Hello I'm Kirsty Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Disks from BBC Radio 4.

For rights reasons, the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast.

For more information about the program, please visit BBC.co.uk.

Radio 4. My My castaway this week is the businessman John Timson, yes as in Timson on the high

streets where we our parents and probably even our grandparents, have gone to have our shoes repaired

and our keys cut. If you think that sounds like a rather old-fashioned business model in

this era of digital commerce, think again. My castaway runs his company with the sort of

of progressive ethos a Californian tech giant would dream of. Every employee there are over

3,000 gets the day off on their birthday.

Use of the company's holiday homes is free.

And if there comes a moment when money's tight at home,

staff are welcome to dip into the company's hardship fund.

Oh, and 10% of all that employees have been to prison.

Second chances are very much my castaway's thing, which probably also explains why he and his late wife

fostered no fewer than 90 children throughout their long marriage. He says you

don't have to be a tyrant to be successful. From all the evidence I see you can do

good and run a good business. So welcome John Timpson.

Thank you.

Thanks very much. You say in return for those benefits that I've just mentioned I hope we'll talk a bit about those later

You only ask two things of your employees that they look the part and that they put the money in the till and I'm imagining

that in looking the part they have to they have to look smart nice shiny shoes and

all that well you don't normally see their shoes because they're hidden under

...