Brian Glover

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 Yorkshireman, an actor, a playwright, ex-wrestler, ex-lot of other things, Brian Glover.

Presenter0:37

Ran which part of Yorkshire? Barnsley in South Yorkshire. In Barnsley itself or on the outskirts? A little village just outside called Lundwood. I was actually born in Sheffield, but we moved to Barnsley when I was two. Mining village, yeah? A mining village. No pits there, but uh, you know, they all worked locally. Any musical interests as a child?

Speaker 10:45

No cash.

Speaker 10:48

Yeah.

Presenter0:56

Well, Grime Thorpe Collery Band was just up the road, so you couldn't help listening to those lot. Any musical interests now? I mean, do you play an instrument or sing? I play them all.

Presenter1:05

Ever played it professionally on a stage? Played it professionally, yes. With the Prospect Theatre Company I had to play then. That's why I learned here to play Swanny River.

Presenter1:15

It was a thing called Circle of Glory. It was a an amalgam of Henry the Fourth Parts One, Two and Five. I played Falstaff.

Presenter1:23

He was one of Toby Robertson's little shows.

Presenter1:27

Now, do you play at discs?

Presenter1:28

Oh yes. Did you find it difficult to choose just eight?

Presenter1:32

No.

Presenter1:33

No.

Presenter1:34

When I got to six I started struggling actually. I've got definite favourites. All right. What's the first one we're going to hear?

Presenter1:41

It's uh a saraband by Handel, the one that Stanley Kubrick used in uh Barry Lyndon. Yes. It's it's so sad. It's wonderful to play when you just arrive on your desert island. I mean, you feel I'd be crying.

Presenter2:44

A handle saraband played by the National Philharmonic Orchestra, the main title of Barry Linden.

Brian Glover2:49

Yeah.

Presenter2:50

Now, I've been reading that you were at school with Michael Parkinson. Indeed, we were in the same class for about two terms at Barnesy Grammar School. How do you remember him?

Presenter3:00

He was a very good cricketer and a rotten footballer.

Presenter3:03

I was a very good footballer and a rotten cricketer. You had got a scholarship to the grammar school. Yes. What were you best at at school?

Presenter3:12

Playing the fool, I suppose, but uh I think I was always quite good at English. Hmm, it's a pity I speak it so badly, but there we are. You moved on to Sheffield University. What did you read there? Geography. Why geography?

Presenter3:23

We had a wonderful geography teacher at the school, a fellow called Sid Bottom. As simple as that. Yes, and and also the school had a geography master called Thomas Pickles who wrote geography textbooks, and he was really the

Presenter3:37

applauded Tommy Pickles. He was the grand old man of Barsey Grammar School, and so everybody wanted to read geography at university.

Presenter3:44

What was your ambition at that time? What did you want to do? Lads like me were always going to be schoolmasters in the civil service, keeping the empire going. We still had an empire in those days. And uh.

Presenter3:55

My mother wanted me to be a draftsman.

Presenter3:58

But she'd be horrified now. She's dead, but um

Presenter4:02

It was always that kind of very safe, secure occupation. You'd taken up wrestling on the side. Why was that?

Presenter4:09

My dad was a wrestler. He was a wrestler as the Red Devil. And he ran a gymnasium in Barnesley and I was always there and it was amateur boxing and then it was natural progression to wrestling'cause I was the wrong shape for a boxer. Short, round guy, much better wrestler. Well, you're a big lad. What did you call yourself?

Speaker 14:19

Yeah.

Presenter4:24

Initially I was Erik Tamberg, the blonde bomber from Sweden. Then that I became Leonares from Paris, France, by a sheer fluke that I substituted for a Frenchman one night at Wimslow.

Speaker 14:28

Then the dot

Presenter4:36

Oops failed to turn up, and uh I'd never been to Wimslow before, so they got me in the ring.

Presenter4:41

In the red corner from Stockport was Duke Lynch, and in the blue corner, first time in this hall, ladies and gentlemen, straight from Paris, France, Leon Arras. That's thee, and I was Leon Arras. And it continued being like that for a long time, but I became Leonards from Barnsley.

