Julia Cleverdon

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.

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

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My castaway this week is the campaigner Dame Julia Cleverdon. As head of the charity business in the community, she fine tuned to perfection the art of persuasion. A phone call from her and many of the big beasts of the business world the pinstripes she calls them

Presenter0:51

Stride from their boardrooms intent on giving something back to society, her energies and endeavours have powered countless corporate social responsibility programmes.

Presenter1:00

In a life dedicated to public service she has charmed not only chief executives, but apparently royalty too.

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His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales is a long time supporter and collaborator.

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She seems keenly aware that not everyone has her good fortune of a first class education and top door connections. When she's not harrying the blue chip brigade, she's inspiring young people from all sorts of backgrounds to follow her example and get involved in social action.

Presenter1:26

She says one of the most important leadership roles is to grow people. It's very much like gardening. You tend them and apply fertilizer, but sometimes you have to prune them to make them grow stronger. So uh welcome, Dame Julia Cleverdon. Um by reputation you are one of those people who uh appears to employ sort of three parts cajoling, one part bullying to get people to do things. Is that a description you recognise, do you think?

Julia Cleverdon1:50

I think persuasion is always about trying to inspire, encourage, enthuse people that things could be better, we could do it different. Occasionally there's a bit of quid pro quo there's a bit of um if you could do this, a, this would make a difference to

Julia Cleverdon2:08

Schools in tough times or kids in gone off the tracks. But it could also make a difference to the business that you're running, to the cause you're campaigning for, to the uh you're a junior minister, I'm sure you'd like a photograph of yourself in this particular situation. So I suppose that uh, yeah, there's an element of encouragement and uh

Julia Cleverdon2:29

I would think bullying's a bit strong. Charm. There's a lot of charm involved, I think. I

Julia Cleverdon2:34

Somebody did once call me a magenta steamroller. I am very, very clear about if we could do this, this would make the difference.

Presenter2:41

You came in today wearing a wonderful magenta coat. That is something I've watched uh you in documentaries and things. That's something of a signature, is it? You always tend to wear a nice bright colour.

Julia Cleverdon2:44

That is something

Julia Cleverdon2:49

Well, business and the communities, of which I was privileged to be the chief exec for seventeen marvellous years, our colours were magenta.

Presenter2:59

The areas of charity and social responsibility, those initiatives often suffer I I hope this rings a bell with you of being populated by some people who are sort of you know, they're there because they're

Presenter3:11

Well, not to put too fine a point on it, sort of self-aggrandising do-gooders. And what do you do about those people? Do you just bat them out the way?

Julia Cleverdon3:17

Yeah.

Presenter3:17

You couldn't

Julia Cleverdon3:18

You can tell pretty fast, actually, who's in it for aggrandisement and who's in it because they really want to use their considerable business skills to make a difference.

Presenter3:26

When you see people doing that, you know, they're for their own ends rather than to help the people they're supposed to be helping. Do you are they struck off your list? Are they turfed up?

Julia Cleverdon3:33

No, no, there's you know, I'm a great believer in repentance.

Presenter3:33

No, no, there's

Julia Cleverdon3:37

And there are examples, certainly, in the history of business community of companies who we've fought and fought and fought to get into membership. And I always say that I read the Times Death column on the basis that, you know, while there's death, there's hope, occasionally some maddening character leaves or pops her clogs, and then you can get in and change the influence of that company. So no, I never give up on anybody.

Presenter4:00

Let's go to the list, Dame Julia. Eight, as we know, eight tracks. Tell us about your first one then. Wha why have you chosen this?

Julia Cleverdon4:06

I was brought up in a marvellous happy

Julia Cleverdon4:10

family with tremendous parents. My father was in the BBC, he was a radio producer, and he was absolutely thrilled when I was born after my poor mum had had seven or eight miscarriages and I was finally born in 1950, live baby, and I was the absolute adored apple of the eye, I fear. And he took me when I was very young to the opera house to see great ballets and later to see Fontaine and Yuriev. And the piece I've begun to remind me of him and that incredible happy relationship we had is the Dance of the Nights from Romeo and Juliet.

