Phil Bradley basketmaker

John visits the workshop of Phil Bradley to discuss all things willow and how to diversify to make a living from your craft.

Phil grows his own stock material and the recording was made shortly after the annual willow harvest in january.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

I'm watching you. I watch you. I'll just watch you, okay. Hello everyone, and uh welcome to the latest episode of the Tunes and Spoons podcast. This is John speaking. Uh I'm gonna keep this preamble pretty short compared to the last video soundtrack that we did, because as you can see, it's it's quite a long interview uh that me and Phil uh conducted. Um just before I actually talk about the actual uh interview itself, I'd just like to say one or two thank yous. Particularly past interviewees that have been really welcoming and uh accommodating actually. Uh it's it's it's pleasantly surprised me how willing people are to to share the stories and and you know welcome it it's not easy to speaking in front of uh uh in front of other people and you know it's gonna be broadcast, you know, the old red red uh red light recording syndrome. So I'm I'm really really pleased that people have been willing to have a go at it. A massive thank you as well to me my friend Richard Roberts, who's been doing the um editing for me, improving the sound and editing things, he's done a fantastic job as Richard. I can't can't thank you enough, Richard. I don't know if anybody would I think a lot of people listening to this will know actually that Richard's uh on the committee of the uh Association of Erl Lathe, Turners and Greenwood Workers. Um AK the Bodgers uh whose annual get-together is in I think it's the second weekend in it's it's the weekend after the May Bank holiday anyway, uh in it's this year it it's gonna be in Bromsgrove in the Midlands, just south of Birmingham. So that's a that's where uh that's that's like the annual gathering and AGM of the uh the Bodgers group. So look out for that one. But thank you, Richard. Uh and also anybody who's listened and uh tuned into the uh podcast, it's it's in its earliest days, but I've I you know I'm getting some good feedback from people and and encouragement from people. It it's a non-profit, we're just trying to do it as a we're trying to facilitate something nice, that's all. So the encouragement that we get just you know empowers me to carry on basically. So thank you very much. So like I say, it's uh it's gonna be a short but it's gonna be a short one this from me, but I just what what I'm hoping is that the uh the the atmosphere come bears with this one. I'm I'm I'm really pleased with this one actually, because me and Phil are really good friends, we go back a long way, uh so it it was easy to talk to him, and to be honest with you, we could have filled six hours of content. We we were non-stop talking all the time that up at his place anyway. So so the backstory is that the first three interviews were were conducted quite locally in West Yorkshire, but I'm gonna try and get out and about. Uh, and I I I travelled about three and a half hours up to Phil's place in the late districts. He laid on some fantastic weather, uh, and it was really accommodating with Phil, uh, which I'm not surprised about, to be honest with you. And and he was forthcoming with uh advice, uh interviewee suggestions and things like that, uh as leads that I'm gonna be following up uh with actually, and they're really good ones as well, actually. So I defin I will definitely be uh be following those up, so thanks for that, Phil. Um so in regards to this um this particular episode, it's done on location, we're mostly inside uh Phil's workshop, but we do walk outside, so the audio will change slightly as as I'm looking at his outside space. But it's what I really like actually when I've heard other uh podcasts or location interviews and what have you. I hope because I've got the the items that we're talking about in front of me, I hope you can hear the the atmosphere, the you know, the birds calling, the the whole ambience have actually been there, you know what I mean? Uh that's what I'm hoping to do going forward. So I uh you know I'm looking forward to your feedback on that, see if that that works, see if you agree with me on that. I hope so anyway. Uh like I say, Phil was extremely accommodating. Um what else have we got to talk about? Yeah, so the uh the tune the intro tune, Phil I'll let Phil t tell you all about it uh as the interview progresses. But my initial I'm I'm making a bit of a confession here. So like I said, I I I drove three and a half hours to get to Phil's and three and a half hours back, and my intention was me and Phil were going to play a tune that we'd agreed upon. Uh so I put me well, put my fiddle case in my in my van, got up there, pulled my fiddle case out, opened it up, no fiddle, and as as I'm looking now, it's still hanging here on the uh on the wall outside of me. So so but luckily Phil had got an historic uh recording with myself and him on playing this same tune actually. Uh and it ties in quite nicely actually because it was actually done on location at the uh the bunkhouse that's run by Rachel and Mike Benson uh near the ribled viaduct called Broadrake Bunkhouse, which will wh which actually gets ref referenced two or three times during the interview, so uh but I I do need to uh credit uh Mike and Rachel Benson who actually appear on that. On uh whistle and recorder, respectively. So thanks for that, Phil, for finding that. Got me out of jail. Er so in support of this of this interview, it would r uh I w I'll on the um Tunes and Spoons um Instagram account, I'll put uh supporting photographs. So effectively you can listen to the interview and you can see the items that we're discussing. It'll make sense if you if you look at that. Uh I would also uh suggest that you check out Phil's Instagram feed as well because again there's lots more photographs on there uh illustrating the the the topics that he covers when we when we're talking when we're speaking in the uh in the interview. So uh one last thing, uh you might think there's a a bit too much of me on on this on these uh interviews of lately, uh but Adam will be back. He's very busy at the moment, A with work because it's the time of year when you when you're building stock levels for uh the forthcoming craft year, but he's also working on a really uh important project that but it's a collaborative project actually, which I can't I can't say anything about now, but uh by the time this has aired, uh it will have already happened, so you'll you'll know what I'm talking about. But it's something that's very close to Adam's heart and he's putting his heart and soul into it, and I'm gonna wish him good luck with that. And I'm in fact I'm gonna be helping him with it and and uh going over there and supporting him. But uh yeah, you're gonna be hearing much more about him in the future, so uh with all the oh the oh yes, I've one last thing I've just remembered actually. Uh Phil just Phil's to as Phil's talking as natural conversation voice, he does say something like oh sugar in slightly different language. It's not strong. I'm I'm leaving it in. It's nothing that I I'm just pre-warning you. It's he tried to catch his word, did poor lad, but uh that's absolutely nothing, nothing to worry about. I'd I'd I'd be quite happy for my kids to to hear that. Right, okay, so uh without any further ado, like I say, let's get into the intro. Uh, and here's Phil Bradley. I'm lucky to be in the Lake District on a beautiful spring morning with a good friend of mine, Phil Bradley. How are you doing, mate? Good morning, John.

SPEAKER_01 7:54

I am a pleasure to have you.

SPEAKER_00 7:56

Listen, mate. Welcome to letting me come over and and spending a little bit of time with your mate. I really appreciate it, mate. So we're up so I'll let you set set the set us up for whereabouts we are in the world, then, because we've got listeners from all over the place, you know. We've got we've got play from Australia and America and everywhere. Where are we in the world, mate?

SPEAKER_01 8:16

Well, we are we are sat in the little hamlet, I guess, of Dean Scales, which is not far from Cockermouth, on the western side of the lake district, in the fine county of Cumbria in the northwest of England, not far from Scotland.

SPEAKER_00 8:33

And we're not we're not actually far too far from the coast, actually. On the Atlantic coast.

SPEAKER_01 8:38

Well, I'll be looking out onto Skidder, Central Lakes out of my workshop window. If we had a window in the back of the wall there, we'd be looking towards Scotland. Scotland's about 12 miles halfway across the hallway. Yeah, so we're probably about as uh it it I mean Phil's being modesty.

SPEAKER_00 8:58

If you look at as I'm looking at here, it's like a chocolate box. I can't understand in the world why we decided to settle settle here, mate. It's terrible. I feel my office. I feel so sad about it. I'm just gonna open the door, you know, and I bet you never get fed up of it either, do you?

SPEAKER_01 9:16

Well, we have friends who I mean we've been here 30 years, John, and we get friends who come say, Oh, you must get kind of used to the view, almost like tired of it. And I think, no, Jess, no chance.

SPEAKER_00 9:26

Every day. I every day I come out here, look at that. And I and I think we've got mutual friends uh uh near uh the Ribbled Viaduct, haven't we? Uh Rachel Benson and Mike. And and they're the same, you know, they're they're they're they're looking at that like with fresh pair of because everything looks different on a different day, doesn't it? You know, is it well today? We can just about see Skidder in the haze, but there's plenty of times a city and you can you can't see that apple, which is one of the highest peaks of the uh uh lakes national parks, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 9:54

Some days it looks a million miles away. Right. Some days it looks like you could reach out and touch it.

SPEAKER_00 10:00

And do you know what that is for me? That's uh Emily Moore Mast, Emly Moore television mast. I uh from my south facing uh aspect to my house, I can see Emily Moore. And again, sometimes it looks like well, sometimes you can only see half of it because it it's like literally looking onto the pennines from West Yorkshire.

SPEAKER_01 10:18

So I waxed lyrical about this video, and I get workplace.

SPEAKER_00 10:22

I get the same, I get the same feeling. When I walk down the steps at Whitby, I'm I'm always over at Whitby. And and and I never get fed fed up of seeing it. So you're in a lovely part of the part of the country. And uh and in uh as even as we speak, he's got Willow in his hands, so that Willow's gonna be a common uh quite a strong thread throughout this um.

SPEAKER_01 10:42

Well, we're just the same, we'll we'll probably ramble on about all sorts of things, but we're we're gonna try and keep this conservate this conversation centering around willow. Yeah, forgive us if we drift off a bit. We we do, don't we, John?

SPEAKER_00 10:54

We're good mates, we're good mates. All over the place. Right. Well, before we even get into willow, then Phil, I'll give you an heads up on this, so everybody by now will know that I want to know where someone's hometown would be, not where they live now necessarily, but where the you know, where where where the where their upbringing was, basically.

