Lord Tebbit

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.

Presenter0:28

My castaway this week is a politician. Born in Ponders End, North London, he was brought up in a working class family, which, by his own admission, he found narrow and dull.

Presenter0:38

He eventually flew the nest, becoming an airline pilot, and subsequently, in nineteen seventy, the MP for Epping.

Presenter0:45

A close colleague of Margaret Thatcher's, he pushed through Union reform and so enjoyed attacking Socialism that he became known in some parliamentary circles as the Chingford skinhead.

Presenter0:55

In nineteen eighty four he was seriously injured and his wife was paralysed by the IRA bomb at his party's Brighton conference. He nevertheless went on to engineer the Tory victory of'87. Now a peer, he is one of his party's severest critics, warning it in his characteristically acerbic manner of the dangers of the Maastricht Treaty. He is Norman Tebbit.

Presenter1:17

Lord Tebbitt, patiently, as as John Major has discovered to his cost, you've lost none of your appetite for the fight. Do do you miss the House of Commons?

Lord Tebbit1:26

In some ways, yes, it was a large part of my life, twenty odd years.

Lord Tebbit1:30

And I had my good days there, and some of my bad days as well.

Lord Tebbit1:36

But I'm very glad in the evenings, when I'm at home or out with my wife, as we do get out rather more now, that I'm not stuck there on a running three line whip, or something of that kind.

Presenter1:47

It's also not quite the same place, is it? All your old adversaries have gone, really.

Lord Tebbit1:51

Well, not all of them, by any means. Um after all, there's still folk like Dennis Skinner there, eager and keen to have a fight about almost anything that's going. But you're quite right, a number of them now have gone.

Presenter2:03

Who are the politicians you've most admired in your political lifetime? I mean, you've been very dismissive about Harold MacMillan, about Michael Foote, Neil Kinnock. I mean, who who have you really enjoyed taking on?

Lord Tebbit2:14

Well, taking on, I suppose the the arch um enemies were Harold Wilson and Jim Callaghan. I think Jim Callaghan um one of the most instinctively right politicians that I've ever met.

Lord Tebbit2:29

And a very warm man as well. Indeed, as was Harold Wilson. They were both particularly kind to me at times when I was just a really rather nasty little backbencher, intent on goading them into saying something indiscreet.

Presenter2:43

You once called Harold Wilson the patron saint of liars, didn't you?

Lord Tebbit2:46

I didn't actually call him that, but um it was it was thought that I was doing so. Um I did produce this patron Satan of Lyars and call him Saint Harold, and I suppose that may have been some connection.

Presenter2:58

Let's have your first record that you'll put on on your desert island. What is it?

Lord Tebbit3:02

Well, I didn't receive much of a musical education. School was pretty disrupted by the war.

Lord Tebbit3:09

But I just began to understand a little bit of what marvellous things there were in the world of music, and the first piece of classical music which I enjoyed at all was Tchaikovsky's eighteen twelve Overture.

Lord Tebbit3:24

Now perhaps it's held by some purists to be a bit naff, but I loved it, and it introduced me to that world.

Presenter4:32

Part of Tchaikovsky's eighteen twelve overture played by the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Herbert von Karrion.

Presenter4:39

You're noted, Lord Tebbit, for the the passion of your argument, for your aggression, for your determination to to win all exchanges. Where do you get those characteristics from? I mean, were your parents like that?

Lord Tebbit4:51

Not really. I think there were some members of my family who were. My mother's uh father uh was a butcher. Um runs in the family, doesn't it? And uh he he was a pretty tough guy. Um

Presenter5:07

But were you like it as a boy? I mean, in in the playground at Raglan Road Primary or at Edmonton Grammar. Were you quick tongued? Did you take on the other lads?

Lord Tebbit5:16

I was tongue-tied as a very small lad. I was too shy to go into the sweet shop and ask for two penneth of bullseyes almost.

Presenter5:25

So when when did you start?

Lord Tebbit5:26

I think it really came to me when I was at grammar school.

Lord Tebbit5:30

And I suddenly realized that I did have a greater skill with words than most of my contemporaries.

