Sir Bernard Ingham

Speaker 30:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

Speaker 30:08

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

Presenter0:32

My Castaway this week is a civil servant. It's a description which implies anonymity, but he's held the public gaze more than most. For eleven years, almost from when she came to power to the day she left office, he stood shoulder to shoulder with Mrs Thatcher, her adviser, supporter, and chief press secretary.

Presenter0:50

Many accused him of crossing the line between civil service impartiality and political support, but few doubted he served his mistress astoundingly well. Since leaving Number Ten he's returned to a career in journalism, transferring his tough, gruff, and indelibly Yorkshire qualities from politics to newspapers and television. He is Sir Bernard

Presenter1:12

Bernard, it's surely an impossibility not to cross that impartiality line, isn't it? If you're going to be loyal and supportive and present your boss in her best light, surely you've got to become partisan.

Sir Bernard Ingham1:24

Well, I work for both political parties, and I don't believe that I work for Mrs Thatcher any different than I work for, say, Barbara Castle, Robert Carr, Morris Macmillan or Tony Benn. I I think that what you do is you work extremely hard for the government of the day, that which the voters have landed you with. You do your best for them, you try to get under the skin and into the mind of the minister that you work for, and you represent it. And there are some things that the party has to do, and there are things that the civil servant can do.

Presenter1:57

There was one moment, though, when you visibly crossed that line, wasn't there? And that was in november nineteen ninety at the British Embassy in Paris when the result of that first leadership ballot came through. Mrs Thatcher rushed downstairs to speak to the press. You rushed with her. Now that was a party political platform, wasn't it?

Sir Bernard Ingham2:13

No, I didn't rush with her. I rushed because the BBC had fiddlished a central microphone, and I had put a central microphone there for the benefit of all journalists. The BBC, because they were conducting an open air broadcast, moved it. I saw it wasn't there. I knew there would be pandemonium among the press.

Presenter2:32

But it was for a party political purpose.

Sir Bernard Ingham2:34

Well, I'm sorry. I was also there to help the media. What did they do? They all went around saying I'd crossed the line and gone into a party political area.

Presenter2:42

But haven't you sort of imagined that you're not sure?

Sir Bernard Ingham2:43

I didn't say a word. All I got was a microphone together.

Presenter2:46

Yes, but you've sort of admitted it. You've written since I was damned if I was going to desert misses Thatcher at this hour.

Sir Bernard Ingham2:51

Yes, I was. Or or our ambassador in Paris, who would have really got it in the neck if the if the if he'd have let down the media.

Presenter2:58

Of course, that was I think thirty-six hours before she finally went to the end came. Did you know that did you spot that that was the beginning of the end?

Sir Bernard Ingham3:02

That's true.

Sir Bernard Ingham3:07

Well, let me put it this way. When I was coming back in the ambassadorial roles for the last time, I said to Charles Powell, who was sitting with me, I said, I don't think we're going to be doing this much longer. I thought that her authority had been so badly damaged that it w she would be very lucky to retain office.

Presenter3:24

And she didn't. And when she went there were a lot of tears in Downing Street. Did you shed some too?

Sir Bernard Ingham3:30

a bit misty eyed at times. I think it was extremely sad, because she wasn't deposed by the people. That's fair enough, if that's what the people want to do. She was deposed by her own side. This bunch of knifing Tories who panicked.

Presenter3:48

Tell me about your first record.

Sir Bernard Ingham3:50

Well, I think this is a piece that is entirely appropriate for me, because I with my brother I played second cornet in the Heblingbridge Brass Band, and I do think that Colonel Bogie, played by the Black Dyke Mills Band, is an entirely suitable tune for a press secretary.

Presenter5:01

Colonel Bogie, played by the Black Dyke Mills Band.

Presenter5:04

It said you had an uncanny knack, Bernard Ingham, of speaking Mrs. Thatcher's mind. You argue that it's simply professionalism and you could have done it for a Labour Prime Minister, too. But

Presenter5:14

It was so consistently accurate, surely there was more to it than that, that you had some sympathy for her political views.