Presenter5:53

The Dance of the Nights from Romeo and Juliet by Sergei Prokofieff, performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra there, conducted by Sir George Schulte. So, Dame Julia Cleverdon, you once said that not every one in business is driven by the mating call of the Porsche.

Presenter6:07

But I wonder how much of a danger do you think there is that that corporate social responsibility might seem to a lot of people

Presenter6:15

I want to borrow a phrase from Prince Charles, a sort of lipstick on the gorilla. You know, that actually all these huge businesses are doing are making themselves seem nice, but behind the scenes we all know what they're

Speaker 16:19

You know

Julia Cleverdon6:26

Well that's why the great thing in the last twenty years has been the transparency, which is now so clear. I mean I'm a ma as you imagine, I've spent forty years of my life in the business world. I believe in business. I believe in business creating the stuff, providing the goods and services, incomes and jobs, tax for them.

Julia Cleverdon6:46

compassion, all the rest of it. But I absolutely believe that business now is in a glass bowl. You know, at any moment, any business across the world can be caught behaving badly in child labor in Indonesia or disgraceful behaviour down a supply chain. And that's good for business. It puts much greater pressures on them, but it does mean that all of us have got to work.

Julia Cleverdon7:11

to ensure that we are responsible throughout our influence chain, our employment chain, what we're doing in the communities. And of course there are laggards. There are also some great leaders. And part of the challenge now is trying to get the leaders to really communicate and drive what needs to be done and to clean up the laggards.

Presenter7:26

Really?

Presenter7:31

You appear to be an inveterate networker. Does the mask ever slip? Do you ever get really blinking exhaust and say, Oh, not tonight, can't be bothered?

Julia Cleverdon7:34

Does the

Julia Cleverdon7:41

Well, no. My fingers itch every time I arrive in a I don't know any gathering as to who's doing what. Could I learn more about what's working? How could X be made to do Y?

Julia Cleverdon7:53

That poor school hasn't got a decent governor. That teach first and needs more support. So, yeah, I'm my daughters say I'm completely impossible, really. Can't have a conversation about anything other than

Julia Cleverdon8:06

How the world might be changed.

Presenter8:08

Second piece of music, Dame Julia Cleverton. Tell me about this. What are we going to hear now?

Julia Cleverdon8:12

Well, I had a very happy, marvellous childhood, house awash with books. My mum had fantastically good cook, lots of dinner parties and fun and treats, and it was fantastic. But every time I came back from school, my mum would be playing the piano, Bach or Beethoven, and so for me, she was the most marvellous role model, comforter, encourager. She was one of five little girls in the Vicarage at Aberdare, so great Welsh background, and she would be playing something like Feralise.

Presenter9:51

That was Alfred Brendel playing Beethoven's Bagatelle No. 25 in A minor, the Fuhrer Elise. So this house then, Dame Julia Cleverdon, you said awash with books and fun and treats. You were born into it in 1950, and it was a family that was steeped in the BBC. Your father, Douglas Cleverdon, was a radio producer there, and your mother worked as a secretary. Just tell me, I've got something of the flavour of them. I have to say, I think they sound wonderful. Tell me more about them.

Presenter10:17

Very

Julia Cleverdon10:17

hospitable couple. My father brought everybody back for lunch and dinner.

Presenter10:23

Prior to your safe and successful delivery, then, you mentioned earlier your mum had had she'd suffered seven miscarriages. Was there a sense in which then that you were

Julia Cleverdon10:30

So

Presenter10:33

I mean almost especially cherished because you'd been so longed for.

Julia Cleverdon10:37

I suppose that must have been true. I mean, when I think about it now, it must have been absolutely heartrending. She spent eight months in bed waiting to have me, and then three years later

Julia Cleverdon10:49

My younger brother Louis was born, then they lost another baby, and then

Julia Cleverdon10:54

Ten years younger than me, the

Julia Cleverdon10:56

Adored Francis was born.

Presenter10:58

And you I mean, you you chat away here, you know, you talk ten to the dozen. Were you a chatty little girl?

Julia Cleverdon11:02

Yes, I talked to such an extent that Lewis never found it necessary to say anything other than no until he was five. Is that true? Yeah, I answered every question.

