Duke & Duchess of Devonshire

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.

Presenter0:31

Today, Desert Islandists is coming from the peak district of Derbyshire from one of England's most celebrated stately homes, Chatsworth, the home of the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire. And I'm sitting with them in one of the 175 rooms in the house. And this is the Duke's sitting room. I think that's right, Duke, is it? That's absolutely right. Now, the main building here is 17th century, but there are parts that are older than that. I don't think anything visible is earlier than that, but certainly behind existing walls there are. For example, the

Presenter1:05

Medicine cabinet in my wife's bedroom is divided by an Elizabethan beam and probably behind the uh electric light switch, if we took that out, we found some Elizabethan brickwork.

Presenter1:17

Now you're going to give us your joint Desert Island disc. Does music mean a lot in your lives? Do you do you play records a lot?

Presenter1:25

I always mean to, and then something else always crops up.

Presenter1:28

Do you play the piano? Do you play an instrument?

Duke1:29

Uh

Speaker 31:29

Yeah.

Presenter1:31

Shall we let the Duchess make the first choice? Do you think that's fair, Lady Charles? Right. What are you going to choose?

Duke1:34

Uh

Speaker 31:34

Good.

Presenter1:37

I would like please to have Freddista.

Presenter1:40

singing an old tune called Heart of Stone.

Presenter1:43

Why do you choose that?

Presenter1:44

Because our house in Ireland used to belong to Andrew's uncle, who was married to Frederisdau's sister Adele.

Presenter1:51

And all her old records are there, and this one is one we play very often, and when as soon as I hear it, it takes me back to the sitting room at Lismore, in the south of Ireland.

Presenter2:01

A sun rays in

Speaker 32:02

Your hair are naturally all your own Their gold couldn't save you Somebody gave you a hearth of stone Your voice is like the breeze A passionate undertone But under the passion Somebody fashion

Presenter2:26

But under the

Presenter2:31

Heart of Stone by Freder Steer.

Presenter2:34

I'd like to ask you about your family. You're the eleventh Duke, is that right? That is right. And the family name is Cavendish, from Suffolk. Yes, indeed.

Presenter2:42

And Sir William Cavendish of Suffolk, I hope I've got these facts right, married a lady from these parts known as Bess of Hardwick. When was that? That was in the second half of the 16th century. She seems to have been a forceful lady because she persuaded her husband to sell up and build a house here in what was then rather a wild country, I believe. Yes, it was, but she was a very remarkable woman.

Presenter3:07

and she had four husbands in all.

Presenter3:10

But by great good fortune,

Presenter3:12

She only had um children.

Presenter3:15

By her Cavendish husband.

Speaker 33:16

Mm-hmm.

Presenter3:17

And as our previous two husbands brought great property with them, and our fourth husband, the Earl of Shrewsbury,

Presenter3:24

also had considerable property.

Presenter3:27

We got the lot.

Presenter3:29

In due course the Cavendish family was ennobled. The heads of the house were made barons and then earls. The the fourth earl became the first duke. To what did he owe his elevation? He was a very strong supporter of William and Mary. He was a Protestant, a bigoted Protestant.

Presenter3:47

He was a figure at court, but when James II came to the throne,

Presenter3:52

with his Roman Catholic tendencies, before the Earl, as he then was, fell out with him, indeed was banished to Chatsworth, which was a great boon because he spent his years in banishment in rebuilding Chatsworth.

Presenter4:07

He had a part.

Presenter4:09

In a

Presenter4:10

establishing William and Mary as monarchs of this country

Presenter4:15

For the result of which he was awarded a dukedom.

Presenter4:19

Well, to put it vulgarly, some other quite handsome tips. Now, doing my psalms, you're the

Presenter4:26

Fourteenth generation to live in this house.

Presenter4:29

You've thrown open the house to be visited by the public, but this, I believe, is nothing new.

Presenter4:34

No, it's been gone back a very, very long time. I suppose it's always been open to people passing by.

Presenter4:42

I suppose that was very limited, of course, because there were very few people who could travel earlier on, especially in this very wild part of England. But in the eighteenth century, when the beautiful Georgiana, Duchess, was here,

Presenter4:54

They used to have what they called an open day, when lunch or wha whatever they called that meal was then given, or something in the middle of the day, anyway.

Presenter5:03

To anybody who came?

Duke5:04

Please

Presenter5:05

That s sounds a very civilized custom.

