Peter Layton

Presenter0:00

Hello, I'm Lauren Laverne and this is the Desert Island Discs podcast from BBC Radio 4. Every week I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book and luxury, that they'd want to take with them if they were cast away to a desert island. For rights reasons, the music's shorter than on the original broadcast, but you can find a version with longer music tracks on BBC Sounds. Listeners will also get access to episodes 28 days earlier than everyone else. I hope you enjoy listening.

Presenter0:43

My castaway this week is the artist Peter Leighton. Known as the Grand Master of Glass, he's a founding father of the British studio glass movement, which has carved out, or should that be blown out, a niche in contemporary art that now belongs to this ancient material. His work has been exhibited and acquired by some of the world's finest museums, and his collectors include Sir Elton John and the late Duchess of Kent. He was born in 1937 in Prague, where his father worked in a glass factory. But when Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia, his family fled to Britain, settling in Bradford, where he followed in the footsteps of his friend David Hockney at their local art college. He trained as a ceramicist before falling in love with glass making when he saw a demonstration at a summer workshop. He says, How lucky can you be to do something you really love, working in an extraordinary material with special properties and myriad possibilities, creating things that thankfully people sometimes decide they need to enhance their lives. Peter Leighton, welcome to Desert Island Discs.

Peter Layton1:45

Thank you so much. It's really a pleasure to be here.

Presenter1:48

Well, we're delighted to have you. We've got to start with the appeal of Glass PC. You've described it as an extraordinarily seductive material. What is it that you love so much about it?

Peter Layton1:57

It is truly a magical material. It's a material which is fluid at one moment and solid at another. I'm talking about glass blowing in particular. There are lots of other techniques and other ways of working, casting and slumping and bending and pulling out millions of miles of fibre and that exploring possibilities with it. It just appears endless.

Speaker 12:18

Mm-hmm.

Presenter2:27

We'll be talking about your studio in London, which you've run for many years now, and you still encourage the public to come and watch you working there. And at eighty eight, you're still spending two or three days a week there working in the studio. What keeps you going back?

Peter Layton2:42

You know, I've got far too many ideas. I'm not going you know, I'm running out of time, it's the truth of the matter. I've got lots and lots more to do. It's a labor of love, because it's not a way to make a fortune. But we do have a really nice gallery and a very, very nice studio, and it is incredibly rewarding when people walk into our gallery and their jaws drop and they, my God, I had no idea you could do th all this with glass.

Presenter3:10

And of course, we're going to be hearing your discs today, Peter. You've chosen your music for us. Is that important to you? Is it something that influences how you work?

Peter Layton3:18

Well, there's usually music on in the studio, I have to say that, sometimes to the point where we need to tone it down a bit. And thinking about this programme, I mean, I'm just so blown away by how creative people are. The glass world is relatively small, you know, that's our kind of bubble. But when you think about how many creatives there are operating in the world, you know, it makes it a much better place.

Presenter3:46

Well, I think we should get started on that note. Then tell us about your first choice today, Peter. Disc number one. What is it?

Peter Layton3:51

Ah, yes, George Formby, when I'm cleaning windows.

Peter Layton3:56

As a kid growing up in Bradford, I used to go to a Saturday morning film club. George, my brother, and I used to go.

Peter Layton4:04

And one of our heroes was George Formby. He was just incredible. I I remember being a jockey in one of his films, and he just raised our spirits.

Speaker 14:16

Two overcrowded flats I've been, Sixteen in one bed I've seen, With the lodger tucked up in between. When I'm cleaning windows, All soldiers ever die, they say, Though I don't want to pass away, I kick the bucket every day. When I'm cleaning windows, Through working at such dizzy heights, I dream about my job at nights, I polish my wife's thingamites, And think I'm cleaning windows.

Presenter4:45

George Bournby and When I'm Cleaning Windows. I mean, a few of his tracks have got a good double entendre going. Were you aware of that, Peter?

Peter Layton4:53

Aware of that, Peter? No, not then, but it's a bit naughty, I agree. And I c I I do actually like that. I like that cheeky northern bit.

Presenter4:56

But

Presenter5:01

So let's go back to the beginning, Peter. You weren't born in Bradford, as I mentioned. You were born in Prague, nineteen thirty seven, to Fritz and Edith, and you you and your parents escaped actually on one of the last trains out of the city in in nineteen thirty nine. You would have been tiny. Do you remember anything about the journey?

Peter Layton5:17

I don't remember the journey. I I do remember arriving in London.

Presenter5:22

How old would you have been?

Peter Layton5:23

I was two in a bit.

Peter Layton5:25

We caught the last train out in August, or arrived here at the end of August, and war was declared a few days later. So so it was a narrow escape. When I get together with my family all you know, when I think about my family at all, you know, I just think, what a miracle. They were heroic.

Presenter5:39

You know I did

Presenter5:42

And what did your mum and dad tell you about them having to make the decision to leave? I mean, how did it all happen?

