Peter Mansfield

Speaker 30:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in two thousand and six, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:30

My castaway this week is a physicist. His is a story of persistence, determination, and sheer hard work, resulting in momentous achievement. Just over two years ago he won the Nobel Prize for Medicine for his part in the development of the MRI scanner.

Presenter0:46

Born and brought up in South London, he's the son of a gas fitter who failed the 11 plus and left school at fifteen, but eventually won a place at university after passing his A-levels while doing his national service. He went on to take a job at Nottingham University, where, despite tempting offers from America, he's more or less remained ever since. It was more than thirty years ago that he started work on the project that's brought him international fame. In the beginning, I wasn't thinking about the hundreds of millions of people who might benefit from it, he says. I was just thinking about how to get the damn thing to work. He is Sir Peter Mansfield.

Presenter1:22

Peter, I've been watching some old um film of you on Tomorrow's World back in the seventies. It was you climbing into the prototype of your MRI scanner,'cause you had to experiment on yourself in those days, didn't you?

Peter Mansfield1:35

Initially, yes.

Peter Mansfield1:37

The very first experiments were done with me climbing in the magnet and producing a, by today's standards, very crude scan of my abdomen.

Presenter1:47

And also quite frightening, presumably, because you didn't know m what might happen to you inside this thing, did you?

Peter Mansfield1:53

Well, I was f fairly convinced that there wasn't going to be a problem, despite the fact that I'd had a letter from an American colleague saying that uh the general setup that we had might be dangerous, because he'd done some calculations to suggest that we could end up in difficulties.

Presenter2:14

What sort of difficulties?

Peter Mansfield2:15

because we were switching magnetic field gradients on and off, there was a a small chance that one could interfere with the cardiac function. Well it could give you a heart attack. In principle, yes.

Presenter2:27

Was it in your mind?

Peter Mansfield2:28

Well, it was, but I I was fairly sure that it wouldn't cause any problem. But on the other hand, the machine that we had created at that time was completely enclosed in an aluminium box for magnetic and electromagnetic screening. And as a result of this, I was in complete darkness, pitch black inside. So it was a combination of being you know tightly enclosed. It got very warm in in there because the magnet wasn't cooled properly.

Presenter2:59

So you're telling me you were a bit frightened?

Peter Mansfield3:01

I was um fearful a a little concerned, shall we say.

Presenter3:06

And I gather the next of kin were waiting outside the laboratory, is that right? Yes.

Peter Mansfield3:11

Yes, that's true. My wife and some of my colleagues' fiances were there to drag me out if there was any problem, but fortunately there wasn't.

Presenter3:21

But you couldn't have asked anybody else to do it. You had to do it yourself.

Presenter3:25

In case anybody doesn't know what an MRI scanner is, I mean, it it does give wonderfully clear pictures, far better than an X-ray, of the inside of the human body. It is kind of window on the body.

Presenter3:36

How did you feel when you eventually saw those pictures? What did you think of them?

Peter Mansfield3:43

They were not particularly good or clear by today's standards, but at the time they were the only picture, so I was able to show that you could get an image of a live person.

Peter Mansfield3:56

And that was the best that we could do at the time.

Presenter3:59

We shall hear how it progressed from there. But let's pause for your first piece of music. Tell me about

Peter Mansfield4:03

I was in those early days quite interested in space travel and so on, and I suppose it did have some effect when I first heard this. I found it very moving and uplifting. And it's Jupiter from the planets.

Presenter5:14

I was part of Jupiter from Holst's Planet Suite, played by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Richard Cook. Um Peter, I gather you might never have had anything to do with the way in which we diagnose our our physical ills, or indeed with inventing the MRI scanner at all, if a certain careers officer at your school had had anything to do with it. He was d discouraging, to say the least, wasn't he?

Peter Mansfield5:35

Well, I was asked, as other children were, towards the end of my school period, when I was approaching fifteen, what I wanted to do. And I distinctly remember saying, Well, I'm quite interested in science and I wouldn't mind being a scientist. And when he finished laughing, he said, Well, now let's be sensible. Let's talk about what you really can do. You have no qualifications, and what other things, you know, apart from science, are you interested in? I said, Well, I have a hobby. I do printing. I actually built a printing machine at home, and I used to produce a sort of comic, kids' comic. So he said, Well, I will try and fix you up with a job, which he eventually did. And that job was bookbinding.

