IN BUSINESS
MY LIFE: BABY STEPS INTO BUSINESS Katy Holden juggled parenthood and a growing enterprise making handmade baby accessories when she studied for her degree. WLV Life finds out how she did it – and how the SPEED initiative for new businesses helped her company on its way to success. I’ll always be grateful to the University for giving me a chance. I had to interview for my place on the Education Studies course because I’d left school at 17 and didn’t have any A-levels. I’d been working in the NHS since 2010, when I left school – first as a dental nurse trainee and then as an assistant audiologist at Sandwell and West Birmingham NHS Trust – but I wanted to do something different. Initially I was turned down and was told to complete an access course, but I took a deep breath and asked to speak to the Faculty lead and explained that I couldn’t afford to leave work to do a college course: I needed to come straight into university. Luckily for me, Dr Chris Wakeman saw something in me and said yes. I was ecstatic and knew I had to work hard to show Dr Wakeman that he was right to take a chance. I proved my worth with two 90% grades in my first year. This gave me the confidence and belief to try something new. My daughter Niamh was six months old when I started my degree in September 2016, and to start with it was a breeze. It helped that I really enjoyed the course and that I had such good support at home, with my parents and husband Martin. In July 2017, we were really excited to find out we were expecting our second child. Sadly this wasn’t meant to be and I miscarried five days before starting the first semester of my second year. This was really hard, even more so that life had to resume as normal, with Niamh to look after and my degree studies.
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LIFE MAGAZINE
The idea for Niamhs Neverland – my business that creates handmade accessories for babies and toddlers – came about half way through my second year of studying. I wanted to fill the gap left by my miscarriage: I’m not sure why, but suddenly Niamh and University weren’t enough to fill the time.
SUMMER 2020
