Sir John Burgh

Sir John Burgh0:00

Hello, I'm Kirstie Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen eighty four, and the presenter was Roy Plumley.

Presenter0:30

On our desert island this week is the Director General of the British Council, Sir John Berg.

Presenter0:35

How well could you endure solitude, Sudan?

Presenter0:39

I would find it very difficult. I would have to train myself uh to bear it. I think it would probably be very good for me. Would music help?

Presenter0:47

Music would be essential. I don't think I could bear it without. Do you have any musical skill yourself? I I know you appreciate and love music. Do you play an instrument? I play the piano without skill. So the answer to your question is partly yes, partly no.

Presenter1:02

Was it a very difficult job to get down to just eight? Uh quite impossible. I only managed to delete.

Presenter1:09

The last one, just before, a recording of this. And really, it's today's choice. It might be slightly different to morrow? Uh quite likely, yes. Well, what's the first one? Where do we start? Well, the first one takes me back really to my childhood.

Sir John Burgh1:12

And

Presenter1:22

Because I was brought up in a very musical family. My father played the piano and the violin, and my mother played the cello and the piano, and so we had quite a lot of chamber music in the house. So the first thing I've chosen is the Schubert piano trio in B flat major.

Presenter2:28

The opening of the second movement of Schubert's first piano trio in B flat major, played by the trio Santo Luquido.

Presenter2:37

Now you were brought up in that musical family. Where was it? Oh, it was in Vienna before the war.

Sir John Burgh2:39

Well

Speaker 32:39

Yeah.

Sir John Burgh2:39

Was it?

Presenter2:41

And your father was a barrister, I think. That's right, yes. Who died when you were quite young? Yes, he died when I was um eleven, just eleven. How much notice was there? How much did you expect the Nazi invasion? It was, I think, becoming pretty clear towards nineteen thirty-seven and, of course, early nineteen thirty-eight. But everybody hoped that it wouldn't take place. When I say everybody hoped, certainly those in my particular circle, because I came from a Jewish background. Yes. And one knew, of course, the degree and extent of anti-Semitism in Germany, and one feared a German invasion enormously. So one was very much afraid, but at the same time it became clearer and clearer it could probably not be avoided. I don't know if you remember this, but shortly before the Anschluss.

Speaker 43:10

Yeah.

Sir John Burgh3:10

Yeah.

Presenter3:30

The then Austrian uh Chancellor called a plebiscite in the hope of averting the German invasion, having previously been summoned to Bestisgarten by Hitler. But it was of no avail, and rather than have the plebiscite, Hitler ordered his troops to march in. Do you remember that morning very vividly? Yes, I do, because Hitler actually drove along the central boulevard in Vienna called the Ringstrasse. Did you see him? Yes, because our flat looked out from the side onto the Ringstrasse. Hitler was greeted, of course, by jubilant crowds. This was one of the um features of the Anschluss, that he was welcomed with open arms by the great majority of Viennese. To what extent they were trimming, to what extent it was genuine is difficult to say, but the facts are that there were cheering and jubilant crowds as he drove along in his Merzedes-Bence with his arm outstretched, and I can still see this before me now.

Sir John Burgh4:22

Um

Presenter4:24

Many Jewish families, of course, had left before. Had you discussed that or for me? Well, my father died fifteen months before Hitler invaded. And um he, I'm told, had said that he would emigrate, but he didn't because he died. So the question didn't really arise. How did your escape happen? I think there was a very common pattern. Uh those families who wished to emigrate first of all had to arrange for some uh guarantee in whichever country it was, in my case of course, Britain. Why Britain? Because my father's article clerk, who had taken over my father's practice, was able to come to Britain and um the Quakers, who were very active in Vienna at the time, managed to arrange his escape and also our emigration. Which route did you take? Was it just plain straightforward buying a ticket and?

