Dawn cares for her 79-year-old mother-in-law as well as a 100-year-old family friend who moved in with Dawn and her husband after struggling to live independently.
“I think as the disease has developed it’s obviously more taxing on me in particular because I do the physical care, and mentally it’s difficult because they’re just not the same ladies that initially did come to live with us,” she said.
“As a carer, you can kind of lose your identity and you haven’t really got many friends because you’re kind of wrapped up in doing that. So it just became a bit of a little escape.”
It was this need for a break that first led her sharing reviews online. Initially posting reviews of places where she had been to eat on Google, she later moved to TikTok and says she became more “focused” on her content last February. Now her account, fearnstar, has built up 21,000 followers.
Her videos are often recorded on Fridays, when both women attend a day centre, giving her a window to visit cafes and bakeries across south Wales.
Aware that many successful influencers had a ‘signature series’, Dawn said that after racking her brain, the idea to review custard slices came to her in her car.
“I was literally just sitting in the car and I think I must have grabbed the custard slice and I was like, oh, that might be an idea,” she said.
“I did a video in the car and I thought right, no, I am going to do a custard slice tour.
“And I did think back to my mum. When she was alive and when we were kids, she’d take us for what we called ‘custard slice day’ at a local café.
“I did that video and had loads of comments from people saying, ‘you should try this place, you should try that place’, and then I was like, right, this is a signature series.”