Rt Hon Sir Menzies Campbell MP

Desert Island Discs

BBC

Society & Culture, Music Commentary, Music, Personal Journals

4.4 • 13.7K Ratings

🗓️ 17 October 2004

⏱️ 37 minutes

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Summary

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the Liberal Democrat politician Sir Menzies Campbell. Born in Glasgow, he excelled at both academia and sports making it to the University in Glasgow and then Stanford in California where he studied law but all the while dividing his time between this and his other great love - athletics. He became the fastest man in Britain holding and re-breaking the record for the 100 metres between 1967 and 1974 and competed in the 1964 Olympic and 1966 Commonwealth games.

As a lawyer he was called to the Scottish Bar in 1968 and was made QC in 1982. His political career began 30 years ago when he stood for his first parliamentary seat in 1974, fighting three more elections before winning North East Fife in 1987. He quickly became a fast-rising star and is now Deputy Leader of the party and spokesman on Foreign Affairs. He was awarded a CBE in 1987, became a privy councillor in 1999 and was knighted earlier this year in the New Year's Honours list.

[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	Hello, I'm Kirstie 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 2004, and the presenter was Sue Lolly. My castaway this week is a politician. His easy patrician manner belies his humble
0:28.9	beginnings. Born in a
0:35.0	Glesgo tenement, the son of a joiner who rose to manage the City Corporation's
0:34.1	Building Department, he was a hard-working student but more importantly a
0:37.8	dedicated athlete. He held and then re-broke the British 100
0:42.4	meter record, captain the UK Athletic team and competed
0:45.5	in the Tokyo Olympics and the Commonwealth Games.
0:48.4	Meanwhile, he was becoming a lawyer.
0:50.4	He went on to take silk and run a very successful legal practice.
0:54.0	But running fast and doing well at the law were not quite enough.
0:58.0	Seventeen years ago he entered Parliament.
1:01.0	Since when he's risen to become one of his party's most sure-footed
1:04.3	spokesman a vital asset in its efforts to become first the National Party of
1:08.8	opposition and then of course of government. Every career I have chosen has been competitive he says I like to
1:15.7	win he's the deputy leader of the liberal Democrats so Ming is Campbell known to
1:20.3	all as Ming of course you've had three lives all of them so competitive as you
1:24.7	say that must mean that behind this very refined exterior there's quite a lot of
1:29.4	grit I only realize that quite recently. If you run, if you compete, then you win or you lose.
1:36.8	If you are an advocate in court, then you win or you lose your case. And of course you can win and lose your seat. I don't know where the competitive street came from because neither of my
1:48.0	parents were particularly competitive but my mother was a very good sports woman and some say she would have played hockey for Scotland
	...

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