Geoffrey Grigson

Speaker 10:00

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

Speaker 10:05

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

Presenter0:31

This week, our castaway is a poet and critic, a writer on art, natural history and travel. It's Geoffrey Grigson. Geoffrey, is music important in your life?

Geoffrey Grigson0:41

No, I'm afraid it isn't. Not very. I'm a musical ignoramus.

Geoffrey Grigson0:46

Almost entirely. I don't dev.

Geoffrey Grigson0:49

My family laughs if I try and Singing

Presenter0:51

In it

Geoffrey Grigson0:52

Bing.

Presenter0:52

Uh

Geoffrey Grigson0:52

Yeah.

Presenter0:52

I believe you once shared a house with Constant Lambert. It must have been unfortunate to have been slightly averse to his music.

Geoffrey Grigson0:59

Well, we lived on different floors.

Geoffrey Grigson1:02

Rather, I must admit. Do you play discs a lot? You know, it's it's terrible. If you live as a professional writer.

Geoffrey Grigson1:10

You've very little time to put a grammophone record onto a grammar phone. At least I find that.

Presenter1:15

All is working. You never provide yourself with a musical accompaniment while you're doing a routine task like copy typing or something of that sort. Never?

Geoffrey Grigson1:23

Yeah.

Presenter1:24

Yeah.

Geoffrey Grigson1:24

Never, never, never, no.

Presenter1:26

Yeah.

Geoffrey Grigson1:26

Uh

Geoffrey Grigson1:26

Is this rather depressing, isn't it? What an unmusical person. I've got a

Presenter1:30

Well, we'll wait and see what you play us. Was it a hard task to select just eight discs for a desert item?

Geoffrey Grigson1:36

Yes, because um

Geoffrey Grigson1:38

In spite of being a musical ignoramus,

Geoffrey Grigson1:42

You know, you had to choose eight among your favourite things, and that I found very difficult.

Presenter1:46

Watch the first one.

Geoffrey Grigson1:47

The first one is a Haydn string quartet. Because I have a great liking for Haydn.

Geoffrey Grigson1:53

You know, it's partly a kind of championship, I feel. He's not as played as much as Mozart or Beethoven.

Geoffrey Grigson2:01

And always seems to be

Geoffrey Grigson2:03

Reckoned be a little bit behind them.

Geoffrey Grigson2:05

And I find him both romantic and unromantic, a kind of dry romantic, and that suits me very well.

Speaker 43:10

Yeah.

Presenter3:13

The opening of the Haydn string quartet in F, opus three, number five, played by the Janacek Quartet.

Presenter3:21

You're a Cornishman, aren't you?

Geoffrey Grigson3:22

My mother, who was decidedly not Cornish and didn't like Cornwall a bit,

Geoffrey Grigson3:27

and came to the Midlands, used to say when we said we were Cornish and Proudish, used to say, Well, if a cat has kittens in an oven, they are not bun.

Geoffrey Grigson3:37

Yeah.

Presenter3:38

Uh

Geoffrey Grigson3:38

But um I've always counted myself as a kind of East Anglian Cornishman.

Geoffrey Grigson3:43

And you're a seventh son?

Geoffrey Grigson3:45

Seventh son, but not of a seventh son, alas

Geoffrey Grigson3:49

And not, I say, of a musical family. The only musical thing my father ever did was to he was a parson, by the way was to tap out with one finger what hymns were going to be played on Sunday.

Presenter3:59

So you had a background of church music, at any rate? A Hims Enem.

Presenter4:04

Were you at school in the West Country?

Presenter4:06

Yeah.

Geoffrey Grigson4:06

No, I have a school in Surrey.

Presenter4:09

You lost several of your elder brothers in the first war.

Presenter4:13

Transformation.

Geoffrey Grigson4:13

Well, there were seven of us.

Geoffrey Grigson4:16

Yeah.

Geoffrey Grigson4:18

I'm the only one. They were all killed in the First or the Second War. One just after the Second War, but as an aftermath of the Second War.

Presenter4:27

Mm-hmm.

