The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is the novelist Elizabeth Jane Howard. In 1950, her first novel The Beautiful Visit was published. Now, some 45 years later and after many other books, she has just completed the concluding book of The Cazalet Chronicles. She'll be talking to Sue Lawley about the problems of combining writing and marriage; she abandoned her three marriages - her first husband, being the naturalist Peter Scott, and her last, the writer Kingsley Amis; and she'll be ruminating on the nature of love and who might experience it.

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

Favourite track: Requiem Dies Irae by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is one of the country's most successful lyricists, Don Black.

Songs like Born Free and Diamonds are Forever, and musicals like Sunset Boulevard, Billy and Aspects of Love have made him a rich man. But he'll be talking to Sue Lawley of his early memories of his poor but happy Jewish family in the East End of London and how an apprenticeship on the New Musical Express led him into the world of popular music.

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

Favourite track: Adagio in G Minor for Organ & Strings by Tomaso Albinoni & Remo Giazotto

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is the academic and author Richard Hoggart. Nearly 40 years ago, he wrote the hugely influential Uses of Literacy. In it, he argued that the working classes were being short changed - both by rampant consumerism and by the dross he felt was being churned out by the mass media.

Cast well away from materialism and the media on the desert island, he'll be talking about how he now feels about his original thesis and about his own working-class background in Leeds, where he was orphaned at an early age.

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

Favourite track: Fidelio: The Prisoner's Chorus From Act One by Ludwig van Beethoven

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is the Controller of BBC1, Alan Yentob. He'll be talking to Sue Lawley about his upbringing in Manchester and London, the Cathedral boarding school where he and his twin brother were the only two Jewish boys and his 27 years at the BBC.

During that time he rose steadily through the ranks to become Head of Music and Arts, ending up as the only person to have run both BBC1 and BBC2.

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

Favourite track: Four Last Songs from Beim Schlafengehen by Richard Strauss

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is the racehorse trainer Jenny Pitman. She'll be talking to Sue Lawley about the empathy she feels for the horses she trains and her relationship with their owners. She won the Grand National in 1983 with Corbiere, and she has twice trained the winner of the Cheltenham Gold Cup. In 1995 her charge, Royal Athlete, won the Grand National, crowning her spectacular success as a trainer.

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

Favourite track: A Four Legged Friend by Roy Rogers

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is the advertising man, Maurice Saatchi. He and his brother Charles created what became the biggest advertising agency in the world. Saatchi & Saatchi masterminded the Conservative victory in 1979 with their slogan 'Labour isn't working'.

He'll be telling Sue Lawley about the heady days of the 1980s - a red Ferrari would be delivered unannounced to the best names in the business, with the offer of a job with Saatchi & Saatchi. Then, last year, he fell from grace when a boardroom shake-up meant he had to leave the company he had so lovingly created.

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

Favourite track: Die Dreigroschenoper Surabaya Johnny by Kurt Weill

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is a man who spans our century. Aged 91, Max Nicholson has enjoyed careers in conservation, politics, journalism and the Civil Service.

But his great passion remains ornithology. As a tiny boy, his parents took him one rainy afternoon to see the stuffed birds in the Natural History Museum, and there his great obsession was born. He was a conservationist before anyone understood the idea of ecology. He's played major parts in the founding of the Nature Conservancy Council, the World Wildlife Fund and Sites of Special Scientific Interest.

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

Favourite track: Symphony No 6 In F Major Op 68 by Ludwig van Beethoven

Sue Lawley's castaway on Desert Island Discs this week is the celebrated American writer John Updike. His novels include Rabbit Run (and three Rabbit follow-ups), Couples and The Witches of Eastwick.

He is both poet and historian, famous for charting the changes in post-war American society such as increasing marital breakdown and changing attitudes to death. He started his writing career by selling stories to the New Yorker magazine - something his mother had tried for years but had never succeeded. And he'll be telling Sue Lawley about how he overcame a bad stutter, how he has learnt to control his psoriasis and how now, aged 63, he finally feels normal; part of the gang he never was as a teenager.

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

Favourite track: Sing, Sing, Sing by The Benny Goodman Orchestra

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is the actress Wendy Richard, one of the best-known faces on British television.

She'll be talking to Sue Lawley about a career which started with the Arthur Haines show in the 60s, and took her through a whole series of long-running television programmes - The Newcomers, Are You Being Served? and its sequel Grace and Favour. However, it was 10 years ago that she took the part which was to bring her her greatest popularity - Pauline Fowler in EastEnders.

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

Favourite track: Land Of Hope And Glory by Edward Elgar/Benson

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is Gerald Cavendish Grosvenor, the sixth Duke of Westminster. He'll be talking to Sue Lawley about the responsibilities and pleasures of being one of the country's richest men. Having enjoyed an idyllic childhood on the banks of Loch Ern in County Fermanagh, it was a rude shock to be transplanted to an English prep school at the age of seven. The comparatively early death of his father then meant that by the time he was just 19 he was managing one of Britain's greatest estates, and by 27 he owned it. He'll be discussing the pleasures and the perils of his position, why he is no longer a member of the Conservative Party and his hopes and dreams for his four-year-old son and heir, Hugh.

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

Favourite track: Albatross by Fleetwood Mac