Alan Jones

Speaker 20:00

Hello, I'm Kirstie Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen eighty one, and the presenter was Roy Plumley.

Presenter0:27

Our castaway this week is the racing driver who won last year's World Grand Prix Championship, Alan Jones. Alan, does music mean a lot in your life? Yes, it does.

Presenter0:37

I would say there's not a day goes by that I don't at least play some music of one form or another. Do you play an instrument yourself? No, no, I don't. Do you sing?

Alan Jones0:44

No.

Presenter0:47

It's a matter of opinion. Yes, I have been known to sort of let loose with the odd notes in the shower, but as to how good I am is a matter of opinion.

Alan Jones0:47

It's a matter of opinion.

Presenter0:57

Do you play discs or tapes a lot? I mean, do you take them with you when you travel? Yes, I do. I uh usually take uh half a dozen or so cassettes with me.

Presenter1:04

And uh when I'm tucked away in some foreign hotel I usually get it all out and play some music.

Presenter1:11

Could you endure prolonged loneliness? I think so, yes.

Presenter1:15

Yeah.

Presenter1:16

What's the first disk you've chosen to make things a bit better?

Presenter1:20

Well, I I've chosen The Blue Danube by Johann Strauss, which I find has a little bit of everything. It has very relaxing moments and it has very lively moments, and I think it uh suits my moods because I change a lot myself.

Presenter2:15

The Blue Danube by Johann Strauss, the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Carijan.

Presenter2:21

Now, you're the second generation of racing drivers in your family. Yes, that's correct.

Presenter2:26

My father uh raced cars. Well I can remember him racing cars ever since I was knee high to a grasshopper and uh

Presenter2:33

He was the first Australian ever to win a Grand Prix outside of his own country and he won the Australian Grand Prix in 1956.

Presenter2:39

Now you started racing yourself in in a soap box.

Presenter2:42

Yes, and the soap box derby. It's a a thing whereby you get two kids side by side and let them roll down a hill and the first one at the bottom's the winner. Did you do well? Yes. We had quite a good chassis and it was all streamlined and

Presenter2:57

purposely built just for that reason, so uh yeah, we went pretty good. Your father Stan designed it for you, did he? No, uh there was a soft drink manufacturer that had it built for them, for advertising purposes. So you were sponsored already?

Presenter3:13

And then go-kart to follow.

Presenter3:16

Now you went to a a Jesuit public school. Was it strict?

Presenter3:19

Yes, it was. It was very strict.

Presenter3:21

You know, they carried the straps and soaked them in vinegar to make the leather nice and bitey. Wow. What were you good at at school? Nothing. Is that honest? Really? You're not good at nothing? I was g good at getting out of work. I wasn't a very scholastic sort of a person at all and ever since I can remember I just wanted to get out of school, to get into the commercial world. Uh now of course, like all people that went that route, I'm regretting it.

Presenter3:47

Was it firmly in your head as a child that you were going to follow your father as a driver? Yes, ever since I can remember uh it was just a simple matter of waiting to get my license, and then that would in turn allow me to get my competition license, and I'd get stuck straight into some racing.

Presenter4:01

Let's have your second record. What's that? Uh well, it's another classical choice by Tchaikovsky.

Presenter4:07

I I must say that

Presenter4:09

I like all forms of music and it really depends on what mood I'm in as to what music I play. And I don't profess to be an expert on classical music. I just know that when I hear it I like it and that's what I go and buy. And this is the Romeo and Juliet advertisement.

Presenter5:16

Uh

Presenter5:20

Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture, the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Riccardo Mutti.

Presenter5:27

Right, we left you go-karting. What was the next step?

Presenter5:32

Well, after I matured from go-karts at the right old age of about 16, I went interstate to South Australia to get my licence because to get a competition licence it simply states that you must have a current road traffic licence. And where I come from in Victoria you have to be 18, but in South Australia you only have to be 16. So I went across to Adelaide and got my road traffic licence and then promptly put in for my competition licence and I raced a mini.

