Jimmy Knapp

Speaker 40:00

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 40:08

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

Presenter0:30

My castaway this week is a Union leader. He was born into a poor Scottish family, left school at fifteen and joined the railways. He's been there ever since, starting out as a signalman in the remote west of Scotland, and then in 1983 as the candidate from nowhere winning a landslide victory to become leader of the rail union.

Presenter0:51

Most recently, of course, he was in the public eye as the man who led a long and bitter series of one day strikes against Rail Track. Once accused of being a stooge of the Communist Left, he's risen to become the popular leader of a combined transport union. He's the general secretary of the Rail, Maritime and Transport Union, Jimmy

Presenter1:10

There have always been contradictions surrounding your image, Jimmy. You know, you're sometimes um portrayed as being the the crusty dinosaur, the traditional trade unionist Jurassic Jimmy I've seen you called and then the next minute you're this rather popular leader who's dedicated to um

Presenter1:27

Forming a voter-friendly Labour Party. Will the real Jimmy Knapp stand up? Which one are you?

Jimmy Knapp1:33

Well, I think uh

Jimmy Knapp1:35

Hopefully a person who has always tried to tell it as it is, you know, to say to the public and the nation, Well, this is the truth, this is the story. And of course there are those in the media, newspapers particularly, who will always try to slap the dinosaur label on any trade union leader, but I think they've had some difficulty with that in recent times because I think that

Jimmy Knapp2:02

A lot of our messages got through.

Presenter2:04

But it becomes quite personal, doesn't it, inevitably on the trade union leader? And they always mention two things about you. They mention your appearance and they mention your accent. I mean, politically incorrect questions though they are. Let me ask you first of all about the accent. Do you think that that's been an impediment to your getting the message across as you've tried to convey what you really feel to rail passengers up and down the country?

Jimmy Knapp2:26

No, I don't think so. I mean, uh I've been proud of my Arceir accent. It is an Air Circent. I've lived in the London area now for twenty three years, but I've defended it very well.

Speaker 42:36

And you've clung on to it and you've got it.

Jimmy Knapp2:36

And you've clung on to it. And I've clung on to it and uh, you know, I think the Jordies appreciate it because I appreciate their accent accent. I think the Brummingers appreciate it because uh I appreciate their accent and I don't think that's been a problem at all. I think they

Jimmy Knapp2:51

They know who you are, and they take as ya.

Presenter2:55

What about the appearance? And I can ask you that because it seems to me in in many articles I've read about you it's you who's always pointing out that you're much younger than you look. You're always quoted as saying I'm the same age as Cliff Richard, which is now, what, fifty four?

Jimmy Knapp3:08

Well I think it was actually William Hickey in the Daily Express gossip column about ten years ago that first uh compared me to Cliff Richard. Uh I'll admit that I'm never going to win uh the best dressed man contest. As far as the comparison with Cliff is concerned, whom I admire very much, uh the big advantage I've got over him is that I'll always look the same uh but he's going to spend twenty years getting older.

Presenter3:36

Are you an emotional man? Can you be moved by music?

Jimmy Knapp3:39

Yes, indeed. Yes, you can be moved by that. I mean, it does stir something uh in your breast, there's no doubt about that. And I don't think you'd be human if it didn't.

Presenter3:47

Right, let's find out which bits specifically stir you. What's the first record you'd take to your desert island?

Jimmy Knapp3:53

Well, the first choice would be uh a Robert Burns song, The Bony Lass of Balach Mile. Balach Mile isn't far from uh the village where I was brought up and I used to wander round uh that area. Uh we used to go fishing in the summertime at four o'clock in the morning and uh uh watch the trains go by over the splendid viaducts in that area. So uh I think that song encapsulates uh those kind of happy moments.

Speaker 44:25

Is the morning flowy May, And sweet is night in autumn wild, When roving through the garden gay, Or wandering in a lonely wild, But woman and nature's darling child, There all her chance she dance compiled.

Speaker 44:57

There are ever walks of oil, even there are ever walks of foil by the bony lawmile the bonnilas of

Presenter5:15

Kenneth McKellar singing Robbie Byrne's Bonnie Lass of Balach Mile.

