Sir Adrian Cadbury

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 five, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:29

My castaway this week is a businessman. For nearly twenty-five years, he presided over the famous chocolate company which bears his family name. He joined it after Eton, the Guards and Cambridge, where he rode for Britain in the 1952 Olympics. A Quaker, he was the chairman of a recent committee which looked at the ways of preventing falling standards in the management of big companies. He shrugs off the criticism his recommendations attracted and still hopes that the business world will accept the advice of the successful man born with a chocolate spoon in his mouth. He is Sir Adrian Cadbury. Let's get important things straight first then, Sir Adrian. Do you like chocolate? Have you got a sweet tooth?

Sir Adrian Cadbury1:07

Absolutely. Yes, I have indeed.

Presenter1:10

You're the original fruit and nut case, huh?

Sir Adrian Cadbury1:11

I I you I di I this this theory, you know, that if you work in the company you actually go off chocolate, is really not true. People divide very quickly into those who settle down to a steady daily intake like me, and then there are a few who, seeing a sort of five ton vat of chocolate, do find it puts them off a little.

Presenter1:28

And you've still got your own teeth?

Presenter1:30

But living near the factory, which you've done for most of your life, I mean, you can smell it for some four miles around, can't you? The chocolate on the breeze.

Sir Adrian Cadbury1:33

It is.

Sir Adrian Cadbury1:36

And and and occasionally, you know, people object to this and I I used to say to them, Well, just go and live near Dunlop, you know, and see what it's like to s smell a tar factory. The great thing at home was that uh if you could smell the chocolate, then you knew it was going to rain.

Presenter1:49

What because the wind was in a certain direction.

Sir Adrian Cadbury1:50

Absolutely.

Presenter1:51

But as a boy, I mean it must have been wonderful, something out of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, if you really liked the stuff.

Sir Adrian Cadbury1:55

If you read it

Sir Adrian Cadbury1:57

We were taken a sort of annual visit on our sch school holidays and that was wonderful because of course there were things like the train there in that we shunted all our goods out of the Bourneville factory onto the main line. So there was always a chance of a rider ride on a steam locomotive, quite apart from going around and eating as much chocolate as you could manage.

Presenter2:14

But weren't you as as as the Cadbury son allowed loose in the plate?

Sir Adrian Cadbury2:19

No,'cause there weren't a lot of us, and so I wasn't in any particular position.

Presenter2:23

We're a very large family.

Sir Adrian Cadbury2:24

We're a very large family. See, my grandfather had 11 children and his brother had eight. So they're a very large number of cousins.

Presenter2:31

A lot of you about it.

Sir Adrian Cadbury2:32

A lot of us about, and most of them living near, you know, nearby.

Presenter2:36

and most of them not in the company.

Sir Adrian Cadbury2:38

Most of them in fact not in the company, that's right. The way the company worked was any member of the family that wanted to come and work there, who was really prepared to work hard, was welcome. But there was absolutely no commitment as to where they would get in the firm. And so there were several of them at differing stages in the management ladder. They certainly didn't all get to the top.

Presenter2:55

So it was a meritocracy.

Sir Adrian Cadbury2:56

It was a meritocracy. I mean, it seems to me an admirable system in a number of ways. First of all, the people who didn't get to the top, nevertheless, did an admirable job. But also, it made it quite clear that just having our name wasn't an immediate passport to becoming a director, otherwise people might have changed their name to ours.

Presenter3:14

But it it didn't do you any harm, did it? You started as a postboy during the war and by the mid sixties you were chairman.

Sir Adrian Cadbury3:17

Yeah.

Sir Adrian Cadbury3:18

Mid sixties you were

Sir Adrian Cadbury3:19

Well, you're quite right. I did start as a pair of trainer. Well, that was doing war work, which I don't think I helped the war effort very much, but it gave me a feel for the factory and I learnt my way around.

Sir Adrian Cadbury3:29

And I never expected to become chairman.

Sir Adrian Cadbury3:32

And that was a surprise.

Presenter3:34

More of that in a minute, but let's let's hear about you on the desert island. What's the first record that you take?

Sir Adrian Cadbury3:39

My first record is The Dream of Gerontius by Elgar, but perhaps the most important thing is that it's played by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and by the City of Birmingham Symphony Choir, and of course Simon Rattle conducting, but also Simon Housey is the choir master and I'm president of Simon's City of Birmingham Touring Opera.

