Sheila's Story Part 1 - The Con, the Camera & the Comeback

Life doesn’t always follow the script… but sometimes the plot twists are exactly what shape us.

On this episode of The Boss Mums Circle Podcast, Carly is joined by Sheila Kronfeld - a woman rewriting her story in real time.

Sheila opens up about growing up in a world where she never quite felt like she fit. As part of the only mixed-race family in her environment, and navigating the complexities of her upbringing, she carried self-doubt that followed her into adulthood - especially when creativity wasn’t seen as a “valid” path.

But this is where the comeback begins.

Throwing herself into radio presenting, Sheila has been carving out her own space and finding her voice - quite literally. From stepping behind the mic to stepping into her confidence, she shares the highs, the hurdles, and the reality of putting yourself out there.

And then… the twist.

A bizarre scam that could have knocked her sideways. Instead, Sheila is choosing to use it as fuel.

This is a story about resilience, identity, and learning to trust yourself — even when life throws the unexpected your way.

Now, as she prepares to launch her very own Saturday lunchtime show, The Sheila Show, on a brand new radio station, this feels very much like the start of a powerful new chapter.

Expect honesty, humour, and a reminder that your past doesn’t define your future -  unless you let it.

In this Part 1 of this interview episode, we cover:

Growing up feeling like you don’t quite belong
Breaking free from limiting beliefs around creativity
Turning life’s knockbacks into your next chapter

Follow Sheila’s journey:
Instagram: @sheila.s_nature_alchemy

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If this episode resonates, share it with another mum who needs to hear  Sheila's story. Don’t forget to follow, subscribe, and leave a review — it helps more Boss Mums find the support they deserve.

The Boss Mums Circle Podcast is produced by Your Voice Here. Visit www.yourvoicehere.co.uk to find out how they simplify podcasting and make it easy for you to get your voice heard.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Welcome back to the Boss Mum Circle. I'm your host, Carly Rainsford, and today's guest is someone whose story genuinely amazes me. Sheila grew up in rural England as the only mixed-race child for miles, the daughter of a decorated war hero, a privileged British family, and a young woman from Lao in Africa. She was artistic, she was accepted into a top university to study fine art, and her parents said no. So she built a successful career instead. She found her way back to photography and radio presentation. Sold out calendar, sold out exhibitions, and then got caught out after five months of work by a fake radio station. She's 50, she's still going, and this conversation is for anyone who's ever had their dreams dismissed, lost themselves along the way, or had to decide whether to get back up after something knocks you sideways. Sheila, welcome to the Boss Mum Circle. Thank you so much for coming in today. Before we dive into everything and anything, I need you to tell me about your dad because that fascinates me.

SPEAKER_00 1:12

Okay, well, no, I'm I'm fascinated, ridiculously proud of him, but also fascinated by him because he was such an old, you know, he was everyone's grandfather's age. Yeah. And he was a generation older. So obviously grew up in a different time and died when I was quite young. And so there's so many things now that I think, oh, I wish I, I wish I could ask him this. Because when you're older, you're more intrigued, aren't you, when you're older? Exactly. Um, but he was uh just a really, really fascinating, big, tall, you know, big, booming voice man who um grew up in Royston, I think, in Cambridgeshire, and had a very, very privileged upbringing and was desperate to play a part in the war. So he joined the RAF and he became a navigator. I think he was the youngest navigator in the war and was flying Lancaster bombers, going out and bombing, wow, bombing the Germans. And so he so that was huge, you know, obviously a really, really huge part of what made him who he was. And he married, as far as I know, married someone, had four children, and his parents had traveled quite extensively. And I think his father was an engineer and built a famous bridge in Hong Kong, I think. So I think he had the travel bug in him. Yeah. And he decided to go out to Africa and he found with the with his family.

SPEAKER_02 3:02

With his family, his family, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:03

Yeah. And found um land in Malawi that he just bought lots of land, started farming, and was farming tea and tobacco was a huge thing, and chilies, and developed an import-export shipping business. So he was in shipping and he absolutely loved the life there. It was, you know, colonial Malawi. And he um I think just lived the life of Riley. His children were all at boarding school in England.

SPEAKER_02 3:40

His wife children stayed in England.

SPEAKER_00 3:43

So I think they were there for holidays, but they were at boarding school in England.