Presenter6:27

But going back for a moment just to wanting to be a scientist, which is what you told the Careers Officer, what was why did you want to be a scientist? What did you think you wanted to do?

Peter Mansfield6:37

Well, I was very impressed towards the end of the war with the way things were going with so-called doodlebugs, V one weapons. I was actually in London when the first doodlebugs came over, and I remember one evening being woken up it must have been ten or eleven o'clock at night.

Peter Mansfield6:59

And my father came galloping into the room and he said, Have a look out the window and my mother and my father and I, we rushed to the window and saw what looked like an airplane which was on fire. But my father said, No, it's it's not on fire, it's it's something different. You know, he didn't know what it was, none of us did. It turned out to be a V one doodlebug. So that that's what captured your imagination, is it's a rocket propulsion?

Presenter7:26

Uh

Peter Mansfield7:27

Okay.

Presenter7:27

Yeah. But it was obviously more than just a you know, the interest of a little boy in what was going on around him, wasn't it? It was it was something that you felt very keenly you wanted to pursue, you wanted to really know about.

Peter Mansfield7:39

Well, I was always interested in how things worked. I remember being told off many times for unscrewing the back of certain objects, particularly clocks.

Presenter7:52

And you were the youngest of three little boys, and your father was a gas fitter.

Peter Mansfield7:56

Eels

Presenter7:57

Mum was a housewife. She looked after you all. Mrs. Beckham, Lambeth, South London. Did they then in the family regard you as a bit of an oddity, a a a bit of a bit of a boffin already when you were small?

Peter Mansfield7:59

Yeah.

Peter Mansfield8:09

Bottle.

Presenter8:09

Different from the others.

Peter Mansfield8:09

Different from

Peter Mansfield8:11

If anything, I think I was really regarded as a bit of a destructive kid, you know, because I had the screwdriver out as soon as I could and wanted to know what was inside.

Presenter8:22

Tell me about your second record.

Peter Mansfield8:24

Well, this is a a piece by Charles Trannet called La Mer, and this piece I heard for the first time when I was fifteen, had left school and went to live in France for one month. And

Peter Mansfield8:40

This particular piece of music figured very much in my mind at the time and I've enjoyed it ever since.

Speaker 48:48

Abère c'est mon quaire o la viu.

Speaker 48:54

Lamer

Speaker 48:57

Come what I see.

Speaker 49:00

Belong, des Golf et al.

Speaker 49:05

Adi Voice Lais Dance on May.

Speaker 49:11

I'm not sure if I can do it.

Speaker 49:13

The body

Presenter9:17

Charlesnet and La Mer. You didn't pass the eleven plus, um, Peter. You went to the intermediate school, as it was then called. Did you was was there no teacher there who spotted your potential?

Peter Mansfield9:29

Well, there was a teacher, a science teacher,

Peter Mansfield9:32

And I do recall, as I approached the age of fifteen, talking to him about ways in which I could continue in education. But it would have been extremely difficult because I would have been the only person in the school that

Peter Mansfield9:48

Stayed on.

Presenter9:49

So you left, you became a bookbinder, but you started to go to night school, didn't you? You wanted your O levels, you realized by

Peter Mansfield9:54

On day one I actually joined even classes and uh started to go to the Borough Polytechnic.

Presenter10:03

And you went five nights a week.

Peter Mansfield10:04

Guess.

Presenter10:04

Five different subjects.

Peter Mansfield10:05

Yes.

Presenter10:06

And you got him.

Peter Mansfield10:07

Yes, that was quite a struggle, but uh I did it. And of course doing that I had no time to do anything else, because I was at six o'clock every night till nine o'clock, improving my languages and so on.

Presenter10:19

But something was driving you, something told you this is what you had to do if you were going to fulfil yourself.

Peter Mansfield10:25

Well, I I had this experience. Our family used to take the Daily Mirror, and one day I read in this paper that there was a place called the Rocket Propulsion Department at Westcott, and there was a piece uh uh about a young lad who

Peter Mansfield10:43

come from grammar school and had been accepted to work at the Rocket Propulsion Department. I wrote to the editor of the Daily Mirror and I got a a reply to the effect that um I should contact

Peter Mansfield10:58

the Ministry of Supply, and they said, If you would like to work at the Rocket Propulsion Department, we must organise an interview for you at Westcott. I went along for interview and was accepted without qualification.

