The Questioning Iris Co. comes from a Cecil Day Lewis poem called The Album. When I was 18, and studying at College for my A’ Levels, as part of my Theatre Studies, I studied poetry reading and this poem was one of them. Some 20 years later, after the sudden and tragic loss of my 19.5 week old baby daughter, Laura, to Acute Myeloid Leukaemia, I remembered this poem. As I was planning our ‘celebratory party’ to say our goodbyes to her, I resolved to read it as part of our farewell. But, after so long, although the idea of the ‘questioning iris’ came back to me, I was unable to recall either the author or the title. Given the iris is my favourite flower perhaps this was meant to be. A little like a woman possessed, I set about searching. Anyone in our local Waterstones at the time would have witnessed me sitting on the floor in the poetry section pulling poetry book after poetry book from the shelves. Sadly my determination just wasn’t enough and I failed to find it. Hardly surprising given I had neither the poet’s name nor the poem title. I felt hugely despondent but resigned myself to giving up.

On the morning of Laura’s party, my phone rang at 8.30 am. It was Frank, my College lecturer - the man who taught me how to read poetry and who selected The Album. He called to say he was thinking of us all on what he knew would be the difficult day of all difficult days. I asked him if he could remember which poem it was. After a long pause and some minutes of rustling through his bookshelves of poetry, he had not only unearthed it, but was reading it aloud over the phone while I typed frantically. on my computer. Accepting that I may sound a little crazy, and probably was a little crazy, I do believe it was meant to be after all.

When I was working really hard at naming my business , it suddenly came to me – so much of my work is about ‘curiosity’, about our ability to ask different questions, frame new ones, and to just generally question what is and what isn’t in the world. And, of course, the Iris is my favourite flower and purple is my favourite colour – so regal, so perfect, so stately, and so inquiring! It feels like a good fit despite it being rather a long name for a website and email!

And what can I tell you? Laura’s life may have been short but her arriving and leaving so quickly was incredibly impactful. As a result, I asked myself some different, and challenging, questions about my purpose - she was most definitely my ‘questioning iris’.

Perhaps I can be yours?