Terry Wogan

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.

Speaker 20:08

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

Presenter0:31

My castaway this week is something of a stranger to radio. He hasn't sat behind one of its microphones for nearly four years. Nevertheless, he managed this week to get himself elected the most popular radio personality of the past two decades. He deserted radio for television, which has never been slow to recognise his talents. There, he's been voted its most popular personality every year for the past ten. So who is this fatal attraction of the airwaves? Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce to you Desert Island Disc's 1914th castaway, Michael Terence Wogan.

Presenter1:19

Welcome, what a welcome. You must have a special room, Terry, to put all these awards in at home.

Terry Wogan1:24

Yes, the old sideboard is groaning under it a little bit, and they make excellent door stops as well. I think it's very important.

Terry Wogan1:32

Not to attach a great deal of importance to things like that. You've got to apply the Kipling-esque

Terry Wogan1:36

motif of treating triumph and disaster just the same because there will come a time when you don't win polls.

Terry Wogan1:43

So if you don't put much credence on them when you actually win'em.

Terry Wogan1:48

then it doesn't matter when you begin to lose'em, because there's nothing more certain. You can't possibly keep winning and winning and winning.

Presenter1:55

But tell me, if someone had told MT Wogan, Esquire, when he was eighteen years old and a bank clerk in Dublin, that one day he would win all those awards, he would be Britain's top media personality, what would he have said?

Terry Wogan2:09

If I had any intimations then of what was going to happen to me now, I probably wouldn't have done it.

Terry Wogan2:16

Um because I'm not

Terry Wogan2:18

Tremendously extrovert by nature.

Terry Wogan2:21

And I if I if somebody had said to me, You're going to

Terry Wogan2:26

Be so well known that you really can't walk down the street without somebody saying something to you. You certainly can't go into a supermarket, you can't go into a pub.

Terry Wogan2:35

Um people

Terry Wogan2:36

People's eyes bore holes in the back of your head when you go into a restaurant. I think I might have thought twice about doing it at all.

Terry Wogan2:43

I'm not saying that it's unacceptable. I'm not saying I'm not enjoying it.

Terry Wogan2:47

But at that stage in my life I might might have thought that was too high s high a price to pay.

Presenter2:51

Too high a price. Well, we're going to take you away from all of that. We're going to cast you away all by yourself on a desert island. How have you chosen the records that you're going to take with you?

Terry Wogan3:00

If I were on a desert island

Terry Wogan3:03

I'd want the music to remind me of something. And mu there's nothing like music for stirring the memory. Just a little chord of music can bring back all sorts of mental pictures and all sorts of memories.

Presenter3:12

So what's the first one?

Terry Wogan3:14

Well the first one really has to be My Love Is Like a Red Red Rose because first of all it's a lovely poem and secondly it's my wife's favourite song and it's the song that we don't allow her to sing at parties.

Terry Wogan3:30

And she does have a very pretty voice, but naturally families being the way families are, as soon as she starts to sing it, all the children leave the room and I hide under the table in embarrassment. But if I were on a desert island, I'd like to hear it because it would remind me of her.

Speaker 43:54

Who is strong and true?

Speaker 44:06

Uh

Speaker 44:09

Family

Speaker 44:13

As fair are my money lie.

Speaker 44:20

Say hello.

Speaker 44:35

Oh, this is my

Presenter4:40

MY LOVE is like a red red rose, sung by Irene Sharp. Well, that was to remind you, Terry, on the island of your wife, Helen. She was a model, wasn't she, with a French fashion house?

Terry Wogan4:49

Well, she was. She she used to do a bit of acting as well. I mean, like myself, she she started in a very ordinary, decent job and uh

Terry Wogan4:58

I remember she went off to work for Balmer and came back, I God knows why.

Terry Wogan5:04

To see me and we're sitting in a pub.

