Richard Branson

Speaker 20:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

Speaker 20:08

The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen eighty nine.

Speaker 20:11

And the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:30

My castaway this week is a tycoon. Still only thirty eight, he owns, among other things, an airline, a publishing firm, night clubs, and, appropriately for this programme, a private island.

Presenter0:41

As if this were not challenging enough, he also enjoys being a daredevil. He's twice made an unusual crossing of the Atlantic, first in a power boat, second in a hot air balloon. When he was at school, his headmaster told him he would either go to prison or make a million. He has done the latter, using his instinct, flair, and courage to become the epitome of Britain's modern, self-made man. He is Richard Branson.

Presenter1:08

Richard, you have, as I mentioned there, an advantage over most uh other castaways, because you know what it's like to have an island of your own. Do you do you relish that ownership?

Richard Branson1:17

Oh, very much so. I mean, it's a little gem in the Virgin Islands. And if you are a recognizable face, it's wonderful to have a place to slip away and bring your family and friends and not be recognized occasionally.

Presenter1:31

Your company is of course called Virgin. Is it pure coincidence that you bought an island in the Virgin Islands?

Richard Branson1:37

Yes, no. I was in New York in my early twenties and and somebody said did I name Virgin after the Virgin Islands? And I'd never heard of the Virgin Islands and pulled out a map and thought um I might pop down and have a look at them. So there was it wasn't a complete coincidence, but there there was an element of coincidence in it.

Presenter1:55

So how will you pass your time on our desert island? What will you do with yourself?

Richard Branson2:00

I love things like fishing. I love all all sorts of sports, swimming. I'm not very practical. My father.

Richard Branson2:06

It's extremely practical and I'm uh I've I'm hopeless actually when it comes to screwing in screws or banging in nails.

Presenter2:14

Of course, quite an astonishing fact about you, I find, is that despite making your your first million out of uh pop, your interest in music is really quite slight, isn't it?

Richard Branson2:24

Yes, it's strange for me. Um I left school at fifteen and therefore I didn't have the grounding in music that all my friends had. I mean this you know, sitting at college listening to lots of records or sitting at home listening to lots of records. So now running

Richard Branson2:40

you know, one of the world's sort of top five record companies and what has been known as perhaps the hippest record company has definitely been bizarre.

Richard Branson2:47

And for many years, you know, I never owned up to the fact that I was tone deaf and didn't listen to records and had to go through these agonizing meetings with our artists for about two hours, um, where I I've tried to talk about anything but music.

Presenter3:02

So how have you chosen these eight records?

Richard Branson3:05

Well, there's a few records that I like. I don't know what I like, but the the difficulty I have running a record company is, say, comparing it with what's gone before. So Simon, who I worked with at the record company when he joined Virgin and when we were both teenagers, he had a record collection of about two thousand albums.

Richard Branson3:24

And um he is my years and the great advantage he has is y you know is when he hears something he d he can say whether it's a copy of something that's gone before. Uh when I hear something I just know whether I like it or not. And there are some things which I liked, like Cliff Richard, that um I would never have owned up to uh having liked until now.

Presenter3:43

But now you're owning up which one is it to be of his?

Richard Branson3:46

Well, I I always feel good uh humming summer holiday when I'm going on holidays'cause uh it has two meanings. So I suppose Cliff Richard's summer holiday.

Speaker 43:55

We've seen it in the movies Now let's see if it's true Everybody has a summer holiday Doing things they always wanted to So we're going on a summer holiday To make our dreams come true

Speaker 44:18

Mommy and you.

Presenter4:25

Cliff Richard and Summer Holiday. So why was it, Richard Branson, that your headmaster said you'd either go to prison or make a million? It's a very dramatic statement.

Richard Branson4:33

Statement

Richard Branson4:35

Um

Richard Branson4:36

I suppose I was a bit of a rebel at school. I

Richard Branson4:40

Disliked school fairly intensely.

Richard Branson4:43

Um I disliked the way we were being taught things. I felt that a lot of our time was just being wasted instead of being constructively taught. I knew that I wasn't going to learn a language at school, which, you know, that sort of thing annoyed me.

