Frederic Raphael

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the screen writer Frederic Raphael. For 50 years Frederic Raphael has written witty scripts for television and the silver screen. He won an Oscar for his film Darling, which starred Julie Christie, and became a household name with his television series The Glittering Prizes.

He was born in Chicago but came to England as a boy - where, his father advised him, he could grow up to be 'an English gentleman' rather than 'an American Jew'. While his parents did not want to disown their faith, nor did they want to be defined by it and they were very cautious about the way Jews were perceived in Britain before the Second World War. He was one of only a handful of Jewish boys at boarding school and was isolated and miserable there. But his loneliness led him to the solitary pursuit of writing - an occupation where he could right the wrongs he had suffered. A bright pupil, his own glittering prize was winning a scholarship to Cambridge - after that, he said, no other success in his life could compare.

For the past 50 years he has split his time between London, France and Greece - accompanied all the time by his wife, Sylvia-Betty.

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

Favourite track: Vorka Sto Yialo by Manos Tacticos & his Bouzoukis Book: Oxford Latin Dictionary Luxury: Mont Blanc pen, nibs and spiral squared notebooks