Presenter11:12

It was exactly what you wanted to do.

Peter Mansfield11:14

Yeah. They said though that if you uh

Peter Mansfield11:17

Take this job, you must get your O-levels. And I was already studying for O-levels anyway, so no problem. There was no problem.

Presenter11:22

So no problem.

Presenter11:24

So you managed to

Presenter11:26

Get an education. You've got yourself an education by hook or by crook in a reasonably unorthodox way. You get maths, double maths and physics A level while you're in the army.

Peter Mansfield11:29

Michael

Presenter11:37

And the next thing you get into university, Queen Mary College, London. You were 22 by that stage, I would think. So it had been a long haul, but this is where.

Presenter11:47

The trail really starts, isn't it? Because you started measuring the Earth's magnetic field using transistors then.

Peter Mansfield11:54

Yes.

Presenter11:54

As opposed to valves, transistors being very new. We're in the fifties now. Very new thing.

Peter Mansfield11:59

I was asked to do this by my supervisor. He wanted me to build a machine that operated using transistors so it would be portable. So I built this piece of equipment and it worked. And I tried it and was able to pick up signals. These are all at very low frequencies. So I actually had a pair of headphones.

Peter Mansfield12:24

and could hear the signal.

Presenter12:26

So this is magnetic resonance. I mean we're on the trail.

Peter Mansfield12:28

Yeah, magnetic resonance, but at 2 kilohertz. So rather than see the

Peter Mansfield12:36

The image on a screen, you listen to it, and you heard the signal. It was a sort of pinging noise.

Peter Mansfield12:43

And depending on how sharp it was or how long the ping was, it was either ping, ping,

Peter Mansfield12:50

Or it was a a longer ping, so it went

Speaker 412:54

Bing.

Peter Mansfield12:55

and the difference between the very short ping and the long note

Peter Mansfield13:00

denoted that there was something present near the probe which was upsetting the Earth's magnetic field.

Presenter13:07

So fascinating stuff. I w I want to hear more, but let's have record number three.

Peter Mansfield13:11

Well, this piece is called Crown Imperial, and it was written by William Walton. I heard this many, many years ago, and

Peter Mansfield13:21

I found it to be a very stirring and inspiring piece.

Presenter14:25

Part of Crown Imperial William Walton's Coronation March, played by the London Philharmonic, conducted by Sir Adrian Bolt. So a first-class degree in physics, Peter, a brief period working in the States in Illinois, and then you took a job at Nottingham University, where really you've you've been ever since and and still are, although in your early seventies now you're still in there every day, aren't you?

Peter Mansfield14:45

Yes, that's right.

Presenter14:46

Can't keep away from the place.

Peter Mansfield14:49

Well, it's difficult, and I do believe very much that I s still have things to do. One of the

Peter Mansfield14:56

Problems that I'm working on at the moment is to try to reduce the acoustic noise in scanners.

Presenter15:03

So that's what you're working on now, but let's go back to the late 60s and early 70s there.

Presenter15:08

How early on did you realize what you might be able to achieve in this field? Did did you think, I know what I'll try and invent, a machine that can give us an image of the inside of the body? Or did it gradually occur?

Peter Mansfield15:22

I think it occurred in stages. I mean, the work that I had been doing up to nineteen seventy one, seventy two was nuclear magnetic resonance, NMR, in solids. And it was only after seeing that that was not a very practical way forward that I started to think quite seriously about systems which contained a lot of mobile water, such as biological tissue.

Presenter15:52

A human body

Peter Mansfield15:53

Well, eventually the human body.

Presenter15:55

So then you could start using lumps of meat to experiment on, couldn't you?

Peter Mansfield15:59

Well, that's what we're doing.

Peter Mansfield16:01

Well, chicken legs and things of that sort.

Presenter16:04

Rack of love.

Peter Mansfield16:05

Well, uh that was a bit too big because th in those days the sample size was about one and a half centimetres. And so when we ran out of the obvious materials uh to put in the machine, I had the idea that perhaps, you know, if one of us put our finger in the machine we could get an image of our finger. And we all tried poking our finger in, but the guy that had the thinnest finger

Peter Mansfield16:34

was uh one of my students called Andrew Maudsley, and we got some very nice images of of his finger or fingers, and that was really the turning point, I think, in our approach to the whole thing.

Presenter16:49

The Maudsley finger pointed the way forward.

