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John Bright

John Bright

Former President of the Board of Trade of the United Kingdom

Jul 22, 2026

24:00
And John, tell us, uh, about the way that you've discovered particular items which are perfect for a character, and particularly for, for Maggie Smith in Downton.
24:10
Well, um, when Susanna Buxton started that amazing series, um, she was thinking about a wardrobe for each of the characters.
24:21
And so we started to look at all sorts of things, and I often go into, um, Camden Town to the market there in the railway sidings, and I asked one of the people there, "Do you ever come across things as old as 1900, 19, 1906?" And he, he said, "Well, I don't know.
24:48
Well, there's, there's this rather good fur coat that I've got at the back here, and, um, that might be useful to you." He brought it out.
24:59
It was black and shiny.
25:02
And quite pointy.
25:04
And I thought, "Ooh, well, that's like Maggie." And so, [laughs] uh, I took it back to Cosprop and showed Susannah, who also was very, very thrilled by it.
28:04
Tell us about that.
16:18
Have you incorporated anything in the last, say, three to six months that you wish you'd done right at the beginning? Any tools or routines or mindset change that has made things run more smoothly and, uh, you know, is advice that you would have given yourself a year ago?
16:38
Mindset change, I guess, would be a thing, just trying to keep myself more relaxed as possible, which is still working on, 'cause I like to be busy.
16:48
Yeah, I guess mindset of enjoying the downtime when you have it.
16:51
I like to keep as busy as possible, so having downtime, it feels odd.
16:55
So just being able to enjoy that part when it does happen instead of fidgeting and thinking what else could I be doing or I should be doing something else.
17:04
Just enjoy the downtime when you get it, 'cause it doesn't happen all the time.
17:09
And things that have been kinda changed or implemented in the last little bit, at the beginning of the year had like a complete reset of how we would approach, um, clients and projects instead of just design services and a certain way that we do it.
22:16
Like, how have you formally or informally picked up the skills to help you with bookkeeping, marketing, sales, client relationship building, all the business-y things? Did you go somewhere to learn that?

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