0:01

BBC Sounds, music, radio,

0:03

podcasts. Hello, I'm Lauren

0:05

Laverne and this is the Desert Island Discs

0:08

podcast. Every week I ask my guests to

0:10

choose the eight tracks, book and luxury they'd

0:12

want to take with them if they were

0:14

cast away to a desert island. And

0:17

for rights reasons, the music is shorter

0:19

than the original broadcast. I hope you

0:21

enjoy listening. My

0:45

castaway this week is the photographer and

0:47

writer Val Wilmer. She's

0:49

spent 70 years exploring the music

0:51

for which she's had a lifelong

0:53

passion, jazz. She's photographed

0:56

and interviewed the greats and when

0:58

jazz and blues begat rock, she

1:00

had a ringside seat. Muddy Waters,

1:02

Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, Jimi Hendrix,

1:04

Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin and countless

1:06

others were all captured in images

1:09

which have featured in exhibitions in

1:11

the UK and US since her

1:13

first major show at the V&A in

1:15

1973. She

1:18

has written seminal music texts, most

1:20

notably, As Serious as Your Life,

1:22

an exploration of the evolution of

1:24

so-called free jazz and its racial

1:26

and gender politics. She

1:28

took her first portrait when she was

1:30

a teenager. Borrowing her mother's box brownie,

1:32

she turned her lens on the jazz

1:34

pioneer Louis Armstrong at London Airport. He

1:37

broke into a broad smile and the image

1:39

became one of her classic shots. She

1:41

says, as I get older, I

1:44

realise how much of what happens in our

1:46

lives is actually pure luck. Val

1:48

Wilmer, welcome to Desert Island Discs. Thank

1:50

you. Let's begin with luck, Val, as

1:52

it is an essential component in every

1:54

success story. What would you say

1:56

has been your luckiest shot? My

1:59

luckiest shot was the first shot. one, that

2:01

one of Louis Armstrong at the airport. How

2:03

did he know he was going to be there? My

2:05

mother and I and my brother, who was very young

2:07

at the time, we'd all been to see

2:09

him. And then I read

2:11

in the paper that he was leaving from what

2:13

was then called London Airport, it wasn't even called

2:15

Heathrow. So I said to my mother, could we go?

2:17

And she hung an odd,

2:20

but it was I think half term holiday, so she

2:22

had all right then. So we went

2:24

there and suddenly there he was. So

2:27

we followed him outside and I said, could I have your

2:29

autograph? And then I said, could I take your picture?

2:32

When you were exploring the music side of

2:34

things, by records, for example, where did you

2:36

go? Where did you used to shop? Well,

2:39

I was very lucky because I grew up

2:41

in South London, in Stratton, and there was

2:44

a place called the Swing Shop. So when

2:46

I was about 12, I think it's about 12,

2:48

I walked in there and the guy looks up

2:50

and he sees this little girl wearing shorts and

2:53

he says, yes, what do you want? And

2:56

he probably thought I wanted a pop record of

2:58

some kind. But I asked if

3:00

he had any jazz records. The

3:02

first one I came to that I recognized

3:04

the name was Humphrey

3:07

Littleton. A fidgety feat,

3:09

the record is called. It

3:11

was Two Shillings at Sixman's Old Money.

3:13

He said, I even have it for two Bob Two

3:15

Shillings. So I came home

3:17

with it and I've still got it tucked away

3:19

somewhere in a cupboard. My mother

3:22

said, what's that? She heard this noise.

3:24

What is that? I said, that's jazz. And that

3:26

was it really. But what was it about jazz

3:28

that you love? Why did it capture your imagination

3:30

as a young girl? Well, it

3:32

was the excitement, but it's also

3:35

the story because through

3:37

that record shop, I found out that there

3:39

were one or two books that told the story

3:41

of jazz. The first thing you learnt

3:43

was that jazz comes from

3:45

Africa. Well, whether jazz

3:47

comes from Africa is complicated. But of course

3:50

it does. The force of it, the driving

3:52

force of it, the whole ethos

3:55

of it, the whole history is

3:58

the music of enslaved black. people

4:01

in the Americas, creating a

4:03

new sound as a way of carrying

4:05

their history. Well, let's get

4:07

started. Disk number one. Well, we're

4:09

going to hear Louis Armstrong

4:11

and his Hot Seven. They

4:13

went into the studio one day

4:15

in 1927 and they recorded potato

4:18

head blues, which has

4:20

really never been equal. Louis

5:01

Armstrong and his

5:04

Hot Seven, potato

5:08

head blues. Val

5:24

Wilmer, let's go back to the

5:26

beginning then. You're born in 1941 in Harrogate,

5:29

originally to Sybil and Eustace, the eldest of

5:31

two children, but you were brought up in

5:33

London. What do you remember about your early

5:35

childhood? I do remember the air

5:38

raid shelters, which are still there, and

5:40

the bomb sites. And we used

5:42

to play on the bomb sites, especially in

5:45

the summertime, because they were covered in buddlier

5:47

and butterflies and so on.

