Lotti and Martin de la Bedoyere in 1997
Search Press was founded by my mother, Lotti de la Bedoyere, in 1970, in an attic room in Kensington, London. My brother and I were settled in school and my mother found herself wondering what she could do to occupy herself. She had an interest in craft, a love of nature, and had helped my father publish a monthly religious newsletter (he was editor of the Catholic Herald at the time.) So, with a vague knowledge of publishing, a dogged determination to succeed, and little or no capital, she founded Search Press, and embarked upon her publishing journey. Her first publications were a small series of staple-bound, 32-page booklets in the Leisure Craft series, co-editions with the German publisher Herder. The inaugural title was Basket Weaving, closely followed by Batik and then Pin & Thread*.
The road was by no means smooth for Lotti in the male-dominated world of publishing at that time, but she was not one to be intimidated or deterred.