Desert Island Discs

Cressida Dick is Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police.She was born in 1960, the youngest child of two university professors. Her parents divorced when she was still at primary school and she and her older siblings grew up in Oxford. Their father died when Cressida was just 11. She read Agriculture and Forest Sciences at Oxford University before spending a year in accountancy. She joined the Metropolitan Police in 1983 where her first beat was on the streets of Soho. After a decade in London, she transferred to Thames Valley Police where she worked her way up to become area commander in Oxford. In 2001 she completed a master’s degree in Criminology, re-joining the Met to head its diversity directorate and, from 2003, Operation Trident, the Met’s gun crime unit. It was in this capacity that she came to wider public attention when, in the wake of the 2005 London transport bombings, an innocent man was shot dead by police at Stockwell tube station. The Met was severely criticised in the aftermath of Jean Charles de Menezes’s death. Cressida Dick was the commander in charge of the operation, but a 2007 trial found that she bore no personal culpability. In 2011, she became Assistant Commissioner for Specialist Operations responsible for counter-terrorism work, but in 2015 she left the Met to work at the Foreign Office. In February 2017, she made her return to policing when she was the successful candidate in the search for a new Commissioner. She took up the post in April 2017 for a five-year term, the first woman and the first openly gay person to hold the job.BOOK CHOICE: The Complete works of Thomas Hardy LUXURY ITEM: Endless supply of floral scented soaps CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 17 in D minorPresenter: Lauren Laverne Producer: Cathy Drysdale

Bob Mortimer is a comedian best known for his work with his comedy partner Vic Reeves. For 30 years, he and Vic have appeared in numerous TV series together, including Vic Reeves’ Big Night Out, Shooting Stars and The Smell of Reeves and Mortimer. Bob first saw Vic performing in a south London pub: Vic was wearing a Bryan Ferry mask while trying to tap dance with wooden planks strapped to his feet. Bob found this hugely entertaining, and began to take part in Vic’s shows. Bob was born in 1959 in Middlesbrough, the youngest of four boys. His father died in a car crash when he was seven and Bob says he became his mother’s little helper – although he also set fire to their house after playing with fireworks. As a teenager he dreamed of a career as a footballer, but he ended up studying law at university, and worked as a solicitor in south London. In 2015 Bob underwent triple heart bypass surgery. After this – in a rare diversion from working with Vic – he accepted an invitation from fellow comedian Paul Whitehouse to get out of the house and go fishing, which led to a successful TV series, Mortimer and Whitehouse: Gone Fishing. BOOK CHOICE: My Secret History by Paul Theroux LUXURY ITEM: His own pillow CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Down to You by Joni MitchellPresenter: Lauren Laverne Producer: Sarah Taylor

Wendy Cope is one of England’s most popular and widely-read contemporary poets. Wendy was born in Erith, Kent. Her father was 29 years older than her mother and she was sent to boarding school at the age of seven. Although English was her favourite subject at school, in a bid to defy her English teacher’s expectations, she read history at Oxford. Following graduation she became a primary school teacher.After the death of her father in 1971, Wendy entered psychoanalysis in 1973 and turned to writing poetry. Having attended evening classes in creative writing, one of her poems was published in a collection which brought her to the attention of Faber and Faber. Her first volume of poetry, Making Cocoa For Kingsley Amis, was published in 1986, and became an instant success, and she gave up teaching to become a full time writer.She has since published four volumes of a poetry: Serious Concerns (1992), If I Don’t Know (2001), Family Values (2011) and Anecdotal Evidence (2018) as well as two volumes for children, Twiddling Your Thumbs (1988) and The River Girl (1991). In 2011, Wendy sold her entire personal archive to the British Library, which consisted of 15 boxes of manuscript, including several unpublished early works.Wendy lives in Ely and is married to fellow poet, Lachlan Mackinnon.BOOK CHOICE: Compleet Molesworth by Geoffrey Willans LUXURY ITEM: Pen and paper CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Bach’s Double Violin Concerto in D minor Presenter: Lauren Laverne Producer: Cathy Drysdale

