HOW TO HAVE A HAPPY HOME

When it comes to looking after the kids and running a household Charlie Gray, 45, is at the top of her profession

- FRANCES LEATE, HEATHER MAIN

Holding her hands over mine, my mum Marilyn, then 36, encouraged me to gently squeeze the piping bag of merengue mixture into the shape of a heart. 'This one is yours,' she beamed when it was done, lifting me down from the stool in the kitchen and giving me a sugary kiss. We were both covered in sugar, egg and flour after spending hours in the kitchen, but that was part of the fun.

It was summer 1986, and I was only six, but Mum had already taught me how to bake my own bread and cakes and cook several different meals from scratch.

When we weren't at school, me and my older brother were either in the kitchen with Mum cooking, out in the garden planting flowers or growing vegetables, or helping her around the house, folding laundry and cleaning. We loved being part of her world and even as a toddler I'd be on hand, passing her pegs for the washing line.

Mum was an expert housewife while our dad worked as a businessman, and she took great pride in being a stay-at-home mum - meal planning, sewing stray buttons on to our school shirts and getting tough stains out of our clothes.

After I left school, I dabbled in everything from secretarial work to childcare. But not long after I met Simon, then 36, when we were both working at an estate agent’s, in 2004, I knew what I felt passionate about - and that was being a wife and mother. In May 2007, we married and my dream became a reality when I had three children in quick succession - Archie in 2008, Coco in 2010 and Gus the following year.

LABOUR OF LOVE