Dame Daphne Du Maurier

Speaker 30:00

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

On this occasion I'm in a lovely old house on the Cornish coast and I'm with Dame Daphne Dumaurier.

Presenter0:39

Dame Daphne, what would you be happiest to have left behind if you were on a desert island?

Dame Daphne Du Maurier0:43

I don't think anything particular. I should be unhappy to leave my home which I love.

Presenter0:50

How much does music mean to you? Is it an important thing in your life?

Dame Daphne Du Maurier0:52

I've got to be very frank with you, and tell you it used to mean much more than it does now.

Presenter0:57

You play records a lot.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier0:58

Not a great deal. I used to, and I've got records stacked away, but I must confess that nowadays I am a telefan. Yes. And I go into my television with my supper in the evening at about eight o'clock, switch on,

Dame Daphne Du Maurier1:11

And switch off at about eleven o'clock. Going to sleep sometimes in the middle.

Presenter1:16

What's the first record you've chosen?

Dame Daphne Du Maurier1:18

Well, this is really a record I've loved for a long time, which is the

Dame Daphne Du Maurier1:24

Very well known Greek piano concerto.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier1:28

And I used to hear this during the war when I was staying with friends.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier1:32

And this is where I heard most of what I call the good music that I like and keep.

Presenter2:37

Part of Grieg's piano concerto in A minor with Geetzer Ander and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.

Presenter2:44

You're the third generation of a writing family. Your grandfather was George de Maurier, the illustrator and author of Trilby. Don't you remember him?

Dame Daphne Du Maurier2:53

Oh no He died before my father married. He died before the end of the century, eighteen ninety five, ninety six. I never can quite remember the date of the cuff like this.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier3:03

And his son, my father's elder brother, Uncle Guy, he wrote a Divi.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier3:09

Good play called the Englishman's Home.

Presenter3:11

So that was very celebrated.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier3:12

Which was very celebrated and was saying how the Germans might one day invade England and it was a terrific hit about 1909 or 1910 I think.

Presenter3:20

And your father's

Dame Daphne Du Maurier3:21

And he was killed in the first war.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier3:23

My father didn't write, but he did do a lot to other people's plays.

Presenter3:27

Yes, as an act of manager.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier3:28

Dominant Johnson.

Presenter3:31

And now you and your sister Angela, right?

Dame Daphne Du Maurier3:33

The Angela Wright.

Presenter3:34

Do your children show any signs of keeping up the tradition?

Dame Daphne Du Maurier3:37

Uh no, I can't say they do, but I do have hopes of a grandson, my son's eldest boy, Freddie, who writes very good poems.

Presenter3:46

I've been reading your autobiography, your autobiography of your first twenty-five years growing pains, and you announced at the age of four that you had already written a book.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier3:50

Oh yeah.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier3:56

Well, I know this is what I've been told, you see, by the governess who taught us. And I myself have no recollection of having it must have been pure make up, you see. I couldn't possibly have written a book at that age. But the title amused me, John in the Wood of the World. What on earth was I thinking about? I don't know.

Presenter4:14

It's a very good title. You'll have to write the book.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier4:16

What?

Presenter4:17

Uh

Dame Daphne Du Maurier4:17

Maybe I will.

Presenter4:19

Were you a bokish girl?

Dame Daphne Du Maurier4:20

Devi, I never stopped reading. Uh I learnt at about the age of three and four, then gradually got on to to books, and never never stopped from then on till rather late in life.

Presenter4:34

Well, you are obviously destined to be a writer. What was the first thing you wrote which was published?

Dame Daphne Du Maurier4:39

I wrote short stories which got published.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier4:42

aged about sort of seventeen, eighteen and then my first novel after coming to live down in Cornwall was The Loving Spivet.

Speaker 44:51

Mm-hmm.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier4:51

And this was accepted by Heinemann and was published. And from then on I didn't have rejection slips, thank goodness.

Presenter4:59

Right, let's have your second record. What's that?

Dame Daphne Du Maurier5:01

What that

Dame Daphne Du Maurier5:02

A Variations on a Theme by Paganini by Rachmaninoff, which I also heard in the war and I must have got the record

Dame Daphne Du Maurier5:12

and played it during the evenings.

Presenter6:15

The eighteenth variation from Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Julius Kachin with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. You were brought up in London and and Paris. When did the West Country come into your life?

Dame Daphne Du Maurier6:30

Ah, well, this was about nineteen twenty six, twenty seven, when the family suddenly decided they'd like us to have a holiday home in Cornwall.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier6:40

and we came down and discovered Febyside, where my sister lives today, at Foy, on the estuary, on the harbour there.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier6:49

And this I simply adored from the start, and used to spend all the time I could there and was allowed to, because I was growing up by then. I was sort of nineteen, twenty.

