Tim Martin
Desert Island Discs
BBC
4.3 • 14.3K Ratings
🗓️ 3 December 2017
⏱️ 34 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Tim Martin is the chairman and founder of the pub company JD Wetherspoon. He opened his first pub, Martin's Free House, in 1979 in North London. Now the chain employs 37,000 people, in 891 pubs of which 54 are hotels. Travelling from his home in Devon, Tim visits at least ten of them a week taking detailed 'call notes' on the staff, the beer, the quality of the food and even the cutlery.
In 2016 he became one of the most high-profile UK business people arguing in favour in leaving the EU. He printed half a million beer mats for his pubs, making the case for Brexit.
His success in the pub industry might be in the genes. His father, initially an aerobatic pilot, later worked for Guinness, which took the family around the globe and Tim spent his childhood in both New Zealand and Northern Ireland. He trained for the law but instead chose the career of a publican.
Presenter: Kirsty Young Producer: Cathy Drysdale.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is the BBC. |
| 0:03.0 | Hello, I'm Kristi Young. |
| 0:05.0 | Welcome to Desert Island Discs, where every week I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, the book and the luxury item |
| 0:12.0 | that they'd want to take with them if they were cast away on a desert island. |
| 0:16.0 | For rights reasons, the music on these podcast versions is shorter than in the original broadcast. |
| 0:22.0 | You can find over 2,000 more editions to listen to and download on the Desert Island Discs website. |
| 0:30.0 | Music |
| 0:49.0 | My cast away this week is the businessman Tim Martin. |
| 0:53.0 | Founder of JD Weather Spoony runs 900 odd pubs. |
| 0:57.0 | By anyone's reckoning, that's a lot of booze and crap to dish up. |
| 1:00.0 | A lot of staff too. He employs 37,000 people. |
| 1:04.0 | And whilst hipster fads for Vietnamese food trucks or pop up vegan cafes come and go, it seems our taste for a pint of ruddles |
| 1:11.0 | and a plate of scampions chips is greater than ever this year, his company's profits are up 25% on sales of 1.6 billion. |
| 1:20.0 | He was originally destined for the bar of a different sort. |
| 1:24.0 | As a young man, he qualified as a barrister. |
| 1:26.0 | But a fear of public speaking led him instead to open his first establishment, Martin's Free House. |
| 1:32.0 | He seems to be over his shyness now, having recently and repeatedly spoken up publicly in favour of Brexit. |
| 1:38.0 | In the run-up to the referendum, he even printed half a million beer mats, explaining the case for Britain leaving the EU. |
| 1:46.0 | His business philosophy is much like his philosophy on life. He says, don't try and change the world. |
| 1:52.0 | But if you can, just make tiny tweaks every day to make it that bit better. |
| 1:56.0 | That's a very powerful force over time. And so welcome to Martin. |
| 2:01.0 | I described you there as a businessman, but just a moment ago, before we opened the microphones, you described yourself as a publican. |
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