Robert Dougall

Robert Dougall0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty 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 seven, and the presenter was Roy Plumley.

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Our castaway this week is on familiar territory here in Broadcasting House. He walked these corridors, man and boy, for forty years. It's Robert Dougal. Bob Dougall, of course, is a is a Scots name. Were you born in Scotland?

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I was born in Brema.

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And then we moved to Dalhuini.

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And it wasn't my fault if the houses were.

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In Surrey, Croydon.

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Do you come from a musical family?

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Well, yes, singing used to go on. Yes. Both my sisters used to sing a bit. Were you brought up to study music?

Robert Dougall1:02

Wheel.

Presenter1:04

No, the the money had given out by that time. I was the youngest of the family. There wasn't much money about besides. I didn't have any music lessons. But I love music. You must have heard a vast amount of it during your years with the corporation. Yes, well there's nothing like the BBC for listening to music. It was a wonderful education in itself. Do you play records a lot yourself? Quite a bit, yes.

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What's the first one you've chosen for your desert island?

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Well, it takes me back. I'd like you see, I think on this Desert Island I should like tunes which recall phases of my life, because I think on a Desert Island it'd be very important to keep one's identity. And this first record I should like because it takes me back to a time when

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I suddenly discovered ballet. It was in uh nineteen thirty six when de Basil brought a marvellous company over to Covent Garden and for the first time I was aware of this wonderful marriage of music, colour, design and dance and I would like to choose as good as any of them I can think of the sparkling gait in wits of Rossini's music for La Boutique Fontasque.

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The can, from the concert suite La Boutique Fontasque,

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by Rossini, Sir Malcolm Sargent conducting the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

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You went to Whitgift School, Burb. You were very good at languages, weren't you? Yes.

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I think I would have liked to make use of languages, perhaps in the diplomatic service, or something of that kind. Mm-hmm. That would have meant university, of course. Yes. And that wasn't on, because in those days there were no such things as university grants.

Robert Dougall3:25

Yeah.

Speaker 43:25

Yeah.

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And so it was a question of getting a job. What was your first job? Accountancy. I went to one of the most fashionable accountants in London.

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who very kindly took me on at a small wage, I think twenty five bob a week I used to get and we used to do the audit at uh the Savoy, Claridge's, Berkeley.

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All very swish. And that job did bring you into the BBC in a curious kind of way. Well, one of our audits was the BBC. And then one day they offered me a a job in the BBC purchase and accounts department. That's right, you looked after the stationery. Amongst other things, yes. How did you get out of that particular little niche? Well, I didn't feel I wanted to go on doing this the rest of my life, and that's really where my French and German came in, because one day to my astonishment

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The establishment officer

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who was an ex Coldstream Guardsman, a splendid chap, and he asked me, to my amazement, whether I would like an audition as an announcer. Because the Empire service had been going about eighteen months. This was a new short wave service, you see, covering the b th what was then the British Empire.

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and there were exiles, British exiles, all over the world.

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And uh it was thought that there should be a short wave broadcasting service to keep them in touch with home.

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But of course it wasn't a very popular job from the point of view of analysis, because you had to be up all night.

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chatting away, you know, saying good morning brightly at about um

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you know, eleven o'clock at night, and the whole thing was upside down. Nobody really wanted to know about it, and they're only paying five quid a week. But of course it was riches to me.

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So I I jumped right in on this. How old were you then?

Robert Dougall4:56

Yeah.

Robert Dougall4:57

How well were

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Twenty-one. I got the job signed up on my twenty-first birthday. Do you remember your very first broadcast? Yes, I do. I was in that little studio 7A.

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And I was terrified the sweat was just pouring off me. Because microphones were much more frightening then than they are now, although they are still pretty frightening now. But in those days they looked like bombs, and strong men used to quail, and there were notices up saying cough, and you will deafen thousands, and that sort of thing.

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And I used to sit up there in that little studio and the sweat was literally pouring off me. And uh the tune of those days was smoke gets in your eyes.

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But one of those things that um Nil Card used to speak about, you know.

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What is the potency of cheap music and all that sort of thing? This tune takes me right back to those days of being alone with an empire in Studio 70.

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Oh, I smile and say Well now, lovely flame dies small.

