Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Britain's first prospective woman Prime Minister and leader of Her Majesty's opposition.
On the island
Eight records
Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major, Op. 73 ("Emperor")Favourite
Alfred Brendel with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Bernard Haitink
When I'm going to play first, the one that I always go to first, if I get to the country for the week end and I just want to get away from politics, I go straight to the record player and I put on the Emperor Concerto, Beethoven.
Record number two I've chosen a brass band. You know they played quite a large part in my youth. We loved them, and I thought that I would like to hear something like Going Home.
I'm going to something completely different. We love going to opera. It is one of my great relaxations. I can't get very often. And I love the choral work. And I love ceremonial.
The Tobacco-Sack Story (Introducing Tobacco to Civilization)
What's next? Well, I just cannot um live without some humour there, and I love dry humour. Now there's a marvellous record. It's the imagination of what happened had Walter Raleigh been able to ring up and announce that he made a discovery of tobacco.
Oh, I think I should go back to the um years when I was a young woman, there was some such marvellous music written then. Wonderful lyrics and wonderful music. You know, I don't think Jerome Kern or Cole Porter have ever been beaten. And I think the one that I love most of all is the one called Smoke Gets In Your Eyes.
Gwyneth Jones, conducted by Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos
Well, I'm going to to take again another record which reminds me very much of my childhood. In our church we performed a lot of oratorios. We had a very good choir.
Record number seven is one that my son introduced me to. He's very keen on uh acquiring as many records and as many tapes as possible.
Easter Hymn (from Cavalleria Rusticana)
Chorus and Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, conducted by Lamberto Gardelli
Oh, we must finish, I think, on a high note and and preferably one with um something rather more than earthly qualities about it. Let's have that wonderful record, the Easter Hymn, from Cavallero Rusticana.
In conversation
Presenter asks
3:20How well could you manage in a practical sense as a castaway? Did you ever go camping?
No, uh I I haven't had much experience of camping and I just am a little bit worried about how I'm going to manage, but I am pretty practical. … Oh, I think so. I do like doing things with my hands. … So I think I would just about be all right. I'm quite a fast learner.
Presenter asks
3:43Would you try to escape?
I don't think so, because a desert island just all sounds very much of an island, and I'm cautious by nature. And I would just hope that some one would come and rescue me. My dreams would go that way.
Presenter asks
9:55Why had you set your heart on going up to Oxford?
I had some very strange ambitions. In my church life I well remember missionaries coming and talking to us of their experience. And I remember that in the early days I wanted to go into the it existed then the Indian Civil Service, because there was a tremendous desire to serve. And I knew that to do that you had to go to university. But quite apart from that, you know the opportunity to go to university was to us a chance almost undreamed of. My father had never done it, and I was lucky I was quite good at school, and so it was assumed that I would try to go to university. … And it's always a good thing to aim for the top, and I did.
The keepsakes
The book
The Survival Handbook: Self-Sufficiency for Everyone
Michael Allaby
I should turn to something practical. And I've found a book. It's called The Survival Handbook, Self Sufficiency for Everyone. And it even tells you how to make a boat. It tells you how to weave. It tells you how to cook all sorts of things about making long bows and arrows.
The luxury
a photograph album of the children
We had some wonderful photographs, and I would only have memories and hopes to live on.
Presenter asks
11:48How does law tie up with chemistry?
I went about a lot with my father, as you probably know. and when he went to sit on the magistrate's bench, I used to go along in the school holidays with him. And I met the a person who was a chairman of the bench, a silk, they were Caseys in those days, QCs now. Who was a lawyer, the chairman of the bench, had to be a lawyer. And I talked to him and realized that law itself was having a very great fascination for me. And I remember at the age of seventeen saying to him, But you see, I'm already on the science side. And I can't change now. And he said, But don't worry, I took a physics degree at Cambridge. I started that way, and he said the thing to do finish your chemistry degree And then do lore. … Because you'll find there's a whole branch of law for which you need both a science degree and a law degree, and that's the branch of law dealing with patents.
Presenter asks
14:01Did you enjoy those rather hopeless hustings [at Dartford]?
Yes, but you see to me they weren't hopeless. There'd been a tremendous political Swing in nineteen forty five. And nothing was impossible we hoped for a tremendous swing back. … I don't think we could quite have turned a twenty thousand Labour majority into a Tory seat, but one was young and full of hope. But I loved it. We had meetings outside factories, we went round canvassing, and, you know, in tough seats, and I'm sure both political parties find that, you get the most marvellous band of helpers, really believing fervently in the cause, and you get a tremendous bond of friendship. It taught me a lot.
Presenter asks
19:31Was leader of the party a post you had ever envisaged?
Never. … some of them came to me and said, Look, if you'll stand, we'll back you. And that was really so I knew that I had quite a bit of backing. But It all really happened rather suddenly. It was quite clear that there was going to be an election for the leadership. And then it looked as if no one would put up for the leadership. And I remember very vividly, said what if no one else will do it, I will. And the moment I said it I never had a moment's hesitation about it. I knew it was absolutely the right thing to do. I wasn't worried that I'd said it. I wasn't worried that I'd made the decision. The decision was made. And then we just had to do the best we could, and take what came.
“I think the toughest thing of my childhood was that my father taught me very firmly indeed. You do not follow the crowd because you are afraid of being different. You decide what to do yourself. If necessary, you lead the crowd, but you never just follow.”
“Sometimes I tease some of my Labour members of Parliament, friends. And say you know, I've had more experience of working in a factory than you have.”
“I had the children in August. I had them the day we won the Ashes. Do I remember? It was a Saturday we couldn't find my husband. They took rather a long time to arrive and he'd sort of mooched off somewhere. And I think within two or three days I had decided that if I didn't do something quite definite that I would be in danger of never returning to work again. So I entered my name for the bar finals. Once I'd done that, I knew Pride would make me work.”
“It's not a home. It's very much um a residence. You know the difference.”