INTERVIEW
life
Photo: Vanessa Churchman 2nd left with the Sudbury Court netball team
Article by Roz Whistance
“IF I don’t win I’ll cry for a week because my ego
will have been dented,” says Councillor Vanessa
Churchman. “Then I’ll go and ‘get a life’.” By the
time this article is published, votes for the council
elections will have been cast, and Vanessa will
either be half way through her third box of tissues
or happily back in the mire of local politics.
If you meet Vanessa over drinks at some official
do, you’d be forgiven for thinking that if you sliced
her in two you’d find red tape instead of blood:
suited and booted she looks every bit someone
who eats and drinks order and regulation. So
it comes as a surprise, when you visit her at
her lovely cliff-side bungalow, to find her in
trackie-bottoms and Airtex shirt, with gardeners’
hair and no makeup.
Like most councillors worth their salt, Vanessa’s
life is rich and busy enough without needing
the irksomeness that must characterise local
government. Far from being clogged with red
tape, her veins run with passion, not first and
foremost for local politics but for sport, cars,
business, and with love.
Sport first: and netball has dominated Vanessa’s
life. Her dedication to the game played a part in
ending her first marriage. “I was a tiger. I don’t
believe in losing.” Beginning at school in Perivale
in London she was picked for the prestigious
Sudbury Court team, and made the reserve
England team.
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Vanessa has always given her all – in everything.
Her childhood was happy: she had two brothers
and a sister, and her father worked for Hoover.
Educated in a convent, by nuns and secular
teachers, she thrived. Her first jobs were in an
advertising agency in Central London, and when
eventually she entered the world of business she
found it fascinating.
In the meantime Vanessa had met John and they
married, but they were like chalk and cheese. “I
said it was a lovely day, he’d say there were clouds
up there.” Their marriage didn’t last.
Vanessa’s next career move was into banqueting.
She organised Masonic dinners, bar-mitzvahs,
weddings, business luncheons – and that was
where she met Joe. “How do you explain love at
first sight?” she asks. “Within a week we were
living together.”
Joe had spent 22 years in the Guards, and as a
young man during the war it had been his duty
to protect the two young princesses at Windsor
Castle. Years later, when the Queen was inspecting
the troops at Horse Guards Parade she singled
Joe out to speak to, as she had recognised her
childhood protector. “He was very proud of that.”
Joe used his army transport experience and
contacts to set up a top class coaching company,
called, appropriately, Guards of London, which
was successful thanks to their 7-day a week input.
However their backers pulled out, and while Joe
ran a taxi service in Coulsden, where they were
now living, Vanessa ran a chauffeured car-hire
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