Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
A professional cook who opened a successful London restaurant, founded a chef school, and was credited with uncurling the British Rail sandwich.
On the island
Eight records
Horn Concerto No. 4 in E flat major
Conducted by Herbert von Karajan with the Philharmonia Orchestra. The guest said: 'something uplifting and gentle at the same time'.
The guest said: 'I remember going to the first night. It was a black and white audience. It was one of the few multiracial cultural events. And it was the most sensational thing.'
The guest said: 'it's so French and I spent so long in France that um I just love it. Also it's very sad. I love sad songs.'
Vince Edwards and the Company of Hair
The guest said: 'harks back to those sixties days when I was building up the business.'
Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings, Op. 31
The guest said: 'I just love it. I've only grown up into smart music very recently.'
The guest said: 'reminds me of my childhood because it was one of the few records that we had, and there was great excitement because it seemed to represent England and sophistication in America.'
The guest said: 'anybody who's lived in Paris has to have Edith Piaf's Milord engraved on their hearts.'
Symphony No. 6 in F major, Op. 68 'Pastoral'Favourite
Conducted by Herbert von Karajan. The guest said: 'Grown-up stuff. Lie in my hammock and listen to it and think of the green fields of England.'
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:49What would you order for your last supper before you depart for your desert island?
Well, I think I'm going to disappoint you with this, but I think it might be bangers and mash, with onion gravy, and lots of butter and nutmeg in the mash. And mustard? Yes, English mustard, but not much of it.
Presenter asks
7:01At what point in your life did you realize this [apartheid] was a humiliating set up?
I think when I went to university, I was at Cape Town University, and we were at the time campaigning for blacks to be allowed into white universities, which of course they now are. And um I remember carrying leaflets and I got myself arrested in Cape Town. I was tremendously proud of myself because I'd got arrested for a political act and I was so angry because they released me instantly. They could tell that I was just a fellow traveller and not a very serious political actor.
Presenter asks
12:54Tell me about this first catering company in Earl's Court. It was in the bedsitter, yes?
Yes, it was. I don't think it was anything dignified with the name of a company, but it was certainly me catering out of a bed sitter. I was very lucky because my landlady had no sense of smell, so she had no idea what you know, there were sort of cakes in the oven all day and so forth. And I I mean, I I don't think that environmental health officers would have liked it much, but I used to use the communal bathroom to wash all the lettuces in and there were lobsters on the dressing table and it was um not how a coaching company should operate.
The keepsakes
The book
Anthony Trollope
I think one of the great things about Trollope is that because my mind is going because I'm over fifty now, I forget everything. So when I've read m my way to the last page I can start again, and um I'd ought to be just all fresh and new.
The luxury
Presenter asks
17:27What about your first reviews? Were they any good?
No, the first review we had was from the Tatlap, Dennis Curtis. I remember it very well. And it was incredibly unkind. By then I had become rather blase. People were saying w how wonderful our restaurant was, and it was packed night after night, and it was very fashionable and everything else. So when Tatla rang up and said, You're in, I rushed out to buy it, thinking I was going to get another, you know, bouquet, and um it was quite rude. In fact, I could probably quote it to you line for line, because these knives go in, you know, and praise just r rolls off one because the nastiest thing he's in. Well, he said you had to wait forty-five minutes for an indifferent blanquette of lamb, and he also said that the soap in the ladies' loo resembled that used to combat body odour in the fourteen, eighteen trenches.
Presenter asks
25:41You're a businesswoman, really, aren't you, overseeing all the managing director of it all? How does that work with a husband as a chairman?
Yes, I am, yes. My husband is the chairman. How does that work with a husband as a chairman? That's not easy, I would have thought. It is, it's very easy. I can never understand when people say never take your troubles home. I mean, I would say the first thing you must do is take your troubles home. And if you don't have to take them very far, because his office is next door to you, it's it's fine. I don't find it a problem at all.
Presenter asks
30:32You're obviously quite a gregarious person. Are you going to go mad on the desert island for want of company, or will you survive the loneliness?
Um, no, I am very gregarious. I might go mad, but then I was thinking that I might just I'm so organized that I would be sort of slapping the mosquitoes into line very quickly. I mean, I would find it difficult being alone, but I would organise myself very smartly.
“All of which is is quite an achievement proof for someone who as a young woman had never, quite literally, I think, boiled an egg. Well, no, that's true. I had never boiled an egg.”
“I think really, although there's been a lot of exciting development in food, you have to be very careful. The reason that fennel has been eaten with fish for years and years is because it tastes so good. I mean the the reason things last is because they're good. And to just chuck them out for the sake of fashion is just crazy.”
“Old black men would get off the pavement and walk in the gutter as white young women walked past. It was the most humiliating and disgraceful way of behaving, but everybody accepted it.”
“I thought there's far more to Beuf Bourbignon than there is to Baudelaire.”
“I think I am difficult. I remember once w walking down to my restaurant down the alley. and hearing one of the waiters saying, Nerd la Patron. which um is very rude, as you know, as they put their cigarettes out behind their backs, you know, sort of that feeling of she here she comes, the policewoman.”
“I do always feel that there should be a sword of Damocles poised over my head, because I have been lucky. I've got terrific family and marvellous guys, and the business works and I live in England. I mean, who could want anything more?”