Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Biologist internationally known for studies of butterflies, fleas, and worms; also conservationist, campaigner, seat belt inventor.
On the island
Eight records
If You Were the Only Girl in the World
Anne Ziegler and Webster Booth
I'd like to start with if you were the only girl in the world. We used to play that in the nursery at home and on one of those lovely old gramophones with horns.
I'd like to have one of his records now, one of his very corny records.
Yes, we're still feeling romantic, I think. So let's have another four Rovers and f to finish the romantic period, this particular romantic period.
Cello Suite No. 5 in C minor – PreludeFavourite
While I was at Naples there was a tremendous uh eruption of Vesuvius and a mountain suddenly appeared … And that was the music that played the while. It was the prelude to Bach's cello, suite number five, in C minor, played by Pablo Casal.
Fantasia in D minor for four viols
Ensemble für Alte Musik, conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt
I think it's a marvellous record, you know, to have on a desert island, because I'm sure when you played it, it would attract all the seals out of the water, and you'd suddenly see these heads bobbing up, and there's sort of whiskers sticking out, and and eyes glittering while this is being played. I think I should make friends with the seals.
And we had two records we played. And one of them was the Lambeth Wall. And we taught the crew to dance the Lambeth Walk.
Somewhere My Love (Lara's Theme from Doctor Zhivago)
The last record I'd like to play is a really corny one. It's the Lara's song from Dr. Shivargo. And I was very happy with Dr. Shivargo because it took me back to a period of my life when I was deeply interested in Russian literature.
In conversation
Presenter asks
3:56What was your childhood like then?
Marvellous. had the most marvellously happy childhood. Never never a bad moment. Never went to school? No, never. Never had a governess. Well, I did have a governess, but she was kept very much in the background'cause my father rather disapproved of governesses, resident governesses, and he disapproved of examinations.
Presenter asks
6:15I wonder why it was that you concentrated on the flea.
Oh, that was purely f filial devotion. I mean, I I my father was a flea man and I became a flea girl. That was as simple as that.
Presenter asks
17:19Do you think it's come too late, or is there hope for us? [in conservation]
I think we are too late. You can't really turn the clock back. That's impossible. But I think you could do a lot to save the situation as it is now.
Presenter asks
20:35The keepsakes
The book
Marcel Proust
I think I would take Proust, although I know it so well. I read it so often, I know it said, Well, I think I'll take that with me. In French.
The luxury
A bag of wildflower seed mixture (the farmer's nightmare)
I should have a bag of seed, of wildflower seed, the mixture I call the farmer's nightmare, because that has in it poppies, cornflowers, corn marigolds, corn cockles, all these weeds of cornfields, and they're so beautiful. ... And when finally the rescue ship arrived, they'd find instead of the desert island they expected, a marvellous blood-red landscape with one beautiful skeleton in the middle.
Do you agree with that? You think it's unfair? [that your uncle was one of the great eccentrics]
Yes, I think he was extraordinarily eccentric man, and I lived under the same roof as hi as him for a long time. He never he was a non talker, you know, never spoke. That was one of his things, which is strange if you didn't understand him.
Presenter asks
25:08How are you going to survive on the island then? You may I mean you may have to fish.
I shall eat tons of fruit and vegetables, and I shall have to be very careful which plants I select because a lot of them are toxic. I won't select any plants on which very brightly coloured insects feed, because that's a sign that they're toxical plants.
Presenter asks
28:44Is there anything which bores you?
Bore in my life. That's one thing that's never happened to me. I'm very lucky. I've never been bored, never tired.
“I really think naturalists I've said this over and over again, you know, they are born, not made.”
“All life, if you really look at it closely, is romantic and wonderful. Tapewords are marvellous animals.”
“I think we are too late. You can't really turn the clock back. That's impossible. But I think you could do a lot to save the situation as it is now.”
“I've never been bored, never tired.”
“I lost the power of looking down the microscope about uh six years ago because I got shingles of the eyes, and that spoiled my vision to some extent. And it suddenly struck me that I've been look spent fifty years looking down a brass tube and that it was high time I began to look at something else. That's when I started my wildflowers.”