Rt Hon. Denis Healey

Rt Hon. Denis Healey0:00

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

Rt Hon. Denis Healey0:05

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

Presenter0:31

Our castaway this week is a politician.

Presenter0:33

He's the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Right Honourable Dennis Healy. Now, you have to imagine, Chancellor, that your

Presenter0:40

doomed to be on this desert island perhaps for the rest of your life, and you have to realize that in view of the office you hold, there will be listeners who wish it were true. I wish it were true. What would you be happiest to have got away from?

Presenter0:52

I think really from the sort of life I live today, but I doubt if I'd be happy away from it for more than a month or so at a time. There must be one particular irritating facet. I think it's basically hard work and not having enough time to do and think about the things which you would otherwise do and think about.

Presenter1:09

You have your list of just eight records there. What is the first one?

Presenter1:13

Well, I'd like to start off with something which reminds me of my childhood. I lived in a village in Yorkshire between Ilkleymoor, Bartet, and the Leeds Liverpool Canal, where I used to catch tiddlers and fall in and

Presenter1:29

cycle up and down the coal tips at the edge and my first record is called a Shropshire Lad.

Presenter1:36

Which, uh, contrary to what you might think, is a poem by John Betcherman with a brilliant accompaniment by Jim Parker.

Presenter1:45

And uh it's about a man called Captain Webb.

Presenter1:49

who was a figure on the match boxes when I was a little boy, with a long red striped bathing costume and a walrus moustache because he'd swum the Channel.

Speaker 41:53

Oh yeah.

Rt Hon. Denis Healey1:53

Yeah.

Presenter2:11

The guss was on in the Institute, The flare was up in the gym.

Presenter2:17

A man was running a mineral line, a lass was singing a hymn.

Presenter2:22

When Captain Webb the Dollyman.

Presenter2:26

Captain Webb from Dorley Came swimming along the old canal That carried the bricks to Lorley. John Benjamin, a Shropshire lad.

Presenter2:37

Is this going to be the the plan of your eight records, a nostalgic approach? Yes, on the whole, I like to have something which uh reminds me of various parts of my life and

Presenter2:49

Betcherman, incidentally, is the great expert in nostalgia as far as the twenties are concerned, as you know. And music means a lot to you, doesn't it? Very much indeed. I my mother, I think, encouraged me first to take an interest in music. I learnt the piano when I was a little boy, and she encouraged me to go to the subscription concerts in Bradford, where I heard some of the great musicians of the twenties and thirties, like Schnarbel, Fischer.

Presenter3:14

Have you ever played in public yourself?

Presenter3:16

No, um only twice. Once I played some Scott Joplin on a trailer for the Budget and another time I uh played uh Over the Rainbow in a pantomime on a television channel which I think I'm not allowed to mention on the BBC. Of course not.

Presenter3:33

You talked about your childhood in Yorkshire. In fact, you were born in Kent.

Presenter3:37

Yes, I was. I mean, I've always been slightly embarrassed because I'm sometimes introduced on the platform in Yorkshire as born and bred a Yorkshireman, and I was bred a Yorkshireman from the age of five, but in fact I was born in what is now Heath territory, I suppose, in the Bexley constituency, at the nurses' home at Mottingham.

Presenter3:56

and christened Dennis Winston Healy. Winston because of your father's admiration for Winston Healthy.

Speaker 44:01

Nice.

Rt Hon. Denis Healey4:06

Winter

Presenter4:14

at the Dardanelles, so he lumbered me with that uh second name.

Rt Hon. Denis Healey4:17

Second

Presenter4:18

Now, Bradford, Bradford Grammar School. Where in fact you were a rebel. You resigned from the OTC. I know. I always felt slightly ashamed when I became Defence Secretary that I started off as a pacifist, but I think I was pacifist for all the right reasons. It must have caused a great sensation at the school. I had a great row with the Masters, certainly. It gave you more time for other things, such as a scholarship to Oxford. Balliol College, was that your choice?

Presenter4:44

Yes, it was. Hm. What did you read?

