Tristan Jones

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.

Presenter0:29

Our castaway this week is a sailor. A sailor who's led an adventurous life sailing the Seven Seas, mostly in small craft. It's Tristan Jones.

Presenter0:38

Tristan, in fact, you were born at sea, weren't you?

Tristan Jones0:40

Yes, I was born on a big ship off the island of Tristan d'Acuna in the South Atlantic.

Presenter0:45

Is that something to do with your question then?

Tristan Jones0:47

Right. I was named after the island. Instead of having an island named after me, it was vice versa.

Tristan Jones0:54

And

Tristan Jones0:55

I was in the ship which was sailing from Perth in Australia to Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Tristan Jones1:01

And in those days

Tristan Jones1:03

on a British ship you became a subject or citizen of the next Commonwealth country that you touched, that the ship touched, you see. But the day after I was born the destination of the ship was changed to Liverpool.

Tristan Jones1:17

And so I became British by signal from Lloyd's.

Presenter1:20

Uh

Tristan Jones1:20

Yeah.

Tristan Jones1:20

Yeah.

Presenter1:20

Yeah.

Presenter1:21

In fact, you are by ancestry a Welshman.

Presenter1:25

Most of your sailing has been single handed. Do you play music a lot, tape?

Tristan Jones1:29

Quite a lot is my main companion.

Tristan Jones1:32

I can't imagine life without it.

Tristan Jones1:35

I'd spent long periods without music, and it was very unpleasant indeed.

Tristan Jones1:39

Well, what's the first one you've chosen for the island?

Tristan Jones1:41

I've uh chosen A Wandering Minstrel Eye as my theme song, if you like.

Speaker 41:47

And the camps and lovely boat with the innocent stinks are strong, with a yonky pole and the darky love for the home of loud.

Speaker 42:14

A wandering minstrel I a thing of shrubs and patches.

Speaker 12:14

Yeah.

Speaker 42:21

For banded songs and snatches

Speaker 42:25

And dreamy love and dreamy love.

Presenter2:47

Richard Lewis singing A Wandering Minstrel from The Mikado

Presenter2:51

Were you brought up in Wales?

Presenter2:53

On the west coast.

Tristan Jones2:53

On the west coast of Wales. I was brought up for the first six years in Wales and then my father became a relief pilot for Trinity House and we traveled consequently all over the British Isles to the main ports.

Tristan Jones3:08

and in fact attended thirty two elementary schools.

Tristan Jones3:12

The only thing I learnt was where the gate was. In fact, you left school fairly early. Very early, just before my fourteenth birthday. To go to sea. Go to sea on a sailing barge called Second Apprentice.

Presenter3:24

Which ports did you trade in and out of?

Tristan Jones3:26

uh rye and sandwich and uh

Tristan Jones3:30

Whitstable and London, of course.

Tristan Jones3:34

Yeah, no, no, we used to go over to the continent, we used to take, uh, mineral water bottles to Germany.

Tristan Jones3:41

How many were in the crew? Three.

Tristan Jones3:43

The skipper, the mate, and me I was a sort of dog's body.

Tristan Jones3:48

What happened to you when the war started?

Tristan Jones3:51

I joined the Navy. I went to uh HMS Ganges in nineteen forty, just before the time of Dunkirk, actually.

Tristan Jones3:59

and then from there I went into Destroyers.

Tristan Jones4:02

and spent most of the war up till forty four up in the

Tristan Jones4:06

uh north west approaches and Iceland. You had a rough time. You were sunk three times, I believe. Everybody had a rough time on that deal. I think that must have been the worst

Tristan Jones4:15

war theater of all. Well, then you switch to the Royal Hydrographic Service. Right, research vessels, uh, after the war, going to all sorts of odd places like the west coast of Chile.

Tristan Jones4:28

and uh the Middle East around Arabia.

Tristan Jones4:32

Uh Ethiopia.

Tristan Jones4:34

I bring in the charts up today because coral grows very rapidly and Admiralty charts are usually out of date by the time we get them.

