David Scott Blackhall

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 1980, and the presenter was Roy Plumley.

Presenter0:30

Our castaway this week is a broadcaster, a writer, a poet. It's David Scott Blackhall.

Presenter0:36

David, what would you be happiest to have got away from?

Presenter0:40

I haven't given a great deal of thought to that, because I spend a fair amount of time on my own. I can't think of anything that I want to get away from, particularly. Uh since I lost my sight I I feel that the thing I've missed least is the daily newspaper.

Presenter0:58

Yes, I remember they had a strike a few years ago, and everybody was reading Jane Eyre in the tube.

Presenter1:05

Does music mean a lot to you?

Presenter1:07

My taste is rather lowbrow in music. I'm a bit despair of my family in that respect.

Presenter1:14

Yes, I like listening to records. Did you find it very difficult to narrow the choice down to eight?

Presenter1:21

The strange thing was that I put a piece of paper into the Braille machine and I straight away put down eight records and only one alternative in case one of the records I wanted was not available. But I found that it was, so my original eight have stood. I keep thinking of other records that I would like to have, but none of the eight that I put down at first will agree to move over and make room for any others. So they really have been my first and last choice. Right. What's the first one? Well, the first one is Edith Piaff.

Presenter1:54

I find that when she sings that everything is all right, you know quite well that everything is all wrong, and there's something quite heart breaking, heart rending, about her records. Jeuna Regrett

Speaker 12:09

Oh yeah.

Speaker 32:12

Neuralien, nila béan for my parents, nila mal.

Speaker 32:25

Usa Mevianega

Speaker 32:34

Yeah, I'm not sure.

Presenter2:38

Adid Pief, I regret nothing.

Presenter2:41

David, you're from the Midlands. Were you born there? No, I was born in Cyncester, but I left Cyncester when I was four and a half. Went to live in West Bromwich, and then in Walsall, and then in Wensbury, all in South Staffordshire, in what they call the Black Country. You come from a rather large family? Yes, I was seventh in a family of nine.

Presenter3:00

With so many mouths to feed, did that mean you were on short commons? Well, it did really. I think my own daughters, my own three daughters, don't quite believe this. But when I was a schoolboy, I don't remember what it was like not to be hungry. My father was a bespoke tailor. He had a workshop opposite the home.

Presenter3:22

And by dint of working about 14 hours a day, he contrived to support one wife, nine children, and two bookmakers. Oh, dear. Roy, this was a supreme example of trying to cut two suits and an overcoat out of a trouser length. Yes, I'm sure. Where did you come in the family? Were you one of the eldest or the eldest? I was the seventh, and then we had two more boys, so the family tailed off with three boys. And David, Walter, and Donald all sang in the parish church choir together. Yes. Three little angels.

Speaker 13:41

Elliott's topic

Presenter3:57

Was that the limit of your musical expression? Did you learn an instrument?

Presenter4:02

Yes, I did. When I was a teenager, I played in a dance band. I played the tenor banjo and I doubled on the violin. And I learned after two years on the violin that I would never be a violinist if I lived to be a hundred. But I was good enough to play second violin in a dance band. Well, as a youngster, you developed a a love of verse and began to write it. Which poets inspired you?

Presenter4:28

Well, I think the lyrical poets uh Swinburne more than anyone else, I think. I like the music of Swinburne's verse and the rhymes seem to come by accident. You can never detect any contravance in his verse at all. The rhymes are simply, as T S Eliot said, accidental stars with a talent for squadrill.

Presenter4:51

And then I read very widely, and poetry I still read with a great deal of pleasure.

Presenter4:57

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

Presenter5:00

Number two.

Presenter5:01

Is Leighton and Johnston? Ah, yes.

Presenter5:05

American Negroes, duetists, and their voices blended so well. And whenever they appeared at Birmingham Hippodrome, I went to see them. I saw them several times there, and it was such great show. The song is called Home.

David Scott Blackhall5:19

When shadows fall and raise whisper days and eat

David Scott Blackhall5:26

My thoughts are ever wending home.

Speaker 15:26

Why

Speaker 15:27

Yeah.

David Scott Blackhall5:33

When love birds call

David Scott Blackhall5:36

My heart is forever yearning.

