Born on 8th July 1965 in Enniskillen, I was the third child (but first daughter) of Herbie and Lily Arnold.  Herbie was originally from the Fanad Peninsula in northern Donegal and Lily was from the village of Newtownstewart in County Tyrone.  They moved to Enniskillen in Co Fermanagh in the late 1950s and have lived in the town ever since. 

My oldest brother Barry had his seventh birthday two days after I was born.  Somebody gave him a boat as a birthday present and the boat was called "Linda".  My mum decided to call her new baby "Lynda" but changed the spelling slightly.

September 1969 saw my first day at school.  My brother Ashley was in Primary 5 at Jones Memorial so he kept an eye on me,  But even so, I managed to fall and cut my knee in the playground!  Just like every child at the school, I learned to read and write but I wasn't too good at knitting or crocheting.  But I did start to play the violin and piano then even though violin practice wasn't too popular in the Arnold household for some strange reason.  I wasn't really sporty at school but I could swim well and did my Bronze, Silver and Gold badges before the age of nine.

In 1976, I sat the "qualifine" which was the test to gain admittance to the local grammar schools.  Thankfully I passed and headed to the Collegiate which was located on the far side of Enniskillen to our family home.

My interest in music was developed there under the watchful eye of Mr Henderson.  I played the violin in the school orchestra and was even the Rabbi in the school production of "Fiddler on the Roof".  My academic interests were in the arts and languages, having no interest at all in the sciences. 

After good GCE results in 1981, I decided to think about my future career.  My brothers had already gone to university to study Accountancy and Management Sciences so I followed in their footsteps to a Business Administration degree at the Queen's University of Belfast.

Up to the "big smoke" in Belfast for the teenager from the country.  Lynda met a great bunch of friends in her first year and shared a flat with them in her second year.  Final year was tough but she carried out market research for Fivemiletown Creamery as part of her dissertation.  "Would you like to try some cheese?" was the question for shoppers in Belfast City Centre.

Looking for jobs was the next challenge for Lynda.  Jobs were scarce in 1986 but Lynda managed to land two job offers - one with the Bank of ireland and the other with the Northern Bank.

July 1986 was when Lynda started with the Northern Bank in their Employee Relations Department.  She accepted the job thinking she would stay for a few months and then move on!  That never happened.

The first car followed very soon.  A red Vauxhall Nova was purchased taking advice from the boyfriend at the time.  Lynda was working and living in Belfast and had a variety of flats at this time.

Early in 1988, Lynda was then transferred to the Northern Bank's sister company Clydesdale Bank in Glasgow.

Next stop was Glasgow but with frequent flights to Southend-on-Sea to see the Midland Bank Access credit card operations.  Lynda bought her first home in Glasgow - a first floor flat in Kelvindale in Glasgow's West End.

Although busy working in Clydesdale Bank's credit card department, Lynda made regular visits back home to Northern Ireland.  And that's when she met David Willis, a production manager in a local cheese factory.

Back to Northern Ireland in late 1989, engaged to David in May 1990 and then married in December 1990.  Cuba was the honeymoon destination and the happy couple then settled in Hillsborough (Co Down) with Lynda working in Belfast and David working in Magheralin.

The patter of tiny feet came in 1995 when Lynda's first son Jonathan was born.  Jordan arrived three years later.

At the start of the new millennium, Lynda was juggling work in Northern Bank's Marketing Department with two sons.  But in 2004, Lynda had decided to leave banking and set up her own business, Customer Sense Training and Consultancy.

Setting up her own business was a real challenge for Lynda but she quickly applied all her marketing skills to work with smaller businesses in Northern Ireland.  She also started to do some part-time lecturing with the local further education college and to work as a distance learning tutor with the prestigious Oxford College of Marketing.