How a brainwave led to my podcast

As a jeweller, someone who is passionate about jewels and their meaning, I know that jewellery literally lights up lives.

Despite my absorbing passion for gems, this year, 2020, has been an especially tough one, no thanks to Covid-19. One day shortly after the spring lockdown ended, my close friend Lizzie Wingham and I were enjoying a cuppa after so long apart, and chatting about what got us through those long days. Like many, listening to podcasts were our new shared passion. Lizzie, who is one of the cleverest people I know, is an experienced creative BBC TV & digital media producer, and knows a good podcast when she hears one. However, her own interest in jewellery alerted her to the lack of any well produced, compelling, original and intelligent podcasts on the subject of jewellery.

So she said, '“ Jessie, you should do it”.

The tea ended and the wine came out. And a project had begun. My idea for the format is to ask our guest to select 6 gems and jewels to put into a fantasy Vault and tell us what these pieces mean to them or how they came into their lives - they could be ones they’ve worked with, owned, handled, lost - or lust after. It's the jewellery equivalent of Desert Island Discs.

With a dream guest list to hand, I got going. Many technical hitches later, we now have 6 recordings with a dazzling array of amazing guests, and more in the diary. We uncover dazzling ancient gold, royal gems and buried treasure amidst engagement rings, intimate insights and personal stories of jewels lost and found. Lizzie’s job is to turn these inspirational recordings on life and gems into the well produced, compelling, original and intelligent podcast that she envisions. Now all we need is a sound engineer who can make the magic happen.

The first series will be out soon…