Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Desert Island Discs
Presented by Kirsty Young
A poet and writer best known for her witty, charming verse about everyday English life, a major star since the 1970s with a distinctive delivery.
Eight records
with the Vienna Volksoper Orchestra conducted by Leone Magiera
The keepsakes
The book
The Oxford Book of Humorous Prose
Frank Muir
to cheer me up in my isolation, I would like Frank Muir's book.
The luxury
A medicine cabinet with mosquito repellents, antihistamine cream, and a fly swatter
I have the medicine cabinet because I might some terrible injury might befall me and I'd be able to cope.
In conversation
Presenter asks
What would you say has been fundamental to your success?
Well, I'm clearly not in that category, am I? I'm not a scholarly poet at all. I think I've got the common touch. I write about things that I hope people will identify with. Some of my most successful poems for instance They Should Have Asked My Husband is about the husband who knows it all and it doesn't matter. What you talk about is going to come in and monopolise the conversation. And I'm not saying my husband's like that because he's not, but everybody knows somebody like that. And I search for those subjects. There's always a temptation to think that because something looks simple and it goes to tum ta-tum ta-tum, ta-tum, ta-tum, ta-tum, that it's easy, but actually it isn't because you've got to find the right word that says exactly what you want to convey and you've got to get the stress on the right syllable. And I find it like a fascinating jigsaw to put it together. And the best thing is to get a big laugh at the end. And that's the most difficult thing, because you don't want it to peter out. You want it to have a, you know, finish with a big bang at the end.
Presenter asks
In writing [Woodland Burial], did you have an aim for it to be a public bit of work that would be used a lot? What was the thinking behind it?
The recording
Timestamps play the recording from that turn
Pam Ayres
This is the
Speaker 1
B B C
Presenter
Hello, I'm Kirstie Young. Welcome to Desert Island Discs, where every week I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, the book and the luxury item that they'd want to take with them if they were cast away on a desert island.
Presenter
For rights' reasons, the music on these podcast versions is shorter than in the original broadcast. You can find over two thousand more editions to listen to and download on the Desert Island Disc's website.
Presenter
My castaway to-day is the writer Pam Ayers. She is an unusual poet. She sells a lot of books. And she smiles as she declaims witty, charming, wily verse on everything from dry stone walling to dodgy vending machines, capturing the daily confusions, niceties, and frustrations of what it means to be English. She became a big star in the nineteen seventies, winning the votes and hearts of millions of viewers with her distinctive delivery and cheeky grin. That new found nationwide fame and the giddy whiz of showbiz must surely have come as something of a shock. Up until then, she'd spent her time in the civil service and the RAF. She says I'm not saying that what I do is easy, it's very hard. It's just I never felt like a poet proper because my goals are different. I don't want to provoke thought or be profound. I just want to make my audience feel at home and give them a laugh. Welcome, Pam Ayers. Do you agree with what you said?
Pam Ayres
Well, sort of, yeah. Certainly, I never set out to be a poet. I didn't really listen to poetry. I wasn't from that sort of a home. Nobody stood around declaiming poetry at each other. And certainly, from my point of view, in our home, I'm the youngest child of six children. We were brought up in a council house, and there's nothing wrong with that. But poetry was roundly ridiculed in our house. We didn't have any book-filled libraries or anything like that. Everybody was concerned with making a living. I liked writing. I liked the idea of making people laugh, and I loved performing. And I just knit them all together.
Presenter
I hinted in the or more than hinted in the introduction there that you're unusual as a poet in that you've made your live you've actually managed to make a living asset. And very few poets do that. Often they'll be sort of professors of English or they'll have a different writing career that runs in conjunction. What would you say has been fundamental to your success?
Pam Ayres
Well, I'm clearly not in that category, am I? I'm not a scholarly poet at all. I think I've got the common touch. I write about things that I hope people will identify with. Some of my most successful poems for instance They Should Have Asked My Husband is about the husband who knows it all and it doesn't matter.
Pam Ayres
What you talk about is going to come in and monopolise the conversation. And I'm not saying my husband's like that because he's not, but everybody knows somebody like that. And I search for those subjects. There's always a temptation to think that because something looks simple and it goes to tum ta-tum ta-tum, ta-tum, ta-tum, ta-tum, that it's easy, but actually it isn't because you've got to find the right word that says exactly what you want to convey and you've got to get the stress on the right syllable. And I find it like a fascinating jigsaw to put it together. And the best thing is to get a big laugh at the end. And that's the most difficult thing, because you don't want it to peter out. You want it to have a, you know, finish with a big bang at the end.
Speaker 1
Tatam
Presenter
Tell me about your first piece of music, Pamir.
