Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Veteran pilot who flew in the Battle of Britain and Bomber Command, and took part in the raids that sank the Tirpitz.
On the island
Eight records
But my first record takes me back to nineteen forty three when I was on my way into bomber command, and the one thing senior officers did not want Was someone arriving to go on a mission and suddenly saying, Oh, oh, I I can't go, I've got violent toothache. So we all had to go to the dentist and pronounce dentally fit. The dentist I met had just returned from New York. And whilst he was probing he played Frank Sinatra, and I didn't know who it was, but I was very taken by the voice. So I guess I might have been amongst the first few people ever to hear Sinatra in this country.
I'm Getting Sentimental Over You
Tommy Dorsey, playing I'm Getting Sentimental Over You is a wonderful, wonderful melody, and uh he was a great trombonist. When I was about seventeen, with two friends, we set up a nightclub called the Ebony Shadows on the upper floors of his parents' house. The great advantage was that halfway up the final staircase there was a window which looked out on the next-door pub, where there was also a window. So, unknown to his parents, we could wangle in a few bottles of beer. And occasionally, we would persuade a girl to come to our Ebony Shadows.
I was very interested in flying. All I wanted to do was to fly. And at that time, our heroes were. pioneer aviators. So people like Amy Johnson, who as a typist learned to fly and took off and flew solo to Australia. And Alan Cobham was trying to make Britain airminded, and he was to take his his flying circus around the country. In fact, I had my first flight in an Alan Cobham air show, and I believe that m many, many battle Britain pilots did likewise.
Well next you're going to hear Danny Kaye, that extraordinary, wonderful entertainer of the fifties and sixties. And this piece of Tubby the Tuber was a great favourite with my children. Poor Tubby couldn't quite get involved with the orchestra and suddenly um A miracle happened and he became the star of the show and they absolutely loved it.
The next record I'd like is The Dambusters March, and uh as a member of that squadron, although I joined them a year after the Dams, I met uh some of the great survivors. On the way into Bomber Command on my course we we talked about six one seven. But we thought of it either as suicide squadron or uh the squadron to which you read it could only go with experience.
Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor, Op. 26: II. Adagio
Kyung-Wha Chung, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Rudolf Kempe
The next record I'd like to hear is the Brooke Violin Concerto. And the reason for that is it was my second wife's very, very favourite piece of music. So although she died in France, I organized a memorial service in the Actors' Church in Covent Garden so that her friends and colleagues could say goodbye to her. And we had a solo violinist who played this piece.
Suite No. 3 in G Major, Op. 55: IV. Tema con variazioni: Variation XI
London Philharmonic Orchestra and Sir Adrian Boult
After the war I found serious music, shall we say. W when I had my first job it was based in London, and I went to many promenade concerts. And Tchaikovsky became one of my favourite composers. I just loved his music.
Adagio in G MinorFavourite
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and Herbert von Karajan
This is a very favorite melody. It's it's the most beautiful melody, and if I remember rightly, it was kind of discovered not too long ago, and it seemed to come along just about the time I met with Mary. So I associate this tune very much with her.
In conversation
Presenter asks
2:18How did it feel to shake the hand of [Kurt Schultz, a German fighter pilot who was in a position to kill you]?
That's very strange, actually. Well, you realize that you're both airmen. Both had a job to do. And well, we sort of hugged each other and were glad that we hadn't met in the skies in urban Norway.
Presenter asks
6:13What was the experience like getting back into the cockpit [of a Lancaster bomber aged 89]?
It was far more emotional than I expected. The Lancaster's a war machine. It it it's very cramped to me, far more so than I remembered. And when they gave me the controls, they were much heavier than I remembered. And uh it started w wandering off as it as if the lacquer still was saying to me, If you think you can come back after sixty odd years and carry on, well, have another think.
Presenter asks
7:24Do you think we are right to commemorate every individual loss [in modern conflicts like Afghanistan and Iraq] in that way these days?
Yes. Well, it's inevitable, I think, because the losses are spaced out, and one is moved by seeing the the coffins arriving. One night in march, nineteen forty four, Bomber Command lost ninety-five aircraft, which was nearly seven hundred airmen, in one night. They couldn't, obviously, because they were shut in on the other side, so they could not be brought back. If there was a cortege of seven hundred, what would we do? It's so different today.
The keepsakes
The book
W. Somerset Maugham
He is a magnificent story teller. And I would never tire of them.
The luxury
Two established vines (Sauvignon blanc and Grenache) and a tin bath
I would like to try and develop my own little vineyard.
Presenter asks
11:04Did you feel that your life in those early years was sort of dominated by the prospect of war or the shadow of war?
Well, certainly by the time I was about eleven years old. I would hear my father and uncle and others saying, Are we really going to have to fight the Germans again? and they were horrified at the prospect.
Presenter asks
25:59What would you say to those people [who think there shouldn't be a permanent memorial to Bomber Command]?
All I can say is most of them or all of them are post war. They had no idea what situation we were in in 1940. If. The Luftwaffe had defeated Fighter Command, and if the Germans had been able to land here well, we would have been occupied and subjugated. It was total war. We were fighting for our existence, and the only way w we could touch Germany was through bomber command.
“I think Amen all over the world have a great deal in common. And once you find out, if you meet a stranger that he too was a pilot, there's no problem. You've got... Lots and lots of things to talk about.”
“being a pilot or a member of our crew makes one very self-reliant. Well, you appreciate that uh what happens is in your own hand. And if you go through a few experiences you then find out a great deal about yourself, about how much you can take, and those experiences, even the bad ones, are helpful for the future.”
“We were very, very, very disappointed. Churchill asked for Mastery of the Air. We'd given it to him by 1945. When we had a reunion after the war, the only one we ever had at the Albert Hall at that time, I think we were all very, very, very furious about the view about Bomber Command because in his victory speech Churchill mentioned almost everybody, but not Bomber Command, as a contributor to the victory.”