Sir Douglas Bader

Speaker 30:00

Hello, I'm Kirstie Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen eighty one, and the presenter was Roy Plumley.

Presenter0:26

On our desert island this week is a celebrated wartime flyer and a man who's made a wonderful job of overcoming a dreadful disability. It's Group Captain Sir Douglas Bardo.

Presenter0:37

Douglas, you have eight discs to choose for your desert island. Do you play discs a lot?

Presenter0:41

Uh no, I don't, but uh every now and then, you know, one gets a sort of phase for playing things that you've heard of and got hold of. And of course uh my memory goes back a long time. I know yours does too, but mine goes back a long time. And uh the sort of music I like is not the classical music. I've I've heard a lot of these Desert Islandists people come on and say, Oh, this is Beethoven's f five hundred and fiftieth sonata or something like that. Well I'm a Bing Crosby chap, and and my idea of classical music, uh, quite frankly, uh uh are the waltzes of Strauss.

Presenter1:11

And the first record I've got here is not actually a Straswalz, but it's very similar. It's called Vienna City of My Dreams.

Presenter1:18

And it's sung by Richard Tauber, who everybody knows of and's heard of.

Sir Douglas Bader1:32

I thought of my team. Meta.

Speaker 41:34

She will be at a mind to yes

Sir Douglas Bader1:37

Yeah, the mine

Sir Douglas Bader1:38

Uh

Sir Douglas Bader1:40

Yeah.

Speaker 41:40

Ready to be done?

Sir Douglas Bader1:41

Yeah.

Speaker 41:48

Uh I had a black paint of your own eyes

Presenter1:51

Yeah.

Speaker 41:52

There we have the beer creamy

Speaker 41:57

I'm a call for the trainer of the name I know.

Presenter2:05

Vienna's City of My Dreams, sung in German by Richard Tauber. What part of the country do you come from?

Presenter2:12

Well, I'm a Cockney by birth.

Presenter2:14

In other words, I was born in London. If the wind's in the right direction, you can hear the sound of bow bells.

Presenter2:20

And I was brought up in Yorkshire. And my mother was a Scott. Her name was Jessie Scott Mackenzie and she came from Aberdeen. So you work it out, oh boy.

Presenter2:28

You had the misfortune to lose your father when you were very young. Yes, World War One. He was an army man. That's right, yes. Well, he was uh actually in the Indian Civil Service as an engineer. When he came back, he was a sapper.

Presenter2:38

And he came back for the war and that was what happened.

Presenter2:40

Now you had no leanings towards the army, but you were fascinated by flying. How did that come about? It came about because my uncle, a very favourite uncle of mine and aunt, my mother's sister, were in the Royal Air Force. He was in the Flying Corps and then the Royal Air Force, and at the age of eleven I went to stay with them at Cranwell and that's why I was determined to go into the Royal Air Force. Now you were at prep school in Eastbourne, then at St Edward's School, Oxford. What were you best at?

Presenter3:06

Well, you know, it's a very rotten thing to ask me, old boy. I mean uh I was quite good at games.

Presenter3:12

Were you working at your maths uh in the hope of getting into Cranwell? Uh no, I uh only had a classical education.

Presenter3:20

And when they presented me with Mess, I mean, actually I I think I'm the only person on record who got into Crandall who got naught for mess. I got a zero, actually. But you did get a scholarship. A prize cadetship, yes they call it, yes. And you did very well at Crandle, but had a reputation, I gather, for ragging about a bit.

Presenter3:37

Well, I think we all had, you know. But there you are. So you were commissioned and and posted to a fighter squadron. That was, what, nineteen thirty? In July, nineteen thirty, yes. Now you played rugby for the R A F standoff half, wasn't it? Standoff half for the Air Force, yes, and uh the Royal Air Force and uh

Sir Douglas Bader3:44

The angel

Presenter3:52

I played centre three quarter for the Harlequins because the Harlequins had a a jolly good army centre three quarter, so I moved into the centre when he was playing. But of course the great thing about games i i is the fun it goes with you all your life. I mean uh I lost my legs when uh when I was twenty one years old. My games career was cut very short. But over the years one's seen one's contemporaries.

Presenter4:12

And I mean uh people like Karl Arvold, who played for Cambridge and for England several times and he finished up as a judge.