Pam Ayres
My first piece of music is called Only Remembered from Warhorse, and I've got various feelings about this. One is the magic of theatre, one is my love of folk music, one is my happy memories of working with the Albion band in the eighties. This is a traditional folk song which has been adapted and tinkered with. It also reminds me of the several times I've been to see Warhorse. It's just magic, and it summarises the beauty and glory of theatre when it's done well. What you can do with a few sticks and a bit of a wicker work.
Speaker 2
Fading away like the stars in the morning
Speaker 2
Losing their light in the glorious sun.
Speaker 2
Thus would we pass from this earth and its toiling, Only remembered for what we have done.
Speaker 2
Only remembers, only remembers.
Presenter
Only Remembered from Warhorse, performed there by John Tams and members of the Warhorse Company chorus. It was composed by Shanky and Bonner and arranged by Tams and Hoff. Pamirs, you're at a time now in your life you've been writing for so many decades that you have a a canon, if you will, a body of work. I'm guessing that when you go to perform, as you often do, live performance, that people want the greatest hits. I mean, do you have a my way? Do you have something that you think, I'm gonna have to do this, and I don't really want to do it?
Pam Ayres
But yeah, I don't really
Pam Ayres
I wish I looked after me teeth. Of course it is, yes. I try not to look tired of it. I'm not tired of it. I'm grateful to it, really, because it kind of put me on the map. And I always try and do a good job of it, but I know people are disappointed if I don't do it. I wish I looked after me teeth. And there's always a nice round of applause when I start saying it. And I can team it with other things. I've recently written a poem called Don't Put Me Dinner on the Slate, which is about the trend in pubs to always put your grub on a slate or a breadboard or something. But I know people like it and they have family associations with it. They remember listening to it and laughing with their granny or their parents. And so I try and give it as good a performance as I can.
Speaker 1
Uh
Presenter
Of course.
Presenter
Alongside all of that humour that you bring with your work, there is o there's great tenderness in some of your work. And I'm thinking now of something like Woodland Burial, you know, appreciated by so many people and read very often, I imagine, at very, very many funeral services.
Presenter
In writing that, did you have an aim for it to be a public bit of work that would be used a lot? I mean, what was the thinking behind it?
Pam Ayres
Woodland Burial is a short poem I wrote after I walked through the church in the village near where I used to live called Preston. And it was a January day and it was grey and the churchyard was in the shadow of the church and and the gravestones were all leaning over at drunken angles and I thought I don't want to go here, it's dead, you know, in
Pam Ayres
In all sorts of ways. I thought I'd rather go into a forest where something gorgeous can grow out of what used to be me. I'm a great believer in compost eats, and I thought it would be nice if the bits and pieces that made my body were utilized by something as gorgeous as a tree, and birds would live in it, and insects, and things would make use of it.
Pam Ayres
I agonised over whether to put it in my book, because it is so serious. It's about death.
Pam Ayres
I was astounded really and delighted with the response because so many natural burial grounds approached me and said, Do you mind if we use this you know, put it on the wall? And I've been to lots of natural burial grounds where they've got it in inscribed on plaques on the wall, and that's a very nice feeling.
Presenter
Let's have some more music, Pamirs. We're gonna hear your second of the day. Tell me a little bit about this.
Pam Ayres
This is Master of the House from Les Miserable, and it's sung by Alan Armstrong. And I love it because the words are so clever. And I shall always remember Alan Armstrong in Les Mis and his lovely sneering voice, and he's the Master of the Inn, and he's ripping everybody off. And you see people come in with their suitcases, and the suitcases are whisked away, and you know the poor traveller is never going to see them again. And then on comes Alan Armstrong singing this wonderful sneering song.
Speaker 2
Master of the house, keeper of the zoo, Ready to relieve a mob of zoo or two, And water in the wine.
Pam Ayres
My
Speaker 2
Mike
Pam Ayres
You're not The one
Speaker 2
I
Pam Ayres
Picking up their knickknacks when they can't see straight. Everybody loves a landlord.
Pam Ayres
I knew whatever plays as Jesus damn I played him in the end
Pam Ayres
Monster of the S.
Pam Ayres
To catch your eye, never want to pass a body passing by, serving to the poor,
Pam Ayres
Yeah.
Presenter
Master of the House from Les Miserable performed there by Alan Armstrong and members of the original nineteen eighty five London cast. It was composed by Alan Boublil, Claude Michel Schoenberg, and Herbert Kretzmer. I'm sorry that we cut that short,'cause you were thoroughly enjoying it.
Presenter
You were born, you mentioned this, the youngest of six children in what was then Berkshire, is now Oxfordshire, 1947. Tell me a little bit about your family background.
