Alle afleveringen
2.000 afleveringen, van nieuw naar oud
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Dr Hanna Segal
23 juli 2006 · 36 min
Beluister deze afleveringSue Lawley's castaway this week is the psychoanalyst Dr Hanna Segal. Hanna Segal is one of the most distinguished psychoanalysts of our time. She was born in Poland at the end of the First World War and after a sometimes difficult childhood her family moved to Switzerland and then France to flee the Nazis. They ended up on a Polish troop ship that brought them to Britain just in time, as she says, for the Blitz. Lees meer
As a teenager she was passionate about aesthetics and politics but did not know how how to combine her passions in a career - once she discovered the work of Sigmund Freud she knew her calling lay in psychoanalysis. Her mentor was Melanie Klein and she wrote what has become a standard text about her work. Dr Segal has written too about psychoanalysis and aesthetics and our response to the threat posed by nuclear weapons. She has held the post of Freud Professor at University College London and is a past president of the British Psychoanalytical Society. Now aged 87, she continues to work overseeing student analysts and giving seminars.
[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]
Favourite track: 2nd movement of String Quartet in C Minor by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Book: In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust
Luxury: A snorkel and Polaroids -
Ian Rankin
16 juli 2006 · 34 min
Beluister deze afleveringSue Lawley's castaway this week is the writer Ian Rankin. Ian Rankin is an award-winning writer of crime fiction and the creator of the Scottish detective John Rebus who has featured in 17 novels to date. Lees meer
Born in Fife, Rankin came from a working-class background in a coal-mining town where he says he spent most of his childhood trying to "look like he fitted in". In his bedroom he would live out a fantasy life, writing poems, stories and creating strip-cartoons. He admits there are many parallels between himself and Rebus - they lived at the same Edinburgh address, both are fond of a drink and now they even share the same taste in music, though unlike Rebus, Rankin has never smoked. However all that is about to change; Rebus has reached the age of retirement in the police force and Rankin's next novel will be the last in the series.
[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]
Favourite track: Solid Air by John Martyn
Book: A Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell
Luxury: Pinball machine (traditional American one) -
Monty Don
9 juli 2006 · 36 min
Beluister deze afleveringSue Lawley's castaway this week is the gardener and broadcaster, Monty Don. Three years ago Monty Don became the nation's most high-profile gardener when he took over from Alan Titchmarsh as the lead presenter of Gardener's World. Entirely self-taught, he has been gardening since he was a child - but it was not until he was in his late thirties that he found he could make his great passion become his vocation. Lees meer
His first career ended disastrously; he and his wife Sarah set up a jewellery business together and during the 1980s they prospered; they had shops and offices in Knightsbridge and counted singers and film stars among their clients. But when the slump came they lost everything - the business, their jobs and their home.
Monty suffered years of depression that left him barely able to function. It was by chance that he was offered some stints presenting gardening slots on television. He never looked back - he says there hasn't been a day since when he's not been working and he's become a successful gardening columnist, broadcaster and author.
[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]
Favourite track: A Hard Day's Night by The Beatles
Book: Collected Poems of Henry Vaughan
Luxury: Hendrickje Bathing by Rembrandt -
Lord Browne
2 juli 2006 · 35 min
Beluister deze afleveringSue Lawley's castaway this week is the chief executive of BP, John Browne. His father had also worked for the company and through visits to Iran as a boy, he witnessed spectacular oil-well blow-outs which gave him a fascination for the business. He joined BP after leaving university, starting at the sharp end as a petroleum engineer in Alaska in the 1970s. For 20 years, he travelled the world, working his way up the ladder before permanently settling in London. Lees meer
Almost 10 years ago, he said that oil companies must take seriously the threat of global warming and take measures to tackle the issue. He was knighted in 1998, and created a life peer in 2001 as Lord Browne of Madingley.
[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]
Favourite track: An extract from the end of Act 1 of Cosi Fan Tutte by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Book: Other Men's Flowers: An Anthology of Poetry by Lord Wavell
Luxury: A lifetime's supply of great cigars -
Peter Mansfield
18 juni 2006 · 36 min
Beluister deze afleveringSue Lawley's castaway this week is the Nobel prize-winning physicist Sir Peter Mansfield. His work in magnetic resonance imaging more than 30 years ago led to the development of the MRI scanner, which has revolutionised the diagnosis of illness today. Lees meer
He was born in London before the Second World War and as a boy, remembers the first Doodlebug attack on the capital. Watching the flying bombs gave him an interest in rocket propulsion which was to lead to a life-long career in science. The son of a gas-fitter, he left school without O levels at the age of 15. His school careers' officer had laughed at his ambition to be a scientist and fixed him up with a job as a printer. He put himself through night school, and went on to graduate with a first class degree in physics.
The first MRI scan was performed using him as the guinea-pig and with next-of-kin on hand because of the risks involved. His pioneering research was carried out at the University of Nottingham where he became Emeritus Professor of Physics. In 2003 he was jointly awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine at the age of 70.
[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]
Favourite track: Vltava Suite from Smetana's Má Vast by Bedrich Smetana
Book: Family photograph albums
Luxury: Helicopter -
George Davies
11 juni 2006 · 35 min
Beluister deze afleveringSue Lawley's castaway this week is the retail legend George Davies. In the 1980s he changed the shape of our high streets with his chain Next. In the 1990s he made supermarket clothes fashionable with his George range for Asda and in 2001 he launched his Per Una collection in Marks and Spencer - it's credited with helping the store find renewed financial success. He was brought up in Liverpool and showed early promise as a footballer - he was talent-spotted by the legendary Bill Shankly, but wasn't good enough to play at the highest level. Then he nearly became a dentist but, after dropping out of university, found a job with Littlewoods as stock controller in charge of children's ankle socks. From the day he started he says he never looked back - he knew his future lay in retail. Lees meer
His trick is knowing his market, and he does that by carefully studying the details of how his clothes sell. Each week he analyses sales figures for every garment, in every store up and down the country - the result, he says, is that he not only knows what women like, he knows what they think.
[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]
Favourite track: You'll Never Walk Alone by Gerry and the Pacemakers
Book: A book about learning to paint
Luxury: A Cannondale Bike -
Armando Iannucci
4 juni 2006 · 37 min
Beluister deze afleveringSue Lawley's castaway this week is the satirist Armando Iannucci. He has lampooned news journalism with his creations On the Hour and The Day Today and plumbed the shallows of the chat show circuit through the vain and insecure Alan Partridge. His most recent work has been more biting: his Westminster satire The Thick of It dissects the relationship between politicians, their spin-doctors and the media they want to control. Decisions are made on the hoof, in haste and in response to media pressure - there's not a politician, civil servant or journalist who isn't compromised in the process. Lees meer
A highly academic child at a Jesuit school, in his teens he harboured ambitions to become a Catholic priest. His parents thought he might become a doctor or lawyer, but after getting a first-class degree from Oxford, and spending three years writing a thesis about religious language with reference to Milton, he concentrated on comedy instead. He joined the BBC and ended up producing the radio comedy programmes he had listened to as a child.
