The Yoosed Family Story

Many years ago, Will bought a house from a great aunt who'd gone into a retirement home. She was keen that her house, that she'd bought new in 1936, remained in the family so she was offering a deal and 21 year old Will took her up on it and bought a house while his mates were all night-clubbing and thought him mad. They didn't think he was mad a few years later when they had to do the same and the house prices had rocketed but that's another story.

Will soon met the neighbours, Jan and Andy, a delightful couple with two young daughters aged 9 and 11. Rachel and Katie - can you see where this is headed?

As the years passed the girls grew up and went off to uni while Will grew his business and pursued his hobbies. All was well with the world and one day at a BBQ hosted by Will for some visiting friends, Andy asked if there might be a job of some sort available at his office because Rachel needed some experience to get a job and a job to get some experience. That old vicious circle!

As luck would have it, there was a job. Lots of things needed sorting because a big new contact had arrived so Rachel came to help. Soon after she arrived announced she'd landed a good job somewhere else and was off to make her fortune. But that isn't where the story ended. Some months later she called to say the new job wasn't as exciting as she'd hoped, she was about to start training to be a teacher in a few months, and was her old job still available?

It was, because as luck would have it a second time, another big job had just come in and because Rachel had been so good at keeping things right the first time she was immediately hired to come back.

And then fate stepped in for the third time - it's almost like it was meant to be.

What happened is that the big job was postponed for six months and that would take Rachel neatly to the beginning of her teacher training but there was no work in the meantime so what happened? The pair went for lunch, had a few trips out if things were quiet and the rest, as they say, is history.

That was July 2003 and Rachel was a teacher while Will was running his engineering company. She soon qualified and equally soon it became obvious that she'd found her calling - teaching children and young adults was her thing.

Lucy came along in 2005 and as her mum's nickname was 'Strawberry', Daughter number one is named Lucy Strawberry. That's her real name.

Her nickname was 'Weeny' to begin with but soon changed to 'Grumble' because she was a very grumbly baby and she answers to Grumble to this day - well, to her dad at least. And Weeny's arrival was to cause fate to step in once more because one effect of her arrival was that Rachel had to work fewer hours in order to be Mum and as a result never got her classroom back. Instead she got all the little jobs, watching a class if their teacher was off that day, for instance, until one day she found herself watching over a young lad who was clearly very bright but for some inexplicable reason couldn't write his name and so Rachel's fascination with Dyslexia began.

Then, in 2008, Emily was born.

Emily's name is Emily Blossom, though she's always been 'Peapod' to us and that was the family complete, so far as humans were concerned anyway. And so Will and Rachel soldiered on for better and for worse raising a family, learning how to be parents and putting bread on the table but, again, change was in the air.

While Rachel's career as a Dyslexia specialist followed a steep trajectory, Will preferred to step back a little from the long hours and take life a little more easily and this meant his increasing involvement in what Rachel was up to, which seemed mainly to be getting concerned about all those learners who didn't qualify for help within the system but who could clearly use a leg up with their learning.

Then Will had an idea...

With the girls being old enough to be independent and not need full time mum, why not set up a little company that everyone could help and be involved with so that Rachel could help out some of the kids and young adults she wouldn't normally be able to see. That would work. So with that decided, Will organised converting his old offices into classrooms and somewhere for parents to sit with wi-fi, tea and coffee, etc. while Lucy started on the artwork and Ems looks after the social media side. So far it's been a brilliant success and long may it continue. We all have many plans so keep popping in for a look.