Julian Critchley

Speaker 10:00

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 once described his twenty odd years as a Member of Parliament as being a life spent scrutinizing the backs of the heads of members of one's own party for signs of intelligence.

Presenter0:40

He also once said that he was one of those rare Tories who can not only read, but can also write.

Presenter0:45

This kind of irreverent observation probably accounts for the fact that he's never held government office. But this is unlikely to worry him, as he once stated that the ultimate accolade in public life, rarer by far than the knighthood, was to be invited to appear on desert island discs. He is Julian

Presenter1:03

Julian, I take it then that this must be the proudest moment of your life. It is. I'm almost lost for words, because you said that not only could I read and write, this really proves I can sing and dance as well.

Presenter1:15

If only more Conservative MPs could sing and dance. Bit of show business, you think? A little bit, yes, why not. Have you been carrying the list around in your pocket for years, then?

Speaker 11:19

A little

Presenter1:24

I've revised it from time to time, but I have had a list of sorts. And would do you think it might be any good on this days of daylight? You've arrived there now. You're finally there. You're on on your own.

Presenter1:34

Well, I thought of inviting Mrs. Thatcher to come with me, because I'm sure she would be able to put up a tent. Otherwise, I would probably die of exposure and boredom. And what about your choice of music? How have you gone about that? I mean, are they your particularly favorite piece of music, or has every piece got a a memory for you? I think they all have. Except for one, they have memories. Mainly romantic, I must confess.

Presenter1:58

There are one or two that I've included in order to show off, because quite clearly we Conservatives are vulnerable to the charge that we are the stupid party. So there are one or two that are rather boastful. But in the main, they are sentimental and nostalgic. What about the first one then? How do you describe that?

Presenter2:15

The Night's Dance, Romeo and Juliet. It's just extremely pretty. It is the most elegant and marvellous tune. It's also described as modern music, and it's as close as I get to modern music.

Presenter3:30

Night's Dance from Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir George Schulte.

Presenter3:36

Julian Critchley, w what kind of a background did you come from?

Presenter3:40

One grandfather was a clerk in the Bristol gas works, and my mother's father was um a shunter on the London and North Western Railway.

Presenter3:48

But my father is a distinguished neurologist, so I was born into a professional middle-class family in London. I find that amazing actually, because by accent and by reputation I I'd always imagine that you came from sort of the upper strata, if you like, of society. I think it's probably Shrewsbury School. It's what three and a half years of Shrewsbury School does to one's accent. It's all pretty burgers, really. I can slip into Shropshire at the drop of the hat.

Speaker 14:03

I think

Presenter4:11

Was your father a plainly a remarkable man? I mean, uh, was he uh an influence on you?

Presenter4:16

Well, he is alive. Yes, I think he was. I always admired him immensely. My mother kept saying, Your father is a very clever man, which he is. So clever that this stopped me going into medicine. I felt that if I went into medicine too and attempted to become a neurologist, I would be always compared unfavourably to my father, so I had to go into politics instead. Was in fact politics something that you grew up with? Was it a a political family?

Presenter4:42

Not a bit they were always conservative in a sort of slightly unthinking way.

Presenter4:47

In a sense, that was because of their class and their social background. They were always strongly conservative.

Presenter4:52

But I think my first

Presenter4:54

Act or political act was standing on a stool in nineteen thirty-eight or thirty-nine in the garden imitating F Franklin Roosevelt making a speech at least I'm told that that was the case. And how did it there therefore develop from there? I mean, did your mother take you round to party meetings or or what? Well, when I left Shrewsbury at the age of eighteen and was waiting to go into the army, I hung around Hampstead doing nothing except going to the Odeonsviscottage, not once a day but twice a day and getting a splitting headache.

Presenter5:22

And my mother was determined to put a stop to this, so she marched me round the young Conservatives, the young Liberals, and the young Socialists, to see which of the three I should join. In the end she concluded that the young Conservatives had far the nicer girls. So I joined the Hampstead Young Conservatives.