Presenter4:42

So you were in the Navy, you thought, for life, this was your career?

Tristan Jones4:46

Yes, yes, I thought, well, I'll serve my time and get my pension and

Tristan Jones4:50

Maybe get a Commissionnaire's job at the BBC.

Tristan Jones4:55

But once again

Presenter4:55

Yeah.

Tristan Jones4:56

Disaster struck when you were doing the hydrographic work. Yes, and my vessel got blown up, and what goes up must come down, and I came down very heavily on the base of my spine on deck.

Presenter5:06

How did it blow up? And what caused it?

Tristan Jones5:08

It was mined.

Tristan Jones5:09

by the uh the people who were fighting for Yemeni independence at the time.

Tristan Jones5:16

There was a lot of trouble around Aden at that time.

Presenter5:20

So some rethinking had to be done. You you hurt your back, you were in hospital.

Tristan Jones5:24

Yeah, I was I was supposed not to get out of bed again, but I couldn't accept that.

Presenter5:29

Mm.

Tristan Jones5:29

I don't think that the diagnosis was wrong. I don't think the doctors were wrong. I think that.

Tristan Jones5:34

I'm not the kind of

Tristan Jones5:36

A person that can accept the inevitable. Yes. Maybe fortunately, maybe unfortunately, I don't know, but that's just the way I am.

Tristan Jones5:44

Let's have your second record.

Tristan Jones5:46

This is the uh the Beatles.

Tristan Jones5:49

Hello, goodbye because I think it describes a sailor's life.

Speaker 45:52

You say yes.

Speaker 45:54

I say no.

Speaker 45:57

He says that.

Speaker 45:59

I say come, come, come.

Speaker 46:06

Oh no

Speaker 46:09

You say goodbye, I say hello.

Speaker 46:15

Hello, hello.

Speaker 46:17

I don't know why you say goodbye or say hello

Presenter6:21

The Beatles. Right, sir, you didn't accept the Doctor's decision. You had an ambition at that time to to sail small craft. This was on your mind.

Tristan Jones6:32

Well, I went to Liverpool. I tried to join the merchant service as soon as I was walking again, but they wouldn't accept me, of course, because I I couldn't be insured.

Tristan Jones6:41

And so I met through various people, various accidental meetings, I met someone that was involved with.

Tristan Jones6:49

the Dutch yacht industry, which at that time was all steel because there was no wood left, all the Germans had taken all the wood.

Tristan Jones6:57

and they needed crews to deliver.

Tristan Jones7:01

yachts to other countries, mainly to South America at that time.

Tristan Jones7:05

and I made several transatlantic voyages down to Brazil.

Presenter7:09

Yeah.

Tristan Jones7:09

And

Presenter7:10

You did a few years of that. You still hadn't got your own craft. Uh may we mention here how you said about getting the money to buy one?

Tristan Jones7:19

Certainly.

Tristan Jones7:20

Certainly. Anyone that takes Scottish sunshine to those benighted people across the Channel, I don't consider that to be any kind of criminal activity at all.

Speaker 47:30

Joe.

Tristan Jones7:32

But anyway, they did accuse me of five hundred thousand bottles, and it's wrong. It was four hundred and seventy two thousand.

Presenter7:32

Yeah.

Tristan Jones7:39

Exactly.

Presenter7:40

that found their way from this country over to France.

Tristan Jones7:43

To Normandy.

Presenter7:45

Yeah.

Tristan Jones7:45

They've sent us some

Tristan Jones7:47

O.D. Cologne and Frogs' Legs and the Metric System, so why not send them something b

Presenter7:52

Right, it's fair. So one way or another you had the money to buy your own boat. What sort of craft was it and what did you want to do in it?

Tristan Jones7:59

It was an X R and a light. You see, I couldn't afford a lot of uh

Tristan Jones8:04

money to buy a boat, so the the best hull I could find was a Royal National Lifeboat Institution.

