YouSaid · the spoken record

Sir Digby Jones

lines on the record: 48
first: 2006-05-21
most recent: 2006-05-21
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“My pleasure You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio 4.”
2006-05-21 · Desert Island Discs · Sir Digby Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In the excellence of people, you see I'm a born optimist, don't I? In that respect, if I could read about this wonderful country, if I could enjoy the excellence of human beings and listen to those eight songs, I have to tell you I'd be a very lucky lad”
2006-05-21 · Desert Island Discs · Sir Digby Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“My luxury, Sue, as long as I've got something that I can use to play this on, would be either a video or a pictorial book. But I would like constantly to be able to enjoy about a hundred different examples of excellence. And by excellence I mean at Churchill's speech, I mean the speech Kennedy gave in Berlin. Martin Luther King's famous speech in Washington. Margot Fontaine at her very best. Oh, always. And there'll be 100 of them, you see. And so every day on my desert island, I'd be coming out and saying, I think I'm going to rejoice in Redgrave's excellence today. And then tomorrow it might be, I'm going to listen to Churchill's We'll Fight on the Beaches. And then the next day, it might be, I want to see how Chris Barnard did his first heart transplant. And just to enjoy and rejoice.”
2006-05-21 · Desert Island Discs · Sir Digby Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There's a book by Niel Ferguson called Empire How Britain Shaped the Modern World, and it is written as if Britain is a person, and it's written in the development of the United Kingdom roughly from sort of when Elizabeth came to the throne in the sixteenth century, right up to the modern day. And I would sit on my desert island and I would read that and just be incredibly proud of being a Brit.”
2006-05-21 · Desert Island Discs · Sir Digby Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Quite what she's always been a lady. We both have our faults and we both have our good bits, but the blend works, which means that if you said Sue, I can only have one. It would be this song. It's our song, it's the one that we play and listen to when we have those big moments of celebrations like anniversaries and big birthdays. And it is Bet Midler singing wind beneath my wings because that's what she is to me.”
2006-05-21 · Desert Island Discs · Sir Digby Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I couldn't have done it all without Pat. She's been fabulous for me, and she's supported me throughout she's probably the only person in my life I've never impressed, and she knows me all right, and at every turn of everything I've done, she's been by my side. And there's no way I could have done it without her. I have to say I like to think that I've taken to places both in life and geographically that probably she wouldn't have seen or experienced without me.”
2006-05-21 · Desert Island Discs · Sir Digby Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, it's not honest in one way, is it? I think people join politics of all parties, genuinely to make a difference as they see life. They all go in, I think, for very honest motives. And the whole system militates against intellectual honesty. I think we've got the most uncorrupt politicians and those who serve him in the world, actually. I've seen generally speaking. Oh, yes. I tell you, the British electorate are very lucky to have a civil servant that's honest and to have politicians who are not corrupt. But I don't mean that when I say honest. I mean intellectually honest. That's the point. And I don't like that. And I'd last five minutes in it anyway because I'm bound to say the wrong thing. I'm bound not to tie the party line and I'm bound to upset if too many people. And so I think I can probably help both the country and also my beliefs more by assisting and advising and promoting and banging the drum than being inside a party.”
2006-05-21 · Desert Island Discs · Sir Digby Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah. And in a couple of years, I think two to three years' time, I'll probably say, right, now let's look around another job where the pay isn't the point, it won't be well paid. Something international, something that promotes Britain around the world, and if I could do something not party political, I do not want to go into democratic party politics. I've seen it from outside for seven years. It's a dirty place to be. But I would like to do something for me country. But after a couple of years in some?”
2006-05-21 · Desert Island Discs · Sir Digby Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What is it? And I Mem What I'd like to do for a couple of years is do, if Dad was alive, he'd say, put a bit of wool on your back lad.”
