Cath Kidston

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.

Presenter0:34

My castaway this week is the designer Kath Kidston. Cheerful and practical, with a nostalgic nod to the fifties, her look is for homemakers channelling Doris Day.

Presenter0:45

It started with ironing board covers, but now you could make a call on a Kath Kidston Brandon mobile phone, pitch one of her daisy printed tents, or jazz up the kids' bedroom with her lassoing cowboy wallpaper.

Presenter0:57

In her own bedroom as a child she used to play at keeping shop, and she began her business by rooting around in car boot sales and doing up the odd bit of furniture. Now her company has a yearly turnover of more than fifty million, and you can buy an English rose peg bag anywhere from Kuwait to Kyoto, and plenty of places in between.

Presenter1:16

I employ around six hundred and fifty full-time members of staff, she says. That's a lot of people's livelihoods. So it's not me playing shop anymore. It's about looking after that wider picture and the wider people. So, Keth Kidston, was there a point where it went from being your small business, a sort of handmade concern, to being this great global concern that you actually realised? Was there a tipping point you thought, right, now this is properly serious?

Cath Kidston1:43

Do you know, I don't know the exact point. I really felt from very, very early on I was onto something with the notion of what I was doing. I remember feeling I'd really overstepped the mark when I opened my second shop, thinking that's probably going a stage too far. What am I doing?

Presenter1:59

Two shops are tricky.

Cath Kidston1:59

Okay.

Presenter2:00

Uh

Cath Kidston2:00

Yeah.

Presenter2:00

Yeah. Many shops do you have now? Uh

Cath Kidston2:02

It's forty stores in the UK and about ten abroad. There's stores in Japan and two just opened in Korea. Two shops was the worst. I remember going away for a weekend and ringing the shop to see everything was alright and there was no answer. And, you know, the girl had been sick and hadn't shown up, so the door didn't open. That kind of thing when it was early on was really stressful.

Presenter2:23

And I I said, you know, in the introduction, that quote I used about you saying, you know, I have around about six hundred and fifty full-time members of staff. Are you one of those people that wears that quite lightly, or are you up at three in the morning thinking, good God?

Cath Kidston2:29

Some stuff.

Cath Kidston2:34

Luckily now I think of myself as just a cog in the wheel these days. Because in amongst that, you know, I have wonderful finance director, managing director and all the rest of it. And I think one of the things that's helped me is realizing I needed other people to come in and do things. I wasn't going to be able to run the whole thing myself.

Presenter2:38

Club

Presenter2:53

And what is it you think that appeals so much to the consumer? There is that whole idea that people we we lead such impersonal lives now, you know, when technology rules us. Do you think that the Kath Kidston appeal is something to do with taking us back to an era when things did seem simpler, friendlier, more homemade, more optimistic and colourful?

Cath Kidston3:12

I I suppose there's an element of that for some people. I think that the the biggest thing we're told by our customers is the product cheers them up. And whether it's nostalgic or not, it's about that psych feel-good factor and the fact that it's practical, useful, quite down-to-earth. I think there's something about it in that vein that really is where the appeal lies.

Presenter3:32

Now, you've got eight discs today. Your partner is a record producer, a very successful record producer. Did he sit with you in your list and say you can't possibly, yes, you must?

Cath Kidston3:40

No, I did show it to him. I did, absolutely, yes. I wanted him to help me choose the record he had made, which he wouldn't do. But actually I think it was quite clear which one I was going to end up choosing.

Presenter3:42

Yeah.

Presenter3:49

Okay, well there's one for him later on, but we're not beginning with that. T tell us about the first piece of music you've chosen today.

Cath Kidston3:51

We're not beginning with that.

Cath Kidston3:54

Uh

Cath Kidston3:54

So the first record is Little Red Rooster by The Rolling Stones. And I chose that because I was, I don't know what age I was, I'm not very good at, must be about six or seven I guess. And I was given a record token. And I've always loved going shopping, even from a very small age. I'd lived in the country, so I didn't have much opportunity to go shopping. But I do remember taking my record token into Andover and seeing the whole list of singles. And I chose the name. You know, living out in the country with chickens, I thought, okay, I'll go for that one. And that was the start of a kind of long, long love of the Rolling Stones. And sort of listening to this song again, I love it as much as the day when I first heard it.

Presenter4:36

I am the little red rooster.

Presenter4:38

Too late for day.

Presenter4:48

I am the little red rooster.

Presenter4:52

Two lanes at the proper day.

Presenter5:03

That was the Rolling Stones and Little Red Rooster. You said, Cath Kidston, that you are somebody who, well, as a child, certainly, you love to shop. Do you still love to shop?