Tristan Jones8:10

An ex beach launch lifeboat.

Tristan Jones8:15

Built in nineteen hundred and eight at the Thames Ironworks here in London.

Tristan Jones8:20

I was looking for a hull that would be tough enough to be set in the ice, that is to be frozen into the ice of the Arctic.

Tristan Jones8:28

The ice cap is not as a lot of people imagine it. It's not just a flat plain. It's all a jumbled up.

Tristan Jones8:36

Massive uh

Tristan Jones8:38

of movement and noise.

Tristan Jones8:40

Very frightening at times. I wanted to set the boat in and try to get a little bit further north than Nansen got in eighteen ninety two in the Fram.

Presenter8:48

To break the record, further north than anyone had ever sailed before.

Tristan Jones8:51

Well, I thought if uh if eighteen Norwegians could do it, one Welshman could do it, you see. And I thought I'd have a crack at this. It was an idea because I'd always been fascinated by the polar regions.

Tristan Jones9:03

And I thought that maybe a a pip squeak could make out where a battleship couldn't, you see.

Presenter9:10

Now before you tell us that story, let's have another record, won't it?

Tristan Jones9:14

Night on a Bear Mountain by Mazorski. It's a piece of music which I think

Tristan Jones9:20

comes the closest to expressing the the emotions, the terror, the fear, the fright.

Tristan Jones9:26

That one feels during a storm at sea, during very bad weather at sea, in a small boat.

Tristan Jones9:32

It's curious because I think it was written about a mountain in South East Asia.

Tristan Jones9:38

But I don't think anyone's caught the wind as well as Mazorski.

Presenter10:36

An excerpt from the Sorbski's Night on the Bear Mountain

Presenter10:40

Leopold Stukovsky conducting the London Symphony Orchestra.

Presenter10:44

So

Presenter10:45

You set off to sail further north than anyone had ever sailed before. How far north did Nansen get?

Tristan Jones10:51

Uh

Presenter10:52

Yeah.

Tristan Jones10:52

The ship got within ninety miles of the pole. Nansen was not on board at the time.

Tristan Jones10:57

And I I failed miserably because I I didn't know what I was exploring at the time.

Tristan Jones11:03

I was a rank amateur. I did it all wrong. I didn't set myself up to be an example to anybody in this instance anyway.

Presenter11:11

Which route did you take?

Tristan Jones11:13

Well, first I went up the east coast of Greenland and then I failed there. I spent the winter in Scoresby Sund, which is near an Eskimo village.

Presenter11:23

That was named after the the Yorkshire parson, wasn't it, who was right?

Tristan Jones11:26

All that coast is a is a long trail of British names. In uh in fact we call it the Liverpool Coast.

Tristan Jones11:35

Where was it that the polar bear

Presenter11:37

Uh

Tristan Jones11:37

I came aboard. That was on the ice floes to the east of Greenland. I'd got stuck up a lead about eighty miles long, and I finished up hauling the boat up on to the ice by hand, a tremendous job.

Tristan Jones11:51

And uh it was while I was on that flo floating south, hoping to uh escape from the floe when the ice broke up, that the bear came up.

Tristan Jones12:02

and he was about twelve feet tall.

Tristan Jones12:05

Tremendous thing. Very, very dangerous animals out on the flow. They're the king of everything.

Tristan Jones12:11

Whether they look upon us as competitors for food or as food itself, I don't know, but they will attack anything that moves.

Presenter12:20

Did he attack you?

Tristan Jones12:21

Oh, he attacked the boat. One swipe of his claw and the and these one inch thick guardrails were just bending over like butter.

Tristan Jones12:29

Like putty.

Tristan Jones12:32

And eventually I was in a panic at first. I dived down and got the my Very pistol, my uh signal pistol out.

Tristan Jones12:39

and fired it at the bear who was roaring away.

Tristan Jones12:43

He turned round towards me and the flare went straight in his mouth.

Tristan Jones12:47

He jumped away and dived into the sea over the edge of the floe.

