Corin Mellor on stainless steel, Sheffield, and designing beautiful cutlery.

0:06 Hello and welcome to a new episode of Material Matters with Grant Gibson in association with our thought leadership partner Berghouse. This is the podcast where I talk to a designer, maker, artist, or architect about a material or technique with which they're intrinsically linked and discover how it changed their life and career.

0:23 Think of it as a bit like desert island discs but using materials instead of music. Today I'm delighted to welcome my guest, Corin Meller. Corin is the creative director of David Meller Design, a brand that is synonymous with his father David, but also the design and manufacturer of beautiful cutlery, primarily made out of stainless steel.

0:43 According to Terence Conran, David was, and here I quote, Britain's most serious, modest, and greatest post-war product designer who created everything from bins to bus stops before concentrating on cutlery. Corin took over the company in 2006, expanding its range and material palette, as well as creating some delightful knives, forks, and spoons himself.

1:04 Corin, thanks so much for doing this. How are you? I'm very well, and thank you very much for inviting me along. Oh, it's a complete pleasure. I mean, we have a tradition on this podcast of asking people about their studio or workplace. I'm looking at you on a screen, um, and it's probably the most spectacular backdrop I've ever spoken to anybody on this podcast before.

1:29 Right. Okay. Well, I would have thought you'd have had some amazing backdrops.

1:32 I mean, generally you just have you have walls and maybe sometimes curtains, but you have this extraordinary interior that you're in. So where where are you right now?

1:40 Well, this is sort of part of my studio, really. Um I'm actually um in Derbyshire. I'm in the just outside the little village of Hathersidge. And um where I am now is called the Retort House. Um and the Retort House is one of the original gasworks buildings. So I'm actually sitting um in part of what used to be a gas works, and the retort house uh was actually originally used for manufacturing gas.

2:13 And um the wall you see behind me, um you can see a few weird chimney-shaped holes. Um, so there were various um machineries and um and and chimneys and um uh involved in actually manufacturing the gas. And the gas used to be made in this building and then pumped into the old Victorian gasometer, uh which is actually where the round building, our cutlery factory, stands.

2:44 Okay, so this is you're sat in your studio. I mean you have a kind of I don't know, do you call it a campus? Yes. A campus. Let's call it a campus. A collection of buildings. Yeah, you have you have a collection of buildings. So this is your studio. You have the factory.

2:58 Which is also my studio as well, really, because my studio is in two parts, but we can elongate that further down the line, I suppose.

3:06 But you also live there, right, as well.

3:08 Uh yes. So the door you see right at the end, um, there's a little bridge there, and that little bridge then takes me um into my house.

3:16 Very good. So should we talk a little bit about the factory? Because it it feels kind of intrinsic to the company and the brand. Designed by Hopkins and partners with your father, as you point out. It's circular, which is kind of interesting because you don't get too many circular factories, I would posit.

3:33 And the reason for that is the gas works, I presume.

3:35 Yeah. So when we took this site on uh in 1990, um we were faced with a lot of um old gas pipes um and a couple of rather large concrete foundations. The gasometers had been deconstructed. And um my father was on the build VA buildings committee with with Michael Hopkins, and they became great great allies, I think, and friends.

4:04 And um Michael came, uh was the obvious choice, really, for my father. So he came along and and had a look at this derelict piece of concrete with this uh round shape and uh came up with the idea of actually building a round cutlery factory.

4:19 I was gonna ask what the affinity was between David Meller and Hopkins and partners, because at one point in the early 90s, your father also commissioned them to design a rather rather different building.

4:30 A square building, yeah.

4:32unknown Yeah.

4:33 Yeah. I mean, it was really, I think, from that sort of initial um meeting, really, I suppose, and and and um forming allies um uh at the VNA, and they became great friends, and and the the friendship really was a sort of family friendship, and we're still very much connected with with Patty Hopkins um and and their children.

4:56 So it's actually been a sort of family relationship which has gone on, endured for decades, and then we've we've sort of, I suppose, out of the relationship, we've spawned several buildings. So we've got three, three Hopkins buildings, um, which is rather nice.

5:11 It's like you're collecting them. We do collect them, yeah. I mean there was there was never much division in your father's life between living and working. I grew up in a family of medics where everything really was centered around work. I mean, do you have that same attitude? Is it important that you're living cheek by jowl with the factory?

5:31 Yes. I mean, I I I mean it started off really with my father's first building um in in the 60s, and it was on a very small scale. He had a um uh a kitchen, and and out of the kitchen was his famous drawer bed, and the drawer bed would be pulled out from under the kitchen. Um and that that was one end of the 60s building, and the bottom end of the 60s building was was this um lovely little workshop where I spent a lot of time as a as a child, really.

5:59 Um and he I suppose that's what pioneered this idea of living and working in the same environment. But there was a sort of theory behind it, which was that um, you know, if you enjoy if you enjoy your work, you shouldn't necessarily be segregating it from your your your home. Now, what has sort of happened is that as our sort of um buildings have sort of evolved, the whole place has got a lot bigger and more buildings and more and more visitors.

