Nina Campbell

Speaker 40:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen ninety seven, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:29

My castaway this week is an interior designer. She was brought up in post-war London by a mother who refused to leave Belgravia and a father who looked wonderful in pajamas. Boarding school in Ascot was the nearest she got to the countryside, and by her early twenties she'd set up her own business. She's gone on to win the American Fashion Award for the woman who's most influenced style internationally. Certainly her ability to create beautiful rooms in which many different ideas form a unified theme has made her a favourite among the rich and famous and a highly successful businesswoman. Married and divorced twice, she says husbands can come and go, but whatever you do, girls, hang on to your curtain maker. She is Nina Campbell, and not Naomi Campbell. Often confused, I think, Nina.

Nina Campbell1:17

Sadly not when they see me, but

Presenter1:20

But is the implication uh of that quote that that you personally couldn't make a pair of curtains to save your life?

Nina Campbell1:25

Oh, I don't think I could, no. I might have to on the desert island, but I couldn't not that anyone would want hanging in their room. So you can't sew? No, I can't sew. I did make a skirt at school once, but I my mathematics was so bad, and it was one of those box pleated skirts that I either had to lose about

Presenter1:32

I did

Nina Campbell1:39

Three inches to fit into it or gain it, and I attempted to lose it and failed on both counts. So the skill is in the eye, isn't it? I think the visual.

Presenter1:46

I think so.

Nina Campbell1:49

And by hanging on to the curtain maker that he's able to help me out. But it it's it's colour then, is it? It's I think colour's very important. I actually think what must be quite depressing in a way for designers is that colour, I feel, is more in a way. You can I mean, if you have the choice of a bad design and good colour, you'll get away with it more than a good design and bad colour, I think.

Presenter2:09

But as I understand it, coordination.

Presenter2:12

Is that word is anathema to you. You don't like things that coordinate in the classic sense.

Nina Campbell2:16

Classic sense. Not too much. I think you've always got to have that spark of something else that just kind of makes it all not look as if you tried too hard. I mean, you try terribly hard not to make it look as if you tried too hard.

Presenter2:27

But the lack of coordination means that you can put plaids with florals, with chintzes, with that that's the point, isn't it? It's this mixture of styles. That's what shocks me.

Nina Campbell2:31

Chintz

Nina Campbell2:35

That's what shocks people. I hope that when I've completed the room they aren't aware of all these diverse things. It just sort of blends. But actually when you start to take it to bits you think, Oh my goodness, she's got five different things going on in this room, or whatever it might be.

Presenter2:48

So it's it's anathema to the ordinary person, is is is putting lots of different designs together.

Nina Campbell2:53

Yeah, so I think scale comes into it a lot, do you see? I think you can if they're different scales, like big and small and and all that, then it works and stripes and jokes. But I think what's what you want to avoid is that sort of middle road. In everything, I think, in your life, your friends, your you know, you just want to go for the extremes and I think it becomes you can blend them and they and they work.

Presenter3:13

The other contradiction about you, of course, is that that you have this reputation for being um the mistress of the English country house style, and uh you know, you're a total townie.

Nina Campbell3:23

Yeah.

Presenter3:24

Well, where did this come from?

Nina Campbell3:25

Well, I don't know. I suppose by um sort of making rooms that look as if you might be in the country rather and I don't think that I'd want to live in a very sort of silky formal room myself and so I started bringing in unexpected things maybe into drawing rooms and living rooms and dining rooms and everything and maybe uh my dining room was is filled with books so it becomes a library room and I think that gave the idea that it was a country house feel. And then of course that's perfect because you don't have to go anywhere Friday night, you just go home.

Presenter3:55

Tell me about your first ring. Yeah.

Nina Campbell3:57

My first record is The Beatles. I worked for Ringo. I did a house for him in Ascot a long time ago, and he very kindly did two photographs signed to my the only children I had at that time, Henrietta and Max. And um they weren't terribly impressed when I came home with these'cause they were rather young, but at

Nina Campbell4:13

About eighteen nineteen, of course, the Beatles had this huge sort of comeback.

Nina Campbell4:17

So of course suddenly he was the proud possessor of Dear Max's Love Ringo, so I came into my own for a bit.

