Lord Montagu

Speaker 30:00

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

Presenter0:29

Castaway could justifiably claim to have invented the modern stately home industry. From the moment he let the public into his home in 1951, he's shown himself a master of mixing a concern for conservation with a love of Razametaz. His gifts are now equally employed between looking after the 600,000 people who visit his home every year and being the energetic chairman of English Heritage. He is Lord Montague of Bewley. Lord Montague, music obviously has played a tremendous part in your life. How significant has it been?

Lord Montagu0:59

Oh, it is one of my passions, really. It's very wide. I like everything from, say, Wagner right down to pop and jazz. In fact, I I I had enormous difficulty choosing these records. It's been the greatest dilemma of my life. It'd be much better to have been one's hundred best tunes, I think.

Presenter1:14

But how th then what how you chose them? I mean, d are they all memories? Are they points in your life or what?

Lord Montagu1:19

They are slightly points in my life, yes, um, in order to um really remind me of of various parts of my life and also have a balance of uh I'm a Libra too, so that I suppose that suits my star sign.

Presenter1:21

Yeah.

Presenter1:31

What then about the the first record? I mean, what part does that play in your life, in your memories?

Lord Montagu1:35

Well, I think the first classical music I've ever had any impact was Beethoven. And I've had great difficulty in choosing something from this period, whether it's Mozart or Bach or what. But um in my early life I suppose Beethoven was my great passion, especially when I was at Eton and so on during the war, listening to the promenade concerts from Albert Hall occasionally when the doodle buns didn't cottage it off. And I've chosen the triple concerto because I think this combines um piano, violin, cello, and also parts of it is just like chamber music. And um I think this would actually keep me most satisfied.

Presenter3:12

Part of the first movement of Beethoven's triple concerto played by Ostrach, Richter, and Rostopovich, and there was a Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Herbert von Karayam.

Presenter3:22

Lord Montagu, let's now look at your family background. Your family history must be quite fascinating. I mean, where did the Montagues come from? And where do how far do you go back?

Lord Montagu3:29

Well, we can trace our male line back right to um before William the Conqueror in fact. Um I'm really a Scot more than a Montagu. This the Montagu side is my female line. But um the Montagues originally meant to come over with William the Conqueror, whose family didn't, but I think the name is Monte Acuteau or Mont Aigoux, a sharp mountain, and um they're still Montagues in France. But I say I'm really descended from Charles II, Father Duke of Bucleu, and I'm really I've got a Scots descent.

Presenter3:56

When you look back at your family line, do you have any favorite ancestors?

Lord Montagu4:00

Well I think John Duke of Montague was a nice eccentric. He uh married the daughter of the great Duke of Marlborough and uh he loved playing practical jokes like putting hedgehogs in the old duchess's bed and uh he had had a lot to do with the um Theatre Royal Haymarket and once dressed up uh somebody looked like the German conductor Heidegger and got him to play the wrong national anthem and everybody thought it was very funny. But he also is a very generous man and used to uh spontaneously give money and pensions to people you almost met in the street.

Presenter4:28

What about the house? What about the the the stately home? H what's that history?

Lord Montagu4:33

Well, Bewley was originally part of the monastery which was founded in twelve hundred and four by King John. It was one of the very few good things he did, I suppose. And uh it was suffered the dissolution of the monasteries and was bought by the Earl of Southampton, who was my ancestor, whose grandson incidentally was Shakespeare's patron, and has been in the family ever since. It's not a grand house like um Blenheim or Woburn and places like that, but it has got a lovely setting and of course the most unique thing is the river which runs through the estate, which is a privately owned river and a very famous yachting centre now.

Presenter5:05

Let's have another choice of record.

