Join host Hazel Butterfield as she sits down with Judy Piatkus, founder of the global publishing brand Piatkus Books, to discuss her inspiring memoir ‘Ahead of Her Time: How a One Woman Startup Became a Global Publishing Brand.’ Judy shares her pragmatic and driven approach to building a business while raising three children as a single mother, creating a progressive working culture that was decades ahead of its time. What emerges is a fascinating portrait of a woman who didn’t realize she was breaking barriers—she was simply solving problems and following her passion.
Throughout the conversation, Judy reveals how she built her publishing empire by staying attuned to lifestyle trends, readers’ needs, and cultural shifts. From navigating the 1980s when few women ran their own businesses, to publishing pioneering works on mindfulness by Jon Kabat-Zinn in the mid-1990s, to championing self-help literature when it was still considered embarrassing, Judy’s business instincts were always one step ahead. She discusses how the evolution of technology and globalization transformed the pace of business, and how the pandemic has prompted important conversations about workplace happiness and values—a philosophy she embodied from the beginning.
Main Topics
Judy Piatkus built a global publishing brand while raising three children as a single mother, prioritizing work flexibility and a progressive company culture decades before it became mainstream
The importance of staying attuned to cultural trends and readers' needs—using book submissions and international insights to identify emerging lifestyle topics before they became mainstream
Publishing groundbreaking works on mindfulness and self-help when these genres were still unfamiliar or stigmatized in the UK, helping normalize personal development literature
How the pace of business has accelerated dramatically from the slow-moving 1980s through the technology boom of the 1990s to today's rapid digital transformation
The value of resourcefulness and adaptability in business—solving personal problems through publishing solutions that resonated with wider audiences
Creating a working culture centered on employee happiness and work-life balance, recognizing that happy workers are healthier and more productive
The shift in societal attitudes toward self-help and personal development literature, from embarrassment to acceptance and celebration
Full TranscriptHello, I'm Hazel Butterfield and you're listening to Get Booked for Women and Men's radio station here on Get Booked. We...▼
Hello, I'm Hazel Butterfield and you're listening to Get Booked for Women and Men's radio station here on Get Booked. We love talking to authors about their new releases, going into detail about the topics covered and topic inspiration, the mental health and well being elements and giving you the extra special insight into a different book and the author each week. On today's show we'll be talking to Judy Piatkas of Piatkas Books about her new book Ahead of Her How a One Woman Startup Became a Global Publishing Brand. Ahead of Her Time is a memoir that really struck a chord with me. Not just because of my love of books and interest in publishing, but being a woman from a family of female go getters who barely even had the time to notice that they were smashing feelings and paving the way for many other women. What Judy shows us is such a pragmatic and driven approach to creating a business and a life that suited her needs. Those also included the ability to make the decisions which enabled her to treat her family and the staff in a way that she felt comfortable, a working culture that was decades ahead of our time. Tactical, progressive, intuitive, evolving, and a thoroughly enlightening and informative read. I introduce to you, Judy. Hi. Hi Hazel. It's lovely to be on the show today. Thank you. You're very welcome. I am going to be completely grilling you over the next hour because I am so intrigued about your life and just I'm completely enthralled that as I was reading your book I kept on having to put the book down and it kind of do you know when it fires off the synapses and it makes you want to write even further and sometimes think about how we all lead our lives. What struck me in your book is that while you were making waves and paving the way, the way that you wrote the book, it kind of made me feel like you didn't even know you were being so incredible at the time. You just got on with it. Well, thank you. Thank you. Yes, I definitely did get on with it. I was really lucky because I didn't find it difficult working from home. And I do know a lot of people who start their own business find it difficult to actually get to the point where you actually sit at your computer and do something. But I've never been that interested in the home looking perfect. So. So it wasn't difficult to sit down after the kids had gone to school or after breakfast with them when they were younger. It wasn't difficult just to sit down and get started and keep going So I think I was lucky because that wasn't a distraction for me. But I did know that what I was doing was unusual because when I started the company, and I do just want to mention that I've now sold the company so I can't call myself a publisher anymore. But for most of my work life, I definitely called myself a publisher. But if anybody's listening and wants to send me their book, I can't read it for you because I'm no longer a publisher. So it was different at the time that I started because so few women had their own companies. And I remember I got some publicity at an early Stage in the 1980s. This was where many women weren't working, their husbands were supporting them. And this was not unusual. I got some publicity at an early stage in the Times and it said the most important person in Judy Piatkis office is her nanny. So that is so such a different time. But it really was fairly newsworthy at the time to have a nanny and to be a woman in business. See, I love how you say that you were lucky, but we do make our own look. And do you know what, 25, 30 years later, if a woman sets up on her own while she has three children and it states in the book that you actually divorced your partner, even now, that would be seen as strong and I guess even unique as well. You know, it's still groundbreaking. So I think you kind. You play down your achievements. And I found that quite often actually, and ahead of her time, which I did think. I thought it was a breath of fresh air as well. Thank