Frances Edmonds

Speaker 20:00

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.

Presenter0:30

Our Castaway accompanied her husband on a cricket tour of the West Indies and wrote a book about it. It wasn't the normal book about figures flickering or the greensward. It was an irreverent, funny account of a group of athletes adrift in a foreign land. The book was called Cricket Bloody Cricket. She followed it with another book about the recent visit of the England team to Australia, called Cricket 4X Cricket.

Presenter0:51

The books have made her both a best-selling author and a celebrity, although several of the players she wrote about have been heard to describe her in less complimentary terms. Indeed, when she departs for her Desert Islands, it's a fair bet that several may turn up to wave goodbye. She is Frances Edmonds. Frances, before we get on to the controversial part of this Desert Islands programme, can I ask you are you looking forward to your visit to the island?

Frances Edmonds1:14

Very much. I hope it won't be an infinite sojourn on the island. I hope it will I will be rescued eventually, but I wouldn't really mind some peace and quiet for a rather protracted period, especially away from Philippe Henri at the moment.

Presenter1:26

Philip Bonario, I should of course tell the people, is your husband, your betrothed?

Frances Edmonds1:29

Your betrothed Phil Edmonds.

Presenter1:31

Yes, he's the uh he's the other half of this spectacular duo.

Presenter1:36

It would appear have got very positive ideas about each other in public.

Frances Edmonds1:40

Yes, and when you talk about the group of people waving me off, I think he might be there at the forefront.

Presenter1:44

Therefore

Presenter1:46

Now what about the music you're taking? Has it been chosen with some care? I mean does it represent particular moments in your life?

Frances Edmonds1:51

Yes, it's a fairly eclectic selection, as you'll hear as we go through it, and it starts off I spent my childhood immured in an Ursuline convent in Chester, and uh I had quite a good dose of what I think we can generically call church music, and my first solo was Ave Maria, Gunod's Ave Maria, and I really like Plathido Domingo singing Ave Maria.

Speaker 42:13

Um

Speaker 43:03

Joseph in your rest.

Presenter3:14

Avi Maria by Guno sung by Placido Domingo

Presenter3:17

Francis

Presenter3:19

What about this convent that you went to? I mean, wh whereabouts was it?

Frances Edmonds3:22

Well, it was in Chester. Subsequent to my leaving they've knocked large pieces of it down. That's nothing to do with me. They found a Roman arena underneath. And while we we were there they were excavating the arena, and now they've got almost a full arena, and it really is worth looking at.

Presenter3:35

What what kind of an education was it, though, did you enjoy it?

Frances Edmonds3:37

No, I didn't enjoy it at all. It was extremely strict, although well meant. I'm absolutely sure of that. I was completely hopeless at all all games, um a bit of a swat really, and uh I really didn't enjoy it. No, I was one of these people that whenever the teachers used to say, Is there anything wrong with the lesson? Do you like the way I'm teaching you? All the girls used to say to me, You say we don't like it and I used to say we don't like it and then there would be a dreadful hush when you would put your points forward and you would cop the flack and I've continued doing that all my life. It's something I've never learned.

Presenter4:06

But how do you how do you get out of games? I mean do you make it feeble excuses or

Frances Edmonds4:10

Oh no, very good excuses. Always well orchestrated. I used to tell the Lacrosse mistress I was playing hockey, the hockey mistress I was playing netball, the netball mistress I was playing lacrosse and I used to skybe off to the library and I used to read sort of Gone with the Wind.

Presenter4:11

Uses all

Frances Edmonds4:22

Uh with a brown paper cover saying the collected works of St. Thomas Aquinas on the back of them.

Presenter4:28

What about your parents? What kind of background did you come from?

Frances Edmonds4:30

Well, my father was Irish. My father died last year in May, and he was uh a doctor. And I have three brothers. They're all medics of one sort or another scattered around the world. I was the only one who was sufficiently selfish not to give two hoots about the rest of humanity and look after my own miserable self, which is what I've tried to do with a degree of success. They're all very, very committed medics. And uh we had a very happy childhood. The three boys constantly took the Mickey out of me. I don't think if you're a a single girl in a family of three boys that you grew up with any big ideas about yourself. Um constant mickey taking. And I've really enjoyed that. I I've always enjoyed being with male company because of having three brothers.

Presenter5:08

Another choice of record please.

