General Sir John Hackett

Speaker 30:00

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

Speaker 30:05

For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in 1980, and the presenter was Roy Plumley.

Speaker 20:29

Our castaway this week is a soldier, a scholar, and a writer.

Speaker 20:33

General Sir John Hackett. Sir John, you have many interests. Is music one of them? Always, yes.

General Sir John Hackett0:40

From my

General Sir John Hackett0:41

Quite early youth it has been.

Speaker 20:42

Have you any musical skill yourself? Do you play an instrument?

General Sir John Hackett0:45

Uh yes, badly. What? Well, a piano a little, and and and a clavichord, but uh my hands are not as good as they were, and so I did less. Do you sing? Not if any of my friends can help it.

General Sir John Hackett0:58

Ha ha ha.

General Sir John Hackett0:59

You have eight records. What's the first one you've chosen?

General Sir John Hackett1:03

Well, we ought to go back a little here because it's a starting point. In the

General Sir John Hackett1:09

Heist in which I was brought up in Adelaide in South Australia, we

General Sir John Hackett1:13

I had a lot of music, but mostly opera or piano.

General Sir John Hackett1:18

and uh I I used to listen mostly to concerted music.

General Sir John Hackett1:22

like the quartet from Rigoletto or the sextette from Lucia de Lamamoire.

General Sir John Hackett1:27

and sing away in a voice which was just breaking, and so disqualified me from being a treble in the Gerong Grammar School choir, and I was such a bad bass that I never got picked to play again.

General Sir John Hackett1:40

But in this time I discovered myself

General Sir John Hackett1:43

A most remarkable thing. This was the time that I fell in love with Cherubino.

General Sir John Hackett1:49

I find this record on a white

General Sir John Hackett1:51

Single-sided seventy-eight hmv.

General Sir John Hackett1:55

and I was about fifteen years old.

General Sir John Hackett1:57

And this sound, this gorgeous voice of a sorcious young woman playing a very pert page.

General Sir John Hackett2:06

in white satin breeches with a dear little sword,

General Sir John Hackett2:10

This captivated me more than I can say, and from the first time that I ever heard non so pu cuza sorn cuz a faccio,

General Sir John Hackett2:19

I was on a different course. And that's what I'd like to hear. Now

General Sir John Hackett2:23

Non-so pure from Figaro's Hochzeit. And this is a a a fairly modern recording by Elie Amerly. Yeah, it is, yes. I mean, the one I was captivated by was, I think, by Gallicochi, but that's a million years ago, and one's heard it a thousand times since. But this is a very beautiful rendering of it.

General Sir John Hackett2:47

They can't talk.

Speaker 43:04

Is itur Marisol de Robino?

General Sir John Hackett3:04

Is it

Speaker 43:07

We are not this wonderful. Unesio Pioneus Giga, Unesio.

General Sir John Hackett3:19

Only see what

Speaker 43:39

You never know before I be done.

Speaker 23:39

Okay, I wanna go.

General Sir John Hackett3:40

Oh, he

Speaker 23:43

Elie Ameling singing non-so pu from The Marriage of Figaro. Now you talked about being brought up in Adelaide and going to Geelong grammar school. You weren't having

General Sir John Hackett3:53

Take bought in Australia.

General Sir John Hackett3:54

I was. I was born in Perth, and my father died there in nineteen sixteen in World War One, and my mother, who was a very beautiful and very young woman, with five children, of whom I was the second last,

General Sir John Hackett4:06

married again uh a a splendid man, a marvellous man, who lived in Adelaide, and that was where we then moved, and I spent my childhood while I went to school.

General Sir John Hackett4:16

uh in Geelong grammar school. What did you want to be as a schoolboy?

General Sir John Hackett4:21

Oh, um nothing very much. I wanted to see what happened, really. I've never wanted to be anything very much. I've only taken it as it came along.

