Lord Alf Dubs

Presenter0:01

BBC Sounds Music Radio Podcasts. Hello, I'm Lauren Laverne and this is the Desert Island Discs podcast from BBC Radio 4. Every week I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book and luxury, that they'd want to take with them if they were cast away to a desert island. For rights reasons, the music's shorter than on the original broadcast, but you can find a version with longer music tracks on BBC Sounds. Listeners will also get access to episodes 28 days earlier than everyone else. I hope you enjoy listening.

Presenter0:50

My castaway this week is the Labour peer and campaigner Lord Alfred Dubbs. He came to Britain at the age of six, in nineteen thirty nine, a child refugee who arrived on one of the eight kinder transport trains organized by Sir Nicholas Winton that rescued mostly Jewish children from Nazi occupied Czechoslovakia.

Presenter1:09

As he grew up he became fascinated by politics, wondering whether the systems which had upended his life could be used for good instead. He spent his life trying to find out.

Presenter1:20

He's campaigned on everything from road safety to the probation service, but the cause that's been closest to his heart is the plight of refugees who come here to build new lives like he did. In 2016, he tabled what became known as the Dubbs Amendment, which allowed hundreds of unaccompanied child refugees to come to safety in Britain. Perhaps most remarkably, he's united our often divided Parliament in affectionate respect for him and his approach to political life. He says, people can put up with shocking and difficult physical conditions if they have hope for something better. It's our job as politicians to give those fleeing war and persecution a little hope.

Presenter2:00

Lord Alfred Dobes Welcome to Desert Island Discs.

Lord Alf Dubs2:03

Oh, hello. Happy to be here.

Presenter2:05

So, Alf, you have been in the House of Lords since nineteen ninety four, and in your maiden speech you said that you were hoping to get rid of some of the bad habits that you'd picked up in the Commons. What were they exactly?

Lord Alf Dubs2:17

Well, there's a different mood in the in the Lords. It it's a bit gentler, still very political. But, you know, I was I was trying to, I think, ingratiate myself with it with it with a new environment. They always look a bit suspiciously at at at people who've been in the commons.

Presenter2:26

Yeah.

Presenter2:31

Newbies coming in.

Lord Alf Dubs2:32

Yeah, and people who think they know it all. And I I just wanted to come at it humbly, knowing that I had a lot to learn, even f even though I knew about legislation. I didn't want to go in implying I knew it all.

Presenter2:43

You are a man with very strong convictions. Do you enjoy sparring with people who have opposing views?

Lord Alf Dubs2:50

I like winning arguments. If the cause is important, then it matters to me th th th that I should persuade them, or sometimes persuade the the wider public, because in politics it's no good saying I believe this if one can't persuade people.

Speaker 23:00

Uh

Presenter3:00

Yeah.

Presenter3:05

I know that one of the things that you do like about being in the upper chamber is that you generally know what time you're going to be called to speak, unlike the debates in the House of Commons, which can go on all night. And I think there was one debate, one all-nighter, that taught you an important lesson in your early days. Do you remember what that was?

Lord Alf Dubs3:23

I remember when I was first elected to the commons.

Lord Alf Dubs3:26

I'd been in a meeting in Battersea in my constituency and I got back the Commons and I walked to the members' entrance. I was a new MP, you know, full of being a new MP. And I got in. I went in very pompously. I said, the policewoman at the door said, good evening, sir. And I said, good evening. I'm hoping to speak tonight. And she said, yes, sir. Will it make any difference?

Lord Alf Dubs3:49

And I I picked myself off the floor and made my speech and as I drove home at six in the morning I realized it made not the slightest difference and I thought the public must think we were just daft.

Presenter3:59

Lord Hennessy talks about the House of Lords as Hogwarts, and it's easy to see why. I mean, does that sense of grandeur and atmosphere still touch you as you walk in every time that you enter the chamber?

Lord Alf Dubs4:10

Well, I have two different thoughts going through my mind. One is, what a privilege to be there in this fantastic building, whether I was in the Commons or the Lords. What a privilege to be there, and isn't it a fantastic place, and aren't I lucky? And my second one is, I hope I can use this sensibly as an opportunity to change things. Because if I'm not doing that, what's the point of enjoying the building as an end in itself? That's not what I'm there for. One is there to change things.

Speaker 24:29

Uh

Presenter4:29

Yeah.

Speaker 24:29

Uh

Presenter4:37

Letty, your first disc. What have you gone for?

Lord Alf Dubs4:40

Well, I've gone for It's Easy to Remember by John Coltrane. I heard John Coltrane first many, many years ago, and it it always makes me twinge in a happy way to hear that.

Lord Alf Dubs5:26

Uh

Presenter5:26

Uh

Lord Alf Dubs5:26

Uh

Presenter5:54

It's easy to remember. Take four. The John Coltrane Quartet. Lord Alf Tubbs, you were born in Prague in nineteen thirty two. You're an only child and your father, Hubert, was Jewish. Tell me a bit about him. Where was he from and what did he do?

Lord Alf Dubs6:09

Well, his family came from nor northern Czechoslovakia. But of course, when he was born and my and my mum was born, it was all one country, w it was Austro-Hungary. Anyway, he worked in textiles. He was away quite a lot, because he was in a small business with his cousin. And uh how conscious was I of him? Not as much as perhaps I would like to have been. Somehow there's a confusion in my mind as to what happened, and then he disappeared for a long time, came back and then disappeared again because he was worried about the the Germans coming to occupy Prague. So I suppose I have a rather odd set of memories about him.

Presenter6:44

Well, that makes sense. I mean, you were very little and also he he died very sadly when when you were just seven. What memories do you have of him as a personality? Do you have moments of connection and feeling close to him?