Speaker 44:22

I don't know, I know but didn't Told her I'd really like to see her again

Speaker 44:28

Got the bill and returned paid it Took a home and nearly made it Sitting on the sofa with a sister in two

Speaker 44:37

Oh lovely reader, meet a maid, where would I be without you? Give us a wink and make me think of you

Presenter4:52

The Beatles and lovely Rita from Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club band. So you decorated Ringo's house, Nina Campbell. W did he have firm views on what he wanted?

Nina Campbell5:02

I think they did have quite firm views. We did a wonderful sort of library room for them with

Nina Campbell5:06

quite dark colours, quite rich colours. And um in that particular house there was a carpet that had been put down, I think, before they got there, and it was a sort of deep plum colour, so I had to use things that brought that in and made it look as if we'd chosen it rather than it had just been there.

Presenter5:20

I'm sure that there are those kinds of clients who know exactly what they want, and there are others who haven't a clue and want you to do it all for them. Presumably the nightmares, those who know exactly what they want, and you know it will look absolutely terrible.

Nina Campbell5:33

Usually you can persuade, because you you can as everything is visual, you can show them.

Nina Campbell5:39

Maybe I think you have to take because it's afterwards their dream, it's it's their house. And I think it's very important that a designer remembers that. It's not the edifice to the decorator of the day. And so I think you have to put their things together and say, well, how about we could do it? And it would be wonderful if we did this with it. I think a good interior designer is a good editor.

Nina Campbell5:58

of people's ideas and what they want.

Presenter6:01

You famously, of course, decorated the the Duke and Duchess of York's house in Sunning Hill. How did that rate on the scale of easy to difficult jobs?

Nina Campbell6:10

Well actually it was an easy job because uh when you work with people whose lives are as structured as that, um you know exactly when you can see them and when you can't see them which is which is great because they don't just sort of wander in one day and say, Let's talk about the drawing room, which makes your life very difficult. The other wonderful thing is there was quite a lot to draw on from the point of view of furniture and pictures that you know could be used and that sort of thing.

Presenter6:30

Is it true that you went routing through Buckingham Palace to see what you

Nina Campbell6:32

Let's just see what's going on.

Nina Campbell6:34

It was wonderful.

Presenter6:34

It was wonderful.

Nina Campbell6:35

Well, it was the seller in this case.

Nina Campbell6:37

But the same sort of idea

Presenter6:39

So they just said, look, have a look in there and see.

Nina Campbell6:40

Have a look in there and see if you could take what.

Presenter6:43

Were were these wedding presents or old royal possessions?

Nina Campbell6:44

Royal possessions. And and um and you could say, Well, that would be really nice if we can have that and then it went through the master of the household, who was a very nice man, Michael Timms. And you could s you said, Well, I'd like that or I'd like and Sunny said, You absolutely cannot have that piece of furniture or something.

Presenter6:58

But it's a very personal business, isn't it? Creating what is essentially a a design for living for somebody else.

Nina Campbell7:05

That's absolutely right. It is very personal, and therefore you get very close to the people you're doing it for. And I think you have got, as I said before, you've got to remember that this is for them and you've got to make them comfortable and understand their lifestyle. I mean, are the dogs and the children and the going to run in through the window in which case?

Nina Campbell7:20

Hopefully it'll be open, but also secondly there'll be mud coming in if it's a country house, so you've got to think, you know.

Nina Campbell7:26

How is my carpet going to cope with all this and make it work?'Cause nothing's worse than having this beautiful room and thinking, Oh, if someone just sits all

Presenter7:28

Yeah.

Nina Campbell7:33

die and or spill something or the whole thing's gonna be ruined. Record number two. Record number two is the Beethoven's pastoral, which I absolutely love. It makes one think spring is coming, which certainly is a vari rather jolly thought.

Presenter8:41

The Shepherd Song, part of the fifth movement of Beethoven's Symphony No. six in F The Pastoral, played by the Berlin Philharmonic, conducted by Herbert von Karian.

Presenter8:49

Tell me more, Nina, about this rather unusual childhood that you had. I think it began with the with the gynecologist four floors down from your mother giving birth to you or something.