Speaker 24:31

In fact, who came over to Oxford,

General Sir John Hackett4:33

To New College, and you read greats. Yes, I read greats, and because I was by that time persuaded that there was going to be a war.

General Sir John Hackett4:41

and we were all going to get killed in it, and it seemed to me tidier on the whole to get killed as a professional than as an amateur. I decided to take the king's shilling, and in nineteen thirty one or two I joined my great grandfather's regiment, the

General Sir John Hackett4:57

Kings were allowed to went for a soldier. Where did you serve?

General Sir John Hackett5:02

I served um first of all for a little while in Hanslow, and then went off with my regiment to Cairo.

General Sir John Hackett5:10

to the Cari Kevre Brigade.

General Sir John Hackett5:12

With the um

General Sir John Hackett5:13

The prospect of going on to India and doing six or seven years there, and then coming home.

General Sir John Hackett5:18

But in Cairo we were mechanized and taken off our horses.

General Sir John Hackett5:23

to take part in the war with Italy that never broke out in nineteen thirty five, I think.

General Sir John Hackett5:29

And because Inda didn't want mechanized cavalry, we stayed in

General Sir John Hackett5:33

in Egypt, and I seized the opportunity to learn uh some more Arabic and to get on with what interested me very much. It wasn't terribly peaceful.

General Sir John Hackett5:42

In your neck of the woods, just before the war, wasn't it? No, not a lot, no. No, he had uh trouble in Palestine, which I shall always still think of it as.

General Sir John Hackett5:52

the nineteen thirty six troubles, and then after a stint with the Italian Cavalry, where I did a an attachment to them to learn Italian and to get some more horse serving, I joined the Transjordan Frontier Force.

General Sir John Hackett6:06

which was one of those

General Sir John Hackett6:08

Colonial forces maintained by the British Crown, and this one served between what we call Transjordan and Palestine, up and down the Jordan Valley, and I had

General Sir John Hackett6:19

three or four years soldiering with horses, astonished that anybody could pay me, and pay me so well, to do something so delightful.

General Sir John Hackett6:30

Let's have your second record. What shall we have now? Well, this takes me back to being at Geelong Grammar School and and when I was lowered up to Melbourne, and where I heard once the inimitable Sophie Tucker, whom I shall never forget.

General Sir John Hackett6:43

giving a concert, which she ended with as she always used to end her concerts, I believe, whether by choice or under compulsion from the

General Sir John Hackett6:51

audience with a song I would like to have to day, which is Shine on Harvest Moon, but I can't find a recording of it, so let's have some great Sefitaka singing Some of these Days.

Speaker 47:03

Some of these days

Speaker 47:06

You'll miss me, honey.

Speaker 47:09

Some of these days

Speaker 47:12

You'll be so lonely.

Speaker 47:15

You'll miss my hug

General Sir John Hackett7:16

My hog

Speaker 47:18

You'll miss my kiss

Speaker 47:21

You'll miss me hon.

General Sir John Hackett7:22

Yeah.

Speaker 47:23

When I'm far away said I feel so lonely

Speaker 47:31

All you

Speaker 27:33

Safety tucker some of these days.

Speaker 27:36

nineteen thirty nine the the war broke out you stayed in in the Middle East. Yeah.

Speaker 27:41

Yeah.

General Sir John Hackett7:41

Uh that's where the war was. I was still in the Transjordan Frontier Force. Uh I got involved in the campaign in Syria, got wounded there.

General Sir John Hackett7:50

and then spent some time with an army in Pastor on the staff for a while before I could get back to my own regiment in the Western Desert, the Eighth Azars, and command a squadron of tanks, which shortly landed me up in hospital again when the enemy very obligingly blew me out of one and landed me in a naval hospital in Alexandria.

General Sir John Hackett8:13

You were then made a commander of a parachute brigade.