Peter Layton5:49

So my parents were Austrian. Dad was my dad, we call him Freddie actually, was working for a Czech glass company. He he wasn't a glassmaker himself, although when I took up glass many years later he was very tickled. And the way it happened was that my grandfather was a T B specialist. He had a sanatorium in a place called Semmering, which is south of Vienna.

Peter Layton6:15

He'd already been put in jail.

Presenter6:17

What was it for the job?

Peter Layton6:18

for being Jewish, I suspect. But luckily for him he was also a Freemason and apparently, as I understand it, the warden of that particular place was was also a Freemason, and they managed to g he managed to get out somehow, and he managed to leave with his

Speaker 16:34

Yeah. Yeah.

Peter Layton6:37

Wife and

Peter Layton6:39

Come to Britain. He became the city pathologist in Bradford and he managed to send coded messages to my parents, who were by that time in Prague. There is a tale that the family do know how they were queuing up to get their papers stamped with hundreds and maybe even thousands of others and an SS man approaches them and says, said to my dad, what are you doing here? My dad was rather was fair, blonde almost, and didn't look characteristically Jewish. You know, he assumed he wasn't Jewish, so he said, why are you here? And my dad said, but I'm here with my wife, and we're queuing for our papers. And

Speaker 17:24

Uh

Peter Layton7:26

The officer said, Show me, show me the papers you've got already, and he noticed that something was missing. So my mother, who's a really dynamic woman, she was off like a shot, you know, she zoomed across town. She left my dad in the queue and he moved up towards the front by the time she'd got back.

Speaker 47:42

Mm-hmm.

Peter Layton7:47

She

Peter Layton7:48

charmed whoever she needed to charm to get the the requisite stamp and got back as as my dad arrived at the front and the

Peter Layton7:57

That they got out at all was a total miracle.

Presenter8:00

How did life start to cohere when they arrived in Britain? They didn't immediately go to Bradford. I think they were in Surrey first, weren't they?

Peter Layton8:07

They were. They were butler and maid to some really kind family who took them in in Goverming. I I do remember being treated very well by by their kids who were older. And then Bradford was the next place to go, you know, because my grandfather was already there and uh Dad was what they called an undesirable alien and uh he was interned for a while. He joined the army. He was in the uh Pioneer Corps. Anyway, he survived. That was the amazing thing. And after the war he came back to Bradford. But things were

Presenter8:41

Listen.

Peter Layton8:46

Quite tough.

Presenter8:47

They were obviously trying to adapt to a new environment and difficult to be Austrian in Britain during the war. They chose to anglicize your surname, didn't they?

Peter Layton8:55

They did, they did. Our name was Lervy. Anyway, they chose Leighton, and I suspect it was a pin in in the telephone book. I d I don't know. I never did actually know why.

Presenter9:06

How do you feel about your surname, about being a Leighton?

Peter Layton9:09

Oh, I like it a lot. We're all very happy to be late. There's quite a clan of us now. We're well over forty. And George, my brother, went on to become quite a well-known actor. My sister Viv got an MB for her work, setting up schemes, projects for people with learning difficulties, that sort of thing. And that's all because Edith and Freddie managed to get away. My wife Anne and I were in Prague a few years back and we've been to the Jewish Cemetery and I'd been to the there's an exhibition in a tower there. It was full of children's drawings that were done in Theresenstadt. And I

Speaker 19:46

Uh

Peter Layton9:53

Remember being terribly, terribly incredibly moved, thinking, you know, there, but for the grace of God.

Presenter9:59

He said, let's have some music. It's time for your second choice.

Peter Layton10:02

On that note, I want to play

Peter Layton10:05

Jacqueline Dupre playing Colnidre, it's a composition by Max Bruch.

Peter Layton10:12

My first wife, Tessa, and I were at Windsor Castle showing a relative from Australia around, and we heard this w incredible music.

Peter Layton10:22

coming from Saint George's Chapel, and we went and investigated, and discovered that it was Jacqueline Dupray with with Daniel Birnbrom, and that there was a concert that evening, and we were able to get tickets.

Presenter10:34

This is a traditional Jewish prayer, this piece. What does it mean to you?

Peter Layton10:38

It's the prayer that's sung on the eve of the Day of Atonement, which is the most holy day, if you like, of the Jewish calendar. It's the day when you

Peter Layton10:50

Repent, if you like, for your sins during the past year, your sins against God, that is. The translation of Kolnidre is all vows. So you you kind of abrogate all vows that you've made and to my mind it's a very beautiful th song. So this is Kol Nidre.

Presenter11:11

Performed by Jacqueline Dupre.

Peter Layton11:12

Yes.

Presenter12:09

Kol Nidre by Max Bruch, performed by Jacqueline Dupre with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Daniel Barenboim.

Presenter12:17

Quite powerful to hear that, I think. Yeah. Where did it take you?

