056 - Pit Pony Emma Harper - Classroom to CEO / Marketing Mentor - Part 1

Emma Harper Part 1: From Promise to Breaking Point

Emma Harper was a dedicated secondary maths teacher from 2011 to 2023. In this episode, she shares the first half of her powerful story, covering three very different schools, early career promise, and a series of personal and professional challenges that pushed her to the edge.

We talk about international teaching experiences, burnout, student behaviour, toxic leadership, and the silent, slow build-up of trauma. Emma opens up about multiple breakdowns, the culture shifts that blindsided her, and how teaching ultimately became the background to deep emotional pain, including the loss of her mother during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This is a raw and honest conversation about what happens when passion meets pressure, and what it takes to keep going when everything is falling apart.

Emmas links :

http://www.facebook.com/makeyourmarketingcount

https://www.coreplustuition.com/

http://linkedin.com/emma-harper-coreplustuition

https://www.facebook.com/CorePlusTuition/

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Edited with finesse by our Podcast Super Producer, Mike Roberts of Making Digital Real

Transcript

Thank you to our sponsors, Little Voices. Are you a teacher with a passion for drama, music and performance, or feeling stuck in the classroom? Little Voices gives you the chance to step into a role where you can truly inspire young minds through the arts. This is a company I know well and admire. 

They're passionate about child development, highly rated and genuine and transformative. With small group teaching, a focus on confidence and creativity, with the opportunity to guide children through Lambda qualifications, you can make a real impact. Plus, with the support of a nationwide franchise network behind you, you can run your own successful business, doing what you love while teaching in a way that truly fits your life.

Hello and welcome to the Pit Pony podcast with myself Sharon Cawley and me Sarah Dunwood, in which we talk to teachers from all walks of life who exited the classroom from what they thought was a job for life and thrived on the other side of teaching. Coming up in this episode... Obviously it was hugely traumatic. It wasn't just she's poorly, she's died, which is traumatic enough in itself, but the nuances of everything that happened in ICU add to that. 

However, I believe that had I not been a teacher, that trauma wouldn't have been as detrimental to me. Hello and welcome to a wonderful episode today of the Pit Pony podcast. All of our podcasts are great, but when you're sat opposite somebody who's in your world, who you know, who is not a stranger, I always think it makes it just a little bit easier for Sarah and I, particularly for me, because I've spent a great deal of time with Emma Harper and she's simply wonderful. 

And Emma's story, it's a long and winding road before she even gets to her critical incident, which I just love sitting back and listening to. Well, Emma taught from 2011 to December 2023. And here we are on Sunday, the 18th of May, peak exam season. 

And when she reveals what she's doing at the moment, that's why we're all the more grateful for her that she's giving up some time for us on a Sunday. So, secondary maths teacher out of the classroom since 2023. Welcome, Emma. 

So, tell us what it is you do today. Thank you for having me on the podcast. I appreciate it. 

So, at the minute, I am the CEO of Core Plus Tuition, still delivering maths tuition myself, but I've also got a team of tutors that are now delivering maths, English, science and French. And I've also recently launched as a marketing mentor under the brand Make Your Marketing Count. And I'm supporting other service-based businesses to grow their businesses through effective marketing. 

Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. So, as we always do, let's roll our sleeves up, my friend. Let's get into your story. 

Start us where you feel most comfortable. Walk us through your life as a teacher. So, I think my life as a teacher started way before I started teaching. 

So, as a teenager, I was a young instructor in a marching band. I was a young leader in guiding. Like, I was teaching other kids from a very young age. 

And it just felt like a natural progression to then do my maths degree and go into teacher training. And I flew through teacher training, was the first in my class to be teaching whole classes, and I was doing really well, and I was on a path for a lot of progression within the career. And then, I finished teacher training, started working at one of the schools I'd done a placement with because they were really happy with me. 

So, it was all really positive. The school decided to send me out to Gambia to a partner school to train some of their teachers in Gambia. And at that point, I'd only been teaching a couple of years. 

So, it was a massive compliment. And it was an amazing experience. I absolutely loved it. 

Apart from coming back with suspected parasites, that bit wasn't so great. Sarah's face is a picture. And basically, I was really, really poorly. 

Really poorly. My head of department decided that it was a really good time to start chasing me back to work. When are you coming back? How long are you going to be off? All of that lovely toxic attitude from a manager to the point where, as a young teacher, I felt pressured to go back before I was ready, and I ended up having a massive crash on the motorway because I clearly wasn't well enough to be driving. 

