Hello, I'm Christi Young and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. Reasons we've had to shorten the music. The program was originally broadcast in 1987 and the presenter was Michael Parkinson. Our castaway is that rarest of all television performers, the one who almost never gets a bad review. Well, we'll see. Presenting nationwide or the six o'clock news standing in for Robin Day or Terry Wogan she defined the critics with her untroubled manner and seemingly effortless professionalism. Indeed, she moved one hard-boiled journalist who had inspected her for faults and found none to observe, and I quote, Can she really exist or is she some kind of ideal dreamed up by the BBC's audience research department? She is Sue Lawley.

So just in case you come across to the public as being too perfect I mean has there been anybody said anything about you. That's really upset you Upset me whenever they write something about me because it's usually wrong and I find it all pretty distressing stuff. I don't know how really one expects to be in the public domain and not be written about but if that were possible. That's what I'd like more than anything. But I remember once somebody saying that I was the kind of girl you'd take home to Mars. I mean a chap would take home to mum and she would approve and I knew somehow I knew I should have liked that but I knew when I read it that that meant the man didn't like me that he Thought I was as you say a bit too perfect or something so that hurts Really, if that hurts you, what are you going to do when they start writing really nasty things about you? Hide in a corner, Michael. I can't bear it. Tell them all to go away.

Still on this thing about what people imagine you to be, I mean, part of the persona you project on television is of this very self-possessed and collected woman, very much on top of the job and that sort of thing. I mean, therefore... Could you, do you think, make a go of living on a desert island? Are you that self-possessed, that self-contained? No, of course I couldn't. And I need people too much. I like it for a while, as I dare say all of us would, who lead very busy lives. I like better than my own company on occasions, but I think I'd I get pretty missed pretty quickly And what about music? You've got these records to keep your company on the desert down. I mean, has music always been a companion? For you in your life? Yes, but not in any hugely serious sense, no, but I'm the kind of person whose tummy goes ping when she hears a certain tune and thinks, ah yes, I remember that. Just brings back lovely memories. A record of pings are they? All pings in their own right, a Catholic set of pings coming up. Alright, the first record then.

The first record is a school ping really and it's something we used to sing. It's Purcell's Son, the trumpet. It's a lovely kind of choral work. I was always a second SOP at school and I always wanted... To be an alto but I didn't have quite a deep enough voice. I thought on my island I could sort of sing along with all the parts and learn them all. It's very complicated. It'd take me an awful long time and use up a lot of long...

Boring hours.

It must have said it was singing away like a good one. In fact, you had your first ambitions, I think, to be a singer. Yes they were. I'm not quite sure why now but I did do a bit of it in Willan Hall Palais of a Saturday night for about, I think it was about 25 bob. Time and my dad used to take me. I answered an advert in the Wolverhampton Express and Star and I used to go along and sing lollipop. And roses and up on the roof and I used to shake the maracas and walk about the stage and actually in the end feel pretty awful. I got it out of my system very quickly. So there's not really a real ambition there to be a singer? No. No. It was just a bit of fun. Yes, I suppose I quite like being on the stage. I quite like singing. I would sing on this island quite a lot, you know. What about the background you came from? You mentioned there, Willan Hall. That's the black country, isn't it? Mmm, yes. Born and bred, Dudley, Worcestershire. What about your parents? What do they do?

His family were dairy farmers, but he gave that up when I was quite small and he then had a series of jobs, one of which was running a petrol station. He owned a petrol station and I used to go and work on that. I was the greatest expert at the age of 10 on how to fill up oil in all the consoles and zephyrs that came by and where the petrol... Thanks for watching. Cafe and then we sold lollipops and ice cream and then it was a grocery shop and finally it was a drapery shop. So my early childhood was spent behind the counter as it were when School went to work in Woolworths or on the post at Christmas I would be found behind the counter selling the answers wool and the baby's rompers and all the haberdashery bits and pieces. What about the ambitions in those days, I mean singing a part, what was the real ambition, I mean was it universal?