Presenter4:19

Yes. You see, uh uh and uh you suddenly see all friends. And I remember when Carl was was operating at the old Bailey, I was working just up the road at uh Bishopsgate, and I used to go and have lunch with him occasionally. It was frightfully amusing going into a court and seeing an old chum of yours sitting looking tremendously serious with a wig on his nut. And you bow to him before you go and sit down, and then you go and have lunch with him afterwards, you know. It's very, very funny. But a lot of these fellows, as I said well, knew blokes you knew as youngsters, it's fascinating to see what happened to them.

Sir Douglas Bader4:39

A new power

Presenter4:52

and find so many of them who were good jolly good at games, finishing up also good at the legal profession or good at the doctor or whatever it was. And I remember I went down to Swansea,

Presenter5:05

This was a few years after the war, to open the civil airport. And the last time I was in Swansea was in 1931.

Presenter5:15

And um I've been playing for the Harlequins against Swansea.

Presenter5:19

And there was a marvellous chap.

Presenter5:21

called Dye Parker, who'd played about five hundred times for Wales. He was a forward and he was a very thick, you know, solid and we were playing with numbers on our backs and we had a forward playing for us who wore very thick glasses in ordinary life and of course there are no contact lenses in those days, so he didn't use them for playing football actually. And he was one of these chaps who was always waving his arms and legs about like this and in a loose scrum right in front of the stand at Swansea.

Sir Douglas Bader5:30

And it was

Presenter5:51

He hit a Welshman, you know, in the face without meaning to at all, and the referee whistled and had a scrum down. And in the pause, just before the scrum half pushed the ball into the scrum of silence, a voice came from the stand which said, Die, die, number seven, which was the number on this wretched fellow's back. But I've never forgotten it. And I went down to open the airport there, as I say, and I said to the mayor of Swansea, I said, Look at that chap called Di Parker. Oh, Dye, he's on the council. And I saw Di at lunch, and I hadn't seen him since that day in 931, and this was twenty or more years later. And there he was, old die, just the same. Yes. Thick and solid. And still looking for number seven. Marvellous chap. There was talk that you might have made the England side. Yes, I might have done. And as I say, it's very sad that I didn't have a chance to do so, but that is. I mean, that's life. You were also a good cricketer.

Sir Douglas Bader6:12

Uh

Sir Douglas Bader6:34

I'm still looking for number seven.

Sir Douglas Bader6:37

There was talk.

Sir Douglas Bader6:40

Yes, I'm

Presenter6:48

Well, I played cricket and and I played for all Air Force, yes. What what were you a a batsman or? Well, yes, a a batsman and and and a fieldsman. I th I thought I was rather a good bowler, but they didn't think so. I was very seldom put on to bowl. Favoritism everywhere.

Sir Douglas Bader7:02

Where?

Presenter7:03

Let's have your next record.

Presenter7:05

Well, this is a totally different one. It's one that has always made me laugh and I can sing it word for word myself, but I won't do it. And that's a record uh sung by Frank Crummit called The King of Borneo.

Sir Douglas Bader7:24

Or the minstrels sing of a barney oak

Presenter7:26

King ten thousand years ago, Who ruled his land with an iron hand, As royal so-and-so. He loved to chase the bounding stag within the royal wood. He was also fond of Applejack, And the ladies did him good.

Sir Douglas Bader7:42

Uh

Presenter7:42

Uh

Presenter7:45

A neighbouring queen was a gay Colleen, oh a gay Colleen was she. She loved to play in a kittenish way with the king across the sea. So she sent a special message by a royal messenger to ask the king to come and spend a week or two with her. Frank Crumit singing a song from your own repertoire, The King of Borneo.

Presenter8:06

Now one visualizes life in the early thirties, Arief, as rather gentle and civilized. Aerodromes in the open countryside, sheep grazing in meadows, not too much noise. W was that rather? Yes, it's perfectly true. And and not too many aeroplanes about, and very few civilian aeroplanes about. And uh

Sir Douglas Bader8:17

Okay, so

Presenter8:23

Of course, none of these ghastly

Presenter8:26

Country scarring aerodromes with great concrete runways and an enormous amount of space. In fact, almost a little town on its own, like London Airport. Not only were you one of the RAF's star performers at rugby and cricket, you were also a top performer at aerobatics. Well, no, uh th that's a little bit overstating it. All the fighter squadrons and the pilots did aerobatics.

