Fay’s first job after university was at the Bank of Scotland in Livingston, where she met Brian, who was later to become her husband. Fay relocated to Edinburgh with the Bank and worked in the Executive office for the Governor in the late 90’s/early 2000’s. However, she felt that the culture and atmosphere didn’t necessarily suit her in the Executive office – no room for drawing or making things!
It turned out marketing was her niche and she joined the Strategic Analysis Unit in retail where she worked with Brenda Kelly, Kenny May, Jane McNab and Andy McCall and others….her original “work family”. Brenda recalls: “We all got a mug when we joined the Bank of Scotland Marketing team and Fay’s was “away with the fairies” as she used to dream a lot. My first day was a Saturday when Fay brought the team off somewhere in awful rain, teambuilding for a cancer charity somewhere in hills above Edinburgh. In our first week together our boss left us to run a market research campaign alone (silly man went on paternity leave leaving us in charge). We were tasked with polling 5000 people about why they had recently closed a bank account. Unfortunately the data team forgot to remove 1000 people who had either a) passed away or b) were bankrupt. A letter went out to everyone saying we were sorry they closed their account and we were going to contact them via a market research company to see the reasons why. So suddenly one morning we got hundreds of calls from grieving relatives who had received the letter and were either furious or very sad. Fay started on the phone calls and was so calm and lovely with them, expressing her sorrow, explaining that her mum had recently passed away. She was just so gentle and sweet and averted a PR disaster by her kindness and empathy.”
When Fay left the Strategic Analysis Unit in 2000 to take up a position as the assistant to the governor of the bank, her team created a spoof market research presentation for her, named “Project Zipline”. The content of the presentation was examining the brand “Fay Purves”, gauging the effect of withdrawing “the brand” from its current market, and predicting the likely impact of the relaunch of the brand in its new position. Some of the quotes from her team were hilarious:
- “Never before, in the history of marketing, have we seen such an interesting brand”
- She was likened to a glass of Babycham: “bubbly, with pretentions of glamour”
- She was also likened to a springer spaniel: “cute, warm and friendly but with a purpose”
- Someone also said “she could crack the Crystal Maze alone”
- And when asked what they would miss most about Fay Purves, one of the quotes was “seeing her breeze in at 9.05am every morning!”
In 2000 while Fay was assistant to the Governor of the Bank of Scotland, she was invited to take part in the Bank of Scotland summer jazz festival in Edinburgh. Of course she grabbed the opportunity! She played saxophone as a guest with the Tim Barella Big Band on the stage in Princes Street Gardens.
Fay applied to the Bank of Scotland’s “Search for a Group” in 2003, always finding ways to pursue her interests and passions within her everyday life.
Fay later joined “Team Torro” at the bank. Her boss Susan Marr recalls their relationship: “Fay came to work for me and joined the team around 2001. She came on secondment initially to do a research project. It was the first time the corporate grey suits had been interested in doing some customer research. Fay had been highly recommended by the lady who was the Head of HR in corporate – not something that this lady did often or lightly. The project was a success and at the end of it Fay did her thing where she was willing to muck in, be helpful, try her hand at projects and work she had never done before and became a permanent member of the team. I remember her saying something to me along the lines of finding ways to stick around when she found somewhere she liked to be.
When she worked in Team Torro she did many research projects which was where she was happiest – not just in working with the business and shaping each project, knowing how to select and work well with the different agencies but with adding her own critical thinking. She was able to apply both her creative and intellectual skills to get a good job done. Now not everything with Fay was perfect however! I had a phrase for her – that she “pulled rabbits out a hat”. I learned to trust that no matter what she was doing she would get there – no matter if it meant she was working during the day, going home and looking after her two boys and then working again until midnight – she NEVER let me or the team down. We didn’t always know how she was going to get there – not sure she always did either! But she had a remarkable attitude and commitment that saw her through.
An example of the above which she mentioned to me the last time I saw her was when she was remembering when she, Martin and I ran “innovative solutions” workshops within the business. We designed and made a lot of our own materials (“we” often meaning Fay). For this particular workshop, Fay had designed some posters and they needed to be printed so they could be posted on the walls of the workshop room. We were down in London and so with no access to normal office resources. We had travelled down the afternoon before so that we could be set up nice and early in the morning. After checking in Fay said she needed to head out – I think this was about 4.30pm – to find a print shop! She hadn’t quite had time to get the posters printed before heading for the plane! She didn’t know where the nearest print shop was, when they were open until and could they do the job in time! And so with about 5 minutes to spare on the morning of the workshop Fay appeared with the posters! No sweat!
However, Fay’s contribution to the team was much more than doing a good job. She was always looking after us – always up for social events and was always in there helping to organize.
She had my number of course. One of the things we did as a team was choose a plant for our desks. I think Craig Cross may still have his umbrella plant??? As Fay knew I was not so good at caring for non humans in the office and she still wanted me to be part of it and succeed, she gave me a packet of cress seeds – thinking – she cannot possibly fail there….the packet of seeds was well looked after for many years to come!
There was a time when each team member took a turn to organize a night out which said something about them and they thought the team would enjoy. I remember Fay organised the literary pub tour – so basically a tour round pubs whilst people in character from old Edinburgh read out poetry and stories of characters of old. I am guessing a throw back to her studying English and drinking beer at the same time!
She was of course the instigator of “fringetastic”. It started as we were given a team day out to do as we wished – budget being very minimal – so needed creative thinking as to how we could make the most. One year we did the bus top tour of Edinburgh (the day where hats were a theme) and then did the canal trip out of Ratho and had afternoon tea. Another year we did a couple of fringe shows and some food and beers….and then every year till 2016 we had a “Team Torro” fringetastic Friday. Fay did all the hard work trawling through the fringe programme – giving us a selection of shows to choose, found venues for food which fitted with the programme and preferred choices of food, and always ended late on with the racier shows and one year Martin just making his last bus down to Peebles. Fringetastic was a way which kept us all connected especially after many had gone different paths after the Bank.”
After Fraser and Blair were born, Fay decided on a career break from the bank so that she could focus on her work with the Real Nappy Project and be at home more for the boys. She was obviously a well-loved member of the team, judging by the leaving speeches and poems written by her and for her!
Fay’s roles at the bank were:
- Client-side Market Research Manager, HBOS, August 1994 – October 2008
- Associate Director, Market Research, Bank of Scotland Corporate, 2001 – 2008
- Executive Assistant, Bank of Scotland, 2000 – 2001
In 2016, Fay re-joined the Lloyds Banking Group in a part-time role, providing an in-house programme of qualitative research. She described it on LinkedIn as “an agile approach, which gives initial direction to wider projects and covers the development, moderation, analysis and presentation to stakeholders.”
