Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Leader of Britain's biggest union, the Transport and General Workers, a traditionalist who attacked Labour's modernising ways.
On the island
Eight records
George Gershwin with Paul Whiteman and his Concert Orchestra
The one that sticks in my mind was at the time that Gershwin, George Gershwin, gave his first public performance of Rhapsody in Blue and in my years of six and seven I can remember the tune incessantly being played.
Black and White RagFavourite
The second record I would like is my mother herself playing the piano and I would like to have on the island with me my mother playing black and white rag, which she did for me when she was eighty-nine.
The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Sir Charles Groves
My next song that I would like is really a part of just a pre-war. It was the programme on radio with In Town Tonight when they stopped the roar of London traffic and you heard Aggie Pegg, the flower seller, calling out the sweet violets.
I choose it because when I did go to Hong Kong I had a friend I did training with and he spent nine months teaching me Claire de Lune on the piano. He finally accomplished it. I mean I can still play the main melody of Claire de Lune but unfortunately he was killed the night before we were due to sail home. So that song always reminds me of my friend Mansel Falk and our time in Hong Kong.
Charlie Barnet and His Orchestra
I would like to hear one particular big band song that always recalls for me memories of the war years and dancing at the Waltham Stow Assembly Hall is Charlie Barnett's band playing Skyliner.
The song I would like on the island is one that is the singer is a favourite of my wife Jo, and the song is a favourite of both of us, and that's Nat King Cole singing The Very Thought of You.
The Choir of Canterbury Cathedral
Charles Hubert Hastings Parry (music), William Blake (words)
What I'd like to hear now is Jerusalem, but Blake's Jerusalem. For me it conjures up all the collective aspirations of people, so Blake's Jerusalem is fine for me.
My final record I would like is a song that my mother used to sing and also is by a singer that I know my mother likes and I certainly like, and that's Shirley Bassey singing I Wish You Love.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:32A lot of families in the East End who were born in the twenties and thirties eventually got moved out to new towns like Stevenage and Crawley. How did your family avoid that?
My sister actually lives in Basildon, but the rest of us live around Mum. I personally think that moving around the new towns … did break down the family unit because … when I was a youngster … girls got married, boys got married and they lived round the corner from Mum. Mum became the focal point of the family.
Presenter asks
14:40You were eighteen years old, Ron Todd, and as a Royal Marine you were posted to Hong Kong, 1945. What you witnessed there was to change your life fundamentally. Can you describe to me what affected you so deeply?
When I went to Hong Kong … I saw the extremes of wealth and poverty, the rich Chinese merchants living on the peak and down in Kowloon and Hong Kong itself, thousands of them virtually … dying from malnutrition, but lying on the [pavements] … I just couldn't reconcile this. I used to have a discussion with a priest there, and he was talking about the power of prayer. I thought it would be more effective if somebody went down there and did something about the children that I used to step over, going back … with smallpox and cholera and malnutrition, I just began to lose my faith.
The keepsakes
The book
Robert Burns
When I first read Burns in nineteen forty five. I had to keep going to the margin to understand some of the words that he used. On the island I will have greater opportunity to concentrate and really get into Burns's works.
The luxury
I contemplated that and I thought is it possible for me to have a man's pie and mesh shop on the island? And I considered well that involves other people so I'm going to settle for an upright piano.
Presenter asks
22:49What do you say to those people who say that your fundamental trade union principles have really been harnessed to something which now has been bypassed by history?
I don't think it's been bypassed by history because I believe that with many of the problems we've got, the solution to those problems still rests with the solidarity and the commitment of working people coming together and finding solutions to them. I don't believe that you solve anything by saying, 'Well, in order to meet with the current economic position, we must give away all of those values that we agree with' … I don't believe that that's the road that the trade union should go down.
Presenter asks
26:13But what you were talking about is having principles, and that's what you were talking about in relation to union negotiations as well. The fundamental point is, is it any good having every single one of your principles intact, but never achieving power?
I don't want every single one intact and you have to adjust to respond to the general views of the people concerned. But there are some fundamental principles that I don't believe you can afford to discard. If you do that, then you won't be in power, you will be in office because you will have shed all the things. Remember, in 1983, 10 million people voted for the Labour Party, and they voted knowing that Labour would unilaterally disarm all the main policies of Labour … I still say that there are many areas where … we've got to go out to the people and touch them on the shoulder and explain to them … what we are about … the need to look after the community.
Presenter asks
34:28Do you not have to admit that the days of union power, the heydays we were talking about, the sorts of days you have experienced of power, authority, and influence of the trade union, are gone now?
Yes, of course. I mean, the days when unions like the National Union of Mine Workers played a prominent role at the TUC and the Labour Party, yeah, there have been dramatic changes in the unions, and the unions have got to face the challenges of the nineteen nineties … we can't stand on the sidelines. As chairman of the international committee, when I introduced the international debate, in fact I said Brussels is the only card game in town.
“I believe that among the people that I grew up with, there are wonderful characters. They may not be highly educated, but the compassion that they can feel for people in trouble and the way that they combine to help each other, I think they're a wonderful, wonderful breed of people.”
“We had a sister named Sister Mary de Lourdes who after Catechism used to say to me, 'You mustn't ask all these questions. You'll learn these answers when you die.' Well, quite frankly, I wanted the answers a little bit quicker.”
“I just couldn't reconcile this. I used to have a discussion with a priest there, and he was talking about the power of prayer. I thought it would be more effective if somebody went down there and did something about the children that I used to step over … with smallpox and cholera and malnutrition. I just began to lose my faith.”
“When mum sees me at the rostrum and I've got a very aggressive style of speaking, mum usually tells my brother … that boy's going to have a heart attack … I said, I wasn't angry, mum, it's just the way I speak. It's an aggressive style, but I'm not angry at all.”
“I said, 'Brussels is the only card game in town.'”