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 1994, and the presenter was Sue Lawley. My castaway this week is a man who's devoted his life to helping those who have his own disability, blindness.

At the age of 12 he lost his sight in an accident in the school chemistry laboratory.

Undaunted he went on to win an Oxford scholarship and in

1950 at the age of 30 he mortgaged his home and set up the Royal Commonwealth

Society for the Blind. Since then he's traveled an average of 50,000 miles a year helping to

restore or save the sight of millions of people all over the world. Last year he

received the Albert Schweizer International Award for Medicine.

He is Sir John Wilson.

Indeed a previous recipient of that rare Schweizer

was Mother to Raise her, Sir John,

all of which makes you sound rather saint-like.

Well...

His mother to raise her.

I've met her in a number of occasions in India.

She's anything about a saint like.

She's a most amusing and charming woman.

But how much of a surprise was it for you that you found yourself dedicating your life to other

people?

I don't think this thing is ever predest.

You know, you do it, you do one thing after another.

...