I’ve been interested in railways since I was a small boy, and the fact that we didn’t have a car when I was younger, meant that I was lucky enough to literally travel the length and breadth of the country on holidays and day trips and however mundane the destination, I was always first to volunteer to go in order for us to claim our full family railcard discount!  When not able to travel on the real thing, I built layouts in both OO and N scales that were always “nearly finished”.

My teenage years saw the railways banished into the background as more fashionable hobbies took over which included Cricket (to county youth standard), DJ’ing (cheesey) and Football (editing the programme/generally helping out my beloved but perennially under-achieving Worthing FC).  These interests were punctuated by a Saturday job here, which soon became a part time job around college.  This also gave me the opportunity to travel the country at a young age as part of our exhibition team where this young man found himself in one of the purest forms of retailing available, and very quickly had to learn the art of selling and appreciate the value of hard work!  After leaving college, and realizing that university was not for me (despite my grades, family and friends suggesting it should be), I set about finding myself a job.  Depressed at the prospect of a career at a big company and being the tinest part of a massive machine, I took the decision to apply for a full time job with Gaugemaster and I worked my way up from Retail Assistant to Warehouse Assistant, Warehouse Assistant Manager, Warehouse Manager, Buyer and now General Manager.  Business commitments do not leave a lot of spare time, but a “plank” has appeared on a bedroom wall with some Era V Marklin Z Gauge on it – maybe this will be THE one that actually gets finished!

Behind every good man they say, is a good woman – or in my case, one woman and a little girl.  My wife Claire is hugely supportive and keeps the home fires burning when I’m off on some European trip (business of course, contrary to the reams of railway footage suggesting otherwise) or photography jaunt to one of the less celubrious parts of the UK (Willesden, anyone?) with Nick!  In 2005, our daughter Poppy was born, and at just six months was “treated” to a trip to Ford station to see a Deltic roar past on a railtour!  Poppy also enjoyed our Continental Open Weekend and roaming around Pecorama (she had A LOT of fun there) - you’ve got to start ‘em young I say….

I love working in this industry and have made many friends within it.  Having been a customer, I feel that I have a genuinely deep knowledge of what our customers would want from us, and having undertaken practically every job here personally over the last 13 years, know exactly what is required to achieve this.  With the talented team that I have to work with, I can safely say that every day is a pleasure and I consider myself very lucky to have a job that enables me to indulge one of my passions with such a great bunch of people, either side of the counter.