Jo Blogs...

For me Yorkshire is usually filed away in my prejudice records as being full of big-headed cricketers, brass bands, and fixed opinions – well that’s my fixed opinion anyway.

 Fortunately, I have to go to fair in Harrogate to gather the newest sparkly things before the winter season, and it tends to promise new companies and a broader palate than the hords of ‘lord-of-the rings statues’ that crowd the halls of Birmingham’s trade fair, so this gives my narrow-minded ideas a chance to breath some fresh opinions from the boggy moors.

So when the rain finally ebbed away as we escaped London up the M1, it was into a golden, sunlit upland that we arrived, to a county looking more English, more fertile, with the kind of  rolling hills only that bloke who directed gladiator would come up with, and more all-round excellent than I could have imagined.

We took my mum on the outing, and as a born and bred northerner, from Rotherham no less, she was as prejudiced in her worship of ‘gods own county’ as you would expect

-          ooh they don’t make tea like that anywere else..ooh the grass is definitely greener up here…ooh, the people are happier and nicer than anywhere on earth!!

-           

-          To amuse, I thought we had better get a day out - I was attracted by the sound of Saltaire, an old mill bought by a school-friend of David Hockney on the edge of Bradford, and converted to house his collection of original art.

-           I asked for directions from our hotel reception:

-           ‘David oo?’ Never ‘eard of ‘im.’

-           Just to remind me that gay painters in white fedoras might feel more at home in San Francisco.

-          Well,  I’ve never seen anything quite like it, not even in 'the arty south' - the confidence it must have taken to use the huge industrial spaces over four floors of this epic industrial monument – the building, or actually the mini city of mills, built by an inspired philanthropist who shaped the whole surrounding area to give his workers a fulsome environment, with sports areas, shops, homes all in georgeous, fudge-coloured york-stone.

-           All the original spirit has been restored, preserved and continued by its current owner, who shows massive respect for its origins, for the machinery and barebrick of the time it was functioning, while daringly breaking conventions with the display of Hockneys’ not insignificant works. The space between objects, the distance your eye is allowed to travel, the air that is allowed to live around the precious things, making them live, and not rest in aspic.

-          The facilities, cafes, huge shop (more of a museum of retail with its mouth-watering card and stationary collection – every art card we had dreamed of showing they had and more!)

-           original Hockney canvases are generously and openly displayed, seminal works that I never have expected to see close up. \here, You felt as though Hockney himself probably pops in to re-arrange the pictures, between cups of T and fags (he’s very big on smoking, in an un-reconstructed way.)

-          Hockney has gravitated to apple devices, iphone and ipad for a quantity of his latest creations, using amongst others, an app. called ‘brush’ to bang out lovely flower studies every day before emailing them to friends; he is anarchically toying with the concept of image ownership, and copyright, in an age were the younger generation think nothing of asset-stripping the entire western hemispheres song catalogue daily, with the impunity of Lord Canarvon and his mummies – the digital creations still bear his style, sense of colour and impatience with preciousness. The gallery, equally, were not touchy about my taking photos as long as no flash was used – my god, I was nearly taken to the tower of London for that at the National Gallery.

Any way we made it to Bettys tea rooms and gloried in the cake and the scone; as a retailer I envied the 3 floors stuffed with custom, piano tinkling away in the lounge while Bettys staff made it feel like the upper class bit of the titanic, all whit estarched young ladies and gents, bril-creamed and polite.

Fantastic.

Jo Blogs..
The Flame

Today the sun blessed us in an embarrassing generosity, freinds turned up at Sugarbag Blue to join in and we set out drinks on the street in a propriatorial way. The pavement became ours, our neighbours in the flower shop and the hairdressers all came and sat out - kids ran in and out grabbing drinks, the travellers all came to watch. Our crowd seemed to be the rowdiest, and were busily jousting with the blue sponsored inflatible clubs supplied by sponsored fore-runners. Will we ever see the streets of Earlsfield bursting in expectation in the midsummer heat again and the traffic righteously brought to a standstill? ( pedestrians took precedence and stood between the frozen traffic, pitying those stuck on their way home but most of all awaiting the arrival of the flame.)

No, not in a hundred years

 And this all for a runner we had heard about on the news.  Just as my camera lost power cries went up 'He's coming.. Here he is ... He's coming now. ..'

 I suppose it's our children who will value having been here - there is an egalitarianism about the Olympics -people who honestly couldn't get excited about the jubilee were out cheering their heads off. We all  hope that the supreme effort of the athlete and the team work will bring us what? Glory ?

