Desert Island Discs

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the screen writer Paul Abbott. He has written some of the most controversial and successful television programmes of the past decade. Shameless, Clocking Off and State of Play all flowed from his pen and have won him bags of awards. But he was driven to write as a response to the chaotic and traumatic childhood he'd suffered. One of eight children, both parents had left the family home by the time he was 11, leaving his older sister to bring them up. They had a near-feral existence, and lived, says Paul, like rats. At 15 he attempted suicide and ended up in a psychiatric ward. After that, without wanting to or really being aware it was happening, he wrote as a way of letting out the rage he felt inside him. He was quickly able to turn this writing into short stories, radio plays and film scripts and to sell them. Now he is credited with making television the 'new National Theatre'. But it's not his greatest achievement - he is proudest of his successful marriage to Saskia, his wife of eighteen years, and of their two children.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]Favourite track: Town Called Malice by The Jam Book: Complete Works by Arthur Miller Luxury: Writing pad and pencils.

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the singer and songwriter Neil Tennant. He is best known as one half of The Pet Shop Boys which, over the past 20 years, has been one of Britain's most successful and popular bands, noted for combining dance music with witty lyrics and delivering them in a uniquely English style. As a teenager growing up in Newcastle upon Tyne, he felt himself to be an outsider at school, but found friends in an amateur theatre company. Yet he always felt his life would be different to theirs and used to tell them that he would become a celebrated pop star.But Neil was 30 when he finally left his day job as a writer for Smash Hits magazine to pursue the musical interests that had dominated his life since he was a teenager. By that time, he was anxious that he had missed the boat. Now, as well as continuing to release records with The Pet Shop Boys, he has branched out into other forms of composition, writing a live score for the film Battleship Potemkin, a West End musical and being involved in collaborations with Robbie Williams and the Scissor Sisters, among many others.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs].

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the author Brian Aldiss. He is best known for pioneering, alongside JG Ballard, a new wave of British science fiction writing in the 1960s. He says science fiction is not so much a prediction of the future as a metaphor for the human condition; and for him, at least, writing it offered an escape route and a filter through which to view his own extraordinary upbringing. He grew up in a small Norfolk village in a very devout and austere home. While his father was distant, his mother was still suffering from the grief after her first child, a daughter, was still-born. He was the second child and even when he was very small, remembers feeling a strong sense of his mother's disappointment in him. The army finally offered a way out for him and it was on his return to England that he started writing seriously while also working in a bookshop. One of his early works was a short story describing the sadness felt by a boy who was never able to please his parents, which was turned into a film by Stanley Kubrick. While he remains best known for his science fiction writing - and has won every major award in the field - he has also written novels, poetry and biographies and short stories. Now, he says, he aims not for high sales but to become a better and better writer.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]Favourite track: Old Rivers (with the Johnny Mann Singers) by Walter Brennan Book: Biography of John Osborne by John Halpern Luxury: A banjo

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the Polar explorer Ann Daniels. Before she was 30, she hadn't so much as walked with a rucksack and had no experience of navigating with a compass. Then her husband saw a newspaper advert seeking ordinary women to join an all-women relay to the North Pole. Ann was successful and since then she has walked to both Poles, become a Polar guide and now has her sights set on being the first British woman to walk solo to the North Pole - an endeavour she'll attempt for the second time this March. While she is on her expeditions, the life she leaves behind is also far from routine - she is a mother to four children including triplets. She has met some criticism for leaving her children for long periods, but she responds by saying that they are her inspiration - she wants to demonstrate to them how to live life to the full.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]Favourite track: Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) by Eurythmics Book: The Worst Journey in the World by Apsley Cherry-Garrard Luxury: A bar of soap

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the writer Edna O'Brien. Described as a 'poet of heartbreak' her lyrical storytelling captures the fragility and pain of the human condition, reflecting the drama of her own life as much as the imagined journeys of her characters. She was born and raised in a small village in County Clare, where the only books in the house were prayer books which sat alongside her father's bloodstock magazines. Her mother thought writing was in essence sinful and tried fiercely to stop her becoming an author. She was living in England when she published her first novel, The Country Girls, in 1960. It was a huge hit and was critically well received - but in Ireland she was decried and her book was burnt in the streets. Although she's lived in London for most of her adult life, she continues to draw on her Irish background for inspiration - she says: "it's in my roots, and when I dream at night it's the place I go".[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: Foggy Dew (Sinead O'Connor) by The Chieftains Book: Ulysses by James Joyce Luxury: Vault of a very good white wine

