Sir Harry Secombe

Desert Island Discs

BBC

Society & Culture, Music Commentary, Music, Personal Journals

4.4 • 13.7K Ratings

🗓️ 21 December 1997

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This is an archive edition of Desert Island Discs. What follows is what was said about the programme at the time:

Sue Lawley's castaway this week has celebrated more than 50 years as a professional performer - he's the comedian and singer Harry Secombe.

At 76, he can still hit the cruel Cs, although these days he turns puce with the effort. He can still make an audience laugh itself silly and numbers Prince Charles among his many fans. He's most definitely the best raspberry-blower in the business. Today he recalls the early days of The Goon Show with Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers and Michael Bentine. He remembers the nights spent in review alongside those Windmill girls dressed only in beads - "and most of those were sweat". And he describes how presenting Highway and Songs of Praise has left him feeling humble.

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

Favourite track: Fantasia On Greensleeves by Ralph Vaughan Williams Book: The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens Luxury: Guitar

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, I'm Krestey Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive.
0:05.0	For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.
0:08.0	The program was originally broadcast in 1997, and the presenter was Sue Lolly. My cast away this week is a comedian. In his long career he's achieved many things
0:35.8	appearing in musicals and films, writing books, recording best-selling albums and
0:40.3	hosting religious programs on television.
0:43.0	But one period in his life stands out above all the rest,
0:46.4	both for him and for those who've enjoyed his performances over the years.
0:50.2	It was the time when he and three friends put together a radio show not long after the war.
0:55.2	It became a classic, a narcic, ridiculous and very, very funny.
0:59.5	It was called The Goon Show. He's since been knighted for his services to entertainment, but those
1:05.1	goonish days remain professionally anyway his happiest. I still have the
1:09.6	image of myself as Nedi Seagoon, he says, a demented idiot running around in manic fashion.
1:16.1	He is Sir Harry Seachem.
1:18.1	And you've even got the goon on your coat of arms, haven't you, Sir Harry?
1:21.6	Yes, I think it's best to call me Harry don't you
1:24.0	with these circumstances true. But is it go on? Well let's go on. Actually when you
1:30.0	united you become what they call armiduous and you have to go along to the College of Arms to you know
1:35.8	to sign in and they decide then what sort of you have on your code of arms.
1:41.8	So I had a swan for Swansea, sword for,
1:45.8	represent the army with the mask of comedy on it. Then a mermaid coming
1:49.9	a hair, sea coal. All clever stuff you want to have. and then a mermaid, a merman with a conch shell
1:56.2	to represent music and underneath the motto, go on.
	...

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