SPEAKER_01 11:15

Oh well, my home, well, hometown I was born in I was born home in the sticks in in rural North Nottinghamshire. But I guess the nearest place of any significance you might have heard of would be the fine town of Mansfield. Mansfield, North Nottinghamshire. But I was born in a little village called King's Clipston, which are not far from Edwin Stowe, which are not far from the very heart of Sherwood Forest. So I guess trees have been there right from the get-go.

SPEAKER_00 11:41

So so so the biggest the the the biggest commercial centre is Mansfield from where when you're when you were in Children's. So what what what what is what's Mansfield known for?

SPEAKER_01 11:50

Then it's Mansfield was known for its blooming coal collaries, it's had about seven of it. Is there one or two breweries as well? There was Mansfield Brewery, which got took over by one of the big boys quite a long time ago.

SPEAKER_00 12:02

Yeah, yeah. So so you're growing so you're you're North Knots, so North Knots. So when you say Sherwood Forest, I mean I think we know your local celebrities. Who do you think?

SPEAKER_01 12:15

Well, yeah, when you asked me somebody famous who'd come to my deck of the woods, then I think I came up with two people, I don't know. Robin Hood came to mind. Of course, and then and then I I've got the other one that's come to mind. Uh Mansfield was infamous for the Black Panther. We're going back some years.

SPEAKER_00 12:31

Yeah, me and you all remember the Black Panther after Jack the Ripper. What was his oper up operando, modus operandah? Was he a strangler? Murdering people, just murdering people, just general murder.

SPEAKER_01 12:41

That's how we did it. But they caught him just outside Mansfield. He came to a sticky end. Uh and I'm sure there's other things Mansfield's famous for. But um, yeah, the brewery, the Stag's football team, community of football, coal mining towns as were.

SPEAKER_00 12:58

But uh I think we've got we've got you down there, mate. That'll do. So where I'm from. So while we while we're doing a bit of tiding up, I'll let you uh tell us what the tune is that we've just played. That's the intro for this.

SPEAKER_01 13:12

Because you actually you actually introduced this tune to me, so well, we've known each other for a long time, haven't we, John? And uh and and and I'm no great musician, but I think we've played together in the past and we've played this tune which I I I learned a long time ago and I played in a Cayley band. I know it's the Eagle's feather, yeah. But then the same tune other people put more commonly know it's initiar. Initiar.

SPEAKER_00 13:34

I actually played it to me. Initiar I actually played it to me, uh fiddle teacher, and I said eagle's feather because that's how you would introduce it to me. She said that's initiar with two with two different notes. Oh, was it two different notes in it? Oh, one, one on two different notes. So if anybody recognised the tune, they might know it from initiar. And like with a lot of the Irish tunes, they get they get different names and they get Chinese whispers and that don't.

SPEAKER_01 13:57

I googled it to get the chords again and they called it Initiar, and I think they said, Is it the smallest of the Aaron Islands? Just off the score, it's go away.

SPEAKER_00 14:08

So, yeah, so we're gonna have a shot at that. Yeah, thank you, mate. And we've actually, I don't know if you remember, we've actually played this in front of uh Mike Arden, haven't we? We've played it in front of Yeah, we have well I can't remember what he said about it. I didn't dare look at him.

SPEAKER_01 14:24

I don't I think we got a round of applause.

SPEAKER_00 14:27

Mike Hardin is one of the godfathers of English folk music, isn't he? And it it it ran a session um in a in a pub in settle, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_01 14:34

Yeah, one of the pubs in settle. And we must have had a beer or two to me that night, John. We played it in front of him, didn't we? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:41

So that's the chill. And if you want to have a go at it, it's either Eagle's feather or uh initiative. Take your pits of nice long walls. Uh and thanks for doing that, Phil. So it's not by coincidence that A, I wanted to come and speak to you. There's been a good friend that I'm comfortable chatting to ball, so this time of year, because is it not the well, I know it is, it's the time that you've just done your harvest, isn't it, your willow? We just well, yeah, what are we now?

SPEAKER_01 15:08

We're early March, aren't we? We we we more or less finished the harvest kind of late January. Yeah. Yeah, we had a really good uh we do it as a community event now. Me and Kath, for 30 years, we used to just harvest the willow, the two of us, and it crack it, it must have taken us six weeks to bring the harvest in. It was a big old job. And uh this last few years we we opened we just opened it up as a bit of a well, it's been called Willow Fest now. How many people how many people have helped you with it then first? Well, surprisingly, quite a lot. I I I had this bet with a friend of mine who came up, um, lovely Tom Dennison came who does permaculture. Okay, and he asked if he could bring some of his students to help with the harvest because he thought they'd be interested. And he came up and they had a lovely time about five years ago, and Tom said, he said to me, Phil, you're missing a trick with this harvest. He said, You should invite people to come, it's great fun. And I said, Tom, it's the middle of winter, you're just scrabbling around in the soil cutting middle, nobody will come. And he said, I bet you a pine people will come. So we had a bet on it. And Tom went off. I wasn't on Facebook then. Tom put a few pictures up on Facebook, Phil Bradley's harvesting this weekend. Come and join in, and we had about 40 people come. 40, 4-0, a few from Cumbria, but there was folks come up from Cornwall, there was a couple come down from the north of Scotland, just seen it on Facebook, and thought we want to have a go at that. Right. And we had a great over over the over two weekends, we got the whole lot cut. Wow. Shall we shall we look at your willow? Come and have a look at me.

SPEAKER_00 16:40

Did they used to be called Sally Gardens? Is that is that is that what is that a name for the willow? They get called whole sorts.

SPEAKER_01 16:48

But that's the tune we should have made.

SPEAKER_00 16:49

Yeah, well, I was I was playing Sally Gardens on my fiddle, and somebody says, you know what Sally Gardens are, right? The Latin name for Willow is the Salix, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 16:59

Yeah, the Latin name for Willow is Salix and the folky name for willow is Sally's Sally's always.

SPEAKER_00 17:06

And it pops up quite a lot in in folk music, so not too fast. Um so yes, uh and a lot of that Sally is the the etymology is from the sir uh Sally. But it it does look I'm looking at here, this pit that I can see in front of me, and it's not massive. I think well I've got seven willow beds. Oh right, this is just one of them, right?

SPEAKER_01 17:29

And I reckon it's about third of an acre we're looking at here, John. So in like in farming terms, it's nothing, it's a big garden. But on that third of an acre, it's all been harvested, so I'm just trying to describe it to folks who are maybe trying to imagine what the willow bed looks like. It's like uh like a field of stubble, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 17:46

Yes, it looks like heather, it looks like dry heather now. Well it it's uh it's it's bare, it's just it's recently been crazy, so there's no there's no green, it's just it looks like heather to me.

SPEAKER_01 17:57

So what we're looking at is that is what are called the stools or the stumps. Yeah, and this bed we planted year 2000, and we crop off it every single year. Right. So this year's will have been the 26th harvest we've had off it.

SPEAKER_00 18:12

Um does it have a life, a lifetime whereby they're still become become become beyond uh apparently.

SPEAKER_01 18:19

I mean there's not a lot written about growing willow, but I've kind of spoken to a few old boy growers down in Somerset and asked the very same question what's the lifespan on a willow bed? And the ten the amps they come back with tends to be like 25 to 13 years. Right. So this one's now 26. So it it's still going strong, right? But every year people ask me, you know, I've got loads of questions about willow. Isn't there as much of it? I I don't keep accurate records, I'm not a scientist, so I don't weigh I think the first year we did weigh it and measure it and got all dweeby about it.

SPEAKER_00 18:51

I've got loads of questions about willow and w I I seem to remember chatting to you uh a long time ago, that when you initially started uh you know looking at growing your own willow, didn't you go over to over to the continent and get different species and out of it?

SPEAKER_01 19:09

Well my my training, I was lucky, my training was was with an English basket maker, a guy called David Drew, who just moved from Somerset to France. So I trained with him in France. And one of the things David did, which then was quite unusual, he grew his own willow, he didn't buy it in. He had this big thing about it not being slathered in pesticide and babyside and.

SPEAKER_00 19:33

You're handling wet willow every day, you're working life as a basket maker. And and putting potentially in your mouth, you know, and or hands in mouth, you know.

SPEAKER_01 19:41

Yeah. And my background was in forestry, and I I was just intrigued, and to me as a forester, I'd been taught um learn to recognise willow so that you can grub it up and make room for a proper tree. And then I met this guy who was making his living out of essentially weeds to me, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, because of how you but just the way he talked about it and his principles and his integrity, the way he Is this the David David Drew.

SPEAKER_00 20:08

So he's he he was the original mentor for you.

SPEAKER_01 20:11

My mentor, an inspiration. Yeah, and his basket's just absolutely beautiful, and I just couldn't believe he was making them out of this material that I had assigned no value to.

SPEAKER_00 20:21

Yeah, and uh how many different and I I I think there are quite a lot of uh different species of willow, aren't there? Subspecies. How many have you how many do you actually grow, Phil?

SPEAKER_01 20:31

I've given me seven. I grow seven varieties here and I got 38 varieties in total.

