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Phyl Lomas, at her kitchen window
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Life starts with divorce

Ruth Allan
10/ 7/2006

EIGHT years ago, on their three-year-old son Rory's birthday, Phyl's husband announced his departure. Leaving their family home in Northwich for a younger woman, "he'd had enough of domestic life," Phyl, 48, says, the hurt still clear her voice.

"It was a real shock," she says, "because I didn't see it coming, but I was determined not to fall apart. It was incredibly hard though, because the boys took it so badly too. We were literally wrecks."

Phyl's experience is typical of many women in England today - the average age for divorce is 40 for women and the rate of separation is six times what it was in the 1960s.

Divorce can cause depression, anxiety, fear of the future and that's just the effects on the adults involved. So how did she cope and, more than that, start a great new life for herself?

Well, it certainly wasn't easy, she confirms, but one evening, shortly after the separation, she gathered her friends and family around the kitchen table to tell them an idea she had for her own business.

Gourmet parties

"I explained that I wanted to do gourmet evenings, from home - kind of dinner parties where you get to see food being cooked, enjoy the meal and get a recipe folder to take away."

She's being doing these evenings for five years now, and "the feedback has been amazing," she enthuses. "People seem to love it, and the beauty of it is that I can work at home, be here for the children and earn some money to pay the bills too."

As you'd expect, business wasn't frantic at the start. "I was doing one dinner party every three months or so, and I'd just about hold out `til the next one," she remembers, "but I just took one day at a time though and really focused on the family, spending as much time as possible with the children and getting by."

Before long though, there wasn't one party a month but four and the work expanded to include private and corporate catering jobs, like weddings, business lunches and birthday parties.

"The first wedding I did, I was sick behind the marquee with nerves," she laughs, in her typically honest fashion, adding, "I hope the bride doesn't read this!"

New start

Confidence is a real problem for a lot of women looking to change careers, or even just to starting to work later in life and despite her burgeoning business empire, it's something Phyl can relate to.

"It was very, very tough at the start." she says, "At the end of the day, I just did not expect to be in the situation I found myself in and to go out and do a job like that, you do have to have massive confidence.

"After something like my divorce, we were basket cases, the whole family," she says. "Once I did it once though, I thought `Yeah, I can do this,' but it was really daunting."

And then there was the cost of working to think about. "I was terrified that all my money would go on childcare if I went back to work," she remembers.

But it turned to be her family that kept her going. "I just looked inwards and tried to concentrate on what I had got, and I wasn't going to let my sons be the ones who missed out on the school trips or had to forgo anything."

Experience

And it really helped that she was doing something she really loved. She'd had a lot of experience in the kitchen back in Ireland before her marriage.

Her parents lived on the outskirts of Dublin and after school, it seemed natural for Phyl start a career in professional catering - she had, after all, had more practice in the kitchen than Gordon Ramsey, what with 11 brothers and sisters to feed.

I held on to the firm belief that if I held my family together, then eventually the tide of pain and hurt and bewilderment and all those awful things you feel when you separate would turn, and it did." She adds, "I seem to have the ability just to get up, shake myself off and keep going."

She's positive, despite not having found a new Mr Right. "Oh maybe one day," she laughs, "but I think that might be something to look forward to when the boys leave home. I'd like a nice gentleman who'd pour me a glass of wine - and cook the dinner."

FOR more info on Stables Cuisine call 01606882575 or email phyl@stablescuisine.co.uk