Desert Island Discs - 70 Years of Castaways - The 1940's, 1950's, and 1960's

 

Over seventy years, Roy Plomley, Sue Lawley and Kirsty Young have interviewed nearly three thousand personalities from all walks of life. The foreword to Desert Island Discs: Seventy Years of Castaways is by Kirsty. She describes how most found it "impossible to choose just eight". Then, "When the former head of MI5, the redoubtable Eliza Manningham-Buller...chooses The White Stripes, it was all I could do not to punch the air and shout "Wowza"." 

My castaway this week is...

In his introduction, author and compiler Sean Magee explains how the programme works. Especially what happens if you agree to appear. (Not everyone does.) Here is "a series of snapshots of the times in which they were broadcast ...... from Vic Oliver in January 1942 to the last in this book, Sir David Attenborough, in January 2012, when this book was compiled. The contents section at the beginning contains those individuals included in this book. The index at the end also contains these in bold type. This is preceded by a list of the complete castaways. Apparently, the one luxury and one book were expanded later to one choice of a record if the others were washed away. 

THE 1940's

The introduction includes the letter from Monday, 3rd November 1941, that Roy Plomley sent to Lesley Perowne (in charge of light entertainment programmes) with his idea for Desert Island Discs. The rest is history. But first we hear about Roy's background and how his idea was originally dismissed. When at last given a trial run, it was right up to the mid-50s that the programme was prescribed! We hear about the discussion between the two men about the format and about how they chose the theme tune: Eric Coate's By the Sleeping Lagoon. It has remained with this music ever since.

The first castaway on 29th January 1942 was Vic Oliver, the Austrian-born comedian. We hear a lot about the first castaways, which included Arthur Askey and Ivor Novello. After two months of castaways, a second series began. But at the end of the fourth series in January 1946, after sixty-seven programmes, it was shelved.

From the interviews of those castaways included in this book, I have only selected a few. From the six selected for this book from the 1940s, here are

Ivor Novello: 30th April 1942

This is someone who has eight thousand records at home. I had to listen to his choice of Londonderry Air by Lionel Tertis, as it was described as "the loveliest tune in the world". But to us it's just Danny Boy.

Deborah Kerr: 17th November 1945

One of her early films was The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp. See post of the 31st October 2025.

THE 1950's

Five years passed between the last episode of the 1940s and the first of the 1950s. It returned on 3rd January 1951 with the actor Eric Portman. From there we have a "steady stream of sporting heroes". 

Stirling Moss: 4th June 1956

Interviewed on 4th June 1956, his choice of records was closest to my own particular taste so far. These include Frank Sinatra singing The Tender Trap, but it does not say who with. Mine is with Count Basie. The intro is great. 

Alfred Hitchcock: 19th October 1959

Unfortunately all too predictable.

Joan Sutherland: 23rd November 1959

The opera star wasn't. Seven years at Covent Garden. An Australian by birth, her final choice was from Puccini's La Bohème with Donde Lieta Usci. 

THE 1960'S

There is a long introduction over twelve pages as Sean Magee describes "a decade of comprehensive upheaval". This was the decade when the programme really took off, with so many personalities wanting to appear. The programme on the 1st April 1960 (note the date!) featured Sr Harry Whitlon whose luxury was a mountain. Then later Shirley Bassey. 

Cliff Richard: 31st October 1960

An interesting part about how they came up with his stage name. I remember in either 1959 or 1960 (around when I was fifteen) we were bought two of Cliff's records: Living Doll and Travelin' Light, both on 78 rpm, as our radiogram would only play that speed. 

Noel Coward: 28th January 1963

I liked his varied musical tastes, from Bernard Cribins' Hole in the Ground to Verdi and Rachmaninov. 

Then two icons together:

Harold Pinter: 14th June 1965

Roy Plomley asks the castaway about his writing. "Four lines of Pinter are unlike four lines of anyone else." His reply is "I think any given person, when he speaks, there is an awful lot he does not say and is not prepared to say and cannot say." This was before his even more successful plays, such as my favourite of all time: No Man's Land from 1975. 

Alan Bennett: 28th August 1967

There is a lovely introduction about how he came to be included in Beyond the Fringe with Peter Cook, Dudley Moore and Jonathan Miller. Even taking it to America. This interview was well before his hugely successful plays, but he never returned to the programme as others had done. 