David Scott Blackhall5:39

Once more to be returning home.

Presenter5:45

Leighton and Johnston singing Home

Presenter5:48

Now, you had to go out and earn a living. How old were you when you left school? Fifteen.

Presenter5:53

I was fifteen years and nearly two months old when I started at Wensbury Town Hall in local government. And I think in those sort of slap happy days, I think I got that job because at the time I was leading boy in the parish church choir, which was a very respectable thing to be.

Speaker 16:11

Which is a

Presenter6:14

And I asked one of the officials at the town hall if they had any vacancies, because I'd been going to evening classes and learning commercial subjects and shorthand and typing and so on.

Presenter6:29

He asked me to send him a specimen of my handwriting. That's all I did, and I copied out an extract from The Christian by Hall Kane. I thought that might give a good impression.

Presenter6:39

And I just copied it out and sent it. And a few weeks later someone came on a Saturday morning and said, Can your boy start on Monday? Was it interesting work? It I went into the public health department. When I look back now, I think how extraordinary it is that in my

Presenter6:55

Career in local government. In my lifetime, when I began, we had a horse-drawn ambulance and a horse-drawn fire engine.

Presenter7:04

And now, in the same man's lifetime,

Presenter7:07

People have stepped onto the surface of the moon. Seems extraordinary progress to make. Yes, indeed.

Presenter7:15

You had a chance to edit the Staff magazine.

Presenter7:19

Yes, I I you've done a remarkable bit of research on that. I did. It was called Wodenalgo, Woden being the name from which Wensbury is derived, and Nalgo being the local government organisation. Other occupations while you were busy in local government? You were very fond of climbing. Yes, yes, I used to go nowhere else but North Wales for my holidays when I'd take a week off by myself and go climbing all the mountains I could find.

David Scott Blackhall7:46

Yeah.

Presenter7:46

Uh

Presenter7:47

You were married and had your family what, three daughters, isn't it? That's right. Yes. That's because of some crime I committed in a previous incarnation. Did you stay up in the Black Country? No. Well, local government gives you an opportunity of moving about. I went first to Canterbury.

Presenter8:05

and then to Grimsby.

Presenter8:07

That was a bit of a contrast. And then I came to Elstree in Hertfordshire and I finished up my career at Elstry and I

Presenter8:16

I took the opportunity of retiring early at 60 when I'd completed 45 years in local government because I'd already begun to do other things. Right, we'll talk about those other things in a minute. Let's have your third record. The third record is the old groaner himself, Bing Crosby, and I'd like him singing the Wiff-am-Poof song because there's a kind of party atmosphere about this song that symbolises the social occasion. And although I'm not an awfully social animal, it will give me the impression of other people being there.

David Scott Blackhall8:51

We're poor little lands who have lost our way Ba Ba B

David Scott Blackhall9:07

Well black sheep.

David Scott Blackhall9:11

You have gone.

David Scott Blackhall9:14

A straight bar.

Presenter9:22

Bing Crosby and the Whiff and Poof Song, a recording made in nineteen forty seven.

Presenter9:27

Oh David

Presenter9:28

It was at the age of sixteen I think you had the misfortune to lose the sight of one eye. Yes, that's right. That was due to an accident. Yes, and thirty years later you were deprived of the sight of the other. Did that happen suddenly?

Presenter9:42

Well, no. I had an eye condition which is usually visited on the elderly, but uh

Presenter9:49

As I only had one eye, the operation was done early rather than waiting for it to mature, and I developed other troubles after the operation, and finally a detachment of the retina, and I lost my sight altogether. So in your mid-forties, you became blind? Yes, I went into hospital when I was 45 and had a series of operations. I expected to be in for three weeks, and I was in for six months, with three very short periods of parole.

David Scott Blackhall10:11

Uh

Speaker 110:11

Will three

Presenter10:14

After the first shock,

Presenter10:16

You started rehabilitation, I suppose, at once.

Presenter10:19

Well, while I was in hospital there was one thing I was certain of. I didn't know anything about rehabilitation, but I knew there were such things as rehabilitation centres for the newly blind.

