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 Castaway's page on the Desert Island

discs website. The program was originally broadcast in 1981, and the presenter was Roy Plumley.

This week, our castaway is the novelist and filmmaker James Clavell.

Your name isn't James, is it?

Well, no, it's a nickname.

My sister, when I was born, there was a song in Australia when I was born, my father was in the British Navy, and he was one of the officers handing over British naval warships to become the Royal Australian Navy, and there was a song in those days

Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy, I can't remember it but she called me Jimmy so Jimmy

became Jimmy. My real name is Charles Edmund Dumeric, but they call me James.

How much does music mean in your life?

Well I'm sort of turned deaf I think.

In other words, if you give me three notes, I really can't tell which one goes up and which one goes down. But as a writer I get

sent by music. For instance, the first of the things that I chose was Man from the

Mancha. And the reason for that is I wrote Taiwan in

Vancouver and we had this wonderful house on the sound and when I was writing

Taiwan we had only a very few records and one of the records was I was a man from the man from the mancha and we kept on playing it and I have an

association with this for Vancouver and every time I hear man from the man, I can remember this wonderful house and this wonderful time we had in Vancouver.

The Impossible Dream sung by Keith Michel. Now you said you were born in Australia James

...