Mairi Hedderwick

Author and illustrator Mairi Hedderwick is castaway by Kirsty Young.

Her most famous creation is a little red-haired character called Katie Morag who - in wellies and a kilt - has skipped her way through fourteen books and a 26-part TV series. Katie lives on the imaginary Isle of Struay with her parents, siblings, cousins, granny and prize-winning sheep Alecina.

Like her creator she relishes the rhythms and freedoms particular to life on a wee Scottish island. But that’s where the similarities end – the author was born and brought up an only child on the mainland of the lowlands. She lost her father when she was just twelve and says she was never part of a close-knit family.

As a grown-up, all she wanted was to quit the rat race and be an island crofter, but after a decade she left her dream behind in favour of a more stable income and a secondary school for her children.

She says, “I have a notion that children's writers explore unresolved questions in their own childhoods. I certainly do.”

DISC ONE: Granma Mainland Theme - Donald Shaw; Anna Massie; Aidan O'Rourke; Nathon Jones; Dobro & Signy Jakobsdottir
DISC TWO: Over the Hills and Far Away: Tom Tom the Piper's Son - Martin Carthy & Isla St Clair
DISC THREE: My Blue Heaven - Frank Sinatra
DISC FOUR: Johann Sebastian Bach's Double Violin Concerto in D minor (3rd movement) - Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Jaime Laredo, John Tunnell
DISC FIVE: Telegraph Road - Dire Straits
DISC SIX: Mambo de la Luna - Kirsty MacColl
DISC SEVEN: Sergey Rachmaninov's Symphony No. 2 in E Minor (3rd movement) - Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra with Lorin Maazel
DISC EIGHT: Einojuhani Rautavaara's Cantus Arcticus (Concerto for Birds and Orchestra) - Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra with Robin Ticciati

BOOK CHOICE: A book containing all the Ordnance Survey maps of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland
LUXURY CHOICE: A wonderful bath that comes down from the skies
CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Einojuhani Rautavaara's Cantus Arcticus (Concerto for Birds and Orchestra) - Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra with Robin Ticciati

Producer: Christine Pawlowsky

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in March 2014.