I'm Rory Stewart and I grew up wanting to be a hero and I'm still fascinated by the ideas of heroism.

In my new series, I'm taking in the long sweep of history from Achilles to Zelensky and asking, what is a hero?

Simply doing your job, being a decent human being.

A true hero is someone who just kind of shines by

their own light and that light is to be recognised by others. The long history of heroism with me,

Rory Stewart. 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 1979,

and the presenter was Roy Plumley.

Music On our desert island this week is the Countess of Longford,

who, as Elizabeth Longford, is the celebrated historian and biography.

Does music play a big part in your everyday life?

In a way, I should say yes, though I'm not really musical

in the sense that people would recognise who were musical,

but I'm passionately fond of some things.

Do you play an instrument?

No, no, except I was made to play the piano.

I only play it now for grandchildren or for fun.

Do you use background music while you're researching or copy-typing or anything like that?

I certainly do. I feel rather ashamed of doing it

because I know it's not the right thing

...