Lord Tebbit5:37

Whereas I wasn't as good as them at lots of other things.

Presenter5:40

Was that'cause you read a lot or?

Lord Tebbit5:42

Yes, I was a compulsive reader, absolutely compulsive. My mother used to say that if she put a sauce bottle on the table I'd read the label on the sauce bottle.

Presenter5:43

Okay.

Presenter5:52

You were born in the early thirties, and um your father did get on that bike that you were to make so famous some fifty years later. What sort of work did he go out looking for? What was his trade?

Lord Tebbit6:02

Well, by trade, my father was in in the retail business. He was uh originally apprenticed um into the jewelry trade, and that job folded underneath him, and he was then looking for anything he could do, and like many people to day in a similar circumstance, um odd jobbing of of building and decorating.

Presenter6:22

So throughout your early childhood money was always a big problem.

Lord Tebbit6:26

Yes, yes.

Presenter6:28

And your father was not the best of providers in the end.

Lord Tebbit6:32

No, no, that was not his strongest suit by any means.

Presenter6:36

Playing snooker was pan.

Lord Tebbit6:39

Yes, he enjoyed his snooker, and at that I wouldn't compete with him at all.

Presenter6:44

Hmm.

Presenter6:45

But you you've written about him since, and you you, as I said earlier on, labelled him and where you lived as being narrow and dull and grey and drab.

Presenter6:56

It sounds as if really it was a rather cheerless, loveless childhood, perhaps.

Lord Tebbit7:02

Yes, I think it was in some ways. We were not a family that showed much emotion and I found the whole of our life in that part of London rather depressing. And my liberation from that was similarly on two wheels. And I roamed particularly the Herefordshire and Essex countryside with my chums on our bicycles, far afield, often covering as much as 100 miles in a day.

Lord Tebbit7:30

And of course in those days it was rather pleasant.

Lord Tebbit7:33

during the war and after the war when there was very little traffic on the roads. I'd hate to do it now. I really would. I think it's one of the things which children growing up now are much poorer than we were in that sense in when I was a kid.

Presenter7:49

Record number two.

Lord Tebbit7:51

I think that of all the operatic composers Verdi is the greatest by far. His chorus of the Hebrew Slaves from Nabucco

Lord Tebbit8:02

seems to me to embody such enormous strength and compassion

Lord Tebbit8:09

It's one of my favourite pieces.

Speaker 48:36

Praise God

Speaker 48:58

Praise the love of all the people.

Presenter9:09

The chorus of the Hebrew slaves from Verdi's Nabucco, with the orchestra and chorus of the German Opera of Berlin, conducted by Giuseppe Sinopoli.

Presenter9:18

Why did a a Tory emerge from that deprived background, Norman Tibbett? Why not a young Socialist?

Lord Tebbit9:25

I think it was in the jeans.

Lord Tebbit9:27

I'm uh not a collectivist. I think that's at the heart of it. I never wanted to be into the pack in in the sense of of um joining things. I was not a joiner.

Presenter9:41

But you were after greater fairness and more equality.

Lord Tebbit9:41

But you are

Lord Tebbit9:45

Well, to some extent, yes. Um I'm not sure that fairness and equality um can both be achieved. You can either be fair or you can be equal. You certainly can't be both, can you?

Presenter9:58

So you attempted to achieve some of those things, anyway, by joining the Enfield Young Conservatives when you were only fifteen. Did you find you were from a different social background from them in the main?

Lord Tebbit10:08

Yes, very much so. But it didn't seem to matter too much. I ignored it, and they ignored it, and we got along pretty well together.

Presenter10:17

But it was unusual, wasn't it? I mean, there w there weren't exactly many working class Tories around. In in office, I mean, in

Lord Tebbit10:24

No, not quite like that. There were an awful lot of working class people who voted Conservative, but they never saw themselves as part of the party. That that was the key to it in those days. And I just took a different view. I thought, well, I am a Conservative, and I'll play my full part in it.

Presenter10:40

But people didn't see that because nobody in the party had their kinds of backgrounds. I presume most of the Tory front bench had been to public school.

Lord Tebbit10:48

Oh, yes.