2006-05-21 · Desert Island Discs · Sir Digby Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Because I think the words more than many things in my life just sum up what motivates me. You're either going to do it one hundred fifty percent and give it everything you've got, or don't turn up because I don't know any other way. I've all my life and whatever it's been, I've given it everything I've got, whether it's for a minute or an hour or a lifetime, and everything I do, I do it for you.”
2006-05-21 · Desert Island Discs · Sir Digby Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh, we are definitely in danger of being complacent, certainly, on tax rates, on regulation, on thinking it's going to be all right, on resting on our laurels. And it comes back to politicians, it comes back to teachers. I think it comes back to parents more than people ever say. It's how to equip people to compete in a globalised economy. And it is no use saying, well, we won't want to have globalised economy, thanks. We won't do China and India. Well, tough. The 21st century belongs to Asia. And we have a chance. You can either use it to advantage or fight it and lose. On my desert island, I see Very much like to listen quite often to a song by Brian Adams called Everything I Do, I Do It For You.”
2006-05-21 · Desert Island Discs · Sir Digby Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think Britain gets globalization more and better than America or France or Germany or Japan. But if we don't stay ahead of the game, it's no good politician, no good Tony Blair or Gordon Brown sitting there and saying, oh, it's okay, we're doing number one on this, we're fine.”
2006-05-21 · Desert Island Discs · Sir Digby Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He says, and I think he's wrong, but he says, but the economy is growing, companies are doing well, so they can afford to do this. What really worries me is that they have never turned their eyes straight and honestly to the electorate and said, all of what we're doing costs more money. You should pay your fair share because they vote and business doesn't. And if you turn round and say I'm going to increase the tax rate for business, and Germany doesn't, or France doesn't, you've got to be pretty good at the other stuff transport, skilled labour, regulation. If you're going to keep ahead of the game.”
2006-05-21 · Desert Island Discs · Sir Digby Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And wear them all the time. If Americans can put the stars and trips in their lapel, why can't I put union jacks and my cuffling?”
2006-05-21 · Desert Island Discs · Sir Digby Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And the point I'd say there is without us it would have been worse. So the level of the minimum wage is why it succeeds, is because it's not too high. Well, it would have been much higher if it hadn't been for the CBI. The second thing we've achieved is we definitely taken it around the world. At the end of the day, I can only be relevant to businesses, and therefore they'll pay a subscription and pay my wages. If they think I can make a difference to them where they operate. Now, so often they're operating in America and China and India, and they want someone to be there to campaign for their business.”
2006-05-21 · Desert Island Discs · Sir Digby Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Firstly, I can point to one or two areas where government policy has been more favourable to business than it used to be. They've certainly helped small businesses with tax breaks. They've certainly upped the skills level in the workplace, partly by carrot, partly by stick. And those are down to us.”
2006-05-21 · Desert Island Discs · Sir Digby Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, when I was building up the team at Etch and the corporate team especially, there were some established firms in Birmingham, been around a long time. And so we were delighted and revelled in taking the work off them, really. And the greatest accolade was when somebody who you just acted against on a deal ran you up and said, now you know what you just did against me? Would you do it for me? And when we used to have a really great result and pull in a new client or we used to finish a big deal and put in a big fee, I used to take them all out, you see, and we'd have a bit of a celebration. And even when the firm said, oh, we're not paying for that, I said, I'll pay for it myself. And we always used to end up singing the song that we thought just epitomised what we were at the time, which no matter how conceited and arrogant it sounds, we were simply the best.”
2006-05-21 · Desert Island Discs · Sir Digby Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, I do actually think, and I've learned this in this job, you know, there are people who are excellent at building things and teams and inspiring people and driving them forward and growing. And then there are other sorts of people who are really good at running something. And they're not often the same people. And I think I'm more in the first and the second, to be honest.”
