Alec Jeffreys

Presenter0:00

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 seven.

Presenter0:27

My castaway this week is Professor Sir Alec Jeffries, the genetic scientist who invented DNA finger printing. Yet his breakthrough in a small lab in Leicester twenty-three years ago happened pretty much by accident. He didn't solve the problem he intended, but did discover an entirely new method of biological identification, which has gone on to revolutionise police forensics and settle family disputes. The most exciting areas of science, he says, are the things we don't know we don't know. Can you begin by describing that moment then, September 1984, when you had, let's call it your Eureka moment? What happened?

Alec Jeffreys1:03

Oh, I mean, it really was a eureka moment. I'd even tell you when it was. It was five past nine on Monday morning, the 10th of September 1984. That was a moment that changed my life. Let me just describe what we're doing in the laboratory. We had this piece of X-ray film detecting these radioactive fragments of DNA. We'd left it down exposing to X-ray film over the weekend. So I came in on the Monday morning inside the darkroom, pulling this piece of film out of the developing tank, put the light on, and I thought, whoa, what have we got here?

Presenter1:34

And when you say that it was a a moment of absolute joy and clarity, the Eureka moment, what did you think it meant when you saw it? Did you know the implications almost immediately?

Alec Jeffreys1:44

Well, Penny dropped immediately. It was quite obvious that we'd stumbled upon this idea of DNA-based biological identification purely by chance on that very first X-ray film. First of all, I sat down by myself, just sort of thinking it through. Then called over the technician that was very much involved in the work that led up to this first DNA fingerprint. I had my technician and her mother and father, and we could see how the patterns all sort of linked up in the sort of family relationships. And then we started brainstorming. We thought, okay, biological identification, what can we do there? We could see forensics, we could see criminal identification. So basically, within about half an hour, we'd drawn up a shopping list of things that we thought might be possible using this technology.

Presenter2:28

At the end of that day, then, when you'd made this extraordinary discovery, you'd discussed it with your colleagues, you'd gone home and spoken to your wife, Sue, as you went to bed that night, did you ever wonder about what sort of genie you'd let out of the bottle?

Alec Jeffreys2:42

What I didn't realise is just how big a genie it was. If you went back to that very first DNA fingerprint, my feeling at the time was that it was going to take years before anybody took any notice, and that it would be a technology of last resort. And I couldn't have been more wrong. Tell me about your first piece of music, then. My first piece of music is a great hero of mine, that's J.S. Bach, and his Toccata and Fugue in D minor. Someone once said that if you could hear God, he would sound like this. Now, I'm not a religious person, but I can understand that.

Presenter4:14

The opening of Bach's Fugue in D minor, played by Helmut Walker. Let's talk about the the beginnings then, the very early scientific explorations that you made. I mean, you've got a beard, so I can't verify this, but I have been told you've got a scar on your chin from one of your very early experiments.

Alec Jeffreys4:28

That's my badge of honour. Absolutely true, right. Okay, I think I was born a scientist. I certainly came from a sort of a remarkable family, just a perfectly ordinary middle-class suburban family, but with a father who had this sort of amazing inventive bent. And his father in turn had the same sort of bent. In fact, he had all sorts of patents to his names. And there's one wonderful invention he came up with. It was called the Jeffries Three-Dimensional Photosculpture Process.

Presenter4:29

What happened?

Presenter4:56

This is your grandfather.

Alec Jeffreys4:57

This is my grandfather, yes. So, this was a system whereby you could go into a studio and very quickly be photographed in a very cunning way, which then enabled you to turn those photographic images into three-dimensional plaster bust of yourself. Very, very convincing. And yes, I believe even Neville Chamberlain went along to the studio and was done. This is back in the 30s. So, there's a sort of an inventive streak in the family. Now, you're going to ask nature or nurture: do I have the invention gene or is it upbringing? What do you reckon? I suspect it's a bit of both.

Presenter5:25

What do you reckon?

Alec Jeffreys5:27

I mean, I think I was born a curious kid.

Presenter5:29

So as a little boy, then, what were the experiments on the kitchen table?

