Baroness Scotland

Presenter0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Discs from BBC Radio 4. For rights reasons the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast.

Presenter0:10

For more information about the programme, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.

Presenter0:33

My castaway this week is Baroness Scotland. As Attorney General she's the Government's Chief Law Officer, expected to dispense top notch legal advice whilst also sitting in on Cabinet meetings.

Presenter0:46

Even before she entered Parliament she had enjoyed a stratospherically successful legal career.

Presenter0:51

She took silk at the age of thirty five, becoming the most youthful Q C. since William Pitt the Younger. But law has never been her only love. She was first drawn towards a career in ballet, then for many years believed her vocation lay in becoming a nun.

Presenter1:07

In the end, however, she settled on a husband and a life in the law.

Presenter1:11

Of her success she says In my family it was just Bog Standard. I was brought up to believe that everyone is the arbiter of their own fortune.

Presenter1:19

If you said to my father, No one else is doing it, he'd say, Good, you can be first. Uh yes, it seemed, Patricia Scotland, as if this truly glittering career may reach an abrupt end just a couple of months ago. It was um September when uh we found out through the newspapers that you had been employing a housekeeper who has subsequently been charged with working in the UK illegally. You were fined five thousand pounds. Um for your political opponents it was a complete gift, this situation, something of an own goal for you.

Baroness Scotland1:49

I think it was um a very difficult time and I clearly um accepted that I should have taken a photocopy of the passport. I didn't, that was wrong, I was fined, I accept

Presenter2:02

Accepted it. For legal reasons, we we can't discuss the details of the case, but of course.

Presenter2:07

You're a wife, you're a mother, in an incredibly demanding job. It must also have been incredibly difficult to deal with the situation of being front page news.

Baroness Scotland2:17

I think it was. It's um not something any of us have contemplated. I think the thing that I was really worried about was the impact it had on my family. But my family have been amazing, and I am very grateful to them, and I am very, very sorry that uh an oversight on my part, a genuine uh mistake, has caused them a great deal of distress.

Presenter2:39

Uh

Baroness Scotland2:39

Uh

Presenter2:39

In the past those were responsibilities that were borne by officials in various agencies, and as through your government and through legislation that you helped pass, those responsibilities then fell upon the householder. That that must have given you pause for thought, that you were

Presenter2:55

Well, Tripped Up is putting it mildly by something that you would help to introduce.

Baroness Scotland2:59

Uh I think the law was targeted at employers and I have paid the penal

Presenter3:06

A lot of you for that.

Presenter3:07

In a sense it was a perfect storm, wasn't it? Because it came just after the many, many weeks, indeed months, of coverage to do with Parliamentary expenses that people, the public, had been outraged about. And the story fed into the notion that here were people in Westminster who believed themselves to be above the law and were rather self serving.

Baroness Scotland3:25

Well, I think if anything it demonstrated that nobody, nobody at all is above the law and I learnt that I need to be an awful lot better at managing my administration.

Baroness Scotland3:39

Uh

Presenter3:39

Unsurprisingly, there were calls from the opposition for you to be sacked by Gordon Brown. Did you ever think yourself about jacking it in? Uh no. Right. Straight answer. Let's have some music then. What's your first disc to day? What have you chosen?

Baroness Scotland3:52

I've chosen Welcome to My World, which is a song that meant a great deal to my parents. Both my parents have now sadly died. My father died in January 2007 and my mother died on the 9th of December of last year. And this song really epitomises the love they had for each other, but also the approach they had to ask.

Speaker 44:16

Welcome to my world.

Speaker 44:22

Won't you come on in?

Speaker 44:28

Miracles I get

Speaker 44:34

Still happen now and then.

Presenter4:40

That was Jim Reeves, and welcome to my world. I mentioned British Scotland in the introduction that if you said to your father, Well, no one else is doing it, he'd say good, you can be the first. You have notched up some remarkable firsts. Among many others, you're the first female attorney general, also the first black female government minister. Those things are always written about in relation to you. I wonder how important they are, actually, to you.

