James Prior

Speaker 30:00

Hello, I'm Kirstie Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen eighty seven, and the presenter was Michael Parkinson.

Presenter0:30

Our castaway has always been an enterprising soul. At school, he kept pigs to feed the pupils. In the army, he dealt in Oriental carpets. It was, in the words of the immortal Arthur Daly, a nice little earner. Today, he continues a career as a successful farmer and is about to discontinue his job as a Member of Parliament. He's been an MP for more than 25 years and has served in two cabinets under two Prime Ministers, first Edward Heath and latterly, Mrs. Thatcher.

Presenter0:55

A colleague once described him as being the acceptable face of Conservatism, a moderate reformer in the best Tory tradition. He is Jim Pryor.

Presenter1:04

Mr. Pryor, first of all, could we get this entrepreneurial skills of yours into perspective? What were the circumstances of keeping pigs at school?

Presenter1:11

Yeah.

James Prior1:11

Uh

Presenter1:12

Well during the war we had r

James Prior1:12

Rationing

James Prior1:14

And um if you had a pig club you could keep half the meat, as it were, that you grew without having to give up your rations. And so at school I started a pig club and we thought everything was going well and we came to slaughter our first pigs.

James Prior1:30

And then suddenly we were told we had to give up all the rations and that was too much for us altogether. And the headmaster invited uh the minister of food down because I think he was godfather to a boy at the school and sat me next to him and uh I told him that this was absolutely scandalous and he'd got it all wrong. And uh unlike most ministers nowadays in my experience in government he went straight back and changed the rules.

James Prior1:54

So that was the first indication of Jim Pryor politician, was it? Yes, I mean I I didn't expect it to continue as a political uh

James Prior2:01

uh as it were life, but uh that's what happened. Let's talk about your your your taste in music. Do you come from a a musical background at all? None at all, really? No. I mean, I think I can sing in tune, and I've always had a yen to sing at a microphone, but I've never dared to do so. But no, I mean, I I like music. I am pretty Catholic taste, as I think you'll find out as we go along, but I like it with a bit of a tune and something I can hum, or I can sing in the bath, and so on.

Presenter2:29

Does this first uh record, the first choice, meet those requirements?

James Prior2:33

I don't think I could sing it in the bath exactly, but it has a lovely sort of uh melody and lilt about it and uh I'm fond of Tchaikovsky's music. Uh so I've chosen that as my first record. What is it exactly? Well, it's Tchaikovsky's violin concerto, the first movement. Igor Oustrack is the violinist and his father David Oustrach conducts it.

Presenter3:41

Elchaikovsky's violin concerto played by Igor Oustrag and the Moscow Philharmonic conducted there by David Oustrag.

Presenter3:48

mister Pryor, reading your book, The A Balance of Power, there's a a lovely portrait of your father in that, who you indicate was a man who started a newspaper by reading it backwards. I mean, I I always think that anybody whose father does that, they've come from a fairly good background. Was it though a political family as such?

James Prior4:04

No, not at all. I mean, we were a very keen games family, and it was a curious mixture, really, because my father used to read the back page of the newspaper. I don't think he ever looked at the front. And we always used to have morning prayers. After breakfast, every morning, we would have five minutes' prayers, and my father had to read the prayers, and he had the paper laid out on the floor in front of him as well, so that he could be looking at the stories about the football, or the racing, or the cricket, at the same time, and that was quite a feat, really. No, he was a great character, and uh I think he brought us up to have uh wide tastes and perhaps rather common tastes, but we were none of the worse for that. What was his job?

James Prior4:40

He was a lawyer really, and then towards the end of his life he went into business. But he was also an official receiver in bankruptcy. And uh as a small boy I used to be dragged round uh the farms of Norfolk when he had to deal with these terrible cases in the early thirties of farmers going bankrupt all over the place and really living in total abject poverty and that made quite a marked impression on me which has stayed with me ever since. One of the reasons actually why my father never wanted me to farm.

Presenter4:54

Mm-hmm.

Presenter5:08

What about the political ambition though? I mean at this time when you were a young young boy growing up with your with your family, what do you want to be? Do you want to play for England, I suppose, at cricket? That would be a

James Prior5:17

No, well, actually I didn't worry so much about playing cricket for England. I wanted certainly to play football for England. I mean, soccer was my first love, and I was actually quite a good soccer player as compared to a very, very ordinary cricketer. But, um no, I mean, at that time I'd made up my mind I wanted to be a farmer.

