Pat Albeck

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.

Presenter0:33

My castaway this week is the designer Pat Olbeck.

Presenter0:37

If you've ever used a tea towel, wrapped a gift, worn a dress, hung wallpaper, owned a tablecloth, or picked out curtains, then there is a very good chance indeed you know her work. From dress fabrics to table linen, wrapping paper to pottery, for more than half a century her creative output has made its way from High Street stores and National Trust gift shops into millions of homes.

Presenter1:00

The fact that she was born in Hull between the wars to Polish emigre parents might make her beginnings sound rather drab and door. Far from it. Her father was a furrier who also designed and built the family home, each room inspired and themed by his travels through Europe. Her mother had a taste for luxury, and gave her youngest daughter an appreciation of the finer things in life.

Presenter1:22

She went on to study at the Royal College of Art, coming of age during the Festival of Britain. The technicoloured optimism of that era seems to characterise the vibrancy of her output ever since. She says

Presenter1:34

I like in my work to show people what it is that I find really wonderful about something. I like details, the little things, the small decorations of life. So welcome, Pat Olbeck. Um inspiration. Where do you find your inspiration?

Pat Albeck1:49

Well, I find my inspiration mostly from

Pat Albeck1:52

flowers and gardens. But I find it all over. But it's easy to take a flower and put it in a vase and look at it in detail and really find out what it's all about.

Presenter2:04

I read once that each morning you go out and pick a little flower and and paint it.

Pat Albeck2:08

Do you s do you still do that? Well, if if the weather's not too bad, yes, I I like to do that. Except I'm finding it rather difficult to bend over double to pick tiny flowers on the ground. And I have to have my husband pick them, and I have a terrible habit of telling him where to put the scissors. Yeah.

Presenter2:24

In the nicest possible way. We are witnessing a great decorative design resurgence right now. You know, everything from mugs to floor tiles to clothing.

Pat Albeck2:26

In the nicest possible way.

Presenter2:36

Are are highly decorated when we look at them now in in the shop windows and on the shop floors. How did you survive the monochrome years when everything was beige?

Pat Albeck2:40

Psn.

Pat Albeck2:46

Well, there was a time when I used to use a lot of browns.

Pat Albeck2:51

And a design I did for the John Lewis company called Daisy Chain had to come out in a brown colourway that year.

Pat Albeck2:58

I've never really cared for the beige brown.

Pat Albeck3:02

look, but um one goes with the fashion but does one's own thing within it, I think.

Presenter3:08

You are known, I hope you don't mind me saying this, as the Queen of the Tea Towel.

Presenter3:12

How many tea towels have you designed for the National Trust over the decades?

Pat Albeck3:16

I think probably about three hundred, three hundred and fifty, maybe.

Pat Albeck3:20

'Cause I did them for the National Trust, but also the National Trust for Scotland.

Presenter3:24

Let's have some music, Pat Olbeck. Tell me about this first disc that we're going to hear this morning. What is it and why have you chosen this?

Pat Albeck3:31

Well, one of the things that I think I I boast about

Pat Albeck3:34

is that I think I discovered Ranks and Autre. When I was about ten or eleven, in the morning at eleven o'clock, there was a programme called American Forces Network.

Pat Albeck3:45

and I used to listen to records all by myself, almost hugging the wireless.

Pat Albeck3:51

And there was the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, and on it it said With vocal refrain.

Pat Albeck3:58

And that vocal refrain was Frank Sinatre, and I swear that I swooned when I first heard him sing.

Speaker 44:09

The smile again

Speaker 44:13

Until I smile at you.

Speaker 44:21

I'll never lie.

Speaker 44:25

Again.

Speaker 44:28

What good would it do?

Presenter4:35

I'll Never Smile Again. Frank Sinatra with Tommy Dorsey in his orchestra and the Pied Pipers recorded back in May of 1940. So let's chat for a moment, Pat Albeck, about Horrocks' dresses. There they were in the 50s and early 60s with their nipped-in waists and their full skirts and these fabrics that sort of epitomise that sunny moment that Britain seemed to be wanting to embrace. You were designing the fabrics. Were you wearing

Pat Albeck5:01

The dresses? Yes, I wore the dresses. There used to be a fashion show when the collection was done, and I used to have my eye on probably one of my own prints.