Baroness Scotland5:05

Um I don't see myself in those terms of um being the first to do things. I haven't ever planned a career. Things have just developed. And I do

Baroness Scotland5:17

understand what my father

Baroness Scotland5:19

always said, It's not about what you do, it's the difference you make.

Presenter5:23

Those are very high aims for your children. I mean, if people individually, if your father had chosen, and we'll find out more about him, he's a fascinating character, it sounds to me. If your father had chosen that for himself, that's understandable. It seems.

Baroness Scotland5:28

Tomorrow

Baroness Scotland5:30

Stick to it.

Presenter5:34

A high aim to expect that of your children too.

Baroness Scotland5:37

I think, though, that he was really quite inspirational, because he believed that every single one of us, everyone listening to this programme, has a talent, and it's our job to find that talent, and to hone it, and to use it for the benefit of other people. And he used to get really quite sad that people didn't see the beauty and wonder that was in them. My mother was just the same. My mother was somebody who would um never praise you for academic success. She'd say that was, you know, God God gave you that talent and of course you're using it but she'd praise you for doing things that were kind or thoughtful or generous and I think they made quite a formidable pair, really.

Presenter6:15

When you were on that trajectory, the legal trajectory, as I say, you took silk very early at just thirty-five, you were would it be fair to say you were about to become the first woman High Court judge? That was where you were heading. And then the hand of politics was felt on your shoulder. It was Tony Blair that came and said to you, A life in politics is the thing for you. Were you ready for that? Because I mean, both per personally and professionally, the implications of that are enormous.

Baroness Scotland6:41

Uh

Presenter6:41

I think though I didn't

Baroness Scotland6:41

I didn't see it like that straightaway because I had a passion for mental health, for for children, for family matters. Um I'd done a lot on uh equality and so it was would I join the back bench? Would I come to the House of Lords? And if you like, thicken the soup. I never thought it would end up with me being part of the front bench team.

Presenter7:02

I was wondering there how it must have felt for you entering such a such an establishment. But of course you'd been part of a different establishment for a very long time. You were used to you were used to all these sort of old duffers hanging around these white men in grave suits.

Baroness Scotland7:15

But I think I don't know whether anyone's used to the House of Lords before you get there, but I think it was a terrifying audience. And for about a year, I didn't speak at all. I just listened and watched. And everybody says you must just dive in, like in a swimming pool, dive in quickly. But I didn't. And it meant that by the time I did make my maiden speech, I think I understood the house better. And that's a very big difference. Let's have some more music. What's track number two?

Presenter7:32

Yeah.

Baroness Scotland7:47

Track number two is Paul Robeson, and it's Old Man River. The reason that I loved Paul Robeson is not just because he was another lawyer, but he was an extraordinary person.

Baroness Scotland8:00

It was a time when people didn't see black men as being particularly gifted or talented, and here was a voice that overcame and cut through everything. And it was quite a powerful part of my childhood, and I remember this beautiful sound coming out and feeling such warmth and also some amazing pride.

Presenter8:51

That was Paul Robeson singing Old Man River from Showboat. Let's return then, Patricia Scotland, to your early life. It sounds, in so far as we've touched on, that your parents were very big characters, and in a sense are the reason that you are where you are now. Tell me about their beginnings.

Presenter9:10

Um well

Baroness Scotland9:10

My father was a policeman, he is Antiguan, and my mother is uh Dominican. My father was a Methodist, my mother was a Catholic, so theirs was one of the first ecumenical marriages. And I think my mother had to get a papal dispensation just before my father died. They would have been married for seventy years. And they were very strong characters, both of them. My father used to say that he dreamt of my mother before he met her, and he said that he saw the woman he was going to marry in his dreams, and then when he arrived in Dominica

Presenter9:47

He saw her. And your father, then, as you say, was a policeman. But he seemed to occupy a more central and and more important even than a policeman's role in a in a small community.

