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 1982, and he's a very well-known one.

It's George Martin.

George, you have eight records. You must have heard quite a few

records in your time. Yes, probably too many, I think, Roy. I've certainly made a great many. I can't

remember how many. What's the first record you've chosen? Good morning by Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland.

Oh, yes. In my youth, I used to run a dance band when I was still at school, in fact.

And it went by the awful name of the four tune tenors.

And my sister, who's always been very close to me, was a vocalist with this band,

and it became a party piece for us to do this particular song.

And I often think back to those days

when we had great fun, my sister and I,

performing in this rather corny little band,

and this was one of the numbers we used to play.

When the band began to play, the stars were shining bright.

...