June Spencer

Presenter0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Discs from BBC Radio 4. For rights reasons the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast.

Presenter0:10

For more information about the programme, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.

Presenter0:33

My castaway this week is the actress June Spencer.

Presenter0:37

As Peggy Woolley in the Archers she is one of the best loved matriarchs in broadcasting. It's sixty years this spring since she took on the role. Back then the Archers was reckoned to be a Dick Barton for farmers, a programme not of actors playing roles, but of real people whose lives we were overhearing.

Presenter0:57

She is the only original member of the cast still in the show, and over the years she has seen it all alcoholism, gambling, and bereavement, to name just a few.

Presenter1:06

These days, she has one of the most demanding and moving storylines in the programme.

Presenter1:11

Caring for a husband as he succumbs to dementia.

Presenter1:14

Now aged ninety, it might be reasonable to speculate on whether she plans to retire any time soon.

Presenter1:22

No way, she says, not until I fluff my lines or miss a cue. Um The Archers, then, has this unique place in British life, June, and the idea

Presenter1:33

is a really beguiling one that we somehow have an ear against the radio hearing a slice of real British rural life, given that you've played the part for so long.

Presenter1:44

Lot of people must confuse you with Peggy, do they?

Presenter1:47

Yeah.

June Spencer1:47

I think sometimes they do.

June Spencer1:49

Though I don't think we have all that much in common.

June Spencer1:52

I love my garden, though I can't do much in it these days and Peggy loves her garden, and of course both had husbands with dementia.

June Spencer2:02

But um when people meet me they say, Oh, you look just like I thought you would.

Presenter2:07

Indeed, I have to say, I mean, it is slightly rude to mention your age in the introduction, but I would put you at seventy. I mean, you are in very, very good shape for a woman of ninety. Well, thank you very much. You mentioned the similarities. What are the differences between you and Peggy?

Presenter2:24

I d

June Spencer2:25

Don't think Peggy's got a sense of humour.

June Spencer2:27

And I hope I have.

June Spencer2:29

I think funny things sometimes happen to Peggy, but

June Spencer2:31

She doesn't see the funny side of things, I'm afraid.

Presenter2:33

Prayed?

June Spencer2:34

Yeah.

Presenter2:34

It is sixty years then since the programme was launched. Do you remember you were originally engaged for how many episodes?

June Spencer2:40

Uh

Presenter2:41

Uh

June Spencer2:41

Um, we did a week's trial just to sort of test the water.

June Spencer2:45

And that was in uh nineteen fifty, and then we didn't hear any more until January the first.

June Spencer2:52

The following year, 1951, and I think we were given a contract for

June Spencer2:56

Three months.

Presenter2:58

Did you think when you heard the idea and saw the scripts that it had the flavour of a a long running series to it? Uh

June Spencer3:05

No, I didn't, not at all, no, especially at the fee they were paying.

Presenter3:08

Uh

June Spencer3:09

How much was it? Um well, there were three stages. There was the top rate, which which I was on because I'd done a lot of broadcasting before The Awatcher started, and that was twelve pounds for five episodes.

June Spencer3:23

And the next one was ten pounds.

June Spencer3:25

And even ape.

Presenter3:26

Um although you say there are differences and significant ones between uh you and Peggy Bully, one of the main ones being that you've got a sense of humour and hers seems suspiciously absent, um you both seem to share a sort of steely determination. I mean still to be doing what you're doing at ninety and to sustain a career in acting, the most precarious of professions, means that you must have.

Presenter3:48

Quite a core of steel, I reckon.

June Spencer3:50

Yes, I think. Well, I I don't know when I'm beaten, you see.

June Spencer3:54

Well, I love acting so much. I I I'm so lucky to have a job that I can still do. It's a great bonus for me that the archers has run as long as it has, and I've gone along with it. Let's have some music.

Presenter4:05

Again, tell me about the first disc that we're going to hear today, June.

June Spencer4:08

I'd like to be reminded of my

June Spencer4:11

WARTIME YEARS ON THE RUN UP TO THE WAR

June Spencer4:14

My teenage years were were a bit muddled.

June Spencer4:17

Because I left school early to look after my mother, my mother's health wasn't good.

June Spencer4:22

At the same time, I was

June Spencer4:24

Just beginning.

June Spencer4:26

To do the things I really wanted to do. I was studying drama.