SPEAKER_00 20:37

So So the Is it are you growing different varieties for the properties or just purely for the colour or well if we turn around this is this is the and we're now looking at the harvesters. This year's harvest, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:52

You immediately see a size difference. Yes. So that's the different varieties. That's that's a sum of that's a good that's a good three metre long, isn't it? It's like ten foot long and yeah as thick as your thumb, and that's great for but it is a very gentle taper, isn't it? Yeah. But it's all one year old stuff. It's not like that's older. Yeah, it's all the same grain. Right, that's how it's lengths. And because I make a big range of stuff, I do a lot of outdoor structures right down to tiny little needlework baskets. So to cover all those bases, one willow just people often ask me what's the best one. I mean, I'm looking at one green green one there, it's almost looks like a grass, like a like a reed, like you know, like a wetland gr uh So these lovely little skinny willows here that are almost like knitting needle thickness, they're purpore, Salix purpore, which makes these beautiful workable, fine willows. Yeah. But they'd be no good for log baskets. They're too skinny.

SPEAKER_00 21:46

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But but but I should imagine really pliable. Really workable. Almost like almost like a yarn, aren't they?

SPEAKER_01 21:51

That that that that's so it's partly colour, it's partly length, and it's partly workability. Some willows do certain jobs beautifully, but they won't do other things.

SPEAKER_00 22:00

Do you so so so from a harvest, do you do you uh harvest enough material purely for yourself or do you or do you sell it or is it just purely for your own?

SPEAKER_01 22:10

A bit of both. I th I think when I started off like 30 years ago, I planted half an acre thinking that's gonna be enough for me as a maker. It was. Yeah. For a year. For a year. Yeah. And then not too long into being at I I started teaching a bit, and uh when you have classmates, eight students for a weekend, yeah, and suddenly the willow that would have lasted me a month, so it's like gone. So I thought, oh shit, I'm gonna need to plant a bit more willow teaching.

SPEAKER_00 22:41

Oh, sugary said.

SPEAKER_01 22:43

Thinking that'd be enough. But then, of course, some of your students get really keen, yeah, and the first thing they say after a course is I want to carry on with this stuff. Where do I get willow from? And I was having to kind of say, Oh, you can't really have mine because I need it. So then I ended up planting a little bit more not necessarily, just really to help students along rather than say it's uh it it's carrying a bit of resilience, isn't it? So that you you know you So I've now got way more willow than I thought I'd need. And of course I've got busier over the years, so you think you've just about got enough, and then a big job comes along and go and home, the willow's gone again. So it it's I've I I've always aimed to be self-sufficient in willow. So it's quite made it. I always end up buying a little bit in.

SPEAKER_00 23:29

Is it the is it the case that the the willow that you harvest this time of year it's one year old? Is it one year old? And it's what you'll use through right, we're we'll we'll start 2026. This is the willow, this is the 2026 willow, and then next year we'll be start so your year start restarts with the with the with the new harvest. You're right on it, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:50

So my my my willow year probably starts end of January. A new crop comes in. Yeah. But at the moment it's very green, it would shrink a lot if you put it into a basket. So that's what this willow stick. It's kind of air-drying. All right, yeah. So I won't be using this till well after Easter.

SPEAKER_00 24:07

It's basically sunbathing. Sunbathing, we are. Are we looking sort of south? Southish, yes. Yeah, almost south, aren't we? So yeah, it is sunb, literally sunbathing.

SPEAKER_01 24:17

Yeah, and then this well that I've got this willow here, and then a load up in storage. That that's got to last me 12 months until the next month comes in next January.

SPEAKER_00 24:27

To me, this is the ultimate provenance. It's almost like you're you know, you're rise you're raising a sheep and you you you you you you you're knitting a jumper with you know with the wool from it. You you know, you've got full control over your material, haven't you? Yeah, that's okay.

SPEAKER_01 24:40

I'm a little bit of a control pre-crew. Well, there's a lot resilience of your own material is reliant on stuff coming from I don't even have willow miles, John. Yeah. I have willow yards and metres. You know, from where it's grown, we're looking over there, aren't we? It's like 25 steps to my workshop.

SPEAKER_00 24:58

So in in terms of its carbon footprint, it's as it's about as local as about the provenance of the unless I actually sat in that field of paper. Yeah Which you could on a day like this, mate, it's absolutely a lot, isn't it? It's important to you.

SPEAKER_01 25:13

Yeah, you know, where your materials come from, yes, how you produce them, it's more important to me than what I make.

SPEAKER_00 25:19

Yeah, and also, Phil, people people say to me, uh, what's the bed best wood for the X, Y, R, Z, you know what I mean? And I'll say, Well, whatever you've got available to you. Because if you're using what's available to you locally, you're and you're working with that day in, day out, intimately, you're you're you you can't not get familiar with its characteristics and you can't get to know it and love it, and it it's it's different every year, to be honest, the weather's different every yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:46

So I it's not a consistent crop you get, yeah, but I find you adjust yourself to use what comes off there.

SPEAKER_00 25:54

And and you're not like you're not like at the mercy of what what what what a supplier uh is sourcing, you know what I mean? You you you know, you you know what species and I I think it's br and and also I think it's brilliant. The from a providence point of view, you you know, this is a guy that's grown grown a craft it himself to this workshop here and then and then crafted it, and then you know the product is l is literally full providence, isn't it, innit? Of this place. Yeah. So when so so do you so what so getting from from the raw material to the craft then, Phil? Do you work exclusively with willow or do you use other spaces for anything?

SPEAKER_01 26:37

Out of those 38 varieties, we get quite a bit of um quite a bit of like sand in old hazel copies around here. So I do try and incorporate a bit of hazel for like handles and things, are bigger work I'll use it for what I call bar stakes, which are like big stiff stakes in a sturdy log basket. So hazel's lovely, it doesn't weave very well, right, but it has that um stiffness and willow does for like a frame, for a frame, and but it a frame, and yet it's still a natural material, so it's in keeping. And hazel's got that beautiful bark quality, yeah. Lovely snake skinny look of hazel, which is beautiful in a frame basket.

SPEAKER_00 27:16

So I've ribs. I've got I've got quite a bit of experience with hazel, and what I find amazing about hazel is how different the bark is. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:23

For different par I think it's to do with with the uh minerals that it's like I I'll go to a warm woodland and there's various bits you get it almost black. Yeah? And there's other bits the palest and sometimes smallest.

SPEAKER_00 27:35

Mottled the the silver that and the mottled ones, the the walking stick people that I know, they make uh shanks from hazel. It grows quite straight and it tapers very gently down to and the the ones that they like is and I've seen it round this area actually. Down new where Owen is down uh near Coniston, South Lakes. It's got like a mottled, it's like silver, but like a mottled like a necklace. Snakeskin, yeah, with bread. That's the that's the one, yeah. And that's like the rarest one.

SPEAKER_01 28:02

Yeah, and then you get a little bit of that and you think, oh that's got to be either a keeper, I'd call it, a basket for somebody special.

SPEAKER_00 28:09

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:10

Yeah. And again, that's the joy of joy of this. You find materials and it all gets used, but some of it is just absolutely joyous.

SPEAKER_00 28:19

And when and when um when people say wicker, I would think I've I've been thinking about all sorts on my way up at this moment. Does wick is wicker the material or the method of weaving?

SPEAKER_01 28:35

I think uh I have I've looked uh I think wicker, W I D C A. Wicker is like old English. Right. It's an old English word for willow.

SPEAKER_00 28:45

Right, uh, so it's the material.

SPEAKER_01 28:46

So when something's called wicker work now, it tends to mean anything woven and woody, but I think originally wicker is synonymous with willow. I think. Somebody might well correct me on that. But I understand wicker to be the old English word though. Yeah. Yeah, so I work in mainly willow, a bit of hazel, a bit of cleft oak, we've got Owen Jones, lovely Owen Jones in this county who's getting a bit of big inspiration on me. Yeah. But you're about to. He works with split oak, and that's like it's nice to incorporate.

SPEAKER_00 29:18

I mean, the the might be there might be people listening to this that that doesn't know who Owen is. I'll be surprised there's as many, but but but and what he makes, what is synonymous with making.

SPEAKER_01 29:29

Well, ow Owen uh Owen is one of my kind of craft heroes. He's a brilliant maker, and I know him as well. He's he's he's a he's a proper a true soul of this as well. He's just the nicest guy in working world.

SPEAKER_00 29:44

I mean Owen is someone um I mean I know Robin, Robin Wood as as as often used Owen as whether he likes it or not as a poster boy for the heritage crafts because he's the ultimate he is the epitome of keeping a a heritage craft living and and and sharing it. I know his mum is is he's shared it with like such as Larna, hasn't it? Tortoise. Larna Singleton. Is it Singleton?

SPEAKER_01 30:05

Singleton is, yeah. Um to keep to keep the yeah, people don't know he's well known for being the keeper of the light, really, with this very traditional Cumbrian oak swill basket, which it's kind of the shape of a tortoise shell, but made out of this beautiful boiled and split. And it's a basket that's as old as the hills. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:26

I think well they well they're I mean I think they're used for various things, but they're like things like the potato baskets and seeds seeds.

SPEAKER_01 30:32

And apparently down the mines for hauling coal down now and seeds and things. They've got a long lineage, it's a roughy tufty agriculture.

SPEAKER_00 30:39

Have you an industrial basket? I know I this part of the country that you're in, Phil, it's it's it it's it's very rural, so people are scattered you know quite thinly actually. Do do you do is there would you say there's a community or uh or do you interact much with other craftspeople around here?

SPEAKER_01 30:55

That's one of the things we like about being here, John. We we're on the fringes of the national park and out on the edges here, it's a bit lived in, a bit more free, and there's an there's an amazing community.

SPEAKER_00 31:05

Is there?

