MY STORY
I'm a 39 yr old mother of 2 (born in '72). I started training as a plumber in 2002 once my children were at school full time and while I was waiting for planning permission to re-build a house in Chesham, Bucks. I wanted to learn a trade that would be useful for the build and when I fixed a friend of mine's toilet, and she suggested I became a plumber, it all slotted into place. I could see there was a need for female plumbers.
Originally I had left school and went to Oxford to train as an Occupational Therapist, then in my second year knew it wasn't for me, took a year off, met my (ex)husband and started a family. I was a full time mum for 8 years. During this time I gained my HGV1 license to drive articulated lorries and decided it wasn't for me either because the lifestyle was too unhealthy! So back in 2002 I went off to Aylesbury College. I was the only female plumber on the course and had a bit of stick from one of the lads, but it didn't bother me too much. The others were fine about having a female plumber working alongside them. It took 1 year to complete the course and at the end I achieved the City & Guilds technical certificate, which gave me the skills to do everything on the hot and cold water supply up to and including installing bathrooms. Then I split up with my husband at the end of that college yr in June '03.
In order to carry on with the NVQ2 I needed to get an apprenticeship, so I worked for a building company which only lasted for 3 weeks after they agreed to pay me £40 a day and when I finally got paid 3 weeks later, they only paid me £15 a day! So I decided to go self employed doing what I'd learned to do as it wasn't practical for me to do an apprenticeship anyway with school runs at each end of the day and bringing up the kids as a single parent. So I left college and worked on building my business.
What made it all possible was building a great relationship with the local plumbing merchant, who were so helpful at the end of the phone if I needed support, and having a couple of plumbers I could call. When it came to doing jobs that I wasn't sure about on the heating side, I would get a heating engineer buddy on the job with me and we'd split the pay.
I went on to get my Unvented Certificate, did a power-flushing course and did a 6 month gas course, where I decided not to do gas as its too costly, these did however help to expand my knowledge.
Now 8 years later, the kids are older and more independent and I have been back to college and completed the NVQ2.
The business is moving in positive directions and I intend in the future to expand Pink Plumbers Nationally by licensing the brand. This will mean that other women can use the brand 'Pink Plumbers' and be their local female plumber, whilst receiving a lot of support aswell. If you have any questions about this please feel free to contact me. Thank you.
