Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Author of 'The Naked Island', a memoir of his time as a Japanese prisoner of war on the Burma Railway.
On the island
Eight records
favourite piece of music because everyone at some time in his life should conduct a rip-roaring piece of music
The Holy CityFavourite
goes back to my prisoner of war background … a Welshman who used to come out of his cell … belt out this holy city … on my island it would make me feel better still. So I can sing and I can conduct.
The keepsakes
No book or luxury recorded for this episode.
In conversation
Presenter asks
5:09After twenty five years, has your memory of those days [in the prison camps] softened?
Not softened, it's exactly the same. I still remember it as a time it would horrify me to think that the same thing could happen again to another generation. It would more than horrify, I couldn't stand it. … But on the other hand, I have softened to the extent that I know that everything the Japanese did to us, which at the time seemed bestial and criminal, they did honorably. … They really did kill us and allow us to die with the honorable conviction that this was our lot. And it is a comfort to know this.
Presenter asks
6:00You have indeed been back to Changi camp since the war. How did that feel?
Yes, I've been back four times, and each time I get back I'm assailed with nostalgia. For a community that worked. It was a highly civilized life that we made for ourselves. And also assailed with the conviction that I better get down and start working, otherwise I'll get a hiding.
Presenter asks
6:54What happened to you after the Japanese surrender?
Well, Pidding[ton] wanted to come over here straight away and start doing professionally what we'd done to occupy our minds in Changi. I didn't. I still wanted to be a barrister. … I went back to the university and started studying law, and hated it from the instant I took it up. … It took me three years to become ill enough to be able to drop it and [Sid Piddington] meantime had met this girl and married her and trained her to take my part in the show.
Presenter asks
7:32Why did you come to the United Kingdom?
Because I'd been in hospital for five months with every prisoner of war disease that there ever was, and when I came out they said, you know, I mustn't work for a year, my brain, otherwise I'd go insane. … I had nothing to do and so I thought, well, I must go home, as all Australians do, to England.
Presenter asks
8:30Among the stunts the Piddingtons did, which one do you think was the most successful?
I think really the time when Leslie [Mrs. Piddington] was in the Tower of London and her husband was in the BBC's Piccadilly studio. … Pidding[ton] and I went down to Piccadilly Tube with a handful of pennies and rang up everyone we knew and in the end were speaking to a gentleman who said that he was the governor of the tower. Of course we could have it. … And Leslie told Sydney what was written up on the board in Piccadilly. … And thousands of people wrote to the Piddingtons saying, that's how it's done, there's a tug on the Thames.
Presenter asks
10:11Did you know [the Joan Sutherland biography] was such a good story when you started writing it?
No, I had no idea, but she did a marvellous interview with one of the newspapers and I thought a woman who can be as honest and as amusing and as candid and as unassuming as that about herself, really must be quite a person, and I went to see her. … and asked her, Could I do it? And she said, Did you write The Naked Island? and I said yes and she said yes you can do it.
“I knew that I needed the sound of women's voices because this is something you miss particularly. You not only miss it, you forget it. You forget what it's like.”
“Everyone at some time in his life should conduct a rip-roaring piece of music. The trouble is if you do, you're seen. And on Desert Island you won't be seen.”
“I have softened to the extent that I know that everything the Japanese did to us, which at the time seemed bestial and criminal, they did honorably. … They really did kill us and allow us to die with the honorable conviction that this was our lot. And it is a comfort to know this.”
“I'm assailed with nostalgia. For a community that worked. It was a highly civilized life that we made for ourselves. And also assailed with the conviction that I better get down and start working, otherwise I'll get a hiding.”
“[Roy Thompson] rang me up and said I'd like to see you about two of them. … He said, Russ, you said that I was mean. … so I'm not mean, I'm stingy. … He said, you said I was blind. … I'm not blind, I'm myopic. These were the only two changes he wanted made.”