Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Conservationist who led the Council for National Parks and CPRE, now Director General of the National Trust.
On the island
Eight records
Robin Hall and Jimmie Macgregor with The Galliards
We are waiting by the Harbour. We've been waiting since break of day. We are waiting by the harbour as the sun sets on Mingale.
Agnus Dei (from Requiem, Op. 48)
The Cambridge Singers and City of London Sinfonia, conducted by John Rutter
Now, I was a viola player for many years. I love this, partly because it's the violas that have the tune, and it always is a wonderful moment when the violas have the tune.
Divertimento in D major, K. 136
Academy of St Martin in the Fields, conducted by Sir Neville Marriner
Oh, record number three is almost the signature tune of this small chamber orchestra, Rugby Symphonia. It's a Mozart Devotimento. I can remember playing it first of all on a summer school when I must have been about 14.
Well, the next piece of music is a in a sense, it's it's perhaps a slightly sentimental one because this is the Mendelson's octet, which my husband and I had our honeymoon in Snowdonia, and we had just happened to have it on a tape in the car.
Lines Written a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey (excerpt)
These are very special words for me, and not least because of his associations with the Lake District, which from my childhood. These words I think though capture for me one of the reasons why I do love the hills and the mountains, why I do care so much about the countryside.
Salutation (from Dies Natalis, Op. 8)Favourite
Wilfred Brown with the English Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Christopher Finzi
And they are words which really are about greeting a newborn baby. And they are just the most beautiful words. And we played this when my all of my daughters were born.
Toccata, Adagio and Fugue in C major, BWV 564: II. Adagio (arr. Busoni for piano)
Record number seven goes back to some extent to my childhood because my father was actually quite a good amateur pianist and he used to play this and I struggle to sometimes in the middle of the night when I want to wind down before I go to bed.
Peter Grimes: Act I, 'Oh, hang at open doors the net'
Chorus and Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, conducted by Sir Colin Davis
The last record is from Peter Grimes, which is a wonderful opera and evokes not only this amazing sort of atmosphere of the sea and of the coast, but actually of Suffolk, another part of the country that that I love.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:30How are you going to meet [the financial losses from the foot and mouth crisis]?
Many of our properties are opening earlier this year, and we'll have a longer opening season towards the end of the year, just as we did last year. And we are finding that people are hungry to get out into the countryside.
Presenter asks
2:43What you did was shut everything down practically immediately... Well, it was a brave decision... you cut off your own income essentially, didn't you?
It was brave and it was necessary because if you remember at the time cases of foot and mouth were popping up all over the country. Nobody knew where it would pop up next. It was a national crisis. Our concern at the time was that there was really an absence of clear instruction to anybody. There was enormous confusion, enormous state of anxiety. And we felt it was right as an organisation to take the prudent course to close, but then straight away to work on reopening and being clear about where it was safe to do so and where it wasn't.
Presenter asks
3:11You've also been at the forefront of those who said in the wake of foot and mouth disease that it was a wake-up call. To whom?
The keepsakes
The book
The Making of the English Landscape
W. G. Hoskins
It is the story of how the landscape and our impact on the landscape has evolved. I love it.
The luxury
Complete set of Ordnance Survey maps of Britain
I would love to have a complete set of Ordnance Survey maps of Britain, because I think Ordnance Survey maps are just wonderful works of art... I'm going to have to look after myself on this island and I think they'll give me lots of encouragement.
It was a wake-up call to everybody. It was a wake-up call to the public, because I think we heard things about farming that really had not been exposed before... But I think it was also a wake-up call about the link between farming, rather a small part economically, of the countryside, and all the other businesses and all the other ways in which the countryside is supported.
Presenter asks
21:27How much of a dilemma was it, though, for you [to leave the Cabinet Office for the National Trust]?
Not a great dilemma when actually push came to shove. I mean, to work for the National Trust was just beyond comparison with anything else. So I have to say, I didn't hesitate too long when off with the chance.
Presenter asks
29:25Why don't you take a view on [fox hunting]?
Well, we do in the sense that we allow fox hunting on our land where it's traditionally taken place, or in some cases was land that was given to us by a donor family. It was with that express intent that hunting should happen, and in some places exactly the opposite.
“What gets me out of bed in the morning... is my unquenchable curiosity about the long, intimate relationship between people and the land.”
“I don't think it's possible to OD on the great houses because they are just fabulous for lots and lots of people. But I think what's happening... is that people are really fascinated by history. And history increasingly is not how the great families lived or kings and queens, it's about how ordinary people lived.”
“I sort of felt in some ways that being a viola player was how my professional life developed as well. The violas are absolutely essential to everything that happens, but you don't always give them the tune. And my sense now of transition perhaps to the National Trust, where I'm just inching into the first violins.”