Desert Island Discs: Archive 1996-2000

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the man who broke the British land speed records, Richard Noble. His thirst for speed began when he was six years old and saw John Cobb's jet boat Crusader. Then, in the 1970s, he built his own jet-propelled car in his garage at home. He called it Thrust One, and wrote it off at over 200 miles per hour. Nine years later, he broke the land speed record with Thrust Two, reaching speeds greater than a Boeing 747. Last year he watched as his team, with Andy Green behind the wheel, broke the sound barrier.

Now firmly established alongside other champions of speed like John Cobb and Malcolm and Donald Campbell, Richard Noble chooses his Desert Island Discs.

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

Favourite track: The Dambusters March by The Central Band of the RAF

Sue Lawley's castaway this week has murdered 75 people, and although he wants to retire, his fans are begging him for just one more. He's the creator of Inspector Morse, Colin Dexter. A Classics teacher before he began to write, it was a profession he immensely enjoyed until deafness forced him to quit. His other great loves are shared by his fictional hero, Morse. Both live for Wagner, crosswords and beer.

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

Favourite track: Immolation Scene from Act 5 of Gotterdammerung by Richard Wagner

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the QC Helena Kennedy. In 1992 she published a book which drew attention to the way English law discriminates against women. She called it Eve was Framed. It began a debate into how we view defendants and victims and how our judges are trained. Born into a working-class family living on the south side of Glasgow, she recently entered the House of Lords. She says her father, a newspaper packer and an active trade unionist, would have been 'amused but proud'.

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

Favourite track: Cello Suite No 1 in G Minor by Johann Sebastian Bach

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the British bass John Tomlinson. He is most famous as Wotan - ruler of the gods in Wagner's Ring Cycle. In fact, it's a role he has made so much his own that the composer's grandson says it could almost have been written with him in mind. Growing up in a Methodist family music was a natural part of life, yet he studied to be an engineer until the urge to sing became too powerful to ignore.

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

Favourite track: Concerto For Violin And Strings In D Minor Largo by Johann Sebastian Bach

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the artist and illustrator Paul Hogarth. He has portrayed A Year in Provence for Peter Mayle, depicted Doris Lessing's Africa and captured Majorca with Robert Graves.

Born into a working-class family, his parents disapproved of his two great loves - travel and drawing. In the face of their opposition, he won a scholarship to art school where he was drawn into radical politics, becoming a communist and abandoning both art and family to fight in Spain. A popular figure with writers, he could match Brendan Behan drink for drink, and survived a 30-year working relationship with Graham Greene. Now 80, he says he still has the urge to travel, and continues to draw on his rich and varied life.

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

Favourite track: Far Horizons by Glyn Boyd Harte

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the scientist Professor Heinz Wolff. He came to public attention when he presented the television programme The Great Egg Race, in which he challenged people to conquer engineering problems with a rubber band, a pencil and a pickled onion. In the 1970s while designing aids for disabled people, he devised the phrase 'Tools for Living' to describe his work. After all, as he points out, we all use tools to cope with our environment, whether as an astronaut, a diver or an elderly person.

It was his father who encouraged his enthusiasm for invention, sharing his Sunday afternoons experimenting with his chemistry set, or organising talks from physicists who had to hide their surprise at assessing the ideas of a six-year-old child. In the 80s he founded the Institute for Bioengineering at Brunel University. There he continued his inventions devising for example, a box for experimenting in outer space, a voice machine for people who can't speak and a safety system for deep-sea divers.

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

Favourite track: The Man I Love by Joan Wolff

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the politician and Transport Minister Glenda Jackson. Politics is her third job. At 16, she left school to work in Boots. But it was as an actor that she reached the pinnacle of her profession, becoming an international star and winning Oscars for her roles in Women in Love and A Touch of Class. On television, she was the formidable Elizabeth R, but won our hearts as Cleopatra in Morecambe & Wise. Despite her vast acting experience, she admits that when she came to make her maiden speech in the House of Commons she had the worst attack of stage fright in her long career.

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

Favourite track: War Requiem Libera Me by Benjamin Britten

This is an archive edition of Desert Island Discs. What follows is what was said about the programme at the time:

Sue Lawley's castaway this week has celebrated more than 50 years as a professional performer - he's the comedian and singer Harry Secombe.

At 76, he can still hit the cruel Cs, although these days he turns puce with the effort. He can still make an audience laugh itself silly and numbers Prince Charles among his many fans. He's most definitely the best raspberry-blower in the business. Today he recalls the early days of The Goon Show with Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers and Michael Bentine. He remembers the nights spent in review alongside those Windmill girls dressed only in beads - "and most of those were sweat". And he describes how presenting Highway and Songs of Praise has left him feeling humble.

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

Favourite track: Fantasia On Greensleeves by Ralph Vaughan Williams

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the Chairman of Northern Foods, Chris Haskins. Until recently he was something of a curiosity - a big businessman who was also a lifelong supporter of Labour and enthusiastically pro-Europe. It was the Aldermaston marches in the late 1950s which influenced his political beliefs. Sent to report on them for the Irish Times, he was soon swept along by the protesters' enthusiasm and sense of purpose.

It was then too he learnt his organisational skills. When put in charge of sorting out accommodation for thousands of extra marchers, he fled to the pub. By the time he returned they had gone. Problem solved. He joined Northern Foods after falling in love with the owners' daughter. At that time, it was a small company providing milk for doorstep deliveries. Today, it's one of Britain's biggest food companies.

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

Favourite track: Symphony No 9 In D Minor Adagio by Ludwig van Beethoven

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the artist Paula Rego. Born in Portugal, she was an only child, and spent her days sitting with the maids as they told tales around the kitchen table. Now she makes up stories about the people she knows and weaves them into her pictures. Like those early fairytales, her portraits always have a touch of danger about them. If you look the devil in the face, she says, face your fears and paint them - then they lose the power to scare you.

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

Favourite track: Da Me O Braco Anda Dai by Blanc/Barbosa