Terry Wogan5:06

And I said, How did you get on? Did you eat anywhere interesting? And she said, I went to the Tour d'Argent. I said, The Tour d'Argent She said, Yeah, this this Russian prince took me I said, Well, I don't want to hear the details, but he took you to the Tour d'Argent, did he? Yeah I said, You had the you had the pr

Terry Wogan5:23

Canar Pressse, I said the most famous the pressed duck you had No, sissy, it was a Friday, I had the fish.

Terry Wogan5:31

So you can take the woman from the bog, but you can never take the bog from the woman.

Presenter5:31

Yeah.

Presenter5:36

What were you like when you met her? It was twenty-five years ago. I mean, were you ambitious, pushy, or were you self-effacing and

Terry Wogan5:42

Nobody ever admits to being ambitious or pushy, and nobody ever thinks they are. Even the pushiest people in the world will say they're tremendously shy and introverted. I've never been the kind of person that can go and knock on people's doors and ask for work and all that kind of thing. No, I mean I I worked in a bank for five years because I couldn't think of anything else to do.

Terry Wogan6:01

And I didn't want to go to university because I felt my parents had spent enough on my education.

Terry Wogan6:07

So after I'd done philosophy for about a year, I then went and joined a bank.

Terry Wogan6:11

And I just saw an ad in an Irish newspaper for an Iran Newsreader in common with about 5,000 other people, because jobs were fairly scarce in Ireland then as they are now.

Terry Wogan6:21

I applied and for some reason, because I was singularly unqualified, they asked me to go on audition and then they asked me to go for a training course. I used to work in the bank.

Terry Wogan6:30

until four o'clock and then rush down and read the stock market report and the cattle market report on Irish radio in the evening. And then they offered me a permanent pensionable post at £17.4 and thrupence a week, which was about three times more than I was earning in the bank. So I went off like a rat up a drainpipe and joined the radio.

Presenter6:51

I can tell you've got an eye for figures. Do you remember ev everything you earned at every point along the way?

Terry Wogan6:55

Well yes, when you're only earning five pounds a week and you're trying to run a Morris Minor car on it, it does tend to leave an imprint on your memory.

Presenter7:04

And try and take someone to the Tour d'Arjent. Let's pause and have your second record.

Terry Wogan7:08

Well, my second record really reminds me, the reason I've picked that because it reminds me of my father. Now, my father was a baritone of extremely pleasing aspect.

Terry Wogan7:17

And he in fact he he had taken part in many a baritone competition in Dublin when he was a lad. But we used to be in this semi detached house in in Limerick.

Terry Wogan7:27

And God knows he must have driven the neighbours mad for years, because my enduring memory of him

Terry Wogan7:33

His

Terry Wogan7:34

Being in the bathroom, because he used to shave is a very methodical man.

Terry Wogan7:38

Used to shave the mic before.

Terry Wogan7:41

Didn't shave in the morning, shaved the night before.

Terry Wogan7:45

And while he was shaving

Terry Wogan7:48

He used to give his baritone tones full vent. And this one.

Terry Wogan7:53

Particularly is etched forever in my memory. It's uh from Faust by Gunno, Valentine's Farewell.

Speaker 48:20

Oh, bless anybody.

Speaker 48:23

God is you.

Speaker 48:49

As a longer

Terry Wogan9:02

He used to sing it for longer than that.

Speaker 49:04

Hmm.

Presenter9:15

That was not Mr. Wogan Senior. It was, in fact, Dietrich Fischer Dieskau, singing Valentine's Farewell from Gunno's Faust with the Berlin Symphony Orchestra conducted by Ferenc Fritschei. I bet you never had names like that to pronounce when you're on radio two.

Terry Wogan9:29

Certain enough.

Presenter9:31

Now, um, schooling. I I just want to go back on the schooling, Terry, because I want to know what kind of schooling it was. Was it very strict?

Terry Wogan9:38

Well, I suppose it it was schooling in the forties and the fifties and it was tended to be stricter then. I mean I wasn't sent away to school. I used to go to a day school. There's not a great tradition of boarding schools in Ireland and um my mother and father in their wisdom uh thought that I'd be best in the hands of the Jesuits.

