Making It E-Book

Lou Gimson

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 276

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2010

Beschreibung

Many women have great dreams about owning their own business, yet sadly, it often remains just a dream. The reason? All too often it's simply lack of confidence and self belief that lets them down and a feeling of being too far removed from the famous women entrepreneurs of today and unable to compete on that level. In truth though, there are thousands of women out there who are just like them, but who do own a business and are living their dreams on a scale they choose, successfully mixing home lives with a business and feeling fulfilled. Making It is a compilation of inspirational women's start-up stories that lets you share their accounts of how the businesses came to 'be' as well as the highs and lows that came along the way. Packed full of hints and tips from the real life experts, this book is guaranteed to inspire anyone towards achieving their goal, and with the powerful NLP exercises included you'll be able locate your strengths and weaknesses and build up exactly the right attitude for success.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Acknowledgements

List of contributors

1 Steph Cutler - Open Eyed

2 Josephine LaVey - LaVey Corsetry & Clothing

3 Sarah Pharo - Pharo Communications

4 Dawn Gibbins MBE - Flowcrete

5 Perween Warsi, CBE - S & A Foods

6 Deirdre Bounds - i-to-i

7 Karen Wilbourn and Fiona Oxley - Lello

8 Lynne Franks - SEED Women’s Enterprise Programme

Foreword

Introduction

Chapter 1 - Accentuate the positive

Mentoring Moments

Entrepreneur’s Experience

Making It - Meeting Steph Cutler, Open Eyed

Making Lemonade - Steph Cutler’s Story

Making It Happen for You - Accentuate the Positive

Three Steps to Accentuating the Positive

Chapter 2 - Total belief

Mentoring Moments

Entrepreneur’s Experience

Making It - Meeting Josephine LaVey, LaVey Corsetry & Clothing

Making It Happen for You - Total Belief

Five Steps to Achieve Total Belief in Yourself

Chapter 3 - Trust

Mentoring Moments

Entrepreneur’s Experience

Making it - Meeting Sarah Pharo, Pharo Communications

Making it Happen for You - Trust

Three Steps for Developing Trust

Chapter 4 - Innovative

Mentoring Moments

Entrepreneur’s Experience

Making It - Meeting Dawn Gibbins, Flowcrete Group plc

Making It Happen for You - Innovative

Three Steps to Become More Innovative

Chapter 5 - To aim high

Mentoring Moments

Entrepreneur’s Experience

Making It - Meeting Perween Warsi, S & A Foods

Making It Happen for you

Three Steps to Aiming High

Chapter 6 - Unstoppable

Mentoring Moments

Entrepreneur’s Experience

Making It - Meeting Deirdre Bounds, i-to-i

Making It Happen for You - Unstoppable

Three Steps to Being Unstoppable

Chapter 7 - Determined

Mentoring Moments

Entrepreneur’s Experience

Making It - Meeting Fiona Oxley and Karen Wilbourn, Lello

Making It Happen for You - Determination

Three Steps to Becoming More Determined

Chapter 8 - Enthusiasm

Mentoring Moments

Entrepreneur’s Experience

Making It - Meeting Lynne Franks, SEED

Making It Happen for You - Enthusiasm

Three Steps to Being Enthusiastic

Epilogue

Recommended reading

Index

Lou Gimson is an experienced and accredited business trainer and coach, working with businesses of all types and sizes. She specialises in bringing pre-start entrepreneur’s business dreams to reality and has a particular interest in women-owned businesses. She is an accomplished mentor and inspirational speaker.

Lou is a founder member of the charity foundation ‘Dream Buddies’, which helps individuals to reach their full potential and realise their dreams. As a fellow of the ‘Winston Churchill Memorial Trust’ Lou is researching female entrepreneurship in the USA.

Allison Mitchell is an inspirational coach, trainer and author. She has spent her entire career in Human Development and is now a pioneer in the field of ‘Mum Coaching’. Allison is an NLP Master Practitioner and NLP Coach. She is the founder of Mumcoach and author of Time Management for Manic Mums. She believes that with the right attitude anything is possible. To find out more visit; www.mumcoach.com

www.makingit.biz

Copyright © 2008 Louise Gimson and Allison Mitchell

First published in 2008 by

Capstone Publishing Ltd (a Wiley Company) The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, PO19 8SQ, UK. www.wileyeurope.com

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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library and the Library of Congress.

Gimson, Lou.

