Stories about people

Marie Brown and her husband were the archetypal successful professional couple, living in an expensive house in Malvern, with a big garden and all the conventional trappings of success.

She told BBC Hereford & Worcester how the family's life was changed overnight by the collapse of MG Rover in 1995: "I think that morning we were waiting for a particular cheque to come through from MG Rover, they owed us three months money, and what we got, instead of a large amount of money, was a letter saying that they'd just gone.

"We were left, within seconds of having a really nice lifestyle, having absolutely nothing and being near bankruptcy."

Rather than trying to find another job Marie and her husband decided on a radical change of lifestyle.

They sold their house and cars and moved onto a dilapidated narrowboat, which Sheila says looked, at first glance, like 'a floating coffin'.

Moored

Her husband gave up his career as an IT consultant, and instead started work as an electrician and air-conditioning engineer.

Sheila wanted a job that would give her a better work/life balance, and, after being told many times she was too qualified for the job she applying for, began working as a cleaner:

"Seventy hours a week we used to work, and I couldn't remember my children, I was so tired - we had child-minders and all that sort of thing.

Inside

"Now I've got a much better relationship with them, because I'm with them all the time. 

"We have far more rows because I'm in their face, but I know exactly what's going on, I know where they are, I know what their hopes and dreams are, and it's a much more closely knit family than it ever was."

The narrowboat has now been restored, and turned into a family home, and she's even found time to write a book, called Narrow Margins, about their experiences.