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Desert Island Discs

June Spencer

Desert Island Discs

BBC

Music, Personal Journals, Society & Culture, Music Commentary

4.314.3K Ratings

🗓️ 28 February 2010

⏱️ 39 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Kirsty Young's castaway is actress June Spencer.

She is one of the best-loved matriarchs in broadcasting. As Peggy Woolley in The Archers, she's the only original member of the cast still in the show.

It's 60 years this spring since the pilot episodes were first broadcast and, although she is now aged 90, June has no plans to retire.

She says, 'It's a great bonus for me that The Archers has run as long as it has, and I've gone along with it.'

DISC ONE: Fred Astaire - Let's Face The Music And Dance DISC TWO: Nelson Eddy - I Passed by Your Window DISC THREE: Andrei Gavrilov - Frédéric Chopin’s Revolutionary Study DISC FOUR: Northern Sinfonia Orchestra, conducted by Jean-Bernard Pommier - Claude Debussy’s En bateau (from Petite suite) DISC FIVE: John Williams - Concierto De Aranjuez DISC SIX: Harry Secombe - Giacomo Puccini’s E Lucevan Le Stelle (from Tosca) DISC SEVEN: The Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Leonard Slatkin - Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Overture to The Sleeping Beauty DISC EIGHT: Winchester Cathedral Choir - George Frideric Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus (from Messiah)

CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: John Williams - Concierto De Aranjuez BOOK CHOICE: Three Men in a Boat - Jerome K Jerome LUXURY CHOICE: A Scrabble board

Producer: Isabel Sargent

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in January 2010.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Things just swirling around my head.

0:03.6

Am I really the product of this?

0:06.3

Astonishing secrets uncovered by at-home DNA tests.

0:11.0

Little did I know what more was to come.

0:13.5

I'm Jenny Clemen and in the new series of The Gift,

0:17.6

we'll hear more stories emerging out of the ever-expanding global DNA database.

0:22.8

They did know that I was different.

0:25.7

You had kids together.

0:27.0

Yeah.

0:27.5

Then you met.

0:28.3

Then we met.

0:29.2

The Gift.

0:30.1

Listen on BBC Sounds.

0:33.1

Hello, I'm Kirstie Young.

0:35.2

Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Discs from BBC Radio 4.

0:39.7

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

0:44.2

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

0:49.2

...rash radio 4.

1:10.3

My castaway this week is the actress June Spencer.

1:15.4

As Peggy Woolley in The Archers, she is one of the best-loved matriarchs in broadcasting.

1:19.3

It's 60 years this spring since she took on the role.

1:23.4

Back then, the Archers was reckoned to be a Dick Barton for Farmers,

...

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