Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury

Speaker 30:00

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 30:08

The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen ninety two, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:30

My castaway this week is a shopkeeper. He runs more than one in fact, at the last count there were four hundred and seventy five of them. But he's not a remote figure. After Oxford he entered the family firm and learned how to rasher bacon and pat butter, and so worked his way up to become chairman. That was twenty three years ago. Since then he's presided over phenomenal growth, and to day his company is the most profitable retailer in the country.

Presenter0:55

Some of those profits have been spent in the national interest. He and his family are devoted to the arts, and most recently they endowed the fine new extension to the National Gallery in London. He's the chairman of Sainsbury's, Lord Sainsbury of Preston

Presenter1:09

So you're very happy, are you, to be called a shopkeeper, Lord Saints but that's how you perceive yourself?

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury1:13

Absolutely. I I boast of being a shopkeeper when asked what I do. And I I've enjoyed the trade and I have great respect for those in the trade who do well and I'm proud of being a shopkeeper.

Presenter1:24

You're you're the fourth generation of your family in the histories, aren't you?

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury1:26

Yes, my that's right. My great grandfather, who started the business with one shop and the legendary hundred pounds, in a sm very small dairy in Drury Lane, in eighteen sixty nine.

Presenter1:37

What did he sell?

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury1:38

Well, he sold mostly dairy products. It was a very poor street in that day those days, a poor market street, and a lot of the goods were sold out on the pavement. And I think the interesting thing is that what he started in in in a very important way is still going on, because he started with a twin objective of having better quality than anyone else in Drury Lane.

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury1:59

and having at the same time as low or lower prices than anyone else.

Presenter2:03

And he multiplied and multiplied. I think by the outbreak of the First World War, there were 115 shops in the world. Oh, yes, but it.

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury2:08

Oh yes, but originally, you know, his his his ambition was simply to have one for each of his children.

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury2:14

So that was the start of the the expansion. But what I w what I think is interesting is that.

Presenter2:17

The one I

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury2:20

He was unique in what he was trying to do in those days, because lots of people tried to have the cheapest prices and lots of people tried to have the the best quality. Very, very rare did try did people put that those two things together.

Presenter2:33

What were the shops like when you first went into them in the 1950s? Were they good old-fashioned grocer's shops as one remembers them, dare I say?

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury2:41

Well uh well absolutely. I uh there was one shop that my father and uncle who were leading the business in those days were pioneers in, as it were, and that was called a self-service store. The other two hundred and forty four stores were the old fashioned marble topped counters, long shops, sometimes double fronted, broken up into different departments, the bacon department, butter department, cheese department. I mean little did I think that one day we'd be taking money and and and and with plastic cards and not rigging things up on cash registers but scanning them across laser beams.

Presenter3:16

Well now let's turn to your music and the eight records that you want to take to your desert island. How how have you chosen them? Music is obviously very important to you.

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury3:23

Well, I had a marvellous time trying to

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury3:25

um boiled it down just to eight records as everyone must have. But I try to keep a a a range of of interest and memories in the records I've chosen. And I start with a piece of music that I particularly love, one which I had played on in my sixtieth birthday party because I loved it so much. And it's um Schubert's string quintet in C, and I think it's one of the most beautiful pieces of music in the world and certainly one of the greatest things he ever wrote.

Presenter4:53

Part of the second movement of Schubert's String Quintet in C played by the Lindsay String Quartet with Douglas Cummings.

Presenter4:59

You became chairman of the company, Lord Sainsbury, in nineteen sixty nine. Those twenty years through the seventies and the eighties must have seen greater change in the world of supermarkets or the grocery business than any other twenty years in history. I mean, we even spend millions of pounds now on water, for heaven's sake.

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury5:16

Yes, we do indeed. But also we have shops which have probably three times the number of products on display than ever they were in in the fifties. After all, the fifties started when when things were still rationed. By the time we got to the mid seventies, the supermarkets everywhere were getting larger. People's interests in choice was getting more important. And as the stores got larger, they were able to g offer greater choice, and that's gone on.

