Catherine Gaskin

Speaker 10:00

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

Speaker 10:06

This edition may be slightly different from what was actually broadcast, but it is the only version we have. It comes from the British Library's radio collection.

Speaker 10:15

The recording didn't contain the guests' eight music choices, so we've rebuilt the original show by using discs from the B B C Gramophone library. For Wrights' reasons we've had to shorten the music.

Speaker 10:26

Full details can be found on the Castaways page on the Desert Island Disc's website.

Speaker 10:31

The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen eighty.

Speaker 10:34

And the presenter was Roy Plumley.

Presenter0:53

Our Castaway this week is a very successful writer of romantic novels, Catherine Gaskin.

Presenter0:59

Catherine, does music play an important part in your life?

Catherine Gaskin1:02

Yes, it's quite desperately important, Roy.

Catherine Gaskin1:05

I have to be so careful about it that I would never try to write.

Catherine Gaskin1:10

when music is playing, because I would think that I was writing much better than I do. But when I'm really down and I can't get a word, and nothing is coming,

Catherine Gaskin1:21

If I go and put on a a record, maybe something will then come. I'll start pacing the floor to it.

Presenter1:27

Did you find it a very difficult task to narrow your choice to eight?

Catherine Gaskin1:31

Difficult impossible Look, there go most of my best friends. You know, I'm in I assume I'm on on a kind of a craft that's getting me away from the sinking ship. And if I pull Mahler on board, there goes Bark over the gunwale. And uh what happened to Elgar? You know my best friends.

Presenter1:49

A tax

Catherine Gaskin1:49

It's heartbreaking.

Presenter1:51

What's the first one you have chosen?

Catherine Gaskin1:53

Well, perhaps a little melancholy a choice, but I would like the Tchaikovsky sixth.

Catherine Gaskin2:01

Because let me try to explain what it was like growing up in Australia.

Catherine Gaskin2:05

I grew up in Sydney, and not in a musical family, and I didn't know anything about music, but we did have one good Government station.

Catherine Gaskin2:14

And I suppose everyone has a door to music.

Catherine Gaskin2:18

And I could only say that perhaps snatches of Tchaikovsky were that adore, marvellously romantic, very appealing, uplifting or down footing, whatever it was. So I wouldn't know the exact thing that rang the bell, so I'd have to choose Tchaikovsky as a sort of synthesis of all.

Catherine Gaskin2:38

that happened to me then that made me want music very badly.

Catherine Gaskin2:42

And I would like to hear a bit of Tchaikovsky.

Presenter3:38

The closing passage of Tchaikovsky's sixth symphony, the Pathetique, Herbert von Karian conducting the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.

Presenter3:47

Now, you were brought up in Australia, but you weren't born there.

Catherine Gaskin3:51

No, I was born in Ireland. I'm the youngest of six children. They waited for me to be born.

Speaker 33:56

Yeah.

Catherine Gaskin3:58

I was three months old when I was taken to Australia, and actually I was born in a house that sits on a spit of rock sticking out into Dundalk Bay, and the spray the house is still there, the spray of the sea hits the windows of that house. Now if you're not wacky born in a house like that, I don't know what you're going to be.

Presenter4:17

I'm watching.

Presenter4:18

Were you by the sea in Sydney?

Catherine Gaskin4:21

Yes, I we lived in a seaside suburb. I was not crazy about the sea. I'm very un Australian in that respect. I'm not mad about sports. My mother was always shoving me out into the sunshine, into the sunshine, and I hated it. You know, go and have a swim. I hate it. I can swim about five strokes.

Presenter4:37

I hate it.

Presenter4:40

You began taking piano lessons. Did you have an ambition to be a pianist?

Catherine Gaskin4:44

That was the only thing I wanted in life, but of course I didn't know anything about it. I started so late. I was not able to convince my parents that it was serious. And we weren't terribly well off. My father was a civil servant, six kids, you know. We weren't poor, but we had no luxuries. So they waited for a whole year to see if I would go to my teacher's house and practice every morning at seven thirty before they actually got around to buying a piano for me. And then of course the neighbours got hell because all those scales and arfeggios and things.