Terry Wogan9:57

It was supposed.

Terry Wogan9:59

Once they get you before seven, they're supposed to mold you into whatever shape they care to mold you. My mother always says one of the reasons I'm not so strong in religion was because of those damn Jesuits.

Terry Wogan10:11

And they were that yes, they they would punish with the with a leather strap. And uh they it was a slightly sadistic way of going about things, though I'm sure they didn't see it that way.

Presenter10:20

Does that mean that you're quite strict with your children? Are you morally upright and stern with them?

Terry Wogan10:25

Well, I don't see myself as being no. I mean, I'm perhaps I should have been. I always say it's a benign dictatorship, our house.

Presenter10:33

Your mother, who loves you very much and whom you love very much, I know, says that you were a perfectionist, that you'd only go to the cinema if you could afford the best seats.

Terry Wogan10:44

Well ye yes, I I am a bit I'm I am a perfectionist and I am fastidious.

Terry Wogan10:50

And I've never I'm I'm lazy by nature.

Terry Wogan10:53

I really haven't got the kind of mental discipline that would uh

Terry Wogan10:57

Make me swat up on fine pottery, say, or great paintings.

Presenter11:01

But you like the good life. I mean, you like to live well, you like to eat well, you like to holiday well.

Terry Wogan11:03

And you like to live where

Terry Wogan11:04

Well

Terry Wogan11:06

Certainly. All those things. Yeah. That's why I work.

Terry Wogan11:11

I mean, I work to live, I don't live to work. I love what I do.

Terry Wogan11:14

But uh when I finish, I can't wait to get home. I I mean I don't hang around hostility until unlike you until midnight.

Speaker 411:21

Uh

Terry Wogan11:23

I I try and get home and there's nothing that's it's the great pleasure of my life to finish my job.

Terry Wogan11:29

and get home around about quarter to nine and have my dinner with my wife.

Presenter11:32

Right, another record.

Terry Wogan11:34

Well

Terry Wogan11:35

This one is is another memory of my youth because um I used to sing in Gilbert and Sullivan in the in the school in Belvedere uh in Dublin where I went and I used to have some of the leading roles and things, all the Gilbert and Sullivan things like that.

Terry Wogan11:51

The gondoliers. And then when I left, uh

Terry Wogan11:55

I joined a marvelous organization called the Rathmines and Rothgaw Musical and Dramatic Society. And the first year I joined, they gave me this opening song in The Gondoliers, where you come up with a stock and over your head.

Terry Wogan12:09

and leggings, showing off the pews to the best advantage, bound on and sing for the merriest fellows are we to hunter. So I'd love to hear that.

Speaker 412:21

You shot.

Speaker 412:28

There is fellows are weak.

Speaker 412:36

Let's fly on the Emerald Sea

Speaker 412:45

With laughing and laughing and whipping and quaffing, we're happy as happy can be. With laughing and laughing and whipping and quaffing, we're happy as happy can be.

Presenter13:17

The Merriest Fellows from the Gondoliers by Gilbert and Sullivan, sung by the Gleinbourne Festival Chorus with the Pro Arte Orchestra, conducted by Sir Malcolm Sargent. So Terry, you're twenty three. You're working for RTE, Radio Telefiserum, in Dublin. When did they realize that they didn't just have a newsreader and an answer on their hands, they had a potential star?

Terry Wogan13:40

I don't think they ever have to do it.

Presenter13:41

Oh, don't be awkward.

Terry Wogan13:43

No, I don't know. I I don't think television or radio stations know anything.

Terry Wogan13:48

Um

Terry Wogan13:50

About who is a star and who isn't. I think it's the public. Tell them that.

Presenter13:56

So how did it happen? Because you started to do quiz shows, didn't you?

Terry Wogan13:58

Well, yeah. I um I st I joined radio and I was very happy doing

Terry Wogan14:04

Reading the news and because it's wonderful. 23 and I'm reading the news.