Wow. So, we're only two to three years into this story. This possibly only takes us to about 2013, 2014. 

You've been set up to go to Gambia, which we all went, oh, wow. And then something happened, and you were encouraged to come back into work too soon and had a crash. Yeah. 

Good God. Okay. Were you okay after the crash? Did that... So, physically, I was fine, but that was probably my first breakdown. 

It really shook me. It shook my foundations. And when I went back to school, it was... Considering I'd been really close to the department, it felt like home. 

That's why I'd gone and started teaching there. It had all changed, and I started looking for a new job because my gut instinct told me I didn't want to work for this person anymore. And looking back at it, there were signs before that this head of department was one of those that would only teach the top sex. 

He would stand there in front of a crying colleague and say, I don't know how to deal with this and walk away. Like, there were signs, but I was too young to know any different at that point. And we were really close department, and everybody was happy. 

And I just thought, oh, this is normal. But when I started looking for other jobs, everybody turned on me and started treating me really differently. And every time I tried to say anything that was remotely negative, I got shot down. 

So I was quite happy to leave in the end, which was sad because I'd had a really nice time at that school. Started at the second school, and again, everything was great. They were really supportive. 

I was on a track for progression. They created one of those roles for me that we all know about that created roles to try and keep me and retain me, and eventually made it to second in department. Still quite young at this point. 

But staff changes higher up in the school meant that it turned and my face didn't fit anymore. Face doesn't fit, Sarah Dunwood, Sarah Dunwood, Sarah Dunwood. That's when your place of work becomes a game of two halves. 

This is the building where I have been championed. I have been absolutely blessed and loved and encouraged. And that very same building, that very same carpet, that very same classroom has become completely shaded.

And I don't know how this has happened. I mean, I've been there, Sarah. And we've heard a lot of colonies talk about the game of two halves when it comes to a school experience.

I know exactly how it happens because schools are about people and leadership is about people. And so you only need one person to change, to completely change the culture. That's fundamentally what it is. 

We talk about schools as though they are entities in and of themselves, and they're not. They are a cluster of people serving another cluster of people. And we all know, because we talk about it every week and we've worked in different environments, you only need one person to come in and change the culture. 

And it can be quiet and insidious, or it can be over and in your face, but it's one person. Yeah, 100% agree. 100% agree.

So the butterfly effect has taken place again. Something's changed. You've fallen from sunshine into shade. 

School number two, second in department, have been recognised, have been put on this Sudan chair, carried through, and it's changed again. Do you stay or do you go? So at that point, I had my biggest breakdown. And when I say my biggest breakdown, I was rocking on my bed, unconsolable. 

And at the time, I think we were married, we were due to be getting married. It was that sort of time. And my fiance said to me, what the hell has happened? And I was like, I don't know. 

Nothing happened. Nothing. There was no big event. 

There was no, like a lot of the pit ponies you listen to, there was like this one big event. That didn't happen for me in that way at that moment. There were moments, as we've talked about the car crash and everything. 

But at that moment, at the biggest breakdown that I had, there was nothing. And when I spoke to my head of department at the time, who was lovely, she was like a mother figure to me and she was wonderful. She, I never had a problem with her. 

And she was like, I never saw this coming. I never saw this coming. And I was like, I didn't see it coming. 

I didn't. But the therapy I had afterwards, it was school. That breakdown was because of school. 

And yes, I had the pressure of planning a wedding and all those things. But actually, it was school. And at that point, I decided enough was enough. 

And well, I say enough was enough. Enough was enough in that school. And then I went back for more. 

Move on to the third school. And the third school, it was somewhere I'd have recommendations from other teachers. This is a wonderful place to work, like it's an outstanding school, blah, blah, blah. 

So I went for interview and I walked into the department and it was full of people around my age that were probably ready for progression. And so I left at lunchtime. I walked out and said, I don't want it because I didn't want to be that person that walked into the department and caused that feeling of resentment because I was walking in on a TLR and they should have got it. 

I didn't want to be that person. So I walked out at lunchtime before the interview and I had a phone call that night from the head that said, we want to give you the job. We haven't even interviewed. 

We want you to come in. We want you to have a chat with us, but we're pretty sure we want to give you the job. Obviously, they had to jump through the hoop and interview me, but it was a hoop.

