
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
14711,471 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

7,857 Listeners

1,077 Listeners

407 Listeners

5,492 Listeners

1,811 Listeners

1,859 Listeners

1,063 Listeners

152 Listeners

1,126 Listeners

59 Listeners

1,177 Listeners

3,218 Listeners

1,050 Listeners

778 Listeners

1,043 Listeners

92 Listeners

121 Listeners

3,357 Listeners

769 Listeners

939 Listeners

300 Listeners

49 Listeners

170 Listeners

511 Listeners

27 Listeners