About me

Background

I spent my early years in Sussex, before moving to Ipswich. I joined Westbourne High School in 1983, where I excelled in English and sociology, failed my art O Level because of some dodgy perspective work in my final piece, and got through five O Levels with relative ease.

I took A Levels at Suffolk College between 1991 and 1992 (English and sociology) I have since passed Diplomas in Freelance & Feature Writing (2003) Paralegal Vocational Studies (2004) and Reiki (2004)

I currently live in Suffolk.

Interests

Most of my non work time is taken up with my website Relentlessly Positive. I set the site up in 2006 because I'd always wanted my own website - and I had an urge to create a positive place for people to go and find good news, instead of reading articles about how awful they were and life was.

I adore anything related to complementary health and I'm probably a bit of a new age type. I'm fascinated by the cosmic ordering & law of attraction principles, and have been trying to wish myself into a bigger bank account and smaller dress size ever since I discovered the phenomenon. My favourite thing to do, when I can afford it, is try out a spa treatment...so working on a spa publication for a while was absolutely my dream job.

I'm a voracious reader and usually have several books on the go at once. I'm also very partial to a bit of Desperate Housewives, Ugly Betty and Casualty / Holby City.

My favourite film ever is Dirty Dancing, my favourite band is Muse (although prone to being fickle) and my favourite places in the world are Banff (Canada), Brighton & York (England.)

Voluntary work

My first voluntary project was being forced by my parents into becoming a 'youth leader' for the YMCA play schemes in Ipswich in 1985. I was barely older than the children whose parents were paying for them to be entertained by me, but I did this in most of the school holidays from 1985 to 1987. I soon cottoned on to the fact that it meant I got to go on all the trips free of charge and tell my brother and sister what to do, so it wasn't all bad.

In 1987 I worked for the Women's Royal Voluntary Service in-between leaving school and starting work full time. I helped some of the ladies who did the meals on wheels runs, and then worked with the very young children at a WRVS child minding scheme. To be fair, I probably enjoyed working with the little ones most.

In 1987 I was put in contact with the adult literacy group 'Need to Read' through my involvement with the school youth club, and partnered a 17 year old boy who wanted to improve his skills. we worked together until 1989.

In 1990 I joined 'Badgers' the St John's Ambulance children's club, helping with running the classes.