James Prior5:34

And uh so I didn't really think about anything else, and uh I always took a lively interest in current affairs, but uh no more than that. And it wasn't really until after I'd left university that I started to take much of an interest in politics. Let's have another choice of record.

James Prior5:51

Well, this is pure nostalgia. I suppose when I was about sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, seeing Casablanca and of course I fell in love with uh Ingrid Bergmann, who didn't. Didn't we all, yes. And uh I think uh I'd like anyhow to have the memory of as time goes by.

Presenter6:03

Yeah.

Speaker 46:10

Blood and love songs never out of date.

Speaker 46:16

Hearts full of passion and jealousy and hate.

Speaker 46:21

Woman need man, and man must have his way, that no one can deny.

Speaker 46:31

It's still the same old story, A fight for love and glory, A case of do or die.

Presenter6:41

Julie Wilson singing as time goes by from Casablanca. Let let's move on in your career now, to the point where you you were in the army and uh in your book you tell of going to India, where in fact you became a carpet salesman. And how did this

James Prior6:54

Well, just after the war there was a great shortage of um carpets in

James Prior6:58

England and uh

James Prior7:00

Well, you couldn't get them for love of money, and I realized in India that you could buy carpets pretty cheaply.

James Prior7:06

So I used to go down into the Indian market and buy a few carpets and ship them home and my father, who obviously appreciated my entrepreneurial spirit, used to flog them for me. I don't think they were very good carpets, but he always got rid of them and I made a very handsome profit on it.

James Prior7:22

So why you're in the army? It's wonderful. Bit of

Presenter7:25

Yeah. Freelance Enterprise

James Prior7:26

I don't think I committed any uh misdemeanours by doing so either.

Presenter7:30

What about the India at that time? This is the last days of the Raj, wasn't it? This is.

James Prior7:35

Yes, I mean, it was just the time when Wavell gave up as being Viceroy and Mountbatten came out and uh obviously independence was just round the corner. Do you know, I've often wondered since whether with instant television and uh the scenes now coming into everyone's home day after day, whether

James Prior7:53

Uh we could have got away with it in a way that we did then. I mean, there was vast massacres and uh a lot of distress, and I think it would have been.

James Prior8:02

a very difficult time for us, much more difficult than it was at that time. That's an interesting thought though. Well, you went to Germany after that to Yes, and I went to Germany because uh you see the War Office really hadn't realized the war was over. They were still sending us out to fight the Japanese and then

Presenter8:09

Yes, I'm

James Prior8:17

decided on the whole they didn't need us out there, th so they sent us straight back and I spent part of the summer watching Bill Edridge and uh Dennis Compton scoring runs at Lourdes and then I was shipped out to Germany.

James Prior8:30

And I spent um about nine months of my time in Berlin.

James Prior8:35

And Berlin was just devastated, and not only were the buildings all devastated, but the people were devastated too. And we were beginning to get to the stage where the Russians were playing up, although it was before the airlift started in forty eight.

James Prior8:51

And um

James Prior8:53

Oh, I don't know. There was a lot of disease, there was a lot of problems all round, and we spent our time either down in the Tiergarten, doing guard duties down there, or guarding the prisoners at Spandau.

Presenter9:05

Did it later on when you became a politician, did that background, that memory, have any effect on on shaping your political convictions at all?

James Prior9:12

I think it probably did a bit because I was also there at the time with someone who'd been my headmaster at school, Robert Burley, who was in charge of the education policy in the British zone.

James Prior9:25

And um

James Prior9:27

I think the influence there and the general feeling there was, by God, we mustn't let this thing happen again, and therefore we've really got to get together in Europe to stop it happening. And certainly I think

James Prior9:38

That really made me emotionally a European, which I've remained ever since.

James Prior9:44

Uh really, with no regrets at all, except I'd like to see Britain of anything even closer to Europe than it is.

James Prior9:50

Another choice of record, please, Mr. Proud. Oh, well, I I think because I spent some time in the Tiergarten and because there was a nightclub just opposite which caused us a great deal of trouble because the troops always got into the nightclub and got up to all sorts of things, I think I would like something to remember that by and I thought I'd better have uh Liza Manelli in cabaret.

Speaker 410:10

What good is sitting?

Speaker 410:13

All alone in your room

Speaker 410:16

Come.

Speaker 410:18

Hear the mute

Speaker 410:19

Music play

Speaker 410:23

Life is a

Presenter10:24

Let's go.

