Simon Murray

Presenter0:00

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. Elements of this programme may offend or upset some listeners. The programme was originally broadcast in two thousand nine.

Presenter0:31

My castaway this week is the businessman and adventurer Simon Murray.

Presenter0:35

What many of us would struggle to do over three lifetimes he has managed in one.

Presenter0:40

As a teenager nursing a broken heart and determined to prove himself, he joined the French Foreign Legion. He risked his life many times over. Combat was at close quarters and was very bloody. But after five years he was discharged with honour. Next he set his sights on business. He ran some of the most well known companies in South East Asia, and was one of Chris Patton's key allies during the handover of Hong Kong to China. Then in his sixties, and looking for a new challenge, he chanced upon the idea of polar adventure. He is now the oldest person to walk unsupported to the South Pole. But after all this, his greatest achievement, he says, is his marriage.

Presenter1:19

I should add, his wife of forty three years, Jennifer, is the first woman to have flown a helicopter solo around the world. And, Simon Murray, is it fair to say that you're one half then of a rather competitive couple?

Simon Murray1:31

Um, there is a little bit of competition in there. All my family say I'm very competitive. I'm actually not competitive at all. But between my wife and I, I don't I like to think that I am not competitive, but there's a little bit there that um I see in her sometimes.

Presenter1:45

So let me get this right. She's competitive, but you're not. You got it. You got it. I see. I see where we're going with this. So at what point had you met Jennifer? You met her very

Simon Murray1:47

Yeah.

Simon Murray1:49

Yeah.

Simon Murray1:53

Yeah.

Presenter1:53

Yeah.

Simon Murray1:53

Jennifer is my second cousin once removed, and I met her in London Zoo on an elephant. I was on the trunk, she was with a bunch of kids on the back.

Presenter2:04

How

Simon Murray2:04

Gold was seen held. We're both same age, eleven.

Presenter2:06

Right. Or was it love at first sight?

Simon Murray2:11

I wasn't a big romantic in those days.

Presenter2:13

Um I want to talk to you in a lot of detail a little later about the the Foreign Legion. But can you tell me uh about the was it the night you joined up? Not the day. Tell tell me about that.

Simon Murray2:24

I originally went to to Paris. I had the idea I'm going to join the Foreign Legion. And there was this great big fort, a sign up saying open day and night, twenty four hours a day.

Simon Murray2:37

And um I went in.

Simon Murray2:39

And I met a sergeant who looked me up and down, and I think he thought I was probably not Foreign Legion material. He said, You guys from England, you come over here, you think it's all camels and Beau Gest and all that sort of stuff. It is not.

Presenter2:53

But isn't it true that Bogest had almost been your inspiration?

Simon Murray2:57

Yeah, I think every um young man and those certainly in those days had read Beaugest. I think hundreds of uh people think about the Foreign Legion and they don't actually

Simon Murray3:08

Make it.

Presenter3:09

Tell me about your first piece of music today then. What have you chosen as disc number one?

Simon Murray3:13

I've Chosen Why by Annie Lennox. I remember when I first heard it, it just struck me, absolutely lovely piece of music. I find it very um moving and um and lovely and I think if I was lying on an island for a long time, Desert Island, I think this um daily I could do this, I could take it, I wouldn't throw it out.

Speaker 33:52

How many times do I have to try to tell you?

Speaker 33:58

That um

Presenter4:00

Annie Lennox and why. So Simon Murray, as I've more than hinted at in the introduction, yours has been a life packed with adventure and in some contrast, I think, to your father's life. You said of him that he was an utter waster who never did anything with his life. I wonder maybe if you were propelled to do something with yours because of the life that your father had led?

Simon Murray4:22

I I don't think that he has had um any influence on me uh at all. My parents were were divorced um more or less I think as I was born, and I never saw him, never heard from him. In fact, didn't even know he was alive until years later.

Simon Murray4:37

You know, I was born just at the beginning of the war and um we were evacuated pretty soon thereafterwards and we were in Wales. We were really uh sort of orphans, not much more. My mother was in the in the fire brigade in London. I think uh I think we saw her once a year or something.

Presenter4:55

And did you spend some of your early life actually in an orphanage?

Simon Murray4:58

Uh yes, I think about t two years, year and a half, but I don't remember much about it.

Presenter5:02

And and why was your mother not present at that point?

