Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
A writer of romantic fiction, best known for her novels in that genre.
On the island
Eight records
And the reason I chose it was because it was the first piece of music I remember hearing on the BBC. They used it as the theme music for a serialization of David Copperfield. And it seemed to me to evoke everything I feel about Dickens, who then was my favourite writer, everything I feel about England, and it also gives one a marvellous feeling of ... The permanent feeling of vanished world that some people have.
There Are Bad Times Just Around the Corner
Well, my second record reminds me of England uh post war, post empire England, where everybody was rather fed up and everybody complained all the time, and it's no coward singing There were bad times just around the corner.
The Magic Flute: Quintet (Act I)
My third record is the magic flute, and it's the quintet from the first act.
And my children taught me to love Elkie Books, so this is for them.
Rhapsody in Blue by Gershwin, played by Andre Previn.
Because when I was at school, I was at a convent school and we learnt Latin when we were six years old and the first songs I ever learnt were Latin songs, Latin hymns. And when I was about fourteen I remember reading Helen Waddle's book, The Wandering Scholars, which is about monks in the Middle Ages making up songs and singing all over the continent. And Karl Orpheus set some of these to music.
And the reason I'd like this is because it will remind me of family holidays in Greece and in France.
Brandenburg Concerto No. 4Favourite
Because he would restore my sense of balance on an island where I was alone. He's a very sane sound, and I know that if I was feeling hysterical and panic stricken, I would only have to play this, and I would immediately feel calm and tranquil and sane again.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:35How well could you adjust yourself to loneliness?
I think very well indeed, because I'm always alone during the day, writing, so loneliness is something that I'm quite accustomed to. And in fact, I I think I like being alone.
Presenter asks
3:40Looking back, was it a happy childhood?
I wasn't unhappy. I don't think I was positively happy. But I I wasn't neglected or hurt in any way, but it was just ... I felt an outsider because I didn't have parents.
Presenter asks
4:22Did you read a lot [as a child]?
Oh, I read all the time. It was my favourite work passing the time.
Presenter asks
8:33How long did you stay with the bank [of England]?
Just two years, and I educated myself in that library, reading a lot of literary criticism.
The keepsakes
The book
Jane Austen
I'm going to have one I've always loved since I was about ten years old, Pride and Prejudice, because it will make me laugh and also improve my style.
The luxury
A typewriter, please, and some paper. Then I can be absolutely certain that Mills and Boone will charter a ship and come and look for me if they think I'm producing somewhere in the world whole piles of Charlotte Land books.
Presenter asks
12:45At that time in your early married life had you ever thought of writing?
I thought of writing poetry. I used to write a great deal of poetry, but I didn't think of writing novels.
Presenter asks
25:13Do you identify with your heroines when you're writing?
Yes, it's absolutely essential because it's the heroine the reader is identifying with. And this identification is part of the hook. That the reader is experiencing the book, she's not just reading it.
“I hated school because I didn't like to be told what to read. I was always preferring to read what I wanted to read. I was bottom at every subject.”
“I sat down and wrote a whole book in three days.”
“I follow that person like Alice following the white rabbit. And they produce a home, they have a family background, friends, a job. Everybody has their life with them. And from that springs the story.”