Sheila Shribman
Dartmouth Food Festival has a new chairman. Sheila Shribman is ready to take the culinary helm. She has spent the past 60 years in the Wirral, London, Northamptonshire and Dartmouth. She has helped thousands of sick children, worked as a Government advisor and has a CBE. Now this self-proclaimed foodie is ready for a new challenge. Steph Woolvin met up with her for a little chat….
I’m waiting for Sheila in her beautiful Georgian home, stroking her lively three-year-old chocolate lab Izzie when she comes breezing through the door fresh from tennis practice and full of life. She is quick to tell me that she’s very excited to be the new chair of the food festival and although not the best cook in the world, she does love her food. Sheila had little time for cooking during her busy career as a consultant paediatrician, a role she carried out for 27 years.
She began her training at Cambridge University and says she was in the minority as it was in the day when few women went into the medical profession. Undeterred, she got her degree and went on to do further training in London. Whilst in the capital she spent time in some big name children’s hospitals including Great Ormand Street where she was confronted first hand with the issues she’d been leaning about in the classroom - childhood leukaemia, meningitis and premature births.
After qualifying she and her husband Jonathan moved to Northamptonshire where he settled as a GP and she found a long-term position in a big hospital. She says being a paediatrician was something she always wanted to do: “It was such a strong ambition for me, even when I was a little girl. I just knew I wanted to work with children and make them better. I was actually quite ill with kidney problems when I was two and three and had to have a substantial amount of hospital care. I don’t remember it, but I do wonder if that had anything to do with my desire to help children. Other paediatricians I’ve met have similar stories.”
Sheila’s career blossomed and she soon became a leading light in her field. So much so that she was asked to become a Government Advisor. She worked for the Department of Health for seven years, commuting back and forth from Northamptonshire to London. During her time at Richmond House she worked under several Secretaries of State - Alan Johnson, Andy Burnham and Andrew Lansley - getting to know each of them quite well. “There were really special moments when I felt I was doing an important job, helping shape the future of the health service. But there were also the frustrating times when I gave them all the knowledge and information I had on a subject and they still went their own way.”
Sheila says she saw a huge amount of change during her time in the medical profession with new treatments and vaccinations. “Take leukaemia for example - back in the 80s most children with the disease died, now the vast majority survive.” It was during her time working for the Government that she and Jonathan bought a house in Dartmouth after many happy holidays in the town. “Our friends said to us ‘you will never leave Northamptonshire’, but we were ready for a change. My husband is a keen sailor and our old home was about as far from the sea as you could get! We used the Dartmouth house as a holiday home for a few years, then moved here full time about 12 years ago. We haven’t looked back!”
They say you can never hang up your stethoscope, but Sheila’s trying to slow down on the medical front and now the only involvement she has is being on the board at the Evelina London Children’s Hospital. She spends her time getting more and more into Dartmouth life - playing tennis, walking the coast path with Izzie the dog and she has joined a reading group. The food festival was something she regularly enjoyed, sampling all the treats it has to offer, so when the committee looked for a new chair she thought it sounded right up her street. “Well what can I say – I love food, you can see that by looking at me - I also have a lot of experience managing people and taking meetings, so I thought let’s give this a try.” She knows it won’t be an easy job with the festival regularly attracting around 25,000 people over the three days. She also says she won’t be charging in changing everything: “It is a great event which is growing sensibly every year. It has a fantastic reputation and we want it to stay that way.”
One thing that is changing for 2017 is a new green packaging policy, which Sheila is very much in favour of. All stallholders will be told the festival is advocating cardboard boxes, wooden cutlery and paper bags rather than plastic bags and bottles and polystyrene containers. “We are trying to set an example, we are a coastal town and so many dangerous things end up in the river and the sea,” she says. There is also a new business start-up award this year. It will give a young business a number of privileges including a free three-day pitch and a photo shoot to promote their wares. Anyone interested in applying for the award can find more details on the festival website.
First published in By The Dart magazine, May 2017
