Desert Island Discs: Archive 2000-2005

This week Sue's castaway is a man who's made a success of two entirely different careers. Ralph Kohn is a Jewish businessman who has won the Queen's Export Award for his work in the pharmaceutical industry and he's also a renowned Baritone singer .

Originally born into a privileged family in Leipzig, Germany, his family moved to Amsterdam in response to the anti-Semitic laws passed in Hitler's Germany in the 1930s. The Kohns finally settled in Manchester and Ralph excelled at school, eventually choosing to study pharmaceuticals at university, encouraged by the major drug developments of the 1950s. As a doctoral student, he met Alexander Fleming and went on to work with two Nobel prize winners in Italy. It was in Rome that Ralph's love of singing flourished; learning under the renowed teacher Manlio Marcantoni, who introduced him to the great Opera tenor Gigli. In the 1960s and 1970s Ralph worked for numerous major pharmaceutical companies including Smith Kline French and Robapharm before setting up his own company Advisory Services Clinical Ltd in 1969. In music he's appeared at the Wigmore Hall, The Queen Elizabeth and Albert Halls and John Smith Square as well as producing twelve CDs.

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

Favourite track: The Sinfonia from Christmas Oratorio by Johann Sebastian Bach

This week Sue's castaway is the award winning actor Bill Nighy.

His first film role was as a delivery boy in Joan Collins' steamy film The Bitch. He's featured in numerous stage, TV, and radio dramas including the acclaimed Men's Room in 1991 and, more recently, in State of Play, where he played a newspaper editor. His career has been described by some critics as a slow burn rather than a beacon, although he's now widely recognised as achieving the acclaim he deserves. In February he won Best Supporting Actor at the Baftas for his role as Billy Mack, a washed up singer in the film Love Actually.

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

Favourite track: Winter by The Rolling Stones

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is a businessman who brought authentic Indian foods to our supermarkets - Sir Gulam Noon. An instinctive businessman, he was brought up in a complex family situation with a step-brother and sister who were also his half-siblings and a cousin who assumed a paternal role after his own father died. They were not well off, but they had managed until their father's death when Gulam was seven. After that, it was a struggle and as a young teenager Gulam would spend the evenings working in his family's two sweetshops in Bombay. He had an entrepreneurial eye and saw business opportunities to improve and expand.

After a brief holiday in Engand he announced to his family that he wanted to expand into this country too. He built a confectionary business here and, seeing the huge public appetite for Indian food in restaurants, started manufacturing it for the supermarket shelves. After a disastrous fire at his factory in 1994, he built up his business again and now makes more than a quarter of a million curries a day. His biggest seller, not surprisingly, is chicken tikka masala. Gulam Noon was given an MBE for services to the food industry in 1994, and in 2002 was knighted.

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

Favourite track: Nat Bhairav by Shivkumar Sharma, Hariprasad Chaurasia, Brijbushan Kabra

This week Sue's castaway is Judith Kerr - a writer and illustrator known to generations of children both for her charming Mog picture-books and for her careful rendering of the life of a Jewish child fleeing Nazi Germany. Judith Kerr escaped with her family on the day the Nazis were elected. The following day, police turned up at the doorstep in a belated attempt to confiscate their passports. The Kerr family moved across Europe, trying to support themselves and escape from the nearing threat, until they eventually settled in England in 1936. The family stayed in London throughout the war; surviving the Blitz and in fear of invasion. Judith Kerr wrote an autobiographical trilogy about her experiences and the books - in particular When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit - have been used ever since as a way of explaining to children the horrors of the Nazi threat. Today, they are set texts in many German schools.

She was always a keen painter but had never thought it could be a career; it was only when she had two children who enjoyed the tales she told that she decided to try her hand at picture books. Her first book, The Tiger Who Came to Tea, was instantly successful when it was published in 1968 and has never been out of print. But it is probably her series of books about Mog the Cat that have won her most affection with children - over the past 30 years they have sold more than three million copies.

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

Favourite track: Kyrie - the Opening of Great Mass in C Minor by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

This week Sue Lawley's castaway is John Cale, a classically trained musician who went on to found one of the most influential bands of the 1960s, Velvet Underground. John Cale was brought up in a strict South Wales household. His maternal grandmother insisted that Welsh was the only language to be spoken in the house even though his father spoke only English. His childhood was solitary - he was an only child and his mother encouraged him to spend hours each day practising his piano playing, and he later took up the viola. He went on to have viola lessons at the Royal Academy of Music while also studying music at Goldsmiths' Teacher Training College in London.

He was talent-spotted by Aaron Copland and awarded a musical scholarship to study in America, where he was part of the contemporary avant-garde music scene there, working with John Cage and LaMonte Young, until he met Lou Reed and the two formed Velvet Underground. Their first album, The Velvet Underground and Nico, remains their best known. Andy Warhol is credited as producer, it features Nico on vocals and the cover is the famous Warhol banana. He went on to produce some of the most influential artists of the time and has made New York his home - although Wales continues to exert some draw over him. He continues to write music and tour.