James Rebanks is a shepherd and the best-selling author of The Shepherd’s Life. Born in Cumbria in 1974, he grew up venerating his grandfather, who taught him what he needed to know in order to take over the family farm from his father one day. He found school an irksome distraction, and left aged 15 with two GCSEs. It wasn’t until his early 20s, after he’d developed an interest in reading and had met his future wife Helen, that he decided to return to study at a local college in the evenings. Encouraged by a tutor, he applied for a place at Oxford University, and graduated with a double first in History. After university, he worked in a number of white-collar jobs, in order to boost his income while ensuring he could continue to work on the farm. He breeds two different types of sheep: Herdwicks, which are a native breed to his part of the world, and Swaledales, which he kept out of respect to his father who died in 2015, just before the publication of James’s first book. He began chronicling his life as a shepherd on Twitter in 2012 but is currently taking a break from tweeting. He and Helen have four children.BOOK CHOICE: The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway LUXURY: Pen and Paper CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: A New England by Kirsty MacCollPresenter: Lauren Laverne Producer: Cathy Drysdale

Ruth Jones is an actor and writer. She co-created and starred in the award-winning TV comedy series Gavin and Stacey, and also wrote and took the title role in the comedy drama Stella, which ran for six series. She grew up in Porthcawl, in South Wales, where the local secondary school nurtured her love of performance. She took to the stage in numerous school musicals, along with fellow pupil Rob Brydon. After studying drama at Warwick University, she struggled at first to find work as an actor. She briefly considered becoming a solicitor, before she won the role of a ninja turtle in Dick Whittington at the Porthcawl Pavilion and gained an Equity card. Her TV work ranges from costume dramas to comedies including Little Britain and Nighty Night. She developed the idea for Gavin and Stacey with James Corden when they were both filming the ITV series Fat Friends. The story of a boy from Billericay who falls for a girl from Barry, Gavin and Stacey began on BBC Three, with Ruth’s role as straight-talking, leather-wearing Nessa winning people’s hearts. She and James wrote every episode, and the finale, on BBC One, reached more than 10 million viewers.Last year Ruth published her first novel, Never Greener, which topped the bestseller lists, and she returned to the stage in the musical play The Nightingales. BOOK CHOICE: Halliwell's Film Guide LUXURY: The back catalogue of The Archers CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Smooth by Santana feat. Rob ThomasPresenter: Lauren Laverne Producer: Sarah Taylor

The Turner Prize-winning artist Jeremy Deller is perhaps best known for We’re Here Because We’re Here, a moving and powerful memorial to the Battle of the Somme, and The Battle of Orgreave – a re-enactment of the confrontation between police and pickets at the height of the miners’ strike.Deller doesn’t paint, draw or sculpt and his work encompasses film, photography and installations. At school his creative endeavours were not always appreciated, and at 13 he was asked to leave the art class. His lifelong love of history was ignited by childhood trips to museums with his father, and is evident in the subjects he addresses, from Stonehenge, which he re-created as a giant bouncy castle, to William Morris. He managed to meet Andy Warhol in London in 1986 and went to spend two formative weeks at Warhol’s New York City studio, the Factory. The experience crystallised in Deller the belief that art can come in many forms and that an artist can create their own world of ideas.His memorial to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the Peterloo Massacre will be unveiled in August 2019.BOOK CHOICE: An A to Z London Street Atlas LUXURY: A stretch of road over Hay Bluff between Hay-on-Wye and Abergavenny. CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Out of the Blue by Roxy Music.Presenter: Lauren Laverne Producer: Paula McGinley

Alan Carr, comedian and chat show host, is known for his love of silliness, dressing up and camp daftness. His stand-up shows have filled arenas, and on TV he co-hosted the Friday Night Project and then his own show - Chatty Man. Alan was born into a footballing family – his dad, Graham, was a professional player and then a manager. Alan first tried his hand at comedy while reading Theatre Studies at Middlesex University. After he graduated, he took on a range of jobs before his ability to make friends laugh with his stories of working in a call centre in Manchester led him to try stand-up at a local venue. In 2001 he won the City Life Best Newcomer of the Year and the BBC New Comedy Awards. His break into TV came after a spell as the warm-up man for the Jonathan Ross chat show. He has won many awards including Best Entertainment Show for Alan Carr: Chatty Man at the 2010 TV Choice Awards, the 2013 BAFTA for Best Entertainment Performance and 2013 British Comedy Award for Best Comedy Entertainment Personality. In 2015 he won the National Television Award for Best Chat Show Host.He and his long term partner Paul were married in January 2018 by Adele - who also organised the wedding, and paid for it. Presenter: Lauren Laverne Producer: Cathy Drysdale