Presenter4:55

And then years later, in Rouen, in the big cycle drone there, the door opened one night, in loomed this giant wrestler, cauliflower he has the bent elbow, and he said, Oueloiras I said, Isi he said, Moi au si I said You didn't turn up at Wimslow.

Presenter5:10

But he was the same guy. He'd got a barring liage by this time. You'd been using his name all these years. I'd used his name. Was he cross? No, not at all. He was quite I think he was quite flattered.

Speaker 15:14

I do

Presenter5:20

We wrist wrestled on his bar for French television for the real Leonaris to stand up. I won. Was it because of wrestling that you quit university after the first year? Yes, I did actually a year and a half there. And then I mean, I was just earning so much kind of money and uh

Speaker 15:33

Then I mean

Presenter5:36

Are you speaking?

Presenter5:37

quite dissolute really. I just didn't go. And that was it. Yes. And in those days, in the grants, you didn't go, you didn't get a grant. You had to do in your national service? I did my national service in the Royal Artillery.

Presenter5:47

and then you became a sort of press lord.

Presenter5:51

I worked for the Barnsley Chronicle. Yes. I was their advertising copywriter, salesman, and general runabout.

Presenter5:57

Tell me about some of the copy you used to write. I used to see one guy, a fellow called Bob Hanson, who who was sold carpets in Barnsley, and his his advertisement was always on the front page. It was a six double, it was worth twelve quid to the Barnsley Chronicle, and all it had on it was Hanson's for carpets.

Presenter6:13

And then one week he said to me, I wouldn't mind changing my hand this week, Brian. I said, Oh, what would you like, Mr Hanson? Like, would you like a nice picture some carpets on it? No, I want Hanson and carpets, but put your thinking cap on, lad. So I went back to the office and I produced this wonderful advertisement which said Hanson's for step car.

Presenter6:32

Step car. The paper came out on Friday morning. I was summoned down to the editor's office and said, I've had Bob Anson on the phone. He's cancelled his advertisement. What we've got to have six double O in front page. What have you done? I said, It's an anagram of carpets.

Presenter6:47

Yeah.

Presenter6:49

Did you get the advertising back? We got it back, but it was all Hanson's for carpets, you had no funny tricks like that. Yes, and a few free insertions to make up. Oh, yes.

Presenter6:58

You ran into Parkinson again, I believe. Uh yes, Parkinson uh was working for the Mexburt Times, which was our rival newspaper, and there was an area where we actually challenged each other for uh not for news, but for advertising, because local papers are all about advertising. Who won?

Presenter7:12

The Barsa Chronicle still flourishes, and so does the Mexica Times, I think. But I think Parkinson won in the other stakes, isn't he? I don't know.

Presenter7:18

At one time you were a tea blender.

Presenter7:21

I was a tea blender's assistant, it was a vacation job.

Speaker 17:22

I started.

Presenter7:24

It's a vacation job in the Barnsley Corp. I imagine when I saw this job advertised, Tea Blender's assistant wanted. I thought, It'll be little china cups and I'll be sipping tea and said a little bit more Darjeeling. When I got there, there was this guy who sat on one end of a weight scale, and he said, Right, lad, two shoals full of that, and one shoal full of that. When I go pit here, it's right.

Presenter7:44

And I used to shovel tea in shovels full all day long if this way it scheduled you enter in the air. And my grandmother thought, she said, Oh, since you've been a tea blender's assistant at the Bathley Court, Brian, the tea's improved no end. And some days I used to put three of one in and none of the others. It's gone down since you left the job. Let's have your second disc.

Brian Glover8:00

Good.

Presenter8:02

My second disc is uh Bob Dylan, like a Rolling Stone. He's what we used to play on the road when we were wrestling.

Brian Glover8:09

How does it feel?

Brian Glover8:14

How does it feel?

