William Davis

William Davis0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty 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 eight, and the presenter was Michael Parkinson.

Presenter0:30

Our castaway is most economically described as author, columnist, and broadcaster. His achievements within these categories are outstanding. He was the financial editor of various papers, including The Guardian. He's a former editor of Punch, and at present he's the publisher of highly successful magazines. On television, he was a founder member of The Money Programme, and on radio, he presented The World at One. As an author, you get some idea of where his interests lie by the titles of his books, including Money Talks, Have Expenses Will Travel, and It's No Sin to Be Rich. He is William Davies.

Presenter1:03

Bill, g given this lifestyle of yours, obviously sort of cyboritic, wealthy, life of luxury.

Presenter1:09

Could you adapt, do you think, to this simple life on a desert island? Oh, I think so. I've had a home on an island, in fact, two islands, for a good many years. For twenty years, I'd a house on a small island in Sicily called Liperi, which I enjoyed very much. And certainly when I went there first, it was very much the simple life, no electricity and so on. And for the last few years, I've had a house on an even smaller island called Harbour Island in the Bahamas, where I spent two months of the year. Now, it's not too simple, because I can bring in my cigars and a bottle of champagne. And we do have electricity, so it's though it's as always happens on islands, it's a bit erratic, like the water supply. But yes, of course I could. But on this island, then you won't have your cigars, you won't have your champagne. It's going to be a very, very severe regime, in a sense. Now, would you therefore still love islands, given all the luxury stripped away? Do you like the notion of sitting on a piece of land surrounded by sea? Yes, you know, I do very much, and that's, of course, why I go. And surrounding the island where I'm in the Bahamas, there are lots of other places where we go off for beach picnics and so on, which I totally deserted. It is, of course, difficult, because island living does mean a new kind of dependence. Fresh water and motors that work or don't work, and you become very conscious of those kind of things. But I do like the tranquility. I like the whole atmosphere. And I suppose it's because I lead such a hectic life in big cities the rest of the year that I very much enjoy it. I do like the contrast very much. What kind of company would music be on your island? I mean, you've had a lifelong interest in music. Yes, of course you get very lonely on an island, and therefore the kind of music I like to plays is, and I do play when I'm in the Bahamas, is the sort of music that brings a crowd instantly into the room so that I don't have to go out and find it. I just put on the record and I've got my crowd there and I don't feel lonely anymore. Right. What's the first choice of record? Oh, I think it very much Schiller's Ode to Joy from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. It's got everything, you know, lots of people, cheerfulness, and of course power. And it's also the European anthem, and I consider myself to be very much a European.

Speaker 43:51

Yeah.

Speaker 43:54

Yeah.

Speaker 43:59

Yeah.

Presenter4:22

There was the ode to joy from the finale of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, performanced by the chorus of Vienna State Opera and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Claudio Abado.

Presenter4:31

Bill Davis, you said there that you consider yourself to be European. Could you explain that? I mean, what what was your background? Well, I was born in uh Hanover in Germany, although of course uh uh from for a very long time, 123 years. You know, uh Hanover and Britain were very close linked here. The Sh the same monarch and Hanoverian troops fought at Waterloo and uh I was born there and uh uh of German parents uh and left school at fourteen. Then my parents got divorced during the war and my mother married a sergeant in the British Army.

Presenter4:59

And uh that's how I came to be in Britain. What what kind of a childhood was it? Because we are talking about being in Germany during the war years, aren't we? Yes, very hard. And of course it it uh has affected um me all my life. You see death at a at a very early age, ten, eleven years old, uh death and destruction are all around you, great hunger and

William Davis5:05

Yeah.

Presenter5:18

poverty and a very grim childhood. I didn't see my parents for a good many years during the war years and and it's still, you know, it left a deep mark on me and it's still there. Well, I I suppose you were you you were died during the bombing, weren't you? Yes, very much so. And of course, as you know, in the

Presenter5:33

Latter part of the war, when those thousand bombers came across every night, uh you as a child I didn't know whether we'd be alive the next morning.

