Why I’ll never stop trying to please my father Terence Conran

Sir Terence Conran’s son Sebastian on his hopes that his younger brother Jasper will take over the family firm — and why present shopping for the clan is the nightmare before Christmas
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Katie Law @jkatielaw5 December 2012

What would you give Sir Terence Conran for Christmas? It’s something his eldest son Sebastian still agonises over, even at the age of 56. “Of course, choosing my father’s Christmas present is one of the most anxiety-provoking decisions of the year. I’ve bought it — it’s something very modest that will, I think, bring a smile to his face,” he tells me, but understandably won’t divulge what it is.

What with Sir Terence’s enormous family, the Conran Christmas is a complicated affair which Sebastian plans meticulously: “I’ve got a Christmas spreadsheet with more than 70 people on it … It’s about the only thing I use Excel for.”

We’re talking at his Hammersmith HQ, where for the past three years he has run his own product design practice. Before that, he worked for nine years for his father at the Conran Group as head of product and branding design, and it seemed probable then that he would one day inherit his father’s mantle. But in 2009 he suddenly left the company.

Then, earlier this year, came the surprise announcement that his younger brother, Jasper, 52, better known for his fashion and home ranges, had been appointed chairman of the Conran Shop, meaning that the question of who will eventually take over the family empire from Sir Terence, now 81, may now be settled.

Sebastian, who went to Bryanston School and studied industrial design engineering at Central St Martins, appears to be sanguine, not to say relieved, that he’s out of the running, and says he very much hopes Jasper will succeed his father.

“We’re incredibly lucky to have someone like Jasper to do it. He’s certainly proved himself and I think he could do an infinitely better job than me. I’m not just saying that out of false modesty. Put it this way — I worked for my dad in his Mothercare days and that was tremendously successful. There was a big structure and he was on top of his game. He was king of the high street. He had 1,500 stores. In my late twenties I wanted to start my own company, so I bought this building and borrowed the money from the bank. I think it was £500,000 at about five-and-a-half per cent interest. Then in the early Nineties the rate went up to 14 per cent, which really was horrendous.

“We soldiered on and then in 1999 my dad said: ‘Oh, I think you should come and join the group’. I said I was very happy doing what I was doing but he kept on at me. I found a letter I’d written to him, saying, ‘For the third time I’m very happy doing what I’m doing’. Eventually he persuaded me and we merged the two groups. But I wanted to be Sebastian Conran, not just the son of Terence Conran, and when I was there I was definitely the son of Terence Conran. He is a very charismatic, very driven person.”

The decision to quit was painful. “Yes, it was difficult to leave. I didn’t want to hurt Terence and I felt so disloyal after nine years. I felt that I was a big disappointment to my dad and part of having parents is that you want to please them all the time. But everyone was saying, ‘Oh, Sebastian, you need to do your own thing’.”

Was there a part of him that would like to have taken over? “I don’t know. I think I probably thought that at the back of my mind. But you don’t want to be hanging around and I don’t think I’ve got the temperament for it.”

Was it ever discussed? “No, he’s not that sort of father. He’s not a kick-a-ball-around-the park father. Having said that, he was amazing at setting me up in a workshop when I was 14 and really encouraged me in making and designing. Now I’m back where I was, with a workshop, but I’m the boss and it feels terrific. I’m a much, much happier person and I think he would agree.”

In his design studio, which is packed with prototypes from toasters and breadbins for John Lewis to pots and pans for Nigella’s cookware collection, he enthusiastically shows me what he calls a pistachio boat — made from white porcelain. Then there are salt and pepper mills with big crank handles and transparent lids, and a butter dish that turns upside down. It’s all functional, if a little superfluously detailed, and I feel like I’m in one of those modern utilitarian shops in the East End. So I ask him, given everything else, whether he might like to own his own shop too, some day.

“When I was about four, my aunt, Priscilla Carluccio, made me a little shop out of an old wine box, and it was called Sebastian’s Stores. It still exists, it’s in the attic somewhere. So I had the first shop in the family actually!” he says, with a note of triumph.

Yet he acknowledges his brother’s superior retail nous. “Walking into the Conran Shop now I think thank God I left — I’d never be able to do anything like that. If you searched the globe for the perfect person to run it, you might find someone like Jasper, but to have it actually in the family is quite extraordinary.”

Another reason for Sebastian’s new-found contentment is his marriage to his second wife, Gertrude, a Bavarian actress whom he met 10 years ago at a birthday party Jasper threw for him in Marrakech.

He is still friendly with his first wife, Georgina Godley, a designer with whom he has two sons, Sam, 23, and Max, 17. The problem was that they both came from creative backgrounds and would argue over the colour of the walls. He gets on well with everyone else in his family too, but the other big constant presence in his life is his mother, Shirley “Superwoman” Conran.

He cooks lunch for her every Sunday and she gives him “huge amounts of advice”. He’s avoided being caught up in the now public spat between her and Jasper. In an interview in July she gave to promote the 30th anniversary republication of her novel Lace, Shirley said that she had no idea why Jasper had refused to speak to her for 10 years.

“There are two sides to it and I can see both of their frustrations and have sympathy with both of them but I can’t get involved,” Sebastian says firmly but diplomatically. And in a family of such creative, clashing egos, eager shopkeepers and titanic talents, it’s good to have at least one diplomat.

THE CONRAN COLLECTIVE

Terence Conran, 81
The head of the clan has had four wives, has five children and 12 grandchildren. His sister Priscilla was the co-founder, with her ex-husband Antonio Carluccio, of the Carluccio’s restaurant chain. In 2000, Terence married Victoria Davis, 56, a property developer and mother of three children from a previous marriage.

THE EX-WIVES CLUB

Brenda Davison, 79
The rarely mentioned first marriage in 1952 lasted a year. Davison now runs an architecture practice in Hampstead.

Shirley Conran, 80
Terence met the author of Superwoman and Lace when she waitressed at his coffee bar. After seven years of marriage and two children, Sebastian and Jasper, Shirley divorced Terence in 1962 on grounds of adultery.

Caroline Herbert, 72
After the divorce from Shirley, Terence settled down with cookery writer Caroline Herbert — surprising those who thought he’d marry his secretary, Christina Smith. Their marriage lasted more than 30 years. They divorced in 1996, with Herbert winning a record £10.5 million settlement.

CONRANS CONTINUED

The other Conran children have also inherited their father’s flair for design. Herbert’s eldest, Tom, 48, has a gastro-empire in Notting Hill. Sophie, 47, runs her own highly successful design business, which includes ceramic ranges for Royal Worcester. Ned, 41, the youngest, now runs hip Mexican restaurant chain El Camino with his wife, having been admitted to a psychiatric hospital after a sex attack on a tourist in a park in 2002.

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