Desert Island Discs

Kirsty Young's castaway is the nurse & humanitarian Dame Claire Bertschinger. She's worked for The Red Cross in over a dozen countries including Sudan, Sierra Leone, Kenya, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Liberia amid the sort of raw human suffering that most of us find - even on the TV - almost unbearable to witness. It was through Michael Buerk's landmark news reports of the Ethiopian famine 30 yea...

Kirsty Young's castaway is the broadcaster Murray Walker His commentating career began in 1948 and he finally hung the lip mic at the end of 2001. His trousers-on-fire style of delivery brought excitement, emotion and fanatical obsession to Formula 1 - for many motor racing fans he was motorsport. He was a petrol-head before the term had even been coined; his father, one of the top motorbike racin...

Lord Richards of Herstmonceux, former Chief of the Defence Staff, is interviewed by Kirsty Young for Desert Island Discs. He was a soldier for 42 years, rising through the ranks to the very top becoming the principal military advisor to government. Shrewd, swashbuckling and outspoken, he is now retired from one of the most successful military careers of modern times: so illustrious he's been knigh...

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the author and illustrator Mairi Hedderwick. Her most famous creation is a little red-haired character called Katie Morag who - in wellies and a kilt - has skipped her way through fourteen books and a 26-part TV series. Katie lives on the imaginary Isle of Struay with her parents, siblings, cousins, granny and prize-winning sheep Alecina. Like her creator she r...

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is Professor Hugh Montgomery. His area of academic specialism is intensive care medicine and he's also known for his pioneering genetic research into the ACE fitness gene - which determines our capacity for either strength or endurance. In themselves significant achievements. But he is also, a children's author, an ultra-marathon runner and the current holder of t...

Kirsty Young's castaways this week are the ice skaters Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean. It's 30 years since they enthralled the world winning gold at the Winter Olympics in Sarajevo. So memorable, it was truly a "where were you when" moment: the answer for most of us seems to have been in front of the television as 24 million people tuned in to watch their purple chiffoned, passionate, pitch-pe...

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the lawyer Dame Elish Angiolini. The first woman to become both Scotland's Solicitor General and Lord Advocate she's currently principal of St Hugh's College Oxford. It's a long way from Govan where her father heaved bags of coal round the streets and there wasn't always money for the meter. She was the youngest of four and by her own admission being "gabby" wa...

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the broadcaster, Bob Harris. Known affectionately as Whispering Bob, he's rarely been off our air waves in the past 44 years. His big break came standing in for John Peel and he was so good that not long after he was given his own show on Radio 1. Throughout the seventies he also hosted the true music-fans' must see show, The Old Grey Whistle Test. His beard an...

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the sailor Sir Ben Ainslie. Eleven times World and 9 times European Champion he's also the most successful sailor in Olympic history. As he crossed the finishing line at the London 2012 Games, winning his fourth gold, the crowd gave a rousing rendition of Rule Britannia: indeed he rules the waves with such a ruthless will to win it seems somewhat contradictory...

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the Reverend Rose Hudson-Wilkin. The first black woman to be chaplain to Her Majesty the Queen and also to the Speaker of the House of Commons, she's also kept busy with her work in less rarefied surroundings - ministering to two churches in the east London borough of Hackney. It's all a long way from the crystal waters and swaying palms of her birthplace, Mont...

Kirsty Young's castaway is the violinist, Nicola Benedetti. She had her first violin lesson at the age of four, and by the age of eight, she was leading the National Children's Orchestra of Scotland. By the grand old age of ten she was boarding at the Yehudi Menuhin School and receiving lessons from the great man himself. Her big break came when she won the BBC Young Musician of the Year competiti...

Kirsty Young's castaway is woodsman Ray Mears. A traveller to the world's remotest corners and a renowned expert in bushcraft, wild cooking and survival techniques, he's one of very few castaways who would genuinely relish the challenges of a desert island. Those of us not possessed of his spirit and skill can live vicariously through his exploits on TV and through his survival handbooks. Enlighte...

