Sir Nicholas Goodison

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

Presenter0:31

Among his many achievements, our castaway is the author of the standard reference book on English Barometers. This, one Wagg commented, made him a formidable leader because he knew all about pressure. He certainly showed his qualities recently when he led one of our most conservative institutions through a series of dramatic reforms. He is the chairman of the Stock Exchange, Sir Nicholas Goodison.

Presenter0:53

So Nicholas, I should tell the listener that we're in fact doing this interview twenty-two stories up in your very imposing office on the site of the original stock exchange I think.

Sir Nicholas Goodison1:04

Yes, the stock exchange moved here in eighteen one, and we've never moved since. We did, in fact, rebuild this building on this site without any disruption to the market, in about nineteen sixty eight to seventy three.

Sir Nicholas Goodison1:15

Let's not talk about

Presenter1:15

About the the music side of your life, because you've uh you've got m many and and varied interests. I see that that you're vice chairman of the English National Opera. Would that be an indication of where you're real

Sir Nicholas Goodison1:27

Music lovers. Well, I'm thrilled to be involved with the English National Opera. It's a perfectly wonderful company. Ever since it moved to the Coliseum in 1972, and it was the Sadler's Wells opera at that time, it has performed wonders. And it is our great national opera company today, singing in English, using largely English singers. And that is the culmination for me of a long interest in music. I never thought I'd be interested in opera. We'll come to that later, perhaps. Why I got interested in opera. But what about music? What about music?

Presenter1:59

But what about music? What about world interests?

Sir Nicholas Goodison2:01

Uh

Presenter2:01

Uh

Sir Nicholas Goodison2:01

Music Where did that start? Well, I was very lucky, I think, as a boy. I was in the school choirs and

Presenter2:02

Well it does.

Sir Nicholas Goodison2:08

My father, of course, played uh

Sir Nicholas Goodison2:10

Beethoven and Brahms and Tchaikovsky, not much else incidentally, on the old scratchy grammar phone, so I became quite familiar with the major symphonies, and I got a tremendous kick out of church music.

Presenter2:25

What about your first choice of record?

Sir Nicholas Goodison2:27

Oh, I'd like to go for the Bach B minor mass.

Sir Nicholas Goodison2:31

Uh because I was very lucky I sang in the

Sir Nicholas Goodison2:35

school choir at Marlborough. I sang in the University Musical Society at Cambridge and then I sang in the Bach Choir when I left Cambridge. So

Sir Nicholas Goodison2:46

I'd like a piece of real choral music.

Sir Nicholas Goodison2:49

And I'd like to play the Consancto Spiritu from Bach's B minor Mess.

Presenter3:57

Part of the Bach B minor Maas, the performance conducted by Helmut Rilling.

Presenter4:03

Sir Nicholas, what about your

Sir Nicholas Goodison4:05

Parents. I mean, what what did your father do? Well, father was a stockbroker. He went into his father's business because my grandfather founded the firm which I later joined.

Sir Nicholas Goodison4:15

But he his career was interrupted by the Second War when he

Sir Nicholas Goodison4:20

Went off when I was five years old to join the Air Force, and then of course came back in 1945 and rejoined the Stock Exchange.

Presenter4:28

Was there a a sense that you were always going to take over your father's business? I mean, was there never a moment when you thought you might do something else?

Sir Nicholas Goodison4:36

My father advised me quite strongly not to. Did he? I think that stockbreakers always do that to their sons. There's uh never quite the future that mirrors the past. I did work in the family firm that was then only about fourteen people in all, incidentally, in a terrible grotty old office in the city, covered in dust, with upright desks along the walls where you licked on the stamps.

Sir Nicholas Goodison5:00

I worked there in my school holidays several times, and so I got to know the people.

Sir Nicholas Goodison5:04

And then when I finished university,

Sir Nicholas Goodison5:06

He said very diffidently, Would I like to come to the office on a trial basis? And so I did. I nearly left after two years to go teaching.

Sir Nicholas Goodison5:16

But in the end you'll get to know everybody and you'll get to know the staff, you'll get to know the clients, you'll ha make friends and

Sir Nicholas Goodison5:22

It's better to stay and enjoy it and develop it.

Presenter5:25

The idea of of of being a stockbroker indicates to me someone who's uh who's uh magical with with money, who has a great flair for handling cash. Di did you always have this this flair? I mean, for instance, as a schoolboy, were you good with your pocket money?

