The Story of Jane Hamerton Limited - Personalised Towels and Gifts
Luxurious Personalised Hand-sewn Towels and Gifts from Jane Hamerton
Jane O’Riordan (née Hamerton) was born in Kenya in 1959 – she was the first born of four sisters. jane’s family lived in many countries across the globe (East & West Africa, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, the USA and Belgium to name a few). From a very young age Jane developed a lifelong love of sewing, starting with cross-stitch and embroidery and then developing into making clothes and curtains. Because of her father’s job, the family were never based in one country for long so, to give some stability to her education, Jane was sent to a girls’ convent boarding school in Surrey (Woldingham School) at the age of 9. She loved her time at Woldingham, despite finding some aspects of the academic side fairly daunting – she was always the youngest in the class. As she was a very popular girl, with a large number of friends from many year groups, the nuns recognised certain special qualities and appointed her Head Girl in her final year at the school.
She did not go to university but instead attended Brighton Polytechnic where she completed an HND in Business Studies. From there she went on to work for Marks & Spencer as a trainee – this involved spells in numerous departments, including working in the stores themselves interacting with customers. Her favourite time was probably when she worked in menswear at head office, because it gave her the opportunity when meeting people to say, “Hello, I’m Jane and I’m in men’s trousers!”
Jane’s passion for sewing did not lessen once she started working, indeed it probably strengthened.
Because she was often struggling financially (living in London in the late 1970s and early 1980s and partying most nights was an expensive lifestyle) she still made a lot of her own clothes. Her M & S training, coupled with her own innate good taste, meant that she could put together an outfit which would look stylish and chic, emulating the designers of the day, without costing a fortune! She also made clothes and curtains for lots of her friends and even made her sister’s wedding dress when she got married in the early 1980s.
In 1987 she decided to leave M & S to run the Brussels office of a recruitment consultancy being set up by an old Woldingham girl. She had no ties to the UK, certainly no boyfriend or similar complications, so she decided she was off! In the April of 1987 she met John O’Riordan, who was then running a company producing the artwork for Thomson Holidays brochures, at a dinner party hosted by a mutual friend who worked at M & S with Jane and who played golf with John. Nine days after meeting they became engaged! After an engagement lasting 15 months, during which time they actually got to know each other, they were married in the chapel at Woldingham School, bringing Jane back to her earlier roots. She duly left M & S but decided not to go to Brussels and then had a number of different office administration jobs.
Jane & John had their first baby, a daughter named Isabel, in 1991. At the same time many of Jane’s close friends were also starting families and there was a constant need to find interesting and exciting gifts to celebrate the new arrivals. Jane then drew on her sewing expertise and came up with a great idea: she would cut the letters out of a pretty fabric and appliqué the new baby’s name on to a really lovely and soft white towel! This would be really snuggly and perfect for bath time – it could also be placed on a changing mat or had many other uses. Above all it would demonstrate how much thought, love and care had gone into the gift – not just another book or romper suit from the local department store. And it was something that would last much longer than a bunch of flowers!
So, for the past 18 or so years, Jane has been producing towels for friends and acquaintances as a hobby
mixed in with the plethora of other jobs she was juggling: mother; wife; gardener; computer training for the ‘silver surfers’; administrative duties at the Pioneer Sailing Trust (a charity set up to introduce under-privileged children to the pleasures of sailing a beautifully restored 19th century oyster smack).
Her computer training for those not in the first flush of youth unearthed a talent Jane never knew she had – the ability to convey information in an easily absorbed way, in other words she discovered that she had a natural talent as a teacher! Because she is a naturally very patient person, she was able to encourage her ‘pupils’ to go at their own pace, in their own homes. If they just wanted to be able to send e-mails to keep in touch with children and grandchildren, she would soon get them to the right level of competence. She could also get them up top speed if they wanted to download and retouch photographs, write the sequel to ‘War and Peace’ and become a millionaire via e-Bay!
She has also used her patient teaching methods and found a great deal of joy in introducing youngsters (mainly girls it has to be said) to the pleasures of sewing. Jane passionately disapproves of the fact that traditional sewing was for many years removed from the school curriculum and is trying to start a campaign to reintroduce the subject. She appeared on Radio Suffolk in late 2009, saying how difficult it was to find people who had any sewing ability, when she first decided to make a proper business out of her hobby. She knew she would need to build a team of competent seamstresses and was staggered to find how few really good people there were.
Which brings us to the formation of Jane Hamerton Ltd.
After many years listening to her friends saying, “You should think about doing this properly. There are loads of people out there looking for unusual presents and you have the perfect answer. Why don’t you set up a company and do it properly?” When they moved from Essex to Ipswich and Isabel and James became much more independent, Jane finally succumbed and decided that she would.
What perfect timing! Trying to set up a new business just as the country was going into the worst economic conditions in nearly 80 years was never going to be easy. Luckily there were no huge initial set-up costs in terms of machinery (Jane already had a fantastic sewing machine) or premises (Jane had her own workroom in their house in Ipswich). Funds still had to be found, however, for the various elements necessary to start the company
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