatively obscure disease. It's a connective tissue disease. And scleroderma found me. I admitted a young woman of 26. And the next morning I asked Professor Reed how we were going to treat this young woman with scleroderma. I'd never seen it before, and she had kidney failure. And the great shock to me was he said,

Professor Dame Carol Black25:55

We have no treatment, and she'll be dead in three weeks.

Professor Dame Carol Black25:59

And she was dead.

Professor Dame Carol Black26:01

And it it sort of haunted me.

Professor Dame Carol Black26:04

And from that point, I felt, once I had got my qualification in rheumatology, I wanted to specialize in connective tissue diseases.

Presenter26:14

And so a twenty six year old now being admitted to, let's say, the hospital you used to lead the unit of, the Royal Free Hospital, if they were diagnosed with scleroderma now, what would be their life expectancy and what would be the treatment?

Professor Dame Carol Black26:26

If they were admitted now with kidney disease, as this young woman was, she would stand so much better chance of surviving well, of her kidney function being restored. And let's say that didn't happen, she would stand a much better chance of getting a transplant. And it's also a complication that we know how to try and prevent it. So we've made enormous strides.

Presenter26:54

Carol Black, you said such an interesting thing to me today when we began talking. You said I've you know, I think probably I was about it was fifty years on this earth before I really got started.

Presenter27:06

What did you mean by that?

Professor Dame Carol Black27:08

Well, it took me an awfully long time to realise my capabilities and that I could lead organisations, I really could innovate within those organisations. And I suppose it was when I became medical director of the Royal Free, which took me out of my absolute medical role. Even though I'd built a hugely successful world-renowned unit for connective tissue diseases, I suddenly realised there was a world out there that I also could participate in. And I've just really gone on developing as I've got older.

Professor Dame Carol Black27:49

I think that happens to many women, and as long as I'm well enough to do it, and people want me to do it.

Professor Dame Carol Black27:57

I will continue. I still feel I have a lot to give.

Presenter28:01

Let's have some more music, then, Carol Black. We're going to hear your sixth of the morning.

Professor Dame Carol Black28:05

This is the Laudate Dominum from Mozart's Solemn Vespers of the Confessor. It for me such an emotive piece of music, and this particular piece has very, very special memories for me.

Presenter29:20

Lodate Dominum from Mozart's Vesperi Solanesti Confessori sung by Kirita Canawa with the London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus conducted by Sir Colin Davis.

Presenter29:29

I wonder, Dame Carol Black, how have you managed your work-home-life balance over the years?

Presenter29:37

I won't.

Professor Dame Carol Black29:37

You would say I've been a workaholic.

Professor Dame Carol Black29:41

In many ways, I've always loved the work I've done. But perhaps the most obvious period of my life was in the last part of specialist training as a rheumatologist, when it was quite a gruelling programme. And my then husband worked for the BBC on Panorama, and I was often having to be up at night. And it was at a time when we were really doing very, very long hours as doctors.

Presenter30:12

And so that that marriage ended in 1981. Let's l take a little leap forward to 2002. You had stepped down from full-time hospital work. You were elected President of the Royal College of Physicians. And it was also the year that you you have a big smile on your face now, I should tell listeners, that you you married.

Presenter30:34

It's interesting, isn't it? To fall deeply in love when you're what would you have been about sixty when you met?

Professor Dame Carol Black30:38

I was fifty-nine when I met Chris.

Presenter30:40

Fifty-nine.

Professor Dame Carol Black30:41

Tell me about falling deep.

Presenter30:42

Uh

Professor Dame Carol Black30:42

play in love at that age.

Presenter30:43

Uh

Professor Dame Carol Black30:43

Well, I'd been single for many, many years, as you realise, and I went to Cambridge stepping in at the last moment for a colleague to give a lecture on an international conference. And I was invited by a fellow of Trinity College to go in to dine at Trinity. And the man who became my husband was then the vice-master of Trinity, and he had to look after me. So that's how I met Chris Morley.

Professor Dame Carol Black31:13

And it's been a joy.

Professor Dame Carol Black31:15

Yeah.

Presenter31:15

And also the surprise of it, I guess, as well?