you. Well, when I was a publisher, we started off publishing popular fiction. And when I began to write my memoir ahead of her time, I found myself telling my story and I put in all these sort of cliff, sort of cliff heads at the end of each chapter. And it was like things were really difficult. What was I going to do next? I think it was just so many years of being a publisher. Anyway, the editor took most of them out. I haven't checked them all, but it did make me laugh. But because when I started to write the chapter after that, I'd got the cliffhanger from the previous day. I'd been writing it and I sort of knew where I needed to go next. But I did see the audience as someone who might have read one of our novels. And that's why I think it's fairly easy to read. It is. Do you know what? It went so quickly. I finished the book in quite a few days and I noticed that Occasionally if the kids were running in and out and they were asking me questions, or occasionally when you read, your mind goes off on a little bit of a tangent. And even if I wasn't conscious for a couple of the sentences, I realized I had to go back and reread them because so much was happening in the book and it was constantly evolving. Your life was constantly evolving. The direction that you took, your publishing company was constantly evolving, and the working culture there was. If you kind of didn't concentrate for a couple of sentences, you missed something quite pivotal. Well, thank you. But actually, I mean, that's an interesting thing to reflect about because I think it's true of all businesses, and especially at this time. And so the movement of companies, the movement of businesses in the 1980s was fairly slow compared to how it is now. And I think definitely in the 1990s, there was so much happening, and there was so much happening in England. So at the Beginning of the 1990s, companies became familiar with the concept of globalization. And so, you know, freight ships were traveling all over the world and there was a massive explosion. Explosion in exporting everything everybody was doing. And then when this was aligned with technology and most people began to get home computers around the turn of the century, which sounds ancient, of course, it sounded 20 years ago, but that's when most of us were. Most companies were setting their computer systems up and people were getting training and they were buying computers for home use. That changed everything because since then there's been such a massive expansion of technology, and now all the technologies that all of us use all the time are converging. And so business is moving very, very fast at the moment. And this is without the pandemic. It was happening anyway, because the pandemic means that all our values are now being questioned. And I think that's very positive because a study done a few years ago said that only, I think about 15% of people were happy going to work. And obviously that's not good enough. We want more people to be happy going to work, because then they're going to work better and everybody in the office is going to be happier. And if you're happy, you're healthier. So we're really living in very exciting times. So probably the 80s was slower, the 90s was getting up, and now we're really racing ahead. Well, we are. And I think people have not been happy at work. And the pandemic has definitely paved a new way for a lot of people. And I think what strikes me in your book is that if you weren't happy with something, you wanted to always be in a position where you could change it. And a lot of us aren't always in that position. However, if you're happy at work and if you have passion for what you do, you know, they say you never work a day in your life, and you definitely had passion. But what I did find is that I found it brilliant because especially when I was a little bit younger, if I was always quite, oh, I'm resourceful now, but, you know, if I wanted to buy new clothes or if I wanted to go on a holiday that I didn't necessarily have the money for, I'd get a Saturday job working in a shoe shop, or I'd get a job as a travel blogger doing this, that and whatever. And at Piatka's books, you would be like, mom, actually, I've got three kids and a nanny, and sometimes I just don't have time to do this, this, this. And I want to be able to cook for my children. Do you know what? I need to start publishing books on how to make easy, nutritious meals. At a time when everybody was kind of going down that route and whatever seemed to happen in your life, you seem to embrace that, incorporate it into the business, which also helped you out as well. But it also meant you had a passion for it because you understood the need for it. Yeah, that was what we were doing. We were looking at lifestyle publishing and we were thinking. I mean, this was a constant. When we had editorial meetings, we would always be thinking, what are people looking at? How are they living? What are they beginning to talk about? What are their needs? What's new? And when we were doing this in the 1980s and. And most of the 1990s, of course, we didn't have the Internet, so there was a lot of guesswork and we got a lot of clues when we got offered books. So people would send us ideas for books they wanted to write. We also got lots of ideas from authors in America and we'd get a sense of, oh, we're getting quite a few ideas on this topic. Is it going to work here? Are people going to be interested? So. So just to give you an example, there was a massive movement of codependency in America in the early 90s. Everybody was talking about codependency, whether you were dependent on alcohol, whether you were addicted to drugs, or it might have been sex, or it might have been shopping. This was massively hot in America. And we did some books on codependency and it wasn't that people didn't have the same issues here, but it wasn't such a society trend, it wasn't something everybody was talking about, so we didn't get that one quite right. But then there were times when we got other things right and we did publish books by John Kabat Zinn and he was the man who brought the ideas behind mindfulness to, to the world, to the Western world really. He selected ideas that worked very well for Buddhists and he thought, how can they be used in a practical way by people who live in the Western world? And his ideas formed the basis of mindfulness. So we did publish his books on mindfulness and at the time, this was the mid-90s, it was very, very