Presenter11:09

Is that true?

Julia Cleverdon11:11

for him uh and uh it was not helpful

Presenter11:15

And you said your father worked round the corner and would bring people back after all the recordings. What t take me through a little guest list of whom who we might see coming through your front door.

Julia Cleverdon11:20

All is a horror.

Julia Cleverdon11:25

Oh, well, very frequently near suicidal poets, so Henry Reed and Darling David Jones, the great Welsh war poet, John Betcherman and Stevie Smith.

Presenter11:38

Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath, they they were visitors.

Julia Cleverdon11:40

Yeah, that is a switch.

Presenter11:40

Two.

Julia Cleverdon11:40

On the day that poor Sylvia died, the children

Julia Cleverdon11:45

Came to us because great friends of ours lived round the corner and knew them very well, and we all went to the zoo.

Julia Cleverdon11:51

And my father was devoted to Ted, absolutely believed in him to the very end. And he had to support poets to write, actors to act, endlessly paying Lawrence of Arabia by motorbike and paying Dylan Thomas by numbers of lines and locking him in the BBC Library and all of that sort of stuff. What did you say, locking Dylan Thomas in what? Well, my father was trying to get Dylan Thomas to finish writing under Milkwood. And he decided the only thing to do was to lock him in the BBC Library overnight, pay him by the line and give him an enamel bucket for obvious use. And several nights running this worked. Papa, who'd always fought a tremendous battle with the bureaucrats, slightly like I always have actually, was outraged to get a letter from somebody in the Beeb saying, By what right had he locked this man in the library? He said in the cause of art.

Presenter12:50

Very little changes, you'll be glad to hear. Right, tell me on that note, then, tell me about this third disc. Pretty obvious why you've chosen it.

Julia Cleverdon12:57

This is Richard Burton in my father's nineteen sixty three production of Undermont Wood, and uh to my immense pleasure papa allowed me to play a very, very small bit part, so I sat in the studio listening to

Julia Cleverdon13:17

Richard Burton and that incredible Welsh cast.

Presenter13:19

Uh

Julia Cleverdon13:20

What was your part?

Julia Cleverdon13:21

I said Captain Cat is crying, he's crying all over his nose. Oh, that's very good.

Speaker 113:28

To begin

Speaker 113:30

At the beginning.

Speaker 113:33

It is spring, moonless night in the small town, starless and Bible black.

Speaker 113:39

The cobbled streets silent and the hunched courtesan rabbits' wood limping invisible down to the slow black

Speaker 113:45

Slow, black, crow, black.

Speaker 113:48

Fishing boat bobbing sea

Speaker 113:52

The houses are blind as moles, though moles see fine to night in the snouting velvet dingles, or blind as Captain Cat, there in the muffled middle by the pump and the town clock, the shops in mourning, the welfare hall in widows' weeds, and all the people of the lulled and dumbfound town.

Speaker 114:13

are sleeping now.

Presenter14:16

Part of To Begin at the Beginning from the BBC radio recording of Under Milkwood by Dylan Thomas, and we heard there, of course, Richard Burton as narrator. You started at the Camden School for Girls when you were ten, I think. The motto there, I think it might still be, is Onwards and Upwards. Clearly, you took that to heart. What are your strongest memories from your time at school?

Julia Cleverdon14:36

Well, I suppose the bus conductors used to shout at Camden, Onwards and Upwards, Camden girls, don't want you on the bottom deck.

Julia Cleverdon14:43

So, I mean, Camden was an absolutely inspirational school. Brilliant head teacher, Miss Birchall, the most fantastic.

Julia Cleverdon14:53

particularly in my later years, great history and English teachers. It was an inspirational place, and it absolutely drove into me both a belief that you've got to use your talents and do what you could to make the world a better place, but also the immense importance of teachers.

Presenter15:09

You went up to uh Cambridge to Newnham College to study history. It was the sixties. I I find very often now when I ask castaways about university life during the sixties they all seem to have been wearing buttoned up cardigans and doing their studies. I know you weren't. Did you have a bit of fun?