Lord Alf Dubs6:57

Up to a point, yes. Look, he'd fought in the Austrian army. He actually fought, and it's one of the things he did tell me, in 1914 he fought against the British. And he was there the day that they stopped fighting and celebrated Christmas, swapped cigars with a British officer, and they stopped fighting. He was then sent to Italy and through my childhood.

Lord Alf Dubs7:18

He hated war.

Lord Alf Dubs7:20

I mean he got medals, he'd been gassed and all that, but he hated war. And he never let me play with guns or tanks or anything like that. I could have tractors. I couldn't have anything at all to do with war. Only when the war had started he bought me a box of tin soldiers and I think that was a sign of real despair on his part that the world was going back to the horrible, horrible killing and fighting. It was when I thought about it as I became a bit older, I realized that it was an act of despair and there was something very significant about it. But at the time, I suppose I was just like a six-year-old, I've been given a little present.

Speaker 27:52

Uh

Presenter7:52

Hello.

Presenter7:59

Let me ask you about your mother. So she was Frieda, known as Bedrischke, and she was Austrian. What was life like for her before the war? What did she she do in Japan?

Lord Alf Dubs8:08

Well, she she was a sort of a a dietitian, I think, a nurse, uh a nurse dietitian or something like that. But I think she met my father when he was he was overweight and he was somewhere having having a practice in losing weight or something.

Presenter8:21

So she was taking him.

Lord Alf Dubs8:21

Ta-da!

Lord Alf Dubs8:22

I think that's where they met. But I you know, you know, the the real problem is that one should ask one's parents lots of questions because once they've gone one can't do it. And and I wished I asked my father a thousand questions I didn't ask him. And I wish I'd asked my mother lots of questions. I asked a few, but not enough.

Presenter8:38

But

Presenter8:40

And and what memories do you have of Prague? You left when you were six. Can you remember your early life there?

Lord Alf Dubs8:45

I was just playing with children. I went to school. It was all fairly comfortable. I don't think we were over well off, but we were not desperately poor. I remember we went skating in the winter. They turned the hosepipes onto tennis courts and became ice rinks. So you could skate there and things like that. And of course, my father's cousins, or affected by my uncle and aunt, my father was in business with him, and they were important. We saw quite a lot of them, and some other friends as well. Sadly, almost all of them ended up in the camps. I remember, well, I remember when the Germans occupied Prague in March 1939, we had to tear a picture of the Czech president out of my school book, President Benesch, and stick in a picture of Hitler. I remember that. My mum went out and bought a well, she said with pride, she or I heard her say with pride, she'd bought the cheapest, gaudiest picture postcard she could get. And other kids in the school, their parents got them expensive portraits of Hitler, and she just got that cheap coloured one. But I didn't understand the significance of that.

Speaker 29:02

Fah.

Presenter9:48

And were you aware of the atmosphere in the city itself? Did you pick up on that?

Lord Alf Dubs9:53

Well, insofar as at that age I could understand it, I remember my father saying once, I must never repeat at school anything I hear at home. And I just couldn't handle that. I didn't understand what that meant. But then came the day just he just disappeared. And that was when the Germans came into Prague, and he disappeared. And looking back, I suppose there was a tension in the air. My mother must have been quite distraught. It's difficult to know what was going through my mind. I can remember events much more than I can remember emotions.

Presenter10:22

Let's have some more music. It's your second choice today. What have you chosen and why?

Lord Alf Dubs10:28

The second choice is from the Czech national composer Smetana. It's a piece called Molda in German or Voltawa in Czech. It's a symphonic poem and it is a sort of Czech national music. It exudes the sense of being Czech Bohemia and one can hear the streams coming down from the mountains and so on. It's traditionally something that people from Czechoslovakia would all say, this is my bit of music and it is my bit of music.

Presenter11:59

The Moldau from Marvlast by Smetena, performed by the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Jeji Bajelo Klavec.

Presenter12:07

Alf Dubs, the Nazis occupied Prague in the spring of nineteen thirty nine, and as you mentioned, your father immediately left for the UK. How did he know what was going on and and the threat that he was under?

Lord Alf Dubs12:20

Well, it's one of the things I wish I'd I wish he'd lived long enough for me to ask him. I can only put a few things together. When the Germans occupied Austria the year before

Presenter12:24

Mm-hmm.

Lord Alf Dubs12:30

My mother went to Vienna to see some friends, I think because my father had said that go and find out what's going on in Austria. These friends drove her by car to the suburbs of Vienna, kept the car engine running, and then told her what was going on. And in those days, surveillance methods were not that hot. But even so, they're obviously frightened of being overheard by the Gestapo. And she came back and she told my father what was going on. And after all, Prague is not many miles away from Germany anyway. So I think he was aware of the threat. So he said to his cousins, or my effectively my uncle and aunt, that if the Nazis come, he's leaving.

Lord Alf Dubs13:08

And they said they'll take their chance and tragically in 1942 the Gestapo came for them.

Presenter13:14

And do you know what happened to them after that? So they taken to camp?

Lord Alf Dubs13:16

One one had a cyanide pill and the other died in Auschwitz.

Presenter13:21

And and so what about your mother? Obviously, she was the one who had explained to your father what was actually happening. What attempts did she make to leave?

Lord Alf Dubs13:29

She went to whatever it was, some Gestapo office or whatever, to get permission to leave, and they refused her permission. She did tell me they threw her down the stairs and said, exit permit refused. And they threw her passport after her. And she'd landed in a heap at the bottom, and the first thing she noticed was the passport was still there, rather than was anything broken, or how damaged she was. That gave her hope, because with a passport, one still had some hope.

Presenter13:53

So that would get her out.

Lord Alf Dubs13:53

That would get her out. She put me on a kinder transport and then eventually she did manage to get out at the last minute. How she did it, I don't know, but she arrived in London.

