YouSaid · the spoken record

Monica Mason

lines on the record: 46
first: 2012-01-08
most recent: 2012-01-08
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

“Well now, I'm probably not allowed to have all sorts of things I wondered perhaps in the end to be practical, I'd need a torch because it's going to be very dark on this island. And I remember as a child being very frightened of the dark. African nights are very black, and although wonderfully starry, and I think I'll need a torch.”
2012-01-08 · Desert Island Discs · Dame Monica Mason · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I would like especially put together omnibus of everything by David Attenborough. I just think he's completely wonderful, and he's taught us all so much about the world we live in”
2012-01-08 · Desert Island Discs · Dame Monica Mason · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, my final piece of music has to be the song of the earth. This ballet by Kenneth Macmillan many people feel is perhaps his greatest achievement. It's a great piece of choreography. Just meant so much to me to be in the smallet.”
2012-01-08 · Desert Island Discs · Dame Monica Mason · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“While it hasn't arisen yet, but do you know I'm quite open to suggestions? But of course I can tell that I don't have as much energy as I had when I was a young dancer.”
2012-01-08 · Desert Island Discs · Dame Monica Mason · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's going to be so difficult, I think, to imagine. I can't really plan it because it's outside of my experience. Because of course I've never been anywhere else. I don't know anything else. But I have never stopped thinking about my very first days with the Royal Ballet and what that meant to me, which is why I really never wanted to go anywhere else. And it's remained the same to this day The most demanding aspect really is the amount of energy needed and I've I think been blessed with lots of energy so I was only too happy to give it to my profession.”
2012-01-08 · Desert Island Discs · Dame Monica Mason · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, my husband was an amazing musician, as well as having been a dancer, and he used to take his guitar with him on tour, and so I used to find myself sitting in his room while he played his guitar for hours. And I grew to love the music, and I grew to love him. So this of course has a very special place in my heart.”
2012-01-08 · Desert Island Discs · Dame Monica Mason · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well my husband had stopped being an ancer by the time we married. He had a serious injury. And he went to work in the music business.”
2012-01-08 · Desert Island Discs · Dame Monica Mason · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Because I was assistant director, it felt natural to be asked to look after the company, and after about six weeks I discovered that I really loved it. But because everybody was so wonderful to me, and everybody was so for me. You know, it sort of happened almost without me being aware that it was happening, and the next thing I was appointed, and so then I thought now I've got to go for this.”
2012-01-08 · Desert Island Discs · Dame Monica Mason · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You wouldn't And so I have hung their portraits in my office as a constant reminder of the responsibilities that I carry.”
2012-01-08 · Desert Island Discs · Dame Monica Mason · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh yes, because I was sitting by his side, and I could tell that some days he was exhausted. His wife, Deborah, said to me, you know, Kenneth is seriously ill he could die at any moment. That terrified me, and his death that night it was the opening performance of Marling, even at the beginning evening he said I'm not feeling very good, and when we came to the second interval, Antony Dowl, who was the director, and Deborah, his wife and I, were looking for him and we couldn't find him anywhere. Deborah said to me Monica go and watch the rest of the evening, and two thirds of the way through the last act somebody tapped me on the shoulder. and I knew immediately that something terrible must have happened.”
2012-01-08 · Desert Island Discs · Dame Monica Mason · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well entirely appropriately we are going to hear the final dance of the rite of spring, and this is where one hopes to convince everybody that you're completely dead at the end of it.”
2012-01-08 · Desert Island Discs · Dame Monica Mason · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It is also that moment when you think was that me? Did I do that? And because it was designed on me, it was made on me. You know, it fits like the most wonderful clothes made for you. Kenneth, I think when he'd watched me at that party, would have known that because he was a genius that he could push me to an incredible limit, and there's something rather wonderful or mad to think that you could die dancing. I used to think that what a wonderful way to go.”
2012-01-08 · Desert Island Discs · Dame Monica Mason · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, I was. I was in the Cordobe. But he said this is not going to be classical ballet at all. I'm going to invent a different way of moving. It was intriguing because the pianist he had broken down the score into dancers counts, and so we counted the final sacrificial dance that she does right at the end of the piece into this sort of incredible telephone number lists of numbers, you know, one, two, three, four, five, one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, five, six, one two three five six seven. You just rattle these numbers off and I used to go home every night, play the music, listen to it on the disc, and count the counts and count the counts and remind myself of the steps.”
2012-01-08 · Desert Island Discs · Dame Monica Mason · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, he called me across the room, and he said I've been given permission to make a new ballet, and I want you to dance the lead. I was twenty. I didn't know what he was talking about. Just a moment.”
2012-01-08 · Desert Island Discs · Dame Monica Mason · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But I always loved being physical I loved performing but I never felt I was wonderful at it I just knew I got such pleasure out of if somebody said dance I would do it.”
2012-01-08 · Desert Island Discs · Dame Monica Mason · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh that was somebody's housewarming party. And I loved going mad at parties. It didn't require any drink to get me to go mad, and I knew Kenneth was watching.”
2012-01-08 · Desert Island Discs · Dame Monica Mason · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I met him really within, I think, the first two weeks of being in the company, so I was only sixteen, and he was, I think, twelve years older than me.”