Frances Edmonds5:10

Well, I think it's a sort of metaphor from moving to this convent where you're cloistered for 10 years of your formative existence and then you move on to Cambridge where I went in 1970. And in those days there were no mixed colleges, three women's colleges and all the rest were men's colleges. I think the statistics in those days were ten men to every woman and that's the kind of statistic I like. Anyway, brown sugar to me represents those years of 1970 and 72 to 73 when I was at Cambridge and it was a real riot.

Speaker 45:37

Oh slave, she found the cotton fields. Sold in the market down in New Orleans. Scott old slave, but no, it's doing alright. Here it went to wham and just around midnight.

Speaker 45:55

My sugar, I warm your taste so good.

Speaker 46:02

Sugar

Speaker 46:04

Just like I'm gonna

Presenter6:07

Brown Sugar, The Rolling Stones. A memory there for you of of when you were at at university. Did you know when you were at university what you wanted to do? Had you always had a career plan?

Frances Edmonds6:14

Oh, absolutely not. No, I just went up to university, first of all, to read classics and after a week changed because everybody else reading classics was either going to end up a priest or a classics teacher and I couldn't see myself in either of those genres. And I changed to modern languages. And it was up at Cambridge that I met my husband, Phil Edmonds.

Presenter6:30

Well describe this this meeting for me, please.

Frances Edmonds6:32

Well, he was quite an Adonis figure, actually, Parki, in those days. He was very tall, tanned.

Frances Edmonds6:40

Shocks of blonde hair, a blues blazer. And well, he's lost the tan, he's lost the blues blazer, and I'm afraid he's lost the hair. But nevertheless, we stick with it. And he was extremely arrogant. And being a colonial, of course, everybody in England who's come from Winchester and Eaton, they say if I do terribly well in the sort of practice nets, maybe they'll put me in the second team. And Phil was rocking around saying, you know, I'm absolutely special and I'll probably be captain of this shower shortly. And it was the colonial approach, knowing what you're worth, knowing your value, and putting your neck on the line, which I don't think is the British approach to things. We tend to understate what we think we can do so that nobody can ever blame us if we don't achieve it.

Speaker 47:16

If

Frances Edmonds7:17

Anyway, he was doing some sort of external degree from Fenners in those days. He was playing rugby in the winter and and cricket in the summer, and I don't really think he got down to too much swatting until about the third year.

Frances Edmonds7:26

But um I just fell for him. He was very different. He used to call me Honeyman. I think that was perhaps more than anything what attracted me to him. A rather specious basis for a relationship

Presenter7:38

Where's the most competition?

Frances Edmonds7:39

For me, I'll get it.

Presenter7:40

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Presenter7:42

Well, there's the Hadonis in the in the in the blue blazer.

Frances Edmonds7:44

Well, as I say, in those days it was quite good because you had t ten men to every woman and I I suppose we just got on very well immediately because I used to take the mickey out of him all the time and it's something I've continued to do. He was arrogant, he was a little bit big headed and I quite like to rub the edges off that sort of colonial arrogance. And I keep on doing it and it's meant always in genuine affection. I think you only take the mickey out of people you're fond of. You don't try it on with people that you don't know or you're not fond of.

Presenter8:09

Was this then your introduction to cricket?

Frances Edmonds8:11

It was. Although my brothers were great cricket fans and would watch the Test matches on the television and used to go to Old Trafford to watch the great Clive Lloyd, so I did know a bit about cricket. But I used to rock along to Fenners with a half-open book and watch them playing, and that was how I was introduced to cricket. And they were heady days. Marjorie Kahn was the captain for the first two years. In those days, Oxbridge really did have first-class teams. Sadly, now they're they're really not first-class teams anymore. Due, Phil will argue, to the influx of women into Oxford and Cambridge, which has taken away some of the places for those those kind of guys who'd probably be in the cricket team. But that was my introduction to cricket. I fell for these flannel fools. You are very attracted to men in whites, I think. It's just like I believe in the war, everybody in a uniform looked good. I think most people in cricket whites look jolly good as well.

Presenter8:59

Let's have another choice of record.

Frances Edmonds9:01

Well, my third record is the fourth movement of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9. It's the European Hymn, and afterwards I'll explain why I've chosen that.

Presenter10:09

That was the fourth movement of Beethoven's Symphony No. nine, conducted by Alan Bernstein. Why did you choose that?

