After 18 years, Sue Lawley is leaving her desert island. After 18 years as presenter of Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs, she’s had enough.

She sometimes let her guests get the better of her: Tony Blair brought a different type of spin to his allegedly-favourite records and Lawley famously swooned before George Clooney. But these were the exceptions: her journalist’s curiosity breathed new life into the BBC’s oldest programme.

Lawley is the third presenter in Desert Island Discs’s 64 year history. Michael Parkinson took over after founder Roy Plomley’s death in 1985. (Plomley’s passing was overshadowed by the Heysel football disaster, when 39 Italian fans died after Liverpool supporters went on the rampage.)

Plomley memorably coped with a classic case of mistaken identity. He persistenly tried to lure the elusive novelist Alastair MacLean onto the programme. MacLean agreed, and Plomley looked forward to quizzing the great man on his works, including Guns of Navarone.

Over lunch before the recording, Plomley asked MacLean whether he set aside time every day to write his novels. "Novels, what novels?" "Err, Guns of Navarone, Force Ten from Navarone", replied Plomley. "I’m not Alastair MacLean the novelist. I run the Ontario Tourist Board!"

Canada’s Alastair MacLean never featured on Desert Island Discs…