5:50

But the main thing really, I think, was

5:52

that my father was very ill. So

5:54

I had very few memories of him and

5:57

he died just before I was seven.

5:59

So. His second marriage wasn't

6:01

he? Yes, that's right. He was the child of any

6:03

mum. Yeah, my father was a Victorian. He was born

6:05

in 1882 and he was a friend of my mother's

6:07

parents. In

6:10

fact, he was actually older than my mother's

6:12

mother, which I always find quite amusing, only

6:14

about one month, but I used to find

6:16

it very amusing. As you mentioned, he

6:18

died when you were very young the day before

6:20

your seventh birthday. That's right, yes. He must

6:23

have been incredibly traumatic for all of you

6:25

and a huge blow for your mum, who

6:27

was then left to bring up you and

6:30

your brother alone. Yeah, I remember coming home

6:32

from school and she was

6:35

polishing the doorstep with you, this red posh

6:37

used to have rock. And

6:40

she just had her head down, I suppose,

6:42

literally. And she said to me when I came

6:44

home from school, she said, darling, she said, daddy

6:46

died today. Just like that,

6:49

I can still remember her and seeing her say it, you

6:51

know. So life would never

6:53

be the same as it should have been in the

6:56

conventional sense, you see. But

6:58

I think that she had expected that the

7:00

family would be looked after in a way

7:02

that you then weren't, right? Yeah, that's right.

7:04

What exactly happens? It's complicated as

7:06

to do with the law of intestacy.

7:09

And we had a house, but

7:11

we had nothing else. We had a very nice house.

7:14

And we had six bedrooms. So

7:17

she took in lodgers and we used to call

7:19

paying guests, which was very common in those days,

7:21

people who lived with the family and ate

7:23

their meals with us and so on. But

7:26

the interesting thing was our first two lodgers

7:28

was a woman and a man. And the

7:30

woman was from Ireland and the man

7:32

was from India. So that's how

7:34

it started, which is very radical

7:37

for those days. So

7:39

these new influences started coming into

7:41

the home. Did they bring with

7:43

them music, stories, you know, different,

7:46

a different cultural perspective? Well,

7:49

in every way, we had one

7:51

or two weird people. Only one

7:53

person ever stole from her. And

7:56

everybody else was either OK or

7:58

else quite... source of

8:00

wisdom and knowledge. The thing

8:03

was, because I was three years older than my brother,

8:05

I was the beneficiary, the

8:07

main beneficiary of all this knowledge. He learned

8:09

a lot, but he didn't learn how to

8:11

box and fight in the street, which unfortunately

8:13

is what I learned to do. This is

8:16

not serious stuff, but it made me a

8:18

bit of a rough child. But

8:20

I also learned how to use tools, because

8:24

for my tenth birthday, one

8:27

of the lodgers gave me a rabbit. And

8:29

so one of the others said, well, we've got to

8:31

have a proper hutch. So we made a hutch that

8:34

was like three times the size of those little things

8:36

you see. Well, those woodworking skills are

8:38

going to come in very handy on the island. They are,

8:40

yes. But now I think we'll have your

8:42

second piece of music, if you wouldn't mind. What's it going

8:44

to be and why? Well, we're

8:46

going to listen to Big Bill Burinsey, an

8:49

extremely influential guitar player. I

8:52

saw him in 1957 when

8:55

I was about 15 at

8:57

the Royal Festival Hall of All

8:59

Places. This is a song

9:02

that when you're that age, and especially

9:04

when you grow up, just

9:06

as a wave of migration from

9:09

the Caribbean, and you see

9:11

black people in the streets and

9:13

on the buses and sweeping the streets and

9:15

you say, who are those people? And

9:17

you're told, don't talk about them. And

9:20

then you hear this song. I think

9:23

it might awaken you up a little bit.

9:25

This is Black, Brown and White. This

9:28

is a song that I'm singing about.