Sir Adrian Cadbury4:02

and he's one of these energetic people who does great things, and I'm an enormous supporter of him. So it's really for the two Simons, but also Elgar's links with Malvern, where my grandmother had a family house which I still look after and we still use for the family for holidays.

Presenter5:20

Part of Elgar's Dream of Garantius with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Chorus conducted by Simon Rattle.

Presenter5:28

I I indeed came on one of those school visits to Bourneville and what one remembers apart from the free box of chocolates at the end w w was the village itself Bourneville itself terribly neat and tidy and organized neat gardens nice open spaces that was a creation of your grandfather isn't it?

Sir Adrian Cadbury5:31

One of them is a

Sir Adrian Cadbury5:33

Yeah.

Sir Adrian Cadbury5:36

Yeah.

Sir Adrian Cadbury5:39

Yeah.

Sir Adrian Cadbury5:42

Yes, um what happened was that he moved the factory from the centre of Birmingham out to Bourneville in 1879. Bourneville was out in the Worcestershire countryside, so there were no houses around. When he started, there were 300 people employed at Bourneville. By 1899, twenty years later, there were three thousand people employed there. So what was happening was that he could see that land all around was just going to be bought up by spec builders, and the kind of housing that he'd wanted to move away from in centre of Birmingham was going to be recreated round the factory. So he decided that the only thing to do was to

Speaker 26:13

Uh

Speaker 36:13

Yeah.

Sir Adrian Cadbury6:16

acquire the land and then develop it in a practical way because the essential point was that he put up first of all a range of houses, said it was a community, not a you know, not not simply a sort of factory village.

Sir Adrian Cadbury6:28

And the other very important thing which differentiates it from Port Sunlight is that anybody could live there. You did not have to work at the factory. Whereas Port Sunlight, you had to work for levers. And if you lost your job with levers, you lost your house.

Speaker 26:35

Yeah.

Presenter6:35

You don't even have to look at the food.

Presenter6:42

But certainly it was it was called a model village and he was a kind of well, he wanted to be a model employer too, didn't he? I mean th the he gave better holidays, better wages and and thought that he'd get better work out of people if they were well housed and well looked after.

Sir Adrian Cadbury6:46

Yeah.

Sir Adrian Cadbury6:56

Yes, it goes back, I think, very much to the Quaker principles of the the importance of the individual, that every individual has their worth, every individual can contribute, and therefore in a sense, you know, you need to provide conditions which will enable everyone to make the most of their talents.

Presenter7:12

It's interesting, isn't it, that a lot of businesses at that time were run by Quakers. I I think um

Sir Adrian Cadbury7:18

Yeah.

Presenter7:18

Barclays, I think, originally

Sir Adrian Cadbury7:19

All the banks that's right. Barclays and Lloyds, the banks, all the steel companies, all the shoe the main shoe companies, Clarks of Street, Morelands of Glastonbury and Kay Shoes were all were all Quaker firms. All the chocolate companies, Candry, Fry, Ranchie and Terry were all Quaker firms.

Presenter7:35

Candry fry ranch and terry.

Presenter7:37

Now why is that?

Sir Adrian Cadbury7:38

Well, one of the reasons was that they were not in fact able as Quakers to take on positions under the state or indeed join the professions because they would not swear oaths of allegiance, they wouldn't conform to the Church of England and so on. So they were in fact excluded from many other occupations. But trade was an area that they could expand in.

Sir Adrian Cadbury8:02

And my father was the first.

Sir Adrian Cadbury8:04

um member of our family to be allowed to go to Oxford and Cambridge.

Sir Adrian Cadbury8:08

The the the old universities kept out nonconformists.

Sir Adrian Cadbury8:12

And this was actually a very good thing because they taught themselves, but they taught themselves in a very practical way. So they tended to be innovative and looking ahead rather than the dead hand of the educational system.

Presenter8:24

So they stood for for all those values of decency and honesty and reliability and hard work, but they were outside the establishment.

Sir Adrian Cadbury8:32

that they were outside establishment.

Presenter8:34

But now by the very nature of their success in business and then the movement of the times and the acceptance of nonconformists, they have been taken into the establishment.

