Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
2 appearances
A grocery magnate, Labour peer, and former science minister, known for his family's supermarket chain and philanthropy in education and mental health.
On the island
Eight records
String Quintet in C major, D. 956Favourite
The Lindsay String Quartet with Douglas Cummings
I start with a piece of music that I particularly love, one which I had played on in my sixtieth birthday party because I loved it so much. And it's um Schubert's string quintet in C, and I think it's one of the most beautiful pieces of music in the world and certainly one of the greatest things he ever wrote.
Cinderella, Act II: Duet of the Prince and Cinderella
Cleveland Orchestra, Vladimir Ashkenazi
The reason I've chosen it is because my w wife was a ballerina and it was Cinderella that was the first ballet I saw Anya dance after we'd met. I went to this performance, this performance of Cinderella, back in 1962.
La Traviata, Act III: Parigi, o cara (Duet of Alfredo and Violetta)
Placido Domingo, Iliana Kotrubash, Bavarian State Opera, Carlos Kleiber
It is probably my favourite, or one of my most favorite, Verdi operas, and it it's a very beautiful piece of music.
Andante Spianato and Grande Polonaise Brillante in E-flat major, Op. 22
What a marvelous thing it would be to be reminded of the great ballad that Frederick Ashton created near the end of his life, which was a month in the country. And it means very it has a very special memory for me because my wife and I sponsored the ballet and its first night.
Eugene Onegin, Act I: Lensky and Olga's love duet
Anne Sofie von Otter, Neil Shicoff, Dresden State Opera Orchestra, James Levine
This is um one of my favorite operas, one I've enjoyed very often and I thought it would be good to have on the island, and it's um Juge in. It's the most marvellous love duet uh that comes in the first act.
I went on my honeymoon to the West Indies and I spend many have had many very happy winter holidays in the West Indies and I like West Indians and there's nothing better than dancing on the seashore to a West Indian steel band.
Das Lied von der Erde: Von der Jugend (Of Youth)
Fritz Wunderlich, Philharmonia and New Philharmonia Orchestras, Otto Klemperer
The reason I've chosen it is not only because I love Marla and I love this particular piece, but because I'm a huge admirer of Kenneth Macmillan who probably is the greatest choreographer anywhere in the world today, and he one of his greatest works, I think, was done to this music.
Symphony No. 39 in E-flat major, K. 543: IV. Allegro
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Sir Thomas Beecham
I really wanted to have lots of Mozart, but wanting a spread of different composers and different types of music, I suddenly realized that I haven't got a symphony amongst my records. And so who better than Mozart, even though I would like to have had some Mozart opera, what better than to have Mozart's 39th Symphony? And this particular piece that I'm going to play from the fourth movement is very much reminds one of Haydn as well. And it's a very happy and enjoyable piece I'm very, very fond of.
Der Vogelfänger bin ich ja (from The Magic Flute)
Erich Kunz, Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Herbert von Karajan
When I was a small boy, about 10 or 11 I think, I was taken by my father to Edinburgh. We went to the opera, I think it was one of the German opera companies, and I think this is the first bit of music I remember hearing and being absolutely entranced by.
Già nella notte densa (Love Duet from Otello, Act I)
Ramon Vinay and Herva Nelli, NBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Arturo Toscanini
The second record is um comes really from my schoolboy days um at Eton, where I discovered uh the operas of Verdi. The piece I've chosen is uh the love duet from the end of Act I of uh Othello, which I think is one of the great sort of romantic moments in music.
Die Moritat von Mackie Messer (The Ballad of Mack the Knife from The Threepenny Opera)
One of the great discoveries of my life was the plays of Brecht and the wonderful Thrupni Opera with Kurt Weil, and this is the ballad of Mac the Knife, sung by Lottie Lenier, who was of course the wife of Kurt Weil and his greatest proponent.
It's about all the things I care about, um issues of integrity, striving for excellence, patriotism, athletics. So it has many good things for me.
One of the great passions of my life has always been dancing. I d I don't think I actually have a brilliant ear for music, but I have a very good sense of rhythm.
I would I think like to have one Beatles record on on My Desert Island, just because I've over the whole of my life once listened to the Beatles music. I think uh John Lennon was was the best uh songwriter of lot and imagine probably one of his best songs.
Pie Jesu (from Requiem, Op. 48)
Marie McLaughlin, City of London Sinfonia, conducted by Harry Christophers
As I think I've said, a great influence in my life was my father. He died a few years ago and we had a memorial service for him at which we played Foray's Requiem, which I think is one of the most beautiful of the Requiem Masses.
Contessa perdono (from The Marriage of Figaro)Favourite
Thomas Allen and Kiri Te Kanawa, London Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Sir Georg Solti
The last record, I I come back again to Mozart, who I think is the incomparable composer. It's the last moments of the marriage of Figaro, uh where the count asks for pardon from his wife and it's a moment I think of extraordinary beauty which is practically incomparable in any opera.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:09Are you happy to be called a shopkeeper?
Absolutely. I I boast of being a shopkeeper when asked what I do. And I I've enjoyed the trade and I have great respect for those in the trade who do well and I'm proud of being a shopkeeper.
Presenter asks
2:33What were the shops like when you first went into them in the 1950s?
