Sir Torquil Norman

Presenter0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Discs from BBC Radio 4. For rights reasons the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast.

Presenter0:10

For more information about the programme, please visit bbc.co.uk/slash radio four.

Presenter0:33

My castaway this week is the aviator, inventor and arts patron Sir Torquill Norman.

Presenter0:39

His extraordinary flying adventures are the stuff of a David Niven film, whilst the creations that have made his fortune are a bit more chitty chitty bang bang.

Presenter0:48

After a stint on Wall Street, and then a businessman, he found himself in his mid forties, unemployed and with five children to provide for. So he set up a toy company, its huge success delighting both children and his bank manager.

Presenter1:02

The skills he needed to succeed 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.

Presenter1:13

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 the performing arts and a centre for young people. He says of his approach to life I don't want to rearrange the deck chairs. I want to redesign the ship.

Presenter1:33

Very difficult, Torquil Norman, for me to quantify the sort of life you've had in an introduction, because you've turned your hand to many things. Are you just somebody who's terribly enthusiastic about life?

Sir Torquil Norman1:44

I have to say that I'm interested in almost everything. I've no idea what's going to happen next. I hardly ever look backwards, and I'm very, very lucky in that way.

Presenter1:55

You don't enjoy success, you don't enjoy the amount of achievements you have without being, I think, hugely competitive. You're a very competitive man.

Sir Torquil Norman2:05

I suppose lurking deep down inside me somewhere there is a grain of competitiveness. Yes. It's not the first thing in my mind. I I much prefer to

Sir Torquil Norman2:18

Try and

Sir Torquil Norman2:20

develop ideas and things that actually have their own legs without needing too much pushing.

Presenter2:25

I've read that you have your best ideas in the bath. Now, I'm wondering, as you were sitting in the bath and thinking, I'm going to buy a disused engine shed in North London, what was the bit of that that was the good idea? Because it seems ridiculous, really.

Sir Torquil Norman2:39

Well, I used to take my children along to the Round House in the late sixties and early seventies, where they had things called implosions, which were both pop group and poetry. You never knew what was going to happen on a Sunday. They started, I think, at half past four.

Presenter2:56

And so this venue, of course, the Roundhouse in Camden had been very well known in the sixties. It was how Jimi Hendrix and the rest all played there.

Sir Torquil Norman3:04

And Mars

Presenter3:05

Yeah, Jim Morrison, the doors How much of your own money has gone into the Roundhouse?

Sir Torquil Norman3:09

Well, I put about a third of the shares that we had in the toy company. So it was like a third for the kids, a third for us, and a third for the charity. So I didn't feel that I was being in the least philanthropic. If I'd tried to spend it on loose living or something, I'd have gone to jail.

Presenter3:28

Well, I don't know. I think most people might consider I I've read it's around about seven million pounds of your own money you ploughed in, pretty philanthropic. You also had to raise around about thirty million pounds. Terrifically difficult work for you. I'm wondering, given that this was supposed to be your retirement,

Sir Torquil Norman3:36

Yeah, we have to

Speaker 13:37

Uh

Presenter3:42

Hadn't you thought that maybe, you know, getting a nice potting shed and growing some lilies or something might have been more relaxing?

Sir Torquil Norman3:46

I've retired several times and the and the whole fun of retirement is uh thinking about what you do next.

Presenter3:55

Tell me, then, Torquill Norman, about your first piece of music. What are we going to hear to day?

Sir Torquil Norman3:59

We're going to hear Andre Bourville and Salade de Fris. This is a French sort of love song that I used to play with Anne, my wife, in St. Bart's when it was totally undeveloped.

Sir Torquil Norman4:16

in a tiny little cafe just next to the little place where we lived, which had an old lady in it and a wind up grammar phone, and this seemed to be the only song that she had. But it was perfect for Anne and me, and we just loved it.

Speaker 44:32

Yeah.

Speaker 44:33

Tamer tadonis comes prenon, sa la de fruit, au que l jolinon.