6:29 And um so it I would say um keeping this sort of philosophy has got harder and harder and harder. Um trying to sort of keep the tourists out of our garden and um you know and it it also does have the disadvantage that you're you're sort of you're sort of available um you know 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

6:52 So it's difficult not to get pulled in. So i it it is it it my wife finds it quite difficult at times, I think, the segregation.

7:02 Or the lack of segregation.

7:03 Well the lack of yes, the lack of segregation. Yes, yes.

7:06 Aaron Powell Do you have techniques when you stop work? I mean, there's some people I know who, you know, if they work at home, and particularly this is a you know post-COVID thing, people have to develop ways to accommodate working from home. And there's people I know who will leave the front door of a morning, go round the back of the house to the back door, do a day's work, and then take the opposite.

7:27 Do you have any ticks like that?

7:28 Oh dear. I mean, uh I that absolutely resonates with me because really if I um if I uh walk from from here up to the other end of the site, I always think of it as sort of running the gauntlet as to how many people will will will sort of grab me. And they might be people visiting as well. So um I don't re I think perhaps I need to develop some sort of mechanism.

7:50 And and I I suppose with it being your own show, you always you're always wanting to help, aren't you? You're always wanting to chat to someone who who wants to um have a talk, or if um one of my work colleagues has got something, I'm always sort of feel I should really be on hand to answer it. So the answer is no, I'm not very good, and I need to develop a coping mechanism for that.

8:12 So just going back to the factory, so rather than a production line, you have uh a production circle. Absolutely.

8:19 Yeah. What are the benefits to that? Um that's a really good question. I think other than using the um the I mean it does it does circulate using the round shape. So the spiel comes in the door um and and it and it goes round the perimeter of the building. Its first stop is it's sort of blanked out with the presses, and then it runs round to the the next quarter and and it's uh then sort of linished and and polished, and then it runs um uh right round to the inspection department where it's inspected and and packed up, and then um it it it it then goes out the door as a as a the finished product.

9:00 So I we are using that that sort of round shape. I mean, a circle is quite difficult to use because you you you it's sort of not a natural way, and I think we've managed to sort of use the circle um to its best best advantage, really. And it does work and it does have a certain um flow to it that I perhaps you wouldn't get in a square building.

9:27 So we yeah, we do use it. I know my father was horrified when Michael said we wanted to build a round building because he'd he'd always obviously manufactured in square shapes, not round.

9:38 Yeah, yeah. And you don't get too much round furniture.

9:41 You don't get too much round furniture. I mean, actually, we I've decided to have a huge, great redo of the factory. Um, and um uh we'd basically had had a as you do in any factory, you end up with a lot of stuff. Um so we've sort of really thought, well, what's stuff and what machines do we really need?

9:58 And we've had a huge great clear out. Um and it actually looks sort of it look it looks good again now. I'm quite proud of it again, whereas it was getting a little bit on the cluttered side. A bit like someone's loft, you know, you just you need to have a major clean every decade, I think.

10:14 So has the way you produce cutlery changed over the years? I mean I'm wondering whether this revamp you're doing, is that going to change the way you you produce your work? Well, I think we'll know where everything is, which is always good, isn't it?

10:27 Um, cutlery is quite interesting, really, in that um the the sort of techniques really haven't really changed from from the the turn of the century. Um you know, it's the same real metal bashing techniques and forming and manipulating um of this slightly tricky material. Um I mean, yes, we do have a couple of computer-controlled machines, and we yes, we've got sort of um some lasers that do some fancy things, but generally speaking, it's the same, it's the same techniques really.

11:01 And you say that you've got bigger and bigger. I mean, how many people do you have working for you now?

11:06 I think we've got fifty people in total. So we're we're we're actually still quite small. Um I mean, people are often amazed when I say that you know, the the scale of David Meller is what it is, you know, just three stores and um uh uh and a factory. Um I mean, we've got bigger in the remit of of the sort of um our own brand design, what that is, rather than just being knives and forks.

11:34 Um but we are still a sort of small family-run personal company, and I I sort of quite like that. I don't really like the idea of sort of rolling it out into something bigger. I I'm obsessive with control as well, so you you can't be controlling everything, can you, when you get too big?

11:51 Well, we're gonna get into control, I suspect. Uh it might be a family trait, I think. I I've been reading the new edition of uh the David Meller Master Metal Worker book that was published earlier this year. Yes, this new chapter by my old friend, former colleague Tularie Lloyd. Brilliant, brilliant.

12:08 I need to put a good word in for Tilery. Yeah, well, she's great. And and one of the things that's striking is the longevity of your staff. I mean, once they're through the door, these people don't seem to leave. I mean, people have worked at your company for years.

12:21 Yeah, I mean, um fact um our factory manager, Andrew, he he started when he was um as an apprentice when he he was 16 um and and he's mid-sixties now. So that's quite an innings, isn't it? Um It's a decent knock. Um I I mean it's really the same with most, all my sort of people in my office. Um they've been with me for they've all been with me for over a decade.

12:44 So um and I think that's quite nice, isn't it? You know, I mean, that people don't feel that they've got to change every two years. Perhaps it's the buildings. Perhaps they like the buildings.