Alec Jeffreys5:33

Oh, very oh very much so, yes. But it's really my father's fault. He started me off. He gave me at the age of eight a chemistry set. Now, if you go to a toy shop now and get a chemistry set, it's a very anodyne thing. I mean, it's going to do no harm whatsoever. This was the real McCoy chemistry set. And I got in very well with the local pharmacist. So he would top it up with absolutely lethal chemicals. I mean, this pharmacist would have gone to jail had he provided me to date with the stuff.

Presenter6:00

What age were you then?

Alec Jeffreys6:02

I was um oh, was it eight, nine, ten? And I was certainly bringing back I mean, bottle for example, a bottle of fuming sulphuric acid extremely dangerous from the chemist from the chemist, wrapped in a brown paper bag, sitting on a bus with a bit of a leak, so there's sort of steam and fumes coming off the paper bag. You couldn't do it now.

Presenter6:10

I don't know.

Presenter6:20

And your parents were quite happy to let you get on with that?

Alec Jeffreys6:23

Absolutely, yeah. If you want to turn someone onto chemistry, show them how to make bangs. Bangs and stinks. And even now, I'm not going to do it in this studio, but give me the ingredients so I could do some jolly good explosive tricks for you. We lived in a house prone to developing holes. So we had holes appearing mysteriously in carpets, in curtains, in our back lawn, on my face. Because you were burning.

Presenter6:46

Because you were burning your way through things.

Alec Jeffreys6:47

That's right, it was just a messy experimentation.

Presenter6:50

So you say on your face, I did ask you.

Alec Jeffreys6:52

Yes, indeed. So furic acid hit me on the side of the face on my chin, and there's if I took my beard off, there would be a little red patch there. That's my badge of honour.

Presenter7:00

Tell me about your next piece of music then.

Alec Jeffreys7:02

Right, but the next piece of music is I mean this actually goes back to that era of I was about fourteen I guess at the time. In those days I I guess the obvious thing to be going for would be the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, but what really turned me on was the Beach Boys. And there's something wonderful about the riches of the sound. So I've chosen The Beach Boys and I Get Around because also at that time I was trying to attract my first girlfriend and it was a miserable failure. So this is a very poignant song for me.

Speaker 47:29

Round, round, get around, I get around, yeah, get around.

Speaker 47:51

Five meters

Presenter8:00

The Beach Boys and I get around and memories there, Alec Jeffries, of your first unsuccessful forays into uh the world of romance. Could could it have been something to do with the dead cat on the dining room table that she wasn't interested?

Alec Jeffreys8:11

It was about the same time, it might well have been, yes. This is where I sort of got into biology. Age eight was the transforming year for me, so I had my chemistry set. My father also, it was around about the same time. How he saved the money up, I don't know. I'm eternally grateful to him. He bought me my first microscope, this beautiful Victorian brass microscope. I still have it. And that just opened up the world of biology for me.

Presenter8:34

So this life of romance, of tiny microscopic worlds, were just opened up to you by the microscope. And tell me about the cat.

Alec Jeffreys8:40

But

Alec Jeffreys8:43

Yeah, well of course if you're a biologist you like to dissect things so I remember I think I was about age 12 I made my own dissection set, tiny tiny little set for dissecting a bumblebee which I then did and then I decided I really need to sort of move up in terms of size. Now I was a newspaper boy at the time and it was one Sunday morning I finished my newspaper round and I spotted this dead cat in the road and I thought ah cat I've never done a cat before. Now this is a seriously dead cat I mean the legs were stiff so imagine this newspaper boy with a bag in front with four legs sticking out the top. Told my mum I was just going to do something biological, went into the dining room. This is a Sunday morning. It was before Sunday lunch. Went into the dining room, spread the cat out on the dining room table, decided to dissect it. And the smell was unbelievable. Unfortunately I ruptured the innards as I went into the thing and we had to evacuate the home. The smell was just appalling. So that cat had to be sort of bundled up and.

Presenter9:41

You won't

Alec Jeffreys9:41

Those up.

Presenter9:42

You weren't put off at all by the things that would normally put the rest of us off either even walking close to a dead cat, never mind picking it up and bundling it into our bag. I mean, you d you had no sense of revulsion.

