Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
First woman to command a college at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and a senior British Army officer.
On the island
Eight records
The Day That Never ComesFavourite
I used this particular song, The Day That Never Comes from Metallica, to describe some of the ethical decision-making that you could face as a leader when you're up against it and when you're perhaps faced with difficult decisions to make. So it's an emotional roller coaster of a song and of a story, and that's why I like it.
I met my husband Nick in 1991, and in meeting Nick, he sort of changed my musical taste. And I suppose this is a bit of an example of how that music changed. And when I started Sandhurst in January 1992, the first night I was sitting there with one of my tapes that Nick had made me playing songs like this with my mate Jane Arrington and Amanda Hussell and they've been friends ever since but I think I've probably changed their cultural tastes as well.
Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber
It's a particular excerpt from Jesus Christ Superstar. It's a short piece, but it's one I love, and it's Pilot's Dream.
When I went to university, it was a bit of an awakening, and I met some great friends there that were on my course. But it was the friends I met in the halls of residence I was at in Lopez. We ended up living together for a couple of years after that. So Andy, Miranda, and Katie have been stalwarts and are my closest friends. So this record, it's got to be Love Shack and the B52s.
Disc number five is from a band that I've fell in love with in the early nineties when I was based in Abingdon, having done my tour in Germany. and I became a member of their fan club, and I've still got the badge. And my claim to fame is that I overlapped at Exeter with the lead singer, which is Tom York. But I only found out then that that Nick had been at school with Radiohead in Abingdon. And not only that, his sister Toi and Justin know them all quite well. And they were very kind to my sister-in-law and Justin when they lost their daughter. And they dedicated one of the albums to her. So not only really fantastic musicians, but they're also extraordinarily good people. And this is Street Spirit by Radiohead.
Members of the Guards Chapel Choir and the Band of the Coldstream Guards
The hymn that I've chosen as the next disc, it's a verse from Those in Peril on the Sea, which recognizes the role of the armed forces on land and sea and and the air and and finally culminates in that final verse as being you know a trinity of love and power. It absolutely always makes me emotional because it reminds me of the time when when he's not been necessarily with us.
Well, this particular track reminds me of the school run and the mad half hours on a Saturday afternoon playing with the children. Jess was born in 2004, Alex was born in 2008, Jessica had picked up all the lyrics and Alex was just shouting a lot. So when I hear this track, it just takes me back and makes me laugh. And the game was always who could hold on to the word fire the longest with some very interesting car journeys that we had. So this is from Cassabian and It's Fire.
Well, this is a track that takes me straight back to school and my German exchange. And I'd had a pen pal that had come over from Dusseldorf, I think it was. And so it was our turn to go over there. So there I was, I had my ra-ra skirt, fluorescent fingerless gloves, looking the part and thinking I was super cool on the dance floor. So this is a track called Big in Japan by Alphaville, and I have to say that it is the go-to mummy track for the long car journeys that we are going on. And you know, I got it on vinyl for my 50th, so it's been with me for a while.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:46What qualities do you look for in an officer?
Mental resilience is really important, and the ability to get on with people in your team is also a critical skill. The foundation of our training at Sandhurst is to build upon that. So, we always start with quite intense few weeks where you don't go out of camp, etc., and that's for us to be able to build the teams up together. And also, in terms of physicality, we know we can do a lot of that training at Sandhurst, but we do need to see the building blocks and that people have put in a bit of preparation before they come to our selection.
Presenter asks
2:30What does the Sandhurst motto 'serve to lead' mean to you?
It's the compass point that guides us, I think, particularly in the officer corps. It's written on the front of the officer's mess at Sandhurst. It's about selfless commitment. It's about looking after your soldiers, leading by example, leading from the front, ultimately to achieve the goals that you set yourself and where you're deployed on operations. It's not just about a set of words and a phrase, you've got to live that, you know. So you have to be prepared to embark in this journey, not just because it's a job, but because it's a way of life, and you have to really believe it and be authentic with it, I think.
Presenter asks
4:52How do you go about teaching leadership?
The keepsakes
The book
The Complete Works of Agatha Christie
Agatha Christie
I would go for the complete works of Agatha Christie, but I think one will just do because I can never remember who actually does it and murders somebody in the end.
The luxury
I think I'd need an illustrated map of the island that would be on the picture with nature notes around it so I can learn because I'm innately curious about the natural world. And on the back of it, I'd have pictures of my family. So it's a jigsaw puzzle, which is what I would take.
I think we try and keep it as simple as it possibly can be. What leaders are, what their values are, what's important to them, how leaders behave is perhaps the biggest change we've made in terms of articulating what we mean in the Army and that was launching the Leadership Code in 2015 by the change.
Presenter asks
20:26Tell me about your tour as a troop commander in Bosnia when you were 25.
To have that responsibility, which of course you just you lap up at the time, but when I look back, it you know it was quite immense. I mean our role was to support the distribution of materiel and kit and equipment and people all across the area of operations. So we were based in split in Croatia and then our logistic runs would be sometimes twelve hours and we've had one that was eighteen hours in the snow, right up to Maglai, Vitez, Gornivikuf, those sort of areas to support the British forces deployment.
Presenter asks
22:02Were people adequately helped with mental health at the time [in Bosnia]?
I don't think we recognised how much we did need it then. Like a lot of uniformed organisation, a way of sorting things out is getting together socially and dark sense of humour. That kind of world that out of context is probably not appropriate, but that's, I think, how how people manage to deal with some things that were were often pretty hideous.
Presenter asks
28:33Is there still a class divide between officers and other ranks?
When you look at the statistics across the year, we do have more from the state sector actually than we do from public school all up. But the the balance is about fifty five, forty five at the moment. There is the opportunity for anybody to be able to apply to become an officer and apply online through the the Army websites, no matter what their background. In a way, when you start your the training, it doesn't matter where you've come from. Because it the playing field is level pretty quickly.
“I think music has been a great distressor, particularly when you're in operations. I remember sitting out in the sun outside my Cori Mec in my early tours in Bosnia, and it just took you away from what you were doing on a day-to-day business.”
“I think the important thing that you must be, however, in a leadership role is you've got to be true to yourself and you've got to be authentic. Because if you're not, people are never going to believe what you're saying, trust you, follow you.”
“I had a duty and I had a role to play as somebody that they could be inspired by, perhaps. And so I've made it my mission since then to do the best I can.”
“I found that really difficult because I was impotent to do anything.”
“We've made it work because we both love what we do, we enjoy it, and there's the sort of healthy respect for each other's part in the bigger picture. But we did make a pact sort of early on in our marriage, which was if it all gets a bit too tricky and if either of us are really unhappy, we need to do something about it.”
“They're not just coming in to do a job, they're coming in and joining a family.”