Terry Wogan14:09

And then television started and I slowly

Terry Wogan14:12

They they tried me out as a newsreader on television and then I did a couple of documentary things as well. And then I I suppose they felt that I was too young and lovely for that.

Terry Wogan14:22

And so they stuck me on a quiz show, which I hadn't a clue how to do. I mean, I was hopeless.

Terry Wogan14:30

And it was live.

Terry Wogan14:31

Most things we did in those days on Irish radio and television were live. So nothing that ever happens to me on Wogan is ever going to frighten me like that used to frighten me. And I remember one woman won a prize and I said because what happened was they would dip into the little box in front of them, pull out a cardboard thing on which was written their prize.

Terry Wogan14:50

And she dipped in.

Terry Wogan14:52

And I said, well, what do you want?

Terry Wogan14:53

She said, Nothing, there's nothing in here.

Terry Wogan14:58

And then there was the sound of the production assistant running down the gantry steps with the cardboard things for the prizes. All those things tend to leave their mark on you.

Presenter15:05

So when did you first realize that that you could actually control an audience, that you enjoyed walking out in front of them and performing?

Terry Wogan15:14

Never. I've never been able to do that. It terrifies me. I I I you evolve a technique over the years.

Terry Wogan15:21

For

Terry Wogan15:22

Trying to be pleasant with people, and you hope that people will respond to you, but I could never have been.

Terry Wogan15:28

I could have been an actor and hid behind a part. I could have been a singer and hid behind a song if I could have sung. But I could.

Terry Wogan15:35

I could never have been a comedian because if I'd walked out

Terry Wogan15:40

And they hadn't laughed.

Terry Wogan15:42

I would have run off the stage.

Terry Wogan15:44

I'm I don't have that that fibre to want to make the audience, to will the audience to my side.

Presenter15:52

But then why do you do it?

Terry Wogan15:54

I think what happens is when you're a shy child, as I was, and not very outgoing, your parents are always saying to you, You ought to push yourself forward a bit more. Go on, go out and do that. Go into so

Terry Wogan16:07

What you're doing is as you grow up, you're trying to push yourself forward a bit more so you find yourself

Terry Wogan16:14

Sitting on a stage in the Earl's Court.

Terry Wogan16:18

Talking about the most intimate details of your life.

Presenter16:22

and announcing your fourth record.

Terry Wogan16:23

This one reminds me of early days on the boards.

Terry Wogan16:29

A pal of mine, when there was the Dublin Grand Opera Society, used to have a

Terry Wogan16:34

A season of Italian opera.

Terry Wogan16:37

And we couldn't really afford to get in and watch that, and the seats were all booked up. So we used to sign on as what were called supairs. Soupaires, extras.

Terry Wogan16:45

This particular one, I remember, it was Aida, and the grand march from Aida involves all these Assyrian slaves walking, carrying all sorts of banners in front of Aida as as they march, this triumphal march. But Assyrian slaves are of their very nature.

Terry Wogan17:05

A a deep brown colour.

Terry Wogan17:07

Um

Terry Wogan17:08

We're pale, freckled Irish people.

Terry Wogan17:11

And so the produ the producer said.

Terry Wogan17:14

Alright, he said you must go up and get covered in the cocoa butter. So you had to get brown stuff all over you.

Terry Wogan17:21

I wasn't going to wear that, so my friend and I refused to wear it. So the two most consumptive slaves ever to come out of Assyria.

Terry Wogan17:29

Cross the stage, God knows what the audience thought.

Terry Wogan17:33

And this will remind me that.

Presenter18:37

The Grand March from Verdi Zaida played by the orchestra of the Deutschen Oper Berlin, conducted by Giuseppe Sinopoli.

Terry Wogan18:44

What a show-off you are.

Presenter18:47

But I did it beautifully.

Presenter18:50

How practical are you, Terry, on the island? I mean, can you build a shelter? Can you look after yourself?

Terry Wogan18:54

I'd be dead within about two weeks.