Speaker 44:41

O non de tésens c'estre zavaien.

Speaker 44:49

Salad de frisje ligoliz, tuplais en monperre, tuplais en momverre, salad de frisje lis jois jolie.

Presenter5:02

That was Andre Bourville and Salade de Fry. I was treated throughout that Torquel Norman to you singing along. You have very good French.

Sir Torquil Norman5:08

Well, I used to live in France a bit.

Presenter5:10

It took you eleven years then from from start to finish of to when the the doors actually opened of the Roundhouse, is that right? From when you bought it until the the the opening night.

Sir Torquil Norman5:19

Yes, it did. I thought it would take about five, but it took more than twice that.

Presenter5:23

The night that it opened, what were your feelings?

Presenter5:25

Um

Presenter5:27

What I had a vent

Sir Torquil Norman5:28

Good night, I remember that. They had a swimming pool that came down from the roof with uh with a clear bottom to it and lots of gorgeous creatures swimming across it, like sort of tadpoles, adjusted above head height. You could touch them virtually. I enjoyed it enormously. But the fact is my main um emotion at the time, I remember, was one of relief.

Presenter5:28

Nice, I remember.

Sir Torquil Norman5:51

For about seven years people had been telling me it's the stupidest thing anybody's ever done. We'd never get the money. We'd have to give back all the money we'd been given. It had no chance of success.

Sir Torquil Norman6:03

But we did.

Presenter6:03

The work that you've put in, taking a sort of individual responsibility and putting something back, is actually beginning to be quite a fashionable idea now, that people like yourselves, people who've made money in business or inherited money, should think about giving back to the community, much in the American model. Do you think to you is it important, the idea of putting something back, of leaving a legacy?

Sir Torquil Norman6:27

Well, truthfully, not at all. Uh I did it because I money's never meant very much to me. If I've had enough

Sir Torquil Norman6:34

To fly and to look after my family, that's usually been all that I need. So I just thought it was something that I really wanted to do. I felt like a kid who had applied for the job he really wanted and got it. But I mean, it was unpaid. I took no expenses or anything from it. But the fact is that absolutely wonderful things happened. And what was terrific about it was that the people who used to go to the Roundhouse, all the great artists and people of today, were so kind to us and so responsive. So it was amazing.

Presenter7:11

Let's have some more music then. What's our second disc to day, Torquil?

Sir Torquil Norman7:14

My second disc is Bob Dylan and Mr Tambourine Man, because when I was at loss as to what to do for holidays and things, and because Anne used to encourage our children with crayons and, you know, to paint on everything and so on, I couldn't take them to hotels because we were never allowed back again. So I had a little bit of success on a wild uh project in the West Indies that had no real right to be successful. And so I spent the money on buying building a bus which slept nine people. It had a boat on the roof, had a little motor scooter on the back.

Sir Torquil Norman7:53

And it had a big double bed at the back and five bunks, and then a kitchen, and a table, which went up and down and turned into a bed, and so on. So all the kids and two of their friends used to come along, and we used that everywhere. And the core

Sir Torquil Norman8:09

music that we liked was Bob Dylan and all my children when we used to drag them off to bed in the middle of the night driving along and so and went to bed with with this in their minds.

Speaker 48:22

Hey Mr. Timber Rainman, play a song for me. I'm not sleepy, and there is no place I'm going to.

Speaker 48:33

Hey Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me. In the jingle jangle morning, I'll come following you.

Presenter8:46

That was Bob Dylan and mister Tambourine Mann. Memories there of those tremendous sounding holidays with all the family packed into this specially made bus, Torquil Norman. You you were born in London in nineteen thirty three. Tell me about your parents.

Sir Torquil Norman8:59

My mother was a wonderful Irish lady. She was a good Catholic from County Down in the north.

Sir Torquil Norman9:08

And she was born in Pretoria. Her father was in the army. My grandfather was an extraordinary man. He was interested in aviation in the very early 20th century. He wrote wonderful books on Tolstoy, traveled all over Russia. He was an extraordinary man.