Presenter8:49

And it was a a sort of customer thing. And and the great thing with the Royal Air Force

Presenter8:54

Inspired, I think, and which other air forces took from them was.

Presenter8:58

formation aerobatics. And I mean you've only got to see the red arrows now. But that had all started uh in the late twenties and early thirties with different aeroplanes, but uh it was always a a great potency in the Royal Air Force in the fighter.

Presenter9:13

Command area. It is, of course, a highly dangerous occupation, and an occupation that costs you your legs. What was the stunt you were doing? I was just messing about too near the ground, and I hit the ground. That's what you always do if you get too near the ground.

Presenter9:28

Yes, quite. Oh no, I uh I had a nasty accident and lost a lot of blood, and of course under those conditions people think that uh you might die, you know, and actually I didn't.

Sir Douglas Bader9:28

And as

Sir Douglas Bader9:33

So now

Presenter9:41

How long was it before you were painfully mobile? I lost him in December 1931. I was mobile in April 1932.

Presenter9:50

You were told you'd be all right with sticks and crutches. What was your answer to that? Well, I mean, the answer was, obviously, that one would be all right without'em. You've never used a stick. No, never. Well it only gets tangled up with you when you fall down, I reckon. That's my view of a stick.

Sir Douglas Bader9:58

You've never

Sir Douglas Bader10:00

Okay

Presenter10:04

And I was only twenty one. I wasn't very old at the time. The RAF didn't want you any more. What job did you take? I joined the shell company. It mustn't be said on the BBC, but I mean that's in fact what I did. And that was to do with aviation in a way. Yes, uh and I

Sir Douglas Bader10:14

Yeah.

Presenter10:18

Stayed with the Shell Company for 37 years, excluding the war. Was the much flying in the air? The Flying. And you're taking up golf? Oh, yes. Oh, yes. You've got to do something if you've played games all your life, and golf, um.

Presenter10:34

Well, when I first tried to hit a golf ball, um I fell flat on my back, and then suddenly I connected.

Presenter10:40

Just one shot, right slap on the sweet spot, and I've been a martyr to the game ever since. And you've learned a few more shots. Yes.

Sir Douglas Bader10:45

Yeah.

Sir Douglas Bader10:47

Thank you.

Presenter10:50

Let's have your third record. What's that to be? Oh, of course one can't.

Presenter10:54

Have any collection of records without that wonderful pair of Sanager and Alan, and my third record's underneath the arches, which of course everybody knows.

Presenter11:02

Another from your own repertoire, isn't it? Oh, yes, indeed. You see, the great thing about some of these records is that we can all sing em in our baths as long as nobody else hears us singing and complains. Right. Well, nobody's going to complain on the desert island if you're lucky enough to have a bath. Well, exactly, yes.

Sir Douglas Bader11:17

Underneath the archaeolog

Sir Douglas Bader11:21

We free money to wallet

Presenter11:21

Revito forever forever.

Sir Douglas Bader11:26

Underneath the ocean

Presenter11:27

They are

Sir Douglas Bader11:28

On top of the line Back to bank with the money

Sir Douglas Bader11:39

Higher down the board.

Presenter11:42

Flanagan and Allen underneath the arches.

Presenter11:45

Now, later in the thirties war seemed inevitable. You thought you still had something to offer the RAF as a pilot.

Presenter11:52

Of course, I mean, because I uh could fly and and I mean

Presenter11:56

I had flown in the Royal Air Force at the Central Flying School in 1932. Did they need persuading?

Sir Douglas Bader12:00

Eight.

Presenter12:03

No, no. They had the report that I could fly, you see, from nineteen thirty two. So in thirty nine, uh when one applied again uh

Presenter12:11

They said if the doctors reckon you're all right, uh you can do it. Could you manage all the controls or did we have to have a map? No problem, none of them adapted. No problem, nothing. The lucky thing was that the Royal Air Force airplanes had hand brakes and not foot brakes.

Sir Douglas Bader12:15

No.

Presenter12:25

Because the one thing I can't do is to move my foot, you'll see to put a brake on. What aircraft did they give you to fly?

Sir Douglas Bader12:28

The word.

Presenter12:30

Well, I started off on aeroplanes I knew, which was still a a trainer, an aero tutor, little biplane with open.

Presenter12:36

Cockpits and then went on to.