Well absolutely. I uh there was one shop that my father and uncle who were leading the business in those days were pioneers in, as it were, and that was called a self-service store. The other two hundred and forty four stores were the old fashioned marble topped counters, long shops, sometimes double fronted, broken up into different departments, the bacon department, butter department, cheese department. I mean little did I think that one day we'd be taking money and and and and with plastic cards and not rigging things up on cash registers but scanning them across laser beams.
Presenter asks
5:44Do you lead the customer or does the customer ask you?
Well, of course both, really. But um th th one of the exciting things about the job has been anticipating changing tastes and changing needs. You can sense, as it were, increasing interest, shall we say, in wholemeal bread or or things of that sort. … And then it's a once you sense that the people are wanting more of something and are more interested in a particular a type of product that they weren't particularly interested in before, then it's a great challenge to get there first.
The keepsakes
The book
F. Scott Fitzgerald
It would be The Great Gatsby, which has for a long time been my favourite book. I called my Charitable Trust after it, and I think it's one of the great masterpieces of modern literature.
The luxury
a large bath and constant hot water
I think I would choose to have just a large bath and a constant supply of hot water. I do most of my thinking in the bath. I like reading the bath. And I think that might help me get through, but but I think by and large I would be a hopeless wreck on a Desert Island.
Presenter asks
8:45Your parents were divorced when you were about eleven; did you always assume you would end up in the family business?
I don't think at that time I really did want to go did think about going into the family business. I I suppose it was there at the back of my mind. But my real interest at that time was um as a schoolboy was was um amateur dramatics. I loved being an actor and um we appeared in various um school plays and so on, like like many people do. … I actually did get on the professional stage for a week… And in that time I learnt an awful lot about the theatre. I also learnt that I wasn't a very good actor instead there, but but at least it was a marvelous experience and it taught me a lot and I enjoyed it.
Presenter asks
13:28What are you looking for when you swoop unannounced on a store?
When I go there, I'm really looking for everything that I possibly can from the customer's point of view, first of all. And um of course it's no test if um it leaks out, and sometimes it does, that the cham is coming. It only is meaningful if I arrive as as if a customer ha well
Presenter asks
22:24How great on the personal level is the responsibility of being so wealthy?
Well I think if you get you gain something from the community you've got to give it back. And I think it it gets it absolutely it goes. If one's w very wealthy one's got, I s in by my book, a sort of obligation to do something worthwhile with that wealth, whether you give it all away or direct it in areas where you know there's a particular need that you believe should be met.
Presenter asks
0:29What made you go from running one of the biggest companies in the land, Sainsbury's, to being a junior minister in the cumbersome machinery of government?
Well, I think it was actually one of the rather easy decisions of my life because … really from my earliest days in business I'd been interested in politics and had a great long-term interest in science. So the opportunity to be science minister was one that was you know that was a dream coming true.
Presenter asks
2:36Do you miss the excitement of big business, being able to take instant action and getting an instant result?
No, I miss the fact that all my life I've walked into the office in the morning and as you say you you in Sainsbury's you had on your desk the takings of the previous day … And of course in government you don't have that kind of instantaneous performance measurement, which is one of the funds of retailing. The other thing I miss from business is Christmas.
Presenter asks
12:02What did your parents think when you went home and told them that you'd refused to be confirmed [at Eton]?
Well, that was that was going to be my great rebellion. I I rushed home and said, you know, I'm not going to be confirmed, uh do your worst. And they said, Well, it doesn't make any difference to us'cause we're not religious. So that was complete failure as far as rebellion was concerned.
Presenter asks
18:47How would the staff have perceived that you were different from your predecessor [your cousin John Sainsbury]?
Well, I think my cousin John was an absolutely brilliant retailer. I mean, he absolutely lived and breathed retailing. He had an extraordinary understanding, I think, of the customer and the business revolved round him. The system was that the chairman was asked and gave his view on anything … Actually looking back I think I allowed it to go on in his way of running things uh when I should have said look I've got to run it in a different way.
Presenter asks
25:48How do you answer the allegation that you have a conflict of interest [on GM crop production] because you have investments in companies concerned with that research?
Well, I think the issue is quite simple. I have nothing to do with decision-making government on GM. … I don't go to the meetings when it's going to be discussed. And that that's not too difficult because the basic decisions on control of GM is done by DEFRA, so it's a different ministry. … So I simply don't get involved in those issues at all.
“I boast of being a shopkeeper when asked what I do.”
“I fell madly in love immediately.”
“If you're going to criticise when it's wrong, my goodness you've got to say how much you like it when it's right.”
“I think if you get you gain something from the community you've got to give it back.”
“I'm probably the only small boy who's ever been asked down to Much Haddam, which is [Henry Moore's] house, and all the drawings were put on the floor and I was asked, you know, just to choose one for a birthday present. So it was quite amazing upbringing. And of course we had this house in London, which was full of all these things. So I grew up thinking that everyone had Francis Bacon's on the walls and bits of African art in the cupboards.”
“I suppose I was arrogant enough thinking I'll be a good grocer and that's probably better than being not very good scientists.”
“I'm the sort of person who hears good dance music in an airport and uh will start dancing to the huge embarrassment of uh my children.”
“I think the issue of integrity here is whether you say I give you the money, but it's only on the basis that you have certain policies. And I've always been absolutely clear that I would never ever … get into that kind of position.”