Bella Freud

0:00This is an iHeart Podcast.

0:30with kids, pets, or anyone who loves an easy-to-clean, spotless sofa. With a modular design and changeable slipcovers, you can customize your sofa to fit any space and style. Whether you need a single chair, loveseat, or a luxuriously large sectional, Anabay has you covered. Visit washablesofas.com to upgrade your home. Right now, you can shop up to 60 % off store-wide with a 30-day money-back guarantee. Shop now at washablesofas.com. Add a little to your life. Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply. You are listening to Ruthie's Table 4 in partnership with Montclair. Whenever I'm with Bella Freud, which isn't often enough, I always wish I could see more of her.

1:15She's in fashion and I'm in food. A meal is a moment and an outfit changes daily. Right now, I'm wearing Bella's iconic 1970s sweater. A few years ago, she created a nemesis sweater for the River Cafe, and one of my most treasured possessions is a Bella sweater saying, Bella this, Bella that. In our early years, Bella's father, Lucian Freud, came almost every day to the River Cafe. When with Bella, we were told never to interrupt, as this was their precious time. Now when Bella comes with her friends, I always wish I could whisk her away and have her all to myself. Today, on table four, I finally am.

1:59Thank you, Ruthie. It's so nice to have you here. And it is true, you did come with your dad. Yeah, and sometimes you do whisk me away when I'm here, and it's so nice. I love it. You beckon to me and say, come here, and then we stand behind a corner and talk. What are they doing? What are they doing in this world? We have to talk or just talk about each other. What are your memories of your dad coming here? I remember we came here when it first started. we'd jump in the car and then he drove very fast terribly, terrifyingly I'm very good at kind of masquerading a calmness and some of it's learnt from sitting next to him while he drove in this petrifying way he'd drive very fast towards something and then swerve suddenly so then we'd arrive and lived another moment and have this great food and I remember he also used to come here with Lee Barry and Lee used to learn all about food from eating out with Dad and coming here and I always remember this moment, him saying, yes, the poached pears are very good.

3:06It was so lovely. I remember one day he came and we had a sign on the door because we were painting the restaurant and we closed for lunch. We only opened for lunch. And I said, Lucy, I'm really, really sorry that we're closed today but I'll cook you something and he said I have a better idea I'm going to take you out to lunch and yeah he took me to Kensington Place and we had lunch and it was just fantastic it was spontaneous and kind and just caring and talking to me and asking me about me and it was one of the great moments of my life he was fun he was such good company he made you feel so special he used to come in those trousers with paint all over them and, you know, he was great.

3:51Yeah, it was exciting. It was very interesting that you were saying that a lot of your experience of eating with him was in restaurants. I remember going, because I lived in the country and I'd come up to London and all my sort of encounters with him as I got to know him when I was little were we used to go to Marine Ice's when I was very small and then he would take us to this Greek restaurant in Notting Hill but it was always a meeting to do with being in a restaurant and the food, I would be quite nervous so the food was probably secondary but that was the context and then when I'd sit for him when I moved to London when I was 16 we'd work and have this break and zoom out go somewhere very fast and come back but then sometimes he would cook and he was a very good cook and it was very different from how my mother cooked it was in what way well I mean I we just didn't have very much food and when you asked me to be on this podcast I was like oh my god I didn't in the 60s and 70s there wasn't much food around and then my mother, she didn't have, there was no food abundance.

5:14And I, my overriding memory was the food we did have took about a day or two, like it was lentils. It was hippie food. There were no snacks. There was no, nothing to eat. And I was hungry quite a lot of the time. So I have a kind of strange attitude towards food, I think. So let's go back to your mom. In the 60s, she would have been how old? She was 18 when I was born. Was she? Very young, and she wasn't married, and her parents didn't even know she had children until me and my sister Esther were about, I think I was four, and someone saw us walking down the street and told her parents who lived in Ireland.

5:59And so it was very, you know, she had a... That's tough. Yeah. I mean, to have two children. but your father was not involved it was a relationship they split up when I was two and he wasn't at all hands on she made an effort to make sure that we saw him and he was always very responsive as a father and very affectionate and that was you know kind of a lifeline even though I don't you know she had to sort of take care of us without his help or very little help. When I was six, my mother decided that we would go and live in Morocco. I think a lot of people were going there, and she thought, oh, well, my money will go further there.

6:50We can have an interesting time. She was interested in Sufism and music, and she was an amazing person. It sounds like it. Yeah. She was very courageous. So we drove there. You drove from London to Marrakech? From Cambridge Wells to Marrakech. The three of you? Or did she have another partner? There was this couple, this man and his wife, I think. Anyway, she was sat in the back of this van going crazy, literally. She didn't speak. And he drove, and he was kind of really bad-tempered and stuff. I didn't really like him. How old were you? I was six when we left. And your sister? So she was four.

