On Friday 9 March some 40 Friends of the Music gathered, in the comfort of David Dutton’s home on the other side of the Heath, to enjoy an evening of desert island discs with Ted Pleasance. Ted has worked his way through an amazing succession of careers, as radio officer on cargo vessels as well as a very exclusive luxury yacht, as the facilitator of complex and controversial negotiations between unions and management, and since his retirement’ as a staffer on Bill Bradley’s campaign in the Democratic primaries of 2000, and latterly as a professional actor. There was also the thought-provoking moment in mid-career when he had to come to terms with an aggressive cancer that he has been lucky to survive.
Reflecting the twists and turns of an extraordinarily varied life, Ted had made an eclectic choice of music Count Basie for the swinging 60s in New York, Ella Fitzgerald singing Cole Porter to go with the exhilaration of sailing and skiing, Verdi and Wagner as his work gave him access to the opera houses of Europe as well as London, Chopin and Mozart and all of them introduced with a characteristic blend of knowledge and enthusiasm. Ted has been drawn to the sea all his life – his next venture entails sailing a yacht from the Caribbean to the Azores – so it is difficult to imagine a more accomplished castaway. Thank you Ted, thank you David, and thank you to the cooks (Elizabeth, Sarah and Anne) for a thoroughly enjoyable evening.
Desert Island Discs with Ted Pleasance
Handley Stevens