Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
A prize-winning British novelist, best known for her subtle, stylish books about motherhood, divorce, and English society in the late 20th century.
On the island
Eight records
Serenade No. 1 in D major, Op. 11: I. Allegro molto
BRT Philharmonic Orchestra of Brussels, conducted by Alexander Rahbari
My first record is A Brahm Serenade, which I love. It's the first C D I ever bought. I bought it at the beginning of this year and I played it to myself endlessly in Italy when I was alone for a month avoiding publication and sitting in Venice in a beautiful flat over a little canal. And I played this Brahms Serenade to myself every morning to start work.
St. Matthew Passion, BWV 244: "Ich will bei meinem Jesu wachen"
Ernst Haefliger, Munich Bach Orchestra and Choir, conducted by Karl Richter
This is a piece that I found particularly moving and beautiful. It was about the only music at school that I really enjoyed, and the tragic drama of the Passion I I find quite overwhelming.
Georges Bizet / Oscar Hammerstein II
Record number three is from Carmen Jones, which I thought was the most wonderful and amusing movie.
The Best of All Possible Worlds
Max Adrian and the Original Broadway Cast
It was very much a cult piece when I first knew my first husband, Clive Swift. And I've always been a bit of a a doctor Pangloss myself, thinking that all is for the best in of all in the best of all possible worlds at certain moments.
Simon Smith and the Amazing Dancing Bear
Because this is a record that I used to play the children to cheer ourselves up and it reminds me of when they were little and they were so sweet and this is such a sweet song.
Symphony No. 4 in A minor, Op. 63: IV. Allegro
Danish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Leif Segerstam
Sibelius is about the only big symphonic composer that I understand. And I understand Sibelius because it's landscape, it's outdoors, it's wordsworthy. And when people say, doesn't that remind you of mountains and lakes? Usually I have absolutely no vision of mountains and lakes. But if it's Sebalius, yes, I do.
Messiah, HWV 56: "I know that my Redeemer liveth"Favourite
Isobel Baillie, Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Malcolm Sargent
My seventh record is from Handel's Messiah, I Know That My Redeemer Liveth, because it's joyful and triumphant and when I hear this music it is so beautiful that I sometimes think that perhaps my Redeemer does live.
L'Incoronazione di Poppea: "Pur ti miro, pur ti godo"
Danielle Borst, Guillemette Laurens, Concerto Vocale, conducted by René Jacobs
My last record is the duet of Nero and Poppea from Monte Verde's L'Incoronazione di Poppea, because it is such wonderful, pure, beautiful music and these two lovers, who are really terrible people, are having this beautiful, pure love duet.
In conversation
Presenter asks
6:54How painful was it for you to write [The Peppered Moth] because it's so close to home?
It was very difficult. It was an attempt to … understand the kind of woman she was before she became the woman she was at the end of her life. And we all begin in gladness and sometimes end in bitterness and sadness. And I was trying to get back to the person she was before we were born, before all the things that went wrong for her went wrong for her.
Presenter asks
7:05In your childhood, what do you remember of [your mother]?
She was very bitter to my father and she complained a great deal about everything. She felt that life hadn't given her what she … deserved, whereas in fact life had given her a great deal. She had a comfortable house, she had a caring husband, she had dutiful daughters and a son to be proud of. But sh it was as though nothing was ever quite enough
Presenter asks
9:58Were you depressive as a child, or did you suffer from depressions?
Yes, I think I suffered deeply from depressions. And one thinks of children as being cheerful and happy little things. But in fact, I went through periods of of intense depression.
The keepsakes
The book
Arnold Bennett
I would like to take The Old Wives' Tale by Arnold Bennett, an old favourite of mine... I can reread and reread, and it's a book that takes me back to my childhood and to the regions, and it's just an endlessly interesting story.
The luxury
Ariadne's Thread by Maurice Cockrill
My luxury would be a painting... I would like a painting by Maurice Cockrell... I would really like to take a painting called Ariadne's Thread... I would be happy gazing at his wonderful use of oil. It would cheer me up also.
Presenter asks
11:25How did [your depression] manifest itself?
Well, bits of my hair dropped out at one point, but I I I had a stammer which I'm sure was a manifestation of of anxiety and stress of some sort. … I worried that I was going to go to hell. I thought I'd done something terrible wrong and I didn't know what it was.
Presenter asks
19:48Why did you [swallow a lot of paracetamol]?
Well, it wasn't depression, it was it was rage, which is a slightly different emotion. I didn't get deeply depressed. I really did feel quite cornered, and I think mothers of small children know the kind of terrible stress you go through. And I think I did feel desperate intermittently. I never went … into a deep depression, a sort of prolonged depression as I'd been through in childhood. So I think I swallowed those pills out of bad temper, and I'm very, very sorry about it now. I apologize.
“I came to feel that I was writing for a generation and having been quite lonely and feeling that my experience was isolated, I realized that it did link up with a lot of other people.”
“I think living with a depressive mother makes you depressed yourself. But of course you blame yourself because you don't know what you're being depressed about.”
“I think that um my children could love me, but of course inevitably parents love their children more than children love their parents. I think that's a fact of life.”