As a toddler, if you had asked me what my mum did for a living, I probably would have mouthed “cake” and I wouldn’t have been far from the truth. You see, the earliest images I had of my mum were rather doughy, not the money kind though. I’m talking lots of flour, butter, eggs, milk, nutmeg and baking powder.
Even as I grew older, this image didn’t change much. She combined her day job as a staff of the Ministry of Education, where she worked in the catering department, with taking occasional orders from friends and family for all types of cakes, mostly birthdays and boy, was she creative with it. She would make all the styles, getting inspiration from her many catalogues. There was no food channel at the time.
My mum is an entrepreneur through and through. I recall dad helping her make a signboard (you know those type made out of plywood and painted over by a sign writer). Emblazoned across this board was “Crown Catering Services” slapped on with what I can now, with hindsight, boldly refer to as a lazy and generic logo of a cake. The listed offerings were indoor and outdoor catering, cakes etc.
The upside of having a caterer as your mum meant that our own birthday cakes were extra special. I actually recall her grand plan to create a gingerbread man cake for my 5th birthday before switching to a teddy bear cake at the very last minute when the gingerbread man literally fell apart from the oven. Not that we cared, it was more cake for us to grub. She was forced to make the replacement cake within hours of my birthday despite what must have been monumental stress.
The pre-baking routine was especially my favourite. Once she arrived from the market with the ingredients, the routine started. Our main task (beside eating the cake of course) was to slather butter over the cake pans with the help of a brush. It didn’t bother us that despite getting only a few such orders at once, we were asked to butter several pans of different shapes and sizes.
Here’s the catch, every time my mum baked, she was baking for everyone: our teacher at school, the neighbours, her friends, my aunts, uncles. Everyone got cake. Baking day was community service for my mum and this happened every single time without fail. Knowing what I know today, I wonder if she ever broke even. Scratch that, I am convinced she never did.
She didn’t stop there; sometimes she would make sausages, meat pies, scotch eggs, and pancakes. Picnics were especially a treat and every treat was a hit.
During my pre-teen years, if you had asked me what my mum did for a living, I would have said travelling caterer and again I wouldn’t have been wrong. She would take off for days on a tour of the East, via South-South. After checking her bosom friend in Port Harcourt, she’d go off to the famous Ariara market in Aba, present day Abia state. What was her mission you’d be tempted to ask? To buy fabric of different types to resell in Lagos. Our house became Mecca to anyone looking to wear bespoke jackets, French suits and shirts.
Every time she returned from such trips, fatigued and weary, she’d somehow still summon the strength to unpack several boxes of goods and start to take inventory. My siblings and I would then watch as she deployed all types of techniques to close the sale. She’d whip out her tape rule once the transaction was completed to measure the desired quantity for the happy customer and she had a legion of them, from colleagues at the ministry, to the same family and friends she gave out free cake to (Maybe there was a method to the madness after all because I know there were countless referrals too). Looking back, it appears this was to prepare my mum for what has now become her mainstay today.
So as a teenager, if you had asked me what my mum did for a living, I would have said trader and this time, I would have been right on the money.
If you ask her, she would tell the story of how a friend introduced her to the business and she has not looked back. She named this one “Lady Bell Tailoring Services”. All I know is that my mum has done this longer than any of the other businesses I highlighted above. She has given up catering entirely, having bequeathed most, if not all of her equipment to my sister, while her body can obviously no longer withstand the arduous journeys to the East.
It was here, on her favourite chair, that I met her a few weeks ago, where she confessed her love for this line of trade. Actually she didn’t need to convince me. After all, it was at this place that we all spent some part of our formative years learning a thing or two while assisting her. Even if some of us mastered the trade better than others. I happen to fall in the former category. I know a thing or two about measuring out stuff in yards, typically 36cm with a tape rule but that was not all, I also learnt basic accounting. Every morning, she would make provision for a certain amount (opening balance) made up of several denominations of Naira, hand me the keys to the shop and off I went to open the shop. Each transaction was recorded in a ledger with corresponding details. At the end of the day, we tally the figures from the opening balance and expenses to determine our closing balance.
Then she made weekly contributions to different thrift collectors (Ajo or Esusu). The volume of transactions varied daily and was more intense during seasonal holidays and this determined the amounts she would save. This knowledge has served me well, even though the concepts have become mainstream with the aid of technology. We now deploy apps to measure business performance across these areas.
Today, as we celebrate Mother’s Day, I want to state that it fills me with joy that my mum continues to express joy in her trade. In her words, “I am retired not tired”. I am particularly proud of the strides she continues to make and pray that I am able to support her to attain even more fulfillment. If tomorrow I start a line of business and decide to place a Crown in front of the name, you should know that it’s an ode to my mum, easily the first entrepreneur I knew. Happy Mother’s Day Mum. I love you.
