Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Archbishop of York, a senior bishop in the Church of England.
On the island
Eight records
We celebrated our wedding anniversary one year by going to Fiddle on the Roof, but we couldn't get tickets. So we lined up in the queue for return tickets, got to the box office, and we were the last two people to have tickets, and one was in the gallery and the other was in the circle. So my wife went in the circle, I went in the gallery, and we met during the interval. So it has very, you know, very happy memories for me.
Jean-François Paillard Chamber Orchestra
I was not familiar with until it was given to me... a few weeks ago to mark the tenth anniversary of my consecration as Bishop of Liverpool, and uh a lovely record, resonant and profound, and uh I love it.
The Gospel According to John (New English Bible)
I choose it because I owe my um Christian faith to just reading the Gospels. And perhaps for another reason it would be nice at Christmas to hear the famous Christmas Gospel read by someone else on this desert island.
I thought it would be nice to have um a a record from Liverpool, and this is the um Spinner's record called Dirty Old Town, which I hasten to say does not relate to Liverpool itself.
Flute Concerto No. 1 in G major, K. 313: II. Adagio non troppo
Claude Monteux with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields
I choose it because I make my own amateurish efforts at playing the flute, and it's uh nice to hear it played properly.
Which reminds me, of course, of my own home county, in Gloucestershire, where there were many such slow trains. It reminds me of Yorkshire because of its references to the Yorkshire towns and villages in it. And in a way, of course, because it reminds you of that marvellous journey through mid Wales from Shrewsbury to Lethley...
Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in F major, BWV 1047: AllegroFavourite
Yehudi Menuhin and the Bath Festival Chamber Orchestra
I choose it because it is such a marvellous combination of the orderly and the imaginative, which seems to me to reflect a whole attitude towards life, which is so immensely reassuring you know, God in charge of the world and yet um expressing himself in an infinite variety of ways.
Messiah: I Know That My Redeemer Liveth
Isobel Baillie with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra
I think because um well, if I'm going to be on that island a long time by myself, there are going to be moments when I need to be sure that my Redeemer liveth, and I know no better way of expressing it than in Isabel Bailey's rendering this particular... area.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:37With what degree of trepidation would you view the prospect of a desert island exile? Could you endure prolonged loneliness?
Well, in my more optimistic moments I suppose I think I could. But I do know that uh if I'm on my own now for any length of time, the danger is the kind of thoughts that creep into the mind and the obsessions and so on. And uh certainly I I wouldn't um welcome the prospect.
Presenter asks
0:51What would you be happiest to have got away from?
Well, there are certain elements in my own life I would be glad to be away from the sometimes the pressure of what I think rather unnecessary business, and the I'd certainly be away from endless travelling, of which I do a great deal.
Presenter asks
6:50When did you get the call for ordination?
I began to think seriously about the Christian faith quite early on in the war, and I suppose became a practising Christian in nineteen forty two. And then after that the nearer the war came to the end, the more I began to ask myself what I was going to do when I came out... But somehow my perspectives had changed a bit, and so it was at that stage I sent my name through to uh the church as a possible ordinand, and I was in fact interviewed and finally accepted at the first ever selection conference run by the Church of England in Calcutta.
The keepsakes
The book
George MacDonald
I thought it had to be poetry, because poetry lasts better than prose and in the end I've opted for George MacDonald's Diary of an Old Soul, partly because he's been so influential on people like Lewis Tolkien and Charles Williams. Partly because it's an unusual form. It's 365 sonnets … full of very profound thought … about the nature of the universe and the reality of God. And I felt I would need something like that over an extended period.
The luxury
I've had to think quite a lot about that. … I've thought that it would be very nice to have a good flute, so that I shall have plenty of time to practise it When I come back home, maybe I'll be a better flute player than I am now.
Presenter asks
11:15Why is it that Canterbury and York became the primatial centres of the Church of England, leaving out London?
Augustine came to Canterbury and uh established the work in the south of England from there. Rather earlier in the fourth century, of course, there was a strong uh church in the north, um centered on the Roman capital, Ewarachum, which is uh York and Constantine's um appointment as emperor was of course announced there. Therefore York was the oblique place for administering Church affairs in the whole of the northern province.
Presenter asks
13:07How does Ten Downing Street come into [the appointment of the Archbishop of York]?
The appointment is really made by the Queen. Ten Downing Street comes into it, because every appointment of that kind has to go through the Prime Minister. Usually two or three names are submitted to the Prime Minister... He then makes his own choice but the appointment is officially made by the Queen.
“I began to think seriously about the Christian faith quite early on in the war, and I suppose became a practising Christian in nineteen forty two.”
“It is alarming not least because in Bishopthorpe itself, you know, we have a whole array of portraits and representations of bishops of archbishops as far back as you can think. It is a a formidable thought.”
“I choose it because it is such a marvellous combination of the orderly and the imaginative, which seems to me to reflect a whole attitude towards life, which is so immensely reassuring you know, God in charge of the world and yet um expressing himself in an infinite variety of ways.”