SPEAKER_02 3:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:47

And as far as I can tell, his first wife was just really, really unhappy, really felt lonely, miserable, didn't want to be out there, didn't embrace the lifestyle. I don't know what, I don't really know what it was like for them as a married couple. My aunt had told me that she was very, very volatile and fiery. He was very fiery. So I'd imagine that had something to do. Yeah. And so if you're in there in an environment, and at the time I only ever knew my father as a teetotal, but at the time I think he was he'd enjoy life a lot. Um, and so he then I think started giving my mother and her brother lifts to school when she was about 16.

SPEAKER_01 4:46

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 4:46

His wife had said, I've had enough, went back to England and just moved over there. So she's so they split up, so they're out of the picture. I don't honestly know about the lap lap over completely. I don't want to know either. Yeah. And um he started giving these two teenagers lifts to school and eventually fell in love and married my mother, who I'm not sure if she had the same birthday, but certainly was days apart birthday with his eldest son from his first marriage. So that went down really, really badly. Obviously, you're in colonial Africa. Yeah, it was very much not apartheid, because that was South Africa, but there was definitely a divide. Black people were the people that served you, and you lived this amazing lifestyle. So for this big white man to get together with not just an African woman, but a young woman the same age as your child, it was massively, massively taboo.

SPEAKER_01 6:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:02

But I think the only reason that it was they got away with it, not got away with it, that sounds awful. But the only reason that it was accepted was because he was such a wealthy man.

SPEAKER_02 6:17

So that sort of protected them from and also what his job was, and well, he had businesses, didn't he? Yes. So he kind of was respected, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 6:26

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so he and I think he had fingers in lots of pies as well, and was running the football team there. Was that you know, so I think, yeah, absolutely. He was he was respected by people, so they accepted that he had married my mother.

SPEAKER_02 6:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:46

But I still, I mean, I find it fascinating.

SPEAKER_02 6:50

It sounds when you first told me your background story or your mum and dad's. I was like, this is a film, this is what you watch like in a film, you know, when you're like, you know, are they gonna get together at the end? Are they gonna be pulled apart, you know? And yeah, that's why I said, let's start off with your dad, because I just think it's such a fascinating story to the beginning of your life.

SPEAKER_00 7:14

Yeah, you know. No, really, I find it so interesting. And when they'd tell me little stories, so about the war, I would ask him things he would never ever answer. Talk about any questions on it, yeah. And he'd see tributes on TV or whatever of these people getting awards. So my father was the sort of person he received um uh DFC in bar, which, you know, is a fantastic award for bravery, and it was apparently couriered to him. And because the queen didn't present it with him, he threw it in the fire. How dare she! So that's the sort of person that he was. He just, you know, um, and he wouldn't talk about the war at all, so I don't know about that.

SPEAKER_02 8:06

So you moved back to England with all your siblings?

SPEAKER_00 8:09

Yeah, and then my brother was born in England.

SPEAKER_02 8:12

So, what was life like, like, especially for your mum? What was life like when you moved to England?

SPEAKER_00 8:18

I think it was probably, I mean, in those, you know, in the 70s, it was still pretty racist, I think.

SPEAKER_02 8:26

I was gonna did you feel different to everyone?

SPEAKER_00 8:31

I feel it's a weird thing. So we grew up in a really rural, tiny village and a lovely big house and had, you know, lovely home life, really lovely upbringing. Um, I do remember that there was some club that my mother or some organization that my mother was really, really keen to go to. Um, and it was called Harmony, and it was for mixed marriages and mixed children. And I think we went once, and then again, you know, my father was ah bloody idiots, I don't want anything to do with them. So we didn't ever go again. So I don't know if it was quite isolating for my mother.

SPEAKER_02 9:15

He sounded very he was very protective over your mum, though. Yeah, you know, so that's rather than his reputation or what people thought, it sounds like it.

SPEAKER_00 9:25

Yeah, so I think it's really interesting because I think he was obviously brought up in quite a racist world, privileged, racist, not necessarily overtly racist, but I think just back then.

SPEAKER_02 9:40

Back in the time, the sign of the times.

SPEAKER_00 9:42

Yeah, yeah. And so I think he was probably fiercely protective of her and his children, and also very conscious that he didn't want another marriage that had gone wrong.

