Noel Edmonds

Presenter0:00

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

Presenter0:05

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

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Our castaway this week is a popular Radio 1 disc jockey. He's also moved on to higher things as proprietor of television's multicoloured swap shop and similar enterprises. It's Noel Edmonds. Noel.

Presenter0:43

After all those thousands of discs that you played, you're going to get eight and no more. What do you feel about that?

Presenter0:49

I think it's very measly. It's typical of Radio 4. How do you feel about a desert island? Could you take it?

Noel Edmonds0:50

Typical right.

Presenter0:56

The solitude would be very difficult. Very difficult. What would you be happiest to got away from?

Presenter1:02

London, I think. I used to like London very much and I don't like it at all now, and it hurts when I have to come to London. Uh although I obviously enjoy the reasons that I come, but I I've moved out to Buckinghamshire and it's it's so lovely in the countryside.

Presenter1:15

What's the first disk you've chosen?

Presenter1:17

It's a piece of music which would help me to remember the countryside which I like. I used to have a house in Suffolk and I used to play this a lot, particularly when we could see them doing the harvesting, whatever, from the back of the cottage. We had a particularly delightful view of of a part of the countryside which actually rolls and it's Vaughan Williams and it's the Pastoral Symphony and I think it's quite delightful.

Presenter2:44

The opening of the Vaughan Williams Third Symphony, the Pastoral Symphony, Andre Preven conducting the London Symphony Orchestra, to remind you of Rolling Suffolk. Is that your native part of the country? Were you born in Suffolk? No, I was born in Ilford, mm-hmm, in good old Essex, at least I think it used to be.

Noel Edmonds2:56

Yeah.

Presenter3:00

Essex is now a London borough.

Presenter3:02

And you're the son of a headmaster. Were you good at school?

Presenter3:06

Very medium. Very, very medium. Which subjects interested you most? Without a doubt, history. My father was a a a history teacher before he then moved out of the classroom and into the headmaster's office and history was always something. But I although I got a fair number of O levels and A levels, I... Yeah. Very much injected. I mean, really just sort of force-fed.

Noel Edmonds3:23

Yeah.

Noel Edmonds3:25

Yeah.

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What did you want to be?

Presenter3:31

Um

Presenter3:34

I I don't know. I mean I toyed with all the original ideas or unoriginal in many ways of uh solicitor and uh at one point wondered about getting into a large company, possibly on the public relations side. Um it was uh a general dislike for all the ambitions that my uh friends at school had of being a doctor or being a professional person and sort of getting married at thirty and two kids by thirty-five, thirty-eight, first coronary, probably mid-forties. I could see it all and I didn't like it. So I tried from about the age of sixteen to get into broadcasting.

Noel Edmonds4:08

Oh,

Presenter4:11

You used to record disc jockey shows of your own order.

Noel Edmonds4:13

Yes, you should play around

Presenter4:18

Who influenced you? Who who did you copy as a kid?

Presenter4:22

Um

Presenter4:23

I think I was influenced most by Kenny Everett because I admired the way in which he put over it the the humorous element. He didn't just simply say, Here is a joke and tell a joke. He managed to make the whole programme move along. I mean when I was interested it was the era of the pirate radio stations and it was the in thing to be a disc jockey. So it was the general fun and excitement of that period I think which pushed me along and made me want to try and get into broadcasting through that door.

Noel Edmonds4:40

Cool.

Presenter4:52

Right, your second record, what should we have?

Presenter4:54

Uh a touch of humour. I mean on this island I am going to get so depressed on occasions and I've got to have a good laugh and it's an extract from Round the Horn which was probably one of the most exciting things about my growing up. I mean Sunday lunchtime wasn't right without Beyond Our Ken or as it then became Round the Horn and anything from the uh Round the Horn will just make me fall about.

Speaker 35:20

I have a letter here from a listener which reads.

Speaker 45:24

A lot of people criticise me and my mates'cause we go to work in Bright Leary Clubber, but me and my mates say why not?

Speaker 45:34

It don't do nobody no harm.

Speaker 45:37

And add the pet o'color to our dry blood, and it's signed Thomas the Bishop of Pondersend.

Presenter5:44

Kenneth Horne and the gang in Round the Horn.

Presenter5:49

What did you do when you left school? Were you applying straight away for radio jobs?

