Hugh Johnson

Desert Island Discs

BBC

Society & Culture, Music Commentary, Music, Personal Journals

4.4 • 13.7K Ratings

🗓️ 12 May 1984

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Hugh Johnson's career was spawned when he became a member of the Wine and Food Society at Cambridge University. He soon made a name for himself as a writer on wine and produced the best-selling World Atlas of Wine in 1971. In conversation with Roy Plomley, he talks about his interest in wine, about his other great enthusiasm - gardening - and he chooses the eight records he would take to the mythical island.

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

Favourite track: Mass In B Minor by Johann Sebastian Bach Book: The complete works by P G Wodehouse Luxury: Writing materials and lots of bottles

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello I'm Kirstie Young and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive.
0:05.0	For Wright's reasons, we've had to shorten the music.
0:08.0	The program was originally broadcast in 1984 and the presenter was Roy Plumlee. Our cast away this week as a writer, he specializes in writing on wine and on gardens, it's Hugh Johnson.
0:37.0	Hugh, could you endure, loneliness?
0:39.0	Yes, I think I could.
0:41.0	This meager allowance of just eight discs discs would that help or would it be too frustrating to have so few?
0:47.8	It would help enormously I think because it would be company. How much does music mean to you? A great deal. Not that I have such a
0:54.8	very wide Catholic taste, I suppose. I don't have all that many records, but each one means a lot because
1:00.9	it's something very individual. Can you you make music do you sing or play an
1:05.2	instrument I love singing which I do horribly badly but I have enjoyed singing in choirs
1:10.4	tremendously and I used to play the trumpet. What sort of
1:14.8	trumpet? Jazz trumpet? Classical trumpet? All sorts of trumpet. Well started a school
1:18.6	trumpet so you got into the orchestra and the jazz band and then I played in jazz bands a bit and I never continued
1:25.2	orchestral playing and I in fact I'm sorry to say I gave up playing the trumpet
1:29.2	entirely years ago but I still love it.
1:31.8	Did you have any kind of plan in choosing your eight?
1:35.0	Yes, I wanted to remember moments in life which could be summed up with a particular piece of music in the form of a
1:43.4	sometimes of a voice and the voice could be a trumpet voice I love trumpet music
1:47.8	because to me the sound of a trumpet player a really good one is as individual as a singer and that's where we start isn't it?
1:55.4	It is yes.
1:56.4	Would you like to tell us about that first record you have there?
1:59.4	Well when I was at school I shared a study in my house at Rugby with a boy who was not only keen
	...

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