Graham Thomas

Speaker 10:00

Hello, I'm Kirstie Young, and this is a recording of Desert Island Discs as it was being broadcast, rather than the studio recording. And for that reason you may hear some interference, and some degradation in the sound quality.

Speaker 10:14

For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in 1975.

Presenter0:35

As usual, the cast array is introduced by Roy Plumney.

Presenter0:39

Our castaway this week is a gardener. A gardener who has probably had more garden space to look after than anyone since Adam. It's Graham Thomas. Oh, first of all, let's elucidate that rather mysterious introduction. You were gardens advisor to the National Trust for how many years?

Graham Thomas0:55

For eighteen years, I started with about seven gardens, but it gradually grew and grew until I was looking after a hundred and ten.

Presenter1:03

Can you give a rough guess at the total acreage?

Graham Thomas1:06

Oh, that's really very difficult, but I suppose something like a thousand acres.

Presenter1:12

More of which later.

Presenter1:13

Would music console you on a desert island? I know that music means a great deal to you.

Graham Thomas1:18

Yes, I think it would console me and uh however beautiful the island

Graham Thomas1:23

Like me, I should still need music.

Graham Thomas1:26

It is my second hobby, gardening being my first.

Presenter1:29

Despite it having been your way of earning a living for all these years, it's still no positive.

Graham Thomas1:33

Yeah.

Graham Thomas1:34

Yeah.

Presenter1:35

What's the first recording chess?

Graham Thomas1:37

William Berg

Graham Thomas1:39

Mass for five voices.

Graham Thomas1:42

I think I've chosen this not only because of its beauty, but because it's been recorded in King's College Chapel, Cambridge. I was born in Cambridge and I was acquainted with King's College Chapel from a very early age.

Graham Thomas1:55

And I think the sound wonderful, far finer than in any other great building in the country.

Presenter3:06

The opening of William Bird's Mouths for Five Voices.

Presenter3:10

by the choir of King's College, Cambridge.

Presenter3:12

mister Thomas, why did you become a gardener?

Graham Thomas3:15

I think it really started with my godfather giving me a fuchsia at the age of six.

Presenter3:20

Yes.

Graham Thomas3:21

And that um started me off and my mother and father both encouraged it.

Graham Thomas3:26

short of trying to earn my living at it, which I did willy-nilly.

Presenter3:30

Yes. You were determined.

Graham Thomas3:31

Yes.

Presenter3:32

Uh

Graham Thomas3:32

Red

Presenter3:32

Where did you train? Where did you study?

Graham Thomas3:33

Cambridge University Botanic Garden.

Graham Thomas3:36

We were very lucky in those days because we gave our services for the tuition in the garden and also had the opportunity of attending any of the botanical lectures in the university.

Presenter3:48

Yeah.

Presenter3:49

How long did you stay in Cambridge?

Graham Thomas3:51

I stayed at Cambridge Botanic Garden for two and a half years.

Presenter3:54

Yes, and then

Graham Thomas3:55

Then I went to the Six Hills Nursery at Stevenage, especially

Graham Thomas3:59

for the culture of alpine plants, which I was very keen on at that time.

Graham Thomas4:04

And then to

Graham Thomas4:06

A large wholesale nursery in

Graham Thomas4:09

Sati.

Graham Thomas4:10

Have you ever had your own nursery? No, I never wanted it. I think I was more interested in the beauty of plants than in their commercial side.

Presenter4:18

And how did it come about that you were chosen as Gardens Advisor to the National Trust?

Graham Thomas4:18

But how

Graham Thomas4:22

Oh, you have to ask then. I don't know. I remember I was one of five or six applicants, and I suppose.

Presenter4:24

No, I don't know.

Graham Thomas4:29

The fact that I had visited an enormous number of great gardens in the country, including

Graham Thomas4:34

Five of the seven they wanted me to look after weighed in my favour.

Presenter4:39

And now, of course, you're still the garden consultant.

Graham Thomas4:42

They made me gardens consultant when they retired me as gardens advisor.

Graham Thomas4:48

And um it's really nice not to be cut off completely.

Presenter4:52

Wait for

Graham Thomas4:52

Uh

Presenter4:52

Number 2.

Graham Thomas4:55

Again, I hark back to Cambridge because every year there there is a great work performed in King's College Chapel.