2006-05-21 · Desert Island Discs · Sir Digby Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A lot of other people didn't. Yes, we took the firm to London. We took it around affiliates in the United States and in Europe. But there were a lot of partners who were making good money working hard, doing well. Well, why would they want to go out of the calm water into the stormy water and push and challenge themselves more than they had to?”
2006-05-21 · Desert Island Discs · Sir Digby Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's quite interesting to see the development of the firm. We really did work hard play hard and build it up. Then I moved into helping to run the firm, actually manage the firm. But it's finite in its attraction, because after a while it's very wearing, and it wasn't everything. I thought it'd be crapped up to be, to be honest. And that doesn't mean that it wasn't important and that I enjoyed it.”
2006-05-21 · Desert Island Discs · Sir Digby Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I think one of the reasons. I do think I was quite a bit to blame in terms of working very hard and not getting home enough. And then there I was, I remember a Sorocco GTI Friday night at Liberties on the Hagley Road in Birmingham and enjoying life a bit more after I got over the upset and yes, the considerable hurt. And George Benson's in your eyes was one of the songs of the time that whenever I hear it, I will remember that you really can just pick yourself up, dust yourself down, and start all over again, and that is precisely what I did. I'll say this to anybody listening. If you've just gone through some sort of breakup, you think your world has ended, and rightly. Well, tomorrow is another day, and I promise you, it will get better. And this song reminds me of that because it got better for me.”
2006-05-21 · Desert Island Discs · Sir Digby Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In nineteen eighty two, I'd been married, got divorced, my wife left me with somebody else, and so 1982 was a bit of a seminal moment because I was all on my own working hard.”
2006-05-21 · Desert Island Discs · Sir Digby Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And it's how you look at it, isn't it? It's whether you see it as an investment or whether you see it as a waste. What we have got to do is make sure, and this is where it's failing, is we must make sure that people who do not come from homes where they're good with money. I notice I didn't say rich people, but just where they're not good with money, where they haven't got the discipline or they haven't got the understanding, they might will be bright enough to go to university and yet they'll be turned off by the sheer fear of debt. And that is dreadful. But the concept of paying back some afterwards when you're making money and only when you're making money, I do think is right, because I did it. And so I came out. I went to the law firm and built my career at Edgeon Allison in Birmingham.”
2006-05-21 · Desert Island Discs · Sir Digby Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, the only thing I think it should be is more. The employers pay £18 billion more a year. £18 billion more to graduates than non-graduates. A little bit of that coming back to help. Business paying more, taxpayer paying more, altogether is the way to help universities in this country.”
2006-05-21 · Desert Island Discs · Sir Digby Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Back home to a law firm in Birmingham. That's right. Yes, and you then are expected to sign on for sixteen years, but they do give you the option to come out, but you have to repay. It's a little bit like top-up fees today, actually. You have to repay. And I raised $2094.95p. over ten years and 295 quid 10 years on was nothing. 295 quid the year came out was everything.”
2006-05-21 · Desert Island Discs · Sir Digby Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What did you think then? At the time, I just saw it as rejection and I just thought they were right. I have a sense of nonconformity and a sense of independence and liberalness, if you like, that was probably better suited to University College London, to be honest. Oh, yeah. So I was a conceited little samsung. And, well, actually, I was a conceited big samsone. I probably did walk in there and they probably thought, well, bring him down a peg or two. And I then got in the Royal Navy. I went to University College London.”
2006-05-21 · Desert Island Discs · Sir Digby Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No diamond is my favourite performer, and if I was on a desert island I could only have one performer, it would be him, and my favourite song would be Hello Again.”
2006-05-21 · Desert Island Discs · Sir Digby Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Seriously. Yes, it was. It was very, very worrying from my parents. It was very worrying for myself. Interestingly, I joined the Royal Navy, and so I thought I should own up to that about day two. I went and saw the commanding officer to say, look, you didn't know this when you recruited me, but I thought it was the right thing to do. And he said, We're drawn from school. What for? I said, drugs? I said, oh God, no. He said, what? I said, well, I took all my clothes off and ran around the quay. He said, oh, we do that all the time here. Carry on. And that was it. And it put it into context, of course. And I go back to the school now, and I did speak at their commemoration as director on the CBI, and I couldn't resist it. And when I was introduced, ladies and gentlemen, Digby Jones, I sat up and said, as I was saying before, I was rudely interrupted.”
