Roy Stannard

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The Whole Nine Yards Season 2 Episode 73 French Pressings: French songs that crossed the Channel with Roy Stannard on Mid Sussex Radio 103.8FM

https://anchor.fm/roy-stannard/episodes/The-Whole-Nine-Yards-Ep-73-19-6-22-French-Pressing-the-French-songs-that-crossed-the-Channel-e1k5p2r

With Roy Stannard

On Mid Sussex Radio 103.8FM

Sunday June 19th 2022 3-5pm

French Pressings

France has a great reputation for many things (revolutions, stifling bureaucracy, snails) but pop music is not on the list. Despite being the country that produced the genius of Daft Punk, the breathtaking soundscapes of Air, and eccentric sixties Whitney Houston fan Serge Gainsbourg, little French music is heard outside Francophone countries.

So where does this negativity come from? A lot of it comes from French people themselves, who are not overly keen on the musical output of their own country. And the fact that French radios are legally obliged to play 40% French music. Which is a bit like having to do your homework before you get to go on the playstation..

So this week we’re playing some of the best and in some cases very familiar French songs, many of which got translated into English and then went on to be huge..

Playlist :

Hour One

Yves Montand Les Feuilles Mortes Les Feuilles Mortes 1946

Jacqueline François Que Sera Sera Que Sera Sera 1956

Edith Piaf  Milord The Very Best of Edith Piaf 1959

Jacques Brel  Ne me quitte pas Jacques Brel 4  1959

Jacques Dutronc  Sur Une Nappe De Restaurant Et Moi, Et Moi, Et Moi 1966

Gilbert Becaud  Je t’appartiens Encore plus de Becaud Disque 1968

Françoise Hardy  Comment te dire adieu (Remaster 2016) Comment te dire adieu 1968

Mauriat, Beck, Longine Love is Blue (mix) Love is Blue (mix) Roy Stannard Productions 2020

Nicoletta  Je ne pense qu’à t’aimer Il est Mort le Soleil 1968

Kevin Ayers And The Whole World Puis Je (Bonus Track) Shooting at the Moon 1970

Serge Gainsbourg; Dominique Blanc-Francard; Philippe Lerichomme Requiem Pour Un Con (Remix 91 Version Longue) La Pacha OST 1971

Veronique Sanson  Amoreuse Amoreuse 1972

Julie Pietri Et c’est comme si (I Go To Sleep)  Et c’est comme si 1982

Hour Two

Johnny Hallyday  J’ai Oublié de Vivre C’est La Vie 1977

Anne Pigalle  Souvenir D’un Paris Everything Could Be So Perfect 1985

Mylene Farmer Et Seal Les Mots French Hits 2002

Big Soul La belle et la bête Funky Beats Vol 1 2001

Benjamin Biolay Joggers Sur la Plage Rose Kennedy 2002

Mylene Farmer  C’est Une Belle Journée French hits 2002

Alain Souchon  Et si en plus ya personne La Vie Theodore 2005

Kery James Lettre à la République 92-2012  2012

Camp Claude  All This Space Swimming Lessons 2016

Juliette Armanet A La Folie Petite Amis 2019

Jorja Smith ft. Dosseh  Blue Lights [French Remix] Lost and Found 2019

Grand Corps Malade & Camille Lellouche Mais Je T’aime Mesdames 2020

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The Whole Nine Yards Ep 70 29.5.22 with Roy Stannard – Beauty: Not Skin Deep on Burgess Hill Radio 103.8FM

https://anchor.fm/roy-stannard/episodes/The-Whole-Nine-Yards-Ep-70-29-5-22-Beauty-Not-Skin-Deep-with-Roy-Stannard-on-Burgess-Hill-Radio-103-8FM-e1j7nqa

The Whole Nine Yards Season 2 Episode 70

With Roy Stannard

On Burgess Hill Radio 103.8FM

Sunday May 29th 2022 3-5pm

www.burgesshillradio.co.uk/listenlive

Not Skin Deep.

