Auberon Waugh

Speaker 10:00

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 10:08

The programme was originally broadcast in 1986, and the presenter was Michael Parkinson.

Presenter0:29

Our castaway is no stranger to desert islands. He's already been banished to them many times by people he's criticised in his writings. He is beyond dispute Britain's most controversial journalist. Reviewing a collection of his work, one critic wondered whether or not the author was mad. Another declared him to be a genius. At present he writes regularly for The Spectator, The Sunday Telegraph and The Daily Mail, and is the newly appointed editor of the Literary Review. He is Aubram Waugh.

Presenter0:56

Orbrun, recently you gave up your most controversial column, uh your diary in Private Eye. Why was that? Well, it had been running for sixteen years. I think it's quite a long time for any sort of comedy spot to last. And I found myself not only just making the same jokes, which didn't matter because people like that, but making them rather less well, you know. And I thought it'd be an extremely embarrassing column to be lumbered with if it wasn't working. I thought better to leave it while it was still more or less at a peak. And what about the rumours that you had some kind of a rift with Richard Ingram's editor of the appointment of the new editor? They got up by Private Eye, I think, trying to publicise itself a bit. But it simply wasn't true at all. There was a slightly awkward moment when there was a great presentation lunch when after sixteen years I turned up to be given a very, very handsome silver-plated wine funnel. And Richard chose the occasion to announce his retirement and I had to speak next, you see. So it's my job to try and dissuade him, which he probably never tried to dissuade Richard from anything that's a total waste of time. In the course of that, you see, I said, No, we love you so much, please stay on. One had to say, you know, this little man really isn't up to the job. And I think he was sitting getting rather pink, and then he he obviously did get a bit resentful, but I think it's all blown over. Do you think you might be the subject of attacks from Private Eye in the future? I'd be joined disappointed if I weren't. I mean, traditionally, anybody who leaves Private Eye is automatically torn to pieces. And if I'm not, it just means I've become so dim in my new job on the Literary Review that nobody's ever heard of me. Now what was the attraction of the of the new job? Because it's hardly a mass circulation periodical, is it?

Presenter2:18

No, indeed not. I mean that's uh part of the joy of it. It has a very, very small circulation indeed. The joy of it is that it's totally unsewedish. It doesn't receive a farthing of support from the Arts Council or any of these ghastly bodies which make you be Swedish, whether you want to be or not. And it is really a magazine which is there to try and help people find out what's going on in the world of books, what books are worth reading, what's coming out. And it's trying to uh appeal to a much wider audience. The trouble is that no bookseller will take it because they're also idle. We offer it to them on sale in return and they won't even give us shelf space because they want to sell albums of Lady Dye's hairstyle and things. And you simply can't get it in there. But bit by bit I'm trying to get people to take subscriptions and we've done quite well. We've gotten an extra three thousand or so. Let's now have a choice of record, your first record. Well the record I've chosen is a very beautiful song from Pirates of Penzance when this poor pirate uh suddenly sees this bevy of beautiful maidens. He's never seen beautiful maidens before and he just says, Will any of you marry me? And it's particularly well it isn't absolutely germane to my own situation, but I've joined this organisation of which Literary Review is only a small part, which is famous for having the most lovely young women working for it, you see, and I saw this as my theme song as I as I arrived in the offices of Literary Review.

Auberon Waugh3:24

Oh is there not one maiden breast Which does not feel the moral beauty?

Auberon Waugh3:34

For the making worldly implies, Subor in a to sense of the beauty.

Speaker 13:41

Did I

Auberon Waugh3:45

Who would not give up willingly All matrimonial ambition To rescue such a world as I From his unfortunate position?

Speaker 13:47

Not here.

Auberon Waugh4:07

From here.

Presenter4:14

Obern, given your your background, given who your father was, was there any doubt about you becoming a writer?

