Heather Hallett

Speaker 10:01

BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts.

Presenter0:04

Hello, I'm Lauren Laverne and this is the Desert Island Discs Podcast. Every week I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book and luxury they'd want to take with them if they were castaway to a desert island. And, for rights reasons, the music is shorter than the original broadcast. I hope you enjoy listening.

Presenter0:45

My castaway this week is Heather Hallett, Baroness Hallett of Rye. She's one of the most eminent judges in the country and her legal career spans some fifty years. On the way, she's shattered several glass ceilings and earned a top ten place on the first woman's Our Power list back in 2013. As a barrister, she was the first woman to chair the Bar Council, and she was only the fifth woman to be appointed to the Court of Appeal. She has spent much of her life defying expectations, proving her teachers wrong when they said she'd never make it to university, and daring to speak out about the sexism she endured as a young lawyer.

Presenter1:20

When presiding over some of the most sensitive and notorious cases of recent times, she's earned a reputation for her authority and humanity. One newspaper described her handling of the 7-7 inquest as a model of what an inquest can achieve, a kind of national catharsis. She hung up her wig in 2019. The retirement is proving eventful, with a cross-bench peerage and her forthcoming role as coroner at the inquest into the Salisbury Novichok poisoning. She says, one of my strengths, and possibly one of my failings, is that if you give me a problem, I want to solve it. Heather Hallett, welcome to Desert Island Discs. Thank you very much. So Heather, much of your career has been marked by people in authority telling you, no, you can't do that, but you've always followed your own advice to hang in there. And if someone said you can't do something to, and I'm quoting you here, go out and prove them wrong. Where did and where does that tenacity come from, do you think?

Heather Hallett2:17

Probably from my parents, who both came from modest backgrounds and taught me to aspire. My parents thought that I could do anything a man could do, and they were nearly right.

Presenter2:31

So, Heather, at the beginning of the year you took on a huge role. You were appointed coroner in the forthcoming inquest into the death of Dawn Sturgis. She was the only fatal victim of the Novichok poisoning in Salisbury in 2018. Now, you've pledged to carry out a fearless inquiry which will, among other things, examine the part played by the Russian state in her death. When you're faced with such an enormous task, how do you ensure that you don't lose sight of Dawn's story of the human being who's at the heart of it all?

Heather Hallett3:01

People want to think that the coroner is is remembering that they were a person.

Heather Hallett3:07

In seven seven, there were fifty two victims and I could see how if you weren't careful that you'd get swept along in examining sis possible systemic failings and that kind of thing, but without remembering that there were fifty two individuals, fifty two families and sets of friends had lost a loved one. And so I was always very keen in that case and I'm determined in this case to focus on the individuals who are at the heart of the investigation.

Presenter3:37

You've described happiness as sitting on the sofa watching strictly with your husband and the dog. I can't top that, frankly. Sounds excellent.

Presenter3:44

But it's not all sequins and sambas for you. You said that your fellow lawyers could learn a lot from the show. Tell me more about that.

Heather Hallett3:51

It's the triumph of the human spirit. You take people who are expert at doing other things, put them into a completely new environment, and say, there you go, give it your best shot.

Heather Hallett4:02

The lesson I think for my former colleagues is whatever your expertise, so many, many lawyers these days become very specialized. In my view, some of them become too specialized too soon.

Heather Hallett4:14

And if you look at something like Stricky Delta, you see how you can expand your horizons. You may end up being excellent at crime when you were a commercial lawyer, or vice versa.

Presenter4:24

When you should have been doing flamenco all along.

Heather Hallett4:26

Exactly.

Heather Hallett4:27

Well probably in my case the Jive, but anyway.

Presenter4:30

Time for the first disc then, Heather. What's it going to be and why are you taking it with you to the island?

Heather Hallett4:35

My boys are my proudest achievement and I love them to bits, so I wanted to play a song that I used to play to them probably too loudly in the car when the three of us were together.

Heather Hallett4:47

And they called it the clapping song because it was status quo in concert. And at the very beginning of the track, you hear the audience clapping and they clap and it builds up and it builds up and then you get the amazing status quo guitars. And it's a great song, it gets me on my feet.

Speaker 45:04

One zoo to the other two

Speaker 45:07

They never really walked through.

Speaker 45:15

Because night time is a problem.

Speaker 45:19

Yeah.