Presenter15:25

Snow

Julia Cleverdon15:26

Oh, Cambridge was absolutely amazing for me. Julia Neuberger and I, she was the secretary of Newnham College, Cambridge, JCR, and I was the President, and we had the funniest time and fought all sorts of practical campaigns about, you know, could we have compulsory bicycle classes for freshers and couldn't we have a launderette in Newnham? I mean, I was always on the practical stuff. Some of the rest of them were, you know, passing resolutions of world peace. I was always slightly concerned as to what actually could do within our own hands.

Presenter15:50

And I

Presenter15:57

Let's have your next piece then. We are on your fourth. Tell me about this.

Julia Cleverdon16:01

This is Lara's theme from Dr. Javago. It takes me straight back to life at Camden with all my girlfriends. We all wore black velvet coats as a result of Lara and we were passionate about the Russian Revolution as a result of Miss MacDonald and her teaching. So it's a hymn to teachers really.

Presenter16:55

That was Lara's theme from the soundtrack to Doctor Giovago, composed by Maurice Jarre and performed there by the City of Prague Philharmonic, conducted by Paul Bateman. So, Dame Julia Cleverton, it was nineteen seventy two and there came a meeting that was well, frankly, it was going to change your life. Tell me about the first time you met John Garners. He was then director of the Industrial Society.

Julia Cleverdon17:16

Dear, uh I was sent by my tutor to see a man that she knew who she'd worked with in ICI, because she said if I didn't make up my mind by Friday as to which job I was going to take, I'd applied to the s hospitals and the prisons, and I couldn't decide which to go for.

Julia Cleverdon17:37

And he said, My dear girl, very patronizing, I don't know what you think you're doing dealing with the blind, the sick, the hawk, the lame, and the criminal at the age of twenty two. You're not nearly old enough. And actually, the challenge is if we don't create the stuff in industry, you can't spend it anywhere else. You should be in industry.

Julia Cleverdon17:52

I then went to British Leyland, sent by him, sent to South Africa, Anglo-American mining.

Julia Cleverdon18:00

and then came on through the Industrial Society.

Presenter18:03

Let's just talk for a minute, then, about this young, wide eyed, idealistic girl ending up on the shop floor of British Leyland in Swindon in the early nineteen seventies. I mean, you were you were a junior industrial relations officer.

Presenter18:16

working predominantly with the night shift.

Presenter18:19

I mean, talk about a breeding ground for the unreconstructed British male. How did they treat you? What did you come up against?

Julia Cleverdon18:27

They were the shop floor were marvellous. They liked the fact that I was really interested as, you know, what were we doing on the quality stuff? Had anybody told anyone did the supervisors know more than the shop stewards? N never, actually, the shop stewards always knew more than the supervisors. I remember the dreadful factory director, after I made a point at a meeting, saying, Ooh, any more bright ideas, girlie?

Julia Cleverdon18:52

I learned a hell of a lot about actually what happens that most decisions taken at the top never happen at the bottom.

Julia Cleverdon18:59

But nothing is more important than team leaders. I learnt some absolutely basic things for the rest of my life.

Presenter19:04

And you went on, as you mentioned, to the second to South Africa to

Julia Cleverdon19:08

What were you doing there? Oh

Presenter19:09

Okay.

Julia Cleverdon19:09

That was unbelievable. That was a real example of a highly impressive responsible business, Anglo-American Mining, who decided that the only way for the future for South Africa was in fact to build a black trade union movement and that that in the end would get rid of apartheid, and they hoped in the short end. And I went as part of the Industrial Society's team to train young black team leaders to be shop stewards. One just understood both man's inhumanity to man and the absolutely crucial role that representatives could play in trying to change what happened.

Presenter19:47

You have had great, substantial, important successes, but but with all your ideas and idealism, what do you think has been your biggest failure? What have you wa walked away from and thought, Nope, that's it. I'm I'm going to have to admit defeat there with that idea?

Julia Cleverdon20:04

when I think that we started the Race for Opportunity campaign at Business and the Community in nineteen ninety four, which really went back to my time in South Africa, to my understanding of the immense talent

Julia Cleverdon20:19

Diverse communities, innovation comes from diversity, not from white male public schoolboys. And the race campaign has taken much it was A, very difficult to start. I couldn't find any business leaders who really thought it was an issue in the mid nineties. The CBI wouldn't look at it much better now. But actually that's taken

Julia Cleverdon20:44

much longer to change than it should have done.

