Pull deserves a brief mention. I'm back tracking to shortly after leaving Fred Baiers. I was going out at weekends doing ecstasy and found a partner in crime with a similar appetite. Clive had been chief designer for Kevin McCloud at dragon works where McCloud lighting was based,
. As Kev moved in to tv work his interest in lighting dimmed and the team were made redundant. In our chemically fuelled enthusiasm we decided to frm a artnership design only. Our first job was for the refit of the new extension to liberties of London. Neil Wilkin had too much work on so me and Alice, the third member of the partnership designed the chandeliers. These were to look like glass but were in actual fact plastic. We designed them a la Wilkin. There were twelve and they may still be there. They are tangled flower head octopus looking things that, to our disgust dust built up on within six months of fitting and this so called posh shop couldn't see, or couldn't be arsed to get up there wit ladder and polish them. We visited a London design consultancy called 20 20 which was regarded as ultra hip but was basically a bunch of ex students, rifling through magazines cutting pictures out. I don't think any real design went on there. I had the job of trying to make a table design that defied physics and wouldn't have stood up. I explained solid wood lamination as used in john Makepeace chairs but the guy thought lamination meant Formica and failed to grasp what I was on about. I did the working drawings and left them with them. I never saw the drawings again but when I visited the freshly fitted shop my tables, down to the millimetre were there. That's theft. There was to be a wall of light and Clive whose experience as McCloud chief designer took on that project. I decided I didn't want to be a high flying London design type. I remember looking at the clothes they wore and had to hold back my laughter.
We did some work for the Eden project in Cornwall that went a lot better but our crowning glory was our demise. We, or rather I designed an exhibition stand for Templestone fireplaces, a company that make stone fire surrounds, some carved, some cast. I realised then Clive's value. He could talk to these people and convince them of an idea. The basic concept was a series of stepped chimney breasts. The central one would display their finest work. As the wall stepped back I got them to cut their fireplaces in half then to run a mirror up the side of the fake chimney breast to give a suggestion of the full fire surround and allowing them to display their five best designs and two more at the sides. I designed it down to the flooring, down to how to construct it screw for screw.
The payments were to be split 50 t50 between me and Clive despite the ideas being mine. Presumably in the future the reverse would happen. We split the first payment. Then I had to spend a month in Spain. Clive redrew my drawing, badly for the second meeting and took the whole of the second payment. I had asked Clive to look after my cat while I was away.
When I got back he'd moved all his belongings in to my cottage. There were no reasons for him having to exit his own flat. As soon as he filled the house with his boxes my cat disappeared never to be seen again. I expected some explanation. Some date when he intended to move out. It was a small cottage so you could never be unaware of others in the house. It was my and Alice's small home.
After four days of him not mentioning his plans for moving out, after him taking the third payment for my design I lost my rag.
I loaded all his stuff in to my van and drove it to the workshop in which he had a share and dumped it there. Our friendship was done as was our business. I never saw my cat again, he took 5/6ths of the money for my design.
The funny thing was, they ran a competition at the Olympia show for the best designed stand. Ours won.
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