Last week marked my 10th anniversary of working at BWP so I thought it would be an apt moment to reminisce over the past decade and reflect on how times have changed — at this place they change by the minute!
My journey here began on May 5 2005, the same day Tony Blair won a historic third term in government for the Labour Party. Obviously the national papers chose to publicise Tony’s rise to fame, instead of focusing on the epic event taking place in the suburbs of Buckinghamshire, so they clearly missed a trick there!
I remember my first day like it was yesterday… I was greeted by then studio manager, Paul Woodroof, who told me to relax, take some time to get an understanding of the computer systems and leisurely browse through the intranet to get a feel for the place. ‘Great’ I thought, they are bedding me in slowly and just what I was hoping for in these new surroundings. That dream didn’t last long though and — 15 minutes later — panic stations set in as three urgent pieces of artwork were needed by a client for lunchtime, and I was the only person available for the job. That morning suddenly became very busy and it’s pretty much been the same ever since!
The past decade has seen some truly significant global events: the election of the first black American President; the royal wedding of Kate and William and Millwall reaching the FA Cup final to name but a few! We’ve seen the rise of social media to levels that no-one could have foreseen, with the introduction of YouTube, Facebook, Myspace and Twitter, now common practice in people’s everyday lives. Next you’ll be telling me that blogging is all the rage and my creative director, Jimbo, will be nagging me that it’s high time I wrote one..! To be honest, before all these technological advancements I was still happy sending electronic files across on the ISDN machine that was tucked away in the old Marlow office. It always came with a guarantee that your 2mb artwork file would arrive with the printer by Christmas if you sent it in March! That’s when life was simple!
Since that first day the business has gone from strength to strength, moving from our 2004 Marlow ‘call centre’ down river to Maidenhead in 2008, and then back again in 2014, each time increasing in size and staff levels. A London office arrived in-between and a polish office is in now full operation in Warsaw. Pretty impressive stuff when you consider that the business started out as an idea from two ex-retailers with their only tools a passion for marketing and an unrelenting hunger to succeed.
We’ve upgraded from compact meeting rooms to grass lodges and breakout booths; the old café style kitchen has been swapped for a state of the art IKEA kitchen, and our industrial computers have been replaced by the latest state of the art imacs. I’m still disappointed we couldn’t have kept the ISDN machine though, if only for comedy gold!
On a personal note, my family has expanded too. I married my wonderful wife, Gemma, in 2008 (there were plenty of drunken BWP friends on the dance floor that night), and have since created two little monkeys of our own, Chloe in 2009 and Louis in 2011. They’ve all kept me on my toes and help to give me a great work/life balance and perspective.
I’ve worked with some very memorable people on my journey, with staff numbers jumping significantly from 20 when I started, to the current day numbers of 55 and counting. I’d love to spend time reminiscing about each and every one but I’d run out of blog space, however one thing for sure is that they have all made BWP the place it is today. We all work damn hard, but always do so with a smile on our faces and we spend a whole lot of time laughing while we do it. The laughs have been endless but I can’t pass the opportunity to mention a few spectacular moments. In no particular order:
Wendy and Webby show us the way to Amarillo
One hot summers afternoon was broken from normality when BWP founder Chris Webb decided he’d had enough of the dance music being played over the stereo and started belting out a rendition of Tom Jones’ ‘Delilah’ at the top of voice. The rest of the office duly joined in and suddenly the place was transformed into a live studio version of ‘Top of the Pops’, with every set of hands clapping away and people singing their hearts out. Up next came Peter Kay’s ‘Is this the way to Amarillo’ to which Chris jumped out of his chair, grabbed our finance honcho Wendy, and started dancing up and down the office aisles. I really wish I’d been quicker to grab my camera phone and record this magical moment, but I was far too absorbed singing along to the ‘Sha la la lala lalala’ section of the chorus! I made sure I didn’t make the same mistake a few years later when Wendy showed us her dance moves again, this time with Phil Mockett at the Henley Regatta. Good times.
The doctors surgery incident
The Boathouse in Maidenhead was known for throwing up some strange incidents, but none was more bizarre than when an elderly lady approached the back door of the office, and started looking around with a puzzled look on her face. She scoured the place up and down, duly noting all the macs, funky wall graphics and studio designers on display, and then asked the question ‘Is this the doctor’s surgery?’. One would have hoped that the numerous visual cues would have confirmed that this wasn’t quite a doctor’s surgery, but if this wasn’t clear enough, Baz shouting ‘Is this really happening’ at the top of his voice must have helped her understanding of the situation! Tony Peacock kindly explained that she had the wrong place, but undeterred she carried on regardless and started explaining her symptoms. Apparently she had a terribly itchy scalp that she just couldn’t shift and she only left the building when Doctor Peacock finally suggested she go and get herself some hair ointment!
Tim and the Christmas dodgems incident
Studio stalwart Tim Davies has been at the heart of many amusing moments (including wrestling with printers in the office), but his finest moment occurred at the 2006 xmas party on the dodgem machines. A cider fuelled Tim was ready to destroy everything in his path and all that was required was the insertion of a small gold token into his dodgem to get the fun started. In went the gold tokens, off we sped and myself and Oli smashed straight into a stationary Timmy. Luc, the web developer, did the same, as did half the accounts team as an increasingly angry Tim tried desperately to get his dodgem moving. As we did circuits around him (waving on the way), his anger built further and he eventually called over the guy operating the dodgems. After a few minutes there was still no movement and Tim started banging the wheel, making several arm gestures to the operator, before all the dodgems came to a halt as he stormed off the circuit shouting in a rage. By this point I had tears rolling down my face, and when we came off we asked Tim what had happened. He voiced his frustration with dodgems operator and explained that he put the token in exactly as he was instructed to. It was only when we asked him to show us his change, that we spotted a shiny gold token glimmering in his hand, and now missing from Tim’s coin collection was the one pound coin that had been there previously. What a numpty! I don’t think that dodgem went anywhere else that night.
The memories really could go on and I’m grateful to have experienced all the Henley trips, dance offs, boat trips, christmas and summer parties, as well as all of Baz’s beautifully mistimed and slightly inappropriate comments in the workplace.
So, how do I end this trip down memory lane… well, firstly I’d like to say thanks to BWP for having me. As you can see from my ramblings, in the last decade I’ve had an absolute blast, growing as a designer, an individual and as a family (at home and at work), all while the business has continued to flourish. We’ve got some really talented and hard working people here, and that passion, drive and desire has seen the business get to where it is today. To be part of something that started so small and organically, and then watch it grow to a Number 1 Integrated Agency in the UK (Drum awards 2014) ten years on is a really rewarding feeling. Secondly, I’m grateful for all the people I’ve met on the journey and this little piece is really in fond recognition of them all. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the ride so far, and I’ll be back to update you in ten years!