Presenter5:08

It's your turn to choose a record, Duke. What are you going to choose? I'll have a Sousa March, Faney. Which one? King Cotton.

Presenter6:15

Sousa's King Cotton March, played by the regimental band of the Grenadier Guard.

Presenter6:20

Duchess, you're one of the celebrated six Mitford sisters, renowned in song and story. You're Devo.

Speaker 36:27

Yeah.

Presenter6:27

Where do you fit in by age? I'm the youngest. Now there are so many books and memoirs and articles and novels have been written about the family, about the Hons and the Rebels, and about your elder sister Nancy becoming a celebrated writer, about the rather extreme politics of some of the others. There was a musical, The Mitford Girls, in the West End, last year. Did you cooperate in any way with that? Well, Ned Sherrin, who did it all, was extremely kind and asked all of us to go and listen to the thing before it came on and asked if there was anything we wanted taken out and all that. He couldn't have been nicer about it.

Presenter7:02

And then, yes, I did go. Very odd sensation to see somebody else hopping about on the stage pretending to be you. I should think so. Did you see it? No, I didn't see it, but I made

Presenter7:12

I irresistibly tempted to make bear jokes, but I was really quite pleased with this one. I called it La Triviata.

Presenter7:24

Three of the six of you wrote about childhood days. You haven't joined in.

Speaker 37:29

No.

Presenter7:30

Now one of your sisters, I I forget which one, tells a rather catty story about you as a child proclaiming that you were going to marry a duke and going round the house singing, One day my duke will come. Do you remember that?

Presenter7:42

Well, if I really had, I wouldn't have married Andrew.

Presenter7:45

Because he had an elder brother, and when we were married there was absolutely no question of him becoming a duke. Yes, of course.

Presenter7:52

Let's have your second record. Oh, you're the top. Ethel Merman. Why'd you choose that? Oh, I love Ethel Merman. I think she's the best of all entertainers. She yells it out.

Presenter8:02

When she was in London I went every night to listen to her. I should really love to have that with me on an island.

Duke8:09

At words poetic, I'm so pathetic, that I always have found it best.

Duke8:15

Instead of getting them off my chest to let them rest unexpressed, I hate parading my serenading as I'll probably miss a bar. But if this diddy is not so pretty, at least it'll tell you how great you are. You're the top.

Presenter8:37

Ethel Merman.

Presenter8:39

You're the top.

Presenter8:40

Now Duke, your wife has written about this house, which she calls the house, and there's a lot in it about your family history. There's one marvellous story about the fourth Duke in the mid-18th century who had Capability Brown do some landscaping, which was not going to achieve its full effect for 150 or 200 years. This was forward planning with confidence. Certainly. And the skill and the foresight of my forebears is remarkable.

Presenter9:08

Because when you plant trees and they're small,

Presenter9:13

you're not going to see them grow to their full stature.

Presenter9:18

and it requires judgment and taste to plant them.

Presenter9:21

in the right place. And the fourth duke certainly was masterly at that.

Presenter9:27

And I like to think that uh my wife and I

Presenter9:30

I have kept the tradition growing by planting trees in the park, and indeed, largely due to my wife's skill, we have made alterations in the garden.

Presenter9:43

That will last.

Presenter9:45

For a very long time. Now, the Fifth Duke was a celebrated one. He was a great friend of the Prince Regent. He married Lady Georgina Spencer. There are some gorgeous pictures in the house dating from those days. Yes, not a great deal is known about the Fifth Duke, and indeed, owing to the newsworthiness, for want of a better word, of my wife's family, it has.

Presenter10:06

unfortunately begun to rub off on my family, who've up till now remained in uh decent obscurity.

Presenter10:14

This, I'm afraid, is changing. I believe there is a man writing a history of the Cavendish family. I'm thinking pretty dull stuff.

Presenter10:21

But he did have the sense to have his wife and his mistress, eventually his second wife, painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds. He also did pay George Einer's gambling debts, which can only be described as gigantic. Yes, was that scandalous ménage autoire with the the lady who became his second wife, Lady Elizabeth Foster.

Presenter10:42

So it doesn't sound at all dull to me.

Presenter10:45

The sixth Duke, the bachelor duke.

Presenter10:48

A wonderful host, tremendous parties. A marvellous man, my hero. That's why I have that bastardim on my writing table.

Presenter10:56

I would like to have been like him.