Presenter4:55

This was your public school. This was Stowe.

Richard Branson4:57

Yeah, that was uh after I'd gone briefly to public school. And I'd started planning a magazine when I was about thirteen at school, which were going to put the world right.

Presenter5:08

But you you wrote to the head master, didn't you, and told him everything you thought was wrong with the school?

Richard Branson5:08

But you you re

Richard Branson5:10

Yeah.

Richard Branson5:13

Yes, I was, I suppose, fairly precocious in that I wrote him a long list of things that he should put right with the skill. Anyway, he did. How did he react?

Presenter5:18

How did it react?

Richard Branson5:20

He was actually very understanding. I mean, to the extent that I'd damaged my knee and couldn't play sports, and um he gave me a little room to plan my

Richard Branson5:31

magazine in and of course the magazine was going to be the downfall of the school system so it's very brave of him but at the end he said to me look you know you you're going to have to decide do you you know do you want to run your magazine or do you want to go to university and you know get your exams and confronted with that said well I think I've decided I'd like to quit school and run the magazine.

Presenter5:52

But why did you have such a burning desire to to write a student, to publish a student magazine?

Richard Branson5:58

I didn't have any desire to be a publisher actually. What I I really wanted to do was be an editor, and it was a very exciting time.

Presenter6:05

Mid-sixties

Richard Branson6:05

Takes

Speaker 46:06

Yeah.

Presenter6:06

Yeah.

Richard Branson6:07

There was a lot to write about, uh and I really just saw no reason to stay at school. I didn't feel I was learning anything. And in fact, the education I got from leaving school and having to

Richard Branson6:18

Learn the art of survival and going out and

Richard Branson6:21

Interviewing James Baldwin and Jean Paul Sartre and R. D. Lange was a fascinating education as it turned out.

Presenter6:28

Would you go as far as to say you are anti-education?

Richard Branson6:33

If you if you end up

Richard Branson6:34

As I ended up becoming an entrepreneur, I don't think education necessarily helps me. I think the actual training of life itself is perhaps a better one for you than formal education. And in fact, there hasn't been any entrepreneurs that have yet come out of Oxford and Cambridge, for instance. Pretty well all of them left school at fifteen or sixteen.

Presenter6:53

Is it true that you don't employ any graduates?

Richard Branson6:57

We employ very few, not because we're anti-graduates, but because we have a philosophy of promoting from within the company.

Richard Branson7:05

And we feel that if you promote from within, you know people's good points and weak points before you promote them. It gives other people in the company a chance to feel that they're going to get places in the company. They're not going to have the so called experts put above them all the time.

Presenter7:21

You you realise, of course, that you're an extremely bad example. This is really difficult advice for all the young people across the land who are about to sit exams. Don't do it. Go out on your own.

Richard Branson7:30

Don't do it. I have a real problem because I get angry parents writing me letters saying, you know, my son wants to leave school at sixteen and he's citing you as an example. You know, will you please write to him and tell him to stay at school?

Richard Branson7:42

And

Presenter7:42

What do you do?

Richard Branson7:43

Well, I don't actually write to them, but I might write back to the parents explaining that for ninety percent of jobs a really good education is is A makes sense and but B is a very good insurance policy. I mean I that there are many many times in my career that you know I could have failed and I came very close to failing on many many occasions and I've been very fortunate to have got through all those difficult periods. But I d I never had a fallback position and so I think a good education is a very very useful fallback for what for whatever you want to do.

Presenter8:15

Very responsible.

Richard Branson8:17

I'm getting older.

Presenter8:19

But living on your wits is fun, yet?

Richard Branson8:21

Absolutely. I mean, it it's safer to advise people that than the other.

Presenter8:27

Let's have your next record.

Richard Branson8:28

Well this is a fun one which is Peter Sellers goodness gracious me.

Speaker 48:33

Oh doctor, I'm in trouble. Well goodness gracious me For every time a certain man is standing next to me A flash comes to my face and my pulse begins to race It goes boom boody boom booty boom booty boom booty boom boody boom boom boom

Richard Branson8:44

Uh

Presenter8:55

Boom putty bump putty bone putty bum

Speaker 48:56

Well, goodness gracious me.