Creating a false reality in photoshopped images creates low self-worth. We’ve become immune to what media portrays, and have accepted the media-defined lie about what is considered beautiful. How many girls – and boys – aspire to unachievable images of what beauty should be like? How long does it take in front of a mirror to become beautiful? Who decides? Who benefits? What if real beauty flowed from the inside out? What if your skin was a signpost rather than a destination?

Hour One

Lana del Rey – Young & Beautiful (The Great Gatsby OST 2013)

Depeche Mode – Precious (Playing the Angel 2005)

The Kooks – Shine On (Konk 2008)

Amber Pacific – Shine (Virtues 2010)

The Temptations – Beauty is Skin Deep (Away We a Go-Go 1966)

Everlife – What’s Beautiful (What’s Beautiful 2010)

Zoe Wees – Girls Like Us (Golden Wings 2021)

On The Outside – How Beautiful (Single 2021)

Switchfoot – Restless (Vice Verses 2011)

Ella Henderson – Ugly (Everything I Didn’t Say 2022)

Redbone – Come and Get Your Love (Wovoka 1973)

Bruce Springsteen – Spare Parts (live) (Tunnel of Love 1987)

Pink – Perfect (Greatest Hits… So Far!!! 2010)

Hour Two

Kellie Pickler – Don’t You Know You’re Beautiful (Kellie Pickler 2008)

Jason Mraz – Beauty in the Ugly (We Sing. We Dance. We Steal Things. 2008)

TLC – Unpretty (Fanmail 1999)

Alicia Keys – Girl Can’t Be Herself (Here 2016)

Alessia Cara – Scars to your Beautiful (Know-It-All 2015)

Beyoncé – Pretty Hurts (Beyoncé 2013)

Jewel – Plain Jane (Picking up the Pieces 2025)

Corinne Bailey Rae – I Would Like To Call It Beauty (The Sea 2010)

Danny Kaye – The Ugly Duckling (Hans Christian Andersen 1952)

Janis Ian – At Seventeen  (Between the Lines 1975)

Billie Eilish – Not My Responsibility (Happier Than Ever 2021)

Billie Eilish – Overheated (Happier Than Ever 2021)

Christina Aguilera – Beautiful (Stripped 2002)

Joe Cocker – You are so Beautiful (I Can Stand a Little Rain 1974)

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Lost Immortals Ep 161 24.4.22 with Roy Stannard and Matt Staples on Burgess Hill Radio 103.8FM

THE LOST IMMORTALS – EXPANDING YOUR MUSICAL HORIZONS

https://anchor.fm/roy-stannard/episodes/Lost-Immortals-Ep-161-24-4-22-with-Roy-Stannard-and-Matt-Staples-on-Burgess-Hill-Radio-103-8FM-e1hjq3g

Ep 161 24.4.22 5-7pm on Burgess Hill Community Radio103.8FM with Roy Stannard and Matthew Staples

www.burgesshillradio.co.uk/listenlive

Like Brighton‘s West Pier some songs survive through the years, unloved and neglected until suddenly they are re-discovered and retrieve their beauty, but in a totally different way.

Like seagulls in Sussex, we still fly with them.

Playlist:

The Ruts – You’re Just A… (The Crack 1979)

Desmond Dekker and the Specials – King of Kings (King of Kings, 1993)

Belle & Sebastian – Unnecessary Drama (A Bit of Previous 2022)

Engineers – Home (Engineers, 2004)

The Linda Lindas – Growing Up (Growing Up 2022)

Johnny Marr – Night & Day (Fever Dreams Pts 1-4 2022)

Ride – Seagull (Nowhere, 1990)

Porridge Radio – The Rip (Waterslide, Diving Board, Ladder To The Sky 2022)

Billy Nomates – Blue Bones (Single 2022)

