Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Author and adventurer: WWI fighter pilot decorated for bravery, wrote a book praised by Shaw, helped invent BBC, won Oscar for screenplay.
On the island
Eight records
this is something uh that I think would be rather fun to do, uh because it it would be an introduction to the island, uh a sort of arrival, a sort of like uh r blowing a trumpet. Say, here I am.
Au fond du temple saint (from The Pearl Fishers)
this is a piece of music which has no particular significance for me except in its long sort of roaring, sleepy sort of rhythm, uh and the feeling it is written about people who fished and died for pearls, so it's very m pacific in its uh outlook.
It was magical to arrive at that particular morning in that particular way and with all the hope and promise of liberating Greece, you know, it was after all a great thing.
Ist ein Traum (from Der Rosenkavalier)
Helen Donath and Yvonne Minton with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Sir Georg Solti
this remains in my memory as an extraordinary conjunction of an unexpected and rather ghost sort of situation in the middle of a wonderful dream.
this is only just a bit of fun I heard hundreds of years ago, and it made me laugh like mad then, and it makes me laugh like mad now, and I hope it'll make the audience laugh like mad, too.
the song is really the result of longing for this boy to ring up, and it's got, you know, that sort of tragic excitement about it, which I find rather fun.
Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommenFavourite
Janet Baker with the New Philharmonia Orchestra, conducted by Sir John Barbirolli
this song which is the last, the final song in the cycle, the cycle of songs... talks of leaving the world behind and of the the marvellous quality of life that is to be found inside, if you look close to look for it.
Russian Metropolitan Church Choir in Paris
somehow the simplicity and beauty of that moment, you know, was so wonderful. It uh lit me up inside, you know, in a way that only those things can.
In conversation
Presenter asks
4:03Tell me about your passion for flying, mister Lewis. When did it first take hold of you?
Ah, from when I was quite a child really, I I was already making little model aeroplanes, you know, in my bedroom and out of match sticks and things and putting them together and launching them across the room.
Presenter asks
5:15Did you have any idea, then, of the reality of the situation you were flying into, or was it just kind of youthful romanticism?
Absolute ruthful romanticism and the aeroplane and the air and being able to get in an aeroplane and fly because this is a wonderful after all it is a wonderful, wonderful thing.
Presenter asks
8:14What was the average life of such a pilot [in the Battle of the Somme]?
Well, it's supposed to be I mean the figures the ordinary official figures are the departed lasted three weeks. I'm not quite sure that I would endorse that figure as far as our squadron was concerned, but we it was pretty heavy. I lasted about nine months altogether, six months of which was really active, and a little bit earlier before that which wasn't active.
The keepsakes
The book
Cecil Lewis
It's got a lot of my life in it… it's a good period… full of excitement… why not tell you that I should like to have that with me?
The luxury
Could I have a fax? Because after all that would help me to get living thing. I not to send out. Don't have them coming in. All the girlfriends sending me faxes, you know, it's just my idea.
Presenter asks
19:19What do you remember about John Reith? Because of course Lord Reith, as we call him these days, we think of him as having been very, very strict, dogmatic, very puritanical Scot. I mean, was that your view of him?
Well, partly. I mean, but you know, if you read anything about him, you know that uh he rode his horse up and down the front line, and anybody who does that is not only a very brave man, but also a bloody fool and an awful swank, you know... I had a great affection for him, you know, I liked him very much. And I've always stood up for him against all these uh people who tried to do him down because he had s stricter and more decent, honourable principles than they had.
Presenter asks
20:28Why after four years did you give it all up [at the BBC] and go away?
Oh, dear, you see, 'cause I'm what I am, you know. It became a question of, you know, is this better than that? And should we ask this or should we ask that? And the old machine started to grind, and I thought to myself, Why? You know, I had no money, I had no option, I had nowhere to go... I had a new wife, two and a baby, just just turned up... but I couldn't stand that. I said, No, I'm uh I'm a programme man. I want to build programmes. I don't want to talk to these idiots about uh this sort of way to approach it or that way to approach it... So I just walked out.
Presenter asks
28:07Do you ever look back on the life and all the things we've been talking about and wish that you'd stayed somewhere long enough to reap the profits, as it were?
Yes, I'm a born failure. You know, I couldn't I never could stay long enough for it for it to to work out or to work up. I have no career bills, I don't understand that. All the things I've done have always been great fun and they've been sort of half successes... I'm here to live. I'm not here to make a success.
“All my life. It's been just one wonderful thing after another, and that's gone on in an extraordinary way for forever and ever. Amen.”
“You weren't going to die. You're not going to die when you're twenty years old. You're eighteen, seventeen, sixteen, whatever it was. You don't ever think about death. I didn't, anyway.”
“I'm here to live. I'm not here to make a success.”
“Well, certainly the young at heart, and secondly the peace that comes from not having laws that you have to obey or things that you must do, that it should be spontaneous and it should bubble out of you every day. and th that you should as far as possible shape it so that it doesn't hurt other people. And uh Make it as good for your friends as you can. and leave the rest to God.”