Brian Glover8:18

To be without a home

Brian Glover8:23

Like a complete unknown

Brian Glover8:28

Like a rolling stone.

Presenter8:35

Now tell us something else about Bob Dylan.

Presenter8:37

Yes, tell me something else about Bottom.

Speaker 18:39

At least

Presenter8:41

Eh? I remember seeing him when we were wrestling, we used to come up and listen to him. Yes, and he actually made a film for the T V, for for for B B C This was before he made it. Before he actually made it.

Brian Glover8:45

Thank you.

Brian Glover8:50

Before the actual

Presenter8:51

Yes.

Presenter8:53

And Justin Rolling Stone was one of the numbers you used to play on the road wrestling. Tell me about the wrestling game, Brown. Are you booked for a single bout or for a tour? How does it work out?

Presenter9:03

In joint promotions there are about six promoters who used to book you and used to book you for their hauls for the week more or less. And so you'd be working for the Scottish promoters for a week up in Scotland. But occasionally you would still have to do

Presenter9:14

Edinburgh down to Cardiff overnight and things like that. So you're a long time on the road in the wrestling. How long do you rehearse? We don't rehearse at all. Oh, but surely all those funny falls and the acrobatics that you see on the box on Saturday afternoons, that they can't be completely spontaneous. People would get hurt. People do get I was a good-looking fellow before I joined the wrestling board. Roy Plumber, do you want to feel my Boston Crab?

Presenter9:35

You're what? Boston crab. If there's a shriek, folks, you know, Playman's just had it. Right.

Presenter9:43

Now, it was a pretty precarious sort of living. What did your parents think about it? I mean, your father had been a wrestler, presumably that was all right with him, but throwing up university in order to be thrown about in a ring, uh w what what did mother say? Well, she never approved, of course, and uh I did become a schoolmaster to try and appease her slightly and and worked a lot of part-time teaching, a lot of wrestling, and sometimes having terms off to just wrestle and concentrate and go literally all over the world as wrestler. But in those days teachers had to be respectable, weren't you? You ever rumbled? Well, this was rather good, you see, because Leonard was not the schoolmaster, Mr Glover, who was in front of 3B every Monday morning.

Brian Glover10:13

A corrilla rum.

Presenter10:21

And so I just masqueraded this wonderful two careers for you at the same time.

Speaker 110:25

But you said

Presenter10:27

I kept off the telly a lot in those days, although I finally did go on the telly. But I mean, things like I remember

Presenter10:32

Back after a summer holiday.

Presenter10:35

and the headmaster saying that he'd been to the wrestling at Clacton, and he'd seen a man wrestle Randolph Turpin.

Presenter10:42

And and this man and oh, he's he's telling me all about this box, it was actually me.

Presenter10:47

And I'd seen him on the front row I saw all the belt with me back to him.

Presenter10:51

And you used to go off to the continent at weekends and that sort of thing. Oh, yes. I used to go to Paris a lot. And met many, many times I went to Paris. I became a bit of a little bit of a star. It's called Le Grand Verdette Britannique L'Henrasse in Paris. And what was your gimmick? I mean, you were supposed to be a Frenchman, anyway. No, I was supposed to be from England. I was the Grand Britannique. I was a British British Leonards. My gimmick in France was when they got hold of my arm, I said you're holding my leg and they thought that was very, very funny. Oh, Monbras, when they're pulling me jawboff, you see. Yes. The French thought it was hilarious. Yes. And you could do two or three bouts in a weekend, I suppose. Indeed I did, Roy. I used to leave school in Barsley at four o'clock.

Presenter11:31

Drive to Eden Airport, which is Leeds on Friday night, which is Leeds Airport.

Speaker 111:33

Yeah.

Brian Glover11:33

Uh

Presenter11:36

Get there, catch the five o'clock down to London, arrive in London at six. You've got to spend an hour in transfer at London Airport, but if you're really in the know, you can do a standby quickly in half an hour. By half past six or seven at the latest, that could be on Air France to Paris Orly. Down there at half past seven or eight.