Presenter8:59

Peter Sellers and Sophia Loren and goodness gracious me.

Presenter9:03

Richard, tell me just a little bit more about your family life before we hear about making the first million. Where were you brought up?

Richard Branson9:10

Well, I was brought up in a very small village called Shanley Green, which was south of Guildford in Surrey.

Richard Branson9:16

I was brought up by two very loving parents, who are still two very loving parents, and was very fortunate having a very stable background. My father.

Richard Branson9:26

would never tell me off for, you know, anything I ever did and and somebody I can always turn to and is always interested and and m and my mother's very much, you know, s getting up and going, pushing you forward. Nobody's allowed to sit and watch the telly. Um you know, you've got to be doing all the time.

Presenter9:43

And you have two sisters, so you're a very spoilt boy.

Richard Branson9:46

Uh yes, very smart, I suppose.

Presenter9:49

Quite a legal family, though, I gather. Your father was a stipendary magistrate.

Richard Branson9:53

That's right.

Presenter9:54

And your grandfather was a High Court judge?

Richard Branson9:56

That's right, I've got I think seven generations of judges behind me.

Presenter9:59

But your grandmother's just gone into the Guinness Book of Records, hasn't she?

Richard Branson10:02

She's got three mentions in the Guinness Vega Records. She's got the most awards for flamingo and borehand dancing, and she hit a hole in one a couple of weeks ago at Gold. So I've got some strong competition. Well, she's the oldest.

Presenter10:13

Well, she's the oldest hole in Wanner in the land.

Richard Branson10:15

In the in the world, actually, I think, at the moment.

Presenter10:19

And what about the mother of your children, Joan? How much influence does she have on you?

Richard Branson10:24

She's my complete opposite. She's and, you know, I go home and I might say I've just

Richard Branson10:30

done some fantastic deal or something and you know, she just says, Oh, shut up, Richard, change the Nafis. I mean I wouldn't say she's but you know, she shows an enormous amount of interest in what I do, which is wonderful and I can I can go home and I've got a a wonderful lady who's fantastic with her children, um, who I love very much and we've we've been together for about thirteen years now. But I think the attraction almost was the fact that she was very down to earth and she n she knows about the real values in life.

Presenter10:57

And do all these women in your life attempt to curb your adventurous spirit? Are they all frightened you'll do yourself some damage?

Richard Branson11:04

No, not really. I think um they appreciate that all all these things make you what you are. And although Joan would r would not come to see the balloon off or see the boats off, I think to an extent she

Richard Branson11:16

And she accepts it. I mean, obviously she doesn't particularly like it, but she accepts it.

Presenter11:20

Some men would say you're a very lucky chap to be surrounded by all these loving people.

Richard Branson11:24

I think I am. And I think w when it comes to these adventures I've I'm also when I if I question myself, I think I'm slightly selfish chap because um you know, it's anyway you have to question yourself as to why you're doing it and so on. And especially when you've got young children and and

Richard Branson11:40

and uh wonderful you know wonderful people around you.

Presenter11:43

And what answers do you come up with?

Richard Branson11:45

Oh, it's difficult. I mean for the last two years I've managed to resist any new adventures for those reasons. And whether I will be able to uh carry on indefinitely I don't know.

Presenter11:57

Of which more later, but time now, I think, for your third record.

Richard Branson12:00

Well, uh Peter Skellin's You're a Lady.

Speaker 412:05

Lady

Speaker 412:07

I'm a man.

Speaker 412:10

You're supposed to.

Speaker 412:13

Understand

Speaker 412:15

How these things are

Speaker 412:18

Often planned

Speaker 412:30

Yeah.

Presenter12:30

Yeah.

Speaker 412:30

I'm a fool

Presenter12:30

Yeah. Uh

Speaker 412:30

Uh

Presenter12:30

Yeah.

Speaker 412:30

Uh

Presenter12:32

You're the teacher.

Presenter12:34

Peter Skellen's You're a Lady.

Presenter12:36

So you left school, Richard, you said, um, at at fifteen, and you were a millionaire by the age of nineteen?

