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 2009. My castaway this week is Piers Morgan. A Fleet Street editor before he was 30, he spent more than a decade at the helm of

first the news of the world and then the mirror. He pioneered a style of

journalism that fed off the day-to-day lives of celebrities and won a fistful

of awards for his scoops that expose their

extra marital affairs. By his own admission he relished the feuds he fought,

so when the fall from grace came there were plenty of people rubbing their hands with glee.

First were allegations of dodgy dealing, buying shares in a firm his own newspaper was about to tip.

Then he published false pictures of British soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners.

Since then, he's written a very well-received memoir, forged a successful career as an interviewer,

and latterly has become something of a television celebrity both here

and in America.

He is, according to one friend, the ultimate proof that self-confidence and self-belief can become

a self-fulfilling prophecy. You were just 28 years old then

when Rupert Murdoch handed you the reins of the news of the world. What do you remember of that moment?

Was it a formal interview? No, funny enough, I have very vivid memories because I was back in Miami for the first time since I got given the job only two weeks ago.

I was the pop editor of the Sun, I was 28, Kelvin Mackenzie was

editor of the paper and just said the boss wants to see you, here are your tickets.

And Murdoch met me and then said let's go for a walk on the beach and we actually both took

our shoes and socks off and walked through the surf of Miami Beach for about two or three

hours. That has an ear of the surreal about it already. It was extremely surreal and because I had an inkling

...