9:32

People you know is true. If you're

9:36

black and got a word for

9:38

living, this is what they will

9:41

say to you. This is if

9:43

you're white, she's all

9:45

right. If he was

9:47

brown, stick around.

9:49

But as you're black, brother,

9:55

get back, get back. Big

9:58

Bill Burinsey and Black. brown and

10:00

white. So Val, it sounds like the dynamics

10:02

at home were changing a lot. And

10:05

along with the lodges, Val, the paying

10:07

guests, there were two other important influences

10:09

on your early life, the church and

10:11

the girl guides. I can imagine you

10:13

enjoying woodwork and tying knots. Well,

10:16

you see, the thing is, people who go to

10:18

the girl guides break down into

10:20

two types. There's the little girls who

10:22

are always girly, and there's the others

10:24

who want to get out and be

10:26

hikers, pioneers and bush women. And

10:28

I was one of those. It

10:31

was exciting to me. And I still think,

10:33

I was thinking about it only this morning

10:35

coming here. If you ever ask

10:37

people what's the happiest you've ever been? And to

10:40

me, it was going off to camp, sitting

10:42

around the campfire at night, eating sausages

10:44

that you've cooked yourself and singing

10:47

campfire songs together. I

10:49

mean, this sounds like you're going to get on a treat

10:51

on the desert island. And what about

10:53

girl guides, Val? Did you collect your badges

10:55

keenly? I did, yes. But

10:57

also in the girl guides, I became

11:00

a cub instructor. I

11:02

went to a local church, it was a

11:05

very, very ancient church. And

11:07

I told my mother one day, I told her,

11:09

I don't believe in God anymore, I'm not coming

11:11

to church anymore. She was

11:13

very upset. But I had

11:15

to go to the church of rain

11:17

still with the wolf cubs. The

11:20

reason I liked going there was I liked the sound of

11:22

the organ. When they played

11:25

hymns like Eternal Fathers Strong to

11:27

Save, the whole

11:29

church, the wood reverberated

11:31

with the organ. So

11:33

the feeling of that being in the middle of

11:35

the music physically, feeling it and being surrounded by

11:38

it was powerful from the beginning for you.

11:40

Very powerful. And whenever I could get on

11:42

stage, I did. And at one time, I

11:44

was with the Duke Ellington Orchestra in the Albert

11:47

Hall, in the middle of

11:49

the Duke Ellington Orchestra and the London

11:51

Philharmonic Orchestra, all at the same time,

11:53

taking photos at rehearsal. But

11:56

the sound all around you is quite something

11:58

else. Well, it's

12:00

time for your third desk. What have you gone

12:02

for? Well, we're going to hear something completely different.

12:05

When I left school, I went to study

12:07

photography. It wasn't really my intention, but

12:10

I got a job in the darkroom. I

12:13

used to go in the darkroom every day.

12:15

I think it was at about quarter

12:17

to 11 or something on the home

12:19

service, probably. I can't remember. There

12:21

was a classical record. And

12:23

I walked in there one day and I just

12:25

automatically switched the radio on. I

12:28

heard this amazing sound and I didn't

12:30

know what it was. It's

12:32

Kodai's Sonata for

12:35

Unaccomforted Cello. When

13:28

I was at Streatham High, we had two other girls.

13:41

We had a school magazine. I think it

13:43

only lasted one issue. I

13:45

thought perhaps I'd like to be a journalist, but I

13:47

didn't get much encouragement from the careers

13:50

department. You know, this is a

13:52

time when women were so... Their

13:54

lives were so circumscribed. You know,

13:56

life was so limited. Every

13:59

time you turn around... You were talking women don't

14:01

do that or ladies don't do that. Ladies don't

14:03

go into pubs. Can you imagine that? I

14:06

had started doing a bit of photography, like

14:09

of the sort of scout troop and things

14:11

like that. Next thing

14:13

I know, I'm studying photography at Read

14:15

the Street Polytechnic. And pursuing

14:17

your passion for music, you photographed and got

14:20

to know many leading musicians. Some of them

14:22

spent time at your home and actually met

14:24

your mum. Did she appreciate the calibre of

14:26

artists that were coming through her front door?

