Edward Robey

Speaker 10:01

BBC Sounds, Music, Radio Podcasts. Hello, I'm Lauren Laverne, and this is the Desert Island Discs podcast. For rights reasons, the music is shorter than on the original broadcast. The presenter is Roy Plomley. I hope you enjoy listening.

Presenter0:27

This week, our castaway is a lawyer, a barrister, and a recently retired London magistrate, Edward Broby.

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mister Roby, have you ever experienced prolonged loneliness?

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No, never, I'm glad to say. Can you envisage it? I think it would be appalling.

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Can't imagine anything more awful.

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In compensation, what would you be happiest to have got away from on this desert island?

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Well, without any question.

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The noise and the overcrowding

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London

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And in particular the detestable noise of the two-tone horns on fire brigade, ambulance and police cars. Right.

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You play records a lot.

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All the time.

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You have a big collection. An enormous collection. Ever since I was a child I've collected records. How did you set about choosing your eight out of that big collection? Was there any particular guiding principle? Great performances, great music?

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Well, both, I think, from a personal point of view, the the records that I've chosen, I think, represent.

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me eight pieces of music which I would

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One to live with.

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Although it's very sad to have to leave out so many that I'd like to include. What's the first one? The first one is the.

Presenter1:45

Quartet from Act One of Beethoven's Fidelio.

Edward Robey1:59

Promise yet.

Edward Robey2:04

Yeah.

Edward Robey2:11

We did make the sketch cross.

Edward Robey2:29

Peace.

Presenter2:47

The opening of the quartet from the first act of Beethoven's Fidelia

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We only hear two of the participants in that section. It's from a performance conducted by Otto Klemperer. Let's go straight on to your second disc. What's that?

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Elga's violin concerto.

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The one where Menuin, as a boy of sixteen, is the soloist.

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And the concerto is conducted by Elga himself.

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I've always been

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An admirer of his music.

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and indeed I was present

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As a young man when uh

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Henry Wood presented him with the Royal Philharmonic Society's Gold Medal and referred to him as England's greatest composer and I agree with it.

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The Elgar Violin Concerto.

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The first movement.

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in which we heard Yehudi Menwin's first violin entry.

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Now, your father, mister Roby, was the great music hall comedian, Sir George Roby.

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Was it something of a handicap as a boy to be the son of such a distinguished figure? Were you always expected to be funny wherever you went?

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No, I don't think I was expected to be funny, but I was always known all through my life.

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as the son of the famous comedian.

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Did you ever have the ambition to go into the same profession, to be a comedian or or an actor? No.

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I was very keen on the stage as a boy. When I was 15, I became absolutely enchanted with the Gilbert and Sullivan operas.

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And uh

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I did it.

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I vaguely wonder whether I would ever like to perform in them professionally, but

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I soon got over that idea when I thought of the tours that they constantly did all over the country.

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And that put me off.

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At once.

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When did you decide that the law was to be your profession?

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Well

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I left school during the last year of World War One.

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And it was difficult to know, to adjust myself, to know what I was going to do. My father wanted me to be a chartered account.

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I said that was no good,'cause I can't add two and two together.

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Um my mother

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And I fancied the law

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And we were backed up by Marshall Hall, the famous.

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Defending

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Barrister?

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And I'd seen or heard rather a trial at the Old Bailey in nineteen eighteen, quite a well known murder case, and I thought that the real drama of that trial

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Which interested me immensely in the legal profession, particularly that of a barrister.

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So you read law at Cambridge, and then you were called to the bar.

Speaker 16:41

Yeah.

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What was your very first brief? Do you remember? Yes, it was.

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County court action.

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At Bloomsbury County Court, I know it was something to do with the inside of a motor-car about which I knew absolutely nothing.

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Because that certainly was my first case. You began in civil chambers. I did.

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I was advised by my family solicitor to go to civil chambers, although my heart was always in criminal work.

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and I stayed in civil chambers for nearly seven years.

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Let's break off at this point of your third record. Watch that to be.

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Well, that is Tristan Nisalda, the.

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Footbangler Flagstart recording. I was present at Flagstart's first appearance.

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in the role at Coffengarden, I think it was in 1936.

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And I think that this is the finest recording.

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Of them marvellous work.

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An excerpt from the third act of Wagner's Tristan Innissolde.

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Kirsten Flagstadt and

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Furt Wrangler as conductor.

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Now, you practised as a barrister in civil chambers for seven years. What happened then?

