Molly Weir

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 our Desert Island this week is the actress and writer Molly Weir.

Presenter0:36

Molly, did you find it a hard job to choose just eight records?

Molly Weir0:40

I found it almost impossible. In fact, even yesterday I was only down to twelve, and my husband said you realise you've got twelve records there, so I had to leave Churchill behind, and L'Once Olivier, and I can't tell you who else.

Presenter0:52

Is music important in your life? Have you ever studied it?

Molly Weir0:54

Well, I studied the piano at uh the age of fourteen. I think I'd sixpenny lessons and I still tinkle away a wee bit, but I'm not really a good pianist. I once played at a the teacher's concert, mind you. I don't know how I ever did it, but uh I I love mu I really do love music, but I'm not really a performer.

Presenter1:12

Could you adjust yourself to solitude?

Molly Weir1:14

Yes, I think I could. I think a writer has got to have a lot of solitude, and although I am a very gregarious person, I'm also a very solitary person.

Presenter1:22

What's the first record you've chosen?

Molly Weir1:24

The first record is to waken me up in the morning in the absence of husband or alarm clock, and that's going to be this lovely man, James Galway, the man with the golden flute. He wakens me every morning at the moment in the Today programme.

Presenter2:26

Tom Borin by Gossick

Presenter2:28

Now, Molly, of course, you belong to Glasgow. Yes. Your mother was widowed, and I believe the days of your childhood were rather a struggle.

Molly Weir2:36

They were a struggle, but they were extremely happy. We were a very happy household, and of course, as I always say, we never knew we were poor, so we didn't know we'd anything to worry about.

Presenter2:45

In household, of course you didn't have a house, you had a very small apartment.

Molly Weir2:49

Well, we always talk about a house in Scotland. If you have a roof over your head, it's a house, but it was in fact a room and kitchen, and the room was very important. You didn't go into the room except when you had visitors, and that held my mother and my granny and my two brothers and myself. How many? It was five. Five of us, yes. With a hurdley bed, which hurdled underneath the insect bed. My mother slept in the insect bed in the kitchen, and this hurley bed pulled out, and Granny and I slept in that, and the two boys slept in the room.

Presenter3:17

Now your first efforts at entertaining as a child were to raise money for neighbours who were ill.

Molly Weir3:21

Oh yes, I was the doyene of the backcourt concerts. I used to produce, direct, act, star, do the costumes, do the lots, and we charged a halfpenny for children and a penny for adults, and with the money we went and bought either a box of chocolates or fruit, and took them to whoever was sick.

Presenter3:37

How old were you then?

Molly Weir3:38

Oh, probably about seven or eight.

Presenter3:40

Mm-hmm.

Presenter3:41

And you went to the cinema a lot?

Molly Weir3:43

Oh, the Saturday matinee was absolutely the highlight of our weekend'cause all the stars, you know, we absolutely adored them and all those serials.

Molly Weir3:52

We lived them, actually.

Presenter3:53

Did you get to the theatre sometimes?

Molly Weir3:55

Yes, we did. The Pantomime was a great thing in Glasgow when I was a wee girl because it ran for five months and somehow my mother always managed to take us to the Pantomime. We didn't go to Variety when we were children, but one of the the father, the old father of one of the neighbours who was very musical, took me to my very first real sort of light operatic theatre and I absolutely fell in love with it.

Presenter4:18

Let's have your second record. What's that?

Molly Weir4:20

The second one is going to be Joan Sutherland. This is an opera, as you know, set in Scotland, Lucia de Lammarmour, which we know as Sir Walter Scott's The Bride of Lammarmour. And I'd like the mad scene, the very the very quiet scene.

Molly Weir4:36

I want this particularly because she not only has a beautiful voice, Joan Salon, she's a very, very hard worker.

Speaker 44:46

Really song

Speaker 44:58

In the same week all

Speaker 45:06

Oh let it be the whole time.

Speaker 45:13

Yeah.

Speaker 45:33

Yeah.

Presenter5:44

James Sutherland, part of the mad scene from Donizetti's Lucia de Lamomour. So what did you do when you left school?