Presenter4:47

I did Latin and Greek and ancient history and ancient philosophy. You can't think of anything less relevant to the things I'm doing now.

Presenter4:55

Any contemporaries we would know? Oh, a large number, uh quite a lot of MPs like uh Ted Heath, who was then the organ scholar at Balliol, Julian Amory, uh Hugh Fraser, uh Tony Kershaw on the Tory side, Roy Jenkins, um

Presenter5:13

Uh David Ginsburg on my own side and uh

Rt Hon. Denis Healey5:15

Undone.

Presenter5:17

I was very keen on music and the arts as well as politics when I was at Oxford. I started a.

Presenter5:23

New Oxford Art Society had a an exhibition of Picasso's in 1937 when they were not so well known as they are today.

Presenter5:31

But I particularly enjoyed the Balium Music Society, and there was a

Presenter5:36

young man my age called George Malcolm in those days covered with puppy fat who's become the greatest British harpsichordist and I think I'd like to choose as my next record him playing on the harpsichord a piece called Bach Goes to Town.

Presenter6:53

George Malcolm playing Alec Templeton's piece Bach Goes to Town.

Presenter6:58

What were your other extracurricular activities at Balliol?

Presenter7:02

Well, I was uh chairman of the Labour Club.

Presenter7:06

Member of the Communist Party for a couple of years.

Rt Hon. Denis Healey7:08

That's what I'm doing.

Speaker 47:08

Wait, what?

Presenter7:10

Well, basically I didn't think at that time that uh

Presenter7:14

Any other party was doing anything about the coming war and about Hitler. The bulk of the Labour Party at that time was pacifists, the Conservative Party was appeasement-minded, and uh I fought shoulder to shoulder with Ted Heath to get the Master Bailer elected as Member of Parliament for Oxford against a chap called Quintin Hogg, who's now called Lord Hilsham.

Presenter7:36

As an undergraduate, I mean had you explored Europe?

Presenter7:40

Yes, a great deal. I cycled between school and Oxford to Salzburg.

Presenter7:45

and my wife is always furious when I tell, as I'll tell again, the fact that I had five weeks' holiday, the best of my life.

Presenter7:53

going from Yorkshire, Harrods to Antwerp and then to Austria for five pounds, staying in the German youth hostels, paying a penny a night, a penny for breakfast. And I discovered much later, a year or two ago, that Franz Joseph Strauss, the German Christian Social Union politician, was staying in the same youth hostel in Munich at the same time as I.

Presenter8:14

Well, you you took a double first. What were you planning to do at that time when you came down? Well, at that time I wanted really to write the best book ever written on aesthetics, the sort of theory of beauty and art. But I don't think I shall ever do that now. Uh I think it was the war basically that uh made me choose a political career instead and on the whole I've not regretted it because I always think better under pressure and I think I'd have gone to seed even more than I have if I'd uh

Presenter8:44

Been at a college in Oxford. Yes, you joined the Royal Engineers. Where did you serve?

Presenter8:48

I was in North Africa and Italy and uh

Presenter8:52

Apart from separation from one's friends, and particularly my girlfriend whom I married at the end of the war, I enjoyed the war very much and found it, you know, exciting, interesting, and even learnt to be practical.

Rt Hon. Denis Healey9:00

And

Presenter9:04

You finished as a major. Now your next record takes you to this period in your life, the end of the war. Well, the next record really is Tino Rossi singing a Neapolitan song, Cattari, which is a love song. And it reminds me of the war in Italy and it reminds me of my honeymoon with my wife Edna because I got married just at the end of the war. I left the army, got a job at the Labour Party and got married all in the same week at the end of 1945, and we had a delayed honeymoon.

Presenter9:35

round about Easter that year when we went with Harold Lasky on a political tour of Italy and finished up on honeymoon, without Harold Lasky, I'm glad to say, uh at Sorrento. And we've gone back to Italy a great deal ever since, and that's why I've chosen as my next record uh Catari.

