
Sign up to save your podcasts
Or


Kirsty Young's castaway week is the aviator, inventor and arts patron, Sir Torquil Norman.
He comes from a family where derring-do is in the DNA - his grandfather was a pioneering airman, his grandmother an adventurer and his father also a keen pilot.
Torquil ended up in the toy trade where the skills needed were, he says, a close attention to detail combined with the outlook on life of a seven year old. He was, he admits, perfectly qualified. In retirement he set about his biggest project - he bought a disused railway engine shed and raised tens of millions of pounds to safeguard its future as a venue for performing arts and a centre for young people.
Record: Nobody Knows You when You're Down and Out - Bessie Smith
By BBC Radio 44.6
128128 ratings
Kirsty Young's castaway week is the aviator, inventor and arts patron, Sir Torquil Norman.
He comes from a family where derring-do is in the DNA - his grandfather was a pioneering airman, his grandmother an adventurer and his father also a keen pilot.
Torquil ended up in the toy trade where the skills needed were, he says, a close attention to detail combined with the outlook on life of a seven year old. He was, he admits, perfectly qualified. In retirement he set about his biggest project - he bought a disused railway engine shed and raised tens of millions of pounds to safeguard its future as a venue for performing arts and a centre for young people.
Record: Nobody Knows You when You're Down and Out - Bessie Smith

7,839 Listeners

1,067 Listeners

389 Listeners

5,538 Listeners

1,806 Listeners

1,776 Listeners

1,054 Listeners

2,014 Listeners

500 Listeners

76 Listeners

69 Listeners

46 Listeners

50 Listeners

55 Listeners

62 Listeners

303 Listeners

3,219 Listeners

1,025 Listeners

777 Listeners

1,021 Listeners

125 Listeners

53 Listeners

82 Listeners

547 Listeners

27 Listeners