Alan Jones5:57

Yeah.

Presenter5:59

Did you do well of that? I raced it in sprints and hill climbs and then I went on to some circuit racing around Victoria and it was a very good car. In fact I can always remember my father having raced Maseratis and things like that. He obviously thought that a mini wasn't going to be too expensive and we took it to a motor tuning company in Melbourne called Motor Improvements and the old man just said look do whatever's necessary to make it one of the best under a thousand cc minis you know thinking it'd probably cost him a couple of hundred quid or something and when he got the bill he nearly died but you know because of that it was you know it was one of the best under a thousand cc minis and I enjoyed a bit of success with it. Obviously you weren't going to be able to earn a living as a driver right away. What were you doing?

Presenter6:44

I was working in my father's business. He had a General Motors dealership in Melbourne, selling Holden's, which is sort of Australia's Vauxhall and I was going through the various departments of that in the hope that when he would retire I'd take over.

Presenter6:58

What decided you to come to England?

Presenter7:01

Well, it's the mecca of motor racing. It's the place you have to be if you want to be a professional racing driver, and particularly if you come from an English speaking country and you have English origins, you have to come to England. I suppose if you're Argentinian or something like that you could go to Italy.

Presenter7:15

But um this is where the cars are made, this is where the best teams are, and this is where you have to be if you want to be a part of it. How old were you then, Alan?

Presenter7:24

It was about ten years ago, so I must have been twenty four.

Presenter7:27

Had you any capital?

Presenter7:29

Yes, I had fifty quid.

Presenter7:31

Well done. Had you any contacts? Yes, I had contacts. When Bruce McLaren and people like that came out to Australia for the Tasman Series, they used to race against my father and they all became fairly good friends and I remember going up to Bruce McLaren's house for dinner on several occasions and Pat McLaren, his wife, used to give me good fillet steaks and what have you, which were a bit of a rarity in Earls Court in those days.

Alan Jones7:53

Yeah.

Presenter7:54

How did you make out an old scourge? I mean, how did you scrounge a living while you were getting organized?

Presenter8:01

Well, uh a very good friend of mine, Brian McGuire, was over here at the time and I just formed up a partnership with him and we started buying and selling motor caravans to unsuspecting Aussies that come over here to tour the continent.

Speaker 38:10

To the continent

Presenter8:12

You also went into the boarding house business briefly. Yes, well I had to work out some way of surviving.

Presenter8:18

but also have time to myself to go testing if somebody phoned me up and said would like to come down to Silverstone or Snedderdon or wherever and test the car.

Presenter8:25

It was obviously pointless getting too involved in an occupation where I had to keep going to the boss and saying, Hey, can I have the day off to go testing?'Cause I wouldn't keep that job for very long.

Presenter8:33

So my wife and I started up a boarding house once again for

Presenter8:37

visiting Australians and New Zealanders, which meant that after the old breakfasts were done and everything, the day was my own and I could concentrate on trying to get a drive. You weren't giving them very great comfort, you were giving them just the basic accommodation. Well, that's right, but I wasn't charging a fortune either, so it was all right.

Presenter8:53

Your third record.

Presenter8:55

My third record is by Gordon Lightfoot. He's somebody that I've I've liked for a long time. I think he's got a very nice, smooth style and I find him very relaxing to listen to and the lyrics are always fairly good in his songs and I've chosen Summer Side of Life.

Alan Jones9:09

Fields of green on the summer's night of life.

Presenter9:18

Love was right

Presenter9:23

There was no

Alan Jones9:25

Uh Visions on this summer side

Presenter9:31

Gordon Lightfoot: Summer Side of Life.

Presenter9:35

So you were getting on quite well in London, in the Australian colony, but what you needed was a racing car.

Presenter9:41

Well, that's right. I mean, that was after all the purpose of my my visit, and we worked to this end. And when we got a little bit of capital together we then went out and committed it to the first racing car. Which was.