SPEAKER_01 31:05

There is, you know, even within the village we live in, I mean there's not many craftspeople here, but there's loads of people. I mean, we couldn't have done what we have done without the help of our community here. Um and you know, when it comes to harvesting, when it comes to helping get the land ploughed, when it's just pit.

SPEAKER_00 31:25

Do you feel like you've been welcomed in this this area?

SPEAKER_01 31:28

We do, yeah. We've lived all over the place, but we kind of ended up moving to Cumbria 30 years ago, thinking we might be here a year or two and moving on again.

SPEAKER_00 31:37

Were you already a basket maker when you moved there, Phil?

SPEAKER_01 31:39

Er no, no, I moved here with my forestry work. Alright. But right from the get-go, from the day we moved into this village, we were made to feel at home. In fact, old Ernie, he was born and bred in the village.

SPEAKER_00 31:50

Every village has got an old Ernie.

SPEAKER_01 31:52

We were unloading the removal van and I saw him come storming over. He had this kind of gate, he walked quite purposefully. Him and his little son Adam. Strident. And I saw him coming from like 100 yards away. Uh oh. We'd just moved down from Scotland and I thought, here we go. He's gonna come and tell me I'm an off-comer. Why not? Out in the village, townie. I could just see it on his face. And he comes straight up to me and he stuck his big paw out and he said, Welcome to Dean Scales, lad. Now you're living here, you're one of us. Wow. And I could have snugged him. Oh god, yeah. I mean, how nice. And that was his feeling. He said, if you've chosen to live here, you are now part of here. Welcome, wow. And that wasn't what I was expecting him to say. And it was true to his.

SPEAKER_00 32:38

That's the opposite to being parochial, isn't it? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:40

He said, You've yeah, you've moved here, you're doing something, you're contributing, you're one of us now.

SPEAKER_00 32:44

And he thought, oh, because staying here. Do you know something? I've just I've just I've I I've just I've just remembered I've got a bone to pick with you up. I remember a while ago, I put a pot I put a post on Instagram and and I got this message from somebody called Millie, and it and I was oh well done John, that's a nice thing in Med there. What what is it? And um and I'm replying to this Millie saying, Oh Millie, it's uh is that my little dog knowing and now Millie's Millie's licking my shoes here. A young craftsperson. She's a clever little dog. She must be clever to have her own Instagram account.

SPEAKER_01 33:20

She doesn't mess about, yeah. She has Millie in the mountains. And I know I've I've got a I'm quite a big Instagram poster, as you know. But when I when anything I put up with Millie, because she often sits in my workshop with me looking all cute, and she'll often appear maybe once in a while on an Instagram post. And of course, they're the ones that get all the hits and it's always about the dog, never about my basketball.

SPEAKER_00 33:41

My friend tricky trick tricky dickie, dunny. If he puts something with his dog on, he gets six times more people. Oh we're not bothered about you. We're not bothering about basketphil.

SPEAKER_01 33:52

What's the name of the dog? Yeah, so so so basket.

SPEAKER_00 33:58

I mean, I I I'm I'm gonna embarrass you, but uh you are a well it well respected basket maker, Phil. A lot, you know, a lot of people say that. But I but um the threat the the thread of this uh interview is is the fact that you're making a living as like a a one-man band, basically, uh in quite a remote area of the country. So you're not you're not close to commerce. Yeah. So I'll start off with a basket outside of it, actually. So I how how do you get uh how do you get your uh produce to market then? Uh what why are your markets?

SPEAKER_01 34:29

It's it's changed, John, and it it I guess it changes all the time. If you'd if you'd asked me this um a few years ago, yeah, I would have said it was me kind of doing doing shows and selling through local galleries. We live in quite a touristy area.

SPEAKER_00 34:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:44

Oh, yeah, so yeah, pass passing. So ten years ago it would have been all galleries and me doing maybe five or six big shows a year.

SPEAKER_02 34:52

Right.

SPEAKER_01 34:53

Covid comes along, I wonder if it was five years ago, that that all changes overnight for me. I was still making in here, still starting away making baskets.

SPEAKER_00 35:02

Have you always had a website in the meantime? A website.

SPEAKER_01 35:04

I had a website, but I've never really sold well through a website. Okay. But through COVID, I wasn't getting any footfall because people would come in and buy stuff. That stopped. Did did so did you have like a little a little uh the little gallery at the one of the rooms, I've got a work room, and then there was like a shop come show room. Right, okay. So there was no football. So that's direct that's direct. That stopped. So I thought, oh well, that's one thing, but then all the galleries shut because they couldn't open as shops. Yeah. And all the shows got cancelled. Yeah. So suddenly, almost like within two or three weeks, all my sales.

SPEAKER_00 35:37

Yeah, income streams, income streams.

SPEAKER_01 35:39

And I was still making but just not selling, and thinking, oh, there's a bit of a problem here. Anyway, my young niece, my brother's uh uh youngest daughter, came to visit, and uh I was must have been moaning to her about this a bit, and she said, Uncle Phil, it's time we got you on social media, and I'd been so resistant, and I was with her, I said, No, that's not for the likes of me. Anyway, Carla being Carla, she got my iPad that evening, set up an Instagram account, took a photograph of I think I had this lovely photograph of about nine log baskets stacked outside the workshop in the sunshine, like a pyramid of yeah, it was quite a nice picture, so she put that on Instagram. Well, the work the workshop's a nice backdrop, isn't it? It's lovely old uh and she just put Uncle Phil's been making these log baskets this week. Uh message him if you want one. And that was on a Friday night, and I think by Monday morning they'd all wow be gone.

SPEAKER_00 36:33

And at that point, I thought, oh yeah, there's maybe something about yeah, but it's do you know me and you were a very, very similar vintage. So we're the same year, aren't we? Do you know when I started at school, mate? There were one person had a calculator, but a great big, you know, one of those Casio like a brick. Yeah, a brick with with with red digital thing on it. So with but you've got to you've got to embrace, you've just got to accept that it's it's part of the deal, isn't it? That you've got to have a it's funny, I mean I've resisted that massively.

SPEAKER_01 37:05

Yeah, and I'm a bit of a Luddite, I guess. Yeah, and then actually when you find out it actually works and you analyse it, I mean you think, well, in the past that would have been me loading the van, driving 200 miles, doing a three-day show, paying quite a lot of money for the privilege, maybe selling, maybe not. And then for the sake of 10 minutes in the evening at home, you can post up a picture and sell them. Yeah, it's like yeah, mail order, basically. Yeah, so and that I thought that'll be a flash in the panel. I thought that would be just like through COVID, but it's kind of stayed that way since really. So I'd do very few shows now. Right. I was gonna ask you about your adventure.

SPEAKER_00 37:45

I will I will get on to that in a second.

SPEAKER_01 37:46

It tends to be so direct sales through Instagram, which surprises me, you know. I think. If anybody does follow me on Instagram, I don't really do it. Yeah, I've got a light to think about it.

SPEAKER_00 37:59

Yeah, tell us I would find you.

SPEAKER_01 38:00

I do. Well, you'll find me in my Phil Bradley basket major on Instagram.

SPEAKER_00 38:04

And you'll see you'll see Phil's correct spelling.

SPEAKER_01 38:09

Right. I'll probably do a little post about today, John. Because you may be in your week when something lovely happens, so you think rather than keep that to yourself, yeah, just do a little thing.

SPEAKER_00 38:19

To be honest with you, that's why I that's why I wanted to do the uh the podcast. You know, it it in a way it's a selfish thing because I mean, I I'm here with you today on this beautiful day watching watching you crafting in front of me, with some some making a little willow sculpture in front of me in front of my very eyes. Well, yeah. If you've got yeah, you must keep your hands busy. So so most of your sales now then the the the the online sales uh via uh Instagram. What what what are your what are your main product streams then that the best sellers?

SPEAKER_01 38:53

There's one hanging up in front there, and um again, I kind of live in a county where there's still a lot of people on wood power, and there'll probably be more people going onto wood power. Wood burners, yeah. Wood burners. So, right through my 30 years as a maker, that has probably been the basket that's carried me through all of that.

SPEAKER_00 39:12

So the basket that Phil's pointing to, it's about it's about two and a half foot tall, uh, and it's about one and a half foot diameter, but it's uh it'll take quite a bit of uh few logs in there, won't it? That'll keep you going for the day, won't it? Look with that for. And that's a baby one. I do want it like three or four sizes. Yeah, yeah. It's it's um it's it's that's that's pure that's purely willow uh branching.

SPEAKER_01 39:38

Yeah, that's 100% willow. Um it's using me the bigger willows, yeah, like eight footers. So this is. It's got like a waxy feel to it.

SPEAKER_00 39:47

I don't is that the natural feel of the willow?

SPEAKER_01 39:50

Are you glad you spot that? That is perhaps an artifact of homegrown willow. Right. And I'm not particularly bigging my willow up, but it's all it's had on it is six months of Cumbrian sunshine and Cumbrian rain. There's no there's no artificials on that, there's no fertiliser, no herbicide, pesticide, fungicide. It's just 100% natural. Sun-dried, it's as natural a product as you can get. Yeah and to me it kind of glows your healthiness.

SPEAKER_00 40:21

It has, yeah. I like I say it's got a sheen to it. Yeah, it has got a sheen and it's got like a I guess it's had my hand rubbing it while I've been making. How old is that basket that you've got in your hands there then?

SPEAKER_01 40:30

This was born. This was born last week. Is it? I just randomly fresh off the block. Right, okay. And it's made and it was ordered, so I'm trying it out.