Presenter11:55

On that bus

Presenter11:57

Off at Poissonio, which is the first stop.

Presenter11:59

out at Cirque de Ver and wrestle there.

Presenter12:03

That night a wonderful meal on the top of Montmartre. Next day they're you're pushed onto a train sent somewhere like Basle or Geneva in Switzerland.

Presenter12:12

And back that night, so it spent all night on the rail on the French railway.

Presenter12:17

And uh wrestle on Sunday afternoons at the Elysimont Marte on Pigal.

Presenter12:24

Rush the airport.

Presenter12:26

Fly across London, back up to Eden, into your car, back into my local pub in Barnes for about ten o'clock on Sunday night, and people would say to me, You've been wrestling this weekend, Brian I say, I've been to Paris and Switzerland and used to look at what I think Liar

Presenter12:38

But it was true. He was true.

Brian Glover12:38

Is that true?

Presenter12:42

Record number three.

Presenter12:44

And like Maddie Pryor Singh and The Lark in the Morning, I'm very fond of this record. It was one of my initiations into the acting game.

Brian Glover12:50

Lay still my farm yet but don't you rise yet It's a fine you remorning And beside my love's wet

Brian Glover13:08

All right, my Lord.

Brian Glover13:13

And never so come, I will rise before your own way.

Presenter13:25

Matty Pryor, The Lark in the Morning

Presenter13:28

Now you were busy leading this double life. How did acting come into it?

Presenter13:33

I was teaching at Longca Central School, and a fellow called Barry Hines was teaching games there.

Presenter13:39

And Barry Hines wrote a book called A Kestrel for a Knave, and he arrived one day and said, They're making a film of my uh of my novel.

Presenter13:46

And I said, try and get me a part. I'd done a few little parts in commercials. Wrestlers are often on the fringe of showbiz all the time. You had had ambitions as an actor. Oh, yes. I was always the guy who wrote the school play and wanted to be in the school play and a few amateur dramatic societies and things like that when he was at college. And um

Presenter14:03

I got the part of the games master in Kez because Kestrel from Knave became Kez and I got the Games Master. And it was quite a successful little role. What happened next?

Presenter14:13

I got a telephone call from HM Tennants to appear in a play, to come down for an audition for a play called Bequest to the Nation. I arrived.

Presenter14:23

and uh met Terence Rattigan and Peter Glenville and they said uh

Presenter14:27

Would you like to be in our play eventually? and I played Captain Hardy opposite Iain Holm, who played Nelson.

Presenter14:33

With Zoe Colwell playing Emma Hamilton.

Brian Glover14:35

Yes.

Presenter14:35

And it was really the start of it for me because I was very it was a respectable debut in the West End of London.

Presenter14:42

So you quit teaching, but you kept on wrestling for quite a few years. Oh, yes, because I mean, I didn't get a lot of acting parts initially.

Speaker 114:45

Oh yes.

Presenter14:48

Bequestination ran for about six months and then I went to the Royal Court when I worked uh for Bill Bryden, who I'm I'm working for at the moment in a play called Corona, which Steel Eyes Span, Maddie was singing that song, was that was the vocalist. The first time I heard them I couldn't believe such a strange noise. Electric folk. I grew to love it. In i within a week I was absolute groupie. And we were in this play Corona and then uh

Presenter15:14

It just developed from there. I was in David Story's changing room. That began at the Royal Court. That started at the Royal Court, Lindsay Anderson directing. And uh I worked quite a lot for Lindsay after that and he was a great influence, a seminal influence on my acting really. You played at Stratford on Aiden?

Presenter15:30

Yes, I did. I uh

Presenter15:32

I played Charles the Wrestler in As You Like It. Of course. That was what he had got in the thing. Let me tell you a stor story about that. While I was at Stratford, Charles the Wrestler comes on very early in As You Like It. He wrestles Orlando and he's defeated.

Speaker 115:35

Well that's the thing.

Speaker 115:37

Yeah.

