0:01

BBC Sounds Music Radio

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Podcasts Hello, I'm Lauren Laverne

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and this is the Desert Island Discs podcast.

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Every week I ask my guests to choose the eight

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tracks, book and luxury they'd want to

0:13

take with them if they were cast away to a desert

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island. And for rights reasons,

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the music is shorter than the original

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broadcast. I hope you enjoy listening.

0:31

My Cast Away this week is the fashion designer and entrepreneur Patrick Grant. He's

0:35

best known as the sharpshooted judge on the great British sewing bee. The

0:39

hit show has celebrated and even reinvigorated

0:41

our national love of making.

0:43

And that must give him particular

0:45

satisfaction as a passionate fan of the

0:47

British sewing industry. Patrick is a fashion

0:49

designer and entrepreneur. He's

0:52

also a great friend of mine, and he's a great friend

0:54

of mine. The show has celebrated and even reinvigorated

0:57

our national love of making. And that must give

0:59

him particular satisfaction as a passionate fan of the British sewing

1:01

industry. And a determination to revive British manufacturing

1:04

have shaped his own story. A childhood

1:06

fascination with the way things work led

1:08

to a degree in engineering. But

1:11

then at the age of 33, he made a bold

1:13

change of direction. He put every penny

1:15

he could raise into buying a struggling

1:17

Savile Row tailors. He turned the business

1:19

around and five years later was named

1:21

Men's Wear Designer of the Year at the British

1:24

Fashion Awards. More recently, he's

1:26

invested in a Blackburn garment factory

1:28

and started a new venture offering high quality

1:31

British made clothing at accessible prices.

1:34

He says, I've always been somebody who

1:36

loves beautifully made things that give you a lot

1:38

of joy. I love objects which last

1:40

a long time and get better the more

1:42

you use them. Patrick Grant, welcome to Desert

1:45

Island Discs.

1:45

Thank you very much for having me. So let's

1:47

start with that fascination with how things

1:49

are made, Patrick. Were you the kind of kid who would take

1:51

their toys apart to try and figure out how they worked?

1:53

I was just always, always

1:56

enjoyed the meticulousness

1:59

of putting things together. with my hands and

2:02

it always made me feel really good and

2:05

the outcomes were always things that I was really proud

2:07

of and got great pleasure from.

2:08

You've been a judge on all nine series

2:10

Patrick of the great British sewing bee. It

2:13

is perhaps the friendliest competition

2:15

show on television. I mean everybody ends up supporting

2:18

each other, they cry when someone's eliminated.

2:20

Is that about the format or do

2:22

you think it's about the kind of people who like

2:24

sewing?

2:24

I think it's about all of those things.

2:27

I think naturally people tend to sew

2:29

in groups and we didn't invent the term sewing bees.

2:31

Sewing bees have been around for a long long time. There were sewing

2:34

bees at Buckingham Palace. The Queen

2:36

Mother had sewing bees during the war to make things

2:38

for the war effort. All the palace staff got

2:40

together and sewed in one of the big ballrooms,

2:43

amazing photos. So I think on the

2:45

whole people tend to sew with other people.

2:47

I mean in our workshop our tailors

2:49

are always chatting as they sew.

2:52

There is just a communal

2:55

vibe around sewing that translates

2:57

very naturally into what happens on sewing bee. We

2:59

never discouraged it and then of course there is the

3:01

fabulous people themselves who are just

3:04

warm-hearted, lovely, kind,

3:07

generous individuals. Almost without

3:10

exception we've had the most lovely

3:12

people on the show. We're

3:13

about to get started on your music choices

3:15

Patrick. Now you've shown numerous fashion collections

3:18

over the years. I wonder if you've been involved in

3:20

choosing the music for the shows?

3:22

I chose the music for every show. It was a huge

3:24

pleasure and actually this first one was

3:27

in a show not that long ago. In fact one of my last

3:29

shows. It's lovely to see it on this

3:31

list.

3:31

Well on that note I think we should showcase your

3:33

Dassa Island discs starting with your

3:35

first choice. What is it?

3:36

My first choice is Les Fleurs

3:39

by Minnie Ripperton. It's got

3:41

a very uplifting message that says inside

3:43

everybody there is something wonderful if we can just

3:46

unearth it. But my dad

3:48

was a huge music

3:51

fan. He loved blues and

3:53

soul and dance music of all descriptions.

