Copy of broadcast by Raymond Priestley for BBC Home Service c.1963 which was part of a series of interviews with 'Midlands celebrities' about their lives devised around the selection of gramophone records. Priestley talks about his childhood in Tewkesbury, his time as a student at University College, Bristol, his experiences in the Antarctic with Shackleton 1907-1909, and Scott 1910-1913, his service in the First World War, his time at Cambridge as a student and then university administrator in the 1920s and 1930s, his time as Vice-Chancellor of Melbourne University 1935-1938 and as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Birmingham 1938-1953, and his work towards the development of higher education in the West Indies and Malaya. He also mentions his position as chairman of the Royal Commission on Civil Service in 1953, his role on the Falkland Island Dependencies Scientific Bureau from 1955, and his return visits to the Antarctic in 1956-1957 and in 1958-1959 Recording time: 29.30 minutes
