Lord Home of The Hirsel

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 a politician, in fact an ex-Prime Minister, Sir Alec Douglas Hume, now Lord Hume of the Hearsal.

Presenter0:41

How important is music in your life, Lord Hume?

Presenter0:46

Well, I don't think that I was ever educated in music. Um I have always enjoyed uh listening to music, but the music I enjoy has to have a tune, and I suppose that that is lowbrow. But um yes, I enjoy music. Now, this desert island situation, could you endure isolation?

Presenter1:05

Well, I think so. I think a countryman is always happy when he's alone with nature. Uh and certainly a fisherman. You don't want other people around when you're wha uh when you're fishing. Let's have your first record. What's that to be?

Presenter1:18

Well, I think Harry Lauder singing, Roaming in the Gloaming. My father was a great friend of Harry Lauder. He used to take me as a very small boy to hear him, and it was always enormously exciting. And of course our family roots very largely in the Clyde Valley. Marvellously beautiful river, you know, before Lanarkshire was industrialised, full of plum orchards. Marvellous place for a romance.

Lord Home of The Hirsel1:45

I've seen lots of bunny lasses on my travels wide.

Speaker 11:49

Uh

Lord Home of The Hirsel1:50

But my heart is center new on Bonnie Cape McBride. Although I am no a fella that would throw a word away, I'm surprised sometimes myself at all I've got to say Roman in the glowman on the bonny banks of Clyde. Roman in the glowman with my lassie by my side.

Speaker 12:14

Hey boy, Mashai.

Presenter2:15

Harry Lauder.

Presenter2:17

Now the two families, the Douglasses and the Humes, were very different in outlook, were they not?

Presenter2:23

Well, the Douglasses were the Warriors.

Presenter2:27

And the Black Douglas started it all, really, way back in about thirteen hundred.

Presenter2:33

And the Humes were the peacemakers they were the wardens of the marches.

Presenter2:38

Luckily the Douglases kept rather far west, and so the Humans and the Douglases didn't at that time clash.

Presenter2:45

The Humes were always poor, those poor border sheep farmers. But the Hume of the day had the sense to marry the Douglas heiress. And so that's how the the two families um came together. Yes, they were different, uh I think, very much so. The two ancestral castles have are both gone. Douglas Castle was demolished, I believe. Well, we had to demolish that because there was so much coal underneath it, uh and r there was a lot of unemployment in the area.

Presenter3:10

And during the war it was impossible to retain the castle. It couldn't have lived in it, as a matter of fact, most enormous place. My ancestor built it, so that nobody should have a bigger house than him in Scotland. Luckily he died when he was only a quarter of the way through, but even so, it was far too large to live in these sort of days. And human.

Speaker 13:27

The house will stay.

Presenter3:29

Ah, Hulmecastle. Hulme Castle hasn't been lived in since uh fourteen hundred. Still there. It's rather a fine monument. Still there. But we now live at the Hersel, which is about uh three miles away from Hulme Castle. What does Herzl mean? It means a number of sheep, which in the old days used to be a hundred. Now it would be more. Uh the number of sheep which a c shepherd can conveniently look after.

Lord Home of The Hirsel3:53

Uh

Presenter3:53

You're one of a large family. Now, you went to Eton and Oxford. What did you read?

Presenter4:00

History

Presenter4:01

Well, Dieton, I began with the classics. Yes. And thank goodness I did, because I think it's given one a feel for the English language, which no other education can do. But then I switched on to history, well, in my later years at Eaton, and then history at the university. You played a lot of cricket. You you played for the university, but you didn't get a blue. No, I didn't. I was chucked out the match before the vastly match. I was hit by an enormous number of sixes by somebody called Percy Perrin. Very hard hitter. I used to play for Essex. Yes. But I enjoyed that time thoroughly at Oxford. And you played occasionally for Middlesex.

Lord Home of The Hirsel4:26

Oh shit.

Lord Home of The Hirsel4:29

Uh

Speaker 14:33

And you p

Presenter4:34

Well, I played once for Middlesex uh and then once for Oxford against Middlesex and this but uh then the the pull of the borders in Scotland was too much and I think I could have gone on in in uh first class cricket, but uh I didn't. Let's have your second record. What's that? Well I think I think we'll follow up with uh a cricket one. That's the um Calypso, a great uh calypso written about Alec Betzer.

Speaker 24:58

This 1953

Speaker 25:01

Has made cricket history

Speaker 25:04

Australia was leading.

Speaker 25:07

While England was struggling.

Speaker 25:09

Then came a sudden disaster by our medium-paced bowler Alec Betzer, who taught you to bowl Australia.