Presenter20:47

Let's have your next piece. We're on your fifth.

Julia Cleverdon20:50

To some extent, saying that one of my pieces that I would have to have on this island is I will survive.

Julia Cleverdon20:56

Is because of the tough moments when I mean whether there's getting it frightfully wrong on the first marriage where I shouldn't have married the man, I adored the family, fell for the family, still love the family, but actually it was not right. Do not get married in the first five years after university. I spent my life in girls' schools prize-giving saying you change so much in the working world. You must try to pause a bit until you actually tie the knot. So I will survive would just help me at tough times when, I don't know, the mosquitoes are biting or whatever.

Speaker 421:32

Hello, walk out the door. Just turn around now. Cause you're not welcome anymore.

Speaker 421:41

Weren't you the one who tried to hurt me with the vibe? You think I crumbled? You think I lay down and died? Oh no, not I, I will survive.

Speaker 421:52

Oh, as long as I know how to love, I know I feel alive. I've got all my life to live, and I've got all my love to give. And I'll survive, I will survive.

Presenter22:04

I will survive, Gloria Gaynor. How did you pick yourself up and dust yourself off after that short marriage and painful divorce?

Julia Cleverdon22:11

Well, I suppose I threw myself into work, uh, which is always my default mechanism, as my darling daughters say.

Julia Cleverdon22:19

I then fell for the boss, uh not by and large, something to advise career women to do, but it

Julia Cleverdon22:27

He and I just absolutely found a meeting of campaigning minds caused a lot of

Julia Cleverdon22:33

Misery to many

Presenter22:33

people the boss of course um being John Garners who we mentioned earlier, the man who advised you to go in to industry. You are you're a very pragmatic person, you're a very practical person, I would say you seem to me to be a a realist among all other things.

Presenter22:49

When you fell for the boss, every other sort of reasoned part of your brain must have been screaming out to you, Well, this seems a very silly thing to do, Julia.

Julia Cleverdon23:00

But you see, I think love overcomes all, and I just of course it was a very

Julia Cleverdon23:06

Well, it was a very inconvenient thing to do.

Presenter23:08

Uh

Julia Cleverdon23:09

Because he was married with children.

Presenter23:09

Still be

Julia Cleverdon23:13

had played an enormously important part in the development of the Industrial Society. Those were torrid times in the in the eighties. He was forever being called to do inquiry into the minor strike or whatever it was. And so it was not great for his career, and it certainly was quite a challenge as to what to do. But eighty two charity was born, eighty five Victoria was born.

Julia Cleverdon23:38

And

Julia Cleverdon23:39

He was my absolute

Julia Cleverdon23:42

Heart and soul.

Presenter23:43

After all the years of of you know

Presenter23:46

the inconvenience and the turmoil and and the secrecy and all the the mess that it was, to have this open family life where things were resolved must have come as something of a relief. You must have felt bathed in a golden glow by that time.

Julia Cleverdon24:00

Well, I don't think it was a golden glow for some others, but it was a very fulfilling and happy twenty years together.

Presenter24:07

Tell me about your next piece, then.

Julia Cleverdon24:08

We're on your sixth. I remember doing great performances in this lovely house he'd built in the Isle of Wight for us with the girls and cousins and lots of friends. And John, I remember for Les Meserables, built the most amazing barricade of every broken down bedstead across the whole of Wight was dragged into the garden. And in a way, Do You Hear the People Sing is all about how you actually listen to what's happening in society, whether on the front line in

Julia Cleverdon24:38

Burnley or Tottenham or Croydon, or whether on the front line in in companies, what are they doing and how are they doing it. So do you hear the people sing for me as a campaigning song?

Speaker 424:50

Sing a song of Andrew.

Speaker 424:55

None of the people who will not be slaves again.

Speaker 425:00

The beating of the house is the beating of the crowd.

Speaker 425:05

There is a life about to start underwater.