7:33and we drove and the van kept breaking down. It was kind of... You took you out of school, age six. Yeah, so I must have been at nursery, so I'd learnt to read. So I had a few books and stuff and that was always a big thing for me. There was a boat that you took and you landed in Morocco and I remember us throwing peach stones into the sea and watching all these fish come and eat all the fruit. And then when we arrived there, we moved around a lot. But the food was interesting because in the square in Marrakesh, there were these men who would sell little tin cups of spicy broth with snails. Snails.

8:25And they were great. I threw you into an adventure you must have been hungry not to quiple over what you were eating not very many six year olds would welcome snails in a broth I know, but they were really good there wasn't much going I loved those snails I loved the food of Morocco but as a six year old who'd come from London in a car yeah I was talking to my sister Esther before saying do you remember what we ate You know, we didn't. And then she remembered there used to be these stalls in the main square and they sold this soup called Bissara. And it was the most delicious thing. I just remember it was just incredible.

9:09This beige soup with a they pour a tiny bit of olive oil and have a bit of paprika. And it was it was just like it was just like a kind of blood transfusion. It was and we loved it. It probably was, you know, because Ramadan, you don't eat at all. And then you just see when the sun sets, everybody, you know, because you've been fasting all day. And it is the soups, isn't it? Yeah. I have a very strong association with being in Marrakesh and Morocco with soups. Yeah, they were really good. And then there would be this kind of European breakfast. So my mother would sit in a cafe and maybe with some friends and they'd have this milky coffee and then croissants, I think.

9:57And it was very dreamy, those moments. And then I remember something. I got a gum infection where I couldn't eat anything and it was so agonizing. They also used to sell in the square these little bottles of yogurt. and one was white and one was fluorescent pink. And that was the only thing I could eat because if I even tasted a tiny bit of sponge cake, it was like broken glass. Did you go to a dentist? I don't know. We spent a lot of time in Marrakesh, but they used to have dentists in the square that you could actually sit on a blanket, tooth pulled or whatever. And then, you know, that combined with storytellers and fortune tellers.

10:45I remember walking past sometimes and you'd see a dentist place and there was no door and you'd just hear people screaming. So I was quite keen to not go. And I kind of developed a pain management where I would just internalize and go silent. Yeah, that sort of stayed my whole life really. And so I remember this moment where I had my first bite of toast with marmalade. And it was just, my mother used to eat toast with marmalade at breakfast. And it was just like, it was the most, it was just like a king's meal. I remember, and I've been obsessed with toast and marmalade my whole life. And then, you know, a lot of the, some of the time we didn't have any food.

11:37and I remember we went and camped by this lake in the country and we had no food and then this fisherman gave us some fish and cooking it over a fire and so there would be periods where we just didn't really have things but somehow we always got something in the end. Do you think your mother, did she herself not care whether she ate or not or do you think she also wasn't aware or was she... I think she thought this would be okay, you know. I think, you know, it wasn't very often that that happened, that we literally, there wasn't anything. And I remember there was a lot of worry about, God, we really haven't got a single thing to eat.

12:22And then suddenly it was like Jesus and the fish, you know, this fisherman. And we had this huge meal and it was all really exciting. And people were very, very kind in Morocco as well. and they were kind to us. They are, aren't they? You know. Yeah. You know, a museum tells you about culture and architecture tells you about culture, but that is also the way people respond to food and sharing and a generosity is to do, I think, with culture. I know. It really is sort of strange how you remember those moments to do with people. You know, I remember this one time that we were traveling and we'd got a lift on a donkey cart and it was starting to get dark.

13:08The only thing we had was someone had given us these fresh eggs and so we made a fire and then we put these hot stones in the fire and tried to fry eggs on them. And it was really exciting, but then the eggs just slithered off immediately and then it was kind of worrying, it was getting dark and then the man who dropped us off came back and said, come to our house. And we went to his house and they had this wonderful food and we sat in the garden and then we stayed. And I remember we rolled up in carpets. They gave us carpets and we slept outside in the orchard. And it was incredible. It was so long ago and I'll never forget.

13:54That's your memory. Yeah, yeah. Can you smell the food? Do you remember how it smelled? There's a certain smell of Morocco that is like the smell of sun touching the grass. And this is a kind of nomadic life that you had. How long did it last? I think we were there for two years. Two years. Your sister wrote a book. Yeah, she wrote his hideous kinky. Hideous kinky. And they made a film of it. Yeah, they made a really good film. It was wonderful. And yeah, Esther wrote her first novel called Hideous Kinky because we would get sort of quite bored and hideous kinky were our favourite words and we just used to chant them.