foreign to a lot of people. But that was an example of a trend that work in the uk. So when we've got the. Once we had the Internet, we could find out what was going on everywhere much more easily. But during the 90s we had to research much more carefully. Well, do you know what? I've always been a huge fan of reading. I was that kid that was always in the local newspaper for reading ahead of her time and doing well at school, anything to do with reading, I would be while all my friends were in Topshop buying the latest crop top, you know, I was in all the discount bookshops buying up as many books as possible. And you know, 20, 25 years ago, you'd be embarrassed if you accidentally ended up in the self help section and how that has moved on and especially in the last 10 to 15 years, how much we've embraced it and you kind of tackled that genre when the UK were just at the tipping point of accepting it. I think 10, 15 years ago was roughly when we started thinking, oh no, we don't have to be embarrassed about being caught in the self help section. And I mean, I remember saying about 10 years ago saying to a friend, I've read this fantastic self help book and it's not lame, it's actually a really good one. I remember making the explanation excuses then, but now I think we've accepted that not only our self help books, there's so many out, but I actually think any piece of literature has some form of beneficial element of mental well being. I think reading is so important and he's so looking forward to having a coffee with you one day so that you can tell me about your favorite book. Because I just love it when I meet people who are so passionate about reading and also about discovering what's new, whether it's nonfiction or fiction. So, you know, when you're growing up, your parents say reading is educational. And so sometimes some people get put off books because they think it's going to be hard work. But if you're lucky enough to love taking in information with reading, then you are really fortunate. Because my view is you can never be alone with a book. I mean, there is always a book that you can be reading that is going to raise your energy and take you out of yourself, remind you of all the good things in life. And even if it's a self book, which you're reading, which is about how to cure anxiety or depression, hopefully that's going to raise your spirits too. So reading is just the greatest joy completely. I mean, I mix mine up like I have something that's kind of memoir, self help esque, and then I move on to something that's more fictional. And then I need, depending on whether the fiction was comedy or not, I always need a comedy and I kind of do it in those kind of cycles. And some of the books I get to read, I mean, I'm very lucky because I get to read. Emerging writers work. So especially here at Get Books, we like to help support new authors because it's so hard to get the promo and you know, it doesn't matter. Even if they've got a PR company behind them, they need additional support. And there's a fantastic writing community on Twitter and I know that they listen to this show quite a lot. So it's good that at the beginning you said that you're not in publishing anymore. Otherwise they'll be like, Judy, it's very, it's very supportive and I absolutely love it. I get about 10 to 15 books sent to me each week. But you know, I have all my friends that say, oh, I'm just not. I can't really read books and I don't have the time. I'm like, well, you know, if you don't like reading, you have audible and you can have that as, as something in your ear while you're cooking or while you're on your many exercise walks, especially in lockdown. And you know, there's Kindles or there's the physical book. And I think it's a beautiful escape either to learn something or to understand what's going on in somebody else's world to help you understand what goes on. Do you know what? There's something quite beautiful that my son asked me recently. He said, I don't understand why we've got to do religious Education at school. And I said, well, because religion is basically what the world revolves, and if the more you understand about other people, the happier everybody will be and the less judgmental everybody will be. And he's like, that makes complete sense. I get it. Yeah, I'm happy with that now. And I think that's the same with books. Books help you understand other people, and we can get on so much better the more knowledge we have. Absolutely. You know, whether you read an amazing novel by sort of Tolstoy or a classic by Dostoevsky, or if you read Anna Karenina, and that's really hard work, or if you read one of today's popular novels, you are going to learn something about how other people think. For me, that's always the perennial fascination of a novel, just sort of getting into the heads of the characters. But I also really, really like stories. And as you say, I think that was so great that your son accepted what you said. Because I think the other thing that's interesting is that we all have different ways of learning and taking in information. So that's what's interesting about being a publisher, in that you can publish books which are all positioned differently. So you can do the beginner's guide to something, you can do the illustrated guide to something, you can do the sort of popular guide, you can do the academic guide. So whatever you're interested in talking about nonfiction here rather than people, there's the right book for you. You just have to look for the one that gets you at the moment that you're ready to read it. But as you say, now there is this fantastic opportunity to listen to all your favourite books. One thing that's been interesting since I stopped being a publisher is just how many podcasts there are and how many opportunities there are to listen to books. And I think that's absolutely fabulous because some people like to get their information from listening, other people like to read, others like to listen. And then the other lot of life, isn't it? Yeah, the other lot like to see it. They're the viewers. Yeah. Because we all have our different ways of embracing culture or how we want to actually consume it. When you mentioned before about you'd love to hear about some of my favorite books, do you know what really struck me as to just the kind of career you have is when I found out that you actually published one of my favourite books. I am waiting. Can you have a guess? Well, the obvious one that comes to mind