Presenter6:59

And you bought a boat.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier7:00

And we got a boat, yes, and there it was, I met my husband too. He came down in his boat.

Presenter7:06

Yes, and so on. Your first novel, The Loving Lynx that you were talking about, was about.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier7:06

And so on.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier7:08

The language they were talking about.

Presenter7:11

Oh yes it

Dame Daphne Du Maurier7:11

Oh, yes, entirely about the boat building, family.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier7:14

A lot of it was fictitious, but it was based on their family letters and so on. Yes, indeed.

Presenter7:18

Yes, and this young army officer read the book and Was it fascinated by the district?

Dame Daphne Du Maurier7:23

That's right.

Presenter7:24

Also thought he might like to meet you.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier7:26

He did, yes, and came down in his boat and uh we met and that was that.

Presenter7:31

Now you began to cast envious eyes at a house in the woods not far away.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier7:36

Ah, yes. Well, this was my trespassing days. We walked a lot, my sisters and I and we used to trespass round the grounds of Menabille, which is the other side of the harbour from us at Foy, and peer at this house there, which wasn't lived in because the owner lived away. He used to come down sometimes. And I got a terrific thing about this house.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier7:58

And eventually

Dame Daphne Du Maurier8:00

Many years afterwards, I came to live there. The owner, I asked if I could possibly rent it. This was during the war.

Presenter8:04

Uh

Dame Daphne Du Maurier8:08

and uh went to live there and was there in fact with the children. My husband was off at the war from'forty three till after he died in'65.

Presenter8:18

A most romantic house with a ghost.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier8:20

Well, people say they're ghosts, but I I'm not psychic, and I've never s never saw anything there.

Presenter8:26

There was a skeleton that was found.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier8:27

There was a skeleton, but I don't think he ever haunted the place. The skeleton was supposed to be found about eighteen twenty one, and every one said he was somebody who'd been walled up during the Civil War.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier8:37

But uh and this comes into a book I wrote called The King's General, which is all about the Civil War and about Mennobid.

Presenter8:44

You have a very strong sense of the past, haven't you?

Dame Daphne Du Maurier8:47

Oh, I have a terrific thing about the past. I adore history and especially the sort of seventeenth century time.

Presenter8:55

Record number three.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier8:57

Record number three, I think it's Claire de Lune. Debussy's Claire de Lune.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier9:03

And this they played through a film of mine called Frenchman's Creek.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier9:09

And my husband simply adored it. He was a great fan of mine. He used to love all my books.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier9:15

And he never read them until they were finished and then he had the first copy. He didn't read them in proof or anything like that.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier9:21

But he read Frenchman's Creek Lab Dip we went to the film

Dame Daphne Du Maurier9:25

which actually came out, I think, just after the war, or during the war years. And Claire de Lun was played through it. And somehow I don't know, I g I got to love it too.

Presenter10:34

De Bussy's Claire de Leune, played by Eileen Joyce. You've written a number of biographies. The first one about your father, Sir Gerald, shortly after his death in nineteen thirty four.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier10:42

Okay.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier10:43

That's right.

Presenter10:44

He was a pioneer of naturalistic acting. Was he as relaxed offstage?

Dame Daphne Du Maurier10:51

Oh, yes, I think so. He he was, I would say, rather emotional person, yes.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier10:57

But, um, relaxed oh yes, of course, when he's with us, children and so on.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier11:03

He he was a great person.

Presenter11:04

I've told him. There have been several books about your family. One about your splendid great-great-grandmother, Mary Ann Clarke, the mistress of the Prince Regent's brother, the Duke of York. Yes. Why did you write that as a novel?

Dame Daphne Du Maurier11:16

Well, I wanted it to be a documentary, if you know what I mean. I wanted to be a proper biography.

Presenter11:21

Yeah.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier11:22

But I think my publisher wanted to send it as a novel.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier11:27

And I think that's how it how it came about. And you couldn't say it was strict biography because there must have been bits in it that I rather made up, you see. It wasn't entirely.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier11:37

conversations and that sort of thing, which if you're doing strict biography is not permissible. At least I wouldn't permit it with myself today.

Presenter11:45

And the biography of Bramwell Bronte.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier11:47

Oh yes, yes, that was a proper biography,'cause I don't think I had any fictitious things in that at all.

Presenter11:53

And recently two Elizabethan or or Jack Bean.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier11:57

Yeah.

Presenter11:57

Yes.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier11:59

That's right. Well, you see, this is years after having done um the other one, you m Mary Ann.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier12:06

And I'm much more particular about biography now, and I was determined to keep the facts, not.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier12:13

uh do anything fictitious at all. I can surmise certain things, but not n not fiction.

