Eddie Waring

Eddie Waring0:01

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.

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This week, our castaway is the television commentator, Eddie Waring. Eddie, it's no secret that you're a Yorkshireman. Which part of Yorkshire?

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Well, actually, from the West Ryden, I was born in Dewsbury and I started sort of my working life as a young. newspaper writer on rugby league. I might add, I believe as a youngster you used to be a singer.

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Well, I fancied myself as a singer. In fact, I remember asking my father later in life what he wanted me to be. I was then a newspaper man. He said, Well, he would have liked me to be an either a minister or a pianist or a singer. Well, I was none on three, although I think I would have liked to have been a singer. Do you play records a lot? Yes, I do. I do. But not as often as I can because I have the sort of a job that time is very difficult.

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What would you want music to do for you on a desert island? Remind you of the past? Well, that's obvious. It would do, and I would think of it in that way, but I would also want it to cheer me up at times and other times put me to sleep and rest me. And if I got lonely, something to make me think there was someone else there that I knew. What are you going to start with?

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Well, coming from the north, which is a wonderful place for brass bands and hymn singing, I'm going to have a hymn called Deep Harmony, played by the Black Dyke Mill band. And this, incidentally, Deep Harmony, was written by a man called Handel Parker from Shipley, where I spent many, many happy hours as a youngster. My father got the original manuscript and handed it down to me. So, if I may, Deep Harmony. Yes. Your father was a lay preacher and a choir master, wasn't he? He was indeed. Yes, and it was his love for this sort of thing, I suppose.

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that transferred itself to me.

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Deep Harmony played by the Black Dyke Mills Band. What's your second choice?

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I'm going far away from Yorkshire. I'm going to France. I'm going to Paris, a place I love, and it's Isle of Paris by Montavami.

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Cole Porter's tune from Cancan, I Love Paris played by Mantovani in his orchestra.

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You began life as a newspaper reporter, Eddie. Was that a very early ambition? Did that go back to school days? Yes, it did indeed. We had a school magazine, and I wrote rugby league notes, obviously edited very much by the master in charge of the paper. But it put into me the idea that that might be some sort of a liking, particularly if I could do sport. You're a reporter on the local paper. That's right. Now, I'm an ignorant southerner. What are the main differences between rugby league and rugby union? I know the 13.

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In the side in rugby league and 15 in the other game, apart from that.

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Well, there are few alterations. They're getting less because rugby union people are taking some of the good rugby league rules to play with now, like not kicking into touches, my twitch is quite right. You sound a little bit biased, don't you? Not at all. The two great games, it must be a good game because rugby league was pinched from rugby union, so it must both be very good games.

Eddie Waring4:27

Yeah.

Speaker 44:27

So it must be a

Eddie Waring4:28

Yeah.

Speaker 44:32

Gay.

Presenter4:33

No, mainly in the forwards, the difference. They have what they call loose malls and they let the ball go when they're tackled in rugby union. Where, as in rugby league, when a player is tackled, it's a set formation and he plays the ball either backwards or forwards. In other words, it's more controlled. They're now talking about curiously in rugby league of going back to the rugby union. So who knows? They might both change the rules. Yes, there's a little more mayhem in rugby league, isn't there? Not what I read about these days in some of the rugby union games. There is obviously because it's a professional game where money is at stake and rugby league players play for money. But I must point out that although there are 30.

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professional rugby league clubs. There are hundreds and hundreds of amateur rugby league clubs. There is a Southern Amateur Rugby League, of which I'm the president, and there are many universities which play rugby league. How many other countries play the game? Uh Australia.

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New Zealand, France professionally, a little in Italy, and a little in Canada. In Australia, it's a big game, isn't it? It is the game, the major winter sport in New South Wales and indeed in Queensland. In the other states, they play it, but not as much as the Australian Rules game. But rugby union has not the hold there that rugby league has. And of course, there are international games.

Eddie Waring5:59

Uh

Speaker 35:59

Yeah.