Graham Thomas5:05

And I've chosen Bach's Mass in B minor. This one is not recorded in King's College Chapel, but it's by Herbert von Karijang.

Graham Thomas5:14

with the Chorus and Orchestra of the Society of the Friends of Music.

Presenter6:20

Bach's B minor Mass, conducted by Herbert von Carrier.

Presenter6:24

But Sir Thomas, what's the biggest garden you've had to cope with?

Graham Thomas6:27

Do you know, I've never measured

Graham Thomas6:29

But I think from my memory that Clifdon, covering a hundred and sixty acres, must be the biggest or one of the biggest.

Graham Thomas6:37

That's at Maidenhead and it's a very historic garden with layer upon layer of garden design and history.

Presenter6:43

Yes. In some cases, of course, the gardens that the Trust has taken over have been beautifully kept up through the years and nothing is needed except maintenance, but in other cases they've acquired virtually a jungle.

Graham Thomas6:55

Yes, sometimes it's very sad to go into them, through no fault sometimes of the owners.

Graham Thomas7:01

But we have had sometimes years of hard work before us to get them into a reasonable condition.

Presenter7:04

Yeah.

Presenter7:08

In that case, what's the general policy? You have a house built in the time of James I, for example. Do you merely plan the most decorative garden for the public to see, or do you try to reconstruct a genuine Jacobean garden?

Graham Thomas7:22

I wish it were as simple as that. In just a few instances there are original Jacobean layouts, such as at Hann House, which we are reconstructing. The paths are still in their old position.

Graham Thomas7:36

and Westbury Court in Gloucestershire, which we have been able to reconstruct because we have all the plans and all the planting lists of the many, many years ago.

Presenter7:47

The economic problems must be enormous. A uh an estate, a garden that might have had, for example, forty gardens.

Presenter7:54

hundreds of years ago, and now possibly you have to make two with four.

Graham Thomas7:58

Yes, we don't improve our gardens by adding staff, if anything we reduce them. But we are aided today by

Graham Thomas8:06

weed killers which we seldom have to use and of course machinery and ground covering plants and generally economic management and it has worked wonders and paid good dividends in many gardens which were extravagantly run before.

Presenter8:22

Let's have record number three.

Graham Thomas8:24

I have chosen

Graham Thomas8:25

Brown's Piano Concerto, Number One. I had awful difficulty in deciding which I would choose, the first or the second. They are both very large scale music, and I don't think one could tire of them.

Graham Thomas8:39

This is Clifford Curzon playing with the London Symphony Orchestra.

Presenter9:44

Part of the first movement of the Brahms Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor, Clifford Curzon with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by George Zell.

Presenter9:53

You are a pianist yourself, mister Thomas.

Graham Thomas9:55

I used to be, but I'm afraid I don't practise often nowadays.

Presenter9:59

Now, I'm very interested in the historical side of the job you've been talking about. Going back, for example, to that James I garden we talked about. Are there enough.

Presenter10:09

old engravings, old notebooks, to recreate a garden as it really was.

Graham Thomas10:15

Yes, we have done so in one or two instances, but very often there are so many old engravings that one can make up a get a gain a pretty good idea of what should be there.

Graham Thomas10:27

and in some instances there are records of the plants used.

Presenter10:31

And there are records to trace the development and use of new plants through the centuries. You can get more or less a chronological list of them.

Graham Thomas10:39

Yes, um there's a garden at Kew devoted to a period of gardening and uh some chronological beds in Cambridge University Botanic Garden.

Graham Thomas10:49

showing the introduction of plants. And then of course one acquires also a great knowledge from books that were published.

Graham Thomas10:55

during the centuries.

Presenter10:57

What's happened to garden colour through the ages? Are garden colours more subtle now or are they brighter?

Graham Thomas11:02

Oh they're not brighter. Much brighter.

Graham Thomas11:05

Bigger and brighter and better, some people would say.

Graham Thomas11:08

Because of hybridising and selection. But in the old days, in the Jacobean times, gardening as we know it today rather packed up by mid-summer and great delight was taken in the fruits after that and nuts. They were given as much prominence in garden as flowers. And most of the plants were over by.

Presenter11:26

Yes.