Presenter14:03

So so tell me about getting on that train then, June 1939. Can you remember what she told you about the journey that you were about to take?

Lord Alf Dubs14:10

She said, I'd be going on a train and the train would take me eventually take me to England, to London, where my father would meet me. She came to the station and I could still in my mind's eye see her standing there with other anxious parents saying goodbye to their children. There was, I know, perhaps 150, 200 children on that train. And I was one of the youngest, if not the youngest, and we were saying goodbye to our parents. In my mind's eye, I can still see a German soldier with swatsker armbands and so on. Yes, there were. And of course, on the train journey as well, German soldiers would occasionally look in the compartment.

Presenter14:41

Obviously you were look you were pleased that you were going to see your father, but it must have been frightening.

Lord Alf Dubs14:47

Sure, I was frightened. I think I was bewildered, bewildered and confused, and didn't really know what was going on. I had no friends on the train. I just sat there, uh, hard wooden seats and so on. But, you know, as a six year old, that's not that's not important.

Presenter14:59

Do you remember much about the journey? It was two days, I think.

Lord Alf Dubs15:02

All I know is we got to the Dutch border and the older ones cheered. And I learnt that they cheered because we were out of reach of the Nazis, whereas I was looking for windmills and wooden shoes because that's all I I knew about Holland and it was dark so I couldn't see any of that. So we just trained went to the hook of Holland, we got on a boat, I was put in a bunk, there's an older boy in in in in in the bunk above and we went uh we arrived in in Harich the following morning, we were medically examined and then the train to Liverpool Street.

Speaker 215:17

So

Presenter15:32

Two days, what were you eating, drinking?

Lord Alf Dubs15:34

Well, this is a odd thing, that m I got to London. My father looked in my little backpack and said, but you got my mother had put some Czech sausages, sandwiches and things in there for me to eat, and I hadn't touched them. I was probably more bewildered, confused and traumatised than I was aware of for a long time afterwards. More recently I thought, well, it must have been like that.

Presenter15:53

Maurice

Presenter15:56

And has that train journey gone on to affect you in later life in any way?

Lord Alf Dubs16:02

Well, all my life.

Lord Alf Dubs16:04

I love being met when I've arrived after a journey and I don't like being seen off. And maybe that goes back to this whole journey. I d don't like being seen off.

Presenter16:14

Let's have some more music. Disc number three, What's Next and Why Are You Taking It To The Island?

Lord Alf Dubs16:19

Well, it's The Beatles and I was totally captivated when The Beatles came out, Sgt. Pepper and all that. And I had a job choosing which piece of The Beatles I wanted. But I thought, she's leaving home. It summarised a lot of things. It summarised my journeys and it summarised perhaps my mother's journey eventually. So it was sort of symbolic of what happened to me at the time.

Speaker 216:40

She we gave her most of our lives is leaving sad

Speaker 316:47

Sacrifice most of our lives

Speaker 316:53

We gave her everything money could buy

Speaker 216:57

Leaving home after living alone for so many years

Speaker 217:06

Father snores as his wife

Presenter17:09

The Beatles and she's leaving home. So, Alf, you arrived at Liverpool Street station in London two days after your mum put you on that train in 1939 and your dad was waiting for you on the platform. Do you remember how it felt to see him again? Do you remember what happened?

Lord Alf Dubs17:28

Well, he came up. I was le leaning out of the carriage window and he came up to give me a kiss and the policeman pushed him away and said, You can't do that until we've been we had dog tags on, until we've been checked off.

Presenter17:39

Your father was keen for you to learn English, so in those first few weeks he enrolled you in a boarding school for refugee children in South London. What did you make of it?

Lord Alf Dubs17:48

I used to go there on my bus and he'd take me there. I'd spend the Monday to Friday and then come back and spend the weekends with him. Then when I went to an ordinary primary school, I think they thought I was a bit odd. They didn't quite know how to place me. I remember then when the bombing came and they shouted at me that I was an evacuee. And I shouted back, I'm not an evacuee, I'm a refugee. But survival demands one learns English very quickly, because you can't survive in the playground without speaking the language. Survival means get on with it and learn the language.

Presenter18:12

Yeah.

Presenter18:18

Your mother was able to join you and your father in the nick of time, the day before the war broke out, and then later that year, you all moved to Cookstown in Northern Ireland. That was where your dad had found work in a textile factory. How did you all settle in?

Lord Alf Dubs18:32

I think it must have been very difficult for my parents because, you know, people hadn't met Central Europeans before very much.

Presenter18:39

Do you remember your your dad being conscious of that? I mean, particularly as he had been under threat and had to leave Czechoslovakia?

Lord Alf Dubs18:47

Well, he was regarded as a friendly alien because he came from a country that was pro-British, as it were, or pro-the West. However, there was one incident. He took me to a cinema in this little town. And being a foreigner, he had a coffee imposed on him. He had to be indoors by 10 at night. And I was in cinema.

Lord Alf Dubs19:07

as a policeman said all. So my father said the policeman, and my son's still, my little boy's still there, but he he'll be okay, he'll follow me when the s fil film ends. So my father went off to get home by ten, and the film ended and then I toddled off home. It's a weird it's a weird experience, so there we are.

Presenter19:22

Alf, you hadn't been in Cookstown long a year, I think, when your dad died suddenly of a heart attack.

Presenter19:29

That must have been another hugely traumatic shock to go through. What do you remember about that time?