Presenter5:17

Well, my mother arranged all this, of course, because I was much too small. My sister, who was three years older than I am, was fifteen when we left, I was twelve. And my mother took us to the airport in Vienna and put us on a plane, and we landed in Croydon and were met by this friend of ours who had been my father's article clerk. And we were accompanied by the Quaker lady who had arranged our immigration. Had you much preconceived idea of what England was going to be like? I had absolutely no idea because I couldn't speak English at all. A lot of people came to England who came, as I did, from Jewish backgrounds, but in practice were not in fact practicing Jews. And my parents became Roman Catholics some years before.

Speaker 46:01

Uh

Presenter6:01

And my mother, who was anxious only to do the best for her children, knowing nothing about England where she'd never been, took advice.

Presenter6:09

And she was told that vesting would be if um the children became members of the Church of England. So she went to the British Embassy in Vienna and asked questions. And there was a padre at the embassy, and his task was to see if perhaps converts could be made into the Anglican Church. And so I went along, and at age twelve I was taught the Lord's Prayer in English, which were the only English words which I knew, was examined and duly baptized. And with this major qualification I came to Croydon. Your second record? My second record relates to a much later period, of course, when during the war I went to a large number of promenade concerts. I was working in war factories. And immediately after the war I remember hearing Barbirolli conducting the Verde Requiem, and it absolutely polaxed me.

Presenter7:07

And I wrote to him afterwards, saying how marvellous it was. I just couldn't help myself. It was a tremendous experience. And he wrote back. It was marvellous. I was a young man, about twenty. And I've got the postcard he sent me still in front of me, because I've cherished it. And he wrote to say what pleasure my letter gave him, and the points which I had picked out made it evident that the letter had been written by someone who understood and felt the music, and then he went on. But that, of course, at the time, was a tremendous thrill, and I think a great tribute to a great man who took the trouble to write to a young man in such a way. Well, let's hear this excerpt from the Verde Requiem. On this occasion, you've chosen a recording conducted by Carlo Maria Cellini.

Presenter8:44

The pilio for that is Requiem Mass.

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Carlo Maria Giulini conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra and Chorus.

Presenter8:52

Now, to London by the Quaker escape route. Did they look after you? Remarkably so. I was in London for two days, and then my sister and I went straight to boarding school in Oxfordshire, called Sipford. And I spent two and a half years there until I take my school certificate. Did your mother follow you? My mother followed six months later, just in time, three months before the war broke out. And she had a very difficult choice whether to leave her mother and her in-laws behind and join her children, which of course is what she did. And the in-laws and the rest of the family.

Sir John Burgh9:23

They done it up.

Presenter9:25

The Quakers sent you to school until you were fifteen. What happened to you then?

Presenter9:29

Well, then we didn't have any money, so I went to work. I left school in nineteen forty-one, and I worked between then and the end of the war in two different war factories, producing things for aircraft. But this wasn't because you were particularly interested in working in factories. You wanted more education. Yes, but there really wasn't any choice. I tried to make good use of the time and failed miserably to do so. I mean, I tried to become all kinds of things. I tried to become a doctor, I tried to become a journalist.

Speaker 49:37

Yeah.

Sir John Burgh9:37

Yeah.

Presenter9:56

I tried to get a call scholarship to Cambridge. I tried to become an accountant, all of which failed. And then later on, after the war, I took an entrance exam to the Lund School of Economics. Why economics? Because I thought that the world's problems could be solved through economics. I've learnt since. And then the civil service exams. What attracted you about the civil service? The structure of it? Well, there are three things, really. The first was that it was an extremely respected occupation. The second one was that I didn't know what to do, and it seemed something which I might be interested in. And I wanted basically to work for an organisation which wasn't directed primarily at the profit motive.

Sir John Burgh10:11

Why the

Presenter10:47

And the third reason was that it offered security.

Presenter10:50

security in the sense that um working for the state with my background was something which seemed highly desirable and uh almost the apotheosis of what one might have hoped to achieve.