June Spencer4:31

And at the same time, we young people, we teenagers,

June Spencer4:36

We knew that there was a war coming.

June Spencer4:39

and the music that brings it back to me most.

June Spencer4:43

is Fred Astaire.

June Spencer4:45

And

June Spencer4:46

Let's Face the Music and Dance. It was a rather prophetic lyric.

June Spencer4:53

And dance we did.

Speaker 34:58

There may be trouble ahead Yeah.

Speaker 35:04

But while there's moonlight and music and love and romance

June Spencer5:07

Uh

Speaker 45:07

Apple

Speaker 35:12

Let's paste the music and uh

Speaker 35:18

Before the fiddlers have played

Speaker 35:23

Before they ask us to pay the bill And while we still have the chance

Speaker 45:33

Uh

Speaker 35:33

Let's face the music and

Presenter5:39

Fred Astair and Let's Face the Music and Dance. So, Jude Spencer, as we know, you've enjoyed this very long and successful career, but your first forays into show business were really as a sort of comedy entertainer. I'm thinking more in the sort of

Presenter5:53

Joyce Grenfell, or even Victoria Wood mole, to bring it bang up to date, where you would.

Presenter5:59

You would construct these comedy monologues and things. Tell tell me more about that.

June Spencer6:02

Yes, I do.

Presenter6:03

What was

June Spencer6:03

Yeah.

June Spencer6:04

written funny things to amuse myself.

June Spencer6:07

My father knew this, and uh I think he said to somebody Oh, yes, my daughter um does humorous monologues and somebody said Oh, well, we have entertainment after dinner at Masonic evenings. Would she do that? I just enjoyed doing it. I made them laugh, and that's what I like doing.

Presenter6:28

Uh The idea of stepping out in front of a bunch of I'm presuming if it was Masonic Lodges, just men, who were saying, Go on, then, make us laugh.

June Spencer6:33

Yeah.

June Spencer6:35

No, I wasn't. They were all in a good mood. They'd had a good dinner and a few drinks. They laughed easily. And did you find the writing easy as well? Yes, I did. Once I started it, it flowed. In fact, um, French has published my book of monologues. I used to write for Cyril Fletcher. Odd odes. So those rather saucy odd odes.

Presenter6:54

Oops. So have you continued writing throughout your career? Is it always something that you felt the need to do, or did you stop once you were working on the archives?

June Spencer6:59

If you stop.

June Spencer7:01

I more or less stopped when I had children.

June Spencer7:05

No I did write some.

June Spencer7:06

Yes, this was before the children, though. I wrote three uh satirical

June Spencer7:11

uh feature programmes which were broadcast.

Presenter7:12

So you were born uh we'll rewind a little you were born six months after the end of the First World War. Um home was Nottingham. Uh uh what was home life like? What kind of house did you live in?

June Spencer7:24

Uh

Presenter7:24

Uh

Presenter7:25

Uh

June Spencer7:25

I had a very happy childhood. I was born in a three-story semi-detached rented house.

June Spencer7:32

I had a day nursery and a night nursery. I was very lucky.

June Spencer7:36

And I had a rocking horse which I loved. It sounds a little bit posh, doesn't it? Well, it was a very second-hand rocking horse, I'm quite sure, because my father was earning about

June Spencer7:45

I think under four hundred pounds a year at that time.

June Spencer7:48

And what sort of character was your father?

June Spencer7:50

Oh, my father was um he was a lovely

June Spencer7:54

Reliable, sensible chap.

June Spencer7:56

He was always very supportive of me.

June Spencer7:59

And and of my mother too,'cause my mother, when she was about forty, decided she was an invalid.

June Spencer8:04

So it was my father, really, who did everything for me.

Presenter8:07

Um more about your mother later on, but for now more about you as a little girl. You've said in interviews that you were as young as three when you were stage struck. Tell me what happened.

June Spencer8:18

Yes. Well, when I was barely three.

June Spencer8:21

I was cast as king of the land of Nod.

June Spencer8:25

in a play. It was an open air thing. On my queue they sort of

June Spencer8:29

Sent me out.

June Spencer8:31

The leading lady, who was twelve, said, He doesn't speak he only smiles. Upon which I said, Oh, look, there's Daddy in the audience.

Presenter8:38

The odd hits.

June Spencer8:41

And I followed that rapidly with Umami Ex Railing, and I got another laugh. So I think I've that's when I heard my first laughs and obviously enjoyed them.

