Trevor McDonald

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 ninety four, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:29

My Castaway this week is a journalist. Born fifty four years ago, the son of hard working Trinidadians, he was encouraged to read the works of Dickens and Tennyson and daily devour back editions of The Times and The Spectator.

Presenter0:42

In the early seventies, after working in Caribbean local radio and television, he wrote to ITN asking for a job. He got one and so became Britain's first black television newsman. Since then, he's travelled the world, interviewing some of its most controversial leaders, Arafat, Mandela, and Saddam Hussein. His clipped style of speech and relaxed authority have won him great popularity at home. He was recently voted our most popular newsreader. He is the presenter of The News at Ten, Trevor MacDonald, and indeed now Trevor its sole presenter because it's been a one-man show really for the past eighteen months.

Trevor McDonald1:16

That's right, it became a one-man show, as you say, eighteen months ago. So it's all up to me, isn't it?

Presenter1:21

But is it a more difficult business, therefore?

Trevor McDonald1:23

It is more difficult because you get more involved. In fact, it's difficult not to be totally absorbed by what you're doing.

Presenter1:29

But is it more nerve-wracking alone?

Trevor McDonald1:30

It's more nerve-wracking and it's much harder work.

Presenter1:33

Is it? There's nobody to share the pain with, the worry with.

Trevor McDonald1:35

The last night we did it as a duo, one of my colleagues said to me, you know.

Trevor McDonald1:41

You'll never realize how much you could goof off, as it were, in the middle of a bulletin when you had somebody else helping. But now there are no chances for that, I think.

Presenter1:49

What what's goof off? Have a quick giggle.

Trevor McDonald1:51

Have a quick giggle or something or

Presenter1:52

Oh, you f

Trevor McDonald1:53

You can just think of something else. I'm afraid with one presenter, if you're doing it on your own, you have no such luxuries.

Presenter1:54

I'm a

Presenter1:59

But do you believe, nevertheless, and I think it is generally true, isn't it, you have more authority as a sole presenter? I mean, you are it.

Trevor McDonald2:08

I strive to have more authority, but I don't think there's any kind of magic really about one or two. I must tell you that having looked at what the Americans have been doing for some time,

Trevor McDonald2:20

Shortly after News at Ten became a one presenter show, I see that CBS have gone back to two presenters, which is why I'm a little wary about making any firm pronouncements about one or two.

Presenter2:29

All these things are cyclical. You you were chosen for that role, though, following the departure of Alastair Burnett, and then that rather uncomfortable interregnum which

Trevor McDonald2:31

Change is what it's all about.

Presenter2:40

presided over by you and Julia Somerville and Alistair Stewart and so on, you were chosen as that single sole presenter because the public opinion poll showed you to be easily the most popular of the three, if not of others. Did you know that? Or did it come as a complete surprise?

Trevor McDonald2:53

I had absolutely no idea. It it came not as a all more than a surprise, as a great shock, but I was very pleasantly surprised by it. I mean I was I mean I was rather flattered.

Presenter3:04

But it is a remarkable lead. I mean, there's been a more recent poll, which has had you getting thirty one percent of the vote against Martin Lewis and Michael Burke at the BBC, who get nine percent, and Peter Sisson's at four percent. I mean, you must have thought through

Presenter3:18

before now that there must be a reason for it.

Trevor McDonald3:22

Um if I've I've thought through and I've looked for a reason, I'm not too sure I've ever discovered one.

Presenter3:27

Do you think it has anything at all to do with the fact that you're black?

Trevor McDonald3:30

I don't think that. I think that certainly at the time that poll was taken I was certainly presenting the news much more than

Trevor McDonald3:38

Peter Sissons or Michael Burke or Michael.

Presenter3:39

But you don't think it's a kind of positive discrimination? I mean, it may simply be you're just better at the job and more a more likable chap, but

Trevor McDonald3:45

Yes, I would hate to say that too.

Presenter3:48

But do you think it is positive discrimination?

Trevor McDonald3:50

I don't know. I b I've never really been able to put my finger on it. Um and I'm not too sure that I can explain it at all.

Presenter3:57

Complaining anyway. Tell me about you and music. I mean, is it is it important to you? Is it something you need?