is Slyers in the Attic. Oh, yeah, I was reading that. I went, no, I'm actually going to get to speak to the person that gave me that. Yes, I love it to pieces. We had a little bit of a joke among some of my friends when I split up with an ex of mine. And while we were separating our houses, he kind of moved into the attic element of the house. It was a bit of a joke and it was like, flowers in the attic. It doesn't look inappropriate, but, yeah, he tried to kind of hide away and I was like, my flower's in the attic. That's so funny. Thanks for sharing that. That's a lovely story. It's all right. He doesn't listen to my shows, but that's incredible, and it must be unbelievable. You walk into somebody's house and you see that they've got a collection of books, and you see that one and many others. Especially with what's going on at the moment with the Great British Bake off and Mary Berry. Oh, yes. Yeah, we. We published about 14 or 15 books with Mary Berry, and she was always 100% professional and a complete joy to work with, and it was always such a pleasure. Well, Mary Berry always had a few different publishers. And a bit, like I mentioned before, what we were publishing had a few illustrations, but she was doing books with lots and lots of illustrations with publishers who specialized in illustrated books. And we were always thrilled that she was happy to continue publishing books with us. And when we started with Mary Berry, we did this amazing book, Fast Cakes, because I wanted some fast cakes that I could make very quickly and when we had friends around for Sunday tea, because that's what happened when my kids were small. And then Mary did things like the Food Processor Cookbook when food processors came out. So you can tell how long our relationship goes back. And then as everything develops, we would always be thinking of what's new, what's interesting, what do cooks want at the moment. So we have published so many interesting, wonderful authors. And that's one of the good parts of publishing. It's just that you meet all these fabulous people who want to create and talk about books. So it's always such, such a treat, Hazel, to be talking about books. Oh, yeah. I 100% agree. It's an absolute thrill. And also when somebody's been so passionate about something to actually write it down and share it with them, the world. It's actually engaging with that passion. Yeah, well, thank you. It's just. So I've. I've become an author. I'd written a couple of tiny gift books, collected an anthology of poems but this is the first time I wrote a long book. And I went to a workshop, actually by a guy called Mark Matusek. We published his first book and he's American and he'd come over to the UK and do these workshops. So I went to this workshop about how to write a memoir, introduced myself to Mark, hadn't met him for ages, which for years, it was lovely. And then he said, write everything down because you can always decide what to leave out later. So I did write everything down and then I sent it to an editor and she cut 20% of it. And I had to remember I was a publisher and what the editor said had to go. So I didn't query any of it. Wow. But being on the other side of it must be incredibly interesting. Just I would love to ask you, to all the budding authors out there, or if they're about to, maybe they're self published and they're hoping that the next book they could get a publisher. What advice would you give to them about positioning their book? Well, first of all, if you want to write a book, just write it. Just practice your writing, because every author, whatever kind of book they write, everybody who writes gets better at writing the more they do. And then if you're really serious about being published, because people say they're serious, but actually some people want to write what they want. But if you're really serious about what's being about being published, you're either going to write the great novel that is going to sell for hundreds and thousands of pounds all over the world, but that is extremely rare, so that's risky, or you need to look in bookshops where books are sold and on Amazon and see what everybody's writing and what is currently selling. So very recently, for example, wherever you looked, you were finding these psychological novels all about women in jeopardy. And so at different times, there's a particular trend, and when there's a particular trend, if you can write your novel for that trend, you've got a better chance of being published. But you have to pay attention to the market because the trend will probably become over published. And then every publisher will be looking around for something a bit different and they'll be ready to try out a few new things because they won't know what's happening next. So take yourself seriously, study the marketplace and find your unique voice. Oh, yeah, I love. Thank you so much. I've been writing these down, make sure that I can put these on a post it note somewhere and make sure that it helps me Because I'm currently writing a book as well and it's been in the works for a while. And sometimes, you know, as with Piatkas Books, you know, it's got to evolve depending on what's going to be right at the time that the book's going to be ready, I guess. But yeah, it's. While I have you here, I might as well pick your brains. Do you think you'd ever go back into the publishing world or do you think you've done that now? Oh, I definitely have done it now. My publishing career ended. Well, I mean, I remember walking out the door and it was the 31st of October, so I walked out the door of the Piatkas office in Windmill street and I think that's the day my publishing career ended. 