Lord Montagu5:06

During the war I was sent to Canada as a boy and began to listen on my little cat whisker radio, illegally I think, under the blankets at night, and began listening to all the jazz bands then, like Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw and Tommy Dorsey and so on. And that started my love of jazz. I came back to Eton in the war and met Humphrey Littleton, who had a house there and was my schoolmaster. And that started me off on jazz. And so that led, of course, to my jazz festivals for the 1950s, which were quite famous. I mean, it wasn't riots. And we always used to end every jazz festival at Bewley and elsewhere with a great rendering of saints. And I think the great renders of all is really Sidney Bechet's great performance, which was live. It's a bit noisy, but it's it would certainly keep me very happy and remind me of those jazz festivals.

Presenter5:39

Uh

Speaker 46:42

Uh

Presenter7:02

Part of When the Saints Come Marching In, featuring the wonderful Sidney Bachet.

Presenter7:07

Let's talk a little bit about growing up at the Eude de la Montague. I mean, was it a happy childhood?

Lord Montagu7:12

Oh yes indeed. Unfortunately my father died when I was two and a half, but I had a big family, lots of sisters and we had a great time. It was a beautiful state to be brought up on. There's sailing and there's shooting and there's bird watching and uh you know we had a good time, but then of course the war did intervene and um that was a very traumatic time. We had the Secret Service SOE being trained there, people like Odette and Peter Churchill were being trained at Bealey. Not that we ever met them until after the war. And we were I remember when I was eating I had a special permit to go back to home because it was such a secret area.

Presenter7:45

Oh Philly.

Presenter7:46

What was Eaton like? Were were they happy days as well?

Lord Montagu7:49

Well, I was only at Eton the last two years, having been in Canada school before that. Um it was rather fascinating because um certainly m in my last uh term there when one was meant to be doing uh one's school certificate and so on, there were doodle bombs dropping in the sky and I was an ARP messenger. And so I was allowed a bicycle, which is a wonderful privilege. And uh sometimes in the middle of class I had to dash off on my bicycle to the uh city hall in in Eton and um I never took a message in my life, but I did awful lot of classes.

Presenter8:17

What what were ambitions at the time? And what what were you aiming to do? Or had a career been mapped out for you beforehand?

Lord Montagu8:24

I think all of us then, we we knew we were going to be called up when we were eighteen. My great ambition was to fly a Spitfire. But in fact I um ended up in the Grenadier Guards, which uh was a wonderful experience. Um and I certainly don't regret it, but um I was certainly in love with the Spitfire at the time.

Presenter8:37

But what about the ambitions outside of that then? I mean, did you wa want to be a be a writer or or whatever?

Lord Montagu8:43

Well, I think I was always brought up with the knowledge that I one day would have to run Bewley, and I really hadn't thought very much further than that. Certainly when I came out of the army and went up to Oxford, I started getting very interested in public relations and advertising, and that's exactly what in fact I did, and joined uh Colman Pennsylvania, the great advertising agency in London in in nineteen fifty and so on. And um that's a sort of something I've certainly never regretted. It has done me very well in life in understanding the press and and publicity in general.

Presenter9:15

Hmm. Another choice of record, please.

Lord Montagu9:17

Well, I've always been a great patriot and a great lover of my country, and I I think there's nothing that sums up the glory and majesty of England better than Edward Elgar, not Pump and Circumstance Marches, but certainly the first theme of the great number one symphony of Elgar, which I think is to me everything which uh an English composer should say about this country.

Presenter10:39

Part of the first movement of Elgar's Symphony No. One, the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Sir Adrian Bolt.

Presenter10:46

Lord Mondeview, you mentioned there your father, who died when you were were two and a half, so you you barely knew him. And yet he's been a profound influence on your life, hasn't he?

Lord Montagu10:54

Yes, indeed, because he of course had a most remarkable career.

Lord Montagu10:58

As a pioneer of motoring, and it was really in memory of my father that I founded in 1952 just three or four cars in the front hall of the house, which made the whole house smell of oil. But from those very small beginnings, we've grown to be in one of the largest motor museums in the world. And certainly I've been inspired throughout by his life and his uh ideas on roads and his very prophetic writings uh about how motoring was going to be in the nineteen sixties and seventies, some of which has not yet happened.