Presenter5:44

But do we, the customer, follow you? I mean, do you lead us, or do we ask? I mean, do we ask for pizza and pasta, or do you say, Look, we're we're gonna sell this and you'll like it?

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury5:51

What do you say?

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury5:54

Well, of course both, really. But um th th one of the exciting things about the job has been anticipating changing tastes and changing needs. You can sense, as it were, increasing interest, shall we say, in wholemeal bread or or things of that sort.

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury6:10

A health foods of that sort.

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury6:13

And then it's a once you sense that the people are wanting more of something and are more interested in a particular a type of product that they weren't particularly interested in before, then it's a great challenge to get there first.

Presenter6:25

But it makes you something of a social engineer, really, doesn't it? If you decide that that w we might eat Chinese cabbage or moscapony cheese or something, I mean, there it is

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury6:34

There he goes. No, I don't think we're that. You see, really all the time, customer rules. You can be ahead of demand, you can be anticipating what's coming, but you can't be so far ahead that you're selling things that nobody's interested in.

Presenter6:49

Let's have your second record.

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury6:51

Well my second record is a balletic record in that it's from the Ballet Cinderella. But the reason I've chosen it is because my w wife was a ballerina and it was Cinderella that was the first ballet I saw Anya dance after we'd met. I went to this performance, this performance of Cinderella, back in 1962.

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury7:14

And um I I didn't want to go all my own, so I took a a male friend and said, um, you can come, but you've got to leave the moment the performance is over, because I'm taking out one of the cast. And he spent the whole performance trying to decide and guess which of all those beautiful dancers I was to take out to dinn dinner afterwards. He kept his side of the bargain and disappeared. Anya and I had a mildest dinner together, and I fell madly in love immediately.

Presenter8:37

Part of the duet between the Prince and Cinderella from Act Two of Prokofiev's Cinderella, played by the Cleveland Orchestra conducted by Vladimir Ashkenazi.

Presenter8:45

Your parents were divorced when you were about eleven, and and you lived with your mother. But did you always assume that you would end up in the family business?

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury8:53

I don't think at that time I really did want to go did think about going into the family business. I I suppose it was there at the back of my mind. But my real interest at that time was um as a schoolboy was was um amateur dramatics. I loved being an actor and um we appeared in various um school plays and so on, like like many people do.

Presenter9:14

So you thought you might end up on the stage.

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury9:16

Well, I actually did get on the professional stage for a week, which is rather surprising. As a schoolboy, I wrote with another friend to the best repertory company, which happened to be not far from where we lived, which was the Windsor Rep, and said, you know, we are two promising young actors. What about giving us a job in the next Easter holidays? And to our absolute astonishment, well, they said, come in and let's have a look at you, we see. Well, it ends up by having two weeks rehearsing at five pounds a week and one week performing at the great sum of twelve pounds a week in an Ian Hay comedy at the at Windsor Rep.

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury9:52

And in that time I learnt an awful lot about the theatre. I also learnt that I wasn't a very good actor instead there, but but at least it was a marvelous experience and it taught me a lot and I enjoyed it. I've loved the theatre, always loved the theatre, and I'm proud of my one week's performing.

Presenter10:07

And eventually, though, you went to Oxford, you went to Worcester College to read history.

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury10:11

So I had to do the army first and then went up to Worcester and to read history.

Presenter10:12

Yeah.

Presenter10:15

And he fell in love with Oxford.

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury10:17

I loved it. I mean it was such a contrast from a life that I'd also enjoyed in another way in the army, but was longing to get out and start other doing other things. But I must say the change from the sort of routine of the army to the world of Oxford was amazing. And I all so many things that that I'm interested in now st I started being interested in at that time when I was at Oxford.

Presenter10:43

Some more music.

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury10:45

Well, our next record is um the most marvellous singing between Kutrubus and Domingo from Traviata. It's the duet between Alfredo and Violetta in Act Three. It is probably my favourite, or one of my most favorite, Verdi operas, and it it's a very beautiful piece of music.

