Goodbye Naughties

So 10 years went by, how did that happen?

I saw out the last decade (and the end of the century) stumbling around London in a hedonistic reverie. On Millenium Eve I witnessed the fireworks on the banks of the River Thames and sang Blur's End of A Century along with hundreds of other nameless faces. I walked to Battersea with my fellow Weekend Warriors and saw the Spanish Inquisition, ending up at a Croatian party slumped in a corner until the first trains.....

A lot has changed in 10 years - back then I was 23, living in Gt. Eccleston with mum and dad and escaping to London, Liverpool and Blackpool at the weekends for clubbing fun. I was working at a photgraphy studio, a job I liked but had no future. I'd graduated my fashion degree a few years before but had such a bad time didn't want to work in fashion straight away. So I'd tried PR and learnt a lot but it wasn't for me. After trying and failing to get more creative work in London I'd ended up back home with my tail between my legs, feeling like a failure. I became trapped in the cycle of working to pay debts, getting bored and frustrated and blowing all my money at the weekend. Spending far too much time in the pub and dancing away all my worries.

By the time the Millennium had arrived I knew change was imminent and the year 2000 saw lots of changes. I'd managed to pay off my immediate debts (overdraft and credit card) and bought a house. Back in the days of affordable housing it was actually cheaper to buy a house than rent a flat and I bought 53 Peter Street, Blackpool for £40,000 - a 3 bedroom terraced house - What a bargain! I bought it with the view of renting out one or two rooms but on the day I signed for the house I met Gordon (he trod on my foot in a dodgy Blackpool nightclub) and as they say the rest is history....

I'm not sure whether it was the house or Gordon which managed to put some of my pipe dreams into action. It was so much easier to start sewing and designing again with more room to move and Gordon, a fellow artistic type offered positive encouragement and support. I think my first adventure in retail was in 2001 - I teamed up with a friend and had a little stall at a craft fair. It wasn't very successful but it was a step in the right direction after years of looking for an answer to my predicament.

The problem I kept finding myself with was that I didn't really like work. I just couldn't help feeling like I was wasting my life (and talents) working the 9-5. I went from the Photography Studio to a retail company called Eisenegger, where again I learnt lots of relevant stuff but I absolutely hated the day-to-day. I knew I needed to work for the money to pay the bills and it's not like I hated the job or the people. It was the relentless tedium of doing the same pointless thing one day after another, day in day out.

When my sister called to say she was getting married (in Australia where she lives) I used this as an excuse to shake things up and go stay for a year on a 12 month working holiday visa. It was over there in 2003 that we hit on the idea of working together and Me&Yu was born.

So it's been a decade of a lot of hard work. Living the dream of running your own business and doing means sacrificing a lot. I never get to see the dancefloors I loved so much, the relaxation of an evening in the pub with friends. I don't have the security of a wage, holiday pay and sick pay. But I do get the joy of seeing people in the clothes I make. The thrill of designing a new collection, seeing it all coming together, getting it all set up nicely in the shop and actually selling it.

The goal for the next decade is to get the business to a point where we can have proper wages, employ people to do some of the work and get to enjoy life a bit more. The biggest goal of all is to emigrate - yes we've got our Australian residency granted and we need to put plans into action to make it happen. It's going to take a lot of preparation and we could do with some more money but that's what this year is going to be all about.