Frances Edmonds10:15

Well that's the European hymn and in 1973 when I graduated from Cambridge I really didn't know what to do next as most people don't and it was fortunate that that the United Kingdom had acceded to the European Communities in 1973 and I was headhunted over to Brussels where they trained me to be a conference interpreter which I did and still do to a certain extent until this very day. And so the European hymn reminds me of those early days. I do believe in fact and I hope this isn't controversial but I do believe that the European Communities were set up as a job creation scheme for otherwise unemployable modern language graduates and there are a whole pile of us over there. Thank you very much for putting us on the road to success.

Presenter10:52

But do you believe in the concept?

Frances Edmonds10:53

I do believe in the concept. When we look at these butter mountains and wine lakes and cereal mountains, I think we forget what the original concept of the Schumans and was, and that was that we didn't want war. We wanted peace in our time, and at least to that extent it's worked.

Frances Edmonds11:09

And I do believe if Mrs Thatcher gets her way and shakes them around a bit and we can stop this lunatic expenditure on the common agricultural policy and get that straight, more money focused on the regions that need it, on the social policy and the regional policy, places that really need it, not just German farmers getting fatter and fatter and richer and richer. I do believe that people will see why the European communities are there.

Presenter11:28

Tell me about your work, about this conference translating. I mean, what does it en entail?

Frances Edmonds11:32

Well, conference interpreting is is all verbal. There's nothing written. I work with headphones on and I will hear somebody speaking my languages of French, Italian or Spanish. I will hear them speaking those languages in my headphones. And simultaneously, I will translate into English, into a microphone, as we have here. And anybody who wants to listen to an English translation of Proceedings will tune into me, or whoever's sitting in the English booth, and listen to

Frances Edmonds11:58

Literally, a simultaneous translation of what's going on.

Presenter12:00

It sounds like a very high pressure job actually.

Frances Edmonds12:02

It is, you work for half an hour at a time and then don't work for half an hour at a time, depending on the language spread.

Presenter12:03

Hmm.

Frances Edmonds12:08

And listen to what's happening. And you do that all day. It is quite hard work, quite stressful work.

Presenter12:13

What kind of bloomers are meadow?'Cause people are under pressure like that and dealing with a foreign language. There must have been some spectacular bloomers.

Frances Edmonds12:19

There are, and a lot of them, of course, don't translate. But a lot of the glorious bloomers are made by, I would say, delegates themselves. There's a gorgeous one of the German trying to speak English.

Frances Edmonds12:29

who was was trying to come up with a well worn cliche and said early to bed und opfus the cock. I'm sure that's not entirely what he meant. And at a recent European summit when Mrs Thatcher was misunderstood to have thrown a Spaniard in the works.

Frances Edmonds12:46

Which caused some alarm.

Presenter12:47

Nothing to the problems over Gibraltar, you know.

Frances Edmonds12:51

Okay.

Presenter12:51

Excellent.

Frances Edmonds12:51

Yeah.

Presenter12:52

Let's have a another choice of record, please, uh Francis.

Frances Edmonds12:55

Well, I love Gilbert and Sullivan, and so my fourth record will be from The Mikado: It's Three Little Maids.

Speaker 413:03

Three little maids who all unwary, come from the lady's sand and merry, people's genius to deliver. Three little maids from school, three little babies from school.

Speaker 413:21

One little maid is a bride young and young, Two little maids in attendance come Three little maids is a total sum Three little maids from school From three little maids take one away Two little maids remain and they won't have to wait many long they say Three little maids from school

Speaker 413:41

Free little mates from school, free little mates of all and where they come from the late seminary, they were favourably

Speaker 413:51

We have the nation's school of fear!

Presenter14:03

And the three little maids were Valerie Masterson, Peggy Ann Jones, and Pauline Wales. You are singing along there like a gooden. Do I detect the frustrated performer there?

Frances Edmonds14:11

Absolutely. Yes. I thought when the Doily cart was closed down that was one of the most iniquitous decisions ever taken. But fortunately, most of their costumes were sold to the Brussels, Gilbert and Sullivan Society, so they do some very good am dram performances there.

Frances Edmonds14:24

Also the European Parliament for whom I work. There is a group called the European Democratic Group, who are neither particularly European nor democratic. They're basically a bunch of Tories and they're all great fun.

