Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Desert Island Discs
Presented by Kirsty Young
Olympic champion middle-distance runner and chairman of the London 2012 Olympic Games.
Eight records
Well, it i it's the music that we used during the bid. We were probably sitting. Fourth out of the five cities, with about a year to go. And we needed to do something that really started to engage and excite, so we commissioned a film and Heather Small. Sang the soundtrack and it's it's it's as evocative today for me as it was five years ago.
Well, you know, if sport is my passion, my deep abiding love has been jazz. And I first heard This recording Probably when I was about four. My parents were very big jazz enthusiastic, and this is the first recording I heard, and again it's it sounds awfully precocious, but that's the moment that I just thought I'd heard something that was quite extraordinary.
Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen (from The Magic Flute)
I f only really fully appreciated opera when I heard it for the very first time live in Rome, before the games in nineteen eighty where I was training. And it was the magic flute that when I first heard it performed in Rome just blew my socks off.
George Melly with Mick Mulligan's Magnolia Jazz Band
Well, by the time I was thirteen or fourteen, my parents used to take me to jazz clubs. And there was one jazz club it certainly doesn't exist any more, but it was a pub in Holborn, and it was the Sunday residence of George Melley. And I can remember just waiting the whole week. for this Sunday lunchtime. And it was just the sheer exuberance.
I had an extraordinary close friendship with uh with a guy. who probably in his own way was just as inspirational as my father. ... And he sadly died a couple of years ago. And there's not a day that goes by without missing him desperately. ... It was a song that was his favourite piece of music.
It's probably the most spectacular debut recording of any musician. It's the recording, the nineteen thirty-six recording by Lester Young of Lady Be Good. ... Chicago was where I, it's a city I adore, it's where I prepared. in those tentative last few weeks before the Los Angeles Olympic Games. And it was just a very good excuse to to listen to as much jazz as I could.
the most defining sound in jazz, certainly arguably the most defining sound actually of the twentieth century in music, is Louis Armstrong. And the opening sequence to West End Blues again is something that was just extraordinary. It it still almost brings tears to my eyes listening to it.
The Closest Thing to CrazyFavourite
Well, my final one is my daughter loves singing. I probably witnessed the same passion in her for that as I brought to my track and field. And in her final year at prep school, she said she was going to sing. It was the school concert ... And she started to sing. ... And there were grown men with tears rolling down their cheeks at this.
The keepsakes
The book
Benny Green
I'll take a book of jazz essays and critiques by Benny Green called Such Sweet Thunder and there's hardly a week goes by without me dipping into one of those.
The luxury
Piano and a self-help guide to the piano
the luxury would be a piano and whatever passes for a sort of self help guide to the piano, because I fully intend in all this time I hope I have after twenty twelve to learn to play a musical instrument.
In conversation
Presenter asks
Does being judged hold no fear for you?
Not really. I guess that ... the nature of everything I did in in track and field was judgment all the time, so it's it tends to be the world I lived in. And of course one of the you know the ultimate judgments was getting my UB forty at twenty past five in a drafty sports hall in Camborne in nineteen ninety seven when politically a career finished. So judgment is has never been that far from me.
Presenter asks
Where were you and what was your state of mind in the minutes leading up to the announcement that London had won the 2012 Olympic bid?
Well, the the minutes leading up to I I I I didn't want to sit in the hall for, you know, sort of hours beforehand. I guess it's something that came from athletics. I never liked to be sitting around for a long time before a race. I tended to come in towards the you know, the moment of truth.
The recording
Timestamps play the recording from that turn
Presenter
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.
Presenter
For more information about the programme, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.
Presenter
My castaway this week is Sebastian Koe. From Olympic champion to championing the Olympics, his continuous will to win has powered him through a life tight packed with drama and achievement. A multiple medal winner on the athletics track, his style and grace as a middle distance runner saw him compared to
Presenter
In his current role, delivering a successful Olympic Games to London in twenty twelve, he might more usefully be likened to Houdini.
Presenter
The nature of success, he says, is entirely determined by the individual. There is always an opportunity to rise above a given set of circumstances, and make the world notice you. In being noticed, of course, Sebko, you will also be judged.
Presenter
Does that hold no fear for you?
Presenter
Not really. I guess that
Lord Coe
Yeah.