Peter Layton12:18

That I think

Peter Layton12:21

Well, it made me think about these millions of Jews that were.

Peter Layton12:26

Killed, annihilated during that war.

Peter Layton12:31

And of course it also made me think about what's going on at the moment.

Peter Layton12:38

Which is so tragic, you know, having lived through the Second World War, I never imagined we'd be

Peter Layton12:46

back there on the brink again, you know, it's just uh it leaves me speechless, really.

Presenter12:54

So Peter, tell me about life in Bradford. As you mentioned, you and your parents moved up, encouraged by your grandfather, Victor. Did the Jewish community in Bradford help your mum and dad find a sense of belonging there? Did they feel part of it?

Peter Layton13:08

Yes, they did. And I'm I'm really glad you asked that because we weren't particularly religious. My grandfather went to the Reformed Synagogue, we went to the Orthodox synagogue, but only largely because the kind of people that my dad worked with were there.

Peter Layton13:27

I don't love religion, organized religion, at all. In fact, I'm pretty negative about it.

Peter Layton13:34

What matters is the sense of community, and I have to say the community then.

Peter Layton13:41

Were good to us. They helped us where they could.

Peter Layton13:46

I mean, my parents my mother in particular was quite a proud woman, so she didn't want to accept charity, as it were, but and she worked incredibly hard. She was involved in fashion and she managed fashion shops.

Presenter14:00

Entrepreneurial and creative by the sounds of it.

Peter Layton14:02

Yes, she was. She was very creative. One of her first ventures was to create a hand knitting business, a hand knitting service. And she designed as well. She was a designer and she designed for some of the local factories, like Lister's Mill, which which was a huge mill that I passed on my way to school every day.

Presenter14:23

It must have been very instructive for you watching her. I wonder what you you learned from that? Because, you know, there she is starting up on her own, doing creative work, a lot like you would in years to come.

Peter Layton14:33

Yes, I think I I think the truth is I took that a little bit for granted. She was just such an amazing personality. You know, you you wouldn't expect anything less is I suppose is how I would view it. My dad was much quieter. He's was quite a patient, quiet person, a rock really. He allowed her to be who she wanted to be because he slogged away in a you know, in the admin of a textile factory for years and years and years, probably all his life at a job he didn't really enjoy, but in order to let Edith, my mum, blossom, as it were.

Presenter15:13

She sounds remarkable and and obviously, you know, the source of your creative streak. But I know that was very much encouraged by your grandfather. He loved the fact that you were interested in art. I know you've got an artwork of him. You've actually immortalized him. Tell tell me about it.

Peter Layton15:29

Art at school was really not very stimulating. It it was really dull and uh stultifying almost. Grandad was a great scholar of Goethe and Schiller, and he had a fantastic library. You could barely move in his study, and he went to any concert he could. He was a great supporter of Valhalle, and he used to take me along.

Peter Layton15:59

Eventually I ended up at art school and I asked him to sit for me and actually that was a really, really nice experience.

Peter Layton16:09

He was a Victorian gentleman. He was very um

Peter Layton16:14

reserved or perhaps even strict in a certain kind of way.

Speaker 416:17

Yeah.

Peter Layton16:19

But working with him over a period of time modelling his head.

Peter Layton16:25

was a really nice way of getting to know him better.

Presenter16:30

And what did you make out? What did you cast it in?

Peter Layton16:32

I modelled it in clay and eventually I did have it cast in bronze and I'm so glad I did. And even the bronze head lay around for a long, long time and I only got it mounted, had it mounted a year or so ago and it sits in our house and I I pat Victor on the head from time to time. I'm really, really glad to have it. And actually it's it's a pretty good likeness, it's not bad.

Presenter16:59

Alright, Peter, it's time to make some room for the music. It's your third choice today. What are we going to hear next?

Peter Layton17:05

I had to do national service. I thought I might get away with not doing it. It was scraping towards the end, but that wasn't to me. And literally, just before Christmas in 1956, I was called up. So I went into the RAF and eventually, after the horrors of basic training, I ended up in what was called a movements unit in Southampton, in the docks. I'd grown up in Bradford, which is what in those days was such a dirty place.

Peter Layton17:41

The buildings were black from the smoke of the factories. We experienced the worst smogs you can imagine. I mean, pea supers. You really couldn't see your hand in front of your face. It was that bad.

Peter Layton17:56

Getting to Southampton was different. It was clean. It was white. It was a revelation that I didn't even know cities like that existed. So I went to a Dave Brubeck concert in the City Hall, a new building, brand new building, and actually the track I've chosen, I would have liked to have chosen God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen. He played it, but he apparently never recorded it because he was playing that during the concert and there was a pause.

Peter Layton18:30

During the pause the bell tower chimed, and it was just that perfect moment for them to chime, and the whole audience erupted. It was just a wonderful, wonderful moment. That Dave Brubeck moment has has stuck with me. So it's Dave Brubeck playing Take Five.