Terry Wogan18:58

I'd be dead of either starvation, privation or exposure.

Terry Wogan19:05

There is apse inanimate objects do not respond to me.

Terry Wogan19:09

In fact, they fight, mate.

Terry Wogan19:11

I can't do anything.

Terry Wogan19:14

I would

Terry Wogan19:15

The present Mrs. Worgan has to change the plugs in our house.

Presenter19:18

Yeah.

Terry Wogan19:18

I mean if if I could have one on the island I'd be all right.

Presenter19:19

Finish.

Speaker 419:19

Uh

Speaker 219:19

Lazy Island

Presenter19:21

You're creat you can't have your wife on the artist. No use asking, you're not gonna have it. You're creative, Terry. Can you move?

Terry Wogan19:26

Some other woman that

Presenter19:30

Can you cook?

Terry Wogan19:31

I I do a I do a very shrewd boiled egg and I can

Terry Wogan19:35

My poached egg is quite well received when I bring it up to Lady Wogan in the bed every so often. Are you? No, I'd be gone. You'll miss the food.

Presenter19:43

You'll miss the food, you'll miss the wife, will you miss the fans?

Terry Wogan19:48

No, I I wouldn't. I I'm not tremendously gregarious. So I'd be okay on my own. I was an only child for about six years.

Terry Wogan19:56

And then what happened? Well, my brother came along. But um

Terry Wogan20:00

So I think when you are on your own for that length of time in your formative years, you get quite used to amusing yourself and being happy in your own company. I'm I'm very happy in my own company. I'm a man of somewhat limited intelligence, so to go.

Presenter20:13

Click

Presenter20:14

One section of the population that you won't miss, I'm sure, is the press, who were wonderful to you on the way up.

Terry Wogan20:20

Yeah.

Presenter20:20

But now take a great delight in trying to pull you down. You must have analyzed that phenomenon in your time.

Terry Wogan20:26

Yes, I mean I think it's understandable. I think it's a pity that the the popular press does pander.

Terry Wogan20:32

to the the vicarious interest that

Terry Wogan20:34

Most of us have.

Terry Wogan20:36

in seeing the great and the good or the infamous.

Terry Wogan20:39

Mm.

Terry Wogan20:40

Written about in a disparaging way. We're all like that. I mean, and the press, the tabloids, do tend to pander to that.

Terry Wogan20:49

I think we must accept the tabloids are the way they are, but perhaps we could do with a new law of privacy.

Terry Wogan20:55

The same as I I believe obtains in France, which might help people like you and me.

Presenter21:00

Should we have another record?

Terry Wogan21:00

This reminds me and as I play it.

Terry Wogan21:04

Starving.

Terry Wogan21:06

On the beach.

Terry Wogan21:08

with the monsoon rains pouring down on me.

Terry Wogan21:11

This will remind me of being on radio in Ireland and doing a programme which I really loved. It was my big ambition. If there was any programme really in my whole career that I wanted to do, it was this. It was called Hospital's Requests. There were always a tremendous amount of requests for this because it was called the Nuns' Chorus. And they always assumed it was a number of nuns in a cloister singing a rather holy song.

Terry Wogan21:36

But in fact, it's from Casanova, and it's a whole load of women who've gone into a nunnery because he's done them wrong, and they're all.

Terry Wogan21:44

They're all singing about how much they'd love to get their hands on him again.

Presenter22:43

The Nuns Chorus from Johann Strauss's Casanove with Elizabeth Schwarzkopf and the Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus conducted by Otto Ackermann. We left you, Terry, at the age of twenty five with this blossoming career in Dublin, and you'd met your wife to be. How did you come across the water? Don't tell me you walked.

Speaker 423:13

Uh

Speaker 423:14

Ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Terry Wogan23:18

In common with many underprivileged Irishmen, I took the emigrant ship.

Presenter23:22

Ha ha ha.

Terry Wogan23:23

and landed here, a simple peasant boy, with scarcely a shoe in my foot.

