Don’t recognise the song? You’re showing your (youthful) age! But if you want to know what I’m talking about have a look here
I’d been asking for suggestions of Fed staff who are related to one another and I could interview for this issue’s ‘Keeping it The Fed Family’. When someone suggested Chrisden and Sally Williams you could have blown me down with a feather!
So, it seems I was the last person at The Fed to realise they are sisters – despite the clue in their surname. But let’s be honest – they look absolutely nothing alike and that’s because, as they told me when I sat down for a chat with them in September, 41 year old Sally, the baby of the family, looks like their nana on their mum’s side. Big sister Chrisden, aged 49 and number three of six Williams siblings – three sisters and three brothers – favours her great-aunties on their dad’s side in looks. They were red-heads – hence her nickname ‘Ginge’.
Despite not being the oldest in the family it quickly became obvious as we chatted that Ginge rules the roost! She is most definitely the matriarch of the family since their parents passed away – even managing to keep her brothers in line: “What she says, goes!” insists Sally.
Chrisden has to agree: “Even though I don’t want that role it just comes my way, naturally.” Sally laughs: “She’s very bossy. She’s got a feisty side.” “I have to have to keep them all in order!” she retorts.
Chrisden recalls that when she was about eight or nine years of age, she would be getting ready to go out with her friends and sure as anything just as she would be leaving the house her mum would call, “Sally’s ready!” and there she would be, sitting in the hall in her pram, all ready to go out – not leaving Chrisden with much choice. So it seems that responsibility was thrust on her from a young age – which may explain how she’s become the boss.
The Williams family have always lived near Heathlands Village, on Oaklands Road, but as more babies were born they outgrew their four-bedroomed home further down Oaklands Road and moved up nearer Moor Lane, to a seven-bedroomed house which had been divided up into flats. Mr Williams began work turning it into a family home. It was pretty handy that he was a builder by trade. To this day it remains the family home with Chrisden, two brothers and a sister still living there, and Sally staying over whenever she is on shift at the Village. Another brother however has fled the nest – but only.as far as Hilton Lane!
Chrisden started work at The Fed in 2011 and Sally is coming up to her tenth anniversary in November. Both have been employed in a care environment all of their working lives. Before coming to The Fed they were at Kersal Dale on Vine Street where Chrisden started out in catering and Sally in housekeeping.
Eventually Chrisden became the manager there but ”reached the point when she wanted a quieter life”. She knew a lot of people employed at Heathlands Village and heard it was a ‘brilliant’ place to work. She applied for a job as a shift leader and got the position.
But by her leaving Kersal Dale, Sally found herself pushed into the manager’s role in her place and eventually she too applied for work at Heathlands. She was taken on as a carer initially but Karen Johnson soon persuaded her to become a shift leader.
Chrisden inevitably found herself in a more senior role, as she explains “When Ashleigh Duffy was on maternity leave in 2015 I temporarily covered the team leader role but was very happy to step back down again
when she came back to work. Karen wasn’t having it however and I’ve also been a team leader ever since!” Sally followed suit becoming a team leader too in 2017.
And that’s not the end of the Williams’ family ties within Heathlands Village: Jason Thomond who works as a porter is first cousin to the Williams sisters, as Chrisden explains: “Our dad and Jason’s were best friends who married two sisters so that’s how we’re related.
“Jason heard about The Fed from us so he came to apply for a job here.” And we’re not finished yet … because we have to mention Sally’s son Kyren, now 22, who started his Fed career in the catering department at 18. Of course I have to ask about his name. Where does it come from? Sally says she remembers a rugby player called “Kieran” or “Cairan” which was pronounced Keeran, and she liked the name but decided that she wanted to change it a bit and invented “Kyren” – though these days he’s mostly known as “Ky”.
Sally recalls her pregnancy with Ky: she was 19 and in a relationship when she realised she was expecting. Five months on, and still not showing, she had not yet broken the news to her parents. She describes being “petrified” adding “and as soon as I told them my bump popped out!” About a month before her due date, it was April Fool’s Day and Chrisden decided to send everyone a joke text saying, “Sally’s had the baby!” but the joke was on her, because Sally had in fact gone into labour and three hours later little Ky arrived.
He too grew up in the house at the top end of Oaklands Road most of his life, moving out only recently when he set up home with his girlfriend. He had been doing electrical engineering at college before joining
The Fed, but then Covid hit. He has since moved teams quite a bit but now seems well settled with the customer services team.
His girlfriend of three years is Charlotte (now this much I did know!) who works with Alison Lightfoot in training and like Ky has tried her hand in several roles at The Fed – or as ‘Aunty’ Chrisden says, “has done every job going in this place!”.
And still on the family connections, Charlotte, if anyone hadn’t realised, is the daughter of our Director of Clinical Services, Karen Johnson! Finally, I discover, that making up names is something that runs in the family – the name ‘Chrisden’ was apparently an invention of the Williams parents – a combination of their own names – Christine and Dennis! You have to wonder if Ky and Charlotte ever have a baby, will they call it Kyrotte (but only if it takes after Aunty Chrisden and has red hair – Kyrotte/Carrot – get it??).
We love getting to know more about the people we work with or who volunteer with The Fed. If you’re up for an interview, whether you’re related to anyone else in the organisation or not, please get in touch with Joyce or Alice in Marketing.