Acclaimed broadcaster and journalist, Lesley Riddoch will be taking part in a ‘Desert Island Discs’ from Loretto School in Edinburgh on Friday, 15th June at 7:00 p.m. This is part of the now well-established ‘Loretto Lecture Series’ which has seen events such as Mary, Queen of Scots’ Book of Hours return to Scotland after an absence of 400 years and speakers such as acclaimed peace activist, Colin Parry.
Following the same format at the BBC Radio 4’s long-running show, Lesley Riddoch will be invited to imagine herself cast away on a desert island, and to choose eight pieces of music to take with her; discussion of her choices permits a review of her life. Excerpts from her choices will be played or, in the case of short pieces, the whole work. At the end of the programme Lesley will choose the one piece she regards most highly. Lesley will then be asked which book she would take with her. Lesley will automatically be given the Complete Works of Shakespeare and either the Bible or another appropriate religious or philosophical work. Lesley will be permitted to choose one luxury, which must be inanimate and of no use in escaping the island or allowing communication from outside.
Lesley Riddoch is one of Scotland’s best known commentators and broadcasters. She has held many influential positions including assistant editor of The Scotsman and contributing editor of The Sunday Herald. She is perhaps best known for her broadcasting with programmes on Radio 4, BBC Radio 2 and BBC Radio Scotland, for which she has won two Sony speech broadcaster awards. Lesley is a weekly columnist for the ‘Scotsman’ and the ‘Sunday Post’ and a regular contributor to the Guardian’s and the ‘Huffington Post’. She was short-listed in 2006 for the Orwell prize for political writing.
Lesley was a member of the Scottish Government’s Prisons Commission, charged with finding out why Scotland imprisons almost twice as many people as Ireland and Norway.
She was a founding member of the Isle of Eigg Heritage Trust which led to the successful community buyout in 1997, and Chaired a Task Force on Rum in 2008 to transfer control of assets from Scottish Natural Heritage to the local community.
Lesley Riddoch wrote ‘Riddoch; on the Outer Hebrides’ about the challenge facing traditional Hebridean society – published in 2007 by Luath. She’s currently part of a three year EU marine energy project, Equimar and is about to begin a phD at Strathclyde and Oslo Universities comparing Norway and Scotland. She’s also writing a book about the Nordic nations, The Viking Feminists.
Lesley last visited Loretto in January this year when she was a panellist on the broadcast of BBC Radio 4s ‘Any Questions?’ from the school’s theatre.
Places for Loretto School’s version of ‘Desert Island Discs’ are free to all and available be emailing Mr Jonathan Hewat, Loretto School’s Director of External Affairs – jhewat@loretto.com
Jonathan Hewat, Director of External Affairs at Loretto School, said, “We are delighted to welcome Lesley Riddoch back to Loretto School. She made quite an impression as a panellist during the broadcast of ‘Any Questions?’ and it will be fascinating to get to know a little more about what makes her tick through her choice of music.”