Thanks to social media, we can access our past lives in one simple scroll. Flicking back through the years, I can see myself in New York, front row at Victoria Beckham’s fashion show opposite the Beckham clan – David, Brooklyn, Romeo, Cruz and a three-year-old Harper sitting next to Anna Wintour.
Scroll further and I spot selfies with Sex and the City’s Sarah Jessica Parker at New York’s hip Cafe Clover and model Kendall Jenner backstage at Alexander Wang’s show.
There’s a candid shot with Italian designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana in Milan, another of me wearing a Stella McCartney mini on a chilly looking red carpet in Paris.
You see, from the Noughties through to 2020, I worked as a fashion editor and celebrity interviewer, spending my weeks criss-crossing the globe in business class, living The Devil Wears Prada fantasy . . . or nightmare depending on your viewpoint. Life was all Louboutin heels and fashion shoots, luxury suites in Tokyo and terrifying voicemails from my editor. It was everything I’d ever dreamt of.
Fast forward to a rainy February afternoon in 2026 and here I am at Southall Community College in an area in west London rich in cultural diversity but with the lowest average income of the capital.
As a 42-year-old mother-of-two I’m bent over a return corner, perfecting my ‘perps’ – a perpend or cross joint – or in layman’s terms, cleaning up the mortar between the bricks of a wall I’ve just built.
My inch-long manicure is protected by a pair of yellow Marigolds, which clash with the neon of my high vis, and I’ve swapped my Louboutins for steel-capped boots. I could not be less front-row ready.
So how – and why – did I make this unlikely pivot?
From the Noughties through to 2020, I worked as a fashion editor and celebrity interviewer, spending my weeks criss-crossing the globe in business class
As a 42-year-old mother-of-two, I’m cleaning up the mortar between the bricks of a wall I’ve just built
As a teenager growing up in London’s southeast suburbs, I had ambitions to live a big, glamourous life. My parents had been raised in council houses in Kent, leaving school at 16 to work in admin jobs. In the mid-Eighties they split up.
Things weren’t always easy but my mum made me believe I could be whatever I wanted, no matter what my background. And very quickly I decided that was to be the editor of Vogue magazine.
After gaining scholarships and grants to attend a private school, I got my MA (Hons) at Edinburgh University and went on to complete a master’s degree at the London College of Fashion.
For the next 15 years, I climbed the ladder in the world of magazines at Sunday Times Style, Glamour and, finally, became senior fashion editor at Grazia.
In my early 30s, I left magazines to work as a freelance writer and started collaborating with brands on social media, becoming an early ‘crossover’ influencer.
Over the years, I’ve worked on hundreds of partnerships with some of Britain’s top High Street names, including M&S, Liberty, Hobbs and Jigsaw, and created my own fashion collection with Dutch designer brand Baukjen.
Scroll forward one husband and two children and life became much more domestic. The turning point came when I decided to decorate the home we were renting from top to bottom (painting, building cabinets, wallpapering, tiling and a whole lot of repairs).
During my childhood, I’d learnt skills from my grandparents, so I was handy with a drill. But over the next five years of renting, home improvement was all I thought of day and night.
Then last year we bought one of those rentals – a tired and battered Victorian home in west London and I found myself dreaming, not of the glamour of the catwalks, but of project-managing the repair and renovation of our home.
When I first told my husband I had applied for a year-long, full-time course in construction he laughed out loud – not because he didn’t think I could do it, but because it sounded so unlikely.
I climbed the ladder in the world of magazines at Sunday Times Style, Glamour and, finally, became senior fashion editor at Grazia (pictured with model Cara Delevingne)
I’ve worked on hundreds of partnerships with some of Britain’s top High Street names and created my own fashion collection with Dutch designer brand Baukjen (pictured with actress and businesswoman Jessica Alba)
But he’s used to seeing me up a ladder wielding power tools and knows I’m a dog with a bone when I set my mind to something, so he immediately got behind me.
Some friends, especially in the fashion industry, said my pivot sounded like their personal hell. ‘It’s so amazing you’re doing this but it would be my nightmare!’
