Celebrity florist Kally Ellis

KALLY ELLIS, 54, launched McQueen’s florist, now a £5 million business with designs in luxury hotels, including Claridge’s. she lives in London with her husband and has a son, Freddie, 23, and daughter, sophie, 21.

BACK in 1991, my life was at a crossroads. I’d just lost my best friend, Sophie, in the Lockerbie air crash and had broken up with my long-term boyfriend, Damian.

After Sophie’s funeral, I visited her mother in Paris. I went to buy her a bunch of tulips and watched mesmerised as the assistant spent 20 minutes making a beautiful bouquet.

Later I had a vivid dream of running a flower shop on my own and making that bouquet. I woke up the happiest I’d been for a very long time.

I was working in marketing for a French bank and it was at the height of the recession when I asked my boss if I could be made redundant.

My parents were incredulous, but within months, I was running my own florists.

For the next three months I offered my services free to any florist or garden centre. With my small redundancy pay-off plus the profit from the flat I’d shared with my boyfriend, I bought a tiny, run-down florist.

This was long before the East End was cool. I must have been crazy — my banking friends all told me flowers were a luxury in a recession. But I had to follow my dream.

On my first day of trading, London’s first red route went down outside the shop. No one could park.

In a way, that shaped the business — our focus became events and contracts. And the business snowballed.

And yes, I got back together with Damian. When a mutual friend asked if I minded if she asked him out, I realised he was the man I wanted to be the father of my children. And luckily he forgave me!

My daughter is named Sophie after my best friend.

I think everyone has a light bulb moment. It’s just a question of whether you recognise it and are brave enough to act on it.