Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Composer
506 episodes
Chosen over the decades
503
Total castaways
1980s
Peak decade
8
Decades seen
Castaways who chose this
Joseph Rotblat on being told the bomb was to subdue the Russians
Sybille Bedford on growing potatoes on the lawns while the cellar stayed full of claret
Martin Rees on how being bad at Greek and Latin steered him towards astronomy
Mary Benson on pretending to write notes about Saul Bellow's Herzog while under house arrest
Laurens Van Der Post on resolving to apologize to the Bushmen at age eight
Kyra Vayne on eating potato peels and rotten fish bones to survive the Russian Revolution
Roy Calne on the collie dog that bounded into an auditorium after a kidney transplant
How a friend's request for a short story led Umberto Eco to write The Name of the Rose
Richard Hoggart on putting his cap in his pocket after schoolboys threw it off daily
Max Nicholson on the visit to the Natural History Museum's bird gallery that set him on his life's work
Desmond Tutu on black children scavenging sandwiches from white school waste bins
Peter Scudamore on throwing stones at posts as a child to predict his racing success
Conrad Black on taking visitors to see his press hall's million-copy print run
Cicely Saunders on the patient who thanked her for telling him he was dying
Oliver Sacks on a patient who thought songs from the 1970s were music from the future
Shirley Anne Field on wiping off her make-up to land her role in The Entertainer
How a blind date at a university ball led Sybil Marshall to the love of her life
Isabel Allende on her family playing the roles from The House of the Spirits
Arnold Weinstock on being sent with a label and gas mask to the wilds of Warwickshire