Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Countryside campaigner, champion of independent shops and small-scale producers, best known for taking on Tesco and winning.
On the island
Eight records
I loved it as a child. I loved horses as a child, and I loved this record particularly because you can hear the horses' hooves, but it is a wonderful record as well.
St Matthew Passion, BWV 244: "O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden"Favourite
it was very important to my parents. They both sang in the Bar Choir every week, and I remember my father used to come back having performed in the Matthew Passion, having sung in the Matthew Passion, absolutely drained at lunch time, and I associate this very much with my parents, and it is a most fantastic piece of music.
Idomeneo, K. 366: "Zeffiretti lusinghieri"
this particular piece where Ilya, the daughter of King Priam, is on the island of Crete and thinking about her lover Adamante and saying, I hope the breezes will take my love to him. It's a beautiful piece.
this particular song has remained with me all my life. I could sing it to now. I sing it in the car when I think I'm going to sleep and it always wakes me up. It's a fantastic piece of music.
The Little Sweep, Op. 45: "The Kettles Are Singing"
this particular opera, The Little Sweep, was written about the Gaythorne Hardy family. And my husband's name is there, his sisters, his cousins, the place names, they're all there. It's about stories of a little boy, a chimney sweep, who's sent up the chimney and he falls down into the nursery. And there he is surrounded by all these little children who want to clean him up and save him.
Humphrey Lyttelton and His Band
I'm almost an obsessional dancer. I'm far too old. It's a rather disgraceful sight, probably, seeing somebody my age rocking about on the dance floor, but my memories of Humphrey Littledon are of dancing and dancing, and I adore his music.
Piano Concerto No. 4 in G Major, Op. 58
I've always loved the piano. My father, every day, who's a musician, used to come back home from the bank where he worked and used to practise for at least an hour. And so the piano was always part of my early life. Now recently I've got to know a very good friend called Christian Blackshaw who is a wonderful pianist... This particular piece is something which takes one beyond oneself.
when we used to employ more people on the farm, I used to have wonderful harvest suppers, and at the end one of the people who worked for us used to get out his little accordion and used to sing, and the one song everybody wanted was to be a farmer's boy.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:40Is that the key to successful campaigning, then? This this subversive element of people not quite knowing when you're going to poke your nose into their business.
I think that's part of it is is being there, but I think also in my own life it's being very reasonable, I think, being practical and reasonable and commonsense. I think this is one of the things that has driven me throughout. And also I have a great sense of the importance of fairness. And I do find that by being reasonable and fair and popping up in these unexpected places, one does have a chance of perhaps influencing what is going to happen.
Presenter asks
4:44I mean, did you know at the time that mummy and daddy were spies? ... And when did you find out?
Of course not, of course not. ... My mother had a a little suitcase which was called Secret Inks, and I always thought this was a joke. and it had a false bottom in which she kept secret inks, apparently. And my father had a great sense of humour, and I always thought this was just a little joke. I have since discovered from a friend who's in MI six and retired that in fact she was a great expert in secret inks.
Presenter asks
10:49The keepsakes
The book
Dorothy Hartley
This is an incredibly useful book. I had it with me when I was living in the jungle in Malea, which I suppose in a way is a moderately dry run, very, very damp there, for the desert island. But it not only describes the history of food in England, but also has the most wonderful wood cuts showing you how to make an oven out of hay, or how to skin a rabbit, or how to gut a pig. And I think it would be extremely useful. And I I find it a great solace in Malaya too when I was sort of missing my English home life and I would sort of sit there reading about these ancient ways of cooking apples or whatever it was.
The luxury
waterproof paper, Indian ink, and a pen
I would thought I would take a knife, but I think you're not allowed to something as practical as that. So what I would really like to take, I think, is some. I don't know where this exists sort of waterproof paper and uh Indian ink and a pen so I could write things down. At my age I might start forgetting.
And so I mean, given that you parented very differently, d do you regret that you didn't have a more direct relationship with with your own parents?
Yes, I do, intensely. And I also regret very much they died um fairly young, and so I never really got to know them in a way, and I have a theory that you never are on a level with the previous generation until you've got children of your own. They died just at the point when I married, and I I just regret that so much.
Presenter asks
18:20You moved to Malaya as it as it then was. Tell me about early married life.
That was wonderful. We lived in the jungle, um, fifty miles outside Kuala Lumpur, but in the real jungle it was so beautiful. We had a tiny house on the edge of a hillside with a river at the bottom of the garden where we did our washing and also swam. And then the sounds of the hornbills, the argus pheasants, the bulbuls, the crazy noises of the insects, and mist just drifting up, because it's very, very humid. And it was absolutely blissful at that time.
Presenter asks
23:25And Tesco said that they planned to build this sort of out-of-town superstore, really, on the edge of the nearest town, Saxe Mundon. And why did that get your goat?
Well, again, I've been very much aware ever since I'd come to Suffolk that there were huge numbers of of small shops still, and all the market towns still had their bakers, their fishmongers, their butchers, grocers. These all stocked a lot of local food. And I thought, well, if this big supermarket is going to come in, it will undoubtedly result in many of these little shops closing down. And what will the effect this be on the on the local food producers. And so I then went and interviewed every shop selling food I could find. And I then did a database to see where they were getting their food from. And to my amazement, they were sourcing their food from nearly 300 local and regional food producers.
“I've never planned my life, but life seems to lead me where I need to go. I've had a very happy life. I've had a wonderful family, and I've lived all my life off and on in the countryside.”
“I think the old tradition of the upper classes sending their children away at eight to boarding school was terrible. Luckily we that didn't happen to us.”
“I discovered something which is so obvious but nobody'd ever pinpointed before, which is virtually all food businesses start small, and you cannot start a small food business unless you've got small outlets.”
“I think nobody had pinpointed before that this importance of small shops as a seed bed, really, as a seedbed for new food producers. But it also led me on to realise how tremendously important these small shops are s socially, as the heart of the community.”