I firmly believe that anyone can make things happen.

Is it mind over matter? Cosmic ordering? The power of positive thinking? Or just luck? I think it is a bit of everything.

I’ve always been used to getting what I wanted, as I was an only child. I nearly always got my own way and this continued throughout life.

I passed exams easily at school, not because I was particularly bright, but I seemed to have a knack of knowing what the examiner was expecting. Thinking outside the box and at a tangent. Unconventional.

As I grew a bit older, I always seemed to attract the boy that all the other girls wanted even though I wasn’t the prettiest or wittiest girl in the pack.

When it came to choosing my career options and going to college, something seemed to go wrong. I said I wanted to be a journalist and I didn’t make this happen. Instead, my mother was horrified and said “You get a proper job and be a secretary!” This was the first time in my life that I didn’t get what I wanted.

I was born and grew up in Worcester in a Council house brought up by my single parent mother, who was chronically ill, unable to work and was on benefits. I knew that I wanted more in my life. I knew that I wanted to move away and make something of myself.

Eventually I met someone that could offer me a different way of life, but I hasten to add that it was not a clinical cold-hearted decision to marry this man. I was lucky enough – or was it the power of positive thinking – to have found someone whom I loved and could offer me more. Offer me a different way of life.

We bought a house together – none of my family had ever owned their own homes before! I was the first home owner in the family. We got married and moved away. He had a good job and we had all the material things that anyone could want. I had made this happen.

Also, just like being able to pass exams, I was able to get any job that I applied for and gradually moved my way – as my mother had wanted – through a successful career of being a shorthand typist, secretary and then personal assistant to a Board Director of an Oil Company!

In my early 30s, my marriage crumbled, I remarried and had my children.

That’s something else that I firmly believe in. Not only can I make things happen if I try hard enough, I also believe that everyone should try everything in life that they possibly can.

I did want to become a mother at some point in my life but I left it till later. I had my daughter when I was 35 and my son when I was 36! I was called a geriatric mother by the nursing staff in the hospital, but I did get a daughter and a son, one of each, which is what I really wanted and wished for!

I said before that the only thing I did not succeed in making happen was becoming a journalist. Well I did eventually make this happen, but it did take me 35 years!

I answered an advert in the local paper for someone to write a few lines weekly about events that were happening locally e.g. coffee mornings, AGMs, church services and jumble sales!! Not very inspiring, but it was a rung on the ladder.

The paper I applied to was the Wilts & Glos Standard and, 21 years later, I am still writing for them. My few lines have increased to a whole page every week plus they accept other news stories that I write together with a photograph or two!!

Since then, I have been head-hunted to write for several magazines. I write the business page and editorials every month for The Advertiser in Faringdon and I was contracted to write six community-interest stories every month in the Ripples magazine covering Fairford and Lechlade.

I started off on a three month trial for The Advertiser doing 450 words each month. Nine months later, I have a whole page on business and an editorial each month. Sadly, the Ripples magazine closed down at the end of 2020 after 11 years of publishing, not because of Covid, but because the Editor wanted to retire.

I did think about taking it over, but I had just started making a proper business out of my PR work. At the end of 2020, I got this website designed and have had several people want to hire me to do their PR and marketing articles! I didn’t think that anyone would actually want to pay me, but they do!!

A well known PR expert also uses me to write her articles, as she is so busy. So I also now have regular monthly work, which is usually about 6 stories each month.

I have a few valuable and loyal clients that I do a range of work for and I have promoted their businesses, done content writing for their websites and got them on the radio to talk about their businesses.

One of my strap lines is “I enjoy poking my nose into other people’s business and then making up stories about them!” This makes people remember me!

I am currently doing now what I have always wanted to do.

I also have a couple of other achievements that I am proud of. I was Deputy Mayor of Fairford for two years and was then made Mayor of Fairford for another two years. And probably the best achievement ever was receiving an MBE from HM The Queen at Windsor Castle in 2009.

It sounds really ungrateful – and I don’t mean it that way – but when I heard I was going to receive an MBE, I really wanted the Queen to present it, as I had met Prince Charles and Princess Anne on other occasions. And I really wanted it to be at Windsor Castle, because I had previously been to a Garden Party at Buckingham Palace but never been to Windsor! Again, is it cosmic ordering or the power of positive thinking or just luck?

Finally, I started using my other strap line: I can make things happen when people asked me to help them in some way and they told me they were asking me because they knew that I was a person that really could make things happen.

I have found throughout my life that I can make things happen and I love making things happen for other people. If you would like me to promote you, your business, your news or your event, please get in touch. I would love to make it happen for you!