Geoffrey Moorhouse

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 1983.

Speaker 10:11

And the presenter was Roy Plumley.

Presenter0:30

Our Castaway this week is a writer who lives an adventurous life. When a journalist, he was in the thick of things as a foreign correspondent. In recent years, he's been writing books about distant places. It's Geoffrey Moorhouse.

Presenter0:44

Geoffrey, a desert island with many hazards on it. You have endured loneliness at some time, isolation?

Presenter0:50

Yeah.

Geoffrey Moorhouse0:50

Yes. I deliberately exposed myself to it once when I took some camels across the Sahara. Uh whether I'd cope with it on a desert island or not remains to be seen, let us say. How much would a limited amount of music help?

Geoffrey Moorhouse1:05

I it would help a lot. I like music and um I find it difficult to imagine life without music. I can't pretend I have it playing continuously, but I I would miss it very badly if I didn't have any. I know you were once in the church choir. Do you play an instrument? I played the violin when I was a kid and dropped it because exam pressures became too great. And I messed about with the bazooki a few years ago, but never really commanded the instrument. I wish most of all that I kept up my singing actually.

Geoffrey Moorhouse1:36

Well, eight records. What's the first one?

Geoffrey Moorhouse1:39

I think harking back to that beginning I was lucky enough to be in a rather good church choir, which instantly introduced me to the world of Orlando Gibbons and Charles Villiers Stanford. And I've always had a great feeling for liturgical music, so I'd like please the Allegri Miserare, with that boy hitting the fantastic note two octaves above Middle C.

Speaker 12:03

All of desires to sacrifice.

Presenter2:50

The sacrifice of God is a double sin.

Geoffrey Moorhouse2:53

Drop the skin.

Presenter2:57

A broken and

Geoffrey Moorhouse2:58

Uh

Presenter3:04

Allegri's Miserary, by the Choir of King's College Chapel, Cambridge. Where was the church in which

Geoffrey Moorhouse3:10

Who sang in the choir? It was in Bury, in in South Lancashire, the bottom of the Rossendale Valley, which is a cotton mill town with the Pennines in the background.

Presenter3:21

You were at Betty Grammar School. What

Geoffrey Moorhouse3:22

What were you best at at school? Writing things. I I wasn't bad at history. The only prizes I ever collected were for English and history. I was totally enumerate. Still am, I think.

Geoffrey Moorhouse3:33

But I uh I discovered that I could string words together when I was at school. What did you want to be?

Geoffrey Moorhouse3:38

Oh, I always wanted to be a writer, but coming from

Geoffrey Moorhouse3:43

that sort of background. One never aspired to anything as grand as books, because the first thing you had to think about was was earning your bread and butter. And so it was uh clearly to be journalism, and this is what I began with.

Presenter3:58

Well, first of all, you had to do your national service. What did you opt for?

Geoffrey Moorhouse4:02

I opted for the Navy and I was lucky enough to get into the Navy and luckier still to get a ship. And so spent quite a lot of time in the Mediterranean. Where did you get to?

Presenter4:08

Nam

Geoffrey Moorhouse4:11

Spent a lot of time in Malda.

Geoffrey Moorhouse4:13

Eastern Mediterranean as far as the Persian Gulf actually. But I I was lucky. It was it was the first time I'd been abroad. Lots of people spent the National Service polishing bricks in alder shops.

Presenter4:24

So when you came out of the Royal Navy, straight away to journalism?

Geoffrey Moorhouse4:30

Yes, I went into the local evening newspaper, and like every other young cub reporter, I suppose, I spent the first six months doing what were known as the calls, thrice a day to the ambulance station, the hospital, and the fire station, to find if any trouble had befallen the citizens.

Presenter4:48

Do you remember the very first story of yours, however small, that appeared in print?

Geoffrey Moorhouse4:52

Yeah.

