Another Inspiring Woman – from a few herbs to a worldwide business!

Jekka McVicar is the Museum’s second nomination (see our blog post below) for a local woman to feature in South Gloucestershire Council’s new exhibition: ‘Inspiring Women: The Legacy of the First World War’.

The exhibition highlights inspiring women in South Gloucestershire from the First World War to the present day.

As everyone knows, Jekka has a passion for herbs!   With her husband and two small children, Jekka moved to Rose Cottage, Shellards Lane, Alveston in 1987 and there she gradually created an organic herb farm.

From small beginnings, Jekka now grows over 650 herb varieties, and has a worldwide business. (Who knew there were 650 varieties of herbs in the world?   Well, Jekka, obviously!)

She learns how the herbs can be used medicinally or in cooking and she knows how to display them at shows to good decorative effect. As a result, she has won 62 Gold Medals of the Royal Horticultural Society, 14 of them from Chelsea!

Her ‘Complete Herb Book’ has sold over a million copies and she appears frequently on TV.

She is now a Vice President of the RHS and one of the few women to hold their prestigious Victoria Medal of Honour.

Despite all this, Jekka still holds regular free open days for local people, in which she shares what she has learned about the herbs she grows – how to look after them, how to use some of them medicinally and, best of all, how to cook with them!

We think she’s definitely inspiring and if you want to find Jekka and lots of other local women of the last 100 years featured in the ‘Inspiring Women’ exhibition, go along to Thornbury Library between 11^th and 26^th November and read all about them.

An Inspirational Woman – and a Great Chef!

Here at the Museum, we’re delighted to have nominated Romy Gill for an exhibition called ‘Inspiring Women: the Legacy of the First World War in South Gloucestershire’.

The exhibition, organised by South Gloucestershire Council, highlights inspiring women in South Gloucestershire from the First World War to the present day.

Romy (of Romy’s Kitchen in Castle Street, Thornbury) is one of the few female Indian head chef/restaurant owners in the UK.   Growing up in West Bengal, she experienced lots of different kinds of cooking, which drew on Punjabi, West Bengali, Gujarati and south Indian traditions.  When she moved to the UK in 1994, she left behind friends, family and all the food she loved to eat.  But she made new friends and embraced new tastes and new ingredients, blending them with ones she knew from home.

In 2013, she opened her Thornbury restaurant.

As well as cooking and running her restaurant, Romy now also writes for national newspapers and food magazines and appears on radio and TV. She has written articles for The Guardian, The Observer, The Telegraph and The Independent. She has been a judge for BBC Radio 4’s Food and Farming Awards and she’s been on Saturday Live, BBC Woman’s Hour, BBC Asian Network and 5Live, as well as appearing on Masterchef and with the Hairy Bikers.

She was appointed an MBE in the Queen’s 90th birthday honours list in 2016.

She absolutely loves trying new things and is currently working on her first cookery book.  We think she’s truly inspirational!

You can see an article about Romy in this week’s Thornbury Gazette.