Presenter9:55

It was a Formula Ford Merlin which we we we punted around to get to know all the circuits and so forth and then from there we, as all people, tried to graduate up through the ranks, Formula Three, Formula Atlantic, and so on.

Alan Jones10:08

Yeah.

Presenter10:10

Are you a good mechanic yourself? Can you strip a car down and sort it all out and put it together again? Well, I can strip it down, no problems, but uh whether I could get it back together again for you or not, I don't know. I'm not mechanically minded. I don't really want to get too heavy on that side of it, because I think that modern racing has got to a stage now where it's really horses for courses. You know, you have an expert mechanic for doing the mechanics, you have an expert team owner for putting the logistics together, you have an expert designer for designing the right geometrics of what the car needs and so forth, and then you need a good driver to pedal the thing around.

Presenter10:42

I just stick to the driving. Now you talked about Formula Three. This seems a good moment for you to explain to us the difference between Formula Three, two and one.

Presenter10:51

Well, uh there's all sorts of formulas, in my opinion too many, but basically the three major formulas, or the three proper formulas that I consider, are Formula three, Formula Two and Formula One. Uh Formula Three is, I would say, the starting point of true international racing for any aspiring Grand Prix driver.

Presenter11:12

It gives him an opportunity to travel throughout the continent racing on strange circuits and racing against foreign drivers.

Presenter11:19

Formula two is very similar except that you are in a more powerful car and obviously it's more expensive. And of course Formula One is the the top echelon of motorsport. That's the uh that counts towards the World Championship, and that's for three litre normally aspirated cars or fifteen hundred cc turbocharged cars.

Presenter11:38

So what was the first car that you took abroad? Brazil was your first overseas meeting, wasn't it? Yes, that was a Formula Three car. I went and did the Temperata series in Brazil. How did you make it? Not very well. Uh there's a funny story attached to it. I bought a Super Duper engine off this friend of mine which was going to bring me instant success. And I took along this other old engine that I originally owned, literally just as a backup in case I blew the Super Duper engine up, just as a start line special. And as it turned out, this Super engine was hopeless. And it finally lunched itself on the second last race meeting that we did there. And out of desperation we put the old engine in, which was pulling about three hundred revs more than this so-called Super one, and I got second fastest lap of the race and finished third overall in the last race. So I I wished I would have had the old engine in to start with.

Presenter12:30

Your father had come over to join you in London. Yeah, he unfortunately had had some heart attacks and strokes and what have you, and uh

Presenter12:37

had to rest, had to relinquish all of his business interests. He was a very sick man, so he decided to come over here to England and uh, you know, be with me and watch how I was getting on.

Presenter12:48

You set up an all-Australian racing team, AIRO. Yeah, well that was another big mistake because it was so flash uh and we done it so well that everyone thought we had fantastic sponsorship from the Australian Government, where in actual fact uh we were looking for sponsorship and we thought by making a fab fabulous looking setup people would want to sponsor us. That had the reverse effect. So the alternative is to be a works driver?

Presenter13:11

Well absolutely that's what everybody aims for because apart from obviously not having to spend your own money you get the best equipment and you are w racing the works car and the reason that the works employ you is so you'll beat all the other cars so any aspiring young man who's looking for a chassis will say well gee I'm going to go and buy that because that's winning all the races so they make sure that that car is really good and if you're lucky enough to be driving it you're obviously with good chances. And they make sure that you're looked after too. Oh yes, yeah.

Presenter13:38

Record number four we've got to.

Presenter13:40

I like

Presenter13:42

trad jazz, and I I picture sort of old black people sitting under verandas in the deep south, you know, with their musical instruments. And uh for the next one I've chosen uh Highway Sixty One by a gentleman called Mississippi Fred McDowell.

Speaker 313:59

Lord, that afflicted my highway Babylon road I know.

Speaker 314:12

She run from New York City

Speaker 314:16

Donika from Mexico

Presenter14:24

Mississippi Fred McDowell and Highway sixty one.