14:29

I think she did gradually, yes. She

14:32

met Duke Ellington a couple of times as I was

14:34

friendly with Harry Carney, who was

14:36

his right-hand man, the baritone player

14:38

with the band. Obviously she knew how

14:40

important he was. And we went

14:43

to Berlin together. I

14:45

was taking some photographs for Melody

14:47

Maker, the Berlin Jazz Festival. And

14:49

unfortunately on an opening night, there

14:52

was a lot of alcohol

14:54

flowed freely. I got

14:56

fairly inebriated and she got really

14:58

drunk for the first and only time in her life.

15:01

And I had to pick up the pieces. And

15:03

next day she was bright-eyed

15:06

and bushy-tailed, and I felt I wanted to

15:08

die. I just absolutely wanted to die. And

15:11

for her sake, I struggled through the

15:13

day knowing that I had to take

15:15

photographs that night. And I

15:17

did. And then I said, well, of

15:20

course, they're having a party for Duke Ellington's, I

15:22

think it was his 73rd birthday. She's

15:25

all good, you know. And I said, we're

15:27

not going. And

15:31

she was so upset and

15:33

so disappointed. And I had

15:35

to go to this bloody party. And

15:38

I walked around with a tray in

15:40

front of me with about four glasses

15:42

of orange juice on it. I

15:44

wanted to die. And my mother,

15:46

and then Harry said, oh, Duke,

15:49

I said, have you seen Mrs. Wilmer? And

15:51

she said, oh, how are you doing? How are

15:53

you doing? And

15:56

two kisses on either cheek. Just amazing.

15:59

So you spent a year of... studying photography Val and

16:01

then you got a job working in

16:03

the office of the magazine Tropic. What

16:05

was your role? I wrote a

16:07

couple of articles for them and then

16:11

they asked me if I'd like to go and work for them

16:13

and went to work in the Shabby office off

16:16

Edgware Road with a bullet hole in the

16:18

window. Why did it have a bullet hole? It

16:20

had a bullet hole in the window because the

16:22

descendants of Oswald Moseley had

16:25

shot it up one night. My

16:28

job was to be a receptionist but what

16:31

it did it was the most extraordinary thing

16:33

that could ever happen to somebody, a young

16:36

person like me. I suddenly

16:39

was plunged into an all-black world five

16:41

days a week and we

16:43

acted as a sort of meeting

16:46

place for people so that writers,

16:49

politicians, African musicians,

16:51

Caribbean musicians, anybody

16:54

who was at anybody came through that door.

16:57

Val, let's have your next piece of music now. It's

16:59

your fourth choice today. What have you gone for and

17:01

why are you taking this to the island? After

17:04

I worked for Tropic I was working in a

17:06

dark room in Soho and I

17:08

used to wander around Soho and

17:11

I was fascinated by the front-of-house photography

17:13

and one of them was

17:16

a famous play called A Raisin

17:18

in the Sun which is

17:20

by Lorraine Hansberry. She was the first

17:22

African-American woman to have a play on

17:24

Broadway and this poem by Langston Hughes,

17:27

what happens to a dream deferred does it dry

17:29

up like a raisin in the sun. It's

17:31

what the play was named for. Amongst

17:34

all the many musician

17:36

friends I'd made was a

17:38

man that I became quite closely involved with,

17:40

a bass player called Art Davis. I

17:43

said to him, when you go back to New York can

17:45

you get me a book

17:47

of Langston Hughes poetry. So

17:50

he got it for me and

17:52

I fell in love with Langston Hughes in

17:55

the May of 962. I was going to New

17:57

York. Before leaving I wrote

18:00

Langston Hughes and I said, can I come

18:02

and photograph you? And he wrote back and said, Charles,

18:04

call me when you get there. Langston

18:07

Hughes could not have been more

18:09

wonderfully warm and welcoming. We

18:11

drank scotch on the rocks

18:13

out of extremely large glasses. At

18:16

the end of my meeting with Langston, we went

18:18

down to the front of the building to take

18:20

some photographs. There were some

18:23

little boys that lived next door and so

18:25

I photographed him with them. And

18:27

when I got back to London, I sent him

18:29

a few copies of photographs and

18:32

he had me another collection of

18:34

his poetry. This is

18:36

the Weary Blues from Book of the Same Name.

