Donald Sinden

Speaker 20:00

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

Speaker 20:05

For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in 1982, and the presenter was Roy Plumley.

Presenter0:30

This week our castaway is the actor Donald Sindon.

Presenter0:34

Donald, I've got a long list of plays and films here, but no musicals. No, I tried to keep that one quiet. I did once appear in a musical video. Did you? What was it? This once called Joie de Vive. It was a musicalized version of Terence Radigan's French Without Tears. That's right. In 1960, we had an ecstatic tour of ten weeks around the regions, playing two weeks in each city. And then we arrived in London at the Queen's Theatre, and we opened on a Thursday evening.

Donald Sinden0:42

What was this?

Donald Sinden0:49

Is that

Donald Sinden0:49

Yeah.

Presenter1:01

And we closed on Saturday. In that three days, did you sing? I did. And you see, I'm tone deaf. And my wife says that I should never, never sing at all. But unfortunately, Terry Rattigan telephoned me about that and said, Can you sing? and I said no. And he said, Well, we want you to appear in this musical. They all thought I was joking. You see, it wasn't until we opened that they discovered that I couldn't.

Donald Sinden1:17

They all thought I was joking, and see it wasn't a

Presenter1:22

Is music important in your life, apart from the fact that you don't make any, if you can help it? Incredibly important, yes. Uh I listen a lot to music. My wife and I b go to the uh opera every night we have off, and uh I listen to a lot, as I say at home. Oh, I I can't envisage life without music, as a matter of fact. Well, but um although I'm totally tone deaf myself, I can't sing a note. I can tell immediately if anyone is a ooh, a

Donald Sinden1:40

But I'm

Presenter1:47

Smidgin off turn, eh?

Presenter1:50

What's the first one you've chosen, the first record? My first record. Now, you see, I was brought up in a little village in Sussex called Ditchling, eight miles north of Brighton. So Brighton to me as a boy represented the the bright lights. And I remember once seeing advertised, when I was about twelve years old, a symphony concert.

Presenter2:09

And I said to my mother, What is a symphony concert? and she said, Oh, you wouldn't like that.

Presenter2:13

Clever of her, you see, very clever. So the following week I went to the symphony concert. I thought it was the most boring thing I'd ever heard in my life. But I daren't admit that, you see, so I went again the following week, and the following week, and the following week, and I began to like it. And I became an habitué of the Dome in Brighton. And frequently there they had recitals, various musicians, and Richard Tauber was a regular. He used to come down two or three times a year to the to the Dome, and I fell in love with this man's voice. It's the most.

Donald Sinden2:31

Yeah.

Presenter2:44

musical voice I think I've ever heard from anyone.

Speaker 42:51

Uh

Speaker 42:55

I'm in the fair of you divine, dressed like a queen with flies.

Donald Sinden3:05

Uh

Speaker 43:06

You have that up all the mind.

Presenter3:14

Vienna City of My Dreams, sung by Richard Taubert.

Presenter3:18

Deadsling's a very small place, so really you're a country boy. I am a country boy, yes. My my whole life has been bound up with the country, yes. I

Presenter3:25

I need grass. I need to walk. I love walking. Your father was a pharmacist. Did you have any inclination towards medical matters? Oh, dear me, none at all. No, I'm afraid uh mm my childhood was blighted by the fact that I had asthma. That's why I missed school two or three days a week.

Speaker 43:38

Yeah.

Donald Sinden3:38

Uh

Presenter3:42

And academically, I was a complete dunce. What did you want to be? Nothing. Absolutely nothing at all, because I had no idea what I could do. I never passed an exam in my life. I never took one, let alone passage, you see. So what did you do?

Donald Sinden3:55

One.

Presenter3:56

I was coming up for fifteen, and my parents didn't know what to do with me but my mother knew some people in Hove who had a factory, and they made revolving doors, and she got in touch with them and said could they find a job for me? and they said the only vacancy they had was as a joiner.

Presenter4:11

So I was apprenticed as a joiner for five years. That's a lot of time. That was a statutory period.

