Sue Barker

Speaker 20:01

BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts.

Presenter0:05

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.

Presenter0:44

My castaway this week is the former professional tennis player and television presenter, Sue Barker. As a broadcaster, she's been the steady hand on the tiller of everything from grandstand to a question of sport, the Commonwealth Games to the Olympics. But it's as the host of the BBC's Wimbledon coverage for an outstanding 30 years that she is perhaps best known and loved. This year, she announced her retirement, and there wasn't a dry eye on centre court as spectators and the greats of tennis bid her an emotional goodbye. As John McEnroe put it, she just is Wimbledon. And Wimbledon has been in her sights from the beginning. She was an aspiring player of just 13 when she first walked through the gates of the All England Club, fresh off the minibus from Devon. She would go on to become the world number three, a Wimbledon semi-finalist, winner of the French Open, and one day to have a coat hook marked HRWH, Her Royal Wimbledon Highness, in the studio just for her. She says, I feel very lucky that I was able to move on to a job that I enjoy as much as my tennis career. Very few people have one career they love, let alone two. Sue Barker, welcome to Desert Island Discs. Thank you, Lauren. Lovely to be here. It's wonderful to have you, especially now. You just retired from that beloved second career as presenter at Wimbledon. And we've witnessed, along with you, our fair share of tears from players over the years. But did you expect it to be so emotional for you to say goodbye? No, not at all. I mean, I knew it was going to be sad. I love the job. I love Wimbledon. It's in my DNA. And I love the people I work with even more.

Sue Barker1:56

It's wonderful to have you.

Sue Barker2:00

BAAP

Presenter2:22

But you've just got to pick when the time is right to go. And I just felt that, you know, I could walk out with my head held high, having had thirty amazing years, but I just never expected the

Sue Barker2:29

Mingha

Presenter2:34

The tributes from my fellow players from my era and from the current era, it just was, it was surprising, it was embarrassing, it was emotional, it was just, it was sort of everything. You're up there on your final day in that job, and your idol Billy Gene King is describing you as the goat. Now, that is cool person talk for the greatest of all time. A few of my friends text, I didn't get the goat joke, you know. I said, okay, it's not a joke. I can't get any better than that. And you've been looking back recently. I think you found a memento of your early years. Grass from the centre court, the Abadaire Cup, June 1969. I know. Where was it? It was in my dad's scrapbook. Bless him. Everything from every newspaper he had cut out and written it. And it was just wonderful. And it made me realise just how proud my parents were. And that means so much to me now as well.

Sue Barker2:44

And it was just it was

Sue Barker2:53

Now that is

Speaker 23:12

Yeah.

Sue Barker3:12

Was it?

Presenter3:26

That shows how important Wimbledon has been to your life, you know, so your whole story from the very beginning. Will it continue in your next chapter? Will the play still be part of your life? Yes, I'm already planning things. I've already texted Heather Watson, wonderful player, and I said, Right, girl, I'm going to be sitting courtside for your match next year. I'm going to be screaming. I'll be at the side screaming on telling her all sorts of things. We're about to hear your music choices, your first. So tell us a little bit about this first track. Well, knowing Wimbledon was going to be my last one, I thought, oh.

Speaker 23:44

We'll match next year.

Presenter3:59

what's going to happen. And I heard it was going to be the centenary of Centre Court. And they said it's going to have a parade of champions on the middle Sunday. And this is the video with all the great champions. And the music is Run Boy Run and it's Wood Kid.

Speaker 24:14

Kind of scary about what

Speaker 34:17

Congratulations, Roger Federer!

Speaker 34:22

Serena Slam, it's happened.

Speaker 24:29

That's amusing.

Speaker 24:31

Amazed tennis.

Sue Barker4:38

Right, I'm gonna try this and it's not gonna be easy.

Speaker 24:43

Waiting is over.

Presenter4:48

Run boy run, woodkid to the soundtrack to Wimbledon's Parade of Champions. It was so wonderful and at the end of it, John McEnroe suddenly decided to say well done to me for 30 years and said please give it up for Sue Barker and the crowd's reaction for them to give me that ovation just

Presenter5:10

I just thought job done, you know, it's um

Presenter5:14

It was really, really emotional. I don't know how I held it together out there.