Kirsty Young chats to the kings of TV prime time, Anthony McPartlin and Declan Donnelly. From December 2013.

Kirsty Young's castaway is Miranda Hart. She writes and stars in the hit sitcom "Miranda" and has congaed her way to the top of TV comedy by exploiting the universal truth that awkwardness lies at the heart of the human condition. Slapstick and misunderstanding underpin her work along with the impression that she's just a really, jolly, lovely 'girl': her father was a naval commander and her mothe...

Kirsty Young's castaway is Gillian Clarke. Wales's National Poet, she has received the Queen's Gold Medal for her work. She writes about everything from dinosaurs to suicide, but the potency and power of nature is a recurring motif. Although she's recognised for her significant and distinguished contribution to her homeland's literature and culture, her verse has been translated into ten languages...

Kirsty Young's castaway is Barbara Hulanicki, designer and creator of Biba. Today her creativity spans fashion, illustration, interior design and architecture but it was the success of the label Biba that first made her name; launching a high street revolution with its opulent-looking but entirely affordable high fashion. According to Twiggy, "she changed fashion in England singlehandedly". A news...

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the broadcaster Clare Balding. The BBC TV coverage of London's 2012 Olympics was her triumph and much like Team GB she'd been in training for her big moment for quite a while. She's worked on five Olympic Games, four Paralympics, three Winter Olympics and a great deal of horse racing. It's on the turf that's she's most at home - her father was a champion raceho...

Rt Hon Ed Miliband MP, Leader of the Labour Party, joins Kirsty Young to choose his Desert Island Discs. He's been in charge of his party for three years and was the youngest leader they'd ever elected. But that fact got somewhat lost in the drama that surrounded his coronation: famously, he stood against his brother, David. To say the younger brother's victory upset the political apple cart would...

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the writer Malorie Blackman. A prolific and multi-award winning author she has powered her way to success not just through talent but determination and perseverance. From the careers mistress who told her, "black people don't become teachers," to the 82 rejection letters she received before she was published, significant parts of her life seem to have been spen...

Kirsty Young's castaway is the classical pianist, Alfred Brendel. A performer of world renown, his career spans seven decades, and he is particularly famous for his interpretations of Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert and Liszt. An Austrian who's lived in the UK for many years, he was born in 1931 in what is now the Czech Republic. Although not from a musical family, he began playing the piano aged six...

Kirsty Young's castaway is the educationalist Sir Ken Robinson. Creativity - how to nurture it, develop it and marshal its power - is his preoccupation. He believes that too many people have no sense of their true talents and passions, and his internationally renowned talks to teachers, business and government leaders argue that - contrary to popular myth - creativity and innovation can be develop...

Professor Tanya Byron, clinical psychologist and TV presenter, is interviewed by Kirsty Young for Desert Island Discs. Tanya has spent the last twenty years in clinical practice, helping children, young people and families deal with some of the most difficult parts of life - depression, anxiety, aggression, self harming and drug addiction. She came to public prominence through her television work,...

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the former barrister and member of The House of Lords, Jeremy Hutchinson. His life spans eleven decades of British history and he has spent much of it at the very centre of the action. Born during the First World War, he was brought up in the company of some of the greatest artists and writers of the day. In World War II, he escaped his bombed-out ship clinging...

Kirsty Young's castaway is the naturalist, Chris Packham. TV presenter, filmmaker, writer, photographer, every bit of his work revolves around wildlife. If he's not busy telling us why we should love midges he's enthusing about the hearing capacity of a barn owl. His passion for animals is clear, what they think of him remains a little more uncertain; he's been attacked by a baboon, charged by lio...

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is businesswoman Carolyn McCall. Currently Chief Executive of easyJet, she's one of only three women in Britain in charge of a FTSE 100 company. Prior to that she ran the Guardian Media Group. An only child, she was brought up in Bangalore and Singapore. She spent a short time as a teacher in a comprehensive school and has also brought her wisdom to the boardroom...