Hello, I'm Kirstie Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Disks from BBC Radio 4.

For rights reasons, the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast.

For more information about the program, please visit BBC.co.uk.

Radio 4. My cast away this week is Betty Driver. For more than 40 years she's been pulling pints and

dishing up her hot pot in the rover's return, but her career in show business started decades before

she took up residence on Britain's most famous street.

She was a child when her mother put her on the stage, touring the country with an act that showcased her stunning

singing voice. It brought success, but not happiness. I did it for over 20 years, she says, and hated

every day of it.

While life off-stage was far from easy, her career prospered.

She had her own radio series and was a respected actor in film and television,

working with everyone from Arthur Askey and Noel Carred to Bruce

for scythe and Tommy Cooper.

She thought she'd retired in 1966.

Then a phone call came from Out of the blue asking her to join the cast of something called Coronation Street.

I thought it would be for six episodes and then I'd be home again.

I wouldn't change my life, she says, though I'd have liked a bit more happiness.

Betty Driver, welcome, you are unbelievably 90 now. You sit opposite me.

Rood with health. Oh, never mind. You've been working for the past 80 years.

Yes I know it's amazing isn't it. Does retirement hold no appeal? I just love working and I will never

retire ever they'll have to shoot me to get rid of me.

But certainly make a big viewing figures in that particular episode

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