Sir Nicholas Goodison5:40

Didn't get you a deprived child, you dressed up. I think the young today have a great deal more pocket money than we had in our day. But yes, we were taught to be careful. My father was very careful and frugal and uncertain that the war had an effect on him.

Presenter5:40

Bye.

Presenter5:42

I think

Sir Nicholas Goodison5:52

In that way. Do you know, I don't think that stockbroking is really all that much about money. Certainly not the sort of stockbreaking that I went into in the late 1950s. It's much more about people. It's about looking after people and making sure that their financial affairs are fitted to their particular needs and their particular family circumstances.

Presenter6:14

Are you still careful with money? I mean, is that is that a prerequisite you think of being successful in the city?

Presenter6:20

I'm not speculating, so to speak.

Sir Nicholas Goodison6:22

I think

Presenter6:22

Uh

Sir Nicholas Goodison6:22

that people make successes out of different careers in the city. Because there are many types of stockbreaking. I've just described the sort of stockbreaking which is involved with looking after individual people, looking after families, looking after charities, looking after schools and so on and so forth.

Sir Nicholas Goodison6:40

There are of course many other tasks.

Sir Nicholas Goodison6:43

There's looking after the great institutions, the pension funds and the insurance companies and doing the analytical research necessary to service those very big accounts. And I've been very lucky. I've had experience of that as well.

Sir Nicholas Goodison6:57

I would like to play part of Benjamin Britton's serenade for tenor, horn, and strings, which he wrote in nineteen forty three. And I'd like to do this partly because I came across it very early in life, and it was very striking partly because it's sung by Peter Peirce.

Sir Nicholas Goodison7:14

and the horn is played by Dennis Braine, and of course above all because it shows tremendous musical ingenuity in the setting of some quite lovely English lyrical poems.

Speaker 47:33

The invisible one that flies in the night.

Speaker 47:44

Are we strong?

Speaker 47:51

On those I've given

Sir Nicholas Goodison7:55

And all

Speaker 47:57

The joy and is a dark sweet word.

Speaker 48:08

God's life

Speaker 48:14

I fest room.

Presenter8:26

It was part of Britain's serenade for tenor, horn and strings.

Presenter8:30

Sir Nicholas, what was it like when you first came here, the Stock Exchange? What kind of an institution was it?

Presenter8:37

Yeah.

Sir Nicholas Goodison8:37

But when I was elected to the chair it was already uh changing.

Sir Nicholas Goodison8:41

and the vision of the future was quite a new vision.

Sir Nicholas Goodison8:45

Twenty-five years ago or so, the Stock Exchange was a fairly closed institution. The members were looking after a largely domestic market.

Sir Nicholas Goodison8:54

The great institutional investors have not really grown up because they've grown up through a combination of rising wages and inflation.

Sir Nicholas Goodison9:03

And I don't believe anybody who brought in funded pension schemes in the late nineteen fifties had any idea how big those pension schemes would eventually become.

Sir Nicholas Goodison9:11

And the international business, which was very big in London before the war, had largely died away because of exchange controls that were imposed in nineteen thirty nine, temporarily, you may remember.

Sir Nicholas Goodison9:21

And so it was a fairly domestic institution.

Sir Nicholas Goodison9:25

When I was elected chairman in nineteen seventy six,

Sir Nicholas Goodison9:28

The vision was already changing, the business was becoming more international, technology was coming in.

Sir Nicholas Goodison9:35

And those two are far and away the most important causes of the changes that we've seen recently. And I think my job in

Sir Nicholas Goodison9:42

the last ten or so years has been to try and steer the process of change that was caused by those two big influences into the correct posture for the future.

Sir Nicholas Goodison9:54

Another choice of record, please.

Sir Nicholas Goodison9:56

I would like to have another piece by an English composer because I'm very proud of the

Sir Nicholas Goodison10:02

English Achievement in Music in the Twentieth Century.

Sir Nicholas Goodison10:06

And I would like a bit of Michael Tippett's concerto for Double String Orchestra.

Sir Nicholas Goodison10:13

Because it shows tremendous melody and rhythmic ingenuity.

Presenter11:19

That was part of Tippett's concerto for Devlesting Orchestra, performed conducted by Rudolf Barsheim.

Presenter11:26

So Nicholas, they

Presenter11:27

The so-called Big Bang got tremendous uh publicity in the press. It was media was full of it for a long, long time.

Presenter11:36

Nice dramatic title. There must have been times when you hated the mom moment it was invented.

Sir Nicholas Goodison11:42

Uh

Presenter11:42

Uh

Sir Nicholas Goodison11:42

I think you're right.

