YouSaid · the spoken record

Gloria Hunniford

lines on the record: 43
first: 2006-12-24
most recent: 2006-12-24
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“When my luxury is going to be my photographic album. Family is everything to me, has always been and will always be perfect for me, and I think I could, you know, read and reread my luxury item more probably than I'll read war and peace, but I would never get fed up looking at that. And that would be a great luxury for me to have it.”
2006-12-24 · Desert Island Discs · Gloria Hunniford · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This is a really strange one that I've chosen in a way, because when I went to Canada when I was 17, 18, everybody was reading or trying to read war and peace. And I have tried to read it endlessly during my life. And I always get so far and I can never get through it because it's such a large book. If I'm going to have endless time on this island, maybe eventually I'll get to read it. It might be a certain achievement. So I think in the end I'm going to opt for war and peace.”
2006-12-24 · Desert Island Discs · Gloria Hunniford · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“When my last record I feel I would love to have on a desert island, I've always loved the title of it as called The Beyondness of Things, which is an unusual title. I find it very peaceful. I find if I'm fraught and dashing from A to B, which I am usually, I can put this record on a token. And so I thought if I was lying on that desert island looking into infinity, that this record would be perfect.”
2006-12-24 · Desert Island Discs · Gloria Hunniford · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was very interesting we just played Cliff's record of Miss Unites and the first Christmas after Caren died. He said to me one day, How are you getting on? You know, how are you going to cope with Christmas? And I went, I just have no clue. And he said to me, it was very simple, really. He said to me, to Karen like Christmas. I went she loved her, because in our family, going back to my parents, it's always been the highlight of the year, and he said, Well, look, why don't you go bigger and better than ever for Karen and for her boys? Every time I have difficulty now with anniversaries, I think I'm going to go bigger and better than ever for Karen. Because from a parental point of view, it doesn't get better at all. You have to learn to live around it and through it. In my case, I have two fantastic sons, Michael and Paul. I have a great husband, Stephen, all of whom have been supportive, and I don't think I would have got by without them. So that's how I cope.”
2006-12-24 · Desert Island Discs · Gloria Hunniford · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Charlie and Gabriel and as her grandmother you would expect me to say this but they really are too of the most beautiful boys. Charlie is twelve going on thirteen and Gabriel is ten and very close to being eleven which is very important and I'm at my best when I see them. I see so much of Karen's spirit in them. They look so much like Karen. There are times I just glance at them and I think that is Karen. And that's the way Karen's spirit will be carried forward through the boys”
2006-12-24 · Desert Island Discs · Gloria Hunniford · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“what it's like to be under radiotherapy machine has been helpful to them in their job. So in that sense it's like the book just has a life of its own and will continue in that vein, and I feel that Karen would be very proud of it. I feel as if I'd just finished off in away what she started.”
2006-12-24 · Desert Island Discs · Gloria Hunniford · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Many reasons really first of all, and I think this is probably the biggest drive really, is the fact that I'm the only person left alive who knows Karen's story from beginning to end, and I wanted her boys to know how hard she fought, and this in a way is my legacy to them, and so I feel fortunate in that been able to put that between covers so that they will have it at whatever point they need it. But what has happened, you can never guarantee when you're writing a book or putting a book together what way it's going to take off, is the fact that it seems to have a life of its own now nothing to do with me whatsoever, and I don't wish this to sound way out, but it's almost like Karen is doing her work from a different place. And people write and say I've reassessed my life, my priorities have changed, nurses write and say Karen's own description of what it's like as chemotherapy is about to be shot into your veins.”
2006-12-24 · Desert Island Discs · Gloria Hunniford · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“very specialist record by Cliff Richard, and Cliff was one of few people whom Karen allowed in Australia when he went on concert there. I mean, I've known Cliff for thirty six years, and Karen subsequently, of course, had got to know him very well, and when he came to stay came now to stay for four days at one point in Australia, and one night round the dinner table she asked Cliff to sing the song and he sang at Acapella just at the table.”
2006-12-24 · Desert Island Discs · Gloria Hunniford · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But how fantastic that she made at home, and we were all there, as it turned out, we were all there, so she literally was only in the house for hours. But it is as if her body just held out and she managed to make it home to Seven”
2006-12-24 · Desert Island Discs · Gloria Hunniford · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“and we all went home to get everything ready for Count to return to Sevenoaks, and Russ drove her home because she didn't want to face airports, and she wasn't really well enough, so he put her in the car literally at the hotel door and drove her home. And I couldn't believe that she had actually made it to my kitchen in Seven Oaks. But she arrived home at one o'clock in the morning, and it was just so incredible to see Karen sitting at the kitchen table. Having a cup of tea in her favourite spotty cup, and eventually we got her to bed, and nobody slept that night anyway. You know, I paced the floor thinking, you know, she's back in this house, she's back in this country. It was something I'd been waiting for for, you know, three years all that time that she'd been in Australia. But we lost her at about a quarter past five that afternoon.”
