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 2001, and the presenter was Sue Lolly. My cast away this week is an actor, brought up in poor circumstances in London, he

yearned to perform to enter a world of fantasy, but he never even made it into the

school play. Drama school he did make, it was wartime, and there were no other chaps around, and he appeared

on the London stage, age 17 in 1945.

Now one of our most prolific and celebrated actors at home in film on television and on stage, he can

look back on a career that's been hard won.

Success did not come quickly and despite a happy marriage of 50 years he's faced personal nightmares too but like all good

actors he carries on life is so extraordinary he says it should always be lived to the full

he is joss Ackland. So enthusiasm, Joss, is not something you lack.

You're a perfect castaway to that extent, aren't you?

I think so, yes. Whether it would be a perfect castaway, I'm not sure about it.

I'm what you might call a gregarious loner.

I mean I love mixing with people, but I think it's because my wife and I are so close and we have such a large family,

we don't have really close friends.

We're not the sort of people who go away for a holiday with two other people if you

know that I mean.

But you've always been a bit of a loner haven't you? You've said it about yourself when you were at school, strangely.

More of a maverick, I think. I've never been very good with rules.

You know, never like to follow rules. I've never been subservservient I think you like being your own man yeah

yes and you've never been I know you've been in theater companies you know

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