Martin Evans

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 eight.

Presenter0:27

My castaway this week is the Nobel Prize winning scientist Professor Sir Martin Evans. The grandfather of embryonic stem cell research, the advancements he's made have transformed our knowledge of how and why illnesses affect us.

Presenter0:41

In unlocking the potential of embryonic stem cells, his work has illuminated our understanding of cancer, arthritis, heart disease and Parkinson's. He's motivated not only as a pioneering scientist, but as a husband who has seen first hand the devastating effects of the type of illnesses he has spent his career struggling to understand.

Presenter1:03

So, Sir Martin, the Nobel Prize then, you were just a couple of months from retiring. It was October of last year that you got a call. What happened?

Martin Evans1:08

Yeah, you've got

Martin Evans1:10

Well, I was um near Cambridge in my very oldest clothes in our car with a a sander in the back of the car, just been from to the hire shop, and I was on my way to my daughter's house, where we'd been desperately trying to help her just clear up enough for the imminent birth of a new grandchild. And uh I got a voicemail message saying, Martin, would you very urgently please call this number from one of the secretaries in Cardiff? And uh yes, it was the secretary of the committee.

Martin Evans1:43

told me the news. I then tried to sort of

Martin Evans1:47

Take it in and talk to him and say, Well, um, can I know more about this? And when is it? and so on. And he said, I'm sorry, you'll hear all about this very shortly, but I have to go now. There's four minutes' time. I have to be at the press conference to announce it. So we heard just before the world. And what did you do in those four minutes? I phoned up the family first, and then I phoned up Cardiff University and the Vice-Chancellor to tell him. We'd had only a few minutes then before the phone started ringing. We'd been to a friend's wedding, so at least I did have a suit with me, and I was then whisked off to the television studios.

Presenter2:22

Within hours, presumably. Yes, yes. Now you won it along with two very significant people. They were Mario Capecchi and Oliver Smithy. You you had worked in collaboration. Is that central to your success? Was that central?

Martin Evans2:23

Yeah.

Martin Evans2:27

Yeah.

Martin Evans2:31

Please.

Martin Evans2:36

Well, two things. First of all, uh we worked in collaboration, but only in so far as I had got in touch with them both and they got in touch with me. We've never worked on the same project together at all.

Martin Evans2:51

And the other thing, there's this wonderful image from Isaac Newton of standing on the shoulders of giants, the the idea that all of the work that's gone into building this pyramid in the past, you're able to help just a little bit, and this lovely thought that maybe people I know they are are now standing on my hypothetical shoulders and taking the subject on. It's lovely.

Presenter3:15

Yeah.

Martin Evans3:15

Yeah.

Presenter3:15

So much to talk about. Tell me, though, about your first piece of music.

Martin Evans3:18

Well my first piece of music is uh Lang Lang, the uh Chinese pianist, young man, who is playing Krakmaninoff's second piano concerto. Now he played this at the Nobel Prize concert and I remember he came to sit at the piano in a hush and he then controlled the entire

Martin Evans3:43

audience with his presence before he played a note, raised his hands and bang into the music. It was a wonderful performance.

Presenter4:51

The end of the last movement of Frachmaninoff's second piano concerto, performed by Lang Lang, and the orchestra of the Marinsky Theatre, conducted by Volieri Gyrgyoff. So sadly your parents didn't live to see you collect your Nobel Prize. But but your mother did know that you'd been nominated. It is a curious process. Explain it to us.

Martin Evans5:03

Yeah.

Martin Evans5:11

I'm not sure I really understand the process. It is a a dark process that goes on behind closed walls. And they ask for nominations and universities, professors and so on can send in and do send in nominations. What happens to those?

Martin Evans5:29

Nobody knows, except for the committee.

Presenter5:31

Let's talk about you as a grandchild. You were close to your grandfather. Why was that?

Martin Evans5:37

I was I was close to my grandfather. He was a wonderful man. He was very much a self made intellectual. His love was poetry, music, and the Baptist Church, where he was the choir master for over forty years.

Martin Evans5:51

He was a very intellectual man, and a very nice man, too. I loved him.

Presenter5:51

But I'm not sure.

Presenter5:55

What sort of little boy were you?

Martin Evans5:57

Oh, what a difficult question you should ask other people about that. I think I was a lovely little boy.

Martin Evans6:03

I what sort of I was a a quiet, probably rather introverted uh little boy. I was very interested in all sorts of things around me. I loved to sit and cuddle things out and to try and make models.