Lord Coe
The nature of everything I did in in track and field was judgment all the time, so it's it tends to be the world I lived in. And of course one of the you know the ultimate judgments was getting my UB forty at twenty past five in a drafty sports hall in Camborne in nineteen ninety seven when politically a career finished. So judgment is has never been that far from me.
Presenter
Um the certainties though, not of politics but certainly of the running track, you know where the finish line is, you know the time pretty much that you've you've got to be those certainties are not in place with twenty twelve because of course you've got an often fickle public, a sometimes hostile press. Those lines are always
Lord Coe
Is it
Presenter
No. Moving.
Lord Coe
Uh
Presenter
Well
Lord Coe
There is of course one immovable certainty, and that is that at twelve minutes past eight on the twenty-seventh of July in twenty twelve, we have an opening ceremony, and we then have to deliver twenty-six simultaneous World Championships over the next sixteen odd days. We take a short breather, reconfigure those venues, turn London into a host city for the Paralympic Games and do the same with twenty sports. So I don't kid myself, we've got three very hard years of pounding ahead of us.
Presenter
Uh plenty to talk about when it comes to the Olympics. Before we do that, though, I want you to wind back to july two thousand and five, to those minutes before the the the envelope was open I have to say rather clumsily opened. It took a good twenty seconds for the man himself, uh the chairman of the IOC to get the envelope open and to say the games will go to London. But but in the minutes leading up to it.
Presenter
Where were you? What was your state of mind?
Lord Coe
Well, the the minutes leading up to I I I I didn't want to sit in the hall for, you know, sort of hours beforehand. I guess it's something that came from athletics. I never liked to be sitting around for a long time before a race. I tended to come in towards the you know, the moment of truth.
Presenter
And and like a race, you would be sitting with your competitors, which is a good idea.
Lord Coe
Well yes you would. I mean actually forty minutes before an Olympic final you're sitting in a room and you're there are eight or nine of you and you're all looking at each other wondering, you know, who at the end of the day is is going to make some history and that you learn a lot about yourself forty minutes before a race. And and as I walked towards the the the hall where the the announcement was going to be made, my mobile went.
Lord Coe
And
Lord Coe
Awful thing to say, but I it was the Prime Minister who said, you know, what's happening? What's the result? I said.
Lord Coe
Well, we don't know.
Lord Coe
And he said, No, no, no, I know that, but what's the result?
Lord Coe
No, he couldn't actually understand that somehow that we didn't or we didn't know the results. It wasn't like election nights. No, no, no, no, no, there were no exit polls here. No, there wasn't an exit poll. We didn't know the result. And I just literally had to hang up and get in there. And we sat down and then a few minutes later, of course, the envelope was open.
Presenter
It wasn't like election. No, no, no.
Presenter
So during the twenty seconds then, when he was fumbling about with that, please open it.
Lord Coe
Yeah.
Presenter
Tell me about your first piece of music then today, sir.
Lord Coe
Well, it i it's the music that we used during the bid. We were probably sitting.
Lord Coe
Fourth out of the five cities, with about a year to go.
Lord Coe
And we needed to do something that really started to engage and excite, so we commissioned a film and Heather Small.
Lord Coe
Sang the soundtrack and it's it's it's as evocative today for me as it was five years ago.
Speaker 3
What have you done today to make you feel right?
Speaker 3
You could be so many people
Speaker 3
If you make that grave for freedom
Speaker 3
What have you done today to make you feel proud?
Presenter
That was Heather Small and Proud. Um, Sebko, many people will remember I'm among them, those uh the glory days of your running career. Um you had extraordinary successes on the track.
Presenter
Plenty athletes do, of course. What stands out is how long your record stood for. Take us through I mean, what was it? The eight hundred metres for seventeen years, your thousand metres for eighteen years, and your relay for twenty four years. That says something, surely, about a very distinguished career.
Lord Coe
It it says
Lord Coe
A lot about the quality of the coaching I had. And I I like to think I had some natural ability.
Lord Coe
I certainly enjoyed what I did. I I'm running for me still is the most extraordinary feeling that, you know, I can get at it.
Presenter
You still run.
Lord Coe
Oh, I still
Lord Coe
I think running is a fairly charitable description of what I do now, but I I do put my running shoes on and I do go out regularly. Oh, are the knees? They're not completely. The knees are all right. They're not they're not.
Presenter
The knees are
Lord Coe
Fantastic stairs a fairly challenging person in the morning.
Presenter
For for somebody as competitive as you though, wh when the records were broken, did it did it matter, or did you think, well, that's just the natural way of things?