Baroness Scotland9:56

Well, the thing is, in those days, when my father went to Dominica, there there weren't any lawyers on the island. And so the policeman would be the local administrator, almost settle disputes. You know, somebody had let someone's donkey go into somebody else's um land. Well, he'd he'd do things like settle their will for them. And at one stage he was the mayor of the little village I lived in.

Presenter10:19

I'm imagining you sort of swinging on the kitchen door listening to his wise words. Did it did it make an impression? Did you think this makes a difference, a material difference to people's lives? It's not just bits of paper and somebody in a wig in a in a box in court.

Baroness Scotland10:24

Do you think this

Baroness Scotland10:26

People's lives.

Baroness Scotland10:29

Yeah.

Baroness Scotland10:31

I think it did make a difference because, of course, that was in Dominica. I left Dominica when I was tiny, two or three. But when my father came to England, my father had a bit like a legal clinic, pro bono activity, so I'm probably so passionate about pro bono now. And so I grew up with a a whole trail of people coming to our house, and he'd write the letters, and he'd sort things out, um and my mother would cook and feed them. And I sometimes realised that people were always passing just about the time when my mother was cooking. What a coincidence. Yeah, but they'd pass from like the other side of London.

Baroness Scotland11:08

I couldn't quite work out how they happened to be passing from Shepherd's Bush to Walthamstow.

Presenter11:14

You see

Baroness Scotland11:14

Long it

Presenter11:15

three. When you left Dominica, do you remember the journey? Yeah.

Baroness Scotland11:17

Um I don't remember the journey very well but my but my everybody else remembers the journey, and I was the youngest, and apparently was a bit of the mascot. There are lot lots of photographs of me in the arms of my mother and or with wonderful sailors.

Presenter11:32

And at that time the youngest of how many children.

Baroness Scotland11:35

I was the only

Baroness Scotland11:38

Soon to be twelve. Two of my brothers and sisters were born in England.

Presenter11:42

More about that shortly, for now let's have some more music. What's next?

Baroness Scotland11:44

Uh my next is Jackson Brown. It's uh Take It Easy. Now this is a a real departure because it's um the music my husband loves and it also um it's a song that my boys and my husband and I have listened and enjoyed together. In fact we went to a to a Jackson Brown concert and heard it. So it's memories, memories of my husband.

Speaker 412:09

Well I've been running down the road trying to loosen my load I got seven women on my mind

Speaker 412:17

Four that wanna own me, two that wanna stone me, one said she's a friend of mine. Take it easy, take it easy. Don't let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy.

Presenter12:36

That was Jackson Brown and Take It Easy. So, Protrica Scotland, the home that you remember growing up in was not the warm and inviting Caribbean, but it was nineteen fifties Britain in Walsamstow, which you have described before as being cold, wet, foggy, pretty hostile, slightly racist London. It doesn't sound like a bed of roses.

Baroness Scotland12:55

No, but it was also warm and funny and great because certainly in the beginning we were the only Caribbean family and so everyone knew us, which was a positive actually rather than negative. And I was quite lucky where we grew up because we were next door to um a fairly orthodox synagogue.

Speaker 413:07

Yeah.

Baroness Scotland13:15

And then there was a local shop on the corner, which was a Muslim family. And so our little corner was really quite cosmo

Presenter13:23

And this harmony that you speak of though, I mean, this would have still been a time, I'm sure, in parts of London where the signs would have been up, you know, n no Irish, no blacks, no dogs, if people wanted to rent property. I mean, there was still you're just saying you didn't personally experience that.

Baroness Scotland13:29

You know what?

Baroness Scotland13:33

Mean the w

Baroness Scotland13:36

No, there were racist things. I mean, you still had people who would shout at you down the road, nigger, or say that you swung from trees, or ask you what you ate, and were very derogatory. I think my family worked on the premise that you allowed other people's racism and their prejudice to be their burden and not yours.