Sir Adrian Cadbury8:41

That's right. I mean, it's a fascinating sort of question. Well, yes, I feel sort of both in and out. I feel very anxious not to be pinned down into any one little group. It seems to me one can belong to a lot of different groups. I mean, Birmingham is very important to me. Then there's the business. I'm a businessman. I'm a Midlander. There's a whole sort of sporting side. It's lots of circles, I think, that you belong to.

Presenter9:05

Record number two.

Sir Adrian Cadbury9:07

Well, this is Schumann. It's a piece my wife used to play at home, which I'm very fond of, and all my family will know it well from hearing it played on piano. For me, the centre of everything is family life, and so this was a reminder of that. And also, I think it sets the scene for the confidence of childhood, when everything seems to be organised and protected, and that's the kind of situation you want to give to your own children.

Presenter10:36

Troymarai from Schumann's Scenes of Childhood, played by Wilhelm Kempf. Are you still a practising Quaker, Sir Adrian? Do you attend meetings?

Sir Adrian Cadbury10:44

I'm a poor example. I do go to meeting, but not as anywhere near as often as I should. But the values of the whole Quaker approach are very important to me, and and they are in fact what I try to live by, even though I don't consider myself a good member of the Society of Friends.

Presenter11:03

How strict a business was it being brought up in a Quaker household as a child, though?

Sir Adrian Cadbury11:08

Well, there is no dogma, and so people can, in a sense, follow their own their own particular interests. And one of the interesting things is is the virtue of silence. I mean, meetings you you you which some people find very difficult. You you you sit there uh until someone feels moved to speak. Um but I think silence and listening

Sir Adrian Cadbury11:29

are very underrated activities.

Presenter11:32

So you'll be all right on a desert island.

Sir Adrian Cadbury11:33

Oh yes, I can go for that as well.

Presenter11:36

But I I ask whether it was strict because um I read that you were posted off quite early when you were really quite a little boy to Switzerland and you were there for Christmas Day and threatened with a beating.

Sir Adrian Cadbury11:38

Yeah.

Sir Adrian Cadbury11:45

That's absolutely true, yes. But that wasn't wasn't strict that wasn't strictness from home. That that was really that I was meant to be a sickly child. And so I was sent off to Switzerland when I was six. And of course, at six, it's a bit of a rude shock.

Speaker 311:59

Hmm.

Sir Adrian Cadbury11:59

You're in a foreign country. French was the basic language, so you've got to you know you know you have to learn to

Sir Adrian Cadbury12:04

to speak French, and as you rightly say, there's this extraordinary little episode at Christmas when, in typical Swiss fashion, the Per Nicolas has accompanying him his henchman, Pierre Fouetta. And Pierre Nicolas hands out the goodies to the good children, and Pierre Fouetta beats the bad ones. And I was down to be beaten at the age of seven, which is really a bit rough. But Mademoiselle Guédon, who was the dragon in a white starched apron with a a light cavalry moustache who ran the establishment, she said that I'd said my poem, La Reignier, so well that I'd be let off being beaten. But nevertheless, every other child in the school that evening got a bag of oranges and nuts, and I got nothing. But all I remember there is the great relief there, being let off from being beaten.

Presenter12:48

You went to Eton and then you went, then you did your national service, went into the Coast Ring Guard, so you did it that way around, and then on to King's College.

Sir Adrian Cadbury12:52

Waiting for the cold screen guards. You did it that way.

Sir Adrian Cadbury12:55

And then our king-size campus, yes.

Presenter12:57

Economics and rowing.

Sir Adrian Cadbury12:58

Yes, was this place? Yes, economics was wonderful. I mean, first of all, going to King's was wonderful. I mean, really, King's was the centre of economic thought then. Keynes had just died, but Nikki Kaldor was my tutor. Eric Hobsborn taught us economic history. Harry Johnson, who was perhaps the greatest economist of them all. You really felt you were at the heart of things, that the discipline was actually being forged in this place while you were there.

Presenter13:25

And then just after you graduated you rode in the Olympics, Helsinki, nineteen fifty two. You've um said um at some point that this was the greatest thing that ever happened to you.

Sir Adrian Cadbury13:29

Yeah.

Sir Adrian Cadbury13:37

Yes, well, what was so marvelous about it was I've never in a sense been, I think, ambitious. I'm very competitive.

