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Composer
104 episodes
Chosen over the decades
103
Total castaways
1980s
Peak decade
8
Decades seen
Castaways who chose this
John Simpson on crying at the release of Nelson Mandela
Ninette de Valois on the moment Margot Fonteyn stood out like a diamond
Barbara Castle on her mother’s feeding kitchen for miners’ children during the 1920s lockout
Thomas Armstrong on singing for Queen Alexandra as a nine-year-old chorister
Robert Runcie on turning back to rescue a crewmate from a burning tank
Lord Armstrong on going to Buckingham Palace with Heath to resign and returning with Wilson
Douglas Hurd on a coronation bonfire and a wife's knickers caught in the wire
How a broken pair led Michael Heseltine to seize the mace
Gordon Beningfield on getting down on his hands and knees to see a butterfly's landscape
Gerald Priestland on being sent away to boarding school at the age of seven
John Osborne on how a press officer coined the ‘angry young man’ label in a pub
Glyn Daniel on visiting every megalithic monument in southern Britain
Freddie Jones on how his resignation made the company's shares rise by four points
Lindsay Anderson on writing 'I rebel about nothing in particular' on a looking glass aged nine
Barry Norman on being hurled into a racial maelstrom as a 19-year-old journalist
Noel Edmonds on quitting a £3,000-a-year job at 19 with nothing to fall back on
Arthur C Clarke on building his own crystal set to listen to music as a youth
How treading on a lady’s foot ended Malcolm Williamson’s conducting career
How a flash of inspiration at the Barrier Reef made Noel Streatfeild a novelist
Barry Cunliffe on how a young excavator’s neat cut uncovered a Roman inscription in Bath
Val Doonican on asking the BBC head of Light Music for a radio series with no work lined up
How walking down the main street of Chipping Camden taught Gordon Russell more than school
John Ridgway and Chay Blyth on the moment they almost gave up rowing the Atlantic
Leslie Illingworth on opening his father's bound volumes of Punch