Presenter4:20

Well, I mean, he had six children, of which admittedly quite a few have become writers. But it was a more likely thing to become, you know, just as if you're the son of a butcher, the odds are you might become a butcher. And the same principle applies in other families, perhaps in your own, it would have been thought wildly eccentric and possibly rather uppity and snobbish if you'd suddenly announced you were going to be a writer. In mine it was perfectly normal and rather humble thing to want to be. Was he a daunting man, your father? A lot of people were were frightened of him, weren't they?

Presenter4:44

Yes, well he he was, because what made him daunting was his moods. He was a very moody man, and so one had to be careful of him. But he wasn't at all the sort of bad-tempered ogre he's been painted. He was rather a gentle but uh melancholic man more than anything else. And what was frightening about him was the thought that if one put a foot wrong he m he might go into a sort of melancholy. Was it a happy childhood?

Presenter5:05

Yes, I think it was because there were a lot of other children, you see. We had our own society and our own life, really. And what about the music in your childhood? Do you have any particular musical memories? Was it a musical household as such? Not at all. My father's turned deaf. And my mother wasn't very interested. No, in fact, my first musical memories was as a child. I was brought up in a grandmother's house with dozens of cousins and my own brothers and sisters too. In fact, I was the only boy at the early stages. And we had this long run of very pretty I imagine they're very pretty because I wasn't very interested in taking young nannies who to look after us. And they used to sing this song to me, which is my first memory really of any music at all. They used to sing You Are My Sunshine, and they sang it to me, not the others, I was the only boy.

Auberon Waugh5:43

The other night, dear, as I lay dreaming, I dreamt that you were by my side. Came disillusioned when I awoke, dear. You were gone, and then I cried.

Auberon Waugh5:59

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy when skies are grey. You'll never know, dear, how much I love you. Please don't take my sunshine.

Presenter6:15

Robram, what age were you when when you were first sent away to school?

Presenter6:18

I was just six. And did you enjoy being sent away to school? No, not at all, actually. But you just accepted things in those days. You know, you just thought, uh, this is what you have to do next, and you had filthy food. Great discomfort and unpleasantness. I wasn't consciously unhappy, just uh moving from a comfortable and pleasant environment into an unpleasant one. And what about your own children? I mean, have you sent them away to school? No, I haven't. I decided not to. They all went to day schools. What were your ambitions at at school as you were growing up? I mean, did you want to be a certain thing? I don't think so, no. I don't think I had any ambitions at any stage, really. I just really drifted into things. No, I certainly never wanted to be an engine driver or anything like that. Were you a bright child? Pretty bright, yeah. I got a scholarship from my prep school to Downside and didn't do any work at all at Downside. I managed to get an exhibition at Oxford. I was as, you know, as as bright as needed to be, not to have to work too much.

Presenter7:08

Let's have another choice in music.

Presenter7:10

The next one is the only song really I remember from my school days. Of course I knew nothing about music or pop music and all the other boys were singing this, so I had to learn it and pretend I was in the swing called Walkin' My Baby Back Home.

Auberon Waugh7:21

An algae, but it's great after staying out late, walking my baby back home.

Auberon Waugh7:29

I'm in I'm over meadow and farm Walking my baby back home

Auberon Waugh7:36

But we go along harmonizing a song

Speaker 17:36

Go in.

Auberon Waugh7:40

Or I'm reciting a poem.

Auberon Waugh7:43

The hours go by and they give me the eye of walking my baby.

Presenter7:50

Obran, you won a a a scholarship to Oxford, but in fact you you didn't take it up straight away. You went

Presenter7:55

And did your national service. Had you in fact gone to Oxford, you need not have done your national service. I mean, was it a conscious decision that you wanted to join the army? No, I don't want to join the army no does that, but I I'd been brought up to think national service was something we all would have to do. I didn't really believe them when they said they might be going to abolish it. So I thought you might as well get it over with first and then go on and enjoy yourself afterwards. And you joined which regiment? I was in the blues. Were you a good soldier? No, I I can't claim I was really. I certainly wasn't cut out to be a soldier. But I managed to muddle through until I shot myself with a machine gun by accident, so that was the end of my military service. How did you manage to do that?