Speaker 15:00

No, we

Catherine Gaskin5:18

And I kept on with that and was reasonably good, but I I really fell down on sight reading. I couldn't read music very well. Then at one stage it was suggested that we try the Conservatorium. I may say it was much easier to get into the Conservatorium then than it is now.

Catherine Gaskin5:36

But it was a great experience, even though I was a poor musician, just being there, the sense of music

Catherine Gaskin5:42

The sense of dedication to it was absolutely fantastic. I wouldn't have missed it for worlds.

Presenter5:48

But you went off in another artistic direction.

Catherine Gaskin5:52

Well, apart from the sort of wild Celtic streak which is obviously there.

Catherine Gaskin5:57

I'm a very practical person, and I was in my fourth year at school, which is the year before matriculation, and cunning little me, I figured, well, my parents are going to keep me through matriculation, so fourth year being a quite easy year.

Catherine Gaskin6:13

I thought, well, I'm going to try a novel.

Catherine Gaskin6:15

And if it's not accepted, I can then quickly catch up with my school work and matriculate.

Presenter6:20

How old were you then, Cathy?

Catherine Gaskin6:22

Well, I started when I was fifteen, and finished the book in the Christmas holidays when I was sixteen.

Presenter6:27

How did you set about writing it? Early in the morning?

Catherine Gaskin6:30

Well, that was the only time that was left to me. I I was doing homework at night and practising, and uh quite honestly, I don't know when I slept. I got up at four o'clock in the morning. But then that was not strange in our household. There was always some one wandering round at four o'clock in the morning making cups of tea. And there was another thing it was always a very well kept secret in the family, because of course

Catherine Gaskin6:51

Pride Supposing it had not been accepted, I couldn't have fared well, most of all my my schoolmates, I couldn't have faced them if I'd said I'm writing a book, and then no one published it.

Presenter7:01

How long did it take you?

Catherine Gaskin7:03

Well, it took, I'd say, precisely a year, and I can remember that the war in Europe ended in May, and the war in Japan ended in September, and I was furious because the armistice was signed, and I didn't have the book ready, you see, to spring on the world.

Presenter7:20

Was it about the war?

Catherine Gaskin7:22

A large part of it was set during the very early part of the war in Britain when the very heavy shell firing of Hellfire Corner was going on.

Presenter7:30

So the book was in no sense autobiographical.

Catherine Gaskin7:32

Oh, absolutely not. I mean, I'd never been in England. I know it it started in America. I'd never been there either.

Presenter7:38

And when you'd finished, what happened? You sent it to a publisher?

Catherine Gaskin7:40

I didn't know that you weren't supposed to do what we call multiple submissions, and I sent it to four.

Speaker 37:46

Yeah.

Catherine Gaskin7:46

And I got three rejections, and then one little letter, you know, would you come in and see us?

Catherine Gaskin7:53

And of course I was sixteen years old, and in those days one went nowhere without one's mother. So we both went.

Catherine Gaskin8:00

And he looked as if he said, Um, who is the author?

Presenter8:04

And he must have had rather a shock.

Catherine Gaskin8:06

Well, I suppose he was

Presenter8:08

Did he take it without alteration?

Catherine Gaskin8:10

Oh, no, no. He said um very candily, and mind you, this man was not an editor. He was a salesman, but uh he knew what he wanted. He said this uh portion, we think, is too long by one third.

Presenter8:15

Da

Catherine Gaskin8:22

and would you cut it? So I had to dash back to school. We'd started the Christmas holidays were over. We were back at school one week, and I had to dash back to school and ask the Reverend Mother, who knew nothing about this, if I could have leave of absence to cut a novel which I had written.

Presenter8:37

And so.

Catherine Gaskin8:37

Yeah.

Catherine Gaskin8:41

So, I never went back to school.