2006-12-24 · Desert Island Discs · Gloria Hunniford · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“She did despite the awful feeling in the pit of my stomach all the time that she might not beat it nevertheless she always convinced me that even if she didn't beat it that she would manage it she did in the last year of her life in Australia discover a clinic in Switzerland which did a lot of cleansing of the body you know cleansing the blood and looking at energy levels and she got great benefit from that on the first trip and then she came back again for the second trip and the plan then was to stay in Switzerland and then come home at least for the summer and that was what we were so looking forward to and I had been with her in Switzerland for month before she came home she got more and more ill while she was in Switzerland having the complimentary treatment and had to have some radiotherapy and then we realized that she really did need to come home so”
2006-12-24 · Desert Island Discs · Gloria Hunniford · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Now that I look back on it I can see what Australia gave her in terms of that privacy because she was away from Pap Brassi's eyes. It did give her that anonymity but you're right she fought a very hard seven year battle. You've got to remember of course that it's not you're not fighting all of the time. They were very happy times in between the seven years and so you get back to normality and Karen was always so positive. I mean she really became the teacher in this case because we learn so much by watching her and she gave us the strength in a way to be positive for her because it's very easy for a parent to crumble at the first diagnosis because you can't believe it. I still don't believe it in a way but she did fight on with her battle with this great tenacity and great courage and she was going to beat it and then of course along would come the next bit.”
2006-12-24 · Desert Island Discs · Gloria Hunniford · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“First of all, she didn't want anybody to know. She didn't want to be seen as a victim, she didn't want that sort of pious look from people, how are you? How are you getting on? She didn't want that. When she went to Australia about four years into her cancer, I couldn't understand.”
2006-12-24 · Desert Island Discs · Gloria Hunniford · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A Gabriel was, her younger son, was literally a matter of months old, and she rang me up one day and said that she discovered a small lump, and her doctor and myself and indeed anybody in the medical profession they all said oh it's a milk lump, it'll disappear, it'll be fine. So we were all so convinced that it was going to be fine but very, very sadly it wasn't.”
2006-12-24 · Desert Island Discs · Gloria Hunniford · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I was very privileged, very privileged, and so I saw both boys being born, Charlie and Gabriel I'm talking about, and I was very, very lucky and very fortunate that Karen gave me that privilege of being there.”
2006-12-24 · Desert Island Discs · Gloria Hunniford · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well ye should have tried being her mother at times with clothes because at times I'd say Karen, what is it? It would be bits of dishcloth tied round her wrists and round her knees or bows sort of above her knees tied. But she was always so vibrant she had a kind of a wild Irish spirit really about her and people loved that about her.”
2006-12-24 · Desert Island Discs · Gloria Hunniford · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Always her own person, even from a very young child, always her own person. She never really wanted to conform. She wanted to be different.”
2006-12-24 · Desert Island Discs · Gloria Hunniford · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The next record is Neil Diamond. I don't know about you, but there are relatively few artists at the end of the day whom I want to listen to all the way through the album and never get tired of. And Neil Diamond is one person I never get tired of listening to his voice. I just think he's a wonderful singer. I love his voice. I love just the gravitas of his voice at times. And this particular song, I think, is just a great love song.”
2006-12-24 · Desert Island Discs · Gloria Hunniford · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh, of course, and again not anything in my plan at all, and I came over to London with a three month contract, and I wasn't sure whether it would work out, but I wanted the opportunity, and it was scary. I mean, the first day I started at Radio 2, somebody had to show me how to get from Seven Oaks in Kent to Broadcasting House. I didn't know, because it all sounds terribly innocent and naive, and I'm afraid to tell you, it was. I just sort of went with the flow. Yes, it was thrilling. Yes, it was exciting. Yes, it was challenging. And I wanted to do it desperately when the job was offered, and I'd always loved the station, so I was very pleased to do it, and I had a wonderful time.”
2006-12-24 · Desert Island Discs · Gloria Hunniford · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think people in Ireland in general just like talking, to be honest, and I'm very interested in people. It doesn't matter who they are. That sounds trite, but I genuinely am interested in people. And you're right. I do my homework religiously because the only time that I would feel nervous is if I felt I didn't have enough information to do the interview or present whatever item it happens to be. And if there is any merit, it's very kind of you to say it, but if there's any merit in it at all, I think it's almost inherent of all those times sitting around the fire in Ireland, just people chatting.”
