Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Crossbench peer best known for working with the disadvantaged and addicted, and for leading the homeless youth charity Centrepoint.
On the island
Eight records
Well because Stevie Wonder is iconic if you want to hear just talent, creativity and a connection with an understanding of how the world works for a black guy who isn't privileged then Stevie Wonder's your man. You know this guy campaigned for years to get a day off to celebrate the birthday of Martin Luther King and succeeded. So how could I not have him in eight records? You know it's Stevie Wonder living for the city. It's got to be.
I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Out of My Hair
Mitzi Gaynor and the Ken Darby Singers
Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II
Well, because I was talking to my sisters about my mum and thinking about this. My mum, one of the first films she ever saw was South Pacific. It's a very interesting musical actually, because it's about race and mixed race and all that sort of stuff. But it's also about a woman saying, I'm deciding I'm not going to be in a relationship with you for quite the wrong reasons. I mean, she didn't want to be in a relationship with him because he had mixed race children. And then she realized after a while that actually that didn't matter, that it's love. And this is just a song that makes me laugh actually.
Nimrod (from Enigma Variations)
My dad used to get these boxes of records. We used to listen to a load of stuff and it was really difficult to pick, but we had these classical box sets and he used to play Tchaikovsky and Elgar. And I remember hearing this. This reminds me of him. There's some pain in there and there's struggle in there and there's strive and there's just something that reminds me of him.
It was an outrageous song at the time and now it's played on radio too. So and I just think it's a great song.
L T J Bukem featuring Words to Be Heard (MC Conrad and Conquest)
L T J Book'em, of course it's just great stuff and you shouldn't say this, but me and my son both like this kind of stuff and it is good.
It's one of those songs that I just always like to hear. But when I got married to T, who she was going to marry me, when we were getting married after the ceremony, we had this song playing, and as we were, we both heard it and we both looked at each other, we started dancing spontaneously down the aisle and people were clapping. It was one of those moments, you know, when you're happy and it all comes together and then something you react internally to happiness and you just start dancing and... We just had a great day.
Cocteau Twins (Elizabeth Fraser, Robin Guthrie, Simon Raymonde)
I heard them on on John Peel, they blew my mind. I've got everything they've ever got. Some people think they're rather weird, I think they're fantastic, I think it's poetry and music.
It Never Entered My MindFavourite
Ben Webster and Coleman Hawkins
Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart
I've always liked a bit of jazz and Ben Webster and C and Coleman Hawkins have been with me for, well, pretty much all my um musical life. So I've got to have some Ben Webster and Coleman Hawkins. It never entered my mind.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:55Do you think other people wonder what you're doing in the House of Lords?
I don't think they all think that. Some of them might do. I mean the seven hundred peers, I'm sure that statistically there must be some of them thinking what's he doing here? But then I'm probably thinking thinking the same thing about them as well, so that's fair enough.
Presenter asks
2:05What did they ask you at the job interview [to become a peer]?
They asked me about legislation and how I think I would use my position in the Lords, and they asked me about my work at Centrepoint, because I was just leaving Centrepoint then, about myself. It's kind of testing my sense of public service, I guess. Knowledge, commitment, understanding.
Presenter asks
4:27Where were the seeds of your social awareness sown?
Mine were I guess growing up in Wakefield, being one of few black families in Wakefield, but actually it's not really that either. It's just I remember having the balloon debate with myself about what I was gonna do. … And I thought that there are very few things that really, really matter. Housing, clothing, you know, Maslow's hierarchies I guess. And I wanted to do something that I felt mattered.
The keepsakes
The book
The Complete Works of Wallace Stevens
Wallace Stevens
'Cause um I'm getting into him and he'd be a great reader and he's got a lot to say.
Presenter asks
9:13How were [your parents] treated when they got here [to Britain]?
I think like most black people that came over in the fifties, what awaited them was was fear, really, fear and horror, because the population at large was unprepared for what they saw was an invasion. And they came to Scotland, first place they went to.
Presenter asks
15:03When you were a street sweeper, what did you learn about human nature?
Um I learnt that actually cruelty can be very casual. … Observing people is best done from the point where they don't notice you. Yes. So I kind of you do get to see how people behave around each other and what they do when they think no one's looking and how they treat people who they think are inconsequential.
Presenter asks
20:16Have you ever wanted to get up and walk out [of a meeting where your ideas were ignored]?
Oh, I have got up and walked out. I'm perfectly polite and reasonable and rational, but I just don't f see the need to be there'cause I'm not adding any value. If you're not adding any value in that forum, then you work out a way to add value in another.
“I suppose they thought he's got a big gob, you might as well do something with it.”
“We were poor, but we never went to school scruffy or dirty. We were taught to respect others. We were taught that if someone's pushing you, the thing to do is to take one small step backwards. That's interesting. And to be intelligent in your relationship with others. We were taught dignity.”
“Do not pursue power,'cause it will kill your humanity.”
“It's a privilege. When somebody asks for help, it's a privilege to be able to sit alongside someone's life and see them succeed or not or come round again.”
“Leadership is about what happens when you're not in the room, not about when you're there.”