Treasure Island

I'm on holiday and I have realised the Desert Island Disc archive is worth the BBC licence fee alone. Or in my case, it's even better because I don't have to pay the licence fee and I just get to fondly think of the homeland whenever I hear the opening bars of the soundtrack with the crashing waves and the seagulls. 

Desert Island Discs is very 'British.' It is on the same page in my mind as my Dad listening to the cricket in summer (TV on, sound off, radio on), crown green bowling ('There's nowt for short!') and my Grandma cutting the edge of the lawn with those kitchen scissors with the orange handles. It's remembering the New Years Eve party at the next door neighbour's house and all the kids running around outside shouting 'IT'S 1990 EVERYONE!' It is the end of term rounders match and BBQ (made from an oil drum cut in half) at junior school every year with the ceilidh band and the man with the huge belly and the braces playing drums. It is my Grandad jangling change in his pocket, and it is running to the ice cream van with nothing on your feet.

It is all a bit sentimental and nostalgic perhaps, but that's surely what Desert Island Discs focuses on. It's people of note in their particular field reflecting on their life and choosing songs to mark those moments.

The archive goes a long way back, and the programme started in 1942. I find it's good to mix it up a bit on who you listen to; it's surprising what you learn and the older ones I think are the best. Politics is a good place to start - I listened to Tony Benn and Enoch Powell straight after one another. Who knew they were friends? Both great orators, and really both rather mad. Who is left in Parliament like them? Or another way, listen to Margaret Thatcher in 1978, Tony Blair in 1996 and David Cameron in 2006 and then use the benefit of hindsight. Listen to Lord Denis Healey in 2009, whatever your political view. This is a man who saw the Jarrow marchers in 1936 coming through Keighley and it remained with him throughout his political career. 

I suppose the music choices ought to be the most important part, but I find the bits in between far more interesting. Who knew that Jonny Vegas is a trained potter and nearly joined the Catholic priesthood? That Dec from Ant and Dec would take a pair of tweezers as his luxury item? That David Jason was left out of the Monty Python gang?

There are some real unexpected gems. Dairy farmer and Glastonbury festival founder Michael Eavis shows that confidence is a wonderful thing. He went to a festival in Bristol and decided they should have the same on his farm in Somerset and decided to book The Kinks for the first festival as they were number 1 at the time in 1970. The poet and author Allan Ahlberg reminds you that the simple things are probably most important when he talks about the 'luxury' he will take to the desert island - bricks and cement and a trowel to build a wall to kick a football against. 'I can pass a lot of time that way' he says.

There are a lot of moving programmes in the archive too. Allan Ahlberg talks about his wife the illustrator Janet Ahlberg dying and notes that she wrote a lot of postcards to her closest friends and illustrated them, saying she was 'going on ahead to put the kettle on.' Listening to the author Jeanette Winterson you understand the effect that her upbringing had on her writing. 'Why do you call her Mrs Winterson?' asks Sue Lawley. 'Because it suits her,' she says 'it would be inappropriate to call her Mother. A lady less motherlike I cannot imagine.'

Some of it is pretty tough listening. I like the way though that by and large interviewees are very open and honest. Tory MP, historian and diarist Alan Clark 'never met anyone as cruel to men as my mother until I met Mrs Thatcher' and he notes that Michael Heseltine is a 'dreadful charlatan who bought all his own furniture.' Former MP and Commons speaker Betty Boothroyd talks of her parents working in textiles in Dewsbury. She notes that her Dad was often out of work and 'stayed at home and did the housework and my mother worked. He closed the curtains so the neighbours didn't see him. We prayed for bad winter weather so he would get a job with the corporation clearing snow.'

It's a wonderful archive and I have hardly mentioned any here really, and there are 500 to go at. Start with Dickie Bird. It's my favourite. 

30 Thoughts at 30

1. No amount of qualifications, travel, money or new acquaintances should ever make you forget where you are from. Your roots are to be celebrated, whatever and wherever they may be. Although saying that, they shouldn't tie you down or define you, either.

