Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
2 appearances
Historian.
On the island
Eight records
Waltz from the ballet 'Swan Lake'
Not transcribed in extract — likely cut from recording.
the words of which have always meant a great deal to me.
when I came out of the army in nineteen nineteen, this marvellous production of of colour and music, the Lovett Fraser sets of the Beggars' Opera and these enchanting old English airs, which I had also known as a child in a thing called the Babers' Opera... I would very much like something from the Beggars' Opera.
I've always loved those operas, and I would like to have one record played, I think the the most exquisite piece of pastiche and good music that Sullivan ever wrote, the madrigal from the end of the first act of Ruddygore.
The Magic Flute: Act II PreludeFavourite
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Georg Solti
the first great musician whom I learned to appreciate when I was about nineteen or twenty was Mozart. And as I've only got a minute or two, I think I will choose something from the greatest opera ever written, The Magic Flute, and I would like the beginning of the introduction to the second part of the magic flute.
Brandenburg Concerto No. 1 in F major, BWV 1046: I. Allegro
Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra conducted by Karl Münchinger
I think I would like something of Bach's which conveys that marvellous sense of rhythm, the greatest master of rhythm that ever lived, and could I have, shall we say, the beginning of the first Brandenburg.
Symphony No. 1 in A flat major, Op. 55: IV. Lento - Allegro
Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Sir John Barbirolli
I would like something of the most English of all composers. I would like something from Elgar, and I think I would like that wonderful end to his first symphony, which brings back so nostalgically to me the majesty and the idealism of that, as we would perhaps think now, rather pompous England, the England of of King Edward the Seventh.
Choir of King's College, Cambridge
every year my great treat is to sit down quietly after all the rush of pre Christmas and listen to that marvellous service from King's College Chapel of Carol's, and I would like one on my desert island I would like one of the Carols to remind me of that.
The Planets, Op. 32: IV. Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity
London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by André Previn
because I should be thinking a great deal about my native country, I think I would like to end with that wonderful piece of music, Holt's Jupiter, from which those very moving words of poor Cecil Spring Rice's, I vow to thee, my country, all other things above, entire and whole and perfect, the service of my love, was set to music, but I would like it from the original Jupiter.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:00What do you do first when you collect all the material for writing history?
The first thing I do uh is to collect from all the material I'm going to read uh passages which I either summarize or have typed out in full.
Presenter asks
0:20What do you then do with all that material after two years?
And then, after, shall we say, two years, I arrange them all doesn't matter in what order they're collected, in strict order of date.
Presenter asks
0:29How do you begin to see the whole picture?
And it's only then, when I go through them, marking them with coloured pencils, that I begin to see the whole picture. That gives me my theme.
Presenter asks
0:39What is a great difficulty in writing history?
One of the great difficulties in writing history is the order in which you write it.
The keepsakes
The book
James Boswell
because I shall miss my clubs, my dining clubs, very much in the island
Presenter asks
0:51Why is writing history different from seeing a picture?
When you see a picture, you see the whole picture at once. You may take time to take in its details later. But in writing history you have to present it in a certain order, and in a sense whatever you say to start with needs qualify.
Presenter asks
1:06What's the final problem of making history writing easy to read?
The harder it is to write, the easier it is to read. … to write a single paragraph, one perhaps has several hundred slips of paper taken from different materials in front of one, and all one's doing to start with is to transfer facts from one bit of paper to another. … [it] comes out almost unreadable.
Presenter asks
2:39What was your father's office [in the royal household]?
He was with King Edward VII, who was then Prince of Wales when I was born, from I think about eighteen eighty until his death in nineteen ten, and then he stayed on with George V, and he only retired three years before George V died. He was with the royal household for fifty one years... he was head of the secretariat at the palace, which was rather like being head of a civil service department, while the private secretary was corresponding to a cabinet minister.
Presenter asks
3:31After the war to Oxford, what did you read?
Well, I theoretically read history, but in fact I think the only thing I read when I was at Oxford was poetry.
Presenter asks
3:45When you graduated you were offered all sorts of jobs... What, in fact, did you do?
Well, I believed that the world could be made a better place and I could help to make it a better place and I went and taught in a London slum school... I loved the teaching, but then they made me a headmaster. I was I think the youngest headmaster in England because I was actually appointed when I was twenty three. I took up my duties when I was twenty-four. I was principal of what was then called the Cambridge School of Arts, Crafts and Technology... I enjoyed the building the school up... But I didn't like administration.
Presenter asks
6:27You decided to read for the Bar. Why was that?
Because I wanted to go into politics. I even hoped that I might become Prime Minister, although I must say, looking at what Prime Ministers have to suffer today, I think I was well out of it.
Presenter asks
7:14What was in that collection [of family papers at Somerford]?
Well, it wasn't quite that. It was my first wife's home at Somerford in Cheshire, the Shackley Papers... you open this door and one found oneself in what to a historian was a kind of paradise, a great muniment room filled with, well, deeds going back to the twelfth and thirteenth century, and what was to me the most wonderful treasure and educational experience, family letters of the sixteenth, seventeenth, mostly seventeenth and eighteenth and early nineteenth century. And for years I used to spend my evenings transcribing twenty or thirty of these letters and they taught me... How to study history and how to be meticulous, how to be a scholar.
Presenter asks
11:59What's that chap [about John Reith suggesting you should become his principal assistant and possibly succeed him as director general of the BBC]?
That is true. That is true. Well, I was very tempted by it, but by that time I got used to writing, and though I also wanted to go into politics, more and more I realised what a jealous mistress certainly writing history is, and I couldn't combine it with anything else... I was rarely, by fate, I suppose, designed to be [a writer].
“The first thing I do uh is to collect from all the material I'm going to read uh passages which I either summarize or have typed out in full.”
“And then, after, shall we say, two years, I arrange them all doesn't matter in what order they're collected, in strict order of date.”
“And it's only then, when I go through them, marking them with coloured pencils, that I begin to see the whole picture. That gives me my theme.”
“One of the great difficulties in writing history is the order in which you write it.”
“The harder it is to write, the easier it is to read. … one perhaps to write a single paragraph, one perhaps has several hundred slips of paper taken from different materials in front of one, and all one's doing to start with is to transfer facts from one bit of paper to another. … And it comes out almost unreadable.”
“I believed that the world could be made a better place and I could help to make it a better place and I went and taught in a London slum school.”
“more and more I realised what a jealous mistress certainly writing history is, and I couldn't combine it with anything else.”
“You remember what George the Third said to Gibbon when Gibbon was presented to him? Well, I suppose it's scribble, scribble, scribble, mister Gibbon, and that has been my lot in life.”
“the whole art of writing is to persuade your reader. To read the next sentence, the next paragraph, the next chapter. Once you fail to do that, you've lost your reader.”