Presenter8:43

Right.

Presenter8:44

Well, and it was a big success, that book.

Catherine Gaskin8:46

Well, y yes, it was fantastic. I mean, in in two months they sold fifty thousand copies, and I thought it was so dead easy, and how wrong I was.

Presenter8:54

Let's have your second record. Watch that.

Catherine Gaskin8:57

Well, this is the Chopin Scherzo, No. two, and it has a most oh, it is very much engraved in my heart. At the end of the hostilities with Japan the prisoners of war were released, and Lily Cross and her husband came first to Sydney, mostly to recuperate, I would think.

Catherine Gaskin9:18

And this lovely lady,

Catherine Gaskin9:19

gave a free concert to the students at the Conservatorium. And I will never in my life forget this tiny creature, very thin from the concentration camp, coming on stage, and I don't know that this was what she started with, but she was so tiny that wi these great crashing chords that's coming she stood up to play them. And there she was with her hair in a great pigtail and wearing terribly simple sort of cotton shirt and pants. We'd never seen a woman in pants, I don't think, before that, but it was an indelible impression, and this lives with me forever.

Presenter9:55

Alas, Lillykraus doesn't seem to have recorded.

Catherine Gaskin9:57

No, unfortunately.

Catherine Gaskin10:00

But let's say Ruinstein is not a bad substitute.

Presenter11:00

The opening of Chopin Schierzo, number two, opus thirty one.

Presenter11:04

Played by Arthur Robenstein.

Presenter11:07

So, Catherine, there you were, sixteen years old, and a best selling novelist.

Catherine Gaskin11:11

Well, actually I was seventeen. It takes nine months to publish a book.

Presenter11:14

Of course. Now nearly thirty years later you went back to that book, rewrote it and republished it.

Catherine Gaskin11:21

Yes. I don't know whether that was a wise thing to do, but a lot of people have said they enjoyed it. And it was so interesting because in the first chapter of that I said it started in America where I'd never been

Catherine Gaskin11:33

And I was able to expand the American dimension of it so much. And of course anything that I really wanted to know about America during the thirties, all I had to do was ask my husband, because he'd lived all the round, you know.

Presenter11:46

Now going back to the original Australian version, you followed it with another novel. Did that have equal success?

Catherine Gaskin11:53

It did um in Australia it sold extremely well, but it rode on the coat tails of the first one. I must say that by itself it simply doesn't stand up at all, and I will never rewrite that.

Presenter12:05

Now, you came to London quite soon after this.

Catherine Gaskin12:08

Yes, in'forty eight. Um at that time all young Australians with ambition, they were dying to get to Europe, to do whatever they were going to do, and we'd been cooped up in Australia. And you know, one one came as soon as one could, because we we thought of particularly of London as being the centre of everything. We just wanted to be here.

Presenter12:28

You were still a teenager. Did you come on your end?

Catherine Gaskin12:30

No. My mother and an invalid sister came with me. Part of the reason for our coming was that she had an illness that nobody could diagnose, and we thought maybe it could be diagnosed in London, and so she came with us.

Presenter12:39

And moving.

Presenter12:44

Then I believe your mother went back to Australia.

Catherine Gaskin12:46

My mother got ill and was advised to return to Australia, so Pip and I were alone.

Presenter12:51

And you had to earn really for both of you.

Catherine Gaskin12:54

I had to earn for both of us. But, Roy, you know, remember, one's nineteen years old. The world is all ahead of you. You're full of confidence. You you don't fear anything, really. I mean, if I were faced with that situation now, I would be paralyzed with fear. I wouldn't be able to write a word.

Presenter13:09

Did you take a job or just keep writing?

Catherine Gaskin13:11

I took a job at Harrod's, in Harrod's library.

Catherine Gaskin13:15

for six weeks, and then my mother got ill and I had to break that off.

Presenter13:20

Now you've never had any interest in journalism or writing short stories. It it's always been novel.