Simon Murray5:05

Well, sort of a question that I might ask her, but she's long gone. My father was quite a wealthy guy. His parents were dead, and

Simon Murray5:16

My father was brought up.

Simon Murray5:18

By his grandparents.

Simon Murray5:20

After his mother died, she died quite early, alcohol got in the way and racing, driving and alcohol and all that stuff doesn't probably mix very well. So my father came under the parental care of his grandparents who lived in separate hotels. My great-grandfather lived at the Connaught and my great-grandmother lived at Claridges and then her daughter, my grandmother, lived with her at Claridge's.

Presenter5:40

And

Simon Murray5:41

Do you sit down?

Presenter5:41

Say that you didn't see much of your mother at all. What are the memories you have, if any, then, of your mother?

Simon Murray5:46

My mother died about 20 years ago, but I was having lunch the other day at the Ritz, The Ritz, with my mother's sister. And I said, you know, I can't remember any Christmases for the first 10 years of my life. Only one. I think I remember standing on a bridge. I think it was 1947. But I don't remember any other Christmases. And she said, oh, well, you were never there. You were always sent away for Christmases because there wasn't enough room in the flat. They had a one-room basement flat in Robert Adam Street.

Presenter6:15

Does that matter to you?

Simon Murray6:16

Uh no.

Simon Murray6:17

A friend of mine said I should be in a you know psychoanalyzed every day and should be terribly bitter and rebellious. I'm not, I'm very relaxed about it.

Presenter6:24

Let us take a break. Tell me about your your second disc today. What have you chosen?

Simon Murray6:28

Okay, I think we've got a little bit of um pevarotti here. I love peverotti, I love Italy for that matter, but avucello is absolutely beautiful. It is not very well known, but I love it. I think I was on on a desert island, I'd like to wake up with this.

Simon Murray6:57

Uh

Speaker 47:04

We are the

Simon Murray7:04

Yeah.

Speaker 47:22

The me, the meal.

Speaker 47:28

Ekumaruzella, damilonu vasilla, damiloca net la

Simon Murray7:32

Uh

Presenter7:43

Pavarotti singing Avukela, A Sweet Mouse, accompanied by John Wustman. I'm going to resist the temptation to be some sort of half-baked arm chair psychologist here, but it it's not difficult to work out why you are such a resilient, self-contained individual who has propelled himself into all the adventures you have.

Simon Murray8:04

Perhaps. I th I think I'm reasonably self-reliant. And my mother didn't have any money and um arrived at my great uncle's house one day after the war with me and my brother in in rags apparently and they sent us to school. I don't remember this. Of course. And we were off to boarding school by the age of six.

Presenter8:24

And what sort of character was your mother?

Simon Murray8:26

Quite stubborn?

Simon Murray8:27

Quite uh resilient and and tough. She came from a tiny little house in uh Nottinghamshire. I think when she married into this uh sector of society she was totally out of her depth. But having had a really good four years with my father, where they had everything, traveling around the world, all this sort of stuff, suddenly she's um absolutely penniless in rags. I mean this is something like Oliver Twist. It's it's that bad.

Presenter8:54

And your father then, you say that he played no part in your upbringing. You did meet him, though. T tell me about that. When did you meet him?

Simon Murray9:01

How old did you meet him? I was 26. So I never met him, to my knowledge, because he was gone before probably my eyes were open. And I was going around Sweden using a post restaurant as my address. And I was used to picking up envelopes with lots and lots of writing on the front, forward, please, forward, please, forward. I opened this envelope one evening and I looked at the envelope and I saw P.A.G. Murray, my father's initials, care of Warren Merton, Foster and Swan, WC1. And I realized that he's still alive. So I found him. I had lunch with him and he told me the story of his life.

Simon Murray9:36

I was not emotional. I wasn't, you know, my God, here's my father, isn't it wonderful? It was more curiosity than anything else. And three months later I got a telegram saying he was dead. So it was as brief as that.

Presenter9:47

And what went through your mind when you learned he was dead?

Simon Murray9:51

Well fantastic question. I think

Simon Murray9:54

maybe a a s a sort of lump.

Simon Murray9:57

of sadness that there was nothing there.

Presenter10:01

I'm wondering how you ever I mean, you've you've gone on to have a very productive and successful family life.

Presenter10:07

It sounds to me as if at that point you had very little notion, growing up and even into your twenties, of what family meant.

Simon Murray10:14

That's very true.