Sir Bernard Ingham5:21

I came to have very considerable sympathy for her political views, but I think that it was the fact that here I had a Prime Minister who had a clear philosophy, knew what she wanted to do,

Sir Bernard Ingham5:35

Had worked out the implications and wasn't going to change her mind. I mean, that made me blessed among press secretaries, as I told all my colleagues when I retired.

Presenter5:43

So you respected her for that, but are you also saying that in the end she also won you over, as it were, politically?

Sir Bernard Ingham5:49

Well, I was ripe for the winning. Let's face it, I mean, I was brought up in a right wing Labour home. It certainly wasn't certainly a Lorre home. My father was a Labour councillor. Yes, very strong Labour home. I I think, quite frankly, that

Presenter5:56

But a neighbour home father was a neighbour counsellor.

Sir Bernard Ingham6:04

Even the most loyal well, proved by the way in which they voted substantially for Margaret Thatcher, I think that the most lab loyal Labour people actually got fed up with what was going on, and the way in which the trade unions were abusing power. The feeling that this country was becoming ungovernable. By nineteen seventy nine I was right for somebody who was going to govern.

Presenter6:24

And did did your family support you in that view? Or did they think it very odd that you well, you were a failed Labour Council candidate, actually, weren't you? You didn't make it. But your father was one. Yes, his father before.

Sir Bernard Ingham6:30

Yeah.

Sir Bernard Ingham6:32

Yeah.

Presenter6:35

His father before him had voted Labour. I mean, did your family not find it very odd that you became so identical?

Sir Bernard Ingham6:39

Well, I think to be fair, my father's father was a conservative.

Presenter6:44

But what did your family think when you became so identified with misses Thatcher as you do?

Sir Bernard Ingham6:48

Well, I'd worked for Tory governments before, don't forget. It wasn't

Presenter6:51

Sometimes

Sir Bernard Ingham6:51

Yeah. entirely a new experience for my family.

Presenter6:54

But let's look at it from the other point of view then. Um why did Mrs. Thatcher choose you?

Sir Bernard Ingham6:59

I don't know, you better ask her.

Presenter7:01

But you were virtually head-hunted in this.

Sir Bernard Ingham7:03

Yes, I think by the civil servant.

Presenter7:04

Civil servant. You had been a card carrying member of the Labour Party, hadn't you?

Sir Bernard Ingham7:07

Not a not after nineteen sixty eight.

Presenter7:09

No, but I mean, looking at your file, they would know that you came from a working class Labour voting council. Uh that you'd stood for a Labour Council, even if you didn't get in. Uh why should she have chosen you?

Sir Bernard Ingham7:11

They would

Sir Bernard Ingham7:13

There's no doubt about it at all.

Sir Bernard Ingham7:21

I am assuming that the Civil Service recommended me. I have since discovered that certainly people in the Tory party were consulted, and said I was the man for the job.

Presenter7:31

But you were amazed, weren't you, to be chosen?

Sir Bernard Ingham7:33

I was astonished, yes, quite frankly, uh astonished.

Presenter7:36

And you went in there determined, you said at the very beginning, um to interrupt her, which was not always the case.

Sir Bernard Ingham7:42

Well, my permanent secretary, Jack Rampton, said, Don't be afraid to give your advice and don't be afraid to interrupt, because if you don't, you won't give your advice.

Presenter7:49

I bet you didn't manage it very often, though, did you?

Sir Bernard Ingham7:51

Oh, sometimes you had to interrupt, and you had to keep talking when she was trying to interrupt you. I mean, her body language was absolutely impossible for everybody. They all thought that she'd finished a point, and then suddenly when they were about to respond, she came in with another one. They couldn't read any body language at all. You can't make a profession of rowing with your minister. That's silly. You want, when you give advice, and especially unpalatable advice, for it to be listened to and to be acted upon. And therefore you have you have to find a way of living with your minister and your prime minister. And I'm rather proud of the fact that I found a way of living with them.

Presenter8:26

Record number two.