Sir Torquil Norman9:31

My grandmother used to go off into the mountains in the Himalayas with a Mandikoshona rifle.

Sir Torquil Norman9:38

and explore and she wrote books and in fact uh fairly recently one of her books called Gallia won the hundred year old

Sir Torquil Norman9:48

Booker Prize to my amazement my two brothers and I each got cheques for just over three hundred pounds.

Presenter9:55

What a treat. Um I want to talk about your grandmother, as you say, an extraordinary figure and a very important figure in your life because you lived with her for a time. But but just before that, your father. He was a an architect, an aviator. He designed is this true, London's first airport.

Sir Torquil Norman10:01

Yeah.

Sir Torquil Norman10:08

He did. He designed Heston Aerodrome, which the M four goes right down the main runway at the moment, and there's still one or two buildings there in the background. And he started the airborne forces at the beginning of the war. General Browning produced the troops, and my dad trained them to parachute. And he himself had a bad hip, but he did one parachute jump into Lake Windermere, I think it was, and very nearly drowned. But he just couldn't ask other people to do it without having done it himself.

Presenter10:38

When you were a little boy did you ever fly with him?

Sir Torquil Norman10:41

Yes, I flew with him a lot. He flew me to Switzerland when I was very young,'cause I had a sight child T B, and he flew me to um Austria where I lived in the mountains.

Presenter10:52

This was for the air, was it the fresh air?

Sir Torquil Norman10:54

For the fresh air. I think that w and and it seems to have worked. I've got a little scar on my lung, but that's it.

Presenter10:59

Aside from his tremendous achievements, what do you remember of him?

Presenter11:03

As a father.

Sir Torquil Norman11:05

He was I mean, he was a sort of perfectionist. He he loved fishing, for example, but he he tied all his own flies. He um used to send my brother and I out to shoot rabbits, but we were only given one bullet.

Sir Torquil Norman11:21

So the fact is if we didn't come back with a rabbit then it wasn't too good.

Presenter11:26

A high achieving and perfectionist father then. What w what were his expectations for for you and your brother?

Sir Torquil Norman11:31

I don't think he knew much about me, because I didn't see him after I was about six years old.

Sir Torquil Norman11:37

and he was killed in nineteen forty three.

Presenter11:40

When you were ten.

Sir Torquil Norman11:41

When I was ten. I mean, I don't remember very much about him, truthfully.

Presenter11:45

And do you feel as if even though you don't remember much about him his his presence has loomed large?

Sir Torquil Norman11:50

Oh, it ha I mean, uh, it's impossible for it not to be like that.

Presenter11:54

Tell me, Torkoal, about your next piece of music. What are we going to hear?

Sir Torquil Norman11:58

We're going to hear Bessie Smith. Nobody knows you when you're down and out because on a couple of occasions in my life, once in the toy industry when I was out of a job, it was very interesting to see how people's attitudes change towards you. And then when the Roundhouse was going through five, six years of having no land and no money, and there were hard times then. And so you'd notice these things. And Anne and I absolutely love Bessie Smith, and I just chose this one because I thought she'd like it.

Speaker 412:33

But if I'd ever get on my feet again

Speaker 412:39

Then I'll meet my long lost friend.

Speaker 412:44

It's mighty strange.

Speaker 412:47

Without a doubt, nobody knows you when you down and out. I mean, when you down and out.

Presenter13:00

That was Bessie Smith, and nobody knows you when you're down and out. So, Torkoal Norman, you and your brother Desmond were sent off to America to get away from the war. It was a fairly eventful journey getting there, I understand.

Sir Torquil Norman13:12

It was because the first bombing raid on Liverpool.

Sir Torquil Norman13:17

happened the night we were there before we took ship to go to New York.

Sir Torquil Norman13:21

And the ceiling in my bedroom started to come down. I went dashed out of it, of course, but it was quite interesting.

Presenter13:30

Um those early years of your life seem to be marked by you you know, you've mentioned Switzerland and your father flying you to Austria and having T B and you know there was a there was a lot of adventure and quite a lot of upheaval.