While I get it – there’s no denying it’s a very different pace to fashion – I think they’d be surprised at how creative it is. If you like stitching or knitting, you’d love electrical work. If you like pattern cutting, you’d probably like carpentry. Either way, everyone has been encouraging, while telling me I’m bonkers.
At first, I was worried I was going to fall flat on my face. I had no idea what building work entailed and very little clue if I’d even like it.
On the first day at college last September, I was overwhelmed with nerves. Sitting in a classroom with more than 100 lads aged 16-18, several of whom were trying to vape secretly, was a new experience.
But over the months, I’ve got to know them and the jitters have subsided, especially as most of my three days at college each week are spent doing practical lessons, although there’s also plenty of health and safety paperwork.
If someone had told me ten years ago that I’d be spending my early 40s learning to lay bricks, I’d have spat out my champagne. However, contrary to any logic, I’m now more than halfway through my Construction Multi-Skills Diploma.
Over the past six months, I’ve learnt to bend copper piping for plumbing, connected radial and ring circuits in electrics, mastered several joins in woodwork, gained rudimentary hard wall plastering skills, perfected my cutting-in painting techniques and become the most prolific apprentice brickie on the yard. And I’ve taken to it like a fish to water.
I still get to drop off and pick up the kids every day, but there are lots of double shifts to make it work. After my boys go to bed, I open the laptop and start writing.
As a freelance journalist and columnist, I write a successful Substack newsletter every week, as well as being a ghostwriter with 14 books under my belt. This means working until around midnight most evenings to fit it all in.
If someone had told me ten years ago that I’d be spending my early 40s learning to lay bricks, I’d have spat out my champagne
Construction jobs can be well paid, offer a lot of space for growth and independence as well as the chance to travel the world with your skills
Sure, I work long hours, but I’m very proud to have stripped, restored and repainted my front door by myself.
Right now I’m building a bin store from scratch with my carpentry – and that will save me hundreds, if not thousands, of pounds.
I’m passionate that more women should join the construction force. These jobs can be well paid, offer a lot of space for growth and independence as well as the chance to travel the world with your skills. My biggest takeaway is that the trades aren’t what they’re perceived to be.
They aren’t jobs that only men can do. Lots of them aren’t messy. In fact, many of them are indoor professions that don’t require you to carry huge weight and they can be artistic, meditative and tangible. There is nothing like looking at a brick wall you’ve crafted, it’s such a high.
Every bricklayer has their own way of laying and you can see their flair in the finish of the work.
When the chimneys at Hampton Court Palace were recently rebuilt, each of the shafts were restored by individual bricklayers – including brick conservator Emma Simpson – because of the quirks in the way each person builds. It always has been an art.
Scores of people have asked me why I would want to do work like this when, as a middle-class professional, I don’t have to. This I believe reflects class prejudice.
But the world has changed. Brickies might traditionally be seen as working class, but their salary, which can be upwards of £100,000 a year if they run their own business, is well above the average earnings of an office-based employee.
And as AI muscles its way into every industry, construction is looking increasingly attractive.
While technology will doubtless impact the business, for now the skilled trades are considered one of the best long-term bets against AI-automation.
Does that mean I’m going to stop writing? No. But I can see a time when the bots kill off my wordsmithery, so I’d love to explore opportunities in construction.
I also believe there’s plenty of space for a female-led design and build company, especially as more and more women live alone.
One of my friends is currently renovating and her builder will only speak to her husband, even though she’s the one funding the work. Another tells me of builders who disappear for days without any communication. With my soft skills, I’d do things differently.
But perhaps the greatest aspect of this new venture is the lesson I’m giving my children. I want my boys to know their mum can do everything, including building their home. I want to teach them to wire lights in, change taps and to know the value of these jobs.
That, in my opinion, will set them up for the future. And I’m not sure there is a better riposte to the manosphere than having a mum who gained two degrees, wrote bestselling books and learnt to lay bricks – all the while wearing 5in Louboutin stilettos.
