Bruce Oldfield

Speaker 30:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

Speaker 30:08

The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen eighty six, and the presenter was Michael Parkinson.

Presenter0:30

I think it could be fairly said that being banished to a desert island will probably be the least remarkable occurrence in the life of this week's castaway. His story is the stuff of Hollywood soap operas. Abandoned by his parents, he was brought up in institutions and foster homes. Today, he's one of the world's most sought-after fashion designers, whose creations adorn the likes of Joan Collins and Princess Diana. And he is Bruce Oldfield. Bruce, welcome. How old and fat were you when you were taken into care by Dr. Bernardos? I think about six weeks old. But I spent a lot of time in convalescent homes down in the south of England because I was a bit poorly. Do you know why your parents abandoned you? I think it was just the circumstances. I mean, I was a love child, as they I don't think they called it that in those days. And obviously my mother couldn't cope with me, so there you go. That was it. Do you know who your mother is, Jude? I have names, but I've never really bothered to sort of, you know, search too deeply into it. Why is that?

Presenter1:27

Well, I think when I was younger I had a foster mother in in the north of England, you know, from the age of one to thirteen.

Presenter1:35

And um as far as I'm concerned, she was my mother, there was no no question of it, and I had foster brothers and sisters who were my brothers and sisters, so I never queried it. And then um I went into a branch home at Bernardo's in Ripon in Yorkshire from sort of thirteen to eighteen and it wasn't really until I came to London that maybe as I thought, oh, well, maybe as one could do something about it and I think every year on my birthday I thought about it for about half an hour and then let it go. I think I went as far as one day to try and inquire at Hammersmith Hospital, because that's where I was born, into the record department, and I was just met with such sort of red tape that I thought, oh, blow it, you know.

Presenter2:13

I think now and I've got to this stage in my my life.

Presenter2:16

I don't think I could cope with the um the responsibility of finding parents. I really don't need it. What about those those days? You mentioned one thirteen onwards, you're in uh Doctor Benado's in uh in Ripon. One gets the the impression

Bruce Oldfield2:21

Oh.

Presenter2:28

Of the institution as being that almost Dickensian thing about it being grim and and nasty and horrible. Was it like that at all? Absolutely not. The home was not exactly what I would have chosen, shall we say. But I mean it was clean. It was a charming Georgian house in its own grounds in in Ripon in Yorkshire, which is a very, very pretty sort of uh market town. But actually it's a city that's got a cathedral, hasn't it? I went to um a very good school. I went to the grammar school and used to go home in the evenings. And I think that the atmosphere of the Bernardo's home was rather like the boarding house of the school that I went to. It was a boarding school and a day school.

Presenter3:04

I mean, there were a great many similarities, the only difference being that I didn't go home in the holidays, you know.

Presenter3:09

It really wasn't bad. It was not a Do the Boys' Haul at all. It really wasn't.

Presenter3:13

What about music? Were there any sort of early musical influences at work?

Presenter3:18

Yeah, well I've always loved music. I go back to singing in church choirs from about the age of four. I mean we used to go to church when I was with my foster mother in Durham. Myself and my brothers used to walk from the village we lived in down to Croxhill, which is about two miles to morning service and evening and we had to go to Sunday school in the middle. I don't think we were necessarily religious but we we had sort of possible voices and it was a good way for our foster mother to get us out of the house I think uh most of Sunday. I I had a very loud voice. I don't know whether I was always in tune, but I always loved the singing. It was something that I did until I was about fifteen, you know, singing in choirs. So what about your your first choice of music?

Presenter3:59

Well, I've chosen something from Aretha Franklin, who I consider to have one of the best female black voices, and it's a voice that's sort of gone over the years, you know, 20 years, 25 years, however long Aretha's been singing. The actual track that I've chosen is from an album which is called Amazing Grace, and it's gospel singing, basically. But I love it because it's so different, because we were talking about going to church and singing in choirs. I think if the church service had been presented this way, I would have a much better response to some religion, I think.

Speaker 44:46

We are

Speaker 44:48

Together.

Speaker 44:51

Follow the straight following

Speaker 44:54

Hi.

Speaker 44:55

They don't want it all about.

Presenter4:57

Yeah.

Speaker 44:57

Yeah.

Presenter4:59

Zarretha Franklin

Presenter5:01

Bruce, you mentioned before that record your foster mother, and you mentioned that you went to church with your brothers. They were stepbrothers, of course. They were foster brothers. Foster brothers, rather, yes. Now, how many would there be at any one time? I was with a family of one, two, three. Hold on, how many? Yeah, five. There were five of us. There were two brothers.