Presenter15:45

After about ten minutes,

Presenter15:47

Kept the gear on a restless Charles a wrestler.

Presenter15:50

Got in my car, drove to Leamington Spa, which is about probably 15 miles from Stratford, and wrestled Randolph Turpin. Now, Roland Turpin was actually a really famous band in his time. He was the middleweight champion of the world. He beat Sugaray Robinson.

Presenter16:02

At Earl's Court.

Presenter16:04

and he was now in the wrestling

Presenter16:05

I raffle Randolph Derby in Levin's bar.

Presenter16:08

Lost again, so that was the second time I lost that night. Got back in the car, back onto the stage at Stratford and took the curtain call. And I think that's a bit of a record, Roy.

Presenter16:19

Other stage appearances.

Presenter16:21

Well at Stratford I played with Alan Bates in Tearing of the Shrew, I played Gromeo, that's um yeah, his right-hand man, and I was in Romeo and Juliet, I played with Beatrix Lehman.

Presenter16:30

And, um, then the National Theatre and all that kind of thing at the West End.

Presenter16:35

Raypole number four.

Presenter16:37

Number four.

Presenter16:38

A MEMOIR OF THOSE FRENCH DAYS EDITH PIAF

Presenter16:42

No, je no regret Arriang. I heard this at the Olympia.

Speaker 316:56

I'm not sure if I can do it.

Speaker 317:02

Yeah.

Speaker 317:04

Usabega?

Speaker 317:13

No,

Speaker 317:14

I'm trying to hope it

Presenter17:15

Lady Pieuff in one of her most famous numbers. Now, Brian, we've heard about some of your stage appearances. How about films?

Presenter17:23

I'd been beaten up by John Wayne. What was that of?

Presenter17:27

film called Branning and it wasn't a very good film, but it was quite a a memory to say I actually did fight John Wayne, I fought the Duke. You had the advantage of weight too, didn't you?

Presenter17:37

I don't know. He's a very, very big man, you know. He's a very old man, but he was very, very big.

Presenter17:42

What else? Um films.

Presenter17:45

Well let me think. Uh old lucky man for Lindsay Anderson.

Presenter17:51

I can't think of it. Well, they must have been very good. And lots of television. You you were in Porridge. I was in the first ever series of porridge, yes. Um I was one of the initial.

Presenter18:03

Inmates of that cell with Ronnie Barker and Richard Beckinsale.

Presenter18:07

And you do a lot of writing nowadays for television? Yes, I do. Uh how many plays have you done?

Presenter18:13

I had eleven on last year. Did you really? Yeah. Nine of them were twenty minute plays for schools television, but the text were writing. I had a one in the Hazel series and a play for today a called Thicker Than Water, which was about the Black Pudding Festival in France. I saw that. That was very funny. How did you get the idea?

Brian Glover18:19

Based on

Speaker 118:19

Uh

Presenter18:31

I read a local newspaper about some local butcher having won the Prix D'Or, the Golden Prize, at the Black Pudding Festival. I thought that can't be true, because Albert Hurst of Barnsley wins it all the time. Every year no one's got better black puddings than Albert Hurst of Barnsley. So I did a little bit research and I found out that these local butchers all win the Prix D'Or, in fact they all get a prize. So I told David Rose, who's the head of English Readers Drama at Birmingham BBC, and he sent me off to France to attend a Black Pudding Festival. Where do they hold it? It's in a place called Mortine au Perche.

Presenter19:06

I'd also known in my wrestling days, I wrestled a lot in Southampton, and there's a pub there. I've forgotten the name of it now, I would do, but it's the pub where.

Presenter19:14

Henry V actually executed Scroope, Graham Masham, for being traitors just before he set off and eventually landing up at Agincourt. So I thought, I'll set off from there. So I walked in this pub. The first two guys went, What are you doing here? Young man, I said, Well, I'm with that Black Pudding Festival in France. So are we. So I went off with them and it was just like this journey to the festival at Mortyne. And when I got there, I found indeed that they all got a prize. And the grand prize actually did go to the Frenchman, a local butcher. And it was really an excuse for a great day out. Yes, I think it's advisable that a Frenchman won. It saved a lot of trouble.