He is currently involved in developing new comedy for the BBC and is this year's Visiting Professor of Broadcast Media at Oxford University.
This programme includes language which may offend some listeners.
[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]
Favourite track: Opening of Mahler's 9th Symphony by Gustav Mahler
Book: Complete Short Stories by H G Wells
Luxury: Virtual sherry trifle -
Rt Hon David Cameron MP
28 mei 2006 · 36 min
Beluister deze afleveringSue Lawley's castaway this week is Rt Hon David Cameron MP, Leader of the Conservative Party and Leader of the Opposition. He was elected last December, beating his rival David Davis by more than 70,000 votes. Educated at Eton and Oxford, should he become Prime Minister, he would be the first Conservative Old Etonian to do so since Sir Alec Douglas-Home in 1963. He grew up in West Berkshire, the son of a stockbroker father and a mother who was a magistrate. Lees meer
After graduating with a First in Politics, Philosophy and Economics, he joined the Conservative Research Department in 1988, where he witnessed the downfall of Margaret Thatcher. He became special adviser to the former chancellor Norman Lamont and was at his side on Black Wednesday. His own political career took off in 2001 when he was elected MP for Witney. From the beginning he was tipped for high office and in 2004 he joined Michael Howard's shadow cabinet. He divides his time between homes in London and an Oxfordshire village, where he has won first prize for his home-grown tomatoes.
[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]
Favourite track: Tangled Up In Blue by Bob Dylan
Book: The River Cottage Cookbook by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
Luxury: A crate of Scottish whisky -
Sir Digby Jones
21 mei 2006 · 35 min
Beluister deze afleveringSue Lawley's castaway this week is the Director General of the CBI, Sir Digby Jones. He was born and grew up in the West Midlands at a time where 'the Austin' car plant formed the 'centre of the universe'. His father ran the local grocer's shop until the arrival of the supermarkets in the 1960s, giving Digby his first taste of business. Lees meer
After winning a scholarship to public school, he joined the Royal Navy to pay his way through university where he studied law, before becoming a high-flier in the world of corporate finance. Six years ago he was head-hunted to become 'the voice of British business'. Knighted in 2005, he is a regular visitor to Downing Street and bangs the drum for the UK around the world, while sporting his union flag cufflinks. He is known for his energy and enthusiasm, and his charity fund-raising has taken him from Lands End to John O'Groats on a bike. Typically, he will make two speeches a day, while his love of food gets him through the vast amounts of 'professional eating' involved in the job. He reaches the end of his term at the CBI in July.
[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]
Favourite track: Wind Beneath my Wings by Bette Midler
Book: How Britain Made The Modern World by Niall Ferguson
Luxury: Video or pictorial book of '100 examples of excellence' -
Darcey Bussell
14 mei 2006 · 36 min
Beluister deze afleveringSue Lawley's castaway this week is the ballerina Darcey Bussell OBE. At the age of twenty, she became the Royal Ballet's youngest Principal and went on to dance on the international stage in Paris, New York, St Petersburg and Milan. She was spotted by the great choreographer Sir Kenneth Macmillan at the age of 16, and though tall for a ballerina, she had an energy that he found refreshing. In 1989 she made her debut in Covent Garden as Princess Rose in The Prince of the Pagodas, a role created for her. Her classical repertory has included principal roles in Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker. Lees meer
Her first child was born prematurely as a result of the life-threatening condition pre-eclampsia. Her speedy recovery she put down to her strength and fitness, and she returned to dance three months later. She has announced her decision to retire as a Principal of the Royal Ballet next month, though she will continue to dance as a guest artist.
[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]
Favourite track: Virtual Insanity by Jamiroquai
Book: A biography of Audrey Hepburn
Luxury: Eye lash curler -
Daniel Barenboim
7 mei 2006 · 40 min
Beluister deze afleveringSue Lawley's castaway this week is the pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim. As this year's Reith Lecturer on Radio 4 he described how he interprets and understands life through music. On Desert Island Discs he gives a personal insight into his own life and career. He was a child prodigy - the only son of musical parents, he gave his first piano recital at the age of seven and when he was 11 the legendary conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler described him as 'a phenomenon'. Lees meer
His marriage to the British cellist Jacqueline du Prè made them the most celebrated musical couple of their day - but less than two years after they were married, she began to show symptoms of multiple sclerosis - the disease that would kill her. In a moving interview recorded in his home in Jerusalem, Daniel Barenboim talks frankly about their relationship and the cruelty of her illness; he reveals his own musical influences and also discusses his plans to spend more time playing the piano, after stepping down as Music Director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra later this year.
He would, Daniel says, only take musical scores to the island, and not records.
[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]
Book: Ethics by Benedict Spinoza
Luxury: A piano with a mattress -
Terence Stamp
12 maart 2006 · 37 min
Beluister deze afleveringSue Lawley's castaway is the actor Terence Stamp. Lees meer
Terence Stamp was one of the new group of confident, beautiful, working class young people who came to define the 1960s. He shared a flat with Michael Caine, dated the actress Julie Christie and the first supermodel Jean Shrimpton. He became an overnight success - and won an Oscar nomination - for his first film role as Billy Budd. He acted alongside Christie in Far from the Madding Crowd and found further fame with roles in The Collector and Modesty Blaise. He was driven to act after first seeing Beau Geste when he was just a small boy - the cinema offered an escape route from the monochrome world of London's East End.
But when the 1960s ended he found he was offered fewer interesting roles, his relationship with Shrimpton ended and he headed eastwards on a journey of self-discovery. Now 66, he's suave, still acting and recently married.
[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]
Favourite track: Impromptu No.4 in C sharp Minor by Frédéric Chopin
Book: Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
Luxury: One of his wheat-free loaves -
Jack Higgins
5 maart 2006 · 35 min
Beluister deze afleveringSue Lawley's castaway this week is the thriller writer Harry Patterson - otherwise known as Jack Higgins. Harry Patterson grew up in the midst of the violence and disarray of 1940s Belfast and the turmoil he witnessed there has been an enduring influence on his work. He always knew he wanted to become a writer, but he wasn't a promising pupil at school and left without qualifications. He took himself off to evening classes, gained a degree and trained as a teacher - but he spent every spare evening dreaming up plots for thrillers, always hoping that they might earn him 'an extra bob or two'. Lees meer
A chance encounter with one of his old teachers made him change his style and develop his characters more fully. He took on the pseudonym Jack Higgins and, in his mid-forties, wrote the book that made him a household name: The Eagle Has Landed. He's written more than sixty novels and sold hundreds of millions of books worldwide. He is one of the few British writers to be as successful in America as here and, at the age of 76, is still creating new plots and new characters.