Presenter11:03

Your third record? My third record is linked in my mind with much of the time I spent as a student at the LSC. It was close to Coffin Garden, and I used to go and sit in the Gods quite often, and that was the first time I heard Wagner and heard the ring. And I'd like to choose something from the ring, namely Siegfried's funeral march from the Goethe Demerer.

Presenter12:33

Part of Siegfried's funeral march from Goethe Dammerung.

Presenter12:36

The Piano Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Sir George Shelty. You had a good long career in the civil service, did you not? Yes, thirty years, punctuated by constant efforts to leave it. But you moved around most of it. How many ministries did you explore? Six, I think. And eventually you became a private secretary. Well, I was a private secretary twice in my career. And the first time I served three ministers when I was a relatively junior civil servant still, and the second time three more. I became principal private secretary to George Brown when he was first secretary of state for economic affairs. He and I, I don't think, always hit it off very well. But it was my job to try to make sure that I could carry out my responsibilities properly. It is to some extent a sort of nursemaiding job, isn't it? It certainly is, yes. And there certainly were such elements in it, yes.

Sir John Burgh13:20

It certainly is, yes.

Presenter13:26

Particularly with mister Brown? Particularly with mister Brown, yes. Let me say first about him that he was probably the most impressive minister with whom I ever worked, and I have worked with many in addition to those six.

Sir John Burgh13:36

Many they

Presenter13:39

Quite a remarkable driving force.

Presenter13:41

And a sense of power where you really go for the juggler.

Presenter13:46

You were concerned, of course, with the celebrated think tank. In fact, you were second in command. I was joint deputy chairman, yes. Did you find Lord Rothschild easy to get on with? No. He was the second person with whom I didn't find it easy to get on with. But again, I was working for a boss who I think achieved very remarkable things. There's no doubt that he put the think tank on its feet.

Presenter14:12

He had quite remarkable lack of sensitivity about other people, which enabled him to push his way through, though I must add that he was remarkably sensitive about himself. But this made for a very difficult relationship. But nonetheless, I think he was a superb first head of the think tank. You worked in the field of industrial relations, didn't you? I did. I had three quite fascinating years in the Department of Employment. First, working with Barbara Castle on In Place of Strife, and then with Robert Carr and Geoffrey Howe on the First Conservative Industrial Relations Act. All this telescoped into three years. Now, these were fascinating ministers to work for. Barbara Castle, we call jokingly, the Tudor monarch. Why? Well, she had, and still has, reddish hair, which looked very much like Queen Elizabeth, and perhaps a bit of temperament, which is not unlike what we read about Elizabeth I. Yes, yes. But she was a splendid minister to work for, and it was a very exciting time.

Sir John Burgh15:03

Forget about it.

Presenter15:09

You may remember she tried to get In Place of Strife onto the statute book. The party didn't support her. The trade union movement opposed it. And most of the Cabinet in the end opposed it as well. And I was actually present in the Cabinet room in No. 10 when the government surrendered to the Trade Union Movement. There is no other way of describing it. It was Hugh Scanlon and Jack Jones, of course, who were the trade union leaders at the time, and Vic Feather was the general secretary. And although Harold Wilson had said some weeks before to Scanlon, Huey, take your tanks off my lawn, referring to checkers, I'm afraid the tanks advanced. And that was the first unsuccessful attempt at industrial relations legislation. This was a very disturbing occasion. It was, I think, the nadir of my experience as a civil servant.

Presenter16:01

And after the Department of Employment, I met Mark Bonnam Carter, who at that time was chairman of the Community Relations Commission responsible for race relations in Britain, trying to improve race relations. And I felt this is something which I wanted to be associated with, and he very kindly invited me to join him as the deputy chairman of the commission. So I spent about fifteen months doing this fascinating but well-nigh impossible job.

Sir John Burgh16:13

Mm-hmm.

Presenter16:26

We've got to record number four. What next?