Presenter5:18

So, Sue, I think we better go back to the beginning. Let's find out where it all started. You were born Susan Barker in Paynton, Devon, 1956, to your parents, Betty and Bob. Now, you were the youngest of three, but you weren't, I read, that longed-for third child. Your parents had decided that two is enough, actually. Yes, they did. And my dad, particularly, you know, he worked really hard, but they just budgeted for two kids and they didn't have a lot of money left over. And then, a few months after my brother was born, suddenly mum was pregnant again. She apparently drank a lot of gin and bounced down the stairs one time. But she always said, I really, I didn't want you. I can't feel so bad about it. But I think we must. I love you saying that with a smile on your face. My mum and I had the most wonderful relationship. And even though they cut corners, which is why.

Sue Barker5:19

Yeah, yeah.

Sue Barker5:22

Yeah.

Speaker 26:01

Yeah.

Presenter6:11

I really salute them in giving me my tennis career as well because they couldn't afford, you know, even to buy me a tennis racket was a huge thing because you have three children, you can't favour one. And they only budgeted for two. Exactly, exactly. So, see, tell me a bit more about your parents then, because there was a 16-year age gap between them. So, your dad was, what, in his 50s, right? Yes, yes. But I never ever thought of him as an older dad. He was a fit, healthy. I mean, even when I was, well, he was in his 60s, we were climbing Hay Tour on Dartmoor together, waving to mum on the thing. He was.

Sue Barker6:31

Yeah.

Presenter6:43

fit and healthy and he was he was a wonderful, wonderful dad. You're a sport loving family, which must have helped. Tell me a bit more about your mum Betty then. She lived to be a hundred. Just fantastic. Was it all down to clean living and exercise? Not at all.

Presenter6:58

Absolutely not. She wasn't known as Betty Six Gins for Nothing. Every time the clock ding up to six o'clock, the gin and tonic would come out. But also everything she ate was was wrong. I mean I I I keep looking at food and try different diets and how to be healthy and that. My mum, everything's white bread, processed meats, no water, never drank water and she's she lived to a hundred so maybe we're all getting it wrong.

Sue Barker7:12

Be healthy.

Sue Barker7:17

Never drank motor?

Presenter7:24

Sue, I think we'd better hear your next disc. What's it gonna be? It is for my mum. We had the old grammophone. I used to put it on and it's a Grieg's piano concerto in A minor.

Presenter8:36

Edvard Grieg's piano concerto in A minor played by Sir Clifford Curzon and the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Eivin Fjellstar.

Presenter8:46

So, Sue Barker, you were the youngest of three, as we mentioned, after your older sister, Jane, and your brother, Neil. So, were you the typical naughty little sister? And if so, who was your accomplice? Oh, my brother was my accomplice. He led me astray. But we used to do everything against my sister. It was almost like if we could upset her, it made our day. We used to attach her beloved dolls to this conifer tree and tie the hair up and then let the branch go and then they'd all be scalped and all sorts of things like that. What about this penchant for hijinks on your part then? Did it happen at school? There were a couple of buddies. We were naughty. We went to a convent and I put up all these signs about, you know, down with penguins, as if, you know, the penguins were dressed as the nuns. We removed the science room door and hid it. And also the staff room door and hid it. My parents were down at school often.

Speaker 39:34

Yeah.

Presenter9:47

So, sport, presumably, when that came in, must have been an outlet for some of that kind of energy. When did the tennis come in? Do you remember when you first wanted to play? My sister, bless her, Jane, had started playing. But I said, Can I come and play? And she goes, Well, no, but you can get down the other end and just send the balls back to me. So, I used to try and get down the other end and try and hit the balls back to her. I think I fell in love with it from the age of six or seven, but it wasn't until I met my PE teacher at my junior school, Mrs. Chadwick, who was wonderful. And she used to stay behind at school and do little tests for me because via the LTA, young kids, if you hit 20 balls over the net without a mistake, if you got seven serves in without missing one, you'd get a little certificate. And she made me take all of these tests, and it just made me want more because I wanted the next certificate. I wanted to keep improving. There's a photograph I want to ask you about, which is really wonderful. Quite a few nuns sitting in their habits on the side of a court watching you play. I know that you've referred to them as the Barmy Army, which implies that they weren't afraid to give it some. Oh, they were shouting and screaming, and then they would say, We're praying for you, Sue. Didn't do my street credit a huge amount for when I arrived in the mini bus, getting out with all these nuns around me. But they were wonderful. And this is the Maris convent that I went to in Paynton. They used to give me afternoons off and even weeks off. Even my O-levels I took in November, not in the summer, so I could go off and play tennis. I wouldn't have had a career if those nuns hadn't given me that time off. And if they have prayed for me, great. I just wish they'd prayed a bit harder in 1977 when it all went wrong.