SPEAKER_01 9:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:57

Um, he didn't have three of his children weren't in touch with him from the first marriage, which I can understand. I you know, I grew up thinking, how can you? I was the biggest daddy's girl in the world, and he was an amazing father, and I was thinking, how can they not? And he'd say, Oh, my first wife has poisoned them against me.

SPEAKER_02 10:19

But as I grew older, I thought, actually, you know, if someone married someone my age, taking out the whole race thing, you think, yeah, like you say, when you become an adult or and even a parent, you it's a different um thought process, isn't it? Yeah, you kind of see both sides to every story and the middle. Yeah. You know, like it's not as clear-cut as people think. Yeah, and there's a lot of yeah, and there's a lot that happens in the background or behind closed doors that people aren't aware of, you know. So how did it shape you guys as a family? As in did it Well, I think we were really, really we were really protected.

SPEAKER_00 10:57

We lived in such a tiny little place. We were very fortunate in our in what we grew up with. So I don't think we were necessarily aware of being different, but I do remember that I went to school and no one else was like me. But I wasn't necessarily conscious of it, apart from things where I would grow up thinking, oh well, I can't wait to move to London. I really want to move to London. I'd actually have dreams of wandering a down the street in my little grave suit and my blonde hair. And I think that's quite a weird thing that I grew up thinking of a totally white world. Yeah. I didn't think of myself as I was. I do know that everyone at school, I basically went to a boys' school that started taking girls.

SPEAKER_02 11:51

I do know that-so girls were in the minor minority. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:55

He was desperate for us to go to private schools, but didn't want us to go away. The only one that was possible that wasn't all girls was this boys' school that started taking girls. So my sister was the first year they ever took girls.

SPEAKER_02 12:12

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 12:13

So it was really, really new. So we were definitely a minority. Um and And did you make friends easily or I think luckily I've always found it quite easy. I think I've always sort of made fun of myself, which has made people laugh, and that's made me fall in with people. So yeah, I didn't have a hard time, but it was the boys. Literally, I never I thought I was so unattractive until I left school because no, none of the boys would ever want to be with the brown girl. The token, I was the token brown girl. And it's not that I felt weird or I didn't feel weird in myself, but I was conscious that oh well, no one would ever fancy me because I'm, you know, I'm not gonna be a little bit more. You'd look different. Yeah. Yeah. I was the youngest girl, so I I've got an adopted sister as well.

SPEAKER_02 13:10

So they're all about so the adopted sister is old, so it's all girls.

SPEAKER_00 13:15

She's all, yeah, three girls. Uh well, there were three girls, an adopted sister who is a girl.

SPEAKER_01 13:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:22

And then my younger brother.

SPEAKER_01 13:24

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 13:24

And it was always the three girls and the two little ones. And I was desperate to be a girl. I thought, I'm a girl, not a little one. I didn't want to be with my stinky, crying brother.

SPEAKER_01 13:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:35

And um my adopted sister was, she came over from Malawi. When they left Malawi, they were contacted by a convent that had children that needed homes. And um they contacted my father, who, you know, they thought anyone that might be in a comfortable position that could take on a child. He said, She can come and live with my sister. So my aunt was a widow with no children.

SPEAKER_02 14:08

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 14:09

This girl came over, went to live with my aunt. My aunt took her punting in Cambridge and she'd never seen water and apparently freaked. And my aunt said, I can't have her. I can't deal with her. I'm gonna send her back. So my parents said, Well, look, let her come and stay with us, we'll work out what's going on. And then after a while, I think they thought, we can't send her back. You know, this is too cruel.

SPEAKER_02 14:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:33

So ended up adopting her. So that's why.

SPEAKER_02 14:36

You see why I think this is all a this is a film. This is so a film. It went, your life is just like, oh my god, and then what happened next?