Peter Mansfield16:51

Yes, the moving finger.

Presenter16:54

Record number four.

Peter Mansfield16:55

This is a piece of German folk music sung by a Schlaug zinger called Heino, and it's called Fombereter Schwank die Feder, and this reminds me very much of my sabbatical year spent in Heidelberg.

Speaker 417:15

Round round and stochasty paid up these what became in the sick

Speaker 417:23

Bundza bans von Berfer Laid up Ista pets from heaven

Speaker 417:32

Bunt punt ein li musiar mus ein landsknekta.

Presenter17:44

That was Fumbarete Spankt die Feder, Feather Waves from the Bere, and it was sung by Heino.

Presenter17:51

So the MRI, Peter Mansfield, gives us these dazzlingly clear pictures of our organs, our muscles, the tissue of our bodies, and it can show us.

Presenter18:00

tumors or the any change in the heart or the brain.

Presenter18:03

But the reason it can do that is because, as I understand it, mostly our bodies are made up of water. And it's water really that's the key to this science, isn't it?

Peter Mansfield18:13

It is, yes. The body contains uh something like seventy percent water, which is free, and um it's that free water and more tightly bound water in the molecular structures of cells and so on that one can actually see.

Presenter18:32

So when the body is exposed to a strong magnetic field, the the nuclei of the these hydrogen atoms all line up, don't they? Like iron filings round a magnet, really.

Peter Mansfield18:40

My god.

Presenter18:42

And this in turn gives off a radio frequency, and this is the resonance. This is the magnetic resonance that you're bringing up.

Peter Mansfield18:42

Yeah.

Peter Mansfield18:48

The spins which are the nucleus spins line up in the magnetic field, and then in order to observe those, you then have to put a radio frequency pulse in to kick them over through roughly ninety degrees, so that they then start to process.

Presenter19:06

So your contribution was in converting those signals really into the converting those faint resonating notes into a picture. It was a person who shared the Nobel Prize, Paul Lauterbur, an American, who actually identified that resonating effect in the first place, wasn't it?

Peter Mansfield19:23

To be honest, we did it simultaneously and within a few months of each other, and he approached the whole problem from a slightly different perspective.

Presenter19:34

So was there a sense of competition about it or

Peter Mansfield19:36

Well, I was, but he was

Presenter19:36

What

Peter Mansfield19:39

interested in my approach to imaging, but he didn't actually use our approach at all. He carried on with his own approach. So he had his way of doing imaging and we had our way of doing imaging, and we more or less kept it separate.

Presenter19:56

But did you have a feeling during all of that time of excitement?

Peter Mansfield20:00

Oh, yes. I remember particularly when we produced the very first movie images showing cardiac motion in a rabbit. We actually had a live rabbit in the machine and

Peter Mansfield20:13

We could uh see its thorax and see the heart beating.

Peter Mansfield20:17

in real time.

Peter Mansfield20:19

And that was obviously quite exciting. And it gave all of us, I think, great pleasure to be able to go to.

Peter Mansfield20:27

A conference in America and present this for the very first time. I think it.

Peter Mansfield20:32

It was exciting for us, but I think it was stunning for other people to see it. Pico number five. Well, this piece is from the suite of Smetiner called Maflast. Maflust, of course, is my country, and this is the piece called the Waltava or Die Moldaum, which is the name of the uh river that runs through Czechoslovakia. When I was living in Germany, we made a trip.

Peter Mansfield21:01

By car from

Peter Mansfield21:03

Heidelberg to Poland and we passed through

Peter Mansfield21:07

Czechoslovakia

Peter Mansfield21:08

and we went over this gorge

Peter Mansfield21:11

And the sign said the Voltava and we stopped in Prague.

Peter Mansfield21:17

And I found a shop there and bought the piece of music.

Presenter22:16

Part of the Vlatava suite from Smetener's Mav last played by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra conducted by Nermi Yevi. Um there were some twenty thousand scanners, I think, in use by the turn of the century, Peter. Millions of people have used them, millions of of of patients. Do you ever

Presenter22:32

Hear from any of them. Are you identified as its inventor by them?

Peter Mansfield22:36

When the Nobel Prize was announced, I had quite a lot of mail, I mean one could say fan mail, I suppose. People writing to me and telling me of their personal experiences having been scanned.

Peter Mansfield22:52

And in many cases, the benefit that they received by having a scan.

Presenter22:56

How did that make you feel?

