Natasha Landers on Curating Black Art, East London & The Home as a Living Exhibition

0:00A plumber came round to do some work and he walked in and he was like oh wow He said, your house looks like a house in Hackney. I said, I don't know. You just made my heart smile. I said, that's a true compliment for me. I can't imagine a space without art. It gives me comfort. It kind of hugs me having it. So wherever I go, my art will go with me. I went into therapy because I was burning out a lot. because the people pleasing was also about making sure everybody else was okay and not that I was. My saying was I haven't got time for that.

0:48Hi Natasha. Hi. Thanks so much for being on Homing. If you close your eyes and picture the home that you grew up in or your childhood home, what do you see first of all and how does it feel? If I was to close my eyes, I would see colour, lots of colour, definitely influenced by my childhood home. Green, my mum loved green as well. And what was interesting about my childhood home, unlike other Caribbean households that I knew, is that my mum sort of bucked the trend. She didn't have a good front room. Well, we lived in a council house anyway, so there was not that much space. But even so, flock wallpaper was a big thing when I was growing up.

1:37And my mum detested it. It was you made it if you had flock wallpaper. My mum's like, no, that's what you have in pubs. I'm not having it in my house. Every other Caribbean household I went to had flock wallpaper, whereas my mum was like having feature walls and a mixture of furniture. So it was very individual. If I picture my childhood home, it was very individual. It was very warm and it felt very safe and it was very colourful. Okay. And so where are we in the world here when you're describing it? Where was it? So I grew up on a council estate in Clapton in Hackney. And where I'm describing is where I lived most of my childhood from probably the age of nine, eight, nine, to about 15, 16 years old.

2:31It was two bedroom. And it was, when we moved in, it was a new build. Okay. So when you live in council properties, you're often going into older spaces. So, you know, there's something quite fresh about, we are the very first people to live there. And, you know, we had a garden because I came from a block of flats before then. And it was a very small estate as well, right next to Millfields Park. So, yeah, and I had my own bedroom until my brother came along when I was 10 and then we shared it. But it was quite a big bedroom. What was that like? Well, it was kind of weird because it's such a big age gap.

3:10So I was the only child for 10 years. But it was fine. You don't know any different, right? When you're growing up in a working class household, it's that's just how it is that you're sharing a room and when we when we moved from there when my parents bought a house then I got my own bedroom but it wasn't wasn't a big deal did you decorate it before he came along yeah I think my mom was really cool with allowing me to experiment and I remember I had chocolate walls I don't know if that was very fashionable at the time I had chocolate walls chocolate brown walls and I had a dolly mixture I don't know if you remember there was to be this um wallpaper company called dolly mixtures and I had this brown flower patterned feature wall and I had a round rattan chair on metal legs which now go for quite a lot of money but I'm pretty sure we threw it in a skip at some point um so yeah it was a cool it was a cool bedroom so you would sort of to some extent decorating even then what what do you why do you think you were doing that instinctively what was it that you were trying to make sense of or do for yourself by doing that I feel that and for a long time I felt I have kind of held back on acknowledging my creativity and that's not my parents because in some households you know again Caribbean households I can only speak about Caribbean households it was like you get a good job a good job is working for the council or you know etc so even though I wasn't getting that from my parents I think in my head it was you go into business so my way of expressing my creativity was in my bedroom and in what I wore as well and so I was into Doc Martens with safety big kilt pins in them and I remember wearing a jumper as a pair of trousers drop crotch trousers Did you?

5:09Love that. Yes, I was always very creative in the way that I dressed and also in the way that my room was. And I was allowed to do that and explore that. So even though I wasn't acknowledging my creativity, it was definitely coming out from a very early age, yeah. I see, okay. And so have you just got the one brother? Is it just the two of you? So there's on my mum, and I was brought up by my mum and my stepdad from the age of two. and so on that side I've got a brother and with my birth father I have a sister. Okay. Yeah. So was your dad there throughout your childhood though or not so much? What, my birth father?

