Cilla Black

Speaker 10:00

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 10:08

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

Presenter0:33

My Castaway this week is a singer. Twenty five years ago, at the age of nineteen, she rose to fame as one of the Liverpool voices which captured the nation's attention.

Presenter0:43

Today she still sings, but her effervescent personality means that she enjoys an equally famous role as the presenter of two successful television shows. She is, of course,

Presenter0:55

A singer, Scylla, turned comedienne, turned presenter. Which is your first love? Oh, singer Comedienne, me? I think so. It terrifies me. I can only be funny with people

Presenter1:08

that I it's an awful thing to say, that I enjoy being with. And an awful lot of these show business functions I hate I hate the people that are there, so I can't be funny. I know I shouldn't say that, but really, no, I prefer to be known as a singer. The epitaph would say singer first of all. Absolutely, yes. That's all I've ever, ever wanted to do.

Speaker 11:17

Yeah, I

Presenter1:26

My ambition really is to uh have another number one hit pop record. Do you think you could make another number one? Yes, but I wouldn't like a as a a a re-release. I'd r like something specially written for me. I mean, the thing is I know anyone who had an art.

Presenter1:41

To say it properly, anyone who had a heart was uh I know was great because it was a number one then selling sort of a hundred thousand records per day.

Presenter1:51

So I I you know, I've been there, done that, I'd like another number one with uh a a new song.

Cilla Black1:57

Well now

Presenter1:57

Well not can't need a listener.

Cilla Black1:58

Yeah.

Presenter2:00

Abandoning you on a on a desert island would, I imagine, be the cruellest thing one could do to you, is that right?

Presenter2:06

Not really. No, a lot a lot of people think that because I love being with people all the time. But I like my own company. I'm not being flash when I say that. I I'm at peace with myself.

Presenter2:17

Um

Presenter2:18

I mean, I've got a a very vivid imagination and it sounds ever so flash, but you know, all all sort of last week and everything I've been reading about Norman Tevitt writing his book and Joan Collins, and I think

Presenter2:31

Gosh, I could do that

Presenter2:32

I couldn't do it now, but on a desert island I could. I've got a vivid imagination. Jackie Collins has got nothing on me. What, steamy episodes? I've got the lot.

Presenter2:43

Just put me on that desert island, it's all there. Right, we shall hear a bit more about that, but you've got the grammar phone to keep you company. What's the first record you're going to play on it? My first record is is a comedy record. It's the Bob Newhart one, uh if a lot of people remember it all. And and the everybody picks the driving instructor, not me. I like the one where Sir Walter Raleigh has just discovered tobacco.

Speaker 23:06

What's tobacco, Wal?

Speaker 23:09

It it's a kind of leaf.

Speaker 23:13

And you bought eighty tons of it.

Speaker 23:19

Uh let me get this straight now. Well, you you bought eighty tons of leaves?

Speaker 23:29

This uh

Speaker 23:30

This may come as kind of a surprise to you, Walt, but uh uh come fall in England here, we're kind of up to our uh

Presenter3:36

Bob Newhart's Sir Walter Raleigh's sketch on the invention of tobacco. Now, Silla, what's all this I read about you really at heart I mean singer apart wanting to be a sex symbol?

Presenter3:48

Oh, yes. Well, that really goes back to that book again. You see, I'm going to write that novel on the island. Yeah, deep down there I would really love men you know, when I enter a room, I would love all men to fall at my feet.

Presenter4:01

Rather than sort of really literally just slap me on the back and say hi, Syl or surprise, surprise you know, things like that. I I really do. I admire people like Shirley Bassey, you know. I I admire sex symbols like Joan Collins, I really do. You cannot, it seems to me, be a sex symbol if you've got a sense of humour.

Presenter4:19

Oh, I think I think you can, you see. I mean, I know Joan C she's a Gemini the same as me, and uh she is a very funny lady. Look at Madeline Munro. I mean, do me a favor, she had the greatest sense of humour on tele I came right over, hit you right across that screen.