General Sir John Hackett8:16

Yes, I have given command of

General Sir John Hackett8:18

a parachute brigade then forming, and eventually after practising jumping into Cyprus, preparing us for jumping into Sicily, which is what we were going to do next, it took it long to join the First Airborne Division in Tunisia, and we set out for what Churchill

General Sir John Hackett8:36

not, I would have thought, on the best advice, he had described as the soft underbelly of Europe.

General Sir John Hackett8:41

Which produced some of the hardest fighting in the West in the war. The Italian camp

Speaker 28:46

That's right.

Speaker 28:48

And then northwards to the Battle of Arnhem, where you were wounded yet again. How many times did that make? Well, that made three, as far as I can count.

General Sir John Hackett8:56

And you were taken prisoner?

General Sir John Hackett9:00

was badly wounded and saved by a surgical miracle in

General Sir John Hackett9:05

A hospital manned by a Parrishwood Field Ambulance with

General Sir John Hackett9:09

with parachuting surgeons of our own, and a German SS surgeon, who said, turning me over with his foot,

General Sir John Hackett9:15

In the condition in which I lay well, we won't bother with THAT one.

General Sir John Hackett9:18

and the British parachuting surgeon with him said, Well, I think I'll have a go.

General Sir John Hackett9:23

You're wasting your time, said the Joan. That's your affair.

General Sir John Hackett9:26

and the Briton, who is still with us, and whom I see from time to time, he remains a very close friend.

General Sir John Hackett9:32

It saved my life, and ten days later I was spirited out of that hospital and kept and nursed by the Dutch Underground for four and a half months in a house fifty yards away from a German military police billet until I was strong enough to make a final escape.

Speaker 29:49

You were then a brigadier, and obviously quite a prize as a prisoner, but you conceal that fact.

General Sir John Hackett9:53

Well, I did, yes. As soon as I had taken the count and found myself being taken into this hospital, I took off my brigadier's badges of rank.

General Sir John Hackett10:01

uh and allowed myself to be described as Lance Corporal hater.

General Sir John Hackett10:05

uh because the Germans naturally would like

General Sir John Hackett10:09

a useful and elegant addition to their butterfly collection, and they didn't yet have a parachuting brigadier in captivity, and as far as I was concerned, I wasn't going to help them to do so.

Speaker 210:20

Now you've told the story of being hidden by the Dutch underground for some months in a book called I Was a Stranger. Now that Dutch family who hid you were wonderful people.

General Sir John Hackett10:27

Now

General Sir John Hackett10:30

Oh, brilliant, yes. Uh uh kind, gentle.

General Sir John Hackett10:35

Christian.

General Sir John Hackett10:37

Me

General Sir John Hackett10:38

And in dark

Speaker 210:38

You said just now that you were next door to a German military establishment of of some kind.

Speaker 410:45

Yeah.

Speaker 210:46

And those dear people that you were living with, in in hiding, complained to the Germans that the barking of their dog was keeping you awake at night.

General Sir John Hackett10:54

Well, it uh it seemed to them only natural, uh, even though no Dutch women of any self-respect in those days at the depth of the German occupation of Hunt would willingly talk to uh a soldier of the enemy, this brave woman went around to the house next door and and said just that. We have a sick person, she said, in our house, who can't uh sleep because of the barking of your dog. Would you kindly keep it locked up at night and

General Sir John Hackett11:21

Germans in the military police billet were so overcome with pleasure that any Dutch woman would call on them that they obligingly agreed to do so, and I slept better thereafter. How did you get out of Holland eventually?

General Sir John Hackett11:33

in a canoe down the Vaal, towards the mouth of the Vaal, where the North Bank was in German hands, and the South Bank was in the hands of our own.

General Sir John Hackett11:41

people, our own friends. In fact, it was the Eleventh Azars, a regiment I knew almost as well as my own, into whose hands I came, in a canoe, in the stilly light of dawn, one morning in february, nineteen forty five.

Speaker 211:55

A rather hazardous and unpleasant experience. You were still quite a sick man.

