This week Sue Lawley's castaway is the writer George MacDonald Fraser. When George MacDonald Fraser decided to write about Flashman, the well-known bully in Tom Brown's Schooldays, he found the perfect star for a series of Victorian adventures - from the Opium Wars and Custer's Last Stand to the Charge of the Light Brigade. Eleven books later, the caddish Flashman now boasts a huge following all over the world.

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

Favourite track: Title Music for the Adventures of Robin Hood by Erich Wolfgang Korngold