Presenter10:29

But something in me

Presenter10:31

Told me that whether it was first or last, I had to do it for myself. That's one of the things that I was very, very certain of. So I didn't go to a rehabilitation centre. I thought it was more important for me to go back to work. So that was the first thing I did. And I made my way nearly a half mile to and from the office every day. I made those four journeys with a white cane for two and a half years. And that's the hardest thing I've had to do in all my life. Getting to know the lampposts and all the rest of it. That's right, yes. And you could carry on your work reasonably well? Yes, I was housing manager then, the local authority, and we had about 2,000 tenancies and hundreds of housing applicants. There was a lot of interviewing in connection with the job, and I was able to keep my job because I learned Braille immediately. And I was able to keep records of housing tenants and applicants in Braille, and I could turn up anybody's card, I used to boast, in 30 seconds flat if they came in to see me. You stepped out to face this affliction. Had there been a temptation to retreat from life?

Presenter11:43

It was very difficult to go out at first, to meet other people. That's one of the difficulties. And I was very relieved when a friend of mine said to me, Would you like to come out for a drink? and I went out with him and we went into a pub. And then we had to face the uh difficulty of people saying to my friend.

Presenter12:02

Would your friend like to sit here instead of speaking to me? That's when I first found out that they don't speak to the blind person, they speak to the person he is with.

Speaker 112:05

That's

Presenter12:12

Let's have another record. What have we got next?

Presenter12:14

Well, this is Yehudi Menuin and Stefan Grappelli. Our love is here to stay.

Presenter13:09

Our Love is Here to Stay, Yehudi Manuin and Stefan Grippelli.

Presenter13:14

You taught yourself to type as one of the first steps, didn't you? Yes, I did. My wife taught me which fingers to use for which keys, and I put a piece of surgical tape on the letter A and the colons at the other end of the same row, where the little fingers rest. She she said to me, Those are the home keys. I was not altogether unfamiliar with the keyboard of a typewriter.

Presenter13:37

But I had previously been what is known technically as a peck and hunt typist, and it it soon came to me I needed about ten minutes instruction, and from then on it was plain sailing. It was

Presenter13:48

Really a matter of practice from then on. Mhm. And then you started writing.

Presenter13:53

Yes, it it happened quite fortuitously, and it's not often that we can put our finger on one moment in our lives and say, At that moment I changed the whole course of my life.

Presenter14:06

But I did when I sat down at the typewriter because I simply wanted to practice touch typing, and the idea came into my head.

Presenter14:13

Why not have a stab at writing a radio script, which was something I'd never done in my life before. And there was only one subject possible for me at that particular time. That was to write about the experience of a man losing his sight in middle life. And I say a man losing his sight because I wrote it as a feature script, and I wrote it from standing outside myself, writing about the patient. And although I didn't realize this at the time, it was a kind of occupational therapy for me. I had

Presenter14:43

What does Macbeth say? Cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff which weighs upon the heart. And the first thing I ever typed as a touch typist was the title of that feature script. I typed the words, Dark is a long way. I didn't quite understand what it meant, but I thought it had a kind of third programme ring about it. And I typed 23 pages of quarto in my spare time from the office and then sent it to the BBC. And nobody in the world had seen it. It was so personal and intimate to me just at that particular time. I didn't want to show it to anybody else. So I sent it to BBC just as it was. And they accepted it. And they accepted it. Who produced it?

Presenter15:24

David Thompson. Yes. And who played you? Hugh Burden played the part of the patient so realistically that as I listened to him I imagined that he had his eyes bandaged.

Presenter15:36

And that first script that you did

Presenter15:39

Was nominated in The Listener as one of the ten best feature scripts of the year, which wasn't a bad start. No, it was a wonderful fillet to me, that was. It was wonderful.

Presenter15:50

And what next? What was next in your broadcasting career? Well, I thought about my own childhood and there was a spot in the mornings then for a fifteen minute talk which was usually one of personal reminiscence. And I wrote a script about the hardest working and the least rewarded of all the people I have ever known. And it it was a fifteen minute script and it was called Mother of Nigh.

Speaker 116:09

No.

Speaker 116:13

Love that.

Presenter16:15

And we were brought up with a very strict discipline, which is a little bit out of fashion nowadays. And I may say that my mother had a right swing which would have done credit to Mohammed Ali.