Alec Jeffreys9:54

None whatsoever. No, no. I was just a weird kid, I guess. But were you quite weird? I was I was in some in many ways I was entirely normal. I was in sequence a mod, a hippie and a rocker. Um so that was all sort of pretty conventional stuff. But I had this sort of weird scientific bent running in the background all

Presenter10:16

You you were a mod, so you were interested in the way you looked and

Alec Jeffreys10:18

Oh, yeah, very much so. So I I had my scooter with all the mirrors on it. I had a a wonderful parker. The lady next door was a a French milliner who supplied me with mink fur. So my parker was trimmed with genuine mink. And yes, I looked absolutely ghastly.

Presenter10:36

Now, you were a brilliant pupil. I mean, by the age of eleven or twelve you were streets ahead of your fellow pupils. You were sort of a university standard when it came to science at a very early age.

Alec Jeffreys10:45

in certain areas. It was unpolished, it was unbalanced, it wasn't it wasn't rounded in the way that you get from university. But some of the I mean, there's certain areas. I mean, for example, organic chemistry, where I I was I could have held my own against a first year undergraduate.

Presenter11:01

So not surprisingly then, you won a place at Oxford to study biochemistry. Do do you remember hearing that you had won a place you were the first in your family, is that right, to go to university?

Alec Jeffreys11:08

Yes, indeed, but we we had no history of going to university within the family.

Alec Jeffreys11:12

When I got that letter through saying, Yes, you have been not only admitted to Merton College in Oxford, but you've been awarded a post-mastership, which was a scholarship, that was quite remarkable. And I remember my parents enormously proud. My mother was absolutely over the moon about this. I mean, what a wonderful thing for her son to have done. But she was very concerned that her son should be a young gentleman, which I most certainly was not. I had no idea what Oxford was going to be like. My mother certainly, my father certainly really didn't have a clear conception. So I remember my mum buying me this beautiful set of bone china, which I could take with me so that I could entertain the young gentleman to tea. It was, oh, bless her. I mean, we shouldn't laugh, really, but that bone china lasted about a week, I think, before it got completely trashed.

Presenter11:46

To take with you

Presenter11:59

Tell me about your next piece of music, then.

Alec Jeffreys12:01

This is my heroine. This is Tina Turner, who is maybe getting on in years, but she can belt those numbers out like nobody's business. And I think a tremendously brave woman. And this particular number I think is is a great aspirational number. Simply the best.

Speaker 412:31

I hate on every word you say.

Speaker 412:35

Chairs of Bar

Presenter12:45

Tina Turner and the best. That was we were chatting there during the music about the the the beautiful story of your mother giving you the the bone china to head off to university and you were talking a little more about your mother and um she did live to see you get your your knighthood i in a way. C can you tell us what happened?

Alec Jeffreys13:00

Yes, but when she saw all the various sort of plaudits that would come my way, I have way more than my fair share of recognition in science. But of course one of the big ones was the nighthood back in 1994. She was very seriously and terminally ill at the time. But we knew she had very, very little time to go. So I phoned up Backham Palace and said, look, you were making a video of the investiture ceremony.

Presenter13:23

As they do with everyone else.

Alec Jeffreys13:24

Over everybody, yes. I said, Look, it's gonna take a while. Any chance you could rush it through and they did it. So I managed to get to the hospital and it was about the last thing my mother ever saw. She did see. Surrounded by nurses, s seeing her scruffy little addict being turned magically into Sir Addict, still scruffy, but he's got a knighthood.

Presenter13:41

Um the other woman in your life, then, is the woman who you've been married to for some time now, but you met her before you even went to university.

Alec Jeffreys13:47

Oh yes, it is Sue, yes How did you meet? Yes, we were at the local youth club in Luton, in the centre of Luton. And I remember it very clearly that there were rumours that there were there were two girls, one of whom was possibly interested in me, and I knew which one I was hoping w would be the one, and it was actually Sue.

Presenter14:04

All the scientists that I've ever encountered who are very successful are absolutely I mean actually terrifyingly dedicated to their work. They have to be to get t to the level of of distinction that you're at. Um do you think she's

Presenter14:18

Had to compete for your time and attention over the years?

Alec Jeffreys14:20

Oh, absolutely no question at all. And I think the I mean I do look back at the the maelstrom that happened immediately after 1984. I mean the pressures on my time were gigantic. And as at that time we had two very young daughters and I look back at that and there's a terrible guilt there that I missed out on that early part not completely, but partly on the early part of that life.