Presenter6:19

So explaining the world to yourself in a way.

Martin Evans6:21

Oh, yes, I think so. I mean, I've often been asked: have I always been a scientist? And I've been.

Martin Evans6:27

Think back you you know, you think back into as far back as you can remember, and did you feel any different? I was the same person then, I think. Certainly it seems to me I was the same person, and the sort of things I really liked doing were very much the same.

Martin Evans6:43

It's just that I've become a bit more sophisticated and being given rather better tools these days.

Presenter6:48

That sort of curiosity that you speak about, anybody who's ever had children will be familiar with that, the constant questions about why and where does that come from. And so you were always encouraged, were you, by those around you to foster that? Because quite often children aren't.

Martin Evans6:54

But

Martin Evans6:59

Right.

Martin Evans7:01

I was encouraged and I think probably my mother was wonderful there. I think she had a policy, you always answer every question. She was a teacher herself, but she was very keen to put her whole effort into bringing us up. I've had a very straightforward schooling, really. I if I can go to my secondary school, I went through St Dunstan's College. I slowly worked my way from the bottom of the form to near the top of the form in most of the subjects. I was never noticeably, you know, the best, but I was certainly near the top all the way through.

Presenter7:38

We'll talk more about that in a moment. Tell me now about your second piece of music, then.

Martin Evans7:42

Oh, my second piece of music is Tommy Steele, Singing the Blues. This is a wonderful piece of music and I remember it. The memory of this, it gives me my bedroom at home in Orpington, where I was studying. I was doing homework on a Saturday and there was a Fate nearby where they were playing this again and again at top volume. It's just coming in as the piece of music and it's a wonderful piece of music.

Speaker 48:08

I never like singing the blues. Cause I never thought I would lose.

Speaker 48:16

Do you love

Speaker 48:18

Why'd you do me this away?

Speaker 48:31

You got the singing the blue

Speaker 48:36

The moon and stars

Presenter8:38

Tommy Steele and Singing the Blues. You were singing along to that. Would it have you skipping through the sand?

Martin Evans8:42

Absolutely. Whistling as well, I think. Yeah, it's lovely.

Presenter8:43

Yeah.

Presenter8:45

Now your parents, as you describe it, were entirely engaged in your education insofar as your mother was dedicated to bringing you up and to enthusing you about subjects and answering every question that was asked. Your father, interestingly, had a workshop.

Martin Evans8:51

Yeah.

Martin Evans8:58

Yes, he maintained a a mechanical workshop. And did he encourage you to market? Oh, he taught me everything. I I know how to operate lathe, turn turn screws, everything. Uh, yes.

Presenter9:01

And did he encourage you to muck in?

Presenter9:10

And it was always, as a little boy, it was always signs for you, was it? That was the thing that really

Martin Evans9:16

Yes.

Presenter9:17

For instance.

Presenter9:19

And tell me about your entrance exams then for Cambridge. Uh w were you were you confident you'd get in? Was it a big deal to sit them? Was it just a matter of course?

Martin Evans9:28

Oh, it's not a matter of course. No. I desperately wanted to get to Cambridge. I'd worked exceedingly hard.

Martin Evans9:36

Two.

Martin Evans9:37

do these exams, but then in a way and I suppose I'm unusual in this when I'm prepared

Martin Evans9:44

I quite enjoy exams.

Martin Evans9:46

For me it's the final performance I've been preparing for. Um I got there, and I found suddenly there were all these other people just like me who were talking about the sort of science I was interested in the same way. And and I

Presenter10:01

Yeah.

Martin Evans10:01

Bye.

Presenter10:01

I find it wonderful.

Martin Evans10:02

Yeah.

Presenter10:02

And did it result in not just an academic flowering, but did it result in a sort of flowering of your personality? Did you become less shy?

Martin Evans10:11

I don't know. I don't know. I sus I suspect I've been

Martin Evans10:14

Becoming more able to deal with people, if I could put it that way, throughout my career.

Martin Evans10:22

I think I started off not particularly happy in social situations.

Martin Evans10:29

Through my career I've come to realize that actually I

Martin Evans10:33

Well, I've always liked people and now I can get on with them fairly well as well, which is

Martin Evans10:37

Double benefit.

Presenter10:38

That's a good combination. It was during your time at Cambridge that you met the woman who was to become your wife, Judith. How did you meet?

Martin Evans10:44

Oh, this is lovely. Well, my mother's brother was the professor of astronomy in Cambridge, and his wife used to put on uh lunches.