18:39

Grown in a drowsy, syncopated

18:41

tune, rocking back

18:43

and forth to a mellow croon. I

18:46

heard a Negro play. Down

18:50

on Alex Avenue the other night, by

18:53

the pale dull pallor of a

18:55

one-bulb light, he did a

18:58

lazy sway. He did

19:00

a lazy sway to the tune of

19:02

those weary blues. With

19:06

his ebony hands on his ivory key,

19:08

he made that poor piano moan with

19:11

melody. Oh

19:13

blues. Swaying

19:16

to and fro on his rickety stool,

19:18

he played that sad raggy tune like

19:20

a musical fool. Sweet

19:23

blues. Coming

19:26

from a black man's soul. Oh blues. Langston

19:32

Hughes reading The Weary Blues, accompanied

19:34

by Red Allen's Band. Well,

19:38

I want to take you back to 1964. By that

19:40

time, you were working for a London-based magazine called Flamingo

19:42

and they gave you an assignment to

19:44

travel to West Africa for six weeks to

19:47

collect stories and photos for the magazine. You said this

19:49

trip was a huge influence on you. It

19:52

must have been quite an adventure. What

19:54

do you remember about it when you think

19:56

back? Well, I went to four countries.

20:00

Gambia, which was a little tiny place, even

20:02

though such a thing was tourism there then.

20:06

Sierra Leone, which of course historically is

20:08

a very significant place in African history.

20:11

Liberia and northern Nigeria,

20:13

so they're all very, the places that

20:16

people didn't go to in any sort

20:18

of travelling sense very often. I

20:21

did all sorts of things. I did stories

20:23

on marriage

20:25

at 14, good or bad,

20:28

iron ore production, and

20:30

music. And

20:32

I think one of the things that influenced me

20:34

most, funnily enough, I grew

20:36

up in a world where you had a trade or a

20:38

profession, but there people didn't

20:41

seem to do that. So you

20:43

meet a man and he's got an office, but

20:46

then you find out he's also an estate agent

20:48

and then you find out he runs the taxi

20:50

service. And then you find out he

20:52

also runs a small aeroplane.

20:55

And then people would tell me, you see those

20:57

women in the market, they

20:59

went there with pennies, they

21:02

made enough money to put their

21:04

sons through college. And it

21:06

was true, there had been people who had bought

21:08

a couple of pigs feet, take

21:11

them home, cook them, sell them in the market. The

21:14

next day they buy four pigs feet, next

21:16

day they buy a dozen. And

21:19

they end up being able to educate

21:21

their children and not only that, send

21:23

them to university overseas. I

21:26

had never dreamed such a thing was possible. I'd

21:28

been brought up to think that we were in

21:30

advance of the third world,

21:32

as it was known in those days,

21:34

that we were so progressive. And

21:37

I found out we weren't. We

21:39

weren't progressive at all. We were just different. Val,

21:42

it's time for your fifth disc, if you

21:44

wouldn't mind. What have you chosen? In Freetown

21:46

in Sierra Leone, I met a man called

21:49

S.E. Rogers, known as Rogie,

21:52

and he put out a record on his

21:54

own record label. It's

21:56

a song about his best friend stealing

21:58

his girlfriend away. It's a very

22:00

sad song, it's a very beautiful song and it

22:03

was one of the

22:05

most popular records of that

22:08

age in West Africa and

22:11

it shows the influence of singers like Jim

22:13

Reeves which people are not

22:15

expecting to hear in West Africa. It's

22:17

quite a big country in western scene out there.

22:20

Exactly, yes. So we can

22:22

hear Raji now singing

22:24

My Lovely Elizabeth. My

22:26

Lovely Elizabeth. I

22:37

am deeply worried

22:40

at heart. I

22:44

am deeply worried at heart. Cause

22:49

the girl I love always,

22:51

my friend has worked on me. Now

22:54

I've got it so busted. I

22:57

see Rogers and my lovely Elizabeth.

23:00

You travelled all over the US during the

23:02

60s and into the 70s while listening to

23:04

jazz, recording interviews with artists and that time

23:06

was pivotal for the civil rights movement. Were

23:09

you conscious of a need to chronicle what

23:11

was happening in your music writing? I

23:13

wanted to go to the South and hear

23:16

people singing the blues in the rural

23:18

situation and I wanted to go to churches

23:20

and I wanted to go to New Orleans.

23:23

But because of slavery and the whole

23:25

history, the South was not a jolly

23:28

place to be. I've met a

23:31

lot of people who've envied me

23:33

my experiences but there was

23:35

a price to be paid.

23:38

You needed to be eternally vigilant

23:40

yourself. And also to

23:43

meet a lot of people who were

23:45

not necessarily that happy to meet you. Their

23:48

lives have been so blighted by racism.

