| I had no inkling that I was to be installed as a lay canon in Salisbury Cathedral until the letter came from David Stancliffe. It was one of the nicest things I’ve ever received.
We worship at the cathedral. It’s just three miles from our farm, and we can see the spire from over the hills. The connection really began in 1963, when Joe Fison, a friend from Great St Mary’s, Cambridge, went to be bishop there. Joe and I toured the diocese over two days, and it always stuck in my mind. After some years, we ended up there, too. The liturgy and the music are really beautiful.
I spent 37 years in public service. I’m the last of a generation of senior civil servants — a mandarin class much derided but useful, in my view. There was so much that was enjoyable.
I’ve had a series of fantastic jobs. Three people I really enjoyed working with in the early years were Roy Jenkins, Willie Whitelaw, and Michael Heseltine.
It really is a myth that civil servants prefer stupid, malleable politicians. The truth is exactly the opposite. If to be a civil servant is “to speak truth unto power”, we need power to be intelligent and capable. We need that balance between the democratic political energy and what I hope remains intelligent advice.
Four things carry you through when you are taking charge of a group of people: listening, efficiency, a good sense of humour (very often people need jollying along a bit), and decisiveness. They want all their points heard, and then for the chairman to crack on.
I spend a day a week at Clarence House, helping the Prince of Wales with some of the charities he wants to support — particularly in the arts, heritage, and cathedrals, in which my background and expertise may be of value to him. And I do things like finding him good chairs and trustees for all the many charities he is involved with.
There are those who say there is never enough money spent on the arts. That is not my view. Over the past 15 years, there has been good investment by both Governments, starting with John Major’s launch of the National Lottery. Tony Blair’s Government increased regular funding. So the subsidised arts are really thriving, on the whole.
I know there are some artistic organisations who feel hard done by. The quality is fantastic, and admired internationally, and that’s the result of serious investment by the Government.
It’s a considerable irony that in a country which has an Established Church, the state isn’t acting as banker to its buildings. I am very conscious of the enormous number of Grade-I and Grade-II listed buildings — absolutely iconic buildings in what they are, and in what they represent — in the hands of the Church. That’s what I would put to the Treasury, and I have tried hard to change people’s attitudes to that support.
I don’t pretend to be an expert about Salisbury Cathedral, but I think the biggest challenge is holding a community together with all the different demands. I just chair the fabric advisory committee, but somehow we have to strike a balance between all the competing demands: the needs of worship and mission, the buildings, tourism, and an extremely active Cathedral Close, as well as managing traffic, schools, and so on.
I don’t know how people managed before technology — I mean emails and Blackberries, etc. Technology enables me to keep track of all the range of different things I’m involved in.
I’d really like to be remembered for having added value to the lives of people who knew me. Isn’t that what most people would want? And I’m also very proud for having been instrumental in removing the car parking on Horse Guards Parade by St James’s Park, to recapture the vista you can see in Canaletto’s paintings.
I have a little difficulty with the parable of the talents. What I find quite difficult to take is why the poor man who has an accurate insight into his master’s character and gives him good feedback is made to suffer for his honesty.
I never think about doing anything else. I just get on with my life, and don’t look round the corner to see if the grass is greener.
My favourite fairtrade product is chocolate.
I don’t think I really do get angry. I remember when I last really lost my temper. It was in 1974 — some piece of bureaucratic incompetence in the office, and I was jet-lagged and probably lost the plot, as they say.
We have the most beautiful farm in the Wiltshire countryside. On an early summer evening, my wife and I go up to the Downs and watch the new calves and lambs gambolling around in the sunlight. That’s a happy place.
Thinking about plays, and cathedrals and people, I’d most like to get locked in a cathedral with Thomas Becket. There’s just a chance that if the knights turned up, I might help him to change the course of history.
Sir Hayden Phillips was Permanent Secretary of two departments for 12 years before his retirement, and delivered a report on the funding of political parties last year. He is charities consultant to the Prince of Wales. He is also chairman of the Royal National Theatre, and has various private directorships. He is a Deputy Lieutenant of Wiltshire, and chairman of Marlborough College Council. He was talking to Terence Handley MacMath.
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