This story is a long one and at times it goes into some very difficult and painful details about my life. To understand the person I am today and why I set up Born 2 Run Pet Care I have to explain about all the difficult details of my past. Hope you're sitting comfortably!
The other subject I hated was business studies. We used to look at how to set up your own groomers/kennels/cattery businesses and how to work your accounts and the law surrounding it. Now all I remember about about those lessons is doodling on my writing pad and waiting for the lesson to finish! At 16 - 18 years old I had no interest in running my own business and I thought the lessons were pointless. The idea of having the responsibility of running a business with all the paper work involved just filled me with dread!
So I left college aimless with no real job prospects as I still had no idea in what direction to go. I had no interest in the veterinary side of things, where as a lot of my friends went into practices to train as veterinary nurses. University wasn't an option as there was nothing I wanted to study at the time. Plus coming from a working class background it was harder to me to be able to afford uni. There was no point in getting into debt for something I wasn't sure about!
For work experience at college I'd gone to a rescue kennels then to an inner city community farm in Newcastle. I loved the farm, especially educating the kids about where their burgers came from! It amazed me that so many city kids had no idea where meat came from and most looked a bit ill after I'd told them it was from the cow they had just been stroking! Unfortunately the farm was closed down at the height of the foot and mouth epidemic in 2002.
I'd had a part time job in a pub since I was 16 waitressing and then on the bar once I was 18, but that ended when the pub was taken over. I had several more bar jobs but that also dried up and I found myself unemployed. It was awful. I went and signed onto the dole which was just the most depressing time. I applied for lots of kennel jobs but since I didn't drive then it was difficult to find work. After being unemployed for about 9 months I finally got a job in a local vets in the December of 2002. It wasn't really what I wanted to do but I was getting desperate and at least it was a job with animals.
I lasted there 5 months. It was hell. The pay was dreadful (about £3.20/hour, this was back in 2002/2003), the vet who owned the practice was a dragon and the other management weren't any better. It was 10 hour shifts and after a few weeks they put me on nights and weekends. Now bare in mind that I wasn't experienced as a nursing auxiliary, yet I was working nights with patients on drips an needing medication. There was one night I had a large greyhound in with parvo virus and he was very ill. He kept producing awful hemorrhagic diarrhea and he was so large and off his feet that I could barely move him to clean him up. Weekend work started at 1pm on a Saturday and you were in the building until about 1pm Monday. You went home and had to start back at 8.30am the next day.
The work depressed me, the hours depressed me and the money didn't stretch very far! I found another job at an agricultural and horticultural place near by. It was only part time but I could do full time hours when it was busy, and the pay was slightly better at £3.90/hour! My job was working in the green houses planting and harvesting, working in the fields also planting and harvesting and occasionally working in the shop selling fruit, veg and plants. It was a very physical job and when I started it in the May of 2003 the weather was lovely. All summer I worked outdoors in the field and in the greenhouse. There was no weekend work and I was much happier. When the winter arrived we were still working in the fields harvesting broccoli, cauliflower, sprouts and turnips. It was bitterly cold and we worked in ice, snow and rain. It was the fittest I'd ever been and I started to have a very weathered look about me, and I was only 20!
After that I went to work at Beamish Museum. If you've never heard of Beamish Museum, it's a living, working museum depicting life in the North East in the years 1825 and 1913. (http://www.beamish.org.uk/) As you would imagine there were a lot of mining areas in the North East at that time and a lot of the museum revolved around that. I worked in the 'Pit Village' where there was a mine, a row of original mining cottages that had been moved from Hetton Le Hole (I think...!) and rebuilt at Beamish, a Methodist church and a school. All the buildings had existed elsewhere and were moved to the museum. I loved the job. I got to dress up in period costume, bake bread in the coal ovens and talk all day to visitors! I used to talk to the kids in the school house and tell them about 1913 school days and how if they misbehaved they would get the cane!
It was the most relaxed and fun job I've ever had. All the people were great, the visitors loved to smell real bread cooking and see all the real fires and I got to talk all day, which is a strong point of mine! Unfortunately Beamish was a seasonal job and come the October I was unemployed again. I survived over the winter having to sign on again (awful!) and when spring arrived I went back to Beamish. This time round I had more responsibility. I had the keys to open up the 'village' on a morning and was in charge of the other staff when the supervisor and deputy were off. I still loved it and almost made a career out of it. When October arrived that year (2005) I was offered a winter contract, where I would stay on and work as an education officer, taking groups of children and teaching them all about local history. The only problem was that the hours weren't guaranteed and the money wouldn't be regular. I had started driving lessons at this point to needed regular money to keep them up. I also had an interview at the PDSA veterinary hospital so declined the offer.