Trevor McDonald4:02

It's terribly important to me, and if I um lived in my own, which I don't, I have a family, um, I would have it blaring around the house all day. And I

Trevor McDonald4:12

I'm very sorry that I can't play a any any musical instrument well, but I'm really, really, you know, terribly attached to all kinds of music.

Presenter4:20

Pop or classical.

Trevor McDonald4:21

Popo Classico.

Presenter4:22

Let's have the first one. What is it?

Trevor McDonald4:24

The first one is from Beethoven's Violin Concerto. I saw Nigel Kennedy play at the Festival Hall. What he says, I think rather sadly, is probably his last classical concert. He wants to do jazz or something else. I think he's absolutely brilliant. And he stood there in long boots, very unfestival hall-like garb. And Klauch Tenstadt was the conductor. And they look so different, so odd, but they created this marvellous harmony, this marvellous atmosphere between them. And it was quite, quite wonderful. And I've always thought of this concerto that if you are very good when you die and you go to heaven, you'll probably hear something from the Beethoven Violin Concerto.

Presenter5:55

That was part of the first movement of Beethoven's violin concerto in D, played by Nigel Kennedy with the NDR Symphony Orchestra conducted by Klaus Tenstedt. Have you taken music with you, Trevor, in your travels across the world? I mean, do you use it?

Trevor McDonald6:08

I use music. Um I found it it it helps you to relax at the end of a day. I found in certain parts of the world it's almost a necessity, really, to get away from the reality and the brutality of some life that one sees, the brutality of politics in some countries. I found that particularly in South Africa. I was quite amazed when I first went there to actually see apartheid working on the ground. I was quite horrified by it all, and I found some nights I either got back to my hotel room and cried.

Trevor McDonald6:39

or played music.

Speaker 46:39

Yeah.

Presenter6:40

Okay.

Trevor McDonald6:40

Um so I yes, I find music is very um

Presenter6:42

Do you often get disturbed by what you see or or what you have to report?

Trevor McDonald6:47

Yes, I get disturbed by, you know, very

Presenter6:47

Yeah.

Trevor McDonald6:50

Very simple, common, basic injustices, you know. I mean, in the grand scheme of things, you know, grand inquisitions about um uh mismanagement or corruption and so on, to some extent they they all can exist just above our heads. But when you see people suffering, when you see children,

Trevor McDonald7:10

Being deprived of basic

Trevor McDonald7:13

Food and so on. That is very worrying. And you you always make comparisons with either your own childhood or or with

Trevor McDonald7:21

You know, your own children.

Presenter7:22

And do you think you portray that emotion on the screen sometimes?

Trevor McDonald7:26

One is, of course, trained not to. I think that that is not always a very good idea. I think there's a very good case for.

Trevor McDonald7:33

righteous anger and indignation about these appalling things. And I think the best reporters show that. Some things have become now so appalling and they must be exposed, I think, because of the virulence. I think it's important for people to just stand up and say this is just frightful.

Presenter7:50

You, of course, are of the generation of newsreaders who earned their spurs in the international uh field first, Michael Burke and John Humphreys, uh uh two others. Why did you want to come in into the studio? What's the attraction of the home based job?

Trevor McDonald8:03

Well, I'm not too sure that I want it to come in at all. But as you know, this is not an industry with a great career structure. I mean, it's very kind of fat at the bottom, and then it gets progressively thinner as it gets to the top. And there's so few jobs open to you at the top. These jobs are also equated with a lot of status in the industry and status in one's own career. You know, one's own career.

Presenter8:26

Greater public recognition.

Trevor McDonald8:27

It's it's greater public recognition, and to some extent after you have been travelling for a while, it's perhaps rather nice not to do as much as you used to.

Presenter8:35

It's a young man's job, isn't it?

Trevor McDonald8:36

It is very much a young man's job, and as you noticed, I can no longer claim that that I can no longer claim that I

Presenter8:42

What what about money, Trevor?'Cause people I think would automatically assume with all that public recognition and being top of the popularity post that you earn much more than you would if you were still out there.

