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Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Hereditary ruler (Dame) of the Channel Island of Sark.
On the island
Eight records
Adagietto (from Symphony No. 5)Favourite
New Philharmonia Orchestra, conducted by Sir John Barbirolli
I think it has everything. It isn't soothing and yet it would be stimulating and I feel it would just help me.
Hollywood Bowl Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Felix Slatkin
it was one of my husband's favorite pieces of music and he was never tired of listening to it.
she was a great friend of mine ... she used to come and stay with me in Sark and if I would feel that if I was in my desert island I'd like to think of people who'd been with me in Sark and that I could hear their voices again.
Dance of the Hours (from La Gioconda)
Philharmonia Orchestra, conducted by Herbert von Karajan
it's very cheerful and I'm sure I should love it on a desert island.
played by my friend Léon Gusens, who also was a very devoted visitor to the island of Sark.
I've always been terribly conscious of the period of my life in which Noel Card was everything. I never missed a play of his or everywhere one went one heard his music and it was a part of my life which spent a good deal in London at that time
Ernest Lough and the Choir of the Temple Church, London
I actually heard him sing it myself many years ago. And I think it would be terribly relaxing and satisfying and make me feel happy
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:47Could you endure loneliness, do you think?
Oh, very well, I think. I've been used to it many times in my life.
Presenter asks
0:57What do you think would be the one big consolation, if there is one, to being alone on a desert island?
I think having complete silence.
Presenter asks
3:01How did Sark come into your family's possession?
Well my great-grandmother bought it uh when the then senior lost pretty well all his money in opening silver mines and trying to work them in eighteen forty something.
Presenter asks
6:04To what extent does Sark rely on Guernsey administratively?
Well, we rely on advice from the Crown officers such as the bailiff and the attorney general and solicitor general in Guernsey, but we're not in any way under the states of Guernsey. They don't their laws don't apply to us, their taxation doesn't apply to us. ... We have our own parliament.
The keepsakes
The book
Keith Feiling
I like reading history better than anything. And I should like I think Sir Keith Feiling's history of England. Which is quite atm. And I think that would satisfy me for a long time.
The luxury
Well, I would ask for lots of canvas and tapestry walls, so that I could go on doing a sort of bio tapestry on my own, and if I got bored with it I could take it to pieces and do it over again.
Presenter asks
8:33Apart from obvious shortages and restrictions, were there any major troubles during the [German] occupation?
Well, hardly troubles, but there was great hardships, you know, when they deported something like sixty of our people for no apparent reason whatsoever. People up to sixty years of age, and even women with quite young children were taken, babies in arms almost.
Presenter asks
11:37Is there a demand for change [to your rule on Sark]?
Well, it doesn't seem to be. Every time anything comes up in the chief pleas that uh is in any way changed, such as divorce or being allowed to have female dogs or any of those things in the island, they always vote against it. They never seem to want anything changed, and I think they're very sensible because they've realised that to keep the island as it is is its greatest attraction and the surest thing for the future to have a prosperous island.
“I think having complete silence.”
“I'm not uh as sort of feudal person as they think I am, and they very often like to say in the papers, nothing of the kind. I'm subject to my own laws.”
“We haven't got a divorce law and we haven't got a Woman's Property Act, but we do have a law which forbids any man to sell his property without the consent of his wife. And furthermore, she's entitled to a third of his house and his garden and his farm and everything. No one can deprive her of that.”