5:48Your birth father? Not, he was in and out. Yeah. He was a Rastafarian. He was a Rasta and he was very committed to working in his community more so than with his children actually. um and so he was he lived in Jamaica for quite a bit and then he lived in South London so it was kind of in and out the person that was there the most and still is there the most is my stepdad who I refer to as my dad yeah how would you describe yourself in the family dynamic when you're young then I was the good child I was the one that didn't cause any problems was quite quiet quite studious uh my brother the youngest was the most kind of rebellious in a way and i suppose you know the second or the last child always sort of pushes the boundaries more perhaps than the first or the oldest child so yeah i think i was the one that yeah i was quite quiet quite studious would you would you go so far as to say being a sort of pleaser 100 % yeah and I think that's still a problem today I was even talking to a friend about this a few weeks ago that I'm a people pleaser are you yeah and often to my own detriment that I will do that you know how did you get on at school then I did really well at school um I think I did really well because I worked hard what I realized later in life is that I'm dyslexic and I've just got on with it and I've been able to get on with it and I realized it twice in my life once was when I was at university and I was writing something and I kept using the word is specific with an s and the whole way through I spelled it with a p and didn't realize it um and I remember the tutor just putting red all through it and I just thought I was I maybe I wasn't concentrating.

7:56But then as I got older, I realized, particularly in situations of stress, that I would write something and in my head it sounded right. And then if I looked at it, not straight away, because if I looked at it straight away, it would look okay. But then if I'd look at it later, it was gobbledygook. And then a client of mine and a good friend, I wrote, I had to write a report and said, have you ever considered that you might be dyslexic. I was mortified. And then when I read it, it was like, it was nonsense. So sometimes it's around sentences aren't put together very well. The word but and put, I often confuse the two.

8:38I haven't been formally diagnosed, but I definitely know I've got something going on with my brain and words. But besides that, I did really well. I went to university. I was the first person in my family to go to university. What did you study? I studied something called public administration. And if you ask me what that is, I have no clue. I know it was really boring. I know I got a 2-1 out of it, which was good. But again, it was this thinking that I need to do something that's business related. And I couldn't get into a business degree course. So I did public administration. and I got to do two one because I studied hard but I can't even tell you what the elements are didn't enjoy it and in hindsight I should have done something creative and again that wasn't because my parents pushed me to do anything just my head at the time was like oh you have to do something that will get you a good job whatever a good job might be yeah so is that the people pleasing element again do you think 100 % yeah and this is all me right this isn't necessarily about it's been driven by any particular person this is me trying to people please at the detriment of myself yeah but it sounds like you're saying that it's not driven by your parents necessarily but is it driven culturally because you were talking about Caribbean families and there's this expectation there somehow so I think it's kind of this intersection between culture and class, right?

10:11So I grew up in a very working class family and area. So I think there is a mixture of culture and class that, you know, if you do well, you get a job and you get good money and you get good holiday leave. So at one point I worked for the council and then I went into to work for a private consultancy and oh my God, everyone was like, no one leaves the council. That's a job for life. I'm like, yeah, but I've left. But, you know, you get good holidays and good pay. So, yeah, I think it is a mixture of culture and not just Caribbean culture, but the culture that I grew up in, the class that I came from as well and the expectations that I think I put on myself because of that.

10:58Yeah, that makes sense. I want to ask you about this word safety because you brought it up earlier. You said, so the home felt like a safe place. Yeah. What about the context of the community as a whole and beyond that? Did you feel safe in London at that time? Did you feel safe in that area of London? What was that like for you? So I think when I think about safety as a child, when I was at primary school, I was bullied quite badly at primary school. so definitely coming home felt safe because the people that bullied me at school also lived in the the just literally down the road from me so being safe at that time from the age of probably about maybe nine to eleven that's I feel that's how long it felt it went on for meant being in the house and being in the home and also because I didn't tell my parents for the longest time so not having to talk about it or think about it in the home felt safe to me I think I grew up in Hackney and it's so funny right because Hackney's such a gentrified area and it wasn't when I was growing up and when I told people as an adult that I grew up in Hackney or when I started working for the council in Hackney people like oh you live in Hackney what's that like you work for the council and I'm like I don't know any different you know when you don't know any different So no, I wasn't worried about walking around the streets or stuff like that.