Then the final programme of the sixties:

Viscount Montgomery of Alamein: 20th December 1969

Monty was eighty-one when he appeared on the programme. He describes his somewhat turbulent relationship with Prime Minister Winston Churchill during the war, who visited the front on more than one occasion. Monty told him, "You must do what I tell you because we cannot afford for you to take risks. I shall get into awful trouble if you get bumped off by a shell or something." 

Wiggington and Tring Park

 

We were out early on Wednesday morning before it became too hot. Alison had suggested a walk from Wiggington that she had done a couple of times before. There was plenty of room in the car park near the cafe. A route through the woods, and suddenly we were entering Tring Park. I immediately knew where we were, as this part of the Ridgeway is on the course for Tring parkrun. I think that I only ran it once in a double event with Aylesbury parkrun. See the post of 3rd January 2015.

But I did use to walk here on many occasions, including maybe that first time I posted on this blog on 20th October 2009. The photo above is from Alison's phone and was taken walking down the Ridgeway. At the end of this section, we turned back and found our way back to Wiggington. We stopped at the cafe and sat in the shade outside with our welcome iced coffees. A really nice morning.

A Private Life, My Mother's Wedding and Minions and Monsters

 

A Private Life is a mystery drama that I thought was going to turn into a predictable search for a murder suspect. But nothing of the sort. This is a far more complicated story dealing with relationships past and present. Jodie Foster stars in this French movie as a therapist who, when her office is broken into and records stolen, wants to know who. She (now sixty-three) turns for assistance to her ex-husband, played by seventy-six-year-old Daniel Auetile. That wonderful part in the fabulous La Belle Époque. The best part of the film is the conversations between the two. Foster is so serious; we never see the glimpse of a smile until the very end. Her work now seems to bore her, and she is not at all a pleasant person. But thrown together in a search for an explanation, there are times when you see why they are now living apart. This was my sort of movie.

Written and directed by Rebecca Zlotowski with an original script with help from Anne Berest and Gaelle Mace, it ticked all the boxes. Mark Kermode said he "enjoyed it because it played so well". Philip Concannon in Sight and Sound Magazine said, "It's a pleasure to watch these two great actors bounce off each other."

Not quite Four Weddings and a Funeral, but My Mother's Wedding had definite similarities. An all-star cast includes Scarlett Johansson in the lead as one of the three daughters coming together at the same time for the latest wedding of their mother. Johansson plays a scowling career naval officer on the verge of a huge promotion. Nothing like I have ever seen her in before. Her sisters are played by a deadly serious Sienna Miller and a quieter Emily Beecham. Not a happy mix. Based on the experiences of writer and director Kristin Scott Thomas, she plays their mother getting married to the solid (thank goodness) James Fleet. (Why is he missing from the wikipedia short cast list when some foreigner makes it after appearing for what seemed five minutes?) The ending is quite unexpected and strangely has nothing to do with the wedding. In The Guardian, Benjamin Lee was not impressed apart from the performances. I thought it was well done and everything looked fabulous.

Watching all the trailers before the film (they were all animated features), I wondered why I was there. They all looked pathetic. But Minions and Monsters was completely different. There was so much packed into every frame; it was all fast and furious. So much so that at times I wished they would slow down so I could appreciate all the many, many references to films past and present. I'm sure I saw bits in the corner of the screen that I missed. I guess these glimpses were for real film buffs; that would have been lost on the younger audience. Not sure what children would get from this barrage of old movies. And Gru from the earlier films does not get a look in. Fortunately. It's left to James and Henry to lead the way, especially when they get separated from their friends later on. 

This is close to top-class silent comedy as we mine the vaults of old Hollywood. The Minions somehow find themselves stars of the age of silent comedy. We have the Bright Brothers representing old-time studio bosses at their worst. But they find the lovable excess of the Minions perfect for their success. It's just when talkies arrive that the fact we cannot understand most of what they are saying turns out to them being kicked out of the studio. 