Presenter8:51

Uh do you remember actually enjoying them or was that your

June Spencer8:53

Oh, I remember it. Oh, yes. Do you? Clearly. What was the feeling? Oh, it wasn't a fee, no. It was all amateur.

Presenter9:00

No, what was the feeling? What feels like?

June Spencer9:01

Oh, that's what you say. What was the fee? That mine just run on money, didn't it?

June Spencer9:05

Um yes, I can see them all in front of me laughing.

Presenter9:08

And you thought I want a bit more of this? Yes, I must have done. Let's have some more music then, June. Tell me about your second disc today.

June Spencer9:15

The second one.

June Spencer9:17

is to remind me of my father.

June Spencer9:20

I passed by your window. He used to sing it to me.

June Spencer9:24

Sometimes if I couldn't go to sleep he'd come and sing it, but this I associate with my father.

Speaker 49:30

I passed by your window in the cool of the night.

Speaker 49:38

The lilies were watching, so still and so quiet.

Speaker 49:49

Quite thanks for

Speaker 49:53

For no one was melted.

Speaker 410:00

Good night, and God bless you.

Speaker 410:08

God bless you all my life.

Presenter10:27

That was Nelson Eddy and I passed by your window, and memories there, June Spencer, of your father sometimes what did he do, hold your hand and sing it to you to get you off to sleep. Yes.

June Spencer10:36

Yes, he did.

Presenter10:37

Yeah.

June Spencer10:37

But this

Presenter10:38

And your parents used to hold little

June Spencer10:40

Sort of musical soirees at home. Yes, they had uh musical evenings. People sang or played an instrument. So I used to lie in bed at night and drift off to sleep hearing all these old ballads and songs.

Presenter10:52

And your parents also, I understand, had a a motorbike with a sidecar. What what do you remember of that? Well, we had that when I was about.

June Spencer10:59

Yeah. Four, I would think.

Presenter11:01

Did you watch them go off and presumably you weren't in it too, were you?

June Spencer11:04

Oh yes oh yes On my mother's knee.

June Spencer11:08

and there wasn't a top to it, so if it was raining she had a tarpaulin, which she sort of wedged behind her back and held over her head.

June Spencer11:18

I dunno, her arms must have been aching fit to drop off.

June Spencer11:21

And uh we used to go miles in that point up to London, all sorts of things. Was it terrifying or exhilarating? Well, it was it was all right for me. It must have been awful for my parents.

Presenter11:31

And and as a little girl y you used to write plays. We know you were very much sort of stage struck when you were two or three, and you you started penning your own plays and getting your getting your chums involved.

June Spencer11:41

Oh yes, when I was when I was twelve I started a club and I made the costumes.

June Spencer11:48

And we charge admission.

June Spencer11:50

and we made twelve shillings and sixpence in old money, which went to doctor Bernardo's.

Presenter11:55

And you yourself made all the costumes.

June Spencer11:56

I'm still doing it.

June Spencer11:58

No.

June Spencer11:59

No, she was co-opted. My parents were co-opted for the actual performance, to work the curtains and to make sound effects off stage and that sort of thing.

Presenter12:06

Um, you found out later that that uh your mother indeed w sort of hankered after a career in in the performing arts. What what do you know of that?

June Spencer12:15

Well, I know my I heard many years later that my mother would have loved to have gone on the stage.

June Spencer12:20

And she would have made a beautiful soubrette in musical comedy.

June Spencer12:25

She saying she was

June Spencer12:26

Slender and dainty and loose limbed, she could do high kicks and uh splits.

June Spencer12:33

But for some reason he did not want me to go on the stage.

June Spencer12:36

When I finally um made it into rep, she said, Oh, well, I suppose it was meant and became my sternest critic. Did she? Oh, yes, very stern, yes, very critical.

June Spencer12:48

One of my favourite roles was Alexandra and the Little Foxes. Years later.

June Spencer12:55

She said.

June Spencer12:56

Well, it wasn't until I saw the film that I realized how good you were in it.

Presenter13:00

That's something of a bag handy.

June Spencer13:01

Yeah.

June Spencer13:04

Had to wait a long time for that.

Presenter13:06

Do you think there's a possibility that that she she resented the fact that you were having a life that she would have liked?

June Spencer13:13

It's possible. I mean, she just gave up on life. She decided she was an invalid. I mean, she missed so much. Tell me about that, her deciding to be an invalid. What happened?