Speaker 411:09

Come back to revival.

Speaker 411:14

I'll be a son with your grace.

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury11:14

Yes, yes.

Speaker 411:35

What is your God for your faith?

Speaker 411:42

Uh

Presenter12:05

Placido Domingo and Iliana Kotrubash singing part of the duet between Alfredo and Violetta from Act three of Verde's La Traviata, with the Bavarian State Opera, conducted by Carlos Kleiber.

Presenter12:17

So you learned the business, Lord Sainsbury, from the bottom up, all the skills of the trade, cutting the bacon and patting the butter. Did you learn how to do the displays as well, and arranging things?

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury12:27

Well um not so much, although it was certainly um it was part of the things. I I have to say that I wasn't very good at uh raftering bacon, and um when I saw the skills being used in the stores I I felt it was important I knew how to do it, but I was glad I wasn't uh put against uh the the professionals as it were. Did you serve behind

Presenter12:46

Did you serve behind the counter as well?

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury12:48

Only momentarily. My first time I actually got um a job of my own uh I was made a the biscuit buyer. Then I got promoted to being bacon buyer, and that I enjoyed even more.

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury13:00

And um you know one of the things about business is how creative it can be. And and and very often people who spend their life being creative in the arts forget that being a businessman um can be a highly creative thing when you're inventing new products and bringing new things into the the commercial world. It is creative and I had enormous satisfaction from bringing new products in which some of which failed but most of which didn't.

Presenter13:28

You're apparently well known in the firm for for swooping unannounced on on a on one of your stores to check up on it. Uh wh what are you looking for when you do that?

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury13:37

When I go there, I'm really looking for everything that I possibly can from the customer's point of view, first of all. And um of course it's no test if um it leaks out, and sometimes it does, that the cham is coming. It only is meaningful if I arrive as as if a customer ha well

Presenter13:53

And what happens then when you find something's wrong or a display has got a sort of

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury13:57

Well, I I always feel that I always say wh what I think.

Presenter14:01

But apparently this has got you quite a reputation on the shop floor.

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury14:03

Oh, yes, there's something of a thing. Actually, no manager likes a visit if it goes badly, but every manager loves a visit if it goes well, because i if if you're going to criticise when it's wrong, my goodness you've got to say how much you like it when it's right. But I of course I do get cross because I care. And I mean, I think it's right that if you have the sort of responsibility that one of our store managers has, which is twenty thousand customers to serve, and if you feel someone's not playing a proper part in achi achieving that, I would expect the manager to get cross.

Presenter14:37

Do you swoop in unannounced on the opposition as well on the test?

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury14:40

Oh yes, I know. Absolutely I do. And sometimes I'm sometimes I mean you have to get recognized and um thanked for um coming to see us tall. Sometimes it's the office I get asked to leave, but not often.

Presenter14:52

Next piece of music.

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury14:53

Well, the next piece of music um is uh uh from Chopin, and of course I like everyone always, I I I love Chopin, and it was hard to choose which piece until I thought

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury15:04

What a marvelous thing it would be to be reminded of the great ballad that.

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury15:10

Frederick Ashton created near the end of his life, which was a month in the country. And it means very it has a very special memory for me because my wife and I sponsored the ballet and its first night. We gave a party for Fred and for all the cast. And I'll never forget it. It was a very, very moving, a very successful, marvellously well received by the audience. And it was a great sense of being at the beginnings of something which was going to last for a very, very long time, as indeed that the ballet has. And to see the personal triumph of Lynn Seymour and Anthony Dahl gave it an extra joy for us.

Presenter16:54

Shora Czechaski playing part of Chopin's Andante Spionato and Gran Polonesse in E flat.

Presenter17:00

We were talking, Lord Sainsbury, about your dislike of incompetence. I wonder if there was an element of that in your speech when you opened the new Sainsbury wing to the National Gallery. You said that you and your brothers felt a sense of frustration and shame even that successive governments had failed to provide this new wing.