Presenter12:38

A Miles Master, which is the dual uh

Presenter12:42

under carriage up and all that sort of thing, you know, the modern devices.

Presenter12:45

And then, of course, to a hurricane and Spitfire. And by the time of Dunkirk, you had fought your first action? I did Dunkirk, yes, Spitfire.

Sir Douglas Bader12:51

I did Dunkirk, yes.

Presenter12:53

And the following month you darned your first Messer Schmidt. Did promotion come fast?

Presenter12:58

Uh yes, it did fairly quickly, I think. But then, of course, a war does uh accelerate people's promotion, and I was

Presenter13:04

older than other people and of course uh I'd had a background

Presenter13:08

of the Royal Air Force, which naturally made it.

Speaker 413:10

Uh

Presenter13:11

Easier for me. They gave you a squadron and then a wing. Now you were renowned for giving the active pilot's point of view to deathbound gatherings of of top rats. I don't know. I I won't accept that one entirely like that. Uh one just had ideas and some people liked them.

Sir Douglas Bader13:21

Somewhere.

Presenter13:28

Yes. And I don't want to get i in this desert island this into an argument about the air force in nineteen forty because it's been tremendously overrated.

Sir Douglas Bader13:32

Yeah, but you did have

Sir Douglas Bader13:34

You might

Sir Douglas Bader13:35

Yeah.

Presenter13:38

And over overestablished and quite wrongly. But you've always been eager to express your views when you feel that they're not. Well, I think that one that's the way one is. If you want to express your views, you express them. And sometimes

Speaker 413:45

Well, I think the

Presenter13:51

Probably not quite so tactfully as one might.

Presenter13:53

There was one day over occupied France when you collided with an enemy aircraft. Yes. I either collided or somebody shot my tail off, but uh I thought I collided and maybe I was wrong. But anyhow the fact that the result was the same that I finished up without a tail to my aeroplane, so I had to take as we used to say, take to the silk. They call it bailing out now.

Presenter14:13

But what's the drill for a parachute landing when you have only ten legs? That must have been a significant thing.

Sir Douglas Bader14:17

Well I only had one

Presenter14:19

One came off, and I landed on one only.

Presenter14:24

And uh it wasn't a problem. Let's break off at this point for another record.

Presenter14:31

Well, now we've gone back.

Presenter14:33

Uh to a waltz again. Being a sentimental sort of chap, I like waltzes. And this one is one of my favorites of all time, and that's Charmaine.

Presenter14:41

Now we've got it played, I think, by Mentavani.

Presenter14:44

Who else? And it's a lovely, lovely tune. And I first heard it in 1926. Not, of course, played by Mantavani. No.

Presenter15:25

Mount Avarne

Presenter15:26

Charmaine.

Presenter15:28

Now, doubtless, you were a prisoner of war. You were in hospital for a while.

Presenter15:32

Oh, I was in hospital in France because of arriving without a leg and I had cut my chin.

Presenter15:37

And they had to sew that up, but uh

Presenter15:40

The Lufaffer found my leg and brought it in.

Presenter15:43

I did quite a good repair job on it. It was buckled a bit when they got it. And you used it to get out of the hospital. How did you get out? Well, down from the window. I was on the third floor, yeah.

Sir Douglas Bader15:47

Oh yes, I

Sir Douglas Bader15:53

Down from the second floor, first floor.

Presenter15:56

What happened? How long were you free? I was free for about twenty four hours and then uh

Presenter16:01

Somebody knew where I was and they came and got me. And later on you got out of the prison camp? Yes, but only for a very brief moment. You see, no no escape is of any interest except the one that gets home. And all sorts of chaps got out of prison camps, you know, throughout the war, and were free for varying times of a few hours or a few days and so on.

Presenter16:21

So it was all good uh stuff. Well, you had escaped twice. The Germans had a special place for prisoners of war who made too much of a nuisance of themselves. Well, yes, it was the Zalo escapees or or blokes who they found were being a nuisance, and uh they stuck us all in Kolitz, which was far and away the best camp in Germany, actually.

Presenter16:38

And that was your policy right throughout your

Presenter16:41

What was it? Three and a half years to Harry.

Sir Douglas Bader16:43

Paris

Speaker 316:44

In Javier.

Sir Douglas Bader16:44

Yeah.