And then you didn't know? Yes. What was it university you knew? No university and I didn't know. I went through all those those girlish things of thinking that I would be a teacher or a hospital on the nerve and all those kinds of things. Never really knew what was going to come out the other end and indeed even when I got to university I didn't really know when I started applying for jobs. It was strange. I considered... Myself to be part of the general arts dustbin, as it were. I did modern languages, English, French and German. That if I kind of spread the applications around to publishing and advertising and... Television indeed the BBC turned me down it has to be said that that somewhere in there They would arise something from it that might just suit another choice of record

A teenager in the sixties could go without a Beatles record and this is my token Beatles and it's a lovely one, it's called Hey Jude and... I always remember a reporter in the next valley to mine when I was the district correspondent in Merthyr Tydfil. A chap called Chris Corrigan who was the district correspondent. In abattolieri and used to ring me up because he couldn't sing a note he used to say sue how does it go how does it go and that on this little telecast

I would sort of sing out, Hey Jude, and he'd say, That's it, that's it! Wonderful! Hey Jude, don't make it bad Take a sad song and make it better Remember to let her under your skin Then you begin to make it better ♪ Better, better, better, better, better, better, better ♪ - Hey Jude from the Beatles. Let's go back for a minute, Sue, to the university days. I mean, did you fit in at university? This child from Black Country? Not really, I didn't think. I suppose if I'd had more guts I'd have realised that I did, but I felt that I didn't because I went to Bristol University which was full of home...

Count his people who spoke posh and I didn't. At least I don't know anymore Michael. I would like actually to be hypnotized and discover how I really do speak. I suspect there'd be a black... Country lilt somewhere in there. As I recall when I went to Bristol I probably spoke about like that you know there would be that sort of black country lilt now whether I said country or country I mean I never spoke To Bristol and thought well I better sort of flatten it out a bit and I rushed around saying long A's in everything and even got... As far as saying kind of Santa Claus and Gosto, which was even worse. And I used to go pink every time I opened my mouth, thinking that all these people around me were looking at me and thinking that I was some kind of misfit.

Very silly really, but it was very real at the time, I tell you. I suffered. Mmm, very nice. So how do you get out of it then? Just by camouflaging yourself, I suppose? You see, my mother didn't come from the black country, my father did. She, I think, spoke with the southern counties. And I suppose I just slipped more into her and less into him as it were and found my way through It's interesting what you say there because I mean we're not talking about the 60s And I mean that was a great sort of a flood To get on the BBC and certainly for men in those days you had to have an accent to get on the BBC it was never the same for women though was it? No. A woman's accent is always regarded differently to a man's. That's right I mean I suppose in that sense you have to be a bit more faceless. I have attempted to do the very... Things, the very straight journalistic current affairs presentation and now news presentation, which is straight stuff and frankly there should be...

Be any quirky, idiosyncratic little bits of me that come through when I do that. Well, I mean, you said that, then. So here's this very straight image that we've got, but is there a clown bursting to get out? There's another person. Of course there is. I'm the sort of person who, when I've finished the programme at night, sort of turn lights on and off and knock on doors. I'm a sort of born apple scrumper. So no choice of record. Well I'd like to have a bit of Rachmaninoff because Remember when I first came to London and was working on Nationwide? We used to make... it was the days when we made wonderful films and these great macho men would sort of walk the Pennine way and we had great... Tumbling helicopter shots of them and as the helicopters pulled away and his man with a rucksack on his back strewed across the hilltops Up would rise Rachmaninoff's rhapsody on a theme of Paganini, and I thought this is television. This is life. This is terrific

The newest part of Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a theme by Paganini, the pianist there, was Vladimir Ashkenazi. So, lowly, let's go... But before you came to London, let's go back to the days of being a newspaper journalist. Did you always have an ambition to get onto television? No, not at all. I thought that I was going to be the world's greatest investigative reporter on The Sunday Times.