Lord Coe
No, it they did. I I remember the first record I broke in Oslo in nineteen seventy nine.
Lord Coe
was an extraordinary moment because it was very unexpected. I'd literally just come out of slithering my way to a degree and trying to train at the same time.
Lord Coe
And that afternoon before the race in Oslo, I rang my old man up, who's my coach, and I just said, Look, you know, what do you think we should do today? And he didn't want to take time off from the business and he said, Well, just go out and run as hard as you can and we'll get a benchmark.
Lord Coe
And there was this lovely moment when I had to ring after the race through to the he had a cutlery business in Sheffield and he was buried away in it.
Lord Coe
And it was about seven thirty, eight o'clock at night, and I couldn't really get through to him. And there was somebody I managed to get through to, and and one of the women there said, Look, you know, have you got a message? and I said, Yes, could you tell
Lord Coe
Him, his son's just broken the hundred-meter world record, and she said, Well, yeah, okay, I'll I'll I'll make sure I get it.
Presenter
Uh
Lord Coe
Uh
Presenter
Yeah.
Lord Coe
Yeah.
Presenter
Yeah.
Presenter
And when the records were snatched from you I mean, many years later, as I say, in in in virtually every instance did it matter that they weren't your records anymore?
Lord Coe
Uh not really. I it's funny. I mean I'd had them for so long you'd almost forgotten about them.
Lord Coe
They got broken in roughly 1997, 1998. I'd I'd been retired eight years. And actually the guy that broke it Wilson Kip Keeter. I was very pleased that he did that because he was a proper 800 metre runner. He'd got real style and poise and I was really pleased it had gone to him and not some of the others that were around at the time.
Presenter
When you won the Olympic bid then in in July two thousand five, oh of course it was uh a team effort, but key to the winning, so I believe from what I read w was a very personal speech that you gave yourself about a moment for you was it was it in nineteen sixty eight? Yes, was it in July?
Lord Coe
Yes in Sheffield.
Presenter
And you were watching it on the T V. How old would you have been then?
Presenter
Uh
Lord Coe
I was barely twelve.
Presenter
And what was it you told the Olympic Committee about watching?
Lord Coe
It was a very simple story about being dragged into an assembly hall in my school in Sheffield.
Lord Coe
And we watched the highlights of the games the night before or the day before. Two local athletes in in Sheffield, John and Sheila Sherwood.
Lord Coe
Jon got the bronze in the four hurdles and Sheila narrowly missed the gold in the women's long jump.
Lord Coe
And I just looked at this and I thought this was the most extraordinary thing I'd seen.
Lord Coe
And I was I was sucked in by it. Tell me about your second disc today now. Well, you know, if sport is my passion, my deep abiding love has been jazz. And I first heard
Lord Coe
This recording
Lord Coe
Probably when I was about four.
Lord Coe
My parents were very big jazz enthusiastic, and this is the first recording I heard, and again it's it sounds awfully precocious, but that's the moment that I just thought I'd heard something that was quite extraordinary.
Speaker 3
Da da da da da da da da.
Presenter
The Dave Brubeck Quartet with Joe Morello and The History of a Boy Scout. So, Sebastian Coe, you'd moved about a bit as a little lad, but you you pretty much regard Sheffield as as home, do you?
Lord Coe
I do. I I although I d I didn't move up to Sheffield until I was sort of eleven or twelve. I d actually drove through it on on the way back the other day and it's it's not changed dramatically.
Presenter
And you were the eldest of four were were you a competitive bunch of children?
Lord Coe
I guess we probably were, and we've all gone on to do sort of things that are slightly different, but in a way I suppose in quite competitive environments. My brother was is a very successful businessman in the States, and my sister was a professional ballet dancer, and uh my younger sister trained as a fine artist.
Presenter
And she is it true she's the editor of Knitting magazine, is that right?
Lord Coe
That is right, yes, living in Brighton and turning that magazine around.
Presenter
Does she knit?
Lord Coe
Herself? I'm not sure she does, but I'm probably I probably shouldn't say that. Yes, she does. She knits all the time.
Presenter
Nice Christmas presents, nice uh sweaters for Christmas.
Lord Coe
Yeah.
Lord Coe
Well I hope not.
Presenter
Tell me about your mother. I haven't read much about your mother, but what I read intrigues me. She sounds like a.
Presenter
Was she a glamorous creature? She.
