Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Nobleman who transformed his ancestral home, Knebworth House, into a world-famous rock concert venue.
On the island
Eight records
Brain DamageFavourite
they were the second concert we did in in nineteen seventy five and for me they're the best memories of the lot
my great-grandfather, Robert, the son of the author, was British minister in Vienna. and he met Wagner and he said that he'd based his opera rienzi totally on Robert's father, Edward Boor Lytton's novel, Rienzu, so that there's a family connection with this wonderful bit of music.
It's in nineteen ninety when um Paul McCartney was played Hey Jude and I was actually on the stage standing behind him and as I think you're hearing the music it got more and more of a crescendo. He then got the Nebwith audience, the 100,000 people out in the park, all singing Hey Jude and this is one of the great moments in Nebwith history.
this is when I was at Eton. I think John Giovanni was put was on in Slough and somehow we were allowed to go there. And I really enjoyed it, and I bought a record of it afterwards, which I played a lot at the time. But this little this song out of it is a good party song. You can see he's interested in making the party go.
we did have the good fortune of of going one day to listen to It is Piaf singing at the Olympia Theatre in the Shoes Liese. And I think it was probably her very last public appearance. And ever since hearing her sing live like that, Wonderful experience and I've been a great fan of hers ever since.
I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm
Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong
Ella Fitzgerald, whom I always had a huge admiration for, was Billed. And she had tea in the house and she was really delightful, very nice. I kept the teacup that she drank with her lipstick on it and hung it on a hook on the wall in the drawing room.
I was a huge fan of Frank Sinatra. And so I thought one compromise would get him singing out of South Pacific some enchanted evening.
this is a song which always makes me remember with all the friends we've had and the parties that we've been to and all been together.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:50What happened when you had a group of girl guides camping at Knebworth in the same week as a Rolling Stones concert?
the girl guide leader came up storming up to me and said, What on earth is this going on, this terrible noise? And I said, Well, for goodness sake, there's Mick Jagger playing there. Maybe your girls would prefer to stop and listen to that. And she said, No, I'm not a bit low. And I said, Well, you better go down and talk to Mick Jagger on the stage which she did. And he luckily he was just finishing, I think, but he did stop.
Presenter asks
5:40How would you describe Knebworth House?
it was originally a a a four-sided red brick. quadrangle of a house. And it was like that until the beginning of the nineteenth century really, when uh misses Bulwer Lytton inherited the house. It hadn't been occupied by the family for about fifty years, and so I think it was in a very bad state. She pulled three of the four sides of the red brick Tudor house down. and covered the remaining side with um stucco. And her son, Edward Boovelitham, added all the Victorian Gothic decoration, which is very much the main feature of Nebwith House now. It's not everybody's coffee tea. You either hate it or or or love it, but it's fairly unique.
Presenter asks
15:22What was it about that year in Canada [during national service] that made it the most exciting of your life?
The keepsakes
The book
Edward Bulwer-Lytton
I thought I would take um Zanoni, which is one of Edward Booleft's my great-great-grandfather's novels, which is all about the occult.
The luxury
I thought I might need a solar powered microwave oven to cook the fish in if I can catch them, or possibly a fishing rod. I don't know.
Well just flying a a j a jet plane on your own and you're like a seagull, you can just go round and about And it's the most amazing feeling of freedom and power.
Presenter asks
19:29When you moved into Knebworth House with a young family at the end of the sixties, what condition was it in?
it was in a terrible state and it had dry rot and things like that. And we got architects to look at it and to prepare a ten phase programme of restoration for the house. We've now succeeded in doing five point five of the of the ten phases with help from English Heritage and various grants, but otherwise from the proceeds of Rock Pronsets.
Presenter asks
23:50Do you remember first realizing that something was wrong [before being diagnosed with Parkinson's disease]?
Um well I went for a checkup uh and uh just came out of out of that. I think th that's the p the problem. Um I don't really like talking about it because I d uh it's not it's not uh terribly serious at the moment and the pills that I'm on seem to keep it down and lots of other people have this problem as well.
Presenter asks
26:18Was it a difficult decision to hand Knebworth over to your son Henry, or were you ready to step back?
No, we were ready. We've done we've done thirty years. Also, I think that it's very important for grandchildren to grow up in the house and to enjoyed it as children and feel it as home. ... I think one gets stale after a bit, and it was a good thing to pass it on to the next generation.
“I brought it, and he thought I was the butler, and I didn't quarrel with that concept.”
“My mother was absolutely thrilled. My father said, You're absolutely crazy, it's a financial disaster, and the answer is they were both right.”
“I've got a lovely, lovely wife who looks after me very well and we're coming up for fifty years golden wedding next year.”