183. Emma Willis

0:05Well behaved women rarely make history. Bloody difficult women do.

0:19Emma Willis. No, not that one. This one. Her clients include Benedict Cumberbatch and Daniel Craig. David Gandhi is her brand ambassador you know David Gandhi that hunk King Charles is a fan as is President Obama and the king has actually paid court to her period workshop in Gloucester and what's the product I hear you ask well it's shirts Emma Willis is a shirt maker she's a female manufacturer a very rara arvis and all her garments are made in England she's also gorgeous blonde and a bit posh I think I suspect but a tremendously good thing and has a charity called Style for Soldiers that provides for free bespoke clothing to soldiers who've been hideously injured in war of which they're a legion.

1:09Full disclosure she's also making me a shirt or two and it was a shock Emma to discover that my waist was at least four inches larger than I thought it was I said Confidently, it's 28, and then I saw you write down 32 and a half. The experience has been an eye-opener and a real peep into the world, into the world of a kind of all-male clubby world of St. James and Savile Row and German Street, what I think of as Gentleman's London, and also the world of having a bespoke garment made. It's Difficult Women, number 183, with Emma Willis. Welcome. Thank you, Rachel. Lovely to be here. How did it all start?

1:52Well, it wasn't at all planned. I started off, I went to UCL to read English. I loved the arts, but I was moderately talented at several areas of the arts and nothing quite stuck. I then transferred to the art school, the Slade. So I tried my hand at a bit of fine art, which I loved too, but I just was out of my depth completely. And after a year, sadly, they asked me to leave and give my place to somebody that warranted it more. And so I was now out on the streets of London and I needed to pay my rent. I was singing in a band. I needed to pay for life. So the only job I could get in the back of the evening standard now was a job selling clothes door to door.

2:35and that's what I did. I picked up a bag of clothes and I set off around Soho, just all these streets where we're sitting right now. I know them well and I was knocked on doors and tried to flog clothes and you made, you know, however many garments you sold. You were given five pounds or whatever it was. So did you sell them to private customers, to businesses? So, you know, just like the people who'd ring on your door and try and sell you a dishcloth. I mean, like that. Yeah, I was one of those. I was, you know, I'm never too rude to anybody on the telephone or knocking on my door. So, and in the bag they had, we all picked up this bag in the morning, and they had men's clothes and women's clothes.

3:14And the women's clothes were very Sloanie. It was Sloanie days. It was Princess Diana, you know, ruffle collars and A-line skirts. And so, and the men's shirts were quite nice. So I thought, you know, I could imagine selling the men's shirts in the city without knocking on doors. I had lots of friends working in the city. so I stopped off in a pub it really would have been you know stone's throw from here and it was pouring with rain and I rang my boss and said can I just go to the city and do it by appointment and sell just the men's shirts and so they said fine you know whatever Emma so I headed off and I made an appointment and I went to a bank and I had to get there before the markets opened which I had no idea what that meant and I was in there by about 8 and I sold 100 shirts in about half an hour and I just sat on the bus and I thought, well, this is not what I was planning to do.

4:02But I found a way of paying the rent. I can carry on doing the kind of arty things I love. And I'll just, you know, sell shirts to make my money. So that's... And it was shirts that you clicked with, wasn't it? It wasn't skirts and it wasn't jackets. It was shirts. Yeah, I still love a beautiful shirt. I mean, have you ever understood why? I know. And of course you are known for your beautiful shirts. And so these shirts were ready-made off the peg. and so you were selling them to kind of you know white sock traders on the trading floors or in the stock market or whatever and you say you would bring a huge bunch of shirts in different sizes and these men would all flock and and like seagulls on chips just that they wanted your shirts was there anything special about these shirts well at that stage because i was selling we weren't they They were much less than in German Street because we were sending them direct, you know, the company that they had a good little company that was run from Chelsea Harbour.