12:27You know, I certainly knew some dodgy people that lived in my area, but I wasn't scared of them. You know, it's dodgy people everywhere, right? But yeah, there was this judgment from other people. And then when I went to university and they were talking about poverty and they said a statistic that Hackney was the poorest borough in the whole of Europe. And I'm 57 and I still remember that. And the immediate shame that this, I was in, I should say for context, I went to university in Wales, in the valleys of Wales. So having them talk about it, and it wasn't specific to me, but that statistic was like, oh, wow.

13:14Because I didn't know any different. I grew up in, as I say, a very working class family. There wasn't a lot of money, but we never went starving. I wasn't worried about walking around the streets. Yeah, it was just home. Looking back on it now, why do you think you got bullied at that age then? I think I was, I mean, why does anyone get bullied? I suppose I was vulnerable. I didn't feel that I could stick up for myself because the fear was too much. I feel really strongly about anti-bullying. And whenever I hear about kids being bullied, you know, it's sort of, I get very tense about how unfair it was.

13:57You know, I think about one of my best friends at the time, she was also, they also went for her, but she had a fight with one of them and then they just left her alone. But I was just too, I just, it wasn't an option for me at the time. And the bullying only stopped when I went to secondary school because we went to different secondary schools. And I really loved secondary school. And I think part of that was I could just be me and not worry about being bullied. Yeah. Yeah, so that thing of just being you. So at primary school, did you feel a sense of difference then to some of the others around you?

14:33Yeah, because I'm being highlighted. I'm being picked on because of it. I had very long hair when I was growing up, quite thick hair as well. And, you know, black people come in all different shapes and sizes and, you know, different shades and different hair textures. And so my hair was quite long and quite straight without any kind of enhancements to it. So part of the bullying was, oh, you think you're great, you think you're wonderful because you've got long hair and stuff that you can't change. And I think that's why I feel so strongly about anti-bullying, because it's not things that you can change about this.

15:16It's who you intrinsically are that you're bullied for. And so it just feels very unfair. So yeah, I did feel that I was different in a negative way. And that wasn't, we were a very diverse school so it wasn't that I was the only black kid in the school but yeah that I was being picked on because of my looks yeah and the dyslexia that you mentioned that yeah that you you think you've identified quite a lot of the people that I've spoken to on this podcast have proven to be dyslexic and I really think that it comes with it sometimes such an interesting way of looking at the world yeah i think there is a connection between creativity and dyslexia i haven't got any research behind it but i've seen it enough with people who are creative that maybe the other part of the brain compensates or works in a different way around it it's never stopped me from doing things it's just that i've become more aware of oh you were overcompensating around that or you hadn't realised that that was what was going on for you.

16:27And now that I do, I know when to take a break or to get someone else to look at something. I avoid, like the plague, if I can, writing reports. So did you leave home to go to university in Wales then? I did. I had this idea about going somewhere far away, this all romanticised idea of being outside of Hackney and somewhere really different. And it was awful at first because I went from inner city London to the valleys of Wales. You know, I went to inner city London, which is full of noise and smells and, you know, police sirens and all of those things, to quiet and sheep and greenery. And it was such a huge culture shock for me that for the first, I'd say, six months to a year, I kept thinking I was really, really homesick.

17:28And in the end, I moved because I was in this place called Pontypridd. And so I moved to Cardiff and then I would just commute into the campus because I just needed a bit of city, a bit of city life. So, yeah, I did. It was the first time I'd moved away from home as well. so it was yeah it's interesting that isn't it it's almost like we have a frequency that we tune into that we're so used to yeah that the silence is deafening somehow yeah when you're surrounded by sheep i think it was so weird you think people think of that as calm and relaxing where it was just odd where's the noise where's the noise why is everything so quiet and so dark and so So, yeah, it was very, very different.