Sue Barker9:51

Kind of energy.

Sue Barker10:11

Uh

Sue Barker11:26

Damn it!

Presenter11:28

Well, we'll come to that first though. We've got your third disc to hear now. If you don't mind, what's it gonna be? This is uh my all-time favourite. It's uh Harry Hippie, Obi-Womack.

Speaker 311:29

Yeah.

Sue Barker11:30

The

Sue Barker11:32

Uh

Speaker 211:32

You don't want what's it gonna

Speaker 211:37

I like to help a man when he's down.

Speaker 211:44

But I can't help it much when they sleeping on the ground.

Speaker 211:49

It's like a bottle of water.

Speaker 211:53

Harry just flows through life.

Speaker 211:59

It's around all day long singing a song.

Speaker 212:03

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Presenter12:09

Bobby Womack and Harry Hippie. So Sue Barker, I want to ask you about strokes, but not tennis strokes, strokes of luck and timing. Because you've said that there have been several in your life that have been absolutely critical. And one of those came in the form of tennis coach and former player Arthur Roberts. So do you remember when he first came into your school and was looking for new pupils? I remember it like it was yesterday. I can even feel it. I can remember what the weather was like. It was just such a moment because he was a hero in Torbay. He had already taken local kids and made them superstars. And so he was like, oh, and every year he would take two players from the new batch of kids that came in, just two. And he very quickly selected Judy, Judy Reeve, friend of mine. And so there was one spot, seven of us competing for one spot. And I thought, oh no, this is, you know, I just so, so wanted this. And I was trying, I probably tried too hard and running round all over the place. In the end, he said, I'll have her pointing to me. And he said, she's not the best here. But he said, she looks like she could be. So he said he could see something in me. I mean, my old racket there. I didn't really have any tennis stuff. I couldn't even afford a tracksuit. And Mr. Roberts, his sessions were supposed to cost a pound. A pound, yes. You only paid him once. I paid him once. I went up there with my pound note. He said.

Sue Barker13:10

It's an opposite.

Speaker 213:35

Scared.

Presenter13:42

Do you know what this means? And he goes, If you give me this money, it means that you're employing me and you can tell me what to do. And I'm sort of looking at him with my eyes like, What is he talking about? And then he said, So if you come next week,

Presenter13:55

And you don't give me a pound. Can I tell you what to do?

Presenter13:59

And I suddenly thought, What a great deal that is. My parents are going to be so happy if they don't have to pay a pound. And that was the only money I ever paid him in my whole career. And I don't want people to think that I was tight because I tried time and time again. When I was earning money much later on and earning a lot of money, I said, I'm giving you this money. What I didn't know

Sue Barker14:13

Bye.

Presenter14:22

was at that point he went to my father and said she's given me this money I don't want it let's invest it in a in a trust a unit trust for her he died uh in 1986 and then four years later this envelope arrived on my doormat this unit trust that I had nothing about had now the value was like six times more so he was just he didn't want to do it for the money he just wanted me to be the best I could be but he was not he was more than a coach he was a he was a psychologist he was describe him as a master psychologist I think the psychology of more important than the strokes it was more about how to deal with what life throws at you in matches you know all the emotions that you that you have he always said never be afraid

Sue Barker14:57

You've described

Sue Barker14:59

Interesting.

Sue Barker15:01

More important than the

Sue Barker15:12

But

Presenter15:16

To take something on. Never be afraid to fail. Never be afraid to succeed, because sometimes that can bring heartache as well. But he really had to be canny to make that work. I know that he would give you a one-way ticket to junior tournaments all around Europe, and then you're expected to kind of earn your prize money to get yourself back home.

