Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Media executive and first black master of an Oxbridge college; co-founded Something Else and served on BBC Trust.
On the island
Eight records
This is about journeys that connect people. We all have them. We all take them. And for me, the notion of knowing rivers, rivers which kind of flow through the world that are really connected and that take you places.
Les FleurFavourite
This takes me right back to my childhood. I was brought up in East London, Walthamstone, Leightonstone and I was very highly influenced by my brother and he was very much into jazz, jazz funk.
This for me is a really big connection at the time. East London, Leytonstone, Lover's Rock. You know, slower reggae, but very melodic, you know, close dancing.
This is my typical Cambridge track. I went to Fitzwilliam. It was all about late night conversations, swapping of ideas, swapping of stories and swapping of music.
This is from that time and it was when I met my partner in life. I ended up living in Stoke Newton in a five bedroom house with a good friend Lynn Champion and her daughter Lauren, she was two and a half. And it was a party house.
This is definitely the Miro disc. Anyone who's a parent will know that glorious, glorious moment when they take their afternoon nap.
And if you see me in Jesus walking around with a big smile on my face, this is probably going through my head.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:47What does agency mean to you, and why does it matter?
Agency represents a lot of things. It represents that moment when you realize that your life is in your hands. It's the moment when you can look around you and you can see all the things that stack up against you and you still think your life is in your hands. It's about taking knocks and just thinking, okay, I've got a problem, how am I going to get around this one?
Presenter asks
2:23Was there a moment that agency arrived for you?
I think I've always had that kind of push, which has always been there through my childhood. I've been the kind of stalwart kind of standing there. Some would say a little bit stubbornly, but you know, just standing there going, right, I'm leaning in, I'm going for it. I think the moment for me was actually when I'd gone to Cambridge, I went there to do computer science. It was in the days when you couldn't do computer science for three years because it wasn't deemed to be something that you would study for three years. And I went there because I was really interested in artificial intelligence and very interested in philosophy. And I did philosophy for the first year. And when I got to the summer, I rang my parents and said, I'm going to stick with philosophy. I'm not going to do artificial intelligence. And it was one of those moments when you're imagining you're jetting off to MIT and that door is closing and you're opening a door where you don't know what's going to happen. That was quite exciting.
Presenter asks
The keepsakes
The book
Michael Ondaatje
The language is amazing and the story is incredible. And it's one of those books I read most years.
The luxury
I would like to take a genie in a lamp that works in the confines of my island.
Why did you want the job as Master of Jesus College?
I wanted the job because I enjoyed my time at Cambridge, but it wasn't one of those jobs where you I went for it thinking I'm gonna make headlines doing this because that's not what life is about. You go for jobs looking at very, very practical issues like what's the community like that I'm going to be joining? Is it somewhere where you want your family to be for ten years? Is it a good adventure? And it's not about the buildings. Cambridge is very beautiful, but you don't talk to a fifteenth century wall, you don't do that, you talk to the family.
Presenter asks
10:36How would you describe family life in East London?
My very first memory I remember was walking up the stairs. It's kind of typical two up, two down terraced house in Walthamstowe and the stairs being quite steep. I remember as a two or two and a half thinking wow I can't get my legs up the stairs and must have compared it to the stairs in Barbados in my grandmother's house. But all three of us shared the same bedroom. My parents had their own bedroom but they had a little side table and we'd climb on the side table, climb on the doorknobs of a cupboard next to it, climb all the way to the top of the cupboard and then launch ourselves onto the bed. And also I remember trying to catch pigeons in the backyard with a box and it was like one of those things you see on cartoons and it's like this big dust crazy wood.
Presenter asks
13:41You said that as a kid you were aware of being black. What did that mean to you then? How did that manifest?
You know, just think about it. I was born in nineteen sixty seven. The backdrop to my life at that point was television. It was so important that I remember getting our first television and you weren't on it and when you were on it you were being disparaged. … At the time you were always watching a comedy show with a little bit of an edge to it. You know, what are they going to say? Is there going to be some sort of disparaging bit of comedy coming out about you? I think as you go through life you get very angry about it. I think as you get older kind of cope with it a little bit more. But there's definitely that, oh here we are again. And you have those moments all through life. You just cope with them better.
Presenter asks
27:13How did you adjust to motherhood, especially during a very busy time in your professional life?
I did maternity leave for four months. I mean every woman has got their birth story. But I remember as well as packing stuff to go to the hospital for the birth, we had a big C D player and we had a bag full of C D s and music. It's really important, like what music will you be born to? That was the thing that was going through my head. … We did, we put on loads of music. I think it was maybe one of the most bizarre nights in the maternity ward because there was lots of free jazz being played quite loudly. And there was one point when it was, okay, enough. No more music. I'm just pushing, right? Even a jazz name. Eva has had enough. I don't want the music just giving me gas.
“You can't wait for people to notice you. You have to have agency.”
“I think that if the conversation is about look this is one of your five choices have a go I think that's that's fine and I also think that if the story is the atmosphere at an Oxbridge College is going to be different to the atmosphere when you go to a different university, a different business group. Well actually no it's probably not. There could be a few traditions which are a bit different but what you come up against as a young person going out into the world is probably the same. You might as well go for it.”
“I think that you know as a parent you want to warn your children that this is coming. But I think for me it was taking that warning and saying I don't want that warning to box me in. I don't want that warning to make me think I can't do something.”
“That you don't necessarily have to accept the rules, that the world isn't necessarily as it's given to you. We've been trained to accept rules. You go to school when you're three, you're running around, there's no gap between talking and thinking. We get to sit on a mat, thirty kids on a mat, and then you're taught to put your hand up to wait for someone to pick you to speak. And I just think that maybe we're inculcating right from a very, very young age the need for someone to say, you can do it.”
“For me, equality and inclusion are about the ability of people to thrive economically and personally, to be able to go for jobs, to see a career and a trajectory for them which is there for the taking if they want to go for it.”