Lawrence Dallaglio
Desert Island Discs
BBC
4.4 • 13.7K Ratings
🗓️ 20 February 2011
⏱️ 36 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Kirsty Young's castaway is the former England rugby captain Lawrence Dallaglio.
He was capped 85 times for England, played in three Lions tours and led his club side, Wasps, to the top of the premiership five times.
Yet, he says, he only started playing rugby seriously after the death of his sister, Francesca. She died in the Marchioness disaster on the Thames when he was 16 and her death, he says, blew his world apart.
"Losing my sister was devastating. It made me more determined to do something to bring my parents together. When I first took up rugby, I took it up not for sporting reasons, I needed something to grab onto, I needed an olive branch."
Producer: Leanne Buckle.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Kirstie Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Disks from BBC Radio 4. |
| 0:06.0 | For rights reasons, the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast. |
| 0:10.0 | For more information about the program, please visit BBC.co.uk. |
| 0:17.0 | Radio 4. My custard. My cast away this week is Lawrence Delalio, a former England rugby captain, his life |
| 0:39.0 | both on the pitch and off has been marked by high drama, deep tragedy and great triumph. He is far from your run-of-the-mill |
| 0:46.3 | international sporting legend. After all, there can't be many flankers who've sung in |
| 0:50.7 | a vita in the West End or recorded at Abbey Road with Tina Turner. |
| 0:55.0 | But the fun he had as a youngster was brought to an abrupt end at 16, |
| 0:58.0 | when his only sister was killed in the Martianess disaster on the Thames. |
| 1:02.0 | Her death blew his family apart and then |
| 1:04.3 | reshaped his future. Transforming him, he says, into a driven individual. I |
| 1:09.6 | was just a man on a mission and unfortunately that hasn't really stopped. |
| 1:14.5 | Is it important to you, Lawrence Delallallio, to be a man on a mission and to be in control of that |
| 1:19.1 | mission? |
| 1:20.1 | Yes, I think it is. |
| 1:21.4 | You know, clearly everyone has unfortunate things that happen in their life. |
| 1:25.0 | I think for me, as you mentioned, losing my sister was devastating, coming from an Italian-Irish family where the family was really at the heart of everything we did. |
| 1:37.0 | You know to lose a quarter of that family, my sister, was difficult for all of us and you know it just made me more determined to do |
| 1:46.5 | something to bring my parents together I guess you know I'm not very good at looking |
| 1:50.6 | backwards very much which is it's a pleasure to be on the show because this has |
| 1:55.1 | given me a chance to look backwards and have a look at some memories and songs from you know from |
| 2:00.4 | my past and 85 caps for England 3ours you did with the lines you led your club side |
... |
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