Presenter5:28

The Alec Berdzer Calypso sung by Lord Kitchener.

Presenter5:32

Now, as eldest son, you could have settled to run the family estates and remained a countryman. When did you become involved in politics? Well, when and uh our home at Douglas was surrounded by long term unemployment. It was almost unendurable. I mean the miners, steel workers, all out of work, many of the men, for ten consecutive years.

Presenter5:58

Now I thought that something must be done about this, and I thought that the Conservative programme at the time uh mister Baldwin was Prime Minister

Speaker 16:02

Mm-hmm.

Presenter6:05

I thought that that had a better chance of curing unemployment than the Socialist Programme did. And so, with great luck, a seat fell into my lap in 1931, right on our doorstep, which was called the South Lannark. You had fought one election. Yeah, I fought in 1929, was beaten by an enormous majority, yes.

Speaker 16:22

Yeah, I thought it might be a

Presenter6:26

In the Adrian Coat Bridge. Well, they were in nineteen thirty one in in Westminster. But you weren't content to be a a backbencher. You you looked round straightaway for a job to do.

Presenter6:36

Well, you see, we had a majority of over three hundred in the Conservative Party, and there were plenty of people making speeches.

Presenter6:42

So I thought I'd like to have a look inside the um machine, learn something about that. So I was um, first of all, parliamentary private secretary to a fellow called Nels Kelton, who was a Scotsman, very able man who died young. And then I went to Neville Chamberlain. During the key years from thirty-seven to thirty-nine, you went with him to Munich? I went with him to Munich, yes. I saw um Hitler briefly at that time. What were your observations of him and uh what were your impressions? I thought he was the most boarish man, of course he was in a fiendish temper, a very bad temper. He'd wanted to get hold of the Sudetenland right away, and he'd been thwarted by uh by the Munich uh agreement, so he was sour and sullen.

Presenter7:21

I think that h the historians will say that Chamberlain misjudged Hitler in the sense that he thought he was dealing with a reasonable, although highly unpleasant man. You spent the next three or four years in bed, immobilized by owners. Yes. You were, of course, married by now. There was someone to look after you. You were married to the daughter of your headmaster at Ethel. That's right.

Speaker 17:40

Married to the daughter.

Presenter7:44

We hardly knew each other at school. I do remember my wife when I was at school, but then of course she was pretty young and we used to get breakfast with the headmaster. Very uncivilized habit, as a matter of fact. But we used to. And I remember the family very well, of course. Where did you meet her again?

Presenter8:01

She became a great friend of my sister, Rachel Scott. So she used to come to stay with us, and Rachel used to go and stay with them. And and so that's how we remet, so to speak.

Presenter8:11

Let's have your third record, please.

Presenter8:13

Well, my third uh record I think would be the um duet Pamina and uh

Presenter8:20

Papagina in the magic flute singing about the virtues of marriage.

Presenter8:24

And um

Presenter8:26

I enjoyed it because I think it's a lovely thing and I think a duet well sung is glorious. But of course I've had all the luck too in this line.

Speaker 18:44

With all my clothes.

Lord Home of The Hirsel8:50

Desundri me to feel the same.

Speaker 18:55

Feel early star

Lord Home of The Hirsel8:57

Divide the risk of pleasure.

Speaker 18:57

Give thy glory.

Lord Home of The Hirsel9:01

The abort of muster name of Croy.

Lord Home of The Hirsel9:07

The living books believe the line, the living boat, devote.

Lord Home of The Hirsel9:20

Mom was a dying man, man, what?

Presenter9:34

A duet from the first act of The Magic Flute.

Presenter9:37

Maria Stada and Dietrich Fischer Diskar.

Presenter9:40

Now you were on your feet again. The war was over. What happened to you then? Well, after the uh war I was defeated in the election of nineteen forty five.

Presenter9:52

And then uh my father died and um I went to the house lord.

Presenter9:56

And I thought that was the end of my political career.

Presenter10:00

Then um along came um

Presenter10:03

mister Winston Churchill he was then.

Presenter10:05

and uh asked me if I go to Scotland as Minister of State, the first one.

Presenter10:10

For Scotland. For Scotland.

Presenter10:12

There was trouble, beginning of trouble, with Scottish Nationalists and he he gave me a typical instruction. He said, Go and quell those turbulent Scots and don't come back till you've done it And so that's how I how I set off. But of course it's a miniature White Hall, the Scottish office in Edinburgh, and so you do get insight into a great uh deal of the administration of the United Kingdom.

