“Would you like to appear on the programme?” their email stated. “I’d love to.”, I replied. “I’ll take ‘Nimrod’, the overture from ‘Der fliegende Holländer’, ‘All Join Hands’ by Slade…”, and so on.

Of course that isn’t quite how it happened.

However I did receive a pleasant note for sending them a correction to the archive page of one of their castaways, the venerable actress Cicely Courtneidge.

Hi Mark

Thank you for your email to Desert Island Discs. I have changed the Albert Coates to Eric Coates. I think looking at the recording Albert might have been conducting but as you rightly point out Eric was the composer.

Thank you for your interest in our programme.

Best wishes

Desert Island Discs team.

How kind of them. It’s almost as if Roy Plomley had written it himself.