Terry Wogan23:28

And by dint of

Terry Wogan23:29

of repairing Jimmy Young's mobile commode and

Terry Wogan23:33

And slipping Pete Murray the odd fiver.

Terry Wogan23:35

I managed to worm me away to the BBC. No, um what happened was I I'm I married and we settled down and we had our first child. And um I everything was going fine in Ireland, but I just thought I'd like to try and see.

Terry Wogan23:50

If I could do anything over here. So I sent a tape.

Terry Wogan23:53

of a radio show I used to do in Ireland to mark white.

Terry Wogan23:56

whom God preserve.

Terry Wogan23:59

And he liked it.

Terry Wogan24:01

All the more remarkable because I hadn't even rewound the tape, so when he went to play it it was backwards.

Terry Wogan24:08

So I can never thank him enough and he must have heard something that he liked because he offered me a a job like Midday Spin and then I would do Housewives Choice. And then when Radio One started I was offered the opportunity to do Late Night Extra in 1967. And I got my photograph taken in common with all those

Terry Wogan24:26

Old disc jockeys in front of the church outside the BBC. And when the Director General of Irish Radio and Television saw it,

Terry Wogan24:34

He got pardonably incensed because I was the senior announcer at that time on Irish Radio, and he said, Well, you you can work for the BBC for six weeks, but after that.

Terry Wogan24:43

You have to come back. And uh I resigned from Irish Radio and became a freelance and I think that was probably one of the best things I'd ever done.

Presenter24:52

And then of course came your early morning show, which was twelve years of getting up at four o'clock in the morning.

Terry Wogan24:58

I did an afternoon show first on Radio 1 and 2 and I used to do Fight the Flab, of course, which is

Terry Wogan25:03

I used to love because I didn't move a muscle, but an awful lot of people ricked their back and did unspeakable things to themselves while trying to do it. And then Mark White again was head of Radio Two at the time and he offered me the morning show and I did that for, as you say, for twelve years, twelve years of bliss.

Terry Wogan25:21

Not for the listener. For me, I love it.

Presenter25:23

Getting up at four o'clock in the morning was bliss.

Terry Wogan25:25

Well, no, I didn't get up that I

Terry Wogan25:27

I've always believed that you should start as you mean to continue. So I I I never arrived in the studio until about

Terry Wogan25:35

twenty past seven for a half past seven start. I do the same with the television. I mean I never get in there until about four o'clock. Because if you start by arriving in early, they begin to panic if you're not there about four hours before the show, you know.

Presenter25:48

But how can you do that when you say I mean we've discussed the fact that you are a perfectionist, you are meticulous, you like everything to be absolutely right. I mean are you working hard at home?

Terry Wogan25:56

I'm not a perfectionist.

Terry Wogan25:58

While I'm doing it, it's the doing of it that I really enjoy.

Presenter26:02

Let's have another record.

Terry Wogan26:03

Well this one reminds me of the radio show. Because we used to do so many. The great thing about radio is creating mind pictures, creating fantasies. I had so much fun over the years with cones and Northampton lighthouses and weather forecasting ducks and so many lunatic things that we did. And two and a half hours gives you so much time to indulge yourself in all those fantasies. And the public responded and it we had such fun with the soap operas and all the rest of it. And then occasionally my producer would find something

Terry Wogan26:39

Really lunatic.

Terry Wogan26:41

And this is a case in point. It was sung by a man called Conrad Veit, who was, see?

Terry Wogan26:49

Now Conrad White Conrad White was a heart throb.

Terry Wogan26:53

in the thirties, thirties movies. And he used to make some really terrible movies. And he used to talk like death because he was a German.

Terry Wogan27:02

And but it is quite romantic and Aryan looking.

Terry Wogan27:05

And for some reason

Terry Wogan27:07

They decided to make this record of Conrad White singing There's a Lighthouse Across the Bay.

Speaker 427:17

Where the light all shines across the bay, Seagood on the shore have found their stay.

Terry Wogan27:17

The light all signs are closed.