Speaker 39:56

Atari

Speaker 39:58

Kadari Pekbari Jasti Barola Pak Mebarukorburmiyante Gadari N Teshkuruda Kadajuradukore Gadari.

Presenter10:26

Katari sung by Tino Rossi.

Presenter10:28

He has a voice which someone once described as steel in velvet, and I think that's a pretty good description, don't you?

Rt Hon. Denis Healey10:34

Good night.

Presenter10:35

So the end of the war, His Majesty gave you a civilian suit. There had been talk of a fellowship in Oxford. Well, I had a thing there at Merton to write this great work on aesthetics, but uh instead I'd fought the general election as the Labour candidate for Pudzi and Ottley. And after that I

Presenter10:54

took a job as an official of the Labour Party in charge of international affairs at Transport House and helped to

Presenter11:00

Rebuild the Socialist International which had broken down. And this job with the International Department gave you opportunity for a lot of travel. Yes, I went all over Europe on east of the Iron Curtain as well and did my best to help the Socialist parties in Eastern Europe, in Poland and Hungary and Czechoslovakia to stand up to the pressure exerted on them by the Russians and the Communist parties in the area. And it gave you an opportunity to become the the useful linguist which you are.

Presenter11:30

Well, I don't know how useful I am, but I learnt to speak, uh, Italian in the war, German and French and uh

Presenter11:38

to say in almost any European language, and some non-European ones, in the name of the Labour Party, I wish you a successful Congress.

Presenter11:47

When was the next election?

Presenter11:49

The 45 one you came unstuck. Well, I did six years at Transport House and then I was lucky enough to be chosen as candidate for a by-election in Leeds, which was near Padzionotte, where I'd fought my first election in 1945, and I'd been in Leeds ever since as a Member of Parliament. Right. Which brings us to your fourth record.

Presenter12:09

Well, I think before I get on to politics I'd like to t talk a little bit about my real life and uh the next record I'd like to choose is uh for my mother-in-law who's a a lady of ninety-five who lives in the forest of Dean and who was called the Nightingale of the Forest when she was younger because she used to sing all over the area and surprisingly Jimmy Young's mother used to play the piano for her.

Presenter12:38

occasionally, and I'd like to play next a song which she used to sing a great deal, I Know That My Redeemer Liveth, uh from Handel's Messiah.

Speaker 412:53

Predeem.

Speaker 413:07

They first

Speaker 413:38

Pretty.

Speaker 413:42

And that he has done.

Presenter13:48

Heather Harper singing I Know That My Redeemer Liveth from Handel's Messiah, Colin Davis conducting. What was your first Government office?

Presenter13:57

First job I had in the government was um Secretary of State for Defence, which I

Presenter14:02

did for six years at quite a difficult time when we were having to reduce the defence budget and our troops were fighting both in South Arabia

Presenter14:11

and in Borneo, but I enjoyed it enormously because I liked the people I was working with. I think that the people who serve in the forces these days are very, very fine people indeed at every level. You had had a couple of shadow jobs first. Yes, I did foreign affairs, which had been my main interest in politics. And then I started taking an interest in defence because I got worried about the Atom bomb, as many people did in the mid-fifties. And oddly enough, Henry Kissinger, who uh became well known later, and I we both wrote books on limited use of nuclear weapons in the mid-fifties and I think it was partly my interest in military strategy which uh led Harold Wilson to make me

Presenter14:53

Defence Minister when I was forty-seven in nineteen sixty four. You had had six years as a serving soldier. Did being Minister of Defence clarify some of the inexplicable things that had happened to you when you were in uniform?

Presenter15:04

I wouldn't quite say it that way round. I'd say much more that uh

Presenter15:09

Having been an ordinary soldier and junior officer in the war, clarified a lot of things I might have found difficult to understand as Secretary of State for Defence.

Rt Hon. Denis Healey15:15

Difficult to understand.