June Spencer13:23

Well, I think she thought she'd got heart trouble. She was very anaemic and she thought she had a heart problem.

June Spencer13:29

And thus she took to her bed.

June Spencer13:31

She liked me there.

June Spencer13:33

all the time in case she had one of these attacks that she had.

June Spencer13:37

So I would sit in her bedroom with the curtains closed, because she didn't like the bright light.

June Spencer13:42

But, um, it was very frustrating for a teenager.

Presenter13:45

Yeah. And y you've said she she thought she was ill. I mean, i is is it is it your view that this was largely sort of hypochondriacal, that she sort of confected something to be

June Spencer13:54

I think she didn't face up to it.

Presenter13:54

I think

June Spencer13:57

And I don't think the medical care she was getting helped with rather encouraged her. And my father rather encouraged her as well, and was so worried about her.

June Spencer14:07

He was a bit over fussy with her, I think.

Presenter14:09

Yeah.

June Spencer14:09

About

Presenter14:09

Meaning she was only in her early forties. Yes, yes. And how long did she live like this?

Presenter14:16

Totty was ninety four.

Presenter14:21

And so did she once your father had passed away, did she live alone like that this morning?

June Spencer14:25

No, by that time they were living with us.

June Spencer14:28

Uh, because my father had gone blind. And when my father died, of course, my mother stayed on. And finally, I I got her into a

June Spencer14:36

A very nice residential home.

June Spencer14:39

Where she bucked up no end, and uh

June Spencer14:42

thought of going for walks on her own.

June Spencer14:44

But she'd never been out of the house without being supported on both sides for years.

June Spencer14:49

Did you

Presenter14:49

Do you ever have it out with her?

Presenter14:51

Did you ever tell her what you thought and said to her, Come on, I think? No, of course not. No.

June Spencer14:54

Now if we

Presenter14:57

No.

Presenter14:58

Let's have some music, then. Tell me about your third disc to day. What have you chosen?

Presenter15:03

Well, the third

June Spencer15:04

That one is, sir.

Presenter15:04

Uh

Presenter15:05

Uh

June Spencer15:05

Chopin's Revolutionary Study. I started.

June Spencer15:09

Music lessons, piano lessons, when I was six.

June Spencer15:12

And I loved playing.

June Spencer15:14

And I went on playing until I was about fifteen or sixteen, when I had to stop practising my two hours a day because mother couldn't stand the noise'cause she was lying up in bed.

June Spencer15:23

I was never going to be a brilliant pianist, but I do love hearing piano played well.

June Spencer15:28

Hence the revolutionary study.

Presenter16:35

That was Chopin's revolutionary study. June Spencer, you were twenty then when war was declared. For for you personally.

June Spencer16:41

For for you personally, what what did that mean?

June Spencer16:44

Well, when uh the Germans marched into Poland, my mother and I were on holiday.

June Spencer16:49

In the south of England somewhere.

June Spencer16:51

So my father drove down to collect us, because the trains were full of little evacuees.

June Spencer16:58

going off to they didn't know where with their gas masks and their their labels with their names.

Presenter17:04

Uh

June Spencer17:05

Say well.

Presenter17:05

They were going.

Presenter17:07

And did you have a sense of uh foreboding, or given that you were only twenty, did it all seem like something of of of an adventure?

Presenter17:14

No, not

June Spencer17:15

Not at all. It it it saddened it saddened me very much. I kept thinking of my boyfriends who'd be called up and going and

June Spencer17:22

I don't think there was any of the the sort of gung-ho spirit there was in the First World War. And when did you meet Roger?

June Spencer17:29

When we were both seventeen, on holiday,

June Spencer17:32

In Chapel St. Leonard's, which is a little village on the east coast near Scape Neath.

June Spencer17:37

And my parents used to rent a bungalow for a month, and his parents used to rent a bungalow for a month, and we that's how we met. And when did you marry?

June Spencer17:47

Not until nineteen forty two. I had lots of other boyfriends and he had other girlfriends. It wasn't until the war when he came home on leave.

June Spencer17:55

But um he he caught me in a weak moment and I said yes.

June Spencer17:59

Because originally on the uh when we were seventeen on this holiday

June Spencer18:03

I'd said to him rather loftily

June Spencer18:06

I'll be your girlfriend for the duration of the holiday, but after that, finish. I can't bear these holiday romances that peter out during the winter.

