How the women in one village are turning WI-style skills into money-making enterprises

Updated: 12:15 EDT, 15 August 2011

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Forget jam and Jerusalem – the Women of Whaddon in rural Bucks have turned their creative talents into successful businesses

(Scroll down for our fab video of the Women of Whaddon)

The village green transformation society, from left: Hayley Southwood, Samantha Wickham, Jo Mortimer-Bush, Suzy Christie, Johanna Hehir and Sue Dewar

Take one quintessential small English village in Buckinghamshire – all ancient trees, tile-hung houses, summer fêtes. Add a group of mothers with time on their hands. Not so long ago, that might have been a recipe for a jam-tastic local branch of the Women’s Institute, with evenings pleasantly whiled away learning to arrange gladioli or deal with a glut of gooseberries. But this is 2011, and these women are like a real-life episode of Dragons’ Den – with added cake, ice cream
and pretty teapots.

If you wanted to put together the perfect summer event, you’d need look no further than the WoW factor. That’s Women of Whaddon: six go-getters who happen to live close enough to nip in and out of each other’s houses to borrow a cup of sugar. (Or, more likely, borage for Pimm’s.) There’s the ice-cream van driver. The fruitcake baker. The vintage china rental service. A designer of bridal gowns of some renown. A hairdresser. And an upholsterer-with-a-twist who transforms abandoned chairs and sofas into glossy-magazine-worthy pieces using leather, antique fabrics, old-fashioned needlepoints (and even snake prints).

Observes Hayley Southwood of Vintage Scoops – who chugs around Buckinghamshire (and further afield, by arrangement) in her ice-cream van dispensing jollity and lollies: ‘It’s amazing how much entrepreneurial spirit you can find in just one little village. We’re not in competition with each other; our businesses are complementary – so we feed off each other’s success.’

The internet has enabled them to succeed in their businesses while based in a place they absolutely love – and to juggle it, moreover, with motherhood: toddlers, teenagers, twins (and some stepchildren). The WoWs have taken British traditions and passions and turned them into a living. As Hayley concludes, ‘It’s tapping into what we do best: celebrating our eclecticism, our eccentricities, our Englishness. All we need now, frankly, is a bunting maker.’ At which point, the eyes of another neighbour, Paula – a make-up PR, who volunteered on the day to ensure YOU’s photo shoot ran smoothly – lit up. ‘I’ve got a sewing machine,’ she proclaims, excitedly.

So just watch this space – because clearly, the WoW factor is infectious.

Watch our video of the Women of Whaddon here

Samantha Wickham sells home-made fruitcakes

'As a child I just wanted to be taken out for tea,' says Samantha

Samantha used to have a high-flying human resources role at a City bank but took a redundancy package which gave her the capital to start the Fabulous Fruitcake Company. (You can almost put money on the recession spawning a new generation of entrepreneurs.) Married to a Cambridge University music professor and conductor, she has three children: Isabella, six, and twins Max and Sophia, six months. ‘It’s fantastic to have a business that I can adapt to my daughter’s school hours, rather than ricocheting around the country to Bristol, Leeds, Edinburgh, wherever.’

Samantha is part-Lebanese and her motivating passion was food – a central part of Middle Eastern family life. But she’s half-British, too: ‘I love tea! Even as a child, I didn’t want birthday presents – I just wanted to be taken out to tea.’ As gifts for friends, she liked to bake big cakes encrusted with dried fruits. And while scouring the internet for a baby gift for a friend, Samantha realised there was a gap in the market for truly spectacular fruitcakes. Today, she bakes four different kinds – Traditional, Superfood, Chilli Chocolate and Miracle Cake that’s (yes, miraculously) fat-free, dairy-free and sugar-free. Business is booming and, after several years of baking in her environmental-health-approved kitchen, Samantha is now looking for production premises.

Jo Mortimer-Bush hires out vintage crockery

'I had vintage china at my wedding, and that's where it all started,' says Jo

There’s nothing like a pretty vintage plate to enhance your pleasure of tucking into a slice of cake, fruit or otherwise – which is where Jo’s My Vintage Day crockery-hire service comes in. ‘I like nothing better than the thrill of an auction, spending the day at an antiques fair or trawling a car-boot sale,’ explains Jo (formerly an estate agent, now full-time mother to seven-year-old Aimee), who has amassed a spectacular collection of cups and saucers, plates, teapots and tea-table requisites – all of which can be perused by would-be party hostesses or brides-to-be in a barn next to her house. ‘I had vintage china at my own wedding, and that’s where it all started: I collected jugs, bird cages and little glass vases for the big day, and my wedding favours were teacups. But I had all this stuff left over and wanted to do something with it. Of course, “vintage” is all about being thrifty and individual, about evoking childhood memories,’ adds Jo. ‘People are looking for a little touch of nostalgia, something to make their event unforgettable and individual.’ Her business has built up through word of mouth (and the recommendations from other
WoWs), as well as a Facebook page on which happy party-throwers post evocative pictures
of their events.

