Hello I'm Kirstie 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 1987 and the presenter was Michael Parkinson. Casta has had a mixed bag of occupations at various times he'd been a farmhand, a plumber's mate, an inspector of

light bulbs, a shop assistant and a paint salesman. According to his biography he's the offspring of an army

colonel and a tiller girl and he was educated at an old people's home given

this exotic background little wonder he sought a career as an actor and a writer he is

Jeremy Lloyd.

Jeremy how come you are educated at an old people's home?

I'm trying to think actually such a long time ago, but the thing is that I think was because I had to leave school at 12.

I was, unfortunately, not very bright at school. And although I paid a lot of attention I didn't

remember anything that they taught me so they sent me to a psychiatrist who recommended that I should

leave immediately. He didn't suggest I should go anywhere else so my father who was

commanding a squad of men somewhere nearby in Buckinghamshire found an old people's

home near where he lived he didn't actually want me in the house and he he rented a

room there for me and so I became an old person at 14.

Well I was actually about 13 I suppose yes. What was it like? Wonderful. It was built by

Christopher Wren, I've got a a golf course, and a home farm.

And they were marvelous old people.

My education really took places and old people

saying they had a very nice library, a ballroom,

where I learned ballroom dancing with the wife of a

World War submarine commander and apparently I was the only one strong enough to whine the gramophone

...