Presenter25:11

Do you hear the people sing from the Miserable performed there by the original London cast? Dame Julia Cleverdon, the President of Business in the Community is His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales. You're now in the role of Vice President. You, as I understand it, you work very closely together. How did you get on?

Julia Cleverdon25:30

Uh

Julia Cleverdon25:31

Well, I think the Prince of Wales is, uh, for me, one of the most inspirational leaders of

Julia Cleverdon25:38

Society has been a tremendous advocate for change, for engagement by the business world.

Julia Cleverdon25:47

He's a very practical campaigner.

Presenter25:50

And what about those people who say and say loudly that he should just keep his head down and get on with preparing to be king, rather than trying to influence policy, trying to

Presenter26:01

Potentially influence politicians. That that's not his business. He should keep his nose out.

Julia Cleverdon26:05

Generally, actually, he is very, very clear, in my experience, about what his role must be and about what corporates could do, charities could do, others could do. He's walked a a difficult but careful line on all of that. The world would be a worse place if it wasn't for the Prince of Wales's engagement in these issues.

Presenter26:26

He strikes me as somebody who's got a pretty wry sense of humour. Do you have a good laugh together? Oh, roar with laughter. You can

Presenter26:33

You had a run-in with um Sir Philip Greene, who's of course um chairman of the Arcadia Group.

Presenter26:39

What happened? Happened.

Julia Cleverdon26:41

Business community had always run a tremendous awards programme, and in that particular year, Marks and Spencer's were the Company of the Year, and a jolly journalist rang me up when I was rather tired one night.

Julia Cleverdon26:55

and failing to engage brain before opening mouth, which is one of my problems, I said that I thought that the existing leadership of Marks and Spencer's was outstanding, and I wasn't quite sure that a change would be a great idea.

Presenter27:09

And this was at a time when Sir Philip Greene and the Arcadia Group was making a bid to take over Marks and Spencer's.

Julia Cleverdon27:14

And I I'm sure I shouldn't have expressed myself in the way in which I did, so I apologised.

Presenter27:21

And you mix with royalty, with with politicians, with the very wealthy. I think you call them the chandelier lot, which is a great phrase.

Presenter27:28

It's a long way from the shop floor at British Leyland. I wonder where you feel most at home.

Julia Cleverdon27:33

I think for me I always am most interested and most energized when I'm in the in the space between the connected world who know everybody, who got address books to die for, who can convene business leaders and ministers and governments and all the rest of it. That world and the front line, which is actually where

Julia Cleverdon27:55

Most support and most concern is needed.

Presenter27:58

Yeah.

Julia Cleverdon27:58

Yeah. Go to your next track.

Presenter27:59

It's your

Julia Cleverdon28:00

Your seventh. Tell me about this, Julia Cleverton.

Julia Cleverdon28:04

Beautiful, peaceful, inspiring piece of work.

Julia Cleverdon28:08

I would listen to this forever, have it on whenever I'm in a state or too many speeches to write or things I haven't done. And it's Spanish Angelicus by Kirita Canara.

Speaker 428:27

It one is on you.

Speaker 428:47

Lord rest with my peace.

Speaker 429:03

Oh man, summer is in the world.

Speaker 429:19

Sweet of the war.

Presenter29:24

Panus Angelicus, sung by Kiriti Kanawa. Um So, Dame Julia Cleverdon, as we know, you had a a very happy, harmonious, dynamic marriage for twenty years, and then it ended very sadly and very suddenly when your husband John uh died in nineteen ninety seven.

Presenter29:43

One can never, I would think, be prepared.

Presenter29:47

for the sudden death of a partner, of a spouse. But given that your husband was was a good deal older than you, how many years older?

Presenter29:55

He was thirty years older than me. Had you thought about it, had you thought that the day will at some point inevitably come when here I will be with our daughters and he will no longer be there?

Julia Cleverdon30:07

People often say to me, You must have thought of this, Julia.

Julia Cleverdon30:10

Actually it was such a nirvana and so happy I don't think I ever really had. And I thought if if it did happen

Julia Cleverdon30:19

I'd survive.

Presenter30:20

Well, of c and of course you have. All of us handle grief uniquely, and there is no prescription for how we deal with it. But did you find that work absorbed you and was something of a solace and was a constant w when you were working your way through the grief?