Speaker 410:26

Cabaret, old chunk

Speaker 410:31

Come to the Cavaray And as for me

Presenter10:38

Cabaret sung by Liza Minelli.

Presenter10:41

Let's move on now, mister Proud, to the point where you've you've gone to Cambridge University to study agriculture. I was interested to read that you spent some time within an industrial community and it that it had rather a profound effect upon you. What were the circumstances?

James Prior10:54

Well, I wanted to um know a bit more about tractors and machinery, and I was pretty bad on all that side of things, and so I wrote to Ford's at Dagenham, asking whether I could go on some courses there for agricultural machinery and so on.

James Prior11:07

And uh they wrote back and very kindly said yes, I could come whenever I liked, and I spent several weeks in various vacations on courses there.

James Prior11:16

But I don't think that was at all important. What was really important was that I stayed with a family who lived in a flat over the Liverpool Victoria Insurance Building, just on the main road there. And I learned from that family, which actually had moved down from Liverpool or Birkenhead, wherever it was, when Ford's actually moved down to Dagenham, I learned a tremendous amount about industrial life from that family. They were marvellous people. They were solid as a rock.

James Prior11:43

They were desperately worried even in 1948, 49, that they were going to produce too many cars and run themselves out of a job. And that was one lesson that I I learned. And I used to try and say to them in a rather sort of academic way, but surely if you produce more cars, you'll sell more cars and uh the cheaper you sell them the more you'll sell. But it was a very hard message to get across and I think that stood me in quite good stead of trying to understand people's views and reactions later on.

James Prior12:10

The other thing was that I'm absolutely certain they were strong Labour supporters, but they were also immensely patriotic people.

Presenter12:16

Hmm.

James Prior12:17

And I keep saying to some of my Tory colleagues over the years, don't forget that the real strength of Britain and its patriotism is founded in ordinary people, and it isn't something which you just find in the Shires and amongst the upper classes.

Presenter12:35

The other significant thing that happened to you too, of course, at university was that you met your wife, and you've been married now for more than thirty years. It was I think I'm right in saying though, a rather inauspicious start, wasn't it?

James Prior12:45

The first night of our honeymoon was, I suppose you could call it an inauspicious start, because we decided we would spend the first night at Claridge's. I mean, there was I, a proper country bumpkin, up from the country, and married in London, and uh we arrived at Claridge's, and the commissioner came and opened the doors and said, Good evening, my lord, and said to my wife, Good evening, my lady. Well, I thought that was probably normal practice at Claridge's, and we were ushered in and ushered up to the bridal suite. And my wife noticed after a little while that there was some dirty old luggage in one of the cupboards, and so she rang the bell and

James Prior13:22

A man came straight away and she said, Do you mind removing this luggage? What's it doing here? And he rushed out of the room and came back with the maidst hotel about two minutes later, who said, I'm afraid there's been some terrible mistake. You are Lord and Lady Dufrayne, aren't you? And we said, No, we're not. So they said to my wife, Would you mind moving? And so she said, Certainly, I'm not moving. I'm staying here. And so we had the bridal suite in Claridge's for five pounds, which is what we paid. And I suppose Lord and Lady Dufrayne had the box room for whatever they'd paid.

James Prior13:55

Let's have another record. Well, I've always liked uh musicals and I've ever since we've been married and before we were married been to most of the musicals, the Rogers and Hammerstein and so on. But uh I think probably the best musical since the war in both its tunes and its lyrics is uh Guys and Dolls. I think it's a splendid uh show and uh I've chosen from it When You See a Guy.

Speaker 414:19

Yes sir, when you see a guy reach for stars in the sky, you can't bet that he's doing it for some dollar. When you spot a John waiting out in the rain, chances are he's insane as only a John can be for a Jane.

Speaker 414:38

When you meet a gent paying all kinds of rent for a flat that could flatten the Taj Mahal, call it sad, call it.

Presenter14:50

As from the original Broadway production of Guys and Dolls, singers there were Stubby K and Johnny Silver.

Presenter14:56

You became a Member of Parliament, uh, Mr. Prowry, in nineteen fifty-nine.

Presenter15:00

I think I'm right in saying again that that when you went to the house, it was the first time you'd ever been there, wasn't it?

James Prior15:04

Yes, I suppose I could have gone two or three years before when I became a candidate, but uh I decided that as I hadn't a political background and as I hadn't been, I'd wait until I actually was elected if I was ever going to be elected, and so I hadn't ever been to Parliament before.

