Desert Island Discs

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Atul Gawande Dec 06, 2015

Show notes

Kirsty Young's castaway is the surgeon, author and former Reith lecturer, Atul Gawande.

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 Nov 29, 2015

Show notes

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is Sandi Toksvig.

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 Nov 22, 2015

Show notes

Kirsty Young's castaway is filmmaker Gurinder Chadha.

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 Nov 15, 2015

Show notes

Kirsty Young's castaway is the Right Honourable Nicola Sturgeon, MSP.

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 Nov 13, 2015

Show notes

Kirsty 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.

Producer: Sarah Taylor.

Marjorie Wallace Nov 01, 2015

Show notes

Kirsty Young's castaway is the mental health campaigner and Chief Executive of SANE, Marjorie Wallace.

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 Oct 25, 2015

Show notes

Keith Richards, member of the Rolling Stones, is interviewed by Kirsty Young for Desert Island Discs.

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 Oct 18, 2015

Show notes

Kirsty Young's castaway is Professor Sue Black.

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 Oct 14, 2015

Show notes

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is Lemn Sissay.

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 Oct 04, 2015

Show notes

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the musician, Alison Balsom.

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.

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