Presenter5:38

Let's have another record.

Presenter5:40

Well, I would like Autumn Leaves by Yves Montan, because instead of doing national service I fell ill, and when I recovered I went to Paris to the Sorbonne and spent the most marvellously romantic year. First Love in Paris in nineteen fifty one, and this was the tune that was being played everywhere.

Presenter5:59

Uh

Julian Critchley6:00

Yeah.

Presenter6:00

Uh

Julian Critchley6:00

Yeah.

Presenter6:00

Sure so

Julian Critchley6:01

Uh

Julian Critchley6:07

What you remember?

Julian Critchley6:10

Here's your tempra.

Julian Critchley6:17

Leaders of sombre

Julian Critchley6:21

Walkie Mebe

Julian Critchley6:24

Moakie Temer.

Presenter6:27

Autumn Leaves sung by Yves Monton.

Presenter6:30

Julian, you mentioned there that you were introduced to politics by your mother who was uh worried by you spending so much time at the Odeo Swiss Cottage. Were you in fact a great movie buff in those days? I think everybody was. It was the only thing to do. I mean, I think Ingrid Bergman succeeded in getting me through school certificate. In what way? Well, I had a picture up in my study, and this was the first time a picture of a woman was allowed to be put up in my house at Shrewsbury School.

Presenter6:56

So that was something of a first.

Presenter6:58

What will the shows be like? Do you enjoy it?

Presenter7:01

Not really, but I think that was probably my fault. It was cold, bleak.

Presenter7:06

And as it was nineteen forty five to nineteen forty eight, I was hungry.

Presenter7:10

And at Shrewsbury you spend most of your time running as a particular sport, and my main memory is running for my life through the mud and filth of some Shropshire farm yard, pursued by savage dogs. But what saved me, I think, was my skill at boxing.

Presenter7:27

When did when when have you started this your your interest in boxing? Well, I was evacuated at the age of eight to my mother's maternal home in Shropshire, to her cottage.

Presenter7:36

and um I was put in the village school.

Presenter7:40

and I was put in the the girls' half for my safety, because my accent was West London as opposed to West Saxon.

Presenter7:47

And my uncle, who was a marvellous old man who died recently at the age of ninety six, made certain that I could box, and he taught me to box.

Presenter7:55

And I thought, my goodness, um, since then, I mean, it was marvellously useful at uh preparatory school and public school, because when I went to Brockhurst, which was a snobbish school up the road, having left the village school, my accent had become a Shropshire one. So I was knocked about at Brockhurst for talking Shropshire. So indeed, I had to learn to box, and um it has remained a passion. I mean, I haven't fought since I left Shrewsbury, but I still go to fights with feelings of guilt, because I don't think rationally you can defend the sport, but I thoroughly enjoy watching it. What do you enjoy about it?

Presenter8:28

the sheer animal excitement of it.

Presenter8:31

And what does your father, who is a neurologist, of course, think about your passion for books? I think he's written a book.

Presenter8:36

which uh sets out to prove that it is in fact highly dangerous, it results in brain damage, and in a rational world should not in fact take place, and uh it's a subject we don't talk about.

Presenter8:48

Another choice of record, please.

Presenter8:50

But I'd like a rendezvous from Phedra.

Presenter8:54

Which is that lovely Greek song which for no particular reason except that whenever I listen to it I would like to be in a bunk.

Presenter9:02

On board ship, on the Mediterranean, sailing into the sunset.

Presenter9:36

There was music for the rendezvous from the film Phaedra by Mikas Teodorakis.

Presenter9:41

Julian Critchley, let's now move on to university. You went to Pembroke College in Oxford. What did you read there?

Presenter9:48

philosophy, politics and economics, but I I went to Pembroke in the first place because it had no

Presenter9:53

Entrance examination all it needed was an interview and lo and behold, whom should I meet?

Presenter9:59

outside the head man's study, but the young Michael Heseltine with whom I had been at school.

Presenter10:05

So we spoke ourselves into Pembroke. We talked ourselves in. Did you did you share the same uh political ambitions at the time?

