Hello I'm Kirstie Young and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive.

For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

The program was originally broadcast in 1993 and the presenter was Sue Lolly. My castaway this week is a property developer and patron of the arts. His father's financial

acumen meant that he had risen from humble beginnings in the East end of London to

property millionaire by the time his only son was born. The son went to Eton, Oxford and then into the family business.

There for more than 30 years he has led a controversial campaign to redevelop the

mansion house site in the city of London. He is an assiduous collector and owns

among other things four houses by famous 20th century architects. In recent years he's

been able to bring his private passion for the arts to the public arena.

He is the chairman of the Arts Council Lord Palumbo.

Are you a hoarder as well as a collector Peter Palumbo?

Do you, for example, keep the programs of all the

concerts and operas and plays you go to? I do really. I wouldn't say I'm a

hoarder. I think I am a bit of a collector, particularly when things appeal to me as they do in that particular

instance.

But you must have a room full of programs if you've been...

I have several cupboards full, yes, I must say.

Do you go to things all of the time?

I mean, does the job of Chairman of the Arts Council require that you're always at something?

My wife and I are out really every night at something.

And I must say, it's not a labor, it's a labor of love is it is and is that on the fringe as well as in the mainstream everything everything you're in every art form and you're in howl

an Exeter as much as you're in London, I try and travel once and sometimes twice a week to the regions.

...