Hello, I'm Krestey 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 1990, and the presenter was Sue Lawley. My castaway this week is a politician. At the age of 43 he's earned himself a place at

Labour's top table both in the party and in the Commons, against terrible odds. He was

born blind. When he was 12, his father, a gas board worker, died after an accident at work.

His mother struggled to survive on a pension, looking after him and his 80-year-old grandfather.

He rewarded them with considerable achievements, passing O and A levels,

winning a university degree and spending 17 years as a Sheffield city councillor,

seven of them as its leader. He describes himself as a man of the firm left.

He is the MP for Sheffield Brightside David Blunkett. Here waiting to be cast away on our

desert island, with his guide dog offer

beside him whom you can't take with you David now how cruel is that going to be

well I think the rule about to only being able to take in animate objects must actually bear very heavily on all

your castaways. In my case I think offer would have a wonderful time on a desert

island but he wouldn't be a fat lot of use to me

because the honest truth is he works better in crowded surroundings he does the job when

things are busy and I couldn't really use him on the island. Having the harness on might stop me falling over the occasional cliff or crevice,

but it's not actually going to help me survive and I'm going to have to find my way around the island.

It'll take me a little time but I'll do it making sure

that I know where the dangers are and of course where the pleasurable bits the

nice places to swim the beach everything else is what does he save you from in the outside world in general?

I mean, how dependent are you on him?

...