Write an about page ‘they’ say. Every website needs one, ‘they’ say. These days people want to connect with the businesses they engage with, ‘they’ say. Be authentic. Tell a story. Create an avatar for your ideal customer, write as if you were talking to them. ‘Just’ explain how you got to where you are now.  THEY SAY! Who the bloody hell are ‘they’ anyway?

Writing an about page is an art form. There are websites, webinars, indeed there are whole training courses, all dedicated to getting your about page right. Apparently it’s the most viewed page on a site and can be the difference between converting readers into life long customers and… well, virtual tumbleweed.

OMG! No pressure then!

Bugger it. I can’t do one of those perfect about pages, that’s not who I am. I meander like Billy Connolly, I’m just not quite as funny. My children once described me as a bizarre Miranda Hart and Sheldon Cooper hybrid. It’s pretty accurate. That’s probably more than enough info to give you an idea of the who.

The thing is,  I know that as soon as you hear (read) my name you’re going to ask THE QUESTION.  So let’s start at the very beginning. (I hope you too have Julie Andrews, as Maria Von Trapp, in your head every time someone says that.)

3 month old ‘gigglegums’, my first nickname.

That’s me, up there at the top of the page, the 46 year old version. A wry smile and a twinkle in my eyes. And here is the 3 month old version of me. Hmm, not much has changed by the seems of it!

Of course those 46 years have been filled with a personal library bursting with stories, all of which have brought me to this point in time.

Excavating the moments that belong here on this page, so that you  might get a glimpse of who I am, why I do what I do, and what that has to do with you, is no easy task, so I’m not going to try! Not on one page anyway.

I’m Techla. Yes, that’s my first name, not my surname. You’re absolutely right, it IS an unusual name. Where did it come from? It was the middle name of the family friend who helped deliver me. That’s the short version, but if you’re anything like me, you want more. You want the details, the nitty gritty, the inside story…

Are You Sitting Comfortably?

My mother’s nursing college friend was visiting. She’d come up to stay whilst in the midst of a nervous breakdown. She was Irish. Why is this relevant? Because this is the woman who helped deliver me, and I suppose relevancy depends on whether or not you believe that some things in life are fated.

It’s a cold November morning. In the wilds of the West Riding of Yorkshire, a midwife makes her way out to a tiny village to check on a heavily pregnant patient.

That patient was my mother, and as the story goes, the midwife was quite sure I wouldn’t be arriving anytime soon.

Reflection of me in the car window with Pendle Witch Country Sticker

My parents were living in a quaint little house known as Garden Cottage, way out in the middle of nowhere, in the shadow of Pendle Hill (witch country), in what was then Yorkshire. The crisp winter morning soon became a swirling, white blur of an afternoon. At this moment I decided that I would prove the midwife wrong and put in an appearance. Thank goodness for that visiting nurse friend, though I have felt, more often than not, that her presence at that time was to deliver a curse, not just a baby!

St Thecla’s Backstory

St Thecla was a saint; a disciple of St Paul. the Irish do love their saints. But St Thecla was a wild child, a disobedient young woman, a woman who knew her own mind and who would not be swayed by her family, society or the authorities. In her favour (as the church saw it anyway) she was a renowned virgin and dedicated disciple.

My Namesake’s Backstory

A booklet about the life of St Thecla at the church dedicated to her, in Llandegla – translation: The Parish of St Tecla – Wales.

I guess the latter character traits were the ones the nun, who in all probability named my deliverer, had hoped to bestow on her when she gifted her the middle name I got given as a first name.

If memory serves me well my deliverer, or Aunty Margaret (as she was known to me) was an adoptee, probably born in one of the now infamous mother and baby homes in Ireland, the country which incidentally gave me my middle name. But that’s another story for another time.

The eagle eyed among you will have noticed that my name is Techla whilst the saint was Thecla. Yep, I got a spelling mistake. Though she has also been known as Tecla and Thekla, so I guess the version I got was a good combination of the variations!

To summarise the key themes thus far then: bloody minded, anti authoritarian, Yorkshire, witches, Ireland, nuns, adoption and scorpio.

All that from a name! Honestly, you wouldn’t believe just how much you can glean about my life from those themes. I might get round to sharing some of it over time.

I know none of that goes any way to explaining why I do what I do, and even less how it might be of interest to you, but I think it gives you the essence of who I am, and whether we might gel or rub each up other the wrong way. It also answers the first question you will have asked, if you’re like nearly every other person I’ve ever met! 

I’ll leave it there for now, but I’ll be weaving more stories, including ones that do go some way to explaining why The Sensory Coach came to be, throughout the rest of the site.

Much love

T xx