Presenter14:28

Now, Alan, you worked your way through the Formula Three stage. You lost the Formula Three Championship by a very small margin. Yes, by one point. Uh they had this ridiculous scheme whereby, for reasons best known to themselves, they put double points on the last race. And I led the championship right throughout the year, right up to the very last race. And uh right towards the end of the practice session I blew my engine up and we just well we had to change engines. And the new engine that they fitted in my chassis for the for the race itself w wasn't firing properly, it wasn't running properly.

Presenter15:02

And so we went to the line in a very sort of down state, and I had to finish seventh or better to win the championship. And anyway, to cut a long story short, I finished eighth. I started on the front row of the grid and slowly went backwards with this engine. Finished eighth and got beaten by one point for the European Championship. That was really bad luck. Anyway, next season on to Formula Two and you broke ten lap records. Which year did you graduate to Formula One? I had my first Formula One race in 1975. You drove for Lord Hesketh's? Yes, well I drove a car which was sponsored by Harry Stiller, a Bournemouth businessperson, and he struck up a deal with Lord Alexander Hesketh and they prepared the car for me and I and transported it to the races and I raced it alongside James.

Alan Jones15:45

Yeah.

Presenter15:52

Where was your first Grand Prix?

Presenter15:54

Barcelona in uh Spain, nineteen seventy five. Now you were on the Heskith team and then two more teams, but you weren't terribly happy on any of them. No, that's correct. Uh Rolf Stommlin unfortunately had a very nasty accident at Barcelona and uh

Presenter16:09

At around about that time Harry Stiller had decided he would go and live in California for business reasons, and uh he virtually packed up the team and, as I say, went to America. So Graham Hill phoned me and asked me if I'd like to deputise for Rolf Stomlin whilst he was in hospital, until such times as he got better. And of course I said yes.

Presenter16:30

Graham was a fantastic character and somebody I admire tremendously for his achievements, but he was a very difficult man to drive for.

Presenter16:39

Anyway, Rolf got better and and came back and took the car over and I finished off that year doing Formula 5000 and a V six Ford engine March, which I had some pretty good success in. And then it was towards the end of'75 that I obviously started looking around for a more permanent Formula One seat in in'Seventy Six. And uh I spoke to a few teams and had uh a couple of test drives down at Goodwood and I finally uh did a contract with John Surtees.

Presenter17:06

I've been reading your book, Driving Ambition, and the accident statistics you quote are alarming. You say that you're to expect a major accident for every eleven Grand Prix races.

Presenter17:16

and a relatively serious injury every two accidents.

Presenter17:20

Now travelling at two hundred miles an hour, a crash must be a matter of microseconds. Have you time to register anything?

Presenter17:26

No, I mean uh at the point that you think that you've lost control or you're about to, you obviously try and fight it the whole way, but uh I would say on the majority of uh accidents you're in the lap of the gods, and it happens very quickly, it's all over and done with in split seconds.

Presenter17:40

Well, you look very well so far now. Take care. You had a year with Shadow, picking up the story again, and then you joined Frank Williams. Tell me about him.

Presenter17:51

Well Frank was somebody that I I knew and said good morning to and so forth and towards the end of nineteen seventy seven he asked me whether I'd be interested in coming up and having a look at his factory to to the view of talking to him, driving for him in nineteen seventy eight. And like all good racing drivers I said yes, because you say yes to everybody and then you just pick the team you want to go with. And I I told Frank that I was talking to Ferrari and he said well if you can do a deal with Ferrari you go and do it because I obviously can't offer you the facilities that they can. So I went down to Modena in September of 197 and signed a contract with Ferrari and I thought that was it. I thought well you know I've got a Ferrari drive and it's all signed, sealed and delivered but uh Ferrari being what they are of course that that meant nothing and they decided for commercial reasons to go with a North American driver to bump up their sales of Fiat and Ferrari and Lancia vehicles in in North America.

