I've posted before on William Godwin and on Hugh Masekela.
I was intrigued therefore to hear today on the BBC Desert Island Disks which had Hugh Masekela as the guest, that he received his start in music because Father Trevor Huddleston got him his first trumpet - a classic demonstration I think of Godwin's idea of our duty to those we see before us as much as to any abstract ideal of justice.
As a boy growing up in the impoverished townships of South Africa he was inspired to learn the trumpet after seeing Kirk Douglas play Bix Beiderbecke in Young Man With A Horn. He begged one of his teachers – the anti apartheid crusader Father Trevor Huddleston to buy him a horn and in return he promised to stay out of trouble.
His choice of music was interesting too - everything from Louis Armstrong to Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie - plus the inestimable Billie Holiday with 'You've Changed' from her Lady in Satin album, which would certainly be one of my eight in the unlikely event of my being invited.
Previous guests have included Linton Kwezi Johnson and Jack Vettriano
