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 1983 and the presenter was Roy Plumley. Our cast away this week is his honor Judge Alan King Hamilton, QC.

As an old Bailey judge for nearly 16 years,

he presided over many celebrated cases

and acquired a reputation for toughness. Now you're to be a solitary

castaway in many ways I suppose the judges is a solitary life. Very much so.

When he's on the bench at any rate, at the old Bailey we were more fortunate than in most courts because we all met at lunchtime and could discuss our various problems and later on over a cup of tea.

But once you're on the bench, you're on your own.

And in recess, I presume, you're just sitting in your room.

That's right.

Is music an interest of yours? Very much so. I can't play anything and I wouldn't dream of trying to sing. I have no idea of voice control in that sense, but I'm very fond of music.

What do we start with?

We start with Gilbert and Sullivan.

My first Gilbert and Sullivan opera was, in fact, Iolanthi.

It was in the days when Sir Henry Lytton and Bertha Lewis were at the peak of their performances.

And I've been a fan ever since and could recite all the patter songs if you ask me to sometime ago, not now.

But I've chosen, as I want to confine it to one, I'm rationing myself to one because although I'm a fan of Gilbert and Sullivan not to the exclusion of all other music

I've chosen at the end of Act 1 of the Open of the Guard. God. I am I my colleagues, so the please now stand.

He is not there.

It is not there.

It is the play.

...