Hello, I'm Krestey 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 1994, and the presenter was Sue Lawley. My castaway this week is a writer. She's as old as the century. At the age of nine she marched in

support of votes for women.

Age 11, she lost her religious faith forever. After Cambridge, she returned to

Bloomsbury where she was born and immersed herself in the society

of the dazzling and unusual people who were to dominate her life. Now age 93 she's

published five books about herself and her friends in the Bloomsbury set.

I've known the most interesting people of my generation, she says.

That to me is the success of my life.

She is Francis Partridge.

Indeed, it's often said, Francis, that you're the last surviving member of the Bloomsbury

set. Now, is that to tag you in joy or is it a bit of a curse?

Well, it isn't really quite true. I think it's true

to say I'm the oldest surviving member. Do you think that your judgment of all those people that we call the

Bloomsbury set to Virginia and Leonard Wolf and the Bells and

E. M. Forster, Maynard Keynes, Litton Strachey and so on, do you think your

judgment of them

as clearly as ever?

I recall them very vividly in a way.

I recall, for instance, Maynard's brilliance of his eyes.

I think it showed his remarkable intelligence.

...