Presenter8:29

Well, I was standing in front of the thing and wiggling it. It was sort of stuck in the trajectory, I think it's called wiggling it up and down, and it started shooting. And it shouldn't have been cocked, you see. I'd cocked it earlier without realizing what I was doing. And really blew myself to pieces. And you imbeted it out because you still receive a pension, I think, though. Yes, I do.

Speaker 18:43

Yeah, yeah.

Presenter8:46

What about after that then? You won the scholarship to Oxford, as I said. You went there. Do you enjoy the academic life? No, I didn't really. In fact, I didn't really take much part in it at all. It only lasted a year and then came down. By then I'd already written a novel, you see.

Presenter8:59

which is coming out.

Presenter9:00

And I got a little bit bored and left. And then started what, a a life as a novelist? Is that what you were doing there? No, th I went straight into journalism because I reckoned

Speaker 19:05

Mm-hmm

Presenter9:08

Quite rightly, you can't really earn a living as a novelist.

Presenter9:11

And my first job was researching a ridiculous book on Queen Magazine, and then I went to The Telegraph.

Presenter9:18

Well, in those day nowadays you can't do it, but in those days you could get into Fleet Street still through the gossip columns. I went on to Peterborough without having to do a five year stint in the provinces.

Presenter9:28

And so I got on there and then I've been bumming around Fleet Street ever since, right? Did you have any idea though when you joined Fleet Street what kind of a a journalist you wanted to be? No, I don't at all. Absolutely none. I don't think I really was very satisfied with being a journalist at that stage. I thought I'd just earn enough money to write, you know, the occasional novels. You were political correspondent of the Spectator in in 1967. I used a job that you did for about three years. Do you find that an amusing occupation? Well, not really. I was never really very keen on politics or politicians. It's rather odd choice,'cause it's Nigel Lawson who's now the Chancellor as the editor.

Presenter10:00

And he appointed me, although I did tell him I didn't like politics or politicians, but he put me there and I think I did quite a good job of it, so I was happy to that extent.

Presenter10:08

And had quite a bit of fun. But I had this thing from having been brought up in a Catholic school where on Sundays we had to be in church about three hours and about half of it was listening to sermons. Whenever somebody starts making a speech, I automatically switch off. And if you're a political correspondent trying to take an interest in these speeches, it's rather a disadvantage. What kind of view did it give you of the institution that that runs all our lives? Did it reaffirm all your prejudices of them or what? Pretty well, yes, yes. I decided that anybody who chooses to go into politics must have some emotional inadequacy or something, that you have to push yourself forward. That it isn't a normal thing to want to do. And yet you yourself became a a a parliamentary candidate, did you not, in 1979? Yes, I did. I was infected by the sickness. I stood.

Presenter10:50

as a candidate for the Dog Lovers Party of Great Britain.

Presenter10:54

against Jeremy Thorpe in his constituency and got seventy nine votes. That's remarkably good. Well, I I tip my hat to those seventy nine people. They only once every five years have an opportunity to express their democratic choice and seventy nine of them chose me. It's very, very touching. Let's have a another choice of music.

Presenter11:09

Yes, I think the the next one is actually going back to the army, really. This song was being played on the tannoy every single morning as I cleaned my boots. And I I haven't actually heard it since then, but as I listened to it I thought if ever I hear that song I'll be reminded of this disgusting night feeling boots and spitting. It's called Last Train to San Fernando, song by Johnny Duncan.

Auberon Waugh11:27

Last train to San Fernando Last Train to San Fernando If you miss

Auberon Waugh11:36

You'll never get another one. Bee dee dee dee bum bum to San Fernando.

Speaker 111:37

You'll never

Auberon Waugh11:43

Last night I met my sweet Dora Lee She said tomorrow I joined sweet matrimony But if you act

Speaker 111:46

Uh

Presenter11:46

Uh

Speaker 111:47

Amen.