Presenter4:28

That is a tragic record.

Presenter4:30

What were your hobbies as a child? What did you enjoy doing?

Geoffrey Grigson4:33

I enjoyed the

Geoffrey Grigson4:35

What birds nesting, bird watching

Geoffrey Grigson4:39

looking for antiquities

Geoffrey Grigson4:42

looking for plants. I wanted to be a botanist my miserable headmaster said, I wanted to be a forester actually. He said, Well, you're a classical scholar and you will read classics.

Geoffrey Grigson4:52

So I read classics. Were you bright at classics? Bright enough to avoid getting beaten by doing good verse compositions in Latin. So I managed to push up my weekly mark above the level at which you got Ken.

Presenter5:03

You did the minimum. Splendid. Your second record, what's that?

Geoffrey Grigson5:05

That is

Geoffrey Grigson5:07

Well, my second record is the Blake Song.

Geoffrey Grigson5:11

from the serenade for uh tenor horn and strings by Benjamin Britton. And that's really my kind of delivery from Him Z and M.

Geoffrey Grigson5:21

Long ago.

Geoffrey Grigson5:22

and the first modern composer.

Geoffrey Grigson5:26

I suppose other than Elgar should call Elgar Modern Composer, the first modern composer I ever knew anything about.

Speaker 45:42

The invisible one that flies in the night.

Speaker 45:51

In an awareness

Speaker 45:57

Let hung up my bed for crimson joy.

Speaker 46:07

And he is gone.

Speaker 46:12

Break and all.

Speaker 46:21

My death.

Presenter6:27

An excerpt from Benjamin Britton's Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings, Peter Pearce, Dennis Braine and the Boyd Neal String Orchestra.

Presenter6:36

You did a bit of teaching when you left school. Did that appeal to you?

Geoffrey Grigson6:40

No, that that didn't appeal to me very much.

Geoffrey Grigson6:44

I taught for a bit in a prep school, and I taught in a Kramers, and the Kramers was for very rich children.

Geoffrey Grigson6:50

Their Rolls Royces came down on settages and took them up to the cafe to parry.

Geoffrey Grigson6:54

And what they're up to during the week is nobody's business.

Presenter6:57

Yeah.

Presenter6:58

So they were rarely in no state in the mornings.

Geoffrey Grigson7:00

Yes, they were trying to get into the army by a back door. They're all immensely rich.

Geoffrey Grigson7:06

You went up to Oxford. What did you read? Oh, dare you would ask me that you would ask me that. I didn't read anything sensible, like physics, or mathematics, or even history. I read The Slacker's Option, which was

Geoffrey Grigson7:19

English, of course.

Presenter7:20

Yeah.

Geoffrey Grigson7:22

Had you begun to write first?

Geoffrey Grigson7:24

I think I had.

Geoffrey Grigson7:26

Yes. And I wrote it a bit at Oxford, but I was a bit overwhelmed. You know, there was a wonderful Oxford generation, that was, with Louis MacNice.

Geoffrey Grigson7:34

and uh Orden and Stephen Spender and so on. You know, one felt a little humble.

Speaker 47:38

Yeah.

Geoffrey Grigson7:40

Did that compete?

Presenter7:41

Did you get mixed up in drama or sport or politics? What were your university activities?

Geoffrey Grigson7:47

I think, you know, hoping there was going to be a very nice looking girl coming down the high.

Geoffrey Grigson7:52

Was other principal activity? There usually wasn't, of course.

Presenter7:57

But you struck lucky occasionally.

Geoffrey Grigson7:59

Well, perhaps not on high no, I I I used to go to the Union speak a little, yes.

Presenter8:05

So you took your degree I believe you nearly went into industry.

Presenter8:12

Yeah.

Geoffrey Grigson8:12

I nearly went into industry. You see, the East Anglian connection centered on Norwich. Norwich centred on mustard.

Geoffrey Grigson8:19

Gain my family was somehow mixed up a bit with Cohen's mustard.

