Two life-changing events convinced Heather Gilchrist, a former nurse, that her future lay outside the profession that had taken her as far afield as
Papua New Guinea for the Red Cross, and Australia, where she worked with HIV/Aids patients.
"I had looked after my mum when she had cancer, and felt I needed a career break," says Gilchrist, who found her work too close for comfort after her mother's death.
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Gilchrist moved into medical sales in 1995, but the birth of her son, Thomas, brought another problem: where could she find a good nursery? Looking around south Edinburgh, she couldn't find one that she felt was good enough for her three-month-old son, as many were desperately overcrowded.
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The idea of running her own business had never crossed her mind. But an encounter with the owner of another nursery soon changed that. "The woman running it had been a nurse, and I thought, if she can do it, so can I."
Gilchrist, who had trained at the Royal Free Hospital in London, began looking for premises and the funding to secure it, but "whether it was because I was a woman or had no track record, they just didn't take me seriously".
Luck came her way when she found a disused church in Portobello, Edinburgh, which had been refused permission for conversion into flats. And as the local council had been planning to use it as an art gallery, much of the renovation work had already been done. It was perfect.
Then a kindly bank manager in the Royal Bank of Scotland "believed in me" and offered to loan Gilchrist £50,000 without asking for security.
To that she added her savings and bought the church for £70,000.
With her father's help, Gilchrist spent the following few months painting
and redecorating. But, as she says, "the majority of work had been
done, so there were no major costs, besides putting in things like toilets
for children".
In October 1996, the first Happitots nursery opened for business in the former church with six children at £412 per month. With one staff member for every three children under three and its child-centred approach children were given questionnaires asking what activities and meals they wanted word of mouth ensured that by the year's end Gilchrist had 56 small clients. Two years later, she bought a school building in Glasgow and opened her second nursery.
Success came quickly; turnover was £60,000 in the first year, Gilchrist broke even in the second year and went into profit in the third. She opened her own training school for staff in 2004 and now runs 12 nurseries across Scotland's central belt, making Happitots the number-one independent nursery group in Scotland.
"I didn't think I would ever be running my own business," she says. "I always thought you're a nurse, or a doctor, or a policeman and that's it." Now, with a staff of 240 and expected turnover this year of £4m, Gilchrist seems happy that she has proved herself wrong.
