Alle afleveringen
2.000 afleveringen, van nieuw naar oud
-
Ben Saunders
14 februari 2016 · 35 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway is the polar adventurer Ben Saunders. In his own words he "specialises in dragging heavy things around cold places". Lees meer
He's one of only three people to have skied solo to The North Pole and he holds the record for the longest solo Arctic journey ever on foot.
After traversing Russia and the frozen crust of the Arctic Ocean, his most recent adventure was to triumph where, a century before, Captain Scott and his men failed. Ben successfully retraced that ill-fated Terra Nova route by making the eighteen hundred mile journey through Antarctica-and-back, entirely on foot.
When he's not wrapped up somewhere cold, he is a motivational speaker.
Producer: Sarah Taylor.
-
Professor Dame Carol Black
7 februari 2016 · 38 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway is Professor Dame Carol Black. Lees meer
She is Principal of Newnham College, Cambridge, and is a special adviser to the Department of Health and Public Health England. She is also Chair of the Board of the Nuffield Trust, the health policy think tank.
She read History at Bristol University before beginning her medical career with encouragement from Dame Cecily Saunders, the founder of the hospice movement. She was Head of Rheumatology at London's Royal Free Hospital from 1989-1994, and was Medical Director of the hospital between 1995 and 2002. She's an international expert on scleroderma, a skin and tissue auto-immune disease, and is the second woman to become President of the Royal College of Physicians.
She was made a Dame in 2005 for her services to Medicine.
Producer: Cathy Drysdale.
-
Bill Gates
4 februari 2016 · 36 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway is Bill Gates. Lees meer
He sat at his first computer while still at school in Seattle, wrote his first computer programme aged just 13 and went on to co-found the company Microsoft, becoming one of the key figures of the technological revolution. In 2000, he and his wife, Melinda, launched the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation which has given to date over $34 billion to projects aimed at reducing health inequality around the world.
Born into a professional family - his father was a lawyer, his mother a former teacher who later became involved with volunteer work - he was introduced to the idea of 'giving back' at an early age. An avid reader as a child, he attended Harvard where in his sophomore year he and Paul Allen developed software for the first micro-computers. The company would go on to achieve huge success with its Windows operating system.
By 1987, Gates had become the world's youngest self-made billionaire, then worth $1.25 billion. Consistently listed as the Richest Man in the World, he stepped down as CEO of the company in 2000 although he remained as Chairman until 2014.
These days his primary focus is his philanthropy. In 2010, Gates and his friend Warren Buffett announced the Giving Pledge which aims to inspire the wealthy people of the world to give away the majority of their net worth to worthy causes.
Producer: Cathy Drysdale.
-
Sigrid Rausing
24 januari 2016 · 33 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway is the philanthropist and publisher Sigrid Rausing. Lees meer
Founder of one of the UK's largest philanthropic foundations, her trust has given away around £230m to human rights causes since it began.
Brought up in Sweden, she is currently the publisher of Granta Books and the editor of Granta Magazine and her work spotting and developing new writers stems from her lifelong love of literature.
As the granddaughter of Ruben Rausing, who founded food packaging company Tetra Pak, she is a member of one of Britain's richest families. Her interest in human rights was sparked as a child by a love of animals and hearing her parents talk about the Holocaust.
Producer: Paula McGinley.
-
Sir Anthony Seldon
17 januari 2016 · 37 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway is the educationalist and writer, Sir Anthony Seldon. Lees meer
Now Vice-Chancellor of Buckingham University, he was the Master of Wellington College. He has written, co-written and edited more than 30 books, including political biographies of Prime Ministers Churchill, Blair, Brown and Cameron.
He had to take his 'A' levels twice before going on to read PPE at Oxford and doing a PhD at the LSE, before embarking on his teaching career. His first headmaster job was at Brighton College and then he went onto be Master of Wellington College. During his tenure, the school became co-educational, set up partner schools in China, and introduced a more holistic approach to learning with happiness classes and stillness sessions added to the curriculum and in 2009 the state secondary Wellington Academy was founded in Wiltshire.
He is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society and of the Royal Society of Arts and in 2014 was knighted for services to education and modern political history.
Producer: Cathy Drysdale.
-
Alex Crawford
10 januari 2016 · 33 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway is the Sky TV news correspondent Alex Crawford. Lees meer
She's won the Royal Television Society's Journalist of the Year award an unprecedented four times - reporting from the world's worst war zones and hot spots.
Where most people would do anything to stay well away from trouble she seems drawn to danger , whether it's covering the Ebola crisis in Liberia, hunting for Rhino poachers in South Africa or being first on the scene as the drama of Libya's revolution unfolded.She spent the first five years of her life in Nigeria, where her family survived two political coups. After childhood in Zambia and subsequently what was then Rhodesia, she came back to Britain as a teenager to go to boarding school and then got her first job as a trainee reporter on the Wokingham Times.
She's been shot at, arrested and interrogated. But it's a job she loves and is still passionate to do. For her, there should be no 'no-go' areas for journalists and journalism remains an essential pillar of freedom and democracy.
Producer: Sarah Taylor.
-
Colm Toibin
3 januari 2016 · 38 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway is the writer Colm Toibin. Lees meer
Best-known for his novels "Brooklyn" - now made into a film - "Nora Webster" and "The Master," he has been nominated for the Booker Prize three times.
Born in 1955 in Enniscorthy, County Wexford, the second youngest of five children, Colm's life changed suddenly when his father died after a long illness when he was twelve. He says he has been dealing with the trauma which resulted in his writing ever since. After attending St Peter's College in Wexford and University College Dublin, he spent three years in Barcelona teaching English before returning to Ireland. He worked as a journalist until his books began to get published.