3:57

He used to drive me down to school from

3:59

Edinburgh down to Boughton. on a castle. It's about

4:01

a three and a half hour drive and we just sit

4:03

in the car and do that kind of John Gordon

4:06

Sinclair kind of dancing against a tree

4:08

thing in our seats and

4:10

you know lovely memories of sharing

4:12

music with him.

4:41

Mini-Wifferton and Leifler.

4:43

Patrick Grant let's go back to the beginning shall

4:45

we? You were born in Edinburgh in 1972

4:47

to Jim and Sue Grant and you've

4:49

described your upbringing as a bit famous

4:52

five so outdoorsy right?

4:53

Yeah very much so. I was very lucky.

4:56

I went to a lovely primary school around the corner from

4:58

where I grew up in in Morningside in Edinburgh called

5:00

South Morningside and I spent four years there. I had

5:03

everything on my doorstep just across the road from

5:05

me there is what is

5:07

now a nature reserve called the Hermitage

5:10

steep sided with beech trees

5:12

down the far end and I mean also I mean

5:14

a thick wooded valley with caves

5:17

and all sorts of stuff. So inviting from your

5:19

rapid young lad. It was absolutely amazing.

5:22

I had a lovely upbringing and my dad

5:24

was a rugby coach and so we... Well

5:26

not just I mean had quite an intriguing

5:29

CV by the look of it you dad. He became

5:31

a successful accountant. Yeah. He mentioned

5:33

the rugby coaching but he'd also managed a

5:35

rock band and been a champion jive dancer.

5:37

Yeah no my dad had an interesting route.

5:40

Before he met my mum my dad was managing a band

5:42

which at the time were called Dean Clark and the Gay

5:44

Lords went on to be called Marmalade

5:47

and they had a hit called Obla Dee Obla He

5:50

was the East of Scotland jive champion

5:53

with his cousin Trish. My dad

5:55

loved music, loved dancing

5:57

and then he became an accountant. I

6:00

don't really know why. But it's

6:01

interesting because that kind of trying lots of

6:03

different things, that's quite an entrepreneurial

6:07

approach to life, isn't it? Well,

6:08

he was really good at maths. He

6:10

took family life seriously and he wanted to be

6:12

a good provider and so he

6:14

got a job as an accountant and that

6:17

was him for a while. And

6:18

what was your relationship with him like? Did you look up

6:20

to him? He sounds quite

6:21

cool. He was quite a close character. He

6:23

had a very difficult upbringing. He lost his

6:25

dad when he was quite young. His father took

6:27

his own life, which we found

6:29

out much later. He never

6:32

spoke about it at all. And

6:34

so when I grew up, I didn't know that he'd

6:36

had this terrible, difficult, traumatic

6:39

childhood. But he

6:41

loved sport and rugby and

6:44

that was our thing. On Sunday mornings,

6:46

we would go to the back pitches at Murrayfield

6:49

and myself and people that I'm still friends with

6:51

today, we all played in the same mini rugby team.

6:54

And we were super successful. We won loads of tournaments.

6:56

We travelled all around Scotland. We were

6:58

actually really good. And you were good specifically

7:01

too. I was all right. Yeah, I was quite good. I mean,

7:03

actually a lot of the people in my mini rugby

7:05

team at Wanderers went on to play

7:07

representative rugby.

7:08

You scored a try for Scotland, didn't

7:10

you? I scored one try for Scotland in a

7:12

game against Wales under 19 at

7:15

Stradley Park in Flelethly. And it was on the

7:17

telly. All of my friends who were friends growing

7:19

up were coached by my dad and have great

7:21

memories of him. He was a great coach.

7:23

Let's take a break for some music, Patrick. This is

7:25

your second choice. What have you gone for and why

7:28

are you taking it to your desert island?

7:29

I loved classical music as a kid and right

7:31

throughout my adult life, I've enjoyed classical music.

7:34

I lived in Liverpool for about five years and

7:36

I had two season tickets in Liverpool. One

7:38

was Everton Football Club and the other

7:40

one was the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic. And

7:42

I used to go, I think, pretty much every

7:45

week when I lived in Liverpool, I'd be at the Phil. My

7:48

next track is Arvo Pert,

7:51

My Hearts in the Highlands. There are

7:53

lots of reasons for this choice. I mean, first, it's a beautiful piece

7:55

of music. It's called My Hearts in

7:57

the Highlands. It's a Robbie Burns poem and

7:59

song. that has been set to the

8:03

organ is incredibly evocative

8:06

of the Highlands. Every sound

8:08

of that organ feels like the

8:10

kind of mist and the clouds sitting in the

8:12

valleys and my

8:15

heart is in the Highlands. I feel most

8:18

at home and most relaxed when I'm up

8:20

a mountain either on my bike or

8:23

on foot and I always have

8:25

done.

