About me
Hello! Allow me to introduce myself...
Hello and thanks for coming!
I’m Tess Lamacraft a freelance journalist who specialises in TV, a postnatal doula, a breast cancer survivor and a very proud mum of two fantastic teenagers.
Hence the T with Tess - I realised a lot of the subjects I’m going to be writing about start with T - triumphs, teens, TV, trimesters, traumas with tits. But we’ll see how that goes. I think it’s fair to say other letters of the alphabet will be involved.
I’ve spent a large chunk of my career writing, commissioning and editing for a host of publications (The Daily Mirror, Woman and Home, Closer, Good Living, Family Traveller, Pregnancy and Birth are a few) and since going freelance in 2010 I’ve specialised in writing about TV (TV Times, What’s On TV, TV&Satellite, WhatToWatch.com) which for someone who loves getting stuck into a good drama, reality show and the occasional documentary, is the dream job.
Two years ago, and after deciding I was spending way too much sedentary time sitting at a desk looking at a screen, (not to mention getting a little too emotionally invested in the commitment ceremonies and dinner parties of MAFS), I decided to branch into something completely different alongside my writing and trained to become a postnatal doula. If I hadn’t become a journalist I probably would have been a midwife. If you’ve no idea what a postnatal doula is my role is to support new parents who have just given birth with all kinds of practical, emotional and informational help. I absolutely love it. This is me: The Dulwich Doula.
Everything was going along merrily then in Sept 2023 my life nosedived off a hairpin bend when a routine mammogram showed I had Grade 2 lobular breast cancer and would need a mastectomy, radiotherapy and possibly chemo.
Fast-forward a year and I am currently in a good place. My surgery went well. My recovery has been smooth, I went back to work at the start of 2024 and I am fired up with positivity which has what has brought me to Substack.
I plan to share a few of the things I’ve learnt and experienced so far in the hope that it helps other people going through something similar (and maybe their families and friends too). However this is not going to be a ‘Cancer-Zone Substack’.
I will write about whatever takes my fancy – maybe a sprinkling of TV-viewing tips, the time I interviewed my comedy crush (while he was dressed in his pyjamas), family holiday triumphs, middle-aged festival fun, life as a postnatal doula, menopausal mayhem, parenting wins and fails, why I was utterly dismal on Michael McIntyre’s game show The Wheel. Who knows, some kind of ‘theme’ may emerge but I just want to crack on and see what happens
It would be lovely if you’d like to join me along the way.
So please do subscribe, share with mates, ‘like’ things you like …all that marvellous stuff and thank you!