Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Desert Island Discs
Presented by Michael Parkinson
Golf commentator whose voice became synonymous with the sport, and a former professional golfer with 20 major tournament wins and eight Ryder Cup appearances.
Eight records
Starting off with well did you ever from High Society, Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby, because High Society I thought was a magical film. I see it regularly once or twice a year. The children have it on video. And I think Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby together are marvellous. And the words are so clever.
Stéphane Grappelli and Yehudi Menuhin
Well, cheating a bit, again, uh a duo, Stephan Grippelli and Yehudi Menuin, two uh very different violinists of the highest standard, no longer in the first flush of youth, but those nimble fingers dancing over the strings, cold porters night and day.
Au fond du temple saint (from The Pearl Fishers)
Jussi Björling and Robert Merrill
In the depths of the temple from Bize is the pearlfishers, Jossip Björling and and Robert Merrill, two superb voices, and I think I could lay back on my beach and listen to these two all day.
The Folks Who Live on the Hill
Well now, during those ten very happy years in Leeds, we had a house, Blackmoor Farm, overlooking Moor Alletton Golf Club. It was on a hill, and Peggy Lee's one of my favorite, favorite, favorite lady singers, and so obviously the folks who live on the hill.
Well, I've had a love affair with people who really can't sing over the years but make nice noises, like Edmundo Ross and people like that. And one of the most extraordinary records ever to me was Richard Harris's MacArthur Park. Love it.
Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy
Those marvellous singers Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy, The Indian Love Corps.
Well now, this is one of my my favorites because I've always liked singers that can really belt out a good tune. And there have been a few of those over the years, many, many, many. But a homegrown product from Scotland, Lulu, who's the best sort of stomp around the stage I know, and her record of shout.
Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1Favourite
Well now imagine the beach, me a bit down in the dumps, and I've made my uh sort of cardboard rifle and I'm marching up and down the beach feeling a bit sorry for myself near Christmas or whatever. And so what better than Alger's Pomp and Circumstance March number one from the Royal Albert Hall BBC Symphony Orchestra.
The keepsakes
The book
A History of the English-Speaking Peoples
Winston Churchill
I think I'd like to have the best possible collection or or book about uh Churchill's history of the English speaking, or something like that that I could Fan through and read under the old palm tree would do me. I might learn a bit of something.
The luxury
I once was in Florida where they had these uh sailb things uh with wheels that you could go up and down the beach on. You know what that fil set of wheels and a thing. I'd love to sort of go on a hard, wash, sandy beach and sit on this thing with the old wind behind and whoosh, straight up the beach.
In conversation
Presenter asks
Given your pedigree, was there any doubt that you were going to be anything other than a golfer?
No, I don't think so. But it's very hard to sensibly put down how your life has developed, because people don't believe you. In the sort of pattern of things, I was never going to do anything else except be a golf professional. Even if I hadn't been a very good player, it had been ordained that my father, being a very famous player and a nice man, he had a good job. He'd always had good jobs. … And I was just going to follow on in his footsteps.
Presenter asks
Do you find [golf] easy?
Yes, I think looking back. I found Hitting a golf ball Simple. And so I didn't practice enough. It never became a worry to me. … I wasn't a dedicated player. I was an inspirational player, I suppose, on occasions, particularly Ryder Cup matches later on.
Presenter asks
Was there a problem in being in your father's shadow as a player?
The recording
Timestamps play the recording from that turn
Peter Alliss
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.
Presenter
Our castaway is that rarest of all commentators, the man whose voice has become synonymous with one particular sport. If Arlott was a voice of cricket, the now man can make a similar claim to the game of golf. He is Peter Alice. Peter, might you be any good, you think, on this desert island? Are you a practical person? My wife and all my friends would say no, but I'm one of these strange creatures that's kept a few secrets back over the years. And when I was a child living some six or seven miles from Bournemouth...
Presenter
in the country round Ferndown Golf Club. We had a little gang, it was called the Three Domino Gang, and we used to go down in the woods and I was quite good at making a camp.