Richard Branson12:44

It's very difficult to know because I I would never sell any large chunks of my company, so it's only a paper on paper.

Richard Branson12:51

I think perhaps it was the, you know, in some time in the early days of the mail order company or the record retailing that that that one became a paper millionaire.

Presenter12:59

But but just going back a bit, I mean, how does a young boy of fifteen, sixteen, leaving school, how does he set up a magazine? And where did you begin?

Richard Branson13:08

Well, I didn't have um outside finance, um, so I had to sell enough advertising to cover the printing and the paper costs.

Richard Branson13:17

and set myself a rule that I wouldn't launch the magazine until I'd had five thousand pounds worth of advertising sold.

Richard Branson13:25

And I actually worked out of the television box at the school.

Richard Branson13:28

And I used to put on a false voice as to pretend that I had a secretary because i I didn't feel that advertisers would accept a schoolboy in this telephone box at school otherwise. And uh and then I put on my real voice as the as Richard Branson and anyway somehow managed to blather my way into getting five thousand pounds away.

Presenter13:46

What you did the female was you said just putting your throat

Richard Branson13:48

No, no, I was a male assistant switch man, so I couldn't quite do that. Although sometimes I'd use the switchboard, I'd use the switchboard operator.

Presenter13:57

So there was a lot of conning of people in the sense of of

Richard Branson14:00

I think you had to believe in what you were putting out. So, I mean, I was putting out a magazine that was going to go to fifty thousand young people and

Presenter14:01

Cost to

Richard Branson14:08

And I had to act more grown up than I really was. I didn't want to let on that I was fifteen.

Richard Branson14:14

And uh once I'd got

Richard Branson14:16

five thousand pounds worth of advertising committed. I then had to persuade them to wait until I'd actually got the first edition together.

Presenter14:22

At which point you then had to persuade people to contribute to this magazine, and you you persuaded people like Gerald Scarfe, David Hockney, John Le Carrey, the Dean of Liverpool. And how did you do that? On the public telephone from school?

Richard Branson14:34

Most of it on the public telephone, um, occasionally writing them letters from from um the school library. The idea of uh a magazine run by young people appealed to most of these people. And once you got one or two, you could name drop a bit, so it's it was eas it was easier.

Presenter14:52

So it worked, and you started to sell the magazine, and then, as you said, you started to sell cut price records through the magazine. But it was all done by mail order, and the money was rolling in.

Presenter15:03

But then, in nineteen seventy one, the man with the handlebar moustache, Tom Jackson, stepped in and led a postal strike. What happened?

Richard Branson15:12

Yes, so that was a bit disturbing because all all our income was then coming from the mail order company and the eight week postal strike was w you know, we were we faced going out of business. And so we headed off down Oxford Street one day and

Richard Branson15:24

and went into various shops, and finally ended up in a shoe shop.

Richard Branson15:27

And I walked upstairs and saw they had an empty space, and

Richard Branson15:30

Went up to the manager and said, How about letting us have that space for a record shop? You'll sell lots of shoes and we'll sell lots of records.

Richard Branson15:37

And uh he said yes.

Richard Branson15:39

And about a week or two later we opened our first record shop.

Richard Branson15:43

And uh we sell lots of records, but I think a lot of his shoes walked out of the shop without being paid for.

Presenter15:49

I wonder if many of your records did too,'cause also, I remember, people used to go in there and spend the whole day in there, didn't they? with the headphones on up corners, just listening to the records, but not buying any.

Richard Branson15:59

It was more like a club than a record shop. I mean our taking started very well, but soon nobody could actually get to the counters to buy the records, because we had pillows and headphones, and it became the place to go rather than the place to buy anything.

Richard Branson16:11

And uh we never really ran in those days our retail operation very professionally, I would say.

Presenter16:17

Another record.

Richard Branson16:19

Well, I thought uh one of my favourite records is Peggy Lee Fever.

Richard Branson16:24

Very road chillers.

Speaker 416:27

Never know how much I love you.

Speaker 416:30

Never know how much I can

Speaker 416:34

When you put your arms around me

Speaker 416:37

I get a fever that's so hard to blame, you give me fever.