Making it : women entrepreneurs reveal their secrets of success / Lou Gimson and Allison Mitchell.

p. cm.

eISBN : 978-1-907-29345-0

1. Businesswomen. 2. Businesswomen—Case studies. 3. Entrepreneurship. 4. Entrepreneurship—Case studies. 5. Women-owned business enterprises. 6. Women-owned business enterprises—Case studies. 7. Success in business.

I. Mitchell, Allison, 1968- II. Title.

HG6054.3.G56 2008

658.1’1082—dc22

2008031724

Typeset by Macmillan Publishing Solutions

Printed and bound in England by TJ International Ltd, Padstow, Cornwall.

Substantial discounts on bulk quantities of Capstone Books are available to corporations, professional associations and other organizations. For details telephone John Wiley & Sons, Ltd on (144) 1243 770441, fax [phone] or email [email protected]

This book is dedicated to all women who have ever had a dream to create their own business, in the hope that after reading Making It they are inspired to go for it! Also to my daughters Lauren, Beth and Martha, may you always find the inspiration to follow your dreams.

‘I dream my painting and then paint my dream.’—Vincent Van Gogh

Acknowledgements

My enormous thanks go to all at Capstone for making this book happen, to my fabulous family and friends for all your support (you know who you are!), my fellow Dream Buddies, with whom I am looking forward to ‘sharing the joy’, and the many people who have helped me along the way.

A huge thank you goes to all the wonderful women featured in the book for their time, friendship and enthusiasm.

An extra special thanks goes to Allison Mitchell who has given of her time, energy, fun, laughter and all-round amazing attitude to help this book come to fruition.

Permissions List

Page i Photo taken at Ruby Cottage Arnesby, Leicestershire. Reproduced with thanks to Sarah Salotti.

page 3 “Ac-cent-tchu-ate The Positive” reproduced from Johnny Mercer Song Database (2004), Popular Music Collection, Special Collections Department, Georgia State University Library.

pages 109-110 Go MAD ® is a registered trademark, copyright © Andy Gilbert 2005

List of contributors

Foreword Emma Harrison - A4e Ltd

Emma Harrison is well known as the charismatic and respected chairman, owner and founder of A4e Ltd. She has succeeded in turning a small regional training provider, founded in 1991, into an international, multi-award winning company. Her philosophy is to ‘inspire, encourage and elevate’. Her policy of business diversification has taken the company into new markets that enable the realisation of her overall goal to improving people’s lives.

www.A4e.co.uk

1 Steph Cutler - Open Eyed

Open Eyed is a leading influence in the area of disability consultancy in the UK. Founder, Steph Cutler, is a popular writer and professional speaker. Her articles have been published by the BBC, Disability Now! and Handbag.com. She has a commercial background and worked previously in designing, marketing, buying and sales for companies such as Ted Baker and suppliers to Marks and Spencer.

www.openeyed.co.uk

www.making-lemonade.co.uk

2 Josephine LaVey - LaVey Corsetry & Clothing

Josephine designs and manufactures unique corsetry and clothing that caters for all sizes.

Josephine overcame dyslexia and turned around a misspent youth to gain a degree, an award from Prince Charles, and has become a successful businesswoman creating and selling her products around the world. After trading for less than a year, Josephine began to export her original designs. Her business continues to go from strength to strength.

www.laveycorsets.co.uk

3 Sarah Pharo - Pharo Communications

Sarah created a Public Relations company servicing the needs of the agricultural sector, based in Stoneleigh, Warks. She began the company while her family was still young, and built her business to great success. However, she feels she forfeited her family life in the process. Not achieving balance is a regret that she has addressed by spending more time with her grown up daughters and their families. To achieve this she has empowered her staff to make decisions and work with autonomy. Her company has recently expanded into South Africa.

www.pharoweb.co.uk

www.pharoweb.co.za

4 Dawn Gibbins MBE - Flowcrete

Flowcrete began as a partnership between Dawn and her Dad, for a £1 each. Dawn’s father devised flooring which could not be eroded by sugar in the garden shed whilst Dawn sold the product to companies such as Mars. Flowcrete is now the world’s leading specialist flooring and decking business, backed by a global support network of eight factories and 26 sales offices worldwide. Dawn recently sold the company for millions of pounds.