5:03And so they were less expensive, but they were very nice shirts. They were made in England. I mean, no, you wouldn't find a really lovely shirt made in England of that quality. You have to pay a proper price for it. But they were nice shirts. And so they were a good deal. And I just knew there was a demand. And I think that's what I love about shirts, too, is that I'm not selling a sort of frivolous accessory that people might or might not use. They might or might not regret spending the money. I know, you know, if somebody buys a shirt they love, they're going to wear it till it falls apart. It's going to be able to be worn and worn and worn.

5:39It's a fundamental part of the wardrobe. So I like that practical element of it as well. And also, men all wear shirts. I mean, I know you do women's shirts as well, and we all get on to that. but they are the daily stock in trade, if that's not the right word, of the male outfit. Wherever you work, you know, unless you're in a kind of groovy advertising agency where you might wear a t-shirt, basically a man at work wears a shirt. So you had a built-in market. Yeah, and you only had to wander around the city or get on the tube. And if ever, you know, when trade was bad, you sit on the tube and you look and I go, Hang on, 90 % in rush hour of people on the tube even now are wearing a shirt.

6:25So you've just got to get it right. You must. You absolutely have to get it right. And how did you make the leap from being a very successful door-to-door seller of shirts to a shirt maker? Well, I did this for a while for this company, probably about maybe maximum a year. And then one of the men that I was selling to said he had a company in the West End here in Soho. And it was a, they were, they were wholesaling shirts. He said, will you come and set up a corner of the office and do this direct selling, basically, of nice shirts. So I was keen to move on and just fund up a little office in Soho, tiny little space.

7:01And, and then I went to Turnbull and Assa, who were then, you know, obviously are still great, but my next door neighbors. And I went to them and said, can you make my shirts? I want to, you know, have shirts, buy shirts, you know, the best, best, best. and they were wholesaling them as well at that time. So I shipped, I bought, you know, lovely, I chose all the fabrics and then I filled up my Soho place with, we called ourselves Legum Pritchard, a completely sort of, grew up being a German street sort of name at that stage. And we, so I bought Turnbull and Asser shirts and we, so they were made by Turnbulls, but they were, and then we went and I employed girlfriends and we had a whole team then and we went around again, around London.

7:44selling them. I did that for about a couple of years I think and then I set up my own thing. I came across an amazing little bespoke shirt factory in London in New Cross and I so I went off on my own and set up just doing bespoke because by that stage I was now you know I you know I was much more experienced and so I just and then I wanted to make it very exclusive and I got very interested in the make side of it I had an amazing team four amazing seamstresses and a great male cutter and so set off doing it on my own and that was when we caught so then it was you know my own company Emma Willis shirts then and so you are the overall visionary and designer of the shirts aren't you I mean I think I should probably tell the story of why you're sitting here very quickly which was um I was with my husband at a house on the test river in Hampshire and he'd been fly fishing and then he needed to change for dinner and he didn't have a clean shirt and our host just said shouted out oh you know Alice run and get Ivo one of one of my white shirts and so my husband was given this crisp white shirt and he put it on and my husband's quite you know he's not a slim man but the shirt just transformed him and I just there was something about the cut and it just looked so stylish and he looked kind of younger and more groovy but also very smart and of course I stole the shirt and then I just could I wanted to find out where the shirt had come from and then I found your name Emma Willis and I and I emailed you and I said do you make shirts for women well isn't it wonderful my shirt ended up on you Rachel because everyone was going to find out about them well thank you and it's lovely and it's lovely to hear that a shirt also can be worn and loved by a woman the exact same shirt can be worn by the the man or the woman um and so it was yeah and that was sea island cotton you've got a very good eye and feel for fabrics because that is the most beautiful fabric it had a lovely coolness to it and a slight sheen and a kind of crisp, a verve and a sharpness to the cut as well, which you could do with that Sea Island cotton because it's so kind of tight.

10:06Yes, it's tight, exactly. It's got, it's very dense weave. So the thinner, the finer the yarn of the cotton, the more thread, the denser the weave. So it's all done on how many per square inch, how many threads there are, thread count. And you do, you get it. It's very dense, but it's incredibly fine as well. because the yarn's so fine. And that's the luster. The shine is obviously not put on artificially. Some people do that. But that's the natural luster of the raw cotton. So you had your little bespoke factory in New Cross. You had your seamstresses. How did it develop into your empire? I know you were opening a new...