Presenter18:13

Never heard a wiser word

June Spencer18:15

Uh

Presenter18:15

Alright.

June Spencer18:15

That it for fifty-nine years.

Presenter18:15

Yeah.

June Spencer18:18

Tom

Presenter18:18

But your wedding

June Spencer18:18

Think

Presenter18:18

Then? Because if you got married in the in the middle of the war, presumably it was quite a modest affair, was it?

June Spencer18:23

Um yes, it was yes. I mean, he was in uniform, of course, and mother and I went down to Griffin and Spaulding's, and they had one wedding dress in my size, and it was seven guineas. So I had that.

June Spencer18:34

and we had a very modest reception, a terrible wedding cake.

June Spencer18:39

You couldn't have iced icing on the cake. You had to have um

June Spencer18:42

Oh, they call it that paper stuff.

June Spencer18:45

Rice paper, whatever. Rice paper, that's it, yes. I had a much better um wedding cake when I married Jack Woolley. The archers had a beautiful wedding cake.

Presenter18:45

Rice paper with

Presenter18:53

You've still got one of the tears from that, have you?

June Spencer18:55

I have, yes.

Presenter18:56

Let's take a break for some music then. Tell me about your next track. We're on number four now.

June Spencer19:00

Uh

June Spencer19:01

Debussy's Embatteau.

June Spencer19:03

Which uh is to remind me of

June Spencer19:06

One of my very earliest broadcasts about the families who worked the canal boats.

June Spencer19:11

And my father was Wilfrid Pickles.

June Spencer19:14

And on the other boat, my very bashful boyfriend was dear old Chris Gittins, who was later Walter Gabriel in the archers.

Presenter20:20

De Bussy's on bateau to remind you, Jim Spencer, of those early days in radio.

Presenter20:25

So Roger then was was posted to India and to Burma? Yes.

Speaker 420:29

Mm-hmm.

Presenter20:30

How did it go while he was away? You must have missed him terribly.

June Spencer20:33

Yes, well, I was still living at home until a few months before he was due to come home. Then I broke away and went up to London, because I was getting a lot of work in London at that time, and I got a home for him there. It was one great big room.

June Spencer20:46

And uh

June Spencer20:48

Use of the bathroom two floors up, and that's where all the water came from in a jug, you know, and slopped back in a bucket.

June Spencer20:54

Can you remember?

Presenter20:54

Remember the the day that you saw Roger again.

June Spencer20:57

Yes, I can. Yes. I met him at the station. He came in late at night. I laid our table with all our best

June Spencer21:05

wedding presents and everything, all the silver and the glass and everything, and my rations such as they were. I remember a dish with a little bit of butter in it, you see. And when he arrived he was absolutely bushed, of course he was so tired.

June Spencer21:19

And he said, Oh, what a miserable bit of butter. I said, That's my whole week's ration.

June Spencer21:25

He had no idea of what rat

Presenter21:26

Fashioning was the

Presenter21:28

And how did you and Roger get on when he came back from the war? Because for a lot of couples it it was uh tricky to readjust. I mean, you know, young women had had their freedom and had been living relatively independent lives. How how did both of you find it?

June Spencer21:37

Yeah.

June Spencer21:40

Yes, it it it was difficult, especially for him.

June Spencer21:43

because he'd gone into the army before he'd finished his degree course, and originally he was supposed to go back and finish it, but of course he didn't want to do that. He was he was twenty six, he was a major, by which time, of course, I was a very busy radio actress, doing very well.

June Spencer21:59

So it was difficult for him to adjust.

June Spencer22:02

But we'd always been good friends, apart from anything else, you know, so I mean, we got we got on well together, we had fun.

June Spencer22:09

So we we sort of picked up the threads again.

Presenter22:13

And what did he think of you maintaining your your acting career? Was he quite comfortable with that?

June Spencer22:17

Oh, he was. He was very supportive, yes.

Presenter22:18

Yeah.

June Spencer22:19

No is very supportive, always.

Presenter22:21

Let's have some more music then. Tell me what we've got next.

June Spencer22:24

for this is to remind me of my bolt hole in Menorka.

June Spencer22:30

It's the adagio from Rodrigo's Concerto de Aranueth, and I've only got to hear it.

June Spencer22:35

and I'm sitting on the terrace in the sunshine, with the sea lapping the rocks below me.