Presenter11:28

He introduced our our royal family dentito to the motor car as well.

Lord Montagu11:32

Absolutely. He took King Edward for his first really major drive on public roads in the New Forest in 1899. I still got that car and I took Prince Charlesville to ride in it some years ago, which is rather nice. And in fact, my father always had Daimlers, and that became the royal car as a result of my father. And I still drive a Daimler, so we have that tradition. But his writings and he had his own magazine called Car Illustrated. He was the champion of the motorist cause in Parliament. He was first vice president of Brooklyn, Vice Chairman of the REC and so on. So he's very deeply involved and also in trying to get motorways in this country, which he narrowly missed doing in the 1920s.

Presenter12:14

Really?

Presenter12:15

That was very prophetic indeed.

Lord Montagu12:17

Yes, he very nearly got the London Birmingham motorway off the ground, but uh it was killed by the then Minister of Transport, Lord Brabazon, who later been a great friend of ours and became godfather to my son.

Presenter12:28

He also had I mean involved in in uh in in the car industry as well uh a very sort of romantic story th about it, wasn't it? About the the woman who posed for the Silver Lady in the Rolls-Royce. Indeed. Tell me about that.

Lord Montagu12:39

Indeed, a very romantic story, really. Eleanor Thornton was my father's secretary and personal assistant on the Car Illustrated. And when Claude Johnson, the managing director of Rose Royce, asked my father to try to devise a mascot for the car, he asked his art editor, Charles Sykes, to design it. And he used as the model my father's secretary. And she was very devoted to him. And unfortunately, during the First World War, she was drowned when he wasn't. And it was a great tragedy of his life. And we always knew about Miss Thornton and the family, but there was a slight hush used to come over conversation. But some years ago, I was actually delighted to find that there was, in fact, a daughter from the liaison who I got to know very well. And I discovered, to my great joy, there are two nephews I never knew about. And strangely, one of them was working for Rolls-Royce. So we've discovered a a new part of our family, which we're very proud of. As I'm sure my father really was very proud of his relationship with her as well.

Presenter13:35

It's a wonderfully romantic story then, I think.

Lord Montagu13:37

It is indeed, and I like to think that there she is on front of every Rose Rice in the world, and particularly when I drive Rose Rice, I like to think of that too.

Presenter13:44

Another choice of record, please.

Lord Montagu13:45

Well of course I have to have another jazz record and to me the greatest jazz composer, the greatest jazz practitioner that we've ever known was Duke Ellington. I knew him quite well at times and I think one of the most exciting things he ever did was his great performance at the Newport Jazz Festival with Dimino, Duke Mesendo and Blue with those fantastic choruses of Paul Gonzalez on the saxophone and I really think this is something I'd never get bored of.

Presenter15:10

Duke Annington and his orchestra recorded at the Newport Jazz Festival.

Presenter15:14

Lord Montague, let's talk about uh your part in in jazz, because you played a very important part in in the development of British jazz in the nineteen fifties when you started your jazz festival.

Lord Montagu15:24

Yes, this started in a small way. I was approached by a small jazz club in Southampton, and said, Could they have a jazz concert on the lawn? I thought, What a good idea And in fact I thought it was such a good idea that we began building them up.

Lord Montagu15:34

And in the 1958 and 1959 we really had some quite big stars over. I introduced Anito Day to this country for the first time. We had of course Dizzy come over later and so on. And of course the great bands at that time was Johnny Dankworth and Cleo who are there every year. Barber, Bilk, Littleton. George Melly played a great part. And it was really a good, I think, window for British jazz. And we all even had some special compositions done. Unfortunately, there was a riot in Newport, I think, in 1958 or 59, and I think the British fans here felt they should do better. And we had this amazing thing because it was a very early outside broadcast of BBC television in Bristol. And Derek Jones was the commentator. And of course, this riot was happening on television. And of course, they pulled the plugs in Bristol. They really should let it go because it'd be the greatest live news broadcast of all time. There I was standing on the stage trying to tell people to calm down with bottles of whiskey on my head and the gantries coming down and it's a miracle nobody was killed. But eventually in the end 20,000 people in your garden is really something more than one can cope with. And after that really jazz calmed down completely and it's really the pop musicians that were drawing those sort of crowds. And we did have a revival in 1976 but it didn't really work. We had Joe Venuti over then and again Dizzy.