Simon Murray10:18

My mother and I did not have what I would call a fantastic relationship. Um I had an elder brother, and maybe I thought he was a little bit uh closer to the deal than me, that sort of stuff. Um do I have a chip on my shoulder? No, but I don't think I owe anybody anything. Well, maybe not a chip on your shoulder, but at that age something to prove.

Simon Murray10:38

Oh, that may well be. That that that's um slightly different. I think that

Simon Murray10:42

The driving force was, you know, I felt I was in a box.

Simon Murray10:47

You know, if you're born in Boston and your father's a multi-billionaire, this is the path of your life. You're going to Princeton, you're going to marry somebody in society, you're going to become chairman of the family company, and you're going to retire, play golf, and die. That's the deal. If you're born in Africa and 75% of the village have got AIDS, this is the path you're on. So I felt a little bit, I'm in a box, this is it, and I've got to get off the path.

Presenter11:09

This'll be the point to ask you about your third track. Tell me what you've chosen as your third piece of music.

Simon Murray11:14

My next song is a little song from the Legion. The Legion doesn't, I mean, it's not a huge part of my life in terms of length, five years, but it's a.

Simon Murray11:24

A formation part of my life. And good memories, bad memories, whatever. I should have something on my island.

Simon Murray11:30

About the Legion. Legion of good singers, you know, rough Legionnaires who think, well, they don't sing. You listen to this. This Legionnaires sing in a bar.

Speaker 411:48

Nuvano Nady Raj.

Speaker 411:56

Nuba Bomad.

Simon Murray12:04

Ah,

Presenter12:10

Eugenie, sung by members of the French Foreign Legion, which you spent five years of your young life in, Simon Manny, and like all good tales.

Presenter12:18

It began with a woman.

Simon Murray12:20

Yeah.

Presenter12:20

That's true.

Presenter12:21

You were speaking.

Simon Murray12:22

And

Presenter12:22

By a woman.

Simon Murray12:22

That's true.

Presenter12:23

Yeah.

Simon Murray12:24

That's true.

Simon Murray12:25

That wasn't totally the reason if there was more than that. I wouldn't like her to get all the credit in it.

Presenter12:30

You went there for five years. There's no way out, of course, legendarily. Once you're there, you're in, you're in. And if if you try to get out I mean, you saw men who who did try uh to escape, describe the sort of thing that

Simon Murray12:41

Well, it wasn't it wasn't just men who who made a break for it. The the NCOs, the non-commissioned officers, the sergeants and the corporals dispensed. You know, they thumped people, beat them up and so on, and you were expected to stand to attention and take it until you dropped. And if you did fight back, then there'd be ten of them on you. The standard punishment was called the plot. First of all, you had your head shaved, and then you had a metal helmet without the inside put on your head. You had a sack of rocks on your back with wire shoulder straps, and you had boots without laces, so that you shuffled. And you would run round in a circle with a sergeant in the middle with a whistle, one blast of the whistle, forward roll, two blasts of the whistle, knees bend, you'd march on knees bend, and three, you lay on your stomach and crawled. And you did that for a couple of hours, and if you slowed, got a rope's end. So you just kept going.

Presenter13:33

Would that ever happen to you?

Simon Murray13:34

Yep. What what had you done? Drunk on garden duty. I wasn't actually drunk, I was a little bit tired. I was sent off to the barber shop, if that's the right word, head shaved and did the plot for two hours. And then I got fifteen days breaking rocks every day and that sort of stuff. Not very nice.

Presenter13:53

The experiences that you met in war, which which people who've been in the same circumstances will recognise, are the sort of experiences that most of us would spend a lifetime trying to get over. I'm thinking there of something I read in your diary about

Presenter14:05

Well, all I can say is tell me about the soup. The Arab Soup.

Simon Murray14:07

Yeah.

Simon Murray14:08

Yeah, we had come into contact with a group of Arabs which we shot, three of them, they were killed. And at that time they were deserters from the French army. So they were Algerians, actually in the service of the French army. And the French were very keen to find out who these guys were and get them and so on. And these were three of them. About five miles from where that action took place, there was a group of officers and they wanted identification of these guys. So we had to carry their heads down. And the sergeant who cut the heads off and he said, Murray, you put them in your sack. So I had these two heads in my sack. Heads are quite heavy. And off we went with a five-mile walk back.

Simon Murray14:53

And I had my rations in the sack and everything else, everything I owned, my sleeping bag was all in this sack. Um when I got down it was dark, and there was another guy there.