Presenter15:17

Cool. It seemed to me that there were giants around the house in those days. It was the time of Churchill, wasn't it? Yes, well, Churchill.

James Prior15:21

Yes, well Churchill was of course past his prime, but he was still a member of the House. Harold Macmillan was Prime Minister. Gateskill was leader of the opposition and Anarin Bevan was still making great speeches. There were mischievous giants on the back benches like Manny Schinmel and so on. So they were good days and for a young man who really hadn't had political ambitions at all to find himself in the House of Commons and amongst those people was really quite something. We used to I mean I used to call Harry Macmillan sir and almost bowed and scraped in front of cabinet ministers that time. I don't think they do that now. Who made the first impact on you? I suppose it really was Anarin Bevan because on the Queen's speech at the opening of Parliament when Harold Macmillan had had this great victory.

James Prior16:08

I always remember an Aaron Bevan leaning across the despatch box, and I'm paraphrasing it now, but what he really said was The Right Honourable Gentleman has had a great victory. What is he going to do with it? And in a strange sort of way,

James Prior16:22

Those words have haunted me all through my political career, because at times we've had considerable victories, and one's wanted to do a great deal, and one's wonders whether it's possible, and certainly in my own case they've haunted me to know whether what I was doing was really contributing.

Presenter16:38

Another choice of

James Prior16:38

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

James Prior16:39

Well, I suppose as I am leaving Parliament with a lot of very happy memories of both people and occasions.

James Prior16:46

Not a bad idea to have another musical and what a bad memory from uh Lloyd Weber's Cats, sung by I think Elaine Page, who I think's a super singer.

Speaker 416:58

Not a sound from the pavement.

Speaker 417:02

Has the moon lost her memory?

Speaker 417:07

She is smiling alone

Speaker 417:12

In the Lambland.

Speaker 417:15

The withered leaves collect at my feet

Speaker 417:21

Yeah.

Presenter17:26

That was the lame page singing Memory from Cats.

Presenter17:29

Mr. Pryor, can I now talk to you about uh your life in the House? As I say, you you served under two Prime Ministers, Mr. Heath and uh Mrs. Thatcher.

Presenter17:37

You had a very high regard for for mister Heath, didn't you?

James Prior17:40

Yes, I knew mister Heath well. I didn't know him well when I first got into the House, but I admired very much what he did in trying to take Britain into the European Community in nineteen sixty one and sixty two.

James Prior17:52

And uh then Sir Alec as he was in those days became Prime Minister and then Leader of the Opposition for a bit, and it never dawned on me actually that Mr Heath would very shortly take over as leader of the opposition, but I found myself uh called across to see him the day after he became leader of the opposition to become his parliamentary private secretary.

James Prior18:12

And I suppose partly because he was a bachelor.

James Prior18:15

and partly because we got on well together from that moment onwards. We became great friends, and although we've had our differences and our periods of

James Prior18:25

partial estrangement since I have a tremendously warm uh feeling for mister Heath and all that he tried to do. What are the qualities, would you say?

James Prior18:34

I think qualities of vision, qualities of determination, I mean, I don't think anyone else would have taken us into the community other than Mr. Heath. I mean, the problems that there were at that time. And I think also his tremendous struggles with Enoch Powell over the whole question of immigration, which nearly tore the Conservative Party apart. And then, of course, the problems he had with minors and so on. But, you know, the strange thing is that a lot of people would say that Mr. Heath fell out with the unions. Actually, if you talk to people like Jack Jones and Huey Scanlon, they'll tell you that they had a tremendously high opinion of him and thought that he was really very understanding of their point of view and a very good Prime Minister.

James Prior19:19

And so, um I'm fond of him and I admire him and uh we haven't always agreed, but he was a good man to serve in in the cabinet too. Do you think he he'd represent

Presenter19:29

Uh Uh

James Prior19:29

It's rather a forlorn figure now, though. I think he's getting out of it and getting over it. I think he did go through a period of deep disappointment in disappointment because

James Prior19:39

It wasn't so much that he was no longer Prime Minister or anything like that, but disappointment, I think, because he felt that people turned away from all that he'd tried to do. And I think he resented some of the things that were said afterwards. I mean, for example, people criticised him for s allowing so much money to be spent for public expenditure to go up so much. But there weren't many voices round the Cabinet table at the time saying we mustn't spend the money.

James Prior20:06

you know, on education or social services or whatever it was, there was demand for more and more money to be spent. And I think Ted was really trying to lift this country out of um a period of um what he thought was depression and slow growth into something better.