Presenter4:17

Now, how did the theatre come into your life? Had you been a lot to the Brighton theatres as well as the Dome? Not at all, not at all. Because my brother and sister were the two theatre-goers of the family, and that didn't interest me at all. I suddenly got onto music, yes. But it turned out that my cousin was an amateur actor, and he was called up for the RAF. It was just the beginning of the war then. And he was called up for the RAF in the middle of rehearsals, and he telephoned me and asked me if I would take on his part in an amateur production. Of what? The play was called A Modern Aspasia. There you are. It was a new play.

Speaker 44:50

Then you have a new play.

Presenter4:52

And I said, You come to the wrong chap. That's not me at all. You know, you want my brother. And he said, No, you're the right age. And so I did this. And that performance happened to be seen by a most extraordinary man called Charles F. Smith. It was the beginning of the war, remember, and he was very distressed by the way that ENSER was being run. He disapproved strongly. And so he formed, he was a man of means, and he formed his own localized form of Ensor called Miser, M-E-S-A, the Mobile Entertainments for the Southern Area. And he asked me to join his company. Well, I thought it was because I was a genius, you know? Not at all. It was because he couldn't get anybody else at the time. And I joined his company, and I stayed with him for four and a half years throughout the war, because I was a a joiner by day from eight until five. Then at five o'clock I'd race into the lavatory at the factory, put on a suit, get in the bus, and I was off to entertain the troops. That made a long day. What did you entertain them with? What were then modern comedies?

Donald Sinden5:41

At Maida

Presenter5:45

things like French Without Tears and George and Margaret.

Presenter5:49

And fresh feels. In the camp theatres. In the various camp theatres. I should hasten to say that I'd been turned down for the forces myself because of asthma, you see, and so this was my war work, as well as in the factory where we were by now making ammunition boxes. And then the war came to an end, so you had to make up your mind which you were going to do, join or act. Yes. And I'd rather got attracted to the acting by then, you see. I mean, the girls were much prettier. And I thought this is the life for me, you see. Well, we didn't have any girls in the factory, let's face it. And so I thought this would be rather nice to do as a profession. But Charles Smith felt himself unqualified to be the person to actually advise me to take up acting in this precarious profession. And he was a great friend of James Agate, who was the critic of the Sunday Times at the time. And he called in Agate to give me an audition.

Donald Sinden6:08

And I

Presenter6:37

And it was a hair raising experience. I had never read a word of Shakspere up until that moment, and Agate thrust a volume of Shakspeare into my hands and said Read that and it was opened at Buckingham's Farewell from

Presenter6:48

Henry the Eighth, and I read it obviously abysmally.

Presenter6:52

And there was a long, long pause at the end, and Agate, with that strange lisp of his, said Yesh.

Presenter6:58

Yes, he said. It's an interpretation. It's the wrong one, but it's an interpretation. And he then decreed that I should indeed become an actor. So what did you do, go to drama school or start again? Well, he said I should go into Shakespeare. That was the only way to learn one's job.

Speaker 47:11

Yeah it's

Presenter7:16

And in 1946, Sir Barry Jackson had been appointed to be the new director then of the Memorial Theatre Company at Stratford-on-Pon Avon. And both Charles and James Agate knew Barry Jackson, and they both wrote to him and asked if he'd take on this young man. Poor fellow, I mean, he couldn't very well say no, could he, with that pressure to bear. And he agreed, but that left me with nearly a year to fill in. So I went off to drama school for two terms to the Weber Douglas. And it was very fortunate because at that point I'd been on the stage for four and a half years. I could be heard, you know, and I knew roughly what it was about, but I was deficient in certain areas. I couldn't fence, I couldn't dance, my movement wasn't all that good, my voice lacked flexibility. And so it was very useful to go to the drama school for two terms and concentrate solely on those specific aspects. And then you started your proper professional career at Stratford. At Stratford.

Speaker 48:07

Korea

Presenter8:09

Well, we'll talk about that in a minute. Let's have your second round.

Speaker 48:11

And record.

Presenter8:12

Well, now you mentioned just now about being brought up in the country, and all my life the country has meant everything to me. I always have lived with fields around me. Indeed, where we live now in in North London, we have Hampstead Heath almost on the doorstep, and I can walk. And I've chosen Beethoven's Symphony No. Six, the Pastoral Symphony, and I think the Slow Movement, because that's the one where I can imagine myself lying on my back in a hay field.

