Video transcript
When I was young, my brother in-law worked in London, for a company who made
blow-up furniture, we got a plastic white inflatable chair. This is a picture of me and my
Mum sitting on the chair. I was only about six or seven when the photo was taken, I
remember thinking that this chair was really cool. Everything in the 60's was just
beginning for me, with the landing on the moon and everything being in plastic and
colourful and fun. All the old fashioned things were going, the restyling of Newcastle. All
the old stuff was going to make way for the new, stuffy dark interiors and all things old
were seen as unfashionable.
I remember visiting my grandmothers house, and it was all dark and mysterious, nothing
modern there. I for one would have wanted that change. I didn’t realise that all history
would be wiped out, all reference to my grandmother’s past would go.
The chair to me represented everything new and exciting. It made quite a stir at my
parent’s house, everybody wanted to sit on it. My parents had older furniture that didn't
have such an impact. I was always allowed to make dens and camps out of my mothers
furniture. The plastic furniture was light and easily moved around. The main problem
was that it was throw away design, it didn't last long, once it got a hole in it then that
was it. I remember watching television in colour for the first time, I saw the image of this
spaceship like object in silver and I knew it was a long way away and I just remember
that with the landing on the moon that I was interested in all things futuristic. I remember
the electric strikes and only having black and white TV and sitting around in the dark
with candles. From then on I wanted modern things which were hard to come by in the
North East.
I think this is where my love of design came from, from wanting to escape the drab and
the mundane. Newcastle in the 1960s and 70s had the space age café at Bainbridge’s
that I loved. It was just like a spaceship ready for adventure and I watched all the space
age programmes, Space 1999 was my favourite.
Through out my life I have always been attracted to design in general. I have always
wanted to work as a fashion designer or interior designer. I was told at school that
people in the North East didn't become such things. In 1997 I graduated from university
gaining a degree in history of Art and Design. My mum was elderly and ill by then but I
thought about all those years ago what the influence the chair had on me. I had the
chance to go on a workshop in France in 2003 run by The Vitra Design museum in
Germany working with the French designer Matali Crasset who worked closely with
Philippe Starck. I made my own piece of furniture, in plastic and white, I think back to
when it all started with my Mum and me and the photograph.