Terry Wogan27:21

See good songs that shall have a single

Speaker 427:27

Come home.

Speaker 427:28

My love.

Speaker 427:30

Come home, dear love.

Speaker 427:33

Come home.

Presenter27:48

I usually restrain myself from commenting on Castaways discs, but that was awful.

Terry Wogan27:52

Isn't it wicked, yeah?

Presenter27:57

Let's talk about weight, Terry, and fighting the flab, because you mentioned it just now. I mean, is it a constant fight?

Terry Wogan28:04

It is, but like everything else.

Terry Wogan28:06

One thing I'm well known for is my lack of persistence.

Terry Wogan28:12

I've

Terry Wogan28:14

I'm quite healthy, really. I'm about 15 stone now, and most of that, I'm afraid, is flab. So, I mean, it was a good idea to start the fight the flab.

Speaker 228:19

So many

Terry Wogan28:22

But

Terry Wogan28:23

You know, my doctor now says, ah

Terry Wogan28:27

Exercise is a thing of the past, he says. Just take a little life exercise, that's the thing. If you start running round the place, you'll fall down dead.

Presenter28:35

He's quite right. So what do you do?

Terry Wogan28:38

I play the odd game of tennis and um I play the occasional game of golf.

Terry Wogan28:43

But I as I said, I'm lazy by nature and I don't mind that. That's okay. That's like being shy.

Presenter28:48

So you don't mind if people say that Terry Worgan? I mean, he's so nice, he's so shy, he's so

Terry Wogan28:53

Maybe.

Presenter28:54

Yeah.

Terry Wogan28:55

Is so what? Fat. Fat.

Terry Wogan28:57

Yes, I do mind that, like hell.

Presenter29:01

Let me ask you for your seventh record.

Terry Wogan29:03

So you shall, fair lady.

Terry Wogan29:06

I don't know who picked this.

Presenter29:07

Here, do.

Presenter29:09

Uh

Terry Wogan29:09

No, I didn't. It must have been means it stuck in there against my best- my best judgment.

Terry Wogan29:13

A brass band version of this record came out and became extraordinarily popular.

Terry Wogan29:24

And I used to play this instrumental thing in, and as it played I used to go, I thought I could hear the curious tone of the coronet, clarinet, and big trumbone. Unity from

Terry Wogan30:07

Well, I'm sorry now that

Terry Wogan30:08

That wasn't the vocal version that we all know and love.

Terry Wogan30:11

But I think wiser councillors were there and they didn't want the hall cleared. If I'd had that on the desert island and I was actually seeing it, I would have.

Terry Wogan30:19

Probably had to hide behind a palm frond in embarrassment. So I'm glad you played the big host and

Presenter30:21

In the

Presenter30:25

Well, you chose it, let us confess. Modesty prevailed and we are specially for the Brighaus and Rastrich brass brass band.

Terry Wogan30:27

And we are especially for the

Presenter30:33

Terry, um, let's talk just a bit more about chat shows. What's the golden rule in in weathering your life at the top there? I mean, uh how do you keep your dignity?

Terry Wogan30:44

You've got to preserve a kind of equilibrium about the thing and not get too involved. I mean, I do get slightly involved every day. We ring up and discuss who's on the program, etc.

Presenter30:47

Not

Terry Wogan30:55

But I think I can't do it. I can't do it in the proper frame of mind if I'm going to do it worried, fretting.

Terry Wogan31:02

Upset.

Presenter31:03

But how upset will you be if and when it has to happen one day, I mean, maybe ten or twenty years away, but one day when suddenly you realize they don't want you anymore?

Terry Wogan31:14

Yes, of course that's going to happen and probably sooner rather than later.

Terry Wogan31:19

All you can do is hold.

Terry Wogan31:21

I mean, I've had a a tremendous run. I've had I've had, oh God, it's been so much more than I could possibly have anticipated. And it's been so wonderful.

Terry Wogan31:30

So when it ends, I hope I'll be able to take it with with equanimity.