Tristan Jones12:52

I don't know whether he died. I think he must have done, because phosphorus doesn't go out under water, you see. It's a pity I hate to hurt any kind of animal, but it was a matter of life and death. And you were frozen in for a year. Did you have radio?

Tristan Jones13:09

I had a radio, it was an old fashioned type, which uh

Tristan Jones13:13

Broke down, you know the old fashioned types with the glass accumulators?

Presenter13:16

Oh, yes.

Tristan Jones13:17

Twas one of those.

Tristan Jones13:18

and uh it broke down and

Tristan Jones13:21

Then I was alone, absolutely.

Tristan Jones13:24

I didn't think I'd get out. I thought it was Date.

Tristan Jones13:27

But I thought, well, I'll play it out and see. Maybe the ice will break. Maybe I can get out of this corner.

Presenter13:34

Now the whole flow that you were frozen into was drifting, of course.

Tristan Jones13:38

was drifting and moving, and that's how I got trapped. You see, I took shelter behind an iceberg.

Tristan Jones13:45

And the the whole thing moved around in a clockwise direction and trapped me in there.

Tristan Jones13:50

Couldn't get out.

Presenter13:51

There was a nasty moment when the iceberg began to come over.

Tristan Jones13:55

Capsized. Well, as the as the north east wind was blowing rain and and sleet and snow on top of the berg, of course it was getting top heavy. They do that continually.

Tristan Jones14:07

It's only the flat Antarctic bergs that don't tip over.

Tristan Jones14:12

Very dangerous.

Presenter14:14

How long did that trip take altogether?

Tristan Jones14:16

Two and a half years. Yeah.

Tristan Jones14:19

And by the time I sighted England again it was three and a half years. Originally I set off for Canada. I got dismasted off Cape Farewell.

Tristan Jones14:27

I wound up in Norway and then I made my way through to the Baltic.

Tristan Jones14:32

To find a girlfriend who was well and truly married by that time, of course. Bad luck. Uh got arrested by the Russians as a spy.

Tristan Jones14:41

and finished up uh being sunk by Dutch cheese in Holland.

Tristan Jones14:45

Well, tell that story in a minute. Let's have your fourth record.

Tristan Jones14:49

This is Dion Warwick.

Tristan Jones14:52

The American Goal Singer.

Tristan Jones14:54

Singing Love Will Keep Us Together. The reason I chose this one was because

Tristan Jones15:01

It will remind me of the nadir of my existence was when I washed up

Tristan Jones15:06

On the shores of New York,

Tristan Jones15:08

and took shelter in the Bowery Men's Shelter in Manhattan.

Tristan Jones15:12

which is about as low as you can get.

Tristan Jones15:14

in in any human scale.

Tristan Jones15:17

among other people.

Tristan Jones15:19

And

Tristan Jones15:20

In this great vast hall

Tristan Jones15:23

full of the most depraved, degenerate

Tristan Jones15:28

Tacky, dirty, flotsome of the human race, they played this record time and time again. Love will keep us together.

Speaker 415:37

Oh love, love will keep us together.

Speaker 415:43

Make up your baby whenever.

Speaker 415:46

Some when you talk and get a long singing Don't turn around, you just gotta be strong, you better stay

Speaker 415:56

Because I really love you, Star

Speaker 415:59

Cause I'm making a

Speaker 416:02

And my heart is in love.

Presenter16:07

Love Will Keep Us Together by Dion Warwick to remind you of the Bowery Men's Shelter and all the boys there.

Presenter16:15

Yeah.

Tristan Jones16:15

One of the funniest things that ever happened to me happened there because I I was down to about three and a half dollars.

Tristan Jones16:22

and I was in the long line for breakfast.

Tristan Jones16:25

And I just collected my two eggs and bacon. Pretty good breakfast.

Tristan Jones16:30

and some one tapped me on the shoulder, and looked round there's this little old man

Tristan Jones16:34

in a filthy raincoat tied with string round his waist and

Tristan Jones16:38

and American Army boots and wearing a a hat, a fedora hat as they call it.