Sir Adrian Cadbury13:44

And I've always just looked one step ahead, so I started in

Sir Adrian Cadbury13:47

the college second boat and then

Sir Adrian Cadbury13:50

My ambition was to get into the first boat, got into the first boat, then to get into the trial boats from which the Cambridge boat is chosen, you know, and then got into Cambridge boat and then

Sir Adrian Cadbury13:59

Why not enter the Olympic trials, which we did, and then won. And then we got into the finals, we we we at last we came forth, so that I didn't fulfil the the the ultimate ambition, but

Sir Adrian Cadbury14:09

It just was a remarkable event to have taken part in.

Presenter14:12

Did you ever row in the boat race, Oxford Place?

Sir Adrian Cadbury14:14

Yes, I write in bare trace, yes.

Presenter14:16

You win?

Sir Adrian Cadbury14:16

No, we we managed to lose by 12 feet. It was the closest race since 1877, which was a dead heat.

Sir Adrian Cadbury14:25

And it it just seems to me s somehow extraordinarily careless to row for four and a quarter miles and then lose by twelve feet. But anyway, it was again, I mean, one of the things about rowing is that you form lifelong friendships. I I think because you you so depend on each other in the boat, it's perhaps the ultimate team sport.

Sir Adrian Cadbury14:45

You know, this this sets up bonds which are still very strong.

Presenter14:50

We should have record number three, I think.

Sir Adrian Cadbury14:51

Right. Well, we've got now the the the water music, and this really is in celebration of having spent a lot of my time going up and down the river at Cambridge, but also because of the boat race up and down the Thames.

Sir Adrian Cadbury15:02

And it just seemed a very appropriate way of evoking happy days on the river.

Presenter16:10

The allegro from Handel's Water Music Suite No. One in F major played by the Bath Festival Orchestra directed by Yehudi Menwin.

Presenter16:18

So, Sir Adrian Cadbury, you came straight out of university and into the family firm. Was it always a foregone conclusion? Did you have any choice in the matter?

Sir Adrian Cadbury16:21

Then

Sir Adrian Cadbury16:24

No, I had I had choice. I had two other offers, in fact, quite perhaps quite surprisingly. One to join a firm of solicitors in the city, and the other to be an an assistant in running um quite a large investment fund, which it was explained I would end up by running.

Sir Adrian Cadbury16:39

And that perhaps helped to concentrate my mind. And partly because I'd worked there, I think, as a child, I'd got a feel for the business.

Sir Adrian Cadbury16:46

I just felt um when really the time came to make up my mind that that was the place I wanted to be.

Presenter16:52

It took you thirteen years to get right to the top. Aged thirty six you became chairman. You said earlier on that you had to earn that position, but was that difficult? You would have been very junior. Would there not have been some resentment around you?

Sir Adrian Cadbury17:03

Yes. I mean, I was very surprised to find myself made chairman. I had assumed that I would remain doing the job I was doing, which was which was really looking after personnel. And these things are done by the board.

Sir Adrian Cadbury17:17

I was enormously helped by my cousin Paul Cowdbury, who had his own son in the business, but was chairman before me, and he undoubtedly advanced my claims, which I would never have made myself.

Presenter17:28

But that's what you don't approve of, isn't it? Running things on a club basis.

Sir Adrian Cadbury17:36

Well, nepotism is a very difficult, a very difficult word. What we had there was a board which was still predominantly family, but not entirely family. So that board had to make up their mind who they wanted as chairman.

Sir Adrian Cadbury17:49

Now to that extent, therefore, it was certainly nothing to do with me, the decision. The old boy sort of system is much more connected with when people are looking, say, for non-executive directors on boards, instead of looking hard at the board, what kind of a person do we need, and then going out and searching for them.

Sir Adrian Cadbury18:08

Too often in the past it was a question of somebody just producing names of people who would fit.

Sir Adrian Cadbury18:14

The test almost was clubbability.

Speaker 318:16

Yeah.

Sir Adrian Cadbury18:17

which is not the right way to run a business. Now I think I must have been selected as chairman because actually the board felt a need for change because they were certainly going to get change and and so in a sense it was not really a if you like a clubbable decision, an uncomfortable one.

Presenter18:28

And

Presenter18:34

An uncomfortable one. Indeed, some four years later you presided over the merger with Schweppes, which was quite a departure. Tell me about record number four.

