This week's Desert Island Discs castaway is novelist Mary Wesley. Although she has written poetry and prose throughout her life, it was not until she was a widow in her 70s, struggling to make ends meet, that she had her first book, Jumping the Queue, published. That was eight years ago, and since then she has gone on to write six more best-sellers like The Camomile Lawn and Not That Sort of Girl. Mary Wesley will be talking to Sue Lawley about the pleasures and perils of her late arrival to literary fame and choosing eight records to accompany her to her desert island.

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

Favourite track: Symphony No 7 - Final Movement by Ludwig van Beethoven