Hello I'm Kristi 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's the only version we have.

It comes from the British Library's radio collection. It was

archived without the music, so although the Castaways choices are introduced,

they're not part of this recording. Full details can be found on the Castaways page on the Desert Island Discs website.

The program was originally broadcast in 1981.

And the presenter was Roy Plumley.

This week, our Cast as the writer and traveller, Elspeth Huxley.

As a traveler, Mrs. Huxley, have you known extended loneliness?

I'm afraid not, not enough, especially in more recent days because travel is very far from being a

lonely affair unless I suppose you go to the middle of the Arabian Deserts or something, but even

then I'm sure you'd find a party of

Shakes doing something that mostly travel now seems to be terrible crowds doing it.

How much does music mean in your life? Well not as much as I wish it did because I think

music probably like other arts is something that you really need to be exposed to

when you're young and having been brought up in East Africa which in those days was you might describe it as a

cultural desert I should think I never really heard any music I think we did have a

crack-tail gramophone which played popular records or something I don't think think I really ever heard any proper music

until I was about 18 so that I've never really caught up from that.

What's the first disc you've chosen? The first disc is quite a light-hearted one I think

one will need a little cheering up sometimes on this island.

...