We'll pay you an R&R. We'll give you second in department because the job was advertised as maths teacher with TLR to be discussed. We want to give you a second in department.

And I was like, oh, like, wow. I was really honest with him and I said, you know, this is the reason I walked away. And he was like, no, half of those people are leaving anyway because they're going on to other roles. 

And they were, when I got to know it, there were a lot of them that were moving on for heads of departments and so on. So I moved and again, the department were lovely. The head was great. 

The problem when I got there was bearing in mind that we're talking about an outstanding school in a middle class area. I got bullied by the students in my first year. Wow. 

Was not expecting that. Okay. And it's something that, interestingly, Emma, it's not something we often really touch upon with the Pit Pony. 

We talk about bullying behaviours. We have done, don't get me wrong, but a lot of our focus is the impact that other adults have on teachers. Sarah, we're entering into potentially new ground here, are we not? New ground in terms of talking about it. 

Yeah. Not new ground though, is it? And I think it sits in the wider conversation about the culture around behaviour in schools. And it's really interesting the framing, Emma, because I recognise it. 

I worked in one, two, three really deprived schools and two very leafy middle class suburban schools. And there was some dreadful behaviour in some of the schools, but actually some of the worst of it was in that, in inverted commas, nice environment, a sense of, and I'm going to generalise, but based on my experience, entitlement, just, I can't quite put my finger on it, but I recognise it. I saw it happen to colleagues of mine in those girls with beautiful long hair and beautifully presented, but who could destroy a teacher in 30 seconds with a barbed comment.

More intellectualised, isn't it? And I don't think that is talked about enough, actually. Actually, kids can be desperately, desperately cruel to the adults that are there to, who want nothing more than to help them get on. But yeah, I don't even know where to start with that.

My brain is currently thinking, how do you say what you want to say without being really offensive at all to anybody involved? Because it's a difficult topic to talk about. It is. It is. 

And so we will springboard into this from, it was a leafy, middle class, outstanding school. You'd been signalled by the leadership team that we want you. We understand your reservation. 

We've managed politically. You're not coming into a political hotbed in the department, but you come into the building. Tell us about your experience in the classroom. 

So they gave me two year 11 classes and a year 11 tutor group. Now, I was coming in as an experienced member of staff. I was good at the time. 

I'd got some fantastic year 11 results. And to be honest, behaviour management was something I was really good at. In the second school, I worked really closely with the head of year that my tutor group was in. 

They weren't scared of me, but they respected me. I could get that year group on side quite easily. And they were year 10 as I left them. 

And so I'd come into year 11 and it shouldn't have been that difficult, really. Shouldn't have been that hard a transition, in theory. But the year 11 classes I later found out that they gave me had been through a shocker.

They'd had cover. They'd had teachers that weren't that good. They'd had a really rough ride.

So when I came in, they were pushing. And when I say they were pushing, I had the girls with the long hair and the eye rolls and the phrase that I won't say on here. But you know, the ones that sit there and just stare at you like you're a piece of rubbish on the bottom of their sheet. 

But I also had year 11 boys that were running circles around my classroom, opening the windows, shouting obscenities into the classroom, opening the classroom door in the middle of lessons and shouting obscenities. And so it was all of it. It was I had the girls, I had the boys, I had all of it. 

And it was all day, every day. They were coming out of other lessons to come and find me and do those things. So fundamentally, it's utterly relentless.

You're being verbally, audibly, sensory battered whilst trying to deliver your job, which you want to do to the best of your ability. And that, I know it, it utterly destroys your soul. Utterly destroys your soul. 

So who did anything about it? So there were two main perpetrators and they were taken into the head's office and spoken to. But that was it. They were spoken to. 

At the time, I thought, oh, I feel really supported, like people were nice to me and they were trying to help me. But on reflection, now managing my own team, I'm like, oh my God, like that, that should never have happened. Like, it should never have got that far. 

And but when you're in it, it's so hard to see that. And I don't, I think that's the same, whether it's toxic leadership, whether it's the kids, like when you're in one of those situations, it could be a toxic relationship. When you're in it, it's so hard to see it. 

And also you take the breadcrumbs of positivity, don't you? Or the head's spoken to that kid. So that's good. I'm being supportive.

