Desert Island Discs

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the distinguished foreign correspondent Ann Leslie. She has witnessed and reported on some of the most significant events of the past 30 years including the fall of the Berlin wall; the failed coup against Michael Gorbachev and Nelson Mandela's final walk to freedom. She has reported on uprisings, massacres and wars, collecting numerous awards as she has done so. She grew up in India and Pakistan and loved India and its culture. When she was around 10 years old she was sent to a boarding school in England. From school she went to Oxford and from there she joined the Daily Express. She was brought to London and was given her own column at the age of twenty-two. But she resigned, saying she wanted to do proper reporting, and it was David English's support for her that saw her start writing foreign news stories and set the course for her distinguished career.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]Favourite track: Improvisation - The Theme Music Pather Panchali by Ravi Shankar Book: Completed Works by P G Wodehouse Luxury: An enormous amount of garlic with a garlic press

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the Olympic gold medallist Matthew Pinsent. Matthew Pinsent won his fourth Olympic gold medal at this summer's games in Athens. His first three were all won rowing with Sir Steve Redgrave - as a pair in 1992 in Barcelona and 1996 in Atlanta and as part of the coxless four in 2000's Sydney games. This summer's success saw him lead the four to victory - in a photo-finish that saw them beat the Canadian team by less than a tenth of a second. He won his first Gold at the Junior World Championships aged just seventeen. Between 1991 and 2002 he won a gold medal every year at the World Championships and his life was given over to rowing - he took a year out from his studies to compete in the 1992 Olympics, fitted his wedding around the rowing calendar and followed a rigorous training regime to maintain his 6'5'', seventeen-stone frame at the peak of its strength and fitness.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]Favourite track: Fields of gold by Sting Book: World Atlas, extended Luxury: Shaving kit

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the poet Dr Jack Mapanje who is one of the most important living African poets. He was born into a poor household in a typical African village in 1944, when Malawi (then Nyasaland) was a British colony, but while he was still a child it became part of the Central African Federation, together with Northern and Southern Rhodesia. Jack started writing poems, inspired by his despair at the political woes besetting his country. Although his book, Of Chameleons and Gods, was only sold in one book shop in Malawi, it won considerable acclaim around the world and was awarded the Rotterdam International Poetry Prize. He was ambitious and set up a writers group within his own University and, although he knew it was dangerous, felt compelled to continue with his writing. He was arrested in 1987 while drinking in a bar. The World Service broadcast a news item about Mapanje's arrest the following day and his cause was taken up by writers' groups and activists across the world. Dr Mapanje was held without charge or trial in Mikuyu Prison for more than three years, scarcely aware of the international campaign to free him. When he was finally released, again it was without warning or explanation. Believing his life was still in danger, he fled with his wife and children to Britain. He has lived here ever since and now lectures at the University of Newcastle. [Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]Favourite track: Ave Maria by Johann Sebastian Bach Book: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen Luxury: A guitar

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the Liberal Democrat politician Sir Menzies Campbell. Born in Glasgow, he excelled at both academia and sports making it to the University in Glasgow and then Stanford in California where he studied law but all the while dividing his time between this and his other great love - athletics. He became the fastest man in Britain holding and re-breaking the record for the 100 metres between 1967 and 1974 and competed in the 1964 Olympic and 1966 Commonwealth games.As a lawyer he was called to the Scottish Bar in 1968 and was made QC in 1982. His political career began 30 years ago when he stood for his first parliamentary seat in 1974, fighting three more elections before winning North East Fife in 1987. He quickly became a fast-rising star and is now Deputy Leader of the party and spokesman on Foreign Affairs. He was awarded a CBE in 1987, became a privy councillor in 1999 and was knighted earlier this year in the New Year's Honours list.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]Favourite track: The Ride of the Valkyries by Richard Wagner Book: Treasure Island & Kidnapped as one volume by Robert Louis Stevenson Luxury: Set of golf clubs

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the journalist and writer Anne Scott-James. Now in her 92nd year, Anne Scott-James came from a line of critics and writers and became one of the first women career journalists, editors and columnists, before embarking on a second career as the author of a series of gardening books. After Oxford she joined Vogue - first as an assistant to a secretary and then went from writing the odd picture caption to proper articles. She became editor of Harper's Bazaar - and during her magazine career she commissioned work from such figures as Cecil Beaton, John Betjemen and Elizabeth David. Her marriage to Macdonald Hastings collapsed and in the early 60s she met the writer and illustrator Sir Osbert Lancaster and they married in 1967. At around the same time she embarked on a new stage in her career - gardening writing. Her first book, Down to Earth, and The Pleasure Garden, which she produced jointly with Sir Osbert, are now being republished as gardening classics.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]Favourite track: Double Concerto for Two Violins in D by Johann Sebastian Bach Book: Semi-attached Couple by Emily Eden Luxury: Nightdress made of pure white cotton

Sue's Lawley's castaway this week is the zoologist turned author and broadcaster Desmond Morris. He made his name with The Naked Ape first published in 1967 in which he persuasively argued the case for viewing man as a 'risen ape' rather than a 'fallen angel'. To him, humans should be observed like any other beast in the animal kingdom. The book has sold more than 12 million copies and has been translated into 23 languages. Dozens more books have followed including The Human Zoo, which compared the social problems of humans living in cities to the behaviour of stressed animals in a zoo. He's also a successful artist - once holding the directorship of the Institute of Contemporary Arts - and he's exhibited his work at galleries around the world.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]Favourite track: Imagine by Alex Parks Book: Tales from Arabia: One Thousand and One Nights by Richard Burton Luxury: Snorkel