Presenter14:41

Um let's go back then to to those early days. After this first degree, you stayed on to do a doctorate in genetics.

Alec Jeffreys14:47

Yes, indeed. I thought that these are the real big questions. How information's stored in human living systems, how it's passed on from generation to generation. And uh that's where I went for the rest of my life.

Presenter14:58

We will move on to those big questions in just a moment, but right now tell me about your next piece of music.

Alec Jeffreys15:03

Right, well this is a slightly odd choice, but this is really a big thank you to our wonderful elder daughter, Sarah, who introduced me to the world of dance and Abitha and so on. If I have any great, and I have very few regrets in life, but one great regret is I'm too old to have really experienced as a young person the Abitha club scene. I didn't like this music when I first heard it, but I've become addicted. So if I've got a really tough PhD thesis to read, I'll have this blaring away in the background. It drives me through. So my choice is Darud and Feel the Beat.

Presenter16:02

Derude and Feel the Beat. The fourth choice of Professor Sir Alec Jeffries, the genetic scientist. I just have to make that clear in case anyone thinks we've made a mistake there. It was your wife who realized that genetic fingerprinting had a can we call it a political application, that it could be used in these immigration disputes over people who were being disallowed entry to Britain because their parentage was in dispute. Can you remember the first time that that was used practically?

Alec Jeffreys16:29

Oh, like yesterday. What happened? This was the very first case ever tackled by DNA anywhere on this planet. So it was a... Okay, the story, very simply, there's a UK family originally from Ghana, where there's a young lad who had left the family, gone back to Ghana, come back 10 years later on that sparred British passport and I think it was a suspect Ghanaian passport. And not unreasonably, I think the Home Office said, I'm not too sure this lad's real. So anyway, they'd been involved in sort of standard tests for about two years with blood grouping. And the boy was allowed temporarily to stay in the UK, was still threatened with deportation. And out of desperation, the law wrote to me and he said, okay, do you think you help in this case? So we did the DNA test. Blood samples were sent up, tested out. It was absolutely glaring, obviously. This boy was a full member of the family.

Presenter16:31

What happens?

Presenter17:19

Did you have any personal contact with the mother and the boy?

Alec Jeffreys17:21

Yes, indeed. I I was there at the tribunal and I was there when the mother was told that her two year battle to save her son was over. And the if I had to pick one magic moment in the story of D and A, that was the moment. It was just that look of that woman's eyes pure magic.

Presenter17:39

Given the recognition and the official recognition that indeed your science could be used at a very significant and practical level, did you then have the phone ringing off the hook with immigration cases?

Alec Jeffreys17:48

Oh yes, this was cat out of the bag big time. But what I hadn't realized are thousands and thousands of families trapped in exactly these disputes. So on one occasion we had the entire university switchboard jammed with people trying to get through to me.

Presenter18:01

And how did you and both you and the university deal with this huge influx?

Alec Jeffreys18:05

Right. By working about sort of 48 hours a day, basically. For two years we were the only laboratory on the face of the planet that could actually do this testing. So everything was coming through to me. And not just the immigration side. A few months after we'd done that case, we'd taken on the first paternity dispute. So suddenly we've got the tile world of, you know, I'm not the father, sort of people descending upon us.

Presenter18:28

This must have taken a huge personal toll upon you.

Alec Jeffreys18:31

It was pretty exhausting. I think from 1985 to 1987 when we'd at that point the technology went commercial, a company was set up and people could pay and have access to all this technology. Those two years I would not have missed for the world, but I would never ever want to live through that again. It was absolutely exhausting. It was a roller coaster.

Presenter18:54

Tell me about your next piece of music.

Alec Jeffreys18:55

We're now into forensics and policemen and well DNA I think has brought a smile to the face of a lot of policemen. So with a million apologies and I think I may get leeched by coppers up and down the lamp. So apologies to my very good friends in the police and the forensic community. I've got no choice but to choose something that's made me laugh ever since I was four or five years old and it still does. So sorry, it's Charles Penrose and the laughing policeman.

Speaker 419:23

I know a fat old policeman, he's always on our street. A fat and jolly red-faced man, he really isn't greeted. He's too fine for a policeman, he's never known to frown. And everybody says he is the happiest man in town.