He once told a class he was teaching that "you have to be a terrible monster to write. I said, 'Someone might have told you something they shouldn't have told you, and you have to be prepared to use it because it will make a great story. You have to use it even though the person is identifiable. If you can't do it then writing isn't for you. You've no right to be here. If there is any way I can help you get into law school then I will. Your morality will be more useful in a courtroom.'"
Producer: Christine Pawlowsky.
-
Patricia Greene
27 december 2015 · 36 min
Beluister deze afleveringArchers actress Patricia Greene is castaway by Kirsty Young. Lees meer
For nearly 60 years she's played the role of Jill in BBC Radio 4’s The Archers which celebrates its 65th anniversary on January 1st 2016. Over the decades the storylines have followed her character through one marriage, four children and since 2010, widowhood.
Born in Derby in 1931, Paddy’s love of acting began early on inspired by her father who was a keen amateur actor. As an only and independent child she was surrounded by the adult world and would often eavesdrop as she hid under the kitchen table. Her parents loved entertainment and would take her to the cinema every week to see Hollywood romances or comedies.
After attending a grammar school she went to the Central School of Speech and Drama in London in 1951. She wanted to be a classical actress, but then a phone call from the Archers production office changed her career path and she joined the cast initially on a six week contract in 1957. Her character Jill went onto marry the farmer Phil Archer, and is still there with a recent storyline seeing her return to Brookfield, the family farm.
Patricia has been married twice and was widowed in 1986. She was awarded an MBE in 2007.
DISC ONE: Brush Up Your Shakespeare - Emil Wolk & John Bardon
DISC TWO: Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6 in F Major, Op. 68 - London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Bernard Haitink
DISC THREE: En Aranjuez Con Tu Amor - Grimethorpe Colliery Band
DISC FOUR: Nat King Cole - Unforgettable
DISC FIVE: Test Match Special – “Leg Over” Commentary, 9/8/1991
DISC SIX: Charles Trenet - Boum!
DISC SEVEN: Puccini - La Boheme- “Yes, they call me Mimì” - Kiri Te Kanawa & the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Kent Nagano
DISC EIGHT: Sibelius’s Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 43 (4th Movement) - Vienna Philharmonic, conducted by Herbert von KarajanCASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Vienna Philharmonic, conducted by Herbert von Karajan - Sibelius’s Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 43 (4th Movement)
BOO… -
Commander Chris Hadfield
20 december 2015 · 36 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway is Chris Hadfield. Lees meer
He was the first Canadian commander of the International Space Station and took part in three space missions spending a total of 166 days orbiting the Earth. He has spent over 14 hours doing two space walks.
He flew his first eight day mission into space in 1995 during which he visited the Russian space station Mir. In 2001 he paid his first visit to the International Space Station to help install Canadarm2, a robot arm helping to build the station which was launched three years previously. In 2012 he began his final five month stay in space on board the ISS. It was on this mission that his videos of life in space - including a film of him singing David Bowie's Space Oddity and accompanying himself on guitar - led to him enjoying a huge following on social media.
Chris was born in 1959 in Ontario, the second of five children: his father was a pilot and the family lived on a farm. He mapped out his future career aged nine when he watched Neil Armstrong become the first person to walk on the moon in 1969. In pursuit of his dream Chris first become an Air Cadet, then attended military college, becoming a fighter pilot and then a test pilot, as well as an aeronautical engineer. He finally achieved his ambition of becoming an astronaut in 1992.
He went onto become the Chief of Robotics at the NASA Astronaut Office and Chief of International Space Station Operations at the Johnson Space Centre in Houston, Texas. Following his final space mission, Chris retired from the Canadian Space Agency in July 2013. Amongst the awards he's received are the military Meritorious Service Cross, NASA's Exceptional Service Medal and the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Medal.
Producer: Cathy Drysdale.
-
Kylie Minogue
13 december 2015 · 35 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway is Kylie Minogue. Lees meer
With seven number ones and ten million singles sold in the UK, she is the third-biggest selling female artist in Britain and has sold around 70 million records worldwide.
Born in Melbourne in 1968, Kylie and her sister Dannii began their careers as child actors on Australian television. At 17, Kylie landed the role of Charlene Mitchell in the soap opera Neighbours and her on-screen wedding to Jason Donovan's character Scott Robinson was watched by twenty million people in the UK alone.
Her recording career began after she was spotted singing at a charity event in 1987. Within months she had released a cover version of "Locomotion" which became the biggest-selling Australian single of the decade. Following the single's success, her first hit with record producers Stock, Aitken and Waterman was "I Should Be So Lucky": her debut album sold seven million copies.
At the age of 21, a romance with INXS lead singer Michael Hutchence led to a change in her image. In 2000, inspired by 1970s disco and assisted by gold hot pants, her single "Spinning Around" became her first British number one for a decade. She also sang to an estimated global audience of 3.7 billion at the closing ceremony of the Sydney Olympics.
In May 2005 she was diagnosed with breast cancer: following treatment she resumed the tour 18 months later.
Producer: Cathy Drysdale.
-
Atul Gawande
6 december 2015 · 35 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway is the surgeon, author and former Reith lecturer, Atul Gawande. Lees meer
A general and endocrine surgeon in Boston, he is professor in both the Department of Health Policy & Management at the Harvard School of Public Health and the Department of Surgery at Harvard Medical School.
Born in Brooklyn, he is the son of two doctors who came to the US to study medicine. After graduating from Stanford and studying Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford, he embarked on a brief political career, working for Bill Clinton's presidential campaign and on his health and social policy in the White House following his election. When Clinton's health policy reform floundered, Atul returned to Harvard to finish the medical degree he'd started after Oxford.
During his surgical residency he began writing for the online magazine Slate and he's been writing for the New Yorker since 1998. His 2009 article "The Cost Conundrum" was cited by President Barack Obama during his attempt to get the healthcare reform legislation through Congress. Atul has published four books to date about the achievements, but also the limitations, of medicine.