Presenter5:09

So tell me about the very first time that you saw one of your fabrics made up into a beautiful dress, and I think it was gracing the very smart windows of Bond Street. What did that feel like?

Pat Albeck5:19

Well, I felt that I was changing the world. It was a very, very simple, ordinary summer dress. When I worked for Horrocks's they used to make a sundress and a bolaro, and they had in Fenwick's window three colourways of this dress. And I stood there and I looked at the people passing by to see if they were fainting with joy, but they they weren't taking very much notice, but I was very, very pleased to see it.

Presenter5:43

And those designs that you've done and that you've sold so so many of over the years uh let's talk then for a minute about teetails, because I've noticed with your teetails, many of them are pictures in their own right, and yet they're going to hang limply on somebody's little hook in a kitchen, and people aren't going to appreciate them as pictures. Do you rather wish they were sort of framed and up on the wall?

Pat Albeck6:02

Well, some people do frame them, and if people have got my tea towels pinned on, though, well, I'm not going to complain. But they are functional. But I think it's the fact that I took up textile design and not painting, that when I was given the tea towel, this oblong to fill, I felt I could do a picture.

Pat Albeck6:21

Cheap teetals at the time were made of continuous fabric that you just cut into without a border, and I was trying to make it into a decorative picture. They weren't serious paintings.

Presenter6:34

Decorations of life. What a lovely phrase that is. I I'm wondering for you, the bed linen that you sleep in, or or the mug that you drink out of, or the the wonderful jacket that you're wearing today, how much do those small decorations of life matter to you personally?

Pat Albeck6:47

Well they mean everything.

Pat Albeck6:49

Everything, everything. Um everything has got to be looking good. I don't have much trouble'cause

Pat Albeck6:56

The cups I drink of will be designed by my daughter-in-law, Emma Bridgwater. And so I have a house full of very nice pottery.

Presenter6:59

Who's that?

Pat Albeck7:05

I had pottery before my son, Matthew, married Emma.

Pat Albeck7:09

Um because I've always loved pottery.

Pat Albeck7:12

And um my mother u we used to dine on Clarice Cliff.

Presenter7:17

Ninth decade now. Are you still working? Ninth decade. You're 85. You're on your way to the next one.

Pat Albeck7:23

Yes, I'm still working.

Pat Albeck7:27

I've been working all the time and I always worked at home, which was marvellous. It meant that I could be near my son. And Peter was working at home. We all worked together. And Matthew saw us working. And I think

Pat Albeck7:43

Because we were drawing, he was drawing too.

Pat Albeck7:46

Um yes, I'm still doing it and because there's been a big vintage influence at the moment I'm thought of as really having a renaissance.

Presenter7:55

Given that you are still working, do you feel that life sort of gets in the way of what you really want to be doing? And would you just really spend every moment of every day doing your work?

Pat Albeck8:03

I would rather be at my desk than anything except at the table eating or in the garden.

Presenter8:10

Let's have some more music, Pat Olbeck. It's time for your second of the morning.

Pat Albeck8:13

Well, we're going to hear a piece of Schubert. It's a fantasy in F minor, and it's played by Paul Lewis and Stephen Osborne. And why have you picked this? Well, I saw Paul Lewis play in a a house in Norfolk and rather fell in love with his piano playing. And I've been listening to this particularly lovely record. About six o'clock, when designing isn't going quite so well or just beginning to come very well, I listen to this perhaps three times over.

Presenter9:44

That was part of Schubert's Fantasy in F minor, played by Paul Lewis and Stephen Osborne. Your parents, Max and Sarah, then, were from Poland. They came here before the First World War, and your father now I've never said this. With all my castaways, this is a new sentence for me. Your father was a furrier and an anarchist.

Pat Albeck10:00

Yes, he was an anarchist. Tell me more about him. He was a very clever man, although I didn't agree with everything he said.

Presenter10:00

Yes, it was an anecdote.