SPEAKER_00 40:39

Alright, so how how long does so one so that's that's that's willow that was cut this will be in January.

SPEAKER_01 40:47

Yeah, let's go through the history of this basket. This willow will have grown fifty yards away in the summer of 2025. Yes. I will have harvested this uh January this year. It's been drying for six or eight weeks. Last week I made it into a basket. Yesterday and today I'd dry it out and then tomorrow or this weekend it goes to its new home.

SPEAKER_00 41:14

Wow. So how long is it yeah? Sorry, sorry it's literally days it takes. Because it I mean each strand of willow in there is is only about three or four millimetres in diameter, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 41:25

There'll be about 200 sticks maybe in there. And I love it, I love it when people ask how long does it take to make? Yeah. Of course I know what they mean. Yeah. How long did it take to make? Yeah, yeah. But the answer I usually give is 18. Well, it's true.

SPEAKER_00 41:39

Because it's true from the day where I should right, so well, I'm equating this to me making something. Right. But because like if I if I make something, it's 10 it tends to be made in stages. Yeah. Because there's drying involved in in most of what I make. Yeah. So I'm I'm I'm having to like add up because like I'll I'll do the same stage on lots of pieces and get them to another stage. So it's a process, really. But I'm guessing that you've made that almost in one.

SPEAKER_01 42:07

Not quite I had the same thing, really. I and again it it it's for it. If I was just to sit and make that basket, it would take quite a long time. So what I tend to do, and I was doing this last week, I'll have a day. All right, I'm making some bases up there. All I make is I maybe make 12 of these. Yeah. I'll just sit here with a pile of willow on my right, and I'll sit at this bench, and like I'm doing now, I'll just make a like a little production run.

SPEAKER_00 42:36

So what Phil's got in his hand, what he's showing me now, is is basically the basis for it for a few. It's like a circular, spoked, well, it's spoked into it then. A little cartwheel, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:49

And that'll be made out of wet willow, so it'll still be flexible, right? So if straight away I was to put the sides on that, this would destroy okay. So it's far better. It's beneficial to make these, yeah, dry them out, yeah, and then fetch them out in a couple of weeks' time and maybe side up. Right. So that basket won't be made as a as a as a one-off, it'll be made as a maybe Monday I'll make the bases, yeah. Uh and then Tuesday I'll be working off pre-made bases. And I won't actually get a basket until Friday. Right. But by the end of Friday, there'll be 12 of those. Yeah, yeah. But they've always gotten it.

SPEAKER_00 43:28

It's like a cumulative thing, is it?

SPEAKER_01 43:31

Yeah, and I find the baskets come out nicer.

SPEAKER_00 43:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:34

And the customer I like best will get number 12.

unknown 43:39

Right.

SPEAKER_01 43:39

Because it'll be the nicest you make. Number one will always be a bit well, I haven't.

SPEAKER_00 43:44

Is that because for a few weeks? Is that because of the what's happening to the material? Because because you've got into other flow and you've got flow flow.

SPEAKER_01 43:51

I mean, I've made thousands of these. And if I haven't made one for a week or two, you're not rusty, that's the wrong word. You're not on it, but by The third or fourth, oh these are coming out sweet.

SPEAKER_00 44:03

I totally empathise with what you're saying there, Phil, because because if I'll make something, I'll put a picture of it up on uh on um Instagram or something like that. Because I that's how I record what I make, I just put everything on there, so I've got a you know I've got a direct chronological uh record of everything I've ever made. But somebody'll say, Oh, can I have that, John? I like look at it. I said, Well, if you wait a little bit longer, they'll get much better because you do, you know. I were talking about uh process to to David Traps in the last episode about about getting it, like you say, you've just mentioned it yourself there, Phil, that flow state whereby what if I did this because like with slow work like this, you get a lot of thinking time, don't you?

SPEAKER_01 44:42

Well, you're on your own in a quiet workshop doing quite repetitive things, and I love it to bits, but I I think it gives you some kind of headspace that you you do end you you dwell on process a lot.

SPEAKER_00 44:54

Yeah, it's a fact.

SPEAKER_01 44:55

And improve so yeah, things don't stay static. No, some people would look at this and say, Don't you get bored because you've made that a thousand times. And I think, well, I've not got bored of them yet because you you're tweaking them all the time, changing them a bit, playing with it, shifting proportions.

SPEAKER_00 45:12

And if you're bored, if you're bored with the process, you you're you're in the wrong, you're doing you're in the wrong field, aren't you? I will I will actually put the the basket that we're talking about, I will put a picture up. You better see it in the uh in the uh on the Instagram account. Yeah. The log basket that fills talking, and I'll show you, I'll show the picture of the bases that it that it that it makes, that it batch makes.

SPEAKER_01 45:31

So I like I like to make what I would call a very worker day durable basket.

SPEAKER_00 45:36

But it seems to go down one. That would last a generation, wouldn't it?

SPEAKER_01 45:39

And people tend to buy them once, yeah. But then they tell their friends. Yeah, so I get a lot of repeat work and word gets that. And I think after 30 years, you get kind of maybe known for certain things you made. Word of mouth.

SPEAKER_00 45:51

So that's that's your stock, that's your stock product. So beyond going beyond that, then other things, other common products.

SPEAKER_01 45:58

If we look around the workshop, yeah, I guess I I I'll I'll do everything from a cradle to a coffin, John. Yeah. And everything in between you might need between those two eventual.

SPEAKER_00 46:08

Well you mentioned coffins there, and that and it because as people become more uh uh ecologically uh aware, uh there's a there's a bigger f call for things like that, I believe, you know, things things that you know take you back uh everything's ends up back in the cell sort of thing, you know.

SPEAKER_01 46:25

And things like well, shopping baskets and garden trugs. Um I like this one, yeah, with the and that's well that that one above your head. Yeah. It was like um like a bucket-shaped handled basket. And that I mean I do like traditional.

SPEAKER_00 46:38

With slats, that slatted base, hasn't it?

SPEAKER_01 46:40

Looking up underneath it, aren't it? It's got a slatty hazel base. Yeah. And that basket is an ancient one, it's uh it's called um a Kentish Kibpsy, and it was used by the apple pickers in the kids. Is it deliberate to let air through it? Or is it it was it was more to let uh debris store and bits of leaf. So you could almost riddle it through.

SPEAKER_00 47:02

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:03

And it was that you'd hook it under your arm while you're up the ladders.

SPEAKER_00 47:07

It's not super open at the bottom, it's there's a there's about I don't know, quarter of an inch gaps between the two between the slaps in that to allow debris to fall.

SPEAKER_01 47:14

So there's a bit of you would think, well, there'll be no call for a Kentish cobber kipsie in 21st century Britain, but people love it as a shiny basket.

SPEAKER_00 47:22

Mum I'm I'm drawn to it, aren't I?

SPEAKER_01 47:24

Um Yeah, so I I tend not to say what my baskets are for, I just make them. Yeah, and people come in and they'll take a shine to one and they'll bring it down and they'll have their arms around it and they'll say, Can I have this one? And I'll say, What are you gonna do with it? And then they'll make something up, and then off it goes into the world. And it might be for their laundry, it might be for the for the dog's toys, it might be for picking apples in the garden, it could be for a it might put their iPad in and their CD collection. So there's a bit of me sometimes thinking baskets, kind of they're so ancient. Is there really room for them in the world we live in now? But the answer to that seem to be very much so. I can't think of anybody who hasn't got a basket in the house.

SPEAKER_00 48:07

Well, I I've certainly got two or three or three, yeah, yeah. And they just seem permeable, beautiful use of it. Do it. Do you ever uh get I mean it might not necessarily be something that's made by you, but a basket come back to you for repair? You know, that's maybe you know, uh some little insects having a little go or something. Is that a fishing fishing creel that came in a coupler? So a fishing creel is basically a basket with a lid and it's got like a strap that that puts up that goes over your shoulder, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_01 48:38

Yeah, and there's there's not a straight line on it, it has a curve, like a is that concave?

SPEAKER_00 48:43

It's like a yeah, it's like a concave concave at the backside, yeah. And then it bellies out in the most beautiful So you've got a concave near you and then it's convex on the other side working away from you.

SPEAKER_01 48:56

So it's like a I guess a a flyfisher's basket.

SPEAKER_00 49:00

What what creel's used for putting your your kitten are the fish?

SPEAKER_01 49:04

Uh both, I think. Both both. Some people say the all in the top is to drop your fishing. Yeah, that's that's that's what meant. That's that's what prompted me to say that. So is that is that uh is that a vintage one then? The guy came in with this, it was his grandfather's, and uh he's a fisherman himself, and he said, This one's getting a bit fragile to take out. Could I repair it? But make him a copy so he could use the copy. So this one's in, I've done the repair on it, but he wants me to make a copy, just slightly bigger that he can use for his fly fishing.

SPEAKER_00 49:38

So that's yeah, it's his brand that's uh now you've got you've got ancient versus quite new there because it looks like that's a seatbelt, that isn't it? The the strap is a seatbelt.

SPEAKER_01 49:50

Well, I've got a couple of friends who are very good leather workers, John. So I think I'm gonna palm might send this down to Tony Morgan and see if he'll put a nice leather or canvas strap on it. Right, and it wants a nice little leather.

SPEAKER_00 50:02

It's actually got the uh the orifice to take a fastening anti like a orifice ready, but it's lost the yeah, but I think you're right.

SPEAKER_01 50:10

I think that's uh seat belt out of the way.

