This is the second instalment of our Design Stories and this month we bring you ‘Birds & Beasts’. Also part of the ‘Garden of the Gods’ collection, ‘Birds & Beasts’ is a printed menagerie of the species naturalist and writer, Gerald Durrell collects and covets during his childhood on the Greek island of Corfu.

The Durrells (Gerald, his mother, two older brothers and older sister) relocated to Corfu from South London in 1935 when Gerald was ten, staying until the outbreak of war in 1939 when they returned to England. On Corfu his existence seems to have been almost entirely out of doors and he was completely free to explore the wealth of flora and fauna (but mainly fauna) that the island provided. He writes of boating excursions with only his dog for company, long expeditions to find a particular species and hours spent “watching the private lives of creatures”. He was home-schooled by a number of his eldest brother Lawrence’s friends, one of whom Theodore Stephanides, a doctor and naturalist, encouraged and nurtured Durrell’s existing keen love of nature. It was an idyllic few years for the budding naturalist and indeed Durrell said if he could he would “give every child the gift of my childhood”.

Gerald Durrell as a child on Corfu with Roger the dog (on the left) and an owl.

Durrell’s time on Corfu prompted him to write a trilogy of autobiographical books about his time there. Named after the second of these, my design ‘Birds and Beasts’ is a zoological parade of the many birds, animals, insects, fish and sea creatures referenced, chased, acquired and collected by the young Gerald throughout the three books. His faithful dog Roger, his donkey Sally, Ulysses the owl, Achilles the tortoise, Quasimodo the pigeon and beetles from the Rose-Beetle man, blennies, dolphins, a wild boar and Alecko the seagull all feature.

It was Corfu and Durrell’s books that initially inspired the collection but a slightly later trip to Greece, this time Crete, provided a wealth of inspiration for how the design now looks. The Palace at Knossos (and home to the Labyrinth or not as seems to be the case) didn’t really light me up. It was terribly hot on the day we chose to visit and the site pretty barren, allowing the white sunlight to reflect unmercifully off the limestone and double-cook any unwitting sightseer. I struggled to enjoy much about it save the eventual sanctuary of the shade of a large Fig tree. The pseudo ruins and reproduction murals definitely did not transport me back to life in ancient Minoa. Instead, stripped of its artefacts and then gaudily rebuilt and repainted, the palace is served up with a flavour that sits somewhere between a theme-park and a school playground.

Embroidery from an antique shop in Heraklion and pots from the Archeological Museum

The capital Heraklion, however, houses the good stuff. All the personality and plunder missing from the palace is here at the Archeological Museum. By the time we got there I was, of course, particularly primed to favour it unreservedly to the oven of a ruin but I was rewarded in my bias with a hall of marbles, the transplanted frescoes from the palace and case after case of clay vessels quirkily illustrated with fish, birds and animals all enclosed in a refreshingly air-conditioned environment. The pots particularly are total design dynamite and I’ve come back to them as a reference point repeatedly long after they planted the seed of inspiration for the final feel of ‘Birds & Beasts’. It was also here, and with total delight, that I recognised the inspiration for one of Josef Frank’s fabrics, Anakreon: a large 3500 yr old fresco (again from Knossos and again somewhat defaced in its restoration) featuring a central blue bird. I felt pretty pleased to have stumbled into such solid company.

Josef Frank’s design Anakreon (above) and (below) the mural from Knossos that inspired it.

Ok postcard over. Birds and beasts sketched and assembled, I engraved each one onto scraperboard inspired by the single colour, graphic ceramic decorations we’d seen at the museum and then in an effort to get everyone into some sort of order I looked to some more recent, Greek folk embroidery to determine colours and layout. The result is a homage to Durrell and his love of animals but also ancient Minoa and those lovely painted pots despite Durrell’s well documented complete lack of interest in Greek history.

Clockwise from top left: My original illustrations, printing on the gali and the screen we use to print the fabric.

I have grown very fond of this pattern over the years (particularly since having my own children). Despite being a single colour design, it has regularly proved a complete nightmare to print due to the fine lines and has prompted the occasional but humorous reaction “I couldn’t possibly use that. I cannot stand frogs/snakes/owls etc.” so definitively not one for the fauna-phobic! Its minor drawbacks have only increased my affection for it and I always intended to use it in my children’s room. I finally committed to making them a pair of curtains over this last winter. I am no curtain-maker but they’re not looking at the pleats or the fact that the lining is very definitely too short and only just meets the turn up.

Children’s bedrooms from Natasha Mann (left) and Tom Morris (right)

A more professional finish can be seen here in these delightful children’s rooms from Natasha Mann and Tom Morris. And now we are producing it as a wallpaper I’m very much looking forward to seeing it in more rooms, children’s and otherwise, and maybe even prompting a very rewarding dip into Durrell.