Presenter5:20

Um you're an old fashioned railwayman, though, Jimmy, in the sense that it's a passion. It's been a passion since you were very small. How small?

Jimmy Knapp5:29

Oh, I would think going back to about ten or eleven years old when uh we used to go and watch the steam trains uh in Halford, which was the village where I was brought up. To see the uh big steam locomotives uh thundering by, all in the express trains from Glasgow to London, you know, it was a great experience and I really got interested in it.

Presenter5:50

And did you spend all your spare time at him? And was it more interesting to you than to many of your friends?

Jimmy Knapp5:56

Well, uh, there was more than myself, of course. I mean, there were others uh who indulged in that kind of activity, but I don't think that any of the others really

Jimmy Knapp6:04

They couldn't have got the steam into their blood as much as I got it.

Presenter6:07

Did did you

Jimmy Knapp6:07

Yeah.

Presenter6:10

Did you get into a signal box?

Jimmy Knapp6:12

Well, yes, because uh the watching the trains and taking the numbers led me to uh sit on a bank one day behind the signal box and watching what was going on and uh managed to persuade the signalman to let me into the signal box, uh you know, and became quite fascinated by all that was going on there. Uh you know, the bells ringing, the the clash of the uh the old uh steel levers and all the rest of it. And I think I must have been about fourteen then.

Presenter6:44

So was this all to the detriment of your school worker?

Jimmy Knapp6:47

Yes, I think so. I mean, I could have had an academic schooling, I believe, but uh

Jimmy Knapp6:54

I don't think the interest was really there.

Presenter6:56

Have you you then left when you were fifteen t bec because of the love for railways and and and went to work on them. Have you any regrets about that now?

Jimmy Knapp7:00

No.

Jimmy Knapp7:04

No, none at all. You know, I've enjoyed every minute of my working life in the railways, I've enjoyed every minute uh of trade union activity, so I've got no regrets whatsoever and uh

Presenter7:14

But you said just now you could have had a an academic career, because I know that

Presenter7:18

Uh your your critics have made a lot of the fact that you failed some written exam in order to get a place in the union about ten or fifteen years ago.

Jimmy Knapp7:26

Well, there's a story attached to that exam, you know, which I won't go into now. I don't think it was quite like the exams that you said at school. But uh no uh

Presenter7:35

So your enemies fixed it, did they?

Jimmy Knapp7:37

Well, I mean uh

Presenter7:38

They made sure you didn't pass.

Jimmy Knapp7:39

I'll leave other commentators to speculate on that.

Jimmy Knapp7:43

I think going back to the school days the the interest just went. I mean I mean you have to apply yourself to whatever you're doing. Uh and I just didn't have the desire to, you know, to have that kind of application to the school work uh because it moved away to a desire to work on the railways.

Presenter8:01

And that was nineteen fifty five, and you got to be a signal boy, and you earned ten pounds a week.

Presenter8:07

Let's um pause there for record number two.

Presenter8:10

Tell me about that one.

Jimmy Knapp8:12

Well, I'd like to hear the the Beatles record yesterday because uh that came at a point in my life when I was a bit low. My mother had just died in nineteen sixty two. Uh you know, there's a lot of sentiment in that record uh yesterday because I was trying to put some of the bad days behind me.

Speaker 48:30

Yesterday.

Speaker 48:33

All my troubles seem so far away

Speaker 48:38

Now it looks as though they're here to stay, oh I believe.

Speaker 48:44

Yesterday, suddenly.

Speaker 48:50

I'm not half the man I used to be

Speaker 48:55

Does it show

Presenter8:55

The Beatles and yesterday and memories of your mother, Jimmy Knapp, who died when you were twenty-one, and that that rather knocked you for six, eh?

Jimmy Knapp9:06

Oh yes. I mean uh I love my mother dearly and uh

Jimmy Knapp9:11

You know, to see her go at the age of forty six was a real tragedy and uh something that I've never forgotten even now.

Presenter9:18

What sort of circumstances had you lived in up till then, as a boy? You lived in a village on the outskirts of Kilmarnock, you say. What what was it like?

Jimmy Knapp9:25

Well, I was brought up in a house where we didn't have running water, or electricity, or a toilet. You know, if you had to get up in the middle of the night you had to put your coat on. The village itself was full of heavy industry, brickworks.

