Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies

Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies0:00

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.

Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies0:08

The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen eighty eight, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:28

My castaway this week is an actress whose life is a history of the English theatre in the twentieth century.

Presenter0:34

As a classical actress she received her greatest acclaim for her performance of Juliet, but she also created the part of Eve in Shaw's Back to Methuselah.

Presenter0:44

She first appeared on the West End stage seventy seven years ago. Now, in retirement, she uses her remarkable memory to recall not only the great words that she spoke, but the great people with whom she worked. She is Gwen Franken

Presenter1:00

Gwen, I I wonder if you were able to walk back on the stage tomorrow, in what part would it be and and and who would you be playing with?

Presenter1:11

That's a beautiful question.

Presenter1:14

But I think

Presenter1:15

Tilly

Presenter1:17

On consideration, it probably would be the young Juliet.

Presenter1:22

And I suppose

Presenter1:24

John Gilgood, as he was when I played it, when he was even younger than I was.

Presenter1:29

It was the fulfilment of a dream.

Presenter1:32

So it was for both John and me a thrilling time because we became rather the sort of, you know, the prize exhibits of that particular season and we were invited out and we you know, everybody made a great fuss of us and uh well I think we took it all with a certain amount of modesty, but of course we were very thrilled. I certainly was. Well now, our Desert Island is a wonderful place for actors and actresses because you can march about there and declaim to your heart's content relive all the great parts that you've ever played with no interruption. Are you looking forward to that?

Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies2:00

Read it.

Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies2:01

The great parts that

Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies2:04

Yeah.

Presenter2:07

Well, I'm not really looking forward to being alone on a desert island at all. I don't care for being totally alone. Even with the phantasmagoria of all the parts that I played, I don't think they would be sufficient to compensate me for being totally alone. I wouldn't live in the past to that extent. Is your music going to help you get through this ordeal? Well, the records that I've chosen would help. Yes.

Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies2:28

Yeah, to this

Presenter2:33

Very definitely. Because music is a thing one can have it in one's ears more uh even well, I suppose that's not true because obviously one can have words in one's head.

Presenter2:44

Which indeed I have.

Presenter2:47

Because many of the Shakespeare things last with me f well, they have lasted with me forever. I think it would be a very great problem for me to be alone on a desert island.

Presenter2:57

Let's hear the first record that might bring you some comfort.

Presenter3:01

Oh, well, I think perhaps Schubert, part of the trout quintet.

Speaker 33:59

Okay.

Presenter4:01

Part of Schubert's Trout Quintet played by Emile Guillels with members of the Amadeir's Quartet.

Presenter4:08

Well, Gwen, I know that you think age is an irrelevance, but when you're within a few years of a century, as indeed you are, it is inevitable, don't you think, that people should remark on your sprightliness.

Presenter4:21

Well, I think if I have sprightliness, and I suppose to a certain extent I am, I don't I do not think about age and and as far as I can, I don't admit it, and never have, because we never had birthdays in my family. We had Christmas, but I cannot ever remember having a birthday party. I think it was partly that my mother her philosophy was never record ages, because you every time you see him one one year gone, one year gone, and we didn't uh hold with that. You live in the present. So you've never worried about age, that's not a problem. I never worried about age. In fact, I became it was rather a phobia. I didn't want anybody to know my age, and I got jolly cross if anybody tried to find out how old I was. And I got away with murder. Because when I sang The Immortal R

Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies4:57

I never worried about the edge.

Presenter5:11

I looked very young, and everybody thought I was about eighteen. I was going to on for twenty nine.

Presenter5:19

And my Juliet I passed for fourteen and I was again nearly thirty. You certainly don't look your age. I was fortunate. I've always looked and and been uh a a good ten or twelve years younger than my real age and I kept my own age secret. In my day in the theatre, an actress's age was her own private property.

Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies5:26

Neil.

Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies5:28

Yeah.

Presenter5:45

What what about your attitude now? Do you wake up each day expecting to feel hale and hearty, or do you sit there sometimes and think No, no, no, I don't for a moment think I'm twenty I'm I'm ninety seven and I would I have a few aches and pains and when I wake in the morning I'm not quite as active.

Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies5:45

What

Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies5:51

Peace.

Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies5:53

Gosh.