Presenter5:35

Caroline, status quo. Heather Hallett, wigs are no longer worn in civil or family court cases, but you believe they still serve a purpose. Why?

Heather Hallett5:45

When I used to do cases involving alleged sex abuse of children to try and make the child feel more at ease with the proceedings.

Heather Hallett5:54

Even though the child wasn't in court and we were doing it via video link, when cross-examining the children we would take off our wigs.

Heather Hallett6:03

And that of course meant that I looked I was the person, you could see my face, my hair much more clearly.

Heather Hallett6:09

And after I had cross-examined one child, putting my clients' instructions unlike what you see on the screen, we are only putting clients' instructions, we're not inventing the the matters that we put.

Heather Hallett6:21

I got into the lift on the way to go home and the family of that child thought that I as a person had believed what I'd been putting and I was attacked.

Presenter6:33

What happened?

Heather Hallett6:35

I I remember getting into the lift and suddenly realizing that nobody else was in the lift apart from

Heather Hallett6:43

The mother, father, uncle, and aunt, I think?

Heather Hallett6:46

of the child I'd been cross examining, and they started verbally abusing me. How could you represent that? I won't use the words they used.

Heather Hallett6:57

X paedophile um

Heather Hallett7:00

You're as guilty as he is. So it started off with very busy, and then I think it was the uncle, basically, grabbed me.

Heather Hallett7:08

by the lapels and was shaking me to say, How can you do it? You're wicked, you're evil, you deserve a thumping and fortunately, just at that stage we reached the next floor, the doors opened and I fell out. And I think that had I been wearing a wig,

Heather Hallett7:24

They wouldn't have seen me as a person, they'd have seen me as an advocate just doing my job.

Presenter7:29

I mean, that must have been absolutely terrifying. How did you stop difficult cases like that overshadowing the rest of your life? I think at the time that happened, you would have had young children of your own.

Heather Hallett7:42

I did. I did. I had bought two boys probably under ten.

Heather Hallett7:47

Ugh, I suppose I need to go home.

Heather Hallett7:49

Cuddle them if they'd let me, or if they weren't too busy watching television or doing their homework. I suppose probably reached for a glass of white burgundy.

Heather Hallett7:59

Um talk to my husbands.

Heather Hallett8:03

Just try to let the stress out by leading a normal family life.

Presenter8:07

It's time for disc number two, Heather. What's it going to be and why have you chosen this?

Heather Hallett8:11

Disc number two is to remind me of my wonderful mother. She was bright, fun.

Heather Hallett8:19

Plucky, selfless, and she was the kind, the generation when whatever life threw at you, and she had a tough life at times, she just got on with it. And she loved musicals, and one of her favorites is now watched by my four adorable grandchildren, and it's Sound of Music and Climb Every Mountain.

Speaker 48:38

Climb every mountain

Speaker 48:43

Search high and low.

Speaker 48:47

Follow every byway

Speaker 48:52

Every part you know

Speaker 48:56

Climb every mountain.

Speaker 49:01

For every stream

Presenter9:09

Climb Every Mountain from The Sound of Music by Rogers and Hammerstein performed by Peggy Wood

Presenter9:15

So, Heather Hallett that track taken you back to your childhood then. You were born in Eastleigh, in Hampshire. Your father, Hugh, was a police officer, and you said that if he was ever stranded on a desert island and found some treasure, he would have found a way of handing it in. So he was a man of principle, wasn't he?

Heather Hallett9:31

Yeah, he was a highly intelligent man of great principle. Sometimes principles that got him into trouble with

Presenter9:37

In what way?

Heather Hallett9:39

For example, back in the sixties, fifties, sixties, he was told that if he wanted to get on, he should become a Freemason. Now rightly or wrongly, he didn't think that was the right way to go about things. And so as a matter of principle,

Heather Hallett9:54

He didn't join the Freemasons.

Speaker 19:56

Okay.

Heather Hallett9:56

Okay.

Heather Hallett9:58

people senior to him took exception to that.

Heather Hallett10:01

And he was somebody he believed in very high standards. And because he was so bright and so ambitious, you know, he was being promoted every twelve months, twenty four months, and that meant moving house, moving schools, moving friends. It was awful for my mother and for the child for us, the children.

Presenter10:17

Police officers had assigned housing, and at one point the house you were living in also doubled as a police station. How did that work?

