My Week: Wayne Hemingway
The designer and entrepreneur reveals some of the projects he has on the go, including a recycling initiative for this year's Children in Need
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I'm working on a project called Vintage at Goodwood, which is the biggest start-up we've done since Red or Dead. It's a music, fashion and lifestyle-led celebration of creative British cool.
Today we masterplan the site. There's a huge amount to do before it begins next August. It's the most exciting thing we've done. I then take my lad to his football club training and then do some filming for Children in Need. We're working with some students from Portsmouth University on building a studio set for Children in Need out of reclaimed furniture to promote recycling.
Tuesday
I've been chair of Building for Life for seven years. It's a campaigning body for better housing in this country and today they have their awards. We're slowly seeing an improvement in the quality of housing being built, but it's too slow for my liking. In the afternoon I get a train to Chester to give a speech at the Annual Bathroom Conference and give a talk on the future of bathrooms. I stay with my eldest child in London.
Wednesday
I work at the London office this morning and then come back to my office on the south coast. We're working with a social housing scheme in Maidenhead, so we have a team meeting about that. Then there's a marketing meeting for Vintage at Goodwood before I drive to Guildford to give a speech at the Guildford Annual Design Awards. I come home to watch some Champions League on the television with my son.
Thursday
I have to give another talk today, this time for the Heritage Towns Forum. I don't think I've ever done three talks in one week before. I've got no fear so I don't mind it. I speak only about things I know about: design-related issues, entrepreneurial start-ups and things like that. Then I catch up on my emails. In the evening we go for dinner with some of the local planners from Chichester. It has a good planning authority, which is rare. Then we rush home like everyone else to watch Question Time. Jack Straw's the MP for my home town, Blackburn, and I feel dead proud of him. I think he opens up incredibly, is so well researched and so intelligent. He handles it brilliantly. At first I was wondering if it was right to give Nick Griffin the platform, but he makes a complete idiot of himself. It proves the BBC was right. Dimbleby's great too.
Friday
I get up at 4.30am, as I do every morning, do emails for a couple of hours and go for a run along the coast. All my creative thinking is done either running or on a bicycle. It clears my mind. I take a little electronic book with me and type ideas into it along the way. I do 10 miles but I don't even get tired; it's so much fun. Then I make a fry-up for my youngest son and myself. We spend the day together and do things like fix his bike, put up a dart board, play football, mow the lawn. It's a real man's day.
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