Presenter11:43

Uh

Sir Nicholas Goodison11:43

The media hyped the date october twenty seventh far too much. It was a significant date because that was the day on which we abolished the fixed commission system and altered the dealing system.

Presenter11:44

Uh

Sir Nicholas Goodison11:57

within the Stock Exchange. And the first of those two I agreed with the Government that I would do by the end of 1986.

Sir Nicholas Goodison12:07

The second was simply a result of that agreement, not part of the agreement.

Sir Nicholas Goodison12:11

But to know

Sir Nicholas Goodison12:12

Far and away a more important date is actually November the twelfth, when the members of the Stock Exchange voted to alter the old Stock Exchange constitution and agreed to get together with all the

Sir Nicholas Goodison12:26

international banks and international securities houses who happen to be in London, all the American houses, Japanese houses, Canadian houses, Germans and all the rest.

Sir Nicholas Goodison12:34

That will be seen by history as the culmination of all the changes which we have been trying to implement in the last four or five years.

Presenter12:42

But what would have happened?

Sir Nicholas Goodison12:43

Yet had we not done that.

Sir Nicholas Goodison12:45

We would have found ourselves competing against other great capital markets in the world, particularly New York, Tokyo.

Sir Nicholas Goodison12:53

for example, on uneven terms. The whole aim of what we're doing is to cement and send forward a tremendous British success story.

Sir Nicholas Goodison13:06

The London capital market will emerge, in my view, as one of the major, if not the major, capital market for industry throughout the world and governments throughout the world, and that is the aim.

Presenter13:18

Uh Yeah.

Sir Nicholas Goodison13:18

Yeah. Uh

Presenter13:19

Have another choice.

Sir Nicholas Goodison13:19

Two.

Presenter13:19

Record.

Sir Nicholas Goodison13:20

One of the events that I most regret missing in my life was the farewell concert at the Festival Hall for the great accompanist Gerald Moore on the twentieth of february, nineteen sixty seven.

Sir Nicholas Goodison13:32

Win Elizabeth Schwartzko from Dietrich Risadiska and Victoria to Los Angeles.

Sir Nicholas Goodison13:36

that sang to him, I think, is the best description. I can't pretend that he was always the accompanist. He was doing a bit of showing off as well. It was a wonderful occasion. And that record not only gives me I think it's eight composers, it also gives me a feeling of live human contact because it was a live recording. Let's have a piece of Rossini. Let's have Elizabeth Schwasko from Victoria at Los Angeles singing one of Rossini's duets, a light-hearted piece, one of his duets from La Regata Veneziana, where they're cheering on the rival gondoliers.

Speaker 414:38

I feel my shoe.

Presenter15:11

That was part of the recording of the fellow concert tour Gerald Moore.

Presenter15:15

Sir Nicholas

Presenter15:16

You've written the standard reference book on on English barometers sixteen eighty two to eighteen sixty. How did that interest start?

Sir Nicholas Goodison15:22

How did that

Sir Nicholas Goodison15:24

We married in nineteen sixty and we bought a fairly cheap barometer in Stamford and I wanted to find out something about it and by the time I had found out something about it that took about six months of delving into the British Museum and so on.

Sir Nicholas Goodison15:36

It was obvious that I knew rather more about barometers than any published book.

Sir Nicholas Goodison15:40

knew about barometers and so it turned into a book.

Presenter15:43

What about your other interests too? Because you're you are a very very busy man apart from you're president of the Antiquarian Horological Society.

Presenter15:50

You're chairman of the Cotold Institute. You're on the National Arts Collection Fund. You've also written a standard work on Omelu, the work of Matthew Bolton. Where do you find time to do all these things?

Sir Nicholas Goodison16:03

Yes, well after writing the barometer book I was going to write a book about a clockmaker who features in the barometer book, but I then met a clock that was by the particular clockmaker, but in a case obviously made by Matthew Bolton's workshop in Birmingham.

Sir Nicholas Goodison16:19

And so I went to Birmingham to see whether there was any documentation, because I knew Bolton and Whitehurst, the clockmaker, were great friends.

Sir Nicholas Goodison16:26

And blamed on I found

Sir Nicholas Goodison16:28

some nine letters describing the manufacture of that particular clock, so that turned into an article for the connoisseur. In due course, delving through all the Bolton archives in Birmingham, I wrote the Bolton book, which is far the better book of the two, incidentally. It's about the great entrepreneur, Matthew Bolton, who was responsible for marketing James Watt's steam engine later. But before he did that he was a major producer of buttons, buckles, trinkets, metalwork, silver. I enjoyed writing that book, which was not only about the decorative arts and the designs, but also about the production techniques and the manufacture and the salesmanship and the finance.