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury17:19

Yes, I I I think um uh it was that feeling that something just had to be done.

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury17:25

that really caused my brothers and I to make the gift we did to the nation. I think what I was trying to express then was my great regret that forty years had to go back, go by before this terribly important site right in the heart of London, next to our great National Gallery, should have been neglected by successive governments.

Presenter17:47

Did you feel a a similar anger and frustration when you were at the Royal Opera House and you were chairman there from eighty seven to ninety one that again there was a a lack of money to do what you might have felt or whatever?

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury18:00

Yes, I certainly felt uh I felt considerable frustration. All the years I was at the Opera House, there was, of course, always a crisis, a financial crisis. But

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury18:09

I think in the last decade and perhaps the last fifteen years even it has got much worse than that. It's been fashionable to talk about elitism of an opera house where in fact the prices in Covent Garden were lower than those generally ruling in major opera houses until the Arts Council started squeezing the grant.

Presenter18:32

So it's a vicious circle, is it? That you can't put up the price of the ticket anymore because you get accused of elitism, but on the other hand, if you don't put up the price of the ticket, then you can't afford to do what you believe you want to do.

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury18:41

What you

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury18:43

Absolutely. I mean, no one will no one likes putting prices up, and they are, of course, terribly high.

Presenter18:47

But as you know, the view seems to be that the national theatre and the English National Opera manage to run establishments where there is a feeling that everyone is welcome and everyone can afford to go there, whereas the Royal Opera House does seem to be elitist, that it seems to be for the very rich or the corporate people who can afford the boxes and the sponsorships.

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury19:06

And I don't

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury19:08

Yes, of course there is that feeling around. I don't think it's really true. Opera houses are always more expensive institutions than theatres are, and always anywhere and everywhere in Europe are funded much more generously and need to be than the great theatres. But the elitist is is an impossible question to answer. I think one must be elitist in quality of what is done. One wants to be seeking the best. There is a limited size of the opera house and one wants to charge those who can afford it as much as possible in order to charge those that can't afford it as little as possible in the upper parts of the house. And that is another way of looking at it. But the real fundamental thing is that the Arts Council has in the last ten years has failed the Opera House and allowed it to be funded less well, far less well, than any other European opera house.

Presenter20:01

Record number five.

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury20:03

Well, this is um one of my favorite operas, one I've enjoyed very often and I thought it would be good to have on the island, and it's um Juge in. It's the most marvellous love duet uh that comes in the first act.

Speaker 420:26

But comes yes, my dear shriek.

Speaker 420:40

The infancy, who's brought in great soul.

Speaker 420:54

Oh shit.

Presenter21:14

Anne Sophy von Otter and Neil Schikoff singing Lensky and Olga's love duet from Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onyegen, played by the Dresden State Opera Orchestra, conducted by James Levine.

Presenter21:25

You can never have imagined, Lord Sainsbury, that the family business would grow so large, and um and with it, of course, the family fortune. Um you've now overtaken Marks and Spencer's, I think, in in profit figures and but the family still owns some forty three per cent of of the company, doesn't it?

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury21:42

Well, uh the the family is a large family and there are many trusts, charity trusts and and and other trusts in the family, so it's in that neighbourhood of share ownership if you put all all the trusts and all the family members.

Presenter21:53

All the cousins and all the uncles and

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury21:54

It is but you're absolutely right, o of course. I never could have expected it, never indeed insought it that we would be as large as we are as a company. And of course it it's not something that's planned. We plan

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury22:06

um some years ahead and that were constantly changing. And but never in my wildest moments could have I anticipated that our the sales of a business that was, I think in today's money terms, something like two hundred million when I joined it, should now be nine thousand two hundred million.

Presenter22:24

But how great on the personal level is the responsibility of being so wealthy, really?