Presenter10:59

and I tried to copy him in a small way by collecting

Presenter11:03

But tap

Presenter11:04

Doesn't give my financial advisers much pleasure. He had his own orchestra, didn't he? He did indeed, and that continued until 1914. Did it? And the gallery where they played is still extant. There is indeed a fully equipped theatre in the house for private theatricals. When was it last used?

Duke11:13

Did it?

Presenter11:22

Well, we did when I was in my grandfather's time, we did do some rather bad amateur theatricals at Christmastime.

Presenter11:30

We've used it occasionally for concerts since.

Presenter11:34

And then again, thanks to my wife's inspiration, we turned it into a gallery where we showed different aspects of the works of art in this house. Has it got old-fashioned stage equipment and machinery? It has indeed, and I believe those who go in for that kind of thing get very excited when they see behind stage. Fort of trapdoors and thunder runs and all that sort of thing. Yes, and very elementary ways of changing the scenery.

Duke11:48

Machinery

Duke11:57

That's all.

Presenter12:03

Through the years there's been a very strong political contribution from the from the family. The eighth Duke led the Liberal party in the 1830s. There's a Whig tradition. Very much so. Yes. We were Whigs and then we were Liberals until the Eighth Duke.

Presenter12:18

split the Liberal Party on Home Rule.

Presenter12:21

He was wrong, but for the best of reasons. And that is why I feel.

Presenter12:28

At home, now I've changed my political allegiance from the Conservative Party to the SDP because I regard that party as in the true Liberal Whig tradition. Your grandfather was Governor General of Canada. Your father was MP for West Derbyshire. You worked as Minister of State for Commonwealth Relations and at the Colonial Office. Yes, I was in the office for four years. Part of your job was to help countries which were once part of our empire to achieve independent status. Which ones in particular? Well, I went to six different independent ceremonies in Africa, in the Caribbean.

Presenter13:05

And in the Far East.

Presenter13:08

They were. In a way they were sad, but they all followed the same pattern. It was on Independence Night, something like the Royal Tournament, and then came the very moving lowering of the Union Jack, and then the lights turned out.

Presenter13:25

and then turned on again for the hoisting of the new flag.

Presenter13:28

They were sort of

Presenter13:30

bittersweet occasions and then inevitably followed fireworks. And uh one of the results of my four years in government, I never want to see another firework.

Presenter13:43

Let's get back to music. What's your second record? The Leonora No. 3 overture by Beethoven. Why'd you choose that?

Presenter13:52

Well, a variety of reasons.

Presenter13:54

Over the years, I have got to like music more and more.

Presenter13:59

And as I grow older, Tesco music

Presenter14:04

gives me ever increasing pleasure.

Presenter14:07

I must have been between forty-five and fifty.

Presenter14:11

when I first discovered the joys

Presenter14:14

Of opera?

Presenter14:15

And

Presenter14:17

Of all of the operas I've heard, Beethoven's Fidelio

Presenter14:20

is the greatest

Presenter14:22

It marks to me a turning point in

Presenter14:26

The enjoyment of life.

Presenter15:29

Beethoven's Leonora Overture, number three

Presenter15:32

Otto Klempere conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra.

Presenter15:36

Duchess, where and when did you first meet the man who was to become the Duke?

Presenter15:40

Whom one day would be your husband? In London, at a dinner party. As ordinary as that.

Presenter15:47

Did you know Chatsworth before the war?

Presenter15:49

I never came here until about nineteen

Presenter15:52

forty, I suppose. And then they weren't living here, you see.

Duke15:53

And then they

Duke15:55

Two.

Presenter15:55

It was a very smart move on the part of your family, Duke, to arrange for a girls' school to take over the house at the beginning of the war, because I'm sure they did a lot less damage than the armed forces would have done.

Presenter16:07

Yes indeed. He was a very shrewd man. He had the advantage of being in government himself and when war became inevitable after Munich he made contacts with a very good girl's school in North Wales.

Presenter16:22

And in due course they moved in.

Presenter16:26

How much they enjoyed it, I don't know. But as you say, it did mean that the park remained unspoilt from those dreadful

Presenter16:35

Nissen huts, some of which exist to this day. You went off to serve in the army in in this country and in Italy. What did the house look like when you saw it again for the first time at the end of the war?

Presenter16:47

The girls were still here.

Presenter16:50

I suppose it looked strange, but I hadn't lived here very much myself. My grandfather didn't die until nineteen thirty-eight.

