Christopher Ondaatje

Desert Island Discs

BBC

Society & Culture, Music Commentary, Music, Personal Journals

4.4 • 13.7K Ratings

🗓️ 17 November 2002

⏱️ 35 minutes

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Summary

Christopher Ondaatje was born in the British colony of Ceylon and educated at Blundell's School in Tiverton, Devon. He moved to Canada and in 1964 was a member of the Canadian Olympic Bobsled team. He is a retired businessman with a taste for adventure, philanthropy and cricket (he is a patron of Somerset County Cricket Club). He is a member of the exclusive club of Labour's 'million plus' donors and his philanthropy does not stop there - he has also given over a million pounds to the Royal Geographical Society and the National Portrait Gallery, who named a wing of the gallery after him.

Married with three children and 12 grandchildren, Mr Ondaatje is now based in London when he is not travelling the world. His lust for adventure has fuelled several books - most famously Journey to the Source of the Nile.

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

Favourite track: Einleitung / Introduction by Richard Strauss Book: Anthology of Poetry by Robert Service Luxury: The Blue Nude by Justin Deranyagala

Transcript

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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 2002, and the presenter was Sue Lolly. My castaway this week is a businessman. At least he made his wealth in business. He's found
0:28.7	his fulfilment in setting himself free to enjoy his passions, writing, exploration, art, music and nature.
0:36.5	Born in Sri Lanka, then called Silon, the son of a powerful colonial family, he was sent to
0:41.6	England for his education.
0:43.1	His family fell on hard times and at the age of 23, with $13 in his pocket, he went to Canada.
0:49.3	He made a fortune through a combination of publishing, stockbroking and finance.
0:53.5	But 15 years ago, he sold.
0:56.0	He gave it all up to pursue the things that really interested him.
0:59.5	He's written books on The Leopard and his hunt for the true source of the Nile and he's become a major
1:04.8	philanthropist of the arts. The new wing of the National Portrait Gallery bears his name.
1:09.6	I was going to succeed and that was that, he says, but the best decision was chucking it all in
1:14.8	1988 he is Christopher on daché so for the last 14 15 years
1:20.4	Christopher you've been having a ball doing exactly what you wanted to do in life, have you?
1:24.0	Absolutely. But can you remember the moment when you took that decision? It was a huge decision for a very highly successful businessman to take,
1:32.0	suddenly say, I'm going to chuck this.
1:34.2	Again, absolutely, because I was, I didn't really intend to do it.
1:38.6	I was just on safari in Tanganyika or Tanzania as it is known now, chasing leopards.
1:45.0	And I was with my wife and we were in the middle of nowhere.
1:47.7	And I was just having a fantastic time and
1:50.1	didn't have to field all the phone calls and see all the people that I had to see or meet the press and answer all kinds of ridiculous questions.
	...

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