Frances Edmonds14:34

More or less monolingual. There's a lot of British Tories, a couple of Danes and a couple of Spaniards. But it means because they are so preponderantly English speaking they can have reviews, which they do every Christmas, and we do a lot of spoofs, and Gilbert and Sullivan was one spoof that I I wrote about, or I did something on the basis of that.

Presenter14:51

Let's now move to the n new career of y of yours, uh that's writing these books about cricket. When did the idea first come to you to do this?

Frances Edmonds14:59

Well, I really should say it came to me in an incandescent flash of lucidity one night, but what really happened was that. No, I would believe it.

Presenter15:04

And I wouldn't believe you.

Frances Edmonds15:06

What really happened was that the publishers, Kingswood Press, very much wanted Phil to write a book, one of these usual sort of ghosted biography books. And Phil said, Right, I want a two-book deal, and they said, No, you can have a one-book deal. And he said, I'm only signing on the dotted line if this here wife of mine can write a book. And that was the truth of it. It was Phil's idea. Phil actually realised that I was a sort of frustrated writer and that I really ought to be writing a book. Not only that, I was going to the West Indies on tour with him anyhow.

Speaker 415:24

Phil

Frances Edmonds15:33

because I had a brother out there in Jamaica and I was going to go on the tour and Phil said, You don't think you're gonna sit in a hammock for four months drinking piña coladas. You can do something to pay the gin bill. So I I wrote the book and it wasn't supposed to st sell, you know, became an overnight bestseller. That was just the way it happened.

Presenter15:48

Well, it was a very different book about uh about a tour.

Frances Edmonds15:51

It was alter well, you see, if you look at the majority of cricket books out now, they're generally ghosted biographies, fairly sort of sycophantic, oleaginous, nobody really says anything nasty about anything.

Presenter15:51

It was

Frances Edmonds16:02

There's no Mickey Take really, and it's all fairly arid. A lot of statistics and who's at third slip on the second day of the first test. Who cares? Who cares? I just wrote the diary as a fairly iconoclastic piece of work. As I say, nobody was really supposed to read it. It's just the way I write letters. It's the way I talk to people.

Speaker 416:19

Yeah.

Presenter16:19

Yeah.

Speaker 216:20

Yeah.

Frances Edmonds16:22

I think that's why it's misunderstood, because unless you can see people laughing and crossing their eyes and and taking the mitt generally, people don't always understand.

Presenter16:30

It also too gives you a sense of place that most creative books don't do. I mean, they say we were in the West Indies and that's it. So you're left to the rest of your imagination. You could be anywhere actually on a planet Mars, you know. But uh it was a particularly fraught tour too, wasn't it? I mean it was a

Frances Edmonds16:33

But it's

Frances Edmonds16:34

And that's it.

Frances Edmonds16:43

That was a disastrous tour, but I I honestly do believe that any England captain who takes a team to the West Indies, when we start playing the West Indies in their own Caribbean backyard, we're in a completely different ballgame. That sort of relentless, merciless, four-pronged pace attack I think destroys most batting lineups. And the reason we beat them in the in Australia in this one day knockabout not that you can take one day knockabouts seriously, they are a bit of a lottery.

Speaker 217:03

Mm.

Frances Edmonds17:09

was that the West Indies weren't allowed to bowl bouncers. And you find that the West Indies without this basic prong of their attack are like Samson without hair and a completely different kettle of fish.

Presenter17:21

Now you see, you're talking with great enthusiasm about this game of cricket and knowledge too, you see. So it's all a pretense this thing about.

Frances Edmonds17:22

Yeah.

Frances Edmonds17:26

It's not really a pretend. I've I've never said that I dislike the game. I've always been on the periphery of it inexorably. You can't be tied up with the cricketer for fifteen years and not begin to osmose some of the finer points.

Presenter17:36

Another choice of red coffee.

Frances Edmonds17:38

Walk on Life. It's from Dire Straits, Brothers in Arms.

Speaker 417:45

It's open

Speaker 417:47

He got the action, he got the motion.

Speaker 417:51

Oh yeah, no, I can believe

Speaker 417:55

She been turning all the night time into the day. It's all about the sea of all the woman. It is a song about the night.

Speaker 418:03

Hand it to the world

Speaker 418:05

Yeah.

Presenter18:11

Dire Straits Walk of Life from the album Brothers in Arms.