Presenter5:53

No, the university course was looming up at a very rapid rate. I was supposed to go to Bristol and read economic history and I didn't want to go. I'd been going six days a week to school and I felt I wanted a break. And I was very fortunate that at that time, talking about 1967, you could do such a thing as become a student teacher. And I, I suppose, conned the local authority into thinking I wanted to join the profession. But I had a very interesting year working in a primary school in Ilford and did everything. I mean, absolutely everything. On one occasion I went to the Tower of London five times with various classes. Oh fun. And it gets very boring trying to explain to very advanced mature 11-year-old girls why Henry VIII's armour is that shape. And they don't believe you that he had a lot of sandwiches to carry around.

Noel Edmonds6:32

I don't know

Presenter6:44

And after that? What got you out of it after your year? The fact that I was then due to go to Surrey University to read Human Relations, which was sociology and philosophy and psychology, which somebody in uh one of the independent television companies, uh which I occasionally went to for interviews and advice, still in this ridiculous pursuit of of this goal, um said, Oh, human relations, good course, that'll stand you in good stead for getting into broadcasting. But I I never in fact made it. With three days to go before the course started, I went to a much more valuable educational position at Radio Luxembourg.

Noel Edmonds6:55

Um

Noel Edmonds7:11

Yeah.

Presenter7:22

Well, that's a turning point in your career and the point where we ought to have another record.

Presenter7:27

Well I think this one could um could make you age a bit. Um I'm quite certain that it's not your taste. It's uh in some respects it's not my taste in music. But I'm thinking of this island the whole time and I'm thinking about the moods that I'm going to go through. And at some point I'm going to want to leap up and down and generally have a good rock. And this next piece of music gives me an awful lot of confidence in my own singing abilities. But it does move along. It's by Bruce Springsteen.

Noel Edmonds7:58

Now rips the bones from your back, it's a death trap, it's a suicide rap, we gotta get up while we're young.

Noel Edmonds8:07

Cause trades like us think that we were forced to run

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Ruth Springsteen, and I I'll admit her an artist new to me, and the number

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Born to run.

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Right tour at Luxembourg. Did we enjoy it?

Presenter8:30

I enjoyed it in a professional sense. I enjoyed it now looking back as an experience.

Presenter8:36

Uh it was a it's a lonely place to be.

Presenter8:38

The key thing of course was that we were working in the evenings. And I don't think that radio, certainly that style of radio, should really be on at that time. At least it's not its strongest time. You were three hundred miles away from your nearest British listener, so the mail took a long time to get to you.

Noel Edmonds8:51

Yeah.

Presenter8:53

And you couldn't just walk out of the studio and immediately get some feedback as to your performance. And um well, it was the first time I'd been away from from home. I was learning an awful lot and I was probably very immature.

Presenter9:04

It was the most magnificent apprenticeship. How long did you stake it?

Presenter9:08

Uh about six months.

Presenter9:11

Did you quit or you slung out?

Presenter9:13

I don't know. I wonder that I I probably would have been slung out. It's amazing now to look back and think that I quit and I had no job to go to. I mean, I threw up three grand a year in nineteen sixty eight at the age of nineteen. You were only nineteen when you were and I threw that away for seven pounds a week doing trailers for the BBC.

Noel Edmonds9:26

Uh With

Speaker 49:27

Yeah.

Noel Edmonds9:27

And

Presenter9:32

Uh-huh. So that was some gamble, which I must admit the the enormity of the gamble didn't occur at the time. You were making trailers and and well, sort of making the tea. So odd job man, really.

Presenter9:42

Yes, and I stuck it around doing two or three days a week for very little money, doing odd trailers and competitions, but getting to know the important people and getting to know the right faces and b and being seen around so that the moment anyone became ill, as indeed Kenny Everett became ill on one occasion, I got a chance to debt for him. And uh eventually well you you took over the dawn shift.

Noel Edmonds10:01

Yeah.

Presenter10:01

That's a very important one on Radio One. That's one that everybody listens to. What is it, eight million? Yes, it is of its kind the most important radio show in the world because there is no other show which goes out to so many people. I mean obviously Voice of America and the BBC's own World Service go out to a lot of people. But for top forty radio it's bigger than anything they've got in America. You consider that something like WABC New York, so I'm informed, would be quite pleased to have 125,000 people listening to it. You talk about 8 million out of a population or available radio population in this country. I mean it's amazing. Quite. Of course you have to pretend you like the whole of the top 40 which must be a occupational hazard.

