Alan Johnson
Desert Island Discs: Archive 2005-2010
BBC
4.4 • 804 Ratings
🗓️ 7 October 2007
⏱️ 35 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the Secretary of State for Health, Alan Johnson. He has the task of managing one of the most challenging briefs of government - and the stakes are raised further because, when there is an election, the Prime Minister Gordon Brown has made it clear that the main battleground will be health.
Johnson says that unlike many politicians, he is not a keen strategist who has spent his life plotting his career, instead he has simply 'drifted along', taking whatever challenges fate offered. He has drifted on quite an incredible journey - raised among the deprivation and squalor of London in the 1950s, he was orphaned when he was 12 and brought up by his sister. He left school without an O-level but with ambitions to join the music industry. Instead, after a spell stacking supermarket shelves, he became a postman and by the time he was 20 he was married with three children. He rose through the trade union movement where his astute negotiating skills and political acumen brought him to Tony Blair's attention. According to those who know him best, however, his political ambitions are limited - his children say he would still rather be the lead singer in a band than Prime Minister.
[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, it's Nicola Cochlin. Young people have been making history for years, but we don't often hear about them. My brand new series on BBC Sounds sets out to put this right. In history's youngest heroes, I'll be revealing the fascinating stories of 12 young people who've played a major role in history and who've helped shape our world. Like Audrey Hepburn, Nelson Mandela, Louis Braille and Lady Jane Grey, history's youngest heroes with me, Nicola Cochlin. |
| 0:27.8 | Listen on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:30.3 | Hello, I'm Krista Young and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. |
| 0:35.3 | For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music. |
| 0:38.5 | The program was originally broadcast in 2007. |
| 1:02.1 | My My castaway this week is the Secretary of State for Health, Alan Johnson. |
| 1:09.1 | His rise to the top tier of government has been remarkable, not just for its speed, but for the uniqueness of the journey too. |
| 1:13.2 | It reads like a frankly unbelievable plot to a blockbuster novel. |
| 1:18.1 | Brought up among the deprivation, squalor and race riots of 1950s Notting Hill, |
| 1:21.7 | his dad walked out on the family when little Alan was still in short trousers. |
| 1:26.3 | His mother died when he was 12, leaving him to be brought up by his teenage sister. |
| 1:29.8 | He left school planning to be a rock star and without an O level to his credit, which is quite something for a man who has gone on to be one of |
| 1:35.3 | our most influential politicians. I'm not over-egging your significance there. Of course, as we know, |
| 1:40.6 | the Prime Minister says, he says he intends to fight the next election on health. |
| 1:46.2 | No pressure then. |
| 1:47.4 | No, in that sense, yes, it's a very important job. |
| 1:50.3 | Wherever I describe myself as one of the most significant politicians, I don't know, |
| 1:54.7 | but, you know, as I didn't expect to be a politician, any job there for me is a joy. |
| 1:59.0 | So this brief, the Secretary of State for Health, do you feel the pressure of that? |
| 2:04.5 | I do, but I'm used to pressure. |
| 2:06.8 | I was the General Secretary of a trade union for a long time. |
| 2:10.7 | And if you want pressure, you know, when 180,000 of your members are out on strike, |
... |
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