SPEAKER_00 50:12

Which is I mean, I I I've I've I've worked in the fire service and I've cut loads of seatbelt, and they they are extremely strong, actually. I can just I can understand why somebody would use a seatbelt. Um yeah, but maybe not pretty, is it? No, no, it would look I think it looked better with a nice bit of leather. Yeah, so get quite a bit of it, and I love it. I know, I know, our windows were you know, which which is great from from his part of view, from getting reconnected with original um swills, because I think he learned from the last swiller of when there were actually a production.

SPEAKER_01 50:42

I think it was his father-in-law, is yeah, he learned it might be lucky to learn off the last production swiller.

SPEAKER_00 50:47

Yeah, which is a little bit like Robin Wood uh rejuvenating uh pole lathe turning from George Laley, isn't it? Just managing to you know speak to people in living memory, and that which is again, which is what the the the heritage craft is.

SPEAKER_01 51:02

We but we're lucky, aren't we? We've got these people in our craft who we know who are amazing, that they've kind of kept that light shining.

SPEAKER_00 51:11

And also evolved it because in the past things won't have been static, you know, and people embrace new new ideas and some of the directions that I see people going in. Uh young people as well, Phil. Um, take yeah, you know the same the same process working with with the similar tools and what have you, but being creative and and you know, coming up with no.

SPEAKER_01 51:36

I think it's probably one of the most exciting things about uh Greenwood World at the moment is that influx of energy that's coming in from the younger end. It is, it's very encouraging. 25 years ago we thought, am I going to be the last generation of this? It kind of very much did feel like that. Now it doesn't. It's very encouraging, it feels almost like step aside, make room for this new waft coming through because there's some amazing makers out there innovating and doing some fantastic stuff.

SPEAKER_00 52:03

So so so to so to open it up a little bit, I I did uh uh the title for this you'll uh you'll notice is uh how to diversify to make a make a living from a craft. So the basketry is just part, one one strand, isn't it, of your of your uh of your your your crafting and your working like it is this this the making. So the ones that I'm aware of, mate, I I I it's probably from Instagram seeing you, but I've seen you doing uh is it like shoring up work? Uh like river erosion? Riverbank, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:36

Um what's the story behind that? It's um it's an old technique, it's quite often referred to as spiling, and it's using it's using live willow on uh eroding river banks.

SPEAKER_00 52:49

So it's what it's like when a be uh like a like the river meanders into the river.

SPEAKER_01 52:55

It's like where you get a river and the banks kind of get in in high water. The banks get eaten away and you get that boy bare soil and it all starts crumbling into the water, and it's happening more and more, you know, as the climate changes and river and drainage changes. So it's found its time again as a technique because what people have been doing is all sorts of like concrete revetment and gabian blocks, which are very expensive and don't always work that well. But with willow, you're taking a live plant, and it's a cross between I didn't realise it were live it were live actually.

SPEAKER_00 53:26

It's alive. Right, okay.

SPEAKER_01 53:28

So it's kind of a cross between hedge lane and basket making, but on a giant scale. And waders outdoors with your waders on. And you've got to do it in February, March when it's kind of willow planting time, and you'll take like giant willow fence posts freshly cut, and you bray them into the river bank with a sledgehammer, and then you weave between those uprights with live fresh willow, like you would a basket. Yeah. It's like a bundled wall, isn't it, you mate? Like a bundled wall, you backfill it with soil, so it's all touching fresh soil, and then you leave it there for six weeks or so, and the whole thing starts rooting into the bank, and knitting it together. So you go back maybe in a year's time, and it's not just like a basket in the river, it is a live, growing wall of willow with all the roots holding the bottom.

SPEAKER_00 54:17

I find that I find that fascinating. I mean, you could do that with concrete, couldn't you? You know and it has been done with concrete. Exactly. But uh what can be more you know environmentally friendly and and also beautiful? I I've seen the I've seen the pictures of you, mate. Have you got some I think you've got some historical pictures on your on your Instagram feed, have you not?

SPEAKER_01 54:37

You'll find them on my Instagram. I'll dig some out and maybe we'll see if we can get it.

SPEAKER_00 54:41

I'll tell you what would be interesting as well, mate. I'm thinking I'm thinking on my favorite. If if you if you could, if it's is it local? If it's local, could take could you take some pictures like before before and afters?

SPEAKER_01 54:52

Because I I think people are gonna be interested to see that. But it's very seasonal, is that kind of work, so you can only you can't do it in August, you can't it you do it in February, March, early, April, season's over. So you could never make a living doing that.

SPEAKER_00 55:06

Is it but it's like hedge laying, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 55:08

It's like hedge laying, but you know, uh it's something I do most springs for a few weeks. It's all on I do it for the environment age in the national.

SPEAKER_00 55:15

I'm gonna say so so you so so you're you're are you on are you on like an approved I don't know, I I don't know how you get into things like that.

SPEAKER_01 55:24

I guess I'm Word of mouth? Word of mouth. I got I don't know whether I'm approved or not. I'm probably the only one doing it well if that's if they've asked you more than once that that sounds like a World War to me. If you look in yellow pages under spies and contractors, they might know I won't even be there. It didn't it didn't drink it didn't drink too much tea, but it's just one of those I remember I remember reading about that technique. Somebody lent me an old Victorian estate manual, didn't it? I had hedge laying in there and dry stone walling and copper different and all these things I was semi-familiar with, and then there was a whole chapter on willow spiling. I thought, what the heck is it? It's kind of fallen off. I didn't realise it.

SPEAKER_00 56:00

I saw I saw you doing it, and I thought all you were doing is making like a hazel, uh what they call it, but those hazel hurdles, like hurdles. Sticking them in. But I didn't realise it was linen because it takes roots. Well, willow takes some killing, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_01 56:13

Actually, so I'll find some p and that's lovely, eh? It's it's hard work, gosh, you're in your wedding because in winter. Your feet are gonna be cold, aren't they? But you might get a day like today, and it might be around in Eskdale. Yeah, and I I think you know, I might be there for a week and you think, God, this I'm I'm a lucky, I'm a lucky bugger. Somebody's paid me to stand in this remote spot in Cumbria and contribute to and contribute to the natural and it's your own patch, and it it and in your own patch there's all these problems with flooding and erosion and all that comes with it. But you think, actually, as a basket maker, what can I do to help alleviate and I can do this.

SPEAKER_00 56:53

It's like it's like it's like a transferable skill in that respect, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 56:56

Yeah, I've literally been, I mean, it's ploddy old slow work, like head. You might do you might do 10 yards a day, which is which is like edge laying, isn't it? But I've stood there in that river, and the bit you did yesterday, you look down at lunchtime while you're eating your sandwich, and there's maybe a kingfisher trying to nest in. On your work, on your work on your work, and you think that ain't concrete, that ain't game.

SPEAKER_00 57:18

Exactly, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 57:19

That's a little side spin, and it's it's moments like that that you think that's kind of why I didn't want to.

SPEAKER_00 57:25

Good good for you, mate. Good for you. You know, it's these little moments you get. So that's another start. So I I think probably related to that, I'm I'm guessing it's from a similar source of people come uh contracting you, is the is your uh living sculptures, you the the the big big uh placements, you know.

SPEAKER_01 57:43

Um so again, some of those are living living sculptures in people's gardens, they might be, or in public spaces, like arbours and sitting sitting domes or place structures.

SPEAKER_00 57:57

Are they like um are you given a brief of what to do? Or are they are do you submit a bit a bit of both?

SPEAKER_01 58:06

Sometimes it will be people maybe seeing your previous work and say, Phil, I'd like one of them in my Does it tend to be animals and things like that? It could be animals or it could be a shape, an artistic shape, yeah. Yeah, or it could be something like um I mean I get the most lovely clients, like uh like Lyre of the Castle contact me a year or so ago and they said, Phil, we like your work, but you we want you to make something for the castle. And we ended up making their um heraldic logo, the black dragon, it's a giant um dragon sculpture. Wow. So yeah, you get kind of lovely.

SPEAKER_00 58:42

So you so there is a bit of artistic license there then, generally.

SPEAKER_01 58:46

Artistic license, yeah, which keeps me on my toes. I mean, I love I love things like this, but you know them so well, you just do them, yeah, and then somebody comes along and says, Phil, we want you to make whatever it is, and I got to do a bit of head scratching, and think, God, how are we gonna do that then? And I kind of quite like that too.

SPEAKER_00 59:03

I do, I do as well, actually, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 59:04

Because things go a bit wrong, and you know, you have to kind of go, how are you yeah, but then you've sort of said yes to it, and someone's had the faith in you to like let you because I say I've never done one of those before, and people say, Well, just get on with it.

SPEAKER_00 59:16

Well, it gives you creative, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_01 59:18

You know it gives you that creative spark of you know doing something a bit different. Yeah, no, it's interesting, is it? Um so stuff like that, unfortunate, comes my way, but it I can't just keep drawing.

SPEAKER_00 59:28

Again, again, I uh I think there's examples of these uh sculptures on your on your Instagram feed if people look I think the one that the last one that I was aware of, and it's a place that did you know uh the um oh the uh the theatre on the lake, is it Keswick? Yes on the banks of the Derwent. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 59:45

I think you did something on the field there, uh just round the corner from the It was like um like a gathering spot, a meeting place. I think it was like a giant snail shell that's that's five.