Presenter16:46

Have

Presenter16:47

I got through six others on the way in the first year.

Presenter16:51

Yeah.

Presenter16:52

And your policy was to to harass the enemy, you continue to be able to do that.

Sir Douglas Bader16:55

Yeah.

Presenter16:58

But when you got to Kodis, so there were a whole lot of kindred spirits there. And the the beauty about Kodis was that it was a total international camp. I mean there were fifty two Dutch, there were fifty Poles, there were sixteen Czechs, there were about twenty Belgians. And um

Presenter17:13

a hundred French and there were eighty British when I arrived. And between you you were holding down an awful lot of German troops, didn't you? Well, we liked things very good, but I think we were holding down more than other camps, really. So you were a very good place, Kowlitz. There's some very fine people there who

Sir Douglas Bader17:21

Well we like to think about it.

Sir Douglas Bader17:26

So you were very

Presenter17:30

I've kept in touch with over the years, you know, of all nationalities.

Presenter17:35

Another record.

Presenter17:37

For now.

Presenter17:38

We're going uh to an amusing record uh by a man uh who I'm very fond of. I know him personally and and I love uh his singing and everything else. It's Val Dunigan.

Presenter17:48

And this is Paddy McGuinty's Goat, and I think it's immensely funny and I love it.

Sir Douglas Bader17:55

Uh

Presenter17:55

Now Patrick McGuinty, an Irishman of note, Fell in for a fortune, and he bought himself a goat. Says he's sure of goat's milk, I'm going to have me fill But when he brought the nanny home, he found it was a bill. All the young ladies who live in Kiln

Sir Douglas Bader18:11

They're all wearing bustles like their mothers used to do They each wear a bolster beneath their petticoat And leave the rest to Providence and Paddy McGinty's goat

Presenter18:21

Valdoonikan singing Paddy Maguinti's Goat.

Presenter18:24

Right, the war was over, and you were out of the bag, back into the petroleum business. That's right. You mustn't mention the word shell, I know, but I will. No, no, no, no, no. Into a petroleum company.

Sir Douglas Bader18:31

No, no, no.

Presenter18:35

And this time a lot more flying than before the war. Oh, yes, because they were using aeroplanes in various parts of the world for exploration and uh production. In places like Borneo there aren't any roads.

Presenter18:48

And so we eventually got out of helicopters in 1952.

Presenter18:53

Because an access road in I think I'm right in saying an access road through the jungle to get the rig there and dig a hole.

Presenter19:00

It was twenty one thousand pounds a mile.

Presenter19:03

Wow. And uh when you'd got the rig there and dug a hole, uh you might find nothing.

Presenter19:09

So back you go and start somewhere else. Whereas we found with helicopters uh that you could uh just cut a small clearing in the jungle. I mean, you didn't have to flatten it or anything, just leave it there. And uh you could get a helicopter in. And of course we use supplies like that and uh

Presenter19:27

Uh th then some of the lighter rigs that would break down into s fairly small weight distribution, we we'd lift them into the clearing, you see, so it made a lot of difference of not having all this excess road business. How many aircraft were there altogether in the international fleet of this anonymous oil company that you were looking after? Well, at various times we probably had uh upwards of uh sort of fifty or sixty aircraft and uh

Sir Douglas Bader19:50

Really?

Presenter19:50

A miniature Air Force. Oh, yes, it was. It was indeed.

Sir Douglas Bader19:51

Uh

Speaker 319:51

I'm miniature all over the place.

Presenter19:55

And that excludes, of course.

Presenter19:58

Some we used to contract out.

Presenter20:00

If there was a company near that could do it, an air company, we'd obviously use them rather than buy our own and

Presenter20:07

You see, we didn't want to get into other people's business unless we had to when there was nothing else.

Presenter20:12

To do an air aircraft around. And the job was taking you all over the world. Oh, yes. Opportunities to try a lot of golf courses. Yes, indeed.

Presenter20:20

It was. And one did too. Of course. Record number six.

Presenter20:26

Well now we've gone back to probably the most famous song of the war.

Presenter20:31

Which was sung.

Presenter20:32

and listened to from Radio Belgrade by both the Eighth Army of Montgomery and

Presenter20:38

the Africa Cora Rommel, and that is Lilly Marlane.

Presenter20:43

And this is sung by Vierolin.

