Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
West Country writer, journalist, and broadcaster
On the island
Eight records
Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity (from The Planets)Favourite
London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sir Malcolm Sargent
It's it's full of so much hope and promise that I can just see myself playing it very loud on my desert island and dancing down the sands to it.
There are times, certainly, when I find it's important to sit quietly, be at peace perhaps with the inner person, and on those occasions music is a marvellous companion, and this is one of those pieces of music that always make me feel very much at peace with the world.
It's the record that my husband and I both love, and if you listen to the words very carefully, they say all the things I think that two people who love each other would ever want to say to each other.
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Willi Boskovsky
whenever I hear this marvellous galloping music I can see those rolling acres of open, beautiful Dartmoor in front of me.
I've been a a fan for years, and I think he has so much rhythm and writes such beautiful songs.
Au fond du temple saint (from The Pearl Fishers)
Jussi Björling and Robert Merrill
I think that if I'm going to be alone on this island for a long time the companionship of the human voice is going to be very, very important.
Julian and Sandy (from Round the Horne)
Kenneth Williams and Hugh Paddick
I think it's important, if I'm going to be on my own, to keep my sense of humour. I think we all need a good laugh from time to time, and I can't think of a better record than this.
Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. 64: III. Allegro molto vivace
Yehudi Menuhin, with the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Efrem Kurtz
Very happy memories this. I heard Yehudi play it in the concert hall at Monte Carlo, with my husband sitting beside me, and it would bring back so many, many lovely, lovely memories.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:30With what degree of dread do you envisage isolation on this island?
Quite honestly, I [don't] view it with any kind of dread at all. I think perhaps by nature I'm a loner … But actually being on the desert island itself doesn't bother me at all, no.
Presenter asks
0:57How important is music to you?
Well, it's very important, I I think probably because it's always been there since I was a very little girl … music with movement, with dance, and as I got older it certainly became something that for me at least, always stimulated the senses and and And the emotions and and I love it and my life being surrounded by it.
Presenter asks
3:14As a Devonian, were you brought up as a country girl or a town girl?
Combination of both, really. We lived in the city of Plymouth, but I am very fortunate that my father particularly is is very much a countryman at heart. … through him, I think I gained an enormous appreciation of countryside, and learnt, without really knowing I was learning, how to recognise bird song and bird flight, and to distinguish between different wildflowers and trees.
The keepsakes
The book
Jane Austen
if I could ever so slightly cheat and have the complete works of Jane Austen, that's what I'd like. But if you really tie me down to one Pride and Prejudice, please.
The luxury
a collection of paper and watercolours
so that I could draw and sketch and paint, which I haven't been able to do for a very long time.
Presenter asks
4:28What was your later ambition [after school]?
At one time I desperately wanted to be a professional dancer. … But then when I left school, I had a very keen interest in photography and in writing, and I wanted to be a photojournalist. So I joined the staff of the local morning newspaper … and I went to work in their photographic department
Presenter asks
18:58Overnight, as a newsreader, you became a national figure. How did you react to that?
In a way, I suppose I knew that obviously I would have been terribly naive if I hadn't thought that it was going to cause some kind of effect. But I really didn't believe that it would go on for as long and reach the sort of proportions that it did. … after a while I really did begin to think that uh perhaps if I had just blown my nose in public it would have appeared on the front page of the thing.
Presenter asks
28:23Could you look after yourself on a desert island? Could you rig up some sort of shelter?
Well, I think I'd have to, wouldn't I? I've I used to be a bit of a do it yourself fanatic. I'd certainly done all the wallpapering at home and uh laid two floors, two tile floors … yes, I think I'm sure I could build a sh a shelter of some sort.
“I think probably from about the age of five or six I had already got a yearn for the countryside.”
“I only got into television literally by chance, by a telephone call.”
“Wanting to be a photo journalist meant that I enjoyed taking pictures and writing, and to do exactly that same job in television was a step further on. … That for me was total professional and personal fulfilment and satisfaction, and it's the thing that I still enjoy doing most.”
“I always think of myself as a journalist and a broadcaster.”