Geoffrey Moorhouse4:53

I can't remember the very first that appeared in print. I can remember the first that made any sort of impression on my colleagues. There had been an almighty storm one day, and there was a rumour that a chimney pot had come off some house or other, and I was sent as the Sprog reporter to find out precisely what had happened, whether any real damage had been caused, and discovered that in fact the chimney had gone straight through five floors of a house. A baby had been in its cot in the attic and had followed the chimney all the way down to the basement and was still in its cot in the basement with only a slightly grazed nose. And that made the newspaper's lead story that day. Write your second record.

Geoffrey Moorhouse5:38

Well, a real abiding passion of mine, though again I I've never been anything of a performer, has been cricket, which I think is the the subtlest of games, as well as one of the most dramatic. And it's a game full of character, which is one of its great appeals, human character. I'd like, please, to hear the commentary by Rex Holston and John Arlott on Dom Braddon's last test innings at the Oval in nineteen forty eight.

Speaker 26:06

And now here's Holly's to bowl to him. From the Vauxhall end, he bowls, Bradman goes back across his wicket and pushes the ball gently in the direction of the Houses of Parliament.

Speaker 26:15

Which are out beyond Midolph. It doesn't go that far, it merely goes to Watkins at Silly Midolf.

Speaker 26:20

No run, still 117 for one. Two slips, a silly mid-off and a forward short leg close to him as Holly pitches the ball up slowly and...

Speaker 26:28

A bone.

Presenter6:37

Don Bradman out for a duck. I love that stunned note in John Arlett's voice.

Presenter6:43

So there you were, a journalist on the local evening paper.

Presenter6:46

Flower shows and uh inquests and whatever and the call. The usual humdrum. When did you join the Manchester Guard?

Geoffrey Moorhouse6:55

I got there in nineteen fifty eight, when it was still The Manchester Guardian. And I'm I'm quite ridiculously proud of the fact that I worked on The Manchester Guardian. What did they start you as? I started as deputy features editor. I'd had a bit of sub editing and make up experience by then.

Geoffrey Moorhouse7:12

And um

Geoffrey Moorhouse7:14

I and Brian Red had started the features department on the Manchester Guardian. And when I'd been doing that for a couple of years or so, I said, Look, I really want to write. I don't want to organise other people writing. And so I became the chief features writer, and that I did for the next eight or nine years. And you began to do a lot of foreign stuff. Yes, I started travelling, mostly by myself. I tended to buzz off somewhere, swan around for a week or two and then come home and write two or three pieces about it. It's a colour piece rather than going out on it.

Presenter7:47

Yeah.

Geoffrey Moorhouse7:47

That's right.

Presenter7:48

to do a particular assignment.

Geoffrey Moorhouse7:49

That's right. But once I was caught up in

Geoffrey Moorhouse7:54

World events. I happen to have been sent off to Prague.

Geoffrey Moorhouse7:59

In nineteen sixty eight to find out how Dubček's peaceful revolution was going on, and I was about to come home when I realized that the Czechs were really getting rather worried about the Russians not having gone home from the Warsaw Pact manoeuvres. I filed a story. And the following day, in fact, every plane that came into Prague was loaded with journalists come to see what this crisis was all about.

Geoffrey Moorhouse8:22

and I followed it for the next two months. It made a great impression on me. I loved Prague, and the the spirit that was abroad there at the time was really very, very moving. Have you been back since? Yes, I went back a couple of years ago.

Geoffrey Moorhouse8:39

And I'm afraid things had changed. I mean, everyone was very buoyant in those days before the invasion.

Geoffrey Moorhouse8:46

And I'm afraid that two years ago when I went back every one was rather bitter. And the most awful thing of all was the fact that nobody trusted anybody any more. Friends would talk to you about the political situation only if they were alone. They wouldn't do it even if their best friend was with them.

Presenter9:03

Yes.

Geoffrey Moorhouse9:04

Too many people have been shocked since uh.

Geoffrey Moorhouse9:07

Yeah.

Presenter9:07

Dubtek was deposed.

Presenter9:09

Now, going back to those days on The Guardian, you climbed the Matterhorn at one point. What was that about? Well, this was the.

