John Curry

Speaker 10:00

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.

Presenter0:32

Our castaway this week is the best skater in the world, and he's from Birmingham, and his name is John Currie.

Presenter0:39

John, you had to choose the music which helped you to reach the top of your profession in Innsbruck. Are you inclined to listen to music with an ear for its suitability for skating too?

John Curry0:50

Yes, I always do l I'm always listening for good music. And the other thing is that I can't hear music without seeing in my mind's eye.

John Curry0:59

uh people either dancing or skating to it. And I find that relaxing. It doesn't it's not like it doesn't bother me, it's just the way it is.

Presenter1:08

What was your plan in choosing just eight records to last for a long, long time?

John Curry1:13

I find that if I'm depressed or something's worrying me and or I'm you know I feel sad or something, if I listen to a piece of music uh it it kind of sustains me and sort of helps me along and that I chose music that has consistently done that, not you know just for short periods but consistently. What's the first disc you have there? The first one is Afternoon of a Fawn.

John Curry1:35

And it's a piece of music that I've known a long, long time and always wanted to skate to. It has all sorts of associations for me. It's um firstly there there's a very very um sort of romantic if you like stories of Nijinski and the ballet. There's Jerome Robbins' version of the ballet which I absolutely love and also one of my favourite skaters ever, who was Janet Lynn, skated to parts of it. And apart from that I find it it's constantly

John Curry2:07

interesting and and refreshing and it's a very tranquil piece of music.

Presenter3:14

Debussy's Prelude to The Afternoon of a Fawn, the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra directed by Carrian.

Presenter3:20

Now, you're from Birmingham, not a city of snow and ice. Where did you first see skating?

John Curry3:25

When I first saw skating on the television, it was a Christmas pantomime from the Wembley ice show, and I was instantly captivated. I loved it. We did have an ice rink in Birmingham, and I persuaded my mother to take me there. That was when I was about seven. And you took to it immediately? Yes, you see it it was about six months from the time I actually saw skating on the television to actually going myself, because my father was an invalid and my mother was busy looking after him. But when I got there, it was something that I'd been looking forward to so much and I loved it and I was lucky enough to have skates that fitted me and a teacher holding my hand the moment I put my skate on the ice and it came very naturally to me, I must say, I didn't ever have to hold onto the barrier and all that sort of thing.

Speaker 14:03

I was

Presenter4:16

What was your first success? What was the first attempt you won? And how old were you?

John Curry4:21

Well, the first event I w won was called the Hop, Skip and a Jump Competition. And I won that when I was, I guess, just coming up for eight. And one morning I was taken to the ice rink and given a new sweater and a new pair of trousers. And my teacher said to me, Now there's going to be a few people.

John Curry4:39

around, but you mustn't take any notice of them, you must do exactly what I tell you, and you must go out and do a spiral, which is like an arabesque on one.

John Curry4:47

A waltz jump, which is the first jump you learn, and a a little spin. And then when you've finished, just come right off. Don't hang around, just come back. And don't take any notice of the people who are watching. So I did that. And the people who were watching turned out to be the judges and the other kids, mums and dads. And I won my first competition, which was a big surprise, because I didn't know I was even competing.

Presenter5:09

When did your fascination

John Curry5:11

Notion for ballet develop? Well, I think I've always been fascinated by dance and theatre.

John Curry5:17

And music. Uh I guess the first time I actually saw a ballet I must have been around fourteen or fifteen and I saw the touring company of the Royal Ballet um and I just loved it. It seemed to be so wonderful.

Presenter5:31

Have you had dancing lessons?

John Curry5:33

Yes, I actually didn't have a dance lesson until I was eighteen in London. And then I studied with a lady called Joyce Graham, who is in fact now the ballet mistress of the company that I I have now. It was just the sort of lessons I needed because she sort of instilled, you know, movement and and feeling and and she's so inspirational herself. You just watch her move. Let's have your second record. What's that?

John Curry5:58

Uh well, this is the Four Last Songs by Strauss, sung by Lisa Della Casa. Which song? Well, the second one, September. It uh has some some moments in it which just make my hair stand on end.

Speaker 46:51

There's all much tears on.