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the actress and wildlife campaigner Virginia McKenna. She was born in London and, after spending five years of her childhood in South Africa to escape the Blitz, she returned to England. She enrolled at the Central School of Drama but left after two years when offered six months in Repertory at Dundee. Classics such as the Cruel Sea, Carve Her Name with Pride and A Town Like Alice, for which she won a British Academy Award for Best Actress, have been highlights in a long and successful career. However her most remembered and best loved roles have been in Born Free and Ring of Bright Water, starring opposite her actor husband the late Bill Travers. For Born Free, she won the Variety Club Best Actress Award . Making Born Free in 1964, which told the true story of George and Joy Adamson as they returned Elsa the lioness to the wild, profoundly affected Bill and Virginia and it was a key influence in their lives. They realised that wild animals belong in the wild and should be protected there, not imprisoned in captivity. But the premature death in London Zoo of Pole Pole, a young elephant, who had featured in their film, An Elephant Called Slowly, led to the founding of Zoo Check in 1984. The Trust was dedicated to preventing the abuse of captive wild animals and strove to protect and conserve them in the wild. Zoo Check grew to become a major force in the animal welfare movement and was renamed The Born Free Foundation in 1991. She was awarded the OBE in the New Year's Honours List in 2004 for services to wildlife and the arts.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]Favourite track: We Are The Music Makers by Edward Elgar Book: Animal - the Definitive Visual Guide to the World's Wildlife by David Burnie Luxury: Language tapes to learn Italian and Swahali

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the mountaineer Joe Simpson. He was born in Kuala Lumpur in 1960 where his father was stationed with the British Army. Over the next few years the family lived in Gibraltar, Ireland and Germany, although Joe returned to England for schooling at Ampleforth and showed an early adventurous spirit and love of sport.But it was only after reading the classic account of attempted ascents on the Eiger - 'The White Spider' - by Heinrich Harrer that he developed an interest in his future passion. After a brief spell working at a saw mill and then at a quarry he studied English Literature at Edinburgh University. There he began climbing in earnest often attempting dangerous routes beyond his experience before tackling a previously unconquered route up Siula Grande - a peak in the Peruvian Andes. This climb was to make his name. He and his partner Simon Yates made the first successful ascent of the mountain's west face only to run into difficulties after Joe shattered his leg on their descent. After running out of resources and with no prospect of rescue Simon painstakingly lowered Joe towards shelter before being forced to cut the rope on his friend. Joe had inadvertently slid over an overhanging rock and was slowly pulling the two off the mountain. He landed in a crevasse and after being left for dead amazingly managed to crawl miles back to safety. Simon Yates was widely attacked for his actions in the climbing community leading Joe to write a defence of the rescue with his book 'Touching the Void', which has also been made into an award-winning film. Told he'd never climb again following the accident, Joe went on to climb many more mountains over the last two decades. He's worked as a mountaineering guide all over the world and written five more books.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]Favourite track: I'm Not A Man You Meet Everyday by Cait O'Riordon and the Pogues Book: Blank book and pen Alternative to Bible: The Sutras - the teachings of Gautama Buddha Luxury: A drink-making machine

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the world famous musician Hugh Masekela. As a boy growing up in the impoverished townships of South Africa, he was inspired to learn the trumpet after seeing Kirk Douglas play Bix Beiderbecke in Young Man With A Horn. He begged one of his teachers - the anti-apartheid crusader Father Trevor Huddleston - to buy him a horn and in return he promised to stay out of trouble.Hugh soon made a name for himself in South Africa but as the racial tensions intensified during the 50s he decided he had to leave his homeland to get a better music education in America. There he quickly made a name for himself with his fusion of African jazz music and became a 'flower child' playing with some of the great bands of the decade: Bob Marley, Jimi Hendrix and the Byrds. He's still probably best known for his number-one track, Grazing in the Grass, which sold four million copies worldwide in 1968. He returned to Africa in 1973, spending the next 17 years working on a range of musical collaborations in Botswana, Liberia, Nigeria, Congo and Guinea. Then, after thirty years in self-imposed exile, he returned to his homeland in 1990. [Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]Favourite track: Lilizela Mlilezeli by Mahlathini & the Mahotella Queens Book: Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens Luxury: A keyboard

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the leader of the Conservative Party, Michael Howard. He was raised in an orthodox Jewish family in Llanelli, South Wales, where his parents ran ladies' fashion shops. In the Labour-supporting, rugby-playing valleys, the teenage Michael preferred football and his leanings were towards the Conservatives. He propelled himself to Peterhouse College, Cambridge, and was part of the Cambridge mafia that included Kenneth Clarke, Leon Brittan, Norman Lamont and Norman Fowler. But while his contemporaries all entered parliament within a few years of graduating, Michael Howard's journey to Westminster took considerably longer. He first stood as a Conservative candidate in 1966 when he was just 24 years old. He tried again, unsuccessfully, in 1970, but it was not until 1983 - after putting his name forward for dozens of safe seats - that he was chosen as the party's candidate for Folkestone and Hythe and secured a seat in the House of Commons. He says that by the time he was successful, he wondered whether he was too old to make his mark there. But he rose quickly through the ministerial ranks and had secured a place in cabinet before he was 50. He was John Major's Home Secretary for four years - a controversial period that culminated in his former deputy, Ann Widdecombe, saying there was 'something of the night' in his personality. When he stood to be leader of the party in 1997 he came fifth out of five candidates. But eight months ago he was elected, unopposed, the new leader of the party. He told Sue Lawley: 'I was astonished. It was not something I ever thought would happen and if we'd been sitting here a year ago and you'd told me that I'd be sitting here today as leader of the Conservative Party, I have said that you were prone to fantasies'.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]Favourite track: (Everything I Do) I Do It For You by Bryan Adams Book: The Years of Lyndon Johnson by Robert Caro Luxury: A hot shower and some soap