Alec Jeffreys19:35

Uh

Speaker 419:43

Yeah.

Speaker 419:49

Yeah.

Presenter19:55

CHARLES PENROSE AND THE LAUGHING POLICEMAN. And so it was in nineteen eighty six that you took on the world's first criminal investigation using DNA techniques. Can you explain to us a little about the case? It was on your doorstep.

Alec Jeffreys20:02

Yeah.

Alec Jeffreys20:07

It was indeed, yes. I mean, this was a terrible case involving two young school girls, both raped and murdered, one in 1983, one in 1986, and a young man who was arrested shortly after the second murder. And he confessed to that second murder. The pattern of the two murders were so similar that the police were pretty sure that the same person was responsible for both. But we went through the analysis and, well, the result that came back, most alarming, that yes, the assailant DNA recovered from both of the victims was almost certainly from the same man, showed the same DNA profile. And that profile absolutely did not match up with the person who just confessed to one of those two murders. I mean, they knew they got the right guy. Okay. So at that point, I thought, oh dear, this forensic application just doesn't work. There's something fundamentally flawed about the science. So we did more testing.

Alec Jeffreys21:02

Yeah.

Alec Jeffreys21:03

Yeah, yeah. Science works by being skeptical. So I had a result which was either way round seemed impossible. So my first instinct was to doubt the technology.

Presenter21:04

Uh

Presenter21:15

And then, intriguingly, the case progressed and the police decided that for the first time ever they were going to ask for people within the the wider local community, if you like, all the men to come forward and to volunteer their D N A, which they indeed did, and in the end it did in a roundabout way help to trap the killer. What happened?

Alec Jeffreys21:20

They

Alec Jeffreys21:25

You know, so if you

Alec Jeffreys21:34

What happened? Yes, in fact, the killer realized that with this DNA net closing in on him, that he had to come up with some clever plan. So his plan was to get a friend to stand in as a proxy for him. And he did indeed receive a letter from the police clearing him from the investigation. But what then happened was pure luck that there was a woman overheard a conversation in a pub from someone saying that always stood in for someone else during this blood taking. And she fretted about that, went to the police some time later, and that led into a chap called Colin Pitchfork.

Presenter22:07

Who was found guilty of the money?

Alec Jeffreys22:08

He apparently confessed on the spot when he was arrested. Really from that case, and that was the first criminal investigation to use DNA, within about a year, year and a half, it has spread to all the major countries in the world, just like wildfire.

Presenter22:23

I wanted to ask you about another extraordinary case that you were involved in, the Nazi Doctor.

Alec Jeffreys22:24

Uh

Presenter22:27

who who fled to Brazil, tell us about that, Joseph Mengler.

Alec Jeffreys22:31

Yes indeed. We were contacted in, I think it was late 1989, by a Frankfurt prosecutor who was looking into the identification of remains that may or may not have been those of Dr. Josef Mengele. Now this is the Auschwitz concentration cam doctor, the person that did the selection on the people coming into Auschwitz. So this has got to be the most appalling war criminal ever. Now he fled Germany and evaded the Allies at the end of the Second World War and went to South America and a man that could have been Mengeler drowned in a swimming accident at sea in 1979 and was duly buried and then following a tip-off the remains were resumed in 1985. And the question is was it Mengele or someone else? So we managed to extract tiny tiny amounts of DNA from these bones that might have been those of Mengele. So what we then had to do is to get hold of DNA from relatives of Mengele, specifically his widow and his son, both of whom were still available in Germany. And then you've got yourself a paternity case. So you've got the mother, the child, so you can identify paternal characters in the child and ask are they present in the bone? And that's exactly what we did. And we showed with much better than 99.9% certainty that this was Mengele. Case closed. 40-year major investigation brought to a halt.

Presenter23:53

Tell me about your next piece of music.

Alec Jeffreys23:56

Right, um this is music so I can on this desert island I can remember my dear wife Sue. One of her favourite singers is Leonard Cohen and I've taken the liberty of choosing one of his sort of sad saddest, probably most depressing numbers. So when I'm on the island feeling very very low I can play this and think well I'm not that low but it is a lovely number. It's actually very poignant as well. So it's Leonard Cohen and famous blue raincoat.