Speaker 211:59

Uh yeah, I wasn't.

General Sir John Hackett12:00

Too well, yes.

General Sir John Hackett12:02

Your third record.

General Sir John Hackett12:04

Well, now I think something that has always moved me greatly, and that is Bramzi's violin concerto. Let's have the first movement played by Heifitz for preference.

Speaker 213:13

Part of the first movement of the Brahms Concerto in D Heifitz with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Fritz Reiner.

Speaker 213:21

Now after the war, Zejohn, honours and commands fell thickly about you. You commanded an armoured division. You were deputy chief of the imperial general's staff.

Speaker 213:31

You were Commander in Chief of the Northern Army Corps in NATO. You're one of the few senior officers to have written to the Times to complain about something and got away with it.

General Sir John Hackett13:41

When it was something that needed complaining about, as it has recently needed complaint

General Sir John Hackett13:46

And that is the degree of unpreparedness.

General Sir John Hackett13:49

Western allies find themselves in confronting a superior military threat on the other side.

General Sir John Hackett13:58

activated by an ideology which cannot fail to be hostile.

General Sir John Hackett14:03

To our own civilization in the West. And I wrote to the Times because I thought people ought to be alerted to this.

General Sir John Hackett14:10

But I knew that it was fatal for a British general to write to the Times, so I wrote as a NATO general, and although this caused a certain amount of concern in Whitehall, in the event Dennis Healy, who was Secretary of State for Defence at the time, backed me up and the urgent request that I should be sacked

General Sir John Hackett14:27

and met with no more from him than a very rude letter to me so rude that I was sure he must have drafted it himself, because no civil servant would have

General Sir John Hackett14:36

presented to his master anything quite as rough as that for signature.

Speaker 214:39

Nevertheless, you got away with it and you made your point. When you withdrew from the army I know you won't countenance the word retired, but when you withdrew from the army, what happened?

General Sir John Hackett14:50

Hamdu.

General Sir John Hackett14:51

Well, it was a bit of a struggle to withdraw. I had been invited by King's College London to come to them as principal, and I wanted to do this.

General Sir John Hackett15:01

Uh but um the Ministry of Defence found certain difficulties there and uh I had to uh

General Sir John Hackett15:08

Take a fairly firm line to be allowed out.

General Sir John Hackett15:11

and to become Principal of King's College London.

General Sir John Hackett15:15

into which I came in nineteen sixty eight.

General Sir John Hackett15:18

At the height after Les Evenments in Paris,

General Sir John Hackett15:21

of what I suppose might be called The student trouble.

Speaker 215:24

You must be one of the very few college principals to have joined his students in a protest march.

General Sir John Hackett15:31

Yes, I rather wish there were more. Uh I mean, if uh

General Sir John Hackett15:35

you have a firm opinion about something, and others are expressing themselves on it, you must stand up and be cuttied. And what is more, once although I didn't do this out of intent,

General Sir John Hackett15:45

But once you show that you're on the same side with people, they will be on your side too.

General Sir John Hackett15:51

And one of the reasons why we had no

General Sir John Hackett15:54

Trouble in Kings College London was that there was no

General Sir John Hackett15:57

Uh we and they on the establishment, there was just ourselves, and from the inside track you can lead people anywhere, whereas from the outside track you may attempt to lead them in vain. You are still a visiting professor at King's. Well, they are kind enough to have me there, and I am very grateful to be allowed back to make further contact with a place in which I was so happy.

Speaker 216:21

We have got no

General Sir John Hackett16:21

Uh Now to your fourth record.

General Sir John Hackett16:23

Talking about universities, this takes me back to when I was an undergraduate.

General Sir John Hackett16:27

Uh when I used to

General Sir John Hackett16:29

In those very, very early thirties I used to think most highly of Leighton and Johnson, and I'd like to have some of them, and in particular the Birth of the Blues.

Speaker 416:40

They're so free in the tree

Speaker 416:43

See

Speaker 417:00

Yeah.

