John Harvey-Jones

John Harvey-Jones0:00

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

Presenter0:30

Our castaway this week is an industrialist, a company man. He's chairman of Imperial Chemical Industries, John Harvey Jones. John, does the idea of isolation on a desert island strike a chill? No, rather a warm feeling, actually. You'd like it.

Presenter0:47

Well, I've enjoyed life most when life slows down and when I feel close to nature, one of the reasons I miss the sea very much.

Presenter0:55

I think I might get a bit too much of it on a desert island, but the basic idea doesn't worry me. Well, eight discs to make things a little better. Is music important? I used to think not, but I did have an experience once where I tried to live without music for a while. I had to live without in the Antarctic.

Speaker 41:10

Grandling luck.

Presenter1:13

And I think music is very important. I think living without music altogether is almost impossible. Why on this occasion? Were you out of radio contact?

Presenter1:20

We were far away from any sort of commercial radio or national radio.

Presenter1:26

And all we had with us were in fact our own discs. But we had rather more than eight. Do you have any musical skill yourself? Can you play the penny whistle? I'm a damp hand on the ukulele, but I'm a bit out of date.

Presenter1:38

And do you sing at the same time? I must say I used to sing. I I sang in the choir at Dartmouth.

Presenter1:45

And I love singing.

Presenter1:47

I suppose it's a bit of the Welsh in me, and I sing to the fury of my family, but n in no other way. Do you have a a big collection of discs at home?

Presenter1:55

Well, everything we have at home really belongs to all of us, and I'm not a disc collector.

Presenter2:01

But uh we yes, we have a lot of discs between us. That's

Presenter2:04

Your wife and your daughter and your granddaughter. Yes, my granddaughter has almost as good a collection as the rest of us.

Presenter2:11

Write your first disc for the Desert Island. What is it? Well, it's the band of the Royal Marines playing Viscount Nelson, because, in fact,

Presenter2:19

I marched to the band of the Marines for many, many years.

Presenter2:23

I have a great admiration for the marines, and I love brass bands.

Presenter2:58

Viscount Nelson, played by the band of Her Majesty's Royal Marines, Portsmouth Group. What part of the country do you come from, John? Well, I don't really feel that I belong to this country at all. I was actually born in London, but I left England within the first six months of my life and lived the first years of my life in India. Why was that?

Presenter3:17

But my father had a rather unusual job there as the guardian of a Maharaja.

Presenter3:22

And so I lived with him and with the Maharaja and with my mother there. You remember those days very vividly? I remember them in vignettes, I suppose, like most people remember their youth. And it was a life of, in some ways, ludicrous luxury.

Speaker 43:36

Hmm.

Presenter3:37

I must confess I lived in a palace, and I do remember my fifth birthday.

Presenter3:43

which was in a red marble palace where the state band came and played happy birthday to you out of tune outside what what wasn't a window, actually.

John Harvey-Jones3:50

What wasn't it?

Presenter3:53

and a rather stark contrast with my seventh birthday, which was uh when I had been, in my view, abandoned into an English prep school. What was your first ambition?

Presenter4:03

My very first ambition was to be a lawyer.

Presenter4:07

But in fact it became clear that that wasn't possible, and so my second choice was to join the navy. In those days you joined the navy very young. So you went to the Royal Naval College at Dartmouth?

Presenter4:18

Was life tough though? I mean, how old were you when you enrolled? I arrived just before my thirteenth birthday, and indeed the decision to enter had to be made when I was ten.

Presenter4:28

Looking back on it, the discipline was draconian, but I loved it.

Presenter4:33

It had a sort of predictability to it. I was bullied very much at my prep school, and I hated my prep school.

Presenter4:39

But darkness I felt secure and I loved the knife. Were you still there when war broke out? Yes. What did they do to you?

Presenter4:47

Well, I left Dartmus at the end of nineteen forty. I served in destroyers and I was sunk a couple of times. Were you? You were midshipmen, I presume.

John Harvey-Jones4:53

Yeah.

Presenter4:54

Oh, tell me about these sinkings. Where were they? They were both in the Mediterranean.