Lord Coe
Yeah, well, she was an actress. She was rather trained.
Lord Coe
But brought up in Delhi she's half Bah, half Indian, my grandfather was Indian. My mother was brought up in Delhi until the age of ten, but then came back to to West London.
Presenter
Yeah.
Presenter
And did you meet your your Indian grandfather?
Lord Coe
No, I never did. He died in the early seventies, so I I never got the chance to. I I actually always regret never having met him because I think he w well, I know he was quite a character.
Presenter
Your father as coach we will go on to talk about, but but I'm wondering about your father as dad. When you were young, what sort of dad was your father?
Lord Coe
Yeah.
Presenter
Yeah.
Lord Coe
Great.
Presenter
Yeah.
Lord Coe
Classic dad, always working very hard but always had time, slightly quirky. Sundays were long walks which were great, but you know, after perhaps about sort of three hours where you know my younger brothers and sisters were being sort of dragged along, we were always surrounded by OS maps on a on a Sunday morning, planning
Lord Coe
you know, some walk through the Cotswolds or up in the Peak District.
Presenter
Is it the case that he grew up within streets of where the the the main site for the twelve years?
Lord Coe
No, he was born he my grandparents were born in East London, the Bowand and Stepney. He was born in East London, but moved to to West London in the you know, in the thirties.
Presenter
He he died in August of last year. Did did you have the opportunity to take him around the site?
Lord Coe
No, I didn't. He was. Although he was mentally sharp, right, I mean.
Lord Coe
irritatingly sharp right up to the to the last moment. He could barely see anything and was very frail. But I I sadly I didn't get the chance to take him around the site, but being a an engineer he would have probably had a view on how we were doing it.
Presenter
That's what I was wondering about. I was thinking, yes, being uh quite as articulate and opinionated as he was. Can you imagine what he might have uh put you right on?
Lord Coe
Yeah.
Presenter
Yeah.
Lord Coe
Probably every
Presenter
Yeah.
Lord Coe
Thing. Yeah.
Presenter
Let's have some music, what's next?
Lord Coe
Well, my mother brought great balance to family life and that was needed because by the time I'm fourteen or fifteen I'm training certainly once a day and probably twice a day. And she was just determined that that balance also included cultural stuff.
Lord Coe
So on Friday night she would normally take me to a classical concert. But I f only really fully appreciated opera when I heard it for the very first time live in Rome, before the games in nineteen eighty where I was training. And it was the magic flute that when I first heard it performed in Rome just blew my socks off.
Speaker 3
Yeah.
Speaker 3
I'm a proof of it, but
Lord Coe
Yeah.
Presenter
Eda Moser singing The Queen of the Night Aria, Hell's Vengeance Boils in My Heart, from Mozart's The Magic Flute. Um it seems, Sebastian Koe, that uh the story of you and the story of your father is more bound up than probably any other castaway who who has sat with me.
Presenter
Let's talk about him. He seems, from what I read, a tenacious man, a determined man, and probably quite an unsentimental man. Would that be fair?
Lord Coe
He had sentiment. He he did have sentiment, but he he didn't suffer he didn't suffer fools gladly. His own personal Odyssey was an extraordinary one. He was
Lord Coe
He was torpedoed in the Merchant Navy, was in the water for an un.
Lord Coe
believable amount of time picked up by a German battleship.
Lord Coe
And
Lord Coe
At the age of nineteen.
Lord Coe
Jumped off a train destined for a prisoner of war camp in Germany.
Lord Coe
and then by day slept and by night walked effectively through France, made it into Spain and then got unceremoniously arrested for not having the right papers.
Presenter
And for all of this time his family at home were led to believe he was dead. Yes. But his mother never had a mother.
Lord Coe
Yes. But his mother never would never accept this, and for the best part of a year and a half just knew that he was there. And then finally got a letter to say that he was um safe and and coming home.
Presenter
You have spoken before about and I think you're absolutely right to see it as a very revealing moment when he was he was in a tussle with somebody in that.
Lord Coe
Yeah, I was having an argument. Tell me about that. Well, I remember we were having one of our not regular but periodic arguments with the Federation over something. And I remember him just losing patience completely and just cutting loose. And I can remember the blood sort of draining out of their faces at this barrage that they got from him. And I remember walking out and looking at him and saying, Well, you don't scare easily, do you? And I was probably about twenty-three, twenty-four at the time, and he looked at me and sort of smiled. He said, I don't scare at all. He said the last f forty years have been a bonus. And I suddenly realized, of course, you know, when you've been through that, we talk about experience. I don't think my generation can ever possibly understand.
