Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Businessman and adventurer who joined the French Foreign Legion, ran major SE Asian companies, and is the oldest person to walk unsupported to the South Pole.
On the island
Eight records
I remember when I first heard it, it just struck me, absolutely lovely piece of music. I find it very um moving and um and lovely and I think if I was lying on an island for a long time, Desert Island, I think this um daily I could do this, I could take it, I wouldn't throw it out.
I love peverotti, I love Italy for that matter, but avucello is absolutely beautiful. It is not very well known, but I love it. I think I was on on a desert island, I'd like to wake up with this.
The Legion doesn't, I mean, it's not a huge part of my life in terms of length, five years, but it's a. A formation part of my life. And good memories, bad memories, whatever. I should have something on my island. About the Legion.
Piano Concerto No. 2 in F minor, Op. 21
Chopin makes me cry. He's my musician. I play the piano a little bit. I play my ear. I can't read music, but I play and I I like my Chopin music.
I first heard this record in nineteen seventy. I was at the top of a a little drive going into a house that I was thinking of buying, and I ultimately did buy. And a friend of mine who I'd driven down with, he he was playing music. He said, Murray, I'm going to give you some music that will blow your skull apart. Boom, Neil Diamond. I loved him.
Cavalleria rusticana: Intermezzo
A lovely, lovely, lovely piece of music. I took this in my iPod to the South Pole and played it every night. And Penn fell in love with it as well. I finally got him off ABBA and got him onto this.
I was introduced to Bom Mali by my daughter when she was about thirteen, I think. And my daughter's um my youngest daughter, Christy, gave it to me for Christmas. She said, Dad, this is your kind of music. You're going to love this. I was absolutely staggered.
La bohème: O soave fanciullaFavourite
Maria Callas & Giuseppe Di Stefano
It's Puccini in more of my Italian opera, and this is the most beautiful piece of music. There's some sadness about this music as well. It's absolutely lovely.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:19Is it fair to say that you're one half then of a rather competitive couple?
Um, there is a little bit of competition in there. All my family say I'm very competitive. I'm actually not competitive at all. But between my wife and I, I don't I like to think that I am not competitive, but there's a little bit there that um I see in her sometimes.
Presenter asks
4:00I wonder maybe if you were propelled to do something with yours because of the life that your father had led?
I I don't think that he has had um any influence on me uh at all. My parents were were divorced um more or less I think as I was born, and I never saw him, never heard from him. In fact, didn't even know he was alive until years later.
Presenter asks
9:47What went through your mind when you learned [your father] was dead?
Well fantastic question. I think maybe a a s a sort of lump. of sadness that there was nothing there.
The keepsakes
The book
Hilaire Belloc
I think I'm gonna get something that I can read again and again, and I think the cautionary tales of Hile Belloc. Because they make me laugh. I learned that when I was in school, they stayed in my mind. That's an easy read.
The luxury
And then if I put that in the bottle and chuck it out with the message, then I'm in touch with the outside world. Only possibly.
Presenter asks
12:30Once you're [in the Foreign Legion] you're in... describe the sort of thing that [happened to men who tried to escape or break rules].
Well, it wasn't it wasn't just men who who made a break for it. The the NCOs, the non-commissioned officers, the sergeants and the corporals dispensed. You know, they thumped people, beat them up and so on, and you were expected to stand to attention and take it until you dropped... The standard punishment was called the plot. First of all, you had your head shaved, and then you had a metal helmet without the inside put on your head. You had a sack of rocks on your back with wire shoulder straps, and you had boots without laces, so that you shuffled. And you would run round in a circle with a sergeant in the middle with a whistle... and if you slowed, got a rope's end. So you just kept going.
Presenter asks
25:26As you set off on that expedition [to the South Pole], what were your thoughts?
I was concerned a little bit that I may not make it. Um it is a dreadful, dreadful place, described by Scott as this awful place. It's the cold, which is the first uh strike of the enemy, then the wind, which eats into your face and everything else. And the threat of crevasses.
Presenter asks
29:59Would you survive the loneliness? Would you feel the loneliness?
I love being on my own. I love my family, love everybody, got lots and lots of friends and enjoy them hugely. But I also love being on my own. That's when you get a good understanding of yourself... Stick me on a desert island for a few months, I'll be fine.
“I felt a little bit, I'm in a box, this is it, and I've got to get off the path.”
“Toughness is about resilience, not about dishing it out.”
“I like a little yes, I of course I like a little bit of challenge when it's put in front of me. You know, that all about that dream stuff. You dream and say why, I dream and say why not. So, yeah, why not?”
“When you do understand yourself, you get a feeling of freedom, independence. I was talking earlier about getting off the path. When you get off the path, you find a little bit of space. In that space, you might find yourself. I think I'm my own man, I feel I'm my own man, quite happy with myself. Isn't that outrageous?”