Presenter10:12

Very much so. We worked together, as it were, for three years, although Michael was by far the more successful.

Presenter10:18

I had never met anybody as ambitious as Michael, and I can remember going to um a restaurant, having dinner, and Michael lifting out of his pocket an envelope and writing on the back of it all the decades of the twentieth century, against each one the position which he would hold. And of course in the nineteen nineties it was Downing Street. Well I was immensely impressed by this.

Presenter10:39

In fact, so impressed that I've written a book about Michael, which is called The Unauthorised Biography, which comes out on September the third this year, an ominous date. What about going back to those days then when the two of you sitting there thinking about your future in politics? Michael was very clear about what he thought. Were you equally as clear about your ambition?

Presenter10:59

No, I think that on one evening again three of us met a mutual friend called Ian Joseph's and he reminded me when I wrote the book about Michael.

Presenter11:08

that he posed the question what did we all want out of life?

Presenter11:12

Ian said he wanted uh money.

Presenter11:15

I said I wanted fame.

Presenter11:17

Michael wanted

Presenter11:18

Power, and I think that is in a sense quite revealing.

Presenter11:22

I certainly wanted to be part of the process.

Presenter11:25

But I've never looked upon myself as a as as a prime minister, material, or anything like that.

Presenter11:30

And I think that we were both conservatives. This is thirty years ago.

Presenter11:35

not through intellectual conviction.

Presenter11:38

so much as from our family background and our environment. I don't think we could have been anything else. But the interesting thing was that we identified in the early fifties not with the crusty old Tories,

Presenter11:51

But with the Harold MacMillans and Reb Butlers and Ian McLeods, the One Nation Tories, those were our heroes, and I think they still remain our heroes.

Presenter12:01

Another choice of record please.

Presenter12:03

Well, because of my love for Shropshire, which is my mother's county, and I hope one day to retire there, the last movement of Elgar's first symphony.

Presenter13:13

Part of the final movement for Nordga's first symphony, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Sir Adrian Bold.

Presenter13:19

Julian, you were talking there about your political ambitions, saying that when you were at Oxford that in fact fame was the spur, that you wanted to be famous, that's why you went into politics.

Presenter13:28

I I wonder what kind of fame you meant, though. Is it the kind of fame that has you recognized on the street? Or is it the kind of fame that that that has a sort of blue plaque outside your house when you die? Or is it the kind of fame that puts you in the history books? What kind of fame do you mean? I think I was a very crass young man ever to have suggested at the time that I wanted fame.

Presenter13:47

I suppose I want it to be.

Presenter13:49

Well known.

Presenter13:50

and I would like to be well known and respected by my peers.

Presenter13:54

as being able to do something reasonably well, like writing, for example.

Presenter13:58

But I would hate to be so well known as to be instantly recognizable in the street. I mean, that would be quite intolerable. You would lose all your privacy were that to happen. But there's no risk of that happening to me. I mean, I've already been on Wogan. One only goes on Wogan once, I'm telling.

Presenter14:13

Then your favourite of fifteen minutes, aren't you?

Presenter14:16

Was there also going back to this time though, so you're there wanting to be famous, but was there also in your early political ambition a sense that you wanted to change the world?

Presenter14:25

No, I think it would be pretentious to pretend that I thought I could change the world or that I wanted to.

Presenter14:30

The question that all politicians hate being asked, because it's difficult, is why did you go into politics? And the only honest answer

Presenter14:37

is a combination of service and ambition.

Presenter14:40

And it's not for me to offer up the quantities of that equation. I mean, ambition is in fact the engine of the public good, and I think without ambition nothing would be achieved.

Presenter14:50

I think um later on when I in politics proper, um the idea of Britain and Europe and the eventual membership of a United States of Europe has been one of the things that has kept me interested and kept my interest. And I think also a defence of NATO. But I think to pretend that I wanted to change the world, I mean, I think that was um Michael Heseltine's kick, not mine.

Presenter15:13

Another choice of reco, please.