Speaker 419:27

Ta-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da.

Presenter19:49

Dave Brubeck and take five. So Peter Layton, tell us a bit about your life at school. You passed the eleven plus and you went to Bellevue Grammar School in Bradford. What kind of pupil were you?

Peter Layton20:01

B Stream

Peter Layton20:02

I went to Bellevue because I wanted to play football at the grammar school, the Bradford Grammar School, which was the school to go to. They didn't play football.

Presenter20:08

Yeah.

Speaker 120:09

Uh

Peter Layton20:12

They only played rugby.

Peter Layton20:15

Of course I hadn't been at Bellevue very long before I fell in love with rugby, so I somewhat regretted I mean it was a stupid decision, wasn't it? To

Presenter20:24

So you've turned down the grammar school just for the love of football?

Peter Layton20:27

Yes, I chose my school because m I might not have got in at the other school. That was that was where Hockney was, and we became friends through my best friend at the school, David Johnson. He he knew David.

Presenter20:40

Yeah, you've often said about David Hockney that you've often followed in his footsteps in one way or another.

Peter Layton20:45

I have

Peter Layton20:47

He was probably my first contact with an artist or seeing somebody working a as an artist. I mean, he would draw wherever he was, and we had this trip to to Scotland for some.

Peter Layton21:03

hitch hiking and sleeping where we could.

Peter Layton21:07

He he was drawing all the time.

Presenter21:09

Even then you didn't have any aspiration to be an artist, and you ended up working a steady job in the woollen trade in Bradford. Tell me about that.

Peter Layton21:18

My father was approached by a distant relative with this wonderful opportunity to.

Peter Layton21:25

maybe become the guy who would take over his business eventually. And this was um in what we euphemistically called the um heavy woollen industry, but it was actually the rag trade. We would get bales of rags from Eastern Europe or from wherever and they had to be sorted. So there were ladies sitting in rows cutting, chopping away bits of cotton and

Peter Layton21:49

I was a manag so called managerial trainee.

Presenter21:52

And this is when you were sixteen, something like that?

Peter Layton21:52

Mr.

Peter Layton21:54

I was sixteen or seventeen at that point. Now initially I I was very excited about it, you know, man it sounded rather good. That was what kids did in Bradford, you know, they went into textiles. But it was I mean, it was crazy. The dust was mad. The way we packed

Presenter21:57

The lab

Peter Layton22:14

The rags was we would get into bales, climb into bales which were hanging from the ceiling, empty bales, and somebody would shovel the the rags in and you would stamp them with your feet into the corners and

Peter Layton22:28

No mask, no nothing. The dust was I wo I would have been dead decades ago if I'd stayed there.

Presenter22:35

Hmm.

Peter Layton22:36

And thank God I got out.

Presenter22:37

You did, and you left and spent a year in Israel with a youth movement called Habanim. I think that was quite a pivotal time for you. Tell me about it.

Peter Layton22:43

Which is I think

Peter Layton22:46

Yes, it was. It was. I as I said, we weren't a religious family in any sense. But, you know, the thought that these people of whom I was a part, not by choice actually, were being annihilated left, right, and centre during the war and had nowhere to go and had no home. So I ended up joining a Zionist youth movement called Habonim, the Builders. I went to Israel for a year to learn how to become a a youth leader.

Peter Layton23:17

I must say that that was a time of great idealism and sacrifice to build something. I I feel I feel for my friends and possibly I may even have family there who

Peter Layton23:31

Regard this current awful situation as existential.

Peter Layton23:36

They are fighting for their own survival.

Peter Layton23:39

And yet

Peter Layton23:41

I'm not altogether happy with the proportionality of the responses and

Peter Layton23:48

In fact, I'm very unhappy and I you know, and I

Peter Layton23:51

Having been a refugee, I I feel for refugees whoever they are.

Peter Layton23:56

I worry about Ukraine all the time, you know, and uh I am absolutely

Peter Layton24:03

Gobsmacked, if I can use that expression, that we find ourselves back here again.

Presenter24:09

It changed your life the the year that you were there.

Peter Layton24:11

Yes, while I was in Israel I I took classes. I went to the local art school, Betzalel, in Jerusalem, and I was taken under the wing by an ar a painter called Yonam Ach.

Peter Layton24:26

He was very encouraging and and I just enjoyed being with him and around him.

Peter Layton24:33

After our stint in Jerusalem had ended, we went to work on kibbutz, and I

Peter Layton24:38

I got myself some paints and some boards and went out painting in Mount Hermon in Syria and

Peter Layton24:46

And then I came across a novel called Lust for Life by Irving Stone about Van Gogh.

Peter Layton24:54

It's just, I found it very inspirational and I thought, yeah, why don't I do this? Why don't I go to our college?

Presenter25:02

Well, I think that's a great moment to go to the music before we find out what happens next. Disc number four. What's it gonna be?

