Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
A popular Radio 1 disc jockey who later became the proprietor of television's multicoloured Swap Shop.
On the island
Eight records
Symphony No. 3 (Pastoral Symphony)
London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by André Previn
It's a piece of music which would help me to remember the countryside which I like. I used to have a house in Suffolk and I used to play this a lot, particularly when we could see them doing the harvesting, whatever, from the back of the cottage.
Uh a touch of humour. I mean on this island I am going to get so depressed on occasions and I've got to have a good laugh and it's an extract from Round the Horn which was probably one of the most exciting things about my growing up.
At some point I'm going to want to leap up and down and generally have a good rock. And this next piece of music gives me an awful lot of confidence in my own singing abilities. But it does move along.
Um a delightful song. I think some people might say it's rather twee in the sense that um it's got a concept of of how we're all here and and the importance of historical events. But it's by a gentleman, a singer-songwriter who I think is quite the best around...
BBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sir Colin Davis
My favourite place in the UK is the Lake District, and whenever I hear the last night of the Proms and they get round to Jerusalem, I always think of of Windermere and Coniston and and that part of the world, a part of the world that I would miss tremendously, stuck away on this desert island.
I'm very keen on singer-songwriters, a terrific composer. And I like the sentiments of the song, because he lists uh a number of people who obviously mean something to him, and he regrets the fact that uh the curtain came down on them a little bit too quickly.
It keeps me peaceful in the car and it's music which is played in one of my favourite restaurants in London and once again it's it's one of those things that would calm me down when everything got too much. I just love the lute playing of Julian Bream.
Time in a BottleFavourite
Very sad that he's no longer around. He uh died a few years ago, very tragically, before anybody sort of really got to know his music and he was truly recognised, certainly in the UK. And I just think the sentiments of the song are magnificent and on those occasions when I decide that really I'm going to jump off the highest palm tree, this is beautiful, it reminds me of uh my wife, it's one of our favourite numbers and the words say it all.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:56What would you be happiest to get away from?
London, I think. I used to like London very much and I don't like it at all now, and it hurts when I have to come to London. Uh although I obviously enjoy the reasons that I come, but I I've moved out to Buckinghamshire and it's it's so lovely in the countryside.
Presenter asks
3:02Were you good at school?
Very medium. Very, very medium. ... But I although I got a fair number of O levels and A levels, I... Yeah. Very much injected. I mean, really just sort of force-fed.
Presenter asks
3:29What did you want to be?
I I don't know. I mean I toyed with all the original ideas or unoriginal in many ways of uh solicitor and uh at one point wondered about getting into a large company, possibly on the public relations side. Um it was uh a general dislike for all the ambitions that my uh friends at school had of being a doctor or being a professional person and sort of getting married at thirty and two kids by thirty-five, thirty-eight, first coronary, probably mid-forties. I could see it all and I didn't like it. So I tried from about the age of sixteen to get into broadcasting.
The keepsakes
The book
Peter Mark Roget
I think I would probably have to turn my time between building the boat and trying to find food to doing a bit of writing, something I don't get time for now. And I think Roges Thesaurus is an absolute must. It's rather boring, but it would be a great tool.
The luxury
I'd like to take a motorway service station. I'd like to put it at the end of the island, and then I could go and have a look at it and realize how nice the other end was.
Presenter asks
Who did you copy as a kid?
I think I was influenced most by Kenny Everett because I admired the way in which he put over it the the humorous element. He didn't just simply say, Here is a joke and tell a joke. He managed to make the whole programme move along. I mean when I was interested it was the era of the pirate radio stations and it was the in thing to be a disc jockey. So it was the general fun and excitement of that period I think which pushed me along and made me want to try and get into broadcasting through that door.
Presenter asks
5:49What did you do when you left school? Were you applying straight away for radio jobs?
No, the university course was looming up at a very rapid rate. I was supposed to go to Bristol and read economic history and I didn't want to go. I'd been going six days a week to school and I felt I wanted a break. And I was very fortunate that at that time, talking about 1967, you could do such a thing as become a student teacher. And I, I suppose, conned the local authority into thinking I wanted to join the profession. But I had a very interesting year working in a primary school in Ilford and did everything.
Presenter asks
9:11Did you quit [Radio Luxembourg] or were you slung out?
I don't know. I wonder that I I probably would have been slung out. It's amazing now to look back and think that I quit and I had no job to go to. I mean, I threw up three grand a year in nineteen sixty eight at the age of nineteen. ... and I threw that away for seven pounds a week doing trailers for the BBC.
“I tried from about the age of sixteen to get into broadcasting.”
“It's amazing now to look back and think that I quit and I had no job to go to. I mean, I threw up three grand a year in nineteen sixty eight at the age of nineteen.”
“I felt that I couldn't contribute anything more to the programme. I certainly didn't think the programme could give me anything more.”