ABSTRACT
For the first time ever in print, I am happy to present the transcript of the complete interview of C.G. Jung by Ingaret Giffard (1902–1997), commissioned by the British Broadcasting Corporation, London, and recorded by her husband, Sir Laurens van der Post (1906–1996) in Ascona, Switzerland, on 24 March 1955. The program was to mark Jung’s 80th birthday, on 26 July 1955. Parts of the interview were used in a broadcast by the BBC Home Service on 20 July 1955, 8.20–9.00p.m. The present transcript is based on three sources:
The sound recording of the interview, held at the National Sound Archive under Catalogue No. 885525, Reference No. 21852–21854 (3), is on five sides of three shellac records. These records, or "discs" are numbered 9CL0032031, 9CL0032043 and 9CL0032041. Each of the five parts is indicated in the text with "[Pt.1], [Pt.2]" etc., respectively.
A transcript of the broadcast (the only known copy, it seems, as there is none known in the BBC Archives nor at the National Sound Archive), held at the ETH Bibliothek, Zürich, under No. Hs 1055: 1007. On the first page, this carries a notice, "This script is for your private information only and should not be published or quoted in published material or used in any way without permission first having been obtained from the BBC." Also, there is the seal of the BBC ("Nation Shall Speak Peace Unto Nation") with the typewritten notice, "From Mrs. Helen Rapp’s Office", as well as a printed one, "With the Compliments of the British Broadcasting Corporation."
Another copy of what appears to be the original complete interview on a reel-to-reel tape I discovered in 1998 in that part of the estate of the late Dr. Sasha Duddington (1921–1998), a dear colleague of mine, that he had left to the Association of Jungian Analysts, London, of which he had been a longtime member and previous Chair.
In the transcript that follows, passages in italics were not part of the BBC broadcast but have been supplemented from the Duddington copy of the original interview and the copy in the National Sound Archive. Minor corrections, like insertions into or omissions from the recorded interview in the BBC transcript, have been made unmarked, as have obvious corrections of audio-mistakes, e.g. the BBC transcript says "metanschainen" instead of "Weltanschauung". In all instances, the spoken word on the sound recording has been followed.