Kate Ewart-Biggs

Presenter0:01

BBC Sounds, Music, Radio Podcasts. 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 cast away to a desert island. And, for rights reasons, the music is shorter than the original broadcast. I hope you enjoy listening.

Presenter0:44

My castaway this week is the Deputy CEO of the British Council, Kate Ewart Biggs. She was born in London but describes herself as a citizen of the world, and her international career has been dedicated to improving lives through culture and learning. At the British Council, the organisation dedicated to building lasting connections, understanding, and trust between the UK and other countries through arts, education, and the English language, she has the perfect platform for her professional values, though for her, they have a much deeper personal resonance. When she was just eight years old, her father, a diplomat who had just been appointed the British Ambassador to Ireland, was assassinated by the IRA. Determined to create a positive legacy, her mother became a prominent campaigner for peace in Ireland, eventually earning a place in the House of Lords. Kate says, To many on the outside, the story of my family was perhaps one of how hope and purpose can transcend tragedy, and it is in so many ways. But I feel strongly that it is really important to recognise the impact this kind of loss and trauma wreak on so many across the world who have suffered in ethnic conflicts. Kate Ewart Biggs, welcome to Desert Island Discs. Well, thank you so much for having me. It's incredibly exciting to be here. Kate, let's start with the day job then. I think one of the objectives of the British Council is to promote British culture, arts, and education across the globe. What does Britishness?

Kate Ewart-Biggs2:11

Mean to you? I suppose the arts and culture, education and the English language, which are the things that the British Council promotes, are still the things that the world really wants from the UK. So there's so much Britishness in all of that, in the way that we communicate, in our brilliant arts and culture. We have such incredible history in all of that, but we're also really kind of modern and up to date. So for me, Britishness is that perfect combination of our kind of history and tradition, but yet we're always evolving, we're always thinking about the new thing, and we're always trying to keep relevant to young people. This huge shift to s

Presenter2:49

So Power is one of the big stories of the century, isn't it?

Kate Ewart-Biggs2:52

I mean, absolutely. As the world gets more and more complicated, and we see increasing numbers of terrible conflicts around the world, and we see a number of countries actually kind of closing their borders to other countries. I think the work that we do in terms of giving opportunity to millions of young people around the world to connect, to understand each other better, to have the opportunity to improve their skills. We work in over a hundred countries doing exactly that. And then the idea, if you've had an engagement with a British institution, whether it's through language learning or whether it's through meeting some artists from that country, you're much more likely to want to then trade with that country or come and visit or live here or have just a positive

Presenter3:34

It's a complicated business, the one that you're in. And the organisation did come in for some criticism last December, along with the government. A hundred people working in Afghanistan who'd helped to deliver some of the teaching programmes hadn't been airlifted to safety here in the UK. Do you have an update for us? Do you know where and where they are now?

Kate Ewart-Biggs3:53

So, we had a large number of both staff, directly contracted staff, and people who had worked with us on a contract. So, they'd taught an English class or they'd been part of one of our programmes working with young people. So, we called them kind of contractors. They weren't direct staff. All of them were eligible for the resettlement scheme. So, they've been coming out in tranches effectively. Our staff came out straight away. The second tranche of contractors, about 150 of them, and all of their families, have been able to get out now. There's a remaining about 200 who are part of the new government scheme, so they will be prioritised within that. It'll take a bit of time, and it has taken time, but we have not flinched from our responsibilities to them and have kept directly in touch with them and have been really, really concerned about their welfare because they have been at direct risk of intimidation and violence from the Taliban.

Presenter4:45

You're also here to share your music choices with us, so let's make a start with your first. What are we going to hear?