Peter Layton25:08

Disc number four is Bob Dylan Blowing in the Wind. I did a couple of years at Bradford Art College, following on from David Hockney, and then I went to London.

Peter Layton25:19

to the Central School of Art and Design, which had a really excellent ceramics department. There was a guy and he had a little ukulele or or a miniature guitar or something or other. He would sit cross legged on the wedging bench where we kneaded the clay. Day after day, hour after hour, and he would play he would sing, blowing in the wind.

Peter Layton25:44

I could have chosen any one of a number of Bob Dylan songs, but this takes me back to days at the Central School which were important.

Speaker 425:52

How many seas must the white dove sail?

Speaker 425:57

Before she sleeps in the sand.

Speaker 426:02

Guessn't how many times must the cannon balls fly?

Speaker 426:08

The four therefore ever banded

Speaker 426:13

The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind The answer is blowing in the wind

Presenter26:24

Bob Dylan and Blowin' in the Wind.

Presenter26:28

So Peter Leighton, you were sharing digs with your younger brother George. So you were at the Central School of Art and Design and he was at Rada. He became, as you mentioned, a very good actor. So your parents they'd wanted nice, secure jobs for the two of you. They had an actor and an artist on their hands. Were they supportive?

Peter Layton26:45

Okay.

Peter Layton26:47

Oh, they were supportive. I mean, Dad

Peter Layton26:51

Always wanted money in the bank, having lost everything.

Presenter26:54

Of course, yeah.

Peter Layton26:55

Security was incredibly important. Edith had no such thoughts.

Presenter27:01

So while you were studying, you also ran a stall on Portobello Road to supplement your grant, a ceramics stall. Was that where you learned the sales pitch that you need to have as an artist?

Peter Layton27:12

I guess it it must have worked because as part of the course at the Central we went and spent a month in Stoke-on-Trent, you know, learning industrial techniques. And while I was there, I discovered a man who had a house full of antiques. He wanted to sell them, so I bought a little bit at a time, and I did manage to get a stall down Portobello Road.

Speaker 127:21

Twin B

Peter Layton27:38

On one occasion this woman, she and a friend came by one Saturday morning.

Peter Layton27:45

And they needed a present for someone. Tessa, who became my wife eventually, persuaded her friend, who's called Liz Taylor.

Peter Layton27:53

to buy something from me. Subsequently, a month or so later, they were having a party and they'd arranged for all these guys to come down in a mini bus or a car from Birmingham to their party, but it started snowing and suddenly the the people from Birmingham weren't coming and they last minute very short of men for this party. So Liz said to Tess, Well, how about that guy we met down Portobello Road? Can't you track him down? She remembered I was a student at the Central.

Peter Layton28:28

If you rang the office and they say, oh no, we don't give messages to students, you could try the student telephone. And I happened to be passing in the basement of a building, central. Our studio the ceramics was in one building and the rest of the art college was in another building. And I was on my way to sculpture or something, which was in the basement, and the phone rang.

Peter Layton28:51

And the voice on the other side end said, I'd like to get a message to a student. I said, Oh, what department is he in? And she said, Sculpture. And I said, Oh, I'm not in that department. I I don't think I can help really. She said, No, no, ceramics. I said, Oh, ceramics. Okay, I'm in ceramics. I could pass on the message. Who is it you want to speak to? She said, Well, Peter Layton.

Peter Layton29:15

Sir, I said, speaking.

Peter Layton29:17

And that was the beginning of our romance.

Presenter29:21

And that was that for the two of you.

Peter Layton29:22

That the table is.

Presenter29:23

So you graduated in 1965, you went to the States to teach ceramics.

Peter Layton29:29

I did.

Presenter29:29

Firstly, in Iowa and then in San Francisco. How did those new campuses compare to London? Was it a different attitude, a different mood?

Peter Layton29:38

Oh, very, very much so the Central School.

Peter Layton29:41

It was run by the caretaker, you know, and when he came round at 5 p.m. jangling his keys, you knew you had to get out. Whereas when I went to Iowa, it was open twenty-four hours, and the caretaker would come in and have a cup of tea at three in the morning and pass the time of day with whoever was there. The students were so mot motivated.

Presenter30:04

And obviously, you know, I mean, some incredible cultural changes happening in America at that time. You were in California during the height of the counterculture. What did you and Tessa make of that? I mean, what do you remember about San Francisco?

Peter Layton30:17

Oh, it was a marvellous time to be there. It was buzzing.

Peter Layton30:22

Certainly uh well, on the music scene, I would say.

Presenter30:25

Yeah.

Peter Layton30:26

We did go to the Fillmore. I was literally m right beside Jim Morrison of the Doors. So I would have liked to have had them, but another group that we p I particularly liked was Jefferson Airplane and uh so I've chosen uh White Rabbit, Grace Slick singing White Rabbit by Jefferson Airplane.

Speaker 430:47

And here you go.