Joe Bonamassa – A Conversation with Alice (Royal Tea 2020)

Denzel Curry – Zatoichi ft. slowthai (Melt My Eyez See Your Future 2022)

Ibibio Sound Machine – Protection from Evil (Electricity 2022)

Shakey Graves – Dearly Departed (And The War Came, 2014)

Spirit – Fresh Garbage (Spirit, 1968)

Jack White – The White Raven (Fear of the Dawn, 2022)

Emma-Jean Thackray – Venus (Black Science Orchestra remix 2022 (Yellow 2021)

Parker Millsap – Old Time Religion (Parker Millsap, 2014)

Annie Keating – Coney Island (All the Best – Make believing 2015)

Arlo McKinley – Stealing Dark From the Night Sky (The Mess We’re In, 2022)

Stromae – L’enfer (Multitude 2022)

Damien Jurado – Allocate (MVCA & hinoon Remix) (The Horizon Just Laughed, 2018)

Iamamiwhoami – Canyon (with Lars Winnerbäck) (Be Here Soon 2022)

Kaitlin Butts – Blood (live acoustic performance, 2022. Album: What Else Can She Do, 2022)

Lauren Spencer-Smith – Flowers (Single 2022)

Jensen McRae – White Boy (Are You Happy Now?, 2022)

Yola – Love all Night (Work all day) (Walk Through Fire 2019)

Elin Ruth Sigvardsson – Contradictory Cut (Smithereens 2005)

Mighty Sparrow & Byron Lee – Only a Fool (Breaks his own Heart) (Mighty Sparrow & Byron Lee 1966)

Dancing Like Nobby Stiles
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Dancing Like Nobby Stiles

A piece written for Alex Strangeways-Booth for the BBC. With Passion ft Chris Tomlin – God’s Great Dancefloor (Reyer remix) and David Crowder Band – Undignified (writer Matt Redman)

The winsome, toothless dad-dancer Nobby Stiles

Dancing like Nobby Stiles

Sometimes it’s good to be undignified..

I don’t know if you’re old enough to remember this? In 1966 England managed to lose and win the World Cup in the same year. Before the tournament, while on display at a stamp exhibition in Westminster Central Hall in London, the Jules Rimet trophy was stolen from under the guards’ noses.

During their noon patrol, the guards found the rear doors of the building forced open and the display cabinet broken into. The trophy, which had been awarded to World Cup winners since 1930, had been nicked.

Three days later, the Football Association received a ransom note. An undercover police officer took fake money to an arranged spot and met Edward Bletchley, a petty thief. He was arrested, but didn’t have the cup, insisting he was only a middleman. The thief was never found but Pickles, the dog who found it was turned into a national hero, even invited to the celebrations after England won the World Cup.

His owner David Corbett shared in this celebrity and allegedly danced down the road with joy – in a manner similar to Nobby Stiles at the end of the final. Dignified no. Victorious, yes..

We hate to lose things. Football matches, world cups, or the Ark of the Covenant. The Ark was Israel’s holiest artefact, lost in a humiliating battlefield defeat to the Philistines. Why? Because David’s predecessor as king, Saul, had lost his relationship with God and was turning to snake oil salesmen and tarot card readers.

The Philistines went on a kind of celebration tour of the country to show off their prize. But instead of excited crowds lining the streets, there was death and destruction. God objected to being taken on a victory tour by unqualified people who couldn’t even dance.

The Philistines realised that they had taken a poisoned chalice, sent it back to Israel and parked it in a field. David, who had spent years on a campaign to reclaim the Ark, was delighted. He could just send a cart with some hardy mules and collect it. The trouble was that God didn’t like Reliant Robin-style transport and killed one of David’s top men as he was leading the wagon.

Dancing David, who had been made to look like a fool, got angry and told his men to take the Ark to the house of the Levite Obed-Edom. David had done his research and discovered that only Levites were allowed to carry the Ark. The Ark spent 3 months with Obed-Edom during which time his house was blessed to the level of a FIFA expense account.