Kate Ewart-Biggs4:52

This is a bit of a cheesy choice, but it's I Could Have Danced All Night from the musical My Fair Lady. And the reason I've chosen this is that my daughter, who's now 17, was absolutely crazy about musicals from the age of about 18 months. She wouldn't watch cartoons ever. She just watched endless, endless musicals. And this was one of her very favourites. She used to call it My Fair Hair Lady. And she loved this song and we danced to it from a very young age. And as a working mother, I've, you know, at times struggled to give her enough attention when I get home from work. There's a busy phone. There's, you know, your attention is always on other things. All through her life, I have put down my phone when I've got home and we have danced together in the kitchen. So this was our first dance together.

Speaker 45:36

I could have dunced all night, I could have dunced all night, and still have begged for more.

Speaker 45:48

I could have spread my wings And done a thousand things I've never done before I'll never know but made it so

Presenter6:04

I COULD HAVE DANCE All NIGHT, SONG BAMI DICKSON from the My Fair Lady film soundtrack. So Kate Ewart Biggs, you were the youngest of three children, born to Christopher and Jane. Your father was a diplomat and your early years were spent in Brussels and then in Paris, where at the time he was second in command.

Presenter6:22

What do you

Kate Ewart-Biggs6:23

Remember about your childhood there.

Kate Ewart-Biggs6:25

I remember it as an incredibly happy time, full of kind of life and people and we were bilingual and went to French schools. I do remember even at a very young age thinking this is pretty good. Is that normal? I don't know. But I remember thinking it was great.

Presenter6:40

I've seen lots of photos of your father and he cut such a dash, you know, the very smart suit and this really remem memorable smoked glass monocle. What sort of father was he?

Speaker 16:44

True

Kate Ewart-Biggs6:45

You know

Speaker 16:45

Uh

Kate Ewart-Biggs6:50

Yeah.

Kate Ewart-Biggs6:52

I can never tell whether what I remember about him is what I really remember or whether it was stories about him. But, you know, I think he was a very, very clever, intellectual man, very funny. But I remember mostly with me that he was just this sort of gentle figure. He lost his eye in an injury at the Battle of El Alamein. Did he tell you what happened? Yeah, he did. So he was a total pacifist. He didn't want to go and fight. He was also really, really unathletic and uncoordinated. So he went off to Sandhurst, which he absolutely hated and ended up in this battle in El Alamein. And after about half an hour, he got a bit of shrapnel in his eye, so he was wounded, and I suppose in quite a lot of pain. So he crawled under an army vehicle and was just lying there, absolutely petrified, aged 18, you know, responsible for these men. Goodness knows what was happening to them. And then he could feel a sort of body beside him, and then he heard this little voice going, Mami. He then realised that he was lying next to an Italian, you know, his enemy. And they just apparently lay there together until the battle had finished and firm friends by the end of it. And after that, thankfully, for him, he went into desk jobs as a result of his injury. And I think it made his sort of.

Speaker 17:55

Yeah.

Kate Ewart-Biggs8:04

pacifist views even stronger and he wanted to join a career where he could make a difference in the world, I think, in a different way, in a diplomatic way. It was a sort of perfect career for him really.

Presenter8:12

Well, you had two extraordinary parents. I want to ask all about your mother, but we've got to make time for this next disc first. What are going to be?

Kate Ewart-Biggs8:20

BK. This is a French singer called Je d'Assin, and it's Esi tune exist d'Épas. And it's all about, you know, what would you do if the person that you love doesn't exist in the world? And this was one of my mother's favourite songs, and she used to play it all the time when we were driving. And she had a really cool triumph stag. And we quite often used to do long journeys through France when we lived there. And she would always be playing this, and it makes me think of her. But also, there's a bit of an ara in it, in that she would have been playing this song before she knew that she was going to lose the person that she didn't think she could live without.

Speaker 48:55

Es sit une existe pas, di moi pourque existe rai.

Speaker 49:04

De passant ton domines d'omais band.

Speaker 49:08

Cause I never had some head.

Speaker 49:14

A situation.