Molly Weir5:53

When I left school, I went to business college because I had a marvellous little school teacher. I wanted to work in the cooperative. That was my g but that was my mother's ambition for me. And when I told the teacher, the head teacher, this, she was absolutely

Molly Weir6:06

furious, just oh, we must get something better for you than that. I couldn't think of anything better because my mother thought it was great to work behind a mahogany desk in the co op, you know, up in the offices. So she saw that I sat for a scholarship to college and I studied the whole full business training.

Presenter6:22

Including shorthand?

Molly Weir6:23

including shorthand, and I was so enthralled with the mere idea of anybody teaching me shorthand, I didn't even pay anything. I was like Leicester Piggott waiting for the tapes to go up. I couldn't wait for that first lesson. And consequently, like everything else, if one is in love with a subject, one excels in it. And I was able to write shorthand eventually at three hundred words a minute and

Presenter6:45

Three hundred words a minute. Who can speak at three hundred words a minute?

Molly Weir6:49

Well, the only person who could speak at three hundred words a minute was the secretary of the college. So you

Presenter6:53

So you you could only work for him?

Molly Weir6:55

Exactly. He and I were in harness everywhere. We started all those eternal journeys which I'm still doing, only for the theatre and for lecturing now.

Presenter6:56

You and I

Molly Weir7:03

Giving exhibitions in various towns.

Presenter7:06

Exhibition to short handwriting.

Molly Weir7:07

Yes, high s high speed short handwriting.

Presenter7:10

What was your first job?

Molly Weir7:12

My first job was in a law office. I was very, very lucky. It was a small law office and of course absolute accuracy was demanded in those days because it was a very old fashioned office and they had one of these almost Dickensian presses where you put the letter in and damp sheets of flannel and then another oilskin sheet and pressed it down under a great heavy press so that there was no question of carbons and rubbing out. It was indelible. And this taught me tremendous accuracy, made me a very good worker.

Presenter7:32

Under agreement.

Presenter7:38

Yeah.

Presenter7:42

And you're writing the odd article already for newspapers.

Molly Weir7:45

Yes, I wrote an article about the tram tickets, the new tram tickets in Glasgow trams, and that was at the age of fifteen and I got fifteen shillings, a shilling for every year of my age. Now I was only earning fifteen shillings a week, so I thought this was a marvellous racket to be able to earn with one little article a whole week's salary. I didn't foresee all the rejection slips, of course.

Molly Weir8:07

Yeah.

Presenter8:07

And then you were discovered.

Molly Weir8:09

It was discovered by Carol Levis. Yes, he came to Glasgow looking for discoveries and my brother saw this advert. He had a little dance band at the time and had a microphone which he'd sent me through to test out. And I just did little impersonations. And so I did those impersonations for Carol Levis and I came in second and that resulted in my first broadcast from London.

Presenter8:31

And that led to a lot of broadcasts from Glasgow.

Molly Weir8:33

It did, yes. And of course Jack House was the first one to discover me for Glasgow. They were short of a celebrity one night for a radio programme called Who's Here and Jack said Why don't we have this wee local girl? She combines a lot of odd things in her personality. And that was my first broadcast from Glasgow.

Presenter8:51

And then the war came along. You stayed in Glasgow, didn't you?

Molly Weir8:54

I did. And because of my shorthand, of course, I went into a war factory because I reckoned the actresses were ten a penny, but three hundred words a minute writers were very scarce in the ground and I thought I might beat Hitler better that way.

Presenter9:04

Yeah.

Presenter9:07

And you were broadcasting and doing answer work and

Molly Weir9:10

Oh yes. Once I did this broadcast for Jack, I then was drawn into children's hour and schools and reviews because being young and a new voice and and available, which was the main thing because so many young people were being called up, I was called in to do all sorts of things. It was a very good training for me.

Presenter9:29

Let's have your third record. What's that, Monica?

Molly Weir9:31

My third one is uh from My Fair Lady, a production I'll never forget seeing in London. It's Julia Andrews singing Oh, Henry Higgins. It's not one of the usual uh very soft pieces. I find this a lovely fighting love song.

Speaker 49:48

Then they'll march you in rings to the wall And the king will tell me lies a sound of wall As they lift their rifles higher I'll shout ready, aim, fire

Speaker 410:08

Oh ho ho, Enrigans! Dangle go and reigens! Just you white!

Presenter10:16

Julie Andrews, just you wait.

Presenter10:19

After the war, of course, you had to make a decision whether to remain a Glasgow artist or or come to London.

