Music is the art which is most nigh to tears and memory.

You can always count on Oscar Wilde to find the right words. Well, I can, anyway.

Desert Island Discs celebrated its 70th birthday yesterday. I'm pretty sure it must have a worldwide franchise - but if not, it's a BBC Radio 4 programme where well-known people choose the eight pieces of music they'd take if they were stranded on a desert island (along with a book and a luxury item.)

Musical choices say a great deal about a person, I think. More so than words sometimes.

At various junctures, I've wondered what I'd choose. I really don't know, is the answer. I suppose...music to remind me of different phases of my life.

Early childhood? I think it would have to be Gilbert and Sullivan (no, NOT Gilbert O'Sullivan PLEASE!) much loved by my parents. And which song of the hundreds?

On a tree by a river (Willow, tit willow) from The Mikado. Takes me straight back to our house, 51, St. Matthews Parade, Northampton. To the drawing room, which was on the first floor because my father was a doctor and his surgery and waiting room were on the ground floor. To the radiogram. I WISH I could remember what sort it was. I can certainly remember what it looked like. (Hideous!)

Then, perhaps, the first record I ever bought, which was:

All you need is love!

I'm not sure what those two choices say about me. 

Hopeless romantic? Probably.