It was a fantastic commission for a young designer. I was really awed. I had never designed any production furniture before, and suddenly there was a huge contract for 3,000 tip-up auditorium seats and seating for the restaurant and foyer. I knew it was a big exhibition, but no one had any idea of its future importance. It was a very exciting time. There was a general feeling of enlightenment and opportunity to get some design work, but it was as much to do with a feeling of euphoria at the end of the war when we lived in some degree of danger. We lived in London during the bombing, so one saw a lot of destruction and death, and there was a lot of rebuilding to be done afterwards. But the Festival gave designers an opportunity to let their hair down.
I had a great sense of hope that we would improve the quality of people's lives by designing a more colourful and uplifting world, something that was also a concern of town-planning and architecture at the time. I was fairly keen on designing furniture that was at a price acceptable to a lot of people and all the designers were influenced by the government's introduction of social security and a greater awareness of people's needs.
It was a shot in the arm for design generally and alerted high-street retailers and customers to the fact that there was something other than their usual dreary furniture. Although I do remember standing by my section of the Homes and Gardens pavilion as two women looked at the interior. One said to the other, 'Just look at those chairs. Can you imagine anyone ever being able to live with them in their home?' Now, of course, there's a resurgence of interest in the period generally. Habitat are producing designs of mine from the time.
Collaborating with the architects on the Festival Hall was super. They were working with great enthusiasm on one of the finest buildings in London. It was so totally different from the process behind the Millennium Dome. People like Hugh Casson who were making decisions about the Festival were themselves designers. The whole thing was in the hands of designers, not committees, from the beginning.