How it all began,
After almost 20 year’s in various roles within the I.T industry, I was coasting along contently till I found myself being made redundant during the “Great Pandemic of 2020” and was kind of forced to step back and take stock of my working life. I realised on reflection, that I had been going through the motions for the past few years and didn’t really enjoy the work to a greater extent anymore. This did not fill me with enthusiasm for getting another job in the IT sector and left me scratching my head as to what I should do next!
Having worked for both large corporations such as BT, Spire Healthcare and Omexom as well as smaller independent companies like Ioko365 and Powell Engineering, I came to the conclusion that whatever I did, I did NOT want to end up working for a large Corporation again and have to deal with the culture that came with it, nor did I want to lumber a smaller company with a guy who was only in the role for the pay-check and couldn’t wait to clock out everyday. With this in mind, I looked inwards and asked myself what did I still have interest in and enjoy, and could I turn that interest into a career?
My first answer to that thought was SNOWBOARDING! but since I getting on in years and didn’t have the capital to open a Ski slope in dreary England I kept thinking haha. It’s then that I realised I’d always had a passion for wargames, miniatures and models. Ever since I was about 8 years old and I would get together with my friends and cousin’s to play the likes of Warhammer, Hero Quest, and Space Crusade I was hooked. I also vividly remember painting World War 2 models with my Humbrol enamel paints at the kitchen table with my old man as a wee nipper. (He was a hardcore trekkie) so would often be building Star Trek models as well, but best was him helping me with a huge Vulcan Bomber and a Lancaster Avro kit, both of which I adored. And so I decided how better to share this interest, then to help bring those models and miniatures to a new generation by opening my own store and starting a website dedicated to the hobby!