Director
My career in printing only really began at the age of 30, when circumstances dictated that I closed my motor repair business and looked for something else to do. All my life I had been a tinkerer, fascinated by what made mechanical things work, and was involved pretty heavily on motor racing from my teenage years, to the extent that I was publishing a small magazine on the subject. Having just purchased a derelict railway station, with several vacant outbuildings, the manager of the print shop that was printing the magazine suggested we set up in business to print the magazine ourselves, so in 1978, Review Publications came into being. My partner, David Duley, was the printer, on an ancient Rotaprint press, and I learnt the skills of folding, stapling and trimming the work. We were offered work by a retired London print rep, who had moved to the area, and thus began business relationships that are still going today, notably Bishops Move Group, All England Tennis Club, and the British Driving Society. After 18 months, we took a bold step forward by joining up with another studio based partnership, who had access to more work than we could cope with, so Remous Ltd was formed on March 1st 1980, with new equipment housed in a newly built double garage at my home. This was soon outgrown, and within two years we moved again in the village on our present site, although at that time it was the ground floor of and old glove works, where we took on a massive desk diary project, which would be the mainstay of our business for many years.
In 1984, the whole site was sold for development, and we were offered the opportunity of building a bespoke factory, which cost the sum of £60,000-£20,000 for the site and £40,000 for the building! This factory is where we are still based, although a large extension was built in 1998, when we joined forces with Keith Sparks’ business, which added new skills and turnover to Remous Ltd. In 2000, we bought our first brand new Heidelberg press, having always bought used machines before, and this was followed by further machinery upgrades which took us into full colour printing with one pass. Heidelberg was the world’s top supplier of printing machinery for many decades, but more recently, Japanese companies have taken over the role, which had led us to purchase two new Komori presses over the past five years, together with associated finishing equipment.
By virtue of age, my role in the business is now diminishing, but I am delighted to have a son who is driving the company forward, with new ideas and technology that has led to further services being offered, and other businesses brought into the company to strengthen it for the challenges ahead.