Professor Dame Carol Black31:17

Oh yes, the complete surprise. I mean I was

Professor Dame Carol Black31:21

trying to come to terms with the fact that I would move into my older years alone.

Professor Dame Carol Black31:28

And how would I cope with that? I was absolutely not thinking about meeting anyone. Um tell me about this next piece of news.

Presenter31:37

Click that.

Professor Dame Carol Black31:37

Uh So this is a wonderful piece of music. It's There Is No Rose. It's from the 15th century Christmas carol roll of Trinity College. We do not know who wrote it, but it was played at the blessing of our wedding in Trinity College and it's a very special piece of music.

Speaker 432:00

Oh gosh, such

Speaker 432:05

Six garden rose as fair she

Speaker 432:10

Thanks for those such things.

Presenter32:11

It's all about it.

Speaker 432:15

The sing is the rose that enjoyed

Speaker 432:27

And he's known us as such at all.

Professor Dame Carol Black32:27

He's known of such mental

Speaker 432:32

Oh, six love was that very

Speaker 432:48

Not this year.

Speaker 432:55

There is no one such metal.

Professor Dame Carol Black32:56

Please note.

Presenter33:00

There Is No Rose, arranged by John Stevens and sung by the choir of Trinity College, Cambridge, and you said, Professor Dame Carol Black, that that was played at your wedding in two thousand and two. You are currently then Principal of Newnham College, Cambridge. Of course, w what I was going to ask you next, and I I I'm guessing you'll probably expect this, is isn't it in this day and age to have a single sex

Presenter33:20

Higher education institution ca I mean it's it seems anachronistic.

Professor Dame Carol Black33:24

Well, I think still there's not equity in many professions, so I think there's still work to do. And one of the things I was particularly interested in is how do you enable women early, and I think perhaps some of this should be done at school, to develop their self-confidence, their ability to take risks, to enable them to be resilient. and to deal with pushback and criticism. I think what we're talking about now is leadership. And I think women need to understand they can be very effective leaders. They don't necessarily have to lead like men. I felt it was a real privilege to have this post.

Presenter34:08

When you talk to these young women, what is the single piece of advice that you think If you remember anything I've said, please remember this.

Professor Dame Carol Black34:18

The one single thing I would want them to remember is have a go. If you don't apply for something, or go for something, you can never get it. You can only regret afterwards. So it would be have a go.

Professor Dame Carol Black34:32

Let's have your final piece of music.

Presenter34:33

Cal

Professor Dame Carol Black34:34

Okay.

Presenter34:34

Yeah.

Professor Dame Carol Black34:34

So my final piece of music is Gene Kelly with Singing in the Rain. I just love musicals and I still remember going to the National Theatre to see their production and I can still see the rain coming down the white Macintoshes and the white welly boots.

Professor Dame Carol Black34:52

Two.

Speaker 334:52

Dingin' in the rain.

Speaker 334:55

Just singing in the rain, what a glorious field, and I'm happy again. I'm laughing at clouds, so dark up a mouth.

Speaker 335:13

The sun's in my heart and I'm ready for love.

Speaker 335:19

Let the stormy clouds chase Everyone from the place.

Presenter35:26

Jean Kelly, with Singing in the Rain, which was composed by Arthur Fried and Nacio Herb Brown. I think you were mentally splashing through the puddles with him there, Carol Black. Um, I'm going to give you now the books you get. Uh the Bible, the complete works of Shakespeare. What else would you like to take?

Professor Dame Carol Black35:41

It's a hard thing to decide, but I'm going to take The Assassin's Cloak. It's an anthology of the world's greatest diarists. Often the extracts are dating from the 1600s, and I feel it will connect me to people, which has been such an important part of my life. I should have plenty of reading there. We shall certainly give you that then. And what about a luxury? I'm going to take some Chanel 19.

Presenter35:42

Yeah.

Presenter36:06

We'll give you a never-ending supply of that, then. And which is your favourite of these eight?

Professor Dame Carol Black36:11

I would save the Mozart.

Presenter36:13

Yeah.

Presenter36:13

Uh

Professor Dame Carol Black36:13

Solemn Vespers.

Presenter36:14

It's yours. Professor Dame Carol Black, thank you very much for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Professor Dame Carol Black36:20

Thank you, I've really enjoyed it.

Presenter37:02

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