I started my career at the BBC as a secretary before progressing to being a Production Assistant, calling the shots in the gallery and checking the continuity on filming assignments. It was only when I worked on a film about the designer Julia Trevelyan Oman, which enabled me to follow both her and her buyer round the hire companies, that I discovered the existence of the amazing role of Production Buyer. I applied for a job in the buying department where I was trained and worked on some fantastic productions. Probably the best of these was ‘Fortunes of War’ starring the then little-known Emma Thompson and Kenneth Branagh.
While at the BBC I started my own hire company The Printed Word, and I decided the time was right to go freelance, working on programmes such as ‘Poirot’ and ‘Morse’ before progressing to working on films.
I worked with the talented designer Maria Djurkovic on films such as ‘Sliding Doors’, ‘Wilde’, and ‘The Hours.’ I then went on to work with my great friend, Set Decorator, Jille Azis on ‘Around the World in 80 days’, ‘Oliver Twist,’ ‘GI Joe’ ‘The Mummy’ and many others. I was privileged to work on Martin Scorsese’s ‘Hugo’ not easy for the Set Decorating department, but a tour de force for the designer Dante Ferretti. I had huge fun working with Jennifer Williams and Caroline Smith on ‘Christopher Robin and I even had the great pleasure of working with Stuart Craig and Stephanie McMillan on ‘In Love and War’. I have recently been working as at Set Decorator and I enjoyed dressing ‘I Used to be Famous’.
I have spent the last year writing a book ‘How to Dress a Movie’ which is a collection of personal stories and interviews with Industry professionals. This should be released later in the year.
I am married to actor John Leeson (the voice of K9 in ‘Dr.Who’) and we have a son Guy who is a film editor and script writer. He and his partner Sara worked on the best production of all, my delightful granddaughter, Rosie!