Presenter8:38

just looking at the clouds drifting by.

Presenter9:41

The beginning of the slow movement of Beethoven's pastoral symphony, Furtwengler conducting the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.

Presenter9:48

So your career proper started, Donald, at Stratford. What parts did they give you at Stratford? All the pretty juveniles, all those romantic young men, um Lorenzo and the Merchant of Venice, do you know, and uh Paris and Romeo and Juliet, and O'Merle, Richard the Second. You, in fact, you stayed at Stratford for two seasons. For two seasons. And you met Mrs. Sundon there. I did, yes, yes. Yes, we we found ourselves sharing digs in uh Chapel Street, the Stratford-on-Avon, and I rather took to her. And it was a w w wonderful situation when, um, after a performance of Romeo and Juliet one evening, we walked home and we walked along beside the river, and it was an idyllic situation. Oh, God, it was wonderful. The moon was full, the clouds slimmering by there, and the the river, this romantic river aven, trickling along with the swans under the bridge, and I proposed to her. And unfortunately, I already had a reputation at that time as being a bit of a joker, and so all she did was to fall about laughing.

Presenter10:47

She told me seriously. I said, No, no, I'm being serious. I'm you. Will you marry me? She said, So damn silly. Come about. And refused. It took me some months after that before she finally agreed. She did take you seriously. In the end. Yes. Well, after the Stratford Company, I know you were with the Bristol Old Vic and the London Old Vic, but what was your first proper West End appearance? Oh, rather smart.

Donald Sinden10:47

She couldn't take misses I didn't know

Donald Sinden10:49

Yes,

Donald Sinden10:49

I am actually

Presenter11:08

At the Haymarket Theatre in nineteen forty nine, in a play called The Heiress. Oh, yes. With Peggy Ashcroft, Rolf Richardson, uh, directed by John Gielgood.

Presenter11:18

To be nice at my first West End job. Yes.

Presenter11:22

Well, now you took what you thought was an unsuitable part as a Brazilian in a play, but that had good results. It did. It started down at Kew Theatre. I I went down there to to do a play. We used to be paid in those days ten pounds for two weeks' work, one week rehearsal, one week playing, ten pounds. And I'd done two plays, which put the average up slightly, but the third play I was not in, it was called Two Dozen Red Roses. And I said to Mrs. DeLeon, Is there a part in it for me? and she said, No, my dear, she's nothing for you at all. There's only a very small part of it in Italian.

Presenter11:55

And I said, Well, I'll play that she said but we're only paying six pounds for that. And I said, Fair enough, I'll pay six. I'm six pounds better off than nothing.

Presenter12:02

And um I did.

Presenter12:03

A year went by, and I went to see another management in London about a play called Red Letter Day, and um he said, Oh, what a pity he said we cast the juvenile this morning.

Presenter12:13

Just as I was leaving the office, he said, Just a minute, didn't you play an Italian at Q?

Presenter12:18

So I said, Yeah. He said, Well, there's a Brazilian in this place, would you like to play that? So I said, Fair enough, yes So I used the same accent, the same make up, and I played the Brazilian, which happened to be seen by our film director who was just about to start work on The Film of the Curl Sea.

Presenter12:32

And he came round to see me in the dressing-room to check that I wasn't, in fact, a real Brazilian, which is rather flattering. And when he found that I wasn't, he asked me to test for the Cruelcy, and from that I landed the part, which has always taught me to take whatever's offered. Because if I hadn't played an Italian for six pounds, I wouldn't have got the Cruel C. Right, or been a Brazilian. We'll talk about your film career in a moment. Let's have another record. Now, the only thing I was good at at school was mathematics. I adored maths. And.

Presenter13:01

This has interested me in the works of Bach, because he's such a mathematical composer.

Presenter13:07

And so I can't resist taking to my island with me this record of Bach's double violin concerto, because I hope by the end of my stay there I will at least have been able to understand it and work it out mathematically.

