A LAKE District businesswoman has won a lifetime achievement award after dedicating nearly 30 years of her life to a blossoming family company.

Lakeland Limited customer director Michelle Kershaw was awarded a special lifetime achievement award in front of 800 people at a home shopping awards ceremony in London last week.

“I just felt so proud,” she said. “It meant the world to me to get this award. I have devoted my life to this job but this really wasn’t expected.” Mrs Kershaw joined the Windermere-based kitchen and homeware mail order and retail company in 1975, around ten years after the small family-run firm got off the ground.

The trained food technologist had previously been working as a fruit buyer for Libbys and, following her interview with Lakeland Limited’s bosses, they selected her as their second preferred candidate for the job as they were concerned she would not stay with the company long.

Three decades later, she is still at the firm and has built up such a rapport with her customers that 250 sent her congratulations cards following her wedding earlier this year. “The feedback from the customers and the people I work with makes this such an exciting job,” she said.

Over her years with Lakeland Limited, it has grown from just one retail store to an organisation with around 25 stores and 1,200 staff.

Industry experts at the award ceremony described her as a talented, dedicated professional who had a unique relationship with her customers and levels of energy that left others struggling to keep up.