Nina Campbell8:59

I was born the day after the war ended in a mansion flat, and I I gather we lived on the fourth floor, and the lift obviously had broken sometime during the war, and lift operators were clearly at the front rather than in Soan Street. And my mother had somehow found a gynecologist who rejoiced in the name of

Nina Campbell9:16

Recket ovary.

Nina Campbell9:17

Uh

Nina Campbell9:19

And anyway, he ha was arthritic, of course. He'd have to be, wouldn't he, really? And so he was standing at the bottom of the shouting instructions up the lift shaft to the nurse that he'd managed to get up to the fourth floor, who was in the flat with my mother and parts part of me, the bit of me that was showing at the time. And my uncle had come back, he was an ambassador somewhere, and he had.

Nina Campbell9:39

A wonderful man that looked after him, who was rejoiced also in the name of Charles Butler. They were both bachelors, and I think they'd just boiling water because they'd read in some book that's what you did.

Presenter9:48

But your mother, um, after that, as you grew up, doesn't sound as if she was particularly maternal or loving. Didn't she cancel Christmas at some point?

Nina Campbell9:56

Oh no, she didn't cancel Christmas, but she thought that I had grown beyond stockings.

Nina Campbell10:00

I think I s said, well, something about a stocking. I went and asked her where the stockings were so I could put my night and she obviously was horror-struck at the thought that she thought that being eleven or something I'd gone way beyond that. And she filled my stocking up with some most unlikely things that the poor thing had sort of scraped around the house for. So I was deeply disappointed, which has has resulted in my children not only having stockings still, but doing one for me. So we go on with this stocking thing.

Presenter10:24

Yeah.

Nina Campbell10:25

Masses of compensation.

Presenter10:26

Oh ma

Presenter10:27

What about in terms of your your sense of style? I mean, again, your your your childhood home doesn't sound as if it was sort of bursting with comfort and warmth and colour and love.

Nina Campbell10:37

Well, I think we moved a lot.

Nina Campbell10:39

So we were constantly sort of doing up. But my mother did have great style aided, I think, by my father. I remember every house I think things were very difficult to get. Every house had staircases covered in dark green art felt on the stairs, which might have to be brushed every day, but it wasn't so hard getting people to do things, but it was very hard getting fabric to cover with everything with. So I think I was aware of design. I mean, we always had pale blue walls on the staircase and this wonderful dark green carpet with brass rods for the stairs. And then the drawing room was always a sort of yellow colour. And she had found a bolt of

Nina Campbell11:16

Saffron colored linen.

Nina Campbell11:18

Which she made curtains, and we moved everywhere with all this stuff. So I think the house always looked rather wonderful. But you've also said.

Presenter11:25

But since that when you design today, you like doors to be open because your doors were always closed.

Nina Campbell11:29

And

Nina Campbell11:32

I did, yes. Well, I think there were sort of problems going on and there was my mother was very volatile and screamed a lot, and actually unfortunately, when one looks back. So and I don't like the closed door at all. I find that very upsetting.

Presenter11:42

Tell me about your next record.

Nina Campbell11:43

My next is the Brahms Violin Concerto, conducted by Sir Neville Mariner, which is rather special for me because I sat next to him coming back from New York in the aeroplane once.

Presenter12:52

Part of Brahms violin concerto in D major, opus seventy seven, played by Dmitri Sitkovetsky, and the Academy of Saint Martin in the Fields, conducted by Sir Neville Mariner. But, Nina, you've got a a family connection with Brahms, too, you tell me.

Nina Campbell13:05

Well, we think so, yes. My great-grandparents lived in Berkeley Square. They were very musical people, they had wonderful musical parties. And Brahms was supposedly a family friend. And my great-grandfather was supposed to have played the violin, he was a great violinist with Joachim, who this of course was written for. And so one day, my grandmother was playing a Brahms piano piece, and he was supposed to have walked into the drawing room, and she was playing the piece. And he said, Nina, my dear, what a charming piece. Do tell me who it's by.

Nina Campbell13:36

She said you, mister Bill.

Presenter13:37

Uh

Nina Campbell13:37

She said you, Mr. Brock.

Presenter13:37

She said you, Mr. Brom.

Nina Campbell13:38

Uh Yeah.