Speaker 420:45

Time would come for roll call, time for us to part. Darling, I'd caress you and press you to my heart. And then'neath that far-off lantern light, I'd hold you tight, we'd kiss good night, My lily of the lamb light, my own lily.

Presenter21:16

Verilyn singing Lilly Marlane.

Presenter21:19

Now, the Barder story is is a very unusual one from many points of view. There have been two biographies written about you. Were you never tempted to write a story yourself?

Presenter21:29

Uh no. I did actually write a book myself which was not about me.

Presenter21:34

It was about the Spitfire and the Hurricane and it's called A Fight for the Sky. Well, the first book about you, Reach for the Sky by Paul Brickhill, sold two million copies and was made into a film. Did you collaborate on the film?

Presenter21:47

Uh no

Presenter21:48

I met uh that splendid chap, Kenneth Moore, who took my part.

Presenter21:53

Twice.

Presenter21:54

Once was at lunch when they introduced to each other.

Presenter21:57

And the second time it was not long after our introduction, we played a round of golf together at Glen Eagles. And I said to Ken, I said, Look, if I can help, tell me, and I'll do what I can, but I do travel a great deal.

Presenter22:09

And so you'll have just let me know when I can help.

Presenter22:14

And Ken made a most very revealing, I think, an intelligent remark. He said, I don't want to see you at all.

Presenter22:20

until I finished this film.

Presenter22:22

He said, If I see too much of you, I shall caricature you. Yes. Now it was a frightfully good remark, and we didn't see each other at all until after it was done. He gave a very good and sensitive performance. Well, I was satisfied when I saw the show. But he became we became great friends afterwards, all right? And we played golf together quite a bit, and uh

Presenter22:40

We always started off having driven off the first he walking down, you know, the fairway or towards the trees or wherever the balls had gone. And I always say, Look, Ken, who's walking like who? because he automatically got into the sort of rolling gauge, you know. It was really very funny. I believe you didn't go and see the film immediately. No, no, I didn't. No, no, no,

Sir Douglas Bader22:57

That ought to

Presenter22:59

I saw it uh after uh some time, but m m my old friends who did see it uh at the beginning, uh they all uh approved it, so uh that was a But you'd seen by the notices that it was a good film, that it was an honest film. Wh why did you stay away so long?

Sir Douglas Bader23:08

Besides a no

Sir Douglas Bader23:11

Yeah, what

Presenter23:14

I don't know, really.

Presenter23:17

It wasn't deliberate, it w it was e eased by the fact that one moved about a lot, you know. But anyhow uh

Presenter23:24

You've seen it.

Sir Douglas Bader23:24

When I

Presenter23:27

And now there's a second biography, Flying Colours. This has been written by a relative of yours. By br my brother-in-law.

Presenter23:34

who was also a a pilot, a fighter pilot, and had a very distinguished war record. Now this is a a a more considered, a more serious version of the story, isn't it? Yes, and it it goes on, you see, after where Brickey left off, which was in nineteen

Sir Douglas Bader23:44

Yeah.

Presenter23:49

Forty five, actually, forty six. But anyhow, I mean, you can never tell when people write things about you, whether it's good or bad, because you you can't see it objectively, you know. No. Well, we'll hope that this one sells two million.

Sir Douglas Bader23:59

Yeah.

Presenter24:00

And get on the basement.

Sir Douglas Bader24:01

Yes, I'm exactly.

Presenter24:03

Ha ha ha.

Presenter24:05

Now, this is a man, this next record.

Presenter24:10

is done by a man, I suppose, who to our generation

Presenter24:14

Right um

Presenter24:16

It was

Presenter24:17

The greatest impressari of all most an El Card.

Presenter24:21

And the great thing about Neil Card was he was a tremendous patriot, but he was always doing the English thing of taking the mickey out of the English, and particularly the British Empire.

Presenter24:33

And uh this record is called I Wonder What Happened to Him and uh anybody listening can uh know exactly what it's all about.

Sir Douglas Bader24:44

Whatever became of old Archie.

Sir Douglas Bader24:46

I hear he departed this life.

Sir Douglas Bader24:49

After rounding up ten sacred cows in Karachi to welcome the governor's wife.

Sir Douglas Bader24:55

Do you remember Munro in the PAVO? He was tallish and mentally dim.

Sir Douglas Bader25:01

That talk of heredity can't be quite true.