And I joined the Thomson organization who then owned the Sunday Times. I went to the Western Mail and Echo in Cardiff. And I mean this was the great carrot they held up for us of course that if we were good enough and actually stratted around the South Wales valleys for long enough and hard enough and well enough, we would end up on the inside. Team. So that was really the great ambition. So how did television come into your life then? purely by chance, like all of these things. I, having done this three years in newspapers, my family had moved to Devon from the Midlands, and I used to go down. Weekend, beautiful place to be and I suddenly thought hey hang on this is quite nice why don't I come and work down here so I wrote to the BBC in And I also actually wrote to newspapers in Exeter and that kind of thing, went to see them all. And the BBC and Plymouth had... They recently lost their women reporters two in a row. One was called Angela Ripon, the next was called...

Jan Leeming and they didn't have a female around and they said, Well, you can come and do it, but we haven't got any money. However, there's this new program that's been invented. It'll never work. It's called Nationwide. This was 1970. Nationwide is paying us all the regions of the BBC 20 pounds a week to do a bit of research, but you can have that 20 pounds of research. Week if you like but you may not do research for Nationwide, you may write the news, you may anything. Will you come and be a freelance dog's body? I went to do for a thousand pounds a year. So given that situation then you need something of a break. And you're big breaking that's because a lot of other people vying for position what was your big break I think Hugh Scully went ill. And they did well, no, to be fair before that I think I'd gone out to make a film a reporter was ill. And they needed someone to go make a film about oyster pies somewhere down in the depths of Cornwall. Another choice of record.

This one is a haunting record by a woman called Dori Previn. She began I think as a poet and it sounds like that because the words are lovely. It's called Lady with the Braid and it's... It's all about a young woman who's begging a man to stay the night with her because she can't better be alone. the lady with the braid. Sue, let's talk a little bit about nationwide because it occupied a very important and part of your life and quite a time in your life too. How long was it that you worked for nationwide on and off?

On and off for some 14 years I should say. I mean I stopped and had a baby in the middle and went back again. Terrific program. I mean the most marvellous launching pad for any journalist really because there was something for everyone in it. And I think... I think it was one of the best programmes that the BBC's ever put together. I would say that, wouldn't I? But I do think that it's a great shame that it died. And I suspect one day, you know, some bright young producer will come along and say, I've had this wonderful idea. Why do you...? We try and get all the nation's studios on the air at the same time. Wouldn't it be wonderful? We'll have some people sitting in London and they'll be able to call in all the region, you know, and it will happen. Sure as eggs one of these days because it was the most perfect vehicle for daily Affairs journalism. Yes it was. I'll show you on enthusiasm for it. And of course it's a show too that only the BBC can do because only the BBC has got the structure to demand that program. Exactly. And the sorts of people that I worked with like Michael...

And Bob Wellings. I mean we remain friends and we'll be friends forever and the public sensed that, you know, they liked that sense of family, that sense of happiness, the sense We enjoyed each other's company and wanted to share it with them. And that's the great secret of a successful program. If you can actually come through the screen and lend that... To the viewer. That's what they like and why shouldn't they and that's what we like. It's enormously fulfilling. Another choice of record please. Well, this is just a deliciously romantic bit of opera. Emi's farewell from Labo M. This is tingle down spine time and perhaps tear down cheek.

His farewell from that boy and the singer was Mirella Frainy. You want to be famous. This is an impossible question, Michael. I don't think I actively wanted to be, but if I'm being very honest as people always are when they sit in this chair, something... Deep down inside me perhaps knew that I might. And I mean do we enjoy that way? No, I think that I think I understand that but I mean do you do enjoy being famous do you enjoy being recognized? I don't not enjoy it, but I don't entirely enjoy it, no. I do not like the invasion of my privacy. But as I've said to you, I don't think really one can do what I do and not have that. So I try to keep it in...