Bruce Oldfield5:09

Yeah.

Presenter5:21

And one sister and then later on her natural sister joined us at about the age of ten. I was ten, so this is about nineteen sixty. We were all half caste. I'm half Jamaican. My brothers, one is half Nigerian, one's half Pakistani, and the girls are half Malay. No, in fact one girl is half Malay and the other girl is half Caribbean, Jamaican, Trinidadian, something like that.

Presenter5:43

It never really occurred to us that we were anyway different from anybody else. You know, we had a very, very good home environment. I mean, it was quite poor.

Presenter5:51

You know, it was sort of a two up and two down and a loo out the back. But here were these five half caste children living with this extraordinary woman in in a village in Durham. In Durham, yeah, in the fifties. Yeah, it was it was quite fun. I mean, I think that we never had any problems because we were

Speaker 46:00

Yeah.

Bruce Oldfield6:01

This

Presenter6:06

We were treated very, very well by the neighbours. I mean, I think we were sort of lionized, you know, as the three cute little all the five well, the family grew in stages, so at some point there were only the three boys, you know, and we were just these sort of juicy dresses all the same, you know, and um we were regarded as being the cutest thing since

Presenter6:22

I don't know what, since ration books are we were very, very, very well treated and then when the girls arrived it was even more, you know, I mean, I think people in Durham hadn't seen black kids. You know, I really don't think so. I mean, when my foster mother left the South during the war,'cause she was bombed out down here

Presenter6:40

And I think she went to work in a munitions factory in Newton Aycliffe, near where she ended up living, and she became a dressmaker.

Presenter6:46

And so obviously we always had all the sort of paraphernalia of dressmaking around us and I think round about the age of eight she thought that I was going to be a dressmaker or dress designer, fashion designer. So she had great sort of insight, it seems. Did you in fact share that uh realization? You didn't? No, no. I mean at home we all were encouraged to do a bit of everything, you know, we all knitted, all the boys knitted, you know, and sewed and

Speaker 37:00

Realization?

Presenter7:08

You know, I mean, it was a time when people were making their own clothes. You know, I mean, rationing, as I said about rationing books, rationing.

Presenter7:15

Had only finished 1954. She's dead now, of course, isn't she? Yeah, she died eleven years ago, which is a shame, because it was before I really sort of made it, as it were. But there were grumblings going on. A few pages in vogue. It already happened, so it was all right. Which would have pleased her. Yes, it did. Let's have your second record now. My second record is Mozart's Cosy Fantute. It's a trio from that opera. It was really, I think, the first opera that I.

Presenter7:46

bought. Certainly I think it was the first time that I heard some opera and liked it, and it was in a film called Sunday, Bloody Sunday with um Peter Finch and Glenda Jackson.

Presenter7:55

And all the way through the movie Peter Finch, when he was in a bit of a blue mood, would put this trio on, you know, and I couldn't wait till the movie had finished so he could see just who had written it. And I was on tenter hooks because quite often in films or on television programmes you love the music and they don't tell you at the end what it is. Happily they did, and so out I went and bought my first opera, which is what we're gonna hear now.

Presenter9:17

Bruce, you eventually trained to be a teacher. Did in fact you want to be a teacher? To be perfectly blunt, not really. When I did my A levels, I didn't get good enough grades to go to university. I mean, I had aspirations of um the growth of academe.

Presenter9:33

I was told right at the last minute, you know, apply to Sheffield Teacher Training College and you'll probably get a place because there are always spaces right at the last minute. So I applied and got in. It was very, very, very good for me, teacher training. It helped me

Presenter9:47

gained my confidence. I stuttered up until the age of twenty and that suddenly went in my second year. I got taller, I lost some of my puppy fat and the girls liked me and um I had a great time. But what convinced you against the profession because you you dropped it? I just felt that there was something more out there for me and I wasn't quite sure what it was. I was determined that I was going to be a success.

Presenter10:11

And really, I think at about the age of 20, I wasn't quite sure in which field I would find this success, but I was determined to be a star.

Presenter10:19

And um it didn't occur to me until the last term of teacher training that fashion was the thing. I had tried to do fashion earlier on at the age of sixteen, but I was told, No, no, no, get your A levels. If you can get your A levels, get your A levels.

Presenter10:32

So I just applied to art school and um I got a place. You w you went to Ravensbourne? I went to Ravensbourne. But but you weren't satisfied with that, were you? Your your sexual size a bit higher than that?

