Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
2 appearances
Writer and illustrator, best known for creating Mog the Cat and for her autobiographical novel When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit.
On the island
Eight records
It really stands for everything that was happening in Germany. As we left, uh the horror of seedy Berlin with a Nazi influence everywhere.
Who Do You Think You Are Kidding, Mr. Hitler?
Jimmy Perry and Derek Taverner
Well, this is when we came to England. It was such a joy to find people being funny about very serious things.
Symphony No. 7 in A major, Op. 92: II. Allegretto
La Scala Philharmonic Orchestra
this is the piece of music that was played at his funeral... the Beethoven Seventh, which he always loved.
Cantor Moshe Haschel and the Ne'imah Singers
This um memorial prayer is for them... The one and a half million children. Who didn't get out
The Planets, Op. 32: I. Mars, the Bringer of War
Well, this is the music from Quatermass and um still takes me back to this very happy time.
Elisabeth Söderström and Kerstin Meyer
Well, this is the cat stuet, which is really the very least I can do for all those cats we had.
Romeo and Juliet, Op. 64: Dance of the Knights
Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden
Partly because Tom used to play it when he was writing... And I also once saw a film in which it was used to accompany a scene in which a very mature couple were dancing... And I thought, well, this is Tom and me.
Great Mass in C minor, K. 427: KyrieFavourite
Kathleen Battle, Peter Seiffert, Kurt Moll, Vienna State Opera Chorus, and the Vienna Philharmonic
Well, this is just the most beautiful music I know. I love it.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:02Why do you think [refugees find a kind of humour and tolerance here]?
Because they did save our lives, and because we found a kind of humour and tolerance here, which didn't, I think, exist in other countries at that time.
Presenter asks
4:33Why did the family go then? How did it know to go then?
Well, my father was Alfred Kerr. He was a hugely well known journalist, a drama critic, and um he was on the first black list published by the Nazis... and these people, they said, we will stand up against the wall and shoot as soon as we get into power.
Presenter asks
14:29Was that therefore difficult for you to go back [to Germany after the war]?
I think there was just a sort of feeling of disgust at that time. I find myself thinking about it now the last ten years far more than I did then.
Presenter asks
The keepsakes
The book
A very big beautiful coffee table book of Impressionists
with the whole of Shakespeare, I don't think I can't think of anything else I would really want to read. It would be a bit of a come down. So I thought what would be very nice would be a very big beautiful coffee table book of Impressionists. Uh no text, just the pictures.
The luxury
most of our marriage Tom and I have worked in adjoining rooms and we've talked. And we still find things to talk about. And if I were able to write down any sort of thoughts I might have or anything I'd noticed, if I could do that, I think I would feel less out of touch.
How do you feel about [your book, When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit, being used in German primary schools]?
Well I think I'm uh... terribly pleased, of course, and I think my father would have been pleased.
Presenter asks
19:36Why did you wait so long [to write]?
Well, i I think it was um A sort of despair, really. I mean, the children were both at school, and I knew I had to do something, because I knew otherwise I'd turn into the sort of mother who says you use this house as a hotel. And drawing was always my first love
Presenter asks
24:43Why did you do that [kill off Mog the Cat]?
Well, I think it was really about myself rather than Mog. I was coming up to eighty and I was thinking about how I'd like to be remembered, if at all, and um I thought it would be good to be remembered... as one really was not idealised.
“I think I became a Brit, as you might say, during the war, because um the people here were so extraordinarily good. We were here right through the blitz and the bombing, and people were being killed every night, and there were my parents walking about with their German accents, and nobody ever once said anything nasty to them.”
“I think the business of Of the Holocaust. Um The one and a half million children. Who didn't get out? as I got out in the nick of time. I think about them almost every day now, because I've had such a happy and fulfilled life, they'd have given anything to have had just a few days of it.”
“I started doing the mog books when my children were learning to read, and I thought that children shouldn't be made to read anything unnecessary. And so I would never put anything in the text that was in the pictures. You know, if you say he was wearing red trousers and you see a boy with red trousers, I mean it's a waste of their energy.”