As Veuve Clicquot Business Woman of the Year, and voted ‘Most Influential Person in British Manufacturing’, Dawn was the youngest industrialist to be invested with an MBE for Services to UK Industry. A keen Feng Shui practitioner, she has devised a ‘barefoot philosophy’ which brings a holistic approach to UK lifestyles. She is now known as ‘The Barefoot Entrepreneur’ and has begun two new businesses.

www.flowcrete.com

www.barefoot-floors.com

www.barefoot-laundry.com

5 Perween Warsi, CBE - S & A Foods

As the founder of one of the UK’s most successful food companies, Perween was originally inspired by the need to get better quality Indian food in stores. The company (named after her sons Sadiq and Abid) now employs 900 staff has and a turnover of £65m. It supplies major retailers in the UK and has now expanded into Europe. Perween was awarded an MBE in 1997, followed by a CBE in 2002. She won Woman Entrepreneur of the World Award in 1996, and was given a seat on the Confederation of British Industry’s National Committee in 2002. S & A has been the UK’s fastest-growing independent food manufacturer for five consecutive years. The company was a finalist in the 1997 Sunday Times Business Awards.

www.sa-foods.com

6 Deirdre Bounds - i-to-i

From stand up comic to founder of i-to-i. When Deirdre founded the ethical travel company i-to-i.com her aim was to challenge traditional ideas in the travel industry. Her company works in partnership with hundreds of locally run projects around the world. The company has grown into an international organization with offices in the UK, USA, Ireland and Australia, with a worldwide team of 130 passionate, dedicated travel- lovers. i-to-i is now responsible for sending around 5000 people a year to support 500 worthwhile projects in Five continents and also trains a further 15,000 people as TEFL teachers. She has recently sold her company for several million pounds and has created a new role as a motivational speaker.

www.deirdrebounds.com

www.i-to-i.com

7 Karen Wilbourn and Fiona Oxley - Lello

Lello is a UK-based design agency, set up by two sisters based in Leicestershire who create and sell handmade cards in the UK and abroad. They are recent winners of the coveted ‘Henries’ award. Success to them is the family approach: bringing their sons to work, where they have set up an onsite crèche facility. They also employ many part-time workers, mainly women on term time contracts, and students. They have fantastic loyalty within their workforce.

www.lelloltd.co.uk

8 Lynne Franks - SEED Women’s Enterprise Programme

Best known as a major figure in PR who ran her own agency from the 1970s to the 1990s. Lynne founded London Fashion Week and started the British Fashion Awards. The character of Edina in the TV series Absolutely Fabulous is rumoured to be based on elements of her character. Lynne sold her business when she realised that she didn’t like the person she had become and dropped out of the working world to discover who she really was. She returned to business to concentrate on women’s issues. In 2004 Lynne adapted her highly successful The SEED Handbook (Hay House) into an in-depth training programme to teach entrepreneurial women how to start and sustain a business. The SEED Enterprise Programme is a four-month programme and the first of its kind. SEED is currently being delivered throughout the UK.

www.seednetwork.com

In addition to our model entrepreneurs, as listed on the contributors page, we are grateful to the following individuals and organizations for their assistance in compiling and illustrating this book:

Kelle-Marie Baines and Hayley Carver - Lemon Jelly Arts www.lemonjellyarts.co.uk

Andy Gilbert - Go MAD® Thinking www.gomadthinking.com

Bex Knight - Note to Self www.notetoself.uk.com

Sarah Salotti - Sarah Salotti Photography www.sarahsalotti.co.uk

Skills for Enterprise www.skillsforenterprise.co.uk

April Sharpless, ZEST HR Consultancy

Wendy Millington, Average Joes

Fiona Shaw Photography www.fionashawphotography.com

Foreword

Emma Harrison Chairman, owner and founder of A4e Ltd

As a person who began my own company from nothing and built it into a multi-million pound business, I could be considered to have ‘made it’.

‘Making it’ for me is more about what I do and how I do it. My motivation comes from the people that A4E helps to be successful in whatever they choose. We’ll do anything that will improve people’s lives but more importantly we won’t do anything that won’t. Satisfaction for me is knowing that we are nurturing others to succeed. Quality is about good health, time spent with my family and friends and making a living doing what I love.

As I have become financially secure I am able to share what I have learnt and mentor others to create the business of their dreams. My passion is inspiring and helping others to find their way.

This book uniquely shows you how to turn your ideas into reality and shares with you the wealth of experience behind the stories.

So get reading and look forward to your own success, remember it’s you that defines it, enjoy!

With my very best wishes

Emma

Emma Harrison is a well-known, charismatic and respected entrepreneur and the Chairman, owner and founder of A4e Ltd.