Auberon Waugh11:48

Alright, or you can check me out for night pick of fine and dinner gets back in time with a last train to San Fernando.

Presenter11:57

Oberon, you've written literally millions and millions of of words in your journalism. You've written four or five novels to date. The last one published in, I think, nineteen seventy one. Wha why did you stop writing novels?

Presenter12:08

Well, by then I had a wife and um three or possibly four children to support. Four.

Presenter12:14

And you couldn't afford it, you see, because every time I wrote a novel I gave up all my journalism.

Presenter12:18

and retired having saved up a bit of money and retired for three, four, five months to write a novel. And you can't do that if you've got an establishment to keep up. But is it still within you the desire to perhaps return to novel writing? Well, possibly in a in a sort of weakened and adult way, that when my last child has left home and is off my hands financially, I wouldn't mind giving up most of my journalism and turning out a few novels which nobody want to read. But by then I'll have built up a big enough seller, you see. I've got enough bottles of wine quietly maturing to last me through my old age and then I won't need much money is my theory. It probably won't work out like that. Is that your ambition to have a a fine seller and then to retire from everything? Fine seller, a w a wife who does the gardening to grow the vegetables and just turn out the occasional novel. Your novels were written of course at a very early stage in your career. I wonder what was the name then, the name war, was that a hindrance to you at at that time in in trying to be a novelist? Um if they'd been rotten novels it would have been a great help getting them published. I'm not really the best person to answer that. My own feeling is that at the beginning they were certainly a hindrance because there was a general feeling. Here's this little fellow trying to jump on the bandwagon. And uh reviewers then as now were quite an embittered race themselves would quite like to write novels and they thought, well, you know, we we won't give him any help and in fact we'll give him the kick or two. It made me much more defensive than I would otherwise be. The same in journalism, which is a very b

Speaker 113:07

Um

Presenter13:34

biting so professional, as a sensitive twenty one year old.

Presenter13:38

Going round, one saw them sort of huddling, saying, Look at this man, you know how he got here and it made one defensive and made one rather perhaps even more aggressive than one would naturally be.

Presenter13:47

But um nowadays it's it's nothing but an unqualified blessing and people are more interested to meet you than they would be if they didn't know anything about you. And it's just part of me. I've been writing and people know my background and that's all right. But when you start and you only have the background, nothing else, it's a bit of a bind. Since the novels, the books you've published have been in the main collections of your journalism, isn't there a point to be made that that journalism is made to be thrown away, not not collected, not preserved? Yes, it's profoundly true actually. I don't think it's quite true of the private eye diaries, because uh I find they do stand up quite well. My next book is is a collection of ten years essays from The Spectator. Which isn't coming out till autumn, so nobody can buy it, I'm sorry to say it. I think when it does come out, it'll be called Another Voice. And I just don't know how people will take to it, because it makes sense to me, because I know vaguely, although my memory is pretty addled, what I'm writing about. But when you're writing about red-hot issues eight years ago, sometimes they come to life, sometimes they don't. And there were sort of five hundred articles to choose from for that book. And I didn't have time to choose them myself, somebody else did. I'll be interested to see what people say, whether they're worth reading or whether it's a waste of time, maybe. But why do you regard the collection of your spectator stuff as being possibly not as good as the private eye story? I mean, what separates the private eye diaries from that sort of journalism, do you think? Well, private eye diaries are rarely not journal, well, they're more like sort of fairy stories, aren't they? I like to think it was sort of new art form, which one just managed to get away with, despite the libel laws and everything else, trying to stop you. That it was taking real people and sort of asking around with them and turning them into grotesques. It certainly confused people. I mean, somebody described it in the column as ferocious but incoherent. And you yourself actually said, My whole life, as this diary shows, is a lie. I wonder what you meant by that. Well, it was a sort of little conceit that, wasn't it? The point being that anxious to emphasise that the diaries were incoherent and anybody who tried to read any profound meaning into them was profoundly wrong, that anybody who stood up and said, Coo, you're describing me as a crook and a a sodomite or what have you, uh would actually be making more of a fool of themselves than they did of me if they took it to court.

