Hello, I'm Krusty 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 1978, and the presenter was Roy Plumlee. This week our castaway is the novelist and historian Catherine Gavin.

Dr Gavin, you're a Scott, aren't you?

Yes, I was born in Aberdeen.

And you were educated there?

At Aberdeen University and

apart from your family and friends what would you miss most in a prolonged isolation?

Well, I'd miss television very much I think. I'd like to watch television. I'd miss that. I'd miss going to libraries, reading and studying.

And of course I'd miss the kind of life I lead in this world which is moving very fast from one place to another place, one city to

another city. Is music an interest of yours? Yes but I couldn't say it's a

predominant interest. When I was a little girl in Aberdeen we all took piano lessons.

I'm just a typical example of a girl who went so far with her piano lessons and then that was that.

Do you still play?

I play to amuse myself.

I can hardly say to him use others.

What was your plan in choosing your music?

Are you looking back or are the great performances or what was your overall plan?

My overall plan was to look back and think a piece of music that meant something to me at

different times of my life perhaps illustrated some of the things I've been

writing about. Where do we start? Well if I'm cast up on this desert island, I think the first thing I should want to do is hear a Christian

song of praise for deliverance from the deep.

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