Presenter13:58

Uh did your parents have to explain that to you? I mean, were there times when you were either uh

Presenter14:03

confused or appalled by people's attitude towards you.

Baroness Scotland14:05

Absolutely.

Presenter14:06

Yeah.

Baroness Scotland14:06

And when I was little it was um much more difficult to understand, you know, why why were these people shouting at me? Why were they hitting me?

Baroness Scotland14:15

And that was very, very hard, very hard. But I think one of the great advantages we had was that there were twelve of us. Right. And so we were our own insurance policy, if you like. So you were were you physically bullied at school? You were people? When I was in the infant school, yes. Yeah, I was physically bullied. Did teachers intervene? Was that a time when? Um no, I don't think so. People didn't do it when you were in class. They did things on your way to and from school.

Presenter14:23

Right.

Baroness Scotland14:44

Uh

Presenter14:44

So you were part of this big clan. As we've made clear, you came across as one of ten children, and then your mother and father had uh two more. So you were so there were twelve of you all together, had

Baroness Scotland14:50

Two more.

Baroness Scotland14:52

There were seven boys and five girls. How big was the house? It was quite a small house, but my eldest brother and sisters were about the stage where they were going off to university and or going to college, right? So probably there were never twelve of us all living in the house at the same time. But I remember it being a very warm, funny house. There was always someone to talk to, always someone to debate things with. You know, but we talk about everything. And your father was a man of sayings. Yes. I remember any of them. There's so many. My husband calls it the sayings of Arthur L. Scotland.

Presenter15:26

Can you remember any of us?

Baroness Scotland15:32

He had a saying for everything, you know, and I still hear him in my head, particularly when times get rough. And I remember him saying, We're so lucky, we're so lucky. But what about the people who have less? Always, what about the people who have less? And why had your parents decided to come to Britain? My father and mother were both determined that each of us should have an equal opportunity to achieve. Daddy saw the world changing and changing rapidly. He thought that the future was going to be full of science and technology. That he wanted his children to be able to survive in this new world. And he used to say, All you can take with you is what's in your head, your heart, and your stomach.

Baroness Scotland16:14

Therefore you had to educate your mind, you had to open your heart to other people, and you had to eat well, because that's the only way you'd grow strong. Let's have some music. What's next?

Baroness Scotland16:26

Bob Marley.

Presenter16:27

Yeah.

Baroness Scotland16:27

And the wheelers get up, stand up. It's so much about

Baroness Scotland16:32

what was happening at the time, but also it's about justice, it's about changing things, it's about not being acquiescence to injustice and standing up not for just for your rights, for other people, and helping to make the place better.

Speaker 416:49

Most people think

Speaker 416:51

Great God will come from the sky.

Speaker 416:55

Take away everything and make everybody feel high.

Speaker 417:01

But if you know what life is worth

Speaker 417:04

You would look for yours on earth, and now you see the light.

Speaker 417:10

Stand up for your rights. Yeah, get up, stand up, yeah, yeah, stand up for your rights.

Presenter17:18

Bob Marley and the Wailers and Get Up, Stand Up, uh as well as Powerful Lyrics, One to Dance To, maybe. It is, absolutely. So you were very, very interested in dancing when you were what, a teenager?

Baroness Scotland17:28

Yeah, I I was when I was um f um from about eleven to seventeen. I loved dancing.

Presenter17:34

And it was contemporary ballet particularly. Did you want to make it serious? You you thought about pursuing a career?

Baroness Scotland17:35

Particular temperature.

Baroness Scotland17:39

I certainly thought about it seriously.

Presenter17:41

Yeah.

Baroness Scotland17:43

Uh they said I would have been. Really? But the difficulty was, if you remember at that time, they used to say that uh black children can dance, they can run and they can sing, but they had no intellectual ability. And my parents were very clear that each of they thought each of their children had intellectual ability and that that dancing was transient and so you dance for how long? You'd you'd be your career probably over by the time you were twenty eight. So what were you going to do after that?

