Meet former Leeds medical secretary launching a crochet business after retirement

“The career teacher said I would make a very good secretary and whatever teachers and career teachers told us, it was almost gospel,” she explains, “so I went down that route.”

Cynthia spent the next 30 years as a medical secretary at the two Leeds hospitals, Leeds General Infirmary and St James’s. Then, after her retirement, she turned to some of the talents she had left unexplored in her childhood.

Her mum, who died in 2011, would spend much of her time creating “beautiful rugs” and had begun to teach Cynthia to crochet as a girl. The 59-year says: “She taught me how to crochet little squares, and so there were lots of little squares dotted about the house.

"I got a little bit bored with that and I asked my mum to show me something else rather than just the small squares and she replied with a bit of a strange answer. She told me to ‘figure the rest out yourself’, which at the time I thought was a little bit cruel. She had the the ability. Why didn't she show me so?”

Cynthia put down her crochet needles after this – but once she picked them back up a few years ago, she could hear her mum’s voice saying ‘figure it out yourself’. She threw herself into research and began learning the difference between various wools, strengths, sizes and lengths.

She explains: “I learnt to recognise the connection between the wool and the needle. Not long after I realised I was able to put clothes together – whether it was cardigans, skirts, jumpers, hats, scarves or gloves.”

She adds: “What my mum had tried to put across to me, was to learn my trade and learn it in detail so that I didn't have to copy anybody else's pattern, but have my own trade, with my own understanding of the wool and the needle.”

Cynthia has re-entered the workforce in an administrative role to feed into her passion. “I wanted to put a little bit of finance into what I was doing,” she says. “I wanted to have a bit of freedom in the type of wool that I wanted to purchase and also a variety of accessories, different types of needles, etc.”

She recently presented some of her work at a fashion show and one dress in particular – a black sequined gown – caught the eye of many guests. She is now in the early stages of setting up a formal business.

While it has taken her many years to find crocheting again, she calls the craft her ‘true calling’. “I think every individual has a purpose and crocheting is where I'm at peace. It's where I'm extremely content.”