I was born in Chesterfield, where I lived until I was 5 years old. I spent my formative years living in a small village near Ilkley, called Burley in Wharfedale, where I attended Burley First School and Burley Middle School, before moving up to Ilkley Grammar School. I left Ilkley Grammar School in 1989 with 10 ‘O’ Levels and 5 ‘A’ levels, and some wonderful life-long friends.
I attended Newcastle University where I had the most wonderful time … and also studied Mathematics and Statistics. I started work in August 1992 training as a chartered accountant with Price Waterhouse. Upon qualification in 1995, I moved to Northern Rock as a corporate tax manager, before moving to Procter & Gamble in 2000.
In 2002, I met my future and thankfully current husband James, and we were married at Hatfield College, Durham University in 2004. Late in 2005, our amazing – and now taller than me – son, Will was born.
Procter & Gamble was the start of our international adventures, first to Geneva, moving whilst I was on maternity leave with Will. We lived in a petit(e) village just over the Swiss-French border, sitting at the base of the Jura mountains.
In 2007, taking full advantage of the Swiss medical profession, our beautiful daughter Hattie was born, coincidentally, on International Ladies Day. In 2011, James was given a not-to-be-missed opportunity of a job in San Francisco, so we sold up in France, and headed to California. In 2013, we returned to the UK, and our second delightful son, Charlie, arrived.
In 2016, whilst planning a family return to California, we came to Teesdale to spend Christmas with James’ parents. We have not left since! I am now CFO for a fast-growing IT Consultancy business with operations in London, Dublin, Paris, Rotterdam, New York, and (thankfully) Darlington.
