My Story

Mother. Daughter. Sister. Friend. Businesswoman.

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It all started with my Grandma, and the plants she grew alongside fruit and veg in her Victorian walled kitchen garden. She detested doctors unless absolutely necessary and used good old Mother Nature to look after her family and pets. (Her huge Newfoundland dogs always stunk of garlic.) That early lesson never left me.

I drifted through early adulthood — a literature degree, Cancer Research, then six years in the French Alps as Operations Manager for a holiday company. It was whilst backpacking through Thailand that everything changed. I stumbled upon a scruffy cardboard sign: "Learn Thai Massage with Baan Nit!" A week in a wooden shack, cockroaches included, and a teacher who spoke no English. We learnt from charts and demonstrations. It was a true lightbulb moment — I came home, qualified properly in massage, and knew exactly what I wanted to do with my life.

I moved back to Leek in 2007, set up mobile beauty and massage therapies, and launched a market stall selling natural soaps and mineral make-up. My dad helped me pack it down every Saturday. I always treated him to a bacon butty.

In 2010, pregnant and terrified, I opened Becalmed on Stanley Street. Joe arrived on Christmas Eve — best gift ever — and spent his first weeks in a crib at the back of the shop. Sam followed 14 months later. It was chaotic and wonderful and I wouldn't change a thing.

In 2016 we moved to our current home on Sheepmarket — a beautiful big space with Becalmed in the front and My Calm therapies, floatation and beauty at the rear. The team grew, the range grew, and I finally paid my mum a proper wage.

Then for a while, life had other plans. My energy went where it was needed most. The team held the fort beautifully, and I'm grateful every day for them.

But I'm back now — fully and completely. And that's brought me to the biggest leap yet: a second Becalmed, in the heart of Ashbourne. Terrifying, exciting, and exactly right. If the last 15 years have taught me anything, it's that the scary ones are usually the best ones.

Thank you for being the reason any of this is possible.

 

Kate xxx​​