Martin and Carol Cooper opened Coneygarth Farm Day Nursery on the Isle of Axeholme in north Lincolnshire in 1997. At that time, farming was in a bad way and they felt they needed to diversify.
Ms Cooper says, 'We decided to convert a small barn into a 20-place day nursery to include three babies, and we were spurred on by having three-year-old boy triplets at the time.'
During the first year Ms Cooper continued to work as a maths teacher, but gradually scaled down her hours as the business took off.
'We turned away about 28 babies in the first year,' she says. 'So we converted a milking parlour into a homely 12-place baby unit.'
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