Presenter16:28

The next thing relates very closely and very personally to my marriage. Through my Quaker school and through Quaker friends, I met my wife, who comes from a long-standing Quaker family. And one of the operas which I've always adored is Fidelio, which I think is one of the very great works. And at the end of Fidelio, the chorus sings a jubilant tribute to the qualities of the wife who rescued Florestan, who was languishing in prison, and freed him. And the text of this particular chorus and the duet which follows it is he who has won a lovely wife may join in our rejoicing. And I had this played by our organist at Oppington Parish Church when we got married. I must say that he was a fractionally surprised at what he was asked to play.

Speaker 417:21

It's boy, it's fine, it's fine, I'm afraid of you.

Presenter18:12

A tribute to a wife, in particular your wife, from Beethoven's Fidelia, and it's a recording conducted by Otto Klempere.

Presenter18:21

All those years in the civil service, John, what kept you sane? What were your other interests? Your family, obviously. Yes. Well, first of all, the job itself kept me sane, because I would like to say that it was absolutely fascinating. It's quite true, as I said early on, that I spent a good part of my time in the civil service trying to get out. That's merely a reflection of my own very restless temperament and not a reflection on the civil service. I had a fascinating time, and particularly in the last ten or fifteen years of my service, when I became a relatively senior official. But the things which kept me sane apart from my family was certainly music above all. I mean, I'm a very, very great music lover. You were doing some voluntary service to music, particularly at Covent Garden. Yes, that came in the last ten years, really, of my Civil Service life. And I was very fortunate because I had met some time ago Sir Robert Armstrong, who is now the Secretary of the Cabinet, and himself a tremendous music lover and the Secretary of Covent Garden. And a vacancy arose at Covent Garden for the Secretary of the Opera Committee.

Presenter19:22

And he asked me if I would like to do this, and of course I jumped at the opportunity. So for ten years I was able to go to every new production and every revival at Coffin Garden, and it added an enormous amount to um my enjoyment of life. It was a very great opportunity. Indeed, indeed. We got to record number five. I would like to choose now something really rather different, and that is the um love duet from The Trojans between Diodo and Aeneas. It is, I think, one of the most beautiful um duets ever written. It's a wonderful love duet, and of course the words themselves are taken from The Merchant of Venice.

Speaker 420:14

In Hills and P.

Speaker 420:47

Uh

Presenter21:04

Part of the love duet from The Trojans by Berlioz, sung by Régine Crespin and Guichauvet.

Presenter21:11

After thirty years of the civil service,

Presenter21:15

What was your escape brute?

Presenter21:17

A public advertisement for the Director General of the British Consul, mm to which I replied, as did many other people,

Presenter21:24

And which I secured much to my own surprise and pleasure. What did you know about the British Council? Most of us know very little about it. We know about the Arts Council, for example, but the the British Council doesn't impinge on our own lives very much. No, you're quite right, of course, because its work is done abroad and not in Britain. I knew relatively little about it. I knew that it worked abroad. I knew that it was concerned very much about uh personal relationships. How? Because constantly the Council brings people to Britain and tries to forge relationships with people in other countries.

Presenter21:57

And that is the essence, really, of the Council's work. Now, this is something which appealed to me, because people I do think matter a great deal. It's a frightful platitude, but it's nonetheless very true. And the nature of the Council's work, therefore, was something which I felt I would like to do. Would you like to tell us a bit more about the Council's work in rather more detail, right? It brings people to this country. It also takes some of our people to their countries. What the Council does essentially is to promote British values and British culture and British language in other countries.