Speaker 49:18

Je no surre can poison the fle

Speaker 49:23

Don't say more

Presenter9:24

Joe Dasan and A C Tunigzi Stepa. So Kate Ewer Biggs, in the summer of 1976 your father started a new appointment. He became Britain's ambassador to Ireland. Now two weeks later he and a colleague were killed by an IRA bomb. You were just eight years old at the time. What are your main

Kate Ewart-Biggs9:45

Memories of that day. I don't remember much afterwards, but I remember the day really well. So, my mother had gone the night before to London to buy some things for the house because we'd only been there two weeks. And I remember waking up and thinking, you know, who's around, sort of thing. So, I padded into his room and spent the morning with him, choosing his tie, having breakfast with him. I remember going downstairs with him and sort of not wanting him to go. I went outside to play with the son of the driver who was driving him, and we were playing outside, and we heard this big bang, and we just kind of looked at each other and kind of carried on playing. And then after that, it just got very odd. There were lots of people in the house. My brother and sister were behaving really weirdly. Nobody would tell me what was going on. I knew there was something up, and I thought my mother died because she was away, you know, so that was the sort of natural thing. So I thought, well, she must have died. I took myself outside and started riding around the kind of front driveway on my bike, and this whole cavalcade of black cars came up the drive, and my mother got out of the first one.

Kate Ewart-Biggs10:48

She looked pretty desperate and she pitched me up and then we went inside and all the people who worked in the house all were kind of there and everybody was crying and and I kind of knew in that moment that he'd died. Nobody really had to tell me.

Presenter10:57

Yeah.

Presenter10:58

B.

Kate Ewart-Biggs10:59

Uh

Presenter10:59

just a catastrophic thing to happen to the family and your poor mum, but also a a hugely, incredibly sensitive political moment and she had to choose

Presenter11:11

in the middle of all of that kind of personal grief and shock, how to react to it. And what she did next was genuinely extraordinary. So your mother, Jane, she chose to speak and she did this T V broadcast from your living room just days after his death.

Speaker 111:24

And just

Presenter11:26

And instead of talking about her loss and anger, she spoke about peace, she talked about reconciliation. It is such a powerful piece of television all these years later. As an adult now, how do you reflect on her choices and and what she had to say in that interview and th just her ability to do it in circumstances like that? Three little children completely

Kate Ewart-Biggs11:47

Children.

Kate Ewart-Biggs11:49

She just didn't want there to be this terrible waste of this man that had such strong values and ideals and he had gone to Ireland to try and make things better, to try and build a better relationship between Britain and Ireland, to try and bring, you know, make his contribution to peace and reconciliation. She often talked about that that was the only way. There wasn't another way and that's kind of what I grew up with. It never occurred me to blame anybody. It wasn't it happened and it was a big deal, but actually because it was a big deal, my mother had a platform to try and do something positive out of it and she was given that platform. So it was pretty grim, if I'm honest. And we had to go to new schools having not really prepared for that and it was hard. It was all quite grey. I remember it just suddenly going from a very colourful life to a pretty grey life.

Kate Ewart-Biggs12:40

Kate, we've got to take a minute for the music. Disc number three, what are we going to hear? So this is Bob Dylan, Mr. Tambourine Man. And I've chosen this because I had to have a Bob Dylan song because I have grown up with him. My mother loved him and played his songs all the time in the car. And then my brother, who is just such a lovely, lovely man, was also a huge Bob Dylan fan. I remember him, he had this room at the back of the house and there'd always be music coming out of it. It's sort of part of my soul, I suppose. And I love his sort of lugubrious voice.

Kate Ewart-Biggs13:12

And also the lyrics. Every time you listen to them you learn something new. So it's Mr. Tambourine Man.

Speaker 413:17

Hey Mr. Timber Rainman, play a song for me. I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to.

Speaker 413:28

Hey Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me. In the jingle jangle morning, I'll come following you.

Speaker 413:42

Oh no

Presenter13:43

With that a

Speaker 413:44

Plings Empire.