Sir Torquil Norman13:42

I don't think I had what you would call a conventional family life at all, actually. I never had a stable home until I was about twenty eight. It really was strange.

Presenter13:56

And what about being a a father yourself then? Because you've had five of your father's father.

Sir Torquil Norman13:58

Well, I've tried very hard to make a proper home for our children.

Sir Torquil Norman14:03

Yeah, but it it was very odd. So I always felt like a slight stranger coming home because, you know, when I came back after the war my mother met me at Victoria Station and I had a new father then, a stepfather. My brother Desmond was there. But then I went off to boarding school and then I went off to public school and then I went into the navy to fly. And so y you know, from then on it's just been a roller coaster business.

Presenter14:32

Uh, did it make you all of this change and upheaval? And uh, as you mentioned, your father died when you were ten. He was killed in an air crash, wasn't it?

Sir Torquil Norman14:38

Yes, he was on his way back to North Africa. He'd been planning the invasion of Sicily. He refused a ride home in Eisenhower's plane because he wanted to get there sooner.

Sir Torquil Norman14:50

And the aircraft he took off in the West Country at night had an engine failure, and he went up to help the pilot, and he and the pilot were killed, and I think subsequently the uh radio operator, but the others survived. So

Sir Torquil Norman15:06

You know, it was very sad, but I was at school school in Arizona at the time. But I must admit that.

Sir Torquil Norman15:13

You know, I didn't have a sort of shock, horror moment at all. I hardly knew him really.

Sir Torquil Norman15:21

It just gradually sunk in over the following months.

Presenter15:25

And at this point you were living with your grandmother, and and this was h this his mother, so obviously a tremendous shock to her as well.

Sir Torquil Norman15:31

It was a terrific shock to her, absolutely. She made the great mistake of leaving my grandfather and running away with a wild Irishman and

Presenter15:44

A scandalous thing to do for

Sir Torquil Norman15:45

in those days totally scandalous.

Sir Torquil Norman15:48

And my grandmother wasn't allowed to see her son.

Sir Torquil Norman15:53

For like

Sir Torquil Norman15:54

Ten years or something.

Presenter15:56

Did she enjoy then, do you think, a little more bringing you up? Because you maybe were fun she'd never had now?

Sir Torquil Norman16:01

I'm absolutely sure she didn't enjoy bringing me up.

Presenter16:05

Why are you sure of that?

Sir Torquil Norman16:06

I was a total handful. The it was ridiculous. I was aged ten or something.

Presenter16:13

But you see, here you are somebody who's quick to laugh, with an easy smile, who seems very optimistic. It seems your background, although it was very disrupted and rather peripatetic, seems to have built quite a strong character.

Sir Torquil Norman16:25

Well, I've learnt the the benefit of persistence, I think, probably.

Presenter16:29

Um tell me about your next track then. We're on disc number four now, Torco.

Sir Torquil Norman16:33

I thought Fat Swallow and Your Feet's Too Big. It's a lovely record. My kids always have a good laugh. I don't think my feet are particularly big actually. Yes, you're six foot seven. How big are your feet? I'm six foot seven, and it was about eleven and a half, or I used to buy twelves.

Presenter16:44

Yeah, if you

Sir Torquil Norman16:51

But anyway, I think it was very appropriate, and we all loved the tune.

Speaker 416:56

Oh, you beat stupid.

Speaker 416:59

Don't want you cause you be stupid.

Speaker 417:03

I'm mad at you cause your feet's too big.

Speaker 417:07

I hate your hurt your feet too bad.

Speaker 417:22

Gun to gun mode.

Presenter17:26

That was Fats Waller and your feet's too big. So, Torquewell Norman, we've got to inevitably, because you've had such a rich life, sort of leapfrog through parts of it. But just to sum up most of your childhood, uh you studied at Eton, uh then went on to Cambridge and then Harvard. I with all of this privilege, did your mother have high expectations of her son?