But actually, the reality is, is that's nothing but, what's the word I'm looking for? A SOP, a kind of just, well, we've dealt with it now. It's fine. And yeah, it's an absence of psychological safety. 

And we keep talking about this, about school environments and absence of psychological safety. It's just really interesting when it's framed from the position of, it's the children that have caused the absence of psychological safety. I think, I think it's incredibly common. 

I really do. What I think's happened here is, you're on school number three, but you might as well be on school number one, because you walked through. I was the first person to be given a class of 30 on my PGCE course or wherever it was. 

I was given the job in my school that I was doing my teaching practice on. Your second school, no mention of behaviour management. When you went into your third school, you asked all the right questions at that time. 

I don't want to walk into a political and nest of vipers. You were armed. You'd gone in with your experience, your wisdom, your knowledge about how these things happen. 

You were utterly blindsided. At no point preparing for this job and this role, did you factor this in? And this is what happens when we're thrown curve balls that we haven't experienced before. That's when we truly flounder.

And from what you described, not only were you trying to establish yourself within the classroom, behaviour, whole school was not under enough control. Because if kids were able to come into your face when you were teaching, who the bloody hell should have been teaching them when they were running around your room? Clearly, that school, I don't know it. We don't name it or anything. 

A bit of fur coat now knickers is going on here in terms of behaviour management. Some of the most leafy middle class schools I serve through my tuition business will talk about how they treat supply teachers as if they are absolute dirt. It's a bizarre cultural thing that goes on. 

And we are right to talk about it. We don't have to tiptoe through the daisies that we're not going to offend or generalise. Because I'll tell you something, if I was listening to this as a parent and I thought my kids had behaved in that way to another adult, I'd want to know about it. 

I certainly wouldn't jump on my bandwagon and go, we can't say that about all young people. Yeah, we can. And what we can also say is we need to take responsibility for them if they're our own.

Whoa, needed that one off my chest, I can tell you. So how's it panning out for you in the wild west of leafy, wherever you are? So I'm quite proud of the fact that I got most of those kids on side myself. That felt like a win. 

By the end of year 11, I'd got some results out of both my classes, my tutor group were nearly respectful. I'd made progress with them. I'd worked hard and I'd won the majority of them over. 

So that was great. And then I went on maternity leave for the first time. So the reputation I'd been building over those 12 months disappeared.

So can I just point the obvious out? You're going through this pregnant? Oh yeah. Okay. Just thought I would highlight that. 

So you're a pregnant woman going through that level of psychological unsafety. Pregnant, okey dokey. Right, you go on maternity leave.

So yeah, went on maternity leave, came back, kept my second in department job, but went down to 80% of the timetable. And it was better because obviously there were still kids in that school that had known me from pre-maternity. And yeah, the year I went back after having my first was better. 

That takes us to February 2020 when my mum was taken into hospital. Sorry, might get emotional on this bit. Mum was taken into hospital. 

It was in the evening. They told me everything's fine. Like go to work. 

You can come and see her after work tomorrow. I got to work the following day and I had one of those spooky moments where you just have a feeling in the gut of your stomach. And I burst into tears at work and I was, I need to go. 

I need to go to the hospital. One of the TAs that I worked really closely with saw me and she was like, oh my God, we need to get you home. Went and found the deputy head basically to give me permission to go home.

Deputy head was really supportive, gave me her personal phone number, said phone me when you can, but yeah, absolutely you need to go. She was lovely. And I got to the hospital, kind of need to give you this bit for context. 

Got to the hospital. My mum wasn't in her room. Went and found a nurse and she'd been moved to ICU without them telling us.

So I then had to phone my dad and say, she's in ICU. She's unconscious. He needs to come.

She came back round, but she decided she'd had enough. And I had to go to the doctors and say, she wants to die. And then I had to persuade my dad to let her.

And then the doctors were great and basically said, well, remove all treatment, but we don't know how long she'll last. Could be two months, could be two years, could be anything in between, could be two days. So obviously I'm still an employed teacher and I'm then like, what the hell do I do now? So I phoned the deputy head and unlike a lot of people, I was so supported in that time. 

She was amazing. She was literally, don't worry about a thing. Don't touch your cover work. 

Don't do anything. Don't need to phone in every day. Just keep me updated as and when you can. 

And she was amazing. So I spent two weeks at the hospital with my mum. I was there from seven o'clock in the morning till 10 o'clock at night. 