Sue Barker15:27

I know that you

Presenter15:37

He often felt sometimes I was too soft and he wanted to harden me up by saying, Now you've got to dig deep. Because he said, Trust me, you don't want to phone up, reverse charges, and say, I've lost three first rounds. Can I get home, please? Mind you, the first tournament, I slept in the clubhouse for two nights. But once I'd made the quarterfinals, I thought, I'm fine. I think we better have some more music. So number four, what have you got? When I was 17, he said, you've outgrown this country. So I just passed my driving test two months before. I'm on a plane to LA and I got to LAX. I went to rent my car and I was so excited, I upgraded myself to a convertible. And I'm driving down the freeway as a 17-year-old, down the 405 to Newport Beach, thinking, this is the life. And on the radio comes the Beach Boys. Of course it was. California girls. I thought, yep, that's me. I've arrived.

Sue Barker15:58

It's number four. What have you got?

Speaker 216:35

Around this great big world and I've seen all kind of girls

Speaker 216:42

Yeah, but I couldn't wait to get back in the stage back to the cutest girls in the

Presenter17:04

The Beach Boys and California girls. So there you are, Sue Barker, and hearing that track, We Are With You, the beginning of your professional career. California 1973, and you had the luck of joining the professional circuit in the US shortly after Billie Jean King had really started to shake things up in the sport. She set up a women's tour. How important was that change? Do you know what? I just moved to America. I mean, we were filling Madison Square Garden in the 70s. You know, there were thousands of people because of what Billie Jean created. And then Christian Martina and Yvonne Gulagong, and all, I mean, there were so many amazing players back then. It was just the most exciting time. And for a youngster, and everything was new to me, to play in these amazing arenas.

Sue Barker17:20

Shake things off

Presenter17:49

Against these amazing players, and for them to become friends, because we weren't making enough money to have coaches and entourages with us, so we looked after each other. Well, this is my next question. I wonder about any loneliness that you felt because looking back on interviews with you at the time, I can see your young shyness and you talk about being lonely. Absolutely, many, many times. And it was a hard learning curve, but the highs far outweighed the lows, and I had to deal with those lows. It was wonderful having Arthur at the end of a reverse charge telephone call. He always took the calls to be able to talk through things and just to remember why I was doing it. So it was a time when you were learning so much, and luckily, the tennis was going very well for you. You're gradually moving up the rankings, winning tournaments, which takes us back to 1976. Yes. The French Open. You've arrived as the top seed, and you're in the final against Renata Tomanova. Yes, yeah. How were you feeling? Absolutely terrified. Because this was the dream. This was, you know, to win a slam. Rankings are important, but legacy is the Grand Slams. And I wanted to be a Grand Slam champion. So it just meant so much to me. I'd beaten her easily twice before on the clay, but I was mentally having this real problem. You won the first set 6-2. Yeah. But then you lost the next one, 6-Love. Yes, let's move over that quickly.

Sue Barker18:24

Gotcha.

Sue Barker18:37

Winning torture

Sue Barker18:41

Yeah.

Sue Barker18:42

Uh

Speaker 318:42

Evil.

Speaker 319:16

B.

Presenter19:17

But it shows how much of tennis is psychological. Absolutely right. I played so well in the first set and I knew that, right, get an early start in the second. The panic sets in and then it's like an avalanche. You just can't stop it. And I just was playing so badly. But they had this rule before the final set, you could have a 10 to 15 minute break. And I managed to regroup, think what Arthur would say, and went out and won it. And that just means everything to me. Having said that, I was only young. Twenty. Twenty, and I thought this will be the first of many. If I'd have known it was going to be my only one, I would have danced around the court. I would have kissed the umpire, taken a bit of the clay to put with my grasp from Wimbledon Centre Court. But it was magical.

Presenter20:02

So it's time for your next track. What is it? And why are you taking it with you to the island? Right, I'm taking this because, again, it involves the wonderful Billie Jean King. And we were flying from Los Angeles over to Tokyo. And behind us, this guy just taps Billie Jean on the shoulder and introduces himself as George Benson. I thought, oh my gosh, George Benson. And he said, I've just finished recording for the Muhammad Ali movie, The Greatest. He said, Do you two want to listen to it? And was like, oh, yes, please. And there it was, George Benson, the greatest love of all. Fabulous memory.

Speaker 220:39

Long ago never to walk in anyone's shadow. If I fail, if I succeed, at least I'll end as I believe, no matter

Speaker 220:55

Take from me, they can take away my dignity because of the grave.