Sir Torquil Norman17:46

I don't think my mother expected anything much. No, she never said anything about expecting anything.

Presenter17:52

And you were one of the youngest of three brothers.

Sir Torquil Norman17:55

I was the youngest of three.

Presenter17:56

Close to your brothers.

Sir Torquil Norman17:58

I was very close to my elder brother Desmond. I'm still close to my eldest brother, Mark, who's still alive. Desmond died about four years ago. And Desmond was absolutely the light of my life, because since my father was killed, he really was the person that I looked up to. He was everything. I mean, he was a friend, a sort of someone I could go to for advice, usually pretty bad advice. We used to hell raise a bit together, and because he was mad about aeroplanes and had a whole succession of very old, rather

Sir Torquil Norman18:34

rickety old aeroplanes and and we used to fly everywhere.

Presenter18:37

What about this daredevil streak that seems to run through your family? What age did you inherit it and think Yep, time to fly?

Sir Torquil Norman18:45

I don't know. I did write in a letter to my mum that I wanted to fly in the navy. That was aged must have been aged about eleven.

Sir Torquil Norman18:55

Ultimately, I did fly in the Navy.

Presenter18:57

There wasn't any problem

Sir Torquil Norman18:57

Problem with your height.

Presenter18:58

Uh

Sir Torquil Norman18:59

There are plenty of problems of my hide. When I wanted to get into the Navy,

Sir Torquil Norman19:03

Um I was standing to attention.

Sir Torquil Norman19:06

In bell-bottom trousers, and the Commander Air came along.

Sir Torquil Norman19:11

and looked up at me and said, How tall am I? and I said, Six foot two and a half. I knew there was a limit, and I couldn't quite remember what it was, but anyway, I said six foot two and a half.

Sir Torquil Norman19:21

Yeah. This

Presenter19:21

I have six foot seven.

Sir Torquil Norman19:21

And rust.

Sir Torquil Norman19:24

The experts Heaven yes so the so he looked at me he said, Rubbish He said, I'm six foot three, and you're at least four inches taller than I am. He said, Chief Petty Officer, take this man away and measure him.

Sir Torquil Norman19:37

So that I was marched off to the gym and of course I bent my legs and when he came out I said, How much was it? and the bloke said six foot two and a half. I said well that's game certain match.

Presenter19:49

What what about actually being in the cockpit? I mean they're t tremendously uh restrained areas.

Sir Torquil Norman19:52

Well, it varied. The commanding officer said to me, talk well.

Sir Torquil Norman19:58

Don't use the ejector seat and I said, Why not? He said, You'll lose both legs from four inches above the knee.

Sir Torquil Norman20:06

So I say.

Sir Torquil Norman20:07

Well, how do you suggest I get out of the bloody aeroplane? He said, Well, if I were you, I would eject the canopy, turn it over on to its back, undo your straps, put your foot on the stick, push hard, and you'll come out like a cork.

Sir Torquil Norman20:23

I said, okay, but what if I'm not in control of the thing? He said, oh, well, that's the bad news.

Presenter20:29

Let's have some more music then. We're on disc number five, Torkoal. What are we going to hear then?

Sir Torquil Norman20:34

We're going to hear Paul Robeson and Shenandoah. I spent two years at the beginning of the war in Virginia, which not very far from the Shenandoah River, but it was just so lovely.

Presenter20:45

And tell me you too can.

Sir Torquil Norman20:46

I did. I took her right round America. Actually, you know, I had been trying to get her to marry me for about a month, but she wasn't in the least interested as far as I could tell. And then we went down the Shenandoah River, and eventually we wound up in Fort Lauderdale. And on the way home, she did agree. So that was terrific.

Presenter21:08

You you wore down a defense in space.

Sir Torquil Norman21:08

Oh my god, after all this I should bloody well hope so.

Sir Torquil Norman21:13

Yeah.

Speaker 121:14

Mm.

Sir Torquil Norman21:14

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 121:15

Oh, I long.