14:38So the adults, these young people, sort of in their early 20s, would be sitting around in the cafes and me and Esther would just be chanting, hideous, kinky, hideous, kinky. And then we'd go faster and faster and then slur and just... Was your father in touch at all? Did he just think my children have gone away for two years? And I remember we'd get a care package sometimes. I'd go to the post office for, like, a couple of weeks before it would arrive, and then there might be a Mars. I remember there was a bar of chocolate that I just ate before I got home, and I felt rather guilty about that.

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16:42Plus, they're earth-friendly and trusted by over 200 ,000 happy customers. It's time to upgrade to a stress-free, mess-proof sofa. Visit washablesofas.com today and save. That's washablesofas.com. Offers are subject to change, and certain restrictions may apply. Parking shouldn't slow you down. ParkWiz gives every driver a shortcut. Book ahead, save up to 50%, and skip the hassle of circling the block. Park smarter, park faster. ParkWiz. Download the ParkWiz app today and save every time you park. When did you come home? So then we came home in 1969 and we moved to Sussex. And mum wanted us to go to the Steiner School.

17:25I became obsessed with food and I would, my friends would have all these cute lunches and like sandwiches and like special things. One girl had tinned fruit in a little container and I used to just stare at them like a dog and just stare like, until they gave me some of their food and then I'd go and visit them and the first thing I'd say is, got any food? I would be like, and then I would just eat anything, everything I could get. I would just, and then I'd have started having these terrible stomachaches. I'd lie under the table, just like, save me some pudding. so I'd be in terrible pain but I didn't want to miss any food.

18:15But my mother would, I was talking to, I was remembering with Esther the things that she made and she used to make these tuna fish souffle, which sounds awful but it was so good. Yeah. Sort of creamy and it was tasty. And my mother was perfectly sort of adequate cook but things didn't taste much. Like she was interested in health food, you know, beans that took like a week to cook. To soak them and then cook them. Was Lucien a success? Was he the recognized painter at that time that we all know? Not really. I mean, there was very, very little anything, and it wasn't really until much later that he became suddenly more known and he was extremely private.

19:09So we had these two years of moving and then we moved in to this quite nice house and shared where we were the lodgers of this family. A father with three daughters who then my mother and he started a relationship. And I really didn't like him. I got on really badly with him. But he was a very good cook. And we had this kind of nice place. You know, we had our own rooms. And you were about what age at this point? So I was 11. Yeah. They had an aga, and they had this aga cookbook. And I started cooking and making things, and he would make really delicious food and lasagna. We'd never had lasagna, you know, and horn bread.

19:59And so I got interested in other things and I learned how to cook stuff as well. And I learned about taste and how much that mattered more than anything really. The sort of difference in food with my mother and then going to my father's. I remember he was very keen on oysters. When I was 14, he took me to Wheeler's and I thought, well, I better have these oysters and I hope I like them because if I don't like the oysters, maybe he will be really disappointed in me. And then I loved the oysters and I was so happy. Well, if you had snails in Morocco and you had oysters and you were starting to cook, then food must have been a part of your curiosity about life.

20:52Yeah. You were ready to go on that adventure. When you finished school, did you finish school? No, I didn't. I left home when I was 16 and I moved to London and I shared a, my dad got me a flat that I shared with my half-sister, Rose. I went to do my A-levels, but I just dropped out. And then I started sitting for dad and that was the order in my life. So everything revolved around that. And even though my life was very chaotic and unmanageable, I would always be there for him. He was, thank God, you know, he was like this reason I had to be, you know, have some semblance of order and keep going and not drop off the face of the earth in a way.

21:48You began working in fashion, was that, But when you started thinking that clothes mattered, do you think the part? It was much earlier. I remember as a child thinking how much clothes mattered because people really sort of noticed you if you weren't wearing normal clothes. And my mother, she dressed in a sort of hippie way. She was incredibly beautiful. but we were looked down on and so I was conscious that we were different and people like noticed us in a way that sometimes just exhausting and so I was aware that certain clothes made me feel really great like what I'm wearing today this shirt tie and a v-neck jumper that's really what I wanted and we didn't have a school uniform so I longed for this order I didn't mind being turbulent within but I wanted some sort of encasement so I didn't feel like I was going to well fashion is a shield it's a yeah it's a shield it can be I mean it is a bit like food and there is a relationship how you identify yourself with We all need to wear clothes to keep us warm, and we all need to eat to keep us healthy.

23:15And those choices, though, involve a lot of other decisions because you can be who you want to be. Exactly, because I started to notice that if I had clothes on that I liked, I could feel much less self-conscious. I always remember this moment. I had this scoop neck top on. I must have been 11 or 10. that mum had made with balloon sleeves. And I looked in the mirror and thought, I really don't like this. I want a shirt with a collar and I'd go to Jumble Sales and buy boys' clothes and wear those. And I really liked to be contained. To feel safe. Yeah. Well, as a designer, it's like you have someone's back.