Is it more difficult, though, do you think, being a famous woman on television and a famous man? Are there more problems attendant upon that? on that. I suppose the answer to that question is if you are a famous, I'm not sure sex makes any difference but I suspect if you are famous and you are not entirely, entirely and totally orthodox that is to say you live with your husband and you're tucked up with two and a half children then. Obviously there will always be a kind of prurient interest in you and As I say, that does distress me a little. And in the industry that you're in as well, there was a program recently done on BBC television which tried to prove conclusively that women were discriminated against within the industry. What do you use on that? I don't... I don't believe that they are at all and I think in the end that if you can do it you will get there. I think there are fewer women knocking on doors. I think

that women need to be encouraged to knock on doors. A lot of women don't do it because they don't think they'll get there. In other words, what I'm saying is I think a lot of it is born in the middle of the day. In the women themselves. I do not think that there is a... Bias within the management on the whole. I think it's there for the taking and it is actually being taken. I do believe that the cause of women gets overstated these days because if you Pull the whole business apart and take a close look at it. Women are there and there are more and more of them every day. And what about the other accusation, the counter-accusation to that, that a lot of women are hired because they're token women? There's a bit of that and I think 'twas ever thus' I think what Peter Wood said the other day is probably quite right that it does matter more it is a sad fact of life it matters more what a woman wears and what a woman looks like

than it does a man. I mean, had there been a female equivalent of Peter Woods with the baggage around the ice, she would never have been given a job in television. So I suspect he was thinking about that when he made his comments. I think there always will be an element of that. I think it is up to us as individuals, if we do not... Wish to be used in that way to make sure that we are not. I have to say I don't think I I don't believe I am. - Since we're talking about people with baggy eyes, I can tell you're getting personal here, so I'll ask you when you've got a choice of record. I think a little spoken voice. I think I would miss the spoken voice and what better one than that of Alec Guinness and I think a bit of poetry because I do rely on a bit of poetry. And I thought we'd have T.S. Eliot's four quartets and I'd like a piece...

From the second part of the Four Quartets, the East Coker. It sounds a sad little piece but it's fundamentally optimistic and I think I'm fundamentally optimistic and I would need to be on this island. I said to my soul, be still and wait without hope, for hope would be hope for the wrong thing. Wait without love, for love would be love of the wrong thing. There is yet faith for the wrong thing. The faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting. Wait without thought. For you are not ready for thought, so the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing. Those are lines from T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets spoken by Alec Guinness. What I can't understand about you is that, given all your talents, and you proved them in Question Time and in San Yavaterio,

You were a very good television all-rounder. I can't understand why you relish so much the job of being a news presenter, because it always seemed to me that that really is... The kind of boring job to do on television. I mean it's a proper job but it's a boring job. You don't mince your words, you either. Well, if I... If all I did was present the news, then yes, I would be deeply bored, because it would just be a matter of reading the autocue very nicely. That of course... Not what I do and is not what fascinates me. What fascinates me is being where the... Action is I have always been for 17 years in daily television where... Is happening and of course to be in the newsroom and to work in the newsroom and actually be The receiving end of everything that is happening across the world is fascinating and I love all of that. And of course we write a lot of the news that we read.

We have quite an editorial say in its ordering. People seem to think somehow that the news is handed down in tablets of stone by someone called Mr. Reuter or Mr. UPI and that nice people like me with their best bibs and tuckers on sit and read it out prettily. It ain't like that. It's actually quite a bit of a joke. Hot sweaty job that takes all day and I love all of that. What I do at the end of that day walking in at six o'clock and presenting the news is not particularly... Watching in the professional television sense that you mean, but all the rest is, and getting Right is and being able to understand it as I say it and be able to turn it around because someone is muttering in my ear that something else has happened or I've got to turn and do an interview about something.

