Desert Island Discs

Described by Lord Tebbit as "a remarkably normal family man with children", Iain has just completed twelve months as Leader of the Conservative Party - he was the first Leader to be elected by a ballot of the Party's membership. Iain married Betsy in 1982 and they have two sons and two daughters.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]Favourite track: The Benedictus (from Requiem) by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Book: The Alexandria Quartet by Lawrence Durrell Luxury: Oil paints

Christopher Ondaatje was born in the British colony of Ceylon and educated at Blundell's School in Tiverton, Devon. He moved to Canada and in 1964 was a member of the Canadian Olympic Bobsled team. He is a retired businessman with a taste for adventure, philanthropy and cricket (he is a patron of Somerset County Cricket Club). He is a member of the exclusive club of Labour's 'million plus' donors and his philanthropy does not stop there - he has also given over a million pounds to the Royal Geographical Society and the National Portrait Gallery, who named a wing of the gallery after him. Married with three children and 12 grandchildren, Mr Ondaatje is now based in London when he is not travelling the world. His lust for adventure has fuelled several books - most famously Journey to the Source of the Nile. [Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]Favourite track: Einleitung / Introduction by Richard Strauss Book: Anthology of Poetry by Robert Service Luxury: The Blue Nude by Justin Deranyagala

Marguerite Wolff has dedicated her life to performing all around the world. Sir Arthur Bliss composed for her and she studied under Louis Kentner. Marguerite was born into a musical family in London in the 1920s. Her mother began teaching her the piano and would sit and practice with her daily. Soon she was getting up at six in the morning to practice, and continuing on her return from school. Her first public performance was in the Wigmore Hall when she was ten years-old, after she won a competition run by the piano firm Murdoch. At fifteen, she performed with Sir John Barbirolli. Later in her teens Marguerite went to study with Louis Kentner, who she continued to work with until he died in 1985. During World War II Marguerite toured the country entertaining the troops with a group put together by Walter Legge of HMV. It gave her a taste for travel and, after the war, a concert she gave in Paris was her first experience of foreign travel. She has since toured around the world and is well-known for her beautiful couture gowns, the first of which was by Norman Hartnell. Still performing, in June 2002 Marguerite was awarded an OBE for services to music world-wide. [Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]Favourite track: First act of Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Book: Liszt biography by Alan Walker Luxury: A piano

Robin Cook was born in Larnarkshire, east of Glasgow; an only child whose father was a science teacher. In his teens the family moved to Edinburgh so that his father could take up a headmaster job and Robin attended the same school. At school his favourite pursuits were the debating society and drama and he had an early interest in politics. Whilst his school friends were poring over the New Musical Express, Robin was reading the New Statesman. Friends recall he always wore two badges on his blazer - an anti-apartheid one, and a CND one. In 1964 he went to Edinburgh University to read English as he loved reading and literature and his ambition was to be a minister - he planned to go on to study Divinity. But doubts about his beliefs set in, and he turned his passion and determination into the Labour Party and socialism. His first job was as a teacher but he soon went to work at the Workers Educational Association and became involved in the political scene, becoming an MP for Edinburgh Central in February 1974. He was elected MP for Livingston in 1983. He was Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Security from 1987-92; Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs from 1994-97; Chair of the Labour party 1996-98 and a Privy Councillor since 1996. He was appointed Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs when Labour were returned to government in 1997 and first came up with the idea of Labour's ethical foreign policy. He moved from the Foreign Office to become Leader of the House Commons last year and is responsible for parliamentary reform.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]Favourite track: Siegfried Idyll by Richard Wagner Book: The National Hunt Form Book Luxury: A chess computer