Lord Alf Dubs19:34

Thinking back, I found it very difficult. I was quite shocked, yes. I mean there were people who were friendly and I think we stayed with another family for a few days. People were friendly, but that left my mum in a terrible situation because there she was in a strange country, no income, no husband, not knowing quite what to do with her life. She then tried to get a job, but this was a small town in Northern Ireland and it's quite difficult finding someone to work, so we went to Manchester. We had friends from Central Europe that she knew and they put her up on the sofa. She sent me off to a school run by the Czech government, well, Czechs, about 150, 200 Czechs. I was in Wales. And she got a job in what were called British restaurants, so cafeterias, that mainly provided midday meals for the people in the war factories.

Speaker 219:49

Because that's the

Presenter20:26

So she's a nutritionist. She had been qualified as a a nutritionist.

Lord Alf Dubs20:28

Yeah, but she yeah, but she started scrubbing floors because, you know, you you do what you can. A and then she gradually worked her way up and became became more senior and was she

Presenter20:36

Would she accept it? With where

Lord Alf Dubs20:38

Well, there was an episode later. The British restaurants then became the basis for the school meal service. She ran one of these places again in Manchester. But she moved to Blackburn because she got a promotion to be number two running the school meals. And her boss left, and my mum acted up and applied for the boss's job, and nobody was appointed. So she acted up for another six months. She's been acting up for a year. She then applied again for top job and she was turned down. And she heard somebody say, We're not giving a job to that bloody foreigner.

Lord Alf Dubs21:14

She was incredibly upset by that, and I wasn't mature enough to know how to be supportive. Maybe I should have tried to be, but I just didn't quite know what to do. And eventually she did get a job, actually, in the Isle of Wight.

Presenter21:27

As you say, you were just young at the time, so you wouldn't have had the perspective on it, but looking back at it now.

Presenter21:33

How do you feel about what you managed to do and the life she managed to create for the two of you?

Lord Alf Dubs21:39

I think she showed me that she had inner resources, which earlier on I wouldn't have known she had. I'd have just seen her as mum, and that's that. But then.

Lord Alf Dubs21:49

When she was up against it, she showed an inner strength which I realized and began to appreciate as I got older. And she built up step by step decent life for herself in Diggs, a little village in Allewhyte. And then eventually she rented a little flat. Everything was going well for her. She built up a circle of friends and then she got leukemia. And the doctor, the consultant at the hospital, I spoke to him, I said, how long has she got? Five years. And five years today.

Presenter22:17

Yeah.

Presenter22:18

You said that, you know, she used to look back, understandably, to her life in Czechoslovakia when your dad had been alive as as kind of a golden age. What did she say about about life before?

Lord Alf Dubs22:30

Oh.

Lord Alf Dubs22:31

Well, I remember when I was perhaps I was in my early teens and she was saying about how good her life had been in Prague. Because look she had a husband, decent income, circle of friends, and for her that was the golden age. And for me, I thought to myself, no, it's not for me, because I was very young then and I couldn't live in the past. I had to look to the future and I had to build a life in this country and I couldn't hanker to the past because the golden age meant virtually nothing to me.

Presenter23:04

We'll find out what happened next for you, Alf, in a moment. But first, we'd love to hear some more music. Your fourth choice today, please. What's next?

Lord Alf Dubs23:11

Well, it's an Italian bit of music. It's Bandiera Rossa and it's sort of the red flag. You know, it makes one want to march and sing and change the world and so on. So it gives one a lot of zest, so I can always listen to it. And the music is still relevant today somehow. Now, we have other good left-wing songs in this country, but they don't have that excitement and the energy that this one has.

Presenter23:52

Uh I'll stand up this one up for sure.

Presenter24:04

Bandiera Rosa Red Flag by Cansoniere de Le Lame

Presenter24:10

Alf Dubbs, while your mother was trying to make ends meet in Manchester, you were sent off to a boarding school for Czech refugees in Powys in Wales. What was that experience like for you?

Lord Alf Dubs24:22

What I found, without getting too emotional about it, was that there was my mother sleeping on the sofa of some friends in Manchester. And I was worried that somehow I'd lose touch with her and I'd never find her again, because I didn't have any sense that I had a home. I think that's probably, looking back upon it, that's probably what hit me and I felt a bit lost about it, because one likes to feel, even if one is away at a school, that there's somewhere where one belongs at home. And I had no sense of a home at all at the time.

Speaker 224:41

Yeah.

Presenter24:42

Yeah.

Speaker 224:42

Yeah.

Presenter24:51

I know you got interested in politics very early. Do you remember how it happened?

Lord Alf Dubs24:57

I think from a very early age I was trying to puzzle out why what had happened to me had happened.

Lord Alf Dubs25:03

I thought about it, I said to myself, well if evil men can cause such terrible things to happen, evil men in politics, maybe politics could also be used for the better. So I was passionately interested in politics. My mum took me to a boarding house near Blackpool when the election results, 1945 election results were coming out. Normally a lot of votes are counted overnight, but because they had the votes coming in from the British Army who were abroad, particularly in the Far East, so they had to get all those ballot papers back to England, so they didn't start counting any of the election results until the morning, the day after. So the people in this boarding house where my mum and I were staying said, go to the main square where the BBC were going to broadcast the election results. This was 1945, so I was 14. I went to the main square, and the lunchtime score was something like Labour 120 and the Conservative 30. And I heard a voice say, oh my God, it's the end of England.

Speaker 225:13

Yeah. So

Lord Alf Dubs26:02

Quite amusing. But no, I was very interested in what was happening, the mines being nationalised. And then, of course, I was in hospital in Stockport Infirmary, and the consultant came down the wards. And in those days, when the consultant, the matron, came, you know, you either had to stand to attention or write her attention, because, you know, this was like the Queen coming through. So, or the King coming through. And as he was walking by, I said, just a minute, I've got a question to ask. He said, what is it? I said, are we having a party? He said, what for? Well, the hospital's ours. It's the first day the hospital's ours. And he walked away. And I was the only child in the ward. And the other people said, hey, Alf, what's going on there? I explained. The hospital was ours. It was the day for celebration. And the health service started that day.