Presenter31:34

Terry, let me ask you finally, you seem to be

Presenter31:36

Very balanced. You have a job that you love and you have a wife and a family that you adore. You don't seem to have any great neuroses, not that you've confessed to us, anyway. Is is that what they mean, I wonder, by the luck of the Irish? Are you a lucky chap?

Terry Wogan31:50

My mother always says that I'm lucky. Yeah. And I think I probably am.

Terry Wogan31:55

But I think most people get get the same shake in life.

Terry Wogan32:00

And if you're really lucky, you recognize the opportunity and take it.

Terry Wogan32:05

And if you're really lucky as I was, the opportunities come when you're ready to take them.

Presenter32:10

Your last record, please.

Terry Wogan32:12

Well

Terry Wogan32:14

This is a kind of heavy on the romance, but

Terry Wogan32:18

Um

Terry Wogan32:19

It's just something as I as I sit on the beach and listen to the waves lap in.

Terry Wogan32:24

and listen to all the other earlier records and all the memories come back.

Terry Wogan32:29

I feel I I'd like to sit there under the palm tree, listen to the chirp of the kooko burrah.

Terry Wogan32:35

I'm the sound of the greatest romantic singer I think of them all. I'm one of the great, great romantic songs of them all. And I shall be able to nod off beneath my palm tree listening to this.

Speaker 432:47

And now the purple dusk of twilight time Steals across the meadows of my heart

Speaker 433:00

High up in the sky, the little stars climb.

Speaker 433:06

Always reminding me.

Speaker 433:09

That we're apart

Speaker 433:14

You wander down the lane and follow

Presenter33:23

Oh you chose a winner there.

Terry Wogan33:25

Oh yes, they'll all join me on the desert island as long as I can play back.

Presenter33:28

Can't have them either. Napkin Cole Stardust. Before we let you go, you have to reveal even more about yourself, because you have to make three choices. First of all, which of those eight records would you love to have, you need to have, more than any of the others?

Terry Wogan33:42

Oh, I'd have to have the first one, which is My Love Is Like a Red Red Rose, because it would remind me of Helen.

Presenter33:48

And your book. You've got the Bible and you've got the complete works of Christianity.

Terry Wogan33:51

I don't want the Bible.

Presenter33:53

Oh dear The Jesuits will be after you.

Terry Wogan33:56

No, no, I don't want the Bible. I I wouldn't read the Bible.

Terry Wogan33:59

The writer that I read every night before I go to sleep is P. G. Woodhouse. So if I could have the assembled works of P. G. Woodhouse, because he's for me one of the great writers of the English language.

Presenter34:11

All right, we'll let you we shouldn't I shouldn't really let you have a collected work, so you should choose one, but

Terry Wogan34:15

So

Presenter34:17

As it's you and as we're here and

Presenter34:21

As I'm feeling generous. Alright. Your luxury. Now don't don't stretch the rules. Have a have a a nice sensible luxury.

Terry Wogan34:28

All right, all right, I will. I would say I can't have my wife because she would do all the things like making the shelter and digging the oh, like catching the fish and cooking the food, but you won't let me have her.

Terry Wogan34:39

Okay. Well I thought what I'd like to have would be a radio cassette player.

Terry Wogan34:45

Uh with

Terry Wogan34:47

Lolger batteries are a battery that lasted forever.

Terry Wogan34:50

And I would take

Terry Wogan34:51

lots of tapes that I could have music on, obviously, and I might be able to hear the odd thing on the short wave that'll keep me in touch with the world. But what I'd really like to do would bring loads of language tapes, because I've always wanted to be able to speak

Terry Wogan35:04

Loads of languages. That would be terrific. That would keep me interested.

Terry Wogan35:08

That would stop me going mad on the island.

Presenter35:10

Then you could do chat shows across the world.

Terry Wogan35:13

Yeah, God help us that. What a prospect.

Presenter35:17

Michael Terence Wogan, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island is.

Terry Wogan35:21

Thank you, Sue.

Speaker 235:36

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