Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Former Special Operations Executive agent who later founded the Sue Ryder Foundation, a charity with 80 homes in 13 countries.
On the island
Eight records
Hallé Orchestra conducted by Sir John Barbirolli
it reminds me of the short pre-war period when I just loved dancing and waltzing.
Wish Me Luck as You Wave Me Goodbye
it reminds me very much of the extremely brave and wonderful young boys and girls in SOE who went out on those death missions.
Home to Our Mountains (from Il Trovatore)
Fiorenza Cossotto and Carlo Bergonzi
Because when we were, we thought, on our way to Poland, full of great hopes in 1943. We used to hear the Italians up in the hill districts singing and whistling, and then on one incredible occasion... we actually heard them sing this opera, Il Trovatore.
Ave MariaFavourite
it reminds me of a of a most remarkable and absolutely super soprano, Maria Belitzka, who herself was arrested in Warsaw... She sung Avamaria by Schubert, to the sick and the dying, and she continued through those ghastly years in three extermination camps.
Because it's so peaceful and I think we need to have days off when in the foundation when we just go into retreat.
Shepherd's Hymn (from Symphony No. 6 'Pastoral')
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Karl Böhm
I think it's so beautiful and when you hear it on the roads, as I do so often, it gives you a feeling of great happiness. Especially in the mountains.
Funeral March (from Piano Sonata No. 2, Op. 35)
Because to me it symbolises the Poles and their country.
In conversation
Presenter asks
3:55Would I be right in thinking that there's a sense in which you were destined from the very beginning to do the kind of work you're doing now?
It's hard to say, but um. I was taken by the district nurses when I was a child, I mean seven or eight years of age, round the poverty-stricken areas and the slums of Yorkshire, and that made a tremendous impression on my mind. My mother was also a very keen and energetic social worker, and she used to go and visit as many people too, and I went with her and we tried to provide things which those people just hadn't got. There was such terrible unemployment. So there was things like um hot food and soup and fruit and shoes and clothing, bed linen, zayatorf newspapers. And uh l lots of them had tuberculosis because the overcrowding was so appalling, and so was the smog. And I think there those were my first impressions, which were very, very vivid. Of the poverty that people coped with, and I was amazed, as I have been all through my life. By their their grace and their dignity in their humour.
Presenter asks
7:19How did you come to join the Special Operations Executive?
I was a member of the Fanny, which is the oldest women's corps in the country, it was a volunteer corps. ... It was a tremendous esprit de corps and a wonderful spirit amongst very young people. And after the first training session, our names were put up on a board if we'd passed our examinations properly. And I I was told that if mine came under a heading called Bingham's unit, which it did, I was to report to Baker Street in London, and there I was grilled by security and made to sign this official secret act. So then from there I went on to the training stations in SOE.
The keepsakes
The book
The Collected Poems of Wilfred Owen
Wilfred Owen
it's Wilfrid Owens, the famous First World War poet, who wrote such beautiful prose and poetry.
Presenter asks
11:32At the end of the war, it wasn't quite the same for you, though, was it?
No, and not for the Poles either, or the Czechs. A lot of them were arrested in the Stalin era. A huge number disappeared and were executed, and others were never heard of again. But they were determined to rebuild their countries I mean Poland from the ruins, and that's one of the great miracles, I think, of this of this century, that they did just that without any equipment or outside help. They've rebuilt the old cities exactly as they used to be, and uh all the churches and factories and schools, many hospitals. And today, despite the shortage of building materials, they're continuing to rebuild another two thousand churches because their masses are so full. Not only on Sundays, they have eight or ten on Sundays, but they can't get the congregations in.
Presenter asks
19:24What do the border guards make of you?
In the old days one got to know most of them because they were on regular shifts. But of course they've changed over the years, so occasionally they no long no longer welcome one exactly. I mean ... No, I think they've half suggested I should be in the East Germans, which was quite funny. They've also made me offload at times. I mean, that really means just literally taking everything out and dumping it. And then rather hard because it's all listed. Each carton and every sack and everything in in those days in the trucks were marked and listed according to the numbers. It was wholly unnecessary. And they ripped open the stuff. So it was a it was a struggle, worse to get it back in again. Anyway, one had to see the funny side of it. Well, there's no sense in that, is there? I mean, one could see only the funny side. And being able to talk to them in in their own language a bit. You know, I tried to sort of say, Oh, come on, but um wasn't much reaction. The polls were absolutely livid with them.
Presenter asks
22:39Do you find it very difficult to put a personality forward in fundraising?
Well, I certainly don't like personal publicity. I mean when I go out and give talks at schools or acid scores and universities. I just love being amongst the children and the young people because I think that they've got a tremendous amount to give, and they're deeply concerned, a lot of them. And well, I I f I find that despite whatever anybody says, and there are lots and lots of good people around and they really should be, I think, given more publicity.
Presenter asks
27:50When you look back on your life, what do you think has been your reward?
Oh, the people and the children that I've been with, and their courage, and their tremendous spirit, and sense of fun and optimism.
“I was taken by the district nurses when I was a child, I mean seven or eight years of age, round the poverty-stricken areas and the slums of Yorkshire, and that made a tremendous impression on my mind.”
“They lost over six million of their citizens, you remember they were carved up between Soviet Russia and Germany. And um their suffering was just indescribable, and their bravery as well, because we did sell them out.”
“I think it's a tremendous privilege to be amongst them. And to see their humility and courage.”
“Yes, I'm optimistic and I'm full of hope about them. And I think that that was proved absolutely and completely by Geldorf when he mobilized the world, didn't he, in an incredible way.”