Bruce Oldfield10:39

The ch

Presenter10:43

Yeah, so I I applied to St Martin's, which at that time and I think still is one of the best schools in London for fashion, probably in Europe in fact. I had to go down to the school and sort of stand on the doorstep and stand outside the principal's office because she didn't want to see anybody else because the the place was full and it was midterm and everything. So anyway, by persistence I finally got a place and um it was just plain sailing really from there. Well plain sailing of course I mean a lot of some extraordinary circumstance intervenes. For instance you were picked out by that very influential

Presenter11:14

A magazine or an organ.

Presenter11:16

I mean, why did they single you out as being w one of the most uh promising young newcomers? I think because I pushed my way in. I think the third year as we're having a lecture by the correspondent for Women's Way Daily up on the third floor and

Presenter11:30

I thought I should actually be there listening to what she had to say because I was interested and I asked a lot of questions and was probably a little bit more vocal than most. And um she noticed me, I guess, and

Presenter11:42

I had a collection of clothes ready because I'd just done a promotion for a fragrance company, launching a new perfume, which I was chosen from the students of St. Martins to do. And um I don't know, she she must have thought that I had the push. You know,'cause I think to be a success in fashion like anything, you can't just be a good sketcher or a I mean, you have to be sort of very good at the business, very good at promoting yourself, being fairly upfront.

Presenter12:04

And as I said, this newfound confidence, which had lain dormant for twenty years, sort of gushed out.

Presenter12:12

And um that was it really. Right. L let's let's break it there before you embark on the next chapter, which is New York, America. And let's take in your your third record. What's that going to be? Well, the third record is Marvin Gaye. I bought this record, I think, in my last year at Saint Martin's.

Presenter12:29

And um the music I used for my first fashion show as I left Saint Martin, so it has a great sort of sentimental um attachment.

Speaker 412:39

You know we've got to find our way.

Speaker 412:44

To drink some loving gifts here today We can fly

Speaker 412:52

Picket side don't punish me without brutality Talk to me so you can see

Speaker 413:06

What's going on?

Presenter13:09

Bruce, because of this association with the Women's Wear Daily, you went to New York. That was a fairly traumatic experience, wasn't it, for you? Well, it was because I just finished college in July of 73 and I had an enormous amount of publicity when I left. And I was taken up by quite a few different stores who wanted me to make things for them. And then I had a phone call from Bendel through the lady at Women's Wear Daily saying, Come to New York, take over from their designer, you know, Stephen Burroughs.

Presenter13:40

So I thought, hmm, that sounds quite nice.

Presenter13:43

So I flew over first class, was picked up by a limousine and taken to the Plaza Hotel, and was generally feted and put onto a huge pedestal. I was expected to produce a collection of clothes three months after leaving college with the expertise that I maybe should have now.

Presenter14:00

And of course it didn't go quite as well as we expected, so I left New York with my tail between my legs, as it were, in the November on a bus.

Presenter14:09

So it it's an object lesson really in in not believing your own publicity. And um it was important to you, was it? It was extremely important, yes. I mean I I laugh about it because I did actually have a good time in New York and it was a great experience. But I mean it it was a prime example of taking somebody too early and trying to, you know, sap all the

Bruce Oldfield14:14

Was important.

Presenter14:28

The young juices out of them, you know, before they've they've had a chance, you know. It was Well, after that, I mean, what was the significant breakthrough in your career? I mean, what uh led to you being the Bruce Elfield that we know now? Cool, I don't know. It's been a long, lingering process, I think. Uh Well, is it about the kind of people that you address? Is it about patronage, that kind of thing? It could have something to do with that.

Bruce Oldfield14:41

Prohoza

Bruce Oldfield14:42

But if

Presenter14:48

I mean, I was having steady publicity and my business was going up and down, and, you know, I was hanging on in there, as it were. But it wasn't really until 1980 when I started making for individual clients, you know. I had made for a few people like Charlotte Rampling and this lady and that lady, you know, in the previous years, but it was in 1980 when it really all started. How important is it to people like Princess Derr, like Joan Collins, to come to Bruce Alpha? How important to the way they look? How much do you dictate their fashion, what they wear?

Presenter15:19

Well, they've already made the choice before they they come to me that they want a certain look, the kind of clothes that I make. So you're halfway there then. I'm fairly bullying with my clients, and maybe I cajole or others I sort of tenderly sort of push. If you have a client with a very, very strong mind of her own, then you do find that you make compromises, but usually not. Usually I'm

Presenter15:43

In charge.

