How 'The Archers' created new jobs: Susan Watts reports on a 'hi-tech' work-from-home movement helping women with families return to employment on their own terms

POULTRY farming and computers may seem an odd mix, but for Lou Hiorns it was an obvious combination. Mrs Hiorns is a convert to 'telecottaging' - the modern name for working from home.

Telecottaging offered her the chance to set up her own business and to work flexible hours to accommodate the demands of two young children.

The concept of the telecottage, although conceived in Sweden about 10 years ago, achieved mainstream cultural status in Britain after a telecottage featured in The Archers radio programme last year.

The programme recorded a seminar on teleworking held at the Warwickshire Rural Enterprise Network (Wren) Telecottage, near Warwick. This was one of the Britain's first telecottages.

Mrs Hiorns approached the Wren Telecottage to learn computing skills to get an office job. She once worked as a catering manager but was pessimistic about getting a job in the field, having had no full-time post in the seven years since she married.

She joined seven others on a 12-week course for women 'returners', funded by the Coventry and Warwickshire Training Enterprise Council and the EC. She had to devise a business plan and hit on the idea of running her own 'traditional' poultry business. She is now fattening up 55 geese and 600 turkeys for Christmas.

Everthing Mrs Hiorns needed to become self-sufficient she gained on the telecottage course, from basic accounting and marketing skills to producing publicity material and developing assertiveness. By the end of its first six months, her income from the poultry business will be about pounds 6,000.

Other women who have benefited from the course include Hazel Shenton, a freelance bookkeeper, and Columba O'Donovan, an artist and enameller who, at 'over 60', is the oldest recruit so far.

Mrs Shenton has two teenage children and a seven-year-old. Her husband, who worked for Jaguar, was made redundant two years ago. 'I effectively had 16 years away from the world of work . . . I had never used a personal computer and was terrified of turning one on. If it hadn't been for the telecottage I wouldn't have done any of it.'

Mrs O'Donovan, with five grown-up children, had no knowledge of any 'hi-tech' equipment before attending the course. She is now converted to the artistic opportunities of colour photocopying and uses the telecottage facilities to make her exhibition catalogues, invitations and publicity material. 'When you do things on computer it looks so much more professional. It gives you the courage to go out and do whatever you want,' she said.

Jane Berry, the freelance co-ordinator of the course, said she is typical of another group of potential telecottagers. She is a graduate, who lived in rural Africa and had three children before returning to the UK. Potential employers were put off because she had never had a job in Britain. 'I had excellent qualifications but that made no difference. A great deal is made of the fact that women who work part-time in the UK are exploited. But some women, particularly those with young children, would prefer to work part-time if the work was meaningful and well-paid.'

Self-employment, with the support of others through a telecottage, is an ideal solution, she said. 'That way, women call the shots on when they work.'

Further information: Wren Telecottage, 0203 696986.

(Photograph and map omitted)