Most Rev Rt Hon Stuart Blanch

Speaker 20:00

Hello, I'm Kirstie Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Disc's Archive. For rights' reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen seventy six, and the presenter was Roy Plumley.

Presenter0:30

This week our programme is honoured by a visit from the Archbishop of York, the Most Reverend and Right Honourable Stuart Blanche.

Presenter0:37

Your Grace, with what degree of trepidation would you view the prospect of a desert island exile? Could you endure prolonged loneliness?

Presenter0:47

Well, in my more optimistic moments I suppose I think I could.

Presenter0:51

But I do know that uh if I'm on my own now for any length of time, the danger is the kind of thoughts that creep into the mind and the obsessions and so on. And uh certainly I I wouldn't um welcome the prospect. What would you be happiest to have got away from?

Presenter1:08

Well, there are certain elements in my own life I would be glad to be away from the sometimes the pressure of what I think rather unnecessary business, and the I'd certainly be away from endless travelling, of which I do a great deal. Is music a a major interest of yours?

Presenter1:24

Yes, it is. I love listening to it. I I try to play it a bit, and all our family at one time or other have learned to play musical instruments, so there is a degree of bedlam about which I enjoy. What do you play?

Speaker 31:35

What do you play?

Presenter1:37

Well, I would hesitate to say I play it. I make uh attempts at the flute. Um I have to say that uh

Presenter1:43

The dog lies on his back and waves his legs in the air, and I try. You have a large family, do you not? Yes, we have five children.

Presenter1:50

Did you have any plan in mind in choosing this meagre allowance of egg records?

Presenter1:56

I tried to pick on records which related to various parts of my own life and relationships.

Presenter2:02

I tried also to pick on music that I really liked, um, of as wide a variety as possible, because if one's going to be thirty years on a desert island you need a change. What's the first one? The opening uh part of Fiddler on the Roof.

Presenter2:16

We celebrated our wedding anniversary one year by going to Fiddle on the Roof, but we couldn't get tickets. So we lined up in the queue for return tickets, got to the box office, and we were the last two people to have tickets, and one was in the

Presenter2:29

One was in the gallery and the other was in the circle. So my wife went in the circle, I went in the gallery, and we met during the interval. So it has very, you know, very happy memories for me.

Most Rev Rt Hon Stuart Blanch2:38

No.

Most Rev Rt Hon Stuart Blanch2:41

You may ask.

Most Rev Rt Hon Stuart Blanch2:43

Why do we stay up there, if it's so dangerous?

Most Rev Rt Hon Stuart Blanch2:47

We stay because Anatevka is our home.

Most Rev Rt Hon Stuart Blanch2:53

And how do we keep our balance?

Most Rev Rt Hon Stuart Blanch2:56

That I can tell you in one word.

Most Rev Rt Hon Stuart Blanch3:00

Tradition

Speaker 33:05

Time it's on your song.

Presenter3:09

Topo at the opening of Fiddler on the Roof. What's your second record? Uh the second record is the Packlebill Cannon, uh which I was not familiar with until it was given to me.

Presenter3:20

a few weeks ago to mark the tenth anniversary of my consecration as Bishop of Liverpool, and uh a lovely record, resonant and profound, and uh

Presenter3:30

I love it.

Presenter4:31

Backel Bell's Cannon in D

Presenter4:33

Played by the Jean-François Payard Chamber Orchestra.

Presenter4:38

In what part of the country were you born?

Presenter4:40

I was born in the forest of Dean in Gloucestershire. Your father was a farmer? Yes, he was. What sort of farmer?

Presenter4:46

Well, um a poor farm, one would have to say in those days, because it was a very hazardous occupation. It was small, uh with a few cattle, and uh

Presenter4:56

and lots of chickens. But a lovely place, and I must say I look back on it with great affection. You went to school in London, of course? Yes,'cause when my father died uh we had to sell the farm and my brothers are already in London, so I m moved there too. As a schoolboy, what was your ambition?

Presenter5:14

Well, I read classics at school, and the reason I read classics was that I had suggested to the headmaster that I'd like to be a journalist, and he typically of the headmasters of that day said, Right, you're doing Latin and Greek then.