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury22:30

Well I think if you get you gain something from the community you've got to give it back. And I think it it gets it absolutely it goes. If one's w very wealthy one's got, I s in by my book, a sort of obligation to do something worthwhile with that wealth, whether you give it all away or direct it in areas where you know there's a particular need that you believe should be met.

Presenter22:52

But that must be a full time business, because presumably people are always asking.

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury22:56

Well, uh sorry a lot of people ask, yes, and uh and fair enough.

Presenter22:59

What about on on the personal level, though? I mean, you're you're not someone who seems to indulge in in demonstrative displays of wealth. I mean, yachts and horses and helicopters aren't your style. What are your own personal extravagances?

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury23:11

I have to confess that I do use a helicopter for business'cause it's a good way of getting around on those stores. And my idea is

Presenter23:19

Then they do know it's you coming.

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury23:19

Which you look at.

Presenter23:22

Uh

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury23:25

I am my extravagance. Well, I extravagant travel. I like travelling first class rather than economy, for example. I don't uh own yachts, but I have been known to charter them occasionally. So that's holidays extravagance, certainly, I I I confess to that. Um but um I don't think um I was brought up to uh believe in being ostentatious and I don't have any taste for it.

Presenter23:46

And what about stripped of all your material assets and and dumped, as we do rather unceremoniously to you, dumping you on this desert island without even a packet of tea? I mean, could you cope without any of the

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury23:58

Well, I always feel it was rather m it would be more Heath Robinson and Robinson Crusoe. I don't think I'd be very good. Um I'd rather like the climate of its nice West Indian one. I hope I think your desert island would have a rather nice climate.

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury24:10

But I don't think I'd be very good on the practicalities.

Presenter24:14

I think we better have your sixth record there.

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury24:16

Well my sixth record is in fact a West Indian one. I went on my honeymoon to the West Indies and I spend many have had many very happy winter holidays in the West Indies and I like West Indians and there's nothing better than dancing on the seashore to a West Indian steel band.

Presenter25:04

The Pan Am North Stars playing that happy feeling. What's the future of the supermarket? I mean, we now have shops um larger than aeroplane hangars and they've got coffee bars in them and petrol stations and cash dispensers. Where do we go from here?

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury25:18

Well, I think the great thing is that the public should have a choice of very large and very small and specialists and generalists. And this is what in fact they've got now, more so than ever before. And I suspect that that that the choice will go on getting greater. There will be more large stores and more very small ones.

Presenter25:36

Will they get bigger and bigger still?

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury25:38

I don't think so, no. I think that the particularly in this country where costs of land are so great, I think it's unlikely that they'll get bigger than than the biggest are now, but there may be a bit more of them.

Presenter25:50

You're the fourth generation, as we say. Does it go on? Will there always be a Sainsbury to mind the shop, do you think?

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury25:55

Well, I I I I think only time will tell that. One of the things that I'm particularly pleased about, that and and proud of actually, was is the fact that so many of our staff are shareholders. You have got um a real sense of ownership

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury26:09

amongst a very large number of people who work in the business.

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury26:12

In a way, it's another sort of family business. I mean, there is a sort of family atmosphere. People care, they uh are involved, they've got their savings in the company as well. I don't think that, however few members of the family are in it, that our company will ever lose something of the spirit of a family business.

Presenter26:31

Record number seven.

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury26:33

Well, this is um Mahler, a a a composer who I enormously admire. This is The Song of the Earth.

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury26:42

And the reason I've chosen it is not only because I love Marla and I love this particular piece, but because I'm a huge admirer of Kenneth Macmillan.

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury26:51

who probably is the greatest choreographer anywhere in the world today, and he one of his greatest works, I think, was done to this music.

Speaker 427:06

Wind a muisens its enforced shrinking line and wing and blow on land.

Speaker 427:30

Right and red but he reside and

Speaker 427:38

Speak in love.

Presenter27:56

Fritz Vunderlich singing of youth from Mahler's The Song of the Earth with the Philharmonia and New Philharmonia Orchestras conducted by Otto Klimpere.

