Desert Island Discs

Kirsty Young's castaway is Gillian Clarke.Wales's National Poet, she has received the Queen's Gold Medal for her work. She writes about everything from dinosaurs to suicide, but the potency and power of nature is a recurring motif.Although she's recognised for her significant and distinguished contribution to her homeland's literature and culture, her verse has been translated into ten languages and she regularly receives fan mail from South America, Pakistan and most countries in between.Aside from writing, her main project in life is the conservation of her own small patch of West Wales - restoring hedges, conserving bluebells and tending sheep take up her spare time.She says, "A poem is the only work of art you can have for nothing. Read it, memorise it, copy it into your notebook and it's yours."Producer: Paula McGinley.

Kirsty Young's castaway is Barbara Hulanicki, designer and creator of Biba.Today her creativity spans fashion, illustration, interior design and architecture but it was the success of the label Biba that first made her name; launching a high street revolution with its opulent-looking but entirely affordable high fashion. According to Twiggy, "she changed fashion in England singlehandedly".A newspaper advert for a £3 pink gingham dress in 1963 kicked things off and by the seventies her London department store was a throbbing temple to all things skinny-fitted in plum, mulberry, green, brown and black. Romantic, mysterious, nostalgic and very profitable. But when it all turned sour with her business partners, she and her husband Fitz walked away, leaving behind the hugely popular creation that had made her name.The fantasy and perfection of her creations were a far cry from the harsh reality of her childhood; born in Poland just before the Second World War, the air of privilege that surrounded her family was traumatically punctured when her father, a diplomat, was assassinated.She says "Now whenever I finish something I take some photographs and say 'goodbye'. When you lose everything, you realise that the only thing you have is what's in your head."Producer: Cathy Drysdale.

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the broadcaster Clare Balding.The BBC TV coverage of London's 2012 Olympics was her triumph and much like Team GB she'd been in training for her big moment for quite a while.She's worked on five Olympic Games, four Paralympics, three Winter Olympics and a great deal of horse racing. It's on the turf that's she's most at home - her father was a champion racehorse trainer and for a number of years she herself was a leading amateur flat jockey.The first pony she ever rode, as a toddler, was a gift from the Queen; she went to public school and Cambridge but her life hasn't been an entirely easy ride. She has coped with thyroid cancer, being forcibly "outed" by the tabloid press and in her own words being "a disappointment from the moment" she was born.She says, "This may sound nauseating but I'm a very happy person. I love my work, I love my life and I'm told by those who know and love me that it's a bit like living with Tigger".Producer: Cathy Drysdale.

Rt Hon Ed Miliband MP, Leader of the Labour Party, joins Kirsty Young to choose his Desert Island Discs.He's been in charge of his party for three years and was the youngest leader they'd ever elected. But that fact got somewhat lost in the drama that surrounded his coronation: famously, he stood against his brother, David. To say the younger brother's victory upset the political apple cart would be something of an understatement.Politics is in his pores. His mother was a human rights campaigner, his father a renowned Marxist academic. Both parents came from Jewish families who settled in Britain having only just survived the Nazis.Looking though his CV - clever comprehensive schoolboy, degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from Oxford, an intern for Tony Benn, Economics lecturer at Harvard, Special Advisor to Gordon Brown - it's clear, for him, there's only ever been one abiding passion.He says, politics "is not something I chose. It's not something I learned from books, even from my Dad's books. It was something I was born into."Producer: Cathy Drysdale.

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the writer Malorie Blackman.A prolific and multi-award winning author she has powered her way to success not just through talent but determination and perseverance. From the careers mistress who told her, "black people don't become teachers," to the 82 rejection letters she received before she was published, significant parts of her life seem to have been spent proving people wrong. A technology wiz, her first career was in computing. As a writer her books have tackled challenging themes: bullying, teenage pregnancy, racism and terrorism.Currently Children's Laureate, her own formative years were spent in South London where as a little girl she went from thinking everyone was her friend to feeling, as a teenager, that the world was her enemy.She says, "Good stories made me reassess the world and people as I thought I knew them. Great stories made me reassess myself."Producer: Cathy Drysdale.