Speaker 430:49

Chasing rabbits.

Speaker 430:52

And you know we're going to fall

Speaker 430:56

Tell him a hookah

Speaker 430:58

Smoking paraphilla has given you the choralis.

Speaker 431:09

When she was just small.

Presenter31:15

Jefferson Airplane and White Rabbit. Peter, it was while you were in the States that you started to work in glass. How did it happen?

Peter Layton31:23

I was teaching ceramics at the University of Iowa during the mid 60s and someone came to our campus, someone who'd been at the original symposium where this whole studio glass movement began. And we set up a little workshop over a weekend just to excite the students, get them interested in the glass making. And of course, I got excited too.

Peter Layton31:49

We built the studio in a few days. Rather primitive, you can bet. It was really the blind leading the blind, and it didn't take very long for me to burn myself very, very badly. I dropped a tool, and as I picked it up, I rolled molten glass over the back of my hand. I wasn't aware of the pain. It wasn't painful. I could just smell this wonderful cooking smell, and then I realized it was me, so I, you know, I threw my precious piece into the bin.

Speaker 132:13

I

Peter Layton32:19

ran for the students' union nearby and asked the s l the chef there to uh where they had anything for a bad burn and he sprayed my back of my hand with something miraculous and there are no scars anyway, but it w it wa I thought that was the end of my glass blown career.

Presenter32:34

So it was nearly over before it had begun.

Peter Layton32:36

Absolutely, it really was. It was. But it's a seductive medium that I was just hooked. I taught all over the place in art colleges, ceramics, but I couldn't really get the glass thing off of my mind.

Presenter32:49

He'd got the bug.

Peter Layton32:50

I got the bug.

Presenter32:52

When you returned to Britain you started London glass blowing in a derelict towage works. It's now been going for fifty years, but your first glass studio was actually in the remote Scottish Highlands. How did you end up up there?

Peter Layton33:04

So I taught in the States for three years. It was a really exciting place to be. I was doing really well there too. I had a couple of really major shows. Coming back to England was a real come-down. I arrived back in the middle of Wilson era. There weren't that many jobs available. It wasn't a great time economically. And I survived by lecturing about America, what I'd seen in America. I went to colleges all over the country showing slides of fantastic work that was going on in the States. To make a go of it, you had to be teaching in two or three different colleges. As a student, I'd done some work experience at a pottery in a place called Moran near Malag, overlooking Skye.

Presenter33:53

In the highlands, beautiful.

Peter Layton33:54

In the Highlands, West Highlands. It was a very beautiful spot. They had a pottery there and it was going derelict.

Peter Layton34:01

I persuaded them to let me have it. Tried to restore it as best I could, considering I hadn't

Peter Layton34:08

hadn't much in the way of funds. And I would go there in the summers with students from uh from the various colleges I taught at, and we'd make pots. But producing pots six hundred miles from London

Peter Layton34:22

And packing them up and getting them there in one piece was a different matter. It didn't work out that brilliantly. But one of the things I did do was run a summer school where we had a small glass blowing studio. I built a tiny glass blowing studio there. And that was so exciting. So at that point I thought, yeah, I really want to do this glass thing.

Presenter34:44

Okay, Peter, it's time for your next piece of music, please. Tell us about it.

Peter Layton34:48

It's Vivaldi and it's a Luke Concerto. By that time Tess and I were beginning to grow apart. She had had

Peter Layton35:01

a number of pregnancies and uh

Peter Layton35:05

They hadn't worked out.

Peter Layton35:07

In nineteen seventy five, thank God.

Peter Layton35:10

One of those worked, and our son Bart, my eldest son Bart, was born. It was pretty hairy when he was born. I mean, you know, he came out blue, got hung upside down in the delivery room, and until he shrieked, it was it felt like an interminable period, but Tess had gone through an awful lot. And one of those subsequent pregnancies, it was on off, on off, all the way to term almost. Then she had to stay in bed for months and months and months, and she felt her body had really let her down and she was in a quite a bad way. But

Speaker 435:29

But

Peter Layton35:51

During that period we saw Les Enfant de Paradis, which is a mime, a film about a mime, Jean-Louis Barrow.

Peter Layton35:59

and she became interested in mime.

Peter Layton36:03

She set up a group called Three Women. They were very successful and they did quite a lot of touring and I was looking after Bart both during her illness and while she was off. Anyway, it just took us in different directions. So things weren't working out as well as they I would have liked. During that time we went to Australia to see

Speaker 136:19

I'm saying

Peter Layton36:27

Tessa's sister, and they lived in a on the outskirts of Sydney in a

Peter Layton36:32

Beautiful home.

Peter Layton36:34

Mostly glass.

Peter Layton36:36

I would get up early in the mornings.

Peter Layton36:40

and listen to this lute concerto, feeling quite sorry for myself, I have to admit, but in the most beautiful surroundings, and I would listen to this day after day.