23:51

It could be quite overwhelming. So

23:53

I learnt what an innocent in the world

23:55

I was even at the age of 31 or

23:57

whatever it was. You

24:00

see what's happening in the world today and what's

24:02

happening in the United States today. It

24:04

hasn't gone away. Racism

24:06

is still a fact of

24:09

everyday life and W.E.B. Du

24:11

Bois said it at the beginning of the

24:13

20th century, said the problem of the 20th

24:15

century is the colour line. He said that

24:17

in the Souls of Black Folk. And

24:20

it really hasn't changed. I mean, obviously it's

24:22

improved in many ways. People aren't being lynched

24:24

every day and so on. But

24:28

it's not a happy place to be in. You know,

24:30

we all grew up thinking that names can

24:32

never hurt me, but it's not true. Words

24:35

can hurt people. They hurt people for

24:38

the whole of their lives. They hurt

24:40

people for centuries. Val,

24:42

some of your books are regarded as classics,

24:44

jazz people and as serious as your life.

24:47

And whilst many people were happy to be

24:49

interviewed, not all musicians were compliant. I know

24:51

that Miles Davis was tricky and The Salonious

24:54

Monk was quite hard to pin down. How

24:56

did you succeed in the end? Well,

24:59

Monk is not a

25:02

very articulate person. He's a person

25:04

who goes a week without speaking.

25:06

My friend John Hopkins, who was a photographer,

25:10

said, listen, man, he said, Monk's

25:12

coming to town. We should go and interview him.

25:14

We'll sell the story to Playboy. We

25:16

went to a rehearsal that he was doing

25:18

for a BBC television

25:21

programme. I went up

25:23

to him and said, excuse me, Mr Monk, could we

25:25

come and interview you? He said,

25:27

yeah, come tomorrow afternoon at four, whatever it

25:29

was. So, OK, so Hoppy

25:31

and I got together. We met. They were staying

25:34

at the Hilton. Monk was just

25:36

about to have some sandwiches. He said, send

25:38

down to room service. And so he was

25:40

very monosyllabic. You know, everything

25:42

was, yeah, after

25:45

a while, we started to ask him questions,

25:48

got him slightly riled and Hoppy asked

25:50

him something, I think, that was quite

25:52

political. And he got really mad and he shouted

25:54

at us and he got up and he paced

25:57

up and down and he

25:59

started to speak. and it

26:01

made quite a sensation amongst the musicians

26:03

because nobody ever heard him talk that

26:05

much before. And

26:07

that brings us to disc number six. We're

26:10

going to have Criss Cross, Bartholomius Monk.

26:13

This is a record I learned to dance

26:15

to with a Nigerian boyfriend of

26:17

mine. They said we couldn't dance this kind

26:19

of music but he showed me how. How'd

26:21

you get it right? What's the key? Just

26:24

go for it. The

27:25

The Feminist

27:33

Movement and work with Spare Rib Magazine and

27:35

numerous other collectives at the leading edge of

27:37

what was becoming that new wave of feminism.

27:40

What did it feel like to be part

27:42

of that? The thing is that people

27:44

of my born about the time that I was

27:46

born, those of us who

27:48

had survived despite all

27:50

the rigours of the

27:53

female existence, when we

27:55

heard about the first wave of feminism.

27:58

The truth is it probably was still and

28:00

we reckon that we've done pretty well

28:02

without it. But gradually

28:05

the siren cry of the women's

28:07

movement became too strong. People

28:10

were organizing about many things

28:12

that would improve women's lot.

28:15

And it was very, very attractive.

28:18

Also things like trade union magazines

28:21

and news magazines were changing. And

28:24

we helped to change them in

28:26

their coverage. And eventually,

28:28

together with Maggie Murray,

28:31

who's someone I've been at college

28:33

with, we started an agency

28:35

called Format for Women Photographers. And that

28:37

was the first of its kind. We hadn't been

28:39

in all females. Photographic agency. So this

28:41

is 1983. There

28:44

was a focus right from the beginning,

28:46

I think, with changing the ideas of

28:48

representation in the industry. How did that

28:50

work and what did the agency achieve?

