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00:00Hello and welcome to the Grand Designs Deconstructed podcast. I'm Greg James, lifelong Kevin
00:24McLeod fan and lifelong Grand Designs fan and look it's Kevin McLeod. You're very gracious
00:27Greg thank you you are. Am I a bigger Grand Designs fan or a bigger Kevin McLeod? Don't even go there.
00:33It's interesting. Then I'm gonna wade in with you know the depth of my Greg James fandom. Well look
00:40either way we're both very happy to be here to talk about the latest Revisited episode. I love
00:45a Revisited as we've talked about before but also to dive deeper into the the big themes of the
00:50program and go behind the scenes because we have access to you. Before we get going and this is a
00:56confession for the viewing public and the listening public. New Year's Eve just gone me and Bella my
01:01wife sat down and we said what do we want to do to ring in the new year and we watched season one of
01:07Grand Designs on DVD. That's so sweet. I messaged Kevin and I said we're watching this one happy new
01:15year. I think I overstepped the mark. I'm surprised that you wanted to do the podcast after that because
01:19I felt like I'd had quite a few whines. I did reply. You did reply. I think it might have been actually
01:24asleep when you texted. First message of the new year was me going oh my god series one's amazing.
01:30It's a sweet thing. I mean my youngest daughter has recently got into it and when we were making it for
01:36so many years she was just this big she was tiny she wasn't going to watch it. Yeah. And so for her to
01:41discover stuff from 25 years ago is for me exciting because there's a point of conversation and you
01:46know she's watching her dad aged 40 doing something so I suppose there's a sort of fun quality to it and
01:53the point is it's a wonderful thing when people see something again they find something from 10
01:58years ago and still get excited about it. And this episode which we're going to talk about today
02:03very uplifting inspiring story of Georgie and of Greg in Kent and I've paired a drink for their
02:11dilapidated dairy barn. I always love this bit. So Greg is a pub landlord amongst other things
02:17very talented craftsman builder but a landlord as well. So I just thought a classic sort of Kent
02:24country ale locally brewed just a while away the hours in the afternoon. Cheers. Nice. This is a good
02:32color. Locally grown hops. Oh well because of course it's a locally built house and it's all keyed into
02:38the local community. I'm just savoring this because you know like beers people just knock it back oh
02:43there's a pint bang you know it's gone. But sometimes I think it needs to be a bit more
02:46appreciated. It was either getting something from a local Kent brewery or I was going to try and home
02:51brew myself. But I would worry. I'm so pleased you got it from the Kent brewery. Yeah I'd be worried
02:56that I'd make you ill. I'm not a fan of modern ale you know I don't want pineapples and beans in my
03:00you know. I want a dead fly. I was going to say you don't want it to be too fizzy. So lovely that isn't
03:07it. Beautiful. Thank you. Down the hatch. So should we talk about self-building against the odds.
03:14Okay central theme of this episode. Risky build. Inspiring build. Lots going on in their personal
03:20life as well. Greg is an amazing human being by the way and Greg has had a brain tumor and has
03:25made a recovery from that and is himself an example of how you seize the day. Get on with life. Do
03:33something positive and in his case run a pub and build a building and then go on to build other
03:38people's houses and and still run the pub. Georgie however is beyond exemplary in as much as she has
03:46since the age of 10 been ill. She'd had a malignant brain tumor. She had a thyroid cancer. When we filmed
03:54this episode she was on heavy chemotherapy and she's painting and she's creative and she's opening the
04:00place up. One of the most uplifting and inspiring stories for you in the whole history of the show.
04:06Yeah I think I first met Greg and Georgie in 2019. So it was a year before the pandemic. They started
04:13the project but then of course everything went crazy and all of a sudden they were building in this
04:19bubble with their friend Sam the shepherd who helped them out and stayed with them and built with
04:25Greg and it became a very very small thing because it was not a construction project involving
04:29subcontractors and main contractors and ground workers. It was just them and in a way it sort of
04:36focused that decision to be more of just them. So Greg found himself taking on more responsibility
04:42designing, being the engineer, you know, being the builder, solving problems on the hoof, creating an
04:49entirely new way of dealing with a hard agricultural concrete floor by inventing rodeo digger work.
04:55You know all of this stuff. So I can't objectively tell Greg and Georgie's story without the colour of what I think
05:06about them and my relationship with them as humans as people because I think they're extraordinary human beings
05:12and they're friends and sort of have become so really not simply because of working with them, getting to know them
05:19but because of the generosity of spirit that they both show.