Presenter37:48

Part of the logo from Vivaldi's Lute Concerto in D major, performed by Paul Odette, and a parley of instruments conducted by Peter Holman.

Presenter37:57

Peter Leighton, your work has been described as abstract, but it's sometimes been political too. One of your early glass pieces was called Container Ethic, and it confronted, among other things, the Arab Israeli conflict. How do you represent something like that with glass?

Peter Layton38:13

That was two empty jars, large jars.

Peter Layton38:17

Identical jars. One said Jew and the other said Arab, with blood running well, it's actually sealing wax, but it it's there to represent blood running from the rim.

Peter Layton38:29

And you see that they're identical and that there's really nothing to compare. To my way of thinking, we're all humans. It doesn't matter what religion, particularly what religion we are, you know, why can't we live peacefully together? Another piece in that series was a whole series of shelves with about fifty jars. Again, empty jars labelled with the country where there was a conflict. I was lucky enough to be invited.

Peter Layton38:59

a number of times to the Czech Republic and the first time I went in 1982 was where I f made my first cloud pieces and then I went in 85 and I created a glass tank trap. So the work was beginning to be a little subversive at that point. And then finally in 1988 we were given this large factory and a team of people to work it with and I created a pyramid which is about two, two and a half meters tall. It was made up of cast bars. Firstly I had no idea whether the bars themselves would survive because they have to be what's called a kneel. They have to be cooled slowly generally speaking but this was a factory that generally speaking was making wine glasses.

Presenter39:46

Yeah.

Presenter39:50

Not huge glass pyramids.

Peter Layton39:51

Not a huge glass pyramids. These bars were a couple of inches thick. I had no idea. And it was a long tunnel. So you put them in at one end and hoped that they would come out at the other, which they did. I was very pleased with myself for having managed to engineer that.

Presenter39:55

Mm-hmm.

Presenter40:07

Let's have some more music, Peter. It's time for your seventh choice today. What are we going to hear?

Peter Layton40:12

I'm a great love of Leonard Cohen, both as a poet and and and as a singer, and I couldn't manage to include both him and Nina Simone, another great love, on the advice of Danny Layton, one of my nephews who works in music. He said, Well, I happen to know of a

Peter Layton40:34

a version of Suzanne which is um sung by Nina Simone. I'd never heard it before, so I I thought that was brilliant to be able to combine those two, so I chose that.

Speaker 440:50

And you want to travel with her And you want

Speaker 440:56

Travel blind and you know that she will trust you Or you touched her perfect body with your mind

Speaker 441:09

And yeah.

Presenter41:14

So good. Nina, Simone, and Suzanne. So peace of layton. Next year, big year for you. You're going to be 90.

Peter Layton41:22

I am.

Presenter41:23

Are you handing the reins of the studio over to your daughter, Sophy, and her husband, Tim?

Peter Layton41:28

Yeah.

Presenter41:29

How do you feel about the idea of letting go?

Peter Layton41:32

Well, I'm really, really glad that the studio is going to is set to continue with Sophie and Tim. Tim's incredibly talented glass artist. And Sophie is incredibly talented too. She's primarily a brim maker. I hope to continue, if I'm still going strong, I hope to continue making that sense of exploration. I'm a beach comer from way back and I'm always searching. So I'll be good on the island. Yeah, you'll be good.

Presenter41:59

Yeah, you'll do plenty of flottum and jettum there for you.

Peter Layton42:03

All sorts of things for me to look at. You know, I'm a great pebble. A lot of my inspiration comes from pebbles. And I've never found the perfect pebble. You know, you think you've got it, and of course then you're on to the next one. And it's a bit the same with the with the glassmaking. You know, I'm you think you've got it and then mm no, I can change that a bit or I can improve that a bit. So I'm on to the next one.

Presenter42:27

So Peter, on your desert island, what will you miss the most?

Peter Layton42:31

Well, I miss my family most of all. We're a creative bunch. My son Bart's a filmmaker. Sophie and and my younger son Ben, he's he works in television. He's working he works in film too. I have seven grandchildren and they're all incredible. They're they're just the best.

Presenter42:51

As we're thinking about life as a castaway and looking back on your life as you have been today, what legacy do you hope that your work leaves behind? Is that something that concerns you?

Peter Layton43:02

The studio glass movement has really taken the place of the industry. The industry is depleted, to say the least. We've gone from two when we started up to about we're around twenty at the moment, which is bigger than any factory in the country, I think. And in ninety seven I got people together at the leather market where my studio was then, and we created the Contemporary Glass Society, and it now has about a thousand members. But even Studio Glass is having a difficult time of it because

Peter Layton43:37

Courses are closing, the National Glass Centre in Sunderland is due to close.

Speaker 443:41

June

Speaker 443:43

Hmm.

Peter Layton43:43

To see that go is is very painful.

