My Background
My first full-time job was at the Caravan Club (now The Caravan and Motorhome Club) in East Grinstead, where I worked for 11 years.
In 1989 Mum and I joined the hospital radio at Queen Victoria Hospital in East Grinstead (her idea!), where I subsequently met my husband Phil. We hit it off immediately, and after only 6 months of dating, he proposed, and the rest is ‘history’ as they say.
About a year later I left The Caravan Club to have our first child. Our second came after a 3-year break.
Career
Wanting to continue using my skills, I decided to start my own business, VA Sussex, secretarial services in 1995, which evolved and split to become SJE Marketing and Premium CVs. I worked from home alongside bringing up our family.
Both my businesses, particularly CV writing, proved very popular, till unfortunately Covid struck. Then sadly, like many other businesses, almost everything stopped and didn’t start improving until towards the end of Covid. I valiantly continued, until retiring in September 2025.
Retirement and new beginnings!
I’ve always enjoyed art and painting, (inherited from my Mum’s side of the family – her father was an artist and architect). Despite being very modest about her work, she sold quite a lot of her paintings in her time (watercolours and oils). I fondly remember the smell of oil paints, turps and varnish (I can smell it now!) when she was painting at home.
Although I dabbled with art at secondary school (Holy Trinity in Crawley), I was never encouraged. It was only when I semi-retired (2024), that I started painting again, as I had more time to spare. Thankfully, I still had some old paints, and, together with those inherited from my dear Mum (who very sadly passed away in 2017), all this encouraged me to start up again. I’m so glad I did, I love it!
Then I joined a small art group in Uckfield. When it was time to move on, I joined Uckfield Art Group and U3a Art Group, at the end of 2025, which I still attend today. Since then the opportunities have grown substantially, and so have my skills!
I’m mostly self-taught, with a few sessions at Uckfield Adult Education evening classes.
Over the years I have also been a keen volunteer, including long-standing roles at Sense charity shop in Uckfield and at Uckfield Volunteer Centre (now Wealden Volunteering), where I was an Office Volunteer, member of the Committee/Trustee and Clerk to the Board for several years.
Achievements:
I’m naturally very proud of my own job successes, including a long-term part-time job with Duke Letting, as well as long-term volunteering with Sense charity shop and Uckfield Volunteer Centre (now Wealden Volunteering, alongside bringing up our family, and lastly but most importantly, running and growing 2 successful businesses.
If you would like to see my work, please visit the shop. Or, for more information please visit the contact page or Whatsapp me via the link on the right below.
About Daphne Dangerfield (Mum) – co-author of Memoirs of a WAAF
Daphne Tester (nee Dangerfield) was born in Ontario, Canada, hence her Canadian wings on the arm of her uniform. Her family moved back to England when she was only 9 years old.
Our family had many get-togethers at the family home in East Grinstead, however, she rarely spoke about her WAAF diaries, so we barely knew anything about them, let alone the fact that she still had them. So, what happened next?
In 2008 the difficult, very emotional decision was made to downsize Mum and Dad’s home. They had been finding their large four-bedroom house and considerable garden, increasingly difficult to manage. On the build-up to moving day I had a phone call from Mum asking about what to do with her diaries. It was a ‘by the way’ type of discussion. “Oh, I’ve found my old war diaries.” she said, ” I’d forgotten about these. I’m not sure what to do with them. What do you think? Shall I just throw them out”. My immediate response was “Oh no, don’t do that. Keep hold of them and I will have a look next time we come over”. When we did, I was horrified that she had suggested throwing them. They were lovely – all leather bound, and the tiniest handwriting! Some of it I could barely read. So, Mum suggested perhaps I could type them up in a document to give to the family. So, that’s what we agreed on. It was only when I made a start on the work that I realised how important and interesting this ‘find’ was.
Memoirs of a WAAF
I was co-author (with Mum) of Memoirs of a WAAF. Sadly my dear Mum passed away in May 2017, so this book and all the associated memories are naturally very precious to me. The book sold out (although thankfully I kept a signed copy!), but the Kindle version is still available on Amazon and the paperback version will be available soon too.
