MY NEIGHBOURHOOD
WHEN CAMILLA WESTERGAARD RETURNED TO LIVE IN THE CITY WHERE SHE GREW UP, SHE FOUND ITS MIX OF URBAN LIVELINESS AND OPEN SPACES THE IDEAL PLACE TO RAISE HER OWN FAMILY
“MY MOTHER STILL LIVES HERE. I CAN SEE HER BACK DOOR FROM MY KITCHEN WINDOW”
Returning to live where you grew up is something many of us consider, especially if the intervening years were spent living in London. As property prices grow out of reach, and children are born, the home town we once escaped from starts to become ever more attractive.
Camilla Westergaard grew up in Sheffield but, after university, work drew her to London. She loved city life, but raising children in Hackney became less appealing as time went on. “I loved that when the children were studying dinosaurs, we could go to the Natural History Museum,” she says, “but we always knew we wanted our children to grow up with a slower pace of life.”
So Camilla went back home to Sheffield and, with her husband Brendon and their three children (Kaspar, now 16, Anouk, 12, and Pia Rose, 8) in tow, moved into a rental property within sight of her childhood home. “My mother still lives there,” Camilla says. “I can see her back door from my kitchen window.”
Moving back to Sheffield was a decision she never regretted: the city has delivered in spades. There’s its proximity to the Peak District, for starters – a walk through the city’s parks takes the family there in under an hour. “Nothing pleases me as much as walking in the country with the children,” she says. “Life can be stressful, and it’s important to do things that make you happy.”
Camilla, who at the time was running her business, Butterscotch & Beesting, selling her own cushions and lampshades, also quickly discovered
like-minded people. Soon she was part of a supportive and creative community of artists and makers. One of these was James Boardwell who runs Folksy, a marketplace and online community for craftspeople, where Camilla sold her work. After bumping into her in the street and discussing the challenges facing designer-makers, James suggested she organise a Folksy Summer School, which she did with great success, and which led to her current job as lead content creator for Folksy.
Her love of craft – perhaps inherited from her Danish mother Hanne Westergaard, a well regarded ceramicist – can be seen throughout the home she shares with her family, four rescue cats (Claude, Tabitha, Mahi and Ottoline) and Herb, an African pygmy hedgehog. Although the house – a substantial stone terrace yards from the Botanical Gardens – is rented, its landlord turned a blind eye to Camilla’s home improvements. “It had been a student house and had sticky carpets and magnolia walls,” she says. “We stripped out the carpet, painted the floors white, and made it our own.”
‘Making it their own’ also meant displaying work by ceramicists, printmakers and textile designers, many of whom are friends. “I like having things around me by people I know,” she says. These people also include family members: as well as Camilla’s own cushions and lampshades, there are several pieces by her mum on shelves in the living room, and the sketch of an owl on a bedroom wall was drawn by Anouk. “The children are all pretty crafty, too,” says Camilla. “They love making things. Pia is really into origami at the moment.”
With the children’s schools within walking distance, the Peaks near enough for Brendon to indulge his love of running, and Camilla’s mother at the bottom of the garden, it looks like this family isn’t going anywhere any time soon.