Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Journalist and broadcaster who rose from newscaster to become Director General of the BBC.
On the island
Eight records
Cinque... dieci... venti... (Duet from Le nozze di Figaro, Act I)
The first record is uh from my favorite opera, The Marriage of Figura. And it's immediately after the very exciting overture. The curtain goes up and you see on the stage Figaro and Susanna. It's their wedding day, or at least I hope it's going to be their wedding day. And Figaro is measuring the room for the marriage bed. And Susannah is trying on her wedding hat. And there's a little duet which is light and exuberant.
My second record is really takes us past the Daily Sketch to the war. I had two jobs, one in Norwich and then the Yorkshire Post, as a Cub reporter in the early days of the war. Then I went into the Navy. And of course, during the war, anybody who was in the forces, there was a sort of theme to you. Wherever you were, in any canteen, anywhere in the world, you heard Glenn Miller in the mood.
Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125 (Choral): II. Molto vivace
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt
Quite soon after the war, I went for the first time to Europe. It was very curious that through being in the Navy I've been to America, I've been to the Far East, but I'd never been to Europe. And ever since, I have had a very strong feeling of affection and affinity, I suppose, with Europe. ... I always find particularly exciting is the opening of the second movement of the Ninth Symphony.
Dio, che nell'alma infondere (Oath Duet from Don Carlo)
And one of the many productions I saw was an opera which I come greatly to love, Don Carlos. And there is near the beginning the famous Oath duet in which Don Carlos and his great friend Poza sing of their commitment to trying to free the Flemish people from the Spanish yoke.
This is a very much a family choice in a sense that Particularly when I was doing the top jobs in the BBC, we all liked to get away to France and Italy in the summer, and we did quite often. And so the five of us, my wife and the three girls who were then all at school, would drive through the long roads of Europe. And the great question was, what music should we play? The girls weren't frightfully keen on bronze. I wasn't frightfully keen on pop. So we compromised on a great favourite of dad's, Nanimus Curly.
Là ci darem la mano (Duet from Don Giovanni)
I have to come back to Mozart. This is a lovely duet from Don Giovanni, where the Don is trying to seduce the peasant girl Zelina. And at this particular moment, he came unstuck later. This particular moment he was doing rather well.
The Night They Invented Champagne
Leslie Caron, Louis Jourdan and Hermione Gingold
Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe
Record number seven is really chosen for her and as much as for me. It's from Gigi, which is a great favourite of ours. And the actual tune from Gigi we have chosen celebrates one of my own personal interests in life. The night they invented champagne.
Hab' mir's gelobt (Trio from Der Rosenkavalier, Act III)Favourite
The last record is Opera at its the Marvellous trio towards the end of Rosencavalier when the marshaline surrenders her lover, Octavian, to the younger Sophie.
In conversation
Presenter asks
6:45What had been your original inspiration and why had you wanted to become a journalist?
I think it was partly because I had no particular aptitude for science or languages. I was fascinated by history and political history. My father was a part-time journalist. ... And so that I was familiar with the atmosphere and it just was the one thing I wanted to do, was to be a journalist.
Presenter asks
10:10Did not going to university represent a subject of great regret to you, or do you think you should have gone?
It is still a regret because I've noticed among my friends who've been to university, that they have a a nucleus of friends whom they made at university. This is something that I didn't have from school and then five years in the war. And I mean, I have, I'm happy to say, very many friends, but there is that core.
Presenter asks
13:23Can you sum up what attracted you about politics?
I think it was the interplay between the government and the house. It's the interplay between the government and Whitehall, which of course is also part of the beat. ... Civil servants feel much freer to talk to you than they did certainly 40 years ago.
The keepsakes
The book
Leo Tolstoy
not just because it's a very long book, but because it's a tremendous human story, the interweaving of the family histories. But also, because Tolstoy has this very strong, broad historical sweep. I don't necessarily agree with his particular theories about the historical movements, but I think they make a tremendous reading.
The luxury
All the champagne that I could get onto the life raft before the ship went down
all the champagne that I could get onto the life raft before the ship went down.
Presenter asks
14:09Why did you switch from newspapers to television to become a newscaster at ITN?
Well not in the smallest degree, no. I I was uh with the News Chronicle but at that time a very great friend of mine, Geoffrey Cox, who had been with the News Chronicle, had just become editor of ITN. And he said, Why don't you come to television? And I thought I was, I think, thirty-five at the time. If I'm ever going to make the move into this new medium. This is the time to do it, probably now or never.
Presenter asks
23:27How did you feel when you finally entered the Director General's office thirteen years ago and sat down in his chair?
Oh, yes. I mean one had uh I had a a very clear sense of of history. And I had a I had a sense of awe, quite frankly, and uh uh a sense of tremendous responsibility for what was what was laid on one.
Presenter asks
24:38Do you agree today with the ban in existence on interviews with members of Sinn Fein?
No, I don't. ... This particular ban, I think is really rather silly, because as you know, what it involves is you can show an IRA man speaking. Somebody else can read his word, but you can't actually have him saying his word. I think it's rather silly. I don't see what it might achieve by it, quite frankly.
“Hugh Weldon, who then ran BBC Television, took me out to lunch. ... He said, dear boy, if I had been editor of Panorama, I would have chosen Robin Day. Robin Day is a star. You are not.”
“I learned what I think is crucial in management, which is how to delegate and how to create priorities. And that means you've got to pick good people in whom you can rely.”
“I said, you made your point. I don't have any of the experience for this job. I believe I can do it. Otherwise, I wouldn't be here. But you've got to decide.”
“When I was Director General, I used sometimes to say to people that you can make a case for saying that Radio Three is the cornerstone of the BBC. ... this is the one point above all where we are doing a distinctive service which nobody else could commercially provide.”