Speaker 115:16

Yeah.

Presenter15:51

Let's have another choice of music. The next one is is particularly germane to my life in politics. It's a song which it seems to me is is the great illusion of our time, the idea of a land of milk and honey, the big rock candy mountain, which is what politicians dangle in front of these poor half-witted voters who then vote for them. Uh the idea being you don't have to work, everything falls into your lap.

Presenter16:11

Burlaibes be rock canter mountain.

Speaker 216:12

On a summer's day in the month of May, A burly bum come a hiking, Down a shady lane, near the sugar cane, He was looking for his liking.

Speaker 216:25

As he strolled along, he sung a song of a land of milk and honey, where a bum can stay for many a day, and he won't need any.

Speaker 216:38

Money

Speaker 216:40

Uh

Presenter16:43

Auburn, you have a prolific output. It must be a daunting thought when you start a week that you've got all these columns to write, you've got your new job as well. I'm interested in your approach to being a columnist, because it's very much a a a column of opinion. You you have to react to things. I mean, how do you actually start the day? Do you start the day by looking at the newspapers and a s uh a story leaps out of a page and you think, oh that's wonderful, that's stupid, I'll do that or or for? Yeah, uh exactly that. I read the newspapers and travel everywhere with a little knife which I then cut out things and stuff in my pocket. I'm walking litterbag really. If you go into any of my pockets you'll find about fifty cuttings which I've cut out the course of the day. Then I stick them all together. Well, basically I have uh files of current affairs and then I have uh files for oddities and things like that. And when I'm writing for instance the Sunday Telegraph column, you look at the main subjects of the week and see if you've got anything of interest to say about them, usually not. And then you look at things which do seem quite interesting, which you might have something um amusing or worthwhile to say. It's simple as that. What gets your ire up, it seems to me most of all, is this thing you define as being the English disease?

Presenter17:47

Could you explain what you mean by that? Yeah, well the Engl England's got lots of diseases at the moment. I divide it really quite sharply on the River Trent. I think the the north of this country uh does have one particular disease, the south has got several others. Well let's let's start with north of the trent then. Yeah, north of the trent it seems to me they're obviously very nice people and very warm-hearted and all that. But uh it seems to me that they have no conception that in order to get anywhere you've got to do something. Uh they honestly think they've got a right to have a comfortable house, colour television, even central heating nowadays, provided for them and if they haven't got a job they've still got to have the same standard of living as they did when they had a job. I think it shows a profound well profound optimism perhaps that they think that the state is this godlike organisation which is just going to give them what they want. And it doesn't actually occur to them that if they ask too much money they'll be out of a job or if they don't do any work at all they'll be less well off than if they do. And from the south, up north no doubt it's all lovely and homely and they're all comforting each other and making clucking noises. But from the south it sounds like one almighty great whine that's going on up the north. I merely say that as a southerner obviously. The southern diseases are quite nasty and people are getting very hard-hearted and mean and careless about other people. But you know they're two separate diseases etc. But I mean isn't it also true that the works down here enough in the north? Yes for the very good reason that nobody's going to I mean where you've got a lot of idle hands anybody with a bit of money can make more money by setting them to work but not up the north because they're not really in a sort of employable state of mind. Also it seems to me I haven't got any money so I wouldn't invest anyway. If you read through this book here another voice or the list of this collection here it's a very sort of critical and almost pessimistic view of the society we live in. I mean don't you see there's any hope at all for the future? Not obviously no. By which I mean I'm not saying we're all going to die of starvation or anything like that. But I think things are going to go more and more downhill. Well in what way? Would what would you predict? Things are going to get dirty. The health services are going to get worse. The standard of general cleanliness is going to get worse. I think people are going to get ruder to each other.

