Hello, I'm Krestey Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive.

For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

The program was originally broadcast in 2002, and the presenter was Sue Lolly. My castaway this week is a fashion designer, rebelling against the secure middle class upbringing of her Lancashire town,

she took off to the local art college and then on to Birmingham where she studied textiles.

A terrible car accident in which she lost a leg dented her

confidence but bit by bit she built it back again. By the age of 32 in partnership

with the man who became her husband she launched her own label which took all the best stores

and later the world market by Storm. In 1985 she won British Designer of the Year.

Those heady days are now over, but she's still regarded as one of our most

experienced and level-headed fashion designers. Her clothes appeal to a wide

range from Shari Blair to the Princesses of Pop.

They're chic but unstructured, often witty, but always wearable.

I don't want people to say she's wearing my label, she says.

I just want them to say she's looking stunning. She is Betty Jackson. Is it still

a thrill, Betty, seeing people famous or not dressed in your clothes?

I think it's the biggest thrill and I think it's the thrill that sort of goes on and on really

Just the fact that somebody's gone out and chosen what you have actually created and bought it with them

Hard-earned cash and stuff like that. Great compliment.

Do you remember the first time you ever saw anybody?

Yeah, it was very funny because I was actually driving through Grosvenor Square and I saw this woman walking along the

pavement and screeched a halt and wound my window down and said hello how are you and

she recoiled in horror. Complete stranger. Complete stranger and I and of and she was

...