Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
2 appearances
Politician, journalist and biographer, best known for her biographies of Queen Victoria, Wellington, Churchill, the Queen Mother and the Queen.
On the island
Eight records
Because I'm a Londoner, born and bred. I was born in the sound of... Bow bells... And I'm interested in the development of London historically, the different cries of London in different parts, for instance, where I live now in Chelsea.
London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Willi Boskovsky
My second record is Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody, which is connected with this period of my youth, the the only time when I could say I was really frightened and this music seemed to... experience everything I was experiencing.
Glasgow Socialist Singers conducted by Alan Bush
Well, it's really a Labour hymn called England Arise and it connects with my early... campaigning days. I've heard it sung in numerous Labour churches in the old days, especially in the Midlands and in the North.
I'd like to have a very sad song that Prince Albert himself... wrote called Derungelipte, the Unloved... This reminds me of my own daughter I lost at about the same age. And the whole thing it's sad, and yet the beauty transcends it, so that I don't feel sad when I'm listening to it. I feel happy.
London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Antal Doráti
Well, for record number five, I'd like to have the amazing Beethoven's Wellington's Victory... With all the marvellous effects of gunfire trumpets... Canon... And the songs sung by the soldiers, both British and French.
Water MusicFavourite
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by George Weldon
Well for number six I'd I'd like to have something very different, very beautiful, Handel's water music.
Well, my next record, I'd like to... Have a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins... Read by a great friend of mine up at Oxford all those years ago, the actress Margaret Rawlings, who has the most wonderful reading voice.
Papageno's Song (The Magic Flute)
Well, my my last record is going to be a very happy, jolly song out of the magic flute, Mozart's magic flute, Papagaino's song, which reminds me of Sussex, where I live now, and of marvellous evenings at Glinebourne.
Norman Allin with the BBC Choir
Father used to put on this wonderful song, Nazareth, and then one of us children was invited by him to play the pedals so that the song came out and then he would stand up and in a very fine barytone he would sing the melody
My parents wanted me to have what they thought of as a a new education. It was called Headington, a school for girls. And we borrowed the Harrow School song. So, at the beginning and end of every term, we, chubby teenage girls, would jump up and pour out 'Till the fields ring again and again to the tramp of the twenty two men.' And then we all began laughing, because we were clearly not twenty two men.
Monastic Choir of the Abbey Church, Ampleforth
A Catholic family advised us to send our sons to Ampleforth. And one of my favourite pieces of music is the plain song sung by the monks of Ambresport.
Trumpet Concerto in E-flat major: II. Andante
John Wallace with the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Christopher Warren-Green
New cardinal invited me to let him have Frank's funeral at Westminster Cathedral, and I think I suggested that our grandson, Caspar, should play the music at the end of the funeral. So he played this wonderful piece of Haiden. The music was extremely moving. There was a great deal of joy and exultancy in it.
Maria Callas with the Orchestra of La Scala Milan conducted by Victor de Sabata
There was a very simple reason for that. Because it reminded me of Frank and me going together to the opera at Leinbourn, and that in turn reminded me of Antonia playing the part of Lady Macbeth in the Dragon School, play
BBC Welsh Chorus and Symphony Orchestra
It's an express... in the most marvellous poetic way of William Blake, what the Labour Party of our day felt like, and I think still does.
I Vow to Thee, My CountryFavourite
Westminster Abbey Choir conducted by Martin Neary
I like now to think But Queen Victoria at her golden jubilee, like our prison queen is... having so wonderfully now... that Queen Victoria had a piece of music sent to her from Scotland by one of the great musicians of the day. That's why I'd like to include Cecil Spring Rices. I vow to thee, my country.
Jesus mustn't... out of one nation, but out of every nation. I thought the most wonderful thing about the Queen Mother's funeral, which I was fortunate enough to go to, was that there were leaders of all nations and different kinds of religions. And that's what religion ought to be.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:39Does music play a big part in your everyday life?
In a way I should say yes, though I'm not really musical in the sense that people would recognise who were musical, but I'm... passionately fond of sun things.
Presenter asks
1:06Do you use background music while you're researching or copy typing or anything like that?
I certainly do. I I feel rather ashamed of doing it, because I know it's not the right thing, and one should treat music as an end in itself, and not as a background. But I'm bound to say it has a wonderfully therapeutic effect on me as a writer. If I get tied into knots, there are only two things which undo the knots. One is a walk in the garden, which would be marvellous on the island, and the other is putting on a record.
Presenter asks
3:58As a schoolgirl, what did you want to be?
