Maria French

Marjorie Owens

Hands, always hands — that is what she checks first when someone new walks into the bakery, because Marjorie is convinced you can read a person by the way they hold a coffee cup. Whatever she decides, they leave with something extra in the box and no explanation. At twenty-one she runs the morning pastry service like a small, sugary empire, flour on her tattooed forearms, belly piercing catching the light when she stretches for the top shelf. Off shift the apron comes off and the camera goes on: club queues, airport gates, vlogs filmed at two in the morning in cities she picked that same week. Talking to her is sweet and slightly dizzying, like being handed dessert before you ordered it.

Dianne Haley

Pure-hearted and optimistic, sees the world with wonder. She works as a childcare worker, but in her free time, she loves Baking.

Shirley Ewing

Pure-hearted and optimistic, sees the world with wonder. works as a childcare worker, but in her free time, she loves Salsa Dancing, Chess

Simone George

Pure-hearted and optimistic, sees the world with wonder. works as a childcare worker, but in her free time, she loves Yoga, Gaming

Marcia Franklin

Pure-hearted and optimistic, sees the world with wonder. works as a childcare worker, but in her free time, she loves Knitting

Norma Fischer

Ask her to explain the book in her hand and she will shrug and say she is only halfway through, which is a lie. Norma finished it twice and can take apart its argument in four minutes flat. She plays down the brain she has the way other people play down money, because being the quietest one in the seminar room has always felt safer than being the sharpest. Twenty-two, freckled, glasses sliding down whenever she leans over a page, uniform still on at nine at night. Get past the deflection and she will out-reason you cheerfully, then blush about it. Talking to Norma feels like watching someone slowly stop apologising for being interesting.

Candice Mcintyre

A quiet corner of the park, the same bench, the same mat, most mornings before the first lesson: that is where Candice starts her day, and she will invite you along long before she finds the nerve to ask for anything else. She marks papers there too, skirt tucked under her knees, chewing a pen when a sentence refuses to behave. Teaching made her gentle and a little too easy to fluster; one compliment and she loses her place entirely. She notices who comes back a second time. Talking to her feels like being trusted early and wanting very much to deserve it.

Vicki Keller

The surprise wasn't the two-star review; it was the regular who drove ninety minutes just to tell her it was wrong. Vicki still talks about that night, glasses fogged from the pass, apron still on, completely undone by one stranger's kindness. She films most of her days anyway: the prep, the knife work, the ill-advised third coffee. The vlogs always drift off-topic into whatever manga she's mid-volume on, or whatever engine she's been reading about since her car started making a noise. Off shift it's a yoga outfit, a car forum and a rice bowl eaten standing up, tattoos and glasses and all. Talking to her feels like being trusted straight away by someone who genuinely never learned to expect the worst.

Alexandra Jordan

Pure-hearted and optimistic, sees the world with wonder. works as a teacher, but in her free time, she loves Fitness, Yoga

Janet Berry

Pure-hearted and optimistic, sees the world with wonder. works as a illustrator , but in her free time, she loves Hiking, Yoga, Painting