Presenter20:21

How do you compare misses Thatcher to mister Heath?

James Prior20:23

Well, Mrs Thatcher had very different qualities. She's uh more direct. I think she's better at um assessing uh popular opinion than uh mister Heath. She's also very challenging. When you put a paper to cabinet with Mrs Thatcher,

James Prior20:40

She wouldn't be long before she was asking you extremely challenging questions, and unless you'd really thought it out and done your homework, and were very strong at putting your particular case,

James Prior20:52

uh she'd get the better of you, and uh very often did.

James Prior20:56

And so I have a very considerable admiration for Mrs Thatcher, although I didn't personally find her such a congenial person to work with. But that may have been, I think, very largely my fault, and I certainly wouldn't want to say that Mrs Thatcher hasn't got good relations with people in Cabinet, because she obviously has. It's a matter of her style, is it? Maybe and I think I say this in my book in several places, maybe she was f far nearer to public opinion and what needed to be done than I was. But my style was always very much more the old Tory style of one nation and getting people to work together and so on. Mrs Thatcher was much more for confronting problems and I think in fairness making Britain face up to the problems. And

Presenter21:11

It's a m

James Prior21:37

That's a very difficult task, and I'm not certain it's one that has yet succeeded.

James Prior21:42

No choice of record. Well, I don't know whether it's very appropriate after what I've just said, but I was going to choose I vow to thee, my country, by host, but I was just thinking as we were talking then that I think it was the chaplain in the House of Commons who used to say every afternoon that he looked round the members and then prayed for the country. So perhaps it's not inappropriate to have this particular record.

Speaker 422:09

So thee my comfort being all earthly things all

Speaker 422:33

Oh no, it's at the death.

Speaker 422:38

As it is for the Lord.

Speaker 422:59

The love has been so forever.

Presenter23:10

I bow to thee, my country, sung by thee Saint Paul's Cathedral choir.

Presenter23:14

Mr Bryant, looking back at your career, it occurs to me that you've had two of the most difficult, or not to say impossible, jobs that any politician could take on. That's the being Minister for Employment and also being in charge at Northern Ireland.

Presenter23:26

I mean, the simple question I suppose to both situations is, is there an answer to either of them? Let's take employment first of all. I mean, is there an answer to the kind of unemployment we have at present?

James Prior23:35

Well, I think we could do more because if we manufactured more at home, we could employ a few more people, but not many. But we could create more wealth, which could then lead to the employment of people in service industries and so on. And I mean, one of the

James Prior23:50

Really, dreadful things of the last, shall I say, fifteen or sixteen years has been the fact that our manufacturing output has been absolutely stagnant at a time when other countries have been expanding those very rapidly. And we're buying more and more of other people's goods, and therefore more and more we're creating jobs in other countries and creating unemployment in Britain. So I do think that if we could really pull ourselves together and produce the goods that people want to buy in greater volume and people were prepared to buy British goods like cars and refrigerators and washing machines and television sets and so on, then I think we could help ourselves. We won't cur the unemployment problem that way. I think we've got to keep people on at school or in training. I'm not saying necessarily education, but in training of some sort until they're a minimum of eighteen years old. And I think we probably have to retire people earlier. But we've got to become a richer country in order to be able to do it, and it's really a chicken and egg situation. So I don't despair of it, although obviously as a country gets richer, as technology takes over more, people are not going to work for as longer hours or perhaps for as long a life as they've had to work in the past. Now that may not be a bad thing. Now what about Northern Ireland?

James Prior25:04

Well, I have to say that uh

James Prior25:07

I enjoyed my period in all Switzerland.

Presenter25:08

Did you

James Prior25:09

and so did my wife and we look back on that period with many happy memories of enormous hospitality and kindness that was shown to us.

James Prior25:19

mixed in, I suppose, with a few really desperate moments, and I never got used to the reports of murders and casualties and the sorrow and suffering that so many people in Northern Ireland have.

James Prior25:33

But I have to say as well that uh I don't believe that the English can find a solution to the

James Prior25:40

Northern Irish or the Irish problem. I think it has to be a solution which the people of Northern Ireland find for themselves.

James Prior25:48

and all I pray is that they do so without further bloodshed. And I have to go on to say that um I think it's sad to see so many really marvellous people in such a lovely country uh destroying themselves in the way that they are.

James Prior26:06

Another choice of record, please, Mr Pry. I wanted to have something that um reminded me of my time in Northern Ireland.