Presenter13:40

So going back to your life, you were packed off to France, unhappily. You went to finishing school there?

Nina Campbell13:45

I went to well, I went to a family in the Loire Valley and um it really was quite grim. I mean that might have put me off the countryside for ever. I rang my mother. I always knew how to sort of get my way to a certain extent'cause I said to her, Mummy, it's too awful here. I'm not allowed to have a bath and that was the end. And then I went to Paris and and had

Presenter14:03

And that was it. And then I went

Nina Campbell14:05

wonderful time. I stayed with friends and

Nina Campbell14:08

And then I had a sort of wonderful governess called Mademoiselle Bebo who made everything better and fly.

Presenter14:13

But do you remember even then, you know, being impressed by French style or seeing things? I mean, was your eye developing the while?

Nina Campbell14:20

Well, I I think it must have been certainly when I got to Paris. There wasn't much development down in the Loire. But then I sort of I became ill after that. Not seriously ill, but I just got sort of terrible pains all the time. And I they they thought that I better come home. And I then went to work for the general training company, and that's really when I started seeing the point of putting things together. And um it was only after that that I did this um

Nina Campbell14:41

um the the interior design school, because it was somewhere ready to park me, I think.

Nina Campbell14:46

sort of get me out of the way for for the day, you know,'cause you had your day had to really be filled, otherwise I might be wandering around doing nothing.

Presenter14:51

Uh

Nina Campbell14:51

Uh Put you on a on a coast. Something. Yes, definitely. You the way you describe yourself, you sound like a spoiled little rich girl. That I wasn't. You weren't. No, but I think there was a moment when, you know, at the end of the education

Presenter14:57

You were

Nina Campbell15:02

There was sort of you know, you had to learn something. And there was Mike Lynchwood had started this school for interior design and this was um rather a good idea. But you were a Deb at the while.

Presenter15:10

But you were a Deb the while and all that you were the while, yes, I was in a

Nina Campbell15:12

I was in the coming while, yes, I was sort of coming out, I think.

Presenter15:15

Yes.

Nina Campbell15:16

So this was the

Presenter15:16

Yeah.

Nina Campbell15:16

Uh

Presenter15:16

you know, a a nice extra skill to have. Yeah.

Nina Campbell15:16

You know,

Nina Campbell15:18

Yeah.

Presenter15:19

You were married.

Nina Campbell15:19

Well, I suppose that was the thought process behind it, but then of course I realized that I needed to earn some money from day one.

Presenter15:25

And and then on to work for John Fowler of

Nina Campbell15:25

And then

Nina Campbell15:28

That was wonderful, actually. That was simply marvelous. You know, there are some people you meet and you only have to shake their hand and you learn something. I mean, he just exuded sort of.

Presenter15:28

That was one feature.

Nina Campbell15:36

Learning and he explained everything wonderfully. And he doesn't, he never treated anybody as if they were complete idiots. I mean, if you did something really stupid, he'd sort of scream and yell. But he just.

Nina Campbell15:47

Listen to what you said.

Presenter15:48

And are there words of his and phrases or little homilies that still echo in your head?

Nina Campbell15:52

Thank you very much. One of the things he said, which I think is so important, was that he said never plan a room completely. You must do the bones of it and then walk into that room and let it tell you what it wants. And it might be just a flash of fuchsia in one corner. It might be anything, but it might but leave yourself an escape route.

Nina Campbell16:10

I think that's very important. I always think.

Nina Campbell16:13

That

Nina Campbell16:14

You you can't do absolutely everything down to the last

Nina Campbell16:18

Sort of final detail before you walk your way through the room and at the end, semi-near the end, and then bring some extra things in.

Presenter16:26

Yeah.

Nina Campbell16:27

More music.

Nina Campbell16:28

Well now I'd like um Donald Swan and Michael Flanders' Design for Living.

Speaker 416:34

We're terribly house and garden at number seventy We live in the most amusing mews, ever so very contemporary We're terribly house and garden The money that one spends To make a place that won't disgrace Our house and garden friends

Nina Campbell16:40

Ever so very contemporary.

Speaker 416:50

We've planned an uninhibited interior decor.

Speaker 316:51

Uh

Nina Campbell16:51

Uh

Speaker 316:51

Anybody else?