Presenter
um you know, branches and things like that and digging little caves out. So, I would get undercover, yes. Would you make a golf course, do you think, on this desert island? I I might be. Uh it there'd be a lot of
Presenter
Uh bunkers and things dotted around. Uh I'm I I I've only been fishing twice in my life, so I'm not one of these people that could get a bit of string and find a bit of uh wire. I'm not too sure. If there wasn't an abundance of fresh fruit and stuff, I'm not too sure. You know, making snares and catching things are not too good. To tell the truth, not very good, no. Although I
Peter Alliss
What about your uncle?
Presenter
I'm better now than I used to be, probably that's because uh one lives in a rather hectic society.
Presenter
I'm all right on my own, sort of driving cars and I don't mind being in hotels on my own, but I'm not one of those people that that that goes down into the restaurant and teams up with someone and talks to them over dinner or goes into the bar and has a late night conversation. I think I'd get a bit lonely and a bit fed up and uh I talk to myself now, at the end of whatever period on the island I might be having very serious conversations with myself.
Presenter
Let's then uh talk about your choice of music. What about the first record?
Presenter
Well, they all say it's difficult picking records, and I found it quadrupoly so, because I have such a Catholic taste in music. I've cheated a bit because um, having such a wide span of music, I've got a few duetists in along the way.
Presenter
Starting off with well did you ever from High Society, Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby, because High Society I thought was a magical film. I see it regularly once or twice a year. The children have it on video. And I think Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby together are marvellous. And the words are so clever.
Speaker 4
I have heard among this clan
Speaker 4
You are called the forgotten man. Is that what they say? Well, did you ever?
Presenter
Yeah.
Speaker 4
What a swell party this is. And have you heard the story of a boy, a girl, unrequited love? Sounds like pure soap opera. I may cry. Tune in tomorrow. What a swell party this is.
Presenter
What a swell party this is from the film High Society, sung, of course, by Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby. Peter, you mentioned their fern down in in both. But before that, you were born in Berlin, weren't you? Yes. Um my father took a
Presenter
A very bold step, I suppose. He'd been in the Argyle and Sutherland Highland uh regiment in the first war, and uh wounded twice. Luckily both bullets went through fleshy parts of the body, arm and leg.
Presenter
A father from Yorkshire, mother from Hull, and in nineteen twenty six, aged twenty nine, he noticed there was a job advertised in Berlin, the Vansey Golf Club.
Presenter
some few miles outside Berlin, for a golf professional. And he and Henry Cotton and Aubrey Boomer, they all went to the continent at that time, one to Belgium, one to France and my father to Berlin. And I was born there in 1931. Because your father Percellus was a very, very fine golfer indeed. So given that pedigree, that background, was there any doubt that you were were going to be anything other than a golfer? No, I don't think so. But it's very hard to sensibly put down how your life has developed, because people don't believe you. In the sort of pattern of things, I was never going to do anything else except be a golf professional.
Presenter
Even if I hadn't been a very good player, it had been ordained that my father, being a very famous player and a nice man, he had a good job. He'd always had good jobs. And he came back from Berlin, went to Beaconsfield Golf Club, then up to Leeds to Temple Newsome, and then in 1938 to the Ferndown Golf Club, where he stayed until he retired. And I was just going to follow on in his footsteps. If you played golf relatively well, or even won a tournament or got international recognition, then you could apply for better jobs. It was very important if you were a Ryder Cup player that you put it on your note paper. Not too flash, you know. You didn't sort of say you just put Ryder Cup player or something like that. You didn't put a list of finishing fourth in such and such or second in such and such. And so there it was. It was all laid out. I was going that's what I was going to do. Did you find I mean most people, myself included, find it a very, very difficult game to play. I can only think of one other game, cricket, which is equally, I think, difficult. Do you find it easy? Yes, I think looking back.
Presenter
I found
Presenter
Hitting a golf ball
Presenter
Simple.
Presenter
And so I didn't practice enough.
Presenter
It never became a worry to me. I mean, I used to go out with a dozen golf balls, which was a lot of golf balls they have thirty, forty years ago. And I used to do this. I used to hit them left to right, right to left, high, low, off a down slope, side slope, off a bit of mud, and they all went. So there was no point in staying there for hours because there was someone to see, someone to talk to, someone's conversation to listen to.