24:02Literally, you're dressing them and you're protecting them with your clothes and you're imbuing them with everything to bring out their best qualities and sort of care for them. And then I would always notice the difference, especially like with my father, when he was working, sometimes we'd go out and he'd just be in his painting clothes and taxis wouldn't stop because they think he was a tramp. And then he would, if we went somewhere like Annabelle's, he'd put on a huntsman suit and it was just, you know, Cinderella will go to the ball. You know, he looked so good. He was really elegant. He looked, I loved the change.

24:47And so I've always been interested in that sort of thing where you have one piece, like you have walking down Portobello and the guys who'd have shops down there or just hanging out in track suits with a tailored jacket. and they just look so cool. And I love this thing that a tailored jacket could give you this magic, this fairy dust sprinkle. And I've always been kind of obsessed with suits and uniforms, like how bus conductors dress and used to dress. That transformation. Yeah, a uniform. When did you actually start to work as a designer? My brand, yeah. So I started in 1990 and I started working from home because I didn't really have money to pay anyone much.

25:37We would have lunch in the kitchen every day and someone would cook. Sometimes I'd cook. Because when I was working for Vivian Westwood and I'd been living in Italy before then and I moved back to London, started working for her, and I'd cook her lunch. Did you know her? Had you known her before? Yeah, I worked in her shop when I was a teenager. Can you just tell us about Vivian Westwood so that we know who she was? So Vivian Westwood was an incredibly influential and avant-garde designer. She was very much the designer of punk. She created fashion from punk and designed things that people had never seen before.

26:16And she had a shop in Kings Road with her partner, Malcolm McLaren, who was the manager of the Sex Pistols, and she designed all the clothes they wore. And they had these amazing clothes. And it was the first time I had experienced any sort of agency as a person through wearing these clothes that she designed. And suddenly people were, like, slightly intimidated. And it was really exciting. And what did you do with her? So first of all, I worked in her shop. When I was 17 and then when I lived in Italy, she was also working in Italy. And she would come and stay with me in Rome sometimes. And we became friends.

27:05And then when I left Rome, I was studying fashion there. I came back to London and then I worked as her assistant. And at that time, we just worked from her flat. Did she teach you then? She taught me everything. She taught you everything that you learned. and her fashion is does it still influence you our style is very different but what she taught me was to go beyond yourself whenever you possibly can never give up really and it's that's what I learned from watching my father work as well if something goes wrong you can't let that stop you have to work through something when I worked for Vivian I learned everything I They did all the different jobs, so production, press, sort of working on ideas.

27:53And to draw. What is the skill of being a fashion designer that you have to? We have chefs who have never been to cooking school, and we teach them knife skills. They learn. I was never taught. Rose, my partner, was never taught. And I look in awe at some of the young people with what they can do and sometimes what they can't. When we have a skill as a profession, Yes, it's so true. Because Vivian, she was self-taught. And I think that the real skill of a designer, the sort of kitchen, as it were, is to fit. Because Vivian didn't learn how to make patterns, but she would make something work through instinct and fitting.

28:39and, you know, I know what to pull up, the suppression, where it will result in the change of how it fits on a body. And I think that's the most important thing, that you can shape something, literally. And then it doesn't really matter what it's made of. But if you have that kind of recognisable way of editing something, people are drawn to that. and then I sometimes it's so circumstantial because when I was living in Rome I met this woman who had a knitting machine in her flat in a tower block so I used to go and visit her and started designing knitwear just because that was something and then I was always interested in record covers and what people wore to on protest marches this kind of how one thing could mean so much and say so much and language was always really important.

29:44I think as being a girl you don't have physical power so you have to use your words and I was very keen to express my contempt for a lot of things and I honed it as much as I could.

30:07The River Cafe Winterset Lunch is now running from Monday to Thursday. Reserve a booking on www.rivercafe.co.uk or give us a call.

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31:04Visit washablesofas.com to upgrade your home. Right now, you can shop up to 60 % off storewide with a 30-day money-back guarantee. Shop now at washablesofas.com. Add a little... to your life. Offers are subject to change, and certain restrictions may apply. Parking shouldn't slow you down. ParkWiz gives every driver a shortcut. Book ahead, save up to 50 % and skip the hassle of circling the block. Park smarter, park faster. ParkWiz. Download the ParkWiz app today and save every time you park. Would you like to read the recipe for sea bass? Do you want to tell me why you chose this recipe? Well, I quite often cook dinner for myself, just me.