Speaker 119:43

It was really an extra.

Presenter19:49

And you have a special place you like to go to to write? You don't write at home? No, I've a little office in Shepherd's Bush where I write, and it's a rather nice little tatty flat, and I just sit there, and there's no radio, there's no television, and there's no bows in the cupboard, and it's just nothing else to do but write.

Speaker 120:06

But Rail

Presenter20:08

And the the the private hedge needs cutting so you can't look out.

Presenter20:12

What are you working on at the moment?

Presenter20:14

They've got a commission to write a film actually about the M sixty two and the guy said to me, It's got to be sold in America.

Presenter20:22

So I went back to that little office and I said

Presenter20:25

Cowboys and Indians. So I've got a little situation where a couple of wrestlers or a tag team, dress up as Red Indians, were on the M sixty two and they come into confrontation.

Presenter20:34

with a Country and Western band who dressed up as Cowboys. So we've got Cowboys and Indies on the M sixty two. Well, that's a very promising start. I hope that works out. You packed in the wrestling altogether. Yes, the knees gave in and eventually.

Presenter20:46

Yeah.

Presenter20:48

Your fifth record, please. Prokofiev, Romeo and Juliet. Little bit from Act Two. Why do you choose this?

Presenter20:54

Because I was at Stratford and I was in Romeo and Juliet and it was just a wonderful experience and it's a little memory of Stratford.

Presenter21:52

In the second act of Brokofieff's Romeo and Juliet,

Presenter21:56

Lorraine Mazzell and the Cleveland Orchestra. You're now a member of the National Theatre Company. Indeed, I am, and have just been playing God in the passion.

Presenter22:05

That's right, that splendid promenade production, where the audience all join in. Indeed, they do. There are some seats for the old and infirm.

Presenter22:13

Yeah, I was glad to say I managed to grab one of those the other night.

Speaker 122:16

Bird enough.

Presenter22:18

But it it it is great fun, the way the audience is. Oh, it's wonderful. It's wonderful. I mean, because they become part of the play when we crucify Christ. They are a crowd at Calvary. That's in part two, of course. That's in part two. Part one, we create the world. In fact, I create the world. Yes. God on a forklift truck.

Speaker 122:20

Oh, it's wonderful.

Speaker 122:30

That one

Presenter22:36

Indeed it is. It's in modern dress. The guilds originally performed these passion plays in mediaeval times, and so we have transposed this into modern workmen. I'm a coal miner.

Presenter22:47

Who plays God and is lifted aloft on a forklift truck and uh stands up there and creates the world. Well, in in medieval times the plays were performed on carts, dragged about the city. When we went to Edinburgh, we actually um

Speaker 122:58

Yeah.

Presenter23:01

performed in front of Saint Giles' Cathedral, which was rather wonderful because when I was doing my little bit creating the world,

Presenter23:07

The uh the bells went and I just said nip in there and tell him the boss is outside.

Presenter23:14

But we performed on British Leyland lorries.

Presenter23:17

Now, what else have you played? The Iceman Cometh, five and a half hours of it. Yes, I played Pat McGloyne, who was uh a New York cop in the uh.

Presenter23:25

In The Iceman I played in in Lark Rise.

Presenter23:28

And it was another arena production, promenade. Yes, it was again. The audience this time was the cornfield. We actually scythed them down.

Speaker 123:31

But yes it was.

Presenter23:37

It was rather wonderful. They're very exciting, those productions in the Cottesloe Theatre, sort of e experimental productions to the extent that the audience plays or as big a part as the actors always. There's no I mean, people must never be afraid of its audience participation. It isn't we never ask them to do anything.

Speaker 123:37

It was rather wonderful.

Speaker 123:45

Yeah, yeah.

Presenter23:51

But they just be because of the way it's directed, they do join in.