Pam Ayres
My dad was in the Grenadier Guards. He signed up. He lied about his age and joined up. I admired him. I think he was very um traumatized by what he'd seen. He had bad um temper explosions which scared us all. But I understand it now. I understand the the terrible things he saw.
Speaker 1
Uh
Pam Ayres
I don't think you just get over it and walk away.
Pam Ayres
When dad came out of the army, he went to work for the Southern Electricity Board as a linesman. He used to shin up the poles and fiddle with the wires at the top. My mum was a very bright girl. She was offered a scholarship, but her mother was widowed, so her mother used to take in washing and she died of TB. So they really had a terrible life of poverty. But they were very loving. And she went into domestic service in Cromwell Road in London. She was offered a scholarship to a grammar school, but she couldn't take it up because they couldn't afford whatever you had to buy, the uniform or something. But she was bright. She loved English. She could always advise me on the right word to use or if I didn't know what a word meant.
Presenter
And she went to work in service then, you say, in Cromwell Road in London, a very, very different place from Balking, I imagine. And what did she make of it?
Pam Ayres
And what did she make of it? She didn't like having to be so servile. She said I had to wear a little hat and a pinny and I had to curtsey to him. She was demeaned by it.
Presenter
It has
Pam Ayres
S You would be, wouldn't you?
Presenter
Bay, wouldn't yer? So, as you were growing up, what are your strongest memories of of your mum?
Pam Ayres
Well, she never had much time for us, which wasn't her fault. She had six children to look after. And I think about it now. Her life was drudgery. My dad had a vast allotment, and he used to come home with small tin baths full of massive quantities of food, and we'd sit out on the back step and we'd shell the beans and shell the peas and peel the spudge to
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Pam Ayres
prepare enormous quantities of food, and then she had the washing to do, and she used to say I didn't know which way to turn. She said, I never had time for any of ye, and I think it was a great regret, because she was a loving mum, but she was exhausted.
Presenter
Some more music, Pamirs. We're going to hear your third. Tell me about this one.
Pam Ayres
This is Bob Dylan. I discovered him when I was 17 years old, and for the first time in my life, I felt as though it was music and songwriting which was relevant to me. This is Times They Are Changing. And my dad was quite authoritarian. You'd say, I'd like to go to the dance in Wantledge, Dad. Forget it. You know, it wasn't any discussion, he'd say. Then I listened to Bob Dylan, Times They Are Changing on my LP, and I'll just read you the words that really spoke to me. It says, Come, mothers and fathers throughout the land, and don't criticise what you can't understand. Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command. So get out of the way if you can't help. You know, and that really spoke to me. So I felt as though he was talking to me, we were a similar age, and also because I wanted to be a writer, but I didn't know how to express it. He made me feel.
Pam Ayres
that I wanted to write my own things. I didn't ever want to write like Bob Dylan. I wanted to write my own things, and he accentuated that feeling.
Speaker 2
Throughout the line. And uh
Pam Ayres
Uh
Speaker 2
And don't criticize what you can't understand. Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command. Your old road.
Presenter
is rapidly aging please get out of the new one
Speaker 2
Live your candle and your hand, for the times they are changing.
Presenter
That was Bob Dylan and the times they are a changing. I wonder, Pamirs, for you in the sixties, you know, you weren't in Hay Ashbury, you weren't even in the King's Road, you know, you were in rural Berkshire, how much were the times a changing?
Presenter
Did you have a
Pam Ayres
Not much, not much. You know, the old attitudes lingered in the villages.
Presenter
And your father, you know, typical of his generation and certainly his own experience as a military man who was pretty strict and didn't put up with much, and you said he he had these rages, did you want to do things that he wouldn't allow you to do?
Pam Ayres
Yeah, I mean I don't want to paint a black picture of my dad. I loved him dearly. He was funny, he was strong, he looked after us, he grew all these vegetables. You know, we're all still going strong. And I think that they laid a foundation of good health for us at a time when nothing was known about what was a good diet. But we had loads of rabbit and loads of vegetables and loads of fruit. So I loved him dearly. He was funny, but he did have these extraordinary rages. And I know I had a boyfriend I was absolutely nuts about. And one night he brought me home in his car half past ten or something. He brought me home from the dance. And I heard the window clang open of him.
Pam Ayres
That's bedroom.
Pam Ayres
And he bawled out, he said, Pam, is that you? And I wound the window down. I said, Yeah.
Pam Ayres
And he said, Well, bloody well, come on in, then And I was so shamed, and I got out of the car and slunk indoors, and and that was the moment when I decided I was going to leave home.
Presenter
Lots to talk about, but for now we want to hear some more of your choices, Pamirs. Tell me about this.
