YouSaid · the spoken record

Margaret Rhodes

lines on the record: 50
first: 2012-06-03
most recent: 2012-06-03
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 I wanted to take my dog, are you going to allow that? How unkind of you Well I will have to take I'll take my favourite jersey in case cold nights are available on the desert island.”
2012-06-03 · Desert Island Discs · Margaret Rhodes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, after a lot of thought, I am going to take the big reader's digest book of British gardens, and I shall spend happy hours devising well watered green gardens, etc.”
2012-06-03 · Desert Island Discs · Margaret Rhodes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, could my husband we all adored bring me sunshine with Walcom Wise So this is just memory of all the happy times we had with children watching all those programmes.”
2012-06-03 · Desert Island Discs · Margaret Rhodes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I don't really honestly want to talk about that very much, but it's because it was a very private time. She didn't talk or say anything, and I got the clergyman to come and say prayers and things, and it was just very peaceful.”
2012-06-03 · Desert Island Discs · Margaret Rhodes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“About Oh, yes, because everything one did with it was fun. I can remember doing the very dullest things that you could imagine. And somehow it was fun. She had this miraculous way of somehow turning everything into fun, and I don't know how she did it. She was just heaven to work for.”
2012-06-03 · Desert Island Discs · Margaret Rhodes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“she drank lunchtime she'd have de bunny at dinner in the evening she'd have a martini that was opposite. I mean, she didn't drink wine at all, and she would occasionally have a little drip of champagne”
2012-06-03 · Desert Island Discs · Margaret Rhodes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We'll go to the very grand things with Queen Elizabeth. Common old things like me were called women of the bed chamber. Was going with that when she was doing engagements and things and dealing with the letters.”
2012-06-03 · Desert Island Discs · Margaret Rhodes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But actually, it wasn't even technically a lady in waiting, because it divided very sharply. There are two ladies who have to be actually lady something or other.”
2012-06-03 · Desert Island Discs · Margaret Rhodes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And there was a coup, and so we were very much persona non grata, and had really quite a difficult and dramatic time trying to get out of the country, because we kept on hearing of people being tortured, put in prison and say we made our way back to the frontier. We suddenly heard tramp, tramp, tramp, and the brigade of Boutonese soldiers had surrounded the guest house we were in and sat there with our rifles pointing inwards at us all. One of the drifties was with they let us go, but they wanted to detain the local people who were looking after us, and they were going to be really cruel to them, and we wouldn't stand for that. And then I mean in the end in the end after a lot of negotiations, they agreed to let us go and to take these two with us. But it was quite dramatic while it was all happening.”
2012-06-03 · Desert Island Discs · Margaret Rhodes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's very special, wasn't it? Yes, that was. Dennis had been friends with a lady from Sekim who must come to Sikim, you know, hotly followed by a wonderful invitation on hand rolled rice paper covered in gold for her brother's wedding, her brother was the son of what was then called the Maharaja. So we begin with the laughed it off and then we thought would one ever be asked to a Buddhist wedding in the heart of the Himalayas. The whole thing was out of this world really, you know. We were guests of the brother and Shirley McLean was the guest of somebody else, but we did eventually land up together. She was awfully nice. I mean rather surprisingly nice because I know I always expect famous ecstasies to be rather sort of snoozy, you know.”
2012-06-03 · Desert Island Discs · Margaret Rhodes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But they were obviously because the King and Queen were coming. I mean, you know, so yes, there were quite big crowds. All Dennis kept on saying apparently the bridegroom pays for the bells to be rung in churches, and he was counting literally all the bells thinking he wouldn't be able to pay for them all.”
2012-06-03 · Desert Island Discs · Margaret Rhodes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What happened to your upper class pragmatism there? My parents thought was the most brilliant ideal that he'd ever been. But anyway, that was no good because I'd fallen in love, and by the time I'd met him he was already well separated from his first wife.”
2012-06-03 · Desert Island Discs · Margaret Rhodes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“My husband's brother his son is Teddy Tahu wrote, brought up in Tallinn in New Zealand, and he actually got me his wonderful voice, and he's singing something which I don't know what it means from anyways from the marriage of Figaro.”