Presenter17:08

Uh yes, I was going to make that point. That it had a significance beyond the original that you thought he had when you started investigating.

Sir Nicholas Goodison17:13

Oh yes, and a great significance, of course, to what I do today, because it was a study of how an eighteenth century factory was run.

Sir Nicholas Goodison17:22

Another choice of record, please.

Sir Nicholas Goodison17:24

I don't understand this piece of music. This is Messian's Quartet for the End of Time.

Presenter17:27

That's a gunk.

Presenter17:28

This

Sir Nicholas Goodison17:32

I'm interested in it because uh I was introduced to it most surprisingly by my father, who I said earlier was only interested in Beethoven and Mozart.

Sir Nicholas Goodison17:40

Uh he was

Sir Nicholas Goodison17:42

Very taken by it, Ne Mession wrote it as a prisoner of war.

Sir Nicholas Goodison17:46

at the beginning of the Second War.

Sir Nicholas Goodison17:49

It's based on a passage in the Revelation of St. John the Divine.

Sir Nicholas Goodison17:53

talking about there will no longer be time.

Sir Nicholas Goodison17:57

And it's written for

Sir Nicholas Goodison17:59

a quartet of piano, violin, clarinet, and cello, because those are the instrumentalists who happened to be in prison with him. He played the piano himself, incidentally. I'm hoping that in my long evenings in this island I'll begin to understand this extraordinary music.

Presenter19:14

as part of Messian's Quartet for the End of Time.

Presenter19:17

Sir Nicholas, another of your your interests, and passion indeed is furniture. How did that start?

Sir Nicholas Goodison19:22

That started in the early 1960s, again after I'd or no, while I was writing the barometer book, because I met a lot of people.

Sir Nicholas Goodison19:31

in, for example, the Victorian Albert Museum's furniture department.

Sir Nicholas Goodison19:35

And in nineteen sixty four the Furniture History Society was founded. I was very nearly a founder member, not quite.

Sir Nicholas Goodison19:41

And that contained and does contain today within its membership all the leading furniture historians in the world, and it's been a fascinating

Sir Nicholas Goodison19:50

A group to belong to her.

Sir Nicholas Goodison19:51

Because you learn a lot that way and make contact that way. My particular academic interest has been in the eighteenth century neoclassical.

Sir Nicholas Goodison20:01

uh decorative art and furniture, which is of course another reason why I wrote the book on Bolton.

Presenter20:07

What it it seems to me that you you're interested in people who make clocks, you're interested in people who make furniture, you're interested in people who craftsman artists with their with their hands.

Presenter20:17

Is this something perhaps that you would like to have done yourself?

Sir Nicholas Goodison20:19

Yes, I would. I've my wife would tell you that one of my constant frustrations is not being able to paint or draw or do such practical things, and I always put them aside, as everybody does, as things to be done later. So I'm very much looking forward to getting some practice on this island.

Presenter20:34

Ah, well that's that's a point of course. I mean you you think you might be practical enough to make a boat perhaps to escape on.

Sir Nicholas Goodison20:40

Oh, I shall make quite a lot, I think, once I have made the tools.

Presenter20:43

Yeah. Boop.

Sir Nicholas Goodison20:44

Another choice of record.

Sir Nicholas Goodison20:46

I think it's time I turned to opera.

Sir Nicholas Goodison20:49

And I'd like to play parts of

Sir Nicholas Goodison20:52

Wagner's Tristan and Isolde.

Sir Nicholas Goodison20:55

I I do this because unusually I came to opera through Tristan and Isolde. It all happened by mistake. I I really hated opera.

Sir Nicholas Goodison21:03

until I went to Cambridge, and I was sitting in my room one afternoon,

Sir Nicholas Goodison21:08

And I heard this extraordinary music coming from down the passage. So I got up and went out of the door and along the passage and went through that door and

Sir Nicholas Goodison21:15

There was somebody inside, and I asked him what the music was, and he said it's Tristan, expecting that I knew what Tristan meant, which I didn't.

Sir Nicholas Goodison21:22

And uh that's how I came to opera.

Sir Nicholas Goodison21:25

So I would like to take with me the recording that I heard on that day, which was Wilhelm Furtwengler conducting with Kirsten Flagstadt and Ludwig Sutta singing Tristana Des Honor.