Lord Coe
What it must have been like to have gone through all that as a nineteen year old
Presenter
Yeah.
Presenter
Let's have some more music. Tell me about uh disc number four.
Lord Coe
Well, by the time I was thirteen or fourteen, my parents used to take me to jazz clubs. And there was one jazz club it certainly doesn't exist any more, but it was a pub in Holborn, and it was the Sunday residence of George Melley.
Lord Coe
And I can remember just waiting the whole week.
Lord Coe
for this Sunday lunchtime.
Lord Coe
And it was just the sheer exuberance. It wasn't always fantastic jazz, but Sunday lunch time at New Merlin's Cave was just
Lord Coe
Exuberance personified.
Speaker 4
There's a change in weather, a change in the seas.
Speaker 4
From now on, there's gonna be a change in me My walk will be different, my talk, my name
Speaker 4
Nothing about me's gonna stay the same, I'm gonna change my address, wear and live and add, change my long tall one for a little short fat.
Speaker 4
Nobody knows you
Speaker 3
When you
Speaker 4
When your olds are grey There'll be some changes made today There'll be some changes made
Speaker 3
BAAA
Presenter
George Melley and Mick Mulligan, and there'll be some changes made. So, Seb, your father started to get involved in the running. We we heard how you got involved and how the bug bit you. How did he get involved? Well, I joined the Athletics Club. Yeah. As I
Presenter
But that you had a coach there, I imagine, didn't you?
Lord Coe
No, I'd just a club coach. I think my father was slightly
Lord Coe
along probably along with my mother. You know, where on earth does he go on Tuesday nights and Thursday nights and most of Sundays? So he started to come down to the club.
Presenter
Sand
Lord Coe
And being a classic engineer, and having that need to pull things apart and put them back together again, he just realized that what he was listening to didn't for him make a great deal of sense.
Lord Coe
Really, to cut the long story short, over the space of five years, he effectively turned himself into the best middle distance coach, I think, probably of all time.
Presenter
And he ended up writing what has become the sort of definitive text on middle distance running.
Lord Coe
Yeah, yeah.
Lord Coe
Yes.
Presenter
Did you ever
Lord Coe
Yeah.
Presenter
I mean, did you ever want him to lay off? Did you ever want him to say, Come on, Dad, you know, it's it's my hobby
Lord Coe
Oh no, I think I've always been fairly pragmatic about these things, that, you know, whatever he was doing seemed to be working. I remember getting it and my mother was absolutely mortified at the side of a cross country course in Sheffield, where I'd won a race at the age of fourteen by about a minute and a half.
Lord Coe
And a father whose son came in second or third completely lost it, ran across the course, grabbed him literally grabbed him, and was screaming at him, You're killing him, you're killing him
Lord Coe
The view was that he was giving me training sessions that were just too much for somebody of my age, which they weren't. They were the most thoughtful and sensitive training sessions. We'd go out in the car in the peak district, and he'd make me run up the hills, and as soon as we got to the top of one of the dales, he would
Lord Coe
make me get back into the car so that I never ran downhill because the greatest damage done to to to knees or those pressure points will be running downhill. So he was always thinking as an engineer. But it wasn't easy because I knew that there were parents out there thinking that this was some
Lord Coe
sort of horrendous draconian programme of of training I was on and I knew that actually that whatever he was doing was working.
Presenter
Let's have some more music then, tell me what's next.
Lord Coe
I had an extraordinary close friendship with uh with a guy.
Lord Coe
who probably in his own way was just as inspirational as my father. He was an East Ender, but I met him actually through a mutual friend at university. He was a mature student. And we struck up a ver a fantastic friendship. And he introduced me to East London and
Lord Coe
The night I was asked whether or not I would chair the bid, the obvious person to speak to was Malcolm. And I I knew what I had to do anyway, but he just basically pointed me in the right direction. And he sadly died a couple of years ago. And there's not a day that goes by without missing him desperately.
Lord Coe
But also being so extraordinarily grateful for the insights that he gave me. All
Speaker 4
The lights.
Speaker 4
And I sink in my chair
Speaker 4
The smoke from my cigarette climbs through the air.
Speaker 4
The walls of my room
Speaker 4
Fade away in the blue
Speaker 4
And I'm deep in a dream of you.