Presenter5:41

Of course, happened to a lot of other people, happened on this side. War affects everybody. And I say it was just as rough on a lot of children, but it marks you for life. I think one of the main things results is that I have ever since been grateful for the good things that have happened to me. I don't take them for granted. And I really don't have much time for people to complain about, particularly young people who complain about life today, because as far as I'm concerned, they've never had it so good because they have not had to go through the horrifying experience of war. Do you find it difficult to remember back and talk about it? Not at all, not now. I think when I first came here, of course, it was difficult. And indeed, I pretended for some reason to be Austrian. It seemed to be, although Hitler was an Austrian, it seemed to be more acceptable to be Austrian than German. I never understood that. But of course, imagine I came on my 16th birthday. This is in 1949. And of course, there was a great deal of hostility to anything German. I changed my name. I was born with a German name of Günther Kees. And I changed it to Davis, because my stepfather was called Davis, and William, because some children I joined the Boy Scouts, and some children said, haven't you got other names named Günther? And I said, well, yes, I've got another name, Wilhelm. And they said, isn't that Bill? And I said, yes, I suppose it is. I've been Bill ever since. Another choice of record, please. I love Italy and had a house there for 20 years, as I said, and adore it. I particularly like the cheerfulness of Neapolitan songs. And I'm very, very fond of Luciano Pavarotti. I play this a lot. And the one I've chosen is Pavarotti singing Maria Marie.

Speaker 47:13

Oimari Oimari Wantaswano Pero Batte Famadurmi Abrakato Nuboto Kut Oimari Oimari Vanatas Wanda Peratam

Speaker 48:00

Boy Brown.

Presenter8:05

As Maria Marie sung by Luciano Pavarotti.

Presenter8:08

Bill Davis, you mentioned there that when you first came to Britain as a child in 1941, that there was obviously some hostility there. Moving forward to the present time, is there still hostility towards the bottom of the bottom? Well, I suppose it's more of a leg pull now. Private eye has had a bit of fun with it. There have been private eye doesn't like successful people or foreigners. I mean, one gets used to that kind of thing. I don't think there's much hostility towards it now. No, I'm certainly not conscious of it. But then, you know, I mean, I've been I consider myself to be very British. And I do an occasional television programme in Germany because my German is still fluent. And it always says William Davis Britain underneath it. And I'm rather proud of that. I mean, you know, you find that people who are naturalised Britons tend to be more patriotic than the ones who are born here. We've chosen to be here. And so I suppose, yes, I'm really a British superpatriot now.

William Davis8:14

Okay.

William Davis8:21

Well, I suppose it's

William Davis8:35

No.

Presenter9:01

You mentioned something there that interested me too. You said that that what it taught you that background was also bit positive about this. Look on the good side of things, therefore. Was there a good side of actually missing out on the English educational system, perhaps, when you arrived at the age of sixteen? Well, I mean, from all the horror stories I hear from people who went to an English public school, and particularly to Eton, I'm very happy to have missed out on that. But no, I I wish I'd gone to had the chance to go to university. I would very much like to have gone to Oxford or Cambridge. But I didn't. I left school at fourteen, and when I got here, my first job was as an office boy. I went to evening classes to try and catch up, but no, I've really had no formal education. Did you have any ambition, though, when you were there this sort of sixteen-year-old boy in England, struggling with this new New London uh new system? Did you have any ambition? Do you have any idea what you might be? Always wanted to be a writer. Didn't always want to be a journalist and and uh never had any doubts about that. Uh at school it was my writing was my best subject. Um always had I suppose uh an imagination and I'm blessed with a lot of energy which uh

William Davis9:48

They do what

Presenter9:59

which is the greatest gift uh I've got. And uh so I really

Presenter10:03

I was very fortunate at very early age, 18, coming here two years later, being employed as a journalist, and even more fortunate in my early twenties to be discovered, if that's the word, by Lord Beaverbrook, who made me a city of the Evening Standard at the age of 25, which is terrific. He was a marvellous man to work for. You liked him, did you? I thought he was marvellous. Why, well, you know, at his age, he was exciting and he didn't have any hang-ups about age. I'm not sure he would have hired me, you know, if he'd known I'd been born in Germany. But I didn't tell him until much later, of course. And by that time, I was his blue-eyed boy, so that was okay. I like working for him. He was a man who cared about newspapers. You know, so many proprietors today just buy newspapers like they buy cabbages or property or whatever, but he cared about it. And he taught me an awful lot. And he gave me every opportunity at a very early age.

