Desert Island Discs

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Philip Pullman Oct 06, 2002

Show notes

Philip Pullman is the author of the celebrated His Dark Materials trilogy: Northern Lights, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass. He was born in Norwich and spent his early years travelling all over the world with his father, who was in the RAF, and his mother and brother. Whilst in Australia he devoured comic book stories, which made a big contrast to the traditional stories his clergyman grandfather would tell him on return trips to Norwich. Philip planned to be a writer from the age of six and, when the family moved to Wales when he was 11, he developed a real passion for stories, encouraged by a school teacher to read more and write them down. Philip went to study English at Oxford, although he says it was really after he finished his degree that he started to learn. He began his first novel the day he left and although he says "it was terrible" he didn't give up. He worked in a variety of jobs to enable him to write and eventually went into teaching. He developed his writing style further by writing school plays and dealing with the challenge of making them accessible to both the children and the parents: it was an ideal training ground.

Philip has since written many books for children: Clockwork, I was a Rat! (which was dramatised for BBC television), and The Firework-Maker's Daughter, which won the Smarties Gold Award in 1996 and the Sally Lockhart Award. The His Dark Materials trilogy has become a huge success with children and adults, and, on 22nd January 2002, Philip won the Whitbread Prize for the third book in the trilogy, The Amber Spyglass. This was the first time that a children's book had won either the Booker or the Whitbread.

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

Favourite track: Sonata Reminiscenza in A Minor by Nickolay Medtner Book: A La Recherche Du Temps Perdu by Marcel Proust Luxury: A Jar of Apricots, by Chardin

Dame Alicia Markova Sep 29, 2002

Show notes

Dame Alicia Markova was born Lilian Alice Marks in December 1910, in a two-bedroom flat in Finsbury Park, London. She began ballet classes because she was flat footed and knock kneed. Her natural talent, when she was ten, was spotted by Diaghilev, the Russian artistic impresario who founded the Ballets Russes and brought the contemporary arts of Russia to Europe. Dame Alicia joined Diaghilev's company, which was based in Monte Carlo, in 1925, a month after her 14th birthday. Diaghilev changed her name to Alicia Markova and cast her in the title role of Nightingale in Le Rossignol, a ballet scored by Stravinsky, choreographed by Balanchine and with costumes designed by Matisse. It premiered in Paris in June 1925.

After Diaghilev's death in 1929 she returned to England and became a leading figure of the emerging English ballet scene, dancing with the Ballet Rambert and Vic Wells Ballet, as well as at Sadlers Wells. Dame Alicia danced the leading roles in Swan Lake, The Nutcracker and Giselle, which became her trademark, illustrating her unique style of fragility and strength. In 1950, together with her dancing partner Anton Dolin, Dame Alicia founded The London Festival Ballet which eventually became the English National Ballet. She was still dancing Giselle at the age of 48 and had her last dance on stage in the early 1960s. Subsequently she has worked as director, patron and teacher and was awarded the CBE for services to dance in 1958. Her memory for dance steps has proved invaluable for dance historians, pupils and teachers alike.

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

Favourite track: Softly Awakes my Heart from Samson and Delilah by Camille Saint-Saëns Book: Speaking of Diaghilev by John Drummond Luxury: The perfume Knowing by Estee Lauder

Timothy Spall Sep 22, 2002

Show notes

Timothy Spall grew up in Battersea, South London. He found school pretty uninspiring and left with art as his only qualification. However, when he played the part of the Cowardly Lion in the school production of The Wizard of Oz, aged 16, he felt he had found his niche. He says "it had a good big audience and they just laughed, and when I came out to do my bow they gave me a big cheer. Something went off in my head then." He had a natural talent, and soon found a place at RADA. Within a year he was snapped up by the Royal Shakespeare Company, where he played key roles such as Andre in Chekhov's The Three Sisters, a role which he was amazed to take over from Ian McKellan. It was a huge learning period and the critics weren't going to cut him any slack just because he was straight out of drama school. He says, "you're up there playing with the big boys so you learn pretty quick!"

His first TV part was as the Brummie builder, Barry, in Auf Weidersehen Pet in 1983 and he has had many TV roles since: Our Mutual Friend and Vacuuming Completely Nude in Paradise both earned him Best Actor nominations at the Baftas. His role in the Mike Leigh's Secrets and Lies won him critical acclaim, as well as two best actor nominations, at the Baftas and at the London Film Critic Circle. He has also been sought by Hollywood, recently appearing in the blockbuster Vanilla Sky. He won best actor at Prix d'Italia and Cinema Tout Ecran awards for the television drama Shooting the Past and was awarded the OBE in 2000.

