Rt Rev. And Rt Hon. Gerald Ellison

Speaker 10:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive.

Speaker 10:05

For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in 1978 and the presenter was Roy Plumley.

Presenter0:32

On our desert island this week is the Right Reverend and Right Honourable doctor Gerald Ellison, the Bishop of London.

Presenter0:38

How did you set about choosing your disc? To what extent does nostalgia come into it?

Presenter0:44

Yeah.

Rt Rev. And Rt Hon. Gerald Ellison0:44

I chose first records that I'm fond of and that I think would meet my various emotional needs on the island, but as well records that have got, for the most part, some particular connection with happy memories and experiences that I'd be glad to recall on the island. What's the first one?

Rt Rev. And Rt Hon. Gerald Ellison1:05

I'd like to hear Elgar's first symphony. Why do you choose that?

Rt Rev. And Rt Hon. Gerald Ellison1:09

I am a great devotee of El Gar. I love splendid music.

Rt Rev. And Rt Hon. Gerald Ellison1:15

And I think the first symphony, especially the end of it, where the very solemn melody with which it opened comes back with the full orchestration, is one of the most magnificent pieces of music that I know.

Presenter2:30

The closing passage of Elgar's First Symphony, Sir Adrian Bold conducting the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Now, as a youngster, I know you were in the choir school at Saint George's Chapel, Windsor, so you had a musical upbringing.

Presenter2:43

Music was very

Rt Rev. And Rt Hon. Gerald Ellison2:43

Much a part of our home life. My father was a rector in the City of London at St Michael's Corn Hill. He and my mother were devoted members of the Bach Choir. And my father, with Harold Dark, founded the St Michael's Singers, which was a very important element in the musical life of the city between the wars. And then I and my two brothers were both in the choir at St George's Windsor. We were under Sir Walter Parrott, who was a contemporary of Hubert Parry and Charles Villas Stamford. And so we were brought up in the great tradition of English church music. As well as singing, do you play the piano or the organ? Yeah.

Rt Rev. And Rt Hon. Gerald Ellison3:25

No, I wish I could. I can't, as it were, transfer what I see with my eyes to my hands. I've tried a number of musical instruments, and I am not very successful on any of them. You are, I believe, a good practising bell ringer.

Rt Rev. And Rt Hon. Gerald Ellison3:38

Well, there again, I haven't done much bell ringing lately. I have rung one peal in my life of grandsire doubles, but I like whenever I can to go and join the ringers, and I'm still competent to handle a bell.

Presenter3:51

Uh

Rt Rev. And Rt Hon. Gerald Ellison3:51

What's your second record?

Rt Rev. And Rt Hon. Gerald Ellison3:54

When we were at St George's, old Sir Walter Parrott used to give each year for the choir boys what he called the sausage feast, in which we were entitled I think encouraged to eat as many as we could. And then afterwards he would take us in his drawing room and on a little spinet that he had he used to play the harmonious blacksmith, and it would bring back memories of days at St George's very vividly. Who shall play it on this occasion? Well, I think Wanda Landowska is the great uh player of the harpsichord, and it'll be wonderful to hear her playing it.

Speaker 14:02

There we go.

Presenter5:30

Handel's Harmonious Blacksmith, played by Landowska. Now you mentioned your father as as a rector of Saint Michael's Cornhill. You are, in fact, the the third generation in your family to be ordained.

Presenter5:41

Yeah. Yeah.

Rt Rev. And Rt Hon. Gerald Ellison5:41

Yes, uh my grandfather was uh a priest, and my father and two of his brothers, and I'm the third in the generation. How early in life did you envisage ordination?

Rt Rev. And Rt Hon. Gerald Ellison5:54

I don't think I can remember a time when I didn't intend to be ordained. You were at New College, Oxford. What did you read? I read uh Philosophy, Politics and Economics, PPE. But a great deal of your time, I know, was spent

Presenter6:00

What did you read?

Presenter6:08

and on the river. Uh It was indeed perhaps more than ought to have been for the benefit of my studies. You rode for your college, of course, and for the university on two occasions, nineteen thirty two and nineteen thirty three. What was your place in the boat?

Presenter6:20

I wrote Bow the first year and Seven the second year.

