Liz Watson [LW]: Okay, the date today is the 29th July 2008, we’re at Silai For Skills. I’m interviewing Sheryl Prince, and my name is Liz Watson. Sheryl, could you tell me please your date of birth? Sheryl Prince [SP]: 05/09/50. LW: Thank you very much, and could you tell me a little bit about yourself? SP: Okay um, I came to Silai because- I’ll start at the beginning I’m sorry, I’m 58 years old and I spent over 20 years working computers and then I went abroad with my husband to Hong Kong for 10 years and that was really too difficult for me to work. I’ve got 3 children, I’ve always loved sewing, I did run a business in my late teens sewing things for other people but really I kind of knocked them up as I was self-taught. When I came back from my 10 years in Hong Kong I wanted to do something and I really liked the idea of going back to college and so that’s how I ended up at Silai. LW: So you started this business in your teens? SP: Well I started a business in my teens but then I got very busy with my work so I started off as a secretary but I only did that for a couple of years, then I worked in computers for well over 20 years and I was too busy to do the sewing basically but yes I made dresses, Kipper Ties, which is a very 1960s sort of thing to do. LW: Brilliant. And who taught you to sew? SP: Well I really learnt from my mother, on my mother’s knee. I mean she tells some cute stories of when I was a little girl I would be sitting there cutting something out for one of my dollies that I carried on my lap and when I stood up I’d cut my own skirt out as well, but I still have the first thing I made which is a pin cushion and I made it when I was 6. LW: Wow, so you have been sewing a long time. So, you went to Hong Kong for 10 years and I suppose you were bringing up your children there? SP: Yes, I had, we got 3 children as I say and they were all at school there, actually we did go to Hong Kong twice, the first time I did work in computers, the second time I didn’t work because we thought that we would only be there for 2 years and so we were on the point of leaving a long, long time. I did other work, you know charity work and helped out at schools, that sort of thing. Got involved in sort of drug abuse charity work, that type of thing. LW: In Hong Kong? SP: Yes. LW: Wow, and do you speak Mandarin? SP: A little bit, I did try to learn Chinese it’s a very difficult language and I went to the British council, I did the beginner course and then I did the intermediate course, then I did the intermediate course again and I still only left with a few words, actually they don’t speak Mandarin in Hong Kong they speak Cantonese. I know lots of the Cantonese people ever since 1997 when Britain handed over, or handed back as I should say Hong Kong to the Chinese, a lot of people have been trying to learn Mandarin or [Putonbahr] as I’s known, but they don’t really like you to speak their language. LW: That’s interesting. SP: Lots of people in Hong Kong speak English but whenever I went up to China where people didn’t speak English it was incredibly useful and I really needed that and I used to go to China quite a lot. LW: And I suppose you must be really interested in the fabrics and the clothing? SP: Oh, I mean Hong Kong and China are just fabric heaven. So I really got back to sewing, I said I’d given it up but when I was in Hong Kong and I couldn’t work really, because we were on the point of leaving but also the whole work ethic in Hong Kong is if you have a full time job you’re working from 8 o’clock in the morning to 8 o’clock at night, and with the children that wasn’t really possible. So I decided to get back into the sewing really because my daughter at the time had weight problems and of course being English she’s much bigger than the Chinese girls so she couldn’t really get things to fit her except at Marks & Spencer’s in Hong Kong and she didn’t really want to do that. We’ve been on holiday to America in actual fact, we got us an around the world ticket when we were coming back to England, and she’d bought a really cute blouse in Levi’s, which she loved and of course it fitted her because it came from an American discount store, I brought it back to Hong Kong, I washed it and it shrunk, she was absolutely devastated so I said don’t worry Julia, I can run you up one of these easy and then the other thing that really got me going was I taken my daughter back to England because she’s got learning difficulties and I brought her back to- it’s a bit like neuro linguistic programming, it came back 4 times it’s called the [Tomatis] Institute and the child has a treatment, the parent has to have the treatment as well and it really gets the old creative juices going. You’re not allowed to read, you sit there for 4 hours a day with headphones clamped to your ears listening to Gregorian chants and Mozart and it’s got filtered noises and it’s all about exercising the neural networks. I just sat there with a sketchbook and sketched design after design of clothes; it all sort of really came flooding out. So that, coupled with the fact that Julia, I had already made customer in my 13 year old daughter, I just kept going and in the first year I calculated I made 60 garments, so that’s more than one a we- (interrupted). LW: So what year was this? SP: That’s about 2002 – 2003. I made 60 garments in a 12 month period and of course if you count holidays and Christmas when you’re not quite so busy that is more than one a week. So I was really into sort of mass production, and then towards the end of my time I did start making things for other people and I made wedding outfits for people, you know, mother of the bride and that sort of thing but again I wasn’t really taught, apart from my mother’s