Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Founder of the BBC Natural History Unit; writer, critic, and broadcaster.
On the island
Eight records
Cello Sonata No. 3 in A major, Op. 69
Jacqueline du Pré and Stephen Bishop-Kovacevich
Well, I rather chose a Beethoven because uh I suppose he's been my my longest music companion as as a youngster I used to play symphonies and conduct them all to myself, and I still am a Beethoven man
Pretty Polly Perkins of Paddington Green
Well, I'd like uh the voice of friends on the island to some extent. Uh music's great, but I'd like to hear some human beings. And one I would like would uh be an old friend of the pre war days, Dylan Thomas.
Where'er You Walk (from Semele)
Well, I think uh on a desert island I would want a sense of plain sanity. I would want something of English eighteenth century.
Marjorie Westbury, John Randa and the Choir of the Red Maids' School
It's a record that would make me very happy on the island. It would take me back to Cranbourne Chase and the West Country and all those bygone days.
for me the the voice really of of wildness in England, the sound of the curlew, which is a absolutely beautiful sound.
Joan Sutherland and Marilyn Horne
the great duet that she does with Marilyn Horne... it's just a terrific moment and uh I can remember just standing and cheering and uh feeling so, so happy.
Cheti, cheti, immantinente (from Don Pasquale)
Fernando Corena and Tom Krause
there's a terrific duet between the two, this time two men, which I think is very, very funny, very exciting, and uh Well, I I would want that with me. That would give me great joy, I think, of a an evening after a rather depressing day
Octet in F major, D. 803 (Adagio)
It's the Schubert octet, which I find very moving. I think of Schubert as a man to whom friendship meant a lot, and the the slow movement in the octet speaks to me of uh somehow of feelings of friendship and I I love it very much.
In conversation
Presenter asks
3:02As a boy, what was your ambition?
Well, I wanted to open the batting for Surrey. I was quite clear about that. ... And I was prepared to be Prime Minister in a bad year if they were short of talent, but uh otherwise I took life as it came, I think.
Presenter asks
3:37What did you do when you left Cranleigh?
Well, I went uh for a time into the family business. I was one of the sons who was looked to to carry on the succession. I was quite unsuited for it. And I gradually began turning my hand to writing and after a while I took the plunge and became a freelance writer.
Presenter asks
11:07Would such a series [as Country Magazine] be possible today?
I don't think it would, honestly, you know, Roy. ... they're not as thick on the ground, they're not as numerous. You don't find pubs where they sing the folk songs as they used to do, you know. ... now it'd be the jukebox and space invaders and that'd be it.
Presenter asks
28:02The keepsakes
The book
Roger Tory Peterson
I would take ... Roger Peterson's field guide to the birds of this island. And if I had that with my binoculars, that would give me a quite a satisfying way of passing the time.
The luxury
I think I would have to have a pair of binoculars with me. And I could do perhaps a bit of bird watching and generally scout around the island a bit.
Could you survive on a desert island?
Well,'cause food's always a problem, isn't it? Because you don't know what's safe to eat and what's poisonous. ... yes, I think I could manage.
“I am the only man who has read every single war correspondent's report from every theatre of the war from the first day to the last, because that was the essential before I began to put the thing together.”
“I love to try and read a landscape with as many weapons as I can in a sense, a little bit of archaeology and a bit of history and a bit of natural history and a bit of geology and so on. And gradually it sort of all makes a story for me”
“At eighty-six, believe it or not, this old man took a sheet of paper and he just wrote at the top of it concerning Agnes and he wrote one of the most beautiful elegies in the language, I think.”