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| Clarissa Dickson-Wright |
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Transcript of Interview from 'Desert Island Discs' SL: And were you a benign drunk or were you also like your father, quite violent in drink? CDW: I was both, I mean I became at the end of my drinking very like my father, erm, you know I think if you grow up in a violent environment there is this predisposition to violence because it's something you understand. And there is an enormous simplicity about violence, you know it's an instant answer, it shuts everything up, at least for the time being. I was once attemptedly mugged and I put them both in intensive care. I mean I didn't go round beating people up, but if people were aggressive to me, then I hit them. SL: But you were also I think... I mean there was a positive side to this, you also were incredibly generous weren't you. CDW: Oh yes, yes, generosity is one of my vices or virtues, whichever you choose to call it. (She laughs) SL: But you gave terrific parties. CDW: Oh huge parties. SL: Took everybody out, spent your inheritance. CDW: Yeees, we had a lovely time, I mean, I blew it and I blew it unashamedly and we had a lot of fun doing it and we went to great places and did great things, and um, you know it's now the basis of what I talk about, what I write about, all the things I've done so, if you like it, it was an investment, if I had another hundred thousand I'd have been dead, so it's just as well I spent it. SL: Record number four. CDW: This is the 'Lament for Donald Bairn McCriven'. My mother was a daughter of an Aberdonian Scot, and my father was raised in Glasgow, and there is nothing as you know more Scottish than an ex-patrial Scot. But my mother always had a piper for parties. He was a lovely old boy called Pipe Major Robertson, and um, I used to have to ring him up and ask him what his favourite whisky was. And he said to me "Oh miss, the doctor's limited me to one". And I said "One glass Pipe Major?"... "No, no... one bottle". Erm, and my mother and he always used to argue and she would say "you will play the lament for the clan chief at my funeral" and he said "I will not, I will not, you know, you're not a man, you're not a clan chief, there's no way I can play this". And my mother said "You'll see". And guess who was right. [Music: John McFaddian - Lament for Donald Bairn McCriven] SL: John McFaddian playing the 'Lament for Donald Bairn McCriven'. But Clarissa you had become a Barr... weren't you the youngest person to be called to the Bar? CDW: Yes that's right, I was. Um, I think I still remain the youngest women to be called to the Bar. Erm, I did my degree externally through London at the same time as I did my Bar exams, 'cos my father wouldn't pay for me to go to Oxford, unless I read medicine. And I didn't want to read med... I wasn't qualified to read medicine. Dear God, think how many people I might of killed! SL: What happened to your legal career? CDW: Well I walked away from it, erm I was subsequently disbarred and then subsequently reinstated, but that had nothing to do with my walking away from it, that happened in absentia. What happened was, my mother died and left me all this money and I went off to try and sort out her estate and sort of went off around the world, and in a way it's really strange, because I started drinking, I think you know drink destroys ambition, before that I was terribly ambitious. And suddenly it was almost as though I'd done it, done you know, I could hear the eulogies at my memorial service in my head so what was the point in actually going through the mechanics of doing it, you know. But I'd had a very suc... potentially successful career... a lot of people had said very kind things about me. Lord Denning was very full of praise for me. And I think, you know, if I had not been an alcoholic I probably would have succeeded. SL: So you drank and you drank and you drank... ten years... twelve years... CDW: Twelve years. SL: Yes. And what were you drinking? CDW: Oh gin largely. I mean I... my habit was two bottles of gin a day, and at the end I'd have a third of a bottle of Vodka before I got out of bed, and anything else really I could get my hands on or keep down. SL: When came the moment that you decided you should do something about it? Or could do something about it. CDW: I never really decided I could. I think I decided I couldn't go on. Erm, I remember I was working in the country... SL: Cooking? CDW: Cooking. I cooked in other people's houses and I had this um, this job where I only really worked at weekends you know, I kept an eye on things during the week and then they came down for the weekend. And I'd been making some jam and I'd spilt erm... the jam burnt and some of it spilt onto the quarry tiles, and I was