Presenter23:40

The Adaggio from Rodrigo's Concerto de Ranguef. Um It's important to remember, June Spencer, of course, these days the The Arches is recorded and edited and it all sounds beautifully smooth, but when you were starting out in radio must all have been live, was it? It was live, yes. A bit nerve wracking at times.

June Spencer23:56

Um, it could be rather, yes, especially when a

June Spencer23:59

A producer would tiptoe into the studio while you were at the microphone, actually on air.

June Spencer24:05

Lean over your shoulder and with a pencil cut several of the next speeches that you are going to say.

June Spencer24:11

And then tiptoe out again. I don't know how we got through, but we did. Yes. Great day.

Presenter24:15

It's great fun. And so let's dance forward a little bit. You'd established yourself in the Archers as, first of all, of course, Peggy Archer. You played a good few characters in the beginning as well. There was a point at which, though, you stepped back and it was a time for family. You adopted two children. Yes.

June Spencer24:27

Please.

June Spencer24:34

It's in nineteen fifty two, I think it was. Uh we adopted David.

June Spencer24:39

who was just a year old.

June Spencer24:41

And then two and a half years later

June Spencer24:43

We adopted little Roz as well.

June Spencer24:46

But when David had settled in

June Spencer24:48

I was able to work at weekends when Roger was with him, so that was all right.

Presenter24:53

And when they were tiny children, before you went back to work, did I mean so many of us as mothers find that we automatically start behaving in the way that our mother

Presenter25:00

behaved to us. D what sort of mother were you? Did you try to be a different mother from yours?

June Spencer25:05

Well, yes, I did. They ran rings round me, quite honestly. I mean, they're a couple of little devils, they really were, but absolutely gorgeous.

Presenter25:13

I mentioned in the introduction that of course one of the uh

Presenter25:18

Storylines in recent years in The Archer that has caused a a lot of comment and has been very moving for many people to listen to is the situation with your

Presenter25:27

on here husband of Jack beginning to suffer dementia and then it becoming very, very pronounced. Um your own husband, Roger, who you were with uh for fifty nine years, in the latter part of your marriage, he developed Alzheimer's. Can you tell me a little about that?

June Spencer25:31

It can

June Spencer25:33

Steve

June Spencer25:43

Yes, he began to uh I noticed it about

June Spencer25:46

the time of our golden wedding. His memory was

June Spencer25:50

Playing him false.

June Spencer25:52

And it got steadily worse and worse.

June Spencer25:55

And the repetitive question started.

June Spencer25:59

which I think is almost the most wearying part of it, because they ask you a question and you answer it, and a few moments later they ask you the same question again.

June Spencer26:09

And the day before

Presenter26:10

Roger, your husband died. You had a sort of

Presenter26:14

Something of a golden day, did you not?

June Spencer26:15

Oh yeah, we're in the garden together. Tell me about the house.

Presenter26:17

Uh

Presenter26:18

Uh

June Spencer26:18

Yes, it was a beautiful day.

June Spencer26:21

Lovely spring day in May, and all the the garden was looking lovely.

June Spencer26:25

And I said, such a lovely day, let's let's go and have lunch in the garden.

June Spencer26:29

And uh

June Spencer26:30

I made a nice salad, and we had a a bottle of chilled white wine.

June Spencer26:35

He was very amused, I remember, because I'd I'd put it in a big vase with with with ice at the bottom. I said that's that's my wine chiller.

June Spencer26:43

He kept on saying, Isn't this lovely? What a lovely lunch

June Spencer26:47

It was such a happy that's such a happy

Presenter26:49

Uh

June Spencer26:49

Happy day.

Presenter26:51

Let's have some music. Tell me about the next piece of music. We're on disc number six now, Ju.

June Spencer26:56

Yeah.

Presenter26:57

Uh

June Spencer26:57

I'd like to hear Dear Old Harry Seecombe sing opera.

June Spencer27:02

I met him.

June Spencer27:03

And we did.

June Spencer27:05

Songs of Praise in the Balearics. He had a house in Majorca, and of course I have this one in Menorca.

June Spencer27:12

and he and the crew came over.

June Spencer27:15

And I said to him, Uh, you oughtn't sing to me while you while I'm here, you know.

June Spencer27:20

Oh, he said, looking very surprised. So I went and fetched one of my tapes, which was Operatic Aureas, and there was Callas and Domingo and Carreras and Secum, and he said, Oh, I'm in good company.

Speaker 427:35

Sorry, bless and praise all your me.

