For many years there had been a movement away from bright colours to the very neutral calmness of magnolia or cream shades that would look clean and warm but allow for an individual streak of excitement to be introduced on a feature wall – say the chimney breast. The main wall colour would be pale and insignificant but a pop of a strident colour on one wall, or part thereof, made all the difference. we are thinking here in terms of say magenta, or deep red next to a creamy shade. Whilst this slow revolution was taking place – helped enormously by one particular day time lifestyle TV pundit called The House Doctor. This was an American real estate agent who looked at hard to sell properties over here and literally put forward a plan to shake the property up, get it tidied and decorated and then for it to sell as if by magic. It was always fun to see how ghastly the place was to start before the visit of the Doctor. Her UK based stooge was a very tidy and well spoken presenter who acted as the conduit between the crisp and Head Teacher style of the Doctor and the programme production team. Sometimes there would be such terrible problems with the original house that it could get a bit heated.

Ms Maurice was the Doctor and her plain no nonsense approach did have a wonderful effect on even the most slovenly housekeeper around the country. Because she stood no nonsense and would call out the grubbier house owners and leave the side kick Alistair to hint delicately that the reason their house is stuck as a non seller, was the state of it, or the constant garbage left around/too many clothes in wardrobes/awful taste in furniture etc. Then once the major clear out had been dealt with, the new decorating team would step in and hey presto – a fantastic new vision was presented to us. The House Doctor really was a very successful formula. Although they didn’t stray far from the original scheme, many house owners found they had a flair for simplifying their life styles, and this was as a direct result of that programme. They would be instructed to paint the walls as neutral as possible, then to add a real pop of colour in carpets and curtains or the ornaments, which had to be kept to an absolute minimum apart from being the instrument to tie the colour schemes together.