Hi, it's Nicola Cochlin. Young people have been making history for years, but we don't often hear about them. My brand new series on BBC Sounds sets out to put this right. In history's youngest heroes, I'll be revealing the fascinating stories of 12 young people who've played a major role in history and who've helped shape our world. Like Audrey Hepburn, Nelson Mandela, Louis Braille and Lady Jane Grey, history's youngest heroes with me, Nicola Cochlin.

Listen on BBC Sounds.

Hello, I'm Krista 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 2006,

and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Music My castaway this week is a businessman. For more than 10 years now, he's been running one of the world's largest oil companies, supervising its growth from a 20 billion pound organisation into one worth more than

130 billion. His success may be due in part to the fact that the company itself is almost part of

his DNA. He's never worked for any other, joining it after leaving Cambridge where he saw his first

class degree as a stepping stone into the commercial rather than the academic world.

His father, too, had worked for the same firm.

And so with single-minded determination, he set about building a career

that has made him one of this country's most unusual company men.

His lifestyle is not necessarily what one would expect from such a high achiever.

He lived quietly alone with his mother until she died six years ago.

But then, as he says, while people like to get together with individuals like themselves,

life is more complicated.

We're all brought together to do different things.

He is the chief executive of BP Lord Brown, John Brown.

It's pretty unusual, though, these days, John, to spend one's whole working lifetime with one company.

Was that a conscious decision?

You must have been head hunted, courted, time and again.

...