Geoffrey Grigson8:23

And there I went. I was asked a very intelligent question by one of the chairmen of Cohn's at at this interview.

Geoffrey Grigson8:29

I couldn't give an answer. He he asked me about painters of the East Anglian School. That w wasn't what one expected. But uh the smell of mustard, and the little yellow

Geoffrey Grigson8:41

Dust

Geoffrey Grigson8:43

So I went back and went out fishing and camping.

Geoffrey Grigson8:46

And then when he got to the point of going to Norwich, I sent him a telegram that I wasn't coming.

Presenter8:51

So having rejected mustard, what did you do?

Geoffrey Grigson8:53

Having rejected mustard

Geoffrey Grigson8:56

Oh, I bammed about for a bit, and then I went up to London and looked for a job in the newspaper, and

Geoffrey Grigson9:02

Found one at a pound a week on the Yorkshire Post. In London? In London, in the London office. Doing what, general reporting? Oh, sort of dog's body work. And then you were paid extra by lineage, so you could just live quite well.

Geoffrey Grigson9:15

And quite soon you moved on to a national paper. Well, that's another story. That's uh as I used to go across there used to be a French restaurant in Fleet Street, rather nice one. I used to go across there after sending the London letter up to Leeds.

Geoffrey Grigson9:28

to have my supper, and there was an elderly man

Geoffrey Grigson9:31

who used to come sit by me sometimes, put an arm on my shoulder. It's a bit faintly suspicious.

Geoffrey Grigson9:37

Then he said one night, W would would you would you uh would you like uh would you like to become legislative editor of the Morning Post?

Geoffrey Grigson9:46

I thought he was a loony.

Geoffrey Grigson9:48

I thought he was men pulling my leg. I suggested, Well, I've got the contract all drawn up.

Geoffrey Grigson9:53

Should you like to come down to the office?

Presenter9:55

Who was this mysterious man?

Geoffrey Grigson9:56

He was the chief assistant editor of the Morning Post. Who spent it? And a man, too. He knew all about me, I knew nothing about him.

Presenter10:00

And you're not even

Geoffrey Grigson10:04

So he gave you the book page, just like that.

Presenter10:05

What's my game visible?

Presenter10:07

And all those perks like, um

Presenter10:09

Uh

Geoffrey Grigson10:10

Review copy All those perks like review copies. I don't believe that newspapers let their literary editors have all those perks like review copies nowadays. But they may do, but it was very good then.

Presenter10:22

Good.

Presenter10:22

What's your third record?

Geoffrey Grigson10:24

My third record is uh Dider's Lament.

Geoffrey Grigson10:29

From Percel's Dido Ninias. This is

Presenter10:32

Yeah.

Speaker 410:32

Uh

Geoffrey Grigson10:33

Coming back rather to the soppy side of me, I think, you know, classical tear-jerking, perhaps we should call it.

Presenter10:40

And who's singing?

Geoffrey Grigson10:41

Victoria de Los Angeles.

Speaker 411:09

Friends.

Presenter11:43

Dido's Lament from Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, Victoria de Los Angeles with the English Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Sir John Barbirolli.

Presenter11:52

Now you were running the book page on the Morning Post. There was a touch of the Titanic about the Morning Post, wasn't there?

Geoffrey Grigson11:58

You mean the Poor Morning Post's sinking? You know, that was a really absolutely terrible day. I don't know whether you've ever seen The Last Day.

Geoffrey Grigson12:06

of an established newspaper because the staff weren't told, at least the editorial staff knew.

Geoffrey Grigson12:12

But all the comps and the rest of them didn't know.

Geoffrey Grigson12:16

and they'd put that evening's paper

Geoffrey Grigson12:18

You know, it was all set up and then suddenly they learnt and having grown up together and lived together for years

Geoffrey Grigson12:26

What an extraordinary way to handle it. Yes, and there were these elderly men coming down, tears streaming down their face.

Geoffrey Grigson12:34

It was a very very horrible sight. Life time friendships, uh day friendships, work friendships.

Presenter12:35

I'm sure it's not a good idea.

Presenter12:40

Mm.