Sir Bernard Ingham8:27

Well, my second record again goes back to my musical history. Having played second cornet in the Headmanbridge Bass Band, I then played second violin in the Todmondon Orchestra. And this piece, part of Elgar's Violin Concerto, which I think is one of the most wonderful pieces of music, just reminds me of what it might have been if I had any talent whatsoever.

Presenter9:49

Part of the second movement of Elgar's Violin Concerto in B minor, played by Nigel Kennedy, with the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Vernon Handley.

Presenter9:57

The picture of Bernardingham the Boy strikes me as a bit like a Hovis commercial, if you don't mind my saying. I mean, it's sort of happy times against a picturesque Yorkshire background and the

Presenter10:08

You know, the front step well scrubbed and respectable family. Is that how it was?

Sir Bernard Ingham10:13

Yes. I mean, I suffered very badly from hast from asthma, so it wasn't a very uh a very pleasant time uh uh for either me or my parents, but r I rather enjoyed myself uh as a child, and I most certainly enjoyed Ebdenbridge Grammar School.

Presenter10:28

You had an indulgent grandad.

Sir Bernard Ingham10:30

Berry, my maternal grandfather. I mean, he was an amateur botanist, amateur astronomer, inveterate g uh rambler, and also an organist. And he sought to introduce us to every square yard of Upper Calder Valley.

Presenter10:48

Your dad was a weaver, cotton. Yeah.

Sir Bernard Ingham10:49

Okay.

Presenter10:51

And you, as you say, w were not the bonniest of chaps. You've got asthma, eczema, all.

Sir Bernard Ingham10:56

Well as a as a a a baby I was covered in eczema and my mother uh told me that they had to put this awful black ointment on me and I was bound up in all kinds of bandages. So I I think I had a pretty rotten first few years of life and of course my asthma stayed with me and before the war we had to burn this potter's asthma cure in a tin lid and that was very slow in relieving insofar as it ever did relieve and it it was awful.

Presenter11:22

So you were off school a lot, and as a result, you didn't do much. But you didn't pass the 11 plus because you were off so much. So, how do you?

Sir Bernard Ingham11:24

It's not too much, hmm?

Sir Bernard Ingham11:26

Because you

Sir Bernard Ingham11:28

No, I don't think it was because I was off so much. I just think I was of of of such an acute nervous disposition. Quite frankly, I would have failed anything.

Presenter11:36

Maybe.

Sir Bernard Ingham11:36

Hmm.

Presenter11:37

Shy.

Sir Bernard Ingham11:38

I think I was a bit shy, but no, I was just highly strung and nervous.

Presenter11:42

How did you come to go to the local grammar school in the end?

Sir Bernard Ingham11:45

My my my father, who could ill afford, paid, because he felt that I ought to go, and he felt that I just simply couldn't do an industrial job with the asthma that I'd got. But, lo and behold, the older I got, the better I managed to deal with the asthma.

Presenter12:00

And you were going to become a a geography teacher.

Sir Bernard Ingham12:02

I was going to become a geography teacher because I had absolutely in love with geography, and then suddenly the local paper advertised for a junior reporter. I applied, I got it, and I haven't looked back since.

Presenter12:13

But not being a man to suffer fools, you'd have made a pretty tetchy teacher, wouldn't you?

Sir Bernard Ingham12:18

I think I might have become a pretty tetchy teacher, because the older I got, the tetchier I got. That is perfectly true. Uh but I mean if I'd have loved my subject, I might actually have loved imparting it to people.

Presenter12:29

It it's difficult to understand though, you know, where this kind of, as you say, highly strung, nervous boy lacking in self confidence becomes, or became, this this rather impatient, sometimes volcanic

Presenter12:42

Man with a reputation for for for taking no prisoners, yeah.

Sir Bernard Ingham12:46

Well, I d I mean, I wasn't exactly the most confident self-confident journalist, but then I when I entered the civil service I

Sir Bernard Ingham12:53

almost miraculously began to acquire a great deal of confidence, uh perhaps because I had to. I mean, I got to survive there, and I found that I could compete on paper with some of the better brains of Britain.