[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]
Favourite track: Let's Face the Music and Dance by Fred Astaire
Book: Complete works by Charles Dickens
Luxury: Mobile phone -
Rachel Whiteread
26 februari 2006 · 33 min
Beluister deze afleveringSue Lawley's castaway this week is the artist Rachel Whiteread. Lees meer
She came to public prominence in 1993 with the life-size concrete cast of a Victorian house in East London. The sculpture prompted a public debate about what conceptual art is - the house was destroyed shortly afterwards. At the same time, Whiteread was named winner of the Turner Prize at the age of 30. She had studied sculpture at the Slade School of Fine Art and became one of the generation of Young British Artists, with her work displayed alongside that of Damien Hirst. Her most controversial work - a memorial to 65,000 Austrian Jews who died in the Holocaust - was unveiled in Vienna in 2000 amid heightened political tension. Much of her work focuses on casting hidden spaces, with the inside of a box as the inspiration for the 14,000 boxes which form her latest exhibit, Embankment, on display at Tate Modern, London, until the end of April.
[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]
Favourite track: The Köln Concert Part 1 by Keith Jarrett
Book: A reference book on the natural history of the island
Luxury: Ink, pen, paper and correction fluid -
Frederic Raphael
19 februari 2006 · 36 min
Beluister deze afleveringSue Lawley's castaway this week is the screen writer Frederic Raphael. For 50 years Frederic Raphael has written witty scripts for television and the silver screen. He won an Oscar for his film Darling, which starred Julie Christie, and became a household name with his television series The Glittering Prizes. Lees meer
He was born in Chicago but came to England as a boy - where, his father advised him, he could grow up to be 'an English gentleman' rather than 'an American Jew'. While his parents did not want to disown their faith, nor did they want to be defined by it and they were very cautious about the way Jews were perceived in Britain before the Second World War. He was one of only a handful of Jewish boys at boarding school and was isolated and miserable there. But his loneliness led him to the solitary pursuit of writing - an occupation where he could right the wrongs he had suffered. A bright pupil, his own glittering prize was winning a scholarship to Cambridge - after that, he said, no other success in his life could compare.
For the past 50 years he has split his time between London, France and Greece - accompanied all the time by his wife, Sylvia-Betty.
[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]
Favourite track: Vorka Sto Yialo by Manos Tacticos & his Bouzoukis
Book: Oxford Latin Dictionary
Luxury: Mont Blanc pen, nibs and spiral squared notebooks -
Karen Armstrong
12 februari 2006 · 37 min
Beluister deze afleveringSue Lawley's castaway this week is the author Karen Armstrong. She writes books about the world's religions, trying to explain that their strength lies not in dogma but profound and enduring truths. Since 9/11 her books on Islam in particular have become best-sellers - although she has also written on Judaism, Buddhism, the Crusades and Christianity. Lees meer
She was brought up in Birmingham, but at the age of 17 she left her family to become a nun. She had hoped to become enriched by the contemplative life - but it left her feeling a failure, shamed by her inability to pray as the other nuns did. After seven years she turned her back on the convent and became a teacher. Then a chance opportunity to work in television led to her studying the world's religions - and becoming fascinated by the similarities between them. Now she is in great demand as a public speaker - and when she isn't touring the world she says she leads a nun-like life; living alone, contemplating God and thinking about the nature of faith and understanding.
[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]
Favourite track: 3rd movement of String Quartet in A minor by Ludwig van Beethoven
Book: Complete Works by John Milton
Luxury: Continuous supply of very cold & dry white wine -
Jeremy Irons
5 februari 2006 · 35 min
Beluister deze afleveringSue Lawley's castaway this week is the actor Jeremy Irons. Lees meer
He made his name playing Charles Ryder in Brideshead Revisited in 1981 and became known for his quintessentially English roles. It was an image he later sought to discard and he certainly did so in the film Lolita, where his portrayal of Humbert Humbert reopened the controversy about the desires of a middle-aged man for a 14-year old girl. In the film The Mission he played a gentle Jesuit missionary and went on to act as his own stuntman, climbing a perilous waterfall. It was his performance in Reversal of Fortune that won him an Oscar for Best Actor as the real-life character Claus Von Bulow, accused and acquitted of the attempted murder of his wife. Later this month, he returns to the West End stage after almost 20 years to star in the play Embers, a story of friendship and betrayal.
[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]
Favourite track: One step at a Time by Clifton Chenier
Book: Ashley Books of Knots by Clifford Ashley
Luxury: Rizla liquorice papers -
Rt Hon Shirley Williams
29 januari 2006 · 38 min
Beluister deze afleveringSue Lawley's castaway this week is the politician Baroness Williams of Crosby. Shirley Williams has spent her life immersed in politics. Her father was a Labour Party activist and her mother the writer and pacifist Vera Brittain. Their home was always filled with topical conversation, from the rise of Hitler to the Spanish Civil War. Lees meer
She became a Labour Party member when still a teenager and, after a chance encounter in an air-raid shelter, formed a friendship with the then Home Secretary Herbert Morrison. She enjoyed a career within the Labour Party but, dismayed by its drift to the left, she abandoned it to become one of the Gang of Four who set up the Social Democratic Party in 1981 and later supported its merger with the Liberal Party. Now, as the Liberal Democrats are in the midst of leadership elections, she reflects on the difficulties the party has faced in recent months, and what it must do to regain public support.
[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]
Favourite track: How Beautiful are the Feet by George Frideric Handel
Book: Collection by W H Auden
Luxury: PC linked to the internet -
John Sutherland
22 januari 2006 · 36 min
Beluister deze afleveringSue Lawley's castaway this week is the writer and academic John Sutherland. He is the recently retired Lord Northcliffe Professor of Modern English Literature at University College, London, a past Chairman of the Booker Prize panel and the author of one of the standard texts on Victorian fiction. But his route into academia was a curious one - and his life inside the ivory towers far from smooth. Lees meer
His father was killed in the war and he was brought up by his extended family in a peripatetic childhood. He joined the army but, with no war to fight, left his commission and went to university instead. He worked in Scotland and America but as his reputation grew, so did his dependence on alcohol. He finally hit rock bottom while in America and stopped drinking 23 years ago. Today he is a pre-eminent literary figure - combining erudition and historical research with a taste for the modern and the new.
[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]
Favourite track: The Piano has been Drinking (Not Me) by Tom Waits
Book: Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
Luxury: iPod -
Frankie Dettori
15 januari 2006 · 36 min
Beluister deze afleveringSue Lawley's castaway this week is the jockey Frankie Dettori. Over the past two decades he's won more than 2,000 races including most of the classics at home and abroad and has been Champion Jockey three times. The son of a famous Italian jockey, he was brought up in Italy but sent by his father to train at Newmarket when he was 14 years old - 18 months later he was winning races. In 1996 he won seven races out of seven in a single day at Ascot - a feat that has not been achieved before or since. Lees meer
But in 2000 he thought his luck had run out when he and fellow jockey Ray Cochrane left Newmarket in a light aircraft - only for it to plunge to the ground moments after take-off. He thought he was about to die and on coming round in the wreckage was not sure whether he was alive or dead. The event left him undecided as to what to do next. He was a hugely popular team captain on BBC TV's A Question of Sport for two years, but a chance remark from one of the contestants who thought he had retired made him realise he had to focus on being a jockey. He returned to the sport with a renewed vigour and became Champion jockey once again. Now a father of five, Frankie plans to retire at 45 and hopes that by then he will have won the Epsom Derby - the only major title that has so far eluded him.