Presenter
And uh I I wasn't a dedicated player. I was an inspirational player, I suppose, on occasions, particularly Ryder Cup matches later on. Once I got over a sort of stumbling start, I very much an inspirational player on those occasions. And um
Presenter
No, do you know? I I never considered anything else. I never played any other games. It was wartime and we we continued to live in the Bournemouth area and schools at that time didn't go out and play games in the open air w because of fear of low-flying quick attacks. Bournemouth was only bombed a couple of times, with a lot of people were killed in those two raids. And so there was no football, soccer, road. I've never well, I'm in the Air Force, when I was in the RF regiment, I played a couple of games on the camp for football, but I've never played, you could say, a serious game of any sort. Never been on a horse and can't swim.
Presenter
Another record. Well, cheating a bit, again, uh a duo, Stephan Grippelli and Yehudi Menuin, two uh very different violinists of the highest standard, no longer in the first flush of youth, but those nimble fingers dancing over the strings, cold porters night and day.
Presenter
Stefan Grappelli and Yeudi Menuin playing night and day.
Presenter
Peter, you you had a very distinguished uh career as a golfer. I think people of often forget that nowadays. Younger people perhaps would just know you as a commentator. I mean, you won twenty major tournaments, you were a Ryder Cup player for eight years. What were the unfulfilled ambitions?
Presenter
Oh, I think uh not winning our Open Championship. I won three or four on the continent and one in Brazil, the Brazilian Open Championship, but I
Presenter
Without being uh sort of too sort of pompous, I think the Alice's deserved one open. Certainly the old man did. Yes. What what what what about the problem two also? I said your father was a very, very fine golfer and a famous man. Was there a problem in in being in his shadow as a b as a player? I don't think so. Looking back, one has been quoted or things have been written about the problems of having a a famous father or
Presenter
Well known, father. It opened many doors.
Presenter
Of course you always get people or or got people who came up and said, You'll never be as good as your father or they'd say, uh, you know, if I'd done particularly well in something, you get people saying, Isn't it amazing how Percy keeps going on? And if I'd done poorly, that young Peter, I knew he'd never be any damn good at all. So you had to get over those two sort of two crosses, but on on the whole it opened many doors and of course life was was far less sophisticated then. There wasn't uh
Peter Alliss
The topic
Presenter
The the the newspaper articles, television, people wanting to find out the innermost secrets of people and uh you know whether father was mean or had halitosis or gave you any pocket money and you know I I I It was easier to be a to be a sports sportsman in those days. Yes, I think so. And people people weren't weren't really interested in your private life. It unless you did something horrendous. You just got on with being.
Peter Alliss
It was easy.
Peter Alliss
Oh, yeah.
Presenter
in those in those days quite a humble golf professional.
Presenter
Now you you of course possess, among other things, a a very famous number plate on your car. It's three put. Put three. Put three. Put three. I'm looking for three put. It's a n it's it's a Leicestershire number, I believe. Put three then, all right. So could you explain the circumstances of that?
Peter Alliss
Papa.
Presenter
Well, uh it's about fourteen years ago now. Uh my wife Jackie and I were living up in Leeds where we're just outside Leeds where we lived all through the uh the seventies and one day I picked up a Sunday newspaper and there was a little headline in the back where they sell motor cars and it said just said golfers and it said put three for sale on V twelve Jaguar two plus two da da da da da and I think it was sixteen thousand miles on the clock three thousand seven hundred and fifty quid. So I phoned David Wickens, a chum of mine who has a small motor business and I said David what's the price of a V twelve Jaguar I'm told in reasonable Nick it's done sixteen thousand miles he said oh three and a half to four grand eta so I thought well it'd be quite fun to have a I've never had a Jaguar certainly never contemplated having a a sort of private or personal number plate. I thought PA 964 doesn't really mean a lot. It was rather conceited thing to have. It didn't make any sense. You know, I like say a hundred or or tonne a hundred or something like that is a more interesting. So I bought it. I bought it from a young fellow in Leicestershire.