Simon Murray15:05

Who said, Yes, this is so and so, this is so and so recognized them. And then, um, I threw them in the in the bushes.

Simon Murray15:12

And then, um, later

Simon Murray15:14

We're having soup, and one of the Spanish guys has got a great big cauldron of soup there, and he calls the guy over whose name was Schreiber. Schreiber was a big German, difficult guy. And he called Schreiber over and said, What about some more soup? Schreiber was over there like a rat of a drain pipe with his soup bowl hanging out, and he gave him a dollar for the soup. But as he did so, he picked out the head out of the soup. And the lights of the Jeep were on, we could see it.

Simon Murray15:42

And there was a sort of gasp from everybody, and then roars and roars and roars of laughter. So

Simon Murray15:47

You can imagine the sort of level that we'd reached without actually realizing it.

Presenter15:53

And you laugh too.

Simon Murray15:55

Yeah, I think I did, yeah.

Presenter15:56

We might take a break now for some music. Tell me what your uh next choice is.

Presenter16:02

Uh

Simon Murray16:02

I think a little bit of Chopin. You know, Chopin makes me cry. He's my musician. I play the piano a little bit. I play my ear. I can't read music, but I play and I I like my Chopin music.

Presenter17:09

Part of the second movement of Chupin's Piano Concerto, number two, in F minor. I'm wondering, Simon Murray, if you think that.

Presenter17:17

The unremitting brutality of of the life that you lived in the Foreign Legion had any effect, has had any effect long term on the character that you are.

Simon Murray17:27

Uh I think I'm uh

Simon Murray17:29

I think I'm a very gentle

Simon Murray17:31

Guy.

Simon Murray17:32

Toughness is about resilience, not about dishing it out. But

Simon Murray17:39

It's a hypothetical question because you say, well, what would you have been like without this? Okay, and that is impossible to answer.

Simon Murray17:47

I think it's enabled me to have some gravitas, got my feet on the ground, reasonably confident in myself that I'm uh I'm okay. Half the reason for going was to see if I could hack it in a tough world or something.

Simon Murray17:59

Done?

Presenter17:59

I want to fast-forward you to when you came out of the Legion and you and Jennifer reunited.

Simon Murray18:06

Yeah.

Presenter18:06

She was this time open to your charms.

Simon Murray18:09

Yeah.

Presenter18:09

Do you think that was because you'd been changed by your experience or she had been changed by her own experience? Or maybe a little bit of both.

Simon Murray18:16

I think it's um I got leave after four and a half years and I was allowed to go to France and actually I slipped across to England and um I met her and I was pretty cool to her.

Simon Murray18:27

cool and she was pretty cool to me, but we we went and had dinner and afterwards we went to a sort of night club and we're dancing away. By this time I was absolutely over it. But when we were d in that night club, suddenly I said, God damn it, I think I'm still in love with you And she said, I'm in love with you too, blah blah blah.

Simon Murray18:45

Very romantic stuff.

Presenter18:46

You're not altogether comfortable talking about romance, I get the feeling.

Presenter18:50

It was then the 1960s, and you and Jennifer decided to live in Hong Kong, and you decided.

Simon Murray18:56

Yeah.

Presenter18:57

To to plough a furrow in business. Did you think you were going to make your fortune, or did you I can't imagine you were the sort of man who thought, I'll just get a job.

Simon Murray19:05

Uh yes, I did. I was very happy to get a job. I didn't have any uh prospects of any real sense at all.

Simon Murray19:11

But when I came out of the Foreign Legion, another one of these uncles had a cocktail party and I was invited to that cocktail party.

Simon Murray19:18

And standing next to me was the managing director of Jardine Matheson, which is a trading company in Asia, Southeast Asia. And he said, my God, you know, we recruit five people a year from Oxford and Cambridge.

Simon Murray19:31

I think we need a few outsiders. If you ever get to Singapore, come and see me. And a year later I got to Singapore. So that was the great trading company of of the Far East, the Big Hong, in Hong Kong.

Simon Murray19:44

More of which in just a second. Tell me about your next piece of music.

Simon Murray19:47

Neil Diamond. I first heard this record in nineteen seventy. I was at the top of a a little drive going into a house that I was thinking of buying, and I ultimately did buy. And a friend of mine who I'd driven down with, he he was playing music. He said, Murray, I'm going to give you some music that will blow your skull apart. Boom, Neil Diamond. I loved him.