Tristan Jones16:45

And he says to me

Tristan Jones16:47

I say, old chap, in a in a very Bostonian accent, he said, I say, old chap, would you care for my eggs? Chlorosterol, you know.

Tristan Jones16:56

Now, this incident about the Dutch cheeses, well, this Dutch watchman that I'd met, this warehouse watchman,

Tristan Jones17:05

asked me if I liked cheese, so I said, Okay, yeah, fine, I like anything I can eat.

Tristan Jones17:10

And I thought he would bring three or four cheeses on board, but no, I heard this rumbling noises and there he is. He's a one legged guy and he's pushing

Tristan Jones17:21

A railway truck, a railway wagon, full of Dutch cheese, and I loaded two hundred E damned cheeses on board the boat.

Tristan Jones17:30

Not realizing that the canal was so shallow and that the cheese weighed so much. And in fact, the

Tristan Jones17:37

Two tons of cheese just sank the boat onto the bottom of the canal.

Speaker 117:40

Yeah.

Tristan Jones17:42

So

Tristan Jones17:44

A sailor has to keep his priorities right, and the police were looking for the cheese, and I was stuck there, couldn't move.

Tristan Jones17:52

And so I decided that instead of ditching the cheese, I'd ditch the engine because the engine hadn't worked for eight months anyway. So I ditched the engine and the boat just floated enough so I could pull her off the mud and sail off out of Holland. And you lived on cheese for quite a while. I did, I did. And I exchanged half of the cheeses for a brand new little diesel engine.

Tristan Jones18:16

Right, let's have another record. This is uh Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture because it celebrates a French defeat.

Tristan Jones18:25

and if I had had the money, which I was owed, by Frenchmen, for some very arduous work,

Tristan Jones18:32

I would have never finished up in the Bowery men's shelter.

Tristan Jones18:36

And this is as nice a way I can think of of getting back at him.

Presenter19:42

Tchaikovsky's eighteen twelve Overture, which you dedicate to the French nation, played by the London Symphony Orchestra and the Band of the Grenadier Guards, conducted by Kenneth Alwyn.

Presenter19:52

I think it

Tristan Jones19:52

ought to be played on the tops of the cliffs of Dover every morning at dawn as loud as

Presenter19:59

Possible.

Presenter20:01

Right now the World Vertical Sailing Record, that splendidly eccentric exploit of yours

Tristan Jones20:07

Yeah. Well, after circumnavigating three times and after watching all the the sponsored races, all the financial

Tristan Jones20:16

hollabaloo that was going on and

Tristan Jones20:19

Gentlemen of advanced age whizzing round and round faster and faster, trying to set up, to my mind, ridiculous, record.

Tristan Jones20:28

Boy thought I'd make a sardonic gesture all of my home.

Tristan Jones20:32

and instead of going round and round, I'd go up and down.

Tristan Jones20:35

And the idea was to go to the lowest body of water on earth, which is the Dead Sea, 1250 feet below sea level.

Tristan Jones20:44

and to Lake Titicaca, up in the Andes, which is

Tristan Jones20:48

three miles above sea level.

Tristan Jones20:51

The vertical difference between them is about just under four miles. But the horizontal distance, the route I had to take,

Tristan Jones20:59

was something like thirty two thousand miles.

Tristan Jones21:02

And you took the

Tristan Jones21:04

Noah stretch first.

Presenter21:06

Uh

Tristan Jones21:09

Via Harrod's boiler room.

Presenter21:11

Harrod's Boiler Room

Tristan Jones21:13

In London.

Presenter21:13

That's where you shack up when you're in London between voyages.

Tristan Jones21:17

That's my desert island in London. Yes.

Presenter21:19

In London.

Presenter21:20

Yeah.

Tristan Jones21:20

It's a bit too noisy down there to play records of.