And the only reason I left is because the nurses on the ward knew I was eight weeks pregnant. So they sent me home at nighttime and told me that I had to sleep. Otherwise I'd have been there 24 seven. 

And two weeks later, my mum passed away. Now the reason I've told you all the detail is because I was then diagnosed with PTSD because obviously it was hugely traumatic. It wasn't just a, she's poorly, she's died, which is traumatic enough in itself. 

But the nuances of everything that happened in ICU add to that. However, I believe that had I not been a teacher, that trauma wouldn't have been as detrimental to me. I think I would have coped with it a little bit better had I not already had two mental breakdowns. 

If I'd not already been through everything I'd been through, I think I would have been a lot stronger in that moment. And also probably ought to put in context there that her funeral happened a week before the first lockdown. So we have the funeral and then we went straight into lockdown. 

So I couldn't see my dad. I'm an only child. I had my husband, obviously my first daughter and I was pregnant. 

So yeah, I surprisingly didn't go back to school. I was signed off for about six months and in that moment I decided I needed to leave teaching because I couldn't deal with my life because I was a teacher. That was basically the conclusion I'd come to.

Brief interlude, dear listener. A couple of questions. Are you a tutor or even a pit pony considering tutoring? And do you fancy getting in the room with myself and Sarah Dunwood learning about the wonderful world of tuition? Then why not join us at the National Tutors Conference hosted by Conexus Tuition on the 29th of July 2025. 

It's at Chesford Grange, Kenilworth. Links to the tickets are in the show notes below and we will both see you on the other side. So July 2020, mid-pandemic, I decided I was going to start tutoring.

Okay, first and foremost, thank you so much, because that's not easy to share that. And you and I, we talked about it not being a dissimilar experience at a similar time in my life and I I know how hard it is. And I think what's happened here is you've been having whispers since the get-go, this is not right, this is not right, this is not right. 

And then it does take something seismic to do that. So thank you. Thank you so much for sharing that part of your story because we've got here a talented, dedicated secondary maths teacher who goes enough is enough.

Now at this point, a couple of things happen. You leave and I think people fall into two camps. I never. 

Oh no, you've not left at this point. Oh my god, you go back to another job. To the same school. 

I thought you said you decided you never wanted to be a teacher ever again. No, I decided that I needed out. Got you, I've jumped ahead. 

Apologies, I thought that was it, you just landed in your resignation. Right, back on, love. No, so I decided I needed out, but that's when I came across two lovely ladies called Sharon and Sarah. 

So not only have I jumped in, but I nearly got shut about a big compliment coming our way, Sarah. All right, go on, who do you meet? So I was one of the very first people into Life After Teaching Facebook group. I was there like at the beginning and I was actually sat watching it while I was sat in the hospital with mum.

I was watching your lives while I was in the hospital. So when I, when the dust had settled, I watched the Pit Pony video like so many others and decided that for my own sanity, I couldn't just walk away. I couldn't just rely on tutoring. 

I needed multiple income streams. So I decided, well, if I do some tutoring, I can drop my hours at school and make a plan. That was my plan. 

That was as far as my plan had got. So July, 2020, I started Emma Maths tutor. It wasn't even core plus tuition back then. 

It was just Emma Maths tutor. I just do a few hours and I dropped down to 40% at school. And when I went back into school to the same jackety head that I'd had the conversation with before that had been so supportive, her reaction was, well, yeah, as long as you're coming back, you can have what you want pretty much.

She was lovely. So I had no tutor group. I dropped the girls off at nursery school, whatever, went in, did a couple of hours and went home just after lunchtime.

Suited me perfectly. And then I did tutoring to top it up while I was going to make. That didn't happen because within six months I'd taken on another tutor.

Within 12 months, we were doing another subject and we rebranded as core plus tuition. That's brilliant. That is absolutely brilliant because, you know, I don't know if many of our listeners actually make the connection, but Sarah and I sit right slap bang in the middle of the world of tuition because that's what our business connects as tuition is. 

It is it's a wonderful, wonderful thing. In an era of transparency, we've tended to stay away from having many tutors on the podcast because we've talked about it a great deal in the past. We've done lots of YouTube videos on tutoring. 

We, as you know, we have a national tutors conference. So we were very, very particular with who we wanted here to talk about tutoring. We've had the wonderful Ilana King. 