[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]
Favourite track: Amazing Grace by Royal Scots Dragoon Guards
Book: The History of the Derby
Luxury: Lifetime's supply of Pinot Grigio -
Richard Griffiths
8 januari 2006 · 35 min
Beluister deze afleveringSue Lawley's castaway this week is one of this country's leading character actors - Richard Griffiths. Most recently, he won three Best Actor awards for playing the English master in Alan Bennett's play 'The History Boys' but he has cross-generational appeal - perpetual adolescents revere his performance as gay Uncle Monty in the film Withnail and I while the younger generation know him as beastly Uncle Vernon from the Harry Potter films. Lees meer
He's had to work hard for his achievements: both his parents were profoundly deaf and, from a young age, he was their ears and their translator. He studied drama against his father's wishes - he had hoped his son would go to art college. However, he says his father was an expert in reading body language and he learned from him how people's physical behaviour reveals their inner thoughts. He is currently in the West End in Tom Stoppard's play Heroes; he's working on a film version of The History Boys, directed by Nicholas Hytner and is preparing to tour with The History Boys around the world.
[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]
Favourite track: Träumerei by Vladimir Horowitz
Book: Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
Luxury: Velasquez's Las Meninas -
Kelly Holmes
1 januari 2006 · 35 min
Beluister deze afleveringSue Lawley's castaway is the athlete Dame Kelly Holmes. Kelly Holmes was the heroine of the Athens Olympics. She achieved her lifetime's ambition when, at the age of 34, she won gold medals in the 800 and 1500 metres. Lees meer
As a teenager she witnessed Sebastian Coe's Olympic success in 1984 and that was the inspiration behind her own career in athletics. Early on her trainers recognised she had the natural talent - and determination - to succeed. But her career has been blighted by injury - she bowed out of the 1996 Olympics due to injury; won a bronze medal at the 2000 Sydney Olympics despite considerable physical pain; and several times had appeared close to the end of her career as a result of a series of health problems.
Now retired from athletics, she says she wants to inspire other schoolchildren to take up sport - and make sure that the whole of Britain feels the Olympic spirit by the time it comes to host the games in 2012.
[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]
Favourite track: If I Ain't Got You by Alicia Keys
Book: A Set of Encyclopaedias
Luxury: Large supply of chocolate -
John Rutter
25 december 2005 · 37 min
Beluister deze afleveringSue Lawley's castaway this week is the composer John Rutter. He is the most celebrated and successful composer of carols alive today and this Christmas his music will be heard in concerts and churches all over the world. He is drawn to the simplicity of Christmas carols and says he loves being able to compose 'a hummable tune'. Lees meer
Inspired and encouraged by his school education, he became Director of Music at Clare College, Cambridge, and then with a string of winning commissions already behind him, moved into full time composition. But his relationship with composition is a difficult one - it's a process he finds isolating and says that although it does not make him happy - he feels compelled to do it. However, once he has finished a work he says nothing in the world compares with the feeling he experiences when he conducts it for the first time. He says: "I write music that people will enjoy singing. I'm not ashamed of that".
[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]
Favourite track: Gloria in Excelsis Deo from B Minor Mass by Johann Sebastian Bach
Book: Teach yourself mathematics illustrated by voluptuous women
Luxury: Viola -
Maggi Hambling
18 december 2005 · 37 min
Beluister deze afleveringSue Lawley's castaway this week is the artist Maggi Hambling.
Above all else, she is known as a painter of people. Over the past 30 years she has painted George Melly, Stephen Fry and Michael Gambon among many others. But in the early years, her subjects were not well known; instead they were characters she saw on the streets or in the bars of South London. People whose faces she would commit to memory so that she could draw them when she returned to her studio. Lees meerShe was the first artist to be given a residency at the National Gallery and in 1995 won the Jerwood Prize. But although she remains in great demand as a portrait painter, her work provokes controversy too - her tribute to Benjamin Britten, an enormous scallop shell standing on the shore at Aldeburgh, continues to divide opinion in the town.
[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]
Favourite track: Runnin' Wild by Marilyn Monroe
Book: The Complete Works of Just William by Richmal Crompton
Luxury: A wine cellar from All Soul's, Oxford -
David Hope
11 december 2005 · 38 min
Beluister deze afleveringSue Lawley's castaway this week is the former Archbishop of York, David Hope. For a decade he was the second most important prelate in the Church of England but, earlier this year, he handed in his notice to return to life as a parish priest. Lees meer
As a young boy growing up in Wakefield, it was his cousin Muriel who would take him along to the town's cathedral to worship - he was captivated by the ritual and atmosphere of the place and 35 years later he returned as its Bishop. A traditionalist himself, he opposed the ordination of women and believes the church should resist pressure to ordain practising homosexuals, but he fears that both issues will continue to divide Anglicans across the world for the rest of his lifetime. He says he has never been happier than he is as a parish priest - and that throughout his ministry, he has been someone who preferred people to paper.
[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]
Favourite track: Vespers by Sergei Rachmaninov
Book: Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens
Luxury: A case of selected malt whiskies -
Colin Firth
4 december 2005 · 36 min
Beluister deze afleveringSue Lawley's castaway this week is the actor Colin Firth.
He created an iconic moment in British television history when, as Jane Austen's hero Mr Darcy, he emerged wet-shirted from his stately lake. To his surprise, he became a sex symbol, was dubbed the 'male Ursula Andress' and was voted Britain's Most Popular Actor in a BBC poll. He went on to send up the role on the big screen - as the ironically-named Mark Darcy, the brooding boyfriend of Bridget Jones. Lees meerHe always knew he wanted to act - from the moment when, as a five year old boy, he took on the role of Jack Frost at a school panto. He studied at the Drama Centre in London's Chalk Farm - where one of his teachers, Christopher Fettes, said he was by nature a poet and compared his acting to that of Paul Schofield. Married to an Italian woman and with two young sons, he now divides his time between life in London and in Italy.
[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]
Favourite track: Opening of the Kyrie from Mass in C Minor by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Book: Stories by Woody Allen
Luxury: His guitar -
Sir David Frost
27 november 2005 · 35 min
Beluister deze afleveringSue Lawley's guest this week is the veteran broadcaster Sir David Frost - the only British television presenter to have interviewed seven American presidents and six British Prime Ministers who has, over the past five decades, become a broadcasting institution. The presenter once known as a scourge of the Establishment has become something of an establishment figure himself, noted for his formidable contacts book, his star-studded parties, and for his gentle but revealing interviewing style. Lees meer
Born in 1939, the youngest son of a Methodist minister and his wife, David was football and cricket-mad from an early age but with a burning ambition to go to Cambridge University. He arrived there in 1958, and threw himself into it, joining Footlights and editing Varsity and Granta. After Cambridge, Ned Sherrin saw him performing a comedy act in a Mayfair bar and hired him up to present the iconic satirical programme That Was The Week That Was. Other successful programmes followed including Frost Over Britain and The Frost Report.