Heather Hallett10:26

It did. I I think I was about five and it was Kingsclear, which was the police station for Highclear, which was Danton Abbey, exactly. The house was the police station. So you came in the front door. On your right was the police reception. On your left was our sitting room.

Presenter10:36

Don't internally

Heather Hallett10:46

And to the right was the door to the cells. And and my mother, because the police service expected you the woman to do whatever the job demanded, in other words, to keep her husband and the police force, as it was then known, happy, she had to serve the prisoners their meals. And I always felt so sorry for the prisoners because my mother's cooking was no better than mine. And they got grilled no fried spam, chips and baked beans.

Presenter11:14

You described her as selfless. You also say she was fond, very independent, even late in her life.

Heather Hallett11:19

Yeah, whatever life threw at her, she put up with and you know however many times my father came home, broke the very happy news from his point of view he'd been promoted and the very sad news from the children's point of view. So she had to cope with you know tears of joy and tears of sadness and she just got on with packing up the furniture, packing up the belongings, sticking them in suitcases and packing cases. We always said that she could blow a whistle and the house would just pack itself.

Presenter11:46

What were her ambitions for you? Because she was a a secretary and and obviously a trained typist, but she refused to teach you to type, I think.

Heather Hallett11:54

She always thought that if she taught me to touch type, then I would get stereotyped as a woman and then just be left doing the typing and the secretarial stuff. And she wanted more for me as she saw it.

Heather Hallett12:07

Time for your third disc today, Heather. What's it gonna be?

Presenter12:09

The NY

Heather Hallett12:10

Well, although my father was very proud of his I think it was over 45 years in the police, he was also very proud of his service as a pilot during the Second World War, dropping agents behind enemy lines. And he had quite a quirky sense of humour and he was a great admirer of Tony Hancock. So I would like to remind me of my father.

Heather Hallett12:32

Kenneth Williams knocking on the window of a cockpit in the Test Pilot sketch in Hancock's Hatha.

Speaker 412:39

Taking her up to 2,400 miles an hour.

Speaker 412:44

Hank off to control tower. Something strange is happening. There's a peculiar knocking sound on the windscreen.

Speaker 412:55

Seems to be coming from outside the plane.

Speaker 412:57

I'm slowing down to 1800 miles an hour.

Speaker 413:00

We'll slide cockpit open to see what's wrong.

Speaker 413:04

Good evening.

Presenter13:08

The test pilot sketch, Hancock's Half Hour, featuring Tony Hancock and Kenneth Williams. Absolutely irresistible, Heather Halleck. So Heather, as you mentioned, your family moved every couple of years because of your father's job. And of course, that meant that you started a new school every time. How did you deal with that?

Heather Hallett13:25

Well, I just coped. I I suppose that that's what I learnt from my mother. You just cope with whatever happened. And it's it's quite soul destroying. And it's very difficult to break into

Heather Hallett13:37

friendship groups that are already formed. Children they form quite quickly when they all start school together. And suddenly you've got this new girl, new girl who's the daughter of the local Bobby and you think she's gonna tell on you if you admit anything's gone wrong in your family. It wasn't very nice, to be honest.

Presenter13:55

What about your teachers? What did they make of you? I I think by the time you reached your third grammar school you said the teachers just di didn't get you at all.

Heather Hallett14:02

They said I wasn't university material, that I ought to go to a training college to become domestic science teacher,'cause I wasn't good enough to do English or history or French or whatever else I was studying at A level.

Heather Hallett14:14

And when I decided that I wanted to apply to university and

Heather Hallett14:20

I've no idea why. I decided I wanted to go to Oxford. It sounded.

Heather Hallett14:24

Glamorous. This all sounds very trivial, but it sounded glamorous.

Heather Hallett14:28

and I discovered there was a college called Sir Tew's, named after my father, obviously.

Heather Hallett14:33

And I decided I wanted to apply to St Hughes College, Oxford. And

Heather Hallett14:38

In those days, the schools used to give special tuition to people applying to Oxbridge.

Heather Hallett14:43

And my teachers and headmaster were horrified. Don't be ridiculous. You're just not fit to do it. And they refused to give me any special tuition.

Heather Hallett14:52

Said, you're all on your own, you know. Do what you, you know, you have to study for it on your own, and we're not going to give you any help. So they gave me no help at all.

Heather Hallett14:59

And then the day St Hughes rang them up and said, Could you tell Heather Hallett please that we would like to offer her a place? I was called to the Headmaster's rooms and the secret his secretary said, Um, Heather, yes, we've had some news from St Hughes College, Oxford. They're prepared to offer you a place. Goodbye.