Jimmy Knapp9:39

Iron foundries and, you know, coal mines and the railways.

Presenter9:42

But why were you attracted then to the railway community? What was special about that then?

Jimmy Knapp9:46

It's hard to say that. I mean, I think it's just because it grew on me, you know, from the age as we were talking about earlier, watching the trains and being in the signal box, it just grew. It wasn't a case of uh

Jimmy Knapp10:00

Uh saying, Well, there's no way I'm going to do it in a coal mine and there's no way I'm going to spend eight hours in a blast furnace. I mean, it just kinda grew that way.

Presenter10:08

But what are your early memories of of of working on the railway?

Jimmy Knapp10:11

Well it was a very different world. If you showed some of the scenes now that used to take place, I mean people would think you'd made a movie out of it, but I mean if you were working on a country station for example, the local hotel might have ordered salmon for dinner and we used to carry the salmon down down the street to the hotel and deliver it and we used to get a a glass of whiskey when we'd finish for our trouble. In those days they had what they called the signal box lads and their job was to answer the telephones, take messages and record the passage of trains. But of course there was always the temptation to have a go at work in the signal box, which we did quite often. I mean I suppose it was like the pilot of a jet letting the first officer fly you to Glasgow, you know and that was a great time, but but as I say they were great people.

Presenter11:06

And did you get paid walking time to walk to your signal box?

Jimmy Knapp11:09

Yes, we did. I mean, that was uh one of Bob Horton's uh

Jimmy Knapp11:13

I don't think he understood it during the railway strike of nineteen ninety four, you know, because the walking time was actually paid for uh the inconvenience to relief signalmen who who had to cover sometimes twenty to twenty five signal boxes.

Presenter11:28

But they didn't have to walk to them like you did in those early days.

Jimmy Knapp11:31

No, I mean, uh I walked most of the time because uh we couldn't afford to do it any other way.

Presenter11:37

It's our record number three.

Jimmy Knapp11:39

Yes, well that's part of the uh romanza, or the romance from the second movement of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. Twenty, played by the famous German pianist Walter Gieseking. The thing about that record is that uh it's it's got a touch of magic about it. I mean it is romance and having heard it in Salzburg, uh which is where Mozart's father was the director of music to the Archbishop and having heard it played in the room where Mozart actually performed in the Schloss Mirabel in Salzburg, I mean it left an indelible impression on me.

Presenter13:17

Part of the second movement, the romance of Mozart's piano concerto No. twenty in D minor, played by Walter Gieseking, with the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Hans Rossbaugh.

Presenter13:28

So it it was during um that time on the Scottish Railways in the second half of the fifties and then through the sixties that that you, Jimmy Knapp, imbibed, if you like, your Socialist principles. Was there anyone in particular who influenced you, or was it simply in the air that you breathed?

Jimmy Knapp13:46

There was no one person in particular I think you put your finger on it. I mean it was in the air. I mean it was a an area where there was a lot of heavy industry, the trade unions were well organised. And you know I think I'd been about two days working in the signal box when the signalman said you better sign this form, son, because you better join the union. I think that was in about day three. And of course you know, rubbing shoulders were some of them, you know, you were active in the union branch locally. And you know, having read uh the book The Socialist Sigs of the World at that time, which was written by Hewlett Johnson, who was known as the Red Dean of Canterbury, that brought home to me the injustice of some of the things that had gone on, you know, during the earlier part of the twentieth century, when during the twenties and thirties, you know, children in big cities like Glasgow and Liverpool were suffering from rickets which is caused directly by malnutrition when at the same time surplus oranges were being dumped out in the Mersey. You know, there didn't seem to me to be much justice in that and you know I think I began to grow that sense of needing to fight for justice and fight for fairness and fight for equality.

Presenter15:05

So you you became um um active in the union very early on, as you say. You were a dues collector at the age of eighteen, you were branch secretary at the age of twenty one.

Presenter15:14

Did you know then early on that you wanted had you got your eye fixed on a on a top job, that you wanted to make the union a career?

Jimmy Knapp15:21

No, certainly not. I mean, never ever I never ever had dates ringed in the calendar, you know, that was going to be that somebody was going to pass away on a certain date or retire on a certain date and I was going to fill their shoes.

