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Louise Nelhams: Meet Leeds poet and speechwriter
Putting pen to paper can be a difficult task, but for 34-year-old Louise Nelhams it has both rhyme and reason.
Louise, from Oulton, Leeds, runs poetryperfection.com, a bespoke writing service providing poems or speeches for those special moments in life.
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She lives with her partner, Tony, 35, and son, Charley, 12.
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"My first kiss was at the local youth club with a boy called Aiden. We'd been going out for seven or eight weeks, neither of us had kissed anyone before and when we did, it was in front of a group of friends who then broke out in a round of applause as we pulled apart. We were both scared of that first kiss so to make that bit easier we did it in front of a crowd and finished with a cheer. I'm glad it doesn't work that way now, I think it would be slightly off-putting!
"My first job was working with my father, aged 18. He ran a successful double glazing company and as co-director this gave me some brilliant management skills, which in turn helped in creating my two businesses.
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"It was my family and especially my father that gave me the most valuable piece of advice; to always believe in yourself and never let anyone tell you can not do something. You can achieve anything if you set your mind to it. I think all of us at sometime or another have doubts, shakes and wobbles but then when you start to believe in yourself that's when good things start to happen. I'm a big believer in karma and I think what you put out there will come back in leaps and bounds.
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"The one thing I couldn't live without is my son, Charley. He's my only child and the absolute apple of my eye. Charley is on the gifted and talented register at school, which means he is ahead of his years. I have an extremely helpful family and friends, who have helped build up my business.
"The thing that annoys me most in life is dishonest people. I think no matter how hard the truth is, it's so important and I get extremely annoyed when people build lies to protect themselves. The truth is always best. I learned very young in life if you are not honest, it will always come back to bite you.
"The best thing about living in Leeds is the diversity of the city. It is very cultural and a mixture of music, interests and the fact that you can always find something happening here. I love that it is a big enough city to hold all your needs but small enough to not feel overwhelming. Living in Oulton is great because we are a step away from the countryside but then a short hop into Leeds for a night out to dance the night away. Leeds has the best of both worlds.
"To relax I like reading and spending time with my son. I am a voracious reader. I also love to cook for friends and family. One of my favourite pastimes is to socialise with a few drinks and have a really good boogie.
"I have two businesses, both involving my passion for writing. Copywriting is my main form of work, the thing that brings the money in, but I also create a bespoke poetry gift service as a second business. The poetry is my real love simply because it's very personal and makes a real difference to the people I write for. One of the more popular requests is for poems and speeches to be created for weddings, for example, brides wanting a personalised poem for the groom and nervous bridesmaids wanting a speech created to take the shakes away.
"Poems are perfect for occasions like weddings and christenings.
The thing that surprises people about me is that although I am such an outwardly confident, outgoing, and loud person, I am actually quite shy and insecure. People that know people think that I'm really confident but it takes a lot for me to be like that. Another thing is that I lived in Tanzania for a year. My ex-partner was a music teacher in an international school and I went over, did some copywriting for the school and worked with a big American portrait painter setting up an exhibition and I did some voluntary work while I was there.
"The last time I cried was last month whilst watching a documentary on the tsunami including real life footage, showing the morning the disaster hit, and I was in pieces. It's that human loss and knowing how much trauma that brings to friends and families of those people that touches me. Like a lot of other people I seem to cry whenever I am faced with human trauma, in the newspaper or on TV.
"I would love to meet the late Ernest Hemingway because, as a writer, I admire a lot of his work but as his personality starts to come through, I'm not sure I would like him as a person. It's that juxtaposition of respecting him as a writer but being unsure of him as a character and it would be fascinating to get a real essence of the man."
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Sunday 12 February 2012
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