Cath Kidston5:11

I do. I absolutely own it. And I love buying anything from a tube of toothpaste to a new coat.

Presenter5:16

What is it you love about the process?

Cath Kidston5:18

No, I mean, literally, as a very, very small child, I would go and play in the garden with my sister. We were thrown out every day, you know, to get fresh air or whatever. And I turned a laurel bush into a shop and leaves were money and I was, you know, I don't know what I was lining up and selling. But the whole process I absolutely adore. What I really like is very occasionally now I work in one of our shops. I'm not allowed to use the till'cause I'm not till trained anymore. But I just love that whole process of could it be serving customers, rearranging the shelves.

Cath Kidston5:49

Doing the window, that would be really nice to do that again. You know, that kind of thing. I love it.

Presenter5:53

I I have an image of you as a sort of spectacular homemaker. I mean, I imagine that you are at home sort of s you know, doing needle point cushions and sewing little edging on the curtains to make them look nicer and and rustling up with your pinny on the most perfect meals with your potholders. And is is that about right?

Cath Kidston6:07

Sorta in my dreams, you know.

Presenter6:09

What about in your reality then?

Cath Kidston6:10

In my reality I am a homemaker. You know, again from when I was a child I used to rearrange my bedroom and spend my life sort of, you know, redecorating my room and I did decorating for a long time before I had my shop. So I absolutely am a homemaker. But I think I get very preoccupied by work these days. So for example it's taken me five years to decide what material to hang in our as our bedroom curtains. I've had blackout roller blinds for five years. So I'm not a very good example. I do like doing the making and the bits and pieces. I like hand sewing a lot. I find that very very relaxing. If I mend something I feel very self self-righteous. Sewing on a button, things like that.

Presenter6:37

I do

Presenter6:49

Um so let's talk a little bit then about you talked about, you know, the laurel bush and making them the money out of leaves. And uh as a little girl you you were brought up in a very privileged home. It was on the border of Wiltshire and

Cath Kidston6:49

Yeah.

Cath Kidston6:59

We're on the border of Wiltshire and Hampshire, yeah. We lived in a lovely house. To begin with, my sister and I, I've got two younger brothers, so about my six-year gap between us, so it was very much my sister and I growing up. We lived one end of the house with a nanny, literally behind a green bay store. We didn't really go I didn't really go to school till I was about eight. I went to this lady's house in Andover. There were about six of us kids. It wasn't school really. I think Miss Lilson was termed a governess in those days. It's a bit old-fashioned, isn't it? Was it quite an old-fashioned?

Speaker 17:13

Uh

Presenter7:28

Or was it quite an old fashioned upbringing?

Cath Kidston7:30

Very old fashioned when I look back. I don't remember learning, but I remember books so we had to copy lots of A's and B's, endless copying, which I did beautifully, right to left. No one would watch what I was doing, and I'm very left handed.

Presenter7:42

Right to left, so you'd copy it like a mir a mirror.

Cath Kidston7:43

Thank you.

Cath Kidston7:44

I copied and I didn't copy it quite mirror image. I I can write mirror writing naturally, strangely enough, but I wrote everything perfectly but writing from, you know, right to left. So when Miss Dawson came back from doing her gardening to see what we'd been doing all morning, it all looked perfect. Then my dad said, Can you show me your writing?'Cause I gave a cry as I wrote it that way around. So wait, dyslexic or well, do you know, I don't know what it is. When I was aged about early twenties, I asked my mum about it and she said, Oh, darling, I was you did have some sort of thing wrong with you, but I thought it better you didn't know.

Cath Kidston8:19

So I've passed A-levels. I was good at anything visual at school. You know, I can do fractions. You imagine a cake and it all cuts up nicely and I can get the right answer. How are you with a spreadsheet? I'm very good at spotting brackets in red. You know, all the bits you need to know. Get the bottom line, and I can see I visualise the bigger picture the whole time. And if the bigger picture doesn't make sense, I kind of was really struck with a banking crisis that I wondered who had visualized the bigger picture. Is it indeed the

Speaker 18:38

Uh

Presenter8:38

Yes.

Presenter8:46

Is it indeed the case that your business does not hold debt? You don't have to do that.

Cath Kidston8:49

Exactly.

Cath Kidston8:53

I think it does now that I have some new investors, but in a minimal way. I've always worked on a very simple basis, you know, such a simple mind, that um more in than out is quite helpful.

Presenter9:04

Indeed. Let's have your second piece then. What are we going to hear now?

