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In the bathroom of a hotel where my husband and I were spending the night, I looked at the array of stylishly packaged toiletries on the shelves. ‘Why don’t they ever have products suitable for children?’ I asked my husband. I was thinking of our daughter Bella, who suffered from terrible eczema.
Since her birth, it had been impossible to find anything gentle enough for Bella’s sensitive skin. Clearly, though, it was a bugbear my husband was tired of hearing about. Exasperated, he told me – in so many words – that if I thought I could do better, I should do it myself.
While stung by his tone, I had no idea how significant that moment would turn out to be. For a start, it laid bare the sorry state of our relationship, which had left me feeling lonely, fragile and increasingly a shadow of my former self.
But it also sounded unmistakably like a challenge. I saw it was only by walking away from our marriage that I could begin building both my confidence and the business that would eventually change my life.
Of course, in the early days of our relationship, the picture had looked very different. When we met, we had so much in common, both working for investment banks in the City, a fast-paced lifestyle filled with 6am starts and late dinners.
We married when I was 34 and we built a life that, to outsiders, seemed idyllic. We renovated a beautiful farmhouse in the Hampshire countryside, where we had our own horses. Our first daughter Mimi was born in 2006, followed by her sister Bella two years later, and I gave up my job to be there for them.
As it does for many couples, having children irrevocably changed the dynamic between us. I was in the countryside, spending my days looking after the girls and scrubbing feed buckets in the fields, while he was in London all day. Over time, I saw less and less of him – sometimes not for a week or two at a time. I felt I was doing the parenting alone, and I sensed his frustration with how completely motherhood had absorbed me.
Then, around the time Bella was born, in 2008, he lost his job during the banking crisis and I realised our financial position was a great deal more precarious than I had understood. Our money had been in shares and, when the crisis hit, the assets vanished. In fact, despite having all the trappings of success, I suddenly found myself panicking about how I was going to feed our children. So bad was the situation that I’d go to the cashpoint and be unable to withdraw any money.
I threw myself into finding a solution, starting a bed-and-breakfast in our home and renting out a big barn as a wedding venue. This kept us afloat, but I wanted more financial security, for my girls and for myself.
I knew my marriage had run its course; we were leading separate lives and it was obvious we no longer loved one another. We talked a lot about divorce – not always in a civilised way – but I’d grown up with a single mother who was always at work and swore I’d never let my own children grow up without me there. Now I felt I had failed, and I was ashamed.
I didn’t yet realise it, but as I neared 40 I was also perimenopausal, having hot flushes and wondering what was wrong with me. It all contributed to a growing sense of insecurity; I’d always been strong and capable, but now I felt weak and pathetic. I had lost my gumption. I would blame myself for arguments and spend days beating myself up afterwards.
The shame stopped me from talking about how I was feeling but, gradually, I began to confide in a friend, who told me I could flourish but not in this environment. It gave me the courage I needed to finally make our separation official, which I immediately knew was the right thing to do.
The most challenging aspect was that while we waited for our ‘forever home’ to sell, we had to live together. It took more than two years, and although we tried hard to keep out of one another’s way (he had begun working again), I wouldn’t wish that limbo on anyone.
I was also dismayed to find myself cast out from our social circle. All the invitations dried up overnight, presumably because a woman on her own is deemed a threat – or a bore. At a time when I needed female friends to rally around, it was very hurtful. I often felt like a 40-year-old cautionary tale – proof of what could happen to a woman if her marriage fell apart.
Joanna at home in Wiltshire with her dogs, 2025
By the time the girls and I moved out and into a rented house in 2011, I had started my business, Childs Farm.
I was no chemist – in fact, I failed my chemistry O-level – but I have always been a swot and I did a vast amount of research into ingredients that would soothe sensitive skin in the hope of helping Bella, whose skin was often red raw, dry and cracked.
I began mixing concoctions in the kitchen, using natural, plant-derived ingredients such as coconut oil, shea butter and child-friendly essential oils. When I first gave three-year-old Bella a bath with a wash I’d created, it made me so happy to hear her say, ‘It’s not ow-ee, Mummy.’
My commercial brain told me there was a gap in the market: in the UK one in five children under five has atopic eczema, which meant there was a customer base. Through my research and contacts, I met Tom Allsworth, who had co-founded Revolution Beauty.
He transformed my homemade products into real samples, with natural ingredients and lovely nostalgic scents such as rhubarb and custard and strawberry and mint. I took these to retailers such as Boots, who introduced me to investors. When one pulled out of a £3 million deal at the last minute, Tom stepped in with the funds I needed.
As my small start-up grew, the process turned into a form of therapy for me. I began to rebuild myself, but as a more robust and determined version.
One evening, at a rare dinner party, I met a man named Jonathan, who is an executive coach, so I sent him a message on LinkedIn asking if we could talk about him coaching me. He replied, ‘I can’t be your coach, because I want to take you out for dinner.’
We’ve been together ever since and were married two years ago. He has been instrumental in helping rebuild my confidence as well as my faith in men. As a father of two children, now in their late 20, he is also a kind, loving stepfather to my girls.
Meeting him has been proof that if you’re in a marriage that isn’t working, the best thing you can do is learn from the experience and move on. Sometimes there aren’t enough sticking plasters in the world to repair a relationship – and there could be someone else out there who will make you truly happy.
Childs Farm launched nationally in 2014 and, within five years, it had overtaken Johnson’s Baby to become Britain’s leading baby and child toiletries brand. By 2020, the company was turning over £20 million a year.
In 2022, I sold the business to PZ Cussons in a deal worth £40 million. Now, I invest in and mentor other entrepreneurs, particularly women trying to build businesses. I know how daunting it is to start again – but I also know that sometimes the hardest chapters of your life can become the making of you.
