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

This edition may be slightly different from what was actually broadcast, but it is the only version we have.

It comes from the British Library's radio collection.

The recording didn't contain the guest's eight music choices so we've rebuilt the original show

by using discs from the BBC Gramophone library.

For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music.

Full details can be found on the Castaways page on the Desert Island Discs website.

The program was originally broadcast in 1979 and the presenter was Roy Plumlee. I cast away this week is an adventurer and a very distinguished one Sir Edmund Hillary.

Sir Edmund Hillary, Sir Edmund I'm sure your adventurous career must have taken you to a desert island or two, is that right?

Yes, I have sort of paddled around on Desert Islands and actually camped on them in the Fiji area and in the Solomon Islands and I really

rather enjoyed them. Have you adventured in music? Is that one of your interests?

No I would say that I've enjoyed music but I'm sort of signally

ignorant really about the names of things you know I can sort of hum tunes I have a

redoubtable ability to whistle songs the same song for about three hours which has

irritated my family for many years how did you say about choosing your eight, just, you chose ones that you whistled?

To tell the honest truth, I had great doubts about just precisely what songs I should

choose because I have a terrible memory for

names. So I telephoned up my daughter in New Zealand and said, Sarah, what are my eight favorite songs?

Whereupon, very accurately, she remembered the names of course and of them,

and they were the songs that I would have chosen.

You whistled a bit occasionally.

Yes, I do.

...