Presenter6:02

But it passes and I don't ad I d I just don't admit it. I just know that um um it's not part of the real me and So so when um people in their nineties constantly talk about living on borrowed time, you'd say to them it was poppycock, would you? Every day is a wonderful day and I wake up and I look out of my bedroom window.

Speaker 36:19

He would say to them it was

Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies6:20

Yeah.

Presenter6:26

And the clear sky, and scudding clouds, and sunshine.

Presenter6:31

And it's wonderful. And if I look out and it's beastly, which it very often is in East Anglia, well, I think, well, I'll I'll light a fire and that'll be nice. And uh and so one has qu uh great compensations of living quietly in the country. I'm very blessed, and I do th thank God for my many blessings.

Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies6:35

Isn't easy.

Presenter6:51

Let us hear your second record, if you would. Our second record will be Mahler, uh, Dietrich Wischediskau singing Lieder, Einos Fahrenhe and Gesellen. I think it's the third one, I'm not absolutely sure. Ich Harbein Grund Messer.

Speaker 37:13

I missed I missed in my head of most

Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies7:16

In the head of both.

Speaker 37:18

Au fa, ove, that's night or ye.

Speaker 37:25

She lost zoti zoti besides a malte But first he starts behind me

Speaker 37:40

Yeah.

Speaker 37:43

Money.

Speaker 37:49

He's the way to spin up when he's made.

Speaker 37:55

Oh wait.

Presenter8:02

Dietrich Fischer Dieskau singing the third of Mahler's Songs of a Wayfarer, I've Got a Burning Knife William Foot Wengler conducting the Philemonia Orchestra.

Presenter8:13

Gwen, at what point in your life did you decide you were going to be an actress?

Presenter8:19

I almost think there was never a time from that I could remember anything when I didn't know that I was going to be an actress when I grew up. But when I was absolutely certain about it, it was when I was still at school, I met a very interesting American lady who'd had an Academy of Dramatic Art in California, but had come to this country because she'd married an Englishman.

Presenter8:47

Her name was misses Manning Hicks, and she used to give readings of plays. She was the first person that I ever heard give a reading of an entire play, um and she said she would start m training me. I was still at school, I was only fourteen.

Presenter9:03

But Juliet uh was the the first

Presenter9:07

um really Shakespearean part that I studied in depth with her and then also um Midsummer Night's Dream and she opened my eyes to Shakespeare. So my whole

Presenter9:21

uh sort of ad lessons was in a way

Presenter9:26

uh caught up with the the Shakespeare heroines.

Presenter9:30

Mondrible occasion in which uh the the the housemaid came tearing down the stairs of the house in Acacia Road where we lived, saying, Oh, ma'am, do come up to Gwen she's in the bath and she's carrying on something awful. Well, I was only doing the potion scene.

Presenter9:45

From Ruby and Junior.

Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies9:46

Unions

Presenter9:49

I really did live with with the Shakespeare women. They were more real to me than real people. I was unhappy at school. I hated it. And I said to my mother, Look, let me leave. Let me leave. I'm not going I'm going to be an actress. It's all. I don't want to learn algebra.

Presenter10:04

Now then it was that your mother took you along to see the great actress Ellen Terry. The connection between me and Ellen Terry was that my godmother, a certain Miss Agnes Harris, was her companion for many years. But when I finally said to mother, Well, I'm going to be an actress, she said, Well, if you're going to be an actress, we'd better ask Miss Terry what she thinks, because you've got to earn your living. By this time my father, who was a very distinguished singer, had had a very sad and tragic mental and nervous breakdown and wasn't able to sing anymore. So it was a question that I would have to earn my living. And

Presenter10:43

So she said, we'll ask Miss Terry if she will hear you and if she says yes, there's something there, we'll see what we can do about it. Now what advice did Ellen Terry give to you when you went along the street? Well she went what she said to me, well yes, you want to go in the theatre, well all right, come on, what have you brought me? And so I had worked with Mrs. Manning Kicks on the person scene. I said, well I I'll do the person scene. The f the the the fatuous impertinence at fifteen. But it b I was so eager, I didn't think of it as being impertinent. And I she was my idol, I'd adored her, and I'd seen her on the stage several times. I'd seen her Beatrice, I'd seen her Queen Catherine.

Presenter11:27

And so I launched into the person seat.

Presenter11:31

At the end of which he said yes.