Speaker 217:04

Leighton and Johnston singing The Birth of the Blues, a number by De Silva, Brown and Henderson.

Speaker 217:10

Now, since withdrawing, using that word again, from King's, you've written a book which caused a sensation, The Third World War, a history of the year 1985 and the World War which took place in that year, and you got a panel of distinguished experts to collaborate with you. What was your objective with this book? Was it a war game? Was it an informed forecast of the prospect before us? What

General Sir John Hackett17:36

What were you aiming at?

Speaker 217:37

Yeah.

General Sir John Hackett17:37

Well, it certainly wasn't a forecast.

General Sir John Hackett17:39

What one aimed to do is to tell a cautionary tale.

General Sir John Hackett17:42

to set up a possible model.

General Sir John Hackett17:46

Of the way events might develop in the next few years.

General Sir John Hackett17:51

and to hang on that possible model

General Sir John Hackett17:54

A warning that unless we seize the opportunity to put ourselves into a better defensive posture.

General Sir John Hackett18:02

That if events moved in this sort of direction, we could find ourselves.

General Sir John Hackett18:07

in bad trouble, and it was written rarely to tell this cautionary tale to the Western European allies, with a look over our shoulders at the United States.

General Sir John Hackett18:18

and in the event it fairly took off in a manner that surprised everybody connected with it, so this book now, to my astonishment, is in

General Sir John Hackett18:26

nineteen editions in ten different languages greatly helped, of course, by international events and by the sharpening of an awareness

General Sir John Hackett18:36

in many countries that things could move along just such a course as we, without attempting to forecast anything,

General Sir John Hackett18:44

Head suggested as possible.

Speaker 218:46

Record number five, we've got to.

General Sir John Hackett18:48

Well, now here we move into an area which has always absorbed me greatly, and that is chamber music. I think I first became aware of this

General Sir John Hackett18:57

in Toulon Grammar School in a in a Schubert piano trio.

General Sir John Hackett19:01

But what has moved on?

General Sir John Hackett19:02

further since then, and I now want to choose, out of these last great quartets of Beethoven, the Cavatina out of Opus one three O in B flat major, the fifth movement,

Speaker 220:17

Part of the Cavattina, the fifth movement from the Beethoven string quartet number thirteen in B flat major, opus one three O, by the Quartetto Italiano.

Speaker 220:28

He also did a very successful television series not long ago on on BBC Two, a series about military medals called For Valor.

General Sir John Hackett20:37

Yes, well, that was interesting. It was quite hard work.

General Sir John Hackett20:40

And great fun, really. I enjoyed handling all these beautiful things, though I'm bound to say that the amount of splendid

General Sir John Hackett20:47

metalwork which the the British Museum allowed the B B C to have did become a little embarrassing. For example, you've got to handle one metal after another and get rid of it, going on to the next piece that the producer is mercilessly pressing you on to deal with.

General Sir John Hackett21:02

So you put something in your pocket, and at the end of one of these days, one of the gorillas from the security branch of the British Museum came up to me and said

General Sir John Hackett21:09

Uh excuse me, Miss Don, but do we happen to have

General Sir John Hackett21:12

The Arkin Flood in your pocket. And the Archin Flood is that priceless silver medal that Queen Elizabeth I. struck for the Armada, and I looked in my pocket and there it was. Oh, dear. So you had to get it. Well, I did, and he was so nice about it. He said, Well, of course, naturally I knew he'd get it back, but all I wanted to know was whether you had anything sharp in that pocket at the same time. Oh, dear.

Speaker 221:26

What I want to do is

General Sir John Hackett21:31

Record number six.

General Sir John Hackett21:33

Well now here we move into an area of such

General Sir John Hackett21:36

astonishing richness that it's uh rarely impossible to choose anything and say this is what I most like.

General Sir John Hackett21:43

Uh but you can start anywhere, and I'm talking about the leader.

