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Composer
282 episodes
Chosen over the decades
282
Total castaways
1980s
Peak decade
8
Decades seen
Castaways who chose this
Lucinda Lambton on swimming to an island with a saw between her teeth
Penelope Lively on being told by her publisher she hadn't won the Booker Prize
Thomas Armstrong on singing for Queen Alexandra as a nine-year-old chorister
Josephine Barnes on her father becoming a mature undergraduate at Oxford aged 44
Claus Moser on watching Hitler's torchlight procession from his window
How a novice master warned Trevor Huddleston he would miss children
Peter Donohoe on putting his hands under his armpits in a 70mph car crash
Anton Mosimann on the banquet where all 500 puff pastry soups collapsed
Bernard Levin on how being forced to learn the violin nearly poisoned him for music
Kenneth Williams on the newsvendor whose voice he used for Gramp Fattock
Sue Ryder on being taken to Yorkshire slums by district nurses at age seven
Stan Barstow on the moment a book by H.E. Bates showed him what to write about
Bruce Oldfield on leaving New York on a bus with his tail between his legs
How writing a memoir after a friend's death helped Alison Lurie get published
Maria Von Trapp on being born on a train with the conductor as midwife
How her husband's 'Well, then write' turned Rachel Billington into a novelist