Geoffrey Grigson12:40

Split up.

Geoffrey Grigson12:41

Wasn't that?

Presenter12:42

I'm sure not.

Presenter12:44

You started a rather specialized literary magazine of your own.

Geoffrey Grigson12:49

I started a magazine on the proceeds of selling review copies.

Presenter12:53

That's fluent.

Geoffrey Grigson12:53

That's fluent, but yeah.

Geoffrey Grigson12:55

That was

Geoffrey Grigson12:57

Thirty seven, thirty eight, thirty six, about then.

Presenter12:59

What is the magazine called?

Geoffrey Grigson13:01

My magazine was rather obviously called New Verse.

Geoffrey Grigson13:05

And it had a number of distinguished semi-new or new contributors, such as Orden and MacNeese and so on.

Presenter13:12

Could you afford to pay your paid?

Geoffrey Grigson13:14

Sometimes, but not always. Did you print stories as well? No, no. I printed rude reviews.

Geoffrey Grigson13:23

Did you write those yourself? Sometimes. The ruder ones I wrote myself, I'm afraid. Yes. How long did it last?

Geoffrey Grigson13:30

It furled it up when the war came.

Speaker 413:32

Uh

Geoffrey Grigson13:32

Uh

Speaker 413:32

Yeah.

Geoffrey Grigson13:33

The last issue must have been just after the Declaration of War. I'm not quite sure. Even that's a long time ago. Yeah, so it ran three or four.

Presenter13:38

Or yet. Oh, yes.

Geoffrey Grigson13:41

Maybe a little more.

Presenter13:41

Did you make any discoveries of people?

Geoffrey Grigson13:46

One who's now very much about the place. I don't think he'd like to hear me calling him a discoverer, and that was Gavin Yewart. Oh, yes. That terrible Gavin Ywert.

Geoffrey Grigson13:55

And he was still a schoolboy at Wellington.

Geoffrey Grigson13:58

He wrote deliciously scattered poems. He wrote Miss Twy. Do you know the poem about Miss Twy?

Presenter14:04

No.

Geoffrey Grigson14:05

I thought everybody knew Miss Twye.

Geoffrey Grigson14:07

I punished this too. This toy was soaping her breasts in the bath.

Geoffrey Grigson14:12

when she heard behind her

Geoffrey Grigson14:14

A meaning laugh.

Geoffrey Grigson14:16

And looking up

Geoffrey Grigson14:17

Miss Trye discovered A wicked man in the bathroom cupboard.

Presenter14:21

Splendid. Splendid. Yes, I'll look forward to hearing the rest of that. That's all. Oh, that's all. That's the whole story. There's no.

Geoffrey Grigson14:21

Ended.

Presenter14:29

Whatever else happened is not recorded. Who else did you publish? Dylan Thomas.

Presenter14:34

Not very much, apparently.

Geoffrey Grigson14:36

Quite a bit, quite a bit, quite reluctantly, when he was sober.

Presenter14:41

Was it a full time job, or were you busy writing yourself?

Geoffrey Grigson14:44

I was busy doing the book page morning post.

Presenter14:48

Oh still.

Geoffrey Grigson14:49

Still, till to the end of it, yes, the two overlapped and I was

Presenter14:50

It is

Geoffrey Grigson14:53

Busy working for publishers, and I was busy writing, and I was.

Geoffrey Grigson14:58

Yes, busy being about the place. And then the war started, and of course there was no paper.

Presenter15:03

Uh

Geoffrey Grigson15:03

The wall started and there was no energy at all, as far as I was concerned. I was a bit fed up with it really.

Presenter15:09

Uh

Geoffrey Grigson15:09

And the Morning Post had come to an end and one scratched a living around publishers and

Presenter15:09

Uh

Geoffrey Grigson15:14

book reviewing and the like.

Presenter15:16

Let's break for your fourth record. What's that to be?

