Hello I'm Kirsty Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Disks from BBC Radio 4.

For rights reasons, the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast.

For more information about the program, please visit BBC.co.uk.

Radio 4. The My castaway this week is the philanthropist and publisher Sigrid Rousing,

founder of one of the UK's largest philanthropic foundations, her trust has given away around

230 million pounds since it began.

Along with the weighty business of deciding precisely who gets the benefit of her fortune.

She also owns the publishing house and literary magazine Granta.

By all accounts, she's made a life that skillfully circumnavigates the trap of being one of the idle rich.

Along with her wealth, she appears to have inherited her family's predisposition for the practical.

Her grandfather was concerned with making milk portable and pasteurized.

The family billions come from the invention manufacturer of Tetropack cartons.

My castaway has applied herself to making life better for people suffering violence, war and inhumanity.

She says, we live in a profoundly unfair society.

Wealth is increasing for the wealthy and debt is increasing for those in debt.

Once you know that it seems to me you can't not try to do something for the common good

with that money. So welcome, Sigrid Rousing. It is impossible to introduce you this morning without referring

immediately to your wealth and the wealth of your family.

Given that that has been the story of your life, I'm wondering how adept you are at sniffing

out when people are more interested in what you have than who you are. I expect very good.

It's a very difficult question to answer because in a certain sense it's something that I take absolutely for granted as a it's an existential condition.

I take it for granted that to some degree the money adds a bit of glamour,

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