Presenter4:35

Well, now one thing of course all of those people you mention are, and one thing you determined to be when you were small, was very, very rich.

Presenter4:43

Where did that come from? Burning desire. Oh, well the burning desire came from uh way, way back in Scotland Road in Liverpool.

Presenter4:52

when we lived behind a barber shop and next door to a Chinese laundry. We never had our own front door because the flat

Presenter5:00

was above the barber shop, so I either had to go through the barber shop to get to our kitchen, or behind the Midland Bank. So I never had a front door that I went in. Uh but my mother used to take me oh just to to escape.

Presenter5:15

Uh maybe two, maybe three times a week.

Presenter5:17

to the films and it was fantastic to see people like Doris Day and Natalie Wood talking about their backyard.

Presenter5:26

And it was like five acres of green grass and all these lovely trees and flowers and

Presenter5:32

Our back yard was where the outside loo was and where we kept the coal, you know. So, um, yes, I did wanna I wanted I wanted a little bit of that, you know, that American propaganda,'cause I just thought

Presenter5:43

Everywhere in America was like that. Well, you got it. I mean, you are you're stinking rich, aren't you? Are we? I don't I d I think you've read well, we know the wrong papers. I read the papers and I think, Bobby, is this right? Bobby's my husband. The Rolls Royce, the champagne every night.

Speaker 15:59

Rose

Presenter6:01

Yep. Oh, well that's gone now since we've been on the die.

Presenter6:07

Your second record. My second record. Ah, well, this is absolutely a fantastic song and uh it's by David Gates and my father is no longer with us and this song sort of just sums

Presenter6:23

up the way I feel about my dad. And if you listen to it, everybody listening at home to this, it's not really singing about your wife or your girlfriend. You just think about all the qualities of your father. It's called Everything I Own.

Cilla Black6:41

For all the years I had with you

Cilla Black6:45

And I would give anything I hold.

Cilla Black6:51

Ain't about my life, my heart.

Cilla Black6:55

Bye all

Cilla Black6:57

I would give everything I know.

Cilla Black7:04

Just to have you back again.

Presenter7:09

Everything I Own from David Gates, who wrote it for his dad, you said. Yes, he did, yeah, and I just thought it sums up, you know, my dad's been dead quite a long time now, and uh, you know, if I could have him back again, it that song says it all. That's lovely.

Presenter7:22

Well now, Priscilla Maria Veronica White, what a mouthful. I know, but you see, you know, Scotland Road again, if you didn't have money, you gave them names. You know, it's fantastic, isn't it? I mean, really, to be called Priscilla anyway, living in the area that I lived in was quite something. I mean, I had to be brave. I had to really fight my way through school with that one. Well, you left school and and you became a typist, but you used to sing by night.

Presenter7:50

Yes, we go to these sessions at clubs called The Iron Door in Liverpool.

Presenter7:55

and see people like um The Beatles playing and Rory Storm the Hurricanes. I sang first of all with Rory Storm the Hurricanes. Ringo was the drummer of that band. Then the word would just spread round Liverpool.

Presenter8:09

What that Scylla was a bit of all right? Well well, yes, and not only that, I was the only girl singer because they were all fellas. There was no other girl singer in Liverpool for a long, long time. Those early sixties years in Liverpool, they will have forevermore in the history of pop a kind of mystique attached to them. Have they been embroidered over the years? Do you recognise them when people talk about them now, or were they actually very special? They were very, very special. I didn't think that they were as special as what people are saying, because I was living my life then.

Presenter8:38

It had to be special because Brian Epstein came on the scene and sort of paved the way with the Beatles. And then that's when he might have been talking to John and saying, You know, I've got all these fellas like Jerry and the Pacemakers. Do you know of any girls would do all right? and he'd probably say, Well, there's only one, there's Scylla and that's probably how I was discovered in a way. I actually did my audition with the Beatles and Brian turned me down first off. Did he? Oh, yes. I was not very good. I was too nervous. And plus the fact I was singing in the Beatles key. You know, fellas do sing diff in different keys than girls.