Speaker 121:21

Oh well, and river.

Speaker 121:32

I long

Speaker 121:34

Away I'm bound to go.

Presenter21:44

That was Paul Robeson and Shannon Doe. Um you were married for forty five years uh to Anne. Let's look at the beginning of your marriage. You were very busy and, it would seem, pretty successful. You worked at JP Morgan. You also went into business, and during this time, in very quick succession, Anne had five children. Um were you around much?

Sir Torquil Norman22:04

I was around um as much as I could be. It is perfectly true that a lot of the weight of of bringing them up in their early lives did fall on Anne.

Sir Torquil Norman22:16

who was the most wonderful mother, and, you know, she seemed much the same age as the children in in the sense that there was no authority around at all when she was there.

Presenter22:27

And when your youngest child was, I think, around about twelve, there was something of a a boardroom kerfuffle that meant that you found yourself

Sir Torquil Norman22:35

Unemployed. That's true. I I've kept the toy industry amused for a whole summer.

Sir Torquil Norman22:40

It's too long a story, but the fact is that I was out of a job at the end of it.

Presenter22:46

And so there you were, as you say, out of a job in your mid forties, at classically a a a time when a lot of people are questioning what the point of life is anyway. Um it must have been terrifically difficult to think you have these five dependents, uh you have a wife and you have no job. And for somebody like you who's used to working and enjoys working, even harder.

Sir Torquil Norman23:05

Well, I did. It was very odd. I hung around the house for a while and I liked it uh loved designing toys and the kids were very good research sort of team and I suddenly had an idea for a toy which turned into the big yellow teapot. And it had in it the teapot family and Sugar Lump the dog and a teacup car and God knows what else. Anyway, I when it was finished,

Sir Torquil Norman23:31

I r I rather liked that. I didn't want to license it to somebody else. So anyway, the net result of this was that I started a business called Bluebird Toys, and that took eighteen years of my life.

Presenter23:44

And these were all things, it's interesting to talk, well, they were things in miniature, and any of us who've got kids know that that is an absolute surefire winner. A kid is instantly carried out.

Sir Torquil Norman23:53

I absolutely agree.

Presenter23:54

And anybody who's ever had the pleasure of picking a small piece of poly pocket out the bottom of a bare foot has you to thank, yes.

Sir Torquil Norman24:00

Well, oh yes, or a vacuum cleaner. I mean it had a certain built-in obsolescence.

Presenter24:06

We heard about your wonderful bus for real, a big bus that you took the family on holiday in. You made a small bus.

Sir Torquil Norman24:09

Big pa

Sir Torquil Norman24:11

Yeah, we made the big red fun bus which followed the big yellow T for when you start talking about toys it is so pathetic that we should move on.

Sir Torquil Norman24:21

So the toy industry was like that, and I must say we had a lot of fun.

Sir Torquil Norman24:25

Absolutely amazingly the company proved very successful.

Presenter24:29

Let's have some more music. What are we gonna hear now?

Sir Torquil Norman24:31

Uh we're going to have Edith Piaff

Sir Torquil Norman24:35

And more legendnaire.

Presenter24:37

And why have you chosen this one?

Sir Torquil Norman24:38

Because on my honeymoon with Anne we went to a wonderful place called the Colombo at St. Paul de Vance. Anne had a lousy cold when we arrived, so she took to bed for a couple of days and I went down to the swimming pool. The first person I met there was Simone Signore, who was in the pool. Of course Yves Montan, who's her husband, was there and so we got to know them all and of course he'd been married to, I think, to Edith Pieff before. And anyway, Anne and I both loved listening to Edith Pieff, and this was one of her favourite songs.

Speaker 425:28

So it's all

Speaker 425:32

C'est pason transerien lui il mai mai tout la nuis molégionaire.

Presenter25:45

That was Edith Piaff and Mon Ligionnaire. So you were sixty, uh, Torquell Norman, and your business was going swimmingly, um, probably looking ahead to a different stage of your life, and something shattering happened. Your wife Anne, who at that time was only fifty-seven, I think, was given the diagnosis of early onset Alzheimer's disease. It must have hit you like a bolt from the blue.