9:23

Arvo Pert, my hearts in

9:25

the Highlands performed by Elsa Torpe

9:27

and Christopher Bowers Broadbent. Patrick

9:30

Grant, you've described your mother Sue as possibly

9:32

the most sustainable human being

9:34

on the planet.

9:35

Yeah, tell me a little bit more

9:38

about that. Good old mum, she never throws anything away. My

9:40

mum also had an unusual

9:43

upbringing. My mum's father

9:45

was in the RAF and he was killed,

9:49

disappeared somewhere over the Bay of Biscay in

9:51

December 1943 and my mum

9:54

was born in April 1944 so

9:56

she never knew her father and my granny

9:59

who was the most fantastic woman

10:01

brought my mum and my uncle

10:04

up on her own. My granny remarried

10:06

an American serviceman towards the end

10:09

of the war and then divorced him within

10:11

a year. And so she lost her war widow's pension

10:13

because of that. And so she worked always.

10:17

My mum was brought up with very little and

10:19

was brought up always to make things last. My

10:21

granny was a great scraper of the mould off

10:23

the cheese. And my

10:25

mum has inherited all of my granny's carefulness.

10:29

She looks after things. She has a little sewing

10:31

machine upstairs that she repairs things with.

10:34

She was, lastly, she was the administrator at Enver

10:37

University's Graduate School of Social Science. And

10:40

she was very well loved by the students. And

10:42

they have a prize now in her

10:44

name that's given every year. I think for probably, I don't

10:46

know what it's for actually, for the nicest student

10:49

or the best student or something. So

10:50

was she quite a kind of outward facing character?

10:52

She was the person that looked after

10:54

all of the students all of the time. She ran

10:56

the school but she was really the student's sort of

10:59

point of contact with the school.

11:01

When did you first get into clothes and care

11:03

about what you were wearing?

11:04

I was really obsessed about

11:06

clothes from a very early age. I remember going

11:08

to a christening, I must have been two

11:11

or three, my mum will correct me on this,

11:13

but they put me in some sort of blue

11:15

with a white piping sort of sailory

11:17

suit thing. And I really didn't like it. So I

11:19

lobbed myself in the fountain so they'd have to

11:21

change my clothes. And

11:24

at boarding school I would tear out pages from

11:27

Elle and Vogue and so on. How

11:29

did

11:29

that go down with you?

11:31

My roommate Simon had sort

11:33

of Bon Jovi posters on his side

11:35

of the room. And my side was people

11:38

like Beatrice Dahl and Kristen

11:40

Scott Thomas was on my side. Like quite sophisticated

11:43

looking, you know elegant women

11:45

and lots of pages from Vogue and things. And this

11:47

was in the period before there were kind of men's fashion mags.

11:50

Disk number three please Patrick. What have you chosen?

11:52

It's Do You Want a Funk by Sylvester.

11:55

James Godfrey and I used to go to a roller

11:57

disco in Edinburgh called Coaster.

12:00

and we would be weaving around

12:03

backwards doing little spins, little crossovers

12:05

and they played a lot of

12:07

amazing music at Coasters. This was the period

12:10

of a lot of disco and

12:13

Sylvester was one

12:15

of the biggest. The first couple

12:17

of bars and I am back

12:19

at Coasters with my blue rainbow

12:22

rollerskates on being really

12:24

cool as a 12-year-old.

