Joan Bakewell

Joan Bakewell0:01

BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts.

Speaker 10:05

Hello, I'm Lauren Laverne and this is the Desert Island Discs podcast. This is the only extract the BBC has of this episode, and for rights reasons the music is shorter than on the original broadcast. The presenter is Roy Plumley. I hope you enjoy listening.

Presenter0:30

This week our castaway is the late night line-up interviewer, Joan Bakewell. Joan, how well do you think you could bear loneliness for a long time?

Joan Bakewell0:38

I think initially it would be the most appalling shock and I'd suffer enormous withdrawal symptoms at the absence of traffic and noise and most of all people. But I like to think that I would eventually pull myself together and start to cope with a totally new kind of life and begin to enjoy it.

Presenter0:54

Yes, is music important too?

Joan Bakewell0:56

Well, I love it dearly, but I wouldn't say that music purely as music speaks to me directly.

Presenter1:02

Do you play an instrument?

Joan Bakewell1:03

Well, I I'm

Joan Bakewell1:05

play the piano in a rather bad way to accompany my daughter on the clarinet and she has to pause and wait for me to get it right so that I can I can help her.

Presenter1:15

Do you play records a lot?

Joan Bakewell1:16

I play records now and then. Mostly I find I play them when I'm with a few friends, family.

Presenter1:23

Right, where do we start? What's the first one?

Joan Bakewell1:25

Well, the first one is the Bach double violin concerto. This is the piece that I've, of the ones I've chosen, that I've known longest and loved most consistently. For Bach, who is often considered a very exact, meticulous, intellectual composer, I think this is an extremely passionate piece of music and eternal, really.

Presenter2:45

The opening of the Bach double violin concerto played by Henrik Scheering and Peter Rybaugh. What's your second choice?

Joan Bakewell2:53

I'd like part of The Trojans by Berlioz, the Colin Davis recording.

Joan Bakewell2:59

I've chosen the part in the second act where the women are gathered in the temple, the Trojan women. Cassandra has told them that their fate is sealed, the enemy Greeks are arriving, and there is the most lyrical, very beautiful chorus of women's voices.

Presenter4:13

An excerpt from Act Two of The Trojans, the cotton garden production conducted by Colin Davies.

Presenter4:19

What part of the country do you come from?

Joan Bakewell4:21

Oh, I come from Stockport, which bridges Lancashire and Cheshire, so I feel I belong to both.

Presenter4:26

Yes. What did you want to be when you were a school girl?

Joan Bakewell4:30

Well, I I didn't want to be any particular thing, but I knew that I wanted to find something that would be totally absorbing. I suppose I went through the girlish thing. I want to be an actress or a singer. I was very interested in the theatre in all its aspects.

Joan Bakewell4:48

All sorts of romantic vocations, medical missionary, all the teenage um passions, but um nothing specific. I never work towards any end deliberately.

Presenter4:59

You won a scholarship to Cambridge. What did you read?

Joan Bakewell5:02

I read economics, and then I changed to history.

Presenter5:04

With the viewer war.

Joan Bakewell5:05

Oh no, a view to enjoying it and uh to learning, you know, ju just simply uh enjoying the subject.

Presenter5:11

What were your other activities in the university?

Joan Bakewell5:14

Well, I did some minor acting, small parts here and there. I generally mixed with what I think were known as a theatrical lot. But there was a lot of activity, a lot of talk. I think I did more talking than anything else.

Presenter5:27

Yes. And when you came down?

Joan Bakewell5:29

Well, you see, I came down and joined the BBC right away. Interested in the arts.

Joan Bakewell5:36

interested in all sorts of areas of expression. Would it be the Arts Council? Would it be the BBC? I had no idea what the BBC was like from inside, but I knew it was an umbrella institution and I thought I might find my way in it eventually.

Presenter5:49

What did you join the B B C as?

Joan Bakewell5:51

Well, you see, I found my way into quite the wrong slot really because I joined as a studio manager and did a training course which is part of the stage managing of a studio, as you you were well aware.

Presenter6:03

A semi-technical job. Uh

Joan Bakewell6:04

Really? Yes, indeed. And i they made a mistake in recruiting me really because they generously assumed that I although I didn't know anything about uh electrical equipment and engineering, I would find it no problem to pick it up. In fact I find it enormously difficult. I never got it right. I still don't understand electricity. And all those knobs and switches, I'm afraid I kept getting wrong. And getting something wrong consistently is very uh depressing. And I'm afraid I didn't stay very long.

Presenter6:33

Yes. What sort of programmes did you put on the air?

Joan Bakewell6:35

Oh, all the programmes that are being put on in this building, schools broadcasts and Mrs. Dale and the news and uh

Joan Bakewell6:44

Oh, all sorts of talks programmes.

Presenter6:46

You didn't stay very long, what did you do instead?

Joan Bakewell6:49

No, I left the BBC absolutely. I've never actually rejoined it as an institution. And I went into advertising, another area totally unknown, which I thought might have a chink where I could fit in happily.