Presenter18:45

So uh I went back to Frank, who at this point in time still not decided on a driver, and I went up to the factory and had a look at his new factory and I spoke with Patrick Head, the designer, for a couple of hours, and it was talking with Patrick that convinced me that this would for sure be the way to go, because he had a super little package. It was very neat and tidy, well organized, the factory was immaculate and uh I could see the potential in the sponsors, so I decided this was the way to go.

Alan Jones19:03

Yes.

Presenter19:13

Record number 5.

Presenter19:15

Right, well record number five is a country and western uh record and I went and saw this man at the Los Angeles arena uh and watched him live and I was

Presenter19:25

Very taken by him and I I was fortunate enough to go backstage and meet him and I was very impressed. So I've got most of his records. It's Whalon Jennings and uh the name of the record is Nashville Women.

Presenter19:41

Every button for the powder.

Presenter19:43

And the fine two

Presenter19:47

Yeah.

Speaker 319:47

If it wasn't for the powder, the paint would find it.

Speaker 319:54

You know them Nashville women might as well stay home.

Presenter20:00

Whelon Jennings, Nashville Women.

Presenter20:03

A running a Formula One team must be a fantastically expensive pastime. How many Grand Prix races are there in the year sixteen, isn't it?

Presenter20:12

And how many people have to be sent off?

Presenter20:16

Well, I mean the logistics of running a fully competitive Grand Prix team are fantastic and uh it's something that I wouldn't like to undertake to be perfectly honest. I mean we when I say we uh Frank Williams employs approximately eighty people of which twenty uh go to each and every Grand Prix and the the logistics of getting each and every one of them on an aeroplane and into hotel rooms with expenses and and so forth is is a major exercise. And you have to fly the cars usually? Well yes, for the uh South American races, or all of the intercontinental races, we have to fly the cars and all the spares uh to all of the meetings. Set up a workshop wherever you go. That's right. You know we have to virtually move in like a circus and get everything all set up. And of course for the European races we have a great big Pantectican truck pulled by the new two forty five Road Ranger Leyland and that that's huge. That's a thirty eight, forty foot vehicle with lathes and all sorts of things in it.

Alan Jones21:04

Rain

Presenter21:12

And that attends all the European Grand Prix races. How much time do you get on a course before a race? Is there any limit on that?

Presenter21:19

Uh well there's no limit if you wish to hire the cirque and go there privately uh in advance. But sure there is surely a testing time when everything's laid on for the official practice, yes. And that's the time where you make any last minute uh alterations to the car and qualify for your grid position for the Grand Prix.

Alan Jones21:27

Oh well official parameters.

Presenter21:37

And of course experience does count tremendously, I should think. Here, your driving on a course must get better as through the years you get to know it Oh, for sure. I mean uh most of the circuits that I'm going to now I'm going back for the sixth and seventh time. And

Presenter21:51

You know them intimately because you've done literally thousands of miles on them, so

Presenter21:56

Right from the word go, you can just get down to it. Whereas if you're going to that circuit for the very first time, you might waste a lot of time getting to know its idioseycrecies.

Alan Jones21:59

Right.

Presenter22:04

is the one course you hate.

Presenter22:06

Yes, Dijon. I don't particularly like that because I don't particularly like the uh the people that organise it that much. And there is one course that is laid out counterclockwise that worries you. Well most of the all the circuits we go to run uh clockwise and there's a circuit in Brazil called Interlagus which is anticlockwise and uh I'm sure all and all the muscles in my neck have built up on one side and uh once I start racing the car anticlockwise the muscles on the right hand side of my neck wonder what struck them. Another disc before we talk about your triumph last year. Okay, well this is a very popular band and they themselves vary their music uh a lot which suits me.

Alan Jones22:35

And that

Presenter22:45

But there's one particular track which I've always liked. I particularly like Stevie Nix, I like the way she sings, I like her voice, and I've picked out Rhiannon from the Fleetwood Mac album.

Alan Jones22:56

She is like a cat in the dark and then she is the darkness.

Alan Jones23:03

She goes alive like a fine sky larding when the sky is dark

Alan Jones23:11

When you left, you've never seen a woman taken by the wind.