31st of October 2007. And then I had. Our company had been bought by Little Brown, another very popular, very good British publisher. So Piatka's Books is now part of Little Brown. And for the next few weeks we merged and Little Brown moved into a new office and I had to go in not every day for a few weeks, but that really since 2007, I knew I didn't want to go back into publishing because it is a vocation and I had spent all my weekends reading. And when I didn't read on weekends, I mean this is apart from working in the week when I didn't read on the weekends because there's so much reading, which was fine, I didn't have to, but. Except that the pile of reading was twice as big the week after. And I just knew I. That I wanted to read what I wanted to read and not always what I needed to read for work. Oh yeah, my TBR pile is huge. And because we can't go abroad at the moment, which is completely. Just a lot of the time people think, oh, Hazel, just because you want to go and sit in the sun, I'm like, no, I want to completely get rid of my tech, sit on a beach and get, get through my TBRs. You know, I'm gonna, I'll be taking about 10 bikinis and about 10 books. Bikini and a book each day. Well, you know, I don't love reading on a Kindle. I think it's wonderful. And I can't resist buying books in bookshops and I can't resist taking too many, like just in case I run out on holiday and I start buying my holiday reads like several months before when I see them. So that when I come to this moment when I'm Packing my case, I've usually got a good choice and I go, and I have to tell you, it's the best bit of packing. Which books am I going to take with me? It's so exciting. I imagine you probably read on a Kindle because otherwise it would be unmanageable. Do you know what? I like to mix it up a little bit when possible. I like to read a physical book because when you're on Kindle, which is on my iPad, you do get the notifications. It's too easy to just quickly get lost in the wormhole of Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, you name it. So quite often when new authors say, can I send you a book? Can I send you a PDF? And I'm like, I'd really prefer to have the physical book. Otherwise I'm. You could easily turn the notifications off. But in the real world, that just doesn't happen every time you want to start reading. And I just, I don't want to go off into the technological wormhole. So I do love sitting and reading a book. And you know what? I like reading a book when I'm out and about and in a cafe. And there's something about constantly seeing someone's face buried in technology. Oh, why is that, do you think? Because we all seem to be a nation that are quite addicted to technology. And I think sometimes, I mean, it's not good for our mental health, for how our brains function. I mean, I know when my kids have had too much tech, I need to control, alt, delete them and kind of reprogram their becoming brain ready for school the next day or whatnot. Especially when they go to their dad's on a weekend, they can be. They can be slightly wired. And I don't know whether it's just the blue screen or whatnot, but. But there's something about. I feel embarrassed constantly being visually embedded in tech and it's. I will walk around, sometimes walk around a park reading. And if you end up accidentally reading, getting in somebody's way or walking in front of somebody when you're reading a book, they're like, yeah, yeah, cool. If you do that and you're looking down at your phone or your iPad, people get angry. I'm just. I don't think I've ever walked along reading a book. I don't think I'm sufficiently well coordinated. So I'm really impressed. You'd have to be careful, though. You'd have to be careful not to fall in the swimming pool at a hotel. I try and make sure I stay away from railway lines and swimming pools. It's generally if I am just. Just off out for a quick 20, 30 minutes and I've got a book to finish and I just can't stop and I'm dying to read it, I kind of glance up every now and again. But, yeah, I have been known to read walk at the same time. That's amazing. Yeah, especially what I have missed is, with us working from home over the last year, quite a bit more I've missed the commute because the commute is when I'd get two hours reading a day done. Yeah, I used to read a lot on my tube journey from Stanmore or Edgware into town, depending what day of the week it was, and it was really valuable. And I always. Actually, I'll tell you what, I did get quite good at holding onto a strap, clutching my handbag and reading a book at the same time. It was usually a proof. So, you know, you know how when you travel on the Tube all the time, you sort of get your tube legs, you know, like sea legs. You sort of, you. You get. You sense the movement of the train and you can balance and you get to read books. But of course, every now and again, when it pulled up short, I was not popular if I fell into someone's lap. I bet you were not after they got bashed with my handbag as well. But this is exactly. You know, women multitask, dance, like more than I think most men do. And throughout your career, you have been multitasking and you've had an interesting life. I mean, there was a breakup of your marriage and you are quite obviously a strong woman or definitely perceived as being a strong woman. And I wonder what it was like being a mother of three children, owning her own business, working decent hours. And I find that generally in that situation, it's the meek and the mild that get the support, not the seemingly strong woman. How was that for you? I was able to hire people to help me. And so I did always have a living in nanny. And of course that has pros and cons, because the pros are that somebody is always there. There's always another pair of hands. So the cons are some nannies are more difficult to live with than others. Well, sometimes they weren't. I mean, they weren't Norland nannies and some had nanny qualifications and others were mother's help. And after the. After my younger daughter was about five, we would have a lot of lovely women from Australia and New Zealand who were here For a year or two, and they were sort of traveling around Europe and they needed to earn money. And it was really lovely living with them because they were very easy, you know, whatever. They weren't too fast. But, I mean, they didn't sort of mind if you asked them to do some cooking? Well, I would ask them at the interview and say, well, you're going to cook for the kids. But it was really nice and refreshing and it was lovely for the children because they met people from abroad. So I think it's much, much more of a problem if you don't have sufficient income to be able to pay people to help you. But the other thing is, I've always been good at accepting help. So that when people offer it to me, which doesn't, as you said, doesn't happen that often, but I was always quite happy to accept it or to organize it or to make something happen, because I knew if I didn't, it would be my responsibility if things weren't working out, because everything was down to me. So I think really that that is something that mothers of children struggle with, because I think there's actually a lot more demands on women today. One of my hobby horses is that schools demand