Presenter22:28

Now, this is immensely important. Every other country does it as well. Every major country tries to do it. The Americans try to do it. The French, the Germans, the Soviet Union, and so on. And they all try to do it because they recognise that this is one way of winning friends for one's own country elsewhere. So one does it in a variety of ways. People is one. Educational links is another. The teaching of the language is a third. Libraries abroad, we have 111 libraries in different parts of the world. And they draw in people like a magnet. These are the various ways in which the Council is highly effective. And the arts, you send companies and individual artists abroad. We do just that. You're quite right. It's a relatively small part of our work. Most people think it is the major part of the council's work. It isn't. But it's a very important one and one which has had enormous success abroad. If I may give you one or two examples. About a year ago, there was a fabulous exhibition of Turner in Paris.

Sir John Burgh22:42

Yeah.

Presenter23:25

And that exhibition was so successful that the average daily attendance for the Turn exhibition was higher than any other painter who had ever been exhibited in Paris. And the impact in Paris was enormous. And that was the British Council Enterprise? That was the British Council Enterprise. How many countries does the Council operate in? We work now in eighty countries. And that is really every continent throughout the world. And you've decided, as Director General, to visit the lot, I believe.

Sir John Burgh23:36

Impact.

Presenter23:53

No, I wish I could. So far I've been to forty. Well, you're doing very well. I'm doing quite well, but it's in four years. Four years, that's right. But it remains to be seen whether I shall be at the Council for eight years. Writer, another record. I would like to choose the Britain War Requiem because it is really very much concerned with human relationships following the terrible experiences in the First World War. And this is very much a theme which really underlies race relations, the individual relationships between people, and the abomination of stereotyping people according to their colour or race. And this links very well with the work which I was trying to do at the Community Relations Commission.

Speaker 423:55

I wish I could. I mean, so far.

Speaker 423:59

Well you're doing very well.

Speaker 424:01

Beautiful

Presenter25:38

The opening of Britain's War Requiem, conducted by the composer.

Presenter25:43

When you became Director General of the British Council, you began with a a rather theatrical gesture in a theatre.

Presenter25:52

Ha ha ha ha ha.

Presenter25:54

Well, it wasn't meant to be um necessarily in the theater, but I wanted to talk to as many of my new staff as possible. They'd never heard of me before.

Sir John Burgh26:02

Yeah.

Presenter26:04

They had no idea about me, and I thought in an organization whose morale at that stage was very low because it had just been enduring a very savage cut in its budget.

Presenter26:14

The staff would welcome the opportunity of seeing what the new director general would look like.

Presenter26:19

And the only way of doing this was to find a large building, and that turned out to be the Piccadilly Theatre. And thanks to the generosity of Mr Albury, he made it available to us at a very small rent. I think it cost two hundred pounds, if I remember rightly. I spoke to the staff.

Presenter26:37

Yes, not only did you talk to the staff, but you also tried to get to know as many as you could. I mean, you made yourself available in in the canteen and so on. And you're a very democratic director general.

Sir John Burgh26:45

And it's very good.

Presenter26:49

One learns from experience. And my thirty years in the civil service I felt one of the lacks really was the um inability between the younger, more junior members to get to know and have any kind of communication with the people at the top. Also if one is at the top in a bureaucracy, in a hierarchy.

Presenter27:08

The problem is you always tend to hear what the people immediately below you tell you, but not what the people in the engine room actually think and want to do. So.

Presenter27:19

I thought by being outside my own office and by having a regular sort of surgery once a week, I might be able to get myself known among the staff to get their views about certain problems which subsequently I could look into and very often what people in the engine room tell you is very much more relevant than what comes up through the hierarchical chain. The Council is celebrating its 50th birthday. Whose idea was it? How did it start and why? It started in 1934 because a Foreign Office official whose name was Rex Lieper for years had felt that Britain was falling behind in the race of winning friends abroad. And more and more people were concerned about the success of the Nazi and fascist powers. So finally, in 1934, the government took a major step and created the British Council with an annual budget of five thousand pounds. How much does the Council spend now?