Presenter23:56

They can't help but join in. They are that crowd.

Presenter23:59

Yes.

Presenter24:00

Right, we got to number six.

Presenter24:04

A play I was in was called Life Class and there was a piece of music in that that I grew to really enjoy. It's a Brandenburg concerto, number three, Bach.

Presenter25:07

The opening of Bach's third Brandenburg concerto, Sir Adrian Bolt conducting the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

Presenter25:15

Lifeclass, of course, was another of David Story's plays. Yes, I've been closely associated with David Story, really. I mean, obviously he writes about like most writers of any sense write about their own background, and he's from Wakefield.

Presenter25:28

And uh

Presenter25:30

I've just fitted naturally into the story plays.

Presenter25:35

Well let's go on to record number seven. What's that?

Presenter25:38

Number seven, too young, not King Cole. Why?

Presenter25:42

The record of my teenage years, and oh prophetic soul

Brian Glover25:45

They tried.

Brian Glover25:49

To tell us we're too young

Brian Glover25:56

Too young

Brian Glover25:58

To really be in love

Brian Glover26:05

They say that love's the world

Brian Glover26:10

A word we've all

Presenter26:15

Nat Ginkco.

Speaker 326:15

Uh

Presenter26:16

How are you going to manage on this island, Brown? Uh could you look after yourself? Are you good with your hands? I mean, apart from wrestling holes and things? I am indeed. I'm very practical man, but a handyman. Do it yourself, huh? You could build a a shelter of some sort. Of course. No bother at all.

Speaker 326:20

Yeah.

Speaker 126:21

Uh

Presenter26:31

Now food. Done any fishing?

Presenter26:33

On the canals in Barnesley we didn't catch much good gin with a few perch. Do you know anything about small craft sailing?

Presenter26:40

No, I don't. I'm I'm seasick, so I've I've kept well away from the sea and sailing. So you're not going to try and escape?

Presenter26:47

No, I shall await the inevitable rescue.

Presenter26:50

Well, that's a nice optimistic viewpoint. Let's have your last record.

Presenter26:54

Le Milo, John Tams and the Albion Band. And of course John Tams and the Albion Band are playing with you in The Passion. Yes, and we'll be playing again because we are coming back to Cottish Lowe for Christmas. And there is hopefully going to be a European tour next year, and it will be rather wonderful because the play is in medieval English and in Yorkshire accents and very difficult for a lot of English people to understand. But it is totally comprehensible because it's the Christian story. So wherever we go in the world with The Passion...

Presenter27:22

The people will understand the tale. This is a wonderful touring show. Indeed.

Presenter27:27

Lay me low.

Brian Glover27:29

Follow me the way.

Brian Glover27:32

Well need to say on that end.

Brian Glover27:38

All that I needed you.

Brian Glover27:45

Oh, that I wonder.

Brian Glover27:52

That's done more, you say.

Presenter28:00

Lay Me Low, John Tams and the Albion Band. If you could take just one disc out of your eight, which would you choose?

Presenter28:08

That's difficult. A Bob Dylan, like a Rolling Stone. That's what being on a desert island's all about. Right, Bob Dylan. One luxury to take to the island with you. Nothing of any practical use, but something that would be nice to have.

Presenter28:22

An M G T D nineteen fifty two.

Presenter28:25

I've owned two in my life and the wonderful things is to look at.

Presenter28:29

and no petrol.

Presenter28:31

I don't care. I'll invent something.

Presenter28:34

One book apart from the Bible and Shakespeare, and we don't encourage big encyclopedias. I thought about this a long time. I'd take a book by John Scarn. It's a book about card games.

Presenter28:45

And I'd make myself a set of cards from palm leaves and I'd be the best card player in the world by the time I came back. What's the book called? It's called Card Games. He's written several, actually. All right. John Scarn, Card Games.

Presenter28:59

And thank you, Brian Glover, for letting us hear your Desert Island discs. Thank you. Goodbye, everyone.

Speaker 129:12

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