2012-06-03 · Desert Island Discs · Margaret Rhodes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But I don't remember we used to be able to buy whole pigeons for two and six half a crown, so I Maybe we gave them pigeon. I know I honestly can't remember any of that. But it was all interesting and fun during that period of life.”
2012-06-03 · Desert Island Discs · Margaret Rhodes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, in the end it was really nice because my brother, the other brother Andrew, came back to London and said we both lodged at Buckingham Perlis, and we were given a housemaid's pantry, where we could cook. We had tiny, tiny little place with a tiny little table, and we didn't have a fridge or anything exotic. So I put the milk bottle out on the window sill, and got a rocket out of all proportion to my hideous act, by the master of the household, who said that I was defacing the front of Biking Pelle's putting milk bottles on the windows. Not to the London thing And then one glorious moment we actually had the king and queen to dinner in their own housemaid's pantry.”
2012-06-03 · Desert Island Discs · Margaret Rhodes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh, yes, oh absolutely. I think otherwise at an eighteen year old I'd have been published sitting at Carbridge, you know, and”
2012-06-03 · Desert Island Discs · Margaret Rhodes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, well, one wouldn't help but understand it, but I've always thought the funny thing about human beings is how quickly and easily they can adapt to a whole lot of different circumstances. I mean, it didn't seem odd, for instance, that I might go and spend a weekend with my family and old friends out of London and come back, then walk through streets with flaming buildings and glass shattered and bombs dropping. You know, it just happened and you did it.”
2012-06-03 · Desert Island Discs · Margaret Rhodes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I promise you I can't remember. I mean, it just sort of happened. the head of the organization was just known by the letter C, and he wrote in Greening, and he was God. I mean, he promised you he was really God. It was very interesting. I'm actually involved getting reports of all the agents coming to my desk, and so one before they happened one knew all about where the V ones were being made and heavy water factories in Norway and all that kind of thing, you know.”
2012-06-03 · Desert Island Discs · Margaret Rhodes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I suppose it does too near to this day and age I think I really wanted to join the Wrens and I rather fancied the thought of being one of those ladies who push ships about on a huge screen, you know Anyway for whatever reason it was I didn't become a wren and I became a secretary and MI six”
2012-06-03 · Desert Island Discs · Margaret Rhodes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“When my husband had a heart check and was in hospital, Princess Margaret sent him the Vatican rag. That's how we first got to know about it.”
2012-06-03 · Desert Island Discs · Margaret Rhodes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We were having tea on a terrace at Windsor Castle with my friend Elizabeth Longman and the King Queen, the two princesses. In the war, and suddenly they heard American voices, loud American voices coming round the corner below. And the king said, Oh my God, I forgot it's General Eisenhower bringing a whole party of people round, and the king and queen just looked at each other, never said a word, and they got up and they both got under the tablecloth. And we all followed suit rather slowly, giggling under the tablecloth until they Americans had gone. But I know that Queen had confessed to General Eisenhower that this had happened. So she said it was quite all right for me to do it.”
2012-06-03 · Desert Island Discs · Margaret Rhodes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, I told him ages before that I was thinking of writing. And then I remember asking her if I could tell the story of when we hid under the tablecloth to”
2012-06-03 · Desert Island Discs · Margaret Rhodes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I think from my point of view merely I do not enter the political talk. I keep clear of that I mean I catch it the queen it was much more formal in the King and Queen's day I'm just thinking of Balmoral for the moment all the guests were ready in the drawing room by the time the king and queen came in always in long evening dresses more or less made a stand in a line and look pretty and then they came in your curtsy but I mean now it's much more informal but she's much nicer.”