12:30

Do you want a funk

12:32

Sylvester? Patrick Grant you

12:34

haven't

12:37

followed the

12:55

traditional

12:59

path for a clothing designer. You went to

13:01

Leeds

13:01

University to study material

13:03

science and engineering first. I

13:05

think everything that I learned during

13:07

my years doing that I think are incredibly

13:10

useful now. I studied polymer science

13:12

and you know I studied all of that the

13:14

chemistry side of textiles rather

13:16

than the kind of fashiony side of textiles and

13:18

it's really useful. I understand you know

13:20

the limitations and what we can do and I still work

13:22

with Leeds University who are

13:24

doing a lot of amazing research into ways

13:27

in which you can reduce the overall

13:30

carbon footprint, water footprint, pollution

13:32

footprint of the fashion industry because

13:34

we've spent years and years and years

13:37

trying to make textiles that you

13:39

know for example the way we dye things. We've

13:41

developed dyes that never

13:43

fade and the colours never come away

13:46

and what we need if we want to recycle our clothes

13:48

is we need to get all of those colours out. So we've spent 200

13:51

years making dyes that cannot be removed and

13:54

now we need technology that allows us just

13:56

to switch those dyes off and take them away. We can't

13:58

recycle our synthetic clothes

14:00

because they all just turn out brown. So there's

14:02

lots of stuff in there that I still find fascinating

14:05

that because of my science background I

14:07

feel like I have a better understanding of genuine

14:09

ins and outs and the genuine kind of footprint

14:12

because a lot of people who work in clothing really

14:14

really just have the wool pulled over their eyes by

14:17

the people that are supplying them and even some of those

14:19

don't really know it that well. So I feel really

14:21

well placed to be tackling one

14:24

of the really big problems in our industry. I

14:26

can see the fascination with engineering

14:28

but why didn't you consider going into fashion sooner?

14:31

I mean there can't have been that many boys

14:33

at your school cutting out pictures from Elle magazine.

14:36

I don't know it wasn't the careers

14:38

team at school weren't you know weren't

14:40

busy saying you know design

14:43

and fashion is a you know I did mathematics

14:45

chemistry A level I was good at science

14:47

at GCSE. So you were on that track. That

14:50

was the trajectory I was on. Also I loved it I was fascinated

14:52

by it and I'm still fascinated by

14:54

it and it just never

14:57

occurred to me that working in clothes was

14:59

the thing I was gonna do.

15:00

It's time for disc number four Patrick what

15:02

have you gone for?

15:02

I've gone for big-time

15:05

sensuality by Bjork and very

15:07

specifically the Fluke Magi

15:09

mix. There are lots of reasons I

15:12

was trying to find the one song

15:14

that kind of encapsulated six

15:16

years of going out clubbing

15:19

raving whatever you want to call it. This

15:21

was one like this song you know I

15:24

can remember my friend Dave running

15:26

onto the dance floor when this came on at vague and

15:28

vague was an amazing club because

15:31

it was the first big club in Leeds

15:33

where everybody dressed up everybody

15:36

wore what they want. I remember our friend James once

15:38

went down he was he painted

15:40

himself head to toe in gold and he had

15:42

these twigs that he'd sprayed and he

15:44

was the he was the king of the wood and

15:47

he had these sort of speedos on that he'd

15:49

also sprayed gold and then halfway through the night he

15:51

whipped the speedos off and everything was

15:53

sprayed gold and that was the kind of

15:55

place vague was everything went it

15:58

was such a joyous place and And this

16:00

was a big song. I also, I took

16:02

this Bjork album with me around Greece for

16:05

the summer and I must've played it a hundred times

16:07

on my Walkman. ["Waltz

16:09

of the B B

16:39

The Fluke Mix of Bjork's Bigtime

16:42

Sensuality"] I

16:48

think you noticed an ad in The Financial Times and

16:50

made quite a bold decision during one

16:53

college lunch hour.

16:54

What actually happened? There was nobody else around, so

16:56

I sat and read the paper and got to a section at the back which

16:58

I'd never seen before in my life called Businesses for

17:00

Sale. And in Businesses

17:02

for Sale was this tiny little postage stamp-sized

17:05

advert and it said, for sale,

17:08

tailor to Emperor's Kings and Presidents,

17:10

please write to Mr Granger at 16 Savile

17:12

Row. I thought, wow, he's had a Savile Row

17:14

tailor for sale. So I wrote him a letter

17:17

and I went to see this shop and I thought, I can't

17:20

believe that this is an actual, like

17:22

an actual Savile Row tailor that was at the time

17:24

nearly 200 years old was for sale in

17:26

the back of the paper. So

17:27

you were studying for an MBA in

17:29

Business, but you hadn't yet graduated.

17:31

No. So you're

17:32

walking the shop floor with him.

