Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Self-made Tory entrepreneur and politician who resigned as Defence Secretary over Westland, once tipped as party leader.
On the island
Eight records
The Palm Court Theatre Orchestra with Alwyn Green
We start with my father's favourite tune, The Teddy Bears Picnic.
Keep Right On to the End of the Road
Well, uh the other man who played a decisive influence in my life was my maternal grandfather, and uh this song was the one I remember him uh and associate with him, Keep Right On to the End of the Road.
Academy of St Martin in the Fields, conducted by Sir Neville Marriner
Well obviously my own family, my wife and the the the music that uh I would want to choose uh as uh the memory of this part of uh my life is Greensleeves, which of course was um part of our wedding ceremony.
Hallelujah Chorus (from Messiah)
Well, the next three records, really, are good noise. I'm not, as I said, early musical, but I do absolutely adore being sort of overwhelmed by what seems to me a very uh compelling uh music. And uh the first is the Alleluia Chorus.
London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by André Previn
Well, the next one is another marvelous uh noise, and that's Revell's Bolero.
Un bel dì, vedremo (from Madama Butterfly)
Well, I drive all round this country, largely speaking, and uh every so often out of the car radio comes this extraordinary voice of uh Dame Eva Turner. And so let's choose one fine day from Madam Butterfly.
We Shall Fight on the Beaches (Speech)
And so, perhaps for that reason, perhaps as a politician, I would draw strength on perhaps the most remarkable speech ever made to a nation in its darkest hour, Winston Churchill's speech, We Shall Never Surrender.
We'll Keep a WelcomeFavourite
Well, sitting there on my desert island and thinking about it all, I suppose it could never occur to me that in one way or another I'd never be back. And so We'll keep a welcome in the hillside.
In conversation
Presenter asks
3:08What kind of man was your father?
Well he died when I was very young and uh of course I hero worshipped him. He was uh a profound uh rock in my life and uh he was everything that one would have wanted from a father in those circumstances and it was a shattering blow to my family, myself, when um I think at twenty one, twenty two he died.
Presenter asks
7:12Did you enjoy Shrewsbury [School]?
I don't look back on it as one of the most uh satisfactory uh parts of my life. Uh I never seemed to be able to get my feet uh on any sort of rung of any sort of ladder. Uh there were things I did quite well, but perhaps it was me, perhaps it was the environment, who knows, what does it matter? But I mean it it isn't uh if you look at my record at Shrewsbury, it doesn't uh add up to much.
Presenter asks
9:36Did you enjoy Oxford?
Oxford was to me the most exciting experience that anyone could have. … For the first time, I felt in the company of people who shared the sort of interests that were rapidly developing in me. I felt involved in a competitive environment with people that one regarded as one's peers. It stretched one, it opened horizons, all was there. A great period of experimentation. And of course, many of the people one's met have remained friends and contemporaries and colleagues ever since.
The keepsakes
The book
Manual of Cultivated Broad-Leaved Trees and Shrubs
Gerd Krüssmann
My obsession outside uh politics is uh gardening. And so I would take the Dictionary of Trees and Shrubs by Kreuzmann, so that when I come back I would be ready to go to create the greatest arboretum that anyone ever saw.
The luxury
I would have a mosquito net to give me comfort at night, and to turn into a fishing net by day.
Presenter asks
14:26When you left university, did you establish yourself in business first to use it as a springboard into politics?
I think that there's a large measure of truth in the fact that I wanted to try and make myself financially independent if I could. But I didn't give up politics. What I didn't do was to throw myself into sort of full-time politics. I played a a limited role. I had friends in politics. I kept in touch. I was involved in the Beau Group on a limited scale and I made speeches for the Conservative Party on a limited scale. But I didn't become an activist in the sort of young Conservative movement or anything like that, because all my time was given to being articled as a chartered accountant and trying in the long reaches of the night to modernise and update the sort of properties that we were buying for letting purposes.
Presenter asks
18:28When you grabbed the mace in the House in 1976, was that a calculated move or spontaneous combustion?
The interesting thing is how you misdescribe what happened. Because that is, of course, the impression which people reading the headlines might have got, but it wasn't what happened at all. What happened is that the Labour Party cheated over the nationalisation measure, which they would have lost if they hadn't cheated. … And the Labour Party broke a pair. And having broken a pair, which meant they managed to get a majority of one, they then stood on their benches and sang the red flag in the House of Commons. And I was appalled and affronted by this usurpation of power without justification. And I picked up the mace and offered it to them in a wholly obvious gesture, a thing at which I apologised to the House. But that's what happened.
Presenter asks
24:22Why did you make the decision to resign [from the Cabinet]?
Well the the history of it is very clearly articulated and I've never seen the point of going back over it all. Uh there was a fundamental disagreement between myself and the Prime Minister and the only honourable thing for me to do was go.
“I hero worshipped him. He was uh a profound uh rock in my life and uh he was everything that one would have wanted from a father in those circumstances and it was a shattering blow to my family, myself, when um I think at twenty one, twenty two he died.”
“I have that sort of obsessive deferential attitude to journalists characteristic in public of all politicians.”
“I would say I belong to the Tory wing of the Conservative Party. … the Conservative Party is the most experienced and sophisticated political force in the history of democracy. It has governed this country longer than any other equivalent party has ever done in any equivalent society. And it has done so because it understood the balance between the privileged who have often led the Conservative Party, the more prosperous elements of society who support the Conservative Party.”