Peter Mansfield22:58

Well, I felt quite proud to have

Peter Mansfield23:00

Been able to do something to help so many people.

Peter Mansfield23:04

And it can and does bring many, many people peace of mind. I think there's nothing worse to be left in suspense not knowing. And I think the scanner has helped in that sense, that many, many people feel that they now know and they need to know.

Presenter23:22

It's it becomes more and more sophisticated with time, though, the machine, doesn't it? It's it's now being used to reveal, for example.

Peter Mansfield23:25

Yeah.

Presenter23:28

which parts of the brain light up when certain problems are given to a person, you know, whether it's a moral problem that lights up one bit of the brain, or a practical problem lights up another. So I suppose you could claim to have invented a mind reading machine, couldn't you?

Peter Mansfield23:41

Yes, I don't personally like to think of it quite like that, and I don't honestly believe that uh one will necessarily ever be able to determine exactly what one is

Peter Mansfield23:53

Thinking.

Presenter23:53

But it's um it is large, it's noisy, it's claustrophobic, it takes a long time.

Presenter23:59

Obviously, it will be improved and sophisticated as the as the years go on. And one thinks about the original computers, you know, which were sometimes

Presenter24:09

Endless rooms full of large lumps of metal, and now it can be reduced to a a laptop on the desk in front of you. How long do you think it will be before the MRI scanner becomes altogether more user friendly?

Peter Mansfield24:21

Well, this is a a question that my wife often puts to me, and my answer really is, uh, at the end of the day, that you need a magnetic field which is large enough to cover the body.

Peter Mansfield24:34

So

Peter Mansfield24:35

It's never going to get

Peter Mansfield24:37

That small. It might get shorter because if they're very long, then you get this sort of feeling of going into a tunnel.

Peter Mansfield24:45

And that can be uh disconcerting.

Peter Mansfield24:48

So some of the modern machines are actually much shorter than the original machines.

Presenter24:54

But if you have anything to do with it, uh the noise and the length of time that it takes, both of which are great.

Peter Mansfield25:00

Mm.

Presenter25:00

will be solved.

Peter Mansfield25:02

By you.

Peter Mansfield25:03

Well, the time position has already been solved. I mean, when we do imaging in Nottingham, our scan time is literally milliseconds, so we can get a complete image in a snapshot.

Peter Mansfield25:18

That's how long it takes.

Peter Mansfield25:20

But I think it takes a while for that type of imaging to eventually find its way into common use.

Presenter25:28

Record number six, tell me about that one.

Peter Mansfield25:30

Oh, this is a part of Purcell's Abdullah Zah.

Peter Mansfield25:34

And it reminds me very much of the occasion in 1993 when I received a knighthood at Buckingham Palace.

Peter Mansfield25:42

This piece of music was uh being played as background music and I enjoyed it very much.

Speaker 425:59

Yeah.

Presenter26:46

That was part of Purcell's suite from Abdelazhar, played by the Purcell Quartet. It has to be said, Peter, that the Nobel Prize was a long time coming. When it did in two thousand and three, I think your scanner had been developed twenty five years earlier and was in very much in common use in hospitals. Di did you think you'd been passed over?

Peter Mansfield27:06

Yes, I mean thing came really as a bolt uh from the blue because I really didn't think

Peter Mansfield27:13

that uh a prize would be coming anyway. I thought it was really far too late.

Presenter27:18

You're in your seventieth year by then. So how did you feel in that moment when the call came?

Peter Mansfield27:19

Barin

Peter Mansfield27:24

Well, I was obviously elated, very pleased. I did feel that it was a little bit late in the day, but when I eventually accepted and went to Sweden to the ceremony, the award ceremony, there were physicists there who got the physics prize that year, and one of them was turned 80, and he got his Nobel Prize for work that he did in 1946.

Presenter27:51

They take a lot of convincing the Nobel Committee.

Peter Mansfield27:53

Yes, and uh you know, and there was me uh initially concerned about uh getting a prize for work done in nineteen seventy or s in the early seventies. So I really felt very satisfied and I had no worries at all about it.

Presenter28:08

It's a big prize. Um you and and Paul Lauterbur shared eight hundred thousand pounds. Can I ask you what you've done with your half?

Peter Mansfield28:15

I haven't done anything with it particularly. I mean, it's just gone into the general kitty, I suppose.