Presenter10:34

And when Sir Antony Eden took over as Prime Minister, you had a seat in the Cabinet.

Presenter10:39

As Commonwealth Secretary. Yes. The Commonwealth was comparatively quiet then. It was just at the beginning of the emancipation of the colonies, and there was no great issue which divided Commonwealth countries at that time. So I set out on a sort of world tour, taking in all the Commonwealth countries, or a great many of them. And it is a political organization, the modern Commonwealth, and half the battle, really, is to get to know the leading statesmen. And that I did. Yes. And then in 1960, Foreign Secretary.

Presenter11:14

Yes.

Presenter11:15

The most interesting of the offices that I've I've held, I must say, the enormous number of um contacts you have with a great number of very distinguished people. You supported our membership of the European Community right from the start. Yes, absolutely from the beginning, really. I think it was um twelve years before we actually got in that I made a speech in the House Lord as a result of my experience as Commonwealth Secretary, because I saw the economic

Speaker 111:27

Yeah.

Presenter11:39

The ties of the Commonwealth were beginning to be eroded away, and I thought Britain must have another market.

Presenter11:44

And there was the market on our doorstep.

Presenter11:47

Let's have your fourth record.

Presenter11:49

Well I think my fourth record would be uh Kathleen uh Ferrier singing um What is Life and and really for uh for two reasons. I think that she has the loveliest contralto voice that I ever heard.

Presenter12:04

And secondly, I think that on one's uh desert island one would have to give way uh periodically to nostalgia, if not um melancholy.

Lord Home of The Hirsel12:16

I told me we live more to live.

Lord Home of The Hirsel12:21

What is left in God death?

Lord Home of The Hirsel12:28

Here's my

Lord Home of The Hirsel12:31

I swear to God, I'm not sure.

Lord Home of The Hirsel12:53

Thank you.

Lord Home of The Hirsel12:56

You're a dear friend.

Lord Home of The Hirsel12:59

I feel like I'm not.

Presenter13:14

What Is Life from Glucks, Orpheus and Eurydge, sung by Kathleen Ferrier.

Presenter13:21

In nineteen sixty three you took over as Prime Minister. It meant renouncing your titles. You were then fourteenth Earl of Hume, and to give up an earldom after a family tradition of five hundred years must have been a tremendous wrench.

Presenter13:35

Yes, of course if one was going to be Prime Minister, it would have to be Prime Minister of the Commons.

Presenter13:40

Um I wouldn't have done it unless my son had been able to succeed to the earldom when I die. Uh but he wa uh he is able to succeed and so I didn't much mind what I called myself at at that time of life. You had this enormous job, the Prime Minister, one of the toughest jobs in the country. You've always been in the habit of working early in the morning, haven't you?

Presenter14:03

Yes, I find that I can do about double the work uh early in the morning that I can at night.

Presenter14:08

Now I used to break the back of the day's business before, let us say, um half past eight and then have breakfast and off one went on the daily routine.

Speaker 114:15

Mm-hmm.

Presenter14:17

Nowadays the country is governed to a considerable extent by its leaders directing matters on television. How did you take to all the media work? Oh, I hated television. I mean I can't tell you how much I disliked it. At least I don't mind the question and answer. That seems to me natural. But then, you see, ten more years ago, there used to be a horrible havoc where the Prime Minister was expected to make direct talks of about twenty minutes set pieces. And that I simply couldn't bear. It was unnatural. I don't talk to people like that. But there it was. It was my fault. I quite agree. I mean, I ought to have done it better. Record number five.

Presenter14:56

Well, it must be the antidote, I think, to the Catherine Fellier record, and this is the song from Salad Days, I Sit in the Sun and One by One, the song of the Eternal Optimist.

Lord Home of The Hirsel15:10

Timothy's late. Timothy's late.

Lord Home of The Hirsel15:13

Never mind, I'm happy to wait I've nothing to do on this fine summer day. It's easy to while the time away.

Lord Home of The Hirsel15:26

I ought to do as my mother said, And think of the men that I might wed.

Lord Home of The Hirsel15:33

But now I'm happy, now I'm free, and a summer song.

Speaker 115:36

I'm free.

Presenter15:40

Eleanor Drew in the original production of Salad Days.

Presenter15:45

You've had time to look back and

Presenter15:47

Reminisce a little. You've written your book, The Way the Wind Blows. Did you enjoy that?

Presenter15:53

Yes, I did. You see, I set out not knowing whether I could write a book at all. I've always liked the the King's English, always wondered if I could write it, and having started, I found that I thought I could. Now I l I think I enjoyed writing the um the bits about nature more than I enjoyed writing the bits about politics. Uh but on the whole, yes, it was an enjoyable experience. Are you going to write another?