William Davis10:23

Well you

Presenter10:57

And I'm forever grateful to him for that. Another choice of record, please, Bill. Well, um, you know, I do a great deal of travelling, and one of my trips took me to Russia when I was the age of Punch. And because of all the propaganda, I thought the Russians were grim, humourless, nasty people, a sort of nation of KGB people. And when I got there, I found them cheerful, amusing, good fun, and they were human after all. And it always seemed to me that the one thing that sums it all up is the Russian army choir singing Kalinka.

Presenter12:30

That was Kalinka, sung by the Soviet Army Ensemble.

Presenter12:34

Well, Davis, can we go back to this to the beginnings of your of your career in journalism? D w why on earth did you start as a financial journalist? I mean what was the interest in money? Where did that come from? Because you had no background in that at all, did you? No, I didn't. I applied uh tried desperately to get into journalism. Um uh I used to read the Daily Telegraph um column that had advertisements for for jobs and uh it just so happened that the one that uh that I could get a foot in the door in was uh a paper called the Stock Exchange Gazette.

Presenter13:00

And that's how I got into financial journalism. But it's a very technical field. I mean, not really, no. I've never written about money in my life. I've written about the people who make money. I'm fascinated as a writer by people. I'm interested in how they make it, why they make it, and what they do with it after they have made it. And all my books, I've written 14 books, and mostly about this subject. That's what fascinates me, and it's always been that way. And right from the early days, I wrote about people. And of course, Beaverbrook was the same. He encouraged that. He always thought that writing about people was interesting. He once made somebody else, the city of the Daily Express, who had been a telephone switchboard operator. And he said, it's far better if you know nothing about economics and money. You'll soon find out. He was right. But you, of course, are one of the people responsible. I mean, you're a great populariser of the city pages. I mean, before you came along, they were rather dull and they were rather sort of specific to the industry, weren't they? You were one of those people who widened it, broadened it, so that the man in the street started being aware of what was happening on the stock exchange. Do you think this has been a good thing in retrospect? I don't like today the obsession with the fast buck, the quick deal. I think that it's a very good thing that we write about people who are successful because I think it inspires other people to be successful. And there's nothing wrong with success. Although I find in this country we still have a sort of very curious feeling about success, whether it's envy or spite, I don't know. And people who make money. I don't like today this obsession with deal making, although, of course, it makes fascinating reading.

William Davis13:04

Not really, no.

William Davis13:30

It was

Presenter14:29

No choice of record, please, Bill. Well, it gets very lonely on an island sometimes, you know. You long for a big city, and indeed many islanders feel the same. They always say to me, What's it like in in London or New York? Now, New York is one of my favourite places. I I actually now have an office there, and I commute between London and New York. And I to me, the one that sums it up really, the excitement of New York, is Neil Diamond singing, What a beautiful noise.

Speaker 314:52

Like the clickery clack Of a train on a track, It's got rhythm to spare.

Speaker 314:59

It's a beautiful noise.

Speaker 315:03

It's a song that I love.

Presenter15:03

Uh

Speaker 315:07

And it fits me as well.

Speaker 315:10

As a hand in a cloud, yes it does, yes it does.

Speaker 315:19

No.

Presenter15:22

Neil Diamond and what a beautiful noise. But Lewis, continuing this talk about the uh about rich people, I'll give you a quote that uh you once said. You said, quote, I want to conserve rich people.

Presenter15:33

I mean what exactly do you mean by that? Well I think they're a luxury we can afford as a country. The rich have built all a lot of the beautiful things we have in this country. Lovely, beautiful country houses, castles. You know, I don't want everything to look the same. You know, the cities now all tend to look the same and the rich are patrons of the arts and encourage people. I think they're, you know, they are they give money to charity and other things. I think the rich people are, as I say, luxury we ought to be able to afford. And I wanted to conserve them. I wrote this in the 1970s in a book called It's No Sin to Be Rich because this was the time, you remember, when it was very much the practice to despise the rich and attack the rich. And I thought that that was quite wrong. I'm against vulgarity and vulgar spending. But I think in a free society it's right to have rich and poor and I think that in a free society the great thing about it is that everybody can join the rich if he makes the effort. Are they very different from the rest of us?