Kirsty Young's castaway is the classical pianist, Alfred Brendel.A performer of world renown, his career spans seven decades, and he is particularly famous for his interpretations of Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert and Liszt. An Austrian who's lived in the UK for many years, he was born in 1931 in what is now the Czech Republic. Although not from a musical family, he began playing the piano aged six and gave his first recital aged 17. Largely self-taught, in addition to his live performances, he's enjoyed a long and successful recording career. Revered for his intellect and individual and original take on the world, he is also a published poet and essayist.He says, "I regard pessimism as a sign of intelligence. Optimism is a very welcome and life-enhancing feature, a gift, but not necessarily a realistic outlook. I am a pessimist who enjoys being pleasantly surprised."Producer: Cathy Drysdale.

Kirsty Young's castaway is the educationalist Sir Ken Robinson.Creativity - how to nurture it, develop it and marshal its power - is his preoccupation. He believes that too many people have no sense of their true talents and passions, and his internationally renowned talks to teachers, business and government leaders argue that - contrary to popular myth - creativity and innovation can be developed in a deliberate and systematic way. What we need, he thinks, is a learning revolution.His own erudition began in a crowded house on Merseyside in the fifties, full of visitors, noise and laughter. His front door was just a hundred yards from Everton football club, but his boyhood dreams of playing for The Blues ended when he contracted polio.The first of his six siblings to pass the 11-plus and win a scholarship to one of Liverpool's best schools, his education would fundamentally shape the rest of his life. He says "If a teacher hadn't seen something in me that I hadn't seen in myself, my life might have gone in a very different direction."Producer: Cathy Drysdale.

Professor Tanya Byron, clinical psychologist and TV presenter, is interviewed by Kirsty Young for Desert Island Discs.Tanya has spent the last twenty years in clinical practice, helping children, young people and families deal with some of the most difficult parts of life - depression, anxiety, aggression, self harming and drug addiction.She came to public prominence through her television work, books and advice columns and it would seem that she had the perfect background to cope with life in the spotlight - her father was a successful tv and theatre director and her mother worked variously as a nursing sister and a model.A highly dramatic family tragedy ignited her interest in what spurs people to behave the way that they do.She says of her work "I do have a particular desire to enable young people, on the cusp of what could be the most extraordinary life, to live ... and live well."Producer: Isabel Sargent.

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the former barrister and member of The House of Lords, Jeremy Hutchinson.His life spans eleven decades of British history and he has spent much of it at the very centre of the action. Born during the First World War, he was brought up in the company of some of the greatest artists and writers of the day.In World War II, he escaped his bombed-out ship clinging to a life raft with Lord Mountbatten.At the Bar he played a central role in many of the seismic trials of the day - among them defending the novel Lady Chatterley's Lover against obscenity charges and Christine Keeler in the Profumo Affair trial. His brilliance in cross-examination inspired John Mortimer's creation of the character Rumpole of The Bailey.He enjoyed two long marriages - his first to the actress Peggy Ashcroft, his second, for 40 years, to June Osborn, and he spent 23 years as an active member of The House of Lords.He says, "I had the luck to live when the world of the Establishment was being dismantled. The whole of one's career was to do with what was going on in society."Producer: Cathy Drysdale.

Kirsty Young's castaway is the naturalist, Chris Packham.TV presenter, filmmaker, writer, photographer, every bit of his work revolves around wildlife. If he's not busy telling us why we should love midges he's enthusing about the hearing capacity of a barn owl. His passion for animals is clear, what they think of him remains a little more uncertain; he's been attacked by a baboon, charged by lions and bitten by a puff adder.His obsession with the natural world began early when a predictable boyhood fascination for tadpoles and ladybirds grew to encompass mosquito larvae, lizards, snakes and bats. As a teenager he collected badger droppings by day and pogoed with electric blue hair at Clash gigs by night.These days he distinguishes himself by his impressive knowledge of his subject and his outspoken views on everything from countryside culls to the problems with cat owners.He says, "I'll never rest until I've tried to do my own small bit in terms of changing the environment so it's a better place. I won't do it for my grandchildren because I won't have any and I won't do it for yours. I'll do it because it's the right thing to do."Producer: Cathy Drysdale.