Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Bookseller in Devon, best known as the real Christopher Robin—the son of A.A. Milne and inspiration for the Winnie-the-Pooh stories.
On the island
Eight records
Choir of the Parish Church of St. Peter, Leeds
I can still hear myself singing the duet Love One Another.
When I first sang it in in in the chapel at school I made a mess of it. There are some rather tricky accidentals in in in the early bit and I I got them wrong and went flat and drifted into a different key.
String Sonata No. 1 in G major
Academy of St Martin in the Fields conducted by Neville Marriner
Because it's the music that, in gay moments on my island, I will dance to.
Maria Callas, conducted by Tullio Serafin
chosen because I wanted the drama of the opera. And in Italian opera you get all the drama that you can find in the world. Put three Italians together and you've got a dramatic situation immediately.
Symphony No. 9 in C major, D. 944 ("The Great")
London Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Sir Adrian Boult
which I have chosen because there are so many themes in it and I feel that that they would go on round and round and round in my head long after I had heard the record.
Choir of King's College, Cambridge
again, because I used to sing them, particularly I used to sing and enjoy singing. Death scants. My voice soared up into the rafters of the school chapel. I had no speaking voice at all. I spoke very badly and therefore for six days of the week I was miserable in form. Rather nice that on the seventh day I could go into the chapel and my voice came into its own and dominated.
Symphony No. 8 in F major, Op. 93
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Herbert von Karajan
I heard this first. in Cambridge in nineteen in May nineteen forty. ... And I paced the fields of Cochford, and as I did so the aeroplanes flew overhead on their leisurely way to bomb London. And I wondered whether I was right to go back or what I should do, and as I was very slowly making up my mind, so The music of this symphony came back to me absolutely perfectly ... And it helped me, I think, to to make up my mind what I wanted to do, which was not to go back to Cambridge, but to join the army.
Symphony No. 2 in D major, Op. 73Favourite
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Claudio Abbado
Chosen? Oh, just because it's intensely moving. And um with that ringing in my ears, there's nothing much I couldn't do on my island.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:39Where did you acquire [your interest in music]?
Well, I acquired it at school, where I found that I could sing, and I got into the school choir, and quite quickly became one of their soloists. So most of my early pleasures was in singing hymns, anthems, carols, and that sort of thing.
Presenter asks
3:49How much did [your nanny] insulate you from your parents?
Well, in those days, nannies did insulate children from their parents. That was their job. That was what she was paid to do. And my life revolved entirely around her.
Presenter asks
7:43What was your reaction at having your fantasies in print?
Well, when I found that they were in a book, I think I I was excited and and and proud a little. And this gave me a a certain notoriety or fame among my friends, which I quite liked when I was that age. Well later, of course, it began to pall when I grew a bit older.
Presenter asks
The keepsakes
The book
Richard Jefferies
which will be the book that I have read more often than any other, that inspired, if that's the word, my childhood, which I took with me, packed in my kit bag when I went abroad in nineteen forty two, and which goodness knows how, managed to come back with me in nineteen forty six.
The luxury
I am allowed to take, I'm pleased to be told, paper. So I ten reams. Hundred reams of quarto paper. And pencils to check.
What made you change your mind [to read English instead of mathematics at Cambridge]?
A variety of reasons. In the first place, um mathematics is a little like climbing a mountain. Um each step is a step above the previous steps and depends upon it. And if you're not careful, if you stop, you will slide down right to the bottom again. And in the five years that I had been away, I had slipped a lot and would have taken a long time to get back. Um, first thing. Secondly, mathematics led nowhere much except to teaching mathematics to others in those days. And I knew very well that I would be no good at teaching at all ... Thirdly, I wanted to do something which would give me those magic letters B A after my name in as short a time as possible.
Presenter asks
18:20Does the prospect [of being alone on a desert island] fill you with horror?
No, with with with pleasure. ... I would not try to escape. No, I'm I'm I'm no good on on the sea. I'm I'm I'm a land animal and I would stay on my island.
“I most certainly don't want to take records with me that will remind me of the past. I think if you go to a desert island you are much more concerned with the present than with the future.”
“I don't enjoy background music, and on my desert island I should be sitting down listening to it with all my attention, and therefore I want my music to uplift me, to fill me full of good resolutions, and make me feel twice the man and able to tackle the crocodile or whatever it is that I might need to tackle.”
“I had no speaking voice at all. I spoke very badly and therefore for six days of the week I was miserable in form. Rather nice that on the seventh day I could go into the chapel and my voice came into its own and dominated.”