2006-05-21 · Desert Island Discs · Sir Digby Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh yes, after Alem. I was leaving in a couple of weeks time, and we won the House Cup one-0. I was captain, and we were getting changes afterwards, and the team were all celebrating, and they said, I bet you wouldn't go and streak once around the quad, I said, I better wield. So I did, which was okay until the housemaster came the other way. And that was me gone. And at half past four, I was a streaking head boy, and at about six o'clock I was a former pupil.”
2006-05-21 · Desert Island Discs · Sir Digby Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He knew the material he got, didn't he? Yes, and came head by the school and played in the 15, got my colours in hockey and thoroughly enjoyed it.”
2006-05-21 · Desert Island Discs · Sir Digby Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And he knew, because he said, well, what did you do the next term? I said, I came first. He said, exactly. In holiday school holidays, I used to come out, used to give me projects to do. Go and do a mere project on the canal system, Birmingham when it was built where it is, how it is, and that was my school holiday.”
2006-05-21 · Desert Island Discs · Sir Digby Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I loved every minute. Do you shine on the sports field as well as in the classroom? Rugby and hockey and cricket. In one year I went into the class for the year ahead and every term you had to bring your report home. And I came second. And Dad opened it and said, what happened to first? And I can remember running out in tears. And when I got married, Dad and I went and had a drink the night before the wedding. And he said, have I ever done anything which really did hurt you? And I said, oh yeah. And I told him the story there and then.”
2006-05-21 · Desert Island Discs · Sir Digby Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This was very posh. Well, and I learnt a lot about life there as well. And I sat this exam. I didn't really know I was 10 when I sat this exam and they said if you get it you go to this school and your fees are paid and I did and they were and you”
2006-05-21 · Desert Island Discs · Sir Digby Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, he did. He said, I'm selling up, and he went to university, Leicester, and became a probation officer. And so my sister and I were told by them it was going to be difficult. Live on a grant. Mum went off and became an assistant physiotherapist at the local hospital. But we had to be incredibly careful.”
2006-05-21 · Desert Island Discs · Sir Digby Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It would remind me of fabulous fellowship that you can get out of rugby and at the same time it's something about this green and pleasant man calling them.”
2006-05-21 · Desert Island Discs · Sir Digby Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Through school days and into university and afterwards rugby's played a big part in my life. I'm now on the board of Leicester Tigers Rugby Club and all the way through played a lot of rugby. And of course Jerusalem is one of those hymns which become a song of unity, a song of pride in your country that you sing at internationals. We used to sing it after games and it has a great connection for me with that. But at the same time a mixture of sadness and happiness is that some of those people in your forties and your fifties don't make it and we've all got friends, haven't we, who've succumbed to cancer or heart disease or whatever. And a couple of them our friends have and at their memorial services and at their funerals we've sung Jerusalem and we've raised the roof. And so to me on a desert island I would definitely want to be able to listen to Jerusalem often. It would remind me of good people who are no longer here.”
2006-05-21 · Desert Island Discs · Sir Digby Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Mum and dad weren't to know that they're going to bring our television series called Digby Darling and that Disney was going to create a dog called Digby. Woof. And it was a difficult time in terms of teasing. But memorable. Oh, yeah, and in the profession as a lawyer, they never forgot you. And in this job, if you say Digby in Britain, people, if they've ever heard of it at all, and lots haven't, of course, they probably do think of me. Thanks, mum and dad. But I have to tell you, as a kid at school, I used to come home in tears saying, they've teased me. Why wouldn't I be called David or Simon?”
