Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Desert Island Discs
Presented by Roy Plomley
Battle of Britain fighter ace who shot down 11 enemy planes and later served as equerry to King George VI.
Eight records
The keepsakes
The luxury
In conversation
Presenter asks
You began life as an RAF pilot, but you have an army background in the family, have you not?
Well a little bit, but not entirely army. Uh army and navy and even administration. I think my father was more of an administrator.
Presenter asks
When war broke out, you were in Britain. What time?
Uh that's right. It was uh purely accidental. I mean, anybody could have done it. But it was qu quite an accident that this guy happened to meet me and or we met uh just uh off the g the Yorkshire coast. It's quite near Whitby.
Presenter asks
After the Battle of Britain you were appointed group captain. That took you into the realms of policy making, did it?
Not really, no. I think I'd been capable of making any policy, right, really. Uh I don't know what you feel about policy making, but uh no, I went to the staff college where I was simply taught to kill more efficiently or to teach other people to kill more efficiently. And it's fantastic, really. The uh the uh uh I was horrified, I must say, but I went I did it, one had to do it. But uh it is horrifying how humans can set themselves to the scientific business of killing other human beings. It seems a very wasteful process.
The recording
Timestamps play the recording from that turn
Group Captain Peter Townsend
This download is the only extract the BBC has of this edition of Desert Island Discs. The presenter was Roy Plumley.
Presenter
Now, Peter, you began life as an RAF pilot, but you have a an army background in the family, have you not?
Group Captain Peter Townsend
Well a little bit, but not entirely army. Uh army and navy and even administration. I think my father was more of an administrator. Maybe he had my idea a little bit, or I had his, that he started in the army, but then he went over to the administration in the Far East, in India and in Burma. Mhm. But, um y you're right, there's a background of naval and military. And I was a little bit offbeat, I must say, in deciding to become a pilot. Yes. You went to the RAF college at Cre
Presenter
Where did you serve uh uh as a younger?
Group Captain Peter Townsend
Um after Cranmore I went to um fighter squadron at Tangmere. Tangmere was a wonderful place. Uh it was really one was spoilt there.
Group Captain Peter Townsend
It was in the days, you know, Roy, when flying was a the RAF somebody called it the best flying club in the world.
Presenter
Yeah.
Group Captain Peter Townsend
And uh I couldn't agree more.
Group Captain Peter Townsend
airfield was a meadow, you know, and in the summer and when the grass was long.
Presenter
And those
Group Captain Peter Townsend
One could hear the swish of one's wheels as one came into land.
Group Captain Peter Townsend
A d um flock of sheep grazed peacefully in the one corner, and occasionally got in the way when we were landing.
Presenter
Yes.
Group Captain Peter Townsend
But you went out to the Far East as well. Then I went to the Far East. There was a little trouble with Mussolini. And.
Group Captain Peter Townsend
There was a great reinforcement movement.
Group Captain Peter Townsend
And I'd been longing to get out of England and go away and adventure somewhere else.
Group Captain Peter Townsend
And I was sent to the Far East, to Singapore. Yes. And then when war broke out, you were in Britain. What time?
Presenter
I go there. Uh at the beginning of the war, when war broke out, we were flying hurricanes. And in the Battle of Britain you chalked out personally the destruction of eleven enemy planes, including the first German bomber to be crash-landed in Britain.
Presenter
Uh that's right. It is
Group Captain Peter Townsend
It was uh purely accidental. I mean, anybody could have done it. But it was qu quite an accident that this guy happened to meet me and or we met uh just uh
Presenter
Yeah.
Group Captain Peter Townsend
off the g the Yorkshire coast.
Presenter
It's quite near Whitby. Perhaps.
Group Captain Peter Townsend
Uh
Presenter
and you were awarded a fine assortment of gongs for gallantry. You were shot down yourself a couple of times.
Group Captain Peter Townsend
Yes, I was shot down myself twice and uh I managed to find
Group Captain Peter Townsend
The man who shot me down the first time.
Group Captain Peter Townsend
You were able to see him afterwards and uh and
Presenter
Yes, I
Presenter
Book I read.
Group Captain Peter Townsend
Yeah.
Presenter
Uh
Group Captain Peter Townsend
Yeah.
Presenter
And after the Battle of Britain you were appointed group captain. That took you into the realms of
Group Captain Peter Townsend
Yeah.