Presenter14:19

The end of the second movement of Bach's double violin concerto in D minor, BWV one oh four three, with David and Igor Oustra

Presenter14:30

Now, The Cruel Sea, that was a very important film, and you had a leading part, if not the leading part. It was indeed. Nicholas Montserrat wrote the original book of The Cruel Sea autobiographically, and I indeed in the film was playing Nicholas Montserrat. But of course, I was totally unknown, and Jack Hawkins was cast as the captain, and so logically, Jack was given top billing, and his part was made the lead in the film. And I must say that there was the most exciting thing in the world to go to the preview of that and see the billing suddenly on the screen. Oh, dear me, what a moment of excitement. Now, this got you a contract with the rank organisation. Yes, it did. Yes, it did. The film was made at Ealing, but all their films were distributed by the Rank Organisation. And they, when I first was offered the film, had the option of putting me under contract for seven years. For seven years. For seven years. And they took that up immediately, which I'm delighted to say. How many films did you do for them?

Donald Sinden15:17

And there we go.

Presenter15:23

Twenty five films, I think, in the um in the seven years. You were leased out by the rank organization for one All Star American production. Yes, that now that was my second film, uh Mogambo.

Presenter15:35

With a stunning cast.

Presenter15:37

I was to be made in Kenya.

Presenter15:39

With Ava Gardner, Grace Kelly, and Clark Abel. Quite a cast. Not bad at all. Directed by John Ford. Directed by John Ford. Terrifying means this was the man who started in the Days of the Silent film.

Donald Sinden15:44

Yeah.

Presenter15:51

And so I was to treat him with great awe and respect. And indeed arrangements have been made for me to actually meet him. I was cast for the film. My tests were sent to Hollywood, and Ford okayed me from there. And then the great day came when he was to arrive in England, and uh Irene Howard, the casting director, asked me to go and have lunch with her at Elstrey Studios and meet Ford at two thirty.

Donald Sinden16:01

Yeah.

Presenter16:14

Irene and I were sitting there quite happily in the restaurant having lunch, when over to the table came a tall, gangling figure, wearing crumpled, dirty jeans, and a a bush jacket, and a peaked cap, very dark glasses, and chewing the corner of a very dirty, snotty handkerchief, tugging at this thing in his mouth.

Presenter16:36

And he came over and said, Hi, Irene and she said, Oh, mister Ford, this is Donald Syndon, Donald Syndon John Ford. This is the man this is and I'm not I wasn't ready for him until two thirty. Do you know me feeling and I leapt to my feet and I said, How do you do?

Donald Sinden16:44

Yeah.

Presenter16:49

He just eyed me over. I could feel these eyes behind the dark glasses, travelling from my head down to my feet and back again.

Presenter16:55

And then he said, What do you think of your part?

Presenter16:58

And I said, Well, damn, I I think there's a very good part indeed, and I try to be intelligent about it, you know. And he listened for two or three minutes, and then he suddenly turned to Irene and he said, Who the hell's this?

Presenter17:09

And Irene said, Well, you see, Donald is a is a serious actor, you know.

Presenter17:13

Is is he? Ah, we'll soon knock the hell out of that.

Presenter17:17

And he proceeded rather charming, and he proceeded for the next six months to do so. To knock the hell out of that. Yes. You had a success with the Doctor series. Oh, the Doctor. Well, yeah, they came up. Well, that was most extraordinary, because when we made it, we had no idea that this film was going to be a success. Which was the first one? A Doctor in the House. Yes. And it had been written as a novel, and the rights of the novel were hanging around for years. Nobody wanted to make the film at all, until Betty Box.

Speaker 417:17

Army.

Presenter17:41

bought them and she made the film.

Presenter17:43

And nobody wanted to put any money in it. The rank organization would only put up a very small amount, and she had to make it with the cheapest possible cast. So she used four rank contract artists, and the Doctor in the House was made. And in fact,

Presenter17:58

Apparently at that point no film concerning doctors had ever made money, so that's why they were n nervous about it. So when they took photographs for the posters, all of us were shown only wearing sports jackets. There were no white coats and stethoscopes visible.

Presenter18:12

And it turned out to be an enormous success, and it broke all box office records at the time, was seen by more people in its first year than any other film that had ever been made.

Presenter18:20

And well, it was either good or bad for me, because I had developed a character of a young Letcher after all the girls, and this seemed to be very popular, this character, and I was then landed with it for the next five years.

