Hat’s off to a lady who really knows how to use her head

Jun 23 2008 by Karen Dent, The Journal

Racehorses, broken bones and a passion for fashion: Lady Renwick tells Karen Dent how she found her niche at Northumberland’s Milkhope Centre.

HATS, hats and more hats are what initially strike the first-time visitor to Lady Caroline Renwick’s shop. A rainbow of feather, sisal and silk creations line the walls of Get Smart II and in the week leading up to the Northumberland Plate at Gosforth Park, hats are very much on a number of shoppers’ minds.

“I have more than 200 hats and fascinators,” says Lady Renwick, who runs the shop at the Milkhope Centre at Blagdon.

“I’ve probably sold more fascinators this year than I have hats but it depends on the outfit. If somebody’s got a frivolous outfit, they’re probably more likely to go for a fascinator.”

Customers hire and buy headwear for weddings, Buckingham Palace garden parties, and of course, the races – which is rather apt, because that is where Lady Renwick’s career really started out, training point-to-pointers from stables near her home in Whalton in Northumberland.

“I took a permit out for a few years and I also ran horses under rules, and if I’d had better horses I would have had more success!” she says. Her major triumph as a trainer was winning the prestigious Heart of All England Novice Hunter Chase at Hexham in 1982 with a horse called Royal Sunset.

“A lot of people have always wanted to go for that race, so I was very fortunate. It felt fantastic.

“My involvement with horses was because I loved every aspect. I enjoyed the grooming, the mucking out, the riding. It takes up all your time and we had a fair number of horses.”

But riding can be a risky sport and a number of crashing falls left her physically unable to carry out the more heavy work without pain.

“I broke my neck and I smashed my face up riding,” she said. “When the mucking out became painful, it just naturally came to an end.”

Although she no longer rides – “I can’t afford to fall off” she says – she moved from racehorses to working with Riding for the Disabled, teaching adults and young people.

“We had children coming over from the Northern Counties School for the Deaf, we had children from Brunswick Special School, I had people from the Care Village in Ponteland, both children and adults, and I had a special group, the Headway Group – people who had suffered head injuries.

“If you have ever been involved with disabled people and you see what riding does to them, it’s staggering. It was a very happy time. But I just found that physically, I was finding it very difficult, I just found that with my neck, so I had to give it up. But it was wonderful.”

A born and bred Northumbrian who grew up in the Morpeth area, Lady Renwick says that despite studying in Scotland, London and Paris, she has never wanted to be based anywhere but the North East. After boarding school in Scotland, she spent a year in France.

“I think I was too young to appreciate that but the whole idea was to improve my languages. I went to a finishing school where more people spoke English than they spoke French,” she laughs.

That was followed by a secretarial course in London, which she completed as quickly as possible because she hated the capital and longed to return to North East. Married to Sir Richard Renwick at a young age, she has three sons.

“I got engaged at 19 and I was married by the time I was 21,” she said.

“In that day and age when you were that age, everybody got married much younger than they do now, so it wasn’t unusual. All one’s girlfriends got married at exactly the same age.”

Now at 63, she is also grandmother to three grandsons.

“I see a lot of them. I’m lucky because my grandchildren live close by, so I have been very busy this spring on the rugger touchline,” she said.

“I am also an avid Toon Army supporter and have season tickets and quite often go to watch the Falcons play as well. I am not the mother and grandmother of boys for nothing!”

But she admits that the majority of her time is taken up by Get Smart, which was one of the first businesses to set up shop in the Milkhope Centre. Opened in 1986, the rural shopping centre built on a former working farm was one of the first farm diversification schemes. Although diversifications are now the norm rather the exception on farm land, taking the decision to start a shop at the Milkhope Centre was somewhat a leap of faith for Lady Renwick at that time.

However, her husband had run the saddlers Bart J Snowballs from the centre, so she was confident there would be enough people to make an independent fashion store viable.

“I knew people were prepared to travel here from all over. They come from the Borders, they come from Cumbria, they come from North Yorkshire,” she said.

“Where else in Northumberland has something like this, or anywhere else for that matter? Because of where it is situated, it is ideal. The whole concept of what is here has built up to what it is now as a very successful business enterprise for everybody.”

Providing employment for around 70 people, the centre is home to a variety of specialist businesses. Furnishers and furnisher restorers, farm machinery sellers, garden ware, a gallery, photographer, cafe and the award-winning Blagdon Farm Shop are among the enterprises housed in the refurbished Northumbrian stone former farm buildings.