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International Games and we just had a World Cup last year in France.

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And there's a tour this year of Great Britain to Australia. When did you first go to Australia?

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I went in nineteen forty six.

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And it was the first time that a rugby league writer had gone from England to Australia to cover a rugby league tour. Yes, how did you go?

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I went on the aircraft carrier the Indomitable.

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And it took us twenty eight days to get there. I messed with the officers on the ship. There were thirty-two berths, in fact.

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And I had one of them.

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The fare was eleven pounds eleven and twopence. Return? No, not quite.

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Uh

Speaker 46:44

Yeah.

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to Perth. And then we had to get off at Perth because the Admiralty wanted its ship back. And we went overland by train on a troop train, which took us six days and six nights. I hope it was worth it when you got there.

Eddie Waring6:57

Yeah.

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It was a most marvelous tour and it was a great experience and since then I've been on I've been on about eight

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All together. Have you? All the way around? Yes, all the way around. I always come a different route back, but I always go one way and go back the other and.

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Explore the country, the world as it were. Let's have record number three.

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Well

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Obviously, I'm gonna pick an Australian. Peter Dawson was I liked very much as a singer, and I think it's

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The right sort of title, The Road to Mandalay.

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Bent to Mandalay, where the old float ale Can't you hear their paddles chanking from Rangoon to Mandalay All to

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On the Road to Mandalay sung by Peter Dawson. When did you start on television, Eddie?

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In nineteen fifty-one

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I was one of four commentators who covered the first television match from the Home Moss transmitter in the North, and it was Great Britain versus New Zealand. And ever since nineteen fifty one, you've been the BBC's voice of rugby league.

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Well, uh I suppose so. And rugby league of course is booming now.

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It is indeed. There's a lot of interest outside of the area where it is played professionally. Yes. Now, you, of course, have played a very considerable part, too, as the character who sells it so well on the game. You you sell it in particular to the Southerners. No, no. Oh, no. There's a lot of people in Scotland watch it, and I got some letters yesterday from some people in Dublin. I don't know whether they're entitled to, but they do. Uh no, I think nationally. Yes. Now, you're all out for the fun of the game rather than technicalities on it. No. No, I'm out for the entertainment of the game. And if a game sells itself, then I let it.

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Technicalities, I certainly explain where I got to, but I like the picture to do the story. And I feel I'm selling a game that is only known to about 60,000 people. I'm selling it to six or seven million people, so there's forced to be a little bit of different. See, soccer is easy to understand.

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Very easy. It's a simple game to understand, basically.

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But rugby league or rugby period is a hard game to

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know and understand. What about the United States? Do they dabble in rugby league at all? Yes, I've been to the States a couple of times with the cup final and the rugby league cup final played at Wembley and then they've done it in the States. And I've had to sort of do another commentary

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For the audience of the Americans, who, of course.

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Always uh

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We're wondering how they can play without padding on. This is the thing that they talk about. They're all writing. Now they're really not padded like the American. Crash helmets. That's right.

Eddie Waring10:05

That's right.

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So really you take the cup final over for a replay as it were. That's right. That's great.

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Let's have record number four.

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It's Yellowbird, which I heard in Bermuda returning from one of my Australian trips.

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Yellow Bird by Bert Kempfert and his orchestra.

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Now another television show of yours is the programme called Knockout. That began in the North Country, didn't it? It did indeed. It began in uh Morecombe in nineteen sixty six. Barney Cole and

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was the producer and I was the

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Referee. Yes, it just was a games on the sand.

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It was at Morecambe indeed on the sands. I remember it very well because

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Everything had been arranged nicely, the scanners were there, everybody was correctly attired.

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And there was a game, a three-legged game of rugby.

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But what the organizers forgot to do was find out what time the tide came in. Because halfway through the game, I was up to my knees in water.

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So I managed to keep it going, but that was how

Speaker 311:38

So

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Knockout or Jeuson Frontière if you want a Eurovision title.