Tristan Jones21:24

And MIT, that's the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, wanted someone to send them water samples and they would lend me a boat if I would do this.

Tristan Jones21:34

I thought, Ah, this is my chance.

Tristan Jones21:37

And I

Tristan Jones21:38

Mosey'd around in the Mediterranean for a year.

Tristan Jones21:42

And at that time, that was nineteen seventy, it was very quiet because the Six Day War had just finished.

Tristan Jones21:49

The Arabs were quiet.

Tristan Jones21:50

Now is the time to go to the Dead Sea.

Tristan Jones21:54

And after I sailed in the Dead Sea, said he, flicking a piece of fluff off his shoulder, I hauled over to the Red Sea.

Tristan Jones22:02

They're a bit fussy about who sails on the Dead Sea, aren't they? Oh yeah. It's not easy at all. And uh there's a lot of um military activity going on around well there was at that time.

Presenter22:13

So after that you had thirty two thousand miles down the

Presenter22:18

East coast of Africa, round the Cape

Presenter22:21

crossed the Atlantic, and so on to the highest point four miles above the Dead Sea.

Tristan Jones22:26

Well yeah, well that was I I tried to get up the Amazon to Lake Titicaca, but I was defeated there. For the second time in my career I failed to reach my destination.

Presenter22:36

Was the

Presenter22:37

Difficulty in the Amazon world.

Tristan Jones22:39

Well, the current the the the snows on the Andes were melting. The the current was enormous, it was twelve knots in midstream.

Tristan Jones22:47

The Amazon River rises 80 feet, you know, every spring.

Speaker 122:50

Spread.

Tristan Jones22:52

and it caused a sea bigger than the Mediterranean in inland Brazil.

Tristan Jones22:56

You're talking about immense distances.

Tristan Jones22:59

From the northern shore of the mouth of the Amazon to the southern shore is the same distance as from London to Paris.

Presenter23:05

There's quite a river.

Tristan Jones23:06

And then you get the oceanic bore coming in, which is twelve feet high and traveling at twelve knots, called the Porracora.

Tristan Jones23:14

and uh insects making life miserable.

Tristan Jones23:17

and it was quite a struggle up there. But I did get one thousand three hundred miles up, and it took me three months and exactly twelve days to get back to the ocean.

Tristan Jones23:27

So then I slid round to the other side of South America and

Tristan Jones23:32

In a small boat, in much smaller boat, seventeen feet waterline. Then

Tristan Jones23:38

and beat against a humbold current for three months,

Tristan Jones23:41

Because by now it was do or die

Tristan Jones23:44

And uh

Tristan Jones23:46

I did that mainly on beans and fish.

Tristan Jones23:49

And most of that was raw fish because you can't cook in a boat in a small boat like that going heavily to windward and you have to keep going to maintain your speed against the current.

Speaker 123:56

Data.

Tristan Jones24:00

and arrived in Cayao in Peru,

Tristan Jones24:04

On Christmas Eve of nineteen seventy three

Tristan Jones24:07

and the government flatly refused.

Tristan Jones24:10

to let me take the boat.

Tristan Jones24:12

Inland

Tristan Jones24:13

So I waited for Christmas Day,

Tristan Jones24:16

and I waited till everybody was well into their cups,

Tristan Jones24:19

and I smuggled the boat through.

Tristan Jones24:21

How did you smuggle it?

Tristan Jones24:23

On the back of a truck with a drunken Indian driver and a great big Union Jack right on the front.

Tristan Jones24:30

The police were so astonished I that I I don't think they realized what was happening.

Tristan Jones24:35

And we just tore off away. We took all the Christmas decorations that were hanging over the Cayo Straits with us. Oh, they saw you? They saw us. They didn't chase you? Well, they were too busy with their vino. It was Christmas Day. And I took her up through the Andes and arrived on Lake Titicaca on New Year's Day of 1974. And I spent.

Tristan Jones24:55

Nine months on the lake.

