Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
World authority on solar energy, Oxford first, fellow of Newnham College, Cambridge, and wife of Geoffrey Archer.
On the island
Eight records
this solemn melody is a short organ voluntary which was composed for the Temple Church by Wolfrid Davis, and it's among the sheet music that I've inherited from my father, and my father used it as an organ voluntary when he was a church organist
I can still remember every last note of Hiawatha, and it would be a great pleasure to hear it again
I associate the Beatles very much with that time and with Geoffrey
Finale from Beethoven's Ninth SymphonyFavourite
London Symphony Chorus and Orchestra, conducted by Carlo Maria Giulini
among the things that I think we always sang was the Beethoven Ninth Symphony
I Come from Heaven (Echo Carol)
traditional Christmas carols which I've always loved very much, and this particular one is a simple German carol, the Echo Carol
that was one of the pieces that William particularly enjoyed singing
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:56Would you argue with the description of you as a very private person married to a very public man?
I think I wouldn't have done, um, though I find myself more in the public eye now, for example, appearing on a programme like this. I think I am, however, basically rather a private person, happy to be solitary, happy to be alone with the things I like to do.
Presenter asks
8:39Was it always obvious that you were an achiever?
I think I was thought to be a bright little girl, and my father was very encouraging, and like many women who've got fairly far in life, my father was a very important influence both on me and my elder sister. He had very high, very uncompromising standards, and I think I was inculcated with those. And I always enjoyed work. I was always a boring, bookish girl.
Presenter asks
10:45What sort of figure did [Geoffrey] cut when you met him?
A very unusual and dashing figure in my eyes, because he had come up to Oxford to do a diploma in education, and was much more interested in running, in fact, than in anything academic. He sprinted first for the university and then briefly and not terribly successfully, but anyway he did for Britain. He was terrific fun, something different from anything I'd ever met before, and I suppose it was the attraction of opposites, but I just took to him.
The keepsakes
The book
Marcel Proust
I think I would take Proust's Remembrance of Things Past, which I read first about ten years ago, and it took me three years of an evening reading, and a wonderful, wonderful work it is, and it would be a pleasure to have the time to sit down and read it again.
The luxury
Needles, cotton, and a bolt of material to embroider hangings for a four-poster bed
what I will take, if you will allow this, is the wherewithal to embroider some hangings for it. Needles, cotton, and a bolt of material.
Presenter asks
14:49You very nearly put [your first baby's] life in jeopardy. What happened?
Yes, I did. Yes, I suppressed this story for years, but I've now sort of come out of the closet with it. William was due, I think, in a July yes, July of nineteen seventy two, which was planned because it was after the end of the academic year. And I entirely blame myself. William started to arrive early, in May, in fact, I mean very early, while I was actually teaching at Oxford in Somerville College and for some reason I didn't down tools and get myself next door to the Radcliffe Hospital, which would have been the sensible thing to do. I just carried on with my day's routine, with the consequence that by the time I arrived back on the train to London, and Geoffrey, bless him, was punctual as always and met me, really the baby was well and truly on the way, and I hardly recognised it. But Geoffrey did, and he's very good in a tight corner, and he got me to Guy's hospital very quickly, and I think William was born about five minutes after we arrived.
Presenter asks
22:10How badly did [the financial disaster] affect you personally?
I found it hard to cope with. I carried on working and that was a definite solace. I was very glad to be able to carry on pretty well normally at work in London. But grinding anxiety about money is there's nothing else like it that I've ever experienced. I came out in some most hideous kind of spottiness all round my face that was due to the stress we were under, and that didn't go away for some time.
Presenter asks
27:58Would you say you have an independence of spirit that has helped you withstand the shocks in your marriage?
I think I am fairly independent, yes. For a start I've always been wholly independent in my professional life, because Geoffrey is no scientist and knows nothing about it, and I've always liked that. I've always liked to have my own thing. So there's that kind of independence. But then in another way I think we are very interdependent, and that was also important. It wasn't, I think, that we felt we were two independent people somehow thrown together and going through this extraordinary thing, but we were interdependent and going through it together.
“I think I am, however, basically rather a private person, happy to be solitary, happy to be alone with the things I like to do.”
“I think the universe is a wonderful creation, and it's a remarkable thing that mathematics is the key to it.”
“I thought he was the one for me, and I wasn't wrong.”
“Grinding anxiety about money is there's nothing else like it that I've ever experienced.”