General Sir John Hackett21:47

And so why not let's have Schumann setting

General Sir John Hackett21:51

of uh a little poem of Heine Heine.

General Sir John Hackett21:55

In Dichteliebe.

General Sir John Hackett21:57

which has only two verses and is wonderfully beautiful.

General Sir John Hackett22:01

And is sung by By Whome Else by Dietrich Frischadiska.

Speaker 422:06

We may wonder and moon at night.

Speaker 422:18

Yeah.

Speaker 422:20

I'm not a Hamilton.

Speaker 422:24

We all figured on earth.

Speaker 422:41

We won the shin at light.

Speaker 422:48

I'm afraid it's a

Speaker 422:55

I'll be here against London.

Speaker 422:59

Nineteen at one time

Speaker 223:07

Schoemann setting of Im von derschoon and Monat Mai sung by Dietrich Fischer Discar.

Speaker 223:13

Time presses, so let's get on straightaway to your seventh record.

General Sir John Hackett23:18

Well, uh this is Schubert, and uh I I speak not only as a Schubert addict, but also as uh uh a passionate fisherman and somebody devoted not only to

General Sir John Hackett23:30

The pursuit of the salmon, but the pursuit of the tribe too, the Lani Cho Forelle, and what I want now.

General Sir John Hackett23:36

is out of all of Schuberten there's so much, but just for now, uh let's have something out of the tripe quintet, the fourth movement.

General Sir John Hackett23:45

where in that movement there is this charming little tune.

General Sir John Hackett23:49

About the lanisha forl from his song.

General Sir John Hackett23:53

And the playful trout is the theme and is embellished in some of the most charming music I know.

Speaker 225:00

Part of the fourth movement of the Schubert Trant Quintet, Balbadura Skoda with the Barilli Quartet.

Speaker 225:07

You have a little trout stream very near your house.

General Sir John Hackett25:10

Yes. It flows outside the drawing window. Oh, that's handy. Yes. The the mill pond is out there, and I trout rising it all the time.

Speaker 225:18

You do a little farming.

General Sir John Hackett25:19

Yeah.

General Sir John Hackett25:20

Little, yes, I keep few sheep and grow some hay, and enough to have animals and growth around the place, but no more.

Speaker 225:26

I don't think I need interrogate you about your prospective abilities as a castaway. I'm I'm sure you'll be most efficient.

General Sir John Hackett25:31

Yes, but you know, of course let's confess it. I mean, what I would do if I were on this um island would be to find

General Sir John Hackett25:40

the Camouflower's back entrance to the Covarine.

General Sir John Hackett25:44

uh to move in there where the management works, you see, because somebody's managing this place after all. I would pull out the plug uh that operates my stereo high-fire equipment, uh pull it out from the power point in the nearest palm tree, and make my way round that back entrance, I've discovered, into the cofferine, and there over Baer and Schnapps discuss a whole lot of things with the management before I came out again, and I would then plug in and hear some more music, and I'd probably see in the dusk shadowy figures in frayed shorts with unshaven cheeks and glazed eyes, mucking about with palm fronds and vegetable fibres, trying to make something upon which they would get away. But of course uh I would be able to get away since I'd go and talk to the cofferine about it.

Speaker 426:35

Yeah.

General Sir John Hackett26:35

I mean, you must be able to get away, since my very dear and revered friend Yehudi Menuin has been twice on this thing, and he's uh uh clearly got away, and without any damage whatsoever to those divine violinists' hands. So I'd get away all right. But you see, I do recall that there was Lord Denning who was on this island, and he went round to see the Covarine and in his persuasive way uh suggested to him they ought to let him get away on one of the maintenance vessels that come from time to time to look into the hi phi supply of current and all that. And they said he could go, but of course that decision

Speaker 226:50

So I'd

General Sir John Hackett27:10

for Lord Daning was reversed by uh the Board of Governors sitting in remote Portland Place.