Sir Adrian Cadbury18:42

Right. Well, this is um a a particular favourite, is Beethoven's first symphony, because when I was at school I was a a fairly

Sir Adrian Cadbury18:51

inadequate clarinetist, but played in my house orchestra.

Sir Adrian Cadbury18:55

and my ears were opened to music by playing in an orchestra.

Sir Adrian Cadbury18:59

And uh the first piece that we ever performed was Beethoven's first symphony.

Presenter20:06

The opening of the final movement of Beethoven's Symphony No. One in C, played by the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields. You presided over the merger with Schwepps at the end of the sixties, a company whose products are more often than not mixed with alcohol. Was that a problem for a Quaker by definition? Nonetheless.

Sir Adrian Cadbury20:22

Yes, um there was concern about um

Sir Adrian Cadbury20:26

Uh that although arguably that the fact that people

Sir Adrian Cadbury20:29

Put other things with the tonic was not. I mean, we weren't actually selling the gin. I know that's a perhaps a quibble, but um.

Presenter20:36

But that's how the values we were talking about have become p diluted over the decades, aren't they? That that in you have to put in the position that you're in, you have to put good business

Presenter20:46

over and above let it take precedence over personal principle.

Sir Adrian Cadbury20:49

Absolutely, yes. If your personal principles don't allow you to take part in such a business, then you have to sell your shares. But from the point of view of running the business, you have to ensure, it seems to me, the well being and the continuity, profitable continuity of the business.

Presenter21:03

And later on you took over bassets and got jelly babies and licorice all sorts, which was very good for the sweet tooth and didn't offend anything.

Sir Adrian Cadbury21:10

Right. Now don't offend anybody.

Presenter21:12

Let's move on to May nineteen ninety one, take a large leap when you were asked by the Stock Exchange to set up this code of practice, this set of rules, as it were, really to curb the worst excesses of management of companies that had gone on in the eighties, wasn't it? I mean the kind of Maxwells and Polly Percasal and that year.

Sir Adrian Cadbury21:29

That's right. There were a number of things. I mean, one of them was that what we saw were companies collapsing, and yet if you read their reports and accounts fairly soon before that collapse, it gave you no forewarning at all of the real state of their affairs. So one of the issues was really how trustworthy were the reports and accounts that companies were producing? How valuable were the audit statements attached to those companies?

Presenter21:48

Yeah.

Presenter21:51

They look glossy and impressive, but they don't mean that.

Sir Adrian Cadbury21:53

That's right. But what did they really mean? So that what we were trying to do was to set out some guidelines, if you like, for boards of directors. And what I hope it's seen as is a set of sensible principles

Sir Adrian Cadbury22:07

which, if followed by companies, will help to ensure that their financial reporting, their financial control, their accountability to the outside world are as they should be.

Presenter22:18

But in order to achieve that, one of your rules is that they should invite onto the board many more non-executive directors. Isn't it really rather idealistic to expect a a board to do that, to be entirely objective about who they're going to appoint to the board? Aren't they always bound to work on the old boy network? They're going to appoint somebody they know, who they know they can trust, to think more or less as they do.

Sir Adrian Cadbury22:43

Inevitably there is that element. Um but equally you're concerned about the future of the business. The chemistry, if you like a board, is important.

Sir Adrian Cadbury22:52

But that is different from saying it should be like a club, a cosy board, if you're looking at it from a chairman's point of view, as I was.

Sir Adrian Cadbury22:58

And still am in a sense. A cozy abort in the end is going to lead to trouble.

Presenter23:03

But you wanted, ideally, those non executive directors to challenge the existing executives, and in a sense to police them really, didn't you? You wanted them to sit on audit committees, to sit on remuneration committees, and say I'm awfully sorry, but I really don't think you can do this.

Sir Adrian Cadbury23:18

There is a monitoring job to be done, and that is quite true.

Sir Adrian Cadbury23:23

It's not really though that you put the non-executive directors on the board in order to do that alone.

Sir Adrian Cadbury23:30

We in fact produced a report on the financial aspects of corporate governance, so we didn't actually look at the whole field of the way in which companies are directed and controlled. Otherwise, we would have made much more of the positive role of non-executive directors. I mean, for example, in my experience, they are enormously helpful in thinking about strategy. And that's really one of the most important roles of the outsider. Some more music. Right.

