Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
A top investment banker and mother of six, she shattered the glass ceiling and was nicknamed Superwoman while caring for her daughter with leukemia.
On the island
Eight records
it was the very first film that I ever saw when I was five years old. And when I actually got there I was completely mesmerized by the whole experience of being in the cinema and watching this film.
I grew up on a beach and one day I cut my foot really badly on the beach and I got blood poisoning and I had a sort of dreadful shaking fit and my temper went through the roof and I was lying in my bed feeling very sorry for myself and my mother came in with this record and said, I've brought you this to cheer you up.
Pie Jesu (from Requiem, Op. 48)
it reminds me of my years at Oxford. I used to spend quite a lot of time going into the various chapels and various colleges and listening to the whole array of music that there is there.
My brother is a professional musician. He's a conductor, but he's also a very good pianist. And so this actually is very useful at family events because when you need music in a church, my brother is there to help me, A, choose the piece, and B actually participate in producing it.
Don GiovanniFavourite
she was born at one thirty in the morning and they took her away to the nursery and told me I must sleep, but I was completely euphoric and I couldn't sleep. And I remember listening to Don Giovanni, I listened to the whole thing, trying to get to sleep, but I just couldn't because uh I was so excited and this is my favourite, the bit when the commendatory um comes back and says Don Giovanni in a very dramatic way.
Alice, who as I said, is the next child down from Georgie and our family, so my second child. When Georgie died she was ten. She did the bravest thing I think I've ever seen anybody do ever in my life, which was to stand up at Georgie's funeral in front of eight hundred people, and she sang this
before we got married we went to this Brian Addams concert, and this song means a lot to me, it's called Heaven.
my brother played this at my wedding to Martin, which was last September, so clearly it means a lot to me.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:28What do you make of the title 'Superwoman' given to you in the press?
I I really do, Blanche, actually,'cause I I really think that somebody who has a highly paid job and has lots of help at home is not a superwoman. … So yeah, I've had lots of help and I really don't regard myself as a superwoman.
Presenter asks
1:45Can you explain what happened in 1996 when you were heading up Morgan Grenfell Asset Management?
Yes, it was a very complicated situation in that we had a fund manager who did something rather peculiar with one of our funds, and we found that instead of the fund being worth over a billion pounds, it was suddenly worth four hundred and fifty million less. And it caused this enormous scandal, financial scandal. And I had nothing to do with any of that, but my boss was swept aside as a result, and I then got involved in a rather political nightmarish situation. And I suppose I was really very naïve. I should have just walked out when they sacked my boss … Instead of which I tried to keep everything together and then became a victim myself of the whole situation.
Presenter asks
2:43Did you yourself call the media in?
No, I wasn't allowed to because I was still an employee. I was only suspended. But what happened was I th I suppose and I suppose the people at Morgan Grumfell at the time misjudged it. I think that the press took the view that here is a thirty six year old woman with uh five children, one of whom has uh leukemia, and suddenly the the front door bell started ringing and there were sky vans and film crews and radio cars and hundreds of reporters standing outside. And I was completely shell shocked. It was just so bizarre.
The keepsakes
The luxury
I can't go to sleep unless I've had a bath at night, and that means even if we come home at three o'clock in the morning, I have to have a bath, otherwise I can't sleep, so I'd have to take a bathtub.
Presenter asks
17:42When did you first realise that Georgie was becoming unwell?
Well, by this stage it was 1989. So actually I was 28 and Georgie was two and I just felt that she didn't look very well and she kept getting all these sort of coughs and colds and just wasn't very well. … Eventually I went back to the same doctor's surgery and demanded to see the doctor and I said look at my child. She's just in a terrible state. So he said you must go and have a blood test immediately. … So we were admitted to hospital that evening. And then she started chemotherapy pretty much the next day, had a line put in, and clearly it was absolutely devastating'cause we suddenly found ourselves with a child with leukemia.
Presenter asks
20:41Was it a difficult decision to decide to have another baby in those circumstances?
No, I think it's probably a natural thing. I mean, I don't think I would have had six children if it hadn't been for Georgie's illness. … This sort of Primeval instinct comes out when you're threatened with having a child taken away, which just gives you this desperate urge to have another baby.
Presenter asks
31:45How did you manage to make sense of [the grief] for your other children?
It was very, very difficult, and particularly difficult in the last year of Georgie's life, because I ended up being there literally for the whole year. … the children got a lot of support from Great Ormond Street. I used to take them to see one of the psychologists, and they were given books to read about grief and loss and death, and so on and so forth. Really, we were very, very lucky to have that support.
“I felt that I had to stand up for myself, and I think most people would, actually. And I went and said, I'm sorry, I think this is disgraceful behaviour. I haven't done anything wrong. I've built you this amazing business with my team. And how dare you treat me like this?”
“I always used to dream a lot about independence when I was a child. I always used to have this dream about driving cars, for example. I think that was a symbol of independence. And I I don't think I really particularly liked being a child and having to answer to other people. And yeah, I did crave growing up and being able to make my own decisions.”
“I think the only way you can deal with premature death is to accept that that is the case. And Georgie did have a profound effect on an awful lot of people around her during those twelve years. No one that knew Georgie will ever forget her.”
“I think the only way you can accept something like that is to say it was meant to be. But, you know, we are very much of the opinion that we should still talk about Georgie. It keeps Georgie's memory alive, and therefore I like talking about her. I want positively to talk about her.”