Presenter16:29

Let's have another record. Well, the fifth record takes me back to my dance band days and hear a a really very evocative bit of banjo playing by Mario DiPietro.

Presenter17:14

Abando Solo by Mario Di Pietro

Presenter17:18

A name from the past.

Presenter17:21

Now going back to your broadcasting, of course

Presenter17:24

You've been with In Touch, the Radio Four programme, especially for the blind, right from the beginning? Yes, and that was in October nineteen sixty one, so that's been running a very long time now. Now the format, for those who haven't heard it, it's a magazine programme.

Presenter17:40

Interviewers

Presenter17:42

Yes, and information for and about blind people, and giving blind people an opportunity to share their experiences.

Speaker 117:47

And giving black.

Presenter17:51

And any new gadgets that are in the middle of the city.

David Scott Blackhall17:53

The light still goes.

Presenter17:58

Technological advancements for blind people because nowadays you can put a book into the machine and the machine will read the book for you.

Presenter18:06

With a synthetic voice.

Presenter18:08

But of course they cost a lot of money, so they're not available to everybody, but there is one in London at this moment. What does the voice sound like? Have you heard it? Well yes, I have. And at first you you can't really understand it, and then gradually you begin to get used to it and you understand it. The strange thing is that a synthetic voice sounds rather American. I hope I shan't offend any Americans who are listening.

Presenter18:30

Now what about your climbing? There's a story that you led a party of blind people up Ben Nebes.

Presenter18:36

That began in nineteen sixty nine through the In Touch programme. There was a news item in the programme that a party of blind Africans were setting out to climb Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa. Well we haven't anything as high as that in the United Kingdom because it's nineteen thousand feet.

Presenter18:52

But the producer of InTouch, Tina Heschel, said to me, What's the highest in this country? And I said, Ben Nevis in Scotland, nearly four and a half thousand feet. She said, I wonder if we could ask whether listeners would be interested in making up a party to climb Ben Nevis. So we put that in the programme. And people wrote to me from all over the country saying practically the same thing in practically the same words. They said, I will go with you. I hadn't said anything about going myself. But you were stuck with it. I was stuck with it, all right. And on the 12th of July,

Presenter19:25

1969, 16 of us set out to climb the Ben and it was the most appalling weather. Rain, sleet, snow, the lot in July there was snow on the top of Ben Nevis. And we were eleven hours on the mountain and before we came back to the pavements of Fort William the the blind climbers, cold, tired, wet, hungry, were saying to me, where are we going next year?

Presenter19:53

So you've kept on with this. We've kept on. We've been every year since then a party of about twenty blind climbers.

David Scott Blackhall19:53

So do you get

Presenter20:00

Do you have a guide dog, David? Yes, I do. A large Alsatian, the third one I've had, the first male. He weighs nearly eight stone, a very energetic dog, now six years old, and has, of course, spent a lot of time in this particular studio, lying down, doesn't say a word. During in touch. That's right. How long does it take for you to get into sympathy with a dog, or for the dog to get into sympathy with you, so that you're really thinking together? When you come back home for the first time with the new dog...

Presenter20:29

I must say it's very hard not to be impatient. You feel that the dog ought to inherit the memory of the last dog you had and know which shops you want to go to. So you have to work it out for yourself and when you're near, give the dog some kind of command, find the door, in a very deliberate voice, and the dog will go to a door. He'll know the difference between the door and the edge of the pavement. He recognises that sound and he goes and finds the door. Sometimes I'm exposed to some comic incidents because I went to find the travel agents with my first guide dog and I didn't know exactly where it was, so when I thought I was near, I gave the command and the dog went to the door and I went in. I was greeted by a very pleasant voice. Good morning, sir. Can I help you? Is this the travel agent? I said.

Presenter21:19

He said, Well, sir, that depends where you want to go. This is the Undertaker's.

Presenter21:26

Another record. We got to number six. Miriam Makeber. She belongs to the Ixosa tribe in South Africa, although I can't say that like they can say it, because the X part of it, the first letter, is a kind of click which they make in their throat. And that's the song she sings, the click song.

David Scott Blackhall21:45

It recharges.

