How to become a high-flying magazine editor

I went to the Ursuline High School in Brentwood, Essex. It was a traditional convent school with a very strict school uniform and lots of rules about wearing hats to chapel and not running in the corridors. Most of which I broke on a daily basis!

I can’t say I had an easy relationship with the nuns but they were certainly feisty, independent-thinking women who didn’t rely on any man for their self-esteem. In that way I think they provided great role models for teenage girls.

I was a bit of a science boffin and found maths very easy, so I headed down that path. To this day my knowledge of history and geography is practically nil. I was good at English but back then you couldn’t mix arts and science subjects at A-level so I dropped it.
Not having English A-level has never held me back. What you need is the ability to marshal your thoughts and express yourself clearly and concisely. Most academic subjects – science as well as arts-based - give you that.

Soon after I arrived at university, I signed up to work on the student magazine and it was like falling in love! From then on, I did the minimum amount of work needed for my course in order to pull all-nighters working on the mag. Despite being less than a stellar astrophysicist, after graduation I was offered several jobs, literally as a rocket scientist, but I turned them all down because I had discovered what I really wanted to do with my life.

After university, I won a place on the Mirror Group's Newspapers Training Scheme and spent two years working in newspapers, learning shorthand, going to courts and councils and doorstepping families of road accident victims! As soon as I passed my NCTJ (National Council for the Training of Journalists) Proficiency Certificate, I started applying for jobs in the more glamorous world of magazines and became a sub-editor on Woman’s Own.

Good Housekeeping is my dream magazine. It has heritage, an impressive readership of intelligent, articulate women and very wide ranging remit. It’s a magazine I would read even if I wasn’t the editor.

When I was editor of Prima, I persuaded Cherie Blair to guest edit an issue of the magazine. At that point she had never given an interview and the resulting media frenzy was so huge we had reporters trying to break into the printers and steal advance copies of the magazine.

In 2006, I was appointed the first-ever Editorial Director of the National Magazine Company, overseeing not only Good Housekeeping but all our other famous titles such as Cosmopolitan, Esquire and Harper’s Bazaar.

I interviewed Tony Blair many times when he was PM and he is terrific but I have a soft spot for Jon Bon Jovi. I flew to New York to profile him for Cosmopolitan and then went to a private concert he was giving for about 50 people. That was pretty special!

It’s not a fallacy. Life on glossy magazines can be very glamorous indeed. I get to meet people and do things that would only be dreams if I had remained a rocket scientist. The downside is that it is very competitive, with very long hours and – when you are starting out – quite badly paid. The line in the film The Devil Wears Prada that ‘if you can’t hack it, there are a 1000 girls out there who want your job’ is no more than the truth.

Hope goes to an all-girls secondary school, which is quite similar in ethos to the school I attended except that they don’t wear school uniform or have quite as many rules. I like it because they seem to turn out very self-confident young women. She says she likes it because they appreciate her as an individual.

To me, it’s not about exam results but about developing pupils’ confidence and self-esteem. Some schools are terrific at this and others not so much, which is deeply unfair and a missed opportunity. Kids with low self-esteem will always act up more and have lower attainment than those who have been encouraged to value themselves.

There are lots of ways but the golden road is a degree (not necessarily in English and preferably not in media studies) followed by some sort of post-graduate training. This need not be an MA.
I am very conscious that graduates these days leave university with a lot of debt and may not be able to fund another year. But there are some very good short courses accredited by the Periodical Training Council that give you the basics, which may in fact be more relevant to day-to-day life on a magazine than a more academic course.

Passion! I need to know that you really love magazines. All magazines – not just the glossies. Show me that you feel as if you will die if you don’t get a job on a magazine because that is what will sustain you through the long and sometimes hard early years of your career.

What haven’t I enjoyed? I’ve travelled all over the world, interviewed some amazing people, flown in private jets, worked with world-famous photographers and writers…None of which actually compares to the thrill of going into a newsagent’s and seeing my handiwork on the shelf each month.

A couple of months ago, I returned to editing Good Housekeeping full-time and I intend to work in magazines – editing and writing – until they carry me out feet first. I have never wanted to do anything else.

After a long day editing the magazine there is nothing I like more than to get home, put my feet up and… read a magazine. My family say I am an addict! I do also walk my dogs every day and go horse-riding when I have the time.

My guilty pleasures are those old-style books about girls’ boarding schools. Fifth Form At Mallory Towers; Twins at St Clare’s, the Chalet School series. Goodness knows why – they were nothing like my schooldays. I don’t know if they were like anyone’s schooldays but I can lose myself for a couple of hours in a bookshop flicking through them.

You can never really come to terms with events like that but tragic as they are I have tried not to let them diminish what’s good in my life. My work has always been a great source of comfort and a constant for me when everything else is going wrong. People have said to me, why don’t you stop work and give yourself a break? My reaction is – why would I want to stop doing one of the best things in my life? I honestly believe in the healing power putting in a good day’s work.