Presenter5:28

In fact, what job did you do when you left school? When I left school, I took the first job that was offered because um things were pretty tight. And I took a job in the insurance world and stayed there for just over four years. Was that pretty gloomy, or did you quite enjoy it?

Presenter5:43

No, it was a very nice office. It was a small one. It was a very nice office to work in. I think the only thing that daunted me was the thought that I might be going in through the same swing doors and sitting at the same desk for forty years. But any kind of view like that daunts you.

Presenter5:56

Um but of course in a sense the war changed all that for me anyway. Yes. You joined the RAF, you opted for air crew, you were a navigator. Yes. Where did you serve?

Presenter6:08

Almost all the time in the Far East, India and Burma. Yes. What were the particular hazards? Was it a a very beastly war as far as you were concerned? No, I count myself very fortunate to have served there rather than in the Air Force in this country. I mean the hazards were chiefly the weather in the monsoon, which was very difficult, because we flew the type of aircraft which couldn't get above the biggest clouds.

Presenter6:32

And the other hazards were lack of navigational equipment uh there were no beams to fly on

Presenter6:39

And the fact, of course, that we had to find rather obscure strips in the jungle, which we weren't absolutely sure were in our own hands at that time.

Presenter6:50

When did you?

Presenter6:52

get the call to for ordination.

Presenter6:56

I began to think seriously about the Christian faith quite early on in the war, and

Presenter7:02

I suppose became a practising Christian in nineteen forty two.

Presenter7:06

And then after that

Presenter7:07

The nearer the war came to the end, the more I began to ask myself what I was going to do when I came out. I mean, I still had my job, obviously, in the insurance world.

Presenter7:17

But somehow my perspectives had changed a bit, and so it was at that stage I sent my name through to uh the church as a possible ordinand, and I was in fact interviewed and finally accepted at the first ever selection conference run by the Church of England in Calcutta. Let's break off at this point for your third record. What's that to be?

Presenter7:37

The third record is the reading of the St. John's Gospel in the New English Bible version.

Presenter7:44

I choose it because I owe my um Christian faith to just reading the Gospels.

Presenter7:50

And perhaps for another reason it would be nice at Christmas to hear the famous Christmas Gospel read by someone else on this desert island.

Presenter7:58

When all things began, the word already was.

Presenter8:03

The Word dwelt with God.

Presenter8:05

And what God was, the Word was.

Presenter8:09

The Word then was with God at the beginning,

Presenter8:12

And through him all things came to be.

Presenter8:15

No single thing was created without him.

Presenter8:19

All that came to be was alive with his life.

Presenter8:23

And that life was the light of men.

Presenter8:26

Lockwood West, reading the opening verses of Saint John's Gospel.

Presenter8:31

Where did you study for the ministry?

Presenter8:34

I went straightway to Oxford after I was demobilised.

Presenter8:39

and went to St. Catherine's College and Wickley Fall in combination because I was married by then and so the shorter the time the better. And so I was able to read theology and prepare for the ministry more or less um in parallel. Yes, and you took a first in theology. You were in your thirties by the time you were ordained. Yes. What was your first appointment?

Presenter9:01

My first appointment was as curate of Highfield, which is part of the Headington group of parishes just near Oxford.

Presenter9:10

and then you were vicar of Enshore.

Presenter9:12

These were both country parishes, were they? Now, Highfield was a suburban parish. Enshram was a a country parish, a large one, so I had three thousand people.

Presenter9:22

We moved into that situation uh early in the nineteen fifties. And then you moved over to the academic side. Yes.

Presenter9:29

I went into Oxford and first of all teaching Old Testament at Wycliffe Hall.

Presenter9:35

And vice principal there?

Presenter9:37

And then I had a very interesting job, really, because I went to take charge of a college in Rochester which specialised in the training of men between the ages of thirty and forty, of whom we had a large number at that particular stage.

Presenter9:48

Now in nineteen sixty six you were appointed Bishop of Liverpool, at only forty seven, which is very young.

Presenter9:54

Yes, it is. I think they think that uh you have to be young to survive.

Presenter9:59

With that fine new cathedral, of course, and a very large diocese, isn't it?