David Scott Blackhall21:59

Ikhi Kaalan Leila, Hayam Ka Pratane.

Presenter22:15

Midium Makeiba have that amazing click song.

Presenter22:18

Let's go straight on into our next one.

Presenter22:21

Well, number seven, Chopin.

Presenter22:24

The E flat knock turn.

Presenter23:17

Chopin is well known.

Presenter23:19

E flat nocturn played by Moora Limpany.

Presenter23:23

Now, David, with your handicap we

Presenter23:25

I don't think we ought to dump you on the island alone.

Presenter23:30

I we put a

Presenter23:31

Team in to get you sorted out, to help you organize the hut and the fishing, or whatever. What do you want to do?

Speaker 123:37

Yeah.

Presenter23:40

Just to put me on the island, to come round with me, show me where everything is, and then leave me to fend for myself, and I'll have a bash at it. If I really know something about the geography of the island, I would have to be a vegetarian, because it wouldn't be possible for me to fish, and nothing will come and jump into the frying pan for me. So I should have to be a vegetarian, and I'll make the best arrangements I can. All right, we'll get on to the Admirable Crite and see if he's free. And of course, you shall have your guide dog.

Presenter24:14

That that would be helpful. And now we've come to your last record.

Presenter24:19

The last record

Presenter24:22

peculiar and poignant history for me, and and I couldn't possibly have any series of records without including this one. It's uh Ave Maria.

Presenter24:33

And uh I think that I would like cello and piano to play this, the bach guno of Emaria.

Presenter24:40

When I was in Moorfield's hospital,

Presenter24:42

And I'd had a series of operations, and all I knew is that things were not going quite as well as I thought they were going to go. And one day the consultant came into my room. They'd put me in a single room in Moorefields.

Presenter24:57

He came into my room with his entourage. He examined me, and there was a little bit of whispered consultation, and then in that peculiar esoteric language they use in the medical profession, he put his hand on my shoulder and he said, The prognosis is not good.

Presenter25:13

And uh he went out and they bandaged me up again.

Presenter25:17

And I heard the door close.

Presenter25:20

And I remember thinking, if ever they put a man into orbit, he will feel something like this, alone with the enduring universe and timelessness and silence.

Presenter25:31

And I put my hand out automatically to switch the radio on again, which I'd switched off as soon as people came into my room. And you'll remember this programme that used to go out in the mornings, Housewives' Choice. A housewife in Liverpool had asked for a record. I was on the point of switching it off again.

Presenter25:48

except for the title of the record she had asked for and I let the music wash over me like the everlasting tides on all the seashores of the world. And when I listened to that record I formulated in my own mind that whether it's in moments of supreme exaltation,

Presenter26:13

Or in the hour of his greatest need I knew with dazzling certainty

Presenter26:19

That no man is ever alone.

Presenter27:19

The Bach Guno Abe Maria?

Presenter27:22

Pierre Fournier playing the cello, and Lamar Kreisen at the piano.

Presenter27:27

If you could take one disc out of the eight you've chosen, which would it be? It's the most difficult thing of all, but I think I would take Stephan Crappelli and Yehudi Meno in. Our love is here to stay.

Presenter27:38

Yes. And one luxury to take to the island.

Presenter27:43

Well, I think I would have to take my Perkins Brailler so that I could uh braille a few thoughts down there and plenty of Braille paper, Manila, with me and uh

David Scott Blackhall27:52

Yeah.

Presenter27:54

And use that? Business as usual, you'll go on and write.

Presenter27:58

And one book apart from the Bible and Shakespeare, which are already there, and we don't encourage very large encyclopedias. No, but if I had the Bible and Shakespeare in Braille, that would amount to a considerable number of volumes. I'd almost be able to build myself a shelter with them. Oh, dear, yes. And I thought that you might permit me another 16 volumes in Braille, which is the Oxford Book of English Verse, which is 10 volumes. And I wondered whether you'd make a little concession and allow me to take the six volumes in Braille, which is the 20th century Oxford Book of English Verse. And then I'm right up to date. Yes, of course. And thank you, David Scott Blackhall, for letting us hear your Desert Island discs. Thank you very much, Roy. It's been lovely to be here. Goodbye, everyone.

Speaker 128:56

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