Presenter4:58

They were

Presenter5:00

Well, I mean there's not a lot you can say about a sinking except the ship goes down and if you're lucky you stay afloat. You were afloat what? On on rafts in the first time we actually got the ship into harbour and I eventually got off it by stepping in a rather undignified way onto the jetty. Ah the second time it was rather more dramatic. That was when you were in the water.

Presenter5:19

You got out of destroyers into submarines. Was that because of your unfortunate experiences? Partly, yes. I I

Presenter5:27

I've always wanted to be where the action is, and I must say that submarines attracted me from that point of view. But also.

Presenter5:35

I had a horror after those two experiences of being wounded in a ship.

Presenter5:39

Mm-hmm.

Presenter5:41

One of the good things about a submarine was you either all went or nobody went.

Presenter5:46

Your second record.

Presenter5:48

But my second record is Fred Elizaldi, playing Melancholy Weeps.

Presenter5:52

I had quite a lot of difficulty choosing this, because I suppose like most people of the pre-war generation, I

Presenter5:59

Love jazz, and I greatly like jazz pianists.

Presenter6:03

and he's one of the less well known ones, who I like very much.

Presenter6:38

Fredellizaldi playing Melancholy Weeps

Presenter6:41

So, a submariner, where did you serve in submarines?

Presenter6:46

Well, all over the place, off Norway, in the Mediterranean.

Presenter6:49

out of Ceylon and uh eventually out of Australia and then out of Subic Bay. You really covered a lot of the globe, didn't you? Practically every theatre of war, one way or the other.

Presenter7:02

The war was over. You decided to take a Russian course in Cambridge. Was that your idea, or was this something that the Navy had thought out for you? No, something I I volunteered for, but for rather bad reasons.

Presenter7:14

I'd always wanted to go to university, and uh submarines were fairly trying immediately after the war.

Presenter7:22

So I I volunteered for the very first Russian course where I think ten of us were, I suspect, sent to test the

Presenter7:30

Cambridge University Educational System to Destruction.

Presenter7:33

Was it all right?

Presenter7:35

Well, the Cambridge University educational system survived. I don't know how well we did.

John Harvey-Jones7:38

But that's how well we did.

Presenter7:40

You had already taught yourself German. Yes, I learnt German at at Dartmouth. So you were an ideal candidate with German and Russian for uh naval intelligence. I don't know that I was ideal, but that's where I found myself. What happened to you?

Presenter7:52

Well, I found myself in Germany, which at that time, of course, was under quadripartite government.

Presenter8:00

First of all, I was assigned to my absolute horror as an interpreter in Berlin.

Presenter8:05

And that was a mind-boggling experience, my first experience of conference interpreting.

John Harvey-Jones8:08

My first

Presenter8:11

I must confess I think I contributed to the downfall of quadripartite rule. And then I was sent to Willemshafen, which was being packed up as reparations for the Russians. And I was there living with a Russian mission of about ten officers, and I had a Russian driver, and I lived, for all practical purposes, as a Russian. Did you find any suspicion? Were you able to get on with them well as allies and comrades? No, I think there was quite a bit of suspicion at the time.

Presenter8:41

But I must say Russians individually are tremendously warm and nice people.

Presenter8:47

And I have seen

Presenter8:50

A couple of them many times since. You then were transferred to the Cabinet Office. Now, what were you doing there? Or aren't you allowed to tell us? I'm still not allowed to say what I was doing there, but it was a fascinating experience for a young naval officer to work for a fairly short period so close to all the sort of great names. And you were able to give a a naval view of what was happening?

Presenter9:15

I was employed primarily, I think, to give a sort of Russian view, because I'd spent some time living and working with the Russians by then.

Presenter9:23

A young lieutenant commander, a very experienced sailor, you decided in your early thirties to quit the service? Yes. With a view to what? Well, I decided to quit the service because my daughter got polio and I didn't feel that I could go on globetrotting.

Presenter9:38

and I wanted to do something which I thought had social worth.

Presenter9:42

and I wanted to do something which was secure.