Pam Ayres
Well, I joined the Women's Royal Air Force because I didn't have any money. I wanted to travel. I was a bit oppressed by my dad's rules. I joined up when I was 18 and I went to RAF Spittlegate. I put my suitcase down with all the other girls. This corporal came in and said, Put your stuff down and get outside. And they were horrible to us for the first couple of weeks, which I think is what they intend to do. And then you began to get little treats. There was a bus trip to Lincoln and a bus trip to Nottingham. And then we were able to go to the Nafi, which was a coffee bar, and we could go and have coffee and stand around the jukebox. And over and over and over again, they played this song. Happy birthday, sweet sixteen.
Pam Ayres
I've waited for
Pam Ayres
Because you're not a baby anymore.
Speaker 2
Turned into the prettiest girl I've ever seen Happy birthday sweet sixty
Pam Ayres
What happened to?
Presenter
That was Neil Sadaka, and happy birthday, Sweet Sixteen. I I just did ask you there a second ago, Pamirs, if you were a jiver. I was sort of imagining you in a in a frothy skirt with your coffee on the formica jiving to that, but apparently not. No, I I I dance like a Suffolk Punch, really.
Pam Ayres
That's a horse in case anybody's under any illusions that you're not. A large cart horse with hairy feet.
Presenter
In case anybody's under any illusion that's not a problem.
Presenter
Um so when you went into the RAF, apart from that complete culture shock of for the first little while being treated not too kindly, as you say that's part of the process of knocking you into shape, how did it suit you in general?
Pam Ayres
The great glorious thing from my point of view about the Air Force was that it gave you the opportunities to perform. There were all kinds of opportunities to get on a stage, whether it was a choir or an amateur dramatic group or a folk club, you know, and I was longing to be a performer. I was very unpolished, but I knew where I wanted to be. I was at RAF Brampton, and I'd gone along with a boyfriend to watch a rehearsal. And the girl who was playing the lead hadn't turned up. And they asked me if I'd read in. And I read in, and they all said, Oh my god, what a marvellous accent. And then the girl dropped out completely. And I stepped in at 10 days' notice and I took on the part and I learned it. And everybody was thrilled. And at the end of the performance, the squadron leader, it was like God, got up on the stage and said, I'd like you all to know that Ayers has stood in at 10 days' notice and learned the entire thing. And I do give her a hearty round of applause. And the next morning I was summoned to the group captain's office, who was the CO of the whole place. And he said, I've never laughed so much in all my life. And he said, What are your ambitions in the Air Force? And I said, I want to go to Singapore, I want to go to the Far East. And within weeks, I was posted. So it could have been a coincidence, but I don't know. Perhaps he put in a good word for me. And I used to work with this man, and he'd been posted to Singapore. And he used to say, Oh, God, that's living. You get out there, that's living. This is just existing.
Presenter
Tell me about this next one. We are on your fifth.
Pam Ayres
This is Bruce Sprinkstein Independence Day. I love Bruce Sprinkstein. I love this song because it underlines that point at which you separate from the oppressive parent. I'm not saying my parents were oppressive, I seem to keep banging on about this, but it just underlines the fact that if you are in a situation in a family where you're being kept under, it doesn't last forever because the old fall away. That's what he describes here so beautifully. Also, I wrote a poem about Bruce Sprinkstein which stood me in such good stead for years. It had lines in it which I was really pleased with. It's called Do You Think Bruce Springsteen Would Fancy Me? And it's about being much too old for him to fancy you, but you're kidding yourself. And well, a couple of the lines were, of course, Bruce is used to admiration. He's idolised in every nation. He's cheered and clapped in every state. Me, I'm clapped at our past eight.
Pam Ayres
And this is his lovely song about breaking away.
Speaker 1
It's a darkness of this house that's got the best of us.
Speaker 1
There's a darkness in this town that's got us too
Speaker 1
But they can't touch me now and you can't touch me now They ain't gonna do me what I watch
Speaker 1
So say goodbye, it's Independence Day It's Independence Day all down the line
Presenter
That was Bruce Springsteen and Independence Day. You made me laugh there, Pamirs, with your Bruce Springsteen poem, The Singer.
Pam Ayres
I had a terribly disappointing experience. I was in Australia working and my younger son, James, knew that I absolutely loved Bruce Springsteen and Bruce Bringstein was staying in the same hotel. My son saw Bruce and kindly got Bruce's autograph for me and came up and said, Yeah, I've got his autograph and I felt like saying, Well, I didn't want his autograph. I wanted a raunchy night with Bruce Springsteen. Forget the autograph.
Presenter
That's harder to secure, I believe. Let's talk then a little bit about well not rock and roll, but certainly showbiz and your own and it was a heck of a break, your big break in uh nineteen seventy five. Is that right? That's right, yeah. Opportunity knots. In those days, those of us who remember the clapometer, well, it nearly clapped off the screen when you came on. What was that experience like? I got mixed feelings.