Presenter
Drove down the motorway from Leeds, met him at the Leicester Forest Service Station and and gave him a cheque and he uh
Presenter
Gave me the logbook, which was a bold thing to do, and off I went, and I've kept it ever since. But what was the reason why you did it particularly? Well, I thought it just epitomized how silly the game was, and here I was buying quite a flash car and stating to the world, or those that might think it amusing, or to myself, that here I was driving around in a car with putt three on, advertising the fact that I didn't do that department of the game very well. And I could have been quite a good putter and never got past a motorbike. So I thought that was.
Presenter
Just one of those stupid things that one does. Another choice of record. Well, now, this is a bit serious now, but again, a duet.
Presenter
In the depths of the temple from Bize is the pearlfishers, Jossip Björling and and Robert Merrill, two superb voices, and I think I could lay back on my beach and listen to these two all day.
Speaker 4
El haunt a survivor.
Speaker 4
Moraga.
Speaker 4
Get on.
Speaker 4
I'll say something.
Speaker 4
Please let us save.
Presenter
I was Jussie Bierling and Robert Merrill singing in the depths of the temple from Bize's The Pearl Fishers
Presenter
Peter, you mentioned there that you had this flaw in your game which which which was putting. What was the worst moment that you can recall in
Presenter
In your playing career? It was in uh Augusta in Georgia in nineteen sixty six, round about there. I was playing
Presenter
in the Masters with a great chum of mine, Gene Littler, and I
Presenter
I'd done, I think, a seventy one or seventy two in the first round. I was out in thirty five, got a four at the difficult tenths, and I was on
Presenter
The eleventh, just decided the eleventh green in two, chipped it up about eight feet away and got over this putt very fast green, and suddenly.
Presenter
The ball had gone about twelve feet past, and I don't sort of remember ever drawing the thing back. And then I thought, that's very strange. And I went back and then I
Presenter
Something else happened and I found myself four feet short.
Presenter
And then
Presenter
I was beginning to sweat a bit now, and then the next thing I knew, I'd sort of tattooed the ball. I went, ba ba ba ba ba b like a machine gun. I I hid it, stubbed the ground, and then the putter kept catching the ball up and went d da da da da da like that. And I ended up fifteen feet past again. And Gene Littler, who'd been sort of looking at his scorecard, looked up and he said, Jesus, what the hell are you doing? I said, I don't know. He said, Well, how many have you had? I said, I don't know.
Presenter
And it was one of those extraordinary th I finished with eighty six and Henry Longhurst came, he said, That's disgrace. How can how can a player like you take eighty six? That that's fourteen handicap.
Presenter
And I s and that was um
Presenter
The first time it ever happened to me that I had no control, the mind just disappeared.
Presenter
And uh and it's been uh sort of on my mind ever ever since. It's strange and strange psychological game off, isn't it? I'm told fiddlers get it, you know, or yes, they get on the high note and they can't sort of draw the bow off it.
Peter Alliss
I'm totally
Peter Alliss
Really?
Presenter
Let's have another choice of record. Well now, during those ten very happy years in Leeds, we had a house, Blackmoor Farm, overlooking Moor Alletton Golf Club. It was on a hill, and Peggy Lee's one of my favorite, favorite, favorite lady singers, and so obviously the folks who live on the hill.
Speaker 4
We will make changes.
Speaker 4
As an a fan
Speaker 4
But we will always be calm
Speaker 4
Folks who live.
Presenter
Peggy Lee and the Folks Who Live on the Hill.
Presenter
Peter, what was the change that occurred in your life that took you from being a um a professional golfer, well, you still are a professional golfer, I mean an actual playing golfer, to commentating?
Presenter
Well believe it or not, my first B B C appearance.
Presenter
was in nineteen sixty one at Royal Birkdale, near Southport.
Presenter
And I was asked to, you know, when I finished playing, would I like to pop up into the commentary box? Ray Lakeland was the producer of Golf and Rugby League at that time, a very famous character from the BBC Manchester. And he said, Would I like to come in after my round and go up in the commentary box and just tell them how the course played and what had happened, etc.? And I said, Yes. And Henry Longhurst and Bill Cox were the commentators then. John Jacobs came a little bit later. And Cliff Mitchamore was the sort of Harry Carpenter of the day.