Trevor McDonald8:50

Well, I wish they I wish that was true. I I mean, I I'm probably not paid badly, but um uh the figures I see quoted for what people in television earn, certainly people I know, are vastly exaggerated.

Presenter9:03

Let's have record number two.

Trevor McDonald9:05

Record number two is from my home country, Trinidad. It's a Calypso. And this is by the Mighty Sparrow, who makes very sort of wonderful observations about Trinidad's economic climate in a s in in a calypso called Capitalism Gone Mad.

Speaker 49:24

You gotta be a millionaire Or some kinda petty bourgeoisie Anytime you live in here

Speaker 49:30

In this country.

Speaker 49:32

You gotta be in Skaldogry, making you money illicitly To live like somebody in this country

Speaker 49:41

It's outrageous and insane Them crazy prices in border Spain And like the merchants going on their brain

Presenter9:53

The mighty sparrow and capitalism gone mad. So you were born just before the outbreak of war, Trevor, in the in the sleepy town of San Fernando in Trinidad. But your parents were obviously very ambitious for you. What did what did they want you to do? What did they expect?

Trevor McDonald10:06

But I think all West Indian parents of my generation

Trevor McDonald10:10

were ambitious for their children. And I think the motive was to make sure that the lives of your children were much better than the lives they had. I've always thought that this is a very noble thing to do because in a curious way our parents were educating us out of the kind of atmosphere and out of the kind of well, out of the country.

Trevor McDonald10:30

out of the communities in which they were born, in which they made their living.

Presenter10:33

And all the education was geared towards that, kind of pushing you on, whatever.

Trevor McDonald10:37

The education was all aimed towards that. One was inculcated very much into sort of English life, you know. I knew much more about Trafalgar Square and about Nelson than I did about West Indian history.

Presenter10:58

When you learn great bodges of Tennyson and Shakespeare and

Trevor McDonald11:01

We stood in the sun reciting long passages of Byron and and Shakespeare and and and

Presenter11:08

And where did you get where did you get these back copies of The Spectator and The Times from?

Trevor McDonald11:08

Did you

Trevor McDonald11:12

My father worked for some English Englishmen and Scotsmen, and um and when um he told them about his children, he always encouraged us to read. What I've always found amazing is my father was never a great reader himself, um but he always insisted that we read them, and at some stages he would make sure that we had by asking us to

Trevor McDonald11:32

tell him what we had read about these things.

Presenter11:33

But he tested you.

Trevor McDonald11:34

He tested us on them, so that he got them from his friends at work.

Presenter11:39

And

Trevor McDonald11:39

And pass them on to us.

Presenter11:41

But he he got them from these people, didn't he? Who whose shoes he cleaned and moved

Trevor McDonald11:44

My father mended shoes when he was not working at the refinery to help pay payers through school. There was not a great deal of free education after the basic primary stage. Everything else had to be paid for. And there were four of us, and my father couldn't afford it. So he did jobs in his spare time, and one was mending shoes so he could

Presenter11:59

On

Presenter12:01

So so the pressure on you to succeed, I mean, to to win a scholarship presumably, so he didn't have to pay for you to go to school, did he?

Trevor McDonald12:07

The pressure was absolutely intense. Unfortunately, I never won the scholarship, and my father had to pay. He was mortified. I mean, C.L.R. James, the sort of great West Indian philosopher and polemicist and cricket writer, says that as a child you were rated like racehorses. You know, you were given several shots at one exam to make sure you were quite geared up for the thing. It was all terrifying, and looking back at it now, I mean, I'm absolutely horrified that one was put through this. And I don't really remember enjoying very much of my life at school. I talk to people now who say it was the best years of their life. It w they weren't my best years, I must say, because the pressure

Presenter12:45

The fear of failure was too big.

Trevor McDonald12:46

The fear of failure was absurd. I haven't lost it yet. I mean, I still get terribly frightened about um you know, at the mention of the word examination of some sort.

Presenter12:56

You still feel you're on test.

Trevor McDonald12:57

Still feel your own test.

Presenter12:59

Next record.

Trevor McDonald13:01

This next record is by Nina Simone, and it's Mr Bojangles. I've always imagined this, the way she sings it. I've always seen this character so clearly a run down character who is up to no good, but who has this wonderful art.