Sir Torquil Norman26:10

It did. And the problem was that Anne

Sir Torquil Norman26:15

didn't understand anything about Alzheimer's at that stage.

Sir Torquil Norman26:20

And

Sir Torquil Norman26:21

I was desperate.

Sir Torquil Norman26:23

And she wouldn't go to a doctor or anything. In the end I got her to see a friend of ours who's a neurosurgeon.

Sir Torquil Norman26:30

And he said to her, I think, Anne, you've got Alzheimer's disease. And it was really terrible.

Presenter26:37

You you you clearly had the resources to to to, in a way, comfort her through the stages of her illness. But what can't be bought its way out of is the emotional impact. When was the point at which you thought this woman who I've shared my life with, who I've had five children with, who I've been married to for all these years, doesn't know me any more when I walk into a room?

Sir Torquil Norman26:58

It's very difficult. I'm not sure when that moment is, and I'm not sure it ever arrived actually, because uh she got to the point where she became rather violent and we actually found that a tiny little amount of a particular d drug I think it was called Cyroxa and she became very much calmer and at least then um she was didn't seem to be angry and worried all the time.

Sir Torquil Norman27:26

But but I noticed, even at the really the last few years of her life, when she had ceased really to recognise anybody, as far as one could tell, but I noticed that when I kissed her good night,

Sir Torquil Norman27:40

tears would come to her eyes. Now I even at the very end and so I d I actually believe that she had much more understanding, and so

Sir Torquil Norman27:54

I I think it's a very odd disease that that that has ramifications that even now aren't properly understood.

Presenter28:01

And she lived for was it thirteen years with thirty seven?

Sir Torquil Norman28:04

Thirteen is thirteen.

Presenter28:07

Yeah.

Sir Torquil Norman28:08

Uh Landing from

Presenter28:09

Um what what were your feelings uh when she died?

Sir Torquil Norman28:13

Well, I suppose I was thinking when she died that in some ways it was a blessed release for her.

Sir Torquil Norman28:20

And I thought that that would make it easier to

Sir Torquil Norman28:24

To miss her, so to speak. But on the contrary, it was a terrible experience. But it it it took about two years, I guess, really, to come in any way to terms with it. And my partner, Iga, who is a wonderful lady who I was with then.

Sir Torquil Norman28:44

was very kind and helped me. So it didn't seem to make a difference that she'd been in a sort of half non with you state. On the contrary

Presenter28:55

And this was a time too when you had the roundhouse taking off and you were having terrifically difficult times. Thumbs up. That's what I was going to say. Was it something that you actually could lose yourself in?

Sir Torquil Norman28:58

Yeah.

Sir Torquil Norman29:01

That was brilliant.

Sir Torquil Norman29:06

It I really went you know, as I said earlier, I got a job I really loved and um we all had fun and it was always interesting and I never tried to gloss over difficulties or anything and they supported it all the way through to the end.

Presenter29:22

Let's have some music, then, Torquell. What are we going to hear now?

Sir Torquil Norman29:25

We're going to hear now the Clancy brothers playing the Black Velvet Band. All these Irish ballads were core listening to for going to sleep to in the past.

Speaker 429:39

In a neat little town, they call Belfast.

Speaker 429:43

Apparently to Turade I was bound.

Speaker 429:47

And as many hours, sweet happiness, I spent in that neat little town.

Speaker 429:55

Till a sad misfortune came over me, Which caused me to stray from the dying.

Speaker 430:03

Far away from my friends and relation, betrayed by the black velvet band.

Presenter30:11

That was the Clancy Brothers and Black Velvet Band. You mentioned, Torquel Norman, that in the closing stages of your wife Anne's illness um you did start a relationship with somebody else and that sort of helped you deal with the difficulty.