Presenter
And I did that for two or three years and before I got paid, and then I think I got ten guineas. Oh, that was money for older. You played a bit, and then you went up there and nattered away.
Presenter
And that was the way, again, things were going to be. I was a golf professional at Parkstone then, and then uh I got divorced in 1969 and moved up to Leeds in 1970. And uh I went to Moore Allerton, which was a a happy club and a different club, and I was just going to jog on, it was going to be the same. I was going to do a bit of television, play the occasional golf tournament, and life was going to be all right. And then suddenly, about 1974, pro-celebrity golf was introduced.
Presenter
And uh uh and sadly, Henry Longhurst's uh health began to fail, and although he kept going for two or three years,
Presenter
He and I started to work more and more together and we became very close friends and I almost sort of became a sort of son to him, I think, in a way, because he'd lost his son and son-in-law, both of them killed in tragic accidents. He was a fascinating man, and then, as I say, he became ill. Pro-celebrity golf started. Bob Abrahams from the BBC latterly, or a few years after, thought of A Round with Alice, which went for six or seven years, and it just developed into then one is heard of in America and through Mark McCormick. He said, Would you like to go and work for ABC Television there? which I did, and it just like topsy grew and grew.
Peter Alliss
So Mark McC
Presenter
What about the c can I ask you won't answer this question, I know, but but when you do the the Proseptic golf and you do the round with Alice, who's the worst golfer you've ever played with?
Presenter
I can answer you very honestly because we've had two players that uh really never got to the first team. Alice Cooper, the pop star, came up to play one year, and I thought, well this Alice Cooper and this wild looking man appeared.
Presenter
And someone had told him in Hollywood that there was this pro-celebrity thing on at Glen Eagles, and would he like to come over first class and play in it? And he I don't think he'd ever played before. They didn't bother to ask him if he'd ever played. So Alice turned up to play and he never made it. It's quite extraordinary, but not so extraordinary when you think about it, that you get these great people from the world of theatre and stage and other sports. Sportsmen are better than a lot of stage people. They're out of their own environment, and now there are 1,000, 1,500 people watching, and it's a very nerve-wracking business. The motor racing drivers are the most competitive. Mansell, Jackie Stewart. I mean, even playing very little, the competitive urge was quite amazing. Another choice of record people. Well, I've had a love affair with people who really can't sing over the years but make nice noises, like Edmundo Ross and people like that. And one of the most extraordinary records ever to me was Richard Harris's MacArthur Park. Love it.
Speaker 3
I recall the yellow cotton dress
Speaker 3
Foaming like a wave on the ground around your knees
Speaker 3
Birds like tender babies in your hands And the old man playing checkers by the trees
Presenter
That's Richard Harris singing Jim Webb's MacArthur Park.
Presenter
Peter, you you give the impression on on television when everyone sees you or hears you commentating being this very easy going, amiable, affable chap. Are you really like that?
Presenter
Most of the time I think I am, but I'm I'm a controlled schizophrenic, I think, really. I make a good spy or something.
Peter Alliss
Great thing and
Presenter
I live in my own sort of fantasy land for most of the time.
Presenter
David Jacobs, a dear friend of mine, said well that's because you're in the love me business. And uh sometimes I think you're more conscious of other people and not hurting their feelings than the ones nearest to you. You know, you always hurt the ones you love. I have a vitriolic temper when round, an evil tongue.
Presenter
Viperish tongue.
Presenter
hard, cruel tongue at times and um
Presenter
I try to keep it under control. Again, as you get older, you suffer fools less than you did perhaps before. I mean uh if somebody is a total pain in the bottom, I'm not afraid to tell them so now, because I think they're old enough, or should be, to know better than to say things that are stupid, whatever they happen to be about. Uh and I think people should be more mindful of other people's feelings and a little bit more tolerant.
Presenter
But underneath it all I have a flaming temper. I I had a couple of bad bouts of showing my temper when I was in the RF regiment.
Presenter
And damn near killed somebody once over over nothing. And ever since then my physical strength over the years has has rather frightened me and made me quite a decent citizen.
Presenter
And well at least you're not locked up, yeah.