chipping it off the quarry tiles and because I was on my knees, I mean I hadn't prayed for years... wasn't that I didn't believe in God, I was just too arrogant to ask for help. And because I was on my knees, I said "Dear God, if you're up there, I really can't go on. Please do something". And it was really from the heart, it was a cry from the heart. And from there on, I mean the next day I got arrested. I got arrested for a breathalyser I don't even remember it happening, and erm, was carted down the drive of this stately home in a police car as the house party was coming up it for the weekend. Sort of waving out of the window at them as they came past. And I very seriously thought of going to the Embankment. And the Embankment they say is the place in your head. And I thought I could go and I wouldn't have to worry about anything else but where the next drink is coming from. And then I thought well if there is something thereafter out there, one day I might have to face my mother. How on earth am I ever going to explain to her that I went to the Embankment. And then the events rolled on and my sister-in-law knew somebody who knew Dr. Robert de Fivo... had this treatment centre. SL: And it worked. CDW: And it worked. SL: Not a drink since? CDW: No. Twelve and a half years now. SL: Number five. CDW: Number five is 'As Time Goes By', and that's for my dear Clive who was really I think the man I loved best in all my life... and he died. And the first time I met him, he was standing in Jules' bar with a chef's hat on, handing out gulls eggs to unsuspecting Americans and telling them they could eat them with the shells on, and he turned away and he was humming 'As Time Goes By', and um, it was his favourite tune and everywhere we went... I remember sitting in the Dorchester Piano Bar when Mike MacKenzie was there and Clive would always ask for 'As Time Goes By'... used to drive people mad. [Music: Dooley Wilson - As Time Goes By] SL: Dooley Wilson singing 'As Time Goes By' from the soundtrack of Casablanca. And memories of lost love for Clarissa Dickson-Wright. How long were you together with Clive, Clarissa? CDW: It really wasn't all that long, it was only really a few years, but it was a very happy few years, we enjoyed the same things, we enjoyed going racing, we used to sit up half the night playing backgammon just for fun, you know, we spent a lot of time doing things together and... SL: Why didn't you marry? CDW: Well, marriage isn't really for me... I've never taken to the idea of marriage, I've never wanted to have children and erm... SL: Why not? CDW: Well because I feel rather that I've come to the end of my genetic pool, I'm a bit like a panda, I'm better off if I don't breed really. SL: Not because you were frightened you might be violent towards them like your father had towards you? CDW: No, I think I would have been a terrible mother. But it wasn't the violence I was worried about, it was the control. The fact that I would have had incredibly high expectations of them, as my father had of me, erm I remember saying to my God-daughter, when she was taking her eleven plus, you know, and she said "Mummy says I must work hard and do my best" and I loved this child. And I said to her, "well don't expect your Godmother to love you if you don't get over ninety percent", you know, and the poor little thing howled her eyes out. SL: What happened to Clive in the end. How did he die? CDW: He got a virus from the water on holiday in Madeira and came back and they couldn't isolate the virus and they put him on a drip to bypass his liver and his kidneys packed up. SL: How old was he? CDW: Forty-nine. SL: And there's never been anyone else? CDW: Nobody serious. Nobody I've ever really thought I've wanted to settle down with now. SL: Still looking? CDW: No, not looking, but if they came well then they come really. SL: And the weight Clarissa, is the result of the drink I gather. It's to do with the quinine you've drunk. CDW: Yes, it's the most bizarre thing. When I was in my treatment centre
they took a blood test and discovered that I had very sticky blood, you
see. So they sent me off to see the specialist to find out what was wrong
with me at St. Mary's, Paddington, and the metabolist said "have
you ever lived in the malaria belt?" (SL laughs) So I said "no,
why?" and he said "this is a condition usually found in people
who have taken a lot of malaria tablets". And the penny dropped and
I said "Quinine!" and he said "well, yes" and I said
"well how about tonic water?" and he said in this rather pompous
way that consultants have, "my dear young lady, you would have to
drink a very great deal of tonic for over a very long period of time in
order to get this condition", and I said "well how about six
pints a day for twelve years?", and he said "well yeah, that
would do it". |