Tuning in…
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Composer
214 episodes
Chosen over the decades
214
Total castaways
1980s
Peak decade
8
Decades seen
Castaways who chose this
How Tina Brown sacked 79 people in her first year at The New Yorker
How hypnotism stopped Sheila Hancock vomiting before a National Theatre performance
How the Vienna Philharmonic apologised to Roger Norrington for their vibrato
Patricia Routledge on the terror of putting her hand on the door handle before every performance
David Shepherd on being told to ‘go and drive a bus’ by the Slade School of Art
Martin Rees on how being bad at Greek and Latin steered him towards astronomy
Richard Hoggart on putting his cap in his pocket after schoolboys threw it off daily
George Lloyd on surviving a shipwreck that drowned his comrades in thick black oil
Penelope Hobhouse on writing her first book after buying a typewriter at Woolworths
How Derek Jameson's invented war-hero father story collapsed when he did the maths
Ranulph Fiennes on considering jumping off Windsor Bridge during his time at Eton
How a request to paint fingernails on a Paris flight led Peter Palumbo to his wife
Ken Livingstone on being greeted by the deputy whip as a horrible little monster
Evelyn Glennie on telling musical intervals by where she feels them in her feet
How Margaret Thatcher told David Mellor he'd never make a living at the Chancery Bar
Michael Grade on being shocked by anti-Semitism and bullying at public school
How Maxwell Hutchinson could play the Dambusters March on piano without ever being taught
Cecil Lewis on lasting nine months as a fighter pilot when the average life was three weeks
Shirley Porter on being denied head girl, possibly because of her Jewish name
Paddy Ashdown on being asked to call himself Captain Jeremy John Durham Ashton
Barbara Windsor on practising to become a nun with a tea towel over her head
How timing bubbles helped Robin Knox-Johnston navigate when his log failed
Harold Fielding on the contract demand that got him a police car ride with Sinatra