Geoffrey Moorhouse9:15

Centenary of Wimper's first ascent, and um because I've always been uh keen on on hill walking, I hadn't done any serious rock climbing actually for donkey jears, but uh it was thought a good idea to send me off to do a piece on the Matterhorn. So I went and uh on arriving in Zermatt discovered that every single guide in the district had been bought up by the BBC who were doing this television spectacular, and very good it was too. But this meant that I had to try to solo the thing.

Geoffrey Moorhouse9:48

I got up beyond the Hernley hut, not to the summit, and then I I slipped on some ice. And when I'd finally recovered my composure, I decided the sensible thing to do was to beat a retreat at that point, so I came down. Yes, it's the sort of thing

Presenter10:06

England

Geoffrey Moorhouse10:06

Uh

Presenter10:06

Uh

Geoffrey Moorhouse10:06

I think it's organizing properly.

Presenter10:07

Date of

Presenter10:12

What else? You went down in a Polaris submarine?

Geoffrey Moorhouse10:16

Yes, it was one of the first uh Polaris vessels in in the Holy Lock. It was simply a journalistic party was was put aboard and they took us out into the Atlantic and brought us back. The thing that struck me most of all was that the captain in briefing us and explaining very carefully how the button couldn't be pressed accidentally.

Geoffrey Moorhouse10:39

was actually rolling in his hands a pair of ball bearings, and I suddenly thought, My God, the captain in the Cane mutiny who went off his head used to roll a pair of ball bearings. He did. It was a strange sensation when you were stuck under the Atlantic with sixteen nuclear missiles.

Speaker 110:49

You went off it.

Speaker 110:51

Yeah.

Presenter10:51

Very

Geoffrey Moorhouse10:58

All around you, but we came back safely. Well, let's have your third record.

Geoffrey Moorhouse11:02

When I went back to Prague a couple of years ago, I fulfilled a long-standing ambition by managing to hear Don Giovanni, which is one of my favourite operas anyway, managing to hear Don Giovanni at the Tyl Theatre there, where of course it had its very first performance. So please may I have Leperolo's Aria and the trio from Act One.

Geoffrey Moorhouse11:56

Party tempy.

Geoffrey Moorhouse12:00

All your puce and deal

Geoffrey Moorhouse12:05

Say

Speaker 212:05

Uh

Speaker 212:09

Yeah.

Presenter12:11

Salamin

Presenter12:15

Okay, God, oh God, I

Geoffrey Moorhouse12:17

Yeah.

Presenter12:25

The trio from the first act of Mozart's Don Giovanni.

Presenter12:29

Berndt Weicher, Margaret Price and Gabrielle Bacchier, and the conductor George Schulte.

Presenter12:35

You wrote your first books while you were still at the Guardian Dungeon.

Geoffrey Moorhouse12:39

Yes, there was an amazing week in, I think, 1961 when on the Monday morning I got a letter from one member of the editorial board of Penguin asking me if I'd care to write a book about monasticism, because he'd read a piece I'd written about Benedictine monks. And on the Wednesday morning I got a letter from another member of the Penguin board asking me if I'd care to write a book on the state of England. So I wrote back and said, gentlemen, would you kindly toss up and decide which book you really want me to write?

Geoffrey Moorhouse13:06

And it was decided that monasticism was a timeless subject, so it could wait. And we did the other one first, which was the Other England. What did that involve? What is The Other England? I wrote it very much with Priestley's English Journey in the Thirties. At the back of my mind, I simply tried to describe what life was like in different areas of England. And I evolved this thesis that although the current talk about the two Englands was a little misplaced because people and Lord Hailsham in particular, I think, was talking about the big division between the north of England and the south of England. I decided that the real division was between London and the home counties and the whole of the provinces. So really, it was a study of the English provinces. London.

Presenter13:52

Versus the rest.

Geoffrey Moorhouse13:52

That's

Presenter13:52

And monasticism, was that a subject that you knew about, apart from having written a piece?

Geoffrey Moorhouse13:58

Yeah.