Presenter18:03

And that

Presenter18:12

And so, your father knew that you were a very bright child because you were doing very well in school, and he thought that this was just too stereotypical. He felt it was important that you pushed those boundaries personally. He did.

Baroness Scotland18:18

Beautiful.

Baroness Scotland18:19

He did. He didn't place as high a value on it.

Presenter18:24

Um so what happened to the ambition to dance? Do you still dance?

Baroness Scotland18:27

Uh I never dance now. Do you never? Just'cause there's no time. You know, there's so little time.

Presenter18:29

Output transcript.

Baroness Scotland18:34

in life to do the things. I I still love it, and I would love, love to spend more time watching it, and I very rarely even get to watch ballet now.

Presenter18:44

So here you were a bright student, and also I mentioned in the introduction that you were at some point considering becoming a nun.

Baroness Scotland18:53

Um yes, I think I mean, I've always been um a devout Christian and um I did think about it very seriously indeed. At what age? Uh I s thought about it for a very long time.

Presenter18:57

Yeah.

Baroness Scotland19:06

What did your parents

Presenter19:07

Make of your thoughts about becoming a nun? Um, I think they thought I'd grow out of it.

Presenter19:13

And you rather pragmatically then set yourself a personal time frame.

Baroness Scotland19:17

Yes, I did.

Presenter19:18

Uh

Baroness Scotland19:18

Uh

Presenter19:18

As to whether or not I mean, how close did you come to taking your watches? Did you did you think that

Baroness Scotland19:19

Yeah.

Baroness Scotland19:22

Uh I thought it was a realistic prospect. The truth is that I had always loved God more than I loved anything else. And so I thought that if I continued to feel the same way, that's where I would end up. But then I met my wonderful husband, and that was that. And you were aged

Presenter19:40

Uh 29.

Baroness Scotland19:41

Yeah.

Presenter19:41

Uh

Baroness Scotland19:41

Uh I w well I got married when I was twenty nine.

Presenter19:44

Okay.

Baroness Scotland19:45

But I'd known my husband for a long while before that.

Presenter19:48

Right.

Baroness Scotland19:48

Right. And how did you meet? Um we met at Middle Temple during our bar exam and he became my best friend.

Presenter19:54

Oh, right. So you didn't sort of instantly think this is the man who's going to, if at least not edge God to the side, certainly change his position in my life. We were best friends and.

Baroness Scotland20:05

Uh

Presenter20:06

Clearly he became Absolutely indisp Senseful to me. Let's have some more music then. Tell me what's next. We're on track number five.

Baroness Scotland20:12

Trap number five is uh Pie Zoo and it is really the centre of my belief really that God is all. It is the last sentence of a Requiem Mass and it looks forward to the fact that God will save us.

Speaker 420:41

Oh this picture.

Presenter21:01

That was Cyra Brightman singing Andrew Lloyd Webber's P A Yezoo. Um your husband, Baroness Scotland, is Richard M'Winny. He's also a barrister. Inevitably you must talk shop at home, do you?

Baroness Scotland21:12

Uh well, actually, we don't. We've always done very different types of law. And um one of the interesting things about um

Baroness Scotland21:23

Being the attorney is, you can't actually talk to anybody about what you do. So.

Presenter21:27

Uh

Baroness Scotland21:27

We don't actually talk.

Presenter21:29

You've specialised in I would guess it's considered to be a rather unglamorous branch of law, which is to do with family policy, it's to do with family breakdown, domestic violence. You yourself have chaired various inquiries. I'm not entirely sure how many, but some of them very high profile and to do with the grittiest of circumstances, the things that make people turn the page of the newspaper quickly, that they don't want to read about the death of children who should have been better looked after, and so on. Given that you're a mother?

Baroness Scotland21:45

Many, but but some of them

Baroness Scotland21:52

Dances

Baroness Scotland21:54

Can use

Baroness Scotland21:55

Do you have big

Baroness Scotland21:56

Yeah.