Presenter12:20

Where have we got to? Record number four. What's that?

Dame Daphne Du Maurier12:24

Record number four is Per Ban for a Dead Infant.

Presenter12:29

Wrap it up.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier12:30

Ravel. There's a picture, I think, by Velasquez of a little infanta with her hands out as though she was dancing. I think she was Philip.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier12:37

The fourth daughter. I can't remember. My history suddenly eludes me. But th this is what I think of. And

Dame Daphne Du Maurier12:43

It's very soothing. It's lovely.

Presenter13:39

Rabel's pavan for a dead infanta, Pierre Monteur conducting the London Symphony Orchestra.

Presenter13:45

You've been rather fortunate in the number of your stories which have been picked up by the film industry.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier13:50

Not a tremendous number, really, you know. Rebecca, Frenchman's Creek.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier13:54

Uh my cousin Rachel

Dame Daphne Du Maurier13:56

The Birds of the United States.

Presenter13:57

That was for a short story.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier14:00

And The Scapegoat with Addie Guinness.

Presenter14:02

Yeah.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier14:03

Uh

Presenter14:03

Uh

Dame Daphne Du Maurier14:03

But that's and Don't Look Now is another short story. That's about A Hungry Hill was another one, all about Ireland.

Presenter14:03

But that's a and don't look nice and

Presenter14:09

It's rather an impressive total.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier14:09

It's only about six or seven out of about twenty.

Presenter14:14

Yeah.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier14:14

Well put pretty good, yes.

Presenter14:16

Hitchcock made a couple of them heat.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier14:17

I think he did Rebecca and the Birds.

Presenter14:21

Which ones have you liked most?

Dame Daphne Du Maurier14:23

I would oh, I would think Rebecca.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier14:27

Yes, I I think that was very good.

Presenter14:29

That was Lawrence's idea.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier14:30

Yes, Lawrence Olivia and Joan Fontaine. I would say that was definitely the best.

Presenter14:34

And you've paid your respects to the theatre by writing three successful plays.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier14:37

Three successful plays. That's true. The Years Between was a war play.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier14:43

Rebecca I also adapted just before the war.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier14:46

And um September tide.

Presenter14:50

Record number five.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier14:51

Record number five is, I think, Greensleeves. Vaughan Williams is.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier14:57

green sleeves. And I've chosen this because in a curious way

Dame Daphne Du Maurier15:02

It's also rather like Pavan. It takes me back to this seventeenth century.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier15:07

And my biography of Anthony Bacon this is rather strange, because he died in sixteen one, and I wanted to know where he was buried, and I never knew, and my good research lady discovered that he had been buried in Saint Olaf's Hart Street.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier15:23

and I was in London and went to Saint Olaf's.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier15:26

and walked into the church. There was nobody there. The organist was practising for Sunday, up above.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier15:32

And I went and stood by the chancel, and I knew he was buried somewhere beneath there.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier15:37

And suddenly the organist began to play that haunting greensleeves, which of course he would know he'd been very musical and it would have been played.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier15:48

In his day, and sung by every one, it was the sort of hits song of late Elizabethan times.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier15:55

And I didn't know it was all the ear of it, but I was glad.

Presenter15:57

Yeah.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier15:59

So I've chosen that.

Presenter17:02

The Vaughan Williams arrangement of Greensleeve, Sir John Barbie Rowley conducting the symphonia of Lunt.

Presenter17:08

What are your writing habits, damn Daphne? Do you write regular hours every day?

Dame Daphne Du Maurier17:12

It just depends on the season. You see, if it's the summer, then I work away in the afternoon and after tea go down and have a swim.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier17:19

and come back and perhaps work a bit before supper. In the winter, a bit in the morning, out in the afternoon, and then from tea time solidly on till supper. But it gets a bit different, and now I'm getting older, do you see? I probably, when I next start on anything, shan't do quite so many hours. I don't know. You're not writing

Presenter17:38

You're not writing anything at the moment.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier17:39

No, not not at the moment. I'm too busy training my puppies.

Presenter17:41

I'm too busy.

Presenter17:43

What next do you think? The the last two books have been biographies. Are you going back to novels?

Dame Daphne Du Maurier17:49

I just don't know. I'm very interested in the people who've lived in this house, who lived in this house in the

Dame Daphne Du Maurier17:56

Again, my old century, seventeenth century. I bet it'll be difficult to find out, and I mightn't be able to get enough to make a proper biography, so I might have to do fiction.

Presenter18:05

So this house Kilmarth has

Presenter18:08

Got your imagination just as Menabilly had.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier18:08

Imagination.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier18:10

Yes, I think wherever I live I get to think about the place and and my imagination starts working.