so much more of parents than they did when my children were young. So when my children were young or when they were teenagers, they went to school and they came home and they did their work. I wasn't constantly expected to be in touch with the teacher and go to meetings and sort of make things and take things and bring things. But now schools work with parents, and that's wonderful because parents have more understanding of their children's education and what's going on. But I do think schools sometimes ask a lot of busy parents, and that puts a lot more stress on them. And I don't think I ever felt that because it wasn't so commonplace then. So for all the mothers out there, sometimes you have to just say no to the school. You can't do it. But I did find that in your book, you did have quite a pragmatic way of looking at things where you would just kind of embrace what's happening, take help when you needed it and get on with what you couldn't get help with. And you. I think sometimes women rarely get the time to grieve or understand life that's actually happening to them. And they just kind of bolster on through. I don't know how much you agree with that. And there's definitely. Every woman is different, and some of them have more time or have different strengths. And it's identifying your strengths and learning to accept help for the bits that you need help with. Absolutely. And the better you know and understand yourself and your character and your temperament, then the more peace of mind you've got because you've got more control over your emotions. So, you know, you wake up in the morning and and if by lunchtime you're feeling very upset or depressed, it's quite helpful to go back and think, well, I woke up, okay, at what point did I get a bit upset or what was it that made me angry and how might I have handled that differently? And the most important question is, was that my stuff? Because sometimes someone else comes along and they're having a bad day and you think it's about you and it's nothing to do with you and you have to sort of think, oh God, that wasn't about me at all. And sometimes we forget to just take the time and analyze what's actually going on. Do you know, you might have missed a particular range of books that were released based around those topics by an author called Jill Sims. And one of the books is called why Mummy Drinks. I've seen Joseon's name and I've always thought she's selling really well. So I must have a look and a read there. Well, she's got why Mummy Drinks, why Mummy Swears, why Mummy doesn't give her and then it's crossed out and why Mummy's Sloshed again. That's a good one. I mean, that's a good title. I always like good titles. I've read a couple of them and they are extremely funny. But we've all got important decisions to make and it's important that we understand ourselves and understand how we can lead our lives to our best ability. I was going to chat a little bit about your first daughter if that's okay. Because you know, this is it's topic that I'm sure many mums will be interested in because sometimes you have to look at what is best for your family. And if you can tell our listeners a little bit about Sonia. Oh yes, no, I always like talking about Sonia. So Sonia is my oldest daughter and she's, she's now in her 40s and when, when I was having her, I had a very difficult time in the hospital. And when Sonia was about nine months, we discovered that she had cerebral palsy. And that's a bit of a label. It can mean anything really. In Sonia's particular case, she subsequently didn't really develop in the way that everybody, every parent, everybody would like to develop, because I'm sure she would have liked to develop. So as the months and years went by, it became clear she was never going to be able to walk or speak. And not only that, she has very limited control of her hands, so she can't do anything of her own volition. And she has spent her life in a wheelchair. So I went on to have a son and another daughter, and I was bringing up three children, and Sonia was in the wheelchair. And we found very good schools for her. She first went to a school in Harlow, which was very good. And then when I moved to a different part of London, she went to another very good school in North London. And then I had the opportunity for her to go and live in a home, in a care home. And I'd known about this home for many years, and it was the place that I wanted her to go to when, as I'd always thought, when the day came that we just couldn't help her anymore because she would be too heavy for one person to be able to lift out of the chair. But in fact, she was offered a place when she was nine years old. And I thought, if she doesn't. If I don't take this place for her when she's maybe 17 or 18 and has finished at school, they might not have a place for her, and then her life will be much more difficult than if she can settle into this lovely home now. And so off she went when she was 9. And the home is called Ravenswood Village, and it's not far from Reading, and it's the most wonderful place. And it's very special because the residents, all of whom have got different disabilities, live surrounded by trees and fields. There's even some horses there, and they can wander around the village freely. And currently, if you were disabled, you would be very, very unlikely to find anywhere where you would have such a good quality of life. And the ethos of the organization that runs it is that everything that could possibly doubt be done to give the people who live there a wonderful quality of life, the best they're capable of having will be done as far as they can manage it. So I felt like I'd lost a limb when Sonia went to live there. And even though we saw her regularly, it was a massive wrench. But I have to tell you, Hazel, we went to see her yesterday because it's only a couple of. Because I hadn't seen her since before the lockdown, and it's only a couple of weeks since we had the opportunity. So we waited for a day when we knew the weather was going to be nice because my husband drove me there and we both wanted to see her and only one person could go in, so we decided we'll both go for a walk with her outside. And she was very happy and she's had her vaccine and she was laughing and smiling and so happy to see us. And we wandered around and looked at the trees and I am so grateful that she's had such a good life there. But as parents, all we can do is try and do the best for our children. And this