Cath Kidston9:07

So next we've got Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald.

Presenter9:10

And why have you chosen?

Cath Kidston9:10

Isn't this? Um'cause this really reminds me of my parents growing up. And it was kind of going down to their side of the house. And my dad loved playing music. I think of my parents at the weekends,'cause that's when they were both around the most. And I wasn't going to my um school or whatever it was, out with my pony or out in the garden with my sister and I was hanging out with grown-ups and we we had a swimming pool at home and they'd have music on and friends and I just this is so evocative of that kind of period.

Speaker 29:40

Heaven, I am in heaven. Heaven.

Speaker 29:45

And my heart beats so that I can hardly speak. And I seem to find Happy Messiah when we're all together, dancing cheek to cheat.

Speaker 110:02

Get it.

Presenter10:07

That was Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald and cheek to cheek. I'm imagining the scene then that you conjured up there just as we went into that piece of music, Kath Kidston, of you know, the swimming pool and the beautiful house and a few staff around to make life nicer. And your father was sort of quite a big character, he was. He was absolutely.

Cath Kidston10:23

Yeah, he was.

Presenter10:25

And what was your mother like?

Cath Kidston10:26

Come.

Cath Kidston10:27

She was adorable, she was a lovely woman. It's very difficult because if you compare people, he was much more the kind of centrifugal force in in the house, if you want.

Presenter10:35

Yeah exactly.

Cath Kidston10:36

She I'm sure she was around more mum than than he was'cause he was at work. But when he came in to see us or we spent time with him, you really kind of felt under a glow in a sense. He's that and still I mean he very sadly died when he was fifty one or fifty, I think he was, when he died. So how old would you have been then? I was nineteen when he died.

Speaker 110:45

Yeah.

Presenter10:45

Yeah.

Presenter10:53

I think

Presenter10:54

Yeah.

Cath Kidston10:54

Yeah, I was young. And my mother, I really got to know her much more when I was older. After my father died, she really was quite extraordinary how she managed that. When I look back, she had my brothers who were aged, I think, 11 and 13 when my dad died. Terrible age to lose a father, isn't it? And she was 48. And I thought she was old. You know, when you're 19, you think that's quite old. But she was obviously really having to survive a terrible thing. He died fairly quickly from a brain tumour over a couple of months. And our whole sort of family life changed very radically at that time. She started a business at home.

Speaker 111:16

That's quite a

Presenter11:30

What was her business with this?

Cath Kidston11:32

She ran, she had paying guests at home. Not long after he died, she was quite short of cash. With absolutely no self-pity, she started cooking and taking and selling food on a market stool in the local town. And this was someone who hadn't had to cook for all her adult life. But by that time I was in London and I went from school. I couldn't understand why on earth you'll go to university, because I thought it's so odd to choose to do more exams. You know, I didn't really get the point of that. So I thought I'm going to get a job and earn whatever it was, £100 a week in a shop, obviously. Very nice.

Presenter12:03

Very nice. And so I did. You mentioned there y your father had come from a a relatively wealthy background. What was the family business?

Cath Kidston12:11

His family had run a company called Clyde Shipping Company, which was a Victorian shipping business. Quite a big business, that one. I think it was. I mean, I don't know, because you don't know as a child, do you? I mean, my father worked. His father didn't work. He was really more of a playboy and he raced Bentley cars and flew planes and was of that generation where I think they'd fought in the war. He, at age 14, had been in the First World War, survived a submarine going down. You know, all the stories you hear of his incredible bravery when they were very young. But he was killed when he was 31. He flew a plane into a mountain and died. So my dad didn't know his father, probably he was two or three when his father died. So he was then brought up by a stepfather he loved and lots of half-brothers and sisters.

Presenter12:15

Right.

Presenter12:19

I don't know because

Speaker 112:20

See?

Presenter12:50

Right.

Presenter12:56

Let's have some more music, Kath Kidston then. Um what's this time?

Cath Kidston12:59

We've now got Lou Reed, um, Walk on the Wild Side.

Presenter13:00

Yeah.

Presenter13:02

And why did you choose this?

Cath Kidston13:03

Because I'm I'm very close to my sister and as a teenager when I was completely in awe of her we would lie on the sofa learning how to smoke, listening to Lou Reed.

Speaker 213:14

Holly came from Miami, F L A.

Speaker 213:19

Hitchhiked away across USA.