Presenter13:46

Uh

Speaker 413:46

As a

Presenter13:46

Bob Dylan and Mr Tambourine Man. So Kate, you at Biggs, tell me more about your mum, Jane. She'd always supported your father in his diplomatic career and she actually wrote a book about it, um Paypack and Follow. Can you?

Speaker 413:46

Bob Dylan

Kate Ewart-Biggs13:59

Explain that title to me a little bit. Pay pack and follow is what diplomatic wives used to do. Usually the man in those days would get posted to a new place and the wife was left to pay all the bills, pack the bags and follow.

Kate Ewart-Biggs14:10

That was the job effectively.

Presenter14:10

The job effectively. What a task. Yeah. And then host all of the parties that I can imagine taking place in the residence ones.

Kate Ewart-Biggs14:14

Parties that I

Kate Ewart-Biggs14:18

you arrived. Was she good at that? She was born to be a diplomat's wife, particularly in Paris. She was very glamorous and very beautiful and just loved talking to people and engaging with people and had a really good sense of flowers everywhere and loved the organizing of it. So no, she was brilliant at it. And that contrast must

Presenter14:34

Must have made it all the more difficult after your father's death. So she was this young widow, three children to look after. How did she sit?

Kate Ewart-Biggs14:43

Support you all. She left school at 16 and she was a secretary basically, so she'd had lots and lots of different jobs. I think she was always really good at them. And I think she'd worked at the Savoy Club temporarily before she married my father. So they gave her a job and she did their sort of interior design for a bit because she was really good at that. And then she went on a kind of lecture tour. So she would go to the Women's Institute groups and talk about being a wife of a diplomat. And that would pay a little bit of money and they'd pay her train ticket. And she'd go off all around the country doing these talks. And then alongside that, she did all the peace campaigning. She did end up with a post in the House of Lords. She'd also started doing other things. So she was the president of UNICEF UK, for example. She started really thinking about women and children's rights. So she got appointed to the House of Lords as a Labour peer, a life peer, and she absolutely loved it and worked her socks off. Her sadness and trauma made her.

Kate Ewart-Biggs15:40

Very restless, I suppose. I thought of darkness would descend if she was too still almost. And she never really wanted to be at home that much. She was out a lot with people, doing stuff. So I think she was driven to be active and to be contributing. And if she wasn't, that's when the darkness would descend a bit. I remember very, very clearly a before life and an afterlife. And I've spent the rest of my life trying desperately not to have a sense of regret that was ingrained in me very young. And that's not a positive thing to have so young, I think.

Presenter16:17

Yeah.

Presenter16:18

How good are you at integrating those two now? Do you get moments of your life, as an adult, your adult life and the choices that you've made that allow you to bring those two, the before and the after, together a little bit?

Kate Ewart-Biggs16:32

Yeah, you know, I think I joined an organisation like the British Council because it kind of does that. So the work that we do is all about creating connections to make a more peaceful world. So my career path has enabled me to do that. My other answer to it as a sort of young adult was to go abroad, to not run away, but to travel and to see the world and engage in the world. Often in many places where people's lives were much tougher than mine and that kind of helped, you know, it put it in perspective.

Speaker 116:58

You know, it puts

Kate Ewart-Biggs17:01

When a trauma like that happens to you when you're very young, there is this sense that you're sort of looking back all the time and you've got to force yourself to look forward and create opportunity for yourself and the people around you. And I think my mother did that really effectively actually. There was always something new coming, but it wasn't easy. You know, it really wasn't easy.

Kate Ewart-Biggs17:21

It's time for some more music. What's next, Kate and Y? So my next one is The Boomtown Rats. I don't like Mondays. And I mean, I chose this because I had an enormous crush on Bob Geldorf when I was growing up. And I used to play this song in my room all the time in my kind of early teens, you know, particularly on Mondays when I was feeling really grumpy about going to school. And he lived quite near us where I grew up. Did you ever see him in real life? Yes, I did. I wouldn't say I stalked him, but I would. He had this little white dog. And I always thought that if I befriended the dog, that somehow he would talk to me.