Presenter
Frank Sinatra and Deep in a Dream, chosen because it was one of the favourite songs of Mr. Fanny.
Lord Coe
It was a song that was his favourite piece of music.
Presenter
Malcolm Williams.
Presenter
Let's take a moment, Sebastian Ko, just to uh enjoy.
Presenter
Your medal winning record two gold, two silver medals in two Olympics, a gold, two silvers and a bronze in the European Championships, eight indoor and three outdoor world records. What does it mean to you when you look back at that list, wi with perspective and distance?
Lord Coe
Oh, uh you know, a a good deal of pride.
Lord Coe
An extraordinary, extraordinary enjoyment. I loved what I did.
Presenter
Yeah.
Lord Coe
Yeah.
Presenter
And of course as as a nation, and I I think probably it'd be fair to say as a world we were gripped by Co versus Overt and the saga. I I mean how did it grip you at the time?
Lord Coe
It was an extraordinary time. I there are journalists who are still out and about in the sport that say that they'd never witnessed that sort of intense rivalry. From seventy nine onwards, there was just this bu understanding that
Lord Coe
The dedouma of all this would be in an Olympic stadium, that this was a domestic issue. When we were in Moscow in the village, everybody was focused on this race.
Presenter
And have you met since, beyond the tracks? Oh, yeah, we get on. Do you get on?
Lord Coe
Oh yeah, no, no, we get on we get on. We get on extremely well. The truth of the matter is we didn't really know each other that well. I didn't get to know Steven till probably early early eighties.
Lord Coe
by either accident or design, almost sort of kept out of each other's way. It was only when we we he he moved up distance in the early eighties and the rivalry began to simmer a bit,
Lord Coe
We now meet and see meet each other on the circuit quite regularly. There is no doubt that, you know, whether we accepted at the time, we did I I know we did drive each other on.
Presenter
Is it true that you even compare your own kids' times now in racism?
Lord Coe
He's got a actually he's my oldest boy is keener on football, but Steve has a very talented uh son, Freddie, who I think won the Australian cross country championships. I think there's probably an Ovette on the way, but sadly, I think probably in an Australian vest.
Presenter
Okay. What's your next track then?
Lord Coe
It's probably the most spectacular debut recording of any musician.
Lord Coe
It's the recording, the nineteen thirty-six recording by Lester Young of Lady Be Good.
Lord Coe
And this is the first recording of Lester Young, and it's in Chicago. And Chicago was where I, it's a city I adore, it's where I prepared.
Lord Coe
in those tentative last few weeks before the Los Angeles Olympic Games. And it was just a very good excuse to to listen to as much jazz as I could. Well, I'm not I'm no musician, but it is just an extraordinary piece of play.
Speaker 3
Uh
Presenter
Lester Young and Lady Begood.
Presenter
How could we have got this far and only spoken about one of your careers, Sebastian Coe? Of course politics is the other great thing in your professional life. When did your interest in politics begin?
Lord Coe
Oh, very early. Part of my um my Indian family were politicians in India. So it's probably from that side of the family.
Lord Coe
And by the time I'd got to to the mid eighties I'd sort of decided that this was pretty much what I wanted to do at a constituency level. In fact, I I my my last race in Europe was in sort of September of eighty nine and a week after that I was in front of a selection committee in Falmouth and Camborne for the vacant seat in Cornwall.
Presenter
I'm wondering where you stood though. When when you were an MP and and you were swept away in that great wave that there was in nineteen ninety seven wh where Labour came in and so many Tory MPs uh lost their seat, it's somebody who was so self-reliant, who determined their own success, to suddenly find yourself being battered about by the political turmoil must have felt horribly out of control.
Lord Coe
Yeah, I I it it wasn't easy. I think that you just have to be very sanguine about it and recognize that there are moments in politics where actually it's certainly not personal, you are just in the wrong place.
Speaker 3
Uh just
Speaker 3
Mm.
Lord Coe
at the wrong time. I mean, if I'd been sort of calculating about it, I probably wouldn't have thrown my hat in the ring in nineteen ninety two at the fag end of a of a government that was clearly destined for a period uh in opposition. But politics came looking
Presenter
But politics came looking yeah, politics came looking for you, didn't because you were chief of staff for William Hale whilst he was leader for was it about a four
Lord Coe
Yeah.
Lord Coe
Yeah.
