Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Barrister and peer who defended Lady Chatterley's Lover and Christine Keeler, and inspired Rumpole of the Bailey.
On the island
Eight records
Don't Have Any More, Mrs. Moore
My father, when I had a treat from school, would take me to see George Roby… I've chosen Lily Morris, my favourite performer, at the time.
The Three-Cornered Hat (El sombrero de tres picos) - Dance of the Miller's Wife
L'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande
A great friend of mine was in love with a beautiful dancer called Pearl Argyll, and so I went to a lot of ballet… Tricorn was the most exciting.
[In] Norfolk, Virginia… every night he took me to Harlem, and it was my introduction to the whole of jazz. And Teddy Wilson was my favourite pianist…
Dite alla giovine (from La traviata)
Orchestra of the Rome Opera House
…they reopened the opera house at Naples. And the first opera they had on was Traviata. And to me, the most beautiful part of the opera is the duet between [Germont] and Violetta.
The Rumble (from West Side Story)
I was absolutely amazed by the whole music, saying this is an opera, this is something completely new and it was very, very exciting.
Piano Concerto No. 21 in C major, K. 467 - Andante
I had to arrange this memorial service in the Abbey for Peggy. Peter Hall did the main tribute, Harold Pinter did a wonderful talk… and then Murray Perahia played this lovely slow movement.
My daughter brought up two wonderful French granddaughters… the younger one, called Émilie, has become a well known chanteuse… I've chosen a piece by her which has really become her signature tune.
Piano Sonata No. 31 in A-flat major, Op. 110
When I got together with June and found that [her son] was then about twelve and he was practising on the piano… Opus 110 was the one which I have in my head almost from the first note to the last.
In conversation
Presenter asks
5:57For the first ten years of your life, you lived in Hammersmith overlooking the river. When you were old enough to go out and toddle round the streets, what did you see?
The great moment were the dense fogs, which were rarely exciting. And you would go out in the fog, hardly seeing anything, and then you would hear in the distance a bell ringing, and the muffin man would loom out of the fog like a character in Dickens, open the beautiful napery, and you would see the muffins at one end and the crumpets at the other. To get to the underground you had to walk through this slum very embarrassing because my mother would take one child in one hand and the other in the other, wearing her latest frock from the Omega workshops, painted in hand by Roger Fry or Duncan Grant. Goodness me. And she'd walk through the slum with her head high, and the urchins used to cry out, 'Here comes the Queen of Sheba'. … I got to understand how the other half lived.
Presenter asks
11:08You mentioned the affair your mother had with the art critic Clive Bell. I've read that Virginia Woolf's novel Mrs. Dalloway was based on your mother. Is that true?
Well, I think yeah, uh as far as anything's based on anybody, I I think certainly in a way. She's been written up by some people as being a hostess, my mother. Of course she wasn't a hostess… What she loved doing was giving parties for her friends, fancy dress parties and charade parties, and she loved that.
The keepsakes
Presenter asks
13:52You gave scant mention to the fact that you were sunk during the war. You were left clinging to a life raft with Lord Mountbatten. Tell me more.
I was in this flotilla and we were sent in to go between Crete and Greece, because the Germans had already taken Greece and they were trying to take Crete, and we, being destroyers, drew very little water, and so we could get in between Crete and the mainland and beat them up at night. And we went in, did what we were asked to do, and sank a lot of these Greek boats. And when we came out at dawn, it was the most beautiful day in May, and I remember the wonderful smell of the herbs on the shore. And of course, we were just sitting ducks to the German aircraft, which sure enough suddenly came out and attacked the two of us. And we were both sunk.
Presenter asks
15:36As you clung to the life raft, what was Lord Mountbatten's demeanour? Was he talking? Was he rallying you?
Well, he loomed up as black as all the others, and we turned and the ship was floating upside down, and suddenly it went up in the air forty five degrees and very, very slowly slid down under the water… He then turned to us and says, 'Give the old ship a cheer.' And we all sang 'Roll out the barrel' to keep our spirits up.
Presenter asks
19:25Let's talk about the obscenity trial for Lady Chatterley's Lover in 1960. You were on the defence team for Penguin. Why did you want to take it on? Why did you think it was important?
I had a passion for the subject. It was extraordinarily appropriate, because back in nineteen twenty seven my father had appeared for a picture gallery which was showing Lawrence's pictures as being obscene… And Lawrence wrote to him afterwards and said something to the effect of that he was the St George for the artist. And so I felt here I was being this [St George].
Presenter asks
31:14Throughout this interview it's clear that you are entirely switched on at the age of ninety eight. I wonder, has this considerable age brought wisdom with it?
Well, I don't know whether one flatters oneself on that. I think, of course, I have a degree of wisdom. I'm not so sure that I have.
“You have to have a deep interest, I think, in people. You have to know what's going on in life, and you have to have a passionate belief in what you're doing, which is about justice.”
“I had the luck to be living in a period which was in its own way quite revolutionary.”
“Very early on I got to understand how the other half lived.”
“He then turned to us and says, 'Give the old ship a cheer.' And we all sang 'Roll out the barrel' to keep our spirits up.”
“The whole point was that everybody should be entitled, just in the National Health Service, to the best, not the worst.”