SUPERMUM Susan Goodfellow is jamming a lot into her busy life.

For as well as juggling her job in marketing, her work on the family farm and bringing up two-year-old daughter, Lil, she still finds time to be a champion preserve maker.

“I’ve got a little bit addicted to making jam,” Susan confesses. “It’s very stress relieving because you have to give it your full attention or you’ll let it spoil.

“You’ve really got to focus and I find it very, very satisfying. What I really like is seeing all the full jars at the end of it and filling the cupboards. It’s nice to give them to friends and family as presents too.”

Susan has swept the board at Northumberland County Show with her jams, marmalades and chutneys since she began cooking up a storm a few years ago, and this year she scooped the silver tray for the most points in the preserve section and also the much-coveted Kate Stephenson perpetual silver salver for the best item in the preserve section. She had won three firsts for her raspberry jam, jar fruit jelly and six pieces of fudge.

As if that weren’t enough, the Women’s Institute which Susan belongs to – Great Whittington and Matfen – continued its winning streak by taking first prize for its farmers’ market display.

Such were the number of rosettes and red tickets with Susan’s name on them that she overheard two mature ladies speculating inside the competitive home crafts tent, ‘Who is this Susan Goodfellow?’

No doubt they were wondering about the secret of Susan’s success, which, she reveals, is just as much to do with understanding the rules of engagement as it is to do with flavour.

Susan, who hails from north of the border in Perth, says her first step on the path to perfect preserves began with marmalade.

“I was surprised at how easy it was because I’d always thought making jam was really hard. I don’t know why I made marmalade, it’s so labour intensive – all that chopping – but I made it.

“I entered it for the show one year and didn’t win anything. But I looked at the other jars and realised what I was doing wrong. I was cooking it too long and making it too dark. You really need to cook it till it gets to a setting point and no further, otherwise you destroy the flavour of the fruit and it goes too dark.

“Since then I’ve learned an awful lot about how to win competitions and I feel quite sad now when I go to shows and some entrants have just not done a few basic things right, which would rule them out of the competition straight away. It’s a shame and perhaps the rules should be a little clearer.

“But then people often don’t get anywhere because they’ve not followed the schedule. For example, you’re told not to put your jam in a branded jar or with a branded lid. You must always have a new lid so that it seals properly.”

Susan, who owns up to sourcing most of her recipes from preserving websites, says the judges certainly prioritise taste and colour and that that is where most of their points come from.

“But if you have two jars that have a really good colour, the judges have to have other ways of making a difference between them.”

This is where every last detail becomes important, right down to ensuring your label is legible and dated – and it must always be on the actual jar, rather than attached as a trendy tag. That could spell the difference between victory and defeat.

Susan says she had little knowledge of the ‘rules and regs’ before she embarked on the show circuit, but she’s obviously very good at learning from her mistakes.

“The first year our WI entered an exhibit for the Tynedale Agricultural Society Shield we came last and we got some really harsh criticism.

“So after that we invited one of the advisers from the WI Federation to come and talk to us and she told us a lot of useful stuff.

Susan’s particular speciality is lemon curd and there’s a good reason why it tastes so good. Each jar takes three eggs and Susan’s come fresh from her husband Jonathan Goodfellow’s hens on their free range farm at Ingoe.

Her fruit is also gathered from Tynedale’s lush fields. Her mum-in-law, Joan, herself a champion baker, brings Susan strawberries and other goodies when she’s delivering eggs to their customers, Brocksbushes and Stobo’s.

Susan works part time as a marketing executive for the Allflex Group, a world leader in livestock identification.

Meanwhile, her repertoire is about to widen as she and Jonathan have recently become beekeepers.

“I did a course through work with Ian Robinson at Kirkley Hall and now Jonathan and I have matching bee suits.

“It’s fascinating and I’m really looking forward to making my own honey.”