17:34

So I remember walking into the shop on Savile

17:36

Row and thinking, yeah,

17:38

I can do better than this. I remember walking into

17:40

the workshop and meeting some of the tailors and everything

17:43

about the business sort of felt

17:45

like it was in decline. And I thought, look, I can probably,

17:47

I think I can do this. And so

17:50

actually it didn't feel like a big risk, even though obviously

17:53

it was. How old would you have been then? I think I've also been 32

17:55

when I saw the ad though, back it was in April

17:58

and then I turned 33 in the May. and it was

18:00

December by the time I sort of bought

18:02

it. But I sold my house, I

18:04

sold my car, I raised

18:07

money from friends and family, my granny pitched

18:09

in. So they were supportive, I mean, people,

18:12

was there anyone? Yeah, I mean, my mum thought I was absolutely mad.

18:14

My friends were about to graduate and become hedge

18:16

fund managers and earn squillions. And

18:18

I wanted to go and take over a sort

18:21

of, it was in a voluntary arrangement with the receivers.

18:23

It was financially on its uppers

18:26

and I loved it. And

18:28

I thought, this is an amazing thing. And

18:31

I reckon I can probably do something

18:33

to turn it around. So yeah,

18:36

I went for it. Did it give you any sleepless nights?

18:38

I expected everything to be absolutely rosy. I'm

18:41

a very optimistic person generally. I think you have to be,

18:43

if you want to start businesses, you've got to think they're going to succeed.

18:46

I think in August of the second year

18:48

that I was there, I think the

18:50

door to the shop opened once in

18:53

the entire month. Scary. And

18:55

I thought, oh God, I've made a terrible mistake

18:58

here. Mum lent me a bit of money and

19:00

the bank lent me a bit more money. And I sort

19:02

of kept it a fruit. We had this amazing

19:04

customer from Spain and he had, I think he'd had about eight

19:07

suits on order. I remember phoning him up at the beginning of August

19:09

and saying, hello, just to let you know your

19:11

suits are ready. And he went, oh fine, I'll be back in

19:13

September. And I thought, oh God, we'll

19:15

be gone by then. We need you to come and collect.

19:17

But it worked out fine. It went from

19:20

penury to more than doubled

19:22

the size of the business in about three years.

19:24

It's time for your next piece of music,

19:27

Patrick Grant number five. What are we going to hear

19:29

and why?

19:29

This piece of music is called

19:31

Harry Patch in brackets in

19:34

memory of by Radiohead. It's

19:36

a kind of anti-war protest song. Tom

19:38

York and Johnny Greenwood had heard

19:41

an interview with Harry Patch on the

19:43

radio where Harry Patch was the

19:45

oldest surviving soldier from the First

19:47

World War. And he didn't talk about the

19:50

war at all for something like 87 years. He

19:53

was invited to go and meet a German soldier,

19:55

the oldest surviving German soldier

19:57

from the First World War. And they met

19:59

and they

19:59

shook.

19:59

and they spent time together and

20:02

he wanted to talk about what

20:05

a terrible waste of life war

20:07

is. And my granddad died

20:09

in the war, my mum grew up without a father

20:11

because of the war, and it's

20:14

an incredibly touching piece of music and it

20:16

uses some of the things that Harry Patch

20:19

said in the interview. I worked

20:21

with Tom York. We did the costume

20:24

for an Atoms for Peace video.

20:27

Having loved Radiohead for all

20:29

of these years to be invited to work

20:31

with Tom directly was such an honour.

20:57

How did you get to know the story of the film?

21:06

Radiohead, Harry Patch

21:08

in memory of Patrick Grant

21:11

in 2015, you bought the Cookson and Clegg Textiles

21:13

factory in Blackburn in a bid to save

21:15

it from closing and to begin a new business,

21:18

community closing. But within a year

21:20

you had to put the factory into voluntary liquidation

21:22

and make staff redundant. It

21:25

must have been a really tough time. What do you remember

21:27

about

21:27

it? Oh, it was awful. It

21:29

was absolutely awful. We had a plan when I took

21:31

over the business. One of the ideas that emerged

21:34

was the idea behind community clothing, but it took a while to get

21:36

that up and running. And we had a couple of really

21:38

big contracts at Cookson's and

21:41

one of them, very well known High Street brand,

21:44

didn't pay their bill for a very long time. And

21:47

the other, a very well known British

21:49

sportswear brand, cancelled a huge

21:51

contract with about two weeks ago and it killed

21:53

us. And I had to make everybody redundant

21:56

and I scrambled to find

21:58

the money to buy... the

22:00

machinery back from the liquidators

22:03

and we managed to come

22:06

to an arrangement with our landlord and All

22:08

of our suppliers got paid and we made sure that

22:11

everything was good and we got we got back up and running again I'm

22:13

having to make everybody it was horrifying. I

22:15

mean my dad was made redundant. So I saw it from

22:17

that side It's traumatic in

22:20

a very real way for people and having

22:22

to do it en masse to all of those

22:24

people was dreadful People

22:27

were you able to get the job's back? Well, we got we

22:29

took them all back But fortunately that

22:32

second time around it went better until covered

22:34

that idea of Supporting British

22:37

skills and manufacturers is hugely

22:39

important to you But so many companies

22:41

have outsourced to cut costs. Is

22:44

there a skills gap?