Properly packaged and with Levites in control of the logistics, the Ark moved in a stately manner into Jerusalem. Unable to contain himself, David body-popped like a dervish, Dad-dancing in front of the Ark.  His wife Michal remarked dryly that it wasn’t very dignified for a king to dance like a wild-eyed, teeth-missing former undertaker.

David answered like this: “I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes….” (II Samuel 6:22)

When it comes to our relationship with God, the best thing we can do is not gain status, but lose our inhibitions.

David was a King, but he was also a dancer and a musician; he wrote Psalms and made loads of mistakes – and yet God blessed him

So what is the difference between the slightly embarrassing Nobby Stiles and the uber cool German Captain Uwe Seeler? Uwe lost the cup and most of his hair. And Nobby won the World Cup – the one that was lost and then found..

As convention-free people, we are proud to be undignified because we get the Ark over the line.

Roy Stannard 13.2.22

The unexpected beauty of sadness
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The unexpected beauty of sadness

https://www.mixcloud.com/roystannard/the-whole-nine-yards-ep-49-2121-the-strange-beauty-of-sadness-with-roy-stannard-on-bhr-1038fm/

Grief can be the soil, not the weed.

January can be a sad time of year. The nights are still long, the temperatures low and seasonal affective disorder hangs in the air like fog.

But sadness also means that the worst is over. The bereavement, the break-up, the bad decision is in the past. The pain and the anger is replaced by sadness. The realisation grows that you don’t have to tough it out – you are now in the aftermath, not the eye of the storm.

If you are driven by faith, it is tempting to see grief or sadness as a weakness, or even a sin.

1 Peter v 5 says “Casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.” The tendency therefore is to castigate yourself for not putting brave, happy face on all life’s trials.

But there is no justification for this. John 11 33-35 tells the story of Jesus coming to the aid of Mary, sister of Mary and Lazarus after hearing of the latter’s fatal illness. After Martha threw herself at Jesus’ feet and implored him for help, we read that “Jesus wept.” He felt sad because he could see the impact the death had on Mary and Martha. He knew Lazarus and loved him too. For him, grief was not a weakness. In fact, it fuelled a miracle. Of course, we feel sad when we experience unnecessary death, cruelty, injustice and wrongdoing causing pain. We cry when we see the effects of natural and man-made disasters. The message here is not man-up, tough it out and suppress emotion.

That would be entirely unhuman.

Jesus was perfect, he was the earthbound manifestation of God, he had never sinned. Yet he wept. His disciples saw him weep. Later they saw him sweat blood in the garden of Getsemane the night before his crucifixion. God was sad after Adam and Eve discovered that they were naked. After the end of innocence we had grief written into our DNA.

Grief is the trigger mechanism built into our complicated psychology that makes us aware of the broken world around us. We don’t rejoice in suffering, we do something about it. God sacrificed his son to save a seriously messed-up world. We can assume that this was not a joyful experience.

So you can process grief, and not feel inadequate about it. You are entitled to feel sadness and compassion towards yourself as well as others – a feeling that takes over from the anger and hate. That feeling is natural, God-given – and productive. You’ve earned it. So use it. We know that grief produces some of the best rescues and reforms. Not to mention great art.

Just ask Adele.

