ABOUT

I was lucky enough to be brought up in the country with my brother and two sisters, where we were surrounded by animals – dogs, cats, hens, ducks, ponies and even Bess, the cow. As a family we ate food from the garden, and we were encouraged to play outside. There was very little TV and no screens!

I went to drama school at 16 after semi-completing my education. I wasn’t a particularly good actor, but I loved singing and joined a local band and ran a mobile disco for parties. This led to my joining the entertainments team on board the Queen Elizabeth 2 (QE2) to run the disco, which meant dancing around the world, while playing records in all sorts of often rough seas! I did that for a few years, which I thoroughly enjoyed, until I got married and I had my children. I went back to work at a small independent TV production company, where I learned to write scripts and present videos. About this time, commercial radio came on stream, so I got an agent and voiced hundreds of radio commercials and starred in some TV campaigns. I also worked as an actor on stage and in TV drama before going on to read the news for BBC Northwest for over 10 years. At the time, local radio was popping up everywhere and I was one of the founders and then a presenter on Signal Radio - I still do the odd radio show today on Radio Northwich. 

In the 1980s, my company Public Image, was one of the first to tutor British Members of Parliament on how to appear on TV when cameras went into The House of Commons which led me on to present ‘The Executive Business Channel’ for the Subscription service, BBC Select, interviewing senior and middle management from companies all over the UK. In 2005 I went into the etiquette field in and a year later introduced the first finishing school for gentlemen in a castle in Scotland. This achieved worldwide publicity and during my time as a director of Public Image Inc Ltd and then The English Manner, I have advised on international etiquette, public speaking, social intelligence and confidence building for the last 30 years and have taught in China, India, Russia, Iran, Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, Uzbekistan, KSA, UAE, Switzerland, Holland, Brussels and Germany, where I worked with The Protocol Bureau of The Hague at The European Central Bank. I have written speeches for MPs in UK, Kenya, Trinidad and Tobago and Senators in The States of Jersey. 

In 2011, as a founder member of The Malpas Arts and Literary Festival and then The Sandstone Ridge Festival in 2016, we had enormous fun. I was also lucky enough to achieve three lifelong ambitions; the first was to appear at the Edinburgh Fringe, which I did in ‘The Etiquette Show - Much ado about Everything' with my fabulous colleague, William Hanson, in 2017. Another was to be part of the commentary team at a Royal Wedding. This was realised at the marriage of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle for BBC Radio 5 Live in 2018, and the third was to produce a song. ‘Song for the World’ is an anthem for our beautiful planet, which I have yet to publicise properly.

During the Covid 19 lockdown I was stuck at home, so had time to launch two YouTube channels, ‘Granny Manners’ to help children learn social skills and grow up to be kind and considerate and ‘Get Fit Grannies’ which is a series of fun fitness videos for the over 55s!

I am very proud to be an Export Champion for The Northern Powerhouse, part of the UK’s Government’s Department of Business and Trade, and to have done a TEDx Talk at The University of Chester on ‘Social Intelligence v Artificial Intelligence.’

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