Presenter16:31

Yes, well as uh the old quote is always they have more money. It depends. I I it depends a lot. Some really honestly I feel very very sorry for because all they can do is to think about making more. They don't take any holidays, they don't take any time off. To me making money and I've made a bit has always been a means to an end and first and foremost money buys freedom. It buys me the freedom to choose what I want to do rather than what I have to do. I don't have to go to an office and do a boring job. I can choose to do what I look with my life. That's the most important thing to me about money. And then of course some of the other pleasures in life. But I know a lot of sad rich people and they're sad because really having made that money they don't know what else to do with their lives except to go on making more. They've never learned the art of living. And that seems to me absolutely crazy because life is so short.

Presenter17:19

So it's no good just making money without having a purpose to to to that making money, whether it be power or whether it be uh

Presenter17:25

Luxury or whatever. Yeah, so power turns a lot of people on, and I can understand that, of having written a great deal about it. But you know, there is life too, and there are beautiful places in the world to see. I always find that a lot of rich people saying to me, you know, I don't have time for holiday, I don't care about holidays, have never traveled anywhere, never seen anything, never really done anything interesting except make more money. And that I find very sad. A lot of people look at rich people and say, lucky devil, or whatever. Now, how much is luck or how much is wit and talent? In other words, really, basically, is it easy to make money, do you think? Are there certain rules to be observed? No, I think an overnight quick buck happens, of course, but it's the same sort of nonsense as winning the football pools or trying to win the football pools. The only way, best way I know to make money, well, the quickest way is to marry a rich woman or a rich man. Marry a fortune, go to Palm Beach and sit there for a few days. It's full of rich elderly matrons if that's what you want to do. Not worth it now. But that's one way, make a quick buck. The other way is to do what I've done is to leave the safe job, start a company of your own, build it up so that somebody wants to buy it. And that's exactly what I did when I left the ownership of Punch. I started a magazine publishing company and a few years later sold it for a great deal of money. And that has given me what else I have. But the formula for that is hard work. And really application. I think the outstanding characteristic of rich people is their concentration and persistence. That's how you build a business. But it's certainly hard work. I mean, let nobody think that the money just lies there on the streets.

William Davis18:24

Well worth it.

Presenter19:04

Another choice of record, please. Yes, I perhaps uh appropriate in German. One of the first operas I ever saw was the Magic Flute, and I've liked it ever since. Mozart wrote it in German, of course, but he has universal appeal. I I particularly like the Papagueno song, because it's so cheerful, and I like cheerful music.

Speaker 419:22

I'll make an odor.

Speaker 419:29

So I'm sandlich, we are selling.

Presenter19:31

Bye.

Speaker 419:39

We are seeing

Speaker 419:59

Imelesium silence.

Presenter20:03

Yeah.

Speaker 420:09

Yesterday when size lies amidst the love The events

Speaker 420:16

Believe the young time.

Speaker 420:18

Belgium, sir.

Presenter20:21

As Papagenos sang Ein Mitschen ode Weibschen from Act II of Mozart's The Magic Flute, the singer there was Gottfried Hornig.

Presenter20:29

Little Davis, let's now talk about Punch. You took over Punch and there's much eyebrow raising about this foreigner. German financial editor. You just take over this great British institution. I mean, first of all, obviously, for you, it was a great ambition to realize, one would imagine. Not at all. I was very happy as financial editor of The Guardian, and this came very much out of the blue. And I suppose, I mean, Punch was losing a lot of money at the time, and they wanted somebody to go in there and rescue it, which I did. But it came totally out of the blue. And I rang up Malcolm Muggich, who at that point I'd never met, but he'd been the editor of Punch, and I said, what do you think? And he said, well, they're impossible people, but they're not very competent. But journalism is an adventure. And if you're not prepared to be adventurous, what are you doing in this profession? And I said, that's good enough for me. And I rang them up and I said, take it.