Presenter7:03

Into an agency?

Joan Bakewell7:04

Yes, I went into a huge American agency, McCann Erickson, where I learnt to write slogans of five letters and huge instructions on leaflets in packets of drugs and things like that. Copywriting. Copywriting, yes.

Presenter7:19

Copywriting.

Presenter7:21

They're very useful because they do teach brevity, if nothing else.

Joan Bakewell7:24

Yes, you do learn that if you've only got five seconds to write a commercial, every word must tell. And I suppose to some extent I still appreciate that when I'm writing any linking material for television. If you've got ten words, everyone counts.

Presenter7:36

Yes. You were raising a family at this time, too.

Joan Bakewell7:39

Yes, I managed to keep part-time work going at the same time as having children. It's something very difficult for wives who have some sort of qualification and small children and yet have a great deal of energy to spare. And I think an awful lot of women do look round for part-time work and I found it in advertising and eventually I found it back in broadcasting again.

Presenter8:02

Let's have your third record, what's that?

Joan Bakewell8:04

Now that is the bronze sixth step, the string sixth step number one, with Isaac Stern and with Casals.

Presenter9:13

The beginning of the second movement of the Brums' first string sextet with Casals, Isaac Stern and some of their friends. Now you were slaving away over a hot coffee desk in an advertising agency, but broadcasting still fascinated you.

Joan Bakewell9:28

Yes, it was part of this married situation with small children, which I mentioned, that I was looking around for work that I could do at my own pace. Now, men have to live their lives and earn their incomes from nine to five or whatever it is and be committed to that situation. But women have a situation which has many disadvantages, but it does give them the chance to look at their lives and choose which part of their time they give to whatever work they want to do. And I thought that the idea of freelance broadcasting and doing occasional items and occasional recordings would fit very nicely if I could make it into the pattern of life I wanted to lead. I certainly didn't want to abandon my children to nannies and live separately from them. I wanted to be very close to them and yet still have something that was really hard work, that was a challenge to do.

Presenter10:13

Yeah.

Presenter10:19

So what jobs did you break into?

Joan Bakewell10:22

Well, I carried my little tape recorder round London and I talked to various people and got little tape recordings which I brought back and hawked round this building to various news programmes, town and around, remember. Woman's Are, I began to do small items for them and eventually the Today programme. All of which I enjoyed and doing this I began to learn how it should be done because initially of course I was a complete amateur.

Presenter10:48

And then you move from sound to vision.

Joan Bakewell10:51

Yes, I was invited to do to participate in a discussion at lunchtime. There used to be young lunchtime television programmes and I think I was the token housewife really if I face the reality of it. But I was enormously flattered to be asked and I went along and ate a lot and didn't talk very much and listened to all the high-powered Fleet Street journalists who told me what I should think. And I enjoyed that too. And began looking around at the television service and ITV and think perhaps there was a place here for someone with some time but not a total dedication to give all their working life to.

Speaker 111:03

Reality

Presenter11:27

Yes, you were on an afternoon chat show for a while.

Joan Bakewell11:30

Yes, I went to Southern Television on a contract there to do three afternoons a week for home at 4.30 it was called and it was basically broadcasting to women but it was it was very interesting it was full of little interviews new books new subjects and I enjoyed very much travelling down to Southampton and working there with a very happy group of people

Presenter11:53

And then late night lineup. We went at the beginning of that.

Joan Bakewell11:57

Not quite at the beginning, though by now I'm one of the sort of the veterans of the of the programme. I came in, I think, when BBC Two was about nine months old.

Joan Bakewell12:08

And Line Up was just beginning to expand its horizons and do discussions about programmes that had happened earlier in the evening and people were beginning to disagree and argue and criticize. It was it was beginning to get the headlines and

Presenter12:19

Yes. How much of a lineup is live?

Joan Bakewell12:21

Oh, line up. We are there at night. Make no mistake about it. We are there every night. We only record items for line up when it's a situation where the guest is not available late at night. Otherwise, we require them to come trudging in at 11 o'clock and be there. We enjoy that, really. I mean, I think it gives it a great atmosphere of being in that bleak building, the television centre, late at night. Everyone else has gone home. And there we are, Ernest Little Band, putting out this programme.

Presenter12:48

You're not everyone.

Joan Bakewell12:50

Oh, good gracious, no. I I mean I share the um interviewing and the anchoring of the programme with four colleagues. And we are all on call, as it were, to do particular interviews. Uh we don't work sort of Monday, Wednesday and Friday regularly. We're on call and we are appropriated to our to the subjects which the producers and their wisdom think are um the most suited.

Presenter13:12

Let's have record number four now.

Joan Bakewell13:14

Uh

Speaker 413:15

Hey Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me. I'm not sleepy and there's no place I'm going to

Speaker 413:26

Hey Mr. Timberin, Minecraft song for me. In the jingle jangle morning, I'll come following you.

Presenter13:41

Bob Dylan. Joan, can you think of any particularly good interviews that you hope have been kept in the archive?