Presenter21:09

The greatest love of all, George Benson, from the soundtrack to the 1977 film The Greatest. So, Sue Barker, if Paris was the high, then unfortunately, the next two Wimbledons were the lows. Exactly. So, first losing a commanding lead against Martina Navratilova, 1976. Still hurts. Still stings. And then the following year, losing in the semi-final against Betty Sturve when you were the clear favourite. I'll never get over that. I mean, you have said of that match. I was never the same player again. So that was the turning point. That was a mental trauma.

Sue Barker21:21

Uh

Presenter21:44

Martina's match in 76, and we laugh about it today because I hadn't hit a drop shot in the whole match until I was 3-1 up in the final set. And I tried two drop shots. And she goes, Why did you try it? I said, Do you think I know why I tried those two drop shots? I said, I had a brain freeze. I don't know what I did. But 1977.

Presenter22:07

Virginia Wade was playing Chrissy Everett, and Chrissy is the overwhelming favourite. But Virginia suddenly won in the first semi-final. And so all of a sudden, I'm like, oh, okay. So I've beaten Virginia four times this year. I've beaten Betty three times this year. Suddenly, hold on, I could be the favourite now, you know. And it changed totally the dynamic of the match because I was suddenly thinking of the final before I was playing the final final. Semi weren't in the game that you were in. Oh no, I had totally done everything that Arthur Roberts had said, don't ever do. But I went out and just played a horrible match, did everything wrong. It went by in a blur, and I think it mentally affected me a lot in matches in years to come when it got tight. And so, yeah, the high of 76 winning the French was the absolute low because that was my dream to win Wimbledon. And then Virginia and I laughed. It was great she won it and it was wonderful for British tennis, but it should have been me.

Speaker 322:32

They'll send me one

Sue Barker22:32

In the game that you were in for.

Presenter23:08

Well we'll talk about how it went on to work out.

Presenter23:11

Meanwhile, off court, Sue. I mean, you know, it can't have been easy to have a personal life of your own while you were travelling all the time. The press interest in you was huge. They made a great deal of your love life at the time. You know, including that very brief relationship with Cliff Richard forty years ago. I don't think I

Sue Barker23:20

Yeah.

Sue Barker23:23

life at the time.

Speaker 223:24

Yeah.

Presenter23:30

Had any idea what it was going to be like. I thought, oh, it's all going to be fine and nothing, you know, because I'll be off playing tennis around the world and doing stuff. But it was just awful and totally changed my life in not a good way. I mean, Cliff's lovely, really nice guy. Everywhere we went, people were following us. You know, that taught me I really don't want this sort of lifestyle. I don't want this sort of intrusion. We still remained really good friends, but the one thing that I always didn't like with Cliff is that he always brought up our relationship in interviews and talking about why he wouldn't marry me. And I was thinking, hold on a minute, we only went out for four months. And for me, it was a long way from.

Presenter24:14

Even thinking about getting engaged. And in the meantime, a few years later, I met my lovely husband, Lance. Yeah, so you and Lance have been married for more than 30 years now, and he loves not having any of the limelight. Exactly. Please tell me why Lance is so wonderful. Well, I knew Lance as a friend before we dated. We were both at a tennis club at Heston, and then one day I was having a meal there, he was having a meal at another table. He said, Can I join you? We were both having kitchens redone at home, so we had no facilities to cook. So he said, Well, should we go out for dinner then? And then the rest is history. We went out, we got married two years later, and he's just wonderful. He's my, you know, he's my rock, he's my soulmate. I couldn't imagine my life without him. So, have you got a track in honour of Lance? I do because we both love Al Green. And we went to see him at the Albert Hall just a few years ago.

Sue Barker24:22

Yeah, so

Sue Barker24:25

The years now.

Sue Barker24:29

Please tap

Presenter25:14

When he sang this song, we just sort of looked at each other. It was a moment. Even after all those years, it was a moment and it was sort of really, really special and I love the song. It's simply beautiful.

Speaker 225:26

What about the way you love me?

Speaker 225:30

Uh

Speaker 225:32

And away you squeeze me.

Speaker 225:37

Yeah.

Speaker 225:38

It's simply beautiful.

Speaker 225:44

Yeah

Speaker 225:46

Yeah.

Speaker 225:48

Pure fat.

Speaker 225:50

Yeah

Speaker 225:53

When you get right down to

Presenter25:56

Al Green and simply beautiful. So Sue Barkiff, you retired from tennis in 1985. Now you were just 28 when you took that decision. You'd spent 11 years as a pro player. Your entire life was tennis. Now many, many sports people, I would imagine all sports people who go through that transition struggle with it.