Rt Rev. And Rt Hon. Gerald Ellison6:23

And what were the results in those two years?

Presenter6:26

Yeah.

Rt Rev. And Rt Hon. Gerald Ellison6:26

Well, it's rather tactless of you to ask, because uh at those days the fortunes of Oxford Rowing were at the bottom of the trough. And I'm afraid we didn't win on either occasion. Well, the following year you were President of the Boat Club.

Presenter6:28

Chance uh

Presenter6:39

Oh, I was sick uh uh about three weeks before the race. Later on, of course, you umpired the university race for a number of years.

Rt Rev. And Rt Hon. Gerald Ellison6:40

Um

Rt Rev. And Rt Hon. Gerald Ellison6:42

Oh, I went to the next.

Presenter6:50

Including the the year when Oxford sank, and your decision on on that occasion caused a little controversy.

Rt Rev. And Rt Hon. Gerald Ellison6:57

Well, it was the first time that I'd done it. And uh I'd of course prepared myself thinking of every possible eventuality. But the one thing that I never expected to happen was that one of the crews would sink within what is known as the protected area. It was the first time for what, eighty or ninety years? Well, that no, Oxford had sunk in nineteen twenty five.

Presenter7:19

No, please note.

Rt Rev. And Rt Hon. Gerald Ellison7:20

But it was the first time that a boat had ever sunk within the first two or three minutes of the race. And the umpire is charged, if an accident happens within the first two or three minutes up the Fulham Palace wall, that he shall stop the race and restart it when he can. And I in a split second had to decide whether a hazard of the weather constituted an accident. And I decided there and then that it did, and I think on the whole my decision was upheld.

Rt Rev. And Rt Hon. Gerald Ellison7:50

Where did you decide to go to study theology when you came down from Oxford? I went to Cambridge and I went to Wescott House. What was your first clerical appointment? I went as curate to Sherburne in Dorset, a very lovely place with a wonderful church, Sherburne Abbey, and I was very fortunate to go to such a marvellous place.

Presenter8:11

Well, that was the start of your of your career, really, so can we have your third record at this point?

Rt Rev. And Rt Hon. Gerald Ellison8:17

I would have to have some Gilbert and Sullivan. Have you ever appeared in Gilbert and Sullivan? Yes, I appeared when I was a curate at Sherburn.

Rt Rev. And Rt Hon. Gerald Ellison8:26

In a performance of The Gondoliers, when I played Giuseppe and the school chaplain played Marco. And then later, when I was a chaplain in the Navy, we used to spend a lot of time swinging round the boy in Scappa Flow. And I had a fellow officer in HMS Howe, where I was the chaplain, John Watkins, who had a genius for writing Gilbertian lyrics. And he wrote a complete Gilbert and Sullivan opera for the Navy with a great many relevant allusions. And I played in that as well. So I'm very fond of Gilbert and Sullivan. Right, where do we go then? I'd like to hear what I think is the most beautiful of all the madrigals, the sextet from Patience. I hear the soft note of an echoing voice.

Speaker 29:21

I feel the soft note of the every

Speaker 29:34

It wisps my soul in heart rejoice for the love standing shed.

Speaker 29:47

Be that is all not a fate or will change.

Presenter10:13

I hear the soft note of an echoing voice from Gilbert and Sullivan's Patience, recorded by the Doily Carte Opera Company.

Presenter10:20

Now after Sherborne you became chaplain to the Bishop of Winchester. What are the duties of a bishop's chaplain?

Rt Rev. And Rt Hon. Gerald Ellison10:27

He's really an ADC to the bishop, and especially with Bishop Cyril Garbit, who I was with, he was a bachelor, and so he depended very much on his chaplain for companionship, as well as for seeing that his diary was kept in order and doing a certain amount of deviling for him if he wanted preparation, for anything that he needed information about.

Presenter10:54

And, as you have already mentioned, during the war you became a chaplain in the Royal Navy.

Rt Rev. And Rt Hon. Gerald Ellison10:58

And what happened when you left the Royal Navy?