Breakfast with Frost ran for twelve years until early 2005. David is not retiring though and is due to present a new interview programme for Al-Jazeera International which will begin next Spring, and will also conduct occasional interviews for the BBC.
[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]
Favourite track: The Dam Busters by Eric Coates
Book: London A-Z
Luxury: Sunday papers -
Mary Midgley
20 november 2005 · 37 min
Beluister deze afleveringSue Lawley's castaway this week is the philosopher Mary Midgley. For the last 30 years Mary Midgley has been one of Britain's leading moral philosophers. She has been called "the most frightening philosopher in the country" as a result of her ideas and the acuity with which she defends them. Her work is chiefly concerned with the role of science in our lives; whether human nature exists, and if so, what it tells us about ourselves; the concept of wickedness; and the part that art and religion have to play in telling us about human behaviour and experience. Lees meer
Mary was born in 1919 in Greenford, the youngest of Cannon Scrutton and his wife Lesley's two children. She was educated at Sommerville College, Oxford and after university began working as a lecturer in the philosophy department at Reading University before moving to the University of Newcastle. She married Geoffrey Midgley, also a philosopher in 1950 and they went on to have three children. Her first philosophical book Beast and Man was published in 1979 when she was 50. Since then she has continued to publish books on a diverse range of issues. Now 86, Mary continues to live in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, in the home she shared with her husband Geoffrey, who died in 1997.
[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]
Favourite track: Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis by Vaughan Williams
Book: The Variety of Religious Experiences by William James
Luxury: A solar hot water system -
Renee Fleming
18 november 2005 · 37 min
Beluister deze afleveringSue Lawley's castaway this week is the soprano Renée Fleming.
Renée Fleming is one of the greatest sopranos on the world's stages today. She has won critical acclaim for her interpretations of Mozart and Strauss and has made a series of operatic roles her own - including the Countess in Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro and Dvorak's ill-fated water-nymph Rusalka. However, she says her route into classical music was far from straightforward. She grew up in upstate New York, the daughter of two music teachers. Although the family used to sing together, Renée says she was not a natural performer and was very anxious about appearing in public and then, while at college, her musical love was jazz rather than opera. Lees meerHer musical break-through came at the age of 29, when she was asked to stand in as the Countess in The Marriage of Figaro at the last minute. Since then she's appeared in all the great opera houses. As well as the standard repertoire, she is a champion of new music and Andre Previn is one of many who have written especially for her. She has won numerous accolades for her singing including two Grammies and two Classical Brit awards.
[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]
Favourite track: River by Renée Fleming
Book: The Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe by C S Lewis
Luxury: Coffee -
Chris Evans
6 november 2005 · 35 min
Beluister deze afleveringSue Lawley's castaway this week is the broadcaster Chris Evans. He is one of the most creative and influential broadcasters of his generation. He has been hailed as the saviour of more than one radio station and made a name for himself on television too - first of all on The Big Breakfast, but also with his own formats, including Don't Forget Your Toothbrush and TFI Friday. He's won a clutch of awards and, by taking over Virgin radio, made himself a millionaire many times over. But he also gained a reputation for being brash and bullying; he walked out on more than one job and his drinking binges were splashed across the tabloids. Lees meer
Since those days he's married and divorced, lived in America and, more recently, pursued a more peaceful existence - keeping chickens and growing vegetables at his cottage in the English countryside.
[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]
Favourite track: Here, There and Everywhere by The Beatles
Book: Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
Luxury: A pair of swimming goggles with prescription lenses -
Boris Johnson MP
30 oktober 2005 · 38 min
Beluister deze afleveringSue Lawley's castaway this week is the politician and journalist Boris Johnson. He is one of the most popular and unpredictable MPs on the Conservative party benches and, under his editorship, the weekly magazine The Spectator sells more copies than ever before. Lees meer
After Eton and Oxford he made his name as a journalist working for the Daily Telegraph in Brussels. His incisive reports about the future of Europe caused a furore at home and abroad - he claims one of his articles changed the course of European history - and, on returning to London, he hoovered up a number of awards, including columnist of the year and political commentator of the year. But it has not always been plain sailing. His critics say he cannot answer to two masters - and he must choose between politics and journalism - Boris doesn't necessarily agree!
[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]
Favourite track: Finale of Variations on a theme by Johannes Brahms
Book: Homer - an Indian paper edition (to translate)
Luxury: Large pot of French mustard -
Mario Testino
23 oktober 2005 · 34 min
Beluister deze afleveringSue Lawley's castaway is one of the world's most successful fashion photographers, Mario Testino. Lees meer
Kate Moss, Catherine Zeta Jones and Madonna are among the women who have posed for him and, most famously, he became Princess Diana's favourite photographer. But his route into photography was circuitous. He began studying law and then economics in his native Peru but finished neither course. He had a short spell in America before arriving in London and he says he immediately loved it here. But the early years were tough; he struggled to convince anyone at the glossy magazines to look at his work. Half the trouble, he says, was that he was ringing people from call boxes - and they would hang up before he'd had time to put in any money. But years of building contacts within the industry - and building trust among his models - have paid off and he is now as much as a celebrity as the women he photographs. His most famous pictures are those he took of Princess Diana looking confident, relaxed and happy, just months before she died. They have now been reprinted for a two-year long exhibition and he says that when he saw them again in the lab, it brought "a knot in his throat". Mario Testino's photographs of Diana, Princess of Wales, are being exhibited in the State Apartments at Kensington Palace from 24 November 2005.
[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]
Favourite track: Fina Estampa by Caetano Veloso
Book: Demian by Hermann Hesse
Luxury: Own pillow -
Jacqueline Wilson
16 oktober 2005 · 35 min
Beluister deze afleveringSue Lawley's castaway this week is the Children's Laureate Jacqueline Wilson. She's won just about every award going for children's fiction and, in a career spanning more than 30 years, has written more than 80 books. Even as a child she knew she wanted to write but, after an inauspicious time at school, she reluctantly trained to be a secretary instead. Then she began to pitch ideas for a new teen magazine, Jackie, her stories were bought and she quickly became a staff writer. Lees meer
But she was 50 before she devised her most famous creation, Tracy Beaker. Tracy is a streetwise, feisty girl growing up in the competitive world of a children's home, who never loses the hope that one day her mum will come back for her. The book was a breakthrough for Jacqueline and its subsequent television adaptation introduced her to a mass audience. In 2002 she was awarded an OBE for services to literacy.
