I grew up with my family telling me: “You’ve always got your head in a book.” They were right. I consumed everything from encyclopedias and the Famous Five to comics, Sherlock Holmes and Shakespeare.

At some point I got hold of a battered portable typewriter in lovely baby blue. I even had a small printing press for a while. Reading, writing and a bit of acting were ways to escape from the ordinary into new worlds.

It carried on into adulthood. Although my first job was in admin, I was soon writing articles for the staff magazine. My acting talent turned into a flair for training: I created training sessions wherever I saw a need. Luckily, my ability was spotted, and I made a move into employee communications and training full time.

Fast forward to the year 2000, when I moved back to the Cambridgeshire Fens after a decade living and working in London. I wanted to branch out into marketing, so I set myself up as a freelance copywriter.

Back then nobody used the term ‘content marketing’ but that’s how I established my business. Through a mix of email newsletters, a website with a strong content hub, free pdf resources, public speaking and networking, I soon built a thriving copywriting practice.

I quickly got on board with some great customers, some small and local, and some big and global. With exposure to many different sectors, organisations and campaigns, I learnt fast and learnt a lot.

Always a big believer in professional development, I threw myself into studying for Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) qualifications and worked my way up to postgraduate level.

A life-changing moment came when I got involved with the local CIM committee and volunteered to run a copywriting workshop at a local branch event. The event sold out and I received an excellent response.

It was now obvious that I should offer training as well as copywriting. Since then I have delivered workshops and courses across the country, to 30+ CIM branches and the likes of Virgin, Thomas Cook, BGL Group, the Press Association and several UK universities.

In 2005 I joined with three partners to form Marketing Ability, a CIM accredited study centre running courses across East Anglia. I helped to create and deliver marketing courses at all levels of CIM qualification, which consistently achieved above average pass rates.

It was great to help so many marketers gain their qualifications. It’s also been rewarding to see them go on to build their careers, often in leadership roles with some of the world’s biggest brands.

While this was going on I maintained my own writing and training work at Peterborough Copywriting Bureau. The breadth of sectors I worked in grew, including engineering, business consultancy, publishing, construction and property.

Marketing Ability came to an end in 2014 but education remained a passion. That’s why I put so much energy into developing my own training offering, including with the launch of a distance learning copywritng course.

Copywriting remained my day-to-day focus, including spending time working in-house on a retainer basis with a local client. This gave me a great opportunity to work as part of a marketing team, which is not always possible as a freelancer.

My mix of clients grew to include travel, consumer gifts, fitness, aviation and recruitment. Another feature of these years was writing lots of thought leadership content, writing white papers and ‘how to’ guides to grow my clients’ visibility and credibility.

The Covid-19 pandemic certainly threw up its challenges! Thankfully I was able to be flexible and support clients in whatever ways they required to adapt to the new situation. I also took time out to develop a new process for auditing copy and content, which was very well received, and new materials for my copywriting training courses.

The past couple of years have also thrown up great opportunities for me to hone my skills in two areas: SEO copywriting and writing editorial for a local lifestyle magazine.

So that’s enough about me: what’s your story? Get in touch if you want to talk about your requirements and I’ll give you an honest assessment of whether I can write what you need, or help to develop colleagues’ writing skills within your business.