Presenter15:15

Well, I like Mozart's flute and harp concerto.

Presenter15:19

Because, as I said earlier on, I think this is the piece that everybody puts in in order to show off. And anyway, it's a martha's tune.

Presenter16:27

Part of the first movement of Mozart's flute and harp concerto, played by James Galway and Fritz Helmis, was the Berlin Philharmonic, conducted by Van Karayan.

Presenter16:37

Julian Critchley, you were elected member for Rochester in nineteen fifty nine. What was the House like in in those days? That's nearly, what, thirty years ago? Well, I was very young. I was twenty eight when I was elected.

Presenter16:48

And I did two things immediately. I bought myself a new Ford Popular motor car for four hundred pounds.

Presenter16:53

and a suit from Burton's for ten.

Presenter16:55

Because I thought I had to keep my end up.

Presenter16:57

And um the Tory party in those days was full of um

Presenter17:02

Nice old things who'd had a jolly good war, and they all wore silk shirts and dark blue ties and blue suits, or a black jacket and black striped trousers, and very few people do that now.

Presenter17:14

So I felt a little bit out of my depth for a long time.

Presenter17:17

But what was so marvellous about it was the

Presenter17:22

The great men who still seemed to hang about Winston Churchill.

Presenter17:27

Locked into silence by the hardness of his artery, never spoke.

Presenter17:32

But he was there, a great man, a figure, sitting in his seat below the gangway.

Presenter17:36

Iain MacLeod, whom we all wish to draw our swords on his behalf, the rising hope of the new Tory party.

Presenter17:44

And Harold Macmillan as Prime Minister witty, elegant, amusing, fun, and absolutely super with young people, as he always was to the end of his life. And on the other side of the house, Nybevan. I heard the last major speech that Nybevan made before he died of cancer.

Presenter18:02

And um

Presenter18:03

At the age of twenty eight, it really took me a long time to come to terms with the House of Commons and all these these very great people.

Presenter18:11

Did you meet Churchill? Do you Well, on one occasion, uh again, I think in my first year, Churchill used to go into the smoking room at four o'clock.

Presenter18:19

And the whips would run round like mad, finding

Presenter18:22

Other members of Parliament to sit with him, to talk to him. Absolutely terrifying prospect, and one grabbed me and sat me down.

Presenter18:29

So I said, Would you like sir a cup of tea?

Presenter18:32

Tea, you bloody fool he said a double whisky, which I immediately got. But that was the only conversation I had with the great man.

Presenter18:40

What advice were you given as this very young man going into this uh establishment for the first time? Well, in my first week I went into the smoking room, which is the Holy of Holies.

Presenter18:50

And, um I think it was after lunch and

Presenter18:53

sat down quietly on my own reading a book and um

Presenter18:56

Doctor Charles Hill later to become Lord Hill.

Presenter18:59

walked over to me and said, Young man, he said,

Presenter19:02

You must never appear to be clever, he said.

Presenter19:06

Advancement in this man's party is based firmly on alcoholic stupidity, and I haven't opened a book since.

Presenter19:14

The other thing, of course, was

Presenter19:16

Um

Presenter19:18

I remember on one occasion

Presenter19:21

An elderly Tory MP said to my mother-in-law that I was the worst dressed member of the Conservative Party, which rather upset me.

Presenter19:28

And then

Presenter19:30

In the middle of a vote in the No lobby,

Presenter19:33

I saw him coming toward me, like Matthew Webb swimming the English Channel, and I thought, My God, is he going to congratulate me on my maiden speech? Is he going to ask me to dinner? And he finally came up to me and he said, You're wearing suede shoes.

Presenter19:47

and then vanished into the crowd. I never saw him again.

Presenter19:51

Nowadays I think that you would have to knock out suede shoes and say, for God's sake, don't wear sandals, but if you do, you must not wear socks with them.

Presenter19:59

Another choice of record for you, Julian. Well, I think Branz's second symphony, the first movement, because I had it on tape in my my motor car.