Speaker 416:45

Hmm.

Lord Montagu16:53

But um I still keep up my uh uh contacts with jazz. I go to Ronnie Scott's quite a lot and um certainly wish it well. And uh I'm delighted that and I'm responsible for the Kenwood concerts in London here, that we've introduced jazz there for the first time. We're going two jazz concerts this year.

Presenter17:10

No choice record, please.

Lord Montagu17:12

Well, another great thing in my life is opera. And I suppose the first time I really came across opera properly was when I went to Salzburg for the first time after the war. And it was a time, I think the second festival in 1949, when the great giants like Frot Wengler, Brüller Walter, Catherine Ferrier were there. I had my first Rosen Cavalier, my first Fidelia, and so on. And it's very difficult for me to choose just one opera record. But I'm choosing Rosen Cavalier because, first of all, it reminds me of those lovely days in Salzburg. Secondly, those lovely Viennese warses. And Richard Staat is one of my favourite composers, but I also am a great old friend of Lisa Schwatzkov. And her interpretation of the marshaline in Rosen Cavalier, I think, is one of the greatest it's ever been. And I think she would keep me very happy listening to that final trio from the last act.

Presenter19:04

That was the final trio from Strauss's Der Rosen Cavalier from a performance conducted by Herbert von Karayan.

Presenter19:11

Let's talk now about beauty. You mentioned there about having twenty thousand jazz fans on your on your front lawn. In fact, you have six hundred thousand visitors a year now, don't you? What are the problems involved in living above the shop, so to speak, with all those people coming through?

Lord Montagu19:25

Well, they are considerable, but I think it would be very galling if you went to all the trouble of opening to the public. Nobody came. Yeah.

Presenter19:30

Yeah.

Speaker 419:30

Yeah.

Lord Montagu19:30

And certainly, I think it is behoven of us who are privileged to live in these great houses now to share them with the great mass of the people. After all, they were originally built for the pleasure of the few, they should now be enjoyed by the many. And I think to welcome people is the most important part of our stately home business. We certainly have always done that at Beulie. We're not a great house, I say, like some other stately homes, but of course, the National Motor Museum is a great draw, and that's grown from very small beginnings to being what it is today. We certainly take a great deal of trouble to have a good organization, have a happy staff and welcoming. And I'm very delighted that we get so many nice letters every week from people who just write spontaneously to us. But there are problems, of course. Your privacy is not possible to keep. We sacrifice our privacy rather than keeping our privacy and sacrificing our homes. Fortunately, my children were born and bred in that atmosphere, and I think they'll.

Speaker 419:30

Uh

Lord Montagu20:32

think less of it than I would when I remembered when it really was private.

Speaker 420:35

Yeah.

Lord Montagu20:35

And I think there is a sort of generation gap in the State New Home business. If you are the generation now, the young generation, you take to open to the public as a matter of course, whereas the old generation it was a bit more difficult to do.

Presenter20:47

What was the problem that made you, in fact, open the house to the public? I mean, what was the the alternative quite obviously was you lost it, but I mean what was the financial size of the problem?

Lord Montagu20:55

Well, I think everybody was the same. I mean, it it uh the the cost of keeping up these great houses compared to to a simple house with inflation and and taxation and so on is quite impossible. And the easiest way to do it is in fact to open it to the public and um with that money keep it up. As a result of which one of the greatest conservation successes of the world since the war has been achieved by historic houses in this country, which are the envy of places like France and Germany, who a lot of them have seen their houses crumble and decay. And we are certainly in a much better shape than anywhere else. We've had our problems. Government has helped us. And I'm now in charge of an organization which actually gives grants to historic houses. So it is a partnership between the state

Lord Montagu21:37

and the private individual to conserve these houses. It is much they're much cheaper conserved by the private owner rather than by the state, because after all, no government would allow a house like Blenheim to collapse and fall down. But as long as the Duke of Morb is paired open to the public, and as she does, and places like Lord Taverstock and Woburn and Lord Harwood and so on, then I think these houses will go on for many years.