Presenter15:33

You're not an ambitious man.

Jimmy Knapp15:34

No.

Jimmy Knapp15:35

No, not not in the tree changes. What?

Presenter15:38

Record number four.

Jimmy Knapp15:40

I've always derived a great deal of pleasure from the works of Robert Burns because he was a superb social commentator. A lot of what he wrote is still very appropriate to some of today's problems and I'd like to hear a reading from Man Was Made to Mourn which really encapsulates one of the big problems of today, you know, the problem of unemployment or indeed the homeless in our society. I think A Man Was Made to Mourn uh encapsulates the uh the problem very well, even though it was written over two hundred years ago.

Speaker 116:14

See, yonder poor or laboured white,

Speaker 116:17

So abject, mean, and vile Who begs a brother of the earth To give him leave to toil.

Speaker 116:23

And see his lordly fellow worm The poor petition spurn, Unmindful though a weeping wife And helpless offspring mourn.

Speaker 116:32

If I'm designed, yon lordling slave, By nature's law designed,

Speaker 116:37

Why was an independent wish e'er planted in my mind?

Speaker 116:41

If not,

Speaker 116:42

Why am I subject to his cruelty or scorn?

Speaker 116:46

Or why has man the will and power?

Speaker 116:49

To make his fellow mourn.

Presenter16:51

That was um Alexander Morton reading that, part of Robert Burns's Man Was Made to Mourn.

Presenter16:57

So you you went south eventually. You left Scotland, Jimmy. Uh you went down to work on London Underground when you were thirty one, and then you went to Leatherhead in Surrey, the Southern Region Divisional Officer.

Speaker 117:04

And then you

Presenter17:07

and then to NUR headquarters in nineteen eighty one, and two years later you were top dog. You succeeded Sid Weal as General Secretary. It was he who called you, and I mentioned it in the introduction, a stooge of the Communist Left, wasn't it?

Jimmy Knapp17:21

Yeah.

Presenter17:21

Did that hurt?

Jimmy Knapp17:22

No. Uh I mean uh it's predictable because uh

Jimmy Knapp17:26

Uh I mean I wasn't his favoured candidate, so I mean obviously he wasn't going to say very nice things about uh somebody that he was opposing.

Presenter17:35

But people have gone on saying that you're a prisoner of your left wing, haven't they? That you you're a willing tool of the hard left on your executive.

Jimmy Knapp17:38

Yeah.

Jimmy Knapp17:42

No, I don't think they would accept that. I don't think the hard left would accept that uh because I've always been my own man and I've always argued what I felt was best for the Union. If that ran me into a row where hard left, centre or right, then so be it. Uh because I think if you are the general secretary of a major union, uh that's the way you've got to think. You know, you've got to argue what you believe is right and what is best.

Presenter18:06

But you don't have total executive power, do you? You can negotiate, but you can't deliver. You've got to persuade I mean, how many others on on your executive committee? Twenty?

Jimmy Knapp18:16

Well, this year there's nineteen, so I don't have a vote.

Presenter18:17

Yeah.

Jimmy Knapp18:20

Uh so there is an element of persuasion, yes, and uh trying to uh

Jimmy Knapp18:26

Uh win support for your own point of view.

Presenter18:28

But isn't that difficult if you've gone in and negotiated something, and then you come out, you sit down with them, and they say no, you can't say you can't deliver?

Jimmy Knapp18:35

Well, that's the democratic process at work, uh you know, and you have to try to win the argument and convince people that it's best.

Presenter18:40

But but the option

Presenter18:42

The offer that you finally accepted after last year's strike, last summer's strike, was was more or less the offer that was on the table two months earlier. Had you wanted to accept it then?

Jimmy Knapp18:54

No, I mean uh it was actually an improved offer. There was more money in it.

Presenter18:59

But in hindsight, did you not hold out too long for too little?

Jimmy Knapp19:03

No, I don't think so. Well, I know we didn't because, I mean, series negotiations didn't really get under way until within ten days of the end of the dispute. I mean, we had a long period uh where the government's hand was on the tiller or on the scruff of Bob Horton's neck, whatever way you like to describe it.

