Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
A priest who founded the Samaritans, a telephone helpline for people in despair.
On the island
Eight records
Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen
The world has let go of me. It hasn't heard from me for a long time. It maybe thinks I'm dead. I don't care if it does.
Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op. 18 - II. Adagio sostenuto
Sergei Rachmaninoff, Philadelphia Orchestra, Leopold Stokowski
I don't know of anything which expresses yearning better. The second movement of Rachmaninoff's second concerto. I find it almost unbearable to listen to.
Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, Op. 31 (excerpt)
Orthodox Liturgy Choir of Essen, Carl Linker
I think I will settle for my other favourite church, the Russian Orthodox Church.
Dulcis AmorFavourite
Anne Mackay, European Community Chamber Orchestra, Ivan Ortlin
I will also yearn for human love of various kinds. And I can't think of any more beautiful expression of that than by another of my favourite composers, Handel.
Piano Trio No. 1 in D minor, Op. 49 - II. Andante con moto tranquillo
Alfred Cortot, Jacques Thibaud, Pablo Casals
I enjoy a piano trio because I'm not a very good musician and I can listen to three parts, but more gets me a bit defeated. My favourite piano trio is by my late friend Andrei Tchaikovsky ... but since it hasn't been recorded I've substituted Mendelssohn's trio.
Symphonie sur un chant montagnard français, Op. 25 - II. (movement)
Jean-Marie Darré, Lamoureux Orchestra, Albert Wolff
It wouldn't be me if I didn't want to do something for the underdog. ... I remember one [Vincent d'Indy] who gave me great pleasure when I was at Oxford.
English Suite No. 2 in A minor, BWV 807 - I. Prélude
Let's have the other side of Bach, the brilliant Bach rather than the wonderfully melodious one.
Piano Concerto in G major, M. 83 - II. Adagio assai
Martha Argerich, London Symphony Orchestra, Claudio Abbado
I'd like something to put me nicely to sleep at the end of the day, and I can think of nothing better than the second movement of Ravel's piano concerto.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:08Did you have any concept, when you established that first emergency telephone line nearly forty years ago, of the response and the repercussions it would have, or were you just doing it and seeing what happened?
I was doing it wrongly at the beginning. ... I had discovered that something that wasn't in the textbook, that was being done by the volunteers who'd gathered round me, with no qualifications but wonderful human qualities, was even better than my counselling. It's a listening therapy which I named befriending.
Presenter asks
5:24The idea had its origin, didn't it, in an event which had taken place in your life in the early years as a parson?
Eighteen years, in fact, before the start of the Samaritans, my very first job as a parson. ... I was ordained deacon in Lincoln Minster ... The child had committed suicide. ... she was desperate because she began bleeding between her legs. So I said, Little girl, I never knew you, but you've changed my life. I shall teach children about sex. Even if I'm called a dirty old man at the age of twenty-four.
Presenter asks
9:22What do you think it was in your life that had prepared you to be the preacher of such a permissive message [about sex]?
The keepsakes
The book
The New Oxford Book of English Verse
Helen Gardner
I do like reading some things over and over again, but um well, if I'm only allowed A one-volume book. I think it will have to be the Oxford. Um The New Oxford. A book of English verse, but I'm afraid that in a year I will know it off by heart.
The luxury
own bathroom with video player
What I want is my own bathroom. Run by solar power, of course. My own bathroom with lashings of hot and cold water with a me-sized bath, slightly modified by having the video player transferred from the foot of my bed to the foot of my bath, moisture-proofed, of course, so that I can wallow in a hot bath or a cold bath if it's a hot day, and watch videos such as wildlife, such as those marvellous meercats.
Big ones. Very puritanical indeed. Sex was never spoken about. Mostly I owe it to being a scientist. ... from my very earliest days, I didn't accept what other people said I wanted to test for myself. ... So if I can't tell, nobody can tell about me, and I wouldn't care if they did.
Presenter asks
18:33What were their most common problems [of callers to the Samaritans] in those days?
Loneliness exacerbated any problem they had. And a thousand and one problems produce only one or two results depression or anxiety. Or the two together? So you don't, in order to befriend them, have to be an expert on a thousand and one problems. You have to be an expert on anxiety and depression and loneliness.
Presenter asks
23:04What do you look for in a volunteer? What are the essential qualities of a Good Samaritan?
I think many volunteers would be surprised to hear me say the one word answer, because we think of humility as a Christian virtue. ... This isn't because I'm superior, but because I've been more fortunate. So there is no superiority at all. ... Great thankfulness that one's own life is sufficiently under control to be able to give five hours a week or whatever it is to being a Samaritan volunteer.
Presenter asks
34:54If you could only take one of those eight records, which one would it be?
Would have to be the one about human love. Uh and Mackay singing Dolchi Samor. The handle.
“I said to God, this is getting eerie. Stop it.”
“Little girl, I never knew you, but you've changed my life. I shall teach children about sex. Even if I'm called a dirty old man at the age of twenty-four.”
“I have in fact made my ministry what I wanted it to be.”
“The only country in the world to have a significant drop, the only country in the world to be blanketed by Samaritans.”
“I don't really like the telephone.”