Trevor McDonald13:17

He can dance as nobody else can, and she sings it, I think, absolutely beautifully.

Speaker 413:24

I knew a man, both jangles, and he danced for you.

Speaker 413:31

War and out shoes.

Speaker 413:37

With silver hair, a ragged shirt and baggy pants

Speaker 413:43

Your soul

Presenter13:47

Nina Simone and mister Bojangles. What was your first big break, Trevor, as a youth in San Fernando? When did things start to go your way?

Trevor McDonald13:54

Well, it's difficult to say it actually started to go my way, but at I remember at secondary school we started up a radio station. Um the idea first was to get away from a maths class on Friday evenings which we didn't like. Um and uh anyhow it it it caught on and very soon the whole campus was turning into this. It was news, wasn't it? It was news, which we stole unashamedly from the BBC World Service and then sort of regurgitated.

Presenter14:11

It was news, wasn't it?

Trevor McDonald14:18

And people got interested. It also reached the attention of people who did radio properly, so that when, much later, I wanted to get into radio, people knew that I had dabbled vaguely in the on the fringes of the profession.

Presenter14:31

So you you got a bit of self-esteem out of that and you've been sort of budding journalists. You also put yourself in for public speaking competitions, didn't you?

Trevor McDonald14:33

I think so.

Trevor McDonald14:38

We had those sort of oration contests, as they call them, and um I always did reasonably well. I was always a bit of a gasbag, I suppose the word is, really. And um, you know, I l I loved ideas and I liked the business of communication. Um and my parents were very stern about the way one spoke. Um I mean my my mother had all these sort of proverbs and sayings about how your speech tells who you are and that you must speak properly at all times. And again, this was a curiously but thoroughly

Trevor McDonald15:09

English, sort of upbringing. You know, one had to use words properly. And this was being done by people who themselves weren't.

Presenter15:11

You know one

Trevor McDonald15:17

Terribly well educated. But they had this wonderful vision of what their children should be. I'm always so terribly, terribly grateful for all they did.

Presenter15:25

You went off to university and you studied journalism and politics there, didn't you? And and then to work for a local radio station?

Trevor McDonald15:31

I started at a local radio station and I did everything. I did all. And you did local television.

Presenter15:35

And you did local television, and you had quite a controversial programme there, didn't you?

Trevor McDonald15:37

Quite a controversial programme.

Trevor McDonald15:39

I did one programme just before I left the West Indies called Dialogue, which was an attempt to inject some sort of controversy into rather placid West Indian life. West Indians are not always fond of controversy. They think there's no need for all this in a land which produces calypso and mangoes and what West Indians believe is the greatest carnival in the world. And so it was very difficult to get people to understand that maybe there are some issues which needed to be dilated, and maybe they're controversial, and maybe that people take opposing sides, and maybe they argue and disagree very violently.

Presenter16:11

But you obviously got yourself quite a reputation, and your parents must have enjoyed that on your behalf.

Trevor McDonald16:17

They did. They did.

Presenter16:18

But but what about when your father eventually came to this country and presumably saw you being stopped in the street and asked for your autograph?

Trevor McDonald16:26

My father, I was driving him round Westminster and he stopped near the river to look at the Houses of Parliament, and a bus stopped and.

Trevor McDonald16:34

Some schoolchildren came out and one person recognized me. I I still can't understand why. I mean, I was just a reporter in those days. Anyway, in the way that schoolchildren do this, entire busload of people descended on me. My father took about three or four steps back and his face was a picture of bemused

Trevor McDonald16:55

sort of wonder. He he was very, very chaffed, and I think that he probably felt at that moment that I had done a little bit as he hoped I w I I would do.

Presenter17:06

And didn't the former Archbishop of Canterbury bring tears to your mother's eyes uh when he visited Trinidad?

Trevor McDonald17:12

He went to Trinidad and he was giving a speech to Chamber of Commerce or something. This was Robert Runs.

Presenter17:16

This was Robert Ramsey.

Trevor McDonald17:17

This was Robert Runcy, and he said.

