Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Late night line-up interviewer.
On the island
Eight records
Double Violin Concerto in D minor, BWV 1043
Henryk Szeryng and Peter Rybár (violins)
This is the piece that I've, of the ones I've chosen, that I've known longest and loved most consistently. For Bach, who is often considered a very exact, meticulous, intellectual composer, I think this is an extremely passionate piece of music and eternal, really.
The Trojans (Act 2: Trojan Women chorus)
Colin Davis (conductor), Covent Garden production
I've chosen the part in the second act where the women are gathered in the temple, the Trojan women. Cassandra has told them that their fate is sealed, the enemy Greeks are arriving, and there is the most lyrical, very beautiful chorus of women's voices.
Prologue to MefistofeleFavourite
I think my favorite of all. … This seems to me a most beautiful climax, which is the vision of heaven preceding the whole of the Mephistopheles opera. I find it sublime.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:30How well do you think you could bear loneliness for a long time?
I think initially it would be the most appalling shock and I'd suffer enormous withdrawal symptoms at the absence of traffic and noise and most of all people. But I like to think that I would eventually pull myself together and start to cope with a totally new kind of life and begin to enjoy it.
Presenter asks
4:19What part of the country do you come from?
Oh, I come from Stockport, which bridges Lancashire and Cheshire, so I feel I belong to both.
Presenter asks
4:26What did you want to be when you were a school girl?
Well, I I didn't want to be any particular thing, but I knew that I wanted to find something that would be totally absorbing. I suppose I went through the girlish thing. I want to be an actress or a singer. … All sorts of romantic vocations, medical missionary, all the teenage um passions, but um nothing specific. I never work towards any end deliberately.
Presenter asks
The keepsakes
No book or luxury recorded for this episode.
You won a scholarship to Cambridge. What did you read?
I read economics, and then I changed to history.
Presenter asks
5:49What did you join the BBC as?
Well, you see, I found my way into quite the wrong slot really because I joined as a studio manager and did a training course which is part of the stage managing of a studio, as you you were well aware. … I never got it right. I still don't understand electricity. And all those knobs and switches, I'm afraid I kept getting wrong. And getting something wrong consistently is very uh depressing. And I'm afraid I didn't stay very long.
Presenter asks
14:04How do you feel about doing the extrovert jobs, like being sent out into Shepherd's Bush market to question shopping women about birth control or one of those jobs?
Well, I just uh asked the cameraman if he would mind being a little discreet and standing in the background. And then I just thought, Well, here you go. You're getting paid to do it. You better just go ahead and do it. And embarrassment has no place in broadcasting. … People were extremely kind. … nobody dreamt of saying kindly mind your own business. They were most surprisingly forthright about uh the answers. And having done it, I thought, well, that was that was good because people were expressing themselves.
“I think initially it would be the most appalling shock and I'd suffer enormous withdrawal symptoms at the absence of traffic and noise and most of all people. But I like to think that I would eventually pull myself together and start to cope with a totally new kind of life and begin to enjoy it.”
“For Bach, who is often considered a very exact, meticulous, intellectual composer, I think this is an extremely passionate piece of music and eternal, really.”
“Women have a situation which has many disadvantages, but it does give them the chance to look at their lives and choose which part of their time they give to whatever work they want to do. … I certainly didn't want to abandon my children to nannies and live separately from them. I wanted to be very close to them and yet still have something that was really hard work, that was a challenge to do.”
“I think I'd I'd be very distressed at being separated from the the amenities of life. I wouldn't like not to be able to clean my teeth. But um I think I would try and um capitalize on the the benefits of being on an island and just put the disadvantages out of my mind.”