Pat Albeck10:08

And we used to get a lot of literature brought into the house, but one that really attracted me was something called Freedom, the Anarchist Fortnightly. And I used to read it I must be about twelve or thirteen when I talked to this. And he really believed that the world would be better without any sort of management at all.

Presenter10:30

When I say he was a furrier and an anarchist, did those two things sit comfortably together?

Pat Albeck10:34

Um, his fur coats were not particularly luxurious. He specialized in rather ordinary fur coats to keep women warm and whole. I mean, we never had that much money for luxury, although you you said that my mother

Pat Albeck10:48

was luxurious

Presenter10:49

I swear.

Pat Albeck10:49

Uh

Presenter10:49

Was that fear?

Pat Albeck10:50

It was fair because she used to like luxurious things. I remember her buying a hat that cost twelve pounds and telling my father that it was two pounds. And so she she did like luxury, but we had luxury in the winter when the fur coats were selling, and in the summer w we didn't have very much money at all.

Presenter11:12

Um and so your dad, this political man, this business man, and also he he himself didn't actually design the interior of the house, but he conceived this interior that he wanted of the house that he built. What did it look like?

Pat Albeck11:25

Well, from the outside it was a very normal stockbroker Tudor detached house, but he got the local stage designer to do the interior designing, so that each room had an extraordinary look.

Pat Albeck11:40

I in my bedroom had a star light in the ceiling cut out of glass, and it lit up at night. And I had little Red Riding Hood as a fireplace, designed by the students at Hull College of Art, and each room was a very definite colour.

Pat Albeck11:58

The last room in the house to be decorated had a peach mirror on one wall, with a clock set into the peach mirror of amber squares of glass.

Pat Albeck12:09

And he'd run out of money by then. And the only thing that was in that room was a grand piano.

Presenter12:17

Uh

Pat Albeck12:17

Let's have some more music.

Presenter12:17

Music, Pat Olbeck. What are we going to hear now?

Pat Albeck12:20

Well, we're going to have the first record that ever came into this house. My eldest sister was mad about a singer called Jean Sablon.

Presenter12:28

Yeah.

Pat Albeck12:28

Uh

Presenter12:28

Uh

Pat Albeck12:29

And um this is Jean Sablon singing Jatandre.

Speaker 412:34

Total rain.

Pat Albeck12:39

Uh

Speaker 412:39

Version great I leave.

Speaker 412:44

Jatandre to Louis.

Speaker 412:49

Alrighty.

Speaker 412:53

Got all right?

Speaker 412:57

Come to Azure.

Speaker 413:00

He does

Speaker 413:02

Uh

Presenter13:02

Uh

Speaker 413:02

Yeah.

Presenter13:02

A shallot of me.

Speaker 413:03

Uh

Presenter13:06

Jean Sablon and Getandre. And which sister was it you said that brought that into the house?

Pat Albeck13:10

My sister was called Fanny.

Presenter13:12

Yes, and you you were close to your sisters, were you?

Pat Albeck13:14

I was very close to my sisters. In fact, they practically brought me up because they were all much older than me.

Presenter13:20

What are your parents doing then?

Pat Albeck13:22

Well, my mother was looking after my father, and my father was s trying to sort out the world.

Presenter13:27

Um do you remember the first time that you drew something or created something and stood back and thought, Oh, that actually that's rather good?

Pat Albeck13:34

I didn't think I was all that good as a child, but I used to do decorative things, and I had a very good art teacher at my first school who taught repeating pattern, which was a very important part of my life. And I do remember the first art materials that I was bought, which were a box of poster paints with six colours. And I remember doing lots of decorative pictures, which were influenced by 30s and 40s paintings, really.

Presenter14:02

Uh it was nineteen forty six then when you went to Hull's School of Art. Can you describe to me the atmosphere among the young students at that point?

Pat Albeck14:10

Well, it was very exciting at Hull because it was just after the war.

Pat Albeck14:16

And there were a lot of ex-servicemen coming to finish off

Pat Albeck14:21

their training. And because they were mature students, they already drew much better than the younger ones. So we had very good people to follow.

Presenter14:31

And um your teachers at art school must have been very proud then when you won a place at the Royal College of Art in London.

