As I Remember - Lady Asquith

4 Extra delves deep in the BBC Archive for another classic interview.

Lady Asquith is perhaps best remembered as Lady Violet Bonham Carter.

She was the grandmother of award-winning actress Helena Bonham Carter.

In conversation with Kenneth Harris, she looks back over her life recalling many of the legendary parliamentarians she’d met.

Originally shown as a TV programme on BBC 1, this radio version was broadcast a few months later.

Lady Asquith was the politically active daughter of UK Prime Minister Herbert Henry Asquith (1908 - 1916), a prominent Liberal politician in her own right and a devoted friend to Winston Churchill, whom she first met at the age of 19.

She recalls luncheon with William Gladstone when she was six and talks about her father; his successor Lloyd George, as well as Winston.

Becoming a Life Peer in 1964, she served on the BBC Board of Governors and was the Liberal Party's first female President.

Kenneth Harris wrote:

“Talking to her on four successive afternoons, I could never take my eyes off her; her face, so dramatic, so mobile, so hypnotic, added an extra significance to everything she said. I wondered then whether vision here did some disservice to the sound, pictures almost distracting the listener from the narrative. I wondered whether sound radio may not have been the better medium for her. I look forward to finding out.”

Baroness Asquith had celebrated her 80th birthday on April 15th 1967.

BBC TV Producer: Margaret Douglas

First broadcast on BBC TV on April 13th 1967.

BBC Radio Producer: George Angell

First broadcast on the BBC Light Programme on 7th July 1967.