My early days were spent alone with my mother in Kew and in constant fear of being bombed as I was only one year old when World War 2 broke out. We were a team and together my mother and I were strong and ready to conquer the world.

When I left school my mother decided I should take a business course. I hated it BUT she was right, I turned out to be a good businesswoman. I started 5 very successful companies and what was great was the fact that I had no training for any of the industries, but I had common sense, and I enjoyed every moment of the challenges.

At 17 I became a model and although I was incredibly shy, somehow when I was on stage wearing a beautiful Dior gown I was on top of the world.

I was seen at all the fashionable nightclubs like the AD LIB along with the BEATLES. I worked all day and danced on tables all night...great! I travelled the world and when I was working in Paris I was in a show for the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. It was British week with trumpeters everywhere and I decided after that moment I was at the top of the tree, so I went into the dressing room and hung up my eyelashes and retired as a model, I was 20 years old.

My next venture was to open one of the first boutiques in London. I called it Harriet. I worked with Mary Quant, designed clothes for Julie Christie, Sandy Shaw, Francesca Annis and all the debutants in London. Harriet was a great success, but I wanted more so with the help of my friend Denis Norden I went into the wholesale business. My clothes sold to Harrods, Simpsons, and Bonwitt Teller and Macy’s in New York, in fact all around the world. I was headhunted by Wallis shops to control their 147 shops and became one of the highest paid women in London. I was even asked by Arbuthnot bankers to sit on the board to advise them on the ‘rag trade!’

There are so many funny stories about this time in my life, enough to fill 2 books.

I fell in love and had a beautiful baby.

The fashion business is hard work. I was designing 4 to 6 collections a year, running 3 factories, had a large staff and it was a 7 days a week commitment...so I woke up one morning, took my daughter to nursery school and went to Harriet in Margaret Street and put a padlock on the door and walked away...it broke my heart but I knew it was killing me and I had a daughter now and needed to spend time with her.

I spent 3 weeks being a ‘housewife’...that was enough for me.

My best friend Jean asked me to back her in a beauty salon. I agreed and again having no idea what I was doing opened a shop in Barnes called SECRETS. It was an instant success, impossible to get appointments and utterly exhausting. Some lovely clients like VERA LYN and the cast of TENKO for BBC. Many very funny stories but not my kind of business. So I sold my shares to Jean and went on my way.

I decided to become an interior designer! No training just a one week course on the basics. Somehow I hit the business just at the right time. Interior Designers were the latest ‘must have.’

Most of the time I had no idea what I was doing and made it up as I went along but it worked, and I was busy every day...back to a 7-day week! My last project was for TOM CRUISE and that is when I thought I would retire whilst at the top.

Whilst I was working as an interior designer I drew lots of designs and my friend Chrissie redrew my funny squiggles and we produced a book called THE CURTAIN SKETCHBOOK. No publishers wanted to publish it, so I did, and it sold over a million copies. Then the big publishers sat up and took notice, I was commissioned to work on 5 books for various publishers, but they didn’t market them properly, so I opened SHOESTRING BOOKS and we produce books for interior designers...

I have big plans for SHOESTRING, all I have to do is live longer!