Speaker 427:44

Alright

Speaker 428:11

Almighty Love Atari Tor Love

Presenter28:34

Harry Seecombe and the stars were brightly shining from Puccini's Tosca. So, June Spencer, as we know, your husband Roger died in two thousand and one, and the following year the decision was made for your on air husband, Jack.

Presenter28:48

To develop dementia. What did you think when the the script editors told you of their plans?

June Spencer28:54

Well, Vanessa was very good, Vanessa Whitburmer, editor. She asked me how I would feel about it. Right. I said I'm all for it. Let's give it all the publicity we can, especially the

June Spencer29:06

The plight of the carers as well to

June Spencer29:08

I like that as well.

Presenter29:10

And and you became something of is this writer sort of advisor to the scriptwriters? Did they they consulted you about various

June Spencer29:16

Well, they did consult me in the first place. They invited me to a script conference.

June Spencer29:22

and they ask me questions. But the scripts have all been so beautifully written I've never wanted to change anything.

Presenter29:29

Uh

June Spencer29:29

The s Door

Presenter29:29

What do you think

June Spencer29:29

Line

Presenter29:29

has garnered a lot of attention and also awards, a couple of big awards have have come the way of the Archers as a result of tackling such a a difficult subject. How was it for you personally acting out those scripts?

Presenter29:42

Uh

June Spencer29:42

Well, when I'm in the studio, I'm Peggy.

June Spencer29:45

When I come out, I'm me. So there wasn't a conflict in that. Sometimes when I listen to it.

June Spencer29:51

I feel the I used to feel the poignancy of it.

Presenter29:54

Because some of them are are are you know, they're they're pretty difficult to listen to. They're Jack becoming not just confused and forgetful and repetitive, but abusive and truculent and aggressive.

June Spencer30:03

I'm very aggressive. Yes, yes, yes. Now, Roger never did that.

June Spencer30:07

He was he remained.

June Spencer30:09

Good-tempered throughout. Sometimes he'd be rather rude to other people, which was embarrassing. But, um,

Presenter30:15

Yeah.

June Spencer30:15

No, he was never as bad as Jack.

Presenter30:16

Let's have some music then. Tell me about your seventh disc today, June.

Presenter30:22

I'd like to.

June Spencer30:23

have the Overture to the Sleeping Beauty by Tchaikovsky, and that is to remind me

June Spencer30:30

Of

June Spencer30:31

The years when Roger, Roz, and I would go to Germany to see David dance he was a classical dancer.

June Spencer30:39

He was a wonderfully frightening male Carabosse.

Presenter30:43

And and are there any memories you particularly have of I mean, obviously it's a it's a terrifically tough discipline, and when you felt that he'd reached his peak as a dancer.

June Spencer30:52

Yes.

June Spencer30:54

As he said to me, he said, I'm an actor without words, and he was, he was a wonderful actor.

June Spencer31:00

He could make you cry when he danced, and of this particular

June Spencer31:04

Performance

June Spencer31:06

We were sitting in the audience, and when he came out to take his solo,

June Spencer31:11

Curtain call

June Spencer31:13

My husband said.

June Spencer31:14

What's that noise?

June Spencer31:16

And I said they're stamping for him.

June Spencer31:21

still brings tears to my eyes.

Presenter32:17

The Overture to The Sleeping Beauty by Tchaikovsky, and you said, June Spencer, that that brings back wonderful memories of your son David dancing. He was a very accomplished dancer. Sadly, he's now dead. Can can you tell me the circumstances of his death?

June Spencer32:33

Yes, he was tall, and he had some very hard choreography lifting.

June Spencer32:38

Some lifts that he shouldn't have done.

June Spencer32:40

and his back gave out, and his feet.

June Spencer32:44

When he stopped dancing.

June Spencer32:46

His wife, with whom he always danced,

June Spencer32:49

needed a new partner.

June Spencer32:51

So she found a new young dancer, and I'm afraid

June Spencer32:55

The marriage broke up.

June Spencer32:56

So David lost his career through having to give up because of his bad back.

June Spencer33:04

And lost his wife and his little daughter, whom he adored.

June Spencer33:10

And uh

June Spencer33:11

I'm afraid he just took to drink.

June Spencer33:14

Although he didn't enjoy drinking, he couldn't stop.

June Spencer33:19

And sadly, eventually

June Spencer33:21

as he knew it would.

