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| Clarissa Dickson-Wright |
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Transcript of Interview from 'Desert Island Discs' SL: But it's destroyed something in you so you can't diet. CDW: What happ... diets don't work anyway, but what happens is that my adrenal gland is like a dripping tap, erm it's as though the washer's gone and so this constant drip feed of adrenaline, which gives me a lot of energy, I have an enormous amount of energy, but it also means that I metabolise incredibly slowly because I'm permanently at the state as if I was running away from a saber-toothed tiger. SL: Number six. CDW: Ah, well although it may not be obvious from my current appearance, I'm a great dancer. I love dancing. We used to go out to the discotheques every night and dance, and this was in the seventies, and of course it was the time when Boney M produced 'Ra Ra Rasputin', and when I had my fiftieth birthday a couple of years ago, it was the last tune they played at about quarter to four in the morning. I thought right, let's really go for it, and there I was swinging about and moving, until I got this terrible pain in my chest and I thought, dear God, you know, I will die on the dancefloor, what a great way to go, it's been a fantastic party. And when I came off the dancefloor, I discovered I'd broken my underwired bra. [Music: Boney M - Ra Ra Rasputin] SL: Boney M and 'Ra Ra Rasputin'. How are you on Christmas food Clarissa? I bet you're the sort of cook who knows how to stuff a turkey, with a pheasant, with a guineafowl, you know. Are you in favour of the boneless roast for Christmas dinner? CDW: I used to do as my party trick, go and do endless exhibitions of how to bone a quail inside a pigeon inside everything else, but no I like a... I mean I do have turkey at Christmas, but I like a proper bronzed, properly reared, erm and nice and succulent and it's about the only time of the year I do eat turkey. SL: And the puddings and the cakes, they should be made by now actually shouldn't they? CDW: Oh yes, absolutely. If you haven't made them by now... SL: Any last minute advice? CDW: Last minute advice. I think that my main advice to people at Christmas is don't panic. Everybody gets in such a... so worked up about what is actually a terribly simple and pre-defined meal. You know, there's so much you can do in advance, and what you can do in advance, do it, don't do it on your own, get the children to peel the brussel sprouts and things like that, promise them money if necessary... SL: Do a timetable? CDW: If you must, if you're that sort of person, then do a timetable, there's no harm in it. But just do as much as you can in advance. SL: And what of you now Clarissa, now Jennifer is gone. Television apart, you have a proper job as it were, you run a restaurant in Scotland, you run a bookshop, you publish cookery books and newspaper columns, life is very demanding, but more television? What can one fat lady do? CDW: Yes, I have actually been commissioned for another television series, although I'm not in a position to talk about it yet, 'cos the BBC wants to announce it properly. But it's not cooking. There is more to food than cooking. SL: If not it's history, as you were saying earlier on. CDW: Well indeed, I've always been a food historian and I'm interested in food trends and the agricultural aspects of food and whatever. Er, so who knows. SL: But we shall see more of you? CDW: You shall see more of me, yes you can't get rid of me that easily. SL: Irony is of course, that you don't own a television, do you? Don't watch the thing. CDW: No no, certainly not. I have to go across the road to watch the rugby. (SL laughs) SL: Number seven. CDW: This is I think the ultimate party song. I want it at my funeral. It's the drinking song from 'Traviata'. I love Verdi, Verdi's my favourite operatic composer and I had a friend once I used to go to the opera with a lot, and we actually heard this production of Montserrat Caballe and Carlo Begonzi and it was, I thought, brilliant. [Music: Verdi - 'Drinking Song' from 'La Traviata'] SL: Montserrat Caballe as Violetta and Carlo Begonzi as Alfredo singing the 'Drinking Song' from Verdi's 'La Traviata'. I can't think that a desert island holds any great test for you, I mean, won't you kind of throttle the nearest snake and pop him in a stewpot? CDW: Oh undoubtedly yes. SL: But how do you imagine it to be on this island? What's your image of your desert island? CDW: Well I think it's probably a Caribbean island, but during the sort of cool season, so that the tides make lots of shellfish around the coast. And I think some wild goats and even dare we hope for some wild cattle. And perhaps, you know, the odd hunky native, you know, one could lure to the sounds of music. SL: Oh there's no, no... no human life allowed, except yours. CDW: Oh. Well I'll just have to dream, won't I. SL: What if we could conjure up your last meal on this earth, your desert island meal. What would it be? CDW: Well, I hope there would be wild pigs on this island, so that I could um, make myself some Chinese wung-tung, and I hope I would be able to grow some wild reap wheat and make noodles. Er, so I'd start off with wung-tung soup, and then I'd have some sort of shellfish soup... I don't mean a made soup, a sort of real broth with like a bouer [sp.] base but made entirely with shellfish. A bit of lobster, a bit of clam, bit of oyster, that sort of thing. And then erm, a lovely rib roast of beef, on the bone, because there would be no nasty little mimsy politicians to tell me I couldn't have it on the bone. And a few wild raspberries, and some cream that I'd got from the cattle. Yes, no it would be great really. SL: Last record. CDW: My last record is 'Dear Lord and Father of Mankind'. When I was in my treatment centre in 'Promise', I used to go every Sunday to evensong. And every week, probably just for me, they sang 'Dear Lord and Father of Mankind', which is a perfect song for an alcoholic because it has that wonderful line in it: 'and somewhere mid this turbulence, the still small voice of calm' and the one thing as an alcoholic that when one's drinking one doesn't have, and even when one's sober one has to work towards, is serenity, is peace. [Music: Aled Jones - Dear Lord and Father of Mankind] SL: Aled Jones accompanied by Hugh Tregellis Williams singing 'Dear Lord and Father of Mankind'. Now Clarissa if you could only take one of those eight records, which one would you take to your island? CDW: Oh I think 'Ra Ra Rasputin'. SL: Oh, of course. Dancing on the beach? CDW: Really give me the exercise, eh? (SL laughs) SL: You've got the Bible and the Complete Works of Shakespeare. What about your book? CDW: Oh, without a moments hesitation, the 'Complete Works of Hector Herbert Munro', otherwise known as 'Sarky'. And I took that book everywhere with me, police cells, upside down motor cars, anything you like, you know. SL: And your luxury? CDW: The wind-up radio. SL: Clarissa Dickson-Wright, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs. [Closing Theme Music]
Transcribed by Tim Pardoe, January 2000 |