Catherine Gaskin13:24

I have never written uh an article, I don't believe, in my whole life. Uh, I cannot write a short story. It's a very, very difficult form, and it does not suit me. I mean, I am for the long book, the big book, the story. That is, I tell stories and they're usually long.

Presenter13:38

That

Presenter13:41

Yes. So on those very short financial

Catherine Gaskin13:44

Oh, they were frightfully tight. We had ten pounds a week to live on, and because my sister was ill we had to have a centrally heated flat, and that took six guineas, so we had the change out of that to live on, plus the food parcels from Australia.

Presenter13:58

But you kept writing.

Presenter14:00

Several books?

Catherine Gaskin14:02

Oh, at one time I turned out one a year, and I may say that I don't think any of the books, as far as the publisher was concerned, were ever in the red. They always just made enough, and I scraped by.

Speaker 314:13

And I was not

Catherine Gaskin14:14

And I was learning, you see, I was learning the craft, the trade.

Presenter14:14

Uh

Presenter14:16

La Tray

Speaker 314:17

Uh

Catherine Gaskin14:17

and I was lucky enough to just sort of make it.

Presenter14:21

And then you had a smash success, which we'll talk about in a minute, when we played another record.

Catherine Gaskin14:27

Yes, well now here we've sort of lost nostalgia, and I'm growing up, I hope, a little bit, and one's into music more, and uh so I'd like uh Mozart's Symphonia Concertante.

Presenter15:39

Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante for Violin and Viola, Koekel three six four. Neville Mariner conducting the Academy of Saint Martin in the Field.

Presenter15:50

Now, your first grown-up success, Catherine. What was that, the big success?

Catherine Gaskin15:55

Well, it was a novel called Sarah Dane.

Catherine Gaskin15:58

And I must say, Roy, that I looked at my very slender financial resources, took a deep breath,

Catherine Gaskin16:05

and plunged in, because it was the first historical novel I had ever written, and I knew it would require a great deal of research. I was not trained in research I didn't know anything about it, and I knew it would take time. It took two and a half years.

Catherine Gaskin16:19

and to my well, amazement, delight, wonder, it really was a very big success. I mean, uh it sold in three months well over a hundred thousand copies in England.

Catherine Gaskin16:30

and fourteen translations and dear God they're printing it still in Germany to day. Bless them

Catherine Gaskin16:37

No, it was it was a fantastic experience. It was my first experience of being serialized in a weekly magazine, and in those days the readers were were so loyal.

Speaker 316:37

No.

Speaker 116:37

Uh

Catherine Gaskin16:47

That note book ran for three months. Now these days all they can sustain is four weeks.

Presenter16:52

What was the period?

Catherine Gaskin16:54

Well, it was actually the beginning of Australia the penal settlement, and it is based on a real character. No, I certainly took off from that character, but in that I knew she had achieved what she had achieved, I knew that my story was not ridiculous. It could be done.

Presenter17:11

A character, I quote, a young and lovely girl savagely and wrongly transported from England and her rise to wealth and influence. Now you have settled for the romantic form of writing.

Catherine Gaskin17:22

Well, after all, I am a romantic. I can't help it.

Presenter17:26

A fair answer.

Presenter17:27

Now that was an eventful time. You you had that success, and you were mad at it about then.

Catherine Gaskin17:32

Yes, um that was not planned, I'll tell you. Uh

Catherine Gaskin17:37

I encountered this strange man. It was on a blind date, actually. He was over designing television studios in England, and he was on loan from the National Broadcasting Company in America.

Presenter17:49

He is American, of course.

Catherine Gaskin17:49

American, of course. He is American. He was born in North Dakota, I suppose, one of the eight people who were ever born in North Dakota.

Catherine Gaskin17:56

And we met, and he talked the strangest talk I had ever heard in my life. It could have been science fiction to me. After all, I did move in a rather circumscribed little world. It was all publishing. People had to do with books and so on. Here was this man saying calmly, Oh, well, you know, books are an obsolete tool of learning.