Baroness Scotland21:57

You should

Presenter22:03

Given that at times you must have been, I worked out, have actually been pregnant while you've been working on these cases.

Baroness Scotland22:08

I'm working on the

Presenter22:09

What has been the personal impact upon you?

Baroness Scotland22:12

I think it's made me absolutely determined to make things better for other people. I had a great privilege of growing up in a loving, kind family which enabled me to meet my aspirations and probably go beyond them. They nurtured me. And I just believe so much that that should be every child's entitlement, and that every woman should have the privilege of being honoured for who she is and not abused.

Presenter22:41

The role of the state in the family is a very tricky, a very difficult area because, of course, if people abandon responsibility you know, that was the great sort of Blairite phrase, wasn't it? With rights come responsibilities. If people expect the state always to be there for them, then they often won't develop that sense of being a self-starter. We were talking about that earlier, having the the character pulling themselves up by the bootlaces. So the argument goes. Do you think there's a point at which the state has to step away and allow people to take responsibility and make the difficult choices for themselves?

Baroness Scotland23:12

No, I think there's a real need for the state to be the enabler. You don't walk away from people, you walk with them. And I know when I started on this in two thousand four people were saying, you know, you're being too brave, you're being too bold, you can't change it. Today there are much better support systems in place. So for instance, I wanted to increase the number of women who had the courage to come forward. So often women suffer in silence and are too terrified even to tell the people they love in their own family what's happening to them. Looking at the figures now, we've increased the number of women who have the courage to come forward by seven hundred percent.

Presenter23:53

I mean, there are many other sort of statistics. This is not the place to bandy them about. Do you it sounds as though you take these things intensely personally. It sounds as though when your father sat you on his knee and said, go out there and make a difference, you did that do you feel that he has actually propelled you through these situations?

Baroness Scotland24:05

Yeah.

Baroness Scotland24:07

Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. Because he always said, You can do this, you can do this to all of us and so much of what I've done has had him echoing in my head.

Baroness Scotland24:22

Let's have some music then. Tell me what's next. We're on disc number six now. It's uh Van Morrison, Brown-Eyed Girl.

Baroness Scotland24:29

And the reason we've chosen that is because I was always my father's brown-eyed girl, my brother's brown-eyed girl, and I'm my husband's brown-eyed girl.

Speaker 324:38

Standing in the sunlight on an elephant.

Speaker 324:41

Hot and hot, a rainbow's wall.

Speaker 324:44

Slippin' and sliding

Speaker 324:48

All along the water will fall with you.

Speaker 324:52

A bright girl

Speaker 324:57

Are you mad?

Speaker 324:59

Right, yeah.

Speaker 325:02

Do you remember when?

Speaker 325:05

Are we used to sing Sha-La?

Presenter25:08

That was Van Morrison and Brown-Eyed Girl for Baroness Scotland. You chose that because you are the brown-eyed girl of s so many people, past and present, in your life.

Baroness Scotland25:16

That

Presenter25:17

Do you think you're are you quite a romantic person, do you think?

Baroness Scotland25:20

Other people say I am. They say that I tend to look at things through rose-tinted spectacles, but I don't. My mother this is really my mother my mother would say, Patricia, and said it to all of us, If you have nothing good to say, say nothing at all. My children constantly say to me, Mummy, why don't you ever get cross? You need to get really, really cross. You must be able to get cross at something. And I, you know, I do feel cross, but maybe I just don't express it the same way as other people express it. How do you express it? I mean, do you withdraw or you? I tend to be quiet.

Presenter25:55

Right.

Baroness Scotland25:56

And and other people tell me actually I I've become very clipped, apparently, and quite sharp.

Baroness Scotland26:02

My vowels become quite

Baroness Scotland26:05

Acute.

Baroness Scotland26:06

Perhaps errantly.

