Life Lessons: She lost her childhood caring for her mum – then God wrote a different story

Jemimah Wright spoke with Catherine Grant, co-founder of The Entertainer, to hear the remarkable story of a childhood marked by hardship, caring responsibilities and loss. From leaving school at 13 to helping build one of Britain’s best-known toy retailers, Catherine reflects on the faith that has sustained her through every chapter of her life.

I was born in Bristol, the fourth child in a family of five children. My father worked as a baker at the time. An ambitious man, he was forever looking for new challenges, hence we moved from place to place throughout our childhood. My mother was born in Blagdon, a village about fifteen miles from Bristol. She was very much a country girl, going into service at the age of fourteen before working in her stepmother’s café in Blagdon. My father worked on the buses, coming into the café most days. He must have seemed a very exciting young charmer, and at the age of seventeen she eloped with him to Bristol.

Though Bristol was always the centre we gravitated back to, my irresponsible father was happy to move on anywhere he felt like. He became a master baker, and bakery jobs always came with accommodation. Once he became bored, or felt ill-used, we were off again. When I was three or four we found ourselves in Luton, Bedfordshire, and it’s the first memory I have of watching my mother crawl upstairs on her hands and knees. This was the beginning of her multiple sclerosis.