William Davis20:35

German financial editor

Presenter21:18

He also wrote you a a a piece about an open letter to you in a newspaper where he said something funny. He said you were you were beautifully qualified to become editor of Punch because A you weren't British and secondly you weren't in the humour business. Well that's quite true. You see an editor of a humour magazine has to make other people he's a conductor of an orchestra. He has to make other people give their best in the humorous feel. And I thought I was pretty good at that. I found some good writers and some good cartoonists and who really I was a father figure to them because the cartooning is a very difficult business and they were all fairly neurotic. And I was really a father figure to them and I enjoyed it very much. I had edit ten years as editor of Punch which was a long time. Yes you liked that didn't you? You liked actually nurturing talent. I think that is the greatest pleasure an editor has. There's a lot of people or performers who didn't even know they could write. I suppose two people that I made write. One was Harry Seacombe and the other one was Terry Wogan. Both who write very well indeed. Both of them write and Terry is rather proud of his writing and but you know they're people who I think I played a lot of quite a part in drawing them out and that of course is the great pleasure for an editor.

William Davis21:29

Yeah.

William Davis22:14

Both the right

Presenter22:27

Another choice of record, piece though. Well, I come back. It has to be another piece of Italian music, that lovely passage from Capricia Italiene that I always wanted to hum because it reminds me very much of my marvellous days in my Italian island Lippere.

Presenter23:41

Pardo Czakowski's Capriccio Italienne, played by the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Charles Dutroy.

Presenter23:47

But there is

Presenter23:49

It seems to me that that you've

Presenter23:51

For many, many years you've worked within our industry in journalism in Britain. But you've also had that significant gift, I think, of being, because of the background you had, of being able to sort of look at us as an observer, much more than, say, I could who was sort of born here. And particularly when you're that ten years, that decay we talked about when you were editor of Punch. What do you make of us? I mean, if you explain to a Martian what an Englishman is about or a British is about, what do you say were the pluses and the minuses? Oh, goodness me. Well, when you say us, I mean, I'd include myself in that because I've been British for thirty-eight years. So I think that and I have a French wife, which, by the way, also sort of gives you a different perspective on life. But civilised lot still, and with a sense of humour, of course. Travelling around a great deal, I do still find a great deal of admiration of the British, especially, of course, the Britain of today, the thing that some people dismiss as Thatcher Wright Britain. But in fact, you know, she has managed to restore, with all our help, some pride in Britain, and certainly some respect for Britain elsewhere. So one finds that much more than ever before. I think a lot of foreigners also find the British rather curious and their lack of apparel used to

William Davis24:25

Yeah.

William Davis24:27

Yeah.

Presenter25:10

I find it rather curious, the apparent lack of ambition, you know, this sort of, which took me some time to get used to, this sort of people looking at you curiously and saying, why are you trying so hard? As if this was trying hard was a very uncharacteristic British trait. Robert Maxwell finds this, I think, that people put this to him. Why this effort? Why this trying so hard? This I find very curious about the British. But I'm happy to say it's changing. A lot of conspicuous trials out there today. Are you in any sense political? I mean, do you think that you'd like to to have had a career in politics? No, not at all. I think you can't...

Presenter25:49

Be a financial editor and an editor of a magazine like Punch, which has always been very political, without taking a keen interest in politics and having strong views on various subjects, but in fact, never had the slightest intention of having actually a career, being a politician. I mean, they're the kind of people that we made fun of in Punch, and they're the kind of people one criticizes as a journalist, which, by the way, is much easier than actually being a politician. Never had the slightest desire, had the opportunity. Jim Callahan, when he was Prime Minister, said, Why don't you become a Labour MP and I'll help you? Never even thought about it, never even appealed to me.

Presenter26:25

Another choice of record, please Bill.

Presenter26:27

Well, uh the one I play a lot in in the Bahamas is uh and I first heard it in a record shop in New York, and I absolutely love it. And that's an an extract from and I'd love to be able to play the whole lot, but an extract from Camina Burana by Karlov.

Speaker 426:45

Ts, because I'm some people.

Speaker 426:52

Oh in the star.

Presenter27:40

That was the Florette Silva from Carmina Barana by Karl Off, a performance conducted by James Levine.

Presenter27:47

William Davis, you you once r wrote a book about about f uh fantasy, uh called A Practical Guide to Escapism. I mean, is the urge to get away from it all? Is it very strong in you?