Presenter10:49

It's probably going on to university.

Lord Tebbit10:51

Yes, indeed. Um and uh of course when I entered the Cabinet even in nineteen eighty three, there were only two of us in the cabinet who hadn't been to university.

Lord Tebbit11:02

Peter Walker and I.

Presenter11:03

So it was quite presumptuous of you at an early age to talk about going into politics.

Lord Tebbit11:07

There's nothing wrong with being a bit presumptuous when you're young, is that after all that's merely setting out your stall and um and and I enjoyed it, I enjoyed the company and I found politics were fascinating, it widened my experience enormously. But that only lasted for two years of course, from or three years from the time I was fifteen until uh I was called up.

Lord Tebbit11:31

And that changed my life again, and again widened it and improved it very much. I was fortunate enough when I was called up to get into the Royal Air Force, and above all fortunate to be selected for pilot training.

Lord Tebbit11:47

That in effect was like a university education.

Presenter11:52

Should we have record number three there then?

Lord Tebbit11:55

Well, that comes from that era.

Lord Tebbit11:57

Uh cold mornings on the barrack square.

Lord Tebbit12:01

uh learning the basics of drill.

Lord Tebbit12:04

and not only as one of those who was marching, but uh as an officer to command.

Lord Tebbit12:10

And that discipline stays with me still.

Presenter12:10

Yeah.

Lord Tebbit12:13

And I think at times I'd like to remember my Air Force days and my flying days of that kind. I can't think of anything that would bring it all back to me more clearly than to hear the Royal Air Force march past, played, of course, by the Central Band of the Royal Air Force.

Presenter13:30

The Royal Air Force March Pass played by the central band of the Royal Air Force.

Presenter13:35

So you spent seventeen years, Lord Tebbit, from nineteen fifty three, working for BOAC as an airline pilot?

Presenter13:42

Apparently, and obviously you've let this be known, that your file there was marked unsuitable for management. What had you done to earn that?

Lord Tebbit13:52

Well

Lord Tebbit13:53

I had a sort of

Lord Tebbit13:55

changing attitudes towards the world of trades unions. In my first job on the Financial Times, I very much resented being forced into a union membership because it was a closed shop and I couldn't see they were doing anything for me.

Lord Tebbit14:11

Then when I was working for BOAC,

Lord Tebbit14:14

We had a management.

Lord Tebbit14:15

comprised not of stupid men, but it was a stupid management, and I think that's part of the characteristic of a nationalized industry. You have to play stupid in order to play the game of being in a nationalized world.

Lord Tebbit14:29

And so I eventually

Lord Tebbit14:32

became part of the Union, first of all because I was interested in their technical work.

Lord Tebbit14:38

and then gradually on the industrial scene.

Lord Tebbit14:41

So, um

Lord Tebbit14:43

I think I was a bit of a thorn in their flesh.

Speaker 414:45

Hmm.

Lord Tebbit14:46

And when at one stage I expressed some interest in moving on into the management structure, I discovered afterwards that my file had been marked unsuitable for management. And I think that was because I didn't agree with everything that was put to me.

Presenter15:00

So was there an element of of sweet revenge when years later you played a part in preparing them for life in well, BA as it then became, for life in the private sector?

Lord Tebbit15:09

Not revenge. Um that was doing the best thing for them.

Presenter15:13

And what about getting your own back on Nat Sopa? Because of course, um ev eventually, having been forced to join their closed shop as a boy of sixteen, eventually you broke the closed shop rule about thirty five years ago.

Lord Tebbit15:23

Yes, I busted the closed shop rule and I think that the trades union movement has changed.

Lord Tebbit15:32

Very much for the better.

Presenter15:33

But what does it say about you? Is this a man who

Presenter15:36

Who bears a grudge or is this a man who never forgets or

Lord Tebbit15:40

Well, yeah.

Presenter15:40

Always makes a point of getting his own back.

Lord Tebbit15:41

No grudge, as I say, against British Airways, because I think that I did the best for them. And as far as the trades unions go, I think it was Frankie Chappell.

Lord Tebbit15:51

who said by the end of the century um that the TUC would want to erect a monument to me as the man that saved them from themselves.