Group Captain Peter Townsend
Policy making, did it? Not really, no. I think I'd been capable of making any policy, right, really. Uh I don't know what you feel about policy making, but uh no, I went to the staff college where I was simply taught to kill more efficiently or to teach other people to kill more efficiently. And it's fantastic, really. The uh the uh uh I was horrified, I must say, but I went I did it, one had to do it. But uh it is horrifying how humans can set themselves to the scientific business of killing other human beings. It seems a very wasteful process.
Presenter
On the strength of your service record, the late king asked for you as an aquerry. What exactly are the duties of an aquerry?
Group Captain Peter Townsend
Well
Group Captain Peter Townsend
I think basically an aquarium is uh a personal aid to the king. Uh during his tour of duty, which may be two or three weeks, uh he's absolutely on duty uh during twenty four hours. And if the sovereign it was the king in my case, the late king if he rings the bell, will you want to be there and not out shopping in Bond Street or in Piccadilly or something? Uh you accompany the king on all his
Presenter
Yeah.
Group Captain Peter Townsend
um excursions, visits and so on.
Group Captain Peter Townsend
And uh you are in personal attendance on the king here, so you can smooth the path.
Group Captain Peter Townsend
Well, you try to, but sometimes you put your foot in it and uh
Group Captain Peter Townsend
have the opposite effect. How many d does a sovereign have?
Group Captain Peter Townsend
Uh at the time I was with King George VI, uh there were three aquarias.
Group Captain Peter Townsend
A certain
Presenter
Soldier, sailor and an airman.
Group Captain Peter Townsend
Uh
Presenter
You were also for a while deputy master of his majesty's household. That sounds rather like a a superior housekeeper.
Group Captain Peter Townsend
Well, in a way it is. But I don't know whether you've ever tried housekeeping, but it's it's not all fun.
Group Captain Peter Townsend
Uh but it was a good job. Uh there there was a large staff uh there, and a very devoted staff, and they had their problems very reasonably, and one was there to try and help them and listen to their problems. And also, uh on the positive side, uh one's job was to organize the internal
Group Captain Peter Townsend
Uh protocol, if you like, with several
Presenter
Options and so on. Yes.
Presenter
And after the king died you were for a time equedded to the queen, and then er tèche in Brussels. Was that a service appointment?
Group Captain Peter Townsend
That was a service appointment, yes. I was appointed by the Air Ministry to be air attacher in Brussels.
Presenter
Yeah.
Presenter
Peter, when did you resign your commission in the Royal Air Force?
Group Captain Peter Townsend
In nineteen fifty six.
Presenter
and you decided to go round the world and write a book about it.
Group Captain Peter Townsend
Right. Uh I decided to go around the world. I didn't really quite know what to do and I was in a bit of a fix really.
Group Captain Peter Townsend
And I didn't want to stay in the Air Force. I think like a lot of people, my contemporaries, you know, they they'd done their flying, they'd had their
Group Captain Peter Townsend
thing, which was a very exceptional period, the war period in the Air Force.
Group Captain Peter Townsend
And um the gorgeous thing is, if I have time to tell you, it it it all happened one evening in a town called Elizabethville.
Group Captain Peter Townsend
in the Congo.
Group Captain Peter Townsend
And I was thinking very much about what to do next. I was then Elotoria in Brussels, and I was on a journey in in the Congo, and one evening I sat on my bed and I picked out my little pocket diary.
Group Captain Peter Townsend
And I turned over to the back
Group Captain Peter Townsend
inside cover, and there was a tiny map of the world, and I thought, God, I want to drive round that.
Presenter
Drive Rod.
Group Captain Peter Townsend
Yeah.
Presenter
Uh
Group Captain Peter Townsend
Yeah.
Presenter
Uh
Group Captain Peter Townsend
And uh this is what I did. I set off from Brussels in a little motor car in a Land Rover.
Group Captain Peter Townsend
And the first uh stage of the journey was to Singapore.
Group Captain Peter Townsend
And I simply boggled at the idea of driving from Brussels to Singapore by the road all the way. The only sea I crossed was the the Bosphorus, and I had to catch a boat in Singapore.
Group Captain Peter Townsend
And then I went to Australia, New Zealand. It it took a long time. Yes. What were the most adventurous stretches of the trip?
Presenter
Uh
Group Captain Peter Townsend
Well, it was very tough in parts uh in Persia.
Group Captain Peter Townsend
In Iran, uh there were some quite tough uh bits there.
Group Captain Peter Townsend
um Afghanistan. I think the toughest of all was in the Burmese jungle.
Group Captain Peter Townsend
up in the north of Burma.
Group Captain Peter Townsend
and at one time it took me seven days to cover twenty four miles.