Presenter10:46

Yes, I must admit as I got towards the end of my five-year period on The Breakfast Show, I found it increasingly difficult to maybe hide my feelings about certain bits of music. I'm very happy now to have a radio show where I can get completely involved in the music. What time did you start? I used to get up at five o'clock. I used to be at BH Broadcasting House at six o'clock, on the air at seven. You had a fairly free hand at gimmicks and comic characters and all that sort of thing. You were able to build up your sense of comedy. Yes, I was helped by a producer Dave Tate who had an equally silly sense of humour. Who did you invent particularly? Well, we had a character called Flynn, who was a milkman, and I think I brought the Welly sticker to Britain's notice. We also did DARF things with gnomes, which sounds rather rude to anyone who didn't hear the programme. But it was an idea, very much a conscious effort on my part, to throw up.

Presenter11:40

an inspiration, some gimmick, and then get the people listening to contribute. Um some would call it lazy, but at least you know whether or not you're getting through to the audience. And we had all sorts of silly ideas, posh person's dictionary at one stage, and the the reaction, the mail on that programme was quite overwhelming at times.

Presenter12:01

Record number four.

Presenter12:03

Um a delightful song. I think some people might say it's rather twee in the sense that um it's got a concept of of how we're all here and and the importance of historical events. But it's by a gentleman, a singer-songwriter who I think is quite the best around, a gentleman called John Stuart, and an interesting song about Armstrong.

Noel Edmonds12:27

Calcutta

Noel Edmonds12:30

Barely eight years old.

Noel Edmonds12:34

The flies that swarm the market place

Noel Edmonds12:38

The sea she don't get old

Noel Edmonds12:42

Don't you know she heard it?

Noel Edmonds12:45

On that July afternoon

Noel Edmonds12:49

She heard a man named Armstrong.

Noel Edmonds12:53

Had walked upon

Presenter12:56

Jon Stewart singing Armstrong.

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Now

Presenter13:00

Five years of five in the morning.

Presenter13:02

But this did pay off. Apart from the money the BBC gave you, there were all the commercial things like opening shops and all that sordid side of it.

Presenter13:12

Yes, I wouldn't say sordid. Yes, it is the finest shop window for somebody in my position. I mean to get that show. You think there's there's only been three presenters in in the eleven and a half years of Radio One. It gives you an idea of the importance of that show. And personal appearances at discos. Now some of that can be a bit wearing I should think.

Presenter13:31

Yes, in the early days I really overdid it because I I suppose I was insecure and always thought to myself this isn't going to last and I used to run around up and down the country. I mean I remember one classic week where I did Sunderland on a Monday night and I did Honiton on a Tuesday and I did Newcastle on Tyne on a Thursday night and somewhere like Barnstable on a Friday night. You couldn't say no. No, I mean even an AA patrolman knows that's a very silly way to go around the country.

Presenter13:56

Now, you decided five years is enough. What was the

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Warning sign, was it that you

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felt that you just had to peel off the Dawn Patrol or w were you tired?

Presenter14:07

I felt that I couldn't contribute anything more to the programme. I certainly didn't think the programme could give me anything more. And also, thankfully, lots of people were introducing new elements into my life and opportunities to do different things, both social and work. Had you done a lot of television?

Presenter14:25

No, we'd had two successful series of swap shop. Um I was aware there were lots of things that I'd had to turn down because I'd got to be in London at six o'clock the next morning. I couldn't go on location filming and that sort of thing.

Noel Edmonds14:36

Okay.

Presenter14:39

And I think I felt tired. I mean, I took a complete summer off.

Presenter14:43

Well, we'll talk about the multicolored swap shop in a minute. Let's have record number five.

Presenter14:48

My favourite place in the UK is the Lake District, and whenever I hear the last night of the Proms and they get round to Jerusalem, I always think of of Windermere and Coniston and and that part of the world, a part of the world that I would miss tremendously, stuck away on this desert island.

Noel Edmonds15:11

For the famous songs.

Presenter16:03

Colin Davis conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra and a whole lot of other people at the last night at the proms. Now, the multicoloured swap shop. How does it work?

Presenter16:12

For those who haven't seen it.

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Is there someone who hasn't seen it?

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Good Lord

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Um

Presenter16:20

It's amazing to look back and think that I very nearly turned it down. I mean it has totally altered my life. I very nearly turned it down simply because I was doing the breakfast show five days a week and I couldn't contemplate losing my precious weekends. However, I agreed to do it. It was almost instantly a success and it is one of the happiest things I've ever done. There is a marvellous lady called Rosemary Gill who thought of the idea, who steers it in great fashion and the whole team. I suppose it's the ultimate egg or trip really. I mean I'm sitting there on top of a great team and I'm the guy who gets the chance to go up and collect the cup at the end of the match. But it is so exciting to do that kind of live television. And all the youngsters are ringing up all things to swap. Yeah and they're all lumbering

Noel Edmonds16:24

Uh

Noel Edmonds17:03

Yeah.