10:48You've got two premises in London now, one in German Street, another in Burlington Street. Old Burlington Street. Old Burlington Street. And also you do ready-to-wear as well as bespoke now. Yeah. Well, we have now a workroom, so I've continued to do my own manufacturing, which is something that I really, really enjoy that side of it. That's where you can really offer the jobs. And so ready-to-wear is very good. If you have a manufacturer, you want to be doing a certain amount of numbers as well. Bespoke is a lot of detail, and it's very interesting for people to make because everything's different and it's fun that side of it but with a factory you obviously need more numbers so so ready to earth really important um tell us a bit about gloucester and the importance of hiring local people training them scholarships your sewing school all of it and people don't know that behind your label there's a huge kind of not an industry but i mean you're like a swan gracefully gliding but underneath there's a lot of paddling it's yes to make your own to make your own or have all your own production to make all your own clothes um there is a you know there's so many more people involved obviously and you've got to understand the whole production and how it's made and be able to train and employ the people with the skills but and that's and i would never have wanted to do it if i hadn't got my own manufacturing i mean that to me is absolutely fundamental so you control absolutely everything from choosing the fabric to selling the shirt yes so yesterday i was choosing all the silks that will go into making the ties.

12:24The ties, actually, I use another wonderful English tie maker. But yes, so at our factory, which is actually an 18th century townhouse, I really like having beautiful buildings to work with. I mean, it took me 10 years to pluck up courage to have a shop in London. And I just fell in love with that shop. And it's so rare in German Street to have one. And I fell in love with the shop and the spots. So that's what forced me to do it. Otherwise, I wouldn't have dared if I hadn't found the right place. And then the same with the factory in Gloucester. and we had a smaller place i lived quite near quite nearby and so when i wanted to open up a bigger factory um and nearer me rather than the one in london i i put ads in the local papers in gloucester sirencester um stroud cheltenham and i had the biggest sort of take up an interest from gloucester and so we started in a small place and then after i'd been there about five years we were bursting out of it and and I walked past this beautiful house and it said it was you know to let and it had been empty for about 18 months and it was just a it's a beautiful um grade two listed it's great two star listed house so that's yeah so in from Gloucester you know you will see at an average day you know the rolls of fabric arrive from which I you know would have chosen and chosen the collections we have a classic cotton collection all through then we do linens in the summer lots of gorgeous bright colors from italy will all arrive and then in the winter we do really soft like brush cottons and cashmere cottons and things which come from italy and yeah so mainly the the mills are still fantastic because you've got when you look at that that the production line the you know how i couldn't do i couldn't produce a beautiful shirt if it wasn't for the amazing weaving industry that still is which sadly isn't in the UK anymore.

14:17And I do have a dream. I'm not going to do it because it's too much. But I mean, the dream of vertical. And I have a friend in Lancashire. And every time I go and stay with him and we have a few glasses of wine, we talk about getting a Lancashire mill going again because there's still the skills. But that's a step too far. I think I'll stick with the manufacturing of clothes. How rare is it to be, one, a female manufacturer at all, two to be a female manufacturer that doesn't get everything made cheaply in Turkey or China? It's very right. I mean, I think there's only about four shirt makers left in the UK.

14:54And there's no idea. I think I'm the only woman. Manufacturing, in the manufacturing business, I don't think there are a lot of women. um emma bridgewater just have fabulous pottery um but there isn't a huge amount most people outsource overseas and it's always because of the price because it's much more convenient doing it here and actually the the maths does work out you know you've got and the dreaded pandemic was a time when actually we were rewarded the people who did had not gone offshore um because we could keep producing and it was under our control and that's something you know if you care about quality and you only want to sell something that's beautiful, you're proud to sell, then you've got to be in control of it.