Julia Cleverdon30:36

Yes, I did. I mean, I think house in the Isle of Wight, peaceful times. I remember going off after he died. I went for two walks by myself in Italy, stumbling about on, you know, vaguely gazing at a ridiculous little plan which said turn left at the Ilex tree. I had no idea what an Ilex tree was, but I just walked and wept for about a fortnight by myself.

Julia Cleverdon31:02

And that did help.

Julia Cleverdon31:06

But yes, work has always been for me the absolute

Julia Cleverdon31:10

Solice and Passion of Life.

Julia Cleverdon31:13

So now I am looking at how to manage life. I've just taken on chairing the National Literacy Trust.

Julia Cleverdon31:20

A great new campaign called Read On, Get On. How do we get all young people to read?

Julia Cleverdon31:26

So there's always a campaign, but I think towards coming up to my sixty fifth year I do pace it uh better than I did.

Presenter31:38

Bro.

Julia Cleverdon31:38

Uh

Presenter31:38

'Cause I thought, how am I delicately going to approach the subject?

Julia Cleverdon31:40

The second

Presenter31:42

I'm not delicate at all. So 65 isn't old by any stretch of the imagination these days, but it might be a time when.

Julia Cleverdon31:43

Yeah.

Speaker 131:47

Uh

Speaker 431:47

Listen to me.

Speaker 131:47

is

Presenter31:49

Many people would think I'm going to move into a different gear. I'm going to change my life. There are things that I want to do that will not happen in the boardroom or the office or at the meeting table.

Julia Cleverdon32:00

I do now see that I will always campaign.

Julia Cleverdon32:04

Till my dying breath I will be trying to think what we could do to

Julia Cleverdon32:08

Tackle something that we haven't managed to get right. But I think there is a bit more.

Julia Cleverdon32:13

Peace and fun and um

Julia Cleverdon32:16

Relaxation in life too. Will a desert island be some

Presenter32:19

sort of hell for you.

Julia Cleverdon32:22

Uh yes.

Presenter32:24

No networking, nothing, yes.

Julia Cleverdon32:25

No nothing, nobody to talk to, no gossip.

Julia Cleverdon32:29

Yeah, my fingers would be itching to get on with the next thing.

Presenter32:34

Tell me about your final piece to day, then, Dame Julia Cleverton. What are we going to hear?

Julia Cleverdon32:38

Well, this, I suppose, takes me back to my Welsh roots. I'm a great believer in the importance of roots and understanding where one's come from. Uh my faith is very important.

Julia Cleverdon32:49

And the influence of the Welsh history. My grandfather was a wheelwright and my grandmother was Mam Guy in charge of the woollen mill in Talibant. So Wales is important. So this would be Guide Me, O Thy Great Redeemer. My darling husband always said this is the great team briefing hymn. But actually Guide Me, O Thy Great Redeemer is a great solace and a strength and a shield for me.

Speaker 433:35

Oh he

Presenter33:41

Cumronda, guide me, O thy great Redeemer, sung by the Dunvant male choir with the band of the Welsh Guards.

Presenter33:47

So, Juliet, it is nearly time to cast you away. I'm sorry about that. I'm going to give you the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare. What else are you going to take to the island?

Julia Cleverdon33:55

I think I'm going to take all the novels that Nancy Mitford ever wrote. There is a collected volume. Yeah.

Presenter34:02

Uh

Julia Cleverdon34:02

Collective Yeah. Yeah. And and a luxury your Load something to make light With a little more bail. If I could have a two thousand piece jigsaw of Venice and the table to make it on I love jigsaws, we always do them on holiday, it would take me back to family fights about who's lost the piece and uh it would remind me of the most beautiful romantic place in the world.

Presenter34:26

Ah, it's yours then. And finally, at which track would you save above all others? Oh, Panus Angelicus.

Presenter34:33

Right, it's yours, Dame Julia Covered, and thank you very much for letting us hear your desert island discs. Thank you, it's been such fun.

Presenter35:20

You've been listening to a download from the BBC.

Presenter35:23

You'll find more information on the Radio 4 website bbc.co.uk slash Radio4.