SPEAKER_00 59:56

It is a snail, it is a snail, yeah, like an helix, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 59:59

And apparently it was on the site, like in the early days of tourism in Cumbria, people used to go around to these viewing spots. There were like seven or eight of them. Right. And there was one of those on the shores of Derwentworth. And they asked me to make this. I mean, the thing is there's such a beautiful view, John, all around you, surrounded by mountains, lakes, I think.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:20

Whatever I do in Willow here ain't gonna compete with this.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:24

So all I could think to make was uh like a an area for people to gather, and then there were little windows in it to look out at the view. Yeah so that sculpture wasn't to be like marvelled at and looked at, it was to get inside and then just look at what was around you.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:40

Almost like been in that bird bird hide or something like that. Or like a picture frame in the window.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:46

Just a channel of yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:48

Do you have do you have to go back and do trimming on things like that?

SPEAKER_01 1:00:51

I I often get asked to, yeah. So they don't just bolt it, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Hello. Okay, she can stop in here. We have a visitor, Miller. We've got Millie in there.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:05

Millie's coming to play out again. One of my favourite followers. Good old Miller.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:13

Yeah. So, right, and then a bit of teaching thrown in along the way, you know, which has always kind of greased the wheels of trying to make a living.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:21

This is another thing that's sort of linked me and you, Phil. Uh, because I've thought we I'm getting back to generosity, and I've thought of another couple that uh that we've we've got in common. That's Jane and Em and Dyle over at uh Chaplain. Yeah, yeah. You've done a bit over there, haven't you? Just this is stock part that Phil's done a bit over there. Yeah. Because we've got a friend who's she runs a forestry school, doesn't she, Phil? She wants she does a lot of work with schools and Manchester.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:47

In Manchester, and we've both been down there and been involved with amazing projects that the that go off down.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:53

Yeah, Manchester. And and the other one, the other strand is obviously um Broadway. Lovely Broadway. Let's have a little John. Let's have a little chat about Broadway. I was there last week for a music uh little intimate music uh concert. Uh and you I think you still do bits of teaching there.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:13

Yeah, what can we say about Broadway? I and we we're both blessed in our lives, aren't we? John To have friends like the people that run Broadway. I mean it's work, isn't it, in one sense, but then it's work and friends and joy all rolled up in one.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:26

And music. Music we've got that we have music.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:28

Food, music, good company, making anything. Is this pleasure? Is this work? What's the difference? Does it matter?

SPEAKER_00 1:02:36

So when so when Phil and I are are are referencing Broadrake, it's uh it's like a converted old barn, isn't it? It's but it it's it's now accommodation.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:44

It's accommodation and it's run by the lovely Rachel and Mike Benson, who were probably the most generous people on planet Earth because they live in beautiful. I will concur with that. With a lovely barn, but rather than keep it to themselves, they decided to open it up and they run the most amazing, crafty, creative courses there.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:05

It's actually if if if but if people if you if you're familiar with the three peaks of Yorkshire, which are Pennigent, Wormside and Ingleborough, they're literally in the middle. If you formed a triangle, and I'm sure you I'm sure you'll uh you'll see photographs of the Ribblehead Viaduct, that's there for you. And that's that is literally their back garden, isn't it? So they see that every day. And it's just it's a lovely place to be. Now, when you when you don't when you go and visit Rachel and Mike at Broadrake, and I would I would encourage you to look at the course, they don't do as many at the moment, they've had to have a bit of an age because of the expanding family. But Phil Phil goes over there and I've done this course, and when you look outside the Broadrake, there's curlows flying around, you can hear them, which is which is which is a wading bird in the in in Europe with a big curved bee. Very there's no other bird like it, is there? With that with that curved beauty specialized bee. Now, Rachel, uh, she's very much into a conservation. Uh of the one of the conservation groups that she's involved with is Curloo, uh, because they're an endangered species, and also bumblebees, actually. Uh well, but bees in general, sorry. Um, but Phil goes over there uh and and makes one of his fantastic willows uh sculptures, which I'll let you let you tell us about, Phil.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:22

Yeah, well well again, you know, you talked to uh Mike and Rachel and they talked to you about maybe curloo conservation, and you wonder as a basket maker in what kind of started. Yeah, yeah, and they they were doing a bit of a fundraising for a local conservation project related to curlews. I thought, well, I I could have a go at making some willow sculptures in the shape of curlews, and those workshops got very popular. We were running them seven or eight times a year, yeah, and a good chunk of the proceeds from those workshops partly is to pay a bit for my time and travel, you end up just raising awareness and raising a bit of funding for a good cause. For for conservation work, yeah, and all sorts of people come because they love the bird or they've got a connection with it, but you sit in a room for a day with people making a willow curloo, and then you end up just talking about them, and they might be a farmer in the group or a conservationist, and you get these lovely conversations, and they are a lovely.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:16

I mean, uh again, you you you can look on Phil's uh Instagram feed and you've got all sorts of pictures of people acting silly with curlo on curlows over fences and teeth. But uh no, they are lovely. I've actually got I I I did like I say, I did the course and I've got I've got one, and I'm gonna take it over to Whitby and I'm gonna put it on a fence there because there's the you get flocks of curlow at the coast, uh particularly well aren't out the sort of flock in winter, shall I say. Along with the ice to gas.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:46

We've been here we well, it they're a favourite bird of mine, John, and this time of year, March, April, that they don't stay in Dean Scales, but I think the winter at the coast on the yes, I think that that's where I see them, yeah. They head for the mountains and the moors to breed. But March and April they fly over here for a couple of weeks, and you hear that love. I'm not going to try and do an impression of it. It's like an ascending warble, isn't it? It's like floating, but it's the most beautiful. And for me, it's like the harbinger of spring. It is, and it's it's the sound of the moors to me as well.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:21

It's the sound of the moors and wild. It's like an ascending, isn't it? It's like it increases in tone and volume in volume. Yes. I won't try and do it either because it's just going to sound strange.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:34

If you don't know what one sounds like, Google it and have a listen because you've got a haunting, evocative, mournful.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:42

Is that the mating card? Is that is that is that the I presume I presume? I just think so you don't in winter you don't hear them making that. So it's got to be, aren't you? I think it's because they got excited, because they fly into the mountains.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:52

It's like, well, here we go. I don't know. I'm a ornithologist, but uh I just look and then in autumn they do the return journey, they go back from the mountains back to the coast. And I think, God, if I come back as a bird in the next life, it'll be a curloon. Yeah, you want to be gonna be gonna be in the in this in these areas. You get your winters by the coast when nobody else is there, when there's no tourists. I think they've got it crashed. Yeah, they have, yeah. So I'm gonna come back as a curloon. Yeah, yeah. I'll see you in that field over there.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:21

I'll see you in that field. Because we had a similar vintage. No. Just to tie things up with regarding your income streams. We'll we'll do this, we'll do this a little more briefly. So I know you do other little things. Um I mean, you've got like I'm looking across there. I I don't know if that's for income, but you've got you you've got an interest in making the Scandinavian bent boxes, haven't you? Is that is that quite a recent uh yeah, last year.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:46

I mean, I'm like you anything woody, anything woody that you can make with your hands, with hand tools. I I I just intrigued by it.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:56

Is it just for fun that then?

SPEAKER_01 1:07:57

It's not it's not well these things start off as fun. I went over to Sweden to learn to make them, and it was only last year. I've made I've made five or six now, and I sold the first one just before Christmas. Is it pine? Looks like it's it's pine top, split pine for the sides, spruce root, right, stitching. There's not a nail or a drop of glue in it. They're as old as the hills from Scandinavia. What old's the base in then? Uh little tiny uh the square pins in round holes. It's gonna be old growth.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:30

Ah, so it's spurred. It's not it's not it's not tax, it's it's so you just sit here and split them with your slidey knife into little square pins. Mike Abbott, when he's pinning the uh chair together, that it's it's square pins in round, square pegs in round holes.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:46

And the and the holes are just all in with a little hand or then you just tap them in with your pin and it looks it reminds me, I know that's a Scandinavian uh example.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:56

It looks like the shaker boxes that make in America the shaker community. Look this that the yeah, that the the oval shape if this didn't go over to America with the scandal.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:08

I'd be shocked if it hadn't. I'd be shocked if it hadn't. Beautiful things move around the planet, don't they? And and and so do different cultures, don't they? They often get attributed to somewhere, but I these things have been mobile and oh look at that stitching there. I'm gonna talk to you about that. It's just lovely to learn this. Yeah, yeah. And sometimes these things Again, we'll put a picture of this up and then. You just do for pleasure. But then if people like and if somebody walks in and says, Phil, can I have one of those?

