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Desert Island Discs — Personal Journals
Desert Island Discs

Eight tracks, a book and a luxury: what would you take to a desert island? Guests share the soundtrack of their lives.

Copyright: © (C) BBC 2023

Latest Episodes:

Rt Hon Barbara Castle Nov 11, 1990

Show notes

The castaway in this week's Desert Island Discs is the Baroness Castle of Blackburn - better known to most people as Barbara Castle. For 34 years she served as the Labour member for the constituency of Blackburn, and she rose to high office in the Wilson governments of the 1960s and 1970s. As the first woman Transport Minister, she introduced, amidst great controversy, the breathalyser and the motorway speed limit. She was also at the centre of legislation over equal pay for women. Then, 10 years ago, she opted out of domestic politics and into the European cauldron.

Now retired from that too, and recently having celebrated her 80th birthday, she'll be looking back over her long and passionate political career, and forward to making her mark on the House of Lords.

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

Favourite track: I Have A Dream Speech by Martin Luther King Book: The collected works by William Morris Luxury: Typewriter

Lord Annan Nov 04, 1990

Show notes

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is a man who, among many other achievements, gave his name to a famous report in the 1970s on the future of broadcasting - Lord Annan. He'll be talking to Sue Lawley about his long and distinguished career which has ranged through the Cabinet War Office, King's College Cambridge, The Royal Opera House and London University - as well as recalling many friends and acquaintances from his university days, from EM Forster to the notorious Guy Burgess.

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

Favourite track: 7th Symphony Final Movement by Ludwig van Beethoven Book: The Iliad in Greek & English by Homer Luxury: Bath essence

Nicholas Snowman Oct 28, 1990

Show notes

The castaway in this week's Desert Island Discs is the General Director of the South Bank, Nicholas Snowman. Very much a man of the arts, and a determined apostle of all things new, he founded the University Opera Society when he was at Cambridge and the London Sinfonietta when he left. He then moved to Paris, where he was appointed Artistic Director of the Pompidou Centre.

His latest post at the South Bank has attracted considerable controversy, with one critic describing his concert programme as "seriously unattractive". He'll be discussing his vision of the South Bank's musical future with Sue Lawley and talking about his achievement of establishing, for the first time, a resident orchestra in Britain's largest arts centre.

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

Favourite track: String Quintet No 4 In G Minor by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Book: Smiley's People by John Le Carre Luxury: Coffee machine

Ernie Wise Oct 21, 1990

Show notes

The castaway in this week's Desert Island Discs is comedian Ernie Wise. Since Eric Morecambe's death six years ago, Ernie has had to carve out a show business career on his own, and he'll be talking to Sue Lawley about life as Wise without Morecambe, as well as looking back on the highs and lows of a partnership of nearly fifty years, during which time Morecambe and Wise sang, danced and joked their way to the top of the tree.

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

Favourite track: Bring Me Sunshine by Morecombe And Wise Book: Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens Luxury: Yellow Rolls Royce

Clive Jenkins Oct 14, 1990

Show notes

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is one of the most colourful and controversial members of Britain's trade union movement. He is the former General-Secretary of The Association of Scientific, Technical and Managerial Staffs - Clive Jenkins. Now retired, he'll be talking to Sue Lawley about a career which has encompassed disappointment but also considerable triumph, as well as looking back on his Methodist working-class upbringing in South Wales, and the path he trod from there to a position where he wielded extensive power and influence in the tough world of industrial relations.

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

Book: Look Homeward Angel by Thomas Wolfe Luxury: Video player and tape of Citizen Kane

John Thaw Oct 07, 1990

Show notes

The castaway in this week's Desert Island Discs is an actor who rose to fame by portraying two rather different sorts of policemen on the nation's television screens. John Thaw, though a versatile stage actor, having appeared at the Royal Court and played with the Royal Shakespeare Company, is best known for the roles of Jack Reegan in the Sweeney, and, more recently, the morose but music-loving Inspector Morse. A passionate lover of classical music himself, he'll be talking to Sue Lawley about his early childhood in Lancashire, his marriage to actress Sheila Hancock and his aversion to the perils of stardom.

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

Record: Erbarme Dich, Mein Gott (St Matthew Passion) Book: The Wind In The Willows by Kenneth Grahame Luxury: Large comfortable armchair

Gary Lineker Sep 30, 1990

Show notes

The castaway in this week's Desert Island Discs is the captain of the England football team Gary Lineker. Apprenticed to Leicester City at the age of 16, he turned professional at 18, then went on to play for England. In 1985 he was bought by Everton for £800,000. One year and 40 goals later, he was bought by Barcelona for more than two million pounds.

He'll be talking to Sue Lawley about his extraordinary skill as a footballer, his reputation for immaculate behaviour both on and off the football field and the agony of England's defeat in this year's World Cup.

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

Favourite track: Soul Limbo (Sig. Tune For Test Match Special) by Booker T And The MGs Book: Wisden Almanack for cricketers Luxury: Bowling machine

Barbara Windsor Sep 23, 1990

Show notes

This week's Desert Island Discs castaway is the effervescent actress Barbara Windsor. She'll be talking to Sue Lawley about her early life in London's East End, the Carry On films for which she is, of course, best known, and the strain of a tumultuous private life often hidden behind the public facade of an irrepressibly good-humoured cockney sparrow.

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

Favourite track: Extract from The Secret Life Of Anthony Hancock by Galton & Simpson Book: A book about Hollywood Luxury: Writing materials and a Union flag

Dr Ruth Westheimer Sep 16, 1990

Show notes

The castaway in this week's Desert Island Discs is sex therapist Dr Ruth Westheimer.

Born in Germany in the late 1920s, her Jewish family sent her out of the country as the Nazis rose to power. Sent to the safe but lonely confines of a Swiss orphanage, she was never to see her family again. Then, after living in Israel and studying in Paris, she eventually took American citizenship. Then, 10 years ago, she emerged from obscurity to become a national celebrity. As an unemployed college lecturer in her early 50s, her appearances on radio and television, where she handed out explicit but common-sense advice on sex and its problems, brought her fame and fortune. She'll be talking to Sue Lawley about her early life, her adventures in Paris and Israel and the satisfactions of her present job.

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

Favourite track: There Was A Time by Joel Westheimer Book: Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell Luxury: Large box of marrons glacés

Lord Charteris Sep 09, 1990

Show notes

The castaway in this week's Desert Island Discs is a pillar of the British Establishment, Lord Charteris of Amisfield.

Educated at Eton and Sandhurst, he became, at the age of 36, Private Secretary to the young Princess Elizabeth, whom he was to serve for nearly 30 years, retiring only after when, as Queen Elizabeth the Second, she celebrated her Silver Jubilee. After leaving the royal household, he went back to Eton, where he has been Provost for the last 12 years. Among many things, Lord Charteris will be talking to Sue Lawley about the job of Private Secretary to the Queen, and how the Eton of today differs from the Eton he attended as a schoolboy some 50 years ago.

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

Favourite track: Emperor Concerto by Ludwig van Beethoven Book: War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy Luxury: Set of wood-carving tools

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