2. Getting married is not about gazing lovingly into each other’s eyes, it is about turning outwards together to face the world. That is borrowed from the Quakers, and I like it a lot.

3. When I was about 15 someone gave me a book and in the front wrote ‘where you will be in 10 years’ time is dictated by the people you meet and the books that you read.’ Probably true.

4. I once worked for someone really horrible and I shouldn't have stuck at it for more than a week, really. Amongst other things, he said the only thing I would ever become was a ‘bureaucratic t***.’ Some would say that is exactly what I have become. Hopefully I am a good one. 

5. I thought I knew everything when I was 21. I didn't.

6. Nip into a 2nd hand bookshop periodically, buy a book that makes you think of someone and send it to them. They will be very surprised to receive it, and you will be very surprised to receive one in return.

This is a good one in Morecambe

7. Send letters and postcards. Everyone loves proper post and the postal service deserves our support.

8. The best job in the world is a milkman. I delivered milk for almost 15 years and enjoyed every minute.

9. I find it endlessly fascinating how relationships between children and their parents change over time. I remember struggling when I realised that parents don’t know everything, and as you get older you sometimes disagree with them because you meet other people and come up with your own opinions through them. Then sometimes they ask your advice which can be lovely and odd at the same time.

10. Everyone should own a pair of Camper shoes. I have 5 or 6 pairs and even though I nearly ran away in my first week of work because I had a pair on with red laces and someone said ‘look at clown boy’ I still think they’re great.

11. You can’t bullshit a bullshitter. I've met a fair number of them, and the best policy if you don’t know something is just to say you don’t know.

12. The Trent House pub in Newcastle has a sign which says ‘Don’t be a Dick.’ Worth remembering.

A very fine pub

13. Bacon and beans on toast with HP sauce when you are too far away from home makes you feel better.

14. Read a quality newspaper, take your pick. It is a good habit to get into.

15. Most problems we encounter have probably been experienced by someone in the past so it is worth finding an old person and asking their opinion. On a related note, when you’re on a beach and fancy a dip you need to find someone who looks like The Grandmother of Everyone in the World to watch your stuff.

16. I once got a letter from my uncle in Australia on that flimsy airmail paper and I kept it for ages because I loved his handwriting. His son, my cousin, says my handwriting is like his. I'm pleased about this. 

17. My other uncle on the other side was a shepherd on a hill farm. I didn’t meet him until I was about 10. I was desperate to just know him properly and get along with him. It never happened and now he is dead.

18. People die. You need to make sure you have had plenty of brews with people because it’s a bummer when you realise there are a few things you forgot to say.

19. I have never smoked and have no plans to. However, pipe smoke has a certain aroma which is actually pleasant and in my experience people who smoke roll-ups are usual worth talking to. In addition, the very best people at conferences are always stood outside round the back having a fag.

20. The worst thing ever would be to be known as someone who was tight with money. It is not an attractive trait in anyone, regardless of how much money you have. That has nothing to do with it.

21. Instant coffee is rat piss. Buy a coffee maker. Ours cost £20 and is the best piece of equipment we own.

Just buy one. In fact, don't. I'll buy you one for when I come round

23. There aren’t that many people in the world who can shear a sheep and I am pleased that I am one of them.

24. We probably don't need to own all of this stuff. My grandma lived in a council house, a pub for 11 years and then a rented cottage. For most of her life she rented her television. She was pretty happy with her lot.

25. Anyone with a tattoo on their neck is best avoided.

26. Everyone has some sort of anxiety about something. Good to remember when you’re feeling that way.

27. Most of the time someone's bad day is not about you.

28. There is no yoghurt that can touch a Longley Farm yoghurt. 

Find them, buy them, eat them and repeat

29. Every home should have a bench that you/both of you/the family sit on at the end of the day. The bench should be a place where you rant about the day you have had and where you clear the air if it needs clearing. You should then leave all that sat on the bench when you get up and get on with having a good evening.

30. Have something in your life that you are passionate about. It doesn’t matter what that is. A passionate person can make anything sound worthy of attention and passionate people are also miles better company.