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the musician Lady Natasha Spender. She was born at the end of the First World War and has spent her life immersed in the arts. Gifted with perfect pitch, she studied under Clifford Curzon and enjoyed a highly successful career as a concert pianist. In the months after the end of the Second World War she gave a concert at Belsen to inmates who were recovering in its hospital wing and, a couple of years later, she was chosen to be the soloist in the world's first ever televised concert for the BBC. She was also one half of a cultural 'it' couple - for more than 50 years she was married to the poet Sir Stephen Spender. They had met at a literary lunch he was hosting and became friends after Natasha stayed behind to help him with the washing up. They were friends with many of the greats of the past century, including T S Eliot, Stravinsky and Leonard Bernstein. She is now the executor to Sir Stephen's very considerable estate and is writing her own memoirs. [Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: 1st movement of String Quintet in G Minor by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Book: Desert Islands: An Anthology by Walter de la Mare Luxury: Her grand piano.

Kirsty Young's first castaway of 2007 is the writer Anthony Horowitz. He's a prolific author. His first novel was published when he was 23 and, as well as a series of children's books featuring the 'super spy' Alex Rider, he's also penned a slew of television crime programmes including Murder Most Horrid, Midsomer Murders and Foyle's Law. He first turned to writing when he was at boarding school; he was desperately unhappy and it offered some form of escape. His childhood was peopled by Dickensian figures - although he was brought up in lavish surroundings, his parents were distant and he was brought up by a string of nannies, while he so hated his domineering grandmother that he literally danced on her grave after her death.Perhaps it is unsurprising that his books often deal with the fragility of childhood and the robustness of children. A father now himself, he says he envies his own children their confidence and happiness. He says that he doesn't consider his work great, or even important - but he does like to think it agreeable and surprising.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: She's Always A Woman by Billy Joel Book: A large French dictionary Luxury: Fountain pen, ink and paper

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the broadcaster Gloria Hunniford. She's one of our most popular interviewers and presenters and for 40 years has been a warm, but always incisive, figure on our radio and television airwaves. She grew up in Northern Ireland and first of all thought her career lay in singing - as a young girl she would spend several evenings each week singing in local church halls. Although she moved in to broadcasting, those early years lay the foundation for the success and gave her a confidence performing in front of a crowd and a genuine interest in people and their lives. She was among the vanguard of women who tried to have it all - to combine motherhood with a fulfilling career. Her eldest daughter, Caron Keating, followed her into the profession and shared Gloria's ready warmth and wit. But Caron was just 41 when she died from breast cancer and Gloria's moving account of her experiences has now touched tens of thousands of people.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: Miss You Nights by Cliff Richard Book: War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy Luxury: Family photographs

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the playwright Sir Arnold Wesker. He's a prolific writer and has penned more than 40 plays as well as books of poetry, short stories, children's tales and most recently a novel. But he first came to prominence in the late 1950s as one of the group of Angry Young Men; dramatists who made their art out of the stuff of everyday life.He was the son of Jewish communists and was brought up in the East End of London in the 1930s. He remembers being taken on marches and demonstrations and says that memories of Cable Street, when Oswald Mosley was prevented from marching his blackshirts through predominantly Jewish areas of London, weighed heavily in his home. His background strongly informed his writing and his first five plays were all staged at the Royal Court Theatre. He says that even today, he must write something each day as a way of justifying his existence - even if it is only his daily diary entry.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: The end of Gurrelieder by Arnold Schoenberg Book: Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust Luxury: Supplies of pen and paper

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is Britain's most successful contemporary composer, Karl Jenkins. He is most famous for developing a style that fuses his classical background with his interest in jazz and world music and his albums top the charts around the world. He was brought up in a small Welsh village and, after his mother died, lived with his father, grandmother and widowed aunt. His father taught him the piano when he was a child and in his teens he gravitated towards the oboe and went on to study at the Royal Academy of Music.His first musical career was as a jazz musician - he won first prize at the Montreux Jazz Festival and played venues as diverse as Carnegie Hall and Ronnie Scott's. In the 1980s, he gave up life on the road and started writing advertising music and jingles. More awards followed, but he felt cramped by the nature of the work and wanted to write music that was more expansive. A track which he'd written for a minute long commercial went on to become the corner-stone of his most well-known work, The Adiemus Project. He's said that it was only then that he realised his niche lay in composing work that was grounded in his classical upbringing but also benefited from his interest in jazz and world music. And, while critics have on occasion sneered at his work, he has collected countless gold and platinum discs and a worldwide audience.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: The Final trio from the third Act of Der Rosenkavalier by Richard Strauss Book: The Michelin Guide to France by Michelin Luxury: A piano