David Dimbleby

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.

Presenter0:26

This week, our castaway is the reporter and interviewer, David Dimbleby. David, have you ever daydreamed about being a solitary castaway?

Presenter0:34

Occasionally, yes. When things get very bad, when I'm very busy, I sometimes think it would be nice to be out of it all. What would you fear most about being a lonely man on a lonely island? I would think it was like throwing one's life away, a totally pointless, useless existence. I can see no merit at all in living anywhere except in society and with people.

Presenter0:56

As a compensation, what would you be happiest? What would be the one thing in society that you'd be glad to have got shot off?

Presenter1:03

I would be glad to be shot of work and the telephone. Yes. And I would like.

Presenter1:12

Being able to watch the sunrise and the sun set and catch my fish and all those sort of things. So that the the irritations I think I'd be pleased to be free of. But I don't say that the compensations are very great. Are you a musical person?

Presenter1:26

I'm not a musician's musician. I play the piano a bit, but I listen to music and the music I've chosen is primarily music I listen to when I come back from working late at night and I sit down for a couple of hours midnight till two in the morning or something and play gramophone records. But I don't have a great musical knowledge. As you'll see from the things I've chosen, they're actually what is on my shelves rather than what I know about. What's the first one?

Presenter1:49

The first one is Bach's concerto in D minor for violin, Obern, Strings, and Continuo. It's one of those ones that's been patched together or rediscovered, I think, which I've chosen because I think it's the most...

Presenter2:02

Delicious.

Presenter2:03

Melody

Presenter3:03

The beginning of the second movement of Bach's concerto for violin, over and strings in D minor, the Munich Bach Orchestra conducted by Karl Richter. What's your second disc?

Presenter3:14

The second is Percel.

Presenter3:17

Uh Kinatha.

Presenter3:19

which I've chosen for its essential Englishness. Trevor Antony.

Presenter3:24

singing in the frost scene as genius being woken up by Cupid.

David Dimbleby3:44

It's clearly law.

David Dimbleby3:50

For dua.

David Dimbleby4:24

Let me let me

David Dimbleby4:27

Yeah.

Presenter4:29

Trevor Anthony in the frost scene of Purcell's King Arthur.

Presenter4:34

Oh, David.

Presenter4:35

As everybody knows, you're the son of the late Richard Dimbleby, one of the best radio and television journalists this country is known. Now, he owned a prosperous local newspaper in Surrey, and it was obvious that one day you were going to run it, too. As a boy, had you any other ideas? Well, it wasn't obvious to me that I was going to do anything. It wasn't obvious I was going to run the paper or go into broadcasting. In fact, it was his...

Presenter4:58

Early death that led me to be running the papers now.

Presenter5:01

But when I left Oxford, I wanted two things. One I thought of was being a lawyer.

Presenter5:07

And the other, being a barrister, that is, and the other was going into the Foreign Service. My mother had a picture of me as an ambassador with a decaded hat. But I thought seriously of those two things, but I went into...

Presenter5:18

Broadcasting in the end because I was broke and it was about the only thing you didn't need any particular qualification for. Yes, he went to the BBC and asked for a job.

Presenter5:27

I went to the BBC asked a job and was turned down and then I went back to the BBC in Bristol this time and asked for a job and was made a reporter on the local news in Bristol and that's where I began. Yes. Your father at that time was at the height of his career. What effect did that have? Was it a help or was it...

Presenter5:45

kind of a hindrance.

Presenter5:48

Quite clearly there is a slight help in the name, that people were prepared.

Presenter5:53

to give you a go. Once that go had been given you, it was entirely

Presenter5:59

Up to you. It's such a competitive business that you can't stay in it on the basis of a name.

Presenter6:04

But I think that at the very beginning, in a way, it was easier because he was at the very top and I was at the very bottom. And the fact that I was reporting on whether the pier at Western Supermare ought to be painted before the summer season began or not was not exactly coming into competition with the coronation. So that at the beginning it wasn't bad.

Presenter6:22

Increasingly difficult in a funny way.

Presenter6:25

I find now that

Presenter6:27

When I have letters, for instance, of criticism about my performance, if people like what I've done, they always say, your father would have approved of it. And if they don't like what I've done, I get letters saying, your father would be ashamed of you. It's a constant presence. It stops you feeling totally free. It's as though you were slightly trapped by the memory of what he did. I'll give you an instance.

Presenter6:51

A Scots priest delivered a sermon on the BBC, which I was sent a copy of, which was a very nice sermon about my father, saying how well he broadcast and citing him as an example of the true professional, which ended with this quotation from the Bible, Be ye therefore perfect as your father in heaven is perfect. I thought that was a bit much. Oh, that's rather sweet. I've taken that as a kind of lesson, which it's impossible to live up to, but still. Let's have your next record, David.