Speaker 119:36

What are you getting?

Presenter19:45

The buildings are going to get uglier. You know, I just can't see any actual reason for optimism about that. But I still don't think it's a gloomy book, because although, as you say, it's a pessimistic book, I'd like to think that it has a bit of fun out of all this change and decay. Do you ever speculate, though, what would be the perfect society for you? What was the society that you'd really like to live in? What would it contain? Absolutely not. I think that road madness lies, and you get into politics, you do that, and you get people trying to rearrange the whole world to their own liking. I think the whole of human wisdom is to make your own little corner, cultivate your own garden, and you know, you you get yourself the wife you want, try and get yourself the children you want, get yourself the house you want, and you just work for those limited ambitions and make your own little corner. And I'm afraid you say this is typical callous selfishness. But I'm afraid that is the course of wisdom, that you just choose your own friends and stick to them. You don't try and make yourself a sort of popular figure unless that's what you want to do. But just jolly well find out what you want to do and do it. And as long as it doesn't annoy other people, I don't see why you shouldn't be a happy man at the end of it. Perhaps you're allowed to take this viewpoint because you were born perhaps more intelligent than most people. Yes, fine. Yes, I'm sure that if I was unemployed I'd be pleating about the community. But I'm not. And I think that the sanest way is if you if you can get out of that.

Speaker 119:54

Yeah.

Speaker 220:48

Yeah, it's fine.

Presenter20:57

wine, uh get out of it and and don't glorify it as the as the best thing to do.

Presenter21:02

Another choice of record. Yeah. Uh s you didn't mention one little stint in my career when after the uh school and before the army I went to live in Florence for a year. In theory of uh joining the university, but I never actually found the university. But I lived there on six pounds a week and we lived like kings anyway. Uh in a jukebox I heard this song from Traviato and it gave me a lifelong passion in fact for Italian opera. This is the famous drinking song sung by Calas in the part of Violetta, Li Biamo li Biamo.

Auberon Waugh21:43

And I'll just go for it. You could be in your

Presenter22:28

Auburn, we know through reading your columns and and things about your dislikes, as I've said, and particularly in the realms of people. I mean, there's Shirley Williams and and people like that. But who who do you admire? Is there anybody who you unstintingly admire? Not many people in public life, because I think by virtue of their being in public life they've got something desperately wrong with them. No, I'd have said the people I admire are all private people, people I know and and like. I don't think there's anybody in public life I'd say this is my sunshine. I think oh well I suppose yes, I'd admire fellow journalists who do a really good job. Who would they be? Well, I remember William Rhys Mogg, I used to think did a very good job as editor all those years ago. Uh somebody like Frank Johnson, Keith Waterhouse, nearly all fellow journalists or fellow writers, whom I just admire for their work, you know, because I think I think they do something very well.

Presenter23:16

You're now an editor yourself, of course, of the of the Literary Review. Is this going to be a long-term job, do you think? Or do you see Zoe coming in blasting away for a a year or so and then moving on to something else? Well, I don't know. I'm a bit worried, because my record is actually to keep jobs for a very long time on the whole. I've never had a job for less than three years. But I just don't know if I'm going to be up to this. I hope I am, because it requires entirely different skills, and at the moment I'm not really sure I've got them. Above all, it requires memory. And people wander into the office, and I haven't the faintest idea who they are, and I've seen the day before. And then people telephone, and I've just thanked them effusively for a beautiful review, and I've forgotten who they are again. And it is really I'm not the ideal person for this job. If I get on top of it, I'd like to stay with it, and I'd really like to get the literary review. Not in every home, obviously, that's madness. But I think there are about eighty to a hundred thousand people in this country who'd really enjoy it and profit from it. And if I could get to them, I'd be really happy. And then I'd sort of back out. What's the worst aspect of your absent-mindedness? What's the worst example you can think of? Oh, God, I I uh groan when I think of all the things I do every day. I think the very worst one was I got into a train once and saw a pretty girl sitting there. I said, Oh good, I'll sit opposite her.