Speaker 318:18

And

Catherine Gaskin18:19

Uh well

Catherine Gaskin18:20

I listened. I didn't always agree with him, and in fact I don't agree to this day. But um arguments over twenty five years are are not bad, really. Keeps the interest alive.

Presenter18:31

So where did you live? In America?

Catherine Gaskin18:32

We lived in slap in the middle of Manhattan, and then we had this um sort of summer place up in Duchess County, which Solid had for a very long time, so I lived in what would now be described as a high rise block.

Catherine Gaskin18:45

Right on Central Park South and Broadway, you couldn't be more in Manhattan than that, and Carnegie Hall was around the corner.

Catherine Gaskin18:51

and then on weekends we'd go up to the country and and in those days it was a very, very rural

Catherine Gaskin18:58

part of America. I mean, it it was almost primitive, in that the families had intermarried and there were strange things going on, and uh New York itself hadn't lapped into this sort of rural village society, and I saw a great many surprising things. I'm terribly grateful for that experience, because if I hadn't had it I would have only known the Manhattan side of America, and I would have known Los Angeles, San Francisco. I would never have known the country.

Presenter19:25

You went off to live for a while in the Virgin Islands. Now that sounds a very attractive place to live.

Catherine Gaskin19:30

It sounds an attractive place. Didn't work out? It did not work out. We went there because I said to Sol, Now, look, I'm not going to grow old in this wretched winter of the north eastern States, and I want to retire to somewhere that's warm and beautiful, and certainly the Virgin Islands are that.

Catherine Gaskin19:49

But you try living there.

Catherine Gaskin19:51

and it's altogether a different situation. Now I say it with great humility

Catherine Gaskin19:57

I did not realize what it was like to be another colour until I lived there. I began to understand why black people feel as they do. If I had been pushed aside for a couple of hundred years, as they pushed the whites aside there.

Speaker 320:13

Hmm.

Catherine Gaskin20:13

you saw the other side of the coin. It made you extremely sensitive to this situation, and we felt it was not right for us. We were, in fact, the wrong colour.

Speaker 320:24

Yeah.

Catherine Gaskin20:24

which for the m middle sixties it was quite a discovery to make, because we thought it would be perfectly all right. Physically it was very beautiful, but that's when I learned what it's like to live on a desert island.

Presenter20:37

Did you stay there a long time?

Catherine Gaskin20:39

No, we only stayed a year.

Presenter20:40

And then where? Back to the State?

Catherine Gaskin20:42

Back to the States very quickly, but always with the idea that we were going to live in Ireland.

Presenter20:48

I see.

Presenter20:49

Record number four.

Catherine Gaskin20:51

Well, this is where I go back to wanting the piano again. I would love to hear the Brahms Piano Concerto No. One. I really want those big, great, crashing chords which they tell me are fiendishly difficult to play.

Presenter22:05

A passage from the first movement of the first Brahms piano concerto in D minor.

Presenter22:11

Arto Robenstein with the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Eric Leinsdorf.

Presenter22:17

Now you were keeping up a steady flow of books, one every two years.

Catherine Gaskin22:21

Yes, about two years they they averaged out.

Presenter22:24

Not a a very prolific writer.

Catherine Gaskin22:27

No, I wouldn't say so. They were long books, but you see, I've got this dead Irish streak of laziness in me. I'm a terribly slow starter.

Presenter22:34

Yeah.

Speaker 322:35

Terror

Presenter22:35

Uh

Catherine Gaskin22:37

I can be stuck with the first ten thousand words for um a year, and I don't do anything about them, or I rewrite them seven times, and they're still no good.

Catherine Gaskin22:47

And then suddenly I look at the calendar. I say, Oh my God, get going

Presenter22:52

Tell me about your writing discipline. Right, you worked a deadline, but

Catherine Gaskin22:56

No, I don't I don't write to a deadline. It's a self imposed deadline. I mean, the publisher never imposes it.

Presenter23:01

I mean the power

Presenter23:03

Do you work regular hours every day? I mean, when you're not productive, do you sit and stare at the paper for for so many hours?

