John Drummond (1) (1934–2006)

In a short prequel to the main text of his autobiography, John Drummond relates an anecdote of a meeting he had at the BBC in which a Birtian clone refused to accept Drummond's analysis of what was wrong with the organisation with the withering comment, "Why should we believe anything you say? You don't seem to me to have achieved much. In my view, you are tainted by experience." What follows is the slightly curmudgeonly rant of the 60-something-year-old retiring administrator, railing against the damage being done to the arts by the lesser and more bureaucratic minds of the younger generation. This format is a well-trodden path for elder statesmen and women coming to the end of their careers and there is more than a hint of déjà vu about the book, as Drummond's targets--John Birt, in particular--are everyone's favourite hate figures. Which isn't to say that he isn't right, of course. Moreover Drummond isn't your average Colonel Blimp reactionary; yes, he deplores the fixation with populist culture but he is essentially a modernist at heart. Anyone who can commission a new work from Harrison Birtwistle for the Last night Of the Proms certainly gets my vote.

If one accepts the Birtian view of Drummond's achievements, then most of us would love to have achieved as little as him. In the course of a distinguished career he has been director of the Edinburgh Festival, director of the Proms, in charge of BBC2 arts programming and controller of Radio 3; in short, he has done just about every job in the arts worth doing and he has more than earned the right to sound off to his hearts content and be listened to. The only sour note is to be found in his turns of phrase. Drummond can't help being a clever clogs but he could, perhaps, attempt to wear his learning a little lighter. The constant reiteration of his encyclopaedic knowledge of music, theatre and literature and his natural brilliance at almost everything he turned his hand to, wears thin after a while. So, too, does his reluctance to more than scratch the surface of his own psyche. For all that, Drummond clearly knows his stuff and even if the main arguments are by now quite familiar, they are still far from won. --John Crace.

Drummond was director of the Edinburgh Festival for five years and the Director of the Proms, he was in charge of Arts programming on BBC 2 in the Seventies and became Controller of BBC Radio 3 but his views have not always endeared him to authority or colleagues. This is his story.

Seen in retrospect, John Drummond was an upholder of quality and high cultural values as controller of Radio 3. When Nicholas Kenyon, Drummond's successor, quit two years early, Drummond was provoked to assert that its senior executives "do not give a fig" for classical music. He said that running Radio 3 had become almost impossible because the BBC was "run by people without culture". Top BBC managers did not even listen to Radio 3 and wanted to boost audiences and cut costs by making it more like its commercial rival Classic FM, which plays recordings of the popular classics and no live music. Sadly, the people without culture have now taken over completely, turning Radio 3 increasingly into yet another branch of the pop music and pop culture world. As if this were needed!… (more)