Presenter13:59

No, I don't

Geoffrey Moorhouse13:59

I didn't know very much about it, but I'd always been fascinated by it. And although I don't think I can fairly call myself more than a sympathetic agnostic, the Christian faith and Anglicanism in particular will dog me till the day I die. And I think I probably embarked upon that to hope to get to the bottom of religion. I didn't, of course, because I discovered that monks and nuns are frequently just as puzzled as the rest of us. But it was a life that I found very, very fascinating indeed during the three years or so I was doing the research. How wide was your research? Well, it was mostly carried out in England, but I went to one or two continental religious houses, uh, La Pierre Quivière in France, and Théze, of course, which was the and still is, a large Protestant community in Burgundy.

Geoffrey Moorhouse14:53

And uh that place in particular was very, very striking. Uh they they I think had a great deal of influence on uh all sorts of changes that have taken place in the religious life in in the Catholic Church over the last couple of decades.

Presenter15:10

Fair vom God.

Presenter15:11

And then you'll make a big decision to give up journalism and that very handy monthly check and settle down to write books. W was that a difficult decision to make? Oh, yes, it was.

Geoffrey Moorhouse15:20

Oh yes.

Geoffrey Moorhouse15:20

Because I was not at all unhappy

Geoffrey Moorhouse15:24

Doing the job I was doing as far as I was concerned, being chief features writer for The Guardian, was the best job in Fleet Street. And I didn't want to leave the paper, but I had decided that I wanted to concentrate on writing books, trying to get to the bottom of things. I mean, the trouble with journalism is that you're always juggling six balls at once. And I tend to be a single-minded sort of cuss. And so I decided to take the plunge and leave journalism and only resort to it when I needed to pacify the bank manager and keep the wolf from the door. Well, this was a a watershed in your career.

Presenter15:59

Really, so let's pause here for your fourth record.

Geoffrey Moorhouse16:02

Well, I don't think I would like to be anywhere without Bach, who I think is probably the one composer that I can listen to in any sort of mood. And although I've never played an instrument, I think the instrument I would most have liked to have played is the organ. So may I please have um Helmut Volke playing the little fugue in G minor.

Presenter16:50

Uh

Presenter17:24

Helmut Walker playing Bach's Little Fugue in G minor.

Presenter17:27

B W V five seven eight.

Presenter17:30

Now, Geoffrey, you've written two books about India. The first one was twelve years ago about Calcutta.

Geoffrey Moorhouse17:36

Yes, I was casting about for an a new book subject, and a friend of mine who knew India rather well pointed out that no one had ever written anything for donkeys.

Geoffrey Moorhouse17:49

About this incredible city by the Hoogley. Was it a new territory? Had you been there? No, I had never been to India at that point.

Presenter17:51

Was there a new

Geoffrey Moorhouse17:55

So I did a lot of reading first and then eventually I went off and I was knocked sideways by it. I I think everybody who goes to India for the first time is knocked sideways by that country. And for some people this means that they never want to go there again. They are so depressed by

Geoffrey Moorhouse18:11

poverty, different kinds of hygiene.

Geoffrey Moorhouse18:15

all sorts of things about India that turn them off. And other people are knocked sideways and it means that they want to keep on going back. And that's the way uh Calcutta took me.

Geoffrey Moorhouse18:26

I went there two consecutive years, and had about three months each time there, and produced this book.

Geoffrey Moorhouse18:33

And ever since people have been saying you ought to write another book about India.

Geoffrey Moorhouse18:39

But it took me a long time to get round to it, partly because I couldn't focus on precisely what topic I wished to write about, and partly because other things intervened and I wanted to do them as well. But finally I got round to writing this outline of Indian British history and

Presenter18:55

New Britannica.

Geoffrey Moorhouse18:55

Yeah.

Presenter18:56

And of course you visited Calcutta again. How much had it changed in twelve years?

Geoffrey Moorhouse19:00

I was there a couple of years ago. It's it's uh

Geoffrey Moorhouse19:03

It's changed a little, and it has changed a little for the better. I'm afraid I was rather pessimistic. I I I ended that book with a sort of a apocalyptic vision of doom. But things have improved for the better. There are now, for example, diesel engine ferry boats across the river, which there weren't before, and uh the bus services are better, and they've started to dig an underground railway. I'm not sure whether that's wise. But at least some of the the problems and transport has always been a very big problem in Calcutta have been tackled.