Speaker 316:52

Yeah.

Speaker 416:53

Curtains made of straw We've wallpapered the floor

Speaker 416:57

We don't know if we like it, but at least we can be sure. There's no place like home, sweet home.

Presenter17:03

Michael Flanders and Donald Swan's Design for Living from the show At the Drop of a Hat, and that was recorded in 1959. You say, Nina, that wit is important in interior design. What do you mean by that?

Nina Campbell17:13

Well, I think um it's always fun to have something in a room that maybe is a little bit different and quirky and an ornament or something that matters to somebody. Um I mean I have a collection of monkeys and say I've got some rather sort of strange little

Presenter17:19

Bang what?

Nina Campbell17:26

things around. I've got flower vases that have a monkey on them or sometimes there's something with a monkey sort of in a tapestry cushion and it means something to me and and I've collected along the years. But I think that it's very important to keep your sense of humour.

Presenter17:39

Yeah.

Nina Campbell17:39

Yeah.

Presenter17:39

Can you look at a room? Can you walk in when you're commissioned, you know, and and know roughly what it's going to cost to do it up? I mean, obviously, not if you're going to buy pieces of antique furnishings, but but I mean, take a sort of average bedroom, I dunno, twelve by fourteen, and you want a nice headboard and a nice quilted

Presenter17:55

cover and a cushion and a button back chair. I was thinking can you

Nina Campbell17:59

You think

Presenter17:59

Yeah.

Nina Campbell18:00

This is what it's gonna cost. Um, I'm not best at that because well in the days when I was doing the estimating and doing the sort of more the money side of it, it was so long ago that I still get shocked now when when the estimates come out and I think things can't cost as much.

Presenter18:12

That happens when, you know, the the client has said they want something, they've id identified all sorts of things, and then shock, horror, that's what it's going to cost. I mean, can do you have to begin again?

Nina Campbell18:20

Well, I think you you you figure it out. I mean if you do an estimate for somebody and you say this is what it is and you and they've chosen let's say a rather expensive fabric, um what I would do is say don't let's lose sight of what you want. Let's we can use that fabric but we'll use less of it. But don't compromise yourself and just go off and find something you don't really like because that's what you really love. So use it on a little chair or something. Use it on a little chair or even a cushion. Sometimes yes exactly. You can get the

Presenter18:43

Uh

Nina Campbell18:43

Yeah.

Presenter18:43

Uh

Nina Campbell18:43

Same for

Presenter18:43

So you work to a budget? Very much so, yes. Um would you argu I mean most of us feel, I suppose, if money were no object, we could make a beautiful room. Would you argue with that? I mean, can can you actually use ch

Nina Campbell18:54

cheap stuff. I don't think lots of money necessarily is the answer. I think just being a bit boxing clever I think is an expression that one might use. Do you still box clever though? Do you? Yeah.

Nina Campbell19:08

Tapestry that you definitely get. Actually, you've just hit it. I don't know whether I'm very perverse, but I o quite often find that it's those sort of bits that come in at the end, that I'll go shopping, I'll go.

Presenter19:08

Definitely.

Nina Campbell19:16

There are all these wonderful antique fairs, and Sundays you can go to various hotels and there's all these stalls laid out and you can find bits.

Nina Campbell19:22

And um and then I'll find the bit at the end, and that'll just be the thing that melds in some magical way, brings it all together.

Presenter19:28

There's a strong feeling, though, isn't there? And perhaps again it's particularly British, I don't know, that to employ an interior designer is to admit your own inadequacy, and it's a bit like

Presenter19:39

Having someone ghost-write your autobiography, you know, it means you can't do it yourself. You're inadequate.

Nina Campbell19:44

That's right. I think it is particularly here. And probably that's why quite a lot of my clients are actually foreign or coming from abroad.

Nina Campbell19:52

I think it's getting less bad. I think people I think twenty years ago it was considered rather extraordinary to employ an interior decorator, and there were many fewer inter as a decorators as a result. There was a wonderful statement of Elsie DeWolf once when she was asked by Siri Morne if she thought it would be a good idea if Siri Morn became an interior designer, and Elsie said, Oh, good heavens, no, it's a very overcrowded profession. Well, I think there were about six then, and there must be about six million now, so I don't know what she'd be thinking of the profession at the moment. But I think that we are being much more accepted now, and I think given a much more recognized as a much more professional body.

