The Lakes unzipped

Anyone caught Rory McGrath’s new TV series giving the inside story on the Lakes? Too often, the Lake District is presented in picture postcard terms. That’s okay for tourism but it’s not great for the people who live here. We know there’s more to this place than another romantic vista snapped from a car window. What about its inhabitants? The farmers? The people who live here 24/7 365 days per year?

Keswick town centre
Photo courtesy of magnusfranklin

So it’s good to see TV tackling a more fly-on-the-wall look at the Lakes. Following in the footsteps of Millican Dalton, the series also looks set to introduce some great local, eccentric characters.

Of course, it’s not a new idea, unzipping the Lake District and freeing it from the mothballs of Romantic poetry. Ten years ago, crack Liverpudlian TV writer, Jimmy McGovern, penned a drama series called The Lakes. Fans of John Simm, Dr Who’s recent nemesis as The Master, may remember that this was the series which first catapulted Simm to fame. Okay, with its lurid melodramatic plot lines and steamy sex scenes, it may have been a somewhat in-yer-face way of de-romanticising the Lakes. But at least it showed that the inhabitants are a many and varied breed! Not simply living their lives on hold until another tourist summer comes round.

When we started Millican, we chose to name our different bags after our friends in this area. This came from a similar desire – to use their true life stories to show another side of life in the Lakes. We wanted to celebrate our motley bunch of local friends, all of whom are busily getting on with their lives but who are also an essential part of the life we’ve made since moving from the city to Keswick.

Dave on his land by the Tewit Tarn, Burns Farm

So in our own homage to both these documentary and drama TV series, about the Lakes, we’re going to be trailing some of these friends in the coming months on this blog. As we move into Spring and the start of the new farming calendar, we’ll be following our mate, Dave, as he tends to his cattle and sheep farm, attends auctions, and deals with the lambing season, all the time running a busy camping and caravanning site with his wife and family.

And to break the myth that the Lakes are about sleepy rural life, we’ll be dropping in on Mark, urban man par excellence in Keswick. Mark owns Keswick Collectables, a shop with an eclectic collection of antiques, books and vinyls. Mark is the joker in our pack of friends, always guaranteed to attract the “nutter on the bus” as he goes on his travels. Mark will be regaling with some of his stories about these meetings, besides offering his wise advice on the vinyl of the week. Roll over, William Wordsworth.

Mark with Mark outside his shop, Keswick Collectables

As we’re also in the process of developing new products, hopefully for release late Spring, we’ll be introducing further new namesake friends and adding to our gallery of rogues on the Millican website. Heck, maybe Jimmy McGovern will even pen a new drama about the couple running a local company and their steamy love affair with vintage bags.

Lust For Life

There’s no better month than January for contemplating future travels.

As Arctic conditions seem set to continue, it might be tempting to swap that trip to the ski slopes for a toboggan ride down our local slopes.

But as well as holidays, of course, there’s also the idea of adventuring and mounting an expedition. It was great to hear recently from Steve Bull who wrote to us from Bull Expeditions, a business creating bespoke expeditions for would-be adventurers. Steve e-mailed to say “Just got some of your gear. Reckon it’s great”. Following up his website, it put us in mind of our own fascination with expeditions, one nurtured in childhood, reading accounts of historic explorers and their extreme.


Drift at Camp, Greenland courtesy of Bull Expeditions

If truth be told, we’re more armchair explorers ourselves nowadays. Millican isn’t a hard-pumping, adrenalin-fuelled business – we’re too soft (or too lazy) for that. But we love to cheer on others who are pushing themselves to the limit and breaking new ground. The great thing about an expedition is that it can be as gentle or extreme as you like. We’re each unique in how we perceive our limits, based on our outlook and life experience to date.


Northern lights, Greenland
Photo courtesy of nick_russill

Steve and one of his colleagues are Winston Churchill Fellows, beneficiaries of a Trust that offers grants to people who want to travel for a purpose that will benefit their careers and, subsequently, the lives of others. Churchill, of course, was another great traveller and adventurer. Just as we’ve been influenced by the pioneering spirit and values of local Lakes legend, Millican Dalton (from whom we take our name), many travellers have been inspired by the character and spirit of Winston Churchill.

Whatever we think of his politics (and the British people certainly gave one reaction at the General Election immediately after the Second World War), Churchill is an iconic figure. Known, of course, for his bulldog spirit, love of cigars, and eccentric dress sense, Churchill was also a man with an incredible zest and curiosity for life. A suitably inspiring figure as we contemplate fresh adventures and expeditions in this New Year.

Consider – he played polo in India at the highest level, learned to fly, painted, wrote, designed the ground and gardens of his family home, and in later life bred racehorses. When he was kicking his heels as a would-be politician in waiting, he learned how to lay brick walls on his estate. And he overcame a childhood stammer to master the gifts of oratory. He gave his shortest and most memorable address at his alma mater during World War Two: “Never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never give up”. Something we like to remember as entrepreneurs on our bad days.

