When I first sat on Smalls Bay and announced that I was going to create a clothing brand called Barefoot Boy those with me mainly just smiled, they know me well, always full of bright ideas! My husband encouraged (as always) and wanted to know more but it was an off hand comment from a friend that really became the driving force behind getting Barefoot Boy off the ground. He smiled saying ‘so we’ll be sat here on this beach this time next year, still talking about doing it?’ Those words became my inner voice and that week I got to work creating Barefoot Boy.

Getting to the point of launching wasn’t easy, there were moments, especially when making very poor attempts to use Illustrator that I wanted to literally throw the laptop… how can a programme be so hard to use? I found some really talented people along that way who luckily knew much more than me and eventually in May this year we took delivery of our first boxes of Barefoot Boy hoodies and tees!!

I had no idea how nervous I would be at our first event….would people like them? What if they don’t? When you have created something that comes from your heart it makes you feel very vulnerable sharing it with the world. As we set up our first stall at Paddle Round the Pier in Hove my anxiety was high…but over two days we met some of the most amazing people, we had fantastic feedback and maybe not most importantly, we made some sales! Salcombe Regatta was the big one for me this year, I had based a brand around the place I loved best and so the reaction here really mattered. After a crazy week of putting up and taking down our cheap and cheerful (and not very user-friendly) gazebo and carting boxes while totally exhausted (thank you to my amazing husband!) we had made it to the end of an amazing Regatta week… we had almost completely sold out…which was amazing, but the overriding feeling wasn’t about how many hoodies we had sold, it was the warmth that I felt from all the good wishes, the encouragement from total strangers, the positive feedback and the feeling when I saw a young girl sat on the harbour eating her fish and chips in her Barefoot Girl hoodie…she spotted me and grinned!! In the days that followed our Instagram grew, our hoodies and tees strolled past us on Fore Street and the orders kept coming in.

From the very start, it was about far more than just a clothing brand…having worked for the last twelve years with primary school children, my roles as a Learning Mentor and then an Inclusion and Safeguarding practitioner have meant I have seen so many children with so many struggles. This has created a real passion to highlight and not brush under the carpet the struggles that our children face on a day-to-day basis. Bullying is worse than ever and using social media children can be exposed to this relentlessly, so many young children are struggling with anxiety, pressure from their peers and exam pressure from as young as six years old, pressure to be the best sportsman, to win the next trophy, to get the best grades! We talk about children’s mental health and wellbeing but what can we do to really improve it? Over the coming months, our Barefoot Days Blog will tackle the things that impact on our children’s wellbeing and discuss the things we can do to improve it… I have seen first hand how a town and environment can shape a boys future and how getting back to basics can change everything!!

A place and your experiences really can define you!

If you’re in and around Salcombe why not take some time to be creative with the kids and visit Paperbird Island.

Or just take some time to talk over a hot chocolate at The Winking Prawn always good to warm you up after a walk on North Sands!