However, I agreed with critic Tom Shone in the Sunday Times that this is when the film takes a really disappointing turn. The introduction of brand new monsters from whom the Minions have to save the world is awful. Much too feeble and obvious, especially as what would normally have been quietly violent scenes had to be toned down for the U certificate. But then we get some of the best of all in those little clips amongst the credits at the end. Definitely worth waiting for. It's all chaotic and funny, and I'm left with incredulity at the quality of the animation. I just wished it were not so rushed. Then, perhaps the sequence of a runaway train would have provided a better ending. It's left to Rafaela Bassili in The Guardian to reference director Pierre Coffin's "love letter to cinema".

England v Mexico: The 1966 and 2026 World Cups

 

It was sixty years ago that England played Mexico in the group stage of the 1966 World Cup at Wembley Stadium. It was the only England game I missed seeing live, as it was the twenty-first birthday party of one of my work friends, Rowena Higgs. I have to say that I sat on my own in her family's living room watching it on their TV. That is to say, except for her father, who joined me on numerous occasions. (It was he who gave me the season ticket in the main stand at Chelsea for the second half of the 1964/5 season). England won 2-0, which included that wonderful goal from Bobby Charlton.

Fast forward sixty years, and England once again beat Mexico in the World Cup, this time at their iconic Estadio Azteca. No, I didn't stay up to watch the game. I didn't even record the match, as I knew it was on iPlayer. I was not convinced they would win, but as one report on the BBC website confirmed, maybe this was England's best victory since 1966.

Garden in early July

 

Above is a new penstemon called Phoenix Violet. Then below one of the roses in the long border, Rosa chinensis, or Bengal rose.

Below is the Hydrangea macrophylla, much smaller than normal hydrangeas but neat and nice.

This year I remembered to support the achillea in the far round border with conical supports that have been in the garage for some years, bought especially for this plant. It should bush out soon. 

Next to it is the Lilium lancifolium Thumb, or tiger lily, that I think were tiny bulbs we won as part of a prize.

The echinacea "Sunseeker's White Perfection" by the side patio has grown since that photo in June and is amazingly healthy. I like how the flowers start with the petals turning upwards and then that unusual downturn.

The agapanthus has been in this pot next to the back wall for a few years. I have always meant to transfer it into the garden, but while it flowers like this, I will probably leave it here.

It was Alison's sister who gave me the Salvia Amistad below. It really needs to go in the main border in the autumn.

The hostas Fire and Ice are coming into flower on the side patio. 

These dianthus love it in pots.

At the very far end, the Elaeagnus, or silverberry, has recovered from that hard pruning in the spring.

Next to it by the fence is an unexpected buddleia coming into flower.

And last of all, the acanthus has spread with its usual number of flowering spikes. 

Movies at Home - Rashomon

 

When I was searching for a film by Akira Kurosawa, I came across this movie from 1950. Rashomon had won the top prize at the Venice Film Festival in 1951, a year after its release in Japan. I only found out the story behind the film after I had watched it. But before that, my first impressions. The superb black-and-white photography by Kazuo Miyagowa opens with three men sheltering from constant pouring rain in an old Rashomon gate. That must be one of the greatest opening scenes in movie history. Two have given evidence at a trial about the death of a samurai. They have been amazed at how the witnesses all tell a different story about what happened, and we see these conflicting scenes one at a time. What we do know is that the crime involves three people, a bandit, a samurai and his wife. As I said, the samurai ends up dead. 

My special edition of the DVD includes a forty-page booklet. The first twenty pages are an extract taken from "The Emperor and the Wolf: The Lives and Films of Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune" written by Stuart Galbraith. It starts, 'In Rashomon, Kurosawa examined the relative nature of truth". It goes on with a detailed story about how the film came to be made, how nobody had seen a film like it before, and how it finally influenced so many features in the West. It's about the unreliability of witnesses to an event: the Rashomon effect. 

There are some lines of dialogue that resonated with me. One character concludes, "I don't know what's going on either." And another: "It's all a lie. " I turned to Philosophy Now's Issue 127, which ends, "Perhaps the most fitting thing that can be said about this action-packed, carefully choreographed, supremely poetic and superlatively-executed movie is its opening line, 'I don't understand it. I don't understand it at all. "And for a philosopher, recognising this is, perhaps, the beginning of wisdom."  

Afterwards, I could not help thinking about the film's not similarities but feelings with Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett, which was published about the same time. When I first saw this play, I was not that impressed (November 1987), but that staging with Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart (see post in March 2019) was one of the best things I have been fortunate to see. Maybe when I see this film again I might feel the same. 

