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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

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Molly Keane May 13, 1990

Show notes

The castaway in this week's Desert Island Discs is one of the most highly acclaimed writers of today. The author of Good Behaviour, Time After Time and Loving and Giving, she began writing in the early 20s using the pseudonym MJ Farrell to conceal her identity from her sporting friends in Ireland, where she was born and grew up. It was a world of snobbery and decaying aristocracy which she portrays in her books with excruciating accuracy. Then, after a period in the early 50s as a successful playwright, she fell silent, to emerge 25 years later under her real name, Molly Keane, and went on to achieve huge success and literary recognition. Now 86, she'll be talking to Sue Lawley about her childhood, her books and her Ireland.

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

Favourite track: Greensleeves by James Galway Book: A bound copy of the Spectator magazines Luxury: A bed, netted from snakes and flies

Prue Leith May 06, 1990

Show notes

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is Prue Leith, professional cook, restaurateur and, most recently, mass caterer, with a brasserie in Hyde Park and cream teas in Hampton Court. She'll be talking to Sue Lawley about her childhood in South Africa, her family's lack of interest in food, her own conversion to the delights of cooking good food and her early days running a catering company from a bedsit in Earl's Court.

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

Favourite track: Symphony No 6 (Pastoral) by Ludwig van Beethoven Book: Barchester Novels by Anthony Trollope Luxury: Jeroboam of champagne

June Whitfield Apr 29, 1990

Show notes

The castaway in this week's Desert Island Discs is one of the most familiar and best-loved figures of British comedy over the last 40 years - June Whitfield. Whether as Eth, with her boyfriend Ron, in the Glums in the 1950s, or June, with Terry Scott, in Terry and June, her consummate professionalism has brought laughter and fun to millions of people. She'll be talking to Sue Lawley about her early career as well as her most recent one as what has been described as Britain's answer to Jane Fonda, presenting a keep-fit TV programme for the over-60s.

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

Favourite track: The Trolley Song by Judy Garland Book: A do-it-yourself manual Luxury: Supply of cocoa butter and hat

Mary Wesley Apr 22, 1990

Show notes

This week's Desert Island Discs castaway is novelist Mary Wesley. Although she has written poetry and prose throughout her life, it was not until she was a widow in her 70s, struggling to make ends meet, that she had her first book, Jumping the Queue, published. That was eight years ago, and since then she has gone on to write six more best-sellers like The Camomile Lawn and Not That Sort of Girl. Mary Wesley will be talking to Sue Lawley about the pleasures and perils of her late arrival to literary fame and choosing eight records to accompany her to her desert island.

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

Favourite track: Symphony No 7 - Final Movement by Ludwig van Beethoven Book: Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez Luxury: Denis Healey or large double bed with pillows

Sir Crispin Tickell Apr 15, 1990

Show notes

The castaway in this week's Desert Island Discs is Sir Crispin Tickell, Britain's Ambassador to the United Nations. As well as being an ambassador, he is also a passionate meteorologist and conservationist - a cool diplomat who's made himself an expert on global warming. He'll be talking to Sue Lawley about his many postings, passions and pastimes.

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

Favourite track: String Quartet No 1 by Johannes Brahms Book: Guide To Science by Asimov Luxury: Solar-powered telescope

Rt Hon John Biffen MP Mar 25, 1990

Show notes

The castaway in this week's Desert Island Discs is the Rt Hon John Biffen MP. One of the most popular men at Westminster and a dedicated parliamentarian, he will be talking to Sue Lawley about his early passion for history and politics, his later dismissal from the cabinet by Mrs Thatcher, and also discussing the current debate surrounding the leadership of the Conservative Party.

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

Favourite track: The English Character (speech) by Stanley Baldwin Book: 1946 Wisden Almanack for cricketers Luxury: Rain gauge

Richard Rogers Mar 18, 1990

Show notes

The castaway in this week's Desert Island Discs is one of Britain's leading and most controversial architects Richard Rogers. He'll be talking to Sue Lawley about two of his most celebrated designs - the Pompidou Centre in Paris and the Lloyds Building in London - and describing how his passion for the new and the innovative has brought him into disagreement with many critics, including Prince Charles, with whom he shares a passionate concern for the quality of our built environment.

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

Favourite track: Piano Concerto No 24 Second Movement by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Book: The Odyssey by Homer Luxury: His wife, Ruth, but if this is disallowed then a painting

Professor Sir George Porter Mar 11, 1990

Show notes

The castaway in this week's Desert Island Discs is scientist Professor Sir George Porter. Currently President of the Royal Society, he'll be talking to Sue Lawley about his route from the local school - a tin shack called the Tin Lizzie, in the mining village in which he was born - to Nobel Prize winner for chemistry in 1967, and discussing the parlous state of science and science teaching in the 1990s.

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

Favourite track: The Ode To Joy (Symphony No 9) by Ludwig van Beethoven Book: Non-Equilibrium Thermo Dynamics by Prigogine Luxury: Computer, paper and pen

Sir Ian Trethowan Mar 04, 1990

Show notes

This week's Desert Island Discs castaway is Sir Ian Trethowan. He'll be talking to Sue Lawley about his days as a copy boy earning 27/6d on the Daily Sketch, his early journalistic career, his transition from television presenter to manager of BBC Radio, and some of the dramas and crises which characterised his days as Director-General of the BBC. A lifelong opera lover, he'll also be choosing eight records for his island idyll.

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

Favourite track: Der Rosenkavalier (Hab Mirs Gelobt) Final Act by Richard Strauss Book: War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy Luxury: Champagne

John Sessions Feb 25, 1990

Show notes

The castaway in this week's Desert Island Discs is, by his own account, very difficult to classify - his talents span comedy, writing, acting and improvisation. He has appeared in the television adaption of Porterhouse Blue and can be heard on Spitting Image as the voice of Norman Tebbitt and Lord Olivier. He has also appeared in the West End as Napoleon, as well as playing nearly forty supporting roles. He'll be talking to Sue Lawley about his meteoric rise to fame since he abandoned the academic world just eight years ago.

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

Favourite track: Symphony No 2 -The End by Gustav Mahler Book: David Copperfield by Charles Dickens Luxury: A 78rpm record of The Laughing Policeman (to smash on the rocks)

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