Martin Evans10:54

On one of these uh a babe kindly invited Judith. So I remember meeting this lovely girl sitting on a big square radiator they had. You could sit and warm your behind on this radiator. And so I thought she was I thought she was rather nice actually.

Presenter11:12

So, shy boy that you were, you did work up the courage to ask her out on a date.

Martin Evans11:16

Yes, I had to bring out all the big guns and invited to a Cambridge May Ball, which we had a wonderful time at. And after the ball, we'd planned to go up to Granchester for breakfast. It's one of the things you can do, and punt up the river. And so I'd had a blind date with another couple who wanted to do the same thing and wanted to share the punt. So we started off, the river was in full flood, and worked hard to get part of the way up towards Granchester. And then the other chap took over, and it turned out that he didn't know how to punt. And we just drifted backwards. It was terrible.

Martin Evans11:55

So I had another girl, and then Judith, you know, said, Oh, she'd have a go, tucked up her huge great pool gown, took the punch pole and I thought, Ah, she's the girl for me, you know.

Presenter12:05

On that note, tell me about your next piece of music, then.

Martin Evans12:08

Well, this is Edith Piaf singing Je ne regret rien. Now, this is a song of mental defiance.

Martin Evans12:19

And I can remember singing this with the volume turned up loud to the record with tears running down my face when this is later on after Judith and I had been engaged and then it didn't seem to be going right and Judith went off for a year to Canada and I thought I'd lost this wonderful girl of my dreams. It was a very black period. But

Martin Evans12:45

Festival

Martin Evans12:48

I didn't regret anything, and I don't, and I shan't.

Martin Evans12:52

Secondly, Judith did come back.

Martin Evans12:54

And I've had a wonderful life with her ever since.

Speaker 312:58

No Ria Doria

Speaker 413:00

Hallelujah.

Speaker 313:03

No, Jean avoided.

Speaker 313:08

Nila beauty

Speaker 313:14

Yeah my

Speaker 313:22

Reya Goria

Presenter13:27

Edith BF and no Je Regrette Rienne, the track that you played to remind you of that time when you didn't know if Judith would come back from Canada to marry you, but she did. She did, she did.

Martin Evans13:38

Which you did. And, of course,

Martin Evans13:41

It's a wonderful, uplifting sort of song that you can revise and get yourself back into swing with.

Presenter13:48

By that time in your life, you knew it was the genetic code that fascinated you and was going to be the area of your research. Why?

Presenter13:56

Yeah.

Martin Evans13:56

Yes, I think

Martin Evans13:58

It had all been happening during that time when I'd been studying in Cambridge. There had been the Nobel Prize for Jacob Ormondo.

Presenter14:06

Who he who had come to speak? Did you hear him speak?

Martin Evans14:08

Did you hear him speak? Yes, I went to all Mono's lectures in Cambridge, and they were a wonderful revelation of the way that it was going.

Martin Evans14:15

And then we had uh Sidney Brenner, and he gave a series of seminars in his rooms in King's, and I can remember packing in there and listening to all the latest stuff.

Presenter14:25

Being part of an intellectual scientific advance must be a truly thrilling thing. You are you are pioneers.

Martin Evans14:32

Yes.

Presenter14:33

Can you describe it to me?

Martin Evans14:37

No.

Martin Evans14:38

I don't think I can. I think it's a matter that it's understanding I think is so important. Many people look at practical benefits, outcomes, experiments and so on. The the real thing is the understanding, the intellectual approach, seeing how it works, asking the next step, can we see a little bit further how it works?

Martin Evans15:02

We are very, very interested, many of us, and I don't just mean the scientists, but the general public, in the understanding of the universe in which we live.

Martin Evans15:14

Now we are actually living in the biological universe on the thin surface of this world and this is our own home universe. And I think not only should we study the stars in the universe, outside the cosmos, but we should study what I call the stars within ourselves.

Martin Evans15:35

And we have done.

Presenter15:36

Tell me if you would about your next piece of music.

Martin Evans15:40

Well, when we were in Cambridge, my elder son Christopher formed his own rock band, and annually in those days there was a Cambridge rock competition, and he did quite well in it, fini in one year, coming into the final. And what I'm asking to play here is his signature piece, really, Germans in the Shower. He and his two colleagues in the band called The Desmonds are playing this rather wacky track.

Martin Evans16:14

about their camping holiday experiences.