Presenter7:10

The second of Richard Strauss's Four Last Songs, September, sung by Lisa Della Casso. So you were determined to be a skater. What happened when you left school?

John Curry7:20

Well, I came to London to train with a teacher in London. How old were you? I was uh about seventeen then.

Presenter7:23

Yeah.

John Curry7:26

I got a job in a supermarket to support myself because I didn't have any money.

John Curry7:32

And I used to skate every morning from six until twelve. Six hours every morning.

Presenter7:37

Yes. After six hours, could you really work in a supermarket? What were you doing? Stocking shares.

John Curry7:42

Well, firstly I stocked shelves and then uh I was promoted to the uh cut meat counter. And then later on I got a job at National Cash Register Company, which was uh in London.

John Curry7:57

and I had to travel up on the train. Uh the great thing about the job was that I was sitting down and so my legs were not um you know, wobbly and I but the thing was I was really was the sleepiest receptionist. I was nodding off half the time.

Presenter8:12

There are two other problems, surely. For serious skating you need clear

John Curry8:15

Oh yes, you see that's the biggest problem in this country, because all the ice rinks are public session ice rinks. They're there for the public to go along and do their, you know, sort of milling round. And the actual training comes very much in second place for free skating and free dancing in in ice skating. It's uh it's almost impossible.

Presenter8:37

The other problem, of course, is getting time off for competitions. More or less every weekend, I suppose you're going off somewhere abroad.

John Curry8:42

Well, I used to uh go either either compete or exhibit virtually every weekend to another country and do a performance on Saturday night and come back. But um I was very lucky'cause the p at NCR they did allow me to uh take the time off.

John Curry9:01

Well, let's have your third record. What's that? My third record is by The Beach Boys and it's Cuddle Up. Although I don't feel I've given up or sacrificed for skating, the kind of picture that this creates for me is very much the sort of idyllic summer youth that I I always imagined I would love to have had.

Speaker 49:22

Has come

Speaker 49:27

But a love

Speaker 49:30

Me

Speaker 49:33

Keep warm.

Speaker 49:38

Mm, close to me.

Presenter9:47

The Beach Boys Cuddle Up.

Presenter9:49

These jobs you were doing.

Presenter9:51

in the supermarket and and as receptionists, they weren't particularly skill jobs. Were you earning enough to live on?

John Curry9:56

I was earning just enough.

Presenter9:57

So you were a skater, international championship class number four in the world or something, still working virtually as an office boy for for an office boy's money.

John Curry10:05

Oh yes, yeah.

Presenter10:06

Yeah.

Presenter10:07

What was the breakthrough?

John Curry10:09

Well, the big thing was that after the World Championships in Bratislava

John Curry10:14

A man walked up to me and said

John Curry10:17

I have enjoyed your skating for the last three years. You've given me a great deal of pleasure, and I'd like to help you. And I just thought this

John Curry10:24

Who uh just wants to tell me how to jump higher or spin faster or something and uh

John Curry10:29

I really just said thank you very much and walked away. I mean, I wasn't rude, but I just thanked him and sort of said, Well, I must go And he said, No, no, you don't understand. I'd like to help you And anyway later I met him properly, officially and and he said, I understand you you're facing very, very great financial problem.

John Curry10:47

And um I think you're very talented, and I would be very sorry if your talent was not developed for a lack of money. And I have some some money that I can use in this area, and I'd like you to use it.

John Curry11:00

Um and it really meant

John Curry11:03

That from that moment onwards I never ever had to think about money again. He was an American, isn't he? Hm, yes, he is. Where did you go to train?

Presenter11:08

Hmm.

John Curry11:11

I was in Denver, Colorado and I'd been there for two and a half years by the time I went to the Olympics. It I trained with Carlo Fassett, who is a marvellous coach.

John Curry11:20

And I trained in perfect, perfect conditions. I never had to worry about anything, actually.

Presenter11:25

So because of of the system, you, our our British champion, had to be trained by American money with an Italian coach in America, just because the facilities aren't here. Will they be here? Are things getting better?

John Curry11:38

I hope so. And I am at the moment uh

John Curry11:42

I know that that various people and various organizations are really, you know, trying to do something about it. Uh but then

John Curry11:50

I must be honest and say that they were also trying to do something about it when I was seven.