Kate Ewart-Biggs17:59

But it never really worked. I still play this song on Monday mornings because I really struggle with Sunday evenings and Mondays.

Speaker 418:08

Tell me what.

Speaker 418:11

I don't like Mondays. Tell me why I don't like Mondays. Tell me why I don't like Mondays. I wanna shoot

Speaker 418:26

The whole day down

Speaker 418:33

10x machine is kept so

Presenter18:37

The Boomtown Rats. I don't like Mondays. So Kate, you at Biggs, you weren't keen on school, especially Monday mornings, but you carried on to higher education, studying at Edinburgh University. You were reading social anthropology and also broadening your horizons because as part of that degree, you got to spend a year in Brazil. You were teaching English to kids living on the streets there. Tell me a little bit more about that project.

Kate Ewart-Biggs19:02

You know, many of them had left home because of sexual abuse in the first place. Many of them were working as a prostitute, and they were living in really unimaginable circumstances, but they had this energy about them. Street kids often are the brave ones who've left home because it's too bad and they've gone out and they've sought another life for themselves. And I spent every day, all day, with these girls, and they would take me everywhere they went, including they'd go and visit their boyfriends, some of whom were in prisons. I once went with two of them on this prison visit, which was pretty incredible. We got locked into a cell with about six very hardened criminals, and the guards just left us. I turned around and I was quite blonde at the time. And they were all just like, right, we've been offered up this kind of young 20-year-old blonde girl. And spent, you know, the next four hours that I was in there with them, basically trying to get to know them because somebody had told me, I remember somebody had told me that, you know, if you're in a difficult situation with a man, you know, ask them about their mothers and their sisters. And that's what I did. I just sat down and started talking to them. So you thought you.

Presenter20:02

So you thought you were going to be assaulted? Yeah.

Kate Ewart-Biggs20:03

Yeah, basically I thought I'm gonna be gang raped, this is it, you know. In the end, they hugged me goodbye and they were calling me their princess and you know, but that was a moment where I thought this is it. I am stupid. I am a stupid young English girl who shouldn't be here.

Presenter20:06

Do you know?

Speaker 120:13

Ms.

Kate Ewart-Biggs20:18

But I absolutely love the experience and it led me to want to do that kind of work. So when I left university, I got a job in a small NGO working with street children. It really helped me always put things into perspective and think that actually if these kids can do it, then God, I can from my safe little world. It's time for your next disc, Kate. What are we going to hear and why are you taking it with you to the island today?

Presenter20:30

And thanks.

Kate Ewart-Biggs20:39

So this is from Brazil Times. It's called Lombarda by a group, Cooma. It was all the rage when I was there. Somebody would grab you and start dancing the Lombarda with you and it's pretty close up and personal and I have no rhythm in my body whatsoever. So I would dread this song coming on because somebody would grab me and then the rhythm changes. You're just getting to grips with it and then it changes and you're like left looking like an idiot and everybody will be laughing at the English girls who couldn't dance. But I still love this song because it brings back all my memories of the sort of vibrancy and energy in Brazil that I loved so much.

Speaker 421:19

Ah, porta sounds fairest from vera unju faux. Ah, porta sounds fairest on your fault.

Presenter21:48

Kauma and Lambarda. So Kate, you at Biggs, after graduating, you got a job, a position in Jakarta, working for the children's charity Child Hope. Did you have at that point big plans for what you were going to do with your life?

Kate Ewart-Biggs22:03

I knew that that's the kind of thing I wanted to do, but I kind of fell into it rather than having a life plan, to be honest. So you're just figuring all this?

Presenter22:10

stuff out, just kind of you know, a nascent adult, I suppose, in your early twenties, when very sadly, your mum died of cancer. How did it affect you? It must have been such a a shock.