Presenter13:09

Record number three.

Sir Bernard Ingham13:10

Well, I

Sir Bernard Ingham13:12

We were brought up in a choral tradition of the non-conformist chapels of the West Riding Valley, and we had the always had to attend the Handel's Messiah at Hope Baptist Chapel before Christmas, and I cannot allow any programme of this kind to go without the Huddersfield Choral Society singing the Hallelujah Chorus.

Presenter14:27

Handel's Hallelujah Chorus, sung by the Huddersfield Choral Society with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, conducted by Sir Malcolm Sargent.

Presenter14:35

You left school then at sixteen to work on the Hebden Bridge Times. Thirty shillings a week, bring your own bike.

Sir Bernard Ingham14:36

To work

Presenter14:40

Um your best years in journalism, you've said since. Is that the case, or is that just a bit of nostalgia?

Sir Bernard Ingham14:46

No, I don't think it is. I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I mean, it was a wonderful training, having to live side by side, literally, with your readers, who if you didn't get it right, let you know, full blast on in Market Street, you know. You've got it wrong again, you daft so-and-so. I wrote the leaders, and I'm astonished when I look back at some of these leaders at the maturity, the wisdom, the profundity that I managed at the age of nineteen.

Presenter14:57

The third

Presenter15:12

We are going to be able to do it.

Sir Bernard Ingham15:14

No, I said I wondered at the

Sir Bernard Ingham15:16

You still run?

Presenter15:16

You still write for it, eh?

Sir Bernard Ingham15:18

Oh yes, you're right for it. Yes, once a month. Caused great trouble with among some people.

Presenter15:22

Let me ask you this. Many many members of the national press and radio and television whom you've criticised over the years for being cynical or malicious or whatever it is began in the same way, have that same journalistic training in accurate, fair, responsible journalism. Why should they have lost their principles and not you?

Sir Bernard Ingham15:41

Well, I mean, the media is is is commercial, uh and I'm not saying that all of them have lost their principles at all, but I do think it is much harder in the modern press to hold to the principles you've been brought up with than it uh it was when I was starting.

Presenter15:58

But I mean, I have in mind, for example, the the editors and presenters of uh Thames Television, who of course produced the very controversial programme Death on the Rock. You've written that you found it nauseating when they talked about looking for the truth and about their responsibility to their viewers. You didn't allow them that kind of

Presenter16:16

fair, accurate, responsible approach that that you were brought up with.

Sir Bernard Ingham16:20

Uh I would have admired it if I thought it was there, but I thought that it had been replaced by conspiracy theory, and that is what a lot of journalism is about today. I mean, I don't think they trust their grandmother. It is not my experience of government and public life that everybody is out feathering their own nest and doing all kinds of uh dubious things.

Presenter16:40

But I'm talking about the individuals that you picked out in your time. And you picked out Brian Redhead, didn't you, who of course presented the Today programme, who again had exactly the same journalistic background as you. And you said that he did damage to the government on that programme. And you said it as if it were a malicious act rather than that he was seeking after truth.

Sir Bernard Ingham17:01

Of all

Presenter17:01

Oh well.

Sir Bernard Ingham17:02

I never actually accused Brian Redhead of not seeking after truth. What I felt, though, was that he filled the Today programme with a parade of pressure groups, single issue, and very frequently, I sh I imagine, single person pressure groups, all of whom were trying to get their hand in my taxpayer's pocket.

Presenter17:23

But it became quite personal, didn't it? You made sure misses Thatcher never appeared on the Today programme, despite the fact it was the one programme she listened to.

Sir Bernard Ingham17:29

I didn't. She one rang em up one morning. No, I did wasn't entirely personal. Not entirely true. I didn't

Presenter17:31

No idea.

Presenter17:33

Not entirely true. I've written that you since you made sure that he did not get another interview with Mrs. Thatcher.

Sir Bernard Ingham17:39

Uh that was towards the end, yes, yes. Uh because of the way in which I think he behaved. Well, he accused me of being a conspiracy.