Catherine Gaskin23:08

Oh God, yes I mean and and invent every sort of excuse for not going to the typewriter, dying for something to happen uh that will will be uh a total uh interruption, and I won't have to go to the typewriter. And then I can go and I put the paper in, and I look out the window, and uh nothing at all happened.

Catherine Gaskin23:30

And that's when I start biting my nails.

Presenter23:32

Now some of your books must need a lot of research. For example, Edge of Glass about glass-making, A Falcon for the Queen about Victorian Scotland.

Catherine Gaskin23:41

Well, yes, I am described as a romantic novelist, but I've tried to base them in reality in that it is terribly important to me that I should know how the characters make their living, because characters are shaped not just by the environment, but how you make your living out of that environment. So, let's say I have done china, I have done glass, I have done malt whisky, I have done sherry, I have done auctioneering.

Catherine Gaskin24:09

and based it, I think, quite firmly.

Catherine Gaskin24:12

in all these things, so I get quite a lot of letters in which people say, Well, not only did I enjoy the book, but I learned something, too, which pleases me enormously.

Presenter24:20

And of course there's a lot of travel involved.

Catherine Gaskin24:22

Oh yes well that is both pleasure and pain, because while you do get into some very exotic places like Hereth when I was researching Sherry tremendous situation but one is worried all the time you see that you are not getting it, that you are not catching the flavour that s something is going past you. And fortunately Sol is always, um w when he can manage it, come with me on these research trips, and I must say two pairs of eyes and ears are better than one. And also he's pretty good at asking questions. This is where my lack of skill as a reporter or a journalist shows up, because I don't ask the right questions.

Presenter25:04

You'll show him your work in progress.

Catherine Gaskin25:06

Only in enormous chunks, and I d I do not invite thank God, he has never been pikiun about words or anything. He gave me one great thing in my life, and that was motivation.

Catherine Gaskin25:22

The only criticism he has ever made of anything that I've written is he'd say

Catherine Gaskin25:27

Aha Now, I like this piece very much, but it has not been indicated anywhere in the book that she could behave this way, if there was just some little thing earlier on that tipped the reader's mind that yes, now she could do it.

Catherine Gaskin25:43

And once one has learned that, it's really an invaluable lesson.

Presenter25:48

Now you had this ambition to go back to family roots, to go back to live in Ireland. Do you like to work

Presenter25:55

With or against the background, do you write about Spain in Spain, or do you visualize it more clearly when you've come away from it?

Catherine Gaskin26:02

Oh no, I I absolutely need to be at home and very, very quiet. I need my typewriter, I need my own desk, I could not possibly move around the world and write. I go, I look, I listen, and I buy every book I can possibly find on the subject, or that even faintly bears on the subject, and I assemble them all at home, and then if necessary, I go back and look at the setting again, and there they all are spread on the floor, and I'm trying to put them all together. And this is where the organisation bit of writing comes in. I suppose this is the discipline one learns over the years. This is the craft of it. I do not dare to call it an art, because I'm not an artist, unfortunately. That's reserved for very few people. But I think I'm a craftsman.

Presenter26:41

Marvet

Presenter26:48

Yeah.

Presenter26:50

And of course getting up and shuffling all those books makes a great excuse not to write if it's one of those mornings when you don't want to.

Catherine Gaskin26:54

Absolutely.

Catherine Gaskin26:56

Yes. I mean, I I'm I can always be researching, can't I?

Presenter26:59

Record number five.

Catherine Gaskin27:02

Oh, well, I think we'll just go on with all my loves.

Catherine Gaskin27:07

Um

Catherine Gaskin27:08

Bach, I'd like the orchestral suite number two.

Presenter28:11

The overture to Bach's orchestral suite number two in B minor.

Presenter28:15

Carry on conducting the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.

Presenter28:19

You haven't had a lot of luck in in selling your books for films and television yet.