In 2014 he presented the BBC's Reith Lectures, delivering a series of four talks titled The Future of Medicine.
Producer: Cathy Drysdale.
-
Sandi Toksvig
29 november 2015 · 35 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway this week is Sandi Toksvig. Lees meer
Host of BBC Radio 4's News Quiz until June 2015, she is also a writer and comedian and recently entered the world of politics, helping to found the Women's Equality Party.
Her parents were both broadcasters: her mother worked as a studio manager and announcer before she married, her Danish father's job as a foreign correspondent took the family around the world. Sandi and her siblings spent much of their childhood in the United States and when she was "asked to leave" yet another American school, her parents sent her to boarding school in England. She soon decided to lose her strong American accent and went on to Cambridge, where she performed in the Footlights.
In addition to writing, her most recent acting role was in Call the Midwife and she continues to appear regularly on TV and radio shows as a panelist: she is to start as the next host of QI, taking over from Stephen Fry. She's also Chancellor of Portsmouth University.
-
Gurinder Chadha
22 november 2015 · 33 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway is filmmaker Gurinder Chadha. Lees meer
Writer, director and producer behind the films Bend it like Beckham, Bhaji on the Beach and Bride and Prejudice, she began her career as a BBC news reporter.
She was born in Kenya to Sikh parents and grew up in Southall in West London. Her political awakening came in her teens in the 1970s against the backdrop of the National Front and race riots in the capital. The bands she listened to, including the Clash, the Jam and the Specials, were fixtures at the Rock Against Racism concerts which galvanised her desire to make a difference.
Bend it Like Beckham, which launched the career of Keira Knightly, is now a hit musical on the West End stage. Her next film, Viceroy's House, tackles the Partition of India in 1947.
She was awarded an OBE in the 2006 Queen's Birthday Honours List for her services to the British Film Industry.
Producer: Paula McGinley.
-
Rt Hon Nicola Sturgeon
15 november 2015 · 35 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway is the Right Honourable Nicola Sturgeon, MSP. Lees meer
Leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP) and the fifth First Minister of Scotland in the devolved era, she is the first woman to hold either post. The eldest of two daughters, she was brought up in Irvine and attended the local Dreghorn Primary School. A studious child, she was encouraged in her interest in current affairs by a teacher and joined the SNP aged 16. At 21, she was the youngest candidate in the 1992 General Election, contesting the safe Labour seat of Glasgow Shettleston.
She learned a lot about electoral defeat in those first years, but after several unsuccessful attempts, she was elected to the Scottish Parliament as a list MSP for Glasgow in 1999. She served as the party's shadow minister for education, and later for health and for justice and was elected deputy leader of her party in 2004, standing on a joint ticket with Alex Salmond. When the SNP won the highest number of seats in the 2007 election, she was appointed deputy First Minister. She also took on responsibility for the SNP's independence referendum campaign.
In November 2014, following the No vote in the Scottish independence referendum and the subsequent resignation of Alex Salmond, Sturgeon was elected leader of the SNP and became First Minister of Scotland. She's been awarded the Scottish Politician of the Year award three times and in 2015 was judged to be the Most Influential Woman in the UK by BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour.
She is married to Peter Murrell, Chief Executive of the SNP.
Producer: Cathy Drysdale.
-
Lord Indarjit Singh
13 november 2015 · 35 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway is the broadcaster and religious leader, Lord Indarjit Singh.
Creator of The Sikh Messenger newspaper and co-founder of the Inter Faith Network he also has the distinction of being the first member of the House of Lords to wear a turban. He was appointed as a crossbench life peer in 2011.
He has contributed to Radio 4's Thought for the Day from a Sikh perspective for more than thirty years and arrived in Britain in 1933. He began his career as a mining engineer and in later life has been involved in inter-faith community work.
In the New Year Honours 2009 he was awarded the CBE for services to inter-faith and community relations. Lees meerProducer: Sarah Taylor.
-
Marjorie Wallace
1 november 2015 · 36 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway is the mental health campaigner and Chief Executive of SANE, Marjorie Wallace. Lees meer
After leaving University College London with a psychology and philosophy degree, her first job in the media was working on The Frost Programme with David Frost. She went on to produce religious programmes and became a current affairs reporter and director for the BBC. She joined the Sunday Times Insight team as an investigative journalist and wrote a series of articles highlighting the financial and emotional plight of young Thalidomide victims. Her articles on mental illness - The Forgotten Illness - elicited a huge public response and in 1986 she founded the mental health charity SANE. She has received numerous awards for her journalism and books and has twice won the Campaigning Journalist of the Year award.
In December 2008 she was awarded the CBE for services to mental health.
Producer: Sarah Taylor.
-
Keith Richards
25 oktober 2015 · 35 min
Beluister deze afleveringKeith Richards, member of the Rolling Stones, is interviewed by Kirsty Young for Desert Island Discs. Lees meer
Keith was born in Dartford and grew up as an only child. He and Mick Jagger went to the same primary school, but then lost touch until meeting again at Dartford train station in 1961 and discovering they shared a taste in blues music. Keith picked up his love of the guitar from his grandfather and honed his skills whilst at art college.
If one single, living person could be said to personify rock n' roll then it is surely him. He's been making music and causing havoc for over half a century and counting. His song writing, singing and guitar playing have helped to make The Rolling Stones a stratospherically successful group and his early and single minded dedication to the triumvirate pursuits of sex and drugs and rock and roll made him a counter-culture icon.
No surprise then that as a boy he would go to sleep at night with his arm around his first guitar.
Producer: Sarah Taylor.
