DO you want the two-minute interview or the five-minute interview? It isn't like that with Sir Jackie Stewart. "Take your time, I've got all the time in the world," he told me.
But he measures it, to fractions of a second. I'm eyeing what's adorning his wrist. One of those chronometers to die for. Something that comes with the job.
Jackie was in town on Monday night. He'd flown up from his Bucks home for the day, expressly to switch on the lights on the St Columba's Hospice Tree of Remembrance in Charlotte Square Gardens. Together with Sir Tom Farmer.
My, but the man does put himself about. He's on the Scottish Enterprise Board (advisors to parliament, with direct access to Jack McConnell, but didn't have time to drop in on Jack in Bute House, just strides away from the gardens).
Of all the Scottish accents, Jackie's - soft, articulate, almost mesmeric - is the one you'd have represent us round the planet.
Go on, sir. Your native country. Tell us how you see it through the constant voyager's eyes.
"Our greatest export has always been people. Everywhere I go there's always a Scot at the top end of the company.
"New technologies that are coming on stream are giving Scots great opportunities. We've always been exceptionally creative and in this respect our universities are playing a major role.
"I'm talking to Aberdeen and Edinburgh universities about dyslexics and how they find other ways of doing business. Ten per cent of Scots are dyslexic and they don't find jobs easily.
"I'm dyslexic myself and it's because I've always done things differently from more of my fellow humans that I've survived, and survived pretty well.
"Most of the clever folk in my class at school haven't done particularly well - not because they've not been ambitious but they've not been obliged to think the same way as dyslexics.
"What I aware of - something that never escapes my mind - is that more than 50 per cent of the workforce in Scotland works for the government and clearly that's too much."
Too much for Jackie, this ambassadorial role that has him perpetually mobile? No way. He positively thrives on it. He surely has found a different way of coping.
"I'm deeply associated with the Royal Bank. I've been their global ambassador for three years through their ties with the Williams team in Formula One.
"Let me tell you, I've seen their new headquarters here. The most impressive headquarters I've seen anywhere in the world and that includes IBM, American Express and General Motors. Because of my connections in so many countries, I create new business opportunities for the bank."
He's telling me all this and somehow managing not to sound bombastic, big in the head. It must be the dyslexia that does it.
"I've been on the board at Moet & Chandon since '69. And I'm still with Rolex, since '68. You know what they say, everything in life is about timing."
Precisely. And it was time, in this ten-minute interview, to inquire about that eye-catching time machine on his left wrist. He fobbed me with "it's a gold GMT Master".
Christmas Day will find him at home in Buckinghamshire with Helen. They married in 1962. They fly to their other place in Switzerland on the 28th to bring in the new year with the family. "We have eight grandchildren. No great strain on Helen and me. You get to hand them back."
A watchnight service, perhaps, on Christmas Eve? "No. I'm Church of Scotland, from the day I was born 67 years ago in Milton, Dunbartonshire. While I'm not a great churchgoer, I deeply believe in God.
From time to time I'll go into a church, synagogue, mosque or whatever and pray."
Long may the three-times world champion driver keep travelling on a wing and a prayer. The watch, by the way, Hamilton & Inches were today able to confirm, retails at £11,670.
My advice to Sir Jackie Stewart, slip it off before you go into a football match or stroll Sauchiehall and Princes Streets.
Source: The Scotsman
No comments:
Post a Comment