Lord Joffe

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is Joel Joffe. For many years he was the chairman of Oxfam, before that he set up a hugely successful insurance company and most recently he's been campaigning for terminally ill people to have the right to die. But the career in which he has had the greatest impact is the one he was forced to give up more than 40 years ago - law.

In 1963, Joel Joffe was a young defence solicitor, so dismayed by the apartheid system of his native South Africa that he was on the brink of emigrating. Then he was asked to take over the defence of a group of ANC activists including Walter Sisulu, Govan Mbeki and Nelson Mandela.

The trial gripped the world and was all the more extraordinary because, far from aiming to secure his clients' freedom, Joel Joffe was simply fighting for them not to receive the death penalty. He tells Kirsty how, even in his prison clothes, Nelson Mandela was a figure of calm authority, who guided them through the trial.

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

Choices

1.

Sontonga

Nkosi sikelel' iAfrika

Choir: Women of the Calabashi

2.

Bashir Am Israelim

Hava Nagila

Soloist: Haparvarim

3.

Ludwig van Beethoven

Violin Concerto in D major - 3rd movement

Soloist: Itzhak Perlman

Others who chose this artist

4.

Joan Baez

There But For Fortune

Others who chose this artist

5.

Sir Hubert Parry

Jerusalem

Choir: BBC Singers Orchestra: The BBC Symphony Orchestra

Others who chose this artist

6.

Julie Andrews

Without You

Others who chose this artist

7.

Joan Baez

We Shall Overcome

Others who chose this artist

8.

Castaway's favourite

Richard Burton

Under Milk Wood

Book

A Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela

Others who chose this author

Luxury item

Wind-up radio

Others who chose a similar luxury