I wanted to design some wallpapers, but I didn't want to do anything speculatively. I rang Hugh Casson, the director of architecture for the Festival. It was very forward of me, but being a young designer I didn't think there was anything unusual about it. I asked him if he thought some of my designs could go into the Festival and did he have any suggestions for getting them produced. He gave me some advice, and in the end I designed three and they all went into the Festival.
Robin was designing the interior part of the Homes and Gardens pavilion and wanted a textile that would reflect the low cost of that section. At the time, there were some very beautiful fabrics on the market, but they were mainly commissioned from painters and were very expensive. So Robin said to me, 'Why don't you design one?', but I didn't have a client and someone had to fund the production. I had already designed a couple of things for Heal's, so I took the design for Calyx along to them. Tom Worthington said he would produce it for me but would only pay me half the usual fee of 20 guineas, because he was certain they wouldn't sell a yard of it.
Robin used it in his section and it was so popular that Heal's entered it for an award in New York that year. Calyx won, so the Festival of Britain was the beginning of my career. Suddenly one could produce designs and firms would be able to produce them because their looms would no longer be dedicated to making blackout material. They were set up again for producing things designers wanted to make. There was a feeling that the years of the war were behind us and that it would be a rosy future. The opening was an extraordinary moment. You felt that this great exhibition which had been in fact looked down on was really going to happen. The newspapers were rather down on it; it was mooted a couple of years previously, but they thought we didn't have anything to show and it was too soon after the war. But then it got underway and they thought it was wonderful. We had to be in our positions in the pavilions near the things we had designed in case the Queen or somebody came and talked to us. I don't remember that she did, but it was a wonderful event.