Speaker 213:24

Plucked her eyebrows on the way Shaved her legs and then he was a she She says hey babe take a walk on the wild side

Speaker 213:33

Said hey honey, take a walk on the wild side

Presenter13:43

That was Lou Reed and Walk on the Wild Side and memories, Kath Kidston, of you and your your big sister teaching you how to smoke. That song, yes, time well spent. So when you were growing up, I'm thinking listening to that. You know, it's it's it's cool music, that. I mean, it came from the album Transformer, which is very, very cool, urban, edgy.

Speaker 113:49

Yeah.

Speaker 113:58

Yeah.

Speaker 213:59

Uh

Cath Kidston13:59

Which is a f

Presenter14:02

Album

Presenter14:03

What you do with the Kath Kidston brand is the opposite of cool.

Cath Kidston14:07

I suppose it w I think everyone's got their own perception. It's really interesting to me. With with our brand, it's quite a Marmite brand in the sense that people like or hate what we do. And I think from a creative point of view, I didn't set out to do something that was safe and cosy and that kind of thing. I liked the idea of actually reinventing and doing something slightly new. And when the business started, it was at a period where I'd been doing interior design for quite a long time and I'd worked for Nikki Haslam, which is the first actual proper job I got.

Presenter14:38

And Nikki Hassam, of course, is the interior designer. That's right. With lots of cool clients. Lots of cool clients. Yes. What sort of things did you do for him? What was your job?

Cath Kidston14:40

That's with lot

Cath Kidston14:41

Lots of cool classes.

Cath Kidston14:44

Um I would do anything from walking his pekinese to finding fabrics, rush you know, making notes for customers, going to measure curtains. The first week I got there I had to take a letter to Diana Cooper, you know, who's the amazing old sort of society beauty and Ava Gardiner needed her curtains measuring up. What sort of curtains did Ava Gardiner have? She had the most beautiful flat in Knightsbridge with blue and white chintz. And there she was in what was the equivalent of a track suit with all her dogs.

Presenter14:59

Yes.

Speaker 115:00

Uh

Presenter15:03

What sort of curtains did Eva Gardner have?

Presenter15:13

So there you are in London in the as we say that period from leaving school to to your mid-twenties. Did you have a sense of ambition?

Cath Kidston15:19

Did you have a

Cath Kidston15:22

Um I always had these ideas going and I had um one real saviour which is I've got a cousin, a most lovely woman called Belinda Belleville. She was a dress designer. She had a company called Belleville Sassoon in the sixties and she was the only woman I knew who went off to work and she wore much trendier clothes than my mum and we were left all week with an au pair, which was far more exotic than being with a former nanny at home, you can imagine. But I never expected to have a business like her'cause she was kind of

Speaker 115:33

Yeah.

Speaker 215:45

Beat.

Cath Kidston15:49

Really up on a pedestal, what she was doing. I knew I was creatively.

Cath Kidston15:54

You know, at school, for example, I won the art prizes and I really enjoyed art and I had creative skills. But I didn't know how I could convert that into an actual business. Time for some music then, Kess. What's next? I've got Phil Collins in the air tonight, which is very much for you. This is your husband. My common law husband, he's really or whatever. And I think he's the most talented person ever. And he's worked in the record industry since he left school. He's aged seventeen from being a T-boy. He's worked producing and making some of, I think, the best records ever. And this song to me completely epitomizes what he's done.

Presenter16:10

This is your husband there.

Presenter16:12

Yeah.

Presenter17:01

That was Phil Collins and In the Air Tonight. I'm wondering if your partner Hugh, who who did the production and the engineering on on that, were you together when he made that piece of music?

Cath Kidston17:07

On on that

Cath Kidston17:09

No, I uh no, he made it I think in the eighties. Right. That song is. And I met Hugh in the early nineties. Were you measuring his curtains?

Presenter17:12

Right.

Presenter17:16

Were you measuring his curtains?

Cath Kidston17:17

I was measuring and it's exactly how I met him, exactly. I I did his house up for him in a highly professional way. Obviously. And then a few years later ended up moving in there and thinking, I can't live here. It's a man's house and I couldn't obviously redecorate it, having charged him a fortune to do it up in the first place.

Presenter17:24

Obviously.

Presenter17:34

How did you go then fr from being somebody who was uh assisting a designer to to being a somebody who was paid to design other people's houses yourself?

Cath Kidston17:41

Yeah.

Cath Kidston17:43

I worked for Nikki for I think it was three or four years, and then after that I was

Cath Kidston17:47

I had an idea for a business and for a shop and I I liked the idea of specialist things and I and in those days people had very ornate curtains, there was all these kind of swags and tails and this kind of decoration going on. And um I thought I love vintage stuff and antique shops and obviously back to the shopping thing and I kept seeing lovely old curtain poles and all this stuff and I thought I'm going to make a junk shop full of curtainalia and I I began with a friend of mine because I didn't dare do the business on my own.

