Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Ambassador to Poland, West Germany, France and the US, private secretary to five foreign secretaries, praised for Falklands War diplomacy.
On the island
Eight records
Winter from The Four Seasons (Concerto in F minor, RV 297)
Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, Iona Brown (soloist)
It has a a pathos, this piece of music, that appeals to me.
I suppose I must have heard it in those days, and I've liked hearing it ever since, and it's brought frivolity, much needed frivolity, to my life.
Vienna Philharmonic, Herbert von Karajan (conductor)
Because it symbolizes important moments in our life abroad, we lived in Vienna for a time. And Fledermaus's played always on New Year's Eve.
Horn Concerto No. 3 in E-flat major
Dennis Brain (horn), Philharmonia Orchestra, Herbert von Karajan (conductor)
a piece of music that I first got to know many years ago in Spain, but have played on and off ever since.
Barcarolle in F-sharp major, Op. 60
because um we were in Poland for some years
Piano Concerto No. 19 in F major, K. 459Favourite
Hephzibah Menuhin (piano), Bath Festival Orchestra, Yehudi Menuhin (conductor)
they both stayed with us several times in Paris and I greatly admired both of them.
I was thinking instead of music on this island, I'd like to hear this spoken word and something to amuse me.
I have a grandson who's uh learnt the violin, he's very young, he's only just six. And he learns by the Suzuki method, and I'd like to hear him play Rams's waltz.
In conversation
Presenter asks
2:45How did you manage to keep in touch with the mood in Britain during the Falklands War?
Well, I was in touch with London, of course, all the time, and they were with me, and I was in touch with the US Government and with the Congress. And I mean, once I went was up on the Hill and talking to the Congress to try and persuade them how right our cause was, and a senator took me aside and said, 'Listen, would you let Mrs. Thatcher know straight away that we're going to be very worried if a lot of casualties down in the South Atlantic because it's our hemisphere and we don't like the idea of blood being shed. Would you be sure Mrs. Thatcher knows that?' I gave him the assurance.
Presenter asks
5:28Were you always destined to become a diplomat?
No, I don't think I was destined to be anything, and most of my generation, I think, were not. [um] because the war the world was so uncertain. I became very interested in history and foreign affairs as an undergraduate at Oxford, partly because of events that were going on and partly because I'm a great I became a great friend of a historian AJP Taylor. I was greatly under his influence.
Presenter asks
11:36What sort of man was Ernest Bevin?
Well, he embodied the the strength and character of this country and um when he was abroad and and uh he said the British people won't have this, people realized uh he was speaking for Britain without any equivocation. So he had a great impact and had a certain vision I think. I think without Bevan you might not have had the North Atlantic Treaty.
The keepsakes
The luxury
a large packet of seeds of various kinds
they wouldn't allow it. So I've decided … to be practical, I'll have to have a large packet of seeds of various kinds which I could sow and satisfy my gardening instincts and possibly help my appetite.
Presenter asks
13:03Were you tempted to pick up one of the iron crosses in Hitler's bunker?
No, I I felt no, I didn't. I thought it was aw awful really to this whole this whole scene was so harry, although it was German's fault of course entirely. But I I felt it was not for us to lead the world in loot.
Presenter asks
28:26What did you mean by calling the Reagan-Thatcher alliance 'one of the finest pieces of casting on the international stage'?
Well, they were, in a sense, marvellously reciprocating, one with the other. Mrs. Thatcher extremely articulate, dynamic, forceful, and President Reagan a marvellous communicator and understander of human beings and not only responding but somehow making something of a relationship and a situation.
“Yes, because it was the main item of news. The Falklands War was as much the main item of news in the States or throughout as it was here. And they wanted to know each day what was happening or going to happen. And I was sometimes they were done at recorded at different times in the morning, sometimes on all three at once. Nobody could escape me. Douglas Fairbanks wrote to me one day, said, I've seen you I saw you again this morning. I'm a bit worried about all those wrinkles and lines. I wonder whether you would try using this makeup paste that I which I enclose a tin. I find I it's so successful I use it throughout all the day.”
“Yes, um they were indeed, and so was my career uh altogether, really. I had I got T B as a child and I I lost the use of my left arm and shoulder, and that affected my my life, really, and I got it again. [a return of T B this time of the kidney when I was serving as Ambassador in Poland. But by then they'd invented drugs that dealt with T B and so although I was on the drugs and not do well for two years it did cure it.]”
“No, I I felt no, I didn't. I thought it was aw awful really to this whole this whole scene was so harry, although it was German's fault of course entirely. But I I felt it was not for us to lead the world in loot.”
“Yes, I don't think I think it now. I think perhaps I did at the time, but I think the politician has a ... a pretty rough and hair raising and unsatisfactory life. I mean when he's in a position of what's called power, he's run off his feet, he's so exhausted, he's got so much to do that he can hardly exist, and then he can be thrown out on his ear overnight. I think it's so I perhaps I I my reason I didn't go to it is I never had I never thought I had the health to do it, incidentally, and probably I didn't have the character for it. I think you need to be extremely tough and resolute.”