Desmond Morris Interviewed by Paul Merchant: Full Transcript of The
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NATIONAL LIFE STORIES ‘Science and Religion: Exploring the Spectrum’ Life Story Interviews Desmond Morris Interviewed by Paul Merchant C1672/16 This transcript is copyright of the British Library Board. Please refer to the Oral History curators at the British Library prior to any publication or broadcast from this document. Oral History The British Library 96 Euston Road NW1 2DB 020 7412 7404 [email protected] IMPORTANT Access to this interview and transcript is for private research only. Please refer to the Oral History curators at the British Library prior to any publication or broadcast from this document. Oral History The British Library 96 Euston Road London NW1 2DB 020 7412 7404 [email protected] Every effort is made to ensure the accuracy of this transcript, however no transcript is an exact translation of the spoken word, and this document is intended to be a guide to the original recording, not replace it. Should you find any errors please inform the Oral History curators ([email protected]) The British Library National Life Stories Interview Summary Sheet Title Page Ref no: C1672/16 Collection title: Science and Religion: Exploring the Spectrum’ Life Story Interviews Interviewee’s surname: Morris Title: Mr Interviewee’s forename: Desmond Sex: Male Occupation: Ethologist, writer, Date and place of birth: 24th January 1928, Purton, broadcaster, artist Wiltshire, UK Mother’s occupation: Father’s occupation: author Dates of recording, Compact flash cards used, tracks (from – to): 15/12/15 (tracks1-2). Location of interview: Interviewee's home in Oxford Name of interviewer: Paul Merchant Type of recorder: Marantz PMD661 Recording format : audio file 2 WAV 24 bit 48 kHz 2-channel Total no. of tracks 2 Mono or stereo: Stereo Total Duration: 2 hrs.42 min. 33 sec. Additional material: Copyright/Clearance: OPEN Interviewer’s comments: Dwesmond Morris Page 1 C1672/16Track 1 [Track 1] In the autobiography, which we’ve just been talking about, you tend to recall particular including traumatic events that happened in childhood. Mm. So… And they’re very well described. And so, what I wanted to get a little bit of today is, more of the sort of, everyday life that isn’t there. Yes. So, one of the sort of traumatic moments is the plane crash for example, the traumatic plane crash and so on. Yes. So, I wonder whether you could tell me more about sort of, the more ordinary, everyday time spent with your father as a child that you remember. Yes. I had a very happy childhood. I wasn’t aware of the Great Depression that was going on at the time, I was too young to, to really understand the terrible times of the Thirties, 1930s. It was a period for me when, living in Wiltshire, which was very much a sort of farming county in those days, in a market town in a farming county, my father’s friends were mostly farmers who lived nearby, and, I was lucky because, they were very kind to me and they let me spend a lot of time, a lot of my time, spare time, out on the farms going around just looking at things. And I was, without realising it I, I wasn’t making any kind of systematic study but, I was absorbing natural phenomena, you know, through, through a sort of osmosis. It was just a general taking in of what happened in nature. And, I was spending a lot of time in the fields and wandering around the hedgerows looking at, looking at animals and birds. And I, I found myself very much in tune with the countryside rather than with the town in which I lived. The town was a railway town, and it was an industrial town that had overtaken and swamped a small market town. And I, my everyday life, my pleasures in those days were going out into the countryside and looking at, just, just wandering around, mooching round, not really doing anything particularly, how can I put it? I didn’t have any goals, I didn’t have any particular aims in life; I just found the whole country scene there very attractive. And I, I was lucky because, my grandmother had a lake, it was an old brickworks factory that she had inherited, and, she was very old, she never went there, nobody went there, it was shut off because it was rather dangerous. And what had happened was that, where all the, the brick factory diggings had taken place had filled with water and had now become a lake. And people had put fish in there. And I was able to spend a lot of time there by myself, nobody else was allowed there. So I had a kind of, private world there. And I, I built Dwesmond Morris Page 2 C1672/16Track 1 a raft, I don’t know how I did it, looking back, because I, I don’t think of myself as very good at constructing things. But I did, I was so keen to get out onto the lake that I built a raft out of old oil drums. I had four oil drums, one in each corner, and some planks, and I strapped it all together. And my mother found a removal man who would take this, this contraption down to the lake, put it on. And I spent… And I, I couldn’t swim. [laughs] So, it was really very tricky. I couldn’t swim, so it wasn’t a very safe thing to do. Today’s health and safety people would be horrified to think of a non-swimmer going out, on his own, with nobody else there at all, completely alone, on this raft. You see I was an only child, and I loved solitude. A lot of children have to be, have to be with people all the time. I’m, I’m very happy in company, but, I’m also very happy on my own. Which has served me well in my later life, because of course when you write a book or paint a picture you’re very much on your own. And, some of my friends are too sociable to spend the sort of time that’s necessary to write lots of books and paint lots of pictures. So that has served me well. And it started then, because, as a child, an only child, with this private world, this old deserted brick factory, there was only a chimney left, there was no buildings left on it, and, and it was full of frogs, toads, newts, fish, birds. And I, I used to get on my raft and paddle out into the middle of the lake and lie face down on the raft with my head just over the edge of the raft. You see I didn’t have any… In those days there were no snorkels, this is pre- snorkel. I don’t think snorkels were invented until, I think sometime during World War II I believe. Anyway, I was there with my face just above the surface of the water. And I would like there for hours, you know, just floating around. And during that time I was observing all the fish and their behaviour. There were pike preying on perch and, and roach, and I was able to watch these activities. Now I didn’t have any sort of scientific plan, I wasn’t, I wasn’t sort of, analysing things, I was just simply absorbing them. But as the years passed, the company of animals became increasingly important, and at home I started to collect all kinds of pets, and I had, not just cats and dogs but, I had tame foxes, I had snakes, and voles and guinea pigs and all, all kinds of animals. And I was very concerned about their welfare. [06:41] My act of rebellion was actually to refuse to go shooting. Now, you’ve got to remember, this is the 1930s, and, my father gave me a gun, you know, an air rifle, and, you know, it was, it was quite natural for boys to go out shooting. But it didn’t appeal to me. I, I had already made such a lot of quiet observations of the animals that they were - they were my friends. You don’t shoot your friends, you know [laughs], and they had become my friends. And, so, my air rifle stayed and got, actually got - when I went to look at it one day it was rusty, which, which summed up my feeling about guns. Then the war came, and during the war of course there were huge food shortages. Now we had a pear tree in the garden, and these pears were precious because you couldn’t get fruit. I mean it was, it was really serious this, it wasn’t just, oh let’s have a nice pear. This was a serious food supply. And to have this pear tree was, was a real luxury. And then the starlings would come and eat the pears. And my father said, ‘Look, you must shoot the starlings.’ And so, I had to get my gun out, to protect the pears and shoot the starlings. But I, I hated doing it, but, it was a matter, you know, you had no choice during the war. And that was the last, and then after that, that was the last time I, after that I wouldn’t have anything to do with guns. And I couldn’t… A lot of my friends loved angling, they were anglers, and Dwesmond Morris Page 3 C1672/16Track 1 they loved catching fish.