Presenter15:59

It's not often, though, is it, uh, in this world that a man or a woman can translate his or her personal obsessions, if you like, into national policy that affect millions of people.

Lord Tebbit16:08

Well, I don't have obsessions. I have views, some of them strongly held.

Presenter16:13

Record number four.

Lord Tebbit16:15

Well

Lord Tebbit16:17

New experiences

Lord Tebbit16:19

I'd never really understood opera. I don't think I do now understand it, but I enjoyed a lot more.

Lord Tebbit16:27

and one day my wife and I were on a trip to Vienna.

Lord Tebbit16:31

And we went to that marvellous opera house the whole thing done so beautifully.

Lord Tebbit16:37

And the opera was Don Carlos. I didn't know anything about it.

Lord Tebbit16:41

But again, nah, it was Verdi, and you really can't go wrong in an opera house with Verdi.

Speaker 416:53

Edimoni Lincia!

Speaker 417:14

Oh, dear.

Lord Tebbit17:17

Yeah.

Speaker 417:34

And the other one.

Speaker 417:40

Desior attendant.

Presenter17:47

Jose Carreras and Piero Capuci singing Dio que nel alma in fondere amor from the first act of Verdi's Don Carlos, with the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Herbert von Carrion.

Presenter17:58

So into Parliament with the Heath victory in nineteen seventy, back in again in both the seventy four elections. What you began to do during the mid seventies w was draw opposition blood. It's an activity which gentlemanly Tories hadn't excelled at at that point. Did you have a sense, genuinely, that that your time had come?

Lord Tebbit18:20

Yes. Um I realized that I'd got the capacity to get under the skin.

Presenter18:25

Hmm.

Lord Tebbit18:25

of the Labour Party.

Lord Tebbit18:27

And I had the good fortune then, of course, to see a change of Speakership in the House, and George Thomas, now Lord Turnipandi, became Speaker.

Lord Tebbit18:40

And George enjoyed seeing opposition, even to his own friends, as he'd been a Labour Minister himself, if it was done well and if it respected the House and the rules of order.

Lord Tebbit18:56

And he was sometimes quite indulgent towards me, I think, looking back.

Presenter19:00

Even if you did behave like a semi house trained polecat.

Lord Tebbit19:03

Well, after all, as I've said, a semi-house-trained polecat sounds to me quite close to being a ferret, and a ferret is the sort of thing which you put down to frighten the rabbits out. And I had the spell then, of course, working with Mrs. Thatcher as she was then, she the leader of the opposition, and a small group of us who essentially set up the Prime Minister, either Harold Wilson or later Jim Callaghan, and we set him up ready for her to go in and finish off.

Presenter19:34

Fish off.

Presenter19:35

The rest, of course, is is history. I mean she became with your help.

Presenter19:39

leader of the opposition. She came to power in'79. She reigned for the whole of the eighties and into the nineties.

Presenter19:46

How much did you want at one point to succeed her?

Lord Tebbit19:50

I think I probably was her natural successor, but that wasn't to be. Things didn't work out that way. As you know, the most populous club in politics is the club of ex future prime ministers, and I rapidly not rapidly I eventually realized that I was in that club.

Presenter19:57

And how much of a regret is that?

Presenter20:10

But it's a matter of some regret to you still, is it?

Lord Tebbit20:13

I accepted a peerage and that excluded me from being Prime Minister. So I think in that you have the answer. A touch of regret that I didn't become Prime Minister, but I've now taken myself out of play.

Presenter20:28

But you can always get yourself put back in play and so indeed could misses Thatcher. Do you think there's a part of her that would still like to well, would like to return to the office?

Lord Tebbit20:38

I think there probably is. I think there's also perhaps quite a part of the country that would like her to return to the office, which is even more to the point, isn't it?

Presenter20:46

Do you think it'll happen?

Lord Tebbit20:48

No, no, I don't think so.

Lord Tebbit20:50

I think she'd be ill advised, actually. She had a extraordinarily good innings. She changed this country for the better in almost everything that she did.

