Hello I'm Krestey Young and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive.

For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

The program was originally broadcast in 1992,

and the presenter was Sue Lolly. My castaway this week is the country's most senior serving judge. His recent appointment comes at a time when public

confidence in the law is bruised following a series of miscarriages of justice. His

views are liberal rather than radical. He would like to see more openness in the legal system and has plans to do away with some of its more antiquated trappings such as wigs and robes.

The son of a Newcastle doctor, he came to public prominence as the man who led the inquiry into the Hillsborough Stadium disaster.

He loves sport and music too. Indeed, if he hadn't been a lawyer, he might have become a professional pianist. He is the Lord Chief Justice of England,

Peter Taylor. Your new job, Lord Taylor, has been described by one leading member of the judiciary

as the most awful job in the world and another one called it

grueling and two of your predecessors at least have cracked under the strain.

Why did you want to do it? I suppose the challenge one doesn't seek to do it but when the invitation comes

it's hard to resist it and I think if one did say no one would feel somewhat

wimpish afterwards. You're also 62, which is no great age, but nevertheless I suppose in any other profession you'd be contemplating retirement.

Oh yes, many of my college friends and school friends are retired and I seem to be starting the major job.

Do you think that's a bit odd? Do you think the judiciary is out of line in that sense?

Well I think you do require a good deal of experience before you're

likely to make a judge a successful and just judge because you have to have seen

what it's all like at the lower level.

But I think that there ought to be a limit on how long judges go on

and I'm rather in favor of reducing the retiring age from the present age 75 at any rate to 70 which I think would be more

realistic. So that gives you eight years in the job? Well it could do. But is

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