Presenter
And what about the as as I say, you you have got this this very sort of happy-go-lucky persona, and I'm sure that people would look at you and think, Oh, there's a man, he's skipped through life, I mean, nothing's happened to him, nothing's hurt him. Would that be true as well?
Presenter
A lot of it would be true. I've been lucky. I've never, hand on heart, I've never been really afraid, and I've never been hungry. So, um.
Presenter
That is a tremendous bonus. The worst thing that ever happened in our family life, Jackie and I, was we lost two children actually. I lost a baby when it was before it was about eight months lost one. And we had a little daughter, Victoria, who lived nine when she died, very severely mentally handicapped. And we only had her home for about two weeks, and she was looked after by the wonderful nurses at Leeds Hospital, who were marvellous. And I think that taught me more about life and being tolerant. Because I used to get quite upset if you'd walk past people or a person in the street and they didn't say good morning and you'd take it as a sort of personal slight. Why didn't they say why didn't it? And I suddenly realised that you don't know what people are thinking and what's happened to them that day, whether it's the fact they've forgotten to post the football coupon and it's come up or the dog's died or Auntie Nellie's passed on and not left you that little crock of gold you thought. It taught me certainly to be much more tolerant and we'd just moved her down to Surrey where we live now and she died about two months later.
Peter Alliss
I don't know.
Presenter
Those marvellous singers Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy, The Indian Love Corps.
Presenter
Jeannette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy.
Presenter
Indian Love Cool
Presenter
Pete, apart from all your other accomplishments, you're also a novelist. You've you've written one novel and got another one on the way, haven't you? Yeah, The Duke, yes. Follow-up's called The Silver Mountain, which hopefully will be out in in 87. It's a sort of follow-on from The Duke and uh a couple of the same characters playing golf under very difficult circumstances with evil people. Uh-huh. And and how did it start this, this writing of novels?
Peter Alliss
We're
Peter Alliss
Yeah.
Presenter
Well, uh funnily enough, years ago when in fact we were in the North I wrote uh the sort of synopsis of um plays and I did one called The New Cromwell. It was at the time when uh
Presenter
Mad, whatever his name was. You remember the MP? I think he became an MP up in Aberdeenshire, but he rode on a Grengun carrier through the Yemen, or Madmich, Madmix, and I thought at that time there were all sorts of goings-on in the country, and anarchy seemed to be getting a toehold. It's got probably a firm hold now. And I thought of this idea of somebody like that doing a new Cromwell and marching into the houses of Parliament and taking over things and progressing along, and eventually, of course, the wheel turning the full cycle and going back into the Dark Ages virtually, because, as Cromwell did, came as a sort of saviour of the ordinary man and ended up getting his head chopped off. So that's how the idea of telling stories.
Peter Alliss
Madness and I thought you
Presenter
got into my mind. I've always had inherited from a mother, I suppose, a lively imagination. And I just thought there's there's the story of these two people playing golf and the the character of the Duke emerged and anyone who's read the book uh in it uh that they can in some way pick out certain personalities maybe that have been around in the world of golf for for sixty or seventy years.
Peter Alliss
Yeah. Well
Presenter
No choice of record. Well now, this is one of my my favorites because I've always liked singers that can really belt out a good tune. And there have been a few of those over the years, many, many, many. But a homegrown product from Scotland, Lulu, who's the best sort of stomp around the stage I know, and her record of shout.
Speaker 4
Well You know you'll make me wanna shine Look my hands, drop them out Look my heart
Speaker 4
Come on now, you're gonna say you will.
Speaker 4
Yeah, I'm looking at the shock, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Say who will do it?
Speaker 4
A baby.
Presenter
As Ludo and Shout.