-
Professor Sue Black
18 oktober 2015 · 37 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway is Professor Sue Black. Lees meer
She is Professor of Anatomy and Forensic Anthropology at the University of Dundee, founder and past President of the British Association for Human Identification and heads the Centre for Anatomy and Human Identification in Dundee.
Brought up on the west coast of Scotland and in Inverness, she fell in love with biology at secondary school and read Human Anatomy at the University of Aberdeen. After graduation she worked at London's St Thomas' Hospital as an anatomist and police began to call on her to help identify bones.
In 1999 she travelled to Kosovo, tasked with investigating the site of a mass shooting. She has worked in areas of conflict including Iraq and was part of the team helping to identify victims of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.
She was awarded an OBE in 2001 for her services to forensic anthropology.
Producer: Cathy Drysdale.
-
Lemn Sissay
14 oktober 2015 · 35 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway this week is Lemn Sissay. Lees meer
As a poet, writer and playwright, much of his work tells the story of his search for his birth parents. Born to a young Ethiopian woman who wanted him temporarily fostered while she completed her studies, he was with a family until he was 12. He would spend the next five years in a number of children's homes where he began to write. On leaving care at 17, he self-published his first book of poetry while on the dole.
Several poetry collections, plays and programmes for radio and TV followed and his work has taken him around the world. He was the first poet to be commissioned to write for the 2012 London Olympics and his success has also brought him two doctorates and an MBE for services to literature. He is about to be installed as Chancellor of the University of Manchester, an elected post he will hold for the next seven years. He takes writers' workshops for care-leavers and set up Culture World, the first black writers' workshop.
Producer: Cathy Drysdale.
-
Alison Balsom
4 oktober 2015 · 36 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway this week is the musician, Alison Balsom. Lees meer
Widely considered the finest classical trumpet player of her generation, she's performed in all the great concert halls of the world, winning a huge amount of fans and a string of awards for her ability to exquisitely convey the many voices of her chosen instrument.
As a child she had dreams of being a part-time trumpet player, astronaut and jockey - she's only 36 so there's time yet for the other two; but whilst she is solely devoting her energies to her instrument her belief in the power of music seems endless. In between gigs, rehearsals, recordings and motherhood, she's found time to travel to Uganda and Liberia as patron of Brass for Africa, with the heartfelt conviction that she can transform the lives of street children by teaching them to play.
Producer: Sarah Taylor.
-
Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran
27 september 2015 · 35 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaways this week are the comedy writers Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran.
They've been at the rock-face, mining for laughs, for over 40 years and they've given us plenty of gems ... amongst them monologues in the '70s for Frankie Howerd, the era-defining character Alan B'Stard MP, star of The New Statesman, and now the successful revival of their long running and much loved sitcom "Birds of a Feather". Lees meerGrammar school boys from North London they first met as ten year olds at a youth club, growing up to have 'real jobs' in the civil service and journalism, before finally embarking on the precarious business of making a living from putting words into other people' mouths.
Producer: Sarah Taylor.
-
Dame Judi Dench
20 september 2015 · 39 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway this week is Dame Judi Dench. Lees meer
Born into a family with dramatic leanings, she followed one of her older brothers, Jeffery, to drama school. Having abandoned ideas of becoming a set designer, she made her professional debut as Ophelia at the Old Vic in 1957. An illustrious stage career followed in Franco Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet in 1960, in Cabaret in 1968 and as Lady Macbeth for Trevor Nunn in 1976. On TV she found huge success in sitcoms - appearing with her husband, the late Michael Williams, in A Fine Romance and with Geoffrey Palmer in As Time Goes By.
She received an Oscar nomination for her first big-screen part as Queen Victoria in Mrs Brown; Shakespeare in Love won her an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress; Mrs Henderson Presents, Notes on a Scandal, Iris, and Philomena followed. She played the part of 'M' in the James Bond films seven times and is about to appear as Paulina in Sir Kenneth Branagh's production of Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale.
Married to Michael Williams for 30 years, their daughter, Finty, is also an actress.
Producer: Cathy Drysdale.
-
Dr Bill Frankland
9 augustus 2015 · 38 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway this week is Dr Bill Frankland. Lees meer
Frequently referred to as the "grandfather of allergy", his achievements include the introduction of the pollen count to the British public and the prediction of increased levels of allergy to penicillin.
Born in Cumbria in 1912, Dr Frankland turned 103 in March. He studied medicine at Oxford and worked at St Mary's hospital in Paddington, London, before war intervened. He signed up to the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC), but spent over three of the six years he spent in the army as a prisoner of war in Singapore.
After the war, he began work in the dermatology department at St Mary's, but quickly switched to allergy which became his passion. During the fifties he served as a registrar to Alexander Fleming who had discovered penicillin back in 1928. In 1954 he published a seminal research paper about a double-blind randomised trial proving that pre-season pollen injections greatly reduced the symptoms of hay fever sufferers.
He has treated high profile patients including Saddam Hussein and given evidence in court - possibly the oldest expert witness to do so. He continues to work in a private practice and has remarked, "I really don't know what people do when they retire at 65.".
-
Ruth Rogers
2 augustus 2015 · 36 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway is the chef and restaurateur, Ruth Rogers. Lees meer
Born in America, she has become one of the UK's most celebrated cooks. Despite not being a trained chef, she set up The River Café with her business partner, the late Rose Gray, in 1987. The focus was on high quality, seasonal produce cooked the Italian way. Many of today's top chefs including Jamie Oliver, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Theo Randall, Sam Clark and Allegra McEvedy began their careers in their kitchen. The café was awarded a Michelin star in 1997.
The youngest of three children, Ruth Rogers' parents were both immigrants and very political. In the late sixties, she left America and moved to London where she joined other Americans protesting against the Vietnam War. In 1969 she met the architect, Richard, now Lord, Rogers and they married in 1973. The couple moved to Paris when Richard Rogers and his partners won the contract to design the Pompidou Centre. There she learned the importance of seasonality: subsequent visits to Italy shifted her passion to Italian cooking.