Presenter26:08

I can imagine. But it's it is a rather it's an old fashioned approach, isn't it? I mean, that is a real you know, it doesn't sit with how things are now. Everybody's spouting vitriol everywhere, whether it's in editorials or whether it's on television shows. Do you feel sometimes out of step with with the character of the nation and the way we express ourselves?

Baroness Scotland26:13

I mean that is

Baroness Scotland26:16

What is

Baroness Scotland26:18

Whether it's em edited.

Baroness Scotland26:27

But then I think I've been out of step my whole life. I've never been the norm. I think I am quite.

Baroness Scotland26:34

normally the abnorm. So I think I've grown accustomed, not necessarily doing or being what other people think maybe I am or should be. I just unfortunately have to be me.

Presenter26:45

You have said also about you mentioned your parents there. Your father said that the future of the world lay in science. He wanted you to be a scientist.

Baroness Scotland26:52

He wanted you.

Baroness Scotland26:53

Yes, he did. He wanted me to be a physicist and I was absolutely useless at physic. But um you have to remember that Daddy was living with the reality that um being black was not considered to be a good thing to be if you wanted to be successful. And therefore he believed that you should have skills that were utterly portable from country to country and were translatable.

Presenter27:16

I mean, certainly as parents now, you and I would encourage our children these days to to find their own path and to do what they love. I mean, the

Baroness Scotland27:19

Yeah, yeah.

Baroness Scotland27:22

Yeah.

Presenter27:24

Is it fine with you and all your brothers and sisters that your father sort of had it mapped out for you?

Baroness Scotland27:28

Well, he didn't map out the subject, but I think what was really annoying about my father is he always told you, Of course, darling, it's a matter for you.

Baroness Scotland27:38

But it never was. I mean and what was really irritating about him is he was right, and it's really used to get on your nerves. He was always right.

Presenter27:48

Uh He lived to see your huge success. Did he get over the disappointment? I think he just about managed it. Tell me about your next piece of music then.

Baroness Scotland27:55

Um my next piece of music is partly about him actually and partly about my younger son who loves this. And it's um Dance with My Father. I'd really love to dance with my father again.

Speaker 428:08

Back when I was a child

Speaker 428:14

Before life removed all the energy.

Speaker 428:20

My father would lift me high

Presenter28:22

Meha.

Speaker 428:26

And dance with my mother and me And then spin me around till I fell asleep

Presenter28:36

That was Luther Van Dross and Dance with My Father. Uh Patricia Scotland, I noticed from your C V that it is loaded with the amount of bodies that you have lent your name to and people who have given you awards and you have accepted and

Presenter28:48

It seems to me from that the assumption I make is that you think it is important to show yourself as a role model.

Baroness Scotland28:55

I think I have come to recognize that whether we want to be a role model or not, we all are, you are. Everybody listening to this programme is a role model for someone.

Presenter29:08

The weight of the responsibility of being a role model for people of colour is a is a much larger one, it's a much more public one, it is a much more scrutinized one, as you have come to know.

Baroness Scotland29:15

There's a muffled.

Baroness Scotland29:18

Yes.

Baroness Scotland29:19

And I think it is something that many of us take on reluctantly or accept reluctantly. I think I've accepted it as the reality of what my life has become. But also, I think there is an opportunity for us, if we truly believe in fairness, to use whatever little opportunity we have to make sure that we're fair to everyone. It's a hugely important part of my role as attorney, being the guardian of the public interest, making sure everyone is represented and ensuring that the law operates without fear or favour for all.

Presenter29:58

Yeah. Guardian of the public interest, what an enormous responsibility One that most people indeed would not be capable of intellectually, but also might shy away from because of the weight of that responsibility. Is it something that has cause to

Baroness Scotland30:08

Pathetic.

Presenter30:12

In any circumstance keep you awake at night?

Baroness Scotland30:14

It it is a huge responsibility, and it is, and it always will be, a fairly lonely one in many ways, because you have to give people advice that they need to hear, and not necessarily

Presenter30:26

Uh

Baroness Scotland30:26

They want

Presenter30:28

How conscious were you of partially the loneliness, but also the the sheer heft of that responsibility prior to taking on the role? I mean, I wonder you know, we can all think about it theoretically. It's only once you're there that you must truly appreciate.