Sir Adrian Cadbury23:54

Well

Sir Adrian Cadbury23:55

Going back to the army, this is the Colstrom Guards slow march.

Sir Adrian Cadbury24:01

And it

Sir Adrian Cadbury24:02

always amuses me because I wonder what Mozart would have thought if he'd realized that um his beautiful tune from Figaro was going to be used at the trooping of the colour by the brigade of guards as they performed their slow march.

Presenter25:09

The regimental slow march of the cold stream guards based on the figaro aria non-pian drive.

Presenter25:15

Some um captains of industry reacted quite strongly to your recommendations, didn't they, Sir Adrian? Lord Hanson, Lord Weinstock, and Sir Owen Greene at BTR. They seemed to be indignant that you'd presume to interfere with how they ran their companies. Do you think that's because you touched a raw nerve, perhaps?

Sir Adrian Cadbury25:19

Different days.

Sir Adrian Cadbury25:34

Inevitably there is a clash.

Sir Adrian Cadbury25:36

Here, between, if you like, the free spirit, the entrepreneur, the risk-taker.

Sir Adrian Cadbury25:43

And then the feeling that they're being

Sir Adrian Cadbury25:46

Fettered.

Sir Adrian Cadbury25:47

And in fact, what corporate governance, which is an ugly word, but what it's all about is really a balance between the two. I mean, we want companies to be searching for new opportunities, to show initiative, you know, to take risks, but to do it within a framework which will ensure that the people who put their money in those businesses, first of all, know what's going on, and secondly, have some security.

Presenter26:11

But one of your rules is that no one man should occupy both posts of chairman and chief executive, wh which have often been combined in the past, and often successfully. What what's wrong with that? What's your objection?

Sir Adrian Cadbury26:22

Well we said in the report that in principle we felt they should be separated. What we say in fact in the Code of Best Practice is there should be a clear division of responsibilities at the head of a company such that no one individual has unfettered powers of authority. Because in fact what had happened in most of the the disasters was that you had one person who was quite often chairman, chief executive and a major shareholder. That's an enormous concentration of power and there may not be anybody there to you know to question their actions. Indeed there weren't in the serious cases. So we were back. Robert Maxwell. Yes, that's right. And indeed probably Polypeck. But you're never going to stop people like that.

Presenter26:55

Robert Maxwell.

Sir Adrian Cadbury27:00

Well, you may not be able to stop them, but I believe that what our code will do.

Sir Adrian Cadbury27:05

is bring to light the warning signs a good deal earlier.

Sir Adrian Cadbury27:10

I mean, certainly, you know, with the best will in the world, the auditors could not have signed off Robert Maxwell as complying with our code.

Presenter27:17

Record number six.

Sir Adrian Cadbury27:18

Well, this takes me back to King's College, which was a great time of my life, and I've now become involved with the college again because of helping them to raise funds.

Sir Adrian Cadbury27:28

And the qua is a wonderful qua.

Sir Adrian Cadbury27:32

And I'm particularly fond of this particular carol.

Speaker 327:38

So

Speaker 327:40

Wait with fruits and always cool.

Speaker 327:45

God tree of life my soul has seen, Laden with fruit and always green.

Speaker 327:54

Who is on which of us remembered with Christ we ever did?

Speaker 328:05

His beauty does all things excel, I faith I know what men can tell.

Speaker 328:14

If you want to double things excel

Speaker 328:18

By faith I know, but will can still know glory which I never can save in Jesus' name.

Sir Adrian Cadbury28:22

Glory should never

Presenter28:31

Jesus Christ the Apple Tree sung by the choir of King's College, Cambridge.

Sir Adrian Cadbury28:35

I first heard that uh at a concert organised by my son.

Presenter28:39

It's a beautiful song. It's a lovely.

Sir Adrian Cadbury28:40

It's a lovely it's a lovely cow.

Presenter28:42

Um the issue of high salaries for company chairmen wasn't really around when you were drawing up this code. But um what do you think about it? I mean let's look at the latest one. I mean there have been so many controversial rises, but most recently the chief executive of British Gas who got a seventy five per cent rise to four hundred and seventy five thousand per annum. I presume you don't and wouldn't approve.