2006-05-21 · Desert Island Discs · Sir Digby Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“While Mum was pregnant with me and she read Beaujest, and if I came out a boy I was going to be this name from Beaujess called Digby because Jones was such a common surname that I was going to be different.”
2006-05-21 · Desert Island Discs · Sir Digby Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh, yes, I have a memory. I was standing in the shop. I was about five years old, and these little cars, these amazing little cars, used to drive past because they used to store them up the road by the canal.”
2006-05-21 · Desert Island Discs · Sir Digby Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I wouldn't know, but I'd say 90% of the people who bought groceries and sweets and ice cream and cigarettes off mum and dad, they would be working at Long Bridge, making the mini and the 1100.”
2006-05-21 · Desert Island Discs · Sir Digby Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In the joke. It's very difficult. The trouble is, I love food and I love wine and I love people and I love going to dinners and listening and talking and mixing. I love it. Well, younger than springtime was one of the hits from South Pacific, which was around when I was sort of five, six, seven years old. And so it reminds me of a very happy childhood of parents who had no money, but they gave me love and enthusiasm. And I own whenever I hear it, I think of them.”
2006-05-21 · Desert Island Discs · Sir Digby Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, actually, spot on. And it's still ten times what a nurse earned. And I'm a very, very lucky lad to be able to have that money. But in relative lifestyles, it was a big change.”
2006-05-21 · Desert Island Discs · Sir Digby Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, that's absolutely right. In fact, when the headhunter called and said I'd like to talk to you about the Director General of the CBI, I thought he was asked me for a reference on someone else. And he said, oh no, we thought you might do it. And I said, oh, no, no, that goes to clever gray-suited people from London. You don't have lawyers from Birmingham. That's right. And he said, oh no, we want to make a difference. So he knew I wasn't clever and knew I didn't come from London. I didn't wear a grey suit. I remember Pat picked me up from the airport one night and she said this has come through. I've read it and it's just you. And she just saw something in it about how I could hopefully fashion the wealth creative process, put in with it something I've believed all my life, what I call socially inclusive wealth creation.”
2006-05-21 · Desert Island Discs · Sir Digby Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Tell us about your first record. I'm on the development trust of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, and Simon Rattle, of course, was formative to the reemergence of Birmingham, the restructuring of Birmingham after the recession. As for the content, Algar's Nimrod from Enigma Variations so many times in our history, we've sent young people to die in the name of freedom, all over the world. And for me, when I stand and listen to that every November, I just remember that I couldn't be the independent soul I am. I couldn't be free if it wasn't for the people who laid down their lives for us. And that's what this means to me.”
2006-05-21 · Desert Island Discs · Sir Digby Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, to make a difference and also very important this, people respond to enthusiastic cheerful people. And it's very easy, you know, to get cross and despondent with boring depressing people, whereas something I've followed all my life, it's very difficult, you know, to tell a cheerful man off, because at the end of the day, they're full of it. I'm a great believer in sumo. I mean, it's something to do with my size, I think. And that is shut up, move on. And if today didn't work, well, tomorrow is up for you.”
2006-05-21 · Desert Island Discs · Sir Digby Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“To Lanz Person you must be delivered? Well, yes, Pat actually always says that I go at one speech, he goes at another, and I think that's right.”
2006-05-21 · Desert Island Discs · Sir Digby Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Are you like letting your personal life as well? I mean, do you ever lie down? Well, I'm one of these people who I need about five and a half, six hours sleep a night. And people say I have great energy, great enthusiasm. I've never done anything other than 150%.”
2006-05-21 · Desert Island Discs · Sir Digby Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm not actually known as somebody who's been a yes man at any time, I think, but in this job, as actually with being a lawyer as well. And I guess I got it from mum and dad serving customers in the shop. The customer comes first and the customer comes second, third and fourth as well.”
2006-05-21 · Desert Island Discs · Sir Digby Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source