Molly Weir10:25

Yes. I I think the thing that made me decide to come to London was by this time I had a certain amount of success in Glasgow. I'd done radio and I had done quite a lot of theatre work during the war, and so I made the decision to come to London.

Presenter10:39

And quite soon, quite soon after you had arrived, you had a a sensational broadcasting break.

Molly Weir10:45

I did. The first thing that happened was I had a part in a play called A Play for Ronnie with A. E. Matthews and Margery Fielding for tenants. And suddenly I thought, well, I might as well have a shot at the top show before I go home. And I was at Piccadilly Circus and Ian Sadler, a Scottish actor whom I worked with in Glasgow, crossed the circus. He had come years before to London. And I said, Ian, have you any idea where Ted Cavanagh's office is? That was all I knew about it, Ma. And he said, You must be the only actress in London, Molly, who doesn't know. And he turned my shoulders round and pointed down the hay market. I went up and I did although I didn't know the psychological moment they were looking for new post-war voices for it, Ma.

Molly Weir11:27

The long and short is that I was told to go along the next morning for an audition,

Molly Weir11:32

And I got it and I was suddenly I was all over the front pages.

Presenter11:37

Mm-hmm. You played Tati.

Molly Weir11:39

Tati McIntosh and Mrs. McIntosh and lots of other little voices.

Presenter11:43

That was a great break. And then you were in a very successful stage play that ran and ran.

Molly Weir11:44

It was.

Molly Weir11:49

Yes, that was put on as a Sunday night show for the repertory players. Remember they used to put on shows on a Sunday.

Presenter11:54

Uh

Speaker 411:54

Killing game.

Molly Weir11:55

And the the clown could play Hamlet and Hamlet could play the clown. And I played the part of again, I was very lucky, I was recommended by A. E. Matthews'cause they wanted a schoolgirl. They were cast very meticulously because if they were successful, of course, a management took them up. So Mattie recommended me,'cause I'd been in this play, although it didn't come into London. And I created the part. I even named her Barbara Coqueon, not spelt Colcahound, in The Happiest Days of Your Life. And it ran for two years.

Presenter12:24

Record number four.

Molly Weir12:25

Number four, I'm going back to Scotland again for this one, Roy, and this is the Scottish Fantasia by Bruch.

Molly Weir12:33

I chose this record because at home, when we're a wee bit homesick, this is the one we put on. And I want the nice.

Molly Weir12:42

Third movement, which is described as evocative, nostalgic, and I can lose myself with misty dreams of the Highlands and Islands. David Oustrach playing, I think, because I heard him at the Albert Hall and I thought his violin playing was quite magnificent.

Presenter13:58

David Oistrach with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Jascha Horenstein, part of the third movement of Brooks' Scottish Fantasia.

Presenter14:08

After Itmar you had another long radio run. In fact, you had several long radio runs in top comedy shows.

Molly Weir14:14

Yes, I have. I I have been very lucky. Again, this is one of these little fallow periods and I came into town and I didn't come in very often, you know. I was never one to sort of hang around the hostelries, but I did go in this day to meet somebody and as it happened, she didn't turn up. And I was so embarrassed at being in this place myself, I turned to rush out and I nearly knocked down Tom Ronald.

Molly Weir14:37

and he say he's the radio producer whom you probably know or knew. And Tom said, Molly, are you doing anything just now? And of course I, you know, Roy wasn't doing a thing. But I said, Well, uh, yes, I'm fairly free, you know, wasn't doing a blooming thing and he said, Well, would you like to come along and do an audition with BB and Ben?

Presenter14:41

Yeah.

Molly Weir14:56

'Cause I was riveted by his use of Christian names, not mister Lyon and mister As he told me Peepy Daniels and Ben Lyon, and he said yes, he said next Monday I'll give you a name and confirm it. And that was the beginning of me playing Aggie for ten years in Life of the Lions.

Presenter15:12

Yes, and you played with them on television as well?

Molly Weir15:14

We did yes, we did six years on television. We did eleven series altogether over the ten years. We did a stage season in Blackpool and we did three films. Oh, it was a way of life.

Presenter15:25

Or was it?

Presenter15:26

Oh, you were really a member of the Lions family.

Molly Weir15:29

Absolutely.