Lord Tebbit21:01

And I think in some ways that it's a pity that um she didn't retire earlier from office, or alternatively, that she wasn't just a little bit more ruthless in the way she handled her Cabinet. And if she had been, I think she'd still be in office to day.

Presenter21:19

Beckle number five.

Lord Tebbit21:21

The planets a marvellous suite of music but my favourite of all of them, Jupiter not least, because in my mind, as I heard it, I would always be singing and I only sing in my mind, I assure you, I don't sing in any other way those words I vow to thee, my country.

Presenter22:38

Part of Jupiter from Holst's Planet Suite, played by the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Sir Adrian Boat.

Lord Tebbit22:44

And and the whole of the suite, of course, is on my record, isn't it?

Presenter22:47

Of course, of course. Nineteen eighty four was the year of the Brighton bomb. You'd very nearly left the conference, hadn't you, and gone off home and to your house in Devon, but you decided not to at the last moment. You decided to stay and hear the Prime Minister's speech on the Friday.

Lord Tebbit22:59

That's right.

Presenter23:02

Yeah. What was the first you knew of the explosion?

Lord Tebbit23:05

Well, the sound of it woke us.

Lord Tebbit23:08

And um

Lord Tebbit23:10

I remember very vividly um as the room began to keel over and the chandelier came crashing down.

Lord Tebbit23:18

And then after that all was um confusion and uh noise and dust and uh a series of pretty hefty blows from either pieces of debris hitting me or me hitting pieces of debris.

Presenter23:33

'Cause you were falling through two floors, weren't you?

Lord Tebbit23:34

Yes, yes, and I think um uh as I say, a great deal of debris fell on us.

Presenter23:40

You were partly saved by your mattress, weren't you?

Lord Tebbit23:43

Yes, I seemed to be curled up inside a mattress, as as indeed was was my wife.

Presenter23:48

So you were there together. You you could speak to each other too?

Lord Tebbit23:49

So you would

Lord Tebbit23:51

Yeah, yeah.

Presenter23:53

Did you immediately realise? I mean, were you functioning well enough to think, I know what's happened here, it's a bomb?

Lord Tebbit23:59

Oh yes, there was never any doubt in my mind um stra straight away.

Lord Tebbit24:04

But uh

Lord Tebbit24:06

I had it in my mind that we might be buried there for days.

Presenter24:09

You were, in fact, buried for four hours, weren't you? Did you think you were going to die?

Lord Tebbit24:11

Time check.

Lord Tebbit24:15

I thought it was a fair possibility, because I knew that I was quite badly injured and that I was bleeding a lot.

Presenter24:21

And did you know how badly injured your wife was?

Lord Tebbit24:24

No.

Presenter24:26

But were you able to touch each other, to hold hands? Yeah.

Lord Tebbit24:28

Yes. Um but then towards the end um I lost contact with her. The debris moved a bit and uh she moved out of reach and also of course I realized afterwards that uh she'd become paralyzed.

Presenter24:41

Did you pray?

Lord Tebbit24:43

No, no, I'm not, um

Lord Tebbit24:46

Not a prayer, I'm afraid. I

Lord Tebbit24:49

As I said to a friend of mine recently, I'm an agnostic, I think, but I'm not quite sure. But there were some nasty moments. We could hear water running.

Lord Tebbit25:02

Um we didn't know where that was or whether we were going to find water ris rising round about us.

Lord Tebbit25:09

I suffered a couple of very strong electric shocks.

Lord Tebbit25:13

When the people beginning to attempt the rescue cut through a cable which was still alive.

Lord Tebbit25:21

Um

Lord Tebbit25:22

That was a moment when I did think I was dying, but um, you know, it the pain went away and I realized I wasn't dead and

Presenter25:30

But you thought that's how death happened?

Lord Tebbit25:31

Yes, yes, I oh, that's it, is it?

Lord Tebbit25:34

Um so and then thought, Oh, you fool, no, you're still alive.

Presenter25:38

And then your saviour by the name of Fred came through the rubble of the family.

Lord Tebbit25:41

Yes.

Lord Tebbit25:42

That's Fred Bishop.