Speaker 1
Yeah, so
Pam Ayres
feelings about it really'cause I was very gullible at that time. I was very green and
Pam Ayres
Because of my accent, they gave me this rubbishy old set, this comfy old armchair. Yeah, this sort of TV.
Presenter
Yeah, there's a sort of teapot and stuff, wasn't it?
Pam Ayres
Yeah, the teapot with a knitted tea cozy on it and just made me look really sort of folksy. Well I didn't necessarily want to look like that, but because of my accent you get pigeonholed then oh I was petrified. I didn't even think that well it's recorded, you know if it's a disaster we can do it again. All I realised was that I was on telly and the cameras had a big red glass thing like a giant oxo cube on the top and that came on, that lit up and you knew you were on. And I started to recite, I wish I looked after my teeth and my heart was pounding so fast I thought I must this must show on the screen, you know, I must be shaking in my seat.
Presenter
Tione
Pam Ayres
'Cause I was really scared, but I got through it.
Pam Ayres
Yeah.
Presenter
Uh
Pam Ayres
And I was. One?
Presenter
So, millions of people were watching. It was clear that you had something that people enjoyed. You were highly entertaining, you were distinctive, and you were talented. What did you want for yourself at that point? What was your plan?
Pam Ayres
I didn't have a plan at all. I thought they know best. I knew I loved writing my kind of material. I knew I loved performing it. I was terrified. It always terrified me, but I wanted to do it.
Pam Ayres
You know, you go into that kind of environment, a television environment, and think, well, they know best what's best for me. And did they know best? I don't think so.
Pam Ayres
No, I I don't think so. I was very sort of
Pam Ayres
Categorized as some sort of rustic idiot, you know, leaning over a five-bar gate saying, Oh, and I went along with it to a certain extent. Purely financially, it was ecstasy time because I had money, I was able to buy a house, I bought a little house which cost £11,500, a little semi-detached house. And you know, that was beyond my wildest dreams. I bought an MGB GT, the sports car of my dreams. So that was fantastic. On the other hand, I felt like I'd lost control.
Presenter
Time for some more music Pamirs. Then tell me about your next one. What are we gonna hear?
Pam Ayres
My next choice is Tina Turner. I absolutely love Tina Turner for all sorts of reasons. She overcame an absolutely ghastly start. I love her for her energy, for her sexiness, and for all the wonderful entertainment she's given us. And also, this song reminds me of the work I've done in Australia. I did 12 tours of Australia. They gave me a wonderful welcome. I first became aware of this song in 1993 when this was the Australian Rugby League promo song and it was on all the tellies and it was so exciting. You know, you were watching the telly and you'd see all these gorgeous men, these great big chunky men come on and Tina Turner singing this. Oh, it was fantastic.
Pam Ayres
And sounds good.
Pam Ayres
I am a man.
Pam Ayres
Yeah.
Speaker 1
Stop down your heart.
Speaker 1
I hate on every word, you say.
Presenter
Chairs and Florida
Presenter
The best, Tina Turner. I've been thinking, because I knew I was going to speak to you, about when we hear poetry on that grand scale, as you say. You know, when you first came onto TV, it was people in their millions that were watching, and then people in their thousands wanted to come and see you. And my thoughts were immediately drawn to the very recent tragedy in Manchester, where there was the Arena bombing. And in the days and weeks after it, there was one very extraordinary thing that happened. I don't know if you saw it on TV, but it was on all the news bulletins. And it was when the Manchester poet Tony Walsh stood and read a poem that he had made in solidarity, in some respects, in defiance of what had happened to that great city. This is the place it was called. And it was very interesting.
Presenter
to see people enraptured and enlivened by poetry who maybe had never had any cause.
Pam Ayres
At any cost
Presenter
To enjoy poetry before. Did you see that and what what occurred to you as a poet?
Pam Ayres
I did see it. And I think you can distil the words down to the kernel of what you want to say, and I think that's what he did. And that's the joy of poetry, that you can cut away all the surplus and distil it and get to the heart of it. It's a process of distillation, of cutting away the rubbish and just choosing the right words in the right order to communicate with people, particularly at times of grief and sorrow and joy.
Presenter
Let's have some more music, Pamirs. It's time for your seventh. What are we going to hear?