18:14And it wasn't very diverse there either. That saying, the only black in the village, yeah. There weren't very many of us in there. And the locals were resentful, firstly, of students because they thought we were all posh, which was not true. And also there was some racism as well. So, you know, adding that into the mix made it a little bit difficult too. but then what I did was um there was an African Caribbean like society so I got to mix with other people who had similar experiences to me okay because we talk a lot on this podcast about the idea of belonging yeah so you it sounds like you're you're sort of parachuted into a community there where you've just got no sense of belonging at all no um what what's that what's that like then I mean how do you look back on that now do you know what I'm glad I did it yeah um because it's it's an experience that shaped me um in surviving in different spaces and not giving up as well in different spaces uh making different friends as well um what's interesting for me is that.

19:31And often when I talk to people about, you know, where did you grow up and in my work, and where did you grow up and how diverse was the community? And people will say, oh, you know, I lived in a village. There wasn't anybody but white people in my village. And whilst I grew up in a very diverse space in Hackney, people assumed that everybody mixed. And I would say that's not necessarily true. You still have your cliques of cultures and communities that might live side by side, but don't necessarily merge into one community. I think that can sometimes be a myth that, oh, I grew up in London. It's very diverse.

20:12Yes, it is. But that doesn't necessarily mean that it's this rainbow family all of a sudden. So I think going away enabled me more to mix with and have friends from different cultures and different ethnicities and different walks of life, different classes of life that I wouldn't necessarily have had if I'd stayed in London. So that's obviously been a theme that's important to you and that you've carried through to your work. So can you just tell us a bit about that, your work as a diversity consultant and so on? Yeah, so in terms of my values, social justice and equity has always been important to me.

20:52And when I worked at the council, I worked in a unit which was for women of different ethnicities and cultures who were experiencing domestic violence. So equity, social justice is always important to me. And then it became my full-time career and life around it. And then it went into kind of corporate spaces, so talking about talent and discrimination and benefits and all of those kinds of things. So I'm often having conversations with people who don't necessarily think about it because they're privileged enough not to have to think about it. So I say, I'm often in corporate spaces where I'm the only Black person in the room and I'm definitely the only woman in the room.

21:44And when I walk into those spaces, people will have an idea about who I am without even having connected with me. That's the reality. That's the way our brain works, right, is we compartmentalize, oh, Natasha looks like da-da-da-da-da. This is what my brain says the experience of da-da-da-da looks like. Now, that might be because I've had contact with people like her or I've seen it in the media or read it somewhere or whatever it might be. Just to pick up on this, are you saying this is because of the way that you present yourself or is it because of what you're doing as a profession? I think it's a bit of both, but also because I'm a black woman, firstly, and I'm walking into predominantly majority white spaces, they don't necessarily see people who look like me.

22:34So there is an instinctive thing that says, okay, so where does she fall into what I know about someone that looks like her? Okay. which may be correct or incorrect. You always have a first impression, right? Yeah. But am I open to just pausing that and learning more about that individual from my interaction with them so that my preconceived judgments aren't the only things that form what I think about that person? Yeah. So there is about what I look like, but then you're right, there's also a bit of, oh, and she's the diversity consultant. better not say that better watch what I might sometimes they actually don't watch what they say they just get very comfortable um so there's there is all of that um but I'm really confident in what I do and I'm good at what I do so I'm not shaken by going into those spaces you know I'm talking to CEOs um you know senior leadership teams boards a lot of the time and if I'm not confident, they'll eat me alive.

23:43Do you know what I mean? So I have to feel confident. And mostly they're good people, right? Sometimes you get the odd idiot, but mostly they're just good people wanting to understand or haven't exercised that brain muscle to think about what it's like to be different going into a corporate space or why they keep employing the same people that look like them. Now that might not be an intentional thing, but it is a comfort zone thing. So it's about challenging them to think in different ways so yeah I've done that for gosh over 30 years now wow yeah it's really valuable stuff so alongside that how else do you describe what you do professionally I'm an interior designer um I design mostly residentials but I also did a restaurant a few years ago as well um my house is a location house so I rent my house out and I run a project called the Lemon Sea Project, which is close to my heart because I collect art by black artists predominantly.