Speaker 416:18

We awoke next morning at the fly

Speaker 416:23

If I'm in the band now, I'll be alright

Speaker 416:29

But I soon found out far the worst The Germans had or got there first But then my dreams turned sour I found a German in the shower

Speaker 416:42

In the shower

Speaker 416:45

In the shower.

Presenter16:47

Your son Christopher and his former group of Desmonds and Germans in the shower should be played, you were saying at a very high volume.

Martin Evans16:53

It should be played at enormous volume. In fact, supportive parents were seen to be at the back of the hall with their hands over their ears.

Presenter17:00

Yeah.

Presenter17:02

You can play it as loud as you'd like on your iPad.

Martin Evans17:04

Come on, maybe.

Presenter17:07

Let's move on then to round about the the nineteen eighties. And what you achieved there was to isolate embryonic stem cells for the first time, to cultivate them in a way that we can all understand. Can you explain to me why that was so significant?

Martin Evans17:24

It's significant just to cut to the chase because these cells have the remarkable property and these are mice remarkable property of being able to be kept in the laboratory, but then any one of them can go back into a mouse embryo and form part of the resulting mouse, including the germ cells, the sperm or the eggs.

Martin Evans17:49

And that means that if we have a genetic change in our cell in our laboratory.

Martin Evans17:55

that genetic change can be transmitted through to the whole working animal, in this case a mouse. That has given us the experimental approach to genetics.

Presenter18:07

And at what stage did you start then working I know you didn't work directly with them, but start liaising in terms of the information and the knowledge you had with Oliver Smithies and Mario Copecchi?

Martin Evans18:18

Well, um when I first had these cells, I knew that what I wanted to do was to mutate them in culture, to find particular mutations and test them in the mice. That was clearly the way forward.

Martin Evans18:30

I then had a phone call.

Martin Evans18:32

from Oliver Smithies. And that was because about a month, six weeks before, he had published in Nature his results showing that you could target a gene.

Martin Evans18:44

in tissue culture cells. And I knew that that was the way forward with our cells, and of course he did as well. And so I went over to see him, flew over at one weekend with some cells in my pocket to show him how to work them.

Presenter18:57

So you went on to develop this thing which I think is rather fabulously called the knockout mice.

Martin Evans19:02

This is what I've been talking about. So in my cells, we can say, okay, what does this gene really do? Let's try.

Martin Evans19:12

Inactivating it and see if it does any change. And that's what we've been able to do with these cells for mammals, for mice.

Martin Evans19:22

That's given us the possibility of saying

Martin Evans19:25

Okay, what have we found from the human genome? We've found a sequence. But what does it do? What is it really there for?

Martin Evans19:34

And so this is a a way of finding out what really happens in the real animal.

Martin Evans19:40

Let's t

Presenter19:40

Take a break for a piece of music. Tell me what track five is.

Martin Evans19:44

Oh yes, well this is um from the Messiah.

Martin Evans19:49

The particular piece is Their Sound Has Gone Out.

Martin Evans19:53

It's a piece that I tried to use the name from in a publication when I was just explaining about these pluripotential cells. And I wanted to say that their sound has gone out to all lands because, you know, they had now once once upon a time they've been rather uh isolated little little study, but now people were really latching on to them.

Martin Evans20:17

The scientific editor totally refused to let me use this because it wasn't a scientific phrase and nobody would know what it meant. So I hope by putting it on this programme everybody now knows what it means.

Speaker 420:29

The sun just went on and stayed to a song.

Presenter21:28

Their sound is gone out into all lands from Handel's Messiah sung by the choir of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, with the Academy of Ancient Music conducted by Christopher Hogwood, and Memories There of your son singing aged nine at the the Albert Hall.

Martin Evans21:41

Yes, soon after we moved to Cambridge.

Martin Evans21:44

Simon, my second son, who'd been singing in the church choir in London, wanted to get into a nice choir, and we fortunately found him a place at Christchurch Cathedral School in Oxford, singing in the Christchurch Cathedral choir. But of course it was a long way away from Cambridge, so um Simon had to go away to boarding school there, and the family had to travel up and down regularly to Oxford, particularly on Christmas Day, for instance. The whole family had to go up to to fetch him.

Presenter22:16

So you stayed at Cambridge throughout the eighties and nineties. It was where a lot of hugely important work was carried out. You say that you left after it became clear to you that you wouldn't be considered as a candidate to head up this new Wellcome Institute that was being set up there, and that you were overlooked to be the head of genetics. Did you feel left about that?