Peter Layton43:46

And the range of work being done by people in this country is w it's amazing. People's jaws drop when they walk into our gallery and see, you know

Peter Layton43:57

The amazing things that people can do with glass.

Presenter44:00

We'll let you have one more disc before you go to the desert island, Peter Leighton. Your final choice today. What is it?

Peter Layton44:06

Right, yes. So I've chosen Enaudi's Elegy for the Arctic, and I've chosen it partly because my wife Anne has become totally, totally obsessed with the piano. This is one of the pieces she has played over the past months quite a lot, and I I do love it.

Presenter44:28

And how long have you and Anne been together?

Peter Layton44:30

Tessdai broke up in the early eighties.

Peter Layton44:34

Very, very sadly.

Peter Layton44:37

She died subsequently. She was on literally on on the way to her honeymoon, she and her new husband, and they were driving to the airport with a couple of relatives, and

Peter Layton44:52

We think that the the driver had a blackout or something went wrong and they drove off a a high level flyover and of course that was the end of that.

Peter Layton45:05

enormous I mean incredible sadness. So Bart was there giving his mother away.

Peter Layton45:11

one day and then a week later we were he following the cortege. I was I gave the eulogy and it was a truly tragic moment. So during that time I went to

Peter Layton45:28

A number of courses, one of which was the S training.

Peter Layton45:34

It was

Peter Layton45:36

extremely valuable for me and and apart from anything else, I met Anne there. Together we've created two beautiful kids, Sophy and Ben.

Peter Layton45:46

So that was silver lining.

Peter Layton45:50

We got married after thirty years. We'd both been married before and had thought that wasn't necessary. And then we had this lovely, lovely wedding in a deconsecrated chapel in in Kingston. So, yeah, we've been married about ten years.

Presenter46:04

And so I are now.

Peter Layton46:05

Aye Anaudi's really for her. The other aspect of that is seeing a a clip of Anaudi with a grand piano on an ice floe.

Peter Layton46:15

Floating in the Arctic.

Peter Layton46:17

He's playing this music in front of a glacier.

Peter Layton46:21

And huge lumps are just falling into the sea as he plays.

Peter Layton46:27

And I am so concerned. I'm so worried. I we seem to have learnt nothing. You know, the climate situation's worse than ever.

Peter Layton46:36

When are we going to come to our senses?

Presenter47:43

Ion Audi and Elegy for the Arctic. So, Peter Leighton, I'm going to cast you away to the island. I'm giving you the books to take with you: the Bible, the complete works of Shakespeare, and one more book of your choice. What's it gonna be?

Peter Layton47:56

The book I'd like to take is called The Choice. It's by Edith Egger. She was an Auschwitz survivor. She was taken as a sixty year old and had the most horrendous time. She had to dance for Mengele.

Peter Layton48:13

to save her life. She survived, barely, barely survived, but she did, and subsequently became a very a world famous clinical psychologist. And the choice is about how we respond to any given set of circumstances. We could react or we could respond positively. If I'm feeling down on the island, I could refer to her that book time and time again.

Presenter48:35

Uh

Presenter48:42

That sounds like the perfect choice. It's yours. You can also have a luxury item. What are you gonna go for?

Peter Layton48:47

Right. Well, if you'll allow it. Fairly recently I was given by Ben, they were going to go and live abroad. They gave us a digital photo frame and you have an app.

Peter Layton49:00

friends and family have the app and they can send photographs to this frame. And I'm so enjoying it. Every so often I look at it and there'll be a one of my grandchildren on there or several of them.

Presenter49:14

I love that idea that you can have a digital photo frame that in real life that people can send uh send images to, but we can't have a communication device on the island. I can give you a digital photo frame loaded up with as many photos as we can.

Peter Layton49:28

Yes, that s that sounds perfect.

Presenter49:29

Yeah, as we can.

Presenter49:31

Okay.

Peter Layton49:32

I'll go with that.

Presenter49:33

Okay, well we'll make sure that we've got every single photo we can get on it.

Peter Layton49:37

Thank you.

Presenter49:37

And finally, which one track of the eight that you've shared with us today would you save from the waves first, Peter?

Peter Layton49:43

I think I'll take the Nina Sabone.

Presenter49:46

Good choice. Peter Layton, thank you very much for letting us hear your desert islandists.

Peter Layton49:50

Oh, thank you for having me. It's been really a great pleasure to be here.

Presenter50:13

Hello, it was lovely chatting to Peter, and I hope he's happy on his island with his pebbles and his digital photo frame. We've cast many artists away over the years, including Peter's friend David Hockney. There's also the sculptor Anthony Gormley there, along with Cornelia Parker. You can hear their programmes if you search through BBC Sounds or on our own Desert Island Discs website. The studio managers for today's programme were Tim Heffer and Emma Hart. The executive production coordinator was Susie Roylance. The content editor was Mugabe Turia and the producer was Tim Bano. Join me next time when my guest will be the actor Anna Maxwell Martin.