Pat Albeck14:36

Well, the principal, who didn't think much of my work, was quite surprised. He said even the Royal College makes mistakes occasionally.

Pat Albeck14:43

What do you make of that? Well, the thing was that he really took me on in sufferance because my sisters all went to university and I wasn't academically clever enough to go to university and I was really sent to art school as a sort of second choice. And he took me really and thought they might be able to do something with me.

Presenter15:05

When he said that even the Royal College of Art makes mistakes, didn't you want to say, well, it wasn't a mistake, and my stuff's rather good, and that's why.

Pat Albeck15:11

No, no.

Presenter15:21

Let's have some more music, Pat Olbeck. We're going to listen to your fourth of the morning. What is it?

Pat Albeck15:25

This is Chopin's Waltz in A minor. It's a very simple piece, and I think it's very moving. And when I was seventy-five, I took up piano lessons again. I started at the age of about five or six and did it until school work became more important, and left it really. And then quite late on, my third grandchild, Margaret, did lessons, and she really hated them.

Pat Albeck15:55

And um as most piano teachers are extraordinarily fierce, I was really rather frightened of saying, We don't want to have you any more, so I took on the lessons myself. And this was a piece I nearly got to learn until my middle fingers started giving up. But I still listen to this lovely piece.

Presenter17:17

Chopin's waltz in A minor, played there by Peter Jablonski. So, Pat Olbeck, the Festival of Britain was in uh nineteen fifty one. That was the year you came of age. You turned twenty one, and of course it was really essentially a a promotion, a celebration of British industry and design.

Pat Albeck17:27

Yeah.

Presenter17:35

Its heart was at the south bank of London, but there were things taking place all all over Britain at the time. What what are your memories of that time?

Pat Albeck17:42

Well, I remember London looked just amazing. I remember the Dorchester Hotel.

Pat Albeck17:46

Covered with dark red and pale blue bunting.

Pat Albeck17:49

And all the way down Piccadilly all the lights everywhere in in London was decorated by architects and designers. But it was part of a really exciting mo movement which influenced all design at the time.

Presenter18:04

Did you go and visit the exhibitions on the South Bank?

Pat Albeck18:07

Do you know, I didn't. But Peter, my husband, was a night watchman and I should have gone well, he wasn't my husband then, but when he was a student at the college, he was a night watchman.

Presenter18:13

But

Presenter18:15

You m mentioned Peter there. That's Peter Rice, the theatrical designer for operas and ballets. You've been married for 60 years now. More than 60 years, actually. How did you meet?

Pat Albeck18:20

Yeah.

Pat Albeck18:23

Yeah, more than

Pat Albeck18:25

Well, when I went to the Royal College, all the people that ran societies like the Music Society, the Christian Friends, or The Theatre Group well, Peter ran the Theatre Group

Pat Albeck18:38

and he was putting on the production of The Tempest, and put up a form to fill if if you'd like to be in it. Well, I am no actress, but I wanted to get a bit nearer to this head of the theatre group, and so I put myself down for a nymph.

Pat Albeck18:55

But I was rejected because I was too fat. He said I couldn't be a nymph, but would I be more or less prepared to work my fingers to the bone for the rest of my life then?

Presenter19:08

Did he say you were too fat?

Pat Albeck19:10

I can't remember whether he did. He was very nice about it if he did. He asked me if I could make props, and he was designing for the Royal College of Music, which was next door at the time.

Pat Albeck19:22

Where Jones Sutherland was then a student. How did he propose to you? Do I have to tell you this? Well, actually, you don't have to.

Presenter19:28

You don't have to tell me anything.

Pat Albeck19:30

And

Pat Albeck19:31

But because times have changed. But it was on a prop bed in Aylesbury, Aylesbury Rep. And I used to have to go down on Saturday night to help get the scenery down from the last production.

Presenter19:46

For the new production to begin with.

Pat Albeck19:47

For the new production on Monday. And there was a double bed in this scene, and he asked me to marry him on that double bed.

Presenter19:57

I'm so glad you did tell me. And what about these two designers then planning their wedding? Did you imagine sort of, you know, tul and delightful canopies and flowers and a great sort of abundance of beautiful design when you were.

