Lockdown businesses thriving five years after Covid

Five years ago, the Covid-19 lockdown was still in force, with wide-ranging impacts that are still being felt today.

For some, though, it was a chance to try something different and launch a business.

How have they fared and was the gamble worth it?

This weekend Leah Sigsworth will open a pop-up shop in London's Fitzrovia to mark five years since the birth of Ethereal Jewellery.

Leah, 23, from Northamptonshire, started the company in her parents' back garden during lockdown.

"When I started, it was really something to keep me busy. It was for my own mental health; it was something to do during the loneliness of the Covid lockdown," she says.

By September 2020, she had begun a creative writing degree at the University of Lincoln, and carried on with the business, working with her boyfriend, Hugh Walker, also now 23.

"Then, when I graduated, I sat down with Hugh, and my parents and said, 'Can we do this full-time"Pictured is Rebecca Skeels smiling in a classroom. She has cheek length dark and grey hair and is wearing thick round glasses. She has on a red high neck jumper with a blue roll neck sweater underneath and a khaki apron. " class="sc-d1200759-0 dvfjxj"/>