The Soundtrack:

Hour One

The Goa Express – Second Time (Second Time single 2021)

The Lathums – How Beautiful Life Can Be (Acappella / single mix) (How Beautiful Life Can Be 2021)

CJ Pandit – Digital Love (Just Before You Disappear 2021)

Drug Store Romeos – Frame of Reference (Single 2021)

Fred Again – Julia (Deep Diving) Actual Life (April 14 – December 17, 2020) Actual Life 2 (February 2 – October 15, 2021)

Claud – Gold (Super Monster 2021)

Zoe Wees – Control (Golden Wings EP 2021)

Lewis Capaldi – Before You Go (Divinely Uninspired to a Hellish Extent 2019)

Tim Hardin – It’ll Never Happen Again (Tim Hardin 1 1966)

Taylor Swift – All Too Well (Red 2012 / Red Taylor’s Version 2021 10 minute version)

Hour Two

The Ataris – The Saddest Song (So Long, Astoria 2003)

The Dream Academy – It’ll Never Happen Again (A Different Kind of Weather 1990)

Josh Epifanio –  Agave Blues (Agave Blues Single 2021)

Phoebe Bridgers – Motion Sickness (Stranger in the Alps, 2017)

Charlotte OC – Cut the Rope (Colour My Heart EP 2013)

Lady Blackbird – Collage (Black Acid Soul 2022)

Emmy Meli – I am Woman (Single 2021) / Matrix 2021 single

Houis x Indigo Eyes x Taura Lamb – Sad all the Time (Single 2021)

SZA – Good Days (Single 2021)

Yola – Faraway Look (Walk Through Fire 2019)

PP Arnold – Life is But Nothing (The First Lady of Immediate 1967)

Daisy Gray – Almost to the Moon (Single 2021)

Gracey – Empty Love (Acoustic) (Art of Closure mini album 2021)

Lady Blackbird – It’ll Never Happen Again (Black Acid Soul 2021)

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The Importance of Small Things

Where the small things are

The Importance of Small Things

I’m tired of the grand gestures.

The overblown bows in front of an invisible crowd

The forgettable pomp and unnecessary circumstance

The people-pleasing patinas on public faces.

I’m tired of political windbags blowing a gale

The Lèse-majesté torpor and the majestic mistakes

The talking up themselves

And the clown princes offering their ring.

I’m tired of the bank holidays

withdrawn when we’re defeated

the invitations to the palace

for people who already have keys.

I’m tired of the big affairs, the current divorces

The Sturm and the Drang

And the Oxbridge classical references that go klang.

I’m tired of the entitlement, ennoblement and grubby entertainment

The front page screws

The big government, the little government

And the grubby lairs of local government.

I’m tired of trying to stop an entire planet

reversing into a wall

The G8 elbow bumps, the smart road gyratory of nations

and the gestures that are just gesticulations.

I’m tired of owning a pandemic that is bigger than anyone else’s

The contagious 4×4 in the driveway

The rapidly spreading girth of the top half of the nation

The lack of an apology or an explanation.

I’m tired of knowing that our ills are so big

that no one person can own them.

So I stop trying to defibrillate the day’s events

And walk into the glades of the future

Where the small things are.

Roy Stannard 17th July 2021

LIsten to a read version with music.

Link to Soundcloud audio:

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Tapi Carpets Man Nick Potter turns Radio Man

Roy Stannard and Nick Potter getting ready to share some more guitar music

An unlikely musical partnership has emerged from a chance encounter between radio commercial manager and presenter Roy Stannard and carpet estimator Nick Potter who works at the Rustington branch of Tapi Carpets.

Nick Potter arrived at Roy Stannard’s house in Burgess Hill early in 2015 to measure up for a carpet fitting but the conversation quickly turned to music when he found out that in addition to being a regional manager with the More Radio Group, Roy hosts a weekly radio programme on East Sussex radio station, Seahaven FM 96.3. It turned out that Nick is a blues and rock guitar fan with a vast knowledge of the back catalogues of some of the best guitar players – and has a particular favourite in the form of Robin Trower, who hails from Southend which is Roy’s home town. When Roy mentioned that he had been to the next door school to Trower and used to travel on the same bus in Southend as Wilko Johnson, the conversation deepened and Roy invited Nick to put a list together of the all-time great guitar tracks by the best musicians to form the basis of the very first Guitar Greats Radio special on 16th April 2015.