12:55 Maybe it's got something to do with it, possibly the work. I mean, inevitably people retire, need to be replaced. Uh is it easy to find younger people with the right skills? Because I think I'm right in saying that your factory is not tailorist. Everybody does everything in terms of making.

13:10 Yeah, no, so we have a sort of policy really, I suppose, to maintain quality that people um rotate, so they'll do um, you know, a couple of hours doing some buffing, and then they'll do a couple of hours doing some warehousing, and then they'll do a couple of hours doing some marking. So they're they're all sort of trained to do to do everything.

13:29 I mean, we have a couple that are very specialist in that they're polishers, which is quite uh uh they just like polishing, so we leave them polishing. Um, but it is quite difficult. Um, it is quite difficult to recruit. I mean, we have um recently taken on a c a couple of younger people um because I'm sort of mindful that that they're all sort of getting on a little bit and I need to sort of really start addressing that.

13:53 Um, but I you know, I do think people um you'll get romantic people who have perhaps done jewellery design who think that they want to come and um work, but actually they want they don't want to do 200 of one operation, you know, they want to want to do it four times, and I can I can sort of see that.

14:13 Um so it is difficult trying to get people with the the the sort of the mindset. Um and then the other thing that I suppose cutlery factories used to or used to sort of run on this thing called piecework, um, which which is uh where you're sort of paid per piece rather than paid per hour. Um and we've always avoided that because to get the quality, it's part of the control thing again.

14:40 To get the quality, you don't want people trying to make as polish as many teaspoons as they can. We want them to polish as teaspoons so they're polished well. Um so um and that's how the Sheffield cutlery industry used to run. So often if we get people from the old Sheffield cutlery industry, they're used to that mentality of piecework.

15:01 Because I mean you are intrinsically linked with the city of Sheffield. I mean, you're what 12 or so miles away. I mean, I've I'm of an age when everybody's cutlery came from the city. I mean, how's the city changed since you were a child?

15:15 Oh, radically. I mean, I remember um the Don Valley, you'd go down there and it was just literally a wall of factories. I mean, quite intimidating, really. Um, but quite spectacular at the at the same time. Um I mean, to give you some sort of idea, in the 1950s there were over 300 cutlery factories in Sheffield, and now there's there's less than a handful.

15:38 I mean it's as as as bad as that, really. There's hardly anyone doing it, really.

15:43 So are the skills you need still within the city walls, as it were?

15:48 Just diminishingly. But just, yeah. I mean, we can train people. If if they're good at um they're if they're makers, we could we can train people. And we almost prefer to do that because they don't come with this uh knocking it out mentality of the piecework.

16:07 So Your father, you, the company, uh have between you, you've done so much, but you're best known uh for your cutlery, which is in the main made of stainless steel. Um this sounds obvious, but what are the properties of stainless steel? Why is it so good for making knives and forks?

16:25 I mean, as you probably know, stainless steel was invented in in Sheffield, literally twelve miles down the road. Um and um it it it it it's an incredibly good material um specifically for uh I'm gonna say knives and forks, but um mainly spoons and forks. Um 1810 stainless steel, the idea really, or the invention was to add chromium um in into steel.

16:55 And the chromium um gives this amazing property of it not corroding. So um it it's incredibly robust as a as a material. It's very difficult to work. I mean it's rather a stubborn material. Um it's not the it's not like silver, which is beautifully. I mean, it's like working with some flowing material.

17:20 Stainless steel is a bit of a um uh well, I'm not allowed to sway. Um I can. It's a bit of a bugger to work. Um however, once you have manipulated it, it's very permanent. Um, you know, nothing really can happen to uh to a spoon or a fork. It's it's it's there forever, really. Um it it and I like that it's permanence once you've created it.

17:48 It's it it's there. Um just a little bit of education on the the knife. Um most uh cutlery that you'll pick up is actually made of the stained stain, same stainless steel as a spoon and a fork, which is the 1810 stainless steel. Now that stainless steel um you can't sharpen very well. So the manufacturers get around that by serrating an edge.

18:14 So any uh knife that you pick up that has got a serrated edge is actually not what my father will call a proper knife. Um, a proper knife is made of a high carbon stainless steel. So it's it's on the way to being a kitchen knife, but it's not as far, it's not as has as much carbon as a kitchen knife.

18:33 And that stainless steel you can then heat treat. And when you heat treat it, it changes the structure and allows you to sharpen it. So good knives aren't serrated.

18:46 I did not know that. Many people don't. Yeah. And it dovetails with my next question, which is when you're designing cutlery, what are the things you need to think about? Because they're incredibly intimate objects, aren't they? I mean, obviously they're in your hand, but they also go into your mouth and rather unusually for a designed object.

19:03 You're using them three times a day, seven days a week. So what do you what do you need to think about?

19:09 Well, I mean, I always think cutlery is a tool, and it's a tool that you you you use. I mean, it's a bit like a chisel, and um, and the chisel's got to do a job, hasn't it? Um it it um so it it it has to function. Um that's my that's the main point of it, is it it has to function. Um and for it to function well, um it it needs to be of a certain uh thickness and a certain weight.