On the ball, up to date, where it's at, is terrific and endlessly fascinating. And you know that, Michael Parkinson. Well, no, I've never done it, so I'm talking through my hat, basically. But I mean, it just seems to me that it's a job that most people who could read autocue could do. Now, writing it, of course, is a different thing altogether. Something else. I mean, it seems to me the excitement of the job is doing the programs like the Robin Depp and whatever, you know, interviewing... In people like Norman Tebbit. Now, Mr. Tebbit, of course, you were criticized for your attitude toward Mr. Tebbit. And rule and that sort of thing. To start with, I mean, what attitude do you have toward interviewing politicians? Do you think they're fair game? Fair game would imply that I'm out to get them, or to trip them up, or to ambush them in some way. No, not at all. But... What I do believe very firmly is that I must not be in any way intimidated by them. in any way.

Thing that they have said or done in the past and that I must not be overwhelmed by them and their office because at the end of the day, I'm not going to be able to do anything The day I am there in place of the viewer to ask of them and to press them on the... That the viewer wants to know and if they are ducking and weaving as politicians do and if they're giving long, garrulous answers and not getting to the point and fudging it, then... Will press and one should press and that is what the viewer expects and wants, I think, of its... Television presenters, television interviewers who deal with politicians. We've got to a point now actually in television interviewing... We can actually find something out. And that is our duty. It's our duty to the viewers. Exactly so. Another choice of record. I would like to have a Christmas carol because I think this is a hot island isn't it? Yes and I thought it would be nice to think of winter and if you think of winter you think of Christmas and if you think of Christmas you think of children and I wouldn't half...

My children on this island. I mean they are in the end what all of this is all about, you know, and I would quite like to have in the bleak midwinter.

What about the future now? I mean you're still young you're still ambitious. I mean where do you? Do you want to do a five-night-a-week talk show? Or do you want to do the Robin Day programme? Or what do you want to be? I haven't decided. It's rather nice at the moment that I'm allowed to do a bit of both of those. It's strange really because they are sort of two ends of the spectrum. You know, I really can't decide. I suppose perhaps what I want in the end is what I was hinting at earlier, is some kind of return of some kind of nationwide. I rather like the early evening. I feel very comfortable. I like live telly. Whatever it is, it must be live. I cannot stand recording things.

And are in the news for that reason. And I suppose in the end those are the kinds of things that interest me. Making television, live television with those kinds of people. In the early evening when I think... That I know a bit after all these years about the kind of people who are out there watching. Do you know that feeling that you you sort of feel as if you know They kind of know me at the end of the day. And I like that. The final choice is a bit of classy schmaltz really, the tale of Fitzgerald. Adore her voice. If I could sing, I'd like to sing like Ella and I adore it particularly when she sings Cole Porter. So I'd like her to sing every time we say goodbye.

Fitzgerald and every time we say goodbye so lowly are now on your desert island and you have to imagine that that's... Comes along and washes away seven of your records you're left with one which one would it be? It has to be the Rachmaninoff I think because in the end it's it's the most varied it's the most durable and I might be stuck for a long time. What about the book? Assume you've got the Bible and the works of Shakespeare. Well, I hope you enjoyed this video. Thank you for watching. I thought, and it may seem like an odd choice, but I think that I would like Elizabeth David's French provincial cooking. Not just because I could salivate a... The recipes but actually because she writes about it very beautifully and I think therefore one might be able to imagine the food because having caught the fish you see I'm not going to be able to cook them because I couldn't kill them I can catch them but I can't kill them and I I would like To sit and read about her onion tarts oozing with cream and the little curls of whiter than white butter in little crisp dishes.

Well, you lost weight at the same time. I can't afford to do much more of that. And what about the luxury object inanimate? I don't know if this is permitted, but I would like to have an endless supply of... Freshly laundered white linen sheets. I'd like clean sheets every day. Do you know when you go to those old fashioned English hotels and you slip between the sheets and there's that wonderful smell. Been out drying in the sunshine on the line and they're all ironed beautifully and slightly starched. I'd like an endless supply of those. You can give me the iron as well. I find ironing extremely therapeutic. I'll launder them myself and then there'll be plenty of sunshine in which to dry them. Thank you very much indeed. You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Islandists archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk/d.

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