Presenter7:21

The next record is not chosen because I wanted it. I rarely wanted a record of my wife singing this song. She's a singer and I accompany her. In public? No, that's why I can't have it because she's not made a commercial record of it. And so I had to choose a commercial record. But we sing at home and she has lessons. She was a trained singer. And this is one of my favourite songs.

Presenter7:43

But we have to go back to 1910 for this recording by Nellie Melbourne, who I hate to say is second best as far as I'm concerned, singing Poor di Cesti by Antonio Lotti.

David Dimbleby8:03

For the terror, Abela, Hoba, Cover, Abela, and all we come.

David Dimbleby8:23

Yeah.

David Dimbleby8:42

Okay.

Presenter8:52

Then Nellie Melbourne singing Podi Chesti. With me on the piano. With you on the piano. So you began at West Region. What happened after that?

Presenter9:02

I quickly was offered a children's series and I began working in children's television, religious programmes and then a science programme called What's New. And I began commuting from Bristol up to London and getting regular work there and in Birmingham and after about a year or two moved wholly to London at the beginning of BBC Two when I became a television reporter with Jim Mossman on the new BBC Two Current Affairs series that went out there, making films. You had a spell in the United States?

Presenter9:30

Yes, that was later. It was planned to be fairly early on. And then when my father was ill, I wasn't able to go and I went afterwards. And it was going to be five years or so. That was the idea. But in fact, there was a newspaper crisis and I had to come back. So that I spent only six months there. I made one long documentary film for CBS. Yes, and then came home. But Texas.

Presenter9:52

Record number four. What's that?

Presenter9:55

It's

Presenter9:56

A recording of my father doing a commentary.

Presenter9:59

And I think one of his best, most moving

Presenter10:04

of a sort which I think television has rather killed off. This was a radio broadcast, entirely painting a picture by words, of the lying in state of George VI. And I'm taking it partly because I know that it was a broadcast he was very proud of, and partly because I miss him and I would like to hear his voice on that island.

Presenter10:26

There lies the coffin of the king.

Presenter10:30

The oak of Sandringham hidden beneath the rich golden folds of the standard.

Presenter10:36

The slow flicker of the candles touches gently the gems of the imperial crown.

Presenter10:43

Even that ruby that King Henry wore at Aginkour.

Presenter10:48

It touches the deep purple of the velvet cushion.

Presenter10:52

and the cool white flowers of the only wreath that lies upon the flag.

Presenter10:58

The voice of Richard Dimbleby from a record of excerpts from a couple of dozen of his radio and television commentaries. David, a major part of your career has been spent coping with politicians. Are you a political animal yourself? Have you strong political convictions?

Presenter11:14

Oh, I think those are two different things. I'm a political animal in that I'm fascinated by politics. I find the whole business of politics riveting, dramatic, exciting, in the same sense as it was to 18th and 19th century writers. I'm riveted by it. But the only difficulty is I still haven't made up my mind which party I join.

Presenter11:33

One damite. Ev. You've been very closely involved in two elections. Do you think elections should be fought so much on television? It's inevitable they will be.

Presenter11:45

Because television now is the way of getting across to a large number of people.

Presenter11:51

The public, I think, felt...

Presenter11:53

Perhaps that we had rather too much election coverage this last time round. I don't agree. I'm not sure that we had the balance right. I think that you need to look very carefully at the extent to which you should be talking to leading politicians and the extent to which you should be raising particular issues and, so to speak, bringing the politicians in to talk about them. You get...

Presenter12:13

A better idea in a democracy.

Presenter12:17

By what's seen on television about politics than probably people have ever in the history of democracy had before. Now, you may not feel that that's a desirable thing, but I think it's desirable. On the talk in, when you're away from one-man interviews, it must be very difficult to keep control when you get a studio full of people very often quite heated about political arguments. It is. It's often criticized. People say it's pointless to have all those people shouting at each other. We try desperately to keep order, and I read the Riot Act before the program always saying that if two of you talk at once, nobody will hear. So please, please, don't all talk at once. It won't work. It just destroys it for people at home. But the advantage is, which is often missed when people criticize it, that you are talking about politics and social affairs and current affairs in a quite different way from any other program. Instead of having our leaders sitting there being cross-examined, you're having ordinary people.

Presenter13:09

quite often may miss a point or fudge a point, but nevertheless are

Presenter13:16

producing an entirely different look at politics, an entirely different way of approaching it, and often a much more genuine.

Presenter13:23

interest in it perhaps, then your specialists are always very guarded. So it's valuable. Now your brother Jonathan is in the same business and it was splendid to see him win the Richard Dimbleby Award.

Presenter13:36

Do you watch each other's books?

Presenter13:39

I was delighted he won that award, I must say. Yes, I think we keep a wary eye on each other is how it's best put. I mean, he works on the other side. I work for the BBC. We watch out for what the other is doing, and we quite often talk about things. If I've seen a film he's done, or he's watched an interview I've done, we'll compare notes about it and talk about it in a professional way.