Presenter20:08

And when I return late at night from some drafty village hall, from making some great speech to a very small audience, I play it in order to recharge my batteries.

Presenter21:14

Part of the first movement from Brahm Symphony No. Two, played by the Cleveland Orchestra, conducted by George Sell.

Presenter21:21

Julian Christley, you have a reputation in the House of of putting your foot in it. Now this is one of the reasons it's it's hell, that you you've never had government office. When in fact did it start? When you did you start

Presenter21:33

putting our foot in it, so to speak.

Presenter21:35

I I think it probably started in nineteen sixty one when

Presenter21:40

Michael Heseltine, who was then the owner of Town Magazine, a glossy magazine.

Presenter21:46

Rang me up to ask whether I wanted a suit.

Presenter21:49

And I said, Yes, of course I'd like a suit. And he did a feature of a suit for a politician, a suit for a lawyer, and God knows what.

Presenter21:55

And I had my photograph taken and six months later the magazine came up and I looked at this picture and I thought, Oh my God

Presenter22:02

And then, of course, all hell broke loose.

Presenter22:06

Somebody raised it on Thursday evening upstairs at the Twenty Two Committee, some old thing got up and said, Major Morrison, the fellow's maudlin, he said. And then I was summoned to see the chief whip, mister Martin Redmond.

Presenter22:19

The great man was sitting behind an empty desk, empty save for a copy of Town Magazine. He didn't ask me to sit down, and he he picked up Town Magazine between finger and thumb, and he said, Are you hard up?

Presenter22:31

Now, had I said yes, I would have been sent off to Australia as a remittance man, and spent the rest of my life in Alice Springs, and rather shootishly I denied that I was hard up.

Presenter22:41

So I think the fact that I had modelled a suit rather um disqualified me as a serious contender amongst the old Tory party.

Presenter22:51

I put my foot in it with the new Tory party in nineteen eighty when

Presenter22:56

A lot of us were very angry at government economic policy in'seventy nine, nineteen eighty, and in retrospect we were quite right to be very angry about it. And I wrote a piece in The Observer, which I talked about A level economics, and was rather rude about misses Thatcher, and was foolish enough not to sign it, and then all hell broke loose, and I had to admit that I had signed it.

Presenter23:17

Um then

Presenter23:19

obviously burnt my boats, I think, with misses Thatcher and the Government. Since when I have been an independent minded, occasionally irreverent, Member of Parliament, and I hope a good one.

Presenter23:30

What about uh your relationship with with Mrs. Thatcher? I mean, what do you taking personal differences apart, and whether or not you like the lady as a as a woman or whatever, what do you think of her as a politician? Well, I don't know Mrs. Thatcher. I've only spoken to her on four occasions, so I can't really claim to like her or dislike her. There is something about her politics, which is not my cup of tea.

Presenter23:51

But there's no doubt that, historically speaking, she will go down as a very formidable political figure indeed.

Presenter23:58

and arguably the right woman at the right time.

Presenter24:03

Another choice of record.

Presenter24:05

Well

Presenter24:06

Fly me to the moon. In the early sixties I fell in love with my wife and uh she went back to the United States leaving me here and I pursued her to America.

Presenter24:15

And uh in every airport lounge and in every hotel bedroom they were playing Fly Me to the Moon.

Julian Critchley24:21

Fly me to the moon

Julian Critchley24:24

And let me play among the stars Let me see what spring is like

Julian Critchley24:32

On Jupiter and Mars

Julian Critchley24:37

In other words, hold my hand.

Julian Critchley24:45

In other words

Julian Critchley24:49

Darling, kiss me.

Speaker 224:50

Uh

Presenter24:52

Climb Me to the Moon sung there by Nat King Cole.

Presenter24:56

Junior Christie, you've been a Member of Parliament since you were twenty eight. I mean, there has been an interruption between but you've been in the House for more than uh twenty years. You never had government office. Isn't there a sense in when that that makes your career a failure?

Presenter25:10

I think that is true. I think to have been

Presenter25:13

In the House of Commons on the back benches.