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Starbucks. And whose idea was it to make it international?

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I think once it had gone well in the north of England, I think it was sent to the north of England for a trial run. And once it had come off there, then it was automatic that it would go into Europe.

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With all the other countries. Yes. How many countries take part now? The seven, there's France and Great Britain, of course, Netherlands, uh, Germany, Italy.

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Thou, Jem?

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And Switzerland.

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And a number of countries now want to take part, but uh I think there's the limit reached. Who devises all those extraordinary games?

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Very people, the producer of the program and there is a games master, they would like uh ideas sent to them. If you've got any ideas, Roy, they'd be very, very glad.

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Is it always held in the open air?

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In Bern, I think it was last year. Bern had a wonderful indoor stadium. No, but mainly it is, but not always. Yes, are you good at languages?

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not sufficiently good enough to compete with the natives, but I can always find some, and some is the person, male or female, who will tell me all I want to know. Let's have record number five.

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Well, I think I said earlier I was interested in brass bands and choral singing, so I would like to have.

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The tune Crimond sang by the Glasgow Orpheus Choir.

Speaker 413:24

Let with me.

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The Scottish psalm tune Crimond, sung by the Glasgow Orpheus Choir conducted by Sir Hugh Roberton.

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Let's have record number six straight away. Well, I've never made any doubt of the fact that I am an Englishman, so I would like from HMS Pinafore, for he is an Englishman.

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Jeffrey Skitch and the chorus of the Doyle Carte Opera Company, he is an Englishman from HMS Pinafore.

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Eddie, how well could you adapt yourself to mendliness?

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Not very well, I don't think.

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But once I decided that it was inevitable, then

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I would. Could you look after yourself?

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Yeah.

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Yes, in a fashion. Yes, you could build a shelter of something. Oh, I'd build, I'd build anything to make me comfortable. Forage for food.

Eddie Waring15:08

Tide bell

Presenter15:13

Yes, I the only worry would be I would get things alight, whether I would find any matches or anything that we watch glasses and that sort of thing. Yes, yes. Well, I'd learn, but as long as I got a roof over my head

Eddie Waring15:20

Yes.

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And somewhere comfortable to sleep I'd manage. Would you try to get a wit?

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Not immediately, not for quite a while, but I think eventually I might.

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That's a record number seven.

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Well, I spend quite a bit of time on the west coast.

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of America and I been to a number of film studios, met a lot of people that I got on very well with. Bob Hope was one. Another man was Perry Como and I would like to have his

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Song the snowbird

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No blood

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Uh

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Beneath this snowy mantle cold and clean

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The unborn grass lies waiting for its coat to turn to green.

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The snowbird sings the song he always sings

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And speaks to me of flowers that

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Pericomo singing

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Snowbird.

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And now we come to your last record.

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Well, I love to hear a military band, particularly at Wembley.

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And in the BBC Two flood league competition we used to have one to start the evening Lanton Cordiale. Do you think I might have that one?

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L'Entente Cordiale, played by the Band of the Scots Guards.

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If you could take only one disk out of your egg, which would it be?

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I think it would be Crimond.

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Because it would uh soothe me when I needed soothing and it would make me think.

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And I felt I should have to do a bit of thinking. And one luxury to take to the island.

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Well, do you think I might have a a lovely couch?

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I can get on very well with catnaps. And if I could have this couch where I could curl up like a cat, I would like that. A couch for curling up and catnapping. Right, can be done. And one book, apart from that little list of the Bible, Shakespeare, and big encyclopedias.

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I would like the old Bratshaw timetable about five inches thick, where I could run so many journeys up and down the lost railway lines of Great Britain that I would enjoy. And as a bonus, if I could have one overseas, too, I'd think you were very nice to me. We'll bind in an overseas one as well. And thank you, Eddie Wearing, for letting us hear your desert island discs. Thank you, it's been very, very nice indeed. Good. Goodbye, everyone.