Rural and Environment

Women in the Rural Economy: Part 9

March 7, 2019 by admin No Comments | Category Agriculture, Farming, food and drink, Uncategorized

Ailsa Campbell of Campbell’s Bakery in Crieff is the latest to provide an insight into the diverse and important role women play in Scotland’s rural economy as part of our series of blogs to mark International Women’s Day tomorrow.

Having grown up in Vancouver Canada I never imagined I would end up living in the middle of Scotland running a 190 year old bakery with my husband! In 1970 when I was a baby my family emigrated to Vancouver from the UK. On June 1st 2000 I arrived back in Scotland to start a new life with Iain Campbell a seventh generation baker running his family’s bakery in Crieff – Campbell’s Bakery. I had met Iain in 1999 when I was an exchange student at the Glasgow School of Art.

For the next two years I commuted to Edinburgh and Glasgow to work as a graphic designer before starting a family. When the kids came along I had no idea how I was going to continue to work in such a rural location while raising a family.

I met other mums at the local toddlers group where I had expected conversation to revolve around babies but these women had had interesting careers before kids and were trying to juggle kids and eek out work at the same time just like me. Three of us started a local family newsletter. None of us were from the area. I was the graphic designer, Caron was the editor and Angela the sales person who sold adverts to cover our printing costs. We didn’t earn any money but we were keeping up our skills while networking.

As a result of the networking I started to pick up more work. It was really stressful though, especially during school holidays. My husband never thought he would take some time off to look after our kids when they were off! He expected me to juggle work and kids while his life continued as normal. Needless to say there was some strife! Over time his outlook has changed though and he is much more supportive!

In 2011 I was asked if I would join a small group of people aiming to regenerate Crieff’s town centre. Naively I said yes and am still heavily involved eight years later with Crieff Community Trust and Crieff Succeeds BID. This has taken up an insane amount of time and energy but I have loved the connection it has given me to my new home and working as part of a team of lovely people who I might not have met otherwise.

In 2013 I found juggling my own graphic design business with our kids, our bakery and the community work too much and decided to close my graphics business to work for the bakery and continue my community efforts.

A few years later we learned that Aldi and possibly Marks & Spencer Food were coming to Crieff. I realised this could really hurt our sales and we needed to find another revenue stream. I suggested to my husband that we start a baking school. In addition to his family’s baking heritage, Iain has won multiple awards and is an excellent teacher who has trained two of his bakers to win ‘Young Scottish Baker of the Year’. For the past two years we have been running small baking classes in our bakehouse on Saturday afternoons. We plan to grow into a full calendar of classes in a bespoke classroom on the site adjacent to the bakery in the next couple of years. When people hear of our plans they refer to them as my husband’s idea. It really jars with me but I don’t say anything. I would hope this type of attitude is a dying one and people appreciate the value women bring to the rural economy.

Tags: International Women's Day, rural economy, Scotland, Women

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