Speaker 411:27

Uh

Graham Thomas11:29

July.

Graham Thomas11:30

We checked.

Presenter11:30

Hedges were the most formal in garden layer.

Graham Thomas11:33

Very much the Jacobean and then of course there was a revival in the Victorian times.

Presenter11:40

Your great subject, of course, is roses. You've written a number of books on roses.

Presenter11:45

Could you nowadays reproduce a a sixteenth century rosebed with original varieties?

Graham Thomas11:50

Yes, yes, there are several in cultivation, some going back beyond Roman times.

Graham Thomas11:57

Are modern varieties in any way an improvement?

Graham Thomas12:00

No, I'm afraid you've asked the wrong person. You will only get a biased opinion from me. I think if I had to choose, I should have no hesitation in choosing the old one.

Presenter12:09

Yes. Are there any particular problems that that arise in dealing with these old gardeners?

Graham Thomas12:15

Rose thorns, you know, and uh weeds and all that sort of thing.

Presenter12:19

The same old problem as you again.

Graham Thomas12:19

Same old problems. Same old problem, human problems, but we always get over them. The culture of gardens is not difficult.

Graham Thomas12:26

But what is very disconcerting is, having planted some young trees, if you get two inches of snow on the ground, the rabbits, which are very much on the increase in places, will come in and gnaw the stems. Or you may get a herd of deer coming over the fence in some districts, and they can do appalling damage.

Graham Thomas12:46

And then there's

Graham Thomas12:47

The grey squirrel.

Graham Thomas12:49

The brown squirrel, which one finds still in the West Country, seems to be blameless, but the grey squirrel is a terror. And it may be a pretty little creature, but it's doing

Graham Thomas12:59

Thousands of pounds of damage to young trees every year.

Presenter13:03

And the elm tree disease which is sweeping the country must do dreadful things to some of your landscaping effects.

Graham Thomas13:09

Oh, it's a disaster beyond talking about.

Presenter13:14

Let's have record number four.

Graham Thomas13:16

I've always taken a great delight in the Bach fugues in particular.

Graham Thomas13:21

And I've selected one few, number seven.

Graham Thomas13:25

From the second book.

Graham Thomas13:27

I feel that the fogs

Graham Thomas13:30

are wonderfully settling for the brain and I think it's just what I should want

Graham Thomas13:34

when I'd been frustrated by not being able to catch any fish.

Presenter14:36

Maurice Cole playing the fugue from Bach's Prelude in Fugue in E-flat major, number seven in the second book of the well-tempered clavier. Now you've got another piano record, Nate.

Graham Thomas14:47

Yes, I thought this would make a complete and utter contrast. It is what I regard as the finest piano sonata, Beethoven's Hammer Clavier, and I've selected it to be played by Solomon.

Presenter16:02

Solomon playing Beethoven's Hammer Clavier Sonata in B-flat major.

Presenter16:08

What next?

Graham Thomas16:10

I'd like to go back to Cambridge.

Graham Thomas16:12

I used to be every year on the CAM

Graham Thomas16:16

on a certain evening in June, to hear the medrigals sung from boats.

Graham Thomas16:21

It was always a magical evening, and they used to finish with Draw on Sweet Night,

Graham Thomas16:27

A very famous and well-known madrigal, with the boats lighted with Japanese lanterns, and they would float away into the distance.

Graham Thomas16:36

But I thought that we would choose something a little less well known, and what I'd like you to play, if you would, is Sister Awake, Close Not Your Eyes by Thomas Bakeson.

Speaker 417:10

Yeah.

Speaker 417:14

We little wins the killing, we little killed in the mobile.

Speaker 417:28

Yeah.

Presenter17:48

Sesta Awakes and by the Purcell Consort of Voices.

Presenter17:52

Uh

Graham Thomas17:52

Uh

Presenter17:52

You have

Graham Thomas17:53

Uh Boom.

Presenter17:53

Uh

Graham Thomas17:53

Uh

Presenter17:53

own Natural Society venture.

Graham Thomas17:55

Yes?

Graham Thomas17:56

It's now been going for getting on for twenty years. We have about sixteen singers and we meet in each other's houses and sometimes we give a performance in aid of charities.

Presenter18:08

Now, this desert island, you've tamed jungles all over the country. Could you tame this island, do you think?