Presenter11:33

Yes, yes, yes, I think there's something there, yeah.

Presenter11:37

Another thing she said to me: well, if you want to be in the theatre.

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Be very much alone.

Presenter11:45

What did she mean by that? She meant but just what she said. Get on with your own thoughts and your own study and so on, but don't always feel that you must be with people.

Presenter11:55

Then she also said that she gave me the three great eyes, which were industry,

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Intelligence?

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and imagination.

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and the greatest of these is imagination.

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Without that you don't be in the theatre. Marvellous advice. Let us hear your third record.

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My third record is um.

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and Beethoven's Pastoral Sympathy.

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And I've chosen that because it typifies

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the human soul in a way, in which we have turbulence and anguish and heartbreak, and then suddenly

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Some spiritual balm comes to us.

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And the sun comes out from behind the clouds and shines again, and that's what

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The Past Fold Symphony says.

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Part of Beethoven's pastoral symphony, Otto Glempere conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra.

Presenter13:54

So Gwen, you set out to become a great classical actress, but it was your singing voice which first led you to success, wasn't it? Well, actually, you see, um I did want to be an actress and I did want to be um a Shakespearean actress, but I had to earn my living, and the only way I could earn my living was uh by getting into musical comedy chorus. So I I had quite a pretty little singing voice which was trained by a pupil of my father's, and so I was able to get work in the chorus. I must say I was always in the back row of the chorus, and if possible, he pushed me off stage.

Presenter14:30

Um but I knew that I was destined for great things and I wasn't going to be put upon. So how did how did your great hour, your immortal hour, come? Ah, that was came m much later because Rotland Barton had been my father's accompanist and he taught me music when I was a child. He was a wonderful, wonderful, imaginative teacher. And when he started the uh Glastonbury Festival, which was to be on the lines of the early Bayreuth, but it was to be with the Arthurian legends as n as against the um

Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies14:38

Car

Presenter15:01

the Teutonic ones, Brotlin said to me, If I would join him and uh and and and play the sort of leading f female parts uh in they were going to do some theatre as well, I would play et head.

Presenter15:16

So I said, yes, yes, I would. And it was one of the most exciting experiences in a way of my life, because I was doing all the things that I longed to do. I was acting. True, it was acting with music, most of it. But it was not just being in the chorus and digging about, you know, and doing nothing. So it was the doors of heaven opened. That was the first time the doors of heaven opened. And that is where I first sang at in the Immortal Hour in a little green shift, my own hair, bit of mistletoe in, and no scenery at all in the local assembly rooms in Glastonbury.

Presenter15:53

And I think for your fourth record we're going to hear you sing that now and

Presenter15:58

Very old record, huh? Yeah. But you'd like to take it with you. It'd be fun. I would like to just because it would remind me of those early days and, as I say, the opening of the doors into heaven.

Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies16:01

Yeah.

Presenter17:10

Very bad recording, early recording, you know. Nineteen thirty one.

Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies17:14

It is lovely. Fear is the Moonlight, it was called.

Presenter17:15

From it.

Presenter17:16

The Immortal Are, sung by Gwen Frank and Davies, with the Queen's Theatre Orchestra.

Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies17:18

Yeah.

Presenter17:23

conducted by Ernest Erdogan.

Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies17:25

Thanks.

Presenter17:27

How did you feel when you heard yourself then? I just thought, well, I I hope it sounded better than that.

Presenter17:33

It sounded lovely.

Presenter17:35

And it won you great acclaim, enormous success. Off you went into the West End and

Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies17:38

Yeah.

Presenter17:40

And brilliant success of your career. Oh, well that was it was after you see, it came through Barry Jackson having had a series of small chamber operas, which at that time was totally unknown, was a Mozart, a Chimorosa and a Pergolese. And his the conductor of the one of the first municipal orchestras, which is in Birmingham, Appleby Matthews, said, Look, why don't we can't we find an English opera? There's this thing called the Immortal Art Down in Glasgow. Why don't we go and look at it?

Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies17:41

Really?

Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies17:43

Yeah, well that was it.

Presenter18:15

They wrote to Rutland and said yes, they were going to have another season the following year and they would like to do the Immortal R provided that the that the young singer who plays Etin uh would be available. Otherwise they wouldn't do it. That was the second time when the when the doors of heaven really did open and I was in the theatre at last as an actress. And you got your chance to play Juliet. I played Juliet and the Caesar and Cleopatra and uh

Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies18:36

And you go

Speaker 318:37

Play Juliet.

