Chris Haskins

Desert Island Discs

BBC

Society & Culture, Music Commentary, Music, Personal Journals

4.4 • 13.7K Ratings

🗓️ 14 December 1997

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the Chairman of Northern Foods, Chris Haskins. Until recently he was something of a curiosity - a big businessman who was also a lifelong supporter of Labour and enthusiastically pro-Europe. It was the Aldermaston marches in the late 1950s which influenced his political beliefs. Sent to report on them for the Irish Times, he was soon swept along by the protesters' enthusiasm and sense of purpose.

It was then too he learnt his organisational skills. When put in charge of sorting out accommodation for thousands of extra marchers, he fled to the pub. By the time he returned they had gone. Problem solved. He joined Northern Foods after falling in love with the owners' daughter. At that time, it was a small company providing milk for doorstep deliveries. Today, it's one of Britain's biggest food companies.

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

Favourite track: Symphony No 9 In D Minor Adagio by Ludwig van Beethoven Book: The collected works by Sean O'Casey Luxury: Pen and paper

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hello, I'm Krestey Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive.
0:05.0	For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.
0:08.0	The program was originally broadcast in 1997, and the presenter was Sue Lolly. My costaway this week is a businessman, the son of a Protestant farmer from County Wicklow in Ireland,
0:37.0	he went to University in Dublin, then crossed the sea to seek his fortune in England.
0:42.0	He married the daughter of the owner of a small group of
0:44.3	dairies and together with his new found family built the business into one of
0:48.3	Britain's biggest food companies. This achievement of great wealth has been tempered by modesty and conviction.
0:56.0	At work he refuses to have hierarchies, preferring what he calls the inclusive company.
1:01.5	In private he's been a lifelong labor supporter who went on
1:04.8	CND marches in his youth and is now a fierce crusader in the pro-European
1:10.0	cause. He is the chairman of Northern Foods, Christopher Haskins. A prominent businessman
1:15.6	who is a labor supporter, Chris. There are a lot of you about these days, which I should
1:19.3	think it was a pretty lonely position during the course of the 80s, wasn't it?
1:22.3	Yes, it was a very lonely position and I have to say even people like me kept a bit quiet at the time
1:26.9	of 1983 when I think it was Jared Kaufman said that the Labour Party had just
1:31.6	written the longest political suicide
1:33.7	notion history and I was keeping my head a bit low with regard to my shareholders at
1:37.3	that time but I was a supporter. I think the only person who was above the
1:40.6	parapet in that sense was Robert Maxwell really.
1:43.0	Yes.
1:44.0	But you were surely deeply compromised in those days, weren't you?
1:48.0	Because, you know, with clause four still firmly on the Labour Party's constitution,
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.