Hello, I'm Kirstie Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Disks from BBC Radio 4.

For rights reasons, the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast.

For more information about the program, please visit BBC.co.uk.

Radio 4. My castaway this week is the chief executive of the Guide Association Julie Bentley or

more accurately girl guiding the name change a clue, surely, to the evolving nature of an organization

determined to be relevant and useful to girls in the 21st century.

Indeed being relevant and useful is pretty much how my castaway has spent her entire working life.

From her early efforts at an HIV charity to running the Family Planning Association,

she says her passion lies with helping young people develop confidence and direction.

Never a brownie or a girl guide herself, she was brought up in what she describes as a happy working-class family in Essex, and it took her a little while to find her own

self-assurance and sense of purpose. A painfully shy little kid who was bullied at primary

she later went on to be- girl, but left school with very few qualifications.

In her 30s, she used a bequest from her mother to fund her master's degree. She says if the girl

guides, it's not about itchy brown uniforms and sewing and baking.

It is a modern contemporary vibrant organization.

And so Julie Bentley, both personally and professionally, it seems to me that you are very big on relevance.

Is it important to you that things have a sort of practical life enhancing force behind them?

Yes, it really is.

Many, many years ago, I reached the conclusion that what I really, really wanted to do was to work with young people.

And more importantly, I wanted to work in the not-for-profit sector because I was brought up with a really very

strong sense of personal responsibility but also responsibility to the wider world and you know I have sometimes faced some criticism

for some of my choices you know working in the field of drug and alcohol addiction

...