Speaker 416:43

When you kiss me, fever, when you hold me tight

Speaker 416:48

Never

Speaker 416:49

In the morning

Speaker 416:51

A fever all through the night

Speaker 416:55

Some Lights up

Presenter16:56

Peggy Lee singing Fever. Um Richard, we've said that you weren't that interested in in pop and in teenage idols. Was there anyone on the scene then in the sixties who impressed you at all? Or were you always your own man?

Richard Branson17:11

I think if any if anybody admired John Lennon, um I think that

Richard Branson17:16

A lot of what he did and said I agreed with at the time.

Richard Branson17:19

The fact that he

Richard Branson17:21

He pitted himself against Vietnam as something which I admired.

Presenter17:24

Did you also, though, admire perhaps his irreverence? I mean, a certain lack of respect, if you like, for the establishment?

Presenter17:33

Is there is there a streak of that in you, despite the fact you are now so accepted by the establishment?

Richard Branson17:38

I think there is a streak of in that in me, in that well, for instance, we've you know, we've we've just bought our companies back and gone private, and that was an element of

Richard Branson17:48

feeling that we we didn't want to do it the way the the city does it. We value our independence, I think, is is is true. And I avoid establishment parties and things. I'd rather spend the time with a few friends at home in the country than, you know, getting get out and socializing a lot.

Presenter18:04

Of course you um I know you don't mind admitting it, that you you once attempted to um go against the Establishment in in that you diddled Her Majesty's Government out of a large dollop of excise duty, didn't you?

Richard Branson18:16

I hasten to add, I was a teenager at the time, but it still it's still there's no excuse. I slipped up, as they say. I was delivering um some records to France.

Richard Branson18:26

for an export order and when I got to the French customs they said uh have you got your carne and uh I didn't know what a carne was but but I hadn't got it so they sent me back to England and as I was driving back to London I thought well here am here am I with all these records which I haven't paid tax on in England and and uh if I sell them in England I can save ten percent or something on the on the on the records.

Richard Branson18:49

Uh anyway, I got wrapped over the knuckles and I think it was lucky that it happened to me as a teenager. I mean it's it it's taught me that sleeping well at night is really all that matters in life.

Presenter19:00

You spent the night in a in a prison.

Richard Branson19:02

Dover prison, yes. It was very very, very unpleasant and something perhaps that everybody should do once, just to just to know just how miserable and and horrible it is.

Presenter19:11

Shall we have some more music?

Richard Branson19:13

Well, how about going right back to my roots, uh, Mike Colefield's tubular bells?

Presenter19:47

Part of Mike Oldfield's tubular bells, which was in fact a a turning point in your career, wasn't it, Richard?

Richard Branson19:54

Yes, very much so. Mike turned up at the manor one day as a fifteen-year-old lad, and I was what, a couple of years older than him.

Richard Branson20:01

And um he'd written this tape which we all love.

Richard Branson20:05

Um but we didn't have the resources to.

Richard Branson20:07

release it and we sent him off to the other record companies and they all turned him down.

Richard Branson20:12

And uh finally about two or three years later I rang him up and said, Look, we've made a bit of money, let's make this our first release on a new record label.

Richard Branson20:21

And uh it was an enormous success.

Richard Branson20:24

And it it enabled us to get the record company up and going.

Presenter20:28

And then much later on came Boy George and then Phil Collins and so it's gone on and on, being quite a success. But with with considerable gaps, I mean you never quite hear about your failures, we only hear about your successes.

Richard Branson20:39

No, you're you're absolutely right. And in fact, someone's just done a book a book on me and I've made sure that all the the warts and all are there because I think it's rather important for future budding entrepreneurs that it's not just the press releases that they read about, that they do realize that I mean it was only, what, six years ago, just after we'd

Richard Branson20:59

launched the airline or five years ago that the bank manager turned up at my doorstep one day and said, you know, if you don't get another two hundred thousand pounds into your bank account by Monday, we'll we'll bounce a check. And every the end of every month for years and years and years we were you know, we'd sit around working out how we could pay the bills and if the traffic warden came in to collect her bills I'd dive under the table and and so on.

