Co Down woman an inspiration
SHELLEY MARSDEN meets entrepreneur Jacqueline Irvine, who battled illness to set up an award-winning home business… - 05/10/10
Jacqueline Irvine, 46, is a lady who won’t let anything get in her way. Despite a tough year, she found herself last month at The Grand Connaught Rooms, London as a finalist in the Remote Worker Awards.
In association with BT Business and launched by Remote Employment (Google’s top job site for flexible and home-based jobs), the awards’ aim is to highlight the benefits of remote working.
Jacqueline, who runs clothing company Organic Baby Clothes Direct from home, came “extremely close to winning”, according to event founder Paula Wynne. But scooping Runner Up for the BT Home Business Award was not even something the Newry mother-of-two had considered.
Jacqueline’s business supplies organic baby clothes to clients throughout the UK and Europe. The wide range of organic clothes for children 0-6yrs are ethically sourced, fair trade and are free from toxic chemicals. But having only been going for six months, she didn’t expect any recognition quite so quickly.
“It was a total shock!” she laughs when I ask her about that night. “I’m a newly established business; the website went live to the public in March this year, and I really had no idea I’d even be placed. I went for the networking and the fun really – I knew there were well-established businesses up for awards.
“When they called my name out I was just so, so thrilled. Back in June, I also won the Best Green Business in the Greater Newry Area Business Awards at home. I beat Sainsbury’s to that one! It was nice to win over a big giant like that. So it’s been a very exciting few months for me.”
Exciting, yes, but also extremely difficult, as Jacqueline received a devastating piece of news last year. It turned her life upside down, but it also gave her the drive to succeed and do something she had always wanted to, but lacked the confidence to go for. She told me about those life-changing months in her own words:
“Last March, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. And a year on to that very month, I set up the business. I don’t think anyone can prepare you for news like that, but when I got the diagnosis, I went into overdrive. I just asked the doctor, ‘OK, right – what do I need to do?’ The doctor was kind of gob-smacked at my reaction.”
This is typical of Jacqueline – she exudes a warmth and positivity that must have a positive effect on everyone she meets, in life and business. She tells me she was booked to go on holiday to Portugal the day after she got the news, and decided to go. She had a lovely week, and says she never missed a nights’ sleep.
“I just knew I’d come home, have the operation I needed to have, and get on with things. I looked at it as a challenge and I dealt with it. Then six weeks after my radiation treatment, I climbed Slieve Donard for the Cancer Unit in Belfast.”
Jacqueline confesses that this is the first time she has really spoken openly about her illness - and is at pains to point out that she doesn’t want to become another ‘victim story’. “And health-wise right now, I’m on top of the world, life is good!” she says.
The cancer also made her realise how many reserves of strength she had, and she admits she didn’t have the self-belief before that she has now. With a background in nursing and clinical research, Jacqueline had held a management position in the last job she had, but always dreamed of setting up her own business.
“It sounds like a cliché, but I’d always wanted to run my own business – I just never thought I had it in me. Going through what I have, made me realise just how strong I am. I thought, if I can get through that illness with such focus, I can do anything. I feel humble and grateful. And I have a new lease of life.”
Eager to move on to talk of her business, Jacqueline explains the ethics behind her baby clothes – explaining with great enthusiasm just why they are more preferable than traditional clothing.
“Organic Baby Clothes Direct is ethical clothing for babies, made from organic cotton. It’s grown without any pesticides or chemicals, because conventional cotton is heavily sprayed. In fact, the crop is sprayed forty times a season with really nasty chemicals – they don’t come out even through washing clothes, as they’re petroleum-based. And because a baby’s skin is five times’ thinner than an adult’s, they absorb all this stuff all the more easily.”
“The World Health Organisation has been quoted as saying that with frontline farmers there are some 20,000 deaths a year attributed to pesticide poisoning in the developing world. By making organic cotton, those farmers aren’t scared about doing damage to themselves, and it’s fair trade – so they’re getting a fare wage too.
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office in Newry, Down, scooped second place for The BT Home Business Award in a prestigious ceremony to celebrate The Remote Worker Awards, in association with BT Business, at The Grand Connaught Rooms in London.