I got the job at PDSA as an auxiliary nurse and started in the January of 2006. Again veterinary work wasn't what I wanted to do but I was missing working with animals. If it didn't work out I knew Beamish would have me back, as I kept getting phone calls from them asking me to reconsider!
PDSA offered to train me up as a Veterinary Care Assistant (VCA) which was a position with more responsibility. I would be monitoring anaesthetics and helping with radiology. I actually enjoyed the job and made some great friends there. There was weekend work, it was 1 weekend in 8 plus one bank holiday working a year. The pay was great and I thought I was set for life.
A year and a half in and I was in the middle of my studies. Myself and the other student VCA, Becki, had to cover a lot of night shifts as the night staff were short of a staff member, and my mam was very ill in hospital. This was where it all started to unravel. My mam had been on kidney dialysis since 2001 and was often ill. She also had osteoporosis and would easily break a bone if she fell. The summer and into winter of 2007 was hell. My mam was in hospital after falling down the stairs and breaking her collar bone. She also had fluid on the lungs which needed a drain in her chest and she caught MRSA. I would visit her everyday after work, I was covering night shifts, day shifts, more weekends and I was trying to complete exams and course work. I was under a lot of stress and it began to take it's toll at work. I was more moody and easily upset and one day I snapped at the head nurse after she said something to upset me. I went off into the training room to work and she followed me in. She then said "I know your mam is ill and you have a lot on but don't bring it to work. You have to respect me as I'm the head nurse" There was a lot more to the conversation but she basically said get over it, respect me or else and make this job your life. I don't know about anyone else but I believe respect is earned, not expected.
I was so upset. I left work in tears and went to the hospital to visit my mam. I didn't want her to know I was upset so I sat in the car for ten minutes putting make-up on to cover the red, blotchy skin and teary eyes. I rang my sister and told her the story and she was furious! My mam knew there was something up but I said I was fine.
After that I had no respect at all for the head nurse. She was brilliant at paper work but absolutely terrible at people management. I did my work and offered nothing extra to the job. My mam came out of hospital but in the October fell over and broke her hip. This time was worse as she needed an op on her hip. For two months she was in a hospital bed unable to walk and getting weaker. My work suffered a bit and I did try to keep it together, but some days I would just sit in the toilets and cry at how ill my mam was. The head nurse wasn't really that sympathetic but I had some great friends who supported me.
On the 10th December 2007, I had the day off work as I was supposed to be going to a Kaiser Chiefs gig that night. I was Christmas shopping when I got a call from my sister to say the hospital had called, my mam was gravely ill and we should all attend the hospital. We got there around 11am. My mam was unconscious and was suffering from a terrible chest infection. We all sat around her bed all day. Sometimes she would open her eyes and look at us, but would then close them again. The doctors told us it didn't look good and we should expect the worse. I rang work to say that I may have to take the next day off if she was still in this condition but was told I would either have to use a holiday or call in sick. I wasn't allowed a compassionate day.
We all left the hospital around 9pm. There was no change in my mams condition and we were all tired. I'd only been in the house 15 minutes and was about to call Graeme for a chat (we'd only just got together the previous Friday) when I saw my heavily pregnant sister Tania coming up the stairs with a look on her face that I shall never forget. In that instant I knew what had happened and I pleaded with her not to tell me, but she did. My mam had died 10 minutes after we left her. I was in bits. We all were. My dad was sat down stairs looking numb. He and my mam had been married 45 years.
The pain was unbelievable. The next morning I rang work and got my friend Vicky on the phone. I simply said, "my mam died last night, can you tell Marion (the head nurse) I won't be in". Vicky started crying and told my other friend Becki who was with her what had happened, and I heard Becki getting upset.
After that it was an awful and painful run up to Christmas. The day before the funeral I went into work to take the secret santa gift in. Marion called me into the office and basically wanted a definite date when I was coming back to work. I was numb and a bit of a zombie so I was pushed into coming back on the 28th December. That was a mistake. For all of January I was a zombie, I didn't feel the emotions I should and people couldn't believe how well I was coping, only I wasn't coping at all. It all came to a head when my birthday arrived at the end of January. I received a card from my dad, and just seeing his print saying 'Love Dad' instead of my mam's beautiful handwriting saying 'love from mam and dad', broke me. For two weeks after that I barely held it together. On valentines day I was stood alone in the prep room cleaning instruments and crying my eyes out when a nurse called Kate walked in and found me in tears. She asked if I'd had an argument with Graeme or something but all I could say was "mam". I crumpled into her arms and sobbed my heart out. Kate had lost her mam some years earlier so knew how I felt. She said "I thought you were handling it too well, I did wonder if you were ok".
That night I drank a lot of brandy and cried all night. I was convinced to go to the doctors by my sister, Tania.