Speaker 226:07

Hmm.

Lord Alf Dubs26:47

Yeah.

Presenter26:47

You read politics and economics at the London School of Economics and after you graduated you worked as a teacher, then in advertising, but it was politics that was your calling, so you became a local councillor. In 1970, you stood for Parliament for the first time. You were defeated on that occasion, but in 1979, the year of Margaret Thatcher's landslide, you bucked the trend and won Battersea South. What do you remember about the Count?

Lord Alf Dubs27:11

First of all, it was a Labour seat with a very slender majority, and so it was expected that it would fall. Most of the other Labour seats with similar or even larger majorities, they fell.

Presenter27:22

And how tight was it on the night?

Lord Alf Dubs27:23

Three hundred and two votes.

Presenter27:25

Was there a recount? Was there

Lord Alf Dubs27:26

Yeah, there were two recounts. And each time I was ahead. And uh so that was it.

Presenter27:31

And how did it feel?

Lord Alf Dubs27:34

I was totally bewildered. I hadn't expected it. I wasn't emotionally prepared for it. I wasn't ideologically prepared to change my life so much. So I mean politically I was ready for it, but I I wasn't emotionally ready for it. I was actually working for a local authority. And so I had to leave leave my job, clear my desk and get myself to Westminster.

Presenter27:38

Uh

Presenter27:56

And what was it like going in there for the first time?

Lord Alf Dubs27:59

Well, first of all, there was a gloom on the Labour side because we just lost an election. After years in government.

Presenter28:05

Were you the one cheerful the one cheerful person on that side?

Lord Alf Dubs28:08

Well, yeah, it was a bit like that. And I remember I was talking to all these mighty people. I was sitting next to Jim Callaghan. We were having a chat, you know, and he just resigned as leader of the Labour Party. But there I was mixing with all these people. And I thought, gosh. And then the first time I was down to ask the Prime Minister a question, I stood up and I was totally, I said, is this me?

Lord Alf Dubs28:30

Can this be me in the House of Commons actually asking the British Prime Minister a question? And I nearly forgot my question my supplementary question. I was sort of quite bewildered with myself a bit. So, you know, it it took some time to get used to that. And um, well, I did I hope I did.

Speaker 228:42

Yeah.

Presenter28:42

Hmm.

Presenter28:46

It's time for some more music, Alf, your fifth choice. What's next?

Lord Alf Dubs28:49

The next is a piece by Mozart. I love Mozart. It's Mozart's Hong Concerto. I know some people think I must be in favour of fox hunting because it's got a sort of a fox hunting air to it. But the answer is I'm not keen on fox hunting at all. But it's a lovely bit of music. It's got motion, it's got a rhythm to it, it's got a lovely feeling to it altogether and I just think it's great to listen to and I can listen to it all day.

Presenter30:08

The allegro from Mozart's Horn Concerto, No. 1 in D major, performed by Barry Tuckwell and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields conducted by Sir Neville Mariner.

Presenter30:17

So Lord Alf Dubbs, you lost your seat in nineteen eighty seven, and then you became Director of the Refugee Council. Now you were the first refugee to head the charity. What impact did your own experiences have on the work that you were doing at the time?

Lord Alf Dubs30:32

I remember we had refugees come from Bosnia, we were looking after supporting refugees from various countries. Certainly when I talk to refugees one-to-one and they know what my background is and I know what their background is, then we immediately have a sort of fellow feeling which is warm and makes me feel good about it because I'm talking to them and they sense I'm one of them.

Presenter30:54

Mm-hmm.

Lord Alf Dubs30:55

In a way.

Presenter30:56

As we've heard, Alf, you became a Labour Life peer in nineteen ninety four, and then in nineteen ninety seven Tony Blair appointed you Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Northern Ireland under Mo Molam. What was it like for you going back there?

Lord Alf Dubs31:10

Well, I think it was a terrific experience. First of all, Mo Molin was a fantastic boss, and somehow the fact that we were moving, hopefully, towards a peace process made it a much more rewarding thing than just containing a very difficult situation. There were terrible things happened while I was there, the OMA bombing and so on, but on the other hand I think it was also such a privilege to be there and to be there at an important time for them and for the country.

Presenter31:36

You have described it as one of the proudest times in your career. What made you so proud?

Lord Alf Dubs31:40

Well, I hope that in some way I helped to contribute towards the peace process. I hope by being there, by meeting all the key players, whether it's David Timbull, Ian Paisley, John Hume, Jay Adams, Martin McGuinness, Seamus Mallon, all these people, important people, whatever one thinks of them, and it was such a privilege to meet them, but above all to be able to try and make a contribution towards a better understanding and to make people in Northern Ireland realise that we cared a lot about all of them and we cared about their lives and we cared about what we could do to make their lives better.

Speaker 231:56

Yeah.

Presenter32:14

And you were in the room when the Good Friday Agreement was signed, April 1998.

Lord Alf Dubs32:19

Ian Paisley was outside in the snow shouting abuse and saying, you know, this is all wrong. He was totally against it. He came around in the end, but not till after he'd been signed. And there was a lovely group of women. They set up a women's coalition. And I wandered around the various rooms chatting to them. And they were there doing their negotiating pit. And they offered me tea and cakes because that's how they were. And I think they made an important contribution to the peace process. Of course, at one point, I saw Jay Adams and Martin McInnes look as if they were leaving the building. I said, for God's sake, you're not leaving. No, no, no, sorry, I was just going to talk. So there was all that going on. And then it happened.