Cilla Black8:56

But in a way.

Presenter9:11

And it wasn't until oh nine months later after The Beatles that I was in a club called The Blue Angel singing um Bye Bye Blackbird, a Dela Reese version of Bye Bye Blackbird.

Presenter9:22

and he was I didn't know he was in the audience, and he was he liked me. The rest was history. And yes, it was a very, very special time. But if this is what I'd been working for and hoping for all my life,

Presenter9:35

I just stuck to it like a duck takes to water.

Presenter9:39

Your third record. Well, the third one really is actually is quite apt because it's the whole reason.

Presenter9:45

Why I Wanted to Be a Pop Singer, and it's by Frankie Lyman, and I believe he was fourteen years old at the time when he did this record, and I was thirteen, and I drove my parents' crackers. I was gonna choose the B side of this record, but it would I mean, I couldn't put my mother, who I know is listening, through all that pain again. The B side was called

Presenter10:05

I'm not a juvenile delinquent.

Presenter10:09

But the A side is called Why Do Fools Fall in Love?

Cilla Black10:18

As the rain falls from up above, why do fools fall in love? Why do they fall in love? Love is a losing game, and love can be a shame. I know I'm a fool, you see. So that foolish me, tell me why.

Presenter10:42

Frankie Lyman, Why Do Fools Fall in Love? But Paul McCartney wrote your first big hit for you, didn't he? Oh, yeah, it was terrific. He didn't write it for me, actually. I used to hear him singing it in uh the cavern. What was it? Love of the Loved.

Presenter10:56

Love of the Loved.

Presenter10:59

Love of the love. Yes. No, it hurts me to say it that way.

Speaker 111:01

Yeah.

Presenter11:03

And it was great and I loved it. I can't remember how it goes.

Speaker 111:06

I don't

Presenter11:08

Oh, now then you're awful, Sue. No, I can't. I genuinely can't. I can remember anyone I can remember Step Inside Love Anyone Who Had a Heart Alfie. I cannot remember. Well, it wasn't really that big a hit because it didn't have that Liverpool sound because it was the first time in my life that I'd actually sung.

Speaker 111:09

Goal.

Speaker 111:10

Yeah.

Speaker 111:14

Anyone who had a

Speaker 111:16

Well it wasn't

Presenter11:23

with uh musicians who could read music. So that's probably why you've never heard of it. But oh, it's a great record. The words were great. I don't know how how old he was when he wrote it. Um Each time I look into your eyes, I see that the the heaven lies And as I look

Presenter11:42

I see the love of the loved. Now on record I said love, love of the loved, but we couldn't eliminate. I I couldn't understand how George Martin, my recording manager, said, you know,

Presenter11:56

Can you sing the properly?

Presenter11:58

I said I I can't and that's the proper way of saying it, you know. And so they they kill Love of the Loved on the record, but they I couldn't get the. I couldn't sing there. It would you know, it was totally false. It doesn't fit. You've had the nose job, so we all knew about the nose job. I mean it was all over the papers when you had your nose job. I didn't know about that because um I tried to keep it secret.

Cilla Black12:14

So we all

Speaker 112:14

Uh

Speaker 112:17

Bring the draw nails done.

Presenter12:23

But it was the worst thing, because it was the staff at the hospital who said, Oh, guess who we got? We would have noticed anyway, though, because the nose did change radically. I don't think you did,'cause my mother was upset. I don't know whether you've seen that advert on the telly for beans. I mean, that's exactly what my mother said. She asked me what I paid for it, and she literally said, like on the television, You was robbed.

Presenter12:43

She was very upset because she said twenty five you

Presenter12:48

Made your first record of nineteen and you've been the biggest thing since sliced bread with the nose that you've got. What do you want to change it all now? And you became a millionaires at that stage. Did I I suppose I did the on paper'cause we're selling um

Presenter13:02

a hundred thousand records per day. And then w world sales. Yes. I mean, a lot of people thi they talk about monies now, which I ate. But then on paper, I suppose then

Presenter13:14

I was. You know, you're you are you were talking telephone numbers. How long did you think it would last, Life at the Top?