Presenter15:44

Bruce is in charge. You don't en invoke the royal displeasure? Oh no.

Presenter15:49

Not at all.

Presenter15:51

With whichever queen you're talking about, yes. But what's the fundamental aim, do you think, of what you do? You're a dress designer, but really what is that all about? How do you define it?

Presenter16:02

The single aim is to flatter the material that you have in front of you, you know, to bring out the good points and to conceal the bad with um as much flair and style as is humanly possible. That is at base. I mean what what I do and each season the style changes, though the style is slightly different, or there's different axis on lengths or widths of shoulder or you know where the waist is this season. But at the end of the day, what aims to flatter.

Presenter16:29

To make more desirable.

Presenter16:32

We shall continue that point in a moment. Next record, please. It's going to be Maria Callis singing Menaria from Verdi's Macbeth.

Presenter16:41

I love Maria Callas because she is more credible as a as an artist, as a soprano, than any of the other sort of big lumbering ladies that you see on the stage. And I just wish that I at some point in my life had seen her, but unless she went before I had chance.

Speaker 416:58

It's a meal, single.

Speaker 417:15

People sing you.

Speaker 417:22

Four for'cause I'm active for'cause it's

Presenter17:59

Let's imagine for a moment, and it certainly you have to stretch the imagination a long, long way, that I'm a rich and beautiful woman and I I want a a frock from Bruce Oldfield. First of all, how much would it cost me?

Bruce Oldfield18:06

There was

Presenter18:12

Ah, well that depends really. That depends on how much you can afford. No, it depends on how much you could afford, number one. It depends whether it's a cocktail dress, whether it's an ascot outfit, whether it's a bar mitzvah frock. But what would be the top of the range? I mean, what would be the most you could spend? Top of the range

Bruce Oldfield18:13

Depends on how much you've been.

Presenter18:26

The one I guess is the bottom of the range, top of the range, ooh.

Presenter18:29

A good average top price is two thousand five hundred to three thousand five hundred. And what's the bottom of the range? What's the the bottom of the range is um just as good. It's off the peg though. I mean because we we have a shop where we sell off the peg. I would say two hundred and eighty pounds, three hundred pounds. Bargain.

Presenter18:46

Well, you have to convince me about that. So so there I am, I'm this rich, beautiful lady, and I come in now, and I want the top of the range from you. I want your personal attention.

Presenter18:55

So how do you operate? What do you do? Well, you would make an appointment, madam, and we sit down and talk, discuss what kind of thing it is that you're you're going to, you know, the people who are going to be there, you know, because we don't want to be too overdressed, do we, madam?

Presenter19:09

You find that with English ladies, in fact, they will want an expensive dress, but they also want something that's you know, no, I don't want to stand out too much, you know. Whereas other ladies, you know, want to be the center of attraction.

Presenter19:20

Then it's a question of me sitting down. I I usually have a a range of sketches there, so we can sort of say, well, do you like something like this or like that? And we show fabrics and just by sort of a consensus of opinion, with me being more opinionated than anybody else, we get down to a sketch. Do you have to be careful about pointing out uh a fault in a woman's figure? Or do you find that they are in fact more acutely aware of it? Oh, they're more acutely aware of it. They're over acutely aware of it, you know. I mean they they make mountains out of molehills. You know, oh my bones are my corner, you know, my f my arms have dropped and my bum has dropped. I mean really everything is wrong with them, you know, it's ridiculous. So you have to you know boost their confidence and um

Bruce Oldfield19:53

I mean really everything

Presenter19:59

Most women know I I don't need to say, Madam, you've got huge hips. She knows she's got huge hips, so, you know, we talk around. But I mean, I think at some point when it comes to getting your tape measure out, you know, then obviously it's it's all there, the truth.

Presenter20:13

displayed in all its glory. Next choice of music. I thought that if I was on my desert island I'd want to listen to a nice piece of English music. I love that sort of pastoral, choir, gentle, you know, the rolling hills, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. So I've chosen a piece from Warlock's Capriole suite.

Presenter21:27

Bruce, I suppose a lot of of women listening might think that the kind of uh fashion that you do, the the very expensive top end of the market, has got little to do with them, would imagine that it's got nothing to at all to do with the sort of high street fashion.