Presenter28:21

Haven't you taken your wife on a cruise or done something? I mean, she must have spent years waiting for you to come home from the laboratory, and still is, presume.

Peter Mansfield28:29

Well, she's certainly um been very patient, I think, over the years and also very supportive over the years. We did go on a trip.

Peter Mansfield28:38

Last summer actually, we went on a Mediterranean cruise, which was very pleasant. And we might be doing something similar again, you know.

Presenter28:46

Carefully does it. Let's have the uh seventh record.

Peter Mansfield28:50

Well, this is a piece of music sung by Perry Como, and this was around at about the time that my wife and I got married, and this piece of music was given to me on a postcard.

Peter Mansfield29:05

By my wife. You could in those days buy what looked like an ordinary postcard, and on one side it could be played on a gramophone, and on the other side you'd write a message.

Peter Mansfield29:17

And this is the piece of music that she gave me.

Speaker 429:22

Uh

Speaker 429:23

Oh no.

Peter Mansfield29:24

Uh

Speaker 429:25

When two hearts are care matching

Speaker 429:33

Oh

Speaker 429:35

Memories we've been sharing I'll never forget the moment we kissed the night of the hay ride The way that we hugged to try to keep warm while taking a sleigh ride back

Presenter29:50

Magic MOMENTS by Perry Como. It's time to cast you adrift for your desert island, Sir Peter. Does it hold any joy for you, or will you be a miserable castaway?

Peter Mansfield30:01

I think being cast away by myself would be pretty miserable.

Presenter30:05

But do you do you think you're going to be able to keep body and soul together? Well t let's talk about the practical thing first. I mean, are you domestically practical or are you a, you know, a a boffin boffin who can't do much at home?

Peter Mansfield30:15

Can't do much at home.

Presenter30:18

A theoretician.

Presenter30:21

And would you be able to knock up a shelter? I mean, are you practical in that kind of out of the sun or out of the wind or?

Peter Mansfield30:28

I can make things. I was very good at woodwork when I was at school, and I also was good at metal work. So I can do things if pressed.

Presenter30:38

What would you miss most from your ordinary everyday life if you were stuck on a desert island?

Peter Mansfield30:46

I have a family and I would miss seeing them. You know, one needs one's family around one to keep things in perspective. I mean, if if I were literally isolated, I don't know. I'd think I would be miserable. I need to have someone to talk to and someone to interact with. Last piece of music. Oh, this is Nimrod. It's from the Enigma Variations, but it's an enigmatic piece of music as far as I'm concerned, and I love it.

Presenter32:16

The end of Nimrod from Elgar's Enigma Variations, played by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Simon Rattle. Now, if you could only take one of those eight records, Peter, which one would you take?

Peter Mansfield32:28

I think probably the Valtava piece.

Presenter32:31

This is the Smetna.

Presenter32:33

My Homeland

Peter Mansfield32:34

Yeah.

Presenter32:34

Yes.

Peter Mansfield32:38

It's difficult to make the choice, uh, I must say.

Presenter32:41

Well, you've been conducting them all morning. I mean, it's the one.

Peter Mansfield32:41

Where you been

Presenter32:44

The one that puts you in your best conducting mode, I think.

Peter Mansfield32:47

Yeah.

Presenter32:48

Smetna Marvelist. What about this? We give you the Bible, we give you the complete works of Shakespeare. What one book would you like to take?

Peter Mansfield32:56

Well, I think a photograph album of pictures of the family over the years would be very nice and be a constant reminder of uh some of the memorable occasions that we've had.

Presenter33:10

And what about your luxury?

Presenter33:12

One luxury that's of no practical value at all, just something that would make you feel good.

Peter Mansfield33:19

It'd be nice to have a helicopter that I could fly. It'd be very expensive, but uh

Presenter33:25

Well, I think as long as you promise me only to go round in circles and and not to use it to escape, you can have it.

Peter Mansfield33:30

Oh yes, that's all I could do. I wouldn't like to travel over water.

Presenter33:34

So you go round the perimeter of of the island.

Peter Mansfield33:37

Well, if it's a big island, I mean like Guernsey or Jersey or something like that, yes, it'd be marvellous.

Presenter33:42

Okay.

Presenter33:43

You shall have a helicopter. Sir Peter Mansfield, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Peter Mansfield33:48

Thank you.

Speaker 333:56

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Dists archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.

Speaker 434:44

Uh