fantastic place helps Sonia thrive. I mean, it's fantastic. It was. It was when she went there and it remains absolutely amazing. And I'm. I think Sonia has been fortunate that she was able to go there. Of course, I never know what Sonia thinks about anything because she can't speak, so she can't tell anybody what she thinks. But she's got a range of noises and sounds that she makes and sometimes it's very clear what she's thinking and she's got the best sense of humour, so when she laughs, it's so infectious. We all laugh with her. Do you know what? I think that sometimes language is incredibly important, but you can get so much across without actually saying anything at all. And I think we all need to be able to tune into what other people are thinking or want to actually give to somebody else without having to always be able to speak the same language or speak at all. Well, I think Sonia and other people with other children, other adults with disabilities, are here to teach the rest of us so many lessons. First of all, to be grateful for everything that we can do that they might not be able to do and they might not want to do things that we might think they want to do. I mean, I don't know what Sonia wants to do. I don't know what she'd love to do, but I do know that she loves going out and she loves going in a car. She hasn't been able to do that much recently. So I think we're all here to learn from one another and people who have the hardest lives have got the most to teach the rest of us. Oh, yes, yes, I completely agree with that. I just want to point out to our listeners that not only are you a mother of three, where your. Your first child had additional needs, but you built and owned a thriving business. Even, you know, during separating from your first husband. You mentioned your husband there, but he's. He's. Your second husband, isn't he? Yeah. And. And you just completely smashed it out the park. And then when you sold the business because you hit your target year earlier than when you needed to, you then decided, well, I finished with publishing. Next up, I'm going to learn to become a counsellor. Well, thank you, actually. Yeah, keep on going. I did learn to become a counsellor while I was a publisher, actually. But I'll tell you what I. But what I did do after I sold my company, it was a few years afterwards, was I went to university as a mature student. And the thing was that when I was growing up in the 60s, it wasn't essential to go to university to get a job and I'd gone to a good school, but I'd never gone to university. And in my 20s, I had such a chip on my shoulder because all my friends went to university and I didn't. And of course, in the end, it didn't matter at all because I went on to have this fabulous company and a really interesting career, so it didn't matter. But there was a little bit of me that obviously still wanted to go to university, so I ended up going to university and getting a degree. And that was a few years after I sold the company. And when I sat in the classroom and I was sitting there and there were a couple of guys, I actually did a Master's. I didn't have to do a first degree because I had lots of experience in the workplace and I did a Master's in something called creative leadership. So I look back at the leadership that I had. I looked back and looked at all the theory of leadership and I had my experience to draw on. And I was sitting in the classroom and there were two guys, one from Canada and one from Saudi Arabia, among the group of us who were on this course. And they were in their 20s and I was so happy to be learning alongside them. I mean, it was just amazing. So I think that was one of the next big things that I did after I sold the company. But one of the reasons I didn't want to stay in publishing was because I'd been in publishing all my life and I wanted to see what else the world had to offer. And I did love it when I did the counseling course as well. And I wasn't sure if I'd go on and practice more when I became a publisher, but I wasn't sure I'd practice more after I sold the company. But actually, it didn't draw me, it didn't cause me in the way that I thought it might. So I did other things instead. So that's the thing though, isn't it? We are constantly evolving. If you don't try, you never know. If you don't ask, you'll never get. And I love it that you're always aiming higher and always making sure that, you know, you've tried everything that you want to give and give a bit of a try to. But the fact that you actually state, yes, your friends went to university and you didn't and it was something that you felt you needed to do. However, how many of your friends that went to university got invited to meet the Queen or to go to number 10? Well, you know, for all the listeners out there who haven't gone to university, just it's. I loved studying but you know, you have to, as long as you can do all the basics. And I think the basics, when I say the basics, that's changing every day. You know, we didn't have to have computer skills, so there's all kinds of new skills. You know, you just have to be really good at the work you do and you have to want to be the go to person, the person that everybody says, oh, go and ask Mary, she'll know what to do when you're that person and then you've got all the skills and then you have to keep going higher or understanding what it is that you're maybe not good at and you don't want to be good at. You make sure that you excel in another area so you can help somebody else and then they can help you with the areas that you're not so good about. And that's just part of having a good working culture and creating relationships, isn't it? Oh, absolutely. Collaborative work culture. That's how we're moving in the future. I think now we're moving away from this hierarchical top down culture to a much more collaborative culture. And women are so much better at collaborative culture than many men are. So this is a good time for everybody everywhere who is in the workplace or wants to build a business. Well, we've been talking over the last five years, possibly up to 10 years as a country about flexible working and making sure that everybody has the flexibility to still have meaningful lives at home. And 20, 30 years ago, you actually voluntarily gave paternity leave before it was even really a thing to one of your employees, didn't you? Or actually I guess a business partner towards the end. Well, we gave, I remember we had, we had a bookkeeper, our