Presenter17:59

Yeah.

Cath Kidston18:16

And so we ran the curtain pole shop off the King's Road. And you you didn't feel intimidated by running a business? That's never really worried me. It's more I think I've always known I've needed an accountant to do the books. And as long as I put the accountant, needed the bills paying before I paid myself the wage really, that things would be quite sound. And again, it's this sort of philosophy it's better to have more c money coming in than out. As long as I stick to that rule, things should be quite safe.

Presenter18:20

I didn't feel intimidated.

Presenter18:22

That's

Presenter18:40

What is the line between um vintage finds and old junk?

Cath Kidston18:46

Is there one? I don't think there is, personally. I think it's like it's a perception, isn't it? And the word vintage has become very trendy, but really it's sort of when I first opened the store I wanted to call it Kath Kidston Household Effects,'cause that was a bit more of what they were. You know, I was going to car boot sales and buying all this stuff that I loved and I went to the car boot sales'cause I couldn't find it in antique shops.

Presenter18:49

Day.

Presenter19:06

So you must have inevitably a lot of confidence in your own sense of style and what looks right.

Cath Kidston19:07

Afghanistan.

Cath Kidston19:14

I think that's true. I think that's the one thing that has enabled me to do the business. I had this sort of moment. I used to walk my dog in West London past a house clearance shop and see these amazing cupboards which were about to be stripped back for pine, but they still had the white paint on. And you'd see a big wardrobe for like twenty quid. I thought this is such great value.

Presenter19:35

Rice

Cath Kidston19:35

And I thought there's got to be a way of my friends who are moving into houses, starting families, and they need every day homes that aren't too precious but are decorative. There's got to be a market for this kind of look.

Presenter19:47

I in those early days, can you remember what your best mark up was? Can you remember going to something, buying it at a car boot sale, giving it the Kath Kidston treatment and then selling it on for a while?

Cath Kidston19:54

Hath kids

Cath Kidston19:56

Yeah, I do. I remember buying a pair of leather arm chairs, antique leather arm chairs, from a car boot sale in Gloucester, and I'd put them on the back of the truck and drove up to London and I sold them on the Monday morning. I think I'd paid fifty quid and I sold them for a thousand pounds. And I remember thinking that's just unbelievable.

Presenter20:12

How satisfying. Time for some music, Kath Kidston. We are now on disc number five.

Cath Kidston20:12

How satisfying.

Cath Kidston20:15

We are not

Cath Kidston20:17

Okay, so this is um American artist called Lucinda Williams, um which really reminds me of my days going off in the truck behind the carboot sails and having this playing.

Presenter20:35

Told me baby, one more time, don't make me sit all alone and cry while it's over I know it, but I can't let go.

Speaker 120:41

Oh

Presenter20:44

I'm like a fish outta water, a cat in a tree You don't even wanna talk with me Well it's over I'm going but I can't let go

Presenter20:54

Lucinda Williams and Can't Let Go That's played or was played, Kath Kidston, by you when you're out doing those car boot sales. Do you still do the car boot sales? I found it.

Cath Kidston21:02

Do, if I see them, I can't resist. I don't go out of my way so much these days.

Presenter21:06

Right.

Cath Kidston21:06

Right. But now and then it's like um there's a moment when for me, if I park the car and I'm heading into the car bootstrap and you don't know what you're gonna find, which is just pure happiness.

Presenter21:18

So this passion for the way you want the world to look, for styling and fashioning your life, which has now brought you this multi million pound empire, not by accident and by your own very good hard work

Presenter21:31

What do you think your father would make of that? Do you ever wonder what he might have?

Cath Kidston21:34

I mean, of course. I mean, I think

Cath Kidston21:37

I'm sure, as anyone would agree, if you lose someone who you absolutely adore, there's always going to be moments throughout one's life where you wish you could tell them or or discuss it with them. People quite often ask, you know, what is it that drives success? Why did I need to do this or work hard or create the business and things? And I'm quite sure, I mean, I do remember very clearly at his funeral, it's a very strange memory I have, but thinking, I'm just going to have to show him what I can do.

Cath Kidston22:09

for him to sort of feel proud of me.

Cath Kidston22:12

which you'll I'll never be able to ever know. You never do know, do you? But I think there's definitely been that need behind which drives me to try and do well and make the most of my life.

Presenter22:15

Yeah.

Presenter22:16

Yeah.