Presenter17:43

Welly

Presenter17:46

It's great power you wielded, though, isn't it? I mean, she who didn't read any newspapers, relied on your digest of the newspapers every day, listened to your opinions of interviewers and journalists.

Sir Bernard Ingham17:50

But we rely on

Sir Bernard Ingham17:53

Yeah.

Sir Bernard Ingham17:56

But uh so do people who broadcast have great power and I should never forget that now that I'm doing some broadcasting and I think you have to behave responsible. And uh I did not regard myself as a conspiracy and I don't think a lot of other people did.

Presenter18:10

Next piece of music.

Sir Bernard Ingham18:12

Well, I think there is a dearth of tunes in Britain today, and therefore I do think we ought to go back to the nineteen sixties, that wonderful outpouring of tunes, and what better than the Beatles yesterday.

Sir Bernard Ingham18:23

Yeah.

Speaker 418:23

Yesterday.

Speaker 418:27

All my troubles seem so far away

Speaker 418:31

God looks as though they're here to stay, Oh I believe

Speaker 418:38

Yesterday, suddenly.

Speaker 418:44

I'm not half the man I used to be

Speaker 418:49

There's a shadow

Presenter18:50

Oh, hanging over me.

Presenter18:53

The Beatles and Yesterday.

Presenter18:55

You quit journalism, Bernardingham, at the age of thirty five, and went into uh Whitehall, became a civil servant. Your first Cabinet Minister was Barbara Castle. Um you admired her, you said, since. You did your best to protect her, but you never became close to her. I wonder why?

Sir Bernard Ingham19:13

Well, she was my first cabinet minister. I was very much learning the ropes. She recruited me as a speechwriter and was not unduly impressed with some of my earlier early efforts. I don't think I was either. But I grew to admire her for one very simple reason. I think she had guts. Indeed, it has been my great privilege in life to work for two strong women who were let down by weak men. But I think Barbara Castle went to the Department of Employment and Productivity, as it was pretentiously known, to sort out the unions and she be well, she believed she could charm them, I think, and, you know, sort them out. And I think it took her about six months to realize that it wasn't on. I do think Barbara Castle was a a very courageous minister and a reformer. When she saw that things needed to be done, she was prepared to take them on and do it. And of course she she introduced the breathalyzer too.

Presenter20:08

So in in that sense not unlike misses Thatcher?

Sir Bernard Ingham20:11

I think she was an extremely good preparation for misses Thatcher.

Presenter20:14

Uh that's what I was going to ask you. Do you think she prepared you for that? She must have done, I suppose. Gutsy women who were taking on those around them.

Sir Bernard Ingham20:17

Gutsy women who were

Sir Bernard Ingham20:20

And also she prepared me for the job of looking after a woman minister. Is that so very different? Well, in a televisual age, you've certainly got to

Presenter20:26

Is that so very different?

Sir Bernard Ingham20:30

uh set aside some time to make sure that your woman minister feels good about it. I mean, men don't need to feel good about this at all.

Presenter20:33

Woman

Sir Bernard Ingham20:39

I I think there's a certain endearing quality about scruffy men on television, you know, and I think that that's appropriate.

Presenter20:40

The set

Presenter20:45

But you've written that misses Thatter used to get ready quicker than you did.

Sir Bernard Ingham20:48

Yes, she did, so sometimes it was most embarrassing and difficult. But um you you you had to set aside time in the in the preparation for a programme for uh presenting themselves.

Presenter21:00

What are you saying that women are more diligent about their preparation?

Sir Bernard Ingham21:03

I think I think women are infinitely more diligent than men about their work on the evidence of Barbara Kessel and Margaret Thatcher.

Presenter21:12

And then later on you worked at Energy for Tony Benn, one of the great wasted talents of British politics, you called him. What do you mean by that? What would you like to have seen him become?

Sir Bernard Ingham21:21

Well, here was a man who uh

Sir Bernard Ingham21:24

had a very good presence.