Presenter18:42

Oh, all the all the romantic leads. Can you remember you were twenty eight years old when you played Juliet for the first time. You've been practising for an awfully long time, haven't you? Can you remember that?

Speaker 318:48

Yeah.

Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies18:48

Uh

Speaker 318:48

Judith.

Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies18:51

Two.

Speaker 318:52

Uh

Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies18:52

Hadn't you?

Presenter18:54

First night you gave your first public performance of Juliet? Of Juliet.

Presenter19:00

Yes, I can remember. And I'll tell you something that I think very few Juliets have ever done in their opening performance. On the morning of the opening performance, I was sitting putting the last stitches into m one of my dresses and Laura Knight was helping me to make that tiara of leaves and pearls, rather primavera thing. And that's what we were doing on the morning of the opening.

Presenter19:27

Well now after that you played opposite all sorts of wonderful actors, John Gielgood, you mentioned Paul Schofield, Godfrey Turle. Who was your favourite leading man?

Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies19:31

Wonderful actors, John Geel good. You mentioned

Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies19:34

Yeah.

Presenter19:38

Oh, that's quite impossible to say. That would be invidious and and it it would be impossible. Um but I I I've only

Presenter19:46

I think twice in my whole seventy-year-old odd years in the theatre, had

Presenter19:53

Two um actors that I actively disliked and they actively disliked me. Otherwise I've had the happiest relationships. Are you going to tell us who they are? No, I couldn't. Did all these wonderful uh leading men, did they make a great fuss of you? Did they whine and dine you? Wasn't a glamorous lie? We didn't go on like that, you know. We didn't go on like that.

Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies20:12

It wasn't a glamorous life.

Presenter20:17

We were occasionally peopled but we didn't take each other out. We the to to the it was our you know audiences invited us out to the Savoy with occasionally. You must have been feted by perhaps it wasn't the reading, perhaps it was just particularly and Juliet, yes, yes.

Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies20:32

Perhaps it was just the spear capital.

Presenter20:36

Were you never tempted to marry one of these?

Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies20:36

Yep.

Presenter20:41

Well, no, the problem was that most of the ones that I f fell in love with were married already, which was very unfortunate, yes.

Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies20:41

Wonderful.

Presenter20:49

Oh, that is a problem. That yes, I've had a domestic life all my life, but I've never yearned to be married and had children. I've ne I've had no no such desire. I think I've had a very fulfilled life.

Presenter21:03

Let's have your next record, which I think is from one of your your favourite leading men, isn't it? Sir John Gielgud. Yes. Oh, yes. Now Sir John well, from the days when John and I were hand in hand and we were fated and made a great fuss over that the first season. Oh yes, we were invited everywhere, you know. And you'd like to take his voice with you to the desert islands? I certainly would. And he he reads this Journey of the Magi.

Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies21:23

Uh

Speaker 221:23

I s

Presenter21:28

Incomparably.

Speaker 221:30

Cold coming we had a bit.

Speaker 221:32

Just the worst time of the year.

Speaker 221:35

For a journey and such a long journey

Speaker 221:38

The way is deep and the weather sharp.

Speaker 221:40

The very dead of winter.

Speaker 221:43

and the camels galled, sore footed, refractory, lying down in the melting snow.

Speaker 221:50

There were times we regretted the summer palaces on slopes, the terraces, and the silken girls bringing sherbets.

Presenter21:59

Sir John Gielgood reading TS Eliot's The Journey of the Magi.

Presenter22:04

There must have been days of of great laughter in the theatre, Gwen. I mean, can you remember any great theatrical mishaps?

Presenter22:12

Well, I can it was an i an ill fated production by Basildean of The Midsummer Night's Dream. Then I was Titania, Bobby Harris was was Oberon, and Basildean um

Presenter22:26

uh produced it, I thought, atrociously, and I was a bit uppity in those days. I rather thought I knew more about it than he did probably. Anyway, we we did not get on. I used to cry myself to sleep with temper every night in the bath.