Presenter19:36

It's hard in Europe to grasp the scale of India, the vast distances, the vast population. That's true. I think it is the scale.

Geoffrey Moorhouse19:42

scale of everything that happens there that rather overwhelms the European. I don't think I've ever been anywhere in India, even in a remote country area, when I have felt entirely alone. Even on a remote country lane, there is always a bullock cart two miles off in the distance going away from you, or there's a chap on a bike three miles in the other direction coming towards you, or there is someone two fields away squatting down. You you you're never away from human beings.

Presenter20:17

India Britannica that this new book covers this enormous field. It must have needed a vast amount of research. How much travelling did you do?

Presenter20:24

I didn't

Geoffrey Moorhouse20:24

I didn't do very much travelling. I I had this one trip when I checked up on various things that I hadn't seen before on previous trips to India, but most of it was reading a lot of stuff that I hadn't read for a long time or reading fresh stuff. I mean it's it's a terrible exercise in compression, it can't be anything else. I mean to try to encompass the whole of Indian British history in in three hundred and odd pages in some senses is a ridiculous thing to be doing. But I hope I've got what matters in, and I hope most of all that I've managed to

Geoffrey Moorhouse20:57

Um

Geoffrey Moorhouse20:59

Assess the British record correctly.

Geoffrey Moorhouse21:03

We got to record five.

Geoffrey Moorhouse21:05

Well, as I say, I have been knocked sideways by India. I I I wish to go there again and again and again. And so I'd like some Indian music, please. Ravi Shankar playing a piece called Kafi Holy, which is associated, of course, with the Spring Festival, when everyone goes absolutely potty and chucks coloured water over each other.

Presenter22:17

Uh

Presenter22:25

Ravishanka playing the sitar.

Presenter22:28

Caffi Holi, which is to do with the Spring Festival of Colors.

Presenter22:33

Geoffrey, your books display a very wide range of interests. There's one I haven't seen about missionaries. Was that one that involved a lot of travel? Yes.

Geoffrey Moorhouse22:41

It did. A publisher came to me and said, Would you write a history of the Christian missionaries? And my immediate reaction was, What, all of them? Because somebody in fact had written a very scholarly work which occupied about twenty-five volumes and he just wanted one book out of me. Eventually we narrowed it down by agreement to the Protestant missionaries in Africa in the nineteenth century. And I did a lot of field work for that. I went out to Africa for about a couple of months. I went up the Congo for some way anyway in a dugout to trace the line of the old Baptist mission stations up there. And the most extraordinary thing happened because I went on to an offshoot of the Congo proper and eventually wound up at a remote village called Nkolo Lingamba. And it really was like something out of Lord Jim. I mean the fires in the village were lit and smoke was drifting over the river as my canoe arrived and everybody came down to the water's edge and picked up everything in the boat, put it on their heads and walked ahead of me into the village and made me welcome for the night. And the following morning all the ladies of the village were washing clothes by the river bank and one brought from under her skirt, guess what, a large packet of purcell the arm of Lord Leverhue.

Presenter24:01

very extensive. Now, a couple of tough books about tough exploits. You planned the first ever solo camel crossing of the Sahara Desert from west to east.

Presenter24:13

Who talked you into doing that?

Geoffrey Moorhouse24:14

Uh

Presenter24:15

Yeah.

Geoffrey Moorhouse24:15

Nobody it was one of these awful impulsive things one does. It was actually when I was coming back from the field work for the missionaries. I was flying home from Sierra Leone and

Geoffrey Moorhouse24:27

We'd been in the air for about half an hour, and I looked down, and the earth was totally orange. In fact, you couldn't see the earth. The cloud was totally orange. And it was a sandstorm, and I suddenly realized how enormous the Sahara was. It was no longer a statistic. This vision of sandstorm went on for a couple of hours.

Geoffrey Moorhouse24:50

And I realized uh that no one had ever been across Solo on a camel. I mean, plenty of people had done it from north to south.

