Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
A writer of sea stories; known for his naval fiction and for being, in fact, two writers.
On the island
Eight records
Gilbert and Sullivan's about the first music I remember as a boy. And the first radio programme I ever did anywhere, they played it as a sort of signature tune.
Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 61
Yehudi Menuhin with the New Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Otto Klemperer
mainly because I first saw him when he came to entertain the fleet, and he's been a great favourite of mine ever since. I see the man when I hear the music.
The Hebrides, Op. 26 (Fingal's Cave)
Scottish National Orchestra conducted by Alexander Gibson
I don't think I'd be tired of hearing the sea, so I thought we'd have a bit of Mendelssohn, Fingel's Cave.
to me that sums up those last terrible months in Germany when you you were out at night trying to find a little warmth and happiness in a cafe.
The Song of the JelliclesFavourite
when I heard T. S. Eliot reading from his book of practical cats I thought the song of the jellicals had just suited him [the cat, Benbow] down to the ground.
Symphony No. 1 in B flat major
English Chamber Orchestra conducted by Emmanuel Hurwitz
this really relates to um the Alexander Kent piece... I discovered that this is the sort of music which Richard Belitho would have appreciated, although he detests London for the most part.
the Old Superb, to me, sums up the splendid wooden ships of the 18th century.
Peer Gynt Suite No. 1, Op. 46: Morning Mood
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Sir Thomas Beecham
the worst part for me would be waking up in the morning and I think you'd have to be led into it very, very gently on an island.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:30How much does music mean in your life?
I think it means uh a lot inasmuch that various pieces of music have acted as milestones of my life really and uh when I hear a certain piece of music it always reminds me of a place or an event or some part of my job in the past.
Presenter asks
1:20Do you play music when you're writing or researching?
When it's the first chapter of a new book, I think it's the most agonising moment when you actually you've done all the research and you sit down and there's that awful bit of paper... And then I think to calm yourself you've got to play a piece of music and just try and relax the nerves.
Presenter asks
4:22How did you become fascinated by maritime matters?
It's it's difficult to say exactly when it happened, but um it must have been when I was about eight or nine or ten or something like this. And I remember w walking into um Portsmouth dockyard with my father... there was the victory lying there, looking very splendid, and opposite her, or just a bit further along, was the old Iron Duke... Every year I used to go from one to the other and I knew every inch of those two ships, and I think it really started there.
The keepsakes
The book
Admiralty Manual of Seamanship
Admiralty
Well, it sounds a bit corny, but I would take the Admiralty Seamanship Manual because it would teach me how to build my boat and how to sail away back to civilization.
The luxury
I've always wanted to learn how to grow orchids, and I never actually got round to it.
Presenter asks
8:17What was it like serving in destroyers on convoy duties in the North Atlantic and Murmansk?
The weather was the main enemy for most of the time... Very, very heavy seas indeed, very rough. Terrible conditions, and of course, the British losses were awful in the convoys... it was a young man sort of war, and you were just grateful that you were you were still in one piece... But the awful thing was to see the signal flying to close up the gaps in the convoys. Nobody stopped. It just closed up the gap and sailed on.
Presenter asks
17:40When did it occur to you that you had some first class material to write about?
Well, the idea was put into my head by a girl I met in in Jersey. I was sailing at the time and put into Jersey and I met this girl who later became my wife and uh I suppose I've been trying to impress her, you know, telling her some tall stories or something like this. And eventually she said, Well, you really ought to put this down on paper.
Presenter asks
32:54Could you rig up a shelter, look after yourself, and live off the land [on a desert island]?
yes, I I'd have a a good go at it, I think. But I think my my main task would be to get off the island as quickly as possible... I should try and build a boat, I think. I could do that, I think, with a bit of help and a few tools
“I was a class leader, so I used to stand at the top on the first fighting top of this mast, and when I saw the instructor lecturing the other boys, I used to pretend that I had gone round the difficult pieces and uh got away with it. Likewise, I was a very bad swimmer, and uh we had to swim two lengths of the bars in in a full duck uniform, and I knew I'd drown, so I got my best friend to swim it twice, and we weren't very well known then, and uh he said name, he said Riemann, I said okay.”
“I was there and uh trying to put things right in the harbour and sinking ships in the Baltic which were full of gas and things like this, getting rid of it, and generally trying to put Kiel back together again with the army. And I shall always remember that because I didn't realise then, of course, but it stood me in very good stead when it came to writing about the enemy and I began to see them as people and not just as sort of inhuman savages.”
“I chose Alexander Kent as the pseudonym because I wanted to keep the two styles of writing absolutely separate. And it was ten years after I'd begun writing my Riemann books, and so I thought that I keep try and change the style slightly. Also, otherwise you just end up with a modern man in sort of fancy dress, and I wanted to keep him a man of his times.”