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

Favourite track: Mary's Prayer by Danny Wilson Book: The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens Luxury: A drum kit

Brian May Sep 15, 2002

Show notes

Brian May spent his childhood in Feltham near London and he learnt his first chords on his father's ukelele banjo. He soon progressed to the guitar, which he started learning when he was eight. He perfected his technique by buying records and copying the trickiest guitar parts. Although Brian's dream was to be a guitarist, it didn't seem like a reality so, encouraged by his parents, he went to London University's Imperial College to study physics. Whilst there he continued playing in bands with his drummer friend Roger Taylor. They were soon joined by art student Freddie Bulsara (who became Freddie Mercury) and John Deacon and formed Queen. Brian was researching infra red astronomy and part-time tutoring, but Queen soon hit the big time with their 1974 album Sheer Heart Attack, a success on both sides of the Atlantic. The band recorded 20 albums over a 22 year period and had frequent hits around the world with Killer Queen, Radio Ga Ga and Bohemian Rhapsody. Brian wrote huge Queen hits such as We will Rock You, Fat Bottomed Girls and Flash. They were known for their flamboyant live shows, where Brian provided technical brilliance and extended guitar solos inspired by Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix. When lead singer Freddie Mercury died of an AIDS-related illness in 1991, Brian and his fellow band members organised a huge tribute concert for AIDS research which was shown on television screens around the world.

Thirty-one years after Queen began, the band is still popular: Bohemian Rhapsody was voted most popular British song in a BBC Radio 2 poll this year, 24 years after its first release. Brian has also written and toured with his own band and in June this year he kicked off the Queen's Jubilee concert with an amazing guitar solo of The National Anthem from the roof of Buckingham Palace. This month he came fifth in a poll to find the World's Greatest Guitarists.

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

Favourite track: Saturn - the Bringer of Old Age by Gustav Holst Book: Out of the Silent Planet by C S Lewis Luxury: His own guitar: the Red Special

Alan Titchmarsh Jul 07, 2002

Show notes

Alan Titchmarsh was drawn to gardening from an early age in Ilkley, Yorkshire, making his first polythene greenhouse at the age of twelve and deciding he was going to be a gardener when he grew up. He left school at fifteen and became an apprentice gardener in the Parks Department of Ilkley Urban District Council, going on to horticultural college at the age of 18. His interest in English literature and writing prompted him to apply for a job as assistant editor of gardening books at Hamlyn Publishing and he began to write gardening books of his own, publishing his first in 1976.

Alan experienced his first taste of television when there was a plague of greenfly on the south coast and he was approached to report on it in Margate for Nationwide. He says, "I suddenly tasted blood. It was wow!, I like this. I want to do more." He became a presenter of Daytime Live, a Birmingham-based chat show, interviewing stars like Placido Domingo, Barry Manilow and Julia Roberts. He also presented Songs of Praise but never forgot his gardening, and took to the screens as a gardener with the amazingly successful garden make-over programme, Ground Force, in 1997. As well as presenting the more 'serious' gardening programme, Gardener's World, Alan recently took viewers back to basics with the series How to be a Gardener and, having written a grand total of thirty-seven gardening books, he remains the UK's premier gardener.

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

Favourite track: Lark Ascending by Vaughan Williams Book: One of the 'Blandings' novels by P G Wodehouse Luxury: A box of watercolours

Minette Walters Jun 30, 2002

Show notes

After Minette Walters' father died of injuries sustained in World War II she won a scholarship to Godolphin School, and eventually became Head Girl. From a young age she shunned girls' story books, preferring the more gripping Biggles and later, Agatha Christie. Her ambition was to be a writer. She says, "I just adored the whole thing of escapism into somebody else's world. When you're a writer and you are creating a world - you can only relate to one reader at a time, so it's: how do you persuade people? how can you draw the reader into that world so you can share it together? It's very exciting and any good writer, that is exactly what they do - they are tempting you into a world of their creation."

Minette Walters went to Durham University to read modern languages. When she left she took on barmaid and secretarial work that would allow her to continue her writing but all her many manuscripts, in particular plays to BBC Radio, were rejected. Her efforts in magazine publishing were more successful and, after a stint as an editor, she soon found herself writing 30,000 word hospital romances. She was inspired to attempt a novel and after having two children she turned her attention to crime fiction, a subject that had held her interest since childhood. But she says of The Dark Room: "there is virtually no comparison with Agatha Christie - it's much deeper and darker and more naturalistic, realistic, gritty. That's why I put 'fart' in the first paragraph, because I thought, whoever reads the first page of this book is not going to think they are reading an Agatha Christie!"

She has written eight books in ten years and received the Edgar Allan Poe Award for the best crime novel published in America for The Sculptress and won the Gold Dagger Award for best British Crime novel in 1994 for The Scold's Bridle. Her books have been translated into 36 languages and five of her books have been made into television films. Minette says she never knows who has done the crime until she finishes the book: "I set up a limited number - if I knew which one was guilty I would either underwrite them or overwrite them and if I don't know then I still explore them in depth. This joy, of going inside their heads, I'd be bored stiff if I knew what was going to happen."

