Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
A cricketer who led the English Test team to victory over the Australians.
On the island
Eight records
String Quartet No. 14 in C♯ minor, Op. 131Favourite
Favourite disc: Yes
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:27How did you set about choosing these eight records?
Well, I wanted some records that were old friends, but I also wanted some that um I reckoned I'd like I'd get to like and that I would really need to learn. And so there's a mixture of those things. One or two of them are records that remind me of things, but mainly they're music that I very much like.
Presenter asks
3:56What inspired you to change from classics to philosophy?
Two things. Uh one was that I used to play for Cambridge at cricket and the first slip I used to keep wicket was Eddie Eddie Craig, who's now lecturing in philosophy at at Cambridge, and he and I used to talk about philosophical questions, or he would talk about them and I would ask. And um also the the philosophy that I came across in the classics tripods and I found that it really made me start to think for myself much more than I had done.
Presenter asks
13:11How confident were you at the beginning of the Ashes series?
We had played the Centenary Test match in Melbourne in March. And it had been an absolutely tremendous game, which we lost in the end by 45 runs, though in the second we scored 400 and still lost. And I think that at that point we knew that Dennis Lilly wasn't coming on the tour, and I think we were pretty confident that we could win. But obviously you still have to do it, and the margin of the win has surprised us all, I think.
The keepsakes
The book
a large anthology of English poetry
Am I allowed a large anthology of poetry, of English poetry? Well, that's what I'd like, because I think that's the most dense and the most varied to be chosen.
The luxury
Unlimited supply of golf balls and a set of clubs
I've played a lot of sport in my life and the one sport I'd like to improve on and really play and I could play by myself is golf. So I'd like an unlimited supply of golf balls and a set of clubs.
Presenter asks
14:54You've been reported saying that looking after a cricket team is not much different to looking after disturbed adolescents. What did you mean by that?
They do need a bit of mothering as well as leadership. I wasn't thinking so much of mothering. I mean the disturbed adolescents, they need a bit of mothering, but they also need a bit of uh common sense and they need to be listened to. The sort of thing that can happen is that people try and captain cricket sides without giving credit to the ideas of the people who are playing or without noticing what's going on amongst the members of the side. And I think those two years that I spent in a in a clinic for disturbed adolescents two winters. It didn't do any harm in the matter of management.
Presenter asks
17:23How do you feel about the commercialization of cricket?
Sponsorship of cricket by various companies has saved it as far as professional cricket is concerned in this country over the last ten or fifteen years. So that there's no question that that's absolutely crucial. There's no alternative really to working for commercial firms, I mean for cigarette companies or insurance companies or whatever. Yes, the the big difference between that and what's happened in the last year with Kerry Packer is that the other sponsorships have all been through the or under the aegis of the authorities, the Testing County Cricket Board in this country, or the Australian Board of Control. So it isn't a matter of working for a cigarette company, say. It's a matter of a cigarette company putting money into the game, which it then comes through, filters through to the players at some stage via the establishment.
Presenter asks
20:15Would you be able to look after yourself as a lone castaway? Could you rig up a shelter?
I yes, I think so. I think if I had to do it I'd make do. Would you try to escape? If I was really desperate I might, or if I thought there was a very good chance of success. But I try to live a good life there and enjoy myself there. might not succeed.
“It would be hard. I've been described by some people as a loner, but I don't think that's true. I like to get away by myself from time to time, very much, but I need to. But as for being alone all the time, pretty tough proposition, I think.”
“The earlier Beethoven quartets were amongst the first pieces of music that I really got to know and love for myself, and this is probably even more complex and more worth knowing.”
“They do need a bit of mothering as well as leadership. I wasn't thinking so much of mothering. I mean the disturbed adolescents, they need a bit of mothering, but they also need a bit of uh common sense and they need to be listened to.”
“I am very fond of Haydn indeed, and I and I also want some more church music. I uh I don't know the Nelson Mess very well yet, but uh looking forward to getting a note over the next twenty or thirty years on the island.”
“Sheer life and exuberance I went to a Ray Charles concert at Newcastle and I've never enjoyed myself more.”