Presenter21:41

Has it? Or is it totally in the stratosphere? No, it's not in the stratosphere at all, because I don't do weigh-out clothes. I mean, the kind of clothes I do are fairly normal, fairly subdued clothes. They're just well-crafted, you know, beautiful fabrics. I think that now, particularly as fashion in the high street is changing rapidly with the new ways of retailing, with the likes of Sir Terrence Conrad and Company, there really is no difference. I think that a woman, any woman who's listening, would come to me and find something that she liked. Maybe it would have to be something for a very special occasion, you know. But the things in my price range round about the £300, £400 mark, are very, very well-made clothes. There's nothing wrong with them. It's just that I'm also using fabrics which cost that amount a metre. So you have the other end as well. Woman, imagine also, too, that I mean, if you went the top end of your market, we bought this frock for three, four thousand pounds or whatever from you, that you would be buying also exclusivity. But have you ever had that designer's nightmare where you've actually seen in a room two of your dresses they'd say? Yeah. Well actually recently. It doesn't happen if it's made to measure.

Presenter22:45

Or it doesn't happen very often. It's less likely to happen when it's major measure. But if you're buying something off the peg, the girls in the shop tend to try and make sure that they go into different groups of people. You know, they usually tell, you know, do you know Mrs. So-and-so? because she bought that. But at a big ball recently, there were four girls wearing the same dress, and it was actually a very, very noticeable dress. And I was mortified because they all came up to me and sort of said, You told me. And I had to say, No, no, I didn't tell you that at all. You know, it was off the peg. You know, I mean, don't be ridiculous, you know.

Bruce Oldfield22:47

It's less likely to

Presenter23:16

You look much better than she does. So we're going round the room saying the same thing to four different women. It was really quite a tricky night. Okay. Bruce, record number six. What should that be?

Speaker 423:23

Okay.

Presenter23:27

It's another piece of opera, again from Mozart, who I really love, it's a piece from The Magic Flute.

Speaker 423:35

Then the film sign rush forward, Shouldst the fine misinsoci.

Speaker 423:41

When they be done in a coffee sword, the mission tons that mission teams have

Speaker 423:48

Friendly stores, their missions of their missions in his love.

Speaker 423:55

Shtilla Shtilla, Shtilla, Shtilla, If Comes my son.

Speaker 424:07

Thank you for my name, so I can

Presenter24:33

Somebody like yourself in the world of fashion has got this very high profile in the media today. The the press, uh all the media love this sort of figure and the people who he looks after. But I mean, is it a proper job? Jolly well is a proper job.

Presenter24:48

You knew. I mean, the hours that I spend on my job. Yes, it is, because I'm a designer, I'm a manufacturer, I'm a retailer, I'm a promoter. I mean, I would say that I spend

Presenter25:01

ten hours a week on promotional activities, you know? I wasn't accusing you, I was asking the question. I know, I always take the defensive because people think that you do, you're very defensive about it, aren't you? Yes, people think that fashion is such a lightweight industry, you know, and this is one of the problems with with fashion. It's always been considered that.

Bruce Oldfield25:06

That's a question.

Bruce Oldfield25:10

Yeah

Presenter25:17

But it isn't. I mean it's it's very, very, very hard work. But does it matter? Does fashion matter? Yes, does it matter to me? Does it matter to the girl sitting through there in the control room? Does it matter people we meet out in the street?

Bruce Oldfield25:22

Does fashion matter?

Presenter25:29

I don't think it matters. I think it makes people happy. I think it would be awful to be in in China and all be running around in little blue suits. Well, I think it would. I mean, if they don't know any different, then perhaps, you know, it doesn't matter to them. But I wouldn't go as far as to say it's an art form. I mean, it is to some designers, you know, but I think it's necessary to change to

Presenter25:47

Experiment with new things. I mean, it's yeah, I think clothes are very important. Very important indeed.

Presenter25:52

You've made your point. Code number seven.

Presenter25:55

Record number seven is a Joni Mitchell track, which was very hard to choose because I've liked Joni Mitchell for the last sort of fifteen years.

Presenter26:02

I've chosen from an album called Court and Spark and it's a track called People's Parties.

Speaker 426:09

People's parties bumbling deaf dumb and blind I wish I had more sense of humour Keeping the sadness at bay Throwing the lightness on these things, laughing it all away

Speaker 426:29

Flight all the way

Presenter26:36

Bruce, do you think that somehow in a curious way that upbringing you you had might have made you more determined, more uh aggressive about

Presenter26:45

Making it, who says I'm aggressive?