Emma has a unique approach to leadership, seeing her role as being to ‘Inspire, encourage and elevate’. It is this business philosophy that has seen her turn a small regional training provider, founded in 1991, into an international, multi-award winning company. Furthermore Emma has built a company that follows her principle of ‘doing well by doing good’ and has implemented a policy of business diversification that has taken the company into new markets that enable it to realise its overall goal of improving people’s lives.

Emma is 42 and lives at Thornbridge Hall in Derbyshire with her husband Jim and her young family.

Introduction

Why is it that some women create fabulous businesses, are financially independent and generally live the life of their dreams, while others sit on the sofa watching television and thinking how life could have been if only?

• If only I had a brilliant idea

• If only I had the confidence

• If only I’d been to business school

• If only I had a degree

• If only I had more time

• If only I had more support

• If only I was more talented

Are you a woman who has aspirations to own a business? Let’s make sure that doesn’t remain just a dream. Read on to ensure you are equipped with exactly the right attitude to go for it! The famous women entrepreneurs of today all started somewhere. What you may not realize is that there are many women out there just like you, who do own a business and are living their dreams, successfully juggling their family and work lives and feeling fulfilled. You may not want to be famous or to own an empire - you may want to be responsible for your own destiny and to do something you love to create an income. Wherever you want to position yourself in business, we are here to help you by inspiring you to live your life as you choose and to have no regrets.

When I first began working for myself I thought I was prepared. I took it upon myself to learn all about the practical side of running a business, made sure I was operating on the right side of the law and learnt how to do my own bookkeeping and so on. What I wasn’t expecting were the emotional hurdles I had to jump over all the time. I firmly believe that if you couple the right attitude with the correct practical knowledge, success is waiting to happen.

I wanted to find out how other women had reached success and how they define it for themselves. It’s easy to think that success is measured only in financial terms, but that isn’t the case. Making It is a compilation of inspirational women’s true stories, sharing with you how they started their businesses and how they overcame hurdles to reach success. The definition of ‘success’ may be a financial measure, or more of a value measure like spending lots of time with their families, being in charge of their own destiny, or making a difference with what their business does. The book is also a story of networking, something women do naturally. I have found that as I have shared my dreams of turning the book into reality and told people about its purpose, they in turn have told other people so that contacts and women to interview have come to me quite easily - the power of networking!

What astounds me are the amazing attitudes of the women I have interviewed. To be successful you need to adopt the right attitude. My aim is for you, the reader, to resonate with the qualities these women have and realize that you too possess the same qualities.

Visit our website www.makingit.biz for help, advice, inspiration and information. We hope we can enable you to score highly on our ‘attitude-O-meter’, thoroughly enjoy your business journey, and we’d love to hear your own stories. You have a choice, you can use the guidance in this book and you can make it too!

1

Accentuate the positive

You’ve got to accentuate the positive,Eliminate the negative,Latch on to the affirmative,Don’t mess with Mister In-Between.

Johnny Mercer

The first questions to ask yourself when considering creating your enterprise are: What am I good at? What do I love doing?

If you earn a living doing something you are good at and you love doing, it won’t feel like work. How exciting does that sound? Do you look forward to Monday mornings? I am privileged to work with many people who do. People just like you who are embarking on their new business journey. The people who turn out to be successful pay equal attention to what they are not so good at and look at finding solutions to overcome their weaknesses.

Mentoring Moments

I am working with a relatively new drama company operating in both London and the Midlands called Lemon Jelly Arts. The two founders, Hayley Carver and Kelle Baines, have an excellent pedigree in both dance and drama training and experience. Their workshops and academies are second to none, drawing on their own professionalism and their experience. They are building up a fabulous reputation for themselves. However, this wasn’t always the story.

When I first met them they had just changed their name as their previous one was too similar to another company’s. They had failed to check this out first; all their early efforts of building up a reputation had to stop as they were threatened with legal action. Hayley and Kelle also had an ‘all singing all dancing’ business plan that looked very professional, the only problem being that it was tucked away in a drawer and neither of them understood it fully or used it as a working document to help them grow and flourish. They also knew they had money in their business account, so cash flow was good, although they avoided looking at the full financial picture.

Fortunately, they recognized that their strengths were exactly what were needed to build their business and that their weaknesses could be overcome if they asked the right people for help. They arrived at Skills for Enterprise offices with a new business name that they had checked wasn’t already being used and had registered with both Companies House and the HMRC - great, first problem solved. The next step was to create a viable business plan that they both agreed to take the business to where they wanted it to be.

