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

This edition may be slightly different from what was actually broadcast, but it is the only

version we have.

It comes from the British library's radio

collection the recording didn't contain the guest's eight music choices so we

rebuilt the original show by using discs from the BBC Gramophone Library.

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

Full details can be found on the Castaways page on the Desert Island Discs website.

The program was originally broadcast in 1980 and the presenter was Roy Plumley. A castaway this week is a very successful writer of romantic novels, Catherine Gaskin.

Catherine, did music play an important part in your life? Yes, it's quite desperately important, Roy.

I have to be so careful about it that I would never try to write

when music is playing because I would think that I was writing much better than I do

But when I'm really down and I can't get a word and nothing is coming if I go and put on a record, maybe something will then come. I'll start pacing

the floor to it.

Did you find it a very difficult task to narrow your choice to eight?

Difficult, impossible.

Look, there go most of my best friends.

You know, I mean, I assume I'm on a kind of a craft that's getting me away from the

sinking ship, and if I pull Marla on board there goes

bark over the gunwale and what happened to Elgar you know my best friends it's heartbreaking

what's the first one you have chosen?

Well, perhaps a little melancholy a choice, but I would like the Chikovsky sixth.

...