Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Novelist, best known for her novels.
On the island
Eight records
The first time I heard it was when I was seven or eight, I think, sung by a musical uncle. But I'm afraid we can't have him. So you'll settle for Hubert Eisel.
I've heard that A number of wonderful singers singing, but there's something about Joan Cross's voice which to me is particularly moving.
It's been played to me by my dear friend Desmond Shaw Taylor, who first introduced me to it, and uh it's one he loves. And I think of its kind it's one of the most enchanting, nostalgic, romantic songs I know.
It's nostalgia itself for me and I think for many other people.
Impromptu in A-flat, Op. 90 No. 4
It's beautifully played, and I'd love to hear it as a In itself its beauty is a kind of memorial to him.
Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge
Benjamin Britton, who, apart from being somebody I I knew. I love his music. I always have.
It's fruiling the first song of the four and sung by Elizabeth Schwartzkopf.
Nunc DimittisFavourite
I think it's one of the most beautiful boys' voices I ever heard, and it's the most lovely setting of the Nanctimitis.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:37Could you endure isolation?
Yes, I think I could, quite well. They accustomed now to living alone and I really enjoy solitude, though I can't imagine what it'd be like if I wasn't looking forward to seeing somebody or some people.
Presenter asks
5:27Was it a happy childhood?
Yes, I think it w was very very sheltered. And um We had very devoted parents. There was an unkind period when we had a Belgian governess who he thought was very unkind, but she taught us wonderful French. So by the time I was four and a half I was bilingual, which stood me in good stead.
Presenter asks
9:44To what extent was [your first novel, Dusty Answer] autobiographical?
Well, the settings were autobiographical. I mean, the places. The river, the garden, and the next door garden and house. But the people The characters Well, of course one always has a kind of points of reference about all the characters that one invents or describes. But they were invented, all of them. I suppose the girl Judith suppose had something of me in her, but uh I don't really like her at all now. She seems a bit sort of mawkish and soppy.
The keepsakes
The book
Madame de Sévigné
I think they're the most wonderful letters that have ever been written.
Presenter asks
10:28What effect did that success [of Dusty Answer] have on you? Did it give you a feeling of independence?
Yes, it did, because it came at a very a very good time because I had separated from my husband and Reddit had no money at all. and suddenly found that I could earn my own living.
Presenter asks
10:50Did you enjoy the notoriety, being fêted and invited everywhere?
I know people won't believe me if I say this, but it's quite the opposite. I really was appalled. I couldn't think what I'd done. Do you see what I mean? As if I'd exposed myself. Bloodney clothes on on the Albert Hall platform. It s it seems extraordinary looking back on it, but it was so unexpected.
Presenter asks
19:52You abandoned writing fiction for a long, long time, about twenty years. You devoted yourself to spiritual studies?
Spiritual and psychic studies, yes. Because after her She died in Java. She was only twenty three. And uh it was the most shattering blow well, there are no words for it really. I thought I couldn't possibly live without her. But I began to have these extraordinary psychic and m spiritual, mystical, you might call them, experiences. of being with her and seeing her and hearing her directly. So I began to know that death wasn't what we thought death was quite the opposite of extinction or annihilation.
“the only thing I ever wanted to do as far back as I can remember, really from childhood. Early childhood was To be a writer. I thought that was I was born to be.”
“I always found it very difficult to start a book. Once I had started, I simply went on Sometimes I wrote for a couple of hours and sometimes I wrote for five or six hours. I started at word one, line one, page one, and went on till it stopped.”
“I began to know that death wasn't what we thought death was quite the opposite of extinction or annihilation.”