Rt Rev. And Rt Hon. Gerald Ellison11:01

Well by this time uh Bishop Syrilgarvit had become Archbishop of York and the war was obviously coming to an end and so he asked the chaplain of the fleet if he would release me. So I uh went up to York and I was with him for two and a half years and then I went to a parish in Portsmouth. Back to the Navy really. Well to many uh

Presenter11:21

Naval connections in Yes. You were then appointed South African Bishop of Wilsdon. You were still only 40. That's very young to be a bishop. Yes, I I think

Rt Rev. And Rt Hon. Gerald Ellison11:30

For a short time I was in the Guinness Book of Records, the the youngest bishop. Others have overtaken me since then.

Presenter11:38

Now, I know that in the Church of England there are two archbishops and twenty-four bishops. Bishops of course having seats in the House of Lords. How many diocesan and and and sufficient bishops are there?

Rt Rev. And Rt Hon. Gerald Ellison11:49

Yeah.

Rt Rev. And Rt Hon. Gerald Ellison11:49

There are 43 diocesan bishops and about well over a hundred suffragan bishops.

Presenter11:57

Wildeston always strikes me as an unlikely place to have a

Rt Rev. And Rt Hon. Gerald Ellison12:00

Bishop of any sort, somehow. Well, uh the ancient church of Willston was one of the very senior churches in the area. But in my day I used to look after an area which stretched from Enfield right across to Harrow and Northwood and down to St Pancras in the south. I used to describe myself as being the bishop of the North Circular Road.

Presenter12:23

Then after five years you were enthroned as Bishop of Chester, that lovely old city. It is a wonderful place to be in. We had eighteen very happy

Speaker 212:29

Yeah.

Rt Rev. And Rt Hon. Gerald Ellison12:32

Yes there. And you coached some school eights on the River Dee, I believe? I used to I used to take a fatherly interest in the King School Chester and had some contacts with the Royal Chester Rowing Club, which is one of the very old rowing clubs of the country. Uh

Presenter12:47

Where

Rt Rev. And Rt Hon. Gerald Ellison12:47

Hmm.

Presenter12:48

He went thrown Bishop of London.

Rt Rev. And Rt Hon. Gerald Ellison12:48

Yeah.

Rt Rev. And Rt Hon. Gerald Ellison12:50

nineteen seventy three, in September nineteen seventy three.

Presenter12:53

Yeah.

Rt Rev. And Rt Hon. Gerald Ellison12:53

I think the

Presenter12:54

This is the point for another record. What should we have? Number four we've got.

Rt Rev. And Rt Hon. Gerald Ellison12:56

Before we've got to have something to make me laugh, and I'd like something that appealed to my family and also reminded me of Chester and so I would like to hear the scaffold singing Thank you very much.

Speaker 213:13

Thank you very much for playing this rap call. Thank you very much. Thank you very, very, very much. Thank you very much for playing this rap call. Thank you very, very, very much.

Speaker 213:22

Thank you very much for our gracious team Thank you very much Thank you very very very much Thank you very much for our gracious team Thank you

Presenter13:43

Motor

Presenter13:45

The scaffold

Presenter13:46

Now the Bishop of London is a very ancient

Rt Rev. And Rt Hon. Gerald Ellison13:49

Artists, isn't it? Yes, indeed. Uh there is some record that a Bishop of London attended the Council of Arles in the year three hundred and fourteen. That's fair.

Presenter14:00

Pretty impressive.

Presenter14:01

And the bishop has always lived, since I believe pre-Norman times, at Fulham Palace, but you've now broken that tradition.

Rt Rev. And Rt Hon. Gerald Ellison14:09

Well, I didn't break it. It was broken for me, but I think absolutely rightly. Yes, a Bishop of London, Urkenwalt, bought the Manor of Fulham in the year 650. And Bishops of London have lived at Fulham ever since then. And I'm the first not to live there, but it had become quite impossible economically. And the great difficulty was, of course, the time that my predecessor had to spend going up the King's Road in order to get to meetings in the middle of London.

Presenter14:38

Yeah, look.

Presenter14:39

It's a lovely old place that

Rt Rev. And Rt Hon. Gerald Ellison14:40

The the present building dates back, I think, to Henry the Seventh. Oh yes, a great deal of Tudor work in it and a garden of some seven or eight acres round it, in which previous bishops of London had planted some very lovely trees. It was very beautiful. How big is your diocese?