Trevor McDonald17:19

I'm I'm very pleased to be in the town where Trevor MacDonnell was born. I thought that was amazingly, wonderfully generous and

Presenter17:24

I know that

Trevor McDonald17:27

He would always have a special place in my affection for that.

Presenter17:31

I bet your mum was so pleased.

Trevor McDonald17:33

She was absolutely thrilled.

Presenter17:35

Right, record number four.

Trevor McDonald17:37

Record number four combines my love of movies with music and um.

Trevor McDonald17:42

There are moments in films which never, never leave you, and you need only the slightest trigger to remember how wonderful you felt when you first saw this particular movie. And I rem and this is Judy Garland and Fred Astair singing a couple of swells.

Speaker 417:59

We're a couple of swells, we stop at the best hotels, but we prefer the country far away from the city smells.

Speaker 418:11

We're a couple of sports, the pride of the tennis courts. In June, July and August, we look cute when we're dressed in shorts.

Speaker 418:24

The Vanderbilts have asked us up for tea.

Speaker 418:29

We don't know how to get there.

Presenter18:32

Judy Garland and Fred Astaire singing a couple of swells from Easter Parade.

Presenter18:37

You came to this country to work, Trevor Macdonald in fact for the BBC, for World Service Radio, when you were thirty, and you worked on Caribbean programmes. Is it true that even then your father used to ring up without you knowing, just to check on your progress?

Trevor McDonald18:50

My father always checked in my progress. I never realized this until somebody mentioned it the other day. He was always terribly keen to make sure that I was doing as as well as he thought I could. Really quite extraordinary. And um he took me, you know, to my very first day of work and he took me to my first day at school, my first day at work.

Trevor McDonald19:09

and never lost an interest in me. And uh I thought that that was really as much as a parent could do, and uh if if I could be half as good a parent as as he is, I would do extraordinarily well.

Presenter19:21

But you hankered after television, didn't you, once you got to this country? And after three years at Bush House you wrote that letter to ITN. Why didn't you write it to B V C television?

Trevor McDonald19:30

Well, it was very strange, actually. I think the BBC had a policy of trying to get you an attachment. And I said, Well, what's this attachment? I'd never heard the word before. And they said, Well, it's to see how we do with you and you do and whether you can do the job. I said, Well, actually, I think I can, you see, because I've done some television in the Caribbean, and I did. I read the news and I did this program called Dialogue. And they said, Well, no, no, no, you must still go through the thing. I said, Well, I'll do that, but I'll also write to ITN.

Trevor McDonald19:57

I told ITN that I was interested, they gave me an audition and they offered me a job.

Presenter20:01

Do you think there was any cynicism on ITN's part in taking you on? I mean, that.

Presenter20:07

To have the first black television newsman was a bit of a coup. It would get good passing.

Trevor McDonald20:11

I think they openly admitted that, and I didn't mind that at all. I didn't have a problem with that.

Trevor McDonald20:16

What I tried to make sure was that I was not used entirely in that way, or that this arrangement also suited me. And one of the things I therefore did was to insist that I always went on the big stories as everybody else. I didn't want to do race relations, ethnic based stories in Brixton all the time. But um

Presenter20:31

Or is it

Presenter20:34

But you were on the taxi rank as it were with all the other reporters and whatever story came up next, you took it.

Trevor McDonald20:36

That's right.

Trevor McDonald20:38

And this is how I got sent to Northern Ireland at a at a very early stage and did a lot there, which I'm very grateful for, because one learnt a lot in Northern Ireland reporting the troubles and in circumstances which weren't always very comfortable and weren't bad you know, one was occasionally in fail of life and limb.

Trevor McDonald20:55

Interestingly though, you learn how difficult it is for organizations to make these decisions about you. I'd been doing Northern Ireland for about a year and a half, two years, and I went to a cricket match at the Oval and I met some of my West Indian friends who said to me, My God, they said, how awful. I said, what is? They said, ITN has hired you as the first black reporter, and they immediately send you to Northern Ireland to get killed. I said, no, no, no, you don't understand. I have asked for this, you know, to make sure that I do everything else. So these things are never easy. It's always fraught.

Presenter21:24

No.

Presenter21:27

But have you suffered from racism at all in the course of your work, looking back? I mean, in any major way?