Speaker 420:12

Good times never seem so good

Speaker 420:19

I've been in fly.

Speaker 420:23

To believe that never was but now I

Presenter20:33

Neil Diamond and Sweet Caroline. So, Simon Murray, you spent more than a quarter of a century working in Hong Kong and the Far East. You were managing director of one of the largest companies in the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Among your successes was launching the Orange Mobile Phone Network in Britain. Did you cut an unconventional figure? Because it's certainly the case that in the run-up to China's takeover of Hong Kong in 1997, you were one of the very few people at the top who put your head above the parapet and spoke out in favour of Chris Patton when a lot of people were kowtowing to the Chinese and were very mindful of future contracts and future dealings.

Simon Murray21:12

I I would describe myself as a uh a free man.

Simon Murray21:17

And certainly independent of my thinking. I believe in old fashioned things like loyalty. And I have a mindset. I do what I think is right. I think with Patton, Chris Patton, what he was doing was right.

Simon Murray21:30

And I supported him totally. The consequences of that were not necessarily very good for me. But years later with the Chinese, I have a wonderful relationship.

Presenter21:39

Chip.

Simon Murray21:40

Yeah.

Presenter21:40

So let's then go forward to your next adventure. You had more than survived in the Foreign Legion. You had triumphed in business. And then.

Presenter21:49

It seems to me it was pretty much your wife who landed you with your next big adventure. It was a walk of nearly seven hundred miles from the edge of continental Antarctica to the South Pole. Explain to me briefly how that came about.

Simon Murray22:01

My wife has been on one or two adventures. She's sort of flown around the world solo in a helicopter and she's done that uh twice and every time she gets sponsors.

Simon Murray22:11

But sometimes the sponsors don't come up with all the crispy and the gap is filled by me. And I think that she decided to do this trip and they were looking for support from me and the only way they thought they could get it is to bring me in on the deal. So how can we get Simon involved? And one morning we're sitting in our house in France in the summer, breakfast, and she said, have you ever thought about walking to the South Pole?

Simon Murray22:36

Well, when your wife says that to you after thirty-five years of marriage at breakfast

Simon Murray22:41

What you do is you reach for the toast, okay, and shove it in your mouth and do a lot of chewing before you answer. The short answer was, No, I haven't and I have no intention of walking to the goddamn South Pole. So she said, Well, you there's a guy called Pen Haddo, and he's coming to stay tomorrow. He is?

Presenter22:56

Yes?

Simon Murray22:57

He's coming to stay here. Yes, he's arriving tomorrow. And he's coming to give us advice on Antarctic situ um conditions and snow conditions and so on. Well, that's great. So I went to pick him up at the airport. We had lunch and after a lot of bottles of Bordeaux,

Simon Murray23:11

Pen and I decided we're going to do the Hushebang from the coast to the South Pole.

Presenter23:16

and explain to me what an unsupported journey means.

Simon Murray23:19

Okay, the key is whether you have support or not. Support means drops or resupplies or pre-arranged camps on the way. And a lot of people do it like that. Unsupported, you take everything you need with you and you get nothing. So that means you've got to pull it all with you. So Penn and I had sledges which were 150 kilos, 300 pounds, over 300 pounds each. What sort of training did you do? Well, Penn had me wandering around in the middle of the night in Dartmoor to begin with, doing all sorts of horrible things and sleeping in canvas bags in rivers or something. I mean, that sort of stuff. And then we went to the Arctic and we spent some days in the Arctic in February, which was very cold. Minus 43. That was bad. A good taste of frostbite and so on. But that.

Simon Murray24:04

Gave me the feel of what's to come. Let's take a break for some music. What have you chosen as your sixth disc? Cavalieria Rusticana Mascani. A lovely, lovely, lovely piece of music. I took this in my iPod to the South Pole and played it every night. And Penn fell in love with it as well. I finally got him off ABBA and got him onto this. Beautiful, beautiful piece of music.

Presenter25:22

The intermetzer from Moscagni's Cavallaria Rusticana.

Presenter25:26

So it was then, Simon Murray, at the end of November 2003, when you set off to the Hercules Inlet on the very edge of Antarctica.

Presenter25:36

As you set off on that expedition, what were your thoughts?

Presenter25:42

I think I'm waiting for the

Simon Murray25:43

I was concerned a little bit that I may not make it.

