Interview: Pam Knight on her time at the County Gazette

In turn, she was so good at her job that the County Gazette hired her twice.

She was born in Paddington, the daughter of a butcher who later became a carpenter, while her mother worked as an accountant for Kim Philby, who was later outed as a notorious spy for the Russians.

"Mum always said he seemed to be a very pleasant man," said Pam.

The family later moved to South Oxhey, where she and her brother, Richard, attended the junior school, where their mother was a dinner lady.

In Pam’s early teens, they relocated to Burnham-on-Sea.

She added: "We had cousins living there and mum got a job as a bar manager.

"She was very good with people.

"The freedom I had after London was astonishing.

"You could do anything, go anywhere.

"But eventually, Burnham was too small for me.

"There was nothing to do there."

After a stint working in a bookshop, Pam took on the least enjoyable job she has ever done.

"I went back to London and worked for the Cabinet Office," she said.

"Before I got the job, they vetted my friends in Burnham.

"I was in the statistics office, working on books used by all the agencies.

"While I was there, they launched the Oracle on TV.

"I stuck it for nine months, but it was just so boring."

Her next job was in telesales at the Daily Express, where she worked in property sales for 18 months and met her future first husband.

"He was from Burnham," said Pam, "and wanted to return to Somerset.

"I said, ‘Okay, but it’s got to be Taunton because it’s bigger than Burnham’."

She was snapped up to join the telesales team at the County Gazette.

Pam added: "I worked in a special publications unit in the basement of 1 The Crescent.

"There were no windows and everybody apart from me smoked."

After six years, she took a break to care for her two young daughters.

She returned to work with The Star free newspaper, where she launched a property paper, luring advertisers away from the Gazette.

"The Gazette group then bought The Star and the boss at the Gazette, Malcom Harris, said, ‘Welcome back Pam’.

"I worked on lots of different newspapers on the borders to hold back people encroaching on our patch.

"At the time, the estate agents were threatening to start their own paper, but we held a special meeting and they gave me their vote of confidence."

Pam, who was mother of the chapel in the advertising department, launched Business West publication.

On leaving the Gazette for a second time, she was headhunted by SBC, a subsidiary of Somerset Training and Enterprise Council to bring out a magazine called Business World.

After six months she became marketing manager.

When SBC closed, Pam was offered the post of director of development at Somerset-based charity Bibic, which supports individuals with developmental and neurological disabilities.

"I was there for six years and the proudest moment of my life was to help bring about autism awareness in 2002," said Pam.

"We were getting a lot of autistic kids through the door and many had been excluded from school, had been given ASBOs or been to Borstal.

"We led 600 other charities and got politicians on board during the Blair government.

"The government said, ‘We didn’t know what we didn’t know, didn’t realise there were so any autistic kids’.

"We got many MPs onside and it basically changed the law.

"We were a little company in Bridgwater at the time and made the biggest noise.

"I did the campaigning and was up and down to London.”

Pam was again headhunted to take on the post of communications director at St Margaret’s Hospice, a role she went on to combine with that of fundraising director.

"It was exhausting," she added.

"We raised the money to build a new hospice and on the day of the launch my cat died at the age of 21.

"I was a mess at the event."

For the last 15 years, Pam has run her own business, White Knight Marketing.

A Taunton company contracted her for six months on the first day and another firm engaged her soon after.

Many of the clients of those companies also signed up with White Knight.

"It just started growing and I’ve never looked back," said Pam, who is a great grandmother.

"I have a different model to most people and don’t tie clients down to contracts.

"They stay because they want to.

"I’ve been very lucky and have plenty of clients."