I mean, who does not think she is the goddess when it comes to all things 11 plus and such like. But tutoring is incredibly accessible for teachers who want to leave the classroom. Yes, it helps if your maths or your primary or you sit around the world of exam focused points within the year. 

And yes, there's compliance that sits behind it. And yes, you'll make mistakes. But it really does bring you the best of both worlds, which is what I was going to talk about. 

Those teachers who say, I am done. I never want to look at another handout ever again or I'm done. But I want to utilize, leverage and monetize my skills that I had in the classroom. 

So we are a huge lover of all things tutoring. And like you talked about scale, I scaled through franchising and doing exactly what you've done. I've got a craft, I can do it.

And all of our head office team are ex-teachers because there's no better work ethic than a teacher when it comes to working in business. But not only do you do the tutoring, and this is something I'd like to, I'd like to Pit around. You've talked about now marketing as a marketing mentor as well. 

What have you done there? Do you want me to leave the classroom first or do you want me to talk about marketing? My Christ, she's still not even left the classroom. Sarah, reel me in. Do you know, it's really interesting listening to you because Emma's dropped you the nuggets about, about setting up the tuition business. 

And you've made the assumption one has led to the other rather than something running in parallel or doing the very thing that we talk about all the time about multiple income streams. Right. Okay. 

Whatever. Sarah, permanently mute me. Emma, can you leave this bloody classroom so I can move? Right. 

She's still in the classroom listeners. All right. She's still in the classroom. 

Let's go. So, Core Plus Tuition is born, still classroom teacher, 40% was teaching like further maths and bottoms at year seven because, you know, why not? Why not throw everything at the experienced teacher? But in the meantime, they've overstaffed the maths department. Overstaffed the maths department, just going to emphasise that bit. 

So, we had to be the only maths department in the And what they decided that they were going to do with us was cover. In our extra hours, we were cover teachers. And because of my mental health, where I'd been, my journey, I'd been diagnosed with anxiety, of course I had because, like, you've heard my story. 

So, the idea of walking into school every morning, not knowing who I was teaching, where I was teaching, what I was teaching, was sending me over the edge. So, I was already wobbly. And then they sent me to a philosophy lesson. 

No offence to anybody that teaches philosophy, but oh my God. Year 11 philosophy, 15 kids in a room who didn't want to be there, didn't see the point of doing what they were doing, and the cover work was shocking. It was horrendous.

Kids who'd chosen the subject? No, no, no, no, no. Oh, was it like a PSE type? Yeah, yeah. Philosophy, GCSE at our school, all of them. 

So, for me, when I was at school, the equivalent was the RE, GCSE. So, yeah, it was horrendous. And it brought us full circle back to the behaviour that leaded to issues with my mental health. 

So, I walked out of that philosophy lesson, managed to keep it together, despite having kids in there that apparently I wasn't allowed to tell off, I wasn't allowed to do this, I wasn't allowed to do that. Got told off by a member of SLT when I asked for help within the hour. All that lovely, normal, toxic thing, but I'll skip over it because I know you've talked about it a lot.

Went back to the maths department, because it was my safe space, and had a panic attack. And in that moment, my head of department was very supportive. It was break time, gave me a hug, helped me calm down. 

But I was still in panic mode, I was still in that frozen moment. And the bell went, and I got told to go and teach, mid panic attack. So, I walked out. 

Luckily, one of my colleagues in the department I was really close with at the time, he shared the year 13 class with me, and he was like, I'll go, I'm free, I'll go. And I was like, couldn't put the words to it, let him go. But in that moment, and I look back now, and I was so stupid. 

In that moment, I was trying to calm myself down enough to go to that lesson. And I did. I went to that lesson.

And it was my year 13s, so it was okay. I survived the lesson. Had it been the bottom set year seven, I'm not sure I would have done. 

And that was my last lesson of the day, just before lunchtime. So, I got in my car, and there was a split second decision of, I'm either driving off that bridge, or I'm driving to my husband, who was at work. So, I drove to my husband. 

I made the sensible choice. I drove to my husband. And when I got there, he worked for a lovely family company, and I know all the people that work there. 

And when I got there, he wasn't the first person I saw. It was his colleague, who they're now co-directors together, who was 26 at the time. Baby. 

And he took one look at me, and he gave me a massive hug, and he said, you're leaving now, right? And I just went, yeah, I'm done. And I think on that note, that brings us nicely to the end of what we're going to call part one.