Heather Hallett15:17

And that was it.

Presenter15:18

We've got to make some room for the music. It's your fourth disc today. Tell us about it.

Heather Hallett15:22

This is to remind me of my big brother, who sadly died a couple of years ago. And although he moved or emigrated to North America in the late seventies or the mid seventies, sorry, we always had that bond.

Heather Hallett15:35

We didn't have much music around the house apart from my mother playing the piano or and the musicals I talked about. So he introduced me to pop music and

Heather Hallett15:45

As he was living in North America and I was living in the UK, we independently both grew to love Genesis. So although I'm delighted to say I've got my nephews and my niece and my sister in law to remind me of him, this is to remind me of him.

Speaker 416:11

I see.

Speaker 416:26

Trouble and slowly tears you up.

Presenter16:30

Genesis and invisible touch. So Heather, by nineteen sixty eight you'd made it to Oxford. How did you find life there? You were dreaming of it, it was going to be all glamour. Was it? And how did you fit into it, if so?

Heather Hallett16:44

I was just looking around and I was in this wonderful city with these glorious buildings and surrounded by a lot of people, many of whom just seemed to have confidence and seemed to be having fun. And so it was it was exciting.

Presenter17:01

After graduating from Oxford and a year at law school you were called to the bar in nineteen seventy two, and I think it soon became clear to you that as a woman you were at a distinct disadvantage. In fact, you were refused a scholarship at one stage.

Heather Hallett17:15

Yeah, that was really quite disappointing.

Heather Hallett17:20

I have to say, my inn has changed hugely since this time. It is now leaps ahead in the diversity stakes. But in those days, I'm afraid it was like every other inn of court and like society as a whole. It was extraordinarily

Heather Hallett17:35

misogynist and racist and everything else. And I applied to the Inn for a scholarship and they said, Right, well, how do we know you're going to make it? Surely you're just going to get married and go off and have babies.

Presenter17:47

They said that to you.

Heather Hallett17:48

Uh

Presenter17:48

Yes. Oh, it was it was overt.

Presenter17:51

You forged on regardless, and were taken on by chambers where you specialized in criminal law. What were you dealing with as a young female barrister?

Heather Hallett18:00

There were things like there was the judge

Heather Hallett18:03

Who, when I got an appointment that I'd been anxious to get.

Heather Hallett18:10

and was, you know, a a a feather in my cap.

Heather Hallett18:13

He decided that he was responsible for my getting that appointment, and he made it perfectly plain how I could thank him.

Heather Hallett18:21

um physically, sexually, which I was very distressed about. And then uh on another occasion I was in the middle of a trial.

Heather Hallett18:34

And I was called in.

Heather Hallett18:37

to see the judge on my own. And n n normally if you're doing a trial you don't go to see the judge just one side, because obviously it would you know you don't know what's being said, it'd be unfair. And I said to the usher, I'll go and get my um opponent and the usher said, No, no, it's a personal matter.

Heather Hallett18:52

And at this stage I'd I'd had one child, so I think Jamie was about 10 or 11 months old.

Heather Hallett18:59

And I went into the judge's room and he said, um

Heather Hallett19:03

Mrs. Wilkinson, he didn't like working mothers. He used to sit early and late when he knew that I was in front of him to try and make life as difficult as possible. And he said, um

Heather Hallett19:12

You have one Sprog so far? I said yes. He said Well, it's obviously time you had another. If you need somebody helping to and he used the F word, then I'm your man.

Heather Hallett19:24

And I had to leave his room and go back into court and carry on with the trial and

Heather Hallett19:30

I was just stunned.

Heather Hallett19:32

And had I complained about him, I would have been complaining about a very senior figure in that area.

Heather Hallett19:39

Loved by some, respected by some, and.

Heather Hallett19:44

I didn't report him.

Heather Hallett19:46

Did you tell anyone?

Heather Hallett19:48

Not at the time, no. Didn't even tell my husband, I don't think.

Heather Hallett19:52

I buried it.

Heather Hallett19:54

I wish now I had protested more, but you just didn't I mean I when I look back on some of the things that happened to me.

Heather Hallett20:00

And people say, well, why didn't you do something? And all I can say is that we were just terrified it would affect our career.

Presenter20:08

Well with that I think we'd better hear some more music. What's next, and why?

