She talks about her Hollywood dreams, the techniques of a Russian acting teacher and her love of art and music events. I sit in the HQ doing the production stuff whilst my talented teams of therapists provide an energetic ten-minute massage service at indoor and outdoor events across the country, with a manicure service now a bit of a hit too.
Trade and consumer shows, along with music festivals, are our biggest markets. My first job was working as a junior assistant at Phonogram Records, assisting on Band Aid, rejecting demo tapes and generally making tea.
I was 16 and itching to get into the West End and work in the music business. I quickly learned to type, got a long contract through a media temp agency and took a year out before sixth form. I was thrown into a sophisticated adult world and trusted to get on and deal with it: you worked till midnight, things had to happen yesterday, and you needed to satisfy the inscrutable pleasure of mad, irascible people, often at the other end of a telex machine across the Atlantic.
It was incredible being trusted to help Band Aid. Bob Geldof ran much of this campaign from our office. For me, it was about calling and persuading numerous people to give us everything for free that we needed to make the Band Aid record both manifest and be a success. I loved acting and had wanted to go straight to drama school at 18, but due to the regulations of the discretionary grant system I actually went back to the music business for a couple of years. Once at drama school I still worked in a wide variety of flexible part-time jobs, from a spell watching tumbleweed in the BBC radio newsgathering department, to running club nights and selling Bodymap samples in Camden Market.
In I completed an MA in theatre directing, and also emerged from it with the realisation that though all the publishing work was fun and educational, I wanted proper funds to blow on fringe theatre. I needed to finally take charge of my earning capacity to improve my productions. I got physical, training for a year in holistic massage which I had become fascinated by.
