Twenty years ago we were just founding The School of Natural Health Sciences and looking back has made us realise what a long time ago 1997 was! What were you doing 20 years ago?
Those of us in the UK were reading J.K. Rowling’s first book Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, listening to Oasis (the fastest selling album in UK history until Adele came along in 2015), driving Ford Fiesta’s (the year’s most popular car) and paying only £2.70 for a gallon of petrol!
There was a landslide General Election victory for the Labour Party under Tony Blair and Scotland voted to create it’s own Parliament after 290 years of union with England. Diana Princess of Wales was killed in a car crash in Paris and her funeral was watched by 1.5 billion people around the world. A pretty intense year!
The youngest amongst us (or the oldest if you were parents in 1997!) would probably remember the launch of the Teletubbies on BBC2. The techies would know that Steve Jobs returned to Apple computers and that Microsoft became the world’s most valuable company (valued at $261 billion dollars). Bill Clinton was president in America and Tiger Woods, at 21 years old, became the youngest ever golfer to win the Masters.
On the music scene, the UK won the Eurovision Song Contest with Katrina and the Waves singing Love Shine a Light. David Bowie got a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and Paul McCartney received a knighthood. Candle in the Wind was the biggest selling single of the year, and the second best-selling single worldwide of all time. The Spice Girls were huge – they had five No1 singles during 1997 and in March they launched Britain’s new television channel, Channel 5.
20 years young
During all of this action Julia Vaughan-Griffiths founded the School of Natural Health Sciences (SNHS). She saw an opening in the market for Holistic Therapy Training and wanted to start a business that would allow people to gain holistic qualifications without paying a fortune. After studying the possibilities she realised it would be possible through ‘Distance Learning’. Students initially sent their coursework by post. “This was a nightmare,” Julia said, “so much got lost in the post!” At the time SNHS was working with Star Writer Computers in the office – just take a look at this vintage picture!
SNHS slowly began to provide training around the world and in the first half of 2000 created their first website, expanded their staff, updated their computers and the business grew. The School gained worldwide accreditation in June of 2000. “We progressed to sending CD’s with coursework, but this was still a nightmare as these too got lost in the post”, Julia explained.
They started sending information via email but this proved problematic “as, believe it or not, not many students had access to email!”
Back in 1997, SNHS were considered pioneers in the Holistic Training field and now, after 20 years of solid growth, they are the most successful Distance Learning School in the world, specialising in training students in all the major holistic therapies. Their new website, which enables students to purchase courses online and also download coursework from their own personal account, was launched in 2015. The School has seen an incredible number of students pass through their ‘doors’ – since 1997 over 40,000 students have graduated from the school.
Our Gift to YOU
As we celebrate our 20th anniversary we want to say a huge thank you to all our students. You are the reason we are here – you inspire us! Now, we hope we can also inspire you!
Here is a link to download our new Ebook “Inspirational Quotes for 2017” – compiled from our most popular quotes on Twitter. Completely free for you to enjoy. Be inspired!