Alan Jones23:18

Would you say she promised you?

Presenter23:24

Rhiannon by Pleetwood Mac and the singer Stevie Nix.

Presenter23:29

Right, nineteen eighty, that splendid vintage year. What's the method of scoring in the championship? Uh you received nine points for first, uh six for second, uh four for third, three for fourth, two for fifth, and one for sixth place. And where did you start? January, nineteen eighty? Argentine. And then?

Presenter23:47

From Argentine we did uh the Brazilian Grand Prix and then South Africa and then Long Beach, California, and then after that it was the start of the European season. Right. And how did you do in those first meetings?

Alan Jones23:54

Yeah.

Presenter23:59

I won Argentine. I got third in Brazil, which Frank calls the mobile gas economy run, because he said that I finished with more fuel in my tank than he's ever seen. Well, did you finish a Grand Prix? No,'cause I wasn't trying hard enough. I didn't have my foot on the accelerator long enough, therefore I finished with more fuel. He never lets me forget that. South Africa I didn't finish, I had gearbox problems. And then Long Beach, I had a shunt with Bruno Giacomelli whilst lapping him while running second. A shunt means a crash. Yes, an accident. And then you won, what, three in a row? Yes, I won the Spanish, the French, and the British. And then Italy, you were second, but had enough points. No, Italy, I was second, but unfortunately, Nelson Piquet won, and that put him one point in front of me going into the second last race of the season. So we went to Montreal virtually neck and neck. And it was a peculiar situation because I did Zanvoort and Italy in a very nervous upstate frame of mind. And yet when there was more pending on one race, I went to Montreal in a far more relaxed state of mind for reasons I don't know, but I'm sure it helped me. That was the major contributing factor to my success because I was far more relaxed. And that was it? Yes, we were fortunate to win Montreal. I was fortunate in as far as that Nelson blew his engine up at at Montreal and I won the race and then clinched the championship. And that just left one more Grand Prix to go down at Watkins Glen, which is upstate New York.

Alan Jones24:10

But often

Alan Jones24:12

Yeah.

Presenter25:33

Are you superstitious, Alan?

Presenter25:35

Yes, I am. Uh I try not to be, but I am. I always try and wear the same pair of underpants, for instance, which I which I call my lucky underpants. They must be getting threadbare by now.

Speaker 225:43

Yeah.

Alan Jones25:45

They might

Presenter25:47

What colour are they? Well they're red, but what I do is when they get a bit uh used I usually rip a little piece off them and then uh stitch that to the next new one. So I'm the only driver around with quilted underpants. So that's what your fan sent you, a pair of red underpants. Well I haven't received any in the mail as yet, but you never know. Now this year, nineteen eighty one, you've had some rather bad luck.

Presenter26:09

Yes, well, I yes, I suppose you could call it bad luck. I don't like the word luck, because I think you make your own luck.

Presenter26:15

But having said that I've had bad luck.

Presenter26:17

Go on.

Presenter26:19

By rights, I should have won Zold, I should have won Monaco, and I should have won the Spanish Grand Prix. I was leading them all.

Presenter26:26

And through maybe no fault of my own, didn't win too, and through a major fault of my own, which I have to take full.

Alan Jones26:29

Yeah.

Presenter26:33

Blamed for, I lost the Spanish Grand Prix.

Presenter26:36

Dijo was an extraordinary meeting when when the weather made you run in two parts. Yes, well, if you complete I think it's less than sixty per cent of the distance.

Presenter26:45

they can make you restart. But if you complete more than that, they can say that the race has been run and finished. And we were literally only one or two laps away from having done that. So we had to uh all get it back in our cars and get ready again to do twenty three laps.

Alan Jones26:54

Yeah.

Presenter27:00

Still, you've still got time to pull it off this year as well. Well, I hope that I can well, you know, all I can do is try.

Presenter27:07

You're not superstitious, but I hope you keep your fingers crossed and we're behind you. Record number seven.

Alan Jones27:10

Yeah, thank you.