Geoffrey Moorhouse24:57

And quite impulsively I thought, gosh, I wonder whether it's possible. On second thoughts, you decided not to do it completely alone.

Geoffrey Moorhouse25:03

Oh, yes. I mean, I I went out thinking that once I got the hang of handling camels I would do it entirely alone. But the first fortnight showed me what folly that would have been. It's simply physically impossible for one man to handle more than one camel. I mean the the the business of catching them in the morning because although you hobble them you want them to wander a little bit in order to get what food they can and it would have taken half a day to catch more than one camel.

Presenter25:34

So

Geoffrey Moorhouse25:36

I never travelled entirely alone. I always had one man with me. I picked them up at oases as I went along. I once had three people travelling with me. Basically it was me and a local. And how many camels?

Geoffrey Moorhouse25:49

Well, I had six altogether. I never had more than three at one time. I had six altogether. Three, I'm afraid, died on the way.

Geoffrey Moorhouse25:59

I was making a fist of it after about a week. After about a month I think I was quite a competent camel rider.

Geoffrey Moorhouse26:06

And you had to learn Arabic, of course? Yes, I'd learnt Arabic before I set off. The trouble was that uh I set off in Mauritania.

Geoffrey Moorhouse26:14

and discovered that they spoke uh a very primitive form of Arabic called Hassaniyah.

Geoffrey Moorhouse26:20

And it seemed to me not only that the vocabulary was substantially different from the one I had learnt, but that uh all the rules of grammar that I'd aboriginally known were more or less inverted. Uh actually, the further uh east I got, the more people were speaking the sort of Arabic that I had learned. And navigation was important.

Geoffrey Moorhouse26:38

Navigation was very important, and it was very difficult, because although I could navigate all right, the trouble was that very early in the trip

Geoffrey Moorhouse26:46

My sextant got smashed, and after that I was only doing it by dead reckoning.

Geoffrey Moorhouse26:50

Which is a bit dicey, and in fact I because I wasn't navigating accurately enough, we missed a well in a sandstorm when we were out of water.

Geoffrey Moorhouse27:00

And uh

Geoffrey Moorhouse27:03

It was a bit dicey for twenty four hours. How far did you get? You didn't complete the whole trip? No, I didn't. I I got two thousand miles, which was just over half way. And it would seem enough. Yes. I was very ill by then. I'd I'd got dysentery and uh

Presenter27:13

Would seem a no.

Geoffrey Moorhouse27:19

I think I was just too run down. I'd got to the point where I knew that if I tried to push it any further.

Geoffrey Moorhouse27:25

I might not come back with a story to tell. How long had two thousand miles taken you? Six months. As long as that? Yes. If you did uh twenty five miles a day on a camel you were doing pretty well.

Geoffrey Moorhouse27:36

Yeah.

Presenter27:36

And that produced a book called The Fearful Void. And you did another book, The Hard Way. You spent a year as a deck hand on a fishing boat based on the Massachusetts coast. Yes, that was hard.

Geoffrey Moorhouse27:46

work, but it was great fun. Um I very badly wanted to write a book about a fishing community because I I think that like mining communities

Geoffrey Moorhouse27:55

They are people slightly apart from the rest of us. They're they are much more closely knit communities. Basically, I think because there is always this hazard on the edge of their lives. When a chap goes off to work in the morning, he never really knows quite whether he's coming back or whether he's going to come back in the same piece that he went out in.

Geoffrey Moorhouse28:14

So I wanted to write a book about a fishing community and for me, because I cannot stand remote from things I want to write about, I had to go and be a fisherman. But to do it for a year shows real application. Well, the lads on my boat thought I was pretty daft actually. Afterward, made about four trips. How big was the boat? It was 70 odd feet long, and there was a crew of six, of whom I became one. What we were fishing? We started off deep-sea lobstering. We were on the edge of the continental shelf. We used to go out from Gloucester for trips that would last a week or ten days. That was the town where Kipling wrote Captain's Courage, isn't it? That was the town indeed. And Kipling, I have to tell you, spent only three weeks in Gloucester and produced an international bestseller which still lives.

