Hello, I'm Kesti 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 1999, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

My cast away this week is a journalist. Since the start of the Second World War, she's been a close companion to action and danger.

Working for, among others, the Daily Telegraph, the Express, the Guardian, and the Sun Detimes.

She broke the news of the Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939, and narrowly escaped capture in Romania as the war progressed.

She went on to defy the OAS in Algeria, and to name Kim Philby as the third man.

She reported from Vietnam in the 60s, Beijing in the 70s.

Now, well into her 80s, she can look back on a career full of excitement.

But don't let anyone imagine that I'm brave, she says, I'm terrified of being stuck in lifts, but I'm never afraid of being shot at.

She is Claire Hollingworth. You obviously find danger stimulating Claire.

You have a certain relish for danger, don't you?

Yes, I suppose in a kind way. I enjoy it. I enjoy action.

I enjoy being in a plane that's bombing something, or being on the ground in the desert when they're advancing.

I'm terribly interested in war, in strategy, and in tactics as well.

But there's no thought for your own life in those moments.

I don't think about, but at that time, no.

But I've read that one of your colleagues talked about your together walking across a rickety bridge in India with bullets and shells whizzing past your head.

And your eyes shining and you saying, this is what makes life worth it?

Yes, I do sometimes feel like that.

Very frequently in the past I have done, yes.

But why, have you ever afterwards thought about, why do I get such a kick out of this?

I suppose, why do people get it kick out of watching a football match? That would bore me stiff.

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