Presenter
Yeah. Period
Lord Coe
It was. It was from after William won. I had helped William in his leadership campaign, and then William asked me to stay on originally for
Lord Coe
He wanted me to do four days, I wanted to do two and we classically compromised and I did seven.
Presenter
Hey.
Lord Coe
Yeah. Uh
Presenter
It is Lord Coe, of course, now. I'm wondering in any future Tory government if you see yourself sitting around the Cabinet table.
Lord Coe
No, I I I really don't. I don't have any political ambitions at all. Um, you know, the the next three years is absolutely focussed on delivering eight great games.
Presenter
And after and after that.
Lord Coe
And no, not after and even after that, no. I really want to go off and do some of the things that I haven't had a chance to do. I wanted to go away and do some serious writing and have the time to do that. And that I just don't want to combine that with politics. I sort of feel I've done that.
Presenter
There you are, David Cameron, if you're listening. Let's have some music for now. Tell me about track number seven seven.
Lord Coe
Track number seven, you know, it's jazz again, it has to be. Uh the most defining sound in jazz, certainly arguably the most defining sound actually of the twentieth century in music, is Louis Armstrong. And the opening sequence to West End Blues again is something that was just extraordinary. It it still almost brings tears to my eyes listening to it.
Presenter
Louis Armstrong and West End Blues. You've got four children, Seb. Do you I was gonna say inflict your jazz on them? That's no uh that's not my comment, but it might be their perception. Do you make them listen to jazz?
Lord Coe
I think that's probably a fair assessment. They they sort of try to escape it occasionally when it's when it's on in the car. But they've all got uh quite eclectic musical taste.
Presenter
And what about your divorce now? Y your children are between eleven and seventeen and of course when we are parents ourselves we find it almost impossible not to be the same parents that our parents were. Do you drive your children hard? No, I don't.
Lord Coe
No, I don't and actually I think you'll be surprised when I say this, but actually the the template for me was the way my parents brought up
Lord Coe
R4 up.
Presenter
Right.
Lord Coe
Because we weren't actually driven. We were passionate about what we did and they were just always there to make sure that what we were passionate about.
Presenter
And what about having such a high achiever for a father? I mean, do your do your children take notice of the fact? Do you show them the the medals? Do they take them out and publish them for you?
Lord Coe
The medals to
Lord Coe
They're actually but no, no, no. I do you know, I wouldn't even know where they are. I I have no idea. I the last I think one of my nephews had one of them at a uh at a school project not long ago and I haven't I've just recently moved so I couldn't begin to tell you where they are.
Presenter
The meta has
Presenter
And in this, um, I'm imagining, almost unbearably busy life that you have heading towards twenty twelve, um, what do you where do you fit in your children? What do you do with them?
Lord Coe
Um, I do have to make you know, I recognize that that's the one thing that, you know, you can't you know, you don't compromise on. And you do have to build that in. And it has its tough moments and there are you know, when I we were bidding, I think I was probably only at home, I think probably forty three nights in about a year and a half. So
Lord Coe
I I always remember saying to my youngest girl, Alice, you know, Look, I'm really sorry, I can't and she was probably only about eight at the time, she said, It's all right, Dad, I know, we we want the games And they'd all tell you that it's probably the only job I've ever done that they genuinely understand what I do.
Lord Coe
Yeah.
Presenter
And you have a partner now, Carol. Is is life what's family life like? Is it is it chaotic or do you sit down and do diaries together?
Lord Coe
Is
Lord Coe
No, you you have to be very strategised. You have to be very ordered about this, and so I do tend to know what I'm doing for at least the next ten or twelve weekends and you know, I've already know what
Lord Coe
The summer holiday patterns look like. And there will be big Olympic moments as well, and we have to factor those in.
Presenter
Would the deafening silence of a desert island be quite welcome right now?
Lord Coe
I I'm actually quite good on my own. I'm sociable. I love.
Lord Coe
people around, but I and friends, but I'm actually quite capable of going off for a week on my own and and reading and walking, and I don't need to have people twenty four hours a day. So a period on a desert island would not panic me. And and of course for you know, there have been periods of weeks and weeks where I've just trained
Lord Coe
you know, in in in a in very solitary environments.
Presenter
Would you do that?
Lord Coe
Would you be running up the sand dunes and marking your time? Um, I'd probably try to keep in shape, but um no, I I I think I'd I w I would quite enjoy a period of of of quiet.