Presenter22:21

Yeah.

Presenter22:24

Yes. You you you you've collected it. Is it an ME you have? I have. Of course that those are the those are the days, you know, when people go to the palace that they would you know, would have did you think about your father on that day? You would have taken your father's.

Cath Kidston22:24

Yeah.

Cath Kidston22:28

Those are

Cath Kidston22:32

Yeah.

Cath Kidston22:34

That you're fine.

Cath Kidston22:35

I did, absolutely. And I had all my family come and had lunch, which was very nice. The thing I was proud about for that, really, was that it was for business. And I just thought, you know, for someone who didn't really pay much attention at school and all the rest of it, it's quite nice that it was for business.

Presenter22:49

When you were at school?

Cath Kidston22:51

Were you naughty?

Cath Kidston22:53

I was quite naughty.

Presenter22:54

Yeah.

Cath Kidston22:54

Yeah.

Presenter22:54

Yeah.

Cath Kidston22:54

But that was you see, my older sister was famously naughty.

Presenter22:54

Slam the

Presenter22:58

She well, she got expelled and things.

Cath Kidston22:58

Uh

Cath Kidston22:59

She did in the end, yeah. She um she was always you know running away or doing something. I don't blame her'cause she really didn't like the school she was at. But this one school I went to, I went to various. The first one I went to was like a kind of um holiday camp for eight-year-olds and we bred rabbits and went on nature walks. And I went to this boarding school called Heathfield, which was full of really exotic children. And none of us did any work. It was like St Trinian's. We were given a day off because one person got into university, so we were all given a day off. But I was able to the the the grown-up ones would order me to go and get wine through the headmistress's cellar'cause I've got very lanky arms. I could you know, there'd say six reds, three white, and I'd go down, you know, sucking up to them and get all the wine out of the cellar. That was really fun that school. But I was taken away after a year because

Speaker 123:16

Nothing.

Speaker 123:43

That was really good.

Cath Kidston23:48

I came top in Latin and my dad, for some reason, there's certain things he really wanted us to be educated in. Latin, we had to read books, you know, onus and that kind of thing. And he asked me a very basic Latin question which I was completely um you know, couldn't answer. This was after you'd got the prize? After I got the prize for best Latin. And I'd got the prize'cause I'd drawn the best Roman in a toga. So he was so annoyed I was moved to school. That was it. I was sent to the very boring school in um in Kent instead.

Presenter24:03

This was after you'd got the prize.

Presenter24:17

So time for some music again, Kath. Tell me about your next piece of music.

Cath Kidston24:21

So now I've chosen Marvin Gaye and Let's Get It On, which is a record I've loved obviously, I love all Marvin Gaye songs really. But this in particular reminds me very much of my stepdaughter Jess and her coming back from school one day, aged about 10, saying, have you heard of that song, Let's Get It On? I was saying, yes, why? And she'd just played it for her introduction to sex education lessons at school. Club teacher.

Presenter24:50

Uh

Cath Kidston24:50

Yeah, but Hugh's saying it's going to ruin that song for her for life. It's so unfair they played that to her like that.

Presenter25:04

Tryna hold back and feeling

Presenter25:10

Okay.

Speaker 225:10

You

Speaker 225:12

Like I feel baby

Speaker 225:15

Come on.

Presenter25:25

That was Let's Get It On by Marvin Gay. So so your stepdaughter now is how old? Sh

Cath Kidston25:29

Yeah.

Presenter25:30

Rice.

Cath Kidston25:30

Um and I'd been lucky enough to know her since she was a year old. And so um not having children, I'm very, very fortunate to have a stepchild.

Presenter25:34

Yeah.

Presenter25:39

And so you yourself uh have never given birth, although you've been very active in in in Jess's life. I I had read, and I'm not sure it's right, that the reason that you didn't have children was to do with being diagnosed with cancer. Was it were the two connected?

Cath Kidston25:52

It's true. I had breast cancer in my mid-thirties and it turns out there's something like eight or nine women in my family have had breast cancer. A huge amount, but people never used to talk about it in the old days. Actually, a lot of them have survived it. They had we don't have the aggressive gene that you read about. And I was very lucky that it was found very early on. And so I didn't have to even have chemotherapy. But I had a choice afterwards. We could have had children. And there's at the time I was advised not to because of the risks. To have children quite soon afterwards was deemed to be quite a high risk. And we didn't take that risk. And then afterwards, when I went to see specialists, you know, you go regularly along the way for check-ups, they said, oh, what a pity you didn't have children. Of course, it reduces the risk. So it's very difficult and, you know, really hard decisions. But I never imagined I wouldn't have children. And so it's very hard if I think about it. But I would never, I'm sure, have had my business if I'd brought up children. In a way, my business has been a bit like a replacement child. I've had to do that to fill that gap. And it's served me in that way. And I'm sure if you said to me now, what would you have rather done? I would of course, as a woman, I think, said, I'd have rather had children. I can't I don't know the experience of what I'm missing out on, luckily. And anybody I'd talk to who's had children would say they wouldn't exchange it for anything.