Trevor McDonald21:32

I have not at all. No, I have been very lucky, because I know it exists, I can see it all around me.

Presenter21:37

So your colour may have got you the job in the first place, but after that it's simply not r been relevant.

Trevor McDonald21:42

It didn't seem to be germane at all to anything I did. No.

Presenter21:46

Number 5.

Trevor McDonald21:47

Number five, I'm very fond, as I said, of speech. It's part of my profession, it's part of what we all we all do.

Trevor McDonald21:54

One of the great, great regrets of my life is that I was not involved in reporting.

Trevor McDonald22:00

The Civil Rights Campaign in the United States. Now, I say this with some trepidation because I'm a great coward.

Trevor McDonald22:06

and the virulence of that hate

Trevor McDonald22:10

which was all around people at that time, would have absolutely terrified me, and I would probably have tried to cover it from a friendly hotel room somewhere, or a bar somewhere. But I grew to respect a great deal Martin Luther King, and I would like to hear

Trevor McDonald22:26

Something from his address in Washington in 1963, commonly known as the I Have a Dream speech.

Speaker 222:33

For rights reasons, we are unable to bring you this choice.

Presenter22:37

Martin Luther King's address during the March on Washington in 1963.

Presenter22:42

Trevor, the news at ten and and the nine o'clock news, the two main news bulletins of the evening, are natural rivals. How would you characterize the difference between them?

Trevor McDonald22:50

I would say there is probably one difference. The BBC nine o'clock news

Trevor McDonald22:55

likes to think of itself as a programme of record.

Trevor McDonald22:58

In that everything that's reasonably important in the world on that day is reported.

Trevor McDonald23:03

ITN takes the point of view that we can't do that.

Presenter23:06

Why can't you do that?

Trevor McDonald23:07

Well, I think that it may be interesting to look at everything important that happens in the world, but

Trevor McDonald23:13

It may not always be susceptible or to to getting

Trevor McDonald23:17

people to watch the news. And I I do think that

Presenter23:19

You mean you don't want to do that?

Trevor McDonald23:21

We don't want to do that. I think that that's important these days too. There is a marketplace out there. There is now, you know, there's BBC and ITN, but there are also other people doing television news as well. And you have to fight for your place in the market. We try to make it as interesting as we possibly can. We try to make it somehow a little more accessible. This is not to say that the BBC do it badly or that they're unnecessarily pro-faced, they do it terribly well.

Presenter23:46

But your guideline then for selecting a story is, you know, are are they going to be interested in this? Are they going to be talking about this in the platform?

Trevor McDonald23:52

Yes, it's not the only guideline, but but it is certainly one of them, yes.

Presenter23:55

Yes. I mean, I I suppose you then get the slightly offensive criticism, which is that you're more tabloid.

Trevor McDonald24:01

Yes, I've I've seen that. And um to be very honest, I look at news at ten and I do news at ten and I and the following morning I look in the Times and The Telegraph and and The Guardian and most of the stories that we do are all on the front page of of that. And and I can tell then that we are, you know, pretty mainstream really.

Presenter24:19

But as you said, the audience is important to you. It has to be. It's commercial television.

Trevor McDonald24:22

How to

Presenter24:24

But we hear constantly that the people who control uh I T V would in an ideal world like to move the news at ten, like like it to be the news at ten thirty or the news at eleven. Would that matter? Wouldn't that remove that onus from you? Couldn't you then become a little bit more analytical, a little bit less populist?

Trevor McDonald24:39

Oh, I think the character of the programme you do does depend on the time, and there's no question of that. I mean, on the basic question of whether we would like it moved, I don't think it's a secret that we'd like it to stay precisely where it is. ITN, over a long period of time, has built up that ten o'clock slot, and and we'd we'd like to keep it. Do you think it's a matter of time before it gets moved?

Trevor McDonald24:59

I am not sure any more. I used to think that it was probably inevitable, but I think that for the time being it's it's probably the safe where it is.

Presenter25:07

Record number six.

Trevor McDonald25:09

Record number six. I'm not a great sort of opera fan, but I do love Boheme, and um and this is from Boheme. And this is really so sort of wonderful to listen to. It's uh Au Soie Fantula.

