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 1982, and the presenter was Roy Plumley. On our desert island this week is one of the top-ranking writers of detective fiction, PD James.

Mrs. James, how big a part does music play in your life?

Well, I don't think of myself as musical. I don't play any instrument. I'm afraid I don't understand much of the technique of music.

But I certainly couldn't imagine life without records and without listening to music.

Do you ever play discs when you're copy typing, for example?

No, never, no. When I'm writing, I'm in an entirely different world, I don't even then

listen to music. What sort of plan did you have if you did have a plan in choosing your

eight records? Well, there are records really, which I very much enjoy listening to. Some of them

are records which I have enjoyed, but which I would like to get to know a great deal better,

and some of them have very happy memories for me. What's the first one? When I was a girl, I lived

in Cambridge. I was at the Cambridge Girls High School, and I often hurried home at the end of the day

because I wanted to catch even song at King's College Chapel.

I can't imagine being stuck on an island

without one record of King's College.

And the one I would like is the choir singing the Foray Requiem,

that lovely, almost joyous and sensuous music.

This is the version conducted by David Wilcold. eternal We are

here

We are

here

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