28:53

We like to change people's minds

28:55

about things. So if they asked

28:57

for a photograph of somebody in a particular

28:59

trade or occupation, they'd expect a photograph of

29:01

a man. So this is a newspaper. We

29:03

send them a woman. We need such and

29:05

such a photo of a banker

29:07

or a builder or whatever. We send

29:09

a woman banker. And

29:11

at the same time, when they expected

29:14

that we'd send a picture of a

29:16

white person, we'd send a picture of someone

29:18

of color doing the same job. Your

29:20

photography skills were called on, as

29:23

someone represented by the agency, when you

29:25

would go on demos. I mean, reclaim

29:27

the night marches. You were often shooting

29:29

what was happening and doing that kind

29:31

of reportage photography. Was it ever dangerous

29:33

work? I got punched by a

29:35

policeman once. He didn't

29:38

realize I was a woman. The

29:40

worst thing that happened was on the 1977 march of

29:45

the National Front through Lewisham, protected

29:47

by the police. And I was taking pictures. And I

29:49

got hit over the head by a dustbin lid by

29:53

someone in the SWP who came and

29:55

apologized for throwing it. But

29:58

if anybody asked, I'd be happy to see you. you what it's

30:01

like seeing stars I can testify yes you

30:03

do. Val I think we

30:05

better have some more music your seventh choice

30:07

what have you gone for and why? Well

30:09

I spent a lot of the 70s and

30:11

80s listening to a lot of free jazz and that's

30:14

when I wrote my book of Cirrus is Your Life this

30:16

is a sort of typical thing Julius

30:19

Hempe who is a sex player Abdul

30:22

Waddudon cello and

30:24

they've named it after famous

30:27

people of the Malian cliffs

30:30

cliff-dwelling people that doge on and they've

30:32

called it Dogan A.D. The

30:58

Julius Hempel Trio Dogan A.D.

31:02

Val Wilmer so many of the photos

31:04

that you've taken over the years have

31:06

become definitive you know they've actually gone

31:08

on to shape how we think

31:10

about the artists that you were

31:12

capturing and their aesthetic you know

31:15

their attitude John Coltrane, Duke Ellington,

31:17

Louis Armstrong did you have

31:19

any idea at the time that those moments

31:21

were special? Well you

31:23

do sometimes yes definitely it's

31:25

like anything in any creative

31:28

field the harder you try the more

31:31

obvious it'll be and some

31:33

of my favorite photographs are ones I took fairly

31:36

early on so I wasn't trying to

31:38

make sure that I've got everything right. So

31:41

I photographed a pianist called Freddie

31:43

Red an American pianist and it

31:46

was only years later I was looking at

31:49

the negatives and I realized I'd never printed

31:51

these particular negatives so I started to print this

31:53

this neg and I it was

31:55

just a simple picture of him sitting by with

31:57

a cigarette by the dressing room mirror. But

32:00

everything was right about it, the quality, the sort of

32:02

feeling of it where you, when you know, when you

32:04

know a sweater class where you feel you can reach

32:07

in and touch the person. But

32:09

I've got this picture of Freddie red, I've got it framed, a

32:11

very nice frame in the hall and every time I walk by

32:13

I think, oh Freddie, how's it going?

32:17

But really I'm saying hello Val, how's it

32:19

going? Well yeah, that's it. Val,

32:21

you know people often when they're

32:23

talking about you, they often remark

32:25

on how lightly you wear your achievements

32:28

and your status and I wonder about

32:30

that and I wonder whether that's

32:33

an intrinsic part of you or whether

32:35

that's an attitude that's developed

32:37

over years of hanging out with musicians

32:39

who just, you know, play it cool.