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Can't feel your

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Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, sung, or part of it sung, by Irene Dunn. Although those few years before the war saw a lot of national events for which the public relied greatly on radio. The death of King George V, the abdication, the coronation of King George VI. There must have been many broadcasting excitements. Yes, well all these big events you mentioned, of course, put the shortwave broadcasting service really on the map.

Robert Dougall6:28

The sixth

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The Empire Service arrived in a big way, and I think the first one was the 1935 Silver Jubilee of King George V and Queen Mary. That was a tremendous event. I'd been down to a rather posh party at the Barclay, which was then in Piccadilly, and I had to get back to Broadcasting House. And I walked up Bond Street and along Oxford Street about eleven o'clock at night, and there were people even then sitting down on the curbs on newspapers. It was lovely weather, and they were going to sit there all night and wait for the next day's procession. And when I got on into Broadcasting House, I said, How are we starting the bulletin tonight?

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Um we hadn't any reporters in those days, you see. No reporters, no staff reporters, and they were just starting in the ordinary way, with just just a a description from the agency tape.

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And so I said, Well, look, we really must have an eyewitness account.

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So they said, Well, you'd better sit down and write one. And I sat down, they gave me twenty minutes, and I wrote a report of how.

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The London streets were looking at that moment, and that was the first report I ever did over B B C Air.

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What happened when the war started? Did the Empire service continue?

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Oh yes, very much so.

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And of course, as the war got more intense after the fall of France.

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The Overseas.

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Broadcasts played an immense part in in the war effort because people would tune in from all over the world to find out whether Britain was still a going concern. The Overseas Service was moved up to the Midlands to what was named after Gilly Potter's pad, Hoggs Norton. Yes, right. We all went to Evesham. This was after Broadcasting House was bombed, and we carried on there for a time. And then you became a a war correspondent, or as it was known at first, at first a news observer. That's right. I didn't want to spend the rest of the war in Evesham reading the news. So I came back.

Robert Dougall8:12

Then you

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to London and as you say as a news observer

Robert Dougall8:26

Uh

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Uh

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covering the home front.

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The Blitz, of course, was the big story.

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And then I went out to Plymouth,

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And Plymouth had been left alone, but on march twenty first, nineteen forty one, as we approached it, we could see the whole place on fire. We were really going down there to cover the visit of Mr Menzies, who was then Australian Prime Minister, and he was going to visit the Australian Coastal Command Squadron at Mountbatten, just outside Plymouth. And so we got two stories for the price of one mister Menzies' visit and Plymouth burning down. And this fire in Plymouth was really quite extraordinary, because the first night Luftwaffe came over with high explosives and put all the fire fighting equipment out of action.

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And they came over the second night with Incendiaries, that's the night we were there, and the whole place was burning down. I remember standing opposite a department store and watching the wax models on the ground floor writhing and twisting as if they were doing some macabre dance as the flames melted them. And then the whole side of the building sort of swayed forward. You could see it was going to fall.

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And we got the the microphones fortunately got the whole sound of this thing coming down a great crash and then a sort of like an oven door being opened with the heat, and the flames roaring up. And this reminds me of that marvellous piece of music by Gustav Holst.

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The Fire movement from The Perfect Fool.

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An excerpt from Gustav Holt's ballet music, The Perfect Fool, Sir Adrian Bolt conducting the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

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Even as a news observer, Bob, there there wasn't enough action for you, you

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decided to join the Royal Navy.

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Yes, I joined observing and um and got involved in the um Russian convoy route and finished up there. I took a crash course in in the language and finished up there.

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at the Mermanskern of the convoy route, and got stuck up there, in fact, for eighteen months, which was a pretty odd experience. Not under the pleasantest sort of conditions. Well, no. Even the Russians used to call that part of the world Kreisiemlie, which means the the edge of the world.

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And uh it there was Gulag Archipelago, you know, Soljer Nitsyn's book, It was all happening all around you.

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You did some cleaning up in Germany first before you came back to the BC. Totally ruined capital. That was an extraordinary experience. What did they do with you when you got back to the BBC?