Simon Murray25:48

Um it is a dreadful, dreadful place, described by Scott as this awful place. It's the cold, which is the first uh strike of the enemy, then the wind, which eats into your

Simon Murray26:00

face and everything else.

Simon Murray26:02

And the threat of crevasses. If you fall down a crevasse, things can be quite miserable. But we would get up, put our kit on, look at each other, make sure that we've got no gaps showing and where the frostbite could set in. And off we go. And how did you did you sleep at night? Very little. I think I was doing two hours a night for the first three weeks and maybe more.

Simon Murray26:27

The noise was huge, the wind on the tent and um the cold and um so on. So I I wasn't sleeping at all. Pen was sleeping, infuriating me, and and snoring as well, I wasn't sleeping.

Presenter26:40

And listening to ABBA.

Simon Murray26:41

I could hear it as ever. We didn't have a single crossword between us the whole way. That's a miracle in itself.

Simon Murray26:52

I lost forty two pounds on the in weight. Okay. So great way to lose weight, obviously. But um I came back looking like Ben Gunn gone mad. You could play guitar on my ribs.

Presenter27:04

It seems the thread throughout your life, from being a a seventeen year old to to now a man in his sixties, seems to be to do the things that the rest of us would consider to be impossible.

Presenter27:16

Does that make you feel alive? It makes you feel in touch?

Simon Murray27:18

I don't think this is actually me. I get dragged into these things. I'm quite happy to have a relaxed life. Last year, or the year before we went to the Ever Space Camp, about five of us, we're all in our 67s and 68s. It wasn't my idea. Somebody else was going and said, Do you want to come? I'm going next year. We're going in September. We're going up Kilimanjaro.

Simon Murray27:39

I haven't planned this trip. Somebody else has said do you want to come?

Presenter27:42

You you could always say no.

Simon Murray27:44

Yeah, well obviously

Presenter27:46

It's just an idea.

Simon Murray27:49

Yeah, I think it's um I like a little yes, I of course I like a little bit of challenge when it's put in front of me. You know, that's all about that dream stuff. You dream and say why, I dream and say why not. So, yeah, why not?

Simon Murray28:00

Tell me about your next piece of music, then.

Simon Murray28:02

Oh, this is Bob Malip.

Simon Murray28:04

I was introduced to Bom Mali by my daughter when she was about thirteen, I think. And my daughter's um my youngest daughter, Christy, gave it to me for Christmas. She said, Dad, this is your kind of music. You're going to love this. I was absolutely staggered.

Simon Murray28:18

And did.

Speaker 428:22

No more.

Speaker 428:25

Bow to say

Speaker 428:29

Never you

Speaker 428:31

We'll be alright.

Speaker 428:35

And then don't worry.

Speaker 428:38

Honestly.

Speaker 428:42

Never lose.

Speaker 428:44

Gonna be alright.

Presenter28:47

Bob Marley and Three Little Birds Given to you, as you say, by by one of your children. What do your children make of you? I mean, you talked just a second ago about the next challenge. You know, here you are, a a father, a grandfather, in your sixties. The next challenge.

Simon Murray29:00

I think they get concerned, they get worried. They always say, Look, it's been great, but it's got to stop. They say the same thing to my wife, uh their mother, that you're you're getting on a bit, you know, as we approach seventy, perhaps you should put the brakes on and, you know, stick to walking in the park or something.

Presenter29:17

And you say to them,

Simon Murray29:18

We're not listening.

Presenter29:21

I read a quote that you had given, I think it was in an interview, saying that um your trek and the success of your trek was some sort of marker for your generation that we can still be in the game.

Presenter29:34

Is it important to you to still feel in the game?

Simon Murray29:36

I thi I think that I felt a little bit that I'd struck a blow for the over sixties. You know, in this country where we've got a government that's trying to make us retire at sixty because we you know, we're not fit for anything. And some of the over sixties have got something to contribute. Maybe we need a few over sixties in government.

Presenter29:53

I know, of course, as you've described, that you would survive on this desert island given all your training.

Presenter29:59

Would you survive the loneliness? Would you feel the loneliness?

Presenter30:02

Yeah. And lo

Simon Murray30:02

I love being on my own. I love my family, love everybody, got lots and lots of friends and enjoy them hugely. But I also love being on my own. That's when you get a good understanding of yourself.

Simon Murray30:14

Good understanding of how you really feel about life and things and so on. Stick me on a desert island for a few months, I'll be fine.

