Not all big career changes are successful, as Annie Bennett found out when she launched a wedding cake business, just before the Covid pandemic.
The former headteacher had never dreamed that she would stay in school for life, and after illness forced her to leave the classroom she decided baking was what she wanted to do.
“I had lots of domestic circumstances that were causing me a lot of stress. I ended up being physically ill with the flu, which put me out for initially a week, which is a long time when you’re a headteacher. I tried to go back and ended up having to have more time off.
“It dawned on me that, actually, this could be life telling me to get out.”
Ms Bennett was negotiated out of her £45,000 contract by her union and thought: “I’ve got a few months here. I can actually do anything I want now.
“What I really wanted to do was become a wedding cake baker, but I’d never made a wedding cake at that point. So my plan was: I had to learn what I need to do to become a wedding cake baker, and while I am doing that I’ll trade at markets and do birthday cakes.”
Alongside some supply teaching to make ends meet – after unsuccessfully trying to return to the classroom full-time – Annie decided it was time to launch her business properly.
“This was in 2018 and 2019, and I was starting to get wedding cake bookings. For 2020, I had quite a few spread over the year.
“But then, of course, came March 2020. I remember sitting there, watching Boris Johnson on the news, and thinking: ‘Oh bloody hell, that’s everything gone.’”
Ms Bennett lost her entire income. She had to sell her car, and started claiming Universal Credit.
“Not only were the weddings cancelled, but schools were closing so there was no supply at work either,” she says.
“I absolutely remember that feeling of, ‘Oh God, what am I going to do? I’m going to lose my house. I’m going to lose everything’. But, you know, I’ve got a bit of resilience.
“So I sort of panicked for a bit and then thought, well, there’s no point panicking.”
After attending an online webinar about how to deal with pandemic-related refunds, Ms Bennett realised she could combine her two careers, and teach other bakers how to run their own businesses. She started by setting up a Facebook group.
“I did some courses on how to have a food hygiene inspection, I wrote some books, and I then set up a membership where people pay monthly and I get experts in to talk about all sorts of things,” she explains.
By the time the country began to emerge from lockdown, Ms Bennett had made the training into a regular income, on top of the teacher’s pension she started withdrawing in November 2021. She’s now making around £25,000 annually from her efforts.
“I officially retired from teaching, and that’s when I was able to go completely full time with what I do now – which is sort of half wedding cakes, and half tuition memberships, training books, all those kinds of things.”
Ms Bennett says she misses some of the kudos teachers get socially, and initially struggled to make the adjustment.
“When you’re a headteacher, you’ve got a certain status. You know, you can tell people that you are a headteacher and that this sort of instant respect there, but once that had gone I was just a baker.”
But the wedding cake creator says she’s glad she took the decision to leave teaching, as she now has the creative outlets she’d been craving. She says being chief executive of her own little company is enough status for her.
“I’ve got to build myself and my status up again.
“I’m the CEO of my little business, and I’ve really worked on my visibility. I am the person you go to if you want to open a home baking business.”
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