Presenter18:33

Almost every other film I made was of the Young Letcher. It must have been rather a jolt at the end of your seven or eight years when the day came that the rank organisation decided to draw its horns in, and most of their contract artists got bounced. Yes. Dirk Bogart and I were the last two to be pushed out. And I competed actually eight years with them. And in 1960, suddenly a new breed of actor was required for the kitchen sink dramas that were being produced at the time. And I was always being cast in the realm of the modern comedian, the light comedian. So there were no parts for me in the theatre. Other actors had got their foot in the door of television. And now the cinemas were closing, so nobody wanted me out on my ear. At that sad point, let's have another record before we talk about the next up.

Donald Sinden19:15

Look at that, I'm from my

Presenter19:22

I don't know what it is. I I suppose because I'm a sort of bass baritone myself, I'm very attached to the tenor voice.

Presenter19:29

And way back, oh, dear me, in the fifties, I first heard the voice of UC Buelling.

Presenter19:35

And I adore this wonderful there's a certain sad quality about his singing. The best record he ever made was of Nessen Dormer from Diote Dot, so I'm therefore I'm not going to choose that. I'm going to choose one of Bjoring singing a Swedish song called Nemieu Dysferia.

Presenter19:53

And it's the sort of Swedish equivalent of Land of Hope and Glory, or um Danny Boy or something. Here you have somebody singing about the country that they love and an exile, and as I on a desert island would be an exile, I like to associate myself with Bjoring singing here about Sweden.

Speaker 420:47

Born on the borders of the old and

Speaker 421:03

Teta Swan Death are swallowed.

Presenter21:12

The voice of Josse Björling.

Presenter21:15

Now, you've split your career more or less down the middle between the classical and modern light comedy, as theatre is concerned. Very intense, because an actor should be an actor and should be able to play anything. So I've made it my business ever since then to keep as many feet in as many different camps as possible. You played Malvolio, King Lear, Othello?

Donald Sinden21:22

The advanced infant was concerned.

Presenter21:36

Benedict, of course. And in The Wars of the Roses, you were Richard, weren't you? Richard Plantagenet, yes.

Presenter21:42

And at the same time Odd Man In and a Girl in My Soup and all that splendid, pleasant nonsense. That's right. Lovely darting between the two the classics and the modern which has been the greatest challenge in the classic world.

Donald Sinden21:52

Riches are

Presenter21:55

Lear is the most wonderful to play. That's was an enormous challenge.

Presenter21:59

Othello was the most difficult. Was it? Yes, by far the most difficult. But they pale into insignificance against not now darling.

Presenter22:07

which is much, much more difficult. Let's have another record. We got to number five. Now we're jumping back a bit now, Roy, I'm afraid, in chronological order, because at the end of the nineteen fifties, when everything was going wrong, my wife, Diana, and I were up in Stratford, somewhere, and we were driving back to London, and we arrived in Oxford.

Presenter22:25

to find at the local theatre in the new theatre in Oxford a new production of a musical by Julian Slade called Freer's air.

Presenter22:34

And we were feeling remarkably depressed at this moment. Everything was going wrong.

Presenter22:38

And we went into the theatre. We'd seen Salad Days and enjoyed it very much some years before.

Presenter22:44

And we went there.

Presenter22:46

We found ourselves dancing.

Presenter22:48

Absolutely dancing. I have never enjoyed myself in the theatre so much. And at the end of the performance every one in that audience came out singing and dancing into the streets. I hope this is what the theatre is about.

Speaker 422:58

Wandering through the clover let the grass Under your feet.

Speaker 423:06

Give it a chance to grow until it grows. Give it a chance to grow until it grows.

Speaker 423:22

Give it a chance to grow.

Presenter23:28

Let the grass grow by some of the original cast of Free as Air.

Presenter23:32

Now, you've done a great deal on the tinier screen. Our Man at St. Mark's, for example. Yes, that was my first series, which in 1963 got. As long ago as that, was it? We did that for three years. I did thirty-nine episodes of it, yes. And what fun that was. Our Man from St Mark's. Our Man at St Mark's for two years, then I became an archdeacon, yes, and then became Our Man from St. Mark's. Congratulations.

Donald Sinden23:40

Quantity there is that.