basic sort-of sewing, so when I left Hong Kong I thought, “Right, I really would like to learn how to do things properly and I’m going to go to college” and, you know, really fulfil a long-time dream that I’d had of learning how to sew properly. And then really how I came to Silai was a bit of a fluke in a way because I live in bath, which is a long way away from Silai, but I got hold of a Bristol, City Of Bristol College magazine and a Silai supplement fell out onto the floor and I picked it up, “Silai School for Sewing” oh wow, this is for me. So I come along and saw Florine, she told me all about the place and I thought “Wow, it just sounds great, I really must come here.” So even though it was quite a long, long way away for me I loved it. LW: Yeah, and you came for how long? SP: Well 4 years altogether. So I started off doing garment construction and pattern cutting. I really came for the pattern cutting, and also, with the garment construction, I could already sew, but I wanted to learn from an expert how to do things properly and I had realised that I had been doing some things not quite right. I mean, the end result was still very nice but I learned lots of fantastic techniques and the pattern cutting, I just absolutely loved it. LW: What does it…? I suppose it involves making your own patterns? SP: You start off by taking all your own measurements and then learning how to make, sort of, master patterns to fit your body and then from those you can adapt those master patterns to make more garments with certain amounts of style in them and I went right the way up, I did that for 3 years altogether all the way up to pattern cutting jackets, tailored jackets. LW: That must be really just painstaking. SP: Well yes but I really loved it all the time, I think Rose my tutor would say I was probably a bit of a pain in the neck sometimes but I suppose I was very enthusiastic! (Chuckle) But yeah, sort of a bit pernickety sometimes about getting it all absolutely right and so on. Then, I carried on with garment construction for 2 years, and then Rose suggested I might like to join the ethnic clothing class because I kept making all these Asian inspired garments in fact they were Chinese inspired garments having spent a lot of time there and having bought a lot of fabrics back with me and so on. So I joined Deborah’s class, and I was in that class for 2 years and I made 2 sets of {Shalwah Camees} and the {Lengha} skirt and the {Todi} blouse and the {Choridor} pyjama and I absolutely loved it, I really enjoyed it! Not only did I enjoy the sewing, but I think even better than that was the group of ladies that I met. So I was the only non-muslim in the class and they were so nice to me, I absolutely loved it and we talked about all sorts of things, we talked about arranged marriages, we talked about the Iraq war, we talked about tons and tons of things and I just would like to say that I’ve learnt so much. LW: Wow, that’s amazing. And you learned all these different Asian styles as well? [00:09:55] SP: Yes, the clothes and also another long conversation we often used to talk about clothes as [10:00] the use in religion, to make a statement for your religion - how clothes worked in that sort of environment. LW: So how - what did they say then? SP: Well you know, for example you read about people wearing burkas and head scarfs and all that sort of thing but basically one of the things they don’t want to do is attract attention to themselves. Surely ladies who are in that class can explain it much better than me but I will tell you one funny little story, I made so many really nice friends in that class and there was one lady, I think she was from Bangladesh and she used to wear the burka and she would have on a sort of lovely cream scarf with a very lacy edging and she has 2 children who used to attend the crèche here. Anyway, she said to me she was going off home, and off she went, and then I’d driven a little bit around the area, I think I’d gone to the supermarket and then I passed her in the road and she had the full scarf on. I passed my friend in the street and I waved to her even though, and she had her full headscarf on and when I saw her the following day at college she said “How did you recognize me?” so I said to her it was your beautiful eyes. And she said “Really?” I said, “Well, it did help that you had such a distinctive headscarf. Not only that, you had your two children with you, and I had lunch with them!” LW: (laughter) Oh that’s nice. SP: And then the other classes I did were {laundray}, and fashion design. I loved all of those classes so I feel very lucky to have done it. And then I actually went back to Hong Kong for 6 months when I finished my 4 years at Silai, and I was certainly thinking about what I should do now, I would really like to do some sort of business, so pulling together everything that I had learned about the pattern cutting, the {laundray}, the ethnic clothing, my love of Chinese fabrics. I came up with the idea of doing nightwear in gorgeous Asian fabrics and with an Asian theme but to fit and suit the western body, western lady. And I investigated, while I was in Hong Kong fabrics, and manufacturing, and so on. I went up to Shanghai looking at possible factories, etc. But when I came back, I had really decided not to go ahead with it because it was just all too difficult. I mean first of all, you’re not really sure about any sweatshop conditions etc. in Shanghai and I’d heard you need an agent and if you’re a foreigner and don’t speak Chinese you’d be in big trouble and in fact I got that information from a Chinese friend because I’d joined a little organization called {Stitch ‘n Fitch} while I was in Hong Kong and this lovely, actually she was Korean