How one group of friends in Sheffield is beating the lockdown blues

One of the BBC’s longest-running and favourite radio shows is Desert Island Discs and friends from Stannington devised a different take on it from the comfort of their homes.

They were inspired by the fact that aficionados of the programme who then go on to discuss it on social media often use the hashtag #DID.

This led the friends to create #LID which stands for ‘Lockdown Indoors Discs’, which they all agreed was most appropriate for the times we are living in

“We were already sharing ideas and reflections via group emails,” said Stannington’s Bob Mynors, “so when one of our number came up with the #LID idea, we decided to go with it.

“Musical choices the group came up with ranged from ‘Swan Lake’ to ‘The Birdie Song’, and from Blossom Dearie to George Frideric Handel. Books by authors as diverse as PG Wodehouse, Stephen King and Enid Blyton cropped up, and one person even found room for a collection of short stories and poems by Stannington Library’s writers group.

“It was great fun,” he added, “and part of an ongoing series of daily communications on a wide range of topics that helps us all to stay in touch, and keep each other’s’ spirits up.

“We can’t meet each other physically, but this is one way we can show we’re still there for each other.”

Thet first Desert Island Discs was recorded in the BBC’s bomb-damaged Maida Vale studio on January 27, 1942.

It was introduced as "a programme in which a well-known person is asked the question, if you were to be cast away alone on a desert island, which eight gramophone records would you choose to have with you, assuming of course, that you had a gramophone and an inexhaustible supply of needles".

The first “castaway” was comedian, actor and musician, Vic Oliver.

The first piece of music chosen by Vic Oliver, and therefore by any castaway, was Chopin’s Étude No.12 in C minor played by pianist Alfred Cortot.

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