Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
A poet, novelist, and broadcaster, best known for his three volumes of autobiography and his past as a prize-fighter and soldier.
On the island
Eight records
Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major, Op. 58
Murray Perahia, with the Concertgebouw Orchestra
Well, I I'd like to hear Beethoven's fourth piano concerto or or the uh opening movement or part of it.
Sonata in A major for Violin and Piano
Shlomo Mintz and Yefim Bronfman
This is a very very haunting work which I've I've enjoyed for many, many years now.
Violin Concerto in D minor, Op. 47
Itzhak Perlman, with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra
I think a bit more violin, I think, this time a a violin concerto uh by Sibelis, another marvellous work.
Clarinet Quintet in A major, K. 581
Andrew Marriner, with the Chilingirian String Quartet
I think I would I would like to hear now a part of Mozart's clarinet quintet in in a
Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, with the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by George Szell
I I've known Richard Strauss's uh four lance songs now for about it was in the early fifties when I first heard it and I was haunted by it then and I still am.
St Matthew Passion, BWV 244Favourite
The one work I think I couldn't do without w would be the Bach, St. Matthew Passion.
Cello Concerto in E minor, Op. 85
Jacqueline du Pré, with the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sir John Barbirolli
Well, I'd I'd like to hear Elgar's cello concerto.
Kathleen Ferrier, with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Clemens Krauss
The Brahms auto wraps it in. I would like to hear Kathleen Ferrer singing this because she does seem incomparable.
In conversation
Presenter asks
4:02What kind of a child were you, and what kind of ambitions did you have?
Certainly at a very early age to be a writer. I don't know why quite. I suppose I do know why, because reading was my main occupation, the thing I got most uh pleasure and solace from. I suppose that's why I wanted to be a writer. And I suppose the other interest was was boxing, which is a bit of an odd mixture, all people think.
Presenter asks
5:34How far did your boxing ambition go, and were you very good at it?
I was a good amateur. I mean, I was schoolboy champion and later Northern University's champion and um fairly good amateur, sort of ABA standard. You know, I box against ABA champions. Professionally, I don't think I'd have I'd have gone all that far, though I did quite well as a preliminary fine. That's all I did, six rounders.
Presenter asks
11:14When did you first start writing poetry?
I started writing poetry. I think I'd probably be about uh fourteen, fifteen, that kind of age. Although I'd written stories and that sort of thing for for many years.
The keepsakes
The luxury
Presenter asks
15:26What effect did being in the army have on you as a writer?
I suppose a v a very deep one and one which is with me all the time. I think quite a lot of the things I write, the poems I'm thinking of, often have military imagery in them, imagery of war, although the poems themselves may be nothing to do with war directly. On the other hand, I've also written quite a number of poems directly about the experience of war. There is that, but it is there the whole time, I think, a mixture of all sorts of things of of remembered fear, guilt.
Presenter asks
19:09What were the circumstances of your desertion [in North Africa]?
The battalion I was in was in support of an attack… and suffered very heavy casualties… And the there were sort of corpses lying all over the place, our own people… And to my it unbelieving horror. I had not seen this before. My own people, my own friends, were going around looting the corpses, you know, taking watches and wallets and that sort of thing, off their own people. Why that's so much worse than taking it off German soil hands, I don't know, but it was somehow. And suddenly I was sick of the whole thing, just turned round and walked away.
Presenter asks
24:50What happened when they found you [after your second desertion]?
Well, I was at Leeds University when they caught up with me and I was taken back to the depot, the Gordon Highlanders' depot at um Aberdeen and court-martialled. And I defended myself… And when I explained to the board… that I wanted to be a writer and I knew that if I stayed in the army even another month, I'd be finished… And I said I had to get out. And he said, well, what sort of writing? I said, well, poetry. And they looked at each other with a wild surmise and said, send him to a psychiatrist. That was clearly mad.
“I just know that th if I don't hear any music for for for uh uh a time, I do get a kind of almost physical thirst for it.”
“Words are not simply Marks on the page or little noises for communicating information. They're living, exciting things. I think one must have this, this excitement about language.”
“I think when when language gets mushy and corrupt, everything else begins to go.”
“I think we are ruled by a lot of of uh very, very Philistine people at the moment and the attitudes to education, the seeing it as a as a kind of m manufacturing of computer experts and technicians and and and so on is alarming with the arts which are the humanizing things being left out.”