19:36 So you probably aren't aware, but um a spoon bowl will actually taper from the bottom of the spoon bowl to the lip, which actually feels then nice in your mouth. Um so there are all these little tiny um tiny points that you need to try to get into a into a design. Um it's actually extremely difficult to design cutlery.

20:02 Uh I I I much prefer to design a knife or a glass than uh than than uh than cutlery. It's very, very difficult because it's it's about so many ingredients all put together. You know, it's got to it's got to feel good in the hand, as you mentioned, it's got to feel good in the mouth. Um it's it's got to um be of the of the right set or the right angle for it for it to work.

20:27 Um yeah, it is uh it's a nightmare.

20:32 I mean you mentioned you mentioned weight, and people tend to judge the qualities of cutlery on weight. But I I know that I remember I read uh uh Pride, a bona fide classic, which um David designed when he was still at the Royal College of Art.

20:46 Absolutely, yeah. Still our biggest selling design, amazing.

20:50 Extraordinary. I mean, but it's quite light, I think I'm right in saying. Super light, yeah. Well, what constitutes good cutlery in that case?

20:56 You've got me on a subject that I'm quite passionate about.

20:58 Good. I'm glad. That's the point of the podcast, Corin.

21:01 Yeah. So um a a a good knife, um, you you want some width in the handle. Um, and that width in the handle um is there for a purpose, it's so that you can grip the knife. Um the best way of making a knife is with a hollow handle, and the hollow handle gives you the width without the weight. So the Rolls-Royce way of making a kitchen knife is a handle.

21:29 If you think of the handle as an Easter egg, two halves which go together, and the blade, um, which is a separate piece, also made of a separate type of stainless steel, is then cemented into the handle. So you've actually got three different components, in effect, all fixed together to create that balanced knife.

21:53 If you're not used to it, and you pick up a hollow handled knife, your brain will tell you this. Is very light, and you're associating the lightness with I'm not getting much stainless steel for my pounds. Lack of material. Exactly. Um, but actually, once you've used um pride, um, which is a a lovely example of it, it really is like eating the jewelry.

22:20 I mean, it's so beautifully balanced and lovely to use. And um no one actually ever brings it back.

22:27 So it's all about balance rather than weight.

22:29 It's about balance, it's about fineness and balance and and having the uh the width of the in the handle where you need it without the weight.

22:38 I mean, just sticking on pride for a moment, because it's what it's I was just doing some maths quickly. It's more than 70 years old. British dining habits have changed considerably since then. So have your ranges had to evolve to suit our lifestyles?

22:53 Yeah, I mean pride's um pride's quite an interesting one because um we I suppose I think in older periods of time there was this idea that you had this whole huge array of pieces. So you would you would have uh uh butter knives and you would have fish knives and forks and and and there was this huge great array.

23:21 Um and I think it was a slightly way of showing off, you know, that you've got all these different ranges of different pieces that do different jobs, and I think things have simplified. Um and um w I like the idea that you can buy what you want, and um we sell all our pieces individually as well, so you can buy what you want.

23:44 So um there's the the traditional six-piece play set, um, but um a lot of people don't really have soup anymore, do they? So you don't need that. Um and and I do think that it's good to be able to um uh design the play sets or the pieces of cutlery for the individual's needs, if that makes sense.

24:08 Yeah, yeah. No, absolutely. Absolutely. What's your process, uh Corinne? How do you go about designing a new object? Do you sketch first? There is there are sketches in the book.

24:18 Yes, I do sketch. I've started doing this new thing, which is um sort of sketching in my head. Um I mean my process really normally is is doing some, you know, pretty bad sketches. I mean the sketches are uh are there really just to they're not Picasso's, they're just to get the idea down. And I find it really annoying when people say, Well, you well, where are your sketches?

24:41 Why don't you keep your sketches? I mean, they're not to go on the wall, they're they're there to just get the idea on a piece of paper. So I'm sort of doing this thing where I'm I'm I'm I am literally starting to sketch in my head, and I've only really developed this over the last little while. Um, so sketching is the process number one, really, to get some sort of initial thing down.

25:08 And then very quickly, I mentioned at the beginning that I'm in part of my studio. My really my main studio is in the middle of the round building where I have my workbench. And there I am making models um and prototypes, and I'm actually doing quite a lot of the design work really with my file and deciding do I need to take a little bit more weight out of that?

25:32 Do I need to thin that? Um, and particularly cutlery is so sort of subject to to weight that you're wasting your time really doing a CAD model because there's no weight there. So I start off really um sketch, then in the factory doing my sort of quite rough, crude, weighted models. And then once I think I've got those right, um, I then give them to James, my long-standing um design assistant.

26:06 Um, and and and he's brilliant on the CAD side, whereas I don't know even how to switch the computer on. So he then he then does all that. Um, and then we'll rapid prototype out purely to show what we've got in the computer is correct. So it's quite old-fashioned, really, I suppose. My my way of it's very hands-on, it's very, you know, my my file and my pencil are doing the decisions.