Speaker 425:37

I'm not sure if I can do it.

Presenter26:12

Placido Domingo and Montserrat Caballe singing the duet O Suave Fancula from Laboeme by Puccini, with the London Philharmonic conducted by George Schulte.

Presenter26:21

How long is your day at ITN Trevor? What time do you go in?

Trevor McDonald26:25

It's um probably a twelve hour day. I'm in there about eleven o'clock. There's a meeting at eleven. And I mean, it's really difficult to explain to people why you need to be there then, but

Trevor McDonald26:36

Quite frankly, if you're doing this sort of every day, then as I said earlier, one needs to get involved, and the only way to do that is by attending all the meetings. It's also the only chance one has of

Trevor McDonald26:48

probably influencing in the margins whatever happened.

Presenter26:51

How much say do you have in your mind?

Trevor McDonald26:52

How much writing is that?

Presenter27:01

Waiting

Trevor McDonald27:01

Yeah.

Presenter27:01

Yeah.

Trevor McDonald27:01

Yeah.

Trevor McDonald27:02

We have writers, um but I always have the chance to put things in my own style.

Presenter27:07

Well, of course, because if you didn't, then you couldn't put your own stamp on it and you would effectively be simply a mouthpiece really.

Trevor McDonald27:12

And it becomes much more important when you're doing it on on your own. I mean, for one thing, when there were two of us, you weren't always sure who was going to read what, because if changes were made in the bulletin, stories could easily swap around, and the prearrangement you had about w what you'd read changes. So now that it's all me, I think people understand that you have to put your style and your stamp.

Presenter27:34

You can also spot repetitions of phrases, I presume. Absolutely.

Trevor McDonald27:36

Oh, absolutely. It's very, it's very, very important.

Presenter27:39

You you don't like being called a newsreader, do you?

Trevor McDonald27:42

I don't mind at all. You know, I don't mind what people call you a

Presenter27:44

So you finish at ten thirty, on the dot, straight home or a quick wait or?

Trevor McDonald27:47

Straight home.

Presenter27:48

Straight home.

Trevor McDonald27:48

Straight home. Occasionally a quick whiskey en passant.

Presenter27:53

Creeping round the house so as not to wake people up.

Trevor McDonald27:54

Oh, it's terrible business. Um and I have a small son, so you creep round to make sure you don't wake him up. And then I'm up at um

Trevor McDonald28:03

Seven thirty to see him before he goes off to school. So it's a long week, really.

Presenter28:07

Mm, without seeing he's five, James.

Trevor McDonald28:09

He's five.

Presenter28:09

And you've got two more grown-up children from your first marriage. What's their attitude to dad being top dog at ITM?

Trevor McDonald28:12

And that's right.

Trevor McDonald28:16

They are fairly close to disowning me really. My daughter works in television and on on as a in production companies and so on, as as as my son. And I've I've frequently suggested, you know, I I know somebody I can call up. Don't don't do that, don't do that and they have made their way entirely on their own, um frightfully independent, which is fine.

Presenter28:35

Did you take them to their first day at work?

Trevor McDonald28:37

I I'm afraid I didn't.

Presenter28:39

Would they have wanted

Trevor McDonald28:39

Did you do it? No, I didn't. No, they're m much more independent than I ever was.

Presenter28:43

Music

Trevor McDonald28:45

One of the great great things about living in England, I think, is to be able to watch so much sport and to watch it.

Trevor McDonald28:51

Done so terribly well. I think we're very lucky. It's always wonderful. And

Trevor McDonald28:56

I'm not a great rugby aficionado, but I love watching rugby on television. And the games I like to watch all involve whales, especially for the singing. And so the singing at Cardiff Arms Park of Land of My Fathers never, never, never fails to move me.

Speaker 429:24

God's flying for the sound of God.

Presenter29:43

The crowd at Cardiff Arms Park singing Land of Our Fathers before a rugby international. So you're a sporty man, a rugby fan, a a cricket devotee, a groupie, a cricket groupie.

Trevor McDonald29:52

A cricket fanatic, I think. You must have it right. There are no West Indians who aren't cricket fanatics. We all are.

