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Lockdown businesses thriving five years after Covid

Alex Pope
BBC News, East of England
Ethereal Jewellery Leah Sigsworth, in a house, with a stone wall behind her, plants and stones in front of her, holding a small kitten. She is smiling and looking straight at the camera, wearing a green jumper, she has long dark, straight hair. Ethereal Jewellery
Leah Sigsworth runs Ethereal Jewellery from her own home and her parents' house, and is sometimes helped by Bean, her new kitten

Five years ago, the Covid-19 lockdown was still in force, with wide-ranging impacts that are still being felt today.

For some, though, it was a chance to try something different and launch a business.

How have they fared and was the gamble worth it?

'It was really something to keep me busy'

Ethereal Jewellery Hugh, Cara, Leah and Lesley, all standing outside, in a garden, by a small building, all looking at the camera and smiling. Ethereal Jewellery
Leah says the team all have roles they excel in: while she concentrates on sales, videos and photography, her boyfriend Hugh Walker and mother Cara (second from left) are good at , and Lesley Jones (right) packs the items

This weekend Leah Sigsworth will open a pop-up shop in London's Fitzrovia to mark five years since the birth of Ethereal Jewellery.

Leah, 23, from Northamptonshire, started the company in her parents' back garden during lockdown.

"When I started, it was really something to keep me busy. It was for my own mental health; it was something to do during the loneliness of the Covid lockdown," she says.

By September 2020, she had begun a creative writing degree at the University of Lincoln, and carried on with the business, working with her boyfriend, Hugh Walker, also now 23.

"Then, when I graduated, I sat down with Hugh, and my parents and said, 'Can we do this full-time":[]}