Presenter15:18

And then Chancellor in Opposition and in Power. That's it, yes. I became Chancellor in Opposition when Roy Jenkins uh resigned and did it for two years, not very well I think. Uh and then I've done it for the last four and a half years in real life. Record number five.

Presenter15:36

Well, I'd like to choose as my next record something which reminds me very much of my

Presenter15:43

human private family life because uh ever since I got a car, which was when I was thirty five, much later than most people these days, we had our holidays with the children camping in Europe, in France, the Alps and in Italy.

Presenter15:58

and uh we enjoyed it enormously. I think the children did too, and they're camping themselves now with their children. And uh the next record I've chosen is Netanyah Davrat singing

Presenter16:11

one of the songs of the Auvergne called Bailero, which is about a girl standing on one side of a river in central France on a very hot summer day.

Presenter16:22

And uh

Presenter16:23

calling to a shepherd on the other side to come over and uh talk to her. And uh it's very evocative, I think, of our summer holidays at that time.

Speaker 416:47

Kostrithi Doyle.

Presenter17:34

Natania Davrat singing Pallero from Songs of the Auvergne.

Presenter17:39

We know quite a lot about Number 10 Downing Street, but very little about Number 11, the official residence of the Chancellor. Is it as Number 10 is, virtually an office building with a flat on top? Yes, it is exactly that, although the flat I think is a bit nicer than the one at Number 10. Was it rebuilt as Number 10 was? Yes, it was, although it has one ceiling which is original from the 18th century, a very beautiful umbrella ceiling because it's suspended on four pillars in the official dining room on the ground floor.

Rt Hon. Denis Healey17:57

Yeah.

Presenter18:09

So there is a a little sense of history about the pictures which uh have a very historical connection. I've got a lovely nineteenth century sketch of Gladstone when he was Chancellor working on his budget lying on a sofa in number eleven which uh you know gives me quite a sense of history.

Presenter18:27

Where do you live as a family? Where do you escape to at weekends? Well, we have a a house in Sussex which we love on the Downs. Unfortunately, my children now have all left home. I've got a daughter teaching in North London with a little boy, our first grandson, and we adore him. And I've got another daughter working at a Citizens' Advice Bureau in Leeds.

Presenter18:49

And I've got a son who's married in Oxford and writing very successful books. And Mrs. Healy, of course, is now a best-selling author. Well, I hope she's going to keep me in my old age. Very useful. Authorship, much more stable career than politics. Well, I'm not sure it's all that stable, actually. It's a very uncertain thing and almost as unrewarding financially, but I think Edna's enjoyed it enormously, and she's had a.

Speaker 419:00

May use

Rt Hon. Denis Healey19:01

Uh

Rt Hon. Denis Healey19:11

Yeah.

Presenter19:12

a great success with her first book. Well, perhaps you're a good person to canvass in favour of the public lending right for authors. I can tell you that Edna canvasses me so continuously on that that in the end I dare say I'll have to give in. We've got to your sixth record.

Presenter19:27

Well, I felt I ought not to be on a desert island without a record, which reminded me a little bit of the political and economic uh problems I'd had to cope with, so I

Presenter19:37

Chose uh a little bit of

Presenter19:40

The Weil Brecht opera, the Thratny opera, which was written in the nineteen twenties in Germany in a mood of savage cynicism to

Presenter19:48

express the demoralization of a society which was in political, economic, and moral decay. I'd have liked to use the Louis Armstrong record of Mack the Knife, but it isn't quite the German Weimar thing, so I've chosen a little bit from the suite which includes that tune.

Presenter21:06

The Ballad of Mac the Knight from the Thrapney Opera, played by the London Sinfonietta, conducted by David Atherton. How resourceful would you be as a castaway? Could you look after yourself? Oh, I'm a great do it yourself, Jack. Yes, I love uh making uh

Rt Hon. Denis Healey21:18

You are

Presenter21:22

I've invented, incidentally, a new piece of furniture called a welly box.

Presenter21:26

Which, if you live in the country, is a big box in which you can put all the Wellingtons.