Presenter30:22

And what have you come to understand about yourself in your

Simon Murray30:25

Solitude.

Simon Murray30:27

When you do understand yourself, you get a feeling of freedom, independence. I was talking earlier about getting off the path. When you get off the path, you find a little bit of space. In that space, you might find yourself. I think I'm my own man, I feel I'm my own man, quite happy with myself. Isn't that outrageous?

Presenter30:48

Tell me about your final

Simon Murray30:49

Piece of music

Presenter30:49

Command

Simon Murray30:49

Yeah.

Presenter30:49

Uh

Simon Murray30:51

It's Puccini in more of my Italian opera, and this is the most beautiful piece of music. There's some sadness about this music as well. It's absolutely lovely. It's love OM and you'll love it.

Speaker 431:07

Uh both five.

Speaker 431:15

It has irrigum full salt babona.

Presenter32:02

O Suave Fancullo, O Beautiful Maiden, from Puccini's Labo M., with Maria Callas and Giuseppe di Stefano, with the Orchestra of La Scala Milan, conducted by Antonino Vorto. So this is the point, then, where I am going to give you, Simon, the Bible, the complete works of Shakespeare, and you can take another book. What are you going to take?

Simon Murray32:21

I think I'm gonna get something that I can read again and again, and I think the cautionary tales of Hile Belloc.

Simon Murray32:28

Because they make me laugh. I learned that when I was in school, they stayed in my mind. That's an easy read.

Presenter32:35

Okay, and the luxury to make things more bearable.

Simon Murray32:38

I was thinking of a Learjet, but maybe that's not allowed, because that can get me off the island. A Lear jet would be would that be all right? It wouldn't be all right.

Presenter32:45

You've got to choose something entirely important

Simon Murray32:47

Well in that case I think I'd settle for a a satellite phone. I could charge the batteries. Why?

Presenter32:51

No, too useful. Too useful. Oh, it's got to be nothing useful. It's a luxury. It has to be luxurious.

Simon Murray32:57

What what what does that mean, luxury? Uh so if I take a if I take a couple of cases of uh Bordeaux uh nineteen seventy six, uh whatever is Chateau Palmer, that's pretty useful. I'm drinking that stuff for

Presenter33:08

I would

Simon Murray33:10

For the third can I do that?

Presenter33:11

Well, you can, because of course, I mean, if you're going to be absolutely pedantic about it, yes, it would hydrate you, but beyond that

Simon Murray33:15

Yeah.

Simon Murray33:18

Why can't I have a sat phone? Uh well, if I can have a radio, can I have a radio? Can't signal anybody on a radio.

Presenter33:24

Yes, but there's a sense in which it's useful, I think, Aridia, in that it keeps you in touch with the outside world.

Simon Murray33:28

Well you you should be much more specific about this. You're not allowed to do this, you're not allowed everything you can do. Listen, it's my game and I make the recomposition.

Presenter33:34

It's my game, and I make the rest of it. I can't listen to it, I can't drink it. You can drink it. Talk on it. You can drink it.

Simon Murray33:38

Talk

Simon Murray33:40

Maybe uh maybe um a water paper and a pencil. Or is that going to be used on the map? No, that's fine. And then if I put that in the bottle and chuck it out with the message, then I'm in touch with the outside world. Only possibly.

Simon Murray33:53

Alright, I'll write a couple of books on the island. Lots of paper and a and a and a pencil. Right. Two.

Presenter33:59

Yeah.

Simon Murray33:59

And a pencil sharp now.

Presenter33:59

And a pencil sharpener. Yes, useful. That's useful. Oh, that's right, that is useful. Yes, you got me. Useful to have the sharpening.

Simon Murray34:03

Oh

Presenter34:09

Unless it's a really big shark makes a boat.

Simon Murray34:10

So we're from a Learjet all the way down to a pencil. This is disappointing, I have to tell you.

Presenter34:13

This is disappointing, I have to tell you. I'm sorry to have disappointed you. That was not my intention. Um if you had to choose just one of the eight records, which one would it be?

Simon Murray34:16

That was not

Simon Murray34:24

I think I settled for the low Labo M, the last one. As long as that's not too useful.

Presenter34:29

No, that's fine. You can certainly have that. Simon Murray, thank you very much for letting us hear your Desert Island discs.

Simon Murray34:35

My pleasure.

Presenter34:43

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