Presenter
Tell me about your final record then and why you've chosen.
Lord Coe
Well, my final one is my daughter loves singing. I probably witnessed the same passion in her for that as I brought to my track and field. And in her final year at prep school, she said she was going to sing. It was the school concert, and like most parents, sort of, you know, you have your heart in your mouth. And she started to sing. And I sort of slightly self-consciously looked as parents do, and what was the response. And there were grown men with tears rolling down their cheeks at this. And she does, she sings beautifully. And this was the song she sang. And it I will always remember, you know, and even letters I got from fathers afterwards saying it was, you know, for them it was a very emotional moment.
Speaker 3
How can nothing come standing strong?
Speaker 3
Yet feel the air beneath my feet
Speaker 3
How can happiness feel so wrong?
Speaker 3
It's a refeat.
Presenter
Yeah.
Presenter
Katie Melliwa and Closest Thing to Crazy and Memories There, Sebko, of your daughter singing that at the school concert and moving the other parents to tears. Um I'm going to give you a copy of The Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare now, and of course you can take a book to this island. What'll your book be?
Presenter
I haven't thought long enough.
Lord Coe
Hard about that. Uh
Presenter
This
Lord Coe
I'll take a book of jazz essays and critiques by Benny Green called Such Sweet Thunder and there's hardly a week goes by without me dipping into one of those.
Presenter
Okay, that's your book, and a luxury too.
Lord Coe
The luxury would be a piano and whatever passes for a sort of self help guide to the piano, because I fully intend in all this time I hope I have after twenty twelve to learn to play a musical instrument.
Presenter
Okay, that's serious. And I'm going to make you choose one of the eight of the disks to save. Which one would you save?
Lord Coe
Again, it's uh very, very difficult, but I guess for the jazz man I'm going to resist taking Lester Young. I probably take Katie Melliuer. I think the that will always remind me about you know, your your first your first born is always a little special.
Presenter
Sebastian Co. Lordco, thank you very much for letting us hear your desert island discs. Thank you.
Presenter
You've been listening to a download from the BBC. You'll find more information on the Radio Four website bbc.co.uk slash Radio Four.
Presenter asks
When your running records were broken, did it matter to you?
not really. I it's funny. I mean I'd had them for so long you'd almost forgotten about them. They got broken in roughly 1997, 1998. I'd I'd been retired eight years. And actually the guy that broke it Wilson Kip Keeter. I was very pleased that he did that because he was a proper 800 metre runner. He'd got real style and poise and I was really pleased it had gone to him and not some of the others that were around at the time.
Presenter asks
What sort of dad was your father when you were young?
Great. ... Classic dad, always working very hard but always had time, slightly quirky. Sundays were long walks which were great, but you know, after perhaps about sort of three hours where you know my younger brothers and sisters were being sort of dragged along, we were always surrounded by OS maps on a on a Sunday morning, planning you know, some walk through the Cotswolds or up in the Peak District.
Presenter asks
Did you ever want your father to lay off coaching you?
Oh no, I think I've always been fairly pragmatic about these things, that, you know, whatever he was doing seemed to be working. I remember getting it and my mother was absolutely mortified at the side of a cross country course in Sheffield, where I'd won a race at the age of fourteen by about a minute and a half. And a father whose son came in second or third completely lost it, ran across the course, grabbed him literally grabbed him, and was screaming at him, You're killing him, you're killing him ... but I knew that actually that whatever he was doing was working.
Presenter asks
Do you have any political ambitions to sit around the Cabinet table in a future Tory government?
No, I I I really don't. I don't have any political ambitions at all. Um, you know, the the next three years is absolutely focussed on delivering eight great games. ... And no, not after and even after that, no. I really want to go off and do some of the things that I haven't had a chance to do. I wanted to go away and do some serious writing and have the time to do that. And that I just don't want to combine that with politics. I sort of feel I've done that.
“the nature of everything I did in in track and field was judgment all the time, so it's it tends to be the world I lived in.”
“I don't scare at all. He said the last f forty years have been a bonus. And I suddenly realized, of course, you know, when you've been through that, we talk about experience. I don't think my generation can ever possibly understand. What it must have been like to have gone through all that as a nineteen year old”
“I'm actually quite good on my own. I'm sociable. I love. people around, but I and friends, but I'm actually quite capable of going off for a week on my own and and reading and walking, and I don't need to have people twenty four hours a day. So a period on a desert island would not panic me.”