22:45

There's a huge gap The fact

22:47

is that we work with Many of them

22:49

are sort of family owned many of them have been where

22:51

they are for centuries in some cases

22:53

You know, we've got factories that we work with that date back

22:55

to the late 1700s in the past It

22:58

was easy for them to find stuff, you know, people

23:00

would follow parents or grandparents into

23:03

these businesses They would learn these skills Almost

23:06

without exception now We find that all

23:08

of the factors we work with and we work with 42 factories

23:11

in the UK now They all find it very

23:13

very difficult to find people

23:15

who want to learn those skills. And I think

23:18

that is because

23:18

for

23:20

Decades now we have undersold

23:23

the idea of skilled manual work

23:25

both conservative and labor governments have

23:28

I think

23:30

Made it the case that sort of skilled

23:32

manual work feels like second-class work And

23:34

I think that's completely wrong. You can make

23:36

a great career in our industry It's

23:39

time for some more music Patrick your sixth choice

23:41

today. What have you taken to the island next?

23:43

this is kill them by

23:45

Jamie XX and It's

23:49

a song that I can't sit still to

23:51

this is just a great dance

24:24

Jamie XX and Kill Them. Your

24:27

factory was making PPE during

24:29

COVID. How quickly were you able to switch

24:31

over?

24:31

At the start

24:34

of the pandemic, we

24:36

were approached by a number of different

24:38

suppliers of uniform. So

24:40

companies that normally make their uniform

24:43

in countries overseas, the one we ended up working with

24:45

had factories in four different countries. All

24:47

of those countries had been closed down. We

24:50

were getting loads of inquiries from people. Can you make scrubs?

24:52

Can you make gowns? What can you do? I

24:55

was on the phone for about seven

24:57

or eight hours every day. I remember looking at my phone log

24:59

about two months into COVID and thinking, I was

25:01

recharging my phone twice a day just to keep

25:04

up with the calls. I was in work 12,

25:06

14 hours a day. And we said

25:09

to them, look, whoever gives us an order first, you can

25:11

have it. We're here. We want to do whatever we need

25:13

to do. And a company called

25:15

Alstecote, who had based in Preston, gave

25:18

us an order. They sent us through,

25:20

electronically sent us the patterns through. We

25:22

made a sample that day. I think it was a Wednesday. They

25:24

came in on a Thursday morning, signed them off

25:27

at 10 a.m. The truck

25:29

from the company in Chorley that makes

25:32

fabric for uniforms, they

25:34

arrived Thursday afternoon. We got it straight up into the

25:36

cutting room. We cut it. We started selling

25:38

it on the Thursday. And on the Friday lunchtime, the

25:41

first scrubs were coming off the line. Private

25:44

Enterprise during COVID stepped up and

25:46

did amazing stuff. You know, we are just one

25:48

of lots and lots of businesses that stepped up. And

25:50

at the same time, the government

25:53

and others were running this catastrophically

25:56

shambolic program to try and

25:59

manage people. PPE supplies into

26:01

the NHS and we were involved in that. It

26:03

was heartbreaking to see how badly they

26:06

all performed. And my dad died of COVID very,

26:08

very early on, very unnecessarily because there was

26:10

no PPE in the hospital. He'd gone

26:12

into hospital for a very routine operation,

26:15

caught COVID in hospital and died three days later. Totally

26:19

unnecessary that he died, but there was no PPE

26:21

in the hospital. I remember going into the hospital about a week before,

26:24

was into this operation on his legs on phase.

