Island Life Magazine Ltd June/July 2009 | Page 31

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. The Island's most loved magazine 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 31