Jimmy Knapp19:22

Where no serious negotiations took place. You know, there was a standoff.

Presenter19:27

So to answer another criticism, would you deny that you were a stubborn man?

Jimmy Knapp19:31

I'm stubborn if I'm fighting for justice, uh you know, but not stupidly stubborn.

Presenter19:36

Because I notice you chose last year, towards the end of last year, when you were asked to read a Shakespearean speech on the television, you chose a piece from Julius Caesar in which Caesar says, I am constant as the northern star. I wondered if you

Presenter19:50

And that had a special meaning for you.

Jimmy Knapp19:52

You can't compare yourself to Julius Caesar really, but uh

Presenter19:55

Well, look what happened to him.

Jimmy Knapp19:56

Well, that's right. Uh but I think the message was that uh uh we knew where we were going and we held our course until we got there.

Presenter20:05

Some more music.

Jimmy Knapp20:07

Yes, well, of course we were talking about the eighties and uh you know the most momentous event of the eighties was without doubt the minor strike of nineteen eighty four five. I've never seen such courage and uh uh sacrifice uh among ordinary people uh as I did during that period. And uh

Jimmy Knapp20:26

Having been part of it, you know, which will be looked on as one of the big events in industrial.

Jimmy Knapp20:33

Relations history. Uh I think I would like to hear the the miners him Greshford.

Presenter21:40

Gressford, the Miners' hymn played by the Grimethorpe Colliery Band, and a tribute from Jimmy Knapp to the miners and their families involved in that strike of'eighty four,' eighty five. But you've also been critical, Jimmy, about the way it was conducted. You've said before now that it was arrogant and undemocratic.

Jimmy Knapp22:00

Well, I can't remember ever saying that, but uh I think looking back, it was a hard fight for the miners. I mean they I think knew that their industry was at the crossroads and uh you know I wouldn't really want to be critical in that sense.

Presenter22:17

But you were then presumably being critical of Arthur Scargill, who called them out on strike without there being a ballot?

Jimmy Knapp22:21

Well no no not particularly. I mean uh I think with with hindsight the ballot always gives you that kind of strength and we've always gone to the ballot. You'd never

Presenter22:31

You'd never call a strike without a balance.

Jimmy Knapp22:32

Well certainly not. I mean uh but uh you know I've got nothing but admiration for the miners and their families involved in that dispute.

Presenter22:42

The miners' strike was of course the last great union versus government battle and and they lost. Trade union laws were put in place and the TUC has steadily lost its clout since then. Do you see trade unions ever achieving the power they enjoyed in the seventies again?

Jimmy Knapp22:57

Well, I don't I don't accept that if you talk about the trade union movement as a whole, that it has lost its clout. I mean we are still exerting a lot of influence, and we are still

Jimmy Knapp23:09

Being effective.

Presenter23:10

But it's a different kind of influence now, isn't it? And I mean to to to

Presenter23:15

Characterize it with the old cliche beer beer and sandwiches at number ten. I mean, those days are gone. Do you think they will ever return?

Jimmy Knapp23:22

Uh

Presenter23:23

In the days actually when trade unions could bring down governments. That's what you're talking about.

Jimmy Knapp23:25

Welcome.

Jimmy Knapp23:26

I'm not sure. I mean, well, I don't know about any trade unions that ever brought down governments.

Presenter23:33

What about the Heath Government?

Jimmy Knapp23:34

Well, yes, but he could have stayed there for another year. I mean, it was Ted Heath that chose to go to the country and say who governs Britain. It wasn't the Union.

Presenter23:42

What about the winter of discontent? I mean in effect that did for the Callahan government?

Jimmy Knapp23:43

Yeah.

Jimmy Knapp23:46

Well, uh may have done in the sense that uh you know there was a lot of discontent among a lot of ordinary people about uh you know what had happened to their living standards and all the rest of it. But you know, the beer and sandwiches uh description is a good uh cliche. I mean

Jimmy Knapp24:04

I don't think I can remember Sidney Green, who was a general secretary of the NUR telling me about a time when the Union called a strike in nineteen sixty, and that was resolved in the end after he and Harold Macmillan had strolled round the gardens of Downing Street. I don't see that kind of world coming back, but but there will have to be an acceptance eventually that there are social partners in the world, you know you've got employers, you've got people who go to work, trade unions and you've got government. That's a common approach in many of our uh European partners in their countries and I think it will come in this country eventually. It's got to come if we're going to make a success of you know economic growth and all the other things that we want to achieve.