Presenter33:01

Uh

Lord Alf Dubs33:01

Yeah. So Alf, you

Presenter33:01

You were part of making history, but you had also been understanding and learning about your own history. I think you first met Sir Nicholas Nikki Winton in 1988, and obviously you'd always known that you'd come to the UK on the kinder transport. How did you come to find out about Nicholas himself and how he had organised these trains?

Lord Alf Dubs33:23

Well, there was a film with Esther Hanson. Most of the kinder transport people were in it. I wasn't in it. And there was that moment when she asked everybody to stand up who owed their lives to Nicholas Winton. They all stood up. Everybody stood up. So why weren't you in it? I don't know. I never discovered that. All I know is they put on the screen at one point something from his logbook of the people, and my name was on it as having been part of it. Did you spot that?

Lord Alf Dubs33:47

No, my father in law phoned up to say, Hey, look at this quickly, you should see this. It's it's something going on on the television. So he switched on the set, and there it was several names from his his book of all the people who'd arrived on that particular train that I arrived on in June nineteen thirty nine. And there was my name and so on.

Presenter34:03

And how did you come to meet Sir Nicholas?

Lord Alf Dubs34:05

Well, there were a lot of events. There were birthday parties for him. There were celebrations at his house in Maidenhead. There were celebrations of his birthdays at the Czech Embassy in London. And I was so conscious of wanting to thank him and feel indebted to him and make him realise how much we all appreciated him. But there were lots of people around. And I think he, well, he took a great pride in all of us who came. Because if you take those of us that came, the 666 or whatever it was, plus our children and other members of the family, grandchildren even, there was quite a lot of people who owed their lives directly to him. And I think he took a quiet pride in that. So we got to know him pretty well, and we got to know each other pretty well because of him.

Speaker 234:23

Yeah.

Presenter34:49

And he was very fond of you because he wa he had quite a a deep interest in politics himself, didn't he?

Lord Alf Dubs34:55

He loved talking politics. Yes, occasionally we we'd have lunch and we'd we'd chat about politics and he asked me about child refugees from other countries and what more we could do. He was a very modest man, but he was very, very committed. He was a lesson to us all, because when he got to Prague in 1938, thirty nine,

Lord Alf Dubs35:14

He saw what was happening and he said terrible. A lot of people say terrible.

Lord Alf Dubs35:19

He differed because he then said, And I must do something about it. He, Nicky Winton, had to do something about it. So it for me it was a great privilege to get to know him and to be a friend of his. And that was an important part of my life.

Presenter35:33

Let's have some more music, Elf. It's your sixth choice today. What's next and why are you taking it to the island?

Lord Alf Dubs35:38

Well, it's Danny Boy. Now, there was one occasion when I heard John Hume, who was a great, great Northern Ireland politician and who was instrumental, played such a key part in breaking down barriers and getting the peace process underway. He was a very important figure in the history of Ireland, and I remember one occasion he sang Danny Boy. We were all in tears. He sang it not like a politician trying to sing. Plenty of those about. He sang it beautifully. And it reflects all the things I believe about Ireland and the emotion that associated my time there. And I hope the small part I played in helping the peace process along.

Speaker 336:15

Oh Danny boy The pipes the pipes

Speaker 236:23

Pipes

Speaker 336:24

Our calling.

Speaker 336:29

From Bland

Speaker 236:31

The plan

Speaker 236:33

And uh

Speaker 336:36

The Mountain Side

Speaker 336:41

The summer's gone.

Speaker 236:45

Uh

Presenter36:46

Danny Boy, Daniel O'Donnell

Presenter36:49

Lord Alph Dubbs, in 2016 you tabled section 67 of the Immigration Act, which asked the government to accept 3,000 unaccompanied refugee children into this country. It became known as the Dubbs Amendment. Now you'd visited refugee camps in Calais and Greece in the lead up to your amendment. What affected you most about what you saw there?

Lord Alf Dubs37:10

I was very moved when I talked to some of the child refugees in particular, when they told me their stories, when they told me how they'd had these long journeys, the terrible experiences fighting, death of their families and so on, the terrible experiences that they had escaped from. People sometimes ask me, what's it like today for refugees coming to Britain compared to what it was like in 1938-39? Well, I think it's got a bit less sympathetic. Don't forget Britain was terrific in 1938-39. Britain accepted 10,000 children on the kinder transport, unaccompanied child refugees. There were arguments in the House of Commons, I've read them in Hansard, about whether we should take them. But the fact is, we arrived as kinder transport children, and I think on the whole we were made pretty welcome and given fantastic opportunities. Now, I would like to feel that refugee children coming today

Lord Alf Dubs38:09

are given the same welcome and the same opportunities that I had.

Presenter38:12

So the amendment did eventually pass, but without a government commitment on the number of children that they would bring in. And then in 2017, the government closed the scheme. So in the end, 480 children came here, which is incredible to change 480 lives for the better. But I know that you had wanted it to be a greater number. How did you feel about the achievements of the scheme and the amount of children that you were able to help?

Lord Alf Dubs38:38

Even one refugee child coming is is is a victory for for the human race. But it it was disappointing there were so few.

Presenter38:46

Yes, how did you deal with the setbacks? I mean, for something that was so personal to you and with which you had this emotional connection?

Lord Alf Dubs38:54

Well, I should be careful, because I've always argued that um the cause of refugees shouldn't directly be influenced by the person putting forward the argument. But but I could hardly fail to be more emotionally involved because of my background. Look, I never talked about this.

Presenter39:09

Yeah.

Presenter39:12

You didn't want it to be called the Dubbs Amendment.

Lord Alf Dubs39:12

You did

Lord Alf Dubs39:14

And I didn't want to recall the moment. And my background came out

Presenter39:14

Yeah.

Lord Alf Dubs39:17

Because the media dug it out. I I would never have gone public in that particular way, but it turned out to be quite helpful politically.