Baroness Scotland30:39

Cosmetic.

Baroness Scotland30:42

Actually a

Presenter30:42

Uh

Baroness Scotland30:42

I think that's absolutely true because I thought

Presenter30:42

I think

Baroness Scotland30:46

That I really did understand the role of the attorney. I'd been two years as number two to the Lord Chancellor, I'd had four years as number two to the Home Secretary, I'd worked with Attorneys General, I had seen a lot of the work. I am a lawyer who's had the privilege to be engaged in government work over the years. So I thought I absolutely understood what the Attorney General was and what they did.

Baroness Scotland31:13

I didn't, not really. I sit at the apex of two thousand government lawyers who scrutinize the work that government does day in, day out, and that is

Baroness Scotland31:26

A huge responsibility that I take incredibly seriously.

Presenter31:31

The middle of

Baroness Scotland31:31

Yeah.

Presenter31:31

Uh

Baroness Scotland31:31

But

Presenter31:31

Yeah.

Baroness Scotland31:31

Bill's

Presenter31:32

John

Baroness Scotland31:32

Uh

Presenter31:32

Of all the, you know, twenty-minute diary appointments in the ministerial car here, they are never reports to read.

Baroness Scotland31:36

Yeah.

Presenter31:37

Judgments to give.

Presenter31:40

I wonder if life on an island might be something of a relief. At least for a couple of weeks.

Baroness Scotland31:44

At least for a couple of weeks. Yeah, it might be really a nice a nice break. I sometimes uh dream about uh having space just to think and to listen.

Baroness Scotland31:58

That would be lovely.

Baroness Scotland32:00

Let's have your final disc then. What's disc number eight? Um number eight is for my elder son. He loves this song and uh he says that uh I am his African queen. This is for my elder son.

Speaker 432:17

Yeah yeah

Speaker 432:20

You are my African queen.

Speaker 432:23

Ooh Lord, ooh Lord.

Speaker 432:28

Just like the sun lights up the earth, it lights up my life.

Speaker 432:34

The only one I ever see with a smile so bright

Presenter32:37

It is a mile so rag

Speaker 432:40

Just yesterday.

Presenter32:43

That was Two Face and African Queen. So we come to the point, then, where I will give you um the Bible, Baroness, Scotland, and the complete works of Shakespeare, and you can take a book.

Presenter32:54

What's your single book going to be?

Baroness Scotland32:55

Uh my single book is going to be the compilation of the writings of my children. Both my sons write really beautifully. Um my younger son wrote this wonderful piece about a train journey from London to the country and meeting his father on the platform. It is a beautiful piece. And there are poems that my elder son have written and if I could I'd bind in some of the things my two nephews, my younger sister's two sons, have written too. And I'd have it a bound volume, and I'd take it with me, because they would be absolutely irreplaceable. I'm sure you're allowed that. And a luxury to

Baroness Scotland33:38

Well, I don't know whether you'll allow me to have it. I would have a solar.

Presenter33:38

Blow.

Baroness Scotland33:42

Laptop so that I could speak to my children on site.

Presenter33:45

No, I don't know. Uh

Baroness Scotland33:48

See, I knew you'd say that.

Presenter33:50

My life wouldn't be worth living if I gave you that, you're not having it.

Baroness Scotland33:54

Oh, very well, then. I will have the most luxurious bath.

Presenter33:59

Ah, yes, you can have that. And if the waves were to threaten to wash to the shore and your discs with them away, which one would you run through the sands to save? I would save uh Piazzoo. Baroness Scotland, Patricia Scotland, thank you very much for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Baroness Scotland34:03

Everything. Stevens.

Presenter34:38

You've been listening to a download from the BBC. You'll find more information on the Radio Four website bbc. co dot uk slash radio four.