Presenter9:45

And so I decided I wanted to join heavy industry. Right, let's have your third record before we talk about heavy industry. My third record really takes me back in time a bit because it was the song when my wife and I were courting, and my wife and I courted during the war in all sorts of unlikely places like Tynemouth and Colombo.

Presenter10:07

And I met her again after the war. How did she get out to Colombo? Was she in the RENA? She was a first of all a Wren wireless operator and then a Wren signals officer.

Presenter10:17

At those days we had very many happy times dancing to a song called Long Ago and Far Away.

Presenter10:23

So I chose Long Ago and Far Away by the Glen Miller Orchestra because

Presenter10:28

That actually covers from us both, I think, two particular nostalgic memories.

Speaker 310:38

Uh

Speaker 310:40

I dreamed a dream one day

Speaker 310:45

Um no

Speaker 310:47

That dream is here beside me.

Speaker 310:53

Long the skies will overcast.

Speaker 310:59

But now the clouds have p

Presenter11:03

Long ago and far away, Glenn Miller and the Army Air Force band with Johnny Desmond.

Presenter11:10

So you decided, John, to go into heavy industry. Did you know anything about heavy industry? John. No, except that I believed then, as I believe now.

Presenter11:20

that the industrial base and industrial competitiveness was one of the most important things for our country. And I I come from a family that has always believed in service. And I need to do something that I feel is worthwhile. Had you any contacts? Did you know how to set about getting into industry? My brother-in-law was in ICI and two of my colleagues in naval intelligence had left and joined ICI. And I followed them really along the same path. So you were quite prepared to do anything that they wanted you to do to learn the job, as it were? Well yes, I mean in fact I joined ICI at half the rate of pay I was earning in the Navy and I was really not expecting to have a career. I joined for

Presenter12:05

a nine to five what I thought would be a nine to five job, but never has been. What sort of job did they give you to start with? I was trained as a work study officer, which meant really a time and motion man operating a stopwatch.

Presenter12:18

And uh setting incentive schemes. Did you find that interesting? I found it in some ways distasteful. And how did the the workers take to being stopwatched all the time?

John Harvey-Jones12:25

Uh

Speaker 412:25

Yeah.

John Harvey-Jones12:25

The workers

Presenter12:28

Well, I think work people in this country, you know, are very decent people.

Presenter12:34

And they never looked at the stopwatch, they looked at the person behind it, and I think they had as much sympathy for me in fact rather more sympathy probably than I deserved.

Presenter12:44

Right, then what? Well, then I started moving up the ICI ladder. I I got promoted in the work study department and then I went into purchasing and supply. Supply of what? Well, that that was in fact the buying and management of raw materials, and that was the first time I started managing a fairly large number of people. Now, you settled in the heavy organic chemicals division. Did you know anything about them? Well, I didn't actually settle there at all. I mean, what happened was I went first of all to a part of the organisation which was a service organisation.

Presenter13:15

which was in those days running the Wilton site on the northeast coast. What's that? It's the largest manufacturing site in ICI.

Speaker 413:19

What's that?

Presenter13:22

And there was one of ICI's perennial reorganizations, for which I'm, I suppose, rather more responsible than most.

John Harvey-Jones13:28

Hmm.

Presenter13:32

And the Wilton Council disappeared into what was then the Heavy Organic Chemicals Organization, which actually was a sort of end of ISCI which dealt with conversion of oil into basic chemical intermediates.

Presenter13:47

Right. Well, we've got you so far into the organization. Let's have your fourth record. Well, I'm going to backtrack again, and I'd like to have a Russian song, because until I joined ICI I'd spent quite a bit of time living with Russians.

Presenter14:01

and a lot of time working with Russians. And I like Russian music and I love choral music. And so the next one I'd like would be the Omsk Russian Ensemble, singing Ivushke.

John Harvey-Jones14:21

It's all

Speaker 414:28

Yeah.

Speaker 414:30

But I know you

Speaker 414:35

Silent.