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

Favourite track: Free as a Bird from his Orlean's Function by Louis Armstrong Book: The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations by Elizabeth Knowles Luxury: Van Gogh's Irises

Countess Elizabeth Longford Jun 23, 2002

Show notes

Elizabeth Harman was born in London in 1906. Her parents were both doctors, her mother was the niece of Joseph Chamberlain and cousin of Neville Chamberlain, the future Prime Minister. She was one of only a few girls at that time to attend Oxford University. Joining the social set that included John Betjemen, Evelyn Waugh and Maurice Bowra, she became one of the first female Isis idols and was proposed to numerous times before she accepted Frank Pakenham, who was later to succeed to the Longford earldom. Ever since the occasion she was read Homer's Illiad as a child and felt sympathy for the Trojans, Elizabeth had developed a sympathy for the underdog. And when she began teaching at Oxford in a summer school for the working classes from the Potteries, this sympathy was consolidated. She became interested in politics and a Labour supporter and was to become a Labour party candidate twice, in 1935 and 1950, but never elected to parliament.

Elizabeth married Frank Pakenham in 1931 and they had eight children by 1947. Her experience and expertise with a large family came to the notice of The Daily Express, and she was soon to be writing a column. This led to her first book, Points for Parents, which was published in 1954. It was the start of her writing career. Her next subject, Queen Victoria, was more ambitious: she felt the Queen had been misrepresented in the past and by looking at her and Prince Albert as human beings she adopted a different approach. Elizabeth had access to the Royal archives at Windsor and spent many days in the library there imagining how the Queen would have lived. As well as her book on Victoria, Lady Longford wrote books about Wellington; The House of Windsor; Byron; The Queen Mother; and Queen Elizabeth, as well as her own autobiography. She remains an experienced authority on families and marriage: her own lasted almost seventy years until she was widowed last year.

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

Favourite track: I Vow To Thee My Country by Westminster Abbey Choir Book: Diplomacy and Murder in Tehran - Alexander Griboyedov and Imperial Russia's Mission to the Shah of Persia by Lawrence Kelly Luxury: An orange tree

Jan Morris Jun 16, 2002

Show notes

Sue Lawley's castaway is writer Jan Morris.

Leonard Rosoman Jun 09, 2002

Show notes

Leonard Rosoman's career saw him travel the world as an Official War Artist in the Second World War. He is also a member of the Royal Academy, an illustrator and teacher. The young Leonard dodged the family business by getting a scholarship to the Edward VII School of Art in Durham and went on to paint and teach. When war broke out Leonard was drafted into the Auxiliary Fire Service in London but he didn't stop painting, and he used his experiences to create some of his finest work. This drew him to the attention of the Home Office, and Sir Kenneth Clarke asked him if he would be an Official War Artist. He agreed and was appointed an official war artist to the Admiralty and was posted to the British Pacific Fleet. In April 1945 was posted to Sydney and from there he joined HMS Formidable.

After the war Leonard went back to teaching, first in London then to Edinburgh College of Art in 1948, and later on to the Royal College of Art where he met his most memorable student - David Hockney: "I didn't find him at all difficult, but it was a little bit scary because if anybody ever had something written on his forehead, he had. Every single member of that staff pretty well guaranteed that when David left, he would be a success of some kind. He was a very rare bird - he had a quality of understatement - rare and important in its way."

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

Favourite track: I Got A Gal in Kalamazoo by Glenn Miller & his Orchestra Book: Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce Luxury: A sloping lawn

Sue Johnston May 26, 2002

Show notes

Sue Johnston has rarely been out of work since she made her name in Brookside. Her versatility is clear, with credits including such varied programmes as acclaimed drama Goodbye Cruel World; the 1950s feel-good nostalgia series Sex, Chips and Rock 'n' Roll; cult comedy The Royle Family and, most recently, psychological thriller Waking the Dead. Her early career was with the Pilkington Glass Factory, where she got a job in the pensions department specifically so she could join their amateur dramatics group. After rebelling against her parents wishes and attending drama school in London, Sue acted in repertory theatre until her mid-30s.

Having a son brought new responsibilities and, realising the bonus of a regular income and regular hours, she auditioned for Channel 4's Brookside. She became a household name and recognised as Sheila Grant wherever she went. She left after eight years and never looked back: her first role was as a motor neurone sufferer in Goodbye Cruel World, for which she was Bafta nominated and she has been in demand ever since. She was also Bafta nominated for her role as lovable put-upon mum Barbara in The Royle Family, which in 1998 and 2000 won British Comedy Awards.

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

Favourite track: You'll Never Walk Alone by Gerry and the Pacemakers Book: Dickens by Peter Ackroyd Luxury: BBC Radio 5 Live

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