Sir Bernard Ingham21:27

A good speaking voice, in many ways an attractive personality, an extremely good administrator, did his work at night, came in with his boxes, it was done.

Sir Bernard Ingham21:40

Was decisive, and yet something went wrong in the early 1970s, and he seemed.

Sir Bernard Ingham21:47

To throw away so many opportunities that would have lain in his weight. And I think that.

Sir Bernard Ingham21:54

I do.

Sir Bernard Ingham21:56

When you have a limited amount of talent yourself, I do think you resent people throwing it away.

Presenter22:03

But I repeat, what would you like to have seen him become?

Sir Bernard Ingham22:06

Well, I think he could have become a Prime Minister, frankly, if he hadn't gone on his wild, lefty, wayward ways, you know, believing that the sun shines out of the working classes, as one minister said to me.

Presenter22:20

Record number five.

Sir Bernard Ingham22:22

Well, my fifth record is um and you'll be very surprised at this, but I I must play this for my wife, um and in memory of trying to dance to this on the swaying deck of a ship in the Bay of Biscay, which does tax one's ingenuity. It's Willie Nelson singing Spanish Eyes.

Sir Bernard Ingham22:47

I

Speaker 422:52

Bringing you all the love your heart can hold.

Speaker 423:01

B S C C

Sir Bernard Ingham23:05

Yes.

Speaker 423:09

Say you and your Spanish eyes will wait for me.

Presenter23:16

Willie Nelson and Julio Iglesias singing Spanish Eyes. Um it was, as I've said, a a very powerful position you held at number ten, Bernardingham. You were quote sources close to the Prime Minister unquote. You could therefore say perhaps all sorts of things that she couldn't say. You could criticise John Biffin when he was leader of the house, for example, as being that semi-detached member of the cabinet. Wasn't that crossing the line again?

Sir Bernard Ingham23:42

No, it wasn't. I mean, I shouldn't have said it, and I wish I hadn't said it. But you have to know why. And the real problem is that people don't tell you why. In 1986, a year before Mrs. Thatcher became won her third general election with a majority of more than one hundred, John Biffon went on television and said she was a liability to her party and should be replaced by a collective leadership. This was a pretty extraordinary thing to receive.

Presenter24:07

He didn't quite say she was a liability to the menu.

Sir Bernard Ingham24:08

No, he did. He said that. And uh and this I uh this I caused me great trouble with the media. And in the end, when they come at you like the Chinese army for the fifth time, I said, Oh, for God's sake, let's have some sense into this argument. You know very well that John Biffin is that well known semi-detached member of the Cabinet, which summed him up absolutely. I mean it was the accuracy.

Presenter24:29

Absolutely. But you're not saying that you, Bernard Ingham, who was used to taking on this Chinese army all of the time, as you call them.

Presenter24:36

finally was pressed into saying something he shouldn't

Sir Bernard Ingham24:39

The only mistake I made in uh what thirty thousand briefings I think I did rather well.

Presenter24:44

But you knew that misses Thatcher would hardly be upset with those things, you said. As you say, they were unerringly accurate. Didn't you perhaps feel that you certainly wouldn't get into trouble for it with her?

Sir Bernard Ingham24:54

No, I didn't, and I went to see her, and I told her what I'd said, and I said, you know, I'm sorry, but life might be a little difficult as a consequence. I wasn't there to cause trouble someone.

Presenter25:04

I wouldn't have minded that you'd said it.

Sir Bernard Ingham25:06

Well, except that you see she had to stand up on the floor of the House and take the hammer, and I think that a civil servant has always to be mindful of the fact that his minister is going to have to answer for his actions on the floor of the House of Commons.

Presenter25:18

Of course, but she also had something to gain from it, which meant that ultimately she could offload those people.

Sir Bernard Ingham25:23

It took a long time, didn't it? John Biffin lasted another year. This very idea that I was signalling their demise is absolutely ludicrous.

Presenter25:30

Yes, but the suggestion that you had an implicit license to undermine them a little bit

Sir Bernard Ingham25:34

No, it's untrue.

