Artistic talents seem to run in my family, I am related to the Scottish artist Robert Monro Bryson and with my Father winning an art scholarship and developing his own design and printing business at a very early age I was destined to do something creative. I originally wanted to pursue a career in fashion design, however as you can imagine career advice when I was young wasn’t very helpful and I was encouraged to seek alternative career options.

So when platform shoes, cheese cloth shirts, maxi dresses, and ex-military overcoats were in fashion, Sweet, Slade and Roxy Music were in the charts, off I went to North East Essex Technical College (now Colchester Institute) to train as a medical secretary, how far from fashion and design could you get?