Presenter18:16

Francis, it seems to me that that what you did when you started writing about cricket was you upset several conventions. I mean, first of all, the the cry was what's a woman doing writing about cricket? And secondly, you're a player's wife, perceived to be making waves, I suppose. You're not done in cricket, is it? And then, of course, you refused to take it seriously. So you enraged, I suppose, the entire establishment against you. Did it take any palpable form? I mean, d did people really get upset about about you?

Frances Edmonds18:41

Well you see the thing is I think whatever you do you can only really take seriously the comments of people who've A read the book and the team read it. People like Alan Lamb sent half a dozen copies to his parents in South Africa. People like David Gower read it and liked it and laughed about it. You can only really take seriously, number one, the the criticisms and comments of people who read it. And I did find that a whole pile of people who'd never opened it, never met me, never s you know never even seen any of it

Frances Edmonds19:08

decided they didn't like it. A lot of people decided they did like it, but a lot of people s decided they didn't. You cannot take into account people who don't know you, don't read your stuff and decide they don't like you, number one. Number two, as I say, the guys who read it, the members of the team who read it, thought it was a good piece of fun. They know the way I am. They know that basically it's the way I talk.

Speaker 219:24

They may

Frances Edmonds19:26

And I don't ever say anything behind people's backs that I wouldn't say to their front. I don't believe in stiletto jobs behind the back. I'll say it to your face, and I'll say it with a smile on my face, and it's it's meant in fun.

Frances Edmonds19:37

I noticed in Australia, for example, there were certain correspondents, a particular one in Melbourne, who'd written a piece about me, what a dreadful woman I was. I met him once, I think. We'd we'd taken him out to dinner. I think Phil and I must be the only cricketers who actually take press people out to dinner. And he decided that he didn't like me and went on about the book and how I'd done hatchet jobs and how I'd abused my privileged position, which I don't. In fact, I have a very privileged position being a cricketer's wife and don't use most of that information. I'm not interested in scurrilous tittle-tattle about who's sleeping with whom. You know, let the tabloid press do that. They abuse position and they don't have a privileged position, but if they get hold of a piece of information they'll use it, whereas I won't necessarily.

Frances Edmonds20:15

My basic gist is to keep people amused and and keep it light and keep it funny. So there again you get into another problem, which is you shouldn't really treat cricket as an amusing pastime because as you know, who was it? Closey. Was it Brian Close? Who was it? No, the football manager. It isn't a question of life and death, it's more important than that.

Presenter20:34

Bill Shanklix.

Frances Edmonds20:35

Yeah.

Presenter20:36

That's right. But having having had this this view of of of cricket, having been married to Philip for all these years and and having gone on tour now, what opinion do you form of cricketers themselves? I mean, do you admire them or?

Frances Edmonds20:47

It's a very mixed bunch. It's not an homogenous bunch. They're all extremely different. That's, I think, the difference between cricket and, say, snooker. Snooker is a working class game. Everybody who plays the game has come from the working class. Cricket, you've got an extremely mixed bunch. I mean, take the current England side. You've got people who would be merchant bankers or stockbrokers if they weren't cricketers. You've got some who would be plumbers if they weren't cricketers. You've got a real mixed bunch. And that, I think, is perhaps the hallmark of cricket, more so than any other sport.

Presenter21:15

Let's have another choice of record.

Frances Edmonds21:17

Well, I would really like Edith Piaff. Je no retretrien, no regrets, basically because it's the complete antithesis of myself. I think I regret more or less everything I've done thus far.

Speaker 421:28

Run away light upon me.

Speaker 421:31

Now the Mavi, Nagameshua, Oro

Speaker 421:40

Sacrament, save.

Presenter21:53

Edith Paf no regrets.

Presenter21:56

Francis, the the latest book you've written is is called Cricket 4X Cricket, which puts it firmly, of course, the land of 4x Australia.

Speaker 422:00

Uh

Frances Edmonds22:00

Good.

Presenter22:03

What do you make of the of the country? So

Frances Edmonds22:06

It's a marvellous country. It's an epic country still looking for itself. But the thing that I think struck me most about it is that they are putatively so brash, so outgoing.

Presenter22:09

Happy.

Frances Edmonds22:15

you know, so over the top, so macho. And yet I found a s a prudish streak in them, which I found quite surprising. Uh you find the same with the Americans. They are in many ways so outgoing and yet very prudish where we

Frances Edmonds22:28

Brits, Poms, who who are supposed to be so much more conservative, are not.

Speaker 422:32

Hmm.

