As I stand here, paintbrush in hand, slowly painting gaps and missed spots on the wall, I look back in wonder that in six weeks, I’ll be having a grand opening for a vintage toy shop.
My love of toys started young: before we moved to Tanzania my dad had gone round all the shops buying Star Wars figures and similar. I remember as a child playing with them for hours, watching the films over and over again as we only had a limited selection available. Sadly in 1989 my father died of a heart attack and we moved back to England.
As a child, Star Wars and toys became such a core part of my life, going round the country checking out comic and toy ships, getting my mum to take us to car boot sales every Sunday or toy fairs when they were on. I was always buying and selling to build my collection. Eventually, I moved out and had my own children and in time sold the collection to get by when times were hard.
Covid changed so much of our lives and I was no exception: Yeti Cave Toys was born and I went back to my childhood love of Star Wars toys and collectibles. Once we could all go back out into the world, we then started doing toy fairs and more.
But behind the scenes, not all was well; like my father, I have inherited Laminopathy. This had led to me needing to have an ICD installed due to heart failure, My body has slowly failed me, going further into fatigue and making day-to-day life a struggle. Last year, we saw a need to develop the local toy community and Reigate Toy Fair was born, bringing the local toy community together and offering collectors an opportunity to locally find toys. It was there that a customer suggested speaking to Monkey Business, as they were looking for something to add to the shop. We met them and the situation was perfect, and suddenly I realised I was going to fulfil that childhood dream of opening a shop! I have been very lucky to have a team of volunteers and friends around me, friends who similar to me can’t work full-time , but want to do something with their lives. Without the amazing team around me it would have never been possible to get the shop fitted out and ready for the world . The child has got his dream and this Yeti has a trading post that is going to become the heart of the local community.