Three years later and Nick and Roy have presented thirteen shows together with the 14th planned for the 25th October this year.

By day Nick works for Tapi Carpets, Rustington, but by night roams the land in pursuit of the wailing solo, the guitar shredding technique and the finger-picking good guitar break. A connoisseur of licks, lines and lead pyrotechnics, Nick is an expert on guitar legends live and on record in the South. He and his wife who live in Rustington spend a good deal of their spare time going to live music gigs across the South and this love has been passed on to his daughter who also likes rock music.

His manager Daryl Short is delighted to be getting lots of indirect publicity on the radio. He says “Nick is an excellent estimator. Like many others in the company he came to us after many years at Carpetright and has proven to be a great success with the customers who like his engaging manner and years of carpet expertise. He and another employee here Liam Perry are both guitar fanatics and let each other know about the latest emerging players. We love tuning in to listen to Nick and Roy on the radio as we usually get a mention!”

Tapi Carpets MD Martin Harris, son of Lord Harris who founded Carpetright is pleased that the company is forging a reputation for musical knowledge as well as floorcovering excellence. “Our Manager Daryl at Rustington thinks highly of Nick and this is a perfect example of how a chance encounter has led to great publicity for the company – simply because of the customer relationship building that we encourage amongst our staff.”

Note:

Seahaven FM is a not-for-profit Community radio station based in Seaford serving an 80,000 TSA that covers Seaford, Newhaven, Peacehaven and Lewes. Roy’s Show ‘The Whole Nine Yards’ broadcasts live every Thursday 7-9pm and can be heard on FM locally 96.3 and on the internet on www.seahavenfm.com and past shows including the thirteen Guitar Great specials with Nick Potter at http://www.mixcloud.com/roystannard

The latest show – The Nick Potter Guitar Greats Special Vol XIII was broadcast across two hours on Seahaven FM on the 31st May and can be listened to via these links:

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Who Is Like God?

 

a-boy-looking-out-to-sea

Who is like God?

Love was the father and love the mother.

You arrived in December, anticipating another Christmas

A reward in yourself rather than a present

A pilgrimage more than a journey

Because we cannot find love in ourselves

Only with another

And you were the purest love

The world of love in a moment

To complete the place that was prepared for you

A place shaped, breathed into, palpitating, anticipated for you

And you arrived linking Winter with Spring

A week after Mandela died and two days before his burying

You arrived, your hair already hinting of gold

Woven like the wealth of the Transvaal on the South African flag

You arrived to separate the before from the after

The Anno Domini

Dividing the past from the future

You arrived to say that there was no going back

As the Ukraine edged westwards

After the charge of the dark brigade in Crimea

And your mother wrote the gospel of your life

Like a scream of joy

As the Scribes and the Pharisees fled back to the Old Testament

Making way for the new covenant of love

Turning over and seeding the soil of hope

Too big an enterprise now for the old scythes and hoes

‘We need a tractor’ you said in almost your first words

And we realised that the lines and the furrows

Could mean happiness after all.

Roy Stannard for Michael’s Naming Day 21.8.16

For a version of this mixed with music please visit Soundcloud at:

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The Language of Us

 

IMG_1717

The Language of Us

Before you, I walked at the edge of the group

A straggler in strangers

My life didn’t fit, held together with an unsafety pin

I was made not to measure

A bird not of a feather

And my hesitant shadow held back

Expecting never to be expectant, half a step behind

Like a skittish kitten, playing with fear

And then, amongst the bubble wrap multitude

Issuing and popping with importance

Was a face that emptied the page, cleared the stage

And invited me into your dressing room

Shutting out the mob that scratched and mewled against the door

And said sit down, I have a place for you

In my heart

Come and try it on

And I tried it on

Inviting you to lunch without waiting for an answer

Knowing that the glistening still water waves of the Marina

Would caress our conversation

And lap at our bruised emotions

As we refused everything on the menu except love

We had been things to other people

We had appeared as guests in others memories

We were both in a foreign country

But as the first twitch of feeling shivered between us

We found we had the language of us

That said yes whenever we touched.

