BEAUTICIAN BOUNCES BACK
We chose the most scorching weekend of the year to go on a glamping weekend in Wiltshire for my sister-in-law’s 50th birthday.
Social distancing worries meant one of my daughter’s aunties couldn’t join us, even though I helpfully suggested she just hang a bell around her neck to warn us she was nearby.
It was too hot to play any of the vigorous family games birthday girl Jess had organised such as badminton and rounders, so we stuck to more traditional pursuits like lying around in the shade drinking while moaning about the heat.
Along with the usual chuckles, beautiful backyard and pet snaps today, we meet a hard-working beauty therapist, one of the many self-employed small business owners who have received absolutely no help from the Government. The salon owner had been facing imminent ruin… until a guardian angel techie came to her rescue.
It’s also a call to arms that we must all try and grow more unwanted hair to keep our local salons in business, because behind every beauty firm there are mums and kids desperately relying on that income.
Please keep your stories and photos coming to siobhan.mcnally@mirror.co.uk or Community Corner, PO Box 791, Winchester SO23 3RP.
Apparently men’s beards can now be trimmed but not us ladies.
Despite barbers being able to trim facial hair, the hard-hit female beauty industry is still being denied access to their clients’ faces when it was announced last month that facial treatments would not resume from August 1 after all.
This discrimination of an industry that already employs the highest hygiene standards has been taken up in Parliament by Conservative MP Caroline
Nokes, who criticised the Government a few weeks ago saying its lockdowneasing policies have been “designed by men, for men”.
“What we have seen is female-led businesses left to the back of the pile,” she said. “We’re preventing our women entrepreneurs from getting back to work.”
One of those women is 40-year-old mum Amy Baker, a self-employed beauty and holistic therapist, whose mobile business treating care-home residents around in Wisbech, Cambs, has been left in tatters.
Forced to shield while looking after her disabled husband Malcolm, 46, and her two children Toby, seven, and six-year-old Lily during lockdown, Amy couldn’t afford to pay her salon rent or internet fees and GoDaddy shut her website down.
She said: “I launched my business Halo Beauty & Holistic Therapy early last year and had amazingly made a profit for the first time this February.
“Then Covid-19 came and there was no way I could cope with the hit the beauty industry took. And I received absolutely no aid from the Government other than Universal Credit.”
But help did come from an unexpected help for her business. Below, the Chaos Internet team
source after Amy signed up to a new small business organisation called The Great British Bounce Back which got her story in the local press.
Owner of local web design company, Chaos Internet, Iain Kirkbright, read about Amy’s plight and stepped in to help.
Iain and his team have now created a new website for Amy free of charge at halo4beauty.co.uk so she can now get her business back up and running.
Good Samaritan Iain says: “When I read Amy’s story it resonated with me personally and I reached out to see if we could offer some local, friendly help and assistance.”
Hugely grateful to the techie team, Amy says: “I am so thankful to Chaos Internet for their help in restoring my online presence. My new website will help me win back customers and bring in new ones as I fight to keep my business alive.”
It’s a happy ending so far for Amy after her guardian angel stepped to save her, but I’d love to hear stories from other small firms who’ve also been given a surprise helping hand.
Email me siobhan.mcnally@mirror.co.uk.