Sometimes if you want anything done about childcare, you have to do it yourself. Judith Napier meets the entrepreneur mothers
Sarah Carr decided, when her eldest daughter was three, that she should start mixing with other children her own age. But what she found back in the mid-1980s appalled her - church hall playgroups run by volunteers more interested in coffee and chat, and at the other end of the spectrum, private nurseries with condescending attitudes and frighteningly silent, cardboard cut-out-like children.
Looking back on this period, she recalls, 'I had never before had any dealings with childcare provision, but I had a gut feeling about what to expect. Good standard of accommodation, and basic cleanliness as a starting point. And I don't think I was being overly ambitious in that.'
She suspected other parents might share her reaction. Now, 11 years on, she and husband Stuart are directors of Kindercare, based in Preston, with eight nurseries and an independent primary school catering in total for more than 1,000 children. Two more centres are under construction.
While most nursery operators continue to follow a recognised path from nursery nurse training into management or ownership, Sarah Carr's experience is by no means unique. Other women have concluded that the solution to inadequate childcare is to roll up their sleeves and provide it themselves.
They have several factors in common - motherhood; some form of previous, albeit unrelated, work experience; and a desire for quality childcare at a time, a decade or so ago, when that was only just beginning to be an issue.
Wendy Compson, who founded Cherry Trees School near Bury St Edmunds in 1982, shared Sarah Carr's initial motivation. She simply wanted somewhere where her daughter could socialise with other children.
'When I looked at what was available, I was not impressed,' she says. So she and a friend started up with two children and a sandpit. A week later there were six children, and soon after that, 20. Now there are 240 children in what is now the largest Montessori school in the country, offering care from age three months to 11 years.
Her background is anything but childcare-related - she was a florist, then became British Airway's first female manager, controlling 34 ground staff, 150 pilots and nine aircraft. Later, she took diverse part-time jobs including milk recording and filling spiceracks.
But her success in the childcare market is unmistakeable - as well as her school, she now has a converted bus as a mobile nursery unit and a house in France for school trips, and she offers after-school care and holiday care schemes.
Other operators started from the realisation that inadequate childcare was jeopardising their careers. One is Gina Lafferty, managing director of Joint Responsibility established in 1993 at Quorn in Leicestershire. She now has two nurseries, a school, kids' club and holiday club, with expansion plans in the pipeline.
She had worked as an accounts executive covering an area some distance from her home, and found nurseries simply did not stay open long enough. 'Days were long, and I didn't work in my home area,' Gina recalls. 'I looked around for adequate childcare to cover my career needs, and found nothing appropriate. I saw an old church for sale. I didn't have a clue about nurseries, but within a week I had a business plan. When I look back, it was laughable!'
She retained her salaried job for a time in conjunction with running her first 50-place nursery. She now caters for 300 children ranging from nought to 11 years, plus those in kids' clubs and holiday clubs. But she says, 'It was a long, slow process. Eight years ago, people were not sold on nurseries the way they are now.'
Gina credits her sales background with giving her flexibility, and awareness of the importance of delivering what you promise. She remembers the difficulties she faced as a working woman, so operates from 7.30am to 6pm, closes only on bank holidays, and commissions an annual, anonymous parental survey to provide the focus for the next year's development.
Her recollection of the no-win juggling act between family and career is echoed by Dr Kay Turner, now chairwoman of a Reading-based consultancy and nursery chain.
A single parent working in academic research in central London, she recalls nurseries' 9am to 5pm opening hours ('just what you want as a working parent', she observes drily), and says, 'Some were excellent, but during that period I felt I was always letting someone down. In the end, I gave up.'
It was when Kay's youngest child started school that she became involved in the beginnings of employer childcare partnerships. Her local knowledge, and her links with other parents, made her the obvious choice to undertake a feasibility study into a possible centre near London's Waterloo station with what was then British Rail.
The job was meant to be a three-month, part-time stint. But it revealed a huge interest among employers in the south-east, particularly those with staff based in central London. 'But there was no-one in BR who could take it forward,' says Kay. 'I remember that meeting, with everyone around the table looking towards me! I thought the work had been interesting, and I agreed to stay with it for a bit. That was 11 years ago. It just grew.'
She became a BR employee and, now, after privatisation, chairs Childcare Partners (a development and consultancy business) and Buffer Bear Nurseries. She agrees that her research background has helped in report writing, information structuring and analysis, but she admits that moving into the business presented a steep learning curve.
She has no childcare qualifications, accepting that lack of time ruled out such additional studies. 'A critic might say that is a false economy. With hindsight I could have chosen to do things differently,' Kay says.
But she had help from colleagues, the sort of help acknowledged too by Gina Lafferty. More informally, but of equal value, Sarah Carr recalls how the experience of her family in the building industry gave her confidence to build her own unit, while both she and Wendy Compson could tap into the skills of their husbands in accounting, surveying and so on.
They each believe that, today, working women are less likely to have the sort of struggle they faced in accessing good childcare, and they see evidence that parents are much more informed about their choices. But despite their very different stories, all these women are adamant that what motivated them in the first place continues to inform their strategy today, and provides considerable job satisfaction.
Wendy Compson was rewarded with a runners-up place in the East Anglia Business Woman of the Year competition this year.
Gina Lafferty is particularly proud of the fulfilment she gains from developing a successful business, a management move she could not have made with her previous employer.
Kay Turner says, 'The original concepts remain valid, and I see myself making sure that we keep to what we set out to do. I had to give up my career because I was not happy with the strain it was putting on my family. And I kept hold of that. I empathise with those parents who feel guilty, who worry. And it is so good to be doing something that is so rewarding.'
As for Sarah Carr, she cheerfully insists that Kindercare, a business that has branched even into domestic cleaning for working parents, was never any sort of grand plan. 'In lots of ways, the idea seemed so blatant I am amazed that dozens of other people have not done it! My background was management and training; I had no nursery training. But I read round the subject. I wanted my child to be happy, to understand the ground rules. It was as basic as that.'
