Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Former General Secretary of the ASTMS and one of Britain's most colourful trade union leaders.
On the island
Eight records
The Preservation Hall Jazz Band
Every two years I managed to get, for I suppose, the last twenty years, get to New Orleans, to the French Quarter, and go to Preservation Hall and uh listen to uh classic New Orleans jazz.
Sonnet 30 (When to the Sessions of Sweet Silent Thought)
I had a problem here because there was another one... Where is fancy bred? In the heart or in the head... that I decided in favour of this.
I still have uh this sweet memory of going back to my home town, going to the chapel, the Duffren Chapel, and uh the place where I used to go twice a day on on Sundays. And when I can still remember going back and um See my mother's coffin in front of the pulpit, and Harry sang there.
I went to Leningrad with my children to give them a holiday... My horse took me to see the Kirov ballet and they were performing Sheherizada, and I was deeply impressed by the delicacy and the melody.
Genevieve
We received in the United Kingdom as a result of Senator McCarthy victimizing them a number of very gifted actors, musicians, and writers. One of them was Lariadla. An absolutely charming man. And uh he said one of the great successes in his life was um to have all the royalties out of Genevieve.
The keepsakes
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:40You obviously enjoyed that power, didn't you? Do you miss [the panoply of being a leading member of the TUC]?
What I miss is not having a dozen researchers and a large secretariat. And that that, I think, is uh the most difficult to adjust to. However, as I'm building up all these other careers, I will have my uh secretariat back.
Presenter asks
2:55Would you care to admit that you got bored in Paradise [Tasmania]?
Oh no, certainly not. It was very interesting, but I was wanted back here.
Presenter asks
5:10You've written, and I quote, 'A Welsh child can never make friends with his parents.' What do you mean?
I think there are terrible restraints. If you were raised as a as I was, a very narrow Calvinistic uh Methodist. I mean, you can't talk about um human relationships about affections and so on. In fact, I got more affec[t]ionately with my step grandmother… But to actually talk to your parents was very difficult.
No book or luxury recorded for this episode.
Presenter asks
Why did you leave school at the age of fourteen?
We didn't have any money. I mean, we were really very poor indeed. I can remember my mother saying uh of a dresser we had… Your father made that out of uh orange boxes. We didn't have any money, so we used to use this railwayman's ticket.
Presenter asks
14:21You've taken a lot of stick, haven't you, for your custom-made shirts and silk socks and your boats... Has that criticism cut deep?
No, because it was never been by anyone who was serious. I mean, if you listen to journalists or television commentators, they're peasants so often who are meretricious and lightweight. I've never had a criticism made of me by somebody whom I respected.
Presenter asks
19:04What was the secret of your success in turning a tiny union into one of the biggest and most powerful?
I succeeded in communicating. I was approached by the chairman of an advertising agency… He said, If you will buy a page in the Times, I will have it laid out for you… The board and I have decided we don't like the colour of your eyes. It provoked forty thousand inquiries. This is for a union that had, I don't know, maybe thirty or forty thousand members.
“I'm not retired. I am extremely uh interested in what's going on. I'm going to become the executive editor of a new uh journal on industrial relations and legal law, and various other things as well. You make me sound so interesting, I could barely wait to hear myself talk.”
“I thought, um, what are the problems here? Well, the Japanese wanted to cut down the rainforest, the fairy penguins were under threat, and um w w with my partner, the first signs in the world on a highway were set up which said Fairy Penguins Crossing.”
“I find that a very difficult question to answer… I believe days of strain as well. One wonders what should be done about one's future, whether one cared about it. I think yes, I think I was um slightly tormented.”
“The happiest moments of my life have been righting injustices, and I've done a lot of that… where you can go away swinging your briefcase with the agreements in it, as happy as a radiant bride, knowing that people next week will say, I'm going to have an increase. And they can tell their children that.”