2012-01-08 · Desert Island Discs · Dame Monica Mason · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, my father was born in Natal, near a town called Ladysmith, and as a child my family used to go down to our cousins, and of course we were surrounded by Zulus, and I was so amazed by the harmony of their voices when they sang. My father could speak Zulu, and this piece of music when it first came out I remember thinking This is just this is me and so this is Paul Simon and the ladysmith black Mombaza.”
2012-01-08 · Desert Island Discs · Dame Monica Mason · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I used to stand next to her on the bar. And I thought I died and gone to heaven the outline of her neck and shoulders and the way she held her arm. I mean I can even see the shape of her fingernails now if I think about it. She was the most incredible role model, but she was also so human and she giggled so contagiously.”
2012-01-08 · Desert Island Discs · Dame Monica Mason · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh yes Fabulous face those enormous eyes very, very strong and she was always surrounded by people she was escorted to the stage and escorted back to her dressing room and well I suppose you know you're in an opera house so there are stars around she was a big one.”
2012-01-08 · Desert Island Discs · Dame Monica Mason · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, of course, we had to go up the stairs behind her dressing room to reach the floor where we were changing, and we had to tiptoe up the stairs, and we weren't allowed to speak.”
2012-01-08 · Desert Island Discs · Dame Monica Mason · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean I failed my first audition for the Valley School, so I took another one and got in, and I went for a year, and during my year at the Ballet School I danced with the opera.”
2012-01-08 · Desert Island Discs · Dame Monica Mason · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Absolutely, I mean it was a they were hard times, and some things were still rationed. It couldn't have been more different from our life in South Africa. But you know, I don't think I noticed the gray skies. All I knew was that I was able to dance every day.”
2012-01-08 · Desert Island Discs · Dame Monica Mason · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“they married him. We arrived in the July and they married at the end of October. This was very fast. I think she probably liked him a lot, and grew to love him, but I think she realized that he was going to be such a good friend, and that she must have been frightened by the idea of looking after my sister and myself alone in London. But he was a wonderful support, a tremendous friend.”
2012-01-08 · Desert Island Discs · Dame Monica Mason · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We arrived on Friday the thirteenth of july nineteen fifty six. It was a very rainy, chilly day, and of course the ship docked in Southampton, and we travelled up to London on a train, and it was so exciting I think I spent the entire journey looking out of the window. Except for noticing that the person who had come to meet us at the ship was the man who became my stepfather, and he was a business associate of my father's, I noticed that he looked at my mother in a way that indicated his feelings were Not dispassionate.”
2012-01-08 · Desert Island Discs · Dame Monica Mason · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I've chosen Charlie Coons and the Harry Lime theme because my father loved piano music, and I remember one day again a very clear memory of him putting the record on and him saying Would you like to learn to foxtrot? And so with that I stood on his feet, and we danced around the sitting room.”
2012-01-08 · Desert Island Discs · Dame Monica Mason · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, Donce was really, I think, probably quite a lifeline, although, interestingly just not long before my father had died, I had said to him one Sunday morning we were sitting together, and I said to him, you know, I think I want to be a professional dancer. And he said, Well, you know, I don't think that's perhaps quite sensible because there's no professional company here in South Africa. And I thought, then well I didn't want to upset him in any way, and I just thought this will keep, we'll talk about this another time. And of course we never did.”
2012-01-08 · Desert Island Discs · Dame Monica Mason · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I think what I noticed particularly was when I went back to school called I remember feeling incredibly different suddenly. All my friends talked about their parents. And now I couldn't talk about my father, and I just was so aware of feeling rather isolated.”
2012-01-08 · Desert Island Discs · Dame Monica Mason · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I just thought I will do that, I will try to be brave for her, and in the night I could hear her talking, and she spoke very clearly, I could hear her talking to my father. She wanted to know why he'd gone so quickly, and she told him what a wonderful life they'd had together. and I lay there in the dark listening to this and I thought I must be brave, I must be brave, and of course then I heard her crying. I think I have cried for years, following that little I can still cry at the time I didn't.”
2012-01-08 · Desert Island Discs · Dame Monica Mason · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know She was extraordinarily, I remember that on the night of his death the doctor came round to the house and gave her, I suppose, a sleeping pill, and he said I've given your mother something to help her to sleep. I think it would be wonderful if you could sleep in the room with her they had two single beds pushed together,'cause in South Africa you tended not to have double beds because of the heat, and I think my mother slept in my father's bed, and I slept in hers. and the doctor had said to me You must be very brave for her. And looking back, of course I think, gosh, that was quite something to say to a thirteen year old and”
2012-01-08 · Desert Island Discs · Dame Monica Mason · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I think he must have known something wasn't right, and by the time he went to sea a specialist it was realised that he had something seriously wrong, of course, my sister and I were not told anything, and he drove me to school on the Monday morning, and said I'm driving myself on into hospital, and in fact it was the last conversation I had with him, because children weren't allowed into the particular hospital that he was in, and I remember he came out on a balcony, and waved to us and we were on the other side of the road. I never saw him again he died on the Saturday. He had cancer, and it was far too advanced for them to do anything. So he died in five days.”