Sir Torquil Norman30:21

Up to D

Sir Torquil Norman30:23

I I did. I started a relationship very I mean, I wasn't really intending to do anything like this, but a lovely lady called Eager and absolutely wonderful. Well, suddenly one day she I took her flying and discovered that she loved sitting in the front of a tiger moth. Well I must say that is a very rare woman in my eyes.

Presenter30:48

And so here you were finding somebody that you could share your great passions and joys with, but it's not as simple and as straightforward as having a partner who is no longer there. You know, the the person physically still is there. Was that was that a tricky thing to deal with? Or it was

Sir Torquil Norman31:01

It was extremely tricky. It w it was a one felt completely torn up inside somehow. I don't know how. And my uh love of Anne never has changed and and will always be there. But I l love eager too, so I'm capable of some r very odd emotions, but I I didn't feel it was wrong because I was actually cracking up a bit at the time.

Speaker 131:20

Yeah.

Presenter31:20

Very odd.

Presenter31:28

One of the great constants in your life has been flying. You're seventy seven now. Do you still fly?

Sir Torquil Norman31:33

I do, yes. Iga and I fly together quite a lot, and suddenly to find somebody that I could do things with and fly, we used to fly to Australia. I mean, we flew everywhere in the most appalling weather conditions sometimes, and you know, but I'm afraid I'm reaching the stage where I believe it's going to come to an end fairly soon.

Presenter31:53

That must be a terrifying thought for some f you know, it's been so central to your life and your enjoyment of life and the world.

Sir Torquil Norman31:58

Well, I must admit it is is going to be rather a shock when it happens.

Presenter32:03

I'm going to take you to an island. I'm going to maroon you, of course. Um how will you cope?

Sir Torquil Norman32:08

Um I don't think I'd cope too badly. I'd be pretty lazy. I don't think I'd do much there. I'd probably hope that I'd be saved at some stage. But I don't think beyond that I'd be very good.

Presenter32:22

Let's have your final piece of music, Topho Norman. What are we going to hear?

Sir Torquil Norman32:25

We're going to hear what I consider to be a really a love song.

Sir Torquil Norman32:31

and I'd like to dedicate it to Eager.

Sir Torquil Norman32:34

Um it's Billy Holiday and Stormy Weather, and I think that eager will recognise some of the elements in it.

Speaker 432:43

Don't know why.

Sir Torquil Norman32:45

Hey.

Speaker 432:48

There's no sun up in the sky

Speaker 432:52

Stormy weather.

Speaker 132:54

Yeah.

Speaker 432:57

Since my man and I ain't together

Speaker 133:01

Yeah.

Speaker 433:05

Keeps raining all the time.

Presenter33:08

Uh

Speaker 433:08

Uh

Presenter33:13

That was Billy Holiday and stormy weather. So, Torquill, here's the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare, and what other book are you going to take?

Sir Torquil Norman33:21

I think I'm going to take a book of verses which my father wrote throughout his life, and which I know most of them by heart, but it's full of wonderful poems and verses that he wrote, and that would give me a lot of pleasure.

Presenter33:35

Right, your father's collected poems and verses we shall give to you in a book, and a luxury too.

Sir Torquil Norman33:41

I think what I would like to take is a small still with an ice making unit attached to it, because I believe on this island there will be all kinds of fruits and vegetables and things, and I would like to develop as many different kinds of gin as I could possibly manage, and I could then sit in my home made deck chair, looking out over the sea with a with a dry martini in my hand,

Sir Torquil Norman34:08

and when I was eventually rescued I could be the most famous bowman in the world.

Presenter34:13

How could I deny you that? Splendid Yes, you can certainly have that. And if you had to take just one of these eight discs, which one would you save?

Sir Torquil Norman34:20

I think it would have to be Bessie Smith. I just adore her voice and and uh I could live with her forever.

Presenter34:27

It's yours, Sir Torpel Norman. Thank you very much for letting us hear your desert island discs. Thank you so much.

Presenter35:19

You've been listening to a download from the BBC. You'll find more information on the Radio Four website bbc.co.uk slash Radio Four.