First of all, I wanted to be a painter... And I was no good at all at draftsmanship, but had some sense of colour and imagination. Luckily that was knocked out of me quite early, but I had to choose whether to go to the slade, which was offered to me, or to Oxford, to the University. And thank goodness something guided me to choose Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford.
The keepsakes
The book
Diplomacy and Murder in Tehran
Lawrence Kelly
I don't think we should expect to be able to convert the Great Russian power to the West just by dropping bombs on the outlying areas. I think we've got to understand what Make some tea.
The luxury
A miniature orange tree in a pot
I'd like to have one with buds on it. So that after it's flowered we'll have some tiny oranges and we can all [have a] delicate feast.
Presenter asks
7:47What [or who] converted you to socialism? Was that at Oxford or before?
No, not at Oxford. I w I wasn't interested at all in politics. I was only interested in poetry, literature, history, and so on. But when I started lecturing, I was in an area that was suffering from the most appalling unemployment, both the miners and the potters. And I lived in one of their cottages and got to know them all very, very well personally, not just as pupils, but as people. It was at the time of the nineteen thirties, the Great Slum... And really any one would have done the same as I did.
Presenter asks
12:52Do you think you would have discovered anything new about [Queen Victoria]?
Oh, a tremendous lot. I discovered the enormous number of occasions when she and Albert had real, almost blood rows, where they exchanged furious notes and shut themselves into their rooms, banged the door, burst into floods of tears, both of them... But at the same time they were devoted to each other, and as we know, she was broken hearted when he died.
Presenter asks
23:15Do you never feel you want to break away from fact and write fiction?
I often feel I just want to throw my research books, my second resources, on to the rubbish heap, and right out of my head. But I can't. There's nothing in it.
Presenter asks
1:28Where do you think you got that push and drive from?
Probably... from my father, he was a specialist consultant... and our home was in Harley Street. And I don't think he realised how pushing he was.
Presenter asks
5:50Why did you change your studies at Oxford to classics, history, and philosophy?
Because... my friend Hugh Gaitskin introduced me to Maurice Barra who was the dean of Waldham College. I admired Hugh, and Hugh admired Morris. He thought I could drop all these silly [English courses]... because in those days the wonderful Cambridge School had not yet developed, but Maurice Barrow, one of the lecturers in classics, was very brilliant and witty and amusing.
Presenter asks
7:44How did Maurice Bowra come to propose to you?
Petrus. Approaching rushed affair, because he had another lady ready on his list if I declined, which I did because I'd already met Frank.
Presenter asks
17:57How did you manage to draw your husband Frank to the left politically?
The Master of Balliou College, Oxford, Sandy Lindsay, used to invite students from a voluntary educational association called the Workers Educational Association to stay at the Oxford University Summer School and Frank became a tutor in economics... Well, I became a tutor then too, so we were both linked to a real neighbor experience in the world.
Presenter asks
19:14How did you manage on Sunday mornings before you converted to Catholicism?
Frank and I... is to set off to church on Sunday morning. We'd get to the main Banbury Road in Oxford. Then one lot would go with Frank to the Catholic Church, and the other lot with me.
Presenter asks
22:45Why did you resign as a Labour candidate when you were pregnant with your sixth child?
My sixth baby was born. I was already Labour candidate for Kings Norton, Birmingham. And I would certainly have got in, so I went up to visit them. And one of the committee sent a motion that I should be asked to give a promise that this would be my last child. I was really upset and horrified at being asked by a political party to give a promise not to have more children. I said I couldn't give any such promise, so I offered them my resignation because I immediately began thinking they were quite right, I might want to have more children. So I resigned.
“I lived in one of their cottages and got to know them all very, very well personally, not just as pupils, but as people. It was at the time of the nineteen thirties, the Great Slum... And really any one would have done the same as I did.”
“I often feel I just want to throw my research books, my second resources, on to the rubbish heap, and right out of my head. But I can't. There's nothing in it.”
“I'm very keen on islands. I like the whole sort of history of islands and thoughts of islands.”
“My mother was very strong and brave character. She fought with swans at Regent's Park Lake. We were tiny children and we were taken up there for our walk. And so when one of us went up to the swans, my mother flew after them, caught the swan by the neck and marched it back into the water.”
“I was always the only girl, because I was sponsored by Hugh Gateskin and one or two others.”
“I gave him a smacking kiss on the forehead and said, This is the sleeping beauty, the other way round. Frank sprang up and said, I would kiss you if I could, but I can't.”
“I feel I must be in close touch with the individual, preferably through letters or if not through journals.”
“I think they made my life absolutely enjoyable and I felt it was valuable because of them. And the idea of not having another of those little creatures when I was still able to I just rejected it.”