Speaker 225:58

Simply beautiful.

Sue Barker26:05

Yeah.

Presenter26:17

Was it like that for you? Absolutely. I remember waking up in the morning and thinking, what am I going to do today? And I suddenly thought.

Sue Barker26:18

Yeah.

Presenter26:24

Nothing. And I suddenly thought my whole life's gone. All my friends have gone. My purpose is gone. My dreams have gone.

Presenter26:32

And, you know, it could really have

Presenter26:35

been traumatic for me if I if I hadn't have um had a wonderful phone call to go and work

Speaker 226:36

Mm.

Sue Barker26:36

Uh

Presenter26:42

So this is one of those strokes of luck that we were talking about earlier. And this comes in quite an unlikely form. Yes. The shape of someone by the name of Gordon Bennett.

Speaker 326:45

Could have been.

Presenter26:55

I'd made the decision to quit when I played in Melbourne in Australia. I had just been beginning to come back. I'd had awful injuries and my ranking had dropped. And I was relying on tournaments giving me wild cards. And I didn't want to go round the world begging favours. If I couldn't be in the tournament by right, I didn't want to do it. So I thought, that's it, I've got to quit. So I said, I've retired, and everyone was shocked. And everyone was like, oh, we want to do an interview. I said, no, I'm going back to the hotel. And I had 70 messages, and I just kept throwing them away, throwing them away. And I just kept three. I was going to phone my mum, I'm going to phone Mr. Roberts. And I saw this one message say, Would you please give me a call? Gordon Bennett. And I thought, who's this? Because, you know, I've got a lot of practical jokers in my life. Oh, so you thought it was a mate, I haven't seen it. I thought it was someone going, Gordon Bennett, you've retired. So I thought, hmm, I'm going to phone that person. So this voice answered, hello?

Presenter27:50

I went

Presenter27:51

Gordon Bennett? And he goes, Yes, I'm the boss of Channel 7 in Australia. I want to offer you a job.

Presenter27:58

And I was like, oh my word. And I thought that so easily could have been another message that would just got binged.

Presenter28:05

After commentating on tennis for a few years, another Australian, David Hill, offered you a presenting job. It was on B Sky B. What was that like?

Presenter28:13

He gave me the best introduction into broadcasting because he made me do the continuity between every programme on B Sky B. So like they had truck racing and darts, bowls, they had all these different things that last half an hour. And so I used to come in for my minute and a half. But it made me get used to listening to voices in my ear, get used to hitting a hard count and doing all the things that you have to do as a presenter. I had to do that every half an hour. He broke the mold in a way because women weren't presenters of sport back then, other than Helen Rollison, who did a Friday afternoon show. I felt a real challenge and I just thought I'll give it a go.

Presenter28:54

And I won't listen to what the the other presenters are saying, that I wasn't good enough or I couldn't be. Yeah, a few sniggers and a thing, you know,'cause we were the three girls doing it together.

Sue Barker29:00

See the collie?

Presenter29:08

David Hill broke the mold by giving me a female producer. We were known as Banana Rama, Iddly Office. But we didn't get it. They probably didn't know that was a compliment. Well, I thought it was magnificent. I was immensely impressed. Well, you talk about people breaking the mold, Sue, but you know, you blazed a trail yourself. So after B Sky B, the BBC snapped you up in 1993. From Wimbledon, you've gone on to front grandstands, the Olympics, Commonwealth Games, sports personality, the question of sport. I mean, the list goes on and on. Incredible. Looking back, how much of what you learned on the tennis courts were you able to put to use in front of the cameras? So much of it. So much of it. It's a very similar, very similar skill, being able to put out of your head what's happening around you and just focus on what you need to focus on, and also just finding a way through things when things go wrong, finding solutions. Every time we were live, it was like, I wonder what's going to happen here. Because I never used AutoCUB, never wanted it, never wanted to feel constrained by that. I wanted to ad-lib, I wanted to react to things that were happening. Sue, tell us about your next disc. It's the one that I think I was most proud to do because it was what I used to watch every Saturday, every Sunday, sitting with my dad.

Sue Barker29:12

It lies.

Sue Barker29:15

They probably

Sue Barker29:18

So the I would

Sue Barker29:20

Yeah.

