Fly fisherman Oscar Boatfield and his wife Nell Wharton set up Bearmade creating a range of bags for fly fishing enthusiasts. The bags have since become popular with those outside the sport. The coffee shop in Pateley Bridge takes its name from Wildish the outdoor business they run for like-minded people wanting to meet others through outdoor pursuits. They run social sessions with activities including fly fishing and crafts etc.
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00:00 Hi I'm Nell and we're sitting in our cafe, coffee shop, shop with wonderful things in
00:06 Pateley Bridge which is called Wildish.
00:08 And I'm Oscar and I'm Nell's husband, which is probably relevant, and we have slightly
00:15 different roles in the business. I do a lot of the designing and that kind of thing and
00:24 Nell does a lot of the more...
00:28 Organised stuff.
00:30 We make bags, that's the main thing we make, bags and coffee, we're obsessed with coffee.
00:37 But we also are starting to design all kinds of different products and experiences as well
00:44 through our fly fishing business and our Wildish club.
00:49 We started making bags because of, initially of my background in fly fishing and because
00:54 when we met Nell wanted to get into fly fishing as well and it is a very daunting sport to
01:01 take part in, partly because of the seemingly large amount of kit you need to do it.
01:07 So we came up with this idea to make a very small bag that would just take the bare essentials.
01:13 Our first brand name was Bare Minimal.
01:15 The bag actually looked quite a lot like this one here which is now our random skill.
01:20 But yeah, so that's kind of why we started making them, just to try and simplify the
01:25 sport and make it more accessible and then it's grown into making bags which aren't anything
01:30 to do with fly fishing at all.
01:32 And we sort of say promote an active outdoor lifestyle and you can use them every day.
01:39 They're all handmade in England, so we design and prototype them and we make, well they
01:45 function but they're not pretty prototypes ourselves on a sewing machine.
01:49 And then we have a bag maker called Amy who lives in Suffolk and we've just taken on a
01:54 second maker called Ray who lives in Leeds.
01:56 So they're all handmade in the UK.
01:58 So they were originally sold locally but they are now sold all over the world.
02:03 It's really exciting.
02:04 It's exciting with all the different sort of branches that it has gone into and yeah,
02:11 what it's led to and the exciting people that we've met and people that we work with has
02:15 been really amazing.
02:17 I'm Australian, so a little further south.
02:21 And I'm from Cambridge, unfortunately.
02:24 But I've been coming up here for years, ever since I was a kid.
02:27 So I used to do a lot of fly fishing competitions up here and got to know the river, you know,
02:33 rivers really well, particularly the Nidd and the Wharf.
02:36 And we kind of found ourselves in a position where we could move anywhere because Nell
02:42 was working as a vet and she could work anywhere.
02:46 And we were just like, why not?
02:48 Move to Yorkshire.
02:49 We just absolutely love it here.
02:51 And you know, the countryside is amazing, the people are wonderful, the life is slower.
02:56 It's probably a harder place to run a business like ours from.
03:00 You know, the reality is that we're selling our bags worldwide but we sell in the UK
03:05 mostly in the major cities.
03:08 But we just want this more, much slower lifestyle that we're able to have here.
03:15 And you've diversified, haven't you?
03:17 You're doing like bushcraft courses and...
03:20 Yeah, sort of.
03:21 We say it's a bit like clubs but for adults.
03:24 It's called the Wildish Club.
03:25 It's really a way for people to come together and have fun outdoors and that could be absolutely
03:31 anything.
03:32 You know, we do everything from outdoor cooking workshops to fly fishing to walking to big
03:39 art workshops to pretty much anything you could possibly imagine.
03:44 Stargazing.
03:45 Yeah, we just did a stargazing workshop.
03:46 It could be anything.
03:47 But it's much more focused on just bringing people together outdoors and just facilitating
03:53 those connections.
03:55 And it's just amazing to see what happens when you do that.
03:58 I think the way we've curated it isn't that we are the leaders of it, it's that we're
04:03 also a really big part of it.
04:05 And one of the best things that has come from it is it's become a bit of a skill share.
04:10 So we have people that have come along to activities that we do that have said, "Oh,
04:14 I know how to do printmaking," for example, "I would love to do that.
04:18 Can I lead one?"
04:19 And that's been really exciting and that has built some strong foundations within that
04:24 club as well, which has been really exciting.
04:26 We really like making things and making the best things we can possibly make and things
04:31 that we really love.
04:33 And we love the Wildish Club and I think that's been super impactful in the short period that
04:40 it's existed.
04:41 So the more we can do that, the better, the more people we can get outdoors, the more
04:45 people we can get meeting up.
04:47 The goal with that, we have quite established that we want to have Wildish Clubs all over
04:51 the country and people coming together everywhere to do these things together.
04:56 But with our other stuff, it could be anything.
05:00 We were reflecting on it the other day and what this business looked like two years ago
05:05 is no way near what it looks like now.
05:08 And Oscar is the classic line at any time of day I get, "No, I've had an idea."
05:15 And I'm like, "Okay."
05:16 I have a lot of ideas.
05:17 Give it to me.
05:18 What's this one?
05:19 And sometimes they're amazing and sometimes they are interesting.
05:24 But at least like 10 of them have been good.
05:28 So it's fine.
05:30 Yep.
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