Sir Adrian Cadbury29:04

My feeling about very high individual salaries is that while there are certainly remarkable individuals who can turn a company round and give it a new sense of direction,

Sir Adrian Cadbury29:14

At the end of the day

Sir Adrian Cadbury29:16

that the company is made up of a of a large team of people, all of whom contribute to that success.

Presenter29:21

It's the comparison with the staff rise. The staff rise is about seven percent and the chief exec or whoever is getting seventy five percent.

Sir Adrian Cadbury29:23

That simplifies a bit.

Sir Adrian Cadbury29:26

That's right. I think it's the ratio, if you like, between pay at the top of a company and pay the shop floor. There is a certain sense of human justice, I think, about how big that gap should be. Interestingly, it varies by countries. I mean, the Americans would accept a far wider differential than we would.

Sir Adrian Cadbury29:48

And the Japanese would accept a far smaller one. I mean it so there is a sort of cultural aspect, but

Presenter29:52

But how can you control it?

Sir Adrian Cadbury29:54

Oh.

Sir Adrian Cadbury29:55

At the end of the day, it's a question of what is acceptable.

Sir Adrian Cadbury29:59

And it is up to the public, to commentators, to the shareholders to say if they think those bounds of acceptability have been passed.

Sir Adrian Cadbury30:08

And they can only do that.

Sir Adrian Cadbury30:11

if they have full information. So one of the other sides to this, which we've not had in the past, is complete disclosure of the present and future benefits being awarded to directors. And that was something we said in our report.

Presenter30:24

So the Cadbury Code is there and it's in place, voluntary and being observed, but sometimes not entirely. But it's it's there. You've done your duty. Is that the end of your public company duty, do you think?

Sir Adrian Cadbury30:36

It's the end of this one, yes. I mean, I

Presenter30:39

Are you willing to take on more?

Sir Adrian Cadbury30:40

Well, there's another little job waiting, but back in the Midlands, I'm glad to say, which would have been more fun. But yes, I'm.

Presenter30:45

So you lose a little job in the middle as you're high sheriff. Yes.

Sir Adrian Cadbury30:47

Yes, I I show no, but that stops in April, so that that'll sort of make a little that'll make a little gap.

Presenter30:52

But p people like you are expected to take on those jobs. Public service in one form or another, being high sheriff or whatever it is, promoting Birmingham, being on committees, chairman of this, president of the other.

Presenter31:03

Obviously, that's that there's a strong family tray of public service, but how much uh can I ask you to be very honest, how much do you derive genuine pleasure out of it? And how much is it

Sir Adrian Cadbury31:14

You don't

Presenter31:14

Just a second.

Sir Adrian Cadbury31:15

Sense of a Quaker sense of duty? No, it's a very it's a very good question. First of all, I learnt early on not to take on any job that I couldn't put my heart into. So all of the things that I take on are things that I actually want to do. I mean clearly there is also a sense of duty because there is actually a call to to put something back.

Presenter31:34

But occasionally you must look in your diary for the week and think, Oh my God, I wish I'd never said yes to that

Sir Adrian Cadbury31:38

You're absolutely right. And things don't work out as you thought. I mean, I, over the High Sheriff's job, you have to appear on a list five years ahead of the time. And so when I did, I thought, well, I'll be 65. I'll be retired. You know, I won't really have very much to do.

Sir Adrian Cadbury31:54

And of course I hadn't really bargained for the committee, which I then found myself chairing. So it's been quite difficult to fit everything in, but good fun.

Presenter31:59

Yeah.

Presenter32:02

Music. Number seven, I think it is.

Sir Adrian Cadbury32:04

Number seven. Well, partly really with the High Sheriff in mind, the High Sheriff's job is looking after the judges.

Sir Adrian Cadbury32:10

So here we've got uh Berlioz's overture, Les Franjouge.

Presenter33:10

Bellio's overture Les Franc Jouge played by the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Colin Davis. So a lot of silence on your island, Sir Adrian. of contemplation.

Sir Adrian Cadbury33:19

That's good.

Presenter33:20

But you're an escaper, are you? You're not somebody who could be indolent for too long.

Sir Adrian Cadbury33:24

No, I'm not not by nature indolent, but I'm incurably optimistic.

Presenter33:28

Yeah.

Sir Adrian Cadbury33:28

So I know that something's going to happen, you know, it's it's uh no no problem.