 It's not like the day was all about this and all work stopped - it didn't, and workers were still forcing their way through the crowds to get home.
 But it was a day to remember! We are at the centre of something - one of my boys gets up at 5 am and  puts on a hard-hat to build the gymnastics stage; I met an actress yesterday who's busy rehearsing the opening ceremony - no, she wouldn't tell me about it, except to say 'it's epic!'
Our lives are full of the mundane - can we rise above the traffic problems and inconvenience to allow a city where for a couple of weeks things are different, where the imaginators pull us through,; can we suffer a bit of traffic and inconvenience, because soon all  that will be gone and replaced by more of the same.

                                                          
                                                               (Lawrence Okoye)
 When  Lawrence Okoye, a 19 year-old schooolboy from a poor background who was in the year above my son at school is seen around the world by billions, in his attempt to spin his disc to a medal, or even a record that will still be talked about in 100 years time, we can rouse a little chaos on our street . As the headmaster said  - 'boys, if that can happen, then remember as you go through life, anything is possible.'
  Epic. 

Sent from my iPhone

Jo Blogs...
Personal Coast


The lure of the coast- why do we always come back to the edge of the land to worship the sea?

  As a teenager I remember the pure joy of living on baguettes and chocolate milk for two weeks in Cap Ferat, sleeping beneath pine-groves – that is, until the gastric ulcer took hold. The mistrals at night were terrorising. Where the day was scorching lazy, and positive, at night everything not nailed-down would shoot past you, bin-lids, rubbish, metal fences! Then, the same paradise becomes a scary clanging windy hell – too simple, nature too near.

We seem to be drawn at the extremes of life to the lands edge – old people cluster on rainy boardwalks to glimpse eternity, and children dig all day within sight of endless waves.

Some distinct coastlines, snapshots real and imagined: The Croatian coastline  - we found bombed out concrete shelters with nappies burst in the woods, past steel shipping containers used as homes for soldiers, and now poor people – to arrive at the beach as we expect them, sunbathers, holiday-makers, but also a kind of apartite beween Russian bars and the local ones – the Russian bars with pounding disco beats in the middle of the day and leering gangsters with gold bracelets sitting at the bar.

There are coasts I have never seen but feel I own a part of - the fantasy of the new England coast, the Isle of White which I feel calling me;

I do remember childhood visits to truly stunning beaches on the north Scottish coast, empty for miles and miles with just the cry of a corn-crake above; 

Fleeing heatwave-London in the big burn of 1995, to spend 6 months on the unspoiled Donegal coast – where the never ending wind in your head makes people, well,  a bit ‘out-there!’

I can go way back in my coastal journey to Polpero, Cornwall in  1973 –ants as big as your whole thumb, humming birds, and tropical plants – had we passed through a vortex that took us to not-England? – this was so exotic;

Suffolk – the absolute dream of Aldeburgh, one of the purest landscapes I had ever seen, at a pure time of life – Malcolm, my mentor at drama school took us out of rehearsal and on a train, to the beach, to experience the magic of the east coast light, as we were doing a play set on America’s east coast – he died young not long after we came back, but his spirit, the belief that quality is out there to be discovered, of which the coast there has been a reminder  -  has never left me;

An awakening of sorts – Port Merrion in the epic summer of 1982 where ‘the Prisoner’ was filmed – I remember it was during the Falklands war, the country was sending harrier jump-jets to a distant coastline while the family watched on the telly, and I made-do with assignations beneath the belltowers during a rain-shower.

Sleeping on the beach, never as good as it sounds, I thought – cold and exposed, and sometimes chased off by guards.

I would like to explore more beach huts of the world, it seems the greatest thing to have your house right at the shoreline.

Devon putsborough sands – where we had years of early holidays, East beach café, Littlehampton – a hop skip away from the big smoke, stylish architecture, seaside on a plate

Certain magic places – I always wanted to try out Dungeness-bombed bleakness, nuclear power lights glowing over the shingle. But I’ve never been.

We lived near the sea in Dublin, a huge smile of a bay that has industrial striped chimneys overlooking it, and Joyces’ Martello towers, stunted, wartlike defenses against napoleon when Dublin was Englands Cap Ferat – and the celebrated kick-off point of Ulysses’ hero. I canoed around freindly seals, and nothing could do better to round of your day than that, and a pint.

Arriving  in a huge storm, as flooding waves were coming over the seawall – Christmas day, driving the car round the beach in crazy patterns – feeling like escapees, but the other side of running off to the coast  is desolation.