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Well, they thought it'd be a good idea if I was staff commentator outside broadcasts television. Which was just starting up again. Was just starting up again. The equipment had all been s in cold storage for about five years. Hadn't improved. Well, inevitably it had rotted away a bit. And so every time one was out on an outside broadcast, it was a sheer coincidence if you were in

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Have

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vision and uh in sound at the at one and the same time.

Robert Dougall12:20

Yeah.

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It was a completely hair-raising business, and uh after about six months I'd had enough of it, frankly.

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I suppose if I'd, you know, really stuck to it it would have been all right, but I got impatient. Patience isn't my strong suit, I'm afraid and I went over to the Russian service.

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And that didn't work out either, so I then got seconded to the Foreign Office.

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and went out to the British Far Eastern Broadcasting Service in Singapore. You had by this time met Nan, your wife. Yes. One of my jobs in the Overseas Service at Bush House was auditioning new aspirants to be studio managers.

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And one girl came in, who was very blonde, and I could see that she was new to the job because the script was shaking in her hands as she was doing the audition. And then she mispronounced a word I had mispronounced at one of my auditions some years before, M-I-S-L-E-D, which in a certain context it's very easy to pronounce as mizzled. So I let out a belly laugh, you see, and she thought, good Lord, the man's human.

Speaker 413:10

So I

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And we got married two months later and went out of Singapore. Well, we're coming up to record four. What's that going to be?

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Well, I think a record perhaps which reminds me of the visit um well, I mean, of the visit to Singapore, and also the way we came back from Singapore, because we'd had six months out there, and I'd expected to be there for three years, but we ran into, believe it or not, an economic depression.

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December nineteen forty seven, a monumental economic depression. So we had to come run, and coming back we thought we'd get a French liner to come home on.

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And so what could be nice, even a good food and all that, we thought. But we found that she was full of depressed French settlers coming back from Saigon. She was filthy, the food was terrible, the coffee was like mud, and Charles Truny was constantly singing La Mer all over the place.

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And that tune would um

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bring back, you know, all the horrors of that trip, I think.

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La Mais?

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On vadency.

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Leno, he called it Lay.

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A devotee, d'Avajon, la mais.

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The world really shown.

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God please

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La May.

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What yellow dude?

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Charles Renault, a voice to remind you of a long voyage home to England home and beauty.

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What next?

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Well, I should like a record just something I could play on special occasions, you see, for birthdays my wife's birthday, for instance my own birthday.

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And so I think um the best piece of birthday music I could take with me

Robert Dougall14:59

Yeah.

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would be the Ode Henry Purcell composed in about sixteen ninety four when he was court composer.

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But Queen Mary

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who was the wife of William the Third.

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And this is a real piece of music for the special occasion.

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It's all the ball back!

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Henry Purcell's Come Ye Sons of Art. The two counter tenors were Alfred Deller and John Whitworth, and the conductor was Anthony Lewis. Bright, you're back with the BBC. What we were doing.

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Yes, well I'd had a few false starts in the B B C, so it wasn't the easiest thing for them to find me a niche. But they did find me a job in the Light programme and I had a lot of fun there, one way or another.

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I stuck to news mainly, because my interest really was in world affairs, but I also used to family favourites, which I quite enjoyed.

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Oh, Franklin Engelman, Jingle, you know, and Gene Metcalfe and Philip Schleser. We had a sort of panel of chaps to do it.

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And uh we used to sit there, we used to do everything ourselves, choose the records and play them ourselves, and I remember sorting through these postcards, and I was always very excited when I could find a postcard asking for a request of Fats Waller, who's one of my great favourites, and I think the one I liked best of all was Your Feet's Too Big.

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Sounds like baby papa.

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Baby elephant fan, that's what I call it.

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Say

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I've been hollering at her table for two

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There were four of us. Me, your big feet, and you.

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From your angle up, I'll say you sure are sweet.

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From that down there's just too much feed.

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Fat Swallow

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Now from Newsreader on the Light programme, you moved to the same job in television. How long ago was that?

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Television news started in 1954, July 1954. This was a whole new technique for you. Getting voice to film and so on. Yes, there were so many new techniques one had to learn. We all had to learn, not just the chaps in front of the camera like myself, but there were all the writers and the film people. Everybody was learning new techniques. It was something that hadn't been done before. There was no blueprint to go by. So we were literally learning the job on the air.