Pat Albeck20:06

Well, I don't think any weddings were like that post war. Some people must have had good weddings, but students didn't. Peter told me we were getting married. On a Thursday he told me he'd made an appointment at the Kensington Register Office for the Saturday.

Pat Albeck20:24

We got married and we had about eight friends. I wore white gloves and a brown Swedish sort of dress, and um that was that.

Pat Albeck20:35

I cooked a very mediocre lunch.

Pat Albeck20:39

And there was a marvellous woman called Margaret Leischner who taught weaving. She had a Morris minor and said she was going to Reigate in the afternoon. Would we like to go to Reigate for our honeymoon? Which we went and saw a film called Duel in the Sun.

Pat Albeck20:57

and then came home to a flat which five students shared, and I'd been married sixty years.

Presenter21:03

Clearly quite a good basis for marriage, then. Let's have some more uh music, Pat Albeck. We're on your uh fifth of the morning.

Pat Albeck21:04

Yeah.

Pat Albeck21:05

Yeah.

Pat Albeck21:09

Well, having mentioned Peter designing for the theatre, I have been to an awful lot of operas in my life, and the one opera that makes me weep is Eugene Onyegin.

Pat Albeck21:23

And particularly I love Lenski's Farewell Aria, and it's sung here by Placidodominga, and it's wonderful.

Speaker 421:32

The menu is not the same.

Speaker 421:54

Yet Moshti Prazo de Mils are formed.

Presenter22:35

Lanskizaria from Tchaikovsky's Eugene Erniegen, sung by Placida Domingo. Edward Downes was conducting the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Venice Fish Market is one of your very early fabric designs. How much did you travel as a young woman then for inspiration?

Pat Albeck22:50

Well, quite a lot actually, for then, but people hop about the whole time now. But I won a travel scholarship when I was at the Royal College, and I went to Italy and I went to Venice, and I did a lot of drawing. But the man who employed me, who found me at the Royal College, Jimmy Cleveland Bell at Horrocks's, was very imaginative, and anything that I did which was new and unusual, he would promote. And he said, Let's use some of your drawings you did in Venice. And that's why we did the fish market.

Presenter23:23

And you went to Australia at one point too. Was it again, that was for work?

Pat Albeck23:27

That was another travel scholarship.

Pat Albeck23:30

The Cotton Board in Manchester were giving scholarships to designers who'd worked for more than five years in industry.

Pat Albeck23:36

And I won it.

Pat Albeck23:38

And it was the very, very exciting trip and I loved it, loved it. But unfortunately I won it and became pregnant the same month.

Pat Albeck23:49

And I couldn't take it for a year because I was about to produce Matthew Rice.

Presenter23:54

And when you did produce Matthew Rice, did you take him with you?

Pat Albeck23:57

No, I'm afraid I left him at home with Peter and a nanny.

Pat Albeck24:02

And I was only away for two months, and my doctor said this is the best time to leave him.

Pat Albeck24:07

when he's settled in life, but not settled enough to miss you.

Presenter24:11

And there was a significant gear change from those sort of bold nineteen fifties and early sixties designs into that more sort of relaxed, muted, ethnically inspired designs of of the late sixties and into the seventies. Did that suit your natural style, or did you have to force yourself to design that way?

Pat Albeck24:30

No, I never let anybody force me to do anything. I think one reacts to fashion naturally and I find myself wanting to use a colour and realising that everybody else is using that colour at the same time, because there's no point in going out on the limb and doing what people don't want. But I never think of myself as being anything but a customer and a shopper. I just happen to do the designs. I'm not trying to educate people with my designs. I'm trying to please them and do things that are irresistible.

Presenter25:07

Let's have some more music, Pat. We're on your sixth.

Pat Albeck25:10

Well, after Horrocks's I worked for a man called Sam Sherman, who made dresses called dolly rockers for very young people, and he had a very particular colour sense himself, and he told me to go and see a film where the colour was simply amazing.

Pat Albeck25:29

And so I went to see Les Paraplex de Cherbourg.

Pat Albeck25:33

And it's um a film.

Pat Albeck25:36

That still makes me weep. It's a very, very sad story about somebody who says they'll wait for them and they can't wait for them.

