COTSWOLD Feature


Pippa Pratley with the Bella Rose


curtain pole she designed


Pippa’s poles


Seeing the world through the eyes of a child can sometimes be just what a growing business needs to succeed.


LITTLE Pippa Pratley is just six- years-old and in her first year at primary school but that didn’t stop her putting her suggestions forward at the wrought iron company run by her parents. Dad Phil who runs a


traditional blacksmith’s forge at Ascot-Under-Wychwood makes everything from wrought iron candelabras, lamps, wall lights, weathervanes for churches and even giant shovels for pizza restaurants. Mum Helen recently gave up a


20-year career in nursing as a specialist cancer nurse, to grow the company and launch a range of beautiful, eye-catching wrought iron curtain poles. So Pippa decided it was time she got involved in the family


firm too and when she suggested her parents might be seriously overlooking the gap in the market for curtain poles for children, they lovingly indulged her whims. “We were having a family


business meeting when Pippa piped up with: ‘Mummy, you don’t make anything for children,’ “ said Helen. “She then left the room for half


and hour and came back with drawings of butterflies, horses and dolphins. “ ‘That’s what children want’”


she told her parents firmly. ‘Put it in your diary.’” Helen says at first she just paid


lip service to the idea but she did put it in the diary and when the diary entry came up a week later, she researched the idea and


18 COTSWOLDESSENCE | September - November 2013 www.cotswoldessence.co.uk


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88