James Reed

She originally trained as a painter in London before moving into design work in Spain.

and her business is in a sense a fusion of British and Spanish style but Penelope is going to tell me more about that in a moment so thank you for coming in today Penelope and I'd really like you to begin at the beginning tell us a little bit about how this wonderful business journey of yours which started 25 years ago began.

Sounds very civilized.

Yeah.

So had you told him exactly sort of what you wanted?

Absolutely, yes.

So you knew what you wanted for yourself.

And then other people said, I'd like some.

Yes, yeah.

That was how you started.

So before we go further, you said you studied as an artist and you started out as an artist.

Mm-hmm.

And then your sort of focus, let's say, changed gradually in a way.

You went from one type of artist to another type of artist, and then to design, furniture, and then to artisan work.

You just needed to make a living.

But you arrived in London effectively, from what you just said, Penelope, with two young children, recently separated, divorced, and so effectively on your own.

And you had to fend for yourself.

And build a business from the ground up on your own with these two little children in tow.

I mean, that's a big ask.

So how did you do that?