Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
A civil servant who served as chief press secretary to Margaret Thatcher for eleven years.
On the island
Eight records
Well, I think this is a piece that is entirely appropriate for me, because I with my brother I played second cornet in the Heblingbridge Brass Band, and I do think that Colonel Bogie, played by the Black Dyke Mills Band, is an entirely suitable tune for a press secretary.
Violin Concerto in B minor, Op. 61: II. AndanteFavourite
Nigel Kennedy, London Philharmonic Orchestra and Vernon Handley
Well, my second record again goes back to my musical history. Having played second cornet in the Headmanbridge Bass Band, I then played second violin in the Todmondon Orchestra. And this piece, part of Elgar's Violin Concerto, which I think is one of the most wonderful pieces of music, just reminds me of what it might have been if I had any talent whatsoever.
Messiah, HWV 56: Hallelujah Chorus
Huddersfield Choral Society, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and Sir Malcolm Sargent
We were brought up in a choral tradition of the non-conformist chapels of the West Riding Valley, and we had the always had to attend the Handel's Messiah at Hope Baptist Chapel before Christmas, and I cannot allow any programme of this kind to go without the Huddersfield Choral Society singing the Hallelujah Chorus.
Well, I think there is a dearth of tunes in Britain today, and therefore I do think we ought to go back to the nineteen sixties, that wonderful outpouring of tunes, and what better than the Beatles yesterday.
Willie Nelson and Julio Iglesias
Well, my fifth record is um and you'll be very surprised at this, but I I must play this for my wife, um and in memory of trying to dance to this on the swaying deck of a ship in the Bay of Biscay, which does tax one's ingenuity. It's Willie Nelson singing Spanish Eyes.
Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 16: II. Adagio
Géza Anda, Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and Rafael Kubelík
Well, record number six is reminds me of sitting in that in the second violins of Toddmundin Orchestra, uh really not paying much attention to the score and just being lost in the beauty of uh Grieg's piano concerto.
Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Sir Charles Groves
I really am an Englishman above all, I suppose. Well, Yorkshireman, in fact, but I mean, I am an Englishman, and I do think that the English have such deep qualities. But oh my God, do they need rousing? You know, it takes a Dunkirk to rouse them. And I think that Vaughan Williams' Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis sums up so much of the English character.
Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125 "Choral": IV. Ode to Joy
Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus and Sir Georg Solti
Well, uh this will come as an astonishing surprise to those people who know my Euroscepticism. Uh but it all goes back to the choral tradition, and I want the concluding part. of Beethoven's Ode to Joy.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:12Is it surely an impossibility not to cross that impartiality line [as press secretary]? If you're going to be loyal and supportive and present your boss in her best light, surely you've got to become partisan.
Well, I work for both political parties, and I don't believe that I work for Mrs Thatcher any different than I work for, say, Barbara Castle, Robert Carr, Morris Macmillan or Tony Benn. I I think that what you do is you work extremely hard for the government of the day, that which the voters have landed you with. You do your best for them, you try to get under the skin and into the mind of the minister that you work for, and you represent it.
Presenter asks
3:24When [Mrs Thatcher] went there were a lot of tears in Downing Street. Did you shed some too?
[I was] a bit misty eyed at times. I think it was extremely sad, because she wasn't deposed by the people. That's fair enough, if that's what the people want to do. She was deposed by her own side. This bunch of knifing Tories who panicked.
Presenter asks
6:54Why did Mrs. Thatcher choose you?
I don't know, you better ask her... I am assuming that the Civil Service recommended me. I have since discovered that certainly people in the Tory party were consulted, and said I was the man for the job.
The keepsakes
The luxury
Colin Cowdrey's cricket bowling machine
because if, after two years on my desert isle, at the age of sixty-five, I was not in a fit condition after the application of batting at that machine, I was not fit to open the Yorkshire innings, then something would have gone seriously wrong.
Presenter asks
11:42How did you come to go to the local grammar school in the end?
My my my father, who could ill afford, paid, because he felt that I ought to go, and he felt that I just simply couldn't do an industrial job with the asthma that I'd got. But, lo and behold, the older I got, the better I managed to deal with the asthma.
Presenter asks
21:12You worked at Energy for Tony Benn, one of the great wasted talents of British politics, you called him. What do you mean by that? What would you like to have seen him become?
Well, here was a man who uh had a very good presence. A good speaking voice, in many ways an attractive personality, an extremely good administrator, did his work at night, came in with his boxes, it was done. Was decisive, and yet something went wrong in the early 1970s... I do think he could have become a Prime Minister, frankly, if he hadn't gone on his wild, lefty, wayward ways, you know, believing that the sun shines out of the working classes, as one minister said to me.
Presenter asks
32:55How much did you miss [your position at Number Ten] when it ended?
I didn't really. I think when you've done eleven years, one month and five days in number ten, you've you've done your stint... I can honestly say I didn't miss it at all and don't miss it. I've I've acquired a wonderful new and exciting life, returning to an age of utter irresponsibility. And as a consequence I'm having a ball.
“I think that what you do is you work extremely hard for the government of the day, that which the voters have landed you with. You do your best for them, you try to get under the skin and into the mind of the minister that you work for, and you represent it.”
“I think it was extremely sad, because she wasn't deposed by the people. That's fair enough, if that's what the people want to do. She was deposed by her own side. This bunch of knifing Tories who panicked.”
“I think I've had a heck of a lot more responsibility than power.”