Noel Edmonds17:05

And there's some things to swap.

Presenter17:08

lumbering you with difficult things. I mean, no one will believe me that I don't know what the kids are going to ring about. And so you get some strange phone conversations sometimes. I mean, the for the very first programme we had a little girl called Wendy who rang in and asked me uh

Speaker 417:22

Here, have you ever been to Weybridge?

Presenter17:24

And I said, Well, I I've passed through Weightbridge, but I've never actually been there.

Speaker 417:28

She said, Are you sure?

Presenter17:29

There was this long silence. And it's it's funny looking into a television camera and being on the phone at the same time. And I said, I said, I'm positive but I haven't been to Weybridge recently. She said, Well, I saw a bloke look just like you with a blondebird in a car at the traffic lights last Wednesday. Wow. Cameramen are sort of beginning to peer around the camera and giving you knowing looks. And luckily my wife knew where I was on Wednesday. But it's moments like that when you think, Bless them, you know, thank you, I need all of that. And this goes on for three hours. It goes on three hours every Saturday for six months of the year.

Noel Edmonds17:57

It goes on three hours.

Presenter18:00

And you're showing films and so forth. I mean you're not you're not d chatting for three hours. No, no, no, no.

Speaker 418:04

No, no.

Presenter18:10

Introduce a a star of the week or a a collector, some child who collects something interesting.

Presenter18:19

Well, a a new old one, lucky numbers.

Presenter18:22

Yes, um October a difficult month with both of the programmes going. I don't know that it is the most brilliant idea, simply because I think it's going to push up the

Presenter18:34

The exodus of people to Canada and Australia and and other places. Four hours of Edmunds.

Noel Edmonds18:36

Australia and and another place.

Presenter18:39

There's another one you've been doing, a sort of junior mastermind. That's not on at the moment. No, we did seven programmes during the summer. That was superb. We recorded them, in fact, in the spring, so I got my summer break. And they went out during the summer on BBC television. It was called Hobby Horse. It was a very interesting programme to do. I hope it comes back. It's, I think, very reassuring to see how much young people know, not just about their own hobbies and interests, but also about general knowledge. Now, you said that you were living out of town in Buckinghamshire now, that this is the new house. You've got ten acres and a cow, I believe. Yes, still waiting to carve. Yes. And therefore still waiting to have my beautiful fingers attempt to milk. I'm going to have a few... I'm going to have a few stiff drinks before I do that for the first time. I've really got into the swing of it. We live we live it thoroughly and we're gradually it's quite a serious attempt actually we're gradually getting around to some sort of profitability.

Noel Edmonds19:25

I'm gonna have a few

Presenter19:37

And your other interests. You like messing about with fast cars and fast boats.

Presenter19:42

Yes, I did for four years. I race saloon cars in a in a national championship. Without winning, I had a couple of seconds and an awful lot of accidents. Uh but it was a marvellous experience. There's something very satisfying about racing somebody else's car and them not being too angry when it comes back half an inch narrower and six feet shorter. Let's have another record.

Presenter20:10

Uh Neil Diamond uh has got to be in the selection. I'm very keen on singer-songwriters, a terrific composer.

Presenter20:17

And I like the sentiments of the song, because he lists uh a number of people who obviously mean something to him, and he regrets the fact that uh the curtain came down on them a little bit too quickly.

Noel Edmonds20:30

Read down to show.

Noel Edmonds20:53

For being done.

Presenter20:57

Neil Diamond, done too soon. What was the date of that one?

Presenter21:01

I would think that's about seventy two, seventy three. I wouldn't be a hundred percent sure because it's on an album and they don't tend to date such things. But it fits into a very happy era for me when I was doing a Sunday morning programme on Radio One before I got on the breakfast show. So it took me five years to get back to Sunday morning.

Presenter21:20

Well, that's at ten o'clock every Sunday morning. Called The Noel Edmund Show, which is a very imaginative title. It's not bad. It's underlined in the Radio Times. Good.

Presenter21:29

Now, you know about fast boats. Could you build a boat?

Presenter21:32

I'm thinking about you getting off this island. Would you try to escape?