Presenter23:56

And of course there was that series in which you were the English butler to the American lady, Elaine Stretcher. What was that? Two's Company. Two's Company. Oh, that was enormous one to do. We did that for four years. I must say that the most trying time came when one particular series we did we did seven episodes at the same time that I was playing King Lear four times a week in the theatre. That was a nice double. And that was a nice double. And when I hear those particular seven episodes now, I can detect my voice. It's slightly different. It's deeper and more Shakespearean, suddenly. And recently you've done a series on old churches.

Presenter24:30

Yes, well that happens to be a hobby of mine. My my grandfather was an architect surveyor, and um his great hobby was going around the country sketching churches, and my mother used to go with him.

Presenter24:41

On these jaunts, his great idea was a holiday was to take a bicycle on a train to a given spot, then stay there and bicycle around all the local churches, and sketching details and fonts and doorways and arches and tombs and things. And I, thank goodness, have got most of his collection of drawings. And I caught this hobby from my mother of going to churches, and once it catches you, you know, you're you're with it for life, because England has something like sixteen thousand parish churches alone. And uh the excitement of going into a new church and sort of reading it as a a bit like a book, you know, you can sort of

Presenter25:14

And you have a strong sense of the past. It the historical side of it appeals to you very much. Of the churches. Yes. Yes, specifically, yes. And you collect theatre relics, old theatres you love. I don't collect old theatres. I wish I could. Facts about old theatres. Facts about theatres. And I have quite a collection of uh theatrical junk myself. I invented a word for it, theatricalia. Yes. And I've collected silly things like walking sticks and swords and daggers and hats that have been worn by old actors of the past. And I always make a point of trying to.

Donald Sinden25:23

The soul is a very good thing.

Donald Sinden25:25

I don't

Presenter25:44

Wear or carry something that's been worn by an olactobus in any particular production, just for the good luck. Record number six.

Presenter25:52

As I have mentioned, Diana and I go to the opera a great deal, and of course over the years we've grown to love Verde, and to have the combination of Verde getting at work on a requiem.

Presenter26:02

is too wonderful to be true. I mean the theatricality of the Requiem Mass wonderful. And uh here we have um the diesiary from the requ

Presenter27:12

The beginning of the Dieziere from the Verde Requiem Mass, a performance conducted by Carlo Maria Giulini. Isn't that tremendous? Donald, you've recently published a book called Touch of the Memoirs. Obviously, only volume one, because it doesn't bring us all the way.

Donald Sinden27:24

Yes, touch with the

Presenter27:40

Then one day I suddenly added up how many I words I was writing to a page, and I found the astonishing thing that I was averaging two hundred and fifty to the page. So I added up the total, and I rang the publisher, and I said, Now, look, uh I know this is a silly question, I said, but um how many words makes a book?

Presenter27:56

And he said, Well, what we're expecting from you is about eighty five thousand.

Presenter27:59

I said, Just a minute I said, Hold everything, because I've done a hundred and ten thousand. I'm only up to nineteen sixty He said, Good God read it So he said Well, this is a rather good moment to uh to round it off, isn't it? I mean, how about publishing this much? And I said, Couldn't be he said, Can you stop it here? and I said, Yes, I said, There's a full stop

Donald Sinden28:06

Read.

Presenter28:15

That's what you've got in the first volume. Break on number seven.

Donald Sinden28:15

Yes

Presenter28:18

Well, here am I going to be stuck away on a desert island, and I was

Presenter28:22

feel being a lot of comedy in the theatre myself, I know the joy.

Presenter28:26

of laughter.

Presenter28:28

and the therapeutic advantages of laughter. And we we're going to need this. We all need it. And I've chosen for the next record, I think, an amusing anecdote supremely told by Gerard Hofnong at the Oxford Union.

Presenter28:42

And it is a story concerning a bricklayer who has done a job at the top of a building, and he now has the problem. He has a lot of spare bricks left over at the top, and he has to get them to the bottom.

Donald Sinden28:52

I hoisted the barrel back up again.

Donald Sinden28:56

and secure the line at the bottom.

Donald Sinden29:00

Men went up

Donald Sinden29:01

Listen?

Donald Sinden29:02

And fill the barrel

Donald Sinden29:04

With extra bricks.

Donald Sinden29:06

Then

Donald Sinden29:08

I went to the bottom.

