Dorothea Callum as a guest on Desert Island Discs
Fictional Excerpts from the real BBC Radio 4 programme Desert Island Discs – about this broadcast is in about 1980.
RP is Roy Plomley, a real radio presenter
DC is Dorothea Callum
"Our guest today is the well-known best-selling novelist, Dorothea Callum who is Mrs McGinty in her private life."
RP: So a happy childhood then?
DC: very much so.
RP: and I think that brings us to your first record. Will you tell us why you chose it?
DC: This reminds me of sailing in the Lake district with friends, and two particular friends whole called themselves the Amazon pirates.
"Fifteen men on a dead man's chest -yo ho ho and a bottle of rum"
RP: And after school you read English literature at Shrewsbury College Oxford. Your next choice reminds you of that time, you told me.
DC: Yes. Student used to occasionally joke about Shrewsbury wanting to be a girls' boarding school when it grew up. This piece reminds me of both school and college since lots of girls play it on any available piano. In fact it was banned completely for a term at my High School because the mistresses were so fed up with hearing it.
(Fur Elsie, Beethoven)
RP: You were still at Oxford when the war started.
DC: Yes, I was about to start my final year. Most of my friends were in the services, and I felt that I should be doing war work, but my parents insisted that I finish my degree. As soon as I had finished, one of my college tutors suggested me for a job filing and collating information and I spent the rest of the war doing that.
RP: And it was while you were doing that job that you met your first husband, Lord St George in summer 1940.
DC: Yes, although I met him at a dance rather than at work. It was what some people call a whirlwind courtship, as many were during the war.
RP: And sadly he was killed in action later on that same year. You told me your third record reminds you of him.
DC: Yes, it was one of the tunes the band were playing the first time we danced together.
(Glenn Miller stairway to the stars)
RP: And after the war you started writing for a living.
DC: Yes, I started with short stories for magazines, but always wanted to write novels. One of the reasons is the pleasure I received as a girl from losing myself completely in a story. I wanted my writing to give that pleasure to other people and it's easier to lose oneself in a novel.
RP: and what is your next record?
DC: This is a folk song, the Water is Wide. It seems very appropriate for a desert Island and it would a remind me of my friends and family who have been so wonderfully kind to me. Also, It is simply a beautiful song.
The water is wide. (English folk song)
RP: And it was while visiting friends in Malta that you met your husband Ian?
DC: We had met briefly before when I was just a schoolgirl on a sailing holiday in the Hebrides with my friends and even more briefly on a station platform without recognising each other in the slightest. But Malta was where we really began to get to know each other.
RP: And your next record?
DC: This reminds me very much of the first few years living in the Hebrides. Mouth music is intended, or used to be, for dancing when there was no instrument or instrumentalist for dancing.
…
RP: and why did you chose your next record?
DC: Both my children were big Beatles fans and this song is one of their favourites. I'll play it when I need cheering up on my island
RP: And your final record?
DC: the Hebrides overture by Mendelssohn
RP: you already have the Bible and Shakespere. What would your book be?
DC: the biggest possible empty notebook
RP: and your luxury?
DC: A vast box of pencils, all with rubbers on the end and a pencil sharpener.
RP: Dorothea Callum, thank you very much for sharing your choices with us.