Esme Young - Behind the Seams: The perfect Christmas gift for fans of The Great British Sewing Bee

For fans of The Great British Sewing Bee:

The Great British Sewing Bee: Sustainable Style

by Alexandra Bruce and Caroline Akselson

The Great British Sewing Bee: The Modern Wardrobe (Create the Clothes You Love with 28 Projects and Innovative Alteration Techniques) by Juliet Uzor

First published in the UK by Blink Publishing

An imprint of Bonnier Books UK

4th Floor, Victoria House,

Bloomsbury Square, London,

WC1B 4DA

Owned by Bonnier Books

Sveavgen 56, Stockholm, Sweden

Hardback 978-1-788704-62-5

Ebook 978-1-788704-63-2

Audio 978-1-788704-64-9

All rights reserved. No part of the publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted or circulated in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission in writing of the publisher.

A CIP catalogue of this book is available from the British Library.

Designed by Envy Design Ltd

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Copyright Esme Young, 2022

Esme Young has asserted her moral right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Every reasonable effort has been made to trace copyright holders of material reproduced in this book, but if any have been inadvertently overlooked the publishers would be glad to hear from them.

Blink Publishing is an imprint of Bonnier Books UK

www.bonnierbooks.co.uk

With love to my siblings; Fiona,
Christopher, Angus and Jeremy

Contents

Daydream
Believer

I feel I should begin at the beginning, although Im not sure it is always the best place to start. I rather like the idea of going backwards and getting younger with each chapter but then I have always looked at things from a different perspective. There is something so pleasing about going against expectation and convention, finding your own way. For the most part its been a successful approach throughout my life and career, apart from those times when it hasnt, but more of that later.

You may have this book because you know me from the BBCs The Great British Sewing Bee, which is another reason why I could begin my story at the end. The truth is its just one exciting part of a much bigger, interesting tale that explains how I ended up on the nations TV screens, so I may as well start from the moment the stork delivered me one cold, miserable February day in 1949 in Bedford...

I arrived and immediately interrupted the peace for my older sister Fiona, who, until then, had been perfectly happy being the perfectly well-behaved only child. I also upset my mum. She suffered with postnatal depression after my birth and possibly after the birth of my brothers, Christopher, Angus and Jeremy. I only discovered this much later but the knowledge of her struggle made sense of some things in my childhood and gave me a clearer perspective of her as a woman and mother. She was great fun but far from easy.

In those days postnatal depression was referred to somewhat dismissively as the baby blues and there was little medical help or understanding. Instead new mothers were often left to get on with it and relied on their supportive family network, if they were lucky enough to have one. Thankfully my mum had two sisters who were able to help out. I was sent to live with Aunt Queenie for a few months when I was a tiny baby, which gave Mum a chance to recuperate. We always had the nanny or the girl too (which was much more common in those days) a succession of helpful women of varying ages and qualifications who looked after us as we grew in raucous, rebellious number.

My mums other sister, Aunt Sheila, would give up work for a while to look after each of my siblings as they arrived and we all grew incredibly fond of her and very much looked forward to her visits. Sheilas passion was for the theatre. She was by nature rather theatrical and quite eccentric, although in a completely unaffected way. She appeared on the stage in several productions, but given the life of an actor is so insecure and income uncertain, like so many others in that profession she fell back on a more reliable employment. She earned her bread and butter as a secretary, working for various organisations, including a stint for the editor of the Manchester Guardian and in Strasbourg for the Council of Europe.

She was the kind of person who managed effortlessly to generate all sorts of dramas in her wake and when we were children, Mum loved to direct us in re-staging her more notorious escapades. Year after year at Christmas these re-enactments would have Mum hooting with laughter the goings-on at Doncaster station in 1954 being a particular favourite. Aunt Sheila had been to stay and was catching the train from Doncaster to go home. We were all lined up on the platform to see her off and she was very theatrically bending down to kiss us all goodbye, one by one. As she swooped down on my brother Angus, who was about two years old at the time, there was a shrill blast on a whistle, Sheila shrieked in alarm and leapt aboard her train, only to discover the whistle was for a completely different train on another platform. She simply couldnt be coaxed back onto the platform to complete her fond farewells I dont think Angus ever quite recovered.

When it was Sheilas 80th birthday we rented a farmhouse in the countryside near her home in Strasbourg and hosted a celebration for her. She was very touched to be made such a fuss of and to be reminded that we had not forgotten her, despite her being rather far away. She had been such a big part of our childhood and the truth was that we all loved her a very great deal.

My parents had five children in all. Fiona was the first and then me. Christopher, the unconventional one, came a few years after, quickly followed by Angus, the wild child, then four years later, Mum gave birth for the final time to Jeremy, the baby of the family. When the midwife announced, Its a lovely baby boy, my mum said, Oh no, not another one! as Christopher and Angus, being close in age, tended to fight and were quite a handful. This prompted the nurses to be concerned for my mums mental health and they kept an eye on her.

One time, when Mum went to the bathroom, on seeing an empty bed, the nurses thought she had taken Jeremy with her and they were worried she was going to drown him or flush him down the loo. In fact, she had made a cocoon of blankets on the bed and left him safely swaddled inside and in their haste they hadnt noticed that. Her retort of How ridiculous! didnt do much to appease them.

While my mum struggled to show her true feelings, my dad, Brian Young, expressed his love for us through his kind actions and thought for us all. Born in South Africa, to a British mum and South African dad, he was educated at the prestigious Michaelhouse school and was fluent in English, Afrikaans and Zulu. My grandfather, Kenneth Young, was a solicitor and was keen for Brian to follow his footsteps in to law but my dad had other ideas. Most Sundays, he would join his sisters boyfriend on his paper round, albeit one with a difference. Due to the vast spaces and remoteness of the terrain, the delivery would be made by aeroplane and my dads job was to sling the newspapers out as they flew low over the properties. Occasionally he would be allowed to take the controls and this sparked a passion that would define his future.