Presenter29:57

There we all are. How do you rate in the notorious Norman Tebbit test?

Trevor McDonald30:00

I would probably fail the Norman Tebbit test with some difficulty in that I've covered English cricket for so long that I became great friends with a number of English cricketers and I always loved to see them do well. Unfortunately, the ones I liked weren't liked by the cricket establishment. I mean I'm a David Gower fan and an Ian Botham fan.

Trevor McDonald30:20

And um they always aren't liked by the people who control English cricket. But oh I I love to see the West Indies win everything.

Presenter30:28

Your mother would be furious if you didn't support the Western.

Trevor McDonald30:30

She she she probably would be.

Presenter30:32

Where do you think your desert island is, Joe? I mean you may even have been there of

Trevor McDonald30:35

Probably somewhere in the Grenadines if I'm lucky.

Presenter30:39

And how are you going to do on it? Are you going to be all right?

Trevor McDonald30:41

I am not sure. I'm sure that my family and close friends would think that I would probably die after the first day because they think I'm so hopelessly incompetent at anything other than television. But I think I could probably survive, and I think that for

Trevor McDonald30:57

About twenty four hours I shall welcome the chance of being alone, and then I shall get frightfully bored.

Presenter31:01

Then you'll miss your family, obviously. Will you miss I must ask you this will you miss your wardrobe? All those exquisite suits and endless ties? No, I won't.

Trevor McDonald31:08

No, I wouldn't miss w wardrobes at all. I mean, I I the thing I like about living in the West Indies is that at eight o'clock in the evening one can sit on somebody's veranda with a large scotch and soda, and one can sit with short sleeve shirt.

Trevor McDonald31:24

and and not worry about the fact that it might get cold a little later. That that really is the essence of the beauty of living in the Caribbean. So I shan't I shan't miss suits. I I find them rather tedious.

Presenter31:36

Last record.

Trevor McDonald31:37

The last record is Carreras Domingo and Luciano Pavarotti singing at this wonderful concert, which was organized by a man who I've got to know, Zubin Mehta, the conductor, who is a marvellous man. He said something to me which I've always loved. He was in Israel conducting Mala, and he said, I rehearsed the Mala five in the morning, I conducted it in the evening, and I went back to my hotel room, and on satellite television there was cricket, and I watched cricket all night. That's as close to being West Indian as you can get, or close to being as mad as you can get, and I love him for this. And this concert was done entirely, I think, by him. Getting these three great men together was no small feat. And I'd like to remember that occasion with hearing them all sing.

Speaker 432:25

Most I feel my earth healer.

Presenter32:30

Yeah.

Trevor McDonald32:30

Uh

Presenter32:32

Ah

Speaker 432:51

Really?

Presenter33:01

Jose Carreras, Placido Domingo, and Luciano Pavarotti singing O sole mio. Now, if you could only take one of those eight records, Trevor.

Trevor McDonald33:09

Well, very difficult, but I it will probably have to be the Beethoven, the violin concerto. I'll get endless pleasure.

Trevor McDonald33:15

Listening to that, and and remembering about Nigel Kennedy with his scarf.

Presenter33:20

Nearly getting caught up in the bow. And what about your book? You've got the Bible in Shakespeare, as you know, but you know great tranches of Shakespeare. You hardly need it.

Trevor McDonald33:28

Well, I've I've thought about this. I mean, could I get a sort of large, the largest anthology of.

Trevor McDonald33:35

poetry that you could find. I used to as you

Trevor McDonald33:39

said earlier, I used to be made to memorize large swathes of this, and I have forgotten some of it now, and I would like to see whether the old memory can still perform.

Trevor McDonald33:48

Um these tricks again.

Presenter33:50

Right. And what about your luxury?

Trevor McDonald33:52

You know what I think I would really like to do is to see if I have any time on this island where I could paint.

Trevor McDonald33:57

And so I'd like to have a box of paints and a suitable supply of brushes and paper.

Trevor McDonald34:04

And um

Trevor McDonald34:06

I would like to show off my art if and when I'm ever rescued.

Presenter34:09

Trevor McDonald, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your Desert Island discs.

Trevor McDonald34:13

Thank you so much for asking me.

Speaker 234:21

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