Presenter24:49

More music.

Jimmy Knapp24:50

I suppose the country that I like best after Scotland is Spain. Not the Spain of Torre Molinas or Benedorm, although millions of people enjoy themselves there and and and quite right too, uh you know, but the Spain of Seville and Cordoba and Barcelona, uh you know, but most of all Granada. So just thinking about Spain and the enjoyable hours there, uh I would like to hear Granada sung by Placido Domingo.

Speaker 125:29

Yeah.

Speaker 426:18

Fucking I'm fucking

Presenter26:21

Granada, sung by Placido Domingo with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Karl Heinz Lorges.

Presenter26:27

What about the railways, then, Jimmy Knapp? You're fundamentally opposed to privatization, but the wheels grind inexorably on towards it.

Presenter26:35

Why wouldn't it benefit the railways?

Jimmy Knapp26:37

The main reason we're opposed to privatisation of the railways is that uh it won't deliver a better service. So

Jimmy Knapp26:43

deliver worsening and deteriorating services. Privatisation has been presented as the panacea for the industry's olds, but the patient's health is deteriorating. I mean you just need to look at last week's announcement where we had minimum service standards set at levels below the current services where we've seen

Jimmy Knapp27:09

A move towards reducing the amount of through ticketing.

Jimmy Knapp27:13

In the system. We've seen the withdrawal of the sleeper services from London to Fort William and the south west of England to Edinburgh. We've seen the withdrawal of the motor rail services. I mean, here we are in a very congested island with environmental concerns growing.

Speaker 127:25

What are rail services?

Jimmy Knapp27:34

Then it's sheer lunacy to do away with the only bit of combined transfer we've got.

Presenter27:39

Do you think despite your best arguments it will happen nevertheless?

Jimmy Knapp27:43

I'm not so sure about that. I mean, I think the government have got enormous problems about the privatisation of the train operating companies and rail track. There's very little interest in the private sector in relation to the train operating units. There's no businessman or woman going to be interested in a situation where they don't control seventy five percent of their fixed overheads. I mean it's not a good business position to be in, so there's not a lot of interest.

Presenter28:07

A cynic would say, of course, that last summer's strike added to that, and that maybe that was part of the object of it, to frighten off potential buyers, that you set out on a on a you set out to sabotage it.

Jimmy Knapp28:20

No, I can assure yourself and the

Jimmy Knapp28:23

world is listening that last year's strikes were a one hundred percent industrial argument. If the spin off from that is harm privatisation, then that's a case of the government shooting themselves in the feet because they could have avoided it had they not interfered in the way that they did.

Speaker 128:32

Yeah.

Presenter28:42

If it were privatised, would you look to an incoming Labour Government to renationalize it immediately?

Jimmy Knapp28:48

Yes, uh to bring it back into public ownership because we believe that that's the only form of ownership that is good.

Presenter28:51

Because

Jimmy Knapp28:56

going to deliver to the public the standard of service that they need.

Presenter28:59

And are you convinced that an incoming Labour Government would do that?

Jimmy Knapp29:02

I am convinced that there is a firm commitment to a publicly owned railway.

Jimmy Knapp29:06

I believe that what we have to set about doing is working out the pros and cons of that.

Presenter29:11

But if they do away with Clause 4, there's not a firm commitment to common ownership, is there?

Jimmy Knapp29:15

Well, I don't think Clause four will be done away with. You know, it may be rewritten or amended in some form in the weeks that lie ahead of us, but there should be a commitment to public ownership, and I think there will be a commitment to public ownership because I think it's recognised that the Post Office, the Railways, to pick but two examples, that's the right place for them to be.

Presenter29:39

Record number seven.

Jimmy Knapp29:41

Well, coming to London as I did in nineteen seventy two, I began to appreciate the the city and eventually uh came to appreciate the theatre. And I think the most enjoyable moment in that period was uh going along to Saddler's Wells one evening and seeing and listening to uh Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet and uh uh I'd like to hear a piece from Fantasy Overture.

