Sunflower

By 1984 Gill had had enough of teaching, a job she'd done very successfully in the various places we'd lived, and while bringing up three children, so she began looking for a change of career. She enrolled in a year-long EU funded course in Chelmsford which was designed to help women into business areas dominated by men and, following this, decided to set up a small wholefoods business.

As this cutting, dated September 1985, from the local Maldon & Burnham Standard explains, she felt there was a market for the delivery of wholefoods, which are heavy to carry and were not, at that time, readily available in supermarkets, to the scattered communities in the countryside around Maldon. She also saw that people might be keen to buy in bulk, and this included some local businesses such as a mental hospital.

Gill bought a second-hand Ford Escort van, had it sign-written with an eye-catching sunflower logo, had one of the store-rooms off the back yard cleaned out and shelved, bought in a mass of stock and used our computer, an Amstrad 6128, to produce a list of the goods she stocked.

The interview with the Maldon & Burnham was part of the publicity drive the new business required, and it brought in customers, many of whom stayed with her for the next ten years.

It was an ideal business for someone who also had to run a large household full of rapidly-growing youngsters. Part of the deal was that everyone, including Lizzie's French exchange student, Laurence, helped with jobs like the weighing-out - goods were bought in bulk and divided into plastic bags - getting orders together, and even....

....doing the actual deliveries when the weather was difficult - here, Lizzie's friend Katherine Evans has been roped in. Some 4 Lodge Road residents didn't help: Ovaltine, one of Katy's hamsters, escaped and nibbled at almost every pack in an order which was all ready to go out. The rodent died shortly afterwards, possibly as a result of over-excitement.

The business helped in other ways than bringing in money. We used the van as personal transport - in those days there was nothing against loading as many children as you liked into the back - and we were able to defray expenses, such as buying the computer, against the business. Gill also met some lovely people, to some of whom she delivered every week until she sold the business.