2006-12-24 · Desert Island Discs · Gloria Hunniford · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“My next record is Frank Sinatra, and when I was working on radio two, if I was ever down in the dumps at all for any reason and I saw Frank Sinatra in my running order, I was thrilled because he immediately makes me feel good.”
2006-12-24 · Desert Island Discs · Gloria Hunniford · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, and we belong to the same department, and so they had a rule that husband and wife couldn't work in the same department, so I had to leave. And I was happy to leave, though, because I had started to sing again and had had the opportunity of doing a bit of singing in front of camera, so that burning ambition started to come to the fore again.”
2006-12-24 · Desert Island Discs · Gloria Hunniford · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, but it was a happy wedding, nevertheless, with all our friends from Ulster Television, and my sister came and my brother turned up, and so and lots of other members of my family. So it was a very good day despite the fact that my parents went there.”
2006-12-24 · Desert Island Discs · Gloria Hunniford · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Very much so, and UTV had opened up while I'd been away in Canada, so this was the commercial station, of course, and in my head I said, If I get this job I meant to stay, and if I don't get it, I meant to go back to Canada, and that's how I made the decision. I got the job. What was the job? The job was a production secretary. So that really was a deciding factor, and Don, my first husband, he worked in Ulster Television as well. That's where I met Don and then started to have my children.”
2006-12-24 · Desert Island Discs · Gloria Hunniford · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I didn't do all of that immediately, I have to say, because when I came back from Canada, I really had left most of my clothes behind. I came back for Christmas as promised, but I was going to go back in the spring, I had enough money for my return ticket. But my father had noticed that Ulster television had a very good job going at this point.”
2006-12-24 · Desert Island Discs · Gloria Hunniford · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“My next record takes me absolutely back to the ship going to Canada it was called The Empress of Canada. Almost as soon as I got on board, I of course looked up what was on the movie list, and Gig had just been released when I couldn't believe my luck. It was this brand new film, and I went to see it almost immediately, starring, of course, Leslie Carron. In years to come I was to spell my daughter's name after Leslie Caron, and I loved the movie, and I've subsequently always loved the overture from the film because it just gives me all the memories of the movie all the way through and it's a lovely dipstick, if you like.”
2006-12-24 · Desert Island Discs · Gloria Hunniford · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Not really funnily enough, by that stage I think I was on the solo kick anyway. I was up there doing my bit on my own, singing my songs on my own, so in a way I didn't I don't mean this sound awful that I didn't want to be a team player but once I think once you start to become a solo artist whatever age you're at that's that's certainly where my mind was focused I am one for a challenge and I do feel as though luck plays a huge part in it being in the right place at the right time that you have to then work very hard and I am ambitious in that sense in that whatever I do I want it to be the best I can make it”
2006-12-24 · Desert Island Discs · Gloria Hunniford · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Most definitely, but they said we'll let you go as long as you promise to come back for Christmas, and it was one of the most exciting times of my entire life because I witnessed at first hand how comfortable people were with all nationalities and all creeds and all cultures and all beliefs, and so therefore internally that changed me completely and allowed me to have a broader vision.”
2006-12-24 · Desert Island Discs · Gloria Hunniford · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, when I was about nine I came home from school one day and there was this wonderful looking tall white haired man standing with my mother at the door. I'd never seen him before in my life, and it turned out to be her uncle James, and he hadn't been home for forty years. He'd left Northern Ireland to make his fortune, and had come back traditionally to look up his Irish family. And so therefore my whole interest in Canada was born at that point, Mr.”
2006-12-24 · Desert Island Discs · Gloria Hunniford · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“My next record is oh the one and only Doris Day Well, when I was growing up in Portadaienne, we had three cinemas. We saw a lot of movies. So in some ways, I think that ambition to be successful at something was all part of the cinema routine. I mean, we didn't have a proper bathroom at this point, but when I'd see in the movies these luxurious bathrooms and fridges and all those luxury things that we didn't have, I think there's a little part of me as a child thought I could have that one day. But Dorothy was always the one. I knew all the songs I would come home and sing all those songs. I loved her clothes as I got older. And then in nineteen ninety three I got a call from a friend of mine who works a record company and said would you like to go and interview Doris Day? It cut a very long story short again. I was on that plane within twenty four hours. She looked just the same, a little bit thicker in the middle, like myself, but just the same, and she was fabulous. That really career wise is one of the highlights.”
2006-12-24 · Desert Island Discs · Gloria Hunniford · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I guess he did, and it was very powerful, and I really remembered the feeling of total elation to this day, and a lot of that faith remained, and it has stood me, of course, in great stead, and since Karen died many, many people have said, didn't it shake your faith, didn't you really question God? Yes, of course you do. But my faith was so important to me and still is to this day. So I can joke in a little sense about, you know, the man in the black suit and the big hat, but on the other hand, a lot of what was portrayed to me at that time stuck, and I love going into a church even if there's nothing happening just to sit in the quietness of that.”