Speaker 421:28

To be

Presenter21:31

And put your shoes above, and it's a magnificent piece of

Presenter21:36

architecture worthy of Chippendale or Sheraton, except that I did drill one or two holes in the wrong place which I never actually yet filled in with plastic wood.

Rt Hon. Denis Healey21:37

What

Presenter21:46

So you'd be able to build some kind of shelter? Oh, I think so, yes. What about food? Can you fish?

Presenter21:51

No, I hate fishing'cause I don't like killing things, but I'd do very well if it was the right sort of island on yams and cocoanuts. Yes, it wouldn't worry you to be a vegetarian. No.

Presenter22:02

Would you try to escape?

Presenter22:04

Um depend what was happening on the island really. Record number seven.

Presenter22:10

The re last record I played, as I say, described a mood of cynicism.

Presenter22:15

The next one is from an opera which is often called a very cynical opera by Mozart.

Presenter22:22

Uh which is called uh that's what all women are like, cosie fantutte.

Presenter22:28

Uh but the extraordinary thing with Mozart is that uh

Presenter22:33

He could see right into the depths of

Presenter22:35

The Human Heart.

Presenter22:37

And the piece I've chosen, which is from one of my favourite operas and I love opera, describes two young women and an elderly male friend saying goodbye to the young women's lovers as they sail across the Bay of Naples on their way to the wars. And it's called May the Wind Be Gentle. And it's one of the most beautiful things, I think, in the whole of music.

Presenter24:06

The trio Suabi Sio Ilvento from the first act of Cosi Fantuti, sung by Elizabeth Schwartzkopp, Christa Ludwig and Walter Berry, which brings us to your last record.

Presenter24:17

Well, I thought I ought to finish with something which is, you know, robust, glorious, triumphant and

Presenter24:23

Full of assertion and positiveness. And I also wanted something from Beethoven, so I've chosen.

Presenter24:30

The opening of the last movement of his Emperor Concerto, played by

Presenter24:35

Artur Schnabel, who I think was the greatest musician who ever played the piano, although he wasn't a brilliant pianist in the virtuoso sense.

Presenter24:44

And I heard him play when I was a little boy at Bradford Grammar School at the subscription concerts there, and I think he.

Presenter24:51

understands the total structure and feeling of anything which he plays better than any pianist before or since that I know of.

Presenter25:55

The opening of the last movement of Beethoven's Emperor Concerto, Schnabel with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Frederick Stock.

Presenter26:03

If you could only take one disc out of the eight you've played, which would it be?

Presenter26:08

Do you know the best way of killing a centipede?

Presenter26:10

Uh

Presenter26:11

Kick it in the teeth. No, no. You ask it which leg it first moves when it starts walking and it dies of a nervous breakdown. And I feel a bit like that when you ask me to choose uh one particular record. What I'd really take with me is uh Beethoven's quartets, which are really not the right thing to take little bits out of for a programme like this. If you asked me to take one of these records, I think I'd take the uh trio from uh Cosifantute. Right. And you're allowed one luxury to take with you? Nothing of any practical use.

Presenter26:44

Well, I'm not quite sure how you define my wife, Edna. I'd insist on taking her unless she was there with me already. Yes, I'm sorry, but we do have a rule about this.

Rt Hon. Denis Healey26:48

Yeah

Rt Hon. Denis Healey26:50

Do you have

Presenter26:52

Nobody

Presenter26:54

Animate, in the very least. Oh, well, in that case, I think I'd take uh

Presenter26:59

some painting materials, some wall paints, canvas, brushes and so on, so that I could uh do some painting while I was on the island. And one book apart from the Bible and Shakespeare which are already there and we put the bar up on big encyclopedias.

Presenter27:14

Well, I'd take the poems of Yeats. He's my favourite poet this century. I think he's one of the greatest poets in the English language ever. He can tell you anything you want to know about life, love, or politics. It'll be there. And thank you, Dennis Healy, for letting us hear your Desert Island discs. Thank you very much. Goodbye, everyone.

Rt Hon. Denis Healey27:40

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