Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Naturalist best known for her pioneering study of wild chimpanzees at Gombe, where she discovered that chimpanzees make and use tools.
On the island
Eight records
Cello Concerto in B minor, Op. 104
Jacqueline du Pré, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Daniel Barenboim
The Dvorak cello concerto is one of my favourite pieces of music. It has it has a very um lamenting quality to it, and I've always loved it. And I had one friend who was very special. And he was a person that maybe we could have made a go of it, but it didn't work out that way, and anyway he was married. But we played that on the last evening we were together, and decided that when we heard that we would think of each other.
Piano Sonata No. 14 in C-sharp minor, Op. 27, No. 2 "Moonlight"
The moonlight sonata, I suppose, has been one of my favourite pieces of music since I was a tiny child, because when I was growing up in England in Bournemouth, in this lovely old red brick house, the Birches, which is still ours today, my grandmother used to play the piano. She never had a lesson, but she had this wonderful feeling and heart and she taught herself. And she used to play the moonlight sonata, and I'd be upstairs in bed with my sister. And in the summer, I can remember this music coming in through the open window, along with all the insects, the moths, and things that were in the garden at that time.
Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. 64Favourite
Yehudi Menuhin, Berlin Philharmonic, Wilhelm Furtwängler
That was the first piece of music I think that really got to me because it was my sister who was the musical one. She was doing music lessons and always going down to the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. And I went to fetch her one day to meet her. And I got there early and I heard this Yehudi Menu and was inside and it just went straight into my soul. And that, I think, was the beginning of my real love of classical music.
Under Milkwood, Dylan Thomas, the students at Gombe loved it. We often used to play it during suppers in the big mess we all shared. And then my second husband, Derek Bryson, Sometimes we couldn't sleep and we would put this tape on and I particularly like the part where Bessie Bighead is bringing the cows in in the evening for the milking, the way cows ought to be brought in, milked by hand.
The Bach de Cartran Fugen G minor marks a turning point in my life. It's a very, very important piece of music for me. And it just flooded out into the Cathedral of Notre Dame the first time I ever went into it. I've been longing to go there ever since I read The Hunchback of Notre Dame. And it was a difficult time of my life. I was having a divorce from Hugo. And There was this amazing cathedral, the sun pouring in through that great rose window, this incredible music. And as I listened to it, I thought, you know, why am I here? What is the purpose? Is there a purpose to life on this planet? What am I meant to be doing? It was a sort of call to action, although I didn't really understand at the time exactly what it would lead to.
Well, memory from Cats. I never liked musicals and I was taken to Cats in New York and I met the cast. In fact, I'd been photographed with them. And I just fell in love with this particular song. And there is another special person in my life. And that was his favourite song too. So it's something that we share and play to each other sometimes. And I think it's very, very beautiful.
Peter Auty, Sinfonia of London
Walking in the air. Well, the snowman. I mean, to me, that's Christmas. And Christmas has always meant an enormous lot to all of my family. I've only missed about two Christmases being at home with my mother ever. And since I saw Snowman, I think when it first came out, Christmas isn't Christmas without the Snowman.
Recondita armonia (from Tosca)
Pavarotti. A lot of the music I've chosen has been a bit sort of. heart-tugging for me, but Pavarotti just makes me swell with uh joy and life and um I see him with his hanky, which he waves around, and his little thank you when people applaud him, and he's larger than life, and he's got a wonderful voice, and I just he just fills me with joy.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:31Can you remember when you first arrived in the Gombe, did you know instantly that this was the place you were going to be happy in?
I knew from the moment that I went along the lake shore, looking up at the rugged mountains, that this was going to be a challenge. But that I was going to just have an amazing, extraordinary adventure. And I couldn't actually believe that it was happening. It was very hard for me to think that this is me and this is really real and not a dream anymore.
Presenter asks
2:42How long did it take you to be accepted by [the chimpanzees]? Were you ever totally accepted?
The chimpanzees at first just ran away. I mean, even if I was on the other side of a valley, a steep-sided valley, they would take one look at this weird white ape and flee, they're very conservative. And it was because I just sat and didn't try and get too close too quickly and wore the same coloured clothes every day and pretended not to be interested in them. You know, eventually they realized, well, she's not as terrifying as we thought.
Presenter asks
5:40Who sent you [to Africa]? Who gave you the commission?
It was the late Louis Leakey, that giant of a man, and you know, I was working for him in Nairobi as his secretary assistant, and he began talking about these chimpanzees. Well, because that was exactly the kind of thing I'd always wanted to do.
The keepsakes
The luxury
Well, is paper and pencil a luxury? Yes, it is. Then I would take a paper and pencil.
Presenter asks
8:39Was that why Louis Leakey wanted you to go, that you were more open minded?
Yes, he he wanted someone whose mind, as he put it, was not cluttered up by the reductionist thinking of the animal behaviourists of the time. And he felt that somebody like that would be more open to actually recording what's there in front of them rather than trying to go out and prove or disprove some hypothesis.
Presenter asks
15:59Weren't some of your student helpers, your researchers, once in fact taken hostage?
Yeah, they were taken hostage by a rebel group from Zaire, actually headed by the man who's now President of Congo, Lauren Kabila. He took them hostage. And that was probably the worst time of my life, that time when those students were held hostage.
Presenter asks
19:31You said that you learned a lot about motherhood from the chimpanzees. How so?
Well, I was watching the old matriarch Flo and the wonderful old female Melissa, and I saw how they loved their infants and had fun with them. That was what I noticed. You know, they had fun. But it also became apparent how tremendously important for the child it was to have a good mother, an attentive, protective and supportive mother. And gradually we realized that those who grew up with a rather more harsh, less supportive, less affectionate mother, they didn't do so well as they became older.
“the moment that I can never forget was when I was following him and I thought I'd lost him. I was pushing through these thorny undergrowth and there he was sitting by a little stream and near him was a ripe red palm nut. So I picked up that nut because they love them and held it out to him and he looked deeply into my eyes and he took that nut and dropped it. But at the same time while he still looked in my eyes he gave this gentle reassurance, the squeezing of his fingers on my hand and it was like going back into the distant mists of the past to a language which our ancient common ancestors must have used.”
“I went into that conference as a scientist, planning to write volume two of this big book, The Chimps of Gombi, and I came out as an advocate or something. It was really literally, yeah, sort of just like that. It was absolutely extraordinary.”
“you know, once you've looked into those pleading eyes, you feel, I feel that I can't turn away.”
“We have been terribly bad stewards, and so we have to wake up.”