Hayley and Kelle are two very creative people, so I took them through a visualization exercise in order for them to see, hear and feel what success meant to them. This was immediately put on to a huge piece of paper in the form of a mind map with pictures and words. We then turned it into an umbrella business plan (see Chapter 5). This seemed to be a real breakthrough, as they could get all the finer details down while remaining focused on the bigger picture. At the end of this exercise there was a plan in place to help them to drive their business forward. They didn’t need to borrow any money, so a formal business plan wasn’t even necessary.

The next stage was to look at the finances. Hayley and Kelle were surprised at the healthy financial position Lemon Jelly Arts was in. They were making things hard for themselves by not using easier methods of payment and recording information. I encouraged them to make an appointment with their accountant to sort these issues out. The end result was that Hayley and Kelle can now get on with doing what they do best: teaching children to be fabulous thespians, improving their self-confidence and generally helping the next generation of adults to accentuate the positive!

How about doing this kind of exercise for yourself? A good tip is to be completely honest.

First, make a list of all your personal strengths, for example ‘I am a great communicator’, ‘I am focused’. Ensure that the statements are in the present tense and repeat them to yourself often. I’ve included five spaces in the list below - make sure you complete at least three.

Strength 1……………………………Exploit…………………………

Strength 2……………………………Exploit…………………………

Strength 3……………………………Exploit…………………………

Strength 4……………………………Exploit…………………………

Strength 5……………………………Exploit…………………………

Take your list of strengths and work out how you are going to exploit them to help your business.

Now it’s time to look at your weaknesses. Complete the list below as you did with your strengths, ensuring that you use statements in the present tense and fill in at least three weaknesses.

Weakness 1…………………………Overcome………………………

Weakness 2…………………………Overcome………..……………..

Weakness 3…………………………Overcome………………………

Weakness 4…………………………Overcome…………..…………..

Weakness 5…………………………Overcome………………………

Take your list of weaknesses and decide how you are going to overcome them.

It is also a wise move to compare the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors. While it is bad practice to point out your competitors’ weaknesses to potential customers, knowing them yourself means you can take advantage of them.

Fill in the chart below as fully as you can.

Once you have a full picture of what your competitors are doing it is easier to make your own business decisions.

For example, if you own a small grocer’s shop you aren’t going to be able to compete using the same strengths as the major supermarkets. Asda, Tesco and Sainsbury’s are all able to:

• Compete on price.

• Afford expensive advertising campaigns.

• Have celebrities endorse their brand.

Competitors’ strengths and weaknesses

Focus on their weaknesses instead:

• Their stores are large so it takes time to park.

• They are busy so it takes longer to shop.

• They are possibly not close by.

Therefore, the strengths of your small grocer’s could be:

• Convenience.

• Personal service.

• Ordering in speciality goods for customers.

• A community feel.

It’s now time to exploit your business strengths in your marketing. Good luck!

Entrepreneur’s Experience

I personally have always loathed doing the day-to-day record keeping side of business. I procrastinate, always putting it off. It’s not that I can’t do it; it is because I would rather be doing far more exciting things, like winning the next client. I chose to ignore this major weakness and as I result I never knew where I was financially from month to month. I kept the information in my head, this was there in the background all of the time and it became very stressful.

When it was time to fill in my tax return I knew I had to apply myself and just do it. I laid out a year’s worth of receipts on my conservatory floor in month order, ready to collate. The phone rang - as I got up to answer it the conservatory door opened slightly and the receipts blew everywhere. I had to start over again. It was at that point I vowed to sort the weakness out.

I contacted several accountants and found one who was reasonably priced and would do everything for me. All I had to do was put my receipts and invoices in an envelope at the end of each month, send them to him and by return I received a set of monthly management accounts.

I now feel confident in the knowledge that everything is in order. My financial situation takes minutes to review. I can spend my time winning more business and as a result I’m earning more money.

As a working mum, this experience made me look at other jobs I did that I could ‘outsource’. Cleaning my house and ironing my family’s clothes were again jobs that I endured. Using the word ‘outsourcing’ and looking at it in a business way made me drop the guilt I had previously attached to my thinking. I could earn far more per hour than I was paying my domestic help, and I was also helping another local business do what they did best: clean! I was beginning to accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative. How refreshing!