Speaker 425:45

Moona Moo

Speaker 425:47

Je taton d'éré tout marvi ze le pens aura quatua. Ne par par jotas de mour mou

Speaker 426:07

Se nai pazan cola drummel wanier de tui.

Speaker 426:16

Well God

Presenter26:19

Part of the soundtrack of Para Pri de Cherbourg, composed by Michel Legrand, the song was sung by Danielle Lucari and Jose Bartel. You've said, um, Pat Albeck, I like to be the same as everyone else, and I'm delighted not to be.

Presenter26:34

Well, isn't that interesting? What do you make of that?

Pat Albeck26:37

Well

Pat Albeck26:39

I'd like to be the same as everybody else in the fact that I'd like to be

Pat Albeck26:43

Four inches taller and six inches narrower. How tall are

Presenter26:47

How tall are you?

Pat Albeck26:48

Just five foot.

Presenter26:50

But Yeah.

Pat Albeck26:51

So I'd like to be like everybody else in that way. When I was small I wanted to have straight hair and a bow at the side, which all the girls at school seemed to have, and mine was very curly and fluffy. I wanted to have meals at the right time, like other people did.

Pat Albeck27:08

I wanted to belong to things.

Pat Albeck27:11

Why did you feel you didn't belong to things? Well, partly because my mother was an Orthodox Jew.

Pat Albeck27:18

And I wasn't allowed to do certain things. I'm quite worried because she wouldn't let me learn to swim, so I'm not going to be able to escape.

Presenter27:27

Ah, yes.

Pat Albeck27:28

Um I did I can swim, but very badly.

Pat Albeck27:31

But she took too much care of me, I think, and kept me in Cottonwool.

Pat Albeck27:36

I didn't feel out of place at at school, though. I I was hockey captain and netball captain. And when I went to art school I became like everybody else because everybody was slightly strange.

Presenter27:48

And when you were bringing up your your one and only son, as you describe him, what sort of mother have you been throughout the years, both at the beginning and now?

Pat Albeck27:56

Um uh what sort of a mother have I been? I don't really know. I think probably a spoiling one, but um I I don't think that he's a spoiled person.

Presenter28:06

And he uh your son, like your husband, is also a designer, as you say. Did it bring you great great joy to see that he was interested in the things you were interested in?

Pat Albeck28:13

Oh, absolutely, yes. In fact, at one time he employed me. He had his own company and they've got little boxes that says Pat Albate for Matthew Rice, which is great joy.

Presenter28:23

Yeah. Yeah.

Pat Albeck28:24

And um

Presenter28:24

It's been very difficult today to get you to take credit for anything at all, but I I bumped into somebody this week who told me, Well, the only reason that I ever became an artist and a designer was because of Pat Albeck, you know. Are you somebody who has taken joy in mentoring people?

Pat Albeck28:37

Well, yes, I didn't teach, but I used to have a design assistant every year. And so I always had a young designer graduating from art school coming to work for me. And I did produce some rather good designers from these people.

Presenter28:51

And when you have been nurturing these young talents who've been working alongside you, is there a single piece of consistent advice that you've given them over the years about pursuing

Pat Albeck29:00

Yes, the the consistent advice is never do anything just because you think it'll sell.

Presenter29:00

Yeah.

Pat Albeck29:07

Do what you like and what you would buy. That is actually my words of wisdom. I hate it when people said, Oh, they'll love that. And when I was working for the National Trust, people say, Oh, you're working for this middle class, middle-aged something. No, I I'm I am them. I do what I like and hope that I'll get through and they'll want to buy the things I do.

Presenter29:29

Let's have some more music, Pat Ulbeck. This is your seventh.

Pat Albeck29:32

Ah, well, this is not as sad as all the other records I've got. I discovered only this year Jake Thackeray.

Pat Albeck29:39

A great friend of mine in Norfolk gave me a disc with his songs on.

Pat Albeck29:43

And I played them in between the Schubert. I sometimes play J Thackeray to make me laugh. And this one is quite naughty really, and it mentions everything in life that's important to me.

Speaker 329:57

Isabel makes love upon national monuments with style And enthusiasm and anyone at all.