Presenter13:22

I was uh again twenty five. Everything happened when I was twenty five. I'd had my nose done and I I remember feeling quite desperate to have children. And I I you know, I I thought I knew Bobby was the right one for me.

Presenter13:38

And I thought, this is silly, you know. It was in the days when.

Presenter13:43

Eva Pop Singer Got Married.

Presenter13:45

The career ended overnight. So, I mean, I fully appreciated all that, and that, but then the need for me to get married and have children was far, far greater.

Presenter13:56

to my loyalties to the fans. So you didn't care if life at the top came to an abrupt end? Well, it only lasts supposed to last three years, and there was I I was five years later. And it went on from strength to strength I mean, I I remember on the B B C shows, I was on the television.

Presenter14:14

Alive, I was practically giving birth to our Robert and Ben.

Presenter14:18

On the screen

Presenter14:20

Thank God you did.

Presenter14:22

It's for that, yeah. Let's have your fourth record.

Speaker 114:23

Yeah.

Cilla Black14:23

The end

Speaker 114:23

That's hot.

Presenter14:25

Well, the fourth record, oh dear, you know, if ever Bobby left me or if you know, it it it it's everything that's sort of

Presenter14:32

You know, when your man leaves you or whatever, especially when you're sort of a teenager and, you know, you've had your first love and, you know, you've been scorned and this record says it all. I mean, I just wish I I could have in my cre before I die make a record like this. It's called Stay With Me Baby by Lorraine Ellis.

Cilla Black14:52

It was not very

Cilla Black14:56

Do not take good care of you.

Presenter15:22

Stay with me, baby, from Lorraine Ellis. You're a a natural survivor, Scylla, but will you be any good at surviving alone on the desert island?

Presenter15:31

I don't know about surviving on my own, but oh God, I'd have the cleanest hut on that island. I really would. I'd be so organized. I mean, those the the leaves and all the you know, everything in my hut would be in place. You're one of life's hooverers, aren't you? I am.

Speaker 115:43

You're a good

Presenter15:46

To a fault. I mean, uh at the my best time for me is at the weekend in our house in Buckinghamshire because uh I'm literally just on my own with the kids if they deign to come home from the night before the you know, the older one. You've got Robert who's eighteen, is he? And Ben who's fourteen and Jack is almost eight. He's almost eight. You you've given them everything you never had, haven't you? A kind of affluent uh childhood and upbringing, uh an upmarket education. Well that that that you've hit it on the nail that last bit. I mean the only thing you really can give your children is a lot of love and encouragement and an education.

Presenter16:26

You can't give them money. No money's no good to kids, but you can give them a great education. But has but has doing that created perhaps its own problems? I mean, they they they speak differently from you, don't they? They speak Bosch. It's great, I'm so proud.

Speaker 116:32

But has

Presenter16:41

Well, they're bilingual actually.

Presenter16:43

If they talk to me, I mean, you know, like our little Jack, you know, he says, Oh, I think, you know, can we go and have.

Presenter16:52

Can I have me bath now?

Presenter16:54

But I mean uh during the week if Penny's there it'll be bath, you know, things like that. I know, Scylla, that that that it's a source of of great sorrow to you that you once had a daughter, but but she died, didn't she?

Cilla Black17:04

Interesting.

Presenter17:05

Yes. But then you got over all of that because you had you had Jack. You wouldn't have had Jack, I presume. Uh I I haven't said that. I mean, Jack was not a substitute, you know. He's his own, you know, little human being. Oh, it was an awful time. It was a dreadful time. And, you know, i anybody listening out there who has lost

Presenter17:24

a baby. Um oh, it was awful, it was dreadful. It wasn't just sort of it wasn't a miscarriage. She was alive and kicking for a couple of hours.

Presenter17:33

Her lungs just did not survive, they collapsed and, you know.

Speaker 117:36

You know.