Hayley Southwood runs a retro ice-cream van

'The only thing I don't do is trawl the streets ringing my bell,' says Hayley

Former window dresser Hayley’s venture – Vintage Scoops – also has a marvellously nostalgic flavour. Well, lots of flavours – champagne sorbet, cherry brandy or bubblegum lollies; sticky toffee fudge ice cream (‘my guilty favourite’) – sourced locally from Beechdean Dairies. There’s a
whisk-you-back-to-childhood menu of soft drinks (dandelion and burdock, cloudy lemonade), as well as jar upon hefty jar of dentist-defying sweeties.

Hayley’s ice-cream van is more than a business, as she explains. ‘I was laid low after my mum died in February 2003. She was my best friend.’ One night, while surfing eBay looking to cheer herself up with a little online retail therapy, she saw an ice-cream van up for sale. ‘I suddenly knew that was what I wanted to do with my life, and I could almost hear my mum saying, “Go for it!”’ £5,000 later (the pre-refurb cost), and her husband was driving it back to Whaddon from Plymouth at a stately 35mph while a grateful Hayley took their boys (Jake is 12, Callum, 14) to the cinema. The van is now affectionately renamed Betty (‘after my grandma and my husband’s grandma’), and for £400 Hayley will pitch up at weddings, anniversaries and other events: ‘The only thing I don’t do is trawl the streets ringing my bell.’ Betty is also a fixture at the many WoW knees-ups. ‘We’re a sociable lot. No excuse is too slim for a get-together,’ says Hayley.

Sue Dewar restores antique furniture

'I went to a local upholsterer and took over his workshop,' says Sue

Want a comfy, stylish chair to sit on while enjoying ice cream (and maybe cake) off a vintage plate? Sue Dewar is your woman. Scots-born former fashion designer Sue wound up in the village five years ago, moving (with her husband David) into the sprawling wing of a majestic Georgian mansion. ‘I thought it was going to be Country Casuals and jam and Jerusalem. It turned out to be a fantastic hub of creative people,’ she says. And in Sue’s case, necessity was the mother of business invention: ‘I needed some chairs covering, so I went to a local upholsterer – and took over his workshop!’ Her business Couchi-Couchi Chairs specialises in antique and vintage chairs (‘rescue chairs, I call them’) which she does up so they look at home in a contemporary interior, and are sold (mostly) online. (If her fellow WoWs don’t bag them first, that is…)

Johanna Hehir designs couture wedding dresses

'The peace of Whaddon lets my imagination fly,' says Johanna

You’ve got the cake, the ice-cream van, the vintage china, the ‘thrones’ (Beckhams, please note). Maybe you wouldn’t expect also to find a global name in wedding dresses in a village like Whaddon, but Johanna Hehir (say it ‘hair’) supplies couture gowns to her boutique in Central London, as well as internationally. Her signature? Stunning 30s-inspired slim silhouettes with plenty of back detail. Paul, father of their four children – Fianna, 19, 15-year-old Naoise, Hughie, aged 12, and six-year-old Sorcha – runs the business, freeing Johanna to create fairy-tale frocks from a studio at their home where she also employs a team of local seamstresses. ‘It’s a wonderful place to live: there’s always something going on – if it’s not the crowning of the May queen, it’s the panto – but it’s also terrific to have the peace in which to let my imagination fly.’

Suzy Christie runs two hairdressing/beauty salons

'We're like a one-stop wedding shop here in Whaddon,' says Suzy

Suzy adds the final ‘WoW’ touch. Owner of two super-chic salons called Lifestyle in nearby Milton Keynes and Aylesbury (even the gorgeously groomed WoWs couldn’t sustain their own village salon yet), Suzy isn’t simply about ready-to-wear styles for everyday life: her team can create party-worthy vintage looks and ‘updos’ to complete the setting and gown provided by the other five. ‘You want the perfect English wedding?’ she says. ‘We’re like a one-stop shop here in Whaddon.’

And like all the WoWs, Suzy is totally immersed in village life – enjoying that sense of community that we’re increasingly seeking as a counterbalance to a world that moves at breakneck speed.

Where to find the wow factor

Hayley Southwood vintagescoops.co.uk
Johanna Hehir johanna-hehir.com
Jo Mortimer-Bush myvintageday.co.uk
Samantha Wickham thefabulousfruitcakecompany.co.uk
Sue Dewar couchi-couchichairs.co.uk
Suzy Christie lifestylesalons.com