Producer: Cathy Drysdale.
-
Professor Monica Grady
26 juli 2015 · 39 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway is Monica Grady, Professor of Planetary and Space Sciences at the Open University. Lees meer
Well-known in scientific circles, at NASA and the European Space Agency, she came to the attention of the general public with her enthusiastic celebration when, as part of the Rosetta project, the probe Philae became the first-ever spacecraft to land on a comet - 67P - in November 2014. The spacecraft had taken ten years to journey through space and a decade was spent on the preparations.
She was born in 1958 in Leeds as the eldest of eight children. She studied chemistry and geology at Durham University and did her PhD on carbon in meteorites at Cambridge, where she worked closely with Professor Colin Pillinger on the Beagle 2 project to Mars. She first worked at the OU in 1983 before joining the Department of Mineralogy of the Natural History Museum, becoming Head of the Meteorites and Cosmic Mineralogy Division. She is married to Professor Ian Wright who is one of the lead scientists on the Rosetta cometary mission and they have one son. She was awarded a CBE in 2012 for services to space sciences and asteroid (4731) was named "Monicagrady" in her honour.
Producer: Cathy Drysdale.
-
Noel Gallagher
19 juli 2015 · 36 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway this week is the musician, Noel Gallagher. Lees meer
He was the principal songwriter of the band Oasis - his younger brother, Liam was the lead singer. Born to Irish parents, as a child he spent his summers visiting his mother's family in rural County Mayo, in sharp contrast to the Manchester council estate where they lived. He taught himself to play the guitar and loved music: he was road manager for the Inspiral Carpets before joining Liam in Oasis.
Their debut album in 1994 marked the beginning of the band's rise to fame as part of the Britpop movement. In 1996 they played in front of 250,000 fans over two consecutive nights at Knebworth and following the Labour landslide in 1997, Noel attended what became known as the Cool Britannia party held in Downing Street by Tony Blair. Oasis won six BRIT Awards and two Ivor Novello Awards before disbanding in August 2009.
He's since formed his own band - Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds.
Producer: Cathy Drysdale.
-
Imtiaz Dharker
12 juli 2015 · 36 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway this week is the poet and artist, Imtiaz Dharker. Lees meer
Winner of the Queen's Gold Medal for her work, her life seems a perfect reflection of the inter-relatedness of The Commonwealth. Born in Pakistan she was no more than a few months old when the family packed up their belongings and flew four thousand miles to start a new life - exchanging the blistering, dusty lanes of Lahore for the blustery, rain-slicked roads of Glasgow.
Her father worked hard and, from scratch, built a big, successful business and a comfortable life for his children. But the immigrant fairytale came undone when his restless, well-educated, westernised daughter married in secret, running away to Bombay. Her parents disowned her and she would never see her mother again.
Her work centres on themes of freedom, cultural intolerance, everyday life and gender politics.
-
Freddie Flintoff
5 juli 2015 · 35 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty's castaway this week is the former England cricketer Andrew 'Freddie' Flintoff. Lees meer
One of the best players of his generation, he was part of the England team that won the Ashes in 2005, a year that marked his sporting coming of age. On the strength of that historic victory he was awarded an MBE for services to the game, and the public voted him BBC Sports Personality of the Year.
Barely out of his pram when he picked up a cricket ball he turned out to bat for an under-14 match when he was just six years old. His debut was not in crisp cricket whites, but in a second hand Manchester United tracksuit, setting the tone for someone who's made a habit of doing things his way. Not least at a 10 Downing Street reception when, somewhat the worse for wear, he weaved into the cabinet room, plonked himself down in the PM's chair and knocked back yet another bottle of beer.
Since retiring from the game he's had a go at heavyweight boxing and won the bout. One area where he hasn't come out on top: his sons never listen to his cricket coaching tips.
Producer: Sarah Taylor.
-
Harry Rabinowitz
28 juni 2015 · 37 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty's castaway this week is the conductor and composer Harry Rabinowitz. Lees meer
His list of credits and collaborations read like a Who's Who of 20th century music - Gracie Fields, Charles Aznavour, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Matt Monro & Barbra Streisand are only a handful of the stellar names who've benefitted from his talents. He's conducted a lot of movie scores too, including Chariots of Fire and The Talented Mr Ripley; indeed the late director Anthony Minghella described him as "the UK's best kept secret".
It wasn't an illustrious start; his first job was playing sheet music for prospective customers in a Johannesburg department store - he was fired after 6 weeks. His first go at conducting was enhanced not by an elegant baton of the finest Maplewood but a rolled up old newspaper.
He's almost a hundred years old now, still plays the piano every day and only retired from the concert platform six years ago at the age of 94.
Producer: Sarah Taylor.
-
Stephen Fry
24 juni 2015 · 39 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway this week is Stephen Fry. Lees meer
Comedian, actor, writer, director, presenter & award-ceremony host - his list of accomplishments is long, varied and impressive. His younger years were troubled and with a propensity for stealing and lying, he was expelled from two schools and imprisoned for credit card fraud. The turning point came when he knuckled down and won a scholarship to Queens' College, Cambridge, where he read English and joined the Cambridge Footlights, becoming lifelong friends with Emma Thompson and Hugh Laurie.
His career highlights include the fruits of his collaborative work with Laurie - from A Bit of Fry and Laurie to Jeeves and Wooster, he played Lord Melchett in Blackadder and Oscar Wilde on the big screen. He is a best-selling author of fiction and three volumes of autobiography, is the voice of the Harry Potter audio books and presents BBC Two's QI. He has also spoken of his experience of mental health issues and in 2006 he made a documentary exploring the effects of living with Bipolar - it won an Emmy Award.