2006-12-24 · Desert Island Discs · Gloria Hunniford · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A lot of it was tradition until I was about thirteen, and then the American evangelist came to town these charismatic men in their black silk suits and their big hats, and it would have been the Billy Graham period of time.”
2006-12-24 · Desert Island Discs · Gloria Hunniford · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“When I went to church five times on a Sunday, but you've got to remember that this was our social life, and because I was a singer I wanted to be in the choir, of course, and Porterdine was locked up on a Sunday. I mean, there is a well known saying about I spent a week in Portadine one Sunday, and that would be about right. Because even the swings in the park were tied up. So I would have gone to junior services we called in the morning because I sang with the junior choir. Then I would have gone to senior service. We all sort of went on in a trip. Then in the afternoon Sunday school, and then back home in the evening for our tea as we would have called it on the Sunday, and then back to church in the evening, and then after that there was a Christian workers union prayer meeting. Now that's a lot of churching on a Sunday. But to the”
2006-12-24 · Desert Island Discs · Gloria Hunniford · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Van Morrison, of course, very much relates to Northern Ireland, and this particular song, have I told you later, Into your soul on many different levels. Karen, when she got married, had this as a song to have her first dance, and it became a family song. And so when Stephen and I got married eight years ago, we had it actually in the church. But it's very meaningful to me for obvious reasons. I think Van Morrison's version is the best.”
2006-12-24 · Desert Island Discs · Gloria Hunniford · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Not directly it was one of those things which They did really treat John like a son, but a neighbour told him was one of the worst days of my mum's life.”
2006-12-24 · Desert Island Discs · Gloria Hunniford · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Very much a My father was an orange But he was very staunch in that even when I got married for the first time. He wouldn't come to the wedding, because, and you would understand. was that element of what would the neighbours say?”
2006-12-24 · Desert Island Discs · Gloria Hunniford · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, but my mum never seemed to grumble about having to stay at home, and you know, on reflection my mum never went out unless it suited my dad.”
2006-12-24 · Desert Island Discs · Gloria Hunniford · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“My first pay was seven and sixpence, and I always wrote down what I wished much I got paid because my dad always wrote down his tricks. So I would write Dr. paid seven and sixpence sang, buttons and bows powder your face with sunshine and the Isle of Innisfree. I had a perfect record, which I still have to this day.”
2006-12-24 · Desert Island Discs · Gloria Hunniford · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“say from the very beginning as a child I must have thought I had a wonderful voice, but I used to spend hours and hours. in our kitchen at home, with one of the old begalite radios up on a shelf. And I used the principle that if I could hear them, that they must be able to hear me. So I wanted to do it sufficiently that I, in my soul, I must have had some. So I would learn maybe four five songs, and then I would go out with my dad, and I love doing it.”
2006-12-24 · Desert Island Discs · Gloria Hunniford · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“actually Sir James, of course, and Lady Galway, his wife Jeanie, and they played the flutes together before they have their serial.”
2006-12-24 · Desert Island Discs · Gloria Hunniford · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Or Irish eyes are smiling. Record really relates to a very good family friend. I have known him for hundreds of years it feels James Galway. When Caron died he was just bereft. me a lot, and I'd say to him Understand it. I just can't get to grips with any of it at all, and he'd say to me Maybe you just don't know the answer yet. He's very wise in some ways, and he gives great advice. And of course he is just one of the best musicians in the world. But what I admire by Jimmy is it doesn't matter how classical and how serious his program is, he always finishes his concerts with the London area, always.”
2006-12-24 · Desert Island Discs · Gloria Hunniford · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But you got to remember, of course, that I was singing at all this homespun entertainment stuff in terms of church halls and kind of environment and to cut a very long story short, I mean, basically if you could sing an Irish song and tune you were on. And so within a very short time, the radio station, one of the radio station I was working for, gave me this. You've never seen anybody learn so many Irish songs so quickly in all your life”
2006-12-24 · Desert Island Discs · Gloria Hunniford · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'd like to tell you it was always a plan, but it wasn't. The Ulster Work Ethic, which you referred to, was very strong, it was taught to me, but I, for example, Nothing just reading a book or just idling away my mum would have said, What are you doing? Go and do something but it wasn't my personal slid into everything really over the years. My father was a newspaper man by day. by night which was a magical mix literally for a child. The age of five, I guess, I begged to go along and stand side stage to watch my dad. There he was with a razor blade trick and the Chinese rings and rabbits coming out of hats, and to me, of course, I mean he was my dad for goodness sake and he could do all of this. And I just thought all of this was basically what I wanted to do.”
2006-12-24 · Desert Island Discs · Gloria Hunniford · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source