15:44And for me, the creating of the jobs is the most rewarding part of it. It's really great. I mean, I love to be able to give somebody the livelihood and a job that they enjoy. And when you build up momentum, it's harder when it was small. It was very hard. but employment probably is the trickiest part of it. But it's fantastic when you build up the momentum. And we were looking at our sort of figures yesterday on the sort of statistics. And we employ 35 people, and actually the average age is 35. And if dear Lynn, who is about well over retirement age, retired, I think I would drop even more. But we don't want her to retire.

16:23And we have, yep, so 35 people, average age 35. Mainly women? Mainly women. And average staying with us is six years already. And you train people up, you give apprenticeships. And there is a sewing school or was I dreaming? Yes, we started a sewing school, which we've now moved into the community centre. It's called the Friendship Cafe. And that was, I wanted to raise the profile of the machinists, of the seamstresses in the British clothing industry. And I was invited to a dinner many years ago. and it was about British manufacturing and I just thought it was a lot of talk. It wasn't, there was not, there was, there was, there's nothing actually, there's no particular support if you manufacture here, helping you to employ.

17:15And so I did say at the end, I feel this is all talk. There's actually no support. I've been manufacturing in the UK now since the last, whatever it was then, 10 years. And it's a struggle and you're, you know, tax tax there are no tax breaks for british manufacturing no and also just even as a small business you know no tax breaks with employment you know you really are disincentivized to take on new people no you're penalized you're penalized yes employer paid next and it's got even worse yeah so it's um so i was invited to downing street to go and see them one of david cameron's advisors and he introduced me.

17:57He said, I said, you know, we could just be doing so much more in British manufacturing, in clothing industry. We have this incredible Made in England label or Made in UK label. Made in England? Yeah. Americans can't get enough of it. You've done 60 % of your marketing. Yeah. I mean, it's the most amazing thing to be able to put Made in England on your label. And what did Cameron say? Well, I went to see one of his special advisors and then he introduced me to Jonathan Newhouse, head of Condé Nast because I said I want to make it part of the fashion industry. People who are sewing shouldn't be behind doors.

18:29All the glory goes to the Alexander McQueen's, the designers. But there's no jobs there. And also the cutters and the pattern makers, you can have about 10 or 15 machinists, seamstresses per cutter. So where are the jobs? The jobs are in the sewing. So you've got to make skilled, beautiful sewing and a beautiful piece of clothing. You will check the stitching. you know the stitching is everything so how do we make the people who are actually the seamstresses or the stitch the machines how do we how do we highlight them in the fashion industry they are a crucial part of it it's i'm still sort of battling i don't there's a long way to go so um i went to so i was introduced he's and um so daniel korsky who was the man i went to see said go and i'm going to introduce you to johnson newhouse i went to see jonathan and he said tell me what you want to do and I said because he said apparently Jonathan Newhouse was very interested as well in trying to increase British clothing industry and I said well this is perfect because I want to make it more glamorous the behind the scenes the technicians the seamstresses so there's nothing could be better than the vogue a condé nest sparkle on top of that I mean the you know it would be it would just be so ideal so I went to see Jonathan and he really liked the idea and he said, right, what can I do to help?

19:47And I said, well, if you could help with, you know, we could call it the Condé Nast Emma Willis Sewing Scholarship or the Emma Willis Condé Nast, let's put Condé Nast first. And then he said, and then I can give it that label and then I can take on people and we can do the training program will be called the Condé Nast Emma Willis Sewing Scholarship. And he said, yep, I'm on for it, Emma. I'd like people to come from, you know, not people who've been able to go to the top fashion you know college if you if it was people with life struggles in any way or you know people who you could give a leg up to then i'd like that very much but i'll leave it up to you and so they gave for five years we did took on but they gave us 10 000 pounds a year for five years in a row and we took on five fabulous um young women locally in gloucester we employ all locally and um and it was fantastic and so you know you you just the news and when we went when we finished the five-year scholarship he invited us all up to vogue house but when vogue before vogue house it sadly closed and he and we had a lovely meeting with him and he interviewed to chatted to them all did any of the magazines cover it and or give you any publicity for this we didn't really know it was hard traction it really is hard to get you know the manufacturing the side of things is i'm still had i mean i felt that if i could And if I could make it work in Gloucester, which is a really big, gritty city.