Presenter16:59

By farla

Presenter17:00

Mother lived in a relatively small house five miles away. We would come here for Christmas and perhaps other visits.

Presenter17:09

But it was never my home.

Presenter17:12

My mother and father only lived in it for a short time.

Presenter17:15

'Cause they moved out when the war came in'39.

Presenter17:19

So I say it had never been my home. I believe it was your idea, Duchess, to reinstate it and and live in it, to tackle it and it really wasn't my idea.

Speaker 217:27

Yeah.

Speaker 317:27

I'm not really doing

Presenter17:30

It was our agent who said to Andrew one day, The house has got to be kept warm, it's got to be aired and somebody's got to live in it, why don't you go and live in it?

Presenter17:40

It's hard for anyone who hasn't seen it, which I haven't until today, to visualize what a vast place it is and what

Presenter17:47

Treasures there are here that

Presenter17:51

have to be looked after. Yes, it is incredibly big, that's one of the things about it. It's really more like a town or a village than a house. And I presume a tremendous amount of the collections had been in store during the war. Yes, an awful lot of the things were in the library.

Presenter18:06

All the best pictures and some of the best furniture were in the library.

Presenter18:10

And an extraordinary thing happened one day when the American Air Force was practising over the moor above.

Presenter18:16

They by mistake used live bullets, and one flew through the shutters, through the windows, and it got itself embedded into a table, and it's still there.

Presenter18:26

And that's the only war damage that the house has. Yes.

Duke18:29

Uh

Speaker 318:29

Yeah.

Presenter18:30

Oh, that's very fortunate.

Speaker 318:31

That's

Presenter18:32

How long did it take you to get the place straight? I mean you had to find craftsmen.

Speaker 318:34

Have a fine.

Duke18:35

Uh

Presenter18:36

Well, but not really, because you see there's an extraordinary people who work here.

Presenter18:40

We've always been here. So it had been maintained to some extent, Jeremy. Indeed it had, and wonderfully well looked after, so there was no dry rot or any of the things that frightened people so much.

Duke18:42

So it has been

Duke18:44

Dead.

Duke18:49

Yeah.

Presenter18:51

Let me have your third record, please.

Presenter18:54

Hymn hundred and sixty, Holy, Holy, Holy, please. Why?

Presenter18:59

Well, it was my mother's favourite, and we had it for weddings and funerals and everything and anyway the words are so marvellous. Think of the saints casting down their golden crowns on the glassy sea.

Speaker 319:16

This one quite a

Presenter19:19

Uh

Speaker 319:24

Peace and Tranity.

Speaker 319:28

Uh

Speaker 319:30

Holy, holy, holy, all the saints of Lord.

Speaker 319:52

Sam of the Win.

Presenter20:11

Leontine Price with the choir of men and boys of St. Thomas's Episcopal Church, Fifth Avenue, New York City, singing Holy, Holy, Holy.

Presenter20:21

Duke, the unfortunate question of finance. I've seen it stated that this house costs half a million pounds a year to run. Is that true?

Presenter20:29

I wouldn't like to be uh pinned down to that figure.

Presenter20:34

But it is certainly not far off.

Presenter20:37

How many paying visitors visit the house in a year nowadays? Between 250,000 and 300,000.

Presenter20:47

make the point about whatever you like to call it, the stately home business, is that it doesn't pay for the simple reason that you have your overheads running for 12 months and your income coming in only for six, seven months. I can imagine that the financial problems must be awful. I mean to start with, apart from that, the death duties on your father's estate were enormous. There are large estates, I know, in the family, but you had to slim these down, and you're slimming them down, I presume, the whole time. Yes, we were unlucky with death duties. As soon as I got back from the war, my elder brother having been killed, my father handed everything over to me. But in those days...

Presenter21:31

The donor had to live five years, and my father tragically died four months before those five years were up.

Presenter21:38

So we did have to pay eighty percent of

Presenter21:43

the entire estate. That's a dreadful sum. But I had very good legal and financial advisers. And last year I achieved, I think, perhaps the last of my ambitions.

Presenter21:55

which was to set up

Presenter21:57

A charitable trust.

Presenter21:59

for the maintenance of the house, garden, and park.

Presenter22:03

at least for some decades to come.

Presenter22:07

It meant certain sacrifices,

Presenter22:09

We sell one major picture by Nicolas Poussin.