Presenter15:30

And then you worked with Charlie Chester.

Molly Weir15:32

Yes, well at the same time, in fact, as I say about prison sentences concurrently, I was with Charlie Chester doing the Charlie Chester show, I was also in Mrs. Dale's Diary, I was doing Children's Hour, I was writing for Women's Hour. In fact, there was one week when my husband said the Radio Times read like Molly Wheel's Diary. You know, there really was one week when I was on virtually every day. Golden days, Roy.

Presenter15:56

Right, record number five.

Molly Weir15:58

Number five, uh oh this now this one takes me right back to the war days. This is Paul Robeson, Just a Weary in for You. Now when I was in this war factory, I became great friends with one of the other girls in the typing pool, Mary, whom I'm still friendly with. And one night a week, she always came up to our house and we tried to work miracles with a packet of dried egg, you know. Well one night we came in and we switched on the radio.

Molly Weir16:22

and suddenly out floated this beautiful voice. We both sat down.

Molly Weir16:29

We didn't utter a word, and in silence we walked into the kitchen, tears rolling down our cheeks, because it said everything.

Speaker 416:37

Just a weird voice.

Speaker 416:43

Oh the timer.

Speaker 416:48

Wishing for you one day.

Speaker 416:52

In when

Speaker 416:53

To become an home again Restless don't know what

Presenter17:04

The voice of Paul Ribson.

Presenter17:07

Now you mentioned your woman's art talks, which I know have been going on for

Speaker 417:09

Mm-hmm.

Molly Weir17:09

Uh

Presenter17:11

Years and years.

Presenter17:13

Those women's art talks became

Presenter17:15

The basis of your first book.

Molly Weir17:17

Yes, they did. Very unexpectedly. I was very hard up when I first came to London and I was listening one day to somebody talking about folk cookery. I've always been very fond of my radio. I love listening in. And I thought, you know, I could write something like that about Scottish cookery because my granny was a marvellous cook on nothing. My mother always said granny could make a pot of soup out of a pair of old boots. It made me frighten to eat granny's soup. So I wrote this script and gradually I discovered that they liked all my talks about old Glasgow, about my granny, about the tenement, about the range. And so people began I spoke to the Women's Press Club and I spoke at various sort of literary places and they all said, Molly, why don't you put this into a book? Well I thought well a script is one thing but the discipline of a book is quite another so I pushed it aside.

Presenter17:48

Yeah.

Molly Weir18:03

Then I suggested it to a Glasgow publisher if they would like the idea and they said no, they said Glasgow's been done to death.

Molly Weir18:10

And then one day Andrew Stewart of Scottish BBC, head of programmes up there, sent for me. I thought he was going to offer me a series. Of course I was bitterly disappointed when he said nothing to do with show business. But he said my wife listens to Women's Hour and she said you've got to put those reminiscences between hard covers, Molly. Send me all your Women's Hour scripts and I'll pick out the cream, and then you can send those to a publisher whom I'll suggest and let them study it, which I did, and that became Shoesmore for Sunday.

Presenter18:41

Shoes were for Sunday, your first book about your childhood in Alaska.

Molly Weir18:41

Here we go.

Molly Weir18:44

Yeah, it's not really about me at all, Roy, it's about my granny, really.

Presenter18:47

Hm. Well, since then there have been four or five others. Did you plan a a kind of series when you wrote that first one?

Molly Weir18:54

I did not. I was only doing what I was told. And to my horror as well as amazement, six weeks after, when I'd barely recovered from all this discipline of sitting at the typewriter every day, the publishers round me up and said,'Well, Molly, have you started the second one yet'? I said,'What second one'? They said,'You're not going to stop now, are you? This has been a bestseller. It's already into several editions.

Molly Weir19:18

I said, Well, I never meant to write a second book. They said, But look, you've signed a contract, and the next book and the next book we have the option on. So I had nothing else to do but sit down in my bottom again in that seat and go on with number two.

Presenter19:30

And you've been telling your life story. How far have you got?

Molly Weir19:32

Well, book number five, which has just come out, that deals with the first five years of Life with the Lions. I meant it to cover the whole of Life with the Lions, but again with my habit of blathering and filling in all the details, the book was finished, you know, when I'd only done five years.

Presenter19:47

Have you started number six?