Sir Bernard Ingham25:36

It it is untrue. I was never given a licence to undermine anybody, and I was never asked to undermine anybody. I mean, if there's one thing that Mrs Thatcher was, she was straight.

Presenter25:47

But you wouldn't be human if you didn't have views. You didn't like Michael Heseltine very much, did you?

Sir Bernard Ingham25:50

Well, who would? Lord the trouble he caused me. Uh gosh, I mean, I I'm a human being. I mean, he decided that he was not going to be bound by colle collective cabinet responsibility, caused inc

Sir Bernard Ingham26:03

Unimaginable trouble in the Government eventually the Westland affair, for which incidentally I was blamed and of course he walked out, and poor old Lane Britton had to resign. I mean, this was a very, very testing period, and I I I really wondered what came over him.

Presenter26:05

Monthly.

Presenter26:21

Do you think he might yet become Prime Minister?

Sir Bernard Ingham26:23

I doubt it.

Presenter26:25

How would you feel if you did?

Sir Bernard Ingham26:26

I would be extremely unhappy.

Presenter26:29

Record number six.

Sir Bernard Ingham26:31

Well, record number six is reminds me of sitting in that in the second violins of Toddmundin Orchestra, uh really not paying much attention to the score and just being lost in the beauty of uh Grieg's piano concerto.

Presenter27:42

Part of the second movement, the adagio of Grieg's piano concerto in A minor, Op. sixteen, played by Geza Anda, with the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Rafael Kubelik.

Presenter27:53

Many members of the press, Bernard, said that the atmosphere at number ten almost changed overnight in November nineteen ninety. There was a new atmosphere of openness and accessibility as John Major moved in upstairs and Gus O'Donnell into your old office downstairs.

Presenter28:08

What was your reaction when you heard that?

Sir Bernard Ingham28:10

Well, I I think that that was inevitable. Mrs. Thatcher

Sir Bernard Ingham28:14

didn't regard journalists as her natural habitat. I mean, she thought they were pretty brittle insubstantial people, and she had something going for her in that. Uh and I was I had to deal with Dennis Thatcher's reptiles. That was my job. And therefore uh and I think after eleven years inevitably all kinds of strains and stresses develop.

Presenter28:22

Mm.

Speaker 428:22

Yeah.

Presenter28:22

Uh

Speaker 428:22

Uh

Presenter28:22

But

Speaker 428:22

Uh

Presenter28:22

Improvement.

Presenter28:33

Is it true that you've been invited in since to advise?

Sir Bernard Ingham28:37

No, I've not been invited in, but I have occasionally seen the Prime Minister. Uh and of course well, he can read the Daily Express every week, can't he? That's what I'm thinking.

Presenter28:48

Well, you told him there in there to to get tough and to start shouting. Um is is is

Sir Bernard Ingham28:52

Well I I mean what people were telling me at the time was that uh the big difference between the Thatcher and the major governments was that uh there was no fear in the major governments. Well, I felt that it would be relatively easy to deal with that matter.

Presenter29:08

And is that what you told him to do?

Sir Bernard Ingham29:09

Well, I think that uh I think I told him that uh I really do think you have got to demonstrate a certain toughness in handling people. I do think that he was very indulgent. He's a nice man, for Heaven's sake and I think he was very indulgent with a whole string of ministers who were letting him down.

Presenter29:21

And

Presenter29:28

The Government's rating is very low. That of the opposition is higher than it's been for years. Do you honestly believe that anything can save this Government from defeat now?

Sir Bernard Ingham29:38

Well, I think if that they decided that they were in the business of government and not self-indulgence, that if they really decided that they were going to make a good fist of it, going to try to win, then I think it's going to be a lot closer than people imagine. Now, I think that Tony Blair is trying to do a Thatcher. He's trying to say that I have principles and I have the personality to carry him out and blow the party. Well, we shall see.

Presenter30:09

And will the incumbents, for old time's sake, be getting your vote?

