Every hour of every day is different for Julie Carruthers, who is a Florist and owner of Fearon Flowers, Workington.

Having done the job for 37 years Julie has been through every scenario that necessitates flowers. She said: "You can have a customer wanting flowers for a birthday or other happy occasion then the next customer could be wanting to order flowers for sympathy or for a funeral, there are happy times and very sad times in a flower shop."

It is hard work especially at peak times like Valentine’s day, Christmas and mother’s day. It’s not unusual to do 16 hour days or more.

Valentine’s day is Julie's favourite peak - although the hardest. She said: "We get a laugh with our lads and lasses who are buying their flowers. Lads often come into the shop in pairs and egg each other on, we have had tractors, diggers and loads of work vans parked on the forecourt with lads flying in to grab a bouquet always very last minute!"

One year all that was left was a bouquet of 24 roses at 5.05pm. She said: "Two lads came in and both wanted it so to stop a fight I split it into two for them and gave them a lecture about ordering in advance."

There are also last minute panic buying for wedding button holes: "Sorry to say but when the phone rings at 9am on a Saturday in the summer it’s usually a man wanting to pick a button hole up that morning, how long in advance do you get a wedding invite?", added Julie.

She doesn’t do many deliveries herself but when she does she enjoys seeing people’s reactions to receiving flowers. She said: "I once had a delivery and it was for an older lady and I knew by the envelope that it was her birthday. I knocked and she shouted for me to go in, she was sitting in her chair eating a cream cake with her reading glasses hanging on a chain around her neck.

"She asked me to pass the card off the flowers so she could read it while I was there and seemed to struggle to read it, even with her glasses on. Then we realised there was a blob of cream smeared on her glasses, we both ended up crying with laughter."

Julie also remembers knocking on the door of a bungalow, the flowers were for a 90th birthday. There was a party going on and someone shouted for her to push the door and go in, so she pushed the door open and to the side was the birthday girl sitting on the toilet with the door open, she said: "I’m pleased I had the flowers in front of me to hide our blushes."

Making people smile is one of the best parts of the job for Julie: "Whether it’s funeral flowers for a loved one or flowers for a new baby, knowing that we have helped to make the occasion as the customer has envisaged is a good feeling. We have added engagement rings into bouquets before and always want to know the outcome."

The business is in her blood. Julie comes from a long-standing family business and it has always been part of her life. J W Fearon started in the very early 1900s as market gardeners selling their produce in the local markets. One of her earliest memories is being in a wagon sitting on the engine cover which was always hot, going to County Fruit stores in Cockermouth then on to Kinsellas at Whitehaven with mushrooms, tomatoes and flowers which were grown at their nurseries at Wigton.

Her late father started the wholesale side of the flower business importing directly from Holland and supplying other florists.

Some people go to college to study floristry, but Julie was bench trained, which is workplace training.

Unless you are high end designer in London or elsewhere the salary is usually slightly above minimum wage. But it is rewarding. Julie said: "A lot of our customers have become our friends, we have been through marriages, births and deaths with them. It’s not just arranging flowers it’s customer service, being an agony aunt, playing cupid, being a good listener and trying not to be emotional with them."