Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
First female Chief Inspector of Prisons and a long-time human rights campaigner, known for advocating prison rehabilitation and reform.
On the island
Eight records
Comfort ye my people (from Messiah)
Philip Langridge with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, conducted by Sir Neville Marriner
My childhood was full of my father singing whatever it was he was rehearsing at the time.
It reminds me of my growing up, my children's growing up. But it also reminds me of Waterloo Bridge, which has to have the best view in London and which I've lived near for over 35 years.
The Band Played Waltzing Matilda
I've chosen it because it reminds me very much of my grandfather's experience as a young nineteen year old who'd probably never been further than Newcastle in his life.
When I left university that's where I went to live. And that male close harmony singing was part of the singing I heard there.
Dove sono i bei momenti (from The Marriage of Figaro)
Kiri Te Kanawa with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Sir Georg Solti
When I first moved to London and we had a house that was almost completely unfurnished, one of the first things we bought was a stereo record player.
Herr, wenn die stolzen Feinde schnauben (from Christmas Oratorio)
The Monteverdi Choir and the English Baroque Soloists, conducted by John Eliot Gardiner
I've chosen it because I simply love the music. I love the way that Bach uses the human voice and the orchestra and it all weaves together.
Adagio (from Concerto for Oboe and Violin in D minor, BWV 1060R)
Deutsche Bachsolisten, led by Helmut Winschermann
I've chosen it because I think it's just a wonderful piece of music. And the adagio, which we're going to hear, has that amazing yearning quality.
The Sixteen, directed by Harry Christophers
It will always remind me of those those occasions and of what one of us said as we sat there that it's like being drowned in sound.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:34How do you keep your professional head in amongst all of that [crime, justice, rehabilitation]? Are you somebody who can leave that in the professional area and go home and think about other things, or do you take it with you?
I think to an extent you've got to be able to leave it behind, but you also need to kind of process it as well. … But you do need to keep that distance clearly and you won't be any good at what you're trying to do if you're totally absorbed in it.
Presenter asks
7:24How do you feel about the term do-gooder? Does it send shivers through your spine?
Yes, it does, for two reasons. First of all, that I'm not sure that anyone should set out to be a doobadder. But also because it's not just about doing the the sort of Lady Bountiful act and the smile and wave and wave and smile. It's about addressing some very, very deep and very difficult problems to which there are no easy answers.
Presenter asks
15:21How did you and your sister get back on to the job in hand, which was passing the exams and getting to university [after your father died]?
The keepsakes
The book
An anthology of British poetry
The cadences of poetry, the way it's done, I think that would be something that would comfort me quite a lot.
The luxury
Ever since I was little I've always written, mostly for my own pleasure... I would love to have a solar powered word processor.
I think you do it a bit by shutting off, and you certainly did in those days. … And I think you were just expected to get on with it. … I think what happens is it comes back and hits you later. I can remember when I was at university suddenly getting a panic attack and not knowing where it had come from and realizing, of course, that that this was all part of what you what you have to go through, and it does affect you.
Presenter asks
24:57Do you ever worry that in the end, the politics will decide how time in prison is spent and how many people spend their time in prison?
I'm very clear that decisions about sentencing, decisions about how you use prison, those are political decisions, and they're quite rightly political decisions. But I think it's part of the job of an inspector to point out the consequences of what's happening. And the thing that saddened me greatly in the time that I was doing the job is that I think our prisons became better places. But they also became places that soaked up a lot of money and into which we put a lot of people. And my view is a lot of that money could have been better spent.
Presenter asks
26:38Are you one of those people who believe that we have got to as much as we need to listen and understand and try to fix something that is broken, we also need to apportion blame?
I'm much keener on responsibility than I am on blame. One of the things that worries me about prisons is that they can take away responsibility from people. You put somebody in prison, they don't have to be responsible for themselves, when they eat, what they wear, whatever. They don't have to be responsible for what they've done. They don't have to be responsible to their families and to their communities.
“I very firmly believe is that you don't have to stay where you're put. Your life isn't necessarily set when you're born or when you're a child, and it can be changed.”
“I think responsibility is absolutely crucial.”
“What kind of behaviour do we want to model to people whose own behaviour has often been seriously deficient? Do we want them to go out of prison thinking that if you have power over people then you can use it to make them feel humiliated? Or do we want to put before them a different way of behaving? That's not about being nice. It's about making demands. It's about challenging. It's about trying to change people.”