“It’s funny, we did Come Dine With Me. And I feel like I’m auditioning again.”
You were on it?
“No, we were bloody runners up, which is really annoying.”
I’m in Royston Horry and Eric Simpson’s kitchen and they’re telling me about their Lockdown project which has become their post-Lockdown work. Candles, diffusers, workshops…
So why candles? If you wanted to do something different, why not, I don’t know, pick up a bass guitar or something? “Because I like candles”. You really can’t say fairer than that.
“I like candles. I like diffusers. And that was the main thing. I wanted to do it. Because we spoke about it ages ago, like years and years before that Lockdown stuff. But Lockdown gave us the time and it was just like, if we don’t do it now, I don’t think we’ll ever do it.
Did you know anything about how to make candles? “YouTube”. YouTube? “Yeah, YouTube and Google. I mean, so much has changed since we started, we’ve got black glass, the design’s all different and then it was all about picking the scents and trying to work out what would sell”. And they do look beautiful and they do smell very nice and they are doing very well.
All Royston and Eric’s scents are named after their favourite areas of Brighton “and so you’ve got Clifton; Rose Cottage is where we live; you’ve got Bookshop because there’s so many book shops in Brighton and we love book shops; you’ve got Palmeira; Kemp Town; Montefiore; Beach; Brunswick; Hanover; Naked Beach…”
It’s a proper cottage industry – in a cottage. At one stage Eric disappears down to the basement. Is that where the magic happens? I ask when he comes back. “No, that’s just downstairs, We make all the candles here” he says pointing at the cooker. You make all the candles on the cooker? “Yes, that’s why we called one of the scents Rose Cottage”.
What’s your best seller? “Now it’s probably Bookshops. It’s a new one out and it’s a masculine powerful scent for men and women.” When you say masculine powerful one, what do you mean? “Because it’s black and the scent is stronger. It’s got tobacco and leather and biases (a rose scent) which is quite lovely. You wouldn’t have put leather and tobacco in there but it does smell quite lovely.”
The Whistler 