Presenter14:42

The Omsk Russian Ensemble, singing Ivushka. According to a hand out which I've had, you changed your job every year. Was this about

Presenter14:55

That that well that was more a desperate search by I CI to find something I could do, I think, than anything else. Well, I thought it was part of a scheme to groom you for stardom. Which which way shall we look at it? Well, one of the great things about my company is you'll never actually find out.

Presenter15:10

Well, within fifteen years you were chairman of a division. That was pretty good progress in in company terms? Oh, unbelievable in my terms. As a non-qualified man joining the company late, I thought it a totally unattainable ambition. In fact, I didn't have it as an ambition because I kept on telling my wife there was no way I would ever go any further. And she agreed, of course.

John Harvey-Jones15:32

But they have

Presenter15:34

But they had moved you around and you'd seen nearly everything.

Presenter15:38

And the the next step, of course, was to the boardroom.

Presenter15:41

Were you involved in boardroom battles? How did you find boardroom work? Much less exciting than running my own show, and I think uh

Presenter15:50

Most of us would still find that. Working in a large board, and it was a very large board then How many? Well, then about eighteen or nineteen executive directors and five or six non-executive directors.

Presenter16:03

And that's a very different thing from the cut and thrust of day-to-day business. And now you're chairman of the whole gigantic firm. How long has that taken you from the day you joined?

Presenter16:15

Well, I joined in nineteen fifty seven, so it's twenty seven years. Right. If my maths is right and it probably isn't. Well, it should be. You can never be sure of that.

John Harvey-Jones16:18

My map

John Harvey-Jones16:20

Yeah.

Presenter16:26

Let's have another record.

Presenter16:27

Well, my next record is William Voice, directed by Neville Mariner. He's a composer that I and my family greatly enjoy.

Presenter17:38

The opening of William Boyce's first symphony in B flat major, The Academy of Saint Martin and the Fields, directed by Neville Mariner.

Presenter17:46

So you're chairman of the board of ICI. How old a firm is it?

Presenter17:51

Well, the the firm itself was formed from an amalgamation in nineteen twenty eight.

Presenter17:57

But our predecessor firms date right back from about 1870 and indeed in some parts of the world, like China, we've been trading continuously since about 1880. With an enormous range of products, I mean, from explosives and armaments on one side to aspirins on the other. Did you say armaments? Yes. No, no, no armaments. No armaments. No, no. We're a strictly non-armament company. Armaments explosives. Industrial explosives. Industrial explosives. We are the largest industrial explosives manufacturer in the world.

John Harvey-Jones18:16

Yeah.

John Harvey-Jones18:20

Um

Speaker 418:22

Industrial explanation.

Presenter18:28

It's a very wide range indeed. How many on the staff?

Presenter18:31

Well, we employ around the world about a hundred and twenty thousand people, but they are immensely widely spread. See, one of the features of my company is that we have both a very wide spread of products and a very wide spread of technology, and we operate throughout the world. We operate companies in nearly eighty countries, and we sell in over a hundred countries. Do you? I mean, the world would be a very much worse place without the chemical industry. Life expectancy would be about thirty to thirty-five. Would it really? Well, yes, because to start off with, you wouldn't have any pure water.

Presenter19:03

You would have no drugs?

Presenter19:05

You would almost certainly be unable to feed the world?

Presenter19:09

You know, people think of chemicals because of the way that chemistry is taught at school.

Presenter19:13

as being nasty things that go bang or kill or pollute.

Presenter19:17

but they are actually a vital part of life.

Presenter19:21

ICI is of course a British firm. Who are the main competitors for your range of products? Germany? United States? We're in the top five chemical companies in the world. One of the features of our business is it is a world business, as I've already indicated.

John Harvey-Jones19:28

Well, I think it's

Presenter19:39

In the top five, there's one American, one British, and three German companies. And there's quite a long gap then for the next league.

Presenter19:46

And one of the interesting things about our industry is you have to go down to about number twenty before you meet the first Japanese company. That's interesting. One would automatically think that they're burrowing away near the top. Well, they may be burrowing, but they haven't got near the top yet. Very large. More than ten thousand. And we spend an enormous amount of money.