Presenter22:35

Part of Wagner's Tristan Nisolde conducted by Wilhelm Flirtwingler.

Presenter22:39

So Nicholas, can I talk about one of your hobbies and again your passions, the National Arts Collection Fund? What's the specific purpose of this organisation?

Sir Nicholas Goodison22:49

It's the major national charity which tries to finance purchases of works of art for museums and galleries throughout the country, sometimes, of course, saving great works that might otherwise go abroad.

Presenter23:00

Well we've seen in recent times of course the uh these are works of art being auctioned for astronomical sums. I suppose that this means that your work becomes A more important and B more difficult.

Sir Nicholas Goodison23:12

Yes, the prices do make it very difficult, but sometimes, you know, we act as a pump primer for other people who are going to give money, or indeed we close that gap that couldn't otherwise be afforded. So we we have a very important role, and if you go round the country, you'll find that every museum, virtually, has benefited from our help.

Sir Nicholas Goodison23:30

Do you think that that in this country we care about our works of art? Well, nothing like enough.

Sir Nicholas Goodison23:34

I'm amazed, for example, that there are only twenty thousand members of the National Art Collections Fund.

Sir Nicholas Goodison23:39

But what a

Presenter23:39

What about what about a go I mean, are they helpful to you or not?

Sir Nicholas Goodison23:43

Well, the Government did thankfully set up the National Memorial Heritage Fund, but it didn't give it anything like enough money. It should have had much more, because you may remember it was a fund set up after the war.

Sir Nicholas Goodison23:54

And the government in the 1950s took its money away and then didn't set it up again until a few years ago. So it ought to be a much bigger fund than it is.

Sir Nicholas Goodison24:03

Is there

Presenter24:03

Is there a danger that in in future if we don't improve the situation that we're going to actually have a a massive bleeding of our works apart from this country?

Sir Nicholas Goodison24:12

It's happened already. We're amazingly lucky because our forebears in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries built up these fabulous collections, but they have been drained away at a rapid rate.

Presenter24:22

Yeah.

Sir Nicholas Goodison24:22

Yeah.

Presenter24:22

We're in danger of of losing even more of them.

Sir Nicholas Goodison24:24

Oh yes, because uh with the best will in the world estate duty still bites and if works of art get to very high prices you get great

Sir Nicholas Goodison24:34

house owners selling the works of art in order to

Sir Nicholas Goodison24:37

keep up the drains or keep the roof on or keep the estate going. And there are some tragic houses in this country where if you go you'll find that the main rooms have been emptied of the furniture, for example, and the decorative arts. There might still be a few pictures there, but in many houses even those have gone. So let's not believe that, although some of the houses look secure, that they really are.

Presenter24:56

Yeah. But given this situation which would seem to to be critical from what you're saying, what what needs to be done then?

Sir Nicholas Goodison25:02

I believe that the National Heritage Fund ought to be bigger.

Sir Nicholas Goodison25:07

I think that there are changes in the tax system that would be helpful. For example, the government ought to allow one-off gifts from individuals to go against tax instead of sticking to this four-year covenant which people find so restrictive.

Sir Nicholas Goodison25:23

And I hope more and more people would join organisations like ours to help.

Sir Nicholas Goodison25:29

But

Presenter25:29

Choice of

Sir Nicholas Goodison25:29

Rep

Presenter25:29

Back up this

Sir Nicholas Goodison25:31

Opera again.

Sir Nicholas Goodison25:33

I really can't sit on my island without Mozart's Marriage of Figaro. I'm sure many others have chosen it, but it really is the classic opera.

Sir Nicholas Goodison25:43

So I would like the duet in which the Countess Rosina is dictating the letter to Susannah to inveigle the Count into the garden.

Speaker 426:02

And then the seven is for the day.

Sir Nicholas Goodison26:07

What

Presenter26:51

It's the latter song from Mozart's opera Margia Figaro, performed by Jesse Norman Mirella Freini, and that was the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Colin Davis.

Presenter27:01

So Nicholas, let's now talk about this passion of yours for opera. Why particularly opera? What what is it about opera that particularly fascinates you?

Sir Nicholas Goodison27:09

Or maybe like Saint Paul on the way to Damascus I was rather a late convert, and therefore it takes me more strongly than perhaps it takes those who were always brought up with it. But I do feel very strongly about it. I I believe it's the

Sir Nicholas Goodison27:22

more or less the perfect performing art form.

Sir Nicholas Goodison27:26

It com combines drama and music, and of course music can tell you so much about a drama.