05:22I'm really looking forward to chatting to Georgie and Greg a bit later. Their energy just burst out of the screen.
05:29Yeah.
05:29Kevin, this is quite a big episode for fixing things. It's a great example of let's fix stuff.
05:35Let's not just get rid and get new. The rotten posts and then the underpinning.
05:41Yeah.
05:42Can you talk a bit more about this because I'm not altogether too familiar about underpinning and exactly what it is.
05:47Underpinning is like putting the foundations into your house at the very end of the project.
05:53Heath Robinson in the 1930s produced a series of drawings called, and they were satirical little comedy things,
05:58How to Build a House Starting at the Top, which involves starting by hypnotising a chimney pot into place in thin air.
06:05And in the end the house gets down to the bottom and there's no foundations and the last thing they do is dig the foundations.
06:09Right.
06:10And it feels like that underpinning because you've got the weight of this massive structure and, you know,
06:13it seems to have sat there for like, it could have been hundreds of years. In this case it was 40.
06:18Yeah.
06:18So Georgie and Greg's barn had been there for 40, 45 years, but it wasn't significantly well supported to also meet building regulations
06:27and, you know, support all the stuff you have to do when you add insulation and all these extra layers to a building.
06:32So good for a barn.
06:33Good for a barn. Yeah.
06:33Good enough for a barn.
06:34Although, as we know, the posts were not themselves very sound. And so you've got to figure out a way of supporting it.
06:40And usually that involves very carefully digging a trench next to a building, undermining a little bit of building,
06:46maybe just that long, a metre maybe, and then pouring concrete into that and then you fill that, you backfill,
06:51and then you do the next bit and you keep going or you might alternate. I mean, it's a laborious process and expensive.
06:57One of the things I really love about this episode is they'd healed the building in certain ways and they'd bettered it and they'd improved it.
07:03But also what we saw is that their outlook on the world improved and they seem to get so much joy and therapy.
07:11They talk about it being therapeutic, rebuilding this barn.
07:15I always think about the building being a living, breathing thing. The building would be pleased with what's happened to it, I thought.
07:21Yeah, often the building is a sort of extra character in the story and it grows in importance.
07:27A friend.
07:27Yeah, yeah, exactly.
07:28And it was a friend to them and they're a friend to it, but buildings and architecture are very important to health.
07:33Yeah.
07:34The light is important to them. The garden is important for Georgie to rest and to feel peaceful and de-stress after a long day of treatment, whatever.
07:42So those bits of a building are really important, aren't they?
07:44Yeah. And we've all got a different list, haven't we, of stuff that brings us happiness.
07:48And most of us think that it's going to be that new kitchen, but actually the things that actually provide us with happiness are often less tangible, less costly and much more personal.
08:00And they can involve just looking at the sunshine or watching a bee dance across some flowers.
08:05There are cancer centres that are designed to heal in certain ways.
08:12And what I'm getting at here is a building can heal you.
08:16Yeah, I think it probably can. Yeah.
08:17I mean, not in the same way that you can measure as in the National Health Service, you know,
08:21but there's lots of scientific evidence to show that a view from a good building of greenery can make a huge difference to healing, to therapy.
08:31Just general mood.
08:32Yeah, because buildings can make you feel great.
08:35The Maggie's centres are nearly parked, as it were, on land very close to hospital cancer treatment centres.
08:43They provide the complementary, spiritual, emotional, conversational therapy.
08:49Those buildings are designed by some really eminent architects.
08:53I mean, we filmed at the one at Leeds Hospital, built by Thomas Heatherwick, with the most beautiful garden.
08:59And that's always a component. Gardens and buildings, architecture together.
09:04One of the really nice bits about this episode as well is the fact that they have built a house to welcome other people in.
09:10Lots of builds, whether they're on Grand Designs or not, tend to be,
09:15get out, this is my area, this is my castle, this is our bit.
09:18I overquote this guy too much, but there's an American critic called Charles Moore, and he said, among many things,
09:25a good building should connect people.
09:28It should be an instrument of connection, not an instrument of isolation or separation.
09:32And most buildings, of course, isolate and separate us.
09:35In fact, we go out of our way to build buildings and to treat our homes like defensive ramparts behind which we think we can relax.
09:43Whereas, you know, often it just leads to a sort of deep sense of paranoia about what your neighbor's doing in their front garden.
09:50And actually, if you speak to people and spend time with them, and actually, if you exist, as it were, more as a community than you do as an isolated set of units,
09:57then that leads to a less paranoia and a little bit more comfort and security and a sense of resilience that you get with many people in a community.