                                                                  (west wittering)

 I remember my first holiday alone, experiencing solitariness for the first time, wading through chest high water and looking out for miles over the glassy Aegean sea.

I can’t see I will ever tire of the coasts, there always seem to be more that come into focus, that Ive heard about  - there are murmurs of somewhere everyone likes in Norfolk, and I shall have to find out.

Jo Blogs...

This week I saw a roll of grass on Wandsworth Common, like the one from Monets' studies of sunlight, a giant swiss roll - a sign of the height of summer in the countryside -  the heady finale to mowing the fields, and a sign of the season at its peak.

 We used to gather the hay bales in by hand where I grew up – for £2 per hour, gruelling, sweaty labour that seemed never ending (I puked after an hour on my first days work, the first one I picked up was unfeasibly heavy and I thought my fingers would be cut off by the friction of the nylon bale  string, but got quickly used to it, and became very proud of my calloused palms.)

But gradually we would gradually clear all the fields, and would survey how many stacks we had created by hand, from where we rested on top of a hay lorry as the sun went down. The smell was thick and intense, the heat from the sweating, spikey bale-stacks would rise up through your clothes; the taste of the ears which we chewed into a bready gum – sensations that to me gather into an essence of a particular  time of year; the season had an end, we were part of it, and were welded to the landscape.

  How do we know, in the big city, with its unchanging all-year face, how do we know were we are in the year?

 When nature is in charge, the signs are that particular flowers will come out, the hedgerows would be thicker, birdcries alter, the smells different, even the light and the sky would change or the harvest would end, or begin – even though the harvest festivals that i took part in as a child seemed to be about gathering tinned goods in the corner of the school room. Across the country, there would be a strange celebration whose origins are obscure,  cheese rolling, or pig slapping or whatever, but fimly based in the processes of the seasons and used as markers to say 'thakyou' for what we have, or to take a break from the work we did bringing home the bacon and preparing us that there is now another phase to come; maybe we are basically forgetful creatures that need reminding by actually doing something odd and in public that marks the end of one phase and inevitably, the start of another. 

(cheese-roling in Gloucestershire, 4th June.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=dtvG9XDtjv4

(kent...)

(Devon Pixies)

(burning barrels, Ottery St. Mary, Devon)

I suppose this comes to mind as I was wondering what the hell happened to our seasons – is this the drowning season, or the boiling Indian summer.

Short of there being snowdrifts (and even that wasn’t very reliable – didn’t we get tons last year and then, untimely bits this year.)
 I am looking for: flowers and maybe a few showers, maybe some lambs
 –spring;
sunbathing, dry grass and blue skies
 – summer;
 blowing leaves, conkers, fires burning
 – autumn;

 and then snow, jumpers, dark evenings
 – winter.

So Wandsworth Common is the best hope for these signs, (and we are so lucky in the area that surrounds Tickled Pink and Sugarbag Blue that nature is not completed held at bay.) but I guess what we have inside our homes are our internal reminders of the seasons, our personal greenery.

Particularly with children in a house its great to map out where we are with decorations -Easter stuff, Halloween, bonfire night – in summer, bright coloured drinking cups and bowls, scarfs and clothes reflecting the shades of where we feel we are in the year, even though we cant see nature because we are surrounded by concrete, or nature is not playing by the rules.

 We want patterns that speak of holidays, beach huts and seagulls, sail boats, and garden parties. Jewellery that goes well with suntanned skin, and white cloth.

(we have a range of delicate silver and gold summer jewellery

-this summers' best-sellers!!

glossy brightly coloured enamel bangles - mm! great summer

kit, lovely with a tan.                  

spotty dotty summer scarves!

About Us

Anna blogs...

The public face of Sugar-bag Blue paints a very flattering image of me:

“Anna, the big strong character, the founder-Manager of a lovely gift shop, single handedly steering a happy ship with style and good humour! “

But the ‘Cinderella’ you’ll sometimes catch a glimpse of carrying boxes, dealing with the rubbish, fending off parking attendants or buried under piles of accounts and bookkeeping is actually the magician behind the visual spell!

 That’s my Jo - lover,  partner, husband, father of my children, best friend and messy pain in the arse fanatic about colour and visual taste!

In our adventure together I give ‘content’ and Jo provides the ‘context’ and thus we swim along happily together.

We met when we were very young – just 14 – both budding actors attending the National Youth Theatre on summer courses.