Presenter25:15

and not to have been a minister however junior, for however short a time.

Presenter25:20

Must be a bit like being a soldier in a war who's never seen or heard a shot fired in action.

Presenter25:25

I think to that extent I probably have.

Presenter25:27

What I've had to do is to compensate. I mean, I hope I've been a good constituency MP, but on the other hand, I've become a a writer, a political commentator.

Presenter25:35

a satirist of politics, because the targets are so large and inviting that somebody must sooner or later make fun of of most of them.

Presenter25:43

So I think from that point of view I'm not entirely dissatisfied.

Presenter25:47

But uh I would certainly like to have been Postmaster General in one of uh Mr Heath's governments. But is there a sense in which your your nature wouldn't allow you to be, because you you were not naturally that team a member. That your nature is always to stand on the outside looking in and observing and commenting freely. I think I am in a sense an observer rather than a participant. Perhaps I would have been more effective as a congressman than as a member of parliament, because congressmen, as you know, have a freer remit, and the party system in the United States is not as strong as it is over here, and there isn't the accent on party loyalty.

Presenter26:20

So to that extent I certainly haven't suited politics as well as other people might have done.

Presenter26:24

Would you though looking back on your on your life uh if you were to have it all over again would you do it differently?

Presenter26:30

Well, I once thought of going to California and becoming a butler.

Presenter26:34

And um having my wife do the garden well, of course it may, after the election, come to that. But no, I don't think so. I have thoroughly enjoyed my time in politics. I mean, it would be almost impossible to be a member of parliament and to be in politics without in fact enjoying it.

Speaker 226:38

But no, I don't.

Speaker 126:39

Yeah.

Speaker 126:40

Uh

Speaker 226:40

Thoroughly

Presenter26:48

Are you going to stand again, then? Oh, indeed I am. I've been readopted. I'm ready to go.

Speaker 126:50

Yeah, I've been

Presenter26:52

What advice, therefore, would you give the young man coming into Parliament the next session for the first time, as you were in 1959, what were you going to do? In the Conservative Party?

Speaker 126:59

In the Conservative Party.

Presenter27:02

I think to be ambitious, but not to admit to it.

Presenter27:06

I think to be extremely polite to the chief whip, and whenever one saw him, to congratulate him on his speeches.

Presenter27:13

And thirdly, to keep a diary, but not to admit to it, too.

Presenter27:18

And um fourthly

Presenter27:21

Never to write an article in any newspaper.

Presenter27:24

Final choice of record picture. Oh, September song. After all, I'm fifty-six and this um.

Presenter27:30

This song sums it all up, you know, and there's not much time left, etc., etc. says he miserably. It is a marvellous song.

Presenter27:37

But it's a long, long while from May to December.

Presenter27:45

And the days grow short.

Presenter27:49

When you reach September

Presenter27:53

And the autumn weather

Presenter27:57

Turns the leaves to flame.

Presenter28:01

And I haven't got time for the waiting day Walter Houston singing September song.

Presenter28:12

Julian, you're now on your desert island and uh you've had this awful accident. Uh a tidal wave has come along and it's wiped away seven of your records. You're left with one. Which one would you choose to keep?

Presenter28:22

No September south. I'd be drenched in misery.

Presenter28:26

And what about the book? Assume that you've got the Bible, the works of Shakespeare. Which book will you take with you? An omelette and a glass of wine. Elizabeth David.

Presenter28:34

Who has done more for middle-class English cooking than any other person, and it is a marvellous book, and I would sit.

Presenter28:42

on the sand covered with ants, reading these marvellous menus, and I'm thinking of lost opportunity. And what about the luxury object inanimate? A case of Chambol Mussigny les amoureux seventy eight.

Presenter28:57

to be drunk at the rate of one a month, and if at the end of twelve months there was no boat in sight, there would be a revolver at the bottom of the case, and I would blow my brains out.

Presenter29:08

Thank you very much indeed. Thank you for asking me.

Speaker 129:17

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