10:06And it's so missing, isn't it, from our world.
10:09And it's so easy to build a world which does the opposite thing.
10:12Well, I think it's about time we get Georgie and Greg on.
10:15We're going to be beamed into the barn, which I'm very excited about.
10:18They'll appear on that laptop after the break.
10:21Now, every outbreak through this series, you've been teaching me your ways.
10:25So give us a teaser.
10:26Give us something that's going to make everyone come back.
10:28So how would you say?
10:29You say the white emulsion is nearly dry.
10:35The white emulsion is nearly dry.
10:38The walls are perfect and the house is so very nearly finished.
10:41The walls are perfect and the house is so very nearly finished.
10:44So why are there still sheep in it?
10:46So why are there still sheep in it?
10:51See you in a minute.
10:52Hit the music.
10:52Well, welcome back to Grand Designs Deconstructed with me, Greg James, and him, Kevin MacLeod.
11:07We're about to go into the barn, shall we?
11:09Oh, go on.
11:09I can't wait to see them.
11:11Let's link up with Georgie and Greg.
11:13There they are.
11:15Hello.
11:16Hello, both.
11:17Hi, how are you doing?
11:19Lovely to see you again.
11:20Georgie and Greg, hello and welcome to Grand Designs Deconstructed.
11:24Thank you for having us.
11:25Yeah, well, very excited to see you.
11:27And the home is still, it's all in one piece.
11:29It is, it hasn't fallen down.
11:31All the underpinning and all the pillars and everything, they worked perfectly.
11:35Actually, it's a fair point because when we did the revisit, I didn't really ask you about the structural integrity of the building.
11:42But let's assume it's all good, shall we?
11:43Yeah, yeah.
11:44Nothing's moved.
11:45All the extra steel we had to put in has held it up pretty well.
11:48I want to find out what the latest big event was in the barn.
11:52Well, I had my exhibition in May, so that was quite a big event.
11:55I had about 130 people came and that was really a lovely event.
11:59And then I'm running some needle-fouting courses this Christmas as well.
12:02So in the next couple of months, I've got people coming for courses and we're going to make little mice and little foxes and little sheep and things.
12:09So that's coming up.
12:11Yes, I just had my 40th birthday, so that's quite a big, momentous occasion.
12:15It's been 30 years in September since I had the operation for my brain tumour at Great Ormond Street Hospital.
12:20So that's quite a momentous sort of part of my life, really.
12:25And 30 years on, still battling cancer.
12:27So yes, that's very ongoing.
12:29I think anyone who gets put in a situation like we've been in, you suddenly just think, ah, this could actually happen to me.
12:37You re-evaluate your life a little bit and change the whole aspect of where you are going.
12:43And that is a reality and you need to do some things in life.
12:47We've talked a lot in this episode about the healing nature of buildings and architecture and using building as therapy and as an escape.
12:55So where are those places in your barn or in the surrounding areas?
12:59Where do you go when you've had those stressful meetings or you've had those bouts of treatment and you want to escape back into your real life and not this sort of clinical hospital life?
13:08So where are your favourite parts of this building?
13:10I think the whole building, it's just so lovely to be able to come back from an appointment and even things like the lighting as well.
13:17We have dimmable lighting and the strip lighting you get in hospitals and sort of quite draining, I always find.
13:23So it's always lovely to come back and we can sort of have, you know, minimal lighting and just enjoy the space.
13:27One of my side effects actually was I was left with double vision after the brain tumour was shrunk.
13:34And it's really important for me.
13:36I know we didn't really touch on it in the show, but to be able to dim all the lights down after a long day, it just eases everything in my eyes.
13:45That's a really interesting point that it's not so much a single corner or a view or an engagement, but it's the overall ambience.
13:53It's the quality of the entire space and the lighting, as you say.
13:56Greg, did you find the building a bit calming?
13:59Oh!
14:00Because the final product might be calming, but there are surely bits of the build and the restoration and recovery of some of the bits of it were quite trying, weren't they?
14:10Oh, they really were, yeah.
14:11I would say I've probably been left with minor trauma from a couple of things, especially trying to find a solution for the roof lights.
14:18Actually sending them all back to the supplier to then find, we found a solution a week later and having to reorder them all again.
14:27Actually, at that time, they had a £50 voucher where I made £450 from my mistake.
14:34So, you know, there are a few little perks.
14:36And then again, I do Pilates every morning for my back, which again could be a slight kind of side effect from the amount of work and pressure I put my back through.
