Hello I'm Kristi Young and this is a download from the Desert Island Discs archive.

This edition may be slightly different from what was actually broadcast,

but it's the only version we have.

It comes from the British Library's radio collection. It was

archived without the music, so although the Castaways choices are introduced,

they're not part of this recording. Full details can be found on the Castaways page on the Desert Island Discs website.

The program was originally broadcast in 1980.

And the presenter was Roy Plumley.

This week, our cast ways the writer, lecturer and broadcaster on gardening subjects,

Francis Perry.

Our Francis, we know from your many books and talks on flowers and gardens that you're a lover of

visual beauty. What about oral beauty? What about music? Well here I have to confess

that I'm rather a Philistine although I come of a musical family. I learnt the piano for eight years.

I learned the violin for two years, but I'm free it still passed me by. I only know one tune nil that I could play at any rate.

It didn't take.

No, I think I must have taken after my father, who was always a King Gardner.

And he died when I was seven, so I don't know how musical he was. But as a child

we had to sit around my mother would play the piano, me playing the violin, my

brother playing the clarinet and try and sing.

It was all rather ghastly, but we did it regularly every Sunday.

So there are no discs about the house?

No.

...