Geoffrey Grigson15:19

Yeah. Back I Go. This is a sort of a junction of two strains, Back I Go to hide and

Geoffrey Grigson15:25

And to um Benjamin Britain, and to Peter Peyers, is Peter Peirce singing one of the Haydn cancer nets, the Shakespeare one, about She Never Told Her Love.

Speaker 416:16

But let's conceive.

Presenter16:31

Peter Pears, singing one of the Haydn six cansonnettes, She Never Told Her Love.

Presenter16:37

So the war started. You joined the B B C, Geoffrey.

Geoffrey Grigson16:41

Uh yes, I joined the BBC in that strange thing called the monitoring service. Was this up at Eversham? Up at Evershram.

Geoffrey Grigson16:49

which left a very curious trail behind it, the maundering so seduced from, I think.

Presenter16:53

Yes, it was christened Babletown. You're a very cosmopolitan community.

Geoffrey Grigson16:58

A very cosmopolitan community.

Presenter17:00

What we were doing.

Geoffrey Grigson17:01

Oh editing enemy broadcasts into a vast useless rhoneotyped um report at

Geoffrey Grigson17:10

Ostensibly went up to the cabinet. It certainly left ushram. What happened to it afterwards? I don't think anybody ever looked at it.

Presenter17:16

This was a translation job, was it?

Geoffrey Grigson17:17

It was uh editing translations, so on and so forth, yes.

Presenter17:21

With this

Geoffrey Grigson17:22

In the Ducal Mansion. That was in the Ducal Mansion, where it is the only place where I have ever taken one end of a cross-cut saw.

Geoffrey Grigson17:30

To saw the leg off a grand piano. That was my great experience at Eastrum really, because the Duke of Mansion caught fire.

Presenter17:37

And why was it necessary to soar the leg?

Geoffrey Grigson17:40

Because you couldn't get the Grampeno out through the window or the door.

Presenter17:43

Private job, well

Geoffrey Grigson17:44

Then the foul was stopped and the grand piano was left with only two legs.

Presenter17:49

Yeah, so there was a fleur-de-lis on on every day.

Geoffrey Grigson17:52

Yes, yes, yes, yes.

Presenter17:55

Which

Geoffrey Grigson17:55

The French Pretender's House.

Presenter17:56

Were you able to do any writing for yourself?

Geoffrey Grigson17:59

Oh yes, a bit, a bit, a bit.

Presenter18:02

Looking back, Geoffrey, who were your major influences as a poet?

Geoffrey Grigson18:07

That's a difficult one. George Herbert, I would say. Yes.

Geoffrey Grigson18:11

I think I stick at George Herbert. Which is odd. Uh maybe that's a cleric son's choice. I mean, I think it's a very good choice, but it just happened that my father and my grandfather were readers of George Herbert and there were editions of George Herbert lying about the house, or tucked away in my father's library.

Presenter18:25

Mm-hmm.

Presenter18:28

Your poems have a uniform quality of being concise.

Presenter18:32

Yeah.

Geoffrey Grigson18:32

Do you mean they didn't go on too long?

Presenter18:33

I mean they don't full stop and they express what you want to say quite a lot.

Geoffrey Grigson18:35

They count mail off.

Geoffrey Grigson18:39

Well, I ho I I I hope so.

Presenter18:42

Yes.

Presenter18:43

In due course you escaped from the monitoring service, but remained within the BBC. Where did you go?

Geoffrey Grigson18:48

I went to Bristol.

Geoffrey Grigson18:50

And that was very pleasant indeed, I must say.

Presenter18:53

To do what?

Geoffrey Grigson18:54

As a talks producer? Yes, that was all right. One had a kind of kingdom which stretched from Southampton or thereabouts to Land's End.

Presenter19:01

What do you remember in the way of the series that you innovated?

Geoffrey Grigson19:05

Oh, I don't know. I had a share in starting the Naturalist programme with Desmond Hawkins. Splendid. Which was rewarding for the impression.

Presenter19:10

Men.

Presenter19:13

Let's have another record. Number five.

Presenter19:16

What now?

Geoffrey Grigson19:17

Another Haydn and rather a more solemn Haydn, I think.