32:41

Well not all musicians play it cool, some

32:43

are arrogant as we know. Right,

32:47

but I was a shy person, I

32:49

still am, you know, it's ridiculous to

32:51

be this agent to call yourself shy,

32:53

you have to be able to handle

32:55

yourself in the world but I was

32:57

shy and I think that was

32:59

part of it really. I'm going to be sensitive,

33:01

you know, to others and it all goes back

33:03

to all those days in the church and the

33:06

girl guides. I'm discovering jazz and going to Africa,

33:08

that's where it all starts, how you form yourself

33:11

and you see arrogant people, like people who play

33:13

their own records all the time, you think I

33:15

don't want to be like that. I

33:17

don't spend all my time looking at my

33:19

photograph and Jig Ellington somebody said to him,

33:21

what's your favourite tune? He looked at them

33:23

like, yeah, he said, oh,

33:25

he said the next one, he said, the new

33:28

baby is always the favourite and

33:30

I think there's a lot in that. It's almost time

33:32

to cast you away Val, what will you miss the

33:34

most do you think? People, I

33:36

have to see people nearly every day although I do spend a

33:38

lot of time on my own, I live

33:41

on my own but if I

33:43

don't see people every day I feel

33:45

strange. What about survival skills,

33:47

we heard about your woodworking and your boxing,

33:49

sounds like you can handle yourself. I don't

33:52

know about boxing, I'm not there, it's going to hit me very

33:54

far. There's a resilience there. Well,

33:56

yes. All right, well, we'll

33:58

let you have one more disc before... we send you

34:00

to your desert island Val Wilmer. What's your last choice

34:02

going to be? Well it probably will

34:05

surprise some people who think of me as an

34:07

old jazzer but this

34:09

is a record that sums up being in the

34:11

women's movement for me. It

34:13

was the record that everybody played just in the jazz

34:15

world. Everybody had Miles' kind of blue. They

34:18

had this one and it also,

34:20

it somehow I might be reminding

34:22

myself. And it's Joan

34:24

Armitrading's Love and Affection. Really

34:27

move, really move. Now what's

34:29

my thing? I'm

34:35

afraid of my face.

34:38

Why can't I? Joan

34:57

Armitrading's Love and Affection. Sylvain

34:59

Wilmer, the time has come. I'm casting your

35:01

way to the island with, as you know,

35:03

three books, the Bible, the complete works

35:05

of Shakespeare and a book of your choice. What would

35:08

you like? Can I take Langston

35:10

Hughes with me? His collected poetry. Oh absolutely.

35:12

Did he sign it before he sent it to

35:14

you? Yes, she did. What did

35:16

Langston Hughes write in your book? In

35:19

one of the books he gave me

35:21

he wrote, it's described especially

35:23

for Valerie Wilmer with

35:25

a hearty welcome to our USA,

35:28

Langston Hughes, NYC, May

35:31

the 1st 1962. It's

35:34

yours. You can also have a luxury item,

35:36

something that will make your time on the

35:39

island more enjoyable. What would you like? I'm

35:41

afraid it breaks the rules in

35:43

terms of useful things

35:45

but it's very, very small. It's called

35:47

nail scissors. Which have a lot

35:49

of uses but I won't tell you what they are.

35:54

Okay. Well, I mean, we've allowed

35:56

these personal grooming items previously

35:58

because this is... aesthetic impetus

36:01

there that isn't strictly practical.

36:04

And finally this is the most difficult question

36:06

for you I think Val. Which of these

36:08

eight discs would you rush to save from

36:10

the waves? This is

36:12

terrible but I think I'll take the

36:14

monk with me. The loneliest monk, Chris.

36:16

Why? Just sums up the

36:18

kind of music that I like. A monk

36:20

is just one of my all-time favourites. Perfect.

36:24

Val Wilmer thank you very much for letting us

36:26

hear your desert island discs. Thank you very much

36:28

Lauren. Hello

36:51

I hope you enjoyed my conversation with

36:53

Val. I don't dare ask what she's

36:55

getting up to on the island with

36:57

those nails scissors though. There are many

36:59

more castaways in the desert island discs

37:01

archive including photographers Eve Arnold, Van Lee

37:04

Burke and Martin Paar as well as

37:06

jazz artists like the very man Val

37:08

snapped at the airport all those years

37:10

ago, Louis Armstrong himself. Search

37:12

for desert island discs on BBC

37:14

sounds. The studio manager for today's

37:16

programme was Jackie Margerum. The assistant

37:18

producer was Christine Pavlovski and the

37:20

producers were Sarah Taylor and Tim

37:22

Bannell. The series editor is John Goudie.

37:25

Next time my guest will be the

37:27

actor Cillian Murphy. Do join me

37:29

then. The

37:46

post office horizon scandal has shocked Britain.

37:48

Post office IT scandal which has had

37:50

so much publicity over the last couple

37:52

of years. This is a scandal of

37:54

historic proportions. I've been following the story

37:56

for more than a decade. Hearing about

37:58

the suffering of postmaster. like Joe

38:00

Hamilton and Alan Bates. It was just

38:03

horrendous. The whole thing was

38:05

horrendous. I was told you can't afford

38:07

to take on post office. And about

38:10

their extraordinary fight for justice. What

38:12

was motivating you? Well, it was wrong, wasn't

38:15

it? Listen

38:17

to the true story firsthand from the

38:19

people who lived it in the great

38:21

post office trial from BBC Radio 4

38:24

with me, Nick Wallace. Subscribe

38:26

on BBC Sounds.