Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
BBC broadcaster who worked for 40 years at Broadcasting House, starting in accounts and later becoming an announcer for the Empire Service.
On the island
Eight records
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (conducted by Sir Malcolm Sargent)
I suddenly discovered ballet. It was in uh nineteen thirty six when de Basil brought a marvellous company over to Covent Garden and for the first time I was aware of this wonderful marriage of music, colour, design and dance and I would like to choose as good as any of them I can think of the sparkling gait in wits of Rossini's music for La Boutique Fontasque.
This tune takes me right back to those days of being alone with an empire in Studio 70.
London Philharmonic Orchestra (conducted by Sir Adrian Boult)
this fire in Plymouth was really quite extraordinary ... And this reminds me of that marvellous piece of music by Gustav Holst.
we found that she was full of depressed French settlers coming back from Saigon. She was filthy, the food was terrible, the coffee was like mud, and Charles Truny was constantly singing La Mer all over the place. And that tune would um bring back, you know, all the horrors of that trip, I think.
Alfred Deller, John Whitworth and Anthony Lewis
I should like a record just something I could play on special occasions, you see, for birthdays my wife's birthday, for instance my own birthday. And so I think um the best piece of birthday music I could take with me would be the Ode Henry Purcell composed in about sixteen ninety four
I was always very excited when I could find a postcard asking for a request of Fats Waller, who's one of my great favourites, and I think the one I liked best of all was Your Feet's Too Big.
The NightingaleFavourite
on this island, I should very much like to have a record of birdsong, which would remind me more than anything else, I think, of of England. And uh the bird I would like to hear most of all is a nightingale, because there's just no other songster like it.
Howard Marshall's commentary on Len Hutton's 364 at The Oval in 1938
I should like a record of a voice, and I would like a voice which would really remind me of England. And there's one voice which particularly comes to mind. It was a former colleague of mine, Howard Marshall, a splendid chap, and of course he was, amongst many other things, a first class cricket commentator.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:57Were you brought up to study music?
No, the the money had given out by that time. I was the youngest of the family. There wasn't much money about besides. I didn't have any music lessons. But I love music.
Presenter asks
3:31What was your first job [after school]?
Accountancy. I went to one of the most fashionable accountants in London. who very kindly took me on at a small wage, I think twenty five bob a week I used to get and we used to do the audit at uh the Savoy, Claridge's, Berkeley.
Presenter asks
3:48How did you get out of that particular little niche [in the BBC accounts department]?
Well, I didn't feel I wanted to go on doing this the rest of my life, and that's really where my French and German came in, because one day to my astonishment The establishment officer ... asked me, to my amazement, whether I would like an audition as an announcer.
Presenter asks
4:59The keepsakes
The luxury
Do you remember your very first broadcast?
Yes, I do. I was in that little studio 7A. And I was terrified the sweat was just pouring off me. Because microphones were much more frightening then than they are now ... strong men used to quail, and there were notices up saying cough, and you will deafen thousands, and that sort of thing.
Presenter asks
7:35What happened when the war started? Did the Empire service continue?
Oh yes, very much so. And of course, as the war got more intense after the fall of France. The Overseas. Broadcasts played an immense part in in the war effort because people would tune in from all over the world to find out whether Britain was still a going concern.
Presenter asks
21:08How could you look after yourself [on this desert island]? Could you build a shelter?
I should have to pray, I think, frankly, Roy. I'm absolutely hopeless at anything practical.
“I think on this Desert Island I should like tunes which recall phases of my life, because I think on a Desert Island it'd be very important to keep one's identity.”
“I remember standing opposite a department store and watching the wax models on the ground floor writhing and twisting as if they were doing some macabre dance as the flames melted them.”
“I should have to pray, I think, frankly, Roy. I'm absolutely hopeless at anything practical.”