After 30 years of being the cameraman, she's finally in the photos.
She lost her first tooth at 23, pregnant with her eldest. By the time she was 30, she'd had five children and lost five teeth.
"Continued to have children, continued to lose teeth. By 30, I had five missing teeth. It was soul destroying."
For three decades, those gaps quietly shaped how she lived her life. They affected her eating. They affected her photos. Above all, they affected the way she felt about herself — though, in the way mums often do, she didn't say it out loud.
"My priority has always been the children, the grandchildren. I just had to struggle through."
Her daughter Ella saw it before anyone else.
"Mom's the type to keep things close to her chest. She's always been that soldier for us — never seen down, never emotional. But you forget she'd held that in for thirty years."
There were no smiles in photos. No belly laughs with the mouth open. Just a quietly tight-lipped expression, or — the easier option — volunteering to be the cameraman so she didn't have to be in the picture at all.
Then, two years ago, a crown at the front of her mouth came loose. The dentist told her it couldn't be replaced. At fifty, she was now wearing a plate. Taking it out at night affected her sleep. Putting it in every morning was a daily reminder.
She'd been to other dentists over the years to ask about better options. Each time, she walked in excited and walked out heartbroken.
"I went there hoping I'd get my confidence back. I left feeling worse than when I went in."
So she went quiet, kept researching, and waited.
She spent eighteen months researching.
"I wasn't just researching the dental practice. I was researching patients. Trustpilot. Reviews. Everything."
She kept circling back to Truly Dental.
The day she made the call to Ella, her daughter could hear something different in her voice.
"You called me and said: 'Ella, I've found a dentist.' You were absolutely buzzing."
The first visit was, by both of their accounts, completely unlike anything she'd experienced before.
"From the second I walked through the door, I just felt relaxed and at home. We were skipping out of there. We genuinely were."
By the time she sat in the chair for her treatment, the only nerves she'd had — built up over years of bad experiences — were already gone. She was sedated, the temporary teeth went in the same day, and the day itself blurred into something she now thinks of fondly.
"There's nothing bad to remember. I just think about that day and smile."
There was no horror story. Mild bruising on one cheek. Four days of recovery. And, between the extractions and her temporaries going in, a stop at the local supermarket to pick up a soft Squashy cheesecake she'd had her eye on – which she happily ate that same evening.
The transformation since hasn't just been about teeth.
"It wasn't a case of I wanted new teeth because mine were missing. I didn't actually realise how much I needed new teeth — until I had them. It's changed my mindset. It's changed who I am."
She wakes up differently. She belly laughs with her mouth open. She smiles with her eyes — something she hadn't done since her early twenties, since that first lost tooth.
And the cameraman of thirty years has had a complete change of heart.
"Now, as soon as I see a camera, I'm jumping in front of it. Everybody's saying I'm photobombing all their photos. That wasn't a thing for me before."
Ella sees it constantly.
"I'll just call her randomly through the day and go: 'Oh, let me see your teeth, Mom.' She'll send me a selfie. They are incredible."
There are even bragging rights now.
"I've probably got the best set of teeth in the family — I'm not going to lie."
Her message to anyone reading this and quietly wondering whether to do something about their own smile is the same message Ella heard down the phone that first day.
"Don't be on the fence. Don't be scared. It's not just about having a lovely smile or feeling confident when you smile. It's been totally life-changing."
— Truly Dental UK patient, with her daughter Ella