Sue Barker29:21

He took

Sue Barker29:28

Yeah.

Presenter30:25

And my mum watching Grandstand. It's a magical piece of music and it means everything to anyone who loves sport.

Presenter31:06

Proustine Rush for the whole nation, Super Customer.

Speaker 231:07

For the hot

Sue Barker31:07

Uh

Sue Barker31:09

Yeah.

Presenter31:10

The theme tune to grandstand composed by Keith Mansfield. So, Sue, of the many programmes that you've presented over the years, I know that you said a question of sport's giving you more fun than anything else. Why?

Presenter31:22

I took over from David Coleman in 1997. And we took over with Ali McCoyst and John Parrott. They were a nightmare to try and keep under control. But it was all part of the fun. And then Matt and Tuffers. Phil Tuffnell. Yes, Phil Tuffnell. He's only known as Tuffers. It's Tuffers and Doors. But Matt Tuffers and I, we're like best mates and we just had such a bond and we absolutely loved that programme and we were devastated when it came to an end. But all good things, you know, have to come to an end. Unlike other jobs and moving on from other projects that we've talked about, that wasn't your choice. No, it wasn't our choice, but we sort of knew it was coming. And we totally accept that. I think the way it was handled made me think more about Wimbledon and about why I then wanted to walk away on my own terms rather than be pushed out the door. To be taken into a room after 24 years and be told we don't want you anymore, I just wish they'd handled the end a little better. You said, Sue, that you wish that your coach Arthur Roberts could have seen what a success you've made of your second career. Do you feel you've achieved more than you did with your tennis? And what do you think you would have made of it? Oh, I definitely. Because I don't think I had any.

Presenter32:43

ambition of where I would go with television. Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought of where I've where I've got to. And mister Roberts, dear Arthur, not only did he give me my tennis life, but he I think he gave me the tools

Presenter32:59

Um

Presenter33:01

to go to

Presenter33:02

challenge myself to go into a life that not even I could have ever dreamed of.

Presenter33:06

Well, just one more track to hear before we send you away to your desert island, Sue. What's it gonna be? Elton John. He's such a tennis fan, and when he wrote this song, he wrote it for Billie Jean King as a tribute to her and a tribute to tennis. So I have to salute the wonderful Elton John and Philadelphia Freedom.

Speaker 233:26

You the destiny of freedom

Speaker 233:31

From the day that I was born, I played inside.

Speaker 233:39

Feel the document

Speaker 233:40

To me hi to old man

Speaker 233:46

Give me a piece of mamma, Daddy Everham

Presenter33:54

Elton John and Philadelphia Freedom. So, Sue Barker, I'm going to send you away to the island. It's time. I'm giving you the Bible and the completing works of Shakespeare to take with you. You can take one other book. What would you like?

Sue Barker34:02

Link

Presenter34:07

I've talked about her enough, haven't I?

Presenter34:09

Billie Jean King, her autobiography, All In. Then I thought, if anyone's going to inspire me to survive on a desert island, it's BJK. So Billie Jean King's All In, I'll take with me. Thank you. You can also have a luxury item. What are you going to go for? I thought of so many wonderful things I could take with me, but any friend of mine, they'll say, if she doesn't take a glass of wine with her. So I am going to take one of my favourite Sauvignon Blancs from New Zealand, please. And thoroughly enjoy that. Finally, which one track of the eight that you've shared with us today would you rush to save from the waves if you needed to?

Sue Barker34:22

What are you gonna do

Sue Barker34:35

Please

Sue Barker34:43

If you need it.

Presenter34:44

They all mean so much, but some of them will make me more teary than others. So I'm going to go with Harry Hippie that I can just sit and listen to all day long.

Presenter34:53

Sue Barker, thank you very much for letting us hear your desert island discs. Thank you.

Presenter35:21

Hello, I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Sue. Let's leave her sipping her favourite Sauvignon Blanc, listening to the sound of the waves. We've cast many of Sue's tennis friends away, including her mentor and pal Billie Jean King, Martina Navratilova, and John McEnroe. You can find these episodes in our Desert Island Discs programme archive and through BBC Sounds. The studio manager for today's programme was Andrew Garrett, the assistant producer was Christine Pavlovsky, and the producer was Katie Hickman. Next time, my guest will be the furniture restorer and broadcaster Jay Blades. I do hope you'll join us.