Female plumber honoured for inspiring women to join trades

The founder of a network of female plumbers has been made an MBE for her pioneering work to get more women into trades.

In 1990, primary school teacher Hattie Hasan retrained to be a plumber but had to go self-employed while she learned the trade as no-one would take on a woman.

She went on to found the imaginatively named Stopcocks - a network of women plumbers who have been trained to provide excellent customer care.

Ms Hasan, who grew up in London and now lives in Todmorden, West Yorkshire, wants more women to get in to plumbing.

She said customers appreciated plumbers who turned up when they said they would, took care over their work and then cleaned up after themselves.

She felt isolated running her business and reached out to other female plumbers who had the same experience as her, even if they had trained years after she did.

The 58-year-old said:

She set up the network as a franchise and has women joining from the South Coast, London, the North West and Yorkshire.

She goes into schools to talk to girls about learning a trade, and sells the idea of them becoming plumbers, saying:

She said she was delighted to be honoured with an MBE, saying:

She was made an MBE for services to women in the heating and plumbing industry.