In last week’s blog (where I wrote about the irresistible and important reasons for us all to shop small, local and independent) I quoted the passionate and inspirational Holly Tucker, founder of Not On The High Street, who I had been lucky enough to chat to for a project I was working on.

Well, this is the project

The Women of the Year special souvenir magazine

It’s the special souvenir magazine that has been sent to all the remarkable, brilliant, bold and uniformly inspiring women who were our nominated and chosen guests at this year’s Women of the Year virtual tea.

It was such a joy creating the mag, working with its brilliant designer Paul Rea, and interviewing the extraordinary women whose stories are featured in it, that I wanted to share some of their remarkable achievements and words with you all.

Women like Michelle Southern, who founded a charity called Street Paws to provide free vet care and kennel provision for the pets (mostly dogs) of homeless people. She began in 2016 with just herself, a vet and a nurse out on the streets of her home town of Newcastle, and now, over four years on, there are 450 vet volunteers working in 23 locations around the NE and NW of England and in Belfast and Cardiff.

Michelle Southern, founder of Street Paws

Michelle said to me “Knowing that you can support somebody who’s lost everything and is frantically trying to keep hold of their pet and keep them well, because it means so much to them, is everything to me. Seeing how the owners almost always take better care of their dogs than they do of themselves is so moving. I’ve witnessed countless times when a homeless person has fed their dog before they feed themselves.”

Then there was Lucy Hughes, who decided to spend the final year of her design degree working on a project to tackle plastic waste. What she ended up doing was inventing a material - which she has called MarinaTex - that could prove to be an alternative to plastic. And she’s made it out of fish skins and scales.

Lucy Hughes has invented MarinaTex, a material that could be a replacement for plastic

She explained “I didn’t set out to do this, but I was touring a fish processing plant and it struck me how strong and flexible the disguarded skins and scales were. After about 6 months of experimenting, I made a material that’s highly durable and stronger than the plastic used in plastic bags, but which is also water soluble and completely bio-degradable. The moment I thought it could be something more than just a sheet of material is when my friend made a bra out of it!”

Ayesha Aslam is a trained psychologist and counsellor who saw the need for counselling provision in the Muslim community that took into account the client’s Islamic perspective and culture. She told me how “in the early days there was a lot of stigma attached to counselling the Muslim community, and a lot of people came in secret. Counselling was regarded as disrespectful or shameful.”

In the early days, Many of Ayesha Aslam’s clients used her counselling service in secret

However, in the years since she has grown the organisation she launched, Sakoon, to include 15 therapists working in London, Manchester and Birmingham as well as doing international work via Skype, she says “there’s so much more understanding about the importance of mental health. Now we have more men coming to us than women and more couples than individuals.”

But there’s something else that that drives Ayesha. “I have three children and I feel it’s important for them to see their mum making a difference.”

Former investment banker, (she’s also an entrepreneur, speaker, writer, actor and talk-show presenter) June Angelides founded Mums In Tech whilst on maternity leave with her second child. It provided classes for mothers to learn the skills they needed to launch tech businesses. Then, frustrated at the lack of investment available to help them bring their ideas to the world, she joined a venture capital investment company, where she became one of only a handful of black women in the industry.

June Angelides has a powerful mantra for us all

Her mantra in life is one we definitely all could do well to take on board “I firmly believe that we all have the power to do so many different things. We just need to give ourselves permission, and get out of our own way.”

Although we very firmly consider each of our guests to be a Woman of the Year, we do give awards to a number of particularly special women. Before I wrap up this blog, I’d like to introduce you to two of them because they are shining beacons of our These Are The Heydays demographic.

Julie Budge won the Barclays (they were the sponsors) Women of the Year Community Award for the truly wonderful work she has done in establishing and running My Sister’s House, a drop-in centre providing a range of support services to women who have been subject to domestic abuse. During their enforced lockdown closure, Julie has written a book, My Sister’s House: From Kitchen Table to Womens’ Centre, which will be published on Dec 10th.

Award winner Julie Budge, founder of My Sisters’ House

Her dedication and relentless hard work to make her vision a reality is truly awe inspiring, but like pretty much every woman we’ve ever honoured, it’s only equalled by her humbleness. “I couldn’t believe I got this award, I thought they must have got the wrong person! I wish my parents could have been alive to see it. They would have been so proud”

Sylvia Mac was the recipient of another of our sponsor’s awards. The Boots Wellness Warrior award.

After falling into a bowl of boiling water as a child, she was left with dreadful burns and severe mental health issues. She has battled back to become a campaigner, creative influencer, activist, podcaster, blogger, model and open water continental swimmer (yes, you read that last bit right). And the founder of Love Disfigure, which campaigns for body equality and raises awareness of people - men and women - with hidden disfigurements.

Boots Wellness Warrior winner, Sylvia Mac

I’ll leave it to Sylvia to wrap up what I hope you’ve found an uplifting and inspiring encounter with some of the ‘extraordinary ordinary’ women who we celebrate and honour through Women of the Year. I’m sure you can understand why I love being a part of it so much.

“To anyone struggling I’d say - regardless of what you’re going through, don’t ever believe that there’s no way out. It took me over 40 years to get to what I am today. It doesn’t matter how severe your mental health is, you can get to wonderful places and achieve wonderful things.”

You can see the specially-recorded awards presentations from this year’s Women of the Year event here (it’s the video at the top of the home page)