Presenter27:58

Yes, and I do get away. Two months of the year, I'm on a small island. I travel the rest of the time. I mean, my job takes me all over the world. But you know, it it this is the human contradiction, isn't it? When one is there, one actually longs to get back, or and I still like being involved in the excitement of making things happen. I'm very fortunate in the kind of work that I do, that it's very creative and you meet a lot of exciting people. And I still like all that very much. But I have to have a break from it. I have to get away to be in a quiet place, to have moments for reflection. I would desperately miss that if I didn't have that. Although, and then I sit at my typewriter on my little island, and I actually pound the typewriter, that's why I write my books. I did a terrible thing, I've installed a fax machine now on an island. I must be the only man on a small island with a fax machine, which is at least keeping in touch with this life. But it is very important for me to get away. You are a very

Presenter28:56

Vigorous middle-aged man. And I mean, I wouldn't even contemplate bringing the question to you about retirement. But, I mean, you must consider it sometime in your life. And if you did, I mean, what would that retirement be? What would it constitute?'Cause you're not a kind who could sit on his backside, are you? And and contemplate. I'd like to spend the winter in the Bahamas on the island with uh with occasional trips, side trips to New York. But while I'm sitting on that island, I'd like to write more books. I mean, I've got a lot of books that I still want to write. Do you think you might ever write the book which I would like to read about about your early days, about your life?

Presenter29:25

I I hate autobiographies really. I think you know it's it's a vanity trip.

Presenter29:30

I'd rather work that into the book I wrote on escapism, had a lot of personal things in it and personal thoughts in it. No, I I'd really like to turn my hands at writing a novel. I've never done that. I've only written non-fiction books. But you need time for that and periods of reflection, which I think retirement would give me. Would it be a novel about rich people? Probably, probably would. Well, you know, one always writes about the things one knows something about. But I've sat down over the years and written down also scenarios and tucked them away somewhere thinking, well, one day I'm going to have time to write that. I like to write plays. When I was 21, I sat down and wrote a couple of plays. I joined the Dramatic Society. And if you're an actor or acting on the stage in other people's lines, you know, I said to myself, well, I can write as well as this. And so I took this playwriting very seriously. And it was a great pleasure to see it performed by other people. And that's something else I'd like to have another go at. I mean, life's full of challenges, and I enjoy challenge. Final choice of records, please. Well, this is a I as you notice, I've chosen nothing but cheerful music so far, but this is one that I don't always get to me. I find it deeply emotional, and it's one I enjoy very much, and it's called The Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves from Verdis Nabucco.

Presenter31:38

A chorus of Hebrew slaves from Verdi's Nabucco, the Hannic Choir and Orchestra, conducted by Owen Owl Hughes.

Presenter31:45

Bill Davis, you're now on your desert island. Imagine that a wave comes along, it wipes out seven of your records, you're left with one. Which would you care to keep? Oh, I think the Ode to Joy from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony because it brings the crowds into the room and I love the cheerfulness of it all. And what about the book? Assume you've got Shakespeare and the Bible. Difficult. I mean, I'd probably be a dictionary. I'm torn between a dictionary of symptoms so I could treat myself, at least know what was wrong with me. But I think the book I would choose would be Dr. Samuel Johnson's dictionary because it's marvellously witty and inspiring. It's full of dotty definitions, and I think that would keep me going for quite a while. And being keenly interested in words as a writer, I love the way he played words. I love his definition. I think it's a marvellous book. And what about the luxury object in animate? No, this is difficult because, you know, being a practical man and having a home in Ireland, what I'd really like is a solar-powered ice-making machine, but I don't suppose you'd allow me to have that. Is there such a thing, do you think? Well, if there isn't, somebody ought to invent it. Certainly, any generator, solar-powered, so I can have all the other luxuries. If I can't have that, and a soft bed would be an absolute essential. I've been on some islands around the world where, really, honestly, it was. And I like my comfort. If I can't have that, I'll have a telescope so I can take up a new hobby looking at the screen. Well, I think settle for the telescope. The telescope.

William Davis32:59

Three you've made it one.

Presenter33:04

Well, Davis, thank you very much indeed.

William Davis33:13

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