Speaker 317:46

Yeah.

Robert Dougall17:50

Both

Robert Dougall17:57

Every

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And this was a pretty exhausting business, I can tell you. Nevertheless, you took about twenty years of of television newsreading, didn't you? Yes, I was a glutton for punishment.

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Then after forty years altogether in the B B C they slung you out. Well, they didn't sling me out. I I got to the retiring age, you see. I just reached the great old age of sixty. Of course. When the B B C gives you your cards. Did you get a watch with your cards? Yes, I did. I had a golden moment.

Robert Dougall18:19

Well they

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But as um Sir Charles Carran gave me this watch, you see, he said, I'm terribly sorry, Bob.

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But I'm afraid the engravers have spelt your name with only one L.

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And roared with laughter. We both roared with laughter. Because that magic roundabout dog is my deadly rival. You see, he's only got one L. Yes. And so I only get one L. Very well. It can't be helped. And since you've retired, since you've started being really busy, you've been writing books. You wrote your autobiography. Yes, I wrote In and Out of the Box, which did a bomb and was very nice. It gave me a world trip and all sorts of other things. Nice things happened through it.

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And an anthology recently? Yes, just every month ago I published an anthology of inspirational verse and prose, which I called Now for the Good News, because I think people are a little depressed by events in this country now, and this book I hope will help to cheer them up. There's one major interest of yours we haven't touched on at all, birds. Yes, well this has become quite an important part of my life, and has done really ever since

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the war when I f took a cottage up in the

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on the Suffolk Coast and became aware of bird life really for the first time.

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I I served a five-year term as President, which finished just about a year ago, and I find it a great honour and I love doing it. Of the Royal Society for the Protection of Bets. Mm-hmm. And we've now got up to about a quarter of a million members. It's the largest.

Robert Dougall19:50

And we

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Conservation Society in Western Europe. That's a very impressive number. It is indeed. And the most exciting thing, I think, is the size of the Young Ornithologists Club, the Youngsters. So on this island, I should very much like to have a record of birdsong, which would remind me more than anything else, I think, of of England.

Robert Dougall19:58

It's

Speaker 420:04

Hmm.

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And uh the bird I would like to hear most of all is a nightingale, because there's just no other songster like it.

Speaker 420:44

Yeah.

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THE NIGHTINGALE RECORDED BY VICTOR C. LOWIS

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Now, you're on this desert island. How could you look after yourself? Could you build a shelter? I should have to pray, I think, frankly, Roy. I'm absolutely hopeless at anything practical.

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Would you try to escape? I might be able to put a sword as brother.

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Rather leaky raft together, I suppose, if I got desperate. Yes. Right, last record. What's that?

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Well, I think on this desert island I should like a record

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of a voice, and I would like a voice which would really remind me of England. And there's one voice which particularly comes to mind. It was a former colleague of mine, Howard Marshall, a splendid chap, and of course he was, amongst many other things, a first class cricket commentator.

Speaker 321:45

Oh.

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Ah, there we are. There's a record round the corner.

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And it's going to four down here. I don't think the Cassette can possibly cut it off. Oh, well, that's gone for four. That's not.

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And that is the record. That's the highest score ever made by an individual in any kind of test match. He's beaten Bradman's record in England and Australia test matches. He's beaten Hammond's record in all kinds of test matches. And there we are. Hutton is on top of the world and the heartiest possible congratulations to him.

Speaker 422:12

Oh yeah.

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The Voice of Howard Marshall. If you could take just one disc of your eight, which would it be?

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the sound of a nightingale singing in an English wood.

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And one luxury to take with you? A pair of binoculars. Well, you know, field glasses. Yes.

Robert Dougall22:32

Well you know

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And one book apart from the Bible, Shakespeare, and a big encyclopedia? Well, I think the great thing would be to take an interest in one's surroundings if one was going to keep saying. And therefore, I should like a cracking good book on tropical flora and fauna, so I could find out what all these birds were about. And thank you, Robert Dougal, for letting us hear your desert island discs. Thank you very much indeed, Roy, for inviting me to your island. Thank you. Goodbye, everyone.

Robert Dougall23:08

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