26:26

This was the March. This was the March. COVID

26:28

was on the rise, but there was no PPE in

26:30

the hospital because they didn't have any. I

26:32

remember somebody in the cabinet office, I went to them

26:34

early on and said, look, there are loads and

26:36

loads of people who can sew at home. We've got very limited

26:39

sewing capacity in the UK, but hospitals

26:41

need scrubs and gowns. There are a million

26:43

sewing machines in homes around the UK. Lots

26:46

of them wanna help. There are lots of also empty

26:48

factories with cutting capacity. We can get

26:50

the fabric, we can cut it centrally, we can distribute

26:52

it to home sewers. They said,

26:54

health and safety, we wouldn't. I'm like, it's a pair

26:57

of scrubs. There are doctors wearing pyjamas.

26:59

Like this is fun. No, we'd have to sign

27:02

off every individual sewer through health

27:04

and safety. You've all lost your mind.

27:06

Patrick, we've gotta take some time

27:08

for the music. It's your seventh disc next.

27:11

What have you chosen and

27:12

why? I have

27:14

chosen a song called Get Better by Alt-J.

27:17

This is, I think, the saddest song I know.

27:19

So

27:22

this is a song that came out during COVID. And

27:25

it's about somebody struggling with the loss of a

27:27

loved one. And I

27:30

lost my dad during COVID. And

27:33

I mean, there's a little shout out to the

27:35

NHS in the lyrics. And at

27:37

the end, there's a little recording.

27:41

And it's

27:44

just the loved one in question, the

27:46

little clip of them saying better

27:49

to their partner. And it's these

27:52

little fragments of lives that

27:54

we hold onto when we're

27:56

grieving.

27:57

And it's a lovely song.

27:59

song is a beautiful song of

28:02

course it brings back memories of my dad and

28:04

it's

28:08

also it's kind

28:10

of uplifting because we will get through

28:13

and you know and hanging on to these

28:15

little things allows us to treasure

28:17

the memories and the things that that I treasure

28:19

that were my dad's pieces of his clothing and

28:22

I have his ties and when you tie them you

28:24

can only tie them in one way because he's

28:26

tied them so many times the knot only

28:29

forms the knot that he would wear so you know

28:31

that his fingers were there holding

28:33

that silk in exactly the same way and this song is a

28:35

lovely song because it reminds me that

28:38

things will

28:39

get better.

28:55

get better

29:01

I know I will get

29:06

better I

29:08

die I

29:10

know I will

29:15

Algae and get better Patrick

29:18

Grant the fashion industry does have a huge

29:20

environmental impact even at the

29:22

sustainable end of the market where you are why is that

29:25

something you struggle with?

29:26

we just consume too much stuff we consume too

29:28

much stuff in every aspect of our lives

29:30

now and as somebody who loves really

29:33

good things I find it incredibly depressing

29:36

businesses started outsourcing the making

29:38

of the things that they sell to other

29:40

people and when they first did it that

29:42

was fine because they took something that was made

29:44

locally and they moved it to Hong Kong

29:46

and they had somebody make a version of it in Hong Kong

29:49

and it was sort of almost the same but

29:51

then over the last 30-40 years every

29:53

six months they've gone back to that factory and

29:55

said can you make it a bit cheaper and

29:57

eventually that factory says I can't make it any cheaper

30:00

So they go to somebody else and oh, we can make it cheaper, but they

30:02

use lower quality materials but they make

30:04

them thinner and then they make them... And

30:06

every six months, the things we buy

30:08

in our ordinary life have got worse and worse and worse

30:11

and worse and worse. And now the things that we buy are

30:13

so universally rubbish, they

30:16

have no value to us at all. We're

30:17

in a cost of living crisis. There are plenty of people

30:20

who can't afford to buy too much. They

30:22

can't

30:22

afford to buy the cut. They're struggling to get the

30:24

basic. But the reason those good things are so expensive,

30:27

comparatively, is because we don't make them in

30:30

big volumes anymore. You know, we used to employ 1.6

30:32

million people in the UK making textiles.

30:34

Now it's about 100,000. When

30:37

we had a big industry, the bigger it was, the more

30:39

efficient it was. And the good quality stuff would

30:41

be affordable, certainly more affordable. It's

30:43

almost

30:43

time to cast you away to your desert island.

30:46

First thing first, talk me through the outfit.

30:49

Well, I'm probably wearing the trousers I'm wearing

30:51

today because I wear these trousers probably 70% of all day.

30:54

They're a khaki panther. They're a khaki

30:56

baguette field trouser. They're incredibly

30:59

robust. They're the sort of trousers

31:01

that you would have been able to buy anywhere 40 years ago, like

31:04

super hard wearing, loose,

31:06

lovely, you know, they're great. I'm probably

31:09

wearing a blue crew neck and a sandal

31:11

that I've made out of twisted coconut

31:14

tuft and driftwood.