Tristan Jones24:57

I was triumphant, of course, when I got up there, because there was the

Tristan Jones25:01

Old Red Ensign, tattered and torn, but the highest in in the world. Yes, indeed.

Tristan Jones25:07

I got arrested for that, you know, because uh they thought the red ensign was a Russian flag. They thought I was a communist and the they the Bolivian Navy stopped me in jail.

Tristan Jones25:17

and I was uh released by a gentleman

Tristan Jones25:20

Riding a white horse, wearing a fore and aft hat with white feathers, waving a sabre.

Presenter25:26

How does he come into the act?

Tristan Jones25:28

He was the naval officer in charge.

Tristan Jones25:32

And they had two warships up there, and one the machinery didn't work, and the other the gun was out of commission. That was the Chitikoka Navy.

Tristan Jones25:43

Well then, the problem then, of course, was that I was three and a half miles up in the air, six thousand miles as a crow flies from England.

Tristan Jones25:54

I had originally intended to return to the Pacific through Chile,

Tristan Jones25:58

But the governments of Salvador and Allende had been uh busted up by the CIA.

Tristan Jones26:05

and the frontiers were closed and I couldn't get into Chile.

Tristan Jones26:09

And I couldn't go back through Peru because I was wanted you see there was a ten thousand dollar reward on my head.

Tristan Jones26:16

And so I decided.

Tristan Jones26:18

I've got to get back to the ocean somehow, so the only way I can do it is to carry on across South America.

Tristan Jones26:24

to the Atlantic Ocean.

Tristan Jones26:27

And there was a tremendous slog because after

Tristan Jones26:30

Pushing the bolt through the Meta Grosso in terrible conditions, and very little food. I was down to eighty pounds when I got to Paraguay.

Presenter26:37

That's just a great big swamp, isn't it?

Tristan Jones26:39

It's sixteen times the size of the United Kingdom.

Tristan Jones26:42

It's got over three thousand tributaries of the River Paraguay, and you don't know which one you're on at any time.

Tristan Jones26:50

and uh it's always heavily overladen with uh with clouds, so you can't see the sun.

Tristan Jones26:57

and the average temperature is about 130 in the shade.

Tristan Jones27:01

And underneath the swamp is the biggest iron ore deposit on earth, so the compass is going crazy.

Tristan Jones27:08

Consequently you spend most of your time pushing the boat back again upstream.

Tristan Jones27:13

covered in leeches that are six inches long.

Tristan Jones27:16

Yeah, I I reckon that

Tristan Jones27:18

On average we mu I must have lost about it.

Tristan Jones27:21

A gill of blood a day to the pream flies and the mosquitoes and the leeches. A terrible place. Worse than Kew Gardens.

Tristan Jones27:33

Oh let's have some more music.

Presenter27:34

Keep tripping.

Tristan Jones27:35

Ella Fitzgerald, lullaby on Broadway, because uh since I washed up on the shores of Manhattan Island, New York's been very good to me.

Tristan Jones27:45

And I've

Tristan Jones27:47

managed to write six of the seven books which I set out to write there.

Tristan Jones27:52

And I get a a tremendous amount of energy from the city.

Speaker 427:57

Good night, baby. Good night. Milkman's on his way. Sleep tight, baby, baby. Sleep tight. Let's call it a day. Listen to the well of fly.

Speaker 428:22

What

Speaker 428:23

Run

Presenter28:26

Ella Fitzgerald, Lullaby of Broadway.

Tristan Jones28:30

When did you start to write?

Tristan Jones28:31

nineteen sixty eight.

Tristan Jones28:34

What did you write?

Presenter28:34

One

Tristan Jones28:35

I wrote a a a short story, a true story, for uh

Tristan Jones28:39

A Bolting magazine,

Tristan Jones28:41

Called Slow Boat to Barcelona about the old Creswell being dismastered again. And then you

Presenter28:45

Yeah.

Presenter28:49

Two tackled books. You've done three about two hundred.

Tristan Jones28:51

You've done three about two hundred and forty five short stories and magazine articles.

