Biography of Janee

Janee has always been a grafter and had her first paid job at the age of eight.  She and her family came down in the summer to their caravan at Ferryfields near Winchelsea and she helped the local shepherd round up the sheep and catch the lambs.

The family moved to Udimore in 1970 to avoid the rat race of Orpington, moving into a 400 year old cottage on a farm with no toilet or bathroom.  Her second job, at the age of twelve, was working at weekends in the Kings Head, making sandwiches and cleaning the pub.  She stayed on at school until she was eighteen, boosting up her O’Levels.  She had the opportunity of going to Art School at the age of sixteen but by eighteen she was ready to leave education.

She married in the late 1970’s and her and her husband started a window cleaning business.  She loved working for herself.  After getting divorced, Janee and her second husband built up the round and had a really good business.  Although window cleaning has been the economic thread that has run through Janee’s life, “after all everyone has to pay the bills”, she has been involved in a wide range of other “passions”.

Since meeting her currently partner Nick, he has introduced a wide range of music genres to her and really educated her.  She plays the guitar and has now written 4 songs. Both her parents had good singings voices and Janee was a backing singer to a band, performing in The George and The Mermaid in Rye.

She has a fascination for health and is trained in seven different therapies including hypnotherapy and Neuro Linguistic Programming.  She practised in Rye but always kept her window cleaning!

Janee was always interested in art and in 2010 went to private art classes and built up a portfolio of work.  She then applied to do an Art Foundation course at college and went on to do an Art Degree, part time.  She hated drawing and painting things in a representational/photographic way “that’s really boring for me, I have to feel what I’m painting and love colour and experimenting”.  Janee now has twenty eight paintings in the Peacock gallery in Rye and had a private showing back in December 2022.

Janee has written three unpublished books, writes poetry but “always keeps the window cleaning going”.

Along the way Janee has also owned and run two Bed and Breakfast establishments and worked as a carpet fitter.

Now living in Hastings, she comes back to Rye two to three times a week to clean windows.  Many of her customers are now her friends.  Janee plans to keep on with her passions of art, music, health, poetry and song writing and would maybe like to have a bit more sun in the future “I couldn’t live abroad but I’m working on the sun thing!”

Audio of interview with Janee