Hello, I'm Christy 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 1985, and the presenter was Roy Plumley.

Our cast away this week is an industrialist, a company man.

He's chairman of Imperial Chemical Industries, John Harvey Jones.

John, does the idea of isolation on a desert island strike a chill?

No, rather a warm feeling, actually. You'd like it.

Well, I've enjoyed life most when life slows down, and when I feel close to nature,

one of the reasons I miss the sea very much.

I think I might get a bit too much of a done on desert island, but the basic idea doesn't worry.

Well, eight discs to make things a little better is music important.

I used to think not, but I did have an experience once where I tried to live without music for a while.

I had to live without, in the Antarctic.

And I think music is very important, living without music altogether is almost impossible.

Why on this occasion, we were at radio content?

We weren't far away from any sort of commercial radio or national radio,

and all we had with us were, in fact, our own discs.

But we had rather more than eight.

Do you have any musical skill yourself? Can you play the penny whistle?

I'm a damp hand on the ukulele, but I a bit out of date.

And you sing at the same time?

I must say I used to sing. I sang in the choir at Dartmouth, and I love singing.

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