Graham Thomas18:14

It'll be quite easy digging in sand after some of the soils I've had to cope with.

Presenter18:17

Uh

Presenter18:19

And a shelter. You could put up a party.

Graham Thomas18:21

I'm a rough Yes, a bothy would be most appropriate, wouldn't it? I'm a rough carpenter.

Presenter18:26

and cultivation obviously no problem at all.

Graham Thomas18:29

No, dude fishing. Yes, yes, I could manage that, I think.

Presenter18:33

Know anything about small bits?

Graham Thomas18:35

No, I know nothing about boats and I don't like the sea, so I shan't be trying to escape.

Presenter18:40

Right. Record number seven.

Graham Thomas18:43

A brown song.

Graham Thomas18:45

And I've chosen Dietrich Fischer Dieskarl to sing it.

Graham Thomas18:50

I always feel that nobody else sings Brahms or any of the other leader as well as he does.

Graham Thomas18:57

And it's one song from the song cycle Die Schoener Margelona.

Graham Thomas19:03

It's a most splendid series of poems and the moment this song, the hero, discovers that

Graham Thomas19:12

His Lady Love's ring has been stolen by a raven.

Graham Thomas19:17

and he chases off in pursuit of it.

Graham Thomas19:19

and gets himself lost, and he sings this in utmost despair.

Speaker 419:25

Ishila and its perfect um Hannah and it's funky the blue

Speaker 419:31

Oh yeah, we end up

Speaker 419:36

Fan of your purple, fen are.

Speaker 419:42

I hope.

Speaker 419:57

Hello.

Speaker 420:07

But again

Speaker 420:13

Be it a hyphen.

Presenter20:25

Dietrich Fischer Diskar singing Sotone at Dem from the Brahms Di Sherno Magalone.

Presenter20:31

What's your last disc?

Graham Thomas20:33

I was present when this work was first performed for Sir Henry Wood's Golden Jubilee in 1938.

Graham Thomas20:41

It's called The Selenade to Music.

Graham Thomas20:43

And the music is written by Vaughan William.

Presenter21:48

An excerpt from the Ford Williams Serenade to Music.

Presenter21:52

The London Philharmonic Orchestra with sixteen soloists conducted by Sir Adrian Bolk.

Presenter21:59

You told me that Vaughan Williams once directed your magical group.

Graham Thomas22:02

Yes, twice as a metro effect.

Graham Thomas22:05

It was a great honour. We met over at Dorking and he came along and dealt with us in a very fatherly way.

Presenter22:13

Lent it.

Presenter22:14

Well, sir, gardening and music have filled your life.

Presenter22:17

Would you like to choose just one disc out of the eight you've played disc?

Graham Thomas22:21

I think I should go back to the very beginning of English music to the bird.

Graham Thomas22:26

The bird nests for five voices.

Presenter22:28

and one luxury to take to the island.

Graham Thomas22:31

Mm. My sister-in-law offered to come and uh be cook, but I told her that there would be no cooking needed, so I shouldn't want her.

Presenter22:40

Uh no cooking needed.

Graham Thomas22:42

Well, because of the sandwiches there.

Presenter22:45

Yes, are you already for pound of my pan?

Graham Thomas22:48

Well not yet, no.

Presenter22:49

Yeah.

Presenter22:52

No, in any case, I'm afraid your luxury has to be inanimate. We couldn't invite your sister-in-law as cook. Would you like to choose again a luxury?

Graham Thomas23:00

Yes, I think paints, pencil and paper, and I think drawing, music and gardening will satisfy me.

Presenter23:07

And would you now like to choose one book to have with you on the desert island?

Graham Thomas23:12

Yes, I should like the collected works of Hilaire Bellon.

Graham Thomas23:16

I regard his writing as

Graham Thomas23:18

some of the best English that I know and it would be useful as a sort of refresher course if I started scribbling on some of the drawing paper.

Presenter23:26

Right, and thank you Graham Thomas for letting us hear your Desert Island Disc.

Graham Thomas23:30

I think it's you who are to be thanked, Roy. Thank you for asking me. It's been a very a great experience to come.

Presenter23:37

Thank you. Goodbye, everyone.

Speaker 123:46

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive.

Speaker 123:49

For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.