Presenter25:44

And he held on to your hand, or you held on to his. And he talked to you until you got out. You recovered, although not without a an enormous amount of of pain and and effort and and determination. But you were back at the dispatch box by January, from October to January, and you were as sharp as ever and

Presenter26:00

Asking and giving no quarter as ever. But your wife, as everyone knows, w was permanently injured, paralysed. How much movement does she have now?

Lord Tebbit26:09

Well, she has made quite a bit of recovery and um she's not

Lord Tebbit26:14

completely paralyzed anywhere now, but she doesn't have full use of her limbs. So she's still pretty restricted in what she can do, and we have to have uh people caring for her all the time. Uh that makes it difficult and sometimes it's it's very hard indeed for her. But she's never let it get her down.

Presenter26:37

And what about you? Uh, you've said before now that it was a high price that she had to pay for your life in politics, I mean, in that way.

Presenter26:45

That must have been the most difficult thing to come to terms with.

Lord Tebbit26:48

Yes, um which was why I decided that I couldn't really go on um in the front line of politics.

Lord Tebbit26:57

I think perhaps in some ways I was coming to the conclusion that I would not want to stay in politics as a

Lord Tebbit27:04

All my life anyway.

Presenter27:05

Record number six.

Lord Tebbit27:07

I heard the first performance of Lloyd Webber's Requiem while my wife was still in hospital, and I was only just out of hospital, in Westminster Abbey.

Lord Tebbit27:19

It's a beautiful piece of music.

Lord Tebbit27:22

But it has memories too.

Speaker 427:54

Yeah.

Speaker 427:58

Oh my Last Lee Power.

Speaker 428:13

I miss writing

Presenter28:25

Paul Miles Kingston and Sarah Brightman singing the P.A. Yezu from Andrew Lloyd Webber's Requiem with the English Chamber Orchestra conducted by Lauren Mazzell.

Presenter28:34

You are, Norman Tibbett, as every one knows, a leading Eurosceptic. Sometimes you come across so strongly opposed to Europe as to be against it for its own sake. Is there an element of truth in that?

Lord Tebbit28:45

No, not at all. Um in fact, the very reverse.

Lord Tebbit28:50

I take the view that um in contrast to the way in which our statesmen and politicians failed us after the First World War, that those who were in command after the Second World War acquitted themselves pretty well.

Lord Tebbit29:08

I think particularly the genius of Churchill.

Lord Tebbit29:11

and of course of General Marshall and President Truman, men like Monet on the continent.

Lord Tebbit29:20

enabled us to create NATO as the military shield against Soviet imperialism, which protected us for forty years until the Soviet Union collapsed.

Lord Tebbit29:32

and of course the economic counterbalance to that of the European Community.

Lord Tebbit29:37

But the world's changed.

Lord Tebbit29:39

I don't think people will be prepared to be governed or ruled by those who don't share their language.

Lord Tebbit29:47

We see that in Belgium. We see it in Canada.

Lord Tebbit29:50

It may be illogical, but that's the way people are made.

Presenter29:54

Isn't that a very English argument? I mean, the Germans speak such good English, the French speak such good English. The fact is, we don't speak very good German, or particularly good French.

Lord Tebbit30:00

It's not a matter of speaking another language, it's a matter of fully sharing it. French Canadians speak English. Many English Canadians speak French. But they don't fully share a language. But aren't we bigger than that?

Presenter30:15

But aren't we bigger than that? Aren't we cleverer than that? Can't we overcome those kinds of linguistic and cultural barriers?

Lord Tebbit30:18

Yeah.

Lord Tebbit30:21

No, not yet. Um perhaps at some time down the road, but not yet.

Presenter30:26

Do you still stand by what became known as your cricket test? That immigrants or potential immigrants ought to be asked who who they cheered for when they watched England playing cricket against India or the West Indies or wherever?

Lord Tebbit30:39

No, what I said was that if you wanted to know whether somebody had been

Lord Tebbit30:44

Assimilated into our society and had integrated into our society, and integration is the important thing.

Lord Tebbit30:52

Then one should look to see who they cheered at the cricket match.