Palladian, Tree Surgery for Beginners and I Capture the Castle

 

This was my last of Elizabeth Taylor's twelve novels. It was the second she wrote and not quite up to the class of her later works. Twenty-year-old Cassandra is shutting up her home for the last time now that both her parents have died. She's back at her old school, where the headmistress Mrs Turner "reserves intolerance for the truly intolerable". But this was a quick visit before she is off to be the governess for young Sophy at the large and rambling Cropthorne Manor.

Here we find a strange collection of family members. The head of the household is Marion Vanbrugh. He suffers from neuralgia; hence, the darkened room. Sophy is his daughter, never having known her mother, who died in childbirth. Other cousins include Tom, a complicated young man often to be found at the local pub and in conversations with Mrs Veal, the landlady.

The author splendidly captures the interactions between this extended family. There is, for example, one horrible argument between Aunt Margaret and Marion about Tom and his drinking. The death of Marion's wife haunts the story. Tom was equally in love with her, which might explain his state of mind. So a family story where not a lot happens, but as usual it's the prose that impresses. I will look to see which of Taylor's stories I liked best to put on my to-read shelf.

Having enjoyed all of the eight novels by Patrick Gale, this was a big disappointment. The prose is as good as ever, but the story had too many coincidences to be believable. Late on I thought that this must be some kind of farce, but not when there are deaths. Laurence is a strange young man. It seems like an accident that he marries Bonnie. He is not cut out for the state of matrimony. He is only interested in trees. His passion and his job as a tree surgeon.

It's his uncle Darius (as a long-time bachelor) "who perceived in Laurence a kindred, unweddable spirit". There is an interesting section in the middle when Darius persuades him to join him with a free ticket on a cruise, where his uncle is playing bridge. Encounters with Bee and the enigmatic Lala are women whom Laurence is lucky to meet.

However, the crazy coincidences in the second half of the book spoilt the whole novel. I started to wonder who might turn up next, and they do.

This was the first book I chose to re-read from those on my bookshelves. I had forgotten that Cassandra Mortmain is the narrator of this novel. I like how she is writing in the present, describing what is actually happening around her. A kind of diary or journal that is full of wit and insight. She describes her family. Her sister Rose is twenty-one; her reclusive father is eccentric to say the least; and her clever brother Thomas is fifteen and is at school miles away. And finally, stepmother Topaz, who is a lot younger than her father but is OK. Then there is Steven, who is nineteen, not part of the family but does all the jobs. 

They all live in this dilapidated castle miles from anywhere and have no money. Their father refuses to work and royalties from the one book he wrote have long since disappeared. So they eke out a living, not paying rent as required and having very little in the way of food and wearing old clothes. There is a wonderful back story about how their father found the castle and how they explored the ruins the first time and made them sort of habitable. But "anyone who could enjoy the winter here would find the North Pole stuffy". 

 All until who should arrive at their landlord's home but two young men from America. And how their blossoming friendship with the sisters starts to make life more comfortable. Somehow the wealth of this family, especially the generosity of the boy's mother, starts to rub off on Cassandra. The second half of the book has much introspection, as these relationships begin to be a source of tension. Is Casandra growing up at last? The final part develops into a strangely action-packed story that still involves all the family in a plot to get their father writing again. But it all ends perfectly well. 

See my review of 13th July 2012. This is what I said then: , the introduction mentioned two male readers. Christopher Isherwood read the draft in 1949, and Ralph Vaughan Williams (the composer) chose it as his "Christmas Book of the Year" for the Sunday Times. So I am good company, believing this was one of the best books I have ever read. Cassandra is seventeen, and it is her journal that relates her experiences of a year in the 1930s. It is the story of her family, the Mortmains, who live in a medieval moated castle in what would now be termed poverty. But Cassandra's father wrote a highly successful book, so that was not always the way. His second wife Topaz is a wonderful creation, and the family also includes Cassandra's older sister Rose and younger brother Thomas. Their lodger Stephen is a miracle. Things take off when two half-American brothers and their mother arrive at nearby Scoatney Hall, landlords of the castle estate. The characterisation is just marvellous, and the descriptions of the places give a great feeling of intimacy. This is a top class feelgood book that is no wonder, a classic.