Speaker 324:22

Or the last time we saw you

Speaker 324:26

Look so much older Your famous blue raincoat was torn at the shoulder

Speaker 324:34

You'd been to the station to meet every train.

Speaker 324:41

You came home without little money.

Presenter24:46

Leonard Cohen and famous blue raincoat. Given that your whole leaning is towards being in a laboratory and doing the research, I wonder emotionally how much you're affected by being plunged into situations like the Joseph Mengela case that we spoke about and also those first investigations back in 1986, because I wonder if you are something of a loner, somebody who likes being on his own doing his research. And these are this is human contact at its most human.

Alec Jeffreys25:15

Yeah, you're quite right, there is a tension there. I've always been a bit of a loner in science. I mean, you can't just do science all by yourself. I mean, you have to build up a research team, and I built up a wonderful and very, very dedicated team of people at Leicester. But I'm still a bench scientist. So, one of the things I love doing about science, this goes right back to when I was a kid, is to get your hands dirty doing something, to discover that you can find out things about the universe by fiddling with it, getting your hands on. And that sort of philosophy has never ever left me. I still love getting to the laboratory bench. I still do my own experiments, even in my advanced years. I absolutely love it. So, yes, there was a tension there, but I wouldn't have missed it for the world.

Presenter25:58

Uh let's talk about the DNA database. This is four million, four and a half million people now in Britain.

Alec Jeffreys26:03

4.5 million in the UK, 5 million in the US, more than 12 million worldwide.

Presenter26:09

In Britain it is certainly the case that you only have to be arrested, you don't have to be charged or indeed found guilty of a crime, to be and stay on the database. Are you comfortable with that?

Alec Jeffreys26:19

No, what we now have, and this is really the only country in the world where this is true. We have England and Wales with this very large DNA database. That database is 4.5 million people. Hundreds and thousands of those are entirely innocent. They've never committed any crime whatsoever. It is very difficult for you to get your DNA profile off that database, even if you're innocent, and it will stay there until you're 100 years old. Now, the argument is, which I do not agree with at all, that that is a proportionate response to the threat of crime. Now if that's true, then the police would be entirely entitled to go out on the streets and drag people in at random. Why even bother arresting them? And we would never permit that.

Presenter27:02

But of course there is an argument that is advanced to say that everybody should put their DNA on record, because if you haven't done anything wrong, you have nothing to fear from that. And indeed if it was your grandchild or my child or

Alec Jeffreys27:06

Yeah.

Presenter27:13

Any of the people that we hold dear to us that are involved in a violent crime, we would love to have access to everybody's DNA to find out how they came to harm.

Alec Jeffreys27:22

Yes, there's a very delicate bounce here between the notion of genetic privacy, that my DNA is mine. It is not the property of the state. I've got no objections whatsoever to the national DNA database as a database of convicted criminals. Its impact on the fight against crime has been colossal. But if we're going to extend that out to the entire population, not the police. It's only legislation that will draw clear boundaries to what the police may and may not do. So if you went down the road of putting everybody on a database, not the police database, I would see that as a quite separate database held by some independent agency, possibly a database accumulated on a voluntary basis. And then how you interface the police database with this far more extensive database, that's a matter of debate.

Presenter28:14

So in a sense the law here, in your view, has a long way to go before it catches up with the science and the capability.

Alec Jeffreys28:19

That's always true. It's always true. That the science is racing ahead like crazy and the law is sort of floundering around. It's it's got to catch up.

Presenter28:27

Tell me about your seventh choice, then.

Alec Jeffreys28:29

Other daughter, that's Lizzie. One of the great contributions to my life, enrichments of my life, is introducing me to indie rock, modern rock music, which I think is going through the most wonderful renaissance at the moment. My favourite band are The Killers. And I like this one because it sort of summarises in a way my life. It's all these things that I've done.

Speaker 429:08

Another heartbreak on so much shoulder that I can take in my affection.

Presenter29:17

the killers and all these things that I've done. So DNA analysis is such an invaluable tool, and as we say, it's captured the imagination and the police use it, as you say, in a way that they haven't ever used any technology before to assist them.

Presenter29:34

Being the scientist who discovered it, d do you find your life almost weighed down by that identity?