Pam Ayres
This is one of my favourite songs in the whole world. I think it's one of the most romantic songs ever. And it's sung by Finbar Fury of the Furies. I met the Furies, my husband Dudley, when I first met him, and subsequently he was touring all sorts of enormous entertainers like Shirley Bassey, Nanima Scoury, Fat Domino, all sorts of really well-known people in the Albert Hall. And he also seemed to have a niche touring the Irish groups, the Dubliners and the Chieftains and the Furies. And so the Furies came to our house a few times when my children were little and they were lovely. And they gave me a banjo, and I love it. It's a genuine Furies banjo, but sadly, I have never been able to pluck it as eloquently as this.
Speaker 1
When first I saw a love light in your eyes
Speaker 1
I thought the world held not but you
Speaker 1
And even though we've drifted far apart
Speaker 1
I never dream
Speaker 1
But what I dream
Speaker 1
A deep
Presenter
The Fury Brothers and Davy Arthur and when you were sweet sixteen. Uh you mentioned uh Dudley there. He went on to be your agent and you have two sons together, now grown up with families of their own. When they were younger and you were writing, how on earth did you ma did you manage that? How did you manage to get the peace and quiet and the time that it takes with a young family?
Pam Ayres
Well, I had a nanny.
Pam Ayres
I sort of regret that now. Now I've got grandchildren and I get such joy from seeing them develop and how they learn to talk and how they start clawing their way round the sofa and all that. I'm not sure I concentrated on that as much. I'm not sure I observed that as much with my own children. I loved them dearly and I was always at home, but I felt very driven.
Pam Ayres
To write, I just felt full of ideas and things to write about and I had to get it down. I'm not saying I wasn't a good mum. I hope I was a good mum, but um there there is that regret and I think that
Presenter
And you're still obviously highly productive and still working. Do you see an end to it, or will you always have to write and want to be published?
Pam Ayres
I've always written ever since I was at school and I discovered writing and I discovered that I could knock up a story and loved it. I don't imagine that I would ever lose that inclination. I may lose the ability if I go senile, but it's been so much a part of me for all my life. I can't imagine not always having the antenna out just looking for ideas. How do you view the prospect?
Presenter
of being sent alone to an island. How are you with your own company?
Pam Ayres
Quite good. Um, I've always been fairly self-contained.
Pam Ayres
But to the exclusion of everybody else, that's a very different, very serious thing. I could do it, but I'd be glad to scuttle home if somebody came and rescued me.
Presenter
Tell me about your final piece of music then, Pamirce. What are we going to hear?
Pam Ayres
This is a piece from Pagliarchi, and the reason I've chosen it is because my husband Dudley is involved with an organisation called Arts in Rural Gloucestershire, and it also works in other counties as well. And it's supported by the Arts Council, and it brings entertainment of a very high standard. They have to be screened into the village halls. Dudley's organised lots of these performances in our village hall, and I go along as the mince pie and sausage roll operative. We've had fantastic acts. One of the acts we had was called the Opera Dudes, and they did opera in a very light way and did nice pieces from the famous operas. And at one point in the performance, they sang this, and everybody was sitting round their tables and they had bottles of wine and things to eat, and they were chatting with their neighbours. And they only had to walk home just down the road at the end of the evening. And I just thought, what a lovely idea it is. And they sang this song, and it pinned us to the wall.
Presenter
I feel it, but I've won.
Presenter
Yeah.
Presenter
Vesti la Luba from Pagliacci by Leon Cavallo, performed there by Luciano Pavarotti, with the Vienna Folks Opera Orchestra conducted by Leone Maigera.
Presenter
It's time for me to give you some things now, Panayers. Yeah, you're welcome. I'm going to give you some books. The complete works of Shakespeare and the Bible.
Speaker 1
Thank you.
Presenter
And one other book to go with those two. What's it gonna be?
Pam Ayres
Well, to cheer me up in my isolation, I would like Frank Muir's book. It's quite old. It's called The Oxford Book of Humorous Prose, and it's excerpts of funny writers all down the centuries from Chaucer right up to the present day. And there's S. J. Perelman and all the authors that I love, and so you can just choose the one that matches your mood. So that one, please.
Presenter
We will give you that. You're allowed a little luxury, or indeed a big one. What will yours be?
Pam Ayres
You?
Pam Ayres
Well, I don't know if I'd be able to get away with this, but mosquitoes like me. I thought in my old age I'd get stringy and tough, but they still like me just as much. So I wondered if I could have a set. I may not be able to, I'm being a bit cheeky. I'd like a tube of antihistamine cream, a mosquito net, and a great big fly swatter as big as a tennis racket.
Presenter
You are really straining at the boundaries of what I'm allowed. Shall we say that I give you a medicine cabinet that happens to be full of things that repel mosquitoes, whatever is in there you may use.
Pam Ayres
Yes, but can I get in the fly swatter as big as a tennis racket? I'd love to see it, isn't it?
Presenter
Well we'll have to see if it's in there.
