At the movies...
Diane Hare, chats about her award winning Toatie Tablet and her fave flick
DIANE’S MUM taught her how to make her traditional tablet when she was 10 or 11. By the time she was 18 she was making tablet for all her friends on a fairly regular basis. So, 9 years ago she made it a business and set up her Toatie Tablet Facebook page while remaining in her part-time job in a local school.
She makes bars and bags of bite-size tablet shapes, wedding favours and seasonal ranges (tablet Advent Calendar anyone?) as well as supplying a restaurant in North Berwick and a gift shop in Musselburgh and taking stalls at craft fairs in the run up to Christmas.
Diane said: “I love the personal relationships I have with my customers who send me pictures of the weddings I have made favours for and things like that.”
Most of her business comes by word of mouth and she has many repeat customers.
She is carefully considering making the big leap into full time tablet making.
Choosing her favourite film wasn’t easy for Diane but she plumped for what is perhaps a favourite for many people: The Shawshank Redemption, based on a Stephen King novella about a man sentenced (spoiler alert) unjustly for the murder of his wife and her lover. The film documents his survival strategies and ultimate revenge on the system as well as his friendship with what we might call an institutionalised inmate serving life for murder.
Although she is a big fan of romance movies, she picked The Shawshank Redemption because of it’s ultimately uplifting story and the message of the importance of having a vision and hope in what might seem a hopeless situation.
Diane said: “Obviously there are many dark moments in the film but I loved that everything works out for Andy, thanks to his own determination and planning. That’s a good lesson for life, not just self employment,”
She is very proud that she has made a successful business from a simple recipe, handed down to her from her mum who is sadly now in the early stages of dementia and increasingly rings Diane to ask her for the tablet recipe, but at the same time Diane is happy that she honours her Mum in the making of Toatie Tablet.
Fascinating film fact: the actor originally in the frame for Andy Dufresne, the part played by Tim Robbins, was Tom Cruise and Red (Morgan Freeman) was to be portrayed by Harrison Ford. What a very different film that would have been.