Presenter10:05

Very small geographically. I could be anywhere within it from my own home in less than an hour but of course very large in terms of numbers, nearly nearly two million people in that particular diocese. Then two years ago you were appointed Archbishop of York.

Presenter10:20

Now before we talk about that, let's have another record. What number four we've got to? Well, I thought it would be nice to have um a a record from Liverpool, and this is the um Spinner's record called Dirty Old Town, which I hasten to say does not relate to Liverpool itself.

Speaker 210:39

I found my love.

Presenter10:43

By the gasworks crop.

Presenter10:48

Uh

Speaker 310:48

Dreamed a dream by the old canal

Speaker 310:56

Kiss my girl

Presenter11:00

By the factory wall

Presenter11:05

Dirty old time

Presenter11:08

The spinner singing Dirty Old Town, which is an anonymous old town.

Presenter11:15

Now forgive an appalling gap in my knowledge of history, so why is it that Canterbury and York became the primatial centres of the Church of England, leaving out London?

Speaker 311:25

Yeah.

Presenter11:25

I know it's always a shock to realize that perhaps London has not always enjoyed the primacy.

Presenter11:31

Uh the simple reason is is a simple historical one, and that is, of course, that Augustine came to Canterbury and uh established the work in the south of England from there. Rather earlier in the fourth century, of course, there was a strong uh church in the north, um centered on the Roman capital, Ewarachum, which is uh York and Constantine's um

Presenter11:52

Appointment as emperor was of course announced there.

Presenter11:55

Therefore York was the oblique place for administering Church affairs in the whole of the northern province.

Presenter12:01

It must be humbling feeling to look back on a continuity and tradition that's lasted, what, sixteen hundred years?

Presenter12:09

It is alarming not least because in Bishopthorpe itself, you know, we have a whole array of portraits and representations of bishops of archbishops as far back as you can think.

Presenter12:21

It is a a formidable thought. Bishop thought the the bishop's palace how old is that?

Presenter12:27

The earliest part of the Bishopthorpe is uh twelfth century.

Presenter12:30

A fine old house, um a little on the large side for modern requirements, I think.

Presenter12:36

And you have that wonderful York Minster to care for. Is it in fairly good shape now that it's it's always had scaffolding round it since I've seen it. Is that done now? Yes, the scaffolding is never down for very long, of course, because in a building that size there's always work to be done somewhere. But yes, I think that great appeal which was launched and the work which was done there, an astonishing technological achievement, has made it safe for posterity.

Most Rev Rt Hon Stuart Blanch12:45

Is that done now?

Presenter13:01

In looking through the cuttings, I was interested to see that your appointment is made by the Prime Minister.

Presenter13:07

One would seem that the Queen as head of the Church should make the appointment. How does Ten Downing Street come into it?

Presenter13:14

The appointment is really made by the Queen. Ten Downing Street comes into it, because every appointment of that kind has to go through the Prime Minister.

Presenter13:23

Usually two or three names are submitted to the Prime Minister.

Presenter13:28

all of them I think equally acceptable in the Church at large. He then makes his own choice but the appointment is officially made by the Queen.

Presenter13:39

It's usual for one primate to be a high churchman, and the other to be an evangelical man, and it so happens that neither you nor doctor Coggan, the Archbishop of Canterbury, are particularly high church in your views.

Presenter13:52

I think a few years ago this would have been a real problem people would have felt that um one side of the Church's life was being neglected.

Presenter13:59

But uh I think the relationship between the various elements in the Church has so much improved over the last ten years that I don't think even if, for example, two evangelical archbishops were followed by two High Church archbishops, I don't think that would really cause uh much difficulty in the Church at large.

Presenter14:17

Let's have record number five.

Presenter14:20

Record number five is the flute concerto mozart in G, and I choose it because I make my own amateurish efforts at playing the flute, and it's uh nice to hear it played properly.

Presenter15:30

The second movement of Mozart's flute concerto in G,

Presenter15:34

Claude Monteur with the Academy of Saint Martin in the field. What's your next record?

Presenter15:39

The next record is the um slow train, uh Michael Flanders and Donald Swann.

Presenter15:46

Which reminds me, of course, of my own home county, in Gloucestershire, where there were many such slow trains.

Presenter15:52

It reminds me of Yorkshire because of its references to the Yorkshire towns and villages in it.