Presenter16:13

Oh, I don't know. I'm being pestered to write another one, but I I I'm having I'm taking taking a year off, I think, before I decide whether whether I shall or not. You accepted a life peerage which took you back into the House of Lords. A life peerage seems a small swap for a five century old earldom, but nevertheless you're back in the in the upper house.

Presenter16:33

Does that take up much of your time?

Presenter16:35

Well life period sees you out. I don't know what more you can ask of that. It is literally for life. It's a sentence for life.

Presenter16:43

Yes, I do enjoy it, because it's often difficult if you live in Scotland to manage your life, you see, because you have to make engagements a really long time before, and I'm always finding something's happening in the Lords when I'm pledged to be in Scotland, and vice versa.

Presenter16:56

We've got to record number six.

Presenter16:59

Yes, I think uh part of the water music from uh Hamble.

Presenter17:04

I think this particular passage, um

Presenter17:08

takes all the tension out of me whenever I hear it, and I can see myself gradually slipping away into sleep in a siesta every afternoon to these particular strains.

Presenter18:18

The Air from Handel's Water Music Suite in F major, The Academy of Saint Martin and the Fields, directed by Neville Mariner. You were talking rather optimistically about your afternoon siesta on the island, although I imagine that there is rather a lot of work to be done.

Presenter18:33

Uh as a countryman, yes, obviously you have a tremendous advantage.

Presenter18:38

Used to making hides, I presume, so you could make a hut?

Presenter18:41

Oh yes, we used to make uh huts from the earliest age to watch uh watch birds and up trees. I don't know whether a big tree take a hut on the island, but anyhow, yes, that presented no difficulty. Your fishing you talked about.

Presenter18:53

Would you try to escape?

Presenter18:55

Yes, I should try to escape, but the materials for escaping wouldn't be very easy to find, I think. Of course, if one won one of those currents like Contiki, one could build a a raft and hope for the best. But that'd be a pretty solitary business, wouldn't it? Yes, yes. I'm afraid you'll have to cut down your siesta time is the only answer.

Speaker 119:07

I'm afraid you

Speaker 119:09

You're siesta.

Presenter19:12

Let's get on to record seven. I think I would choose for record seven, uh, Zadok the um the priest. It brings back all the

Presenter19:21

majesty and pageantry, which uh I saw at first hand in the coronation, because the queen was kind enough to ask me to carry one of the swords of state. And I can never hear this uh particular piece without uh recalling what was certainly the most solemn and colourful and

Presenter19:38

patriotic pageant of my um

Presenter19:41

Lifetime with all the people shouting for joy.

Presenter20:45

Handel's coronation anthem, Zadok the Priest.

Presenter20:48

The Choir of King's College, Cambridge.

Presenter20:51

Now your last disk.

Presenter20:52

The Lord is my shepherd to the tune Cremon. It translates me back to the hills and valleys of my border home.

Presenter21:01

And um of course one have to contemplate that the years

Presenter21:06

On the desert island might uh see one out.

Presenter21:10

And for that one would need some spiritual preparation and comfort.

Presenter21:14

And I always get it from this

Presenter21:17

Beautiful, really, piece of poetry.

Presenter21:20

Um with its haunting tune.

Presenter21:23

And in particular, I think the last verse was, And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Lord Home of The Hirsel21:44

Here I hear nothing.

Lord Home of The Hirsel21:52

Oh no.

Lord Home of The Hirsel22:06

Stone for just speaking.

Presenter22:20

The closing passage of Crimond

Presenter22:22

The Glasgow Orpheus Choir conducted by Sir Hugh Roberton.

Presenter22:26

If you could take just one disk of your eight, which

Presenter22:29

Well, I think it had to be the final one, Lord of My Shepherd.

Presenter22:33

And one luxury to take to the island?

Presenter22:35

Oh, well I no doubt about my uh my luxury. It would be um

Presenter22:39

a pair of field glasses to widen my hor horizons and perhaps see the rescuer before he saw me.

Presenter22:46

And one book, and we put aside the Bible and Shakespeare and big encyclopedias.

Presenter22:52

I think I would take a uh the most comprehensive bird book I could find, probably Bennamon, in the hope that my um island would be on a a migratory route.

Presenter23:01

Right.

Presenter23:02

And thank you, Lord Hume, for letting us hear your Desert Island discs. Thank you. I've enjoyed it. Goodbye, everyone.

Speaker 123:17

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