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 1988 and the presenter was Sue Lawley. My cast away this week is a politician and a turbulent priest. His combination of religious fervor and political passion

has won him one of the most sizable majorities at Westminster and the largest vote of any politician

in the European Parliament.

For 20 years he has personified Ulster Protestantism at its loudest and most determined. He's been called the demon doctor, the

mad muller, but those who know him say he is a man of considerable compassion and

humour, they know him fondly as the big man.

He is the Reverend Ian Paisley.

Mr. Paisley I've been told that if you're in a collar and tie I can relax if you're

wearing your clerical collar I should be wear. I see I can relax this morning.

I don't think that that's true at all. I think I'm the same person no matter what Garba were.

You wouldn't admit to there being two sides to your personality because that's what people

say that you can be humorous and charming, but you on the other hand can be really quite threatening.

No, I think that a person is the same person, but of course when they're dealing with the sobering

aspects of the life that my constituents are going through, being bombed and murdered and killed and put under pressure day and daily,

there must be a very sober side and there must be a very stern and strong side.

Well there's nobody on this desert island for you to speak too, there's nobody to argue with,

there's nobody to love.

I mean, will you hate it for that being cast away?

Well I developed my voice by addressing the stones and trees of the morn mountains.

So I suppose I could address the birds and the fish and the

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