26:33 Um, the the the high-tech bit just comes later on to actually, in effect, help make the tools.

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28:21 Um we did one on Ercol, for example, which springs to mind. Um but that's a few generations old. You were the first generation to take over the company. Is that a pressure?

28:32 It's what I enjoy doing, I suppose. So if you enjoy doing something, perhaps it's not so much pressure. I mean, I'm quite lucky. I can sort of go, well, what shall I design this week? And and I think, you know, well, I'll I'll um perhaps I'll do a range of glasses, you know, so I can sort of um I think perhaps I don't worry too much about the pressure, I just sort of get on with the next design, really.

28:56 So it's something you were always destined to do, in other words. Yeah. I mean I started off as a little boy, sort of going down the stairs of the the sort of drawbread house and um and and going in and you know making little model boats. And um I I I f I find myself quite at home with my my machines and my files, and I I I love doing that.

29:18 I mean it's just nice that people do seem to appreciate what I've created, which I'm always slightly worried that, you know, I'm slightly thinking, well, is anyone going to buy this? Um but but but yeah, yeah. I also sort of I I like I do like creating things that are practical and and hopefully might change people's lives, you know, something that they can use and and perhaps there's a bit of me in it that they're taking home.

29:45 I mean, it's an interesting one because obviously you've bought your own products to the company, but but you're also in many regards kind of like the custodian.

29:55 Yeah, you know I sort of among the legacy. I'm not frightened of changing things. I mean, we've I'm just we're just launching an a a new range of cutlery, and obviously it would have been very easy to have just relaunched one of my father's from the 70s, but I actually thought I could make it better.

30:12 So I sort of fiddled with it for literally four years I've been fiddling with this. And I think I have made it better. I think he'd probably be impressed. So I'm not frightened of of doing my own thing, and I don't think you just want to keep doing relaunches, it's just boring, isn't it?

30:27 Do you get bored of people like me asking about your father? No.

30:31 No.

30:31 Good at all.

30:34 It's part of me, isn't it?

30:40 Because I mean, one of the many interesting things about him was the number of these extraordinary objects he designed. I mean, again, if you're if you're my age, they're pieces that were part of your everyday life. Street lights, bins, bus shelters, outdoor seating. I mean, do you think of him every time you pull up some traffic lights?

31:03 No, I just think, oh God, not another red light. Um I don't think I actually do, you know. No, I don't think I do. No. They're just there. I mean, that was what was so good about that design, wasn't it? I mean, it it's just there, isn't it? No one no one thinks who designed the traffic lights, do they?

31:21 No, literally never. I mean, to me, that is good design. I mean, good design you don't notice. I mean, it's a bit like good cutlery. Um, you shouldn't really notice it, but you always notice bad cutlery when it digs into your hand, doesn't it? And and you can't hold it properly.

31:34 Was it easy to work with, Corey?

31:36 Uh he was quite a taskmaster in his Sheffield way. Um, I mean, he was extremely determined to get things right, no matter what it took. So sometimes I would be sort of I did quite a few of the um uh of actually some of the cutlery designs with him. Um and I mean that taught me quite well because you know he was so determined that we'd be sort of filing at sort of eight o'clock at night and um he he would tell me if something something was rubbish.

32:08 Yeah.

32:08 Yeah. And how did you respond to that?

32:11 Um well, probably not very well at 18. You'd probably just you know, a bit disgruntled, but you'd you know, have another go. Um I think it did good, all in all.

32:20 Yeah, seemed to go okay. I mean the the word that crops up on a regular basis when I was reading the book and doing other research, and you've already mentioned it, is um control. And in some ways, he seemed to narrow his design scope and concentrate on cutlery, so he had power over every element of the product, you know, from design to manufacture, right down obviously to retail too.

32:46 But it does make you wonder, it made me wonder anyway, whether he ever regretted giving up that ability to shape the aesthetic of an entire country, which is kind of what he was doing at one point.

32:57 Yeah, I know that's interesting, isn't it, really? Because he did um he did sort of move off from this this sort of idea that he had that he could single-handedly redesign the whole street scene um i in the UK, which I mean he i i i going back to the 70s, he sort of had done to a certain extent, because every every bus stop was was my father's and every traffic light was my father's and every bin was my father's.

33:23 It's incredibly evocative going back through the book.

33:25 It's amazing. Yeah, and there's some amazing things. Um and the hacksaw is a brilliant one. I love that, the the Eclipse hacksaw, because you can still buy that hacksaw today. Um and it and it and it hasn't changed. Um he was very like me, that once he'd done something, he was on to the next thing. Um and and and I'm very much the same that once I finished the design, um, well, that's done.

33:50 Um, right, what's next? You know, and the design was wider because you have to remember he was um interested in building, so he was creating things on a on a bigger scale as well, um, like the Ram building and the big Butler's Wharf building. Um and and I I think I've taken that on too because I I really love the built environment.

34:15 And I think that's why I like retail as well, because um I like to design not just the the teapot, but I need to design the shelf that the teapot is is sitting on, and I also need to design the label that tells you about the teapot and the instructions that go in the teapot and the box, you know. So so that yeah, I I just love that, you know.

