Hanging proudly on the back wall of Maggie Cobden's charming tea and coffee shop is a sign proclaiming Maggie's Place.

Bought for $20 (£11.10) in Los Angeles, the maple wood sign was tucked away in Maggie's wardrobe and forgotten about for 18 years.

Every now and again while cleaning the house she would rediscover it and polish it - and dream of how lovely it would be to hang it in her own little shop.

As she toiled over the intervening years in her teaching job at Sussex Downs College, Eastbourne, her dream of owning a business never faded.

With mounting bureaucracy forcing her to become disillusioned in her job, she woke up on November 17, 2003, and decided to convert her dream into reality.

By then she had been teaching for 32 years and her daughters, barrister Caroline, 25, and 27-year-old Royal Opera House accounts manager Zoe, had grown up.

So on that very November afternoon, she and her 58-year-old husband Rob made an appointment with an estate agent to see a small vacant shop in Ocklynge Road, Old Town, Eastbourne.

Today that maple wood Maggie's Place sign she bought in the US hangs on the back wall of Cafe Aroma - the business she had long-yearned for.

Maggie, 57, who lives in Seaford, said: "It's unbelievable. That Thursday was really the start of a new life for me.

"I always wanted to have my own little place but never thought it would happen. Then I woke up that Thursday morning and said to my husband that I really didn't want to go into work. I had been unhappy with all the paperwork, although I still loved the job itself.

"My husband said: 'Don't go into work then.' I did, but after work Rob made an appointment to see this shop and the rest is history."

Cafe Aroma is a quintessentially English tea and coffee room, stocked with 88 different types of teas and coffees from every corner of the world.

Home-made food, including fresh fish, steak and ale pie and lamb shanks, are also sold, as well as delicious cakes.

On an entire side of one wall are tin boxes full of fragrant teas and coffees from places as far as Costa Rica, Brazil and Italy.

On the other side is a wood-framed sign entitled The Absolute Principles of Tea, giving expert direction on how to make the perfect cuppa.

Perched on a wall corner is an aged picture of the shop's eccentric former owner Miss Norris, who ran it for years as a music shop.

Maggie believes the place was cursed after Miss Norris left. But since she put the picture up after finding it tucked away in the shop one day, the "curse" has lifted.

Now a fragrant tea named after Miss Norris sells well at the shop.

Mrs Cobden, who has a three-strong staff, said: "Business is going really well.

"The shop is open six days a week but I never have a day off. We're a really happy team. Who would've thought I would've made it after all this time?"

Tuesday, August 30, 2005