P D James was born in Oxford, later moving to Ludlow on the Welsh Borders where she experienced a childhood which she says had more in common with a Victorian childhood than anything today. She was a well-behaved, quiet child who entertained herself and her siblings by telling and writing stories. Phyllis attended an old-fashioned grammar school where she enjoyed English lessons. She says "I knew I was going to write books".Because of financial pressures at home, she had to leave school at sixteen, first following her father into the tax office, then in a theatre where she met her husband, who was training to be a doctor. World War Two intervened and, because her husband returned from work in the Medical Corps with a severe mental illness, Phyllis had to be the main breadwinner, working as principal hospital administrator at the North West Regional Hospital Board, London in charge of five psychiatric hospitals. It wasn't until she was thirty-nine years old, whilst working in the hospital, that Phyllis began her first novel, Cover Her Face. "I knew it was something I was going to do, and it was just that life was so busy I didn't get round to it". She chose the name P D James because it looked good on a book jacket, and crime genre because she didn't want to draw on autobiographical details. The book was immediately accepted by a publisher, and in 1979 she gave up her other jobs to become a full-time writer, focusing on Detective Adam Dalgleish of Scotland Yard as her main character. P D James was awarded the OBE in 1982, she has chaired the Booker Prize panel of judges, has been on the BBC Board of Governors, was made an Associate fellow, Downing College, Cambridge in 1986 and made a Life Peer in 1992. Her books have made her a household name and she is now working on her 17th novel.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]Favourite track: The Opening Chorus of the St Matthew Passion by Johann Sebastian Bach Book: War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy Luxury: Pencils and paper

Carl Djerassi was born in Vienna to an Austrian mother and Bulgarian father. Both parents were involved in the medical profession and, growing up surrounded by medical paraphernalia, he assumed that he would become a doctor. For the first four years of his schooling in Austria, he attended a girls' school as the boys school was full. He says "women are much more important than men in my life. I mean, I enjoyed it, I'm not complaining at all!" He didn't start studying science until his mid-teens and the outbreak of war meant a move to America, where he attended a pre-medical course at college. He soon became interested in organic chemistry and focussed on this subject for his PhD. Whilst working at a pharmaceutical company he was involved in two important discoveries. The synthesis of cortisone from plant material was, at that time, the most competitive and difficult project amongst chemists. Cortisone was considered a wonder drug in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, inflammation and eczema. The other discovery was the creation of a progesterone that could be orally active - aimed at treating menstrual disorders and infertility. It was realised that it could be used as a contraceptive but, as Carl says: "in the 1950s contraception was not high on the priority list. Pharmaceutical companies, with one exception, were not interested in that field. The population explosion and these concepts did not come about until 10 years later". It wasn't until 1960 that it was approved by the FDA as a contraceptive and became the Pill. Carl spent the next few years working in research and universities. He has also published five novels, three plays, a book of short stories, an autobiography and a memoir and is still writing. He describes a lot of his work as science in fiction - not science fiction - which explores aspects of scientific behaviour and of scientific facts. As he says, "Disguising them in the cloak of fiction, it is possible to illustrate ethical dilemmas that frequently are not raised for reasons of discretion, embarrassment, or fear of retribution".[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]Favourite track: Songs on the Death of Children by Gustav Mahler Book: Collected poetry and prose by Wallace Stevens Luxury: A solar powered computer with a secret compartment containing a white powder

Paul Gambaccini was born in New York City in 1949 and revelled growing up to the sounds of the 1960s. He loved listening to the radio and chose to go to Dartmouth College in preference to Harvard or Yale because it had a student-run commercial college radio station. He soon became a news reporter, DJ and eventually manager. Paul came to England to study PPE at Oxford University and, although he was despondent when the local radio station wouldn't give him a job, his luck changed following his graduation when he was offered an American Music slot on the recently launched BBC Radio 1. At 24 years of age, he was their youngest broadcaster and stayed with the network for 18 years. He has worked on most radio and television networks, including a film review slot, which ran for 13 years, on breakfast television, and presenting the film edition of BBC Radio 4's Kaleidoscope programme. He has also written a number of books, including co-authoring The Guinness Book of British Hit Singles, which illustrates his remarkable memory for music facts and figures. He now presents America's Greatest Hits on BBC Radio 2 and Classic Countdown on Classic FM. [Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]Favourite track: The Finale of Rhapsody in Blue by George Gerhswin Book: The complete Carl Barks Library by Carl Barks Luxury: A piano