34:39 So it's obviously you know, you do have this same desire for complete control. But since you took over the running of the company, you've worked in glass and ceramics, for example, which I'm guessing aren't made in Sheffield. So you are willing to let go a little bit on occasion. Oh yes, yeah, no.

34:58 I mean, um I think um really i i yeah, it's quite interesting the whole sort of manufacturing scene, I think, um, and how that has has sort of changed. You know, there were all these factories in Sheffield, and you could you could go down and could probably get some teapots made in Sheffield in 1960.

35:16 Um, but really that type of manufacturing has just sort of moved. So um my I love um I love finding makers, and these makers really are literally around the world. And um I think you just have to go, well, look, you know, that that's that that's where the maker is, and not get too worried about about the the country that it's made in made in.

35:38 And for me, the most important thing is is is is the quality, is actually finding someone that can actually realise um a design I've done of some glass. Um and um if that takes me to Thailand, as it has done, and I've found this lovely little firm with um 35 people in that can realise my glass, that's great.

36:00 Um it's just a a different maker. Um and and um one of my one of my sort of real loves is actually finding makers that can then realise my my designs. I love that.

36:15 So it's not just because I mean you Mello has always had a reputation uh for promoting British craft, but it's it's now a global concern.

36:24 Absolutely, no, absolutely. I mean really I I I I find people and and those people might be in Italy. Um uh they might be like my glass people um in in Thailand. Um and and I I just love it. The challenge of trying it's like trying to find a needle in a haystack, you know, trying to find a good maker.

36:44 Um and gradually over the last 20 years I've built up um a little collection of perhaps 10 little makers. Um, and those makers have really helped me um realize all my all my sort of designs. I mean, I had to change my philosophy really because we with the cutlery designs, we've talked about pride, which is 1950.

37:08 Well, we've got we've got 1950s, we've got 1960s, we've got 1980s, we've got 1990s. Um but as a designer that gave me a bit of a problem in that, well, we can't really keep on doing more and more designs because I also have a philosophy that we shouldn't discontinue anything. So um, if you've got a philosophy that you should you don't discontinue, um, what do I design?

37:36 So I had to sort of find things to entertain me, really.

37:41 Fair enough. Fair enough. I mean, your childhood must have been fascinating. We've talked about your father, but your mother was Fiona McCarthy, the design writer and critic who penned groundbreaking books on William Morris, Eric Gill, where she revealed his sexual depravity.

37:57 Absolutely, yeah. She got in terrible trouble for that, didn't she?

38:01 Well, his previous his previous biographer did find out exactly and chose to ignore it, which is absolutely remarkable. Uh and the one I read last was um Walter Grofius, the founder of the Bauhaus. Uh as a child, did you have a sense of of what good design was? Presumably you were just surrounded by it.

38:22 Oh, yeah, no, I mean it was um it was just a design party, really, I suppose. I mean, they had so many amazing sort of connections. So um we would always go off and um and stay with Jack Pritchard um in Blytheborough, who um was one of the founders of ISOCon. Um so I spent, you know, I was six years old and I was sitting in the long chair.

38:46 And um, I remember he had this amazing pavilion, and my sister and myself used to go and have pillow fights in the pavilion, and there was this uh mobile hanging around that we'd often hit, and it's only looking back on it that I remember it actually was a culture that we were hitting. So um, and you know, there were people who would always come up, so Ken Grange would arrive in his Ferrari, um, and all run outside.

39:14 So, yeah, I mean it was lovely, really. Um, and um they had a fantastic, fantastic eclectic mix of sort of artists and architects and designers and writers. Um, so I think I was lucky with that.

39:27 What were you like at school, Corin?

39:29 Um terrible, absolutely terrible.

39:30 Why is that?

39:31 I I I wasn't terribly in disability, uh, disobedient. Um I I just wasn't really very good at uh at writing and and maths, and um and and I really used to spend all my or any time I could in the in the art department, where I think many of your other podcasts are are similar, aren't they? Quite a few, yeah.

39:51 That's true. I wasn't very good at writing.

39:56 So I sort of did what did what came easy. Which I mean, which is um must have given your English teacher a bit of a start, bear in mind who your mother was. I I guess they thought you were probably going to go one of either two directions.

40:07 It's interesting looking back, actually, because um I don't know if my mother was really worried that I was so bad at um at writing and she was such a star. I I think she really did sort of just leave me to my own sort of devices. Um and um I I perhaps I mean my father was equally bad at writing, and perhaps she sort of could see the direction that I was a hopeless cause, really, and just let him carry on making his model boats.

40:37 Were you always going to go to Kingston design school? I mean, not necessarily Kingston, but just design school.

40:43 I was always going to go to design school, I think. Um yeah, I mean I I did um I had quite an interesting education because I I had um I I went to a a huge Sheffield Comprehensive Um and then sixth form I was moved to um uh the institution of Radley College. Um so I arrived as as the sort of um the the the token boy from the north um and and from the comprehensive.

41:12 So is that Radley as in the the top public school, Radley, right?