[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]
Favourite track: Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No 5 in E flat by Ludwig van Beethoven
Book: The collected works by Katherine Mansfield
Luxury: A fairground carousel -
Michael Winner
9 oktober 2005 · 35 min
Beluister deze afleveringSue Lawley's castaway this week is the film director Michael Winner. Michael Winner is a film-maker, restaurant critic and columnist who has been called Britain's 'Jester Laureate'. He has enjoyed a career spanning 30 years as a director, working with Orson Welles, Marlon Brando and Faye Dunaway as well as being the man behind the controversial Death Wish films starring Charles Bronson. Born in October 1935, the only son of Helen and George Winner, Michael was a shy and sometimes lonely child. Even as a very young boy he knew he wanted to be connected to the movie industry - projecting shadow pictures and devising his own commentary when he was only five years old. At the age of 14 he was given his own showbusiness column in his local paper - which was syndicated across more than two dozen titles. It gave Michael access to some of the biggest stars of the time, including Nat King Cole, Bob Hope, the Marx Brothers. Lees meer
His first film, This is Belgium, was notable for being largely shot in East Grinstead. He says that while he admires directors who tackle social issues, he always wanted to be part of the glamour of Hollywood, making films that weren't to be taken too seriously and that were just a bit of fun.
[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]
Favourite track: Charge and Battle by Sir William Walton
Book: The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
Luxury: Big supply of caviar -
Frank Gardner
2 oktober 2005 · 35 min
Beluister deze afleveringSue Lawley's castaway this week is the BBC's Security Correspondent, Frank Gardner. For 10 years, he has been the BBC's expert on the Middle East - always authoritative and insightful, his analysis is based on first-hand knowledge of the region - after years spent studying Arabic and living and working in the Middle East. Lees meer
But in June last year the reporter became the news. He and his cameraman were attacked by gunmen while they filmed in Saudi Arabia. His colleague was killed, he was shot six times and left for dead. Incredibly, he survived - though with devastating injuries. Now he is paraplegic - he has some feeling and movement in his legs above the knee but none below. He uses a wheelchair for most of the day though remains determined to walk some of the time using callipers and a walking frame. Nearly a year after the attack he returned to work - continuing to analyse the terrorist threat and trying to explain the circumstances behind it - he is, he says, busier than ever.
[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]
Favourite track: Third movement of Concerto No 2 by Johann Sebastian Bach
Book: A Passage to India by E.M Forster
Luxury: A solar-powered buggy -
Julian Clary
25 september 2005 · 34 min
Beluister deze afleveringSue Lawley's castaway this week is the comedian Julian Clary. Julian Clary brought camp out of the closet and into the TV mainstream. In the late 1980s he burst onto television screens as The Joan Collins Fan Club, attracting a surprisingly broad audience with his extreme make-up and innuendo. The son of a policeman and a probation officer, Julian was born and brought up in Teddington and Surbiton, and as a child was deeply religious. He discovered his comic talent at Goldsmith's University in the late 1970s where, as well as taking part in rather serious drama productions, he and a friend created the duo Glad and May - two over-made-up cleaning ladies with a passion for 'rummaging' through the handbags of their hapless audience. Lees meer
In recent years, Julian has toned down the make-up and innuendo in order to take on a new role - Julian Clary, family favourite, star of prime time. Where once he had cult status, he now has serious mainstream appeal, recently presenting the new National Lottery show on BBC1 and reaching the final of Strictly Come Dancing.
[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]
Favourite track: Garu Nanaka Ji Ki Jai Kar by Dana Gillespie
Book: Stop Thinking, Start Living by Richard Carlson
Luxury: All-purpose prosthetic arm -
Brenda Blethyn
18 september 2005 · 34 min
Beluister deze afleveringSue Lawley's castaway this week is the actress Brenda Blethyn. Brenda Blethyn is one of our most versatile and talented actresses with film credits that include Secrets and Lies, Little Voice, Saving Grace and, now, Pride and Prejudice and has won a host of awards for her film and stage work. But she fell into acting by default. Born Brenda Bottle, the youngest of nine children, she had no burning desire to take to the stage. She was working as a secretary for British Rail when a friend had to pull out of an amateur-dramatic production and Brenda stood in as a favour. She discovered she loved it and went on to become the first actress to rise through the ranks of the National Theatre to play leading roles. Lees meer
She came to the nation's attention in 1996 playing the careworn Cynthia Purley in Mike Leigh's Secrets and Lies. Brenda Blethyn won a Golden Globe, a BAFTA and a Best Actress award at Cannes for her portrayal of a neglected woman coming to terms with the fact that the daughter she had adopted at birth had come to find her - and was black. This autumn, Brenda appears as Mrs Bennet in a new film adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, and in On a Clear Day, which recently premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Brenda was awarded an OBE in 2003.
[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]
Favourite track: Lay Me Low by John Tams with the Albion Band
Book: A dictionary
Luxury: Karaoke machine -
Ronald Searle
10 juli 2005 · 45 min
Beluister deze afleveringSue Lawley travels to Provence in the south of France to meet the illustrator and satirist Ronald Searle in his first recorded interview in more than 30 years. Ronald Searle is arguably Britain's foremost graphic satirist, though he has not lived in this country since 1961 and likes to comment that most people in Britain now think he's dead. He is best-known as the creator of St Trinian's, the horrible, suspender-wearing schoolgirls who devote more time to gambling, torture and arson than they do their lessons. Lees meer
Ronald Searle was born in 1920 in Cambridge and drew obsessively from an early age. At the age of just 15 he had his first cartoon published in the local paper, The Cambridge Daily News and his career blossomed in the mid-to-late 1930s. However, in 1939 he joined up and after two years of training he was posted to Singapore. He says that for a month they were 'running backwards' through the jungle before being captured by the Japanese and he spent the rest of the war as a P.O.W. They were traumatic years - he felt driven to draw as a way of recording what was happening around him - but his work led to him being singled out as a trouble-maker and as a result he was assigned to work on the infamous 'death railway' that the Japanese were building between Thailand and Burma. Ninety-five per cent of those working on it died but, despite coming close to death on several occasions, Ronald Searle survived.
In 1961 he left Britain for a new life in France - one where he was not known as the creator of St Trinians - but where he could concentrate on his political, satirical drawings and reportage. Now aged 85, he still regularly produces cartoons and illustrations for The New Yorker and Le Monde. His work can currently been seen at the Imperial War Museum in London.
[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]
Favourite track: The Champagne Song by Johann Strauss
Book: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography by Lawre… -
Paulo Coelho
3 juli 2005 · 36 min
Beluister deze afleveringSue Lawley's castaway this week is the author Paulo Coelho. Paulo Coelho is a publishing phenomenon - his books have sold more than 65 million copies and he counts Bill Clinton and Madonna among his readers. His most popular work and the one that earned him an international reputation is The Alchemist - a slender tale of a shepherd boy who risked everything to pursue his dreams. Coelho's detractors say his books are little more than self-help manuals - but his readers say their lives really have been changed by the simple wisdom of his stories. Lees meer
Paulo Coelho's life is as extraordinary as any work of fiction. He was born in Rio de Janeiro in 1947 to middle class parents who wanted him to become a lawyer. But, since winning his first literary prize in a school poetry competition, Paulo was determined to be a writer. His parents disapproved and, alarmed at their son's wayward lifestyle, repeatedly had him commited to an institution where he was given electric shock therapy. He later found success writing song lyrics - but his words were deemed subversive by the military police and he was captured and tortured. He was 40 years old before he finally pursued his own dream and started writing novels and he is now one of the most succesful writers in the world.
