Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Retail executive best known as the CEO of Marks & Spencer, credited with reviving the company and fighting off a takeover bid.
On the island
Eight records
This is what I call my M & S song. It's my M & S song that takes me very much back into the 70s when I was a young man in the business, making my way, just got married, had kids, and it was a hot hit at the time. And I didn't really ever know, or imagine, because one doesn't, that it would come back to me 30 years later when it was the song that we used for our first TV ad when we rejuvenated the business back in 2004-05.
Well, this takes me back to my early childhood, to Africa. Where my parents took me as a five or six year old back in the very early 50s. It's a piece of music from the Wagogo tribe who live effectively in the central highlands of Tanzania, Tanganyika at the time.
Well my third track is slightly unusual I think. It's Al Jolson and it's Mammy and it absolutely is one of my earliest childhood memories. ... I can remember with my sister singing this song to my parents. I can still remember my parents literally falling about laughing and it's a very evocative memory.
I came rather conservatively from Africa, wearing um regulation school uniform. I suddenly came to a place where suddenly loon pants were around, T shirts were around, people were smoking funny substances and doing funny things, and there was this rather weird music. I hadn't heard much pop music. I've chosen Hard Day's Night. I think it's a great Beatles song.
Tony Hancock and Kenneth Williams
Well, what's next is is something a bit different for me. It's um Tony Hancock and it's Kenneth Williams. I have a love of flying. I have a love of the s ridiculous and this I think encompasses all those things.
Casta Diva (from Norma)Favourite
Well, the next uh piece of music is something that no matter what mood you're in that absolutely calms you down. A beautiful piece of music by a singer called Filippa Giordano, who is not a classically trained opera singer, but she's singing here Casta Diva from Bellini's Norma and it's a fabulous piece of music.
Well, sometimes you just have to sit back and have a laugh. I'm particularly also fond of cricket, it's it's a big love of mine, and I came across this this called the Duckworth Lewis method. It's a song about cricket. It makes me laugh and it makes me think about the game that I like.
Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now
Well, um I've chosen a record which is by the Smiths. It's uh slightly tongue-in-cheek. Heaven knows I'm miserable now it's called. It reminds me sometimes of difficult times, but it also reminds me to laugh at those difficult times, bring yourself and rise above it and just smile, because there's plenty to look to smile about in life and I am a cheerful chap.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:47Does that mean now that [Mark Bolland] is in place we can get a date from you as to when you are finally going?
Yes, I'm very conscious though that life moves on. I'm very conscious that you mustn't outstay your welcome. So what I want to do for Mark is to get him saddled up, give him all the help that I can to make sure he's comfortable, his feet are under the table ... and then move on gracefully. And that's what I will do. And it's probably the case that I'll be there through till the end of 2010, early 2011, and move on.
Presenter asks
7:21Did [Philip Green] actually smack you?
He didn't actually smack me, but there was some, let's have how do you say, grasping of the lapels. Vigorous grasping of the lapels.
Presenter asks
9:41What did your father make of that trip [back to Africa]?
I think it was quite an emotional time for him. My father is not English. He was born in China and came here and was absorbed into this country just at the start of the Second World War. My mother, although she had English blood and Scottish blood, actually was born and brought up in Egypt.
The keepsakes
The luxury
Power shower with fresh white fluffy towels
a power shower delivering water at any temperature twenty four hours a day and a complete set of fresh white fluffy towels.
Presenter asks
10:52Tell me more about your parents then, Stuart. Tell me what sort of people they were.
Well, very charming, intelligent, educated. My father speaks better English than I do. He appears more British than I do, so he's very much the English gentleman. But somebody who had had quite a difficult childhood, his parents fled from Russia at the end of the revolution, and he was not literally but metaphorically adopted by a spinster Quaker lady called Nona Ransom, who knew a war was coming and said to his parents, Look, it's going to be very tough. There's going to be a world war. I'll take your son to England to educate him and make sure he's protected.
Presenter asks
22:12Your mother committed suicide. You were in your mid-twenties. Twenty-six. Can you tell me a little bit of what happened?
My mother had suffered from what would today probably be described as mild depression for a lot of her life, and she was pretty good at hiding it. But there we were. One November day in 1973, my mum I know hadn't been very well. I went round to see them at the weekend, and my mum was unusually in bed. I said, Look, I hope you feel better tomorrow. I'll call you tomorrow, which was a Monday morning. Monday mornings, where at the time there's still our terrifically busy time in our business. I made a mental note to call her at 8 o'clock. I forgot. I called her at 9 o'clock and she'd already killed herself. She left no note. And that is obviously a very shattering experience, particularly for my father, for my sister, and for myself. And it takes you a long time to get through that. ... Yes, took an overdose and a bottle of whiskey. And that was it.
Presenter asks
28:10Are you a difficult person to live with?
Um, well, I live on my own, um, which is properly expensive.
“I don't believe in retirement. Just because chronologically you reach the age of 60 on a Friday, let's say, that on a Saturday suddenly you're useless on the scrap heap. I will definitely work.”
“MNS is a company that never leaves your blood. So when I was working in other companies, I was always seeing how they were getting on, looking at the stores, thinking to myself, if I were doing this, what would I do? So when I came back, of course, it it was emotional, but it was also the fact that I never left, I never felt I'd left.”
“I've behaved badly on a number of occasions in my life, and you can't put the milk back in the bottle. You have to move on.”