Cathy was born in Welkom in South Africa and spent her early childhood in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), where her Father was involved in building the towns which were springing up around the new gold mines of Southern Africa.
Her family moved to England when she was eleven, and she spent her teenage years in Yorkshire.
Following her A levels she attended Loughborough College of Art, where she achieved her Degree in 3 Dimensional Design. During her studies Cathy was initially captivated by the ancient art of blacksmithing.
The idea of working with metal and creating things appealed to her, and she was considering this, albeit unusually for a woman, as a career.
However, another aspect of her degree introduced Cathy to finer metals, and in making her first piece of jewellery as part of the course, she fell in love.
Cathy was beginning to design and make jewellery and some of her original pieces are still worn by her children. Her raw materials were funded by her father but when she ordered 18ct in green, yellow, white, and red gold instead of silver he baulked at the cost saying ‘You’ve got savings!’ and put the phone down.
This was the very same gold that was used to make the ring that her daughter Pippa (who is now the General Manager of Cathy’s company) now wears.
On the completion of the 4 year course Cathy started her first job in the jewellery industry at Maurice Lipkin, an engagement ring manufacturer in Birmingham, on a graduate apprenticeship.
She quickly realized that she wanted to have more input into what she was making. She knew the only way to do this was to work for herself.
She then found herself back in her original situation that she experienced during her degree. She needed raw materials. This time it was Cathy’s new father in law who gave her, as a wedding present, £43 worth of Silver and the tools to transform it. Cathy’s business began on April Fool’s day in 1972, the same day that VAT came into being.
