Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
He is Chairman of British Rail.
On the island
Eight records
La Marseillaise (arranged by Berlioz)
Orchestre de Paris conducted by Jean-Pierre Jacquillat
Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle (arr. Hector Berlioz)
I think morale would be very good on the Desert Island. I can't see it sagging if we could begin with Marseillaise.
Oboe Quartet in F major, K. 370 (last movement)Favourite
Léon Goossens with members of the Léner String Quartet
I was introduced to this by my wife, who used to play the oboe and regards this as the actual peak of all oboe compositions, and she adored [Goossens]. And to me this is the most sentimental record I could take with me in the proper sense.
Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings, Op. 31 (Nocturne: 'The splendour falls on castle walls')
Peter Pears and Barry Tuckwell
I've always thought I'd lost both my brothers in the [RAF] and I have always felt the last two verses could almost be the song of some of those chaps.
Adagio in G minor for strings and organ (arr. Giazotto)
Tomaso Albinoni (arr. Remo Giazotto)
Of all the records really that I've come to think about for this splendid marooning, this is the one that really is my most working record. I probably play this every weekend. I find it quietening and strengthening and when it's done I feel encouraged to pick up and open my briefcase.
Marche et scène from 'Mariette'
Yvonne Printemps and Sacha Guitry
I'd love to play Yvonne Printemps and Sacha Guitry in an excerpt of Mariette, where Guitry is Napoleon the Third, and he's making a pass at this spectacular singing star.
There'll be moments, I think, when one'll be wandering round the beaches of this desert island making one's own kind of noises, you know. And the strange way that [Al Jarreau] sings he moves from the normal pop version into a kind of jazz approach, which I find is highly spirited and most energetic.
[William] Blake means more to me than any other writer or artist. And I regard him as the greatest Englishman really, or among the greatest.
Symphony No. 7 in A major, Op. 92 (last movement)
Philharmonic Promenade Orchestra of London conducted by Sir Adrian Boult
I love Beethoven's seventh as much as we can. Adrian Boult is deep in my memory. As a boy we used to go and listen at Bedford to the evacuated orchestra, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, it used to play in the school hall at Bedford, and I used to see Boult do his stuff there.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:35With what degree of dread would you envisage a sojourn on a desert island?
Quietness. Remoteness. The whole scope for thinking things out. No, I think I'd look forward to this.
Presenter asks
0:48How important is music to you?
It's become more and more important really to me in the last ten, twenty years. I was never trained in music. And I was you know the choir boys of looking at the notes and hoping I'd get through, but I was never trained in an instrument. But gradually, as my life has gone on, I've realized how much I depend on it.
Presenter asks
5:15As a schoolboy, what did you want to be?
As a schoolboy I think I was really without that kind of long term ambition because as one got just that bit older, one was in the war. And one was really looking straight into the war scene and not thinking much beyond that.
Presenter asks
11:23Why didn't you become an actor?
The keepsakes
The book
The Collected Works of William Blake (including the pictures)
William Blake
There's no doubt in my mind there. I take Blake's collected works, which must mean [his] pictures, 'cause the two things are together, aren't they?
The luxury
Gold pass (freedom of the railways)
I think I end up being pretty sure that I want to hang on to my gold pass, which gives me the freedom of the railways. Not that it'll be much use on the island, but it would give me the feeling some day I'll be back on the rails. That would be nice.
Not enough lives to go round, really, Roy. I mean, I love to do it. I had a good time.
Presenter asks
23:02Wouldn't cutting fares all round for everybody do a similar job [as student and senior citizen cards]? Wouldn't you get more bottoms on more seats?
You have to begin from the premise that we are expected to be a commercial concern. That is our remit from government. … If you did the simple thing of, for instance, halving fares you would then have to increase your passenger traffic by 100% to bring in the same amount of revenue that you're bringing in now. … What you can do is fight the discount market and something like almost a half now of our revenue is in the discounted area that you described.
Presenter asks
26:12Is Beeching a great obstacle in your path? By axing the branch lines, did he get people out of being railway minded?
I think the first thing is to say that much more good came from Beeching than is given credit. I mean, we can all look back and say he could have done it differently. And certainly, cutting off a lot of the rural lines, rather like tributaries to the river, the main river dries up. And psychologically, I think railways took a terrific knock. … But in many ways when I meet my opposite partner, say, in Germany, where they haven't yet brought their system to an economic proportion, I think they rather envy the fact that I've inherited a system from the sixties which is lean and could be economic. I think the problem with the Beeching time is that everything happened very quickly, and no one was going to foresee the new priorities, and it left a feeling that perhaps railways were in retreat. Actually railways are in advance. This is the age of the train coming.
“Quietness. Remoteness. The whole scope for thinking things out. No, I think I'd look forward to this.”
“I was about thirty before I read Alice in Wonder[land].”
“I spend, I suppose, two days out of my office a week, going about and and listening and hearing and talking with people and really finding out what is going on from my colleagues. Otherwise I would just be sitting like a spider at the center, reading papers.”
“I'd love to play Yvonne Printemps and Sacha Guitry in an excerpt of Mariette, where Guitry is Napoleon the Third, and he's making a pass at this spectacular singing star, but she doesn't really know who he is … it's wonderful to hear Yvonne Printemps, one of the clearest bell-like ladies voices that I know react as she discovers that he is this great man and she ends up saying yes, which is an unforgettable note.”
“I think the problem with the Beeching time is that everything happened very quickly, and no one was going to foresee the new priorities, and it left a feeling that perhaps railways were in retreat. Actually railways are in advance. This is the age of the train coming.”