Presenter28:05

You retire shortly, at the age of sixty five, but you've a mind, I understand, to um continue to act as the company's wine adviser.

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury28:12

I thought that was a good idea, yes. And it's been so fairly successful so far, so I

Presenter28:17

If you don't advertise the job, there'd be too many applicants.

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury28:19

I think it could be.

Presenter28:20

But patently you've been a very hands-on chairman. Is there a danger that that boredom will set in with a child?

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury28:26

Oh no, I don't think so. I mean I I've had too much to do and I'm enormously looking forward to to having time to do all the things that I haven't given enough time to. Such as? Well I mean the from the arts point of view I I certainly hope that um I'll have more time um for the arts, particularly actually for the visual arts, because the love of painting was my first love, really, in the arts and and and I remember as a as a schoolboy going to the Tate and getting very excited about seeing I think my particular passion at that moment was the Blakes. I remember that and I I I must say I've always had an interest. We before the war we had a tiny little cottage in Suffolk on the Stour in the Stour Valley and it was a a very beautiful little cottage without any electricity and and what water we had was pumped every morning by hand. And it was called Constable's. And as a very small boy I always had the thought that that Constable's uncle lived in this house and that one day I would find, hidden in the attic, a constable, so much who showed a very early interest in painting.

Presenter29:29

And what will you in retirement be most pleased rather like going to a desert island, really, most pleased to have escaped from?

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury29:35

Well, I think I'd add the bustle and and and hell of a London traffic jam. I think one thing to be nice uh to get away from.

Presenter29:41

And the telephone, presumably.

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury29:42

And and um and the television set. Not the radio, I'll keep that.

Presenter29:47

And if you're out in your retirement uh doing the shopping and you see a a a dented tin or a rotten plum on the front of the display in the supermarket

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury29:54

Oh yes.

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury29:56

Without saying a word. No, no, you know what I'll do. I always believed that it was very important indeed to listen to the customer and to pay attention to any letters that come from customers. And so if I see things as a customer that I then think should be, I hope they will follow the practice of paying attention to the customer.

Presenter30:15

So you become a professional complainer.

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury30:17

No, no, I won't do that. I'll be an admirer with an occasional comment if things are that.

Presenter30:23

Last record.

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury30:25

Well the last record is is Mozart. I really wanted to have lots of Mozart, but wanting a spread of different composers and different types of music, I suddenly realized that I haven't got a symphony amongst my records. And so who better than Mozart, even though I would like to have had some Mozart opera, what better than to have Mozart's 39th Symphony? And this particular piece that I'm going to play from the fourth movement is very much reminds one of Haydn as well. And it's a very happy and enjoyable piece I'm very, very fond of.

Speaker 431:49

Yeah.

Presenter32:06

Part of the fourth movement from Mozart's Symphony No. 39 in E-flat major, played by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Sir Thomas Beacham. So which of the eight records is the most important?

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury32:17

Oh, I think the Schubert. The mm perhaps the one that

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury32:21

It's most close to the heart.

Presenter32:23

And your book, as well as the Bible and Shakespeare.

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury32:26

I am going to take some verse. I never have enough time to read poetry, and certainly not to learn it, and I am sure I am going to have lots of time on that desert island to learn poetry. And so I've chosen a marvellous anthology, the New Oxford Book of English Verse. That will keep me busy for a long time on the island.

Presenter32:42

And your luxury.

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury32:43

My luxury's going to be a bed a really comfortable bed rather large one.

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury32:48

I'm not very good at sleeping on the ground. I've occasionally done so in different stages of my life, and I'm not very good at that. But if I have a nice comfortable bed that'll fit.

Presenter32:58

And a large duvet or a you sheets and black.

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury33:00

Now I hate Duvez, no, no, sheets and blankets, and I look forward to being rescued from the island by my wife Anya.

Presenter33:07

Lord Sainsbury, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury33:11

Thank you.

Speaker 333:19

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