Catherine Gaskin28:24

Sarah Dane was sold for a film almost right away, but of course it it was such a huge budget. All my books are huge budgets. Even when I'm writing about ruins, they're very expensive ruins. It is now being made in Australia as a television series. And there was one book which appeared on

Presenter28:31

Yeah.

Speaker 128:31

Uh

Catherine Gaskin28:41

Hallmark Hall of Fame, which was a very good drama programme in the States. Uh The File on Devlin. That was my one espionage novel.

Presenter28:50

Your new book, Family Affairs, a very long book, a a big fat read, covers a big canvas.

Catherine Gaskin28:57

Yes, that was one of the books that it took me a year.

Catherine Gaskin29:01

of rewriting and rewriting the first thirty thousand words and it would not come.

Catherine Gaskin29:06

And I said, What's wrong with this book?

Catherine Gaskin29:08

I don't care about the characters. Why should uh my readers care about the characters? Now, my main character, what am I going to do? Bring her to life. So I went back to Australia and I started in Australia, and from that moment it just flowed. And I have to say about this book, because this was one that I did not do any research for particularly.

Catherine Gaskin29:29

in that it is simply based on the years in Ireland listening to the B B C.

Catherine Gaskin29:36

We listen to the Today programme, we listen to The World at One, we listen to the full six o'clock news, and you get everything if you can't get enough stories out of what comes in that many years of listening and they're so well explained. I mean, the rise and fall of Slater Walker was done through the BBC as it came and went, and that was in the financial report every night. And the bits of gossip that you collect, which is my business to organise and put into shape.

Presenter30:04

Good.

Catherine Gaskin30:05

So I owe the the BBC a great debt.

Presenter30:08

Well, I'm sure they'd be very, very happy if you paid over part of your royalties.

Catherine Gaskin30:13

I I I'm not promising, but I do owe it.

Presenter30:15

I do owe it. Let's get back to music.

Catherine Gaskin30:18

Well, this one is

Catherine Gaskin30:21

Pure nostalgia, and this is my my piece of America, because to live in America in the fifties was a great, great experience.

Catherine Gaskin30:30

And I have a well, Abe Lincoln is one of my great heroes.

Catherine Gaskin30:34

So much so that any time that Sol and I were in Washington, last thing at night,

Catherine Gaskin30:40

The very last thing, before going back to the hotel, we'd take a taxi to the Lincoln Memorial, which is splendidly lit at night, and he was this great brooding figure.

Catherine Gaskin30:50

who seem to embody the conscience of the nation.

Catherine Gaskin30:54

and he is just so full of majesty.

Catherine Gaskin30:57

And I admire him so much, and it sums up America for me, so I would like Copeland's Lincoln portrait.

Presenter31:06

Fellow citizens

Presenter31:08

We cannot escape history.

Presenter31:17

That is what he said.

Presenter31:19

That is what Abraham Lincoln said.

Presenter31:27

Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history.

Presenter31:33

We of this Congress and this administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves.

Presenter31:41

No personal significance or insignificance can spare one or another of us.

Presenter31:47

The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation.

Presenter31:57

We

Presenter31:58

Even we here hold the power and bear the responsibility.

Presenter32:04

Aaron Copeland's Lincoln Portrait with the composer conducting the London Symphony Orchestra and Henry Fonder as narrator.

Presenter32:13

Let's go straight into number seven.

Catherine Gaskin32:16

Well, now comes the charmer of all time in music at least that's how I think one begins with Schubert. And then of course one gets into the chamber of music and he gets more and more serious. But I would love his great C major symphony.

Presenter33:21

The opening of Schubert's great C major symphony, Sir Adrian Bild conducting the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

Presenter33:29

Now, beach life in Australia and a year in the Virgin Islands should have given you some ideas on how to survive on a desert island.

Catherine Gaskin33:36

I'll be absolutely honest with you.

Catherine Gaskin33:39

I am practical in some things, but having lived on a desert island I know that I am not going to build myself a shelter because I can't do it.

