Take Norman’s comment that firing me was as painful for him as for me. Funny, then, that I was the one snuffling into a sodden handkerchief as the security guard escorted me to personnel, the one feeling as if the world had suddenly stopped turning

The man from personnel was little better His attempts at empathy made me feel ill. In fact, by pushing her forward I push myself because we are Bharti Vyas and Bharti Vyas is us.. THERE’S A lot of rubbish talked about redundancy, especially by people who’ve never been on the receiving end. We all have different views and sometimes we shout at each other but we never blame one another because we know that we would only be failing ourselves.I live over the road from Mum and Shailu lives five minutes away and we meet up every Sunday so we must get on well together.A lot of people have asked me: “But you are working in the background whilst your mum gets all the credit, doesn’t that bother you?” But I don’t feel that way at all. She doesn’t put on a salon persona and her clients appreciate that.

She’s worked so hard to keep the family together that even if the business was to fail we would always have each other. When we were children and the family lived in a one-bedroom flat and Mum was working a 12-hour day, she always had time to massage our faces with Vaseline to keep them soft whilst singing us to sleep. I called her Mum at a recent press meeting and someone told me that it sounded most unprofessional. I explained that our salon workers and even some of our clients call her mum because they like the familiarity. I felt very protective over her when the press discovered that she was Cherie Blair’s therapist and started knocking on our door. It was rather frightening because they were trying to take pictures of my children as well.I enjoy working for Mum because I respect her both as a person and a professional. Each of us draws on our own strengths to build the business which means that we have positivity coming from all angles.I act as Mum’s Girl Friday, working through her diary, administering the supply of our products to the right stores and organising her PR.

I remember when she was learning ear piercing and pierced about ten holes into my ear – I looked like a right little punk.I trained as a hypnotherapist but found it too gloomy. I also had journalistic ambitions but when my family asked me to join the business 10 years ago, it made far more sense to devote my time to promoting my own family rather than working all hours for a stranger. He’s never resented Mum’s success and often says “my daughters are just as good as any son”.Priti Vyas: I was 11 when Mum launched her business. She had a fallopian pregnancy and wasn’t allowed to lift heavy things so she decided to get involved in beauty as a hobby and the business grew from there I’ve always been her guinea pig.