SPEAKER_00 1:09:32

There's a lot of work though.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:33

It looks like there's a lot of work, a lot of processes. It's not gonna be quick. No, no, I don't know. I think nothing in my life is quick. Good for you, everything you do, it this time, and I kind of almost want it to be like that. I'm not interested in mechanising this or speeding it up. There's something just beautiful about the simplicity and timelessness of these things.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:00

We'll put photographs of all these things that were referencing.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:04

And I'm lucky people seem to get it. Yeah, and as long as I And appreciate the work that's got into it, you know. And I I think what I'm saying to people about you know, try how do you make a living when you've got IKEA, you know, down the road selling baskets like this for a quarter of the price, does that not? And it used to worry me, but now it doesn't. And and I think I think what I've got round to my head is in a year I make four or five hundred things. Right. Okay. So all I have got to do, all I have got to do is find maybe two hundred people on planet Earth who get me. And when I put it that way, I think, well, that's not so hard. And especially if you've got something like Instagram or social media, if people think these things are expensive or I'm not bothered. As long as I can find a small number of people who get it.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:56

I think along with the explosion in people wanting to participate in in in slow slow crafts, it is is uh hand in hand, there's an appreciation. There's an appreciation, you know, because because because somebody who might be a craftsman in a slightly different discipline would appreciate. If if somebody's made something ceramic or they've knitted something for me, I know I I I I know because of our how how I know how hard manual work is, I can I can then almost estimate how long it's taken them. Exactly. And and and you can put a you can you can put a premium on that, can't you? You know, you'd we want which you'd want to be fair to people. So I'm looking, you know, we've got a house full of John Mullaney things.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:39

We've got a friend, lovely G Lowin who's a potter. You know, sometimes things don't they don't have monetary value. Yeah, I do a lot of swapping.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:48

Yeah, I do.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:49

And I've got this house full of lovely things that I probably can't afford. But because she swapped, it's like I'm swapping three hours a mile. Yeah, exactly. And that and that's and I love that.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:58

And that is that is a rip how trade started in the first place, didn't it? On a really, really you know, base level.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:05

You know, a lot may that continue because we we all get a bit tied up by the economics, and you can get a bit scared by it as well. But I think at the heart of this, you're doing something for your love that you love for people that you love. And these little swaps and trades a lot of my supporters.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:22

I don't do other crafty people, yeah, yeah. Um I mean the the the thing that I'm that I'm most impressed with here is is the the the providence filth. I mean you work your work at stand up anywhere, but the fact that I'm looking over my shoulder, looking at your your willow beds, and I'm looking at that basket in front of me. And and the only thing in between is you, innit? You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 1:12:48

Well, I sometimes get school groups come in, you know, and we we talk about we talk about the world and environment and sustainability and they're they're quite difficult concepts, aren't they?

SPEAKER_00 1:12:59

But I I think there's an abstract concept concept, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:03

Yes, I sort of talk about well, this must get duh, yeah, there to here to there, and it's like, ooh, that that's quite beautiful, that simplicity.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:12

It's a bit like when when I did when I were when when I got the typewriter with from David, you know, the fact that you put your finger on that, and then you can say that labor pushes that, then that pulls that, and then lo and behold, that I'm a stamps forward, and your thought is on a piece of paper, you know, and and you're it, you're you're you know, there is something that there's something connective about that.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:32

I think me and thee, John, I think I think we're truly digital people. No, well, not in the way people think of digital digital. Ah, digital, yeah, the little digits. These funny little things on the end of your hands that we are meant to be making things.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:51

And while we've been we've been we've been speaking for over an hour, Phil now. And you've just about you're on you're well on your way to a basket base there, about looking at it. And you must have you must you'll make a good strangler. You must have a you must have a fantastic grip, mate. Because I've seen you manipulating when I was making those curlos and it there's a lot of there's a lot of digital effort, isn't there, you know? Digital effort. The digital effort, yeah. And I'm I'm on with my board with you with your terminology now, mate.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:20

Well, uh uh I think last time I went to see my GP, which is not very often, she she I she was having a look at my hands and and she was well, she she she told me what this one's called. Scafide, yeah. Yeah, she said I've got the best the best one of them she'd ever seen. And I'm talking about my thumb muscle, yeah. Yeah, so but that's what your hands are for, right? I think hands are for doing things, aren't they? Not for uh and in fact I can't just sit and do nothing either during the scene.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:51

I think and make I I think, I mean we've we've another another reason why we like going to Broadrake is the fact that they've got a Kayleigh band, haven't they? And we play a few tunes up there. But I don't know what you think, mate, but when I'm at an inventor what have you, and I'm working I'm working really hard on my hands, and then I pick me instrument up like a guitar or something, I sometimes find it difficult because I've been grabbing tools all day.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:15

I find it difficult to initially to form chords and what's a different thing in it, it's a different because it's a delicate. Gripping a bit too hard, I think. Is that just me or do you can you I know where you're at with that yeah, but I think I I don't know, I I think there's a lot of analogies with craft. I think I think music, music, music, and crafting rhythm, yeah. And the way you use both hands and there's there's a connection, yeah. There's a connection between music.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:43

Before we wrap up, Phil, um I I I I've got to I've I've got to find out what your desert is desert island song is for me, for my playlist. Everybody's got to I've I've got some nice ones so far. I've got uh In Dreams by Roy Roberson, I've got The Detectorist by Johnny.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:02

Yeah, not sending it. What have you got for me? What have you got for me? I've got I well I've got a tune, you know, you get these earworms in your head, and it's a tune I'm trying to learn on the guitar, and it's in an odd time signature, and I love it to bits. And it's um it's uh it's a stranglers. It's a stranglers tune.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:25

Yeah, it's it's in something like 1618.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:28

I'll say it's a doesn't alter as well, during the it it does. It's in let me get this right, I think it's in 38 time, and that's put me off it. Yeah, so I'm not amusing. It goes dad damage. My lovely mate Chris, who you'll meet later on, said, Phil, if you want to play 138 time, it's three bars of waltz. One, two, three, one, one, two, three, one, two, three, and then a bar of four time. Ah, one, two, three, one. And that's the thirteen. That works get the rhythm of it. Right. So that's my two, because I love it to bits.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:14

Well, that's that's that's from our youth, really, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Thanks for that then, Phil. I've just before we wrap up, then we've we've we've we've we've had an amazing chat, actually. I and I could do we could do another we could do a series. Shall we do another one?

SPEAKER_01 1:17:29

Shall we do well?

SPEAKER_00 1:17:29

Let's see what people think. I barely think I've scratched it. We could but I I would like to know uh where people can find you this year. Uh I know you've you've mentioned that you're gonna be are you are you going to the tear-up fest with Eddie Glow?

SPEAKER_01 1:17:44

Yeah, there's uh this this lovely biennial um get-together of basket makers from around the world. John and myself will be at it. Anybody in Basket World who you might want to meet will be there. It's gonna be the end of August.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:59

It's literally the last week in August.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:01

It's called Tear Up. You'll find details of it all over uh internet. And if you're interested in basket and well, it's basketry and associated greenwood, interesting things these days. It's uh it's run by a lad called Eddie Glue G-L-E-W. Eddie Glue puts it together.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:17

Is it what's his what's his handle? Is it Blythfield? Uh Blythefield Willows. Blythefield Willows. Blythefield Willows. Yeah, so the the the the event that we're talking about, uh it's Staffordshire, it's quite close to Utoxeter, isn't it? So it's Middle, it's sort of Middle, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 1:18:32

West Middle. This will be the third one. It's called if you Google on share up, you'll find so you're going to that one, aren't you? I'll be there, uh volunteering to help set up. I will be demonstrating uh the Swedish box. Eddie asked me if I'd do a talk on those. I'll be teaching uh some uh Willowy uh placemats over the weekend. So you can come and enter that with Phil there. So you can find me, you can find me there. Are you gonna be active at other events?

SPEAKER_00 1:19:02

I shall be active, I shall be present at Spoonfest. I should not necessarily do it, it's it it's quite esoteric, isn't it? It's it's Spoons basically. So you'll just be there as a I'll be there, I'll go over.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:14

Catching up with my mates and talking to me. Are you on the volunteer roster for that? Yes, I am.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:19

Yeah. So that's so we've got Tear Up Fest, you'll be at the Matefil. Tear Up Fest Spoon Fest.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:24

Northern Bowl. Northern Bowl. I'll be teaching various workshops hither and there.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:29

From do you do you are they are they uh apart from uh Broadway, which are already referenced, is it from here? From the Iron Man.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:36

I'll do private teaching from my workshop here in Dean Scales. If you want to come here as an individual or as a small group, or if you want to contact me, I can give you details somewhere else. I'm teaching up and down the country.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:50

And do you do you do you do markets or anything like that? Any anyway.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:54

Not actually most of my sell-ins still through Instagram. So if you want to basket or you want to have a look at what I do, that's probably the best place to look.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:03

All these details will put on there. Oh come and see.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:06

I always love it if people come and visit. So if ever you're cracking eye. I can I can throw around and come and see me. That's the nicest way. But if that's not possible.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:16

It's a lovely little workshop. Uh what was it?

SPEAKER_01 1:20:19

What was it original? This is an old banner. Well, before we got stable, uh the roof was off and it uh they had used it as a cow buyer, uh, but the fireplace in this end and a fireplace in the other, it was built in about 1650 as a little squat cottage. Right. So it's been lively.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:37

Lovely little space though. It's beautiful, isn't it? Yeah, for you to spend all your time here looking through there.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:43

Well, I spend more time in here than I do in the house. So yeah. Do you put music on or anything? I have the radio behind me. So I'm kind of a bit of a radio for nut. But if it all gets a bit newsy and working, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll f I'll flick and put some. Yeah. Or sometimes I'll just sit in here in silence, actually. Do you ever bring you you never bring your instrument in here? Uh I do. I bring it in here every Friday, about three o'clock. Work stops, and we have a we have a kind of a and guess what day and guess what day it is?

SPEAKER_00 1:21:12

Guess what day it's staying? And guess what time it will be sure? It's gonna be lunch time. Once we've had a lunch and feast. Phil, it's been absolutely immense. I've only just started doing this, and I wanted to come and speak to somebody I'm comfortable with. And you're a you're a you're a really great house, mate. I really appreciate it. So so thank thanks for doing this episode with me, Phil. Oh, well, check in, Hanson. Absolute pleasure. Cheers, mate, thanks very much, Phil. Pleasure.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:40

How long have we been talking there, John? Was that all right? That was easy.