41:16 Yes, yes, the sort of Eaton Eaton equivalent. So I sort of arrived with my spiky hair and um and and um artistic views into this um very rigid institution. But I I I did um I I I had a lovely time. I did uh just art and design, which was one of the reasons why why I went there. Um but I did quite like this mix of two sides of education, really, of this sort of um, you know, proper big Sheffield State School, um, and and then um you know this total other scene.

41:48 And I enjoyed them both, really. Um, but it was really studying there, where I had a fantastic art art master, um, this amazing, um, very, very camp American man. Um, and um, and I suppose that's when I began to sort of really find my feet, really, in in in doing my A levels. So then I um I I thought, well, yeah, no, I I I think really I need product and furniture is what I'm interested in.

42:16 And and then I went to Kingston.

42:18 I mean, we talked about pressure before, but when you're learning something, was there a pressure when you'd go somewhere like Kingston with the Mellon name and you know, people like Terence Conran and Stephen Bailey saying he's the greatest British designer of the last century?

42:32 I mean, did you feel perhaps I I don't think I did at the time. Perhaps I'm just rather rather just sort of just obsessed with what I'm doing, so I don't really look around too much as I mean, perhaps I I don't really care that much what people think. You know, I just get on with it. Um I d I I think people were all quite quite nice to me.

42:52 I don't think I remember having any I mean actually I had a great time at Kingston, really.

42:56 Fair enough. I uh it's it yeah. I was giving you time to think then, but I I I'm not sure that I think that was the end of the the uh No, no, yeah, yeah, no, that's it.

43:07 I mean I I suppose you know I I I I I am a Sheffield person, the Sheffield people just get on with the job, you know. So I'd gone there to I'd gone there to sort of design things and I was just immerse in designing um taps for ideal standard, and you know, um uh it was great. I loved it. I really liked it.

43:26 And your graduation kind of installation, didn't you design a like a like have a shop or something? Yes, this is what you see. So the retail element of your family's personality coming out.

43:38 Yeah, I I I um I designed a market stall um and uh made of made of made of plywood and um bits of press metal. Um and I remember at my degree show, it was an absolute disaster. I obviously hadn't got the hook quite right. And um the whole thing came crashing down with lemons all over the degree show.

43:58 I do remember that.

44:01 And then you joined the architecture practice, York Rosenberg Marshall, Y M after leaving Kingston, which is an interesting move. I mean, was it was there an interest at working at scale in that case?

44:13 Yeah, I th I think it I mean it was the time when the the I mean my it was a time when everyone got lots of jobs. You know, you would you'd have your degree show and then you'd have sort of people would leave cards there, didn't they, saying, come and work for us, you know. Gosh, um I do feel for students now because you know it the times have changed so much, haven't they?

44:33 And it's difficult for them. But we were in the sort of um, you know, the time when everything was booming and and everyone wanted you to come and work to them. Um I think I liked the idea that it was real. I was just quite keen to actually do something that was real. I mean, I was very mindful that everything you design at college is not real, it's all theoretical, isn't it?

44:56 Um and I I I was put in the um the the sort of furniture department, which I have to say was a bit boring. Um I I was sort of drawing up rather um boring bits of furniture. But then I got moved to some um art our architecture departments and I was designing um bits of Angel Tube Station. Um so I found that quite good.

45:21 Um I thought that was quite fun.

45:22 Wasn't there also baggage handling equipment at Gatwick Airport?

45:25 Yes, yes, yes. Um I'm sure it's not there. I don't actually know if it ever was there. Um I got frustrated after a while because I wasn't making anything. I was just drawing. And um and and I I I I think it was the lack of control I found rather rather frustrating. Um and I I I wasn't using my files, and I I did find that a bit um it was a bit I was part of a cog, you know, I was a little cog in this machine.

46:00 Um and I I think I needed more, I needed more, more hands-on, um, which I certainly got with my next job.

46:07 Which was going back to your family firm, or was there was there somewhere in between?

46:11 Well, that was going back to my well, I I remember the call from my father saying that he just bought this um this grain warehouse in in Butler's Wharf near Towerbridge, and um did I want to come along and um work with our or or manage our little team on that? So um, yeah, that was uh that really was quite hands-on with all the Irish builders.

46:35 So so was there a moment then when you you thought to yourself, yes, it's it's I'm it's time to go and work at my father's company?

46:44 I think it was just the call. And I and I was at the time frustrated doing these things I couldn't really quite connect with. Um and uh yeah, I I I thought it was really exciting, um, you know, going and working on um on this slightly crazy um uh uh yeah, building. Um and I mean it really was I mean, uh you wouldn't be able to do it now in this day and age.

47:10 Um so we were we were there and we were building all the um all the concrete shuttering um because my father wanted to make sure all the shuttering was right. So to get the shuttering right, um myself and our little team uh were building the shuttering, and then the Irish um builders were then filling the shuttering up with the concrete.

47:33 Um and this went on um up six floors of warehouse. So great.

47:48 That much cutlery, personally. There's a a set called Chelsea, another entitled Line Linear. Um was it obvious what you uh aside from cutlery, what you were going to design for the company?