lady was running a business with her boyfriend getting things made up in China so she gave me tons of information, so I came back to England thinking nope, it’s all too difficult, I’d have to get hundreds and hundreds made up in each colour and in each size, I’m going to leave that idea. But then a friend of mine, she’s actually the sister of my son’s then girlfriend who runs a stall on Brighton seafront selling jewellery that she makes herself, in fact I’m wearing one of her pieces right now, my necklace, which is mosaic beads. She also has the odd bit of clothing item but she said to me, “I really want to sell {harem} pants.” And she does a lot of pop festivals as well so, “Would you help me?” she said. “Oh gosh of course I would, it’s just up my street!” I mean actually, my son had just split up from her sister, but that really made no difference, I had known her for a long time and I just loved the sound of a project like that. So we made up lots of {harem} pants, we went out and found fabric, we went up to Leicester, I made up lots of them but then she realised she wanted a lot more, so we went up to Leicester and we found a factory, and she got more made up there with the fabric that I had actually bought in Bristol at the {Eastleigh} market and we went up together, she doesn’t know too much about sewing. This was very successful, she did really, really well because they’re fashionable, really sexy sort of things for sort of young girls to wear at pop festivals and that sort of thing. Anyway, I was so impressed with the factory up in Leicester and talked to them about making up some of my Chinese fabrics and then later on I got some {Sari} fabrics, making them up into dressing gowns and I had a look around the workshop [15:00 - From this point on, all transcribed by PJD] and everything, and so this factory in Leicester made up some garments for me to my own design. So I had made up some sample garments myself, but then I got lots more made up there, and they were great, you know, didn’t matter about just making, you know, having fifty of this and fifty of that and so on, and then since then we’ve, I’ve also been making handbags and scarves and shawls and belts and things with my daughter. LW: So yeah and your daughter helps you doesn’t she? SP: Yes, she does. So she was out at work but, you know, the sort of office life wasn’t really for her. She’s mildly autistic and she’s got a few problems, so she, she’s very happy sort of helping me and it’s great that, you know, we work together, though she does a lot of the technical work. I do the sewing work and the pattern cutting, but she does cutting out, stitching sort of straight seams and she does eyelets and she, we’re doing some new bags which’ve got lots of beadwork on, so she’s doing all that beadwork and that sort of thing. LW: So when did you, I mean, when did you think of, I mean, I know you went to, you were going to do a big business in Hong Kong and when did you sort of begin this new idea ‘cause it’s now… SP: Right, well I never, I didn’t get going on with the idea of doing the business again until last summer, so that was the summer of 2007 and it takes a while, you know, the lead time of getting garments made up etc. So I didn’t really get the garments until just before Christmas. In fact, I didn’t get the full range of garments but I started selling them just before Christmas. I had them at home and I attended one or two, other people I know run these sort of things at home, say for charities and so on and I’d also started to make the bags then because my brother-in-law who works for the BBC and he knows a lot about that sort of thing, he said you know, “You’re garments are great but they are rather expensive, why don’t you have a choice and make some cheaper things.” So that’s when we decided to make bags because we had all these lovely fabric and also it’s something that Julia could get more involved with, and then since Christmas we, just before Christmas, we met somebody who said you really ought to be on the sort of circuit of Ascot, Cheltenham, you know, Badminton, selling these lovely, luxurious items so, but before you do that, do some little craft fairs, get experience, learn how to display your goods, learn how to talk to people and so we did that. LW: That’s good advice. SP: So that’s what we’re doing at the moment, we’re doing craft fairs basically. We’re not selling tons but, you know, it’s trickling over and you know people have said such nice things about, I mean, I’m just absolutely stunned that in the photography session, I’ve had {Justell}, the photographer bought one of the nightgowns, or dressing gown. LW: And she’ll probably tell everyone that, you know, her friends. That’s the thing isn’t it? SP: Fantastic, yeah, and I think one of the driving forces is that I wanted the garments to be flattering and suitable for all different age groups and I hope I’ve achieved that so, you know, I’m in my fifties and I think people of my age would look great in them and enjoy wearing them and so would people in their teens, twenties and, you know, any age really. LW: I reckon. I want to ask you – I’ve asked everyone this – what you think is special about Silai? SP: The warmth to everybody. There’s such a wonderful atmosphere here and, you know, there are many different types of ladies from different types of backgrounds, religions, countries and everybody is just so friendly and the teachers of course are also fantastic. I mean, they know so much. We’re very lucky to have had such wonderful teachers here so, just the ethos of the place, the warmth. LW: Thank you Sheryl. Is there anything else you want to say? SP: No, except thank you very much for letting me come along. I love coming back here, it’s great.