They signed me off on the sick and set up some sessions with a councilor. I had a two week sick note that I sent to the head nurse. When she received it she rang me and said "You'll be back after these two weeks won't you, you won't be off after that?" I was flabbergasted. Here I was in emotional turmoil having to see a bereavement councilor and all she cared about was when I was coming back to work. Marion was a woman for whom work was her life and she believed everyone should share that view. Whatever was going on in your life, she believed you left it behind when you came to work and work came first. I did not share that view and believed my family came first. I also wasn't that strong.
I was off for 6 weeks and had decided that I couldn't stand working there any longer. I was suffering from insomnia and depression and felt I was no longer in control. I was spending a lot of time in Barnard Castle with Graeme and he had asked me to move in. I tried looking for animal related work in Barnard Castle but there was nothing going. So I was stuck in a job I no longer liked with a manager I had no respect for and who had no sympathy for my situation. The insomnia had me doubting that I could monitor anaesthetics properly and I worried about the mistakes I could make. The job was changing so much and they now wanted the VCA's to work all the weekends and bank holiday as well as covering more nights. I basically became a cleaner and that's not what I signed up for.
I started speaking up in meetings when I thought things weren't being done fairly and I fell out with a night time member of staff when I saw her getting away with all sorts. Marion didn't know how to handle me, I was outspoken and spoke up when others wouldn't. I was becoming a more confident and capable person and Marion didn't like it. I was at PDSA another 2 years after that, making waves and challenging anything I thought was unfair.
The Christmas of 2009 was when Greame and I started talking about the prospect of setting up my own dog walking business. It would solve all my problems. I would get out of PDSA, I would move in with Graeme and have independence but I wasn't entirely sure I could do it. I had no idea where to start and there was already a well established Pet Care business in Barnard Castle. I was however, desperate to get out of PDSA before the new working hours came into force for the VCA's (working 12 hour shifts on weekends and bank holidays, including Christmas day. I didn't fancy working 8am to 8pm on a Christmas day in a building by myself!). So Graeme started the ball rolling in the January. He bought me some web space and built me a website (http://www.born2run-pet-care.com/). He got me on Google and on to free ads websites as well as Yell.com. All of these things I had no idea about! I started market research (well, sort of!) checking out other dog walking businesses all over the country to see what services and prices they had. I asked people I knew what they would be willing to pay for a dog walker and started putting a price list together. I felt I was qualified to be a dog walker as I had had dogs all my life, had 4 years experience as a Veterinary Care Assistant and was almost finished doing a distance learning diploma in Canine Science.
It was no secret at PDSA that I was unhappy and wanted to leave. I didn't hide it and was very open about my job hunting, but when I handed my notice in the head nurse Marion said she was surprised!! She said despite everything I was a great member of staff and excelled when given a challenge so she knew I would do well. She also said she wished we had gotten on better. At that point I could have rattled off a list of reasons why we didn't get on, but I was gracious and just agreed with her. I don't think Marion was a bad person, she just couldn't cope with the staff she had (I wasn't the only one who had run-ins with her!) and she definitely couldn't cope with me and the problems I went through. People management wasn't her strong point. She was in her 60's and I think the very young majority of nurses were a different breed to her.
I worked my months notice and left PDSA on Friday 5th March 2010. I was sad to be leaving all the great friends I'd made, and I was quite scared of going from a decent salary to a very unpredictable way of making money but I knew it was the right decision and luckily Graeme's wage would support us both. I started trading on Monday 8th March 2010 and since then the business has grown at a nice pace. I'm still not making any real money as most of it gets ploughed straight back into the business in the form of advertising and petrol costs, but I'm only 15 months in so there's still time for growth.
Hopefully I will start training with the dog training club soon to become a trainer myself, so I will be able to apply that to the business.
So if it hadn't been for everything I'd been through in the last 4 years I wouldn't be the person I am now. I would not have been confident or strong enough to set up on my own and go down the path I am now on. They say what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger, and I am definitely stronger now than I've ever been! I still occasionally have very bad days where I think I've gone very wrong on my path, and wish I was still earning a decent salary every month, but then I look at what I've got now, what I'm achieving and the possibilities of what I can achieve in the future and I know I'm on the right path after all. Losing my mam at the age of 24 was heart breaking and the aftermath almost broke me. Moving out was a difficult decision but I knew it would make me happy. My dad is left living on his own but most of the family lives in the same village and I visit as often as I can. It used to be once a week but now I'm quite busy it's not so often. Being an hours drive away means I can't just pop in for a coffee!
Hopefully the business will continue to grow and one day I'll be the dog trainer and canine behaviourist that I know I can be! I just wish my mam was here to see me now.
R.I.P Margaret Wilson,
20th July 1942 - 10th December 2007
Wife to William, loving mother to Verity, Jeffery, Gordon, Andrea, Tania, Kimberley and Tamara
Missed by all xxx
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