The Burmese pro-democracy campaigner and Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi spent the best part of two decades under house arrest. From 1989 until her full release in 2010, Suu Kyi was in and out of detention, spending years at a time locked up. How did she get through this? The knowledge that thousands of people across the world wished her well may have provided some solace. Suu Kyi also meditated every day, according to this New Statesman profile from 2010. The secret to her survival, however, emerged today in an interview with the Radio Times. This man was her “lifeline”, who made her “world much more complete”. Who was he?
Dave Lee Travis.
Yes, the beardy DJ who presented A Jolly Good Show on the BBC World Service from 1981 until 2001 played a surprising role in keeping Suu Kyi sane in her years of imprisonment. How did Lee Travis react to this news? Was he humbled by the knowledge that he played a small part in Suu Kyi’s fight to bring democracy to Burma? Not really. In a blaze of modesty, Lee Travis said that he was “touched” but “not surprised” she remembered his show.
On a more serious note, it does emphasise the importance of the BBC World Service. As Suu Kyi points out, the World Service is the “only line to the outside world” for many. Admittedly, Suu Kyi was talking more about the World Service’s news and culture coverage in general, rather than Dave Lee Travis’s slot. Even so, perhaps with this revelation, the true role of BBC DJs as freedom fighters will emerge.
Presumably, when Ai Weiwei is eventually released in 20 years time, he will stumble into a press conference — greyer, with a longer beard — and begin: “There is one person that I could not have survived without in this bleak period. He was the light in my darkness; he brought dull chart music to my soul. For all that he has given me, I want to say thank you, Vernon Kay.”
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