Presenter14:56

Does

Rt Rev. And Rt Hon. Gerald Ellison14:56

Uh

Presenter14:56

It in fact cover the whole of

Rt Rev. And Rt Hon. Gerald Ellison14:57

Yeah.

Presenter14:57

And the

Rt Rev. And Rt Hon. Gerald Ellison14:58

No, it it covers London north of the river and west of the River Lea. It goes from Enfield right across to Northwood and down to Staines and along the river. That's a pretty vast area. How many parishes? There are some 600 parishes. How many clergy? And about a thousand clergy. But I have four very effective and competent area bishops who share with me the spiritual oversight.

Presenter15:20

Is

Presenter15:34

Uh

Rt Rev. And Rt Hon. Gerald Ellison15:34

Uh

Presenter15:34

So your work is is mainly administrative. There's not much time for

Rt Rev. And Rt Hon. Gerald Ellison15:37

Pastoral work. Well, I wish I had more, but I do have to spend a very great deal of time administratively and uh guiding things and attending meetings. Another record, please. I have always been very fond of singing, and uh that is the area of music that I've enjoyed most. And I would like to hear what I think is one of the most beautiful uh love songs, uh that is Zweignung Devotion by Richard Strauss.

Speaker 216:21

Oh shit.

Speaker 216:22

Most of them.

Presenter17:02

Richard Strauss's song Zweignung, sung by Gerois Suzet, with Dalton Baldwin at the piano. Does the Prime Minister still have the casting vote in appointing bishops?

Rt Rev. And Rt Hon. Gerald Ellison17:15

It's not exactly that he has the casting vote, because the appointments are made by the Queen, but she acts on the advice of her Chief Minister, and he still reserves to himself the right to make recommendations to the Queen. But recently, an agreement that's been reached between the Church and the political leaders, we have a committee which makes recommendations to the Prime Minister, and he would be prepared to accept the advice which is given by the committee.

Rt Rev. And Rt Hon. Gerald Ellison17:49

How much time can you spend in

Presenter17:51

Uh In the House of Lords.

Rt Rev. And Rt Hon. Gerald Ellison17:52

I try and go in every week and sit and listen to uh the debates, and then every now and then I take part in them if there's something that interests me. You've led a number of campaigns. Which one in particular do you consider important? Well, I was very interested uh in the problems of gambling. I was chairman of the church's council on gambling at one time and was very glad to be able to take some part in the creation of the present gaming board and the control of gaming in this country. I've also been very much interested in road safety, and I continue to watch that and to make any contribution I can.

Presenter18:33

Record number six visuals.

Rt Rev. And Rt Hon. Gerald Ellison18:35

You spoke to me earlier about musical instruments. I've never been very successful in any of them, but when I was a schoolboy at Westminster, I learnt the cello. And indeed, I used to travel every day during term time in a top hat and tail coat from Nottinghill Gates, St James's Park, very often carrying a cello as well. And I have a very vivid memory of coming to the old Queen's Hall and hearing the great cellist Soudja playing a piece, the cello variations with orchestra by the French composer Buelmann. It has a very luscious melody in it, and it is one that's always given me great pleasure.

Presenter20:20

An excerpt from Welmann's Variations for Cello and Orchestra, played by Antony Peeney and the Royal Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Joseph Berton.

Presenter20:29

Now, you have quite a lot of travelling to do, because I believe

Presenter20:33

As Bishop of London, you still have a certain amount of overseas jurisdiction to to carry out.

Rt Rev. And Rt Hon. Gerald Ellison20:39

Yes, in 1633 King Charles I gave to the Bishop of London jurisdiction over all Church of England congregations outside the British Isles. Of course nobody at that time had thought of the American colonies or indeed of the British Empire. But I still have a vestigial jurisdiction over the chaplaincies in North and Central Europe.

Rt Rev. And Rt Hon. Gerald Ellison21:05

How many are there? There are about a hundred chaplaincies in North and Central Europe and in Gibraltar, the Diocese of Gibraltar, and we are in process at the present time of creating one diocese to oversee all the chaplaincies in Europe. You are in Russia, Yadatoga.