 Funny really – we couldn’t have come more different backgrounds, Jo from a middleclass country idyll in Worcestershire and me from a big Irish, catholic, no frills family in Derry, and yet we connected immediately – first as friends and some years later as partners.

We had twenty years of being actors ‘travelling this way that way, backwards forwards over the Irish Sea.’ I mostly toured with theatre companies and Jo did loads of television and work on screen. They were excting and magic years.

(Anna as the lady, Euphrosene with Tilda Swinton in 'Orlando.')

 Towards the end of or acting carreers I spent three years in Dunlaoghaire, Dublin, with the three boys, whilst Jo travelled to work in London on a Soap during the week and then home to us at the weekends. This was a hard and challenging period for us as a family, but also an unforgettably satisfying and intimate period of motherhood for me with my three little chicks.

 When I got offered a job at the National theatre in 2001, I jumped at the chance, packed our bags and it was “wagons roll”! That job finished up 9 months later and it roswas time to go back to Dublin, 'but we just hadn’t the heart to part again and so we stayed and began our London adventure. We stumbled on Earlsfield as an area to settle in – lucky or what?

(Anna with Patrick Malahide in Hinterland

at the National Theatre.)

  When you have very young children you are very present in the area you live. Lots of pushing the pram, pounding the pavements with toddlers by the hand or on crazy scooters. You find yourself chatting to all sorts of people you might never even meet if you didn’t have the children and most of all, in your vulnerability, you are grateful for every encouraging word and helping hand. I feel very priveliged to see all the beautiful babies, children and brilliant young women, who are my customers, as they go about their lives in Earlsfield and to watch the little ones as they grow up and head off to school. I am amazed by the love and dedication that I see from all the families in Earlsfield.

People often ask us if we miss the theatre and I really mean it when I say “No”. The shop is a wonderful, continuous, creative workshop for us. Its like being in a long running show really – perpetually interesting, with new characters and stories passing through all the time.

 The team at Sugarbag Blue are lovely women – all creative, smart and talented. I call them the SugarBabes! Over the years we’ve had dancers, actors, artists and bohemians of all sorts. All these wonderful people bring their adventures and colourful personalities to the shop and add dynamically to the mix.

 Jo and I love the challenge of searching for interesting and beautiful things to sell. I am obsessed with costume jewellery and accessories We are both passionate about creating environments were people can relax and enjoy themselves, because that’s when things can really start to happen. I love soft furnishing with texture and colour, eclectic pottery, wood, flowers, books all add warmth ease and depth to a room. I am anti huge, white, expansive spaces that inhibit childrens’ messy play and enslave women to thousands of hours of housework .

We’re just putting the finishing touches to the Autumn/Winter shopping and feeling quite pleased and excited about showing it to you in September. This year we pledged to come into the 21^st century and learn how to use Facebook, Twitter and Blogger. Actually we are loving thse new channels of communcation and so excited about our new website which will be ready for launch in September.

Thank you all for your kind support of Sugar-Bag Blue. We don’t take it for granted one little bit. Everyday we open the door and we leave it open in all weather! We are  never sure if anyone will come in but so far you always do.

  Jo Blogs...

Sugarbag bue is about affordable, produce with a story -  a choice of gifts for friends family or a treat for yourself, that has been offered with thought by us  and discovered with care by the customer.

After RADA between rehearsals of playing Josephine opposite James Bolam in 'Victory,' a play about Napoleon at Chichester Anna got restless – so we made a line of jewellery by hand without knowing anything about jewellery. When asked for hundreds more by Liberties, we decided a fork in the path had been reached. Showbiz was saying, 'its me or the sparkly things.' Not until we settled in Earlsfield after 20 years of tv and touring did the idea come back and Earlsfield saw Sugarbag Blue born.

We decided when the oldest boy reached secondary that we should find a place to settle –

The contrast for the one away filming and the one pushing the pram at home was destructive –I remember phoning from a payphone in the Bahamas where I shot a film about being the captain of a Navy frigate, and I was bragging away about the location and the freebies – it suddenly struck me Anna was coping with stuff like electricity bills and two  young babes.

So we stopped.

I think it just happened to be Earlsfield, near to where I had filmed a lot, and there was a lot of greenery. Only later did we think that the area had an awful lot going for it –we had seen a lot of places that found their identity, Notting Hill, Archway in North London, Stoke Newington, Shoredirch where I went to college when it was a dingy collection of defunct tailoring factories; all  became too expensive to live in, but we seemed to have found Earlsfield before it goes too mad, which it may yet.but here you can feel that here is,  dare I say it, a village feel  plus the identity from the many south African people who congregate round  the  bend in the round and regularily worship the oblong ball.

