Hello I'm Kirstie Young and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive.

For Wright's reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

The program was originally broadcast in 1984 and the presenter was Roy Plumlee. I cast away this week is the explorer Robin Hanbury Tennyson.

Robin how much does music mean to you?

Well more and more as I get older it didn't mean a lot when I was young I used to listen to

all the pop records and listen to music as a passing thing but I've made

a marvelous discovery as I started taking myself more seriously as a writer and that's thanks

to my daughter Lucy who gave me a walkman which I now use with classical music as a way of

removing the outside world and getting on with work.

So you're sitting at your typewriter with your headphones on?

Well at my long hand, I don't use a typewriter if I can help it.

But with my headphones on, and as a byproduct of that, I've become a little more aware and knowledgeable about classical music which was not something that played a great part in my life.

On your expeditions off into the wilds, did you take discs, cassettes?

Yes, took radios more when possible to take anything in order to listen

to the good old BBC on the world service. Well you certainly must know about loneliness

and isolation.

Did you find it difficult to choose just eight that would last under those conditions?

Not very, no. It came quite easily. I sort of grabbed a mixed bag of what I felt would be fun and they were not difficult

to choose because I haven't got a huge repertoire I suppose and I just enjoyed ones that I'd sung

at moments and that I'd listen to and that give me pleasure.

What's the first one on top of the bag?

The first one's a rather naughty record by Louis Armstrong and Filmer Middleton singing,

...