Presenter24:22

And I sat down, and five minutes later she looked up from her book and said, Oh, hello, papa, and it was my own daughter, and I hadn't recognized her.

Presenter24:28

Let's add another choice of music. Yes, well the next song is chosen Pure Lee because I think it's one of the prettiest songs ever written from Don Giovanni, Laci dare M la Mano.

Speaker 124:44

Yeah

Auberon Waugh24:49

Ready on earth on the battle bar deep.

Auberon Waugh24:59

For raised nonpours,

Auberon Waugh25:23

Yeah.

Presenter25:27

Well Bryn, apart from the jobs you have now, do you have any future plans for writing? Is there any novel in you that you want to write? Any book there that's lurking beneath the surface? Yeah, there are two or three novels buzzing around, but I really can't get around to them for several years. I've got books coming up the whole time. I've got a

Speaker 125:36

Surface.

Presenter25:42

Book uh written with my wife actually coming out in October. She's doing the food, I'm doing the wine, it's a div an entertaining book for people who wish to entertain. I I go on churning out the stuff, uh but actually haven't got any ambitions, haven't had any for years, and I g maybe a bad sign that. All I'd really like to do is to keep things going. But I don't want to be Prime Minister, I don't want to marry a into the royal family or anything, and I really actually haven't got any ambitions yet. And don't even want to be much richer than I am.

Presenter26:08

And what about on this Desert Island? I mean, are you self-sufficient? Would you be able to cope with life there? No, I jolly well wouldn't. And what would really knock me sideways and I couldn't take would be uh not having somebody else. If I had a dear little wife who'd do the cooking uh and make the beds, not to mention put up tents and things, as indeed she does whenever very rare occasions we try in adventures of that sort. I'd be absolutely grand and very happy to stay there, but I couldn't bear it alone, no. Right, let's have your final choice then of your eight records for the Desert Island. This, I think, is just about as far as I go with the with the pop movement. I've rarely stopped at The Seekers. Judith Durham, I think, has one of the loveliest voices. People talk about Jen Sutherland for these Australian voices, and Judith Durham beats her into a cocktail every time. It's the Carnival is over. It's particularly appropriate now I've given up private eye and have got a serious job now in the Literary Review trying to improve British letters. Carnival is over with Judith Durham and The Seekers.

Auberon Waugh27:00

I, my own true lover, as we see all of the song, how it prays my heart to leave you. Now the God of all is gone.

Auberon Waugh27:24

High above, the dawn is waking.

Presenter27:31

Aubram, which would be the one record of the eight you've chosen that you'd choose to keep on your island, supposing the seven others were wiped away by some tidal wave or something. Yeah, well, I couldn't bear really any of the sort of single-song pop ones because they drive you mad after a time. I already know Pirates by heart, Pirates Benzans, and most of La Tragata. I think I'd take Don Giovanni, it's the one I know Lisa. I'd take the whole opera. I wouldn't just take that one little song instead of drive me mad. And what about the book?

Presenter27:55

I can't make up my mind. Either the Oxford Book of Quotations, which would be fascinating because you'd always be trying to, you know, you're given two lines of quotation, you'd you'd wonder what happened next, and you'd be thinking about it. I think that's the one I'd probably be happy to do. Otherwise, it'd just be a good anthology, something like Lord Wavell's Other Men's Flowers, and then I'd learn all the poems by heart, which would be quite a useful thing to do. I did it once as a child. I learnt the Dragon Book of Verse, and it's really stood me in good stead ever since. And what about the luxury object? What would that be? Well, I think I'd like to take a vine so that you could grow grapes and then make wine. In fact, my luxury would be wine, but it would be a way of making wine every year for the rest of my life. Thank you very much indeed.

Speaker 128:37

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