"No-one can be under the illusion that the BBC would have preserved that material or made it available."
This is simply not true.
Marie Slocum indexed and annotated the collection, the BCC broadcast some of it on 'As I Roved Out' and The Vaughan Williams Memorial Library have always held a complete set of the recordings.
Many of the problems of making the collection more widely available have arose from Peter's claim that he owned it and his demands for payment - he even claimed copyright on much of the material and sent demands of payment for such - managed to scupper plans of a 10 part set of themed books because the editor wished to use some of the texts.
Jim Carroll