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Then I went.

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To the Director of Public Prosecutions as a member of his staff.

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what they call a legal assistant to conduct

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cases on his behalf.

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That meant travelling, I presume, to every court in the country. Yes, because I was on the what they call the countryside and I stayed on the countryside and went all round England and Wales over a period of eighteen years.

Speaker 19:11

I was on

Presenter9:19

And of course, the Director of Public Prosecutions only deals with certain serious offences, such as murder. Including murder.

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Researchers.

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I know you were concerned with the Nuremberg trials of the major war criminals. Well, I was loaned by the director. He was asked if he'd let one of his representatives go on the executive, the Attorney General's executive, and I was asked if I'd like to go and I said yes.

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and I assisted in the preparation of the case

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and went out for the first fortnight of the trial and then I returned to my

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Normal duties with the director. Yes. Now you've figured, Mr Roby, in a number of sensational and famous murder trials. Which ones stand out in your mind particularly? Well, I think there are obviously two.

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There was the case of James Cam, C A M B.

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Uh

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Who was a deck steward on the Durban Castle? And he was accused of murdering a girl.

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when the boat was coming from Cape Town to

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Southampton, he strangled her and pushed her body through the porthole, and the body was never found.

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But he was convicted of murder.

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And the other one was

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Uh Hague.

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who was always known as the Acid Bath Hiller.

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Those two undoubtedly the most sensational cases in which I took any part. I presented the cases before the justices. Yes. Haig, uh, a man of great charm, one is told. Well, he lived at the Onslow Court Hotel.

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And all the old ladies there knew him quite well. In fact, his victim knew him there, met him there.

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and they all thought he was uh most kind and helpful.

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Splendid fellow.

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Let's have record number four. What's that to be?

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Well, that's Don Quixote, the tone poem of Richard Strauss, which I like very much indeed. I think that it's undoubtedly his best orchestral work.

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An excerpt from the latter part of Richard Strauss's Don Quixote, the Cleveland Orchestra conducted by George Zell.

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In the early 1950s, you became a metropolitan magistrate.

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That sounds rather like Carmer Waters than the Director of Public Prosecution's Office, was it? Well, there was a gap, you see. There was a gap of four years. I went back to the bar.

Edward Robey12:41

Was it

Presenter12:47

In 1950, and was appointed the deputy magistrate because I always wanted to be one. Yes. In 1952.

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and in nineteen fifty four I was appointed

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Uh I don't know about calm waters exactly, but uh

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It was an interesting job, one I always wanted very much to do. Yes. Everything from drunken disorderlies to committing an alleged murder of a trial. Yes.

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Are there many stipendary magistrates as opposed to justices of the peace?

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Well, I can't tell you about the country.

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But in London there are well over.

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thirty five now I forget the exact number but it's

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Getting near to forty, you know, not far off forty. Are you attached to a particular quote?

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You are sent when you are appointed to a certain court.

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And if you want to stay there all your life while you are a magistrate, you can. But if you want to move for any reason to better district or more interesting court, then you apply when there's a vacancy. And if you're the most senior person applying, you get it.

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But that doesn't apply to Bow Street or Marlborough Street because they are

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uh courts to which you have to be specially invited to go. Yes, you were in fact at Marlborough Street. You must have got to know many familiar faces among your regular customers. Yes.

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The same old street traders, day in and day out. Street traders. Hot dogs and so on. Three card tricks. Oh, three cards. Do they count as traders? No.

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But they were, we could find them £50 a time and they'd come back for more.

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I I'm surprised that there are so many mugs about who would play with them, but it obviously must have been worth their while because they always found the money to pay the fines. Any particular stories that come to mind?

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Well, on a two.

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When I was first appointed I went to Bow Street.

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And there were many prostitutes in those days.

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And they were fined forty shillings automatically. And I was told by the chief magistrate.

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that they might try it on with a new man and ask for time to pay and he said, Don't give them time to pay, tell them to send for the money.

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And he said it'll be forthcoming. It'll be forthcoming before the luncheon adjournment. Don't worry about that.

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And one day in a crowded court I wasn't really thinking, and one of the women said to me, Can I have time to pay?

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And I said, not choosing my words very carefully, see what you can do between now and one o'clock.

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Now you've had

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An unusually wide range of legal experience. You've just retired. How are you going to spend your retirement?

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Well, I retired in August 1972, but

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I don't regard myself as entirely

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for a tired magistrate because I can be called back.