Frances Edmonds22:33

Um particularly I think in media and broadcasting that came out.

Speaker 422:36

Mm-hmm.

Frances Edmonds22:36

But it is, it's an epic country, a very generous country. I love Sydney, frankly. I could live in Sydney quite merrily. I mean, you do, don't you, in three months of the year. I could I could really do that quite happily.

Speaker 422:42

I mean, you do, don't you, three months of the year.

Frances Edmonds22:46

Elsewhere is a bit parochial. Perth was wonderful when we were there because the America's Cup was on, but I do believe it's a little bit of a ghost town now that that's gone away. Places like Adelaide, well at least you can go and see the wineries and the vineyards, but you don't want to do that every day of the week. Melbourne, a little bit on the old parochial trying very hard to be POM and not quite making it, not sure of themselves. But there's Sydney, big, brash, cosmopolitan, happy to be Australian, and I love the place.

Presenter23:10

If you were an Australian, would you be a Republican?

Frances Edmonds23:12

Would I be a Republican? Uh yes, I think I would be. I think it's very interesting. If I was in Italy, I'd have to be a Communist. You couldn't be a Christian Democrat woman in Italy, you know, where they put you down so dreadfully. I'd have to be a Communist. I think if I was in Central Latin America, I'd have to be a Communist. It very much depends where you are, what you turn out. Here I am in, you know, W eleven and I'm a Thatcher.

Presenter23:15

Yeah.

Presenter23:35

Another sort of convention people have who go look at Australia, never been there, particularly women, is that it's a stronghold of male chauvinist piggery. Did you find that? That's true. I do honestly think that.

Frances Edmonds23:43

I think that's true. I do honestly think that's true. I I really do believe that's true. Although you get people like Gervaine Greer coming out of the place, I think women who make it to the top there are very punchy ladies. In Brisbane, I had the opportunity of meeting the Lady Mayor there, Sally Ann Atkinson, and you find that ladies who do make it to the top against all opposition

Frances Edmonds24:02

are very strong and very steely, and if they manage to amalgamate charm,

Frances Edmonds24:07

With steel, as Sally Ann does, I think they're unbeatable forces.

Presenter24:11

Another choice of record.

Frances Edmonds24:13

My seventh record is I Know Him So Well from Chess and I shall explain why I've chosen this afterwards.

Speaker 424:21

But I could have played it two things way

Speaker 424:27

Learned about the man before I fell But I was never so much younger than now at least I know I know him well

Speaker 424:46

Wasn't it cool? Was a man, wasn't it?

Presenter24:53

I Know Him So Well from Chess, sung by Elaine Page and Barbara Dixon. Now why did you choose that?

Frances Edmonds24:58

Well, various reasons. When Phil was on Desert Island Discs and and didn't pick a song written by Tim Rice, he was much miffed. And I would not like to miff Mr. Tim Rice, otherwise he might not invite me to any more of these Heartaches Cricket Club thrashes, which are so wonderful. Tim is the only person I know who writes musicals, so I wanted one of his songs. But you know, there's a story that a lot of people don't know, and I'm going to reveal all on BBC Wireless, and that is that Tim Rice is merely marking time until Phil Edmonds retires from the game because Tim is no mean and this is on his own admission and I do believe people in his own team don't know this Tim is no mean left arm orthodox spin bowler I believe and he's merely waiting his chance to wear the England cap.

Presenter25:41

Well, I I I would agree with all that, except to say that I have played against him and with him, and he's the slowest bowler in the world in the that famous line that that he's so slow that before the ball pitches he has the option of going and picking it up and taking it back again if he doesn't like it.

Frances Edmonds25:43

Yeah.

Presenter25:54

Now what about the future both for you and Philip? Because Philip's coming toward the the end of the international career one assumes he's not going to tour again is he?

Frances Edmonds26:02

I really don't know. I think every tour he's been on, he's said that's it, no more. I'm hanging up my boots and every tour he's in it's it's very, very difficult. It's the the meretricious glamour of it all. I still think Phil feels he hasn't done enough. There were periods of his career when he wasn't playing for England and it was only last season that he picked up his hundredth wicket. And I really do feel Phil thinks he should have a few more caps to his name or sweaters to his name.

Frances Edmonds26:26

Who will know? I really don't know what he's going to do. Unfortunately we don't communicate on these sort of topics. I'll probably find the day before that uh when he's packing his suitcase that he's off to Pakistan and India.