24:45So it's curating a space where my house becomes an installation and a gallery for black art and then open it up to the public. So a real mixture of things, but I think all kind of parts of what makes me creative. really well let's move on to this current home that we're in now then so you mentioned the lemon seed project so tell us about that what's it like to um open your home up as a gallery in that way and have members of the public coming in and interacting with it yeah people always wonder that way yeah the house is also a location house so i have to be comfortable with strangers trodding through the house.

25:27And I'm absolutely okay with that. I love having conversations with different people and engaging with different people. So it's not a big deal. And it's a very social house anyway. So I'm used to having people come through that I know or don't know. So the Lemon Sea project is to create a space for Black artists to show their work. And the reason that I started it, it's kind of my love letter to Black artists because I've always, well, I've collected for the last 30 years, collected art. And I wanted to collect. I was very conscious about collecting art that represented me. So I have a lot of portrait or figurative work with Black subjects in them.

26:18I grew up at a time where there wasn't a lot of representation of things that looked like me in art, film, in books, even toys weren't representative. So as an adult, part of my home being a home was having art that I could relate to. And then I just thought, well, I can relate to this. But I don't see a lot of, we're seeing more but still don't see a lot of black artists being represented in galleries and so I was talking to one of my friends who's also an artist and said well why don't we show your art in in my home and the difference I feel is that sometimes it can feel intimidating for people to walk into a gallery or a big space.

27:08I went to, at the weekend, I went to an exhibition of Kerry James Marshall, amazing American Black artist at the Royal Academy. Huge, imposing building. And I think for some people can feel a bit scary about walking in and how are you supposed to look at it and how must you move around and are you supposed to be an expert? And so I feel having curated a space in the home feels more welcoming that you're welcoming somebody into your home that takes away that barrier and also using the house as an installation in itself can show people that art can translate from a gallery into a home so people might go into a gallery say oh that's great but I don't think that could work in my home I live in a two up two down terraced house it's not the house not tiny but it's not huge but I've got big pieces of art I've got small pieces of art they are they're shown in all different ways so it's to inspire them and finally for for the artists by having every exhibition has a private view and myself and my daughter who co-founded the Lemon Sea Project we curate it so that you have other gallerists curators and buyers so that they can network sell their work and hopefully that their work moves on to somewhere else so yeah that was the the reason behind it and because I'm used to my house being open to the public it just felt yeah that that's the next thing really if you're curious to take a look around Natasha's home we also recorded a house tour that's available on Patreon she shows me her fantastic collection of paintings by black artists and reads out a message from her daughter on the kitchen blackboard that brings a lump to both of our throats head over to patreon.com slash homing with matt to take a look that's great isn't it though that that that's um private versus public yeah debate because you know a home is a it is a safe space it is a private space and yet you're using it in a very public way not only for shoots but also for exhibitions yeah and you live here mostly on your own right yeah so does do you ever feel vulnerable in some way doing that or is it actually contributing to the sense of safety by opening up like that i suppose i put parameters around what makes it still feel like a home for me so it might feel bizarre but there is one room in the house which is never rented out which is never seen which is my office upstairs so even when the house is rented out as a location shoot that's one room that remains private so having a sense of control over where it can be used with the lemon seed project the art is curated in the downstairs so people don't go upstairs so having control helps it to be safe and we also have a you have to sign up to come so that the address isn't put out everywhere.

30:26Of course, people probably know where I am, but you only get the address once you've signed up to come here. But I suppose this can always be risky, right? So I had someone send me a letter once. And this is so weird because this is how we used to communicate. But because I'm so used to people contacting me through social media or through email. That feels safe. Then someone sent me a letter through the door. And then I was like, I felt a bit invaded, which might feel really bizarre, but I'm not putting my address out. So why have you sent me this letter? And I mean, the letter was okay. But yeah, that felt unsafe because maybe I hadn't invited anyone people to communicate.

31:21When I say, communicate, DM me, send me an email. Not, here's my address, send me a letter. But I kept it just in case she ever turns up. It kind of felt stalkerish. As I'm thinking it through, it kind of sounds weird, right? Because I grew up at a time where the main communication wasn't even a phone, it was letter or postcard. But now it feels odd that someone's invading my privacy by not emailing me and sending me a letter. I don't know. Maybe that's just the change in the times about what feels acceptable or not. I didn't respond to the letter. Was it a nice letter? It was kind of weird. I don't know.

