A little bit About Us.........
Which translates as who the heck are Fanny and Claude? – do they exist? Do they really have those names? And as everyone always asks – here is the answer.
The Fanny and Claude range was originally put together by Siobhan Pringle and her hubby Rob Fairweather. Looking for a name for the new range took the form of bounding names backward and forward while cooking supper, watching a film or even while wrapping soap (and drinking wine – we’re pretty good at multi-tasking you see).
After much naval gazing we decided to go with our childhood nicknames – my family called me ‘Fanny’ as in Fanny Fanackerpan (and still do - but less often now as generally I stopped answering to it from the age of about 12, the reason for which I feel it is not necessary to explain here). Research shows Fred Fanackerpan as the subject of a Gracie Fields wartime song and Fanny being the female equivalent of Fred I suppose. I hear of other people with this nickname too so it was not uncommon. Oh by the way, I know there is a reference to a wartime song here, but I’d like to point out that I am not that old
Claude comes from Clyde, the leader of the infamous Anthill Mob – Many of you may (or may not) remember the Ant Hill Mob from the Wacky Races, a cartoon that a certain generation grew up with, remember Penelope Pitstop?– Anyway, the seven members of the Ant Hill Mob used to find extra power from their car in the race (‘Wacky 7’, if my memory serves me) by sticking their legs out of the bottom of the car and running – a trick Rob often employed in his own go-cart apparently (I’m wandering now if he maybe had ‘Wacky 7’ scribbled on the side of his go-cart?)– the name was tweeked slightly by his younger sister who found Claude easier to say than Clyde and so it stuck.
So there you go.....Since then the business has moved on. The range was tested in one area and it soon became obvious that Siobhan (Fanny) couldn’t manage on her own so enter stage left Christine Standeven and a new business was born in June 2010.....’Fanny and Claude’s Fabulous Concoctions’. Christine has adopted the name of Claude if not the gender and together we have concocted many more Concoctions together.
Neither Christine or I come from a skincare or manufacturing background. We shared a similar situation in our work lives - we needed a career change - both of us wanted something more demanding, had more creative input and something that we could have more control over – Originally Christine was teaching Art and Siobhan came from a marketing background. Our paths crossed when Christine was training to become an Aromatherapist and I was just testing some of the new skincare products at a local craft fair. The rest is history, as they say, we have both re-trained and are now using all our energy to make this business work.
I would encourage anyone to have a go at running their own business and not to sit unhappily in a career that is no longer fulfilling. For those of you teetering on the edge ‘Screw work Let’s Play’ written by John Williams is an inspiring read on the subject. Christine and I don’t have an ‘empire’ (yet), we are far from millionaires (I wish) and we work very, very hard. What we do have is something that we have built from scratch, a product range that we believe in and a business that we are proud of. We work it around our lives where possible and we meet many, many interesting people along the way – what more could you ask from your working day?