Presenter22:13

And we'd had a series of book sales since.

Presenter22:17

The money is still insufficient.

Presenter22:19

And further sales are inevitable. It must have been heartbreaking, though, to give up those actual objects. I mean, I th there was the Poussin, yes, but I know there was a Rubens and a Van Dyke. Yes, it was. And and in Death Duties it was it was. But still, uh

Presenter22:36

I can't complain. Right. What are your hobbies?

Presenter22:40

I have four hobbies, I think four main hobbies, horse racing, fishing, gardening.

Presenter22:47

And Annodomini, to a lesser degree, walking. You've done quite a lot of long walks, haven't you? Some pretty ambitious projects. I've done a fair amount of walking. I've been to the Andes. I managed to get up to 16,500 feet and insisted on being photographed and then went down again. I've walked in the Pyrenees. I've walked from France into Spain and back again.

Presenter23:09

But I think the walk I'm proudest of is a North Yorkshire walk called the Like Wake Walk.

Presenter23:16

And this is 39 miles, fairly steep, and much of the going very heavy. And we did it in just over 16 hours. And when we finished, I said to the leader of the party, Is it a record? And they said, No, it's been done in eight hours. So I then said, I must be the oldest man, I was 58 at the time, oldest man to have done it, which I was told a man of 72 had done it in 12 hours, the week before. By this time, I was a bit cross, so I said, Well, anyway, I bet I'm the oldest duke who's ever done it.

Presenter23:49

What about racing? Have you got horses at the moment? I've got just three at the moment, with one Dora's exception. I haven't been all that lucky, but after twenty years of trying I had this great race mare called Park Top.

Presenter24:04

I wrote a book about her and she was a late developer and therefore didn't run in the three-year-old classics, but she won a great many races, she cost very little, and the experience of owning her has meant and will continue till my dying day to mean a great deal to me.

Presenter24:22

Now, it's your turn to choose your third record. This is When Somebody Thinks You're Wonderful by Fair Schooler. Why do you choose it? Nostalgia, I think, chiefly.

Presenter24:33

On the desert island

Presenter24:35

However diligent.

Presenter24:37

One is one is bound to have a lot of time for thought.

Presenter24:41

And one will have nostalgic thoughts about when one was young.

Presenter24:46

And uh that's voila.

Presenter24:48

In general, and this tune in particular reminds me of my carefree adolescent and undergraduate days.

Presenter24:58

Yeah.

Presenter25:03

Come on. Uh

Speaker 325:04

Feel free.

Speaker 325:13

And it grew.

Speaker 325:17

My favourite wonderful

Speaker 325:21

Make it all your dreams come true. Well done.

Presenter25:27

When Somebody Thinks You're Wonderful by Fertz Waller.

Presenter25:31

Duchess, this is very handsome, this book you've written, The House, A Portrait of Dadsworth. How long did it take you? Ages.

Duke25:38

Ideas

Presenter25:39

I used to do it, you see, in little snippets, little bits, because ordinary life was going on all the time.

Presenter25:44

And um I was doing a hotel at the same time and it really did take long. It went to the publisher a year late.

Presenter25:51

It's a project that's been in mind for a long time, is it? No.

Presenter25:55

Uncle Harold Macmillan suggested it. I never would have dreamt that anybody would have wanted it, excepting it was asked for. I mean, I wouldn't have done it and then seen if anyone would publish it. Now you've done some very thorough research. Did you enjoy that? Did you enjoy digging into the oldest? Yes, very much. I love the actual thing of writing.

Duke26:09

Yeah, it's good in my channel.

Presenter26:11

The actual thing of the pencil and paper.

Presenter26:14

Has Chatsworth a ghost? No. Not a smell of a ghost. Putting the dog out at night not a bit frightening.

Presenter26:20

Since the Civil War, at any rate, it's been a peaceful house. Yes, I like to think that. I think it's got an incredibly happy atmosphere. For a very big house, it doesn't feel like a big house, I think, this this place.

Presenter26:31

It feels like um

Presenter26:33

But it just feels

Presenter26:35

Pleasant to walk into. At least that's what I think about it,'cause I love it very much.

Speaker 326:36

Yeah.

Duke26:36

That's what I

Presenter26:39

Your last record? Well, when I was about sixteen, I was terribly keen on somebody who's to do with the ballet.