bookkeeper and our IT guy, Simon. I think he had paternity leave. And we had a guy, Paul, who did a lot of other kinds of work in the company. He had paternity leave. And even at the beginning, people were working from home and coming into the office or your home, depending on which, which stage of, of the business they, they have that opportunity. Well, not, not everybody, I should say not everybody, but definitely people in the editorial department, production, I mean, because you got to remember we didn't have mobile phones, we didn't have computers. If we tap mobile phones into beautiful, probably everybody who didn't have the opportunity to work at home would have asked for the opportunity. But actually people didn't really expect to be able to work from home before they, before we all had a computer and a mobile phone. But definitely all the editors were working from home, publicity was working from home. And most other people wanted to come into the office anyway, you know, if they were doing sales or if they were selling foreign rights. Anyway, it all worked out, whatever it was. I think the important thing is that we were as flexible as we were able to be because we wanted people to have happy lives. Twelve months ago, we all liked it for the first six months because we were around for our children a little bit more and we could nip off to the gym or kind of, you know, we had two or three hours a day given back to us. You could do something on your lunch break. You weren't going out and traveling and getting stuck in the, in traffic or on the train commuting here, there and everywhere. And now it's completely turned full circle and everybody's just like, I want to be back in the office. I want to see people. And if I have to look at Zoom after April 12th. Oh, yeah, well, I mean, I think we'll end up with a hybrid because we want a mixture of both. The transport system has to recognize it. You know, we can get reasonably priced fares on the day that we do come into the office. And I think the whole of our society is going to shift. I think we're just going to have loads and loads of changes. And I think change can always be a challenge. But maybe in three or four years when we're through it and we've got the working environment that all of us, or at least most of us are going to be happiest in, and then we will see some good coming out of COVID that no one could possibly have foreseen. Well, we had to actually set ourselves up on a. It wasn't a one off, you know, working from home. Occasionally every other Friday where you didn't get the most out of your staff because they weren't properly set up, but now they are and businesses have given up their premises already because they know at least half their staff aren't going to be in anymore, whether it's for a couple of days or not at all. People now realize they don't have to be here and that people have had to learn to actually do it in more of a productive and present way. And it is going to be quite interesting, all the office blocks that sitting there empty and whatever's going to happen to them. And I can't imagine being back on the tube again at 8, well, 7, 8 o' clock in the morning where we're all literally, you know, we used to be like packed like sardines. Can you imagine that happening? Well, it'll be interesting, but it might not work for everybody because I was, I was renewing my insurance the other day and I was talking to a lady who was based in the north of England and I like phone this number and I said to her, you know, are you in the office or are you working from home? And she said, oh no, I'm in the office. She said, well, actually I'm not really enjoying it because I'm in a cupboard. I said, in a cupboard? She said, well, we don't have a very big house and this is the most private part. The next time I spoke to her, she told me she moved her desk into the, into the living room. She said, well, I'm in the living room and I'm trying it out. But then the third time I spoke to her and she did renew my insurance inside, the first time I spoke to her, she said, no, I had to go back to the cupboard because I couldn't stand the desk in the middle of the living room. She's probably someone who's going to be happier in an office. Well, that's the thing. We are all different. But now I think there is going to be the opportunity for people to voice their preference and just. I like it. I prefer to be able to be in a studio and be face to face, especially with my guests, because of the rapport you can get when you can actually see how someone's responding and how comfortable they are. And I do miss being in the studio, definitely, but I do like the flexibility of it and I do like the variety. It's fantastic. Here's hoping that everybody finds what works for them. Oh, absolutely. And I think if companies want to keep their best staff, they are going to have to be more amenable because the people who do the job well are the ones that every company wants. And if they're not happy, they're going to look for other jobs and they're not going to stay. So keeping key staff is so important because every company is all about the people in it. And also, I was talking to someone in Switzerland and he worked for a bank. He was telling me, he said, you know, if we thought we were going to work from home, they'd have set up all these committees and they'd have been talking about it for two years. But as we didn't have a choice, he said, they've done it in two weeks. Well, when you're forced to do something, sometimes we do need a push. I think a lot of people have had a push over the last 12 months. But as you quite clearly state in your book, if you are happy at work, then you will be be better at your job. And I must say, we've come to the end of today's conversation. I could carry on chatting to you for at least another two or three hours if I'd have known. I'd have put in a nice bottle of Shablis in the fridge and got cracking. But unfortunately. But I must say, Judy, ahead of her time, absolutely loved it. I recommend it to everybody. I think it's inspiring, it's uplifting and congratulations. Oh, thank you, Hazel. I'm really grateful that you enjoyed it and thank you for coming on the show. We really appreciate it here at women's and men's radio station. Enjoy the rest of your day. Thank you so much. Now I'm off to the fridge, I think, to open a bottle for lunch. Thank you very much. You're listening to Hazel Butterfield. This is Get Booked for women's and men's radio station.