Presenter22:01

Another choice of record, please I'm on to you.

Lord Montagu22:03

I have always enjoyed going to America and I've always loved the pop music that comes from there. I've also been a great admirer of the good composers in the pop world and one of my favourite is Paul Simon who I think writes marvellous music. And it might seem very odd but I'm going to have that incredible number called Bridge Over Troubled Waters. I've had some troubled waters in my life and I'd like to think I've built a few bridges over them so perhaps anyway that would make me feel the happy times I've had in America.

Presenter23:04

Simon and Garfunkel bridge over troubled water.

Presenter23:08

Lord Montego, let's now talk about uh English heritage as it's now called or popularly called. It's got a longer and more uh

Presenter23:15

Official title that, isn't it?

Lord Montagu23:16

Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England, which is I only remember occasionally. I don't think the public ever would. So I think English Heritage is beginning to catch on and I think it's a good name.

Presenter23:25

Yes, and and you're the you're the chairman. Indeed. What kind of problem are you dealing with? What you're looking at?

Lord Montagu23:31

Well, first of all, our own properties, which range from Stonehenge, Dover Castle, Hadrian's Wall, Kenilworth, a lot of ruined abyss, we then have the responsibility of giving out about twenty million pounds a year grants to local authorities, to IC bodies like the National Trust, to private owners who want to repair their buildings and that that and also churches which we are responsible for as well. There's also a question of rescue archaeology when a road is being built like it is at the moment at Dorchester where they're finding fascinating things in the line of the new Dorchester bypass where we're helping finance that. And generally advising on a a constant amount of heritage matters and particularly here in London the when new developments take place, listed buildings that there have been fusses lately about Royal Opera House, Covent Garden and the Palombo scheme at the mansion house, so on, we have to comment on those. We hear a lot about urban decay nowadays and we're doing all we can English Heritage to try to give an example of restoring historic buildings in the town centre, which I think the public much prefer than having thrown down and

Presenter24:39

I so agree with you. I really do.

Lord Montagu24:42

So we've got a great task, but I think we're beginning to win. And um I think education of everybody to uh look at our environment, look at our built heritage in a sympathetic way, I think future generations will appreciate that.

Presenter24:55

That's a militoiser record.

Lord Montagu24:57

Well, I obviously must have a great romantic symphony from the 19th century and I think my favourite symphony of all, the one that really moves me and one which I have listened to with friends many times and had wonderful emotional moments is of course Amala. I have great problems whether it should be Amala or Bruckner because I like them both but I think there's no doubt for me that one of the greatest music experiences I've ever had in my life is listening to the Resurrection Symphony of Mahler. And the last movement is to me really the height of my musical emotional love. So I think the Bruna Walter version, Bruna Walter knew Mahler, a great Mahler interpreter and I'd like to hear his version of the last movement of Mahler's second symphony.

Presenter26:46

Part of the last movement of Mahler's Symphony No. Two, played by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Bruno Walter.

Presenter26:54

Lord Montague, you've devoted your life to maintaining Beuli in the family, or keeping it in the family, but is it not difficult now to actually regard it as being home with six hundred thousand people a year come charging through the gates?

Lord Montagu27:08

In some ways, yes. But the rest of the agricultural estate is still very unspoiled. And in fact, um villages like Buckles Hard, we've actually removed the the traffic from the main street. And so we've had been able to conserve a lot of the estate. By having a lot of people in one part of the estate means you can sometimes conserve the rest.