[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]
Favourite track: Symphony No 9 by Ludwig van Beethoven
Book: The complete works by Oscar Wilde
Luxury: A trip around my island on Concorde -
Ruby Wax
26 juni 2005 · 37 min
Beluister deze afleveringSue Lawley's castaway this week is the broadcaster and comedian Ruby Wax. Her brass neck and immunity to embarrassment led to her pioneering a new brand of journalism which saw celebrities, film stars and even royalty open their hearts - and their sock drawers - to her. She rifled through Madonna's handbag and, with Ruby's encouragement, Imelda Marcos entertained the audience with a rendition of Feelings. Lees meer
Ruby grew up in Illinois, the only child of Jewish refugees who had fled Austria in 1939. Her childhood was unhappy - and, by the time she was 18, she says she was so unconfident she feared she would never find a job without her parents' help. But she left America and came to Britain where, eventually, she was to find a place at the Royal Shakespeare Company. There, her friend and contemporary Alan Rickman persuaded her that her future lay in writing rather than acting. Her career has spanned more than 20 years but she says that while she has been enjoying the success that came her way, she has also suffered from depression and an anxiety that she should not pass on to her own children the insecurities she suffered from herself.
[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]
Favourite track: A Day in the Life by The Beatles
Book: The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann
Luxury: A huge bed -
Alexander McCall Smith
19 juni 2005 · 35 min
Beluister deze afleveringSue Lawley's castaway this week is the author Alexander McCall Smith. Alexander McCall Smith was an established professor of law, an expert on ethics and a part time musician when, at the age of 50, he wrote the book that turned his life on its head. The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency became a word of mouth best-seller. He has now written a series of books featuring Mma Precious Ramotswe, a 'traditionally built' Botswanan woman who spends as much time dealing with the trials of everyday life as solving crime. Her cases have included absent husbands, imposter fathers and missing children - all resolved using common sense and underpinned with a strong sense of the importance of traditional African social values. Lees meer
Alexander McCall Smith's fascination with, and devotion to, Africa is not surprising - he was born and brought up in Zimbabwe - then Southern Rhodesia - only moving to Britain when he began his legal studies. He visits Botswana every year. Even as a child he was a keen writer, and he was a published author for many years before he devised his most celebrated creation. His books are now printed in more than 30 languages and in 2004 he was named the Booksellers' Association Author of the Year.
[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]
Favourite track: Soave sia il Vento
by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Book: Collection by W H Auden
Luxury: A handmade pair of shoes -
Betsy Blair
12 juni 2005 · 36 min
Beluister deze afleveringSue Lawley's castaway this week is Betsy Blair. She was an actress in Hollywood during its heyday and is best known for her role in Marty, the Oscar-winning tale of a shy butcher and lonely teacher who, against the advice of friends and family, fall in love. She was barely 16 when she began her career as a dancer and it was while she was on her way to an early audition that she met Gene Kelly. She was still a teenager and he was 12 years her senior, but they were married and the couple set up home in one of Hollywood's most glamorous addresses - Rodeo Drive. They were known for throwing open their doors on Saturday night for star-studded parties; their guests included Tyrone Power, Judy Garland and Greta Garbo. Lees meer
After 16 years, the marriage broke up and Betsy moved first to France then England where she met and married Karel Reisz, director of The French Lieutenant's Woman. She embraced a career in European films, working with celebrated directors including Juan Antonio Bardem and Michelangelo Antonioni. Her 1955 film Marty was shown again as one of the classic films at this year's Cannes Film Festival.
[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]
Favourite track: There's a Boat dat's Leaving Soon for New York by George Gershwin
Book: Reading Lyrics - American Songs 1900-1975
Luxury: An ice cream maker -
Nigel Slater
5 juni 2005 · 34 min
Beluister deze afleveringSue Lawley's castaway this week is the cookery writer Nigel Slater. The British public have taken Slater and his recipes to their hearts and - crucially - their kitchens in recent years, encouraged by his philosophy that cooking need not be daunting. Don't cook to show off, he says, or because you feel you should - cook for enjoyment, and comfort. Choose good ingredients, cook them simply, and above all - relax. Lees meer
Slater's passion for food grew out of a lonely, neglected childhood in which his only comforts were culinary. Born in Wolverhampton in the late 50s, his mother died when he was just nine leaving a gap in his life which he tried to fill with comfort food. Against his father's wishes, he fantasised about being a chef, later leaving home to go to catering college and then work in a variety of restaurants around the country. After testing recipes for a new magazine, he first came to public attention as food editor for Marie Claire.
Currently food editor of the Observer, Slater's books are both popular and critically acclaimed. His 2003 memoir Toast won biography of the year at the British Book Awards, his cookbook Appetite won an Andre Simon for Cookbook of the Year in 2000, and Slater himself has won the Glenfiddich Trophy and Cookery Writer of the Year Award in 1999.
[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]
Favourite track: Teddy Bears Picnic by Henry Hall and Val Rosing
Book: Derek Jarman's Garden by Derek Jarman
Luxury: Howard Hodgkin's painting Learning About Russian Music -
Satish Kumar
29 mei 2005 · 35 min
Beluister deze afleveringSue Lawley's castaway this week is the peace campaigner Satish Kumar. He has dedicated his life to promoting a peaceful, measured way of living; walking thousands of miles to raise awareness for his cause. Satish was born in Rajasthan, India, in 1936. As a child he decided to follow a spiritual life and, until he was 18, Kumar lived the life of an itinerant Jain monk, travelling from village to village with no more possessions than a begging bowl and a change of clothes. Lees meer
Then in 1961, news from Britain reached Kumar. The 90-year-old philosopher and peace campaigner Bertrand Russell had been arrested for his anti-nuclear activities and sentenced to a week in prison. Kumar saw it as a call to action - if a 90-year-old man was prepared to go to jail for peace, what could he, a young man in his 20s, contribute to the struggle? Together with his friend Prabhakar Menon, Satish walked to the four nuclear capitals - Moscow, Paris, London and Washington. Their journey began at the grave of Mahatma Gandhi and ended, two and a half years later at the grave of John F Kennedy. For the past 30 years Satish has edited the magazine Resurgence, which promotes an ecological way of living - and he has pioneered the Human Scale Education movement.
[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]
Favourite track: Ma Solitude by Georges Moustaki
Book: The Collected Writings by Mahatma Gandhi
Luxury: A spade -
David King
22 mei 2005 · 35 min
Beluister deze afleveringSue Lawley's castaway this week is the Government's Chief Scientific Adviser Prof Sir David King. He's had a testing four and a half years in the job - his tenure has coincided with an epidemic of foot and mouth disease, as well as a series of ongoing public health controversies played out in the media, such as the safety of the combined measles, mumps and rubella vaccine (MMR) and concerns over genetically-modified crops. Lees meer
He was born in South Africa and brought up in a middle-class suburb of Johannesburg. As a teenager he was taken by his school to visit a township to see how black South Africans lived. He says it was an eye-opening experience and, while he pursued his scientific studies, he also took a stance against the political regime and wrote letters denouncing apartheid. His activism brought him to the attention of South Africa's secret police - he was questioned and left with little option but to leave the country. He came to Britain and continued his studies here. He pursued an academic career - he was made the 1920 Professor of Physical Chemistry at Cambridge University in 1988, a post he still holds, and has recently been confirmed for a second term as the Government's chief scientist.