Nina Campbell20:28

Next record.

Nina Campbell20:33

A record that reminds me of her. She

Nina Campbell20:35

started decorating in nineteen six, aged about forty, having previously been an actress, and s realizing that the sort of boards were getting a bit hard work, she um decided to take up interior design, having

Nina Campbell20:48

moved in with another lady, which was quite a sort of sort of forward thinking thing to do in those days, um and doing their house. And then the everyone said, Please do my house, and on it went. Everything she did was either black and white or green and white stripes, and hence this song.

Speaker 321:03

He's got a black and white shack.

Nina Campbell21:03

He's got a black

Speaker 321:05

A new Cadillac with a black and white design.

Nina Campbell21:06

Got a lot. Where the

Nina Campbell21:09

Why design?

Speaker 321:11

Oh, she thinks black and white. She even drinks black and white. That black and white baby of mine.

Presenter21:28

Bobby Short singing Coal Porter's That Black and White Baby of Mine.

Presenter21:32

You are, as I've said, incredibly successful. You sell, I think, worldwide six million pounds worth of wallpaper and fabric a year, much of it in America, where you won the award that I mentioned. Why do you think the Americans are so attracted to your style?

Nina Campbell21:47

Oh, I don't know. Um I think that I suppose they like at the moment, thank goodness, the English style, or what they perceive to be the English style. I think if they went to some of the English country houses that they think these are

Nina Campbell21:58

Copying, they might get a shock. Well, I don't know. Well, actually, fun enough, that's what I think is good about the English style, because I think the the eclecticism is something that sort of appeals.

Presenter22:01

Well, I don't know.

Nina Campbell22:10

I talked about this in America once and I said I felt that the English travelled constantly, although we're always considered to be insular. I mean we didn't. We travelled either to conquer and finally to shop. I mean all those sort of grand tours. And we were bringing back everybody's stuff from all over France, Italy, China. So I think that that's what the English look consists of. We're not afraid of putting things together.

Presenter22:31

Yes. It's interesting, isn't it? Because we're very self-deprecating on the whole i i in terms of taste. I suppose it may be justifiably as far as our cooking is concerned, but our Our our decorative taste is

Nina Campbell22:41

I think our dictator taste is well I think the point is it makes people feel relaxed and I think that's the whole point. I think that's what I want people to feel when they walk into one of my rooms. And um and I think that's what's so important. You don't want to do a room up and then have people perching on the edge of their chairs. You want comfort. Definitely, it's the most important thing. Record number six. Record number six is Lisa Manelli singing the theme from New York, New York.

Nina Campbell23:06

I love New York. I get very excited about New York, and my youngest daughter has already had a card printed by one of those machines saying

Nina Campbell23:12

Alice Dean, New York address, you know, she's definitely a New York baby, so

Nina Campbell23:17

That's for her.

Nina Campbell23:19

Uh

Speaker 423:19

Uh

Nina Campbell23:19

Um

Speaker 423:19

Make a brand new start of it in all New York

Speaker 423:26

If I had break it there, I'd make it anywhere. It's up to you, New York, New York.

Presenter23:47

Liza Minelli singing the theme from the film version of New York, New York. You've just refurbished the lobby of the Savoy, Nina. You've done Annabel's The Night Club in your time. You've done houses for Rod Stewart and Wilbur Smith.

Presenter24:00

among many, many other well known people's houses. What's your own house look like?

Nina Campbell24:04

Clack.

Presenter24:04

Yeah.

Nina Campbell24:04

Well, as you were asking just at the moment, a complete tip. I just bought something new and um once you start pulling things out the whole lot go. And um so right now it's looking pretty awful and I'm in the sort of process of putting it back together again and thinking what I'm going to do. So But is it going to be your ideal house? It's going to be my ideal house right now, I think. What is your ideal house?