Kate Ewart-Biggs22:22

And it was Awful, I must say. She died very quickly, actually. It was only 18 months from her first diagnosis to her dying. So it just was like this whirlwind, really, of her being ill. And I suppose I had never really, until just before she died, really accepted that she was going to die. I just, she was such a positive person, she never talked about it. So when she died, yeah, it was just black again, you know. And I was incredibly close to her. We had a really brilliant relationship and

Speaker 122:49

Do you know?

Kate Ewart-Biggs22:55

We were good friends, you know, and I just was so young, it wasn't happening to anybody else. You know, I had no parents and

Speaker 123:01

No, I had

Kate Ewart-Biggs23:03

Anyone who's grown up with a single parent, your biggest fear is that your remaining solid parent is going to not be there. So my biggest fear happened effectively.

Speaker 123:08

Alright.

Speaker 123:09

So

Kate Ewart-Biggs23:12

And I just missed her so much. I felt anchorless, really, because I was still very young trying to work out what to do with my life, and I just needed her, you know, and I missed just her terribly.

Presenter23:25

Yeah.

Kate Ewart-Biggs23:25

And I went to Cape Town and I worked in another project for street kids, for girls again. And then I met some great friends and did loads of traveling. And I almost sort of had a bit of a rebirth and I learned how to be a young person again because that's the other thing is I felt so isolated that everybody else's lives were moving on and I felt stuck in this terrible grief.

Kate Ewart-Biggs23:47

And I'm sure many people experience that, is that you feel stuck, you know.

Kate Ewart-Biggs23:52

Time for some more music. Number six today. This is a reggae artist, a Ugandan reggae artist called Madux Sematimba, and the song is Namagembe. And I've chosen this because I've always loved reggae. In fact, we called my daughter Marley. And I wanted a Ugandan artist because I spent four incredibly happy years in Uganda. My daughter is half Ugandan. And I feel so privileged to still have this incredible connection through her and her amazing family. She has a big extended family in Uganda who I feel very, very, very grateful to be in their lives because they're just such brilliant people. And, you know, it's given her this huge, wonderful, extended, massive family that I couldn't offer her. My soul will always be in Uganda, definitely. And this always reminds me of those days there.

Speaker 424:52

Meet yourself.

Speaker 424:55

Wenlassima Mobile

Speaker 425:01

Tam Digo Jo.

Speaker 425:04

I'm not sure if I can do it.

Speaker 425:08

We must have an overun

Presenter25:14

Maddox Semitimba and Namagembe. Kate Yout Biggs, you spent five years in Uganda. You were working as Director of the British Council and one of your projects there was a programme called Connecting Classrooms where pupils and children from Uganda would have exchange programmes with schools in the UK. What were your aims when you were setting that up?

Kate Ewart-Biggs25:35

It's really to give young people an opportunity to engage and learn with kids from other countries. So they work on joint curriculum projects, so they will be sharing resources, they will be looking at issues like climate change from a perspective of the UK and Uganda. And it gives them a chance just to sort of learn about a different culture, but through very, very personal means. Now they get to zoom in with virtual classrooms. There are some visits as part of it. And certainly in Uganda, we had exchanges of young people going backwards and forwards and for teachers as well in terms of a professional development for both sides. And how did that go? What's been the long-term knock-on of all of that? So most importantly, raising kids' awareness of the world. The UK kids would arrive thinking somehow that they would be sort of superior in some way, that they'd have more to offer because their education systems were more developed and had many more resources. And what they would find with the Ugandan kids was this incredible commitment to education, really bright kids, very few resources, but my goodness, a commitment to learning and doing well. And then the Ugandan kids would go back to the UK and think, well, we're going to find the perfect world here in education. And they would find in schools sometimes the behaviour wasn't so good and there would be rudeness towards teachers, which never happens in Uganda. And they would come back going, yeah, we can see there's good things, but there's also things that are good about our system too. So it's part of that, it's breaking down stereotypes, you know, creating connections between young people so that they can learn in a global world.