Presenter13:59

Where do you want to go from here? Are you going to stay in what you're doing or are you aiming at hard covers or administration?

Presenter14:05

Or what? Do you know I have no idea?

Presenter14:09

I can't see beyond.

Presenter14:11

Six months.

Presenter14:13

Or a year at the most. I wish I wish I could.

Presenter14:16

Oh, I don't know. Perhaps it might not be a good idea. It's much more exciting to take it as it comes, surely.

Presenter14:21

I long to get out of it in a funny way. I long to get out and do something different. And I just can't find a way of discovering something as interesting and as fulfilling as what I'm doing at the moment. But it doesn't mean that I don't spend hours thinking, couldn't I be doing something else?

Presenter14:38

Let's have record number five. What's that?

Presenter14:41

This is Bach again, the St. John Passion, not the St. Matthew, which I gather is better known, and I haven't really heard very much, but the St. John I've got a recording of and listened to often.

Presenter14:52

I've chosen from it

Presenter14:54

An aria form soprano and flute, a wonderfully kind of woody flute.

Presenter15:00

I follow thee also, my Saviour, with gladness, and will not forsake thee, my life and my light.

David Dimbleby15:32

Before the dead night voice is running at the tower.

Speaker 115:34

Yeah.

David Dimbleby15:58

But I've been all sedation

Presenter16:05

An aria from Bach's St. John Passion sung by a Viennese boy soprano in a recording conducted by Hans Gillisberger.

Presenter16:14

Let's go straight on to Record 6. It's a record that when I was 17 or 18 I played a great deal and I'm very fond of. And when I listened to it again the other day, I decided it was entirely appropriate because it explains exactly what hell it would be to be on a desert island. It's Paul Robeson singing Lonely Road from the film Song of Freedom.

Speaker 316:41

Feel hard and strong.

Speaker 316:47

Yeah.

Speaker 316:59

Only road, you're getting me down Cause you're the only road that leads

Presenter17:06

Paul Robson.

Presenter17:08

Any ideas you picked up in your travels that might be useful for this desert island existence? Any hobbies, for example?

Presenter17:14

I sail, so I'd be hunting

Speaker 117:15

Uh

Presenter17:17

sail away if there were a boat. If you could build a boat. If I could build a boat. Anybody who knows me will scoff at the suggestion that I have any practical aptitudes at all, but I think I have, and I don't think I'd be too troubled by that. Right, well you hang on to that idea and record number seven.

Presenter17:34

Number seven is a theatrical choice.

Presenter17:38

Not a religious choice. It's the DAZRI from Verde's Requiem.

Presenter18:41

The opening passage of the Die's Era from Verdi's Requiem Mass.

Presenter18:46

Carlo Maria Giuline conducting. Now we come to your last record. What's that?

Presenter18:51

The last is a sublime piece of music. There's no Mozart so far, and this is Mozart.

Presenter18:58

It has the advantage that it's the two piano concertos I like best, 23 and 24, and this is part of the third movement of number 24 in C minor.

Presenter19:09

And who was the soloist?

Presenter19:11

Solomon.

Presenter20:06

An excerpt from Mozart's piano concerto, number 24 in C minor, with Solomon as soloist. If you could take just one disc, which would it be?

Presenter20:15

I think it would be the Bach I played at the beginning, the concerto for violin, oboe and D minor.

Presenter20:21

And one luxury to take with you?

Presenter20:24

I went into this very carefully and decided on the basis of time I spent in Saudi Arabia, which is dry, you can't get anything to drink, that I can survive without liquor, which would otherwise be my first choice, but that I can't survive without cigars. So I would take a huge humidor packed with 10,000 of Mr. Castro's best cigars, Havana cigars, and I reckon that would last me for something like 30 years. And I gather they last that long. People always think they only last a year or two, but in fact, if you keep them properly, though they're not so good at the end, I'd be longing for that boat to come and get me off. And I think that would be the greatest consolation. After the day's work was done, I'd light up my huge cigar, sit like some potentate while the sun went down. I hope you're not there that long, but you're all right for smokes. Now, one book, avart from the Bible, Shakespeare, and those big encyclopedias. Well, I found this impossibly difficult, and I've assumed, first of all, that I'm allowed the Bible and Shakespeare. Yes, they're there. Automatically, that they're there. In the end, I decided that the most sensible thing to take was the long Oxford English Dictionary. Am I allowed that? Oh, that's all right. Yes, of course you are. Because I think there, with the whole history of words and the use of words, along with Shakespeare and the Bible, one actually might come back a rather better educated person than one had gone away, which would be an advantage. Thank you, David Dimblewy, for letting us hear your desert island discs. Thank you very much indeed. And may I say, I hope I never have to go. I hope not too. Goodbye, everyone.