Presenter30:56

The feeling was that there was something sinister about using a a country's culture to test whether its minorities qualify for entry or not.

Lord Tebbit31:07

Well, I'm afraid all over the world one finds that the unhappy societies are ones where there are large groups of people who are not fully integrated into the society. The happy societies are those which are well integrated.

Presenter31:22

Record number seven.

Lord Tebbit31:24

Well, Beethoven.

Lord Tebbit31:27

There's so much of his music that I would have liked to have taken with me, and this is a record chosen not for any particular associations, but just for the sheer glory of its music.

Presenter32:35

The opening of Beethoven's Symphony No. Five, played by the Philharmonia Orchestra, conducted by Otto Klemperer. Will you be any good on a desert island, Lord Tebbitt, without anybody to argue with or talk to?

Lord Tebbit32:45

Well, I I shall feel a bit lonely because I like company um and uh

Lord Tebbit32:53

I don't mind being on my own at times, but yes, I would I would miss company.

Presenter32:58

And you can cook, can't you?

Lord Tebbit32:58

And you can

Lord Tebbit32:59

I can cook indeed. I rate myself as a fairly good cook, except with things like bread and cakes, and I I cannot make decent bread, I I have to confess.

Presenter33:09

So there you are sitting on this desert island, with m most probably no prospect of escape, just sitting there. Do you think you would um would you fear death?

Lord Tebbit33:20

No, um I don't think death is to be feared. It's it's an inevitability. Um

Lord Tebbit33:28

You know, you know, so why fear it? I'd be worried about being ill and perhaps in pain. Now that that's that's a totally different thing. Imagine having toothache on this island. Not that I've got many teeth left to ache, but it it would be a worry.

Presenter33:45

I think it's fair to say that that depending on who you speak to, Norman Tibbett is characterized as too

Presenter33:51

Very different people actually. I mean, one set of people would say that you were witty, charming, and good company, and and the other would say that you were

Presenter33:59

combative, menacing, dangerous to know. I wonder which of the adjectives, or any other adjectives, you would like to feel would be used in your epitaph?

Lord Tebbit34:03

Mon

Lord Tebbit34:09

Oh, I would trust both, because they're just different sides of my life. Like anybody else, I enjoy friendship and company, and I certainly do enjoy laughing, uh, sometimes even at myself. Um but above all laughing.

Lord Tebbit34:27

And I also enjoy the combat.

Presenter34:29

Let's have your last record.

Lord Tebbit34:31

Well, the last record, of course, for my life has to be Frank Sinatra Singing My Way. I think it sums it up. I I did do it my way. It hasn't always worked out quite as I'd hoped, but uh I think that might well be my epitaph.

Speaker 434:48

I did.

Speaker 434:50

What I had to do

Speaker 434:54

Saw it through.

Speaker 434:57

Without exemption.

Speaker 435:01

I plan

Speaker 435:04

Each jarted chord

Speaker 435:06

Each careful step

Speaker 435:10

On the byway

Speaker 435:14

More

Speaker 435:16

Much more than this.

Presenter35:19

Frank Sinatra singing My Way. So which one of the eight, Lord Tebbit, is the one that you'd keep if you had to throw seven of them away?

Lord Tebbit35:27

would be the chorus of the Hebrew slaves. I think it's such such beautiful music.

Presenter35:32

And what about a book as well as the Bible and Shakspere?

Lord Tebbit35:34

Well, I'm hoping that somebody has bound into a single volume Churchill's History of the English Speaking Peoples. I know it's not terribly good history at times, but it's beautifully written.

Presenter35:45

And your luxury.

Lord Tebbit35:47

Well, a drinking fountain, but an unusual one, uh with two taps.

Lord Tebbit35:54

at one marked San Cerre and one marked Claret, and connected by a pipe line to decent vineyards in the heart of France, just to show my European credentials and to give me comfort on dull days.

Presenter36:09

I think the purists might worry that this is not this has got a practical use. It's going to keep you alive.

Lord Tebbit36:14

More likely to kill me, I should think, unless the unless they turn the pipe line off every now and again.

Presenter36:20

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

Lord Tebbit36:24

Thank you.

Speaker 336:32

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