Presenter20:10

on research worldwide. It is in fact the lifeblood of our business. And most of that is done in Britain. And all over Britain, I gather. ICI is more or less everywhere. We are more or less everywhere, but we tend to be concentrated much more in the north of England than in the south. For historic reasons. For historic reasons.

John Harvey-Jones20:26

Is that historically?

Presenter20:29

Well, basically chemicals started manufacture where there were intrinsic raw materials and most of the raw materials in Britain were in the north of England. And there's a a great tendency to concentrate chemical manufacture. When you produce one thing you tend to produce another one near it. It's a bit like pork butchery. You have to use everything but the squeak. So there is a great tendency to grow where you are.

Presenter20:51

Record number six we've got to. Well record number six is a rather unusual carol.

Presenter20:57

We always as a family play this at Christmas. I haven't heard it too often. It's the Shepherd's Pipe Carol, composed by Rutter and sung by the Clare College singers.

Speaker 421:07

To the nails on the night four star, on the way to death in there.

Speaker 421:14

I put the ship on

Speaker 421:21

Legends roll the stairs to dance and sing for joy and prize when kingdom is come to bring us peace on the design.

Speaker 421:37

Tell me Shepherd Boy by the two men On the way to heaven again

Speaker 421:44

Ripping your tunes on these fields so lonely, on the way to death they have.

Presenter22:06

The Shepherd's Pipe Carol sung by the Clare College singers.

Presenter22:10

Looking at the balance sheet, John, ICI profit went up to six hundred nineteen million last year. That that seems an indecent amount of profit to make. It's indecently small, actually. You think so? Well, no, I'm afraid uh that's a fact.

Presenter22:26

I have reckoned, and stated publicly, that we need to make a thousand million pounds of profit a year to sustain the company in its present size.

Presenter22:34

And that's actually arithmetically provable. The trouble is if you have a very large company, and we need a very large company.

Presenter22:42

You have to have an enormous amount of money just to stay in business. But the company has been subsisting in recent years o on a much lower No, it hasn't. The company has in fact been

Presenter22:52

In actual point of fact, growing smaller on a much lower profit. We actually need, if we're to generate the businesses of the future, we need that sort of money. You are indeed streamlining the company. I mean, there was talk that you would give up your very expensive London headquarters and and a headquarters. Well, we are halving it. I we can't actually give it up, but but we are halving it.

John Harvey-Jones23:10

Well we are carving.

John Harvey-Jones23:12

But

Presenter23:14

What about computerization? Are you going full pelt into computerization? Is this going to cut your staff and overheads and expenses? Well, I think computers are are much more a means of actually doing the business better than than actually cutting the staff. I mean, we over the years have been forerunners in computerizing control of plants.

Presenter23:37

and there are enormous amounts of money to be saved by operating plants at their most efficient.

Presenter23:43

Obviously they have some effect on on staff numbers, but they're not a prime cause of reduction. How often do you go abroad?

Presenter23:50

It's very seldom that I have an entire week in England.

Presenter23:54

I spend about three months of the year in all uh out of the country. With all this responsibility, you put in a very large number of hours. What do you do at weekends when you can break away from the whole thing?

Presenter24:06

Well, I like cooking. What do you cook? I mean elaborate meals or or do you just like bacon and eggs?

John Harvey-Jones24:08

What I

Presenter24:13

Well, of course I cook, what my family like.

Presenter24:15

But I I'm a a sort of meat and vege cook and I love vegetables. All of us love vegetables. I enjoy cooking vegetables. I enjoy cooking meat. I'm not too good on sweets, but uh I've got a a limited repertoire.

Presenter24:28

I also very much enjoy driving a donkey and trap. Do you? And I spend a lot of time with my granddaughter who lives with us. Are you a countryman at heart? Very much so. I like nature, I like birds.

Presenter24:42

I like countryside and I am very fond of animals.

John Harvey-Jones24:44

Yeah.

Presenter24:45

And like all good sailors, I believe you're a good swimmer. You enjoy that. Well, I I was taught the hard way.

