A Jelly Baby Saved My Life

We consider ourselves very lucky to know Judy. Wilnash Care has been providing her with a little assistance for just over two years now and we are always enchanted by her welcoming personality and wonderful sense of humour. Lisa and I popped around for a cup of tea and a chat about her very eventful life.

Judy was born within the sound of Bow Bells and so can legitimately call herself a Cockney. She spent most of her early years down on the south coast in Hastings. During the war Judy and her family were actually bombed out not once, but twice! So when Judy was about five years old the family moved to St Albans and she has lived in Hertfordshire ever since.

 Judy attended secretarial college and worked for one or two eminent doctors in her early career. But she was swept of her feet by a young doctor called David and within six weeks of meeting him they were married. David took up a post in Potters Bar and Judy began a life as a doctor’s wife.

 Although she was always very supportive of David’s career, and indeed was very busy bringing up their three sons (Andrew, James and Edward), Judy had more than enough energy left over to pursue her own interests. Judy had always enjoyed arts and crafts and indeed was a talented self-taught potter. But on a visit to a country house with one of her sons an idea struck her. The items for sale in the gift shop were very generic and rather uninspiring. The only things available were the usual tea towels, mugs and place mats. Judy thought that something a little more artisan would be appropriate. So she set about teaching herself how to make genuine beeswax candles. She managed to secure a small order from Woburn Abbey (after wrangling a personal meeting with the Duke of Bedfordshire himself!) and personally delivered the candles. But within a couple of years she was supplying most of the National Trust properties in England as well as cathedral shops. Judy got to the point where she was producing 10,000 candles a year and employing twenty five outworkers! She also supplied mulled wine and herbal teas amongst other items.

 But at this point Judy realised that the business had reached the point where she either went to the next level and increased production or stepped back and kept her interest in arts and craft as purely a hobby.  She decided on the latter.

By this time Judy was a grandmother. But rather than “sit by the fire with my slippers on” Judy threw herself in to charity work. She was deeply affected by the plight of Romanian orphans, many of whom had been infected with AIDS through blood transfusions. To begin with, Judy helped with the collection and delivery of washing powder and nappies to the orphanages. But within the year Judy had helped massively with the effort to raise enough money to build a hospice in Romania. This was a marvellous effort from all involved and something for which Judy is justly proud. She visited Romania on many occasions and helped with anything that needed doing. Actually, Judy was a DJ for a while on the local fund raising Radio Cracker.

Not content with resting on her laurels, Judy even managed to have some books published in aid of her charity work. Two of these can still be found on Amazon from time to time – ‘It’s No Life for the Wife’ and ‘Laughter and Tears’. The story behind why we named this piece ‘A Jelly Baby Saved My Life’ can be found in one of these books. To cut a long story short, Judy was able to pacify a gun wielding militiaman at an out of the way border crossing by offering him a jelly baby!

As always, Lisa and I had a lovely time talking and laughing with Judy. She really is a remarkable woman.