PARTNERS AND SPOUSES IN BUSINESS
‘SEW FUN IN CYPRUS’ Business success for talented RAF spouse
The University of Wolverhampton has seen its Armed Forces Dependants Business Start-Up Programme “Supporting the Unsung Hero” go from strength to strength since it was first launched in 2013. After receiving such high demand for places in its first year the course has now secured additional funding for up to four years to deliver further cohorts across the UK and in overseas bases such as MoD Cyprus and Germany.
A
manda Jane Blake is one RAF spouse who has completed the business programme in Cyprus and
is now part of a group of more than two hundred service spouses’ who have started a business with help from the ‘Supporting the Unsung Hero’ programme.
As an exceptionally, talented textile designer with more than twenty years
experience in the industry Amanda’s recent business success is the pinnacle of a long journey to self-employment but one not without its challenges.
Amanda knew from school age that she wanted to pursue a career in arts and crafts. After completing a course in textile design at the University of Hartlepool she became a freelance textile designer. As a newly established textile designer Amanda set to open her own shop selling soft furnishings. The shop became popular but did not
yield the revenue to sustain the business long term and as a new mum Amanda decided to change her career and enrol on a PGCE teacher training course.
“I loved teaching but I became severely ill with glandular fever half way through my course which left me with ‘chronic fatigue syndrome’ and I was diagnosed with ME. My little boy was now three and with my condition I felt I had no choice but to abandon my PGCE and take a step back,” said Amanda.
Still determined to find her vocation and after learning to live with her condition Amanda started to work in her brother’s bead shop producing her own textile designs again from a work space above the shop.
“We had two rooms above the shop which I took over and made one into my craft space and the other a local gallery for artists. I jokingly coined the gallery name ‘sew fun in the attic’ which is the inspiration behind my current business name. I wanted to expand the business as we had so many ideas but my life changed again for the better when I met my husband in 2011. I had no idea at the time what life in the RAF was like or what it would bring but it felt right and my husband and I spent just a few months together before we got married and moved as a family to RAF Odiham. We didn’t have long to settle in before he was deployed to Afghanistan so I spent my time making sure my children were happy and put my career on hold for a while.”
“My husband and I share a passion for history when he returned from Afghanistan we started to attend events delivering historical re-enactments across the UK. I started to make authentic costume replicas which were designed with such detail I was almost too scared to cut the material.”
26 Envoy Summer 2015
www.raf-ff.org.uk
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