General Sir John Hackett27:17

So I suppose he's still there? Well, we'll see. I'll let you know when he gets back. Record number eight, your last one. Well, this this is Wagner, and I I'd like Brunhilde's immolation in the last scene of the last act of Goethe Demmerung, which encapsulates really the whole of the ring, that magnificent, magnificent tapestry.

Speaker 427:43

Our decision must kill the world.

Speaker 428:02

Oh, spoilers of

Speaker 228:48

Part of the immolation, the closing scene of Goethe Dammerung.

Speaker 228:52

Kirsten Plagstadt with the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Wilhelm Furtwängler. If you could take only one disc out of that list of eight that you've given us, which would it be?

General Sir John Hackett29:03

Well, I think it'd be the the cavertina. I think Beethoven's got more to say that one would like to listen to more often.

General Sir John Hackett29:11

and reflect upon more than possibly any of the rest.

Speaker 229:15

Right. The Cappatino from the Quartet Opus one three O. And one luxury to take to the island with you? Oh, I think the presence of my wife.

Speaker 229:23

I'm afraid that's not allowed, Sir John. No um your luxury must be inanimate.

General Sir John Hackett29:28

Well now this is a matter that we discussed in the Koverine quite a lot over the Schnubs with some good German philosophers as to whether company is animate or inanimate. Company is an abstract, you see, and therefore cannot be called animate. On the other hand, these good uh Germanic philosophers in the Koverine uh they pointed out to me that company is impossible without the presence of a companion.

General Sir John Hackett29:51

and that although company is inanimate, as is prerequisite is an animate concept, maybe they'd have to blow the whistle. But we we still have that under discussion. And in case they don't resolve it in

General Sir John Hackett30:05

favour the presence of my wife, I'll settle for two dozen of uh Chateau Rotour nineteen sixty two. Right. Well, just so that there are no hard feelings we'll make at six dozen. Six Well, that would last a little longer. But I might be away before that. I'll bring some with me.

Speaker 230:22

And one book, apart from the Bible and Shakespeare, as the obvious choices. We'd rather you didn't choose a a large encyclopedia.

General Sir John Hackett30:28

No. Well, you see, here I have the advantage of you, because, for circumstances to which allusion has been made earlier, I've really been there already.

General Sir John Hackett30:39

In the four and a half months I spent living fifty yards away from a German military police billet, not looking out on the streets, because there were only German soldiers to be seen there, and I was too weak for a long time to do anything else while I was cherished and nursed by these brave Dutch women.

General Sir John Hackett30:58

I had a few English books. I had King James's Bible.

General Sir John Hackett31:03

and I'm probably one of the few people if you've ever had any other.

General Sir John Hackett31:06

on this programme, who's read that pretty well straight through from beginning to end, most of it more than once. I also had the one volume Oxford Shakespeare, and I read all through that. And in my incarceration there, among one or two other books, I also had

General Sir John Hackett31:26

A splendid work published in eighteen sixty eight.

General Sir John Hackett31:31

called A Thousand and One Gems of English Poetry.

General Sir John Hackett31:35

Now I'm very hard put it here, because what I wanted most

General Sir John Hackett31:39

In my time.

General Sir John Hackett31:41

In this village in Holland was Paradise Lost.

General Sir John Hackett31:45

and I had that as soon as I got back.

General Sir John Hackett31:48

given to me as a coming home present by my wife, and read it as a thirsty man.

General Sir John Hackett31:54

But I think

General Sir John Hackett31:55

having weighed it up, that I'll settle for the Thousand and One Gems in the Eighteen Sixty Eight Edition.

Speaker 232:02

And thank you, General Sir John Haggett, for letting us hear your Desert Island Discs. Well, I've enjoyed

General Sir John Hackett32:08

Thanks very much. Thank you.

Speaker 232:09

Goodbye, everyone.

General Sir John Hackett32:10

Yeah.

Speaker 332:16

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