CO-INVENTOR of sun cream applicator Solar Buddies, Cwmbran mum-of-four Kelli Aspland talks to CIARAN KELLY about growing up in the town, her love of theatre, the growth of the business and her special friendship with her business partner, Laura Griffin.

"I was born on November 10, 1978 in the Royal Gwent Hospital in Newport. I grew up in Greenmeadow in Cwmbran and it was just a normal, average sort of life living with my two sisters and my brother and my Mum and Dad.

The three of us are really close and some of my best friends. My brother, Richard, is 37; my sisters, Vikki and Naomi, are 36 and 30; and I have another brother called Anttoni, who’s 34.

My Dad, Kevin, was in insurance for quite a while and now he runs a burger van which he has been doing for the last 15 or 20 years.

My Mum, Linda, and my Dad ran the St Joseph’s social club in Cwmbran at night. They’ve been doing that pretty much all their life.

When we were all younger, me and my sisters were just out playing, even my brother was out playing British Bulldog, cricket and hide and seek. As we got older, we broke off into our own group of friends.

I loved school at Cwmbran High - probably mostly for the social aspect. I loved music and was in the choir and we used to do lots of drama productions.

We would be in the Dolman Theatre and it was fantastic. I thought I wanted to go into theatre, just doing anything. I loved it. I loved Les Misérables and we did that in school and that was fab. I still want to persuade my husband to take me to the West End to see it.

I did netball for a while but nothing serious and some gymnastics for a while as well.

When I left school, I went to work for a company called Intershed as a receptionist. I enjoyed that and I think that’s when I met my husband and started my family.

I met Paul when I was 19. I knew him from when I was a little bit younger I was going out with someone else at the time. They were playing on the same football team.

I met him again at the St Joseph’s Club where my mum and dad worked and we met up. The rest is history and we were married in 2005.

He’s as good as gold. He’s a really solid sort of guy and a great family man. He’s a great all-rounder. We’ve been through a lot of ups and down and we’ve had to get through a lot and if we can get through stuff like that, we can get through anything.

I think I always knew I wanted to be a mum. I took to it like a duck to water. I loved being a mum – it was just special.

I didn’t need to rush off straight back to work so I had great time with Olivia. We have four kids: Olivia, 16, Sam, 13, Charlie, eight, and Harri, five.

They’ve all been amazing kids and they all have their wicked personalities. They’re all cheeky little monkeys.

By the time it got to Harri, I always wanted to do something different. They were in school and the path was going to change. I think I sort of had itchy feet after being a stay at home mum doing little things in between,

When I got married, I found a new thing that I loved: jewellery making. Me and my nan loved doing it together.

I turned it into a little small business that I was and to do it from home when I had the kids. I had the opportunity to get into the wedding side of things and I had a wedding business.

Again, it wasn’t something I wanted to continue doing. I sort of knew that it wasn’t what I wanted to do.

That’s why I decided I wanted to get into nursing. I started an access course for nursing in 2013. That was where my path was going. Solar Buddies had built up slowly as I was doing nursing. It’s become a huge part of my life.

Me and Laura had crossed paths and became great friends. Her little girl, Ffion, and my boy, Charlie, were in the same nursery class together and they absolutely adored each other and wanted to be married. They started having play dates.

We got thinking, ‘There’s got to be a way of dealing with this [suncream]’. We had our heads together and had a little bash and started ripping things up.

I just can’t believe the time has gone so quickly and we’re still the best of friends and the kids are still the best of friends. We both had aspirations and both wanted to get out there and do something.

It’s inspiring to see how far we’ve come and how far the business has come and having massive, supportive families on both sides.

I think we didn’t worry about anything. It wasn’t that we thought, ‘Oh, we’ve got no business background. What are we going to do?’ We winged it. We never thought about a business plan when it came to Solar Buddies. We just wanted to see the opportunities that would come along.

We know little things between us and family help has been fantastic. I think we’ve been really, really lucky with the amount of people who have been willing to help us for free.

Sitting there watching so many episodes of Dragons Den, getting some inspiration of what people’s stories are.

I think considering it’s women in business, we always feel like we’ve got to fight a little bit harder. We’ve both got quite a good handle on that now. I think the head side of things is a huge side of things.

I still think it’s a very long way to go in comparison to Australia and their schools and people out there and how they sort of deal with things like that.

Here it takes a little bit more understanding. It’s very difficult to try and educate without sounding preachy. Our local school is fantastic and have taken on the Buddies. A lot of schools in the UK are doing it.

The kids understand why they’re doing it in the first place. It’s great to think that they’ve got a sense of independence and can do it themselves. I’d like to think it could change things.

Even me and Laura going out to Monmouth and seeing it on the shelves...it was such a jaw dropping moment, It’s so nice and exciting for us, even silly little things on our road trips. It’s worked out well.

Solar Buddies was very good to do something that works well with my family. I wanted to really make sure that it was going to work.

At the same time, I got accepted into Cardiff University for nursing. I was a little bit sad when that offer came up. I still have that place if I want it but at the moment, Solar Buddies is my path. Especially when we get orders from Australia, New Zealand, America, Spain and Germany.

Every time we get another customer, we’re like, ‘Oh my God, how do they find us, how did they hear about us?' We are trying to target what’s out there. The feedback we get is absolutely fantastic and it never gets old to hear, ‘Oh wow, what a wonderful product’.

I’m really excited for this year. We were coming to the end of the summer when it was time to start. To now have a full run and have everything to hand, I’m really excited to see what’s ahead.

We’ve got a lot of things in the pipeline and if they come off, it’s going to be a fantastic year. As a mum to achieve that, I’m pretty excited and proud and I know my kids are."