Liberty Webb has gone from measuring Daniel Craig’s inside leg on a James Bond movie set to delivering new-born babies in Brighton.
Where once she was the principal costume maker for megastars of the silver screen, she’s now a midwife at the Royal Sussex County Hospital.
As career changes go it’s quite the curveball – more quantum leap than Quantum of Solace.
Liberty, 44, said: “I did my degree in Costume and Design and started out working on small budget stage productions. I really wanted to work on films, so I pestered Pinewood Studios for long enough for them to give me an opportunity.
“They liked the work I did for them on Troy, and for the next 10 years that’s what I did – I was a costume maker for some very well-known people.”
Stars Liberty has worked with include Daniel Craig, Judi Dench, Clive Owen, Kate Blanchett, Johnny Depp, Penelope Cruz, Helene Bonham-Carter, Scarlett Johannson and Nicole Kidman.
Her filmography includes Quantum of Solace, Troy, Alexander, Harry Potter, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Sweeney Todd, Kingdom of Heaven and The Other Boleyn Girl.
She said: “It was a really fun time, very hard work and very demanding but fun too. The whole group costume designers would be like a family, and we would work on all these films and hang out with these superstars on set.
“Mostly it was in film studios in London, although we did get to go to Panama for the Bond film, and it was Daniel Craig’s 40th birthday while we were there, and we all got to go. That was a stand-out memory.”
Liberty even met her husband, Mike, on a film set. She said: “Mike was a runner on Alexander and I met him on that set, so I have a lot to thank the film world for.”
But in 2011, she left it all behind. She said: “I’d had Oscar, now 14, and was pregnant with Scarlett. I just couldn’t do the job anymore, not with two children. So, I decided to go and set my own business up.”
Film director Tim Burton had given her some leftover tweed and she made a poncho from it, which kickstarted her new business, Liberty Kelly.
But she still felt there was something missing. She said: “I closed the business down, and decided to move back to Brighton, where I am originally from, in 2019.
“I didn’t know what I was going to do.
“I used to see a friend, who is a midwife, at get togethers every now and then, and I always to say that she had the best job. She said, ‘Why don’t you do it? Why don’t you become one?’
“I was 40 – I thought, ‘no chance, I’m too old.’ But I did it. I went to the Met in Brighton and became a student midwife – at 40!
“It is the best decision I ever made. It is such a privilege to look after women and support them and have a positive influence on their birth stories.
“My first was in 2020 back when the world had stopped but we carried on. Delivering that baby was the most beautiful, amazing, spiritual experience ever- it still gives me goosebumps.”
There’s been 41 more babies since then, with many more to come.
Liberty said: “Everything I’ve ever done before was a job – this, being a midwife, is a calling.
“I’ve never experienced anything like it before. I feel like I was born to do this.”
Great story, well done Liberty!