Sir Gulam Noon

Sir Gulam Noon

Author: BBC Radio 4 March 7, 2004 Duration: 35:45

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is a businessman who brought authentic Indian foods to our supermarkets - Sir Gulam Noon. An instinctive businessman, he was brought up in a complex family situation with a step-brother and sister who were also his half-siblings and a cousin who assumed a paternal role after his own father died. They were not well off, but they had managed until their father's death when Gulam was seven. After that, it was a struggle and as a young teenager Gulam would spend the evenings working in his family's two sweetshops in Bombay. He had an entrepreneurial eye and saw business opportunities to improve and expand.

After a brief holiday in Engand he announced to his family that he wanted to expand into this country too. He built a confectionary business here and, seeing the huge public appetite for Indian food in restaurants, started manufacturing it for the supermarket shelves. After a disastrous fire at his factory in 1994, he built up his business again and now makes more than a quarter of a million curries a day. His biggest seller, not surprisingly, is chicken tikka masala. Gulam Noon was given an MBE for services to the food industry in 1994, and in 2002 was knighted.

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

Favourite track: Nat Bhairav by Shivkumar Sharma, Hariprasad Chaurasia, Brijbushan Kabra Book: Long Walk To Freedom by Nelson Mandela Luxury: Videos of cricket matches


The Desert Island Discs: Archive 2000-2005 podcast opens a unique window into a pivotal era, drawing from the BBC Radio 4 archives. This isn't just a collection of interviews about music; it's a deeply personal exploration of life, ambition, and memory through the voices of the early 21st century. Each episode presents a guest from this period-be they an artist, a politician, a scientist, or an activist-facing the program's enduring and revealing premise: selecting the eight pieces of music they would take if stranded alone. The conversation that unfolds around these choices is where the magic happens. The host gently guides them from their selections into stories of childhood influences, career-defining moments, personal triumphs, and profound losses. You'll hear the crackle of a vinyl record lead into a confession, or a symphony cue a tale of resilience. Listening to this podcast feels like uncovering a time capsule of cultural and emotional history, where a pop song can explain a political stance and a classical adagio can frame a love story. It’s an intimate study of character and a testament to how the soundtrack of our lives shapes our identity. These archived conversations, preserved in this podcast, remain compelling because they bypass the superficial, using music as the key to unlock genuine human experience.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

Desert Island Discs: Archive 2000-2005
Podcast Episodes
Ralph Kohn [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 37:29
This week Sue's castaway is a man who's made a success of two entirely different careers. Ralph Kohn is a Jewish businessman who has won the Queen's Export Award for his work in the pharmaceutical industry and he's also…
Bill Nighy [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 33:41
This week Sue's castaway is the award winning actor Bill Nighy. Originally from Caterham in Surrey, he left school at 15 without any qualifications and ended up working at his local employment office. He hoped to become…
Judith Kerr [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 36:32
This week Sue's castaway is Judith Kerr - a writer and illustrator known to generations of children both for her charming Mog picture-books and for her careful rendering of the life of a Jewish child fleeing Nazi Germany…
John Cale [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 35:14
This week Sue Lawley's castaway is John Cale, a classically trained musician who went on to found one of the most influential bands of the 1960s, Velvet Underground. John Cale was brought up in a strict South Wales house…
Sacha Distel [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 34:52
This week Sue Lawley's castaway is one of France's best known exports - the singer Sacha Distel. Born into a loving family in 1930s Paris, his father was a Russian émigré who'd fled the Red Army in 1917 and walked to Par…
Sister Frances Dominica [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 35:52
This week Sue Lawley's castaway is a nun and a pioneer of the hospice movement. Sister Frances Dominica says she had always felt she was born to be a nurse and as a child would line up her dolls and teddies in pretend ho…
Rt Hon Lord Sainsbury [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 36:37
This week Sue Lawley's castaway is David Sainsbury, now Lord Sainsbury of Turville.David Sainsbury who is a grocer and a politician is also one of Britain's richest men and was a multi-millionaire by the time he was in h…
Paul Dacre [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 39:01
This week Sue Lawley's castaway is one of Britain's most powerful newspaper men - Paul Dacre, editor of the Daily Mail. He was brought up in a household where news, and the coverage of it, was a daily topic of debate - h…
Stephen Frears [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 44:41
This week Sue Lawley's castaway is the film director Stephen Frears. His film credits include My Beautiful Launderette, When Sammy and Rosie Get Laid, Dangerous Liaisons, High Fidelity and, most recently, Dirty Pretty Th…
Jimmy Tarbuck [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 34:52
This week Sue Lawley's castaway is the entertainer Jimmy Tarbuck. Originally from Liverpool, he began his career as a redcoat at Butlins holiday camp. He went on to become a compere at the London Palladium and fronted nu…