21:20It's the equivalent of it's much smaller, but a Manchester elite. There's so many of our cities that need to be giving good jobs for young people. And I know that there's a demand for the Made in England label. If we could pilot it in Gloucester and it would work, I felt that it could be picked up. It's ridiculous. Prince Charles, King Charles has visited the factory. I should come and do a piece about the factory and your machinists and seamstresses. We've got to keep going on because I know everyone will be very interested. I mean, that was absolutely fascinating and kind of gives one hope that all is not lost.

22:03I know manufacturing is a very small part of the economy now, But to know that people like you care and also Jonathan Newhouse cares is reassuring. Why did you set up? It was shirts for soldiers at the beginning and now it's style for soldiers. I mean, what happened and what made you do that? It's become really quite an important part of rehabilitation of soldiers. I know you visit Hedley Court. And I'm going to try and remember what the actual designation of Hedley Court is. It's about rehabilitation, medical rehabilitation for soldiers, isn't it? It was in Epsom, sorry. Yeah. So luckily not too far away.

22:45It's moved now. Ah. Yeah, but it was an amazing place. So I visited for 10 years until it moved in 2008. Right. 2018. It was all a program on Radio 4. I still wonder who it was, who made the program that I was listening to, the documentary, because it was completely, he inspired it. and he was interviewing, he was doing a documentary inside Headley Court, the military rehabilitation hospital, and it was at the height of Afghan, just after Iraq, and I was absolutely shocked. I had no idea the amount of casualties that were returning, how bad the injuries were, but I was so impressed with these two young men who were being interviewed.

23:27One had lost both his legs, one had lost both his visions, all from IEDs, these improvised explosive devices, and I was absolutely, I was just so moved by them because of their courage. They were very humorous. They showed no self-pity whatsoever and they just, you could tell, the only fear that you heard in their voices was talking about losing their jobs. And I thought, what happens to a young man who's signed up to serve his country, who comes back, is spat out of forces, having lost both his legs, and how does he start his career again? And I just couldn't stop thinking about it. And then I was standing on the tube one morning and just thinking and then I thought, oh, I could go and make them a shirt.

24:12It's not going to be life-changing, but I could go because I can measure a shirt to fit anybody. And so I tried for about a year to get in because it's obviously very tight security. You've got to make sure I didn't know how to fund it. I was going to do it as a charity. I didn't want to set up a charity. I just wanted to go in there. I wrote to a lot of the big charities to see if they'd fund it, but I couldn't get any funding. And then in the end, I was introduced through a friend to a general who knew the head military medical officer there. And he wrote, kindly wrote to him for me, Colonel Jerry Tuck.

24:49And I went in, they gave me a go. I said, my wonderful chairman and backer, who was one of my initial customers when I was door to door, he said let's just let's just do it Emma and we were far from flush at the time but he said let's go well I said we're going over everyone a Christmas present so that was 200 2008 and went in and actually Jerry Tuck was sitting in the corner he was checking me out in his combats I didn't notice him and I was measuring all these you know just with terrible terrible injuries and all these young lads with because at Headley then you know it's before they have prosthetics and things they're straight from queen elizabeth hospital where they had their amputations etc all their probably lost limbs out in afghanistan and um and the banter the courage of them all the friendliness between them the funniness um and and and the and the and the tragedy of it so but jerry was watching me and he sent me a letter afterwards i got and i and he said emma and that was after trying to get in for a year so um he sent me a letter saying emma you're welcome the lads had fun you're welcome whenever you want to come so that was just you know that was a treasure some letter and I went for 10 years but the height of every two months for about six years when the injuries when there was so many people coming back and they were it was growing it was mushrooming they were building residential houses and for parents because there were a lot of you know visiting people families and parents but I just met this incredible cohort of people I feel so privileged to have met to get an idea of our you know our young service people i mean our forces aren't in iraq or afghanistan anymore so has has demand for the style for soldiers um bespoke service tailed off and that's got to be something we celebrate and you do you still do it am i yeah so i having met the morning got an idea i got very involved with their lives because as soon as I went there, I asked the nurses, should I ask them about their injury on the first visit?