Presenter31:14

Part of Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture, played by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Claudio Abardo. I assume, Jimmy Knapp, that you'll you'll cope on this desert island. I mean, you're you're no stranger to physical hardship. I mean you may not have suffered it for some years, but

Presenter31:30

You're good with your hands, as they say.

Jimmy Knapp31:32

Well, I'm no stranger to physical hardship, but I've always enjoyed people around me, so I think that would be my biggest problem.

Presenter31:37

But what would you do with yourself or?

Jimmy Knapp31:39

Well, uh I think I would probably uh set about uh making myself as comfortable as possible so that I could enjoy all the uh the music and the other uh delights that I would have with me. Uh having spent forty years now almost working on the railways and uh for the union uh

Jimmy Knapp32:01

It may be nice to move to some realisation at last.

Presenter32:04

Absolutely. And to put all that union politicking behind you, would there be a certain relief in that?

Jimmy Knapp32:11

Um in a way, I suppose, yes, because uh uh you need it would be in some ways it's it's not so much the politics, it's the responsibility, you know, that you feel that you in looking after people and doing the best for them.

Speaker 432:27

Uh

Speaker 132:27

And

Jimmy Knapp32:29

Uh and you have to put your best foot forward.

Presenter32:33

But do you enjoy that part of it? I mean, obviously when there's a strike on when it lasted, what, from June to September last year, your workload must have increased enormously and you were constantly in demand on the radio and the television and the newspapers. I mean, obviously nobody enjoys strikes and you don't want your members to be out, but

Presenter32:53

part of you that does actually rather like those periods.

Jimmy Knapp32:57

Yeah, I think there is. I mean, I think you step over gear, you know, and uh

Jimmy Knapp33:02

you set yourself out to uh to project the case to the maximum effect, but it's an opportunity to say what you think. So I I think you do enjoy it in a way, yes.

Presenter33:15

Last record.

Jimmy Knapp33:17

Well I'm going back to Scotland again, to Argylleshire, where I spent a lot of happy hours. Beautiful part of Scotland, which is a feeling I think is shared by Paul McCartney. I've never met him, but I'm sure, well I know, that his feelings for that part of Scotland are as strong as mine. And I think that's why he wrote the Mull of Kentyre as a tribute to that part of Scotland and to the people of that part of Scotland, and I'd like to hear that because I share his views.

Speaker 433:47

I wouldn't talk

Speaker 433:50

Oh, Miss Rollins from the sea. My desire is always to be here for Mollock in time.

Presenter34:21

Mullach in Tyre by Paul McCartney and Wings, and and the Campbell Town Pipe Band, you say, Jimmy.

Jimmy Knapp34:26

Yes, indeed.

Presenter34:28

It got them all involved.

Jimmy Knapp34:29

Well, I think that was his tribute to the community and it's my tribute to our Guelphshire and my fellow Scots.

Presenter34:34

Now if you could only take one of those records.

Presenter34:38

Which would it be?

Jimmy Knapp34:40

Well, that's a difficult choice. Um

Jimmy Knapp34:44

I think probably yesterday because

Jimmy Knapp34:48

Uh that reminds me most of my mother and the time that she died uh in that period of my life, and I think that uh I would I would treasure that thought and so that record I would take as a

Presenter35:04

And what about a book?

Jimmy Knapp35:06

Oh, certainly The Socialist Things of the World, because you would never tire of reading it by Hewlett Johnson. I mean.

Jimmy Knapp35:15

People think the Bishop of Durham is some kind of unique figure, but I think there's always been church men and women that have argued for justice, and Hewlett Johnson was one of those.

Presenter35:27

What about a luxury?

Jimmy Knapp35:29

Well, I don't think there's any doubt about that. A crate of Tulisker whisky, for two reasons. It's a wonderful malt, it's a bit stronger than some of the others, and it comes from the beautiful island of Skye.

Presenter35:41

So a a glass of malt whisky and um a bit of Tchaikovsky and a bit of Mozart and a bit of Beatles and Kenneth McKellar and you're a happy man, are you?

Jimmy Knapp35:49

Absolutely.

Presenter35:50

Jimmy Knapp, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your Desert Island discs.

Speaker 436:02

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