Presenter11:56

Let's have record number four.

John Curry11:56

That's a

John Curry11:59

Well, this one is Tchaikovsky's Sixth Symphony. Uh we can't hear the whole thing, but the part I've chosen is a great get-you-going piece of music.

Presenter13:01

The closing section of the third movement of Tchaikovsky's sixth symphony, the Moscow Radio Symphony Orchestra.

Presenter13:08

Let's skip now, John, to the most important event in your skating career, the Winter Olympics at Innsbruck in February last year.

Presenter13:15

You'd done well at the figure skating and the compulsory programme, then you had two days to wait for the critical free skating.

John Curry13:25

That that took an awful long time, those two days, yeah.

Presenter13:27

Your training had been so thorough that you'd you'd had

Presenter13:31

Therapy for control of nerves at competitions, is that right?

John Curry13:34

Yes, I took a course which is known as the Earhart Seminar Training.

John Curry13:40

And I took it because I I had decided a year or so before the Olympics that there was absolutely no point in working hard for a year and going to Olympics and being nervous about being there and not performing my best and and not doing a good performance.

John Curry13:54

So I I was looking around for something which would help me control my nerves and also other aspects of my life, you know, I found rather difficult. And uh

John Curry14:03

I took EST basically on the recommendation of friends who had taken it.

John Curry14:09

And I did find for myself a way of um actually dispelling physical symptoms of nervousness.

Presenter14:16

How many contestants were there in that final free skating contest?

John Curry14:20

I think there were eighteen at the Olympics,'cause some were sick. There was that flu thing that was going round and

Presenter14:24

Uh

Presenter14:25

Where were you drawn?

John Curry14:26

Yeah.

John Curry14:26

It's ideal to skate last. You see, everyone loves to skate last. I skated first in the second half, which is probably the worst place you can skate. But I my we just looked at it as being a way to build the pressure on the others.

Presenter14:30

Uh

John Curry14:39

So it didn't worry us, no.

Presenter14:41

Before the judge's verdict, before you saw the figures, did you know you'd got it?

John Curry14:45

Mm. Yes, I I actually thought I had because it was one of the rare occasions when physically, musically and mentally my body and ev my skating came together. It doesn't happen very often, I must say.

Presenter14:56

That must have been a tremendous moment when you knew you had got the gold.

John Curry14:59

Yes, it was. It was it was funny though, because um I'd worked for it so long and conditioned myself so carefully that I kind of just went away and took my boots off and didn't really think about it. It was funny and it didn't really hit me until uh oh a few weeks later until after Worlds and after everything else and we were on tour and when they announced every skater in the exhibition they say they said now John Curry, champion of Britain, Europe, the world and the Olympics and I thought well that sounds okay. Done it.

Presenter15:31

Well done. Record number five.

John Curry15:33

Uh well this is um

John Curry15:35

Albinone trumpet concerto in B flat. And it's the piece of music that uh

John Curry15:42

Twyla Tharpe choreographed for me in New York uh and is was one that period when I was working with Twiler was I think probably one of the happiest periods of my life.

Presenter16:49

The opening of Albinone's Trumpet Concerto in B flat, played by Maurice Andre and the Vienna Soloist.

Presenter16:57

Now after the Olympics you went on to Gothenburg to pick up the World Championship for Britain. You were the first British World Champion for forty years, incidentally. Then you turned professional.

Presenter17:08

Now, for some years you had you'd talked and and dreamed about a new kind of skating show, and a new art form, if you like, a theatre on ice.

John Curry17:16

Right, yes. What I've always wanted to do was to to explore the possibilities of skating and that's what I've tried to do in this show and it's something that I knew also. I knew that the only way I'd ever get to be able to do it was by winning the Olympics because in that case I would people would listen to you if you won the Olympics but they wouldn't listen to you if you come second.

Presenter17:36

You started by going to the best choreographers in the country.

John Curry17:39

Yes, the most encouraging thing about my project so far

John Curry17:43

is that everyone I have spoken to has said yes I would love to do something.

John Curry17:48

Whether it was, you know, Twyla Tharp or Kenneth MacMillan, Peter Darrell, Norman Mayne.