26:54And they said, absolutely, Emma. It's very good for their rehabilitation. They're proud of their service. It's good to talk. So I used to jot down notes all the time, and they'd tell me amazing stories, and I'd sort of quickly write that down too and keep a record. And then I got their mobiles and their emails. Probably didn't even have emails then. And so I got this huge database, and I didn't realise as I was doing it that I was gathering my own personal database. And actually now I have a database of over 500 of our most severely injured servicemen from that period. And unlike a charity where you have to actually, they have to go, the beneficiary would have to go, you can't reach out, you can't call somebody.

27:31Whereas I can send out invitations to reunions to all these 500. And we have now, well, we have been giving for the last 15 years reunions. so the things that they needed which all came out of meeting them that I realized they needed walking sticks so I designed a really lovely sort of black ebony walking stick with their initials and their regiment on and with a silver band that we did suits with M &S they gave over 800 suits we did shoes of Russell and Bromley they have hundreds hats with Locke and Co hats I took a fantastic barber with me Stefan and we did that side of it but then I realized the most important thing was keeping them together because they get the first thing that very often can be the trigger of PTSD is isolation and you lose your job and you go back to a flat some of them you know didn't even have anywhere to live so you go in some sort of temporary accommodation or you go back home and live with your parents I mean you know it's just not for anybody that what they they were planning or wanted but it can it isolation is the worst and they really miss their military friends so and yet let alone a military friend you know with all that in common of all that they've done all they've seen that bonding bonding experience of the military then in hospital you know they were lying in beds next to each other laughing and helping each other and and that I realized that was the most important thing so we now we don't really do the shouts anymore because they're not I couldn't do it it was easy when I went to peddley but it was everyone's all over the place now but now we have the biggest reunions for injured service personnel three times a year yesterday was woburn the family day the duke of bedford very kindly this is our eighth gives us the park and the big lunch three days in the park and a big safari lunch in the lodge and that's for people's little children and then we have a huge christmas party and then we have a a big summer dinner too we put everybody up in hotels it sounds absolutely wonderful can you say something about the difference having really nice clothes makes to these injured service personnel I mean you've seen it with your own eyes well how would you describe it and the amount of I had so many emails and letters and I've got you know lots and lots and lots of thank yous over the years and so often they said having something made specially for them just made them feel they just made them feel um so much better i mean i just thought it would be like a gift of gratitude and but they and they've i've got you know my lucky shirt my lucky shirt got me the job i scored in my shirt last night you know i was just fantastic there was you know it really did it gave gave people confidence which was a lovely thing because bespoke and actually lisa armstrong has been my wonderful um trustee with me all this time she's the fashion editor of the telegraph everyone she might have to be a future difficult woman she'd be good we haven't talked about your private life at all but i know that you married literally your first customer in the city so shirts have brought you a career and they've also brought you love and a family too yes and a charity yes they have everything so who was that john um he's called richard oh richard sorry why did i call richard called caulfield of course yeah um so richard Yes, it was my first appointment in the city, and I'd only been selling shirts around here.

30:57So I went to the city, and somebody said, go and see Richard Crawford. He works in an insurance company, and he's very extravagant. You thought great. I was up on that. He was at your mark. When I went, that was when I still had my bag of shirts. And I got out. I'd never been to the city. And I got out at Finchurch Street. And I was wearing a kind of King's Road, you know. I was wearing a Roman toga and green leather flat boots and huge earrings and my hair all backcombed. I was very, that was the band days. And I looked like I was in a fancy dress show. I mean, everyone was beautifully elegant in black suits and things.

31:36And I nearly got on the tube and went back. So I just thought, I'd look ridiculous. So you had your great sack of shirts. Dressed like a fancy dress party. In your Vivienne Westwood from Sex Shop in the World's End or whatever. Mini dress, you know, huge belt with Roman coins on it. I mean, how odd did I look? Anyway, I thought I looked cool, but I didn't look cool in the city. And so I went to see Richard Caulfield, and he lived up to his reputation. He bought cashmere, this, and shirts and things. And then actually I didn't meet him. I went back to my office with all my girlfriends, and I said, oh, what was Richard Caulfield like?