2012-06-03 · Desert Island Discs · Margaret Rhodes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh, well it started from when I was really very small, and they were living at the Duke and Duchess of York at Berk Hall, which was a smaller house at Berm, and it was a great, wonderful holiday of the year, you know, and it's a blissful house, it's heaven, not grand, it's a small little eighteenth century house, built on a hill with a garden goes steeply down to a burn at the bottom. We just had such fun there until nineteen thirty five six when all the drama started. Dune was just playing we rode Shetland ponies we went on picnics they had a little island at the bottom in the burn and we used to go down and have picnic teas there I regret to say that we used to have a competition to see how many slices of brown bread and golden syrup could be eaten in one go which I won with twelve slices of bread. Colon syrup”
2012-06-03 · Desert Island Discs · Margaret Rhodes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, because it's sort of the epitome of having achieved grown upness was just what was being played and it was just a nice tune of the moment which reminds me of that moment.”
2012-06-03 · Desert Island Discs · Margaret Rhodes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“of necessity in a way because circumstances have changed to the next generation. I have to slightly shamefacedly admit I had a nanny, a nursery maid, and we had a married couple. He did the garden and she did the cooking. But that didn't last very long, and you know, the nannies disappeared in the end.”
2012-06-03 · Desert Island Discs · Margaret Rhodes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, as a very small child, remarkably little one was brought down in a nice little dress at tea time. I mean I love them both dearly, and they loved each other frantically, which was sweet, you know. I mean, I can actually remember going round our little pond lake things we had. I can remember walking round say to myself that I was going to make up my mind to have as good and happier managers as my parents had had, which I did.”
2012-06-03 · Desert Island Discs · Margaret Rhodes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think he never talked about life as a prisoner. It was sort of sad, really, because he never got married, so he had a lonely life in a way. But he was actually such fun himself, you know.”
2012-06-03 · Desert Island Discs · Margaret Rhodes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh I do know it was five whole years and you think what that does for a young man it's sort of such a huge chunk of life gone. He was a member of a little group called the prominent whom the Germans used as hostages really, you know. Towards the end it became apparent that German high command had ordered them to all be shot. And my brother was actually the senior officers of the party and he managed to talk the German general into agreeing that if he signed their death warrant he would be signing his own death. and he managed to convince him of this and thus got them out eventually”
2012-06-03 · Desert Island Discs · Margaret Rhodes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There were two lovely books in my childhood called the Songs of the North, and the particular one called Lizzie Lindsay used to be sung by my eldest brother, the one who was going to end up in Colditz as a prisoner of war. And he used to sing this a great deal so it brings back memory. Will ye go the healings o' me all ye gang t the healins lazy limsy My bride an adlin to be”
2012-06-03 · Desert Island Discs · Margaret Rhodes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I thought it was rather a splendid thing to tell your child I love adventure. I love the feelings just possible that I'm treading on a stone that nobody's ever actually trodden on before”
2012-06-03 · Desert Island Discs · Margaret Rhodes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There were a few old heads suck about the house, yes, including a lovely, lovely papa grizzly bear, who lived in the hall, and he was a very formidable fellow”
2012-06-03 · Desert Island Discs · Margaret Rhodes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, theoretically, yes. Because he didn't marry till he was nearly just on forty. By the time I was conscious of him, you know, he was quite an old man.”
2012-06-03 · Desert Island Discs · Margaret Rhodes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's a slight exaggeration he merely visited. He led a very adventurous life. I mean, I sometimes feel quite proud of the fact in a funny way, but my father was born in eighteen sixty seven, which was halfway through Queen Victoria's reign. So in the late eighteen hundreds and the early nineteen hundreds, he was explorer come big game hunter. He went to marvellous places which you've probably never seen a European before.”
2012-06-03 · Desert Island Discs · Margaret Rhodes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I mean, again, remembering that my childhood was in the late twenties, which is a very long time ago, there wasn't very much in the way of central heating, and I do remember vividly because they had a wash stand in one's bedroom with a jug of water on it, and the water could freeze in the jug in winter. I mean, the last thing our house was grand. I mean, it was gum boots and dirty clothes and mucking about.”
2012-06-03 · Desert Island Discs · Margaret Rhodes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, my parents got my gender rather wrong I was never given a doll for which I was heartily thankful because I thought they were dreadfully sissy things when I was given bows and arrows, armour and a sword so I think they got mildly muddled.”
2012-06-03 · Desert Island Discs · Margaret Rhodes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, it was, but the armory and the so called secret passage which I think had long been blocked up was actually too creepy. I used to go past the door in rather a hurry, and I wouldn't go in there by myself. Too frightening.”