Presenter17:37

We had to have the whole business of a dreadful, you know, funeral and everything. And it was it was dreadful, dreadful. Um and then I was advised by my doctors not to go in.

Presenter17:49

uh for a baby, uh, give it a year or two, you know, settle down in your own mind and everything.

Presenter17:55

Um, which I did. But then the baby never came, you know, two years one year went, two years went.

Presenter18:02

Three years went, four years went, five years went.

Presenter18:06

And then it was like well, Jack is almost eight.

Presenter18:10

And uh it it it all happened. One day it happened. When you weren't thinking when you give up hope and you're saying, Well, I've got two children, I wo it wasn't meant to be, it just happens.

Presenter18:21

Another record, please.

Presenter18:23

Well oh gosh. Well this record is everything that American pop music was at the time, and it was really another sort of reason why I wanted to be a a very big pop singer. And it's Dear Sam Cook, who's no longer with us, and of course You Send Me.

Cilla Black18:38

Darling, you.

Cilla Black18:41

Send me

Cilla Black18:44

I love you.

Cilla Black18:46

Send me

Cilla Black18:49

Darling you

Cilla Black18:53

I listen to, I list you, I list you do, wah, wah.

Presenter19:08

Sam Cooke and you send me. We must talk about Blind Date, Scylla. It's a programme which fascinates an awful lot of people, although they don't all admit to watching it, do they? It's funny, people like to duck it. No, which is quite nice really, because I know that they do that, because Queenie Epstein, the late Brian Epstein's mother, she tells me all that. She's got this sort of upper cross set, you know, in Liverpool. And I remember last series, they were all out together afternoon tea and they were all making their different excuses to get back home, whereas they'd never ever done before. And it was really to get back home to watch Blind Date. I'm so thrilled that it's really that big success because it's right the way across the board. But you've never had a wedding. You've never really match-made.

Presenter19:57

We've not had a no. I don't think that people actually come on blind date to sort of they're not all looking for a wife or a husband. I think they they want fun and the thrill of being on the telly and going maybe somewhere special on a d on the date of the pick. Do you ever worry about

Presenter20:16

Encouraging people to make fools of themselves. Oh, and I don't like.

Presenter20:21

I don't like um

Presenter20:23

No, they go it's a strange thing. A lot of people on Blind Date remind me of I hate to say this of myself when I was their age. They're they're dead flash. They are dead I mean, they've got some front to go on that show. They've never been on a television show before, and there they are, they come down.

Presenter20:42

You know, on the day I mean, they don't see the studio till the actual day, and then they have very, very little rehearsal, just for lighting and everything. Then they're sent away to their little dressing rooms, and then at seven thirty, that red light goes on and they're on. So they've got to be quite flash, really, very much like myself. Did you ever go on a blind date?

Presenter21:05

I didn't have the bottle, no. I remember when I was working in the office just round the cabin when I was sort of a cloctypist. I had to relieve Jean, who was the telephonist, in her lunch hour. So I had to man the phones and this fella got chatting to me and uh yes, we made a date, but I bottled out.

Presenter21:26

'Cause I thought, gosh, you know, I could turn up and he could turn out like Quasimodo and I wasn't ready for that.

Presenter21:33

The fact is, of course, during all that early period you had a boyfriend, but you weren't allowed to talk about him. You had to keep him a secret'cause it wasn't good for the image. And that is Bobby, who is hovering over this prey. You mention him about every three minutes.

Speaker 121:42

Yeah.

Presenter21:45

Your husband. I know, yes. The the thing about the early career, um, it was very much a teenage sort of kind of relationship. It was really nice. It was like everything that you see in those fil those Frankie Avalon films.

Presenter21:59

And it was really nice. Um I always I always thinking about Bobby, you know, oh God, I miss Bobby And he's your he's your manager, he's your mentor, he's your friend, he's your husband, he's your lover, he's your everything. He's quite clever, Dick, actually.

Speaker 122:11

Is your every

Presenter22:15

Right, let's stop it there before we offend him any more and have your next record.