14:47But I lie there every morning on my bedroom floor and I look up and I can see this dent in a beam above me.
14:54And it's from when we were doing the rodeo diggering.
14:57I may have been overzealous with the controls and actually taken a chunk out of the beam, which is kind of permanent now.
15:06But it just reminds me of the story and the journey we went through to get the house built.
15:13Exactly. That dent in that beam is a badge of honour for the building, that it could withstand the rodeo.
15:19And it's part of its history, as you say, and part of your history.
15:23But you did learn loads of new skills.
15:26You know, you can now weld steel stairs.
15:29You can do a block and beam floor.
15:31These are good things, but they're problems because it means that all your mates are now asking you to build their houses, probably.
15:36Yeah. I've had to turn down quite a few projects.
15:39I now have a policy where it's family and some friends.
15:43So you're very lucky if I say yes to a job.
15:46Obviously, planning said that you had to keep as much of the bun as possible and certainly keep the frame.
15:51And so the cladding went back on the building.
15:53And I know you love the place.
15:55And Georgie, you grew up there.
15:56So how important is it then to keep it?
15:58What does conserving the old place mean?
16:00Yeah, it's very special because it's a big part of my life, kind of growing up here.
16:05And it was a journey to come down from our normal house, just down here to sort of, you know, sit outside in a bit of sunshine and look out into the fields when I wasn't very well and I was smaller, younger.
16:16So, yeah, it's a very significant barn, really.
16:18And we both, you know, love recycling and upcycling.
16:21But this wood, it had so much green, about that thickness of green, sort of, over the 35 years it had been there.
16:28It just needed wire brushing off and then...
16:30Nurturing, a bit of love, didn't it?
16:31Yes, a bit of love, you know, loving.
16:32And, you know, as well as our sort of dining room table as well, that that had to come down because it had this honey fungus.
16:38And wood is a lovely thing because it's still, even when it's been felled, it's still living and it's sort of, well, in our eyes.
16:44And that's what we loved about the barn is that we could, you know, recycle and reuse a lot of the...
16:49The materials on the site, really.
16:51On site, yeah.
16:51As well as saving a few bob while doing it.
16:53Yeah.
16:54And being close to family still.
16:55Yeah, to have them all around as well, very special.
16:58I'm quite confused by the term honey fungus.
17:00It's sort of one of my favourite things and then one of my least favourite things.
17:03I can't quite square it in my head.
17:04Yeah, and it's not so good for the trees.
17:07That's the trouble.
17:08But it sounds sort of delicious.
17:09It sort of might be if it was on offer on a menu in a restaurant somewhere.
17:14On the first course there is a honey fungus.
17:15Honey, honey, honey fungus.
17:16Thank you so much.
17:17Well, on the subject of you living near family, your family, Georgie, but your in-laws, Greg,
17:22what are the tips for living on the in-laws' land?
17:26Because that is something that not all partners would want to do,
17:29but this feels like a wonderful part of the community spirit of this build, right?
17:32Yeah, I didn't jump into it lightly.
17:34I took a long time thinking, is this going to be a good idea?
17:39Luckily, Tom and Juliet have such great relationship with them.
17:44We set out the boundaries.
17:45We would use front doors and we would not just walk into each other's kind of private spaces.
17:50It's good, but we haven't put fences up.
17:53There's no, you know, no razor wire yet.
17:55But on the whole, it's absolutely brilliant.
17:57And I'm just, I'm very lucky.
17:59It's true, isn't it?
18:00It's about family, people and place, which is coincidentally what also good buildings are about.
18:07But I want to thank you, Georgie, for writing to me after I came last time to see you.
18:11And you explained where you draw energy from and how you kind of channel it.
18:15You said that you take the positive energy of past experience.
18:18How do you see that?
18:19Because I think there's a lesson for us all here, you know?
18:21I sometimes think it's like digging down for the resources that, you know, you've had stored to be able to get through those times.
18:27And again, I sort of, you know, rely on my faith and my family and, you know, lovely Greg.
18:32But there are times where it's very, very tough and you're not quite sure how you're going to get through.
18:36But I always look for a joy every day.
18:39And it can even be in the little things.
18:40So if you go for a little walk, it can just be, you know, some leaves or, you know, just the trees or sort of a walk with our lovely dog.
18:46And, you know, just finding joy even and being thankful every day.
18:50I'm always thankful every day for the things that I have got.
18:52And I think that helps.
18:53And we've got each other.