Philip Pullman is the author of the celebrated His Dark Materials trilogy: Northern Lights, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass. He was born in Norwich and spent his early years travelling all over the world with his father, who was in the RAF, and his mother and brother. Whilst in Australia he devoured comic book stories, which made a big contrast to the traditional stories his clergyman grandfather would tell him on return trips to Norwich. Philip planned to be a writer from the age of six and, when the family moved to Wales when he was 11, he developed a real passion for stories, encouraged by a school teacher to read more and write them down. Philip went to study English at Oxford, although he says it was really after he finished his degree that he started to learn. He began his first novel the day he left and although he says "it was terrible" he didn't give up. He worked in a variety of jobs to enable him to write and eventually went into teaching. He developed his writing style further by writing school plays and dealing with the challenge of making them accessible to both the children and the parents: it was an ideal training ground. Philip has since written many books for children: Clockwork, I was a Rat! (which was dramatised for BBC television), and The Firework-Maker's Daughter, which won the Smarties Gold Award in 1996 and the Sally Lockhart Award. The His Dark Materials trilogy has become a huge success with children and adults, and, on 22nd January 2002, Philip won the Whitbread Prize for the third book in the trilogy, The Amber Spyglass. This was the first time that a children's book had won either the Booker or the Whitbread.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]Favourite track: Sonata Reminiscenza in A Minor by Nickolay Medtner Book: A La Recherche Du Temps Perdu by Marcel Proust Luxury: A Jar of Apricots, by Chardin

Dame Alicia Markova was born Lilian Alice Marks in December 1910, in a two-bedroom flat in Finsbury Park, London. She began ballet classes because she was flat footed and knock kneed. Her natural talent, when she was ten, was spotted by Diaghilev, the Russian artistic impresario who founded the Ballets Russes and brought the contemporary arts of Russia to Europe. Dame Alicia joined Diaghilev's company, which was based in Monte Carlo, in 1925, a month after her 14th birthday. Diaghilev changed her name to Alicia Markova and cast her in the title role of Nightingale in Le Rossignol, a ballet scored by Stravinsky, choreographed by Balanchine and with costumes designed by Matisse. It premiered in Paris in June 1925. After Diaghilev's death in 1929 she returned to England and became a leading figure of the emerging English ballet scene, dancing with the Ballet Rambert and Vic Wells Ballet, as well as at Sadlers Wells. Dame Alicia danced the leading roles in Swan Lake, The Nutcracker and Giselle, which became her trademark, illustrating her unique style of fragility and strength. In 1950, together with her dancing partner Anton Dolin, Dame Alicia founded The London Festival Ballet which eventually became the English National Ballet. She was still dancing Giselle at the age of 48 and had her last dance on stage in the early 1960s. Subsequently she has worked as director, patron and teacher and was awarded the CBE for services to dance in 1958. Her memory for dance steps has proved invaluable for dance historians, pupils and teachers alike. [Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]Favourite track: Softly Awakes my Heart from Samson and Delilah by Camille Saint-Saëns Book: Speaking of Diaghilev by John Drummond Luxury: The perfume Knowing by Estee Lauder

Timothy Spall grew up in Battersea, South London. He found school pretty uninspiring and left with art as his only qualification. However, when he played the part of the Cowardly Lion in the school production of The Wizard of Oz, aged 16, he felt he had found his niche. He says "it had a good big audience and they just laughed, and when I came out to do my bow they gave me a big cheer. Something went off in my head then." He had a natural talent, and soon found a place at RADA. Within a year he was snapped up by the Royal Shakespeare Company, where he played key roles such as Andre in Chekhov's The Three Sisters, a role which he was amazed to take over from Ian McKellan. It was a huge learning period and the critics weren't going to cut him any slack just because he was straight out of drama school. He says, "you're up there playing with the big boys so you learn pretty quick!"His first TV part was as the Brummie builder, Barry, in Auf Weidersehen Pet in 1983 and he has had many TV roles since: Our Mutual Friend and Vacuuming Completely Nude in Paradise both earned him Best Actor nominations at the Baftas. His role in the Mike Leigh's Secrets and Lies won him critical acclaim, as well as two best actor nominations, at the Baftas and at the London Film Critic Circle. He has also been sought by Hollywood, recently appearing in the blockbuster Vanilla Sky. He won best actor at Prix d'Italia and Cinema Tout Ecran awards for the television drama Shooting the Past and was awarded the OBE in 2000. [Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]Favourite track: Mary's Prayer by Danny Wilson Book: The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens Luxury: A drum kit