Roy Stannard for Natasha

20.8.16

For a recorded version with music on Soundcloud please click here:

How do you interview the 20th Century?
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How do you interview the 20th Century?

Roy Stannard and the 20th Century in human form - Lord Denis Healey

Roy Stannard and the 20th Century in human form – Lord Denis Healey May 22nd 2014

By day I work in advertising – but by night – and Thursday evenings in particular, between 7-9pm I sneak away to host ‘The Whole Nine Yards’ on Seahaven FM 96.3 in Seaford, Peacehaven, Newhaven and the more rarefied parts of Lewes. It can be heard live around the world on http://www.seahavenfm.com

Through a mutual friend the opportunity arose recently to interview in a kind of Desert Island (Denton Island?) Discs format, the former Chancellor and Deputy Labour Leader, Lord Denis Healey, who resides at Alfriston. One of the dominant figures in Twentieth Century politics, Lord Healey of Riddlesden has been Chancellor of the Exchequer, Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, Defence Secretary and one of the leading thinkers in the post 45 transition from collective economic thinking to an economics combining social justice and progressive taxation. He is credited with saving the UK economy after five years of chancellorship in the political firestorm of the seventies and has been criticised by others for not scrutinising the need for the IMF £4 Billion bail out in 1976 more closely.

Most agree that he is the best Labour Party Leader that the party never had and was responsible for preserving the democratic centre of the Labour Party during the divisive times of Militant and the SDP breakaway.

However, for the purposes of the radio show that aired on the 22nd May Denis Healey is also a local resident, a keen consumer of music, poetry and art, an enthusiastic photographer and patron of local groups such as the Corelli Ensemble. At 96 years young he demonstrated amazing wit, recollection and the ability to tell entertaining anecdotes. Although I remember with embarrassment my attempt to show off by recounting his involvement in the Barbara Castle authored ‘In Place of Strife’ Industrial Relations policy in the 70s and loftily announced that Denis supported it. To which he replied, “Did I?”

I collected him from home, sat him down in the studio and spent two hours listening to his amazing stories that ranged from stories about Helmut Kohl, Khrushchev, Ted Heath, The Bloomsbury Group, Picasso to his forthright views about Tony Blair and the UK membership of the EC. We listened to his favourite (mainly classical) pieces of music and the time flew by. Denis was the author of the famous law of holes – when in one stop digging – and this was covered along with the apocryphal ‘Silly Billy’ line that Mike Yarwood ascribed to him.

I asked whether if he had left the Labour Party in 1989 with the rest of the SDP departees, it would have meant the end of the party – and whether, as most people agreed, he should have been the Leader of the Labour party. His bruising encounter with the IMF and the economic restraints it imposed may have been the result of a Treasury calculation error and led to policies that anticipated Monetarism by a decade.

I prepared for it by reading every article and interview available, reading his Autobiography ‘The Time of My Life’ and by listening to the two ‘Desert Islands Discs’ that he had participated in.

The range of topics and opinions on display was encyclopaedic and it stretched my presenter/historian/political commentator skills to the limit.

It was like interviewing the 20th Century in human form!

If you would like to listen to a recording of the programme, it can be listened to here:

TW9Y 22.5.14 Hour 1 Roy Stannard in conversation with Lord Denis Healey on www.seahavenfm.com by Roystannard on Mixcloud

TW9Y 22.5.14 Hour 2 Roy Stannard talks to Lord Denis Healey on www.seahavenfm.com by Roystannard on Mixcloud

On the 3rd October 2015 Lord Denis Healey died aged 98 at his home, Pingles Place in Alfriston, East Sussex.

As a tribute I wrote a poem called ‘Eden Again’ and posted it on this Blog:

http://wp.me/pCEKG-iZ