Presenter18:16

Right, next record, please.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier18:18

I mustn't get nostalgic.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier18:21

about all these records I loved in the past because I'm on a desert island.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier18:25

And I must try and remember what things were being played when I came ashore.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier18:31

And one of the most popular songs I've heard during the past, say, twelvemonth

Dame Daphne Du Maurier18:37

Is Charles Aznavour?

Dame Daphne Du Maurier18:40

Singing a song called She.

Speaker 418:45

Maybe the face I can't forget A trace of pleasure or regret

Speaker 418:53

Maybe my treasure are the price I have to pay.

Speaker 419:00

She may be the song that Sagara sings.

Speaker 419:04

Maybe the chill that autumn brings

Speaker 419:08

Be a hundred different things.

Speaker 419:11

Within the measure

Speaker 419:13

Have a day.

Presenter19:15

Charles Aznavour.

Presenter19:17

Now of course you're a sailor and a fisherman, so a desert island wouldn't present the same problems for you that you're not going to be able to do it.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier19:23

Well now, wait a minute, let me interrupt. I was a sailor and was a fisherman, but I haven't been properly to sea until I went this spring with my son, but and that was just up and down the harbour, but I haven't been to sea since my husband died way back in nineteen sixty five. We dod boats and we used to sail a lot, you see.

Presenter19:39

But these are

Presenter19:43

But these are skills like riding a bicycle which you'll never lose.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier19:45

No, I don't think I would lose, but I'm awfully impractical. I don't think I could ever get myself a boat exactly, or build myself a boat. But the point is I've got to think of getting away from the islands.

Presenter19:58

You would want to escape.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier19:59

It's not so much that I want to escape, but it it would be a challenge, and I rather like challenges. And so my next record

Dame Daphne Du Maurier20:09

It's really is because I've heard it on my television, and it's the theme tune that they play in the One Edin line.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier20:19

And that sends me, it absolutely sends me.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier20:22

But this on the desert island, I think it would get me moving to do something.

Presenter21:23

The theme music of the Onadian line, it's not terribly nautical actually, it's the Adagio from Spartacus, which is a ballet about ancient Rome by Cachaturian.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier21:33

Yes, I wish I'd seen the ballet, but I can only connect it with the Ooneden line now. Never mind.

Presenter21:39

What's the last record?

Dame Daphne Du Maurier21:41

Well, here we are again. I'm still trying to get away. I'm still challenged.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier21:46

And

Dame Daphne Du Maurier21:48

There's a glorious song that the Ark Royalship.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier21:53

Sings

Dame Daphne Du Maurier21:55

called sailing, and I've heard this once or twice, and this would really get me into a cockle shell, I think.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier22:01

or something to start pulling out to see, it inspires me.

Speaker 422:10

I am sailing.

Speaker 422:13

Over again.

Speaker 422:17

Across the sea.

Speaker 422:21

I am sailing stormy waters

Speaker 422:28

We near you.

Presenter22:35

Sailing by the ship's company and band of HMS Ark Royal.

Presenter22:40

If you could take just one disk out of the eight, which would it be?

Dame Daphne Du Maurier22:44

I think

Dame Daphne Du Maurier22:46

I choose a kneading line.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier22:48

It's so stirring, I think I would.

Presenter22:50

Spartacus.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier22:51

Yes, Spartacus.

Presenter22:52

Right.

Presenter22:53

and one luxury to take to the island with you.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier22:56

When I turn on the gramophone in the evening, I would like what I do here. At seven o'clock I have my nip of whisky and ginger ale.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier23:06

And that should keep me going with the gramophone reports.

Presenter23:09

Right, I shall see there's a a supply

Dame Daphne Du Maurier23:11

To give you a

Presenter23:11

to give you a nip and evening for as long as you're on the island.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier23:13

As long as you're on the island.

Presenter23:15

And one book, and you're not allowed the Bible or Shakespeare or big encyclopedias as obvious choices.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier23:21

In that case I'd have Jane Austen, and there's an edition I have at the moment beside my bed which has three novels in it. That's fine. So if that's not cheating, the one I'd take would be Sense and Sensibility, Mansfield Park, and um Pride and Prejudice.

Presenter23:37

All three companies.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier23:37

All three.

Presenter23:39

And thank you, Dame Daphne De Maurier, for letting us hear your Desert Island Disc.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier23:43

Well, don't forget I'm on my way in that cockle shell, sailing.

Presenter23:46

Ha ha ha.

Dame Daphne Du Maurier23:47

I shan't be long.

Presenter23:48

Goodbye everyone.

Speaker 323:58

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