Sir Bernard Ingham30:15

Oh, I think I I don't I don't think I can vote Labour. No. I think I think I'd I've learnt so much in life. I don't believe it works. And therefore I do think that we need a certain tough leadership. The British do need leading.

Presenter30:30

Record number seven.

Sir Bernard Ingham30:31

Well, this there was a slight hint of this record in what I've just said. I really am an Englishman above all, I suppose. Well, Yorkshireman, in fact, but I mean, I am an Englishman, and I do think that the English have such deep qualities. But oh my God, do they need rousing? You know, it takes a Dunkirk to rouse them. And I think that Vaughan Williams' Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis sums up so much of the English character.

Presenter30:58

Um

Presenter32:04

Part of Vaughan Williams' Phantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis, played by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Sir Charles Groves. How much do you have to do with misses Thatcher these days, Bernard?

Sir Bernard Ingham32:14

Not a lot. Uh I I go and see her from time to time and we

Sir Bernard Ingham32:19

chew the fat, mostly agree, and rather enjoy uh an hour together, uh just talking about current politics and inevitably reminiscing a bit.

Presenter32:31

And then you yourself, of course, ha ha have a a voice these days, an attributable voice, as I say, in newspapers and television, but but hardly the power that you enjoyed for those eleven years at number ten.

Sir Bernard Ingham32:41

Keep going on about this power.

Presenter32:43

Yeah. Well

Sir Bernard Ingham32:44

I didn't feel I had a great deal of power except to put my foot in it. I mean, which I did sometimes.

Presenter32:44

I didn't

Presenter32:48

Yeah.

Sir Bernard Ingham32:51

I think I've had a heck of a lot more responsibility than power.

Presenter32:55

How much did you miss it when it ended?

Sir Bernard Ingham32:56

I didn't really. I think when you've done eleven years, one month and five days in number ten, you've you've done your stint. I think I would have missed it, to be fair, if Mrs Thatcher had stayed and I'd had to retire at sixty and that. But when she was going uh I just I didn't. I can honestly say I didn't miss it at all and don't miss it. I've I've acquired a wonderful new and exciting life, returning to an age of utter irresponsibility. And as a consequence I'm having a ball.

Sir Bernard Ingham33:29

Yeah.

Presenter33:29

Last record.

Sir Bernard Ingham33:31

Well, uh this will come as an astonishing surprise to those people who know my Euroscepticism. Uh but it all goes back to the choral tradition, and I want the concluding part.

Sir Bernard Ingham33:43

of Beethoven's Ode to Joy.

Presenter34:27

The end of Beethoven's Symphony No. Nine, The Ode to Joy, with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus conducted by Sir George Schulte. If you could only take one of those records, Bernard.

Sir Bernard Ingham34:37

I think it would have to be Elgar's violin concerto because it moves me so much and it's the most wonderful piece of music.

Presenter34:44

You like being wistful.

Presenter34:47

Sitting on your island.

Sir Bernard Ingham34:48

Yeah.

Presenter34:48

Doing your botany.

Sir Bernard Ingham34:50

Not much botany I can imagine, but um

Sir Bernard Ingham34:54

Wishing I'd done more.

Presenter34:56

What about your book?

Sir Bernard Ingham34:58

I've got the Bible and Shakespeare, so my book would be the

Sir Bernard Ingham35:01

Time's Atlas of the World. I can spend hours just looking at maps.

Sir Bernard Ingham35:08

and this would while away a great deal of time, and I would become a great expert.

Presenter35:12

and bring back a lot of memories.

Sir Bernard Ingham35:14

Yes.

Presenter35:15

And your luxury?

Sir Bernard Ingham35:17

Well, my luxury this will brings out a little of the perfectionism in me. I would uh want Colin Cowdery's cricket machine, the one that bowls at you, uh, because if, after two years on my desert isle, at the age of sixty-five, I was not in a fit condition after the application of batting at that machine, I was not fit to open the Yorkshire innings, then something would have gone seriously wrong.

Presenter35:45

So, Bernard Inghan, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your Desert Island discs.

Speaker 335:57

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