Sir Douglas Bader25:04

He was dropped on his head by his ayah, a tomb.

Sir Douglas Bader25:08

I presume that by now he'll have reached GHQ. Yes, I'm sure that's what's happened to him.

Presenter25:16

Errol Card's joyous. I wonder what happened to him.

Presenter25:19

Now, Douglas, we put you on this desert island.

Presenter25:22

How are you going to look after yourself? I know physically you can manage that very well, you can do most things. But have you the right skills? Ever done any fishing?

Presenter25:30

Uh yes, I fished in a lake in Canada once, and caught lake trout which weighed about a pound.

Presenter25:38

Efficiently delicious to have put'em in the pan, you know.

Speaker 425:39

Uh

Presenter25:41

No, I shan't have my fishing rod on the um desert island anyhow. Coconuts will probably fall off the trees or something like that.

Speaker 425:41

And yeah.

Sir Douglas Bader25:41

Uh

Presenter25:47

But um I believe you can't take Shakespeare, but you can take a book. You've got Shakespeare and you've got the Bible. That's the standard issue. Now you can take one other book. Well, in that case I would take the complete works of

Presenter26:04

The man

Presenter26:06

Who was the poet laureate?

Presenter26:08

Alfred Lord Tennyson.

Presenter26:10

Right.

Presenter26:11

Now, I don't know if you've read Tennyson, or if you read it. Yes, I have read a fair amount. Well, you'll recall.

Presenter26:19

that the most extraordinary prophecy

Presenter26:22

In that verse about Locksley Hall, in which he says, I dipped into the future far as human eye could see, Saw the vision of the world and all the wonder there would be Saw the heavens filled with commerce, argos of magic sails

Presenter26:37

Pilots of the purple twilight dipping down with costly bales.

Presenter26:41

Heard the heavens fill with shouting.

Presenter26:44

and there rained a ghastly dew.

Presenter26:47

From the nation's airy navies grappling in the central blue. Now, if that wasn't a prophecy of the Battle of Britain Yes heard the heavens filled with shouting, the R T, you know Right Incredible That is a strange prophetic piece of verse, wasn't it?

Presenter27:02

And that was written in the last century.

Presenter27:05

Right, let's get on to your last record.

Presenter27:08

Now I've gone.

Presenter27:09

A little bit modern with the last one.

Presenter27:12

In other words, it hasn't gone back to the dim distant past, and it's a record which I simply love. I love the melody and the words.

Presenter27:21

It's by the New Sikhs.

Presenter27:23

And it's called If I Could Teach the World to Sing.

Speaker 327:28

I'd like to build the world a home and furnish it with love.

Speaker 427:33

Hello

Sir Douglas Bader27:35

Waffles dream

Speaker 427:37

And honeybees and snow-white turtle doves.

Speaker 427:42

I like to teach

Speaker 427:44

To say and bad.

Sir Douglas Bader27:46

Big harmony

Presenter27:56

The New Seekers. If you could take only one of the eight discs you've played us, which would it be?

Presenter28:02

I would take a medley.

Presenter28:04

Of all the songs one can get on one record by Bing Crosby. Because I couldn't select from all the Bing Crosby records I simply love, I didn't put a Bing Crosby in my choice. But that's what I'd take to my Desert Island. As many Bings as I get on one record. Right, that will organise.

Presenter28:24

And one luxury, any one object which will give you pleasure to have.

Presenter28:29

Well, it must be too. I take my favorite golf club, which is a sandarn.

Presenter28:34

And a golf ball.

Presenter28:35

Oh, that sounds a very modest request. We'll give you a supply of of balls so that you can Because there's bound to be plenty of sand on the desert. Plenty of sand, and no worry about that at all. You can you can tee up with ease. Nobody looking to say you're cheating, you see. No, indeed. And we'll give you enough balls so that you can really lose them in the lagoon, and it doesn't matter.

Sir Douglas Bader28:40

But

Sir Douglas Bader28:42

I don't think you're saying.

Presenter28:54

Now your book you've told us about the complete works of

Presenter28:58

Tennison. Yes. And thank you, Sir Douglas Barder, for letting us hear your Desert Island discs. Okay, Roy. Well, I hope the people listen will be pleased with some of them, anyhow. I'm sure they will. Goodbye, everyone.

Speaker 329:17

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk/radio4.