Donald Sinden29:11

and cast off the line.

Speaker 429:19

Uh

Presenter29:19

Gerard Hoffnung at the Oxford Union. There's a lot more to that story, but we just don't have time to go on.

Speaker 429:22

Absolutely, but we just have to do it.

Donald Sinden29:25

Together.

Presenter29:26

Um, Donald, you were a wolf cub, weren't you?

Presenter29:29

Which that we're going over?

Donald Sinden29:30

Bye-bye.

Speaker 429:30

Uh

Donald Sinden29:31

Yeah.

Presenter29:32

Did you stay with did you go on to be a scout? Uh no, I didn't know. What a pity. How far did you get with your knots and badges as a cub? Oh, I was a failure, complete failure as a boy. I was no good at that sort of I don't think I got a single star. I'm just worried about how good you are at camping out, that sort of thing. Couldn't you look after yourself on an island?

Speaker 429:48

The voice stopped.

Presenter29:49

Not in the least. I can't boil an egg. No. I'm going to be lost completely. Would you try to escape? Do you know about sailing? No, don't want to know either. No, I'm a good sailor, but I don't want to know about it. I don't like the sea. When you asked me to do this, you see, I thought the idea of being on a desert island is too exciting to be true. I mean, I wouldn't want to escape at all. I'd stay there. Wonderful.

Speaker 429:55

Another thought.

Speaker 430:06

I

Donald Sinden30:06

Yeah.

Presenter30:08

With nobody else at all. We shall miss you. Thank you. Record number eight, your last one. Number eight. Well, I've always been mad about the trumpet. I adore the sound of the trumpet. It excites me, it moves me, it makes me cry. And some years back, as a family, we went to Sybil Thorndike's burial service at Westminster Abbey. There was this great, great abbey, and we sat there in the North Transept. And my son had the order of service, and he was going through it, and suddenly he leaned back to me and said, Dad, he said, Do you know this one? And he pointed out.

Presenter30:44

Vaughan Williams's arrangement of the Old One Hundredth hymn.

Presenter30:48

And uh I said, No, I don't I know that and he said

Presenter30:52

This is going to finish you off.

Presenter30:54

And oh golly And sure enough it did it started and suddenly in the third verse you got a solo trumpet coming through.

Speaker 431:01

Sh

Presenter31:02

Uh And I started to go. I thought, Oh, it's wonderful, wonderful and then came to the final verse.

Presenter31:08

And with the organ going full out at full blast, the entire congregation singing their hearts out, from the top of the choir screen in Westminster Abbey came the trumpets, I think about eight of them.

Presenter31:20

blasting over the top of the organ and the choir and the voices, and I dissolved into tears. I I just couldn't move. I've never been so moved in my life. And I think we've got rather a good recording here when it was done at the at the coronation.

Presenter32:35

The old hundredth, all people that on earth do dwell, from the coronation service. Donald, if you could take only one disc out of that eight you played us, which would it be? That's an impossible question, really, and must be hypothetical, because I'd refuse to go to the island unless I could take all eight. But if I must only take one, then I think I'm going to choose the Beethoven pastoral. Right. And you're allowed to take one luxury, any one object of no practical use. I'm going to take a little tiny painting which is in the Walker Art Gallery and

Presenter33:01

In Liverpool by Hubert Robert.

Presenter33:05

A little Pieta.

Presenter33:07

Nobody knows it. It's just my favorite little picture.

Donald Sinden33:07

You'll be

Donald Sinden33:11

Yeah.

Presenter33:14

And one book, apart from the Bible and the works of Shakespeare, which are already on the island. They are already on. I wanted to check with you. Is they already there?

Donald Sinden33:19

On this pound

Presenter33:22

In which case I am going to take Bannister Fletcher's Architecture by the Comparative Method.

Presenter33:27

I'm most interested in architecture, and if I can understand as much as that man knows

Presenter33:33

Give me the title again.

Presenter33:35

Bannister Fletcher was the author Architecture by the Comparative Method. Right.

Presenter33:40

And thank you, Donald Syndon, for letting us hear your Desert Island Discs. Well, thank you, Roy. I'll see you in many years to come after I finished on the island. Right. Goodbye, everyone.

Speaker 233:56

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