Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Crossword compiler, known as Aricaria, who for over 50 years created fiendish clues and mind-twisting anagrams.
On the island
Eight records
Symphony No. 7 in A major, Op. 92: II. Allegretto
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Karl Böhm
Well I chose this piece because it's the first piece of serious music I ever got to know and when I went to King's College, Cambridge for my interview before going up, a group of us sat around with a prospective tutor and he asked us each to choose a piece of music to to play and this was the only piece of serious music that I knew.
I loved Caroline Ferry the first time I heard her sing, but it's not just that. Where I live now I have a well, great friends, a family who have more or less adopted me, so to speak, since I was widowed. But the lady of the family who died last year, she was a contralto and concerned singers always remind me of her. And this is from in her memory really.
Lynne Dawson, Stephen Alder and The Friends of Apollo
Ah, yes, the peasant cantato. It's the first time I remember doing any choral singing. And although I I'm by no means a singer of any kind, I do love choral singing and I l I love singing a part. We sang it at school. I don't remember exactly when. I must say I don't think I've ever heard it since, so it's a it's just a childhood memory.
Count John McCormack and the stars, the counties are well this is it's in very early days. Somebody must have given us a gramophone, one of these enormous great things with a one of those funny horns on the top and steel needles. We had just a few records that this was one of them. I'm not sure I like it so much now, but I loved it then.
Well, this again this is this is from the sixties, you see, the time of all this was going on. I had ten years at Reading University as chaplain when everything was changing, and the the era of the Beatles and everything, and I did wonder what I like to choose best from that era. So I came out with this one because it it's the flip side as well as your shows of pale, which everybody knows, and this is not so well known, and I think it's better.
Three Kings from Persian Lands
Stephen Varcoe and the Choir of King's College, Cambridge
Oh yes, well when I went up to King's a lot of my c people I knew best were called scholars, so it was very much an important part of life. And I think that the carols I've chosen, which is quite often done at the Carol Service on Christmas Eve, is for me the highlight of what they do.
The Choir of St Andrew's, West Tarring, directed by John Wardell, with Christopher Harris (organ)
Well this is a song of Mary. It's a translation of The Magnificat written by my sister Mary Holtby, who is a always the person in my family who I've been closest to I mean closest to all of them, but especially to Mary. She and Richard Shepherd actually write quite a lot of stuff together. She writes the words and he writes the music and I think it's very good.
The Creation: The Heavens Are TellingFavourite
Berlin Radio Symphony Choir and Orchestra, conducted by Helmut Koch
This is the The Heavens Are Telling from Haydn's Creation. This is my favourite piece of, if you like, classical religious music. I've always loved it and it it expresses my faith very well. I mean it was the basis of it, I think. It was done by the Sadaives Choral Society a few years back, and it so that's a special memory for me.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:32Is that the clue, then, John Graham, that actually this is about an element of intellectual jousting with strangers? That's the pleasure of it, is it?
Yes, I think that's a pretty fair description. I hadn't thought of it myself, but yes, I think it's good. I hope that it also equips one for life in the sense it makes one think more clearly and Can only be good.
Presenter asks
3:06What about Sudoku? Do you consider that to be the devil's work?
Well, as I've never done one, it would be unfair to judge, but I'm sure you do love a judgment. Share it with me. Yes, I think s that's fair comment. It takes people away from their proper occupation of solving cryptic crosswords. I I think t people s was better employed doing my crosswords than doing the Sudoku.
Presenter asks
13:51Were you expected to follow in that [church] path?
Oh, not to rise high. No, I don't think so. I don't remember ever discussing it actually. I do remember that when I finally made up my mind, after a good deal of coming and going mentally, I did want to do this. He seemed quite pleased.
The keepsakes
The luxury
My first choice would have been the Madonna and Child from Michelangelo from the Church of Our Lady in Bruges but, as I can't take that away from Bruges, because I couldn't live with my conscience if I did, I would like a telescope. So that I can see the heavens telling the glory of God, and I've never had one.
Presenter asks
14:45Tell me about the time that your plane caught fire.
Yes, yes. It seems to be in a flare at the back that ignited. Nobody knows why. And the plane caught fire. All I knew about it sitting in the front was I was a navigator and I couldn't of course see what was going on in the back. There was just a shriek from the back saying the kite's on fire, and that's the last I heard because the intercom was then burnt out. The next thing I heard was the pilot ringing the bell, which is get out, so I got out.
Presenter asks
17:57Did [the random nature of war] not in any way sort of cause you to to question the the meaning of life and the purposefulness of a god?
I don't think so really. I don't think that made any difference. I mean, all those questions occurred. Of course they do, and they they always do and they always will. But I don't think that actually that much to do with it because in a war you you you just do all this stuff and you don't really think that much about it, it sort of happens and That's it.
Presenter asks
26:20What about where did your faith sit in all of this [divorce and leaving the church]? Because I'm imagining it must have been sorely tested.
I don't think I ever really questioned it. Uh I probably questioned it, but I don't think I ever ever ever came to any different answer. I think it's always been there.
“I don't think I live in the past at all, really.”
“I think an unhappy marriage is such a major disaster anyway to anybody. But it's worse for your vicar because everything you do all the time is supposed to be upholding the sanctity of marriage, happy relationships in the family and all that stuff, which you can't do.”
“I think the the church as an organization is not very good at dealing with this with stuff. We just don't do it very well.”