Presenter21:21

Yeah.

Richard Branson21:22

Yeah.

Presenter21:23

But the work of art for you, as I understand it, i is the deal. You you like having the idea, putting it to work and and doing the deal.

Richard Branson21:32

I think actually my challenge is is the people and perhaps slightly more than the deal. Virgin's strength is is its people. We've got a tremendous group of people who've stayed together since we were well, teenagers, a lot of us, and we've just literally grown up together.

Presenter21:47

But you presumably require their total dedication you require them to give their all.

Richard Branson21:52

Yes, but I I think it's also important that they you know, with our for instance of our Japanese staff, I've been encouraging them to take weekends off because I think that playing hard is as important as working hard. But in the weekdays people do work very long hours and uh weekends they we try to make sure that they're sacrosanct everybody.

Presenter22:12

But there must um because you've been so successful, there has to be in you a ruthless streak.

Richard Branson22:19

I like to think that that doesn't necessarily have to apply, that you can be a successful entrepreneur.

Richard Branson22:26

by trying to do deals with people which are fair.

Richard Branson22:29

therefore they'll come back for more rather than trying to trample on people. We're proud of the fact that in since we started our record company, our artists have always re signed with us. We've never lost a major artist to another record company. And I think that's because we strike deals which both sides feel comfortable with.

Presenter22:46

You also um maintain a large degree of control of all these elements of your uh company, don't you? You are the dictator.

Richard Branson22:55

The benevolent dictators. We have one hundred and fifty small companies. We have one hundred and fifty managing directors. So we have lots of small units with very autonomous people running them.

Richard Branson23:12

And they can develop those companies without interference from me.

Richard Branson23:16

Um but if they want help from me they can pick up a phone and you know I'm always ready t and willing to make suggestions. But they run those companies as if they're their own. A lot of them have shares in the companies and they can become multi-millionaires working within the Virgin conglomerate. So they're the kind of people who could go off and run their own companies but choose to work for Virgin.

Presenter23:38

Shall we have your sixth record?

Richard Branson23:41

Well, I thought Phil Collins in the air tonight, which was an important record for us and one I like very much as well.

Speaker 423:48

I was there and I saw what she did.

Speaker 423:53

I saw it with my own two eyes

Speaker 423:58

He cried out and grinned.

Speaker 424:01

No way you've been

Speaker 424:03

Soap in a pack of lines

Speaker 424:09

And I can feel it coming in the air now.

Presenter24:18

Phil Collins in the air tonight. We haven't talked, Richard, at all about that for which you're perhaps best known the the daredevil stunts, crossing the Atlantic in a power boat and then in a hot air balloon.

Presenter24:31

Why do you want to do them?

Richard Branson24:33

For a variety of reasons. I mean, there are tremendous personal challenges, both with the balloon project, for instance, overcoming a technological problem where people said it was impossible for a hot air balloon to go that far. And then the actual personal challenge of having never flown a hot air balloon, to learn to fly it, to learn to skydive, to see whether one was capable of setting oneself that kind of task. And I'm in that fantastic position of being able to, say, ride in the jet stream at 150 miles an hour in a balloon, which no one's ever done before. A magnificent sensation.

Presenter25:06

But there was a point, wasn't there, uh, in that balloon, which was a couple of years ago. I mean, there was a point at which you thought you wouldn't make it.

Richard Branson25:13

Yes, I mean there was an hour and a half or two hours at the the end, which were perhaps the most lonely two hours of my life.

Richard Branson25:21

I thought it was unlikely that I was going to survive, but I was f fighting tooth and nail to try to get out of an unpleasant fix.

Presenter25:29

This was after the the the man you were flying with, the expert, had gone overboard. You thought he was dead, presumably?

Richard Branson25:33

Right.

Richard Branson25:35

Yes, he'd jumped and the balloon was bouncing up and and I thought he'd jumped. I mean, he jumped in the seas with a

Richard Branson25:42

Very cold seas with a parachute on, with no life vest on.

Presenter25:45

Did you know he was going to jump?