Kate Ewart-Biggs27:09

Let's have some more music, Kate. It's your seventh choice. What are we going to hear and why? This is a song by the Avett brothers, it's called I and Love and You.

Kate Ewart-Biggs27:19

And the Abbott brothers were sort of folk rock group from North Carolina and they were my niece Flynn, one of her favourite bands. She was really into lots of folk music. She played the banjo and really sadly Flynn died when she was only 16 a few years ago. And she actually met the Abbott brothers online. They kind of zoomed into her sitting room and they played her this song and other songs and then a group of her friends played this song at her. We called it her farewell and this song will always make me think of this incredibly inspirational, truly talented young woman that we all miss so much.

Speaker 427:57

Three words that became hard to say

Speaker 428:04

I am love and you.

Speaker 428:10

What you were than I am today

Speaker 428:16

Look at the things I

Speaker 428:22

Brooklyn, Brooklyn, take me here.

Speaker 428:27

Are you ever s

Presenter28:30

The Abbott brothers, I and Love and you, for your late niece, Flynn Kate. You have suffered a tremendous amount of grief in your life. Your sister died from breast cancer a few years ago too, and I know that she and Flynn were in treatment at the same time.

Presenter28:46

What's helped you and your family through those difficult times?

Presenter28:50

Uh

Kate Ewart-Biggs28:50

Oh, you know, I think there's an element of just having to get through it, really.

Kate Ewart-Biggs28:55

Those times when they were both ill, they were very, very difficult. But Flynn particularly had an energy for life, for the future. She led us through the whole process herself and she just wanted to do the things that she loved doing and she inspired us all and really, really led.

Speaker 129:03

She left.

Kate Ewart-Biggs29:12

The way, and my brother and sister-in-law have now set up this charity called Flynn's Barn, which is this amazing.

Kate Ewart-Biggs29:19

Place in the Lake District, and it's a space for young people who are in treatment for cancer to come and be in this incredibly beautiful place.

Kate Ewart-Biggs29:27

do music and creative things and not to be so isolated because I think

Kate Ewart-Biggs29:31

Cancer is very isolating for the people who are going through it, but also for the people who are supporting them. And you're in the zone and there are some people in it with you. And, you know, we've been blessed with incredible friends who've been in it with us. But when the person dies, you're in a whole other zone and you have to kind of adapt to that. So it is about having people around you, I think, who kind of get it and who are able to kind of hold your hand through it a bit.

Presenter29:59

Kate, I'm about to cast you away to a solitary life on your desert island. What kind of island have you got in your mind's eye? What are you hoping for?

Presenter30:08

Uh

Kate Ewart-Biggs30:08

Well, nothing too itchy.

Kate Ewart-Biggs30:11

I had terrible eczema as a child and I still am sort of itchy because it's a bit of a sound. Sandy. Salt water is fine. That's good. It's the little bitey thing. So I don't want any of that. It's a nice sun. I love the sun.

Presenter30:14

Because if the sand and salt water would have been in the middle. Salt water is fine. That's good.

Speaker 130:22

That's

Presenter30:23

Can I

Speaker 130:23

Yeah.

Kate Ewart-Biggs30:25

And I was a great sunbather. In fact, my friends called me Donna Kebab when I was younger because I did so much.

Presenter30:31

But you just rotate.

Kate Ewart-Biggs30:32

Slowly, would you? Exactly. I've got it. So, I would love all of the sun. I mean, sort of beautiful trees, enough shade. What about the practical side? How are your survival skills? Not terribly overdeveloped, I have to admit. I think I do quite well at sort of sweeping stuff away so that I didn't have an itchy place to lie. I could work out how to make a cabin or a little kind of structure around me just about. I'd be alright at foraging, but I think I get a bit scared of all the rustling. I don't like rustling.

Presenter30:32

Slowly, would you?

Presenter31:02

Uh

Kate Ewart-Biggs31:03

And so nine times That would be a problem. Problem, yeah.

Presenter31:05

Yeah. Uh

Kate Ewart-Biggs31:06

Well one more cheat.

