Once again, the girls were lucky enough to be able to support the Cheltenham Jazz Festival this year, being wined and dined with Lianne La Havas and enjoying live music from Corinne Bailey Rae.

Camberleigh-Hay attended the Cheltenham Literature Festival this October, where they got to see columnist Helen Walmsley-Johnson and Beatles star Ronnie Wood!

Camberleigh-Hay were able to support the Cheltenham Jazz Festival again this May, with a big thanks to the private banking at Barclays. The girls were able to enjoy an afternoon of great food and live music with Caro Emerald.

The Camberleigh-Hay girls were lucky enough to be invited to the Cheltenham Cricket Festival by HarperSheldon, where they enjoyed an afternoon of cricket and socialising in the sunshine!

The girls joined Bob Holt and the Mears teams from Gloucester and Bristol as part of the annual walk in support of The Mears Foundation. They sweltered in 22 degrees of heat before stopping off at the Bird in Hand for some refreshments, all in aid of charity!

Camberleigh-Hay were again lucky enough to be able to support the Cheltenham Jazz Festival again this May. The girls gave a big thanks to the private banking at Barclays in particular where they were able to enjoy an afternoon of fine dining and live music with Laura Mvula!

Cast your mind back to early 2010 when the pound was surely near the top of every hedge fund managers list as being prime for attack; contrast that with the current position, where the default insurance on British debt is amongst the lowest in the world. So George Osborne was right in telling us that the UK is a safe haven, an impressive reversal of fortunes. However, to quote David Bloom (head of FX strategy at HSBC) “sterling is the least ugly currency in the world” – feint praise perhaps and perhaps also why people report they simply aren’t feeling the recovery George’s figures suggest we are enjoying?

Scratch beneath the surface and further concerns rear their head in respect of the strength, depth and longevity to the UK recovery. A further quote from David Bloom that takes some of the wind out of George’s sails: “UK growth is surviving on fumes, driven by a consumer credit boom. Britain has an enormous trade deficit.” The UK is top of the class for growth and the star of the industrial world with 2.7pc this year, commentators are having to eat their hats and admit that they did not forecast this growth, George is surely blowing his smokin’ fingers! However, why does David Bloom say we are surviving on the fumes of a consumer credit boom? We believe that is because growth (whilst desperately needed and welcome for the respite it has provided) has to come from the right area. When the UK embarked on our austerity campaign and slashed jobs in the public sector, the gamble was that Government would create conditions where the private sector would replace all those jobs and we would start making things, hopefully with an export upside. The reality is that this hasn’t happened, we are running a current account deficit at more than 5% of GDP, that’s the worst in a quarter of a century and, for the record, the worst by a long way in the G7; looking at the detail we cannot even comfort ourselves that it’s a healthy deficit where we are buying in machinery to increase production and our own exports, rather it is a consumption spree satisfied by imports.

Add to the gloomy picture the fact that the household savings ratio is at 5.4% today, compared to 8% two years ago. We have been told that one of the most chilling facts is that our output per hour is 21% below the G7 average and that measures up to be the widest productivity gap since 1992. On the bright side, a welcome measure to come out of the Budget was the increase in credit available for exporters and the fact that we are ranked no1 for ease of getting credit – amazing! Not quite so uplifting is the sad fact that we are ranked a paltry 28th in the world for ease of starting a business, that simply has to improve.

In summary, perhaps we should have taken a leaf out of Germany’s book and invested in infrastructure projects in the immediate aftermath of the banking crisis, credit was cheap; instead, we pulled capital projects. What we must hope is that the momentum the economy currently has is sustainable and that we are not at the apex of the credit cycle, George recognises that we still have too much debt (to be fair inherited). What we should perhaps be very grateful for as a society is the fact that we have not (like the much of the rest of Europe) suffered massive unemployment on this journey.

Camberleigh-Hay were fortunate to be able to support the Cheltenham Jazz Festival again this May; three days worth of Jazz in all! With a big thanks to the private banking at Barclays in particular for many a happy time, looking forward to the next festival…roll on the Cheltenham Science Festival!

The girls took part in several fundraising events in aid of Children in Need. They took part in fancy dress where they wore spotty headbands and moustaches for the day, putting a slight ‘movember’ twist on the day! They also competed in a bake off where the girls cakes took part in a bidding war!

In total the girls raised a very pleasing £403 for Children in Need!

The girls took some of their clients down to Newbury for a day at the races! They were all wined and dined in aid of the Heaton-Ellis Trust. Unfortunately, they did not come home winning the golden prize (despite having racing tips from Willy Carson), but the day raised just over an amazing £40,000 for the Trust through a mixture of tables for the event, donations and fantastic auction prizes.