Cleaning up

By DONALD MAGILLIVRAY
Updated:

 

IF you're wearing white, a meal of spaghetti bolognese washed down with red wine can be a disaster area. But Muriel Morris-Jones has the answer.

The Wib, as Muriel calls her creation, is an ordinary paper kitchen towel designed to double as an emergency bib, perfect for keeping stains off clothing.

The standard-size sheet of kitchen towel is perforated so that a flap can be folded down from one edge, leaving two straps to stretch over the shoulders and tuck into the back of the wearer's shirt.

Muriel, 74, from central London, has spoken to big companies such as Kimberly-Clark and Procter & Gamble, about marketing her design. They have encouraged her, but so far no contracts have been exchanged. She says: 'The next step is to look for investors with business acumen. I'm also considering selling the design outright.'

She thinks her Wib offers someone a good chance to clean up. 'They have all the advantages of an ordinary paper towel and they also work well for emergencies.'

Muriel got the idea after a visit from one of her grandchildren, Sam. She didn't have a plastic bib to hand and made do with paper towels but thought there must be a better way. 'I mulled it over and suddenly the idea came to me in the middle of the night,' she says. Muriel contacted a patent agent, slogged through the paperwork and formalities and claimed the patent for herself.

'It has taken a while to get everything off the ground and get the idea seen,' she says. 'Some companies have been interested in the past and then everything has fallen through, but there is some interest now from America.'

Muriel is confident her Wib will succeed and she won't be put off by doubters, as she was more than 50 years ago. 'I came up with the idea for a paper nappy that could be thrown away and one big company laughed me off, saying people would never pay for something like that,' she says. 'Shortly after, the disposable paper nappy was patented and someone else made a fortune.'

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