Presenter39:23

So the Government's argument for closing the scheme was that it would encourage more children to make the difficult journey to the UK and encourage people smugglers. What was your response to their view?

Lord Alf Dubs39:33

Well, I said to Theresa May on other occasions

Lord Alf Dubs39:36

Look, we can't take everybody, but

Lord Alf Dubs39:40

We owe it to the traditions of this country and to these young people that some of them at least should get here. And I felt that it didn't automatically follow that if some came here others would want to take the same path. They may or may not have done. But look, I don't think we could sit back and just say, let's leave children sleeping under tarpaulins in Calais. Let's leave them without proper food and clothing. We can't do that to people. I should say this. There's an enormous difference between economic migrants. There's nothing unworthy about being an economic migrant. People are coming because we need the labour and we need people in our hospitals and care systems and so on. But there's a difference between those and people who are asylum seekers, who are a small proportion of the total, although sometimes you'd think everybody was coming across the channel by boat. By the way, I condemn the people, traffickers, totally. They're horrible people and they put lives at stake. But I think we have to explain to people why individuals are coming here for safety. And the situation today is different from what it was before 1939, simply because television, people are more aware of people coming over and so on. And I think we have to seek an understanding. My argument is that if we explain to people what it is that these refugees are fleeing from, the terrible experiences of war, I was talking to a Syrian boy. He'd had either an uncle or a father blown up in front of him by a bomb in Aleppo or Damascus. Now, that is a shocking, shocking thing to happen to a human being. It would be scarred for life. And I think it's important we understand what people are fleeing from and why we owe them as fellow human beings a duty to give safety. Not to all of them, but to some of them. We should do it with other countries together. This is not something that Britain should do on its own, but we should play our part.

Presenter41:29

There is a new government in place now, Alf. And in fact, Yvette Cooper, who I think was an early supporter of the Dobbs amendment, is on the front bench. Do you think that there's more to be done on this issue? Are you still having conversations?

Lord Alf Dubs41:42

Being in opposition is different from being in government. I understand that. And I understand there are pressures. But but I think we're not going to get everything we want. And I've said to people, we expect well of this government, but if they don't do it, we'll tell them.

Presenter41:56

What about those 480 children who did make it here? Have you met many of them?

Lord Alf Dubs42:00

I've met some of them who made it here, yes, under that amendment. And yeah, they're doing well. And I'm always happy to meet them. Of course I can't mean more than a small proportion of them. But I'm always happy to meet refugees who come over and to share experiences with them.

Presenter42:15

And what about those children saying thank you to you? How does that feel when you meet them and they thank you?

Lord Alf Dubs42:20

Well, yeah, it's it's nice to appreciate it, but, you know, it's it's it's uh being thanked is not that important in in in that sense. I think it's more important they should say thank you to the people of Britain. And I always say, you know, that I want to say thank you to this country,'cause this country's been terrific for me.

Presenter42:38

Alf Dubbs, it's time to go to the music, your penultimate disc today. What are we going to hear for disc number seven?

Lord Alf Dubs42:43

Well, it's Leonard Cohen Take This Waltz. Many years ago, my daughter went to a concert and she came back raving about Leonard Cohen and Take This Waltz. I got very interested ever since then. Don't forget, I'm a different age group from some of the people who know about all this music, but I think it's a terrific bit of music. I think it's emotional, it has its origins in a Spanish poet, and Leonard Cohen adapted it. And I think it's a lovely, lovely bit of music. Now in Vienna, there's ten pretty women.

Lord Alf Dubs43:14

There's a shoulder where death comes to cry There's this lobby with 900 windows There's a tree where the doves love to die

Lord Alf Dubs43:29

There's a piece torn from the morning.

Lord Alf Dubs43:34

And it hangs in the gallery of Frost.

Presenter43:42

Leonard Cohen and the Webb sisters with Take This Waltz.

Presenter43:46

Alfdubs, you've returned to Prague several times since you left as a little boy. Where did you go and and what did you do when you visited?

Lord Alf Dubs43:55

I've been on holiday there, I've been to conferences, and I once went to an event which celebrated Nikki Winton. We had a meeting on the platform at Prague Station from which the kinder transport trains had left. It was again an emotional experience because it was the same platform. There was one other, I think, one other kinder transport person, a friend of mine called Milina, and she and I were on the platform and we talked about the significance of the event. And then we went out in the country to a little village where we planted trees to commemorate Nikki Winton. So these are all very, very emotional occasions.

Presenter44:27

So

Presenter44:31

And you also regained your Czech citizenship not that long ago.

Lord Alf Dubs44:35

I did get that. Now look, I'm very proud to have a British passport and to be British. That was all very positive and that was something I I delighted in when I was 18. But I also felt that I came to Britain with a Czech passport and I wanted to have one so that I could freely go into the European Union and it would all be slightly easier and I would feel good about it.

Presenter44:58

Did it feel good to have it in your hand, to have that piece of the country where you were born?

Lord Alf Dubs45:01

But I am British, you see. I I made it very clear I'm totally, totally British. But one can be British and one can be European at the same time. And and Czech passport is my is a way of being European and it gave me uh pleasure to have the Czech passport and it it's a nice feeling. It's a nice feeling to be European as well as being British.

Presenter45:21

You talked earlier, Alf, about when you were a little boy and that sense of anxiety of not having a home to go back to, a kind of stable home to go back to. I wonder what home means for you today? Where do you feel most at home today?

Lord Alf Dubs45:35

Oh, at home here. Everything about me has made me British. Now, if you mean which part of the UK? Yes. I have a love affair with the Lake District. I've spent.

Presenter45:41

Yeah.

Presenter45:43

You're a keen walker for many years.