Geoffrey Grigson19:23

A hidden quarter again.

Speaker 419:25

Yeah.

Geoffrey Grigson19:25

Uh Starting with uh this hulled wall of music.

Presenter20:28

The opening of the second movement of Haydn's string quartet in D, Opus seventy six, No. V, played by the Tatrai quartet.

Presenter20:37

How long were with the BBC all together?

Geoffrey Grigson20:39

Well, I think until the just before the end of the Japanese war. And since then you've been a freelance author. Since then I've been a freelance author and critic, walking on my own two feet.

Presenter20:53

You have been amazingly productive. My own rough count is that you've

Presenter20:58

Published about 130 books. Is that about right?

Geoffrey Grigson21:01

Well, I've never counted, but I'll tell you what

Geoffrey Grigson21:04

I once looked in the new Cambridge Bibliography.

Geoffrey Grigson21:07

and I saw to my horror there was a two page entry for me.

Geoffrey Grigson21:11

So which

Geoffrey Grigson21:12

Contained every bit of rubbish I'd ever written.

Geoffrey Grigson21:15

I've run the humidity.

Presenter21:15

Well you've got three books coming out on one day this year. Another volume of collected poems.

Geoffrey Grigson21:23

I know it sounds awful having three books coming out on one day, but um they were really rather three books looking backwards and and and produced by an adventurous publisher to whom I'm deeply grateful. But you know, one is a collected poems, one as a collected

Geoffrey Grigson21:38

Well, Ruder is, he thinks, I don't know, collected sometimes rather sharp reviewers. A little anthology.

Geoffrey Grigson21:45

Not exactly an enthalgia, but, um

Geoffrey Grigson21:48

Anyhow, fairly sharp. And the other's a poetry notebook, a a notebook about poetry, being a poet and the problems of poetry and poetry in the past. So that really that's just

Geoffrey Grigson22:00

Looking back on a great many years for me at any rate. Have you ever tackled fiction?

Geoffrey Grigson22:06

Hidden away in a magazine.

Geoffrey Grigson22:09

Which was published in connection with Picture Post. I I've even forgotten the name. There's one story by me, and no one will ever know it.

Geoffrey Grigson22:17

There was one story about someone being oh, well, I give a clue away for anybody who wants it about a murderer burying his victim in a coffin with some love lies bleeding.

Geoffrey Grigson22:29

Well

Presenter22:29

And that's your entire fictional life.

Geoffrey Grigson22:30

That's your entire fictional outfit. I think.

Geoffrey Grigson22:34

What

Presenter22:34

What's on the stocks, what are we going to see next?

Geoffrey Grigson22:37

Well I

Presenter22:37

I hope nothing.

Geoffrey Grigson22:39

I think I've written enough. I don't really want to write much more. You're a little bit my age.

Geoffrey Grigson22:44

You'll get punches after you saying Wouldn't you write an autobiography? Wouldn't you write some memoirs? Wouldn't you write some reminiscences?

Geoffrey Grigson22:51

Answer for the time being no.

Geoffrey Grigson22:54

'Cause I think as soon as you start writing reminiscences or memoirs, you've got nothing more to say.

Presenter23:00

You did publish a couple of volumes of memoirs twenty or thirty years ago.

Geoffrey Grigson23:05

Yes, but that's what one shouldn't do at that age. But still, there it is, it's done.

Presenter23:05

Yes.

Presenter23:09

Let's have record number six.

Geoffrey Grigson23:11

Record number six is BZ and part of the the Je d'Enfant suite. And for me this is a very in a way for me this is a very special record because

Geoffrey Grigson23:22

Do you remember the Belly Rooster Monte Carlo?

Presenter23:24

Yeah.

Geoffrey Grigson23:24

Good.

Presenter23:25

Uh

Geoffrey Grigson23:25

And they did uh the Je d'Enfant.

Geoffrey Grigson23:28

With a decon song by Miro.

Geoffrey Grigson23:31

And the deco was wonderful, and the music was really delicious, and light, and wonderful, and rather mysterious.