Alec Jeffreys29:41

Yes, I I am Mr. DNA fingerprint. I've been described as the the father of the field, the godfather of the field, the grandfather of the field, whatever. I mean I don't own the field in any way, sense or form. I was just the very, very lucky person. I happened to be there with the right idea at the right time and prepared to take the risk of actually showing how this could be used in case where if I hadn't done it

Alec Jeffreys30:06

Two or three years' time uh i it would have happened anyway. I will never ever come up with another DNA fingerprint.

Presenter30:12

Yes, I mean that is quite something, isn't it? It's a bit like somebody who writes their best symphony. You know, you look back and think, Well, I'm never going to do that again. Are you comfortable enough with that? Do you aim?

Presenter30:23

To try, to reach for the stars again, or are you comfortable that possibly your most significant work is behind you?

Alec Jeffreys30:28

I think the in terms of public significance it's behind me, because I will never come up with anything as impactful as DNA finger printing again. But in terms of intellectual curiosity and doing real tough science, then I'm still motoring fine, thank you very much.

Presenter30:45

And to hark back to what you said to me a little while ago, you are still then, the boy with the cat pinned out on the dining room table. You still feel that same sense of excitement when you tackle a piece of research.

Alec Jeffreys30:55

Absolutely. And the bangs and stinks as well. They're still there. The fact that you can use your your hands to tease secrets out of nature, it's extraordinary.

Presenter31:05

Speaking of nature then, of course I'm going to put you on a desert island. How how would you be there? Would you be you'd be very practical, I imagine?

Alec Jeffreys31:05

Yeah.

Alec Jeffreys31:10

I would probably get on okay. I'm a great botcher, as my family would certainly tell you. So I'll be able to botch things up, certainly botching shelters and my attempt to botch a raft, and I do know a little bit about astronomy, so I'd better sort of do some triangulation to try and figure out where I was on the planet and how to get out of there. I would probably go completely mad after a certain time. I think anybody will in such an island. But there is a dangerous self-sufficiency within me, which I'll probably last longer than most.

Presenter31:39

Tell me about your final choice, then.

Alec Jeffreys31:41

My final choice is: well, it's got to be a memory of Leicester. Leicester has been fantastically good to me. It was an accidental choice of where I was going to spend the majority of my career, but it's worked out remarkably well. It's a great city. The university has been a very stimulating environment for me. And they've been so kind to me. For example, along with a handful of other people, including the Attenboroughs and Gary Lineker, I'm a Freeman of the City of Leicester, which is a wonderful accolade. So, what better to finish off than Leicester's only megastar? A gentleman that I've met recently in person, wonderful person, and that, of course, has to be Engelbert Humperdink and his first smash hit from exactly 40 years ago. Please release me.

Speaker 432:27

Her lips are warm, while yours are cold.

Speaker 432:38

Release me, my darling.

Speaker 432:43

Let me go.

Presenter32:49

Engelbert, Humperdink, and Release Me, so I will give you the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare. You are allowed, of course, one other book, what's it gonna be?

Alec Jeffreys32:57

Right, Flashman, the Flashman series by George MacDonald Fraser. Flashman was a school bully in Tom Brown's school days and what Fraser has done is to just chronicle his subsequent career as a scoundrel, a lecturer and a bully that managed to get himself involved in virtually every major Victorian era military engagement. Extraordinary campaigns brought to life and with a raciness that I love. So possibly the whole lot.

Presenter33:23

You can have that and

Alec Jeffreys33:25

Uh

Presenter33:25

Yeah. A luxury, then.

Alec Jeffreys33:26

Alright, this comes back to Bach. I would like the world's biggest church organ if the island's big enough to accommodate it. I promise not to attempt to use it to signal passing shipping. It could be done. But I've one great regret of my life was never sticking with my piano lessons and really learning the keyboard properly. And one great ambition of mine is be able to get on a really, really big church organ. And what I'd like to do would be to really work on my bark. It's yours. Thank you.

Presenter33:55

It's

Presenter33:56

And if I was to force you, as I am about to, to pick just one disc from the eight, which one would it be?

Alec Jeffreys34:02

It has to be bark, and I would try and play along with it, and possibly sing along too.

Presenter34:06

Alec Jeffries, thank you very much for letting us hear your Desert Island discs.

Alec Jeffreys34:09

It's really been my pleasure. Thank you very much, Kirsty.

Presenter34:18

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