John Curry17:54

And soon, Sir Frederick Ashton, they've all said, Yes, you know, it it's a great idea, you'd love to do it.

Presenter17:59

It's a small scale show, just six other skaters. They're people you already know that you've known for years.

John Curry18:02

The

John Curry18:04

That's right. There are people I've known for a long time and whose work I've admired for one aspect or another. And they're all people who feel the same way I do about ice shows and about skating, you know, that they feel that there is more potential and they they're very anxious to explore it.

Presenter18:19

You've opened in London very successfully. Now you're off eventually on a world tour. How do you visualize it, Greg?

John Curry18:26

Growing. Are you going to keep it as small as that? I don't want I would not like the company ever to be too big. I don't think I could handle it. I just don't think I could. Um.

John Curry18:36

I would like to have a bigger orchestra. I'd like to skate on bigger stages. I would like to uh increase it a little. Um but I like I like the kind of intimacy and the size of it, the way it is. We've got to record number six. My favorite musical is Gypsy and uh

John Curry18:53

I love Angela Lansbury. I I went to see her in it quite often because I uh I couldn't believe that every day she'd be as energetic and as marvellous as she was the other time. I used to think that she must have been up that night. But every day she was like a like a a fizzing, you know, bomb. She was wonderful.

Speaker 419:10

Anybody who stays home is dead.

Speaker 419:14

If I die, it won't be from sitting. It'll be from fighting to get up and get out. Some people can get a thrill knitting sweaters than sitting still. That's okay for some people who don't know they're alive.

Presenter19:36

Angela Lansbury singing Some People, a message for us all. Now, John, it's a shame to take you away from all this excitement when you've just opened your your show and put you on a desert island. How well could you look after

John Curry19:48

Because

John Curry19:49

Well, uh the first thing I think I'd do is I'd build a shelter and I'd uh

John Curry19:53

I I'd try and make myself some tools to be able to do it with. I think I'd survive quite well actually. Would you try to get a word? Yes, that would be the second thing I'd in fact it might even be the first thing I'd do, because I love having people around me. I'm uh not good in the country

Presenter20:10

Record number seven.

John Curry20:12

Uh this is uh Song of the Earth by Marla.

John Curry20:16

It's a piece of music I find very, very moving, very, very beautiful, and also reminds me of uh seeing the Royal Ballet perform Kenneth Macmillan's ballet, which I absolutely adore.

Speaker 421:16

Go on.

Presenter21:28

Mahler's The Song of the Earth.

Presenter21:31

The opening section and the voice of James King. Now what's your last record?

John Curry21:35

Vivaldi concerto for two violins, opus three number eight. It's I think a very beautiful piece of music that I would love to choreograph and I think that if I was on a desert island I might actually try and choreograph it. It's very complex so I think I'd need a lot of time to work on it and I th I'd obviously have that.

Presenter22:56

Vivaldi's concerto for two violins in A minor, P two.

Presenter23:01

and the soloists David and Igor Oystrak. If you could take just one disc of your aid.

John Curry23:06

I I would take the Vivaldi one, I think, I think it's absolutely beautiful.

Presenter23:09

The one we just

Presenter23:12

Yeah.

John Curry23:12

And one luxury to take with you? I'd take uh pencils and papers and paints and lots of paper'cause I I used to paint a lot and I'd love to do that and I haven't had the chance for so long. And I'd also write because

John Curry23:25

Uh I I might uh th if I were on a desert island think about actually writing about myself.

Presenter23:30

Right.

Presenter23:32

And one book apart from the Bible, Shakespeare, and big encyclopedias.

John Curry23:37

Well, the one book would be a transcript of uh the Earhart seminar training course that I took. I would become terribly, terribly depressed if I thought I'd never get away, but I think that I could actually live if I had that with me.

Presenter23:51

Ordinarily the training isn't written down then.

John Curry23:53

No, it isn't. You're not even allowed to take notes, actually.

Presenter23:56

Somehow we'll get a transcript. And thank you, John Currie, for letting us hear your Desert Island Disc.

John Curry23:56

I don't remember.

John Curry24:04

Thank you very much.

Speaker 124:13

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