Heather Hallett20:13

My girlfriends have been important to me throughout my adult life, ever since university, and they have been there for me, supporting me in bad times. They provide a spark, and so

Heather Hallett20:27

This one is a song I consider to be a triumph of woman power or female power, and it's simply the best by Tina Turner.

Heather Hallett20:37

You're Sam.

Speaker 420:52

I love that.

Speaker 420:56

Stop down your heart.

Speaker 421:00

I hate on every word you say.

Speaker 421:04

Chance of block

Presenter21:09

The best Tina Turner for your girlfriend's Heather Hallett. Now Heather, as we've heard, you've taken on some very troubling cases in your career, many involving young children. Do those stories stay with you?

Heather Hallett21:22

The cases I remember most all involve

Heather Hallett21:26

children and and most of them involve deaths of children.

Heather Hallett21:31

I remember once, for example, representing

Heather Hallett21:33

A stepfather accused of killing his step

Heather Hallett21:37

Child who is a baby.

Heather Hallett21:39

And what had happened was the parents said they went to the baby's cot and found the baby collapsed and the baby was near death, and the stepfather did his inadequate best to resuscitate the baby whilst the mother called the ambulance. The baby's taken to hospital, still alive just.

Heather Hallett21:58

But sadly, died. And then the hospital, the pathologist, examined the baby.

Heather Hallett22:04

discovered there were um fractured ribs.

Heather Hallett22:09

and decided this baby had been

Heather Hallett22:12

unlawfully kills.

Heather Hallett22:15

and decided that because there are only two people who could have done it with the care of the baby, the mother and the stepfather, it must have been the stepfather.

Heather Hallett22:23

I was instructed, as I say, to defend, and the defence instructed the pathologist to agree with the prosecution pathologist.

Heather Hallett22:30

And I just felt that this stepfather had been pigeonholed. Everything that I'd read about him suggested he was a loving parent. And A, I wasn't satisfied that the prosecution could prove this was an unawful killing.

Heather Hallett22:42

whatever the pathologist said because

Heather Hallett22:45

I had become aware by at that stage of increasing research that suggested fractured ribs could be caused by resuscitation, clumsy resuscitation.

Heather Hallett22:53

And

Heather Hallett22:54

Also, I wasn't convinced that they could prove it was the stepfather as opposed to the mother. I mean, I'm not suggesting the mother did do it, or that there was any unlawful killing. Anyway, I was I very rarely spoke about my cases to outsiders, but I was sitting in a Crown Court.

Heather Hallett23:06

And a friend of mine came up and said, Heather, you look a bit pensive. I said, Yes, well, I'm really troubled by this case that I'm preparing.

Heather Hallett23:13

And he said, Explain what's the problem, and I did. And he said, Tell you what, the baby was alive when got to hospital. I said, Yes. He said, You need my father. He's a professor of biochemistry.

Heather Hallett23:23

And to cut a long story short, I got the Professor of Biochemistry involved who, because the baby had been alive at hospital, tests had been carried out on the living child. And therefore, this Professor could analyze the samples.

Heather Hallett23:36

And he gave his opinion.

Heather Hallett23:39

That the baby had it was a natural cot death.

Heather Hallett23:42

and their fractured ribs had been caused by clumsy resuscitation. And I think it was probably one of the most nervous moments of my life waiting for the jury to return the verdict. But they came back and it was not

Presenter23:52

was not guilty.

Presenter23:53

Heather, I quoted you at the beginning of the programme, one of my strengths and possibly one of my failings is give me a puzzle and I want to solve it. What do you do with the puzzles that you can't solve? How do you make yourself put them down?

Presenter24:06

Get on.

Heather Hallett24:07

On with life.

Presenter24:07

Yeah.

Heather Hallett24:07

Yeah.

Heather Hallett24:08

If you've gone up the brick wall and the brick wall's stayed firm, if you've come round the side and tried everything going round the side and you still can't get through or round the brick wall,

Heather Hallett24:19

then you just have to put it behind you and get on with life.

Presenter24:22

Time for some more music, Heather. Tell us about your next choice.

Heather Hallett24:26

I must have something to remind me of Oxford, and every week

Heather Hallett24:30

Most of the college would gather in the junior common room to watch Top of the Pops on a pretty small T V in the corner. God, we knew how to live, didn't we?

Heather Hallett24:39

That was our highlight of the week. Anyway, very much top of the pops for me at that time was Marvin Gaye, Heard It Through the Grapevine.