Lord Montagu27:25

I'm very fond of the seashore. I have a beach house there and I like sailing. I like watching birds. The whole of the southern part of the state is now a National Nature Reserve, which is very important. I take a keen interest in forestry and indeed agriculture in general. I would hate to think of Beaudi just being thought of as the motor museum, because it's a great deal more than that. It's got the most beautiful river, which again we've been able to preserve by not having too many moorings on it. One still hears nightingales singing. One still has an enormous amount of wildlife on the estate. And I know my son, who I'm glad to say, is very interested in carrying on everything that I've started. He's actually in Australia at the moment working in television. But he, I know, has enormous affection for the estate, and I'm sure we'll carry on that policy too.

Presenter28:13

Do you you hope, obviously, that it goes on and on and on forever. I mean, how long's it been in the family now?

Lord Montagu28:18

Since 1538, yes, I think I do hope that. We've taken certain measures to ensure that it will do. I think that we've got to earn our right to go on with these great estates. I think as long as we, as I say, go on sharing them with the public, then I think they will continue. They're no longer a private garden. I think that they must be considered as part of our heritage.

Presenter28:19

Yes, I

Lord Montagu28:39

a part we must share, but we can enjoy. I think it's more joy to manage these estates rather than own them. And I think that is the great joy, the great skill, is keeping them in good order. And I think the great sign of a a great estate in this country, just driving through England anywhere, you always know when you're in a in a great estate because of all the gates look nicely the same and there's no signposts, all the hedges all cut. Whereas if it's in thousands of different owners, it would deteriorate very quickly.

Presenter29:08

Final choice of record.

Lord Montagu29:10

Well, I have uh uh a great affection for the music of the last war, the war which and I was eighteen, twenty-one, and of course to me the great voices which one heard in those days, the Glen Millers and so on. But the voice which to me is everything, is Vera Lynn, who came to my fifties birthday party, which was uh the theme of which was the Second World War, and she walked down stairs at midnight singing We'll Meet Again. And I hope that theme would um keep me happy on the Desert Island, that we would meet again. And Vera is really one of our great stars, and um I would have a little tear, I think, when I heard her sing that.

Speaker 429:50

Yeah.

Speaker 429:51

Don't know where, don't know where.

Speaker 429:57

But I know we'll meet again some sunny

Presenter30:15

Virulin and we'll meet again.

Presenter30:18

La Montague, you're now on your desert island. Now, first of all, are you a practical man? I mean, could you have survived, do you think, on this island?

Lord Montagu30:24

I think I do fairly well. I've just been for a couple of treks in the Himalayas and I've got there are a lot of porters to help one. I just I think I would be all right.

Presenter30:31

What about the the loneliness, the solitude? Could you stand that?

Lord Montagu30:35

I find that a bit difficult sometimes, but um I do my best.

Presenter30:39

I mean, you wouldn't have six hundred thousand people coming through your desert town, you see. Now what about the special sort of uh things you're allowed on the island? For instance, what about the the records? I mean, you've got to imagine now that that the tidal wave comes along, it wipes away seven records you're left with one, which would it be?

Lord Montagu30:41

It's a little bit.

Lord Montagu30:54

I think it would be the Mala. It's a nice long piece of music anyway.

Presenter30:58

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

Lord Montagu31:02

Well, I've given a lot of thought to this. I've always been fascinated with people talking about Lord of the Rings, but I've never read it, and I hear it's a very complicated book, so I think I'd take that, and maybe by the time I came off I'd understand all about it.

Presenter31:13

And what about the luxury object inanimate?

Lord Montagu31:16

Well, I love being near the water, but it would be absolutely agonising for me not to be able to get out on it. So I'd like a windsurfer, which I'd be able to buzz round the island. I'd also use the sail as a hammock, and maybe as a tent, and go fishing on the board. I think it'd be a very good thing to have, and I'd really enjoy just getting out off the island occasionally.

Presenter31:33

Lord Montiou. Thank you very much indeed.

Lord Montagu31:35

Thank you.

Speaker 331:43

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