32:05Maybe I read into it that it was weird. It was like, I've seen what you're doing. I'm doing exactly the same thing as you. And I'd like you to come around for tea and coffee and I thought and a murder no thank you I'm very dramatic that way it probably wasn't it was probably really sweet it just I think I was just a bit yeah concerned that it came as a letter but I I am very careful about even though it is open for a couple three years I did the open house festival for London and one year this guy came by this was before the festival started and he knocked on the door he said this is really weird I know I'm just going to leave you a letter but my girlfriend and i we really love your home but we're going to be away and we just wondered if we could come and see it beforehand i was like thank you and then i closed the door and i thought oh hell no that's not happening i'm sure again there was no malintent and there is a part of me the people pleaser that would have said come in have a look around and then end up on the front of uh on the news um again being dramatic but yeah but then the the safe part of me said he seems really nice but actually you don't know this person and it's not going through the website so unfortunately he's not going to be able to come it sounds to me like it's about boundaries isn't it yes and i think when you're a people pleaser the tendency can be to not have tight enough boundaries and then when people step too close yeah then you slightly freak out yeah because you haven't set them yeah and the right spot in the first place exactly but I have to keep reminding myself that as much as I'm a people pleaser I have to be safe yeah tell me about how you found this house and your first meeting with it and how did you know that you were going to be here I was really fortunate that when I bought my first house the house before this one it was at the time where the market so I'd say it was probably 95 96 so this was after the crash so interest rates were really low and you didn't need much of a deposit and house prices were really low I don't think we'll ever get to that again but it was perfect so I bought my first house two bedrooms for 65 ,000 in Wolfenstead I don't think you can get a garage for 65 ,000 in any part of London anyway I stayed there for two years it was in pretty good condition so it didn't need anything but some decor.

34:38I got bored. So I sold it after two years and it doubled in price. And that allowed me to buy this house. But this house was the worst house on the street. And I don't say that for any dramatic effect. It really was. It was an older couple who I think had bought it at the time where Victorian architecture was seen as old-fashioned. So any internal Victorian architecture, they took out spindles in the stairs I had um that kind of popcorn um our artex ceilings downstairs taken out the fireplace it had so when I came most people would have run the other way and I was like oh there's potential here there's no central heating it probably needs rewiring I oh I should say I also had a child that was a year a baby a year and a half year old baby it was a hot mess there was carpet in the kitchen it had a yellow bathroom suite but shouldn't say suite because they were different colors of plastic yellow and not in a retro way that people are buying color yeah it wasn't great so what did you see in it that others may not have done i thought firstly it was the right price yeah i think it was 132 000 pounds and houses that were in good condition were going for about 145 and i couldn't afford that i saw it had three bedrooms i saw that it had potential yeah and that i could put my stamp on it yeah so was it just you and your daughter at this point it was yeah yeah so are you able to tell us about your then your partner who your daughter's father yeah what's what's the backstory there then so we went together when i bought my first house okay well we were together for a long time and then we split up and then when we split up i realized that i was pregnant yeah and so he has been consistent so we've co-parented okay um but we never lived together so this house i moved into when when I moved in it was just me and her okay yeah so given that then what did this house represent for you at that time what did you want it to do for you in your life would you say I always had this dream of a forever house or a house that my daughter or future children could grow up in you know a house that'd be like oh yeah when we moved in and you know I had my first party here so memories that could be attached to the house.

37:16And I knew my first house was my starter, whereas this one I knew I'd live in for most of my life, or at least a good proportion. How did you know that? Because it had the bones of what I wanted in a Victorian house. I knew I wanted it to be a Victorian house. Why is that? Because I love Victorian architecture. Okay. I wanted it to look quite big from the outside. But for a girl from a council flat like you've described, did that Victorian house represent something somehow for you? Maybe it did. Maybe it – like, I've made it. I've got somewhere. And this was a solid house, you know, because I'd often walk down streets and look at houses.