June Spencer33:23

It killed him.

Presenter33:25

Yeah.

June Spencer33:25

Uh Yeah.

Presenter33:25

He wasn't living in England at that time. It must have been terrifically difficult for you as a as a mother at a distance knowing that this was happening to him.

June Spencer33:34

It was, it's something that you live with every day.

Presenter33:37

Hmm.

June Spencer33:38

It's the last thing you think of when you go to bed at night, and it's the first thing you think of in the morning.

June Spencer33:42

I used to go over frequently, and he of course came over to England, but

June Spencer33:47

Could see he was fighting a losing battle. He got wonderful treatment in Germany.

June Spencer33:52

which was the reason that he didn't come back to England.

June Spencer33:56

I cannot praise highly enough the the treatment that he got in Germany.

Presenter34:02

And not just the the sadness of a mother, but also being being a performer yourself and understanding. I mean, you you're still working at the age of ninety. To to see another person who's a performer have the thing that's so dear to them and that they're so skilled at taken away must have been a great pain as well.

June Spencer34:16

Yes, Spain as well.

Presenter34:18

It's a bad

June Spencer34:19

Been his life, you see, since he was eleven.

June Spencer34:22

When he went to the Rambert School.

Presenter34:24

And what about your your granddaughter Claire? She she she lives in.

June Spencer34:26

Do you like it?

June Spencer34:28

Yes, she was supposed to come over for my ninetieth birthday, but um

June Spencer34:32

I sent her a a ticket.

June Spencer34:34

Something prevented her coming, and she's been out there for about three years.

June Spencer34:39

I expect I shall see her again some time. It's too far for me to go. I

Presenter34:44

You've spent a lot of your time.

Presenter34:46

taking care of other people. It it it seems incredible that I mean, first of all, as a teenager, you had to restrict your own life to be with your mother while she felt that she needed you there.

June Spencer34:51

You have

Presenter34:56

You've spoken about Roger in the last few years of of his life and and then David's illness, and also you took time out of your acting for your own two children when you adopted them.

June Spencer35:04

Yeah.

Presenter35:06

Um, what about the time that you have now? To to a degree, although you have uh the sadness of the people who are no longer with you in your family, you you have a life that is

Presenter35:16

Maybe more your own than ever.

June Spencer35:18

Oh, I think so. Yes, yes. I'm there aren't enough days in the week for all the things I want to do. I mean, I I started a Scrabble club after Roger died. I joined the U three A Spanish Conversation classes. I had a pretty good life, you know.

Presenter35:33

And what about Roz, your daughter? You're very close to Roz.

June Spencer35:35

Yes, oh, she's she's a wonderful daughter.

June Spencer35:38

I remember David saying about her, not long before he died, he said

June Spencer35:42

She's a wonderful woman.

June Spencer35:44

And she is.

June Spencer35:46

She's a darling.

Presenter35:47

And and does Roz ever try to persuade you that you might want to consider retirement?

June Spencer35:51

Oh, I don't think so. No, she knows it's good for me.

June Spencer35:55

It's the breath of life to me, acting.

Presenter35:58

Let's hear your final piece of music then, June. What have we got?

June Spencer36:00

Well, perhaps sometimes I might feel a bit down in the dumps. So I'd like the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel's Messiah, and I would climb up on to the highest point of the island,

June Spencer36:11

And I would shout Hallelujah and that'd cheer me up no end.

Speaker 436:34

Oh the Lord not for him just raised.

Presenter37:17

The Hallelujah Chorus from Handel's Messiah. So I will give you then June the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare, and you're allowed to take a book. What's your book going to be?

June Spencer37:27

Mm-hmm.

June Spencer37:28

But I think I'd like something to make me laugh.

June Spencer37:30

So Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome. Right. That's yours. And a luxury?

Presenter37:35

Yeah.

June Spencer37:36

I'd like to take my scramble board.

Presenter37:38

Uh

Presenter37:38

And one hand left hand can play round.

June Spencer37:39

Left hand can play right hand.

Presenter37:41

And if you had to choose just one of the discs from today, which one would you choose?

Presenter37:48

I think the Rodrigo Concerta Dale ran with. It's yours, Jude Spencer. Thank you very much for letting us hear your Desert Island discs. It's been a great pleasure. Thank you.

Presenter38:45

You've been listening to a download from the BBC. You'll find more information on the Radio Four website bbc. co dot uk slash radio four.