Geoffrey Grigson23:38

For me it combined two things, um the painting and the music, and I I knew Miro.

Geoffrey Grigson23:45

though not very well, and loved mirrors painting, and it was really the most magical belly you can think of.

Presenter24:50

The beginning of the first section of Bizet's Palais Suite Jeux d'Enfant, the Paris Conservatoire Orchestra conducted by Jean Montignon.

Presenter24:59

Now, Geoffrey Rigson, we're talking in the sitting room of this lovely white painted farmhouse in Wiltshire. How long have you been here?

Geoffrey Grigson25:07

Well in this house not so very, very long I say not so long, about thirty years, but uh

Geoffrey Grigson25:12

The way we got here.

Geoffrey Grigson25:15

Pure extent coming for a walk out of London.

Geoffrey Grigson25:19

Transwendon

Geoffrey Grigson25:20

Sometime of all war.

Geoffrey Grigson25:22

And um seeing a ruined cottage down below on the scarpment and deciding I was with the poet Norman Cameron. We each of us wanted a cottage.

Geoffrey Grigson25:31

So we said, Well, we'll buy that one if we can. We'll toss up who's going to have it. And I won.

Geoffrey Grigson25:37

That was all. And then, you know, living there for quite a long time. Was it expensive? No, it cost thirty pounds, I think. Which was uh quite a high price for this part of Wiltshire in those days. It it wasn't altogether a ruin, but it wasn't uh

Geoffrey Grigson25:53

Wasn't exactly backing palace either.

Geoffrey Grigson25:56

And then you decided to buy this house? And then we moved here at the end of the war, yes.

Geoffrey Grigson26:02

And here I've been ever since, as a naturalized moonraker.

Geoffrey Grigson26:06

A naturalized Wiltshire man. I think naturalized by now. I think naturalization papers will be granted by this time, I think. This is seventeenth century, isn't it, this house?

Geoffrey Grigson26:16

Built about sixteen twenty five, I think.

Geoffrey Grigson26:20

Or most of it.

Presenter26:21

Mm-hmm.

Geoffrey Grigson26:22

with additions later on.

Presenter26:24

And you wooed and won the lady who is now Jane Grigson and a wonderfully successful cookery expert. Otherwise very good. Otherwise delightful. Yes, you are well bestowed. You also have a rather unusual house in France. Well, I wouldn't call it a

Geoffrey Grigson26:40

Uh well I've got a cottage in France and it's partly a cave. That's the only thing that's really unusual about it I think.

Presenter26:46

Well, any cottage that is partly a cave is is under the rock. Yes. We cook under the rock.

Geoffrey Grigson26:48

We sleep under the rock.

Presenter26:52

Landscape painting is a great interest of yours. You you you've written a great deal about it. Do you pain

Geoffrey Grigson26:57

Yeah.

Geoffrey Grigson26:58

Uh, no. I tell you what I do do when I hate somebody very much, and I hated a lot of people in the monitoring service of the P B C.

Geoffrey Grigson27:06

Then I could draw them.

Geoffrey Grigson27:08

I could draw the most appalling caricatures which were very much like them. And when I like something very, very much for a time I can draw it back. I wouldn't call myself a painter, though I've had many painting friends.

Presenter27:20

You've never published any of your um

Presenter27:22

Rather savage little drawing.

Geoffrey Grigson27:24

Never, never. I believe they existed in the launching service after I left, but I I s I suspect they've all vanished now.

Presenter27:31

What a pity. Record number seven.

Geoffrey Grigson27:33

Well, this is getting a bit more serious. Back we go to Benjamin Britton, um from the settings of uh

Geoffrey Grigson27:41

The Secret Sonnets have done the wonderful one

Geoffrey Grigson27:45

Death be not proud.

Presenter28:46

Death Be Not Proud, one of the holy sonnets of John Donne, set by Benjamin Britton and sung by Peter Pearce.

Presenter28:56

Now, Geoffrey, as a Cornishman, you should know a bit about the sea and the sea shore. Could you look after yourself on a desert island?