Presenter26:36

There's also th a a news element coming into Creator too, isn't there? The the the future careers. I mean, it used to be that the creators were lucky to end up with a news agent, sort of a sweet shop. And it seems to me their ambitions are a little bit higher now.

Frances Edmonds26:48

Yes, uh I mean, that was the reason for the anachronism they call the benefit. Uh they set you up with a a a year of legalized begging and on the proceeds of your of your benefit, which used to be about sort of

Presenter26:51

Do not

Frances Edmonds26:57

X grand in those days. You could have yourself a sweetie shop or a newsagent shop. Now, of course, the the benefits of sort of a hundred grand tax free is a lot of spondulics. And also, I think they're giving a little bit more thought now to what they're going to do with the rest of their lives. Phil certainly of course it's very difficult to

Frances Edmonds27:14

to conciliate playing cricket, which is a very full time occupation, seven days a week virtually, with business, but he's trying very hard to do that, and uh he's taken over a public company, Berwick Holdings, which has a stretch of tweed.

Frances Edmonds27:27

You send him out with a few bob in his pocket, he comes home and he's flogged all the family silver and you realize you've got a few yards of tweed and some fishing rights. That's what he's doing at the moment.

Presenter27:37

What about what about you?

Frances Edmonds27:39

I'm writing for the Times, I'm writing novels and I'm meeting egregious bods like you, Parky. I've got no time to be sitting in conferences making half-witted politicians sound fascinating and interesting.

Presenter27:52

Is there to be a follow-up, a third book? Are there to have a trilogy of of cricket, four dots, cricket?

Frances Edmonds27:58

I think that's the end of non fiction cricket. Although some of them have accused me of writing fiction, the very people who accuse me of writing fiction should be very, very glad I haven't put a few more facts in, but we won't go on about that. The next book we're talking about is Frankie Goes to Hollywood. I should like to do for Hollywood what I've done for cricket, what Colonel Gaddafi has done for air safety.

Frances Edmonds28:18

And that's what we're talking about now. What I would like to do at the end of the day is write a

Frances Edmonds28:23

A cricket novel

Frances Edmonds28:25

I sort of do a Dick Francis on cricket, or I've even talked to Tim Rice about this, perhaps a play or something like that, you know, sort of Dynasty Dallas type thing.

Frances Edmonds28:34

My getting in sequins.

Presenter28:36

John Connors is an umpire.

Frances Edmonds28:37

Yeah.

Presenter28:39

Let's have a final choice of record.

Frances Edmonds28:42

My final choice, it's full circle in a way. We're back to the church music. It's Parnus Angelicus by Frank. It's sung by Count John McCormack. Count John McCormack was uh

Frances Edmonds28:53

a hereditary count of the Holy Roman Empire, and it was my father's favourite song and it still brings a lump to my throat.

Speaker 429:16

Yeah.

Presenter30:00

Vanis Angelicus by Cesar Frank, sung by Count John McCormack.

Presenter30:05

Francis Edmonds, you're now on this desert island. You have to imagine that seven of your records somehow are wiped out. You're left with one. Which one would it be?

Frances Edmonds30:12

I think I would keep Parnus Angelicus.

Presenter30:15

And what about the choice of a book? Assume you have the Bible and the works of Shakespeare.

Frances Edmonds30:20

Well, I gave this great thought. I'm a person whose neurosis is basically self-improvement. I wish you wouldn't look at me as if you to suggest there were plenty of room for it. But I thought I ought to take Dante's Inferno, or or should I say the Divina Commedia, particularly The Inferno, and I thought, oh, the hell with it. I'd rather have Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy because I think it's important on a desert island to keep yourself amused, to keep laughing, to keep in good spirits. And I've read that book a hundred times and I still open it and laugh out loud, so it would have to be Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Presenter30:50

And what about the luxury object inanimate?

Frances Edmonds30:54

Well it could be Phil, couldn't it? I gave this again great thought and I thought a cordless phone, but you know I spend my life on my own, yeah, uh with a cordless phone, so it wouldn't be much different from the life I'm already leading. And therefore I thought unless Alan Lamb and David Gower have finished it off, which is eminently possible, I'd like a plentiful supply of 69 Bollinger.

Presenter31:16

Frances Edmonds, thank you very much indeed.

Frances Edmonds31:17

Thank you.

Speaker 231:25

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