Speaker 424:49

I bet you won't know I know

Speaker 424:52

I'm chosen man.

Speaker 424:56

But some of the gun

Speaker 424:58

New before

Speaker 425:00

The two of us guys, you know I love you more

Speaker 425:04

It took me by surprise, I must say

Speaker 425:09

When I found my last face, what you know that I have

Presenter25:19

Marvin Gaye, I heard it through the grapevine. Heather Hallett, in 2009 you were appointed as the coroner for the inquest into the 52 victims of the 7-7 London bombings. It was of course extremely high profile and under enormous scrutiny. Talk me through the mindset required for that kind of task. How do you get your head in the right place?

Heather Hallett25:40

Well, I suppose the first task I felt was to gain the trust of everyone. So first of all, to gain the trust of the Breathe families. I suspect some of them thought when I was appointed that I was an establishment figure who would do some kind of establishment cover-up. Well, they obviously didn't know me. So I tried to gain their trust. Then I tried to gain the trust of the other party. So you had the emergency responders, you had the intelligence services, you had all these different you had London Transport, you had all these different bodies, and they all deserved a fair hearing. There's no point in just coming to judgment. I'm afraid there's an increasing tendency these days to jump to judgment. You have to analyse the evidence. And it's only once you analyse the evidence that you can reach a sensible and reasoned and fair judgment.

Presenter26:31

In the end, Heather, you did recommend some improvements about how intelligence services could track terrorists and how local authorities could deal with major crises, but it was actually the praise that you won for your empathy and humanity in listening to the witnesses during the inquest that made some of the most affecting headlines and some incredible reading. You spoke to each of them after they'd given evidence. Why was it so important for you to take the time to do that?

Heather Hallett26:58

It it just happened. It just came naturally. I defy anybody to sit and listen to the stories that I heard.

Heather Hallett27:06

And not

Heather Hallett27:08

Have to say something at the end of it. I mean, the stories, the courage and dignity of the bereaved, the courage and determination of some of the survivors. When you've heard from the woman who had lost half her body weight and she then entered, years later she entered the Paralympics.

Heather Hallett27:28

You hear these stories and it just takes you over. I mean, apart from anything else, saying something also helped control the emotion.

Presenter27:36

How did you keep that in check in the courtroom? And was it a question of processing it afterwards?

Heather Hallett27:39

I was a question

Heather Hallett27:42

No, it was a trick taught to me by a judge who was also ordained, and he said that if ever you're doing a difficult funeral service or memorial service, you stick your nails into the palms of your hand and cause pain.

Heather Hallett27:58

And if you cause pain, that emotion helps prevent I'm doing it now, as I speak, it helps prevent the emotion of tears. And on one occasion I came out of a seven seven hearing and my palm was bleeding.

Presenter28:14

Let's take a moment for some more music. Heather, this is disc number seven. What's it gonna be?

Heather Hallett28:19

Disc number seven is to remind me of another place that's been so important to me, and that's the temple.

Heather Hallett28:27

The temple has provided me with a professional and personal home and is very special.

Heather Hallett28:34

The Temple Church extraordinary church is at its heart and has been the scene of for me many happy

Heather Hallett28:42

and many very sad events. So I would like something sung by the amazing

Heather Hallett28:49

Temple Church Choir.

Heather Hallett28:51

Dear Lord and Father of Mankind

Speaker 428:55

Oh and trouble of mankind.

Speaker 429:01

Be a foolish

Speaker 429:07

Thus in our rightful wind, in joy and light thy son is fight, in deep forever's praise, in deep praise.

Presenter29:34

Dear Lord and Father of Mankind, the Temple Church Choir

Presenter29:38

Heather Hallett, you're married to a fellow lawyer, Nigel Wilkinson, QC, and you met as students at a law lecture. Did you hit it off straight away?

Heather Hallett29:49

He said I was wearing hot pants. I wasn't. I was wearing a skirt. It was a short skirt, but.

Heather Hallett29:53

Um we met at the lecture and we spent the day together.

Heather Hallett29:58

And that evening

Heather Hallett30:00

As we said goodbye, he said, I'm not interested in a long-term relationship.

Heather Hallett30:05

I thought you cheeky swine

Heather Hallett30:08

What makes you think I am?

Presenter30:11

Obviously, he's on board with the idea now.