2012-01-08 · Desert Island Discs · Dame Monica Mason · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We're going to hear Richard Tauber singing You are my heart's delight because I have a very vivid memory of my grandmother, and a wind up gramophone, and she would say to me Let's go and sit down and listen to my favourite and I knew exactly which it was I would wind the gramophone up, put this record on and then see her put her head back on the chair and shut her eyes, and her face had an expression of absolute bliss.”
2012-01-08 · Desert Island Discs · Dame Monica Mason · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They were very social, yes, they had lots of friends, and I remember parties, and I always used to creep out and come down the stairs. I loved watching people dance, and I loved seeing the ballroom dancing.”
2012-01-08 · Desert Island Discs · Dame Monica Mason · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, you know, it wasn't, actually we had a woman who came to help my mother with the washing, and then we had a man in the house who did a lot of cleaning, and he helped my mother cook the evening meal. But we were not weighted on hand and foot, my mother didn't believe in it, and so there was a lot of respect shown to the people who worked for us.”
2012-01-08 · Desert Island Discs · Dame Monica Mason · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Actually my mother was born in South Africa And she and my father met at work. My father was an accountant, my mother was a secretary, and he was twelve years older than her, very handsome, and a very, very lovely man.”
2012-01-08 · Desert Island Discs · Dame Monica Mason · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We were just about to start a performance, and the news of the shooting of President Kennedy came through. And somebody went in front of the curtains and Hold thee public. I mean we were absolutely struck dumb. The idea that this could have happened was completely overwhelming. And then of course we had to dance But it was a question absolutely of putting the lid on that box with all those emotions and summoning up your courage really just to get on and dance.”
2012-01-08 · Desert Island Discs · Dame Monica Mason · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, of course, Swan Lake is such a huge part of a classical ballet company's repertoire, and when you're dancing in the Court of Ballet, or if you're dancing the lead, there's something about standing on the stage behind those curtains and hearing the orchestra begin this fabulous overture. It is simply so inspiring and needs to be because this is not an easy ballet to dance.”
2012-01-08 · Desert Island Discs · Dame Monica Mason · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, I think that was a very extreme view. I think that by and large the dancers in the Royal Ballet, who are the ones that I know best know how to take care of themselves.”
2012-01-08 · Desert Island Discs · Dame Monica Mason · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know we use a nutritionist for advice for them because they have to understand that food is fuel and what they put into their bodies is extremely important. And so I think that because they have such high aspirations, sometimes they are prepared to go to great lengths to achieve the image that they want in the mirror. But it can be very damaging.”
2012-01-08 · Desert Island Discs · Dame Monica Mason · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I was off the stage for nine months. I think that I had some really wonderful friends in the company. I'd put on weight, I didn't like what I saw in the mirror, so I simply didn't look, actually, for a while. And I remember one day Michael Solmes took my hand, and he said You're ready now to do the step that you did that caused your injury. And I said I'm not sure I can do that, and he said yes, you can. Come on and he stood in front of me, and in fact he held both my hands, and I slid my foot across the floor, gently to start with, and then a little more, and then he said, and now tomorrow we're going to do it even more strongly. And that got me back.”
2012-01-08 · Desert Island Discs · Dame Monica Mason · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I suppose that it's partly to do with when I stop dancing. I started to do coaching of injured dancers. It came out of having had a difficult injury myself at one stage, and you can become very scared, and you lose your confidence. You see other people dancing your roles? And you feel you're losing a part of yourself, and so I think that when I started to coach dancers I sort of felt I was on the same wavelength.”
2012-01-08 · Desert Island Discs · Dame Monica Mason · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I think Billy Holliday is one of those stars that indescribable stars her voice for me describes the pain. The joys in her life. And I think it touches all of us.”
2012-01-08 · Desert Island Discs · Dame Monica Mason · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“When I think that it takes a huge amount of work. absolute dedication? And that you don't achieve it easily. But you know, the joy of dance, which again one doesn't really quite understand why we long to do this punishing thing, really, more than compensates.”
2012-01-08 · Desert Island Discs · Dame Monica Mason · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think that one of the things that I really would be determined not to do would be to get in the new director's hair. I couldn't bear it if I thought that behind closed doors somebody was saying she's here again, you know So I shall keep my distance and only go in when I'm asked.”
2012-01-08 · Desert Island Discs · Dame Monica Mason · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I've been invited to come back in and work with the company on certain Macmillan works, and so I'm thrilled that I shall be able to do that, because I think it would be very hard if I was just going to completely lose touch with everybody. I don't think I could bear that, actually. I think I'd have to go back in and have a cup of tea and sit in the office and keep a chair warm, really. I can't imagine cutting the ties completely.”
2012-01-08 · Desert Island Discs · Dame Monica Mason · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, I'm finding that as people are looking back over my fifty four years with the Royal Ballet, it's meant that I am reflecting, but of course in looking back one rediscovers joys and fears and all sorts all the things that have gone to make one's life what it's been.”
2012-01-08 · Desert Island Discs · Dame Monica Mason · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source