Rt Rev. And Rt Hon. Gerald Ellison21:23

Yes, I went to represent the Archbishop of Canterbury at a great ceremony in Armenia when the Supreme Catholicos celebrated his twentieth anniversary and they had the very solemn dedication of the holy oils. And Russia does come under the surveillance of the Bishop of London in that our chaplain, Canon Staples, in Helsinki, goes to Moscow regularly and takes services for the American and the British people who are there.

Rt Rev. And Rt Hon. Gerald Ellison21:54

You also have the office of Dean of the Chapels Royal. How many Chapels Royal are there?

Rt Rev. And Rt Hon. Gerald Ellison21:59

There are three chapels royal in London. That is St James's Palace with the Queen's Chapel in Marlborough House. Then there is the chapel at Hampton Court. And finally, there are the two chapels in the Tower of London. So you have really a lot to do. I wear many hats and enjoy the variety of my work.

Rt Rev. And Rt Hon. Gerald Ellison22:22

Well, I'm very fond of opera.

Rt Rev. And Rt Hon. Gerald Ellison22:26

And my favourite opera is Eugenia Negin.

Rt Rev. And Rt Hon. Gerald Ellison22:30

largely, I think, because it has a very plausible story, which can't be said of all operas, and also the marvellous music by Tchaikovsky, and I would very much like to have with me on my island the letter song.

Presenter23:37

The latter song from Yuje Nonyegin, sung by Galina Vishnevskaya.

Presenter23:42

I haven't asked you those very important questions about the practical side of Desert Island life. As a naval chaplain, I presume you can still remember some instructions in survival.

Rt Rev. And Rt Hon. Gerald Ellison23:54

Yes, I think I should be reasonably good at looking after myself. Any fishing?

Rt Rev. And Rt Hon. Gerald Ellison23:59

I'd do my best, yes. I'd try and make a boat so that I could uh go around the island.

Presenter24:05

Oh, rowing's a bit laborious. Do you know anything about sailing?

Rt Rev. And Rt Hon. Gerald Ellison24:06

Know anything about

Rt Rev. And Rt Hon. Gerald Ellison24:08

No, I know nothing about it. That was one of the things I sh I shouldn't venture too far away. What about navigation? I know nothing about it, no. Stay inside of land. Yes. Record number eight.

Presenter24:18

Your last one.

Rt Rev. And Rt Hon. Gerald Ellison24:20

However peaceful and happy one was, one couldn't but forget the tensions and the troubles of the world, and I don't think one ought to forget about them. And I would like to have a piece of music that would remind me of these tensions. And I don't think there's anything which expresses more man's longing for peace and his revulsion of war than the closing part of Beethoven's Missa Solemnis, the Mass in D. When I was an undergraduate in 1930, I sang in this work under the baton of Sir Hugh Allen, who was a great conductor of choral works. It's always remained with me as one of the most moving appeals of mankind for peace.

Presenter26:06

A passage from the Agnus Dei from Beethoven's Missa Solemnis.

Presenter26:11

A recording conducted by Herbert von Carrian. If you could take only one disc out of your eight, which would you choose?

Presenter26:19

I think I would have the Elgar. Elgar's first symphony. Yes. And one luxury to take to the island with you?

Rt Rev. And Rt Hon. Gerald Ellison26:27

I think I would take the opportunity of trying to teach myself uh a musical instrument properly. I should think that a stringed instrument or a reed instrument might be rather too sensitive to the atmosphere, and so I would like to have an instrument which I tried to learn when I was a curate, and that is a trombone.

Presenter26:48

Splendid, of course. Yes, indeed, you shall have a trombone. And one book, putting aside the Bible and Shakspere, which are already on the island, and we don't permit big encyclopedias.

Rt Rev. And Rt Hon. Gerald Ellison27:00

Well, there's a book which has given me great pleasure over a long period of time, which I bought when I was chaplain in the Navy in Alexandria, and that is London Music in 1888-89 as heard by Corono di Bazzetto. In other words, Bernard Shaw's wonderful musical criticisms during that period.

Presenter27:22

Splendid. And thank you very much, Bishop, for letting us hear your Desert Island Disc.

Rt Rev. And Rt Hon. Gerald Ellison27:27

Well, thank you very much. It's been a very happy experience for me. Goodbye, everyone.

Speaker 127:41

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