Presenter22:21

Well, this is what this is for Bobby actually. It's great that we are talking about Bobby because this is Bobby's favorite'cause uh believe it or not, he you know, he he was a great jiver, great dancer in Liverpool. And there was no better record to jive to in Liverpool than Long Tall Sally.

Cilla Black22:38

Don't salute me, be a species guy. Everything that Aka John need, oh baby.

Cilla Black22:44

Yeah, baby, oh baby, having it come on tonight.

Cilla Black22:52

Yeah, well the song Walker John went bald head sally. He saw and Mary coming and he dug back in the alley. Oh baby

Cilla Black22:59

Yeah, baby, oh baby.

Cilla Black23:05

Heaven is up for the night.

Presenter23:07

Little Richard's long tall Sally.

Presenter23:10

Well, now, Cylla, your life divides itself very strictly into two roles. There's misses Willis, wife and mother, and there's Miss Black, the star, and that's the way you like it, isn't it?

Presenter23:19

Oh, absolutely. I think you've got to I I don't think I would have survived this long if I would have been Miss Black all twenty five years of it. No, I couldn't I've got a a little bit of sanity back at home, uh where your kids sort of just bring you cut you down to size. But do you have kind of starry folk dropping by for a

Presenter23:40

Glass of champagne or a mug of tea. You very rarely get invited to our house. I mean, but the typical Liverpool thing is if you invite yourself or turn up at the doorstep, it's wonderful because if you've just turned up or phoned up and said, I'm coming down, then you don't expect much, do you? So a person who's a great friend of mine who often does that is Frankie Howard and Jimmy Tarberg, people like that. But they I don't look at on I should do total disrespect, but I don't look upon them as stars. They are just mates, you know. But there is a contradiction about the way you look at your life, if I may say. That is you know that you take these summer season bookings and you go off, you leave the home and the family behind and go off to Scarborough or Great Yarmouth or wherever it is. I mean why do you do that? Well I did that. You don't need the money.

Cilla Black24:26

Didn't you?

Speaker 124:27

Hit the ma

Presenter24:28

I know, but I

Presenter24:30

I need the raw of the grease paint and the smell of the crown

Presenter24:35

Not only that, but I mean in the early days when I used to do s uh summer seasons, I did it because of the children.

Presenter24:41

'Cause they and the s my career was always planned round the school holidays and of course uh it was great to sort of do a summer season and great for them being by the seaside.

Presenter24:52

And that's the reason why I did it. Pl plus the fact I love live audiences. It's great to get out the studios and actually appear in in a theater with people they've actually paid to come and see it. I think that's incredible. You're just a show off.

Presenter25:06

All right. Your seventh record. Oh, well, I may be a show off, but I'm also oh, a British patriot. I mean, I'm s British through and through. And I you I mean, you could put me anywhere in the world, put me on the moon, I would still take this piece of music.

Cilla Black25:09

Alright.

Presenter26:27

Land of Hope and Glory by Elgar, Pomp and Circumstance, from The Last Night of the Proms, with the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Colin Davis.

Presenter26:35

Well, now Miss Black says she's trying hard to lose weight. Is that a problem?

Presenter26:41

Well, no, it hasn't been a problem because I've I've lost the sort of uh the bulk of it um that I put on when I was in Spain. You know, we uh all the family went to Spain, apart from Robert, my eldest lad. He went to Portugal, he's eighteen. It's it's getting awfully difficult to have family holidays now.

Presenter26:58

But we've got this house in Spain and uh we thought we'd because we weren't doing a summer season, we'd do the summer season in Spain.

Presenter27:05

Oh, the worst thing. Plus the fact I thought

Presenter27:09

In a few years' time maybe I might retire and this is I want to retire here. I'm oh, Sue, I could not retire in Spain. No, not after listening to Landon Open Glory. And plus the fact the weight that I put on. Come on, admit it though, you took the chip panel that's. I did. Why that? I took it for the kids.

Speaker 127:24

I did

Presenter27:27

And Bobby actually went to a catering firm, so this is a very big gym.

