Funnily enough, I loved playing shops, whether that was with pretend money and a small stall or making a nuisance of myself by slipping to the entrance of a friend’s garden fête and setting up a table asking for a two pence entrance fee at the age of eight. From the age of 10, I also picked and sold tomatoes from our greenhouse, cycling up to the village shop with punnets in my bicycle basket.

Definitely not, but I learnt early on that I liked being my own boss. When I was 21, a friend and I set up a silk pyjama business called Pyjamarama, named after the Roxy Music song. We were a bit ahead of our time, as everyone wanted cotton.

I started a retail arm for the tweed mill, Hunters of Brora, back in 1990. It was there that I fell in love with Scottish textiles and saw an opportunity to combine traditional skills with modern design. After three years, during which I learnt a huge amount, the retail side of the mill was closed down and my role was made redundant in front of a boardroom of middle-aged men. One lesson learnt was to never have a boardroom table that looks like that.

I then had to decide whether to continue working for someone else or take a chance and start my own business, building on what I had learnt and the relationships I had formed, while giving the collections a more fashion-focused edge. In March 1993, Brora was born.

I am not sure there is an average day, and that is what I love. Even though I founded Brora in 1993, every day is still incredibly varied. I always start with a cup of Earl Grey tea, and most days I swim, as it stretches my body and wakes me up.

I spend much of my time with my design team at head office, dreaming up new designs, reviewing samples, making edits, and perfecting future collections. I am also very involved in how our stores look, the models we choose, the locations, the photoshoots, and the brochures we send, everything visual at Brora.

I also enjoy analysing the numbers, which is fortunate. The IT and operations side I leave to those better suited to it.

I am pretty emotionally involved with the people who make up our team and many have been with Brora for well over 15 years, so seeing anyone going through a bereavement, a family illness, a challenging time and making the right decisions to support them and doing what is right for Brora and the rest of the employees isn’t always easy.

The best? I love seeing our collections come to life on a wonderful model in a perfect location where the light is exactly what you’d hoped for. And I also love the buzz of looking after a customer who has lost their way with their style, what works for their life, and finding exactly the right clothes that really make her feel fabulous.

I remember sitting in my bedroom – I ran the business from home for six months – surrounded by boxes and boxes of cashmere. The phone was ringing off the hook for two days as the Financial Times had just cited Brora as having the best cashmere around and my home number was in the paper.

A more recent highlight was during the Covid-19 pandemic, when we raised £300,000 for charities supporting those affected by the pandemic by selling Liberty print face masks. That felt quite extraordinary, something positive emerging from a very difficult time.

Things were extremely tense in March 2020 when the pandemic hit. We knew we could afford to pay staff for a couple of months, but if the business could not trade, that would be it. Shutting head office and closing all our retail outlets for weeks on end was terrifying.

Looking back, it forced us to take steps we had previously discussed but were hesitant to try. Today, e-commerce is a much bigger part of the business, and we have fewer retail overheads. We continue to invest in better design, improved platforms, customer service, and presentation.

I do check my emails regularly. I hate having anything in my inbox, so I delete spam, answer people quickly and decisively and I am a little addicted to my phone. That said, I love any bat and ball sport, a gripping book, a long lunch and sunshine so I have plenty of switch-off time too.

Time with family and friends is the best. I am a sociable person, a typical Aries, and love a good chat. We are a large family and live in the house where my husband Johnny’s parents once lived, so it is often full of first cousins and extended family.

I genuinely love having a house full of people of all ages, laughing, crying, cooking, and sharing our lives. There are now some very small members of the family too, who keep us all grounded, sometimes literally. Home is where the heart is, and our happiest times are when we are all together.

My daughters and stepdaughters. I love their creativity. I love the way they surprise me constantly with their style and the way they source pieces from flea markets, eBay and charity shops and mix those with Brora gems they (or indeed I) have had for years. I like the way they approach life, it feels so different to what I was like in my mid-twenties. They are all a true inspiration and all work or have worked in the business at some stage.

The first person I employed was called Jules and she worked with me for 15 years, only leaving when we relocated from London to Hertfordshire. I called her the doctor rather than chief operating officer. She had empathy, also found time for people, was organised but just so warm and nothing was too much trouble. I think a good manager needs to be emotionally intelligent, decisive, and firm but fair.

Brora has always been female-run, with the majority of employees being women since the early 1990s. That said, the men in the business bring a great deal, and the balance is important. There are now so many talented women with the opportunity to shape their own careers. Businesses are far more flexible and recognise the importance of women’s perspectives, especially in womenswear.

We must continue to employ the best person for the job, being open-minded about gender and age.

Absolutely. In recent years, many of our employees work remotely part of the time. This has created more freedom, as well as greater responsibility and trust. It also allows us to hire talented people who do not necessarily live within commuting distance of head office.

I love the sense of community that comes from being in the office, but I also appreciate that the right person for a role may not need to be there every day. We are far more open-minded and flexible now.

I was brought up in a very female family, one of four sisters and our father had a huge personality, was an amazing businessman and he taught us a lot; his character also made us have no fear of dominating men. I never considered my sex to be an issue one way or the other and I don’t think anyone I worked with has. I found it a bonus being a woman in business as sometimes I surprise people. I never think of myself as anything but what I am: I’m a wife, mother, a businesswoman, I’m a creative, I wear very many different hats, and I just get on, hopefully bringing pleasure and of course secure employment to many.

Surround yourself with people who are excellent at what they do and learn to trust and delegate.

Many people are born with a natural eye for art and design, but without nurturing it may never fully develop into a career. I always try to encourage creativity in my team and look for a strong sense of visual confidence. If you are creative, follow your authentic aesthetic and do not change it for anyone.