18:54We've got each other, exactly.
18:56We're a good support team to each other as well, for sure.
18:59Which is what you definitely need if you're going to go through a self-build.
19:02It definitely helps anyway.
19:03Yes.
19:04I think that's a lovely place to say thank you very much and goodbye for now.
19:08And just keep enjoying this wonderful barn that you created.
19:11And that reminder of there's joy in the everyday, in the seemingly mundane, in the just look at that lovely tree, look at the sunshine, look at this garden we've got here.
19:20That's one of the reasons your episode is so remarkable.
19:23And thank you for sharing your amazing story, both of you.
19:25Oh, thank you.
19:26Yeah.
19:26And also a very, very happy and slightly belated 40th birthday.
19:31Oh, thank you, Kevin.
19:33Bless you both.
19:34Georgie and Greg, thank you so much for your time.
19:36Thanks for being on Deconstructed.
19:37Yeah, thank you.
19:38Oh, really nice to meet you and speak to you.
19:40Great to see you.
19:42Lovely.
19:43That was so fun.
19:45Well, what an uplifting chat with those two.
19:47We've had some amazing questions from our listeners and viewers to Deconstructed.
19:53I'm going to start with this one.
19:54Sophie says, you always seem to have a camera at the house when a big delivery arrives.
19:59Have you got teams there just waiting, twiddling their thumbs essentially for a big thing to happen?
20:03Yeah, well, we've got a team of delivery drivers with dummy deliveries on the back of the...
20:07No, we don't.
20:07We make use of the happenstance.
20:11So these days people have mobile phones and if they shoot a bit on their phone that we
20:14can use, we'll happily put that into the film.
20:16And we do turn up a great deal, it has to be said.
20:18Yeah, it's important that we try and time that wherever possible to kind of make sure
20:22something's going to be filmable that day.
20:24It depends on the project, but it can be 20 times, you know, 20 days of filming.
20:29I mean, sometimes hundreds of hours of footage, which gets condensed down into an hour of television.
20:36So we don't just catch stuff by accident often.
20:38We're often lying in wait with a camera.
20:41I'm interested that you use some phone footage.
20:44I didn't know that.
20:44Sometimes you have to.
20:46I mean, there was an amazing event when we were filming a castle back in the early 2000s,
20:50where there was a 900-year-old wall, which was the last remaining bit from that period in the castle.
20:57I think it weighed 700 tons or something.
21:00It was a big chunk.
21:02And it went.
21:03And the two guys who were working there, who were both stonemasons, knew it was going to fall over
21:08because it started to spit stones.
21:10And that's not a good sign, apparently, when a wall spits stones, you need to leave.
21:15They climbed up onto the perimeter wall of the castle and filmed with their mobile phones.
21:20And the footage was really bad.
21:22I mean, at that time, it was not high definition at all.
21:25It was a bit pixelated.
21:27It was very grey.
21:28But we used it because it captured a moment that we weren't there for.
21:31And it was momentous, of course, you know, not a good one, but momentous nevertheless.
21:36You want to try and tell all the story, don't you?
21:37Jamie says, if you were stranded on a desert island, what one tool would you bring with you?
21:42And it can't be me.
21:43Oh, very good.
21:44Tool of the week.
21:45No, I tell you, I made a series about people living in remote parts of the world.
21:51And I went thinking, having read Robinson Crusoe and taking a copy with me,
21:55that the tool you would need would be a sharp knife from which you could then make your own rope
22:00and chop wood and all that.
22:02These days, the one tool you need on a desert island is a chainsaw.
22:07That's it.
22:08Chainsaw and lots of petrol.
22:11And it's amazing that people who live off grid have tucked away a chainsaw and lots of petrol.
22:16Yeah.
22:16Well, Kevin, thank you for your time as ever.
22:18Not just today, but for this whole series.
22:20I have thoroughly enjoyed these episodes of Grand Designs Deconstructed.
22:24I hope we come back for some more sometime soon.
22:27But that's very much on you watching and you listening.
22:30People power always.
22:31What can I say?
22:32You know, I feel privileged.
22:34And of course, thank you to Greg and to Georgie for being on the show today and for sharing their brilliant story.
22:39And to you for watching and listening.
22:41We will be back with more Deconstructed very soon.
22:45Look forward to seeing you then.
22:46Meantime, you can catch pretty well every episode of Grand Designs Ever Made on the Channel 4 website and selected episodes on YouTube as well.
22:54Grand Designs Ever Made on the Channel 4 website and selected episodes on YouTube as well.
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