SPEAKER_00 14:43

Oh, oh well, thank you. I think I I love it. Everyone loves talking about themselves, but I sort of because it's your life. You think, well, that's it's ordinary, because that happens. That's all you know, yeah. Yeah. Um, so my um father lost when he had one of these big meals. He was so sort of big and cocky that yet again he said, Yeah, I'm, you know, I'm so confident. This deal's gonna come up. I'll put my house up, I'll put my house on it. Because I think the bank was saying, you know, give us this money. And he was saying, I'll put my bank. So he basically lost all his money and moved back to Malawi. Well, there was a big situation with him moving back and forth. So he moved to Malawi. My mother was left here with all of us, and my eldest sister had gone to university. The other one was I think my parents bought her a flat in Cambridgeshire. She and my adopted sister went there. I changed schools, then I went out to live with my father on his own to go to the school in Malawi. My brother and my mother were still here. That didn't work out. So then I came back to school in England to live with my aunt because by this time my mother had gone out to Malawi. My brother went to school in South Africa.

SPEAKER_02 16:07

How old were you for with this? I think 12 is. I was gonna say, yeah, teenage years.

SPEAKER_00 16:13

Yeah. And then that school didn't work out in Cambridge. So then I was sent to I had a terrible time when I was sent to live with my father alone. It was awful.

SPEAKER_02 16:27

Did you feel like you didn't have a place where you belonged? You didn't know where you were meant to be.

SPEAKER_00 16:33

At that time, I think I just felt desperately homesick, just missed my siblings, missed my friends. I was I remember sitting in the car with my mother, and she said on our driveway, and she said, I just want to let you know we've got you a flight to Malawi. We think the best thing is for you to be out there with your father. Your sisters are, you know, uni. Uh Luna's about to go to uni. Luna and Ruth have got a flat. Anthony's gonna stay with here with me and carry on at school, and we just think this is the best thing for you. And a few days later I was on a plane. So it was it's just mental.

SPEAKER_02 17:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:17

And so when I got there, I'm such a young age as well. Yeah. I don't think I thought I don't know if I fit in. I think I was just desperately lonely and unhappy. And as much as I was really close with my father, he's an old man that's working. And now looking back, I think, well, it was partly he didn't want me to be labelled, he didn't want me to be pigeonholed as a mixed race person, and there's some snobbery to it as well. He felt like, well, this is my perfect daughter. I don't want her mixing with them, and I don't want so. I think there were a few reasons behind it, but at the time I don't think I thought I don't know where I fit. I just all I could think was, I'm so lonely. I just I just want to go. I just want to be with my friends and my I'm ripped, they're all in the world.

SPEAKER_01 18:12

Well, you knew before, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:14

Yeah, my whole family's there, and I've been ripped out here, and I hate it.

SPEAKER_02 18:20

So, how when did you eventually go back?

SPEAKER_00 18:22

So after that, they thought the school isn't good enough. His children, his first children had gone to this school. So obviously that was so many years before, and he was saying it's gone downhill, blah, blah, blah. Then it was decided that my mother and brother would come out to Malawi, and my brother and I would go to boarding school in South Africa.

SPEAKER_02 18:44

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 18:45

So I went there and I was always really, really skinny. And I went there at I was about seven stone. Really, just naturally, not because I wasn't a greedy pig, but just you know, when you're young.

SPEAKER_01 18:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:58

The good old days of when you can eat anything you want. And I was naturally really skinny. I was so unhappy there. We were never allowed home clothes. You could wear a blue smock dress during the day, and then after school, at whatever, you know, whatever time midday or whatever it finished, you were only allowed to wear black joggers and so you were never allowed your home clothes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:27

Um so it's almost like you can't show your your personality, is it? Yeah. You know?

SPEAKER_00 19:31

Anyway, I went to that school after I think two and a half terms of me phoning up my parents. Can I come home? I hate it here, they were saying the best thing to do is to leave her there so she can toughen up. And so I didn't go home for ages, and I'd go spent the holidays with some random girl from school. And anyway, it was mental. And then my father was doing business, did a drive-by, and said, I'm gonna stop in. He was doing business in South Africa. I'm gonna stop in and see Sheila. And I remember being called to the headmaster's office and came running along, my blue smock dress, and I knocked on the door, and the headmaster said, Come in. And my father, it was as if it happened in slow motion. The uh he was sitting with his back to me. I opened the door and he sort of turned around in slow motion, and I was so excited, and his big, big smile just dropped, and he went, Oh my god, what have they done to you? Because you were so tight. And I was 15 stones. No, you were booned. Obviously, I was just comfort eating, comfort eating the whole time. And I have vague memories of going down to where the tuck boxes were and stuffing my face but left. Not you know, I don't remember constantly eating, but I must have done. Uh and I remember my period stopped, everything, and they I phoned my parents saying they're asking, they asked me if I could be pregnant. And at this time I was about 13. And that I think was partly why my father came to talk, do but you know, arrange business to talk to the schools. He was outraged that they could accuse his little girl of being pregnant. But they were doing it because I suddenly ballooned, so obviously my period stopped, and my whole body was thinking, what's going on? Anyway, so they dragged me out of there, put me on a plane back to the school I'd gone to before in Cambridgeshire, this boys' school that took girls, and it was the first year they started taking um girls as boarders.