Presenter26:49

Yeah, it probably did. I mean, one of the things I found in Bernardo's, which I I think is is the same in every institution, is that they don't encourage individuality, you know, and I found that so much of the time they wanted you to become

Presenter27:05

The same as everybody else. And that I think I fought against more than anything else, purely out of.

Presenter27:11

I don't know, I will survive. It wasn't even that, it was a just a gut reaction, you know, but I am different, you know, I won't have this, you know. And this thing about, you know, being a star.

Presenter27:20

It was wanting to

Presenter27:22

Succeed.

Presenter27:24

And it was actually in the pursuit of success I find, you know, far more interesting than than success. All right, well, you've got one more record to take on your Desertelo. What might that be? We're going to have the Schubert. I've only just come across this piece of music. I've I've known it for years and years and years, but never knew what it was called. And I was coming back from Australia

Presenter27:42

not too long ago and I heard it through the terrible um earph earphones and I just couldn't wait till it came round the next two hours, you know.

Presenter27:52

It's a wonderful piece of music, it's Schubert's fifth symphony.

Speaker 428:09

Yeah.

Presenter28:55

Bruce Ophel, what about the the future? You seem to be at the top of your profession now. Are there different worlds to conquer or what? Oh, there's tons to do. I mean, now it's time to start diversifying to other areas.

Presenter29:07

Maybe it's in ten years' time you'll be sleeping on Bruce Ophel sheets and wiping your nose on Bruce Ophel handkerchiefs, you know?

Presenter29:14

Right, on this desert island now. Would you try to escape from it? I think I probably would at the beginning, because it would bore me to death. I do like to be busy, I like to be doing things. But I think after a while I'd get into it and probably say, What the heck, you know. What would be most pleased to leave behind from our civilization? Cocktail parties. I loathe c cocktail parties with a passion. You know, the idea of having a cigarette in one hand, a glass in the other, and a canopy and a fixed grid on your face sort of

Presenter29:44

edging your way around a room trying to get away from some dreadful person and then just getting caught by another one, you know, and you

Presenter29:50

Oh, I I'd be so happy to get away from that. You can have one record from the eight, supposing seven were destroyed by some sort of natural disaster. Which would that record be? I think it would have to be

Presenter30:03

The Magic Flute

Presenter30:05

Every time I listen to it I find new parts in it that I love and it would always keep me happy. Remembering the story, you know, it it's so light and fantastic. That would be the one. And what about the book, apart from the Bible and the works of Shakespeare already provided?

Presenter30:20

I'm going to take a book by J. P. Donlevy called The Destinies of Darcy Dancer Gentleman.

Presenter30:27

Because it's romantic, it's funny, it it would remind me of sort of cold, drizzly days, because it's all about sort of cold, drizzly days in Dublin, and it's a fantasy and it's something I could read over and over and over again. And finally the luxury item. You're allowed to take one luxury item, inanimate object.

Presenter30:46

I think it would have to be an everlasting supply of cigarettes, I'm afraid. And I think for one if if for only one good reason, it would give me the

Presenter30:54

incentive to be

Presenter30:56

Creative and learn how to make fire. Well, it's supposedly a useless item, and I can think of nothing more useless than an endless supply of cigarettes. I agree. Bruce Olfield, thank you very much indeed. Thank you.

Bruce Oldfield31:02

More useless in English.

Bruce Oldfield31:04

Guys.

Bruce Oldfield31:15

Desert Island Discs, which was created by Roy Plumley, was introduced by Michael Parkinson.

Bruce Oldfield31:21

The producer was Derek Drescher.

Bruce Oldfield31:23

Bruce Oldfield's first record was Holy Holy, sung by Aretha Franklin.

Bruce Oldfield31:28

That was followed by the trio Suave Sia Ilvento from the first act of Mozart's opera Cosi Fantute, sung by Elizabeth Schwatzkopf, Krista Ludwig, and Walter Berry, with the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Karl Bern.

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Marvin Gaye's What's Going On was followed by the aria La Luce Langue from the second act of Verdis Macbeth, sung by Maria Callis.

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The fifth record was Piedon Lair from Warlock's Capriole Suite, played by the Academy of Saint Martin in the Fields, conducted by Neville Mariner.

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The excerpt from the first act of Mozart's The Magic Flute was sung by Jermgart Seyfried, Emmy Loeser and Peter Klein with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Herbert von Carriag.

Bruce Oldfield32:13

The last two records were Joni Mitchell's People's Parties,

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and the opening of Schubert's Fifth Symphony, played by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Sir George Schanty.

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