Presenter26:27

Right.

Speaker 126:27

Yeah.

Speaker 126:59

Right.

Speaker 127:01

Uh Uh

Cath Kidston27:15

So I believe them. But I think I've been able to fill that gap.

Presenter27:15

Yeah.

Cath Kidston27:20

by running a business and having this sort of, in a sense, an extended family within the business.

Presenter27:26

Almost breathtakingly honest of you, what you've just said. And I think it's very rare to hear a woman say that, to say that, you know, that they have.

Presenter27:34

manage to forge ahead in order to

Cath Kidston27:34

Yeah.

Presenter27:36

you know, replace the thing that they that they didn't have.

Cath Kidston27:38

Lead

Cath Kidston27:39

Yeah. Yeah. And well, I think it's true.

Presenter27:39

Uh

Cath Kidston27:42

But it's very primitive, isn't it? Underneath we think we're very sophisticated and off buying all these kind of fine things and doing this or that. But at the end of the day, we're animals, I think.

Cath Kidston27:52

Time for

Presenter27:53

Some music. In fact, yes, well on this very subject, we're on number seven now.

Cath Kidston27:57

Phone numbers

Cath Kidston27:59

Okay, so bi by this stage I probably need chewing up a little bit.

Presenter28:02

On the island.

Cath Kidston28:02

On the island, I definitely need something that reminds me of England. I love travelling and I love going away more than anything on earth, but I know that I would miss home and I would miss England a lot. And this song, Always Look on the Bright Side of Life, is kind of relentlessly cheerful, which could drive me mad, but also I think I'd I'd need a bit of this.

Presenter28:03

Yeah.

Speaker 128:23

If life seems jolly rotten, there's something you've forgotten. And that's to laugh and smile and dance and sing.

Speaker 128:31

When you're feeling in the dumps, dumpy silly chumps. Just purse your lips and whistle, that's the thing.

Speaker 128:39

Angela's look on the bright side of life.

Speaker 128:45

More

Speaker 128:48

Always look on the bright side of life.

Presenter28:53

That was Monty Python and always look on the bright side of life. You know, we've talked quite a lot, Kath Kidston, about the the cheerfulness of your business. You you described your business earlier on as Marmite. You said Kath Kidston is Marmite. People either absolutely love it and they want a little bit, a little apron, little purse for the coins in their life.

Speaker 129:00

Yeah.

Speaker 129:04

You know, task.

Speaker 129:06

Absolutely.

Speaker 129:08

Here

Presenter29:11

Or they it provokes a reaction that makes them want to well, I'm one columnist of course, you will maybe even have read it, famously said that the next person she saw wearing Kath Kidston wellies, she wanted to smack in the face with a Kath Kidston milking stool.

Cath Kidston29:23

Absolutely. We've had people wanting to stab us and all the rest. I think you have to if you're going to do something you've got to be honest to yourself and do I do what I like for myself and I don't expect everyone to like it. And I think if you do something that's got quite a strong personality, which our products have, then you can't expect everyone to like it. If you're to come to my house in London, we've got a very plain modern kitchen. And the way I see it is I've got this very contemporary kitchen with big glass walls and all the rest of it. But if I lay the table I've got all my flowery china, my apron, and that I like because I can change the pace of what I want. And

Speaker 229:33

Mm.

Cath Kidston29:59

I live in a family home, you know, I don't expect there to be flowers everywhere. I don't want to harp back to how my grandmother lived at all.

Cath Kidston30:07

No aspiration to that. But yet, having said that, if someone wants to do that, I'm all for saying, well, that's their choice and that's up to them.

Presenter30:17

I'm going to cast you away to an island, Keth Kidston. And you are you said, you know, it's interesting that you talked about the the sense of purposefulness that your business brings you. The idea that, you know, you have a job to do, you go out, you, you know, you work to make the business bigger, better, more productive, more appealing. Not on the island you won't. So you will you it's going to be a really difficult struggle.

Cath Kidston30:25

Yeah.

Cath Kidston30:31

Yeah.

