Betty Driver

Coronation Street actress Betty Driver reveals her castaway choices with Kirsty Young.

In a specially extended edition for BBC Radio 4 Extra, Betty shares her life story and explains hers musical, book and luxury choices.

For more than 40 years she pulled pints and dished up her hot-pot in the Rovers Return. But her career in showbusiness started decades before she took up residence on Britain's most famous street.

Betty was a child when her mother put her on the stage and she toured the country with an act that showcased her stunning singing voice - it brought success but not happiness. "I did it for over twenty years," she says, "and hated every day of it." Although she has been working now for an incredible 80 years, she says: "I just love work and I will never retire. They'll have to shoot me to get rid of me!"

DISC ONE: I'll Take Romance - Betty Driver
DISC TWO: Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in B Flat Minor - Stephen Hough with the Minnesota Orchestra
DISC THREE: Night and Day - Ella Fitzgerald
DISC FOUR: Johann Strauss II’s Thunder and Lightning Polka -Sir Harry Mortimer with the G.U.S. (Footwear) Band
DISC FIVE: Black and White Rag - Winifred Atwell
DISC SIX: Tchaikovsky’s Overture to Swan Lake - Leonard Slatkin conducting the St Louis Symphony Orchestra
DISC SEVEN: Skylark - Hoagy Carmichael
DISC EIGHT: Johannes Brahms’s The Adagio from the Cello Sonata No.2 in F Major - Steven Isserlis

BOOK CHOICE: Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
LUXURY CHOICE: Eau de Soir perfume by Sisley
CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in B Flat Minor - Stephen Hough with the Minnesota Orchestra

Desert Island Discs was created by Roy Plomley.

Producer: Leanne Buckle

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 Extra in January 2011.