Hi, it's Nicola Cochlin. Young people have been making history for years, but we don't often hear about them. My brand new series on BBC Sounds sets out to put this right. In history's youngest heroes, I'll be revealing the fascinating stories of 12 young people who've played a major role in history and who've helped shape our world. Like Audrey Hepburn, Nelson Mandela, Louis Braille and Lady Jane Grey,

history's youngest heroes with me, Nicola Cochlin.

Listen on BBC Sounds.

Hello, I'm Krista Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive.

For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

The program was originally broadcast in 2007.

My castaway this week is the broadcaster and journalist Andy Kershaw.

His career to date is as distinctive as his delivery.

In a world awash with modulated accents and a balanced perspective,

he stands out for his passion and plain speaking, combining an evangelical enthusiasm for world music with a fascination for reporting from the planet's

most unstable places. He says he's happiest when he's marinated in mosquito repellent

and living out of a rucksack, and although he's best known for unearthing unfamiliar tunes and bringing them to a wider audience,

it's his current affairs reporting that's brought him the greatest acclaim. Rwanda, Burundi in Haiti

are among the 81 countries he's visited. His frontline dispatches vividly conveying the true

horror of conflict. So, Andy, this professional sort of split personality, does it come from the same place?

Yeah, I think so. Which is what? Fascination with the world, I think. I mean, I did set out to be a

journalist when I went off to university in Leeds in 1978 and it all got horribly derailed while

I was there by rock and roll. Well, we'll come to that later. Let's just stay with the journalism.

The late spring of 1994, you've got an unusual invitation.

Tell us about that.

I was asked by the Today program to go to Burundi.

This was soon after the Rwanda thing had kicked off.

...