Presenter
Good.
Group Captain Peter Townsend
and the car was rather badly damaged, and I had to sit down on my backside and mend it.
Group Captain Peter Townsend
And then you wrote the book, and then you became a business man.
Group Captain Peter Townsend
Well, hardly, Roy. I can't really. I have no pretensions about being a businessman. I tried and uh but I'd written this book and I'd ma this I think was one of the biggest errors I made in my life, that I should have gone on writing. And uh quite a short time ago I picked out a few letters from my agent at the time and he was beseeching me to go on writing and I I think the only reason why I didn't is that I'd just married.
Group Captain Peter Townsend
And my darling wife said to me, Well, do you really think that you can survive on your makings, on your uh your profits as a writer? And I lost my nerve. Instead of saying, Yes, of course I can, I'm the future Hemingway,
Group Captain Peter Townsend
I lost my nerve. Still I picked it up again five years later.
Presenter
A very long and very detailed book, A Duel of Eagles, about the Battle of Britain. This must have needed an enormous amount of research.
Group Captain Peter Townsend
It needed a tremendous amount of assertion. By the way, I thought you were going to say a very long and fascinating book on the Battle of Britain, but still. It needed a lot of research, and it was very interesting researching on the German side. I had this idea when I finished the first book.
Presenter
Uh
Presenter
I have
Group Captain Peter Townsend
To do the story from both sides.
Group Captain Peter Townsend
But I didn't actually do it until five or six years later.
Group Captain Peter Townsend
It re
Presenter
In recent years you've done a lot of broadcasting, haven't you?
Group Captain Peter Townsend
Yes, I've done quite a bit, uh, on the radio and on the tele. Yeah.
Presenter
Yes. You've been doing a a a French language show on uh a continental
Group Captain Peter Townsend
Yes, for several months in Paris I had a
Group Captain Peter Townsend
a little talk show, you know, with a a man called uh Pierre Dumaillet.
Group Captain Peter Townsend
who is very well known in France as a brilliant literary critic.
Group Captain Peter Townsend
And uh I think one heard him in in a rather different role. Uh I was able to talk to him and we often laughed very much, which is w what one really sees him doing.
Presenter
And there's also a chat show you've got lined up for American television.
Group Captain Peter Townsend
Well, we've been talking about it, but it's for the future. I rather hope it comes off.
Group Captain Peter Townsend
I like T V. I think it's a mm medium which I enjoy.
Presenter
Mm-hmm.
Presenter
and you're busy now on another very long
Presenter
and carefully researched books.
Group Captain Peter Townsend
Yes, but the story is based
Group Captain Peter Townsend
On the events
Group Captain Peter Townsend
Of the years, of the months, rather, August 1946 to August 1947.
Group Captain Peter Townsend
during which these events led up to the loss of the Indian Empire, and the King Emperor, on the fifteenth of august, nineteen forty seven, was no longer Emp Emperor.
Group Captain Peter Townsend
Uh but at the same time
Group Captain Peter Townsend
There were tremendous events going on in Palestine.
Group Captain Peter Townsend
and in Burma.
Group Captain Peter Townsend
And I hope to get it done in six to seven months.
Presenter asks
On the strength of your service record, the late king asked for you as an equerry. What exactly are the duties of an equerry?
Well I think basically an equerry is uh a personal aid to the king. Uh during his tour of duty, which may be two or three weeks, uh he's absolutely on duty uh during twenty four hours. And if the sovereign it was the king in my case, the late king if he rings the bell, will you want to be there and not out shopping in Bond Street or in Piccadilly or something? Uh you accompany the king on all his um excursions, visits and so on.
Presenter asks
What were the most adventurous stretches of the trip [around the world]?
Well, it was very tough in parts uh in Persia. In Iran, uh there were some quite tough uh bits there. um Afghanistan. I think the toughest of all was in the Burmese jungle. up in the north of Burma. and at one time it took me seven days to cover twenty four miles. and the car was rather badly damaged, and I had to sit down on my backside and mend it.
“I was a little bit offbeat, I must say, in deciding to become a pilot.”
“It was purely accidental. I mean, anybody could have done it.”
“it is horrifying how humans can set themselves to the scientific business of killing other human beings. It seems a very wasteful process.”
“I turned over to the back inside cover, and there was a tiny map of the world, and I thought, God, I want to drive round that.”
“I think the only reason why I didn't [go on writing] is that I'd just married. And my darling wife said to me, Well, do you really think that you can survive on your makings, on your uh your profits as a writer? And I lost my nerve.”