Pam Ayres
I have the medicine cabinet because I might some terrible injury might befall me and I'd be able to cope.
Presenter
I like
Presenter
Okay, it's yours. And and which of these eight discs, carefully chosen, would you save?
Pam Ayres
That's really tough.
Pam Ayres
I would like to choose Finbar Fury Singing Sweet Sixteen, because it will remind me of my wild well, not so wild, youth and the joys of romance. It's yours.
Presenter
Pamirs, thank you very much for letting us hear your desert island discs.
Pam Ayres
Thank you. I have loved it.
Presenter
Hi, I really hope you enjoyed that interview with Pam Ayers. There are many Desert Island Discs featuring poets including Lem Sissay, Liz Lockhead, Imtiaz Darker and John Agard, to name just a few of them. All are available to download.
Presenter
You'll also have heard Pam refer to her love of Bruce Springsteen while he was my guest back in December of twenty sixteen.
Presenter
In 1984, you released what remains, in spite of all your other huge successes, your most successful selling album Born in the USA. And that iconic image on the cover, the Annie Leibovitz photograph, you said at the time, in the end, that picture was chosen because my ass looked better than the picture of my face, which always makes me smile. But it tells tales of ordinary Americans, of people just grinding out their jobs, of trying to make difficult relationships work, of dealing with being short of money. I mean, that is still what you write about. And yet, the further away you have moved from that in your life,
Presenter
How easy is it to always connect when you go to that place of writing with the ordinary lives of everyday Americans?
Speaker 1
Well, you know, you
Speaker 1
You have all of your experience to draw from all the time.
Speaker 1
And I think that the performers that we feel are wrestling with something significant are the performers that hold.
Speaker 1
They hold our attention.
Speaker 1
So, a lot of my work is drawn from the period in my life.
Speaker 1
Where I'm trying to go back.
Speaker 1
and make sense of things.
Speaker 1
that at the time were unfathomable and uncontextualizable.
Speaker 1
And that continues to this day. I constantly go back and I put my father's clothes on and I walk out on stage and I.
Speaker 1
present some version of him and myself at night.
Speaker 1
To my audience. And why am I doing that? Well, I'm trying to find.
Speaker 1
The piece of it that would lead to a certain sort of transcendence over those circumstances that I grew up in. So these are all things I'm working out on stage at night and why people
Speaker 1
Come to see us.
Presenter
It's clearly worked professionally. Has it worked personally?
Speaker 1
Well
Speaker 1
Generally doesn't work as well personally.
Presenter
Don't
Speaker 1
At some point you have to you know you address these things and you you let a certain amount of them go, and of course you move on, but you're always called back to those moments and while I don't live in them any more, I do occasionally revisit them.
Speaker 2
You know
Presenter
I know you didn't have a beer till you were 22. Steve Van Sant says you are the only person he has ever known who has never, ever taken drugs. You operate your band setup in a kind of benign dictatorship. It seems that the control that you've been able to exert personally has also been a very significant part of that. You exerted just untypical in your industry control over how you've behaved.
Speaker 1
Pierce.
Speaker 1
Yeah, I'm sure too much at times, but uh I come from a chaotic childhood, I felt, and so what I was interested in doing was creating some order and a safe environment for myself, because my childhood felt very unsafe, and a structure where I can express myself freely.
Speaker 1
and grow into
Speaker 1
Grow into a man.
Presenter
And you know
Presenter
Bruce Springsteen talking to me back in December twenty sixteen.
Presenter
Well, we're now going to take a short summer break, and whilst we're dusting the deck chairs and getting the island ready for our autumn castaways, we've selected some classic Desert Island discs that we'll be putting out as weekly podcasts for you. I hope you enjoy them.
Pam Ayres
This is the BBC.
Speaker 2
Hello, I'm Dan Saladino. If you enjoyed that programme, you might also enjoy the Food Programme, where each week we bring you stories from around the UK and around the world. Stories of people and places, cooking and culture, politics and pleasure. There are hundreds of episodes available, and it's easy to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
Woodland Burial is a short poem I wrote after I walked through the church in the village near where I used to live called Preston. And it was a January day and it was grey and the churchyard was in the shadow of the church and and the gravestones were all leaning over at drunken angles and I thought I don't want to go here, it's dead, you know, in all sorts of ways. I thought I'd rather go into a forest where something gorgeous can grow out of what used to be me. I'm a great believer in compost eats, and I thought it would be nice if the bits and pieces that made my body were utilized by something as gorgeous as a tree, and birds would live in it, and insects, and things would make use of it. I agonised over whether to put it in my book, because it is so serious. It's about death. I was astounded really and delighted with the response because so many natural burial grounds approached me and said, Do you mind if we use this you know, put it on the wall? And I've been to lots of natural burial grounds where they've got it in inscribed on plaques on the wall, and that's a very nice feeling.