Richard Branson25:47

It all happened within about five seconds and um he jumped and I was meant to jump after him and I didn't get to the edge in time and the

Richard Branson25:57

Balloon and capsule hurtled back up into the air, and I was clinging on to the edge'cause I was r up on the top at this stage. It went up to

Richard Branson26:05

ten, twelve thousand feet and I found it difficult to breathe. I then climbed back in and put an oxygen mask on.

Richard Branson26:12

The bloom was out of control. It couldn't the explosive bolts um would not explode and therefore I couldn't get rid of the

Richard Branson26:19

Bloom.

Richard Branson26:20

And therefore it was it wasn't capable of landing.

Richard Branson26:23

It was getting dark.

Richard Branson26:25

And I put a parachute on, put a life vest on, put a life raft on.

Richard Branson26:29

Wasn't sure that I put them on all the right way around and when it came down to about ten thousand feet got up on to the top.

Richard Branson26:37

and just looked down at the clouds, knew I was was going to parachute into the sea, which I'd never done before.

Richard Branson26:43

and knew that when I jumped that it was possible that I only had about five or

Richard Branson26:48

Ten minutes left of my life and and that was what was you know, it was it was you know, just sort of s standing there, not trying not to think too much about y uh, you know, how lonely it was, but trying to think was I doing the right thing, you know, and you know, the way I've been brought up by my parents, you know, fight, fight, fight until you've absolutely failed and then, you know, as long as you've done everything you can to avoid it, then, you know, so be it. And I was just searching to think if there was an alternative.

Richard Branson27:15

In the end I decided to climb back into the capsule to give myself a few more.

Richard Branson27:19

moments either of life or a few more moments to think.

Richard Branson27:23

And I knew the fuel was running out, and only had about half an hour left.

Richard Branson27:27

And while I was in the capsule I decided

Richard Branson27:29

Perhaps the best decision of my life was to stick with the balloon and use it as a parachute.

Richard Branson27:35

guide the boom down, and then about sixty foot before it hit the water to throw myself over the side.

Richard Branson27:41

Um which was a safer bet for somebody who'd

Richard Branson27:44

Only Parachute did twice in his life before, and rather disastrously at that. As it turned out, I made the right decision.

Presenter27:51

And so you you don't wonder that your family would really rather you didn't do anything like that again?

Richard Branson27:56

I completely understand and and I would question I question my sanity if I did want to do it again.

Richard Branson28:02

At the same time.

Richard Branson28:04

You do only live once, and I think it's good in life to set yourself challenges.

Presenter28:08

So when and what is the next challenge?

Richard Branson28:12

Well, I'm trying to behave still at the moment, so don't don't don't push me too hard.

Richard Branson28:16

Ha ha ha.

Presenter28:17

We'll have some music instantane.

Richard Branson28:17

Uh

Richard Branson28:19

Well, let's try Do You Really Want to Hurt Me? Oh well, that's appropriate, isn't it, by Coucha Club?

Speaker 428:32

Do you really want to make me cry?

Speaker 428:37

Do you really want to hurt me?

Speaker 428:42

Do you really want to make me cry?

Presenter28:54

Boy George and Culture Club with Do You Really Want to Hurt Me? Um, Richard, I must ask you, you're reputed to have, despite your great wealth, only one suit in your wardrobe, is that right?

Richard Branson29:06

Um I think maybe I've got two now. I don't um I happen to dress as I feel comfortable, and I think that as a boss, it's quite a good idea because then your staff and all below you can dress as they feel comfortable.

Presenter29:19

So it's it's a a lot of very expensive casuals instead. We haven't talked at all about um mates, the uh selling of cut price condoms which you initiated uh in the uh in the war against AIDS, as it were. Is that your way, if you like, of giving back something that you've taken out, actually helping society?

Richard Branson29:39

I think to an extent it is, as a successful entrepreneur, you are no more successful than

Richard Branson29:45

A successful doctor, a successful nurse, successful broadcaster, successful bus conductor, but with it comes enormous wealth.

Richard Branson29:54

Also with it comes a responsibility.