Presenter33:32

Family apart, what will you miss most about civilized life, do you think?

Sir Adrian Cadbury33:38

I suppose really it is the interaction. I was going to have asked, and only I I know I'm not allowed it, for a solar powered fax machine. I mean I almost live off my fax machine at home. I think that's the most wonderful invention. And it's being in contact with lots of different groups, both here and in other countries. And

Presenter33:54

But in a controlled way. I mean, the reason it's better than the telephone is

Sir Adrian Cadbury33:54

But in a control

Sir Adrian Cadbury33:57

Absolutely right. It's a controlled way. You decide when you respond and you know who it is that's been in touch with you.

Presenter34:04

I see. Very organized, ordered, tidy mind.

Sir Adrian Cadbury34:07

Ni well, yes, it may be in the mind, but certainly not in the room.

Sir Adrian Cadbury34:11

Nah.

Presenter34:11

Last record

Sir Adrian Cadbury34:12

Right, well we're going to end with Grieg's wedding day at Trollhagen.

Sir Adrian Cadbury34:17

A very close friend of mine was um Richard Armitage, Noel Gay's son, and Richard sadly has now died, but um I was best man to Richard, and his father, Noel Gay, was by then totally deaf, but was trained as an organist before he wrote the Lambeth Organ, all these other things.

Sir Adrian Cadbury34:33

And at Richard's wedding he played this and he played it absolutely full bore and the entire small church in North Audley Street shook with this and then my son played it. I remarried last year and my son played this on the piano. He played the organ during the service but he played this on the piano at our wedding.

Presenter35:50

Grieg's Wedding Day at Trollhaugen, played by Helga Antoni. So which one of those eight records, if you could only take one, Sir Adrian, would you have?

Sir Adrian Cadbury35:58

It has to be Beethoven. The tunes that you can find in in any of Beethoven's symphonies I think are marvellous. So I'll take the Beethoven and I'll just listen to that.

Presenter36:08

Tell me about your book.

Sir Adrian Cadbury36:10

Now this is where I I just have a a s slight feeling we may have a problem, but I know you're going to be very kind and generous.

Sir Adrian Cadbury36:17

Because I'm I'm not going to ask for a straight dictionary, because I know that's not allowed.

Sir Adrian Cadbury36:22

But I am wedded to uh doctor Johnson's lexicon of uh seventeen fifty five.

Sir Adrian Cadbury36:28

And so what I really want is are are s Johnson's lexicographic works. And the argument that it's not diction is simply this, that if you read it, you aren't reading it to see a definition of a word, but you get these marvellous statements like pension.

Sir Adrian Cadbury36:42

Pay given to a State Hireling for Treason to His Country.

Sir Adrian Cadbury36:46

Or if you look up Tory, it says a cant term derived, I believe, from an Irish word signifying savage. So you're reading Dr. Johnson for his opinions, not as a dictionary. So would you allow me?

Presenter37:00

Well, it it's gonna amuse you.

Sir Adrian Cadbury37:00

But it's good.

Sir Adrian Cadbury37:01

Isn't it?

Presenter37:02

It's going to be new things, absolutely.

Sir Adrian Cadbury37:02

It's going to amuse me, absolutely. I could just read it endlessly.

Presenter37:06

Yeah, then you you shall have it.

Sir Adrian Cadbury37:07

That's very kind. Thank you.

Presenter37:08

What about your luxury?

Sir Adrian Cadbury37:09

Now the luxury. I want a fiberglass sculling boat, please.

Presenter37:14

This is much more of a problem. What are you going to do then?

Sir Adrian Cadbury37:14

This is much more of a

Sir Adrian Cadbury37:17

I'm not going to escape.

Sir Adrian Cadbury37:19

Because it wouldn't really stand up to rough seas. It's a it's a light, small boat. But it would enable me to circumnavigate the island and map it. It would enable me just to take gentle exercise, pottering up and down the lagoon, which I like to do.

Presenter37:31

I shall take your word for it as as a Quaker and a gentleman.

Sir Adrian Cadbury37:34

Well done. Okay, thank you very much.

Presenter37:36

Sir Adrian Cadbury, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island is.

Sir Adrian Cadbury37:40

Thank you very much, Sue.

Speaker 237:49

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

Speaker 238:04

C. co. uk slash radio four