Making It - Meeting Steph Cutler, Open Eyed

I had been asked to give a presentation and workshop as part of Enterprise Week with the subject ‘The Big Idea’. This was to help potential entrepreneurs to think creatively and come up with their own big idea that was to make them lots of dosh. Well, not one who is shy at such a request, I said yes and set about making some notes.

It wasn’t until the programme of events was emailed through to me that I realized it was an event aimed at people with varied disabilities. ‘What’s the problem with that?’ I hear you thinking. No problem - except it completely threw me out of my comfort zone. I have experience in dealing with people with various disabilities on a one-to-one basis. Talking to an audience of 70 with hearing, sight, physical and mental disabilities scared me silly. I was so afraid of offending anyone that I knew I was in danger of offending everyone! My usual patter while ‘warming up’ my audience and putting them at ease includes such statements as ‘Can you hear me at the back?’ ‘Can everyone see the flipchart and screen?’ Clearly, I couldn’t use these phrases and I knew I had to be careful of the language I did use.

Before the presentations began I was called to a meeting with the signers who were there to assist the audience. On the paperwork I had been sent there was a typing error and it read ‘singers’ - I had felt sure that it wasn’t The X Factor!

Meeting over, the presentations began. Centre stage was Steph Cutler from Open Eyed, a disability and training awareness company that she had formed after experiencing her own sight loss. How I wished there was time for me to have a conversation with her before I began my workshop with the 70-strong audience for some tips in addressing them. What I heard next was one of the most inspirational stories about how a business came to be. I could feel the hairs stand up on the back of my neck as her story unfolded. I knew immediately that her message had to get to a wider audience and with her permission Allison and I interviewed Steph about her incredible start in business ownership, her definition of success and her tips for business. Steph has given us permission to use the very speech she made at that event, entitled ‘Making Lemonade’. I feel that no one can tell this better than she can herself.

For those of you interested, my workshop went down well. I had a couple of ‘Bridget Jones’ moments but nothing too bad, and for those people we are continuing to help to set up their businesses I shall look to Open Eyed for advice!

Making Lemonade - Steph Cutler’s Story

‘Less than three years ago I was a successful fashion designer working hard and playing hard in London. I was designing for the likes of Ted Baker and Marks & Spencer.

‘It was while on holiday that I made a discovery. I was in New Zealand and on the way back from a sightseeing trip we stopped off at an amusement park called Puzzling World. One room was made up of optical illusions. I followed the instructions and I stared at a wall with black vertical lines with my left eye closed and then repeated the exercise with my right eye closed. The lines were supposed to change thickness or something. But with my right eye closed I couldn’t see the lines at all. That’s pretty clever, I thought. A bit blonde!

‘However, when I got back into the car I tried again and I still couldn’t see well through my left eye. I was not overly worried, I was having fun on holiday and thought I should go to the opticians on my return.

‘Eventually I found the time and went along to an optician in my lunch hour. She covered my left eye and I read the whole lettered chart right down to the bottom line without any problem. She covered my other eye and I couldn’t see the chart at all. She advised me to go to the eye hospital right away, which I did. At the hospital no one could tell me what was wrong with my eye and it was decided I would need to see a consultant.

‘That evening I was casually recounting my day to my parents. For me there were no real alarm bells ringing, but unbeknown to me the alarm bells on my parent’s end of the phone line were deafening.

‘The next day I was getting ready to go to work when I opened my door to my parents. Considering they live in Coventry and I lived in London, I was not expecting to see them. They came in and broke down and told me I was going to go blind! I think I must be the only person ever to take this news with relief. Seeing my parents in such a state I assumed something terrible had happened to my sister, who was at the time on honeymoon in Australia. I found myself comforting them and I was very English and made them a cup of tea.

‘We spent the morning at the hospital, I had lots of tests and while it wasn’t officially diagnosed, my symptoms and family history meant it was clear I had a condition called Lebers Optic Neuropathy. I decided that until it was confirmed I wasn’t going to worry about it and I went back to work.

‘The following week it was confirmed to me that I had three months with full vision and then my second eye would deteriorate and then I would have no central vision. My consultant broke the news in a nonchalant kind of way. I was grateful to him for this, as it played a big part in how I took the news. I did not know what central vision loss would mean to me practically or emotionally, but I made a very conscious decision there and then in the hospital that this would not mean the end in any way for me and I made a vow to myself that I would keep to this.

‘Despite loving my job, I did not fancy spending the last few months with full sight looking at the four walls of work and so I took myself off to see some of the world while I could. It is an odd feeling to be taking photos that you don’t know you are going to be able to see on your return.