Richard Branson29:57

I think particularly I felt after the balloon and the boating trips and being a personality that perhaps some young people identified with, that it would be easier for me to go and

Richard Branson30:07

Try to make young people

Richard Branson30:09

wear condoms than for a government to go and tell young people they should wear condoms. In order to tackle AIDS, I believe that there at the moment there is only one way of tackling it, and that is to have sexually active people wear condoms, do what their dads did. Incredibly unhip thing to do, but rather a necessary thing to do.

Presenter30:30

You um use the word of yourself successful entrepreneur a lot. Do you ever have you ever entertained the idea of failure?

Richard Branson30:40

Yes, and I obviously have failed on certain things. I think failure is not important in life, and that's something that my parents always brought me up to understand well.

Richard Branson30:50

Trying is what matters. You fail if you don't try.

Richard Branson30:54

I I will sleep well at night if I fail as long as I've done everything I can to avoid it.

Presenter31:00

But you must surely also believe in luck.

Richard Branson31:04

I think luck's important. I mean, uh there are plenty of other people who've worked as hard as I have and haven't been so successful.

Richard Branson31:12

At the same time, if you're not absolutely determined and if you don't throw yourself wholeheartedly into trying to avoid failure, you will fail.

Presenter31:20

So you don't worry that your luck might run out?

Richard Branson31:23

I'm not worried that our businesses will ever stumble because it would be extremely irresponsible of me if they ever did by this stage, where we're over the hump and a company gets to a certain size where there's really almost nothing that can avoid it going forward. I think it's more how one conducts the next half of one's life.

Richard Branson31:41

And that's that's the challenge, where where one goes from from here.

Presenter31:45

Shall we have your last record?

Richard Branson31:47

Well, I'd like to end with She's a Mystery to Me uh by Roy Orberson. It was his last record, but a record he was enormously proud of.

Speaker 431:55

Night falls, I'm cast beneath her spell Daylight comes, our heaven turns to hell Am I left to burn and burn eternally? She's a mystery to me

Speaker 432:17

He's a mystery girl.

Speaker 432:23

Jesus.

Presenter32:23

Mr. Holy Glove.

Presenter32:26

Roy Orbison singing She's a Mystery to Me.

Presenter32:29

So the final three decisions now of the Castaway, Richard. The first one, which of the eight records do you prefer to all of the others?

Richard Branson32:38

Oh, dear me.

Richard Branson32:40

Well, I think it is between Phil Collins and the air tonight at Michael Fields Tubal Bells. And since they're both great friends, I'm going to have great problems choosing which one. Do I have to choose one?

Presenter32:51

Yes, you do. But you mentioned them both, so go on, choose one.

Richard Branson32:51

Yes, you do, but you mention them both, so go on.

Richard Branson32:54

Well, I'm trying to think who's going to be listening. I'll go I'll go for Phil Zimier tonight.

Presenter32:58

And now a book. You've got the Bible and you've got the complete works of Shakespeare. What else would you like to have to read?

Richard Branson33:07

Well it sounds very dull, but uh the thing I've regretted most, or one of the things I regret most, is is not knowing any languages. And um we're doing a lot with Japan at the moment. I find the people fascinating and I think I would like to spend the time trying to learn Japanese. Uh so I think some sort of Japanese English dictionary or some way of teaching myself Japanese would be um something which I would find perhaps most satisfying.

Presenter33:33

Right, and a luxury.

Richard Branson33:34

Well maybe could I have a hot air balloon to or to get off the island? I can't have a hot air balloon.

Presenter33:37

Can I ask the items? I kind of have an idea.

Speaker 233:39

Yeah.

Richard Branson33:40

The thing I can't really do without in life is is uh notebooks and and and a pen. I I like to

Richard Branson33:47

scribble everything down, all my thoughts down on paper.

Richard Branson33:50

And then I can clear the mind so I can get on with the next thing.

Richard Branson33:53

And uh so if I'm allowed, I think I'll have some uh pen and paper.

Presenter33:58

Unlimited supplies.

Richard Branson33:59

Unlimited supplies, yes.

Presenter34:00

Depends. You don't know how long you might be there. Richard Branson, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Speaker 234:14

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Islandists archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.