38:05think oh that just looks like a proper solid house um and that's what this one looked like even though it was pretty ugly at the time so how many years have you been here this year will be 26 years 26 years so that's a lot longer than most people yeah right so what what has staying put here allowed you that maybe moving wouldn't have done it's allowed me to express my creativity over time. Because I think sometimes people think, particularly when they see my house or other houses on social media, well, for me anyway, it didn't happen straight away. It was just my income that was paying the mortgage, was looking after a child and paying all the bills.

38:49So I couldn't do everything straight away. When I first moved in that awful yellow bathroom, which was really so tiny you could sit on the the toilet and just touch every wall um I bought a roll top bath in under the arches somewhere in Walthamstow for 50 quid but the the bathroom I didn't have the money to extend the bathroom so that bath sat at one end of my living room for two years until I could save up money to extend the bathroom and bring that hefty thing upstairs and it's still there still in the bathroom upstairs um so it allowed me the time and also i didn't realize i was patient but also the patience to let it evolve as my life evolved and as money evolved i am because i'm very safe with how i use my money so i didn't want to take out loads of different loans so it really was about saving up money wherever possible and doing things bit by bit.

39:56So you raised the money thing there. Why invest your money so consciously in this place and not in other areas of your life or in different ways? Because I was always told, and I don't know who told me this, that it's good to invest in property. And property in London is always going to be a good investment. And I also thought about it in terms of legacy for Maya, for my daughter that if there was one thing that I would be able to leave her, it would be this house or whatever. If she sold it, whatever money came out of this house. And so it felt like a safe investment to do it. So that's why I invested and still invest in this house, I think.

40:40And I've almost finished paying off my mortgage. Have you? Oh, good for you. Yeah. Again, I've been really, I've been very careful about, adding to my mortgage making overpayments making overpayments that kind of thing not taking out too many extension loans um so i remember when i took it out 25 years ago so i was like god 25 years is such a long time so yeah touch wood to in the next by next year i'll have finished that's brilliant yeah that's really good tell me about your social life in here Yeah. Because you're here on your own most of the time, but I can tell that it's quite a convivial place.

41:22Yeah. Tell us about that. It's definitely become the, it has over the years been the party house. I think there's also something in me that I always wanted a big family and that didn't work out for me. So having lots of people in the house is kind of a way that I compensate. And I'm a very social creature anyway so and i'm a home board so if i want to be social it's better to be social in my house i don't have to go anywhere then they go and i can just i can just stay so yeah definitely i've had at least four surprise birthday parties in this house for different people christmas has always been hosted here yeah or just games nights things like that people come together in such a way that that's changed slightly as i've become older i've become more like yeah maybe i just want to be on myself for a bit and my friend said the other day because it was our joint kind of birthdays in january and he said um yeah i've got a load of drink in the house we should all have a party at yours and somebody else said yeah we should i was like uh perhaps we shouldn't yeah because there's also that i have to do all the tidying up afterwards it's not that much fun tidying up because everybody goes home with their doggy bags and then i'm left with all the washing up and that but but i do genuinely like it there is a warmth to people coming in and as much as it yeah it's all designed it's it's comfortable people don't feel like oh i can't sit on that chair or I can't do that.

43:00So yeah, it's important to me. And when you were showing me around earlier, you were suggesting that you don't tend to use the front room that much. You tend to use this kitchen dining space at the back and everyone just piles in here. Why does that happen, do you think? I think the best part is always in the kitchen because that's where the food and the drink is, right? So no one wants to be too far away from that. And then the table in my kitchen here is three meters long so you can get a lot of people around this table so i don't think it was a deliberate thing but just people feel it was warm it was comfortable the music is playing there's lots of chatting you know people are playing dominoes or cards or charades or whatever so what's the point and the food's here so i think that's why people stay in the kitchen it's not that that room is is not accessible to people it's just like why am i moving here when everything is here yeah yeah okay so your daughter maya yeah so you've given her an incredibly stable base haven't you throughout her whole life thus far what would you what do you think this house means to her i think it means home so even though she doesn't london is not her favorite place when I say to her, because I've considered moving, and I've considered moving back to Hackney, actually, she's like, you're going to sell the house.