Presenter24:19

But is it

Presenter24:24

Um

Nina Campbell24:26

I th it's got to be very easy to run, and it's got to be I want a very comfortable bedroom and bathroom and dressing room, and I want to be able to go back there sometimes, so it's got to be a bed sitting room for me. I'm a great believer in everybody having their own space, and my youngest daughter will still be at home, and so she's got to have

Presenter24:42

Portrays.

Nina Campbell24:43

She needs a room where she can play Oasis and the Fujis and all that sort of stuff. And I need a place where I can play what I want. And what period is it, this house? Well, it's sort of um eighteen sixties really. Chelsea. Chelsea, it's sort of Chelsea Fulham borders.

Presenter24:55

I see.

Nina Campbell24:59

And colours

Presenter24:59

Colours? Is it inside a profusion of colours?

Nina Campbell25:01

Well, it will be. I want to have the one I want to have my dining room, which is a sort of dining hall with a billiard table that doubles as a dining room, because I'm trying to my son is going to to live, share a flat with a friend, but I'm hoping that um he'll s I can lure him back, so that'll be rather fun. And but that room's going to be lined out in books, and it's going to be this new ameth well, not new, but it for me, I'm going to have an amethyst coloured wall. So amethyst is your latest passion? Amethyst is my latest passion, is I've been collecting amethyst glass lately.

Presenter25:26

Path is

Nina Campbell25:30

At all these little places I've been going. And what colours your bedroom? It might be blue and white, because I'd rather like that sort of.

Presenter25:32

Two bedroom.

Nina Campbell25:35

slightly crisp approach, I think.

Presenter25:37

Hmm. Yeah.

Nina Campbell25:38

So you've moved out of

Presenter25:38

All that cranberry and and and sausage.

Presenter25:44

When you're in the band.

Nina Campbell25:44

Yeah.

Presenter25:46

Uh y your desert island hut is going to be beautiful, I'm sure, full of sort of wonderful bits of coloured seaweed hanging from the the the roof, I can imagine. Can you cook as well as create house beautiful?

Nina Campbell25:49

To a full of salt

Presenter25:57

Yeah.

Nina Campbell25:57

Um I don't think I'll be able to go. I I think I'll probably survive for about a week actually. I'm not sure about um because I'll be quite squeamish about catching the fish in my hands, which of course is probably all I'll have. Um so I'm not going to survive very long, I don't think. But um but I'm going to try and I'm thinking on my desert islander, maybe there'll be wonderful gorillas. I see myself as gorillas in the mist slightly. I'm rather hoping that that's the way it'll take me.

Nina Campbell26:19

Number seven.

Nina Campbell26:20

Um Puccini's Tosca, the bit where we have Caradosi burning with love for Maria Callas.

Speaker 426:28

Host the Lord be the Lord's sake.

Nina Campbell27:02

Breathe up a beep.

Speaker 427:06

Oh dev.

Speaker 427:17

Uh

Presenter27:22

Puccini's Tosca and Cavaradossi, burning with desire. Maria Callas and Carlo Begonzi, and the Oqueste de la Societe des Concerre du Conservatoire, conducted by Georges Prete.

Presenter27:34

How many people do you employ these days, Nina?

Nina Campbell27:37

Yeah. Well, about sort of twenty f twenty two.

Nina Campbell27:41

I say about because we've got sort of Saturday people coming in and

Presenter27:44

And you produce two collections a year of of wallpaper and fabric fabrics. Do do you create all of those or do these people do that?

Nina Campbell27:47

Fab recently.

Nina Campbell27:51

Well, I can't no, I can't paint, unfortunately. I can't draw. I'm not a textile designer by training, and it's very complex to know exactly what you're doing in that, otherwise it wouldn't repeat and all those sort of things. So I'm really, again, the sort of editor of all of that. And I've got somebody in my studio, two people in my studio, who do that with me. And then my fabrics and wallpapers are licensed to Osborne and Little. So actually, after we've designed them and got them ready with the artwork, we hand them over and they do all the printing and the screen making and do they still feel like yours? Oh, very much so. Very, very much so.

Presenter28:18

Do they still feel like yours?

Presenter28:21

So if there was something that someone else created that you didn't like, you could veto it?

