Hello, I'm Kirstie 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 1986, and the presenter was Michael Parkinson. I cast away today today someone once described as looking like Mickey Mouse behind a

welding shield. Someone else said of him that he's a man who put the smile back in snooker.

He is in fact the snooker champion of the world, Dennis Taylor.

Dennis, when did you first become aware of Snooker?

Well, I was only really just coming up to nine years of age, Michael,

and it was back in Cole Island, a little small town in Northern Ireland about 40 miles from

Belfast and we had a little club there was only two tables in it was a privately owned club

you didn't have to be a member the fellow that owned it who was a great

character called Jim Joe Gervyn used to just let whoever he wanted in and there was a

couple of youngsters that were allowed in say from about half past six to half past seven

and that's really when I started I didn't play the first time I went in the club

I just purely sat on the side and was very, very quiet while they were playing and held the rest for the players and handed it to them as they needed it.

When did you realize that you got a gift for the game?

Well, the game just fascinated me as I said watching it and then I was allowed to have a go on the table

and the first time I played really I had to stand on a lemonade crate to reach the table.

And I seemed to take to it like a duct takes to water and within six months

I'd become quite good even at that age.

Let's have a choice of music the first record you take to your desert?

Well, this goes back to the early days.

I used to, in fact, work in the local picture house,

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