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until nineteen seventy five at any rate, and indeed have been and have been.

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You've mentioned your attachment to Gilbert and Sullivan. You've appeared in very many amateur productions of those operas, haven't you? Yes, I have indeed, ever since the age of nineteen, on and off.

Presenter15:53

And I'm still doing it.

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And I've played in

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All of their works, including those rare operas, The Grand Duke and Utopia Limited.

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I've done the entire output. Yes, always the principal comedian's part. Yes.

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In the family tradition, that's it.

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Let's have record number five.

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Uh full staff.

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I'm a great Verde lover, and I've picked Falstaff because I think it's a miracle that a man.

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He was in his eightieth year.

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Could produce such a sparkling score as that, the work of what one would think was a comparatively young man.

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And

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particularly the recording which has been conducted by Toscanini.

Edward Robey16:42

Free my voice, bream a voice, not

Edward Robey16:47

So my cause of me on

Edward Robey16:53

The SAD WILL

Edward Robey16:56

Yeah.

Edward Robey17:06

My southern

Edward Robey17:09

Regal, assault on

Edward Robey17:12

Drago

Presenter17:41

An excerpt from the second act of Verdi's Falstaff, conducted by Toscanini.

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Let's go straight into record number six. What's that to be? Well, that's Mahler Symphony No. 9, particularly The Last Movement.

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I knew about Mahler in the pre-electric seventy-eight days.

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Because I'd seen in a Polydor catalogue that there was a recording of his second symphony on 22 Sides when I acquired this.

Speaker 118:09

And I have

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And got to like it very much.

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And ever since then I have been very keen Mahlerite.

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The beginning of the fourth movement of Mahler's Ninth Symphony, with Bruno Walter conducting.

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Are there any hobbies or pursuits of yours that would be useful on a desert island?

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I can't think of any. Are you good at building huts, do you think?

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Well, I'd have a try, but I think I'd be extremely bad at it.

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You don't fancy a Stone Age sort of existence. No, I do not. I like my creature comforts much too much. What about food? Do you do any fishing?

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Well, I certainly would there.

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I don't in a civilized country, but I would there. Cultivation.

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Yes, if I could have some seeds.

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Would you try to escape, assuming that you could lash together some kind of seaworthy raft? But if I could escape to Switzerland

Presenter20:01

Yes, I meet them have my wife to meet me there, I might do that. I gather you're hoping to do this by some kind of luxury liner. And I doubt if it'll go all the way to Switzerland. No, but perhaps a helicopter might.

Speaker 120:10

Yeah.

Edward Robey20:10

No.

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Dunk me down in the Bernese Oberland.

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Yes, you're going to do it the easy way.

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I certainly let's have your next record.

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That is an excerpt from the third act of Pellias and Melezon by Debussy.

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which I think

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Yes.

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Probably

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The greatest of the French operas, certainly my favourite.

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And in my top ten.

Speaker 220:41

Guess a cassette?

Speaker 220:52

It won't be the

Edward Robey21:00

Jele tienne les mais, jeur tien la bouchour, jeur de tien es bour, je le mais autour demon.

Speaker 121:05

Yeah.

Speaker 121:07

Oh, so let's play.

Presenter21:34

An excerpt from Debussy's Pelleus Emelisandre.

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with the voices of Camille Moran and Ernest Burenberg.

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What's your last disk to be?

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Wagner's Maistersinger.

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which is

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My desert island

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Opera, if ever there was one.

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Particularly, I'd like to hear

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part of the quintet from the third act.

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Part of the quintet from Wagner's Master Singers of Nuremberg, a performance conducted by

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Rudolf Kempe.

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If you could take only one disc of the eight you've played us, which would it be? Oh, that last one, without any question. The master singers, yes.

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And one luxury to take with you to the island?

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Well, I've

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thought about that rather carefully, but I cannot think of anything sensible.

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So I will say

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The largest case possible of white German wine. You don't think that's sensible?

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That sounds to me eminently sensible.

Edward Robey23:33

That's

Presenter23:36

And one book apart from the Bible and Shakespeare and large encyclopedias. Well, am I allowed a work which goes into more than one volume? If it's one work, yes. Yes. Well, then.

Presenter23:48

Without question, Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Right. And thank you, Edward Roby, for letting us hear your Desert Island Disc. Thank you, Roy Plumley, for inviting me. Goodbye, everyone.