Desert Island Discs

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is the Shadow Chancellor Gordon Brown. He'll be talking to Sue Lawley about how he was an early 'fast-track' pupil - going to Edinburgh University at 16 - their youngest student for 50 years, about the reasons behind his standing aside in favour of Tony Blair in the contest for the Labour leadership, and about his childhood as one of three sons of a Scottish minister.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: Suite No. 3 in D major by Johann Sebastian Bach Book: The Story of Art by Sir Ernst Gombrich Luxury: Tennis ball machine and racket

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is a surgeon and a painter. Sir Roy Calne - Professor of Surgery at Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge - will be talking to Sue Lawley about his early conviction that transplant surgery was a viable way of treating kidney and liver disease, about his struggles to have his ideas accepted and about the paintings he has done of his patients - many of which have been the subject of several public exhibitions. [Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: Symphony No 9 From The New World (Opus 95) by Antonin Dvořák Book: Global Biodiversity by Brian Groombridge Luxury: Paints and canvas

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is Professor George Steiner. One of the most prominent intellectuals of our time, he'll be talking to Sue Lawley about how the English academic establishment has taken decades to accept him despite his early popularity as a Cambridge lecturer, and about the problem of reconciling the love of beauty with great acts of evil. He'll also be describing how his family left Austria for France in the 1920s and how he was one of only two boys to survive in his class in the largely Jewish lycee he attended in Paris. When asked to select just one record to take to the island, Professor George said that for him, it was all or nothing.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Book: 500 year ahead calendar and appointment book Luxury: Computer

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is one of the country's best-known novelists. Author of I'm the King of the Castle, Strange Meeting and The Woman in Black, among many other books, Susan Hill will be talking to Sue Lawley about the inspiration for her recent and highly-acclaimed sequel to Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca; about the loneliness which characterised her childhood and about the relationship between tragedy in her own life and the way she writes about it in her novels.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: Tom Bowling by Benjamin Britten Book: The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford Luxury: The Barnes Collection (paintings)

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is one of the world's outstanding photojournalists, Eve Arnold. The first American woman member of the famous photographic co-operative, Magnum, she'll be talking about how her passion for photography began with the present of a camera, and how, since then, she has travelled the world in search of arresting pictures, living with hippy communes and with the black power movement, as well as photographing some of the great movie stars, including Paul Newman, Joan Crawford and Marilyn Monroe, with whom she had a close friendship for 10 years.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: Flute Concerto No 1 in D Major Op 44R Op 44 by Antonio Vivaldi Book: Arabian Nights (1000 and One Nights) Luxury: Dark room, film and camera

Julian Barnes, an acclaimed British novelist known for works like Flaubert's Parrot, dives deep into his literary passions and personal reflections. He shares his love for Gustave Flaubert and the joys of writing, while also discussing his Leicester City fandom. The conversation touches on his fears about death, exploring how it influences his work. Barnes vividly recalls his upbringing and the paths that led him to writing, emphasizing the interplay of love and mortality in his stories.

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is the only surviving British star of the silent screen. Chili Bouchier will be talking to Sue Lawley about some of the perils of making silent movies and her transition into the talkies with hugely successful films like Carnival and Gypsy. She'll also be describing the ups and downs of a personal life which has been as vivid as her many films - encompassing two disastrous marriages with men who betrayed her, marriage proposals from Howard Hughes and breaking her Hollywood contract with Warner Brothers which meant she was blackballed and unable to make another film.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: The World Is Waiting For The Sunrise by Acker Bilk Book: In Tune With The Infinite: Fullness of Peace Power by Ralph Waldo Trine Luxury: Make-up kit

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is the playwright Jimmy McGovern. He'll be talking to Sue Lawley about the TV series Cracker - one of the top television series of the 1990s - about how much of the central character, Fitz, is modelled on himself, how he feels about the violent world it portrays and about why we are fascinated by criminal psychology. For seven years a writer on Brookside, he'll be describing how the phenomenal success of Cracker led to the reviving of his previously-rejected scripts for films like Priest and Hearts and Minds. He'll also be relating how the man who has since made a living out of words had such a bad stammer as a child that he was largely unintelligible. [Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: When I Fall In Love by Nat King Cole Book: Ulysses by James Joyce Luxury: Haemorrhoid ointment

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is the writer Christopher Hampton. He'll be talking to Sue Lawley about his multiplicity of talents - after obtaining a first at Oxford he went straight to the Royal Court Theatre in London where he wrote several highly-regarded plays, among them The Philanthropist. He then went on to win an Oscar for his screenplay of the film Dangerous Liaisons, to translate the work of Ibsen and Chekhov, to write the book for Sunset Boulevard, and, most recently, to direct the film Carrington, which he also wrote.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: Requiem: The Lachrymosa by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Book: A title by Marcel Proust Luxury: Pen and paper

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is Margaret Tebbit. She'll be talking to Sue Lawley about the night 11 years ago when the IRA detonated a huge bomb at the Grand Hotel in Brighton, where she was staying with her husband for the Tory Party Conference. Since that dreadful night, she has been severely paralysed, and she'll be describing the effect on her life: the dreams she has in which she no longer has to use a wheelchair, the new friends she's made and the old ones who turned out not to be such good friends in adversity and how her previous experience of mental illness - in the form of severe depression - compares with her current physical incapacity.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: Nocturne by Evert Taube Book: Hillier's Dictionary of Plants by Hillier Luxury: An endless team of Man Fridays