Martin Evans22:40

I I don't think that's entirely fair to say I was overlooked and so on, but I I think I knew that my position was not going to advance in Cambridge.

Martin Evans22:49

I've

Martin Evans22:50

So no, I wasn't left. I was in a very good situation.

Presenter22:53

And so this call came inviting you to Cardiff.

Martin Evans22:57

Yes.

Presenter22:58

Tell us about that.

Martin Evans22:59

Well, uh it was out of the blue. I didn't know anything about Cardiff at the time, but I investigated it and then it turned into a wonderful opportunity. Here I had the chance now to do something more than my own work. I had the chance to go and set up, mold a whole new broad biological sciences. I'm very keen on it being broad and I wouldn't have gone in to say a medical faculty or anything like that, but I was very happy to go in where there's the biomedical side but also the biological side. And that's what I had in Cardiff.

Presenter23:35

What about your achievement? I don't mean to be glib by saying this, but it it strikes me that your career has almost it's like the Aesop's fable of the tortoise. You know, you you you were unable at times to for example in school to show what a glittering mind there was in there. And then at the end the prize is yours. At the end you triumph over all. Would that be a fair summation?

Martin Evans23:58

It's a very nice summation. Whether it's fair is difficult to say.

Martin Evans24:03

Yes. I mean, I it it is actually. I still find it.

Martin Evans24:09

literally unbelievable that I have a Nobel Prize. It is such you know an amazing

Martin Evans24:18

Honour and achievement. So it's still I have to pinch myself from time to time. Martin, have you really done that, or is it just a dream?

Presenter24:28

Tell me about your next piece of music.

Martin Evans24:29

What is my name?

Presenter24:30

Let's see, what have we got? It is Land of My Father's.

Martin Evans24:33

Oh yes. Well this is um the Welsh National Anthem. I rather like this because it reminds me of my time going to Wales. And as I've said, I we've had very happy times there. It was a very good move. And I've put this here. This will remind me always.

Martin Evans24:50

of this wonderful period of my life in Wales.

Presenter25:25

Land of My Father's, sung by Bryn Terfel, Katherine Jenkins, Alad Jones, and most of the crowd of the Millennium Stadium by the sounds of it.

Martin Evans25:32

Yeah, wonderful.

Presenter25:33

And would you have a go at singing along on your desert island?

Martin Evans25:35

Oh yes, a great advantage on the desert island is nobody can see me doing it. I haven't managed to learn Welsh properly, so you know.

Presenter25:42

You can do it without embarrassment.

Martin Evans25:42

You can do it without embarrassment.

Presenter25:45

Yes. You spoke very warmly a few minutes ago about your move to Cardiff and the fact that it took your life in an unexpected direction. Along with that, you also had to deal with your wife, Judith, being diagnosed with breast cancer.

Martin Evans25:49

Yeah.

Martin Evans25:52

Yes, you did.

Martin Evans25:59

Well, yes. Just after we'd we'd decided to move there, Judith found a lump in her breast and it was a nasty, malignant spreading breast cancer and she

Martin Evans26:12

Has been through the whole gamut of treatment with considerable.

Martin Evans26:17

Courage and fortitude.

Martin Evans26:21

Really amazing, and has supported me in my new job while this is all going on as well.

Presenter26:27

I wonder if through your work your in-depth understanding of breast cancer made it

Presenter26:34

more easy to bear what you were going through personally, or actually made it more difficult. Sometimes having knowledge, an extensive knowledge about something, can mean that you understand the full implications of what's happening in a loved one.

Martin Evans26:50

Well, both Judith and I needed to know everything we possibly could about it. This is our way of coping. We needed to understand, we needed to understand the treatments.

Martin Evans27:03

But uh

Martin Evans27:05

It has been very difficult and

Martin Evans27:09

As I say, I do admire her immense courage and fortitude going through all the treatments and the chemotherapy and stuff.

Martin Evans27:17

In a brave way that I don't think I could do.

Presenter27:20

And she travels with you now and is she now is is is well.

Martin Evans27:22

Is she not?

Martin Evans27:24

She is well. She works herself very hard for breast cancer charities, and she also helps to run a group in Cardiff. She works as a volunteer for breast cancer care. She does a lot.

Presenter27:36

Tell me then about your next piece of music.

Martin Evans27:38

Well, my next piece of music is um Do You Hear the People Sing? Now, this is because I have been fortunate enough to be able to become a trustee of Breakthrough Breast Cancer. And for me, I see the men involved as the angry men.

