Brigid Rynne

Brigid’s CV is such a hotch-potch of unrelated jobs and qualifications that she may be justly described as “infinitely versatile” or, less favourably, as “hard to place”, depending on your point of view!

After leaving school at 16, Brigid attended Winkfield Place, a cookery and finishing school founded by Constance Spry, whose motto was “I aspire after perfection”!  Unconvinced by the promise of jobs in cold Scottish shooting lodges with no running water or electricity (hence the absence of labour-saving appliances in Winkfield’s kitchens), Brigid turned her attention to the gardens and trained as a florist.

Brigid’s first job, in 1981, was as a junior showroom assistant at Bellville Sassoon, the designers responsible for the Princess of Wales’ ‘going away’ outfit. The job was only meant to be a stop gap, but it was two years before Brigid moved into full time floristry.

During her time with Pugh & Carr, Brigid was involved with all aspects of the business, from 4am market visits, to large scale floral displays, to wedding bouquets (two of which were featured in Brides Magazine), and management of a small florist concession in Fenwicks’ Bond Street store.  Eventually, however, financial considerations forced a change of career.  Brigid retrained as a secretary and spent several years working as a PA to Greek shipowners, Anthony and Basil Embiricos.

There followed a couple of jobs in marketing and communications, and then a spell as an IT network administrator, before husband, John, retired from the police and they both took an extended career break in 2001.

On her return to London, Brigid took a job as a project coordinator within the HR department of a London NHS Primary Care Trust. In what was to become, probably, the most varied and satifying role of her career, she created and ran an in-house recruitment service, organised training and job evaluation panels during the rebanding of pay grades, and was involved with the introduction of a new payroll system.

Following her move, with John, to France in 2007, Brigid briefly taught English to a class of small children, and has since earned a CELTA qualification to teach English to adult learners.

Brigid took to motorcycling in 1990, after a transport strike in 1989 brought London to a standstill. Since their motorcycle tour of America in 2001, Brigid and John have made 3 return trips, the latest of which was a 9,000 mile circular trip starting in Nova Scotia and ending in Chicago … via Chicago, LA, Vancouver, Alaska and back across the northern states.

Brigid writes an occasional blog about life in France and other places. Like John, she is an Open University graduate with a degree in IT and computing.

You can contact Brigid at brigid@offonaweeride.com.