Presenter15:58

And in a way, of course, because it reminds you of that marvellous journey through mid Wales from Shrewsbury to Lethley, through about thirty two stations of names like this I'll travel no more from Littleton Badsy

Most Rev Rt Hon Stuart Blanch16:11

To open shores. Uh

Presenter16:14

At long staton I'll stand well clear of the laws no more.

Most Rev Rt Hon Stuart Blanch16:19

Yeah.

Presenter16:22

No whitewashed pebbles, no up and no down, From former four crosses to Dunciable Town.

Presenter16:31

Why won't we go a day?

Presenter16:35

All the slow

Presenter16:37

Michael Flanders and Donald Swann.

Presenter16:40

Now as a as a farmer's son, and after six years in the REF,

Presenter16:45

We expect some pretty good background knowledge of the practical side of a castaway's life. Do you think you could survive?

Presenter16:52

In reasonable comfort?

Presenter16:55

Well, I hope so. I don't rate my practical abilities very high. I'm a very unfortunate handyman, put it at that. If it's possible to drive a nail straight into the electrical connection in a wall, you know, I'd do it.

Speaker 317:07

I do it.

Presenter17:08

But I wouldn't have that hazard, presumably, on a desert island. Not at all. Yes, I think I would.

Speaker 317:11

And not at all.

Most Rev Rt Hon Stuart Blanch17:12

Yeah.

Presenter17:13

Yes. And as a navigator it'd be a pity if you didn't attempt to escape somehow. Yes, it would. At least I know where the sun sets, anyway.

Presenter17:22

Let's have record number seven. Watch that.

Presenter17:24

Record number seven is one of the Brandenberg concertos.

Presenter17:28

I choose it because it is such a marvellous combination of the orderly and the imaginative, which seems to me to reflect a whole attitude towards life, which is so immensely reassuring you know, God in charge of the world and yet um expressing himself in an infinite variety of ways.

Presenter18:50

The allegro from Bach's second Brandenburg concerto, Yehudi Manuin, with the Bath Festival Chamber Orchestra. Which brings us to your last record. What's that?

Presenter18:59

The last record is the aria I know that my Redeemer liveth from the Messiah.

Presenter19:06

I think because um well, if I'm going to be on that island a long time by myself, there are going to be moments when I need to be sure that my Redeemer liveth, and I know no better way of expressing it than in Isabel Bailey's rendering this particular.

Presenter19:22

Um area.

Presenter20:19

Isabel Bailey singing I Know That My Redeemer Liveth and she was accompanied by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra.

Presenter20:26

If you could take just one disc out of your eight, which would it be?

Presenter20:31

I think I would have to say the Brandenburg. And you're allowed to have one luxury with you?

Presenter20:37

I've had to think quite a lot about that. I don't think it's because I don't like luxuries. Because I tried to think hard about what in the end would be most useful, and I've thought that it would be very nice to have a good flute, so that I shall have plenty of time to practise it

Presenter20:53

When I come back home, maybe I'll be a better flute player than I am now. And we'll give you a good supply of music with it.

Presenter21:00

And one book apart from the Bible and Shakespeare, which are already on the island, and big encyclopedias. Incidentally, would you like the Authorized or New English version to be left for you?

Presenter21:12

In the end I think I'd as a student of the Bible I'd have to say the New English Bible but of course I should miss the sort of rolling cadences and splendid English of the authorised version, certainly.

Presenter21:23

Uh the one book you're going to choose for yourself.

Presenter21:25

I've again had difficulty in choosing. I thought it had to be poetry, because poetry lasts better than prose and in the end I've opted for George MacDonald's Diary of an Old Soul, partly because he's been so influential on people like Lewis Tolkien and Charles Williams.

Presenter21:45

Partly because it's an unusual form. It's 365 sonnets loosely related to each other, providing one for every day, and full of very profound thought, I think, about the nature of the universe and the reality of God. And I felt I would need something like that over an extended period. George MacDonald's Diary of an Old Soul. And thank you, Your Grace, for letting us hear your Desert Island Disc.

Presenter22:12

Thank you very much. It's been a joy to listen to them again myself. Goodbye, everyone.

Speaker 222:25

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.