Presenter22:42

On one occasion I more or less threatened threatened I would bite him if he you know, he shook me by the shoulders, he was so cross with me. Well, then came the first night and we were all on a lift which was supposed to come up at the given moment with all the fairies on it and then step off. And of course the lift stuck nearly two feet below and we all had to scramble up as best we can and get on I asked her. That was a great success. Well then there was another time when I had to lead the fairies off after I'd had the s you know, the spate with Oberon and and and the fairies coming behind me. I tripped and fell and all the the fairies, one after another, fell over me.

Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies23:05

That was a great success.

Presenter23:20

So that was another thing. Then I had to be taken off on a string on a wire. And looking back.

Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies23:21

Then I had to

Presenter23:27

My life in my hands, because the singing fairy, and she was only a girl of fourteen, had to put the hook in the back of the harness while I was singing I Know a Banquet Wild Time Blows.

Presenter23:42

And if she had put it not quite right, I should have gone up and come down and broken my neck.

Presenter23:47

And looking back on it, I wonder that I wasn't at all uh alarmed. What I was alarmed was that the the man who was in charge of making us fly used to always bang me against the scenery. And they used the the the four lovers sitting on listening who used to say that they used to kill themselves with laughter, which they couldn't show, but that my frightful language was being bumped by the scenery, yes.

Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies24:09

Flying over there, you bump.

Presenter24:12

Oh, it was not a happy engagement, quite and it was a god-awful production, but very pretty to look at.

Presenter24:20

Let's have your next record.

Presenter24:22

Well, um

Presenter24:24

One of the greatest addicts of the Immortal R, if I may call them so, Elizabeth, the famous Elizabeth of her German garden, you know, kind of Elizabeth. She had a a villa in in Switzerland and she invited me down in the um in the summer holidays because Barry Jackson was the a most wonderful theatre manager. The engagement was for a whole year always. My my first salary was only seven pounds a week, and that was not very much, but still it was

Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies24:32

Yes.

Presenter24:54

It was, you know, regularly every week. And four weeks' holiday on full pay. Nobody'd ever done that before. So on that four weeks' holiday, twenty-eight pounds, which just after the the collapse of the German mark and so on, you could live like a queen, you know. So anyway, um

Presenter25:14

The Countess Russell, um El Elizabeth, had this lovely Villa s Villa Soleil and so she invited me down for a holiday and in the evenings we used to dance and I remember somebody put that record on the double violin concerto and we foxtroted to it. It makes it very nice fox.

Presenter26:30

Bach's double violin concerto, Itzak Perlman and Pincus Zuckermann with the English Chamber Orchestra conducted by Daniel Barenboim.

Presenter26:39

What advice, Gwen, would you give to a young woman who who feels that the stage, the real stage, as you know it, could be the place for her?

Presenter26:49

Well, um but obviously to do the things uh the the the practical things, learn to breathe.

Presenter26:57

Learn to move.

Presenter26:59

Learn to be still?

Presenter27:01

Which is always very difficult for me.

Presenter27:08

Widen your

Presenter27:10

horizon um by being, you know, well read and uh intelligent. Because remember, you've got to, uh as Shakespeare says, hold the mirror up to nature. You've got to give out in the theatre and especially

Presenter27:25

It's a very different thing giving out in the theatre to giving out in that little box, you see.

Presenter27:31

Let's hear now then your seventh record. Well, the second record is a fanfare for the Queen's Coronation.

Presenter27:38

And that was memorable to me because it was the first time that the coronation had ever been televised. And nobody could have seen it without uh a thrill of of

Presenter27:51

Admiration, loyalty, and in a way almost pity for this.

Presenter27:57

tiny little creature with this burden on her head. It was so moving. But we had had the honor of meeting the the the the princess when she was in South Africa, so I had a little personal sort of feeling for her as well.

Presenter28:38

One of the fanfares from the Queen's Coronation Service in june nineteen fifty three.

Presenter28:44

Well, Gwen, I I've said already that you you have a remarkable memory. I wonder if I I can ask you before I cast you away on our desert island.

Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies28:51

On our designer

Presenter28:53

Can I ask you to to perform a favorite speech?

Presenter28:57

Yes. Yes, of course I'd I'd love to do it. And um

Presenter29:02

One of the most exquisite speeches, of course, is the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet. And I always think that when Shakespeare wrote it, he wasn't thinking of Italy. He was thinking of that little um cottage in Shottery where the roses do climb in and nod in through the window. Juliet comes out of her bedroom onto the balcony and her heart is absolutely full. She's in a maze.

