Lily Cole

The Poet Laureate Has Gone to His Shed

If the poets of the past sat in their garrets dipping their quills in ink and waiting for inspiration to strike, our current Poet Laureate Simon Armitage has a more mundane and domestic arrangement. From his wooden shed in the garden, surrounded on all sides by the Pennine Hills and the Pennine weather, he scratches away at his reworking of the comic medieval poem The Owl and the Nightingale. Any distraction is welcome, even encouraged, to talk about poetry, music, art, sheds, sherry, owls, nightingales and to throw light on some of the poem's internal themes. So when Lily Cole - model, actress and entrepreneur - extended an invite for him to visit her shed, he couldn't refuse.

With a touch of shed envy, Simon discovers that Lily Cole's own writing shed has a wood-burning stove and superb views. Their conversation ranges from the true story of her discovery as a model at 14, wearing dramatic clothes and accidents on the catwalk, to working with tribes in the Amazon. From environmental concerns to running a business, from being bullied at school to a Cambridge degree.