Presenter
Peter, in all the years you've you've been involved in golf, I mean you've seen the game change an awful lot, I mean particularly in terms of prize money. I mean what was the what was the most money you earned when as a tournament golfer? Well I won as you say twenty, twenty-one major events and probably double that number minor events, five open championships and the whole lot came to about thirty-three thousand quid. And if you look on the money list this year, I think the fella finishing about twenty-fifth is more than that in one year. You can't sort of equate the two. But
Presenter
Money has has changed things dramatically and not totally. No, I don't think so. I think that I think everyone likes to earn a lot of money if you get a chance to. But I think there's a good argument for a ceiling to what you can earn. I mean, if you happen to be better looking than someone else and can model clothes, then that's just your good fortune that somebody wishes you to advertise his wares. But I think from a playing point of view, even in these inflated times, I mean it to make two hundred thousand pounds a year or to earn a quarter of a million pounds a year is surely enough, but they make several millions a year, not only in in golf, in
Speaker 3
For the better.
Peter Alliss
No.
Peter Alliss
But
Presenter
In tennis and boxing. I mean, boxing matches for 11 and 12 and 18 million quid seems to be quite obscene in a way. What about behaviour, Peter? Because it does seem to me as being an interesting observer that golf hasn't got the problems that that other sports have got. Tennis, for instance, no, I mean the behaviour on the court and off the court is is often yobbish. Uh we all know about football. Cricket, sadly too, it's it's happening there. Golf as yet you've not had that problem, have you? Why? I think possibly a lot of that has to go down to the adjudicators in the game. They've always been.
Presenter
I think we started off very much as players and gentlemen, and that wasn't a bad thing. People knew their place, which is a term you're not supposed to use now. But I think knowing one's place is a great buffer in life. And if you know you're good at something, but know your place, it makes life a lot simpler in many ways. I don't know how you can you look at people today and wonder what they're thinking of. The adjudicators were very good. The players observed the rules. And anybody who got out of line was whacked very severely. I mean, we in the Professional Association have actually thrown people out of the game for cheating and other bad behaviour. Goodness knows what they would have done to people in tennis or snooker or cricket. And I think the adjudicators in many cases have a lot to answer for. Perhaps you could say the MCC, when they started was it the West Indians or someone started banging those tin cans together and a cacophony of noise. It it to me, it spoilt a lot of the charm and some of the wit that one would hear. Some of it raw wit, perhaps from the hill in Sydney or whatever, but there were funny
Peter Alliss
Uh
Presenter
moments that you could savour this incessant banging and whistling and banging uh somebody should have whacked them on the head longer or stopped it. Yes. And they didn't. And uh the same with tennis. I mean this the foul mouthed obscenities that come out now from the mouths of eight, nine and ten year olds because they're stars.
Presenter
have shown them s uh seemingly the way the game should be played and how you should behave if things go against you.
Presenter
Which is totally disgraceful. Golf has has uh and it's a slow pedestrian game. It it's not a a shared ball game.
Presenter
And you have lots of times to think about things.
Presenter
Uh but the powers that be who've run it have been very, very firm and slightly right wing and I think they've kept it all together.
Presenter
Final choice of record.
Presenter
Well now imagine the beach, me a bit down in the dumps, and I've made my uh sort of cardboard rifle and I'm marching up and down the beach feeling a bit sorry for myself near Christmas or whatever. And so what better than Alger's Pomp and Circumstance March number one from the Royal Albert Hall BBC Symphony Orchestra.
Presenter
Peter, you requested the loudest version possible of Landon Hope and Glory and that's the best you could find. I hope you're satisfied with that. Yeah, lovely stuff. Good. Right now, the Desert Island. You're on this Desert Island. You have your eight records. Tidal wave comes along. Seven have disappeared. You're left with one. Which would you keep? Well, I think it'd have to be that last one, because it conjures up everything uh.
Presenter
British and marvellous and orchestras and brass bands and tears streaming down the face. I'd have to have that one. Good. What about the book? Assume you've got the Bible and you've got the complete works of Shakespeare, what book would you have? Again, as I've got older, I've become, goodness knows why, interested in history.
Presenter
And I think that the British, maybe the English, Welsh, I whichever part put all together have done some extraordinary things, some of them quite horrid, but I think I'd like to have the best possible collection or or book about uh Churchill's history of the English speaking, or something like that that I could
Presenter
Fan through and read under the old palm tree would do me. I might learn a bit of something. And what about the luxury object, inanimate?
Presenter
Like, yes, I can't bring over the full cast of the Follis Bégere every quarter.