31:16

Well, everyone will be copying you the

31:18

following year when you escape. What

31:20

sort of island are you hoping for?

31:21

I'm hoping there's plenty of driftwood that washes

31:23

up. I'm hoping that there's stuff growing on the island that

31:25

I can spin into yarn. I'm

31:27

going to make myself a loom and a spinning wheel on

31:29

this island so that I can, you know,

31:32

make myself some togs and maybe a sail, but

31:34

maybe some flax growing on this island. That

31:36

would be quite good. Flax that you spin

31:38

into linen that you can then use

31:41

for everything from clothing

31:43

to sails to hammocks to

31:45

roof tarpaulins. Well, fingers crossed.

31:48

That's what I'm doing.

31:49

Well, that's the practicalities taken care of.

31:51

On the emotional side, you'll be completely isolated.

31:53

Yeah. How will you deal with that?

31:55

I'm going to make stuff. That's what I'm going

31:57

to do on this island. I'm going to making things.

32:00

me feel calm and happy and

32:02

centered and useful. So

32:04

I think I will spend my time building

32:07

things, making things, that's what I'll

32:09

be doing.

32:10

Well we've got one final track to hear from

32:12

you before we cast you away Patrick Grant. Your

32:14

last choice today please, what is

32:16

it? It's a song called I Saw by

32:18

Young Fathers.

32:20

And why have you chosen

32:20

it? The Young Fathers are an Edinburgh band.

32:23

What I love about Young Fathers is as a band

32:25

they feel like the very best of how multicultural

32:28

Britain contributes positively

32:31

to our society. The way that people

32:33

from other places bring so much

32:36

value to our lives

32:39

is I think encapsulated in this sort of very

32:42

culturally rich small

32:44

band that make amazing music.

33:18

young fathers and i saw.

33:20

so patrick grant it's time to send you away to

33:22

the island. i'm giving you the bible and the complete

33:25

works of shakespeare to take along with you. you

33:27

can also take one other book. what

33:29

would you like?

33:29

i'm going to take a book by mike

33:32

abbott. it's called green woodworking.

33:34

it's an encyclopedia of woodworking techniques

33:36

but it starts all the way back at the tree which

33:39

is useful because it'll teach me how to make planks

33:41

before i make everything else. so i'm

33:43

going to teach myself how to make

33:45

things with wood.

33:47

wonderful you can also have a luxury item

33:49

not too practical if you wouldn't mind. well

33:51

i mean well actually my luxury

33:53

item is somewhat connected but i'm taking a set of woodworking

33:55

tools.

33:56

well there has been precedent for

34:00

tools that are used to make an object that

34:02

is for sensory stimulation

34:04

that is in pursuit of aesthetics

34:07

rather than anything

34:07

practical. I'm going to make myself a piano.

34:09

I'm going to start with a xylophone and then

34:12

I'm going to work my way up. I can probably make

34:14

an oboe, I reckon.

34:15

That would keep you busy anyway Patrick Grant. I'm

34:17

not entirely sure I believe you but I'm going

34:19

to let it pass this once. The tools

34:22

for non-practical purposes only are

34:24

yours. And finally which one

34:26

track from the eight that you've shared with us today will

34:28

you rush to save from the waves first?

34:30

I'm going to take Kill Them

34:32

because

34:33

it makes me happy.

34:35

Patrick Grant, thank you very much for letting

34:37

us hear your desert island discs. Thank

34:39

you.

34:53

Hello. I hope Patrick's very happy

34:55

on his island trying to make a piano and who

34:57

knows, maybe even an oboe. We've

34:59

cast away many designers over the years including

35:02

Paul Costello, Stella McCartney and

35:04

Savile Road Tailor Andrew Ramrape. You

35:07

can hear their programmes if you search through our

35:09

Desert Island Discs programme archive or

35:11

on BBC Sound and you'll also find

35:13

Patrick's favourite musician, Tom York in

35:15

there

35:15

too. The

35:16

studio manager for today's programme was Sarah

35:19

Hockley. The assistant producer was Christine

35:21

Pavlovski and the producer was Sarah

35:23

Taylor. The series editor is John Goudie.

35:26

Join me next time when I'm talking to Women's

35:28

Health Ambassador, Professor Dame Leslie

35:30

Regan.

35:36

Thank you.

36:00

you