Martin Evans28:03

Uh

Martin Evans28:04

Here are we, many of us have lost our mothers.

Martin Evans28:11

our wives, our daughters, or maybe not lost, but they've been seriously affected by breast cancer. And a lot of the active support to break through, the supporters, despite the sort of female publicity of this, are men and they are angry men.

Martin Evans28:32

Th th this of course is a political song. It's about political democracy. But I also see it as about the broader democracy of the movement of people to make things better. And I find it a very stirring, uplifting song.

Speaker 428:53

We'll water the meadows of

Speaker 428:58

Singing the songs of angry men, keep his

Speaker 429:04

Are the people who will not be slaves again? When the beating of your heart echoes the beating of the drums, there is the light about to stand when your father comes.

Presenter29:21

The Broadway cast recording of Do You Hear the People Sing from Les Miserable. Judith, of course, and your family travelled with you to Stockholm to see you receiving the Nobel Prize. Of course, it must have been an extraordinary moment.

Martin Evans29:31

Yeah.

Martin Evans29:34

It was a wonderful the whole week, it was a wonderful glittering week. And uh yes, it's very nice that you can take the whole family. I had uh Judith, I had my two sons and their wives, and we had the five grandchildren. Uh Claire's new baby, now by now born, was five weeks old. One of the very nice things was after the ceremony and the king has presented you with the medal, and then sort of, you know, informality starts and the committee shake your hand, and then the people in the hall can come up and greet you. And the first of my family was my grandson George, who managed it through the legs of all this milling crowd and got to me. It was lovely.

Presenter30:15

Perfect. You described the the glittering ceremony, and indeed I know that that since you were awarded the prize you have been whisked around the world, only tomorrow you're going off on your travels again, then after that off to India. Um you've had to sort of postpone any idea of gentle retirement.

Martin Evans30:27

Once again

Martin Evans30:29

Yeah.

Martin Evans30:34

Yes, it doesn't look very gentle at the moment.

Martin Evans30:37

This Nobel has given me a platform. And one of the things I've been trying to do is to look at the understanding of science for school children. Why do not enough school children come through into science these days?

Presenter30:50

And fewer and fewer we gather.

Martin Evans30:52

So we do. And I think we've sold them the wrong thing. We said, come and be a technician, come and make the new drug, forget it.

Martin Evans30:59

Come and be a fishin'.

Martin Evans31:02

Try and understand the world you're in.

Martin Evans31:05

Got it.

Presenter31:05

I think that's what we should be saying.

Presenter31:08

Tell me then about your final piece of music today, Martin.

Martin Evans31:10

My final piece of music is actually really some of my earliest memories of music. This is a piece that my parents had and they loved.

Martin Evans31:23

I don't know why they loved it. It may have been something to do with their courtship.

Martin Evans31:27

But I did have very wonderful parents, and this will remind me of them.

Speaker 432:08

Beats are million and free, so strong men.

Presenter32:31

Anne Dawson and Maldwin Davis and How Beautiful They Are, the Lordly Ones, from The Immortal Hour by Rutland Boughton with the Geoffrey Mitchell Choir and the English Chamber Orchestra conducted by Allan Melville.

Presenter32:43

So, Martin, I will give you the Bible. The complete works of Shakespeare you're allowed to take another book.

Martin Evans32:45

Integrated.

Martin Evans32:49

Well I've thought about this. It's very difficult. Um I'd like to take something which will help my imagination to continue. So what I'd like is a good anthology of poetry, maybe the largest amount you can get on my raft.

Presenter33:05

You'll find out what that is, and we shall give it to you, and a luxury too.

Martin Evans33:09

Well for my luxury I would like to take

Martin Evans33:12

Am I allowed to take a microscope and the associated equipment to make slides and so on? Yes. And a stack of I don't need a stack of notebooks and pencils.

Presenter33:14

Yeah.

Presenter33:16

Hindi man

Presenter33:21

Well, that's sort of part of the equipment, isn't it, to do your research. So I will give you that.

Martin Evans33:23

To give your reception.

Martin Evans33:25

Oh, that's lovely.

Presenter33:26

And if the waves were to crash to the shore and you had to save just one record, which one would it be?

Martin Evans33:30

Oh, it would be the Messiah

Martin Evans33:33

Um and so and of course that's the piece with Simon singing in it, but I love the Messiah totally, so that would remind me of it.

Presenter33:41

Professor Sir Martin Evans, thank you very much for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Martin Evans33:44

Thank you very much indeed. It's been lovely.

Presenter33:53

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