Gillian Reynolds

Desert Island Discs

BBC

Society & Culture, Music Commentary, Music, Personal Journals

4.4 • 13.7K Ratings

🗓️ 3 June 2018

⏱️ 41 minutes

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Summary

Gillian Reynolds spent 42 years as the radio critic of the Daily Telegraph before she was headhunted by the Sunday Times at the age of 82. Born into a working class family in Liverpool, her mother ran a market stall and her father was a seaman, but also a gambler. Her mother was determined to ensure that Gillian had a good education, and she was the first in her family to go to a grammar school. She went on to study English at Oxford. She took up an internship in America, where she met her husband, and they returned to Liverpool when she became pregnant with the first of her three sons. She first worked as a radio critic for the Guardian in 1967. She became the first female controller of a commercial radio station when she joined Radio City, Liverpool, in 1974. She moved to London in 1975 when she left her troubled marriage, and secured the job of radio critic for the Telegraph, as well as working as a journalist in television and radio, at one point even co-presenting the Today programme. She chaired the Sony Radio Awards for four years, the only woman to have done so, and the Radio Academy Festival for a decade. She lives alone, but with around two dozen radios, in Notting Hill. Presenter: Kirsty Young Producer: Cathy Drysdale.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is the BBC.
0:03.0	Hello, I'm Kristi Young.
0:05.0	Welcome to Desert Island Discs, where every week I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, the book and the luxury item
0:12.0	that they'd want to take with them if they were cast away on a desert island.
0:16.0	For rights reasons, the music on these podcast versions is shorter than in the original broadcast.
0:22.0	You can find over 2,000 more editions to listen to and download on the Desert Island Discs website.
0:31.0	Music
0:48.0	My castaway today is the writer and broadcaster, Jillian Reynolds.
0:52.0	The very embodiment of the word doi-en, she is the most experienced and respected radio critic around.
0:59.0	For over half a century, she has tuned in and turned her attentive years to what's on offer on the wireless,
1:05.0	picking apart and praising without fear or favour.
1:08.0	It hurts when she puts the boot in, I should know, because her love for and knowledge of the medium is evident in all she writes.
1:16.0	And at a stage in life when most people are deep in retirement, she has just pulled off a stunning career coup,
1:23.0	leaving the daily telegraph after 42 years and taking up with the Sunday Times.
1:28.0	She has made something of a habit of flouting convention, born and brought up in Liverpool, her mother was a market trader,
1:34.0	her father was a seamen and an in-vestorant gambler.
1:37.0	Against all the odds, she was the first in her family to attend university, going up to Oxford in 1954 to read English.
1:45.0	She says of her work, listening lets your mind make the magic.
1:50.0	So welcome, Jillian Reynolds.
1:52.0	Have you thought before now about what might be in your list of eight for Desert Islanders?
1:56.0	Constantly, eternally.
1:58.0	For years I've been getting on and off buses, walking around supermarkets, going up down escalators thinking,
	...

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