Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
A publisher and editor, acknowledged as the finest in London, best known for her confessional memoirs.
On the island
Eight records
Eric Roberts with the Chorus and Orchestra of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company
And my brother and I it comes out of the Mikado. We thought it was terribly funny and very pretty.
And so I found it, and I used to pick out the right hand with one finger, and we thought it was very beautiful, quite rightly.
Number four is really represents, I think. the romantic love which I felt so strongly in those days and which I said goodbye to. I used to sing it and play it and think about it and just that was him, you know, Night and Day You Are the One.
I'm Going Down the Road Feeling Bad
I'm very, very fond of of blues, because I think that nothing in music is more immediately autobiographical than a good blues. And I find that this particular one was The sad but resigned, patient old thing is shuffling down the road in shoes that don't fit and hurt his feet.
Hilde Gueden with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
De Vienne is, of course, a lovely romantic song, but on the other hand. Susanna is not a romantic person, and she is teasing her dear husband. Rather, so I think she represents a sensible love.
The CreationFavourite
Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus
The most life-enhancing piece of music I know almost is Haydn's creation. And I love it.
My last record I rarely chose because it's a happy record. and a beautiful record, and I have come to the fact that however awful life is in many, many ways, I do love it.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:26Is it true that you have always been observing yourself and noting down every detail?
I think that is true. I was always right from the beginning, when I was quite, quite young, I felt that I was always conscious and watching. Everything that I did and everything that I experienced it worried me.
Presenter asks
2:47When did you first learn the facts of life?
When did you first realize what sex might be about? That was useful at Mary Stopes, who was a little tiny, black book called Wise Parenthood. and I found this little black book in a corner, hidden away rather. … There it all was. There was the whole thing described down to the minutest detail, and I was eleven. It was a wonderful revelation. A wonderful one.
Presenter asks
15:25How long did the silence [from your fiancé Tony] last?
It lasted for two years. It was really terrible, because I kept on writing for a long time, and then I gave up in despair. Not knowing was absolutely cruel. And then a letter did come. And then a very short little formal letter came saying, Would I please release him for his our engagement? 'Cause he wanted to marry somebody else. And it was it was a very deep shock.
The keepsakes
The book
William Makepeace Thackeray
Well, I decided it had to be a book that made you feel that you were in a whole life, and ... I ended up with Vanity Fair, which I'm very fond of.
The luxury
My bed ... not just any old bed, but my darling bed, which is exactly how I like it. Light covers, but warm. Enough elbow room. and really, really soft pillow.
Presenter asks
16:19How long would you say, looking back, that it took you to get over that [being jilted]?
Well, I got over it in the sense of no longer moaning and waning about it in about two years. But it didn't really end until ages later, early sixties, when I it all came out in a book.
Presenter asks
29:10What did you think of Myra Hindley when you met her in prison?
Without any question she was seemed like an intelligence. Serious, humorous person. She was, I thought, to an extraordinary extent not institutionalized, and she was quite funny about what you called her old men. … David Astor and Lord Longford.
Presenter asks
29:49At what point did you decide whether or not you were going to publish [Myra Hindley's] book?
As I left, I thought, well, no, that's out. Of course, you see this idea that it would redeem her I thought that was probably nonsense. She had made a device of her own inside herself to keep herself going. If you destroyed it, I didn't think there would be anything there. If she wrote an honest book. If she wrote a token. Otherwise you'd be party to her writing a dishonest book. Yes, I wasn't going to do that. And I also thought evil is … It is a sort of pornography to study it too much. And I didn't want to have any part of that.
“I liked being a mistress. I never felt it with hard luck. And I think I once described it as Love with all the plums and none of the pudding.”
“Proper love is when you're desperately trying to force someone into being something that they aren't because you've got this picture of them in your mind. And you want to possess them or you want to possess them. You want to possess them.”
“I've become very much an anti-romantic. No. But cheerful with it. Cheerful with it. Yes.”