Presenter27:33

And that was my downfall.

Presenter27:35

I actually bought scales in Spain.

Presenter27:38

But they were all in kilos and I couldn't quite work it out. But I jumped on my little scales when I got home and had the shock of my life and I thought, No, it's got to go. Well, now you mentioned retirement and from all I read, Miss Black says she's going to retire in five years' time when she's fifty.

Presenter27:56

Well, I quite like the idea. Whether I do it is another thing altogether. Mrs. Willis says she'd quite like to be a grandma.

Presenter28:04

Oh yes, yes. I can't wait. I mean

Presenter28:08

Oh, just watching te when I see babies on television, especially those nappy ads, I mean, I go all stupid and everything. So five years to go, um, professionally, or maybe more, you say, but let's say it's five years. What would you hope to achieve in that time? The hit record, you say? Well, yeah, but I mean, that's an ego trip, um, which, you know, I would really be knocked out if it happened, but it wouldn't be the end of

Presenter28:32

the earth if it didn't.

Presenter28:33

I always have to think of uh family first, always family first, and their happiness.

Presenter28:40

Let's have your eighth record.

Presenter28:42

Oh well.

Presenter28:43

This says it all. I mean, the final record, it couldn't be more fitting, really.

Presenter28:48

Well, the Beatles. And apparently at this time when uh Paul recorded this, it wasn't a very happy time for the Beatles.

Presenter28:56

And I think this song really reflects it all. I mean, if you listen to his voice, you can hear it all in that.

Presenter29:03

But having said that, this song was sent to me.

Presenter29:06

In Portland Place across the road and uh by George Martin, who didn't tell me it was Paul.

Presenter29:12

He just said that this would be good to do.

Presenter29:15

This song, and I listened to it and I said, I phoned George up and I said, You know, there's no way.

Presenter29:21

I could better this song.

Presenter29:23

I mean, it's got to go out the way it is. And of course it did. It's The Long and Winding Road by Paul McCartney.

Cilla Black29:30

The long and winding road

Cilla Black29:35

Help me.

Cilla Black29:38

To your door.

Cilla Black29:45

Will never disappear.

Cilla Black29:52

I've seen that road before

Presenter29:57

Uh

Cilla Black29:57

Yeah.

Presenter30:00

The Beatles, or rather Paul McCartney, with The Long and Winding Road. You haven't had one record of your own, Scylla. That's very modest. Well, I know, but I mean, it on my island, or all on my own, I can sing to myself all day long, so why do I have to put myself on a record player, you know? Well, now, which of those would you like to put on the record player more than any of the others? Well, I I think it's got to be the long and winding road.

Presenter30:23

The lyrics are so superb.

Presenter30:27

And a book you have to choose. You've got the complete works of Shakespeare, and you've got the Bible.

Presenter30:32

Oh, have I? Oh, the Bible. I quite like the Bible, Old Testament and New. Mm-hmm. Oh, great. Oh, that's wonderful. I didn't realise that. Um, well, then very similar to the Bible, I suppose, would be I thought Aesop's Fables, only because uh it was given to me as a boob prize at school, nothing for anything in particular except for good attendance. I love school. I never had a day off. Plus the fact, I mean

Presenter30:58

And some of the sayings, some of the morals in the story is absolutely incredible. It's all there. Yeah, it's all there. And a luxury. What would you like? Oh, the well, you know, going from Esalm's fables.

Speaker 131:05

Uh

Presenter31:09

It's gotta be the Nafas thing. Oh, girls, you know, I mean, it just shows that I am a girl at heart. If I can't be a sex symbol, I'm gonna try and look like one. Because I'd grow my nails really 10 inches long. And it's gotta be my manicure set and my nail varnish. You see, with that incredible tan and blood-red nail varnish and toes, I mean, I, you know.

Presenter31:28

I've got to charm the birds out of the trees.

Presenter31:32

You shall have it all. Scylla Black, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Speaker 131:45

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Islandists archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk/radio4.