Geoffrey Moorhouse28:58

Well, go on. You used to go out. Well, we went out on these trips and caught lobsters off the edge of the continental shelf and brought them back alive.

Geoffrey Moorhouse29:07

But it didn't pay too well, so we convert

Presenter29:10

Dever did the pear trawling for herring. And from those experiences you wrote The Boat and the Town, and we've come now, I think, to record number six.

Geoffrey Moorhouse29:18

This quite coincidentally is is an American thing. I was of that daft generation that was brought up to believe that the only good music was classical music, and consequently I knew not a thing about pop until I think the Beatles arrived. And I then discovered Simon and Garfunkel, whom I've liked ever since. And so, please, I would like Sounds of Silence.

Presenter29:39

Hello darkness my old friend

Presenter29:43

I've come to talk with you again.

Speaker 129:48

Because a vision softly creeping

Speaker 129:53

Left its seeds while I was sleeping

Speaker 129:57

And of vision

Speaker 130:00

That was planted in my brain.

Speaker 130:04

Still remains.

Speaker 130:07

Within the sound

Speaker 130:10

Of silence.

Presenter30:13

Simon and Garfunkel The Sons of Silence.

Presenter30:17

Now, you've done some books on quieter, gentler matters. The diplomats, for example, all about the foreign office. Mm. Fascinating. You've dealt, I suppose, with so many consuls on your

Geoffrey Moorhouse30:27

That I was an obvious candidate. No, I'm not quite sure that w that was so. But I again I found that ideas from books sometimes come from me, sometimes from my publisher, roughly in in fifty-fifty proportions. And this was the publisher's idea.

Geoffrey Moorhouse30:47

In fact, he'd been negotiating with the the Foreign Office for some time before I came in on the Act.

Geoffrey Moorhouse30:52

To have an outsider let into the works.

Presenter30:55

We always get the impression that the Foreign Office is a house of secrets and that nobody who hasn't sworn the oath can get in.

Geoffrey Moorhouse31:00

Well, I didn't actually sign the Official Secrets Act, but I spent two and a half years more or less living in the Foreign Office and uh making forays abroad to see uh them at work in the embassies.

Presenter31:13

You're given complete facilities.

Geoffrey Moorhouse31:15

Yes, pretty well. And I have to say that although I I began work on that book with my fair share of prejudices about uh

Geoffrey Moorhouse31:23

civil servants in general and diplomats in particular. I have to say that the best diplomats I came across were amongst the most impressive people I've ever come across in my life. I have to say also that the worst I came across were so goblimey that you wondered how on earth they managed to get into the same outfit as the best.

Presenter31:42

Yes.

Geoffrey Moorhouse31:42

The vast majority were hardworking

Geoffrey Moorhouse31:46

Highly intelligent men.

Geoffrey Moorhouse31:49

I I was really quite impressed by them.

Presenter31:51

You talked about cricket earlier on when we played the John Arlett record of that disastrous innings of John Bradman. You also wrote a book about cricket.

Geoffrey Moorhouse31:58

Yes, that was sheer self indulgence. Again, it it was my publisher's idea, because I had never thought of writing a cricket book, but he knew that I was very keen on cricket, and said, Why don't you write some essays on cricket? So I spent a whole season pottering around cricket grounds, first class grounds, and village grounds,

Geoffrey Moorhouse32:17

Produced the best love game, and uh I was enormously tickled when I I got the Cricket Society's Prize for it. Sounds a very pleasant way to spend a summary. It was. It was sheer self-indulgence, though. What's the next book?

Presenter32:25

So it was.

Geoffrey Moorhouse32:30

Well, I'm off to Pakistan in a few days. I want to go to the North West Frontier, which I've never seen. That's exciting. Well, it shouldn't be too exciting, but it will be fascinating.

Presenter32:40

This is a very varied list of of books you've produced. Can you find a connecting link between them all? Is there any one thing they have in common?

Geoffrey Moorhouse32:49

I think the

Geoffrey Moorhouse32:52

Only claim I could make is that they're all about what make people tick. I mean, that's a a ridiculously inflated claim maybe, but it's the only thread I can think of. It's the people you expect to find there.