Presenter29:28

of this exquisite love for for Romeo that she now knows is the only son of her great enemy, and the whole thing is hopeless. But she is

Presenter29:38

Delirious with the first love.

Presenter29:42

Oh, Romeo.

Presenter29:46

Romeo

Presenter29:49

Wherefore art thou Romeo?

Presenter29:52

Deny thy father, and refuse thy name

Presenter29:56

or if thou wilt not.

Presenter29:59

Be but sworn, my love

Presenter30:03

And I'll no longer be a cat.

Presenter30:06

Tis but thy name That is mine enemy What's in a name?

Presenter30:11

That which we call a rose.

Presenter30:14

By any other name would smell as sweet.

Presenter30:17

Sorome would

Presenter30:20

Will he not Romeo call?

Presenter30:22

attain the dear perfection that he owes without that title.

Presenter30:28

Romeo

Presenter30:31

Doth thy name

Presenter30:34

And for that name that is no part of thee,

Presenter30:39

Take all myself.

Presenter30:44

I think the very palms will quiver when you sit on the island and perform that.

Presenter30:50

It's lovely. Do you still enjoy it?

Presenter30:53

Oh, it's a lovely speech. It's a lovely speech. But it must be spoken and felt, mustn't it? It it mustn't be recited. It's lovely. Let me ask you now, then, for your eighth, your final record. Ah Well, my final record is going to be Kirsten Flagstadt singing the Lieberstad.

Presenter31:13

One of the greatest experiences of my whole life.

Presenter31:17

It was just after the war.

Presenter31:20

I was staying with Iva Novello, who was a very great friend of Kirsten Flagstadt's, and she'd come over here to sing in a performance to raise money for the Save the Children Fund. It was in the Haringay Arena, and she came trotting in onto the arena. I can see her now, little flowered dress, and, you know, bowing and smiling, and went up onto the stage and then sat and bowed. And the minute the music started, the first note Malcolm Sargent was conducting.

Presenter31:48

She became a dedicated priestess.

Presenter31:53

And when she sang

Presenter31:56

It was her voice I can only describe, but it was molten gold.

Presenter32:02

And at the very end I sat side by side with Sybil Thorndyke, and we were holding hands, and the tears were pouring down our faces.

Presenter32:12

and when at the very end

Presenter32:15

She has that amazing lift which so many sopranos they reach up to it but Vlagstadt reached up to heaven

Presenter32:25

and dropped down on to that note.

Presenter32:31

There's never been anything like it.

Presenter33:33

Kirsten Flagstadt, singing the Liebesthort from Wagner's opera Tristan and Isolde, the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted once more by Ford Wengler.

Presenter33:43

Gwen, I'm sure you know that you now have to choose it's always so difficult, isn't it? But you have to choose one of those records that you would covet above all others.

Presenter33:52

I'm not sure that I wouldn't choose Kirsten Flagstove.

Presenter33:56

It's very good. I rather thought I'd have it for my funeral.

Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies33:56

Because it's

Presenter34:04

You must know, too, that that that you have the Bible and you have the complete works of Shakespeare. What other book would you like to have?

Presenter34:12

Oh, it's difficult. You don't have to have another one. I don't have to have a book. Any problem that you need you will find in one or other of those two.

Presenter34:20

And they'd last you quite a long time. And they'd last me very long. I don't intend to stay on that island.

Presenter34:26

I don't know how I'm going to I had thought it all out with the boxes of matches. I would light a fire, so I don't think I shall be very good at rubbing sticks together, but a fire I must have, because I am determined to have um, you know, mm mm-mm smoke all over the island, and some dirty British coaster will see it and come and rescue me.

Presenter34:48

In the meantime, you are allowed a luxury. What would you like to have to keep you happy?

Presenter34:52

Oh, yes, I should think. It's no use getting soap, you know, with salt water. Not a bit of good, it won't wash. Um, I should think a very large bottle of of very nice um, you know, toilet water that'd make me a generate smell nice.

Presenter35:10

Gwen, Frank and Davis, it's been a delight. Thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island this year. It's a great pleasure, dear Fu.

Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies35:15

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Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies35:25

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Islandists archive. For more podcasts please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.