32:13We did always often have a little discussion. And I drew a little love heart in my dress book, which I've still got. That was when I was 20. And anyway, I didn't actually meet him again. Sadly, it wasn't love at first sight from him, obviously. But we met at a dinner then, a great friend of mine, Dominic Collins. And did he remember you in your coin belt and you selling him the shirts? He did, yes. And? He did, yeah. And then actually from that dinner, we went on. Oh, how exciting. I love that. And you also make shirts for Rupert Lowe. Yes, I do. Anyone else famous? Well, I've already listed a few of them, you know, the king, President Obama.

33:00Yes, we have. Rupert was one that I've met very, I haven't made shirts for Rupert for many, many, many years. But he was really helpful to me in the city in the early days when he was working for Stockbroker when I was about early 20s. And he was actually very supportive. He said, you know, Emma, I admire what you're doing. And I'm going to introduce you to other directors and other companies. And he was really, really, he was very supportive indeed. So other politicians, I have to, politician wise, I think it's just an amusing story. And it's not, I didn't sell him a shirt, but I live in the country, near Siren Sester.

33:37And one day I was in my kitchen and there was a knock on the door and Dennis Healy was standing there. this is probably let's say this is about 20 years ago and i had my little son with me and he'd done and i couldn't believe my eyes and he came and he said he you can't miss the eyebrows and he said my i've broken down at the end of the drive i wondered if i could possibly use your telephone to ring the aa and i said of course it was absolutely and then my husband rang just as he came in and he picked up the telephone my telephone and he's and richard said who's that he said it's Dennis Healy and Richard said, you know, who is it?

34:12What are you doing in my house? Yeah. And we did. I gave him a cup of tea while he waited. But his wife, Edna, was waiting at the other end of the drive. I asked her for tea too, but she waited in the car. But it was just one of my, as far as politicians that I have met, it was absolutely hysterical. And he then gave us a copy of his book. What was it called? I can't remember. Good people of Edgeworth. Now, we mustn't forget that when you agreed to do Difficult Women, and you said, wasn't that something that Ken Clark said about Theresa May? And then you said, I had that Ken Clark in my factory once.

34:43What happened then? Well, I was invited to... Ken Clark was coming to Gloucester, and it was just before the election. Whichever the one was before the... Less than that, not even. Wouldn't it be 2016, let's say 2011, 2010? That sounds about right. Yes, yes, let's say 2010, possibly. let's say 2010, and he was invited to come to Gloucester and meet us all. I was invited to go, and it was in a pub, and so I thought, I'll go along and I'll talk about British manufacturing, as you already gather it. I'm quite passionate about it. And so people ask questions and things in the pub. And I thought one chap asked about, he had a haulage company, and I asked if he could have any indication of what he thought the price of oil would do, because he was finding it very, very difficult with his Irish company.

35:39And he did rather wave it off and say, God knows. I didn't think that was very helpful. Ken Clarke had no idea of the old price. I thought he was supposed to be economically literate. Well, I think he just thought, no, he said, who knows? Anyway, so I clamped myself next to Ken Clarke. He then did a little walk around the city. So I put myself, we were all sort of milling around him, and we were going to go past my little factory, which at that stage was smaller and up there. So I muscled my way to stand next to him, walk next to him. I said, you know, I wonder what you feel about British manufacturing.

36:12And do you think, what hope do you think there is for British manufacturing? He said, oh, there's, you know, it's just really not the day it's manufacturing anymore. And I said, well, I'm manufacturing and I've got a very, I've got a little manufacturing company. It's just up there. Look, you can see it up there. And we make beautiful shirts and I sell them in a shop in London. And actually, you know, I really do believe in British manufacturing. In fact, I think we could be doing much, much more. And he said, shirts, high-end shirts, German Street, you know, yeah, that's tiny, but that's tiny.