Anyway, I love the city –the country idyll doesn’t hold water for me –I know, I grew up there. I mean just listen to ‘the Archers’ – they are all suing one another over stepping into the wrong orchard. Not like the city –we give leeway for all sorts of things just to keep the peace. Londoners will hear a party next  door and  just live with it, stuff that would get you bludgeoned in Ambridge! In my village alone we had a murderer, two armed robbers, a witch, a convicted sheep-shagger, countless unconvicted tax dodgers, psychos of every hue, and absolutely hundreds of bigots!

No, it’s the big smoke for me anyday – I still remember, as a teenager, coming up  to London for my first job as a waiter in Soho –I used to love walking home though the early morning streets as the great city awoke.

We moved house 36 times before setting up home in Earlsfield  - I knew the area well having filmed 'the Bill' there for 4 years on the local streets, and  also in the studios at South Wimbledon, soap-opera ‘Family Affairs’ as patriarch Jim Webb –the Webb familly were a desperately hand to mouth lot, decent but unlucky –everything bad you could imagine happened to us – I would literally turn up to work everyday expecting to be shocked,  punched, widowed, abused , humiliated and also jubilant about a pregnancy, or distraught at a kidnapping all  in the same day –I loved it and when time was up, we strapped the piano to the roof of our volvo and drove off to spain – well, we went round the corner and the series stopped. I  used to loved it  -

before that I had been so used to playing professionals – doctors lawyers, soldiers, policemen -all the jobs of the guys I went to school with – men struggling with their responsible trained position –‘Jim’ was just hanging in there – like me, actually.. And people have been really nice about the programme –those who were sad enough to be watching!

 (Me, as the endlessly hapless Jim Webb, for channel 5.)

The first item we stocked was a' bill brown' stripey beach bag – the idea was to bring colour to our area- we  may not live at the centre of the world, but everone deserves colour. If you can't aways get away to the beach, at least you can have the colours of the summer at hand. And everyone should be able to afford colour, not just the posh places! Also, both of us have brothers and sisters and love to mark family rituals and celebrations, so we all  cater for all important familly markers, from weddings to christenings – its hilarious, we have seen it all. Guys just don’t get it about presents – take your wife’s advice over choosing things like jewellery!  I am ashamed actually to see how many guys are hugely generous and careful in treating their partners –I am gradually getting into hot water by comparison.

As an ambitious child, Anna had sold balloons  with faces painted on them to make the price of a Freddy  Mercury ticket.

She discovered an eye for sparkles – and an amazing memory for numbers, categories etc. she really is the fastest buyer you will ever meet –we virtually run round trade fairs saying ‘..no,..no..yes..no.’

We have travelled far and wide to gather Sugarbag Blue’s stock –a big giftware company paid Anna to go to the far east put together their jewellery collection, and she has never looked back –I came along for the ride, swanning round in a cream suit like Graham Greene. I particularly liked  the Hong Kong museum – wow, the things we British did for tea! And opium!

Our search has taken us to Paris  -(we were disappointed at the obsession in French culture with faux-native art of Africa, and the fact that all the fabrics smelled of fag smoke) but at the last minute we found some beautiful  enamel costume jewellery there, and after an agreed rendezvous in a Paris backstreet (very ‘Maigret’) because we couldn’t wait we literally carried it back in our rucksacks – we were sweating at customs because it was so heavy. We must have looked really dodgy.

Also, we have had a thrilling foray into french fashion for a couple of years – we may come back to it. But fashion can be ferociously competitive –the deals on clothing in the big stores now can leave you standing.

People are becoming more interested in the provenance of their purchases, and we mean to pursue this topic –our coming website will have  a ‘meet the maker ‘ section –whether it is some feedback from South Africa where some of the jeweller comes from)or Brazil where a lot of silver comes from, or an interview with a British card maker fresh out of art-college.

(Lovely Manu, Source of Much that is Good!!)

 We wil take a look at the lives of those who supply us, and maybe set up a dialogue with them. It may be there is a chance to help in the lives of those places –there is a successful indian shoemaker who made a donation for each and every pair of shoes he sold in the west –and his customers really responded.

We are every excited about the opportunities that social media and the web are opening up –the best retail tells a story whether that is on the high street, or on web-platform.  The best web designers are people from theatre as they understand the idea of abstract narrative, being led by a progression of events and emotions to your quarry!!

Lots of love from SugarBag Blue xxx