Speaker 330:08

Isabels done Stonehenge and the Houses of Parliament But so far little Isabelles never played the albert home.

Speaker 330:18

Many a monolith has seen Isabel, Her bright hair in turmoil, her breast surging swell.

Presenter30:28

That was Jake Thackeray. Isabel makes love upon national monuments. So your career, Pat Olbeck, began in this sort of post-austerity Britain as it was then. There was this burst of creativity in the fifties which fired you out into the creative landscape. Now, when you look at the health of British design, how would you assess it?

Pat Albeck30:48

Well, I very much like what I see. I like how the young designers are using the computer to find easy ways of reproducing natural forms. I I wish that at art school they would spend more time really doing careful studies of plants and knowing what they look like. I wish there were some more hand-drawn things. But actually, um you can more or less put anything onto fabric, and I think people have done it awfully well.

Presenter31:20

extraordinary career that you've had then that has spanned over sixty years. Um what do you think has been the secret into your professional longevity?

Pat Albeck31:30

I think sticking at the desk really, really working all the time. I know lots of people who've been to art school, were very talented, stopped and had children, and so I'd love to get back to it. And the thing is that unless there is clean paint water and nice new brushes and a lot of paper and some paints and some crayons or whatever there is there waiting for you to use, it's very difficult to actually start again and get everything out.

Pat Albeck32:00

So I think that everybody should try and keep a little space in their house where they can go and create.

Presenter32:06

Do you still get a little creative thrill in the morning when you see that clean water and the fresh brushes and the and the white bit of paper?

Pat Albeck32:13

Oh, yes, I do, I do. It's not often all that clean water.

Presenter32:18

Um once you've settled then on this island, as we know, you're not a terrific swimmer, so you're probably going to be there for a while. Um you'll build a shelter, you'll make it beautiful, I imagine.

Pat Albeck32:26

Well, I'm not terribly good at constructional things. I have to say I hope that there will be some tree that will somehow bend over and make something for me.

Presenter32:35

Let's have your final piece of music, Pat. What are we going to hear, this eighth piece?

Pat Albeck32:38

Well, I have four very talented grandchildren.

Pat Albeck32:43

They haven't all made records, but Lil, who's the eldest one, has, and this is her Singing Lions.

Speaker 432:54

Whistle let down on me.

Speaker 432:59

Fill me up with shame, and I'll do it all over again.

Speaker 433:07

So I do know

Speaker 433:13

Put in eight balls on I

Speaker 433:18

Bye.

Presenter33:21

That was Lions, written and performed by L Isle Rice, one of your grandchildren, and Ollie Clark. So, Pat, I'm going to send you away very shortly, but before I do that I will give you the books first of all. You get uh the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare, and you get to take another book along too. What will your book be?

Pat Albeck33:38

I would like to take Tess of the Derbovools.

Presenter33:40

Yes, you can certainly have that.

Pat Albeck33:42

And the luxury

Presenter33:44

I don't know if it's on

Pat Albeck33:46

Well, I don't know if it's asking too much, but I would like to take a desk.

Presenter33:51

Yes, that's fine.

Pat Albeck33:52

I'm going to call it my desert island desk.

Presenter33:54

Yes, you may have that. And do you want any of your design tools?

Pat Albeck33:57

Well, I would like two drawers with art materials in. And maybe I can sleep under it or not.

Presenter34:02

I'm not going to get involved in what you use it for because then I'm going to be far too prejudiced one way or the other. But yes, it's a desk.

Pat Albeck34:04

Yeah.

Presenter34:09

And in the end, I will not be there to judge how you use it. Um lastly, then, I'm going to ask you just to choose one of the eight. If you had to save one disk from the waves, what would it be?

Pat Albeck34:18

I would like to take the soundtrack from Parapleu de Cherbourg, please.

Presenter34:23

Okay, that's yours. Pat Olbeck, thank you very much for letting us hear your Desert Island discs.

Pat Albeck34:27

It was lovely, Kirstie, I so enjoyed it.

Presenter35:10

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

Presenter35:13

You'll find more information on the Radio 4 website bbc.co.uk slash Radio4