Producer: Cathy Drysdale.
-
Rebecca Adlington
14 juni 2015 · 35 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway this week is Rebecca Adlington - Britain's most successful female swimmer. Lees meer
A multiple medal winner and record breaker she's packed a lot in at a young age, first grabbing the nation's attention by winning two golds at the Beijing Olympics and breaking a world record into the bargain. When she got back home she was granted the Freedom of Mansfield and the Mayor gave her a pair of golden shoes. The Queen opted for the more conventional approach, bestowing an OBE.
She went on to win two more medals at the London 2012 Olympics and when all the cheering and flag waving had died down and the games were over she announced her retirement. She's hardly been a slouch since - appearing regularly on TV, getting married and in recent months getting ready for the birth of her first child, a daughter, who was born Monday 8, June, 2015. She's only 26.
One of three sisters, family life was dominated by early morning training session at the local pool and it wasn't long before little Becky was out of the shallow end and heading for the fast lane ... The Sherwood Baths are now renamed The Rebecca Adlington Swimming Centre.
Producer: Sarah Taylor.
-
Lisa Jardine
10 juni 2015 · 38 min
Beluister deze afleveringProfessor Lisa Jardine, academic, biographer and public thinker, is interviewed by Kirsty Young for Desert Island Discs. Lees meer
Historian, biographer, public thinker, mathematician - her proclivities are wide ranging and well regarded with prize winning books on subjects as diverse as Sir Christopher Wren, Seventeenth century Holland, Erasmus and women in the time of Shakespeare.
Her current day job is leading the Department of Renaissance Studies at University College London, she's also a prolific writer and broadcaster. If that all seems a little ivory tower for your tastes think again; as Chair of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority for many years she was at the sharp end of the complex conundrums and high emotion that surround the artificial creation of life, leading the world in developing the legal framework that governs IVF treatment.
Her rigour and originality, then, are greatly admired and both seem to have been in evidence since the beginning - her schoolgirl contemporaries had pictures of Elvis by their beds. Lisa had other ideas, as a teenager she gazed lovingly at a photo of a brilliant mathematician.
She says: "I only do things I love, and I love everything I do ..."
Producer: Sarah Taylor.
-
Pamela Rose
31 mei 2015 · 39 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway is Pamela Rose. Lees meer
Now aged 97, she was a Bletchley Girl who spent her war years working in total secrecy, painstakingly indexing snippets of information that would prove vital to the the war effort. Alan Turing and his fellow cryptanalysts would eventually break the Enigma Code and it's said that this breakthrough shortened the war by two years.
Born into a musical family, she first took to the stage at boarding school. Pamela's lifelong ambition to be an actress was interrupted by the war and the invitation to work at Bletchley. Despite finding the work in the indexing section of Hut 4 something of a disappointment at first, she and her fellow workers still managed to have fun and she met her husband Jim at a hop when he asked her to dance. They married after the war and it wasn't until nearly sixty years later and after Jim's death that she would finally achieve her dream of acting on the West End stage.
Producer: Cathy Drysdale.
-
Jimmy Wales
24 mei 2015 · 35 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway is the internet entrepreneur Jimmy Wales. Lees meer
He is best known as the co-founder of the free online encyclopedia Wikipedia. He grew up in Huntsville, Alabama and was the eldest child of a grocery store manager and his wife who ran a primary school where Jimmy and his siblings were educated. After acquiring a degree in finance and working as a trader in Chicago, his first serious foray into the online world was with the web portal Bomis, before branching out with a project called Nupedia, an online encyclopedia with entries written by scholars and published after undergoing peer review.
Wikipedia launched in 2001 and now exists in 287 languages and is the 7th most accessed website in the world with over 20 billion page views per month. It can be edited by anyone though relies on a core of around 5,000 volunteers who are responsible for the majority of the content. It is Jimmy's aim to create "a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge."
Producer: Cathy Drysdale.
-
Helen Browning
17 mei 2015 · 36 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway is the farmer, and Chief Executive of the Soil Association, Helen Browning. Lees meer
Born and brought up on the farm in Wiltshire she runs today, she told her father she wanted to be a 'proper farmer' aged just 9. By the time she was 24 her father had passed the reins on to her and not long after, she made it entirely organic.
Inspired by five of her great aunts who, after the First World War, began farming themselves, today she continues to run the family farm, her own meat business and the local pub. Awarded the OBE in 1998 for services to farming, she is chair of the Food Ethics Council, has served on the Curry Commission into the Future of Farming and Food and was appointed Chief Executive of the Soil Association in 2010.
Producer: Cathy Drysdale.
-
Sir Bradley Wiggins
10 mei 2015 · 35 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway is the cyclist Sir Bradley Wiggins. Lees meer
Winner of four Olympic gold medals, six track World Championship gold medals and the first Briton to win the Tour de France, cycling is in his blood. His parents met through the sport - his Australian father was himself a professional, his British mother a keen follower. His father left the family when Bradley was still a toddler and it was his mum, Linda, who helped him pursue his dreams of being a champion cyclist. Inspired by Chris Boardman's success at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics by the age of 16 he'd won gold, silver and bronze at the Junior National Track Championships and was called up to the National Squad. He was Junior World Champion at 18.
Knighted following his achievements in 2012, he's soon to attempt the world record for the furthest distance cycled in an hour and plans to return to the track in the Team Pursuit at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.
Producer: Cathy Drysdale.
-
Paul Hollywood
29 maart 2015 · 35 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway this week is Paul Hollywood. Lees meer
One of the UK's leading artisan bakers, he's a judge, together with Mary Berry, on BBC One's the Great British Bake Off. The programme enjoyed viewing figures of 15.6m for the 2014 final and has won two BAFTAS.
