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Desert Island Discs

Sir Malcolm Walker, retailer

Desert Island Discs

BBC

Society & Culture, Music Commentary, Music, Personal Journals

4.413.7K Ratings

🗓️ 5 February 2023

⏱️ 37 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Sir Malcolm Walker is the chairman and co-founder of the frozen food supermarket chain Iceland. He was brought up in Grange Moor, West Yorkshire. He was just 14 when his father died, and he helped his mother run a smallholding, driving a tractor and ploughing fields. His business instinct kicked in during his teenage years, when he promoted Saturday night dances by booking bands into local church halls. After receiving rejections from Marks & Spencer and Littlewoods, he became a trainee manager at Woolworths, and recalls that he started at the very bottom, sweeping the floors for many months before gradually winning promotions and moving round the country. In 1970, he and Peter Hinchcliffe, a colleague from Woolworths, opened a shop in Oswestry, selling loose frozen food from chest freezers. The business soon began to take off, Malcolm and Peter were both fired by Woolworths, and Malcolm went on to build a company which now has more than 1000 stores in the UK and Ireland. Along the way, boardroom battles led to his departure in the early 2000s, but he later returned and Iceland is now back in family ownership. Alongside his business pursuits, Malcolm has been a fundraiser for dementia charities, after his wife was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's. She died in 2021 after more than 50 years of marriage. He was knighted in 2017, has three children, one of whom also works in the family business, and he married for the second time in August last year. DISC ONE: Violin Concerto No. 1 in G Minor, Op. 26: II. Adagio, composed by Max Bruch, performed by Itzhak Perlman (violin) and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, conducted by Bernard Haitink DISC TWO: Goodbye by Josef Locke DISC THREE: Only You by The Platters DISC FOUR: Silence is Golden by The Tremeloes DISC FIVE: Memory composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber and performed by Elaine Paige DISC SIX: All I Ask of You composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber and performed by Steve Barton and Sarah Brightman DISC SEVEN: La bohème, SC 67 / Act I composed by Giacomo Puccini and performed by Luciano Pavarotti (tenor) and Mirella Freni (soprano) with the Berlin Philharmonic, conducted by Herbert von Karajan DISC EIGHT: Quando me’n vo (“Musetta’s Waltz”) from La Bohème composed by Giacomo Puccini and performed by Natalie Walker BOOK CHOICE: Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe LUXURY ITEM: A cast iron cooking pot CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Quando me’n vo (“Musetta’s Waltz”) from La Bohème composed by Giacomo Puccini and performed by Natalie Walker Presenter Lauren Laverne Producer Sarah Taylor

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

BBC Sounds Music Radio Podcasts

0:04.9

Hello, I'm Lauren LeVern and this is the Deser Island Disks Podcast.

0:08.6

Every week I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book and luxury they'd want to take with them

0:13.9

if they were cast away to a desert island.

0:16.5

And for right reasons, the music is shorter than the original broadcast.

0:21.2

I hope you enjoy listening.

0:44.3

My cast away this week is the businessman, Samalkan Walker.

0:47.6

He's the co-founder of the supermarket chain Iceland, which he started with a friend in 1970.

0:53.4

Fed up with their day jobs at Woolworths, they each invested £30 and began moonlighting in a retail

0:58.9

unit selling frozen food. Their boss wasn't too pleased when he found out they both got the sack,

1:04.3

but it was worth it. 52 years on, Iceland has over 1000 stores in the UK and Ireland,

1:09.6

with sales of around £3.5 billion. Under his leadership, the company has won numerous awards

1:15.7

from retail and consumer groups. Meanwhile, beyond the freezer aisle, he's helped raise some

1:20.7

£30 million for good causes, particularly Alzheimer's charities in honour of his late wife,

1:26.5

Rihannath, who named that first shop in 1970. He's had downs as well as ups at the company he

1:32.2

started, including being fired and setting up a rival venture before being asked to return,

1:36.8

eventually buying back the business, taking it into family ownership once again in 2020.

1:42.1

He says, I'm an ideas man, if 5% of my ideas benefit the business, I consider that a good result,

1:48.3

so long as the other 95 don't do too much serious damage. Mark and Walker, welcome to

1:53.3

Desert Island Discs. So you've often said that with 2% of the grocery market, Iceland shouldn't

1:58.8

really be here. Why do you think it's still around more than 50 years after you've created it?

2:03.3

We understand the business, you know, more supermarkets. You can't tell me who the boss is,

...

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