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

Favourite track: She Belongs To Me by Bob Dylan

This week Sue Lawley's castaway is one of France's best known exports - the singer Sacha Distel.

Born into a loving family in 1930s Paris, his father was a Russian émigré who'd fled the Red Army in 1917 and walked to Paris where he eventually set up an electrical goods shop. His mother was a talented musician and she instilled a love of music in her son at a young age - especially the piano. The family was traumatised during the Second World War, when his mother, who was Jewish, was interred in a Nazi camp for 19 months. After the war they were reunited but Sacha has said the experience left him with a long lasting sense of insecurity. He continued playing the piano but was increasingly drawn to the guitar, encouraged by the uncle who was the successful jazz band leader Ray Ventura. He soon demonstrated enormous talent for the instrument and, after graduating from college, he was playing with the likes of Lionel Hampton, Stan Getz, Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davies. However it was his affair and engagement to Brigitte Bardot which catapaulted him to international fame. The liaison failed but he was to go on to become a household name, both in here and in France, with his distinct vocal style and image as a sex symbol. Now about to turn 71, Sacha is still touring and has just released a new CD.

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

Favourite track: Come Rain or Come Shine by Frank Sinatra

This week Sue Lawley's castaway is a nun and a pioneer of the hospice movement. Sister Frances Dominica says she had always felt she was born to be a nurse and as a child would line up her dolls and teddies in pretend hospital beds and tend to them. But a dramatic revelation during her early 20s diverted her and, to the horror of her family, she abandoned her career for a contemplative life. She took her life vows in 1972 and, in 1977, at the incredibly young age of 34, was elected to be the Mother Superior of her community. The following year she met a family with a sick child and offered to give her respite care. It was that relationship which gave Sister Frances the idea of starting a children's hospice and, in 1982, Helen House opened. It was the first children's hospice in the world.

For the past four years she has been fundraising for another hospice - which she calls a Respice, a mixture of respite and hospice – Douglas House, which is geared up for the needs of adolescents and young adults. Like Helen House, it is named after a patient who made a particular mark on Frances, although he did not survive to see it opened.

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

Favourite track: Skye Boat Song by Elinor Bennett

This week Sue Lawley's castaway is David Sainsbury, now Lord Sainsbury of Turville.

David Sainsbury who is a grocer and a politician is also one of Britain's richest men and was a multi-millionaire by the time he was in his 20s. However, he says that along with his wealth he has inherited a strong sense of duty. He was the fourth generation of the family to take over the business and became only its sixth chairman in more than 120 years. Although his career at Sainsbury's spanned more than 30 years, he has combined it with following his passion for politics. In the 1980s he bankrolled the Social Democratic Party, and at the time there was talk of him being a future secretary of state for trade in David Owen's cabinet. But, when the SDP imploded in the late 1980s he was disillusioned, and his interest wasn't rekindled until Tony Blair became leader of the Labour Party. After the Labour election win in 1997 he was made a lord, and shortly afterwards became a science minister.

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

Favourite track: Finale of Marriage of Figaro by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

This week Sue Lawley's castaway is one of Britain's most powerful newspaper men - Paul Dacre, editor of the Daily Mail.

He was brought up in a household where news, and the coverage of it, was a daily topic of debate - his late father was a correspondent on the Daily Express - working variously as showbusiness editor, New York correspondent and foreign editor. His father's influence was tremendous and Paul Dacre says he can't remember a time when he didn't want to be a journalist and, in truth, an editor. He studied English at Leeds University but confesses to missing lectures in Anglo Saxon in favour of working on the student newspaper. Paul Dacre edited the student paper while Jack Straw was president of the students' union and, after graduating, he joined the Daily Express in Manchester. He became New York correspondent for the Express before being poached by the Daily Mail. He went on to edit the Evening Standard and turned down the editorship of The Times to take up the editorship of the Daily Mail. Away from the hectic world of newspapers, Paul Dacre spends his time at home, tending his garden and enjoying family life.

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

Favourite track: Theodora by George Frideric Handel

This week Sue Lawley's castaway is the film director Stephen Frears. His film credits include My Beautiful Launderette, When Sammy and Rosie Get Laid, Dangerous Liaisons, High Fidelity and, most recently, Dirty Pretty Things. He is one of Britain's most talented and well-known directors, achieving success with his Hollywood work as much as for low budget, British productions.

He was born in Leicester in 1941 and, despite studying law at Cambridge, was not tempted to train to be a lawyer, and instead sought employment at the ground-breaking Royal Court Theatre in London. He left the Royal Court in the 1960s to work with the highly acclaimed Czech film-maker Karel Reisz. His television work has included many collaborations with Alan Bennett, but it wasn't until the 1980s that he became famous with a film that was initially destined for television, which was so successful it was released to cinemas. It was 'My Beautiful Launderette' - starring a then unknown Daniel Day Lewis and examining the racial and sexual tensions of Thatcher's Britain.

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

Favourite track: I'm Against It by Grouch Marx