Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
A scholar, lawyer, and politician; the longest-serving Lord Chancellor of the 20th century and a rumbustious Tory orator.
On the island
Eight records
I Do Like to Be Beside the Seaside
Well, the first one before the First World War, in the nursery, old fashioned grammar phone like his master's voice, and it was singing I DO Like to be beside the seaside.
Swing Low, Sweet ChariotFavourite
On a dark night in Sussex, when we just bought our home near Hailesham, and she used to sing Negro Spirituals, and the one I'm thinking of is Swing Low Sweet Chariot.
Well, this comes from my Eaton days, because after my mother died I was taken out to the musical comedies of the day by my elder brother, Edward Marchbanks, and one he took me to was Jessie Matthews, and she sang a song called Dancing on the Ceiling, and I was very much taken with it at the time, and I would like to hear it now.
Well, this is very different because I was talking about my elder brother, and I will talk about my younger brother. whom I visit every summer and who lives in Switzerland. And two or three years ago he took me to a curiously, twentieth century operetta called Da Fidele Bauer at the Lucerne Festival.
The Band and Bugles of the Third Battalion, The Royal Green Jackets
Well, why not the regimental march of the Rifle Brigade, at one time the ninety fifth Regiment of Foot?
The Choir of Belfast Cathedral
Well, I would take with me. A record of what we played at her funeral at Hurstman Sioux, which is Saint Patrick's Breastplate. She was an old Irish family, and of the two hymns she liked best, one was Saint Patrick's Breastplate.
The Choir of Westminster Abbey
Let's go back to the coronation. When Mary and I visited the coronation and were invited in our grand robes, and it was a cold morning and we got out of the car and The policeman saw Mary in her Thy Countess's robes, and he said, By God, you look smashing and so she did.
Well, one looks towards the end. People do have memorial services. I can't attend my own. But what I've told my children is that I would like a proper requiem, and I would like to hear the Die's Eire sung to the old Gregorian chant.
In conversation
Presenter asks
5:04What are your memories of [your mother]?
She died suddenly, and to me unexpectedly, when I was seventeen, and it was a great shock, a terrible shock. She was so vivacious that when my father first met her in Bath before he'd become engaged to her, he said she was at the far end of a room which was full of people, and somehow her influence had galvanised the whole assembly as if a spark of electricity had run across it.
Presenter asks
10:39How did [your father being given a hereditary title] affect you personally?
Well, of course I had been thinking in terms, until that moment, of a political career of the conventional kind, election to the House of Commons as a member of my party, representing a constituency and perhaps taking office. If you are a hereditary peer and you have to succeed, all the high offices of state, including the two law officerships, are debarred from you.
Presenter asks
11:48Did you know then, even then, when you were at university, that you would want to be Prime Minister?
I don't think one does want to be Prime Minister. I think a man who wants to be Prime Minister is a fool. But a man who enters a profession likes to do well in it, and if all the major prizes are cut off from you, if you might, if I may coin the phrase, at a stroke, I think you do feel a little brand off.
The keepsakes
The book
The Iliad and The Odyssey (Loeb Classical Library edition)
Homer
Well, if I'm allowed it in the Lerb edition. I would like the works of Homer, the Iliad and the Odyssey. ... The Leban edition has an English translation on the right hand side. ... it would help me with some words which I might have forgotten, and some syntax which I might have got wrong.
The luxury
Empty bathtub with plug and infinite soap
Well, I assume there's a certain amount of fresh water on the island, and I remember that in the woods of my father's farm some curious person had brought an empty bath. Now I would like that empty bathtub with a plug in the hole and an infinite quantity of soap.
Presenter asks
20:28How shaken was [your Christian faith] by [the loss of your wife]?
My faith was not shaken. But the sun didn't shine any more in the day, and the birds didn't sing. I was a pelican in the wilderness, and a pelican is a water bird I was a sparrow on the roof tops, and the sparrow is a gregarious bird, and the sparrow is a learn. And I was an owl, which is a woodland bird in the open. The flowers didn't bloom. But the sun shines again now.
Presenter asks
24:01Why did you not succeed [Harold Macmillan as Prime Minister]?
Well, to begin with, I think there were people in the party who would have preferred Rab Butler, I think, very reasonably. There were people in the party who thought unreasonably that I was too far to the right for their liking. There's always been a tendency in the Conservative Party to play safe if it can, which is a very dangerous thing to do. One should take a calculated risk if one has to take a calculated risk in life. And everybody said how marvellous it would be if only Ellik would consent. And that's exactly what happened. And so they went round to Harold, and he advised the Queen to send for Ellik, and we all served happily under him.
Presenter asks
28:11It must be very strange being out of office [after retiring].
It's absolute hell. It's not because you miss office as such, but you haven't got an official car, you haven't got a secretary, you haven't got files. There's a deluge of invitations to make lectures and speeches and give prizes away to schools, and you don't know where to turn for the next thought in your mind. Oh no, it's... the most desperate situation to find yourself in. It's like being withdrawn from addictive drugs and being made to play a game of football at the same time. I'm going through cold turkey and... cold turkey, but um hot curry as well.
“If we cut ourselves off from our roots, we're like cut flowers, and ultimately we shall be withered and thrown away.”
“I don't think one does want to be Prime Minister. I think a man who wants to be Prime Minister is a fool.”
“My faith was not shaken. But the sun didn't shine any more in the day, and the birds didn't sing.”
“The one case in which I think I can see the finger of God in contemporary history is Churchill's arrival at the precise moment of 1940.”