Hebridean (neé Coll) Herbals was conceived twelve years ago with the principal aim of creating a wellpaid, undemanding occupation to pass the time until my children grew up and were able to support me. Since then, it has grown steadily, demanding time, energy and money in ever increasing amounts, and lurching from crisis to disaster in the way that small businesses usually do.

It was sheer lunacy to start a skin care company when there are so many well-established and highly professional experts competing fiercely with vast advertising and publicity machines for the attention and spare pennies of an increasingly bored public. But to site the company at the furthest possible distance from consumer and supplier alike deserves a special award for idiocy. Despite these disadvantages, the company is in its way a success - the criterion for success in the Eighties being simply survival. We have a steadily increasing turnover, a growing reputation for high quality and originality, and a loyal list of customers. The secret of this survival seems to be the continual triumph of hope over experience and the inability to grasp the magnitude of the problems involved before getting to grips with them.

The problems are many and varied: a total lack of knowledge on the part of customers and suppliers alike of the exact location of the Hebrides is general and Coll in particular; freight charges which grow more punitive every year; unpleasant bank managers who refuse to lend to small businesses, balanced by kind bank managers who lend far too much money then demand it back just when its needed; Development Board managers who demand rapid expansion, then castigate when growth is too rapid for available resources; sharks who swim around in the murky waters preying on the inexperienced and gullible small fry in the shallows; professional advisers who charge vast sums of money for giving bad advice; the swings and roundabouts of production - great yawning gaps without demand, followed by periods of frantic activity when the order book bulges with seemingly unfulfillable quantities; employment legislation where the employer is always wrong; consumer legislation where the customer is always right; and so on, ad nauseum....

The compensating factors however are equally numerous: little old ladies from Essex and Lerwick who write in religiously for their jar of Rose Hand cream; trade fairs, where one can have a good moan with fellow sufferers and indulge expensive tastes; bright sunny days when we can label outside on the steps; helpful people at McBraynes (yes, there are some) and in the Post Office; pleasant consumers who make one feel we are doing them a favour by supplying them; the pleasures of meeting new and invariably interesting people; nice lunches; the kindness of the people on Coll who are always ready to help and encourage; a supportive, understanding and infinitely patient family; and above all, Margaret, Frances and Gail - pearls above price.

Oh, and Sir Hugh Fraser. I call him Mogadon Man - thanks to him I can sleep at night!