Lord Alf Dubs45:44

I'm a keen hill walker and I spend quite a lot of time walking the electric. A thousand feet up the problems of the world seem fairly small. At 2,000 feet up, the problems are tiny. 3,000 feet up, what problems?

Lord Alf Dubs45:56

So it's very therapeutic as well as being utterly pleasurable. And there's a camaraderie about Hillwalkers. We're all friends and we do this together and it's skate.

Presenter46:05

And obviously, we've been looking back a lot today. I mean, when you think back to that little boy who arrived six years old at Liverpool Street station with a dog tag around his neck eighty years ago, what would he think of the life that you've been able to build here in the UK?

Lord Alf Dubs46:19

I wouldn't have believed anything. I wouldn't have believed it possible. You know, I I think this country has given me great opportunities and I would like to feel that refugees coming here today will get the same sense of being accepted and given the same opportunities as happened to me.

Presenter46:38

It's almost time to send you away to the desert island, Alf, your next adventure. You're a keen outdoorsman, so I'm hoping for a hill for you on your island.

Lord Alf Dubs46:46

Yeah, I'm hoping for that, yes. I I would like to keep fit by doing some if I'm totally cut off from the world, as I have to be on a desert island, I would like to feel that there are things I can do to stay fit and um keep going.

Presenter46:53

Yeah.

Presenter46:58

And you have the most tremendous energy. I mean, you know, you you're in your nineties now, but I wonder how you'll be without the hurly burley of political life to keep you going and keep you engaged.

Lord Alf Dubs47:08

Well, I think I'd miss it. I'd want to know what's going on. But I'd just have to put that into cold storage and um think my thoughts and um adjust to a new way of life.

Presenter47:18

And of course, you'll have your music to keep you company, including this final disc, your last choice today, number eight. What we're going to hear.

Lord Alf Dubs47:25

What are we going to hear? Well, Beethoven's Ode to Joy. I love it. And I think the European Union did a great job when they chose such a wonderful bit of music to be the anthem for the European Union. So it does two things for me. It gives me a nice bit of musical connection with continental Europe. And it also gives me a sense of the EU and how Europe got together in a very positive way. I regret very much we're not part of it, but Europe got together in a very positive way and this makes me feel good about Europe.

Presenter48:51

Beethoven's Ode to Joy from the fourth movement of Symphony No. nine performed by the Gevanthaus Orchestra Leipzig with the Gevanthaus choir conducted by Herbert Blomstedt.

Presenter49:02

Alf Dubbs, I'm going to send you away to the island now. I'm giving you the Bible, the complete works of Shakespeare, and you can take one other book with you. What will you choose?

Lord Alf Dubs49:10

Oh, I spent so much time trying to think about it. I had so many books I wanted to bring with me. Okay, years ago I read a book by Emil Zola called Germinal. Ah. And it was a book about northern France and the coal miners and the lives they lived. And it it was a very moving book, very powerful book. It's a long time since I read it, and I look forward to reading it again. I shall sit there on my desert island and I shall get some pleasure from a very powerful book.

Presenter49:36

Absolutely, it's yours. You can also take a luxury item with you. What you fancy?

Lord Alf Dubs49:42

We talked about the lake distick and hill walking. I'm assuming that this desert island will have a mountain on it. I'm assuming that. Will you give me a mountain on the desert island?

Presenter49:50

It's the island of your imagination, Alf. So if you say there's a mountain on it, I think there is.

Lord Alf Dubs49:54

There's a mountain and I'd like a pair of walking boots and a waterproof. The reason for the waterproof is that with climate change coming maybe the desert island won't be much of a desert for too long so it may rain there as well. It's best to be prepared. I'd like some walking boots because I would like to keep fit and I would like to reminisce about the lake to stick when I'm on my desert island.

Presenter50:00

Yeah.

Presenter50:04

It's ridiculous.

Presenter50:07

Very true. Best to be prepared.

Presenter50:16

And finally, which track of the eight that you've shared with us today would you rush to save from the waves first?

Lord Alf Dubs50:21

I I find that so difficult. I think probably

Lord Alf Dubs50:25

Thinking very fast, I think probably Johnny Coltrane. Something I'd like to listen to and listen to and listen to. And I'd like it as a background for a lot of the things I'm doing on the Desert Island. I'll go for Coltrane. I think it's a great choice.

Presenter50:31

Hello.

Presenter50:38

Lord Elf Dubbs, thank you very much for letting us hear your Desert Island discs.

Lord Alf Dubs50:42

Well, thank you for giving me the chance to take part.

Presenter51:06

Hello, I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Alf, and I really hope he'll enjoy bestriding his own mountain on the island. We've cast away many politicians, including Theresa May, Baroness May of Maidenhead, and Sakir Starma. Former refugees Dr. Wahid Arian and Aminka Hellich are in our archive too. The studio manager for today's programme was Sarah Hockley, the assistant producer was Christine Pavlovsky, the production coordinator was Susie Roylands, the content editor was Mugabe Turia, and the producer was Paula McGinley. Next time, my guest will be the documentary maker, Norma Percy. I do hope you'll join us.

Speaker 351:54

How is it that some brands and products really capture our imagination, seem to be ahead of the game, but then somehow end up toast?

Speaker 352:03

I'm Sean Farrington, presenter of the BBC Radio 4 series Toast, which unpicks what went wrong with big business ideas. We'll hear from people directly involved in building the successes. They were looking for us to build scale quickly, gain a dominant market position, and that's what we did. And get expert insight into why they faltered.

Speaker 252:23

So in effect Woolworths was being drained of cash and people tried damned hard to save it.

Speaker 352:28

FHM Magazine to Woolworths via Nike's Fitness Band and FreeServes internet service. Toast, listen first on BBC Sounds.