Born and brought up in Wallasey in the Wirral, Paul studied sculpture at art school before joining his father's bakery business. He went on to work at the Chester Grosvenor, Cliveden and was head baker at The Dorchester. Following his success at some of the UK's top hotels, he travelled extensively through Cyprus, Egypt and Jordan discovering ancient techniques for baking bread. It was in Cyprus that he first appeared on camera. On his return to the UK he began his TV career co-presenting two series with the chef James Martin.
Paul has judged five series of The Great British Bake Off and celebrity versions for Sport Relief and Comic Relief - all alongside Mary Berry. He has published several best-selling books on baking and is a regular contributor to food magazines and writes a column for The Daily Telegraph.
Producer: Cathy Drysdale.
-
Pat Albeck
22 maart 2015 · 36 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway this week is the designer Pat Albeck. Lees meer
Born in Hull, Pat went to art school there when she was 16. In 1950, she earned a place at The Royal College of Art to study textile design and moved to London. As Britain emerged from the austerity of the war years, Pat began her career designing bold and exciting fabrics for the fashionable dress design company of the time, Horrocks. In the 60 years that have followed, her designs have graced pottery, paper, furnishing fabrics as well as over 300 tea towels - a record which has brought her the unofficial title 'Queen of the Tea Towel'.
Producer: Isabel Sargent.
-
Robin Millar
15 maart 2015 · 35 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway this week is the record producer, Robin Millar. Lees meer
One of the UK's most successful record producers with over 160 gold, silver and platinum discs, he has over forty-four number one records to his credit. His 1984 production of Sade's debut album, 'Diamond Life', was named one of the best ten albums of the last thirty years at the 2010 Brit Awards.
He experienced problems with his eyesight from birth, especially in the dark, and had tunnel vision. Aged 16, a diagnosis of retinitis pigmentosa was confirmed and he was told that he would eventually lose his sight completely. On leaving school he studied law at Cambridge before becoming a music producer. The production of Sade's second album coincided with the loss of his remaining sight. In 2012 he underwent a retina implant which gave him some sight but the success was brief and later his body rejected it.
He works with a number of charities, mentors young musicians and was given a CBE for services to music in 2010.
Producer: Cathy Drysdale.
-
Bryan Stevenson
8 maart 2015 · 37 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's guest this week is Bryan Stevenson. Lees meer
An American lawyer, he is the founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, a private, not-for-profit organisation working on death penalty cases, cases of children sentenced as adults, prison and sentencing reform, and issues of race and poverty.
His great grandparents were slaves and he himself went to a segregated school in southern Delaware. Although from a poor African American background he made it to Harvard Law School. Since then he has secured relief for over a hundred prisoners sentenced to death. He has argued in front of the Supreme Court six times and won landmark rulings about the sentencing of children for both homicide and non-homicide offences. His TED talk from March 2012 has been viewed over two million times.
Producer: Cathy Drysdale.
-
Julia Samuel
1 maart 2015 · 36 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway this week is the psychotherapist, Julia Samuel. Lees meer
Counsellor for Paediatrics at London's St Mary's hospital, Paddington, she works with parents whose children have died and children who've experienced loss themselves. She is a Vice President of the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy, an Honorary Fellow of Imperial College and Founder Patron of The Child Bereavement Trust - now Child Bereavement UK.
One of five children, she was born into the banking line of the Guinness family. She describes her childhood as rather old-fashioned - her governess was an important figure in her life. As a young woman she worked in Paris and then set up her own interior decorating business. But it was her work with the charity, Birthright that lead to her finding her vocation as a counsellor. In the late 1980s she met and became close friends with Princess Diana who was both a supporter of the Child Bereavement Trust and godmother to her son. Today Julia Samuel is one of Prince George's godparents.
Producer: Cathy Drysdale.
-
Jonas Kaufmann
22 februari 2015 · 37 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway this week is the tenor, Jonas Kaufmann. Lees meer
Frequently referred to as one of the greatest singers of his generation, both his parents fled East Germany for Munich between the end of the war and the Berlin wall being erected. Jonas was brought up singing in choirs, playing the piano and listening to a range of classical music. When he was seven, he was enthralled by seeing his first opera - Madam Butterfly. He studied Maths at university, but soon changed to music and quickly started getting professional singing work.
Since then he has taken on many of the great roles for tenors, at opera houses around the world - Don Carlo, Don José (Carmen), Alfredo (La Traviata), and Cavaradossi (Tosca). He is also known as a singer of 'Lieder' & renowned not only for the beauty of his voice but for his musical range.
Producer: Cathy Drysdale.
-
Mark Rylance
15 februari 2015 · 38 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway this week is the actor, Mark Rylance. Lees meer
Born in Kent and brought up in America where his father was a teacher, Mark played Hamlet for the first time while he was still at school. Since then he has become particularly well known for his acclaimed and award-winning Shakespearean stage roles. He won an Olivier and a Tony award for his portrayal of Johnny 'Rooster' Byron in Jez Butterworth's 'Jerusalem' onstage in both Britain and the United States. He has also appeared in a number of film roles, was the first artistic director of The Globe Theatre - a post he held for a decade - and his portrayal of Thomas Cromwell in the BBC Television adaptation of Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall has now brought him to a wider audience.
Producer: Isabel Sargent.
-
Dan Pearson
8 februari 2015 · 36 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's guest this week is the garden designer, Dan Pearson. Lees meer
His style is governed by a desire to create a sense of place and he is drawn to wild plants and gardens. Aged just five he discovered this passion, while building roof gardens for his collection of trolls and spent the summer watching the plant and animal life in a pond created by his father.