2012-06-03 · Desert Island Discs · Margaret Rhodes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I was actually born in London, but my home was in Scotland. It was a sort of moderately big house, and it had what in Scotland are called the policies, which are the sort of estates round about, and”
2012-06-03 · Desert Island Discs · Margaret Rhodes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well this is really part of just remembering how lucky I've been to go to various of the great occasions and I think this was sung at the coronation of President Queen. So this is just part of the memory of the great events.”
2012-06-03 · Desert Island Discs · Margaret Rhodes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think he was just a really happy family wedding, quite honestly. It was just, you know, everybody rejoicing that the young couple had come together, a lovely family wedding.”
2012-06-03 · Desert Island Discs · Margaret Rhodes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, A, I was only 13 or something. So I didn't make a lot of it. You know, I was too young to have any views about it at that stage. It was just an all consuming topic of the day, and I think the poor king to be and queen to be were appalled and horrified at what was happening.”
2012-06-03 · Desert Island Discs · Margaret Rhodes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well all I can say rarely is that if you don't have a monarch you have to have a president I personally can't imagine that people would be wildly over excited at say President Callaghan or President Major with the same intensity as they view a monarch and that there's something about hereditary nits that I don't know but in a way suddenly manages”
2012-06-03 · Desert Island Discs · Margaret Rhodes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think she's a very pragmatic person, and I think she has overseen a gentle change in the monarchy, bringing it a little bit nearer the people. You know, in doing that job you have to squash the self of you in order to give yourself wholeheartedly to the job. Spontaneity has to leave your life. You know, six months ahead what you're going to be doing every day. And that demands quite a lot of sacrifice. And she has done that. And I think she's just been perfectly marvellous queen.”
2012-06-03 · Desert Island Discs · Margaret Rhodes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I think it has changed a lot, but in a way the thing that's alarming about it is the speed with which there is sixty years of gone by.”
2012-06-03 · Desert Island Discs · Margaret Rhodes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think it was because we had only just recovered from six, seven years of deprivation and blackouts and rationing, and it was like the sun suddenly coming out behind a lot of very dark clouds, and I think everybody felt also that with a new young queen, a whole new era was opening up. It was somehow exciting.”
2012-06-03 · Desert Island Discs · Margaret Rhodes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, that solves that problem then. Who wants to be a millionaire? Was played incessantly during a rarely happy time that my husband and I had because we had Made great friends with a couple who earned a coffee farm in Kenya, and we went out every year, where we listened to this and others every evening while drinking white ladies”
2012-06-03 · Desert Island Discs · Margaret Rhodes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Las, with old age creeping up on me, I remember less and less. But no, it was a wonderful and joyful occasion, and in a way the service in the abbey I don't really remember very much about because one was carried away with the music and everything else, you know. It was just generally a very fun moment, have you.”
2012-06-03 · Desert Island Discs · Margaret Rhodes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I emptied my entire magazine at a very low flying German airplane that came over right literally treetop level, and I thought that, you know, some miracle I might hit the petrol tank, and it would go up in flames.”
2012-06-03 · Desert Island Discs · Margaret Rhodes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, the point was that when one was growing up there didn't seem remotely privileged. I mean, my parents were both mad keen gardeners and were perpetually upside down in a flower bed, wielding or doing something, you know. And I was a youngest by a very long way, so that I had a rally in a way quite a lonely childhood, which suited me fine, I mean luckily, got me used to being alone now, which I am as a widow. And of course I was brought up with a family who were all keen on shooting, fishing, that sort of thing, certainly during the war, I pursued rabbits and pigeons with great determination in order to have something for the pot.”
2012-06-03 · Desert Island Discs · Margaret Rhodes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I do think sometimes one does feel a bit of a dinosaur, and I find it in a way especially now because all my brothers and sisters have died, and I am the last dinosaur of my family remaining on this earth, so it's a reasonably accurate sort of description of what I feel like, and I”
2012-06-03 · Desert Island Discs · Margaret Rhodes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source