Presenter27:12

Record number seven is a English band, relatively new.

Presenter27:17

It's a band that I liked immediately. As soon as I heard them I liked them. They've got a very unusual style, and uh I've picked out one song from them called Sultans of Swing and it's Dire Straits.

Alan Jones27:31

Well now you step inside, but you don't see too many faces.

Presenter27:39

Coming in out of the rain they hear the jazz go down.

Alan Jones27:46

Competition, get on the placing.

Alan Jones27:52

A button

Presenter27:53

Oh, they blowin' that sound.

Presenter27:57

Diastrates and Sultans of Swing. Now, Australians all seem to have many advantages as castways over the rest of us. I mean, you're used to to beach life and uh

Presenter28:09

Ever been in the Outback? Oh yes, yeah. Camping? Yes, we used to uh go out into the Outback camping and shooting in my younger days, which I thoroughly enjoyed.

Alan Jones28:11

Caleb.

Speaker 328:11

Yeah.

Alan Jones28:11

Yeah.

Presenter28:18

And you could rig up a shelter on a desert island? Well, I think so. If the right trees and stuff were there, I'm sure I could rig up something. Of course you're a farmer, apart from everything else.

Presenter28:28

Yes, that's my uh my true love at the moment. How big's your farm? It's uh just under two thousand acres. Which to us of course seems a vast farm, but uh Australian standard is quite small I suppose. Well yes, i i it's big for the area that it's in because it's only about sixty one miles north east of Melbourne. But of course uh million acre properties are are fairly common in Australia. In fact uh there's quite a lot of properties that you buy by the square mile. You don't buy them by the acre. You either own a fifteen thousand or twenty five thousand square kilometre farm. Is is your stock or arable or both? A little bit of both but the the arable part is strictly for our own consumption. We don't grow anything to sell out. We only just grow it to feed our own stock.

Presenter29:11

So that's fine, you could cultivate, you could grow food on the island.

Presenter29:14

What about small craft? Done any sailing?

Presenter29:17

Yes, I've had a bit of experience with boats, all of which have cost me money.

Presenter29:23

What about navigation? Would you know which way you were going?

Presenter29:26

Yes, I think I could work that one out. Good. Well, you're ideal castaway material. Let's hang your last record.

Alan Jones29:30

Attend your last record.

Presenter29:32

Uh well, I've been keeping the best for the last. It's an Australian group called the Little River Band, and the particular track that I've chosen from it is called Reminiscing, and it was written by a guy called Graham Goebel, who happens to own the farm next door to mine, so uh I've got to play this. To remind you of home. Right.

Alan Jones29:52

That's the way it began, we were hand in hand, band Miller's band was better than before.

Alan Jones30:01

We yelled and screamed for more.

Alan Jones30:06

I'm born at you. Made us dance across the room.

Alan Jones30:15

It ended all too soon.

Speaker 330:17

It ended all too

Presenter30:19

The little river band, reminiscing, if you could take only one disc out of the eight you've played.

Presenter30:26

Well, I think I'll stick with the little river band. Right. And one luxury to take to the island with you, nothing of any practical use.

Presenter30:34

I would probably say a chill twenty thousand gallon tank of Australian lager.

Presenter30:40

Right, you'll probably have to bury it to keep the temperature right. But uh that'll be something to do to dig a hole that size. And one book apart from the Bible and Shakespeare's.

Presenter30:50

Well, I'd have to ask you to do me a favour here, and perhaps uh and I know you do this maybe bind a couple of works, maybe two or three together. Yes, with novels we do that. Okay, well, if you do that I'd like to take, say, three works by Wilbur Smith.

Presenter31:05

And uh I'd have to include probably Eagle in the Sky as one of those because I think it's the best one he wrote. I think it was his first one.

Presenter31:11

Eagle in the Sky by Wilbur Smith and a couple of others of his which we'll stick in as a luxury. And thank you, Alan Jones, for letting us hear your Desert Island discs. Thanks for having me. Goodbye, everyone.

Speaker 231:30

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