Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
A former university tutor, social worker, and popular broadcaster.
On the island
Eight records
I used to hear it played during the South African war… I was given to play on a phonograph… I was a pro-Boer, on the side of a minority.
Intermezzo from Cavalleria Rusticana
Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, conducted by Tullio Serafin
It was the first piece of music that really moved me deeply… I felt like Samuel Pepys when he heard wind music… I knew exactly how he felt.
Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde
I became a wagnerite… I was married to the tune of Wagner… I signed the register to the Tannhäuser Pilgrim's Chorus and walked down the aisle to the Lohengrin wedding march… I have a pleasant memory of hearing it in Berlin in 1931 sung by Frida Leider.
I heard Carnival played by Margaret Dennicky… Since I can't hear her, let's have Myra Hess.
The Little Pudding Basin That Belonged to Auntie Flo
When my husband and I went to Manchester, we realized that Gracie Fields was our idol.
Love Song from Sanders of the River
It reminds me of the time when we were about to go to Liverpool… we were extremely happy. It was a sort of high spot.
I remember playing it on a gramophone during the early part of the war… it suggested peace and calm.
Final Chorus from St. Matthew PassionFavourite
The Bach Choir and the Jacques Orchestra
It's a wonderful thing. It sums up the whole of that glorious piece of music.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:04What would you be happiest to have got away from?
Oh, the feeling that whatever I was doing, I ought to be doing either something else or something more or something better.
Presenter asks
1:36Did you have any plan in deciding on your eight records to take with you?
Yes. I did. I think that music tunes are like smells. They're extremely evocative of the situation or period in your life. And music has always played that part in mind. I mean, if I hear a thing, it recalls the situation in which I first heard it, if it's impressed me at the time.
Presenter asks
10:55Did the Beveridge Committee advocate commercial television?
It sure did not. By 10 to 1, it advocated maintaining the monopoly of the BBC, but unfortunately the Labour government of the time continued the charter of the BBC for six months and in so doing handed it on a plate to the Conservatives who adopted the minority report and introduced commercial television.
The keepsakes
The luxury
A good transistor radio with batteries
A good transistor radio with some batteries, hoping, of course, that a pirate broadcaster will not anchor outside my three-mile limit and entertain me with pop records and spot adverts.
Presenter asks
Now, which pronouncement of yours on any question has raised the biggest rumpus?
It concerns cricket, about which I know absolutely nothing. But some years ago, Colin Codger but was disqualified from military service because there was something wrong with his feet. and he was then taken on as a test cricketer and everybody said the thing had been fiddled you see And the question was, what do members of the team think of Colin Kuyber's feet? And of course, Freddy Grisewood, knowing I knew nothing, hit on me first. And I said, who is Colin Cadre and what was his feat? I've never been allowed to forget it.
Presenter asks
14:46What are you working on at the moment?
Ah, the beauty of it is I'm not working on anything and I don't see why I should at my age. No play waiting to be written.
Presenter asks
18:22As far as rescue is concerned, are you an optimist?
Yes, I think so. I think the highways of the world are so well populated that somebody's bound to pick me up and yet on the whole I'm not certain I want to be picked up. Why? Well, I think the world is in a bad way, what with threat of nuclear war, threat of overpopulation.
“I think that music tunes are like smells. They're extremely evocative of the situation or period in your life.”
“I did not know that music could so move the soul of man. It made me feel quite sick as when I was in love with my wife.”
“I was married to the tune of Wagner. I signed the register to the Tannhuizer Pilgrim's Chordus and walked down the aisle to the tune of the Lohengrin wedding march.”
“I can only regard it as providential because you cannot imagine a better education for a program like any questions, where one needs a superficial knowledge of a number of unrelated subjects.”
“I said, who is Colin Cadre and what was his feat? I've never been allowed to forget it.”