Presenter26:45

And so what I'd love is a bit out of Rossini's Boutique Fontasque, please. Which bit? The Can Can, I think. Very loud and jolly.

Presenter27:49

The can can from Rossini's La Boutique Fontasque, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Dorati.

Presenter27:56

Now, you're cast away together on our desert island. How are you going to manage? Um your army experience should enable you to fix up a a shelter of some sort. Yeah, I'm very, very incompetent.

Presenter28:08

Uh I'm quite a good uh washer up.

Presenter28:11

Editor.

Presenter28:12

Really rather a good dryer.

Presenter28:15

The one skill that's not going to help you.

Presenter28:17

Well I sort of I don't know.

Presenter28:19

I think I'll be pretty useless. Now, Duchess, you did a lot towards rehabilitating Chatsworth. You should be able to make a hut look very attractive. You can get one put up.

Presenter28:29

Oh yeah, but you see, I can only interfere with what other people are doing. I can't do anything myself. I shall hope for a man Friday.

Duke28:33

Yeah.

Presenter28:36

Be the idiotic.

Presenter28:37

Well now it's been that you've done some fishing jupiter. That's going to be very useful indeed. It's coarse fishing of course. I mean just a bit of string and a bent pin or something. I think I'd be rather spoilt with good fishing tackle but I might be able to catch some fish.

Presenter28:52

You would also pass many a happy hour trying.

Presenter28:56

Are either of you good in small boats? Either of you sail?

Duke28:58

I drove you sale.

Presenter29:00

Good gracious, I'm terrified of the water. I didn't go near it.

Duke29:02

Oh.

Presenter29:03

You wouldn't try to escape in in any kind of craft that you and your husband made.

Presenter29:11

Yes, he is looking down full. Certainly sink apart from heels.

Presenter29:17

I can't even imagine what sort of craft it would be that we made.

Duke29:19

Yeah.

Presenter29:20

Yes, I can.

Presenter29:22

No, your last record. My last record is Tanagan Allen singing underneath the arches. Why?

Presenter29:30

Well, again, partly nostalgia.

Presenter29:34

part their admiration

Presenter29:36

and partly the words of Unbekiarchis

Presenter29:40

have got a social significance.

Presenter29:43

There two artists of consummate skill

Presenter29:46

Who would their crazy gang shows?

Presenter29:49

gave pleasure before the war, during the war, and after the war to literally millions of people. They are perfectionists.

Duke30:06

And I live.

Presenter30:07

Z We are cheers, we dream our dreams away.

Presenter30:16

Underneath the arches on cobblestones we lie.

Presenter30:26

Flanagan and Allan underneath the arches. If you would have only one of the four discs you chose, Duchess, which would it be? Oh, Ethel Mammon and Colporter. Right. And you? Oh, the Beethoven.

Presenter30:38

And you're allowed to take one luxury each. Nothing of any practical use. It can be an objet, it can be.

Presenter30:46

Anything you say?

Presenter30:47

What would you choose? New potatoes, without doubt.

Presenter30:51

Yup taters.

Presenter30:52

Yes, you mean you're going to grow them?

Presenter30:54

Or you just want a supply of them.

Duke30:54

Or you just want a supply of them.

Presenter30:57

Wouldn't they just be there for us allowed to have this luxury? Well, yes, a kind of magical luxury, a non-stop supply of new potatoes that grow magically all the year round. Yes, we'll wear that. You shall have your supply of the. And Home Guard is the sort.

Duke31:06

Yeah.

Duke31:07

And home guard.

Presenter31:10

I beg of you.

Presenter31:11

Home god is a variety.

Duke31:11

Mm

Presenter31:13

I see, Home Guard Wright, and we'll get you some mint too. Good. And you. Oh, my favourite kind of off to shave.

Presenter31:20

An inexhaustible supply. And one book each. There is a a communal copy of the Bible and complete works of Shakespeare. There's such little books. Could I have a complete set of Beatrix Potter? Yes. Because she's also my favourite artist as well as my favourite writers. All bound together.

Duke31:35

Yeah.

Presenter31:37

And the other book on the island would be The

Presenter31:41

One volume edition of Chambers' Biographical Dictionary. Right.

Presenter31:46

Well, thank you both for letting us hear your Desert Island Discs and for entertaining us here at Chatsworth.

Presenter31:54

Well, thank you, Roy, for giving my wife and I such an enjoyable time. Goodbye, everyone.

Speaker 232:06

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