Joan Bakewell13:47

Oh, indeed. I I I've done a great many with rather distinguished musicians or artists.

Joan Bakewell13:53

I really much enjoy interviewing people with a whole lifetime of achievement behind them. Arthur Bliss was very enjoyable. Imogen Holst, another delightful person.

Presenter14:04

How do you feel about doing the extrovert jobs, like being, for example, sent out into Shepherd's Bush market to question shopping women about birth control or or one of those jobs?

Joan Bakewell14:13

Would you believe I've done just that?

Presenter14:15

That video was

Joan Bakewell14:15

I have done that.

Joan Bakewell14:19

Well, I just uh asked the cameraman if he would mind being a little discreet and standing in the background. And then I just thought, Well, here you go. You're getting paid to do it. You better just go ahead and do it. And embarrassment has no place in broadcasting. And you know, people were extremely kind. They w they nobody dreamt of saying

Speaker 114:31

Broadcasting.

Joan Bakewell14:38

kindly mind your own business. They were most surprisingly forthright about uh the answers. And having done it, I thought, well, that was that was good because people were expressing themselves.

Presenter14:50

You brought back some good film.

Presenter14:52

Where do you go from here? Do you want to go back to acting? Do you want to do directing, writing? Or are you happy sitting on the other side of the table and finding out about people?

Joan Bakewell15:02

Well, I do enjoy talking to people, I have to admit. I mean, I chat, you know, the chat show is a sort of cheap way of referring to it. But, I mean, that's what it is, and it's what I enjoy doing. I don't know what I shall do the rest of my life, but at the moment, I enjoy talking to people about whatever interests them in almost any situation. I'm quite happy to go on doing that, as long as there's someone to provide the opportunity.

Presenter15:29

Let's have record number five.

Speaker 415:32

The sound to

Speaker 415:35

Here comes the sun saying it's alright.

Speaker 415:45

Yeah.

Speaker 415:46

It's been a long, cold, lonely winter

Speaker 415:51

Little darling, it feels like this since it's been here.

Speaker 416:28

Yeah.

Speaker 416:30

Hey, look, I know it.

Speaker 416:34

I stay on a side to me.

Speaker 416:42

Come on, yay don't even.

Speaker 416:47

Ahas was made up, heart and word.

Presenter17:01

An excerpt from There it is Don Carlos.

Presenter17:05

Conducted by Gabrielli Santini.

Presenter17:08

How good would you be on this desert island at looking after yourself? Are you a practical person?

Joan Bakewell17:13

Yes, but not expert in anything particular. I'm I'm uh fairly ham-fisted and um uh about things generally, but um I get by.

Joan Bakewell17:26

I suppose I could cut down a few palm leaves and uh manage. It's going to be a hot island this place.

Presenter17:32

Mm-hmm.

Joan Bakewell17:33

That I would enjoy. I wouldn't mind sleeping under the stars. I don't know about the tropical thunderstorms.

Presenter17:38

What about food?

Joan Bakewell17:39

Well, I would have to re-educate my appetite because I'm a meat eater rather than a fish eater. So I realize that there's a whole prospect of new delights awaiting me. I should have to to go in for all the sea creatures, which at the moment I rather avoid.

Presenter17:50

You

Presenter17:52

Do you know anything about course fishing?

Joan Bakewell17:54

Mm-hmm.

Presenter17:55

Oh.

Presenter17:56

Would you try to keep up appearances?

Joan Bakewell17:59

No, I don't think so. I don't I mean I I think I'd I'd be very distressed at being separated from the the amenities of life. I wouldn't like not to be able to clean my teeth. But um I think I would try and um capitalize on the the benefits of being on an island and just put the disadvantages out of my mind.

Presenter18:16

an island and just put

Presenter18:19

Would you try to escape?

Joan Bakewell18:23

Not for quite a while, because I'm a rather cautious person, and yet there's part of my nature which resents being cautious. So I think I would see how I was managing and hope for a ship, and then possibly in desperation I would uh try to swim for it.

Presenter18:39

Let's have record number seven.

Joan Bakewell18:41

Now this is a piece from Hare, just a very gentle little ballad, Frank Mills.

Speaker 418:52

I met a boy called Frank Mills on September twelfth right here in front of the Waverley.

Speaker 419:04

But unfortunately

Speaker 419:08

I lost his address.

Speaker 419:12

He was last seen with his f

Presenter19:16

A number from here sung by Sonia Christina. Which brings us now to record number eight and your last one. What have you saved till the end?

Joan Bakewell19:24

Well

Joan Bakewell19:25

I think my favorite of all.

Joan Bakewell19:28

Though I love all the ones I've chosen, of course, but the prologue to Mephistopheles by Boeto.

Joan Bakewell19:36

I look back on the ones I've chosen and they seem to be, I don't know, about friendship and freedom and full of passion. This seems to me a most beautiful climax, which is the vision of heaven preceding the whole of the Mephistopheles opera. I find it sublime.

Speaker 420:15

Oh sleep.