Tristan Jones28:58

And I published them in uh England, France, Australia, all over the place.

Tristan Jones29:03

The only people that failed to pay me on time like clockwork were the French. So we're back with the eighteen twelve overture. Do you want that for your next record as well?

Tristan Jones29:13

No, we'll have the Alleluia chorus, because that's how I felt.

Tristan Jones29:18

when that first check for twenty five quid came through to Majorca,

Tristan Jones29:24

In 1968, because I knew then that I had the key.

Tristan Jones29:29

to try

Tristan Jones29:31

for that vertical sailing record which had been in my mind at that time for about eight years.

Presenter29:36

Yeah.

Tristan Jones29:37

Yeah.

Presenter29:37

Before we hear the hallelujah chorus

Presenter29:40

You've written

Tristan Jones29:40

And three books about your adventures, about your explanations. Four actually. Four. Four now.

Tristan Jones29:46

And there's another one to come.

Tristan Jones29:48

There's Ice, a song of a Wayward Sailor, which is just published here.

Tristan Jones29:54

Uh the Incredible Voyage Adrift

Tristan Jones29:57

And the next one is about my younger days as it's called a wild call. It comes from Mayspiele sea fever, of course.

Tristan Jones30:05

And you've got a novel on the stocks.

Tristan Jones30:07

I've got a novel published in America, and it's being published in Britain in September. It's called Dutch Treat.

Tristan Jones30:14

It's about

Tristan Jones30:15

The Period of Dunkirk. Part of the book is about Dunkirk itself.

Tristan Jones30:20

And it takes you through British society at the time, from the from the highest to the lowest. And believe you me, I know the lowest.

Tristan Jones30:28

Right now. Let's tell.

Presenter30:30

Hallelujah, chorus.

Presenter31:22

Hallelujah, Chorus from Handel's Messiah.

Presenter31:25

Sir Thomas Beecham conducting the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and chorus.

Presenter31:30

You're a very resourceful man. There's no doubt you could look after yourself exceedingly well on a desert island. Will you try to escape?

Tristan Jones31:37

Uh

Presenter31:38

Yeah.

Tristan Jones31:38

Oh, yes, sure. The first thing I should do is look at those trees, and I should have them down horizontal on that beach before he could say boo to a goose. You've got no tools.

Tristan Jones31:48

Then I would make uh ropes out of the fibers, tree fibers, and I would haul the trees down. And then what, a raft? A raft. It would have to be. If I hadn't got tools, then it would have to be a raft.

Tristan Jones32:00

Your last record, what's that to be?

Tristan Jones32:03

It's the marching tune of the lower deck of the Royal Navy, Heart of Oak.

Presenter32:43

Hearts of Oak, played by the band of Her Majesty's Royal Marines, Portsmouth. Director of Music, Captain LT Lambert. If you could take just one disc out of the eight you've played us, which would it be?

Presenter32:55

Tchaikovsky, eighteen twelve.

Presenter32:57

Yeah.

Tristan Jones32:57

I'd play it as loud as I could every time I thought of a trickler. And one luxury to take to the island with you a union jack, twelve foot by eight.

Tristan Jones33:10

so that I know that the idea, at least, of fair play and justice would reign over that island.

Presenter33:15

Yeah.

Presenter33:16

and one book apart from the Bible and Shakespeare which are already there and we don't encourage big encyclopedias.

Tristan Jones33:23

Modern Wooden Yacht Construction by John Goswell. That's the best one on the subject, in your view? That is the the only one at the present time that uh is is really valid.

Presenter33:34

What's the author's name again?

Tristan Jones33:35

John Guswell.

Tristan Jones33:37

as one of Britain's finest sailors.

Tristan Jones33:41

Thank you, Tristan Jones, for letting us hear your Desert Island Discs. A great pleasure and nice to be back again.

Presenter33:47

Goodbye everyone.

Tristan Jones33:47

Uh

Speaker 133:54

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