Desert Island Discs

Kirsty Young's castaway is the journalist Jon Snow.For the past 21 years he's been the face of Channel Four's nightly bulletins where, along with his patent enthusiasm and vigour for dissecting the day's stories, he's noted for his natty line in neckties and socks.He's a highly experienced foreign correspondent too - he's reported from Haiti, New Orleans, Washington and East Africa among many locations. However it was in El Salvador that he found his name on the list of people who might be targeted by death squads. It was, he says, something of a 'badge of honour'. "I cry on location", he says, "and it's a good thing, because otherwise you bottle it up and come home bonkers."Record: Petite Messe Solennelle Book: Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin Luxury: A set of watercolours and an endless supply of paper Producer: Leanne Buckle.

Kirsty Young's castaway is the veteran Coronation Street actress Betty Driver. For more than forty years she's been pulling pints and dishing up her hot-pot in the Rovers Return. But her career in showbusiness started decades before she took up residence on Britain's most famous street. She was a child when her mother put her on the stage and she toured the country with an act that showcased her stunning singing voice - it brought success but not happiness. "I did it for over twenty years," she says, "and hated every day of it." Although she has been working now for an incredible 80 years, she says: "I just love work and I will never retire. They'll have to shoot me to get rid of me!"Producer: Leanne Buckle.

Kirsty Young's castaway is the First Minister of Scotland, Alex Salmond.He has spent his political life campaigning for Scottish independence. As a schoolboy he stood in classroom elections - back then, he won on the canny ticket of half-days for all and replacing the school milk with ice-cream. He was a child when he realised he had a knack for public performance - he was a boy soprano who seemed to have a promising career ahead of him. He says: "If you can sing in front of thousands of people when you're ten or eleven then being Scottish First Minister is nothing in comparison."Record: Joe Hill sung by Paul Robeson Book: The complete works of Robert Burns Luxury: A Sand Wedge & endless golf balls for playing golf. Producer: Leanne Buckle.

Kirsty Young's castaway is Gyles Brandreth. A former Conservative MP, he is also a some-time actor, broadcaster and prolific writer who has authored biographies, diaries, stage plays and mysteries. Pursuing a political career has been, he says, the over-riding ambition of his life. However the happiest moment came not from politics, but when he was performing in a West End show that he had written himself. These days, his ambitions are to return to the stage and the role he wants to take on is Chekhov's Uncle Vanya. "I have no complaints" he says; "my life has been one long series of tomato and marmite sandwiches. I've always had what I wanted." Record: I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face sung by Simon Cadell Book: The Complete plays of Anton Chekhov Luxury: Michelangelo's Pietà Producer: Leanne Buckle.

Kirsty Young's castaway is the veteran RAF pilot Tony Iveson.Aged 21, he survived being shot down in his Spitfire over the North Sea during his first taste of combat in the Battle of Britain. Unusually for a fighter pilot, he then went on to join Bomber Command and the famous Dambusters squadron, sinking the German battleship The Tirpitz and winning a Distinguished Flying Cross. Aged 89 he returned to the skies, becoming the oldest man to fly a Lancaster bomber: "Well, I got out of that aeroplane and looked at it and it and thought how did we do it?" he says. "I know it was a long time ago and I was young and fit and a professional flier. But I thought about some of my friends who had been lost and it was an emotional experience." Record: Albinoni's Adagio in G Minor Book: A volume of Somerset Maugham's short stories Luxury: Two established vines and a tin bath to make wine Producer: Rachel Simpson.

Kirsty Young's castaway is the singer Sandie Shaw. With her melodic, velvety voice, bare feet and Sassoon bob she was the epitome of everything that was swinging about the '60s. She was just 17 when she first topped the charts with Always Something There to Remind Me and went on to become Britain's first Eurovision winner with Puppet on a String. She loathed the song at the time, but has recently come to terms with it after recording a new version which is, she says, rather forlorn.Along with the highs have been terrible lows - years that she calls her dark ages, when, without money or creative freedom, she felt hopeless. It was Buddhism that turned her fortunes around and became central to her life. Now, she says, she cannot believe the journey life has taken her on and she is preparing for a final flourish as a performer. Record: None of them! Book: Lecture on The Heritage of the Ultimate Law of Life by Daisaku Ikeda Luxury: Omamori GohonzonProducer: Leanne Buckle.

Kirsty Young's castaway is the Oscar-winning animator Nick Park.His most famous creations are Wallace and Gromit: Gromit the silent but wise dog; Wallace, his well meaning owner with notably less brain-power. They now hold the same place in the nation's heart at Christmas that Morcambe and Wise once occupied. They are old-fashioned and quintessentially British - as familiar as bread and butter, or hoping the rain holds off - but their appeal is international. The world they inhabit is one of Jacobs cream crackers and tea-strainers - so it's little surprise that in real life too Nick Park's own creature comforts are modest: "The thing is, I have everything I want really. I've got my little house, I've got a campervan, I love the British countryside, I'm not after yachts or things like that."Record: I Forgot that Love Existed - Van Morrison Book: A Collins Bird book Luxury: My own 'Amazing pair of binoculars' Producer: Leanne Buckle.

Kirsty Young's castaway week is the aviator, inventor and arts patron, Sir Torquil Norman. He comes from a family where derring-do is in the DNA - his grandfather was a pioneering airman, his grandmother an adventurer and his father also a keen pilot. Torquil ended up in the toy trade where the skills needed were, he says, a close attention to detail combined with the outlook on life of a seven year old. He was, he admits, perfectly qualified. In retirement he set about his biggest project - he bought a disused railway engine shed and raised tens of millions of pounds to safeguard its future as a venue for performing arts and a centre for young people.Record: Nobody Knows You when You're Down and Out - Bessie Smith Book: Book by his father: Nigel Norman - Verses 1911 - 1943. Luxury: A miniature still with a little ice-making machine attached to it to make dry martinis.

Kirsty Young's castaway is the writer and historian Frances Wood. As head of the Chinese collection at the British Library she is the gatekeeper to some of the rarest printed texts in the world. Her life has been immersed in the language and culture of the Far East and, along the way, she's spent time learning how to throw hand-grenades, plant rice in the paddy-fields and bundle Chinese cabbages. She was in China in the final months of Mao Zedong's regime and remembers being aware of the sense of national unease: "There were the bodies that floated down the Pearl River to Hong Kong - you did get a real sense of foreboding. You did know that the whole country was on edge." Producer: Leanne Buckle Record: Don Carlos Book: A copy of Chinese dictionary Cihai, (which means Sea of Words) from the 1930s Luxury: The War Memorial outside Euston Station.

Kirsty Young's castaway is the best-selling writer Robert Harris. He was, apparently, a political junkie from a young age; he was just six when he wrote the essay: 'Why me and my dad don't like Sir Alec Douglas Home' and he also had an early realisation that he wanted to grow up to be a writer. His first novel - Fatherland - imagined a world after the Nazis had won World War II. It sold more than three million copies and made him a household name. "I can remember I wrote the opening sentence and I practically had to go and lie down afterwards," he said, "the possibilities of it - and the feeling that I'd finally arrived at what I wanted to do - it was overwhelming." Record: Every Day I write the book - Elvis Costello Book: Scoop by Evelyn Waugh Luxury: A nightly fragrant bath.