Catherine Gaskin33:47

I will have to shelter from those violent tropical rainstorms under trees. I s there are sea grapes growing along the beach. Oh, and by the way, I mean, you didn't tell me. I suppose there is a lagoon that'll keep the sharks out.

Presenter34:00

Oh, surely.

Catherine Gaskin34:01

Oh, great so I I can swim I mean I can do my five strokes, and maybe I'll I'll, you know, learn to be a bit better. But I would hope that some avocado seeds washed ashore. I know how to plant them, I can germinate that, and I would assume there were papayas and mangoes.

Catherine Gaskin34:17

And I could very happily live on that diet. I wouldn't fish. I've only caught one fish in my life, and I couldn't bear to pull the hook out. So that's that. And I w I would just sit there, that's all.

Presenter34:27

And I would

Presenter34:29

Are you good in build?

Catherine Gaskin34:30

No. I mean, I I'm terrified of what's under the sea not of the sea I don't get seasick. But I'm terrified of the things that live underneath it. And uh you no, no, I I'm not good in boats.

Presenter34:41

I think that's the right approach. You just sit there.

Catherine Gaskin34:43

I'd sit there, yes.

Presenter34:46

What's your last record?

Catherine Gaskin34:47

Well, now, here comes the man.

Catherine Gaskin34:51

The man for all time, all seasons, for every mood of the heart, the mind, the soul. It's Beethoven and for that I will go to the String Quartet opus one three one.

Presenter35:54

The end of the fourth movement of Beethoven's string quartet number fourteen in C sharp minor, opus a hundred and thirty one, played by the Amadeus Quartet.

Presenter36:05

If you could take only one disk of that eight, which would it be?

Catherine Gaskin36:09

Well, of course it would have to be the man. It would have to be Beethoven.

Presenter36:14

Beethoven Quartet.

Presenter36:15

And you're allowed one luxury?

Catherine Gaskin36:18

Well, now, look, I'm I'm truly not trying to cheat, but if I have I know I can only have an upright piano.

Catherine Gaskin36:24

Now, uh can I have one of those old fashioned piano stools that have got a a lid?

Presenter36:30

You'd like some music in the stove.

Catherine Gaskin36:31

Yes, uh what I really want is I want to go back to where I left off or, in fact, right back to the beginning. I want the rudiments of music, right up to harmony and counterpoint, and then I want, stitched on to that, the forty eight preludes and fugues of Bach.

Catherine Gaskin36:47

And I think if I stay on this desert island long enough I'll have progressed beyond my scales and arpeggios, and I'll start to work on Bach. And why on Bach? Because you could always kid yourself that you were making something of him, really and I mean you'd have to live to be a hundred before you'd make something of Bach.

Presenter37:03

We'll have that stool specially made for you so that the inside goes all the way down to the ground and you can cram in a lot of music.

Catherine Gaskin37:07

What a wonderful crowd.

Catherine Gaskin37:11

Bless you.

Presenter37:11

And you can have one book apart from the Bible and Shakespeare.

Catherine Gaskin37:15

Well, Roy, for about twenty five years, as each volume came out, I have been collecting

Catherine Gaskin37:21

something called The Story of Civilization by Will and Ariel Durant. They're American historians not well known in this country. And they're all up on the shelf there, and I always tell myself, when I've retired, then I shall I've dipped into them I love the style, but I've not read them. So there I am, I'm going to read all that, and when I get off this desert island I will be so awful because I'll know it all.

Presenter37:45

Well, it's one work by Will and Ariel de Brandt, so of course you can have it. And the title again?

Catherine Gaskin37:51

The story of civilization.

Presenter37:53

The story of civilization. And thank you, Catherine Gaskin, for letting us hear your Desert Island.

Catherine Gaskin37:58

Oh, thank you, Roy. It's been a great pleasure.

Presenter38:01

Goodbye, everyone.

Speaker 138:11

You've been listening to a download from the Desert Island Discs archive.

Speaker 138:15

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