Peter Alliss
Not list this.
Presenter
Can I have something silly? Like, I I once was in Florida where they had these uh sailb things uh with wheels that you could go up and down the beach on. You know what that fil set of wheels and a thing. I'd love to sort of go on a hard, wash, sandy beach and sit on this thing with the old wind behind and whoosh, straight up the beach. That'd do me. Sounds a wonderful idea. Peter Alice, thank you very much indeed.
Peter Alliss
Oof.
Peter Alliss
You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Islandists Archive. For more podcasts please visit bbc.co.uk/slash radio four.
I don't think so. Looking back, one has been quoted or things have been written about the problems of having a a famous father or Well known, father. It opened many doors. Of course you always get people or or got people who came up and said, You'll never be as good as your father or they'd say, uh, you know, if I'd done particularly well in something, you get people saying, Isn't it amazing how Percy keeps going on? And if I'd done poorly, that young Peter, I knew he'd never be any damn good at all. So you had to get over those two sort of two crosses, but on on the whole it opened many doors and of course life was was far less sophisticated then.
Presenter asks
What was the worst moment that you can recall in your playing career?
It was in uh Augusta in Georgia in nineteen sixty six, round about there. I was playing in the Masters with a great chum of mine, Gene Littler, and I I'd done, I think, a seventy one or seventy two in the first round. I was out in thirty five, got a four at the difficult tenths, and I was on The eleventh, just decided the eleventh green in two, chipped it up about eight feet away and got over this putt very fast green, and suddenly. The ball had gone about twelve feet past, and I don't sort of remember ever drawing the thing back. And then I thought, that's very strange. And I went back and then I Something else happened and I found myself four feet short. And then I was beginning to sweat a bit now, and then the next thing I knew, I'd sort of tattooed the ball. I went, ba ba ba ba ba b like a machine gun. I I hid it, stubbed the ground, and then the putter kept catching the ball up and went d da da da da da like that. And I ended up fifteen feet past again. … I finished with eighty six … The first time it ever happened to me that I had no control, the mind just disappeared.
Presenter asks
What was the change that occurred in your life that took you from being a playing golfer to commentating?
Well believe it or not, my first B B C appearance. was in nineteen sixty one at Royal Birkdale, near Southport. And I was asked to, you know, when I finished playing, would I like to pop up into the commentary box? … And I did that for two or three years and before I got paid, and then I think I got ten guineas. … And that was the way, again, things were going to be. … And then suddenly, about 1974, pro-celebrity golf was introduced. And uh uh and sadly, Henry Longhurst's uh health began to fail, and although he kept going for two or three years, He and I started to work more and more together and we became very close friends and I almost sort of became a sort of son to him, I think, in a way … and it just like topsy grew and grew.
Presenter asks
You give the impression on television of being this very easy going, amiable, affable chap. Are you really like that?
Most of the time I think I am, but I'm I'm a controlled schizophrenic, I think, really. … I have a vitriolic temper when round, an evil tongue. Viperish tongue. hard, cruel tongue at times and um I try to keep it under control. … But underneath it all I have a flaming temper. I I had a couple of bad bouts of showing my temper when I was in the RF regiment. And damn near killed somebody once over over nothing. And ever since then my physical strength over the years has has rather frightened me and made me quite a decent citizen.
“I'm all right on my own, sort of driving cars and I don't mind being in hotels on my own, but I'm not one of those people that that that goes down into the restaurant and teams up with someone and talks to them over dinner or goes into the bar and has a late night conversation. I think I'd get a bit lonely and a bit fed up and uh I talk to myself now, at the end of whatever period on the island I might be having very serious conversations with myself.”
“The worst thing that ever happened in our family life, Jackie and I, was we lost two children actually. I lost a baby when it was before it was about eight months lost one. And we had a little daughter, Victoria, who lived nine when she died, very severely mentally handicapped. … It taught me certainly to be much more tolerant”
“I think we started off very much as players and gentlemen, and that wasn't a bad thing. People knew their place, which is a term you're not supposed to use now. But I think knowing one's place is a great buffer in life. And if you know you're good at something, but know your place, it makes life a lot simpler in many ways.”