Presenter33:05

Oh yeah.

Geoffrey Moorhouse33:06

This has always been the reason for travelling ever since I was a kid, to find out, even when you were just on your own two feet walking the Pennines, what lies over the other side of the hill, and what manner of man awaits you over the other side of the hill.

Presenter33:19

Have

Geoffrey Moorhouse33:19

How like you, how different from you is he?

Geoffrey Moorhouse33:23

Record number seven.

Geoffrey Moorhouse33:25

One of my great pleasures has always been Slav choral music, with those marvellous rumbling basses and curling sopranoes. And whenever I've been in Paris and indeed it was it was the very last thing I did before I flew off to the desert from Europe

Geoffrey Moorhouse33:40

I've tried to go to the Russian Orthodox Church there to hear Mass. I'd like to hear that choir sing the Kyria Laison, please.

Presenter33:53

I know also.

Speaker 234:33

Uh

Speaker 234:33

Uh

Presenter34:49

The choir of the Russian Cathedral in Paris, Curie et Liaison.

Presenter34:54

I have an idea, Geoffrey, that this island isn't going to hold you. I mean you've been in the Royal Navy, you spent a year as a deck hand on an American fishing boat, you spent months in the desert you seem to have been on this island before in various ways, and I'm pretty sure you'd get off.

Geoffrey Moorhouse35:08

Yeah.

Geoffrey Moorhouse35:10

Uh y yes, I think I would. Basically, because I always want to go home. I enjoy travelling, I always look forward to it, but I I've I've never yet not wanted to come home and always been jolly glad to get home. And uh as I I live in one of the most delightful places on earth, at the top of Wensedale, I shall try to get home very quickly.

Presenter35:30

So a raft and some dead reckoning, and here you come. I shall try it. Good. Your last record.

Geoffrey Moorhouse35:35

Well, one of the big hazards of living in conditions like this, I suspect, is that one starts to feel sorry for oneself and one becomes pretty jolly slummicky.

Geoffrey Moorhouse35:45

And I think there's absolutely nothing for making you pick yourself up off the deck in such conditions as that as a good bagpipe and drum band. So could I have the Argyle and Sutherland Highlanders playing the old ninety third Cabafe?

Presenter36:55

The pipes and drums of the first battalion, the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. If you could take only one disc, which would it be?

Geoffrey Moorhouse37:02

I think it'd be the Don Giovanni. I cannot see how anybody could possibly be depressed listening to that.

Presenter37:08

Yeah.

Geoffrey Moorhouse37:08

Yeah.

Presenter37:08

And you're allowed to take one lap.

Geoffrey Moorhouse37:09

Boxer.

Geoffrey Moorhouse37:11

Could I have a pair of curlews which would produce the sound that means most of all home to me?

Presenter37:17

A pair of curlews. Now, this raises a problem. Luxuries should be inanimate, and obviously we can't cage curlews. We'll give you some splendid recordings of curlews and choose something else.

Geoffrey Moorhouse37:28

Yeah.

Presenter37:29

Uh

Geoffrey Moorhouse37:29

Then I should like a little box full of Indian spices so that I can cook myself tasty meals and not just have broiled fish. Right. And one

Presenter37:40

One book, you have the Bible and you have Shakespeare.

Geoffrey Moorhouse37:42

Yeah.

Presenter37:42

Dictionary of National Biography, please. Great. Yeah. Source book

Geoffrey Moorhouse37:46

Yeah.

Presenter37:46

Yes. English history. And a vast number of volumes too. Well, the microfilm edition will do fine, as long as I have the spyglass on it.

Geoffrey Moorhouse37:50

That's too much.

Geoffrey Moorhouse37:53

As long as I have the spyglass on it.

Presenter37:55

And thank you, Jeffrey Moorhouse, for letting us hear your Desert Island Discs.

Geoffrey Moorhouse37:59

Thank you, Roy. I've enjoyed it enormously.

Presenter38:01

Goodbye, everyone.

Speaker 138:26

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