Sir Nicholas Goodison27:32

And I find that a fascinating combination.

Presenter27:36

What about some of the recent happenings in opera? Let me think specifically of the furore there's been about the use of subtitles at Covent Garden and elsewhere. What do you think about that?

Sir Nicholas Goodison27:48

But at the English National Opera we perform all operas in English, except on very rare occasions, and the purpose of that is to help audiences to understand the opera, and especially young audiences who don't really

Sir Nicholas Goodison28:01

necessarily understand the language of the opera they've come to see and would very much like to learn about it. So I think we perform a very useful function. I needn't remind you that it wasn't until the

Sir Nicholas Goodison28:11

Well after the last war that even Coffin Garden began to normally sing opera in the original language.

Presenter28:18

So why shouldn't we go back to that as a general rule? Yeah.

Sir Nicholas Goodison28:21

I believe there are people who like hearing opera in the original language, and after all the music in many cases was written for the original language, and it's very difficult to fit English to music that was written for, say, Czech or Russian or even Italian.

Sir Nicholas Goodison28:37

And so there is a case, uh a strong artistic case, for performing in the original language, and I I think it's nice to have the option.

Presenter28:43

What about those people who can see no reason why opera should be as heavily subsidized as it is? What would you say to them?

Sir Nicholas Goodison28:50

Well, opera's always been subsidized. The kings in the eighteenth century subsidized opera, and the state today is performing the role of kings.

Sir Nicholas Goodison28:58

Weather it.

Sir Nicholas Goodison28:59

Always needs in many cases the lavish productions that sometimes people give it is questionable. I sometimes believe, and certainly the English National Opera, we've achieved it, that

Sir Nicholas Goodison29:10

Productions could be cheaper.

Presenter29:12

Another choice of record, this necklace.

Sir Nicholas Goodison29:14

Well, my last choice is a gain opera. I believe that uh Janacek is really not appreciated enough in this country, despite the noble efforts of Charles Makaris, who almost single-handed has brought Janacek to this country and played all his operas and done such a wonderful job in popularizing him.

Sir Nicholas Goodison29:34

I would like a bit of

Sir Nicholas Goodison29:35

Katya Kabanova.

Sir Nicholas Goodison29:37

Because it's a drama of immense strength and great musical economy, and very lyrical.

Sir Nicholas Goodison29:42

Here is Katja telling Vavara about her early youth and how she used to go to church and hear the angels singing in the dome like birds.

Speaker 429:55

Yes, sir, it

Speaker 430:01

With Peter's Monday, there's a name.

Speaker 430:07

The world is free.

Presenter30:56

as Elizabeth Soderstrom in Janice Kacek Kubanova.

Presenter31:00

The performance conducted by Sir Charles McCarras.

Presenter31:03

So Nicholas, you're now on your desert island. You have to decide of the eight records, you've got seven are washed away, some awful tidal wave, you're left with one. Which would it be and why?

Sir Nicholas Goodison31:15

I find that I'm left with the Benjamin Britton serenade. I think that must be because I really love English lyrical poetry and I do greatly admire that piece of music.

Presenter31:25

And what about the book? Assume that you have the the Bible and that you have the complete works of Shakespeare on the island.

Sir Nicholas Goodison31:31

I hope you will allow me to take the very big Oxford Dictionary.

Presenter31:36

Uh

Sir Nicholas Goodison31:36

How many volumes is there? It's at least thirteen, if not fourteen. I want to take it because I'm fascinated by the English language, and if you ever open it, you'll find yourself never closing it again. You wander on from word to word. I also think I might be able to reconstruct quite a lot of English literature.

Sir Nicholas Goodison31:53

because so much of it is quoted in it.

Presenter31:55

What about the

Sir Nicholas Goodison31:56

Luxury object Inanimate. Well, this really will test the BBC's ingenuity.

Sir Nicholas Goodison32:01

I want something that will

Sir Nicholas Goodison32:03

Tell me about the marvel that is known as man and his craftsmanship.

Sir Nicholas Goodison32:09

And equally, something that is very beautiful and which will remind me of the sort of studies of art which I've been privileged to enjoy during my life. So I want

Sir Nicholas Goodison32:20

Uh a statue by Bernini.

Sir Nicholas Goodison32:23

And I would particularly like you to go along to the Borghese Palace in Rome and remove his Apollo and Daphne, which he made in his twenties. It's a it's a miracle.

Presenter32:33

Sir Nicholas, but for you. Sir Nicholas Goodison, thank you very much indeed.

Speaker 332:46

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