SPEAKER_02 21:48

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 21:49

So there were only a few of us. But essentially, do you think they're to fill out as many forms as we do now?

SPEAKER_02 21:55

Um when you join a school. Because I'm like, I'm on I'm on school number seven here at Minute listening to you. I know.

SPEAKER_00 22:03

I think I I mean God knows. I don't think it was as now. No, exactly. It can't no, otherwise they would have thought, I don't care if she's fat. I mean, even she can carry on eating. I'm not filling in another fall. Yeah, exactly. Um then I but I took the rest of the year off school and did a safari, travelled round with my father round Africa, driving back to Malawi. And I remember a lot of the places we were staying in in South Africa, he was saying, they don't know what you are, so it's fine. If your mother was here, we wouldn't be allowed to stay here, which I found so shocking. So I think I went to went back to Malawi, spent the rest of the time, the rest of the year there, and then went to school back to my old school, and they'd started taking girl boarders. Okay. So I joined that school, absolutely loved it. But my parents were in Malawi, and I was essentially left to my own devices. They didn't, you know, they were getting constant messages from school saying she lives, not doing her work or whatever. And by this time, it was so relaxed compared to the school in South Africa that I thought, what are you gonna do about it? You know, so I just dosed around. But I was really, I found that I was naturally, I've always drawn and been good at drawing. My elder sister, actually, as well, is really good at art. And I really got on with the master that did with the art teacher. Okay, and so he gave me the keys to the art room as well, so I could go in at weekends and after school, and I loved it so much, just painting and drawing. So that was where it really developed. Yeah, and I yeah, I just absolutely loved it. Whereas my parents, my father certainly is very, very traditional, and that's not that's not a real subject.

SPEAKER_02 24:09

Yeah, but they weren't here to help me with so they weren't seeing your passion for it, no, I guess, like you doing it at weekends and the love for it. They just thought that that was something that you just did in your spare time.

SPEAKER_00 24:21

And I think they thought we're paying for you to get a good education, and that uh painting silly pictures is not getting a good education. You know, it's not a traditional academic subject, which is if you think my father's grandparent age, he was very much and also uh really academic himself, uh he wouldn't view uh anything creative as being something you could get a job doing. It's just it's a nonsense pie in the skies sort of uh silly thing. So you got accepted into so yes, I got accepted. My art teacher helped me do all my applications for uni. And did your parents know that you were applying for no so that's what I mean? They weren't here, yeah. Um, which is why I was really, really bitter when they came back to England for a holiday for me to get my results. I got accepted to Reading University to study fine art, and my father exploded. We have not paid good money for you to paint pretty pictures. You are not doing that, and obviously, I'd missed all of the applications to do anything else. And um he just we went through clearing, got on the phones, went through clearing to find any subject and any uni that would take me. And um I remember um do you remember the adverts for De Montfort University with the big whale? Oh, yeah, which everyone made fun of.

SPEAKER_01 26:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:05

That was where I ended up. So I went, I went there and did design management, which was a sort of compromise. It was like business studies with design, where you'd study every kind of design, so you'd do a bit of architecture, interior design, textile design, graphic design, and business studies. So it was a real jack of all trades, master of none. First every year it was done, wasn't recognised by anyone when I came out, and was, I mean, I had the most brilliant, brilliant time.

SPEAKER_02 26:41

Did you feel, did you feel though, that your essentially your dream had been taken away from you? And did you, how did you feel towards your your dad about that?

SPEAKER_00 26:51

I was. I think I was really, I was really, really upset and really hurt and felt as well that they didn't have belief in me.

SPEAKER_02 27:04

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