Another welcome communication over the New Year break came from another adventurer, Helen Spencer. She wrote:
“Hi there,

I bought one of your bags at Burghley Horse Trials in September and have travelled all over the world with it since. I absolutely love it and am pleased to say it’s now part of my travelling essentials. It fits in a huge amount of things: SLR camera, lenses, books, water, etc – much more than you’d ever think to look at it – bit like a Tardis! I’m a vet surgeon and it doubles up as a kit bag for when I am out in the field treating donkeys in developing countries.

Many thanks for making such great bags, with such care and attention to detail, and it was great to meet you back in September. Your business is really inspiring”.

Helen in Esfahan, Iran

As Helen says, we met her at Burghley but it turns out that she’s a vet, working abroad in countries like Iran for the charity,SPANA. SPANA runs projects treating working horses, donkeys and mules all over the developing world. Many New Year’s revellers are only just starting to plan their next adventure but Helen’s living it already. As we wrote recently in an article posted at the great website, From Briefcase to Backpack , our own travels and expeditions in the past have hugely impacted us, leading directly to the adventure of setting up and running Millican.

So why not get planning your next expedition or adventure? At Millican, one of our aims is to help people “to get out there”, whether that’s the British wide blue yonder or further beyond. For us, being out in nature has impacted us far more than just on a recreational basis. With nature a firm fixture in our lives, we’ve found that we reflect more on the connections between things and make better, more conscious decisions about our daily lives. If we can continue to help others discover that in 2010, we’ll be well pleased with the continuing Millican adventure.

The Year Of Peak Waste

“The year of peak waste” - that’s what inventor and entrepreneur Saul Griffiths called 2009.

Reading about the presentations on sustainability that Griffiths makes worldwide to commercial designers has set me reflecting on the new Millican products that we’re developing for 2010, the start of a new brand-new decade.

At the heart of Griffith’s presentations lies a single, emotional statement. He states that as a recent father, he wants to give his young son a Rolex watch and a Mont Blanc pen with the intention that they may be his only timepiece and writing implement for the next 100 years.

Griffith is big on what he calls “heirloom design” - that is, products which last so long that they will be handed down from grand-father to son to grand-son.


Photo courtesy of Pingu1963

Our culture has prided itself on creating the disposable and the ephemeral, blitzing us with generation after generation of new consumer products.

Enough of that. Let’s get back to vintage design with a focus on elegance, utilitarianism, and long-lasting quality.

Heirloom design has been a watchword for us here at Millican as we continue working with fellow Cumbrian, Adam Atkinson on sustainable designs for our 2010 range of products. Our bags and other products need to function extremely well, but they also need to be second to none in their quality, thus ensuring that they can guarantee a lifetime of adventure.

In recent years, it seems that our culture and ever-accelerating rate of technological progress mean that we are only be satisfied if we have the newest, brightest and the latest of everything. But is that really what we value in life? I know that Nicky and I love the vintage bags that we have stowed in our loft and around the house. Timeless artefacts that have been passed down from generation to generation and many of which are still usable.

Moreover, while much heirloom design began as a counter-cultural movement to get back to qualities of classic design and durability, it is now rapidly becoming an ecological necessity. As the root meaning of the word ‘sustainability’ suggests, we need products that are going to ‘sustain’. The world is full of enough consumer junk as it is, much of it rapidly decaying and cluttering landfill sites.

To that end, Griffiths has pointed out that for any designer or producer, the client is no longer the client. The planet is the client. Griffith insists that designers must work with their clients to do everything responsible to reduce energy consumption and prevent further global warming. We also need to develop a share economy, he says, where we give up our attachment to ownership and personal property and get used to objects that can be co-owned or borrowed from a central source.

Our own commitment to sustainability at Millican means that we have to ensure we design products without an Achilles’ heel. Every type of material, every design element, needs to be chosen with its continued use in mind. Only in that way can we be sure products will winningly survive years of use.


Our first collection went through nine rounds of sampling before we felt comfortable with, and confident of, our designs. The process taught us a lot.

Our three or four new products, for launch in spring 2010, are going through the same rigorous sampling process. First, we use our samples ourselves, then re-design and re-tweak them until they feel fit for launching. We’re also updating existing products where we’ve had feedback on how we can further improve their function and lifespan.

Heirloom design relies upon a cycle of activity – designing, testing selling, receiving feedback, and making changes. Which is not dissimilar to the teaching cycle that any teacher knows about – devising teaching courses, facilitating them, and working with peer, student and self-evaluation, before modifying courses and beginning the process all over again. Like good teaching, heirloom design takes time and is costly but it’s also a tremendous learning process and a great personal journey for us.

And if we can hand one of our used bags with pride to a grand-child in thirty years time and know that it could be their trusted companion for many years of adventure… what more could we wish for?