Molly Weir19:49

No, but it's another five years to cover, and it's going to be done any minute now.

Presenter19:50

Button is

Presenter19:53

Let's have record number six.

Molly Weir19:55

Record number six is one which always makes me laugh. I love this record. I remember I was ironing the first time I heard it, and I very nearly burned the shirts, I was so excited.

Molly Weir20:06

Couldn't believe that two such musical singers could lend themselves to such comedy singing,'cause this is the cat duet with Schwartzkopf and Vittorio de Los Angeles.

Presenter21:15

Rossini's Cat Duet, Victoria Los Angeles and Elizabeth Schwartzkopf. Now, are you the resourceful type? Could you look after yourself on this island?

Molly Weir21:24

Yes, I am the resourceful time very practical lady.

Presenter21:27

Ever done

Molly Weir21:28

Uh

Presenter21:28

On into camping.

Molly Weir21:28

Got

Presenter21:28

Yeah.

Molly Weir21:29

Yes, and the guides I have done. Oh yes, I was a very fervent little girl guide and I always loved going to summer camp.

Presenter21:35

Would you try to escape?

Molly Weir21:36

No, I would not. I'm a Pisces and I love the sea, but my feet have always got to be in the bottom, Roy. You know, I I'd be far too frightened I'd meet a whale or

Presenter21:41

I'm a fan of the

Molly Weir21:44

or something that would tip the boat over and found a boat.

Presenter21:47

Well, what's your next record?

Molly Weir21:49

This is a beautiful record with warm, thrilling singing. I love the human voice, as you've probably gathered by this time. And I've chosen Gluke's Orfeo euridici. I think this piece I like, I think it's Kefero Sensa Redici.

Speaker 422:23

Oh they are

Speaker 422:26

People lost and tired me up, love and lost entirely.

Speaker 422:41

And what did you

Speaker 422:44

Building it too.

Speaker 422:46

Oh dear.

Speaker 422:49

Peace on me.

Speaker 422:55

Please walk.

Presenter23:03

Therese a baganza singing Lux K Faro

Presenter23:07

What's your last record going to be?

Molly Weir23:08

My last record. Oh, I'm back to Scotland this time. This is the Glasgow Orpheus Choir singing all in the April evening. And although this might seem a contradiction, this one always reminds me of Christmas, because every Christmas we used to have my dear friend Miss Cree to spend Christmas with us. And after the Queen's speech we used to sit in the firelight and we'd a tray of tea, a piece of Christmas cake and some shortbread.

Molly Weir23:33

And the record that she always wanted to hear, because it reminded her from Scotland, she was from Aberdeen, was All in the April Evening.

Molly Weir23:41

And

Molly Weir23:42

Any time I hear this, instantly this scene is conjured before me.

Speaker 423:50

Believe me.

Speaker 424:01

She with enemies through the lights.

Speaker 424:19

God bless me by

Speaker 424:30

Lord in Him, I stall my love.

Presenter24:50

All in the April Evening by the Glasgow Orpheus Choir, conducted by Sir Hugh Roberton.

Presenter24:55

If you could take only one disk of your eight.

Molly Weir24:59

It'll have to be all in the April evening.

Presenter25:01

And one luxury to take with you.

Molly Weir25:03

Oh, without a doubt. I've no absolutely no indecision in this. It's going to be a typewriter with a nice supply of ribbons and a lovely supply of paper, because if I can write, I'm never really lonely.

Presenter25:14

This is going to be Vol seven, isn't it?

Molly Weir25:16

I think so, perhaps, yes.

Presenter25:16

Yeah.

Presenter25:18

And one book apart from that little is The Bible, Shakespeare, Big Encyclopedias.

Molly Weir25:23

I've cheated a wee bit in this because I'd like to take Compton Mackenzie's The Four Winds of Love and of course they occupy four boots. Can I have the all four of them?

Presenter25:31

Oh yes, it's one work. Of course you can. Compton Mackenzie's The

Molly Weir25:35

Four Winds of Love

Presenter25:36

The Four Winds of Love

Molly Weir25:37

Keep me company.

Presenter25:38

And thank you, Molly Weir, for letting us hear your Desert Island discs.

Molly Weir25:42

Thank you, Roy. It's been lovely. I've really enjoyed it.

Presenter25:44

Goodbye, everyone.

Speaker 325:54

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