Nina Campbell28:26

Oh, absolutely, because they're created in our studio, our tiny studio down at the bottom of the shop in Wharton Street. And

Nina Campbell28:32

I mean, they're very much, I feel very much at their mind, because I choose all the quite a lot of them worked off documents. And then we go out to freelancers, and if I've got an idea, I say this is what I want, and I want this flower painted more fully. I don't feel that's the right way it's done, and I want these leaves differently. They look as if they're about to die, and I want them to look as if they're. But it must.

Presenter28:50

But it must mean that you have to force yourself into kind of colour palettes that you wouldn't normally go into. You know, you say it it really is time we had some mauve again and your heart sinks, maybe. I don't mind

Nina Campbell29:02

Would well

Presenter29:02

Well

Nina Campbell29:02

Um

Nina Campbell29:04

No, I don't think so. I don't think I'd ever compromise myself. I will only do colour palettes that I like. And I do work with somebody who's who d who does.

Presenter29:08

Yeah.

Nina Campbell29:12

Because it's very complicated colouring fabrics, because they have to sort of one has to lay on top of the other. And I sort of put bundles of colour together and say, This is the sort of colour palette I like, and then he makes it work so that it all balances. And we've gone off, I mean, we started with the blues and reds and greens and yellows, those are all my sort of basic certain colours that people recognize and say, Oh, that's you know, that colour is very much sort of Nina Campbell colour. And then we've just started, we sort of start gently, sort of one toe in the water, with let's say we're just doing sort of sagey greens with terracottas and that sort of stuff, and that's really rather wonderful, and then it becomes warmer and softer. And I think that that's coming. We've now built up that to quite a big collection of that colour palette. And then we've that the latest collection that comes out in at Chelsea Week, I've started to put in some stronger yellows and sort of burnt sugar colours, which I think are rather wonderful too. In

Presenter30:00

In the midst of all of this you've produced three children, uh two now in their twenties, and Alice, who's fourteen. Do you think you've been a better mother to them than

Nina Campbell30:08

Than yours was to you? Oh, well I hope so. I think we're much closer.

Nina Campbell30:11

And um and I think we have much more fun really. Uh but I think that's also part of having three, because you get all sorts of interactions and things like that.

Presenter30:19

And without them, alone on your desert island, despite your beautiful surroundings and your gorillas, do you think you might shrivel up and die? Probably.

Presenter30:28

Last record.

Nina Campbell30:30

Last record is five foot two and eyes of blue. And this is really'cause I think I'll probably to try and keep going on this island, I'm gonna have to sort of jiggle about and dance a bit, and I think this is quite sort of catchy dancing tune.

Speaker 430:44

You run it!

Speaker 430:47

Come on, what's fine?

Speaker 430:49

Human beings in a hollow thing

Speaker 430:51

Where's your light body? What's your

Presenter31:09

Five for two Eyes of Blue sung by Bloodstone with the natural high brass.

Presenter31:14

Um, if you could only take one of those eight records, Nina, which one would it be?

Nina Campbell31:19

I think it might be Donald Swan because I love the words and I think at the end of the day it'd be just sol jolly nice to think of those two sort of chatting to you and, you know, being one's clients, really.

Presenter31:27

Mm.

Nina Campbell31:27

Yeah.

Presenter31:27

Uh

Nina Campbell31:27

Uh

Presenter31:28

Yeah.

Nina Campbell31:28

Uh

Presenter31:28

Can make up a few more verses of your own, I'm sure. What about your book, as well as the Bible and Shakespeare?

Nina Campbell31:33

Well, having got the Bible to Shakespeare, which are full of jolly good yarns really, um I thought I'd take a photograph album of all my family and friends, and I think that would make me smile. And rooms you've designed? I think I might leave them behind. What amount of luxury? Well, I think I'm going what I'm going to need most is a sense of humour, and I think I'd like to take that. That comes with, doesn't it? Oh, do you think that comes with? I'm allowed that anyway. Yes, I think. Well, if I have got my sense of humour and I'm able to hang on to that, I think I'd like my bed.

Nina Campbell32:02

In what colour? Or wouldn't it matter? I don't I think white, white linen sheets, possible.

Presenter32:03

Wouldn't it matter?

Presenter32:08

Nina Campbell, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs. Thank you.

Speaker 432:19

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For more podcasts please visit bbc.co. uk slash radio four.