Cath Kidston30:35

It's going to be really difficult. I I think I'll be busy to begin with because I obviously have got house to make. Will you do that? The first thing I'd do is style the house up. I'd make the house and make it as comfortable as possible. And then I think I'd be designing a raft to escape, I must say. I know you're not meant to, but I'd be definitely thinking about that. But then I'd need to be kept busy somehow, so I'd have to think of something, some project that kept me occupied and gave me a bit of routine.

Presenter30:40

Will you do that? Will you style that?

Presenter30:45

Right.

Presenter30:52

Right.

Presenter31:01

And as you're there on this island, alone thinking when you're not busy, when you allow yourself a few minutes to sit on the sand.

Presenter31:09

You said when your father died you thought, Well, I'm gonna show him what I can do. What do you think he'd make of what you've done?

Cath Kidston31:18

I think he'd probably be amazed, actually.

Cath Kidston31:21

The reality of I think most of my family are amazed. They I think they all find it quite amusing, absolutely stagger that, you know, I was really pretty hopeless when I left school and in my early twenties. And the fact that I've turned out to actually manage to do something I think is, um

Cath Kidston31:37

It's not at all what was expected.

Presenter31:39

Yeah.

Presenter31:40

Let's have some music then. It's the final piece. It's disc number eight. What are we going to hear?

Cath Kidston31:41

Yeah.

Presenter31:44

Uh

Cath Kidston31:44

I'd have to have a little bit of Bob Dylan, I think like lots of people on the island. And um I particularly like this song of his, which is Be Your Baby Tonight. What is it about this song? Um I think it's just

Speaker 131:54

Uh

Cath Kidston31:56

How can I describe Bob Dylan? There's an emotion in it. There's a sort of a sense of melancholy which is also quite happy. How can I say I'm very inarticulate today, but there's something about it that's incredibly comforting and thought-provoking, and I think that's why I'd need it.

Speaker 232:11

Close your eyes, close the door.

Speaker 232:18

You don't have to worry.

Speaker 232:27

I'll be your

Speaker 232:33

Baby G nine

Presenter32:38

That was Bob Dylan and Be Your Baby Tonight. So, Kath Kidston, it's book time: The Bible and the Complete Works of Shakespeare. What's your book going to be?

Presenter32:46

Bearing in mind that I'm

Cath Kidston32:46

I'm worried I'm going to be poor.

Cath Kidston32:48

I thought, for a long time now I've wished that I could speak a proper language like French. I half mastered age eighteen. I couldn't nearly speak French. And then I completely um hopeless now and it drives me mad'cause I've got lots of French friends. And so I thought if I took the big La Russe with me, I could sit there and learn French.

Presenter32:56

Yeah.

Presenter33:05

There we are, it's yours.

Cath Kidston33:06

We are, it's yours. Uh

Presenter33:07

Am a luxury.

Cath Kidston33:08

This was really difficult'cause there was two things I was really torn by what to choose. And um normally I think I would go for pen and paper if I'm allowed pen and paper because everything I do I write down and I'm always

Speaker 133:17

Uh

Presenter33:17

Are you on?

Cath Kidston33:21

attached to a piece of pen and paper. But then I thought about it and the one thing if I thought really it needs to be a luxury'cause I could write in the sand. And so the one thing I really, really hate being cold at night, and whenever I go away, even to the hottest place, I notice it's normally quite cold in the middle of the night. I think I might have to take a hot water bottle with me.

Presenter33:40

Right, it's going to need a constant supply of hot water, so maybe we could.

Cath Kidston33:44

I could work that one out, couldn't I? Because I could make a bonfire and make a kettle out of something. I'm sure I'd work out a way of heating the hot water bottle up.

Presenter33:45

Could you?

Presenter33:51

Right, and hot water bottle is yours then. And if you had to pick just one of these eight discs, which one would you run through the center to save?

Cath Kidston33:57

Ten to six.

Cath Kidston33:58

I think I'd probably have to go for the Monty Python song.

Presenter34:01

Ah.

Cath Kidston34:02

Strangely, I know it might drive me mad, but it is I shouldn't say it would drive me mad'cause you won't want to hear it the whole time. But it does just sort of epitomize everything. I think I'd need that song.

Presenter34:13

Right, the Monty Pyson disc is yours. Kath Kidston, thank you very much for letting us hear your desert item discs.

Cath Kidston34:14

Okay.

Cath Kidston34:18

A pleasure. Thank you very much for asking me.

Presenter35:03

You've been listening to a download from the BBC.

Presenter35:06

You'll find more information on the Radio 4 website bbc.co.uk/radio4.