He gave up A' levels in favour of apprenticeships at RHS Wisley and the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew and then spent several years working abroad, studying plants in their natural environment. His first large-scale project was creating a garden for Frances Mossman, a colleague of his mother's, who asked him to design the garden at her Northamptonshire plot. He won more clients through word of mouth and set up his own garden design company in the late 1980s. His work has since taken him all over the world and he has designed five award-winning gardens for the Chelsea Flower Show. Amongst his current projects he is creating a design for London's proposed Garden Bridge.
Producer: Cathy Drysdale.
-
Professor Angie Hobbs
1 februari 2015 · 36 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway is Angie Hobbs, Professor of the Public Understanding of Philosophy at the University of Sheffield - a role which has brought her to the attention of a large audience. Lees meer
Brought up in Surrey, she was the youngest of three children. Her older sister died when Angie was just 11 years old. To begin with, she did not flourish at school, but went on to earn a place at Cambridge where she gained a first class degree in Classics and subsequently a doctorate. A career in academia has followed - after many years at the University of Warwick, she moved, in 2012, to the University of Sheffield.
Producer: Isabel Sargent.
-
Professor Peter Piot
25 januari 2015 · 36 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway is the Director of London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Professor Peter Piot. Lees meer
As a microbiologist he is known for his research into viruses and into the public health aspects of sexually transmitted diseases, and, more recently, on the politics of AIDS and global health. Born in Leuven in Belgium, he studied medicine and in 1976, as a young researcher at the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, he was sent a blood sample of a Belgian nun living in what was then Zaire who had fallen ill with a mysterious disease. On investigation, Piot and his colleagues realised it was a virus they'd not seen before which they went on to identify as Ebola. He then travelled to Zaire to help quell the outbreak.
Later, back in Antwerp, he developed an interest in sexually transmitted diseases and joined the World Health Organisation's Global Programme on HIV/AIDS in 1992. Appointed as Executive Director of the newly created Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS in late 1994 his major successes were putting AIDS on the political agenda and achieving a reduction in the price of antiretroviral drugs.
Producer: Cathy Drysdale.
-
Julia Cleverdon
18 januari 2015 · 36 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway this week is the campaigner, Dame Julia Cleverdon. Lees meer
As head of the charity, Business in the Community, she fine-tuned to perfection the art of persuasion. A phone call from her and many of the big beasts of the business world - the "pinstripes" she calls them - stride from their boardrooms intent on giving something back to society. Her energies and endeavours have powered countless corporate social responsibility programmes.
In a life dedicated to public service, she has charmed not only chief executives but apparently royalty too - HRH the Prince of Wales is a long time supporter and collaborator.
She seems keenly aware that not everyone has her good fortune of a first class education and top drawer connections - when she's not harrying the blue chip brigade, she's inspiring young people from all sorts of backgrounds to follow her example and get involved in social action.
She says, "one of the most important leadership roles is to grow people. It is very much like gardening. You tend them and apply fertiliser. But sometimes you have to prune them to make them grow stronger."
Producer: Paula McGinley.
-
Jo Malone
11 januari 2015 · 34 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway this week is the business woman, Jo Malone. Lees meer
If her name automatically conjures the citrusy scents of lime, basil and mandarin or spicy notes of amber and lavender then you're doubtless one of the customers who flock into the eponymous stores to buy the products that have made her a household name.
Aged nine, she would grind sandlewood and strain juniper at the kitchen table. 17 years later fashionable London flocked to her little salon in Chelsea to be massaged with oils and unguents. In the 1990s the brand went international and the fragrance made her fortune when she sold the business.
If this all sounds like a fragrant little fairy tale, crisply wrapped in a signature black grosgrain bow, it isn't. Severely dyslexic she left school at 14. Her dad was a talented painter but a chronic gambler too, and home life was sometimes hand-to-mouth. Later, and at a time in her life when she should have been enjoying her success and her toddler son, she was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer. Finally fully recovered she decided to start again from scratch.
She says, 'I love sharing my story, and I'm not frightened of people seeing the cracks as well as the strengths. I think the things that are sad and difficult are just as important.'
Producer: Cathy Drysdale.
-
Professor Dame Nancy Rothwell
4 januari 2015 · 37 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway this week is the scientist, Professor Dame Nancy Rothwell, who is best known for her work in the field of neuroscience and stroke research. She is now President and Vice-Chancellor of Manchester University.
She claims that her decision to enrol at Queen Elizabeth College in London in the '70s was made not on the basis of their superior teaching on the function of living systems, but rather the institution's proximity to Kensington High Street. Anyway, she gained a first class degree and then bagged a PhD in just two years. Lees meerCould it be that her interest in how we keep the human body alive and functioning began when, aged eight, she contracted primary tuberculosis and was so ill she spent 18 months at home?
She says, "Like most academics my fate was sealed during my PhD, I fell in love with research and vowed I would do it until retirement. I was also sure that I would do my utmost to avoid any of those nasty administrative jobs."
Producer: Christine Pawlowsky.
-
Ray Winstone
28 december 2014 · 33 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway this week is the actor Ray Winstone. Lees meer
Nil By Mouth, Sexy Beast, Vincent, The Sweeney - he's probably best known for totally authentic tough-guy, geezer-parts. But his work has more range and nuance, encompassing roles as varied as Henry VIII, Magwich in Great Expectations and the lead in Beowulf.
Beyond the screen the man himself almost seems to come from a bygone era, when a fellow worth his salt always wore a dapper three piece suit and was handy with his fists. In his youth as a boxer he won 80 of his 88 fights and it seemed for a while that a whiff of menace had followed him out of the ring and onto the streets.
However he says, "I'm not like the geezers I play: loads of things scare me in everyday life but you have to hide a bit and put on a front. I cry at movies, I cry at scripts, I cried when West Ham got back into the Premiership - I'm even frightened of spiders."
Producer: Cathy Drysdale.