48:02 I'm just thinking back because I I mean the Butler's Wharf build building project was there was a lot of design in that because it was detailing all the interior of the shop um and um making making all that and and um so so actually that was actually and uh this building was sort of vast even by by by our sort of standards.

48:25 And then we had this um big apartment at the the top, which was going to be my parents. Um so there was all that to design and build. So it was quite a I mean it went on for years, this sort of designing and building this this Shad Thames.

48:40 Right, but but when you when you got kind of Shad Thames is over, you're back in the factory, and oh and also when you when you took over.

48:49 Oh, yes.

48:50 So you you don't discontinue things, you've got a lot of cutlery ranges that people can choose from. So was there a kind of decision of of what like you you don't do cushions, for example. That's not what you do. Oh, I can't do cushions.

49:04 No, no, no, no. I mean, I I I love materials. I mean, I I I I was I thought you were going to ask you what what would my favorite material was, and I was I've been thinking about it, and I don't know if I have a favourite material. And my answer was going to be well, I'll just choose the most appropriate material for what I'm designing.

49:21 Um so I it's always best when people interview themselves for it. They've generally got better questions than me, you know. Um so so I I suppose I I do have a genuine in I love materials and I love I love making and manufacturing and what you can get out of a material. Um I I find that incredibly interesting.

49:42 Um and um I suppose if you have your own stores, the good thing is you can you can really go, well, what shall I do next? And and that's sort of what I did. And um I I started designing knives. That's sort of what I because they're they're sort of light cutlery.

50:00 Well, there are a lot of knives towards the.

50:02 Knives are quite easy actually compared with a knife and a fork. So I I started I started doing knives. Um, and then um I thought, well, perhaps I could do some some some glass. Um so um I started on finding out who who would be able to make some glass, um, and we found um some glass blowers in Poland, and I I I did some glass, and um, and and it just went from there, really.

50:28 Um and and it's been really really good. I mean, I think it's been good because cutlery is quite narrow, and you don't purchase cutlery too often in your in your um in your life, and I wanted to broaden out really um what the company was, and I wanted to broaden it out from just being knives and forks to this wider, wider collection um of pieces really using um different materials.

51:01 So I embrace, I love materials and I embrace materials, but cushions are absolutely outside my remit.

51:08 Well, I was very intrigued to learn when uh the Meller store first opened on Sloane Street that you were selling screws.

51:15 Oh yes, yes. It was it was David Meller Ironmongers, it's it started off as which you know it you could almost do that again now, couldn't you? Um, you know. Well, I think you could. You could. I think you could do it now, you know. You could do a smart I mean I suppose there are people who have who have sort of done that um in in London, haven't they?

51:34 Um, you know, quite quite successfully, really. Um so um, but it really was very much 1960s, right? Um we had a friend who opened a hat store down the road, and then you know, we we opened this ironmonger store. And it was an ironmonger store that in right in the middle of Chelsea, you could go along and you could buy your doorknobs.

51:55 Um, but also you could also buy a piece of my father's handmade silver as well. You could buy a teapot that he'd hand raised in in in, you know. So I mean it was just this crazy mix of um of of you know late 60s London, anything goes, you know. Lovely, lovely. I mean how it paid the rent, I don't know, but I don't think rents in those days were what they are now, you know.

52:19 So no, I don't think they were. I don't think they were. Are we coming to the end of our our time, Corin? Gosh, already. I was thinking, how can I how can I do an hour? It's flying past. I mean, what's the future for you and David Meller? You have two boys. Are they interested in joining the business?

52:36 Will there be a a next generation of of Meller? Well, I think so, yeah.

52:42 I mean my um my older boy is constant he's he's um just done the first part of architecture. His he's constantly um questioning uh Manchester. Um and then he's doing going to do an MA in um sort of design management. So I'm getting this constant barrage and questioning of why I've done this and and would I not be better doing that.

53:03 So I can I can see that I can see that he might be arriving on the scene. Um and my um my my younger son Morris, who's 15, um, he's very, very keen on design. So hopefully we might um we might be able to continue as we have done.

53:20 And in the near future, it sounds like there's more cutlery on the horizon.

53:23 Yeah, new cutlery, yeah. So this is this new design called Pavilion that I I have been fiddling with for four years. So I finally finished fiddling and and that's that's coming out right at the very end of the year. So um that was the one where I decided not to relaunch my father's 70s design and make it better.

53:40 So we shall see if people think I've made it better or not.

53:43 Well, we will find out at the back end of this year. Corinne, thank you so much for your time. I thoroughly enjoyed that. Lovely. Well, thank you very much. And um, yeah, thank you. To find out more about Corin and David Meller, go to DavidMellardesign.com. You can also go to our website to hear other podcasts that I've done, to sign up to our newsletter, and to buy a ticket to our conference, Assemble with Material Matters.

54:08 That's materialmatters.design. Material matters.design. One more thing. It would make me incredibly happy if you went to my Patreon page and made a pledge at patreon.com forward slash material matters. For as little as £3.50 a month, you can receive invites to various Material Matters events, as well as getting access to each episode before it's published to the wider world.

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