Presenter31:06

In the fall.

Kate Ewart-Biggs31:07

Before we find out, what's your last track gonna be? Don McLean, American Pie. And I've chosen this because this, I love driving. I just love that sense of going somewhere, anywhere. I mean, I will drive anywhere. And this is a really good driving song because it's really, really long. And the lyrics are like, you know, every time you listen to it, you hear something new and something complicated. And it was also one of my sister's favorite songs. And we used to do these long journeys down to France with my daughter and her in the back seat. She didn't drive, so I did all the driving. And they would sit in the back and singing along to this at the tops of their voices, just crying with laughter because she was even more tone deaf than I am. So this always makes me think of Journeys and her.

Speaker 431:51

Out of luck knew the day.

Speaker 431:55

Music will die

Speaker 431:58

I started singing Bye, buying this American pie Drove my Chevy to the levee, but the levee was dry. Them good old boys were drinking whiskey and rye, and singing this'll be the day that I die.

Speaker 432:13

This'll be the day that I die

Speaker 432:18

Now for ten years we

Presenter32:21

Don MacLean and American Pie. So, Kate, you at Biggs, it's time I'm going to send you away to the island. I'm giving you the Bible, the complete works of Shakespeare, and you can take one other book. What would you like?

Kate Ewart-Biggs32:33

Well, some people might be surprised by this if they know me, but I'd like to take the complete works of Jane Austen. I find Jane Austen really soothing. I love all the kind of gentleness of the language. The really terrible things don't happen in most Jane Austen books, do they? And I think I could reread them all over and over again. Complete works, okay. I will allow it. About a luxury item. What would you like? Many people out there might think that this isn't a luxury item, but for all those asthmatics out there, I think they will understand that I can't go anywhere without my asthma inhaler. And I know it doesn't sound very luxury, but having wheezed my way through quite a bit of my life, not anymore so much, the idea of not having my little crutch with me in my blue inhaler would feel impossible. So this is for all asthmatics out there who I think will understand that. And I spent my life as well as my friends will also confirm looking for it.

Kate Ewart-Biggs33:29

Always losing it and looking for it.

Presenter33:31

Well, I mean I I shouldn't really allow you something that's a practical necessity, but I think on the basis that so many people have taken medications of one kind or another to the island in the past, I can't refuse it either. So I'm minded to allow that. Thank you very much. You can have it. And finally, which one track of the eight that you've shared with us today would you save from the waves if you had to?

Kate Ewart-Biggs33:52

I think it's gonna have to be the Bob Dylan, Mr. Tambourine Man, an all time favourite of mine, and Bob Dylan an all time favourite. Kate Ewitt Biggs, thank you very much for letting us hear your

Presenter34:02

Uh

Kate Ewart-Biggs34:03

Desert Island Discs? Uh Thank you so much. Adding me.

Presenter34:26

Hello, I hope that Kate is happy on her island and that it's not too itchy for her. There are more than 2,000 Desert Island Discs programmes in our archive, which you can listen to if you search through BBC Sounds. There are castaways from the worlds of politics, the arts, and science. And you can also hear Kate's favourite dog walker, Sir Bob Geldoff. He's in there too.

Presenter34:47

The studio manager for today's programme was Sue Mayo, the assistant producer was Christine Pavlovsky, and the producer was Sarah Taylor. Next time my guest will be the supermodel, Kate Moss.

Speaker 435:18

J. Edgar Hoover created and ran the FBI for almost fifty years.

Speaker 135:22

Nobody should have that powerful position for that length of time.

Speaker 435:26

His job was to enforce the law, but he did not always follow it. Hoover was basically creating a secret police. Find out what his FBI looked like. This is like Starcy. And hear firsthand from the group who had an astonishing plan to expose him. We became convinced that the FBI was illegal. From BBC Radio 4, The People vs. J. Edgar Hoover, with me, Emily Maitlis. Listen first on BBC Sounds.