Presenter24:53

How long are you going to do this very demanding job? I mean, is this something that you can

Presenter24:59

Go on and on doing, or is it a limited term job? Well, I have a five-year contract, and I have two more years to go.

Presenter25:07

I don't think it is a job that people should go on doing too long.

Presenter25:10

The job is essentially about change and about leading change.

John Harvey-Jones25:13

Yeah.

Presenter25:15

And I think with the best will in the world people get

Presenter25:18

A bit out of date and a bit tired. So at the end of your next two years, will you retire or seek something else in the same organization? No, I would hope to retire.

John Harvey-Jones25:26

No, I

Presenter25:29

Record number seven

Presenter25:31

Practically all the records I've chosen are things which we as a family enjoy.

Presenter25:36

We very much like Renaissance music.

Presenter25:38

And I was dreading the moment when I had to pronounce this one, but it's Shirazula Marazula.

Presenter25:44

one of the dances of the Renaissance.

Presenter26:45

Sharazula Marazoola

Presenter26:47

A dance of the Renaissance by the Ensemble Musica Auria.

Presenter26:52

How would you manage as a castaway, John? And you've known the horrors of shipwreck?

Presenter26:57

I'd be all right in terms of cooking.

Presenter27:00

And I'd be all right in terms, I think, of basic survival. But I as my wife would point out, I'm a terribly unpractical chap. You know, if I put a shelf up, it falls down, and that sort of thing. So I'd have a few problems, I think, if you're a fan of the. If you put the shelter up, the shelter would fall down, you know. Almost inevitably. What about food?

John Harvey-Jones27:14

If you put

Presenter27:18

Oh, no, I'm all right on that. And I could do without some for a while anyway. Have you had to do that? Yes. How long could you go? Oh, well, I mean, I look at the weight I'm carrying. Would you try to escape? Would you try to get away on a on a home built raft? I think not immediately. I mean, obviously one would ultimately try, but I think I'd like to just

Presenter27:40

Rock with it a bit.

Presenter27:42

Now you know a lot about navigation, obviously, but could you navigate without instruments? Yes, I'd be all right on that.

Presenter27:49

And and I'd be reasonably confident that I could get something together that would float. Right. Record number eight? Well, record number eight is a song called Ammonia Avenue done by the Alan Parsons Project.

Presenter28:03

Produced actually and written by a friend of mine called Eric Wilson.

Presenter28:07

And is a song about one of my factories. How did that come about? I mean, ordinarily people don't write songs about factories. Well, that's what I told Eric, and I took him up to look at my factory, and to my great delight.

Presenter28:20

He was moved to write the song, and I must say, I think the song says a lot of things that I feel very much. Which particular factory was this? It was our factory at Billingham, where we actually have a road called Ammonia Avenue.

Speaker 428:33

The stranger's eye

Speaker 428:38

And who are we?

Speaker 428:42

To criticise.

Speaker 428:45

Or scorn the things that they do

Speaker 428:50

For we shall see.

Speaker 428:54

And we shall find

Speaker 428:57

Ammonia and World.

Presenter29:03

Ammonia Avenue by the Allan Parsons Project. If you could take only one disc out of your eight, which would it be? I think probably William Boyce. William Boyce, the first symphony. And one luxury to take with you to the island, one thing of no practical use.

Presenter29:17

Well, that's a snag. I'd like to take my wife, but she'd be a practical use. I'm afraid so. So I I'd like to take my donkey and trap. I'm not sure about this. No, it the donkey and trap. The luxury must be inanimate.

John Harvey-Jones29:27

The tongue for that.

Presenter29:30

You can take the trap, although that in itself would be fairly useful. You could pull it about yourself. I guess I'll have to settle for the trap, then hope I can find a donkey. That's all you're gonna get.

John Harvey-Jones29:37

I hope I can find

Presenter29:40

And one book. You have the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare. I'd like to take the Loom of Language by Hendrik van Loom. The Loom of Language by Hendrik van Loom. And thank you, John Harvey Jones, for letting us hear your Desert Island Discs. Thank you. Goodbye, everyone.

John Harvey-Jones30:03

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