Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Botanist, biologist and gardening expert, best known as a stalwart of Gardeners' Question Time.
On the island
Eight records
My Love Is Like a Red Red Rose
I was brought up in Ayr, for example. I went to school in Ayr, and the Burns tradition is very strong in Ayr, and consequently he was one of the folk heroes of my youth. And I'd like to hear one of his poems in a very good setting, sung by Kellas McKellar.
Hallé Orchestra conducted by Sir John Barbirolli
My second record is in fact one of these mood pieces which I love, and this is Sibelius Finlandia.
Now my next record is really a relic of America. It's Ella Fitzgerald singing her song about Manhattan, which I think is lovely.
Another of my American memories, and sadly one that won't be repeated, is Bing Crosbie singing June in January.
Murder in the Cathedral (The Archbishop's Sermon)
Robert Donat with the Old Vic Company
Now one of the things I love, as you've probably realized by now, is the spoken word, and I love plays. And this record is Robert Donnet reading part of T. S. Eliot's murder in the cathedral.
Yehudi Menuhin and Stéphane Grappelli
Two of my favourite people actually, Yehudi Menuen and Stephan Grappelli, two of the best violinists in the world playing together and playing that old favourite Lady Be Good.
Huddersfield Choral Society and the Black Dyke Mills Band
My last disc is, in fact, simply a Christmas disc. I love volume in music, it affects me terrifically. And I thought, how can I get a good volume that I would love to hear. And so I've chosen the Huddersfield Choir, with the Black Dyke Mills band, singing and playing O Come All Ye Faithful.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:42How well could you adapt yourself to solitude?
I think I could adapt myself pretty well. I'm … in many senses a fairly self sufficient person. I can enjoy being alone. Mind you wouldn't like it to last forever, but I can enjoy it.
Presenter asks
2:44As a boy, what were your main interests?
As a boy they were very, very clearly defined. I loved golf. This was my primary interest. I rather enjoyed reading and ordinary, you know, things that I think, I hope, every boy enjoys. But golf and I played a lot of rugby. These were my great things at that time.
Presenter asks
3:21Why botany? Who or what instilled a love of the countryside?
It all arises largely by chance. I think so many things about one's life arise by chance. I really went up to the University in Glasgow to be a chemist. And at that time, it was nineteen thirty, it was during the Depression, jobs were very difficult to get. And on the other side of the road in which we lived, there was a gentleman who was an agriculturalist. And talking to my mother one day, he said If Alan can get a good degree in botany, I can get him a job. So my mother said to me, You're no longer a chemist, you're a botanist.
The keepsakes
The book
An elementary calculus book with problems and answers
what I would like to do, because I would have the peace to do it, is to take a book on elementary calculus, which is a mathematical way of handling problems. Because I know a little bit about it, but not enough. And if this elementary book had problems and answers, I could maybe find the right answers to the problems. This would open a whole world of biology to me again.
The luxury
I would really love to take a pencil a lot of pencils and lots of paper with me. And I could write write other books, for example.
Presenter asks
5:35What was your next post [after Glasgow]?
My next post after that was to go down to Birmingham. Where I was working for the Home Office solving crime with the aid of science. Sounds a big change from agriculture, but that was it.
Presenter asks
11:41How many editions of Gardeners' Question Time have you taken part in?
I've taken part, I should think, in about twelve hundred and thirty around there. I've missed a number when I've been in Africa and this kind of thing.
Presenter asks
14:00Do you ever get questions that stump you?
Oh, yes. Not terribly frequently, because my two colleagues have vivid imaginations but we sometimes get questions that stump us simply because we're not getting all the information, or simply because the questioner is wrong. Lady, for example, who stood up and said, Why is it that when I planted an apple, pip, a pear tree came up. And there just is no answer to this.
“I really went up to the University in Glasgow to be a chemist. … And talking to my mother one day, [an agriculturalist] said If Alan can get a good degree in botany, I can get him a job. So my mother said to me, You're no longer a chemist, you're a botanist.”
“When anyone commits a crime, they leave traces of themselves where they've committed the crime, and the place leaves traces on them. And the role of the forensic scientist is to try to link these two the scene of the crime, the suspected person, together.”
“I'd like to be able to stay in the desert island long enough to be absolutely tired of solitude, and I think that would take quite a long time.”