Heather Hallett30:14

Yeah. Well I we have been married now for um is it forty seven years I think so.

Presenter30:18

It's going quite well so far.

Heather Hallett30:20

Well, there was a hiccup. I did break off our engagement just as we came down, you know, just before we started for the bar.

Presenter30:25

Okay.

Heather Hallett30:26

I've probably thought I got engaged too early.

Heather Hallett30:29

And I ought to just yeah test the water a bit more, play the field a bit more.

Presenter30:32

What brought you back together?

Heather Hallett30:34

Well, I don't believe this, but he claims that he ran out of petrol in central London outside my house in Nottinghall Gate. I mean could really I mean I've heard better stories from some of the clients I've represented.

Presenter30:42

Convenient.

Presenter30:47

Heather, I'm about to cast you away to your desert island then. Do you think you'll enjoy your time there, or will you try and make your escape?

Heather Hallett30:55

Probably not. I'm I'm probably a physical coward. I think I'm I think mentally I'm qu I can be quite brave at times, but I I think I'm a physical coward. So, no, I probably just sit there.

Heather Hallett31:05

And wait for that ship to

Presenter31:08

To come past. Well, before we send you away, Heather, we've got one more disc to share. Number eight, what have you chosen and why?

Heather Hallett31:15

Well this is one to remind me of Nigel.

Heather Hallett31:19

He was the one who

Heather Hallett31:21

Persuaded me to apply to become a QC before he did. Now, you think we'd we'd read the same subject at university, we were the same age. And this was back in the late 80s. So he's always been a great supporter. So this is for him. Well, this is for us really, because we saw Tosca at the Royal Albert Hall. He did say when I asked him what records I should choose.

Heather Hallett31:45

Well, you can never go wrong with Puccini, so I thought that's okay. Mind you, he also suggested Teddy Bear's Picnic. So your listeners should consider themselves lucky.

Speaker 432:12

Oh let it pierce.

Presenter32:56

Vici d'Arte from Puccini's Tosca, performed by Maria Callas with the Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala, conducted by Victor Di Sabata. So, Heather Hallett, I'm going to send you away to the island. I'm giving you the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare to accompany you. You can also take another book of your choice. What will that be?

Heather Hallett33:15

If you could gather them together, please, I'd like the collected works of Colin Dexter. Colin Dexter's books, as you know, are mostly based in Oxford, so that's perfect. And it will remind me of many happy hours watching television series like Morse, Lewis, and Endeavour, all based on Dexter characters with Nigel in front of the fire and with our beloved dog Ruby.

Presenter33:41

The complete Inspector Moss collection.

Heather Hallett33:44

Is yours.

Presenter33:45

You can also have a luxury item. What would you like?

Heather Hallett33:49

A solar powered iPad preloaded with an endless supply of card games. And I might even, when you're not looking, slip a photo of my family on the home screen.

Heather Hallett34:00

Uh

Presenter34:00

I think that we can do, as long as it's not a device that can communicate. And finally, Heather, which one of the eight tracks that you've shared with us today would you save from the waves if you're forced to do so?

Heather Hallett34:11

Well, it would get me on my feet, but

Heather Hallett34:14

Not that I need reminding of my wonderful boys, but remind me of my family. Caroline, status quo.

Presenter34:19

Yeah.

Presenter34:20

Hi the Hallett, Baroness Hallett of Rye, thank you very much for letting us hear your Desert Island discs.

Heather Hallett34:26

Thank you very much for having me. It's been a pleasure.

Presenter34:43

I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Heather. We will leave her playing cards in the sunshine then. But we have cast many lawyers away to our island, including Sir John Mortimer, Helena Kennedy, Clive Stafford Smith and Dame Eilish Angelone. You can find their episodes in our Desert Island Discs programme archive and through BBC Sounds. Next time my guest will be the cellist Yo-Yo Ma. I do hope you'll join us.

Speaker 135:17

Welcome to Descendants, the series which looks into our lives and our pasts and asks something pretty simple How close are each of our lives to the legacy of Britain's role in slavery, and who does that mean our lives are linked to?

Speaker 135:33

Narrated by me, Yesterday Ward, we hear from those who have found themselves connected to each other through this history.

Speaker 135:42

Whoever you are, wherever you are in Britain, the chances are this touches your life somewhere, somehow.

Speaker 135:53

Descendants from BBC Radio Four.

Speaker 135:56

Listen now on BBC Sounds.