As one of the Guardian’s first female foreign correspondents, Hella Pick reported on events that shaped the world in the second half of the 20th century, from Martin Luther King's civil rights activism to Watergate, the Gdansk shipyard strikes to the collapse of the Soviet Union. Born in Vienna in 1929, she was raised by her mother who, in March 1939, put her on a Kindertransport train to Britain to escape the Nazis. Her mother was able to follow her to England a few months later and Hella spent her formative years in the Lake District. After reading Politics at London School of Economics, she worked as commercial editor of a London-based weekly publication called West Africa. After she left, she offered her services to The Guardian – and spent the next 35 years or so with the paper. While UN correspondent, she worked alongside Alistair Cooke in New York and subsequently held posts as European Integration correspondent, Washington correspondent, Eastern Europe correspondent, and diplomatic editor before retiring in the mid-1990s. Since leaving The Guardian, she has nurtured a new career as a writer, publishing a biography of Simon Wiesenthal and a book about Austria’s post-war history.BOOK: Scorn by Matthew Parris LUXURY: Recliner armchair FAVOURITE TRACK: Mozart's Marriage of FigaroPresenter: Lauren Laverne Producer: Cathy Drysdale

Professor Mariana Mazzucato is an economist, who focuses on value and innovation. Born in Italy, Mariana moved to America as a child, when her father accepted a post at Princeton University. She has lived in the UK for the last 20 years and is currently Professor in the Economics of Innovation and Public Value and the Director of the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose at University College London.She examined how government funding has enabled highly profitable inventions in the private sector in her 2013 book The Entrepreneurial State. She advises policymakers around the world on how to deliver sustainable growth, and has also taken a particular interest in pricing and profit in the pharmaceutical industry. Earlier this year she published The Value of Everything, in which she argued that we need to re-think our ideas about how wealth is created in the global economy. In 2013 she was named as one of the 'three most important thinkers about innovation' by the New Republic. BOOK CHOICE: Memoirs of Hadrian by Marguerite Yourcenar LUXURY: One of her mother's handmade quilts CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Round Midnight by Thelonious MonkPresenter Lauren Laverne Producer Sarah Taylor

Gary Barlow, musician and Take That lead singer, has written more than a dozen chart-topping songs, and has received six Ivor Novello awards including the award for Outstanding Contribution to British Music. Born in Cheshire in 1971, his interest in music was sparked at an early age by a child’s keyboard. At the age of 10, he saw Depeche Mode on Top of the Pops, prompting the desire to take to the stage himself. He wrote A Million Love Songs, which later became a Top 10 hit for Take That, in his bedroom when he was 15. By this time he was a regular performer in a Labour club just across the Welsh border, where he cut his teeth playing the organ and singing. By the time he was 18, he was so good at writing songs that he successfully auditioned for a place in the group which became Take That. They went on to be one of the most successful bands of all time, winning a devoted audience with tracks such as Back For Good, Everything Changes and Pray. When they broke up in early 1996, helplines were set up to assuage their fans’ feelings of loss and grief. In 2005, Take That reformed, with Robbie Williams rejoining them for a spell in 2010, and – in some form or other – the band has kept going and will tour again in 2019.Gary was put in charge of organising the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee concert and performed at the closing ceremony for the London Olympics in 2012. He was a judge on the X-Factor for three series and his talent show, Let It Shine, was broadcast on BBC One in 2017. Earlier this year he published a second autobiography.BOOK CHOICE: Recording the Beatles by by Kevin Ryan and Brian Kehew. LUXURY ITEM: Piano CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Nimrod by ElgarPresenter: Lauren Laverne Producer: Cathy Drysdale