Desert Island Discs: 70 Years of Castaways

Desert Island Discs celebrated its 70th birthday in 2012. Since the program’s deviser Roy Plomley interviewed comedian Vic Oliver in January 1942, nearly 3,000 distinguished people from all walks of life have been stranded on the mythical island, accompanied by only eight records, one book, and a luxury. Here the story of one of BBC Radio 4’s favourite programs is chronicled through a special selection of castaways. Roy Plomley, inventor of the program as well as its presenter for more than 40 years, quizzes the young Cliff Richard about "these rather frenzied movements" the 1960s pop sensation makes on the stage. Robert Maxwell tells Plomley’s successor Michael Parkinson that "I will have left the world a slightly better place by having lived in it." Diana Mosley assures Sue Lawley that Adolf Hitler was "extraordinarily fascinating" and had mesmeric blue eyes. And Johnny Vegas tugs Kirsty Young’s heartstrings with his account of a childhood so impoverished that family pets were fair game: "My dad had always claimed that rabbits were livestock, but we’d never eaten one before." Desert Island Discs is much more than a radio program. It is a unique and enduringly popular take on our lives and times—and this extensively illustrated book tells in rich detail the colorful and absorbing story of an extraordinary institution.