At the start of the war it had become the UK’s sole broadcaster – commercial radio and BBC TV had been closed down – and it had a large, captive, highly critical audience complaining about the lack of cheerful programming. What could be more appealing in the middle of wartime, when everything was on the ration and the German army was on the outskirts of Moscow, than escape to a sunny, quiet desert island, into music and memory? BBC radio was desperate for good light entertainment. He immediately typed out his idea and posted it the next morning to Leslie Perowne, a producer in the BBC Gramophone department: ‘DESERT ISLAND DISCS: If you were wrecked on a desert island, which ten gramophone records would you like to have with you? Providing of course that you have a gramophone and needles as well!’
The fire in his digs had gone out, and he’d just put on his pyjamas when inspiration struck. Plomley was 27, an unsuccessful actor turned slightly more successful radio broadcaster. T he idea for Desert Island Discs came to Roy Plomley one night in November 1941 in the aftermath of the Blitz.