Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
A witty, articulate parliamentarian, best known as Leader of the House under Thatcher and later a semi-detached Cabinet member.
On the island
Eight records
Sir John Gielgud, Academy of London, Richard Stamp
I remember it because if I think of my grammar school that I attended at Bridgewater in Somerset. I think of uh one very wet lunch hour when one of the masters, Gareth Vaughan Jones, who subsequently taught me Latin and English, tried to entertain us or divert us as best he could by introducing us to music.
The English CharacterFavourite
I have a very generous impression of him as being a man of deep sensitivity, and also I think he's got a beautiful voice. and I think I will get great satisfaction from listening to him from time to time on my desert island.
Regimental March of the Royal Engineers (Wings)
Band of the Corps of Royal Engineers
Once a week, when we were housed in Kitchener barracks, which have now disappeared in Chatham, we would march up to the School of Military Engineering in Gillingham behind the band of the Corps of Royal Engineers, and I would very much like to hear the regimental march of the Royal Engineers.
Frank Chacksfield and His Orchestra
The film of which I have very, very powerful memories indeed was Limelight. which Charlie Chaplin played, and I've chosen the theme from Limelight.
Clarinet Quintet in A major, K. 581
it was in Birmingham, where I shared a flat with other junior executives in the business world, that I first actually encountered um classical music. And the Mozart clarinet quintet is the record I think of particularly of Birmingham.
Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah
it will call to mind in particular the Berwan Hills which roll away from where I live in the Tennet Valley. And I think we'll Also emphasise for me How important North West Shropshire's Bean. in my life, how going there at the week ends is more than just getting away from Westminster.
Symphony No. 6 in F major, Op. 68 'Pastoral'
Concertgebouw Orchestra, Bernard Haitink
I've decided I would have. The Beethoven's Symphony No. Six, The Pastoral, which is as I am. Told was an Arimba band's favorite music.
It was um Salad Days, a musical then a great uh success in London at the time that I was an undergraduate. That's just the last one, as I'm there reclining on that island. If there's one memory which would give me happiness. I think it would be the memory of Cambridge embodying education
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:15Have you ever wished you'd bitten your tongue on those occasions which incurred the displeasure of Number Ten, so you could still be at the centre of power?
No, no regrets. The Edith Piaff of politics.
Presenter asks
5:31How early did you decide you wanted to be a politician?
I think I decided I wanted to be a politician remarkably early. Certainly when I was less than fifteen. I am embarrassed to make this confession. Certainly it was not as a result of any experience of life, but it was because I regarded politics as an extension of history.
Presenter asks
7:51What sort of farm was it [that you grew up on]?
It was a mixed farm almost every kind of husbandry was practised. We had a dairy my mother made cheese. We also had uh beef cattle, we had sheep, we had pigs. You'd got the normal range of crops of turnips and sweets and kale and the like. And it was uh a childhood of, I think, great contentment.
The keepsakes
The book
Wisden Cricketers' Almanack 1946
I would sit for hours going through the cricket matches and remembering the ones that I had watched and reading the delightful results that were attained by Somerset in that year.
The luxury
I would be able to have great time, like an old eccentric Englishman in his country garden checking the movement in the rain.
Presenter asks
How did you feel about your National Service?
national service was the most seismic shock that you could imagine. I found it uh really quite terrifying. And after a few weeks, of course, everything began to settle down. But uh the initial pain and trauma … Of being taken away from the security and the affection of the family farm. … and thrust into the barrack room, is something which even now I can sense quite acutely.
Presenter asks
21:34How could it have happened that you ended up being sacked [from the Cabinet]?
Well, I don't know if anything went wrong. I mean, the point is, in the general discussion in government or in cabinet, I always felt that uh it was much more important that I should say what I felt about a situation than what I thought would be well received.
Presenter asks
23:45Has [your dismissal] left a scar?
Oh, of course it leaves a scar but scars hill.
“I think life's an eternal learning curve. Um I had those eight years. Now I have a different role in politics.”
“I think I decided I wanted to be a politician remarkably early. Certainly when I was less than fifteen. I am embarrassed to make this confession. Certainly it was not as a result of any experience of life, but it was because I regarded politics as an extension of history.”
“I think that Harold Wilson was absolutely right. To resign when he did And uh the action that he undertook I would commend as a general practice.”