Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Broadcaster, politician and beloved children's TV presenter, best known for Play School and campaigning for children's charities.
On the island
Eight records
The Greatest Love of AllFavourite
This song represents my beloved parents who poured love into me every day when I was a child. And I believe that. This is the message that needs to be passed on to children, not just your own children, but to all children. And I think every new parent should be given the words to this song when they bring a child into the world, because childhood lasts a lifetime.
I love Bob Marley. I think he's a poetic genius. And when my kids were little, we used to play his Legend CD as we drove along, especially on our French holidays, and we would sing songs and play games in the car... mine was Waiting in Vain, and everybody had to be quiet to hear the intro of this song.
I used to love taking my mum to the Ritz and watching her make a grand entrance as though she belonged... I used to love dancing at the Ritz to this song with my mum. I could just see her swaying now.
My dad was a great saxophonist... he used to give me records as birthday presents. And one of them was the Stan Getz album Voices. And a track on the album is called Once. And I associated that with my darling husband, Keith... we used to play this particular track over and over again on our red plastic portable record player. It's our signature tune.
I adore this song. I actually go into raptures whenever I hear it. I grab my husband and I say, come on, dance with me. And he doesn't like dancing, but he does dance this song with me. And I tell him, I'll lead, you follow.
London Gabrieli Brass Ensemble
This ceremonial music was played for the procession as I entered the great hall for the graduation ceremony at Exeter University, where I was Chancellor for ten years... One of the most memorable occasions was when the Queen was there... we sat and we had lunch together and we exchanged stories.
Not many people know that I'm a rock chick. I used to be the singer of the Ken Follitz Band, and we used to perform for charities all over the world... The words to this song represents what I used to say to the graduates during the ceremony.
Whenever I travel around the country giving inspirational talks to organizations and to schools or to universities, I always finish with this song, to motivate and inspire people to never give up. And I've always been determined to be a winner, to succeed in the end, no matter how long it took me.
In conversation
Presenter asks
2:52Did you have any inkling of how significant that job [on Play School] would be when you took it on?
None at all. When I was little I wanted to be a teacher, but unfortunately I had to leave school at 16 to go and work in a bank and I didn't become a teacher. But I realized in play school I did become a teacher to millions of children... In fact, Play School was a bit like a mini culture show... And I remember one day saying to the producer back in 1976 I think it was, all the illustrations that you see on the screen when I tell a story are all of white children. Can't we have some black and Asian and Chinese faces? Because I want the children out there to feel they belong to that culture. To give her due, it got changed that very day. And if you don't see yourself, how do you know you belong? How do you know you're important?
Presenter asks
9:40The British Jamaican photographer Vandy Burke told me that when he was growing up, the waiting kids, like him, were called the left behinds. You were just eight. How did you cope?
Well, I coped because I knew I was loved and I had that confidence that it will get better. Adversity can either make you stronger or break you. And my mum taught us how it should never break you. It should always make you stronger. And the people who were horrible to me, I don't hate them. You know, I just think, oh my goodness, me, why couldn't you see life was worth being better?
The keepsakes
The book
Barack Obama
It's a wonderful book that illustrates that saying 'who would have thought'… It's about hope. It's also about the importance of cultural identity and belonging.
The luxury
I'm going to take something he knows I always take with me, and that is my neck cushion. I take it everywhere I go in the world, so I get a good, comfortable, relaxing night's sleep.
Presenter asks
11:10Were you able to tell your parents what had happened to you when you were reunited [after the 15 months apart]?
I remember writing a letter to my mum once, these blue AMA letters, and I was writing a letter to my mum. My sister Sandra and I were writing, telling her what was going on with our auntie, how wicked she was to us, and how terrible our life was at the time. All the letters were vetted, and the woman who looked after us said, Eh, all your mother gallivanting in England left to me to look after all you. All you could have been an orphanage, you know, and you're telling tales on me. Wallop, wallop. And it was scratched out. So we couldn't say anything. And so when we came to England, it was only after a while that we actually told our mother and my father what actually happened. But at the time, we knew that you had to cope with it, because if you didn't cope with it, you would go down.
Presenter asks
14:51Tell me a bit about the welcome that they [your parents] were expecting and then the reality that they found.
Well, it wasn't quite what we expected. When I first came to Britain, I found that my parents were living in one room, and so all eight of us lived in one room. But my mum used to say, This room is full of love, and we're together as a family, we're going to make the most of it. Then we moved to Penge, where we had two rooms, and then we moved to Annerley, where we had a house, and then we moved to Becken. And my mum said, Let's upgrade. When we went to view this house on a Sunday afternoon, about 2:30 on a Sunday afternoon, we were all excited about which room we're going to have. And there was a gardener, because my mum was a great gardener. And we suddenly heard, da-da-da-da-da-da. We looked out of the window and saw police. There were police in the streets, motorbikes, panda cars, black mariahs. And the neighbours had called up the police to say black people were stealing the fixtures and fittings. So they came to arrest us. The first policeman to arrive was on a motorbike, and when he saw us, he told the other ones, it's all right, I'll deal with this one. And it turned out that he was married to a Ghanaian doctor, and the same thing had happened to her when she went to look at a house. So he understood the situation, and we got friendly with him, became friends with him. But my mum said, You know something, we're going to buy this house, we're going to live in this house. And she lived there for 40 years, and in fact, she died in that house of bowel cancer. That's why I'm the patron of bowel cancer. And she and my dad, my dad died a year before she did, and they're both buried in Beckenham Cemetery. So I went to the cemetery when I became a baroness, and I said, Mommy, daddy. I'm going to claim Beckenham for you. I'm going to call myself Baroness Benjamin of Beckenham. There, it's yours.
Presenter asks
24:07How easy is it to push for better on-screen representation while working within systems? Can you challenge them from the inside?
It was very tough. I was told, shut up, or you never work again. You get knocked down, yes. But you have to have that self-belief that you're going to rise. And a lot of the things that I said way back, you know, 40 odd years ago, is happening now. But now things are changing and it's wonderful. We've all got to take personal responsibility to make change. And change will never happen. There's going to be lasting change if not everybody's in it together.
“I loved it because, as the song said, I was wrapped with love. I used to go to school and stand in the playground and sing God save the Queen. I used to learn about Britain, British heroes, and culture. Nothing about my own, sadly. And one day my world fell apart when my dad decided he wanted to come to England.”
“My world fell apart that day because she left me and my sister and my two brothers with two sets of horrible foster parents who treated us so badly. But we got through it for 15 months, separated. And when we got that letter, 15 months after my mum saying we're going to England, I go, Yippee, we're going to England, the land of hope and glory.”
“Not realizing when we came to England what we're going to have to face, who was going to insult us. And it was on a daily basis having to have this kind of racial abuse as a 10-year-old child walking down the streets knowing which grown man would be calling you a name or being horrible to you. It's tough being black. It's tough having to face that, especially as a child. But it makes you resilient.”
“When I first came to Britain, I found that my parents were living in one room, and so all eight of us lived in one room. But my mum used to say, This room is full of love, and we're together as a family, we're going to make the most of it... We looked out of the window and saw police. There were police in the streets, motorbikes, panda cars, black mariahs. And the neighbours had called up the police to say black people were stealing the fixtures and fittings. So they came to arrest us.”
“I went for this musical and this audition in my lunch hour. And I wore this Page Boy wig and a short skirt. And I went for this job. And I sang for them. And then they said, can you move? And I said, of course I can move. Well, I went one way and the wig went the other way.”