[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]
Favourite track: Don't Know Why by Norah Jones
Book: Wild Reckoning, An Anthology Provoked by Rachel Carson's Silent Spring by John Burnside
Luxury: Bunch of canvases with oils and brushes -
Imelda Staunton
15 mei 2005 · 34 min
Beluister deze afleveringSue Lawley's castaway this week is the actress Imelda Staunton. Imelda Staunton is one of the UK's most versatile and popular actresses. Through a career spanning nearly 30 years she has consistently refused to be typecast, moving effortlessly from playing brassy Miss Adelaide in Guys and Dolls, to the oppressed Sonya in Uncle Vanya, to a grieving mother in Peter's Friends. Her most recent film role was in Mike Leigh's production Vera Drake - she played the eponymous heroine, a 1950s housewife who unbeknownst to her family carried out illegal abortions. She won huge acclaim for her performance, including an Oscar nomination and a BAFTA award for Best Actress. Lees meer
Imelda Staunton was born in Archway, London, in 1956. Her mother Bridie was a hairdresser, and the family lived over her shop, whilst Imelda's father worked on the roads. It was an elocution and drama teacher at her school, Jacqueline Stoker, who encouraged her talent, adapting plays for her and putting her in for school drama competitions. She also encouraged Imelda to apply for drama school. At the time, Imelda had never heard of RADA - but she was offered a place there and studied alongside Alan Rickman, Juliet Stevenson and Timothy Spall. Imelda Staunton lives with her husband, the actor Jim Carter, and their daughter, in London.
[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]
Favourite track: I'll Know by Julie Covington & Ian Charleson
Book: A book on astronomy
Luxury: Modelling clay and tools -
Josephine Cox
8 mei 2005 · 34 min
Beluister deze afleveringSue Lawley's castaway this week is the novelist Josephine Cox. Josephine Cox is one of Britain's most popular authors. She became an overnight publishing sensation at the relatively late age of 43 and has written 34 books which have sold 15 million copies worldwide. Now, her publishers print 'bestseller' on the cover of each new work, they're so confident of its success. Lees meer
But it was by no means a straightforward route to fame and fortune. She was born in Blackburn during World War II and grew up in dire poverty. As a child, she used to charge her school friends a penny for her to tell them a story, she and her siblings slept six to a bed, and they used to drink water out of jam-jars. One of her teachers recognised her talents and prophesied her future success as a writer. But it was only decades later when, convalescing after an illness, she had the time to pick up a pen and write. Her first book was accepted immediately and she has been writing two books a year ever since.
[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]
Favourite track: Imagine by John Lennon
Book: "A book which is in my head about my brother"
Luxury: Photo album of my family -
Katharine Whitehorn
1 mei 2005 · 35 min
Beluister deze afleveringSue Lawley's castaway this week is the journalist Katharine Whitehorn. Katharine Whitehorn was the first journalist to write a column about her personal and domestic life and draw broader truths from her experiences - it's the kind of material that is now commonly found on women's pages and is satirised in Private Eye's Polly Filler - but in the 1950s and 1960s it was a new phenomenon and she was its brightest and wittiest exponent. Lees meer
She came to journalism through a circuitous route that took in Picture Post, Woman's Own and The Spectator, but it was on the Observer - where she worked for more than 30 years - that she really made her mark. She was at the vanguard of a generation of women who were told they could 'have it all' and she may even be the only one to have managed it - a successful, well-paid career, a happy marriage and complete family. While at the Picture Post she met Gavin Lyall - who went on to become a successful novelist - they had two sons and were married for 45 years until his death in 2002. She is now the agony aunt for Saga Magazine.
[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]
Favourite track: Slow movement of Double Violin Concerto by Johann Sebastian Bach
Book: A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
Luxury: A machine to distil whatever is there -
Jarvis Cocker
24 april 2005 · 34 min
Beluister deze afleveringPulp's singer and musician, Jarvis Cocker is castaway by Sue Lawley. Lees meer
Jarvis formed the band Pulp in the late 1970s and says that as a gawky, self-conscious teenager he felt pop music did not properly inform him about the disappointments and miseries of growing up - and he was determined to write songs that included "the messy bits and the awkward, fumbling bits".
He had to wait more than a decade to find success - but Pulp went on to become one of the most popular bands of the 1990s, with hits including Do You Remember the First Time? Sorted For Es And Wizz and Common People.
The band's crowning glory was its performance of 'Common People' at the Glastonbury festival in 1995.
The following year, Jarvis Cocker made headlines again - this time the tabloid front pages after he invaded the stage while Michael Jackson was performing at the pop industry's annual awards ceremony. Fans were thrilled, but it marked the beginning of a difficult time in the singer's life.
Now he is married with a young son and living in Paris and has recently written songs for Nancy Sinatra and Marianne Faithfull as well as writing the music for the film Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire.
DISC ONE: Theme - Robert Mellin
DISC TWO: Transmission - Joy Division
DISC THREE: Mouldy Old Dough - Lieutenant Pigeon
DISC FOUR: Ten Guitars - Engelbert Humperdinck
DISC FIVE: The War is Over - Scott Walker
DISC SIX: Lady With the Braid - Dory Previn
DISC SEVEN: I See a Darkness - Johnny Cash
DISC EIGHT: Sailing By - Ronald BingeBOOK CHOICE: Sombrero Fallout - Richard Brautigan
LUXURY CHOICE: A bed with a mosquito net
CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Sailing By - Ronald BingeDesert Island Discs was created by Roy Plomley.
Producer: Leanne Buckle
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in April 2005.
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Patrick Stewart
17 april 2005 · 36 min
Beluister deze afleveringSue Lawley's castaway this week is the actor Patrick Stewart Lees meer
Patrick Stewart had to wait a long time for fame. The Shakespearean actor was nearly 50 when he was offered the role of Captain Jean-Luc Picard in the TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation. Contrary to predictions, the programme was a huge hit, and Patrick Stewart's famously bald cranium was on posters, duvet covers and Star Trek memorabilia the world over. Patrick was born in Mirfield, Yorkshire, a town with a passion for amateur dramatics. The youngest of three brothers, he grew up watching performances by the all-female drama company to which his mother belonged. After a disastrous stint as a reporter, Patrick went on to work in repertory theatre around Britain, and then to a successful career with the RSC, during which he won an Olivier Awardfor his portrayal of Shylock in The Merchant of Venice. After seven series at the helm of the Starship Enterprise, he has returned to Britain and to his first love, the theatre. He is currently appearing in David Mamet's A Life in the Theatre in London's West End.
[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]
Favourite track: Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings by Benjamin Britten
Book: A compendium of the world's best science fiction
Luxury: His beloved billiard table and a shed to keep it in