Richard Noble

Desert Island Discs

BBC

Society & Culture, Music Commentary, Music, Personal Journals

4.4 • 13.7K Ratings

🗓️ 15 February 1998

⏱️ 36 minutes

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Summary

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the man who broke the British land speed records, Richard Noble. His thirst for speed began when he was six years old and saw John Cobb's jet boat Crusader. Then, in the 1970s, he built his own jet-propelled car in his garage at home. He called it Thrust One, and wrote it off at over 200 miles per hour. Nine years later, he broke the land speed record with Thrust Two, reaching speeds greater than a Boeing 747. Last year he watched as his team, with Andy Green behind the wheel, broke the sound barrier.

Now firmly established alongside other champions of speed like John Cobb and Malcolm and Donald Campbell, Richard Noble chooses his Desert Island Discs.

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

Favourite track: The Dambusters March by The Central Band of the RAF Book: War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy Luxury: Guitar

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello I'm Kirsty Young and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive.
0:06.0	For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.
0:09.1	The program was originally broadcast in 1998 and the presenter was Sue Lolly. My castaway this week is a champion of speed. His ambition all his life has been to enter the history books alongside the great record breakers such as Malcolm and Donald Campbell and John Cobb.
0:42.0	In the 70s he built his first speed car and
0:44.9	wrote it off at 200 miles an hour. In the 80s he tried again and he set a new world
0:50.5	land speed record of 633.ph68 miles an hour. Then in the 90s last
0:57.1	October in fact he went one better again. Hearing that his record might be
1:01.0	challenged he set about designing and building the car that
1:04.0	would ensure it stayed with him.
1:06.2	This time he didn't drive himself, but watched as the supersonic car he'd masterminded
1:11.1	hurtled across the Nevada desert at 763.035 miles an hour.
1:18.0	I like to have something to fight against all the time, he says.
1:21.0	It's very important. He is Richard Noble let's start with the
1:25.3	difficult question Richard why do you do it for Britain and for the hell of it has always
1:28.3	been your flip answer but it must run a bit deeper than that yes it is the
1:32.0	most the land speed record really is the most
1:33.8	exciting thing you can do on God's earth I'm absolutely convinced about it it
1:36.6	seems to fit a number of things. Basically it's a wonderful teamwork thing and you build great bonds with your team and it's a terrific
1:45.4	terrific team effort.
1:46.4	You get an enormous buzz from that.
1:48.4	The second thing is that it's a funny old country this.
1:51.4	It was once very, very successful and we're trying to do a little bit to put it back
	...

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