Unit 2, Part 1, Exercise 5.1: PERSON – Space – Context

Hannah is a 40-year-old professional baker who runs her business from home in Manchester. She is divorced and lives with two teenage sons and two cocker spaniels. She enjoys long country walks. On the weekends that her boys spend time with their dad (and the time allows) she likes to go for a day trip or a weekend in the Lake District. She is a talented baker who creates beautiful and personalised cakes and cupcakes to order. In her spare time, she tends to her garden which is her pride and joy. Whenever she can she hosts dinner parties for her close friends.

Hannah grew up in the Lake District and only moved out to Manchester as an adult. She met her husband there; they started a family and bought a house together. They got divorced in 2016 but remained on good terms. Hannah got to keep their family home located in northern suburbs. Hannah always had a passion for baking and used to work as an office manager in Manchester City Centre. When COVID-19 pandemic hit she was made redundant. She decided to use her redundancy pay to invest in a baking business. She already had all the skills – baking and business management.

In near future she would like her house extended to fit a larger kitchen and utility space. Extra space, supplies, storage, and appliances will have their space and she will have a nice family kitchen once she is finished with work for the day. Nice, new kitchen will also be a perfect backdrop for her social media material – essential for growing this type of business. Once the business has grown to a point of employing help, she would like to convert her garage to become new business premises. Later on in life, she would like to buy a second home in the Lake District – somewhere she could unwind and go for those long country walks.

Reflection on the task:

That was quite an unexpected exercise. To ‘create’ a person. At first, I created three mind maps to help me organise my ideas. Once I came up with those ‘facts’ about Hannah, I just typed it all out in the matter of minutes. It was very easy. I wonder if creative writers also draw mind maps to help them organise their ideas before sitting down to writing. It definitely helped me!