Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
A Labour politician and Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, known for her straightforward manner and courage in the face of illness.
On the island
Eight records
I chose it because when I'm feeling enclosed, either in the Northern Ireland process and as you suggested, I don't get very much time to myself. This record says to me and I listen to it when I just want to close everything else out and it just says the pleasure of those odd moments that you get when you're by yourself.
It reminds me of growing up. This is one of the first songs I remember and my mum loves it.
I think it represents music for me that was sixties, seventies that I listened to when I was at school, when I was at college. And it just is good fun!
I used to listen to this at university and I've never really stopped ... because it's the way that in there it says so clearly how the establishment can make you feel small. Now, wherever you go, whoever you are, there are still people that can belittle you. And Lennon says that for me in a way that I've never heard anybody else do.
This may seem a bit out of kilter in a sense, but this is Noel Coward and Mad Dogs and Englishmen, only because just of which was very appropriate of what we've just been talking about, I listened to a whole cross-section of Irish music and there was no one bit that I could choose, but this song reminds me when at the end of a week you think what on earth's happening, I play this and it cheers me up.
I like it because it points out hypocrisy, which is one of the things that frustrates me in life. And this is about attempts to deal with racism, which I feel very strongly about. And it basically says that for one week of the year everybody's nice, and then for the remaining weeks, they do exactly as they want.
ChicagoFavourite
One, it reminds me of the time when I had the space to travel, because I like going to different places. But also I don't control the CD very much'cause I'm not in, and this is one that all our musical taste fits.
This is one that symbolizes for me the importance of enjoying life and having fun.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:58How many nights a week do you sleep in your own bed?
It depends what you define as my own bed. I always think I've got three. Um, I have one in the constituency in Redcar, one in London with John, and one in Belfast in the castle I live in. The real problem is is when you get up goofy in the morning and you kind of wander towards the bathroom, I I have to kind of wake up enough to w work out which direction to wander in.
Presenter asks
6:24Was it a conscious decision to do [this formal job] as you?
No, it's only I can only do it as me. You can't go into negotiations, I don't think. And and I can only do a job as me. I couldn't be anything different.
Presenter asks
8:56Do you think being a woman has helped [in Northern Ireland]?
I think it's helped and and hindered. ... In Northern Ireland it's helped, I think, because women are central to the process working. ... Majority of women in both communities voted for [the Good Friday Agreement]. And I think having a woman there help them realize that the democratic fabric of Northern Ireland had stayed together thirty years because women kept it going, and they did.
The keepsakes
The book
Seamus Heaney
Well, I thought long and hard about this and because I couldn't fit in Irish music to the kind I'd want, I think it would have to be Seamus Heaney's poems.
The luxury
What I want to do is take a very big globe. ... I'd like a big one of those so I could choose all the places that I'd want to visit when I got off the island.
Presenter asks
10:57What sort of disaster [was waiting round the corner at home]?
It was just difficult'cause you didn't know how drunk he'd be. ... Father being an alcoholic, yeah. And so it was difficult in terms of which other families that have the problem will know, that you never knew when you could take people back and when it would be okay and when it wouldn't be. And so it was difficult to do normal things.
Presenter asks
22:16What was the first you knew about [the brain tumour]?
I dislike shaking my right hand, um didn't take notice of it for months, um and in the end went for check-up. And, um, how to scan?
Presenter asks
26:20How difficult is that when you're doing business with a murderer?
It's not easy. But I made a decision very early on in relation to Northern Ireland that unless you talk to people they'll go back to violence. It's as I mean, it sounds oversimplified, but in the end, unless you bring people into the process and talk to them, you're not going to make progress.
“If you feel like that, you shouldn't do the job. I mean, an end will come, whether it's a bullet, a a bus or old age.”
“You'd fail if you tried to do what's not you.”
“I try and get into schools as often as I can to talk to young girls and young boys to say that you can do whatever you want as long as you're confident and believe in yourself. And it's true.”
“But sometimes the most forgiving are those that have suffered most, and they'll say to me something like I despise you for what you're doing. Uh but in the end, if you stop another family having to go through what we've gone through, then keep going.”