James Prior26:15

And um I used to have quite a lot to do with the Harnad and Wolfe shipyard, which I did my best to keep going, and had some very good uh relationships with both the unions. In fact, the unions wrote me a letter when I left, thanking me for what I'd done. You don't get that very often as a Tory minister. And um James Galway, who I find a

James Prior26:33

a fascinating character and plays um the flute brilliantly. Used to work in Hondenwolf, and his father, I think, still works in Hondenwolf shipyard.

James Prior26:43

And I met James Galway more on more than one occasion, but on the last occasion I met him was um

James Prior26:49

at a concert in St John's Smith Square where he was playing in front of the Queen Mother and it was a superb performance. So I thought I'd like to hear James Galway playing Claire de Lune.

Presenter28:00

It was played alone played by James Galway and the pianist was Anthony Goldstone.

Presenter28:05

Mr. Pryor, as I say, you're you're retiring from uh Parliament when the next election comes along, whenever that might be. Would you be sad to leave the the House?

James Prior28:13

I suppose there's bound to be sadness at something you're leaving after, what, twenty seven, twenty eight years, and I should be very sad in some ways to give up the constituency side, although I shall go on living in my constituency for the rest of my life.

James Prior28:26

So uh yes, there will be sad times, but uh on the whole I've had a good run and I leave without any regrets and I'm very busy doing my share I hope in industry now as well as still farming and so uh I've got plenty to do and I wanted to leave whilst I was still not too old, I put it that way, to do something else and uh so I've got plenty to occupy my time and I'm not having any withdrawal symptoms so far.

Presenter28:51

What will you not miss about about the house? I mean, what's the thing you'd be glad to be rid of?

James Prior28:56

Oh, I should be glad to be I mean I hope the Chief Whip's not listening to this because the thing I was going to say I'd be glad of not having to waste hours waiting for the next division and staying up at all hours of the day and night. I have to admit that I haven't done that in recent years and if the Chief Whip heard me say that he'd say, Well, you better come more often. But there is a certain degree of drudgery in the House of Commons. And of course the other thing is that

James Prior29:22

Most politicians have pretty rough weekends. You don't get much spare time at weekends, and I shall be quite glad to have more of my weekends to myself. And

Presenter29:30

So

James Prior29:31

Most Saturday mornings for the last twenty eight years uh not quite so much now, but most Saturday mornings I have spent having interview sessions, and uh it's very nice to have a few more Saturday mornings to oneself.

James Prior29:44

Final choice of record, mister Prattley.

Presenter29:46

Uh

James Prior29:47

Well, I've talked a lot about Europe and my commitment to Europe, which by no means everyone would agree with, but now I thought uh a little bit of uh Beethoven's Ninth, the uh Ode to Joy, the European Anthem, would be a fitting note to end on.

Speaker 430:02

Uh

Speaker 430:03

But what I live for every reason for the living project, I live for every

Presenter31:03

They owed to joy from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony performance there conducted by Herbert Boncarian.

Presenter31:09

mister Pryor, you're now on this desert island. Are you going to enjoy it, do you think?

James Prior31:13

Not for long.

Presenter31:14

Yeah.

James Prior31:14

But for a little while.

Presenter31:15

You're trying to get away with you as soon as possible.

James Prior31:16

So that's why I

Presenter31:19

Now, what about the one record you'd you'd care to keep? Imagine seven have been washed away, you're allowed one.

James Prior31:24

Well, I think it's got to be the Tchaikovsky, because although my balance of records is probably um rather more populist than classical, I think that if you're going to play a record a lot of times, as presumably one would,

James Prior31:37

It's got to be classical and it's got to be really good, and so I think I'll choose a violin concerto.

Presenter31:42

What about the book? You assume we've got on the island the the Bible and the works of Shakespeare?

James Prior31:46

I'm glad we've got the works of Shakespeare, because I think I ought to spend a bit of time doing that.

James Prior31:51

But I thought I'd like to it's rather

James Prior31:53

mundane in a way. I thought I'd take the Times World Atlas with me, because I've done a lot of travelling and I think I could spend a lot of time going through the travels I've had and perhaps planning some fresh travels, and so uh that would keep me fairly busy.

Presenter32:07

What about the luxury object?

James Prior32:09

Well, I'm gonna take some golf clubs and um

James Prior32:13

a lot of balls,'cause I shall lose a lot of balls and I shall knock'em out to see.

Presenter32:20

Jim Pryor, thank you very much indeed.

Speaker 332:28

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