Sir David Attenborough

To mark 70th anniversary of Desert Island Discs, broadcaster and naturalist Sir David Attenborough reveals his castaway choices to Kirsty Young.

In a specially extended edition for BBC Radio 4 Extra, Sir David talks about his life and explains his musical, book and luxury choices.

He has seen more of the world than anyone else who has ever lived - he's visited the north and south poles and witnessed most of the life in-between - from the birds in the canopies of tropical rainforests to giant earthworms in Australia.

But despite his extraordinary travels, there is one part of the globe that's eluded Sir David. As a young man and a keen rock-climber, he yearned to conquer the highest peak in the world.

"I won't make it now - I won't make it to base camp now - but as a teenager, I thought that the only thing a red-blooded Englishman really should do was to climb Everest."

DISC ONE: Pajaro Compana (The Bell Bird) - Francisco Yglesia
DISC TWO: Franz Schubert’s Impromptu No.1 in F minor - Imogen Cooper
DISC THREE: George Frideric Handel’s And the Glory of the Lord - The Academy & Chorus of St Martin in the Fields conducted by Sir Neville Marriner
DISC FOUR: Lyre bird (from The Life Of Birds)
DISC FIVE: Johann Sebastian Bach’s Goldberg Variations, No. 3 (Canone all'Unisono) - Murray Perahia
DISC SIX: Legong - The Gamelan Orchestra
DISC SEVEN: Carl Michael Ziehrer’s Wiener Burger Waltz - The Vienna Philharmonic conducted by John Eliot Gardiner
DISC EIGHT: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Soave Soave Sia Il Vento (Cosi Fan Tutte) - Orchestra of the Royal Opera House conducted by Sir Colin Davis

BOOK CHOICE: Shifts and Expedients of Camp Life - W B Lord
LUXURY CHOICE: A piano
CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Johann Sebastian Bach’s Goldberg Variations, No. 3 (Canone all'Unisono) - Murray Perahia

Producer: Leanne Buckle

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 Extra in February 2012.