Hello I'm Krusty 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. A castaway is the only man I know who sold in excess of a hundred million records and also cleared six feet five

and a half inches in the high jump. Indeed at one point he had to choose between an

Olympic trial and a career in show business. He chose the latter and the result as they

say is history. for more than 25 years

he's been one of the world's most popular singers he is Johnny Mathis.

Johnny you've been coming to Britain now for what 30 years I suppose it's very much your second home here isn't it?

Yeah I enjoy a great deal and of course the reason I come is because of the people.

I've had a great rapport with the British people for a very long time and it's a great treat for me to come here and it is very much home away from home for me.

What about the fans?

I mean, have you kept the same fans over the 30 years?

Have you seen them grow old?

Absolutely.

I've had the same appreciation society for, oh I guess maybe 15, 20 years now.

And I see them constantly, standing outside the hotels and in the restaurants that I go to, and of course at the

the restaurants that I go to and of course at the concerts.

Now this desert out on that you're going to go on. I mean to start with are you going to

enjoy being on a desert out and I mean do you like being alone? I like being alone a lot

in fact when I'm not working, I spend a lot of time alone.

Of course, I play a lot of golf, but that's in a way being alone. It's a sport that you have to do yourself. It's not a team sport. And when I'm home, I spend a great deal of time in my home doing absolutely nothing sometimes. And I had to learn that it's not easy to learn to do nothing but I

have a wonderful friend who helps me out in my work Maxine Sibley and one day we were working in Lake Tahoe which is a beautiful place in the mountains between California and Nevada and we had a lovely home on the lake and I was busy inside doing something and came out on the terrace and she was sitting there.

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