Get Smart is one of the longest-standing tenants. Lady Renwick decided to take the plunge after approaching Business Link, taking a course and obtaining a grant to get it going

“I did it at the age of 49, it’s not the end of one’s career any more!” she said. “It’s my entire life at the moment. I’m here basically the majority of my time.”

The shop is very much her own creation. She chooses the clothing, hats, shoes and accessories and negotiates directly with the clothing companies’ agents. She trusts her own judgement to stock what her customers want.

“I go to the NEC twice a year, a lot of agents are in Leeds, some come to hotels in Newcastle and some come to the shop. That’s spread over about four months, so you’ve got to remember what you’ve ordered from the first one.

“I buy what I like and what I’m happy to see in the shop. The difference between a high street shop and an individually-owned shop is that you do have things that are different.

“People travel: Northumberland is a vast county and people get around very easily and they don’t want to see the same things. So when I’m buying, I will always check to see who else has it in the area.

“My shop is completely different to any shop you will find in the town because it is not a high street shop, I can chose which brands I want to have.”

Obviously a strong-minded woman, Lady Renwick despairs of the state of the high street, where the sales and discounts are now almost a constant feature. She is also determined to buy what her customers want and when they want it, rather than being controlled by the dictates of the fashion industry.

“Suppliers are sending things through earlier and earlier, it’s having to say: ‘no I don’t want that’. This is a rural business. I’m realistic, I go with what my customers want and what the weather is like.”

The business, which employs five part-time staff, has close links with Newcastle milliner Sue Anderson to offer a service for customers looking for a bespoke hat. People who have bought outfits elsewhere come in to find a hat in the right shade and Lady Renwick has also benefited from this year’s stricter dress code at Royal Ascot.

The demand for ‘substantial’ fascinators meant a number of mothers arrived looking for more suitable head-dresses for daughters attending the prestigious race meeting last week.

In addition to working with a local milliner, Lady Renwick also sources knitwear from Cumbria. But she says that selling locally produced clothes is unlikely to become a big trend.

“I’ve got some wonderful woollens from a lady across in the Lake District, but sadly a lot of the manufacturing in this country has gone.”

However, she is keen to continue putting something back into her local community via the fashion shows she runs when requested by organisations such as the WI. She has staged more than 80 of these events, which are used to raise money for charities such as the Teenage Cancer Trust.

“A, it gets the products out there, and B it raises money,” she said. “It’s very tiring but I love it.”

Lady Renwick has no regrets about following her passion for fashion.

“I love it, absolutely love it. I’ve found my niche, people come in and it’s about making other people happy. Actually, the saddest thing is thinking about the day when I have to say, ‘well, that’s it’.”

QUESTIONNAIRE

What car do you drive? Volvo

What’s your favourite restaurant? Fratelli’s in Ponteland because it is easy to get to after work

Who or what makes you laugh? My husband

What’s your favourite book? Into Oblivion written by Sacha Bonsor about when she had a brain tumour

What was the last album you bought? Background music for a fashion show

What’s your ideal job, other than the one you’ve got? I think my present one will see me out

If you had a talking parrot, what’s the first thing you would teach it to say? Smile

What’s your greatest fear? Ill health

What’s the best piece of business advice you have ever received? If you enjoy what you do it will work

And the worst? I haven’t had any

What’s your poison? A whisky and ginger ale

What newspapers do you read, other than The Journal? Telegraph, Hexham Courant and Morpeth Herald

How much was your first pay packet and what was it for? A secretary – can’t remember

How do you keep fit? Walking up and down the shop every day

What’s your most irritating habit? Obstinacy

What’s your biggest extravagance? My family and a long bath

Which historical or fictional character do you most identify with or admire? Florence Nightingale

Which four famous people would you most like to dine with? Andrew Lloyd Webber, William Hague, Dame Tanni Grey Thompson, Boris Johnson

How would you like to be remembered? Lovingly

CV

1961 - Paris for a year to learn French and History of Art.

1963 - Queen’s Secretarial College, Queensgate, London – Secretarial Course.

Mid-1960s-1980s - Trained point-to-pointers, then took out a permit to train under rules.

1984-1991 - Worked with the Morpeth Group of Riding for the Disabled at Kirkley and then moved the group to Whalton, working with Newcastle School for the Deaf, Brunswick Special School, the Care Village, Ponteland, and the Headway group from Morpeth. Took Riding for the Disabled Instructors exam.

1988-1991 - Committee of the Northumberland Touring Theatre Company. Committee member for the Community Foundation

1994 - opened Get Smart II at the Milkhope Centre.

2001 - Moved to larger premises within the centre.