Presenter asks
Tell me a little bit about your family background.
My dad was in the Grenadier Guards. He signed up. He lied about his age and joined up. I admired him. I think he was very um traumatized by what he'd seen. He had bad um temper explosions which scared us all. But I understand it now. I understand the the terrible things he saw. I don't think you just get over it and walk away. When dad came out of the army, he went to work for the Southern Electricity Board as a linesman. He used to shin up the poles and fiddle with the wires at the top. My mum was a very bright girl. She was offered a scholarship, but her mother was widowed, so her mother used to take in washing and she died of TB. So they really had a terrible life of poverty. But they were very loving. And she went into domestic service in Cromwell Road in London. She was offered a scholarship to a grammar school, but she couldn't take it up because they couldn't afford whatever you had to buy, the uniform or something. But she was bright. She loved English. She could always advise me on the right word to use or if I didn't know what a word meant.
Presenter asks
Your father was pretty strict and had these rages – did you want to do things that he wouldn't allow you to do?
Yeah, I mean I don't want to paint a black picture of my dad. I loved him dearly. He was funny, he was strong, he looked after us, he grew all these vegetables. You know, we're all still going strong. And I think that they laid a foundation of good health for us at a time when nothing was known about what was a good diet. But we had loads of rabbit and loads of vegetables and loads of fruit. So I loved him dearly. He was funny, but he did have these extraordinary rages. And I know I had a boyfriend I was absolutely nuts about. And one night he brought me home in his car half past ten or something. He brought me home from the dance. And I heard the window clang open of him. That's bedroom. And he bawled out, he said, Pam, is that you? And I wound the window down. I said, Yeah. And he said, Well, bloody well, come on in, then And I was so shamed, and I got out of the car and slunk indoors, and and that was the moment when I decided I was going to leave home.
Presenter asks
When you went into the RAF, how did it suit you in general?
The great glorious thing from my point of view about the Air Force was that it gave you the opportunities to perform. There were all kinds of opportunities to get on a stage, whether it was a choir or an amateur dramatic group or a folk club, you know, and I was longing to be a performer. I was very unpolished, but I knew where I wanted to be. I was at RAF Brampton, and I'd gone along with a boyfriend to watch a rehearsal. And the girl who was playing the lead hadn't turned up. And they asked me if I'd read in. And I read in, and they all said, Oh my god, what a marvellous accent. And then the girl dropped out completely. And I stepped in at 10 days' notice and I took on the part and I learned it. And everybody was thrilled. And at the end of the performance, the squadron leader, it was like God, got up on the stage and said, I'd like you all to know that Ayers has stood in at 10 days' notice and learned the entire thing. And I do give her a hearty round of applause. And the next morning I was summoned to the group captain's office, who was the CO of the whole place. And he said, I've never laughed so much in all my life. And he said, What are your ambitions in the Air Force? And I said, I want to go to Singapore, I want to go to the Far East. And within weeks, I was posted. So it could have been a coincidence, but I don't know. Perhaps he put in a good word for me. And I used to work with this man, and he'd been posted to Singapore. And he used to say, Oh, God, that's living. You get out there, that's living. This is just existing.
Presenter asks
After your big break on TV, what did you want for yourself at that point? What was your plan?
I didn't have a plan at all. I thought they know best. I knew I loved writing my kind of material. I knew I loved performing it. I was terrified. It always terrified me, but I wanted to do it. You know, you go into that kind of environment, a television environment, and think, well, they know best what's best for me. And did they know best? I don't think so. No, I I don't think so. I was very sort of categorized as some sort of rustic idiot, you know, leaning over a five-bar gate saying, Oh, and I went along with it to a certain extent. Purely financially, it was ecstasy time because I had money, I was able to buy a house, I bought a little house which cost £11,500, a little semi-detached house. And you know, that was beyond my wildest dreams. I bought an MGB GT, the sports car of my dreams. So that was fantastic. On the other hand, I felt like I'd lost control.
“I'm a great believer in compost eats, and I thought it would be nice if the bits and pieces that made my body were utilized by something as gorgeous as a tree, and birds would live in it, and insects, and things would make use of it.”
“I was so shamed, and I got out of the car and slunk indoors, and and that was the moment when I decided I was going to leave home.”
“I didn't have a plan at all. I thought they know best. ... On the other hand, I felt like I'd lost control.”
“I think you can distil the words down to the kernel of what you want to say, and I think that's what he did. And that's the joy of poetry, that you can cut away all the surplus and distil it and get to the heart of it.”
“I felt very driven to write, I just felt full of ideas and things to write about and I had to get it down.”