Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Actress and conservationist, best known for starring in the film Born Free and campaigning against animal captivity.
On the island
Eight records
Paul Nicholson and the Guildhall String Ensemble
Record number two is just chosen well, n really all the things I've chosen are because Bill and I like them together or they have a special personal meaning because of our life together. And this was uh a wonderful composition by Albinone which we heard in the fifties and um yeah, I couldn't have the programme without it.
Bill and I went to a live performance that she gave at the Dominion Tottenham Court Road. And when she came forward and sat on the edge of the stage with her legs dangling over the edge and sang over the rainbow, I mean I was just overwhelmed really.
Piano Concerto No. 21 in C major, K. 467: II. Andante
Howard Shelley and the London Mozart Players
This is really just a memory because it was the theme music for Elvira Madigan, a film which Bill and I went to see at the Curzon Cinema. And I remember sitting at the end and I couldn't get up. I was crying so much. The story was very, very moving and poignant. And the music, of course, contributed to the emotion that I felt. And Bill, too, he was very, very moved by it. So it became one of our favourite pieces.
Iona Brown with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields
I heard a woman speaking on woman's arm. Being interviewed. And I listened to that voice. and I felt the most incredible attraction to the spirit of this person. And then at the end of the interview They played lark ascending. Played by her. and I wrote a letter to her. And I said, Would you play at my funeral? ... When Bill died. I wrote to her again and I said, Would you play at his memorial service? ... She said, I will play, but I don't want to be seen. I want the music just to say everything. And she stood up there in this amazing music. came into the church.
Oh, well number six is another animal memory, Ring of Bright Water, based on Gavin Maxwell's amazing book, What a Writer, um Ring of Bright Water.
Louise McKenna, Ashlyn McKenna and Daniel Martin
My daughter, my only daughter, Louise, she. Is a wonderful musician, this particular track is called Whispers. And it's about my uncle Peter, my mother's eldest brother, who came to us for Christmas every year. A wonderful pianist, and he and Louise used to sit and play duets together on the piano. She absolutely adored him. And this particular song is in his memory, and the violinist is her eldest daughter
The Music Makers, Op. 69Favourite
London Philharmonic Choir and Orchestra
One of Bill's favourite poems and has become mine. Is Arthur O'Shaughnessy's poem Ode. and I discovered not so very, very long ago to my surprise that it had been set to music by Elgar. And I was over the moon when I found that. It talks about the individual, about loneliness but fulfilment. It talks about um music, what you what an individual can do to change things, to make a difference to people's lives. It's so beautifully expressed that I thought This has to be on my list because I'll have the words and the music. I have two in one.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:08To try to keep a wild animal as a pet, you feel, is to mistreat them, and that happens more than we know, doesn't it?
Well, it does. Um I was astounded to learn not so very long ago that there are about ten thousand tigers in the United States kept as so-called domestic pets, but they're wild animals and kept in very, very extraordinary circumstances like someone's apartment or in some old garage or something. ... And there are fewer fewer tigers than that in the wild. Yes, there are about five thousand altogether in the wild.
Presenter asks
5:55Did George [Adamson] give you the golden rules of how to behave with a lion?
Yes, you don't turn your back. You don't run. If they put their mouth round your arm or your wrist, you don't pull away. You use measured tones. You don't speak in a highly squeaky voice, which you might do if you were a bit nervous.
Presenter asks
9:15What was your background like, and did you love animals?
I don't think it was particularly fairy tale. My parents parted when I was four, and I lived with my father in Hampstead. He had a small collection of animals, which I would totally disapprove of having now, I have to say, a parrot. And a snake, a rather lovely snake called George, and two bush babies. And when I think of it now I sort of die a hundred deaths really. But you know, that was of its time, wasn't it?
The keepsakes
The book
David Burnie and Don E. Wilson
I've got to really educate myself on this island... I shall be able to really learn something, and I'll have time to sit and read and learn about the animals which I'm so lucky to share the world with.
The luxury
Two sets of language tapes: Swahili and Italian
I really feel that I've really let my brain slip a bit. What I would really love is to have two sets of language tapes, Swahili and Italian. And then if I do get off the island and travel, at least I'll have two more countries where I can really speak the language of the people who live there.
Presenter asks
15:11Did you feel you were in control of your career, or were you just being swept off your feet?
I never really thought a about it really like that. Because I've never been terribly ambitious as a person. I was always ambitious to do the job well that I was doing, and I would take a lot of time preparing and ... just thinking about the part and the scene and what was going to happen the next day. And I really took each thing as it came. I I didn't have a long-term plan at all. I just did what came up next, really.
Presenter asks
28:44What was it like when you went back to Africa alone to open Elsa's Kopje?
You've got pristine Africa before you. It's as if man has not been there. You can't see man's wretched footprints or his wretched buildings that he puts up. It's lying before you is the bush, trees, and the line of trees where the rivers come, the greener there, and the smell. And you can just sit there and open up your heart, really, and let Africa come into it.
“All of our lives are inextricably linked with animals ... When we mistreat them, we degrade ourselves.”
“I've never been terribly ambitious as a person. I was always ambitious to do the job well that I was doing ... I didn't have a long-term plan at all. I just did what came up next, really.”
“Africa, it's the There is a pulse, there's a there's a strange thing, there's a there's a smell, and a and the sky's always changing ... and it's the perspective, the distance, seeing the hills and the changing shadows ... It's so exciting, and it puts you in perspective. You know, you're a visitor, you're a privileged visitor to that place, and thank goodness you can't dominate anything.”
“Being an only child, I'm not afraid of being by myself. In fact, I quite value times when I'm on my own. It's just wonderful. You you really your spirit can fly.”