Presenter28:15

Well, the grant we get from the government is now uh between seventy and eighty million pounds. But the total range of our operational activities is something more like one hundred and eighty million pounds. Well the government has celebrated your fiftieth birthday by giving you another cut and and not for the first time. One might almost describe this as an annual habit now, and it's been happening since nineteen seventy nine eighty. In many ways the British Council is analogous to the

Presenter28:39

Exterior services of the BBC, is it not? Very much so. I think we are complementary. The task of the external services and of the British Council is to present Britain abroad. We both do it. We both think we do it well. Other people think we do it well. But we can't go on doing it well if we're constantly cut.

Presenter28:59

Record number seven.

Presenter29:01

Record number seven is Figaro.

Presenter29:04

It's impossible, I think, to think of music without the marriage of Figaro. In the first year when I worked with Coffin Garden, Kiri Takanova, who um

Presenter29:13

had up to that time not been known, suddenly sprang into prominence when she sang the Countess in the new production of Figaro. And um I would like to choose the opening of the finale of the second act, which is perhaps one of the most glorious pieces in all music, with Kierie singing the part of the Countess.

Speaker 429:35

Esosveto, oh esos veto.

Speaker 429:43

No, that can't be.

Speaker 429:44

Should we follow? Would we bend or say we were singing the minus wonder?

Presenter29:46

And books say we are.

Presenter30:23

An excerpt from the second act of Mozart's Marriage of Figaro with Tom Allen and Kitty DeCarnewa as the Count and Countess.

Presenter30:31

You visited all those countries, John, many of them tropical. You must have picked up some ideas, even if only architectural, for how you're going to manage on a desert island. Are you good with your hands?

Presenter30:43

I'm not good with my hands. At my school there were two compulsory subjects. It was basically a Quaker school for those who were non-intellectual, and therefore the two compulsory subjects were woodwork and art.

Presenter30:54

I can do neither. What about food? Can you fish? I have never fished. Would you try to escape? I would probably too impractical to escape, so I'm going to find myself in a pretty difficult situation.

Speaker 431:00

But

Presenter31:05

I'm worried about you.

Presenter31:08

Your last record. My last record is Orfeil by Gluk. Now I've chosen this because it reflects three tremendous experiences I had just over a year ago.

Presenter31:21

when Janet Baker, whom I adore, when Janet Baker had her last year as an opera singer, and I attended her last performances at Covent Garden when she sang in Alcest, at the Coliseum when she sang in Mary Stuart, and finally at Glindbourne when she sang in Orfeo, and it is K. Faro from Orfeo which I would like to choose.

Speaker 331:44

If our loss is a real change.

Speaker 331:52

All saints are in the world.

Speaker 331:57

Uh

Speaker 431:58

Uh

Speaker 432:01

They are three.

Speaker 432:04

I lost my ear.

Presenter32:28

Dame Janet Baker singing K. Farrow from Glux or Fao. If you could take only one of the eight records you've played us, which would it be? I think you're an extremely unkind person, and uh you've faced me with an impossible task. But since you've been doing this for so many years and I have to abide by your rules, I'm going to be told all this before. You've been told all this before. Well.

Speaker 332:44

I hope it

Speaker 432:45

You've been told all this before.

Presenter32:49

I'll have to take Figaro with me. Right. And one luxury, any one object of no practical use that would give you pleasure.

Presenter32:56

I shall take with me, if you will permit this, a very powerful transistor with a very large supply of batteries, which will enable me to escape from your non benign rule, and to listen to as much music as I would like.

Presenter33:11

Yes, I d I think that's permissible. We can't guarantee, of course, about reception conditions on the island.

Presenter33:17

Nor do we know how long your batteries are going to last, but bearing that in mind we accede to your request. One book. You already have the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare. Well, of course, I can't choose the history of the British Council, which is just being published, because I don't think this will last me a sufficiently long time, so it will have to be the Encyclopedia Britannica. Right. And thank you, Sir John Berg, for letting us hear your Desert Island Discs. Well, thank you very much for inviting me.

Presenter33:43

Goodbye everyone.

Sir John Burgh33:50

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