Geoffrey Grigson29:02

Could I look a Yes, I think I could look after myself reasonably

Presenter29:05

Yeah.

Geoffrey Grigson29:06

Reasonably well. And quite handy.

Presenter29:07

And quite handy. Good. You could rig.

Geoffrey Grigson29:09

Lazy but hand Day.

Presenter29:10

Yeah.

Geoffrey Grigson29:11

You could rig up a shelter of some sort. Oh, y ya yes, yes, yes. I've rigged up a good many shelters on desert islands in my time, I think.

Geoffrey Grigson29:19

You've done quite a bit of fishing, I know that. Yes, I can manage that. I don't quite know how I should make the hooks, but I think I'd manage it somehow.

Presenter29:26

And you couldn't be married to Jane for long without learning something about cooking. I make her do the cooking. She's not going to be there. You're on your own. Oh.

Geoffrey Grigson29:32

Oh, blast, am I? Yes, I am. Yes, yes, well. I should take one of her books with me, I think.

Presenter29:40

Are you anything of a mariner would you try to ass

Geoffrey Grigson29:42

Scape.

Geoffrey Grigson29:43

Well, there again, you see, you only let me go by myself, you won't let me take her with me. She's like a good reason for escaping. But no, I should rather like not to escape, I think.

Presenter29:53

For the time being, I'm going to put your hand up.

Geoffrey Grigson29:54

For the time being, for quite a long time being, I should settle down, I think.

Geoffrey Grigson30:00

You've got one more record to choose from.

Geoffrey Grigson30:02

It would be a very good one.

Geoffrey Grigson30:04

to play when one was feeling a little miserable if one did on one's desert island.

Geoffrey Grigson30:10

And that would be

Geoffrey Grigson30:12

the famous Varpensiero chorus from Nabucco by Verdi. And my wife and I first heard it when we had no money, when we were in Venice, and we were up in the gallery and it was extremely hot in the Fenici theatre, and down below they were singing Nabucco, and they had four encores for the

Geoffrey Grigson30:33

the great chant of uh misery and liberation.

Presenter31:37

The chorus of Hebrew slaves, Va Panciero, from Verdi's Nabucco, recorded not in the Fenici, but at La Scala Milan, conducted by Claudio Abbado.

Presenter31:48

If you could take only one disk of the HU Planetis, which would it be?

Geoffrey Grigson31:51

Well, it'd have to be Haydn, I think.

Geoffrey Grigson31:55

And um

Geoffrey Grigson31:57

I think I rather must go, for she never told her love.

Presenter32:01

Yeah.

Geoffrey Grigson32:01

Right.

Geoffrey Grigson32:02

Yeah.

Presenter32:02

And one luxury to take with you, one object of no practical use, which would give you pleasure to have.

Geoffrey Grigson32:09

I rather thought this question was coming, and I nearly sent peculiar taste a large barrel of ginger beer, but I've changed my mind about that, having late in life

Geoffrey Grigson32:20

disgracefully discovered foie gras. I should take an ample and inexhaustible supply of foie gras, which I should have

Geoffrey Grigson32:29

every other Thursday.

Geoffrey Grigson32:31

On the Desert Isle.

Presenter32:31

Uh Right, something to look forward to. And one book apart from the Bible and Shakespeare, which are already on the island for you.

Geoffrey Grigson32:39

It has to be poetry and poetry is well looked after by Shakespeare, not prose, because I find once you've read a novel you've read it.

Geoffrey Grigson32:47

You know what's coming if you start reading it again. I don't like that.

Geoffrey Grigson32:50

And I think on due reflection that I should take

Geoffrey Grigson32:54

The fifteen volumes

Geoffrey Grigson32:56

Am I allowed more than one volume, one book?

Geoffrey Grigson33:00

I take the fifteen volumes of the Oxford English Dictionary, I think.

Presenter33:03

The Oxford English Dictionary. It's yours. And thank you, Geoffrey Grigson, for letting us hear your Desert Island discs. Thank you very much, too. Goodbye, everyone.

Speaker 133:37

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