Nearly half of Britain's self-employed workers are now aged 50 or over, the highest share in at least a decade. Victoria Ward, 51, is one of them. She built a children's party brand in Selby that now takes bookings of up to £440 ($581), and as she prepares to launch a second venture, she says people keep telling her the same thing: that she is too old to start again.
Ward runs Dolled Up Pamper Party, a boutique on Abbey Yard in the North Yorkshire market town, alongside her fiancé Paul. The business turns a child's birthday into something closer to a small festival, with face masks, meditation, airbrush glitter tattoos, karaoke, and a chocolate fountain wrapped around a quieter idea about confidence. She told the press that, as she prepares the new venture, people have repeatedly written her off as past it.
