Sir Torquil Norman
Desert Island Discs
BBC
4.4 • 13.7K Ratings
🗓️ 12 December 2010
⏱️ 35 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
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 Book: Book by his father: Nigel Norman - Verses 1911 - 1943. Luxury: A miniature still with a little ice-making machine attached to it to make dry martinis.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Kirstie Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Disks from BBC Radio 4. |
| 0:06.0 | For rights reasons, the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast. |
| 0:10.0 | For more information about the program, please visit BBC.co.uk. |
| 0:17.0 | Radio 4. My castaway this week is the aviator, inventor and arts patron Sir Torquil |
| 0:38.0 | Norman. His extraordinary flying adventures are the stuff of a David Niven film, whilst the creations that have made |
| 0:45.0 | his fortune are a bit more chitty-chitty-chitty-bang. |
| 0:48.6 | After a stint on Wall Street and then a businessman, he found himself in his mid-40s unemployed and with five children |
| 0:54.8 | to provide for. So he set up a toy company. It's huge success delighting both children and |
| 1:00.9 | his bank manager. The skills he needed to succeed where he says |
| 1:04.8 | a close attention to detail combined with the out-luhon life of a seven-year-old. He was, |
| 1:10.4 | he admits, perfectly qualified. |
| 1:13.2 | In retirements, he set about his biggest project. |
| 1:16.3 | He bought a disused railway engine shed |
| 1:18.8 | and raised tens of millions of pounds |
| 1:20.9 | to safeguard its future as a venue for the performing arts and a |
| 1:24.6 | center for young people. He says of his approach to life, I don't want to |
| 1:29.1 | rearrange the deck chairs. I want to redesign the ship. Very difficult Torkel Norman for me to quantify the sort of life |
| 1:37.0 | you've had in an introduction because you've turned your hand to many things. Are you |
| 1:41.5 | just somebody who's terribly enthusiastic about life? |
| 1:44.0 | I have to say that I'm interested in almost everything. I have no idea what's going to happen next. |
| 1:50.0 | I hardly ever look backwards and I'm very very lucky in that way. |
| 1:55.0 | You don't enjoy success, you don't enjoy the amount of achievements you have without being |
... |
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