Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Author of the book Castaway, recounting her year on a deserted tropical island.
On the island
Eight records
Violin Concerto No. 2 in E major, BWV 1042: III. Allegro assai
David Oistrakh & Vienna Symphony Orchestra
The first one I've chosen is one of the most brilliant pieces I know, guaranteed to put me in a good mood
Camerata Contemporary Chamber Group
Record number two is a very sentimental one for me. It's one of Sarty's Trois Gem Pidis, and something I used to dance to by myself, feeling very mystical and magical.
All by MyselfFavourite
Well, this is a a rather odd little choice on my part. It's a piece called All By Myself, and although of course I wasn't, in fact, all by myself on the island, I many times felt that I was, and this would always put me in a good mood.
Pinchas Zukerman & English Chamber Orchestra
Tuin only had two seasons, a dry season and a wet season, and it was when the monsoons came and the water from the sky hit the water on the sea, like a myriad arrows bouncing off that surface. It was so beautiful and magical, and that piece of music actually went through my mind while I was watching it.
Django Reinhardt & Stéphane Grappelli
goes with uh an activity that I did nearly every day. There was a beautiful sand spit stretching out in front of him, and usually I'd walk along it at a glide, after all I had all the time in the world. But just occasionally I'd get a real bounce in my step, and then I'd think of Django Reinhardt Stephan Grappelli playing the Lambeth Walt.
Academy of St Martin in the Fields, conducted by Sir Neville Marriner
We couldn't afford to give way to sentimentality, we couldn't afford to give way to tears. But as you're sending me off to another island and you insist that I must take some music with me, I'm certainly going to take something guaranteed to make me cry, because I think one needs that physical release.
This one I've chosen specially for Gerald. It's Kenny Rogers the Gambler, and he used to sing it to me at night six or seven times, one after the other, and it's something I'll never forget.
with no slight int intended to Gerald here. It's called The Man I Love and it's Billy Holiday singing it.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:46How much does music mean in your life?
Music means a great deal to me. It's something that's always been able to move me up or down on on the scale of emotional well being.
Presenter asks
4:07What did you want to be? What plans did you have for yourself?
When I was very young I wanted to be a monkey keeper. I was interested in the study of human behaviour, and I thought that beginning with the larger primates would be the best thing
Presenter asks
8:04How did you find this man [Gerald]? Was he attractive? Was he much older than you, or younger, or what was he like?
He was twenty six years older than me. He had the typical Robinson Crusoe red hair and beard, which he'd warned me about before we met. … He gave me a terrific spiel … and I got the impression that for whatever reason he was determined to see that year through.
Presenter asks
The keepsakes
The book
Anthony Burgess
I'd take one that I have already read half way through that was Anthony Burgess's Language Made Plain a book that was damaged by geckos before I could get to the end of the International Phonetic Alphabet
The luxury
I know you say of no practical use, but one can't really get pleasure on an island like that unless you are free from the irritation, so I would plump for a crate of mosquito coils
As you explored the island for the first time, was there a feeling of optimism about the whole year's enterprise?
I was immensely excited about the whole thing. I remember when we went to sleep the first night in the tent, Gerald folded himself away quickly into sleep. But I couldn't sleep. I was so excited. The thought of three hundred and sixty five dawns ahead, the whole island to explore, all that space, and that dubious word freedom as well.
Presenter asks
23:05You went to the island as a couple, but your sexual life together soon broke down.
Yes, that's true. I think it was partially due to the fact that we were forced to get married. This was an unnatural thing, an imposition from a world that was irrelevant on our lawless little island.
Presenter asks
29:36After your three hundred and sixty-five days on touring, you wanted to come back to Britain. Did Gerald come back with you?
No. As a matter of fact, it turned out to be four hundred days and four hundred nights. Gerald and I parted on Bardu, where I left him mending an engine. … I came back to Britain.
“Living on a desert island is very much a business of living in the present. It is its own world.”
“I decided one day that it was about time I imposed some discipline on myself, having rejected all outside forms of discipline. And it worked very well. The only way I could do it, though, was to dangle the carrot of adventure in front of myself, and this carrot was the promise of a year out, something quite different to follow.”
“if we had been able to send for help, then we never would have had the opportunity of discovering those second resources of the survival urge that were within us”
“I had grown to love Tuin so much that I wanted to stay there by hook up by crook. I'd have done anything to stick out that year on the island, and I did.”