Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Entrepreneur and philanthropist who founded the Sutton Trust, spending £50m on social mobility, and funded the campaign for a total handgun ban after Dunblane.
On the island
Eight records
It was my first business deal. I was a 16 year old and Love Me Do was released… I bought 24 tickets… Then a few months later She Loves You came out, and that just blew the socks off everybody. I mean, it was the startled Beatle mania. So the tickets I bought were worth a fortune. So I sold the tickets and kept four… and three friends and I went to the New Year's Eve, we went to the Beatles' Christmas Show.
Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II
I got a place at university and then I went travelling for six months… I get back and there's a letter from my future tutor saying I want you to come and do a maths exam… I felt very depressed because I thought I'd done badly and I was got out the exam and there was a cinema opposite… was playing the sound of music. So I went in there… And it just lifted my spirits enormously because it's that kind of movie.
I was living in New York… All of a sudden I heard this incredibly loud Rolling Stones music… I called down to the concierge… And he said 'That is the rolling star.' So I said, what? He said, 'Yeah, Keith Ritchard just moved into the building.'… So twenty minutes later they stop… In honor of the fact that the Rolling Stones stop playing at my request, I'd like to do jumping chat for that.
When I lived in New York there used to be a radio programme called Saturday Night with Sinatra. And we would religiously listen to this because most people in New York were big Sinatra fans. So the reason I've chosen this is to remind me of good times in New York.
I was flying out to California with an American friend of mine on July the 4th… we land in in San Diego. We're immediately thrust onto a huge beach party on Mission Bay and it's like being stepped off the moon… there was beering hose pipes, they were roasting pigs… And as you can imagine, the girls were all blonde and beautiful. And of course, they were playing Beach Boys.
I was dating this rather nice girl in New York who was loved the ballet. So I ended up buying season's worth of ballet tickets, two tickets, at City Ballet… After about three months, she dumped me. So I was left with these ballet tickets. Then I realized, if I asked girls out and say, 'well, you want to come to the ballet with me,' they thought I was sensitive, considerate. They thought I was wonderful.
The Magic Flute (excerpt: Papagena, Papageno)
Bryn Terfel and Christine Rice
They were putting together financing for a new opera house at Glimbourne. They were asking people like me to put some money in, so I did… I became a founder member of Glimeborn, which means I get two tickets for the rest of my life. So as a result of that, we have been going to the opera quite frequently. And I guess the my favorite opera is The Magic Flute by Mozart.
We have a house in Florida that is right by the sea and we have a terrace that overlooks the sea that has a very good sound system. So my wife and I both love music, love listening to music and love singing to music. We sit out there belting away to Jimi Hendrix… the Beatles, you name it. But our favourite is Simon and Garfunkel.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:50Fairness and opportunity sound pretty simple. Why is it proving so difficult [to improve social mobility]?
It's like pushing water uphill. Social mobility we're talking about… people from low moderate income backgrounds moving up the ladder in a relative sense. And if you're doing that, you are actually displacing people who are already on that ladder. So there is a lot of resistance to social mobility because of that.
Presenter asks
5:02What persuaded you to take such a change of direction [from business to philanthropy]?
Well, the first thing was was the Dunblaine situation. I'd been in the States for twenty years. I was very sensitized to the gun issue… the Don Plane thing happened, which was horrific, and there was a campaign to ban handguns set up in this country. And I got the organizer and two fathers whose daughters had been massacred in this dreadful thing. And I said, Listen, I'll fund whatever you guys need. And as you know, we've a complete ban… The thing was so successful way beyond anyone's dreams. So that got me into philanthropy, and then I set up the Sutton Trust, and that was having come back to this country. Chances for kids from low, moderate income backgrounds have gone backwards.
Presenter asks
7:22The keepsakes
The book
The Complete Works of Robert Frost
Robert Frost
I think he's a wonderful poet. I've spent time up in New England, which is where he's from, New Hampshire, Vermont. I love his poetry. It's about, you know, rural life in those parts of the world. Birches and the road less traveled and so on and so on.
The luxury
I would want two cases of champagne. One to drink. And if there's any left, one to the people that rescue it.
Do you think [Finland's exceptional educational outcomes] have got something significant to do with the fact that they are exclusively state-run?
I think it does. We have a very strong private sector in this country. I think if you could wave a magic wand, you would have like the European countries, not just Finland, they basically don't have private schools if they do their minimal. And everyone goes to a state school. I think that's a good thing. Where I'm coming from is that isn't going to happen. So we have private schools. What we're trying to do is to say the private day schools should be opened up based on merit, not money.
Presenter asks
16:55You said it was much easier to make money out of boring businesses than glitzy ones. Why is that?
Well, because obviously everyone's interested in glitzy businesses. Yes. And my criteria for what was a good business to get involved with was if it put people to sleep at a cocktail party.
Presenter asks
21:29When you started to make a serious amount of money, did you enjoy that?
Yeah. I mean, I could have just kept going and make more and more money. But once I made a certain amount, I said, well, that's enough money for me to do whatever I want. And I'm going to do something else.
Presenter asks
26:00[With] about half of kids now going to university, there's big questions about whether it's time and money well spent. What's your view?
A lot of those kids should go to university. The problem is that kids are coming out with over £50,000 worth of debt. Three years out, 20% to 25% not in graduate employment. I think there's far too many kids going to university. This is a big agenda. We are looking to push degree level apprenticeships… which means you're working for a company, you're going on day release… The advantage of that is you earn while you learn, you come out with no debt and you come out with skills the marketplace wants… Over a lifetime, [the] average degree student, the apprentice will earn more… than the average we're talking degree level apprenticeship.
“I have got a philosophy of life, which is you've got to give yourself a chance to get lucky. And so even though people didn't think I'd had a great chance, I applied anyway and I got in. So you've got to try.”
“My criteria for what was a good business to get involved with was if it put people to sleep at a cocktail party.”
“I always say if you want to get rid of a Brit, just ask them for money, because they'll run a mile and you'll never see them again in case they think in case you'll ask them again.”
“I never ever dreamt that I would get depressed.”