Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Composer
150 episodes
Chosen over the decades
149
Total castaways
1990s
Peak decade
8
Decades seen
Castaways who chose this
Berthold Goldschmidt on being summoned by the Gestapo
Frances Partridge on losing her faith in a seaside boarding house aged 11
How a request to paint fingernails on a Paris flight led Peter Palumbo to his wife
Evelyn Glennie on telling musical intervals by where she feels them in her feet
Michael Grade on being shocked by anti-Semitism and bullying at public school
John Schlesinger on his father's question about the Jewish character in Sunday Bloody Sunday
Cecil Lewis on lasting nine months as a fighter pilot when the average life was three weeks
Ian Trethowan on being told he was not a star by BBC Television boss Hugh Weldon
Michael Tilson Thomas on being told to put his suit on and conduct mid-concert
Nigel Lawson on switching from maths at Oxford before he was found out
Penelope Lively on being told by her publisher she hadn't won the Booker Prize
How bumping his head on the ceiling made Jeremy Isaacs dizzy with opera
How a desire to be a poet got Vernon Scannell sent to a psychiatrist
Stan Barstow on the moment a book by H.E. Bates showed him what to write about
Gwyneth Jones on her father dying two hours before her scholarship acceptance letter arrived
How Malcolm Muggeridge learned in the Soviet Union that power cannot make men good