Presenter21:36

Yes, I think I would.

Presenter21:38

Um I think I would like to stay there for a while and have a good look around and uh assess whether it was worth it, um what the chances of survival would be. While you were there having a look round, you could look after yourself.

Presenter21:50

Done any fishing? Yes, I uh have done

Presenter21:54

One bout of fishing.

Presenter21:57

Well, very successfully. Uh it's a very long story, but I I compress it. It it was a quite amazing fishing expedition for a company. I was taking part in a competition and the public had to guess how many fish

Presenter22:08

I would catch him one hour's fishing on the River Ouse and because of the time schedule I was delivered to the river by helicopter, dropped on the bank amongst all these men with umbrellas and their fishing rods sticking out and they couldn't quite believe this, sat down and the gentleman from the water authority gave me the the rod and I fished for one hour with a very fast running river and I caught 19 fish.

Presenter22:32

And people had to that's not bad in an hour, it's not bad average, and people had to guess the weight of fish.

Presenter22:38

I might ask you to guess what way to fish.

Presenter22:40

Hmm.

Presenter22:41

I have never fished the ooze. In fact, I never fished anything.

Presenter22:47

Well they have to be a certain size, you have to throw them back. Oh, we threw them back. We threw them back.

Noel Edmonds22:49

Are we through the back?

Presenter22:51

It was seven ounces but would just take you out of your misery. Seven ounces nineteen fifty seven ounces the lot. Yes, now that's gotta be some sort of record.

Noel Edmonds22:55

Yeah.

Presenter22:58

So I'd survive on this island, but I think I'd had to be fishing the whole time.

Noel Edmonds22:58

So I'd survive on this island.

Presenter23:05

This is small fry, isn't it? Yes, indeed. Yes.

Noel Edmonds23:06

Yes, indeed.

Presenter23:08

Right, let's get off the subject of sprouts and white bait and have record number seven. Well I'll stick with white bait actually because this is chosen. It it keeps me peaceful in the car and it's music which is played in one of my favourite restaurants in London and once again it's it's one of those things that would calm me down when everything got too much. I just love the lute playing of Julian Bream.

Presenter24:34

Julian Breem The Lute Music of John Darland Sir John Sushi's Galliard

Presenter24:40

And now we come to your last record. What's that?

Presenter24:43

It's by a gentleman called Jim Crochy, and it's called Time in a Bottle.

Presenter24:48

Very sad that he's no longer around. He uh died a few years ago, very tragically, before anybody sort of really got to know his music and he was truly recognised, certainly in the UK. And I just think the sentiments of the song are magnificent and on those occasions when I decide that really I'm going to jump off the highest palm tree, this is beautiful, it reminds me of uh my wife, it's one of our favourite numbers and the words say it all.

Presenter25:14

If I could save time in a bottle

Presenter25:19

The first thing that I'd like to do

Presenter25:25

It's to save every day.

Presenter25:27

Till eternity passes away Just to spend them with you

Presenter25:36

Fire could make days last forever

Presenter25:41

If words could make wishes come true.

Presenter25:45

Jim Croce, time in the bottle. If you could take only one disc out of that eight that you played us, which would it be?

Presenter25:53

It would be that one because of the uh association with with Jill and um the it sums up everything about my musical tastes, singer-songwriters. I I like a piece of music which demands something from the listener.

Presenter26:06

And you're allowed to take one luxury to the island, will you?

Presenter26:09

Somebody suggested I really ought to take a television camera'cause I need all the practice I can get. Um my wife suggested I ought to take a set of combs'cause I'm always losing them. But I'd like to take a motorway service station.

Presenter26:21

Is that all right? I'd like to put it at the end of the island, and then I could go and have a look at it and realize how nice the other end was.

Noel Edmonds26:22

Put it at the

Presenter26:27

Yes, yes, you'd have to promise not to live in it, overcome your repugnance and go and live in the thing. That would be breaking the rules. No chance of that happening. All right, you shall have it. And one book apart from the Bible and Shakespeare, and we don't allow big encyclopedias.

Presenter26:42

I think I would probably have to turn my time between building the boat and trying to find food to doing a bit of writing, something I don't get time for now. And I think Roges Thesaurus is an absolute must. It's rather boring, but it would be a great tool. Roges Thesaurus. Right. You shall have it. And thank you, Noel Edmonds, for letting us hear your desert island discs. Thank you very much. I'll send you a postcard. Right. Goodbye, everyone.

Presenter27:12

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